Texas judge gave instructions to prosecuting attorneys to help them convict defendants

As reported at Boing Boing:

Third generation Texas judge Elizabeth E. Coker has resigned just ahead of being investigated for misconduct; she admits that she texted instructions to prosecutors in order to help them convict the defendants whose cases she heard. She also is accused of other indiscretions, including meeting with jurors and attempting to influence them to convict defendants. The State Commission on Judicial Conduct suggests that she lied to them as well, perjuring herself. She's out of a job, but apparently will face no criminal or civil sanctions for her crimes; nor will the victims whose trials she perverted be freed. 

Also no mention of indictments or penalties for the prosecuting attorneys who received her texts and failed to report the activity.  Perhaps some reader here can clarify - is this not a criminal act?  Or just not a crime in Texas?  Is it merely a moral/ethical lapse appropriately treated by reprimand and job loss?

More details at the Boing Boing link and at the Montgomery County Police Reporter.

Influential and successful marijuana users

"Marijuana Policy Project, the nation’s largest marijuana policy organization, released a list of the “Top 50 Most Influential Marijuana Users” in the United States on Wednesday. At the top of the list is none other than our hypocrite…er…commander in chief Barack Obama, who has sent more pot smokers and other nonviolent drug offenders to prison in his five years as president than any before him...

“The goal here is to dispel the myth that marijuana users are ‘losers’ who lack motivation and highlight the fact that they are typically productive and oftentimes quite successful,” said Mason Tvert, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project. “As this list demonstrates, many of our nation’s most successful citizens have used marijuana.”
The list is composed of Americans who have used marijuana at least once during their lifetimes, including some who speak openly about their current marijuana use. "

Here's the start of the list:

Barack Obama
Oprah Winfrey
Bill Clinton
Clarence Thomas
Stephen Colbert
Jon Stewart

Jay-Z
John Kerry
George Soros
Bill Maher
Bill Gates
George W. Bush
Andrew Cuomo
Rand Paul
Sanjay Gupta
LeBron James
Rush Limbaugh
George Clooney
Michael Bloomberg
Lady Gaga
Brad Pitt
Ted Turner
Tom Browaw
Michael Phelps...

The rest of the list, with citations of their admissions to marijuana use, is at Salon.

"To protect and to serve"

An Associated Press article yesterday described the increasing militarization of state and local law enforcement personnel.

An Associated Press investigation of the Defense Department program, originally aimed at helping local law enforcement fight terrorism and drug trafficking, found that a disproportionate share of the $4.2 billion worth of property distributed since 1990 has been obtained by police departments and sheriff's offices in rural areas with few officers and little crime...

Known for its speed trap and annual peach festival, Morven [Georgia] also has been one of the most prolific users of the Defense Department program, getting more than $4 million worth of goods over the past decade...  [Morven Police Chief Lynwood] Yates conceded there isn't much crime and acknowledged that his officers spend most of their time on traffic enforcement.  "This is probably one of the last quiet small Southern towns left in this area," he said. "Even my worst drug dealer here, if I was broke down on the side of the road, they would stop and help."...

He says he formed a SWAT team, arming it with surplus military rifles, a Humvee and an armored personnel carrier, before the local sheriff's office had such a unit...

Yates said he could "take my guys and the training they have, the equipment we have, and we could shut this town down" and "completely control everything."

How comforting.

Why cities love speed cameras

A set of speed cameras in a box in a four-lane tunnel in Washington D.C. has issued over 61,000 speeding tickets in the past seven months.

The revenue from speed cameras and red-light cameras has grown to become a noteworthy piece in the District’s $12.1 billion budget since the devices made their debut 14 years ago. Overall, they took in $84.9 million in fiscal 2012. Since the current fiscal year began Oct. 1, the 10 most-profitable speed cameras have issued $29.5 million in tickets...

So far this fiscal year, the camera inside a 5-foot-tall steel box on K Street is by far the most productive in the District. After its $8.1 million in revenue, a camera on southbound D.C. 295 ranks second with 33,495 tickets valued at $4.6 million.

What to watch for:

There are orange warning signs — “Photo Enforced” — hanging beneath the 25 mph signs on either end of the tunnel, but they are missed or ignored by an average of 305 drivers a day who receive speeding tickets in the mail. 

