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MAY 2006
WE INTERRUPT THIS PANIC FOR SOME REAL
FACTS ABOUT SEX PREDATORS
BENJAMIN RADFORD, SKEPTICAL INQUIRER
- Sex offenders are clearly a threat and commit horrific crimes,
but how great is the danger? . . . A close look at two widely-repeated
claims about the threat posed by sex offenders reveals some surprising
truths.
According to a May 3, 2006, "ABC
News" report, "One in five children is now approached
by online predators." This alarming statistic is commonly
cited in news stories about prevalence of Internet predators.
The claim can be traced back to a 2001 Department of Justice
study issued by the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children ("The Youth Internet Safety Survey") that
asked 1,501 American teens between 10 and 17 about their online
experiences. Among the study's conclusions: "Almost one
in five (19 percent)…received an unwanted sexual solicitation
in the past year." (A "sexual solicitation" is
defined as a "request to engage in sexual activities or
sexual talk or give personal sexual information that were unwanted
or, whether wanted or not, made by an adult." Using this
definition, one teen asking another teen if her or she is a virgin-or
got lucky with a recent date-could be considered "sexual
solicitation.")
Not a single one of the reported
solicitations led to any actual sexual contact or assault. Furthermore,
almost half of the "sexual solicitations" came not
from "predators" or adults but from other teens. When
the study examined the type of Internet "solicitation"
parents are most concerned about (e.g., someone who asked to
meet the teen somewhere, called the teen on the telephone, or
sent gifts), the number drops from "one in five" to
3 percent. . .
Furthermore, most kids just ignored
(and were not upset by) the solicitation: "Most youth are
not bothered much by what they encounter on the Internet. . .
Most young people seem to know what to do to deflect these sexual
'come ons.'" . . .
Much of the concern over sex
offenders stems from the perception that if they have committed
one sex offense, they are almost certain to commit more. This
is the reason given for why sex offenders (instead of, say, murderers
or armed robbers) should be monitored and separated from the
public once released from prison. . . According to a U.S. Bureau
of Justice Statistics study, just five percent of sex offenders
followed for three years after their release from prison in 1994
were arrested for another sex crime. A study released in 2003
by the Bureau found that within three years, 3.3 percent of the
released child molesters were arrested again for committing another
sex crime against a child. Three to five percent is hardly a
high repeat offender rate.
In the largest and most comprehensive
study ever done of prison recidivism, the Justice Department
found that sex offenders were in fact less likely to re-offend
than other criminals. The 2003 study of nearly 10,000 men convicted
of rape, sexual assault, and child molestation found that sex
offenders had a re-arrest rate 25 percent lower than for all
other criminals. Part of the reason is that serial sex offenders-those
who pose the greatest threat-rarely get released from prison,
and the ones who do are unlikely to re-offend. . .
The issue is not whether children
need to be protected; of course they do. The issues are whether
the danger to them is great, and whether the measures proposed
will ensure their safety. While some efforts-such as longer sentences
for repeat offenders-are well-reasoned and likely to be effective,
those focused on separating sex offenders from the public are
of little value because they are based on a faulty premise. .
. .
While the abduction, rape, and
killing of children by strangers is very, very rare, such incidents
receive a lot of media coverage, leading the public to overestimate
how common these cases are. Most sexually abused children are
not victims of convicted sex offenders nor Internet pornographers,
and most sex offenders do not re-offend once released. This information
is rarely mentioned by journalists more interested in sounding
alarms than objective analysis.
One tragic result of these myths
is that the panic over sex offenders distracts the public from
a far greater threat to children: parental abuse and neglect.
The vast majority of crimes against
children are committed not by released sex offenders, but instead
by the victim's own family, church clergy, and family friends.
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,
"based on what we know about those who harm children, the
danger to children is greater from someone they or their family
knows than from a stranger." If lawmakers and the public
are serious about wanting to protect children, they should not
be misled by "stranger danger" myths and instead focus
on the much larger threat inside the home.
http://www.livescience.com/othernews/060516_predator_panic.html
MAY 2006
FBI ALREADY HAD $90K OF BRIBE MONEY
BEFORE CAPITOL RAID
DAN EGGEN AND ALLAN LENGEL, WASHINGTON
POST - Justice Department and FBI officials yesterday vigorously
defended a weekend raid on the Capitol Hill office of Democratic
Rep. William J. Jefferson (La.), arguing that the unprecedented
tactic was necessary because Jefferson and his attorneys had
refused to comply with a subpoena for documents issued more nine
months ago in a bribery investigation. . . House Speaker J. Dennis
Hastert (R-Ill.) complained directly to President Bush yesterday
about the FBI raid, while House Majority Leader John A. Boehner
(R-Ohio) predicted a constitutional showdown before the Supreme
Court. . . According to one Justice Department official, the
White House is sympathetic to Hastert's complaint and is pressing
Justice Department officials to figure out a way to placate Congress.
. .
About 15 FBI agents entered Jefferson's
office in the Rayburn Building about 7:15 p.m. Saturday and left
about 1 p.m. Sunday. Authorities said it was the first time the
FBI had raided the office of a sitting congressman. . .
Several law enforcement sources
said yesterday that a search of Jefferson's Rayburn office had
been discussed by federal prosecutors and FBI agents as early
as last summer, but that the idea was overruled by Justice Department
lawyers. FBI agents conducted in August searches of Jefferson's
New Orleans home and his Washington apartment, where they found
$90,000 in alleged bribe money stuffed inside a freezer, according
to an affidavit filed in connection with the Saturday search.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301739.html
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR - Typically,
when there's a subpoena for congressional documents, it goes
to the House or Senate legal counsel to make certain that congressional
interests are being protected. Otherwise, there's no protection
for the executive branch rifling through committee papers, for
example. . .
"It's an extremely complex
area of constitutional law," says Carl Tobias, a law professor
at the University of Richmond. "Historically, even if the
FBI had a warrant, there's no precedent for intrusion into the
office of a member of Congress."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0524/p01s02-uspo.html
APRIL 2006
OVER 100 LOCAL AND STATE POLICE HAVE
SPY UNITS
DRUDGE REPORT - Spurred by a
half-billion dollars in federal funding since 9/11, local and
state police have formed over 100 intelligence units nationwide,
according to an investigation by U.S. News & World Report
in its May 8, 2006 issue. The intel units now reach into nearly
every state, but with patchy oversight, a half-dozen of them
already have run into trouble for questionable intelligence gathering,
the magazine reports. . .
As controversy lingers over revelations
of domestic spying by the federal government, little attention
has focused on the role of state and local authorities, who once
ran dozens of now-discredited "Red Squads." Abuses
by police intelligence units in the 1960s and '70s sparked over
30 lawsuits that resulted in most of them being disbanded or
sharply curtailed. Civil liberties watchdogs warn that current
efforts may end up repeating mistakes of the past.
http://drudgereport.com/flash3.htm
POLYGRAPHS FAIL FREQUENTLY
Dan Eggen and Shankar Vedantam, WASHINGTON
POST - The CIA, the FBI
and other federal agencies are using polygraph machines more
than ever to screen applicants and hunt for lawbreakers, even
as scientists have become more certain that the equipment is
ineffective in accurately detecting when people are lying. Instead,
many experts say, the real utility of the polygraph machine,
or "lie detector," is that many of the tens of thousands
of people who are subjected to it each year believe that it works
-- and thus will frequently admit to things they might not otherwise
acknowledge during an interview or interrogation.
Many researchers and defense
attorneys say the technology is prone to a high number of false
results that have stalled or derailed hundreds of careers and
have prevented many qualified applicants from joining the fight
against terrorism. At the FBI, for example, about 25 percent
of applicants fail a polygraph exam each year, according to the
bureau's security director.
IF ROE V. WADE IS REPEALED
Susan Page, USA Today
Twenty-two state legislatures
are likely to impose significant new restrictions on abortion.
They include nearly every state in the South and a swath of big
states across the industrial Rust Belt, from Pennsylvania to
Ohio and Michigan. These states have enacted most of the abortion
restrictions now allowed.
Nine states are considering bans
similar to the one passed in South Dakota - it's scheduled to
go into effect July 1 - and four states are debating restrictions
that would be triggered if the Supreme Court overturned Roe.
Sixteen state legislatures are
likely to continue current access to abortion. They include every
state on the West Coast and almost every state in the Northeast.
A half-dozen already have passed laws that specifically protect
abortion rights. Most of the states in this group have enacted
fewer than half of the abortion restrictions now available to
states.
