"President Bush said Tuesday that an attack by Saddam Hussein or a terrorist ally "would cripple our economy," offering new justification for potential war against Iraq even as he said North Korea's nuclear ambitions can be curbed without military conflict."

Sorry, Mr. President, but we think the Republicans and your tax cuts for the rich are to blame for the sorry state of our economy. September 11 may have been a big factor, but we've still seen no evidence that Saddam had a hand in that.

Nor have we seen evidence that Iraq is planning an attack. The only person talking about going to war is you--by launching a pre-emptive strike. Maybe if you spent less time obsessing about Iraq and spent some more time with your economic advisors, or picked new advisors, we could begin the climb-out from the hole we're in.

Oakland, California ushered in the New Year by becoming the 19th city to pass a resolution opposing the USA PATRIOT Act and urging the state’s Members of Congress to actively work for its repeal.

Virginia is to begin collecting DNA samples today from anyone charged with a violent felony, launching the most aggressive effort in the country to catalogue genetic samples of people not yet convicted of crimes.

Under a law passed last year, a saliva or tissue sample is to be taken from anyone arrested and charged with such crimes as murder, rape, assault and burglary. The DNA profiles of those arrested will be entered into the state's DNA database -- along with the profiles of convicted felons -- for comparison with evidence gathered at crime scenes. If the person is acquitted or the charge is dismissed by a judge, the data will be expunged.

This is wrong and should be opposed before it spreads to other states. People who merely have been arrested and charged are not guilty in the eyes of the law. It is a violation of their civil liberties to require them to submit to DNA testing for inclusion in a databank before they have been convicted.

The Virginia law says they can petition the court to delete their DNA sample from the database if they are acquitted or the charge is dismissed. Why should the onus be on them to move for the deletion? How many can afford lawyers to figure out who to petition and how? And what about the cases that don't end with conviction, acquittal or dismissal on the charged count?

"James Connell, a Fairfax defense lawyer, said yesterday that he is concerned that the DNA profiles could remain in the system despite the lack of a conviction.
"There are several ways that a person can go to court and not be convicted but not have a dismissal or an acquittal," Connell said. For example, he said, prosecutors can choose to not pursue a charge. That would not be entered into the computers as a dismissal by a judge."

"Ira Robbins, a criminal law professor at American University, said he predicts a flood of legal challenges to the law. "To collect DNA too early in the process runs afoul of civil liberties in ways that I think are fundamentally unfair," Robbins said. "It makes a lot of sense to expand DNA databanks, but not in this way. We're talking about people who are arrested and not convicted."

The New York Times reports that Democrats are tossing around ideas to help them catch-up in the media game. Top among their priorities is combatting Fox News Channel on tv, and finding a liberal host who can give Rush Limbaugh a run for his money.

"...concerns have taken on a new urgency because of the rise to the top of the cable news ratings by the Fox News Channel, considered by many to have a conservative slant, and the loss of the Senate to the Republicans in November. Some Democrats say the election outcome enhanced the influence of Fox News and personalities like Mr. Limbaugh."

"The efforts among influential Democrats, particularly liberals, range from a grass-roots talent search for progressive radio hosts to the creation of research organizations to provide a Democratic spin for the news media, to nascent discussions by wealthy supporters about starting a cable network with a liberal bent."

We nominate Atrios.

Tom Daschle is very close to throwing his hat in the ring for the Democratic presidential nomination.

"Mr. Daschle is to return to his home in South Dakota this weekend to review his decision one more time with friends and advisers, his associates said. But they said that over the last few days Mr. Daschle has expressed an increasingly strong desire to challenge Mr. Bush and has concluded that he needs to move quickly to catch up with Democratic rivals who have been lining up political supporters and financial backers for months. Mr. Daschle would announce a decision sometime over the next few weeks and immediately begin traveling to primary states, his associates said."

MSNBC is reporting that John Edwards is days away from a decision as well.

And here's a factoid from the MSNBC article: "No Democratic ticket has ever won the White House without a Southerner or a man associated with the South on it. The last three Democratic presidents, Lyndon Johnson of Texas, Jimmy Carter of Georgia and Bill Clinton of Arkansas, have been from the South."

Night courts, a key part of Tony Blair’s attempt to tackle “yob culture” are to be abandoned after proving a costly failure.

"The courts were supposed to operate around the clock, to bring instant justice to criminals who terrorised city centres. But the huge cost of the scheme, opposition from workers in the criminal justice system and a failure to provide enough cell space for offenders, means the policy will now be abandoned."

"Instead of delivering swift justice to young offenders and drunken thugs, the courts dealt only with a few minor offences, such as begging, shoplifting and prostitution. Night courts were first suggested by Sir John Stevens, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who was impressed by the swift justice delivered by them in New York. The idea was seized on by the Prime Minister as part of new Labour’s tough law and order rhetoric in the last general election campaign. Mr Blair indicated his support in a speech decrying “yob culture”.

