So many things

There’s a whole lot going on in the world, so bear with me as I list a bunch of really interesting and/or important links.
“bullet” Radley Balko has a compelling video interview with Regina Kelly, one of the 27 black residents of Hearne, Texas arrested in a horrible travesty of justice. Fortunately she survived the ordeal and is talking about what happened.
“bullet” Phillip Smith covers Creepy Science — an effort to develop tests to determine whether someone used drugs up to four months previous. And he rightly calls “bulls*it” on their claim that it’s to help identify potential drug addicts earlier.
“bullet” The U.S. Supreme Court today unanimously ruled that a passenger in a car that has been pulled over is considered “seized” (as the Justices properly noted, he’s certainly not under the impression that he can walk away), so that if the original stop was potentially questionable, the passenger could challenge it under the Fourth Amendment. Yes, a Fourth Amendment drug case where the Supreme Court ruled to protect the Fourth Amendment! Wow!
“bullet” The Sixth Circuit Court ruled today that email has Constitutional privacy protection, similar to phone calls. The ruling may not stand, however, based on some of the talk around the legal blogs.
“bullet” The strange case of What Ted Stevens, Bolivian cocaine and Halliburton have in common over at Salon. This story will make you sick regarding the utterly corrupt way contracting is done in the federal government. (It also makes you realize how logic and common sense has very little impact in the political world.)
“bullet” John Ross’ The Annexation of Mexico is scary — the notion of our even attempting to turn Mexico into another Colombia is frightening. But that’s exactly what our government wants to do.
“bullet” A blast from the past: Short video of Ron Paul back in 1988 on the Morton Downey show responding to a drug war cheerleader audience member. Nails it.
“bullet” More stupidity in government. Canada telling doctors how much marijuana they can prescribe — limiting it to five grams a day. “We don’t need no stinking doctors to advise us on dosage. We’re the government.”
“bullet” The Bush administration is concerned that we don’t have enough people in jail for long enough in this country, so they’re pushing for more mandatory sentences as part of a Republican crime legislation package as a campaign issue for 2008. So expect a bunch of tough on drugs/crime rhetoric in the campaign, with the Republicans calling for more outrageous sentences and the Democrats whimpering “Me, too.”