Homeless in Arizona

Cop lies about man pulling a knife on him???

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‘PBS NewsHour’ driver could not have pulled knife, prosecutors say

By Matt Zapotosky, Friday, May 31, 7:44 AM E-mail the writer

The off-duty Arlington County sheriff’s deputy who fatally shot a 22-year-old in Alexandria last week initially told 911 operators the young man had pulled a knife on him. But the only knife police found was folded and clipped in the young man’s pocket, meaning there was no feasible way he could have been wielding it when he was shot, prosecutors said in court Friday.

The revelation was one of many to come out at the arraignment of 44-year-old Craig Patterson, who was arrested late Thursday night and charged with first-degree murder and using a handgun while committing a felony in the May 22 slaying of Julian Dawkins, a shuttle driver for “PBS NewsHour.”

Arguing that Patterson should remain held without bond, Commonwealth’s Attorney S. Randolph Sengel told an Alexandria General District Court judge that witnesses spotted Patterson and Dawkins arguing in the 100 block of Lynhaven Drive, then heard Patterson yell he would “be back” as he headed toward his home nearby. Sengel said the witnesses told investigators they then saw Patterson head back to Lynhaven Drive, now carrying his gun, badge and handcuffs.

Sengel said Patterson shot Dawkins once in the chest and called 911 to say Dawkins had “pulled a knife” on him. That account, though, could not have been true, Sengel said. He said investigators found a folding knife closed up and clipped in Dawkins’s pants pocket, and it was impossible he would have been able put the knife there after he had been shot.

Patterson appeared in court Friday via a video monitor, wearing a black T-shirt and sitting next to public defender Melinda Douglas at a long table. He laughed as he and Douglas talked over reporters’ request to shoot photos during the proceedings — a request Judge Becky Moore ultimately granted — and he told the judge he was unsure of his current employment status with the sheriff’s office. Last he knew, he said, he had been put on administrative leave.

The Arlington Sheriff’s Office on Friday said Patterson was placed on unpaid administrative leave after the charges were filed.

Moore appointed Joseph King to serve as Patterson’s attorney and ordered him held without bond. She scheduled his next court date for June 7, allowing time for Sengel and King to arrange a time for a preliminary hearing. Douglas had argued that Patterson should be given some bond, noting he had cooperated with investigators and had not fled as police investigated.

Patterson was released after the shooting and allowed to remain free until he was arrested at a Spotsylvania County home Thursday night — a decision some family and friends of Dawkins criticized. After the arraignment, Sengel and Alexandria Police Chief Earl L. Cook defended not charging him immediately. Sengel said the delay was based on prosecutors and detectives’ “continuing review of the evidence,” and new information that emerged as recently as Wednesday and Thursday.

Cook said while detectives could not ignore that Patterson worked in law enforcement, it did not affect how they investigated the case.

“We have to do the right things to get to the point where we are today,” he said.

6 years in prison for a prank that hurt no one???

Disneyland employee could get prison time over explosions

By Andrew Blankstein and Mike Anton, Los Angeles Times

May 30, 2013, 7:23 p.m.

A 22-year-old Disneyland employee faces the possibility of six years in state prison after Orange County prosecutors Thursday charged him in connection with two explosions that forced a partial evacuation of the Anaheim amusement park.

Christian Barnes, who appeared in Orange County Superior Court via a closed-circuit video, entered a not-guilty plea to one count of possessing a destructive device in a public place.

The Long Beach man is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail, half the amount he was held on when he was first booked by Anaheim police investigators.

The Orange County district attorney's office accused the Disney "cast member" of using dry ice to create an explosive device.

The initial explosion took place about 4 p.m. Tuesday just outside Toontown as Barnes was wrapping up his shift and a colleague was taking over the vending cart that offered guests drinks.

Several minutes later, authorities said, Barnes took a second water bottle from the cart and walked toward the employee break room.

While passing through Toontown, they said, Barnes allegedly placed a second water bottle with dry ice in a trash can before leaving the area. It later exploded, police said.

No one was seriously hurt in either blast and there was no damage reported. But the explosions caused anxious moments in Toontown, which features child-oriented attractions like Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin and Goofy's Playhouse. Some park guests also complained of ringing in their ears.

Authorities have not commented on a possible motive in the case, including whether Barnes allegedly placed dry ice in a plastic bottle as some sort of a prank.

Anaheim Police Sgt. Bob Dunn said after the arrest Wednesday morning that Barnes "is cooperating with investigators and has indicated this is an isolated incident with unanticipated impacts."

Several family members were on hand for Barnes' arraignment, but only his grandmother would talk with reporters.

"He's the nicest person I know," said Flora Barnes. "He's a wonderful kid. He's a kid who wouldn't hurt anyone."

andrew.blankstein@latimes.com

mike.anton@latimes.com

AZ Governor Jan Brewer drug war hypocrite!!!!!!

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Gov. Jan Brewer 'thrilled' by mother's release from Mexico jail

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Fri May 31, 2013 12:53 PM

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said today she is “thrilled” Yanira Maldonado, the Goodyear mother who was detained for nine days in a Mexico jail on suspicion of marijuana smuggling, has been released and is on her way home.

During a news conference at the state capitol, the governor said she has tried to reach Maldonado’s family but the line has been busy.

“What’s most important this morning is that Yanira is back in Arizona, home safely with her family and her friends who love her,” Brewer said. “As Americans, we all know that our precious constitutional rights don’t extend beyond our nation’s border. It’s this kind of case that once again illustrates how blessed we are in this country. [Of course Jan Brewer seems to forget she is trying to flush both the Arizona Constitution and the US Constitution down the toilet with her frivolous lawsuits trying to nullify Arizona's medical law, which is Prop 203!!!]

“Most of all, I’m so happy for the family, that they can now put this chapter of their life behind us,” she said.

Brewer is scheduled to make a previously scheduled appearance today with Sonora Governor Guillermo Padrés Elías at the 2013 AMC Manufacturer of the Year Summit and Awards Luncheon in downtown Phoenix. Brewer said she expects to speak with Padrés Elías about the Maldonado case.

Asked by The Arizona Republic if she is concerned how the Maldonado case might affect tourism between Arizona and Sonora, Brewer said it’s important Arizonans exercise caution while traveling abroad.

Mexico is Arizona’s largest trade partner, with visitors from Mexico spending an average of $7.3 million a day in Arizona stores, restaurants, hotels and other businesses, according to recent figures from the Arizona-Mexico Commission.

During Maldonado’s ordeal, Brewer said her staff was in contact with Mexican and American authorities. Brewer said she does not know if Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto had a role in Maldonado’s release.

“I tried to reach out to her family this morning … the phone is really busy and so we either can’t get through or I can’t leave a message,” the governor said.

Maldonado, 42, was in Mexico with her husband for a funeral and was detained after soldiers found 12 pounds of marijuana taped under her seat on a bus she was taking back to the United States. She was detained on drug charges last week and was released just before midnight Thursday, after a judge reviewed security footage that showed her boarding the bus carrying only blankets, bottles of water and her purse.

Maldonado has said she believes drug smugglers were responsible for hiding the marijuana found under her bus seat and she just happened to be the unlucky passenger who sat there.

Following her Friday morning news conference, Brewer told The Republic she could not assess how Mexican authorities handled Maldonado’s case.

“It’s always a difficult thing to say because you’re not down there, and you get all your information from staff and third hand, or from the news,” Brewer said. “My heart was breaking for her and her family. Today, I think we’re just all rejoicing that it worked out great for them. Unfortunately, she had to spend nine days down there, but she’s home safely now and she can go on with her family and her life.”

Medical marijuana will cause the downfall of Western Civilization???

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Cases of children accidentally ingesting pot on rise, study says

By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times

May 28, 2013, 7:18 p.m.

As legalized marijuana appears in an increasing number of American homes, so too does evidence of a dark side: accidental ingestion of pot and pot-infused food by young children.

The results can be frightening to such children, who often suffer anxiety attacks when they start to feel unexpected symptoms of being high: hallucinations, dizziness, altered perception and impaired thinking.

And the trend should prompt equal concern among adult caregivers and public health authorities, since ingestion of highly potent marijuana by young children can suppress respiration and even induce coma, according to a study published online this week in JAMA Pediatrics. [Huh??? How many kilos of weed would a small child have to eat to induce a coma???]

"You talk to people about the secondary consequences of marijuana legalization and they say, 'Oh, I never thought of that,'" said Dr. Jeffrey Galinkin, a professor of anesthesiology and pediatrics at the University of Colorado-Denver, who was not involved in the study. "This is a public health disaster that's just waiting to happen."

The JAMA Pediatrics study was conducted by researchers from the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center and Children's Hospital in Denver. Team members tallied visits to the center's emergency department for accidental marijuana ingestion between Oct. 1, 2009 and Dec. 31, 2011 — a period during which there was a sharp increase in medical marijuana cards issued to Coloradans, as the U.S. Justice Department relaxed its policy of enforcing federal laws against marijuana in states that allowed its use.

Doctors confirmed that 14 children 12 years old or younger had accidentally eaten pot. In nearly five years leading up to the study, the same emergency department had seen not a single lab-confirmed case of marijuana ingestion by young children.

The children affected ranged from 8 months to 12 years old. Though one child was discharged from the emergency department without delay and five were released after observation, eight were admitted to the hospital — two, to pediatric intensive care.

Eight of the children ingested marijuana when they ate food products — cakes, brownies, candies, drinks and other treats — made with the drug. And seven of the food-based cases involved medical marijuana, which packs an intense dose of marijuana's active ingredient — tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. [Give me a break, for all practical purposes medical marijuana is the same stuff as marijuana you buy on the street. The only difference is that medical marijuana is legal and street marijuana isn't!!!]

Despite the recent legalization of pot for recreational purposes in two states — Colorado and Washington — and legalization of medical marijuana in a growing number of states, there are no requirements on states' books that marijuana products be dispensed in child-proof containers, nor that packaging bear warnings about the products' effects if accidentally ingested by children.

In an accompanying editorial, Drs. William Hurley and Suzan Mazor, who were not involved in the primary study, called for stepped-up tracking of accidental marijuana ingestion and suggested that dispensaries and retail establishments selling marijuana and marijuana-infused food products warn customers about the dangers to children. [When you are paying $200+ an ounce for medical marijuana, that is one very good financial reason for parents to keep the kiddies out of their stash!!!!]

Establishments could consider using child-proof containers as well, wrote Hurley, a physician with the Washington Poison Center, and Mazor, an emergency department pediatrician at Seattle Children's Hospital.

Galinkin said that accidental ingestion was only one of many medical effects that were not thought through as medical marijuana use has expanded.

Standards defining impairment for drivers under the influence of marijuana have not been set, he said, and the safety of prescribing opioid painkillers to patients who smoke marijuana for pain is not well understood.

For adolescents at risk of developing schizophrenia, Galinkin cited strong evidence that early marijuana use accelerates the age of the first symptoms of psychosis.

In a state with a weak mental health infrastructure, surging marijuana use among teens could be catastrophic, he said.

melissa.healy@latimes.com

Cops beat up teenager for looking at them funny???

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Black 14-year-old Carrying a Puppy Tackled and Choked by Police for Giving Them a "Dehumanizing Stare"

Grown police officers allege that the unarmed teen looked at them funny.

May 30, 2013

New cell phone footage shows Miami-Dade Police officers aggressively pinning an unarmed teen to the ground while choking him. His alleged crime: giving the officers “dehumanizing stares” and “clenching his fists.”

Fourteen-year-old Tremaine McMillan says he was feeding his puppy and playing on the beach with some friends when cops riding ATVs approached him and asked what he was doing. The "peacekeeping" officers say they saw McMillan roughhousing with another teenager, told him it was “unacceptable behavior,” and asked where his mother was. When McMillan walked away, they chased him on ATVs, jumped out, pinned him to the ground and arrested him. According to police reports, McMillan “attempted to pull his arm away, stating, 'Man, don't touch me like I did something.'" See footage of the incident, captured by McMillan's mother:

McMillan says he obeyed orders, and was leading the officers towards his mother when they jumped him. The teen adds that he was holding and feeding his puppy at the time, who got injured during the encounter.

“I don’t like it. I feel sad. He got in front of me on the ATC and he slammed my hand,” McMillan said. “Then he started choking me. Then my 6-week old Pit Bull mix named Polo got hurt and bruised his front paw when the police grabbed me and slammed me down. It makes me feel sad.”

Miami-Dade Police Detective Alvaro Zabaleta justified the use of force, saying McMillan was exhibiting threatening “body language,” which includes “clenched fists.” McMillan adamantly denies this charge because, well, he was holding a puppy.

“Of course we have to neutralize the threat in front of us,” said Zabaleta. “And when you have somebody that is being resistant, somebody that is pulling away from you, somebody that’s clenching their fist, somebody that’s flaring their arms, that’s the immediate threat.” [Translation - He is Black and must be a criminal]

McMillan’s mother, Maurissa Holmes saw the incident and recorded it on her cell phone. She told WSVN-TV, "I ran over there and said, 'That's my son, that's my son. Can you get off of him? He can't breathe.'

Police charged McMillan with resisting arrest, a felony, and disorderly conduct. The teen’s attorney entered a plea of not guilty for his client and asked the court to reconsider the charges. The judge did not grant him his request.

McMillan’s 6-week old puppy, who suffers an injured front paw, did not make the police report.

“At this point we are not concerned with a puppy,” said Zabaleta.

Steven Hsieh is an editorial assistant at AlterNet and writer based in Brooklyn. Follow him on Twitter @stevenjhsieh.

Joe Arpaio supporters pooh pooh judge’s ruling

They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Also I suspect if this were Nazi Germany instead of Arizona, the same folks that blindly support Sheriff Joe and is racist and illegal treatment of Mexicans and Latinos would be the nut jobs that blindly supported Hitler and his murdering of the Jews.

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Joe Arpaio supporters pooh pooh judge’s ruling

A federal judge’s ruling that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office systematically violated the constitutional rights of Latinos was met with cheers from both the right and the left this week.

From Latino activists, who are urging the six-term sheriff to resign, and from Joe Arpaio’s supporters, who are urging him to carry on.

And from officials in the Republican Party, the one that talks about reaching out to Latinos?

Cue the crickets.

Last week’s ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow has had an immediate effect, with Arpaio calling a halt to his immigration patrols even as he vowed to appeal.

Sadly, though, it doesn’t appear to have changed any minds about what has been going on around here.

“It seems the so-called conservative label the judge espoused under Bush was just a “Snow job” as he seeks to appease those who can protect and feather his nest in the Obama administration,” wrote Gary, one of many Arpaio supporters who contacted me after my Wednesday column on Snow’s ruling. “He knows which side his bread is buttered on. Just like you.”

Gary, by the way, acknowledged that he hadn’t read the 142-page ruling.

But then he, like many others who called, e-mailed and posted to my Facebook page and azcentral.com blog, didn’t need to read what Snow wrote in order to dismiss it as the work of an activist judge doing the devious bidding of the open borders crowd.

Some blame Immigration and Customs Enforcement, noting the judge’s observation that ICE improperly trained deputies to believe that ethnicity or race could be a factor in immigration enforcement. They were silent, however, on Snow’s observations that MCSO’s trampling of the constitution went well beyond that ICE training.

Others simply disagreed with the underlying point in Snow’s ruling — that it’s not OK to pull people over because their skin is brown or to make them to make them wait on the side of the street longer than the rest of us.

“Joe is doing the ‘profiling’ the job requires,” wrote Richard of Goodyear, who asked that his last name not be used. “If the TSA did the same job – you & I wouldn’t have to endure strip searches at our airports when we know damn well what these terrorists look like!!”

While I can appreciate Richard’s frustration – certainly, it would be easier to combat illegal immigration if police could just stop every Latino and demand his or her papers – there is that inconvenient restraint called the U.S. Constitution.

So I asked Richard and several other Arpaio supporters this question: does the end justify the means? Is it OK to sideline the Constitution — the parts that shield us from unreasonable police actions and guarantee that the law protects us equally — in order to rid the country of people who are here illegally?

“Short answer? YES!” Richard replied. “When we have 11 million ‘gatecrashers’ here – to inconvenience a few Latinos with traffic stops/job checks/etc suits me just fine. Twice this year I’ve been inconvenienced/fondled/searched/slowed down/stressed out needlessly because a few Muslims think blowing up infidels like me is just fine. Our laws & tactics are not perfect but I’ll back Joe on this one.”

Fortunately, the judge and others in the community see the danger in sacrificing the constitution for convenience or expediency.

“When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II, Justice Robert Jackson dissented, warning that upholding such an order on the basis of a perceived ‘emergency’ would give law-enforcement officials a dangerous weapon to violate the rights of citizens …,” said the Goldwater Institute’s Clint Bolick, who previously worked in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “When police stop Arabs or Hispanics—or members of any group—not because they have committed a crime but because of their race or ethnicity, it profoundly offends the rule of law.”

“This is eerily similar to what the Obama IRS did to conservative groups, singling them out for adverse treatment not because of wrongdoing but because the IRS concluded that conservative groups were more likely to abuse their non-profit tax status. Anyone who condemns that practice also should condemn the practice of stopping Hispanics because they are Hispanic.”

He’s right, of course. What IRS did to the tea parties – singling them out for special scrutiny because they are conservative — is wrong.

Just as what Arpaio did to Latinos – singling them out for special scrutiny because they are brown – is wrong.

Yet the silence is startling.

Mandatory DUI tests unconstitutional????

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Arizona Supreme Court bars DUI blood tests without warrant

HOWARD FISCHER Capitol Media Services

PHOENIX -- Police cannot use the state's traffic laws to draw blood from suspected drunk drivers without a warrant absent their specific permission at the time of the test, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

In a unanimous decision, the justices rejected the contention by the Pima County Attorney's Office that all Arizona motorists give "implied consent" to having blood, breath or urine tests as a condition to be licensed to drive. They said that means, absent a clear -- and voluntary -- consent immediately prior to the blood draw, it is an illegal search without a warrant.

In a wide-ranging ruling, the high court also said that the ability of juveniles to give that voluntary consent is not absolute -- and not the same as an adult. Justice Scott Bales, writing for the court, said a trial judge must consider all the factors, including the age of the suspect and the failure to notify parents.

But the justices refused to rule that the absence of a juvenile's parents automatically means any consent is not voluntary.

Thursday's ruling most immediately means that charges of driving under the influence of drugs will be dropped against the youth, identified in court records only as Tyler B. because he was 16 at the time of the arrest.

But he is not out of the legal woods yet. Deputy County Attorney Nicolette Kneut said Tyler, who has since turned 18, still faces charges of possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia in justice court as an adult.

Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall said Thursday's ruling will complicate the job that police statewide are required to do. She said the high court has provided no guidance.

"How is the officer supposed to know whether or not it's been an express consent," she said. "It just makes it really, really tough because there isn't any bright line." [Duh, the 4th Amendment you idiot!!!!]

LaWall said the ruling means that her office will advise police to get a court-ordered warrant whenever possible before drawing blood, even when a motorist -- and now, especially a juvenile -- gives approval for a blood draw. That, she said, eliminates any possibility of having that consent later ruled involuntary.

According to court records, Tyler and two friends arrived late to school. A school monitor smelled marijuana on the boys and also saw drug paraphernalia in Tyler's car.

The boys were detained in separate rooms while sheriff's deputies were contacted.

A deputy read Tyler his Miranda warnings against self-incrimination and the right to an attorney. But the court files said that Tyler, in the presence of several school officials, admitted he had driven his car to school after smoking marijuana and that he owned some of the paraphernalia in the car.

When the deputy placed Tyler under arrested, the youth became agitated and was placed in handcuffs while the deputy retrieved a blood-draw kit from his car.

On returning, he saw Tyler had calmed down and he removed the cuffs. He then read Tyler from the law which says that Arizona motorists must consent to blood or other tests and that refusal will result in automatic suspension of driving privileges.

Tyler agreed verbally and in writing to the blood draw. But when the case went to court, Tyler argued his consent was not voluntary and that, as a minor, he lacked capacity to consent.

When the court commissioner agreed and suppressed the evidence, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Bales said the issue has never been decided in Arizona.

Bales rejected arguments by prosecutors that "implied consent" law means there is no need to determine whether a consent at the time of the blood draw is voluntary.

"A compelled blood draw, even when administered pursuant to (the implied consent law) is a search subject to the Fourth Amendment's constraints," he wrote for the court. "Such an invasion of bodily integrity implicates an individual's most personal and deep-rooted expectations of privacy."

He said the law says only that an officer must ask a suspect to submit to the test -- and that if a person refuses, a warrant is needed and the suspect's licenses is suspended.

Bales said a motorist can allow a warrantless search "provided the consent is voluntary." But that, he said has to be decided by a court based on all the circumstances, including the suspect's age -- and even whether a parent is present.

In this case, Bales wrote, the court commissioner was correct in ruling that, based on the evidence she had, Tyler's consent was not voluntary.

He said Tyler was detained for about two hours in a room in the presence of school officials and a deputy, without his parents.

"Tyler initially was shaking and visibly nervous," Bales wrote, and placed in handcuffs until he calmed down. And he said that the law read to him about "implied consent" ended with the statement, "You are, therefore, required to submit to the specified tests."

It was only then, Bales said, Tyler consented to the blood draw.

Thursday's ruling drew a special comment from Justice John Pelander. He said his own review of the evidence leads him to believe Tyler did voluntarily consent.

But Pelander said Arizona law requires he and the other justices not to reweigh the evidence but only to consider whether the court commissioner abused her discretion in suppressing the evidence.

Ruling will change DUI enforcement

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Ruling will change DUI enforcement

Arizona has some of the toughest DUI laws in the nation, but a new state Supreme Court ruling could complicate how those laws are enforced.

In an opinion issued, the court ruled that blood draws are voluntarily and must be done with a suspect’s consent — that is, unless officers get a warrant to draw the blood first.

The ruling throws up further roadblocks to complete the tests on juveniles. As Capitol Media Services reports, some departments will be advised to just get the warrant, anyway, even if suspects consent to the test.

That could make it difficult to get accurate blood-alcohol results. Warrants take time that the body can use to process what’s in the system. Or, it could result in a greater focus on people who are clearly drunk, not necessarily those that are on the borderline.

The ruling is even more interesting in light of the national debate to lower the legal blood-alcohol limit to .05.

IRS faces new scrutiny for excessive spending on conferences

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IRS faces new scrutiny for excessive spending on conferences

By Ed O'Keefe, Saturday, June 1, 7:01 AM E-mail the writer

The Internal Revenue Service spent an estimated $49 million on at least 220 conferences for employees over a three-year span beginning in fiscal 2010, according to a forthcoming report that will prompt fresh scrutiny of the already embattled agency.

The findings come as the Obama administration is overhauling the agency after officials admitted that dozens of groups were inappropriately scrutinized as they sought tax-exempt status. The admission forced the resignation of the agency’s acting commissioner and has sparked criminal and congressional investigations.

Seeking to get ahead of the fresh controversy, IRS Acting Commissioner Daniel Werfel acknowledged the report in a statement late Friday, but he didn’t share any of the findings. He called the spending “an unfortunate vestige from a prior era” and said that the agency has significantly curtailed conference spending in recent years.

The audit is set for release Tuesday and was prepared by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the same entity that confirmed allegations against the agency’s tax-exempt unit. Details of the report were shared by several congressional aides, who were briefed on the report Friday.

The report is reminiscent of findings released last year after a similar investigation into lavish spending on conferences hosted by the General Services Administration, revelations that prompted other inspectors general to launch probes as the Obama administration ordered government-wide cutbacks in such meetings.

In its report, the Treasury’s inspector general provides detailed estimates on hundreds of IRS conferences, but investigators couldn’t independently verify the total costs because the agency failed to keep records of all expenses, according to the aides.

The report focuses especially on an August 2010 conference held in Anaheim, Calif., for roughly 2,600 agency employees in the IRS’s small business and self-employed division, a unit that assists small business owners with tax preparation and is based in Lanham.

The conference cost roughly $4.1 million and was paid for in part with about $3.2 million in unused funds from the IRS’s enforcement budget, a decision that didn’t violate IRS guidelines, according to aides briefed on the audit.

During the conference, employees watched two training videos starring division employees that cost at least $60,000 to produce, according to the audit’s estimates.

The first video is a parody of the “Star Trek” television and movie franchise and stars division employees discussing how they might identify and address allegations of tax fraud. Aides briefed on the audit said employees paid for Star Trek uniforms they wear in the video, but the agency paid for the construction of an elaborate mock-up of the bridge of the starship Enterprise, the vessel used to transport the show’s characters.

One employee, mocking the show’s Russian character, Pavel Chekov, is seen telling another colleague, “Back in Russia, I dreamed someday I’d be rich and famous.”

“Me, too,” the colleague responds. “That’s why I became a public servant.”

The second video stars some of the same employees learning how to dance the “Cupid Shuffle” from a 2007 song by the performer Cupid. As other employees learn the dance moves, one female employee comments, “They don’t pay me enough to do this.”

The IRS first released details on the “Star Trek” video in March at the request of Rep. Charles W. Boustany Jr. (R-La.), who had learned about it and a television production studio at the division’s offices in New Carrollton. Boustany chairs a House Ways and Means Committee’s oversight subcommittee and also fielded some of the first allegations that tea-party-affiliated groups were being inappropriately targeted as they sought tax-exempt status.

“The outrage toward the IRS is only growing stronger,” Boustany said in a statement Friday. “Clearly this is an agency where abuse and waste is the norm and not the exception.”

Also during the Anaheim conference, employees heard from two keynote speakers, who together earned at least $44,000 in appearance fees. At least one of the speakers received more than $2,000 for first-class air travel, according to aides briefed on the report. The topic of one of the speeches focused on how art can influence leadership, and the speaker painted at least six paintings, two of which were given to employees in the audience, the aides said.

A spokeswoman for the inspector general’s office declined to comment until the report is publicly released Tuesday. The findings are expected to be the subject of a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing scheduled for Thursday.

In his statement, Werfel said there were “legitimate reasons for holding the meeting” but added that many of its expenses “were inappropriate and should not have occurred.”

“Taxpayers should take comfort that a conference like this would not take place today,” he said. “Sweeping new spending restrictions have been put in place at the IRS, and travel and training expenses have dropped more than 80 percent since 2010 and similar large-scale meetings did not take place in 2011, 2012 or 2013.”

Werfel is scheduled to make his first public comments since becoming acting IRS commissioner on Monday at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the IRS targeting scandal. He is a former White House budget official, who took over the IRS after President Obama forced out the former acting commissioner last month.

In his previous role as a senior official at the Office of Management and Budget, Werfel helped implement government-wide cuts in administrative expenses for travel, conferences and the distribution of free “swag,” or promotional materials. Those changes were originally prompted by a White House push to eliminate excessive spending as it negotiated with lawmakers to trim the federal deficit.

The Treasury Department, of which the IRS is a part, said in a statement issued late Friday that it “places the highest priority on protecting taxpayer dollars” and that it plans to work with Werfel “as he conducts his systemic review of all IRS operations and works to restore public confidence in the IRS.”

The IRS revelations come as federal agencies continue making changes to policies on government-hosted conferences after the GSA’s spending on meetings drew widespread criticism from both parties in Congress and became a symbol of government excess at a time when Republicans are pressing for smaller government.

At GSA, the agency’s Public Buildings Service had held a four-day junket off the Las Vegas strip for 300 employees in the department’s western field offices. The $823,000 Western Region conference, held in 2010 at a lavish hotel, featured a mind reader, after-hour parties in loft suites, “awards” ceremonies that proved to be occasions for throwing parties and a “training” exercise involving building a bicycle.

The White House forced out top GSA officials and new leadership has moved quickly to slash spending on travel.

In another report released last fall, the inspector general for the Department of Veterans Affairs revealed that agency conference planners allowed up to $752,000 in questionable spending on two training conferences in Orlando in 2011 and took gifts, including spa treatments and entertainment.

The tab for the VA conferences came to $6.1 million. Two top human resources officials resigned, and two other employees were placed on administrative leave after the inspector general’s report came out.

Last year, in response to the excesses, there was no increase in the daily government hotel rate, another sign that agencies were cutting back. Government travel has declined further under the budget cuts known as sequestration, which kicked in March 1. Almost every federal agency has slashed planned trips for employee training and conferences.

As part of the cutbacks, the IRS began producing training videos to show employees instead of flying them to training sessions in other cities. In one of the videos from 2011, employees star in a spoof of “Gilligan’s Island.”

Lisa Rein contributed to this report.

Judge: Google must give user info to FBI

Judge: Google must give user info to FBI

By PAUL ELIAS, Associated Press

Updated 10:44 am, Saturday, June 1, 2013

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google must comply with the FBI's demand for data on certain customers as part of a national security investigation, according to a ruling by a federal judge who earlier this year determined such government requests are unconstitutional.

The decision involves "National Security Letters," thousands of which are sent yearly by the FBI to banks, telecommunication companies and other businesses. The letters, an outgrowth of the USA Patriot Act passed after the Sept. 11 attacks, are supposed to be used exclusively for national security purposes and are sent without judicial review. Recipients are barred from disclosing anything about them.

In March, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston sided with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a lawsuit brought on behalf of an unidentified telecommunications company, ruling the letters violate free speech rights. She said the government failed to show the letters and the blanket non-disclosure policy "serve the compelling need of national security" and the gag order creates "too large a danger that speech is being unnecessarily restricted."

She put that ruling on hold while the government appeals to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In the latest case, Illston sided with the FBI after Google contested the constitutionality and necessity of the letters but again put her ruling on hold until the 9th Circuit rules. After receiving sworn statements from two top-ranking FBI officials, Illston said she was satisfied that 17 of the 19 letters were issued properly. She wanted more information on two other letters.

It was unclear from the judge's ruling what type of information the government sought to obtain with the letters. It was also unclear who the government was targeting.

Kurt Opsah, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said he was "disappointed that the same judge who declared these letters unconstitutional is now requiring compliance with them."

Illston's May 20 order omits any mention of Google or that the proceedings were closed to the public. But the judge said "the petitioner" was involved in a similar case filed on April 22 in New York federal court.

Public records obtained Friday by The Associated Press show that on that same day, the federal government filed a "petition to enforce National Security Letter" against Google after the company declined to cooperate with government demands.

Neither Google nor the FBI would comment.

The letters issued by the FBI can be used to collect unlimited kinds of private information, such as financial and phone records. The FBI sent 16,511 letters requests for information regarding 7,201 people in 2011, the latest data available.

Critics contend the government is overly zealous in using the letters, unnecessarily infringing on privacy rights of American citizens. In 2007, the Justice Department's inspector general found widespread violations by the FBI, including sending demands without proper authorization. The FBI has since tightened oversight of the system.

Mexican President Vicente Fox backs pot legalization in US

Video: Former president of Mexico Vicente Fox backs marijuana legalization in US

By jakeellisonseattlepi-com-jake-ellison@blog.timesunion.com

At a press conference in Seattle today the former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, backed plans in Washington and Colorado to make a legal market for marijuana in the United States.

Citing the loss of human life in his country due to the failed war on drugs and the black market that grew up in its shadows to feed the massive market for marijuana in the U.S., Fox said he hoped for an orderly and tightly regulated marijuana market here.

“We all understand that we human beings perform best in scenarios of peace and harmony. A new responsible society will bring this peace and harmony. About the loses? We cannot be worse than where we are. The war [on drugs] has been lost all along and it has been lost again and again. It’s time for a new start. It’s time for a new vision. That’s why I applaud this group,” Fox said.

The conference was organized by former Microsoft manager and now marijuana advocate Jamen Shively to announce his company’s plans to create a national brand and business out of the legal marijuana markets coming online in Washington and Colorado.

Check out the videos for the rest of the story: Above Fox expresses his support and concerns and below Jamen Shively, CEO of Diego Pellicer Inc., lays out his company’s plan to become a major player in an international and national marijuana market.

Border technology remains flawed

Source

Border technology remains flawed

$106 billion has been spent on border security over the past 5 years

By Bob Ortega The Republic | azcentral.com Sun Jun 2, 2013 9:19 AM

TUCSON - A long, sharp, high-pitched beep sounds every 30 or 40 seconds at the Border Patrol’s windowless sector-control room.

Agents here monitor a vast array of video screens and sensors linked to cameras, radar and other surveillance equipment along 262 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border — including hundreds of ground sensors that beep loudly whenever one detects something.

That something might be a drug smuggler or a migrant — but far, far more often, it’s a cow, or the wind, or some other false alarm, which may be why the agents seem to pay these constant beeps little mind.

To complement the 651 miles of barriers along the U.S.-Mexican border, Customs and Border Protection deploys drones, tethered radar blimps, P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft, thermal-imaging devices, towers with day and night video cameras, ground surveillance radar and much more.

But, as the ceaseless beeping of the sensor alarms illustrates, many pieces of that technology are flawed: Some produce frequent false alarms, some suffer detection failures or leave gaps in coverage. Then, too, CBP — despite spending more than $106 billion over the past five years militarizing and securing the border — struggles to mesh these pieces smoothly together so it can make good use of the data they provide.

The flaws, the gaps and the challenges in analyzing the data have left CBP, of which the Border Patrol is a part, unable to answer such seemingly basic questions as how well all of this technology works and how many of the people and how much of the drugs coming across the border make it through.

Many border-security analysts see that lack of answers as problematic, given current plans in Congress.

The comprehensive immigration-reform bill being debated in the Senate would boost border-security spending by as much as $6.5 billion over the next five years. That would roughly quadruple the more than $2 billion in Customs and Border Protection’s existing budget plans for more technology and to fix what’s in place.

In a nutshell, the bill would require the Border Patrol to build more fencing, more stations and more remote “forward-operating bases” near the border; to increase surveillance to cover the entire border 24 hours a day, seven days a week; to deploy more planes, helicopters and drones; to increase horse patrols; and to improve radio equipment and communication with other federal, state and local law enforcement.

The bill also mandates hiring another 3,500 CBP officers (who work at ports of entry, versus Border Patrol agents, who work the rest of the border), a 16-percent increase, among other provisions. And it would require the Border Patrol to apprehend or turn back 90 percent of would-be border crossers.

Within Congress, tighter border security has been treated as a precondition for any reform of immigration policy, but many analysts and academics who study the border express doubts about the need for more fences, agents and surveillance.

The number of Border Patrol agents nearly doubled over the last seven fiscal years, to 21,394. But over that time period, the number of migrants heading north plunged — mostly because of the U.S. economic downturn, most analysts say, but also in part because of the increasing dangers of going north as more fences and surveillance pushed crossers into more remote areas. Border Patrol apprehensions fell 69 percent over those years, from nearly 1.2 million to fewer than 365,000.

In 2005, Border Patrol agents apprehended an average of 106 people a year apiece. Last year, each agent apprehended an average of 17 people, or about one person every three weeks. In the Tucson Sector, each agent averaged 28 apprehensions a year, or about one every 13 days. In Yuma, each agent averaged one every two months. In the El Paso Sector, the least busy, each agent averaged 3.5 apprehensions a year.

“On a lot of parts of the border, it’s gotten to the point that every person we put out there makes less and less of an additional difference,” said Eric Olson, associate director of the Latin American program at the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based think tank that seeks to connect academic research to public-policy discussion.

Complicating this picture is the fact that over the six months ending in March, Border Patrol apprehensions along the Southwest border climbed 13 percent from a year earlier, to just over 189,000. Most of that increase is happening in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. Even with this rebound, apprehension numbers over that period are still the third lowest since 1972, above only last year and the year before.

Looking at the current state of border security, most analysts agree on some needs — such as improving radio communications — but some say CBP really should focus on what it has in hand.

“It’s not just putting a surveillance camera somewhere and you’re done; the challenge is integrating the data into Border Patrol operations. ... The Department of Homeland Security (which includes CBP) needs to step back ... and integrate the technology they have now before they get any new technology,” said James Lewis, director of the technology and public-policy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a conservative D.C. foreign-policy think tank focused on political, economic and security issues.

Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said what is “really needed is a serious management effort to see what works and what doesn’t.” The lack of such an assessment “is at some level an irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars, given that we spend $18 billion a year on immigration enforcement,” added Alden, one of the authors of a recent study on the effectiveness of border enforcement.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, one of the “Gang of Eight” promoting immigration reform in Washington along with Arizona’s other Republican senator, John McCain, said Saturday that the issues of added border security and technology snafus have been thoroughly discussed.

“We believe the situation clearly is better on the border than in times past; the frustration with all of us is with conflicting information out of DHS. Within the same report, they’ll use increased apprehensions to signal success, and decreased apprehensions to signal success,” Flake said.

“We haven’t had a comprehensive plan by the Border Patrol to reach certain metrics of effectiveness. We did come to the conclusion that more barriers in certain places, more manpower where they need it and more technology would help ... but in combination with employer enforcement, and a legal framework for people to come in.”

The Republic made several requests to interview Mark Borkowski, the CPB’s assistant commissioner in charge of technology and acquisition. DHS and CPB did not make him or other agency officials available.

Faulty ground sensors

The ground sensors offer one example of the challenge of making sure technology works properly. About 13,400 have been deployed piecemeal along the border over several decades. They are typically placed along known or suspected migrant or smuggler routes, and may detect vibrations (for foot traffic), metal (for vehicles) or have acoustic or infrared sensors. Sensors from the Vietnam War era remain in use.

A possible false alarm from a ground sensor, and faulty radio communications, may have contributed to the death of Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Ivie in a friendly-fire incident Oct. 2. As is often the case with sensor alarms, agents didn’t detect anyone but each other when they arrived. Ivie, responding separately, apparently mistook the other agents for smugglers and opened fire. One of the agents shot and killed him.

But false alarms are nothing new.

In 2005, Homeland Security’s inspector general reported that only 4 percent of the alarm signals detected migrants or smugglers (34 percent were confirmed false alarms, 62 percent couldn’t be determined). The sensors, which run on batteries, frequently fail because of corrosion or bugs eating through wires.

They were supposed to be replaced as part of the $1.1 billion Secure Border Initiative, a massive 2006 effort to boost security at the border. But most of the money was spent on a problematic network of high-tech towers, known as SBInet.

The towers, to be equipped with video and infrared cameras and radar, were to cover the whole border. By the time Homeland Security pulled the plug in 2010, after a host of problems, the contractor, Boeing, had completed only 15 towers covering a 72-mile stretch of Arizona’s border. Most of the old ground sensors — with their false-alarm problems — remained.

In January 2011, Homeland Security launched another initiative, the Arizona Border Surveillance Technology Plan.

That plan called for spending $1.5 billion over 10 years to integrate the SBInet towers, build new camera towers, buy trucks loaded with surveillance gear — and replace 525 ground sensors in Arizona with more sophisticated military models. The military sensors use a combination of technologies that can distinguish more accurately between, say, a four-legged coyote and the two-legged kind, and can even detect the direction of travel.

But CBP confirmed this past week that — eight years after the problems were identified — the sensors still had not been replaced.

However, under the new technology plan, Arizona agents have received:

Twenty-three hand-held thermal-imaging devices (like night-vision binoculars).

Two “scope trucks” – modified Ford 150 4x4 trucks with day and night cameras mounted on retractable poles.

Twelve “agent portable surveillance systems,” which include radar, video and infrared video sensors and can be carried in a box and set up on tripods.

Drone problems

Drones, too, have proven problematic. So far, CBP has acquired 10 drones, all versions of the Predator B made by General Atomics, for about $18 million apiece. CBP’s unarmed drones carry radar, video and infrared sensors.

Theoretically, the drones can fly for up to 20 hours at a time. But last year, according to CBP, the drones flew an average of 94 minutes a day. The main problem: CBP spent so much of its budget buying the drones that it hadn’t set aside enough to operate them.

“They’re on the ground most of the time for lack of funding,” said Adam Isacson, a regional security-policy analyst for the Washington Office on Latin America, a human-rights organization that studies the effects of U.S. policies on Latin America. “They cost $3,234 an hour to operate. They haven’t had the budget for maintenance or crews.”

Last year, Homeland Security’s inspector general found that, because of poor planning, CBP not only flew the drones less than one-third the number of planned hours in 2011, but also had to use $25 million from other budgets pay for the hours the drones did fly.

CBP also didn’t have enough operational support equipment at the airfields where the drones are based, and didn’t prioritize missions effectively, the inspector general found — all findings with which CBP concurred. Flight hours last year rose 30 percent from the year before, to 5,700, but were still well below half the target hours. Budget cuts this year because of the congressional sequester are likely to further limit flight hours, Isacson said.

The drones are sensitive to high winds and thunderstorms. They face Federal Aviation Administration flight restrictions because they are less able than manned aircraft to detect other aircraft and avoid collisions. And their use raises privacy concerns.

At a Senate hearing in March, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., cited reports that “DHS has customized its drone fleet to carry out domestic surveillance missions such as identifying civilians carrying guns ...” that fly in the face of civil liberties. “We must ask whether the trade-off in terms of border security is worth the privacy sacrifice.”

But CBP officials have said they believe FAA concerns and other issues can be addressed, and that drones can help increase surveillance wherever it’s most needed.

More coordination

In practice, every piece of technology at the border has limitations:

Eight aerostats, or tethered radar blimps, that CBP is taking over from the military, can’t be flown in high winds, and the line-of-sight radar makes them less effective in rugged, mountainous areas, which is much of the Tucson Sector. In May 2011, an aerostat crashed in a Sierra Vista neighborhood after coming loose in 50-mile-an-hour wind gusts.

CBP limits the use of its 16 Blackhawk helicopters because the high rate at which they guzzle fuel makes them very expensive to operate, according to pilots; and CBP budget documents confirm plans to temporarily ground nine of the 16 Blackhawks next year pending enough money for renovations.

The 16 workhorse P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft are, on average, 42 years old. Refurbishing costs $28 million apiece.

But the bigger issue is a lack of coordination in fitting all of the pieces together and making effective use of the data they provide, said Rick Van Schoik, director of the North American Center for Transborder Studies at Arizona State University in Phoenix. “It’s still hard for CBP to figure out what we get out of all these billions that have been spent,” he said, which hampers planning for the future.

Others argue that focus now should be on the ports of entry rather than on the vast spaces between them.

By some estimates, as many as 40 percent of undocumented migrants are people who entered legally through ports of entry and overstayed their visas, said Eric Olson, at the Wilson Center. And, according to CBP data, most hard drugs are smuggled through the ports.

“A strong case can be made now that the biggest risks are at the ports of entry,” Olson said.

Olson supports the bill’s call to add 3,500 more CBP officers, which he said also potentially “has a huge benefit, which is making the ports more efficient and reducing wait times for business and for legal travelers between the U.S. and Mexico.”

Outside analysts aren’t the only ones suggesting Congress reconsider its focus on more security.

A May 3 Congressional Research Service study invited members of Congress to consider that “certain additional investments at the border may be met with diminishing returns.” Some lawmakers, the report said, “may question the concrete benefits of deploying more sophisticated surveillance systems across ... vast regions in which too few personnel are deployed to respond to the occasional illegal entry that may be detected.”

For their part, Homeland Security, CBP and Border Patrol officials in recent months reiterated Secretary Janet Napolitano’s insistence that the border is more secure than ever before. And Assistant Commissioner Borkowski earlier this year made it clear CBP learned one lesson from its past struggles with technology: He said CBP won’t even consider buying technology unless it has been proven to work in the field.

But Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., sees the push for border security as political. “Without it, you don’t have a path to citizenship or any real compromise” in the immigration bill, he said.

“But if we’re going to put more resources on the border, we should modernize the ports of entry, to expedite trade and travel,” Grijalva said. More drones, towers and sensors “may have symbolic value. But it’s fighting a perception, rather than a reality.”

Source

Border technology tools: Pros, cons and cost

By Bob Ortega The Republic | azcentral.com Sat Jun 1, 2013 11:29 PM

U.S. Customs and Border Protection currently relies on a variety of technological tools to help secure the U.S.-Mexico border. In addition to nearly 651 miles of barriers, the agency deploys drones, tethered radar blimps, P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft, thermal-imaging devices, towers with day and night video cameras, ground surveillance radar and much more.

But many pieces of that technology are flawed: Some produce frequent false alarms, some suffer detection failures or leave gaps in coverage.

An immigration-reform bill being debated in the Senate would boost border-security spending by as much $6.5 billion over the next five years.

Here's a look at the current tech tools used by CBP, including pros, cons and cost of each.

Border technology tools

What: MQ9 Predator B and Guardian Drones

Pros: Has capacity to fly for 20 hours at a stretch.

Cons: High cost, lack of trained pilots and FAA regulations limit use; sensitive to strong winds; can’t detect and avoid other aircraft.

Cost: $24 million each, plus $3,234 per hour to fly each drone

Number: 10 deployed, CBP plans to have 17 by 2017

What: P-3 AEW Orion Surveillance aircraft (four-engine turboprop)

Pros: Cheaper to fly per hour than drones, has wide-range radar.

Cons: Aircraft are 42 years old on average

Cost: $28 million each to refurbish.

Number: 14 of 16 deployed are being refurbished.

What: MQ9 Predator B and Guardian Drones

Pros: Has capacity to fly for 20 hours at a stretch.

Cons: High cost, lack of trained pilots and FAA regulations limit use; sensitive to strong winds; can’t detect and avoid other aircraft.

Cost: $24 million each, plus $3,234 per hour to fly each drone

Number: 10 deployed, CBP plans to have 17 by 2017

What: P-3 AEW Orion Surveillance aircraft (four-engine turboprop)

Pros: Cheaper to fly per hour than drones, has wide-range radar.

Cons: Aircraft are 42 years old on average

Cost: $28 million each to refurbish.

Number: 14 of 16 deployed are being refurbished.

What: KA-350 CER Multi-Role Enforcement aircraft (twin-engine turboprop)

Pros: Wider field of view/radar search area than drone, can carry more gear.

Cons: Shorter range, flight time limited to 7 hours.

Cost: $21.5 million each

Number: 2 deployed, 2 more being acquired; plans call for 30 more

What: UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters

Pros: All-weather capability, large, powerful engines.

Cons: CBP planning temporary grounding of 9 of 16 Blackhawks because of high fuel consumption and operating costs. Noisy in flight, so smugglers can hear it coming.

Cost: $17.5 million each to convert, upgrade existing craft

Number: 16

What: Unattended ground sensors

Pros: Relatively inexpensive.

Cons: Deployed older units, some from Vietnam era, have high rate of false alarms (a DHS study found only 4 percent of alarms actually detected migrants or smugglers). New, more accurate units not yet deployed and integrated into sensor systems.

Cost: Base price for new units, also used by military, ranges from $5,000 to $7,000 for the basic sensor, to about $15,000 per unit fully deployed with relays, accessories.

Number: 12,800 (mostly older units)

What: Remote Video Surveillance Systems (day/night cameras mounted on 80 –foot pole)

Pros: Already in place, offer surveillance in remote areas.

Cons: Require frequent repair, hot or cold weather can cause cameras to get stuck; can’t automatically detect movement or activity; vulnerable to power outages; aren’t mobile.

Cost: $224 million contract planned.

Number: 337 currently deployed

What: SBInet Sensor Towers

Pros: Cameras and radar provide surveillance in remote areas

Cons: No mobility, line-of-sight gaps in coverage, proprietary software

Cost: $11 million per tower to erect, plus $1.2 million per tower per year to operate and maintain.

Number: 15 towers (plus 10 communications towers)

What: Integrated Fixed Towers

Pros: Using off-the-shelf technology making them more reliable, easier to integrate than SBInet towers

Cons: Purely theoretical at this point; contract expected to be issued by early 2014.