Twelve states fall into a middle
ground between those two categories. About half are in the Midwest,
the rest scattered from Arizona to Rhode Island.
The result, according to this
analysis, would be less a patchwork of laws than broad regional
divisions that generally reinforce the nation's political split.
All but three of the states likely to significantly restrict
abortions voted for President Bush in 2004. All but four of the
states likely to maintain access to abortion voted for Democrat
John Kerry.
The 22 states likely to enact
new restrictions include 50% of the U.S. population and accounted
for 37% of the abortions performed in 2000, the latest year for
which complete data were available.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-16-abortion-states_x.htm
NYC: THE EAST GERMANY OF AMERICA
TOM HAYS, AP - Along a gritty stretch of street in Brooklyn,
police this month quietly launched an ambitious plan to combat
street crime and terrorism. But instead of cops on the beat,
wireless video cameras peer down from lamp posts about 30 feet
above the sidewalk. They were the first installment of a program
to place 500 cameras throughout the city at a cost of $9 million.
. . The city already has about 1,000 cameras in the subways,
with 2,100 scheduled to be in place by 2008. An additional 3,100
cameras monitor city housing projects.
New York's approach isn't unique.
Chicago spent roughly $5 million on a 2,000-camera system. Homeland
Security officials in Washington plan to spend $9.8 million for
surveillance cameras and sensors on a rail line near the Capitol.
And Philadelphia has increasingly relied on video surveillance.
. .
The department ``is installing
cameras first and asking questions later,'' said Donna Lieberman,
executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Police officials insist law-abiding
New Yorkers have nothing to fear . . .
"POLICE OFFICIALS INSIST LAW-ABIDING
HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR"
25 September 2002, Randy Kenner,
News-Sentinel - An Ohio man filed a $1.5 million lawsuit Tuesday
against the Knoxville Marriott hotel after finding a hidden camera
in a bathroom light fixture in July. Bryan Brewer discovered
the small video camera after noticing a tiny black spot -- which
he thought was an insect but turned out to be a hole -- in the
fixture, according to the lawsuit. At the time Brewer, the vice
president of a California company, was staying at the Marriott
while on business. His attorney, K.O. Herston, filed the lawsuit
in Knox County Circuit Court. Named as defendants are Marriott
International Inc. and Columbia Sussex Corp., a Fort Mitchell,
Ky., corporation that operated at least 28 Marriotts with more
than 8,500 rooms.
1 July 2003, Overton County,
Tennessee: Overton County parents upset that their children were
filmed undressing in school locker rooms have filed suit, charging
that school officials allowed surveillance cameras to be installed
and then failed to secure the images. The lawsuit was filed last
week in U.S. District Court in Nashville. The parents have asked
for $4.2 million in damages. They contend that the school system
in Overton County, on the Upper Cumberland Plateau, violated
students' rights by putting hidden cameras in Livingston Middle
School's boys and girls locker rooms. The cameras reportedly
captured students, ages 10-14, in various stages of undress.
11 July 2003, Atlanta, Georgia:
Associated Press: A woman who says she noticed a video camera
in the ceiling of an Alpharetta Toys R Us bathroom is suing the
retailer for invasion of privacy. Tamara Perez says she noticed
a hole in the ceiling above the commode while visiting the suburban
Atlanta store on March 21. According to her lawsuit, Perez quickly
left the womens restroom and asked her husband to investigate.
Walter Perez moved a ceiling tile and found a video camera with
a transmittal device, according to the lawsuit.
6 August 2003, Wilton Manors,
Florida - A man is suing the city of Wilton Manors because he
said police were watching him when he used the bathroom. The
lawsuit claims restroom cameras at Colohatchee Park violated
the unidentified man's rights. Police had arrested the man and
charged him with public exposure based on evidence collected
from the camera, but later dropped the charge.
10 September 2003, Beaufort,
South Carolina - A wall-mounted camera used to videotape the
men's bathroom of a mid-island bar has invaded the privacy of
bar patrons, according to a lawsuit filed in the Beaufort County
Courthouse last week.
12 September 2003, Tuscaloosa,
Alabama: The traffic camera featured on Comcast Cable's Channel
45 was showing more than just traffic early Friday -- it was
following people on the Strip. The Crimson White learned at about
1:45 a.m. Friday that the traffic camera at the intersection
of University Boulevard and Reed Street, which usually remains
stationary, was panning, tilting and zooming in on people and
objects along the Strip. The Strip camera operator(s) manipulated
the camera to zoom in on several college-aged women's breasts
and buttocks as they walked down the street. The operator(s)
also captured a group of young men who had spotted the camera's
movement and were making various gestures and movements.
15 September 2003, Tuscaloosa,
Alabama: AP -- Images from a traffic camera that was used instead
to monitor passersby near the University of Alabama led to the
arrests of three people allegedly misbehaving on the street,
police said Tuesday. Meanwhile, officials said they were still
investigating who had diverted the focus of the camera from traffic
-- where it normally is used to monitor vehicles -- to pedestrians,
particularly young women.
18 October 2003, South Carolina:
A security camera installed in the men's bathroom at Vic's Tavern
was put there to protect against vandalism and did not violate
anyone's privacy, says the owner of the Hilton Head Island bar
in a response to a lawsuit filed by two bar patrons. The patrons,
Pawey Suchocki and Vince Bryant, are seeking $200,000 each for
invasion of privacy and $200,000 each for infliction of emotional
stress. A surveillance tape recorded Suchocki, of Hilton Head,
ripping the camera from the wall in late May, according to a
Beaufort County Sheriff's Office incident report
4 December 2003, Pittsford, New
York: Videotapes discovered in the alleged pornography case involving
a Pittsford Sutherland High School custodian show about 12 unsuspecting
female students and staff members in a restroom, a Pittsford
school district official said Wednesday. . . "It appears
that the videotapes were taken from inside one female restroom
at Sutherland high school and that the people on the videotapes
were unaware they were being recorded," Superintendent Mary
Alice Price said in a prepared statement issued Wednesday.
13 January 2004, Oak Bluffs,
In the wake of public concern over the use of a surveillance
camera in the high school, officials have decided to turn the
camera off until a written policy on its use is adopted. . .
The decision by the principal comes after questions were raised
by students and members of the community following the use of
the surveillance camera's videotape in an investigation into
a threatening prank written in one of the school's girls bathroom
last month.
1 April 2004, New York City,
New York: A confidential police video that shows a young rapper
kissing his girlfriend goodbye before blowing his brains out
in a Bronx housing project turned up on a porn Web site -- and
cops have launched a probe to nail the sicko who leaked it.
1 June 2004, Chicago, Illinois:
The director of a tutoring center in Chicago has been charged
with manufacturing and possessing child pornography. Sixty-two-year-old
James Bradshaw was arrested Saturday. A Cook County judge set
his bail yesterday at 75-thousand dollars. Police and prosecutors
say Bradshaw operated a sophisticated video surveillance system
in the bathroom of the Beverly Instructional Center. They say
they've recovered numerous videotapes of children in the bathroom.
5 June 2004, Arizona: Two members
of Fort McDowell Casino's regulatory office were fired last fall
because one man used casino surveillance cameras "to photograph
the breast area of patrons and employees" and the other,
his supervisor, condoned the action, according to state documents
released this week.
17 June 2004, Adrina, Michigan:
A jury quickly decided Wednesday there is a difference between
videotaping nude customers in a tanning room and using security
cameras at convenience stores or banks. After 30 minutes of deliberations,
guilty verdicts in 16 electronic eavesdropping cases were returned
in Lenawee County Circuit Court against Danny Eugene Daulton,
an Adrian nail and tanning salon owner.
2 July 2004, New York City, USA:
When lawyers from the Legal Aid Society made their way into the
federal detention center in Brooklyn in the fall of 2001 to meet
with detainees, they said, they were alarmed to see video cameras
on the walls. Concerned about the confidentiality of their conversations
with their shackled clients -- immigrant detainees who were rounded
up after the Sept. 11 attacks -- the lawyers asked whether they
were being taped. Prison officials assured them, they say, that
the cameras were turned off. But the cameras were running. The
federal prison was intentionally recording the lawyer-client
conversations in violation of federal law and prison policy,
according to a December report by the inspector general of the
Justice Department, Glenn A. Fine.
27 August 2004, Ithaca, New York:
A college student called police after discovering a pinhole camera
in the bathroom of the apartment she shared with three women,
and now her landlord is charged with unlawful surveillance.
