Reuters tonight says the Senate is up for grabs one month before the election.

At least eight races are too close to call. The Democrats now control the Senate by one vote. "Three seats held by Democrats -- South Dakota, Minnesota and Missouri -- and four seats held by Republicans -- New Hampshire, Colorado, Arkansas and Texas -- are within the margin of error in recent polls. "

As to New Jersey, a new Democratic poll shows former Senator Lautenberg 11 points ahead of Republican businessman Forrester. The spin being put out by the Republicans is that the ballot switch will antagonize voters. Not so, says the Washington Post.

"A full day of interviews in New Jersey's three main demographic subdivisions -- suburbs, cities and white ethnic enclaves -- indicated that other than Republicans, most voters have moved past the furor still raging nationally about Torricelli's 11th-hour withdrawal. A number of Democrats and independents who said they would have voted against Torricelli on ethical grounds said they now will vote for Lautenberg. Asked why the switch doesn't trouble them, they invariably mentioned political scandals in both parties and widespread evidence of corporate fraud."

"What's more scandalous than Bush in Florida?" asked one of those interviewed.

Via Instapundit, we learn that Jurist, the excellent law professor site, has a Supreme Court Previews page devoted to the new Supreme Court term, with articles and updates by noted professors and commentators. We recommend bookmarking it now.

The Bureau of Prisons will choose the institution where John Walker Lindh will serve his twenty year sentence. The Miami Herald outlines the options, and what Alan Ellis of Sausilito, a prison specialist and attorney consulting for the Lindh defense team, is lobbying for.

Normally with a twenty year sentence one goes to a maximum security institution and works his way down to less secure facilities over the years. Lindh, however, could be in serious danger from other inmates.

The Bureau of Prisons tries to put inmates near their families, but the final decision is up to them, and all a Judge can do is make a recommendation to the agency. If BOP doesn't grant the judge's recommendation, it will write a letter to the Judge and explain its reasons, but there is no way to enforce the recommendation.

Lindh wants to go to California to be near his parents. He's not eligible for a club fed or a camp. His first choice is the low level security facility at Lompoc, near Santa Maria and Santa Barbara.

If he doesn't get that choice, other possibilities are a medium security institution at Terminal Island, near San Pedro; a high security penitentiary also in Lompoc, or another in Atwater, near Merced.

Our bet is on Alan Ellis, author of the Federal Prison Guide Book and a low or medium security level facility.

The Los Angeles Times today covers the case of the Oregon suspects charged with providing material support to Al Qaeda--and concludes the Indictment "is more suggestive of bumbling, would-be holy warriors than of soldiers training for deadly missions."

"Money for their alleged scheme came from associates using real names and easily traceable wire transfers--with amounts typically just a few hundred dollars. They took target practice openly at a rural gravel pit, attracting the attention of a deputy sheriff."

"Authorities explain that they have adopted a deliberate strategy of preventive arrests--even if the evidence is imperfect--in the hopes of disrupting terrorist plans."

This is an approach that is of just concern to civil libertarians. Many believe that the recent wave of arrests is the product of a government determined to target Muslims for their unpopular political beliefs. Related to this topic, read the Washington Post editorial today, Defaming Islam.

"While everyone agrees that fighting terrorism must be a top priority at all levels, there is no evidence that any of these U.S. citizens was planning an attack," said Peter Schey, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and International Law in Los Angeles. "And one has to question the arrests of a handful of alleged sardines while the big fish are apparently swimming away."

It seems we are moving towards prosecuting beliefs and thoughts instead of actions. The criminal justice system is designed to punish crime, not to prevent it. Yes, we all want to prevent future attacks. But arresting people before they've committed an unlawful act, and in the abscence of concrete evidence they are attempting or conspiring to commit a crime is not the way to do it.

In the Portland case, there is no charge that the suspects planned to attack America--or that they knew any members of Al Qaeda. The suspects are five Americans and one naturalized citizen. The Times says it is not clear any of them ever made it into Afganistan, where the Government says their goal was to fight with Al Qaeda after September 11. Yet, as the Times points out, "that alleged desire--and the suspects' efforts to act on it--is at the core of the case against them."

What are we to make of James Ujaama, the Seattle man charged with providing material support to Al Qaeda who was denied bail this week? The New York Times calls him a "riddle" and asks whether he is a terrorist or a hustler.

"Unlike John Walker Lindh or the men arrested near Buffalo, Mr. Ujaama has support from a cross-section of prominent people here. "I can't see anything in his past that would indicate he would ever be involved with violent terrorists," said Eddie Rye Jr., regional vice president of the Black Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Rye has known Mr. Ujaama for more than 20 years. Like other longtime acquaintances, Mr. Rye suggests the activities that the government says are part of a plot can by explained by Mr. Ujaama's lifetime of making deals."

