Rand Paul calls criticism of BP "un-American."

Rand Paul, the new Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate seat from Kentucky is a hero of the Tea Party.

Some hero. For starters, he said that he believes businesses should have the right to refuse seating to minority customers. Welcome to the Kentucky of 1955.

And now he's out there saying that President Obama and his administration are anti-business and "un-American" for criticizing oil giant BP (officially British Petroleum) over their handling of the oil spill.

I guess "American values" now includes having no clue how to stop the gusher, and it's perfectly OK (pro-business) if you kill off miles of coastline for at least a generation. Hey, it's 'business,' right?

One almost has to feel for minority leader Mitch McConnell. He and Senate political architect John Cornyn (R-TX) pushed his state's other Republican Senator, the gaffe-prone Jim Bunning, into retirement so he could put his hand-picked candidate, Trey Grayson up against the Democrats in the general. But then Paul beat Grayson Tuesday, and by a large margin. And then the past reached out and grabbed him. Don't blame Democrats for that either. Paul's past statements are public record; if Grayson was too dumb to look them up, well maybe he should have. Paul said it, didn't he? And it was Paul, and Paul alone, who contended that not only is it wrong to criticize an oil company for an oil spill, but in fact that to do so is 'un-American.' Presumably that's his favorite adjective, one we can expect to hear pop out of Paul's mouth frequently if he ever gets to the U.S. Senate. Joe McCarthy, anyone?

This has all backfired so exquisitely on McConnell, that Bunning, who was known to resent McConnell for pushing him out of the Senate, can hardly be blamed if he is having a secret but hearty laugh about this somewhere.

Kentucky Republicans have made their choice. Now they have to live with him, at least until November.

Texas may lose their fight over FLDS children, and it will be an expensive loss.

I've in the past been quite critical of some of the aspects of the FLDS church, in particular their practices of forcing teenage girls into marriage (such as I blogged on here) and kicking out teenage boys (as I blogged on here.)

I've also made it clear that my problems with them have to do with child abuse in particular, not polygamy in general (what sexual relations consenting adults have with each other, and in what numbers, is not a matter which interests me, nor is it a matter which should warrant the interest of the state.)

However, following the recent raid in Texas, I wrote a post in which I expressed concern about civil rights violations by the state of Texas in their decision to remove hundreds of children from the FLDS compound, with no specific evidence that any of them in particular had been abused. The determining factor, in fact, was their religious identity and nothing other than that. It is true that several of the teenage girls were pregnant, but without being too blunt about it I suspect that if you go to any community in America you will find that a significant number of teenage girls are pregnant. My eldest daughter was pregnant when she was fifteen. I'm not suggesting that this is a good thing, but it's not grounds to remove a child from their home in the absence of any specific evidence of rape, incest or another crime causing the pregnancy (and as noted, they had none about specific children who they removed.)

Since then, Texas' case has been unraveling and they have been embarrassed by a steady stream of bad news about their case. The first came when it turned out that the phone calls that Texas authorities had received, claiming to be from an abused teenager named, 'Sarah' inside the compound, actually turned out to be a hoax after they were traced to a woman named Rozita Swinton in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Her motivation was apparently a progressive, but misplaced mindset. These phone calls had provided the original justification for the raid and the warrant to go in, in the first place. What is especially troubling is that it is not all that hard to reverse trace a phone call and verify the caller's location (in fact this was obviously done but the information was apparently not examined until after the raid.) This leads to two scenarios, both troubling: either that Texas authorities were looking for a pretext for a raid and jumped so fast that they didn't bother to check a basic fact like this, or even more troubling that they knew the calls were phony and went ahead anyway.

Texas authorities then claimed that they had reason to believe that a man named Dale Evans Barlow had abused some of the children at the ranch. Only problem is that there is no evidence that Dale Evans Barlow was ever at the ranch. In fact during the time period in question, Dale Evans Barlow was checking in weekly with his Utah probation officer. It is conceivable but a bit far fetched to suppose that every week he met his probation officer, drove for about 36 hours to the Texas compound, stayed there a couple of days to abuse some girls, then drove 36 hours back to Utah and met with his probation officer, and then repeated this pattern every week. Texas Rangers did travel to interview Dale Barlow on April 12, but left without making an arrest, and they have no evidence at all that he ever did travel to Texas during the time when he is alleged to have committed the crime (though no one can even name who made the allegation in the first place, unless perhaps it was made by Rozita Swinton while she was pretending to be 'Sarah.')

