Early in the morning of January 1, 2009, in a now infamous incident captured on video by dozens of cell phones and replayed across the globe, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed 23-year-old Oscar Grant as Grant lay on his stomach on an Oakland BART platform. Last week, a Los Angeles jury found Mehserle guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Because the jury had the option to convict Mehserle of second-degree murder, and perhaps because the jury contained no blacks (Mehserle is white, Grant was black), the verdict has enraged civil rights groups and sparked protests and rioting in Oakland. The Department of Justice is now looking into the possibility of trying Mehserle a second time under federal civil rights law.

The jury got it right.

via Justice for Johannes Mehserle – Reason Magazine.

Sergeant Mark Renninger
Officer Tina Griswold
Officer Ronald Owens
Officer Greg Richards

RIP.

When arson investigators in Houston needed help restoring a damaged surveillance tape to identify suspects in a fatal fire, they turned first to local experts and then to NASA. With no luck there, investigators appealed to the owner of one of the most advanced crime labs in the country: Target Corp.

Target experts fixed the tape and Houston authorities arrested their suspects, who were convicted. It was all in a day’s work for Target in its large and growing role as a high-tech partner to law enforcement agencies.

In the past few years, the retailer has taken a lead role in teaching government agencies how to fight crime by applying state-of-the-art technology used in its 1,400 stores. Target’s effort has touched local, state, federal and international agencies.

Besides running its forensics lab in Minneapolis, Target has helped coordinate national undercover investigations and worked with customs agencies on ways to make sure imported cargo is coming from reputable sources or hasn’t been tampered with. It has contributed money for prosecutor positions to combat repeat criminals, provided local police with remote-controlled video surveillance systems, and linked police and business radio systems to beef up neighborhood foot patrols in parts of several major cities. It has given management training to FBI and police leaders, and linked city, county and state databases to keep track of repeat offenders.

Do we have the Democrats’ pledge that under a Democratic administration, the government would not use radiation-detecting equipment to search for dirty bombs? If so, that should make it a lot easier for millions of Americans to cast their votes in the 2008 election.

Likewise, I’d like to hear the Democrats stand up and say that they’re also going to terminate the NSA intercept program. It will make it a hell of lot easier for the electorate to choose sides.

There is no mystery about the legality of the NSA intercept program. It is intended to capture foreign intelligence information, including information about potential terrorist threats, and as such, every federal court that has addressed the issue has held that it is within the inherent constitutional power of the President as Commander in Chief. Everything else is immaterial.

This brings us back where we started, i.e., the Constitution. The only constitutional limitation on the President’s power to intercept communications by Americans for national security purposes is that such intercepts be “reasonable.” Is it reasonable for the administration to do all it can to identify the people who are communicating with known terrorists overseas, via the terrorists’ cell phones and computers, and to learn what terrorist plots are being hatched by those persons? Is it reasonable to do so even when—rather, especially when–some portion of those communications come from people inside the United States? I don’t find it difficult to answer those questions; nor, if called upon to do so, would the Supreme Court.

There are, of course, liberal law professors who would like the law to be different from what it is. They are free to develop theories according to which the Supreme Court, should it someday address this issue directly, would rule as they wish. But the administration is entitled to rely on the law as it currently exists. And there is simply no question about the fact that under the Constitution and all controlling precedents, the NSA intercept program is legal.

John Schmidt, who was one of Clinton’s Associate Attorneys General, writes in the Chicago Tribune:

President Bush’s post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents.

The president authorized the NSA program in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. An identifiable group, Al Qaeda, was responsible and believed to be planning future attacks in the United States. Electronic surveillance of communications to or from those who might plausibly be members of or in contact with Al Qaeda was probably the only means of obtaining information about what its members were planning next. No one except the president and the few officials with access to the NSA program can know how valuable such surveillance has been in protecting the nation.

It will be interesting to see in the coming years how this plays out. My prediction is that a Court of Appeals, unless it’s the 9th Circuit, will rule in favor of the President. The Supreme Court will likely do the same – but much hinges as well on some other cases that will be heard before this as I believe they will establish precedent that may be applicable in this case in terms of the wartime powers of the President under Article II.

Undercover New York City police officers have conducted covert surveillance in the last 16 months of people protesting the Iraq war, bicycle riders taking part in mass rallies and even mourners at a street vigil for a cyclist killed in an accident, a series of videotapes show.