Pro and con arguments at the link.

"The political intelligence industry is flourishing, enriching itself and clients in the stock market"

Excerpts from The Blog of Legal Times:

A highly anticipated report published today by the investigative arm of Congress addresses the murky arena of "political intelligence" but leaves unanswered many questions about the size and power of the shadowy Washington information gathering industry.

The report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office targets the role of political intelligence in financial markets... The act defines political intelligence as information "derived by a person from direct communications with an executive branch employee, a Member of Congress, or an employee of Congress; and provided in exchange for financial compensation to a client who intends, and who is known to intend, to use the information to inform investment decisions."

Unlike federal lobbyists, political intelligence consultants aren't required to register with Congress and disclose their activities and income...

Wiley Rein of counsel Robert Walker, a former chief counsel and staff director of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives ethics committees, said the definition of political intelligence is "problematic" and "overly broad," making regulation difficult...

"The political intelligence industry is flourishing, enriching itself and clients in the stock market, yet the report notes that it could not document who these people are or how much they profit," he said. "Without full transparency of the activity of these political intelligence consultants and their clients, it is nearly impossible to know if they are trading on illegal insider information."

Via Boing Boing.  It seems appropriate to close with a link to George Carlin's famous rant - "It's a big club, and you ain't in it."  If you've not heard it before, it may be worth three minutes of your time.

Support for marijuana reaches a new high

For the first time in more than four decades of polling on the issue, a majority of Americans favor legalizing the use of marijuana. A national survey finds that 52% say that the use of marijuana should be made legal while 45% say it should not. Support for legalizing marijuana has risen 11 points since 2010...

Fully 65% of Millennials –born since 1980 and now between 18 and 32 – favor legalizing the use of marijuana, up from just 36% in 2008. Yet there also has been a striking change in long-term attitudes among older generations, particularly Baby Boomers. Half (50%) of Boomers now favor legalizing marijuana, among the highest percentages ever...

The survey finds that an increasing percentage of Americans say they have tried marijuana. Overall, 48% say they have ever tried marijuana, up from 38% a decade ago. Roughly half in all age groups, except for those 65 and older, say they have tried marijuana...

As support for marijuana legalization has grown, there has been a decline in the percentage viewing it as a “gateway drug.” Currently, just 38% agree that “for most people the use of marijuana leads to the use of hard drugs.” In 1977, 60% said its use led to the use of hard drugs...

Text and graph from the Pew Research Center, where there is a lot more analysis and breakdown of the numbers, via The Dish.

Addendum:

All police have arrest quotas and often they can earn much-desired overtime pay by making a marijuana arrest toward the end of a shift. In New York City, arresting people for petty offenses for overtime pay is called “collars for dollars.” Every cop in the city knows that expression. From the officers’ point of view, people possessing marijuana are highly desirable arrestees. As one veteran lieutenant said, people whose only crime is marijuana possession are “clean,” meaning physically clean. Unlike junkies or winos, people arrested for marijuana don’t have HIV, hepatitis, or even body lice. They are unlikely to throw up on the officer or in the police car or van. Frequently they are on the way to a party or a date, and if they have smoked a little, they may be relaxed and amiable.

Constable staffs

This staff was purchased by Frederick Horniman at the end of the 19th century from another collector, J. Newton Moss. When they were first displayed, one of these staffs was believed to have been used during riots realting to Fenians or Chartists during the nineteenth century.

Constable staffs were used by a variety of police forces, including constables for large cities, parish communities, universities, railway police, prison guards, or dockyard companies. This staff (0.25) is from 1830-1837, and is decorated with the cipher 'WRIV', for William IV.

Staffs, or truncheons, were used by the police force for practical and ceremonial purposes. They were both a weapon and a badge of office. Constables did not begin wearing uniforms until 1829 or carrying warrant cards until the 1880s; before this time, the staff indicated the constable was acting under the authority of the crown by displaying the royal crown and cipher on the staff. The crown and cipher were standardised on constable staffs under William IV, but additional decoration could be added. Staffs might also have displayed the royal coat-of-arms, the coat-of-arms of the local town or village, and the owner’s initials. The main manufacturer of police staffs was Hiatt and Co. of Birmingham, but staffs were usually produced locally for small towns or parishes. Because the quantity of decoration was based on personal preference, constable staffs are often one-of-a-kind.

