Excerpt from The
Dept. Of Justice (DOJ) video:
"Photography,
observation, or surveillance of facilities, buildings, or critical
infrastructure and key resources beyond casual, tourism, or artistic interest,
to include facility access points, staff or occupants, or security
measures."
Photography and other similar activities are protected
activities unless connected to other suspicious activities that would indicate
potential terrorism. This may cause the officer to conduct additional
observation or gather additional information—again taking into account the
totality of circumstances.
As you document and report these or other types of
suspicious activity, protection of privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties
is paramount. Just as you do in your other daily law enforcement duties, you must:
Collect information in a lawful manner.
Protect the rights of the individual.
Avoid collecting information protected by the Bill of
Rights.
Ensure information is as accurate as possible.
Every state and many major metropolitan areas have
developed intelligence fusion centers to make sure that terrorism and other
criminal information is analyzed and forwarded to the appropriate jurisdiction
for follow-up investigation.
When you collect and document suspicious activity
information, that information is routed to your supervisor and others for
evaluation in accordance with your departmental policy. SAR information is then
entered into a local, regional, state, or federal system and submitted to a
fusion center for review by a trained analyst or investigator. The reviewer
determines whether the information has a nexus to terrorism and meets the
criteria for sharing nationwide. If so, it is forwarded to the Federal Bureau
of Investigation Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) for investigative follow-up.
DOJ video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41o1zTxmH_A
http://publicintelligence.net/sar-training-video/
NSI Instructional Video: Public photography is terrorism.
The video instructs officers to consider photographers as possible terrorists who should be singled out for additional interrogation.
According to the video, street photography and photography of public buildings provides “justification for further analysis,” although the video emphasizes that photography “and other similar activities are protected activities unless connected to other suspicious activities that would indicate potential terrorism. This may cause the officer to conduct additional observation or gather additional information – again taking into account the totality of circumstances.”
“Photography, observation, or surveillance of facilities, buildings, or critical infrastructure and key resources beyond casual, tourism, or artistic interest, to include facility access points, staff or occupants, or security measures,” the video instructs.
The “acquisition or storage of unusual quantities of materials,” including cell phones and pagers, is considered to be a suspicious behavior.
http://www.infowars.com/nsi-instructional-video-public-photography-is-te...
Favorite Quotes
Monday, April 30, 2012
DHS drones patrol the U.S.- Canadian border.
Seattle, WA. - The federal government's unmanned drones patrolling the U.S.-Canadian border are venturing into Washington state's airspace.
In testimony before a U.S. Senate panel this week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said northern border surveillance using unmanned aerial aircraft now expands from North Dakota to eastern Washington.
Since 2005, the Department of Homeland Security has deployed a handful of drones around the country, with some based in Arizona, Florida, North Dakota and Texas – with more planned for the future. Operations out of North Dakota first began in 2011.
The two 10,000-pound Predator-B unmanned aircrafts based in Grand Forks, N.D., have a 950-mile coverage range and "they do enter Washington airspace, in the vicinity of Spokane," said Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Gina Gray on Thursday.
The unmanned aircrafts "can stay in the air for up to 20 hours at a time, something no other aircraft in the federal inventory can do," Gray said. "In this manner it is a force multiplier, providing aerial surveillance support for border agents by investigating sensor activity in remote areas to distinguish between real or perceived threats, allowing the boots on the ground force to best allocate their resources and efforts."
Since 2005, the Department of Homeland Security has deployed a handful of drones around the country, with some based in Arizona, Florida, North Dakota, and Texas -- with more planned for the future. Operations out of North Dakota first began in 2011.
The use of drones has proliferated among federal and local law enforcement agencies nationwide along with civilian hobbyists in recent years.
A recent American Civil Liberties Union report said allowing drones greater access takes the country "a large step closer to a surveillance society in which our every move is monitored, tracked, recorded, and scrutinized by the authorities."
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Homeland-Security-drones-patrol-Washington-BC-border--149356585.html
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2012/apr/30/drones-patrolling-washington-border/
Military-style drones on 63 military bases in the U.S.
Update May 15, 2012:
FAA to ease rules for police agencies to fly unmanned drones.
Los Angeles, CA - Surveillance aircraft used by the U.S. military overseas could soon be coming to the skies above Los Angeles County.
KNX 1070′s Charles Feldman reports the Federal Aviation Administration is making it easier for local law enforcement agencies to fly unmanned drones.
The FAA has streamlined the process that would allow agencies to fly smaller, unarmed versions of the drones that hunt down terrorists in places such as Pakistan and Afghanistan.
http://www.faa.gov/news/updates/?newsId=68004
While the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has not yet applied for an application to fly drones over our skies, its Homeland Security chief Bob Osborne said drones could be in the department’s future — with some caveats.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/05/15/faa-to-ease-rules-for-police-agencies-to-fly-unmanned-drones/
In testimony before a U.S. Senate panel this week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said northern border surveillance using unmanned aerial aircraft now expands from North Dakota to eastern Washington.
Since 2005, the Department of Homeland Security has deployed a handful of drones around the country, with some based in Arizona, Florida, North Dakota and Texas – with more planned for the future. Operations out of North Dakota first began in 2011.
The two 10,000-pound Predator-B unmanned aircrafts based in Grand Forks, N.D., have a 950-mile coverage range and "they do enter Washington airspace, in the vicinity of Spokane," said Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Gina Gray on Thursday.
The unmanned aircrafts "can stay in the air for up to 20 hours at a time, something no other aircraft in the federal inventory can do," Gray said. "In this manner it is a force multiplier, providing aerial surveillance support for border agents by investigating sensor activity in remote areas to distinguish between real or perceived threats, allowing the boots on the ground force to best allocate their resources and efforts."
Since 2005, the Department of Homeland Security has deployed a handful of drones around the country, with some based in Arizona, Florida, North Dakota, and Texas -- with more planned for the future. Operations out of North Dakota first began in 2011.
The use of drones has proliferated among federal and local law enforcement agencies nationwide along with civilian hobbyists in recent years.
A recent American Civil Liberties Union report said allowing drones greater access takes the country "a large step closer to a surveillance society in which our every move is monitored, tracked, recorded, and scrutinized by the authorities."
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Homeland-Security-drones-patrol-Washington-BC-border--149356585.html
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2012/apr/30/drones-patrolling-washington-border/
Military-style drones on 63 military bases in the U.S.
More worrying to Americans should be a report saying
that there are already 63 drone bases inside the United
States.
The Washington
Post reports, “Big things can happen in Congress — as long as no one is
watching.
“Lobbying records released last week show that there wasn’t much opposition this winter when Congress quietly opened up U.S. airspace to aerial drones, which some advocates for civil liberties say raise a host of concerns about privacy.
“Lobbying records released last week show that there wasn’t much opposition this winter when Congress quietly opened up U.S. airspace to aerial drones, which some advocates for civil liberties say raise a host of concerns about privacy.
Drone technology, advanced by the
military for surveillance and elimination of terrorists in war zones, is set to
come back to the home front in a big way in coming years, with possible uses for
law enforcement, first responders, and agriculture and environmental
monitoring.
Select companies and ask local governments around the country already
for permission
to test drones, which can sometimes stay aloft for days at a time at a fraction of
the cost of helicopters and airplanes.”
Recently, Alexander Higgins.com reported:
“A lawsuit has forced the FAA to reveal
the location of 63 Secret Drone bases located inside the United States some of
which will be the starting point for more drone
warfare.
While the information released shows an
alarming number of bases being used for military and local law enforcement
drones, perhaps the most startling revelation is that the United States is
allowing Canadian Border Patrol Drones to operate across the Canadian
border.
Odds are that the are many more drone
bases inside the United States whose locations have been kept secret for various
national security reasons and the lawsuit only forced the government to release
the names and locations of permmitted US drone
operators.
That means that the type of drones – be
they for targeted killing, guiding missiles, or general surveillance – and the
number of drones at each location still remains a secret although the FAA says
they plan on releasing such information at a later
date.”
England’s Daily Mail has more
information:
“Most of the active drones are deployed
from military installations, enforcement agencies and border patrol teams
according to the Federal Aviation Authority.
Update May 15, 2012:
FAA to ease rules for police agencies to fly unmanned drones.
Los Angeles, CA - Surveillance aircraft used by the U.S. military overseas could soon be coming to the skies above Los Angeles County.
KNX 1070′s Charles Feldman reports the Federal Aviation Administration is making it easier for local law enforcement agencies to fly unmanned drones.
The FAA has streamlined the process that would allow agencies to fly smaller, unarmed versions of the drones that hunt down terrorists in places such as Pakistan and Afghanistan.
http://www.faa.gov/news/updates/?newsId=68004
While the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has not yet applied for an application to fly drones over our skies, its Homeland Security chief Bob Osborne said drones could be in the department’s future — with some caveats.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/05/15/faa-to-ease-rules-for-police-agencies-to-fly-unmanned-drones/
Exposed: Prison industry opposes changes in criminal laws etc. because they would affect their profits.
Excerpt from the GEO Group's 2011 annual report:
The unbelievable brutality unleashed on kids in for-profit prisons.
On March 26, U.S. District Judge Carlton W. Reeves issued a blistering court order approving the settlement of the lawsuit. He wrote that the GEO Group Inc., the company that runs Walnut Grove, “has allowed a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate.”
What’s more, both the prison staff and the Mississippi Department of Corrections, which pays GEO $14 million each year to run the prison, showed “deliberate indifference” to these problems.
In other words, nobody cared. Nobody cared that the bottom line – private profit, secured in part by dangerously understaffing the prison – was more important than providing humane conditions and services that would protect youths from violence and help get them back on the right track.
They should care – if not out of basic human decency then because these young men will eventually get out of prison. They will re-enter their communities, many lacking an education, many lacking treatment for their disabilities, many severely scarred both physically and psychologically by their experience.
GEO purchased the company, Cornell Companies Inc., that had been operating the prison since 2003.
GEO, which was born as Wackenhut Corrections Corp. in 1984, is the second-largest prison company in America, with 66,000 beds at 65 prison facilities across the U.S. and another seven overseas. With a total of 4,000 beds in three prisons, including Walnut Grove, the company houses about a quarter of Mississippi’s prison population.
