I've got a busy morning -- I've got to enter all the corrections in the new issue of NYRSF and send it to the printer, and I'm taking Peter's frogs to visit at CCW, his morning Kindergarten program -- and so had decided to wait 'til later in the day blog, but here's something that make me choke on my coffee:

First, I should say that just yesterday David and I had a discussion of the Martha Stewart ImClone scandal as an example of non-news, the kind of news story that got in the way of real news getting through, and we both agreed she was probably guilty, but so what? She shouldn't be headline news. So here I am the next morning blogging Martha.

In this morning's NYT, prosecutors explain why they single out celebrities for prosectution:

Prosecutors Have Reasons for Stalking Celebrities

"Is it for publicity purposes, because Martha Stewart is a celebrity?" her lawyer, Robert Morvillo, asked in a statement challenging the motives behind her indictment on charges of securities fraud and obstruction of justice.

The lead federal prosecutor in the case, James B. Comey, insisted that the answer to that question was no. "Martha Stewart is being prosecuted not for who she is, but because of what she did," said Mr. Comey, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Yet many longtime prosecutors said yesterday that Mr. Comey was being unnecessarily coy. Celebrity, they said, almost certainly played a role in the decision to commit resources to the Stewart investigation, and ultimately try to convince a grand jury to charge her with a crime. And, they added, "So what?"

After all, the purpose of law enforcement is not simply to punish people for crimes they have committed, but to deter crimes that are being contemplated. That pushes prosecutors to send strong signals about the dangers of crossing the line by bringing cases that penetrate the public consciousness. If yesterday's indictment had been against Martha Jones rather than Martha Stewart, no one would be reading this article ? primarily because it would not have been written.

"The deterrent effect is immeasurable," said Christopher Bebel, a former lawyer with the Securities and Exchange Commission and a former federal prosecutor. "Even if the government puts a thousand hours into building this case against Martha Stewart, the risk-reward ratio is enormously positive and constitutes a very prudent allocation of government resources."

The prosecutors speaking to the NYT clearly come from an alternate universe in which 1868 happened a little differently: we can tell they are from an alternate timestream because their US Constitution lacks section 1 of the 14th amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Any prosecutor from our universe would certainly have read the constitution and all its amendments. Keep your eyes peeled. There may be more of them: watch for law enforcement officials unaware of basic elements of the bill of rights. When you spot one, call in an anonymous tip the INS reporting an illegal alien. Remember, aliens are eveywhere.

Seriously: yes, celebrities should receive no special immunity from prosecution. However, singling celebrities out for special prosecution and, yes, stalking, is not only illegal, but also a very scary practice.

This is not the first time I've heard about this sort of thing: A well-known writer of space opera told me an annecdote about law enforcement in his state stalking him regarding his gun collection because he was a celebrity. He wasn't a TV personality, but in the state he lives in, he was all they had, so they tried it. He solved the problem before even getting arrested, but it was clear he was being stalked and he was able to find out why.

Now, off to the other computer to do the NYRSF corrections.