"James Ujaama first and foremost is an entrepreneur," Mr. Rye said. "He had prepared himself since an early age for success."

"As a child, Mr. Ujaama worked at food banks and social service centers in Seattle, helping his mother, Peggy Thompson. As a young man, he established a computer business, sold pamphlets encouraging young blacks to stay off drugs and succeed through the American dream, and was a motivational speaker. A state legislator, Jesse Wineberry, once issued a citation declaring a statewide day of recognition for Mr. Ujaama."

In denying bail for Mr. Ujaama this week, the Judge said, "His background is exemplary. But people change. And the record suggests some drastic and tragic changes for Mr. Ujaama."

Mr. Ujaama has a felony conviction for check fraud and several misdemeanor convictions including one for theft. His friends say he became disillusioned when he couldn't sell a screenplay based on his life, and at his brother's suggestion, moved to London.

In London, federal officials claim Ujaama "fell under the influence of Sheik Masri, the Muslim cleric whose followers included Richard C. Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, and Zacarias Moussaoui, who is accused of being the would-be 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks. Sheik Masri, who is wanted in Yemen on terrorism charges, remains free in London."

The Indictment against him charges he took a loyalty oath to the Sheik and set up a website for him called "StopAmerica.Org." Not mentioned in the Indictment is the Government's belief that Ujaama attended an Al Qaeda training camp, using a reference letter from the Sheik to gain acceptance.

The Indictment also charges that Ujaama sent a fax to the Sheik in 1999 extolling the virtues of a ranch in Oregon as a place to "store and conceal guns, bunkers and ammunition."

Ujaama's family acknowledges that he became a militant follower of Islam but argue that all of his actions have innocent explanations.

"Bayat, the Arabic word for the loyalty oath, means religious fealty more than personal loyalty, said Mustafa Ujaama. The Web site, he said, was a fount for free speech. "My brother was trying to stop America from going to war," Mustafa Ujaama said."

"The training camp and the trips to Afghanistan, James Ujaama's supporters say, can be explained by Mr. Ujaama's business instincts, suggesting that he was trying to sell Sheik Masri and his followers land and computer equipment."

Ujaama's lawyers and the prosecutors agree on one thing: Ujaama's real use would be in as a witness against Sheik Masri.

Apparently, Ujaama isn't willing to make that deal--yet.

Senior law enforcement officials have told the New York Times that the FBI is tracking hundreds of muslims in its search for terrorist plots within the U.S.

"The surveillance campaign is being carried out by every major F.B.I. office in the country and involves 24-hour monitoring of the suspects' telephone calls, e-mail messages and Internet use, as well as scrutiny of their credit-card charges, their travel and their visits to neighborhood gathering places, including mosques."

"The campaign, which has also involved efforts to recruit the suspects' friends and family members as government informers, has raised alarm from civil liberties groups and some Arab-American and Muslim leaders. The men are suspected of ties to Al Qaeda or other groups affiliated with Osama bin Laden's terrorist network."

"Still, the F.B.I. has acknowledged that it has no evidence of any imminent terrorist threat posed by the so-called sleeper cells connected to Al Qaeda."

Nor is there any evidence of a sleeper cell in the U.S. with capablilities like the one that committed the attacks of September 11.

Law enforcement officials also concede now that the threat of Jose Padilla, the suspected "dirty bomber" was blown out of proportion. "Justice Department officials have backed away from their initial suggestion that they had compelling evidence linking him to a plot to build an explosive radiological device known as a dirty bomb."

Terrorism experts estimate that ten to twenty thousand Muslims trained at Al Qaeda camps. The U.S. is trying to identify all of them. So far, they have identified several hundred around the world who they believe might pose a threat.

"Some law enforcement officials say that when they have detected Qaeda loyalists in the United States since Sept. 11, they have tended to be hapless malcontents and not disciplined terrorists. "They are hangers-on and wannabe terrorists for the most part," said one official, adding, in reference to the leader of the Sept. 11 plot, "Mohammed Atta wouldn't have asked most of these guys to take out his trash."

The electronic surveillance has been accomplished through FISA court orders. FISA orders allow wiretapping and e-mail seizures for intelligence gathering purposes and do not require compliance with the stricter standards of the Fourth Amendment that is required in criminal investigations. In other words, there is no requirement that probable cause be estbablished that the person to be intercepted is involved in criminal activity.

The F.B.I. is refusing to provide Congress with data it is seeking on an F.B.I. informant who provided information about two of the September 11 hijackers.

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation had a confidential informer who rented rooms in California to two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, but the bureau is resisting a request from the Congressional committee investigating the attacks to interview the informer and his F.B.I. handler, government officials said."

"The joint Sept. 11 Congressional committee plans to hold a closed hearing on Wednesday focusing on the F.B.I.'s handling of its San Diego informer, who was the landlord of the hijackers Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi a year before the attacks."

