This is great.

Over at Hit & Run, I’ve put up a long post debunking claims from the right that the ACLU has been silent on TSA abuses.

My column this week looks at how police use regulatory inspections as a guise to conduct warrantless criminal searches.

Longtime readers: The column includes an unfortunate update in the David Ruttenberg/Rack ‘n’ Roll Billiards case.

• So I guess the government doesn’t consider me a journalist, either. Or anyone who works for Mother Jones, or National Review, or The New Republic, or The Weekly Standard. Also, whether or not Assange is technically a journalist really has little to do with the disturbing prospect of prosecuting him for publishing documents a government official leaked to him.
• So I wonder if this one worked.
• Lawsuit: Four queens men arrested for laughing at a cop.
• Wilmington, Delaware pays $875,000 to the family of an ex-marine tasered, then shot and killed by a cop while sitting on a porch. The city of course says the settlement is not an admission that the cop did anything wrong.
• Facebook attempting to trademark the word face.
• Your TSA outrage of the day.

• Michelle Bachman: We’re going to eliminate earmarks once and for all!* (*By calling them something other than earmarks.)
• This kid made my day.
• NYPD asks woman to clean up after her dog. She says the poop on the ground isn’t from her dog, but she picks it up anyway. But after picking it up she adds, one more time, that it wasn’t from her dog. What happens next is disputed, but by the time it was all over, the woman looked like this.
• Lawsuit claims California DMV clerk looked up transgendered woman’s private address, then sent her a letter telling her she was making a big mistake.
• How to fix the systematic prosecutorial misconduct in California. Top item: End absolute immunity.
• Gov. Chris Christie says he’ll make a decision about the Brian Aitken case by Christmas.

You always hear and see that phrase from right-leaning folks, typically when a white person, a Christian, or some other non-minority person is harmed in some way. I’m working on a column about why that criticism isn’t fair. But in researching it, I found a particularly nasty slagging of the organization that I thought I’d share with you. In the op-ed, published by a pretty prominent advocacy organization about one particular high-profile case, the authors write:

…we are horrified by the ACLU’s betrayal of political reality and plain common sense…

Long ago it defended the right of American neo-nazis to march through Skokie, a heavily Jewish suburb of Chicago.

The ACLU has also defended the right of such loathsome haters as the Ku Klux Klan to gather and speak….

Turning to the specific case their piece is about, the writers then argue that the ACLU’s position . . .

. . . is the equivalent not of guaranteeing individual Nazis the freedom to march, but instead of granting the Party itself the right to drive tanks down the street, guns ablazing.

It’s not the same as giving individual Klan members the right to hold a rally, but rather for the organization to do public lynchings as part of a terror campaign aimed at taking tangible power.

The writers also state that the authors of the First Amendment would be “horrified,” that the people the ACLU defended in this case are “anti-human,” and “the enemies of democracy.”

So take a guess where the op-ed appeared, and to which case the authors are reacting. Then check here to see how you did.

Jeff Tweedy and the great Mavis Staples perform “You Are Not Alone,” off Staples’ new Tweedy-produced album.

Michael Allison, the guy I wrote about in my Reason feature on cops and cameras who is facing 75 years in prison for recording police, a judge, and an employee in the court clerk’s office, is still in need of a good attorney. If you’re interested, drop me an email and I’ll put you in touch with him.

It’s a phrase that could describe so many of the things we cover here.

But in this case, it’s referring to this ninja squirrel.

A Happy Friday! list of criminal justice outrages…

• The persecution of Joel Rosenberg.
• Los Angeles teen charged with “attempted lynching” for videotaping a policewoman’s encounter with another teen. (Or, possibly, for being mistaken for another teen who yelled “Kick her ass!” during the altercation.)
• Portland police officer responsible for five police abuse settlements costing taxpayers more than a million dollars . . . is promoted to sergeant.
• Cleveland Plain Dealer investigation finds Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason “has pursued criminal charges against hundreds of people over the past decade despite having little or no evidence against them.”
• Feds, Missouri state police aiming to seize an outdoor music venue because owner didn’t do enough to prevent drug use during concerts.
• “A USA TODAY investigation has found that prosecutors have little reason to fear losing their jobs, even if they violate laws or constitutional safeguards designed to ensure the justice system is fair.”

Over at PJTV, Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds interviews Evan Nappen, the attorney for New Jersey resident Brian Aitken. In August, Aitken began serving a seven year prison sentence firearms possession, even though he had purchased the guns legally, and made a concerted effort to comply with New Jersey law.

