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http://int3.cc/products/usbcondoms int3.cc The Original USB Condom $9.99 *** The USB Condom now sold on SyncStop.com *** At SyncStop.com can purchase the Original USB Condom and also pre-order the new "cased" version called SyncStop ;-) Have you ever plugged your phone into a strange USB port because you really needed a charge and thought: "Gee who could be stealing my data?". We all have needs and sometimes you just need to charge your phone. "Any port in a storm." as the saying goes. Well now you can be a bit safer. "USB Condoms" prevent accidental data exchange when your device is plugged in to another device with a USB cable. USB Condoms achieve this by cutting off the data pins in the USB cable and allowing only the power pins to connect through.Thus, these "USB Condoms" prevent attacks like "juice jacking". (If you'd like some more detailed explanations these news articles and videos do a thorough job.) Use USB-Condoms to: * Charge your phone on your work computer without worrying... * Use charging stations in public without worrying... * Place it as an "always on" adapter on your existing USB/Sync cable and remove only when you want to sync * Turn a normal USB cable into a "charge only" cable If you're going to run around plugging your phone into strange USB ports, at least be safe about it. ;-)
Interesting article. Some thoughts. I believe a USB device is a computer on it's own. And because of that any files you copy from the remote computer to a USB device infected with a virus, the USB device could add a virus to the file. And of course if you then execute the infected file on the USB device, that virus could infect the remote computer which the USB device is attached to. Now if that virus was put on the USB device by the vendor of the USB device, it doesn't sound like there is much you can do. The real question is how hard is it for a third party to copy a virus to the firmware that runs the USB device??? http://www.wired.com/2014/10/code-published-for-unfixable-usb-attack/?mbid=social_fb The Unpatchable Malware That Infects USBs Is Now on the Loose By Andy Greenberg 10.02.14 6:30 am It’s been just two months since researcher Karsten Nohl demonstrated an attack he called BadUSB to a standing-room-only crowd at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, showing that it’s possible to corrupt any USB device with insidious, undetectable malware. Given the severity of that security problem—and the lack of any easy patch—Nohl has held back on releasing the code he used to pull off the attack. But at least two of Nohl’s fellow researchers aren’t waiting any longer. In a talk at the Derbycon hacker conference in Louisville, Kentucky last week, researchers Adam Caudill and Brandon Wilson showed that they’ve reverse engineered the same USB firmware as Nohl’s SR Labs, reproducing some of Nohl’s BadUSB tricks. And unlike Nohl, the hacker pair has also published the code for those attacks on Github, raising the stakes for USB makers to either fix the problem or leave hundreds of millions of users vulnerable. “The belief we have is that all of this should be public. It shouldn’t be held back. So we’re releasing everything we’ve got,” Caudill told the Derbycon audience on Friday. “This was largely inspired by the fact that [SR Labs] didn’t release their material. If you’re going to prove that there’s a flaw, you need to release the material so people can defend against it.” The two independent security researchers, who declined to name their employer, say that publicly releasing the USB attack code will allow penetration testers to use the technique, all the better to prove to their clients that USBs are nearly impossible to secure in their current form. And they also argue that making a working exploit available is the only way to pressure USB makers to change the tiny devices’ fundamentally broken security scheme. “If this is going to get fixed, it needs to be more than just a talk at Black Hat,” Caudill told WIRED in a followup interview. He argues that the USB trick was likely already available to highly resourced government intelligence agencies like the NSA, who may already be using it in secret. “If the only people who can do this are those with significant budgets, the manufacturers will never do anything about it,” he says. “You have to prove to the world that it’s practical, that anyone can do it…That puts pressure on the manufactures to fix the real issue.” Like Nohl, Caudill and Wilson reverse engineered the firmware of USB microcontrollers sold by the Taiwanese firm Phison, one of the world’s top USB makers. Then they reprogrammed that firmware to perform disturbing attacks: In one case, they showed that the infected USB can impersonate a keyboard to type any keystrokes the attacker chooses on the victim’s machine. Because it affects the firmware of the USB’s microcontroller, that attack program would be stored in the rewritable code that controls the USB’s basic functions, not in its flash memory—even deleting the entire contents of its storage wouldn’t catch the malware. Other firmware tricks demonstrated by Caudill and Wilson would hide files in that invisible portion of the code, or silently disable a USB’s security feature that password-protects a certain portion of its memory. “People look at these things and see them as nothing more than storage devices,” says Caudill. “They don’t realize there’s a reprogrammable computer in their hands.” In an earlier interview with WIRED ahead of his Black Hat talk, Berlin-based Nohl had said that he wouldn’t release the exploit code he’d developed because he considered the BadUSB vulnerability practically unpatchable. (He did, however, offer a proof-of-concept for Android devices.) To prevent USB devices’ firmware from being rewritten, their security architecture would need to be fundamentally redesigned, he argued, so that no code could be changed on the device without the unforgeable signature of the manufacturer. But he warned that even if that code-signing measure were put in place today, it could take 10 years or more to iron out the USB standard’s bugs and pull existing vulnerable devices out of circulation. “It’s unfixable for the most part,” Nohl said at the time. “But before even starting this arms race, USB sticks have to attempt security.” Caudill says that by publishing their code, he and Wilson are hoping to start that security process. But even they hesitate to release every possible attack against USB devices. They’re working on another exploit that would invisibly inject malware into files as they are copied from a USB device to a computer. By hiding another USB-infecting function in that malware, Caudill says it would be possible to quickly spread the malicious code from any USB stick that’s connected to a PC and back to any new USB plugged into the infected computer. That two-way infection trick could potentially enable a USB-carried malware epidemic. Caudill considers that attack so dangerous that even he and Wilson are still debating whether to release it. “There’s a tough balance between proving that it’s possible and making it easy for people to actually do it,” he says. “There’s an ethical dilemma there. We want to make sure we’re on the right side of it.”
Personally I suspect that if heroin was re-legalized like it was before 1914 that heroin overdoses would drop like a rock. Mainly because people would be able to get recreational heroin of a known quality, rather the the black market heroin of an unknown quality. http://www.sfgate.com/news/medical/article/CDC-Heroin-deaths-doubled-in-much-of-the-country-5796593.php CDC: Heroin deaths doubled in much of the country By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer Updated 8:50 am, Friday, October 3, 2014 NEW YORK (AP) — Deaths from heroin overdose doubled in just two years in much of the nation, a new government study says. The annual number of U.S. drug overdose deaths has been growing for more than 20 years. Officials have been most worried about a class of powerful prescription "opioid" painkillers like Vicodin and OxyContin. Deaths involving such painkillers continue to be much more common than heroin-related deaths, the study found. But while those deaths are leveling off or declining in many parts of the country, heroin-related deaths soared between 2010 and 2012 in the 28 states for which information was available to the researchers. Heroin overdose deaths rose from 1,779 to 3,665, doubling the death rate to 2.1 deaths per 100,000 people. Heroin-related deaths increased in both men and women, in all age groups, and in whites, blacks and Hispanics. Officials say the trend's future is hard to predict. "It's a volatile situation," said one of the study's authors, Dr. Len Paulozzi of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study looked at 2012 overdose death data from death certificates and compared it to 2010. The 28 states sampled include more than half of the U.S. population and account for more than half of the nation's drug overdose deaths. Overdose numbers from all the states are not expected to be released for at least a few more months. While the heroin death toll doubled, deaths linked to opioid painkillers fell in the 28 states, from 10,427 in 2010 to 9,869 in 2012. The death rate declined to 5.6 per 100,000. Why the jump in heroin-related deaths as opioid painkiller deaths declined? Recent restrictions on prescribing opioid painkillers may be reducing illicit supplies of them at a time when the heroin supply has been increasing, experts said. The main reason may be that people who had been abusing the painkillers moved "from high-priced pills to more affordable heroin," Barbara Carreno, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, wrote in an e-mail. A possible indicator of heroin's growing supply: The DEA's domestic seizures of the drug rose from around 1,300 pounds a year in 2007-2009 to roughly 2,200 pounds annually in 2011-2013, she said. "There is heroin around and people do try it," said Dr. Hillary Kunins, assistant commissioner at the New York City's health department. The heroin problem has been dramatic in New York City — a place where about two people die of fatal drug overdoses every day, on average. Through the last decade, heroin-related deaths remained more common in New York than opioid painkiller-related deaths. In 2013, heroin overdose caused 6.2 deaths per 100,000 New Yorkers, the highest rate in a decade. ___ Online: CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr
Librarians won’t stay quiet about government surveillance I am sure the Founders, if they were alive would tell us that Emperor Bush and Emperor Obama are far worse then King George every was. Same goes for the gang of criminals tyrants in the US House and US Senate that passed the Patriot Act, which is an oxymoron that should be labeled the Police State Act. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/10/03/librarians-wont-stay-quiet-about-government-surveillance/?hpid=z14 Librarians won’t stay quiet about government surveillance By Andrea Peterson October 3 at 10:15 AM Librarians are among the loudest voices opposing government surveillance. In September 2003, Attorney General John Ashcroft called out the librarians. The American Library Association and civil liberties groups, he said, were pushing "baseless hysteria" about the controversial Patriot Act. He suggested that they were worried that spy agencies wanted to know "how far you have gotten on the latest Tom Clancy novel." Ashcroft was 17 speeches into a national speaking tour defending the Patriot Act, a law expanding government surveillance powers that passed nearly unanimously in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. And all along the way, the librarians showed up to protest. In the case of government surveillance, they are not shushing. They've been among the loudest voices urging freedom of information and privacy protections. Edward Snowden's campaign against the National Security Agency's data collection program has energized this group once again. And a new call to action from the ALA's president means their voices could be louder and more coordinated than ever. Guarding patrons' library activities is considered a core value of the profession, written into the ALA's code of ethics: "We protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted." Over the years, the U.S. government has tested the limits of how far librarians will go to defend that code. Near the end of the Cold War, FBI agents asked New York City librarians to watch for patrons who might be diplomats from foreign hostile powers trying to recruit intelligence agents or gathering intelligence. Library officials were alarmed. "These things are so far removed from the professional duties of a librarian that I find it almost inconceivable that this whole thing is happening,'' Nancy Lian, head of the New York Library Association, said in a New York Times article at the time. A judicial order, she noted, would be required for such action. Early resistance Library groups were wary of the Patriot Act from the start, according to Emily Sheketoff, head the ALA's Washington office. "We were engaged because we feared that the government would overstep," Sheketoff said, a fear she believes has been validated. Given the political climate after Sept. 11, even individual legislators who said they agreed in principle didn't pull their support of the bill. "It was a steamroll that we couldn't even slow down," she said. After the bill passed, the group trained library employees around the country on how to respond if the government requested information. Section 215 of the act - later used to justify the bulk collection of domestic phone metadata as revealed by Snowden - was called the "library provision." The implication was that the government could use it to get library records. By 2003, some libraries placed signs in their lobbies, warning patrons that the government could obtain their records under the bill. Hundreds of meetings were organized to discuss the privacy implications of the law at libraries around the country. Stewart Baker, the assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush, said it was a "disservice to public debate" that Section 215 was ever known as the library provision, arguing that there was no evidence it was used in the context suggested by library groups. When Ashcroft's promotion tour rolled around, many of his talks took place behind closed doors while librarians and civil liberties advocates protested nearby. The backlash to his comments was fierce. "It turns out people like and trust their local librarians," Sheketoff said. As a result, Ashcroft telephoned Carla Hayden, then-president of the association. "I must say, it was quite something," Hayden said. "When you have the opportunity to express something to a person in that position, you want to do it well." Hayden said she reminded Ashcroft that libraries were open to working with law enforcement through judicial channels. But, she said, she believed the Patriot Act went beyond that relationship. Hayden said Ashcroft "expressed that he was sorry that he might have said something that could have been offensive - and that he didn't intend that." In fact, Hayden said, he told her that he had "good library experiences in his life." Ashcroft did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Baker believes the apology came as a result of the librarians' media campaign. But in his view, Ashcroft was justified. As he put it: "The implication of their campaign was that library records across the country were being rifled through by people in the name of national security trying to figure out who was reading books they disapproved of - that was pretty clearly what the parade of horribles suggested and that Section 215 was somehow implicated in that. And none of that is true." The Connecticut Four Within two years of Ashcroft's apology, four library officials in Connecticut found themselves in a legal battle over handing over patron information - and unable to talk about it. In July 2005, two FBI agents presented George Christian with a national security letter - an information request that doesn't require judicial approval - seeking data about patrons' library use. He was the executive director of a consortium called Library Connection. Such letters existed before the Patriot Act and did not derive from Section 215. But their use was expanded by the law. The government wanted to know who had used a device at an IP address in February, Christian said. The address was assigned to a router that served many devices, and to hand over that data could have violated the privacy of many patrons beyond the subjects of the FBI's investigation, said Christian, an accidental librarian who is trained as a software developer. Christian questioned the constitutionality of the search. The most astounding part, he said, was the gag order attached to the letter. "It was perpetual, with no expiration date," he said. Such conditions are a standard feature of national security letters, requiring recipients to keep secret even the fact that they received a letter. "Gag orders were made controversial," Baker said. "They're a routine feature of a lot of criminal and other investigations whenever you don't want the defendant or the suspect to know you're investigating them." Instead of keeping quiet, Christian called an emergency board meeting. His colleagues unanimously decided to challenge the request. The American Civil Liberties Union agreed to take up the case. The group was already representing an Internet service provider fighting a similar request and was looking for a library to join the challenge. Because of the gag order, none of the four library officials - Christian, Barbara Bailey, Peter Chase and Jan Nocek - could add their names to the suit. The four were known as John Doe throughout the case. During the first hearing, none could be in the courtroom, lest their identities be revealed. "We watched it from a closed-circuit television in Hartford," Bailey said. Their identities eventually slipped to the media through faulty redaction in court documents related to the case. Even then, the four were unable to speak out - or testify about it during a debate over the Patriot Act's renewal. "It was incredibly stressful," Christian said. The group was bound to silence until May 2006, when the government withdrew the request - and with it the gag order. That made the "Connecticut Four," as they have come to be known in library circles, among the only recipients of such an order who can publicly discuss the experience. Library advocacy in a post-Snowden world Snowden's leaks have only deepened the concern about the degradation of privacy rights. "Now we know that it really didn't matter what they passed," Sheketoff said. "What they were sweeping up was everything, way beyond what anybody had ever envisioned." Librarians have deployed new methods to protect patron privacy. "As technology has changed and we've moved from the card catalogue and paper records to electronic records, we are always looking to destroy the record as soon we can," Sheketoff said. "When you return a book, the record is destroyed so that when the government comes we can say that we legitimately only know what you have out at the time." In Massachusetts, the local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union has partnered with some librarians to deploy services like anonymous browsing tool Tor that can shield patrons' activity from electronic snooping. The ALA backs reform of surveillance laws - specifically the bipartisan Senate version of the USA Freedom Act, which would limit data collection under Section 215. Allies in the civil liberties community praise the group's track record. As Kevin Bankston, policy director at New America's Open Technology Institute, put it: "Librarians are on the front lines of the information society, charged with providing easy access to information for all, and are often some of the first to raise their voices over emerging Internet policy issues, whether around online censorship, digital copyright, or most often post-9/11, overreaching surveillance." ALA President Courtney Young has called for the group's 57,000 members to pledge an hour a week to advocacy - including reaching out to members of Congress. For his part, Christian has grown less optimistic as the push to reform the law has dragged on. "We are obviously all in trouble," he said. "What happened to us seems like kindergarten compared to the revelations from Snowden." Andrea Peterson covers technology policy for The Washington Post, with an emphasis on cybersecurity, consumer privacy, transparency, surveillance and open government.