"Officials at 10 Downing Street pressed for pilot schemes to start as soon as possible, despite misgivings among many in the criminal justice system that the idea was a gimmick. Two schemes were launched in London and Manchester in May at a cost of £5.4 million."

“The US justice system places great reliance on plea bargaining and therefore quick justice, the British system does not. This expensive experiment must not be rolled out nationally as it would waste money that could be put elsewhere in the hard-pressed criminal justice system.”

"On some weekends when the courts were expected to be at their busiest, only ten people appeared. Many cases were adjourned because paperwork or evidence was not ready. Mr Fletcher said that during the pilot scheme it cost an average of £4,000 to process a defendant compared with £1,610 in an ordinary court."

This is our final post for the year--we wanted to end on an optimistic note, and we just came across the article below. Have a safe and happy holiday, we'll be back on a normal blogging schedule January 1.

428 legal scholars wrote a 3-1/2-page letter to outgoing Illinois Governor George Ryan today, saying there is legal precedent to defend him if he decides to commute the death sentences of all 157 inmates on death row in Illinois to life in prison.

"The purpose of the letter is to express a legal opinion that if the governor follows his conscience, and if his conscience tells him that large-scale commutation or commutation of all [157] guys in Illinois is appropriate, that he would be acting legally and within the vein of American legal tradition."

Presidents Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Jimmy Carter, among others, granted blanket clemency for people convicted of various offenses.

"The clemency power traditionally has been used not only to correct injustices in individual cases but also as a response to problems in the systemic application of law,'' the letter states.

The Judge in the case of the accused sniper, juvenile John Malvo, ordered the prosecution to turn over to the defense any statements Malvo made to law enforcement. We're wondering why Malvo had to go to Court to get them in the first place. The Virginia rules of criminal procedure, like those in almost every state, provide that an accused is entitled to have any statements he made to authorities disclosed to him. How else could he make a meaningful motion to suppress the statements, or prepare for a hearing on their admission or exclusion? We can't see any justification for the states' withholding of the statements.

The Times of London is reporting that the bomb seized from the baggage handler at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris was primed and "ready for action."

"The explosives and detonators that were allegedly found on Saturday in the car of Abderazak Besseghir, a French citizen of Algerian origin, amounted to a bomb that was "ready for action", police said today. The arsenal consisted of five sticks of plastic explosive, two detonators and a slow-burning fuse as well as an automatic pistol and a machine pistol."

"Mr Besseghir has not provided any information since his arrest at the end of his working shift on Saturday evening. He was detained by airport police after a member of the armed forces, who was passing through the airport, reported that he saw a man handling an automatic weapon in his car in one of the indoor car parks."

On the topic of airport security, we took two flights the other day, from two major U.S. cities, and neither one had screeners at the gate doing random security checks. A few people on the flight commented on their noticeable abscence. Does anyone know if this is permanent or just a fluke?

Congressman Dan Davis (D-IL) is concerned about inmates getting jobs when they get out of prison. He will be re-introducing his bill, the Ex-Offender Self-Sufficiency Act, which would create 100,000 units of housing for convicts featuring job training and social services on site.

"We've got a serious criminal justice challenge,'' Davis said, noting that nearly half end up back in jail within three years. His district, which includes much of the central city, near north, south and west sides, is home to 40 percent of those ex-offenders. Even though more than 70 percent of them were convicted of nonviolent drug offenses, they are barred from many jobs.

"We need to have something for them to do,'' Davis said. "Otherwise it's almost inevitable they are going to be back in the penitentiary.''

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We're taking our New Year's break now and will be mostly silent until January 1. We won't be updating the newsfeed before then, but you can access the news sites we frequent the most by clicking on the "media" link on the top right.

We've done a lot of posting this week, including this morning, so we encourage you to hang around, read some of what we have to say, and also visit the links on the right.

Happy New Year to all, we hope it rings in justice and peace.

Human Rights Watch ( HRW), based in New York, has written to President Bush, urging him to investigate allegations that suspected al-Qaeda and Taleban detainees are being tortured. Here are their allegations and the text of the letter.

The letter says that immediate steps must be taken "to clarify that the use of torture is not US policy." The group says that otherwise the Bush administration risks criminal prosecution in almost any national criminal court.

At issue are the CIA's "stress and defense" techniques that include "keeping prisoners "standing or kneeling for hours" while hooded or wearing spray-painted goggles, holding them in "awkward, painful positions" and depriving them of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights."

"Diane F. Orentlicher, a professor of international law at American University, said she believes the CIA techniques are a clear violation of international law. She noted that the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 1978 that the use by British forces in North Ireland of five similar techniques -- hooding, forced standing, deprivation of sleep, subjection to noise and deprivation of food and drink -- were not torture. But, Orentlicher said, the European court found that such methods were "inhuman and degrading," and therefore illegal under various treaties. "One way or the other, it's clearly prohibited," she said."

The letter is a reaction to last week's Washington Post article which we wrote about at length here.

For our post on the International Criminal Court and the Rome Statute which Bush refused to sign thereby preventing the U.S. from participating in the promulgation of the Court's rules, go here.