Read my column on Aitken’s case here.

Kevin Gozstola plays a litlte gotcha with Joe Lieberman. Here’s Lieberman advocating for a DOJ investigation and possible prosecution of the New York Times and other media outlets for publishing portions of the Wikileaks cables:

“And, again, why do you prosecute crimes? Because if you don’t–Well, first you do because that’s what our system of justice requires. Second, if you don’t prosecute people who commit crimes, others are going to do it soon and again.”

And here’s Joe Lieberman in 2009, explaining why he opposes any investigation of members of the Bush administration who endorsed and advocated torture:

We’re opening a door that’s going to make it hard for any administration in the future to get the kind of legal advice that it wants, let alone deal with people who are suspects that may have information in the war on terrorism…

Well, I mean, there’s no end to this if you go on…There is simply nothing to be gained from it and it is going to have a bad effect on every administration of any party that follows in the generations ahead.

Thanks to Matt I. in the comments for the pointer.

Yeah, I’ve been out of commission. My excuses: deadlines, a migraine, and last night’s Colts-Titans game. The good news is, the FDA has now approved Botox injections for migraines. Which means less pain for me, and I’ll get to keep my youthful, girlish glow.

Here are your morning links:

• Chicago requires range training to get a gun permit. But Chicago has also banned gun ranges.
• Don’t drink and drive, or this scary black man might rape you.
• The shameful media attacks on Julian Assange.
• Aurora, Illinois police seize $190,000 in a forfeiture case, despite no drugs and no drug charges. Judge orders them to give it back. Police are refusing, saying they’ve given the money to the Department of Homeland Security.
• The foolishness of campaign finance reformers.
• Not exactly sure what this “investigation” is supposed to prove. There is a problem with food stamps going to people who don’t need them. But that’s not really what the Daily Caller piece is about.
• The best interview with a vacuum cleaner salesman that you’ll read today. And I don’t mean that in a damning-with-faint-praise kind of way. It’s a terrific interview.
• “This is not public property. This is state property.”

Among the 11 countries who will be boycotting the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for Chinese dissident and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo: Iraq and Afghanistan.

Over at the Nashville blog, I’ve posted my interview with Marshall Chapman, Nashville’s foul-mouthed debutante, singer, actress, author, and part-time cultural historian.

• As senior Obama administration officials discuss prosecuting Julian Assange, and as Sen. Joe Lieberman suggests the New York Times should be investigated for espionage, the U.S. State Department puts out a press release celebrating World Press Freedom Day.
• Atlanta to pay $1 million settlement for excessive police raid on a gay nightclub.
• State investigator says former Maricopa County, Arizona Prosecutor Andrew Thomas should be disbarred.
• Steve Chapman: Up From Homophobia. I can say my experience after high school was pretty similar to Chapman’s.
• E-cigarettes win a reprieve from the FDA’s attempt to ban them. The e-cigarette fiasco is a pretty stark illustration of how regulation designed to protect people can end up actually killing them.

My cover story from the January issue of Reason is now online.

NSFW, because of the profane.

Of all the crazy criminal justice stories I’ve reported on, linked to, and commented on here, this one could well be the craziest. A summary really doesn’t work. Just read. And behold.

My column this week is a round-up of the latest developments in the ever-strange saga of Steven Hayne and the Mississippi death investigations system.

Nashville’s News Channel 5 posts this headline:

Red Light Cameras Cut Down on Crashes

It’s referring to an article in the Clarksville Leaf Chronicle with this headline:

Red light cameras working in Clarksville, police chief says

But look at the actual numbers and it’s not at all clear that the cameras are “working,” at least if you believe “working” to mean “making the roads safer.” What’s clear is that local authorities want to give the impression that the cameras are preventing accidents, even if the numbers don’t bear that out. The police chief focuses on side-impact collisions, which fell from 72 in 2008 to 64 in 2009 after the cameras were installed. That’s a modest drop, and it wasn’t consistent across the city. For example, one intersection had four side-impact collisions in 2008, five in 2009, and has seen 11 already this year.

In fact, overall collisions are up at the intersections where Clarksville has installed red light cameras (a result we’ve seen nearly everywhere they’ve been installed). The city just chooses to ignore rear-impact collisions when evaluating the cameras. Those collisions increased from 138 in 2008, to 173 in 2009, to 169 through October of this year. It’s true that side-impact collisions are generally more dangerous than rear-impact collisions. But even taking that into consideration, it’s a bit of a stretch to say that a decrease of eight side-impact collisions coupled with an increase of 25 rear-impact collisions shows that the cameras are preventing accidents.