Built with $41 million in taxpayer subsidies, Walnut Grove has generated about $100 million in revenue for the companies operating it since the doors opened in 2001.
With the acquisition of Walnut Grove and its other prison projects, GEO is riding a wave of privatization efforts.
Read more:
http://www.alternet.org/rights/155326/the_unbelievable_brutality_unleashed_on_kids_in_for-profit_prisons/
Los Angeles students protest school police citations that hit blacks, Latinos.
Los Angeles public-school students rallied Thursday against the large volume of court citations they have been issued for seemingly minor infractions, including tardiness, having a marker or “tool” for graffiti and for acting disruptive.
The citations, issued by the Los Angeles Unified School District Police Department, have been the subject of recent stories by the Center for Public Integrity. Television station KTLA in Los Angeles covered the rally, posting on its website that: “The Center for Public Integrity took a closer look at exactly how school policing is being done, and their findings are raising some major concerns.” KTLA describes some of the Center’s findings from an analysis of three years’ worth of citations recently released by the school district police.
More than 40 percent of 33,500 court summonses issued to students between 10 and 18 went to students 14 and younger. African American students, 10 percent of enrollment, were 15 percent of those cited last year and 20 percent in 2010. The district’s school police force, with 340 sworn officers and staff, is the largest in the nation.
Southern California public radio station KPCC, which co-reported a piece on the citations with the Center, also covered the students’ protest rally Thursday. KPCC reported that some community groups believe a moratorium on ticketing should be declared until the district completes a thorough analysis of the data. One of those groups, the Labor-Community Strategy Center has released its own analyses of the new citation data. KPCC reported that school police don’t plan to stop ticketing.http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/05/04/8813/los-angeles-students-protest-school-police-citations-hit-blacks-latinos
Ex-Con shareholder goes after world's biggest prison corporation.
On May 11, 2012, at the annual meeting of Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest private prison company, shareholder activist Alex Friedmann will have exactly two minutes to speak about the unconventional resolution he introduced earlier this year to the chagrin of CCA's board.
The resolution is unconventional because it concerns not corporate profits or dividends, but the well-being of the roughly 81,000 inmates in CCA's care. Friedmann, too, is unconventional, for although he holds just $2,000 or so worth of CCA stock, he has inside knowledge of the company's practices—because he served time at one of its prisons.
Indeed, Friedmann spent six years at CCA's South Central Correctional Facility in Clifton, Tennessee—part of his 10-year sentence for attempted murder, armed robbery, and attempted aggravated robbery. Since getting out in 1999, he has been an advocate for prisoners' rights and criminal justice reform. Now he's an editor with Prison Legal News and head of Private Corrections Institute, a nonprofit watchdog.
Friedmann's controversial resolution addresses the longstanding problem of rape in US prisons and jails. If it passes, CCA's board will have to submit twice-a-year reports to stockholders detailing the board's oversight of company efforts to curb rape and sexual abuse, and include detailed statistics on any such incidents. "If CCA has to report this information they will have a greater incentive to reduce rape and sexual abuse because it will make the company look bad if they have very high numbers," he says. "And if they have to report this, the public, i.e. CCA shareholders, will be able to judge the effectiveness."
In a 2007 survey of local jails by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a CCA facility in Torrance County, New Mexico, clocked in with the highest rate of sexual victimization (13.4 percent), more than four times the national average. It also had the highest rate of staff-on-inmate sexual victimization—7 percent, as compared with a national average of around 2 percent.
CCA can certainly afford to address the issue. The longtime industry leader in prisons and immigrant detention, it owns or operates 67 facilities (see table of its customers below) and boasts about $1.7 billion in annual revenues—more than 40 percent of which come from the federal government and most of the rest from the states and localities. The company reportedly employs 35 lobbyists on Capitol Hill, and hundreds more in 33 states over the past eight years.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/05/ex-con-alex-friedmann-cca-private-prison-rape
"In particular, the demand for our correctional and detention
facilities and services and BI's [a prison industry company Geo acquired in
2011] services could be adversely affected by changes in existing criminal or
immigration laws, crime rates in jurisdictions in which we operate, the
relaxation of criminal or immigration enforcement efforts, leniency in
conviction, sentencing or deportation practices, and the decriminalization of
certain activities that are currently proscribed by criminal laws or the loosening
of immigration laws. For example, any changes with respect to the
decriminalization of drugs and controlled substances could affect the number of
persons arrested, convicted, sentenced and incarcerated, thereby potentially
reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them. Similarly,
reductions in crime rates could lead to reductions in arrests, convictions and
sentences requiring incarceration at correctional facilities. Immigration
reform laws which are currently a focus for legislators and politicians at the
federal, state and local level also could materially adversely impact us."
This is an industry that needs misery, long sentences,
rounded-up undocumented immigrants and increasing crime to flourish. In order
to keep the prison beds filled, The GEO Group and others have paid out millions
of dollars to lobbyists, federal and state legislators, and governors to allow
our immigration problem to go unsolved, to make sure that no drugs are
decriminalized and that an ineffective War on Drugs continues, and to make
certain that long term prison sentences, like California's
three-strikes-and-you're-imprisoned-for-life laws, keep a steady flow of
revenue and profits flowing to their shareholders. They are also hoping that
our national drop in crime is just a temporary trend.
The GEO Group does do a brisk business, mainly through the
federal and state governments. According to a thorough report, "Gaming the
System," which was issued last year by the Justice Policy Institute, the
"state and federal prison population increased 722 percent between 1970
and 2009," while as "of 2010, GEO contracts with 13 states, the
Federal Bureau of Prison, the U.S. Marshals Service, and U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement. In 2010, 66 percent ($842 million) of GEO's $1.27 billion
in revenue was from U.S. corrections contracts. Of the $842 million in revenue,
47 percent came from corrections contracts with 11 states."
Wells Fargo sees Geo Group and the prison industries as a
good investment. According to an article by Charles Davis in Salon:
A driving force behind the push for ever-tougher sentences
is the for-profit prison industry, in which Wells Fargo is a major investor....
Wells Fargo has been busy expanding its stake in the GEO Group, the second
largest private jailer in America. At the end of 2011, Wells Fargo was the
company's second-largest investor, holding 4.3 million shares valued at more
than $72 million. By March 2012, its stake had grown to more than 4.4 million
shares worth $86.7 million.
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/11/wells_fargos_prison_cash_cow/singleton/
According to "Gaming the System":
President Obama's appointed Director of the United States
Marshals Service, Stacia Hylton, has strong ties to the private prison
industry. In 2010, Hylton started a private prison consulting firm, called
Hylton Kirk and Associates, while still working at the Department of Justice as
the Federal Detention Trustee. After retiring from the trustee position, Hylton
agreed to a consulting contract with The GEO Group worth $112,500. As Director
of the U.S. Marshals, Hylton will head an agency that has a long-standing
contractual relationship with The GEO Group. In 2010, the U.S. Marshal's
accounted for 19 percent of GEO's revenue. With Hylton in a position to oversee
government contracts with private prisons, the ongoing influence of private
prison companies in the public sphere is virtually guaranteed.
Hylton had a long career within the US Marshals Service,
went through the revolving door to cash in on the lucrative private prison
business and then went back to the top job in the Marshals Service.
John M. Hurley is the
senior vice president and president of GEO Detention & Corrections. After
working 26 years in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, he supplemented his
government pension with a $1.5 million compensation package of $1.5 million.
Norman A. Carlson is
on The GEO Group's board of directors. After 17 years in the Federal Bureau of
Prisons, including a stint as the director, he had a compensation package of
$173,500 in 2010, as well as his government pension. In case you are worried that
he was not making enough, he made $854,484 in 2007, and he did well in other
years. http://www.justicepolicy.org/research/2614
The unbelievable brutality unleashed on kids in for-profit prisons.
On March 26, U.S. District Judge Carlton W. Reeves issued a blistering court order approving the settlement of the lawsuit. He wrote that the GEO Group Inc., the company that runs Walnut Grove, “has allowed a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate.”
What’s more, both the prison staff and the Mississippi Department of Corrections, which pays GEO $14 million each year to run the prison, showed “deliberate indifference” to these problems.
In other words, nobody cared. Nobody cared that the bottom line – private profit, secured in part by dangerously understaffing the prison – was more important than providing humane conditions and services that would protect youths from violence and help get them back on the right track.
They should care – if not out of basic human decency then because these young men will eventually get out of prison. They will re-enter their communities, many lacking an education, many lacking treatment for their disabilities, many severely scarred both physically and psychologically by their experience.
GEO purchased the company, Cornell Companies Inc., that had been operating the prison since 2003.
GEO, which was born as Wackenhut Corrections Corp. in 1984, is the second-largest prison company in America, with 66,000 beds at 65 prison facilities across the U.S. and another seven overseas. With a total of 4,000 beds in three prisons, including Walnut Grove, the company houses about a quarter of Mississippi’s prison population.
Built with $41 million in taxpayer subsidies, Walnut Grove has generated about $100 million in revenue for the companies operating it since the doors opened in 2001.
With the acquisition of Walnut Grove and its other prison projects, GEO is riding a wave of privatization efforts.
Read more:
http://www.alternet.org/rights/155326/the_unbelievable_brutality_unleashed_on_kids_in_for-profit_prisons/
Los Angeles students protest school police citations that hit blacks, Latinos.
Los Angeles public-school students rallied Thursday against the large volume of court citations they have been issued for seemingly minor infractions, including tardiness, having a marker or “tool” for graffiti and for acting disruptive.
The citations, issued by the Los Angeles Unified School District Police Department, have been the subject of recent stories by the Center for Public Integrity. Television station KTLA in Los Angeles covered the rally, posting on its website that: “The Center for Public Integrity took a closer look at exactly how school policing is being done, and their findings are raising some major concerns.” KTLA describes some of the Center’s findings from an analysis of three years’ worth of citations recently released by the school district police.
More than 40 percent of 33,500 court summonses issued to students between 10 and 18 went to students 14 and younger. African American students, 10 percent of enrollment, were 15 percent of those cited last year and 20 percent in 2010. The district’s school police force, with 340 sworn officers and staff, is the largest in the nation.
