It seems that as we get closer to the reality of war, commentators are ratcheting up the tone of their criticism. We like Gordon Arnaut's commentary on Saturday's peace marches, The People Have Spoken, Is Anybody Listening? If you oppose the war, we think you will appreciate it as well.

Update: Permanent link to article is now substituted for the original, per "Canadian Reader" in the comments section.

Businesses offering ways to cheat on drug tests are growing. Some of the more traditional products include

shampoos that promise to wash away any sign of drug use from hair follicles, as well as synthetic urine, urine additives and detoxifying drinks or tablets with such names as "Fast Flush" and "Clean Green."

But our all-time favorite has to be this this one:

And then there is the Whizzinator. Ads for it offer a $150 device that straps on and comes with its own prosthetic penis (in five different skin hues), dehydrated drug-free urine and heat pads designed to produce a realistically warm urine sample, even under observation.

But use at your peril. Nine states have made cheating on drug tests a crime.

Calpundit picks up on the False Memory experiments that Memory and Eyewitness Identification Diva Elizabeth Loftus disclosed yesterday during her presentation at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Denver. We wrote about this yesterday here, and quoted an AP article that has some additonal examples of experiments demonstrating the phenomenon.

We also mentioned we were going to attend the party for the science writers and would report back. It was really a lot of fun. We went with Elizabeth around 7 (we've been good pals since we worked together on the memory and eyewitness aspects in the McVeigh case) and stayed until midnite. It turned out to be a press party--one not for the writers of the scientific articles and journals, but for the international press who writes about them, i.e., journalists. At least a few hundred of them.

Most of the reporters we met were from Europe--many from Germany.

Not knowing too much about science, and it being the day after the massive anti-war protests here and in Europe, we decided to play journalist with them and query them about the war. At first they didn't want to render an opinion, protesting they were journalists and not supposed to take sides, but after a few drinks, most loosened up and we soon had the liveliest table in the huge room. (There was a dj, dance floor, non-stop mexican food and open bar.)

We sported a tiny black and white "peace" button on our lapel, that turned out to be a conversation opener. After getting "hems and haws" as a response when we first broached the subject, which we attributed to politeness, we pointed to our button. Without exception, once the writers knew that was our position, they lit up with smiles and started talking.

Suffice it to say that not one of those we spoke to wanted the U.S. to start this war, had a favorable opinion about Bush, or thought it would solve our terrorist problems. Many resented the U.S. forcing the world into war and said it was doing so by playing on past loyalties and debts. The Germans in particular said they were very grateful to the U.S. for getting rid of Hitler and helping their country out financially, but at some point the debt should be declared repaid and calling for them to join in the war on Iraq was over and above what they have to do in payback.

As for Elizabeth Loftus, she's doing great at her new home at UC Irvine--in our post yesterday, we struggled with characterizing her as a "diva" or a "guru" of memory and eyewitness identification, and ended up using "guru." We took a vote on which word suited her better at the table last night, and it was 10 to 0 with all ten, including Elizabeth, voting for Diva instead of guru. So from now on, we will refer to her as Diva.

Law Professor Glenn Reynolds says a school in Tennessee is violating the Establishment Clause of the U.S. and Tennessee Constitutions by requiring students to participate in Christian revival meetings during school hours.

For a school system to get this involved in promoting religious activity during school hours is to create an "establishment of religion" in violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Attorney General Ashcroft has made religious discrimination a priority for the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. It's time he has said, to end bigotry against people of faith. Unless Ashcroft only meant "people of Christian faith," this looks like a good case for an investigation.

We agree. We had a feeling when Ashcroft started his morning prayer breakfasts with his staff at the Justice Department, and Bush introduced his born-again Christianity into his speeches, that it wouldn't be long before they tried to sneak it into our secular institutions. Now we have Bush promising money for "faith based" drug programs and Ashcroft looking the other way when it comes to programs like the one in Tennessee. Christian fundamentalism cannot be allowed to become mainstream. Let's vote these guys out in 2004 and take back our Constitution.

