Los Angeles Times, January 12, 2009 by Carol J. Williams
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-closing-gitmo12-2009jan12,0,5144124,full.story
“We need to bring this to closure, and that needs to be done accountably and done swiftly,” said Fletcher, director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at Berkeley. “Guantanamo has been devastating for the United States’ image in the world and for the rule of law.”
The Boston Globe, January 11, 2009 by Julie Masis
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2009/01/11/is_this_lawman_your_facebook_friend/?page=full
Jennifer Lynch, a lecturer at the law school … said there are ethical issues involved when police pretend to be someone’s friend to get access to their profile. “If police are creating a fake profile and asking to be a friend, they are not going through the court” to obtain a search warrant, she said. “So you’re losing the checks and balances that we value in our criminal justice system.”
KPIX, CBS5, January 9, 200 by Hank Plante
http://cbs5.com/video/?id=44302@kpix.dayport.com
“They have their work cut out for them,” says UC Berkeley Law School’s Anne Joseph O’Connell, who has written extensively on the intelligence community. “I think it definitely is a time for a new direction after this administration’s actions. The county’s reputation has suffered in terms of world opinion.”
International Herald Tribune, January 8, 2009 by Robert Pear and David Stout
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/08/america/09daschle.php
“Public insurance has a better track record than private insurance when it comes to reining in costs while preserving access to care,” Hacker said. “The public plan would set a standard against which private plans must compete.”
NPR News & Notes, January 8, 2009 by Farai Chideya
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99120917
“The big difference between the United States and other developed countries is not that we have different kinds of punishments, but that we use the severe punishments much more. The imprisonment rate in the United States is five or six times the imprisonment rate in other developed countries that we like to compare ourselves to.”
The New York Times, January 7, 2009 by Eric Lichtblau
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/us/politics/08johnsen.html?pagewanted=print
Goodwin Liu, associate dean and law professor … who worked with Ms. Johnsen on the board of the American Constitution Society, said, “She’s a first-rate scholar who will uphold the law, and that will allow her to give the office the independence it needs to restore its credibility.”
The New York Times, January 7, 2009 by Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/opinion/l08treaty.html?pagewanted=print
Mr. Bolton and Mr. Yoo are also on weak ground in suggesting that Congress has used its Article I authority only in the field of international trade. Both houses have acted under Article I to approve key national security accords, like the SALT agreement with the Russians or the recent United States-India nuclear agreement. Mr. Bolton and Mr. Yoo, however, don’t even mention Article I. While their claim would enable a minority of Senate Republicans to veto international agreements, it does not have a basis in either the constitutional text or precedent.
-The Mercury News, January 7, 2009 by Sean Maher and Josh Richman
http://www.mercurynews.com/localnews/ci_11394377
“Normally, what you get in a police deadly force interaction is a ‘he said, she said’ in which there’s at least an accusation like, ‘There was a flash of metal as he reached toward his pocket,'” Zimring said. “But this guy was already down on the ground…. He’s not in a position to be threatening anybody.” Use of deadly force is considered “in terms of a threat to the physical safety of the officer or somebody else and there’s none there in this case,” he added. “So it’s accident versus intention, but justification is off the table.”
-Oakland Tribune, January 8, 2009 by Kelly Rayburn
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/ci_11411613
“What on earth are the Oakland police doing staying out?” he asked. BART police “don’t have exclusive jurisdiction over (homicides) in the city of Oakland, even if it’s in a BART station,” he said.
-Oakland Tribune, January 15, 2009 by Josh Richman
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_11465336
“At the beginning of this year, I thought that the district attorney’s office in Alameda County was one of the better departments in the United States, and nothing that’s happened since New Year’s Eve has changed my view,” he said, adding that if anything moved too slowly in this case, it was the Oakland Police Department’s involvement. “The missing moving parts were in police investigation. There was nothing slow and nothing dysfunctional, at least in the public accounts, with what went on in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office.”
Contra Costa Times, January 7, 2009 by William McCall
http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_11400038
“The status quo is very difficult to upset,” said Jesse Choper, the Earl Warren Professor of Public Law at the University of California, Berkeley.
The Mercury News, January 6, 2009 by Michelle Wilde Anderson and Steve Weissman
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11408993?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com&IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com
As Obama has said, energy and climate security is “not only a problem, it is also an opportunity.” His administration has an opportunity—and a duty—to lead with policies that are as equitable as they are ambitious.