An e-mail purporting to be a quote from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is making the rounds. We were skeptical because it wasn't accompanied by an act or scene number and because it's only been a day since we were taken in by the phony Ascroft article. Here is the quote:

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar. "

We checked the text of Julius Caesar and couldn't find it. We then did a search for the quote and found Urban Legends Reference Pages: Questionable Quotes which says the quote is false.

"Yet as popular as the quote is, it's not real. These words are not anything Julius Caesar ever wrote or said. No biographies of Caesar or histories of Rome contain these lines, and scholars who have made it their business to know everything about the man draw a blank on this quote. Likewise, Shakespeare did not stuff this soliloquy into the mouth of the title character in his play Julius Caesar, nor did any of the Bard's other characters utter it. No record of this quote has been found prior to its appearance on the Internet in late 2001. "

Too bad, we liked it.

The University of California at San Diego has ordered a student organization to delete hyperlinks to an alleged terrorist Web site, citing the recently enacted USA Patriot Act.

"School administrators have told the group, called the Che Cafe Collective , that linking to a site supporting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) would not be permitted because it violated federal law. "

"In a letter to the Che Cafe Collective, UCSD University Centers Director Gary Ratcliff said the hyperlink violated a law that bans "providing material support to support terrorists." Ratcliff warned that the student organization would face disciplinary action if it did not immediately remove the link to FARC."

We found this item via BestoftheWeb, a conservative Wall Street Journal blog, which has this to say about the policy (after denouncing the students as "idiots" and their actions as "deplorable", language we've deleted in the part of the post we agree with below):

"...a link to a Web site--as we did in the previous paragraph--is not "material support"; it is merely information. It is not illegal... to speak in favor of terrorist organizations, so long as one does not cross the line into actual incitement or conspiracy. In the UCSD case, the civil libertarians are right."

The Chicago Tribune has some pretty strong criticism of the Bush Administration's increasing involvement in Colombia's ongoing civil war.

"In 2001, the U.S. pumped about $860 million into Colombia, followed by $400 million the following year. Pending before Congress is a request by the Bush administration for $538 million more."

"Under President Clinton the aid was earmarked for counter-narcotics activities. But under the Bush administration it has become part of an anti-terrorism crusade, a catch-all that disingenuously lumps Colombian guerrillas and paramilitary thugs with Al Qaeda and Palestinian terrorists. In truth the new money would be gasoline on an already toasty fire."

".... The U.S. ought to be pressuring all parties to negotiate--the only way a 38-year-old civil war is going to be resolved--or at least refrain from fueling it with more military aid."

"From an anti-drug perspective, Plan Colombia, as the initial U.S. aid package was known, has been a flop. Coca growers have simply moved around inside Colombia or to neighboring countries, with no effect on either the supply or the availability of cocaine and other narcotics."

"President Bush's embrace of his counterpart in Colombia as a fellow warrior against terrorism is a poor excuse for staying involved in a civil war. With a real war against terrorists on its hands, and a possible war in Iraq, the U.S. ought to back off the mess in Colombia, and the sooner the better."

The alternative news media has been carrying similar views for quite a while. We hope that by the mainstream media jumping on the bandwagon, more pressure will be brought on the Administration to stop its unwise involvement in Colombia.

Some officials are now doubting the guilt of the five youths in the Central Park Jogger case. Journalist Jim Dywer has details of the current re-investigation into the crime in today's New York Times.

Dwyer says interviews with two of the five youths, Mr. Richardson and Mr. Santana, had a "powerful impact on the people investigating the attack." The investigators are working for the District Attorney's office.

The Distict Attorney's office "declined to comment on the inquiry yesterday, but it is clear that the prosecution spent a great deal of energy on reviewing the case. All the evidence still available has been re-examined using advanced DNA testing, and none of it links the five men to the crime. At the trial, the prosecution had argued that hairs found on Mr. Richardson's clothes came from the jogger. Recent DNA tests show that claim to be wrong. "

Jim Dwyer is also the co-author, along with Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, of the book Actual Innocence.

The Justice Department has filed a new brief with the secret Appeals Court that is reviewing the lower FISA Court 's rejection of Ashcroft's revised and expanded physical and electronic search guidelines this past May.

The Government, through Attorney General Ashcroft is arguing that the lower FISA court exceeded its authority in rejecting its rules. You can access the brief here.

We disagree for reasons we have stated here.

Once again Justice is attempting an end-run around our contstitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures and the Fourth Amendment's and Title III's strict warrant requirements.

