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From Mexico, Drug Violence Spills Into U.S. Javier Emilio Pérez Ortega, a workaholic Mexican police chief, showed up at the sleepy, two-lane border crossing here last month and asked U.S. authorities for political asylum. Behind him, law and order was vanishing fast. In the four months he had served as Puerto Palomas police chief, drug traffickers had threatened to kill him and his officers if they tried to block the flow of cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamines into the United States, his former colleagues said on condition of anonymity. After a particularly menacing telephone call, his 10-man force resigned en masse. His bodyguards quit, too. Abandoned by his men and unable to trust the notoriously corrupt Mexican authorities, Pérez Ortega turned to the only place he believed he could find refuge -- the United States, the former colleagues said. As President Bush meets this week with Mexican President Felipe Calderón in New Orleans, the repercussions of Mexico's battle with drug cartels are increasingly gushing into the United States, giving rise to thorny new problems for Mexican and U.S. officials, as well as the millions of people who live along the border. A U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed in January while chasing suspected traffickers fleeing back to Mexico, AK-47 bullets have been found a half-mile inside U.S. territory after shootouts in Mexican border towns, and wounded Mexican police have been taken to the United States for treatment at heavily guarded hospitals....
Catching smugglers - on way to Mexico Thousands of border agents, dozens of checkpoints and hundreds of miles of barriers are set up to stop contraband and illegal immigrants getting into the United States. But little more than a chance roadside inspection stops smugglers going the other way. That imbalance shows no sign of changing soon, but it has given rise to a novel experiment under way in Pima County. There, the Sheriff's Department has set up an 11-member unit to disrupt southbound smugglers and bandits who steal drugs and hijack people coming north. The sheriff's Border Crimes Unit, established a year ago, added a second full-time squad in December. "For every load that comes north, something goes south to fund that activity," said Lt. Jeff Palmer, who is in charge of the team. "For as much as we are catching, there is tenfold getting through. It's a war zone." There is a growing recognition among Arizona criminal investigators that choking off southbound guns and cash can effectively disrupt Mexican drug- and human-smuggling cartels. The logic goes like this: Seize a ton of marijuana, and cartels grow another crop. Arrest an illegal immigrant, and he'll try again. But if investigators stop the southbound smugglers, they can seize the profits that make smuggling worthwhile and the guns used to protect the profits.Investigators estimate that thousands of firearms and hundreds of millions of dollars are smuggled from Arizona to Mexican cartels every year....
Border fence may not meet end of year completion date At a cost of up to $4 million a mile, the concrete and steel fence rising along the Southwest border constitutes one of the most ambitious public works projects in years, encompassing legions of federal bureaucrats and a lineup of blue-ribbon contractors. But as it slices through forbidding terrain, tribal lands, private property and sensitive wildlife habitats, the barrier faces its own towering wall of challenges, raising doubt that the projected 670 miles of pedestrian fences and vehicle barriers will be in place when the Bush administration comes to an end in January. Facing a deadline of Dec. 31, the Department of Homeland Security was over halfway to its goal as of April 25, with just under 300 miles awaiting construction. A companion element to the physical barriers — a so-called virtual wall of radars, cameras and sensors — faces uncertainty after developing worrisome technical problems in a test project. For the remaining phase, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing construction from its offices in Fort Worth, Texas, has selected just over two dozen contractors from an initial round of bidding. The contractors have been divided into smaller bidding pools — with three or four in each pool — to compete for task orders totaling $3.4 billion to build specific segments of the fence. By design, some of the contractors are minority owned or come from economically depressed areas....
Border Agents Can Search Laptops Without Cause, Appeals Court Rules Federal agents at the border do not need any reason to search through travelers' laptops, cell phones or digital cameras for evidence of crimes, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, extending the government's power to look through belongings like suitcases at the border to electronics. The unanimous three-judge decision reverses a lower court finding that digital devices were "an extension of our own memory" and thus too personal to allow the government to search them without cause. Instead, the earlier ruling said, Customs agents would need some reasonable and articulable suspicion a crime had occurred in order to search a traveler's laptop. On appeal, the government argued that was too high a standard, infringing upon its right to keep the country safe and enforce laws. Civil rights groups, joined by business traveler groups, weighed in, defending the lower court ruling. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the government, finding that the so-called border exception to the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches applied not just to suitcases and papers, but also to electronics....