Image and text from the Horniman Museum, where there's lots of cool stuff.

A question that has not been answered

Appearing at a Senate Banking Committee hearing Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) grilled officials from the Treasury Department over why criminal charges were not filed against officials at HSBC who helped launder hundreds of millions of dollars for drug cartels.

The HSBC scandal resulted in the Department of Justice and Treasury announcing a record $1.92 billion fine after finding that the international bank repeatedly helped the world’s most violent drug gangs move at least $881 million in ill-gotten gains through numerous countries the U.S. has economic sanctions against.

“HSBC paid a fine, but no one individual went to trial, no individual was banned from banking, and there was no hearing to consider shutting down HSBC’s activities here in the United States,” Warren said. “So, what I’d like is, you’re the experts on money laundering. I’d like an opinion: What does it take — how many billions do you have to launder for drug lords and how many economic sanctions do you have to violate — before someone will consider shutting down a financial institution like this?”..

Warren reiterated her question and still got nowhere. “We at the Treasury Department… don’t have the authority to shut down a financial institution,” Cohen said...

“You know, if you’re caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you’re going to go to jail,” Warren said. “If it happens repeatedly, you may go to jail for the rest of your life. But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night, every single individual associated with this. I think that’s fundamentally wrong.”

Extended excerpt from The Raw Story.  Can any reader of this blog - Democrat or Republican - justify not sending any bankers to prison?

The "Constitution-free zone" of the United States

I first saw this map in 2008 at Wired. 

After 9/11, Congress gave the Department of Homeland Security the right to use some of its powers deeper within the country, and now DHS has set up at least 33 internal checkpoints where they stop people, question them and ask them to prove citizenship, according to the ACLU...

DHS spokesman Jason Ciliberti says the ACLU’s description of the zone as "Constitution-Free" couldn’t be further from the truth and that the check points follow rules set by Supreme Court rulings. "We don’t have the ability to just set up checkpoints willy-nilly," Ciliberti said. "The Supreme Court has determined that brief investigative encontuers do not constitute a search or seizure."

When citizens or visa holders encounter a checkpoint, most are waived on after showing identification, but if an agent suspects the person is not lawfully in the country, the agent can detain the person until the agent’s investigation is satisfied. The government has long had the power to set up such check points, but has recently expanded the number of permanent and ‘tactical’ check points and deployed them in areas they hadn’t before — such as near the Canadian border. 

It was posted again this week at Computerworld, so apparently not much has changed in the past five years.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have a “longstanding constitutional and statutory authority permitting suspicionless and warrantless searches of merchandise at the border and its functional equivalent.” This applies to electronic devices, according to the recent CLCR “Border Searches of Electronic Devices” executive summary:

Fourth Amendment
The overall authority to conduct border searches without suspicion or warrant is clear and longstanding, and courts have not treated searches of electronic devices any differently than searches of other objects.  We conclude that CBP’s and ICE’s current border search policies comply with the Fourth Amendment.  We also conclude that imposing a requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefits.  However, we do think that recording more information about why searches are performed would help managers and leadership supervise the use of border search authority, and this is what we recommended; CBP has agreed and has implemented this change beginning in FY2012.

First Amendment
Some critics argue that a heightened level of suspicion should be required before officers search laptop computers in order to avoid chilling First Amendment rights.  However, we conclude that the laptop border searches allowed under the ICE and CBP Directives do not violate travelers’ First Amendment rights.

Here's what Congress actually does

"24% of all laws passed by the 110th Congress were for renaming post offices." From the Reddit discussion thread:

Creator of that chart here. Yes, it's true. If you don't believe me, check this page, it's a list of the first 150 Public Laws from the 110th Congress:

You'll notice that the phrase "post office" occurs 47 times out of 150 laws, and if you skim them you'll see that most are for renaming them. If the chart included renaming federal courthouses and other buildings, the numbers would be even higher.

I should note that I didn't mean this chart as a political statement - I don't think that Congress renaming lots of post offices, or passing relatively few laws, is per se bad or good (it depends what laws they're passing or not passing!). I just thought it was an interesting trend that made me wonder what was going on.