Southern California public radio station KPCC, which co-reported a piece on the citations with the Center, also covered the students’ protest rally Thursday. KPCC reported that some community groups believe a moratorium on ticketing should be declared until the district completes a thorough analysis of the data. One of those groups, the Labor-Community Strategy Center has released its own analyses of the new citation data. KPCC reported that school police don’t plan to stop ticketing.http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/05/04/8813/los-angeles-students-protest-school-police-citations-hit-blacks-latinos
Ex-Con shareholder goes after world's biggest prison corporation.
On May 11, 2012, at the annual meeting of Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest private prison company, shareholder activist Alex Friedmann will have exactly two minutes to speak about the unconventional resolution he introduced earlier this year to the chagrin of CCA's board.
The resolution is unconventional because it concerns not corporate profits or dividends, but the well-being of the roughly 81,000 inmates in CCA's care. Friedmann, too, is unconventional, for although he holds just $2,000 or so worth of CCA stock, he has inside knowledge of the company's practices—because he served time at one of its prisons.
Indeed, Friedmann spent six years at CCA's South Central Correctional Facility in Clifton, Tennessee—part of his 10-year sentence for attempted murder, armed robbery, and attempted aggravated robbery. Since getting out in 1999, he has been an advocate for prisoners' rights and criminal justice reform. Now he's an editor with Prison Legal News and head of Private Corrections Institute, a nonprofit watchdog.
Friedmann's controversial resolution addresses the longstanding problem of rape in US prisons and jails. If it passes, CCA's board will have to submit twice-a-year reports to stockholders detailing the board's oversight of company efforts to curb rape and sexual abuse, and include detailed statistics on any such incidents. "If CCA has to report this information they will have a greater incentive to reduce rape and sexual abuse because it will make the company look bad if they have very high numbers," he says. "And if they have to report this, the public, i.e. CCA shareholders, will be able to judge the effectiveness."
In a 2007 survey of local jails by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a CCA facility in Torrance County, New Mexico, clocked in with the highest rate of sexual victimization (13.4 percent), more than four times the national average. It also had the highest rate of staff-on-inmate sexual victimization—7 percent, as compared with a national average of around 2 percent.
CCA can certainly afford to address the issue. The longtime industry leader in prisons and immigrant detention, it owns or operates 67 facilities (see table of its customers below) and boasts about $1.7 billion in annual revenues—more than 40 percent of which come from the federal government and most of the rest from the states and localities. The company reportedly employs 35 lobbyists on Capitol Hill, and hundreds more in 33 states over the past eight years.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/05/ex-con-alex-friedmann-cca-private-prison-rape
Friday, April 27, 2012
Putting people behind bars for minor offenses exposes flaws in justice system.
New York - As the Occupy Wall Street movement has introduced a new young generation of mostly white, mostly middle-class activists to civil disobedience, arrest, jail, and the inner workings of the criminal-justice system, they're learning firsthand what New York's poor, black, and immigrant communities have known for years: The criminal-justice system is rotten.
Stop-and-frisk policing might be the highly visible doorway into the system, filling jail cells and court dockets with poor black and brown New Yorkers on mostly minor charges. But it's in court—and specifically at arraignment—where the full discriminatory weight of the justice apparatus is brought to bear.
It is a central tenet of American justice that as these arrests enter the court system, people are innocent until they are proved guilty. But the open secret of New York's criminal courts is that there simply aren't enough judges, prosecutors, and hours in the day to give each of these defendants a fair chance to prove their innocence, to challenge the evidence against them, and to mount a defense.
New York's criminal courts are underfunded and overwhelmed with cases—more and more of them misdemeanors and minor offenses as the NYPD pursues its so-called broken-window strategy.
If even a fraction of those presumed innocent fought their cases in court, the system would grind to a halt. To keep things moving, judges and prosecutors need defendants to plead guilty to something as early in the process as possible. And the single most powerful tool to extract a guilty plea is the threat of bail.
In the state of New York, bail can only legitimately be set for one reason: to ensure that a defendant will return to court for his or her next hearing. But everyone who works in criminal justice in New York City knows that's not what's going on at all.
For no particular reason other than institutional habit and a fondness for round numbers, bail in New York is generally set in increments of $250 and, more commonly, $500. In 40 percent of cases where bail was set in 2010, it was $1,000 or less.
Some people wouldn't have much trouble coming up with $1,000. If they don't have it themselves, they have friends, a family, and a community that could scrape it together. But those aren't the people who make up the overwhelming majority of criminal defendants.
In 2010, only 17 percent of those held on $1,000 or less made bail at arraignment. The rest stayed locked up. Some posted bail later, but half of them remained in a jail cell until their cases were disposed of. The figure is almost as bad for people held on $500 or less: Forty-four percent of them—all presumed innocent, remember—stayed in jail until their case was decided, simply because they couldn't make bail.
If you're not in this country legally, there are added stakes: Pleading out at arraignment is your last best hope of avoiding deportation. Once at Rikers, your immigration status is almost certain to be screened and passed on to Immigration and Customs agents.
Faced with such high stakes, it's no wonder that so many defendants cave when prosecutors mention bail.
"It happens all the time,"we see clients at arraignment not wanting to plea, saying they want to fight their case. Then they hear the bail that the prosecutor is going to ask for, and they'll turn to their defense lawyer and say, 'I'll take the plea'" Robin Steinberg, executive director of the Bronx Defenders said.
This use of bail has been an integral part of the justice system for decades. But recently, there has been a renewed push to return bail to its statutory purpose and make sure that no one stays behind bars just for being poor. Some, such as the Bronx Defenders, are pursuing reform through education and impact litigation. Others, like Occupy Wall Street affiliates, are contemplating direct actions that will test the courts' commitment to justice.
http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-04-25/news/bail-is-busted-new-york-jail/all/
Stop-and-frisk policing might be the highly visible doorway into the system, filling jail cells and court dockets with poor black and brown New Yorkers on mostly minor charges. But it's in court—and specifically at arraignment—where the full discriminatory weight of the justice apparatus is brought to bear.
It is a central tenet of American justice that as these arrests enter the court system, people are innocent until they are proved guilty. But the open secret of New York's criminal courts is that there simply aren't enough judges, prosecutors, and hours in the day to give each of these defendants a fair chance to prove their innocence, to challenge the evidence against them, and to mount a defense.
New York's criminal courts are underfunded and overwhelmed with cases—more and more of them misdemeanors and minor offenses as the NYPD pursues its so-called broken-window strategy.
If even a fraction of those presumed innocent fought their cases in court, the system would grind to a halt. To keep things moving, judges and prosecutors need defendants to plead guilty to something as early in the process as possible. And the single most powerful tool to extract a guilty plea is the threat of bail.
In the state of New York, bail can only legitimately be set for one reason: to ensure that a defendant will return to court for his or her next hearing. But everyone who works in criminal justice in New York City knows that's not what's going on at all.
For no particular reason other than institutional habit and a fondness for round numbers, bail in New York is generally set in increments of $250 and, more commonly, $500. In 40 percent of cases where bail was set in 2010, it was $1,000 or less.
Some people wouldn't have much trouble coming up with $1,000. If they don't have it themselves, they have friends, a family, and a community that could scrape it together. But those aren't the people who make up the overwhelming majority of criminal defendants.
In 2010, only 17 percent of those held on $1,000 or less made bail at arraignment. The rest stayed locked up. Some posted bail later, but half of them remained in a jail cell until their cases were disposed of. The figure is almost as bad for people held on $500 or less: Forty-four percent of them—all presumed innocent, remember—stayed in jail until their case was decided, simply because they couldn't make bail.
If you're not in this country legally, there are added stakes: Pleading out at arraignment is your last best hope of avoiding deportation. Once at Rikers, your immigration status is almost certain to be screened and passed on to Immigration and Customs agents.
Faced with such high stakes, it's no wonder that so many defendants cave when prosecutors mention bail.
"It happens all the time,"we see clients at arraignment not wanting to plea, saying they want to fight their case. Then they hear the bail that the prosecutor is going to ask for, and they'll turn to their defense lawyer and say, 'I'll take the plea'" Robin Steinberg, executive director of the Bronx Defenders said.
This use of bail has been an integral part of the justice system for decades. But recently, there has been a renewed push to return bail to its statutory purpose and make sure that no one stays behind bars just for being poor. Some, such as the Bronx Defenders, are pursuing reform through education and impact litigation. Others, like Occupy Wall Street affiliates, are contemplating direct actions that will test the courts' commitment to justice.
http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-04-25/news/bail-is-busted-new-york-jail/all/
One of TSA's security Initiatives is a national pilot program that questions & searches Americans on public transportation.
The security initiative, described as part of a national counterterrorism pilot program, netted 14 arrests, half of which were for prostitution, Metro spokeswoman Carolina Mendoza said. http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/tsnm/mass_transit/index.shtm
81 police officers saturated Houston bus stops and routes last Friday. Most were from METRO, but some were from the federal Transportation Security Administration, as well as HPD.
Frequent Metro rider Derrick Broze referenced his Fourth Amendment rights and criticized what he said was local and federal officers' questioning of riders during the April 13 sweep, asking where the riders were coming from and whether they often rode the bus they were on.
A friend of Broze took pictures of the bus-safe exercise that he says show TSA agents and METRO police asking riders where they're going as they get off the bus and how often they ride that route. "METRO and TSA were going onto the buses and questioning people about their normal routes and their normal behavior, and it just kind of creates an atmosphere of fear," Broze said.
"We are here to loudly condemn METRO's recent violations of the United States constitution," Houston lawyer Robert Fickman said.
"You've gone one step too far by bringing the TSA into our house," another concerned resident said.
"In my opinion, the METRO board doesn't get it," said another.
On April 13, the METRO Police Department invited TSA to be a part of its bus-safe exercise. METRO said then and repeated for days afterwards there would be random searches of bus and train passengers' bags.
"I don't feel like by purchasing a ticket or riding a bus that I have to forfeit my Constitutional rights and my protections and be subject to search or seizure," Broze told Metro board members at their regular monthly meeting. "We don't plan on letting this issue die if the TSA stays in our city."
"To get inside my bag, it's my personal items. I am not going to let you in my bag unless you have a warrant," concerned resident Keith Francis said.
After an uproar, METRO says it never did any bag searches and never intended to, that the official METRO blog saying so was just a mistake.
"There was never an intention to do bag searches," METRO President and Chairman George Grenias said.
