A just released Harris Poll shows that Bush's approval rating has dropped to 52%. Right after September 11, he was at 88%. Two months ago he was at 64%. 46% give him negative ratings now, up from 35% two months ago.

Ashcroft dropped from 65% to 51%. The only cabinet member with non-declining poll numbers is Colin Powell who has a 76% approval rating.

Here are the poll results:

* President Bush down from 88% to 52%, a decline of 36 points.
* Secretary of State Colin Powell down from 88% to 76%, a decline of 12
points.
* Vice President Dick Cheney down from 69% to 45%, a decline of 24 points.
* Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld down from 78% to 56%, a decline of
22 points.
* Attorney General John Ashcroft down from 65% to 51%, a decline of 14 points.
* House Speaker Dennis Hastert down from 52% to 33%, a decline of 19 points.
* The Republicans in Congress down from 67% to 43%, a decline of 24 points.
* The Democrats in Congress down from 68% to 38%, a decline of 30 points

Source: PR Newswire.com Feb 19, 2003 15:54 ET

Michael Tomasky is really good today filling in for Eric Alterman on Altercation. Charles Pierce was there yesterday and Eric Boehlert is there tomorrow. We'll be the guest blogger Friday, which is Slacker Friday, so if you have some comments on what the gang has written this week (including Eric on Monday), send it to us at Alterlinks@aol.com.

TalkLeft made the National Journal's Hotline today (subsciption only) for it's interview last week with Gary Hart.

HART: TAKE THIS DEFENSE TO HART

The blogger, TalkLeft, "had the opportunity to sit down with" ex-Sen. Gary Hart (D-CO) "for thirty uninterrupted minutes" on 2/13 "and discuss his recent San Francisco foreign policy speech, and the concerns of some ... that one line of the speech might be construed to be anti-semitic." Hart "doesn't talk in code. If he had a problem with a particular group, he'd come out and say it."

The "focus" of Hart's speech "was not War with Iraq, although Hart certainly mentioned it. The speech was about American's foreign policy role in the 21st century. ... His point was that where there is a difference between what is in
America's best interest and what is in the best interests of the homeland or country of origin of another group, America's interest must come first in shaping foreign policy. "

Hart, a "strong supporter of Israel for over 30 years," was "not referring to Jewish Americans. ... He was talking about America's long-term foreign policy role in the 21st century. His comment applies equally to Cuban, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Greek and Turkish -American citizens. He was talking about all
Americans, wherever we come from" ( TalkLeft, 2/13).

Here's something else that is not being reported in the U.S. Oral arguments began yesterday in the World Court in a long-standing lawsuit filed by Iran against the United States for damages caused by the US Navy's destruction of three Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war. (in 1987-88). The arguments are scheduled to continue until March 7. The case is ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

You can access yesterday's transcripts of the hearing here, and all of the documents here.

Iran argues that the U.S. was not neutral in the conflict as it claimed, but was actively helping Iraq to win its war with Iran. It disputes the U.S. claim that the destruction of the platforms was necessary to protect it's "essential security interest."

The U.S. has acknowledged attacking and destroying the platforms. We find a few of Iran's statements interesting (The U.S. isn't presenting its case until later). Specifically, Iran complains

... that the United States consistently provided intelligence and logistical support for Iraqi aggression against Iran, and that the United States was “concerned that Iraq should not lose the war”.

Please don't miss this chilling and powerful commentary in the Boston Globe by Paralegal Carl Taki on the anniversary of February 19, 1942, the day President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066. As a result of that Order, 110,000 Japanese-Americans were rounded up and put in detention camps. Taki speaks from personal experience, that of his grandfather.

THE FBI ARRIVED at his door carrying pistols and a terse message: Juro, the owner of a small sweater factory and dry goods store in one of Seattle's ethnic neighborhoods, was under arrest. As his bewildered wife and children watched, the agents took Juro away without saying why, where he would be taken, or for how long. He spent the next year being held as an enemy alien in a federal prison nearly 1,000 miles away and died only three years later, never again seeing his home in Seattle.

