Let it Begin Here's Toby Sackton has a terrific post on The New McCarthyism: Secret Arrest and Detention instead of Blacklisting.

"We are entering a new dark age under the guise of fighting terrorism. Several people have commented to me in the week after the election that this feels to them like 1948, after Henry Wallace lost his battle with Truman, and the cold war was being consolidated in Washington. The next few years brought a communist witch hunt, the blacklisting of numerous artists, writers, and educators, and the firing of many government employees, plus consideration of nuclear war in Korea."

"What is scary today is how much radical improvements in technology and the embrace of totalitarian secrecy by the Bush administration has changed the balance of power- giving the government secret tools that are devastating to liberty and the rights of free speech and association. The new Homeland security bill will create a vast government department whose primary mission will be to closely monitor the actions of all individuals in the U.S. for signs that may point to terrorism. The powers are sweeping enough to allow even local governments the power to secretly read emails, to arrest people based on their unpopular thoughts as expressed in emails or telephone conversations."

Go read the whole thing. After that, check out Toby's son's Blog, M's Daily Ramblings, which we have added to our list of blogs. We love that he is young and so strong on constitutional rights and injustice--like in this line he wrote about the Government's treatment of Moussaoui: "The way Ascroft and the Justice Department seem to be seeking revenge and convictions over justice is terrifying."

The Atlantic Monthly plans to run an article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "proclaiming the innocence of his cousin, Michael Skakel, who was convicted in June of the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley. Kennedy's article is expected to be published in the magazine's January/February edition."

Kennedy checked in frequently with Mickey Sherman, Skakel's defense lawyer, before and during the trial. He wrote a strong and unequivocal letter of support for Skakel to the Judge.

Skakel has been transferred from the Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown, CT to the Cheshire Correctional Institution, another high security prison.

"Claiming they are among the most overworked and underpaid lawyers in the country, court-appointed defense attorneys are suing Wayne County Circuit Court and its chief judges."

"Members of the Wayne County Criminal Defense Bar Association and the Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan are asking the Michigan Supreme Court to order a new fee schedule. The lawyers represent defendants in Wayne County who cannot afford to hire private attorneys."

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers recruited the nationally renowned law firm of Kirkland & Ellis to handle the suit pro bono. NACDL's Treasurer, Martin Pinales of Cincinnati, has represented NACDL in negotiations with the defendant-judges over the past few months.

This shocked us: "In 1982, defense attorneys representing the poor were earning $250 per cas. Now they are paid less! They get $225 a case. "That includes all the hours put into researching, preparation and other other duties."

The low pay has led to a decrease in the number of attorneys willing to take the cases. In 1999 there were 465 lawyers in Wayne County who accepted court appointments. Now there are 317.

The losers here are the public and the poor. Justice in Michigan is at risk. As an editorial in the Detroit Free Press said today,

"Scandalously low pay for court-appointed attorneys in Michigan is making a sham of the constitutional right to legal counsel.

"The criminal justice system works when truth emerges from the adversarial efforts of a competent prosecutor and a vigorous defense attorney. It doesn't work when an outgunned and underpaid defender is effectively encouraged to cut corners and coax guilty pleas from poor defendants."

"Part of the problem is that defense lawyers simply aren't paid enough. In Wayne County, where fees for court-appointed attorneys have been essentially frozen since 1982, court-appointed defense lawyers in many cases make what amounts to $6-$12 an hour. These are discount-store wages that yield discount justice -- cheap, but suspect in quality. "

"The Legislature should appoint a task force to study how best to get more money to all Michigan counties for criminal defense. Some states have created statewide Public Defender commissions or offices. In Michigan, local control with a mixture of local and state funding would probably work best. "

"Criminal defense attorneys and accused felons are simply not a public priority. But upholding everyone's constitutional rights and keeping innocent people out of prison certainly ought to be."

Via Atrios, Federal agents will begin randomly stopping traffic today, looking for illegal immigrants, terrorists and drug or weapon smugglers.

"Cars will be stopped at unannounced, rotating checkpoints within Michigan, including metro Detroit. U.S. Border Patrol agents at the checkpoints will ask passengers their citizenship and will have leeway to ask a host of follow-up questions."

"The effort is part of President George W. Bush's attempt to increase security along the northern border, said Immigration and Naturalization spokeswoman Karen Kraushaar."

Michigan is the first northern state to be subject to the program that is already in force in Texas and California. The authority is an old law that allows searches within 25 miles of the U.S. border.