Cost: $1.1 billion contract planned

Number: 67 planned

What: Aerostats

Pros: Can stay aloft for days at a time.

Cons: Can’t be used in high winds (one crashed in Sierra Vista in May 2011 in 50 m.p.h. wind gusts); line-of-sight radar makes them less useful in mountainous areas, such as southeastern Arizona.

Cost: $4.7 million a year to maintain and operate

Number: 8

What: Aerostats

Pros: Can stay aloft for days at a time.

Cons: Can’t be used in high winds (one crashed in Sierra Vista in May 2011 in 50 m.p.h. wind gusts); line-of-sight radar makes them less useful in mountainous areas, such as southeastern Arizona.

Cost: $4.7 million a year to maintain and operate

Number: 8

Letter: Alcohol part of why pot still illegal

Letter: Alcohol part of why pot still illegal

Posted: Saturday, June 1, 2013 9:01 am

Letter to the Editor

Regarding the story, “Mathieu enters NFL drug testing program” from May 26:

So why does the NFL care weather Tyrann Mathieu or any other player uses marijuana instead of alcohol during their off time? Money. And lots of it.

What industry spends the most on TV advertising for sporting events? The beer industry.

As marijuana use increases, beer consumption goes down. The beer industry knows this. And this is one of the major reasons marijuana remains a criminalized substance.

Kirk Muse

Mesa

I should also note that Senator John McCain's wife owns Hensley & Co which is a major distributor of liquor in the Phoenix area.

I suspect it would be very hard for Senator John McCain to vote to legalize marijuana when it would cut into his family's liquor sales.

Make marijuana and cars illegal to protect the children????

I wonder if the author of that article also wants to make cars illegal to prevent children from dying in them.

This article points out that summer isn't even here and already 7 children have died from being left in hot cars.

Source

Child deaths in hot cars soar in May

Jayne O'Donnell, USA TODAY7 p.m. EDT May 31, 2013

Summer hasn't even arrived and the number of children who died when left in hot cars is nearly double the average for May, the advocacy group Kids and Cars said Friday

Summer hasn't even arrived and the number of children who have died after being left in hot cars is nearly double the average for May, the advocacy group Kids and Cars said Friday.

Seven children died in hot cars during a 16-day period in four states. All but one was left by a family member, the group says.

Among the deaths:

• A five-month-old girl died May 10 in El Paso after her mother left her in her SUV without realizing it.

• A boy, 4, died May 15 in Transylvania County, N.C. His grandmother forgot to drop him off at his daycare facility.

• A boy, 18 months, and a 2-month-old girl died May 26 in Glen Allen, Va., when they were left in the car while their mother was at work.

"The worst thing any parent or caregiver can do is think that this could never happen to them, that they are not capable of inadvertently leaving their child behind," says Kids and Cars founder Janette Fennell. "This can and does happen to the most loving, responsible and attentive parents.

Fennell recommends putting something in the back seat so you have to open the back door when leaving the vehicle. Another option: Put a stuffed animal in the child seat when it's not in use and move it to the front seat when your child is in the car. It will serve as a reminder that the child seat is in use.

Chicago terror case sparks debate about undercover stings

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Chicago terror case sparks debate about undercover stings

By Annie Sweeney, Chicago Tribune reporter

June 1, 2013

To the federal government, Sami Samir Hassoun was a determined terrorist with dangerous plans for Chicago — explosive devices, biological attacks and sniper shootings on police. His family and defense team say he was nothing more than a shameless storyteller who did not possess the sophistication to execute his outlandish and violent ideas.

He was arrested in an undercover sting run by FBI agents, charged, convicted and, on Thursday, sentenced to 23 years in prison for planting what he thought was a bomb near Wrigley Field.

Undercover stings like the one that led to Hassoun's arrest have long been employed by law enforcement, but over the past five years, their use and the use of informants have become more established tools in terrorism investigations across the country. In Chicago, three such terror plots, including Hassoun's, have been interrupted in recent years, authorities said.

But the use of such sting operations, particularly on younger targets, does not come without controversy. Defense attorneys and other critics say the government almost promotes criminal behavior by keeping would-be terrorists engaged, and comes dangerously close to entrapment — when law enforcement authorities coax someone who has not shown a predisposition to commit a crime to follow through.

Prosecutors say the undercover stings are critical to their battle against terror plots, especially those that are homegrown.

Hanging in the balance, they say, is the frightening possibility that law enforcement will miss the chance to stop an attack like the one at this year's Boston Marathon, where two brothers allegedly planted explosives near the finish line of the nation's most famous running race, killing three people and injuring more than 260.

"You can't ignore the potential threat. You have to see how serious it is," said Chicago attorney Dan Collins, a former federal prosecutor who oversaw one of the city's most serious terror cases. "Whether you are a bragger or the shyest person on the planet, you do have the ability to present a threat."

In Hassoun's case, authorities learned of his plans from an informant. Undercover agents told Hassoun, who then was 22, that they were religious radicals and even paid him to carry out the bombing, later providing him with a phony explosive device.

Prosecutors said Hassoun was already committed to his plan when agents got involved.

In the two other local cases, the FBI also used covert operations to draw out targets; in those cases, the suspects were teenagers.

Abdella Ahmad Tounisi, of Aurora, was accused of going online at age 18 to join what he thought was a violent militant group with ties to al-Qaida in war-torn Syria. In reality, it was an FBI-run Internet site.

Tounisi's close friend Adel Daoud, also 18, came under the scrutiny of the FBI after posting messages online about killing Americans, authorities said. Undercover FBI analysts exchanged messages with him, ultimately arranging to meet.

As with Hassoun, they provided Daoud with a phony explosive device, this one a car he thought was rigged with a bomb, authorities said.

Tounisi and Daoud cut young and sympathetic figures in court that contrasted with the violent plans at the center of the charges against them. Their alleged exchanges with the government on the Internet also hint at their youth and immaturity, with Daoud using phrases like "LOL" and Tounisi allegedly wondering if his small stature would leave him ill-equipped for a fight. Both defendants have pleaded not guilty.

Daoud's attorney, Thomas Anthony Durkin, said last week that he is considering an entrapment defense.

"Adel Daoud was a very impressionable young kid, an immature 18-year-old who got involved in a school project on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida," he said.

While the cases are unique in many ways, the ages of the people swept up in them is a cause for concern, said Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University.

"The youth of these kids is very troubling," she said. "We need to begin to understand these young men who begin to show evidence of violence and willingness to break the law earlier in their lives … directing that, not in terms of law enforcement, but in other social services."

The stings are also a concern for Muslim-Americans. Dr. Zaher Sahloul, former chairman of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, said the stings play on the vulnerabilities of disaffected, immature youths.

"I am very uncomfortable with these tactics," he said. "It touches on a very raw, open wound in the community."

FBI spokeswoman Joan Hyde said officials appreciate the desire of Muslim community leaders to intervene with youths who exhibit violent inclinations, and even encourage it. But she stressed the need for law enforcement to move quickly when a potential threat emerges.

"The challenge we are facing is that so much of this is going on online," Hyde said. "And the radicalization is occurring at a relatively fast rate."

At Hassoun's sentencing last week, his age and the prospect that he was entrapped by the government were key points of discussion. Hassoun's attorneys criticized the undercover agents for "moving the ball forward" in the plot, saying Hassoun would never have accomplished it without them.

Prosecutors devoted much of their argument to rebutting that notion, saying he had formulated concrete terror plans and was determined to see them through to fruition. He never wavered, the prosecutors said, and he ignored opportunities to back out. They said they were not giving Hassoun ideas but testing his commitment to his own notions.

"How is the FBI supposed to know that Mr. Hassoun might not engage in this kind of chatter with someone else, someone who can really build a bomb?" Assistant U.S. Attorney Tinos Diamantatos said in court.

U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman, in sentencing Hassoun, acknowledged the tension in these cases. He noted Hassoun's troubled youth and said the FBI had "led" him during its undercover investigation. But the judge, who also mentioned the Boston Marathon bombings, took pains to say Hassoun never took advantage of the chances the agents gave him to abandon the plot. He gave the agents credit for thwarting Hassoun's plans.

"This is the type of law enforcement we should all applaud," he said.

asweeney@tribune.com

DUI suspect: I was driving in my sleep

DUI suspect: I was driving in my sleep

Associated Press Fri May 31, 2013 5:17 PM

SALEM, Ore. — The Oregon Supreme Court has thrown out a drunken driving conviction on grounds the man should have had a chance to tell the jury he was actually driving in his sleep, and not responsible for his actions.

The Oregonian reports the ruling Friday could set a new standard for drunken driving cases by requiring prosecutors to prove the driver voluntarily got behind the wheel.

The high court ordered a new trial for 51-year-old James Robert Newman of Portland, saying Oregon law requires someone to commit a voluntary act to be held responsible for a crime.

Newman got a ride home after drinking at a restaurant, and later got into his car and started driving. When he was pulled over his blood alcohol level was nearly twice the legal limit.

Supreme Court - Cops can take DNA samples from arrestees

Source

Supreme Court upholds Maryland law, says police may take DNA samples from arrestees

By Robert Barnes, Monday, June 3, 8:08 AM E-mail the writer

A divided Supreme Court ruled Monday that police may take DNA samples as part of a routine arrest booking for serious crimes, narrowly upholding a Maryland law and saying the samples can be considered similar to fingerprints.

“DNA identification represents an important advance in the techniques used by law enforcement to serve legitimate police concerns for as long as there have been arrests,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the 5 to 4 ruling.

The decision overturned a ruling by Maryland’s highest court that the law allows unlawful searches of those arrested to see whether they can be connected to unsolved crimes. The federal government and 28 other states allow taking DNA samples.

The court split in an unusual fashion. The dissenters were three of the court’s liberals, and conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who amplified his displeasure by reading a summary of his dissent from the bench.

“The court has cast aside a bedrock rule of our Fourth Amendment law: that the government may not search its citizens for evidence of crime unless there is a reasonable cause to believe that such evidence will be found,” Scalia said from the bench.

He added: “Make no mistake about it: Because of today’s decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason.”

Scalia was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Kennedy wrote that the decision was more limited than that: DNA can be taken from those suspected of “serious” crimes. He said that police have a legitimate interest in identifying the person taken into custody and that the DNA samples could make sure that a dangerous criminal is not released on bail.

“By comparison to this substantial government interest and the unique effectiveness of DNA identification, the intrusion of a cheek swab to obtain a DNA sample is a minimal one,” Kennedy wrote. He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Stephen G. Breyer and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

The challenge to the Maryland law was brought by Alonzo Jay King Jr., whose DNA was taken after a 2009 arrest for assault and used to connect him to an unsolved rape.

Source

Supreme Court allows police to take DNA from criminal suspects

By David G. Savage

June 3, 2013, 7:58 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The police may take a DNA sample from people arrested for serious crimes, the Supreme Court ruled Monday in a major victory for law enforcement and crime victims.

The 5-4 decision is likely to make the taking of DNA samples as common as taking fingerprints or a photograph when people are arrested.

More than half of the states now require a DNA mouth swab when persons are charged with a serious crime, and many of the others were awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the practice.

The FBI’s national database has more than 11 million DNA samples on file, and that number is likely to grow sharply in the years ahead.

The high court said DNA has an “unparalleled ability both to exonerate the wrongly convicted and to identify the guilty,” and that taking a mouth swab from an arrestee was not an “unreasonable search.”

“When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and they bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody, taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,” said Justice Anthony M. Kennedy for the court. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Stephen G. Breyer and Samuel A. Alito were included in the majority.

The decision in the case of Maryland vs. King upheld the rape conviction of Alonzo King. When he was arrested for an alleged assault, his DNA sample identified him as the perpetrator of an unsolved rape.

Justice Antonin Scalia spoke for the dissenters, saying the 4th Amendment did not permit searching persons for other crimes they may have committed. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan agreed with him.

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david.savage@latimes.com

Governor’s wife was paid $36,000 to attend a few meetings

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Virginia governor’s wife was paid $36,000 as consultant to coal philanthropy

By Rosalind S. Helderman, Published: June 2

Maureen McDonnell, the wife of Virginia’s governor, was paid $36,000 last year to attend a handful of meetings as a consultant to the philanthropic arm of one of the state’s major coal companies, a top coal company official said.

Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) indicated on his annual financial disclosure forms for 2011 and 2012 that his wife served as a paid trustee of a family charity, the Frances G. and James W. McGlothlin Foundation.

But in an interview, James McGlothlin said the $21 million family foundation never named McDonnell to its board.

Instead, McGlothlin said, the family asked Maureen McDonnell to become an adviser to the charitable efforts of both the family foundation and the United Co., a natural resources and real estate company in Bristol, Va., that has made the McGlothlins one of the wealthiest families in the state.

McGlothlin, who founded the company in 1970 and is its chairman and chief executive, said the first lady is paid by the company and not the foundation.

By reporting that his wife was on the board, the governor never had to say on his financial disclosure form how much she was paid. McGlothlin confirmed the salary.

A spokesman for McDonnell declined to comment about the arrangement, saying that all questions about it should be directed to McGlothlin.

Elected officials in Virginia are legally required to disclose any employer that pays their spouses at least $10,000 annually. Separately, they also are required to disclose whether they or their spouses are paid directors or officers of any company.

If the governor had indicated that Maureen McDonnell’s position with the United Co. was a job that provided her with an annual salary, the public would have been able to conclude that her paycheck exceeded the $10,000 reporting threshold.

By listing it as a paid trusteeship instead, he did not have to provide any information about the size of her compensation.

News of the relationship comes as the FBI and Virginia State Police are exploring the McDonnells’ finances as part of an inquiry into the couple’s dealings with Jonnie R. Williams Sr., the chief executive of a dietary supplement manufacturer who paid $15,000 for the catering at the 2011 wedding of the McDonnells’ daughter.

Michael Herring, commonwealth’s attorney in Richmond, has confirmed that he has been conducting a review of McDonnell’s financial disclosures since November.

‘Really ideal’

For a few days of work, Maureen McDonnell picked up a salary nearly equivalent to the average starting pay of a Virginia teacher. As governor, Robert McDonnell is paid $175,000 a year.

McGlothlin said that Maureen McDonnell never asked to be paid but that the company decided to compensate her for her advice. He said the arrangement was born over a dinner at which he, his wife the governor and first lady got to talking about how the McGlothlins’ charitable interests in education and health care aligned with those Maureen McDonnell has pursued as first lady.

He said she attended two or three meetings with company and foundation officials in Bristol as part of the arrangement.

“She definitely didn’t ask,” he said. “We said to ourselves: ‘Hey, I wonder if she would help us with this? It’d be really ideal to have someone of her stature involved.’ ”

Company officials found her advice useful in establishing funding priorities, he said. For instance, he said, Maureen McDonnell has been able to connect the foundation with notable people in Richmond who might be interested in coming to charitable events.

“If you want to invite a bunch of people to something, she’s able to do that,” McGlothlin said.

The public biography of Maureen McDonnell, a former Redskins cheerleader who has owned a business marketing nutritional health-care products, does not indicate that she has worked in professional philanthropy.

‘Very helpful’

Maureen McDonnell, who has been married to Robert McDonnell for 36 years, has increasingly emerged as a central figure in the relationships that have drawn scrutiny to the governor’s finances.

In addition to looking into the $15,000 Williams provided for the catering at the wedding of the McDonnells’ daughter, the FBI and Virginia State Police are also asking questions about other undisclosed gifts Williams provided to Maureen McDonnell and whether the governor might have assisted the company in exchange for those gifts, according to people with knowledge of the questions.

Virginia law requires elected officials to disclose all gifts they receive worth more than $50, but they do not have to disclose gifts to immediate family members. McDonnell has said the $15,000 was a gift to his daughter and not to him.

Three days before the wedding, Maureen McDonnell flew to Florida and offered a testimonial to doctors and investors about the potential benefits of Anatabloc, an anti-inflammatory not approved by the Food and Drug Administration that Williams’s company was then introducing to market.

She then organized an event at the executive mansion a few months after the wedding that marked Anatabloc’s formal launch.

McDonnell aides have said Maureen McDonnell’s interest in Star Scientific was just one part of her extensive efforts to promote Virginia-based companies. They said the company’s work also dovetailed with her interest in preventive health care.

The McGlothlins, meanwhile, are well-known philanthropists in Virginia. With $40 million in assets in 2011, the United Company Charitable Foundation funded a program in 2011 to bring hot meals five days a week to more than 1,000 low-income people in the Bristol area. It also ran a scholarship program at a school for at-risk children in Grundy, according to public IRS filings.

James McGlothlin said he and his wife launched their own foundation a few years ago as he began to phase out his day-to-day work with the company. Its assets have reached $21 million, and contributions go to dozens of health-care and educational institutions in Virginia and other states.

The couple also recently contributed $25 million to Virginia Commonwealth University for a new medical building and gave an estimated $100 million to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, helping to fund a new addition. A 2010 black-tie reception celebrating the opening of the new wing, which bears the couple’s names, drew the McDonnells along with five former Virginia governors.

James McGlothlin said that he appreciated Maureen McDonnell’s input into the company’s efforts and that he sometimes meets with her to discuss projects on visits to Richmond.

“She’s been very, very helpful,” he said. “She has lots of ideas about how to help with kids and education.”

It is not clear how the McGlothlins and McDonnells became close, although McDonnell has been supportive of the coal industry in Virginia.

Last year, he attended a rally designed to support the industry, flying to Abingdon on the private plane of Alpha Natural Resources, another major coal company. He also supported a 2012 bill in the General Assembly that extends until 2017 a tax credit for coal companies that had been set to expire in 2015.

Started in the 1970s as a coal company, the United Co. and its subsidiaries continue to run coal mining operations in Virginia and a number of other states. The company is also active in financial services, oil and gas and owns golf courses and other real estate.

Alice Crites contributed to this report.

E-verify screws 100,000s of legal American???

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E-verify is supposed to stop undocumented employment. It could also harm legal workers.

By Timothy B. Lee, Published: June 3, 2013 at 10:25 am

Almost everyone expects mandatory electronic employment verification to be part of any immigration reform law that reaches President Obama’s desk. The idea is simple: Citizens and legal immigrants should be able to work, undocumented immigrants shouldn’t. The difficulty is separating one from the other. And the answer Congress has come up with is a system called E-Verify.

But critics say the system could create headaches for hundreds of thousands of Americans who do have authorization to work in the United States. Under the current rules, if E-Verify says you’re not authorized to work, you have eight days to visit the appropriate government agency and begin an appeal. If you’re not able to go in time, or you can’t convince the agency that a mistake was made, your employer is supposed to fire you.

E-Verify has been operating as a pilot project for more than a decade, giving policymakers a preview of how a national system might function. But figuring out how many workers have been wrongly rejected by the system is tricky. A study using 2009 data found that 0.3 percent of applicants suffered initial rejections that were subsequently corrected, allowing the employee to work. But another 2.3 percent of workers got rejections that were never reversed.

Undoubtedly, some of those were people who aren’t legally permitted to work. But others were likely eligible workers who lacked the documents, legal sophistication or time to demonstrate their eligibility. And some may have never been informed by their employers of their right to appeal. And while 0.3 percent and 2.3 percent may sound like small numbers, in a nation of 300 million people, that translates to hundreds of thousands of people.

While the employee has just eight days to begin his appeal, the full appeal process can take many weeks. Alex Nowrasteh, who studies immigration policy at the Cato Institute, says that fixing E-Verify errors sometimes requires “filing a Privacy Act request to figure out which portion of your information is correct in the government database,” a process that can take more than 100 days. “During that time, the employer is supposed to keep the person employed, but what we see frequently is that that just is not followed,” he says. Employers may be reluctant to spend weeks training an employee, only to be forced to fire him if his appeal is rejected.

“Oftentimes, firms that have problems with this have to hire a lawyer to sort out the math themselves,” Nowrasteh says — a process that can cost employers thousands of dollars.

That gives employers a powerful temptation to avoid hiring employees with E-Verify problems in the first place. To prevent that from happening, the rules prohibit employers from conducting an E-Verify check on an employee before extending a job offer. And if an employee is rejected by the E-Verify system, the employer is supposed to inform him, in writing, about his right to appeal.

But those rules are hard to enforce. An employee has no way of knowing if she wasn’t offered a job because an illegal pre-hiring check of the E-Verify system revealed potential problems.

Chris Calabrese of the American Civil Liberties Union says E-Verify problems are likely to be particularly hard for people on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. “Professional, white-collar employees are used to having paid time off to deal with things, whether it’s getting a driver’s license or a sick kid,” he says. “If you’re blue collar with an hourly job, you’re not getting paid” while spending time at the Social Security Administration trying to get paperwork problems straightened out. Indeed, he said, “your employer may not be willing to give you time off.”

Well-educated workers are used to navigating complex bureaucracies and know how to research their legal rights and the remedies available to them. They are more likely to own a car, which in some parts of the country will be necessary to get to the relevant government office. Workers with lower levels of education and literacy will struggle to understand what they need to do to appeal a tentative rejection and may not have the time and transportation necessary to file the right paperwork with the right government agency within the prescribed eight-day period.

Legal immigrants are likely to have the biggest problems. Immigrants’ paperwork is more complex than those for native-born Americans, making mistakes more likely. Many E-Verify problems occur because the employer enters an employee’s name into the system in a different format than it’s stored in the government’s databases. Hispanic workers with multiple surnames and workers whose names are written in non-Latin alphabets are particularly likely to fall prey to this kind of problem. And, of course, immigrants tend to have lower levels of English literacy and less sophistication about navigating American bureaucracies.

“The Department of Homeland Security has admitted at least in briefings to Hill staff that the error rate will go up when the number of people added to the system goes up,” Calabrese says. Calabrese says the error rate is expected to rise for two reasons. One, the early participants in E-Verify were either employers who volunteered to participate or federal contractors who are likely to be sophisticated about interacting with the government. Nationwide E-Verify will force employers who are less knowledgeable and less enthusiastic about the program to participate.

There’s also a risk that Congress won’t provide sufficient resources for the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security, the agencies that manage the E-Verify Database, to deal with the dramatically higher volume of appeals a nationwide E-Verify system would produce. That could produce long lines and slow responses, increasing the pain of being wrongly rejected.

Christopher Bentley, press secretary of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said in an e-mail that he “does not anticipate a significant increase in the rate” of initial rejections if the system is expanded. “The rate of eligible workers that are not automatically determined to be work authorized by E-Verify, but are ultimately found to be work authorized after they update their information with the government, continues to decline from .7% in 2005 to .26% in 2012,” he said. “As the E-Verify program continues to expand, USCIS is committed to continuing this downward trend.”

Paul Rosenzweig, a scholar at the Heritage Foundation who spent time at the Department of Homeland Security during the Bush administration, supports nationwide E-Verify, but he acknowledges that some mistakes are inevitable.

“If you think that the desire to identify people who work is an important societal value, you have to understand that that’s going to have some incidental adverse cost,” he said. “The last GAO study had less than 1 percent error rate,” he says. “If I told you that you were going to get a 99 on your test, you’d think that you were doing pretty darn well. I defy you to find any government program that meets that standard with regularity.”

In contrast, Calabrese believes that even a relatively low error rate imposes an intolerable burden on those Americans who will be wrongfully denied an opportunity to earn a living. “This is a sea change in how employment operates,” he says. “For the first time, you will need affirmative permission from the government in order to work. That’s completely new.”

El dictamen contra Arpaio deberá tener repercusión

El dictamen contra Arpaio deberá tener repercusión

por Eduardo Bernal - May. 31, 2013 10:53 AM La Voz

Luego de ocho meses de espera un juez federal dictaminó que, Joe Arpaio y la agencia policiaca que encabeza, incurrieron en prácticas de discriminación racial enfocada en la comunidad inmigrante, sentando un precedente legal en contra de esa agencia.

El juez federal Murray Snow dictaminó, el pasado viernes 24 de mayo, en conexión con una demanda entablada por la Unión Americana de Libertades Civiles (ACLU, por sus siglas en inglés) en nombre de diversos individuos, que Arpaio y sus agentes en los últimos años habrían realizado ilegalmente perfil racial en contra de latinos durante sus redadas.

La decisión revelada en un documento de 142 páginas respalda las acusaciones que la Oficina del Sheriff del Condado Maricopa (MCSO, por sus siglas en inglés) ha recibido durante años por parte de organizaciones que abogan por los derechos civiles.

El fallo llega después de más de 5 años desde que fue impuesta la demanda y ocho meses después que se realizo un juicio de 7 días en julio-agosto del 2012.

Expertos declaran que aunque este fallo no representa una victoria rotunda (los demandantes no buscaron retribución económica o cargos criminales en contra de Arpaio), sí sienta el precedente de que Arpaio ya no podría operar de la misma forma como hasta antes de la decisión del juez Snow.

Pese a que esta fue una demanda relativamente pequeña, en comparación a la colección que MCSO ya tiene en su haber, es significativa porque de acuerdo con Cecilia D. Wang, abogada de ACLU, Arpaio por mucho tiempo ha victimizado y discriminado a la gente que se supone debe servir y que este fallo reafirma que las practicas discriminatorias de MCSO al mando de Arpaio son una realidad.

No obstante, el que se haya dictaminado que Arpaio y su agencia incurrieron en prácticas discriminatorias, infringiendo leyes federales en cuanto a derechos civiles, no le costarán a Arpaio, ni su puesto ni cargos criminales.

Petra Falcón, de la organización Promise Arizona, menciona que este es un paso positivo porque hasta ahora no se había constatado en una corte federal que Arpaio es culpable de prácticas discriminatorias y que este es un mensaje para todos los servidores públicos que tengan una agenda discriminatoria.

Chad Snow, miembro de la organización Citizens for a Better Arizona, menciona que el fallo del juez es uno de los análisis más completos y detallados de las prácticas de MCSO.

"Arpaio siempre dice que 'la ley es la ley' y que los que la quiebran deben ser castigados. El fallo es bien claro y estipula que Arpaio violó la ley y la Constitución al discriminar y criminalizar a hispanos", declaró Snow en un comunicado.

¿Cuáles son las consecuencias?

"A simple vista las consecuencias no son visibles", comenta Valeria Fernández, periodista y directora de uno de los documentales que ilustran precisamente "la metodología Arpaio". "Este fallo lo único que hace es reafirmar todas las acusaciones que esa entidad policiaca ya ha venido experimentando desde hace años", añadió Fernández.

En sí la decisión del juez de declarar que Arpaio y su agencia discriminan a personas por su perfil racial, expone los problemas serios en lo que respecta a programas gubernamentales como Comunidades Seguras y 287(g) y el entrenamiento que se les otorga a policías.

Aunque no haya una consecuencia tangible a la colección de abusos que han sido generadas por la prácticas de MCSO, el fallo del juez emite un mensaje claro al movimiento antiinmigrante en todo el país, ya que desacredita a un sheriff que proyecta una imagen de alguien que hace cumplir las leyes, cuando es él quien las viola.

En los días siguientes a la decisión del juez Snow, quien es conservador y fue nombrado por George W. Bush, muchas organizaciones tanto locales como nacionales han pedido su inmediata renuncia.

Organizaciones comunitarias como Recall Arpaio, Citizens for a Better Arizona y Promise Arizona han mencionado que presionarán a miembros de la Mesa de Supervisores, para que estos pidan la renuncia de Arpaio.

Tim Casey, abogado de Arpaio, mencionó que ya se está preparando para una apelación en los próximos 30 días.

La demanda Melendres Vs. Arpaio, sometida por ACLU, incluye los casos de Manuel Ortega Melendres, detenido junto a otros durante una redada ejecutada por agentes de Arpaio en septiembre del 2007. Melendres tenía autorización para estar en el país y fue encarcelado por horas.

También incluye a Manuel Nieto y Velia Meraz, quienes fueron agredidos por agentes de MCSO durante otra redada realizada en marzo del 2008. Tanto Nieto como Meraz son ciudadanos estadounidenses.

Elected officials delegate their authority to unelected, unnamed government bureaucrats???

Source

Fifteen Bureaucrats Are Better Than One

Posted on May 30, 2013 | Author: Christina Sandefur

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have announced that they will not recommend candidates to serve on the Independent Payment Advisory Board, the federal health care law’s panel of 15 bureaucrats tasked with reducing Medicare costs. In a letter to the president explaining their decision, Boehner and McConnell said they “believe Congress should repeal IPAB” and “hope establishing this board never becomes a reality.”

The Board has vast power over the entire health care market to set price controls, levy taxes, and even ration care. In fact, it can propose anything its members determine is “related to the Medicare program.” IPAB’s proposals automatically become law unless Congress and the president quickly enact a substitute plan with an equal reduction in spending, and the Board’s decisions aren’t subject to review by administrative judges or courts. To add insult to injury, the Board is virtually unrepealable.

The Goldwater Institute is suing over the constitutionality of the Board, arguing that it is a violation of the Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine. Lawmakers are right to call for its demise. But will refusing to recommend board members do the job?

No. While the president must seek recommendations from Congress, the ultimate decision of whom to appoint to the Board is his. And there’s no requirement that IPAB be bipartisan. So refusing to participate in the appointment process just gives President Obama more say in the Board’s makeup.

Worse yet, stalling member appointments and confirmations may mean no one gets chosen for IPAB. To opponents of the Board, that may sound desirable. But as the Congressional Research Service recently confirmed, if no one is selected to fill the board member slots, the Secretary of Health and Human Services will wield IPAB’s powers unilaterally.

While lawmakers should work to repeal IPAB, washing their hands of the appointment process is a step in the wrong direction. When it comes to making health care decisions, the only thing worse than 15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats is one unelected, unaccountable bureaucrat.

After vowing transparency, US silent on drone killing

After vowing transparency, US silent on drone killing

WASHINGTON: A week after President Barack Obama cracked the lid of secrecy on his drone war, the United States refused Wednesday to confirm it had killed a top Pakistani Taliban leader in an airborne attack.

Pakistani security and intelligence sources said that Waliur Rehman, deputy leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had perished in an American drone strike, along with at least five other people, in North Waziristan.

But senior officials in Washington stuck to their normal practice of declining to provide details of US operations, and only hinted that Rehman, wanted for attacks on Americans and Pakistanis, had been killed.

The attack appeared to be the first known US drone strike since Obama's speech last week laying out new criteria for the covert use of unmanned aerial vehicles in strikes against terror suspects and militants.

“We are not in a position to confirm the reports of Waliur Rehman's death,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

“If those reports were true, or prove to be true, it's worth noting that his demise would deprive the TTP of its second-in-command and chief military strategist,” Carney said.

Rehman is also wanted in connection with attacks on US and Nato personnel across the Afghan border and for involvement in the attack on American citizens in Khost, Afghanistan on December 30, 2009.

That strike, though Carney did not describe it in detail, was a dark day in CIA history, when seven counter-terrorism agents and security contractors were killed in a suicide bombing inside a US base.

Carney would not confirm whether the attack on Rehman satisfied the new criteria for drone strikes established by Obama last week during a speech that aimed to recast the country's decade-long battle against terrorism.

In the speech, Obama said lethal force would only be used to “prevent or stop attacks against US persons,” when capture is not feasible and if a target poses a “continuing, imminent threat” to Americans.

Carney pointed to a clause in Obama's remarks in which he said that in the “Afghan war theater” Washington must support its troops until the Nato withdrawal is complete in 2014.

He appeared to be making a case that Rehman's killing may have satisfied the new guidelines because he may have posed a direct and imminent threat to US troops across the border in Afghanistan.

The president said in his speech that strikes would continue against “high value Al-Qaeda targets, but also against forces that are massing to support attacks on coalition forces.”A CIA spokesman also declined to confirm Rehman's death.

Carney dismissed the idea that keeping reporters in the dark about the reported attack conflicted with Obama's pledge for more transparency over the drone war. He said the speech at the National Defense University last week contained an “extraordinary amount of information.” “It does not mean that we are going to discuss specific counter-terror operations,” Carney said.

Security, tribal and intelligence officials told AFP in Pakistan that Rehman, who had a $5 million US government bounty on his head, was the target of the strike and was killed.

Pakistani security officials said the others killed in the attack were TTP cadres, including two local-level commanders. There were no initial reports of civilian casualties.

According to Britain's Bureau of Investigative Journalism, CIA drone attacks targeting suspected Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Pakistan have killed up to 3,587 people since 2004, including as many as 884 civilians.

The frequency of drone strikes in Pakistan has tailed off in recent months, with the previous one coming on April 17.

Source

After vowing transparency, US mum on drone killing

By AFP / Web Desk

Published: May 29, 2013

WASHINGTON: The United States on Wednesday refused to confirm that it killed the number two in the Pakistani Taliban, despite President Barack Obama’s promise of more transparency on the drone war.

The killing of Waliur Rehman, deputy leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was the first known US drone strike since Obama’s speech last week laying out new criteria for the covert use of unmanned aerial vehicles.

His death was the first test of whether US authorities would provide more transparency on drone operations by the CIA or the military after Obama’s pledge of greater accountability over the use of such attacks.

“We are not in a position to confirm the reports of Waliur Rehman’s death,” White House spokesperson Jay Carney said, following an attack in which the TTP number two and at least five others were killed.

“If those reports were true, or prove to be true, it’s worth noting that his demise would deprive the TTP of its second-in-command and chief military strategist.” Carney said.

Carney said Rehman was also wanted in connection with attacks on US and Nato personnel in Afghanistan and for involvement in the attack on American citizens in Khost, Afghanistan on December 30, 2009.

That strike, though Carney did not describe it in detail, was a dark day in CIA history, when seven counter-terrorism agents and security contractors were killed in a suicide bombing in a remote outpost.

Carney would not confirm whether the attack on Rehman satisfied the new criteria for drone strikes established by Obama last week during a speech that aimed to recast the country’s decade-long battle against terrorism.

In the speech, Obama said that lethal force would only be used to “prevent or stop attacks against US persons,” when capture is not feasible and if a target poses a “continuing, imminent threat” to Americans.

But Carney pointed out a clause in Obama’s speech in which he said that in the “Afghan war theater” Washington must support its troops until the Nato withdrawal is complete in 2014.

The president said that strikes would continue against “high value al Qaeda targets, but also against forces that are massing to support attacks on coalition forces.”

A CIA spokesperson also declined to confirm Rehman’s death.

Security, tribal and intelligence officials told AFP in Pakistan that Rehman, who had a $5 million US government bounty on his head, was the target of the strike in North Waziristan and was killed.

Pakistani government condemns drone strike

The Pakistani government “expressed serious concerns” over the US drone strike that killed Waliur Rehman on Wednesday, according to a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Pakistan has maintained its stance that US drone strikes are counter-productive, result in the loss of innocent lives and violate Pakistani sovereignty. assault and used to connect him to an unsolved rape.

Barrons article - Should Pot Be Legal?

I often say that two thirds of the people in Federal prisons are there for victimless drug war crimes. I got the figure out of a Libertarian magazine, probably Reason or Liberty.

The article also says "663,000 people were arrested for marijuana possession in 2011" That is about one forth of one percent of the US population of 300 million. Or about one half of a percent of the adult US population.

Source

Should Pot Be Legal?

By THOMAS G. DONLAN | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

Legalizing marijuana will hurt drug lords, help cash-strapped states, and ease burdens on police and prisons. Yet D.C. dithers.

America's 40-year crawl toward legalization of marijuana is picking up speed. Twenty-six states have taken steps toward legalization, some quite bold. Just last week, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper made one of the biggest moves yet, signing a package of bills addressing how marijuana will be grown, sold, taxed, and used. The measures, which follow Colorado voters' approval of legalization last fall, form the cornerstone of the nation's first fully legal market for pot. Come Jan. 1, Colorado residents over 21 will be allowed to buy marijuana at retail stores and smoke it for their pleasure. The state of Washington, where voters also passed a referendum to legalize marijuana, will be next. If all goes well with those pioneering efforts, it may be only a matter of time before more states follow.

Proponents say Americans should be allowed to smoke cannabis as a matter of basic personal freedom, adding that a society that enjoys legal whiskey, beer, wine, and tobacco has no business outlawing a recreational drug like pot that has fewer unhealthy side effects. After all, tens of millions of Americans enjoy smoking marijuana, if illegally.

It's Prohibition all over again. That Gatsby-era law gave rise to the Mafia, rampant crime, and in the end, increased drinking. As Rep. Steve Cohen (D., Tenn.) put it recently, "This is the time to remedy this prohibition."

Plenty of people agree. The Pew Research Center recently found that 52% of Americans support legalized possession of small quantities of marijuana. It was the first time a national poll produced a majority against pot prohibition, although the Gallup Poll and other national polls are coming close. The Pew survey found that nearly every group in the country is part of the gradual change in public attitudes -- men, women, whites, blacks, rich, and poor.

It's not just about the right to light up. With the nation's retail marijuana market estimated at about $30 billion, legalization also would bring some important economic benefits. It could lead to sharply lower prices, striking a blow to the Mexican drug cartels and American street gangs. Pot could be produced in the U.S. for much less than Mexican pot produced illegally. By some estimates, illegality adds 50% to marijuana's prices. If both countries legalized the drug, Mexicans might grow a lot of it and sell it to American consumers, but the inexpensive legal product would not draw the attention of the ultraviolent Mexican drug traffickers any more than Mexican tomatoes do.

Legalization also could bring some relief to cash-strapped states. Marijuana taxes would join levies on liquor, tobacco, gambling, and other pursuits that once were banned. A report prepared for the libertarian Cato Institute suggests states could raise a total of about $3 billion from marijuana taxes, and other estimates are even higher. California alone could pull in $1.4 billion a year, a state tax authority has projected. That may seem minor compared with a state budget approaching $100 billion, but it would top the $1.3 billion that California now gets from alcohol and tobacco taxes combined.

Colorado may get about $100 million a year in tax revenue, and Washington could get $310 million. But there is wide disagreement on appropriate tax rates for marijuana. Colorado will be asking voters to approve two sales taxes totaling 25%, while Washington is looking to tax producers, sellers, and buyers -- for a total haul of 75%. That might be so high that it keeps the underground market alive. [Of course if states tax the krap out of marijuana and charge black market prices for legal marijuana with the state governments getting the profits that used to go to the drug cartels, the crime that is caused by black market drugs will continue. The reason the drug war causes crime is because of the black market it creates.]

Unquestionably, a loosening of marijuana laws would ease burdens on law enforcement. Some 663,000 people were arrested for marijuana possession in 2011, up 32% since 1995. In New York, according to the pro-legalization Drug Policy Center, a pot bust typically requires 2.5 hours of a policeman's time. [And cops LOVE that because it means OVERTIME PAY!!!!!] Until Mayor Michael Bloomberg changed the policy in February, the arrested automatically spent a night in the police lockup. Nationwide, some 128,000 people are in state or federal prisons for marijuana offenses. That's 8% of all U.S. prisoners.

Norm Stamper, former chief of the Seattle Police Department, thinks Washington's new law will be a big help. "It will give the police an opportunity to focus much more time, energy, and imagination on going after predatory criminals," he says. Legalization, he adds, also has "opened the door to a much more positive relationship between young people and police."

LITTLE WONDER that more than half of the states have loosened their marijuana rules. Starting with Oregon in 1973, 15 states have decriminalized possession of small amounts of the drug, which means it's illegal but lightly punished, typically with a $100 fine; 18 states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana possession and sale for medical purposes, such as easing the pain of cancer. In all, the number of states taking at least one step to liberalize their pot laws is 26. Two more got ready to join last month: The Illinois legislature passed a medical-marijuana bill, and the Vermont legislature passed a decriminalization bill. Both bills await signing by the states' governors.

The federal government, however, has not moved toward legalization, not one bit. [Liar in Chief President Obama has said a number of times he wasn't going to arrest people for medical marijuana, but he continues to send his DEA thugs to California to shake down people for victimless medical marijuana crimes] In fact, the states with medical-marijuana laws are defying or ignoring the federal government, which classifies marijuana as a drug with a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use, and a lack of acceptable safety, even for use under medical supervision. Efforts to persuade regulators to change the classification of marijuana have been rejected over and over, as recently as 2011.

Emboldened by a 2005 Supreme Court ruling that allows federal prohibition to trump state legalization, the feds have arrested owners of some of the medical dispensaries in California, a state that has permitted dispensaries to operate since 1996. It's entirely unclear how Uncle Sam is going to react when retail sales go into full swing in Colorado and Washington. Attorney General Eric Holder has been promising to produce a policy, but nothing has yet emerged from the Justice Department.

To eliminate the conflicts, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, last month introduced a bill to require the feds to respect state laws on marijuana. "The Herculean effort undertaken by the federal government to prevent the American people from smoking marijuana has undeniably been a colossal failure," he says. Lacking a groundswell of bipartisan support, however, Rohrabacher's bill is considered to have no chance of passage.

"It is likely that we are going to proceed state by state, and that Congress will be unlikely to touch this issue with a pole of any length," says William Galston of the Brookings Institution. "We may very well be a patchwork nation for the next generation."

OTHER STATES WILL JOIN the patchwork as more state officials take a cue from Gavin Newsom, lieutenant governor of California and former mayor of San Francisco. "I was a coward a couple of years ago," he says, referring to the days when he opposed legalization. He switched positions after concluding that legalization would be an important step in his vision for criminal-justice reform.

Newsom, who owns a collection of bars, restaurants, and wineries, also has a more fundamental issue with pot prohibition. "When I'm watching a guy do shots of Jack Daniel's at my bar, I'm thinking, 'That's legal, but a guy at home with his wife on a weekend smoking marijuana is illegal?' It's absurd."

Though he hopes to guide California to legalization, Newsom says the state will first have to improve the regulation of its medical-marijuana dispensaries: "So many of us have had the experience where you're stuck at a traffic light, and you look across the street at a dispensary, and you see a lot of young folks running in and out, and you may even turn the corner and see folks reselling the drug." Until that problem is fixed, he says voters may not believe the state can monitor full legalization.

Another prerequisite: stronger spines in politicians. Many legislators, in California and elsewhere, are fearful of backlashes from antilegalization groups, which warn of increases in crime and harm to youths and families. But eventually, elected officials may come around. Newsom, who is up for re-election in November, hopes to set an example: "If I win and these groups don't come after me, I've got to think some other people will say, 'Hey, they didn't come after him -- maybe it's not as politically toxic as we thought.' "

PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT hurdle for the legalization movement will be the experiences in Colorado and Washington state. If other states are to move toward legalization, these two pioneers will have to demonstrate that legal pot markets can function smoothly and safely.

Though the details of the states' regulations have yet to be hammered out, the bottom line for consumers in both states is similar: If you are over 21, you'll be able to freely buy pot at licensed retail outlets. Already, you can possess as much as an ounce of marijuana, so long as you don't use it in public.

The bills signed by Colorado's governor last week included provisions for curbing drugged driving: You can't get behind the wheel if your blood contains more than five nanograms per milliliter of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, marijuana's key component. A pot smoker can get to that level with as little as one puff, but the numbers decline rapidly over the next three hours, says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Colorado also took steps to prevent marijuana use among youths, making it a crime to share pot with someone under 21 and banning marketing that seems aimed at kids. It's easy to see why the state is worried. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health estimated that 2.6 million Americans had tried marijuana for the first time in 2011, and their average age was 17. The new pot smokers were more numerous than the 2.4 million Americans who smoked tobacco cigarettes for the first time in 2011, whose average age was also 17. Alcohol was still the most popular among recreational substances, with 4.7 million Americans estimated to have taken their first drink in 2011 -- 83% of them younger than age 21.

The push for marijuana legalization can't afford any slip-ups by Colorado or Washington in dealing with the youth population or anything else. "You're one tragedy away in Colorado and Washington from it not being an inevitability," says California's Newsom. On the other hand, he says, success in those states would bode well for legalization in his state and others.

Last month, the legalization movement got a lift from beyond U.S. borders. The Organization of American States, a consortium of nations in North, Central, and South America, released a report suggesting the legalization of marijuana be considered as a step in the war on drugs.

The last president of Mexico, Felip Calderón, had done something of the same. He was the first Mexican president to broach the idea of drug legalization while still in office. And he wasn't just talking about Mexico. "Our neighbor is the largest consumer of drugs in the world," Calderón said in 2011. "And everybody wants to sell him drugs though our doors and windows. If the consumption of drugs cannot be limited, then decision makers must seek more solutions -- including market alternatives -- in order to reduce the astronomical earnings of criminal organizations." [And just last week, probably after this article was released former Mexican President Vicente Fox who now lives in the US said that American should legalize marijuana]

Calderón left office last year, and his successor, Enrique Peña Nieto, flatly opposes legalization of drugs. Marijuana use, he says, often leads users to harder drugs. Nieto's position is no doubt heartening to drug lords, whose money makes them very powerful in Mexican politics. Legalization in Mexico, it's fair to say, faces formidably long odds.

THE U.S. GOVERNMENT, for its part, should at least move to eliminate the widespread confusion between state and federal laws over marijuana use, which has been reaching absurd proportions. Banks in California, for instance, are so unclear about where things stand that they won't let medical-marijuana dispensaries open accounts. As a result, many of the stores are run as cash businesses, inviting robberies. To pay taxes, some are showing up at the state's revenue department with bags of cash.

Whether Congress realizes it or not, a good number of citizens want the problem fixed. The same Pew study that found a majority of people favoring legalization also found that 60% of Americans think the federal government should not enforce its prohibition in states that permit marijuana use. And 72% agreed with the proposition that federal enforcement of marijuana laws is not worth the cost.

Rep. Rohrabacher's plan is as good a fix as any. It's straightforward and sensible: The federal government can help enforce antipot laws in states that want them, but it must mind its own business in states that don't want marijuana to be criminal.

Eventually, the federal government may repeal all of its laws against pot use, pot production, and pot dealing.

They could be replaced by laws no tougher than those that apply to liquor. Just as it was with the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, Congress could allow states to continue pot prohibition by local option, or to draft their own regulatory systems.

Given the unwillingness of many in Congress to even talk about marijuana, the day of full repeal is probably far off. But tending to the clumsy conflicts between state and federal governments is something that can and should be addressed right now.

MICHAEL D. VALLO assisted in reporting this story.

New IRS head says taxpayers no longer trust agency

New IRS head says taxpayers no longer trust agency

By Stephen Ohlemacher Associated Press Mon Jun 3, 2013 1:55 PM

WASHINGTON — His agency under relentless fire, the new head of the Internal Revenue Service acknowledged to Congress on Monday that American taxpayers no longer trust the IRS amid a growing number of scandals — from the targeting of conservative political groups to lavish spending on employee conferences.

But Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel declared he was “committed to restoring that trust.” He said he has installed new leadership at the agency and is conducting a thorough review of what went wrong and how to fix it.

He promised the transparency that was lacking for several years as tea party groups complained about harassment by the IRS, only to be met with denials from the agency.

“We must have the trust of the American taxpayer. Unfortunately, that trust has been broken,” Werfel told a House Appropriations subcommittee in his first public appearance since taking over the agency nearly two weeks ago. “The agency stands ready to confront the problems that occurred, hold accountable those who acted inappropriately, be open about what happened, and permanently fix these problems so that such missteps do not occur again.”

“It has to start,” Werfel added, “with a recognition that a trust has been violated.”

Werfel testified at a difficult time for the agency. Criticized from inside and outside the government, Werfel went to Capitol Hill to ask for a big budget increase. President Barack Obama has requested a 9 percent increase in IRS spending for the budget year that starts in October, in part to help pay for the implementation of the new health care law.