Personally I think it is wrong to lock a person in prison for the victimless crime of crossing a border without the permission of some government nanny. http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2014/10/02/immigration-detention-centers-aclu/16613845/ Editorial missed the point on detention centers Alessandra Soler, Terri Burke and Vicki Gaubeca, AZ We See It 5:07 p.m. MST October 2, 2014 ACLU: Even if 70 percent of released migrants fail to report for hearings, there better alternatives to locking them up. Last week, the Associated Press reported that 70 percent of immigrant families released into the U.S. "never showed up weeks later for follow-up appointments." The Republic's editorial board — like many people across the country — concluded, not unreasonably, that the logical response should be more detention of immigrants ("The case for detention centers," Monday). The only problem? We believe the AP got it wrong. The AP failed to put the statistic, which was leaked from a confidential meeting attended by our colleagues in Washington, D.C., into context. We don't know the raw numbers, the time period over which the data was collected or, most importantly, whether the immigrant families were provided with the information they needed to understand their legal obligations. We also don't know whether these families appeared for their court hearings, a crucial metric completely distinct from the follow-up appointments referenced by the AP's stat. The Obama administration has been unduly harsh in its response to the women and children fleeing chronic and acute violence, like intimate partner assault and threats from criminal gangs, in Central America. Upon arrival in the U.S., these families face federal lockup. In June, the administration opened a family detention center in Artesia, N.M., and in August another in Karnes, Texas. Last month, the administration announced plans to build a third facility in Dilley, Texas. This new, 2,400-bed warehouse will be run by a private prison company at a cost to taxpayers of more than $250 million annually. Simply put, this is ludicrous. Detention threatens these families' health and inhibits fair review of asylum claims. We should be investing in far more humane alternatives to detention. Current alternatives, including probation-style reporting, have a court appearance rate of 99.7 percent and an 85 percent rate of compliance with final deportation orders, according to the company that manages the government's community supervision programs for immigrants. At a per person daily cost ranging from 17 cents to $17 — compared with $298 per individual for family detention — these alternatives are a far more responsible use of taxpayer dollars. The government should also ensure that all children in removal proceedings have access to attorneys. Like the use of detention alternatives, legal representation is a strong indicator of compliance with court dates. More than 90 percent of children in removal proceedings who have attorneys show up for their hearings, according to data from Syracuse University. Detention is not the answer to the significant number of refugees arriving at our southern border. Effective, more humane and cheaper alternatives exist. It's time for the administration to take notice. Alessandra Soler, Terri Burke and Vicki Gaubeca are, respectively, the directors of the ACLU of Arizona, the ACLU of Texas and the ACLU of New Mexico's Regional Center for Border Rights.
A movie about the worst cop in America. http://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/movies/2014/10/02/movie-review-the-joe-show-arpaio-stars/16550235/ Review: 'The Joe Show' a clear-headed look at Arpaio Bill Goodykoontz, The Republic | azcentral.com 11:59 a.m. MST October 2, 2014 Randy Murray's film takes a clear-headed look at Joe Arpaio, "America's toughest sheriff," showing his lighter side and more troublesome actions. The fundamental question raised by "The Joe Show," Randy Murray's documentary about Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, is whether such a publicity-seeking politician really needs the attention. The short answer is no, and yet "The Joe Show" is compelling regardless. The arrogance of Arpaio and Lisa Allen, his media director, is stunning throughout Randy Murray's film. Do we really need to see Arpaio sing "My Way" or Allen talk about getting one of the sheriff's posse units to hunt for a missing ostrich because she knows the media will slobber all over the story — even though she can't remember whether the ostrich was found? No, we do not. Life is too short. Unfortunately, life was also too short for the inmates who have died in county jails. The settled lawsuits, the misspent funds, the publicity stunts, both harmless and harmful — all are given an accounting by Murray. It's not a hatchet job. Murray talks to such famous Arpaio supporters as Steven Segal (who is actually a deputy) and crazy old Ted Nugent (sorry, "Cat Scratch Fever" forgives only so much). And, of course, Arpaio and Allen are always available to defend their actions. But Murray doesn't ignore the abuse of power. He just eases into it. The film begins with a chronicle of some of Arpaio's camera-ready stunts, such parading inmates stripped down to their pink underwear to a new jail. Allen coaches him on how to look tough, and the media eats it up. "Tough" is a word that pops up repeatedly. At first it's complimentary, if a little tongue-in-cheek. Later it becomes damning, giving way to the phrase "culture of cruelty," which Arpaio and Allen dispute. The film follows a similar path. Murray gives us the softer side up front, gradually easing into the lawsuits, the Obama birth-certificate "investigation," the decision to devote time and resources to immigration enforcement, and a drop in response times, along with his office's failure to investigate more than 400 sex crimes. When we get to these details, it's not funny anymore. Nor is the absolute and complete lack of responsibility on the part of Arpaio (and, again, Allen, who seems determined to make the most of her screen time and does, though perhaps not with the results she was after). By the time Arpaio is talking about how he should run for governor, not because he wants the job but because it's a good stepping-stone to president — that's president of the United States — you begin to wonder where reality ends and Arpaio's own world begins. (There doesn't seem to be a lot of overlap.) Then you remember — and Murray shows you — the election results. Enough voters like what Arpaio's doing to keep returning him to office. His 2012 re-election was the closest race he's been in, and it's interesting when Murray gets behind the scenes of the re-election effort. But the nip-and-tuck election-night drama plays a little stale two years later. Allen's ranking of local TV news stations they'll talk to, in descending order of how favorable their treatment of Arpaio has been, is both hilarious and sad. So yes, this will give Arpaio another headline, and Allen another chance to complain that he's being misrepresented. But the benefits of watching Murray's clearheaded, well-made film outweigh such petty concerns. Review: 'The Joe Show,' 4 stars Director: Randy Murray. Cast: Joe Arpaio, Lisa Allen, Ted Nugent. Rating: Not rated. Note: At Harkins Arrowhead, Valley Art. Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: twitter.com/goodyk.
Wonder how many years a private citizen would go to prison for it they committed perjury and tortured police officers???? And would a private citizen get to go to one of those "country club" prisons cops go to??? And oddly Disgraced former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge is still getting paid cold hard cash for the crimes he committed as a Chicago cop: "Burge [is] ... still collecting a $4,000-a-month police pension" http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/545/article/p2p-81562160/ Disgraced former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge to be released from prison By Jason Meisner, Tribune reporter 5:09 am, October 2, 2014 Disgraced former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge is scheduled to be released this morning from a federal prison in North Carolina to serve out the remainder of his 4½-year sentence for lying under oath about torturing suspects. Burge, 66, who entered the low-security prison in March 2011, will be allowed to travel to a halfway house in the Tampa, Fla., area and check in on his own, federal prison officials have said. Once they've evaluated him, officials at the facility could opt to instead place Burge on home confinement in nearby Apollo Beach until his sentence officially ends on Valentine's Day 2015, according to his attorney, Richard Beuke. Burge was "anxious to get home to family and friends and get this period behind him," Beuke said. Burge continues to generate controversy for still collecting a $4,000-a-month police pension despite his costing the city tens of millions of dollars in legal costs because of the torture and abuse of dozens of people from the 1970s to early 1990s. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan challenged the city pension board's refusal to strip Burge of the pension, but in a setback, a divided Illinois Supreme Court held in July that Madigan's office didn't have the legal authority to do so. Several victims who have alleged Burge and detectives under his command tortured them into confessions to murders and rapes are planning to hold a news conference today at Chicago City Hall demanding aldermen pass an ordinance allowing for millions of dollars in reparations and other damages. "Burge is being released from prison and given the opportunity to begin his life anew with the benefits of his police pension funded by the Chicago taxpayers' money," attorneys for some of the victims said in a news release. "Yet scores of Chicago police torture survivors continue to suffer from the psychological effects of the torture endured without any compensation." The developments come as the 40-year legacy of torture of mostly black defendants conducted by Burge's "midnight crew" of detectives continues to reverberate. At last count, the city and Cook County have spent a combined $96 million on Burge-related settlements and legal fees. Last year, Mayor Rahm Emanuel issued an unexpected public apology for the stain Burge has left on the city, calling it a "dark chapter" that needed to be put in the past. Burge was fired by the Chicago Police Department in 1993, but it wasn't until 2002/ that two special Cook County prosecutors were appointed to investigate the allegations of torture and abuse of dozens of suspects. In 2006, the special prosecutors found evidence of widespread abuse by Burge and his detectives but concluded that the statute of limitations had passed on criminal charges. However, federal prosecutors later charged Burge with lying in a civil case when he denied knowledge of the abuse. At his trial in 2010, a number of former convicts testified about Burge's brutal techniques, including the use of cattle prods on genitals, plastic to suffocate suspects and phone books to beat them. Testifying in his own defense, Burge, for the first and only time in public, denied he ever tortured suspects or condoned its use, saying he had never witnessed a cop abusing a suspect in his 30 years with the department. The allegations against Burge surfaced when Richard Daley was then the elected Cook County state's attorney. Later under Daley's mayoral administration, the city spent millions of dollars in legal fees defending Burge in the dozens of lawsuits filed by alleged victims. After taking office in 2011, Emanuel talked about the need to move beyond the Burge era, and his top City Hall attorney, Stephen Patton, sped up the pace of settling cases. Patton said last year that avoiding trials saved taxpayer money and was "the right thing to do." The ordinance being touted at City Hall today calls for a $20 million set-aside to finance compensation to Burge victims, provide free enrollment in city colleges to the survivors, require Chicago Public Schools to teach a history lesson about the cases and fund a public memorial. Lawyers for the victims said the $20 million figure represents the same amount of money the city has spent to defend Burge, other detectives and Daley in the police torture litigation. Beuke, Burge's lawyer and a former Cook County assistant state's attorney, acknowledged the controversy surrounding Burge may never go away, but he said the lawyers for the alleged victims also will "never get tired of throwing themselves out there, trying to steal some more money from the city." "He's done his time," Beuke said of Burge. "He just wants to live as normal of a life as he can get away with down there." jmeisner@tribune.com Twitter @jmetr22b
L.A. council candidate received, then swore off developer donations Politicians only lie when their lips are moving??? http://touch.latimes.com/#section/601/article/p2p-81560224/ L.A. council candidate received, then swore off developer donations By Emily Alpert Reyes October 1, 2014, 6:35 p.m. At a forum Tuesday night in Hollywood, nearly a dozen candidates vying to replace termed-out Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge were asked a question: Will you accept campaign contributions from developers? Among those answering "no" was candidate Teddy Davis, who once worked for former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. City ethics records show Davis previously received several campaign contributions from developers. Davis said Wednesday that he was aware of the developer contributions when he answered the question Tuesday night. His campaign manager, Anthony Holland, said Davis understood the questioner to be asking whether he would accept future campaign contributions from developers, not whether he had done so in the past. Davis said his answer concerning developer campaign contributions wasn't misleading. On Wednesday, he said he is returning more than $3,500 in donations from developers. The candidate said he decided he would forgo developer donations during the Tuesday forum, after hearing opponents in the crowded contest give answers similar to one another on a question about development. "I quickly realized that saying you're going to be different is not enough," Davis said. "You actually have to behave differently." He estimated that 3% of his contributions so far had come from developers. Davis said he told campaign staffers on Tuesday night to return all donations from developers. In a campaign email sent Wednesday afternoon, Davis said he was challenging other candidates to swear off money from developers and called it his "clean money pledge." Holland declined to provide a list of the campaign contributions that Davis was returning, saying that it would be publicly available in Davis' campaign financial filing next week. At the Tuesday forum hosted by the Hollywood Heights Assn., candidates Jay Beeber, Sheila Irani and John Perron also said they would not accept campaign contributions from developers. Several other candidates said they would only accept money from developers who did work that they believed in. Joan Pelico, who works as chief of staff to Councilman Paul Koretz, said she had turned down a donation from the developer of the large Millennium project in Hollywood, but had accepted at least one other contribution from a developer. Others said they would gladly take such donations. "Yes, I will take money from developers," said Oscar Winslow, a deputy city attorney running for the seat. "I will take money from just about anyone who's willing to give me money.... What you really want to know is, when those people donate, have they bought me? Absolutely not." More than a dozen candidates have entered the race to replace LaBonge, whose district includes parts of Hollywood, Hancock Park and Sherman Oaks. The council seat comes with an annual salary of more than $184,000. Follow @latimesemily for what's happening at Los Angeles City Hall Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.