But for METRO rider Broze, it's not enough.
"I don't feel that by purchasing a ticket or riding a bus, I have to forfeit my constitutional rights to my protections and be subject to search or seizure," Broze said.
"The good citizens of Houston are not stupid enough to believe Metro was actually expecting to find terrorists at a bus stop here. Instead, it was used as a pretext to harass people," said Robert Fickman, past president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association. "Metro police can do all the police exercises they want on each other: They can sic dogs on each other, they can Taser each other, they can throw rocks at each other for all I care. What Metro cannot do is practice their police exercises … on innocent Houstonians who just happened to be riding bus or rail."
Earl Musick, current president of the criminal lawyers group, presented the board with a copy of the Constitution, to loud applause from much of the crowd.
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/in_focus&id=8637693
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/in_focus&id=8629966
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Metro-says-it-won-t-do-random-bag-checks-3514008.php
Amtrak forms new department to be headed by former FEMA official, signals tighter integration.
Amtrak is working with closely with the child agencies of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) which has been steadily expanding outside of the confines of airports.
Of course one of the other most well known child agencies of the behemoth DHS is the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is where the head of Amtrak’s new emergency management and corporate security department comes from.
The leader of this new department will be Susan Reinertson, the former regional director of FEMA Region X in Seattle.
She was appointed in 2006 and was responsible for coordinating FEMA’s mitigation, preparedness, disaster response and recovery efforts for Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
Why is this at all important or newsworthy, you ask? Well, it shows that Amtrak – like many other companies – is becoming increasingly tight with federal agencies working under DHS.
Amtrak is already fully compliant with – or some might say they regularly capitulate to – the DHS and child agencies, as evidenced not only by the TSA teams which swoop in on their trains but also by the case I reported on recently in which a college student was detained for quite a while, interrogated and harassed simply for being in Islamic Studies.
Of course, since the train crossed a border they are essentially forced to comply with whatever the Customs and Border Protection (CBP, another DHS agency) officers want to do, but regardless they seem to have no problem with subjecting their passengers to the thuggish behavior of federal goons.
I suspect that this will only increase with a former FEMA regional director heading up one of their departments, since now the DHS will have a high-level former official to leverage.
Amtrak states that their new department will integrate their company-wide efforts into a solitary and cohesive unit.
They claim that this will allow them to more effectively prepare for emergencies and disasters, as well as to mitigate the effects of emergencies and disasters while allowing for faster and more efficient response and recovery.
“The new team will identify opportunities to strategically coordinate, train and put into practice consistent and efficient response and recovery efforts to better ensure the safety and security of our customers and employees,” said Amtrak president and chief executive officer Joe Boardman, according to Government Security News.
Read more: http://endthelie.com/2012/05/01/amtrak-forms-new-department-to-be-headed-by-former-fema-official-signals-tighter-integration/#axzz1tXGA8QYm
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Why would the DHS and the police monitor and arrest photographers?
Police around the country continue to violate individuals’ right to
photography. A photographer named Carlos Miller maintains a web site in
which he chronicles this problem. Now, Miller himself has obtained
information about his own arrest for photography, which took place
during the eviction of Miami Occupy protesters in January. Using an
open-records request, he found that officials at the Miami-Dade Police
Homeland Security Bureau, aka Fusion Center, had exchanged numerous
e-mails over a period of months, in which they discuss their monitoring
of Miller and his activities.
http://www.pixiq.com/contributors/carlosmiller
The Miami Fusion Center is supposed to be protecting the public. Its stated mission is “to ensure the effective dissemination of criminal intelligence information… to enhance our ability to secure the homeland, while protecting the privacy of our citizens.” (emphasis added)
Instead of focusing on criminals, or anything else that would “secure the homeland,” the fusion center officials, according to Miller’s account (based on the documents he received), spent time tracking the activities of a reporter who was monitoring them, and arresting him (on videotape) for no clear reason.
The right to photography is legally very well established, so much so that the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that not only were Boston police wrong in arresting a man, Simon Glik, for videotaping them, but that the officers were not even entitled to “qualified immunity” from Glik’s resulting lawsuit, because his constitutional right to videotape the police in public was “clearly established” under the law when it was violated.
In addition to resisting public monitoring of their official activities, many police are influenced by fatuous guidance over “suspicious activity reporting.” As Miller notes, the Miami fusion center, true to form, lists “inappropriate photographs or videos” and “surveillance” as “signs of terrorism.”
Unfortunately, the behavior described by Miller also fits right in with a pattern we have seen around the nation. Police units are set up supposedly to fight terrorism, but terrorism being (fortunately) extremely rare, they are all dressed up with nowhere to go, and all these resources end up being targeted against ordinary Americans exercising their First Amendment rights.
http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech-national-security/all-dressed-and-nothing-do-except-arrest-photographers
http://www.pixiq.com/contributors/carlosmiller
The Miami Fusion Center is supposed to be protecting the public. Its stated mission is “to ensure the effective dissemination of criminal intelligence information… to enhance our ability to secure the homeland, while protecting the privacy of our citizens.” (emphasis added)
Instead of focusing on criminals, or anything else that would “secure the homeland,” the fusion center officials, according to Miller’s account (based on the documents he received), spent time tracking the activities of a reporter who was monitoring them, and arresting him (on videotape) for no clear reason.
The right to photography is legally very well established, so much so that the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that not only were Boston police wrong in arresting a man, Simon Glik, for videotaping them, but that the officers were not even entitled to “qualified immunity” from Glik’s resulting lawsuit, because his constitutional right to videotape the police in public was “clearly established” under the law when it was violated.
In addition to resisting public monitoring of their official activities, many police are influenced by fatuous guidance over “suspicious activity reporting.” As Miller notes, the Miami fusion center, true to form, lists “inappropriate photographs or videos” and “surveillance” as “signs of terrorism.”
Unfortunately, the behavior described by Miller also fits right in with a pattern we have seen around the nation. Police units are set up supposedly to fight terrorism, but terrorism being (fortunately) extremely rare, they are all dressed up with nowhere to go, and all these resources end up being targeted against ordinary Americans exercising their First Amendment rights.
http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech-national-security/all-dressed-and-nothing-do-except-arrest-photographers
Debt collectors allowed to work in hospitals to shake down patients.
Hospital patients waiting in an emergency room or convalescing after surgery are being confronted by an unexpected visitor: a debt collector at bedside.
This and other aggressive tactics by one of the nation’s largest collectors of medical debts, Accretive Health, were revealed on Tuesday by the Minnesota attorney general, raising concerns that such practices have become common at hospitals across the country.
The tactics, like embedding debt collectors as employees in emergency rooms and demanding that patients pay before receiving treatment, were outlined in hundreds of company documents released by the attorney general. And they cast a spotlight on the increasingly desperate strategies among hospitals to recoup payments as their unpaid debts mount.
To patients, the debt collectors may look indistinguishable from hospital employees, may demand they pay outstanding bills and may discourage them from seeking emergency care at all, even using scripts like those in collection boiler rooms, according to the documents and employees interviewed by The New York Times.
In some cases, the company’s workers had access to health information while persuading patients to pay overdue bills, possibly in violation of federal privacy laws, the documents indicate.
The attorney general, Lori Swanson, also said that Accretive employees may have broken the law by not clearly identifying themselves as debt collectors.
Accretive Health has contracts not only with two hospitals cited in Minnesota but also with some of the largest hospital systems in the country, including Henry Ford Health System in Michigan and Intermountain Healthcare in Utah. Company executives declined to comment on Tuesday.
Although Ms. Swanson did not bring action against the company on Tuesday, she said she was in discussions with state and federal regulators about a coordinated response to Accretive Health’s practices across the country. Regulators in Illinois, where Accretive is based, are watching the developments closely, according to Sue Hofer, a spokeswoman with the State Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.
To achieve promised savings, hospitals turn over the management of their front-line staffing — like patient registration and scheduling — and their back-office collection activities.
Concerns are mounting that the cozy working relationships will undercut patient care and threaten privacy, said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a consumer advocacy coalition. “The mission of these companies is in direct opposition to the supposed mission of these hospitals.”
Still, hospitals are in a bind. The more than 5,000 community hospitals in the United States provided $39.3 billion in uncompensated care — predominately unpaid patient debts or charity care — in 2010, up 16 percent from 2007, the hospital association estimated.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/business/debt-collector-is-faulted-for-tough-tactics-in-hospitals.html?_r=3&hp
Still, hospitals are in a bind. The more than 5,000 community hospitals in the United States provided $39.3 billion in uncompensated care — predominately unpaid patient debts or charity care — in 2010, up 16 percent from 2007, the hospital association estimated.
Accretive is one of the few companies specializing in hospital debt collection that is publicly traded. Last year, it reported $29.2 million in profit, up 130 percent from a year earlier.
The names of 85 Orthodox Jews arrested on sex charges during the past three years remains a secret.
Orthodox Jews convicted of or charged with child sex abuse in Brooklyn should have their identities protected because of the community’s “tight-knit and insular” nature, prosecutors claim in a response to The Forward’s request for information about the cases.
Rabbi David Zwiebel, who is Agudath’s executive vice president and a legal expert, said that a policy of withholding names of perpetrators should not be “across the board” in any community, according to Agudath spokesman Rabbi Avi Shafran.
Instead, Zwiebel believes that the release of defendants’ names should be evaluated on “a case-by-case basis,” Shafran said.
Although Brooklyn District Attorney Hynes has long resisted requests to identify Orthodox sex suspects, the letter is believed to represent the first time his office spelled out why it specifically singled them out for preferential treatment.
Assistant District Attorney Morgan Dennehy cited the state’s civil rights laws in denying the Forward’s request for the names of 85 Orthodox Jews arrested on sex charges during the past three years. The Forward made its request in December 2011 after prosecutors announced that scores of Orthodox Jews had been charged under a special program designed to encourage the community to come forward with information.
He did not explain whether prosecutors had concluded that there was anything specific about each of the 85 suspects that might make it possible for others to determine the identity of the victim from the identity of the suspect.
He also did not explain whether such a blanket exemption might be granted to other similarly “tight-knit” communities in the borough. And there were no details about what criteria prosecutors would use to determine whether a particular group should be granted such preferential status.’
http://forward.com/articles/155197/orthodox-abuse-suspects-get-exemption/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=The
Rabbi David Zwiebel, who is Agudath’s executive vice president and a legal expert, said that a policy of withholding names of perpetrators should not be “across the board” in any community, according to Agudath spokesman Rabbi Avi Shafran.