Airlines Resist Plan to Expand Fingerprinting(subscription) The airline industry is readying for a protracted fight with the Department of Homeland Security over plans to collect fingerprints from foreign travelers leaving the U.S. The department wants air carriers and cruise operators to start taking biometric data from most foreign passengers starting early next year. The idea is to match the digital fingerprint and photograph visitors already give to officials when they arrive in the country as part of the US-VISIT program in order to better track when people enter and leave the country. The proposed change, which is designed to meet border-security recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission, would cost carriers about $2.7 billion over 10 years, said the department's assistant secretary for policy, Stewart Baker. He said most of the cost would come as a result of the extra time required for air and cruise staff to ask passengers to provide a fingerprint. Airline-industry groups said US-VISIT -- U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology -- is a federal responsibility and should be carried out and paid for by the government. The Air Transport Association described the proposal as an "unconscionable" burden on "an industry in crisis." Sending digital images of fingerprints would require an overhaul of airlines' computer systems, said Steve Lott, a spokesman for the International Air Transport Association. "To try to turn airline employees into border-protection agents makes no sense whatsoever," Mr. Lott said. Mr. Baker said the new requirements are an extension of the biographical information carriers already collect for the government, and that there are no plans to reimburse the costs or provide additional equipment....
States act to shield gun holders South Carolina last week became the latest in a growing number of states to make the names of people who have a license to carry a concealed weapon a state secret. Five other states might not be far behind in a battle that pits a public policy of open government against the right of people to keep their gun ownership records private. Bills that would make concealed gun permit records confidential have been introduced in eight other states this year — Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia — according to Janna Goodwin of the National Conference of State Legislatures. The Tennessee bill was defeated, in a House subcommittee vote earlier this month. West Virginia's bill was tabled, and Virginia's legislative session ended before a bill could be considered, Goodwin said. Action is pending in the five other states, she said. Concealed-weapon records always have been confidential in many states, said Colin Weaver, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Prior to South Carolina's action, the Brady Campaign counted 26 states where the records are confidential. The trend of states closing records intensified last year, partly in response to media outlets in Virginia, Florida and elsewhere posting those records online, said South Carolina state Rep. Michael Pitts, a Republican. "People think this one is absolutely a Second Amendment issue, but it's not," said Pitts, a former police officer who introduced his state's bill to close gun-permit records. "It's as much an issue of where does the sunshine on government stop and the protection on individual privacy begin."....
Court broadens police power in searches The Supreme Court affirmed yesterday that police have the power to conduct searches and seize evidence, even when done during an arrest that turns out to have violated state law. The unanimous decision comes in a case from Portsmouth, Va., where city detectives seized crack cocaine from a motorist after arresting him on a traffic-ticket offense. David Lee Moore was pulled over for driving on a suspended license. The violation is a minor crime in Virginia and calls for police to issue a court summons and let the driver go. Instead, city detectives arrested Moore and prosecutors said drugs taken from him in a subsequent search can be used against him as evidence. "We reaffirm against a novel challenge what we have signaled for half a century," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote. Justice Scalia said that when officers have probable cause to think a person has committed a crime in their presence, the Fourth Amendment permits them to make an arrest and to search the suspect in order to safeguard evidence and ensure their own safety. Moore was convicted on a drug charge and sentenced to 3½ years in prison. The Virginia Supreme Court ruled that police should have released Moore and could not lawfully conduct a search. The state's high court said state law restricted officers to issuing a ticket in exchange for a promise to appear later in court. Virginia courts dismissed the indictment against Moore. Moore argued that the Fourth Amendment permits a search only following a lawful state arrest....