It's gorgeous here in Denver today, too nice to sit at the computer or not take advantage of the holiday, so we're off to Boulder and will be back later this afternoon. In the meantime, we hope you will visit our friends listed in our blogrolls and browse through our weekend posts.

If you can spare a buck or too, we'd also welcome your hitting our honor box or paypal links. As we get more popular, the bandwidth costs increase. Many thanks to those of you who take us up on this.

Maurice Possley and Steve Mills, two of our favorite investigative journalists writing for the Chicago Tribune --often on plight of the the wrongly convicted--today examine the effect of wrongful convictions on the jurors who voted to convict in cases in which DNA exonerated the defendants after trials.

More than 25 years after Michael Evans and Paul Terry were sentenced to 200 to 400 years in prison, some jurors are struggling with DNA tests that suggest they may have wrongly convicted the teenagers of the murder and sexual assault of a 9-year-old girl.

"This has devastated me," said one former juror, a college professor who asked to remain anonymous. "It is crushing--25 years in prison for something they did not do? I would rather be dead."

With nearly 125 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the last two decades in the nation, the anguish expressed by jurors in the Evans and Terry case is becoming a more frequent phenomenon as more cases long considered solved are re-examined and more guilty verdicts are set aside.

The Innocence Project at the Cardozo School of Law, a non-profit legal clinic created by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld in 1992, reports that 123 people have been exonerated by post-conviction DNA.

"The jurors who have the toughest time with exonerations are the ones who in their hearts suspected the defendants were innocent or that they were not given all the information about the case," Scheck said.

What justification can Orrin Hatch have for opposing the Innocence Protection Act that allows inmates to obtain DNA testing that was not available at their trials? We hope you will all write Congress and tell them to pass this bill. It's been languishing in Congress too long, held up by Hatch and a few of his cronies.

"Editors of the world's leading scientific journals announced Saturday they would delete details from published studies that might help terrorists make biological weapons. The editors, joined by several prominent scientists, said they would not censor scientific data or adopt a top-secret classification system similar to that used by the military and government intelligence agencies."

"But they said scientists working in the post-Sept. 11 world must face the dismaying paradox that many of their impressive breakthroughs can be used for sinister purposes....They unveiled their agreement at the national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science" held in Denver this weekend.

If you read the article, you will see that these writers deal with some strange stuff--"from decoding the human genome to the cloning of Dolly the sheep .

Indeed, it has never been easier to tweak a microbe's genes to create a deadlier, drug-resistant superbug for a germ bomb or hijack aerosol technology meant for convenient spray vaccines to make anthrax spores float through the air. Journal editors said they were establishing their own expert panels to review papers that contain alarming information, and would work with the authors to make specific changes and "tone them down."

We'll be joining the science writers at their party this evening, we'll report any particularly noteworthy details when we get back.

Memory and Eyewitness Guru and Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus presented the preliminary results of recent false memory experiments today in Denver at the national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The research demonstrates that police interrogators and people investigating sexual-abuse allegations must be careful not to plant suggestions into their subjects, said University of California-Irvine psychologist Elizabeth Loftus....

Loftus said some people may be so suggestible that they could be convinced they were responsible for crimes they didn't commit. In interviews, "much of what goes on -- unwittingly -- is contamination," she said.

The news media's power of suggestion also can leave a false impression, Loftus said. "During the Washington sniper attacks, everyone reported seeing a white van," she said. "Where did it come from? The whole country was seeing white vans."

One of Loftus' studies involved asking people about having hugged Bugs Bunny at Disneyland. Only Bugs Bunny is not a Disney character so it couldn't have happened.

In the Bugs Bunny study, Loftus talked with subjects about their childhoods and asked not only whether they saw someone dressed up as the character, but also whether they hugged his furry body and stroked his velvety ears. In subsequent interviews, 36 percent of the subjects recalled the cartoon rabbit.