Drunk Vallejo cop pulls gun in argument???? http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_26649054/vallejo-police-sergeant-accused-pulling-gun-during-dispute Vallejo police sergeant accused of pulling gun during dispute in Oregon Posted: 10/02/2014 08:05:57 AM PDT A Vallejo police sergeant is under investigation by police in Oregon after allegedly pulling a gun during a dispute early Sunday. Vallejo police Sgt. Michael Kent Tribble, 43, and two other men were inside The Summit Saloon and Stage, in Bend, Ore., when they allegedly got into a dispute with another group of two men, Stuart Epps, 34, and Humberto Rodriguez, 21, who then left the bar, Bend police said. About 45 minutes to two hours later, the two groups encountered each other again near a bank and a physical altercation allegedly ensued involving Tribble, Epps and Rodriguez, police said. At some point during the fight, Tribble displayed a handgun, police added. No shots were fired, and all three men sustained minor injuries, but did not seek medical attention. No arrest has been made as of Wednesday. According to a recent press release, Bend police said they were conducting interviews and reviewing video evidence. "There were contradictory and/or conflicting statements during the initial investigation," police said in the release. Intoxicants were reportedly involved in the incident. The completed investigation will be forwarded to the District Attorney's Office, which will then decide if any criminal charges would be pressed, police said. Vallejo police Chief Joseph Kreins said the Vallejo Police Department has opened its own internal administrative investigation. "I'm aware of the event and I've spoken to the Bend police chief," Kreins said. "We take any allegation seriously." Tribble has not been placed on administrative leave, and is on active duty, he said. ------ (c)2014 Times-Herald (Vallejo, Calif.) Visit Times-Herald (Vallejo, Calif.) at www.timesheraldonline.com
Draconian & mandatory drug war sentences!!!! http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/a-federal-judge-fights-to-undo-an-unjust-sentence/2014/10/01/a70332e0-18bc-11e4-85b6-c1451e622637_story.html?tid=hpModule_13097a0c-868e-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394&hpid=z12 A federal judge fights to undo an ‘unjust’ sentence By Ann E. Marimow October 1 at 10:53 PM The judge regretted it from the beginning. The 27-year prison sentence he gave Byron Lamont McDade was too long, he said, for a low-level player in an expansive cocaine enterprise. Years later, the punishment still nagged at him. In two decades on the federal bench in the District, Paul L. Friedman has passed judgment on hundreds of people who committed crimes: murder, kidnapping, fraud. The 324-month term — mandated by federal sentencing guidelines — was the longest the judge had imposed for a drug offense. More time than he gave a gang leader in a murder case. Three times as much as he gave any of McDade’s more culpable comrades in the drug conspiracy. Twelve years later, Friedman might finally be in a position to do something about McDade’s sentence. “The court has not lost hope, and presumably Mr. McDade has not either,” Friedman wrote in an opinion this spring. The judge used his ruling on a procedural issue in the case to identify McDade as a “prime candidate for executive clemency.” Paul L. Friedman, U.S. district judge for the District of Columbia, poses for a portrait in his courtroom on July 28 in Washington. Friedman presided over McDade's trial on drug offenses. (Michel du Cille/The Washington Post) McDade, who grew up two blocks from the Frederick Douglass Home in Southeast Washington, is one of tens of thousands of federal inmates who may benefit from a sweeping bipartisan movement away from historically harsh drug penalties in the U.S. criminal justice system. This year, the Obama administration announced that it would seek early release for thousands of nonviolent drug offenders who already have served years in prison. Since then, nearly 4,000 inmates have submitted applications to the Department of Justice seeking reduced sentences, and more than 20,000 have returned initial surveys seeking free legal representation to determine if they are potential candidates. The Justice Department will recommend eligible inmates for clemency, and President Obama will make the final decision. So far, no inmates’ sentences have been reduced. The effort is one of the signature initiatives of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who announced last week that he is stepping down. It is also among a series of steps taken in recent years to address inequities in drug-related sentences, including retroactively reducing punishments, in some cases. Many judges have long agonized over their limited discretion in sentencing, but only a small group has tried to do something about it. The clemency initiative is open to candidates who meet six criteria: 1. inmates who are currently serving a federal sentence in prison and likely would have received a substantially lower sentence if convicted of the same offense today; 2. are non-violent, low-level offenders without significant ties to large-scale criminal organizations, gangs, or cartels; 3. have served at least 10 years of their sentence; 4. do not have a significant criminal history; 5. have demonstrated good conduct in prison; and 6. have no history of violence prior to or during their current term of imprisonment. “Every one of us has had cases where you absolutely had no choice but to sentence someone to a term that you experienced as unjust,” said Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge in Massachusetts who now teaches at Harvard Law School. But even with a federal judge in your corner, she said, there are no guarantees for inmates like McDade. Friedman and others, she said, are “reduced to begging these other authorities to do the right thing.” No serious criminal record McDade has his own regrets. He knows he should not have run when federal agents came looking for him in March 2000. At the time of his arrest, McDade was a 32-year-old married father of four with two jobs and no serious criminal record. He had a misdemeanor gun conviction, for which he had been ordered to pay a $10 fine. He was accused of taking part in what was then one of the largest drug conspiracies in the Washington area — involving more than 750 kilograms of cocaine from a Florida-based supplier. One of the ringleaders of the drug operation was a social friend of McDade’s from weekend bowling matches and trips to the carwash on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE. Phyllis Webster drove a red BMW, shot pool for money and wore her bangs swooped across one eye. She also owned the Midtown Cafe, a restaurant and club on Georgia Avenue in Northwest. McDade, whom friends call “Barry,” and his wife vacationed in South Beach with Webster one weekend. McDade knew that Webster had money, and there was talk of her trouble with cocaine in the 1980s. What he did not know was that Webster’s phone calls were being monitored by the FBI. Webster and three others were arrested, and they quickly cut plea deals with prosecutors. McDade still says that he wasn’t involved in drug dealing, that he never saw any cocaine. But when the FBI initially tried to arrest him, he fled, leaving the trash truck he was driving behind a motel on Route 7 in Tysons Corner. McDade was on the run for seven months before he turned himself in. At trial, Webster testified against McDade, fingering him as her lieutenant who kept the bookkeeping records on the back of lottery tickets. “I trusted Barry,” she testified during McDade’s four-week trial in February 2002. In one recorded conversation described for the jury, Webster called McDade and said she needed information from his “lucky Lotto numbers sheet.” Later that day, Webster told McDade on the phone, “You are the center of the puzzle.” The jury believed her. McDade knows now that running made him look guilty, and he accepts the jury’s verdict. “It was the dumbest thing I ever did. I didn’t know how to deal with the situation,” McDade said during an interview in the visiting room at a federal prison in Western Pennsylvania about 40 miles from Johnstown. “That’s probably what hurt me the most.” Byron Lamont McDade is serving 27 years on drug charges at a federal corrections facility in western Pennsylvania. (Michel du Cille/The Washington Post) Webster and McDade’s other co-defendants were out of prison in less than eight years. He has stayed inside while the world, and his family, has changed. When McDade’s mother, Jeannette, died of lung cancer in January, he watched a recording of her funeral from the prison chapel. McDade had too many years left on his sentence, he said, to submit a viable application for a supervised trip to the service at Glenarden Baptist Church. He has never met the five nieces and nephews born during his absence. He has never watched his youngest child, who is headed to college to play football, on the field. “My life revolved around them,” he said of his children. “But I’ve been gone 14 years. I really don’t know who they are anymore.” The youngest, who was 3 when McDade went to prison, “doesn’t really know who I am.” As a child, McDade and three siblings slept together on the pullout couch, living “like sardines” in a two-bedroom apartment, one of his attorneys said. Despite his family’s limited means, McDade had a promising start. He liked working with his hands. After graduating from Anacostia High School in 1986, he held a series of jobs as a plumbing apprentice, a UPS loader and a car detailer. He started a company to take elderly and disabled people to medical appointments and picked up a second job driving a trash truck in Northern Virginia. Now 46 and scheduled to be released in 2024, McDade’s dark hair is turning gray. He has a thin mustache, black-rimmed glasses and a simple gold wedding band. Before he was transferred to a lower-security facility this fall, McDade walked four miles a day on the rural prison grounds that were once a Catholic seminary. He was learning Spanish from the Latino inmates he worked with in the prison’s digital cable factory. In late April, McDade was sitting in the chow hall when a friend from the cellblock told him about the judge’s opinion naming him as a good candidate for early release. McDade was elated. “This might be my year,” he said in a phone call to his wife and in e-mails to friends. “There are a lot of other guys like me. They are sitting around praying and hoping that they get released,” McDade said. “We’ll wait and see what happens.” New early release rules From his sixth-floor court chambers with a view of the U.S. Capitol, Friedman is waiting, too. At McDade’s sentencing hearing in May 2002, Friedman said he deserved significant jail time for participating in the far-reaching cocaine operation but that the mandatory guidelines’ sentence was too long. At 324 months, the judge put McDade at the lowest possible end of the guideline range, a calculation that factored in the amount of drugs involved and McDade’s role as a manager. “I wish I could do more, Mr. McDade,” Friedman said at the time. Years later, in 2009, when the judge considered an unrelated legal filing from McDade, he was reminded of the far shorter sentences he had given McDade’s co-defendants. By then, the Supreme Court had ruled in U.S. v. Booker that judges were no longer required to stick to sentencing guidelines, which Friedman said in a recent interview had become like “straitjackets.” At the time, Friedman wrote that if he’d had that latitude when McDade was sentenced, he would have given him a substantially shorter prison term. Then, for the first and only time — out of nearly 500 sentences Friedman has handed down — the judge recommended that the Bureau of Prisons seek a reduction in McDade’s sentence. Friedman also urged Obama to consider commuting his term. The judge got no response from either office to his unusual request. Obama, like his recent predecessors, has been slow to use his powers to commute prison sentences. This spring, as Friedman was reviewing a renewed legal request from McDade, the Justice Department formally announced its criteria for identifying inmates eligible for early release. They must be nonviolent offenders who have served at least 10 years and shown good behavior in prison. The judge again put McDade forward, this time urging his attorneys to petition for clemency “so that justice may be done in this case.” “The sentence this court was required to impose on Mr. McDade was unjust at the time and ‘out of line’ with and disproportionate to those that would be imposed under similar facts today,” Friedman wrote. “While the court is powerless to reduce the sentence it was required by then-existing law to impose, the president is not.” McDade’s attorneys, Mary E. Davis and Christopher M. Davis, said they will soon present his case for clemency to the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Justin Jouvenal and Alice Crites contributed to this report. Ann covers legal affairs in the District and Maryland for the Washington Post. Ann previously covered state government and politics in California, New Hampshire and Maryland. She joined the Post in 2005.
While I am against Obamacare and socialized medicine I certainly think that when our government throws people in jails and prisons they deserve adequate medical care. Remember a huge number of the people in county jails, like Sheriff Joe's gulag have not been convicted of any crimes and are just waiting to go to trial. Those people certainly deserve decent medical treatment. Also if you look at the statistics anywhere from half to two thirds of the people in American jails and prisons are there for victimless drug war crimes. In reality that is a medical problem, not a criminal problem. If we are going to throw people in jail for victimless drug war crimes, which really are a medical problem, those people should be given medical treatment for their drug problems. http://www.azcentral.com/story/ejmontini/2014/10/01/aclu-maricopa-county-jail-judge-neil-wake-court-order-medical-care-mental-health/16541279/ Should jail inmates have better health care than you? EJ Montini, columnist | azcentral.com 12:31 p.m. MST October 1, 2014 I've been at this a very long time and have written many times about the lack of decent medical and mental health care in the Maricopa County Jail, and in doing so I've learned something very important. Most people don't give a damn about the lack of decent medical and mental health care in the Maricopa County Jail. Luckily, we have courts. Courts are here to insure that rules are followed and rights are preserved even when following the rules happens to preserve the rights of people in jail. Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake decided that the county jail had not yet complied with all of the requirements of a court order stemming from a 37-year-old lawsuit over inhumane treatment at the jails. The judge noted that some things had improved over the years. Which is true. Lawyers for the jail wanted the court order lifted, but the judge agreed with lawyers from The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Arizona, who opposed that. Judge Wake said while the jails had "made improvements in medical staffing and treatment for some inmates suffering from drug and alcohol withdrawal, issues involving suicide monitoring and placement for seriously mentally ill inmates remained unresolved." He said the jail's attorneys had "not met their burden to prove that they eliminated all current and ongoing constitutional violations." By way of example the judge said the jails "have not shown they have resolved systemic deficiencies in providing pretrial detainees timely face-to-face assessment by medical and mental health providers for serious acute or chronic complex conditions." He said "they have not shown they have resolved systemic deficiencies in providing adequate monitoring and treatment of female pretrial detainees during withdrawal or male pretrial detainees who are placed in housing for suicide monitoring, close custody, administrative segregation, disciplinary segregation, or the Special Management Unit during withdrawal." And that they "have not shown they have resolved systemic deficiencies in articulating and implementing criteria for placement of seriously mentally ill pretrial detainees in the Mental Health Unit, its subunits, and outside mental health/psychiatric facilities." So, the court oversight continues. We ask a lot of the county jail, which on any given night could be the state's largest mental health facility. In addition to being a jail. In addition to all of the other things detention officers must deal with. But that is the process. When a person is taken into custody he or she becomes our responsibility and their constitutional rights come with them. Not providing adequate health care could be viewed legally as cruel and unusual punishment. Although I've heard from many, many people who don't think so. I could not count the number of times after I've done a column like this that readers will call saying, "I can't afford to go to a doctor or to a psychiatrist. Why should a jail inmate have better health care than me?" They shouldn't. But that is not a jail problem. That is a societal problem. Legally, inmates have rights. Morally, everyone deserves access to a doctor. Unfortunately, we haven't yet agreed upon a system that would allow every person in the country to receive adequate health care. That's not a constitutional issue. But as far as I'm concerned, it's a crime.
Former Police Chief Luis Martinez seems like one of those cops that thinks the police don't need to be accountable to the taxpayers who fund them. Former Police Chief Luis Martinez seems to think that it is impossible for anybody who isn't a cop to make decisions involving police departments. That's rubbish. Our tax dollars pay the police and supply them with their tools. Us tax payers should be the ones deciding how the police operate and what tools the police should get. Cops like Luis Martinez who think the taxpayers are too stupid to tell them how to do their job should be fired. http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/letters/2014/10/01/let-college-police-make-enforcement-decisions/16565265/ Let college police make enforcement decisions Luis Martinez 7:15 a.m. MST October 2, 2014 I knew it. After reading about all the liberal hoopla from ASU administration, and the ACLU, I knew that Arizona State University Police Department's policy of acquiring surplus military rifles would become extinct ( "ASU police to return M-16 rifles,"Tuesday). This is another knee-jerk reaction, fueling a decision by people who've never faced a gun. I assure readers that the campus Police Department, regardless of their PC response (careers are on the line, remember), is not returning the rifles willingly. The red herring of "militarizing the police" has become the calling card and topic du jour for reporters who lack the initiative to search for a newsworthy topic. As a chief of a campus police department (now retired) and with support of a forward-thinking college president, my department was equipped with patrol rifles in 2006 in preparation for the nightmare we hope never happens but must prepare for. Terry Calaway (Central Arizona College president at the time) understood that law-enforcement decisions should be made by police managers and not by administrators. College administrators making police equipment decisions make as much sense as cops deciding calculus textbook choices. Except public safety decisions made by amateurs can get people killed. — Luis Martinez, Casa Grande
Don't these cops have any REAL criminals to hunt down??? You know criminals who hurt people like robbers, rapists and muggers. Not some harmless pervert who commits the victimless crime of playing with himself in public. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/tempe/2014/10/01/parent-sees-man-masturbating-outside-tempe-catholic-school/16569601/ Man seen masturbating near Catholic school in Tempe School mass canceled as police look for evidence. Paulina Pineda, The Republic | azcentral.com 6:43 a.m. MST October 2, 2014 Police are looking for a man who was seen masturbating Wednesday afternoon outside a Catholic school in Tempe Pastor John Bonavitacola said a parent noticed a man engaged in lewd behavior around noon standing outside the southeast church entrance of Our Lady of Mount Carmel at 2121 S. Rural Road. The parent alerted school officials, who notified the Tempe Police Department, but the individual disappeared before police arrived, according to the pastor. Police say the parent was able to help a forensic artist create a sketch of the man, which police released to media on Wednesday night. The parent described the man as a White male between 30 and 45 years old, with brown or blond hair, clean shaven and wearing wire-rimmed glasses. The man is approximately 5 feet 8 inches and was seen wearing a blue T-shirt with a graphic design and dark shorts or pants, according to a press release issued by the Tempe Police Department. Wednesday's school-wide mass was canceled so that police could check the area in and around the church, dust for fingerprints and gather other forensic evidence, Bonavitacola said. Bonavitacola said none of the students at the Catholic school were involved or witnessed the incident. He thanked the school's principal and the police department for its "immediate and quick response." "This is obviously not the type of behavior that should happen in public, nor near a church or school," Bonavitacola said in a statement.
U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is an enemy of marijuana supporters. If you support medical marijuana or recreational marijuana it's time to boot U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema out of office. This article doesn't mention it, but U.S. Rep. U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema when she was a member of the Arizona Legislator tried to flush Prop 203 or Arizona's Medical Marijuana Act down the toilet by slapping a 300% tax on medical marijuana. That 300 percent tax if passed would have added a $900 tax on every ounce of medical marijuana sold at dispensaries raising the cost of medical marijuana from about $300 an ounce to $1,200 an ounce. U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is also a gun grabber who is doing the best she can to flush the Second Amendment down the toilet. U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is all talk when it comes to protecting the little guy, but Kyrsten Sinema voting record shows she supports the police state and military industrial complex. http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2014/10/02/kyrsten-sinema-congress-endorsement/16580685/ 'Force of nature' Sinema earns 2nd term Editorial board, The Republic | azcentral.com 8:23 a.m. MST October 2, 2014 Our View: Sinema's moderate record matches the swing Congressional District 9, and the GOP has hardly put up a fight. U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema has earned a second term in Congress. Her Republican challenger, Wendy Rogers, hasn't come close to making the case otherwise. Sinema is an energetic politician who has compiled a moderate voting record in tune with the independent streak of the 9th District, which winds from central Phoenix into the East Valley. The Democrat has displayed an eagerness to work across the aisle to promote Arizona issues, making connections at bipartisan get-acquainted dinners. "I'm able to get things done by finding Republicans to help me, who care about the issue and about me," she said. In a Congress where hyperpartisanship so often paralyzes action, Sinema can point to bills she shepherded into law. Many are niche, such as one that helped Sunkist's Mesa operation battle Chinese counterfeiting, but they show an ability to get things done. She does not shirk from fights worth having, even with her party's leadership. She voted for the Ryan budget, reasoning that the alternative was an unfunded government. Sinema joined Republicans in voting to reopen parks and other popular services during last year's government shutdown, moves most Democrats voted against. "Anything that was going to open the government, I was going to vote for it," Sinema said. "I'll always take a half loaf instead of holding out for a full loaf." She's been a strong advocate for reform at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs hospital, having already met three times with new VA Secretary Robert McDonald. She's created a veterans working group to advise her on solutions, rather than waiting on Congress to act. She vows the VA would remain a priority in a second term. That's a tough record for a challenger to run against, which may be why the Republicans didn't put much effort into this district. Their nominee, Wendy Rogers, has largely hidden from the press. She did not meet with The Republic's editorial board in the primary or for the general election. Perhaps this is understandable, given her performance in a primary debate televised by KAET. Rogers showed a poor grasp of the key issues facing the district, Arizona and the nation. But even a well-prepared challenger would have a tough time. Democratic U.S. House Whip Steny Hoyer aptly described Sinema as a "force of nature" and "one of the smartest people in Congress." She has used that talent to aptly represent her district. The Arizona Republic recommends Kyrsten Sinema for a second term.