Instead, Zwiebel believes that the release of defendants’ names should be evaluated on “a case-by-case basis,” Shafran said.
Although Brooklyn District Attorney Hynes has long resisted requests to identify Orthodox sex suspects, the letter is believed to represent the first time his office spelled out why it specifically singled them out for preferential treatment.
Assistant District Attorney Morgan Dennehy cited the state’s civil rights laws in denying the Forward’s request for the names of 85 Orthodox Jews arrested on sex charges during the past three years. The Forward made its request in December 2011 after prosecutors announced that scores of Orthodox Jews had been charged under a special program designed to encourage the community to come forward with information.
He did not explain whether prosecutors had concluded that there was anything specific about each of the 85 suspects that might make it possible for others to determine the identity of the victim from the identity of the suspect.
He also did not explain whether such a blanket exemption might be granted to other similarly “tight-knit” communities in the borough. And there were no details about what criteria prosecutors would use to determine whether a particular group should be granted such preferential status.’
http://forward.com/articles/155197/orthodox-abuse-suspects-get-exemption/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=The
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
A federal judge ruled, jury nullifcation literature can be passed out in front of courthouses.
Manhattan, NY- An elderly activist has the right to pass out literature outside courthouses urging jurors to reach verdicts based on their consciences, even if the findings contradict the letter of the law, a federal judge ruled.
The concept of nullification allows jurors to acquit criminal defendants who are technically guilty if they believe the person does not deserve to be punished. It dates back to 17th century England and is also accepted in the U.S. Constitution.
Prosecutors believe, however, that promotion of this right to jurors constitutes a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1504, which prohibits influencing a juror by writing.
From October 2009 to May 2010, 80-year-old Julian Heicklin stood outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan with a sign that said "Jury Info," handing out pamphlets from the Fully Informed Jury Association.
The FBI indicted Heicklen for criminal jury tampering after he handed the form to an FBI agent posing as a juror.
U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood transcribed the alleged conversation while dismissing the indictment Thursday.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/04/23/45865.htm
Court Ruling: http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/04/23/SDNY%20-%20Jury%20Nullification.pdf
Fully Informed Jury Association
http://fija.org/
GEO Group the nation's second-largest for-profit prison corporation are they more interested in profits?
As the nation's largest juvenile prison, Walnut Grove houses 1,200 boys and young men in a sprawling one-story complex ringed by security fences about an hour's drive east of Jackson. The State of Mississippi pays a private corrections company to run the prison.
It is run by GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla., the nation's second-largest for-profit prison corporation, which posted a profit of $284 million last year. The Mississippi Department of Corrections pays GEO to manage the prison.
NPR's investigation found that allegations swirling around the prison raise the fundamental question of whether profits have distorted the mission of rehabilitating young inmates.
Several former inmates who spoke to NPR say guards are a big part of the problem. Justin Bowling, who spent 17 months in the Grove in 2007 and 2008 for marijuana possession, says the prison is overrun with gangs, whose members include correctional officers.
"A lot of times, the guards are in the same gang," Bowling said. "If an inmate wanted something done, they got it. If they wanted a cell popped open to handle some business about some fighting or something like that, it just pretty much happened."
Jonathan Smith is chief of special litigation in the civil rights section at the Justice Department, which spent two years looking into conditions at Walnut Grove.
Among the conditions described in the report released last month:
Two years ago, Walnut Grove added 500 beds to accommodate all the new prisoners. According to the 2008 and 2009 annual reports for Cornell Companies, the prison operator at the time, the expansion created an extra $3.4 million in revenue. GEO acquired Cornell last year.
NPR examined thousands of pages of public records associated with federal grants paid to the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility. Records show that Warden Brick Tripp and his deputy wardens — already paid by GEO — have been receiving checks for $2,500 to $5,000 as "supplemental salaries" for administering federal Title 1 education funds.
The warden declined an interview request. Jeff Webb, the lawyer who represents the five-member Walnut Grove Correctional Authority, which writes the checks, says overseeing the grants is part of the warden's job, though he did not say why deputy wardens receive paycheck bonuses.
GEO Group's Paez was also asked why the prison administration was receiving supplementary paychecks from federal education grants, which have nothing to do with the civil rights lawsuit or Justice Department investigation. He said he had no comment.
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/25/134850972/town-relies-on-troubled-youth-prison-for-profits
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/24/151276620/firm-leaves-miss-after-its-prison-is-called-cesspool
What Is GEO Group?
Within the $3 billion private prison industry, GEO Group is the nation's second largest for-profit prison operator. GEO bought Cornell Companies, America's third largest private prison operation.
One of its prisons, which is the subject of an NPR News investigation, is now being investigated by the Department of Justice, and a civil rights lawsuit alleges that juvenile inmates are being held in "barbaric and unconstitutional conditions."
Are private prison corporations slave traders?
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/private-prison-corporations-are-slave-traders
It is run by GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla., the nation's second-largest for-profit prison corporation, which posted a profit of $284 million last year. The Mississippi Department of Corrections pays GEO to manage the prison.
NPR's investigation found that allegations swirling around the prison raise the fundamental question of whether profits have distorted the mission of rehabilitating young inmates.
Several former inmates who spoke to NPR say guards are a big part of the problem. Justin Bowling, who spent 17 months in the Grove in 2007 and 2008 for marijuana possession, says the prison is overrun with gangs, whose members include correctional officers.
"A lot of times, the guards are in the same gang," Bowling said. "If an inmate wanted something done, they got it. If they wanted a cell popped open to handle some business about some fighting or something like that, it just pretty much happened."
Jonathan Smith is chief of special litigation in the civil rights section at the Justice Department, which spent two years looking into conditions at Walnut Grove.
Among the conditions described in the report released last month:
- Prison staff had sex with incarcerated youth, which investigators called "among the worst that we've seen in any facility anywhere in the nation."
- Poorly trained guards brutally beat youth and used excessive pepper spray as a first response.
- The prison showed "deliberate indifference" to prisoners possessing homemade knives, which were used in gang fights and inmate rapes.
Two years ago, Walnut Grove added 500 beds to accommodate all the new prisoners. According to the 2008 and 2009 annual reports for Cornell Companies, the prison operator at the time, the expansion created an extra $3.4 million in revenue. GEO acquired Cornell last year.
NPR examined thousands of pages of public records associated with federal grants paid to the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility. Records show that Warden Brick Tripp and his deputy wardens — already paid by GEO — have been receiving checks for $2,500 to $5,000 as "supplemental salaries" for administering federal Title 1 education funds.
The warden declined an interview request. Jeff Webb, the lawyer who represents the five-member Walnut Grove Correctional Authority, which writes the checks, says overseeing the grants is part of the warden's job, though he did not say why deputy wardens receive paycheck bonuses.
GEO Group's Paez was also asked why the prison administration was receiving supplementary paychecks from federal education grants, which have nothing to do with the civil rights lawsuit or Justice Department investigation. He said he had no comment.
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/25/134850972/town-relies-on-troubled-youth-prison-for-profits
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/24/151276620/firm-leaves-miss-after-its-prison-is-called-cesspool
What Is GEO Group?
Within the $3 billion private prison industry, GEO Group is the nation's second largest for-profit prison operator. GEO bought Cornell Companies, America's third largest private prison operation.
One of its prisons, which is the subject of an NPR News investigation, is now being investigated by the Department of Justice, and a civil rights lawsuit alleges that juvenile inmates are being held in "barbaric and unconstitutional conditions."
Are private prison corporations slave traders?
For the last two years, the number of
inmates held in state prisons has declined slightly, largely because the states
are short on money. Crime, of course, has declined dramatically in the last 20
years, but that has never dampened the states’ appetites for warehousing ever
more Black and brown bodies, and the federal prison system is still growing.
However, the Corrections Corporation of America believes the economic crisis has created an
historic opportunity to become the landlord, as well as the manager, of a big
chunk of the American prison gulag.
The attempted prison grab is also
defensive in nature. If private companies can gain both ownership and management
of enough prisons, they can set the prices without open-bid competition for
prison services, creating a guaranteed cost-plus monopoly like that which exists
between the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex.
If private companies are allowed to own the deeds to prisons, they are a big
step closer to owning the people inside them. Many of the same politicians that
created the system of mass Black incarceration over the past 40 years, would
gladly hand over to private parties all responsibility for the human rights of
inmates. The question of inmates' rights is hardly raised in the debate over
prison privatization. This is a dialogue steeped in slavery and racial
oppression. Just as the old slave markets were abolished, so must the Black
American Gulag be dismantled – with no compensation to those who traffic in
human beings.http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/private-prison-corporations-are-slave-traders
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Wireless providers side with police and claim they shouldn't need a warrant to hand over our information.
The nation's largest wireless providers oppose a proposed California location privacy law that would require police to obtain search warrants to track a wireless customer's whereabouts, CNET has learned.
They're criticizing a new state bill, S.B. 1434, that would require a judge to approve requests for location tracking except in certain emergency situations. S.B. 1434 would also require wireless providers to divulge "the number of times location information has been disclosed," and how many times they rejected police requests.
Their criticism comes as concerns about warrantless location surveillance, a practice that the Obama administration and law enforcement agencies have defended, are growing. Federal legislation introduced last year would require police to obtain a warrant signed by a judge before monitoring someone's movements, and courts have split over whether warrantless tracking is constitutional or not.
Requiring a warrant to track California residents would "create greater confusion for wireless providers when responding to legitimate law enforcement requests," says the letter (PDF) written byCTIA, a wireless trade association that counts AT&T, Verizon Wireless, U.S. Cellular, and Sprint Nextel among its board members. CTIA sent the letter to bill sponsor Mark Leno, a Democratic state senator whose district includes the city of San Francisco. CTIA also opposes the reporting requirements of S.B. 1434, saying they would "unduly burden wireless providers and their employees, who are working day and night to assist law enforcement to ensure the public's safety and to save lives."
