UNMASKING
Provided by USA Today: The investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election — and President Trump's counterattack against surveillance and leaking — has brought a new term into the American political lexicon. "Unmasking." Until now, the process for revealing information about U.S. citizens in intelligence reports was almost completely obscure outside of the intelligence community. But the issue has taken on new importance since House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes alleged that the Obama administration may have improperly identified Trump transition officials in classified reports he had access to — reports that later turned out to be provided to him by the Trump White House. Here's what we know about the hows and whys of unmasking:
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Our plea bargain system can make the innocent admit guilt. Enter Michael Flynn.

5/20/20
from The Washington Post,
5/20/20:

The Cato Institute’s Clark Neily ..., , a member of the American Bar Association’s Plea Bargaining Task Force and head of its subcommittee on impermissibly coercive plea bargains and plea practices, concludes that ... a process that “routinely” coerces through plea bargaining. [Defendants] probably would experience “intolerable pressure designed to induce a waiver of his fundamental right to a fair trial.” Plea bargaining is, Neily argues “pervasive and coercive” partly because of today’s “trial penalty” — the difference between the sentences offered to those who plead guilty and the much more severe sentences typically imposed after a trial. This penalty discourages exercising a constitutional right. A defendant in a computer hacking case, Neily says, committed suicide during plea bargaining in which prosecutors said he could avoid a trial conviction and sentence of up to 35 years by pleading guilty and accepting a six-month sentence.

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