But there is one way that the cameras are working out quite well:

Clarksville’s red light camera program has already issued more than 10,000 tickets, bringing in about $1 million in revenue.

Interestingly, about $600,000 of that revenue goes to Redflex Traffic Systems, Inc., the company that manufactures and operates the cameras. And how’s this for a display of twisted incentives:

Buoyed by the program’s early results, police plan to expand the program to two other intersections, Highway 76-Interstate 24 and Fort Campbell Boulevard-Lafayette Road. Both are in the top 10 in number of accidents.

Ansley said they have to wait for Redflex’s approval, because any new intersections would have to be profitable for the company to cover the cost of the cameras.

So Redflex gets to dictate where the cameras go. Which means that if the cameras really are effective at preventing accidents and red light runners, as the intersections get safer, Redflex’s profit margins (and city revenues) get thinner. If I were a Redflex executive, I’d put the cameras at intersections where there’s lots of red-light running, but where cameras aren’t likely to be very effective at preventing it.

The best approach doesn’t bring in any revenue, for camera makers or city governments: Lengthening the duration yellow lights has proven to be much more effective at preventing accidents than cameras. Which of course is why several cities have been caught making intersections more dangerous by shortening yellow lights in order to generate more tickets.

• Bryan Caplan visits the Biltmore estate and marvels at how the average American today lives as well or better than the Vanderbilts did. I noticed the same thing when I visited Biltmore.
• New bill could put the federal government in the business of regulating school bake sales.
• The Mississippi judge who jailed an attorney for not saying the Pledge of Allegiance has apologized and has been reprimanded. Seems like he got off pretty easy.
• California mosque obtains a restraining order against a militant member who went around screaming for people to join the jihad against America. Then they found out he was an FBI informant.
• Off-duty NYPD cops beat a man to death after a road rage incident. Witness accounts contradict the cops’ account. The cops say they were responding after he attacked one of them with a bat. Witnesses (according to an attorney for the victim’s family) say they initiated the violence, then beat him with the bat. Bonus: When the passenger in the man’s car went to obtain the bat after the cops tossed it over a fence, they arrested him for evidence tampering. (NOTE: I revised this item for clarity.)

President Obama finally ended his pardon drought last week. Only George Washington and George W. Bush went longer before issuing their first pardon. Obama granted nine pardons, but kept with the recent trend of granting pardons to the people least in need of one.

P.S. Ruckman, who runs the Pardon Power blog, isn’t impressed. Ruckman points out that the average time between the initial offense and last week’s pardons was more than 28 years. Six of the nine people Obama pardoned didn’t commit an offense that merited incarceration. The maximum prison sentence among the nine was two years. One of the nine was pardoned for defacing coins in 1964, an offense for which he was punished with probation and a $20 fine.

Like his predecessor, Obama has assumed and asserted a host of constitutionally questionable presidential powers since taking office, including the power of detain people indefinitely without trial, to render people over to other countries where they might be tortured, to assassinate U.S. citizens, and on the occasions he uses any of these powers, the power to keep it all secret from the public and the other branches of the federal government. And also like his predecessor, Obama at the same time has proven stingy—to the point of becoming a historical outlier—with one of the few powers the Constitution actually grants to him explicitly.

It’s worth noting that the questionable powers he guards zealously allow him to detain, torture, and kill, while the power he’s eschewing bestows mercy or, when used properly (and it usually isn’t), acknowledges the flaws in the federal government’s criminal justice system and the people victimized by them.

• Here’s a good explanation about that NASA-bacteria-arsenic announcement last week. Anyone else notice that this somewhat overhyped event comes on the heels of Obama’s big funding cutback to the agency?
• Kansas City police toss flashbangs into a house occupied by an 84-year-old woman, a 2-year-old child, and two other women. The grenades ignited a set of drapes. It was a homicide investigation, but they didn’t have a no-knock warrant, and the investigation preceding the raid looks to have been pretty shoddy.
• Denmark to invoke bare boobs in plan to deter would-be terrorists.
• Federal government has been secretly, warrantlessly tracking credit card purchases. (But don’t violate the government’s “privacy,” or people will start calling for your death.)
• Pat-downs for skiers.
• Man arrested for flipping off cops gets a $4,000 settlement.
• FCC sets sights on Internet regulation.
• Federal Reserve secretly gave money to BMW, Toyota, Ford, and other private companies.