Jodi Arias attorneys allege misconduct, seek dismissal You think your going to get a fair trial from the government??? Don't make me laugh!!!! And last, if you are on a JURY, please make the government PROVE IT'S CASE. Don't just rubber stamp what the prosecutor and police say as fact. Cops and prosecutors routine lie!!!! And remember too, even if the person is guilty as hell, but the law is unfair, unjust, unconstitutional or applied wrong you have the DUTY to ACQUIT the person. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/mesa/2014/10/01/jodi-arias-motion-to-dismiss-abrk/16533715/ Jodi Arias attorneys allege misconduct, seek dismissal Michael Kiefer, The Republic | azcentral.com 7 a.m. MST October 2, 2014 Attorneys filed a motion to dismiss in the Jodi Arias trial, citing mistreatment in Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's jails. Attorneys for Jodi Arias filed a motion to dismiss the death penalty Wednesday morning, citing what they claim is a long litany of misconduct by the prosecutor and law enforcement. The misconduct, they say, denies Arias the possibility of a fair trial. Arias, 34, has already been found guilty of the murder of her lover, Travis Alexander, who was found dead in the shower of his Mesa home in 2008. He had been shot in the head, stabbed nearly 30 times and his throat was slit. Arias was convicted in May 2013, but the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision on whether she should be sentenced to death or life in prison. Jury selection for her sentencing retrial began Monday; 300 prospective jurors were pre-screened and 167 were dismissed. Another 100 will be screened this morning. The trial is supposed to start Oct. 20. But attorneys Jennifer Willmott and Kirk Nurmi filed a motion this morning in Maricopa County Superior Court asking Judge Sherry Stephens to dismiss the state's intent to seek the death penalty. The motion refers back to the first trial, reiterating allegations that prosecutor Juan Martinez withheld evidence -- specifically Alexander's e-mails to Arias and others and a computer hard drive that contained numerous relevant images -- and failed to disclose who he would call as witnesses in a timely matter. The motion also accuses Martinez of harassing and insulting witnesses and the defense attorneys. Those claims have been documented in stories published by The Arizona Republic. "The state's misconduct has not stopped since trial concluded and has thus further interfered with Ms. Arias' ability to receive a fair trial," the motion states. Among the allegations are that the wife of Mesa Police Detective Esteban Flores posted sealed information about the trial on Twitter and placed insulting videos on You Tube. Attorneys for Jodi Arias file a motion to dismiss the death penalty claiming misconduct by the prosecutor and law enforcement. And it cites the numerous searches of Arias' jail cell by Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies or detention officers. One member of Arias' defense team, Maria De La Rosa, was stopped and investigated for having a drawing that Arias sketched. Sheriff's authorities claimed it was contraband, though a judge demanded that MCSO and the attorneys drop the matter. Nurmi and Willmott also note that a photocopy of a book about the Arias trial that they sent Arias to review for trial purposes was withheld by MCSO. "Taken as a whole, the state's misconduct has created an atmosphere in which Ms. Arias cannot receive a fair trial during her upcoming sentencing phase," the motion concludes. Neither the defense attorneys nor the Maricopa County Attorney's Office would comment on the motion to dismiss the death penalty. Arias, 34, was found guilty of first-degree murder for the death of Travis Alexander, after a tumultuous and salacious trial that was live-streamed over the Internet and played out in social media. The current trial will not be live-streamed because of the uproar caused by the first trial. Still photography will be allowed, and though the trial will be video recorded, the video cannot air until after the trial ends. Trial watchers wanting play-by-play coverage will have to follow on Twitter, Facebook or blogs. Alexander, 30, was found dead in the shower of his Mesa home with a bullet in his head, a slit throat and nearly 30 stab wounds. Arias admitted killing him, but said it was self-defense. MORE: Jodi Arias trials: 10 things to remember or forget The jurors did not believe her. They concluded that the murder had been committed in an especially cruel manner, qualifying Arias for the death penalty, though they could not agree whether she should be sentenced to life in prison or sent to death row. But the guilty verdict stands, and so does the finding of the cruelty aggravator. The new jury will consider only whether Arias is sentenced to death or to life in prison. The retrial is set to run until Dec. 18.
It really p*sses me off when city governments ask the Arizona government to steal money from people in other cities and in unincorporated areas for them. If city government are going to p*ss away our tax dollars on pork projects they should be required to steal the money for those pork projects from the people in their cities. Of course the reason the city governments do that is the royal city rules know that if they tax the krap out of their residents they will be booted out of office. So instead they get the state of Arizona to tax the krap out of people in other cities, knowing they can't be booted out of office for their wasteful spending by people in other cities. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/glendale/2014/10/02/city-projects-scrapped-across-az-law-change/16571441/ City projects scrapped across AZ after law change Kaila White, The Republic | azcentral.com 9:44 p.m. MST October 1, 2014 A new library in Glendale; expansion of a water-treatment plant in Scottsdale; Avondale's trail system and a fire-training facility in Gilbert. All have become victims of recent changes in state funding laws. Across the Valley, big plans for new city projects — some going back more than a decade — are being shelved and stripped out of budgets as officials lose money they had earmarked to pay for them. Glendale has stopped any progress on a new municipal court. Legislation that passed in 2011, and which went into full effect in August, changed the way cities collect what are known as development-impact fees from builders and developers and redefined what they can build with that money. The Legislature passed the law at the urging of the homebuilding industry, which argued that passing the fees on to homebuyers was unfair and a drag on their business, particularly during the Great Recession. Cities opposed the changes. Now, many cities' officials are grappling with how to find funding for new parks, libraries and more without the fees they've used for decades. Development had already slowed because of the economic downturn, which limited cities' ability to issue bonds and reduced property-tax revenue, another common source of funding for city projects. The changes to the fees were a double whammy, and many cities have even less money and more restrictions for new projects. "Timing couldn't be worse," said George Flores, Buckeye's development-services director. "There's a lot of unforeseen issues down the road." Impact fees are a one-time charge that developers pay to municipalities on new single-family homes, apartments and other construction. They are intended to pay for the new roads, water lines and other infrastructure near the development, so existing residents don't have to. The legislation required complicated changes to the fees and redefined "necessary public services" that could be funded with the money. Fees for sanitation, landfill, general government, arts and culture and administrative buildings were eliminated by January 2012. The biggest changes, many city officials say, are limits on the sizes of parks and buildings. The fees can be used to fund no more than 10,000 square feet of a new library, 3,000 square feet of a new community center and 30 acres of a new park. In addition, projects funded by the fees must be completed within 10 years, except for water infrastructure, which can take 15 years. Parks, libraries take a hit Those limitations have hit parks, libraries and trails especially hard. The money can't be spent for auditoriums, arenas, arts and cultural facilities, aquariums, clubhouses, environmental education, golf courses, museums, zoos and more, though swimming pools are allowed. Library fees cannot be used to buy books, furniture or equipment. "If you think about a community center at 3,000 square feet, that's the size of a large house," said Dawn Buckland, Gilbert's management and budget director. A 10,000-square-foot library would be about two basketball courts, and a 30-acre park would be slightly larger than the Amazon warehouse in southwest Phoenix. The limitations are a big problem for Glendale's plans for a $27 million library at Glendale Heroes Regional Park. The city spent $1.2 million for design plans totaling 33,500 square feet in 2008. "You can build four walls and a roof, but you still have to populate it with computers and magazines and furniture and carpet," said Erik Strunk, director of Glendale's Community Services Department. The library was put on hold in 2010 because of the recession, but city officials decided to completely scrap it once they saw that it would have to be built and operatingwithin a decade or else the fees would have to be refunded. They can't fund it in that time, Strunk said, and now the plans they commissioned are obsolete. "We basically had to go back and strip out a lot of capital-improvement projects in my budget and the library is one of those," Strunk said. "We've gotta go back to the drawing board." Fees are now collected for and used in specific zones of each city, so in some cases, fees actually rose in one zone and fell in another. But in the case of libraries, many cities eliminated the development fee collected specifically to fund libraries, including in Glendale, Peoria, Mesa and Surprise. Cities weren't raking in money from the fees, but it was a steady stream that, over time, played a big part in financing a new project. Peoria collected about $200,000 from library fees last year. Mesa collected more than $1.3 million in library-fee revenue in the last three years, which it used to pay off debt from building the Red Mountain Branch of the Mesa Public Library in 1995. In Gilbert, the town has historically created fewer but larger parks, said Dawn Buckland, Gilbert's director of the Office of Management and Budget. The town has already bought large parcels of land with plans to develop them into parks, but officials will have to find another source of money. "I think parks down in the southern part of the city are going to be some of our largest concerns because there are some legitimate needs down there," she said. Looking forward Arizona homebuilders have lauded the legislation, which they say ensures that fees pay for projects near development and that those projects are done quickly, said Jackson Moll, deputy director of municipal affairs for the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona. It's not fair to charge a fee for a park that ends up being built across the city, he said, and if an amenity benefits more than just the new people in the development, then cities should find another source of money. While costs for developers have fallen in many cities, some local officials think that will be only temporary. ON THE BEAT Kaila White covers Glendale City Hall, the Glendale Municipal Airport, homeowner associations, public safety and other municipal issues How to reach her kaila.white@arizonarepublic.com Phone:602-444-4307 Twitter: @kailawhite Some of the biggest parks and libraries in metro Phoenix 1. Phoenix: Burton Barr Central Library This 280,000-square-foot library has the largest collection of books, DVDs, CDs and other materials in the Phoenix Public Library system. That includes 500,000 collection items and 90 computers, as well as community-oriented amenities such as College Depot and hive @ central, an area dedicated exclusively to teenagers. Details: 1221 N. Central Ave., Phoenix. phoenixpubliclibrary.org. 2. Phoenix: South Mountain Community Library As both a South Mountain Community College library and a branch of the Phoenix Public Library, this 38,000-square-foot facility is home to thousands of books and publications, more than 100 computers, ten study rooms for up to eight people and a separate area for teens and children. Details: 7050 S. 24th St., Phoenix. 602-243-8187, southmountaincc.edu/library. 3. Tempe: Kiwanis Park This 125-acre park is home to the Kiwanis Recreation Center, which houses an indoor wave pool, fitness center and gymnasium in its 54,000 square feet. The park, which is Tempe's largest, is also home to 15 tennis courts and a batting range, and hosts classes and events such as movies in the park. Details: 6111 S. All-America Way, Tempe. 480-350-5201, tempe.gov. 4. Gilbert: Freestone District Park Gilbert's largest park has 88 developed acres complete with a skate park and an amusement area with a miniature railroad, carousel and mini Ferris wheel. The park also has softball fields, batting cages, an amphitheater and volleyball, tennis and basketball courts. Details: 1045 E. Juniper Ave., Gilbert. 480-503-6200, gilbertaz.gov/freestone-park. 5. Peoria: Pioneer Community Park This 85-acre park includes a dog park, six ball fields, a concessions area, lighted multipurpose fields, a playground, a splash ground, and Heritage Garden, which can be used for small events. Details: 8755 N. 83rd Ave., Peoria. 623-773-7137, peoriaaz.gov/pioneer. 6. Phoenix: Encanto Park Of all the parks on this list, Encanto is the only one that has been named a Best City Park by Forbes magazine. The 222-acre park includes two golf courses, a swimming pool, a lagoon with paddle boats and canoes, a softball diamond, basketball and tennis courts, and a playground. There's also the Enchanted Island Amusement Park, which has rides such as a carousel and bumper boats for children 2 to 10 years old. Details: 1202 W. Encanto Blvd., Phoenix. 602-261-8991, phoenix.gov. 7. Gilbert: Southeast Regional Library This roughly 66,000-square-foot library, which is operated by the Maricopa County Library District, is home to about 150,000 items and 53 computers. Details: 775 N. Greenfield Rd., Gilbert. 602-652-3000, mcldaz.org. 8. Surprise: Northwest Regional Library Located in the Surprise Recreation Complex, this 23,000-square-foot library is operated by the Maricopa County Library District. It was built in 2002 and has a special area for teens, more than 80,000 items and 60 computers, and technology that allows self-checkout and self-check in. Details: 16089 N. Bullard Ave., Surprise. 602-652-3000, mcldaz.org. 9. Chandler: Tumbleweed Park This park is home to the Tumbleweed Recreation Center, a 62,000 square-foot recreational facility with a fitness center, indoor track, racquetball courts, exercise and dance studios and more. There's also the Chandler Tennis Center with 15 lighted courts, and Tumbleweed Ranch, a collection of historic homes, buildings and farm equipment. Details: 2250 S. McQueen Road, Chandler. 480-782-2727, chandleraz.gov. 10. Scottsdale: Scottsdale Sports Complex Athletes can find tournament-level playing conditions at this 71-acre complex, which attracts national and regional play. The facility hosts soccer, lacrosse, football and rugby on its 10 fields, four of which are international-sized fields with lights. Reservations are required. Details: 8081 E. Princess Drive, Scottsdale. 480-312-7529, scottsdaleaz.gov/parks/ssc.
Royal Tempe rulers raise water rates. Now in Tempe you will have to pay the same price for less water. I suspect the royal Tempe rules passed this silly law to get few votes from the water conservation crowd. One of the reasons governments say they create monopolies like the Tempe government monopoly on water is that using economies of scale they can reduce cost. Of course they are increasing costs and providing krappy service by doing this. Oh well, at least I have another good reason to replace government with the private sector. http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/local/tempe/article_9c5c9380-4513-11e4-9a3a-7be2453638aa.html Tempe water cost rises as city council implements conservation Posted: Friday, September 26, 2014 8:45 am By Ethan Ficthner, Special to Tribune New water conservation initiatives enacted by Tempe’s city council earlier this month will reduce water use by an estimated 780 million gallons of water per year by 2020, although it will inevitably raise the price of the water for residents and businesses. The new water proposal provides residents and businesses incentives to reduce their use of water through individual home water audits, business grants and additional rebates to those who convert lawns into drought-tolerant landscaping. But as Tempe residents and businesses continue to take advantage of these programs and ultimately buy less water from the municipality, prices will to rise to account for the loss of revenue according to the 2013 water and wastewater rates report for the city of Tempe. The Tempe City Council raised the water price citywide by 5 percent that year. The new conservation proposal does not indicate how much the incentives will influence the price of the water in Tempe, but those who do not decrease their water consumption will most likely see their bill rise. “Only the people who take advantage of the water conservation stuff are the ones whose bill stays flat or goes down,” said Tempe City Councilmember Kolby Granville. Granville said that these new initiatives to conserve water are not intended to dictate what residents do, but the city does want people to be aware of the costs their actions have on the environment. “ We want you to choose to pay those costs, or choose to decide those costs aren’t worth the benefit,” he said. While Granville said its currently cheaper for the city to produce water instead of conserving it, he said the decision to move forward was because “it’s the right thing to do.” When asked if it makes any financial sense to conserve water, Granville said, “not financially, no.” Don Bessler, Public Works director and head of drafting the water conservation proposal, said the change in the water price “is reflective of its value.” Five out of a dozen new programs in the water conservation proposal directly or indirectly target single-family home consumers — the largest source of revenue for the water utility. The two most prominent of the five programs directed at households are individual home water audits and low-flush toilet rebates. These two programs alone have the potential to save 141 million gallons of water per year, but, as Granville pointed out, that is 141 million gallons of water not bought from the municipality every year. Arizona State University economics student Justin Ursu said the Tempe council’s goal of water conservation is “valiant,” but he is left wondering what will happen to local businesses that have already taken very conservative measures and cannot reduce their consumption without affecting their business model. “Now they’re already at the point where they can’t conserve much more water, but prices are going to go up — now what are they going to do?” said Ursu. In the new proposition, a business liaison will be hired whose sole job it is to seek out local businesses and convince them to reduce their consumption by use of grants and other programs. This liaison is estimated to be so successful in saving water that “they’ll pay their own salary,” Granville said. • Ethan Fichtner is a junior at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communicatio
Why is LA obsessed with building these billion dollar boondoggles that nobody uses. I think something like 99.9% of the people in the LA metro area drive cars. When I was there the Green Line subway ended just outside of LAX and you couldn't even take it to the airport. You had to walk or take a cab for the last half mile. I met an engineer who was involved with it and he told me they didn't let the Green Line come into LAX because they were afraid it would cut into parking revenue. He said that is the same reason the Why the f*ck did they build a subway to LAX if they didn't want people to use it to go to LAX???? I guess the answer to that is obvious, they have to give pork to the private construction firms that shovel bribes, oops, I mean campaign contributions to the royal rulers of Los Angeles. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-regional-connector-20140930-story.html Metro breaks ground on key downtown L.A. subway link By Laura J. Nelson contact the reporter Downtown Regional Connector will connect three rail lines in downtown Los Angeles Transportation officials Tuesday cheered the start of construction for a subway project designed to close a frustrating gap in Los Angeles County's growing rail network. During a symbolic groundbreaking in Little Tokyo, local and federal representatives touted the 1.9-mile, $1.4-billion Downtown Regional Connector's potential to help unite a sprawling and congested region. The subway project is designed to provide a connection between three disjointed rail lines in downtown Los Angeles. The project is scheduled to open in 2020. It will allow Metro Blue, Gold and Expo lines to run through the urban core between a 7th Street subway station in the southwest section of downtown and Union Station on the Central City's northeastern edge. For the first time, passengers will be able to travel from Long Beach to Azusa, or East Los Angeles to Santa Monica, without changing trains. Any rail trip passing through downtown currently requires two transfers. "This morning, we boldly go where no transit agency has gone before," said Star Trek actor George Takei, the ceremony's master of ceremonies, echoing a signature line from the series. "We go underground, under Little Tokyo." The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority project will add three train stations in downtown, at 1st Street and Central Avenue, 2nd Street and Broadway, and 2nd and Hope streets. Officials predict that the improvement will attract more than 17,000 new daily riders. Officials meet "Some people lose hours every week to transfer from a bus to the train, just to keep going in the same direction," U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said. The new subway connector "will buy you time, peace of mind," he said, "the chance to live your life and not just wade through it." Another goal, said Los Angeles Mayor and Metro Chairman Eric Garcetti, is convincing more Angelenos that public transit can be faster—or at least less painful—than driving. Earlier this year, Metro accepted a $670-million federal grant and a $160-million low-interest loan for the project. Much of the remainder of the project's funds will come from Measure R, a half-cent sales tax increase that Los Angeles County voters approved in 2008. Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, whose district includes downtown, said Tuesday that she and fellow supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas are working on ways to reduce the effects of Metro construction on local businesses. Several popular downtown restaurants, including The Spice Table and Senor Fish, recently closed to accomodate the new rail station. Takei's involvement with public transit issues began in the 1970s, when he served on the board of the Southern California Rapid Transit District, an MTA predecessor agency that built the first phase of the Red Line subway. Takei's personal website says he was "one of the driving forces" behind a program that commissions local artwork for each Metro rail station. For more Los Angeles transportation news, follow @laura_nelson on Twitter.