25 September 2004, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania: Borough Manager Anthony Truscello has announced
his resignation amid an investigation of the use of surveillance
cameras to spy on police. . . A private investigator . . . found
several pinhole cameras placed in smoke detectors -- one in a
hallway, one in the squad room and one in the evidence room.
One of the cameras had a microphone installed in it, making it
capable of eavesdropping, according to an affidavit filed by
county detectives in May.
24 February 2005, New York, New
York: CBS 2 has obtained a videotape that the New York City police
department doesn't want you to see. It shows cops on surveillance
just before last year's Republican Convention in Manhattan. But
it is what they were checking out that is a little disturbing.
. . The police dutifully survey the area, but then they focus
on a couple in a passionate embrace kissing and fondling each
other on a roof top terrace. The police infra scope stays on
the scene for a while and then pulls away, but then it comes
back a second time to watch the couple and then a third time.
.
21 April 2005, San Francisco,
California: A San Francisco police officer has been suspended
from the department for nine months for reportedly using surveillance
cameras to ogle women at San Francisco International Airport,
according to a spokesman with the San Francisco Police Commission.
26 April 2005, Atlantic City,
New Jersey: Four more surveillance camera operators at Caesars
Atlantic City Hotel Casino used the equipment to ogle women,
according to a complaint filed Tuesday. In December, the same
casino was fined $80,000 for similar incidents involving two
other camera operators who trained their eye-in-the-sky cameras
on low-cut blouses and revealing clothing instead of craps games
and slot parlors.
18 May 2005, New York City: Police
found a so-called "skirt cam" under a subway grate
at 88th Street and Lexington Avenue Tuesday afternoon after a
woman called police saying she had noticed suspicious wires protruding
from the grate as she passed by.
2 August 2005, Newark, New York:
An 11-year veteran of a Wayne County police department resigned
Monday, two days after he was arrested on suspicion of using
a spy camera to photograph girls changing clothes in a Greece
shopping mall.
22 December 2005, New York, New
York: A man and woman who shared an intimate moment on a secluded,
dark rooftop one August night last year have learned that they
were secretly watched, an intrusion made possible by increased
police surveillance of protest rallies and other events and also
by advanced technology intended to fight terrorists. That night,
police officers tracked bicycle riders moving through the streets
of the Lower East Side from a custom-built, $9.8 million helicopter
equipped with optical equipment able to display a license plate
1,000 feet away. With the night vision of the helicopter's camera,
and permission to make videotapes, an officer also recorded nearly
four minutes of the couple on the terrace of a Second Avenue
penthouse.
10 April 2006, London, England:
Teachers are preparing to protest against surveillance cameras
and microphones that are being installed in classrooms across
the UK. Surveillance firm Classwatch has installed more than
50 CCTV systems with microphones across the UK, said the Times
Educational Supplement on Friday. Draconian headteachers, who
have had teachers watched through two-way mirrors as well, grade
teachers according to their performance under observation. Occasional
observation is necessary to ensure lessons meet quality targets
set centrally by the Department for Education and Skills.
DETAILS
http://www.notbored.org/index1.html
MARCH 2006
64% OF AMERICANS USE THE WORD 'FUCK'
BUT FCC STILL THINKS IT KNOWS BETTER
AP - Nearly three-quarters of
Americans questioned last week - 74 percent - said they encounter
profanity in public frequently or occasionally, according to
an Associated Press-Ipsos poll. Two-thirds said they think people
swear more than they did 20 years ago. And as for, well, the
gold standard of foul words, a healthy 64 percent said they use
the F-word - ranging from several times a day (8 percent) to
a few times a year (15 percent).
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12063093/
FBI HARASSES LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS FOR SPEECH
BY COMMON CAUSE PRESIDENT
On March 14, Common Cause President
Chellie Pingree participated on a panel on open government sponsored
by the League of Women Voters of Berrien and Cass Counties, Michigan
that received news coverage in the local newspaper. A week after
the panel, an FBI agent contacted the local League president,
Susan Gilbert, to raise questions about Pingree's published remarks
at the panel. In her brief comments addressing the law, Pingree
raised some privacy and secrecy concerns about the USA PATRIOT
Act, and praised Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Patrick Leahy
(D-VT) for their leadership on Freedom of Information issue.
According to Gilbert, FBI agent
Al Dibrito said that Pingree's comments on the USA PATRIOT Act
were "way off base," and that the League should have
invited someone from the federal government to be on the panel
and to respond. DiBrito then told Gilbert that she would be contacted
by someone from the assistant U.S. attorney's office in Grand
Rapids to give her the real story on the Patriot Act.
DEATH PENALTY USE DECLINING
STATELINE - The death penalty
is on hold in eight of the 38 states to adopt capital punishment
since 1977 as courts and state lawmakers wrestle with fears of
executing the innocent, the emerging role of DNA evidence and
new assaults on use of lethal injection. Although the public
still favors capital punishment, support has slipped and the
number of executions and new death sentences is trending down.
A fresh batch of legal obstacles -- including new court scrutiny
of the use of lethal injection and of doctors' role in administering
fatal doses - clouds what still is a controversial social issue
in the United States.
Currently, death penalty laws
in New York and Kansas have been struck down by those states'
Supreme Courts. Moratoriums against the death penalty are in
place in Illinois and New Jersey. And executions are temporarily
suspended in California, Florida, Louisiana and Missouri pending
court rulings on challenges against lethal injection.
New Jersey, which has not executed
any prisoners since adopting the death penalty in 1982, set a
precedent in January 2006 when its Legislature became the first
to adopt a death penalty moratorium. Signed into law by out-going
Gov. Richard Codey (D), the moratorium will be in effect until
a state commission completes an investigation of the state's
capital punishment system. A gubernatorial-imposed moratorium
has been in effect in Illinois for six years.
Court challenges against lethal
injection are pending in at least a dozen states. The U.S. Supreme
Court stayed the execution of death row inmates in Florida and
Missouri earlier this year to allow those inmates to pursue constitutional
challenges against lethal injection.
California suspended all executions
when no medical professional would agree to administer the fatal
dose, as required by a federal court ruling on Feb. 14, 2006.
Executions will be suspended at least until May, when a federal
judge will hold the state's first hearings on the constitutionality
of lethal injection.
Louisiana also has suspended
all executions since 2002 as the state contests a lawsuit over
how lethal injections are administered.
The outcome of these cases may
address several emerging issues concerning lethal injection,
including how much pain it causes and what role medical professionals
should play in ending the lives of prisoners.
http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=137&languageId=1&contentId=98349
HOMELAND STASI GOES AFTER COUPLE WHO
PAY DOWN TOO MUCH ON THEIR CREDIT CARD
A READER - A man and wife who
decided to pay down their credit card debt. After writing a check
for $6,522 on their Mastercard, Mr. & Mrs. Walter Soenghe
of Rhode Island found the payment frozen. Then, according to
the Providence Journal, "They were told, as they moved up
the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they
had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment.
And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that
normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the
money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted."
BOB KERR, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL
- Walter called television stations, the American Civil Liberties
Union and me. And he went on the Internet to see what he could
learn. He learned about changes in something called the Bank
Privacy Act. "The more I'm on, the scarier it gets,"
he said. "It's scary how easily someone in Homeland Security
can get permission to spy."
Eventually, his and his wife's
money was freed up. The Soehnges were apparently found not to
be promoting global terrorism under the guise of paying a credit-card
bill. They never did learn how a large credit card payment can
pose a security threat.
But the experience has been a
reminder that a small piece of privacy has been surrendered.
Walter Soehnge, who says he holds solid, middle-of-the-road American
beliefs, worries about rights being lost. "If it can happen
to me, it can happen to others," he said.
http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=RAISEALARM-02-28-06
HOMELAND SECURITY BUYING INTO COMMUNITY
COLLEGES
LEAH SAMUEL, COLOR LINES - Community
Colleges across the country are repackaging their classes for
"homeland security" programs in order to get federal
funding. Young, poor people of color who signed up with the U.S.
military to get college money may have ended up fighting in Iraq.
But their peers back home who take the community college route
to higher education may also end up fighting the "war on
terror." Money problems for community colleges, as well
as their students, are forcing both to buy into what can only
be called "homeland security education." The federal
government is offering colleges a way to survive and the students
a way to get educated: money specifically earmarked for the war
on terror. . .
The Department of Homeland Security
is offering $64 million directly to colleges and universities
that will develop anti-terrorism programs. . . Community colleges
have responded to the Department of Homeland Security offer by
repositioning themselves as the training ground for "first
responders"-the police officers, firefighters, emergency
workers and health professionals expected to arrive first on
the scene after a terrorist attack. "We use the term 'homeland
security' rather broadly," admits Laurie Quarles, Legislative
Associate for the AACC. . .
