that cia guy in algeria

The story about the allegations than Andrew Warren, apparently the top CIA dude in Algeria, raped two Algerian women (that we know of) after giving them knock-out drugs in drinks at his house, is pretty bad. Raping women in the country you are representing the US in is not very good form. Wonder what the Feds will do with him, if the allegations are true?

Oh, and another thing: apparently per ABC, "the women's accounts were backed up by videotapes that were found in the CIA officer's residence. The tapes, apparently secretly made, allegedly show the CIA officer engaged in sex acts with several women, including one of the alleged victims in the case who appears to be in a semiconscious state, the network reported."

I thought the CIA used videotape to record OTHER PEOPLE doing bad things that they could blackmail them over to make them give secrets to the US. Isn't taping YOURSELF doing something illegal kind of getting this backward?

preventing crime, solving crime, experiencing crime

Preventing Crime

The worst thing about the sad story of Juan Fernando Gomez, who apparently has the misfortune of sharing a name with somebody who is on the US government's watch list and is ALWAYS pulled over at airports when he arrives in the US, is his concluding paragraph:

I heard rumors that the Terrorist Screening Center watch list would hit 1 million people by the end of 2008, but the TSA Web site states that the real number is actually closer to 400,000 and that there are fewer than 16,000 people on the "selectee" and "no-fly" lists used by the TSA. The site also asks, "Got Feedback?" Well, I have plenty of feedback, but I'm a little scared of the consequences of saying what I really feel.

It is bad that a guy like Gomez is afraid to give feedback. Watch lists are a sad but probably necessary part of modern life in the US. But first, the Feds have to get smarter about how they make and use the lists - we've all heard the stories about Senator Ted Kennedy being stopped frequently (must share a name with an Irish Republican Army member), or about four-year-old kids with common Arabic names being pulled aside for a closer look. That's bad. It's bad that the government won't even tell people why they are being given the extra scrutiny, though most of us can guess. But to be so intimidating and inflexible that a guy like Gomez - who is an international consultant working on Afghanistan and Pakistan - is afraid to give feedback is really stupid.

Solving Crime

Or not. They're getting away with murder. I don't mean the de facto Bush Administration, I mean actually murderers. Over 40% of cases in urban areas aren't being solved. Not reassuring.

Experiencing Crime

But this is one crime that will be solved easily. James Spruill and his family were seized at gunpoint, then forced into a car to go rob a bank. Spruill kept his cool, noticed a police car, swerved and got the cop's attention, and when the cop (with the excellent name of Barrington Cameron) walked up to the car, Spruill grabbed the gunman. That takes nerve!

irony in mexico

The lede to this unfortunate story is a perfect example of irony:

An American anti-kidnapping negotiator, whose company says he has resolved almost 100 kidnapping cases in Latin America, was abducted by gunmen last week -- while meeting with Mexican business executives and their bodyguards to discuss ways to thwart such crimes.

Joking aside, kidnapping has become rife in Mexico. It's a serious problem. Good luck to Felix Batista.

blagojevich - venal, and not unique

I'm feeling contrary. Let's have a slightly different look at the sins of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. He hasn't killed anybody, after all, or sold weapons to Iran, or tortured somebody. He hasn't sent anybody off to war on trumped up intelligence. He hasn't driven drunk or boffed a high-priced prostitute, or gone into a bathroom stall with a wide stance.

Yes, he is venal and definitely out for the main chance, seeking to enrich himself by using his power to give people something they want - in this one particular case, by appointing somebody to succeed Barack Obama in the Senate.

Yes, it appears Blagovjevich wanted something in return, and wasn't satisfied with "appreciation" alone. Governor Rod was talking about getting a good job for him and/or for his wife. He was talking about using the Senate seat as a springboard to his own laughably far-reaching ambition of maybe running for President in 2016.

He said he wanted to make money.

Wow. He sounds like a politician. How many members of Congress have gotten cushy jobs for THEIR wives and children and brothers and sisters? How many governors have made appointments to positions knowing they would get some sort of benefit, whether in the form of a campaign contributions, political support, or promises of future considerations? How many politicians have had foundations or PACs generously funded by well-wishers, some of which may have had business with the state or Congress?

Scandal-ridden Ohio Republican Congressman Bob Ney was even convinced finally to quit Congress rather than to run for re-election when his fellow Republicans convinced him that to stay in and lose a race would hurt his chances of lining up a big fat cushy well-paid influence peddling job on K Street.

Hell, George W. Bush was raising cash for his lavish de facto presidential library ages ago, while still de facto President. Sorry, not all of those donations were merely gestures of appreciation for his peerless leadership. There may have been self-interest at play. If he were still alove, Ken Lay would give him a ton of money I'm sure. Shocking!

I'm not defending Blagojevich (nor am I crying for him - he's a jerk and probably not the brightest bulb in the marquee). Selling appointments to state boards, explicitly awarding contracts in return for campaing contributions, etc - that's all generally illegal. Selling a US Senate seat for cash (if that's precisely what he meant...) is wrong, too. But really, his biggest misfortune is to be in the jurisdiction of US Attorney General Patrick Fitzgerald. I'm not accusing Fitzgerald of doing this out of political spite - he jailed the Republican governor of Illinois too. Just that Fitzgerald seems more willing to see what some politicians consider normal wheeling and dealing (or maybe "normal but stretching the envelope a little") as indictable crimes than do other US attorneys.