House Republicans have voted 37 times to eliminate, defund or partly scale back the Affordable Care Act, and many are not eager to increase funding for an agency that will play a central role in enforcing compliance.

“We will have to think very carefully about how much money to provide to the IRS,” said Rep. Ander Crenshahw, R-Fla., chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on financial services and general government.

An inspector general’s report last month said IRS agents improperly targeted conservative political groups for additional scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 election campaigns. The revelations have prompted investigations by three congressional committees and the Justice Department.

The agency’s previous acting commissioner was forced to resign, another official retired and a third was placed on paid administrative leave.

A new inspector general’s report, to be released Tuesday, says the IRS spent $50 million to hold at least 220 conferences for employees between 2010 and 2012.

The conference spending included $4 million for an August 2010 gathering in Anaheim, Calif., for which the agency did not negotiate lower room rates, even though that is standard government practice, according to a statement by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Instead, some of the 2,600 attendees received benefits, including baseball tickets and stays in presidential suites that normally cost $1,500 to $3,500 per night. In addition, 15 outside speakers were paid a total of $135,000 in fees, with one paid $17,000 to talk about “leadership through art,” the committee said.

Werfel has called the conference “an unfortunate vestige from a prior era.”

Obama appointed Werfel as acting head of the IRS and ordered him to conduct a 30-day review of the agency’s operations.

“Wherever we find management failures or breakdowns in internal controls, we will move to correct these problems quickly and in a robust manner,” Werfel said. “As we move forward with our work, we will be transparent about what we learn, our specific plans for improvement, the actions we take and the results achieved.”

Associated Press writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.

Video of racist Mesa police beating up Black man????

If you look closely another cop seems to be having some stun gun fun on the man, again, while the man is on the ground and under control of the police. The cop seems to be placing his stun gun on the mans bare back and shocking him. According to the spokesperson from the Mesa Police Department in the following article this type of police stun gun fun is 100 percent acceptable under the Mesa Police policies.

Towards the end of the video the camera takes a shot of a truck that appears to have crashed into a traffic light. That may have been the cop that caused the crash mentioned in the article.

Source

Mesa police arrest video going viral online

The Republic | azcentral.com Mon Jun 3, 2013 1:18 PM

A spokesman for the Mesa Police Department says the YouTube video of a fight between an officer and suspect during an arrest doesn't show anything outside of protocol. [So I guess punching, kicking and having a little stun gun fun on a person that has been arrested and is under control is 100 percent OK under the Mesa police policy. I wonder if this is just for Black folks, or if the Mesa police are equal opportunity *sshole and beat up all races equally well.]

Mesa Sgt. Tony Landato said the officer followed procedure when the suspect resisted arrest outside a Circle K near Center Street and McKellips Road.

The video, posted on YouTube on Saturday, shows a Mesa police officer attempting to arrest a man who then resists. The two go off camera for a moment then get into a struggle that appears to include a security guard jumping in to help the officer. A Mesa police officer is seen shooting the man with a stun gun while officers have the man on the ground.

Also heard during the altercation is a loud crashing sound that involved a second officer getting into a car crash while responding to the Circle K.

Information on the intial arrest attempt and the accident involving the officer is not available

Linda Valdez comments on the beating

Beating video is powerful teaching tool

It’s hard to watch. It’s important to see.

The YouTube video of Mesa Police pummeling and stun gunning a suspect who was resisting arrest isn’t easy to judge, though.

The guy provoked things. He wouldn’t comply with the cop. But once he was down, he was beaten by a number of officers who had him under enough control that one cop administered a stun gun shot with the cool precision of a surgeon.

This is police work the way the public doesn’t usually see it. Asphalt hard. Ugly.

Was it mean, too? Was it police brutality?

Clearly the suspect would have been better off if he hadn’t resisted. He got several chances to comply. He didn’t.

But still.

One can’t tell from the video how hard he continued to resist as cops held him down. He’s a big guy. A spokesman for the Mesa Police Department say the video of the incident shows nothing outside protocol. [Have EVER heard a police spokesperson admitting the police committed crimes???]

The officers followed procedure.

Well.

Many things will be said about the fact that the suspect is Black and the cops are White. Many questions will be raised about whether the violence inflicted on him after he was down was excessive – and, if so, was it because of his race.

But this is not just about race.

It’s about the price of a civil society.

Maintaining the kind of order we all want and the kind of freedom we expect involves a delicate balance.

Police need the ability to keep themselves safe and enforce the laws. But our freedom-loving society has to be on guard against the natural, human temptation of police to go too far in the heat of a dangerous moment. Police work would be easier if cops didn’t have to worry about people’s civil rights. [I can assure you the police rarely worry about a persons civil rights!!!!! It's usually only with high profile suspected criminals who can afford lawyers that the cops worry about there rights. Mainly because they know if they violate the rights of somebody that can afford a lawyer the case might get thrown out]

But they do. I don’t want to live in a society where the police are not held to an extremely high standard. Do you? [That is rubbish!!! Even when the police are caught red handed violating people civil rights they rarely get more them a slap on the wrist for punishment, if that much!!!! Around Nov. 24, 2004 a News 12 helicopter caught some Phoenix Police beating up a suspected carjacker who and surrendered and was laying on the ground. The Maricopa County Attorneys Office didn't even charge the cops with a crime because they claimed they probably would not be convicted. That article follows this article]

Did these cops go too far? If so, that’s a problem. A big problem.

This video probably won’t be used for calm discussion about how to preserve that balance.

But it could be a valuable tool to do that.

It also provides insight into what goes on out there between cops and suspects in the public spaces that you want kept safe. It shows things that are hard to watch, important to think about.

Source

Original Article

Police in scuffle with carjack suspect

David J. Cieslak

The Arizona Republic

Nov. 24, 2004 12:00 AM

Phoenix police are investigating the actions of several officers involved in a scuffle Tuesday afternoon with a handcuffed carjacking suspect.

The officers were arresting a 23-year-old man, one of two suspects accused of assaulting and robbing a pregnant woman at gunpoint outside a supermarket near 43rd Avenue and Thomas Road, Phoenix police Sgt. Randy Force said. The woman was not seriously injured in the attack.

After assaulting the woman, the gunman forced her into the vehicle and led police on a high-speed pursuit that ended at Thomas and 27th Avenue, authorities said. The suspect then jumped out of the vehicle and began running from officers.

When police caught up with the suspect, a crew from 12 News inside the television station's helicopter videotaped officers striking the handcuffed suspect several times.

Among the actions shown on the unedited tape:

An officer throws his body into the suspect, who was facing a wall and did not appear to be resisting.

Once the suspect is on the ground, an officer strikes him twice in the torso with his hand. Officers then drag the suspect in the dirt before an officer places a foot on his midsection.

An officer talks to the suspect with his hand on the man's head and neck, clearly placing a large amount of weight on him.

The officers roll the man onto his back and begin searching his pockets. A short time later, an officer punches him in the groin. They flip the man back over and an officer stands on the back of the suspect's left knee for a few seconds.

As police walk the suspect to a patrol car, an officer strikes the suspect's face with his elbow.

Force said the officers will not be investigated for criminal misconduct, but an administrative review of the incident was under way Tuesday night.

"It's believed the officers' conduct constitutes an issue with our policies, but not a violation of law," Force said. "Looking at the tape, there are concerns about the officers' actions and whether the force used was reasonable under the circumstances. That is going to be the focus of the internal investigation."

Force and members of the department's Professional Standards Bureau and Special Investigations Detail reviewed the tape Tuesday night at 12 News. The officer who initially tackled the suspect declined to comment when contacted at the scene by 12 News.

Police also took the other robbery suspect into custody.

More on that Mesa police beating

Mesa police deny accusations of excessive force raised by YouTube video

By Jim Walsh The Republic | azcentral.com Tue Jun 4, 2013 7:39 AM

Mesa police considered the recent arrest of an uncooperative man outside a convenience store a life-threatening incident after an officer was punched in the face and a second officer’s gun was flung to the pavement nearby.

But a bystander using a cellphone recorded a video and posted it this weekend on YouTube, accusing police officers of excessive force and forcing them to defend their actions.

The video showed a police officer taking the man to the ground, wrestling with him as additional officers joined the melee. A gun flew through the air and lands in the parking lot. An officer delivered several blows to the man before he is eventually subdued and handcuffed.

Kameron Babbitt, who recorded the video, said police were brutal and were guilty of excessive force: using a Taser repeatedly in attempts to subdue the man, punching him and slamming his face to the pavement on Thursday afternoon.

“They went straight to the dogfight,” Babbitt said.

But Sgt. Tony Landato, a Mesa police spokesman, said officers were fighting for their lives. A officer was punched in the face and the gun was loose. He denied police used excessive force and said they followed police protocols properly.

In the end, police arrested Matatangi Sentituli Tai on suspicion of aggravated assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, criminal trespassing, criminal damage and refusing to provide his name when lawfully detained.

A court document filled out by the arresting officer said Tai has been arrested 17 times since 1999, including a charge of aggravated assault on a police officer in September. The report said he has seven convictions since 2000. [So what!!!! The real question is did he commit any crimes to allow the police to arrest him, and then beat him up???]

The incident began at about 1p.m. on Thursday when a clerk at a convenience store called police to report that Tai was acting strangely, saying he was there to pick up a prescription even though the store is not a pharmacy.

The clerk wanted Tai to leave the store, according to a court document.

After Tai stepped outside, he refused commands from the officer to sit down on a curb and provide his identification, Landato said. [OK, so it looks like Tai obeyed the clerks request to leave the store, so I don't think the cops had a case to charge him with trespassing. And per the case of Hiibel v Nevada, you are NOT required to provide the police with with identification, although in some cases, per Hiibel v Nevada the police can demand that you verbally tell them your name. I don't think that applied here, because under Arizona law for Hiibel v Nevada to kick in the police have to have "reasonable suspicion" to do that]

He said Tai would have been cited on suspicion of trespassing and released if he had cooperated with the officer.

The officer decided to arrest Tai, but the officer’s attempt to subdue Tai with a Taser did not work and Tai punched the officer in the face, Landato said.

An off-duty officer’s gun was stripped from his waistband by Tai during the fracas and fell to the ground, police said.

Landato said the gun lying in the parking lot posed an imminent threat to the officers’ lives, and that four officers were required to subdue Tai.

Tai was subdued with a blast of pepper spray to his face, Landato said. [And after he was punched, kicked and tasered by the cops, which is all very clear in the video]

“We had a suspect who fought our officers,” he said. “We used appropriate force to arrest him.”

The video ignited a debate between police, the man who recorded it and viewers online about whether officers were defending themselves or used excessive force in arresting Tai.

Police released their own video taken with a tiny Axon camera mounted to an officer’s glasses, but the video ended when the camera flew off the officer’s head during the melee.

Police reviewed the video posted on YouTube and the Axon camera video, and have determined that officers followed proper procedure and an Internal Affairs investigation is unnecessary, Landato said.

Source

Mesa police actions questioned after video hits web; some commenters claim police brutality, others pleased

Posted: Tuesday, June 4, 2013 6:09 pm

By Eric Mungenastl, Tribune

A recent arrest outside of a Mesa convenience store has drawn criticism from people who say Mesa Police Department officers appeared to use excessive force.

Mesa Police Department public information officer Sgt. Anthony Landato said the incident — captured on video and posted to YouTube — occurred last Thursday outside a Circle K located on the corner of Center Street and McKellips Road. It began when a clerk called police about a man, identified as 36-year-old Matangi Tai, wandering in the store. Tai allegedly asked to have a prescription filled, a service Circle K does not offer.

The officer who arrived at the scene proceeded to address Tai and asked him to step outside the store with him, Landato said. [In a different article the cop claimed that Tai refused to leave the store. I am sorry I didn't grab a copy of that article and post it here.]

“We try to get him out of the business if we can,” he said.

Once they left the store, Landato said Tai would not comply with the officer’s requests for either his name or to sit down at the curb, which Landato said is common procedure. [Nothing illegal about refusing to tell the police your name. It's your Fifth Amendment right. Although the Supremes flushed some of that right down the toilet in Hiibel v Nevada] The officer then attempted to arrest Tai by using a stun gun — Landato said one of the two prongs latched onto Tai — and by engaging him physically, which led to a fight between the two men.

During the scuffle, a second, off-duty officer arrived and helped the other officer bring Tai to the ground, while a pistol from the officer’s waistband fell onto the concrete during their efforts. They were joined by two additional officers who were able to contain Tai and take him to custody.

Tai faces charges on two counts of aggravated assault on an officer, one count of resisting arrest, one count of criminal damage and a count of criminal trespassing. Landato said a stun gun was used on Tai while he was on the ground, and said Tai, the original on-duty officer and the off-duty officer sustained minor injuries from the incident.

The incident has drawn criticism from some who saw a video of it posted on Youtube — other comments praised the officers’ actions — for the amount of force used in the arrest. The man who recorded the video, Kameron Babbitt, said his main complaint with the situation was with the off-duty officer, who he said did much of the kicking and punching and caused an accident by driving through a red light when he arrived at the scene. Landato confirmed the officer did get into a “non-injury accident” with a female driver.

“I’m not a cop hater,” Babbitt said. “If they’re doing their job, do it right.”

Landato, however, said an internal review of the incident by the department found the officers involved followed appropriate protocol given the circumstances of the situation, and said factors like the gun that fell to the ground made it a particularly dangerous incident. He added an off-duty officer becomes an on-duty officer once he or she takes police action.

“All of this was appropriate and within our use of force protocol,” he said. “This is a whole different ballgame than it started out to be ... God forbid, this could have gotten much, much worse.”

Court records indicate Tai faced criminal charges from an incident that occurred last September. The charges were dropped after Tai was found to be too incompetent to assist in his defense and required an interpreter to translate the proceedings into Tongan. Landato said he wasn’t sure of Tai’s level of comprehension, but said he was able to communicate with the officers on some level.

Contact writer: (480) 898-6533 or emungenast@evtrib.com

Sales-tax cut doesn’t register everywhere

Source

Sales-tax cut doesn’t register everywhere

By Mary Jo Pitzl The Republic | azcentral.com Mon Jun 3, 2013 10:28 PM

Tom Keller was upset, but not necessarily surprised, when he realized he didn’t get a break when the state sales tax dropped by a penny per dollar on Saturday.

Count him among the skeptics who doubted the state’s temporary 1-cent-per-dollar sales tax would truly expire. The tax officially did go away, at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

But it didn’t disappear from the tab Keller paid when he stopped at a bike shop and then a restaurant in Mesa on Saturday.

“Sure enough, it’s just the same as what they were charging before,” he said.

Keller isn’t alone. A customer who picked up lunch at Paradise Bakery in downtown Phoenix on Monday also was overcharged.

The state Department of Revenue, which oversees the tax system, said Monday that it had not received any complaints about overcharging. But even if it does, it’s up to the consumer to pursue a refund.

That’s because Arizona’s sales-tax code makes the merchant responsible for collecting the state tax, which as of Saturday, is 5.6 cents on the dollar.

“The tax is on the merchant,” said Sean Laux, who represents the revenue agency at the Legislature. “They can choose to pass the cost of the tax onto their customers.”

Most do. And if they overcharge, Laux said, the department is likely to catch it in periodic checks it makes of merchants’ receipts for the sales tax, technically called the transaction-privilege tax.

But any overcharges don’t go back to the consumer. Instead, they’re considered “excess tax” and deposited into the state general fund.

All of this means if a consumer was overcharged and wants his or her money back, the person needs to go back to the store and get a refund.

Spot checks of receipts from purchases made since June 1 showed other merchants, such as Target and Baker Nursery in east Phoenix, correctly dropped their overall rate by 1 cent on the dollar to reflect the expiration of Arizona’s temporary sales tax.

Keller’s receipts showed he was overcharged 18 cents at Performance Bike in Mesa. That’s the difference a 1-cent rate drop makes on an $18 purchase.

The store received an e-mail from its corporate headquarters Monday notifying it and other Arizona locations of the tax decrease, said Brandon Davidson, manager of the Mesa store.

The staff at headquarters in North Carolina programs all the stores’ computers, Davidson said.

He said the store will refund anyone who was charged the higher tax rate.

“Come back in the store, and we’ll take care of it,” Davidson said. Receipts aren’t even necessary, he said, because the transaction is recorded in the store’s computers.

Likewise, Keller was overcharged 14 cents at Señor Taco, also in Mesa. A store representative was unavailable for comment late Monday.

Paradise Bakery referred calls to Panera Bread headquarters, but there was no return call late Monday.

Keller said for him, the issue isn’t the pennies overcharged but the principle of the tax rate.

He said he made a note of the temporary tax’s expiration, approved by voters in May 2010, and wrote it down in his planner.

“As you know, taxes are always added, and for whatever reason, they never get taken away,” he said, adding that fueled his interest in tracking charges as of June 1.

Keller said he’ll seek a refund from Performance Bike because he patronizes the store. But he won’t be rushing out the door for his 18 cents.

“At the price of gas, I won’t make a special trip,” he said.

Sales-tax rates

As of Saturday, the state sales tax dropped by a penny, to 5.6 cents on the dollar. When local taxes are added in, the tax rates are higher and vary by jurisdiction. Here’s a sampling of current charges:

Phoenix, Tempe: 8.30 cents.

Mesa: 8.05 cents.

Glendale: 9.20 cents.

Scottsdale: 7.95 cents.

Peoria: 8.10 cents.

Source: Arizona Tax Research Association

Will Phoenix City Council call a halt to (illegal?) pension padding?

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton also lied to us when he ran for election saying he would repeal the Phoenix sales tax, which mostly goes to the police.

Source

Will Phoenix City Council call a halt to (illegal?) pension padding?

The Phoenix City Council will huddle privately on Wednesday to puzzle out what to do about those perennial pests over at the Goldwater Institute.

The conservative think tank has long been a thorn in the city’s side, having twice sued to stop illegal giveaways of taxpayer money.

Now it’s threatening to do it again – this time to end an obviously illegal scheme that allows some high-level police and fire officials to not just feather their retirement nests but to gild the things.

“It seems to me the state law is pretty clear on this,” Goldwater attorney Jon Riches told me. “It’s fascinating to me that the practice has happened at all.”

Clearly, Riches hasn’t spent much time hanging around Phoenix city hall. This is the city that sent City Manager Frank Fairbanks into retirement a few years ago with a pension larger than that of any U.S. president. This is the City Council that quietly handed City Manager David Cavazos a 33 percent pay raise last year – a move that boosted his base pay by $78,000 and his deferred compensation by another $8,580 a year.

This, even as Phoenix residents continue paying a 2 percent “emergency” tax on food that once upon a time the mayor promised to repeal.

Then again Mayor Greg Stanton also called for an end to pension spiking during his 2011 campaign.

Sweet maneuver, the spike.

City workers get a generous amount of leave time – 40.5 days a year for entry-level employees – and if they don’t use it all, they are paid for a portion of it when they retire. That cash-out, along with deferred compensation and other fringe benefits, is then counted as “salary” in order to boost their pensions with a little – no, a LOT – of help from taxpayers.

Phoenix cut back on spiking by civilian employees last year though it still allows them to artificially inflate their pensions with unused vacation as well as sick leave accrued before July 2012.

But city leaders have been unwilling to touch spiking by police and firefighters.

State law says members of the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System can’t boost their pensions using “payment for unused sick leave, payment in lieu of vacation, payment for unused compensatory time or payment for any fringe benefits.”

So the city struck a deal with police and fire unions to allow “monthly pay in lieu of sick or vacation accrual” in the final years before retirement.

“These are not payments for sick leave or vacation earned but not taken,” the city’s legal department reasoned, in an e-mail explaining the policy. “Rather, they are bargained-for salary increases in exchange for accepting a lessened benefit package.”

Nicely danced, don’t you think?

The Goldwater Institute, in a letter warning the city to cut it out, calls such reasoning “at best erroneous, at worst dishonest.”

And certainly painful for Phoenix taxpayers, who have seen public-safety pension costs rise from $7.2 million in fiscal 2003 to $129 million in the coming year.

To be fair, much of that is due to sizable investment losses in recent years. And most rank-and-file police and firefighters see only a modest increase in their pensions due to spiking.

But some in the top echelons have turned the spike into the fine-art of a slam dunk, earning more in retirement than while actually doing the job. Republic reporter Craig Harris reports that one former fire captain padded his pension by $40,000 a year by spiking his “salary” with an array of fringe benefits.

Stanton wasn’t available to answer questions about why the spiking continues given his call to end it, or what he plans to do now that the practice has landed on the newspaper’s front page.

Shocking, I know.

He’s called an executive session on Wednesday to discuss the Goldwater threat.

His PR flack did e-mail me a statement, noting that the city has passed “sweeping pension reform” on Stanton’s watch and curtailed future civilian sick leave spiking.

“We also have to make sure the abuses in the system do not continue and that is what we will deliver,” she quoted Stanton as saying. “To the extreme cases where people have taken advantage of the system, we have to stop that. But any changes to the system must ensure that police officers and firefighters who risk their lives every day for us are compensated in a competitive manner that allows us to attract and retain top talent.”

Surely, you can do that, mayor, without breaking the law – not to mention the public’s trust.

Horne uses Jodi Arias verdict to keep his plea bargain out of the news????

If they want to get one of their press releases well covered they will put it out an a slow news day so the media doesn't have much else to cover and will give their press release more attention.

On the other hand when they don't want the public to know something they will usually do it on a day when the media has lots of other important stories to cover, hoping their negative news won't get much coverage.

And of course that is what the media is accusing Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne of doing in this case where he copped a plea to his hit and run case.

Tom Horne is one of the government tyrants that have been trying to flush Arizona's medical marijuana laws down the toilet. Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne along with Arizona Governor Jan Brewer are the folks who filed frivolous lawsuits in Federal court attempting to flush Prop 203 down the toilet.

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Horne re-election campaign e-mail attacks media, Obama to raise money

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Mon Jun 3, 2013 10:24 PM

Republican Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne’s campaign is attacking the media and President Barack Obama as it tries to raise money for Horne’s re-election.

In an e-mail to supporters late last week, Horne accused the “liberal media” of comparing him to murderer Jodi Arias, calling it “a new low and a disgusting attack” that cannot be allowed to stand.

“Tom Horne has taken conservative stands that have made enemies — including the media,” the e-mail said. “So the media is fighting back. One news report compared a $300 traffic fine to Jodi Arias, a cold-blooded murderer. Its (sic) disgusting. As conservatives, we need to FIGHT BACK and FIGHT BACK HARD.”

The e-mail appears to refer to a story by a local TV station that suggested Horne timed entering his no-contest plea to a misdemeanor hit-and-run charge on the same afternoon the verdict was to come down in the closely watched Arias trial.

A Phoenix court official told the station that Horne’s attorney called him several times on May 8 to get on a judge’s calendar that day; Horne’s case originally was scheduled for May 28.

Horne denied to the TV station that he used the Arias verdict to try to bury news of his plea — which resulted in a $300 fine. The plea is tied to a March 2012 fender-bender in which Horne, along with subordinate Carmen Chenal, backed into another vehicle, then left without leaving a note. They were under surveillance by the FBI as part of an investigation involving the campaign-finance case.

Authorities concluded that Horne, a married man, did not leave a note so that he could hide a relationship with Chenal.

Horne is running for re-election in 2014. It is unclear if he will face another Republican in the primary.

Mark Brnovich, director of the Arizona Department of Gaming, on Monday said he is “seriously considering” a run for the attorney general’s post.

Brnovich, a former state and federal prosecutor, said he has been approached “by a number of prominent and well-respected people in the community” about running.”

“I think it’s important we have the strongest Republican we can running next November,” he told The Arizona Republic. “I believe that, with my experience, my temperament, my qualifications, that I would make an excellent attorney general.”

On the Democratic side, attorney Felecia Rotellini, whom Horne narrowly defeated in 2010, is gearing up for another run.

Attacking “liberal media bias” and Obama are tried-and-true Republican fundraising tactics.

In the e-mail, the Horne campaign says Horne has also fought against “Obamacare, against drugs and for protecting our border.”

“Look at what the liberals are up to lately,” the e-mail says. “They have the IRS go after the tea party, they blame Bengazi (sic) on an internet video and go after Fox News.”

An e-mail link takes supporters to Horne’s campaign website

Obama signs bill on lying about military medals

Obama lied to us several times when he said he wouldn't send his DEA thugs to arrest medical marijuana users in California.

Obama also lied about supporting gay marriage.

And of course Obama has told us a whole slew of lies about ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yea, I know, the American Empire won both wars but if that is true why do we have tens of thousands of military troops in both countries. OK, most of them are not American military troops, but they are mercenaries hired by the American government to replace the military troops.

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Obama signs bill on lying about military medals

3:21 p.m. EDT June 3, 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says President Obama has signed a bill making it a crime to lie about receiving a military medal.

The Stolen Valor Act cleared both chambers of Congress last month. The White House said Obama signed it Monday.

The measure revives a law struck down by the Supreme Court in 2006. The court said it may be disreputable to lie about receiving a medal, but it's protected under the First Amendment.

The new law is narrower, making it a crime to lie about being decorated with the intent to profit personally or financially. That could include those who claim medals in order to receive veterans benefits, land a government contract or get a job reserved for veterans.

Violators could face up to a year in prison.

Drug War judge's daughter arrested

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Drug court judge's daughter among 10 arrested on pot charges in Wilmette

By Gregory Trotter Tribune reporter

7:10 a.m. CDT, June 4, 2013

The 20-year-old daughter of a Cook County judge who presides over a drug court was among those arrested in a police raid in Wilmette stemming from a marijuana and ecstasy investigation, authorities said.

Wilmette police and officers from the Cook County Sheriff’s North Gang Team executed a search warrant at the home of Oskar Vahtra, 18, in the 1500 block of Forest Avenue in the north suburb around 5:30 p.m. Friday.

Vahtra and four others were arrested at the home, police said. Later that night, between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. at the Edens Plaza on Lake Avenue, five more people were arrested on charges related to the selling and purchasing of marijuana.

The five arrested at the home included a 17-year-old boy, two 17-year-old girls and a 16-year-old girl, according to a police press release. All of them live in the New Trier Township area.

Vahtra was charged with a felony count of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and a misdemeanor charge of firearm possession without valid identification. Police confiscated marijuana, ecstasy and Vicodin at Vahtra’s home, police said. There was also paraphernalia including grinders, baggies, empty capsules and a portable scale.

At the Edens Plaza, police arrested Robert Kyle, 19, of Winnetka; Claire Axelrood, 20, of Wilmette; Andrew Cahill, 20, of Winnetka; Dylan Brennan, 19, of Chicago; and one 17-year-old boy.

Axelrood was charged with felony possession of marijuana. Sources said she is the daughter of Cook County Circuit Court Judge Larry Axelrood, who helped bring a drug specialty court program to the Skokie courthouse. Larry Axelrood declined comment when reached by phone. His daughter could not be reached.

Larry Axelrood has been involved with the specialty drug court in Skokie for about three years. In a recent Tribune story, he explained that it lasts between 18 months and two-and-a-half years, during which enrollees are treated for drug and alcohol abuse where needed, get therapy, receive vocational training, adhere to curfews, and comply with a slew of other court ordered mandates.

Among the others arrested, Kyle was charged with a felony count of marijuana possession with intent to deliver. Cahill and Brennan were charged with the local ordinance citation of less than 10 grams of marijuana.

Freelance writer Brian L. Cox contributed.

gtrotter@tribune.com

Latin American countries want to end failed American "drug war"???

Drugs were more or less legal until the American government passed the "1914 Harrison Narcotic Tax Act" and the "1937 Marihuana Tax Act" which made drugs illegal in the USA at the Federal level and then bribed the rest of the world into also making drugs illegal with foreign aid.

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OAS to seek fresh ways to combat illegal drugs

By Tracy Wilkinson

June 4, 2013, 10:21 a.m.

MEXICO CITY -- Drug policy and the need to substantially change the way countries tackle the issue will take center stage at a major regional meeting of nations of the Americas that starts Tuesday.

Representatives of several Latin American countries are expected to pressure U.S. officials to find alternatives to what is seen as an approach to fighting drugs that leans heavily on law enforcement -- a strategy that has cost tens of thousands of mostly Latin American lives.

The meeting, being held in Antigua, Guatemala, is the annual general assembly of the Organization of American States, the region’s leading political body, which 2 1/2 weeks ago issued a groundbreaking report that urged governments to consider decriminalizing some drug use.

The OAS report is part of a growing movement to find new drug strategies, including those recently advocated by the OAS as well as former presidents, human rights organizations, citizens and even the current president of this meeting’s host nation, former army Gen. Otto Perez Molina of Guatemala.

“This is an important step,” Perez Molina said on the eve of the general assembly.

The report made no specific recommendations but suggested that decriminalization could be one of many “transitional methods” in a new public health strategy. It was significant because it helps consolidate what many Latin Americans see as the need to alter policies as their countries -- chief among them Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras -- have been torn apart by violent drug wars.

In a series of speeches on the eve of the meeting, a parade of community activists and small-town officials complained about the way drug traffickers have terrorized their home areas.

Yet the U.S. is likely to remain odd man out in the search for alternatives. President Obama has said he welcomes discussion but does not consider legalization to be a solution. In Antigua, the U.S. is to be represented by Secretary of State John F. Kerry.

"Our goal going into Antigua is to ensure that we can convey as clearly as possible what this administration's position on drugs has been both at home and abroad," Roberta Jacobson, U.S. assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs, said in Washington. "We want to make sure that administration strategy is understood. We want to have a conversation about what is working."

Kerry “needs to respond constructively to the Latin American presidents who are demanding a new dialogue about alternatives to failed U.S. prohibitionist policies,” Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which supports liberalizing drug laws, said in a statement issued Monday.

A consortium of 50 activist groups from North, Central and South America signed an open letter to the general assembly, urging members to “place human rights at the center” of the drug-policy debate.

"This week’s summit represents an unprecedented opportunity for governments to rethink failed drug policies,” Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, director of the Open Society Global Drug Policy Program, said in a separate statement. “For too long governments thought they could arrest and jail their way out of this problem.”

It was not clear how much consensus there would be among the 34 delegations at the assembly. Guatemalan Foreign Minister Fernando Carrera said discussions would focus on issues such as dealing with money-laundering, gun-smuggling and related security matters as ways to diminish violence, but that the member states would not be debating legalization of marijuana

Drug stop in Tonopah justified search warrant in Ahwatukee???

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More than 100 marijuana plants found in Ahwatukee home, DPS says

By Erin O’Connor The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Tue Jun 4, 2013 10:55 AM

Authorities found more than 100 marijuana plants at a Ahwatukee Foothills home Tuesday morning, according to the Department of Public Safety.

This investigation began on Monday with a traffic stop near Tonopah. Johnny Lee, 24, of Ahwatukee and another person was arrested after a DPS Canine Unit found 9 pounds of marijuana in his car. A follow up investigation lead officials to the residence in Ahwatukee

A search warrant was served on the home near 17th Avenue and Pecos Road. Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team entered the residence and found an elaborate growing operation, several handguns and an AK-47, according to authorities.

Marijuana laws are racist laws????

Pot arrests more likely for Blacks, study says

Associated Press Tue Jun 4, 2013 11:36 AM

WASHINGTON — Black people are arrested for possessing marijuana far more often than White people, even though marijuana use by both races is about the same, the American Civil Liberties Union reports in a new study.

The ACLU’s analysis of federal crime data, released Tuesday, found marijuana arrest rates for Black people were 3.73 times greater than those for White people nationally in 2010. In some counties, the arrest rate was 10 to 30 times greater for blacks. In two Alabama counties, 100 percent of those arrested for marijuana possession were black, the ACLU said.

When it comes to marijuana use, about 14 percent of Black people and 12 percent of white people reported in 2010 that they had used the drug during the previous year, according to data that the ACLU obtained from the National Drug Health Survey, a Health and Human Services publication. Among younger people ages 18-25, use was greater among whites.

An overall increase in marijuana possession arrests from 2001 to 2010 is largely attributable to drastic increases in arrests of black people, the ACLU said.

Blacks were arrested at a rate of 537 per 100,000 people nationally in 2001. In 2010, their arrest rate rose to 716 per 100,000. The 2001 number for White people was 191 per 100,00 and rose to 192 per 100,000 in 2010, the ACLU said. Despite the disparate rates, far more whites were arrested for marijuana possession in 2010, 460,808 compared to Blacks, 286,117.

Ezekiel Edwards, lead author of the ACLU study, attributed the disparate arrest rates to racial profiling by police seeking to pad their arrest numbers with “low-level” arrests in “certain communities that they have kind of labeled as problematic.”

“While this country moves in some ways in a more progressive direction on marijuana policy in a lot of places, in other places, people are getting handcuffed, jailed and getting criminal records at racially disparate rates all around the country,” Edwards said.

Police simply operate from the standpoint that “the use of marijuana is a crime,” said Jim Pasco, executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police.

“We will try to educate our membership, to the extent the statistics are valid, to be aware (that) people other than Blacks are smoking marijuana and to arrest them too,” said Pasco, who had not yet seen the ACLU report.

Arthur Burnett Sr., a retired judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, said his 40 years on the bench showed him that police concentrate their numbers in black communities. It’s easier to catch people with marijuana in communities where there are “open-air” drug markets, rather than looking in homes, basements or country clubs, said Burnett. He is the CEO of the National African American Drug Policy Coalition based in Washington.

Burnett said some black defendants, distrustful of authorities, may lash out, use profanities or be rebellious — behavior that makes it more likely that an officer will make an arrest. Burnett said his coalition supports forming a commission to look at scientific evidence on the effect of marijuana use and “overcriminalization” of it.

The commission would determine whether to treat marijuana like tobacco, in which people are warned about consequences of its use. It would also examine the harshness of penalties for using pot.

“We don’t need to treat it like heroin and cocaine,” Burnett said.

The ACLU supports legalization of marijuana and regulation through taxation and licensing. It also supports eliminating criminal and civil penalties for marijuana possession. If those two options are not possible, the ACLU supports punishment for marijuana possession with only civil penalties, which is often referred to as decriminalizing marijuana possession.

The unequal arrests rates are not confined to a single region of the U.S. or in urban areas with larger black populations, the ACLU said. That discrepancy is found throughout the country, regardless of the size of the black population of the location and at all income levels, the data shows.

For example, in Morgan County, Ala., where African Americans represent 12 percent of the population and Pike County, Alabama, where 37 percent of the population is black, all those arrested for marijuana possession were black, the ACLU found.

African Americans living in counties with the highest median household incomes, $85,000 to $115,000, are two to eight times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites. In counties with median household incomes of $22,000 to $30,000, the arrest rate for blacks is 1.5 times to five the rate as for whites, the report said.

The largest disparities were found in: Iowa, where blacks were 8.34 times more likely to be arrested than whites; Washington, D.C., 8.05 times greater; Minnesota, 7.81 times; Illinois, 7.56; Wisconsin, 5.98; Kentucky, 5.95 and Pennsylvania, 5.19 times greater.

Blacks face these greater chances for arrest for marijuana possession at a time when Colorado and Washington have legalized adult possession of small amounts of nonmedical marijuana, while a number of states and Washington, D.C. allow medical marijuana. Federal law still prohibits its use. Some states and some cities have eased punishments for possession of smaller amounts.

The findings are hardly surprising to the African American community.

Ben Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, said arrest disparities like those for marijuana possession have led to mass incarceration and criminalization of African Americans, which in turn, has become the new Jim Crow, referring to laws that sanctioned racial segregation in schools and public facilities.

“Any arrest, even for marijuana, is a blot on someone’s record and an impediment to future jobs and opportunities,” Jealous said. “For these reasons, a number of NAACP state conferences (chapters) have supported the decriminalization of marijuana.”

Man wants $75K for ruined pot plants

Man wants $75K for ruined pot plants

Joe Ferguson Arizona Daily Star

A 56-year-old man wants Pima County to give him $75,000 after forcing him to destroy the medical marijuana plants he was growing in his garage last December.

An attorney representing James Merkle has filed a notice of claim with Pima County, asking for damages after Pima County sheriff's deputies forced him to uproot 12 small marijuana plants after responding to a report of a domestic disturbance at the home.

Merkle was issued a medical marijuana card by the state to treat osteoarthritis in his knee.

His attorney, Paul Gattone, said deputies found the plants locked inside the garage while performing a routine search of Merkle's home.

Gattone said the deputies misunderstood the state's guidelines for handling medical marijuana when they forced his client to destroy them.

Under Arizona law, medical marijuana cardholders can grow up to 12 plants indoors so long as they are in an enclosed, locked facility. This is defined as "a closet, room, greenhouse or other enclosed area equipped with locks or other security devices that permit access only by a cardholder."

The only keys to the garage, Gattone said, were in his client's possession.

The deputy, he alleges, cited the laws from growing marijuana outdoors instead of indoors.

"He was greatly mistaken," he said.

Merkle was not arrested nor was he charged with any crime after a search of the home.

A spokesperson for County Attorney Barbara LaWall had no immediate comment.

A letter of claim is a precursor to a formal lawsuit against the county.

In January, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled a Border Patrol officer improperly seized marijuana last year from a California woman who had a legal prescription for medical marijuana.

The court ruled the woman was entitled to get her marijuana back.

Contact reporter Joe Ferguson at jferguson@azstarnet.com or 573-4346.

Cops are paid very well and have cushy jobs????

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Richardson: ‘Selective scrutiny’ over police, fire pension programs a dangerous game

Posted: Friday, May 31, 2013 5:47 am

Guest Commentary by Bill Richardson

‘Selective scrutiny’ over police, fire pension programs a dangerous game

May 2013 will go down as one of the worst periods in Arizona history when it comes to the loss of first responders.

On May 6, Department of Public Safety officer Tim Hoffman was murdered while investigating an accident near Yuma. Twelve days later, Phoenix firefighter Bradley Harper was killed at a fire scene. The next day, Phoenix Police officer Daryl Raetz was murdered while arresting a drunk driver.

Three dead in two weeks.

The last time this kind of tragedy struck Arizona was in 1970-71, when two Phoenix police officers died on Dec. 28, 1970, two Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies died Jan. 18, 1971, and two DPS officers Feb. 5 and Feb. 7. Five were murdered and one died while responding to a dying officer’s call for help. One of the murdered deputies was the father of one of the Phoenix officers who died.

Many widows and orphans were made in that five-week period.

No one ever told us being a cop or firefighter was going to be without risk or danger. Doing police work or fighting fires right is dirty, dangerous and where there’s always a chance of dying and leaving behind a widow and orphans. We just expected that our families would be taken of as promised if anything ever happened to us. Sadly promises were broken and contracts breached by the Arizona State Legislature.

Over the last two years the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System, Arizona’s police and fire pension plan, has come under selective scrutiny by powerful media interests and the Legislature.

Tales of a handful of pension abuses and a few double and triple dippers made headlines and became the catalyst for the legislature to climb onboard the pension reform train following years of plumping up their own pension plan, part-time elected officials get better pensions than police officers and firefighters, the same elected officials giving their retirement fund administrator a nearly quarter million dollar annual pension all while failing in their fiduciary and legislative responsibilities that threw the once nationally heralded public safety pension fund into mismanagement and underfunding.

Following a series of newspaper stories, the legislature led by its own in-house double and triple dippers looked more like cats covering up feces in a sand box than a responsible elected body trying to fix a broken pension system.

In its zeal and fear of being targeted by the media as against pension reform, the legislature enacted drastic changes in a few short months instead of taking a long and hard look at what had worked exceptionally well until its members fell asleep at the switch. Their repair effort looked more like using duct tape to fix a failed bridge instead of studying the problem and fixing it right once they had good advice and all the facts. Already their patch is showing signs of failure.

While the legislative leadership and their minions can boast to the media of taking on the pension abusers and pro-labor forces, you don’t hear them bragging about cutting survivor’s benefits to the widows and orphans of police officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty. You see that the legislature wiped out the paltry annual cost living adjustments given to widows and orphans — many of who are unable to obtain Social Security survivor’s benefits because their spouse’s employers didn’t enroll public safety employees in Social Security.

As usual legislators will tout their support for police officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty following the recent deaths of Huffman, Harper and Raetz. If they supported them so much then why did create a situation that would hurt their survivors?

It’s time for the state legislature to fix what they broke and restore benefits to the widows and orphans of those fallen police officers and firefighters our legislator’s profess to the cameras and newspapers they respect so much and thank for their service.

Retired Mesa master police officer Bill Richardson lives in the East Valley and can be reached at bill.richardson@cox.net.

Arpaio nailed but not corralled

And of course it will probably take another 4 more years of lawsuits for the Feds to order him to stop.

Sadly there isn't much difference between how Sheriff Joe violates the rights of alleged criminals and that of most other police departments across America. The only real difference is that Sheriff Joe brags about his civil rights violations, while most other police departments pretend to honer the civil rights of people they abuse.

Kind of like that video tape of the Mesa police beating up a Black man last week. The spokesperson for the Mesa police said the beating conformed to the policies of the Mesa police and the Mesa cops did nothing wrong.

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Arpaio nailed but not corralled

Those who believe that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has finally been nailed and corralled on the issue of racial profiling shouldn’t be so confident.

The decision by federal Judge G. Murray Snow certainly nailed Arpaio on the question of whether he unconstitutionally targeted Latinos with his immigration sweeps.

During these sweeps, Arpaio’s deputies targeted cars with Latino drivers and occupants to follow. The deputies claimed that virtually any car could be found in violation of some traffic law in a matter of minutes. When a car with Latino occupants was pulled over, all Latinos were questioned about their legal status. Arpaio’s position was that if a pretext were found for the initial stop, there was no racial profiling.

Simply put, Arpaio was targeting certain residents for special scrutiny because of their race. That’s a disgraceful violation of fundamental American principles and the U.S. Constitution.

The problem with Snow’s decision is in its attempt to corral Arpaio through injunctive relief.

According to Snow, illegal presence in the United States is a civil offense. And when the federal government stripped Arpaio’s office of its ability to act as federal immigration enforcement agents, Arpaio lost the right to take action regarding civil violations.

Snow explicitly enjoined Arpaio’s office from prolonging a traffic stop except to investigate other state or federal criminal law violations, which according to Snow doesn’t include illegal presence.

In the first place, the claim that illegal presence is just a civil offense is far from clear-cut. It is true that there is no federal crime for illegal presence. But it is a federal crime for foreign citizens to remain in this country without registering with the federal government. Illegal immigrants are obviously in violation of that criminal statute.

Perhaps more importantly, it’s hard to square Snow’s decision with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision upholding the constitutionality of the stop provisions of SB 1070. That Arizona law requires local law enforcement, in the course of a lawful stop for some other reason, to make a reasonable attempt “to determine the immigration status” of those reasonably suspected of being “unlawfully present in the United States.”

The court said this provision didn’t per se violate the U.S. Constitution. So, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, local law enforcement can seek, during a traffic stop, to determine “immigration status,” irrespective of whether it is a civil or a criminal matter.

While the court acknowledged that prolonging a stop solely to determine immigration status would raise a constitutional question, obviously following up on reasonable suspicion of illegal presence requires some expenditure of time. The court reserved the question of how long a stop could reasonably be prolonged and under what conditions.

So, Snow is saying that Arpaio can’t do what the U.S. Supreme Court has said not only that local law enforcement can do but that state law can require them to do.

Now, it’s important to point out that Arpaio’s sweeps also violated SB 1070. There is no evidence that Arpaio’s deputies established reasonable suspicion before trying to determine the immigration status of Latinos detained.

Snow’s remedy is vulnerable on appeal. If he seeks to impose a court monitor, as the decision hints he’s inclined, the decision becomes more vulnerable. The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear its dislike of federal courts micromanaging the day-to-day operations of local governments.

There’s a non-judicial remedy that would be, in some respects, more satisfying. That Arpaio unconstitutionally violated the rights of Latino residents during his immigration sweeps is now unarguable. That should offend the conscience of the entire body politic.

An appropriate expression of condemnation would be a resolution by the Board of Supervisors forbidding any county money from being expended on such sweeps in the future. Arpaio might sue, saying that the board doesn’t have the authority to tell him how to spend his budget.

But it’s hard to imagine more favorable, or appropriate, circumstances for the board to attempt to expand its powers of the purse.

Extensive IRS conference spending revealed by IG report

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Extensive IRS conference spending revealed by IG report

By Morgan Little

June 4, 2013, 1:18 p.m.

WASHINGTON -- A new report on Internal Revenue Service expenditures finds that the agency spent more than $48 million on 225 conferences over a three-year span, with one conference in Anaheim coming under particular scrutiny.

The $4.1-million conference held in 2010 raised red flags within the agency, prompting an inquiry by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration. The report, released Tuesday, details not only the multimillion-dollar gathering, but improper booking practices, inadequate tracking of agency expenditures, keynote speakers and parody videos.

The location of the conference was selected by external event planners, who had “no incentive,” according to the inspector general, to seek any lower prices, and were paid about $133,000 in commission by the hosting hotels. Attendees received in excess of $64,000 worth of promotional items ranging from bags, mugs, picture frames and more.

The conference also included 15 speakers at a cost of $135,350, one of whom was paid $17,000 to paint Michael Jordan, Albert Einstein and other famous figures to “create a unique painting that reinforces his message of unlearning the rules, breaking the boundaries and freeing the thought process,” according to internal IRS documents.

As for the matter of tracking expenses, the report reveals that until March 2012, the IRS lacked “any guidelines requiring management to track and report the actual costs incurred for conferences.” The $4.1-million price tag for the Anaheim conference, the inspector general says, remains an estimate because of inadequate bookkeeping.

Since the beginning of fiscal year 2010, the IRS has spent an estimated $48.6 million on conferences, the bulk of which, more than $37 million, occurred in fiscal year 2010. After just six conferences that year accounted for more than $13.7 million in spending, just two more conferences, both in fiscal year 2012, topped $1 million.

An early indication of the IRS’ spending emerged this year, with the agency’s apology for a training video based on “Star Trek.” The video was shown at the Anaheim conference.

The report comes as the IRS is dealing with investigations into its targeting of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status, with agency officials being thoroughly questioned in congressional hearings.

The new head of the agency, Daniel Werfel, promised Monday that “completely inexcusable” screening by employees will be rooted out, and the chief financial officer of the IRS wrote to the inspector general in April pledging that expenditures like those in 2010 would not be repeated.

“Clearly, a conference like this from three years ago – and many of the instances described – would not take place under our expanded and strengthened oversight process,” Chief Financial Officer Pamela J. LaRue wrote, citing significant cutbacks in conference and training budgets.

Scottsdale to settle police-shooting suit for $4.25 million

Scottsdale to settle police-shooting suit for $4.25 million

By Laurie Merrill The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Jun 5, 2013 8:33 AM

A $4.25 million tentative settlement has been reached in a federal lawsuit over the fatal shooting of an unarmed man by Scottsdale police last year.

In September, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona sued the city on behalf of the relatives of 50-year-old John Loxas, who had his grandson in his arms and was turning back toward his house when Scottsdale SWAT Officer James Peters shot him during a police standoff in February 2012.

The lawsuit alleged that Scottsdale fails to adequately investigate police shootings and promotes use of force because of a “tolerant environment.”

Loxas was the sixth person Peters had fatally shot in the line of duty since 2002, according to records.

Scottsdale Mayor Jim Lane on Tuesday said the tentative agreement is “the result of discussions between the legal staff and the ACLU. It was brought to us as a settlement of the issue by the legal department as their best (solution)” to the lawsuit.