For students, the Department
of Homeland Security is offering stipends of $1,000 a month during
the school year, or $5,000 for the summer, for course programs
related to homeland security. Recipients of the scholarships
must, according to the application form, "indicate a willingness
to accept, after graduation, competitive employment offers from
DHS, state and local security offices, DHS-affiliated federal
laboratories, or DHS-related research staff positions."
http://www.alternet.org/wiretap/33465/
DOMAIN FOR THE EMINENT UPDATE
[From a roundup on Reason's
Hit & Run site. The excerpt that should strike fear into
every property owning non-profit in the country: "Among
the requirements is proof that the property seizure is necessary
for public use -- based on the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June
2005 regarding eminent domain -- and Eastman said that proof
would be rather easy to show since a church is tax-exempt and
a housing project would bring in more revenue for the city."]
HIT AND RUN - The village of
North Hills on Long Island, one of the wealthiest towns in the
U.S., has its eyes on Deepdale, one of the country's top golf
courses. Local politicians are threatening to seize the course
through eminent domain and make it a public "amenity"
open to all 1,800 residents of North Hill. There's your "public
use." The official goal, in a town where home prices start
in the millions, is to enhance property values.
http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2006/03/steal_from_the.shtml
ASBURY PARK PRESS, TRENTON Gopal
Panday says after he built Rainbow Liquors on Broadway in Long
Branch into a million-dollar-a-year business, it turned worthless
overnight in the eyes of New Jersey's much-maligned [we think
the writer meant 'much criticized' -TPR] eminent-domain law.
"Under eminent domain laws, it doesn't provide you with
anything for your business," Panday said Monday after testifying
before the Assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee.
"Just the land," he said.
Flood victim Linda Brnicevic
of Bound Brook described how she says eminent domain there is
being used to uproot minorities. Residents of Camden's Cramer
Hill neighborhood asked why eminent domain has them being moved
out of a stable and tidy area.
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060314/NEWS03/603140309/1007
ERIC STIRGUS THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION
- The couple fighting the city of Stockbridge's efforts to use
eminent domain laws to forcibly buy their business might get
to keep the property after all. At a raucous City Council meeting
Monday evening, Stockbridge Mayor R.G. "Rudy" Kelley
said he would ask his fellow council members to vote on whether
Mark and Regina Meeks may keep their florist shop. . . The Meekses'
battle shined a spotlight on eminent domain - laws . . . The
Meekses have vigorously resisted the city's efforts - saying
Stockbridge negotiated in bad faith. City officials deny such
claims. . .
"This is a prime example of big-city government strong-arming
the citizens.," said the Rev. Daniel Edwards, president
of the Henry County NAACP. . . The protesters entered the meeting,
where Councilman Steve Moon read a statement accusing the Meekses
and the news media of distorting the facts in the dispute. "The
city has dedicated itself to bringing life back into downtown,
and we will not be deterred by pressure from those who seek nothing
more than financial gain or political recognition," his
statement said. The statement generated several heated exchanges
between the two sides.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/clayton/stories/0314metdomain.html
GREGORY KORTE, CINCINNATI ENQUIRER
- Eighty-year-old Emma Dimasi has told friends and neighbors
she wants to live the rest of her years on the corner of Clifton
and Dixmyth avenues, in the small brick house she's owned since
1959. The city has given her until Saturday to get out. In a
case that could have statewide implications, a Hamilton County
magistrate will decide Monday whether the city of Cincinnati
has the right to take Dimasi's house for a $4 million relocation
of Dixmyth Avenue. The taking of Dimasi's house is a routine
and long-accepted use of eminent domain for a city like Cincinnati,
which has filed 21 such court actions for road projects since
2003. But Dimasi argues that private economic development - not
public transportation - is driving the road project. That's because
Good Samaritan Hospital is contributing $1.28 million toward
the project, which would give the hospital more room to grow
as it continues a $122 million expansion. Under its agreement
with the city, the hospital also stands to get whatever land
is left over after road construction for $1. The case is the
first to test an Ohio law banning for one year the use of eminent
domain for economic development if the property will ultimately
end up in the hands of another private owner. And it's a prime
example of what critics say is a legal system that stacks the
deck against property owners.
BAPTIST PRESS - Another step
was taken toward the destruction of the Filipino Baptist Fellowship
building March 13 when the Long Beach Redevelopment Agency Board
voted 6-0 to condemn the church in order to build condominiums,
despite testimonies from community members regarding the public
good that flows from the religious institution. . . During the
hearing, the redevelopment agency voted to authorize the city
attorney to begin condemnation proceedings, Eastman explained.
The next step will be for the city attorney to file a complaint
to condemn the property, which includes demonstrating that it
meets the statutory requirements for condemnation. Among the
requirements is proof that the property seizure is necessary
for public use -- based on the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June
2005 regarding eminent domain -- and Eastman said that proof
would be rather easy to show since a church is tax-exempt and
a housing project would bring in more revenue for the city.
http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?ID=22837
STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL SEIZES NEWSPAPER
HARD DRIVE TO WIN MINOR CASE
JOHN SHIFFMAN PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
- In an unusual and little-known case, the Pennsylvania Attorney
General's Office has seized four computer hard drives from a
Lancaster newspaper as part of a statewide grand-jury investigation
into leaks to reporters. The dispute pits the government's desire
to solve an alleged felony - computer hacking - against the news
media's fear that taking the computers circumvents the First
Amendment and the state Shield Law. The state Supreme Court declined
last week to take the case, allowing agents to begin analyzing
the data.
"This is horrifying, an
editor's worst nightmare," said Lucy Dalglish, executive
director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
in Washington. "For the government to actually physically
have those hard drives from a newsroom is amazing. I'm just flabbergasted
to hear of this."
The grand jury is investigating
whether the Lancaster County coroner gave reporters for the Lancaster
Intelligencer Journal his password to a restricted law enforcement
Web site. The site contained nonpublic details of local crimes.
The newspaper allegedly used some of those details in articles.
If the reporters used the Web site without authorization, officials
say, they may have committed a crime.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/14084455.htm
THE MCCARTHY ERA RETURNS
FBI QUESTIONS PROFESSOR OVER VENEZUELAN VIEWS
SAUL HUDSON, REUTERS - A U.S. academic accused the FBI on Friday
of trying to silence his criticism of Bush administration policy
toward Venezuela, further straining ties between Washington and
the major oil supplier. Venezuela seized on agents' questioning
of the professor, condemning it in a statement as "a violation
of the freedoms of expression, thought and academic inquiry,
and ... a desperate attempt to link Venezuela to terrorism."
The FBI did not address the accusations
directly but said in a statement it had conducted an "informational
interview" of Miguel Tinker Salas, a history professor at
Pomona College, a liberal arts university in California. The
State Department said the United States did not have a policy
of targeting academics critical of U.S. policy.
Tinker Salas said two agents
of an FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force questioned him this
week at his offices about his contacts with the Venezuelan Embassy.
"The intent was to intimidate," the Venezuelan-born
American citizen told Reuters. He said the agents asked if his
opinions about U.S. policy had been influenced by the embassy
and told him Venezuelans living in the United States were "of
interest" to the task force, whose job is to prevent terrorist
attacks.
Jonathan Knight, who directs
a national program to protect academic freedom, said that if
the allegations were true, it appeared the FBI wanted to silence
a professor using tactics that he had not seen since the persecution
of academics perceived as pro-Communist in the 1950s.
WHAT'S NEW IN THE NEW POLICE STATE:
KIDS SKIP SCHOOL, MOTHER PUT IN JAIL
[This is totally unconstitutional.
One might as well arrest the producers of the TV shows the kids
were watching while skipping school]
CHANNEL 4, DC - A single mother
from Rockville who spent two nights in jail because her sons
skipped school is back home. Shirley Lumbao was released from
the Montgomery County Detention Center Wednesday afternoon. Her
13- and 15-year-old sons each missed more than 50 days of class
at Julius West Middle School last year. Attorneys said Lumbao
works two jobs and can't always get the boys to school.Lumbao,
44, was sentenced to spend two nights in jail and could face
more jail time if her sons' attendance doesn't improve.
Lumbao's eldest son, Timothy,
said the situation is not his mother's fault. "You know
it's not fair that they put my mother in jail, because it's my
brothers' fault," he said.
Assistant State's Attorney Jeffrey
Wennar told The Washington Post the sentence was necessary to
send a message to the woman and her sons in the courtroom Monday.