There may be any number of factors: partisan gridlock or Congressional fecklessness might be one, but there are also things like the fact that we have recently been involved in two wars that produced a lot of casualties and many of the post offices seem to have been named after Iraq/Afghanistan war dead.

And this:

[If you're surprised by this...] It's because you're unfamiliar with the activities of Congress (I don't mean that derogatorily, most people don't follow every little thing). There's a ton of little bills like this that get passed into law with very little fanfare. It's almost always by voice vote or unanimous consent. Rarely is there any debate though I recall one bill not actually coming up for vote because people found out the person involved had some sort of unsavory past (I forget the details).

In any case, 25% or so is pretty accurate for most recent Congresses. You're not going to see much variation by who's controlling things. They also name the occasional federal court house and other random things. No one else can do it so you'll see batches of these bills pass into law in groups of five to ten at a time.

You'll also find a lot of bills that are for mundane things like land parcel exchange with cities, extending expiration dates on small pieces of legislation, and technical corrections to existing law. I'd say actually the vast majority of bills signed into law are less than 5 pages in length and don't get much in the way of press.

What you don't see anymore that used to be extremely prevalent are Private Laws. There was a single one in 112th Congress for example. If you go look back in the 1960s and earlier there were hundreds that were passed.

More at the Reddit thread.

"Too big to prosecute"

Remember "too big to fail."  Here's what comes next...

Over the last year, federal investigators found that one of the world's largest banks, HSBC, spent years committing serious crimes, involving money laundering for terrorists; "facilitat[ing] money laundering by Mexican drug cartels"; and "mov[ing] tainted money for Saudi banks tied to terrorist groups". Those investigations uncovered substantial evidence "that senior bank officials were complicit in the illegal activity." As but one example, "an HSBC executive at one point argued that the bank should continue working with the Saudi Al Rajhi bank, which has supported Al Qaeda."

Needless to say, these are the kinds of crimes for which ordinary and powerless people are prosecuted and imprisoned with the greatest aggression possible. If you're Muslim and your conduct gets anywhere near helping a terrorist group, even by accident, you're going to prison for a long, long time. In fact, powerless, obscure, low-level employees are routinely sentenced to long prison terms for engaging in relatively petty money laundering schemes, unrelated to terrorism, and on a scale that is a tiny fraction of what HSBC and its senior officials are alleged to have done.

But not HSBC. On Tuesday, not only did the US Justice Department announce that HSBC would not be criminally prosecuted, but outright claimed that the reason is that they are too important, too instrumental to subject them to such disruptions. In other words, shielding them from the system of criminal sanction to which the rest of us are subject is not for their good, but for our common good. We should not be angry, but grateful, for the extraordinary gift bestowed on the global banking giant:

"US authorities defended their decision not to prosecute HSBC for accepting the tainted money of rogue states and drug lords on Tuesday, insisting that a $1.9bn fine for a litany of offences was preferable to the 'collateral consequences' of taking the bank to court. . . .

"Announcing the record fine at a press conference in New York, assistant attorney general Lanny Breuer said that despite HSBC"s 'blatant failure' to implement anti-money laundering controls and its wilful flouting of US sanctions, the consequences of a criminal prosecution would have been dire.

"Had the US authorities decided to press criminal charges, HSBC would almost certainly have lost its banking licence in the US, the future of the institution would have been under threat and the entire banking system would have been destabilised...

There's more at The Guardian, where it is noted that the financial penalty "represents about four weeks' earnings given the bank's pre-tax profits of $21.9bn last year."

Would anyone care to offer a defense of the Obama administration's Justice Department action here?

Via Reddit.

A question about Prohibition

I was reading a Slate article (The Chemist's War:The little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition with deadly consequences) and encountered this sentence -

The saga began with ratification of the 18th Amendment, which banned the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages in the United States.

- and noticed that the 18th Amendment did not ban the consumption of alcohol.  This was confirmed at the Wikipedia page: "Prohibition was instituted with ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on January 16, 1919, which prohibited the "...manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States..."

Now I'm wondering why, in so many movies, scenes depicting raids on speakeasys show the patrons fleeing the establishment? (I think The Cotton Club had a scene like that).  If patrons were not doing anything illegal in consuming alcohol, why do they jump out windows and escape through back doors to the alley?  

Testing the "Castle Doctrine"

YouTube link. 

