Top LE Officials Oppose Sentencing Reform:  Forty former top federal law enforcement officials, in a letter sent to Senate leaders, have called to halt the rolling back of mandatory minimum sentences and leave the current sentencing regime alone.  Dan Friedman of the Washington Examiner reports that the group, which includes former New York mayor and U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani, former Attorney General John Ashcroft and drug control czar William Bennett, argued in a letter that, "Mandatory minimums and proactive law enforcement measures have caused a dramatic reduction in crime over the past 25 years, an achievement we cannot afford to give back." While critics of mandatory minimums claim that its use results in disproportionate incarceration of black men for nonviolent crimes, the former officials warn that retroactively altering previously-applied sentencing guidelines would allow thousands of armed career criminals to be released from prison, noting that the proposed legislation would "roll back mandatory minimums for gun crimes like a bar on felons possessing firearms."

Patrol Officers See Changes as Tensions Rise:  Following several deadly, high profile confrontations between police officers and unarmed black men over the course of more than a year, officers are taking notice that the job has changed due to increased tension.  Jeffrey Collins of the AP reports that beat cops and their supervisors are worried that heightened fear of public scrutiny might cause officers to "overthink what should be split-second decisions in dangerous situations, putting themselves or others at risk."  Officers also express a new fear of being ambushed, such as Sgt. Jeff Weed of the Lexington County Sheriff's Department, who stated that he no longer feels secure doing paperwork while sitting in an empty lot in his patrol car.  A South Carolina deputy, Shane Reece, says that he gets more attention while on patrol than he used to; whether the attention is positive or negative, "Both sides are more vocal.  You don't get to go quietly many places anymore."  Departments nationwide have begun using body cameras as "an unflinching witness to an incident."  Officers are being encouraged to get out of their patrol cars and interact with the public so that when videos of incidents are widely publicized and scrutinized, people can better recognize police officers as people, not just uniforms.

Gitmo Detainee Released by Obama Seen in Terror Video:  A former Guantanamo inmate released by an insistent Obama administration, adamant that he would not fall back into terrorism, has resurfaced as a top al Qaeda leader in a video urging Muslims to kill Americans.  Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times reports that Ibrahim al-Qosi, once a close associate of Osama bin Laden, was released in 2012 by the Defense Department to his native Sudan after he pleaded guilty to a minor terrorism charge, and the Sudanese government was supposed to reintegrate him into society as a law-abiding citizen.  Instead, al-Qosi is now chief spokesman for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, featured in a video urging "individual jihad" on Americans, also known as lone wolf attacks.  According to a Director of National Intelligence report, of the 653 Gitmo prisoners released as of last summer, 117 have been confirmed as terrorists and another 79 have been suspected of re-engaging in terrorism.  President Obama has vowed to close the facility in Cuba, transferring the remaining 107 prisoners to the U.S., but has been met with fierce opposition from Republicans concerned that the inmates are too dangerous to be moved and that the White House has failed to submit a plan on how to accomplish the closing and transfers.