NYPD officers who failed to meet alleged "Stop & Frisk" arrest quotas, sent to remedial classes.

 By Michael Powell:

Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of United States District Court declared this argument flatly unconstitutional. She found “overwhelming evidence” that top brass had put in place “a centralized stop-and-frisk program that has led to thousands of unlawful stops.”

The department’s lawyers argued that stopping and frisking was a time-honored “social institution.” The judge batted down that argument, too. 

“Defendants’ cavalier attitude towards the prospect of a ‘widespread practice of suspicionless stops,’ ” she wrote, “displays a deeply troubling apathy towards New Yorkers’ most fundamental constitutional goals.” 

Stopping and frisking, done properly, is useful and legal. Officers can stop someone when they have reason to suspect that a crime has taken place or is about to take place. But that police favorite, “furtive movement”? No such legal animal exists. 

This is not just a fine point harped upon by federal judges. In the last few weeks I interviewed two officers in Bushwick who insisted that current policy required them to trespass across clear constitutional lines. 

“You can’t catch innocent young men in your nets and just say, ‘Oh, that’s all right, I’m fighting crime,’ ” a veteran officer said. “You have to follow the law.” 

Judge Scheindlin was withering on this question. She noted that many stops were illegal on their face and that even “according to their own records and judgment, officers’ ‘suspicion’ was wrong nearly 9 times out of 10.” 

Last week, two police officers told me several colleagues were in heavily attended remedial classes for those who fail to record enough stops and arrests. 

“They want five arrests a month for marijuana for some units,” he said. “If you can do that, you either have X-ray vision or you are breaking the law.”
 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/nyregion/gotham-arguments-for-stop-and-frisk-dont-hold-up.html?_r=3&ref=nyregion

 Black NYC kids arrested more often, data shows.

The NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices raise serious concerns over racial profiling, illegal stops and privacy rights. The Department’s own reports on its stop-and-frisk activity confirm what many people in communities of color across the city have long known: The police are stopping hundreds of thousands of law abiding New Yorkers every year, and the vast majority are black and Latino.
An analysis by the NYCLU revealed that more than 4 million innocent New Yorkers were subjected to police stops and street interrogations from 2004 through 2011, and that black and Latino communities continue to be the overwhelming target of these tactics. Nearly nine out of 10 stopped-and-frisked New Yorkers have been completely innocent, according to the NYPD’s own reports:

• In 2002, 97,296 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  80,176 were totally innocent (82 percent).
• In 2003, 160,851 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  140,442 were totally innocent (87 percent).
  77,704 were black (54 percent).
  44,581 were Latino (31 percent).
  17,623 were white (12 percent).
  83,499 were aged 14-24 (55 percent). 
• In 2004, 313,523 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  278,933 were totally innocent (89 percent).
  155,033 were black (55 percent).
  89,937 were Latino (32 percent).
  28,913 were white (10 percent).
  152,196 were aged 14-24 (52 percent).
• In 2005, 398,191 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  352,348 were totally innocent (89 percent).
  196,570 were black (54 percent).
  115,088 were Latino (32 percent).
  40,713 were white (11 percent).
  189,854 were aged 14-24 (51 percent).
• In 2006, 506,491 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  457,163 were totally innocent (90 percent).
  267,468 were black (55 percent).
  147,862 were Latino (31 percent).
  53,500 were white (11 percent).
  247,691 were aged 14-24 (50 percent).
• In 2007, 472,096 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  410,936 were totally innocent (87 percent).
  243,766 were black (54 percent).
  141,868 were Latino (31 percent).
  52,887 were white (12 percent).
  223,783 were aged 14-24 (48 percent).
• In 2008, 540,302 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  474,387 were totally innocent (88 percent).
  275,588 were black (53 percent).
  168,475 were Latino (32 percent).
  57,650 were white (11 percent).
  263,408 were aged 14-24 (49 percent).
• In 2009, 581,168 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  510,742 were totally innocent (88 percent).
  310,611 were black (55 percent).
  180,055 were Latino (32 percent).
  53,601 were white (10 percent).
  289,602 were aged 14-24 (50 percent).
• In 2010, 601,285 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  518,849 were totally innocent (86 percent).
  315,083 were black (54 percent).
  189,326 were Latino (33 percent).
  54,810 were white (9 percent).
  295,902 were aged 14-24 (49 percent).
• In 2011, 685,724 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  605,328 were totally innocent (88 percent).
  350,743 were black (53 percent).
  223,740 were Latino (34 percent).
  61,805 were white (9 percent).
  341,581 were aged 14-24 (51 percent).
• In the first three months of 2012, 203,500 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  181,457 were totally innocent (89 percent).
  108,097 were black (54 percent).
  69,043 were Latino (33 percent).
  18,387 were white (9 percent). 
• http://www.nyclu.org/issues/racial-justice/stop-and-frisk-practices
• http://www.nyclu.org/files/publications/NYCLU_2011_Stop-and-Frisk_Report.pdf

TSA to conduct "voluntary" interrogations of truck and bus operators across the country and collect their information.

TSA is planning the beef up some of its existing security assessment programs for highway-related truck and bus operators -- as well as public and private bridge and tunnel owners -- by making approximately 750 face-to-face “voluntary” visits to such transportation organizations each year to review their current security programs and suggest best practices they might adopt.

TSA currently conducts what it calls “Corporate Security Reviews,” or CRSs, with some of these highway-related organizations. “These CSRs have served to evaluate and collect physical and operational preparedness information, critical assets and key point-of-contact lists, review emergency procedures and domain awareness training, and provide an opportunity to share industry best practices,” explains a Federal Register notice published by the agency on May 29.

TSA is now planning to consolidate this CSR program into a broader initiative it calls its Baseline Assessment for Security Enhancement, or BASE, which will also cover transit systems across the country.

“Highway BASE program will continue to be a voluntary, instructive, and interactive review used by TSA to assess the adequacy of security measures related to highway transportation -- such as trucking, school bus, and motorcoach industries, privately-owned highway assets that may include bridges and tunnels, and other related systems and assets owned and operated by state departments of education and transportation,” the notice adds.
http://www.gsnmagazine.com/node/26449

TSA corporate security reviews

CSRs are conducted with organizations engaged in transportation by motor vehicle and those that maintain or operate key physical assets within the highway transportation community. They serve to evaluate and collect physical and operational preparedness information, critical assets and key point-of-contact lists, review emergency procedures and domain awareness training, and provide an opportunity to share industry best practices.
 http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/tsnm/highway/programs.shtm

 School Transportation Security Awareness (STSA)

The "School Transportation Security Awareness" (STSA) program has been developed by the Transportation Security Administration's Highway and Motor Carrier Security Division in conjunction with the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services (NASDPTS), the National Association for Pupil Transportation (NAPT), and the National School Transportation Association (NSTA) to provide much needed security awareness information and training to the school transportation industry. STSA focuses on terrorist and criminal threats to school buses, bus passengers, and destination facilities. It is designed to provide school bus drivers, administrators, and staff members with information that will enable them to effectively identify and report perceived security threats, as well as the skills to appropriately react and respond to a security incident should it occur.