The War on Terror Feeding Frenzy Nearly seven years after Sept. 11, 2001, what accounts for the vast discrepancy between the terrorist threat facing America and the scale of our response? Why, absent any evidence of a serious domestic terror threat, is the War on Terror so enormous, so all-encompassing, and still expanding? The fundamental answer is that al Qaeda’s most important accomplishment was not to hijack our planes, but to hijack our political system. For a multitude of politicians, interest groups, professional associations, corporations, media organizations, universities, local and state governments and federal agency officials, the War on Terror is now a major profit center, a funding bonanza, and a set of slogans and sound bites to be inserted into budget, project, grant and contract proposals. For the country as a whole, however, it has become a maelstrom of waste and worry that distracts us from more serious problems. Consider the congressional response. In mid-2003, the Department of Homeland Security compiled a list of 160 potential terrorist targets, triggering intense efforts by representatives, senators and their constituents to find potential targets in their districts that might require protection and therefore be eligible for federal funding. The result? Widened definitions and blurrier categories of potential targets and mushrooming increases in the infrastructure and assets deemed worthy of protection. By late 2003, the list had increased more than tenfold to 1,849; by 2004 it had grown to 28,364; by 2005 it mushroomed to 77,069; and by 2006 it was approximately 300,000. Across the country, hundreds of interest groups recast their traditional objectives and funding proposals to reflect the new imperatives of the new war. The National Rifle Association declared that the War on Terror means more Americans should own firearms to defend against terrorists. The gun control lobby argued that fighting the War on Terror means passing stricter gun control laws to keep assault weapons out of the hands of terrorists. Schools of veterinary medicine called for quadrupling funding to train veterinarians to defend the country against terrorists using foot-and-mouth disease to decimate cattle herds. Pharmacists advocated the creation of pharmaceutical SWAT teams to respond quickly with appropriate drugs to the victims of terrorist attacks. According to a 2005 report by the Small Business Administration (SBA) inspector general, 85 percent of the businesses granted low-interest SBA counterterrorism loans failed to establish their eligibility. The SBA authorized 7,000 loans worth more than $3 billion, including $22 million in loans to Dunkin’ Donuts franchises in nine states....
Prison Nation Americans, perhaps like all people, have a remarkable capacity for tuning out unpleasantries that do not directly affect them. I'm thinking here of wars on foreign lands, but also the astonishing fact that the United States has become the world's most jail-loving country, with well over 1 in 100 adults living as slaves in a prison. Building and managing prisons, and locking people up, have become major facets of government power in our time, and it is long past time for those who love liberty to start to care. Before we get to the reasons why, look at the facts as reported by the New York Times. The U.S. leads the world in prisoner production. There are 2.3 million people behind bars. China, with four times as many people, has 1.6 million in prison. In terms of population, the US has 751 people in prison for every 100,000, while the closest competitor in this regard is Russia with 627. I'm struck by this figure: 531 in Cuba. The median global rate is 125. What's amazing is that most of this imprisoning trend is recent, dating really from the 1980s, and most of the change is due to drug laws. From 1925 to 1975, the rate of imprisonment was stable at 110, lower than the international average, which is what you might expect in a country that purports to value freedom. But then it suddenly shot up in the 1980s. There were 30,000 people in jail for drugs in 1980, while today there are half a million....
Reconsidering Absolute Prosecutorial Immunity While certainly the vast majority of prosecutors are ethical lawyers engaged in vital public service, the undeniable fact is that many innocent people have been wrongly convicted of crimes as a result of prosecutorial misconduct.1 Prosecutors are rarely disciplined or criminally prosecuted for their misconduct,2 and the victims of this misconduct are generally denied any civil remedy because of prosecutorial immunities.3 In litigation under the major federal civil rights statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, two kinds of immunity apply to prosecutors: absolute immunity and qualified immunity. The immunity that applies depends on the function the prosecutor was performing at the time of the misconduct.4 When prosecutors act as advocates, absolute immunity applies.5 Under absolute immunity, prosecutors are immunized even when the plaintiff establishes that the prosecutor acted intentionally, in bad faith, and with malice.6 When prosecutors act as investigators or administrators, qualified immunity applies.7 Under qualified immunity, prosecutors are immunized unless the misconduct violated clearly established law of which a reasonable prosecutor would have known.8 This functional approach to prosecutorial immunity has created confusion and conflict in the lower courts.9 Together, these immunities deny civil remedies to innocent people who have been wrongly convicted of crimes as a result of prosecutorial misconduct....