Last year, the governor vetoed legislation requiring police to obtain a court warrant to search the mobile phones of suspects at the time of any arrest. The veto means that when police arrest anybody in the Golden State, they may search that person’s mobile phone — which in the digital age likely means the contents of persons’ e-mail, call records, text messages, photos, banking activity, cloud-storage services, and even where the phone has traveled.
The practice of getting such data from phone companies without warrants is also embraced by the Obama administration, which maintains Americans have no expectation of privacy of such cell-site records because they are “in the possession of a third party” — the mobile phone companies.
"Wireless companies should be working day and night for us, their customers, not law enforcement," replies Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties policy director at the ACLU of Northern California.
If Americans aren’t disturbed by phone carriers’ practices of handing over cell phone users’ personal data to law enforcement en masse–in many cases without a warrant–we might at least be interested to learn just how much that service is costing us in tax dollars: often hundreds or thousands per individual snooped.
Declan McCullagh notes in his coverage of the story for CNET, "by advancing this argument, CTIA risks creating the perception that its member companies are happy to open their databases of customers' GPS coordinates to law enforcement -- just so long as nobody knows about it."
McCullagh also notes that wireless carriers receive significant fees for giving their customers’ data to law enforcement. What it looks like is that the wireless carriers want to continue betraying some customers (mobile phone users) to please others (law enforcement), and continue raking in money from both.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57418662-281/wireless-providers-side-with-cops-over-users-on-location-privacy/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/04/03/these-are-the-prices-att-verizon-and-sprint-charge-for-cellphone-wiretaps/
http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/why-does-cell-phone-association-oppose-location-tracking-warrant
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/04/mobile-carriers-object/
The International Association for the Wireless Telecommunications Industry:
http://www.ctia.org/
ACLU filed an Amicus Brief in United States v. Pineda-Moreno:
http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/53_2-brief_of_amici_curiae_aclu.pdf
They're criticizing a new state bill, S.B. 1434, that would require a judge to approve requests for location tracking except in certain emergency situations. S.B. 1434 would also require wireless providers to divulge "the number of times location information has been disclosed," and how many times they rejected police requests.
Their criticism comes as concerns about warrantless location surveillance, a practice that the Obama administration and law enforcement agencies have defended, are growing. Federal legislation introduced last year would require police to obtain a warrant signed by a judge before monitoring someone's movements, and courts have split over whether warrantless tracking is constitutional or not.
Requiring a warrant to track California residents would "create greater confusion for wireless providers when responding to legitimate law enforcement requests," says the letter (PDF) written byCTIA, a wireless trade association that counts AT&T, Verizon Wireless, U.S. Cellular, and Sprint Nextel among its board members. CTIA sent the letter to bill sponsor Mark Leno, a Democratic state senator whose district includes the city of San Francisco. CTIA also opposes the reporting requirements of S.B. 1434, saying they would "unduly burden wireless providers and their employees, who are working day and night to assist law enforcement to ensure the public's safety and to save lives."
Last year, the governor vetoed legislation requiring police to obtain a court warrant to search the mobile phones of suspects at the time of any arrest. The veto means that when police arrest anybody in the Golden State, they may search that person’s mobile phone — which in the digital age likely means the contents of persons’ e-mail, call records, text messages, photos, banking activity, cloud-storage services, and even where the phone has traveled.
The practice of getting such data from phone companies without warrants is also embraced by the Obama administration, which maintains Americans have no expectation of privacy of such cell-site records because they are “in the possession of a third party” — the mobile phone companies.
"Wireless companies should be working day and night for us, their customers, not law enforcement," replies Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties policy director at the ACLU of Northern California.
If Americans aren’t disturbed by phone carriers’ practices of handing over cell phone users’ personal data to law enforcement en masse–in many cases without a warrant–we might at least be interested to learn just how much that service is costing us in tax dollars: often hundreds or thousands per individual snooped.
Declan McCullagh notes in his coverage of the story for CNET, "by advancing this argument, CTIA risks creating the perception that its member companies are happy to open their databases of customers' GPS coordinates to law enforcement -- just so long as nobody knows about it."
McCullagh also notes that wireless carriers receive significant fees for giving their customers’ data to law enforcement. What it looks like is that the wireless carriers want to continue betraying some customers (mobile phone users) to please others (law enforcement), and continue raking in money from both.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57418662-281/wireless-providers-side-with-cops-over-users-on-location-privacy/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/04/03/these-are-the-prices-att-verizon-and-sprint-charge-for-cellphone-wiretaps/
http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/why-does-cell-phone-association-oppose-location-tracking-warrant
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/04/mobile-carriers-object/
The International Association for the Wireless Telecommunications Industry:
http://www.ctia.org/
ACLU filed an Amicus Brief in United States v. Pineda-Moreno:
http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/53_2-brief_of_amici_curiae_aclu.pdf
Smartphone pictures can reveal your location.
A picture of you standing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge sensibly leads to the conclusion you're in the San Francisco Bay Area when the photo was taken. Smartphones are quickly supplanting traditional digital cameras, and even traditional cameras now have wifi built in, many more pictures are finding their way onto the web, in places like Twitter, Flickr, Google+ and Tumblr. In a span of 10 days, popular photo social network Instagram added 10 million new users as a result of the release of its Android app and its acquisition by Facebook. The location data hidden in these pictures even when your location isn't as obvious as "standing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge" -- is becoming another easy way for anyone, including law enforcement, to figure out where you are.
Take the case of "w0rmer," a member of an Anonymous offshoot called "CabinCr3w," for example. According to the federal government, "w0rmer" broke into a number of different law enforcement databases and obtained a wealth of sensitive information. In a Twitter post, "w0rmer" provided a link to a website that contained the sensitive information as well as a picture of a woman (NSFW) posing with a sign taunting the authorities. Because the picture was taken with an iPhone 4, which contains a GPS device built in, the GPS coordinates of where the picture was taken was embedded into the picture's EXIF metadata. The FBI was able to use the EXIF data to determine that the picture was taken at a house in Wantirna South, Australia.
The FBI tracked down other online references to "w0rmer," with one website containing the name Higinio Ochoa. The feds took a look at Ochoa's Facebook account, which detailed that his girlfriend was Australian. Combined with the EXIF metadata, the government believed they had corroborated the identity of "w0rmer" as Ochoa, and in turn arrested him.
W0rmer pdf: https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/W0rmer%20complaint.pdf
Even for photos not taken with a smartphone and not embedded with GPS coordinates (for example, point and shoot or SLR cameras that do not geotag), it's still possible for the police to get location information through EXIF metadata. You can upload a picture here and see the metadata stored in a picture for yourself. Contained within that metadata is the camera's serial number. Armed with that information, the police can easily scour the internet for other pictures tagged with the same serial number. In Australia, a man whose camera was stolen was able to track it down using stolencamerafinder.com because the thief had taken a picture with the camera and uploaded it to Flickr, where had had listed his address. But even if the thief's Flickr site didn't contain his address, police could have subpoenaed Flickr - like law enforcement have attempted to do with Twitter - for information concerning a user's temporarily assigned IP address, as well as session times and logs, to eventually determine where a person uploaded a picture from. All of which can be used to piece together a snapshot of not only your movements, but as in the case of "w0rmer," potentially your identity. In the United States, police are being trained about the broader investigative (PDF) potential of this information. https://www.justnet.org/pdf/EXIF.pdf
If you value your privacy, you should take steps to ensure the EXIF metadata in your pictures isn't an easy way for anyone on the Internet to figure out your location. If you're using a smartphone to take pictures, disable geotagging from your pictures. If you're uploading your pictures to a website like Flickr or Twitpic that defaults to automatically include EXIF data and location information, take the steps to turn it off. And if you're using a traditional SLR or point and shoot camera that doesn't geotag, but does contain a breadth of EXIF data, the make sure you scrub its metadata before you upload it on the Internet.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/picture-worth-thousand-words-including-your-location
JPEG & PNG stripper: Scrub photos before uploading.
http://appscout.pcmag.com/utilities/273593-jpeg-png-stripper-scrub-photos-before-uploading
Take the case of "w0rmer," a member of an Anonymous offshoot called "CabinCr3w," for example. According to the federal government, "w0rmer" broke into a number of different law enforcement databases and obtained a wealth of sensitive information. In a Twitter post, "w0rmer" provided a link to a website that contained the sensitive information as well as a picture of a woman (NSFW) posing with a sign taunting the authorities. Because the picture was taken with an iPhone 4, which contains a GPS device built in, the GPS coordinates of where the picture was taken was embedded into the picture's EXIF metadata. The FBI was able to use the EXIF data to determine that the picture was taken at a house in Wantirna South, Australia.
The FBI tracked down other online references to "w0rmer," with one website containing the name Higinio Ochoa. The feds took a look at Ochoa's Facebook account, which detailed that his girlfriend was Australian. Combined with the EXIF metadata, the government believed they had corroborated the identity of "w0rmer" as Ochoa, and in turn arrested him.
W0rmer pdf: https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/W0rmer%20complaint.pdf
Even for photos not taken with a smartphone and not embedded with GPS coordinates (for example, point and shoot or SLR cameras that do not geotag), it's still possible for the police to get location information through EXIF metadata. You can upload a picture here and see the metadata stored in a picture for yourself. Contained within that metadata is the camera's serial number. Armed with that information, the police can easily scour the internet for other pictures tagged with the same serial number. In Australia, a man whose camera was stolen was able to track it down using stolencamerafinder.com because the thief had taken a picture with the camera and uploaded it to Flickr, where had had listed his address. But even if the thief's Flickr site didn't contain his address, police could have subpoenaed Flickr - like law enforcement have attempted to do with Twitter - for information concerning a user's temporarily assigned IP address, as well as session times and logs, to eventually determine where a person uploaded a picture from. All of which can be used to piece together a snapshot of not only your movements, but as in the case of "w0rmer," potentially your identity. In the United States, police are being trained about the broader investigative (PDF) potential of this information. https://www.justnet.org/pdf/EXIF.pdf
If you value your privacy, you should take steps to ensure the EXIF metadata in your pictures isn't an easy way for anyone on the Internet to figure out your location. If you're using a smartphone to take pictures, disable geotagging from your pictures. If you're uploading your pictures to a website like Flickr or Twitpic that defaults to automatically include EXIF data and location information, take the steps to turn it off. And if you're using a traditional SLR or point and shoot camera that doesn't geotag, but does contain a breadth of EXIF data, the make sure you scrub its metadata before you upload it on the Internet.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/picture-worth-thousand-words-including-your-location
JPEG & PNG stripper: Scrub photos before uploading.
http://appscout.pcmag.com/utilities/273593-jpeg-png-stripper-scrub-photos-before-uploading
Monday, April 23, 2012
DHS monitored a photographers Facebook page hours before he was arrested while covering a demonstration.