He said truancy won't be tolerated. . . Unlike other states,
Maryland prosecutes parents, not children, for truancy.
http://www.nbc4.com/news/7533537/detail.html
FEBRUARY 2006
SUPREME COURT KILLS FREE PRESS ON CAMPUS
INSIDE HIGHER EDUCATION - On
Tuesday, more than five years after a university dean stopped
the presses because she was not allowed to vet articles before
publication, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider whether
a student newspaper was illegally censored. The justices' action
leaves intact the 2005 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Seventh Circuit decision in Hosty v. Carter, which said
that student papers that are subsidized by their universities
can be regulated just like high school papers. Proponents of
student press freedom say that the appeals court's ruling is
a green light for administrators who want to suppress articles.
In 2000, three staff members
at the Innovator, the now-defunct student paper at Governors
State University, in Illinois, sued university officials after
a dean, Patricia Carter, on the heels of stories critical of
the administration, blocked printing and insisted that she be
allowed to review stories before publication. A federal district
court ruled in favor of the reporters, but that ruling was overturned
by the Seventh Circuit appeals court in 2005.
Mark Goodman, executive director
of the Student Press Law Center, said that "to suggest an
adult on a college campus can be treated the same way as a 14-year-old
can in high school signals the potential beginning of major erosion
of college and university First Amendment rights." Goodman
added that the Supreme Court has been protective of free expression
on campus for the last 30 years, beginning with Healy v. James
in 1972, when the court defended the college environment as "peculiarly
the 'marketplace of ideas,'" in need of uninhibited expression.
http://www.insidehighereducation.com/news/2006/02/22/supreme
JANUARY 2006
PENTAGON MONITORED CAMPUS GAY GROUP
LIZ SKALKA, WASHINGTON SQUARE
NEWS - The Pentagon has classified New York University School
of Law's gay and lesbian advocacy group as "potentially
violent" following the surveillance of a February counter-military
protest at the university, according to media reports. NYU's
Outlaw is one of many "suspicious" civilian groups
across the country surveyed by the Department of Defense over
a recent 10-month period, according to a 400-page defense department
document obtained by NBC News last month. . . The Outlaw demonstration
noted by the Defense Department protested the arrival of military
recruiters at NYU. The protest lasted throughout the day and
maintained a presence of nearly 30 demonstrators, said Karlis
Kirsis, a second-year law student and Outlaw admissions co-chair.
Kirsis said he disagreed with the defense department report's
findings that the group may be violent, and said the protest
was "jovial" and "relaxed."
http://www.uwire.com/content//topnews011706001.html
DECEMBER 2005
TOWN PASSES ANTI-IMMIGRANT ZONING LAW
STEPHANIE MCCRUMMEN, WASHINGTON
POST - A new Manassas ordinance narrows, for zoning, what the
city considers a family:
A. An individual;
B. Two or more persons related
to the second degree of collateral consanguinity by blood, marriage,
adoption or guardianship, or otherwise duly authorized custodial
relationship, as verified by official public records such as
driver's licenses, birth or marriage certificates, court orders
or notarized affidavits, living and cooking together as a single
housekeeping unit, exclusive of not more than one additional
unrelated person;
C. A number of persons, not exceeding
three, living and cooking together as a single housekeeping unit
though not related by blood, marriage, adoption or guardianship;
or
D. Not more than two unrelated
persons and their dependent children living and cooking together
as a single housekeeping unit. . .
The rule, which has alarmed civil
libertarians and housing activists, is among a series of attempts
by municipalities across the nation to use zoning powers to deal
with problems they associate with immigrants, often illegal,
who have settled in suburbs, typically in shared housing to help
with the rent or mortgage.
"It is not only unfair;
it's racism," said Edgar Rivera, an organizer with Tenants
and Workers United, a Northern Virginia group that advocates
affordable housing as a solution to overcrowding. "It's
basically a way to just go after certain communities."
Kent Willis, executive director
of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, said the new
rule is "constitutionally questionable" and pointed
to a 1977 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a similar law
defining family passed by the city of East Cleveland, Ohio. Even
so, other municipalities have passed similar ordinances or are
considering them.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/27/AR2005122701216.html
BOSTON TRANSIT TO SPY ON ITS RIDERS
BOSTON HERALD - Over the coming
year, the T will install automated fare collection equipment
at every subway station and on every bus, allowing riders to
pay easily with taps of special smart cards in their names. But
each transaction with the plastic Charlie Cards will be recorded
electronically, creating a record of where users were at a particular
time on a particular day. Those records could be subpoenaed by
cops, courts or even lawyers in civil cases. "The bottom
line is that like other developments with consumer products and
technology, the convenience does have a flip side. It's convenience
versus having the government be able to track you," said
privacy expert Eric Gertler. . .
The new automated fare system
will record where a passenger boards the system and at what time.
The system won't capture any data on the rider's destination.
The information will be archived for a year and a half to two
years before it's erased. . .
The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority
has for years recorded where and when users of the Fas tLane
electronic transponders get on and off the toll highway. Unlike
the MBTA, the Turnpike's privacy protections barring outside
release of the data without a subpoena are written into state
law. "On a fairly regular basis we receive subpoena requests
both civil and criminal," Pike spokesman Tom Farmer said.
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=118780&format=text
JUDGE RULES SPEECH IS STILL FREE
CHRIS CHURCHILL, KENNEBEC JOURNAL,
ME - Augusta's parade ordinance was declared unconstitutional
Thursday by a federal judge, who ruled that the city unfairly
imposed fees and rules on protesters. In a ruling that city officials
said they likely would appeal, U.S. District Court Judge John
Woodcock Jr. strongly rejected most aspects of a capital-city
ordinance that requires marchers to provide 30-day-notice, pay
fees and meet with the police chief. "To march is to speak,"
Woodcock wrote. "A parade, as speech, especially as political
speech, invokes the First Amendment and commands this Court's
protection.". . .
The fee "is the equivalent
of a determination that those who cannot afford to pay the fee
have a less important message to convey," Woodcock wrote.
"Consequently, the ordinance must afford a fee waiver for
those unable to pay."
Maine Civil Liberties Union lawyer
Zachary Heiden said the force of Woodcock's 51-page ruling is
in its assertive and eloquent prose. "Because it is so well-articulated
. . . we think it's going to be an opinion that's persuasive
for judges across the country," Heiden said.
http://www.unknownnews.org/0512271223Woodcock.html
VIDEO TAPES SHOW NY COPS INFILTRATING
ACTIVIST GROUPS
JIM DWYER, NY TIMES - Undercover
New York City police officers have conducted covert surveillance
in the last 16 months of people protesting the Iraq war, bicycle
riders taking part in mass rallies and even mourners at a street
vigil for a cyclist killed in an accident, a series of videotapes
show.
In glimpses and in glaring detail, the videotape images reveal
the robust presence of disguised officers or others working with
them at seven public gatherings since August 2004.
The officers hoist protest signs.
They hold flowers with mourners. They ride in bicycle events.
At the vigil for the cyclist, an officer in biking gear wore
a button that said, "I am a shameless agitator." She
also carried a camera and videotaped the roughly 15 people present.
Beyond collecting information,
some of the undercover officers or their associates are seen
on the tape having influence on events. At a demonstration last
year during the Republican National Convention, the sham arrest
of a man secretly working with the police led to a bruising confrontation
between officers in riot gear and bystanders.
Provided with images from the
tape, the Police Department's chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne,
did not dispute that they showed officers at work but said that
disguised officers had always attended such gatherings - not
to investigate political activities but to keep order and protect
free speech. Activists, however, say that police officers masquerading
as protesters and bicycle riders distort their messages and provoke
trouble.
The pictures of the undercover
officers were culled from an unofficial archive of civilian and
police videotapes by Eileen Clancy, a forensic video analyst
who is critical of the tactics. She gave the tapes to The New
York Times. Based on what the individuals said, the equipment
they carried and their almost immediate release after they had
been arrested amid protesters or bicycle riders, The Times concluded
that at least 10 officers were incognito at the events.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/22/nyregion/22police.html
NOVEMBER 2005
BLOGGING RIGHTS OF STUDENTS
ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION
EFF has added a guide to Bloggers' Rights for students, a companion
piece to its previous Guide to Bloggers' Rights.
