Former DEA and FBI agents don't see eye to eye on the potential threat to the U.S. of Mexican border violence caused by cartels. A former FBI agent tells Fox News:

"It's moving across into the rest of the country, so we can't just look at it and say it's just the border, don't worry about it," said Don Clark, former director of the FBI Office in Houston.

Former DEA Agent Gary Hale, a 30 year veteran of DEA, takes an opposite view. He writes in a published paper (available here):

While some spillover violence does in fact occur, it is generally confined to the border region, most specifically near the border city pairs, and rarely reaches the interior of the United States in such a manner that should cause alarm or incite fears of threats to national security, when compared to jihadist terrorism or other extremists that publicly proclaim their desire to kill Americans.”

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The media attacks on Dominique Strauss-Kahn continue with headlines that gleefully declare he is being detained for questioning in an investigation of corporate, hotel and police involvement in organized prostitution. Others under investigation are a police commissioner, a lawyer, hotel bosses and two local businessmen.

The investigation includes whether the two businessmen used corporate funds to pay the prostitutes who worked the hotel parties that DSK attended. This has zero to do with the issues in his dismissed New York case, or the claims of the French writer over which he was not charged, and it's ridiculous that the media keeps tying the two together. This investigation is not pursuing allegations he engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct or made unwanted advances against anyone.
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The DC Appeals Court today upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit by surviving relatives of detainees who committed suicide at Guantanamo. While the district court cited failure to state a claim as a basis for the dismissal, the Appeals Court cites the Military Commissions Act(Section 7(a) and 28 USC 2241 (e)) as depriving federal courts of jurisdiction to hear claims regarding conditions of confinement (as opposed to habeas claims regarding lawfulness of detention.)

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 results in no remedy being available. The Court (opinion here) says tough luck.

“Not every violation of a right yields a remedy, even when the right is constitutional.”

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DEA prosecutions were down in 2011. Mexican prison guards at Apodaca Prison have admitted being paid for their involvement in the Zetas jailbreak that killed 44 Gulf Cartel members.

Bruce Springsteen has released the second song from Wrecking Ball, Shackled and Drawn.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Today is Occupy Prisons Day. At 6:30 this evening, the protest in Denver got underway at the ICE facility on 30th and Peoria. It's sponsored by the the Denver Anarchist Black Cross. the news isn't covering it so far, but there's a live-stream here and updates on Twitter is here.

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

The New York Times has an article about the unfair trial of a Palestinian proceeding through Israel's military court system. It involves a juvenile who was arrested and provided information about a neighbor. The neighbor was then arrested and charged. What's striking, although not mentioned, is how much the Israeli system is like ours. I don't see how anyone can complain about one and not the other. Here are the things the article portrays as unfair, and each one is something that has occurred or is standard in our treatment of Guantanamo inmates and military commission trials:

It begins with a 14 year old named Islam who was arrested at home one night:

• He was blindfolded, handcuffed and whisked away in a jeep.
• After he was pulled from his home at night, Islam was taken to a nearby army base where, his lawyer said, he was left out in the cold for hours. In the morning, he was taken to the Israeli police for interrogation.
• The young man was interrogated and pressed to inform on his relatives, neighbors and friends.

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I've got a few more episodes of Downton Abbey to catch up on before tonight's finale. Have any of you been watching it? You can watch the entire season 2 without commercials on PBS here, and Season 1 is streaming on Netflix.

Michelle Obama and the First Daughters are in Aspen for a ski vacation.

For those of you following other things today, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

The U.S. has spent $900 million of its Meridia Initiative money on training of Mexican prosecutors and law enforcement and providing them equipment. The countries just announced another training program:

Proyecto Diamante [is] a comprehensive training program designed and developed jointly by the U.S. Department of Justice and Mexico's Procuraduria General de la Republica to train 2,500 PGR prosecutors and 6,000 investigators over the next 12 months in core competencies.

This week, a senior prosecutor in the Attorney General's Office (PGR) in Saltillo, Coahuila, Claudia Gonzalez Lopez, was among those arrested on organized crime charges of allegedly providing protection to the Zetas in exchange for large sums of money, paid monthly. The former police chief was also arrested. as was the head of the Special Investigations Group.

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The Associated Press reports the NYPD's monitoring of Muslim students extended far beyond New York City schools and all over the Northeast -- far more widely than previously reported.

Officers from the NYPD's Cyber Intelligence unit visited the websites, blogs and forums of Muslim student associations as a "daily routine."

The universities included Yale; Columbia; the University of Pennsylvania; Syracuse; New York University; Clarkson University; the Newark and New Brunswick campuses of Rutgers; and the State University of New York campuses in Buffalo, Albany, Stony Brook and Potsdam, N.Y.; Queens College, Baruch College, Brooklyn College and La Guardia Community College.

One NYPD report describing the daily monitoring is here.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu is almost as bad as Joe Arpaio -- he's often called the "new Arpaio." One example of his over-the top style of policing: In 2010, he mandated the use of lethal force against drug smugglers.

I've given specific instruction, no less than lethal force is going to be used. It's all lethal force only and we go into that environment knowing that we're likely expecting an armed threat from these people," Babeu said.

He's the "face" of Arizona's border war against unlawful immigration and now he's running for Congress. Friday, Phoenix New Times outed him as gay, based on information from a Hispanic man Babeu had a long relationship with and who claims Babeu threatened him with deportation if their relationship became public. Babeu now acknowledges he is gay, but denies making the threat. He's also staying in the Congressional race. [More...]

The U.S. has filed a 90 page superseding indictment against Kim DotCom and the other Megaupload defendants, adding several wire fraud and copyright infringement charges. The U.S. has seized $50 million from the defendants so far. [More...]