A few years back I went to a talk at HSGP (Humanist Society of Phoenix) in Mesa about this. The speaker said that NASA is obsessed with building bigger and bigger and more expensive monster rockets which are not cost efficient. While at the same time the Russians are more concerned with building cost efficient rockets that can cheaply launch stuff into space. With that in mind, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out why the Pentagon wants to buy these Russian rockets as opposed to the cool but over prices rockets designed and made in the USA. http://www.latimes.com/business/aerospace/la-fi-russian-rockets-20140929-story.html California lawmakers criticize Pentagon's purchase of Russian rockets By Melody Petersen contact the reporter California lawmakers question why Pentagon continues to launch satellites with Russian rocket engines State's congressional members urge Pentagon to replace Russian-made rockets with those made in California A bipartisan group of U.S. House members from California has jumped into a high-stakes battle over the Pentagon’s use of Russian-made rocket engines to launch satellites. It’s an effort that already involves Hawthorne-based SpaceX Inc. and Aerojet Rocketdyne, which once built engines for the space shuttle in Canoga Park. The two companies want to win much more of the lucrative business of launching military satellites -- work that now goes almost exclusively to a joint venture that depends on importing Russian rocket engines. In a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, 32 members of California’s congressional delegation called on the Pentagon to stop relying on Russian rocket engines and buy them instead from American manufacturers, including those in the state. The group wrote in the Sept. 22 letter that the Defense Department “has chosen to limit competition” and buy from Russia even though rocket engines are “built here, in American factories by American workers.” One California congressman -- Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee -- was noticeably absent from the letter’s signatories. McKeon spokesman Claude Chafin said the congressman did not sign such letters when they involve an issue that could be debated by his committee. McKeon has noted his concern about the U.S. dependence on Russian rockets in the past, Chafin said. Recently, the Air Force took some first steps in an attempt to move away from the Russian engine known as the RD-180. Future supplies of the rocket engines became a concern this year when Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin threatened to stop shipments. The engines are manufactured by NPO Energomash, a company largely owned by the Russian government. A U.S. Air Force spokesman, Major Eric D. Badger, said on Monday that the Pentagon had obtained enough of the Russian engines to propel launches scheduled through spring 2016. “We are evaluating options to end the use of Russian engines,” he said. The Air Force recently asked American companies to offer suggestions on developing a new rocket engine to replace the RD-180, he said. Officials are also evaluating shorter-term solutions in case the Russians stop shipments, Badger said, including buying more American-made engines. For years, the Air Force has paid United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin, to launch its satellites. The joint venture uses some of Aerojet’s engines, but depends on the powerful Russian RD-180 to launch its Atlas V rocket. Earlier this year, SpaceX filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon, challenging its multiyear contract with United Launch Alliance. SpaceX contends that the deal -- which was approved without accepting bids from other companies -- is costing taxpayers billions of dollars in excessive launch costs, while funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to Russia’s military-industrial base. United Launch Alliance spokeswoman Jessica Rye said there was “no threat to the current deliveries of RD-180 engines.” She added that any disruption of the Pentagon contract “will have significant cost to taxpayers,” while threatening thousands of jobs, including at the joint venture’s suppliers in California. Follow me on Twitter @MelodyPetersen
If we pass a law in Arizona legalizing marijuana we don't want to have to deal with BS like this where politicians are constantly enacting other laws to prevent people from using, selling, growing or processing marijuana. We need an initiative with hooks in it to prevent government tyrants from passing other laws which to nullify legalized marijuana. At the July 2014 Phoenix NORML meeting Andrew Myers said something like we have to give the police, fireman and other government bureaucrats the silly rules they want in order to legalize marijuana. I disagree with Andrew Myers 100% on that. My view is f*ck the police, fireman and other government bureaucrats. They are "public servants" who should do what WE tell them do do. They are not "royal government rulers" who have a right to tell us what to do. http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_26636188/san-jose-medical-marijuana-measure-headed-voters-would San Jose medical marijuana measure headed to voters; would weaken pot shop rules By Mike Rosenberg mrosenberg@mercurynews.com Posted: 09/30/2014 02:30:35 PM PDT SAN JOSE -- Voters will have a chance to overturn San Jose's strict new regulations on pot shops in favor of looser rules, though it will be a while before the weed war ignites at the ballot. The City Council in June voted to limit all shops to select industrial areas that make up less than 1 percent of San Jose, while the surviving marijuana stores would then have to adopt costly new safety and operational standards. Angry opponents argued that virtually all of San Jose's 80 dispensaries would have to close by the time the rules take full effect in summer 2015 and had warned they would try to overturn the law change at the ballot box. The new measure, backed by a group of medical marijuana supporters with a history of fighting City Hall, would allow dispensaries to open in commercial zones that will soon become pot-free. Elections officials announced this week that the group had gathered about 25,000 valid signatures, about 5,000 more than needed for the initiative to be placed before voters. It is the second time in the last three years that marijuana activists have qualified a measure to overturn tough regulations adopted at City Hall. The last effort, a referendum, led city leaders to withdraw the rules and go back to the drawing board rather than put them to a public vote. But city leaders this time around say they won't change anything unless voters approve the new measure two years from now -- and polls indicate the measure faces an uphill battle. After meeting on the issue Tuesday, the council is expected in the coming weeks to place the measure on the next regular election ballot, in June 2016, as it would cost $3.5 million for a special election before then. Council members, who requested more information on how the initiative could affect the city, could avoid the cost and hassle of an election by simply adopting the marijuana supporters' proposal, but they think they have the public on their side. A recent city-commissioned poll showed 74 percent of likely voters supported the city's new regulations amid concerns that the pot shops were degrading neighborhoods, supplying kids with drugs and contributing to crime. What's more, Mayor Chuck Reed has vowed to lead a campaign to defeat the measure even after he is termed out at the end of this year. He is already questioning whether allowing pot shops in commercial zones could lead neighborhood business districts such as downtown Willow Glen to turn into "Little Amsterdam." He said he had "grave concerns" about the initiative, and his allies on the council agreed. "I can't believe that this actually passed muster," Councilman Johnny Khamis said of the initiative making the ballot. He was one of the council members who accused signature gatherers of telling voters the new rules banned pot shops. (Marijuana activists say some signature gatherers may have been referring to an initial proposal from the city earlier this year to possibly outlaw dispensaries.) Yet the group behind the initiative, called Sensible San Jose, argues that if the rules wind up being so harsh that all shops have to close, the city would lose $5 million in tax revenue from the shops while some legitimately ill weed smokers would turn to drug dealers. Polls also indicate the left-leaning San Jose electorate is strongly opposed to a complete ban on dispensaries, and by the June 2016 election, the new rules will have been in effect for a year -- long enough to tell if they're working. "It gives us an option. Is it a de-facto ban? Have prices gone through the roof, has quality of service declined, have patients gone back to the underground market?" said Sensible San Jose Chairman James Anthony, an Oakland-based attorney. "My guess is it won't be a functional system." Seven cannabis shops -- representing less than 10 percent of existing dispensaries -- have been granted permits to operate under the new rules starting next year and a couple others are expected to be approved soon. Following the council's 7-3 vote in June to adopt the new regulations, opponents had divided into two groups. Before Sensible San Jose's measure was cleared for the ballot, a different group, which promoted even looser regulations, failed in its initiative drive when election officials declared most of their signatures were bogus. Contact Mike Rosenberg at 408-920-5705. Follow him at Twitter.com/RosenbergMerc.
Securing Our Data Should Come First The author of this article didn't address the fact that in the Telecommunication Act of I think 1997, the Federal government requires vendors of cell phones to help the Feds track our location, requiring vendors to put GPS chips in cell phones, or allow location tracking via triangulation. The same law also requires makers of telephone switches to make it easy for cops to tap our phones. When ever you make a phone call, cell or land line based the call goes thru one or more telephone switches. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/09/30/apple-vs-the-law/securing-our-data-should-come-first Securing Our Data Should Come First Alex Abdo Alex Abdo is a staff attorney in the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. He is on Twitter. September 30, 2014 Apple’s new encryption policy is a victory for privacy, security and free speech. We should encourage other companies to safeguard their customer’s data in the same way. In an era of cyber insecurity, strong encryption is more critical than ever. The F.B.I. has suggested that instead of protecting its users from those threats, Apple — and presumably every other tech company — should weaken its encryption by building in a backdoor to all of our secrets. As security experts have observed, this is a disastrous idea. Once you build a backdoor, you can’t control who will use it. Hackers will search for them — and eventually exploit them. And foreign governments will come knocking, too, perhaps for good reasons, but perhaps to persecute political dissidents. And requiring the tech companies to build backdoors will not make it any easier to capture sophisticated criminals. Those criminals already have access to a wide array of encryption technologies that don’t rely on intermediaries like Apple. There’s a deeper flaw in the F.B.I.’s criticism. The bureau appears to believe that, with a warrant, it should have access to whatever information it likes. But the government has never had access to everything, and it shouldn’t. We have always been free to burn our letters, to shred our files, and to delete our emails. In the recent debate, no federal official has seriously proposed compelling Apple and the rest of the tech companies to build backdoors in their products, but statements like the F.B.I.’s carry with them a not-so-subtle coercion. That is unfortunate, because we have always been free — under the First Amendment — to communicate using encryption without giving the government a spare set of keys. The government could no more prohibit backdoor-free encryption than it could mandate that everyone write intelligibly and in a language that the F.B.I. understands. And it could no more order Apple to create a backdoor in its iPhone encryption than it could compel Gmail to prevent users from obscuring their emails through allusion and double-meaning. Encryption has a long pedigree in our country. Indeed, it is more than just a little bit ironic that today’s F.B.I. laments the widespread security that encryption brings while James Madison and Thomas Jefferson relied on it to protect their most sensitive correspondence — about the drafting of the First Amendment, no less. In the end, it is shortsighted to believe that making all of our information more vulnerable will somehow make us safer. The opposite is true. We are all safer — and freer — when our private data is more secure.
The Libertarian platform calls for the LEGALIZATION of ALL drugs, not just marijuana. I often make fun of kinda, sorta, maybe Libertarian candidate for Arizona Governor, Barry Hess for saying he wants to "decriminalize drugs", not totally legalize drugs as the Libertarian platform calls for. Some people on Facebook have said that "decriminalizing drugs" goes beyond legalizing drugs. I disagree with that and say that "decriminalization drugs" isn't even close to legalizing drugs. In the article about how marijuana has been "decriminalized" in Maryland they seem to agree with my definition of "decriminalizing drugs", which is a subset of legalizing drugs. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/pot-decriminalization--for-small-amounts--takes-effect-in-maryland-on-wednesday/2014/09/30/bc379534-48a5-11e4-891d-713f052086a0_story.html?tid=hpModule_13097a0c-868e-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394&hpid=z11 Having a small amount of pot in Md. is no longer a criminal case By Jenna Johnson October 1 at 12:00 AM Getting caught with a small plastic bag of marijuana in Maryland used to carry the risk of both criminal charges and jail time. But once the clock struck midnight, Maryland’s decriminalization law took effect, replacing criminal charges, in most cases, with a civil citation and a fine — similar to getting a parking ticket. The law is one of hundreds that, as of the first day of October, are on the books in Maryland, the District and Virginia. D.C. residents now have a 5.75 percent sales tax on gym memberships, yoga classes, car washes and deliveries of bottled water, among other services. At the same time, the city will give its employees up to eight weeks of paid leave after the birth or adoption of a child or when an employee must look after a family member with a serious health condition. Virginia’s new laws include one addressing the social history of minors who are being considered for placement in a juvenile correctional facility. And the minimum wage in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties has increased to $8.40 per hour, part of a regional effort to gradually grow baseline pay so it reaches $11.50 by 2017. Preparation for pot decriminalization in Maryland — a change that recently happened in the District — hasn’t been simple. Prosecutors and police had to make several decisions: How will officers determine the weight of the marijuana they discover? What happens if they arrest someone for having more than 10 grams only to discover at the station that it was less? And given that it is still a criminal offense to carry drug paraphernalia — including bongs, pipes and rolling papers — should officers use that charge against suspected drug offenders instead? The Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention, with help from Maryland State Police and the Attorney General’s Office, state conducted training sessions for local law enforcement officers. Maryland State Police drafted a new policy but the agency is encouraging barracks commanders to work closely with prosecutors, said spokesman Gregory Shipley. “That way, we’re not charging someone who’s going to not be prosecuted,” Shipley said. “We know there may be some differences.” State troopers will use their best judgment in guessing the weight of marijuana, Shipley said, since “the troopers won’t be carrying scales.” If it looks like less than 10 grams, troopers will issue a civil citation. If it looks like more than that, troopers will make an arrest and head to a station for an official weighing. If the trooper guessed wrong, the arrested individual will be released and issued a civil citation. Under federal law, possession of any amount of marijuana is still illegal. And in Maryland, because of the danger the drug poses to young, developing brains, those under 21 who are accused of having less than 10 grams will have to pay a fine and attend a drug education program. For second and third offenses, the penalties escalate. Here are some of the other new laws in Maryland: ●Transgender individuals have new civil rights protections under the Fairness for All Marylanders Act of 2014. The law includes an exemption for religious organizations, private clubs and educational institutions. ●Drivers who cause a serious crash while distracted by a cellphone face higher penalties: up to one year in jail, a fine of up to $5,000 and 12 points on his or her driver’s license, the point at which it can be revoked. The penalties are part of what has been called “Jake’s Law,” in memory of a 5-year-old from Baltimore killed in 2011. ●A package of laws targeting domestic violence will make it easier for victims to obtain protective orders and allow judges to impose harsher sentences for violence committed in front of children. ●Laws aimed at reducing corruption in corrections facilities and the number of contraband cellphones in Maryland jails will also take effect, including one that allows the immediate suspension of prison guards caught sneaking in contraband. ● “Revenge porn” — when a person posts a sex tape online or circulates intimate photos to embarrass or harm a former partner — is illegal, punishable by up to two years in jail and a fine of up to $5,000. ●Drunk drivers and those convicted of alcohol-related offenses while driving with a child under age 16 will have to install an ignition interlock system in their vehicles that will prevent them from driving if they have been drinking. ●Maryland has also implemented a “Good Samaritan” law, which gives some immunity from criminal prosecution to a person who alerts authorities to a medical emergency resulting from a drug or alcohol overdose. ●Drivers will face a fine of up to $500 if they do not move over a lane when they see a tow truck on the side of a highway. In the District, a family-leave benefit fulfills a campaign promise Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) made in the spring, before he lost the Democratic primary and his bid for a second term Gray said he learned from employees in his office that the city did not offer paid maternity or paternity leave. According to city statistics, fewer than 16 percent of state and local governments offer paid parental or family leave to employees; 12 percent of private sector employers offer it. The city’s “yoga tax” was a hotly debated part of a tax package approved by the D.C. Council. The expansion of the sales tax inches up D.C. residents’ overall tax bills before broader income-tax, business-tax and other cuts take effect, likely within two years. In Virginia, one new law requires judges to review and consider the social history of a minor before ordering the minor to be committed to the Department of Juvenile Justice for placement in a juvenile correction center. Another new law requires the state to conform with federal guidelines when dealing with landowners who voluntarily sell their property to the government for transportation projects. Aaron C. Davis and Jenna Portnoy contributed to this report. Jenna Johnson writes about Maryland politics, including the General Assembly, the administration of Gov. Martin O'Malley and the 2014 election.