The Scottsdale Police Department found the shootings — including Loxas’ — justified after several boards reviewed the cases. Peters retired from the department on disability several months after Loxas’ shooting.

Loxas’ family originally sought $7.5 million from the city, according to Scottsdale City Council documents.

The council was scheduled to consider the proposal at a meeting Tuesday.

The Maricopa County Superior Court Probate Division also must sign off on the agreement, according to City Council documents.

Both sides saw the wisdom of settling before the case went into a full trial, said Dan Pochoda, ACLU of Arizona's legal director.

Scottsdale is self-insured in the matter for up to $2 million. The settlement funding would come from the risk management operating budget and the city’s insurance carrier, according to the documents.

The city carries umbrella insurance in such cases, Lane said.

As of November, the City Council had authorized $1.7 million in legal fees for the Loxas case and for the case of David Hulstedt.

Hulstedt became a paraplegic after two Scottsdale officers shot him in the back in 2008 as he was walking toward his house carrying his 2-year-old daughter, according to court records.

Hulstedt was seeking $40 million in damages. The case is ongoing, Lane said.

DEA reactivates controversial informant

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DEA reactivates controversial informant

By Dennis Wagner The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Jun 5, 2013 7:29 AM

A government informant who was terminated by the Justice Department years ago amid accusations of serial perjury has been reactivated and is working an undercover drug case with DEA agents in Phoenix, prompting allegations of government misconduct by a defense lawyer in a pending case.

Andrew Chambers Jr., once labeled in court records as “the highest-paid snitch in DEA history,” gave false testimony under oath in at least 16 criminal prosecutions nationwide before he was exposed in the late 1990s, according to U.S. District Court filings.

Chambers was an informant from 1984 to 2000 for the Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal agencies in at least 280 cases. The sting operations, which sent dozens of suspects to prison, took place in 31 cities across the nation.

During his first career as an informant, Chambers, 56, reportedly received up to $4 million in government money, nearly half of that from the DEA. He also was a paid informant of the FBI, customs-enforcement officers, postal inspectors, the Secret Service and other police agencies. He was credited with a role in 445 drug arrests.

The DEA conducted an internal probe in 2000 documenting Chambers’ dishonesty after defense lawyers and the media criticized the pattern of perjury and a lack of federal oversight. The Republic has obtained a copy of the 157-page Management Review, which says the DEA deactivated Chambers indefinitely as a confidential source on Feb. 2, 2000.

Yet, somehow, he resurrected his career and surfaced in Phoenix about three years ago in a sting that targeted defendant Luis Alberto Hernandez-Flores, accused as the kingpin in a major drug-trafficking organization.

Cameron Morgan, an attorney for Hernandez-Flores, filed a motion to dismiss charges or suppress testimony after uncovering the informant’s background.

“The DEA rehired Mr. Chambers, is using him in investigations all over the country, is again paying him exorbitant amounts of money and refuses to provide discovery about what he’s up to,” Morgan wrote in a petition under consideration by U.S. District Judge Stephen McNamee. “If Chambers were nothing more than a run-of-the-mill criminal, that would be one thing. But both Chambers and his defenders in the DEA brag that he is a con man extraordinaire.”

Chambers could not be reached for comment. It is unclear if he has a lawyer.

Eric E. Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank, expressed shock when told that a known perjurer is again working in the justice system.

“Wow! That’s pretty outrageous,” said Sterling, former assistant counsel to the House Subcommittee on Crime. “It’s just inexcusable. ... This is really a breakdown in the management of the DEA and the Department of Justice.”

Dawn Dearden, a DEA spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., said she cannot discuss ongoing investigations or Chambers’ activities. “However,” she added, “I can say that DEA follows very strict and rigorous guidelines and protocols when handling all informants.”

Public-affairs officers at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix and the Justice Department did not respond to interview requests.

During a 2000 appearance on the PBS show “Frontline” about his controversial career, Chambers said he helped bust criminals not for the money but because he didn’t want them selling drugs to his kids. “You need more people like me out there to deal with these guys.”

Chambers also was featured in 2000 on the ABC News broadcast “20/20.” He admitted giving false testimony about his criminal history, saying, “I just lied about it. I didn’t think it was that important what I did.”

Richard Fiano, then chief of operations at the DEA, told reporter Connie Chung that repeated, court-documented perjuries by Chambers “fell through the cracks” at his agency. “Would DEA use him (again)?” Fiano said. “No.”

Past misrepresented

The DEA’s internal investigation of Chambers in 2000 generally exonerated federal agents and prosecutors.

It said the informant was not urged to lie by agents or prosecutors. It asserts that his dozens of handlers were unaware of the deceit because of communication failures within the agency. Among those handlers was current DEA Director Michele Leonhart, who worked with Chambers as a field agent in St. Louis and as an administrator in Los Angeles. There is no public record of any DEA employee receiving discipline.

The DEA management review, a detailed inquiry conducted by the Office of Inspections, said Chambers misrepresented his past to sanitize his image and credibility. It asserted that his fibs were not germane to guilt or innocence of defendants.

The report listed numerous cases in which he gave false testimony about his criminal history. In at least a half-dozen trials and depositions, he denied any arrests or convictions even though he has been arrested 13 times and has a conviction for soliciting prostitution.

Chambers also testified falsely about his education and taxes, the report alleged: In a Florida case, for example, he swore that he had attended Iowa Wesleyan College for three years; he was there only one semester. He testified that he paid taxes on $60,000 of informant earnings during the previous year even though he filed no return.

When confronted with his contradictions on the witness stand during the 1990s, Chambers admitted under oath that he had repeatedly given false testimony. In the “Frontline” interview, he said he was accused of lying “because I didn’t say that I had been arrested for traffic tickets.” He added that he solicited a hooker to further his undercover role.

Federal prosecutor Stephen Wolfe described Chambers in a 1999 appellate case before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as “undefendable” because of his deceit and said the DEA’s repeated failure to confront and disclose the perjury was “carelessness, recklessness and probably deliberate,” according to a transcript.

Yet Chambers was not not charged with perjury or with tax evasion. Justice Department officials declined to explain the lack of prosecution. In 2000, federal attorneys in Miami and South Carolina threw out criminal indictments because of Chambers’ damaged credibility. News accounts at the time predicted a flurry of appeals nationwide by prison inmates seeking to have their convictions overturned; it is unknown how many appeals were filed or how many of those efforts were successful.

The DEA report said all of Chambers’ interactions with suspects were recorded except for first contacts. Defense attorneys view those initial meetings as critical to establishing whether Chambers entrapped their clients — inducing them to commit crimes that would not otherwise have occurred.

The DEA sought to conceal records of Chambers’ work from attorneys who filed a request for documents under the Freedom of Information Act. A federal court in the District of Columbia ordered the release of the materials, noting that the plaintiffs provided “compelling evidence ... suggesting massive government misconduct.”

After revelations about Chambers became public in 2000, then-Attorney General Janet Reno suspended his use as an operative.

Nevertheless, federal court records in Arizona show that Chambers was quietly reactivated about five years ago and took on a controversial role in the Hernandez-Flores case now being litigated in Phoenix.

‘Serial perjurer’

Informants, also known as confidential sources, are undercover operatives used by law-enforcement agencies to infiltrate criminal organizations. Some are criminals who accept the work to avoid prosecution or severe sentences. Others are paid for their services, usually under contracts.

The job, often perilous, requires courage, stealth and skilled deceit. Drug informants typically gather intelligence and in many cases orchestrate sting operations — phony narcotics deals — that are monitored by agents who sweep in and make arrests. In addition to payments for service, informants may be eligible for rewards and a percentage of seized cash from criminal enterprises.

A specialist in sting operations, Chambers typically poses as an out-of-town narcotics trafficker, often flashing bling and driving fancy cars. The Missouri native is said to be bold and street-savvy, using multiple aliases, able to convincingly portray a slum gangster or a Mercedes-driving entrepreneur. Once he identifies suspects, transactions are filmed or recorded by agents.

That’s what allegedly transpired with Phoenix defendant Hernandez-Flores, who was indicted in March 2012 on charges of narcotics possession and conspiracy. A DEA search-warrant affidavit identified Hernandez-Flores as the kingpin in a trafficking organization that deals in marijuana, heroin and cocaine.

In his May 21 motion to dismiss charges, defense attorney Cameron Morgan ripped the government for employing a “serial perjurer” who was previously banished from informant work.

Morgan declined to be interviewed for this story but confirmed this week that he forwarded information about Chambers to justice committees of the U.S. Senate and House.

In court papers, Morgan said federal officials provided an “open-ended grant of immunity” and paid a lot of money for testimony from a confessed perjurer. “At some point, the danger to the integrity of the court system is too great,” he wrote, arguing that charges should be thrown out or that testimony should be precluded because of “outrageous government conduct.”

Terry Rearick, a private investigator who years ago helped expose Chambers’ pattern of false testimony, said re-employing him for drug stings shows “a blatant, arrogant disrespect of justice from the government.”

“He was supposed to be out of business,” Rearick added. “I can’t believe it.”

Duping criminals

A St. Louis Post-Dispatch story on Jan. 16, 2000, described Chambers as a high-school dropout who became an informant after failing to qualify as an agent. The story, headlined, “Top U.S. drug snitch is a legend and a liar,” also said he was an expert at duping criminals as well as the federal agents who employed him.

Chambers’ rap sheet contains at least 13 arrests on suspicion of assault, forgery and other crimes, according to public records. There is one conviction: In 1995, he was snared in a Denver sting operation in which undercover female officers posed as prostitutes. He also was charged with impersonating a federal agent at the time of that arrest, according to multiple published reports.

Federal authorities today refuse to divulge who authorized the 2008 reactivation of Chambers as an operative or why.

It is unknown when he started doing cases in Arizona. Morgan’s motion says a supervising federal prosecutor in Phoenix endorsed the decision. Former U.S. Attorney Diane Humetewa, who served in 2008, said she has no recollection of Chambers. Her successor, Dennis Burke, could not be reached.

Hernandez-Flores, scheduled for trial this summer, became the target of a DEA task force at least three years ago — suspected of drug-dealing and money-laundering. A federal search-warrant affidavit says the racehorse owner was investigated along with his wife, Alma Ramos, who was not charged, and associate Saul Sandoval, a co-defendant in the criminal case.

The federal indictment was a sort of do-over by DEA task-force members after an earlier state prosecution of the alleged drug ring fell apart.

In March 2010, Hernandez-Flores and 42 others were rounded up on a Maricopa County Superior Court indictment.

Hernandez-Flores was charged with 34 drug-related counts, but a judge ruled that a Glendale police detective who was working with the DEA provided “false and misleading statements” in a wiretap affidavit regarding her confidential informant.

Phone-surveillance records and derivative evidence got thrown out. Prosecutors were forced to dismiss charges against nearly all the defendants, including Hernandez-Flores, who walked out of jail in June 2011.

One month later, according to a search-warrant affidavit sworn out in federal court by DEA Agent Dustin Gillespie, Chambers bumped into Hernandez-Flores outside the suspect’s store, LJH Carniceria/SuperMercado, in southwest Phoenix.

The affidavit says Chambers parked at the business while taking a break from another investigation. It asserts that his contact with Hernandez-Flores occurred “by happenstance and was unplanned by law enforcement and the CS (confidential source).”

As a result, Chambers was not wearing a wire when Hernandez-Flores is accused of telling a complete stranger about his narcotics operation that included 80,000 pounds of marijuana available for distribution.

Within weeks, the affidavit says, a deal was struck: Chambers agreed to pay $90,000 for a kilogram of heroin, with half of the cash up front. On Dec. 21, 2011, DEA agents gave their informant a box of “simulated bulk currency.” The fake money was paid to Sandoval, who moments later crashed his vehicle trying to escape police.

Hernandez-Flores and Sandoval were indicted in March 2012.

Morgan, the defense lawyer, notes in his motion for dismissal that the previous case was thrown out based on an officer’s false statements related to an informant. Then, in the federal affidavit, Gillespie swore that Chambers was “a reliable DEA CS (confidential source)” despite the informant’s history of false testimony.

“These misrepresentations point out the danger of dealing with Chambers,” Morgan wrote. “His penchant for perjury is infectious to law enforcement.”

According to Morgan’s motion, Chambers was reactivated by the DEA in 2008, but the agency has refused to give defense lawyers any information on his role since that date.

“Here we are, again dealing with the horrific Chambers record and the DEA cover-up that has been going on since 1985 when it first rescued him from felony charges,” Morgan wrote.

Brian Russo, an attorney for Sandoval, said he also will seek dismissal. He said that Gillespie’s affidavit falsely labeled Chambers as reliable and that it defies belief to claim the case started by “happenstance.”

“Come on, I don’t believe in that much coincidence,” he added. “It’s just not plausible.”

Russo said the DEA refuses to supply defense counsel with basic information on Chambers’ investigations during the past five years, but a federal prosecutor recently disclosed in court that, since 2008, the informant has been paid an additional $1.8 million for undercover work.

“They won’t even tell us who made the decision (to reinstate him as an operative),” Russo said. “Somebody knows they’ve got serious problems.”

‘One in a million’

A review of the Nexis database for U.S. media articles shows no coverage of Chambers’ resurrection during the past five years. He is mentioned only in a 2010 news release that criticized the Obama administration for appointing Leonhart as DEA director despite her “close professional relationship” with the tainted informant.

Leonhart worked with Chambers as a drug investigator in Missouri during the 1980s and then as special agent in charge of the DEA’s Los Angeles office.

The Post-Dispatch report in 2000 quoted her as saying Chambers was “very credible, an outstanding testifier.” She also bemoaned the possibility that his undercover work would end.

“That would be a sad day for the DEA,” she told the newspaper. “He’s one in a million.”

Leonhart was confirmed by the Senate in 2010 as DEA administrator, overseeing 10,000 employees and a $3 billion budget. She had been deputy director since 2004 and was in that post when Chambers was reinstated as an operative.

Leonhart declined an interview request.

H. Dean Steward, a Southern California defense attorney who helped expose Chambers in 1999, said it is obvious who revived Chambers’ undercover career: “Michele Leonhart, head of the DEA. She was his handling agent. ... I’m convinced he’s back in business because of her.”

Steward said Chambers routinely fails to record introductory meetings with suspects, as happened in the Hernandez-Flores case in Phoenix.

That practice, he said, allows for possible entrapment with lies to suspects and for fabricated accounts in court. Defense lawyers, unable to disprove Chambers’ testimony, attack his credibility. Judges and jurors must decide whether to believe the informer.

“The significance is, he can say anything he wants,” Steward said. “He can lie. ... Supporting criminal cases with an admitted liar and perjurer perverts the entire system. To do it twice over 20-plus years is shocking.”

Reach the reporter at dennis.wagner@arizona republic.com.

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Case built on informer falls apart

By JJ Hensley and Dan Nowicki The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Jun 5, 2013 11:03 PM

The concerns with federal drug informant Andrew Chambers Jr. have existed for years. They have been the subject of national TV news programs, newspapers around the country chronicled his activities, and a report from the Drug Enforcement Administration documented his lies and betrayals.

Those concerns did not discourage federal agents in Phoenix from using Chambers as an informant in a heroin-smuggling case in which DEA investigators labeled him as reliable.

But federal prosecutors on Tuesday asked a federal judge to dismiss the charges against Luis Hernandez-Flores and Saul Sandoval, accused of smuggling in a case in which Chambers was the key informant. The motion was filed at 6:16 p.m. Tuesday just hours before The Arizona Republic published a story on the DEA’s use of Chambers on the front page and on azcentral.com.

The dismissal does not detail what information was recently discovered that led to the move, and federal authorities declined to discuss it Wednesday.

The DEA indefinitely deactivated Chambers as an informant in 2000, following extensive coverage and an internal investigation that raised questions about his work for the agency. The DEA quietly reinstated Chambers as an informant in 2008.

The Republic’s story Wednesday caught the attention of watchdog groups, who were aware of Chambers’ history of giving false testimony in federal drug cases and his alleged non-payment of taxes on the millions of dollars the federal government paid him through the years. But the move to dismiss the case has prompted at least one member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over the DEA, to raise the issue of a federal investigation into the decision to use Chambers in the first place.

Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Wednesday called the DEA’s use of Chambers “concerning” and suggested that the agency’s inspector general look into the matter.

“Using criminals to catch criminals is a dangerous game, but one that is at times required,” Grassley, R-Iowa, told The Republic in an e-mailed statement. “The federal government must take the utmost care and consideration when using informants. Too often the agencies operate in silos and fail to talk to their counterparts at the federal, state and local levels. Reactivating an informant with such a troubled history is concerning, and something the Inspector General should look into.”

A spokesperson for Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, who also sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, declined to comment until Flake gets more information on the case.

The defense attorney for Hernandez-Flores last month filed a motion to dismiss the case against his client, arguing Chambers’ testimony as an informant could not be trusted. The motion detailed information about Chambers over the years.

Some of those issues came up last week in federal court, said Brian Russo, a defense attorney representing Sandoval.

Russo said the federal prosecutor assigned to the case, Karen McDonald, expressed her concerns at a hearing after she conducted a briefing with Chambers in preparation for the trial set for later this summer.

Chambers’ alleged failure to pay taxes was among the issues McDonald raised in court, Russo said. “She told the judge on the record that she had debriefed him, and new information came up, specifically these unpaid taxes, that she felt obligated to disclose,” Russo said.

The only thing surprising about the government’s move to dismiss the case was the timing, Russo said.

“Karen had discussed her desire to have a meeting with her bosses and push toward this, so it’s not totally unexpected,” Russo said.

A spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration declined to comment because U.S. District Judge Stephen McNamee has not yet signed the government’s motion to dismiss the case.

There is no indication that the agency would elaborate on the decision to reinstate Chambers as a paid informant if the order is signed.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix declined to comment on the decision to drop the smuggling case, but said federal prosecutors still plan to respond to the defense’s motion to dismiss despite filing the very same motion on Tuesday.

“We still intend to file that response,” said Cosme Lopez, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona.

If the judge grants the motion to dismiss, it would mark the second time that a case involving Hernandez-Flores fell apart. He was among 43 people named in a 2010 indictment in Maricopa County Superior Court where Hernandez-Flores was charged with dozens of drug-related counts. A judge ruled that a police officer working with the DEA provided misleading statements in order to get a wiretap, and the related evidence was thrown out, forcing prosecutors to dismiss the case.

Hernandez-Flores walked out of jail in June 2011. One month later, Chambers paid a visit to the suspect in southwest Phoenix, launching the second investigation.

Russo said that given the amount of money the government has spent to bring a case that relied on a questionable informant, someone should answer for the decision to employ Chambers.

“Somebody at the DEA obviously should be held accountable,” he said. “Taxpayer dollars are spent on these prosecutions, and now they have to just throw it out.”

Sadly the Arizona Republic is painting this case as a shocking abuse of power that has never happened until now. That is a lie.

Federal, state, county and city cops routinely pay snitches to frame people.

As of now 300+ people have been freed from death row when DNA testing proved they were framed by the police. Many of these cases relied on paid government snitches to frame the innocent person.

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A suspected drug kingpin is free, thanks to the DEA

Our View: Shortcuts, toxic informant thwarted justice

By Editorial board The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Jun 6, 2013 7:49 AM

In the annals of crime and punishment in America, prosecutors sometimes have been persuaded by the sheer force of a news reporter’s newfound evidence that their case against the accused wasn’t as dead-bolt certain as they thought.

Prosecutors are human. Sometimes they err.

But the now-collapsed federal case against suspected heroin smugglers Luis Alberto Hernandez-Flores and Saul Sandoval is a different matter. It does not appear to have fallen apart because of procedural error by prosecutors. Nor does any newly discovered evidence exonerate the suspects.

No, this case collapsed because of the boneheaded and indefensible use of a tainted informant.

As reported by The Arizona Republic’s Dennis Wagner, the star witness for the prosecution in the drug-smuggling case — paid informant Andrew Chambers Jr. — is not merely problematic to the pursuit of justice. He is a living nightmare. The revelation of his association with the case appears to have rendered it toxic and unwinnable.

How toxic is Chambers?

Early Wednesday, as Wagner’s story exposing Chambers appeared online and on readers’ doorsteps, federal prosecutors scrambled to get a motion before U.S. District Court Judge John Leonardo to dismiss the case.

According to Wagner, Chambers was dropped by the Justice Department as an informant in 2000 after the Drug Enforcement Administration alleged he committed perjury in 16 cases he worked undercover for the DEA while earning a reported $4 million.

Prosecutors acknowledged that Chambers’ testimony was so thoroughly drenched in lies that his presence in a case was “undefendable.” Federal prosecutor Stephen Wolfe said in 1999 that the DEA’s repeated failure to confront and disclose his perjury was “carelessness, recklessness and probably deliberate.”

Banished in 2000, Chambers resurfaced as a DEA informant in 2008, and has been paid at least $1.8 million since then, according to Wagner’s reporting.

Whether coincidence or not, Chambers’ resurrection coincides with the rise of his former DEA handler, Michele Leonhart, to the top of the agency’s management.

Prosecutors and law-enforcement investigators should be aggressive and undaunted in the pursuit of justice. But the operative word here is “justice.” Those entrusted with enforcing the law must follow the law to the letter. There are no shortcuts.

With a lightning rod like Chambers holding their case together, it is incomprehensible how federal prosecutors expected to win this case, much less see justice served. [It is not incomprehensible how federal prosecutors expected to win this case!!! This is rather routine. Federal, state, county and city cops routinely pay snitches to lie and frame people they suspect to be criminals. To date 300+ people have been freed from death row when DNA testing proved they were framed by the police. In many of these cases lies from paid government snitches like Andrew Chambers Jr. were used to frame these people.]

Sadly, the DEA is not alone in flouting justice in pursuit of convictions. Zealotry is too easy to find.

The conviction of Debra Jean Milke in 1990 for arranging the murder of her 4-year-old son was overturned based on evidence of disturbing practices by the lead investigator in the case. [Again, it is not incomprehensible how federal prosecutors expected to win this case!!! This is rather routine. Federal, state, county and city cops routinely pay snitches to lie and frame people they suspect to be criminals. To date 300+ people have been freed from death row when DNA testing proved they were framed by the police. In many of these cases lies from paid government snitches like Andrew Chambers Jr. were used to frame these people.] And as a federal judge concluded, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s notion of justice depends on the color of the driver of the car.

Whoever at the DEA authorized rehiring the undefendable Andrew Chambers Jr. has much explaining to do.

Those explanations should include that person’s understanding of the meaning of the word “justice.”

Top political appointees use secret email accounts

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Top political appointees use secret email accounts

Associated Press Tue Jun 4, 2013 11:10 AM

WASHINGTON — Some of President Barack Obama’s political appointees, including the Health and Human Services secretary, are using secret government email accounts they say are necessary to prevent their inboxes from being overwhelmed with unwanted messages, according to a review by the Associated Press.

The scope of using the secret accounts across government remains a mystery: Most U.S. agencies have failed to turn over lists of political appointees’ email addresses, which the AP sought under the Freedom of Information Act more than three months ago. The Labor Department initially asked the AP to pay more than $1 million for its email addresses.

The AP asked for the addresses following last year’s disclosures that the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency had used separate email accounts at work. The practice is separate from officials who use personal, non-government email accounts for work, which generally is discouraged — but often happens anyway — due to laws requiring that most federal records be preserved.

The secret email accounts complicate an agency’s legal responsibilities to find and turn over emails in response to congressional or internal investigations, civil lawsuits or public records requests because employees assigned to compile such responses would necessarily need to know about the accounts to search them. Secret accounts also drive perceptions that government officials are trying to hide actions or decisions.

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Tuesday defended use of the email accounts by senior U.S. officials as a traditional practice across government and by previous administrations. [Previous government crooks did it, so that makes it OK for us to do it???] Carney said the email accounts aren’t secret, even though they aren’t disclosed to the public, [then if they are not secret, what are they???] because their contents fall under congressional oversight and the Freedom of Information Act.

Carney said that having alternative emails makes “eminent sense” and compared senior government officials to news columnists at major publications who provide email addresses for their readers but have alternate email addresses so they are not inundated with unwanted messages. [So they are SECRET email accounts???]

Carney wouldn’t say whether White House officials also use secret accounts, noting that the president’s staff, like Congress, is exempt from turning over materials under the open records law. But Carney said that early in his tenure at press secretary, after his email address had been announced publicly, Carney changed his address to avoid being inundated by emails and spam. [F*ck the public records law, we had to do it to prevent spam!!!]

“That’s a very reasonable thing to do,” Carney said. [Yea, everything the President orders is a very reasonable thing to do!!!!]

Agencies where the AP so far has identified secret addresses, including the Labor Department and HHS, also said maintaining non-public email accounts allows senior officials to keep separate their internal messages with agency employees from emails they exchange with the public. They also said public and non-public accounts are always searched in response to official requests and the records are provided as necessary.

The AP couldn’t independently verify the practice. It searched hundreds of pages of government emails previously released under the open records law and found only one instance of a published email with a secret address: an email from Labor Department spokesman Carl Fillichio to 34 coworkers in 2010 was turned over to an advocacy group, Americans for Limited Government. It included as one recipient the non-public address for Seth D. Harris, currently the acting labor secretary, who maintains at least three separate email accounts.

Google can’t find any reference on the Internet to the secret address for HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Congressional oversight committees told the AP they were unfamiliar with the non-public government addresses identified so far by the AP.

Ten agencies have not yet turned over lists of email addresses, including the Environmental Protection Agency; the Pentagon; and the departments of Veterans Affairs, Transportation, Treasury, Justice, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security, Commerce and Agriculture. All have said they are working on a response to the AP.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz declined to comment. [We refuse to comment on if we obey the public records laws!!! Is that an oxymoron or what???]

A Treasury Department spokeswoman, Marissa Hopkins Secreto, referred inquiries to the agency’s FOIA office, which said its technology department was still searching for the email addresses. Other departments, including Homeland Security, did not respond to questions from the AP about the delays of nearly three months. The Pentagon said it may have an answer by later this summer. [We refuse to comment on if we obey the public records laws!!! And we also promptly respond to all requests for public records as required by the law. Again iss that an oxymoron or what???]

The Health and Human Services Department initially turned over to the AP the email addresses for roughly 240 appointees — except none of the email accounts for Sebelius, even one for her already published on its website. After the AP objected, it turned over three of Sebelius’ email addresses, including a secret one. It asked the AP not to publish the address, which it said she used to conduct day-to-day business at the department. Most of the 240 political appointees at HHS appeared to be using only public government accounts.

The AP decided to publish the secret address for Sebelius — KGS2(at)hhs.gov [KGS2@hhs.gov] — over the government’s objections because the secretary is a high-ranking civil servant who oversees not only major agencies like the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services but also the implementation of Obama’s signature health care law. Her public email address is Kathleen.Sebelius(at)hhs.gov. [Kathleen.Sebelius@hhs.gov]

At least two other senior HHS officials — including Donald Berwick, former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Gary Cohen, a deputy administrator in charge of implementing health insurance reform — also had secret government email addresses, according to the records obtained by the AP. A spokesman for Cohen, Brian Cook, said the non-public address that HHS listed in its records — Gary.Cohen1(at)cms.hhs.gov [Gary.Cohen1@cms.hhs.gov] — was created after Cohen rejoined the department in August 2012 after a brief absence and all emails now are directed to his public government email account. Cook called the suggestion that Cohen ever had a secret account “news to everyone, including Gary.”

The Interior Department gave the AP a list of about 100 government email addresses for political appointees who work there but none for the interior secretary at the time, Ken Salazar, who has since resigned. Spokeswoman Jessica Kershaw said Salazar maintained only one email address while serving as secretary but she would not disclose it. She said the AP should ask for it under the Freedom of Information Act, which would take months longer.

The Labor Department initially asked the AP to pay just over $1.03 million when the AP asked for email addresses of political appointees there. It said it needed pull 2,236 computer backup tapes from its archives and pay 50 people to pore over old records. Those costs included three weeks to identify tapes and ship them to a vendor, and pay each person $2,500 for nearly a month’s work. But under the department’s own FOIA rules — which it cited in its letter to the AP — it is prohibited from charging news organizations any costs except for photocopies after the first 100 pages. The department said it would take 14 weeks to find the emails if the AP had paid the money.

Fillichio later acknowledged that the $1.03 million bill was a mistake and provided the AP with email addresses for the agency’s Senate-confirmed appointees, including three addresses for Harris, the acting secretary. His secret address was harris.sd(at)dol.gov. [harris.sd@dol.gov] His other accounts were one for use with labor employees and the public, and another to send mass emails to the entire Labor Department, outside groups and the public. The Labor Department said it did not object to the AP publishing any of Harris’ email addresses.

In addition to the email addresses, the AP also sought records government-wide about decisions to create separate email accounts. But the FOIA director at HHS, Robert Eckert, said the agency couldn’t provide such emails without undergoing “an extensive and elongated department-wide search.” He also said there were “no mechanisms in place to determine if such requests for the creation of secondary email accounts were submitted by the approximately 242 political appointees within HHS.”

Late last year, the EPA’s critics — including Republicans in Congress — accused former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson of using an email account under the name “Richard Windsor” to sidestep disclosure rules. The EPA said emails Jackson sent using her Windsor alias were turned over under open records requests. The agency’s inspector general is investigating the use of such accounts, after being asked to do so by Congress.

An EPA spokeswoman described Jackson’s alternate email address as “an everyday, working email account of the administrator to communicate with staff and other government officials.” It was later determined that Jackson also used the email address to correspond sometimes with environmentalists outside government and at least in some cases did not correct a misperception among outsiders they were corresponding with a government employee named Richard Windsor.

Although the EPA’s inspector general is investigating the agency’s use of secret email accounts, it is not reviewing whether emails from Jackson’s secret account were released as required under the Freedom of Information Act.

The EPA’s secret email accounts were revealed last fall by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank that was tipped off about Jackson’s alias by an insider and later noticed it in documents it obtained the FOIA. The EPA said its policy was to disclose in such documents that “Richard Windsor” was actually the EPA administrator.

Courts have consistently set a high bar for the government to withhold public officials’ records under the federal privacy rules. A federal judge, Marilyn Hall Patel of California, said in August 2010 that “persons who have placed themselves in the public light” — such as through politics or voluntarily participation in the public arena — have a “significantly diminished privacy interest than others.” Her ruling was part of a case in which a journalist sought FBI records, but was denied.

“We’re talking about an email address, and an email address given to an individual by the government to conduct official business is not private,” said Aaron Mackey, a FOIA attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. He said that’s different than, for example, confidential information, such as a Social Security number.

Under the law, citizens and foreigners may use the FOIA to compel the government to turn over copies of federal records for zero or little cost. Anyone who seeks information through the law is generally supposed to get it unless disclosure would hurt national security, violate personal privacy or expose business secrets or confidential decision-making in certain areas.

Obama pledged during his first week in office to make government more transparent and open. The nation’s signature open-records law, he said in a memo to his Cabinet, would be “administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.”

Narcs raid wrong apartment and murder dog

Iraq veteran with no criminal record claims police shot his dog dead in botched drug raid

By Beth Stebner / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Published: Wednesday, June 5, 2013, 2:13 PM

An Iraq war veteran is reeling after cops busted through his door and fatally shot his rescue dog in what he says is a botched narcotics raid.

Adam Arroyo, who does not have a criminal record, told The Buffalo News that the narcotics division targeted the wrong apartment in the city's West Side, which resulted in the tragic death of his two-year-old pit bull, Cindy.

The rescue dog was in the apartment on Monday when police knocked down his front door with a battering ram.

"They came in, and within a few seconds of entering the apartment, they murdered my dog … they had no reason to do that," he told The Buffalo News, adding that they trashed the rest of his home looking for possible narcotics.

Arroyo, who is Hispanic, said that the search warrant was for a black man living in the apartment complex, and told the newspaper that there are two other apartments with the same address in the complex.

"I saw the carnage when I came in the door," he told 9News.com. "They murdered (her), it was like my daughter," the veteran told the station.

Arroyo is now demanding an apology and restitution from the Buffalo police, saying that aside from the emotional turmoil he's faced, he had to pay for Cindy's cremation and has significant damage in his apartment.

Chief of Detectives Dennis J. Richards said that an internal review is being conducted in the matter. [And you can count on the cops to find some lame excuse to justify their botch raid on the WRONG apartment, along with murdering the guys dog. ]

Police said that the pit bull, a rescue, had not been restrained in any manner. [What did you expect? The dog was in the guys HOME. But hey, lets not let that get in the way of the cops demonizing they guy to justify their botched raid on the wrong home, in addition to murdering the guys dog. And of course you can expect the cops to find more reasons to demonize this guy to justify their mistakes. ]

bstebner@nydailynews.com

Narcs raid wrong house and murder owners dog!!!

None of the police spokesmen in these articles even admitted that they f*ckup up royal. And they even seem to blame the owner of the apartment for the death of his dog because they claim it was not chained up.

The only thing that surprises me about this is that the cops didn't make up a bunch of bogus charges and arrest Adam Arroyo for animal cruelty and neglect because they murdered his dog.

In Arizona when the cops make a drug bust, they are usually followed in the the messy yard cops, or zoning inspectors who write up the folks they raided with a bunch of messy yard tickets or zoning violations in an attempt to demonize them more.

I am also surprised the Buffalo cops didn't sick the messy yard cops on Adam Arroyo in an attempt to demonize him.

Source

Owner of dog killed in drug raid says police targeted wrong apartment

By Gene Warner | News Staff Reporter

on June 4, 2013 - 8:15 PM

A West Side resident and Iraq War veteran with no criminal record is mourning the loss of his rescue dog who was fatally shot during a Buffalo police narcotics raid that apparently targeted the wrong apartment Monday night.

Cindy, a chocolate-brown 2½-year-old pit bull, was shot multiple times while chained up in the kitchen of Adam Arroyo’s apartment on Breckenridge Street near Grant Street, he said in a phone interview.

The search warrant that police left for Arroyo, who was not at home at the time of the raid, lists the upper apartment at the Breckenridge Street address, but there are two upstairs apartments at that address, and Arroyo insists that police targeted the wrong apartment.

The search warrant also states that the apartment is occupied by a “black male.” Arroyo is Hispanic.

After talking with neighbors, Arroyo has pieced together the sequence of events that occurred at about 8:30 p.m. Monday.

“They busted the door down, with a battering ram or whatever,” he said. “They came in, and within a few seconds of entering the apartment, they murdered my dog. They shot her multiple times. They had no reason to do that.”

Police late Tuesday said they would investigate any such claim.

“We’ll conduct an internal investigation into any allegations of wrongdoing on the part of the Police Department,” Chief of Detectives Dennis J. Richards said.

Richards confirmed that a search warrant was executed at that address by narcotics officers and that a dog was shot there.

“They went to the correct location for which the warrant was issued,” he added.

Richards later said detectives who were at the scene insisted that the dog was not chained or leashed in any manner before it was shot.

Arroyo’s landlord called him while he was at his job as a security officer to tell him that his apartment was being raided. He immediately rushed home.

“I saw all the blood and the bullet holes in the wall,” he recalled Tuesday. “I collapsed, and I just started crying. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I’ve been crying all day.”

Arroyo’s copy of the search warrant lists the names of Narcotics Unit detectives who were looking for crack cocaine in his apartment.

“They trashed the place,” he said. “It looks like a tornado hit it.”

One neighbor who was outside prior to the raid said she saw about half a dozen unmarked police cars, before roughly seven to eight officers entered the house.

“All I heard was gunshots. ‘Boom. Boom. Boom,’ ” said the woman who gave only her first name, Jen.

“Then I heard my friend say, ‘Wow, they shot his dog.’ ”

“I fought for this country,” he said. “I put my life on the line for this country. I got shot at so this could be a free country. And this is how I’m treated afterward?”

Arroyo said his dog had a great temperament and was a favorite of neighbors. Kids in the neighborhood used to come by to pet her.

Tuesday, he took Cindy to the SPCA Serving Erie County.

“I’m going to have her cremated, so she can always be with me,” he said.

email: gwarner@buffnews.com

Source

Neighbors: We Told Police They Had Wrong Apartment

By Rachel Elzufon

June 5, 2013 Updated Jun 5, 2013 at 10:40 PM EDT

Buffalo, NY (WKBW) - It was a story you first saw here on Eyewitness News. There are new developments in the case of a man who says police raided the wrong apartment and killed his dog.

Buffalo Police say there is an internal investigation underway. If the officers entered the wrong address, there will be ramifications. [Yea, big ramifications. If it is discovered they did something wrong, and that is a BIG IF, they will get a slap on the wrist, at MOST]

Adam Arroyo contacted Eyewitness News on Tuesday. He says that Buffalo Police raided his apartment Monday evening, shooting and killing his beloved pit bull, Cindy.

However, Arroyo says the search warrant left behind is for the “upper” apartment. He lives in the upper rear apartment -- on the other side of the house.

Marco Torres, who lives two homes down from Arroyo, says he told police officers that they had the wrong apartment.

As police broke down the door at 304 Breckenridge Street, raiding Arroyo's apartment, Torres says, "I kept telling them over and over that it was the wrong house -- but they weren't listening."

Marco Torres watched the whole thing from outside, and says he warned officers that they may have broken into the wrong apartment.

"When I heard it, it wasn't just one gunshot. It was multiple gunshots," Torres says.

Arroyo, who was at work at the time, showed Eyewitness News the damage and blood left behind.

Even without seeing the search warrant, Torres says he knew it could not be Arroyo.

"He works everyday, he's the coolest kid you can ever meet. He don't do none of that," Torres says, referring to the drugs listed on the search warrant.

Arroyo says he understands police have a job to do. However, he is still upset.

Arroyo is a military veteran, and says he served for 16 months in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He recently took his Corrections Officer test. [So it sounds like Adam Arroyo has some experience terrorizing people in Iraq, like the Buffalo cops did to him here in the USA. Of course two wrongs don't make a right. ]

"I mean, I'm doing the right thing," Arroyo says. "I'm doing good. They had no reason to come to my house and kill -- and murder my dog."

The military veteran says everyday in his apartment; he walks by the bloodstains and bullet holes from the raid that killed Cindy.

Torres says Cindy was "the sweetest dog you'll ever meet -- everybody knows that around the block."

"I want (Buffalo police) to change the policies,” says Arroyo. [Don't make me laugh. The police almost never admit doing anything wrong, and at the most they will get a slap on the wrist the damage and destruction they caused] “If they know a dog is in the residence, to have animal control out there, or have a taser -- why go and use deadly force? That was my family member."

Arroyo says he also wants Buffalo police to pay for the damage done to his apartment during the raid.

Derenda says, "in the case of a dog being in the apartment, if he was attacking the officer and he was self-preservation -- stopping the dog from attacking would be justified." However, the department is looking into their policy on how to handle dogs when a search warrant is executed. [Shoot them is how they do it now. Trigger happy cops need a way to let off steam and dogs are almost as good as humans]

The police commissioner has not spoken with the officers involved. However, Derenda says, "There are proper procedures in place. We should not get the wrong apartment. We are looking into what took place and we will investigate." [Yea, and nothing will change, and at the most the guilty parties will get a slap on the wrist. If that much]

Police would not comment on any potential policy changes, because the case is under investigation.

Source

Iraq veteran with no criminal record claims police shot his dog dead in botched drug raid

By Beth Stebner / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Published: Wednesday, June 5, 2013, 2:13 PM

An Iraq war veteran is reeling after cops busted through his door and fatally shot his rescue dog in what he says is a botched narcotics raid.

Adam Arroyo, who does not have a criminal record, told The Buffalo News that the narcotics division targeted the wrong apartment in the city's West Side, which resulted in the tragic death of his two-year-old pit bull, Cindy.

The rescue dog was in the apartment on Monday when police knocked down his front door with a battering ram.

"They came in, and within a few seconds of entering the apartment, they murdered my dog … they had no reason to do that," he told The Buffalo News, adding that they trashed the rest of his home looking for possible narcotics.

Arroyo, who is Hispanic, said that the search warrant was for a black man living in the apartment complex, and told the newspaper that there are two other apartments with the same address in the complex.

"I saw the carnage when I came in the door," he told 9News.com. "They murdered (her), it was like my daughter," the veteran told the station.

Arroyo is now demanding an apology and restitution from the Buffalo police [don't count on it sucker! The cops will make up every lame excuse possible to blame THEIR mistakes on YOU], saying that aside from the emotional turmoil he's faced, he had to pay for Cindy's cremation and has significant damage in his apartment.

Chief of Detectives Dennis J. Richards said that an internal review is being conducted in the matter. [And you can count on the cops to find some lame excuse to justify their botch raid on the WRONG apartment, along with murdering the guys dog. ]

Police said that the pit bull, a rescue, had not been restrained in any manner. [What did you expect? The dog was in the guys HOME. But hey, lets not let that get in the way of the cops demonizing they guy to justify their botched raid on the wrong home, in addition to murdering the guys dog. And of course you can expect the cops to find more reasons to demonize this guy to justify their mistakes. ]

bstebner@nydailynews.com

Source

New York veteran says police killed dog during botched drug raid

Published June 06, 2013

FoxNews.com

A New York veteran is mourning the loss of his rescue dog who was fatally shot during a police narcotics raid that apparently targeted the wrong apartment.

The Buffalo News reports that Cindy, a 2-year-old pit bull, was shot multiple times while chained in the kitchen of Adam Arroyo’s Buffalo apartment late Monday.

According to a search warrant left for Arroyo, an Iraq War veteran who was not home at the time of the raid, lists the upper apartment at the Breckenridge Street address, but two upstairs apartments exist – and Arroyo insists police searched the wrong residence.

The search warrant also states that the apartment is occupied by a “black male,” the Buffalo News reports. Arroyo is Hispanic.

“They busted the door down, with a battering ram or whatever,” he told the newspaper. “They came in, and within a few seconds of entering the apartment, they murdered my dog. They shot her multiple times. They had no reason to do that.”

Police officials said they will investigate Arroyo’s claims.

“We’ll conduct an internal investigation into any allegations of wrongdoing on the part of the Police Department,” Chief of Detectives Dennis Richards said.

Richards confirmed a search warrant was executed at the Breckenridge Street address by narcotics officers and that a dog was shot there.

“They went to the correct location for which the warrant was issued,” Richards told the newspaper.

Detectives at the scene, however, insisted that the dog was not chained or leashed in any manner before it was shot.

Arroyo said the dog, whose remains were cremated, had a great temperament and was friendly with children in the neighborhood.

“I fought for this country,” he said. “I put my life on the line for this country. I got shot at so this could be a free country. And this is how I’m treated afterward?”

Source

ohmidog!

Buffalo man says police were searching wrong apartment when they shot his dog

An Iraq War veteran says police were raiding the wrong apartment when they shot and killed his pit bull, Cindy.

Adam Arroyo was at work Monday when his apartment in Buffalo was searched by police, who shot and killed the dog he says he left tied up in the kitchen.

Arroyo rushed home when his landlord called to tell him police were searching his apartment.

“I got here as fast as I could and I saw the carnage. I saw what happened. My house was flipped upside down, my dog was gone,” he told News 4 (WIVB). He said he always tied Cindy up in the kitchen when he left for work because she tended to chew on his clothes and shoes.

Buffalo Police said officers were searching for drugs when they encountered the dog, who they said was aggressive and unchained. They believe they had the correct address, though no drugs were found in the search.

Arroyo says there are two upper apartments at his address. He showed the search warrant to News 4, and it described the suspect as black. Arroyo is Hispanic.

“They had no right, no evidence, because if that was the case they would have found stuff here and I would be in jail,” he said.

Buffalo Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda said an investigation will be conducted by the Internal Affairs Division. [And you can count on it saying the cops did NOTHING wrong]

Source

Dog Killed In Police Raid

11:11 PM, Jun 5, 2013

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- An Iraq War veteran claims that Buffalo Police targeted the wrong apartment when they kicked in his door and killed his dog Monday searching for drugs.

Adam Arroyo says he did nothing wrong, and now he wants an apology.

"I saw the carnage when I came in the door," he says.

Arroyo showed us bullet holes and blood left behind after he says Buffalo Police raided his apartment and killed his two-and-a-half-year-old pit bull Cindy.

"I would like an apology. They murdered, it was like my daughter, you know. That was my baby. Everybody knew that was my little girl. I took care of her so well. You know, that was my love," he says.

Around 8:30 Monday night, Arroyo, who works security at a bank, says he got a call from his landlord telling him police had just raided his apartment and killed his dog.

"I suddenly just started crying. I'm at work. People are like, what's wrong, what's wrong," says Arroyo.

By the time Arroyo made it back to the west side, police, and his dog were already gone. He did find a trashed apartment and a search warrant.

He says that while the search warrant is for 304 Brekenridge "upper," his apartment is the "upper rear." Also, Arroyo points out a striking difference in who police were searching for.

"They were looking for a black male. I'm Hispanic. Puerto Rican. And, they were looking for crack/cocaine," he says showing us the search warrant.

So what did the raid turn up?

Arroyo says no drugs, just a military baton and pepper spray.

"This is stuff that I use for my safety because there are people on this block that get hurt, that get killed, and I've been here for three years and I've heard stories," he says.

He says he called 911 but that didn't help, then went to a police substation where he was given a number to call the narcotics division. He left a message Tuesday afternoon.

Police told us that the Buffalo Police Commissioner has opened an internal investigation into the case with the Internal Affairs Division in Charge.

We asked if police raided the wrong apartment, and we are told they believe they had the proper address and apartment.

Commissioner Daniel Derenda did speak with reporters on Wednesday about the case. When asked about the verification process for addresses in a search warrant, Derenda said "There are proper procedures in place. We should not get the wrong apartment. I can't justify getting the wrong apartment and as I said...we are looking into what took place."

"People make mistakes, but this is something, it was a very big mistake, you know, especially coming in here and killing an innocent dog that is chained up. I could understand it if the dog was loose and it charged, then you know that gives them probable cause because they fear for their life, but to shoot an innocent dog that doesn't pose a threat," says Arroyo.

Right now, detectives do not think Cindy was chained or leashed Monday night. Derenda says police officers have the right to use lethal force against a dog if it attacks them but adds "I'm a dog lover. I have three of them at home. You hate to see it happen to any animal but you don't want to see an officer get injured." We asked "But you don't know if that's definitely the case here yet ? Derenda replied "I...I'm telling you right now it's under investigation."

Arroyo had to go to the SPCA to claim Cindy's body and pay for her cremation. They gave him a discount and charged him $20 instead of the usual $100+, he says.

Arroyo also told us that he has plans to sign up for the National Guard, but those plans are now on hold as he sorts out this mess.

Source

Police Raid Wrong Apartment, Kill Owners Dog

6/5/2013 11:12 AM ET

A drug raid allegedly at the wrong apartment, went awry when police in Buffalo, New York killed the dog of an Iraq War veteran.

The incident happened earlier this week when the tenant received a call from his landlord who told him what had just happened. The landlord told Adam Arroyo that Buffalo Police raided his place and killed his dog, WGRZ.com reports.

Arroyo, who was at work at the time of the call, instantly started to cry and rushed home. He returned to his place trashed, with a search warrant and no police or his almost 3-year-old pit bull Cindy to be found.

There were bullets left on the ground inside, with visible blood stains.

The search warrant was for the "upper" apartment of the complex. But according to Arroyo, his residence is considered the "upper rear," WGRZ.com reports. Arroyo additionally said "They were looking for a black male. I'm Hispanic. Puerto Rican. And, they were looking for crack/cocaine."