Juro was a Japanese-American - and my great-grandfather. In early 1942, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the FBI arrested many men like him: people whose sole crime was their leadership or prominence within the Japanese-American community. In the eyes of FBI agents searching for traitors, their foreign faces and foreign names made their guilt a presumption and their innocence unprovable....

Though few spoke out against it at the time, the wartime internment of Japanese-Americans is now widely recognized as one of America's grossest violations of civil liberties, forcing an entire race to labor under a collective presumption of guilt."

Every year, members of the Japanese-American community pause on February 19 to reflect on the injustices of 1942.

This February, we do so in an environment that increasingly mirrors that of 1942: when the courts are too timid to challenge the wisdom of military decision making and when free-floating anxiety combines with racial suspicions to embolden those who would conduct witch hunts of the foreign-born and trample over the rights of the accused.... This month, as we remember how America's leaders violated the rights of those of Japanese ancestry, we should recall that the public's failure to dissent - their willingness to turn away in the face of injustice - is what allowed that wrong to be perpetrated. Today, America has a chance to avoid making a similar mistake. This time, let's stand up and stop it from happening again.

A hearing will be held Thursday at 10:00 a.m. in federal court in Boston on the lawsuit filed last week by U.S. soldiers, parents of U.S. soldiers, and Members of Congress, challenging President Bush¹s authority to wage war against Iraq.

The lawsuit seeks to prevent the President from launching a military
invasion of Iraq, absent a congressional declaration of war. U.S.
Representatives John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich are leading the Members of
Congress who are serving as plaintiffs.

The Traprock Peace Center has agreed to publicize all details and events in the case. All case news, and copies of all of the Plaintiff's legal pleadings are available here.

[source: Press release received via email]

The Washington Post gets it right today in its editorial Prison Blues : the problem with bad law in seemingly inconsequential cases is that it becomes precedent and subsequently adversely impacts other cases in which a more significant right is at stake.

The influential D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that prisoners do not have a consitutional right to have electric guitars in prison. (As an aside, Brett C. Kimberlin, the prisoner who sued is the one who accused Dan Quayle of buying pot from him). Represented by the ACLU, Kimberlin contested the consitutionality of a 1996 law forbidding federal money to be spent on "the use or possession of any electric or electronic musical instrument" in prisons. It seems the government construes this law as a flat ban on inmates owning musical instruments, even if they purchased the instruments themselves. Kimberlin argued the ban violates his First Amendment right to free musical expression.

In response, the Bureau of Prisons did not argue that the ban was necessary to control noise or keep order in the prison. Instead, "they asked the court to uphold the rule on the grounds that it made prison life more miserable and therefore advanced the cause of punishment. "

But as the Post correctly points out, "That, of course, is true of any restriction on constitutional rights and would presumably justify banning pens, paper and reading material as well as guitars."

The Court, in ruling against Kimberlin and another inmate, adopted a different but equally disturbing rationale: It upheld the ban on the ground that "the First Amendment is not an entitlement program."

But as Judge Tatel argued [in dissent], almost any activity in a prison "requires electricity, guard supervision, or other prison resources," because the entire environment is created and maintained by the government. If Congress can forbid incidental infrastructure expenditures on electric guitars without implicating First Amendment concerns, there is nothing it cannot ban."

The Post says, "The law in this circuit now implies that prisoners have no right to read if doing so costs pennies Congress wishes not to spend. The full court, or the Supreme Court, should make sure that this does not remain law."

We can't help but wonder which way Mr. Miguel Estrada would have voted had he been sitting on the Court. There's little way to know for sure since he refuses to release any information about his true position on issues, but we strongly suspect he would have sided with the majority. Just one more reason in our opinion to keep that filibuster going--the devils we know are bad enough, we don't need one we don't know. And if he's not a devil, he should come out and say so.

Update: The D.C. Circuit opinion discussed in the editorial below can be found here.

Say hello to a new law blog (blawg), SOHO. It's for lawyers working out of small offices or home offices.

It will be a resource for students coming out of law school who wonder if there's an alternative to big firm practice as well as for "the new opportunities available to attorneys who have practiced in larger, more conventional firms, and have grown dissatisfied. Not that long ago, many such folks would have to choose between changing practice areas to move to a SOHO practice, and staying unhappily at a big firm. Now they can come over to the light side without the Hobson's choice."