In another study, Loftus suggested frog-kissing incidents that 15 percent of the group later recalled.

"It is sensory details that people use to distinguish their memories," said Loftus, who has conducted false memories experiments on 20,000 subjects over 25 years. "If you imbue the story with them, you'll disrupt this memory process. It's almost a recipe to get people to remember things that aren't true.

Another presenter was Harvard pychologist Richard McNally, who

tested 10 people who said they had been abducted, physically examined and sexually molested by space aliens.

Researchers tape-recorded the subjects talking about their memories. When the recordings were played back later, the purported abductees perspired and their heart rates jumped.

McNally said three of the 10 subjects showed physical reactions "at least as great" as people suffering post traumatic stress disorder from war, crime, rape and other violent incidents. "This underscores the power of emotional belief," McNally said.

Executioner Ashcroft. We're not making that name up. It's the title of an editorial today in the Boston Globe. The editorial is sharply critical of Ashcroft for overruling his prosecutors and insisting on death penalty prosecutions in cases in which they recommended against it. We've written about this several times, most recently here.

Here's some of what the Globe has to say:

ATTORNEY GENERAL John Ashcroft has given a chilling and misguided command to federal prosecutors in New York and Connecticut: Pursue the death penalty in more cases. Ashcroft selected cases in which prosecutors either did not ask for the death penalty or recommended against it. In one situation, Ashcroft undermined a plea bargain in which a defendant agreed to testify against others if prosecutors did not seek the death penalty. A Justice Department spokesperson said the goal was to have national consistency.

The editorial explains the reasons Ashcroft is wrong to take this route, and concludes,

Ashcroft is headed down another road, apparently having concluded that imposing the death penalty more often will increase its popularity. This is a waste. The country doesn't need a keener taste for capital punishment. It does need better upfront crime prevention. Ultimately, Americans should give up the death penalty. It is not a strong preventive tool. And it offers vengeance when people would be better off with safety and fairness.

If the shoe fits....

California is questioning a federal judge's ability to be impartial in death penalty cases--a judge whose record demonstrates his solid support for the death penalty. Here's the background:

The scene was a packed auditorium at UC Santa Barbara; the time, late last month. Two prominent legal figures were debating the death penalty.

Defense attorney Gerry Spence turned to federal appeals court Judge Alex Kozinski, an outspoken supporter of capital punishment, and accused the judge of being detached from the reality of death row.

I would urge his honor to go to a prison and see" how condemned inmates live, Spence said.

Kozinski did not respond to Spence's remark. The truth would have been far too complicated to reveal in a debate. Four months earlier, Kozinski had done just what Spence was demanding. After an on-and-off correspondence stretching over five years, he had visited an inmate at San Quentin, a man named Michael W. Hunter, a murderer and a fellow writer....

As a result, the 52-year-old judge -- a Reagan appointee and a leading conservative on the federal bench -- is now the subject of an investigation by the California attorney general's office.

Prosecutors have written to Mary M. Schroeder, the chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, on which Kozinski sits, questioning whether he "can continue to be a fair and impartial member of any 9th Circuit panel, now or in the future, deciding California capital cases."

Legal scholars say there is no precedent for the demand.

"In the history of the federal courts, they say, they know of no occasion when a federal appellate judge has been disqualified from hearing an entire category of cases even on a temporary basis."

Kozinski thus far has refused to answer the letter. Good for him. We think the investigation is baseless.

"I certainly don't think it will affect my judgment" on other capital cases, Kozinski said about his meeting with Hunter. The attorney general's actions, said Kozinski, are "crazy." In his 17 years as an appellate judge, 49 men have been executed in the seven states overseen by the 9th Circuit which have death rows; 10 executions were in California. Kozinski has not voted to block a single one.