Then we have the case of Pamela Jessop. Pamela Jessop was a pregnant teenager who was removed from the compound. She maintains that at the time told them that she is eighteen (legally an adult) and showed them her birth certificate to prove it. Records seized at the scene by the Texas authorities confirmed that her age was eighteen, so they knew how old she was. They forcibly kept her in custody anyway so that when she gave birth they were in a position to give her a choice of either returning to the compound without her newborn child (she also has a one year old) or to stay there with the newborn. Jessop has hired some attorneys and they are considering filing a Federal lawsuit against the state of Texas.

Which leads us to what happened earlier this week. State authorities returned to the compound, claiming that they believed there were more children inside. They were denied admittance despite having a search warrant.

Understandably after what happened last month, the FLDS at the ranch are not very welcoming of another search warrant. More to the point though this feels a lot like a 'CYA' situation. When a case starts to fall apart, and especially if it is a case that could result in expensive lawsuits, sometimes authorities will dig in and desperately start trying to find any evidence they can, no matter how flimsy, in order to manufacture a case when the original charges don't pan out.

So then today the Texas Court of Appeals ruled that the mass removal of the children of 38 mothers was wrong because the state failed to prove that the children were in 'imminent danger.' Though the court stopped short of ordering all of the children returned immediately (allowing Texas to maintain them in foster care until they decide whether to appeal to the Texas Supreme Court,) the Court of Appeals made it very clear that the raid and continuing detention of the children is, in the opinion of the court, not justified by facts or evidence and may be a gross violation of civil rights occurring on a massive scale.

What Texas did earlier this week, apparently realizing that the Appeals Court cas was likely to go against them in trying to launch a second raid was an act of desperation. They realize now that they overreached in seizing hundreds of children with no specific evidence that any one of them is in danger, and now they are starting to realize that Pamela Jessop's likely lawsuit is only the first of hundreds that could be filed-- likely costing the state of Texas hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars. So this is likely to be a very expensive and painful lesson for Texas to learn about respecting civil rights.

I'd also like to point out how the 'hang 'em high, cowboy' attitude of Texas contrasts to the strategy that is being employed cooperatively by Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard (a Democrat) and Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff (a Republican.) Goddard and Shurtleff have cooperated to seize and place the assets of the FLDS Church under the direction of an outside board of directors where they will be used for the benefit of the community and all its members, have put FLDS leader Warren Jeffs behind bars and recently held a joint meeting in St. George in which polygamists from Colorado City and Hildale were able to openly discuss their concerns and the concerns in their community. By focusing on enforcing the law against the leaders who pushed their flock into violating it but not punishing the members of the church, Goddard and Shurtleff have created an atmosphere of at least limited communication and understanding that it is safe to say after this episode law enforcement officials in Texas will never have. And with today's court decision, it doesn't look like they will have anything else to work with either.

Texas FLDS still deserve the right to individual hearings and presentation of evidence.

As regular readers of this blog are aware, I've been quite critical of the FLDS over the issue of child abuse. Some of the things which they do, ranging from forcing thirteen year old girls into 'marriages' in which they are raped by sixty year old men, to abandoning thirteen year old boys off on the side of the road with no education beyond rudimentary construction skills, are frankly appalling to any sense of decency.

So it may come as a surprise that after waiting for a couple of weeks to digest the news of the raids in Texas, I've reached the conclusion that there are some issues here in which I have to defend the FLDS.

To begin with, what happened in Texas should demontrate conclusively that Warren Jeffs is no prophet. He picked the site of the ranch himself, and didn't trouble himself with the detail that Texas has more latitude in taking state custody of children than virtually any other state in the country. So he made a terrible decision if his basis was providing for the security, if you could call it that, of his followers.

That said, I am concerned that all the children were swept up, apparently only because of their religious identity. There were a number of traditional families (one man, one woman, raising their own biological kids) in the compound as well as the polygamous families, and the state made no distinction between them.

If this blanket seizure of kids and blanket custody decision is allowed to stand, then consider what it could lead to (all of these are prevented only by societal perceptions, which can as we know change):

Could the state someday seize all Jewish boys as soon as they are born in order to protect them from circumcision (which some people define as child abuse, even today?)

Could the state someday seize all children belonging to families whose religions practice any kind of non-traditional medicine (be it prayer, tribal ceremonies or other kinds of medicine that don't involve doctors or prescription drugs?)

Could the state someday seize all the children of families who may not make enough money to feed them?

Could the state someday seize all the children of single-parent families, citing statistics that indicate the kids could be at risk?

Could the state someday seize all the children of convicted felons, citing the need to put them in an environment in which they may be protected from 'criminal influence'?