Their claim that the Patriot Act allows them to seek wiretap and search warrants where the main purpose of the warrant is investigating crime rather than intelligence gathering is a twisted interpretation of the Act. The FISA Act required that intelligence gathering be a "primary purpose" for the issuance of the warrant. Congress rejected Ashcroft's initial draft of the Patriot Act which would have reduced "primary purpose" down to "a purpose." After Congress balked, a compromise was worked out. Intelligence gathering now has to be a significant purpose (as compared to a primary purpose ) of the warrant.

"Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the committee's ranking Republican, said this week "it was clear to us" that a search or wiretap would be allowed even if the investigation's primary purpose was collecting criminal evidence, as long as gathering foreign intelligence also was a "significant purpose."

"But Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has complained that Ashcroft is wrongly interpreting the changes Congress approved."

"It was not the intent of these amendments to fundamentally change (the surveillance law) from a foreign intelligence tool into a criminal law enforcement tool," Leahy said at an oversight hearing this month. "We did not intend it to obliterate the distinction between the two and we did not do so."

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers , which filed an amicus brief in the case this week, adds:

"Now, the Justice Department's interpretation of the amendments to FISA allow supervision of the relaxed-standard searches by regular criminal investigators if they can claim any non-trivial connection to foreign intelligence. It allows for greatly broadened use of FISA searches in cases where normal Fourth Amendment protections should apply."

"To ordinary citizens, particularly those who do business internationally, that means that criminal investigators can eavesdrop on their conversations or search their businesses, homes, phone records, and e-mail correspondence without the requirement that investigators convince a judge that there is some reason to suspect criminal activity. "

President Bush was in Denver today. He was greeted by more than 2000 anti-war protesters.

"In a scene reminiscent of anti-war protests of the 1960s, at least 2,000 people gathered Friday outside a fund-raiser featuring President Bush to rally against a possible war in Iraq. "

"Chanting ''No blood for oil,'' ''No war for votes'' and ''Hey hey, ho ho, this war machine has got to go,'' the protesters marched from the Denver City and County Building four blocks to the hotel where Bush was speaking. "

There were no arrests. "Inside the hotel, Bush spoke to a packed crowd at the $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser for Bob Beauprez, who is running in the 7th Congressional District. After the event, Bush went to Arizona. "

Bob Bezuprez? No way.....we're supporting Democrat Mike Feeley. We spoke with him earlier this week and he's personally opposed to the death penalty (although not going to make it a campaign issue) and he's likely to support the Innocence Protection Act. He has called us personally (not through a staffer) three times and even left his cell number. If you have a few extra bucks, send it his way.

Update: Here's more on Feeley -- we found it by way of Sideshow .

"Feeley, a former Marine, came out swinging at an evening debate at Red Rocks Community College, saying he was "really upset with our president right now."

"It is not the time to play politics with the possibility of going to war with Iraq and the possibility of losing young American lives," Feeley said."

"If he doesn't get an apology, Feeley said, "we'll play politics."

"I'll talk about every chicken-hawk Republican running for office - who never served a day in uniform defending this nation - asking for your vote so they can go to Washington and send someone else's child to war."

Another Update: Buzzflash has a first-person perspective on the protest and says the Denver Post confirms there were 2,000 protesters present.

Life is getting more difficult for Madelyne Toogood daily.

Police in Indiana have charged the mom in the videotape beating her young child with giving false addresses

"Authorities say Toogood gave them addresses for commercial mailbox businesses in Mishawaka, Elkhart and Fort Worth, Texas."

"Toogood has said she and her husband belong to the nomadic group Irish Travelers, but have been living in Mishawaka for about six months. Bond on the new charge was set at $2,000. A conviction is punishable by a maximum six months in jail or a $1,000 fine. "

We got this email today from two nationally prominent lawyers. It isn't for real, but we didn't know that when we read it. What's scary as you read it is that it could so easily be true with this Administration. [we deleted the name of the wire service for liability purposes and any spacing glitches are our's]

We should also mention that it fooled the higher-ups of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as well--by the time it was discovered to be a hoax (by astute NACDL Media Affairs Director Dan Dodson), one call to a congressman had already been made to express concern and a staff meeting was in the works as to how to respond.

Update: We were just told that the Congressman mentioned above believed it too and made some phone calls of his own before learning it was a hoax.

Ashcroft Assails Disclosure Rules

Filed at 11:13 p.m.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 -- Calling the nation's criminal disclosure laws "a grave threat to national security," Attorney General John Ashcroft today called for an overhaul of the rules that allow criminal defendants and their lawyers access to evidence against them before trial.