Civil liberties groups rightfully are concerned:

"We believe it's going to be very hard for them to do this without violating people's civil rights, or profiling people based on their ethnicity or accent," said Kary Moss, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Michigan. "

There is only one solution to the vexing problem of Bush's far right nominations to the federal courts, according to law professors Erwin Chemerinsky and Catherine Fisk: use of the filibuster power.

Bush is intent on packing the lower federal courts with conservatives. It is likely that a few Supreme Court Justices will retire during his tenure.

"An enormous amount is at stake in the judicial confirmation process. A change in two votes on the Supreme Court could mean the overruling of Roe vs. Wade and a woman's right to reproductive choice. In the years ahead, federal courts will be deciding crucial questions concerning the federal government's power to provide remedies for civil rights violations, including employment discrimination based on race and gender.

"Also, the federal courts are the essential and only check against excessive government interference with individual rights in the name of the war against terrorism. Indeed, in every area of personal freedom, from freedom of speech to privacy, American law and policy will depend on the composition of the courts."

The judicial composition of the lower federal courts is similarly important. "Because the Supreme Court decides only about 75 cases a year, and hears fewer than 2% of the cases in which review is requested, who sits on the federal Court of Appeals is crucial."

Chemerinsky says that he was called by the Clinton White House Counsel and told he was a possible nominee for the federal Court of Appeals. Later he was told he could not be nominated because his liberal stands on affirmative action and reproductive freedom wouldn't fly in the Republican-controlled Senate.

"If outspoken liberals were unacceptable judicial nominees during the Clinton administration, then extreme conservatives are equally unsuitable now. Courageous Democrats in the Senate must announce their intent to use the filibuster to prevent a conservative takeover of the federal courts that could last long beyond our lifetimes."

To us, that's the scariest part. The legacy we will be leaving our children. We don't want our child to suffer at the hands of the radical right. We raised him to be appreciative of basic notions of fairness, equality, due process and individual liberties--we taught him that these are the rights that distinguish our nation and make it a beacon of liberty. Now at the hands of a president we didn't elect, the beacon is likely to be extinguished. So we echo Chemerinsky and Fisk, and call upon the Democrats in the Senate to filibuster until the cows come home, and preserve the integrity of our federal courts.

You won't find much comfort in the war effort after reading a news article in today's Washington Post, Officials Question FBI Terror Readiness .

Experts and government officials tell us we can expect retaliatory terrorist attacks if we invade Iraq. But...

"Fourteen months after the terror attacks on New York and Washington, the FBI does not have a detailed understanding of domestic terrorist networks that could fund, prepare and launch revenge attacks, said administration and congressional officials and outside experts."

"The FBI's ability to convert from a primarily case-oriented criminal justice agency into a domestic investigatory body is being questioned and debated with great urgency by the National Security Council, members of Congress and intelligence experts who have been called upon to help out."

History suggests retaliatory strikes are likely. During the Persian Gulf War, the number of terror attacks tripled. Intelligence analysts believe a backlash this time would be much stronger."

"An unclassified version of a recent National Intelligence Estimate, which includes the opinions of all U.S. intelligence agencies, predicted that an invasion of Iraq would prompt Hussein "to become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions," including enlisting the aid of extremists."

During his October 17 congressional testimony, FBI Director Robert Mueller summed up the situation thusly:

"There is a substantial risk out there that they could undertake" attacks...."And by 'they,' I mean not just those associated with Iraq, but those associated with al Qaeda or [the militant Lebanese group] Hezbollah or somebody else." Mueller's testimony also included this sober view: "I would be uncomfortable in saying that you should relax and say, 'The FBI or the CIA is taking care of that issue.' " (our emphasis).

"Knowledgeable officials said the FBI's problems go beyond money and staff needs. Unlike the CIA, which has elaborate analysis of terrorist networks from Paraguay to Malaysia to Saudi Arabia, FBI officials "still aren't looking at this as an intelligence agency, but as cops," said one U.S. government official who has been briefed on FBI assessments and plans. "You get the sense they don't really have a clue" about domestic terrorists in the United States."

We feel like we're about to get on a runaway train, one that is likely to spiral out of control.

Immigrants sending cash back home will face strict new controls. Under the new rules,

"Anyone who sends money overseas now must be checked against government lists of suspected money launderers and terrorists, a task that also requires money transmitters %u2014 many of them storefront operations %u2014 to undergo training to spot suspicious movements of money."