In glimpses and in glaring detail, the videotape images reveal the robust presence of disguised officers or others working with them at seven public gatherings since August 2004.

The officers hoist protest signs. They hold flowers with mourners. They ride in bicycle events. At the vigil for the cyclist, an officer in biking gear wore a button that said, “I am a shameless agitator.” She also carried a camera and videotaped the roughly 15 people present.

And while this may make some people uncomfortable, I ask.. so?

I do not want law enforcement interfering or attempting to steer the course of these events, which some allege in this article.

However, I have zero problem with them collecting intelligence information. Some of these groups are disruptive – and were disruptive during the political conventions in 2004 – in both Boston and New York. Shouldn’t the police be investigating to determine if there’s going to be a threat?

I have a new standard by which I’ll measure the success or failure of the current Administration: whether or not this scumbag is still breathing in January 2009. Chapomatic makes pretty much all the points I’d make about the Germans freeing Mohammed Ali Hamadi, murderer of SW2(DV) Robert Stethem, in what they’re claiming was not a “terrorist for hostage” deal.

As much as I’d like to see Hamadi dead, I guess I wouldn’t mind too much if he’s just captured and returned to the U.S. to face trial and subsequent execution. And if he’s captured overseas, and our European allies make a big stink about flying him through their airspace, I know just the warship that should carry him here.

Where’s that missile equipped Predator when you need it?

So essentially what the liberals are saying is that the US should not monitor calls from known terrorists abroad to previously unknown US co-conspirators under any circumstances. They are proposing in essence that only calls to terrorist co-conspirators who are well known and under surveillance already can be monitored. The idea that the US should put its fingers in its own ears and repeat, “I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you!” when terrorists communicate with their agents in the US is one of the most ridiculous and silly ideas that I have ever heard. Members of the Frogosphere already know that Democrats cannot be trusted with the security of the United States, but this highly political stance cannot be mistaken as anything other than the utterly irresponsible and laughably weak gesture that it is.

I am especially encouraged by the President’s rapid and forceful defense of this practice which has already compelled his leftist malefactors to take indefensible positions that they will undoubtedly regret at the ballot box. Timing the release of this story with the filibuster of the Patriot Act and the successful Iraqi elections demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that the MSM and the radical left are one single purpose entity focusing on any possible method of attacking the President and prematurely ending his term. When Democrats make the same argument against wiretaps targeting terrorists trying to kill millions of Americans with eavesdropping on civil rights leaders and anti-war activists in the 1960’s one shudders at the implications of that level of timidity and cowardice.

When I get a chance to read the 20+ articles I have tabbed here in Firefox about this, I’ll spout off some more…

A man wanted in the slaying of a Pennsylvania couple and the possible abduction of their 14-year-old daughter fled from Indiana state troopers at speeds in excess of 90 mph, running other cars off a two-lane highway before he crashed and was captured today, police said.

Fitzgerald, whom I had never seen speak in public before, gave a masterful everyman performance at the press conference he held announcing the indictment. Some tidbits:

At the end of the day what appears is that Mr. Libby’s story that he was at the tail end of a chain of phone calls, passing on from one reporter what he heard from another, was not true.

It was false. He was at the beginning of the chain of phone calls, the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter. And then he lied about it afterwards, under oath and repeatedly.

Now, as I said before, this grand jury investigation has been conducted in secret. I believe it should have been conducted in secret, not only because it’s required by those rules, but because the rules are wise. Those rules protect all of us.

We are now going from a grand jury investigation to an indictment, a public charge and a public trial. The rules will be different.

But I think what we see here today, when a vice president’s chief of staff is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice, it does show the world that this is a country that takes its law seriously; that all citizens are bound by the law.

But what we need to also show the world is that we can also apply the same safeguards to all our citizens, including high officials. Much as they must be bound by the law, they must follow the same rules.

So I ask everyone involved in this process, anyone who participates in this trial, anyone who covers this trial, anyone sitting home watching these proceedings to follow this process with an American appreciation for our values and our dignity.

Let’s let the process take place. Let’s take a deep breath and let justice process the system.

[...]

I also want to take away from the notion that somehow we should take an obstruction charge less seriously than a leak charge.

This is a very serious matter and compromising national security information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime.

I will say this: Mr. Libby is presumed innocent. He would not be guilty unless and until a jury of 12 people came back and returned a verdict saying so.

But if what we allege in the indictment is true, then what is charged is a very, very serious crime that will vindicate the public interest in finding out what happened here.