The Attorney General indicated that the Justice Department would be submitting "significant" amendments to the disclosure rules to Congress by early next week, and that he expected "immediate" Congressional approval.

"To give them evidence in advance of a trial is to place bombs in the hands of terrorists," Ashcroft said.

Ashcroft did not specifically mention the name of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker" now facing the death penalty for his alleged involvement in the September 11 attacks in New York and Virginia. But it was widely understood that Ashcroft's comments and the forthcoming Justice Department proposals were a reaction to news that prosecutors had given Moussaoui 48 classified FBI reports that, in the words of presiding judge Leonie M. Brinkema, "could compromise significant United States national security interests."

Ashcroft noted that the disclosure of these classified reports was an error by prosecutors, and that the existing disclosure rules did not actually require the classified reports to be turned over to the accused terrorist. But Ashcroft defended the proposed changes as "necessary" and "long overdue," even if they were not actually responsible for the disclosure to Moussaoui. "The fact that somebody may have goofed," Ashcroft said, "should not distract us from the fact that the only reason a prosecutor was even in a position to make this
mistake was because of these liberal disclosure rules that we have in federal court."

Existing rules entitle a criminal defendant to request early disclosure of certain statements, reports, and physical evidence in the hands of prosecutors to help him prepare his defense at trial. Ordinarily the disclosure is made to the defendant's attorney, but because Moussaoui is representing himself, the documents were supplied directly to him.

Ashcroft declined to elaborate on the Justice Department's proposed amendments, saying that they were still under development. But the "basic idea," Ashcroft said, is that a defendant should not get access to anything in the government's possession unless he can persuade a judge by "clear and convincing evidence" that the item is "absolutely necessary" to his defense and that the national security of the United States would not be "in any way compromised" by the disclosure.

Criminal defense lawyers were immediately critical of the Justice Department plan, contending that the disclosure laws were not in need of reform and that it had been a government error, not the existing rules, that caused the disclosure to Moussaoui. "It's the PATRIOT Act all over again," remarked Barry Feinman, executive director of the American Council of Criminal Defense Attorneys, referring to the legislation passed in the weeks after the September 11 terrorist
attacks that made sweeping changes to a variety of criminal statutes and procedural rules. Feinman noted that nothing in Ashcroft's announcement suggested that the proposed changes in disclosure rules would apply only in terrorism cases.

The Attorney General, however, dismissed concerns of the sort voiced by Feinman. "This is the kind of talk that does nothing to strengthen us, but only gives aid and comfort to the enemy," Ashcroft said.

******

Once again, the above article is a hoax.

Press Release:

"The <a href="National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed a brief today asking the appeals court which operates under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to affirm the decision of the lower FISA court that tends to limit the act's relaxed search standard to cases dealing with foreign intelligence.

John Cline, an Albuquerque criminal defense lawyer who authored the brief on behalf of NACDL, says the Justice Department's interpretation of USA PATRIOT Act provisions which amended FISA deprives ordinary citizens of Fourth Amendment protections.

"FISA was designed to allow a lower standard for searches in foreign intelligence cases," said Cline. "Previously, FISA searches, which do not require traditional warrants based on probable cause, took place only under the direction of foreign intelligence agents. Criminal investigators were called in only when the searches led to incidental discovery of ordinary criminal activity.

"Now, the Justice Department's interpretation of the amendments to FISA allow supervision of the relaxed-standard searches by regular criminal investigators if they can claim any non-trivial connection to foreign intelligence," Cline said. "It allows for greatly broadened use of FISA searches in cases where normal Fourth Amendment protections should apply."

To ordinary citizens, particularly those who do business internationally, that means that criminal investigators can eavesdrop on their conversations or search their businesses, homes, phone records, and e-mail correspondence without the requirement that investigators convince a judge that there is some reason to suspect criminal activity, said Joshua Dratel, a co-chair of NACDL's Amicus Curiae Committee who assisted on the brief. "There might as well not be a Fourth Amendment for people who have international dealings."

Daily Kos does it again! Check out MyDD 's new bloglift--it looks fabulous. So much easier to read and so clean looking. [For newer readers of TalkLeft, Daily Kos re-designed this site as well]

Not to mention DailyKos and My DD have some of the most astute political analysis around.

Thanks to Instapundit for alerting us to Sixth Circuit Judge Gilbert Merritt (no relation to TalkLeft) and his speech yesterday at the Tennessee Federal-State Judicial Conference in which he said the death penalty system is broken and needs an overhaul. You can read the full text of his speech here.

