I certainly hope so. I prefer my “top Al Qaeda suspects” have permanent mental damage. This story is one more reason to kill as many on the battlefield as possible (or wherever they happen to be) . Of course, they are terrorists who like to kill innocent people, so the phrase “mental damage” is not only redundant, but the goals of these academics are pure folly. They are freakin' terrorists! Perhaps “torture”—which, of course, American tactics aren't—will instill some common sense in some of these fellows.

“If this is torture, we've been torturing our own soldiers for years. Why is it that we are all of a sudden revolted and aghast?”

Thankfully I think the military has enough willpower and know-how to limit the effects of these inane leftist policies regarding the War on Terrorism et al.

AJH

The New York Times reports on a controversy brewing about genetics and the government. It reminds me of the film Gattaca with Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Jude Law. “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear,” a prosecutor in California said.

Law enforcement officials are vastly expanding their collection of DNA to include millions more people who have been arrested or detained but not yet convicted. The move, intended to help solve more crimes, is raising concerns about the privacy of petty offenders and people who are presumed innocent.

Until now, the federal government genetically tracked only convicts. But starting this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will join 15 states that collect DNA samples from those awaiting trial and will collect DNA from detained immigrants — the vanguard of a growing class of genetic registrants.

The F.B.I., with a DNA database of 6.7 million profiles, expects to accelerate its growth rate from 80,000 new entries a year to 1.2 million by 2012 — a 17-fold increase. F.B.I. officials say they expect DNA processing backlogs — which now stand at more than 500,000 cases — to increase.

Criminal justice experts cite Fourth Amendment privacy concerns and worry that the nation is becoming a genetic surveillance society.

DNA extraction upon arrest potentially erodes that argument, a recent Congressional study found. “Courts have not fully considered legal implications of recent extensions of DNA-collection to people whom the government has arrested but not tried or convicted,” the report said.

Minors are required to provide DNA samples in 35 states upon conviction, and in some states upon arrest.

Sixteen states now take DNA from some who have been found guilty of misdemeanors. As more police agencies take DNA for a greater variety of lesser and suspected crimes, civil rights advocates say the government’s power is becoming too broadly applied. “What we object to — and what the Constitution prohibits — is the indiscriminate taking of DNA for things like writing an insufficient funds check, shoplifting, drug convictions,” said Michael Risher, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union.

This year, California began taking DNA upon arrest and expects to nearly double the growth rate of its database, to 390,000 profiles a year from 200,000.

Law enforcement officials say that DNA extraction upon arrest is no different than fingerprinting at routine bookings and that states purge profiles after people are cleared of suspicion. In practice, defense lawyers say this is a laborious process that often involves a court order. (The F.B.I. says it has never received a request to purge a profile from its database.)

When DNA is taken in error, expunging a profile can be just as difficult. In Pennsylvania, Ellyn Sapper, a Philadelphia public defender, has spent weeks trying to expunge the profile taken erroneously of a 14-year-old boy guilty of assault and bicycle theft. “I’m going to have to get a judge’s order to make sure that all references to his DNA are gone,” she said.

Mr. Morrissey pointed to Britain, which has fewer privacy protections than the United States and has been taking DNA upon arrest for years. It has a population of 61 million — and 4.5 million DNA profiles. “About 8 percent of the people commit about 70 percent of your crimes, so if you can get the majority of that community, you don’t have to do more than that,” he said.

In the United States, 8 percent of the population would be roughly 24 million people.

Britain may provide a window into America’s genetic surveillance future: As of March 2008, 857,000 people in the British database, or about one-fifth, have no current criminal record. In December, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Britain violated international law by collecting DNA profiles from innocent people, including children as young as 10.

Critics are also disturbed by the demographics of DNA databases. Again Britain is instructive. According to a House of Commons report, 27 percent of black people and 42 percent of black males are genetically registered, compared with 6 percent of white people.

Rock Harmon, a former prosecutor for Alameda County, Calif., and an adviser to crime laboratories, said DNA demographics reflected the criminal population. Even if an innocent man’s DNA was included in a genetic database, he said, it would come to nothing without a crime scene sample to match it. “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear,” he said.

The latest from Dana Milbank of The Washington Post:

I wish to apologize to you for my behavior last week.

On Tuesday, I learned that I am a right-wing hack. I am not a journalist. I am typical of the right wing. I am why newspapers are going broke. I write garbage. I am angry with Barack Obama. I misquote Obama. I am bitter. I am a certified idiot. I am lame. I am a Republican flack.

I reviewed all 1,800 comments posted on my columns over the course of a week. As a sociological experiment, it was fascinating.

The comments are naturally an unscientific indicator, but the impression I got is consistent with what I've heard from colleagues: The vitriol of last year's presidential campaign has outlasted the election. For the right, this isn't terribly surprising; their guys lost the White House in 2008 and control of both chambers of Congress in 2006, so lashing out in frustration is to be expected. The left, however, is more difficult to explain. It made sense for them to be angry when George W. Bush was in the White House. But now, even under Obama, the anger on the left is, if anything, more personal and vitriolic than on the right.

CNN correspondent Susan Roesgen didn't pay attention during classes at Montana State on how to be a proper journalist. But then who did? On the whole journalists haven't done their job in a very long time. What's really cool is the lady after the CNN segment taking Roesgen to task.

Another camera was rolling and captured the conversation after her "anti-government, anti-CNN" live shot. It shows the discontent in the crowd about her so-called report.

Roesgen: "I think you get the general tenor of this [rally]. It's anti-government, anti-CNN -- since this is highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network Fox. And since I can't really hear much more -- and I think this is not really family viewing -- I'll toss it back to you, Kyra."

Kyra Phillips (studio anchor): "Alright. I know Susan Rosegen is having a hard time hearing me, but wow, that is the prime example of what we're following across the country."

AJH

God forbid a bunch of "white" people have problems with the government. Bigot Janeane Garofalo should speak more often. The woman is crazy and a good representaive of leftist thought in this country. Her remarks are remisncient of Nazi eugenics and racial theories.

". . . Let's, let's be very honest about what this is about. It's not about bashing Democrats, it's not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston Tea Party was about, they don't know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks. And there is no way around that. And you know you can tell these type of right-wingers anything and they'll believe it except the truth . . ."

AJH

The leaders of several veterans groups had written Obama last month complaining about the new plan. “There is simply no logical explanation for billing a veteran’s personal insurance for care that the VA has a responsibility to provide,” they wrote.

“[T]oo many messages consist of warbling monologues that miss the point.”

As Obama’s remarks echoed on Capitol Hill, it soon became clear that the skeptics are not just Republicans.

“From the standpoint of the Congress, there’s only so much that we can absorb and do at one time,” Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii said. “To maintain a schedule like the one we’ve got at this moment, throughout the year, I don’t know if it will be healthy.”

There is rising doubt among Democrats — particularly moderates already concerned about the big costs and deficits called for in Obama’s budget — that either Obama or Washington have enough bandwidth this year to stimulate the economy, overhaul the failed financial sector and move on to a far-reaching domestic agenda.

[S]everal lawmakers made clear that they have trouble with Obama’s logic that deep economic troubles make it more urgent, not less, to take on expensive projects such as health care and education reform.

“[U]ntil we’re through this crisis and growth has resumed, there’s going to be some belt-tightening that’s necessary,” Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana said.