Bruce Springsteen will open the Grammys tomorrow night with "We Take Care Of Our Own", a single from his new album "Wrecking Ball." People are wondering whether it is a patriotic sequel to Born in the USA or a critique of America for failing to live up to its ideals? The song's hook (catchy, repetitive refrain) is:

Wherever this flag's flown
We take care of our own

But the somber visages of the everyday working people in the video and the remainder of the lyrics give the opposite message:

There ain't no help, the Cavalry stayed home
There ain't no one hearing the bugle blowin'
...Where's the work that will set my hands, my soul free
Where's the promise from sea to shining sea
Where's the promise from sea to shining sea

So what gives? Is he being ironic or sarcastic? [More...]

Guatemala's new President, Otto Perez Molina, said today he will propose that Central America legalize drugs at an upcoming meeting of leaders in the region.

"I want to bring this discussion to the table," he said. "It wouldn't be a crime to transport, to move drugs. It would all have to be regulated."

Does he mean it? Or is he only attempting to start a dialogue? A former military general who ran on a law and order platform promising an "iron fist" policy against organized crime, he authorized the army to join the fight against the drug cartels just one day after his inauguration..

In its February newsletter, the New Zealand Police again attempt to justify the raid on the Kim DotCom mansion and takedown of MegaUpload for the FBI. They say the raid was the culmination of several months of planning.

An OFCANZ (Organised & Financial Crime Agency New Zealand)team of five picked up the case last September and worked intently to meet their goal of a mid-January termination... Termination phases were simultaneously carried out in nine countries: New Zealand, Australia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Germany, Canada, Netherlands, United Kingdom and the United States.

...Detective Superintendent Mike Pannett, New Zealand Police Liaison Officer in Washington, monitored termination activities around the world from the FBI’s Multi Agency Command Centre.

[More...]

Not much news today so far.

The southern border fence in Arizona doesn't seem to be working too well. Borderland Beat has a video of some guys using a lift jack to raise the fence off the ground and walk right under it with their duffle bags of (presumably) drugs. How much did we pay for that fence? $3 million per mile.

Federal estimates put the cost of building a mile of solid border fence at $3 million – meaning a border fence running the length of Arizona would cost about $1 billion. But Smith says the state will use inmate labor and donated supplies to cut expenses and meet his initial $50 million budget, though fundraising is expected to continue even after that point if it is reached.

President Obama is ready to send his 2013 budget plan to Congress. It proposes higher taxes on the wealthy, but what will be cut?

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

The Government filed its sentencing statement today in the case of Detroit Underwear Bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Abudulmutallab is set for sentencing Feb. 16. Some of the counts he pleaded guilty to carry a mandatory life sentence. The Government says a life sentence is also warranted because he remains committed to martyrdom. It attached the report of Dr. Simon Perry, a criminologist and professor from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and former Israeli police officer/official (for 30 years) to support its position. Interestingly, Perry never interviewed Abdulmutallab. He's based his opinion on FBI debriefings he was not present at, Umar's statements to the court at sentencing, interviews with various people and his knowledge of terrorism and martyrs. [More...]

The cooperation (called "mutual assistance") between U.S. law enforcement and New Zealand is not just one sided. While New Zealand has been doing the bidding of the FBI in the MegaUplad case, it's been a two way street.

New Zealand has a murder case it's been working on for a while(despite the fact that the suspect was killed by a train hours afters after being released from custodial questioning.) It thought the suspect and the dead man may have shared information with "friends" on Facebook. So it asked the U.S. to file court orders getting access to the Facebook messages of the dead man and "suspects" (plural) and "people of interest" in his death.

"Through the assistance of the American Government we went to Facebook and, through their legal processes, we got access to all the Facebook information – which is what helped us. It was of great assistance."

The U.S. did the same for Microsoft hotmail accounts so New Zealand could track down individuals who had contacted the dead man on internet dating sites. [More...]

CNBC has a slideshow of the 12 best federal prisons to do time, as compiled by Alan Ellis, criminal defense attorney and co-author of the “Federal Prison Guidebook.”

The slideshow takes forever to click through, so I'll just list them, along with any unique features Alan notes. CNBC says the list is not in any particular order. For the uninitiated, FPC means Federal Prison Camp (least restrictive), FCI is Federal Correctional Institution and USP is US Prison (most restrictive, except for SuperMax.) [More...]

Mohammed Zazi, father of Najibullah Zazi, the Colorado resident convicted in New York of planning a subway terror attack, was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison today for obstruction of justice (lying to the FBI), conspiring to destroy his son's chemicals, goggles and paper masks (stored at his brother-in-law's house) and visa fraud. The visa fraud pertained to his falsely stating on on a visa application for his nephew that his nephew was his son. (Zazi came to the U.S. in 1990 and in 2007 became a naturalized U.S. Citizen.)

Prosecutors asked for 30 years, seeking to have him sentenced as a terrorist under the Sentencing Guidelines. The probation department agreed and concluded his guidelines were 360 months to life. Zazi asked for probation.

The judge rejected the request to sentence him as a terrorist. While he told Zazi his lies could have cost a lot of lives, he concluded "He wanted to keep his kid out of jail." [More...]

President Obama's announced accommodation" looks ok to me - women get the contraceptive coverage that good science and public policy require. The perceived need to offer a fig leaf to religions (the insurance companies pay) is grating, but the substance is what matters most.

Planned Parenthood and Catholic Health Association both approve. The bishops are formulating what their objections are. Surely having to pay for contraceptive coverage is not the problem.

Appeasing folks who will never support you seems a fool's errand to me, but I can't object in this case as the substance stays intact. As a larger issue of chasing fool's gold, well, my views on that are a matter of record.

Sorry about the dearth of posting. Really busy time for me.

If I can squeeze some time, I'll write about the reported Obama "accommodation" on contraceptives. My Sunday Daily Kos piece will be on the issue.

Open Thread.

A New Zealand law professor asks which is worse, internet piracy or the privacy breaches of social networks and Google. He compares the MegaUpload alleged copyright violations to the practices of Google and Facebook and concludes the social network privacy intrusions are worse:

The law in both instances determined who gets to profit from the use of information and who does not and in both cases corporate power was able to trump the rights of individuals.

...Google is subject to an array of privacy and other laws. However, with the exception of fair trading laws in the United States, privacy laws globally are considerably weaker that the regimes that protect the rights of intellectual property owners.

[More..]

The FBI released its files on Steve Jobs today. You can read them here.

The 191-page document, released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), consists of the FBI’s 1991 background investigation of Steve Jobs for an appointed position on the U.S. President’s Export Council. The release also includes documents related to a 1985 investigation of a bomb threat against Apple.