A few highlights:

"Of the 12 cases completely reviewed on habeas in the 6th Circuit in the last 15 years, the writ has issued in eight, reversing the death sentence. Of the five cases I have had occasion to review from Tennessee, there was just one where we upheld the sentence. I have serious doubts in two of them about whether the defendant even committed the underlying murder or was simply the victim of a mistake. In one of these cases subsequent DNA evidence showed that he did not commit the rape that was supposed to be the basis for his murder of the victim. In two of the remaining three cases there were other serious constitutional problems with the jury instructions."

The Judge lists five reasons why so many death penalty verdicts are set aside:

We don't pay lawyers enough to represent the defendants at the trial level

Too few lawyers know how to defend a death case. Death penalty defense is a specialty and ineffective assistance of counsel is widespead.

"Third, prosecutors and police tend to be extremely zealous in these cases and they fail to turn over exculpatory evidence."

"Fourth, as a result, in a large number of cases newly discovered evidence turns up during the course of the habeas post conviction process after the trial and initial appeals are over. This is because counsel failed to properly investigate the case or because law enforcement did not turn over the exculpatory evidence they had or because of new science like DNA testing."

"Fifth, there is a great tendency after the trial is over to find harmless error. This tendency is based on the normal human tendency toward inertia; but, even more, it is based on the political imperative that judges outside the federal system must be elected."

"The Supreme Court has advised us in Reid v. Covert to remember that ''death is different'' — that ''[t]he taking of life is irrevocable,'' so that ''[i]t is in capital cases especially that the balance of conflicting interests must be weighed most heavily in favor of the procedural safeguards of the Bill of Rights,'' and in Andres that ''[i]n death cases, doubts … should be resolved in favor of the accused'' and in California v. Ramos that ''the court … has recognized that the qualitative difference of death from all other punishments requires a correspondingly greater degree of scrutiny of the capital sentencing determinations.''

"After these admonitions, the basic attitude of many federal judges in these so-called harmless error cases is to say to the state, if you want to execute the defendant, try the case right in the first place with competent counsel on the other side and without covering up exculpatory evidence and without giving the jury constitutionally impermissible instructions."

Judge Merritt went on to urge members of the Tennessee Bar to create a capital defense agency.

"Now is the time for the bar to intervene because there is now pending in Congress an act that seems likely to pass called the ''Innocence Protection Act.'' That act will make money available to the states to create a better defense system in capital cases. It may be that the best system would be to create and fund a state capital trial agency. Whether or not that act passes, our state needs a much better system of defending capital cases."

It is so refreshing to hear a federal judge speak out like this. We hope more of them start doing so. We need the Innocence Protection Act and we need a moratorium on the death penalty.

We hope that Democrats vying for the 2004 presidential nomination take note and make these issues part of their platform.

The lawyers for "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla filed pleadings yesterday arguing the Government's continued detention of Padilla in the absence of criminal charges is an "unprecedented expansion of executive authority."

"They added, "The president's detention of Padilla cannot be condoned as an exercise of the president's military power in the interest of national security."

"A lawyer represented Mr. Padilla, a former Chicago gang member who is also known as Abdullah al-Muhajir, before Mr. Bush's declaration; none have been able to meet with him since then. His lawyers said that neither the Constitution nor the Congress has authorized such a detention and that denying Mr. Padilla access to a lawyer has "frustrated any attempt of meaningful judicial review."

Padilla is an American citizen. He was arrested at the Chicago airport in May. He has been in held in a navy brig in South Carolina since June when President Bush declared him an "enemy combatant"-- without any criminal charges, without access to his lawyer, and without any judicial review of his detention. Mr. Padilla is entitled to due process and he isn't getting it.

The Administration's treatment of suspects since September 11 has no consistency. They make up the rules as they go along. Padilla and Yaser Hamdi are citizens who are detained without rights as "enemy combatants." John Walker Lindh, the Buffalo Six, the Detroit Four, James Ujaama, Zacarias Moussaoui and accused "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid have been processed in the federal criminal courts and are receiving the due process and other rights required by our system of justice.

We fail to see any rational distinction between Padilla and Hamdi and the others. We commend the Government for charging the others in federal courts, and think it should reconsider its unjust and unequal treatment of Padilla and Hamdi.

We hope Judge Michael B. Mukasey of United States District Court in Manhattan reviews the legality of Mr. Padilla's detention and orders his release. If Padilla didn't commit a criminal act, there isn't any reason to hold him, other than to interrogate him. If he hasn't succombed to the military's interrogation techniques by now, it's unlikely he is going to. And if the military has already picked his brain and still have no evidence he committed a crime, they should let him go.