As someone who appreciates a strong prosecutor who will investigate and do what it takes to seek justice, I have a huge appreciation for men like Fitzgerald who has stopped at nothing to get to the bottom of this case. I respect him even more having watched his press conference.

As for Libby, well, why you would lie to the FBI and the Grand Jury is completely beyond my scope of understanding. It doesn’t look like any underlying offense is going to be charged here – so had he told the truth he would have probably walked away from this without an issues. Instead he’s looking at thirty years in federal prison if he is convicted. Idiot.

Where are your ethics?

There’s also been alot of mud thrown in the general direction of Fitzgerald from many criticizing his subpoenas issued to reporters in this case. I think Fitzgerald is entirely on-point with his response to that question from the press conference:

QUESTION: In the end, was it worth keeping Judy Miller in jail for 85 days in this case? And can you say how important her testimony was in producing this indictment?

FITZGERALD: Let me just say this: No one wanted to have a dispute with the New York Times or anyone else. We can’t talk generally about witnesses. There’s much said in the public record.

FITZGERALD: I would have wished nothing better that, when the subpoenas were issued in August 2004, witnesses testified then, and we would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005. No one would have went to jail.

I didn’t have a vested interest in litigating it. I was not looking for a First Amendment showdown. I also have to say my job was to find out what happened here, make reasoned judgments about what testimony was necessary, and then pursue it.

And we couldn’t walk away from that. I could have not have told you a year ago that we think that there may be evidence that a crime is being committed here of obstruction, that there may be a crime behind it and we’re just going to walk away from it.

Our job was to find the information responsibly.

We then, when we issued the subpoenas, we thought long and hard before we did that. And I can tell you, there’s a lot of reporters whose reporting and contacts have touched upon this case that we never even talked to.

We didn’t bluff people. And what we decided to do was to make sure before we subpoenaed any reporter that we really needed that testimony.

[...]

At the end of the day, I don’t know how you could ever resolve this case, to walk into you a year ago and say, “You know what? Forget the reporters; we have someone telling us that they told Mr. Cooper and Ms. Miller that they didn’t know if this information were true, they just heard it from other reporters, they didn’t even know if he had a wife,” and charge a person with perjury only to find out that’s what happened, that would be reckless.

On the other hand, if we walked away and said, “Well, there are indications that, in fact, this is not how the conversation would happen, there are indications that there might be perjury or obstruction of justice here,” but I were to fold up my tent and go home, that would not fulfill our mandate.

I tell you, I will say this: I do not think that a reporter should be subpoenaed anything close to routinely. It should be an extraordinary case.

But if you’re dealing with a crime and what’s different here is the transaction is between a person and a reporter, they’re the eyewitness to the crime; if you walk away from that and don’t talk to the eyewitness, you are doing a reckless job of either charging someone with a crime that may not turn out to have been committed — and that frightens me, because there are things that you can learn from a reporter that would show you the crime wasn’t committed.

What if, in fact, the allegations turned out to be true that he said, “Hey, I sourced it to other reporters, I don’t know if it’s true”?

So I think the only way you can do an investigation like this is to hear from all the witnesses.

I wish Ms. Miller spent not a second in jail. I wish we didn’t have to spend time arguing very, very important issues and just got down to the brass tacks and made the call of where we were. But I think it had to be done.

I wouldn’t want to have had to subpoena a reporter into court and deal with the 1st Amendment ramifications of doing so — but if they were a key witness to a crime, aren’t they obligated to do so? I think so. And the courts held so in this case repeatedly.

I’m not a fan of a reporter’s shield law for cases like this either. Believe me, I understand the role of the press and want them to have those freedoms – but when there’s a crime committed, there’s a higher cause to be considered here….

In terms of aftermath of this indictment, there’s much in the mainstream media this weekend about the White House in turmoil and so on. While waiting on the press conference on Friday, I saw a couple liberal columnists on CNN talking about how this was similar to the investigation of Bill Clinton that led to his impeachment in the 1990′s.

And I laughed.

I’m sorry, but even though Libby was a key aide to the VP and the President, this is nowhere near the same as the President of the United States getting blown by a intern in the White House.. then lying about it.. then misleading (or “lying”, pick your poison) to the grand jury.. then lying to your staff (including the cabinet) and having them go out and defend you against these allegations.. and on and on…

I believe that in the end, justice will be done in this case. Libby will be convicted.