If you cloned Fitzgerald and spread him around the country, half of Congress would be in jail.

In any case, whoever the next governor is that gets to fill a Senate seat had better be careful.

what's the point?

Dana Milbank is clearly sympathetic to the women forced to testify in the DC Madam case. More sympathetic than the Metro pages in the Washington Post - Milbank doesn't use the women's names. Not also that the prosecutors are only forcing the working girls to testify - in public, stating their name and occupation (US Navy!) clearly for the public record. But at least so far, none of the male customers are being called up to testify in public. The prosecutions presentation of the case comes across as prurient. Worse yet, it looks like they are bullying these women.

And Milbank raises a good point about this trial:

From the audience, it appears that prosecutors have presented a solid case that the alleged Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, did indeed run a prostitution ring. A better question, however, is why they bothered. Prosecutors say the prostitution ring generated all of $2 million over 13 years -- small potatoes for a federal racketeering and money-laundering case that could ruin the lives of 132 women.


That is small potatoes. That works out to $150,000 a year - before expenses, and divided among Palfrey and her employees. That is hardly a fortune. And they weren't robbing people, or selling drugs to 14-year olds, or killing anybody, or defrauding anyone.

Hell, I bet Enron stole $2 million from customers in California in a matter of hours by manipulating electricity supplies to generate artificial shortages.

So really - what's the point of this particular prosecution? I guess the prosecutors get to cover themselves in glory. Aren't there murderers they could go after instead? Or child-beaters?

we're number 1!

We see all these depressing international statistics about how the US has slid on rankings of such socio-economic indicators as life expectancy at birth, infant mortality rate, literacy, educational attainment, etc.

Well, a report released on Thursday shows us at #1 in at least ONE such area.

We imprison a higher percentage of our population than any other country. Even more than China, with its far-greater number of political prisoners.

More than 1% of adults are in the slammer. That is a truly depressing number. The rise over the past 20 years has been mostly due to the absurdly strict sentencing guidelines many states have passed, the so-called "3 strikes and out" thing. Which means for example that some guy who is up before a judge for shoplifting, having already been convicted of possession of one marijuana joint and a prior petty vandalism charge, will find himself sentenced to prison.

The fact that our drug laws treat possession of crack cocaine (more popular among black Americans) far more severely than possession of powder cocaine (more popular among white Americans) is part of the discrepancy among incarceration rates for blacks and whites.

When we throw people into prison - especially young men - for such petty non-violent crimes, you are depriving them the ability to overcome their mistake and maybe become productive members of society. And we have to pay for them, too.

And it doesn't help with crime that much (if at all) anyway. New York state has seen its crime rate drop since 1993 - despite reducing its incarceration rate. Other states like Florida have seen both the prison rate and the crime rate go up. There are many other factors - putting people in prison is not the most effective method. After all, many other countries like Canada and European countries have lower prison rates and lower crime rates.

The article doesn't address it, but in many states moves to rescind tough sentencing laws have been blocked by the commercial prison sector. Yes, people run prisons on a for-profit basis, as contractors for various states. And these people don't want to see their supply of prisoners dry up, so the urge stricter sentencing laws.

The administration of justice, the operation of a penal system should NOT be run on a for-profit basis. It encourages this type of abuse.

penalized before convicted

The Washington Madam scandal currently underway points to a couple of issues. First is the fact that prostitution is illegal. I don't see why two (or more) people can have sex together after one person spends a couple of hundred dollars on wine, dinner, and a show, but to do the same with cash instead is illegal. It should be legalized, regulated (nobody under 18, health regulations, preventing it from becoming a public nuisance by prohibiting street walking, etc), and taxed. Then Palfrey wouldn't have to go thru the charade (which smells like blackmail) of getting prominent names to testify on her behalf that her escort service didn't offer sex. Which I doubt anybody believes.

But second, among the many many things Palfrey has said, she hits another good point: "Let's concentrate on forfeiture, this whole situation of seizing one's property before one is even convicted of anything, or, in this case, charged."

That is a valid concern. The Government is allowed to seize any of your assets they think were derived from certain illegal activities BEFORE getting a conviction. Yes, that's right. You can be charged with selling drugs for example, and the Feds can sell your house, your car, your college-age daughter's condo (bought in your name), all of that stuff before you are put before a jury of your peers. Now, it's bad enough to penalize somebody before obtaining a conviction. It's even worse when police raid the wrong person's house and make the wrong arrests, and have already SOLD all their stuff before they can prove the mistaken identity.

I'm sympathetic to doing something to prevent all assets being sold off before a conviction. But they shouldn't be disposed of by the government until the case is resolved. And in Palfrey's case, a judge should give her access to some of her money so she can mount a legal defense. After all, some friend of the judge's might be on that list!