Update (TL): Firedoglake is live-blogging.

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Chris Dodd has announced he will filibuster the FISA Amendment which includes telecom immunity. You can watch the debate here.

Update [2008-1-24 11:56:34 by Big Tent Democrat]: Clinton a No Show. Shame on her.

Update (TL): Obama isn't there either. I didn't expect either of them to be there.

Barack Obama will easily win the South Carolina primary Saturday. But because the win will be fueled by overwhelming African American support, the momentum of such a win may be blunted. There is a way for Obama to make that victory something transformational for his campaign -- he can announce in his Saturday night victory speech that he will be returning to Washington to join Chris Dodd in his fight against telecom immunity. As Glenn Greenwald says:

The only way for there to be any prospect of impeding Bush's most extreme demands for vast warrantless eavesdropping powers and immunity for lawbreaking telecoms is for the presidential candidates -- Obama, Edwards and Clinton -- to demonstrate (rather than speak about) real "leadership" and take a stand in support of Chris Dodd and his imminent filibuster.

Some will say Barack Obama can not do this when he needs to be in 2/5 states campaigning. I think they are wrong. The bully pulpit of a Senate filbuster will get Obama immense national coverage that will reach into all of the 2/5 states. It will prove that Barack Obama is indeed a Fighting Democrat, ready to take on extreme Republicanism. It will reassure liberals and Democrats that Obama will fight for Dem values. It will be good for Obama's political fortunes AND for the country. A perfect combination for him. He should do this.

A new policy goes into effect in Michigan today. Undocumented residents will not be allowed to obtain drivers' licenses. But, that's not all.

The new policy also prohibits people who are legal but not permanent U.S. residents from getting licenses. Legislation to allow those on temporary work or student visas to get licenses is pending in the Legislature.

States that allow drivers licenses for the undocumented include:

Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington do not require drivers to prove legal status to obtain a license.

Unfortunately, we can't count on any of the Democratic candidates to take a strong stand on bringing the undocumented out of the shadows. While Hillary flubbed the question during a Democratic debate, John Edwards opposed licenses for the undocumented. And Barack Obama, well, he first said he was in favor of it but then weaseled out just moments later. Then he went back to his first position. As Hillary says, it's hard to figure out where he stands on a number of issues. This is one of them. [quotes below.]

The New York Times says Republicans are embracing an immigration policy known as "attrition." It's a policy of tightening the screws, in hopes the undocumented will just go away.

That amounts to relentlessly tightening the screws in workplaces and homes until illegal immigrants magically, voluntarily disappear.

Making it work would require far more government intrusion into daily lives, with exponential increases in workplace raids and deportations. It would mean constant ID checks for everyone — citizens, too — with immigration police at the federal, state and local levels. It would mean enlisting bureaucrats and snoops to keep an eye on landlords, renters, laborers, loiterers and everyone who uses government services or gets sick.

Worst of all, it’s weak on law and order. It is a free pass to the violent criminals we urgently need to hunt down and deport. Attrition means waiting until we stumble across bad people hiding in the vast illegal immigrant haystack. Comprehensive reform, by bringing the undocumented out of the shadows, shrinks the haystack.

Going through the list of Republican candidates, one is more reactionary than the next. As to the border fence, the Times calls it a "reject of history." [More...]

With the news and bloggers returning to a discussion of immigration this weekend as the Democratic candidates vie for the Latino and Hispanic vote (more here) and the Republican candidates try to show they are the toughest on the undocumented, here's ten point immigration reform plan TalkLeft supports:

1. We need a comprehensive program that allows undocumented immigrants from all nationalities and living in the U.S. to obtain legal permanent residency.

2. Future immigrants should also be able to come here legally and safely, have access to permanent residency, and not fear criminal prosecution for unlawful entry or exit.

3. Immigrant workers’ rights should be promoted and protected; employer sanctions and the criminalization of work must be ended. Labor laws should be strictly enforced, and immigrant workers should have the freedom to join unions to improve wages and working conditions.

4. The human rights of all immigrants should be respected in the enforcement of immigration laws throughout the U.S. and at the nation’s borders.

5. Immigrants should be able to adjust their status and reunite with families in a fair and timely way. [More...]

Despite a severe budget shortage, Arizona is set to begin prosecuting 40 to 60 "apprehended migrants" a day.

This is a very expensive program that is unlikely to be a deterrent.