I know, I know. Some people are saying I'm overreacting and that this would never happen. But it was only a couple of weeks ago, I thought that the state would take your children only if there was evidence that you yourself were praciticing a lifestyle which was a danger to them, not swoop down on a community and blanket-confiscate all the kids there (that's the kind of thing that happens in totalitarian regimes, not in America.) And today you'd be right, none of the above is likely to happen. But as I said earlier, societal perceptions can change. It is the law and legal precedent which protect us from them when they do.

A return to the bad old Hoover days?

Who was the most feared man in Washington between May 10, 1924 and May 2, 1972? It was J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover was not a President, though after his appointment as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations by President Calvin Coolidge in 1924 he lasted for 48 years, spanning the Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and part of the Nixon administration. There was a reason he remained in power in Washington for so long. Part of it was that he made the FBI his own personal fiefdom, dismissing agents or anyone else who crossed him, and in fact arranging the end of their careers. No one-- not Congressmen, Senators or even Presidents dared to cross Hoover. He held official Washington in an icy grip of fear.

And the key to his power was because he had files. Up to fifty million of them-- on any American who was noteworthy enough (or even knew anyone who was noteworthy enough) to attract his attention. If he couldn't find 'something' on somebody then he had his agents conduct surveillance (including wiretaps) into their family, their friends, or anyone else he could use as leverage should he ever have a desire to do so. Hoover made it a point to destroy the lives of anyone who dared challenge his power, and abused his charge by conducting surveillance on political opponents who were exercising their Constitutional rights and who had nothing to do with crime or criminal activity.

Once the scope of Hoover's activities came to light following his death, and also other abuses of civil liberties by the Nixon White House and other government agencies (such as the CIA) there was a brief period in the mid-1970's when concerns over civil liberties and privacy led to the the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts, the creation of the FISA court and other reforms that made government more accountable and gave the FBI and similar agencies some laws to follow. Since Coolidge appointed Hoover, in 1924, we've had one President, who made limiting the domestic spying authority of government agencies any kind of a priority at all, and that President was Jimmy Carter, who served one term and signed many of the reforms of the 1970's into law.

FBI to collect database of human physical characteristics.

CLARKSBURG, West Virginia (CNN) -- The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people's physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists.

But it's an issue that raises major privacy concerns -- what one civil liberties expert says should concern all Americans.

The bureau is expected to announce in coming days the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information -- from palm prints to eye scans.

Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI's Biometric Services section chief, said adding to the database is "important to protect the borders to keep the terrorists out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children so they can have good jobs, and have a safe country to live in."

But it's unnerving to privacy experts.

"It's the beginning of the surveillance society where you can be tracked anywhere, any time and all your movements, and eventually all your activities will be tracked and noted and correlated," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Technology and Liberty Project.

The FBI already has 55 million sets of fingerprints on file. In coming years, the bureau wants to compare palm prints, scars and tattoos, iris eye patterns, and facial shapes. The idea is to combine various pieces of biometric information to positively identify a potential suspect.

A lot will depend on how quickly technology is perfected, according to Thomas Bush, the FBI official in charge of the Clarksburg, West Virginia, facility where the FBI houses its current fingerprint database.

Thomas E. Bush III is not a first or second cousin of the current President, though I've not been able to research definitively if or how closely related he is beyond that.

What concerns me is that this seems to be one more brick in a virtually endless succession of steps that have come-- from both Democratic and Republican administrations-- that give official spy agencies such as the FBI pretty much a window into anyone's life.

It is unfortunate that no one really addresses this issue anymore, taking it for granted that 'we have to protect ourselves from criminals and terrorists' or whatever other bogeymen they throw out there, so therefore we should all just accept these new spy powers.

Yeah, I know. I may get some more comments from Ron Paul supporters. I still consider him to be somewhat of a nut though, what with arguing against the civil rights movement and even against the Civil War, apparently having no problem with institutional racism. Unfortunately, Bush I (the former head of the CIA) raised an endorsement from the ACLU as a red flag against Michael Dukakis in 1988, and since then it seems that all major candidates of both parties have taken it as a matter of course that they should just go along with the flow towards ever and ever more restrictive police powers (I never hesitate to remind people that when Clinton's ATF tried to shoot their way, unannounced into Waco, it was technically legal because 'someone' had said their might be drugs in the compound-- though no evidence of that was actually found later-- so the 'no-knock' attack was legal under 'war on drugs' legislation pushed by Ronald Reagan in the 1980's.) In other words these laws last way beyond any administration and can be used or abused by any future administration.

Or by any future rogue bureacrat, out to create his own empire within Washington.