Do Public School Students Have
Free Speech Rights under the First Amendment? Absolutely. Both
minors and adults have First Amendment rights, and according
to the Supreme Court, public school students don't "shed
their constitutional right to freedom of speech or expression
at the schoolhouse gate." In the Tinker case, the Court
said that public high school students had a First Amendment right
to wear black armbands to class in symbolic protest of the Vietnam
War. "Students in school as well as out of school are 'persons'
under our Constitution," the Court said, and "they
are possessed of fundamental rights which the State must respect..."
But I'm a Private School Student-What
About Me? You also have First Amendment rights, but those rights
only protect you from government censorship, not private censorship.
As a general matter, you will receive no protection from censorship
or punishment by a private school or college. However, some states
provide private high school and college students with additional
speech protections that go above and beyond the First Amendment.
Furthermore, if your private school has an applicable written
policy, the school must follow that policy.
http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/
SUPREME COURT APPROVES LIFETIME PENALTY
FOR MINOR CRIMES
[This ruling is not only blatantly
anti-black but disenfranchises those imprisoned for minor crimes
such as marijuana possession]
JAMES VICINI, REUTERS - The U.S. Supreme Court let stand a Florida
law that generally bars convicted felons from voting, even after
they have completed their term of prison, probation and parole.
The high court rejected an appeal which argued that the law could
be challenged under a section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,
which prohibits voter disqualification based on race.
Every state in the nation, except
for Maine and Vermont, prohibit, to one degree or another, felons
from voting. Fourteen states, including Florida, generally bar
felons from voting even after they have served their sentences
and have completed their terms of probation and parole. Approximately
5 million felons who have been released from prison are legally
disenfranchised, civil rights experts have estimated. About 1.4
million black men remain permanently disenfranchised.
IBM OFFICIAL CALLS FOR GLOBAL ID
VIVIAN YEO ZDNET - International
standards backed up by a UN body are needed to clear up the international
identity-verification mess, according to a senior IBM Global
Services executive. The growing need for fast, accurate verification
of personal identities has prompted a call from an industry observer
for a global agency to set international standards. . . Beyond
different governments "trying to create a mosaic for what
they want as good identity management", wider international
cooperation is needed to establish a common language and standards,
said Cal Slemp, vice-president and global leader for security
and privacy services at IBM Global Services. . . What's missing
right now, he noted, is a trusted third party to authenticate
trustworthiness. "So we've got inconsistent and incomplete
implementation [in individual countries], and also no standard
approach to the future nor a target to shoot at."
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/legal/0,39020651,39236488,00.htm
[You'd think IBM would be a little
more cautious about such things]
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, AUSTRALIA, MAY
4 - A Swiss court has
rejected a lawsuit against IBM by a Roma group that claimed the
US technology giant helped the Nazis exterminate millions of
people during the Second World War, the plaintiffs' lawyer have
said. The Geneva court ruled that the case was subject to the
statute of limitations, preventing legal actions decades after
the event, said lawyer Henri-Philippe Sambuc. . . GIRCA filed
its lawsuit in 2001, claiming that IBM's Hollerith punch-card
machines enabled the Nazis boost the efficiency of their killing
operations. The group sued IBM for "moral reparation"
and $20,000 each in damages, acting on behalf of four German
and French Roma and one Polish-born Swedish Rom. All five are
Holocaust orphans. . .
GIRCA launched its legal action
after US author Edwin Black said in his book "IBM and the
Holocaust" that the punch-card machines were used to codify
information about people sent to concentration camps, as well
as gather census data on Jews, Roma and other groups singled
out by the Nazis after they came to power in 1933. . . said.
IBM has said that the case is
groundless, rejecting allegations that it was in any way complicit
in the Holocaust. It has consistently said that its German subsidiary
was taken over by the Nazis and that the parent company was in
no way responsible for the way its punch-card machines were used.
GIRCA maintains that IBM continued to deal with its customers
despite the takeover.
SEPTEMBER 2005. . .
SEGREGATION NEVER ENDED
JONATHAN KOZOL, HARPERS - Many
Americans who live far from our major cities and who have no
firsthand knowledge of the realities to be found in urban public
schools seem to have the rather vague and general impression
that the great extremes of racial isolation that were matters
of grave national significance some thirty-five or forty years
ago have gradually but steadily diminished in more recent years.
The truth, unhappily, is that the trend, for well over a decade
now, has been precisely the reverse. Schools that were already
deeply segregated twenty-five or thirty years ago are no less
segregated now, while thousands of other schools around the country
that had been integrated either voluntarily or by the force of
law have since been rapidly resegregating.
In Chicago, by the academic year
2002-2003, 87 percent of public-school enrollment was black or
Hispanic; less than 10 percent of children in the schools were
white. In Washington, D.C., 94 percent of children were black
or Hispanic; less than 5 percent were white. In St. Louis, 82
percent of the student population were black or Hispanic; in
Philadelphia and Cleveland, 79 percent; in Los Angeles, 84 percent,
in Detroit, 96 percent; in Baltimore, 89 percent. In New York
City, nearly three quarters of the students were black or Hispanic.
Even these statistics, as stark
as they are, cannot begin to convey how deeply isolated children
in the poorest and most segregated sections of these cities have
become. In the typically colossal high schools of the Bronx,
for instance, more than 90 percent of students (in most cases,
more than 95 percent) are black or Hispanic. At John F. Kennedy
High School in 2003, 93 percent of the enrollment of more than
4,000 students were black and Hispanic; only 3.5 percent of students
at the school were white. At Harry S. Truman High School, black
and Hispanic students represented 96 percent of the enrollment
of 2,700 students; 2 percent were white. At Adlai Stevenson High
School, which enrolls 3,400 students, blacks and Hispanics made
up 97 percent of the student population; a mere eight tenths
of one percent were white.
A teacher at P.S. 65 in the South
Bronx once pointed out to me one of the two white children I
had ever seen there. His presence in her class was something
of a wonderment to the teacher and to the other pupils. I asked
how many white kids she had taught in the South Bronx in her
career. "I've been at this school for eighteen years,"
she said. "This is the first white student I have ever taught."
JULY 2005. . .
MICROCHIPS ORDERED FOR CITY'S DOGS. .
. YOU'RE NEXT
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE - Canine
owners near San Francisco will be in the doghouse if they don't
obey a trend-setting requirement to implant pooches with identification
microchips, police said. Officials in the city of Oakland, across
the bay from San Francisco, are making it a crime not have high-tech
dog tags imbedded under the skin of what the socially-sensitive
here refer to as canine "companions." "This is
a case where Oakland was ahead of the ball instead of behind
it," said police Sergeant David Cronin, head of the animal
services department, who helped draft the ordinance, which is
in the process of being approved by the city.
COMCAST CENSORING CUSTOMERS' MAIL
DAVID SWANSON - I'm working on
a campaign headquartered at www.afterdowningstreet.org that seeks
to draw attention to the Downing Street Minutes and to lobby
Congress to open an investigation into whether the President
has committed impeachable offenses. According to a recent Zogby
poll, 42 percent of Americans favor impeachment proceedings if
the President lied about the reasons for war, and according to
a recent ABC News / Washington Post poll, 52 percent think he
did. But this story is nowhere to be found in the corporate media.
So, our website attracts a lot of traffic.
In addition, July 23rd is the three-year anniversary of the meeting
on Downing Street that produced the now infamous minutes, and
we are organizing events all over the country on that day. Or,
we're trying to. But we noticed about a week ago that everyone
working on this campaign was having strange Email problems. Some
people would get Emails and some wouldn't, or they'd receive
some but not others. Conference calls were worse than usual (I
can't stand the things anyway) because half the people wouldn't
get the info and know where to call in. Organizing by internet
is super easy, but when you have to follow up every Email with
a phone call to see if someone got it, it becomes super frustrating.
Volunteers have been complaining all over the country –
especially now that we've figured out what the problem was and
they know what to complain about.
We didn't know it, but for the past week, anyone using Comcast
has been unable to receive any Email with "www.afterdowningstreet.org"
in the body of the Email. That has included every Email from
me, since that was in my signature at the bottom of every Email
I sent. And it included any Email linking people to any information
about the upcoming events. . . .
Disturbingly, Comcast did not notify us of this block. It took
us a number of days to nail down Comcast as the cause of the
problems, and then more days, working with Comcast's abuse department
to identify exactly what was going on. We'd reached that point
by Thursday, but Comcast was slow to fix the problem.
During the day on Friday we escalated our threats to flood Comcast's
executives with phone calls and cancellations, and we gave them
deadlines. Friday evening, Comcast passed the buck to Symantec.
