First, we simply have corporate welfare going on with the Feds underwriting

the purchase of this technology — along with all the military gear police now use. Second, we have a population growing used to always

being watched — and perfectly fine with that. mjh

Federal Grants Bring

Surveillance Cameras to Small Towns
Village in Vermont Has Almost as Many as D.C.
By David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post

Staff Writer

This snowy village [of Bellows Falls, Vt. — population 3,050] , in the shadow of Fall Mountain and alongside the

iced-over Connecticut River, is the kind of place where a little of anything usually suffices. There are just eight full-time police

officers on the town’s force, two chairs in the barbershop and one screen in the theater.

A little of anything — except

surveillance cameras. Bellows Falls has decided it needs 16 of those.

Using federal grant money, police plan to put up the

24-hour cameras at such spots as intersections, a sewage plant and the town square. All told, this hamlet will have just three

fewer police surveillance cameras than the District of Columbia, which has 181 times Bellows Falls’s population. …

On

Maryland’s Eastern Shore, for example, Ridgely Police Chief Merl Evans got a homeland security grant, funneled through the state, to pay

for five cameras apiece in Ridgely, population 1,300, and Preston, population 573. The cameras went up on water towers, at water-

treatment plants and in the two small downtowns.

“It was difficult to be able to find something to use the money

for,” said Evans [mjh: because the Congress makes sure you can only spend it on things that enrich their

contributors.], who is also temporary chief in Preston. He said because the grants needed to be used on “target hardening” —

protecting infrastructure — “the cameras fit in real nice.” …

“What you do in

public, you’ve got no expectation of privacy,” said Police Chief Rick Clark.

Note very carefully that

the following story is about detainees in Guantanamo who the military says should never have been incarcerated 5 years ago.

Trapped in limbo at the whim of Duhbya. mjh

Chinese Detainees’ Lawyers Will Take Case to High Court By Carol

D. Leonnig, Washington Post Staff Writer

The government acknowledges that the Uighurs were imprisoned by mistake in 2002. Military

officials determined in 2004 that they were not enemy combatants and should be released. …

Lawyers working on behalf of the

Uighurs argue that Robertson’s decision effectively “proclaims an Executive with unchecked power . . . to seize and perpetually imprison

persons from around the globe.”

“The prospect of innocent men detained indefinitely, and of an Executive wielding powers beyond

those granted to it by the Constitution . . . is simply intolerable,” they wrote. …

The administration has argued in court that

the president can continue to detain the Uighurs under the executive’s “necessary power to wind up wartime detentions in an orderly

fashion.”

The two men at the center of the dispute, Abu Bakker Qassim and Adel Abdu Hakim, were seized by bounty hunters in

Pakistan after they fled U.S. bombing in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001. They were turned over to U.S. forces and taken to Guantanamo

Bay in 2002. A military tribunal formally ruled in the spring of 2004 that they were not enemy combatants and should be released. Their

case could affect as many as nine Uighurs currently held at Guantanamo Bay.

—–

FindLaw: U.S. Constitution: Sixth Amendment

In all

criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury ….

The U.S. Constitution Online

Taft signs

Patriot Act for Ohio

On Wednesday, Gov. Bob Taft signed what critics call the Ohio Patriot Act, a package of laws that its

sponsor, Sen. Jeff Jacobson, R-Butler Twp., said “will put Ohio on the front lines of fighting terrorism.”

Among its provisions,

the legislation, effective in April, will create criminal offenses for terrorism, allow police to require ID to enter a transportation

hub, and prohibit people in public places from refusing to disclose their name, address or date of birth to police when the officer

suspects the person witnessed or is involved in a violent felony.

The bill will also require those seeking state contracts,

employment or some licenses to fill out a questionnaire affirming that they are not involved in terrorism. [mjh: also

known as a “loyalty oath”.]

I had read that there was also a provision to discourage local

governments from expressing their objection to the USA (gag me) PATRIOT Act, as many cities — including Santa Fe — have done. mjh

mjh’s blog —

Ohio Patriot Act

In Ga., Abramoff Scandal Threatens a Political Ascendancy By

Thomas B. Edsall, Washington Post Staff Writer

One of the most damaging e-mails was sent by Abramoff to partner Michael Scanlon,

complaining about Reed’s billing practices and expenditure claims: “He is a bad version of us! No more money for him.”

…

After Reed first entered national politics as executive director of the Christian Coalition, he described to the Norfolk

Virginian-Pilot his tactics in mobilizing Christian conservatives to sway elections: “I want to be invisible. I do guerrilla warfare. I

paint my face and travel at night. You don’t know it’s over until you’re in a body bag. You don’t know until election night.”