Officials who executed the warrant found nothing inside but a baton and pepper spray the victim said he uses for safety.

Arroyo said, "People make mistakes, but this is something, it was a very big mistake, you know, especially coming in here and killing an innocent dog that is chained up. I could understand it if the dog was loose and it charged, then you know that gives them probable cause because they fear for their life, but to shoot an innocent dog that doesn't pose a threat," WGRZ.com reports.

An internal investigation is underway.

by RTT Staff Writer

For comments and feedback: editorial@rttnews.com

Source

Army Vet Says Police Raided Wrong Apartment, Killed His Dog

By Allen Leight

June 4, 2013 Updated Jun 5, 2013 at 12:47 PM EDT

BUFFALO, NY (WKBW) - Adam Arroyo has lived in his Breckenridge apartment for three years but has never experienced a day like this past Monday; when police busted down his door in search of drugs, shooting and killing his dog in the process.

"She's over here, chained up, and look at all these bullet holes man. Look at the blood right here," Arroyo explained as he showed Eyewitness cameras where his pit bull mix Cindy had been shot.

"She was tied up in the kitchen like I tie her up every single day, and they shot her for no reason."

When Arroyo returned home Monday evening he found his apartment torn apart, door busted down and several bullet holes in his kitchen wall.

He also found a search warrant for 304 Breckenridge, upper apartment.

The suspect named in the warrant was described as a black male and was wanted on suspicion of dealing crack.

Arroyo is Hispanic and lives at 304 Breckenridge, upper-rear apartment, which has a completely separate entrance and is clearly marked on his mail box.

Reporter: "You have never used or sold drugs in this apartment?" Arroyo: "Never. Never. I don't do drugs. I'm a United States veteran. I work everyday. I'm just trying to live my life."

Arroyo is a combat veteran who served in Iraq and plans to join the National Guard. This incident, however has left him heart-broken and angry.

"For police to wrongfully come into my house and murder my dog... It wasn't that they felt threatened. No. They murdered my dog," said Arroyo, beginning to tear up.

"That was my dog, man. That was my dog. They didn't have to do that, you know. They didn't have to do that."

Arroyo now has to pay to have Cindy cremated. He also had to repair his door at his own cost and has had to miss work.

He plans now to press charges against the City of Buffalo.

Buffalo Police spokesperson Michael DeGeorge says Internal Affairs has launched an investigation into the case, but that police believe they had the proper address.

He also says detectives "don't believe the dog was chained or leashed" when they executed the raid. Adding that if any wrong doing is found in the investigation that officers will face consequences.

DeGeorge could not comment on whether officers found any drugs inside the apartment.

Phoenix police union sues city over uniform change

Source

Phoenix police union sues city over uniform change

By Cecilia Chan The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Jun 5, 2013 7:14 PM

A Phoenix police union has filed a lawsuit against the city seeking compensation for its 2,500 members who were forced to toss out a patrol uniform.

The union, the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, claims in the lawsuit filed in Maricopa County Superior Court in April that patrol officers’ compensation package was reduced because, over the years, they spent the money on clothing that is now banned.

“We are asking for class action and whatever the determined value is, which we think is upwards of $2 million,” said Joe Clure, union president.

The suit, also asks for reasonable costs and attorneys’ fees and any other relief deemed just and proper by the court.

The lawsuit claims the city breached the union contract, which allowed a black, cotton-blend polo shirt and cargo pants uniform, popular with the rank-and-file for nearly 15 years. Police Chief Daniel V. Garcia banned that uniform last year.

City officials denied they broke the contract, saying in the city’s response they never promised to allow patrol officers to wear the black uniform.

The city asks the court to dismiss the union’s suit and award it attorney fees.

Garcia banned the uniform in October, saying they offered a greater opportunity for criminals to impersonate officers. All patrol officers now wear the dark blue button-down shirts and dress-style pants.

Garcia’s decision effectively rendered useless officers’ collection of the black uniform and accompanying equipment, the union suit said.

“We think it’s a topic of bargaining,” Clure said Wednesday. “He failed to confer and negotiate about it and made an unilateral decision that ultimately cost our people money. He should have negotiated about the loss use of uniforms and the value of that.”

The annual uniform allowance is part of an officer’s wage-and-benefits package.

The allowance helps officers buy clothing and equipment for the job, but they are not obligated to spend the money on uniforms. This fiscal year each officer received $1,150.

A union survey released in May showed most officers— 78 percent of the 1,722 polled— support Garcia’s ban on the more casual police uniform. [Sorry guys, when you get a job, it isn't a democracy where you are allowed to vote and tell your employer what to do. You are an employee and supposed to do what your employer tells you to do. But hey, I guess somebody who has a badge and gun and thinks that means they can force their will on anybody else doesn't understand that concept of being required to do what your employer says]

MCSO seizes 3,000 pounds of marijuana

Source

MCSO seizes 3,000 pounds of marijuana

By Matthew Longdon The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Jun 5, 2013 8:06 AM

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office found 3,000 pounds of marijuana stacked inside the garage of a west Phoenix home Tuesday night.

A 24-year-old man is in custody while another person believed to be connected to the drugs fled the scene, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Authorities found the dozens of bales of marijuana in a home near 91st Avenue and Thomas Road. The estimated street value of the marijuana is $1.5 million, said Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The drug bust was part of an undercover operation. The Sheriff’s Office received the tip Tuesday and got a search warrant to check the home, Arpaio said.

Initial reports indicated the 24-year-old man and the second suspect lived in the home. Arpaio said the owners may have paid for the house with cash.

Arpaio said the marijuana came from Mexico.

“We’ll do what we can to stop this from coming across the border,” Arpaio said.

The bust comes the same day the Sheriff’s Office announced they seized 51 pounds of methamphetamine but is unrelated.

Marijuana deaths 0 - zero - Tobacco deaths 6 million

Of course a number of people die every year from marijuana, but they are mostly murdered by the police. These deaths are a result of the insane laws against marijuana, not the marijuana it's self.

Source

Razones para dejar de fumar

La epidemia mundial de tabaquismo mata cada año a casi 6 millones de personas, de las cuales más de 600 mil son no fumadores que mueren por respirar humo ajeno.

Cada año, el 31 de mayo, la OMS y asociados de todo el mundo celebran el Día Mundial Sin Tabaco, dedicado a resaltar los riesgos para la salud asociados al consumo de tabaco y promover políticas eficaces para reducir ese consumo. El tema del Día Mundial Sin Tabaco 2013 es la prohibición de la publicidad, la promoción y el patrocinio del tabaco.

Sin embargo, ¿por qué fumar? Cuando el cigarro daña el organismo y perjudica a quien convive con el fumador, pues a pesar de ser un vicio muy común entre las personas, éste no aporta nada positivo.

Para muchos fumar relaja, quita la tensión, o simplemente es un hábito mal adquirido. No obstante, una encuesta realizada por Gabinete de Educación Estratégica (GCE) reveló que la mayoría de los mexicanos fuman por buscar aceptación social; la segunda razón fue para "calmar los nervios", por sueño y por imitación de artistas de cine.

Sin embargo, el humo de tabaco contiene más de 4 mil sustancias, entre ellas irritantes tóxicos como el amoniaco, folmaldehído, monóxido de carbono, mentol, nicotina, tolueno y dióxido de nitrógeno, que dañan tu salud.

Pero las anteriores no son todas las razones negativas que conlleva el hábito de fumar, por lo que el sitio Feminis enlistó 10 puntos más que debes tomar en cuenta:

1. Fumar produce resequedad en la piel, arrugas prematuras y pérdida de piezas dentales, además de un horrendo color amarillento en uñas y dientes.

2. Incrementa las molestias durante la menstruación y de acuerdo con estudios, las mujeres que fuman y toman anticonceptivos al mismo tiempo, están más expuestas a sufrir embolias y problemas cardio y cerebrovasculares. Incluso se han relacionado casos de esterilidad o concepción retardada.

3. De acuerdo con el Consejo Nacional contra las Adicciones, el consumo de tabaco es una de las causas más frecuentes de disfunción sexual y de abortos repetitivos.

4. Los bebés de mujeres fumadoras nacen con bajo peso y están expuestos al síndrome de muerte súbita. Además, aumenta la probabilidad de tener hijos con trastornos de déficit de atención e hiperactividad.

5. Las enfermedades que produce el tabaco son infartos al corazón, padecimientos pulmonares como bronquitis y enfisema pulmonar, cáncer de pulmón, de próstata, de esófago, de vejiga, de colon, de estómago, páncreas, riñón y de mama.

6. Según la OMS, el consumo de tabaco es directamente responsable de enfermedades y dolencias que cada año le causan la muerte a 6 millones de personas cada año.

7. Considera que el humo del cigarro no sólo afecta a quienes consumen el tabaco, también a quienes los rodean. Y simplemente el siglo pasado, el tabaco provocó la muerte de 100 millones de personas y se pronostica que en el siglo XXI puedan llegar a mil millones de fallecimientos.

8. Podrás ahorrar dinero. ¿Cuánto? Si tomas en cuenta que una cajetilla cuesta 40 pesos y suponiendo que fumas dos cajetillas a la semana, estarías ahorrando 320 pesos mensuales, unos 3,840 pesos al año.

9. La nicotina es una droga poderosa y psicoactiva que penetra en tu cerebro en tan sólo siete segundos después de fumar. Por ello es una droga más difícil que dejar que la heroína y la cocaína, y provoca múltiples recaídas.

10. Las personas que dejan de fumar antes de los 35 años, reducen 905 de los riesgos atribuidos al tabaco.

Shirakawa faces additional felony charges

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Shirakawa faces additional felony charges

By Karen de Sá kdesa@mercurynews.com

Posted: 06/05/2013 09:57:22 AM PDT

SAN JOSE -- In a stunning development to Silicon Valley's most closely watched political scandal in years, a new arrest warrant was signed bya judge Wednesday morning for George Shirakawa Jr. -- Santa Clara County's former board president who is scheduled to be sentenced in two days for a slew of political crimes including corruption and gambling away public funds.

On Wednesday morning a new felony charge by the local District Attorney's office was added to Shirakawa's 12 prior criminal convictions: False impersonation related to a dirty campaign trick performed in 2010.

Experts describe the newest case against Shirakawa as the first prosecution of its type in the state.

The new charge stems from a DNA sample the longtime east San Jose politician submitted when he was arrested in March. That sample came back in April from the state Attorney General's office with a hit: Shirakawa's cells matched those on an illegal political hit piece mailed out in a 2010 San Jose City Council race between Xavier Campos, Shirakawa's former aide, and Magdalena Carrasco, a child and family advocate. [Even if I think that George Shirakawa Jr. is a shameless crook I still am againt the government taking DNA samples from people. I think it is a violation of the 4th and 5th Amendments]

In the weeks before the June election, a fraudulent flier went out to District 5 voters labeling Carrasco a communist -- enraging the locals and leading to even more questions after she lost the first primary race in the contest by just 20 votes.

Now, the DA's office is charging Shirakawa with the crime of impersonating Carrasco because the flier appeared to be coming from her campaign committee -- an assertion she adamantly protested at the time.

And there is strong evidence backing the DA's latest filing. Cells, pulled from a postage stamp on one of the fliers, were found by a crime lab to be 1.1 billion times more likely to have originated from Shirakawa than any unknown Hispanic individual.

Shirakawa's attorney John Williams, reached Wednesday morning, would not respond to the new charge and referred a reporter to a new attorney who will apparently assist in his defense in this case. Williams also would not comment on how the new charge would affect Friday's sentencing of Shirakawa, when he is expected to face up to a year in jail.

The new filing will be heard simultaneously with the sentencing hearing, according to the spokesman for the Santa Clara County Superior Court.

The 2010 race at issue was the seat vacated by former Councilwoman Nora Campos, who was termed-out and running for the state Assembly. The June 2010 election had Xavier Campos -- Nora Campos' brother and a former Shirakawa aide in his District 2 supervisor's office -- leading Carrasco by just 20 votes, with two other contenders splitting the balance. The runoff contest between Campos and Carrasco led to a narrow victory for Campos in November 2010 -- he won by just 371 votes.

The May 2010 fliers used Carrasco's full name and precise Fair Political Practices Commission identification number, accompanied by a grainy photo of the then-candidate and a red Vietnamese flag with a single yellow star -- originally the flag of North Vietnam, adapted at the end of the war as the flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

According to an affidavit filed Wednesday morning by a DA investigator, Michael Brown: "The flag is considered very offensive to many members of San Jose's Vietnamese community, particularly to those who fled to this country to escape the communist regime."

The fliers appearing in the heat of the race for the District 5 San Jose City Council seat caused a local uproar at the time. San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed called the misleading political propaganda "a new low" in city campaigns that should be "condemned by everyone." Campos called the tactic "unacceptable." And "deplorable" was the description used by his ally Cindy Chavez -- the South Bay AFL-CIO labor leader who following a special election last night, faces a run-off with water board employee Teresa Alvarado to replace Shirakawa on the Board of Supervisors.

Then-District Attorney Dolores Carr launched an investigation the same day news reports revealed the flap, eliciting strong reaction from political watchdogs. Her office announced whoever was responsible could face up to three years in state prison and a $50,000 fine for the crime of false impersonation related to deceptive campaign literature. That investigation appeared to have been stalled until the break in the case this year linking the illegal fliers to Shirakawa.

To date, Shirakawa had denied involvement, telling this newspaper in 2010: "My office has nothing to do with this mailer against Carrasco." His spokeswoman at the time, Andrea Flores Shelton said then that her former boss had no idea the mailer was coming.

Shirakawa made the same kind of denial about fliers when a similar message went out in 2008, when Shirakawa ran his first campaign for supervisor against for Human Relations commissioner Richard Hobbs. The hit pieces against Hobbs in that race did not use his correct state filing number, but the false message in Vietnamese was clear: "Richard Hobbs Is a Communist. Please Don't Vote for Him."

There are no criminal filings to date that link Shirakawa to those fliers.

Meanwhile, Xavier Campos is also under scrutiny possible mismanagement of his campaign account. In March, the councilman was informed that the state's Fair Political Practices Commission was auditing funds related to his 2010 San Jose City Council race, after reports that he shared the same treasurer with Shirawaka, and had failed to close out his campaign account in a timely manner.

Former treasurer Linda Delgado, the mother of one of Shirakawa's children, served as treasurer for both candidates. Shirakawa's conviction was based in part on campaign disclosure forms Delgado signed off on that hid a secret slush fund fed by an illegal cash flow. Although though treasurers who sign off on Form 460s can be held liable for their accuracy, Delgado did not face criminal charges related to the campaign filings, because Shirakawa assumed all responsibility.

Staff writer Tracy Seipel contributed to this report. Contact Karen de Sá at 408-920-5781.

Chicago crooks will steal your car for littering

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Littering in Chicago could cost you $1,500 -- and your car

By Hal Dardick Tribune reporter

11:24 a.m. CDT, June 5, 2013

Adults who toss litter out the window of vehicles in Chicago would face fines of $1,500 and the impoundment of their cars, SUVs or trucks under a proposal being introduced at today’s City Council meeting.

“I’ve been behind one too many cars where they are throwing trash — chicken bones, paper, McDonald’s bags, you name it,” said Ald. Howard Brookins, 21st, the sponsor of the measure.

“It is a big deal in our community, with respect to people who throw trash and debris and litter on the street,” added Brookins, whose ward is on the South Side. “We have put out garbage cans, to no avail. We need to do something to get their attention, and if we take their cars, we think that will get their attention.”

The proposal, which will be referred to a committee for a hearing, would hike the fines for anyone throwing trash out a vehicle window, moving or stationary, to $1,500 from a current range of $50 to $200.

If the person who threw out the trash were 16 or older, the cars from which the trash was ejected would be impounded. Recovering impounded vehicles requires the payment of hefty towing and recovery fees.

Obama officials defend collecting phone records

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Obama officials defend collecting phone records

Associated Press Thu Jun 6, 2013 7:17 AM

WASHINGTON — A British newspaper reported that the United States has been collecting the telephone records of millions of Americans under a top secret court order. The Obama administration on Thursday defended the government’s need to collect telephone records of American citizens, calling such information “a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats.”

While defending the practice, a senior Obama administration official did not confirm the report Wednesday in Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

The disclosure was likely to bring questions from both Republicans and Democrats of how far the Obama administration’s surveillance policies go, following the government’s tracking of Associated Press journalists’ phone records in a leak investigation.

The White House has been on the defensive against Republicans who claim the administration is too intrusive in Americans’ lives, citing the federal tax agency’s targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny as proof.

Republicans also claim Obama aides manipulated the government’s response to last year’s deadly attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, to remove any links to terrorism in the heat of a presidential election, which the White House denies.

The controversies collectively could erode the American people’s trust in Obama and derail his second term agenda.

The court order to collect phone records was granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25 and is good until July 19, the newspaper reported. The order requires Verizon, one of America’s largest telecommunications companies, on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the National Security Agency information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries.

The newspaper said the document, a copy of which it had obtained, shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of U.S. citizens were being collected indiscriminately and in bulk, regardless of whether they were suspected of any wrongdoing.

The Associated Press could not authenticate the order because documents from the court are classified.

The administration official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to publicly discuss classified matters.

Verizon spokesman Ed McFadden said Wednesday the company had no comment. The NSA had no immediate comment.

Verizon Communications Inc. listed 121 million customers in its first-quarter earnings report this April — 98.9 million wireless customers, 11.7 million residential phone lines and about 10 million commercial lines. The court order didn’t specify which type of phone customers’ records were being tracked.

Under the terms of the order, the phone numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as are location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered, The Guardian said.

The administration official said, “On its face, the order reprinted in the article does not allow the government to listen in on anyone’s telephone calls.”

The broad, unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is unusual. FISA court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets. NSA warrantless wiretapping during the George W. Bush administration after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was very controversial.

The secret court order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson, compelled Verizon to provide the NSA with electronic copies of “all call detail records or telephony metadata created by Verizon for communications between the United States and abroad” or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls,” The Guardian said.

The law on which the order explicitly relies is the “business records” provision of the USA Patriot Act, which passed after Sept. 11, 2001.

Top political appointees use secret email accounts

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Top political appointees use secret email accounts

Associated Press Tue Jun 4, 2013 11:10 AM

WASHINGTON — Some of President Barack Obama’s political appointees, including the Health and Human Services secretary, are using secret government email accounts they say are necessary to prevent their inboxes from being overwhelmed with unwanted messages, according to a review by the Associated Press.

The scope of using the secret accounts across government remains a mystery: Most U.S. agencies have failed to turn over lists of political appointees’ email addresses, which the AP sought under the Freedom of Information Act more than three months ago. The Labor Department initially asked the AP to pay more than $1 million for its email addresses.

The AP asked for the addresses following last year’s disclosures that the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency had used separate email accounts at work. The practice is separate from officials who use personal, non-government email accounts for work, which generally is discouraged — but often happens anyway — due to laws requiring that most federal records be preserved.

The secret email accounts complicate an agency’s legal responsibilities to find and turn over emails in response to congressional or internal investigations, civil lawsuits or public records requests because employees assigned to compile such responses would necessarily need to know about the accounts to search them. Secret accounts also drive perceptions that government officials are trying to hide actions or decisions.

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Tuesday defended use of the email accounts by senior U.S. officials as a traditional practice across government and by previous administrations. [Previous government crooks did it, so that makes it OK for us to do it???] Carney said the email accounts aren’t secret, even though they aren’t disclosed to the public, [then if they are not secret, what are they???] because their contents fall under congressional oversight and the Freedom of Information Act.

Carney said that having alternative emails makes “eminent sense” and compared senior government officials to news columnists at major publications who provide email addresses for their readers but have alternate email addresses so they are not inundated with unwanted messages. [So they are SECRET email accounts???]

Carney wouldn’t say whether White House officials also use secret accounts, noting that the president’s staff, like Congress, is exempt from turning over materials under the open records law. But Carney said that early in his tenure at press secretary, after his email address had been announced publicly, Carney changed his address to avoid being inundated by emails and spam. [F*ck the public records law, we had to do it to prevent spam!!!]

“That’s a very reasonable thing to do,” Carney said. [Yea, everything the President orders is a very reasonable thing to do!!!!]

Agencies where the AP so far has identified secret addresses, including the Labor Department and HHS, also said maintaining non-public email accounts allows senior officials to keep separate their internal messages with agency employees from emails they exchange with the public. They also said public and non-public accounts are always searched in response to official requests and the records are provided as necessary.

The AP couldn’t independently verify the practice. It searched hundreds of pages of government emails previously released under the open records law and found only one instance of a published email with a secret address: an email from Labor Department spokesman Carl Fillichio to 34 coworkers in 2010 was turned over to an advocacy group, Americans for Limited Government. It included as one recipient the non-public address for Seth D. Harris, currently the acting labor secretary, who maintains at least three separate email accounts.

Google can’t find any reference on the Internet to the secret address for HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Congressional oversight committees told the AP they were unfamiliar with the non-public government addresses identified so far by the AP.

Ten agencies have not yet turned over lists of email addresses, including the Environmental Protection Agency; the Pentagon; and the departments of Veterans Affairs, Transportation, Treasury, Justice, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security, Commerce and Agriculture. All have said they are working on a response to the AP.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz declined to comment. [We refuse to comment on if we obey the public records laws!!! Is that an oxymoron or what???]

A Treasury Department spokeswoman, Marissa Hopkins Secreto, referred inquiries to the agency’s FOIA office, which said its technology department was still searching for the email addresses. Other departments, including Homeland Security, did not respond to questions from the AP about the delays of nearly three months. The Pentagon said it may have an answer by later this summer. [We refuse to comment on if we obey the public records laws!!! And we also promptly respond to all requests for public records as required by the law. Again iss that an oxymoron or what???]

The Health and Human Services Department initially turned over to the AP the email addresses for roughly 240 appointees — except none of the email accounts for Sebelius, even one for her already published on its website. After the AP objected, it turned over three of Sebelius’ email addresses, including a secret one. It asked the AP not to publish the address, which it said she used to conduct day-to-day business at the department. Most of the 240 political appointees at HHS appeared to be using only public government accounts.

The AP decided to publish the secret address for Sebelius — KGS2(at)hhs.gov [KGS2@hhs.gov] — over the government’s objections because the secretary is a high-ranking civil servant who oversees not only major agencies like the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services but also the implementation of Obama’s signature health care law. Her public email address is Kathleen.Sebelius(at)hhs.gov. [Kathleen.Sebelius@hhs.gov]

At least two other senior HHS officials — including Donald Berwick, former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Gary Cohen, a deputy administrator in charge of implementing health insurance reform — also had secret government email addresses, according to the records obtained by the AP. A spokesman for Cohen, Brian Cook, said the non-public address that HHS listed in its records — Gary.Cohen1(at)cms.hhs.gov [Gary.Cohen1@cms.hhs.gov] — was created after Cohen rejoined the department in August 2012 after a brief absence and all emails now are directed to his public government email account. Cook called the suggestion that Cohen ever had a secret account “news to everyone, including Gary.”

The Interior Department gave the AP a list of about 100 government email addresses for political appointees who work there but none for the interior secretary at the time, Ken Salazar, who has since resigned. Spokeswoman Jessica Kershaw said Salazar maintained only one email address while serving as secretary but she would not disclose it. She said the AP should ask for it under the Freedom of Information Act, which would take months longer.

The Labor Department initially asked the AP to pay just over $1.03 million when the AP asked for email addresses of political appointees there. It said it needed pull 2,236 computer backup tapes from its archives and pay 50 people to pore over old records. Those costs included three weeks to identify tapes and ship them to a vendor, and pay each person $2,500 for nearly a month’s work. But under the department’s own FOIA rules — which it cited in its letter to the AP — it is prohibited from charging news organizations any costs except for photocopies after the first 100 pages. The department said it would take 14 weeks to find the emails if the AP had paid the money.

Fillichio later acknowledged that the $1.03 million bill was a mistake and provided the AP with email addresses for the agency’s Senate-confirmed appointees, including three addresses for Harris, the acting secretary. His secret address was harris.sd(at)dol.gov. [harris.sd@dol.gov] His other accounts were one for use with labor employees and the public, and another to send mass emails to the entire Labor Department, outside groups and the public. The Labor Department said it did not object to the AP publishing any of Harris’ email addresses.

In addition to the email addresses, the AP also sought records government-wide about decisions to create separate email accounts. But the FOIA director at HHS, Robert Eckert, said the agency couldn’t provide such emails without undergoing “an extensive and elongated department-wide search.” He also said there were “no mechanisms in place to determine if such requests for the creation of secondary email accounts were submitted by the approximately 242 political appointees within HHS.”

Late last year, the EPA’s critics — including Republicans in Congress — accused former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson of using an email account under the name “Richard Windsor” to sidestep disclosure rules. The EPA said emails Jackson sent using her Windsor alias were turned over under open records requests. The agency’s inspector general is investigating the use of such accounts, after being asked to do so by Congress.

An EPA spokeswoman described Jackson’s alternate email address as “an everyday, working email account of the administrator to communicate with staff and other government officials.” It was later determined that Jackson also used the email address to correspond sometimes with environmentalists outside government and at least in some cases did not correct a misperception among outsiders they were corresponding with a government employee named Richard Windsor.

Although the EPA’s inspector general is investigating the agency’s use of secret email accounts, it is not reviewing whether emails from Jackson’s secret account were released as required under the Freedom of Information Act.

The EPA’s secret email accounts were revealed last fall by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank that was tipped off about Jackson’s alias by an insider and later noticed it in documents it obtained the FOIA. The EPA said its policy was to disclose in such documents that “Richard Windsor” was actually the EPA administrator.

Courts have consistently set a high bar for the government to withhold public officials’ records under the federal privacy rules. A federal judge, Marilyn Hall Patel of California, said in August 2010 that “persons who have placed themselves in the public light” — such as through politics or voluntarily participation in the public arena — have a “significantly diminished privacy interest than others.” Her ruling was part of a case in which a journalist sought FBI records, but was denied.

“We’re talking about an email address, and an email address given to an individual by the government to conduct official business is not private,” said Aaron Mackey, a FOIA attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. He said that’s different than, for example, confidential information, such as a Social Security number.

Under the law, citizens and foreigners may use the FOIA to compel the government to turn over copies of federal records for zero or little cost. Anyone who seeks information through the law is generally supposed to get it unless disclosure would hurt national security, violate personal privacy or expose business secrets or confidential decision-making in certain areas.

Obama pledged during his first week in office to make government more transparent and open. The nation’s signature open-records law, he said in a memo to his Cabinet, would be “administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.”

Connecticut governor signs bill restricting Newtown photos

Connecticut governor signs bill restricting Newtown photos

Associated Press Wed Jun 5, 2013 5:37 PM

HARTFORD, Conn. — Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed legislation into law Wednesday that prevents the public release of crime scene photos and video evidence from the Connecticut school shootings that took the lives of 20 first graders and six school employees.

The new law, a result of efforts to balance private and public interests, creates an exemption to the state’s Freedom of Information Act and applies to homicides in Connecticut.

The law prevents the release of photographs, film, video and other images depicting a homicide victim if those records “could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of the personal privacy of the victim or the victim’s surviving family members.”

Malloy signed the bill hours after the General Assembly approved the eleventh-hour compromise during the early morning hours of the final day of the state legislative session. Malloy said he believes “a parent of a deceased child should have the right to remember that child” as they wish and not because they were “caught up in some tragic and unbelievable circumstances.”

The governor’s office originally worked privately with legislative leaders and the state’s top prosecutor to draft a bill that would address the concerns of families who lost relatives in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown. They considered various proposals, including legislation applying only to the Newtown victims and allowing their families to decide whether certain information should be released.

But in the end, the bill was tailored off an exemption in the federal Freedom of Information law.

During a somber early-morning Senate debate on the bill, as several family members of the victims looked on, Senate President Donald E. Williams Jr. said lawmakers were moved by the parents’ concerns and tried to come up with a fair proposal.

“We have tried our best as Democrats and Republicans to work together to protect the interests of these families, these parents, these relatives sitting behind me, at the same time honoring our tradition as a free and open democracy,” he said.

The new law creates a one-year moratorium on the release of certain portions of audiotape or other recordings in which the condition of a homicide victim is described. The exemption does not include 911 emergency call recordings, however.

Additionally, it creates a task force that would make recommendations on the balance between victim privacy under the FOI law and the public’s right to know. The task force must submit its recommendations by Jan. 1.

Disputes over the release of materials could be resolved as similar disputes have been in the past, either in the state Freedom of Information Commission or the courts.

Colleen Murphy, the commission’s executive director, said the standard of an “unwarranted” invasion of the personal privacy of the victim or victim’s surviving family members has never been time-tested in Connecticut. She said the commission decisions on this issue will be a first.

The Senate approved the bill 33-2; the House by a vote of 130-2.

Rep. Stephen Dargan, D-West Haven, who voted against the measure, said he was concerned about the message it sent.

“Some people that thought they were impacted underneath the Second Amendment feel that they’re impacted underneath the First Amendment because the government is covering up or not letting the public have the right to know,” he said.

On Tuesday, family members of the Sandy Hook victims began a vigil at the state Capitol, waiting for legislative action.

Mark Barden, whose 7-year-old son Daniel was killed, told The Associated Press he knows of individuals and groups that want the photos. Given today’s technology, he said, one photograph can be distributed worldwide and remain accessible forever.

“It’s these strange individuals and fringe interest groups that have expressed a very real need for this information and they don’t have any business having it,” he said. “Nobody would benefit from it. On the contrary, it would do so much harm.”

Members of the legislature’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus also voiced concerns about the original legislation preventing only the release of photos from the Newtown massacre. Legislators then broadened the bill to include other homicides.

The Connecticut Daily Newspaper Association had expressed concern about the possibility of limiting access to the documents.

“Any time the state is interested in opening up the Freedom of Information Act, we urge them to use extreme caution. Obviously, there’s deference to the tragedy that happened at Sandy Hook,” said Christopher VanDeHoef, the association’s executive director. “But it’s our concern that we’re going to use that as sort of a sweeping change to FOI law that could be damaging to the openness of government down the road.”

Department of Water and Power wants to keep everything secret

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Judge not inclined to let DWP keep salaries and names secret

By Jack Dolan and Ben Poston, Los Angeles Times

June 4, 2013, 10:25 p.m.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James Chalfant stared in disbelief Tuesday at a list of hundreds of Department of Water and Power employees who have asked that their names and salaries be withheld from the public, citing safety concerns.

On the list were mechanics, typists and meter readers.

"This is frivolous on its face; I mean, these are DWP employees," Chalfant said, noting that the names of government employees are public and even undercover police officers have a hard time demonstrating they would be in danger if their names appeared on a list of department employees.

"Judges have security risks. That doesn't mean my name and my salary don't have to be disclosed," Chalfant added.

He ordered a lawyer for the largest DWP employees union to return Aug. 1 with a whittled-down list that includes only employees who can prove a legitimate safety concern. The union filed a lawsuit last month seeking to block the department from disclosing to the Los Angeles Times the names and salaries of members who claimed they had a safety concern.

"The odds are nobody is going to be excused from having their name disclosed," Chalfant said.

Tuesday's hearing was the latest round in a fight that began in early February, when The Times filed a California Public Records Act request for the DWP's payroll data. At the time, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents about 90% of department employees, was the largest single cash contributor in the Los Angeles mayor's race.

The union spent more than $1.65 million in an effort to elect City Controller Wendy Greuel, who lost the May 21 election to Councilman Eric Garcetti.

On May 22, the department released five years of payroll data with nearly 1,200 of the roughly 10,000 employees' names redacted.

Overall, total pay for DWP employees rose 15% between 2008 and 2012, despite the economic slump that ravaged the city's budget and drove down median household incomes in Los Angeles. Total pay includes salary, overtime and a wide range of other compensation such as unused sick and vacation time and cost-of-living bonuses.

The average DWP employee, including everyone from the highest-paid engineers to the lowest-paid temps, made $101,237 in 2012, the data show.

Among the job titles that saw the biggest average pay increases over the last five years were custodians, up 25%, from $56,060 to $69,995.

Welders' and machinists' pay grew 18% on average to $132,548 and $142,562, respectively. Those figures represent full-time employees who worked entire years in 2008 and 2012.

Employees seeking anonymity made $110,730 on average in 2012, 12.4% more than workers whose names were released.

jack.dolan@latimes.com

ben.poston@latimes.com

Times staff writer Ben Welsh contributed to this report

Jesse Jackson Jr.'s secrecy motion denied, for now

Jesse Jackson Jr.'s secrecy motion denied, for now

By Katherine Skiba, Chicago Tribune reporter

7:28 a.m. CDT, June 5, 2013

WASHINGTON — Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.'s bid to seal parts of soon-to-be-filed court papers containing sensitive details about his medical condition was denied Tuesday, though the judge said the ex-lawmaker may ask again when the papers actually are filed.

Jackson, 48, is to be sentenced July 1 with his wife, Sandi Jackson, 49, a former Chicago alderman, for a scheme in which he looted his campaign treasury of more than $750,000 and she neglected to report about $600,000 in income on the couple's tax returns.

The sentencing judge, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is no relation to the couple, was asked by Jackson Jr. on Monday to seal parts of his sentencing memorandum, which is due by Friday. The memo will set out what he and his lawyers regard as his appropriate punishment. Federal prosecutors also will submit such a memo no later than week's end.

Jackson Jr., who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, argued Monday in papers filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that the memorandum will contain "personal, sensitive details about his medical condition" and that parts of it should be withheld from the public's view. He also said details of an unspecified relative's medical condition should be withheld from public view.

His lawyers said releasing the memorandum in full would "disclose unnecessarily the defendant's and his family member's medical information, diagnoses and treatment to the public."

But Judge Jackson, citing local court rules governing criminal cases, denied the motion without prejudice, meaning he may make his request again. She said that without the actual memorandum she could not "make a reasoned judgment about the necessity for the order."

She said Jackson could file the sentencing memorandum with an accompanying motion to seal and that it would be treated as sealed pending the outcome of her ultimate decision.

kskiba@tribune.com

Twitter @KatherineSkiba

There’s no hooking Tom Horne

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There’s no hooking Tom Horne

Attorney General Tom Horne could make a fortune in the self-help business by putting out a series of instructional videos under the title: “How to Wriggle Off a Hook.”

The man is a master.

Evidence of this surfaced again this week when the State Bar of Arizona dismissed a charge against Horne that involved alleged campaign-finance violations.

The reason the State Bar dismissed the charge is that Horne had previously wriggled off another hook.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery and Secretary of State Ken Bennett thought Montgomery could pursue a civil case against Horne for campaign hanky-panky but Horne wriggled out of it on a technicality when a judge ruled that Montgomery and Bennett acted incorrectly.

The court actually said the complaint against Horne should first have been forwarded to the office of … Horne.

All of this was preceded by Horne wriggling off yet another hook.

This one involved a minor fender bender witnessed by FBI agents who were tailing the attorney general. (That’s correct. The person we elected as the top law enforcement officer in the state was being tailed by the FBI.)

The agents, who supposedly were working on the campaign violations case, spotted Horne and a woman who works with him leave the AG’s office separately. The couple eventually wound up in the same car with Horne driving. While the attorney general was attempting to park near the woman’s residence the FBI agents said Horne backed into another vehicle and didn’t report it. He and the woman then went into the building where she lives.

I know – ick.

Horne has since pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor hit-and-run charge and paid a $300 fine.

The campaign finance case Montgomery was pursuing involved Horne’s 2010 run for attorney general. The allegation is that Horne improperly coordinated efforts with an independent-expenditure committee that attacked Horne’s opponent in the general election. That would be illegal.

But, owing to the technicality over procedure, that case has gone nowhere.

And all of this represents only Horne’s most recent hook wriggling.

As a young man, Horne got snagged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The incident has been reported a number of times in this and other publications. Horne is barred by the SEC from associating with brokers, dealers, investment advisers and investment companies.

Why?

Among other things the SEC alleged that a company Horne ran “violated the record-keeping, anti-fraud, and broker-dealer net capital provisions of the federal securities laws and filed false financial reports with the commission.”

The SEC said Horne’s firm “attempted to induce the purchase and sale of securities when it did not have the required net capital” and misrepresented its financial condition to its customers.

Without admitting guilt Horne agreed to the lifetime trading ban.

Also, The Arizona Republic reported back in 2010 that Horne checked “no” on a report filed with the Arizona Corporation Commission asking if he had ever been a partner in a business that went bankrupt. It turns out the company for which he’d gotten into trouble with the SEC had gone belly up.

Horne told the Republic’s Casey Newton, “I didn’t think about it because it was 40 years ago.”

Horne’s then-Republican primary opponent, former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, who himself was later disbarred, said at the time, “The attorney general is the chief defender of the public when it comes to fraud and white-collar financial crimes. I’ve prosecuted plenty of con artists, and Tom Horne unfortunately falls on the other side of that list.”

Through it all, Horne was elected to the Arizona legislature. He was elected Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction. And he was elected is Attorney General. And he is running for re-election.

Like I said, he’s a master.

When I mentioned my “How to Wriggle Off a Hook” idea to a long-time Arizona political observer Wednesday he told me:

“We’ve had a lot of politicians in Arizona who could write that book. But the thing you have to remember about wriggling is — no matter how successful you are at it you’re still a worm.”

Police union leaders don't like to be called "union bosses"

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Phoenix labor leaders asking for a ban on the term “union bosses”

In the latest bizarre twist over at Phoenix city hall, the city’s public employee unions are going after Phoenix Councilman Sal DiCiccio for name calling, asking for “an immediate censure and sanction” against him..

It seems they don’t like being referred to as “union bosses” and they want Mayor Greg Stanton and the rest of the City Council to tell him to cut it out.

“Councilman DiCiccio’s language is truly inflammatory and insulting,” the presidents of the city’s public employee unions wrote, in their letter sent Monday to the council. “His continued use of the word ‘union bosses’, a phrase with both historical and racially bigoted overtones, is deliberately and repeatedly chosen by him because it’s (sic) very meaning can be nothing other than offensive and derogatory to anyone who hears it.”

The letter goes on to ask the Phoenix City Council to “make a public declaration that such conduct among its members is not condoned by them, is unacceptable and that an immediate end to the use of this offensive and deliberately inflammatory phrase shall ensue.”

No seriously, that’s what they’re asking.

The unions have good reason to despise DiCiccio. He has questioned employee pay raises. He has loudly and repeatedly called for an end to the food tax that coincidentally is roughly equal to the general-fund amount needed to fund those raises during the recession. He’s no fan of public pensions and he is gearing up for the next big fight at city hall – over the longstanding and probably illegal practice of pension spiking.

I’ve long suspected that one or more of the unions are the moneybags behind the Campaign for Better Neighborhoods, a stealth group that, from the cover of darkness, is attempting to unseat DiCiccio in this year’s council race. They desperately want him gone.

What I can’t figure out is why they think that decrying his use of the union boss label would hurt DiCiccio in his district, which covers Ahwatukee, the Biltmore and Arcadia. If anything, I’m guessing their complaint will wind up in DiCiccio’s campaign ads this summer.

DiCiccio, in a statement e-mailed over this afternoon, sounds delighted by the labor leaders’ letter.

“I will not be bullied into silence by labor representatives of the City of Phoenix (a.k.a. union bosses),” he wrote. “The letters and the social media posts will not deter me from doing the right thing for the taxpayers. … These Chicago-style intimidation tactics are clearly why Mayor Stanton is afraid to keep his campaign promises of repealing the food tax and stopping pension spiking.”

Any bets on how many of the union groups will join Stanton in supporting DiCiccio’s opponent, Karlene Keogh Parks?

–

Below is the full text of their letter:

Mayor Greg Stanton and Council,

This is a joint letter from labor representatives of the City of Phoenix [ie. police and firemen union bosses] requesting an immediate censure and sanction against Councilman Sal DiCiccio for his continued use of offensive and derogatory language towards elected labor representatives of the City.

It is one thing to disagree on the course of the city and its finances, and to debate the merits of a budget proposal or tax. However, it should never be acceptable for any one of us speaking at a public Council meeting or other public arenas to use offensive language towards one another, employees or elected officials.

Councilman DiCiccio’s language is truly inflammatory and insulting. His continued use of the word ‘union bosses’, a phrase with both historical and racially bigoted overtones, is deliberately and repeatedly chosen by him because it’s (sic) very meaning can be nothing other than offensive and derogatory to anyone who hears it. Elected labor representatives are as much ‘bosses’ over their unions as Mr. DiCiccio is a ‘boss’ over District 6.

It is as much an honor to serve as a democratically elected representative of workers in this city as it is for Mr. DiCiccio to serve as an elected councilperson. His continued attempt at degrading both the leadership and members of our city’s [police and firemen] unions with inflammatory rhetoric is beneath the dignity and the office of Councilperson and shows ignorance of the true purpose of our associations.

The long history of defending workers rights and safety, establishing FMLA, Social Security, Medicare, ending child labor, establishing sick days, minimum wage laws, bringing the 40 hour work week to fruition and above all bringing dignity to workers is well established. [Give me a break, most police officers in the Phoenix metro area START at around $50,000 a year which is about $25 and hour. Arizona police officers can retire after 20 years at 80 percent of their highest pay which is far better then most of the taxpayers who pay their wages]

Perhaps Mr. DiCiccio is not aware that it was in Memphis, Tennessee that sanitation workers, aspiring to become labor union representatives and members picked up signs and declared proudly, ‘I Am a Man,’ and that this moment was the backgrop for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop’ speech.

While we can disagree and debate on the many financial [Bingo - It's about MONEY. The unions always want more money, and calling them unions bosses makes them sound like money grubbing thieves, which is why they don't like to be called union bosses] and other issues affecting our city a basic decorum f respect and civility should be the norm. The council deserves it, we deserve it, and certainly those citizens who have elected all of us deserve it.

Therefore, we request that the Mayor and council make a public declaration that such conduct among its members is not condoned by them, is unacceptable and that an immediate end to the use of this offensive and deliberately inflammatory phrase shall ensue.”

Signed:

Frank A. Piccioli, president, AFSCME 2960

Ran Ramirez, president, Administrative Supervisory Professional & Technical Employees Association

Joe Clure, president Phoenix Law Enforcement Association

Sean Mattson, president, Phoenix Police Sergeants and Lieutenants Association

Luis Schmidt, president, AFSCME 2384

Bill Higgins, chapter president, Laborers International Union of North America Local 777

Pete Gorraiz, president International Association of Firefighters 493; and Rebekah Friend, executive director, Arizona AFL-CIO

Rebekah Friend, executive director, Arizona AFL-CIO

Time to demonize the man the Mesa police beat up

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Judge had committed man wrestling officers in video

By Jim Walsh The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Jun 6, 2013 7:41 AM

A man captured in a YouTube video last week wrestling with Mesa police was involuntarily committed to a mental-health hospital for a psychiatric examination nearly five months ago.

Matangi Sentituli Tai, 36, was found incompetent for trial on Jan. 15 by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Hintze, who committed him to Desert Vista Behavioral Health Center in Mesa for inpatient evaluation, according to court records.

Tai was committed after Mesa police arrested him on suspicion of assaulting an officer on Sept. 2 outside a Mesa convenience store at 25 W. McKellips Road.

The incident in a YouTube video that went viral occurred on Thursday at another convenience store only a few blocks away, at 11 E. McKellips Road.

It was not immediately clear why Tai was out of Desert Vista. Hintze dismissed Tai’s charge of aggravated assault on a police officer when he committed Tai.

Civil-court mental-health records are sealed and not open to the public, said Aaron Nash, a spokesman for the county Clerk of the Court’s Office.

But Andrew Clemency, an attorney with the county Public Defender’s Office who specializes in capital cases and does not represent Tai, said it is typical for patients to be released after their condition is stabilized.

“Once he gets in the system and in the hospital, he can be put on a medication regime and stabilized. That doesn’t mean he is cured,” said Clemency, who is also a faculty associate at Arizona State University’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

“What typically happens is that after they leave the facility, they go off their medication,” he said, either because the pills are not available or the patient doesn’t like taking them.

Clemency said that inpatient mental-health treatment is expensive and that patients are being evaluated regularly to determine if they are suitable for release.

Patients also cannot be held against their will indefinitely and have attorneys working for their release.

“Mental health is a very dynamic sort of thing. People who appear disturbed one day could appear relatively normal the next,” he said.

In Thursday’s incident, Tai asked a clerk at the convenience store for his medication. The clerk told him that the store was not a pharmacy and that no medication was available.

When Tai refused to leave the store, Mesa police were called. Tai told the officer he wanted his medication, and the officer persuaded Tai to step outside.

The fight between Tai and the officer started when Tai was uncooperative, refusing to give the officer his name and refusing to sit on a curb, police said. The officer hit Tai in the chest with a stun gun, but it did not affect him.

The officer got into a wrestling match with Tai, attempting to take him down to the pavement.

A second off-duty officer saw the fight and entered the melee. Tai dislodged the second officer’s gun from his waistband, and it fell to pavement, creating an imminent threat, said Sgt. Tony Landato, a Mesa police spokesman.

He said police need to control a suspect before determining the reasons behind his or her erratic behavior, whether it is mental illness, drug use or emotional duress.

Eventually, a third officer used pepper spray to subdue Tai, and he was handcuffed.

In the September incident, police were called to investigate a beer theft and found Tai drinking a beer outside, according to court documents. He refused to sit on a curb and told the officer: “I’ve got to go through the pain.”

Tai pushed the officer, who responded by using a stun gun on him, but Tai was not affected, records say.

The officer tried to knock Tai down with a baton, but that also failed. The officer eventually wrestled Tai to the ground and handcuffed him.

“The defendant stated he did not listen to the officer but that he had respect for (the officer’s) job,” the document said.

Source

Mesa police actions questioned after video hits web; some commenters claim police brutality, others pleased

Posted: Wednesday, June 5, 2013 10:36 am | Updated: 3:22 pm, Wed Jun 5, 2013.

By Eric Mungenast, Tribune | 12 comments

A recent arrest outside of a Mesa convenience store has drawn criticism from people who say Mesa Police Department officers appeared to use excessive force.

Mesa Police Department public information officer Sgt. Anthony Landato said the incident — captured on video and posted to YouTube — occurred last Thursday outside a Circle K located on the corner of Center Street and McKellips Road. It began when a clerk called police about a man, identified as 36-year-old Matangi Tai, wandering in the store. Tai allegedly asked to have a prescription filled, a service Circle K does not offer.

The officer who arrived at the scene proceeded to address Tai and asked him to step outside the store with him, Landato said.

“We try to get him out of the business if we can,” he said.

Once they left the store, Landato said Tai would not comply with the officer’s requests for either his name or to sit down at the curb, which Landato said is common procedure. The officer then attempted to arrest Tai by using a stun gun — Landato said one of the two prongs latched onto Tai — and by engaging him physically, which led to a fight between the two men.

During the scuffle, a second, off-duty officer arrived and helped the other officer bring Tai to the ground, while a pistol from the officer’s waistband fell onto the concrete during their efforts. They were joined by two additional officers who were able to contain Tai and take him to custody.

Tai faces charges on two counts of aggravated assault on an officer, one count of resisting arrest, one count of criminal damage and a count of criminal trespassing. Landato said a stun gun was used on Tai while he was on the ground, and said Tai, the original on-duty officer and the off-duty officer sustained minor injuries from the incident.