"Several officials said the F.B.I. had rebuffed requests to make the informer available to the committee and would not authorize the agent who was his contact to testify."

"The F.B.I.'s resistance has led Congressional officials to become more aggressive in trying to find out whether the informer provided clues about the hijackers that the bureau ignored or failed to act on before Sept. 11."

Congress has a specific interest in these two hijackers who were aboard the American Airlines flight that crashed into the Pentagon: The CIA had identified them as Al Qaeda operatives back in January, 2001.

The CIA did not ask for them to be placed on a watch list until August--and by then the two were already in the country. Nor did the CIA pass the information on the two to the F.B.I. until late August. Some members of Congress speculate that these two hijackers were key to the whole 9/11 plot and had they been caught, the attacks may have been foiled.

UPI is reporting, using the New York Daily News as a source, that John Walker Lindh was the key to Buffalo Six arrests:

"A "concerned Yemenite" from Lackawanna sent a letter to the FBI in June 2001 that said eight U.S. citizens of Yemeni descent from the upstate, N.Y. city had gone to the Osama bin Laden's al Farooq terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, The Daily News said."

"The FBI investigated but the men denied going to Afghanistan and said they had gone to Pakistan to learn more about Islam and in the summer of 2001, the investigation was at a standstill."

"Lindh began cooperating with investigators on July 15, 2002 and although he could not identify the Lackawanna men because he arrived just as they left, the source told The News he remembered some in the Afghan camp talked about a group from the Buffalo area."

"With this information, the FBI confronted one of the suspects, Mukhtar Al-Bakri, in Bahrain on Sept. 11 and he admitted that the group had attended al Farooq."

Major Democrats in New York, including former Democratic Governor Hugh Carey, are crossing party lines to back incumbent George Pataki in the New York Governor's race.

Other prominent New York Democrats for Pataki include "former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, former Queens Borough President Claire Shulman [and] state Senator Olga Mendez." The Chinatown Democratic Club and the New Era Democrats are also behind Pataki.

Our view: He has done a good job for New York, but until he keeps his promise on repealing the state's appallingly unfair and draconian Rockefeller drug laws, we don't think he deserves an endorsement.

We recommend Jeffrey Rosen's op-ed in today's New York Times on what to expect from the Supreme Court this term as it strives to balance liberty and security.

"Current Supreme Court precedents don't clearly require proportionality between crime and punishment, or between searches and seizures. This may emerge as a central issue as the justices begin to review cases arising out of the Sept. 11 investigation. In the U.S.A. Patriot Act, for example, Congress gave the president new powers to detain aliens and to investigate citizens. If these powers were limited to the investigation of terrorism, they might be viewed as reasonable. But many of these new powers apply to the investigation of all crimes. As a result, they allow the federal government to collect personal data in search of wrongdoing."

"In evaluating the constitutionality of the U.S.A. Patriot Act as well as new technologies of surveillance adopted after Sept. 11, the court will have to determine whether the Constitution requires that the most intrusive searches be reserved for the most serious crimes."

Rosen is fairly pessimistic about the Supreme Court choosing liberty on many issues, but his analysis is a good one.

Sunday's CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer will feature a live interview with Johnny Spann, the father of CIA agent Mike Spann, who was murdered in Afganistan. We will be on immediately following Mr. Spann to react to his interview and discuss the cases of John Walker Lindh, the Buffalo Six, the Oregon suspects and detainee Yaser Hamdi--the segment begins at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time.

Among the issues the Supreme Court will consider this term are:

SEX OFFENDERS – A review of states' use of Internet sites to list information about sex offenders who have finished their sentences and comprehensive registries of those offenders, both involving so-called "Megan's laws." Smith v. Doe, 01-729, and Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. John Doe, 01-1231.

CRIME & PUNISHMENT – Whether three-strikes-and-you're-out sentencing laws result in unconstitutionally harsh prison terms. Lockyer v. Andrade, 01-1127, and Ewing v. California, 01-6978.

DEATH PENALTY – Four death penalty cases involving the mechanics of imposing capital punishment, not major constitutional issues. Woodford v. Garceau, 01-1862; Miller-El v. Cockrell, 01-7662; Abdur'Rahman v. Bell, 01-9094; and Sattazahn v. Pennsylvania, 01-7574.

IMMIGRATION DETENTION – The government's practice of jailing immigrant criminals without bail to make sure they don't flee before deportation. Demore v. Kim, 01-1491.

CROSS BURNING – The constitutionality of a 50-year-old Virginia law outlawing cross burning. Virginia v. Black, 01-1107.

INTERNET LIBRARIES – A look at copyright protection that could determine when many books, songs and movies will become available over the Internet. Eldred v. Ashcroft, 01-618.