A brief summary of the case from the StarTribune:

A Little Falls-area man has been arrested in connection with the Thanksgiving Day killings of two teenagers after their bodies were discovered in his basement, the Morrison County Sheriff's Office said...

Neighbor John Lange said that Smith's home had been burglarized at least twice before by area teens and that he might have "snapped" this time when he heard intruders enter a bedroom window. The shootings occurred in Smith's basement, Lange said.

Lange said Smith had worked in security and lived with his aging mother until she recently died. Smith volunteered as a Scout leader, paid area teens to work around his house, and allowed Lange's son to practice with his band in his garage, Lange added. "He's a really decent guy. I think he just snapped."

The embedded video, from the AP via the Los Angeles Times, presents the case as viewed by local law enforcement officials.  Wikipedia has a page on the "Castle Doctrine" -

A Castle Doctrine (also known as a Castle Law or a Defense of Habitation Law) is an American legal doctrine that designates a person's abode... as a place in which the person has certain protections and immunities and may in certain circumstances use force, up to and including deadly force, to defend against an intruder without becoming liable to prosecution. Typically deadly force is considered justified, and a defense of justifiable homicide applicable, in cases "when the actor reasonably fears imminent peril of death or serious bodily harm to himself or another"...

The term derives from the historic English common law dictum that "an Englishman's home is his castle". This concept was established as English law by 17th century jurist Sir Edward Coke, in his The Institutes of the Laws of England, 1628. The dictum was carried by colonists to the New World, who later removed "English" from the phrase, making it "a man's home is his castle", which thereby became simply the Castle Doctrine...

Why a husband and wife chose euthanasia

Excerpts from a poignant essay at the Washington Post:

I was living in comfortable retirement with my wife, Mathilde, when, at the age of 71, she received a diagnosis of Waldenstrom’s disease... Then, after seven years, the cancer suddenly turned aggressive and the treatment no longer worked...

But we live in the Netherlands, and here is where our story becomes a little different. When people become as ill as my wife, with no prospect of cure and only pain and exhaustion in the offing, it is quite legal to end one’s life by voluntary euthanasia... We made sure all the doctors who joined our village medical practice knew our wishes, and we always asked whether they would administer euthanasia. As an added precaution, Mathilde continued to carry a thick wad of forms and declarations in her handbag wherever she went, in case of an accident...

All the doctors agreed to our request. They were from a younger generation; it is older doctors, mainly, who are reluctant to administer euthanasia. A few refuse on grounds of principle, others because they just do not wish to become involved. But more than 80 percent of all Dutch family doctors, according to a recent large study, report that they have performed euthanasia at least once, and among the willing doctors the average rate is once every two or three years...

Euthanasia is by now widely accepted here. It is supported by the vast majority of the population, of the medical profession and of the political parties. The costs for it are borne by our compulsory health insurance, and suicide clauses voiding life insurance policies have been set aside. Still, it is an onerous task for the attending physician, and it also demands paperwork and careful planning. Demands for euthanasia are not made lightly and are more often denied than granted, largely because of insufficient forethought...

The law lists four major conditions for euthanasia. It must be administered by a doctor; the patient must earnestly desire it, a resolve taken after due deliberation, and freely; there must be no prospect of recovery and, in the words of the law, the patient must be suffering unbearably. The attending physician must confirm that these conditions are met and write a report to this effect...

To the nurse she said, “I am ready” and to me, “I am not afraid.” I sat on one side of the bed and took her hand, and the doctor, at the other side, gave her the first injection. She immediately fell asleep, snoring loudly. The doctor gave her a second injection, and the snoring stopped. She had died. It was all over in a couple of minutes...

If you wish to comment, please first view the blog post below this one...

Minimum-security Federal prisons

"...the most interesting part to me was hearing Conte talk about his four-month prison sentence at the Taft Correctional Institution (near Bakersfield, CA). It's a privately-run minimum security federal prison with 1,700 inmates, and Conte's account of the goings on there is astounding:

Sports complex "The first morning, when I woke up it was a kind of university-campus like setting. I walked out and in the middle of the courtyard was a huge sign that said 'Sports Complex.' Basketball, football, baseball, soccer, bocce ball, volleyball, handball...

Rec center ... there were six pool tables, six foosball tables, six ping-pong tables."