The incident has drawn criticism from some who saw a video of it posted on Youtube — other comments praised the officers’ actions — for the amount of force used in the arrest. The man who recorded the video, Kameron Babbitt, said his main complaint with the situation was with the off-duty officer, who he said did much of the kicking and punching and caused an accident by driving through a red light when he arrived at the scene. Landato confirmed the officer did get into a “non-injury accident” with a female driver.

“I’m not a cop hater,” Babbitt said. “If they’re doing their job, do it right.”

Landato, however, said an internal review of the incident by the department found the officers involved followed appropriate protocol given the circumstances of the situation, and said factors like the gun that fell to the ground made it a particularly dangerous incident. He added an off-duty officer becomes an on-duty officer once he or she takes police action.

“All of this was appropriate and within our use of force protocol,” he said. “This is a whole different ballgame than it started out to be ... God forbid, this could have gotten much, much worse.”

Court records indicate Tai faced criminal charges from an incident that occurred last September. The charges were dropped after Tai was found to be too incompetent to assist in his defense and required an interpreter to translate the proceedings into Tongan. Landato said he wasn’t sure of Tai’s level of comprehension, but said he was able to communicate with the officers on some level.

Contact writer: (480) 898-6533 or emungenast@evtrib.com

Cop hating camera?????

Source

Don’t smear selfless officers doing their jobs

Wed Jun 5, 2013 8:34 PM

Regarding “Police video stirring controversy” (Valley & State, Tuesday):

I’m concerned about the sliming of the police by people with cameras and anyone else who feels that all police are bad, while all people taken down by force are good.

The suspect in the Mesa incident had a long history with the law, and the fact that he fought the officers is very telling.

I am a police supporter. Most officers are doing the job they are paid to do. They put the public first, themselves second — often becoming a sad statistic. Most of them are decent, hardworking people faced every day with people who feel they are above the law. The rest of us appreciate the work they do.

One man with a camera does not make a totally credible witness, not knowing all the facts. There are better ways to portray the law than by vitriolic pictures and rhetoric. Without these officers, our streets would be running amok.

Shame on The Republic for printing this article.

— Connie Cushing, Sun City

50% of inmates were arrested for victimless drug war crimes???

In this editorial George Will says about 50 percent of the people in Federal prisons are there for victimless drug war crimes.

I recently posted another article from Barrons that said about 8 percent of the people in American prisons are there for victimless marijuana drug war crimes.

I usually say about two thirds or 66 percent of the people in Federal prisons are there for victimless drug war crimes. I think I got that figure from Reason Magazine.

Source

Leahy and Paul plan on mandatory sentencing makes sense

By George F. Will, Published: June 5 E-mail the writer

Libertarians believe government should have a compelling reason before it restricts an individual’s liberty. Today’s liberals believe almost any reason will do, because liberty is less important than equality, fraternity, fighting obesity and many other aspirations. Now, however, one of the most senior and liberal U.S. senators and one of the most junior and libertarian have a proposal that could slow and even repair some of the fraying of society.

Seven-term Democrat Pat Leahy’s 38 Senate years have made him Judiciary Committee chairman. Republican Rand Paul is in his third Senate year. They hope to reduce the cruelty, irrationality and cost of the current regime of mandatory minimum sentences for federal crimes.

Such crimes are multiplying at a rate of more than 500 a decade, even though the Constitution explicitly authorizes Congress to criminalize only a few activities that are national in nature (e.g., counterfeiting, treason, crimes on the high seas). The federal government, having failed at core functions, such as fairly administering a rational revenue system, acts like a sheriff with attention-deficit disorder, haphazardly criminalizing this and that behavior in order to express righteous alarm about various wrongs that excite attention.

Approximately 80,000 people are sentenced in federal courts each year. There are an estimated 4,500 federal criminal statutes and tens of thousands of regulations backed by criminal penalties, including incarceration. There can be felony penalties for violating arcane regulations that do not give clear notice of behavior that is prescribed or proscribed. This violates the mens rea requirement — people deserve criminal punishment only if they intentionally engage in conduct that is inherently wrong or that they know to be illegal. No wonder that the federal prison population — currently approximately 219,000, about half serving drug sentences — has expanded 51 percent since 2000 and federal prisons are at 138 percent of their supposed capacity.

The Leahy-Paul measure would expand to all federal crimes the discretion federal judges have in many drug cases to impose sentences less than the mandatory minimums. This would, as Leahy says, allow judges — most of whom oppose mandatory minimums — to judge. Paul says mandatory minimum sentences, in the context of the proliferation of federal crimes, undermine federalism, the separation of powers and “the bedrock principle that people should be treated as individuals.”

Almost everyone who enters the desensitizing world of U.S. prisons is going to return to society, and many will have been socially handicapped by the experience. Until the 1970s, about 100 per 100,000 Americans were in prison. Today 700 per 100,000 are. America has nearly 5 percent of the world’s population but almost 25 percent of its prisoners. African Americans are 13 percent of the nation’s population but 37 percent of the prison population, and one in three African American men spends time incarcerated. All this takes a staggering toll on shattered families and disordered neighborhoods.

The House Judiciary Committee has created an Over-Criminalization Task Force. Its members should read “Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent,” by Harvey Silverglate, a libertarian lawyer whose book argues that prosecutors could indict most of us for three felonies a day. And the task force should read the short essay “Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything Is a Crime” by Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a professor of law at the University of Tennessee. Given the axiom that a competent prosecutor can persuade a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, and given the reality of prosecutorial abuse — particularly, compelling plea bargains by overcharging with “kitchen sink” indictments — Reynolds believes “the decision to charge a person criminally should itself undergo some degree of due process scrutiny.”

He also suggests banning plea bargains: “An understanding that every criminal charge filed would have to be either backed up in open court or ignominiously dropped would significantly reduce the incentive to overcharge. . . . Our criminal justice system, as presently practiced, is basically a plea-bargain system with actual trials of guilt or innocence a bit of showy froth floating on top.”

U.S. prosecutors win more than 90 percent of their cases, 97 percent of those without complete trials. British and Canadian prosecutors win significantly less, and for many offenses, the sentences in those nations are less severe.

Making mandatory minimums less severe would lessen the power of prosecutors to pressure defendants by overcharging them in order to expose them to draconian penalties. The Leahy-Paul measure is a way to begin reforming a criminal justice system in which justice is a diminishing component.

Cops create jobs for CPS workers????

Source

Chandler police: Suspected prostitute left year-old daughter alone in car

By Thomas Hawthorne The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Thu May 30, 2013 12:37 PM

A suspected prostitute is accused of leaving her year-old daughter alone in her vehicle while she met in a Chandler hotel room with an informant she thought was a client, police said.

Ana Garcia was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of prostitution, operating without an escort’s license, and child neglect, after she was arrested at an unnamed hotel in the 3500 block of W. Chandler Boulevard.

Garcia’s arrest came after police secretly recorded her discussion with the informant, which concluded with her agreement to have sex with him for $140, according to a court document.

After her arrest, Garcia told officers that her baby was alone in her vehicle outside of the hotel because she hadn’t expected the meeting to take that long, police said. Garcia said that she had left her daughter in the vehicle as she couldn’t get any child care and she needed the money, according to the document.

The child was found alone inside Garcia’s running vehicle, the document added.

Garcia told police she had been working as a prostitute for nearly six months, meeting for as many as four or more assignations a day. The meeting wth the informant was arranged through an escorts ad in a Spanish-language magazine, police said.

The daughter was given to Child Protective Services, the document said.

Go to jail for feeding Fido hamburger instead of steak????

Do you have to let them drink Perrier water instead of the yucky tasting Phoenix water to avoid being popped by the Phoenix PD for animal cruelty???

I suspect this law will be selectively enforced like most city laws are, and only people that the police or royal rulers of Phoenix dislike will be arrested for feeding Fido low quality food.

Source

Phoenix animal-cruelty law strengthened

By Dustin Gardiner The Arizona Republic | azcentral.com Wed Jun 5, 2013 10:23 PM

Phoenix City Council members voted unanimously Wednesday to toughen the city’s animal-cruelty law and provide more tools to deal with animal hoarders.

The move expands the definitions of what constitutes animal cruelty and what food, water and shelter is appropriate for animals. Under current law, there is no clear definition of suitable drinking water and food.

City leaders said unclear definitions regarding proper care are letting too many abusers off the hook because judges have a hard time interpreting “cruel neglect.”

For example, a neglectful owner can often get away with providing unsuitable food for the breed or dirty water.

The changes are the result of the Phoenix Animal Cruelty Task Force, which spent the past year looking at animal-welfare laws and raising awareness. Council members Thelda Williams and Michael Nowakowski led the group.

“The judge will allow you to feed them slop as long as it’s edible,” said Williams, who witnessed animal-abuse cases as an administrator in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. “It happens all too frequently.”

Mayor Greg Stanton created the task force last year after city workers discovered the bodies of nine animals, mostly dogs, at a south Phoenix lot. Investigators determined they had died of disease, neglect or abandonment.

Williams said she is pushing the proposal now because a similar bill died in the state Legislature this year. She hopes lawmakers will use Phoenix’s example as a state template.

She said some lawmakers from rural areas had rejected the bill because they were concerned limitations meant to target animal hoarding by outlawing “cruel confinement” of an animal were too broad.

Phoenix’s ordinance takes a different approach: Someone convicted of animal cruelty who keeps 10 or more animals must undergo a court-ordered psychological evaluation.

The NSA tracking phone calls of millions of Verizon customers???

Not just Verizon? Secret NSA effort to gather phone data is years old

By Richard A. Serrano and Kathleen Hennessey

June 6, 2013, 8:54 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The massive National Security Agency collection of telephone records disclosed Wednesday was part of a continuing program that has been in effect nonstop since 2006, according to the two top leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“As far as I know, this is the exact three-month renewal of what has been in place for the past seven years," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) told reporters Thursday. The surveillance “is lawful” and Congress has been fully briefed on the practice, she added.

Her Republican counterpart, Saxby Chambliss, concurred: "This is nothing new. This has been going on for seven years,” he said. “Every member of the United States Senate has been advised of this. [Which means every member of the Senate approved of it???] To my knowledge there has not been any citizen who has registered a complaint. It has proved meritorious because we have collected significant information on bad guys, but only on bad guys, over the years."

The statements by the two senators, whose committee positions give them wide access to classified data, appeared to rule out the possibility that the court order directing Verizon to turn over telephone records was related to the Boston Marathon bombings. The order was effective as of April 19, shortly after the bombings, which had sparked speculation about a link.

Instead, the surveillance, which was revealed Wednesday by Britain’s Guardian newspaper, appears to have been of far longer duration. Although the senators did not specify the scope of the surveillance, the fact that it has been in place since 2006 also suggests that it is not limited to any one phone carrier.

The Obama administration defended the program Thursday, saying the data collection “has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States.” [So every one of these millions of Americans the NSA spied on is a terrorist according to Obama???]

A senior administration official released a statement which did not confirm the existence of the court order authorizing the surveillance, which, according to the copy released by the Guardian, is marked "Top Secret." It was issued in late April by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a secret court that meets in Washington, and allowed the government to collect the bulk data until July 19.

"The information acquired does not include the content of any communications or the name of any subscriber," the official said. "It relates exclusively to metadata, such as a telephone number or the length of a call.

The court order was authorized under a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that allows the government to collect business records in bulk if its requests are approved by the court. [I think that is a big word for the police state Patriot Act]

The official said telephone data allow "counterterrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.”

The official requested anonymity to discuss the counterterrorism program.

In defending the data collection program, the administration official sought to spread responsibility, noting that “all three branches” of government were tasked with review and oversight of surveillance. [So all three branches of government are spying on us???]

"There is a robust legal regime in place governing all activities conducted pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act," the official said. He said that involves oversight by the Department of Justice, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the FISA court.

Separately, the Justice Department released a letter defending the administration’s handling of the FISA law that they had sent in 2011 to two senators who had objected to it.

“We do not believe the Executive Branch is operating pursuant to ‘secret law’ or ‘secret opinions of the Department of Justice,’ “ said the letter, signed by Assistant Atty. Gen. Ronald Weich. The “Intelligence Community is conducting court-authorized intelligence activities pursuant to a public statute, with the knowledge and oversight of Congress and the Intelligence Communities of both Houses.”

“Many other collection activities are classified,” Weich added, saying that “this is necessary because public disclosure of the activities they discuss would harm national security and impede the effectiveness of the intelligence tools that Congress has approved.”

Weich further defended the program by saying intelligence officials have “determined that public disclosure of the classified use” of the law “would expose sensitive sources and methods to our adversaries and therefore harm national security.”

He said collection of records, as now underway with Verizon phone logs, was different than material obtained through grand jury subpoenas. Grand jury subpoenas, he said, can be obtained by prosecutors without court approval. In contrast, he said, the intelligence collections can be done only with approval from a federal judge sitting on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Most importantly, he noted that FISA courts require a showing by officials that the records sought “are relevant to an authorized national security investigation.”

The Weich letter was sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-0re.).

Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. is testifying Thursday morning before the Senate Appropriations Committee, and is expected to address the matter further.

Follow Politics Now on Twitter and Facebook

kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com

Rick.Serrano@latimes.com

Twitter: @khennessey

Here's Exactly Who to Blame in Congress for Authorizing Government Spying

Source

Here's Exactly Who to Blame in Congress for Authorizing Government Spying

The Atlantic WireBy Philip Bump | The Atlantic Wire

The National Security Agency and the FBI don't bear all the responsibility for the revelation that Verizon is turning phone records over to the government. That responsibility lies with the members of Congress who voted for the PATRIOT Act, as well as extensions of it and the provisions related to collecting those records. Over 100 people currently serving in the House and Senate voted for the original Act in 2001. Last year, over 300 voted to extend a key provision.

We looked at seven Congressional actions generally and five in particular to assess how the government's power to collect data has evolved. From October 2001 to last December, Congress continually voted to expand or continue the government's power to collect private data, ostensibly to bolster efforts to stop terrorist activity. In addition to the PATRIOT Act, Congress has also renewed provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA — the law that established the court which issued the Verizon order.

President Obama’s Dragnet

Source

President Obama’s Dragnet

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Published: June 6, 2013

Within hours of the disclosure that the federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.

Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability. The administration has now lost all credibility. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the 9/11 attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers.

Based on an article in The Guardian published Wednesday night, we now know the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency used the Patriot Act to obtain a secret warrant to compel Verizon’s business services division to turn over data on every single call that went through its system. We know that this particular order was a routine extension of surveillance that has been going on for years, and it seems very likely that it extends beyond Verizon’s business division. There is every reason to believe the federal government has been collecting every bit of information about every American’s phone calls except the words actually exchanged in those calls.

A senior administration official quoted in The Times offered the lame observation that the information does not include the name of any caller, as though there would be the slightest difficulty in matching numbers to names. He said the information “has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats,” because it allows the government “to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.”

That is a vital goal, but how is it served by collecting everyone’s call data? The government can easily collect phone records (including the actual content of those calls) on “known or suspected terrorists” without logging every call made. In fact, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was expanded in 2008 for that very purpose. Essentially, the administration is saying that without any individual suspicion of wrongdoing, the government is allowed to know who Americans are calling every time they make a phone call, for how long they talk and from where.

This sort of tracking can reveal a lot of personal and intimate information about an individual. To casually permit this surveillance — with the American public having no idea that the executive branch is now exercising this power — fundamentally shifts power between the individual and the state, and repudiates constitutional principles governing search, seizure and privacy.

The defense of this practice offered by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to be preventing this sort of overreaching, was absurd. She said today that the authorities need this information in case someone might become a terrorist in the future. Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the vice chairman of the committee, said the surveillance has “proved meritorious, because we have gathered significant information on bad guys and only on bad guys over the years.”

But what assurance do we have of that, especially since Ms. Feinstein went on to say that she actually did not know how the data being collected was used?

The senior administration official quoted in The Times said the executive branch internally reviews surveillance programs to ensure that they “comply with the Constitution and laws of the United States and appropriately protect privacy and civil liberties.”

That’s no longer good enough. Mr. Obama clearly had no intention of revealing this eavesdropping, just as he would not have acknowledged the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, had it not been reported in the press. Even then, it took him more than a year and a half to acknowledge the killing, and he is still keeping secret the protocol by which he makes such decisions.

We are not questioning the legality under the Patriot Act of the court order disclosed by The Guardian. But we strongly object to using that power in this manner. It is the very sort of thing against which Mr. Obama once railed, when he said in 2007 that the Bush administration’s surveillance policy “puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide.”

Two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, have raised warnings about the government’s overbroad interpretation of its surveillance powers. “We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted Section 215 of the Patriot Act,” they wrote last year in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. “As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows. This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn’t know what its government thinks the law says.”

On Thursday, Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, who introduced the Patriot Act in 2001, said that the National Security Agency overstepped its bounds by issuing a secret order to collect phone log records from millions of Americans. “As the author of the Patriot Act, I am extremely troubled by the F.B.I.’s interpretation of this legislation,” he said in a statement. “While I believe the Patriot Act appropriately balanced national security concerns and civil rights, I have always worried about potential abuses.” He added: “Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.”

This stunning use of the act shows, once again, why it needs to be sharply curtailed if not repealed.

What You Should Know About NSA Phone Data Program

What You Should Know About NSA Phone Data Program

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: June 6, 2013 at 4:04 PM ET

WASHINGTON — The government knows who you're calling.

Every day. Every call.

Here's what you need to know about the secret program and how it works:

___

Q: What happened and why is it a big deal?

A: The Guardian newspaper published a highly classified April U.S. court order that allows the government access to all of Verizon's phone records on a daily basis, for both domestic and international calls. That doesn't mean the government is listening in, and the National Security Agency did not receive the names and addresses of customers. But it did receive all phone numbers with outgoing or incoming calls, as well as the unique electronic numbers that identify cellphones. That means the government knows which phones are being used, even if customers change their numbers.

This is the first tangible evidence of the scope of a domestic surveillance program that has existed for years but has been discussed only in generalities. It proves that, in the name of national security, the government sweeps up the call records of Americans who have no known ties to terrorists or criminals.

Q: How is this different from the NSA wiretapping that was going on under President George W. Bush?

A: In 2005, The New York Times revealed that Bush had signed a secret order allowing the NSA to eavesdrop on Americans without court approval, a seismic shift in policy for an agency that had previously been prohibited from spying domestically. The exact scope of that program has never been known, but it allowed the NSA to monitor phone calls and emails. After it became public, the Bush administration dubbed it the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" and said it was a critical tool in protecting the United States from attack.

"The NSA program is narrowly focused, aimed only at international calls and targeted at al-Qaida and related groups," the Justice Department said at the time.

But while wiretapping got all the attention, the government was also collecting call logs from American phone companies as part of that program, a U.S. official said Thursday. After the wiretapping controversy, the surveillance continued, albeit with court approval. That's what we're seeing in the newly released court document: a judge's authorization for something that began years ago with no court oversight.

Q: Why does the government even want my phone records?

A: They're not interested in your records, in all likelihood, but your calls make up the background noise of the global phone system.

Look at your monthly phone bill, and you'll see patterns: calls home as you leave work, food delivery orders on Friday nights, that once-a-week call to mom and dad.

It's like that, except on a monumentally bigger scale. Armed with the nation's phone records, the NSA's computers can identify what normal call behavior looks like. Abnormal call behavior begins to stand out.

When the computers spot something out of the ordinary, the government can identify what are known in intelligence circles as "communities of interest" — the networks of people who are in contact with targets or suspicious phone numbers.

Over time, the records also become a valuable archive. When officials discover a new phone number linked to a suspected terrorist, they can consult the records to see who called that number in the preceding months or years.

Once the government has narrowed its focus on phone numbers it believes are tied to terrorism or foreign governments, it can go back to the court with a wiretap request. That allows the government to monitor the calls in real time, record them and store them indefinitely.

___

Q: So a judge approved this. Does that mean someone had to show probable cause that a crime was being committed?

A: No. The seizure was authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which operates under very different rules from a typical court. Probable cause is not required.

The court was created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and is known in intelligence circles as the FISA court. Judges appointed by the president hear secret evidence and authorize wiretapping, search warrants and other clandestine efforts to monitor suspected or known spies and terrorists.

For decades, the court was located in a secure area at Justice Department headquarters. While prosecutors in criminal cases must come to court seeking subpoenas, the FISA judges came to the Justice Department. That changed in 2008 with the construction of a new FISA court inside the U.S. District Court in Washington. The courtroom is essentially a vault, designed to prevent anyone from eavesdropping on what goes on inside.

In this instance, Judge Roger Vinson authorized the NSA to seize the phone records under a provision in the USA Patriot Act, which passed shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and vastly expanded the government's ability to collect information on Americans.

___

Q: If not probable cause, what standard did the government use in this case?

A: The judge relied on one of the most controversial aspects of the Patriot Act: Section 215, which became known colloquially as the "library records provision" because it allowed the government to seize a wide range of documents, including library records. Under that provision, the government must show that there are "reasonable grounds to believe" that the records are relevant to an investigation intended to "protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities."

Exactly what "relevant" meant has been unclear. With the release of the classified court order, the public can see for the first time that everyone's phone records are relevant.

The Justice Department has staunchly defended Section 215, saying it was narrowly written and has safeguarded liberties.

Some in Congress, however, have been sounding alarms about it for years. Though they are prohibited from revealing what they know about the surveillance programs, Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall or Colorado have said the government's interpretation of the law has gone far beyond what the public believes.

"We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted section 215 of the Patriot Act," the senators wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder last year.

___

Q: Why don't others in Congress seem that upset about all this?

A: Many members of Congress have known this was going on for years. While Americans might be surprised to see, in writing, an authorization to sweep up their phone records, that's old news to many in Congress.

"Everyone should just calm down and understand that this isn't anything that's brand new," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Thursday. "It's been going on for some seven years."

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss issued a similar statement:

"The executive branch's use of this authority has been briefed extensively to the Senate and House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, and detailed information has been made available to all members of Congress."

___

Q: What does the Obama administration have to say about this?

A: So far, very little. Despite campaigning against Bush's counterterrorism efforts, President Barack Obama has continued many of the most controversial ones including, it is now clear, widespread monitoring of American phone records.

The NSA is particularly reluctant to discuss its programs. Even as it has secretly collected millions of phone records, it has tried to cultivate an image that it was not in the domestic surveillance business.

In March, for instance, NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines, emailed an Associated Press reporter about a story that described the NSA as a monitor of worldwide internet data and phone calls.

"NSA collects, monitors, and analyzes a variety of (asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk)FOREIGN(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk) signals and communications for indications of threats to the United States and for information of value to the U.S. government," she wrote. " (asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk)FOREIGN(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk) is the operative word. NSA is not an indiscriminate vacuum, collecting anything and everything."

___

Q: Why hasn't anyone sued over this? Can I?

A: People have sued. But challenging the legality of secret wiretaps is difficult because, in order to sue, you have to know you've been wiretapped. In 2006, for instance, a federal judge in Detroit declared the NSA warrantless wiretapping program unconstitutional. But the ruling was overturned when an appeals court that said the plaintiffs — civil rights groups, lawyers and scholars — didn't have the authority to sue because they couldn't prove they were wiretapped.

Court challenges have also run up against the government's ability to torpedo lawsuits that could jeopardize state secrets.

The recent release of the classified court document is sure to trigger a new lawsuit in the name of Verizon customers whose records were seized. But now that the surveillance program is under the supervision of the FISA court and a warrant was issued, a court challenge is more difficult.

Suing Verizon would also be difficult. A lawsuit against AT&T failed because Congress granted telecommunications companies retroactive immunity for cooperating with warrantless surveillance. In this instance, Verizon was under a court order to provide the records to the government, making a lawsuit against the company challenging.

Phoenix coach arrested on suspicion of drug use

Source

Phoenix coach arrested on suspicion of drug use

By Matthew Longdon The Republic | azcentral.com Tue Jun 4, 2013 11:20 AM

A Phoenix high-school wrestling coach and another man are facing charges of drug possession, aggravated assault and resisting arrest after they were caught smoking marijuana Saturday in Tempe’s entertainment district and tried to flee officers, police say.

Cory Watson, 26, a coach at Phoenix Christian High School, and Adam Yazzie, whose age was not available, scuffled with officers as they tried to evade arrest, according to police. Officers said they had to use Tasers to subdue Watson and Yazzie before the two were taken into custody.

A third person fled the scene and wasn’t found, police said.

Authorities said two officers spotted the group smoking marijuana near Sixth Street and Mill Avenue on Saturday night. When the three were confronted, Watson began to resist one officer as another officer tried to handcuff Yazzie.

According to the report, Watson threw an officer to the ground and was punched twice in the face by an officer.

Yazzie fled the scene with a handcuff around one wrist, according to police. Officers found him about a half-mile away, where he was Tasered and arrested, police said.

A bag of marijuana was found in Watson’s pocket, according to the police report.

Yazzie suffered injuries to his back and the back of his head from the Taser prongs, the report said. He was still in the hospital Monday.

Both officers suffered minor injuries, the report said.

In a police interview after his arrest, Watson said he saw Yazzie, whom he did not know, smoking a cigarette. Watson told police he asked to smoke the cigarette, which contained marijuana, and he was handing the cigarette back, just as police arrived, because he does not smoke marijuana.

According to police, both men have outstanding warrants for their arrest, but it was unclear what the warrants were for.

Lt. Scott Smith of the Tempe Police Department said Watson’s behavior was unfortunate.

“The fact that Mr. Watson is a wrestling coach and is charged with teaching our community’s youth about health and fitness and good citizenship, for him to be involved with this kind of conduct is disappointing,” he said.

Richard M. Obama - Obama M. Nixon????

Edward Snowden - NSA freedom fighter???

Edward Snowden identified as source of NSA leaks

By Barton Gellman and Aaron Blake, Updated: Sunday, June 9, 1:00 PM E-mail the writers

Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former undercover CIA employee, unmasked himself Sunday as the principal source of recent Washington Post and Guardian disclosures about top-secret National Security Agency programs.

Snowden, who has contracted for the NSA and works for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, denounced what he described as systematic surveillance of innocent citizens and said in an interview that “it’s important to send a message to government that people will not be intimidated.”

Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said Saturday that the NSA had initiated a Justice Department investigation into who leaked the information — an investigation supported by intelligence officials in Congress.

Snowden, whose full name is Edward Joseph Snowden, said he understands the risks of disclosing the information but felt it was important to do.

“I intend to ask for asylum from any countries that believe in free speech and oppose the victimization of global privacy,” Snowden told The Post from Hong Kong, where he has been staying. The Guardian was the first to publicly identify Snowden, at his request.

“I’m not going to hide,” Snowden said Sunday afternoon. “Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest.”

Asked whether he believed his disclosures would change anything, he said: “I think they already have. Everyone everywhere now understands how bad things have gotten — and they’re talking about it. They have the power to decide for themselves whether they are willing to sacrifice their privacy to the surveillance state.”

Snowden said nobody was aware of his actions, including those closest to him. He said there wasn’t a single event that spurred his decision to leak the information.

“It was more of a slow realization that presidents could openly lie to secure the office and then break public promises without consequence,” he said.

Snowden said President Obama hasn’t lived up to his pledges of transparency. He blamed a lack of accountability in the Bush administration for continued abuses. The White House did not respond to a request for comment Sunday afternoon.

“It set an example that when powerful figures are suspected of wrongdoing, releasing them from the accountability of law is ‘for our own good,’ ” Snowden said. “That’s corrosive to the basic fairness of society.”

Snowden also expressed hope that the NSA surveillance programs would now be open to legal challenge for the first time. Earlier this year, in Amnesty International v. Clapper, the Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit against the mass collection of phone records because the plaintiffs could not prove exactly what the program did or that they were personally subject to surveillance.

“The government can’t reasonably assert the state secrets privilege for a program it has acknowledged. The courts can now allow challenges to be heard on that basis,” Snowden said.

Snowden’s name surfaced as top intelligence officials in the Obama administration and Congress pushed back against the journalists responsible for revealing the existence of sensitive surveillance programs and called for an investigation into the leaks.

The Guardian initially reported the existence of a program that collects data on all phone calls made on the Verizon network. Later in the week, the Guardian and The Post reported the existence of a separate program, code-named PRISM, that collects the Internet data of foreigners from major Internet companies.

Clapper, in an interview with NBC that aired Saturday night, condemned the leaker’s actions but also sought to spotlight the media who first reported the programs, calling their disclosures irresponsible and full of “hyperbole.” Earlier Saturday, he had issued a statement accusing the media of a “rush to publish.”

“For me, it is literally — not figuratively — literally gut-wrenching to see this happen because of the huge, grave damage it does to our intelligence capabilities,” Clapper said.

On Sunday morning, prior to Snowden’s unmasking, Clapper got some backup from the chairs of the House and Senate intelligence committees, who appeared jointly on ABC’s “This Week” to espouse the values of the programs.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) had harsh words for the still-unnamed leaker and for the journalist who first reported the NSA’s collection of phone records, the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald.

“He doesn’t have a clue how this thing works; nether did the person who released just enough information to literally be dangerous,” Rogers said, adding, “I absolutely think [the leaker] should be prosecuted.”

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) agreed that whoever had leaked the information should be prosecuted, and she sought to beat back media reports that suggest the Obama administration overplayed the impact of the programs.

Greenwald, who appeared earlier on the same show, said the secrecy is the reason the programs must be laid bare.

After opponents of the programs questioned their value last week, anonymous administration officials pointed to the thwarting of a bomb plot targeting the New York City subway system in 2009. Soon after, though, reporters, including BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith, noted that public documents suggested regular police work was responsible for thwarting the attack rather than a secret government intelligence program.

Feinstein confirmed that the programs were invaluable in both the New York case and another one involving an American plotting to bomb a hotel in India in 2008.

“One of them is the case of David Headley, who went to Mumbai to the Taj [Mahal] Hotel and scoped it out for the terrorist attack,” Feinstein said. “The second is Najibullah Zazi, who lived in Colorado, who made the decision that he was going to blow up a New York subway.”

Feinstein noted that she could talk about those two cases because they have been declassified, but she suggested the surveillance programs also assisted in other terrorism-related cases.

That explanation wasn’t enough to satisfy some critics of the programs. Her Senate Intelligence Committee colleague, Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), agreed that the so-called PRISM program — which taps into the Internet usage of foreigners — has “been very effective.” But he said the collection of Americans’ phone metadata has not proven so.

“It’s unclear to me that we’ve developed any intelligence through the metadata program that’s led to the disruption of plots that we couldn’t obtain through other programs,” Udall said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Udall and two Democrats from Oregon — Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley — have emerged as key voices critical of the phone record collection.

Another chief critic of the efforts, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), said he is looking at filing a lawsuit against the government and called on Americans to join in.

“I’m going to be asking all the Internet providers and all of the phone companies, ask your customers to join me in a class action lawsuit,” Paul said on “Fox News Sunday.” “If we get 10 million Americans saying we don’t want our phone records looked at, then somebody will wake up and say things will change in Washington.

Source

Edward Snowden says motive behind leaks was to expose ‘surveillance state’

By Barton Gellman and Jerry Markon, Sunday, June 9, 1:54 PM E-mail the writers

The man who identified himself Sunday as the main source behind recent disclosures of government surveillance programs is a defense contractor and former CIA employee who says his motive was to expose what he sees as a “surveillance state” that has committed massive violations of privacy.

Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old system administrator, told The Washington Post that the disclosures of top-secret National Security Administration spying have prompted a vital public debate about the line between privacy and security in the post-Sept. 11, 2001 era.

The U.S. goverment is accessing top Internet companies’ servers to track foreign targets. Reporter Barton Gellman talks about the source who revealed this top-secret information and how he believes his whistleblowing was worth whatever consequences are ahead.

The U.S. goverment is accessing top Internet companies’ servers to track foreign targets. Reporter Barton Gellman talks about the source who revealed this top-secret information and how he believes his whistleblowing was worth whatever consequences are ahead.

“Everyone everywhere now understands how bad things have gotten — and they’re talking about it. They have the power to decide for themselves whether they are willing to sacrifice their privacy to the surveillance state,” he said from Hong Kong, where he has been staying.

Snowden, a former undercover CIA technical assistant, expressed particular disappointment with the Obama administration, saying it had failed to sufficiently investigate officials in the George W. Bush administration for earlier surveillance efforts. “Excusing the prior administration from investigation wronged the public,” he said. “It set an example that when powerful figures are suspected of wrongdoing, releasing them from the accountability of law is ‘for our own good.’ That’s corrosive to the basic fairness of society.”

He also seemed to dare the Obama administration — already under fire for its unprecedented series of leak investigations and prosecutions — to come after him. “I’m not going to hide,’’ said Snowden, after National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper Jr. said Saturday that the NSA had asked the Justice Department to investigate the latest leaks.

“Allowing the United States government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest,’’ said Snowden, who added that he acted alone in deciding to leak information. “No one, not even those closest to me, knew,’’ he said.

The Guardian, which also revealed Snowden’s identity Sunday at his request, started the cascade of national security revelations last week by reporting on the existence of a program that collects data on all phone calls made on the Verizon network. Later in the week, the Guardian and The Post reported the existence of a separate program, code-named PRISM, that collects the Internet data of foreigners from major Internet companies.

The Guardian reported Sunday that Snowden has been working at the NSA for the past four years as an employee of several outside contractors, including Booz Allen Hamilton and Dell. He told the newspaper he has had “a very comfortable life,” with a salary that reached $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he lived in Hawaii, and a loving family.

In a note accompanying the first set of documents he gave the Post and others, Snowden wrote: “I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions,” but “I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.”

Snowden told The Post that he could not “recall a single moment” in which his desire to violate his oath to protect top-secret information coalesced into the final decision to reveal that information publicly.

“It was more of a slow realization that presidents could openly lie to secure the office and then break public promises without consequence,” he said.

Edward Snowden was a Ron Paul supporter.

Source

Edward Snowden says motive behind leaks was to expose ‘surveillance state’

By Barton Gellman and Jerry Markon, Published: June 9

Before the world knew his name, 29-year-old Edward Snowden drafted a note of explanation.

He had worked for the CIA and as a contractor for the NSA, he wrote, and had lived a “comfortable and privileged life.” But he was also deeply uncomfortable with the knowledge that had already been afforded to him in his brief career — knowledge about the U.S. surveillance that officials said they were carrying out to keep America safe.

“As I advanced and learned the dangerous truth behind the U.S. policies that seek to develop secret, irresistible powers and concentrate them in the hands of an unaccountable few, human weakness haunted me,” Snowden wrote in the note, which would accompany the first documents he leaked. “As I worked in secret to resist them, selfish fear questioned if the stone thrown by a single man could justify the loss of everything he loves.

“I have come to my answer.”

Snowden, who identified himself Sunday as the main source behind recent disclosures of sweeping government surveillance programs, worked for years inside the U.S. intelligence community. As he did so, he said, he became disillusioned with American government policies.

In an interview, he told The Washington Post that he could not “recall a single moment” in which his desire to violate his oath to protect top-secret information coalesced into the final decision to reveal that information publicly.

“It was more of a slow realization that presidents could openly lie to secure the office and then break public promises without consequence,” he said.

According to campaign finance reports, Snowden made a $250 donation to Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign in March of that year, and gave another $250 in May. Paul has been a critic of excessive government intrusion.

Snowden, a soft-spoken “infrastructure analyst” with ties to the Washington area, said he advanced in the intelligence world through his understanding of computer programming and the Internet, though he has no visible Internet presence himself.

With wire glasses, short, dark hair and a thin goatee, he maintains an academic look. Yet he never completed his coursework at a community college in Maryland, only later obtaining his GED — an unusually light education for someone who would advance in the intelligence ranks.

For the past several months, Snowden was stationed in Hawaii, working as an NSA contractor for the firm Booz Allen Hamilton. It was there, at the NSA offices, he told the Guardian newspaper, that he copied the last set of documents he intended to disclose, told his NSA supervisors he needed time off for treatment for epilepsy, and boarded a flight to Hong Kong.

A storm has followed him. The Obama administration said Sunday that the NSA has asked the Justice Department to investigate the leak. Booz Allen condemned its erstwhile employee, and said Snowden had worked for them for less than three months.

“News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm,’’ the company said, vowing to work closely with authorities in the investigation.

Snowden, who says he is a former undercover CIA technical assistant, said he was undaunted. He also waded into the political debate he has helped trigger, expressing particular disappointment with President Obama and his administration, which he accused of failing to sufficiently investigate officials in the George W. Bush administration for earlier surveillance efforts.

“Excusing the prior administration from investigation wronged the public,” he said in a live, encrypted chat Sunday afternoon moments after his identity was made public. “It set an example that when powerful figures are suspected of wrongdoing, releasing them from the accountability of law is ‘for our own good.’ That’s corrosive to the basic fairness of society.”

The U.S. goverment is accessing top Internet companies’ servers to track foreign targets. Reporter Barton Gellman talks about the source who revealed this top-secret information and how he believes his whistleblowing was worth whatever consequences are ahead.

The U.S. goverment is accessing top Internet companies’ servers to track foreign targets. Reporter Barton Gellman talks about the source who revealed this top-secret information and how he believes his whistleblowing was worth whatever consequences are ahead.

The Guardian, which revealed Snowden’s identity Sunday at his request, started the cascade of national security revelations last week by reporting on the existence of a program that collects data on all phone calls made on the Verizon network. Later in the week, The Post and the Guardian reported the existence of a sep­arate program, code-named PRISM, that collects the Internet data of foreigners from major Internet companies.

Snowden has been working at the NSA for the past four years as an employee of several outside contractors. In addition to Booz Allen Hamilton, the Guardian reported that Snowden also worked for Dell, and it quoted him as saying he had “a very comfortable life,” with a salary that reached $200,000.

Snowden lived most recently in Hawaii, where a real estate agent, Kerri Jo Heim of Century 21, said she is now selling the house he rented. The three-bedroom house is in Waipahu, a short drive from the beach, and is now listed for $550,000. Snowden told the Post that he had a girlfriend with whom he lived in Hawaii.

Snowden and his girlfriend were strikingly standoffish while living in a home in the residential Royal Kunia neighborhood of Waipahu, and seemed to go out of their way to avoid conversations with passers-by, neighbor Carolyn Tijing said in a telephone interview. Tijing said that her husband went to introduce himself to Snowden and his girlfriend shortly after they moved across the street from the Tijings but that Snowden declined to exchange any pleasantries.

“It was a no-go, no conversation at all,” she said. “He just said ‘Fine’ and walked straight into his house. We thought they were just really anti-social.”

Carolyn Tijing said that the couple had erected a wall of boxes floor to ceiling inside their garage that blocked anyone’s view from the street into the two-car garage and that they always kept their cars parked in the driveway.Tijing said that she never saw anyone visit the home but that her college-aged son had seen several people stop by at late hours, between midnight and 2 a.m. Those visitors would arrive by car, stand in the driveway for a few minutes and exchange a few words with Snowden, then depart, Tijing said her son told her.

About four weeks ago, Snowden and his girlfriend apparently departed, Tijing said. The wall of boxes in the garage was gone, and a handyman arrived to clean the house. “One day they were here, the next they were gone,” Tijing said. “We never saw them leave.”

Numerous family members did not respond to phone calls and e-mails Sunday.

In the note accompanying the first document he gave The Post and others, Snowden wrote: “I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions,” but “I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.”

Public records show residences for Snowden in the North Carolina cities of Elizabeth City and Wilmington and that his family later moved to Ellicott City, Md. — near the NSA headquarters at Fort Meade. Public records say his mother is a federal government employee: a deputy clerk for the U.S. District Court in Maryland.

A neighbor near the mother’s home said Sunday night that she recognized Snowden from photographs but had not seen him for many years. The neighbor confirmed that his mother has epilepsy and uses a service dog.

In 2003, according to the Guardian, Snowden enlisted in the U.S. Army, intending to join the Special Forces and fight in Iraq. But he was discharged after breaking both legs in a training accident.

His first NSA job was as a security guard for one of the agency’s covert facilities at the University of Maryland. Then he began working in IT security for the CIA, he says, with his understanding of the Internet and programming helping him overcome his lack of a high school diploma.

The CIA stationed him with diplomatic cover in Geneva in 2007, he said, which gave him widespread access to classified documents. Snowden said that access, along with his nearly three years around CIA officers, made him begin questioning U.S. government policies about surveillance.

After leaving the CIA in 2009 to work for a private contractor, he said, he was based at an NSA facility in Japan.

Snowden said he admires other accused leakers of government secrets, such as Pfc. Bradley E. Manning — who is accused of leaking classified documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks — but considers himself different.

“I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest” he told the Guardian. “There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is.”

Julie Tate, Peter Finn, Peter Hermann and Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.

Leaker’s Employer Became Wealthy by Maintaining Government Secrets

Leaker’s Employer Became Wealthy by Maintaining Government Secrets

By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM and ERIC LIPTON

Published: June 9, 2013

WASHINGTON — Edward J. Snowden’s employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, has become one of the largest and most profitable corporations in the United States almost exclusively by serving a single client: the government of the United States.

Over the last decade, much of the company’s growth has come from selling expertise, technology and manpower to the National Security Agency and other federal intelligence agencies. Booz Allen earned $1.3 billion, 23 percent of the company’s total revenue, from intelligence work during its most recent fiscal year.

The government has sharply increased spending on high-tech intelligence gathering since 2001, and both the Bush and Obama administrations have chosen to rely on private contractors like Booz Allen for much of the resulting work.

Thousands of people formerly employed by the government, and still approved to deal with classified information, now do essentially the same work for private companies. Mr. Snowden, who revealed on Sunday that he provided the recent leak of national security documents, is among them.

As evidence of the company’s close relationship with government, the Obama administration’s chief intelligence official, James R. Clapper Jr., is a former Booz Allen executive. The official who held that post in the Bush administration, John M. McConnell, now works for Booz Allen.

“The national security apparatus has been more and more privatized and turned over to contractors,” said Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group that studies federal government contracting. “This is something the public is largely unaware of, how more than a million private contractors are cleared to handle highly sensitive matters.”

It has gone so far, Ms. Brian said, that even the process of granting security clearances is often handled by contractors, allowing companies to grant government security clearances to private sector employees.

Companies like Booz Allen, Lockheed Martin and the Computer Sciences Corporation also engage directly in gathering information and providing analysis and advice to government officials. Booz Allen employees work inside the facilities at the N.S.A., among the most secretive of the intelligence agencies. The company also has several office buildings near the agency’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Md.

The company employs about 25,000 people, almost half of whom hold top secret security clearances, providing “access to information that would cause ‘exceptionally grave damage’ to national security if disclosed to the public,” according to a company securities filing.

In January, Booz Allen announced that it was starting work on a new contract worth perhaps as much as $5.6 billion over five years to provide intelligence analysis services to the Defense Department. Under the deal, Booz Allen employees are being assigned to help military and national security policy makers, the company said.

Representative Peter T. King, a New York Republican and former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he had no reason to believe that a private contractor was more likely to become a source to reporters than a government official, because both need a security clearance before they can handle top secret information.

“Security is so tight and procedures so strictly enforced, this is really a surprise,” he said of the leaks by Mr. Snowden. “This will have to be fully investigated, inside and out, to find out what happened here. Were there warning signs? Were there issues in his background?”

Stewart A. Baker, who served as general counsel at the N.S.A. in the 1990s and more recently as a top official at the Department of Homeland Security, said he worried that the reliance on outside contractors might, in some ways at least, make the government more vulnerable to leaks.

“Inside the government, there are structures designed to make sure that people understand that they can raise concerns about the lawfulness of particular activities in a variety of established channels,” Mr. Baker said. “You can go to the inspector general or to the Intelligence Committees, and you don’t have to pierce the veil of secrecy to get high-level attention to your concerns without exposing national secrets. It is a little less obvious to employees at a contractor.”

Booz Allen, which notes in securities filings that its business could be damaged by leaks, acknowledged in a statement that Mr. Snowden had been an employee.

The company, based in Virginia, is primarily a technology contractor. It reported revenues of $5.76 billion for the fiscal year ended in March and was No. 436 on Fortune’s list of the 500 largest public companies. The government provided 98 percent of that revenue, the company said.

Its rapid growth, fueled by government investment after the Sept. 11 attacks, led to a 2008 buyout by the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, followed by a public offering in 2010.

Booz Allen has formed a particularly close relationship with the intelligence agencies, and others besides Mr. Clapper and Mr. McConnell have spent time in the company’s executive offices.

Mr. McConnell has been an advocate for increased federal spending on cybersecurity. He told the CBS News program “60 Minutes” in 2010 that foreign governments had the capacity to bring down the country’s power grid and financial system.

“The United States is not prepared for such an attack,” he said.

The company has also had at least one previous highly publicized problem maintaining data security. In 2011, files maintained by Booz Allen were acquired by the online activist group Anonymous, which claimed to have stolen tens of thousands of encrypted military passwords.

Christopher Drew contributed reporting from New York.

NSA leaker may becharged

Source

NSA leaker may becharged

By Kevin Johnson and Zach Coleman Tue Jun 11, 2013 7:40 AM

WASHINGTON — U.S. authorities were weighing criminal-prosecution strategies Monday against a former federal contractor who acknowledged disclosing information about two secret surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency.

Possible criminal charges against Edward Snowden, who fled to Hong Kong after supplying highly classified documents to reporters, are “under discussion” at the Justice Department, a federal law-enforcement official said.

The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said criminal charges would mark the first steps necessary to pursue the 29-year-old suspect’s return to the U.S., either through extradition or other means.

Snowden took the extraordinary step Sunday of identifying himself as the source for reports in the Washington Post and the Guardian about a secret system to collect communications from the largest Internet companies in the world to monitor non-U.S. citizens abroad who are suspected in terror investigations.

A separate report in the Guardian disclosed a secret court order authorizing the collections of millions of telephone records involving U.S. citizens.

In a video accompanying a Guardian report Sunday, Snowden discussed his enormous access to secret information, indicating his disclosures were meant to inform the public of the government’s vast surveillance efforts.

A survey by the Pew Research Center and the Washington Post on Monday said that a majority of Americans — 56 percent — believe the NSA’s phone-tracking program is an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, while 41 percent said it is unacceptable.

Americans were more evenly divided on whether the government should be able to monitor e-mails, with 52 percent disapproving and 45 percent approving.

The survey was conducted June 6-9 among a sampling of 1,004 adults. The margin of error for the total sampling was 3.7 percentage points.

White House spokesman Jay Carney, noting the ongoing criminal investigation, declined to give detailed comment on Snowden’s disclosures, saying only that “leaks of sensitive, classified information that cause harm to our national-security interests are a problem, a serious problem.” Information is “classified for a reason,” Carney said.

Justice Department spokeswoman Nanda Chitre also declined to comment Monday, referring to an earlier statement acknowledging that the federal inquiry into the unauthorized disclosures is in its “initial stages.”

Snowden, who left his job three weeks ago as a NSA contractor in Hawaii for Booz Allen Hamilton, told the Guardian that he fled to Hong Kong because it has “a strong tradition of free speech,” despite its control by mainland China.

But Hong Kong also maintains an extradition agreement with the U.S., with a history of success.

Tom Fuentes, a former FBI assistant director who once headed the bureau’s international division, said that authorities essentially have two options in seeking Snowden’s arrest and return to the United States: a revocation of his U.S. passport or extradition.

Both options, Fuentes said, would require U.S. authorities to first file criminal charges against the leak suspect and secure the cooperation of Hong Kong officials. To revoke Snowden’s passport, the Justice Department would have to issue a criminal complaint and present it to the State Department for purposes of voiding the suspect’s passport.