Look if Senator Larry Craig wants to have gay sex in airport bathrooms I support him 100%. The government shouldn't be telling you what kind of sex you can have or where you can have it. The government doesn't have any business spying on you in your bedroom, or an airport bathroom. But I would hope that Senator Larry Craig obey all the silly laws that him and his crooked friends in Washington D.C. pass and expect the rest of us to obey. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/wp/2014/09/30/former-senator-larry-craig-owes-u-s-treasury-242000-over-airport-sex-sting-arrest-judge-says/?hpid=z4 Former senator Larry Craig owes U.S. Treasury $242,000 over airport sex-sting arrest, judge says By Al Kamen and Spencer Hsu September 30 at 4:18 PM A federal judge Tuesday ordered former senator Larry “Wide Stance” Craig (R-Idaho) to pay the U.S. Treasury $242,000 for improperly using campaign funds to pay for his legal defense after a 2007 sex-sting arrest in a Minneapolis airport bathroom. Craig incurred the legal costs after seeking to withdraw his guilty plea to one count of disorderly conduct at the airport during a layover from a return flight to Washington from his home. Loop Fans may recall our prior analyses of his trip to the bathroom. Best we were able to determine at the time — judging from what sources told us were the usual arrival and departure gates for his flights — Craig may have passed not one, not two, not three but four bathrooms at the airport along the way before choosing the very one that an airport official called “the biggest hotspot” for sexual encounters. But we digress. In the current legal action, Craig argued that Senate rules permit reimbursement for any costs while on official travel. But the Federal Election Commission filed suit, saying Craig converted the campaign funds for personal use in violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District agreed. “The Court finds that defendants violated the FECA when they converted campaign funds to pay for legal expenses related to Senator Craig’s efforts to withdraw his guilty plea, which was a personal matter that was not connected to the Senator’s duties as an officeholder,” Jackson wrote.
Next time a politician or government bureaucrat tells you something will NEVER happen again, remember this. Same goes for when a police chief tells you they make it impossible for bad guys to do stuff. Or when a politician or government bureaucrat says they NEVER lie. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-julia-pierson-puts-the-secret-in-secret-service/2014/09/30/6fde8a6e-48df-11e4-891d-713f052086a0_story.html?hpid=z2 Julia Pierson puts the ‘secret’ in Secret Service Secret Service Director Julia Pierson testifies before the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014. (AP) By Dana Milbank Opinion writer September 30 at 5:12 PM Julia Pierson is really putting “secret” into the Secret Service. First, her agency declared that the White House fence jumper who made it all the way into the Executive Mansion was unarmed; turned out later that he had a knife. Then the agency said the jumper was subdued as soon as he entered through the North Portico. Now we learn, from The Post’s Carol D. Leonnig, that he led agents on a dance into the East Room and outside the Green Room. At this rate of disclosure, we may soon learn that the jumper stopped in the Oval Office and signed a few executive orders while talking to Vladimir Putin on the red telephone. Leonnig, in another blockbuster, reported over the weekend that the Secret Service covered up details of a 2011 incident in which shots were fired at the White House. Hidden from the people and their representatives: that the shots posed a potential danger to the Obama daughters and that it took the Secret Service four days to realize that bullets had hit the White House residence — and then only because a housekeeper found broken glass. Pierson was Secret Service chief of staff at the time. The combination of these lapses, and the added insult that lawmakers learned about them from The Post, led members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday to direct a stream of insults at Pierson and her agency. “Stunning.” “Profoundly inadequate.” “Absolutely disgraceful.” “Outrageous.” “Just mind-boggling.” “Gross neglect.” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) questions Secret Service Director Julia Pierson at a House hearing on Tuesday. (AP) “Unacceptable.” Pierson, hunched, her forearms on the witness table, did not dispute the adjectives. But she argued that the fence-jumping episode was an aberration and not evidence of deeper problems. She claimed the agency had improved its culture during her 18 months at the top. “This incident is an operational incident,” she told the lawmakers, who had returned from recess to hold the hearing. “Although it’s being addressed as it’s very similar or a side effect of some of the other cultural problems, I looked at as a strict tactical concern . . . Mistakes were made, and the proper protocols were not followed.” Yes, mistakes were made, including Pierson’s use of that Watergate-era phrase — three times. Pierson’s bigger mistake, and the one that might force a bigger shake-up on the Secret Service than she intends: her failure to grasp the larger problem. The first woman to lead the elite lawenforcement squad, she was brought in to change the frat-house culture seen in the 2012 Cartagena prostitution scandal and, earlier this year, in drunkenness episodes in Miami and Amsterdam. She claims to have improved that problem (“We’ve instituted an Office of Professional Integrity”), but she’s now allowing an equally pernicious culture to flourish — a culture of concealment and coverup. The agency’s failure to come clean about the details of the 2011 incident and the recent fence-jumping caper makes it look as if Secret Service secrecy is not meant to protect the president’s life but to protect an arrogant agency from embarrassment and reform. Lawmakers offered various unhelpful remedies to patch White House security. D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) proposed a higher, curved fence with “multilayered glass.” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) suggested agents shoot to kill. Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) proposed “vegetation barriers” such as “Spanish bayonets.” He then held up the octagonal emblem of security firm ADT. “Ever heard of these guys?” he asked Pierson. “You could subscribe.” Pierson defended herself with bureaucratic phrases about “robust conversations” and “comprehensive reviews” and “the totality of the circumstances.” She sounded at times like a sheriff’s deputy reading police reports. About the 2011 incident, she said: “The vehicle sped away and went westbound on Constitution, erratically driving and struck a lightpost in the area of 23rd and Constitution.” About this month’s episode, she recounted: “They stepped momentarily into the East Room. Another officer rendered aid, and he was placed on the ground . . .” But nobody rushed to render aid to Pierson. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) mocked the agency’s initial explanation that the seven shots fired at the White House in 2011 were backfires: “I’ve never heard a car backfire six to eight times, director, never.” “I’ve heard car backfires,” Pierson ventured, attempting an argument about “sound attenuation.” As problematic as her answers was her passionless delivery. “I don’t sense from you, Director Pierson, a sense of outrage,” observed Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.). “A sense of mission that you want to reform and correct this cascading set of mistakes that led to, potentially, a catastrophe.” Pierson’s mild reply: “I’m sorry you don’t get that sense from me.”
I won't make any snide comments about this because I don't want any Secret Service goons on my door step arresting me for thinking I have a First Amendment right to say stuff. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/armed-former-convict-was-on-elevator-with-obama-in-atlanta/2014/09/30/76d7da24-48e3-11e4-891d-713f052086a0_story.html?hpid=z1 Armed contractor with criminal record was on elevator with Obama in Atlanta By Carol D. Leonnig September 30 at 8:43 PM A security contractor with a gun and three convictions for assault and battery was allowed on an elevator with President Obama during a Sept. 16 trip to Atlanta, violating Secret Service protocols, according to three people familiar with the incident. Obama was not told about the lapse in his security, these people said. The Secret Service director, Julia Pierson, asked a top agency manager to look into the matter but did not refer it to an investigative unit that was created to review violations of protocol and standards, according to two people familiar with the handling of the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The incident, which took place when Obama visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to discuss the U.S. response to the Ebola crisis, rattled Secret Service agents assigned to the president’s protective detail. The private contractor first aroused the agents’ concerns when he acted oddly and did not comply with their orders to stop using a cellphone camera to record the president in the elevator, according to the people familiar with the incident. When the elevator opened, Obama left with most of his Secret Service detail. Some agents stayed behind to question the man and then used a national database check that turned up his criminal history. When a supervisor from the firm providing security at the CDC approached and discovered the agents’ concerns, the contractor was fired on the spot. Then the contractor agreed to turn over his gun — surprising agents, who had not realized that he was armed during his encounter with Obama. Extensive screening is supposed to keep people with weapons or criminal histories out of arm’s reach of the president. But it appears that this man, possessing a gun, came within inches of the president after undergoing no such screening. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who heads a House subcommittee that oversees the Secret Service, first heard of the breakdown from a whistleblower. The Washington Post confirmed details of the event with other people familiar with the agency’s review. “You have a convicted felon within arm’s reach of the president, and they never did a background check,” Chaffetz said. “Words aren’t strong enough for the outrage I feel for the safety of the president and his family. “ Chaffetz added: “His life was in danger. This country would be a different world today if he had pulled out his gun.” A Secret Service official, speaking on behalf of the agency, said an investigation of the incident is ongoing. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the pending review. A White House spokesman declined to comment on the incident or say when, or if, the president had been informed of it. In response to a question at a combative House hearing Tuesday, Pierson said she briefs the president “100 percent of the time” when his personal security has been breached. However, she said that had happened only one time this year: when Omar Gonzalez jumped over the White House fence Sept. 19 and was able to burst into the mansion. The revelation of the lapse in Atlanta is the latest in a string of embarrassments for the Secret Service. Some elements of the incident were first reported Tuesday afternoon on the Washington Examiner’s Web site. Pierson drew criticism Tuesday from lawmakers in both parties during the hearing on her agency’s security lapses. The session focused on the Secret Service’s fumbled responses to the recent White House fence jumper and a 2011 shooting attack on the residence. The fence breach came three days after Obama’s trip to Atlanta. The elevator incident exposed a breakdown in Secret Service protocols designed to keep the president safe from strangers when he travels to events outside the White House. Under a security measure called the Arm’s Reach Program, Secret Service advance staffers run potential event staff members, contractors, hotel employees, invited guests and volunteers through several databases, including a national criminal information registry, and records kept by the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Defense Department, among others. Anyone who is found to have a criminal history, mental illness or other indications of risk is barred from entry. Local police and federal officers are not checked in the same way under the Arm’s Reach Program, with the Secret Service presuming that they meet the safety standards because of their employment in law enforcement. But private security contractors would typically be checked, said two former agents who worked on advance planning for presidential trips. For nearly every trip the president takes, at least one person is barred from attending or participating in an event because of problems discovered in his or her background, the two former agents said. Most recently, a local political campaign volunteer who was offering to help drive staffers to and from events during a visit had faced an assault charge in the past. As part of the Secret Service’s review of the elevator incident, Pierson directed a supervising agent on the president’s protective detail to stay in Atlanta to examine the breakdown. That decision aroused suspicion on Capitol Hill. Chaffetz said he believes that Pierson was trying to keep another security gaffe quiet at a time when her agency and her leadership are under fire. Former and current agents say Secret Service leaders prefer this kind of informal internal review for assessing potentially embarrassing mistakes. They say such reviews rarely lead to broad reforms or consequences. These agents also say it is problematic for a presidential protective detail supervisor to review how his team performed. In an incident The Post revealed in 2013, a top manager of the president’s protective detail had met a woman while drinking at a bar at the Hay-Adams hotel and had left a bullet from his service weapon in her room after spending the evening with her there. One of his superiors reviewed the incident and at first recommended that he receive a few days of counseling. The Post report about the episode led to the agency launching a fuller investigation. Julie Tate contributed to this report.
Stand up and do right thing — study issues and vote????? So who do you vote for when the Democrat on the ballot reminds you of Hitler and the Republican on the ballot reminds you of Stalin??? Which is why every election should have a "none of the above" box to check. And of course if "none of the above" wins the office should be unfilled for the term. http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/letters/2014/10/01/ellen-thomas-letter-to-editor/16513859/ Stand up and do right thing — study issues and vote The Republic 11:02 p.m. MST September 30, 2014 The only thing that allows evil to reign in this world is for good people to do nothing! At this time, one way to do nothing is to not vote. This allows the bullies and money men to win. I am registered to vote, have an early ballot sent to my home and have done my research. One thing I will not do however is vote for someone who has no logical ideas of his own, but just demeans and lies about his opponent. Please stand up and do the right thing! — Ellen Thomas, Mesa
If you ask me BOTH of these candidates for AG suck. Which is why every election should have a "none of the above" box to check. And of course if "none of the above" wins the office should be unfilled for the term. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/politics/2014/10/01/arizona-attorney-general-candidates-debate/16519441/ Arizona AG candidates focus on attacks, not issues Alia Beard Rau, The Republic | azcentral.com 10:34 p.m. MST September 30, 2014 PNI debate In a rapid-fire live TV debate, the two candidates for the state's top legal post spent half an hour hurling barbs back and forth, accusing each other of being too political and not having the right background for the job. Republican Mark Brnovich and Democrat Felecia Rotellini spent almost no time talking about what they would do if elected attorney general in November. "It's time to put the people first and return the Attorney General's Office to its core mission," Rotellini said during the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission debate televised on Channel 8 (KAET). "It's not a political job. It's a public safety job. I'll rise above partisan politics and be an independent watchdog for the people of Arizona." She then several times accused Brnovich of being an "anti-choice" ideologue beholden to "dark money." Brnovich, a former Arizona gaming director and assistant U.S. attorney, noted this is the first office he has run for, and is focused not on politics but on keeping Arizona families safe. "So many people want to tear folks down rather than bring them together," he said. He then criticized Rotellini, a former civil and criminal prosecutor in the Attorney General's Office, for taking donations from individuals connected to the private prison industry and accused her of profiting from helping the banks she used to regulate. He alleged mortgage fraud increased during her time overseeing the Arizona Banking Department. Rotellini attacked Brnovich for the time he spent lobbying for the private prison industry, mentioning his work to kill a 2006 bill that would have forbidden private prisons from bringing convicted murderers and sex offenders into Arizona to house. Her campaign released an ad Tuesday that attacks Brnovich for the legislation, and appears to blame the death of the bill for a 2010 prison escape that led to a couple being murdered. The ad fails to mention that Arizona Department of Corrections records appear to show the three escapees, while being held in a private prison, were convicted of crimes in Arizona and so the legislation would not have applied. "He thought it was better to kill a piece of legislation that would bring killers and rapists into the state of Arizona, and now he says he wants to make Arizona safer?" she asked. Brnovich defended the industry. "I have spent most of my career putting people in prison," he said. "We have 7,000 inmates in private facilities that are Arizona felons. If legislatures don't want to build more prisons, we have to have some place to incarcerate people." Brnovich then criticized Rotellini for supporting the Obama administration. He said he's the only candidate who will push back against the federal government. Rotellini said she will go up against the federal government on what she describes as "draconian" EPA regulations, as well as some regulations of U.S. waterways. In the few minutes the two did talk issues, they ultimately agreed. Both said the next attorney general needs to focus on going after drug cartels and smugglers, including using forfeiture laws to target their finances. Both said they would defend Arizona law, regardless of personal opinions. When asked, Rotellini said if a version of the controversial religion law Senate Bill 1062 were passed in the future, she would defend it. "But I will go on record again that it is unconstitutional," she said. "It is not in the best interest of Arizona." Brnovich avoided answering whether he supported or opposed such legislation, saying he would defend it if it became law. When pushed after the debate whether he thought it was constitutional, he said it was "irrelevant."
