They’re probably relying on the operators to not have the money to sue over this, but good lord. Due process? Anybody heard of it? Anybody?

Maybe next they’ll replace the impound lot with a used car dealership and not even wait for the verdicts.

The house at the center of the case has been moved. And the project that the city used to justify taking it under eminent domain practices … is pretty much dead.

You know, that’s another argument against eminent domain abuse that didn’t even occur to me. Private projects and developments change all the time. Sometimes they die entirely. Keeping eminent domain confined to an identifiable public need — like a courthouse or school — doesn’t guarantee a project’s completion, but it is certainly more likely than a huge complicated private development.

Imagine if the City of Barstow had used eminent domain to get the land for one of these proposed housing developments that haven’t and maybe won’t come to pass. People forced to move and buildings bulldozed. And then, the developers don’t have enough money or can’t actually complete the project.

That’s something to keep in mind when a municipality defends its eminent domain abuse for economic development projects. There’s absolutely no way of truly knowing whether the project will ever come to fruition.

In short, a gentleman named Steve Hatfill was identified (through anonymous government sources) as the man behind the anthrax mailings following the Sept. 11 attacks. He was completely innocent and was never so much as even charged in the case.

A judge has ordered a former USA Today reporter to disclose her sources or else face fines for contempt. News organizations are defending her right to keep the information a secret.

The media, in general, does have an ethical right to keep sources a secret in a number of circumstances. In its role as a government watchdog, the media sometimes needs to depend on whistle-blowers providing them information about wrongdoing. Whistle-blowers, of course, may face retribution for revealing inappropriate activity and the media has the ability to reduce the risks by providing secrecy. The government, with its ability to create laws, has a tendency to abuse this authority to protect itself.

However, obviously some people in the media have forgotten exactly why it is we protect sources. In this case, the media is trying to protect the identity of government agents who, either out of incompetence or maliciousness, damaged the reputation of an innocent person. This entire case turns the whole point of protecting sources on its head. We’re supposed to be protecting the innocent from the government, not the other way around.

To me, as an editor, the larger question is, why on earth would a newspaper allow government officials to anonymously name a suspect in a crime in the first place? The legal and ethical risks are obviously high, as we’re seeing here with Hatfill proving to be completely innocent. If a reporter came to me and said we were given the name of a suspect in a crime but couldn’t reveal the source, I absolutely wouldn’t allow the name to be printed. If law enforcement officials don’t have the confidence to publicly state their suspicions, it’s completely irresponsible for a newspaper to risk its own reputation by putting the name out there. Why is it that I can immediately see this problem, but the larger media companies cannot?

Balko’s own blog is here, if you’re interested in following these issues. I got more interesting responses from my SWAT editorial than I expected. I’m just horrible at predicting people’s responses to the things I write about.

Oh, and I’m not promoting Balko’s blog simply because he recently complimented my SWAT editorial in it. I had totally planned to mention him a week ago here in my blog. Totally. Really.

My family isn’t directly involved in city politics, so I was fairly confident they wouldn’t have been there. However, my dad is involved with the Lion’s Club there and knows many of the community leaders. He is acquainted with some of these people who were shot, and even knew more about the shooter than the AP report indicated at the time. He filled me in on the man’s history when I called him at home to make sure they were all okay.

Fortunately, my family is safe. For that moment, and for the first time in my life, I felt what it must be like for anybody out there who hears a report of a tragedy on the news and not know whether or not it has affected their loved ones.

One of the goals is to discuss how the presidential race is being perceived or is being impacted in our various regions. However, I honestly don’t hear much about the candidates except from a handful of local folks who are personally involved in party politics.

I wonder if it’s because of our overall isolation and local focus. But I also worry if there’s a fear of our own irrelevance in national politics. We’re a small community that tends to vote conservative in a state where the Democratic presidential candidate tends to win easily — and so go the electoral votes. We’re also just a tiny part of our large state and congressional districts. Sometimes I wonder if people in Barstow feel that their votes beyond local issues matter.

I’d certainly love some feedback on the subject.

Apparently, according to The Roanoke Times, the Virginia GOP is requiring those who wish to vote in the Republican primary there to sign an oath that they’ll vote for the Republican candidate for president in 2008, regardless of whom it might be.

What an insult to the Republican voter in that state — and to the very idea of freedom and liberty.

Right now the Republican candidates for president are noteworthy for the diversity of their positions in a number of areas. They all stand on different places on the Republican platform. It is extremely insulting and unbelievably inappropriate for a political party to attempt to demand its members vote for somebody for whom they do not ultimately support.

Last week I mentioned in a commentary to coincide with the birthday of Freedom Communications founder R.C. Hoiles that I would never vote for a presidential candidate who would permit the use of torture to interrogate prisoners. So if I were a Republican in Virginia, I may want to vote for Ron Paul or John McCain in the primary and express my concern that the GOP return to its commitment to the rule of law. But what if Rudy Giuliani landed the ultimate nomination? I will not vote for that man. He doesn’t even understand the concept of “limited government.”

I don’t know what to say. I’ve never been a Republican, so I don’t know what it’s like, but I’ve read a number of traditional conservatives who have stated that they feel the party is abandoning them and its principles. This is a good example. I can’t imagine any political organization that purports to uphold liberty and freedom demanding loyalty oaths from its members. It’s like something that would be required at a worker’s meeting in the old Soviet Union.

“Redacted,” directed by Brian De Palma, is a fictionalized retelling of the rape and murder of an Iraqi teen and the killing of her family by a group of U.S. soldiers.

The inspiration should be known to those in Barstow who follow the news. Former Barstow resident Sgt. Paul E. Cortez was one of the men who was responsible for the real-world incident on which De Palma is basing his film. Cortez pleaded guilty to rape and several counts of murder and was sentenced to 100 years in prison.

From what I’ve read through various stories and reviews of the movie, De Palma put his account together based on a number of different sources. I’m curious as to whether he included some of the information about Cortez’s difficult life here in Barstow we uncovered while reporting the story.

Reviews are extremely mixed and critics seem to be pretty polarized, not unexpected when dealing with a fictional telling of a real-world story. I want to see the movie and judge it for myself (based on reading some of the reviews, I think I can tell which character is meant to be Cortez), but I don’t think it’s likely to come here. I’ll be visiting Los Angeles at the end of the month, and if it’s still playing, I’ll see if I can’t find a way to see it.