Notice of the revocation, meaning that the suspect would then be illegally in the country, would be sent to Hong Kong authorities who could then deport him back to the U.S.

Formal extradition remains a more traditional option, Fuentes said. He said the FBI has an extensive relationship with Hong Kong police, dating to 1966, when the bureau established a presence there.

But some U.S. lawmakers asserted that Snowden should be pursued as a criminal, regardless of his whereabouts. “I view Mr. Snowden’s actions not as one of patriotism but potentially a felony,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Monday in a post on his Twitter account. “I hope we follow Mr. Snowden to the ends of the Earth to bring him to justice.”

Mukasey the Obnoxious

Posted on June 10, 2013 2:31 pm by Robert Robb

Mukasey the Obnoxious

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey has an obnoxious column in today’s Wall Street Journal. In it, he essentially says that those who are concerned about recently revealed government snooping programs are mentally ill: “Indeed, psychiatry has a term for the misplaced belief that the patient is the focus of the attention of others: delusions of reference.”

Mukasey quotes a couple of phrases from the 4th Amendment to support his view that it doesn’t limit government snooping or the ability to demand the production of private records; it merely limits the ability of the government to use such information in court.

Mukasey understandably doesn’t quote the provision of the 4th Amendment that states what it is intended to protect: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects.”

You don’t have to be mentally ill to believe those words mean something, and that what they mean excludes the government demanding the phone records of every resident in the country.

Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks are backlash of too much secrecy

Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks are backlash of too much secrecy

By Dana Milbank, Published: June 10

Keep your distance: The director of national intelligence is having intestinal distress.

“For me, it is literally — not figuratively, literally — gut-wrenching to see this happen,” James Clapper told Andrea Mitchell over the weekend, referring to leaks about the government’s secret program to collect vast troves of phone and Internet data.

There might be a bit more sympathy for Clapper’s digestive difficulty if he hadn’t delivered a kick in the gut to the American public just three months ago.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Clapper at a Senate hearing in March, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”

“No, sir,” Clapper testified.

“It does not?” Wyden pressed.

“Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly.”

We now know that Clapper was not telling the truth. The National Security Agency is quite wittingly collecting phone records of millions of Americans, and much more.

As the administration and some in Congress vent their anger about leaks to The Post and to Britain’s Guardian newspaper, officials have only themselves to blame. It is precisely their effort to hide such a vast and consequential program from the American public that caused this pressure valve to burst. Instead of allowing a democratic debate about the programs in broad terms that would not have compromised national security, their attempts to keep the public in the dark have created a backlash in which the risks to national security can’t be controlled.

Edward Snowden, the leaker, did the honorable thing in revealing his identity; it would be more honorable if he would turn himself in and face the consequences for his law-breaking. But there is little honor in the way administration officials and lawmakers have avoided responsibility. Obama administration officials are blaming Snowden, while some lawmakers complain disingenuously that the administration kept them out of the loop.

“All of us are sort of asking what in the world has gone on,” a seemingly bewildered Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the House majority leader, alleged Monday on CBS’s “This Morning.”

Host Norah O’Donnell asked whether he had known about the program before the leaks.

“Well,” Cantor replied, “there are a variety of — of classified programs that exist for us to, again, guard against a terrorist threat. And . . . ”

Asked whether the Obama administration’s surveillance went further than the George W. Bush administration’s, Cantor said that “these are questions we don’t know the answers to.”

“How do you not know the answer?” O’Donnell asked.

Good question. All 535 members of Congress had authorization to learn all about the programs. Senators even received a written invitation in 2011 to view a classified report. Likewise, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), a former chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said Monday that members “could have gotten a briefing whenever they wanted to.”

But apparently few bothered. Worse, lawmakers quashed efforts to allow even modest public disclosure of the broad contours of the program. Steven Aftergood, who runs the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, lists the various ways in which the administration, Congress and the courts denied the public any right to know:

The Justice Department and the DNI promised a new effort to declassify opinions issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court; Justice official Lisa Monaco, now Obama’s counterterrorism director, said all significant FISA rulings would be reviewed for declassification. But no new opinions were declassified under the initiative.

The House last year turned back attempts to require public reports on the general outlines of the government’s surveillance programs. The various disclosure proposals, offered by Democratic Reps. Bobby Scott (Va.), Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.) and Sheila Jackson Lee (Tex.), were defeated by the Judiciary Committee.

In the Senate, amendments to provide modest disclosures and declassifications, offered by Wyden and fellow Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley (Ore.) and Mark Udall (Colo.) during the FISA renewal in December, were all defeated.

The FISA court itself colluded in the secrecy. After senators asked the court to provide declassified summaries of its decisions, the chief FISA judge, Reggie B. Walton, responded with a letter on March 27 citing “serious obstacles” to the request.

“It was a shoddy performance all around,” Aftergood said Monday. “The pervasive secrecy on this topic created an information vacuum. If congressional oversight was not going to fill it in, it turned out leaks would. That’s not the optimal solution.”

Not optimal, but probably inevitable. Officials who denied the public a responsible debate on surveillance will now have a debate on Snowden’s terms — and there’s no use in bellyaching about it.

Twitter: @Milbank

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Security contractor was determined to shine a light

By Shashank Bengali and David S. Cloud, Washington Bureau

June 10, 2013, 9:16 p.m.

WASHINGTON — He was a high school dropout, sometime junior college student and failed Army recruit.

But Edward Joseph Snowden found his calling in America's spy services, using his computer skills to rise from a lowly security position to life as a well-paid private contractor for the National Security Agency. At age 29, he rented a bungalow with his girlfriend north of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and claimed to earn $200,000 a year.

On Monday, hours after he admitted disclosing a trove of intelligence secrets to the media, Snowden checked out of the glitzy Mira Hotel in Hong Kong, where he had holed up for weeks, and dropped out of sight. Whether he has gone into hiding, is seeking asylum with a sympathetic government, or been taken into custody by U.S. or Chinese authorities is unclear.

U.S. intelligence officials scrambled to evaluate the damage and worried about whether Snowden would give away, among other intelligence secrets he claimed to know, the locations of every CIA base overseas and identities of its undercover officers. The FBI is investigating and has begun interviewing his family. House and Senate intelligence committees called urgent closed-door hearings for Tuesday.

Before fleeing, Snowden gave a 12-minute videotaped interview to the Guardian, the British newspaper that broke many of his scoops. In soft-spoken tones, he said he was determined to shine a light on what he called the federal government's almost unlimited tracking of private citizens' phone calls and Internet usage.

"I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded," he said to the camera.

Snowden started life in Elizabeth City, a river port along North Carolina's coast. His family soon moved to a gray clapboard home in Ellicott City, a Baltimore suburb near the NSA's vast headquarters at Ft. Meade. He told the Guardian that he struggled in high school and eventually dropped out. A neighbor, Joyce Kinsey, recalled him as a quiet boy who often was on his computer.

His parents are divorced. His father, Lonnie Snowden, was an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, according to public records, and lives in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, part of the old Rust Belt north of Philadelphia. His mother, Elizabeth Snowden, is chief deputy clerk in charge of administration and information technology at the U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

Two people who identified themselves as FBI agents visited the home of Snowden's father and stepmother Monday afternoon in Upper Macungie Township near Allentown, Pa. Lonnie Snowden, 52, told ABC News that he last saw his son months ago for dinner and that they parted with a hug.

Susan Gross, a spokeswoman for Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, Md., said an Edward Joseph Snowden took classes there intermittently from 1999, when Snowden was about 15, through fall 2005. He earned a GED, a high school equivalency credential, but did not get a college degree or certificate.

In May 2004, Snowden enlisted in the Army, hoping to join the Special Forces. He took advantage of an option that allowed recruits to try out directly for the elite force without prior service. He reported to Ft. Benning, Ga., but was discharged four months later, the Army said Monday.

Recruits designated for Special Forces normally go through eight to 10 weeks of basic training, followed by an advanced infantry training course and then Special Forces assessment and selection. Snowden told the Guardian that he left the Army after he broke both legs in a training accident.

An Army spokesman, Lt. Col. S. Justin Platt, confirmed Snowden's service but said no records indicate he completed even basic training. Platt said he could not comment on Snowden's claim that he broke his legs in training because it involved medical records.

The next year, Snowden got his start in intelligence by landing a job as a security specialist at the Center for the Advanced Study of Language at the University of Maryland, a spokesman confirmed. The center, run by the NSA, is "dedicated to addressing the language needs of the intelligence community," according to a university website.

After that, Snowden said, his computer skills helped him get a job with the CIA in information technology.

In 2007, he said, the CIA posted him for two years to Geneva, Switzerland, to maintain security for the agency's computer network. He lived in an apartment block on the banks of the Rhone River where the U.S. consulate often housed employees, according to Radio Television Suisse.

The CIA considers Geneva an important spying base because it hosts so many foreign diplomats and financial institutions.

Snowden said he began to grow disillusioned with the CIA while in Switzerland. He claimed that CIA officers deliberately got a Swiss banker drunk, and then offered to fix his drunk-driving arrest if he agreed to disclose secret financial information. He didn't say whether the banker agreed, but the scheme is straight from a CIA playbook.

"I realized that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good," he said.

Still, Snowden continued to move up the ranks in the intelligence community. His high-level security clearance made him easily employable in the private sector, and in 2009, he said, he left the CIA to work as a contractor at an NSA facility on a military base in Japan.

That's when he first saw the astonishing breadth of the agency's surveillance capabilities, he said.

Snowden became a firm proponent of civil liberties, affixing a sticker to his laptop promoting the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates for Internet users' rights.

In 2012, he made two contributions totaling $500 to the presidential campaign of Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican congressman from Texas, according to federal records. Snowden listed his employer as Dell, the Texas-based computer company. A Dell spokeswoman declined to answer questions Monday about Snowden's employment.

Sometime that year, Snowden moved to Honolulu. Last March, he took a job with Booz Allen Hamilton, a government contractor, as an infrastructure analyst at the NSA's huge mountaintop facility on Oahu. He rented a single-story blue bungalow in Waipahu, an upscale suburb 10 miles from the NSA facility.

Documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, who contributed to last week's stories in both the Guardian and the Washington Post based on documents Snowden said he provided, told Salon on Monday that she was contacted anonymously by email in January this year. She denied that she encouraged Snowden to leak national security secrets.

"Are you kidding?" she said. "I didn't know where he worked, I didn't know he was NSA, I didn't know how — nothing. There was no like, 'Oh, do you think you …', no nudging. ... There's no connection here. We were contacted, we didn't know what he was up to, and at some point he came forward with documents."

shashank.bengali@latimes.com

david.cloud@latimes.com

Colby Itkowitz and Daniel Patrick Sheehan of the Allentown Morning Call and Matthew Hay Brown of the Baltimore Sun contributed to this report.

Edward Snowden fired by Booz Allen after admitting leak

By Debbi Wilgoren, Tuesday, June 11, 7:43 AM E-mail the writer

The consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton said Tuesday that it had formally terminated Edward J. Snowden, the self-confessed source of leaked, classified National Security Agency documents about secret U.S. surveillance programs.

Booz Allen said Snowden was paid $122,000 a year for his work as a systems administrator on contract to the NSA, substantially less than the $200,000 a year he told reporters from The Washington Post and the Guardian newspaper that he made. Snowden was employed by Booz Allen for less than three months.

Justice Department could request extradition of self-declared leaker, according to treaty.

Federal investigators are examining how Snowden, 29, was able to gain access to what should be highly compartmentalized information, according to current and former administration and intelligence officials.

Snowden worked at an NSA Threat Operations Center in Hawaii, one of several such facilities that are tasked with detecting threats to government computer systems. He has previously worked for the CIA, U.S. officials said.

Snowden leaked documents to The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper regarding distinctly different operations: the NSA’s collection of data from U.S. phone call records and its surveillance of online communications to and from foreign targets.

On Sunday, speaking from what he said was a hotel room in Hong Kong, he announced himself to the world as the source of the information, saying: “Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest.”

A hotel receptionist in the city said Snowden had been staying there but checked out Monday. His current whereabouts are unknown.

Edward Snowden fired by security firm after NSA leaks

Tribune wire report

9:57 a.m. CDT, June 11, 2013

WASHINGTON -- Contracting firm Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp said on Tuesday it has fired Edward Snowden, who admitted to releasing information on the U.S. government's broad monitoring of Americans' phone and Internet data, for violating the firm's ethics and policies.

The 29-year-old Snowden worked as an infrastructure analyst for the company.

The firm said it terminated Snowden on Monday "for violations of the firm's code of ethics and firm policy," according to a statement on its website. He was paid at a rate of $122,000, it added.

The Obama administration has launched an internal review to assess damage to national security from Edward Snowden's public release of top secret details of National Security Agency eavesdropping programs, a senior U.S. intelligence official told Reuters.

The review is separate from an initial criminal leak investigation which has been opened by the Justice Department, the official said.

The administration's review will examine the extent of damage to national security programs from the unauthorized disclosures of details of NSA's collection of phone call and email data, the official said.

It will be coordinated by the National Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX), a branch of the Director of National Intelligence's office, the official said.

A former U.S. official said that among the issues such a review would address is whether the leaks have led to losses of sources or methods and to the alienation of those who have cooperated. The review also probably will document intelligence generated by each program, the former official said.

Mark Zaid, a lawyer who has specialized in representing government employees under investigation, said the review also would likely look for chatter among intelligence targets to see if they have changed tactics due to the leaks.

Snowden provided information for published reports last week that revealed the NSA's broad monitoring of phone call and Internet data in one of the most significant security leaks in U.S. history.

The disclosures have some U.S. lawmakers calling for the extradition and prosecution of the ex-CIA employee even as supporters defend his actions and pledge support.

Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Contracting firm Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp said on Tuesday it has fired Edward Snowden, who admitted to releasing information on the U.S. government's broad monitoring of American's phone and Internet data, for violating the firm's ethics and policies.

The firm said it terminated Snowden on Monday "for violations of the firm's code of ethics and firm policy," according to a statement on its website. He was paid at a rate of $122,000, it added.

The Obama administration has launched an internal review to assess damage to national security from Edward Snowden's public release of top secret details of National Security Agency eavesdropping programs, a senior U.S. intelligence official told Reuters.

The review is separate from an initial criminal leak investigation which has been opened by the Justice Department, the official said.

The administration's review will examine the extent of damage to national security programs from the unauthorized disclosures of details of NSA's collection of phone call and email data, the official said.

It will be coordinated by the National Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX), a branch of the Director of National Intelligence's office, the official said.

A former U.S. official said that among the issues such a review would address is whether the leaks have led to losses of sources or methods and to the alienation of those who have cooperated. The review also probably will document intelligence generated by each program, the former official said.

Mark Zaid, a lawyer who has specialized in representing government employees under investigation, said the review also would likely look for chatter among intelligence targets to see if they have changed tactics due to the leaks.

Snowden provided information for published reports last week that revealed the NSA's broad monitoring of phone call and Internet data in one of the most significant security leaks in U.S. history.

The disclosures have some U.S. lawmakers calling for the extradition and prosecution of the ex-CIA employee even as supporters defend his actions and pledge support.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball and Warren Strobel; Editing by Vicki Allen)

Editorial: The NSA leaks and national security

Editorial: The NSA leaks and national security

Not helping terrorists, but empowering democracy

June 11, 2013

After the leaks that revealed the surprising ways in which the National Security Agency is monitoring the communications of Americans as well as people abroad, President Barack Obama addressed the ensuing uproar: "I welcome this debate and I think it's healthy for our democracy." Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, by contrast, said it was "literally gut-wrenching to see this happen because of the huge, grave damage it does to our intelligence capabilities."

So which is it: Valuable information for public discussion, or devastating blow to our national security?

Americans generally prefer to know more rather than less about what their government is doing. But they also understand that some information has to be kept secret because exposing it would clearly jeopardize lives — troop movements in wartime, for example, or the names of CIA informants who have penetrated a hostile government.

Edward Snowden, the government contractor who turned over the information to the British newspaper The Guardian and The Washington Post, said he did so because the "public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong." The likelihood of genuine harm to security will determine whether he's ultimately judged by history — if not by the courts — to be a noble truth-teller or a destructive traitor.

From the evidence available so far, the revelation is to the good. The reason it unleashed such a storm of controversy is that the American people had no idea the extent of the surveillance that has been going on. No one realized that virtually every phone call made in this country is archived by the NSA for possible investigation. No one knew that it was intercepting the contents of email and other communications among foreigners located overseas.

So the disclosures must have been a huge help to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, right? Well, not exactly. It's hardly news to them that using email or cellphones can have fatal consequences. That assumption is why Osama bin Laden, holed up in Abbottabad, Pakistan, trusted only the most primitive means of communication: a human courier.

Everyone always knew that intelligence agencies could access phone records and read emails with judicial authorization. So any halfway competent terrorist would assume the need for great caution in these media.

What is puzzling in the reaction from Clapper and others is that they offer no concrete examples of how the leaks endanger us. Michael Mukasey, who was attorney general under President George W. Bush, wrote an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal that had the headline, "Leaking Secrets Empowers Terrorists." But he offered no supporting evidence or hypothetical examples — only the claim that when "we tell terrorists how we can detect them, we encourage them to find ways to avoid detection."

In this instance, though, they already knew how we can detect them — and they had to assume that we might be using those methods. And it's not as though they can easily employ a safe and satisfactory alternative. If terrorists stop communicating by phone or computer, they will find it exceedingly hard to plan any attack that involves more than two or three people.

Are the programs exposed by Snowden useful or even critical to averting the next Boston Marathon bombing or the next 9/11, as the administration claims? Possibly. Americans ought to keep an open mind on that question. More information is bound to come out on how these programs have operated and what their results have been.

As that happens, it will get easier to intelligently debate their value — and whether they are worth the cost in personal privacy. In a democratic nation with a constitutional government, that's an important process. It is happening now only

Tyrants pretend to protect our rights!!!!

A Real Debate on Surveillance

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Published: June 10, 2013 294 Comments

For years, as the federal surveillance state grew into every corner of American society, the highest officials worked to pretend that it didn’t exist. Now that Americans are learning what really takes place behind locked doors, many officials claim they are eager to talk about it. “That’s a conversation that I welcome having,” President Obama said on Saturday. Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, said on Sunday that she was open to holding a public hearing on the subject now, a hearing next month, a hearing every month.

This newfound interest in openness is a little hard to take seriously, not only because of the hypocrisy involved but because neither official seems to want to do more than talk about being open. If the president wants to have a meaningful discussion, he can order his intelligence directors to explain to the public precisely how the National Security Agency’s widespread collection of domestic telephone data works. Since there’s not much point in camouflaging the program anymore, it’s time for the public to get answers to some basic questions.

Are the calls and texts of ordinary Americans mined for patterns that might put innocent people under suspicion? Why is data from every phone call collected, and not just those made by people whom the government suspects of terrorist activity? How long is the data kept, and can it be used for routine police investigations? Why was a private contractor like Edward Snowden allowed to have access to it? So far, no one at the White House seems interested in a substantive public debate.

Ms. Feinstein said on ABC News’s “This Week” program on Sunday that a secret court order on the phone-data program (leaked by Mr. Snowden) didn’t tell the full story. Another court document explained the strictures on the program, but that wasn’t leaked, she said, sounding almost regretful that it remains under seal. Ms. Feinstein doesn’t have the authority to release it herself, but she could at least demand that the administration make it public.

While they’re at it, some of the opinions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that made these data-collection programs possible could be released. Ms. Feinstein was rebuffed when she asked the court for redacted summaries of its opinions; as chairwoman, she should use her power to demand that the administration find ways to make the court even slightly more transparent.

For years, members of Congress ignored evidence that domestic intelligence-gathering had grown beyond their control, and, even now, few seem disturbed to learn that every detail about the public’s calling and texting habits now reside in a N.S.A. database.

Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, a Republican of Wisconsin, wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. last week, saying that, as the author of the Patriot Act, he didn’t believe that the collection of phone records was consistent with his interpretation of the law. But, over the years, Mr. Sensenbrenner has been repeatedly warned by critics that the law was so broad that it was subject to precisely this kind of abuse.

Senator Feinstein has held several closed-door briefings for lawmakers. If she wants to hold hearings that are useful to the public, she should focus on the laws that fostered the growth of domestic spying, and the testimony should not consist of blithe assurances that the government can be trusted. The public needs explanations of how an overreaching intelligence community pushed that trust to the brink.

NSA surveillance whistle-blower: Hero or villain?

Source

NSA surveillance whistle-blower: Hero or villain?

By Eugene Robinson Washington Post Writers Group

Tue Jun 11, 2013 7:44 AM

WASHINGTON -- The important thing right now isn’t whether Edward Snowden should be labeled hero or villain. First, let’s have the debate he sparked over surveillance and privacy. Then, we can decide how history should remember him.

Snowden is the 29-year-old intelligence analyst and computer geek who has been leaking some of the National Security Agency’s most precious secrets to journalists from the Washington Post and the Guardian. He is now on the lam, having checked out of the Hong Kong hotel where he was holed up for several weeks as he orchestrated a worldwide media splash that shows no sign of ending.

Snowden betrayed his employer, the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, and his promise not to divulge classified information. He paints what he did as an act of civil disobedience, but he has decided to seek political asylum abroad rather than surrender to authorities and accept the consequences. In published interviews, he comes across as grandiose to the point of self-parody, a legend in his own mind.

He is an imperfect messenger, to say the least. But his message should not be ignored.

Did you know that the NSA is compiling and storing a massive, comprehensive log of our domestic phone calls? I didn’t. Nor did I know that the agency sucks in huge volumes of e-mail traffic and other electronic data overseas — not just communications originating in trouble spots such as Pakistan but also in countries such as Germany and Britain.

I would have thought that anyone who accused the U.S. government of “omniscient, automatic, mass surveillance,” as Snowden did in an exchange with Post contributor Barton Gellman, was being paranoid. Now, I’m not so sure.

As President Barack Obama noted, nobody is eavesdropping on the phone calls of U.S. citizens and residents. I’m not certain this could be said about e-mail communications in other countries, some of which take privacy as seriously as we do. British Foreign Secretary William Hague felt obliged Monday to reassure Parliament that “our intelligence-sharing work with the United States is subject to ministerial and independent oversight” and to legislative scrutiny.

But we have oversight of intelligence operations in this country, too. The problem is that the system works more or less like a rubber stamp.

In its 34 years of existence, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has approved more than 30,000 government requests for surveillance authority while rejecting a grand total of 11. That is not what I’d call oversight.

The NSA’s snooping is also subject to scrutiny by the Intelligence Committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The chairmen of those panels have been among the NSA’s most vocal supporters in recent days. But since so much of the committees’ work is classified, they say they can’t tell us why.

And as for Obama, he said last week that “I welcome this debate, and I think it’s healthy for our democracy.” Why, then, didn’t he launch the discussion rather than wait for Snowden’s leaks?

In the coming debate, someone should explain why a midlevel computer guy working for a private contractor had access to so many of the NSA’s most closely held secrets. Someone should explain why the intelligence court is evidently so compliant. Someone should explain — perhaps in French, German and Spanish — why our allies’ e-mails are fair game for the agency’s prying eyes.

But here’s the big issue: The NSA, it now seems clear, is assembling an unimaginably vast trove of communications data, and the bigger it gets, the more useful it is in enabling analysts to make predictions.

It’s one thing if the NSA looks for patterns in the data that suggest a nascent overseas terrorist group or an imminent attack.

It’s another thing altogether if the agency observes, say, patterns that suggest the birth of the next tea party or Occupy Wall Street movement.

Is that paranoia? Then, reassure me. Let’s talk about the big picture and decide, as citizens, whether we are comfortable with the direction our intelligence agencies are heading. And let’s remember that it was Snowden, not our elected officials, who opened this vital conversation.

Reach Robinson at eugenerobinson@washpost.com.

Libertarianism is in vogue

Libertarianism is in vogue. Again.

By Chris Cillizza, Sunday, June 9, 10:52 AM E-mail the writer

Looking for the hot new(ish) thing in American politics? Try libertarianism.

Yes, that long-dismissed political philosophy that eschews government intervention in favor of individual liberty is again coming into vogue, particularly among young voters.

Two issues highlight the growing libertarian strain in the country.

The first is legalizing marijuana. For the first time in more than four decades of polling on the subject, a Pew Research Center survey found in April that a majority of Americans (52 percent) favored legalizing it. Among millennials — those born after 1980 — the numbers were significantly higher, with 65 percent supporting legalization.

The second is same-sex marriage. In a March Washington Post-ABC News poll, 58 percent of all respondents said that gay marriage should be legal, including a whopping 81 percent of those ages 18 to 29.

Polls aside, an analysis of actual votes in the 2012 presidential election also suggests that libertarianism is on the rise. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party’s 2012 presidential nominee and the former Republican governor of New Mexico, received nearly 1.3 million votes on Election Day — the first time the party’s nominee had ever taken more than a million votes. (Johnson won 0.99 percent of the overall votes cast, the all-time second highest for a Libertarian candidate, behind Ed Clark in 1980, who took 1.06 percent.)

More telling, however, was then-Rep. Ron Paul’s showing in the 2012 Republican presidential primary. Paul, who was the Libertarian Party’s 1988 presidential nominee and continued to espouse the party principles in 2008 and 2012 despite running as a Republican, was the fourth-highest vote-getter in last year’s primary process, winning more than 2 million votes in a campaign fueled by the active support of young voters. Perhaps as importantly, the Texas congressman raised $41 million for his campaign, the vast majority of that total coming from online donations.

Now, consider all of those data points in light of the still-breaking news of the widespread collection of phone records and Internet data by the National Security Agency, a series of programs that President Obama and his top advisers have described as a necessity to combat terrorism. Combine the growing libertarian strain in the country with the controversy over the government’s encroachment into all aspects of our lives and you begin to see the potency of the message heading into 2016.

All of which brings us to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), son of Ron and the elected official who most clearly embodies the rising tide of libertarianism within the country and within his party.

Paul is responsible for the single most memorable moment in politics this year when he took to the Senate floor in March to filibuster John Brennan’s nomination as CIA director. Paul’s goal was to highlight the U.S. policy on drones and to raise questions about the possibility of the government targeting U.S. citizens on American soil.

Before it was all over, roughly 13 hours after it had begun, Paul had been joined on the Senate floor by a who’s who of Republican Party luminaries, including Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), the party’s 2016 favorite for president; Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), the Republican leader in the chamber; and Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.), the most recent head of the Senate GOP’s campaign arm. Libertarianism had won a victory on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

For his part, Paul has been careful to avoid being labeled as a flat-out libertarian — a categorization that badly hurt his father’s chances at actually being a contender in 2012, considering his strongly stated noninterventionist foreign-policy beliefs. Instead, Rand Paul has sought to create a sort of Republicanism with libertarian principles that fits more comfortably within the bounds of the GOP.

“The way we’re going to compete is by running people for office who can appreciate some issues that attract young people and independents: civil liberties, as well as a less aggressive foreign policy, not putting people in jail for marijuana, a much more tolerant type of point of view,” Paul told Spencer Ackerman during an interview for Wired magazine late last month. (Paul went on to predict that embracing such a view would make Republicans politically competitive in California, which seems a bit far-fetched, at least at the moment.)

Paul’s 2016 candidacy — and he will run for president in three years’ time — will test just how much libertarianism Republicans want in the Grand Old Party. But for a party badly in need of finding new voters open to their message, embracing libertarianism — at least in part — might not be a bad avenue for Republicans to explore.

More articles on the Edward Snowden case

Note this URL will pop you into the middle of the web page, with all the articles that I have posted on this web page being before this address, and all the new articles will follow this link.

Go NSA - N S A

War on drugs: The 'wobbler' option

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War on drugs: The 'wobbler' option

By The Times editorial board

June 9, 2013

Simple possession of small amounts of methamphetamine — enough for personal use but presumably not for dealing — is a "wobbler" in California, meaning that offenses can be charged as either felonies or misdemeanors. It's different with possession of cocaine, opiates such as heroin and many other addictive drugs; they currently can be charged only as felonies.

The state Senate has now passed a bill to bring criminal handling of those drugs into line with methamphetamine, and the measure is before the Assembly. SB 649, by Democrat Mark Leno of San Francisco, is good policy and should be adopted.

The bill is an improvement over a version Leno offered last year to convert possession to a misdemeanor, with no felony option.

True, there is something perverse about locking people up for any period for possessing highly addictive drugs for their own use. Most offenders have the stuff on hand because they are hooked. For years California sent such addicts to prison, where little or no treatment was available. They were released on parole, which they were practically fated to violate by using drugs again — because they were, after all, addicted.

This foolhardy approach gave California a steady supply of unrecovered addicts shuttling between prison and the streets. That meant continuing damage to neighborhoods dealing with the addicted, plus overcrowded prisons. At the end of last year, for example, there were more than 4,000 inmates in state prison for possessing drugs for personal use.

It would be better to divert addicts from the criminal justice system entirely if they could be successfully treated without ever going to jail or even to court. But for many addicts, there remains a role for punishment, or at least the threat of punishment. Addiction may be a disease, but the afflicted include families, neighborhoods and, ultimately, all of society, and they all have a stake in successful rehab. When the carrot of a clean life is insufficient to keep an addict in recovery, the stick — the prospect of a criminal sentence — remains there for backup.

Some argue that these drugs ought to be decriminalized altogether, as California has done with marijuana. Simple possession of cannabis for personal use is now not even a misdemeanor here but a traffic-ticket-like infraction, punishable by a fine.

The key distinction, though, is the addictive nature of cocaine, heroin and the other drugs covered by current felony laws. Addiction affects the user's behavior — and thus imposes its damage on society and not just on the user — well past the period of intoxication. There is room for a conversation about whether decriminalization is nevertheless a more rational approach for addictive drugs, but it's not the conversation, or the bill, at hand. Either SB 649 is a smart reform, or it's a good first step in a more far-reaching sentencing revamp. Either way, it's better than the status quo.

Opponents of the bill offer a number of arguments against the measure, but they fall flat. Reducing the penalties doesn't make a drug any less dangerous or addictive, they say. True enough, but so what? The existing law doesn't keep users from getting hooked in the first place. There is little point in locking up addicts for as long as three years if it's not part of a larger program to get them clean.

Misdemeanor convictions mean a year in county jail instead of up to three years in state prison, prosecutors argue, and jails are already filled to capacity. But this argument practically answers itself. Prisons too are filled well past capacity and have been under orders from a panel of federal judges to reduce their inmate populations.

And the point is moot anyway for people convicted of simple possession since October 2011, when the public-safety realignment program went into effect. They already are spending their 18 months (and up to three years) in county jail, not state prison. That's not some unforeseen and unfortunate consequence of realignment but is instead the essence of the program's design: Counties have the opportunity and now the incentive to offer treatment and alternative monitoring, and inmates and outpatients alike are treated closer to the neighborhoods to which they will (one way or another) soon return. They can begin the process right away of reconnecting with family and other positive influences in their lives, but they do so while they are still being supervised, so that the negative influences of their old neighborhoods can be monitored and mitigated. Offenders housed and treated closer to home show greater continuing success than those isolated in prisons hundreds of miles from home.

What if prosecutors and judges see a pattern of resistance and antisocial behavior in the addict? What if there is evidence, although not a record, of earlier crimes? That's one of the smart parts of this bill — the felony option is still available.

Moving from a straight felony to a wobbler is not without its hazards. The change would grant additional discretion to prosecutors and judges, and where there is discretion, there can be discrimination — by race, by class, by geography. Will African American defendants be more likely to be tried on felony charges than whites? Will district attorneys in one county file only misdemeanors and in another only felonies?

If the last three decades of criminal justice policy have taught California anything, it's that there can be no autopilot when it comes to sentencing. There must be constant vigilance — and in the modern era, that means arrest and sentencing data must be collected and available for public scrutiny. It should fall to the state attorney general to pick through those numbers, see to it that wobbler charges are not unfairly targeting any particular group and flag problems when laws need to be adjusted to ensure equal justice.

One third of San Jose's budget goes to the police

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San Jose's budget at a glance

By John Woolfolk

jwoolfolk@mercurynews.com

Posted: 06/07/2013 04:01:51 PM PDT

San Jose officials will hold a hearing at 7 p.m. Monday on the city's fiscal year 2013-14 budget and vote on the mayor's budget recommendations Tuesday.

After a decade of budget deficits, this year is the second year in a row in which the city has avoided shortfalls and cutbacks in programs and services. That is due both to rising tax revenues due to the economic recovery and pay, benefit and job cuts to the city workforce that have lowered costs.

A key concern is bolstering public safety, particularly a police department that has seen waves of retirements and resignations in the past year. The city and police union remain at odds over how much of a raise San Jose can afford to give the police department. But Mayor Chuck Reed as urged $16.4 million set aside for police raises.

San Jose's total budget of $2.6 billion includes the general fund for basic services including the police, fire and library departments, separate funds for the airport, utilities and other programs, and funds for capital improvements.

San Jose's $934 million general fund includes $307 million for police, $163 million for the fire department, $52 million for parks and recreation, $27 million for transportation, $26 million for libraries and $96 million in reserves.

San Jose has $1.5 million budgeted from funds dedicated to specific programs including the airport, convention center and utilities providing trash collection, wastewater treatment and storm drains and water service.

San Jose has a $748 million budget for capital improvements to the airport, parks, roadways, wastewater treatment, libraries and police and fire stations.

Worthless government bureaucrats sure do get paid well!!!!

BART's top-paid worker of 2012 never worked a day

By Thomas Peele and Daniel J. Willis

Staff writers

© Copyright 2013, Bay Area News Group

Posted: 06/09/2013 07:43:48 AM PDT

With a gross salary of more than $333,000, BART's highest-paid employee last year wasn't its general manager, police chief or a worker who racked up gobs of overtime scrubbing grime from filthy train seats.

It was someone who did no work at all for BART in 2012: Dorothy Dugger, the agency's former general manager who resigned under pressure more than two years ago.

Under a lucrative retirement scheme, Dugger, 57, quietly stayed on the books, burning off nearly 80 weeks of unused vacation time, drawing paychecks and full benefits for more than 19 months after she agreed to quit in May 2011, according to an analysis by this newspaper. By remaining on BART's payroll, she accrued almost two extra months of vacation, while sitting at home drawing a six-figure salary for unused time off.

The months of extra pay were on top of the $920,000 that BART paid Dugger to leave after the agency's board botched an effort to fire her by violating public meetings laws.

"Wow," said James Fang, a BART board member who tried to oust Dugger. "She was still on the payroll? I did not know this. It's startling."

In 2012 alone Dugger's gross pay could have bought 52,837 round-trip BART tickets between downtown Oakland and San Francisco's Financial district. She even received more pay than the person who replaced her to run the Bay Area commuter railroad, General Manager Grace Crunican, who took home $316,000.

Without leaving her home in Oakland's Crocker Highlands neighborhood, Dugger reaped the astonishing windfall by cashing in more than 3,100 vacation hours, saved during her 20 years with BART.

Many cash-strapped public agencies are now under scrutiny for allowing departing employees to convert huge banks of unused vacation and sick time into big cash payouts, but a little-known policy in BART's rules for senior managers like Dugger made her perk even sweeter.

Because she was allowed to drag out her vacation-bank payments for months, Dugger received $138,000 worth of benefits, including pension contributions and medical insurance -- perks she would not have received if she had taken her vacation payments in a lump-sum check. Since she remained on BART's payroll, Dugger also received an additional $98,000 in cash, because she was still racking up vacation time and management bonuses -- even though she had no one to manage.

That alone was more than the 2012 gross pay of almost three-quarters of BART's 3,340 workers, the agency's compensation data shows.

Remaining on BART's payroll also added both time and money to the calculations on which Dugger's retirement is based -- increasing her pension payments by more than $1,000 a month for life. When her time on BART's books finally ran out in December, she began to draw a pension of $181,000 a year.

Reached this week by phone, Dugger said she was entitled to the money because she earned the time off.

She said her decision to spread out her unused vacation payments after her four-year tenure as general manager ended in May 2011 "best suited my needs. I made that decision some time ago. I don't remember every factor."

BART's vacation policy requires senior managers to decide every year whether they want to save unused time off for a retirement bonus. They must place the time in an account that can only be cashed out at the end of a career.

Not taking a lump sum on top of her $920,000 settlement eased Dugger's tax burden, as well.

But news of her bounty wasn't easy for BART riders to stomach.

"I hope it becomes a big stink," said BART patron Mitch Roland, of Alameda. "This is an agency funded by taxpayers. ... They should have stricter controls."

Crunican, the new general manager, didn't respond to several messages left with her spokeswoman last week. BART board President Tom Radulovich, of San Francisco, did not return several phone calls.

BART board member Robert Raburn, of Oakland, said Dugger's payout shows a serious problem in how the agency deals with unused time off.

"We should be able to control it," he said of time accruals. "It should be use it or lose it."

Another board member had concerns.

"We have to look at this," Fang said. "We never think about these very critical and important little things."

BART is widely known for offering some of the most lucrative government benefits and sweeteners in California. Employees contribute nothing to pension costs, the agency provides rare deferred compensation accounts as an extra retirement fund and most employees contribute only $92 a month to medical insurance costs no matter how many dependents they have on a policy.

But Dugger appears to have especially benefited. The value of the time off she stored up before becoming general manager skyrocketed when she ascended to the top job in 2007 and received a raise of nearly $100,000 a year, records show. She was paid for all 3,100 hours of unused time off at her final, highest pay rate, she said, not her rate when the time was accrued.

"It was time (off) I earned my whole career at BART," she said. "It's a cost of having the option" to save the vacation until the end of a career, she said.

When asked if she thought that was fair to BART riders, she said: "That's a fair issue to debate."

Raburn was one the directors who voted to fire Dugger in early 2011 after mounting complaints about service and cleanliness of the aging transit system and criticism that she failed to provide strong leadership after the 2009 fatal shooting of a handcuffed African-American man, Oscar Grant III, by a BART police officer.

But the directors were forced to quickly rescind that decision after discovering they had not followed public notice requirements to schedule the closed-door meeting to vote on Dugger's ouster. Dugger threatened to sue, and the board agreed to pay her $920,000, plus $14,000 in legal costs, to drop the threat and resign.

"We had to buy her out, I don't know what else we can say. It could have been much worse if she had gone to court," Raburn said.

But lost in that was any discussion of how to deal with all of Dugger's vacation time. "I can't talk about what we discussed," Raburn said.

Dugger said she was proud of her time with BART. Asked if her lucrative use of vacation time exposed a fiscal flaw in the agency, she said, "I think BART's track record on fiscal management is quite solid."

Contact Thomas Peele at tpeele@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow him at Twitter.com/thomas_peele.

Ex-Kansas lawman found guilty in wife’s death

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Ex-Kansas lawman found guilty in wife’s death

Associated Press Tue Jun 11, 2013 2:01 PM

KINGMAN, Kan. — A former Kansas lawman has been found guilty in his wife’s April 2011 death.

Brett Seacat was accused of killing 34-year-old Vashti Seacat, 16 days after she filed for divorce. Her charred body was found next to a melted gas container on the remains of her bed, along with a .44-caliber pistol.

A Kingman County jury on Tuesday found the 37-year-old guilty of first-degree murder, aggravated arson and two counts of aggravated endangering a child.

Seacat is a former Sedgwick County deputy who was an instructor at the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center when his wife’s body was found. He and the couple’s two sons, ages 2 and 4, escaped from the fire.

Prosecutors allege Seacat shot his wife, then set their home afire to cover it up.

Officer quits after damaging report

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Officer quits after damaging report

By Laurie Merrill The Republic | azcentral.com Mon Jun 10, 2013 10:01 PM

A Scottsdale police sergeant has resigned after an internal-affairs investigation concluded that he failed to respond to a report of shots fired at a downtown nightclub and lied about his whereabouts.

The Scottsdale Police Internal Affairs Unit found that former Sgt. Anthony Bellissimo was untruthful in interviews, showed poor judgment and failed to supervise an April 7 report of shots fired near the Jackrabbit Lounge in the 4200 block of North Drinkwater Boulevard, said the report released Monday.

Bellissimo resigned May 16, said Officer Dave Pubins, a Scottsdale police spokesman.

Jim Hill, the president of the Police Officers of Scottsdale Association, declined comment, saying Bellissimo has hired an attorney. The attorney could not be reached Monday.

In such cases, officers’ names are typically placed on an “integrity list” of Maricopa County police officers whose truthfulness has been challenged, said Jerry Cobb, a spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

DUI cases Bellissimo handled could be jeopardized because defense attorneys could question his truthfulness, Cobb said.

“We have a duty to disclose ... evidence” of police dishonesty, Cobb said.

City and county prosecutors were notified of Bellissimo’s resignation, Pubins said.

Internal Affairs found that Bellissimo was the patrol sergeant on duty and that he failed to respond to or supervise the 2:19 a.m. shots-fired call near the Jackrabbit Lounge, and then lied about his whereabouts. He told interviewers he was handling a report of fighting at 2:19 a.m., but investigators determined the fighting call was initiated at about 2:45 a.m., after the initial shots-fired call was cleared.

GPS data history disclosed that his car was stationary at Civic Center Plaza and Camelback Road from 2:19 a.m. to 2:32 a.m., the report said.

DWB - Driving While Black

Source

How to Get Arrested in Arizona for DUI With a BAC of 0.00: Be Black

Takepart.com

Drunk driving is a serious problem in the United States, impacting many thousands of Americans every year, and so is racism. The two issues converged recently during a routine traffic stop of 64-year-old retired firefighter Jessie Thornton by police officers in Surprise, Arizona.

The motorist was handcuffed and taken into custody. Thornton submitted to a Breathalyzer sobriety test and blew a 0.000 blood alcohol content (BAC).

Thornton was eventually free to go, but not before his car had been impounded and the Arizona MVD had been notified of the DUI charge.

Despite the seeming exoneration of the test, the suspect was charged with a DUI, an assessment that led Thornton’s attorney to quip that the real crime was, “D-W-B. Driving While Black.”

Thornton told the local ABC News affiliate that he has been pulled over 10 times and issued four tickets since moving from Ohio to the retirement community of Surprise. This latest stop was the first time he’d been taken to the Surprise lockup.

The arresting officer cited the retiree’s red eyes as grounds for the arrest. Thornton credits chemicals in the neighborhood L.A. Fitness’s lap pool for the redness, a theory in line with Surprise law enforcement’s resident DRE—drug recognition expert.

According to Thornton: “After he did all the tests, he says, ‘I would never have arrested you; you show no signs of impairment.’ ”

A blood test that revealed no trace of alcohol or drugs validated this perception.

Thornton was eventually free to go, but not before his car had been impounded and the Arizona MVD had been notified of the DUI charge, which resulted in a notification that his driver’s license was being suspended and he would be required to attend “some sort of drinking class or something.”

Rather than attend the drinking class, former firefighter filed a claim against the city of Surprise seeking $500,000.

The National Education Association, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the American Civil Liberties Union, OneAmerica and the Racial Profiling Data Collection Resource Center of Northeastern University are among the many credible and able organizations working to heighten the awareness of and eradicate racial profiling from U.S. law-enforcement policy and practice.

Though harassed, inconvenienced and caused physical distress, Jessie Thornton can count himself among the luckier victims of racial profiling. He has the maturity and resources to fight back. His lawsuit is not about the money, he told ABC News: “I just don’t want any of this to happen to somebody else.”

Probation officer accused of shoplifting with her teens

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Probation officer accused of shoplifting with her teens

By Garrett Therolf, Los Angeles Times

June 7, 2013, 11:17 p.m.

A veteran Los Angeles County Probation Department officer assigned to aid in the rehabilitation of juvenile offenders has been placed on unpaid leave after being arrested on suspicion that she contributed to the delinquency of her own children.

Ruth Marzan, an officer with more than two decades with the department, was arrested by sheriff's deputies May 25 at a Kmart in Temple City after security personnel alleged that they saw her shoplift items and coach her two teenage children to do the same.

Marzan, 46, was also booked on suspicion of shoplifting and petty theft before her release. She is due to appear in court July 23.

Carol Lin, a spokeswoman for county Probation Chief Jerry Powers, said the matter is subject to further investigation by the agency's professional-standards unit, which recently received additional staffers to help clean up the troubled department.

Department officials feel "that the facts of this case warrant the most aggressive job action available to the chief," Lin said. "He has repeatedly told employees that they are to be held accountable for their behavior 24/7."

Marzan did not return a telephone message from The Times seeking comment.

Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said that Marzan was seen stealing two MP3 players, a Dodgers T-shirt, panties and tights and that her sons — 14 and 17 — were caught taking Bluetooth devices and headphones.

Her sons were arrested on suspicion of petty theft and released to the care of the Department of Children and Family Services. They were later released to the care of a family friend, Whitmore said.

The Probation Department has been dogged by personnel problems for years, and Powers said he has made employee discipline a priority.

The number of Los Angeles County Probation Department employees investigated for serious crimes last year remained roughly the same as in 2011 despite efforts to weed out misconduct through improved training, according to a county report.

In 2012, 64 employees were arrested or questioned regarding crimes ranging from burglary to attempted murder, according to a report by the county's Office of Independent Review. In 2011, 69 probation employees were arrested.

"The frequency of off-duty employee misconduct continues to plague the department," according to the report.

Twenty-five of last year's arrests involved driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and other cases include an officer accused of shooting another man in the chest after an argument, a man accused of stealing electronic equipment from a store, and a high-ranking division chief who allegedly defrauded a bank and two credit unions of nearly $200,000.

garrett.therolf@latimes.com

Five myths about legalizing marijuana

The "war on drugs" is a jobs program for cops????

For years I have said the "war on drugs" is just a jobs program for overpaid and under worked cops. This article seems to agree with me on that.

Source

Five myths about legalizing marijuana

By Doug Fine, Published: June 7

Doug Fine is the author of “Too High to Fail: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution,” in which he followed one legal medicinal cannabis plant from farm to patient.

With 16 states having decriminalized or legalized cannabis for non-medical use and eight more heading toward some kind of legalization, federal prohibition’s days seem numbered. You might wonder what America will look like when marijuana is in the corner store and at the farmers market. In three years spent researching that question, I found some ideas about the plant that just don’t hold up.

1. If pot is legal, more people will use it.

As drug policy undergoes big changes, I’ve been watching rates of youth cannabis use with interest. As it is for most fathers, the well-being of my family is the most important thing in my life. Whether you like the plant or not, as with alcohol, only adults should be allowed to partake of intoxicating substances. But youth cannabis use is near its highest level ever in the United States. When I spoke at a California high school recently and asked, “Who thinks cannabis is easier to obtain than alcohol?,” nearly every hand shot up.

In Portugal, by contrast, youth rates fell from 2002 to 2006, after all drugs were legalized there in 2001. Similarly, a 2011 Brown University-led study of middle and high school students in Rhode Island found no increases in adolescent use after the state legalized medical marijuana in 2006.

As for adult use, the numbers are mixed. A 2011 University of California at Berkeley study, for example, showed a slight increase in adult use with de facto legalization in the Netherlands (though the rate was still lower than in the United States). Yet that study and one in 2009 found Dutch rates to be slightly lower than the European average. When the United States’ 40-year-long war on marijuana ends, the country is not going to turn into a Cheech and Chong movie. It is, however, going to see the transfer of as much as 50 percent of cartel profits to the taxable economy.

2. Law enforcement officials oppose legalization.

It is true that many law enforcement lobby groups don’t want to end America’s most expensive war (which has cost $1 trillion and counting), but that’s because they’re the reason it’s so expensive. In 2010, two-thirds of federal spending on the drug war, $10 billion, went toward law enforcement and interdiction.