The STSA program consists of a 24-minute DVD of a simulated school bus hijacking and web-based self-study modules offered in both English and Spanish. The program has been designed so that the information can be obtained in a classroom setting or by individual self-guided study on-line. Once registration has been completed, an ID code is assigned, and each member of the registered district/ organization is then able to access the on-line training at any time.

STSA topics include:

• Terrorism Defined
• Who Are Terrorists?
• Define And Identify A Security Threat
• Define And Identify A Security Incident
• Potential Weapons And The Probability Of Use
• Joint Planning Between Organizations
• Leadership Begins At The Top

http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/tsnm/highway/stsa.shtm

Domestic use of UAV drones is a serious threat to our civil liberties.

The following is an excerpt from USA Today, Cal Thomas is a conservative columnist. Bob Beckel is a liberal Democratic strategist.

"Bob: I'm surprised how little we've heard from Congress, besides a letter of concern to the FAA from Reps. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Joe Barton, R-Texas.

Cal: Maybe that's because there's a congressional "drone caucus," which has 58 members. Many of them have received generous campaign contributions from defense contractors, including General Dynamics, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin (a major manufacturer of drones and missiles that can be attached to them) and Raytheon.

Bob: Once again, money wins out over an important principle: the right to privacy. The news media tend to report actions by drones when they bomb terrorists, but the planes have several other significant capabilities. They can also see and capture pictures in the smallest detail from thousands of feet in the sky. They can detect cellphone conversations and other means of communications.

Cal: We are already further along with drones than the public may know. The FAA reform act requires the FAA to create a comprehensive program to safely integrate drone technology into the national air space by 2015. The FAA predicts there could be 30,000 drones crisscrossing American skies by 2020, all part of an industry that could be worth $12 billion a year. Dwight Eisenhower was right to warn us against the "military-industrial complex." Drones are just the latest example of the industry's intrusions into our liberties.

Bob: In fact, drones have already been deployed to assist local police departments, which on its face may seem like a good idea. But local police don't control the drones; that's done by trained drone pilots in the U.S. military. So police departments may request assistance on a local crime issue, but who knows what other information is being collected by the U.S. government while the drone is flying over a particular area? On the subject of using drones for domestic purposes, Cal, we have found complete common ground.

Cal: A few groups, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, are pushing back. They are filing lawsuits against the FAA, demanding records of the drone certificates that the FAA has issued to various government agencies and research groups. But, says constitutional attorney Whitehead, "It is unlikely that the implementation of this technology can be stopped. Based upon the government's positions on wiretapping, GPS tracking devices, and Internet tracking technologies, it is also unlikely that our elected officials will do anything to protect the American people from the prying eye of the American government."

Bob: The potential for abuse from government and law enforcement domestic surveillance by drones is terrifying. And if we're worried about congested air space, just wait until the commercial industry gets into the act. Already drone manufacturers are envisioning use by private companies where the technology might be used for journalistic purposes or disaster relief. But do we really want this technology in the hands of private companies?

Cal: And drones aren't the only threat. As The New York Times reported recently, while Google was roaming the world's streets with special cameras attached to car roofs for their Street View project, they were also collecting data such as e-mails, chat and instant messages, postings on websites and social networks — all sorts of private Internet communications. The company says the data collection was a mistake. But combine that technology with domestic drones, and the possibilities for Big Brother intrusion seem limitless. That's what scares me."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-05-30/domestic-drones-privacy-faa-uavs/55288498/1?loc=interstitialskip

DHS is providing police with military ballistic shields and helmets.

Colorado Springs, CO - Police are using some new tactics and equipment to protect themselves in dangerous situations. In the past, you wouldn't see a Colorado Springs police officer with a ballistic shield, helmet and rifle on your average police call, but that's changed.

"It might look like SWAT activity is going on when, really, it's just patrol officers using some new equipment that's been made available to us over the last couple years," said Sgt. Darrin Abbink. "We've had quite a bit of training going on with our patrol officers to provide them with better officer safety tactics."

Abbink said, besides keeping officers safer, CSPD's training efforts also make for better coordination should the SWAT team have to be called to a crime scene.

"What you'll see is a more coordinated response between our officers," said Abbink. "They're getting to practice it more at training and they're getting more advanced training than just the basic skills."

Saxon Security to supply St. Petersburg police dept. with new ballistic shields.

Florida - Saxon Security and its partner LCOA Defense have been named suppliers to the St. Petersburg (Florida) police department for new ballistic shields for general patrol officers. Saxon’s winning proposal was chosen by the department’s procurement office and approved by the Chief of Police, Charles "Chuck" Harmon.

After an exhaustive year-long review of all available ballistic shields on the market, the St. Petersburg Police Department awarded their bid for 45 ballistic shields to Saxon Security for the DeadStop shield. The shields are the lightest on the market representing a revolution in safety for the general patrol officer.

In 2011, the St. Petersburg Police Department, with input from all their Officers, created a unique design for a new multi-use ballistic shield. With St. Petersburg’s guidance Saxon Security and LCOA Defense created the DeadStop Equalizer, inspired by St. Pete Officers for all patrol officers...the “St. Pete Shield.”
http://www.krdo.com/news/31124194/detail.html
 http://finance.yahoo.com/news/saxon-security-supply-st-petersburg-190500904.html

We need ballistic helmets on patrol.

Stanley Cohen: "When it comes to the topic of officer safety, two personal pet peeves of mine have been and will continue to be the following:

• The dangerous deployments of spike strips. For our profession's latest tragedy—occurring just last week.
• The lack of ballistic gear for patrol officers.

On the subject of ballistic gear, I received an email recently from Stanley Cohen, a former Cincinnati police officer who is also a retired IUP Criminal Law Professor and an attorney. Stanley has made it his mission to get ballistic helmets for as many patrol officers as he can such as when he successfully lobbied earlier this year for the New Kensington (Pa.) Police Department to purchase several bullet resistant helmets with ballistic shields.

Several police officers have said to me that they believe the bad guys are aiming at the heads of police officers because they know they are wearing vests.  I agree. These head shot killings seem to corroborate that belief.  If it is true, then it can be expected that there will be more officers dying from head shots this year, who would otherwise have been saved had they had ballistic face shields to wear as first responders in high risk situations.  Once officers begin to wear ballistic face shields, and the bad guys become aware of this fact, they may tend to lower their shots to the leg area of officers, which, while very serious and potentially life threatening, are not as likely to cause death as head shots.

Once the general public is made aware of this information, the general public will be more accepting of police officers wearing ballistic face shields, just as they became more accepting of police officers wearing firearms and bullet proof vests and Tasers."

Police Chiefs in Pennsylvania should contact their District Attorney to see if forfeited funds are available to buy ballistic face shields/helmets for police officer first responders to wear in high risk situations.

Police Chiefs in Pennsylvania (everywhere) should apply for grants from the United States Bureau of Justice Assistance to buy ballistic face shields/helmets for police officer first responders to wear in high risk situations.

http://connect.lawofficer.com/profiles/blogs/all-police-patrol-officer

http://www.policemag.com/Blog/Patrol-Tactics/story/2011/08/We-Need-Ballistic-Helmets-on-Patrol.aspx

Disgusting: Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell wants UAV drones to spy on citizens.

Washington, DC - Police drones flying over Virginia would be "great" and "the right thing to do" for the same reasons they are so effective in a battlefield environment, the state's chief executive said Tuesday. 

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, says he is open to any technology that makes law enforcement more productive. The use of drones, which was recently endorsed by the police chiefs of Fairfax County and D.C., would make better use of valuable police resources. 

Increased safety and reduced manpower are among the reasons the U.S. military and intelligence community use drones on the battlefield, which is why it should be considered in Virginia, he says.
"It's great," he said while speaking on WTOP's "Ask the Governor" program. "If you're keeping police officers safe, making it more productive and saving money...it's absolutely the right thing to do."

David Rohrer, chief of police for Fairfax County, said: "Drones will certainly have a purpose and a reason to be in this region in the next, coming years," he told WTOP. "Just as a standpoint as an alternative for spotting traffic and sending information back to our VDOT Smart Traffic centers, and being able to observe backups."

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier, a national security expert, told WTOP in early May that the use of drones is ideal for "a sprawling county" such as Fairfax.

McDonnell's claim of “saving money” makes very little sense whatsoever. This may be true over a period of several years, or perhaps even a decade or more, but since almost all counties are struggling to get by as is, I seriously doubt that this massive start up cost is something worth absorbing.

That is, unless, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chooses to give out some of their massive grants to subsidize the move towards drones or if they begin being given away under the Pentagon’s 1033 program.

Seeing as the Department of Defense is now distributing military robots and heavily armored vehicles under the program, that wouldn’t be all too surprising.

“Drones will certainly have a purpose and a reason to be in this region in the next, coming years,” Fairfax County Police Chief David Rohrer said. “Just as a standpoint as an alternative for spotting traffic and sending information back to our VDOT Smart Traffic centers, and being able to observe backups.”

Seems to be a little expensive to just serve for spotting traffic and observing backups but maybe I’m the only one who thinks our governments at the local, state and federal level are engaging in completely out of control spending.
http://www.wtop.com/120/2882193/Governor-Drones-over-Va-great-right-thing-to-do

 http://EndtheLie.com/2012/06/01/va-governor-cites-warzone-drone-success-says-domestic-use-would-be-great/#ixzz1wXi2kCU7

Dept. of Defense Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) airspace integration plan.

Over the past several years, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) have become a transformational force multiplier for the Department of Defense (DoD). When UAS were introduced into the front-line DoD aircraft force structure over a decade ago, small numbers of aircraft were fulfilling niche capabilities. This is no longer the case. The numbers and roles of UAS have expanded dramatically to meet overseas demands, and in some categories, more unmanned aircraft (UA) are budgeted than manned. Operational commanders have come to rely upon robust and persistent support based on unmanned platforms to execute their core missions against hostile forces.

While reliance on UAS continues to grow, the ability to integrate UAS into the National Airspace System (NAS) to support operations, training, and testing has not kept pace. Routine access to exercise and execute Combatant Command (COCOM)-tasked missions, and to support broader military and civil missions such as Homeland Security (HLS), Homeland Defense (HD), and Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) is necessary. Current NAS access for UAS is greatly limited under interim FAA policies that govern UAS operations in the NAS. Currently, DoD UAS operations conducted outside of Restricted, Warning and Prohibited areas are authorized under a temporary Certificate of Waiver or Authorization (COA) from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or under limited conditions outlined in the 2007 DoD-FAA Memorandum of Agreement (MoA). Although DoD has been able to facilitate a small number of flights through the COA process, DoD has not been able to obtain the level of airspace access necessary to accomplish the wide range of DoD UAS missions at current and projected operational tempos.
http://info.publicintelligence.net/DoD-UAS-AirspaceIntegration.pdf

Joint Advanced Warfighting school thesis on problems integrating Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into the national airspace system.

In the last 10 years, the unmanned aircraft system (UAS) has captured the public’s imagination and fascination with their ability to provide instantaneous video feeds of military and covert CIA operations in far away places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

The rapid proliferation of the UAS and the eventual redeployment of current systems deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq will require the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to provide unrestricted unmanned aircraft access within the National Airspace System (NAS). The Department of Defense (DoD) requires routine access to the NAS to execute directed missions, meet training requirements, and perform necessary testing to meet the Joint Force Commander’s (JFC’s) established mission priorities. Over the past several years, the DoD has been able to execute a small portion of UAS flights in the NAS but current rules and regulation do not facilitate seamless integration with manned aircraft.

The purpose of this study is to show that although the DoD and the FAA recognize the importance of integrating manned and unmanned aircraft within the NAS, there are many challenges and gaps that must be bridged to facilitate successful integration. The most important challenge to overcome when integrating manned and unmanned aircraft into the same airspace is safety.
http://info.publicintelligence.net/NDU-UAS-Integration.pdf

NASA unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) integration in the National Airspace System (NAS) project.

https://info.publicintelligence.net/NASA-UAS-NAS.pdf

Federal Judge's decision: The NYPD's "Stop & Frisk" policy is unconstitutional.

 Last week, a federal judge in New York dealt a blow to “stop-and-frisk,” a policy that resulted in 685,000 recorded police stops in 2011. Eighty-five percent of those stopped were African American and Latino, mostly youths.

US district judge Shira Scheindlin granted class-action certification to a stop-and-frisk lawsuit against the city of New York, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The plaintiffs allege that the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy regularly violates the Constitution by illegally stopping and searching scores of people belonging to a particular demographic -- black and Latino. Pending the city's appeal, the class-action ruling will put stop-and-frisk on trial.

Plaintiffs in Floyd et al. vs City of New York also argue that they were stopped by police who did not have the legally necessary "reasonable suspicion" that they had committed or were going to commit a crime. What's more, the suit alleges, police often performed frisks, but not because they saw a bulge they suspected to be a weapon, another legal requirement.

In her written decision, Scheindlin said the alleged constitutional violations result not from the actions of rogue officers, but from a policy handed down from the very top. "The stop-and-frisk program is centralized and hierarchical," said Scheindlin, "Those stops were made pursuant to a policy that is designed, implemented and monitored by the NYPD's administration."

Scheindlin's ruling cites "overwhelming evidence" -- a spike in stop-and-frisks and the NYPD's own words -- indicating that at the "highest levels of the department," police are enforcing a policy that leaves behind a trail of daily injustices.

For years, Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly have used distortions and misinformation to promote and justify a policy that violates the constitutional rights of those who were stopped. Now, the Scheindlin findings have exposed the NYPD game for what it is, an illegal system of quotas and racial profiling imposed on field police from the top of the NYPD.

"Suspicionless stops should never occur," Scheindlin wrote in her decision, adding that, "Defendants' cavalier attitude towards the prospect of a'"widespread practice of suspicionless stops' displays a deeply troubling apathy towards New Yorkers' most fundamental constitutional rights." Stop-and-frisk, which the data shows is a form of racial profiling, violates not only the Fourth Amendment -- protection from unreasonable searches -- but also the 14th Amendment, which includes the equal protection clause, the plaintiffs charge.
http://www.alternet.org/story/155609/courts_expose_stop-and-frisk_as_racist%2C_unconstitutional_nypd_harassment_strategy%3A_8_important_facets_of_the_legal_decision/

Louisiana Incarcerated: 8 - Part Series, How we built the world's prison capital.

Jonesboro, LA - Clay McConnell is an unlikely scion for a prison empire. An ordained minister, his curly brown hair is fashionably rumpled, and he gets flustered when speaking in front of a video camera. His father, Billy, is the brains behind LaSalle Corrections, the one who expanded the family business from senior citizens to criminals.

When a prison-building boom swept north Louisiana in the 1990s, Billy McConnell got in on the financing and construction ends. Then he thought, why not run the prisons, too? He already ran nursing homes, and the bottom line was the same. His experience feeding and housing old folks could be applied to keeping drug pushers and petty thieves behind bars.

"We realized that prisons are like nursing homes. You need occupancy to be high. You have to treat people fairly and run a good ship, but run it like a business, watch food costs, employee costs," said Clay McConnell, 37.

Today, the McConnells are a major force in Louisiana's vast prison industry, playing a role in the incarceration of one in seven prisoners. The family's fortunes have risen hand in hand with those of rural sheriffs who are the best-known face of Louisiana Incarceration-for-Profit Inc. More than half of the state's 40,000 inmates are housed in local prisons run by sheriffs or private companies like LaSalle for the express purpose of making a buck.

Whether a sheriff uses the revenue to buy shotguns or whether LaSalle uses it to build a gleaming new headquarters, the result is the same. If you are sentenced to state time in Louisiana, odds are you will be placed in a local prison -- a low-budget, for-profit enterprise where you are likely to languish in your bunk, day after day, year after year, bored out of your skull with little chance to learn a trade or otherwise improve yourself. A coveted spot at a state prison like Angola, Hunt or Dixon is a long shot for anyone not convicted of a violent crime such as murder, rape or armed robbery.

Local prisons specialize in incarceration on the cheap. State prisons are built on huge acreage, offer an array of vocational classes and require able-bodied inmates to work. While the average daily price tag for an inmate at a state prison is $55 a day, local prisons only get $24.39 -- and try to wring a few extra dollars from that.

Yet these are the very inmates, convicted of minor crimes such as drug possession and writing bad checks, who will soon be back in society. While lifers at Angola learn welding, plumbing and auto mechanics, 11,000 of the 15,000 people released from Louisiana prisons each year come out of local facilities and have had no such opportunities.

Louisiana locks up more people per capita than any other state. One in 86 of its adult citizens is behind bars. Of those Louisiana inmates, 53 percent are housed in local prisons -- by far the highest percentage in the country.

The two statistics are inextricably linked. Prison operators, who depend on the world's highest incarceration rate to survive, are a hidden driver behind the harsh sentencing laws that put so many people away for long periods. Then, there are the regime's losers: the ex-convicts who have not received any rehabilitation in local prisons and the innocent citizens who become their victims.

Eight Part Series: http://www.nola.com/prisons/

 Plantations, prisons and profits.

“Louisiana is the world’s prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana’s incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran’s, seven times China’s and 10 times Germany’s.”

That paragraph opens a devastating eight-part series published this month by The Times-Picayune of New Orleans about how the state’s largely private prison system profits from high incarceration rates and tough sentencing, and how many with the power to curtail the system actually have a financial incentive to perpetuate it.

The picture that emerges is one of convicts as chattel and a legal system essentially based on human commodification.

First, some facts from the series:

• One in 86 Louisiana adults is in the prison system, which is nearly double the national average.

• More than 50 percent of Louisiana’s inmates are in local prisons, which is more than any other state. The next highest state is Kentucky at 33 percent. The national average is 5 percent.

• Louisiana leads the nation in the percentage of its prisoners serving life without parole.

• Louisiana spends less on local inmates than any other state.

• Nearly two-thirds of Louisiana’s prisoners are nonviolent offenders. The national average is less than half.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/26/opinion/blow-plantations-prisons-and-profits.html?_r=2

Public schools in Mississippi will no longer handcuff students.

 Jackson, MS- Public schools in Jackson, Mississippi, will no longer handcuff students to poles or other objects and will train staff at its alternative school on better methods of discipline.

Mississippi's second-largest school district agreed Friday to the settlement with the Southern Poverty Law Center, which had sued over the practice of shackling students to a pole at the district's Capital City Alternative School.

Nationwide, a report from the U.S. Department of Education showed tens of thousands of students, 70 percent of them disabled, were strapped down or physically restrained in school in 2009-10. Advocates for disabled students say restraints are often abused, causing injury and sometimes death.

A 2009 report by the American Civil Liberties Union found that such schools "overemphasized punishment at the expense of remediation." That report urged that alternative schools focus instead on "intensive services delivered by a well-qualified staff in a highly structured but positive environment," so that students could return to and succeed at regular schools.

Nationwide, there are no federal standards, although legislation is pending in Congress. The U.S. Department of Education says Mississippi is one of 13 states with no statewide rules governing restraints.

National experts have said seclusion and restraint should only be used in emergencies when there's a threat of someone getting hurt. But people who aren't properly trained resort to restraints when students get out of control, they say.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-05-25/handcuffing-students-mississippi/55211598/1?csp=34news

Texas honor student with two jobs jailed for missing too much school.

The Texas judge who jailed an 11th-grade honor student for missing too much school unfairly punished the teen who works two jobs to support her siblings, one of her employers says.

"I can understand if a child is staying out of school, running around, a bad kid, getting into trouble, taking drugs," Mary Elliot, Diane Tran's boss at her weekend job, told ABC News this weekend. "I can understand why he would slap them into jail for 24 hours. But Diane doesn't do that. All she does is work and go to school."

Tran, 17, had already been warned not to miss any more time at her Houston-area school, but when Judge Lanny Moriarty heard she'd skipped again, he sent her to jail for 24 hours Wednesday, according to KHOU 11 News.

It's unclear how many days she missed but state law allows for only 10 unexcused absences in a six-month period.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-honor-student-jobs-jailed-missing-school/story?id=16437893#.T8PBOvURmFN

Appeals Court ruled police don't need probable cause to question drivers.

TX - The second highest court in Texas on Wednesday signaled support for police who make up phony reasons to pull over motorists. A sharply divided Court of Criminal Appeals declined to sanction officers for pulling over Alvaro Mazuca because his yellow Mustang had "defective tail lights." The Mustang's lights were just fine.

On December 11, 2008 at around 10pm, El Paso Police Officers Mike Chavez and Christopher Grijalva were out looking for people to ticket at the Sunland Park Mall when the brightly colored Ford caught their eye. They performed a traffic stop in the parking lot of Linens n Things, admitting they had no suspicion that the driver had committed any crime. It turned out that Mazuca had drugs on him along with an outstanding arrest warrant, but his lawyer moved to suppress the evidence because the initial stop was bogus.

Mazuca had installed a modified set of clear tail lights on his vehicle five years ago. Although the lenses were clear, its bulbs were red and could only emit a red light. The setup had always passed the yearly state safety inspection, but Officer Grijalva insisted they did not appear red when the brake pedal was pushed.

"There was mostly white," Grijalva testified. "From what I distinctly saw it was mostly white. I don't recall if we got close and saw that there was any red. But the white dominated the red color."

The trial judge found the police officers' version of events was "not credible" and that the stop was flagrantly illegal. Prosecutors immediately appealed to the Court of Appeals, which upheld the lower court finding. A three-judge panel reasoned that if it sanctioned the arrest, police would be encouraged to go on fishing expeditions, stopping drivers randomly on the hunt for people with warrants.

The next highest court, the Court of Criminal Appeals, had a different view. On Wednesday, the majority ruled that the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule should not apply, citing the "attenuation of taint" doctrine that makes illegally obtained evidence admissible if that evidence is not closely connected with the illegal methods used.

"In the present case, we conclude that the temporal proximity between the first illegal arrest and the second legal arrest does not bear on the attenuation," Judge Tom Price wrote for the majority in the 5-4 decision. "This factor has been cited and considered exclusively in cases where confessions or statements were obtained from a suspect subsequent to an illegal arrest. We also reason that, unlike the confession cases, where the statements can be seen as a psychological product of the arrest, the diminution of the likelihood of the discovery of physical evidence as a result of the illegal arrest cannot be a function of the passage of time. Thus, we conclude that the temporal proximity factor is of no moment in this case."

Four of the nine judges sided with the earlier rulings.

"The result fashioned by the majority opens the door for police to ignore the probable cause requirement and make traffic stops without adequate grounds for doing so," Judge Lawrence E. Meyers wrote in a dissent. "The majority's analysis of the weight of the Brown factors may be correct, but the result discounts the trial court's findings as to the credibility of the officers."

Judge Cheryl Johnson blasted her colleagues for taking lightly the seriousness of the police misconduct here.

"Ignorance of the law is no defense," Johnson wrote. "We have all heard that statement many times, usually in the context of a defendant who claims not to have known of the law he or she is charged with violating. If an average citizen cannot plead ignorance of the law, how are we to condone a law-enforcement officer, who is charged with knowing the law he or she enforces, using that excuse to justify a traffic stop that is blatantly improper?"

 http://thenewspaper.com/news/38/3804.asp

Texas v. Mazuca ruling: http://thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2012/tx-clear.pdf


Delaware Supreme Court ruled against traffic stop delays.

Police may not unnecessarily detain motorist pulled over for speeding, the Delaware Supreme Court ruled.

A police officer may not unreasonably delay a motorist pulled over for a traffic citation, the Delaware Supreme Court ruled last week. Many departments use minor infractions as an excuse to conduct an extensive search for possible evidence of more serious crimes. The justices ruled 4-1 against this practice.

"An officer who pulls a car over for speeding does not thereby gain free rein to ask as many questions, for as long a time, as he might wish," Chief Justice Myron T. Steele wrote for the majority. "Further investigation requires further justification."

The decision considered the actions of Wilmington Detective Samuel Smith who was patrolling in an unmarked car one day at 30th Street and Jefferson Street. Smith saw a man -- Glen Murray -- look at him, then get in a Chrysler and drive off. Smith called in backup, Wilmington Police Officer Matthew Hazzard, who was able to stop Murray's car for allegedly speeding on Interstate 95.

Instead of a ticket, Murray was given a verbal reprimand. The officers then proceeded to interrogate him and his passengers solely for the purpose of finding drugs. Even though the officers admitted they had no reason to believe Murray was dangerous in any way, they ordered him out of the car so he could be frisked. The officers then searched a bookbag on the floor of the car for "anything illegal."

The high court has no problem with officers using speeding or other common tickets as a pretext to pull over a motorist, so long as the violation is a real one. Once the violation is handled, however, the traffic stop must end.

"The officer's power to detain the car evaporated after the officers ended the investigation that provided the objective justification for the stop," Steele wrote. "At that time, the officers had no authority to continue detaining the car, and, admittedly, no reason to suspect that Murray possessed contraband."

Ordering Murray out of the car constituted the first violation of the Fourth Amendment. Justice Henry duPont Ridgely disagreed with his colleagues and insisted the drugs found in the search of the bookbag were the fruit of a legitimate search because the police had obtained consent and the intrusion was minimal.
http://thenewspaper.com/news/37/3799.asp

Murray v. Delaware ruling: http://thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2012/de-delay.pdf


Ohio Court of Appeals blasts police embellishment of traffic stop testimony.

Prosecutors and sometimes even judges will embellish the testimony of a police officer to justify a traffic stop after the fact. A divided Ohio Court of Appeals panel ruled Tuesday that this practice was unacceptable. The majority determined Henry County Deputy Sheriff Sean Wymer unconstitutionally seized Dustin A. Haas because the officer did not understand the law he was enforcing.

At around 2:30am on March 16, 2010 Wymer saw Haas' vehicle stopped on State Route 65 in the village of McClure. A woman was standing outside the car. As Wymer passed, Haas' car pulled off onto a side street and parked in a driveway. Wymer approached, turned on his lights and conducted a traffic stop based on what he said was a violation of Ohio law prohibiting "stopping in the roadway." Alicia Reinbolt says Haas was picking her up that night and took her to a friend's house. In a 2-1 decision, an appellate panel overturned a lower court decision that found Wymer's actions legal.

"In order for a traffic stop to be constitutional, an officer must be able to articulate that the defendant's conduct violated a traffic law on its face," Judge Richard M. Rogers wrote for the majority.

The law that Wymer cited prohibits stopping on any highway "outside a business or residence district." Since Haas was in a business district, the code did not apply. The trial judge and dissenting appellate Judge Stephen R. Shaw argued the totality of the circumstances, which included the turn off the road and parking on the driveway, were suspicious. The majority disagreed because this was not Wymer's rationale.

"The officer testified that he had already made his decision to stop the vehicle based on his mistaken notion that a violation of law had occurred, and that was his sole reason for the stop," Rogers wrote. "No other facts or circumstances are material to our consideration of the officer's reasonable articulable suspicion. If the officer had found other acts of appellant to be suspicious he could have so testified. He did not."

Prosecutors insisted that police cannot be expected to have expert knowledge of every traffic law they enforce. Requiring such knowledge, they said, would create "paralysis by analysis." The majority said such knowledge is the bare minimum standard officers must meet.

"We aver that knowledge of the traffic laws is the very essence of a patrol officer's job," Rogers wrote. "To require any less than an accurate, working knowledge of the traffic offenses and to fail to ensure that the one being seized at least reasonably appeared to have violated a statute on its face gravely deprives citizens of their constitutional right to be free from warrantless searches and seizures."
http://thenewspaper.com/news/38/3807.asp

Court Ruling, Ohio v. Haas: http://thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2012/oh-articulate.pdf

To cover the costs for extra police details during holiday weekends, do police have arrest quotas?

FL - Are Miami beach police planning to arrest 2,000 people during the notorious Memorial Day weekend parties on South Beach? As in they've actually set a quota regardless of whether or not 2,000 deserve to be arrested. To put that in prospective, the record number of arrests over Memorial Day weekend ever in Miami Beach was just over 1,000.

Rumors of such a number emerged this week, but Police Chief Raymond Martinez has denied that his department has set a real quota.

According to Local 10, rumors of the quota first emerged in an email complaint from the police officers' union that called the quota "aggressive, patently unfair, and unjust."

Martinez denies that such a quota exists.

"I want to be clear, there is no arrest quota for Memorial Day weekend or any other day on Miami Beach," he wrote in an email to Local 10.

This weekend will be Chief Martinez's first real test since officially taking over the department in March. Last weekend's festivities were marred by multiple police-involved shootings.

Martinez's plans for the weekend are nothing short of aggressive. There will be more than 600 officers on patrol. DUI checkpoints will be established towards the entrance of South Beach, and high tech scanners will scan every license plate that comes onto the island. Proof of residency will also be needed to enter certain residential areas of the beach by car. All in all the city will spend more than $2 million on crowd control.

Martinez explained to CBS Miami that the 2,000 arrest number was not an order but does hope his officers are more strict this year.

According to Miami Beach’s police union the order this weekend is for “patrol officers will need to meet an arrest quota of 2,000 arrests.” That’s twice the record of roughly a thousand set a few years ago.
http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2012/05/miami_beach_police_deny_they_h.php

Minn. state troopers gave drugs to residents for their DRE research.

Minnesota State Patrol had a great idea, seeing as they are bored and hate everyone, particularly Occupy protesters? The Occupy protesters are just hanging around the central location of Peavey Plaza, causing problems, wasting cardboard, not getting jobs, so in lieu of beating them with a stick, the police department decided it would work better to “recruit” these useless individuals, feed them marijuana and possibly other drugs, then observe their behavior as part of a police “training” program that teaches state patrol officers what different kinds of intoxication look like. Others were apparently given weed if they would simply rat on fellow protesters. It was very exciting for some Occupiers, because their title was suddenly High Police Informant. “I smoked with a cop,” said a man who identified himself as Panda, and it was “some of the best shit I’ve had in a while.”


For most victims of this experiment it was described as just creepy and weird, and so these people were happy to be part of a documentary put together by Communities United Against Police Brutality and other groups.


One guy told the filmmakers that he was given a bowl of weed to smoke, and then was basically let loose in downtown Minneapolis, “visibly intoxicated.” According to CityPages, he then:

dangerously climbed to the top of a large sign near Peavey Plaza sitting 15 feet above the sidewalk, swinging his arms and legs. The man said that on another occasion, officers expressed disappointment that he was only high on weed. Officers told him they were “looking for something more harder (sic), someone to do meth or coke or something. I’ve never told a cop this before, but I said ‘fuck you, I don’t touch that,’” the man said.

This week, the Minneapolis City Council heard from several people involved. One witness came in the form of a mom, who said she was “very upset because her son had been given free drugs by a police officer when he went out to participate in what he thought would be social action in a public plaza to help improve his community and country,” in the words of Councilman Cam Gordon.
According to a woman who participated in the research, this is a real, official, taxpayer-funded thing. The police are “trying to observe the characteristics of certain drugs so when [police] pull people over they know what they’re looking at,” she told the documentary filmmakers. It’s called the Drug Recognition Evaluator program, and it’s run by the Minnesota State Patrol.
http://wonkette.com/471679/minneapolis-police-got-occupy-activists-high-for-research?goback=.gmp_1829117.gde_1829117_member_118522029

The ACLU sued the DOJ over warrantless police surveillance.

The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to force the government to release statistics about its use of powerful electronic surveillance tools that law enforcement can use against any American simply by stating to a judge that it’s relevant to an investigation. The Department of Justice (DOJ) is required to disclose these statistics to Congress each year, yet routinely fails to do so. Today’s suit is an effort to compel the DOJ to follow the law.

The surveillance tools at issue are called pen registers and trap and trace devices. Originally these devices were designed to eavesdrop on the old analog telephone network, but now they refer to a broader type of electronic eavesdropping. Using these methods, the Justice Department has claimed the authority to reveal: 

• The phone numbers you call and that call you
• The time each call is made
• The length of each call
• The email addresses of the people you send emails to and who email you
• Your IP address and the IP addresses of computers you connect with (IP addresses can reveal physical location)
• The web addresses of the websites you visit

Without current data on the government’s use of warrantless and invasive searches into Americans’ private lives, we are once again left in the dark. This is a problem for two reasons. First, government transparency is of vital importance in a democracy. As the president emphasizes on the White House website, “Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing.” The information we’re seeking is important because in order to have meaningful debate over government surveillance powers, we must be able to answer basic questions about the government’s current use of such powers.

But of more immediate concern, by subverting its legal obligation the DOJ has managed to completely escape the only oversight that Congress established on a very invasive surveillance power. Like a fire alarm, oversight mechanisms signal to Congress when the executive branch drastically expands its surveillance activities or oversteps the boundaries of its authority. Oversight also discourages executive agencies from taking such steps. Government overreach therefore becomes particularly worrisome when oversight mechanisms are not properly carried out.
http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/aclu-sues-doj-ignores-surveillance-transparency-law

ACLU Complaint:

 https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/2012_05_03_-_filed_complaint.pdf

ACLU FOIA request:

 https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/pen_register-trap_and_trace_foia_request.pdf

New study reveals we've militarized our police at the expense of civil liberties.

Although crime rates are at the lowest they have been in over 30 years, the number of arrests has declined only slightly between 2009 and 20102 and the U.S. still spends more than $100 billion on police every year to fund 714,921 sworn police officers and an increasing number of militarized police units. 

The combined numbers of police, encouraged by federal funding and aggressive policing, are representative of a continued misguided approach to keeping communities safe. Because the Department of Justice considers “successful law enforcement policies” as those that increase the number of people arrested and imprisoned, governments are shortchanging the public in regards to public safety at a very high cost. Policymakers should be directing funds toward true community-based and collaborative policing efforts, prevention, intervention, treatment, education, and a host of other programs and initiatives that have been shown to promote healthy, safe communities. When arrests are the bottom line instead of public safety and healthy, prosperous communities, our priorities are skewed.

Militaristic policing does more harm than good. Drug task forces, S.W.A.T. teams, gang task forces, and other militaristic styles of policing have resulted in corruption, deaths of innocent people, wrongful convictions, and the disproportionate arrest of people of color. These types of police forces have done very little to improve public safety, but significantly harm communities and the image of police.

http://www.justicepolicy.org/uploads/justicepolicy/documents/rethinkingtheblues_final.pdf

Justice Policy Institute executive summary:

http://www.justicepolicy.org/uploads/justicepolicy/documents/rethinkingtheblues_executive_summary.pdf

Exposed: Why Google and other companies won't protect you from big brother.

Christopher Soghoian- Why Google won't protect you from big brother.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esA9RFO1Pcw&feature=youtu.be

"Conspiracy of Silence" is a documentary revealing a nationwide pedophilia ring at all levels of our government.

"Conspiracy of Silence” A Banned Discovery Channel Documentary:

“Conspiracy of Silence” is a powerful, disturbing documentary revealing a nationwide child abuse and pedophilia ring that leads to the highest levels of government. Featuring intrepid investigator John DeCamp, a highly decorated Vietnam war veteran and 16-year Nebraska state senator, “Conspiracy of Silence” reveals how rogue elements at all levels of government have been involved in systematic child abuse and pedophilia to feed the base desires of key politicians.

Based on DeCamp’s riveting book, The Franklin Cover-up, “Conspiracy of Silence” begins with the shut-down of Nebraska’s Franklin Community Federal Credit Union after a raid by federal agencies in November 1988 revealed that $40 million was missing. When the Nebraska legislature launched a probe into the affair, what initially looked like a financial swindle soon exploded into a startling tale of drugs, money laundering, and a nationwide child abuse ring. Nineteen months later, the legislative committee’s chief investigator died suddenly and violently, like more than a dozen other people linked to the Franklin case.

So why have you never heard of the Franklin cover-up? Originally scheduled to air in May of 1994 on the Discovery Channel, “Conspiracy of Silence” was yanked at the last minute due to formidable pressure applied by top politicians. Some very powerful people did not want you to watch this documentary.

You may find yourself becoming angry or upset while watching “Conspiracy of Silence.” Many people do. However, consider that each of us has at times in our life acted out of selfish motives when it comes to sexuality and ended up hurting others in one way or another. Let us take this information not only as a call to stop this kind of abuse at the nationwide level, but also as a call to examine our own sexual relationships and make a commitment to deep honesty and integrity in our own lives around this most sensitive issue. Thanks for caring and may we all work together to build a brighter future for ourselves and for our world.

A copy of this videotape was furnished anonymously to former Nebraska state senator and attorney John De Camp who made it available to retired FBI Agent Ted L. Gunderson. While the video quality is not top grade, this tape is a blockbuster in what is revealed by the participants involved.

NOTE; This film had to be reassembled from remaining VHS fragments after an all-out effort was made to block the films release and destroy all extant copies. Every effort has been made to restore it to the original and complete “meant to be broadcast” version. 
http://philosophers-stone.co.uk/wordpress/2012/05/conspiracy-of-silence-banned-discovery-channel-documentary-3/

 Was Emanuela Orlandi abducted and murdered for Vatican sex parties?

A teenage girl was kidnapped for Vatican sex parties by a gang involving Vatican police and foreign diplomats 30 years ago, says the Catholic Church's leading exorcist priest, who damned Harry Potter as the “work of the Devil”

­Father Gabriele Amorth was appointed by the late John Paul II as the Vatican's chief exorcist and claims to have carried out 70,000 exorcisms. He said after one of the parties 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi was murdered and her body disposed of.

The outspoken priest says the schoolgirl was snatched from the streets of central Rome in the summer of 1983 and forced to take part in sex parties.

"This was a crime with a sexual motive. Parties were organized, with a Vatican gendarme acting as the 'recruiter' of the girls,” Father Amorth, 85, told La Stampa newspaper.

"The network involved diplomatic personnel from a foreign embassy to the Holy See. I believe Emanuela ended up a victim of this circle."

He also added that Vatican archivist monsignor Simeone Duca, “who was asked to recruit girls for parties with the help of the Vatican gendarmes”, also confirmed the girl was kidnapped for revelry.

Father Amorth’s revelations come as Italian police and forensic experts continue to examine remains they found in a murdered gangster's tomb a week ago in Rome's Sant'Apollinare basilica.
 http://www.rt.com/news/girl-vatican-sex-priest-975/

Minn. Attorney General's office released a six volume report on Accretive Health's debt collection practices.

Minnesota- Fairview Ridges Hospital is owned by Fairview Health Services, a nonprofit Minnesota chain that, until recently, contracted with Chicago-based Accretive Health, a company that manages billing and debt-collection for hospitals. According to Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson (D), Accretive Health went too far in its efforts to maximize revenue for its clients and badgered emergency room patients for money upfront or demanded payment from patients like Folken at their bedsides.

Swanson published a a six-volume report about Accretive Health's practices last month that has drawn attention to hospital billing and debt collection from the news media, federal regulators and members of Congress. Accretive Health says no patients were refused medical care because of money nor led to believe they would be, and is furiously working to restore its reputation.

What happened to Folken is about more than just the insensitivity of a single hospital employee or the overreaching of a hospital or its contractor. Aggressive debt collection and confounding hospital bills are merely an indicator of systemic problems in the American health care system that are affecting both hospitals and patients.

The prices for health care services are rising even as health insurance plans cover a smaller share of the costs. The result hits patients with bigger bills, as hospitals look to them to fill ever widening budget gaps. The Fairview employee who took Folken's credit card brought up his $1,000 deductible when she asked for payment, he said.

Hospitals are "getting more aggressive because they now know that so much more of the bill is going to go uncovered," said Sara Rosenbaum, a professor at George Washington University's law school and a former health policy advisor to President Bill Clinton. "The value of our coverage is shrinking and it's leaving us exposed to very, very high out-of-pocket costs, which, of course, are insurmountable for all but the wealthiest people," she said.

Many hospitals, especially a growing number of nonprofit companies, are on unstable financial footing -- so they're clamoring to bring in every dollar they can. Nonprofit hospitals are particularly vulnerable and are seeing their access to capital weakened and their credit ratings downgraded because lenders are worried they won't be able to pay their own debts.


Minn. Atty. General's six volume report on Accretive Health:

Vol. #1: http://www.ag.state.mn.us/PDF/PressReleases/ComplianceReview/Vol.%201.pdf

Vol. #2: http://www.ag.state.mn.us/PDF/PressReleases/ComplianceReview/Vol.%202.pdf

Vol. #3: http://www.ag.state.mn.us/PDF/PressReleases/ComplianceReview/Vol.%203.pdf

Vol. #4: http://www.ag.state.mn.us/PDF/PressReleases/ComplianceReview/Vol.%204.pdf

Vol. #5: http://www.ag.state.mn.us/PDF/PressReleases/ComplianceReview/Vol.%205.pdf

Vol. #6: http://www.ag.state.mn.us/PDF/PressReleases/ComplianceReview/Vol.%206.pdf


 Son hit with aging parent's $93K nursing home bill.

John Pittas’ mother entered a nursing home for rehabilitation following a car crash. After she left the nursing home, she moved out of the country.  His mother’s $93,000 bill at the home was left unpaid.  The mom had applied for Medicaid, which would  normally pay the bill if she couldn’t.

The mom’s Medicaid application did not get approved in enough time to satisfy the nursing home, and it sued her son for the bill.  The state of Pennsylvania, like 29 others in our country, has something called a “filial responsibility law”.  Those laws require that spouses, children and even parents of needy adults support the indigent.  These laws were rarely ever enforced.  The nursing home  decided to enforce it rather than have Medicaid do what it was designed to do.

The trial court found for the nursing home.  Mr. Pittas appealed. He argued  that the court should have considered  Medicaid or going after his mother’s husband and her two other adult children.  Astonishingly, the appeals court not only agreed that the nursing home didn’t have to wait until the Medicaid claim was resolved, it also found that the nursing home could choose any family member it wanted to when seeking payment for the bill.

There is an adage in the law:  You can’t legislate morality. However that is exactly what the Pennsylvania courts in the Pittas case did.  If a son or daughter has the money and wants to pay for mom or dad’s care, that’s an upright choice.  But what if they choose not to pay? What if they have their own expenses, kids in college or a retirement they want to fund?  Since when is it okay to unfairly discriminate against a financially successful family member? Mr. Pittas’s tax returns, bank statements, and other personal data are now presumably public record.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolynrosenblatt/2012/05/21/son-hit-with-aging-parents-93k-nursing-home-bill/

Who can remove your name from the "No-Fly List" or a gov't. watch list? Answer: no one!

A few weeks ago, Jay Stanley posted here on the ACLU blog about some of the dangers of “Big Data,” a sanitized term for data mining. When it’s employed by government security agencies in the search for terrorists, Jay wrote, there’s a substantial risk “that people will be tagged and suffer adverse consequences without due process, the ability to fight back, or even knowledge that they have been discriminated against.”

The government’s secret watch lists for suspected terrorists – including the No Fly List – provide a cautionary example. We don’t know what kind of “evidence” or innuendo is sufficient to land someone on the No Fly List, because the government won’t tell us. The FBI has created a “Frequently Asked Questions” page on its website, in which it explains that U.S. citizens may be placed on terrorist watch lists if “there is a reasonable suspicion that they are known or reasonably suspected of terrorism” – but that’s word soup, not a proper legal standard. What does it mean for the government to “suspect” that someone is “suspected of terrorism”? It means, in practice, that the government can place anyone on a watch list, on the basis of anything: an intercepted email, a suspicious association, a travel itinerary – or some algorithmic combination of all of those.

And once you’re on a watch list, you’re entirely at the government’s mercy if you want to get off. We’ve challenged this regime in federal court on behalf of fifteen U.S. citizens and legal residents who were not allowed to board flights but have never been given any explanation or opportunity to object. On Friday, my colleague Nusrat Choudhury appeared before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to argue that placing our clients on the No Fly List without providing them any opportunity to confront and rebut the “evidence” against them is unconstitutional.

You can listen to the argument here. I’m always a little amazed when intelligent and collegial government lawyers stand up in court to defend the indefensible, but even by those standards, Friday’s hearing stood out. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski had a simple question for the government attorney: what would you do if you found yourself on the No Fly List? After some hemming and hawing, the attorney said that he would seek “redress” from the Department of Homeland Security – even though DHS does not place people on the No Fly list and has no authority to remove them (that’s the FBI’s job). Because, the lawyer conceded, DHS would not be able to confirm or deny whether he was on the list, he would then seek review in a federal appellate court. And what would the court be able to do?, asked Judge Kozinski. Not much, said the government lawyer. In fact, the lawyer would not even concede that a federal court possessed the authority to order someone removed from the No Fly List.

In other words, according to the United States government, the only redress that is available to a watch-listed citizen is to hope that some government bureaucrat will correct a mistake or change his mind. Judge Kozinski seemed frustrated by the government’s equivocation. “So many words,” he said during an earlier exchange. “So little meaning.”http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty/ninth-circuit-presses-government-lawyer-watch-lists

DOJ backs Americans right to record the police, sets up a website to report police misconduct.

In support of an important case brought by the ACLU of Maryland defending the right to record, the Department Of Justice's (DOJ) civil rights division forcefully and unequivocally endorsed our view in an unusual (but welcome!) 11-page letter to the Baltimore Police Department.

The letter provides extensive guidance in the context of a settlement conference in a suit against the BPD alleging that Baltimore police officers confiscated and deleted video from the plaintiff’s mobile phone after he used it to record officers arresting his friend. The DOJ had filed a “Statement of Interest” earlier in the case, urging the court to find a First Amendment right to record the police, and a violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments when the police seize, search, and destroy recordings without a warrant and due process. As the DOJ explained there:

"The right to record police officers while performing duties in a public place, as well as the right to be protected from the warrantless seizure and destruction of those recordings, are not only required by the Constitution. They are consistent with our fundamental notions of liberty, promote the accountability of our governmental officers, and instill public confidence in the police officers who serve us daily."

The right of citizens to record the police is a critical check and balance. It creates an independent record of what took place in a particular incident, free from accusations of bias, lying or faulty memory. It is no accident that some of the most high-profile cases of police misconduct have involved video and audio records.

Of course, photography is not necessarily "objective" and it is always possible in a particular case that there can be circumstances at work outside a photographic record. Overall, however, the incidents above make it abundantly clear that respect for the right to photograph and record is not well-established within the law enforcement profession.

Photography as a Precursor to Terrorism

A big part of the problem here is "suspicious activity reporting" — the construction of a national system for the collection and distribution of information. Under this system (as we discuss on this page and in this report), law enforcement leaders at the federal, state and local level push officers on the ground to investigate and report a broad spectrum of legitimate, everyday activity as potentially "suspicious" — including photography. In fact, many such programs actually suggest that photography is a "precursor behavior" to terrorism, and direct the police to react accordingly. This notion has been dismissed as "nonsense" by security experts — but appears to be disturbingly robust.

A serious question for photographers and videographers who are harassed is whether they are being entered in government suspicious activity databases or watch lists, and whether and how such a listing might come back to haunt them. An investigation of Suspicious Activity Reports by NPR and the Center for Investigative Reporting, for example, found numerous individuals were reported to the FBI for taking photographs or video in the Mall of America.

A Problem From the Top

Another disturbing trend is police officers and prosecutors using wiretapping statutes in certain states (such as Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania) to arrest and prosecute those who attempt to record police activities using videocameras that include audio. (Unlike photography and silent video, there is no general right to record audio; many state wiretap laws prohibit recording conversations if the parties have a reasonable expectation of privacy — which is never true for a police officer carrying out his or her duties in public.)

Word appears to have circulated within law enforcement circles somehow that using wiretapping statutes is a strategy for preventing public oversight, with some taking the concept to ridiculous extremes.

In contrast, it appears to be stubbornly difficult to spread word within those same circles of the fact that photography and videotaping in public places is a constitutional right. And earlier this year, following a lawsuit by the New York branch of the ACLU, DHS agreed to issued a directive to members of the Federal Protective Service making it clear that photographing federal buildings is permitted. Yet arrests by Federal Protective Service officers appear to be continuing. You would think that police chiefs and other supervisors could easily instruct and enforce an understanding of photographers' rights among their officers. Still, for some reason, all too often that is not happening. In New Orleans, for example, in response to its public records request, the local ACLU found the police department's policy which clearly instructs officers that people have the right to photograph. Yet officers there routinely violate the stated policy.
http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech-criminal-law-reform/doj-defends-your-right-record
http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/you-have-every-right-photograph-cop

DOJ: Addressing Police Misconduct Laws Enforced by the Department of Justice.
http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl/documents/polmis.php