Your turn. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Tahawwur Rana, David Headley's co-defendant in the Chicago terror case related to the Mumbai bombings and planned attack on a Danish newspaper, was sentenced to 14 years today. The Government had sought a 30 year sentence.

Rana was convicted on two counts of a Superseding Indictment (Counts Eleven and Twelve) of conspiring to providing material support to a plot to attack a private newspaper in Denmark, the Jyllands-Posten, and providing material support to Lashkar e Tayyiba (“Lashkar” or “LeT”), a designated terrorist organization. The plot against the Jyllands-Posten was not executed, and no one was killed or injured.

Rana was acquitted on a third charge (Count Nine) which alleged that he conspired to provide material support to attacks in India, including the Mumbai attack in 2008. (Counts Nine and Eleven were charged as a conspiracy, Count 12 was charged as a substantive offense.)

The Judge rejected the Government's request to apply the terror enhancement guideline to Rana. Under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, the enhancement provides for a 12 level increase in the base offense level, and automatic placement in criminal history category VI (the highest category) if a defendant’s “offense is a felony that involved or was intended to promote a federal crime of terrorism.” [More...]

I have a post almost ready on the latest developments in the Kim Dotcom case, but won't get back to it until tonight. Background here. I think the Government is on shaky ground when it writes:

Yet Megaupload does not cite a single communication between the government and Megaupload or a single instruction from any member of the government to Megaupload; there are none.

Of course there aren't. Because the Government had Carpathia do its bidding for it and act as the middleman. In addition to what it represented to the court in its motion to seal the Ninja search warrant, and what the Court's sealing order for that warrant stated, there's this email from Carpathia to Kim Dotcom and Matthias Ortmann.

As I said, more later.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

A petition to the White House to remove Mass. U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz for her office's handling of the Aaron Swartz case has gathered 37,000 signatures. 25,000 signatures are necessary for a response from the White House.

Ortiz' husband, Tom Dolan, took to Twitter and criticized the Swartz family for its obituary, claiming it left out the 6 month offer to Aaron. Then Dolan deleted his Twitter account. But you can see it here. [More...]

President Obama today released his gun control plan.

Obama's plan calls on Congress to renew a prohibition on assault weapons sales that expired in 2004, a requirement for criminal background checks on all gun purchases, including closing a loophole for gun show sales, and a new federal gun trafficking law - long sought by big-city mayors to keep out-of-state guns off their streets.

He also announced 23 steps he intends to take immediately without congressional approval. These include improvements in the existing system for background checks, lifting the ban on federal research into gun violence, putting more counselors and "resource officers" in schools and better access to mental health services.

Obama also named Todd Jones will be the chief of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, "quietly abandoning Andrew Traver." The cost of Obama's plan: $500 million.

George Zimmerman's legal team has received the school records of Trayvon Martin. The court authorized the subpoena in October. The state didn't object to the subpoena per se, but it wanted them submitted to the court under seal for in camera review before being released to the defense, instead of having the records delivered directly to the defense team. The Court denied that request. The Martin family, through its lawyers, objected to the subpoena.

It issued this press release today about the records, which will not be made public.

I explained the legal support for the request and including the Munoz case his lawyers cite today here, here and here. [More...]

I spent all my blogging time last night and today on the Aaron Swartz post below. Here's an open thread for other topics.

Two of Aaron Swartz's attorneys, one current and one former, say that the Government wanted Aaron Swartz to plead guilty to all 13 counts in the Superseding Indictment, and it would recommend a sentence of six months in confinement.

Aaron's first attorney, Andrew Good, also says he told the Government Aaron was a suicide risk.

[Good]said he told federal prosecutors in Massachusetts that Swartz was a suicide risk. “Their response was, put him in jail, he’ll be safe there,” Good said.

[More...]

MIT announced it will conduct an internal probe of its role in the events that led to Aaron Swartz' suicide. MIT President Raul Reif writes:

I have asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT's involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took. I will share the report with the MIT community when I receive it.

Also Sunday, Anonymous hacked MIT's website, posting a tribute to Aaron and calling for reform. [More...]

Photos of the red carpet here. Truly some big misses tonight.

The Nominations list here.

Maggie Smith wins best supporting actress for Downton Abbey Season 2. Game Change won best tv movies or miniseries. Juliane Moore wins best actree in TV miniseries or movie for Game Change.

Damian Lewis wins best actor for Homeland. He lists a slew of people he wants to share the award with, and thanks everyone under the sun, but never mentions Claire Danes. An oversight? Homeland also won best tv series.

Adele hypventilates as she wins best song. I think Bon Jovi should have won for Not Running Anymore. [More...]

Don't forget to disable Java (not javascript) from your browsers. Here's how. I also uninstalled the program from my computers. Here's why. Here's the Government alert.

A federal judge in California has struck down Prop 35, passed by voters in November, as overbroad.

Proposition 35, which passed with 81 percent of the vote in November, would have required anyone who is a registered sex offender — including people with misdemeanor offenses such as indecent exposure and whose offenses were not related to activity on the internet — to turn over to law enforcement a list of all identifiers they use online as well as a list of service providers they use.

It's the coldest post-season home game in Denver Bronco history. Go Broncos!

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Via the Washington Post: The District of Columbia has spared David Gregory. Here is the letter from the DC Attorney General to Gregory's attorney saying it was a close call, but he will not be prosecuted for displaying a 30-round ammunition magazine on Meet the Press. A key factor:

Gregory ‘s “intent of the temporary possession and short display of the magazine was to promote the First Amendment purpose of informing an ongoing public debate about firearms policy in the United States.”

The letter also states that the offense is a strict liability crime that does not require a specific intent -- ignorance or confusion about the law is no defense.