Florida photographer Carlos Miller was arrested while covering a protest.
"Eleven hours before I was arrested during the Occupy Miami eviction in January, the Miami-Dade Police Homeland Security Bureau sent an email to various police officers, which was then forwarded to the department’s public information officers – including arresting officer Major Nancy Perez - informing them that I would be documenting the action.
The subject of the email was “Multimedia information/Situational Awareness.” It included my Facebook profile photo where I'm trying my hardest to look like a terrorist thug."
It also included the following statement about him.
Even more compelling is why did Detective Maritza Aschenbrenner of the Homeland Security Bureau felt the need to advise officers of my presence when there were going to be countless other reporters and activists also documenting the eviction with cameras?
Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association, who has fired off two letters to Miami-Dade Police Director James Loftus over my arrest and the treatment of an América TeVe reporter, is also flabbergasted.
http://www.pixiq.com/article/MDPDs-Homeland-Security-Bureau-Monitoring-My-FB-Page
"Eleven hours before I was arrested during the Occupy Miami eviction in January, the Miami-Dade Police Homeland Security Bureau sent an email to various police officers, which was then forwarded to the department’s public information officers – including arresting officer Major Nancy Perez - informing them that I would be documenting the action.
The subject of the email was “Multimedia information/Situational Awareness.” It included my Facebook profile photo where I'm trying my hardest to look like a terrorist thug."
It also included the following statement about him.
Carlos Miller is a Miami multimedia journalist who has been arrested twice for taking pictures of law enforcement. He has publicly posted on social networks that he will be taking pictures today in order to document the eviction.The email makes it clear that the Homeland Security Bureau was monitoring my Facebook page since before my arrest – not that I have an issue with that considering I have my profile set to public.
Even more compelling is why did Detective Maritza Aschenbrenner of the Homeland Security Bureau felt the need to advise officers of my presence when there were going to be countless other reporters and activists also documenting the eviction with cameras?
Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association, who has fired off two letters to Miami-Dade Police Director James Loftus over my arrest and the treatment of an América TeVe reporter, is also flabbergasted.
“I find it very troubling that a unit formed to deal with terrorist activities found it necessary to send out an email advising other departments and law enforcement officers that a journalist would be covering a newsworthy matter of public concern,” he wrote in an email after I sent him a copy of the email in question.The five others that were jailed that night were arrested by City of Miami police and have since had their charges dismissed.
“It would be best if they followed their own directives that photography is a First Amendment protected activity and ‘should not be reported absent articulable facts and circumstances that support the suspicion that the behavior observed is not innocent . . . but rather reasonably indicative of criminal activity associated with terrorism or other crimes.’
“Unfortunately it appears that by their very actions they continue sustain the misguided belief that by its very nature photography is a crime. At best – behavior that chills free speech is extremely unprofessional – at worst it is criminal.”
http://www.pixiq.com/article/MDPDs-Homeland-Security-Bureau-Monitoring-My-FB-Page
Debtors' prisons are flourishing in the U.S. allowing creditors to have people arrested over unpaid debts.
How did breast cancer survivor Lisa Lindsay end up behind bars? She
didn't pay a medical bill -- one the Herrin, Ill., teaching assistant
was told she didn't owe. "She got a $280 medical bill in error and was
told she didn't have to pay it, but the bill was turned over to a collection agency, and eventually
state troopers showed up at her home and took her to jail in handcuffs."
Although the U.S. abolished debtors' prisons in the 1830s, more than a third of U.S. states allow the police to haul people in who don't pay all manner of debts, from bills for health care services to credit card and auto loans. In parts of Illinois, debt collectors commonly use publicly funded courts, sheriff's deputies, and country jails to pressure people who owe even small amounts to pay up, according to the AP.
Although the U.S. abolished debtors' prisons in the 1830s, more than a third of U.S. states allow the police to haul people in who don't pay all manner of debts, from bills for health care services to credit card and auto loans. In parts of Illinois, debt collectors commonly use publicly funded courts, sheriff's deputies, and country jails to pressure people who owe even small amounts to pay up, according to the AP.
Under the law, debtors aren't arrested for nonpayment, but rather for failing to respond to court hearings, pay legal fines, or otherwise showing "contempt of court" in connection with a creditor lawsuit. That loophole has lawmakers in the Illinois House of Representatives concerned enough to pass a bill in March that would make it illegal to send residents of the state to jail if they can't pay a debt. The measure awaits action in the senate.
"Creditors have been manipulating the court system to extract money from the unemployed, veterans, even seniors who rely solely on their benefits to get by each month," Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said last month in a statement voicing support for the legislation. "Too many people have been thrown in jail simply because they're too poor to pay their debts. We cannot allow these illegal abuses to continue."
Yet Illinois isn't the only state where residents get locked up for owing money. A 2010 report by the American Civil Liberties Union that focused on only five states -- Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Washington -- found that people were being jailed at "increasingly alarming rates" over legal debts. Cases ranged from a woman who was arrested four separate times for failing to pay $251 in fines and court costs related to a fourth-degree misdemeanor conviction, to a mentally ill juvenile jailed by a judge over a previous conviction for stealing school supplies.
According to the ACLU: "The sad truth is that debtors' prisons are flourishing today, more than two decades after the Supreme Court prohibited imprisoning those who are too poor to pay their legal debts. In this era of shrinking budgets, state and local governments have turned aggressively to using the threat and reality of imprisonment to squeeze revenue out of the poorest defendants who appear in their courts."
Some states also apply "poverty penalties," including late fees, payment plan fees, and interest when people are unable to pay all their debts at once, according to a report by the New York University's Brennan Center for Justice. Alabama charges a 30 percent collection fee, for instance, while Florida allows private debt collectors to add a 40 percent surcharge on the original debt. Some Florida counties also use so-called collection courts, where debtors can be jailed but have no right to a public defender.
"Many states are imposing new and often onerous 'user fees' on individuals with criminal convictions," the authors of the Brennan Center report wrote. "Yet far from being easy money, these fees impose severe -- and often hidden -- costs on communities, taxpayers, and indigent people convicted of crimes. They create new paths to prison for those unable to pay their debts and make it harder to find employment and housing as well to meet child-support obligations."
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505247_162-57416794/ill-lawmakers-target-practice-of-jailing-debtors/?tag=contentMain;contentBody
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505144_162-57417654/jailed-for-$280-the-return-of-debtors-prisons/
60 Minutes: The case against Lehman Brothers, why has no one been sent to prison?
It's hard to overstate the enormity of the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers. It was the largest bankruptcy in history; 26,000 employees lost their jobs; millions of investors lost all or almost all of their money; and it triggered a chain reaction that produced the worst financial crisis and economic downturn in 70 years.
Yet four years later, no one at Lehman has been held responsible. Reporter Steve Kroft investigated the collapse of Lehman Brothers: what the SEC did and didn't know about the firm's finances, the role of a top accounting firm, and why no one at Lehman has been called to account.
For the past two years, Kroft followed up with stories on accountability, trying to answer a simple question: why has no one been held accountable? He and producers James Jacoby and Michael Karzis have looked at three examples: Countrywide, Citigroup, and, Lehman Brothers, which aired on the broadcast this week.
60 Minutes Video: http://www.cbsnews.com/8334-504803_162-57418062-10391709/full-coverage-60-minutes-on-the-financial-crisis/?tag=contentMain;contentBody
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57417397/the-case-against-lehman-brothers/?tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-57418034-10391709/kroft-when-to-give-up-on-accountability/?tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea.1
Although the U.S. abolished debtors' prisons in the 1830s, more than a third of U.S. states allow the police to haul people in who don't pay all manner of debts, from bills for health care services to credit card and auto loans. In parts of Illinois, debt collectors commonly use publicly funded courts, sheriff's deputies, and country jails to pressure people who owe even small amounts to pay up, according to the AP.
Although the U.S. abolished debtors' prisons in the 1830s, more than a third of U.S. states allow the police to haul people in who don't pay all manner of debts, from bills for health care services to credit card and auto loans. In parts of Illinois, debt collectors commonly use publicly funded courts, sheriff's deputies, and country jails to pressure people who owe even small amounts to pay up, according to the AP.
Under the law, debtors aren't arrested for nonpayment, but rather for failing to respond to court hearings, pay legal fines, or otherwise showing "contempt of court" in connection with a creditor lawsuit. That loophole has lawmakers in the Illinois House of Representatives concerned enough to pass a bill in March that would make it illegal to send residents of the state to jail if they can't pay a debt. The measure awaits action in the senate.
"Creditors have been manipulating the court system to extract money from the unemployed, veterans, even seniors who rely solely on their benefits to get by each month," Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said last month in a statement voicing support for the legislation. "Too many people have been thrown in jail simply because they're too poor to pay their debts. We cannot allow these illegal abuses to continue."
Yet Illinois isn't the only state where residents get locked up for owing money. A 2010 report by the American Civil Liberties Union that focused on only five states -- Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Washington -- found that people were being jailed at "increasingly alarming rates" over legal debts. Cases ranged from a woman who was arrested four separate times for failing to pay $251 in fines and court costs related to a fourth-degree misdemeanor conviction, to a mentally ill juvenile jailed by a judge over a previous conviction for stealing school supplies.
According to the ACLU: "The sad truth is that debtors' prisons are flourishing today, more than two decades after the Supreme Court prohibited imprisoning those who are too poor to pay their legal debts. In this era of shrinking budgets, state and local governments have turned aggressively to using the threat and reality of imprisonment to squeeze revenue out of the poorest defendants who appear in their courts."
Some states also apply "poverty penalties," including late fees, payment plan fees, and interest when people are unable to pay all their debts at once, according to a report by the New York University's Brennan Center for Justice. Alabama charges a 30 percent collection fee, for instance, while Florida allows private debt collectors to add a 40 percent surcharge on the original debt. Some Florida counties also use so-called collection courts, where debtors can be jailed but have no right to a public defender.