But law enforcement rank and file know the truth about the drug war’s profligate and ineffective spending, says former Los Angeles deputy police chief Stephen Downing, one of 5,000 public safety professionals who make up the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “Most law enforcers find it difficult not to recognize the many harms caused by our current drug laws,” he wrote to me in an e-mail. Those harms include, according to a new ACLU report, marijuana-possession arrests that are skewed heavily toward minorities.

Since marijuana prohibition drives the drug war, these huge costs would end when federal cannabis law changes. Sheriff Tom Allman in Mendocino County, Calif., helped permit, inspect and protect local cannabis farmers in 2010 and 2011. When I asked him why, he said: “This county has problems: domestic violence, meth, poverty. Marijuana isn’t even in the top 10. I want it off the front pages so I can deal with the real issues.”

3. Getting high would be the top revenue generator for the cannabis plant.

I called both of my U.S. senators’ offices to support inserting a provision into this year’s farm bill to legalize hemp for domestic cultivation. Based on my research on industrial cannabis, commonly called hemp, I’m staggered by the potential of this plant, which is not the variety you smoke.

In Canada, where 90 percent of the crop is bought by U.S. consumers, the government researches the best varieties for its hemp farmers, rather than refusing to issue them permits, as the United States tends to do. In a research facility in Manitoba, I saw a tractor whose body was made entirely of hemp fiber and binding. BMW and Dodgeuse hemp fibers in their door panels, and homes whose insulation and wall paneling are made partially of hemp represent a fast-growing trend in the European construction industry.

Jack Noel, who co-authored a 2012 industrial hemp task force report for the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, says that “within 10 years of the end of the war on drugs, we’ll see a $50 billion domestic hemp industry.” That’s bigger than the $40 billion some economists predict smoked cannabis would bring in.

Foods such as cereal and salad dressing are the biggest U.S. markets for hemp today, but industrial cannabis has the brightest future in the energy sector, where a Kentucky utility is planning to grow hemp for biomass energy.

4. Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol would control the legal cannabis industry.

In 1978, the Carter administration changed alcohol regulations to allow for microbreweries. Today the craft-beer market is worth $10.2 billion annually. The top-shelf cannabis farmers in California’s Emerald Triangle realize this potential. “We’re creating an international brand, like champagne and Parmigiano cheese,” says Tomas Balogh, co-founder of the Emerald Growers Association in Humboldt, Calif. Get ready for the bud and breakfast.

When America’s 100 million cannabis aficionados (17 million regular partakers) are freed from dealers, some are going to pick up a six-pack of joints at the corner store before heading to a barbecue, and others are going to seek out organically grown heirloom strains for their vegetable dip.

As Balogh puts it: “When people ask me if the small farmer or the big corporation will benefit from the end of prohibition, I say, ‘Both.’ The cannabis industry is already decentralized and farmer-owned. It’s up to consumers to keep it that way.” So Big Alcohol might control the corner store, but not the fine-wine shop or the farmers’ market.

5. In the heartland, legalization is a political nonstarter.

President Obama, in an interview last December, for the first time took seriously a question about the legalization of cannabis. He said that he didn’t yet support it but that he had “bigger fish to fry” than harassing Colorado and Washington.

In Colorado in 2012, 40 percent of Republican voters chose to legalize cannabis, and a greater share of Coloradans voted for legalization than voted for Obama.

In Arizona, a pretty conservative and silver state, 56 percent of those in a poll last month supported regulating cannabis for personal use. Maybe fiscal conservatives know about the $35 billion in annual nationwide tax savings that ending prohibition would bring. In Illinois, 63 percent of voters support medicinal marijuana, and they’re likely to get it. Even 60 percent of Kentuckians favor medical cannabis.

I’m not surprised. I live in a conservative valley in New Mexico. Yet as a woman in line at the post office recently told me: “It’s pills that killed my cousin. Fightin’ pot just keeps those dang cartels in business.”

fine@well.com

I am surprised the 4 year old wasn't charge with murder!!!

Source

4-year-old boy accidentally shoots, kills dad in Prescott Valley

By Matthew Longdon The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Jun 7, 2013 8:52 PM

Authorities have identified the Phoenix man shot by his 4-year-old son while visiting in Prescott Valley on Friday as Justin Stanfield Thomas.

Police officers say they found the 35-year-old in critical condition at a home near Yavapai Road and Truwood Drive around 12:30 p.m. He later died in the hospital, said Brandon Bonney, a spokesman for the Prescott Police Department.

Thomas made an unannounced visit to a friend in the home and was only there for a few minutes before he was shot. The gun may not have been put away, which is how the child found it in the living room, Bonney said.

Bonney said the gun may have been accessible because the homeowner wasn’t expecting the young visitor.

The child was released to his mother, Bonney said.

The investigation is still ongoing. Bonney said it looks like an accidental shooting.

You expect a fair trial? Don't make me laugh!!!

Source

Fraud probe vs. Phoenix officer may hurt DUI cases

By JJ Hensley The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Jun 7, 2013 11:36 PM

Dozens of drunken-driving cases in Phoenix could be altered or dismissed because city prosecutors are refusing to disclose in court that there is a criminal investigation against a Phoenix officer who handles DUI cases, according to defense attorneys.

Phoenix police have spent the past nine months investigating allegations that Officer Jerry Schuiteboer burned his pickup in the desert and collected more than $14,000 in an insurance settlement, according to court documents.

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office is reviewing criminal-fraud charges submitted by Phoenix investigators.

The failure to disclose information to defense attorneys that could raise doubts about the officer’s truthfulness and reliability prevents suspects from having the opportunity to challenge Schuiteboer’s credibility in court and leaves them making ill- informed plea deals, according to attorney Lawrence Koplow, whose practice focuses on DUI defense.

But few outside a small circle of prosecutors and defense attorneys know of the felony allegations, and city prosecutors have resisted attempts from DUI attorneys to disclose Schuiteboer’s potential truthfulness issues in court.

Phoenix prosecutors declined to comment because the matter is ongoing.

Police investigators have known about the theft-by-fraud, forgery and insurance-fraud allegations against Schuiteboer since early September, and they served a search warrant on his home in December, according to court records.

Schuiteboer took about a month’s leave beginning Feb. 27. Since he returned in April, he has been working on “administrative duties,” according to Phoenix police.

But many of his cases are still making their way through the court system. Defense attorneys contacted Friday estimated that there are as many as 40 active cases in Phoenix Municipal Court and an additional 10 in Maricopa County Superior Court in which Schuiteboer played a role in stopping or arresting the suspect or collecting physical evidence through his work as a certified phlebotomist.

The fact that prosecutors refuse to disclose the allegations against Schuiteboer during pretrial proceedings could jeopardize those cases and others in which defendants have pleaded guilty because prosecutors argued that Schuiteboer and his work can be trusted, said Cliff Girard, a longtime Phoenix defense attorney.

“There’s a conscious effort to prevent anybody from knowing any of this stuff,” Girard said.

The allegations against Schuiteboer are contained in the criminal search warrant investigators served at his Peoria home late last year.

Schuiteboer claimed he walked out of a Glendale hardware store at about 3:15 on a Friday afternoon in January 2011 and found that his 12-year-old Ford pickup was missing, according to court records. Schuiteboer called Glendale police and asked the responding officer to meet him at a Westgate Entertainment District bar, where he could fill out the stolen-vehicle report.

Buckeye police found the truck nearly two weeks later in the desert, burned, stripped of valuables and with damage to the steering column as if it had been stolen, according to the records.

Schuiteboer claimed the truck was worth about $16,000 and received an insurance payment of more than $14,000, according to the records.

Phoenix police began investigating Schuiteboer in September, when a man claimed he picked Schuiteboer up in January 2011 from a desert area near where the truck was discovered.

The man gave investigators information that hints at a dispute between himself and Schuiteboer but also provided details that detectives attempted to verify through physical evidence and phone records.

“Jerry told (him) he just dumped his truck in the desert. He was tired of it because it was not worth much money,” according to court documents. “Jerry stated he damaged the dash, the ignition and removed the back seat so it would appear it was stolen by drug traffickers.”

Investigators got information about Schuiteboer’s phone calls and confirmed that he was making phone calls in the Buckeye area from about 1:20 to about 2:30 p.m., not a Glendale hardware store, on the afternoon his truck was stolen.

“This contradicted the information Jerry reported to Glendale police,” according to court documents. “Jerry’s phone records confirmed on Jan. 21, 2011, he called his wife at 3:36 p.m. and called Glendale police at 3:49 p.m.”

Investigators then requested a search warrant for Schuiteboer’s home, where they discovered a number of items matching the description of those the Phoenix officer had reported stolen, including a flashlight, a CD player and a police jacket.

Schuiteboer on Friday said there are two sides to every story, before declining to comment further and referring questions to his attorney, David Michael Cantor, a DUI and criminal-defense lawyer.

Cantor did not return calls for comment.

Phoenix prosecutors have stated in court filings that it is premature for attorneys to try to bar Schuiteboer’s testimony in DUI cases.

One filing from late May argues that Schuiteboer is facing an ongoing internal police investigation, which is neither a public record nor admissible in court.

“Because it is pending, it has not (at least yet) been found that Officer Schuiteboer did anything wrong which would reflect negatively on his character,” Phoenix prosecutor Andrea Gutiérrez wrote.

The defense attorneys who want the allegations against Schuiteboer to be disclosed as part of their clients’ cases take a different view, citing U.S. Supreme Court decisions. They argue that information that could be favorable to the defense or cast doubt on a verdict is information that prosecutors are obligated to disclose. The need is particularly acute in DUI cases where officers like Schuiteboer, who is certified to draw blood, can act as the arresting officer or serve as the expert on how physical evidence was handled, Koplow said.

“There’s a distinction between disclosure to attorneys and admissibility at trial. We’ll fight the admissibility part later. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to make the disclosure,” he said. “What if their case is based on whether the guy followed procedure and his word is everything? Most of the time, you have the officer’s testimony as to what they saw, and then the blood-test results, his testimony can affect both.”

The frustration among defense attorneys increased Friday as they learned of the search warrant, which The Arizona Republic printed from a court computer open to the public.

Girard said he delivered a letter to Phoenix Police Chief Daniel V. Garcia and the Phoenix prosecutor’s office on Friday reminding both agencies of their obligations to disclose information such as the allegations against Schuiteboer to defense attorneys.

The public disclosure of the allegations against Schuiteboer may change how prosecutors handle active cases he was involved with in the future, Girard said, but the information could also impact prior DUI prosecutions that already went through the system.

“If this guy wasn’t a police officer, they’d disclose this real fast,” he said. “Now that the cat’s out of the bag, they’re going to have to do something. This guy was arresting people right up until recent times.”

A simple DUI ticket will cost you $10,000

I was talking to a woman who was somehow involved with the ASU college of law and she said that a simple DUI ticket will cost your $10,000 when you throw in all the costs, before an attorney.

She said in addition to the fine they will charge you to install a breathalyze interlock on your car to prevent you from driving when you have drank.

She said they even charge you a couple of hundred dollars every couple of months to re-calibrate the breathalyze interlock.

She said they will also shake you down for money to attend the silly driver safety classes.

She said that an attorney she knows started up a business installing and maintaining the breathalyze interlock devices on cars because it is so profitable.

She said he makes a lot more from the breathalyze interlock business then he does with his law degree.

'Warrentless' inspections of abortion clinics???

Arizona lawmakers seek 'warrentless' inspections of abortion clinics

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

Posted: Friday, June 7, 2013 7:00 am

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services | 2 comments

Abortion foes are making a late-session push to allow health inspectors to inspect clinics without a warrant.

Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, said Thursday that abortion clinics are the only medical facilities in the state regulated by the Department of Health Services where a warrant is needed prior to an unannounced inspection. She is working with Sen. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, to end that exemption.

Herrod acknowledged that a 1999 law allowing warrantless inspections was voided by a federal appeals court after being challenged by the Tucson Woman's Clinic. It took a decade of negotiations between state health officials and those who challenged the law to come up with the current rules which permit unannounced inspections -- but only after obtaining a warrant from a judge.

But Herrod said the legal landscape has changed in the last 14 years. That includes Arizona adopting comprehensive abortion regulations that have been upheld by the courts.

Herrod said she believes that eliminates the problems that caused the appellate court to ban warrantless inspections in the first place.

"Every medical facility in Arizona is subject to unannounced inspections by regulators except for abortion clinics,'' she said, "It's a no-brainer to say that abortion clinics should have to abide by the same health and safety process that other medical facilities in our state are required to abide by.''

Bryan Howard, president of Planned Parenthood Arizona, acknowledged that abortion clinics are unique in that unannounced inspections require a warrant. But he said the solution should be for other kinds of health facilities to demand the same kind of protections, including the requirement to prove to a judge there is probable cause to show up without notice, rather than end protections for abortion facilities.

And Howard said abortion clinics are unique because groups like Herrod's have targeted them. He said the need for a warrant is appropriate "given the hostility of some political figures to the services we provide, and the disruption that our patients would face if they were subject to an unannounced inspection for no reason.''

Barto's move comes weeks after the legislative deadline to introduce and debate policy issues in committee.

She acknowledged the requirement for a warrant is nothing new, having been enacted by rule in 2010. But Barto said the issue came to the forefront only recently as the result of the release of an undercover video by the anti-abortion group Live Action taken at the Family Planning Associates clinic in Phoenix.

That video, according to Live Action founder Lila Rose, misleads the woman, a Live Action volunteer, about the procedure and the development of the fetus at that point. Calls to the clinic seeking comment were not returned.

Barto also cited last month's murder verdict against a Pennsylvania abortion doctor.

"We've seen from the Kermit Gosnell trial what abortion clinics will do when they are not properly regulated,'' she said. "I shudder to think that these very crimes may be happening in our own state.''

Howard, however, said the evidence proves otherwise.

He pointed to the 71-page written response given last month by the state Department of Health Services to a public records request by the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

It says that in a 5-year period the state has taken only one enforcement action against an abortion facility. And that was based on violation of rules on administration, infection control and expired medications and supplies.

That still leaves the question of why state health officials should need a warrant to inspect facilities where abortions are performed -- but not for any other.

State law says if the health director has "reasonable cause'' to believe there are violations of licensing requirements, inspector may enter the premises of any health care institution "at any reasonable time'' to inspect. The law also says that application for a license "constitutes permission for and complete acquiescence'' for inspection.

Howard stressed that health officials can show up unannounced at abortion clinics -- but only after getting a judge to conclude there is probable cause.

He said that additional hurdle is justified given the efforts by Herrod's group and others to harass them and put them out of business.

"Hospitals, for example, ambulatory surgery centers, are not under continuously politically inspired assault,'' Howard said.

`The Center for Arizona Policy is not seeking to close down St. Joe's (hospital),'' he continued. "They are seeking to shut down Planned Parenthood and their protestors do seek to interrupt and impose burdens on women getting health care.''

Howard said that is why the federal court in 2010 agreed to allow inspections only with a warrant.

"The judge authorized that settlement in that case out of the recognition that women's health care services, health centers, are subject to a level of hostility that has nothing to do with the quality of their care,'' he said. Howard said the requirement for a warrant ensures there is a real basis for such inspection and not "when it is serving the political motives of an inspector.''

Herrod has never denied her organization's ultimate goal is to make abortion illegal in Arizona. But she said that is irrelevant to the question of unannounced warrantless inspections.

"Center for Arizona Policy is trying to ensure that women considering an abortion have all the facts before they make that decision, and that their health and safety is protected when they walk into an abortion clinic,'' Herrod said. "We are as concerned about the women considering abortion as we are about the lives of the pre-born children.''

They didn't spend the money from the sales tax???

Strange stories on state finances

The temporary state sales tax increase, which expired last week, makes for a very strange political story.

Virtually nothing voters were told about the tax prior to approving it turned out to be true. Yet no one seems to be very upset about that.

Voters were told that passage of the temporary sales tax would prevent additional cuts to K-12 education, health and human services and public safety. Supposedly, two-thirds of the tax was earmarked for K-12 education and one-third for health and public safety. [When I read it I thought it was the other way around. With most of it going to the cops (public safety) and a small part going to education]

In reality, over the three years in which the temporary sales tax was in place, state support for K-12 education was nearly a billion dollars less than what it would have been if the pre-tax level had, indeed, been maintained. Rather than preventing cuts to health care programs, a freeze on new enrollments by childless adults under the poverty level in the state’s Medicaid program was enacted.

Instead of spending the additional money to prevent cuts to state programs, as voters were told would be the case, Gov. Jan Brewer and the Legislature saved more than a third of it. Between carryforward surpluses and deposits into the rainy day fund, over $1.1 billion of the additional sales tax was saved, not spent.

That’s because something else voters were told before approving the tax turned out not to be true. The pitch was that the temporary sales tax, along with some borrowing and spending cuts, was a sufficient bridge to get the state through lean times. By the time the temporary sales tax expired, state finances would be on an even keel.

And, indeed, in celebrating the expiration of her signature policy initiative, Brewer proudly proclaimed that the state’s budget was, in fact, balanced. That’s a highly misleading claim.

In fact the budget for next year adopted by the state Senate has a structural deficit – the difference between same-year revenues and expenditures – of more than $450 million. The hope of Brewer and legislative Republicans is that the large surplus accumulated from saving rather than spending the temporary tax can get the state through another three years of projected structural deficits.

As it turned out, saving a large portion of the temporary tax was a prudent step. If it hadn’t been done, that $450 million structural deficit for next year would have to be resolved rather than papered over.

But that wasn’t what voters were told. Brewer didn’t say, hey, I’ve got a great idea. Let’s raise taxes today to build up a big savings account and spend it four to six years from now. Yet that’s what, in essence, has happened.

To remarkably little protest. Democrats and the spending lobby have grumbled from time to time about the amount of the temporary sales tax that was being saved rather than spent. But they never put on the table anything meaningful to address the structural deficits that were sure to reappear after the tax expired.

Nor does there seem to be significant buyer’s remorse among voters. The tax expired. Brewer did her victory lap. Everyone yawned.

There’s still significant strain in state finances. Right now, the projections are that the savings from the temporary sales tax won’t be sufficient to carry the state budget to a point of structural balance.

Brewer has proposed a $230 million a year assessment on hospitals to pay for restoring and expanding the state’s Medicaid program. But right now, the state is contributing nothing to all-day kindergarten and next to nothing for school capital expenses. Operating support for K-12 and higher ed continues to be hundreds of millions of dollars a year below what it was before the recession. There’s no prospect of doing anything about any of that for the foreseeable future.

There was a very poorly designed initiative to make the temporary sales tax permanent, which voters wisely rejected. That, however, hardly settled the question of whether state government has adequate resources to provide the state programs the public wants.

Yet there is no serious discussion about that, no one advancing serious proposals to do anything but continue to tread water. That’s strange as well.

Uncle Sam reads your email and listens to your phone calls

Source

Monumental phone, Internet monitoring laid bare in reports

Associated Press Fri Jun 7, 2013 7:42 AM

A leaked document has laid bare the monumental scope of the government's surveillance of Americans' phone records — hundreds of millions of calls — in the first hard evidence of a massive data collection program aimed at combating terrorism under powers granted by Congress after the 9/11 attacks.

At issue is a court order, first disclosed Wednesday by The Guardian newspaper in Britain, that requires the communications company Verizon to turn over on an "ongoing, daily basis" the records of all landline and mobile telephone calls of its customers, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries. Intelligence experts said the government, though not listening in on calls, would be looking for patterns that could lead to terrorists — and that there was every reason to believe similar orders were in place for other phone companies.

Some critics in Congress, as well as civil liberties advocates, declared that the sweeping nature of the National Security Agency program represented an unwarranted intrusion into Americans' private lives. But a number of lawmakers, including some Republicans who normally jump at the chance to criticize the Obama administration, lauded the program's effectiveness. Leaders of the House Intelligence Committee said the program had helped thwart at least one attempted terrorist attack in the United States, "possibly saving American lives."

Separately, The Washington Post and The Guardian reported Thursday the existence of another program used by the NSA and FBI that scours the nation's main Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, emails, documents and connection logs to help analysts track a person's movements and contacts. It was not clear whether the program, called PRISM, targets known suspects or broadly collects data from other Americans.

The companies include Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple. The Post said PalTalk has had numerous posts about the Arab Spring and the Syrian civil war. It also said Dropbox would soon be included.

Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft and Apple said in statements that they do not provide the government with direct access to their records.

"When Facebook is asked for data or information about specific individuals, we carefully scrutinize any such request for compliance with all applicable laws, and provide information only to the extent required by law," the company said.

The leaks about the programs brought a sharp response from James Clapper, the director of national intelligence. In an unusual statement late Thursday, Clapper called disclosure of the Internet surveillance program "reprehensible" and said the leak about the phone record collecting could cause long-lasting and irreversible harm to the nation's ability to respond to threats.

Clapper said news reports about the programs contained inaccuracies and omitted key information. He declassified some details about the authority used in the phone records program because he said Americans must know the program's limits. Those details included that a special national security court reviews the program every 90 days and that the court prohibits the government from indiscriminately sifting through phone data. Queries are only allowed when facts support reasonable suspicion, Clapper said.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said of the phone-records collecting: "When law-abiding Americans make phone calls, who they call, when they call and where they call is private information. As a result of the discussion that came to light today, now we're going to have a real debate."

But Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Americans have no cause for concern. "If you're not getting a call from a terrorist organization, you've got nothing to worry about," he said. [Yea, and if this were Nazi Germany, I am sure Sen. Lindsey Graham would have said the Jews shouldn't be alarmed at some of the things Hitler was doing, after all they were aimed at Jews, but rather at helping the Nazis catch bad criminals.]

A senior administration official pointed out that the collection of communication cited in the Washington Post and Guardian articles involves "extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court [FISA courts, secret courts created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which are normally not open to the public, and which don't keep records of their decisions that are open to the public, and which meet in location which the public is not allowed], to ensure that only non-U.S. persons outside the U.S. are targeted, and that minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about U.S. persons." The official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and requested anonymity, added that Congress had recently reauthorized the program.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said the order was a three-month renewal of an ongoing practice that is supervised by federal judges who balance efforts to protect the country from terror attacks against the need to safeguard Americans' privacy. The surveillance powers are granted under the post-9/11 Patriot Act, which was renewed in 2006 and again in 2011.

While the scale of the program might not have been news to some congressional leaders, the disclosure offered a public glimpse into a program whose breadth is not widely understood. Sen. Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat who serves on the Intelligence Committee, said it was the type of surveillance that "I have long said would shock the public if they knew about it."

The government has hardly been forthcoming.

Wyden released a video of himself pressing Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on the matter during a Senate hearing in March.

"Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" Wyden asked.

"No, sir," Clapper answered.

"It does not?" Wyden pressed.

Clapper quickly softened his answer. "Not wittingly," he said. "There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect — but not wittingly."

There was no immediate comment from Clapper's office Thursday on his testimony in March.

The public is now on notice that the government has been collecting data — even if not listening to the conversations — on every phone call every American makes, a program that has operated in the shadows for years, under President George W. Bush, and continued by President Barack Obama.

"It is very likely that business records orders like this exist for every major American telecommunication company, meaning that if you make calls in the United States the NSA has those records," wrote Cindy Cohn, general counsel of the nonprofit digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, and staff attorney Mark Rumold, in a blog post.

Without confirming the authenticity of the court order, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said such surveillance powers are "a critical tool in protecting the nation from terror threats," by helping officials determine if people in the U.S. who may have been engaged in terrorist activities have been in touch with other known or suspected terrorists.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., stressed that phone records are collected under court orders that are approved by the Senate and House Intelligence committees and regularly reviewed.

And Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada played down the significance of the revelation.

"Everyone should just calm down and understand that this isn't anything that's brand new," he said. "This is a program that's been in effect for seven years, as I recall. It's a program that has worked to prevent not all terrorism but certainly the vast, vast majority. Now is the program perfect? Of course not." [Yea, and Harry Reid probably would have said the same things to the Jews in Nazi Germany. Trust your government, these laws are not aimed at murdering Jews, but at catching criminals. Trust the government, we are here to help you, not harm you!!!]

But privacy advocates said the scope of the program was indefensible.

"This confirms our worst fears," said Alexander Abdo, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project. "If the government can track who we call," he said, "the right to privacy has not just been compromised — it has been defeated."

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., who sponsored the USA Patriot Act that governs the collection, said he was "extremely troubled by the FBI's interpretation of this legislation." [Another government liar who will say anything to get elected??? If this tyrant is so concerned about the Patriot Act he created why doesn't he pass a law to repeal it??? Probably because he is getting money from the special interest groups in the FBI and other Homeland Security agencies]

Attorney General Eric Holder sidestepped questions about the issue during an appearance before a Senate subcommittee, offering instead to discuss it at a classified session that several senators said they would arrange.

House Speaker John Boehner called on Obama to explain why the program is necessary.

It would "be helpful if they'd come forward with the details here," he said.

The disclosure comes at a particularly inopportune time for the Obama administration. The president already faces questions over the Internal Revenue Service's improper targeting of conservative groups, the seizure of journalists' phone records in an investigation into who leaked information to the media, and the administration's handling of the terrorist attack in Libya that left four Americans dead. [I have always said Obama is a carbon copy clone of George W. Bush, now it seems like Obama is also a clone of Richard M. Nixon!!!]

At a minimum, it's all a distraction as the president tries to tackle big issues like immigration reform and taxes. And it could serve to erode trust in Obama as he tries to advance his second-term agenda and cement his presidential legacy.

The Verizon order, granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25 and good until July 19, requires information on the phone numbers of both parties on a call, as well as call time and duration, and unique identifiers, according to The Guardian.

It does not authorize snooping into the content of phone calls. But with millions of phone records in hand, the NSA's computers can analyze them for patterns, spot unusual behavior and identify "communities of interest" — networks of people in contact with targets or suspicious phone numbers overseas.

Once the government has zeroed in on numbers that it believes are tied to terrorism or foreign governments, it can go back to the court with a wiretap request. That allows the government to monitor the calls in real time, record them and store them indefinitely.

Rogers said once the data has been collected, officials still must follow "a court-approved method and a series of checks and balances to even make the query on a particular number." [From what I have read these FISA courts are secret courts created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which are normally not open to the public, and which don't keep public records of their decisions. So that really isn't a system of checks and balances to prevent government abuses, in fact it's an invitation to government abuses]

But Jim Harper, a communications and privacy expert at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, questioned the effectiveness of pattern analyses to intercept terrorism. He said that kind of analysis would produce many false positives and give the government access to intricate data about people's calling habits.

Verizon Executive Vice President and General Counsel Randy Milch, in a blog post, said the company isn't allowed to comment on any such court order.

"Verizon continually takes steps to safeguard its customers' privacy," he wrote. "Nevertheless, the law authorizes the federal courts to order a company to provide information in certain circumstances, and if Verizon were to receive such an order, we would be required to comply."

The company listed 121 million customers in its first-quarter earnings report this April — 98.9 million wireless customers, 11.7 million residential phone lines and about 10 million commercial lines. [That is about one third of American's population of 310 million people]

The NSA had no immediate comment. The agency is sensitive to perceptions that it might be spying on Americans. It distributes a brochure that pledges the agency "is unwavering in its respect for U.S. laws and Americans' civil liberties — and its commitment to accountability."

Under Bush, the NSA built a highly classified wiretapping program to monitor emails and phone calls worldwide. The full details of that program remain unknown, but one aspect was to monitor massive numbers of incoming and outgoing U.S. calls to look for suspicious patterns, said an official familiar with the program. That official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it publicly.

After The New York Times revealed the existence of that wiretapping program, the data collection continued under the Patriot Act, the official said. The official did not know if the program was continuous or whether it stopped and restarted at times.

The FISA court order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson, compelled Verizon to provide the NSA with electronic copies of "all call detail records or telephony metadata created by Verizon for communications between the United States and abroad" or "wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls," The Guardian said.

The law on which the order explicitly relies is the "business records" provision of the Patriot Act.

Seizing cellphone records abuses liberty

Source

Seizing cellphone records abuses liberty

Our View: Data mining is legal, useful - but not a blank check

By Editorial board The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Jun 7, 2013 7:44 AM

There is a rich vein of irony in Wednesday’s revelation by a London newspaper that the National Security Agency is collecting millions of telephone records from Verizon every day and has a court’s approval to do it.

This is the Obama administration’s NSA, after all. The administration that arrived in 2008 on a mission to repudiate and abandon all the “war on terror” transgressions of its predecessor.

And it is led by a president who just two weeks ago in a major national-security speech expressed concerns about the “expanded surveillance” brought about by the war on terror. He spoke of the need to re-establish balance “between our interests in security and our values of privacy.”

This current NSA “data mining” of millions of phone records is a practice indistinguishable from those conducted at the height of the Patriot Act-authorized war on terror — unchanged except in the scope of the surveillance, which appears far more sweeping than any snooping authority sought by the George W. Bush administration.

Not a lot of “balance” there.

Still, there needs to be some balance struck regarding the meaning of the NSA data-mining story itself. It is not the horrifying, new intrusion on privacy it appears to be.

First, the practice is legal and has been for a long time. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1979 concluded in Smith vs. Maryland that because phone records are held by phone companies, the data about those phone records (as opposed to the content of the phone calls) is not privileged information. The government’s right to access the data for national-security purposes is explicitly authorized under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

Just as during the Bush administration’s post-9/11 pursuit of terror suspects, the Obama administration’s interest in acquiring the data is almost certainly an effort to prevent terrorist attacks.

We can say “almost certainly” with fair confidence. The court that approved the data mining was the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was created in 1978 precisely for this purpose.

Further, the court orders, however sweeping, appear to have been witnessed by (and tacitly approved by) congressional Intelligence Committee members.

That hasn’t made the government’s habit of gathering the data any less controversial. For many civil libertarians and critics of the Bush administration, data mining of phone records was evidence of the unconstitutional, unchecked power of the “unitary executive.”

That concern continues today.

Two Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, have been cryptically expressing grave concerns for years about what they saw as the administration’s overuse of its surveillance powers. This widespread phone-snooping story is at least part of what they were hinting at.

But it is especially troubling for this administration, given the recent revelations about its willingness to use — which is to say, abuse — the enormous powers of government against political enemies.

The Internal Revenue Service treatment of conservative non-profit organizations may not have been explicitly ordered by the administration. But there is ample evidence the IRS was enthusiastically encouraged by the president and his aides to single out “tea partyers” for special scrutiny.

And the Obama Justice Department’s grim labeling of a Fox News reporter as a suspected espionage co-conspirator underscores the view that the administration is not shy about using its power politically.

There most certainly is a necessary “balance” to be struck between national security and individual liberty. President Barack Obama has not found that balance. He needs to.

Corte Suprema EEUU admite tomar ADN a arrestados

Source

Corte Suprema EEUU admite tomar ADN a arrestados

Por JESSE J. HOLLAND

Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- La Corte Suprema de Estados Unidos, aunque muy dividida, informó el lunes que la Policía puede extraer rutinariamente ADN de las personas que arrestan y equipararon ese procedimiento a otros procesos comunes en esos casos, como la impresión de huellas dactilares.

"Extraer y analizar una muestra de ADN del arrestado es, al igual que la toma de huellas dactilares y fotografías, un procedimiento policial legítimo razonable según la Cuarta Enmienda (constitucional)", escribió el juez Anthony Kennedy en nombre de la mayoría de cinco jueces.

Sin embargo, los cuatro jueces que disintieron dijeron que el tribunal estaba permitiendo un cambio importante en las prerrogativas policiales.

"Esto está claro: a causa de la decisión de hoy, tu ADN puede ser extraído e incorporado a una base de datos nacional si eres arrestado, con o sin razón y por cualquier motivo", dijo el juez conservador Antonin Scalia en la opinión contraria que leyó en voz alta en el tribunal.

"Esto solucionará algunos delitos más, con seguridad, pero también lo haría si te extraen ADN cuando vuelas en un avión. Por cierto, la Autoridad de Seguridad en el Transporte debe saber la 'identidad' del público que vuela, pero con la misma idea se podría hacer que les extrajeran muestras de ADN a vuestros hijos cuando empiezan la escuela pública", agregó.

Veintiocho estados y el gobierno federal toman ahora muestras de ADN después de un arresto, pero un tribunal de Maryland fue uno de los primeros en afirmar que era ilegal para ese estado extraer el ADN de un sujeto, Alonzo King, sin aprobación de un juez, aduciendo que King tenía "una expectativa suficientemente razonable de privacidad contra inspecciones infundadas" según la Cuarta Enmienda.

No obstante, la decisión del máximo tribunal revierte ese fallo y repone la condena de King por violación, que se produjo después que la Policía tomó una muestra de su ADN durante un arresto por otros motivos. Kennedy escribió la decisión y se sumaron el presidente del tribunal John Roberts y los jueces Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas y Stephen Breyer. Votaron con Scalia los jueces Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor y Elena Kagan.

La ley sobre ADN de Maryland solo permite que la Policía extraiga muestras de los arrestados por delitos graves como asesinato, violación, agresión, hurto y otros delitos de violencia. En su fallo, Kennedy no aclaró si la decisión del tribunal limita el ADN solo para esos delitos, aunque notó que las leyes respectivas de otros estados difieren de la de Maryland.

Tomar muestras de ADN de los delincuentes es común. Todos los 50 estados y el gobierno federal toman muestras de las mejillas de delincuentes para cotejarlos con bancos de datos federales y estatales, con anuencia del tribunal. La puja en la Corte Suprema versó acerca de si la toma de muestras de ADN puede producirse antes de la condena y sin que un juez libre una orden.

Según documentos judiciales, el índice combinado del FBI o CODIS -un sistema coordinado de perfiles de ADN en bases de datos a nivel federal, estatal y local- contiene más de 10 millones de perfiles de delincuentes y 1.100.000 de arrestados.

Connecticut aprueba licencias para indocumentados

Connecticut aprueba licencias para indocumentados

El Senado estatal dio luz verde para que se entreguen permisos de conducir a inmigrantes sin importar su situación legal en el país.

El Senado de Connecticut aprobó la concesión de permisos de conducir a inmigrantes sin importar su situación legal en Estados Unidos, con lo que concluyó el proceso de aprobación de esta discutida medida.

En una apretada votación por 19 votos a favor y 16 en contra, los miembros del Senado respaldaron la medida, que ya había sido aprobada la pasada semana por la Asamblea estatal (74 votos contra 55) y tiene el apoyo del gobernador, Dannel Malloy.

La medida, que entrará en vigor en enero de 2015, exige que los solicitantes demuestren su identidad con dos documentos y que hayan residido en este estado durante al menos noventa días.

Además, del Departamento de Vehículos de Motor de Connecticut (DMV) exigirá que los solicitantes superen pruebas de conducción y que no tengan antecedentes criminales en el estado, para los que comprobará si tienen historial policial.

Finalmente, el documento indicará que es válido únicamente para conducción y tendrá que ser renovado cada tres años, en lugar de los seis años de las licencias habituales.

"Esta legislación se refiere ante todo a la seguridad. Es para saber quién conduce en nuestras carreteras y hacer todo lo posible para garantizar que los conductores son seguros y que operan vehículos registrados y asegurados", afirmó el gobernador Malloy en un comunicado divulgado tras la votación final.

Malloy subrayó que "hay una razón" por la que esta medida ha recibido el apoyo de los departamentos de Policía y las autoridades locales de Connecticut, y por la que otros estados del país "están dando pasos similares", y es que beneficia a todos los que conducen por las carreteras estatales.

Un portavoz de Mallon indicó que todavía no se ha decidido cuándo el gobernador firmará la medida.

El gobernador recalcó que hace falta una acción a nivel del Gobierno federal para atender la cuestión de la inmigración de forma general, para lo que urgió al Congreso de Washington DC a que "siga el ejemplo dado por Connecticut y otros estados".

Una tendencia nacional

Y es que con esta medida, Connecticut se inscribe en la tendencia de otros estados del país en los que se también se están discutiendo o se han aprobado propuestas legislativas similares: se han aprobado en Illinois y Oregón, mientras que se estudian en otra docena de estados, como Carolina del Norte o Colorado.

Los estados de Nuevo México y Washington fueron los primeros en otorgar licencias de conducir a los inmigrantes indocumentados.

La aprobación llega tras un largo debate en el Senado, durante el que la mayoría demócrata insistió en que se busca aumentar la seguridad en las carreteras y que todos los conductores tengan licencia y seguro.

En cambio, la minoría republicana objetó esos argumentos al considerar que el estado está entrando en cuestiones relativas a la reforma migratoria, que competen al Gobierno federal.

El líder adjunto de la mayoría demócrata en la Asamblea estatal, Juan Candelaria, señaló tras la aprobación en su cámara que este programa "no es una carta abierta a la reforma migratoria", sino una medida que permitirá a personas "que ya viven aquí", la oportunidad de conducir "cumpliendo medidas de seguridad que nos protegen a todos".

Según el Centro Hispano Pew, en Connecticut hay unos 120,000 inmigrantes indocumentados, de los que se calcula que unos 54,000 podrían calificar para obtener esta licencia.

Obama defends phone data collection program

Obama defends phone data collection program

Josh Lederman and Donna Cassata Fri Jun 7, 2013 10:08 AM

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama vigorously defended sweeping secret surveillance into America’s phone records and foreigners’ Internet use, declaring “we have to make choices as a society.”

Taking questions Friday from reporters at a health care event in San Jose, Calif., Obama said, “It’s important to recognize that you can’t have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience.”

It was revealed late Wednesday that the National Security Agency has been collecting the phone records of hundreds of millions of U.S. phone customers. The leaked document first reported by the Guardian newspaper gave the NSA authority to collect from all of Verizon’s land and mobile customers, but intelligence experts said the program swept up the records of other phone companies too. Another secret program revealed Thursday scours the Internet usage of foreign nationals overseas who use any of nine U.S.-based internet providers such as Microsoft and Google.

In his first comments since the programs were publicly revealed this week, Obama said safeguards are in place.

“They help us prevent terrorist attacks,” Obama said. He said he has concluded that prevention is worth the “modest encroachments on privacy.” [Yea, and modest violations of the Bill of Rights, as if a modest violations are OK]

Obama said he came into office with a “healthy skepticism” of the program and increased some of the “safeguards” on the programs. He said Congress and federal judges have oversight on the program, and a judge would have to approve monitoring of the content of a call and it’s not a “program run amok.” [Yea, oversights by secret FISA courts that meet in secret locations and keep secret records!!!!]

“Nobody is listening to your telephone calls,” he said. “That’s not what this program’s about.”

He said government officials are “’’looking at phone numbers and durations of calls.”

“They are not looking at people’s names and they are not looking at content. But by sifting through this so-called metadata they might identify potential leads of people who might engage in terrorism,” Obama said. [per the 4th Amendment you have to have "probable cause" to spy on people and when you say "might" you don't have "probable cause"]

The president’s remarks followed an unusual late-night statement Thursday from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who denounced the leaks of highly classified documents that revealed the programs and warned that America’s security will suffer. He called the disclosure of a program that targets foreigners’ Internet use “reprehensible,” and said the leak of another program that lets the government collect Americans’ phone records would change America’s enemies behavior and make it harder to understand their intentions.

“The unauthorized disclosure of a top secret U.S. court document threatens potentially long-lasting and irreversible harm to our ability to identify and respond to the many threats facing our nation,” Clapper said of the phone-tracking program.

At the same time, Clapper offered new information about the secret programs.

“I believe it is important for the American people to understand the limits of this targeted counterterrorism program and the principles that govern its use,” he said.

Among the previously classified information about the phone records collection that Clapper revealed:

—The program is conducted under authority granted by Congress and is authorized by the Foreign intelligence Surveillance Court which determines the legality of the program. [Yea, oversights by secret FISA courts that meet in secret locations and keep secret records!!!!]

—The government is prohibited from “indiscriminately sifting” through the data acquired. It can only be reviewed “when there is a reasonable suspicion, based on specific facts, that the particular basis for the query is associated with a foreign terrorist organization.” He also said only counterterrorism personnel trained in the program may access the records.

—The information acquired is overseen by the Justice Department and the FISA court. Only a very small fraction of the records are ever reviewed, he said. [Yea, oversights by secret FISA courts that meet in secret locations and keep secret records!!!!]

—The program is reviewed every 90 days. [Yea, by secret FISA courts that meet in secret locations and keep secret records!!!!]

The Obama administration’s defense of the two programs came as members of Congress were vowing to change a program they voted to authorize and exasperated civil liberties advocates were crying foul, questioning how Obama, a former constitutional scholar who sought privacy protections as a U.S. senator, could embrace policies aligned with President George W. Bush, whose approach to national security he had vowed to leave behind.

Clapper alleged that articles about the Internet program “contain numerous inaccuracies.” He did not specify.

Senior administration officials defended the programs as critical tools and said the intelligence they yield is among the most valuable data the U.S. collects. Clapper said the Internet program, known as PRISM, can’t be used to intentionally target any Americans or anyone in the U.S, and that data accidentally collected about Americans is kept to a minimum. [Yea, and secret FISA courts that meet in secret locations and keep secret records will guarantee that!!!]

Leaders of Congress’ intelligence panels dismissed the furor over what they said was standard three-month renewal to a program that’s operated for seven years. Committee leaders also said the program recently helped thwart what would have been a significant domestic terrorist attack.

The NSA must collect the phone data in broad swaths, Clapper said, because collecting it narrowly would make it harder to identify terrorism-related communications. [Why not just add a section to the Patriot Act that requires every American to give the keys to their home so an FBI agent can stop in any time and spy on them just to make sure they are not up to no good??? Hey, it's not flushing the 4th Amendment down the toilet any more then the rest of the Patriot Act does!!!!]

But the widespread notion of a government dragnet ensnaring terror suspects and innocent Americans pushed typical political foes to stand together against Obama as he enforces what many likened to Bush-era policies.

“When law-abiding Americans make phone calls, who they call, when they call and where they call from is private information,” [yea, between them the FBI, NSA and only a few thousand other people in the government] said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. “As a result of the disclosures that came to light today, now we’re going to have a real debate in the Congress and the country and that’s long overdue.”

Officials from Clapper’s office, the Justice Department, NSA and FBI briefed 27 senators for some two hours late Thursday at a hurriedly convened session prompted by severe criticism and uncertainty about the program.

“The National Security Agency’s seizure and surveillance of virtually all of Verizon’s phone customers is an astounding assault on the Constitution,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. “After revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted political dissidents and the Department of Justice seized reporters’ phone records, it would appear that this administration has now sunk to a new low.”

Paul said he will introduce legislation ensuring that the Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures apply to government search of phone records. [Well at least he actually admits the Patriot Act has made the 4th Amendment null and void and he will pass legislation to un-repeal the 4th Amendment for a few purposes]

The surveillance powers are granted under the post-9/11 Patriot Act, which was renewed in 2006 and again in 2011. Republicans who usually don’t miss a chance to criticize the administration offered full support.

“I’m a Verizon customer. I could care less if they’re looking at my phone records. … If you’re not getting a call from a terrorist organization, you got nothing to worry about,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. [So if I associate with somebody the government considers a terrorist I have something to worry about??? Like my cousin who is an immigrant from Syria???]

The disclosures come at a particularly inopportune time for Obama. His administration already faces questions over the Internal Revenue Service’s improper targeting of conservative groups, the seizure of journalists’ phone records in an investigation into who leaked information to the media, and the handling of the terrorist attack in Libya that left four Americans dead.

At a minimum, it’s all a distraction as the president tries to tackle big issues like immigration reform and taxes. And it could serve to erode trust in Obama as he tries to advance his second-term agenda and cement his presidential legacy.

The Verizon order, granted by the secret FISA court on April 25 and good until July 19, requires information on the phone numbers of both parties on a call, as well as call time and duration, and unique identifiers, The Guardian reported.

It does not authorize snooping into the content of phone calls. But with millions of phone records in hand, the NSA’s computers can analyze them for patterns, spot unusual behavior and identify “communities of interest” — networks of people in contact with targets or suspicious phone numbers overseas.

Once the government has zeroed in on numbers that it believes are tied to terrorism or foreign governments, it can go back to the court with a wiretap request. That allows the government to monitor the calls in real time, record them and store them indefinitely.

House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said that once the data has been collected, officials still must follow “a court-approved method and a series of checks and balances to even make the query on a particular number.” [Yea, checks and ballances by secret FISA courts that meet in secret locations and keep secret records!!!!]

The steps are shrouded in government secrecy, which some lawmakers say should change.

“The American public can’t be kept in the dark about the basic architecture of the programs designed to protect them,” said Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn. [Yea and secret FISA courts that meet in secret locations and keep secret records are part of the architecture designed to protect us!!!!]

Verizon Executive Vice President and General Counsel Randy Milch, in a blog post, said the company can’t comment on any such court order. He said Verizon take steps to protect customers’ privacy, but must comply with court orders. Verizon listed 121 million customers in its first-quarter earnings report this April.

The NSA is sensitive to perceptions that it might be spying on Americans. It distributes a brochure that pledges the agency “is unwavering in its respect for U.S. laws and Americans’ civil liberties — and its commitment to accountability.”

Emerging from the briefing, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Intelligence committee, said the government must gather intelligence to prevent plots and keep Americans alive. “That’s the goal. If we can do it another way, we’re looking to do it another way. We’d like to.”

She said Congress is always open to changes, “but that doesn’t mean there will be any.”

Obama has declared war on the Bill of Rights, not terrorists

President Obama says he is hunting down terrorists by using the Patriot Act to tap our phones and read our email.

I think Obama is cherry picking the evidence to justify that.

Less then 1 percent of the people arrested under the Patriot Act have been arrested for terrorist crimes.

Over 50 percent of the arrests under the Patriot Act have been for victimless drug war crimes.

I think Obama is at war with not with terrorists, but with the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the American People.

Thanks

*************
Tempe, Arizona

According to this article: arrests for Patriot Act violations are 1,618 for drug war crimes, 122 for fraud and 15 for terrorist crimes

According to this article: 62 percent of Patriot Act arrests were for drug war crimes, less then 1 percent were for terrorist crimes

Using the government to rob rich folks!!!!

And sadly many of our elected officials use that line to buy votes from poor people to get themselves elected. Source

EJ Montini | azcentral opinions

Posted on June 10, 2013 1:54 pm by EJ Montini

A ‘second Bill of Rights’ in Arizona?

I’ve never believed that politicians were much interested in reading history — other than checking a book’s index for their names. (The truth is, most of them won’t even make the footnotes.)

As Arizona legislators debate a proposed expansion of Medicaid that affords health care coverage for our most needy brothers and sisters it might be useful for those politicians who oppose the idea to read a excerpt from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s final inaugural address, from January 1944, in which the president lays out what he refers to as a “second Bill of Rights.”

FDR points out in the most eloquent terms what “freedom” actually means and how to achieve it. And he identifies the thing that most threatens it: Need.

Gov. Jan Brewer, who is pushing for the expansion, understands what Roosevelt was getting at. Arizona legislators would be wise to read the speech, which means there’s no chance of that happening.

The rest of you might enjoy it, however.

President Roosevelt said in part:

“We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. ‘Necessitous men are not free men.’ People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

“In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.

“Among these are:

“The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;

“The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

“The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

“The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

“The right of every family to a decent home;

“The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

“The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

“The right to a good education.

“All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

“America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.”

Nearly 70 years later the nation hasn’t realized Roosevelt’s goal. But in small ways, as with the expansion of Medicaid, we’re still trying.

Obama is reading our email????