LA Police Chief William Bratton has demoted and disciplined officers involved in shooting rubber bullets at and using batons on immigration rights protesters in last week's march.

At a City Hall news conference, Bratton said a two-star deputy chief, Cayler "Lee" Carter Jr., and his second-in-command, Louis Gray, were the ranking officers at MacArthur Park on May 1, when officers swept through the park swinging batons and firing rubber bullets indiscriminately. Carter has been moved down a rank in the department and has been told to stay home from work indefinitely. Gray has been reassigned within the department.

"As chief of the department, I have to be comfortable with the leadership team I have around me," Bratton said. "This is not a witch hunt."

There were several injuries resulting from the police misconduct:

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Nicely said:

Just a few years ago, the United States could hold its head high for the freedoms enjoyed by those residing within its borders as well as its energy, leadership, and openness and compassion. Today we are fast becoming a closed society, suspicious not only of “outsiders” but of many within our borders who are in some way “not like us.” The lists of our freedoms have turned into lists of our enemies, giving them an unmerited significance that in turn diminishes the country’s international standing. Persuasion has been replaced by coercion, honor sacrificed to a corrupted “duty,” and morality to expediency.

Military analyst Dan Smith examines the administration's assault on civil liberties post 9/11.

The ACLU has filed objections to the Real I.D. Regulations.

A hearing is scheduled tomorrow before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Calling the Real ID Act "unworkable and an intolerable threat to privacy and civil liberties," the American Civil Liberties Union today filed comments asking the Department of Homeland Security to withdraw its proposed Real ID regulations and to join with the expanding list of states, organizations and individuals pushing Congress to overhaul the ill-conceived measure.

"This is a bad law, and DHS' regulations won't make it any better," said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "The ACLU national office and state affiliates have been campaigning against Real ID for more than two years, and the effort is beginning to pay off. Our efforts helped create a genuine rebellion against this law."

"Real ID is a flimsy house of cards doomed to an inevitable collapse. The regulations do not--and cannot--fix its many problems," said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project.

Opposition to the Real I.D. Act is spreading. You can view a map showing progress across the country here.

Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo continues to ratchet up the immigration debate with ridiculous hyperboles. His latest, in Arizona yesterday:

Presidential candidate and U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo told supporters gathered at a private ranch here Friday that American culture, as well as the fate of western civilization, is being threatened by illegal immigration.

....“There’s an issue that is so much broader than all that, so much more serious. It is the issue of our culture itself, and whether we will survive.”

Then, he warned his audience that what happened at an elementary school in 2004 in Beslan, Russia, ("where Islamic terrorists from Chechnya killed more than 300 people") could happen here:

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Richard Martin predicts that the erosion of privacy won't concern the residents of the crime-ridden Jordan Downs housing project in Watts. He may be right: many are willing to trade their civil liberties for a sense of security. And the limited intrusiveness of "seven cameras strategically mounted around the project and linked to a multi-screen command center inside the LAPD's Southeast Substation" promotes less anguish than sneak-and-peek searches or national security letters, which (unlike a camera) can't be avoided by retreating to a private place.

It should nonetheless make us uncomfortable to know that the government is recording our public movements. This is particularly true when the surveillance cameras target areas in which poor and nonwhite individuals are concentrated. The proliferation of video surveillance threatens to erode civil liberties while making a dubious contribution to public safety -- even if the cameras make Jordan Downs' residents feel better.

As predicted, turnout for today's immigration rights marches had a lower turnout than last year. There's more fear this year than last, in the wake of the feds' immigration raids at workplaces.

What are they marching for? While not every immigrants' rights group's goals are the same, here are the goals of the National Immigration Solidarity Network:

1) No to anti-immigrant legislation, and the criminalization of the immigrant communities.

2) No to militarization of the border.

3) No to the immigrant detention and deportation.

4) No to the guest worker program.

5) No to employer sanction and "no match" letters.

6) Yes to a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

7) Yes to speedy family reunification.

8) Yes to civil rights and humane immigration law.

9) Yes to labor rights and living wages for all workers.

10) Yes to the education and LGBT immigrant legislation.

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For the second May Day in a row, immigrants across the country will take to the streets in protest.

In New York, groups are planning an "American Family Tree" rally, where immigrants will pin paper leaves on a large painting of a tree to symbolize the separation of families because of strict immigration laws.