In a first of its kind filing, a coalition of civl liberties and Arab-American groups, including the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers ( NACDL), have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the secret FISA Review Court's ruling on government wiretapping and the sharing of information between intelligence agencies and law enforcement.

The case offers the first opportunity for the Justices to consider government actions in the wake of September 11 that severely restrict civil liberties in the name of national security.

"On behalf of all Americans, we are urging the Supreme Court to reject the extreme notion that Attorney General Ashcroft can suspend the ordinary requirements of the Fourth Amendment to listen in on phone calls, read e-mails, and conduct secret searches of Americans%u2019 homes and offices," said Ann Beeson, Associate Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU filed the appeal together with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS), a Michigan-based organization.

[link via How Appealing]

Attorneys in the case are Beeson, Jameel Jaffer and Steven Shapiro of the ACLU and Joshua L. Dratel, John D. Cline and Tom Goldstein of NACDL, acting on behalf of their organizations and as counsel to ADC and ACCESS.

The case is In Re: Sealed Case Of The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Of Review No. 02-001.

The Motion to Intervene is online here.. The Petition of Certiorari is online here .

Here is the transcript of the Fisa Review court oral argument.

Our multiple prior criticisms of the ruling and the secret FISA review court are here.

In an editorial today, the Austin Statesman calls for the elimination of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. This is the court of last resort in Texas in criminal cases, including death penalty appeals.

The link to the editorial is good today only, so read it now while you still can.

Apropos of our post this morning about the danger the Middle East poses for American troops, comes this: A decorated Gulf War veteran on federal death row has filed a clemency petition with President Bush, heavily relying on the brain damage he suffered as a result of his exposure to nerve gas during the war.

Louis Jones Jr. is scheduled to die by lethal injection March 18 at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind. He has exhausted his appeals....

After the trial, a Dallas researcher who has studied veterans of the 1991 war against Iraq concluded that Jones suffered from a severe form of Gulf War Syndrome from exposure to sarin nerve gas and other toxins....

Jones' attorney filed a clemency request with Bush in December, seeking a life sentence without. Jones has also written personally to the president, admitting his crime and expressing remorse....

Jones grew up in Chicago and spent 22 years in the military before retiring in 1993 as a master sergeant in the Airborne Rangers. His honors included a meritorious service medal, a Southwest Asia service medal with three bronze service stars, a Kuwait liberation medal, badges for marksmanship and parachuting, and a good-conduct medal, according to his plea for clemency.

But, the petition says, Jones was a changed man after returning from the Gulf in May 1991. "It solves the mystery that was at the heart of the trial: how and why someone with the background and character of Louis Jones could have committed such a horrible crime," the petition says....

A recent study of Gulf War Syndrome indicates that some people's genetic makeup leaves them more vulnerable to even low levels of nerve gas, according to the clemency petition. The research was done by Dr. Rogene Henderson at the University of New Mexico, on a grant from the Pentagon. A blood test done on Jones in January shows he lacks a common enzyme that would have helped his body metabolize nerve gas, said Jones' lawyer, Timothy W. Floyd.

David Neiwert explains why Rep. Howard Coble's remarks attempting to justify Japanese-American internment camps during WWII haven't met with the same outrage as Trent Lott's comments on 1940's racism. The answer: Bigtry against Asians.

Atrios shares David's view, and asks, "Does wartime justify the suspension of the basic American right to a presumption of innocence?" His answer, like our's, is a resounding "no."

Eric Muller at Is That Legal, points out that tomorrow is the anniversay of the FDR Order that authorized the detention camps. Take a minute to read Executive Order 9066 here. Pictures of the detainees and camps are here.

Colorado had an internment camp, and Prof. Mueller links to this excellent article about it. You can listen to audio clips of those with personal memories of the camp by scrolling down the article.

Congressman Mark Honda is trying to get Congress to do something about Coble. We all should join in his effort. Join us in writing your congresspersons and asking them to hold Coble accountable for his remarks and remove him from his leadership position on the House Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security.