Kudos to New Mexico Governor and presidential hopeful Bill Richardson who has signed the state legislature's medical marijuana bill into law.

New Mexico now joins Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington in protecting medical marijuana patients from arrest. Richardson, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, actively lobbied for the bill's passage.

"Governor Richardson's action is the clearest sign yet that the politicians are finally catching up with the people on the issue of medical marijuana," said Aaron Houston, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) in Washington, D.C. "Support for medical marijuana is overwhelming -- 78 percent in a national Gallup poll -- and backing from the medical community is solidifying as new research continues to document marijuana's medical benefits. Support in Congress keeps growing, and this could be the year the federal government finally ends its cruel attacks on the sick in states where medical marijuana is legal."

As more and more states pass medical marijuana laws, and they will, thanks to the great work of Marijuana Policy Project,NORML and patients' rights groups, it's time for a change in federal enforcement policies.

Here's one view of a plan by D.C. Metro police to crack down on jaywalkers.

The right to jaywalk isn’t in the Constitution, but neither is the right to suspend habeas corpus or arbitrarily wiretap citizens, and you don’t see Metro giving the President a $20 ticket. If this ordinance is enforced, the terrorists have already won.

FBI Director Robert Mueller's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee amounts to this: Yes, we abused our Patriot Act authority by spying on Americans who weren't suspected of terrorism, even though we promised that we wouldn't, but now that we've been caught, we really really promise not to abuse that authority again, so please don't take it away.

Senator Leahy's response:

"Last year the administration sought new powers in the Patriot Act to appoint U.S. Attorneys without Senate confirmation and to more freely use National Security Letters," Leahy said in opening remarks. "The administration got these powers, and they have badly bungled both."

Last week, Leahy said "we need to consider whether Congress went too far" when it removed restrictions on FBI use of national security letters. The Senate should remove that authority altogether. If the FBI wants to snoop into personal information, it should get a warrant.

It’s rare to see a lobbyist doing something as useful as advocating for laws that reduce jail populations. Meet former Texas State Rep. Suzanna Gratia Hupp, R-Lampasas, who recently opened a lobbying practice.

Ms. Hupp is the lobbyist for and one of three founders of Texans for Public Safety Solutions. It supports passage of HB 2391, which would let law enforcement officers write citations to -- and not have to take to jail -- people who are found with less than 2 ounces of marijuana, an expired driver's license or in the act of trespassing.

Bumped -BTD

Who watches the FBI as the FBI watches you? Nobody, as it turns out. Certainly not the Alberto Gonzales Justice Department, where oversight has been out of sight.

As TalkLeft reported earlier this month, the FBI repeatedly used its Patriot Act authority to issue "national security letters" demanding financial, telephone, and internet records (among others), without the bother of a judicially approved warrant, in violation of the agency's own rules. The chief inspector at the Justice Department acknowledged today, in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, that the FBI's failure to set limits on the agency's information gathering authority was "unacceptable and inexcusable."

Democrats said that Fine's findings were an example of how the Justice Department has used broad counterterrorism authorities Congress granted in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks to trample on privacy rights. "This was a serious breach of trust," said Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the Judiciary chairman. "The department had converted this tool into a handy shortcut to illegally gather vast amounts of private information while at the same time significantly underreporting its activities to Congress."

The Senate has Senate voted to repeal the secret Midnight Patriot Act provision that granted AG power to appoint interim US Atty's without Senate confirmation:

The Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to end the Bush administration's ability to unilaterally fill U.S. attorney vacancies as a backlash to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' firing of eight federal prosecutors.

. . . With a 94-2 vote, the Senate passed a bill that canceled a Justice Department-authored provision in the Patriot Act that had allowed the attorney general to appoint U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation.

. . . Essentially, the Senate returned the law regarding the appointments of U.S. attorneys to where it was before Congress passed the Patriot Act, including the unilateral appointment authority the administration had sought in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks.

More on the bill from Jeralyn.

New York is the latest state to abandon the principle that people should be punished, once and only once, for what they have done, but never for a crime they have not committed. Sexual predator laws deprive sex offenders of their liberty after they finish their sentences -- a detention that seems to many (but not to a majority of the Supreme Court) to be a second punishment that isn't moored to a new crime.

Those convicted of any of a wide range of sex-related felonies would be reviewed for potential detainment after their prison sentences end, including those convicted of some nonviolent crimes like giving minors indecent material.

States are permitted knock the cap off sentences by changing the label from "punishment" to "treatment." The state claims the power to detain and treat dangerous and disordered sex offenders to protect against future sex crimes that it fears the detainee will otherwise commit. The laws depend on the assumption that a court can accurately gauge the likelihood that a particular offender will commit a future sex crime -- as if judges, or anyone else, can reliably predict an individual's future behavior. It's sad that New York has joined the score of states that use fear of future criminality to justify the continued imprisonment of sex offenders who have fully served their sentences.

The agreement would also create a new “sexually motivated felony” that would apply to those who intended to commit a sex crime but did not.

North Dakota's legislature deserves credit for ridding the state of an unenforceable law.

Under the provision, which has passed the both the state House and state Senate, living together “openly and notoriously” while unwed would no longer be considered a sex crime.

Think of all the cohabiting sex criminals who will suddenly become law-abiding citizens.

Of all the silly things.

A bill that would ban the sale of marijuana-flavored candy to children in Georgia won approval from a legislative committee this morning, advancing the proposal toward a vote in the House of Representatives.

House Bill 280 calls for a $1,000 fine for those caught selling the sweets, also called “chronic candy” or “pot suckers.” The candy comes in the form of lollipops, gumdrops and other sweets.

Read the comments. One is from a prohibition true believer and former prosecutor and drug agent who thinks the bill is a great idea. The other is from NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre, who writes:

The Real ID law is a real disaster.

Maine lawmakers passed a resolution urging repeal of the Real ID Act, which would create a national digital identification system by 2008. The lawmakers said it would cost Maine about $185 million, fail to boost security and put people at greater risk of identity theft.

Maine is the first state to lodge an official protest against the unfunded mandate, but other states are joining the chorus. A Senate bill to repeal the ill-conceived law deserves prompt attention.

Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-CA) has introduced the Federal Election Integrity Act (H.R. 101.) It would prohibit chief state election officials from engaging in political activity on behalf of federal candidates over whose elections the officials have supervisory authority.

How would this help? According to Rep. Davis's office (received by e-mail, no link)

This bill would prevent the troubling conflicts of interest that we saw in the cases of Ken Blackwell and Katherine Harris.

Whether the bill gets a hearing or even traction, depends in part on you. If you support it, contact your own member of Congress and ask them to sign on as co-sponsors of H.R. 101.

Sen. John McCain doesn't know how to quit while he is ahead. He has just introduced a really dumb bill that ought to have those with interactive websites up in arms.

Millions of commercial Web sites and personal blogs would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000, if a new proposal in the U.S. Senate came into law.

The legislation, drafted by Sen. John McCain and obtained by CNET News.com, would also require Web sites that offer user profiles to delete pages posted by sex offenders.

Current law already mandates reporting by internet service providers. This legislation would extend the requirement to others, including bloggers.