Comcast said that Symantec's Bright Mail filter was blocking
the Emails, and that Symantec refused to lift the block, because
they had supposedly received 46,000 complaints about Emails with
our URL in them. . . Of course, Symantec was working for Comcast,
and Comcast could insist that they shape up, or drop them. But
Comcast wasn't interested in doing that. Could we see two or
three, or even one, of those 46,000 complaints? No, and Comcast
claimed that Symantec wouldn't share them with Comcast either.
Comcast has a near monopoly on high-speed internet service in
much of this country, including much of the Washington, D.C.,
area. Many members of the media and many people involved in politics
rely on it. . . Comcast effectively censors discussion of particular
political topics, and impedes the ability of people to associate
with each other, with absolutely no compulsion to explain itself.
There is no due process. A phrase or web address is tried and
convicted in absentia and without the knowledge of those involved.
Now, did Comcast do this because it opposes impeaching the President?
I seriously doubt it. Apparently the folks at Symantec did this,
and Comcast condoned it. But why?. . .
This state of affairs means that anyone who wants to stifle public
and quasi-private discussion of a topic can quite easily do so
by generating numerous spam complaints. The victims of the complaints
will not be notified, made aware of the accusations against them,
or provided an opportunity to defend themselves. And if the complaints
prove bogus, there will be absolutely no penalty for having made
them.
And this won't affect only small-time information sources. If
the New York Times or CNN attempts to send people Email with
a forbidden phrase, it won't reach Comcast customers or customers
of any ISP using the same or similar filtering program.
FROM THE SPANISH PRIME MINISTER'S SPEECH
ON GAY MARRIAGE
[Wouldn't it be nice if we had
politicians who spoke this well?]
PRIME MINISTER JOSE LUIS RODRIGUEZ
ZAPATERO - We are not legislating, honorable members, for people
far away and not known by us. We are enlarging the opportunity
for happiness to our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends and,
our families: at the same time we are making a more decent society,
because a decent society is one that does not humiliate its members.
. .
Today, the Spanish society answers
to a group of people who, during many years have been humiliated,
whose rights have been ignored, whose dignity has been offended,
their identity denied, and their liberty oppressed. Today the
Spanish society grants them the respect they deserve, recognizes
their rights, restores their dignity, affirms their identity,
and restores their liberty.
It is true that they are only
a minority, but their triumph is everyone's triumph. It is also
the triumph of those who oppose this law, even though they do
not know this yet: because it is the triumph of liberty. Their
victory makes all of us (even those who oppose the law) better
people, it makes our society better. Honorable members, there
is no damage to marriage or to the concept of family in allowing
two people of the same sex to get married. To the contrary, what
happens is this class of Spanish citizens get the potential to
organize their lives with the rights and privileges of marriage
and family. There is no danger to the institution of marriage,
but precisely the opposite: this law enhances and respects marriage.
Today, conscious that some people
and institutions are in a profound disagreement with this change
in our civil law, I wish to express that, like other reforms
to the marriage code that preceded this one, this law will generate
no evil, that its only consequence will be the avoiding of senseless
suffering of decent human beings. A society that avoids senseless
suffering of decent human beings is a better society.
With the approval of this bill,
our country takes another step in the path of liberty and tolerance
that was begun by the democratic change of government. Our children
will look at us incredulously if we tell them that many years
ago, our mothers had less rights than our fathers, or if we tell
them that people had to stay married against their will even
though they were unable to share their lives. Today we can offer
them a beautiful lesson: every right gained, each access to liberty
has been the result of the struggle and sacrifice of many people
that deserve our recognition and praise.
[Translated by journalist Rex
Wockner and found on Doug Ireland's website]
http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/07/when_the_spanis.html
JUNE 2005. . .
13 TEENS THREATENED WITH FELONIES FOR HACKING SCHOOL
LAPTOPS
DAN ROMAN, BERKSMONT NEWS - Thirteen
Kutztown Area High School students are facing felony charges
for tampering with district-issued laptop computers. According
to parent testimony and confirmed by an otherwise vaguely-worded
letter from the Kutztown Police Department, students got hold
of the system's secret administrative password and reconfigured
their computers to achieve greater Internet and network access.
Some students used the newfound freedom to download music and
inappropriate images from the Internet.
James Shrawder spoke on behalf
of a group of parents of six of the accused at a June 20 school
board meeting. He said the administration may have railroaded
the process by not providing authorities with the whole story.
"That's absurd," Superintendent
Brenda S. Winkler said after the board meeting, in response to
Shrawder's allegations that the administration withheld information
until the end of the school year. . .
Shrawder said the secret password
"50Trexler," was widely-known among the student body
and distributed early in the school year. It allowed between
80 and 100 students to reconfigure their laptops, he said. The
more computer-savvy students began to disable the administrations'
ability to spy on the students' computer use. For others, it
became a game, trying to outsmart the administration and compete
with fellow students who held the secret, Shrawder said. "I
don't know why this is such a big deal," he said. "At
no time was the security of the server breached, and I don't
know that it has cost the taxpayers any money.". . .
For the moment, parents were
uncertain how to react to the threat of charges against their
children. Paperwork is hung up in county juvenile court system
and the only indication of the charges is the letter sent to
parents and signed by Officer Walter J. Skavinsky of the Kutztown
Police Department.
ORWELL'S AMERICA: SPY CAMS PROLIFERATE
CLAYTON COLLINS, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
MONITOR - In mid-July, Chelsea, Mass., hopes to throw the switch
on a quarter-million-dollar system of 27 digital cameras with
the capacity to monitor and record activity in any of its public
spaces, says Jay Ash, city manager. His hope: that the system,
which has cut crime in Chicago, will do the same in this high-crime
city of 36,000 packed into less than two square miles. Other
small cities have similar aims. Officials in Schenectady, N.Y.,
reportedly plan to have eight cameras trained on the city's main
commercial zone by fall. State funds will be used. Chelsea's
ally is the US government, which will add seven more cameras
in a shared-feeds arrangement that has city officials encouraged,
civil libertarians concerned, and some residents wondering how
electronic policing and a federal presence will affect daily
life. . .
Perhaps the most controversial area of monitoring is the proposed
inclusion of private-sector cameras. Many cities already have
thousands, and demand for electronic-security products is projected
to grow 9 percent a year through 2008 to $15.5 billion, according
to Freedonia Group, a research firm.
PENTAGON SPYING ON THE YOUNG; SOCIAL SECURITY
SPYING ON THE POOR
[The Social Security questionnaire
being mailed to 20 million presumedly low income Americans also
asks many questions that constitute an invasion of privacy, especially
since they are not even on an application but a general questionnaire]
JONATHAN KRIM, WASHINGTON POST
- The Defense Department began working yesterday with a private
marketing firm to create a database of high school students ages
16 to 18 and all college students to help the military identify
potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment in some
branches. The program is provoking a furor among privacy advocates.
The new database will include personal information including
birth dates, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point
averages, ethnicity and what subjects the students are studying.
. .
"The purpose of the system
. . . is to provide a single central facility within the Department
of Defense to compile, process and distribute files of individuals
who meet age and minimum school requirements for military service,"
according to the official notice of the program.
BUSH REGIME USES BACK DOOR TO SUPPRESS SEX
ON INTERNET
THIS STORY HAS BEEN
effectively blacked out by the national media. While it directly
involves adult porn, it goes to the heart of free speech. The
following items appeared on Boing Boing:
ROTTEN.COM - Our gapingmaw.com
and other sites shut in anticipation of 2257 Amended Section
2257 recordkeeping regulations go into effect at midnight tonight.
The federal law requires website owners to keep records documenting,
among other things, that "every performer portrayed in a
visual depiction of actual sexually explicit conduct" is
over the age of 18. In anticipation, porn sites and others that
offer adult content are preparing to make their sites compliant
-- or taking them offline. Today, several sites in the Rotten.com
family are going dark for that reason. . .
Section 2257 is ostensibly
aimed at preventing the exploitation of minors in pornography.
However, some free speech advocates argue it provides the conservative
Bush administration with the power to silence other websites
deemed offensive. . .
GAPINGMAW.COM - The things
that used to be here, the very funny things that you want to
read, have been made retroactively illegal by the US government,
in a side-handed attack on the pornography industry. We might
mention that the material here isn't even pornography as you
normally think of it -- this site is just adult humor, in essay
format, with some illustrations. The government is mandating
that we meet certain bookkeeping requirements, ones impossible
to meet for this site. Never mind that those requirements do
not actually gain the public anything. . . . The penalty for
not abiding by these bookkeeping requirements is five years prison.