Music department "... this huge music department... We have a routine on Friday nights and the bands play concerts outside.'"

Drugs This is my first 10 minutes -- I was on the compound I started walking with some guys around the walking track and I went [sniff] -- 'Are they smoking weed around here?' And they said, 'Yeah! You want some weed?'... But yeah, anything that you wanted -- alcohol -- any and every type was $25 for 8 ounces. They had meth, they had steroids, they had cocaine."

No fences "...That Christmas, about 25 guys just walked out on the freeway and they had their families pick them up and they left. So it's kind of an honor system."

Female prison guards as hookers "... they had several really nice-looking female correctional officers there... And they said 'Listen, you want some action?' I'm telling you the straight scoop. My understanding is on average they were making about $30,000 a month."

Further details (and a video of the interview), and a comment thread at BoingBoing.  This is the type of for-profit prison facility where white-collar criminals (bankers, lawyers, politicians) would be imprisoned.

District attorneys behaving badly

Some of them have been renting their name and official seal to debt-collecting companies, as explained in a NYT article:

The letters are sent by the thousands to people across the country who have written bad checks, threatening them with jail if they do not pay up.

They bear the seal and signature of the local district attorney’s office. But there is a catch: the letters are from debt-collection companies, which the prosecutors allow to use their letterhead. In return, the companies try to collect not only the unpaid check, but also high fees from debtors for a class on budgeting and financial responsibility, some of which goes back to the district attorneys’ offices...

Debt collectors have come under fire for illegally menacing people behind on their bills with threats of jail. What makes this approach unusual is that the ultimatum comes with the imprimatur of law enforcement itself — though it is made before any prosecutor has determined a crime has been committed...

Prosecutors say that the partnerships allow them to focus on more serious crimes, and that the letters are sent only to check writers who ignore merchants’ demands for payment. The district attorneys receive a payment from the firms or a small part of the fees collected...

Even after Ms. Yartz paid $100.05 in February to cover the bounced check, the returned item fee and an administration fee, she got a letter signed by the Alameda district attorney informing her that her remaining balance was $180 for the class. After consulting with a lawyer, she decided to take her chances rather than pay for a class she could not afford, to avoid being punished for a crime she said she did not commit. Ms. Yartz also questioned the need for a class on budgeting and financial accountability: “If I meant to bounce this check like a criminal, why do I need a class on budgeting?” 

More details at the link, via BoingBoing.

Death of a Guantanamo prisoner

Excerpts from a report at Salon:

Adnan Latif was found dead in his cell on September 10, 2012, just a day before the eleventh anniversary of 9/11. He was 32. Latif, a Yemeni citizen, had been detained at Guantanamo Bay for over a decade, despite a 2010 court ruling that ordered the Obama administration to “take all necessary and appropriate diplomatic steps to facilitate Latif’s release forthwith,” due to lack of evidence that he had committed any crime...

A car accident in 1994 left Latif with a head injury, which he was attempting to get treated in Afghanistan when he was captured near the border by Pakistani authorities. In January, 2002, he was sent to Guantanamo, with the unfortunate distinction of being one of the first detainees. According to the ACLU, Latif was cleared to be released in 2004, 2007, 2009, and again in 2010 by US District Court Judge Henry Kennedy. The Obama DOJ appealed the 2010 decision, in part because of a policy of not transferring detainees to Yemen, and so Latif remained in custody – not because of what he had done (which was nothing), but because of where he was born. The decision to appeal his release wasn’t a holdover from the Bush era. That was an affirmative decision made by the Obama administration, and any supporters who hoped Obama would close Guantanamo Bay should understand that fact.

And these observations from a column in The Guardian:

He is the ninth person to die at the camp since it was opened more than ten years ago. As former Gitmo guard Brandon Neely pointed out Monday, more detainees have died at the camp (nine) than have been convicted of wrongdoing by its military commissions (six)...

...  a camp spokesman acknowledged that he "had not been charged and had not been designated for prosecution". In other words, he has been kept by the US government in a cage for many years without any opportunity to contest the accusations against him, and had no hope of leaving the camp except by death...

Put another way, even if Congress had given Obama everything he wanted, the system that means that death is the only way out for many detainees would have been fully preserved. The excuse-making for Obama – "oh, he tried to close the camp but Congress would not let him" – is simply a deceitful tactic Democrats have concocted to justify their total silence about a grave injustice they once pretended to find so appalling and their raucous swooning for a president who supports it.

