SOCA, the UK's Serious Organized Crime Agency, has shut down the music file sharing site RnBXexlusive. One person, as yet unnamed but described as a proprietor of the site, was arrested and has made bail. Instead of charging a copyright violation, the UK is charging the proprietor with conspiracy to defraud.

The agency posted a takedown notice on the site. [Heads-Up: When you click, it shows your IP Address, Your Browser, Your Operating System and the time and date you clicked, and says "The above information can be used to identify you and your location.]It contains this warning:

SOCA has the capability to monitor and investigate you, and can inform your internet service provider of these infringements. You may be liable for prosecution and the fact that you have received this message does not preclude you from prosecution.

.... If you have downloaded music using this website you may have committed a criminal offence which carries a maximum penalty of up to 10 years imprisonment and an unlimited fine under UK law.

Despite statements months ago by Pakistan that the wives and children present at the Abouutabad compound the night Osama bin Laden was killed would be released and returned to their home countries, Pakistan is still holding them.

The family of Amal al Sadah, Osama bin Laden's youngest wife who is from Yemen, has petitioned the chief justice of Pakistan to order her and her children's release and return to Yemen. Last October, the Pakistani commission that investigated and interviewed the wives recommended they be sent home.

Al Sadah's brother, who has been in Pakistan waiting to take them home, alleges the children and wives are being kept in poor conditions, deprived of adequate medical care and sunlight and that the children are traumatized and have not been allowed to go to school. [More..]

Update: Conditions at the Honduran prison.

More than 350 inmates at the Comayagua Prison Farm, 45 miles north of the Honduras capital Tegucigalpa, have been trapped and killed in a fire. At least 300 inmates are still missing and presumed dead. Around 475 inmates were able to get out. It is the largest and worst prison fire in Latin American history.

Danilo Orellana, director of the Honduras prison system, told The Associated Press inmates said the fired was started by an inmate who lit his mattress on fire. He said another theory is there was an electrical short. He ruled out claims that a prison riot was to blame. [More...]

Mathias Ortmann, the only MegaUpload defendant besides Kim DotCom who remained in jail, was granted bail today, over objections by the Crown. Ortmann is a German citizen. Germany does not extradite its citizens to the U.S. He was released on home monitoring, and will live with co-defendants Bran van der Kolk and Finn Batato.

The holdup in the decision was that the FBI alleged a $2.5 million discrepancy in his income. Prosecutors said Ortmann earned $14.5 million from MegaUpload between 2005 and 2010, and $2.5 million in 2011. But his accounts show $20.5 million income instead of $17.5 million. The Judge wanted an accounting of the $2.5 million. His lawyer said it came from trading profits.

The Defense Department has filed charges against Guantanamo detainee Majid Khan. The case will be proceed via military commission, and according to the Miami Herald, is "the first war court case entirely initiated during the administration of President Barack Obama."

Majid Kahn, one of two lawful U.S. residents at Guantanamo, graduated from high school in Baltimore, MD. The Herald reports:

[Kahn] allegedly recorded a martyr’s message and donned an explosive vest in a 2002 attempt to kill Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf at a mosque. The attack failed because Musharraf never arrived. Pakistani authorities arrested Khan the next year and turned him over to the United States.

Kahn was held in secret overseas prisons and interrogated until 2006 when the Bush administration sent him to Guantanamo. His lawyers filed suit alleging he was tortured.

[More...]

Bump: Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

The Florida Senate today put the kabosh on Republican plans to turn 30 state prisons into the largest private prison complex in the country. Florida incarcerates more than 100,000 inmates, making it the third largest incarcerator in the country (Only Texas and Calfornia have more inmates.).

As the ACLU says:

If lawmakers want to save money in our prison system, they should reform mandatory minimum sentencing, invest in re-entry programs and re-visit parole policies that feed the addiction to incarceration and throw people into the revolving door that is our prison system. Privatization schemes, often coupled with inflated claims of cost savings, distract policymakers from an inescapable truth: The best way to reduce prison spending is to reduce the number of people we imprison.

The profit motive is a huge part of the problem.
[More...]

Despite the lack of evidence to establish that Whitney Houston's death was caused by drugs or alcohol, the drug warriors are out in force. The latest to join them and capitalize on Whitney Houston's death is White House Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, who calls her death "a teachable moment."

According to the Coroner's office, there were fewer pills in her hotel room than in the average person's medicine cabinet -- his included.

Simsbury High School in Hartford, CT is joining a troubling growing trend: Employing cops with drug dogs to routinely patrol the halls, conducting random searches for drugs. What other schools have recently added random drug dog searches? To name just a few: [More...]

Here is President Obama's 2013 proposed budget for the Department of Punishment Justice. The total comes to $36.5 billion. Among the lowlights.

• Prison budget: $8.5 billion, a 4 percent increase over 2012. (It notes that there 2.3 million people in U.S. prisons and 1 in 32 American adults are under some kind of correctional supervision.) [More..]

President Obama is heading west for three days of fundraising. There will be 8 events in all. Musical headliner for the LA fundraiser: The Foo Fighters.

Is the Megaupload extradition on shaky ground? The issue was raised by the Judge at Kim DotCom's bail hearing. The prosecutor acknowledged the extradition treaty doesn't refer to copyright offenses, but said the U.S. could bootstrap through the 2000 United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and New Zealand's Extradition Act. [More...]

Could the media get any more intrusive? CNN is actually running a live feed outside the funeral home where Whitney Houston's body is expected to arrive "later tonight."

CNN Live sent out a tweet saying:

View stake-out camera at funeral home where #WhitneyHouston body is expected to arrive in New Jersey. Watch live: http://on.cnn.com/cnndcl4

#ShameOnCNN (no that's not a real hashtag, I just made it up -- but it should be.)