The article details Kozinski's very interesting background, his politics and his judicial rulings. With the budget deficit in California being as high as it is, we think Attorney General Lockyear could find better uses for the state's limited resources than investigating Judge Kozinski.

For those not familiar with the Volokh Conspiracy, UCLA Law Prof. Eugene Volokh clerked for Judge Kozinski (before going on to clerk for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.) We hope Eugene will post a response to the article.

Update: Eugene Volokh emails to say he agrees with us, is writing an op-ed on the matter, and in the meantime, has blogged a few thoughts here.

Cheers to The Tennessean for its editorial today urging Congress to pass the Innocence Protection Act..

Since 1973, 107 death row inmates have been exonerated by DNA evidence. That's the identifier of a genetic fingerprint unique to each person. If DNA proves a person was not guilty of a crime, the game is over. The suspect is innocent. Gradually, states are beginning to realize the risks of executing innocent people. Congress should push hard for new protections under federal law.

The bill, authored by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., goes beyond DNA in an attempt to shore up fairness in the system. It also includes a provision for improving the quality of defense counsel with grants to states to help fund legal representation.

There is no question that events in some states have brought new attention to the DNA issue. Gov. George Ryan in Illinois, in light of 13 death row inmates being exonerated from 1977-2000, commuted the sentences of 167 death row inmates to life in prison. The odds suggest that some of those 167 are probably innocent.

Congress is right to get involved. If governments in this country are going to impose the death penalty, which is the wrong remedy even if the inmate is guilty, they must make certain they get the conviction right. DNA is showing that convictions have not always been right. Any course of action that continues executions in the face of such knowledge is injustice at its worst.

The Innocence Protection Act (H.R. H.R.912 / S. 486) is a carefully crafted package of criminal justice reforms aimed at reducing the risk that innocent persons may be executed. Among its most important provisions are affording greater access to DNA testing by convicted offenders and helping States improve the quality of legal representation in capital cases.

The IPA is a bipartisan bill, with 250 co-sponsors in the House in the Senate. It has received widespread support from newspapers across the country, faith-based organizations and criminal justice professionals.

In the last Congress, hearings were held in both houses and the bill was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it remained, due to opposition from a very few ultra-conservatives, like Orrin Hatch.

The bill's sponsors have promised to push for hearings and passage in the 108th Congress. On February 4, 2003, Senator Leahy, Rep. Delahunt and others issued this statement.

Here is list of the co-sponsors.

You can help. Contact your elected officials in Congress today. It will only take a few minutes and a few clicks of your mouse to let your U.S. Representative and Senators that we must pass the IPA before the end of this Congress.

Via A Moveable Beast , we came across Behind the Homefront, an excellent journalism weblog devoted to the newly formed Department of Homeland Security.

On Jan. 24, 2003, a new law enforcement and investigatory agency whose duties include functions taken from as many as 22 other federal agencies came into existence. The reorganization of these operations reportedly marks the biggest government bureaucratic shake-up since the creation of the Department of Defense half a century ago.

Even before the new Department of Homeland Security opened its doors, controversies arose over not just how it would operate and exercise its powers, but what level of access to information it would allow, and how it would respond to news media requests. Will new exemptions be carved out of the FOI Act, either by law or by practice? Will officials and agents feel free to tap phones of journalists, or subpoena their records during investigations? Will the new director consider procedural safeguards, like those adopted years ago by the Department of Justice, to ensure that freedom of the press will not be denied? And will those practices be followed?

But "homeland" security is not the only concern for journalists covering anti-terrorism initiatives; military actions abroad often present a greater challenge, as questions over disclosure of information, access to troops, and restraints on reporting seem to resurface anew with each conflict.

Questions and issues like these led the Reporters Committee to launch this "weblog," so that there will be a centralized site on the Internet for journalists who want to follow these issues and pass along information they learn while covering -- or worse, being covered by -- the new department and other anti-terrorism actions. Please submit comments and pass along tips to make this project as useful, thorough and up-to-date as possible.