Leahy on presidential accountability

While I'm less impressed than many people with Senator Patrick Leahy (who voted for Real ID), his words in opposing the Mukasey nomination deserve to be heard everywhere:

Nothing is more fundamental to our constitutional democracy than our basic tenet that no one is above the law.
 
This administration has undercut that precept time and time again. We have seen this administration promote immunity over accountability, secrecy over responsiveness to congressional oversight, and unilateral power over the checks and balances that have defined this nation and protected Americans' rights and freedom for more than two centuries.
 
This administration's corrosive view that the president is above the law and may override the law as he chooses is about as extreme a view of executive power as I have witnessed. That not only is dead wrong in constitutional terms, but it is extremely dangerous to our republic. The cost to American liberty, to our standing in the world and to the security of our soldiers and citizens is staggering — even more than the trillion dollar cost of the war in Iraq. The administration has compounded its lawlessness by cloaking its policies and miscalculations under a veil of secrecy, leaving Congress, the courts and the American people in the dark about what they are doing.

I suppose it's too late to get him to run for president.

Comparing two searches

I've noticed that, comparing the results of a Google search and a Clusty search on "Dozier Internet Law," the results are very different. The Google results show lots of articles criticizing Dozier for questionable practices; the Clusty results show hardly any in the first few pages.

I don't know what the reason for the difference is, and I'm not accusing anyone. These days I've been using Clusty more than Google, since I have to log in to Google to post to this blog, and that diminishes my privacy when doing Google searches. On the other hand, I like Google's results better since a link to this blog shows up in the top ten results at the moment. (I should also put in the standard disclaimer that my place of employment does significant business with Google.) Make what you want of it.

Killer cops get wrists slapped

On July 22, 2005, the London police shot and killed Charles de Menezes in a subway train. He had committed no crime; some cops just decided he was a "terrorist" and killed him on the spot. For that, the police have been fined £175,000 and ordered to pay costs of £385,000 for violating the Health and Safety at Work Act. No officer has been subjected to disciplinary action, much less prosecution. Police Commissioner Ian Blair has declined to resign.

The police believed he was Hussain Osman, one of the people suspected of the then-recent train bombing. Even so, a legitimate police department doesn't go out and execute suspects in the subway. Things like establishing that you have the right person are the reason for having a trial. If there were convincing reasons to believe he was about to set off a bomb, that would shed a different light on things, but I haven't seen any such evidence mentioned in the news.

The police initially lied to the public, claiming that de Menezes was wearing a bulky coat and ran from police officers. He was, in fact, executed on the spot. The London police have gotten away with a murder they committed in public.

London's Mayor Livingstone objects even to the little wrist slap the police got, saying that police will now be frightened of making wrong decisions. They damn well should be frightened of the consequences of killing innocent people.