Holder goes after mandatory federal drug sentences

Attorney General Eric Holder announced a major shift last week in federal sentencing policies, targeting long mandatory terms that he said have flooded the nation’s prisons with low-level drug offenders and diverted crime-fighting dollars that could be far better spent.

If Holder’s policies are implemented aggressively, they could mark one of the most significant changes in the way the federal criminal justice system handles drug cases since the government declared a war on drugs in the 1980s.

As a first step, Holder has instructed federal prosecutors to stop charging many nonviolent drug defendants with offenses that carry mandatory minimum sentences. His next step will be working with a bipartisan group in Congress to give judges greater discretion in sentencing.

“We will start by fundamentally rethinking the notion of mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related crimes,” Holder told the American Bar Association in San Francisco.

There are currently more than 219,000 federal inmates, and the prisons are operating at nearly 40 percent above capacity. Holder said the prison population “has grown at an astonishing rate – by almost 800 percent” since 1980. Almost half the inmates are serving time for drug-related crimes.

New NSA revelations stir congressional concern

New revelations from leaker Edward Snowden that the National Security Agency has overstepped its authority thousands of times since 2008 are stirring renewed calls on Capitol Hill for serious changes to NSA spy programs, undermining White House hopes that President Barack Obama had quieted the controversy with his assurances of oversight.

An internal audit provided by Snowden to The Washington Post shows the agency has repeatedly broken privacy rules or exceeded its legal authority every year since Congress granted it broad new powers in 2008.

In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence – reports used as the basis for informing Congress.

Obama has repeatedly said that Congress was thoroughly briefed on the programs revealed by Snowden in June, but some senior lawmakers said they had been unaware of the NSA audit until they read the news Friday. The programs described earlier vacuum up vast amounts of metadata – such as telephone numbers called and called from, the time and duration of calls – from most Americans’ phone records, and scoop up global Internet usage data.

Partner of reporter at center of NSA leak detained

The partner of a journalist who received leaks from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden was detained for nearly nine hours Sunday under anti-terror legislation at Heathrow Airport, triggering claims that authorities are trying to interfere with reporting on the issue.

David Miranda, the partner of Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, was held for nearly the maximum time authorities are allowed to detain individuals under the Terrorism Act’s Schedule 7, which authorizes security agencies to stop and question people at borders. Greenwald said Miranda’s cellphone, laptops and memory sticks were confiscated.

“This is obviously a rather profound escalation of their attacks on the news-gathering process and journalism,” Greenwald said in a post on the Guardian website. “It’s bad enough to prosecute and imprison sources. It’s worse still to imprison journalists who report the truth. But to start detaining the family members and loved ones of journalists is simply despotic.”

Greenwald has written a series of stories about the NSA’s electronic surveillance programs based on files handed over by Snowden. The former contractor fled the United States and is now in Russia, where he has received temporary asylum.

UN chemical arms experts arrive in Syrian capital

After months of drawn-out negotiations, United Nations experts arrived in Damascus on Sunday to begin their investigation into the purported use of chemical weapons in Syria’s civil war.

The rebels, along with the U.S. and other Western powers, have accused President Bashar Assad’s regime of carrying out the alleged chemical attacks, while the Syrian government and Russia have blamed the opposition. Nearly six months after the weapons of mass destruction were first allegedly employed on the battlefield, definitive proof remains elusive.

The U.N. team that arrived in Damascus on Sunday is tasked with determining whether chemical weapons have been used in the conflict, and if so which ones. But the mission’s mandate does not extend to establishing who was responsible for an attack, which has led some observers to question the overall value of the probe.

The 20-member U.N. delegation, led by Swedish chemical weapons expert Ake Sellstrom, checked into a five-star hotel upon arrival in central Damascus. Plainclothes police officers immediately whisked them away from a crush of reporters and cameraman waiting in the lobby.

U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said the team will begin its work Monday.

New Zealand gay weddings begin, one at 39,000 feet

When Lynley Bendall and Ally Wanikau walked down the aisle to exchange vows Monday, the fasten-seatbelt signs were off.

The couple celebrated the legalization of gay marriage in New Zealand by getting hitched in a plane at 39,000 feet. Along for the ride was Jesse Tyler Ferguson, star of the ABC sitcom “Modern Family.”

Instead of soda and peanuts, the flight attendants served champagne and canapes.

Monday was the first day same-sex couples could marry in New Zealand, where the law was changed back in April. Officials said that about three dozen same-sex couples planned to marry in towns and cities throughout the country.

Bendall and Wanikau were flying high after winning a promotion by national carrier Air New Zealand. Their winning video featured their three young foster children holding handwritten signs saying why their parents should get married on a plane, including one that read “Wow!! Imagine that for news at school!!!”

Bendall said the law change is “huge” for New Zealand: “We’re so proud.”