Last week I had a long conversation, with a friend I've known since childhood, about indefinite detention without trial of Guantanamo prisoners.  I told him I found the practice outrageous and reprehensible.  His reply was that the situation is different when you're dealing with terrorists rather than ordinary criminals, and that bringing these men to trial might reveal and jeopardize the sources of information that led to their apprehension, thereby endangering our country's security. 

I remain unconvinced.  In my view indefinite confinement without trial is equivalent to a nonjudicial declaration of guilt, and is a violation of basic human rights that apply as much to a terrorist as to any other human being.  If some reader here can give me a well-reasoned justification for the actions of the Obama administration, I'd appreciate it.

"Smile, darn you, smile"

Mark Worsfold, 54, a former soldier and martial arts instructor, was arrested on 28 July for a breach of the peace shortly before the cyclists arrived in Redhouse Park, Leatherhead, where he had sat down on a wall to watch the race. Officers from Surrey police restrained and handcuffed him and took him to Reigate police station, saying his behaviour had "caused concern".

"The man was positioned close to a small group of protesters and based on his manner, his state of dress and his proximity to the course, officers made an arrest to prevent a possible breach of the peace," Surrey police said in a statement.

Worsfold, whose experience was first reported by Private Eye, claims police questioned him about his demeanour and why he had not been seen to be visibly enjoying the event. Worsfold, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2010, suffers from muscle rigidity that affects his face. He was released after two hours without charge or caution.

"It could have been done better. I was arrested for not smiling. I have Parkinson's," he said, adding that he realised the officers were working long hours and trying to control the event properly, but they had not, in his case, acted correctly.

Further details at The Guardian.

Marijuana use graphed by age cohort

According to the government's National Survey on Drug Use and Health, majorities of every age group below 60 (with one anomalous exception) tell surveyors they have smoked pot sometime in their lives. Given that the surveys ask people to admit to illegal behavior, it's almost certain that the actual numbers are higher, though just how much higher we can't tell. While there are surely some people who have smoked pot but believe fervently that it should be illegal, the fact that half the electorate got high and survived suggests an ample constituency for legalization efforts.

My cohort is that last one on the right, and we are rapidly dying off.  Ironically we "came of age" in the 1960s and considered ourselves on the cutting edge of a new trend.  What I find most interesting about the graph above is not the "lifetime use" in red, but the decline in "past year" consumption with age.  As noted in the text, the numbers may not be precise, but it is likely the trend is true.  Why the falloff?  Lack of access? Health concerns?  Loss of interest?  Concerns about job and family interactions?  Interesting.

Text and graph from an article in The American Prospect, which also offers this graph/text:

This November, voters in Washington, Oregon, and Colorado have the chance to do something radical: legalize marijuana for recreational use. In all three states, activists secured enough petition signatures to place initiatives on the ballot to essentially treat cannabis like alcohol, regulating its distribution and taxing it...

One poll shows the Washington initiative passing by a 13-point margin, while a poll in Colorado predicts an even bigger margin in favor. These polls should be read skeptically, but they suggest the strong possibility that at least one of these initiatives could succeed.

If that happens, it will raise a whole slew of questions for the country about personal liberty, the costs of the drug war, and the relationship between the federal government and the states. But the momentum is clearly with those who would undo some of our nation's restrictions on marijuana...

Let's say one of the marijuana initiatives wins at the ballot box in November. What happens then? This is where things get complicated. No matter what a state decides, marijuana is still illegal under federal law. While Barack Obama's Justice Department said in its first year that it wouldn't go around arresting people who were complying with their state's marijuana laws, he turned out to be nearly as much of a drug warrior as any of his predecessors. Obama has never advocated removing marijuana from Schedule 1, the classification that puts it alongside heroin and cocaine as drugs that "have a high potential for abuse" and "no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States."..

The only thing that would make things less complicated would be legalization, or at least decriminalization, on a national level. Despite the clear direction of public opinion, that seems a long way away.

Via The Dish.

An illegal front-yard kitchen garden

Illegal because of the town code of Drummondville, Quebec.   Found at Rogerdoiron, via BoingBoing.