Some of the new federal rules took effect this summer while others likely will be implemented in the next few months.

Many of the immigrants fear INS checks and reprisals. "Treasury Department officials, who administer the new federal regulations, have said people making ordinary transfers should not be worried. State Banking Department officials, however, began sharing money transfer information in March with the local office of the F.B.I. All names of customers are checked against lists of suspected criminals."

The new regulations may not be effective at catching terrorist money. The threshold reporting requirements that have been in place for many years were designed "to catch drug traffickers or criminal groups that have a lot of money to disguise or move quickly. Terrorist groups, investigators say, are more likely to move small amounts of money intermittently."

The New York Times agrees with us that John Lee Malvo, the 17 year-old accused sniper, should not have been questioned without his guardian present. See, Mr. Malvo, Juvenile:

"The government's disregard for Mr. Malvo's juvenile status was dramatically illustrated last week, when police interrogated him for seven hours outside the presence of his court-appointed guardian. Todd Petit, the lawyer appointed to serve as a stand-in for Mr. Malvo's parents, asked the police to stop, but they continued, and ordered Mr. Petit to leave police headquarters. It makes a mockery of the institution of guardianship for the government to appoint a guardian and then prevent him from being present for an interrogation that could lead to his ward's execution."

"....The Bush administration has already indicated it does not think the Constitution should apply in terrorism cases. Now it seems to be saying that if a crime is sufficiently notorious, time-honored legal protections for juveniles should be abandoned. But this nation is strong enough to prosecute criminals, internal and external, without giving up its principles."

The Daily Rant has started a discussion on last night's violent Sopranos episode. He warns, however, as do we, don't go there if you didn't see the show, he describes it in detail as do we in the comments section.

We are in the process of upgrading to MT 2.51 and experiencing some technical difficulties. We'll be back as soon as possible, so keep checking back.

Update: All seems to be working now except the search engine which we've taken off line until we can iron out the bugs.

A special thanks to Jim Capozzola at Rittenhouse Review for these very kind words about us today. (His permalink isn't working or we'd just send you there instead of reprinting.)

~~~~~
"If Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft knows so much about crime and criminal law, how come she’s not a ten-most-wanted criminal mastermind by now? Or is she? Just kidding. I’ve learned more about the law from Merritt, online and off, than I have from any other resource I’ve met, or encountered rather, online or off."

Thanks, Jim!

Martin Wisse has started Progressive Gold, a weblog reprinting the best of us leftist bloggers' posts on a daily basis. He got the idea from Nathan Newman's post on Why Blogs Matter, modified it a bit, and says:

"This new weblog is a first attempt at realising his vision, though somewhat differently from what he intended (for now). What I intend to do and will invite others to join me in, is to create a daily "Best of the Progressive Blogosphere" linklist. Each entry will consist of a single paragraph from the story linked to and a link to the story. That's all. There won't be any commentary, no expounding on what's happening in the world, no big thesises. Just links to the progressive blogposts you need to read today."

We like it. Martin would like Progressive Gold to be a cooperative effort, in the spirit of Blogcritics, or more like a e-magazine. If you'd like to participate, email him at proggold.cloggie.org.

Every day we are more appalled by the leaks of untested information coming from "unnamed officials" about the evidence in the sniper case. Yesterday the media cooperated with the leakers by printing supposed confessions by 17 year old John Lee Malvo. Today, two high-ranking law enforcement sources say Malvo admitted shooting a 13 year old boy as part of the alleged killing spree.

All of the courts in the states in which these two defendants have been charged need to slap a gag order on the prosecution now. We haven't seen such audacious leaks since the Oklahoma bombing case. The leaking mostly stopped once Judge Matsch issued a gag order. The media appealed the gag order to the Tenth Circuit, and lost.

The disclosure and dissemination of purported confessions and details of the investigation indicate a lack of self-restraint and a lack of an ethical compass by those responsible. It's up to the prosecutors to control their agents and "senior officials." The media needs to exercise restraint as well. Trials must take place in courtrooms, not living rooms, and the media's complicity in and furtherance of the lynch-mob mentality is shameful.

While courts can restrain parties to a case, their court staff, and individuals operating under their direction and control (such as police and investigators), they have far less power over the media. But if the others don't leak to the media, the media won't have the information to disseminate.

In Judge Matsch's "gag order" in the McVeigh case, reported at 931 F. Supp. 756 (D.C. Colo. 1996), here's what he proscribed: