Senate votes down indefinite detention of Americans but the Obama Administration threatens to veto it.

Washington, DC- The White House Thursday handed out its first veto threat since President Barack Obama won reelection when advisers warned that they would counsel the commander-in-chief to nix the defense bill currently on the floor of the Democratic-controlled Senate.

The White House warned that the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 breaks from the president's budget request, limits his ability to pursue his defense strategy and trespasses on his power.

Among the issues the president's Office of Management and Budget singled out were some of the controversial military detainee provisions, although it did not take issue with language passed in last year's bill that lets the military hold American civilians without trial.

Instead, the White House complains about ongoing restrictions on its ability to transfer prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison base for terrorism suspects, which are reasserted in section 1031 on the bill.

"When he signed past versions of this legislation, the President objected to the restrictions carried forward by section 1031, promised to work towards their repeal, and warned the Congress that the restrictions on transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay to foreign countries would in certain circumstances interfere with constitutional responsibilities committed to the Executive Branch," said a statement of administration policy.

"Since these restrictions have been on the books, they have limited the Executive's ability to manage military operations in an ongoing armed conflict, harmed the country's diplomatic relations with allies and counterterrorism partners, and provided no benefit whatsoever to our national security," the statement said.

The restriction stemmed from debates in recent years over both transferring terrorist suspects to the United States and sending them back to their homes where some have rejoined terrorist groups.

"The administration also continues to oppose the prohibition on funding to construct, acquire or modify a detention facility in the United States to house any individual detained at Guantanamo, which shortsightedly constrains the options available to military and counterterrorism professionals to address evolving threats," the White House said, dubbing the restrictions "misguided when they were enacted."

Civil liberties advocates agree that suspects can be brought to the United States and tried in civilian courts, but many remain disappointed that Obama did not veto last year's NDAA, which codified the right of the executive to hold any terrorism suspect in military custody without trial.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/29/ndaa-veto_n_2213858.html

Senate votes down indefinite detention of Americans.

The Senate took a step Thursday toward ending the indefinite detention of Americans in the U.S., voting for a narrow amendment that some civil liberties groups opposed, even though they said it was in the right direction.

The measure, offered by Sen. Dianne Feistein (D-Calif.) as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013, specifies that citizens and legal residents suspected of terrorism in the U.S. cannot be held without trial indefinitely.

"I know this is a sensitive subject, but I really believe we stand on the values of our country, and the value of our country is justice for all," said Feinstein before the Senate voted 67 to 29 to add her provision to the NDAA.

Civil libertarians had problems with her amendment, even though many regarded it as a positive step.

The key sentence in her measure says: "An authorization to use military force, a declaration of war, or any similar authority shall not authorize the detention without charge or trial of a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States apprehended in the United States, unless an Act of Congress expressly authorizes such detention."

First, the rights groups argued, the measure does not provide justice for all, because it does not apply to non-citizens or Americans caught overseas.

"The constitutional requirements of due process of law apply to all persons within the United States," a coalition of 20 groups wrote in a letter to Feinstein Thursday. "The 5th Amendment to the Constitution states that 'No person shall be…deprived of…liberty…without due process of law.'"

The groups also said they worried that part of that sentence suggests that Congress believes it can write laws that abridge basic constitutional protections in the future.

"The clause 'unless an Act of Congress expressly authorizes such detention' could be read to imply that there are no constitutional obstacles to Congress enacting a statute that would authorize the domestic military detention of any person in the United States," the letter said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/29/indefinite-detention-senate-military-imprisonment_n_2215305.html

2013 version of NDAA makes it even easier to indefinitely detain Americans without charge or trial.

By Madison Ruppert:

Unfortunately, it looks like the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2013 makes it even easier for the U.S. government to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or trial.

Despite the many claims that Americans in fact could not be indefinitely detained under the 2012 version of the NDAA, a federal judge stated in court that Americans could be held indefinitely under the act earlier this year and ruled the provisions unconstitutional, a ruling which was quickly reversed by a judge appointed by Obama.

Some news outlets were falsely reporting that the new NDAA actually did more to protect the rights of Americans, but upon further scrutiny, they retracted the statements and indeed concluded that the new NDAA makes it easier for the government to detain U.S. citizens indefinitely.
The misleading passage, found in Section 1033, states:

Nothing in the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note) or the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (Public Law 112-81) shall be construed to deny the availability of the writ of habeas corpus or to deny any Constitutional rights in a court ordained or established by or under Article III of the Constitution for any person who is lawfully in the United States when detained pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note) and who is otherwise entitled to the availability of such writ or such rights.

Attorney Bruce Afran, one of the attorneys representing the activists and journalists who sued the Obama administration over the indefinite detention provisions in the 2012 NDAA, clarified the language to Business Insider.

Afran said that although indeed the provision gives U.S. citizens a right to a civilian trial (Article III) based on “any [applicable] constitutional rights,” there are no rules in place to actually exercise this right which means that detained Americans actually have no way to get access to lawyers, their family or even the court itself once they are detained by the military.

Afran also pointed out that the new NDAA goes beyond the previous version currently in place.
“The new statute actually states that persons lawfully in the U.S. can be detained under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force [AUMF]. The original (the statute we are fighting in court) never went that far,” said Afran.

“Therefore, under the guise of supposedly adding protection to Americans, the new statute actually expands the AUMF to civilians in the U.S.,” Afran added.

“The biggest thing about the [2012] NDAA was that you weren’t getting a trial … Nothing in here says that you’ll make it to an Article III court so it literally does nothing,” said Dan Johnson, the founder of People Against the NDAA (PANDA), to Business Insider. “It’s a bunch of words, basically.”
http://endthelie.com/2012/11/29/2013-version-of-ndaa-makes-it-even-easier-to-indefinitely-detain-americans-without-charge-or-trial/#axzz2DhlsxRhO

Washington Public schools put troubled students in an "isolation booth" (padded cell).

LONGVIEW, WA- Longview Public Schools administrators call it an "isolation booth" and photos of it are creating a Facebook firestorm.

Some parents say they're worried kids are being abused when they're locked inside it at school.

The isolation booth has been at Mint Valley Elementary School for the past four years. That's because the school hosts a special education program for disabled students with behavioral issues. The booth is used to calm down some of the students when they're at risk of hurting themselves or others.

Just hours after they were posted, photos of the isolation booth were shared on Facebook about 100 times.

The pictures show that from the outside, the booth is located in a storage area and has two peepholes at different heights. Inside, students can sit on the floor of the small padded room, and the ceiling has air holes for ventilation.

The original Facebook poster, Ana Bate, a Longview mother, criticized its use as abusive, arguing children are locked in for crying or tapping on their desks.

Comments echoed by other Facebook posters like Darren Pirtle asked "seriously ... have the police been notified that this is being used??"

Marcy Brinkerhoff-Hogg wrote, "that is terrible and should NEVER be used regardless if the child is out of control or not."

And Jena Raelyn Brown suggested, writing in all capital letters: "if a parent did that at home they would get put in jail!!!"

Bate, whose 10-year-old son is not in the special education program, told KATU News late Tuesday night that her son told her he saw several kids go in the box.

In one instance, a female aide came up behind a boy, picked him up off the floor and dropped him into the isolation box, she said. He landed on the floor and cried the entire time. In another instance a boy, who was placed inside the box for lifting up a desk, became violent while he was inside.

"My question for the school district is how is that therapeutic if not directly opposite from this supposed reinforcement they'd like everybody to believe it to be?" she said. "If they are being paid to lock people up, get extra education and work in mental health or psychiatric units, not with children that have minds that need to be explored, need to be expanded, that need to feel safe."

But the district does not think it is abusive.

"People have their own opinions without having a lot of the information about it. I would not classify it as abusive," said Sandy Catt, director of communications for Longview Public Schools.
Longview, WA- Longview Public Schools administrators call it an "isolation booth" and photos of it are creating a Facebook firestorm.

Some parents say they're worried kids are being abused when they're locked inside it at school.

The isolation booth has been at Mint Valley Elementary School for the past four years. That's because the school hosts a special education program for disabled students with behavioral issues. The booth is used to calm down some of the students when they're at risk of hurting themselves or others.

Just hours after they were posted, photos of the isolation booth were shared on Facebook about 100 times.

The pictures show that from the outside, the booth is located in a storage area and has two peepholes at different heights. Inside, students can sit on the floor of the small padded room, and the ceiling has air holes for ventilation.

The original Facebook poster, Ana Bate, a Longview mother, criticized its use as abusive, arguing children are locked in for crying or tapping on their desks.

Comments echoed by other Facebook posters like Darren Pirtle asked "seriously ... have the police been notified that this is being used??"

Marcy Brinkerhoff-Hogg wrote, "that is terrible and should NEVER be used regardless if the child is out of control or not."

And Jena Raelyn Brown suggested, writing in all capital letters: "if a parent did that at home they would get put in jail!!!"

Bate, whose 10-year-old son is not in the special education program, told KATU News late Tuesday night that her son told her he saw several kids go in the box.

In one instance, a female aide came up behind a boy, picked him up off the floor and dropped him into the isolation box, she said. He landed on the floor and cried the entire time. In another instance a boy, who was placed inside the box for lifting up a desk, became violent while he was inside.

"My question for the school district is how is that therapeutic if not directly opposite from this supposed reinforcement they'd like everybody to believe it to be?" she said. "If they are being paid to lock people up, get extra education and work in mental health or psychiatric units, not with children that have minds that need to be explored, need to be expanded, that need to feel safe."

But the district does not think it is abusive.

"People have their own opinions without having a lot of the information about it. I would not classify it as abusive," said Sandy Catt, director of communications for Longview Public Schools.
http://www.keprtv.com/news/local/Isolation-box-Abuse-or-therapy-for-Longview-school-kids-181195571.html

New Law criminalizes online student speech.

Raleigh, NC - A new state law, the 2012 School Violence Prevention Act, that will be the first in the nation to impose criminal sanctions on public school students who use computers with the "intent to intimidate or torment" school employees will go into effect Dec. 1.

“Nobody else feels like it’s necessary to criminalize student speech online,” said ACLU policy director Sarah Preston. Students 16 and older could go to jail for up to 60 days, she noted – even for posting true statements.

d more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/12/01/3700359/nc-may-be-first-state-to-charge.html#storylink=cpy

“Essentially, what we’re teaching students is it’s not OK to criticize government officials,” Preston said.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/12/01/3700359/nc-may-be-first-state-to-charge.html#storylink=cpy

The ACLU says the law gives them too much discretion, raising the prospect that students could face charges for criticizing administrators or accurately reporting offensive comments made by a teacher. And the group says the penalty – up to 60 days in jail or a $1,000 fine – is too harsh.

“Maturing students often say or post online things without fully understanding the consequences,” says an ACLU fact sheet on the law. “They should not receive a criminal record and be saddled with a lifetime of damaging consequences simply for posting something on the Internet that a school official finds offensive.”


Kenny Lynch, the CMS detective who specializes in online issues said parents need to be “nosy” and check on how kids are using those devices.

As part of its move toward “bring your own technology,” the CMS board recently approved a policy that requires “digital citizenship” training for students.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/12/01/3700359/nc-may-be-first-state-to-charge.html#storylink=cpy

The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina opposes the law because it is too broad, threatens to chill students' free speech, sets a bad precedent by telling students it's wrong to criticize government officials, and could saddle students as young as 16 with up to 60 days in jail or a $1,000 fine for a wide range of acts that do not merit a criminal punishment. The law would even criminalize true statements by prohibiting online statements "whether true or false, (emphasis added) intending to immediately provoke, and that is likely to provoke, any third party to stalk or harass a school employee."

The ACLU-NC is urging any student who is charged under this new law to contact its office.
"This law is so vague that it could easily result in a student being arrested simply for posting something on the Internet that a school official finds offensive," said ACLU-NC Policy Director Sarah Preston. "Young people should not be taught that they will be punished for telling the truth, speaking freely, or questioning authority - yet that is exactly what could happen under this law. If it is okay to criminalize students who criticize teachers online, what is to stop the government from making it illegal for any one of us to criticize some other government official, whether the comments are made online or not? We urge any student charged under this misguided law to contact our office immediately."
http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/new-law-criminalizing-online-student-speech-takes-effect-dec-1  http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20121202/int/int3.html

11 Brookline police officers have been disciplined or suspended in two years.

 MA - Six Brookline police officers have been disciplined for violations of the department’s detail policy and insubordination, police and a union lawyer said.

One officer was suspended, and the rest were hit with lesser punishments, said Brookline police spokesman Lt. Philip Harrington. He didn’t offer specifics, declining to release the officers’ names or say how they allegedly ran afoul of department rules, but said there was no threat to public safety.
“It was based on detail hiring,” he said.

Bryan Decker, a lawyer for the Brookline Police Union, said the alleged violations happened in the past year and the punishments were handed down over the past two weeks.

“There were some internal allegations that some officers had violated the policies and procedures about details. There was no allegation of criminal action or anything that would rise to that level,” Decker said.

He said the one officer was suspended for insubordination that was unrelated to the detail violations.
Selectman Kenneth Goldstein said police Chief Daniel O’Leary had told the board about an ongoing internal affairs investigation.

“There was an access to the detail list,” he said. “There are some findings. We expect to learn more at the next meeting. Of course, I’m concerned. We want to know that everything is being run by the book.”
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/202211296_brookline_officers_disciplined/

Town of Brookline police discipline policy:
http://www.brooklinema.gov/index.php?searchword=police+discipline&ordering=&searchphrase=all&Itemid=1&option=com_search

Five Brookline police officers suspended in 2010.

Last year, Officer Edward Amendola was at police headquarters during his regular shift, filling out an overtime slip for an upcoming assignment.

That’s when the department’s dispatchers contacted Amendola and ordered him to respond to a reported burglar alarm in a building a few minutes away.

Amendola acknowledged the call, and later told a superior officer he had to move another cruiser in the parking lot to free up his own police car and leave for the scene. He said he turned back when another officer called and told him police already checked the building.

Except that Amendola never left the station, according to a police investigation, which found he was “not being truthful” about the incident when questioned.

Video surveillance showed Amendola’s cruiser never left the station, nor did he ever respond to the burglar alarm. Amendola later apologized to a police investigator for “not being forthcoming” about the incident.

“An officer failing to respond after acknowledging the call places the sole responding unit in a potentially dangerous situation,” according to a report from the department’s office of professional responsibility, which accused him of neglect of duty.

Amendola’s case is one of several incidents of questionable police behavior in the past year, according to police records released to the TAB.

Those records also show five officers and one civilian Police Department employee have served unpaid suspensions due to discipline issues since January, including one officer who was kicked off the job for 30 days.

Brookline Police officers made headlines earlier this year in two high-profile cases involving alleged misconduct.

In March, four officers were placed on administrative leave and faced criminal complaints in connection with a Beacon Street fight involving a stripper’s bodyguard from Lynn. All charges in that case were eventually dismissed.

In a separate incident, Officer Scott Seto, a 24-year veteran of the department, was placed on paid administrative leave in May after police said he groped a woman in her home while he was on duty. Seto now faces charges of indecent assault and battery, along with assault and battery.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/brookline/news/x383302562/Five-Brookline-police-officers-suspended-in-2010#axzz2DcnkzUPZ

Civil asset forfeiture tramples citizens rights while filling state's coffers.

PA - When Philadelphia Police officers stopped Dwayne Marks as he was driving north on Broad Street near Temple University last year, Marks says he wasn’t particularly worried. Marks, who is a black man in his late 30s from East Mount Airy, has faced drug charges in the past — but he’s straightened up, he says. When the police asked whether he had a criminal background, “I told them, ‘Yeah,’” he recalls. “I told them the truth.” 

As he saw it, he had done nothing wrong and had nothing to hide. And so, when police asked to search his truck, Marks said they could go ahead.

He describes the encounter, initially that is, as calm. It was when police found more than $6,000 in cash in his car — money he says was related to a number of rental properties he owns, he says — that things changed.

“They … took me down to the district, handcuffed me, took my money … [searched] my whole truck again. Then they got a dog to sniff my whole truck out — and still didn’t find nothing.” There were no drugs on Marks or on his vehicle; no charges were filed. But the interaction wasn’t over, Marks says: “They got mad. … They said, ‘We’re going to make you go to court for your money, then.’”

Marks would soon find himself sucked into a strange, upside-down corner of the legal system, where the burden of proof would be reversed to rest on the accused, where those opposing him would seem to call the shots — and where the minor matter of his undisputed innocence of any charge would not seem to be a factor.

That police officers regularly confiscate cash from persons arrested in Philadelphia might not come as a surprise. State law allows police to seize money — and other personal property, including cars, guns, even real estate — from suspected criminals, as possible evidence in a criminal trial.

What you might not know is that that money is likely destined to become not just evidence but revenue for the Police Department and the District Attorney’s Office prosecuting the case — long before those alleged drug dealers are ever proven guilty or innocent in court, and often regardless of the outcome of any criminal proceedings.

By way of a process known as “civil asset forfeiture,” carried out in Philly by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, the DA may sue to take ownership of confiscated property and, if successful, keep it.

The law’s intent is straightforward enough: to target drug criminals (and, to a lesser extent, other types of criminals) by going after the proceeds and mechanisms of their crimes, and to use those ill-gotten gains for the benefit of the public.

The implementation, though, is more complicated. In Philadelphia, the law has laid the framework for a civil asset forfeiture program that brings in upwards of $6 million a year from cases against thousands of Philadelphians, with little oversight of how cases are pursued or how profits are distributed. And, as Marks learned all too well, that process has little regard for a property owner’s guilt or innocence. 

An investigation by City Paper, assisted by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism, into the Philadelphia District Attorney’s civil asset forfeiture process reveals one of the largest American municipal-forfeiture programs for which City Paper has seen statistics, and one that operates with great efficiency largely by allowing questions of guilt, innocence or whether a crime has even been alleged to come last, if at all. 

While the District Attorney’s Office files hundreds of cases each year seeking the forfeiture of real estate, this process is in many ways separate and distinct from the thousands of cases it files against seized currency or cash. It is the latter that brings in the bulk of forfeiture revenue — about $4.5 million — and City Paper focused primarily on currency forfeitures for this story.

CP analyzed records for thousands of forfeiture cases, spent weeks monitoring legal proceedings and spoke with many individuals caught up in the process of attempting to reclaim their property. The picture that emerged was a kind of “seize first, ask questions later” policy in forfeiting individuals’ money. You might think of it as a corollary to the better-known (and controversial) policy of “stop and frisk” that exists here and in other cities. Call it “stop and seize,” a legal dragnet that catches the innocent, guilty and unaccused alike.

Philadelphia’s civil forfeiture apparatus has been in place under previous district attorneys for the last couple decades, and appears to remain more or less unchanged so far under the new administration of District Attorney Seth Williams.  Through an analysis of years’ worth of court records, CP attempted to gain an understanding of Philadelphia’s forfeiture program, and found that, in size, scope and what you might call aggressiveness, it is in a class of its own. 

The Philadelphia DA pursues virtually every nickel seized by Philadelphia police officers; it does so without regard to the owner’s guilt or innocence; and it makes fighting to retrieve assests difficult and/or costly enough that few, innocent or not, will ever see their property returned.

Take as a point of comparison Allegheny County, which contains Pittsburgh and is the second-largest county in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia County). The Allegheny DA has filed roughly 200 civil forfeiture petitions since 2008.

In 2011 alone, the Philadelphia District Attorney filed 6,560 such cases.

It is a scale of magnitude that dwarfs forfeiture operations elsewhere in Pennsylvania — and that brings in substantially more revenue: more than $6 million annually in recent years, an amount equivalent to roughly one-sixth of the entire annual city budget allocated to the Philadelphia DA. Between 2004 and 2009, Philadelphia collected some $36 million via civil forfeiture — double the take of the three next-largest counties combined. 

The size of Philly’s forfeiture program isn’t just unprecedented within Pennsylvania. In 2010, for example, Kings County (Brooklyn), with a population 1.5 times that of Philadelphia, reported taking by forfeiture about $1.2 million in assets — less than one-fifth of what Philly took. Los Angeles County, with a population more than six-and-a-half times Philadelphia’s, also successfully sued to keep just $1.2 million in seized assets.

Those numbers aren’t direct comparisons: They don’t include sums collected via a federal “equitable sharing” program in which forfeitures are outsourced to federal agencies, with local law enforcement keeping most of the proceeds. But these programs also contain certain safeguards not present in Philly: Namely, federal guidelines stipulate a minimum amount for seizure of $2,000.

Philadelphia’s civil forfeiture unit, by contrast, amasses its impressive annual take by itself pursuing thousands of vastly smaller cases — and many, many more of them.

In 2010, for example, Los Angeles County’s 48 successful forfeiture cases raised about $25,000 per case. In the same year, the Philadelphia District Attorney filed more than 8,000 forfeiture cases for currency alone, for an average of just $550. In a sample of more than 100 cases from 2011 and 2012 reviewed by City Paper, the median amount was only $178. In many of these cases, the Philadelphia District Attorney sued to seize amounts less than $100.

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, in other words, isn’t just one of the most lucrative municipal  forfeiture units around; it also might be the pettiest.  

The implications are perhaps bigger than these unassuming amounts suggest. To be as massive a forfeiture operation as it is while pursuing such relatively tiny amounts of money means that the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office must somehow pursue, process and ultimately win an enormous volume of cases — which it does.

Forfeiture cases involving cash are generated directly from the property receipts filed by police, which are reviewed for certain loose criteria: generally, the involvement of drugs, gambling or prostitution. The information on the receipts is then copied into a series of form letters that serve as the basis for legal service, for the petition for forfeiture and as an affirmation that “the facts of the case set forth in the foregoing petition are true.”

It’s a system that allows a tremendous number of cases — and ultimately, a vast amount of revenue — to be generated by a relatively small number of people at a rapid pace. (Just two assistant district attorneys typically work on civil asset forfeiture cases, according to Beth Grossman, chief of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Public Nuisance Task Force, which includes the forfeiture unit.)

And once a petition is filed, the DA’s advantage over the erstwhile property owner (here, called the “respondent”) is extraordinary, and often overpowering.

Whether these cases have merit or not is a question rarely determined by a judge or jury. Instead, the DA can rely on one primary, brilliantly simple means of winning its cases: default. Default judgments, in fact, account for the bulk of the DA’s successful forfeiture. Roughly 80 percent of the thousands of cases filed annually will begin and end on a single day, the case’s first listing in court, usually when the property’s owner fails to appear. 

The abundance of no-shows surely speaks, in many instances, to the strength of the DA’s case. But there are other reasons that many people may fail to fight for their property.

For one thing, whether those being relieved of their property by default are even aware of the proceedings is an open question. Grossman says that all respondents are given proper service via certified mail, and if the letter comes back unsigned, they are served personally by process servers. But certificates of legal service — usually included in standard civil dockets — are not included in physical court files of these cases. 

http://www.citypaper.net/news/2012-11-29-civil-asset-forfeiture.html

Accidents become more frequent and more severe one year after red light cameras installed according to the New Jersey DOT.

NJ - Traffic accident injuries spiked at the intersections where red light cameras were installed in New Jersey, according to a report released Monday by the state Department of Transportation (NJDOT). Under the state law that authorized photo ticketing program in 2008, NJDOT officials must closely monitor the 25 municipalities and 83 intersections using automated ticketing machines. The department's second annual report found the total number of accidents at these intersections increased a statistically insignificant amount one year after the devices were installed -- from 577 before the devices were installed to 582 collisions with ticketing in place. The number of rear end collisions increased a significant 20 percent.

"National reports of RLR programs have generally shown a slight to moderate rise in same-direction crashes due to sudden stops by motorists knowing of the presence of RLR cameras," the NJDOT report explained.

NJDOT officials attempted to paint the program in the most positive light possible. The report claimed the right-angle crashes were "more severe" than rear end collisions, implying the cameras may have provided a modest safety benefit. The actual data suggest the opposite is true. Before cameras were installed, there were no accidents at the monitored intersections serious enough to merit an "A" rating, which generally means a crash victim was admitted at a hospital for treatment of a disabling injury. Once ticketing commenced, the only "A" accident recorded was a rear end collision -- not an angle collision -- at the intersection of Blackwood‐Clementon Road and Cherrywood Drive in Gloucester Township.

The next level of severity, "B," is applied when victims suffer contusions, large lacerations or other visible injuries. Prior to camera use, there was one rear end and one angle accident meriting a "B" rating. After cameras installed, these figures shot up to 5 angle and 4 rear end "B" accidents. The only category seeing an accident reduction at the photo enforced locations were angle collisions that produced minor, property-damage-only collisions. Despite the mediocre results, NJDOT was not ready to call the program a failure.

"The data are still too limited to draw any definitive conclusions about the pilot program at this time," the report explained. "The department therefore recommends continued data collection and monitoring of RLR program intersections."

Another 37 cities and towns throughout New Jersey have lined up to get in on the red light camera pilot project, but state Senator Michael J. Doherty (R-Washington Township) says it is time to pull the plug.

"If the legislature does not move to immediately terminate the pilot program in light of the new data confirming that cameras make intersections more dangerous, that will be proof positive that the real purpose of red light cameras is to give government another way to reach into your pocket through tickets and fines," Doherty said in a statement.
http://thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2012/nj-rlcreport2.pdf

NMA warns motorists the timing of yellow lights might be shortened, resulting in a moving violation being issued.

The National Motorists Association (NMA) has a warning for the millions of drivers hitting the road for the busy holiday travel season: Beware of the yellow lights.

The timing of yellow lights on traffic signals at many intersections is purposely set to a minimum so more drivers can be ticketed for running red lights, says the 30-year-old activist group based in Waunakee, Wis.

This past summer in New Jersey, the transportation department ordered 21 cities and towns to suspend the use of red-light cameras at 63 intersections because the timing of yellow lights at those locations was below the minimum established by state law.

Other cities-including Dallas; Chattanooga, Tenn.; and Union City, Calif.—have been caught shortening yellow lights in the past decade as red-light cameras have become sources of steady revenue. The cameras snap photos of license plates on any vehicles in an intersection while the light is red, and citations, often carrying fines of $100 or more, are mailed to the registration’s address.

“Cities and for-profit camera companies maximize revenue by setting yellow-light times that are too short,” said National Motorists Association President Gary Biller. “It is a violation of the public trust, and it jeopardizes motorist, cyclist, and pedestrian safety.”

Ironically, slightly longer yellow lights can significantly increase safety by allowing more time for intersections to clear, the group says. Biller cited one study that found just one additional second of yellow time can reduce the number of collisions in an intersection by 40 percent.

Longer yellow lights also greatly reduce the number of red-light violations. A recent Texas study concluded, "Lengthening the yellow light interval by as little as 0.5 to 1.5 seconds decreases the incidence of red-light running violations by 50 percent or more,” Biller said in a Nov. 16 letter to the head of the Federal Highway Administration, Victor Mendez.

The NMA wants the FHWA to mandate minimum national standards for yellow-light duration. Currently, the federal agency offers only “guidance” suggesting that yellow lights should last between 3 and 6 seconds. “There’s an ongoing debate in the traffic-engineering community about what the standard should be,” said NMA spokesman John Bowman.
http://www.govexec.com/oversight/2012/11/dreaded-yellow-light-may-be-trap-traffic-violations/59683/

Maryland legislative audit report raises doubts about reliability of speed camera evidence.  

Critics of the speed camera program in Maryland received a significant boost this week as an official investigation has documented their long-standing concerns. The General Assembly's Office of Legislative Audits was asked to look at the books at the State Highway Administration (SHA), and problems with the state's highway "work zone" speed cameras immediately stood out.

"SHA did not ensure that contractor performance benchmarks were established for the pilot program, and we noted certain issues regarding the reliability and readability of the photographed violations," acting Legislative Auditor Thomas J. Barnickel III wrote.

StopBigBrotherMD.org has been documenting the program's legal and accuracy issues since the state signed a contract with Affiliated Computer Services (ACS, now a part of Xerox) on June 22, 2010. ACS runs lidar-based mobile speed camera vans on freeways where the speed limit has been lowered in designated work zones, regardless of whether workers are actually present.

The state set up its request for proposals so that ACS, a highly connected firm, would land the lucrative deal. ACS had spent $211,453 to lobbby lawmakers in 2009 and was able to act without much oversight once it landed the lucrative deal.

"The current contract for operating the automated speed monitoring system was executed even though the successful contractor's proposal, which was the only proposal received, did not comply with certain request for proposal requirements," Barnickel wrote. "SHA also lacked adequate assurance that the contractor was meeting a key performance requirement."

SHA did not bother measuring ACS performance against objective measures, even though such oversight was a contract requirement. The auditor noted that 56 percent of the camera photographs that were taken turned out to have unreadable license plates or unreliable speed readings. The auditor was concerned this represented the loss of $3 million in revenue. Even though SHA specified the speed camera system had to be certified as accurate by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the ACS system had not been certified by April 2012. The department did hire a private consultant to establish the reliability of the camera speed readings, but the auditor raised serious doubts about the procedures used.
http://thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2012/md-shaaudit.pdf


NMA engineer says Virginia Beach, VA., has created an illegal right turn ticketing trap.

A traffic engineer with the National Motorists Association is taking on what he calls a dangerous intersection in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Engineer J.J. Bahen Jr. began investigating one particular location in response to an NMA member who raised questions about a citation sent to her in the mail by Redflex Traffic Systems of Australia.

"As you may know, we received a heated complaint from a local resident about a camera citation she received for failing to stop before making a right-turn-on-red from southbound Great Neck Road to westbound Virginia Beach Boulevard," Bahen wrote to Virginia Beach's senior traffic engineer. "After waiting two cycles of the traffic signal behind drivers in the dedicated right-turn lane who appeared to be spooked by the 'Photo Enforced' signs, she crossed the stop bar without stopping 0.76 second after the beginning of the 3-second all-red clearance interval."

Bahen's analysis shows the city has been forcing drivers to wait unnecessarily in traffic by displaying a red light at the location when proper engineering principles suggest a green right-turn arrow would be more appropriate, providing the safest and most efficient flow of traffic.

"Since all conflicting traffic was being held by the all-red, she could not have possibly caused a crash," Bahen wrote. "In fact, the Redflex video showed that, because of the all-red interval and the start-up period, there was no conflicting traffic for six seconds after she had fully cleared the intersection. If there is a compelling traffic safety reason for impeding rush-hour traffic with strict enforcement of benign technical right turn on red violations during the all-red clearance interval, please tell us what it is."

Virginia Beach depends on these right turn violations 82.3 percent of the photo ticket revenue generated citywide. The Great Neck location alone allowed Redflex to mail out 24,400 citations since June 1, 2009, even though the intersection has no documented history of crashes caused by turning right on red. A federal report shows such turns are rarely dangerous (view report). In addition to the turning problem, Bahen said straight-through traffic is also being shortchanged with a yellow time of just 4.3 seconds.

"The recommended methodology of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) is that yellow intervals be based on the 85th percentile speed of free-flowing vehicles, not the posted limit," wrote Bahen, an ITE member. "The difference between the two is generally 7 MPH. Virginia law requires that the ITE methodology be used. Therefore, an interval of 4.8 seconds is required. Camera enforcement of short yellow intervals always increases crash rates."

Bahen recommended the General Assembly modify the red light camera authorization statute to increase the minimum grace period before issuing a photo ticket to 3.0 seconds.
http://thenewspaper.com/news/39/3965.asp 

DHS adds underwater drones to their arsenal.

Meet Robocod, the latest weapon in Homeland Security's increasingly high-tech underwater arsenal, a robotic fish designed to safeguard the coastline of America and bring justice to the deep.

Well almost.

The new robot, named BioSwimmer, is actually based not on a cod but a tuna which is said to have the ideal natural shape for an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV).

Its ultra-flexible body coupled with mechanical fins and tail allow it to dart around the water just like a real fish even in the harshest of environments.  

And while it does have a number of security applications, this high maneuverability makes it perfectly suited for accessing hard-to-reach places such as flooded areas of ships, sea chests and parts of oil tankers.

Other potential missions include inspecting and protecting harbors and piers, performing area searches and military applications.

BioSwimmer uses the latest battery technology for long-duration operation and boasts an array of navigation, sensor processing, and communications equipment designed for constricted spaces.

It is being developed by Boston Engineering Corporation's Advanced Systems Group (ASG) based in Waltham, MA.

Boston Engineering's Advanced Systems Group (ASG) is engaged in various technology development programs and is heavily active in the SBIR/STTR programs.  Current customers include ONR, TARDEC, NAVAIR, NAVSEA and Homeland Security S&T.  Current programs include: advancing UXV (Unmanned Vehicles) technologies, advanced AUVs (Autonomous Underwater Vehicles), advanced underwater control surfaces, advanced intelligent UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle) payloads, UAV capture and turnaround systems, integrated sensing, high maneuver platforms and more.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2239705/Robocod-Homeland-Security-adds-underwater-drones-arsenal-robots-based-fish.html

Police are amassing a large database of stolen cell-phone records.

New York - When a cellphone is reported stolen in New York, the police department routinely subpoenas the phone’s call records, from the day of the theft onward. The logic is simple: If a thief uses the phone, a list of incoming and outgoing calls could lead to the suspect.

But in the process, the Police Department has quietly amassed a trove of telephone logs, all obtained without a court order, that could conceivably be used for any investigative purpose. 

The call records from the stolen cellphones are integrated into a database known as the Enterprise Case Management System, according to Police Department documents from the detective bureau. Each phone number is hyperlinked, enabling detectives to cross-reference it against phone numbers in other files. 

The subpoenas not only cover the records of the thief’s calls, but also encompass calls to and from the victim on the day of the theft. In some cases the records can include calls made to and from a victim’s new cellphone, if the stolen phone’s number has been transferred, three detectives said in interviews. 

Police officials declined to say how many phone records are contained in the database, or how often they might have led to arrests. But police documents suggest that thousands of subpoenas have been issued each year, with each encompassing anywhere from dozens to hundreds of phone calls. 

To date, phone companies have appeared willing to accede to the Police Department’s requests for large swaths of call records. Memos issued Sept. 28 by the chief of detectives, Phil T. Pulaski, instruct detectives to prepare subpoenas for stolen phones assigned to AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile or Metro-PCS. With these carriers, the police do not generally seek the victims’ consent; in fact, the subpoenas are executed without the victims’ knowledge. (It does not appear that subpoenas are issued when the stolen phone is served by Sprint Nextel. In those cases, detectives are instructed to ask the victim to fill out consent forms that authorize Sprint Nextel to release call records and location information to the police.) 

“If large amounts of victim phone records are being collected and added to a searchable database, it’s very troubling,” said Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who represents wireless carriers, in a phone interview. 

“We’re all used to the concept of growing databases of criminal information,” Mr. Sussmann, of the firm Perkins Coie, said, “but now you’re crossing over that line and drawing in victim information.” 

Police officials would not say if detectives had used the call records of any cellphone theft victims in the course of investigating other crimes. Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, did not reply to more than half a dozen requests for comments. 

The practice of accumulating the phone numbers in a searchable database is “eye-opening and alarming,” a civil rights lawyer, Norman Siegel, said when told of the protocol for subpoenaing phone records. “There is absolutely no legitimate purpose for doing this. If I’m an innocent New Yorker, why should any of my information be in a police database?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/nyregion/new-york-city-police-amassing-a-trove-of-cellphone-logs.html?ref=technology&_r=0

Judge orders tobacco companies to admit they've deliberately deceived the American public.

Washington, DC – A federal judge today ordered tobacco companies to admit that they have deliberately deceived the American public and finally tell the truth about their deadly and addictive products and fraudulent marketing. Today's ruling is a critical step toward ending decades of tobacco industry deception that has resulted in millions of premature deaths, untold suffering and billions in health care costs. Requiring the tobacco companies to finally tell the truth is a small price to pay for the devastating consequences of their wrongdoing.

Companies including Altria Group Inc. (MO)’s Philip Morris USA were told by a judge they must publish warnings with their products, in advertisements and on their websites saying they lied to the public about the health hazards of smoking.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler in Washington yesterday ruled on the text of so-called corrective statements proposed by the Justice Department. According to the ruling, one states: “Tobacco companies intentionally designed cigarettes to make them more addictive.” Another says: “All cigarettes cause cancer, lung disease, heart attacks, and premature death.”

The case is USA v. Philip Morris USA, et al, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 99-cv-02496.

The statements stem from the government’s 1999 case against the tobacco industry. In 2006, Kessler found the defendants, also including Reynolds American Inc. (RAI)’s R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and Lorillard Inc. (LO)’s Lorillard Tobacco, violated anti- racketeering law by conspiring to hide cigarettes’ risks.

Kessler previously ordered the companies to stop marketing cigarettes as “light” and “low-tar” and to make statements about the health effects of smoking in newspapers and magazines and on materials attached to cigarette packages.

“This court has heeded its mandate to fashion corrective statements that are purely factual and uncontroversial and are directed at preventing and restraining the defendants from deceiving the American public in the future,” Kessler said in yesterday’s 55-page ruling.

Each of the five categories of statements begins with a similar introduction stating that “a federal court has ruled that the defendant tobacco companies deliberately deceived the American public” then says “here is the truth” before going into specifics on the dangers of smoking, health effects of exposure to secondhand smoke, the addictiveness of nicotine and the manipulation of cigarette design and composition.

One statement among those on adverse health effects reads: “More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol, combined.”
 
"Requiring the tobacco companies to finally tell the truth is a small price to pay for the devastating consequences of their wrongdoing," said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an anti-tobacco group in Washington.

"These statements do exactly what they should do. They're clear, to the point, easy to understand, no legalese, no scientific jargon, just the facts," said Ellen Vargyas, general counsel for the American Legacy Foundation, which is known for its "Truth" advertising campaign that began in 2000 and was credited with curbing smoking by the young.

The largest cigarette companies in the United States spent $8.05 billion in 2010 to advertise and promote their products, down from $12.5 billion in 2006, according to a report issued in September by the Federal Trade Commission.

The major tobacco companies, which fought having to use words like "deceived" in the statements, citing concern for their rights of free speech, had a muted response.

Yesterday’s ruling didn’t set a deadline for publication. The types of media the companies use to convey commercial messages changed dramatically in the six years since her initial ruling, the judge said. She told the parties to report to her by March 1 on efforts to devise a plan to disseminate the statements. 

Some tobacco companies are challenging the FDA law in a separate case. In March, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon blocked the FDA’s requirement that tobacco companies add graphic warning labels to cigarette packages by September 2012. The Obama Administration appealed the ruling. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard that appeal, but has not yet ruled on the case. Any decision is likely to be appealed further, and could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-27/altria-group-corrective-ad-statements-decided-by-u-s-judge.html
http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2012/11_-_November/Judge_orders_tobacco_companies_to_admit_deception_publicly/

Philadelphia's Fusion Center wasted $20 million in taxpayer dollars and it's still not operational.

A Philadelphia-based anti-terror hub is now six years in the making, having already costs tens of millions of dollars, but isn't even operating yet. (City Of Philadelphia Bill # 10046)

The building in South Philadelphia has been singled out as a prime example of questionable homeland security spending.

"Maybe we're just spending too much money and not getting the return on investment," Edward Turzanski, Assistant Vice President for Government and Community Relations at LaSalle University, said.

The most disturbing aspect of this is that even if it was operational, it would likely still be churning out garbage data (improperly labeled “intelligence”), as was found by a Senate panel earlier this year which concluded that these types of fusion centers produce “predominantly useless information” and “a bunch of crap.”

This conclusion was hardly surprising since previous reports indicated that fusion centers produce largely useless intelligence.

The official name for the yet-to-be-operational fusion center in Philadelphia is the Delaware Valley Intelligence Center (DVIC) which, according to WPVI, would “bring local, state and federal agencies, along with private industry, under one roof to gather and share intelligence.”

The mention of private industry is interesting, since it's often ignored by most mainstream media outlets. 

The DVIC will perform the role of a regional Fusion Center. The Center will support and enhance the activities of the numerous investigative and operational bodies currently functioning in these states by enabling them to have the best available information and assessments of that information.

Using an “All Crimes Model” that supports the migration, processing and integration of data from a myriad of loosely federated sources, the DVIC will develop actionable intelligence and get it to the right people in a timely fashion so that it can be used against designated adversaries with assurance. (Who are these adversaries? Do they mean activists, bloggers?)

Some legislators have begun to express concern about fusion centers like DVIC. One such individual is Congressman Pat Meehan, chair of the Subcommittee on Counter Terrorism and Intelligence.
“Does it start to become something that looks for a mission to justify itself?” Meehan asked. Unfortunately, it seems that the answer to Meehan’s question is a strong yes.

DVIC is slated to house 130 employees and WPVI rightly asks, “what exactly will those 130 employees be doing every day?”

They note that currently the much smaller DVIC unit churns out bulletins with one example being “warning of a hazard to children from swallowing detergent packs that look like candy,” something which obviously has nothing to do with terrorism.

“Not the kind of thing that should be justifying this kind of investment, no doubt,” Meehan said.

According to WPVI, last month’s bipartisan senate report singled out the DVIC as “a prime example of lax oversight and waste.”

The report said that the money is being improperly devoted to new construction and that Philadelphia is planning to use the DVIC for other police services, a use which is obviously not in line with the supposed purpose of such fusion centers.

The anti-terrorism hub was “supposed to be a state-of-the-art intelligence center, but some are calling it a wasteful white elephant,” according to David Henry of local ABC affiliate WPVI in PA.

Henry goes on to cite the tragic events of September 11, 2001 as the “9/11 was the wakeup call that government agencies need to share intelligence about possible terror activity.” The only problem is that fusion centers do nothing to actually produce or share intelligence about possible terror activity.

In fact, fusion centers more often than not simply churn out virulent disinformation like the so-called MIAC Report. It doesn’t help that State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training (SLATT) programs reinforce the nonsensical ideas in the MIAC Report by claiming that bumper stickers are an indicator of potential terrorist activity.

When the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) puts out information claiming that pretty much all bodily movement is an indicator of potential terrorism, by comparison a bumper sticker looks almost reasonable.

Nowadays, just about everything you can possibly do can and perhaps will be considered an indicator of terrorism according to the DHS, FBI and the various fusion centers.

The Philadelphia fusion center was granted $11 million by the DHS, according to WPVI, and the city approved another $9 million for the lease, bringing the total to at least $20 million for a still non-operational fusion center.
http://endthelie.com/2012/11/28/six-years-tens-of-millions-of-dollars-and-philadelphias-fusion-center-still-isnt-operational/#axzz2Dc7A2YWX
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/special_reports&id=8891872

10 Philadelphia judges, including state Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery accused of ticket fixing.

As many as 10 current or former Philadelphia judges, including state Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery, could face state disciplinary proceedings following an investigative report on Philadelphia Traffic Court.

The list includes three sitting Traffic Court judges; five who no longer hear cases or have been suspended from the Traffic Court bench; one Municipal Court judge, Joseph J. O'Neill Sr., who successfully appealed a red-light ticket; and McCaffery, whose contact with the Traffic Court's director of operations about a ticket for his wife was questioned.

"Judges alleged to have engaged in unethical or inappropriate conduct have been referred to the Supreme Court and the Judicial Conduct Board," consultant William G. Chadwick wrote in the conclusion of his 35-page report. The report, set up by Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille, was submitted last week to Gary S. Glazer, the Common Pleas Court judge now in charge of Traffic Court operations.

The Judicial Conduct Board was created in 1993 to consider complaints about ethical misconduct by judges. Its operations are confidential, but its basic procedures are not. Its chief counsel directs a preliminary review of any complaint. The 12-member board then decides whether to authorize a full investigation.

After a full investigation, the board would either dismiss the complaint or file formal charges, to be tried publicly before another agency, the Court of Judicial Discipline.

Despite a Supreme Court rule that Traffic Court judges "shall not allow their family, social, or other relationships to influence their judicial conduct or judgment," Chadwick's report alleged that the court had established actual procedures for providing "special consideration" for the favored few.

Every judge at Traffic Court participated in the practice, Chadwick concluded, either dismissing tickets or downgrading violations to protect the offender's driving record.

Chadwick said the practice was confirmed by 22 court employees who consented to interviews. "These practices violated established standards of conduct for the minor judiciary," Chadwick wrote.

"You'd be surprised at how many complaints are filed," Stretton said. "It doesn't necessarily take a whole lot to resolve them."

Bruce Ledewitz, a professor of law at Duquesne Law School, said "there's probably a file open on half the judges in Philadelphia at any one time."
http://articles.philly.com/2012-11-28/news/35412838_1_traffic-court-municipal-court-court-of-judicial-discipline

So many Americans are being charged with terrorism, the Federal Court had to create a "Terrorism Panel."

In New York, rounding up “the usual suspects” in terrorism cases nowadays may well refer to the defense lawyers.

As Islamic terrorists from around the world are brought to Federal District Court in Manhattan or Brooklyn to face prosecution, an extraordinary outgrowth has been a deepening pool of lawyers qualified to represent them. It is a peculiar niche of defense work, requiring skills not always taught in law school. 

These lawyers often must obtain government security clearances, and become adept at navigating the laws involving classified information and foreign intelligence searches. They often travel overseas to interview witnesses and a client’s family members. “Not only do you have the substantive law and the procedural law, but you have the whole cultural orientation,” said Anthony L. Ricco, who has represented a series of terrorism defendants over the past two decades. 

These lawyers do not need to advertise in subways and buses; they are typically appointed by judges from a group of seasoned lawyers who have agreed to take on criminal assignments and in some cases have ended up handling a variety of terrorism matters over the years. It was no surprise then that last month, three new terrorism defendants who appeared in the city’s federal courts within 11 days all received lawyers who had extensive experience in handling such cases. 

“By any metric you use,” said Ronald L. Kuby, the lawyer for a Queens imam who became ensnared in the investigation of a subway bomb plot, “New York is home of the terror bar.” 

In Brooklyn, for example, to be prepared as new cases arrive, the federal court recently finalized a “Terrorism Panel” of three dozen lawyers specially recruited to handle such assignments. 

Not every lawyer wants to handle terrorism defense — some declined to join the Brooklyn terrorism panel, for example. But others said they were drawn to such matters because they were so different from the run-of-the-mill gun possession cases. 

“Any criminal defense lawyer who enjoys the profession, who enjoys the calling, will gravitate toward these kinds of cases simply because they are the most challenging,” said David A. Ruhnke, an expert on the death penalty who has represented several terrorism defendants. 

The terrorism panel of 36 lawyers created by Brooklyn’s federal court is in addition to a separate list of 46 lawyers for capital cases, Magistrate Judge Cheryl L. Pollak, who made recruiting calls herself, said recently. 

Because of the complexity of such cases, these lawyers often rely on one another for advice. 

Ms. Jestin was motivated to join Mr. Khan’s defense team, she said, by public reports he had been tortured while in C.I.A. custody overseas and by the general lack of judicial process afforded to Guantánamo detainees. 

“I think for me it’s having just a deep belief in the legitimacy of our federal system and the rule of law,” she said. “His prior lack of process — I find that so offensive as an American.” 

Ms. Harris said a defense lawyer’s goal was always to hold the government accountable. “But it feels like in these cases,” she said, “the stakes are the greatest, not only for the individual but for the system as a whole.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/nyregion/expertise-in-terror-law-is-a-growing-niche-in-new-york.html?smid=pl-share

Schools are teaching students the Boston Tea Party was an act of terrorism.

TX - Some Texas parents are upset over a history lesson that depicts the Boston Tea Party as an act of terrorism.

The historical protest against taxation without representation will mark its 239th anniversary next month. But a report by The Blaze, a right-wing site started by Glenn Beck, reveals that as recently as this January, the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative included a lesson plan that portrays the Boston Tea Party as a non-patriotic act, instructing teachers to read a story to their students as a recent news report:

News report: New Act of Terrorism A local militia, believed to be a terrorist organization, attacked the property of private citizens today at our nation’s busiest port. Although no one was injured in the attack, a large quantity of merchandise, considered to be valuable to its owners and loathsome to the perpetrators, was destroyed. The terrorists, dressed in disguise and apparently intoxicated, were able to escape into the night with the help of local citizens who harbor these fugitives and conceal their identities from the authorities. It is believed that the terrorist attack was a response to the policies enacted by the occupying country’s government. Even stronger policies are anticipated by the local citizens.

The lesson plan then asks teachers to ask students if the event in the news report meets the definition of a terrorist attack, and whether the act is "from a previous time in our history."

The lesson is a product of CSCOPE, a nonprofit offshoot of the Texas Education Service Centers of 20 media and "education service" centers established in 1965 across the state's school districts, playing "an integral role in the provision of necessary and essential services to school districts and charter schools in the implementation of school reform and school improvement." CSCOPE is reported to have received about $25 million in funding last year.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/26/boston-tea-party-was-act-_n_2193916.html

Further proof this is not an isolated incident read more:

"Disturbing high school textbooks are teaching students about the war on terror & the Patriot Act from a biased perspective."

http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2012/11/disturbing-high-school-textbooks-are.html

Wrongful convictions conference. (Video)

Crime lab scandal could affect 10,000 cases.

