The US Navy has anchored one of its secret prisons in Haitian waters

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Researchers Induce A New Transmissible Prion Disease

Newswise — Researchers at the Baltimore Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center and the University of Maryland School of Medicine have conducted a study on prion disease and found that transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) can be induced without an outside catalyst like a virus. TSE (also known as prion diseases) are a group of progressive conditions affecting the brain and nervous systems of many animals and humans. The conditions include Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (the human form of mad cow disease), Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker syndrome, fatal familial insomnia and kuru, all forming a spectrum of overlapping signs and symptoms caused by a myriad of tiny holes in the cortex that give it the appearance of a sponge. The disease impairs brain functions leading to both mental and physical deterioration over time. Using a synthetic prion protein made in E.. » read more

States Begin to Fix Our Prison System

David Cole of Georgetown University and formerly of the Center for Constitutional Rights has been doing some good writing, not only on our failure to enforce laws against powerful people, but also on our out-of-control epidemic of incarceration which has struck those too unimportant to gain immunity.   Cole argues persuasively that we lock up a dramatically higher percentage of our people than any other nation because it is mostly poor African-American communities that get hit. He points out that when segregation was legal in the 1950s, African-Americans were 30 percent of the prison population, whereas now, with a monstrously increased prison population, African-Americans and Latinos make up 70 percent of it. Sixty percent of African-American high school dropouts have spent time behind bars.   Of course it costs less money to educate people than it does to incarcerate them.. » read more

McCain, Lieberman Attempt to Ban Civilian Trials for 'Enemy Combatants'

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An Enormous Crime: The Definitive Account of American POWs Abandoned in Southeast Asia

If this 563-page heavily documented book by Bill Hendon and Elizabeth A. Stewart, published in 2007, doesn't make your blood boil, you are either as cold blooded as a snake or you are completely lacking in reading comprehension skills.  Yes, we all know that soldiers are just expendable pawns in the game of politics, but condemning hundreds of your countrymen to a life of imprisonment far from home and pretending they are dead takes mistreatment of these pawns and their families and loved ones to a whole new level.  But could it really be true?  Why would the Vietnamese and the Laotians hang on to almost as many prisoners as they released?  What could they hope to gain? Concerning the first question, that's precisely why the anger must rise up inside you as you turn the pages of the book.  There is simply far too much evidence of American POWs having been seen by scores of witnesses, many of whom corroborate one another:  by former South Vietnamese sent to "re-education camps," by defectors, by visiting businessmen, by many, many credible people who have no reason to lie.. » read more

The Black Hole of Guantánamo

When it comes to dealing with the thorny question of how to close Guantánamo, the remaining prisoners have been caught between two competing systems since President Obama took office last January, and the result, to put it mildly, has been confusing.   Under President Bush, prisoners were cleared for release by military-review boards, established to review the supposed evidence against them, and to determine whether they constituted an ongoing threat to the United States. This appeared to be a maddeningly arbitrary system, but it led to the release of hundreds of the prisoners.   In June 2008, the Supreme Court added a second layer of review, of a more substantial nature, when it recognized constitutionally garanteed habeas corpus rignts for prisoners; in other words, the right to challenge the basis of their detention in a U.S.. » read more

Ernst Zundel released from German prison

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Judge: County inmates in Calif. can be freed early

  A state lawmaker sought Friday to exempt county jails from a new law designed to ease prison crowding, hours after a county judge ruled the law requires sheriffs to free inmates before they serve their full sentences. More than 1,500 inmates have been released from county jails statewide since the new law took effect Jan. 25. It lets inmates reduce their sentences by up to half through good-behavior credits. Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont, filed amendments to apply the law only to state prison inmates.. » read more

Airborne Laser zaps in-flight missile

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Pleasing Mr Obama

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