Don't these pigs have any REAL criminals to hunt down??? Why are we paying cops $25 to $50 an hour to be garbage collectors and pick up people expired prescription medicine. I doubt if the city of Paradise Valley pays their garbage collectors more then $10 or $15 an hour. In the Phoenix area most cops start at around $50,000 a year which is around $25/hr before benefits. Many cops easily make over $100,000 a year or $50+ an hour. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/scottsdale/2014/09/30/paradise-valley-drug-take-back-event/16514027/ PV police: Event nets 450 pounds of expired medication Agnel Phillip, The Republicazcentral.com 9:32 p.m. MST September 30, 2014 The Paradise Valley Police Department announced on Tuesday that it collected nearly 450 pounds of prescription drugs on Saturday as part of its second take-back event this year. Officer Kevin Albert, spokesman for the Paradise Valley Police Department, said a constant line of people were waiting to drop off their prescription drugs. Collected drugs included Valium, a pain-management drug, and Librium, used to treat anxiety. One of the turned-in prescriptions expired more than 40 years ago. The total weight of Saturday's haul was 2 1/2 times the weight of what was collected during Paradise Valley's first take-back day in April, according to a police statement. Albert said the drugs will be destroyed in the near future. Overall, the community has seen an increase in the prevalence of prescription drugs, and police have seen instances where teenagers were abusing them at parties, Albert said. The take-back events are part of a nationwide initiative sponsored by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The initiative started in 2010 and has resulted in the collection of more than 4.1 million pounds of prescription drugs, according to a DEA statement. Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug, according to reserachers at the Mayo Clinic and Olmstead medical center. More than 70 percent of people who abuse prescription drugs got them from friends or family members, according to the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Paradise Valley placed a prescription-drug collection box in the lobby of the police department building, located near Lincoln Drive and Invergordon Road, in February. Albert said community members, including those who outside of Paradise Valley, can drop off prescription drugs in the box at any time.
As long as cops are allowed to decide when to turn their cameras on and off, the cameras will be worthless. Do you really think a racist cop is going leave his camera running while he beats up somebody??? Or while he illegally searches or questions somebody??? Of course not. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/scottsdale/2014/09/30/arizona-police-cameras-scottsdale-abrk/16502457/ Scottsdale DUI lawyer pushes for more police cameras Andrew Romanov, The Republic | azcentral.com 4:24 p.m. MST September 30, 2014 The police shootings of an unarmed man in a St. Louis suburb and an unarmed man in South Carolina have both shown that video can provide valuable evidence for police and the public in cases that have few other witnesses, and prompted a Valley attorney to ask why more agencies don't use cameras. Craig Rosenstein, a Scottsdale DUI attorney, said members of the public could be surprised how few police officers and deputies in Maricopa County use cameras in their vehicles. "This is a widespread failure," said Rosenstein, who noted that other department's around the state might serve as a blueprint on how to implement the programs. "The justice system is dogged because so many of these cases end up being a police officer's word against a defendant's word. There's no third party account," he said. But more and more Valley agencies have started outfitting officers with cameras in recent years, including some forced to do so by courts and others who wish to avoid the same fate. In 2013, U.S. District Judge Murray Snow ordered that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office install cameras in every deputy's vehicle. The reform was part of the federal judge's ruling that Sheriff's Joe Arpaio's office violated the constitutional rights of Latinos through many of its immigration enforcement efforts. In September, the agency's court-appointed monitor presented a report indicating that the Sheriff's office was lagging in its compliance with the judge's reforms. In a separate 2006 race-profiling settlement, the Arizona Department of Public Safety was ordered to install vehicle-based video systems in all of its patrol vehicles throughout the state. The class-action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union alleged DPS officers were discriminating against Hispanics and Blacks during traffic stops. Some local jurisdictions are trying to avoid similar lawsuits by implementing camera systems now. The Scottsdale and Gilbert police departments are testing cameras worn on patrol officers as part of pilot programs to decide whether to implement the cameras for permanent use. Scottsdale is testing ten cameras while Gilbert tests 32. In Surprise, police officers have worn body cameras since August 2013. All patrol officers use the cameras while responding to investigations, traffic enforcement and contact with the community. Some agencies have cited cost and budget concerns when defending their slow implementation of camera systems, but Rosenstein said cameras will save money in the long term. "Police departments spend a ton of money defending themselves when people accuse them of wrongdoing," Rosenstein said. "A camera would bolster what they're saying is the truth." The Phoenix Police Department does not use vehicle cameras, but is currently testing 55 body cameras as part of an Arizona State University study. Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Trent Crump said the department is already successful in prosecuting cases without video evidence. "If the courts begin to dictate or request additional information, we'll comply," Crump said. Rosenstein said that is a scary thought process for law enforcement to have. "Just because juries convict doesn't mean we shouldn't have independent corroboration for all to see," Rosenstein said. "Juries are generally inclined to believe an officer over a person accused of a crime and has a different view of events."
Throwing store owners in prison for giving out plastic bags is just as silly as throwing people in prison who smoke marijuana. Don't these government nannies have any REAL problems to solve. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/30/california-becomes-first-state-to-ban-plastic-bags/16483241/ California becomes first state to ban plastic bags Associated Press 11:13 a.m. MST September 30, 2014 SACRAMENTO, California — Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed legislation imposing the first statewide ban in the U.S. on single-use plastic bags, driven to action by a buildup of litter and damage to aquatic ecosystems. A national coalition of plastic bag manufacturers immediately said it would seek a voter referendum to repeal the law, which is scheduled to take effect in July 2015. Under the law, plastic bags will be phased out of large grocery stores starting next summer and convenience stores and pharmacies in 2016. The law allows grocers to charge a fee of at least 10 cents for using paper bags. State Sen. Alex Padilla credits the momentum for statewide legislation to the more than 100 cities and counties, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, that already have such bans. The measure marks a major milestone for environmental activists who have successfully pushed plastic bag bans in cities across the U.S., including Chicago, Austin and Seattle. "This bill is a step in the right direction — it reduces the torrent of plastic polluting our beaches, parks and even the vast ocean itself," Brown said in a signing statement. "We're the first to ban these bags, and we won't be the last." State Capitol Plastic bag manufacturers have aggressively pushed back through their trade group, the American Progressive Bag Alliance, which aired commercials in California blasting the ban as a cash-giveaway to grocers that would lead to a loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs. "If this law were allowed to go into effect, it would jeopardize thousands of California manufacturing jobs, hurt the environment, and fleece consumers for billions so grocery store shareholders and their union partners can line their pockets," Lee Califf, executive director of the manufacturer trade group, said in a statement. Paper bag manufacturers also opposed Padilla's bill. The American Forest and Paper Association, a trade group, says it unfairly treats their commonly recycled products like plastic, while holding reusable plastic bags to a lower standard for recyclable content. Responding to the concerns about job losses, the bill includes $2 million in loans for plastic bag manufacturers to shift their operations to make reusable bags.
A lot of people say I am a nut job when I complain about crooked cops and crooked government. They say that sure every once in a while there are problems in the police and the government but they are quickly fixed. In that case I am sure this problem in the Maricopa County jail of prisoners who have been denied medical care will be quickly fixed. Hey, after 37 years, it should be fixed in a few years. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2014/09/30/mcso-jails-aclu-medical-issues/16504567/ Federal judge finds medical issues persist in MCSO jails Megan Cassidy, The Republic | azcentral.com 4:22 p.m. MST September 30, 2014 A 37-year lawsuit alleging inhumane treatment in Maricopa County jails has been prolonged yet again, after a federal judge found systematic deficiencies persisted in the areas of medical and mental healthcare. In a ruling released Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake found that while the jails had made improvements in medical staffing and treatment for some inmates suffering from drug and alcohol withdrawal, issues involving suicide monitoring and placement for seriously mentally ill inmates remained unresolved. An accompanying document maps out a brisk timeline for officials to fix the remaining issues, ordering defendants to prove full compliance by September 2015. Wake's decision follows a March evidentiary hearing, in which attorneys argued whether health conditions in Maricopa County jails had improved enough for the court-ordered oversight to at last dissolve. First Avenue Jail inmates initiated the original federal lawsuit in 1977, claiming that the detention conditions were "degrading, inhuman, punitive, unhealthy and dangerous." The court issued guidelines for legal compliance in 1981, but has twice amended that judgment — in 1995 and 2008 — to address ongoing issues. In the 2008 amendment, Wake pared down the original 115 orders to 16 that focused on food quality, sanitary conditions, overcrowding and health care in the jails. Defense attorneys for Maricopa County's Correctional Health Services in August 2013 asked Wake to lift the lingering portions of the order— covering medical and mental-health oversight— citing the Prison Litigation Reform Act. Given the potentially prolonged life expectancy of similar cases, The Prison Litigation Reform Act was passed to ensure judicial involvement was only present when necessary. Under the act, court supervision is up for review one year after the court entered an order denying its termination. Defense attorneys have noted that they were eligible to ask for a review in May 2013, one year after the third amended judgment, but waited in order to work with the consultants and address their concerns. "However, having satisfied the time period and reaching compliance, termination is appropriate," defense attorneys stated in a December motion. Defendants said they had met or exceeded all of the judgment's medical and mental health requirements, including the installment of a new electronic health records system, an expanded pre-intake health screening process and increased medical and mental provider coverage. Attorneys from the ACLU's National Prison Project help represent the plaintiffs, and drew upon the findings of both the court-appointed experts and their retained physicians to argue against terminating the case. Plaintiffs' attorneys pointed to several cases in which they say jail providers routinely failed to adequately treat their medically and mentally ill patients, in some cases resulting in death: -One patient told a nurse she had a history of abnormal heart rhythm and felt like she was having a heart attack. A nurse spoke on the phone with a provider, who did evaluate the patient, and the patient was treated for withdrawal, given water, and sent to her cell, where she died two hours later. -Two inmates in the jails died from withdrawal in April and May 2013. -One inmate diagnosed with schizophrenia was denied her medication for three weeks after her arrest. Another schizophrenic patient was placed in closed-custody housing without his prescribed medication and was only removed after a nurse witnessed him eating "chunks he had pulled from the cell wall," according to court documents. Defense attorneys argued that the order should be at last lifted, citing various areas in which jail operators had augmented its policies or produced promising results: -"Almost 50 percent of inmates booked each day are now ID'd as needed further evaluation with an RN resulting in proactive intervention and treatment by a higher level medical provider when recommended, resulting in reduced adverse outcomes and efficient use of resources" -Mental health referrals increased by 13 percent -The number of in-custody deaths for Maricopa County jails from 2008 through 2012 was nearly half of the reported national average. Suicides as a subcategory were also about half the national average.
Lets' face it when the bail for DUI is $15,000 it sure seems like the DUI laws are mostly about raising revenue and have little to do with safety. "Amanda Bynes arrested for DUI ... Bynes was released ... after posting $15,000 bail" Another annoying thing about his is that the cops are now drawing blood out of people to get evidence against them. I wonder when some dumb cop who is helping the government raise revenue is going to kill a person by butchering or infecting the person while taking a blood sample. Also I consider it a flagrant violation of the 5th Amendment when a cop physically withdraws your blood against your will. But of course don't count on the Supremes to declare that to be unconstitutional. I know that cops in Arizona are allowed to withdraw your blood. I don't know if it is allowed in California where Amanda Bynes was arrested. http://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/reel/ex-actress-amanda-bynes-arrested-dui-la Posted September 29, 2014 - 2:38pm Ex-actress Amanda Bynes arrested for DUI in LA ASSOCIATED PRESS LOS ANGELES — Former actress Amanda Bynes was arrested early Sunday morning on suspicion of driving while under the influence of a drug, authorities said Monday. Bynes, 28, was stopped by a California Highway Patrol officer after she stopped in the middle of an intersection in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of Los Angeles around 4 a.m. Sunday. The former child star was determined to be under the influence of an unidentified drug after being evaluated at a nearby police station, the CHP said in a statement. The release states that Bynes, who has had a series of driving-related arrests, was cooperative but appeared disheveled when she was taken into custody. Bynes was released hours later after posting $15,000 bail. A phone message left for her criminal defense attorney, Richard Hutton, was not immediately returned. The one-time actress remains on probation for a 2012 case filed after she clipped a Los Angeles County sheriff’s patrol car and was arrested for driving under the influence. Bynes pleaded no contest to alcohol-related reckless driving in February. In June, a New York judge dismissed a criminal case filed after Bynes was accused of throwing a bong out of her 36th-floor apartment. The case was dismissed after Bynes complied with orders to receive counseling and stay out of trouble. Last year, Bynes resolved a misdemeanor hit-and-run case in Los Angeles after entering a civil settlement with other drivers. She received psychiatric treatment last year after authorities said she set a small fire in the driveway of a home in Thousand Oaks, California. Bynes was 13 when she landed her own hit variety program, “The Amanda Show” on Nickelodeon. She went on to star in the TV series “What I Like About You” and several movies, including “What a Girl Wants,” ”Hairspray” and “She’s the Man.” She has publicly stated that she has retired from acting. Her last film credit was 2010’s “Easy A,” which starred Emma Stone. http://www.mercurynews.com/entertainment/ci_26628817/amanda-bynes-arrested-suspicion-dui Amanda Bynes arrested on suspicion of DUI Compiled by Tony Hicks thicks@bayareanewsgroup.com Posted: 09/29/2014 01:49:16 PM PDT Amanda Bynes was arrested Sunday on suspicion of driving under the influence in Southern California, according to TMZ. The good news is no one had to call the fire department this time. The "Hairspray" actress was reportedly driving a Mercedes down Van Nuys Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley when she stopped in the middle of an intersection. A CHP officer apparently spotted her and determined she was under the influence. Bynes was arrested and taken to the Los Angeles Police Department's Van Nuys division where a drug recognition officer determined she was under the influence of a drug. A source reportedly told TMZ it was a stimulant. But at least one source told the website Bynes is again smoking marijuana regularly. You know, the crazy grass. The stink weed. The reefer. The chronic. The wacky tobacky. The herb. The ... Anyway, the incident report supposedly said Bynes had a "disheveled" appearance. She was booked on suspicion of DUI and was released in lieu of $15,000. The past few years, the actress has experienced metal health issues, as well as drug and legal problems. Her parents had a conservatorship which ended earlier this month when, one source reportedly told TMZ "things started going haywire." Bynes has moved out of her parents' home and is lives in an Orange County apartment. A source reportedly told TMZ she's been smoking marijuana for weeks and her life is spiraling downward again. Bynes is still on probation for an alcohol-related reckless conviction last February. Contact Tony Hicks at Facebook.com/BayAreaNewsGroup.TonyHicks or Twitter.com/tonyhicks67. http://touch.latimes.com/#section/601/article/p2p-81537816/ Amanda Bynes, already on probation, arrested on suspicion of DUI By Richard Winton September 29, 2014, 1:00 p.m. Actress Amanda Bynes was arrested Sunday morning on a charge of driving under the influence of drugs after she stopped her car in the middle of an intersection in Sherman Oaks, a CHP officer said. Bynes, 28, a child star turned movie actress who has a history of mental health issues and arrests, was taken into custody about 4:10 a.m. by the California Highway Patrol. Bynes was driving westbound on Riverside Drive when she simply stopped her car at the Van Nuys Boulevard intersection after the traffic signal went red, said CHP Officer Leland Tang. Tang said Bynes' blood was drawn, but he does not know what kind of drugs the actress is alleged to have been using. She was released from custody at 12:44 p.m. Sunday. An Irvine resident, according to booking information, Bynes had been attending design school in Orange County. In April 2012 she crashed her car into a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy’s cruiser. She was convicted of reckless driving in February for that incident. L.A. County Superior Court Judge Edward Moreton sentenced the ”She’s the Man” star to three years of probation and three months of alcohol education classes. In the wake of the arrest two years ago, Bynes had several run-ins with law enforcement in L.A. and New York that culminated with her setting a fire in the driveway of a Southern California home and being taken into custody on a mental health hold last year by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department. Bynes entered a psychiatric treatment facility, and her mother, Lynn, was granted conservatorship of the actress. In recent months, Bynes has been attending the design classes while continuing treatment. She is already on probation in California for driving with a suspended license and was accused in New York of throwing a glass bong out her 36th-floor Manhattan apartment. Follow Southern California crime @lacrimes