Even with only 40 prosecutions a day, expenses will likely add up to millions of dollars a year for housing, transporting, prosecuting and defending those who are charged.

While a higher number of arrests clearly occur daily in the Tucson sector, trying to prosecute many more on a daily basis clearly would overwhelm the system, various federal officials say.

On the impact: [More....]

The Bush Administration and Congress' Real ID plan (code word for national identity card) got another delay yesterday. States will have five more years to put it into effect.

The AP has more here.

Why?

DHS revised its ID plan after states and civil libertarians criticized draft regulations, issued last March and setting a 2013 deadline, as unworkable and threatening to Americans' privacy by creating a de facto national ID for 245 million U.S. drivers. Seventeen states have passed legislation opposing or opting out of the program.

America is supposed to be a country where police don't get to ask, "Where's Your Papers?" For driver's now older than 50, that will change by 2018. For those born after 1964, it may change by 2011.

Maybe we can get a Congress elected by then to repeal this ill-advised law, which the ACLU and others aptly call a "real nightmare." More here and here.

Adam Liptak has an article in today's New York Times, If Your Hard Drive Could Testify, about court fights over whether the Government can inspect the contents of your laptop's hard drive when coming into the country.

The government contends that it is perfectly free to inspect every laptop that enters the country, whether or not there is anything suspicious about the computer or its owner. Rummaging through a computer’s hard drive, the government says, is no different than looking through a suitcase. One federal appeals court has agreed, and a second seems ready to follow suit.

It might be time to leave the laptop at home if it's not essential to your overseas trip. Or ship it home via federal express and bring a dvd player instead to watch movies on the long flight.

A New York Times editorial today sharply criticizes the Republican candidates for President over immigration. It also calls on the Demoratic candidates to speak out more forcefully for sane and workable immigration reform.

The problem is that the country cannot build a fence or send troops and expect its problems to go away. Huge numbers of illegal immigrants never go anywhere near the border: about 40 percent enter legally and overstay their visas. Nor can the government purge workplaces of illegal workers without doing vast damage to the economy. At some point it must address the 12 million undocumented, who cannot be deported en masse.

The Times frames the questions both sides need to answer: [More....]

Back in 2005 I wrote Welcome to America, It Will Only Cost You a Leg , about Moises Carranza-Reye, an immigrant from Mexico who came to Colorado looking for work. He ended up in a county jail on an immigration hold, where he lost a lung and part of a leg after developing a streptococcus infection.

He sued in federal court, and today his lawyer announced a settlement. Carranza-Reye will receive 1.5 million dollars.

About the Park County Jail:

Park County Jail...houses alien detainees under a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).....[It] takes in immigration detainees and overflow inmates from other counties and the state prison system, charging $45 a day per prisoner; "This jail is a revenue-generator for the county," says Colorado Springs attorney Lloyd Kordick. "They're actively advertising for customers. They're also trying to minimize their costs, and they really didn't care about the consequences."

The treatment Carranza-Reyes and the other detainees received will make you sick: [More...]

More like this please:

In what's likely to be seen as a privacy-friendly move, IAC Search & Media's Ask.com search engine Tuesday announced a ew feature called AskEraser that deletes a user's search activity data from the company's servers.

When enabled by the user, the feature will completely delete search queries and associated cookie information from Ask.com servers -- including IP addresses, user IDs, session IDs and the text of queries made, according to the company. In most cases, the deletion will take place within a few hours of the time a search is completed, the company said.

It's not a panacea, but a step in the right direction: [More....]

Fans of irony will appreciate this:

The second [Supreme Court appeal] was filed by Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, appealing a decision that has blocked the transfer to the Iraqis of another naturalized United States citizen, Shawqi Ahmad Omar. ... The administration’s Supreme Court appeal, Geren v. Omar, No. 07-394, describes the case as one of “exceptional importance,” adding, “As far as the government is aware, no court has previously sanctioned such a far-reaching and internationally unsettling exercise of American judicial power.”

Using the U.S. military to arrest an American citizen at his Baghdad home, holding that citizen in prison (at Abu Ghraib, among other places) for three years, and then turning him over to the Iraqi government for a terrorism trial is not, in the administration's view, "a far-reaching and internationally unsettling exercise of American ... power"? The unsettling use of military power doesn't disturb the Bush administration; it's only the use of judicial power to protect American citizens from the actions of the American government that it finds unsettling.
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