In an opinion released today, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has held that that the federal District Court in Minnesota erred in suppressing e-mails seized by Yahoo! technicians from the company's California-based servers pursuant to a Minnesota state court warrant. The Appeals court held that the search was reasonable even though no police officers were present at the time the technicians executed the faxed warrant. The case is 11/18/02 USA v. Dale Robert Bach.

The F.B.I. questioned a 38 year old Malaysian man with a U.S. degree in biochemistry yesterday inside a Malaysian detention camp.

The man is Yazid Sufaat, a Malaysian businessman and former army captain. The camp is in northern Malaysia, which is holding over 65 suspected Muslim militants detained by authorities. Sufaat is suspected of providing employment documents to Zacarias Moussaoui so he could get a U.S. Visa and providing lodging in Kuala Lumpur to two of the alleged 9/11 hijackers.

"Yazid was first spotted by police in January 2000 meeting al-Midhar and al-Hazmi, and is said to have met with Moussaoui in September and October that year. The information was shared with U.S. security agencies at that time. He was finally picked up in December last year while returning to Malaysia via Thailand from Afghanistan. He is being held at Kamunting detention camp under the Internal Security Act, which allows detention without trial. He denies any wrongdoing."

Here's what we're curious about. Sufaat had a lawer at the camp while the FBI questioned him who was either present during the questioning or briefed about it after. Why aren't Hamdi and Padilla and Binalshibh accorded the same right to counsel?

``They're done, that's the end of it,'' Yazid's lawyer told reporters as he drove out of the camp after the FBI had completed questioning his client. ``Basically, they wanted to know how he knew Moussaoui,'' the lawyer Saiful Izham Ramli said, referring to a man set for trial in the United States for conspiracy in the September 11 attacks."

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Walter in Denver, a dedicated libertarian, picks up on our post about Ashcroft's new drug and gun prosecution policies and says:

"There's been much debate lately ... about the Libertarian Party's effect on Republican election results in the past election. The assumption made by some is that LP votes would go to the GOP if there were no LP candidate on the ballot. That may be true in some rare cases, including the South Dakota senate race, but LP voters that I know, and I know lots, made a careful and reasoned decision when they left the GOP. That's assuming they ever were with the Republicans, many were Democrats or split ticket voters before they saw the light. Most of us are painfully aware that voting GOP is voting for stuff like this: (found at TalkLeft) ....This sort of thing (and many other reasons) is why LP members take delight in voting against Republicans, and even try to spoil Republican results. As long as partisan Republicans are blind to this there will be no winning over LP voters."

Cambridge, MA…….The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University (CRP) is launching its new website today. We just perused it--it has a great look and some valuable resources. We'll be adding it to the crime policy page of TalkLeft.

"CRP will utilize this new website to help strengthen our network of researchers, lawyers, advocates, educators, and journalists who share our commitment to social justice. The new site improves our ability to disseminate research, alerts, event information, and civil rights news and updates quickly and more broadly to our partners, journalists, and the general public."

The Bush Administrations's plans for military tribunals are nearing completion.

Supposedly only a small number of the 625 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the 100 or so being held in a U.S. military compound in Bagram, Afghanistan, will be tried by tribunals. Plans call for the tribunals to be held outside the U.S. No information has been released on which detainees will be tried first. The President will have to identify those to be tried by tribunal by name.

Justice Department officials say they do not intend to remove Moussaoui from the federal court system in favor of a trial by tribunal. They are concerned that Moussaoui would challenge a move on the grounds that the tribunals don't apply to people inside the U.S. Such a claim could subject the tribunal process to a constitutional challenge, which clearly the Bush administration prefers to avoid.

"The tribunals would be held amid extremely tight security, U.S. officials said, with some witnesses possibly testifying from remote locations or with electronically altered voices. Defendants will have the right to see evidence against them, unless it is classified, and will be given military counsel. A two-thirds majority of judges is required for conviction, but a unanimous vote is needed to impose the death penalty."

"Pentagon attorneys are in "the process of identifying potential key personnel" for the military commissions, according to a senior defense official. The official would not specify which personnel are being screened, but the military must select judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys before a tribunal can be held."

Bush signed an executive order last November authorizing the tribunals. A first draft of the regulations governing the proceedings was published by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld last March.

"The tribunals would be held amid extremely tight security, U.S. officials said, with some witnesses possibly testifying from remote locations or with electronically altered voices. Defendants will have the right to see evidence against them, unless it is classified, and will be given military counsel. A two-thirds majority of judges is required for conviction, but a unanimous vote is needed to impose the death penalty."

The selection of judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys will be done by the military. A senior Bush official told the Washington Post that " the screening should not be taken to reflect a decision to proceed with the military commissions, but said it is necessary for the Pentagon to be in position to move ahead should the president decide to do so."

"Pentagon lawyers are also drafting final implementing regulations needed to initiate the military tribunals. Officials in the Pentagon general counsel's office said they are completing work on specific charges that could be lodged against defendants. U.S. officials have said previously that the charges would include violations of the laws of war and possibly other offenses."

The timing is believed to be reflective of the military's success with obtaining information from four individuals in particular:

Abu Zubaida, the alleged high-ranking al Qaeda leader whose information led to the arrest of Jose Padilla in Chicago, and who authorities suspect was scouting locations in the U.S. for a dirty bomb attack;

Omar al-Farouq, "the alleged Southeast Asia facilitator for al Qaeda, and Muhammad Darbi, an alleged member of a Yemeni cell";

Muhammad Darbi, an alleged member of a Yemeni cell; and

Ramzi Binlashibh, who was captured in Pakistan after acknowledging his participation as a planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in an interview with the al-Jazeera television station a few months ago.