The regulations were promulgated
by Alberto Gonzales, US Attorney General appointed by George
Bush. If you voted for Bush, this is your fault. If you think
this country is free, you are sadly mistaken. No nation has freedom
when it is run by religious zealots.
A READER - In terms of
the bookkeeping requirements for adult film distributors -- each
distributor has to keep records on site. That includes social
security numbers, driver license scans and other personal information.
So lets say you're Paris Hilton. Your personal information then
has to be carried by every distributor that carries that film
( which could be hundreds if not thousands of locations, increasing
the likelihood of identity theft, etc -- and not to mention privacy
issues). It used to be that the studio producing an adult film
would carry that information at their studio. This law is a way
for the government to control porn.
7TH CIRCUIT STOMPS ON CAMPUS PRESS FREEDOM
AP - The 7th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals has ruled against a campus newspaper in a case being
closely watched by free-press advocates. The case, Hosty v. Carter
(formerly Hosty v. Governors State University), involved whether
the dean of student affairs at Governors State University in
University Park, Ill., could censor the newspaper, the Innovator.
The controversy arose after Dean
Patricia Carter sought to prevent publication of the Innovator
unless it had obtained prior approval of university officials.
Two former student editors, Margaret Hosty and Jeni Porche, and
a former writer, Steven P. Barba, filed a federal lawsuit, contending
that Carter, the state-run school and other officials violated
their free-expression rights in that their demand for prior review
amounted to an unconstitutional prior restraint on expression.
Carter argued that she could
censor the college newspaper under the rationale of the 1988
Supreme Court ruling in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier,
in which the Court said high school newspapers could be subject
to restrictions.
The majority in yesterday's 7-4
ruling by the 7th Circuit reversed a 2003 ruling by a three-judge
panel of the same court, rejecting the panel's finding that college
students possessed greater press freedoms than high school students.
The central question, yesterday's majority said, was whether
the Innovator could be subjected to college-administration control
because it had been created as a certain type of public forum
and was funded by the school.
SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS AMERICAN GULAGS
USA TODAY - The Supreme Court
unanimously upheld an Ohio corrections policy that allows the
most dangerous criminals to be locked up in isolated super-maximum-security
prison cells. But the justices also found that prisoners have
a constitutional interest in avoiding assignment to such cells.
As a result, prison officials must ensure that there are several
levels of review when a prisoner is transferred to a cell designed
to deprive an inmate of almost all human contact and which, in
Ohio, eliminates the chance of parole.
NEARLY TWO-THIRDS DON'T WANT FLAG AMENDMENT
FIRST AMENDMENT CENTER - The
number of Americans who oppose a constitutional amendment that
would give Congress the power to punish flag-burning as protest
is up sharply from 2004, according to a survey released today
by the First Amendment Center. 63% of those sampled said the
U.S. Constitution "should not be amended to prohibit burning
or desecrating the American flag," up from 53% in 2004 and
the highest number against the proposed amendment since the annual
survey began in 1997. 35% said the Constitution "should
be amended" - down from 45% in 2004.
APPEALS COURT UPHOLDS RIGGED PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES
RICHARD KEIL BLOOMBERG NEWS -
The bipartisan group that organizes presidential debates had
the right to exclude consumer advocate Ralph Nader and other
third-party candidates from the debates in 2000, a federal appeals
court ruled. The court, reversing a judge's ruling, said the
Commission on Presidential Debates could exclude Nader, then
the Green Party presidential candidate, Reform Party candidate
Pat Buchanan and other third-party candidates from the 2000 presidential
debates and ban them from sitting in the audience at the first
debate in Boston. . .
The commission "acted not
out of any preference for major-party candidates, but rather
because it feared one or more third-party candidates would disrupt
the debate," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
said in overturning 3-0 a lower court judge's decision in the
candidates' favor. . .
A federal judge had ruled for
the candidates, saying their exclusion from the debates was "unrelated
to a subjective or objective concern of disruption, and was therefore
partisan."
PRIVATE SPY AGENCIES INACCURATE
ONE OF THE PROBLEMS with
privatizing spying on US citizens, constitutional issues aside,
is that the companies the government and corporations aren't
that good.
BOING BOING - Data-brokers
like Choice Point and Acxiom suck so bad that in a recent Privacy
Activism study, they were found to have inaccuracies in one hundred
percent of the reports in the sample, including incorrectly identifying
subjects' sex and even incorrectly describing several participants
as officers of companies. This kind of study is nearly impossible
to undertake: "[Privacy Activism] had to find companies
who were doing background checks on employees anyway, and who
felt that participating in this study with Privacy Activism was
important. Then those companies asked their employees if they
wanted to anonymously participate in the study." Although
outside of the specific data that was the focus of the study,
several other inaccuracies reported by the participants are worth
mentioning: * 100% of participants had at least one phone number
omitted in reports from Choice- Point.
- Three different participants
were incorrectly reported as "officers of corporations"
in the Choice Point reports.
- One participant's Choice
Point report had several of her ex-husband's addresses listed
under her name
- One participant's Acxiom
report had an incorrect gender
MAY 2005. . .
COURT DEFENDS RIGHT TO USE
OBSCENITIES TO POLICE
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=15356
ASSOCIATED PRESS - A teen who
shouted obscenities at a police officer was exercising his right
to free speech, the Indiana Court of Appeals has ruled. The three-judge
panel voted unanimously, although reluctantly, yesterday to overturn
the youth's juvenile conviction for disorderly conduct, ruling
that his comments in reaction to the officer's treatment of his
companion were protected political speech.
"Although we do not agree
with the manner in which U.M. conducted himself ... U.M. was
expressing himself regarding the legality and appropriateness
of police conduct toward his companion," Senior Judge George
B. Hoffman Jr. wrote in the order, In the Matter of U.M. v. State
of Indiana, reversing the youth's adjudication in Marion Superior
Court.
MOVING TOWARDS AN INTERNATIONAL
ID CARD
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=641731
INDPENDENT, UK - The United States
wants Britain's proposed identity cards to have the same microchip
and technology as the ones used on American documents. The aim
of getting the same microchip is to ensure compatibility in screening
terrorist suspects. But it will also mean that information contained
in the British cards can be accessed across the Atlantic. Michael
Chertoff, the newly appointed US Secretary for Homeland Security,
has already had talks with the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke,
and the Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling, to discuss the
matter. . .
Mr Chertoff also proposed that
British citizens wishing to visit the US should consider entering
a "Trusted Traveller" scheme. Under this, they would
forward their details to the US embassy to be vetted. If successful,
they would receive a document allowing "fast- tracking"
through the US immigration system.
PBS, OTHERS ALREADY CENSORING
OWN BROADCASTS
http://www.televisionwatch.org/site/pp.asp?c=dqLSI7OCKlF&b=593311
TELEVISION WATCH - You may not
know it, but programs are already being changed or not aired
out of fear of government fines:
A scene showing Nelson Mandela
was deleted from a documentary about South Africa because women
in the background participating in traditional dance were partially
unclothed.
The FCC investigated coverage
of the Olympic Games Opening Ceremonies in Athens because historical
depictions of Greek art and dance appeared in the broadcast.
Famous centerfold images of Marilyn
Monroe and pictures of nude women painted on World War II planes
are being screened by PBS's Antiques Roadshow, and editors obscured
the image of a 50-year old nude lithography.
The Cotton Club, Fargo and films
by Academy-Award-winning filmmaker Federico Fellini, the 2004
Tony-Award-winning Best Musical Avenue Q, and scenes and dialogue
from a "reality" period piece set in the 1880's, Regency
House Party, were blocked from broadcast on PBS.
News footage of stunned onlookers
during the attacks of 9/11, of a soldier's language during a
bomb blast in Iraq, and a documentary about soldiers' experiences
in Iraq have been edited to remove coarse language.
Phoenix TV stations dropped coverage
of a live memorial service for Pat Tillman, the former Arizona
football star killed in Afghanistan, because of language used
by mournful family members.
80 percent of PBS affiliates
rejected broadcast footage from the time leading up to the Iraqi
elections and the battle for Fallujah because of explicit language
used by the soldiers.
Popular shows like Emmy-Award-winning
N.Y.P.D. Blue and ER have edited important scenes - such as the
appearance an 80-year old woman patient's breast.
A Family Guy episode that aired
5 years ago - without incident - was edited to remove a view
of an animated character's buttocks, and altered an animated
depiction in another episode of a character breast-feeding in
public.
Broadcasters across the country
are changing the way they cover live news events; for example,
moving their microphones far away from live crowds to avoid airing
potentially offensive comments. |