In Chicago, demonstrators will march more than three miles through downtown, ending at a lakefront park.

In Fresno, Calif., organizers planned a rally focusing on children whose parents had been deported. The San Joaquin Valley is home to thousands of seasonal workers who cross the Mexican border illegally each year to work in the fields and construction industry.

In Milwaukee, Ricardo Chavez, the brother of famed agricultural labor leader Cesar Chavez, was expected to speak, as protesters demanded a stop to immigration raids. A raid last year in Whitewater, Wis., saw the arrests of 25 workers and the owner of a packaging plant. Mothers were separated from their children.

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A federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled police skid row searches unconstitutional:

U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson found that officers question — and at times search — parolees and probationers without evidence that they might have committed a crime, which the judge said was unconstitutional. He ordered the LAPD to change its practices.

This is the second victory for those on skid row:

A federal appeals court last year found the city's anti-camping ordinance to be unconstitutional, scuttling LAPD efforts to prevent the homeless from sleeping on downtown sidewalks at night.

TChris reported on that here.

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As a foundational principle, there can be no official, government-established religion in the United States. All religions are free to compete for adherents without governmental preference, and all who are within the country's borders have the freedom to worship (or not) as they please. For that reason, the religion of Wicca is entitled to the same governmental respect as every other sincerely-practiced religion.

It should not have taken a lawsuit to motivate the Department of Veterans Affairs to approve the engraving of a Wiccan religious symbol, the pentacle, on veterans' tombstones.

There are 1,800 Wiccans in the armed forces, according to a Pentagon survey cited in the suit, and Wiccans have their faith mentioned in official handbooks for military chaplains and noted on their dog tags.

Veterans Affairs officials no doubt shared the same view as noted constitutional scholar George Bush, who said of Wicca in 1999, "I don’t think witchcraft is a religion." Apart from mistaking (and trivializing) Wicca as "witchcraft," Bush previewed the arrogance we came to know in the ensuing years of his presidency. Who is George Bush to decide what faiths or spiritual beliefs deserve recognition as a religion? More importantly, how could an officeholder with the slightest understanding of constitutional law believe that the government is entitled to prefer some established religions over others? He must have been getting his legal advice from Alberto Gonzales.

What will they think of next?

A Transportation Security Administration effort to screen air travelers for suspicious behavior is on track to come to Denver International Airport this year, subjecting passengers to observation and small talk from agents looking for signs of deception.

The SPOT program - short for "screening passengers by observation technique" - is modeled after Israeli security measures that pick up on facial expressions, body language and other involuntary reactions that occur when people lie. TSA officials won't list which behaviors raise concerns or say how many screeners are involved, citing security concerns.

What are they looking for?

"We're not just looking for people who seem suspicious, TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said. "We're looking for behaviors that have been proven by scientific research to indicate that an individual is suppressing high levels of stress or fear or deception. People who are up to something, basically."

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I've finally found something I agree with New York Governor Eliot Spitzer about. Keeping a campaign promise, he will be introducing a bill to legalize gay marriage.

“The governor made a commitment to advance a program bill, and he will fulfill that commitment during this legislative session,” Ms. Anderson said, using the term that refers to legislation introduced directly by the governor rather than through a state agency or by the Legislature.

Is it all for show? He didn't include it in his legislative prioritybudget for the year.

Explaining why he did not include the gay-marriage bill among his post-budget legislative priorities, Mr. Spitzer said last week that he “was listing bills that I think we can and should get passed by the Legislature in the next few weeks. And so I am focusing now on politics as the art of the possible. “I think most who are close to the issue would agree with me that it’s not likely to be passed in the next nine and a half weeks,” Mr. Spitzer added.

Is he just going through the motions? Does that count? When is he going to introduce a bill to repeal the odious and draconian Rockefeller sentencing laws?

Massive immigrant rights demonstrators will take to the streets of our major cities again on May Day.

Where last year's marches took aim at federal legislation that would have made assisting illegal immigrants a felony, this year's May 1 march will call for a moratorium on workplace immigration raids that have occurred nationwide in recent months, organizers said.

Demonstrators also will demand that U.S. citizenship be opened to the country's estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants, an element in several competing proposals introduced this year in Congress.

Activists say this year could see even bigger turnouts.

"The difference this year is that we now have the infrastructure in place. People are easier to reach and they only have to ask: Where and what time?"