The military says all of the above have provided information on other leaders and members in Al Qaeda. Apparently they believe the information obtained from these detainees is credible enough to rely upon for purposes of obtaining a conviction in a military prosecution.

Nameless Juries Are on the Rise in Crime Cases according to the New York Times.

Prosecutors and the courts favor the practice, claiming it protects jurors from reprisals and from being hounded by the media.

Defense lawyers and civil libertarians oppose it, arguing it erodes the presumption of innocence and makes juries less accountable.

At first, anonymous juries were used in high profile trials like those of the Branch Davidians, the cops in the Rodney King and Abner Louima cases, Oliver North, John Gotti and other mob cases and the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.

Now they are being used in more routine cases. Most courts uphold the practice. But as a federal appeals court in Atlanta noted, "An anonymous jury raises the specter that the defendant is a dangerous person from whom jurors must be protected, thereby implicating the defendant's constitutional right to a presumption of innocence."

Fordham Law School Professor Abraham Abramovsky says "The right place to draw the line is that unless you have reasonable grounds to show the court that tampering has happened in the particular case or that the defendant has a rich history of tampering, there should never be an anonymous jury."

The media dislikes the practice because "it makes it harder to question jurors about how and why they arrived at their decisions."

The New York Times rips Admiral John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness program in an editorial Monday titled A Snooper's Dream.

The program, invented by John Poindexter, a rear admiral with a less than sterling record, would create a huge national database of all our personal records, from banking to credit card purchases and more. Poindexter justifies the program as a national security enhancement. The Times nails it for what is is: an assault on civil liberties.

"Total Information Awareness (T.I.A.) aims to use the vast networking powers of the computer to "mine" huge amounts of information about people and thus help investigative agencies identify potential terrorists and anticipate terrorist activities. All the transactions of everyday life -- credit card purchases, travel and telephone records, even Internet traffic like e-mail -- would be grist for the electronic mill."

"To civil libertarians, T.I.A., with its Orwellian dossiers on each and every American, would constitute a huge invasion of privacy. Mr. Poindexter says he has no wish to trample on the Fourth Amendment, and that the technology can be designed so as to "preserve rights and protect people's privacy while helping to make us all safer." His associates say that his main role is to develop the technology, not the policy that governs its use."

"This strikes us as disingenuous. Mr. Poindexter is a policy man to the core. Besides, there are enough federal agencies already engaged in the "mining" of information about all of us. The last thing we need is a vast new system of domestic surveillance engineered by John Poindexter."

"Congress should shut down the program pending a thorough investigation. It could do this with an amendment denying further financing that could be attached to an appropriations bill or the homeland security bill now under discussion in the Senate. Either way, T.I.A. needs immediate oversight."

You can read what the military says about T.I.A. on its website here.

More to the point and far less obtuse is the ACLU's statement here.

"A Los Angeles Times Poll shows that nearly half of party insiders believe former Vice President Al Gore should sit out the 2004 race. The poll, which surveyed roughly three-quarters of the membership of the Democratic National Committee, suggests that the contest is wide open and that there is a hunger for change. While 35% of respondents said Gore should run again, 48% said he should not and 17% were undecided."

"The poll turned up significant backing for Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry and surprising support for Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, the Democrats' leader in the House since 1989, did not fare as well as Kerry or a second national newcomer, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards."

You can read excerpts of the poll finding here. (free LA Times registration required).

Legal education debt, which tops $84,000 for the average new lawyer, prevents 66 percent of law students from taking public interest jobs, according to a new joint study by Equal Justice Works, the National Association for Law Placement and the Partnership for Public Service. The Washington-based groups promote public interest work.

"The bottom line is America's law school graduates are drowning in debt and shut out of public service at a time when the federal government is facing losses of over half its work force due to retirements, " said Max Stier, president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service."

"More than 94 percent of law students reported borrowing money to attend law school, where median tuition is nearly $23,000 a year."

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Received today by email:

WESTERN MUSLIM WRITERS LAUNCH NEW WEB MAGAZINE
Journal to Promote Dialogue of Civilizations, Introspection

"Asking themselves, "What went wrong?" a group of Muslim writers living in Aerica, Europe, and Australia today launched a Web-based publication they hope will be part of a solution to conflict between Islam and the West. Editors of the new weekly publication, A True Word , say they aim to promote honest dialogue and understanding between cultures and religions.

Via Atrios we learn that Oklahoma Congressman J.C. Watts 23 year-old son was busted for possession with intent to distribute marijuana , a felony. He had less than two ounces in his possession. This sounds like overcharging to us.

On the other hand, we question whether the the younger Watts may have received preferential treatment for not being charged with domestic violence after his girlfriend said he struck her twice in the face. It's a rare jurisdiction these days that still leaves the decision whether to prosecute up to the purported victim. The usual course is for the police to arrest one or both participants, no matter what.

"City police officers said they went to a location at Boyd Street and Classen Boulevard Sept. 9 in response to a report of a fight between a man and woman. Jerrell Watts was taken into custody after the woman said he had hit her twice in the face. Kuykendall said his office declined to file a domestic abuse complaint in the case "upon request of the victim."

"A last-minute addition to a proposal for a Department of Homeland Security could punish malicious computer hackers with life in prison. "

"During closed-door negotiations before the debate on the Homeland Security Bill began, "the House Republican leadership inserted the 16-page Cyber Security Enhancement Act (CSEA) into the Homeland Security bill. CSEA expands the ability of police to conduct Internet or telephone eavesdropping without first obtaining a court order, and offers Internet providers more latitude to disclose information to police."

Here is the text of the CSEA, H.R.3482, as passed by the House.
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