"Many states are imposing new and often onerous 'user fees' on individuals with criminal convictions," the authors of the Brennan Center report wrote. "Yet far from being easy money, these fees impose severe -- and often hidden -- costs on communities, taxpayers, and indigent people convicted of crimes. They create new paths to prison for those unable to pay their debts and make it harder to find employment and housing as well to meet child-support obligations."
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505247_162-57416794/ill-lawmakers-target-practice-of-jailing-debtors/?tag=contentMain;contentBody
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505144_162-57417654/jailed-for-$280-the-return-of-debtors-prisons/
60 Minutes: The case against Lehman Brothers, why has no one been sent to prison?
It's hard to overstate the enormity of the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers. It was the largest bankruptcy in history; 26,000 employees lost their jobs; millions of investors lost all or almost all of their money; and it triggered a chain reaction that produced the worst financial crisis and economic downturn in 70 years.
Yet four years later, no one at Lehman has been held responsible. Reporter Steve Kroft investigated the collapse of Lehman Brothers: what the SEC did and didn't know about the firm's finances, the role of a top accounting firm, and why no one at Lehman has been called to account.
For the past two years, Kroft followed up with stories on accountability, trying to answer a simple question: why has no one been held accountable? He and producers James Jacoby and Michael Karzis have looked at three examples: Countrywide, Citigroup, and, Lehman Brothers, which aired on the broadcast this week.
60 Minutes Video: http://www.cbsnews.com/8334-504803_162-57418062-10391709/full-coverage-60-minutes-on-the-financial-crisis/?tag=contentMain;contentBody
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57417397/the-case-against-lehman-brothers/?tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-57418034-10391709/kroft-when-to-give-up-on-accountability/?tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea.1
Police may be liable for allegedly tackling and suffocating a man who tried to flee a sobriety checkpoint.
Massachusetts police may be liable for allegedly tackling and suffocating a man who tried to flee a sobriety checkpoint on foot, a federal judge ruled.
In November 2009, the MA. state police and officers from the North Andover and Essex County departments set up a sobriety checkpoint manned by 33 officers on Route 114.
While driving down Route 114 toward North Andover with his pitbull, Ruckus, that evening, Kenneth Howe lit up a marijuana blunt. He quickly attempted to put out the blunt and put on his seatbelt when he saw the checkpoint.
Trooper Jodi Gerardi, who had noticed Howe's "furtive movements," ordered Howe out of his pickup as soon as she smelled marijuana. It is disputed whether Howe hit Gerardi as he got out of his truck or vice versa, but both parties agree that he attempted to flee on foot.
Howe was quickly apprehended and forced to the ground by 10 to 15 officers who rushed to assist Gerardi.
Three troopers held down the handcuffed suspect while his legs were shackled. Some witnesses say Trooper Sean McGarry hit Howe a number of times with his hands and baton, and Officer Richard DesForge put Howe in a chokehold.
A photographer for the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, Carl Russo, happened to be on the scene and chronicled the arrest with 43 time-stamped photographs. The photos show Howe pinned to the ground for 11 minutes before the officers picked him up and put him in a police cruiser.
It is disputed whether Howe was conscious when he was placed in the vehicle, but he was unconscious when he arrived at the Massachusetts state police barracks. Howe had no pulse by the time the ambulance arrived, and he was pronounced dead at midnight.
Attributing cause of death to "blunt impact of the head and torso with compression of the chest," the medical examiner ruled the case a homicide.
In denying most defendants' motions, however, U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton said that "a reasonable jury could find that the actions of the restraining officers and the witnessing officers were so objectively unreasonable and plainly misguided that qualified immunity should not be interposed to shield them from liability."
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/04/19/45785.htm
Court document: www.courthousenews.com/2012/04/19/howe.pdf
In November 2009, the MA. state police and officers from the North Andover and Essex County departments set up a sobriety checkpoint manned by 33 officers on Route 114.
While driving down Route 114 toward North Andover with his pitbull, Ruckus, that evening, Kenneth Howe lit up a marijuana blunt. He quickly attempted to put out the blunt and put on his seatbelt when he saw the checkpoint.
Trooper Jodi Gerardi, who had noticed Howe's "furtive movements," ordered Howe out of his pickup as soon as she smelled marijuana. It is disputed whether Howe hit Gerardi as he got out of his truck or vice versa, but both parties agree that he attempted to flee on foot.
Howe was quickly apprehended and forced to the ground by 10 to 15 officers who rushed to assist Gerardi.
Three troopers held down the handcuffed suspect while his legs were shackled. Some witnesses say Trooper Sean McGarry hit Howe a number of times with his hands and baton, and Officer Richard DesForge put Howe in a chokehold.
A photographer for the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, Carl Russo, happened to be on the scene and chronicled the arrest with 43 time-stamped photographs. The photos show Howe pinned to the ground for 11 minutes before the officers picked him up and put him in a police cruiser.
It is disputed whether Howe was conscious when he was placed in the vehicle, but he was unconscious when he arrived at the Massachusetts state police barracks. Howe had no pulse by the time the ambulance arrived, and he was pronounced dead at midnight.
Attributing cause of death to "blunt impact of the head and torso with compression of the chest," the medical examiner ruled the case a homicide.
In denying most defendants' motions, however, U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton said that "a reasonable jury could find that the actions of the restraining officers and the witnessing officers were so objectively unreasonable and plainly misguided that qualified immunity should not be interposed to shield them from liability."
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/04/19/45785.htm
Court document: www.courthousenews.com/2012/04/19/howe.pdf
A research firm called PrivacyChoice rates Facebook apps. for privacy protection.
A new service that grades how each of Facebook's top third-party apps respects
consumers' privacy was released late Sunday by research firm PrivacyChoice. The
free tool, Privacyscore for Facebook, spells out privacy policies and tracking
practices of more than 200 top Facebook apps, including games, work-related
programs and sharing apps.
Privacy Choice website: http://www.privacychoice.org/
According to PrivacyChoice, 140 different tracking entities
routinely collect information about users of the top Facebook apps. Trackers can
correlate that data to profiles of individuals' browsing behavior across
multiple Web pages in order to deliver more relevant ads. "It's up to users to
know the privacy risk of sharing personal data with apps," says Jim Brock,
PrivacyChoice founder and CEO.
Privacyscore's top score is 100. Deductions are made for
sharing data with an excessive number of tracking entities, failing to honor
deletion requests, failing to provide an opt-out choice or storing consumer data
for long periods.
Gamemaker Zynga, for instance, registers an overall score
of 82 for 17 Facebook games. The game Slingo, with 17 million players,
scores 80, losing points partly because it connects to 59 trackers. Zynga
general counsel Reggie Davis says Zynga welcomes tools such as Privacyscore. And
Zynga's online tutorial, PrivacyVille, rewards its users for learning more about
the company's privacy policies.
Privacy Choice website: http://www.privacychoice.org/
Friday, April 20, 2012
Police depts. and colleges across the country requesting authorization to use UAV drones.
This week the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) finally released its first round of records in response to EFF’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for information on the agency's drone authorization program. The agency says the two lists it released include the names of all public and private entities that have applied for authorizations to fly drones domestically. These lists—which include the Certificates of Authorizations (COAs), issued to public entities like police departments, and the Special Airworthiness Certificates (SACs), issued to private drone manufacturers—show for the first time who is authorized to fly drones in the United States.
Some of the entities on the COA list are unsurprising. For example, journalists have reported that Customs and Border Protection uses Predator drones to patrol the borders. It is also well known that DARPA and other branches of the military are authorized to fly drones in the US. However, this is the first time we have seen the broad and varied list of other authorized organizations, including universities, police departments, and small towns and counties across the United States. The COA list includes universities and colleges like Cornell, the University of Colorado, Georgia Tech, and Eastern Gateway Community College, as well as police departments in North Little Rock, Arkansas; Arlington, Texas; Seattle, Washington; Gadsden, Alabama; and Ogden, Utah, to name just a few. The COA list also includes small cities and counties like Otter Tail, Minnesota and Herington, Kansas. The Google map linked above plots out the locations we were able to determine from the lists, and is color coded by whether the authorizations are active, expired or disapproved.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/faa-releases-its-list-drone-certificates-leaves-many-questions-unansweredMiami-Dade PD releases information about its drone program.
The COA and the other records EFF received show that Miami-Dade’s drone program is quite limited in scope. The two small drones the MDPD is flying—Honeywell T-Hawks—are able to fly up to 10,000 feet high, can record video or still images in daylight or infrared, and can “Hover and stare; [and] follow and zoom,” (pdf) according to the manufacturer. However, the COA limits their use to flights below 300 feet. The drones also must remain within visual line of sight of both a pilot and an observer and can only be flown during the day. They cannot be flown within the Miami city limits or over any high-rise buildings, populated beaches, outdoor assemblies of people, or heavily trafficked roadways (which seems to severely limit their range). Also, the MDPD has stated it doesn’t use the drones to record incidents or store image files and that the drone is set up to “clear[] the picture upon the next picture being captured.” (It is not clear from MDPD’s records whether the department has another system set up to retain the image files.)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/miami-dade-pd-releases-information-about-its-drone-program-will-faa-follow-suit
Drone use takes off on the home front.
With little public attention, dozens of universities and law-enforcement agencies have been given approval by federal aviation regulators to use unmanned aircraft known as drones, according to documents obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests by an advocacy group.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304331204577354331959335276.html
Bi-Partisan privacy caucus demands answers on drones and privacy.
Congressman Markey (D-Mass) and Congressman Barton (R-TX) sent a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), raising concerns about the increased use of drones in the United States. The Congressmen noted, "there is...potential for drone technology to enable invasive and pervasive surveillance without adequate privacy protections." The letter called on the FAA's Acting Administrator to supply key information about the drone program, including plans to ensure that the drone licensing process includes privacy protections and public transparency. In February, EPIC, joined by a coalition of more than 100 organizations, experts, and members of the public, petitioned the FAA to conduct a rulemaking on the privacy implications of domestic drone use.
http://epic.org/2012/04/bi-partisan-privacy-caucus-dem.html
The Seattle police dept. insists drones won't be used for spying.
http://mynorthwest.com/11/666679/SPD-insists-drones-wont-be-used-for-spying
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