A Crack in the Shield of Immunity for Prosecutors? I read in the LA Times that the United States Supreme Court will take up a case to decide if a former Los Angeles County District Attorney can be sued for his part in a man's wrongful conviction. The case involves former Marine Tom Goldstein who spent 24 years in prison on a murder conviction that was primarily based upon the testimony of a jailhouse snitch. The prosecution had no fingerprints, forensic evidence, or weapon. They did have the testimony of an informant who was a pro and who had a long history that should have been known by the defense at trial – but it was not known by the defense, since the prosecution did not disclose that information. If the defense had known details about the snitch they would have had the opportunity to show to the jury that this was testimony bought and paid for by the prosecution. However, management at the District Attorney's Office did not put any system in place to track informants. Also, identities of informants and any information on their records was protected information. So an innocent man spends 24 years in jail because of the record-keeping rules in the District Attorney's Office, in addition to the use of false testimony. "Goldstein said he was bitter about how he had been treated. He has always maintained his innocence and had been convicted on the basis of testimony from an unreliable jailhouse informant and an eyewitness who later recanted. In recent years, five federal judges all agreed that Goldstein's constitutional rights had been violated by the Los Angeles County district attorney's office." Many Americans are unaware that it is an undeniable fact that many innocent people have been wrongly convicted of crimes as a result of prosecutorial misconduct. In spite of the evidence of many instances of misconduct, prosecutors are very rarely disciplined for their misconduct. Even more rare is the prosecutor who is charged with a criminal count due to his misconduct in the handling of a case. Worse still, the victims of any misconduct are generally denied civil remedy because of prosecutorial immunity. In other words, the prosecutor may commit heinous abuses of one's civil rights and there is generally nothing anyone can do about it. Surprised? I was. The Supreme Court in 1976 ruled that "prosecutors, like judges, must be free to do their jobs without fear of being sued later" and that this rule of "absolute immunity" applies when a prosecutor "acts within the scope of his prosecutorial duties." This means that the prosecutor knows beforehand that almost no action that he takes in a case will result in civil or criminal punishment. This is an open invitation and temptation to act in the manner of a tyrant. History is full of examples of what happens when a powerful man is not held accountable for his actions....
Absolute Immunity Is Too Much Goldstein's case is unusual because he's suing John Van de Camp, the district attorney who oversaw the office that convicted him. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has allowed Goldstein's case to go forward, setting up the hearing in the U.S. Supreme Court. The suit stems from federal law 42 U.S.C. 1983, which states that "…[e]very person" who acts under color of state law to deprive another of a constitutional rights shall be answerable to that person in a suit for damages," and provides a means for those wronged by government officials to file suit in federal court. But there are exceptions to Section 1983 suits...In the case Imbler v. Pachtman 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court carved out a gaping exception for prosecutors. Prosecutors have what's known as "absolute immunity" from civil rights suits, provided they're acting in their capacity as prosecutors. Few people enjoy such protections in their own line of work. But this complete shield from accountability is especially problematic when we're talking about prosecutors. It's a job that's already plagued by incentive problems—unfortunately, we tend to measure a prosecutor's performance based on how many people he's able to throw in jail, not necessarily by how well he metes out justice. Rarely, for example, does a prosecutor get public recognition for the cases he doesn't take. So we have people in a position where they have the enormous power to take away someone's freedom, incentives nudging them to err on the side of prosecuting aggressively, and absolute immunity from lawsuits should they overstep their bounds. It's a recipe for disaster....
California Brewery Faces Federal Fines for Telling Consumers to 'Try Legal Weed' Vaune Dillmann thought the wording on his bottle caps was just a clever play on the name of the Northern California town where he brews his beer — Weed. Federal alcohol regulators thought differently. They have ordered Dillmann to stop selling beer bottles with caps that say "Try Legal Weed." While reviewing the proposed label for Dillmann's latest beer, Lemurian Lager, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau said the message on the caps he has been using for his five current beers amounts to a drug reference. In a letter explaining its decision, the agency, which regulates the brewing industry, said the wording could "mislead consumers about the characteristics of the alcoholic beverage." The town of 3,000, sitting beneath Mount Shasta about 230 miles north of the state capital, takes its name from Abner Weed, a timber baron who opened a lumber mill there in 1901 and eventually was elected to the state Senate. Dillmann, 61, started the Mount Shasta Brewing Co. in 2004. He said he has always used the town's name on his beers and named the company's first official brew Abner Weed's Pale Ale. His bottle labels follow a long tradition of exploiting the town's name. Even city officials do it. A sign posted on the way out of town reads, "Temporarily Out of Weed," while another says "100 Percent Pure Weed." Dillmann noted those examples in an appeal letter he sent to the alcohol bureau. Once, Dillmann said, his wife, a former teacher, was delayed on a field trip to San Francisco as tourists clamored to pose next to the school bus, which said "Weed High."....