Massachusetts - The state’s public defender agency estimates it could need up to $332 million to represent thousands of people who faced criminal penalties or civil sanctions based on evidence potentially tainted at the now-closed state drug laboratory in ­Jamaica Plain.

The Committee for Public Counsel Services developed the budget projection as it seeks money from the Patrick administration to deal with the fallout from the drug lab scandal linked to chemist Annie Dookhan, who allegedly told State Police she falsified ­results.

The scale of the scandal came into sharper focus Tuesday when the attorney leading a state investigation into the drug lab, ordered by Governor Deval Patrick, provided the latest figures on how many people might be affected.

Boston attorney David Meier said his team has identified at least 10,000 people so far who were prosecuted based on drug testing conducted by Dookhan during the nine years she worked at the Department of Public Health lab.

Meier stressed that even more people could be affected because his team has not completed its inquiry into prosecutions in the district court and the Boston Municipal Court system, where most drug cases are prosecuted in the state’s criminal justice system.

 Lisa Hewitt, general counsel for the agency, said the $332 million is an estimate that ­assumes each of the 190,000 cases handled at the lab since 2003 would have to be litigated and that an attorney would have to be assigned to represent each defendant. Hewitt said many of the cases could be resolved if prosecutors chose to dismiss the charges.

“This is the worst-case scenario,’’ Hewitt said. “. . . We do not want this to come to pass. But we do ­believe it is in our scope of ­responsibility to find these ­clients.’’

Hewitt said the public ­defender agency, when required by law, will represent ­indigent clients in probate and family court, where they have lost, or may lose, parental rights because of what may be declared unlawful convictions. Spending on those cases would be in addition to the $332 million, she said.

“There are a lot of really, ­really massive problems with this situation,’’ Hewitt said.

Also Tuesday, Cape and ­Islands District Attorney ­Michael O’Keefe, the incoming president of the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association, said prosecutors have finalized their budget request and believe they need $12.7 million for more prosecutors, support staff, and in some cases, office space and computers, for all Dookhan-related cases.
http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2012/11/27/official-says-state-lab-scandal-has-impacted-people-probe-expand/6mXSB6blIIgkq5oXaMVzXM/story.html

Police say Hurricane Sandy damaged or destroyed evidence in numerous criminal cases.

New York - Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said Tuesday that facilities used for storing evidence in criminal cases suffered flooding during Hurricane Sandy.

“In some of our storage locations we have evidence that has been damaged,” Mr. Kelly told reporters Tuesday morning. “Significant flooding has taken place, no question about it.”


The damaged evidence may include DNA samples, he said.

Mr. Kelly said the property clerk facilities that experienced flooding were in Brooklyn, and at least one is in the Greenpoint neighborhood. It was not immediately clear whether the evidence at issue was being stored for use in pending prosecutions, or was in storage following convictions.

“We’re still trying to sort through this and assess the total damage,” he said.

Mr. Kelly said the damage to the evidence could potentially affect the outcome of individual criminal cases. “We’ll see,” he said.

Prosecutors say they are concerned that the damage to evidence stored at the Erie Basin and Kingsland facilities, both located in Brooklyn, could affect ongoing cases.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/20/police-say-storm-damaged-evidence/?goback=.gmp_1829117.gde_1829117_member_190531327

The Illinois Supreme Court allows citizens to videotape police officers.

Chicago, IL - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal of a controversial Illinois law prohibiting people from recording police officers on the job.

By passing on the issue, the justices left in place a Federal Appeals court ruling that found that the state's anti-eavesdropping law violates free-speech rights when used against people who audiotape police officers.


A temporary injunction issued after that June ruling effectively bars Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez from prosecuting anyone under the current statute. On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit against Alvarez, asked a federal judge hearing the case to make the injunction permanent, said Harvey Grossman, legal director of the ACLU of Illinois.

Grossman said he expected that a permanent injunction would set a precedent across Illinois that effectively cripples enforcement of the law.

Alvarez's office will be given a deadline to respond to the ACLU request, but on Monday, Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for Alvarez, said a high court ruling in the case could have provided "prosecutors across Illinois with legal clarification and guidance with respect to the constitutionality and enforcement" of the statute.

Illinois' eavesdropping law is one of the harshest in the country, making audio recording of a law enforcement officer — even while on duty and in public — a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

The Supreme Court's refusal to grant certiorari in the case doesn't necessarily mean the justices endorse the lower court's ruling. But it does mean that at least six of the current justices weren't so opposed to the ruling that they felt the case needed to be heard.

The First and 7th circuit decisions mean that it is now technically legal to record on-duty police officers in every state in the country. Unfortunately, people are still being arrested for it. Police officers who want to make an arrest to intimidate would-be videographers can always use broadly-written laws that prohibit public disorder, interfering with a police officer, or similar ordinances that give law enforcement wide discretion.

The charges are almost always either subsequently dropped or dismissed in court, but by then the innocent person has been illegally detained, arrested, sometimes jailed, and possibly paid expensive legal fees.

Judge Diane Sykes ruling: http://www.abajournal.com/files/EavesdroppingLaw.pdf

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-supreme-court-rejects-plea-to-prohibit-taping-of-police-20121126,0,686331.story
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/scotus-leaves-in-place-ruling-that-protects-right-to-record-police/ 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/supreme-court-recording-police_n_2201016.html 

Chicago’s State Attorney doing all she can to keep draconian state eavesdropping law alive.

Chicago, IL - Cook County State Attorney Anita Alvarez – an ambitious career prosecutor with history a selective prosecution – who is doing everything she can to keep the law in place, even after the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals  ruled in May that it “likely violates” the Constitution, sending it back down to the lower court to be tried.

Undeterred by that ruling, Alvarez halted the lower court’s proceedings to allow her to petition the 7th Circuit to review the case en blanc; Latin Legalese meaning all ten appellate judges would have had to rule on it instead of the three that did.

When that was laughed down, she petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court in the hopes it would overrule the Seventh Circuit’s decision.

the Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear the case, which is even a bigger slap in the face to Alvarez, sending it back down to the lower court where the debate began in 2010 after the ACLU filed a preliminary injunction to stop these absurd arrests; fourteen which had been prosecuted during the previous eight years, including three by Alvarez.

But this time, Alvarez can’t depend on Judge Suzanne Conlon to blindly dismiss the ACLU’s complaint as she did twice before on the basis that she failed to see the Constitutional implications in the law, which is what prompted the ACLU to appeal it before the 7th Circuit in the first place.

This time the issue will go before Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman who is almost sure to to use the 7th Circuit’s decision in her ruling as well as this week’s Supreme Court’s acceptance of the decision.

But even when and if Coleman rules the law unconstitutional, Alvarez will no doubt appeal it before the 7th Circuit again, which should be so annoyed with her by this time that it should waste no time in ruling the law unconstitutional and hopefully give her a good kick in the ass in the process.

And once all that happens, the law will be void and have to be redrafted.

And then maybe somebody can get Alvarez on camera to ask her what the hell was she thinking.

For a deeper legal analysis, view the articles at the ACLU and the National Press Photographers Association.
http://www.photographyisnotacrime.com/2012/11/28/chicagos-state-attorney-doing-all-she-can-to-keep-draconian-state-eavesdropping-law-alive/