Sadly the government has demonized marijuana for that last 75 years and that is resulting in many productive good workers being fired for using medical marijuana. That's despite the fact that the medical marijuana doesn't effect their work at all. Sure if you get drunk that will definitely screw up your job performance. But most businesses don't fire people who drink liquor away from work when it doesn't effect their job. The same should be true for marijuana, but sadly in this case it isn't. http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nation-and-world/colo-high-court-hears-medical-marijuana-case Colo. high court hears medical marijuana case By SADIE GURMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS DENVER — Pot may be legal in Colorado, but you can still be fired for using it. Brandon Coats, a quadriplegic medical marijuana patient who was fired by the Dish Network after failing a drug test more than four years ago, says he still can’t find steady work because employers are wary of his off-duty smoking. In a case being closely watched around the country, Colorado’s Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear arguments in Coats’ case, which could have big implications for pot smokers in the first state to legalize recreational sales of the drug. The case highlights the clash between state laws that are increasingly accepting of marijuana use and employers’ drug-free policies that won’t tolerate it. “Attitudes are changing toward marijuana. Laws are going to have to change, too,” Coats told The Associated Press. “I’d like for this to enable people like me to find employment without being looked down upon.” Coats, 35, was paralyzed in a car crash as a teenager and has been a medical marijuana patient since 2009, when, after a doctor’s urging, he discovered that pot helped calm violent muscle spasms that were making it difficult to work. Coats, who worked for three years as a telephone operator with Dish, was fired in 2010 for failing a random company drug test. He said he told his supervisors in advance that he probably would fail the test. He said he was never high at work, and Dish did not allege he was ever impaired on the job. But pot’s intoxicating chemical, THC, can stay in the system for weeks. Coats is making his argument under a state law intended to protect cigarette smokers from being fired for legal behavior off the clock. But the company argues that because pot remains illegal at the federal level, medical marijuana isn’t covered by the state law. A trial court judge and Colorado’s appeals court agreed. A patchwork of laws across the country and the conflict between state and federal laws has left the issue unclear. Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., allow medical marijuana, but courts have ruled against employees who say their pot use is protected. Colorado and Washington state also now allow recreational sales, though court cases so far have involved medical patients. Colorado’s constitution specifically says that employers don’t have to amend their policies to accommodate employees’ marijuana use. But Arizona law, for example, says workers can’t be punished for lawfully using medical marijuana unless it would jeopardize an employer’s federal contract. State Supreme Courts in California, Montana and Washington state have all ruled against fired patients. A lawsuit filed by a physician assistant in New Mexico who said she was fired for using medical marijuana, which helps with her post-traumatic stress disorder, is still pending. The outcome of Coats’ case could affect future lawsuits by employees fired for smoking recreationally, said Denver labor and employment attorney Vance Knapp. If Dish prevails, other employers will likely cite the case in defending themselves, he said. A Coats victory, he added, “would turn employment policies into chaos.” Other states with lawful activity laws could see them challenged as a result. Dish said in court filings that Colorado companies would be forced to retain employees in spite of “marijuana-induced performance problems,” and the company would risk losing federal contracts if the Supreme Court sides with Coats. But Coats, who has been living off disability benefits, said the costs are greater if he loses because he needs marijuana to function. “I need this to live my life,” he said. “That shouldn’t disable me to work.” Follow Sadie Gurman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sgurman
I guess from this article you could say those photos radar bandits are mostly about raising revenue and have next to nothing to do with making us safer. And that's nationwide, not just in Washington D.C. Of course personally I think Mayor Vincent C. Gray following statement is an outright lie: "As we’ve said all along: the purpose of automated traffic enforcement is to improve public safety and save lives, not to raise money." If you ask me this report from the D.C. inspector general’s is correct about photo radar bandits saying that "it was more about filling city coffers than maintaining public safety" http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/declining-traffic-camera-revenue-threatens-to-unbalance-dcs-budget/2014/09/29/245ce9aa-4821-11e4-b72e-d60a9229cc10_story.html?tid=hpModule_13097a0c-868e-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394&hpid=z12 Declining traffic-camera revenue threatens to unbalance D.C.’s budget By Mike DeBonis September 29 at 10:20 PM Revenue from tickets issued by the District’s network of traffic cameras has declined dramatically over the past year, potentially throwing the city budget out of balance, the chief financial officer warned Monday. With less than two days left in the city’s fiscal year, CFO Jeffrey S. DeWitt said in a letter to District officials that revenue from fines and forfeitures may end up more than $70 million under projections if the trends hold — a significant chunk of a $6.3 billion local budget. The bulk of the shortfall comes from fines issued through red-light and speeding cameras, which have been the subject of rancorous public debate as their use has proliferated in recent years. The city expected to collect $93.7 million through automated traffic enforcement in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, but as of the end of August, the cameras had generated only $26.1 million, according to preliminary cash reports issued by DeWitt’s office. That is a drop-off of 62 percent from the nearly $70 million the city had collected by that point in 2013. DeWitt didn’t pinpoint a reason for the lagging revenue, noting only that fine revenue had been “projected to increase because of the rollout of new automated enforcement equipment.” Doxie McCoy, a spokeswoman for Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D), said in an e-mail that fewer tickets have been issued this year for a variety of reasons, including delays in deploying some new devices, higher speed limits on some streets and more motorists obeying the law. “And we don’t view any of this as a bad thing,” McCoy said. “As we’ve said all along: the purpose of automated traffic enforcement is to improve public safety and save lives, not to raise money.” But the implications for the District’s budget are considerable: The city had projected it would collect $156 million in camera revenue in the coming fiscal year. Should final tallies expected in December confirm a precipitous decline this year, officials may have to cut $50 million to $70 million in spending from next year’s budget. The news prompted D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) to take his fellow city leaders to task for being too dependent on ticket revenue in balancing the District’s budget. In a statement, Mendelson said the revenue projections “add to the black eye” around the camera program delivered by a recent D.C. inspector general’s report that suggested it was more about filling city coffers than maintaining public safety. He noted that the council tried to lower camera fines in 2012 but “couldn’t reduce the fines as much as we wanted because of the revenues that would be lost.” “The District’s budget should not be dependent on the fines of speeders,” he said. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, an outspoken defender of camera enforcement, said in a statement that she saw in the new figures proof that the cameras are working: “As I have said many times, we usually see significant reductions in citations issued in the first few months of deployment. This demonstrates that drivers are changing their behavior.” “Our goal is traffic safety,” she continued. “The fact that infractions are going down is a good thing in my view. Automated traffic enforcement is and always has been about safety. We deploy technology as needed.” News of the declining fine revenue came on the same day city leaders learned of a more welcome financial development: Two of three Wall Street bond-rating agencies said Monday that they were upgrading the city’s general obligation debt. Standard & Poor’s and Fitch both raised their ratings to the “AA” level, matching the rating previously issued by the third firm, Moody’s.
Our criminal justice system is making it really hard for people to find jobs Remember over half the people released from Federal Prisons were there for victimless drug war crimes that didn't hurt anybody according to statistics from the US Bureau of Prisons. According to Reason Magazine two thirds or 66% of the people in ALL American prisons are there for again, victimless drug war crimes. One fix for the problem in this article is to stop arresting people for victimless drug war crimes. http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/09/30/our-criminal-justice-system-is-making-it-really-hard-for-the-poor-to-find-jobs/?hpid=z11 Our criminal justice system is making it really hard for people to find jobs By Jonathan Blanks September 30 at 8:58 AM Jonathan Blanks is a writer and researcher in Washington, D.C. Although the American economy has rebounded from the Great Recession, many people still struggle to find jobs. Politicians blame taxation, trade policies and automation. Some have even singled out the current welfare system. Often overlooked? The many punitive effects of the criminal justice system. Nearly 65 million Americans have a criminal record. This black mark carries with it potentially mandatory restrictions on jobs, housing, education and public assistance. As detailed in a National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers study, the federal government and every state imposes some sort of “collateral consequence” to arrests or convictions. Some survey data suggest that more than half of released ex-offenders remain unemployed up to a year after their release from custody. In some jurisdictions, ex-offenders can never hold certain jobs. According to a 2007 article in Criminology and Public Policy, there could be as many as 800 occupations nationwide that automatically disqualify people with felony convictions for life. Some of these restrictions make sense. Bank teller is probably not the best first job for someone who got out of prison on a bank robbery conviction. Likewise, a serial arsonist probably shouldn’t be a fireman. Others make no sense at all. In some jurisdictions, a criminal conviction may prevent someone from obtaining a license to cut hair or be a beautician. Sweeney Todd aside, it’s hard to fathom how public safety is enhanced by prohibiting someone from earning a living at a job unrelated to someone’s past crime. It’s not that certain crimes shouldn’t carry extra burdens, at least for a short time. But any restrictions should be tied directly to public safety or have some clear, offense-related justification. Only in rare instances should they attach for life. The American Bar Association has compiled a searchable database of 40,000 collateral consequences in every jurisdiction in the country that help prevent ex-offenders from getting on with their lives. Barriers to employment are particularly important in the neighborhoods to which formerly incarcerated people return. Every week, 6,000 people in America return from jail or prison. Because policing tends to be geographically, socio-economically and racially skewed, many who come out of incarceration are likely to return — jobless, indigent and with debts to pay — to neighborhoods that already suffered high unemployment rates before their arrival. Ex-offenders are also likely to suffer from the informal biases that accompany the stigma of a criminal conviction, making the job hunt nearly impossible. If an employer has a large stack of applications for a low-skilled job, requiring the disclosure of a past conviction can effectively preclude an interview. Inability to find a job or steady legitimate income can lead to illicit means to self-sufficiency and debt repayment. This, in turn, may lead to higher recidivism rates that land more people back in jail. Wash, rinse, repeat. Everyone is responsible for his or her own actions. When necessary, those who break the law should be held to account for their actions. But our current criminal justice system makes it harder for those who have made mistakes to fully atone for their deeds and rejoin the productive segment of society. This perpetuates a cycle of poverty and incarceration for hundreds of thousands of Americans and their families. It is simply unfair to demand that ex-offenders redeem themselves while making it increasingly hard for them to do so. Common sense reforms can make a huge difference. These include opening doors to gainful employment by eliminating senseless legal barriers to jobs and reducing extra burdens such as fines and fees that add to the considerable economic burden of those reentering society. Beyond the regulatory barriers, some states and the District of Columbia have enacted “ban the box” legislation to discourage discrimination against ex-offenders in the hiring process. Employers can ask about prior convictions only after a tentative job offer. While a conviction may cause the offer to be withdrawn, reformers hope that the relevance or irrelevance of that conviction, rather than the existence of the conviction at all, should be the determining factor. Failure to reform the criminal justice system unjustly punishes those who have already served their sentences. Regulatory and legal obstacles cause incalculable loss to our economy by keeping well-intentioned ex-offenders out on the street or back in jail instead of back in society and in a job.
I think what Doug Hubbard is trying to say is that if you do something HE DOESN'T LIKE you should be put in jail. Of course he doesn't say it that way, he says you are "intellectually lazy" if you don't agree with him and think that it's OK for gay folks to get married or for people to commit the harmless and victimless crime of smoking pot. Sadly a lot of people agree with Doug Hubbard and that's why over half of the people in prisons are there for victimless drug war crimes and other victimless crimes like prostitution or gambling. According to the US Bureau of Prisons, 51 percent of the people in Federal prisons are there for victimless drug war crimes. According to Reason Magazine two thirds or 66% of the people in ALL American prisons are there for victimless drug war crimes. http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/letters/2014/09/28/same-sex-marriage-letter/16408603/ On same-sex marriage, pot, let's use our brains Doug Hubbard 7:55 a.m. MST September 29, 2014 Republic columnist EJ Montini suggests that pretty soon we will all be smoking weed at a same-sex wedding (Thursday). Why, he suggests? Because these laws will be changed in Arizona, because where there is no victim, there is no crime. I pondered the "no victim, no crime" argument for a bit and concluded I am not willing to be that intellectually lazy. I prefer to raise my level of reasoning on these matters and others to include societal norms, values and standards of decency. Take whatever opinion you want on these subjects, but let's have a stimulating discussion about what benefits our community as a whole. Society has a long history of using values and standards as benchmarks for passing laws. You can't get a driver's license until you are 16 because society decided that a 14-year-old should not be entrusted with this responsibility. You can't sign a contract until 18 because we have a standard that minors don't have the life experience or reasoning skills to understand what they are committing to. A minor child can't have consensual sex with an adult because we want to protect the minor from being manipulated or coerced. These are all simple examples of laws that have been passed based on sound reasoning and societal values. They are intended to improve the way we live and prevent victims and crimes. My hope is a majority of us will desire to have rational, thought-provoking discussions with regard to laws that affect all of us. I don't care what side you sit on. Just bring your brain to the table. — Doug Hubbard, Phoenix
If Glendale is paying cops $25 to $50 an hour to do gardening work, the cops are not needed and should be fired. I doubt if the gardeners that work for the city of Glendale make more then $10 or $15 and hour. The starting pay in most police departments for cops in Arizona is around $50,000 or about $25 an hour. If you look at salary surveys generated from public records requests many cops make $100,000 or more which is $50+ an hour. And those hourly rates are before benefits. When you throw in retirement and other benefits cops make a lot more then $25 to $50 and hour. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/glendale/2014/09/27/glendale-police-target-crime-alley-cleanup/16323423/ Glendale police target crime through alley cleanup Paige Shacklett, The Republic | azcentral.com 10:36 p.m. MST September 26, 2014 As alleyways of a historic district neighborhood in Glendale became overgrown by shrubbery and debris, and residents faced looming criminal activity, Glendale police officers decided to take preventative measures on Friday. A Glendale Police Department unit led by Sgt. Joe Jezulin worked with members of the city's Parks and Recreation, Sanitation and Right-of-way departments to remove overgrown shrubs, weeds and debris from alleys in the neighborhood near 59th and Northern avenues in the hopes of inspiring the Thunderbird Estates community to take action, Jezulin said. "It's something we wanted to do," Jezulin said. "It's an area we work in every day so we have a stake in the neighborhood as well." Friday's neighborhood cleanup enforced the Police Department's practice of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, which works to create an environment that is not conducive to criminal activity, Jezulin said. "It's a proactive approach because we realized we were having a tough time getting in the alleyways to patrol and it's something that needed to be addressed so that we can do our job," Jezulin said. Before Jezulin's squad, known as 40D, began their cleanup Friday morning, the alleys were constricted by overgrown bushes and debris that provided hiding places for criminals, Jezulin said. By mid-afternoon the alleys were clear enough to provide plenty of room for officers to patrol, he said. "The alleyways are maintained by city of Glendale Right-of-way, but we're hoping that the community will be inspired to put some more effort into keeping up the back alleyway and understanding how it makes an impact on crime," Jezulin stated. There are 23 miles of alleyways in Glendale and Jezulin's squad patrols several miles near the Thunderbird Estates community and surrounding neighborhoods. "Fighting crime certainly is not just about arresting the bad guys, it's about taking out their environment, and that's our idea behind it," Jezulin said. A resident of the neighborhood, James Farrar, said he was grateful for the efforts of police and wanted to help maintain the work they started. "I think the neighborhood needs to step up and show the officers we appreciate what they're doing and start giving them some support," Farrar said. The difference between how the alley looked before and after the cleanup was like "comparing night to day," Farrar said. Farrar said the neighborhood needed to do its part to keep the area safe. "We want our families safe," Farrar said. "They're helping us make it safe, let's keep it safe."
If you read the "Police Beat" in the ASU State Press you will find that most of the arrests made by the ASU cops are for victimless drug war crimes or liquor violations of under age students drinking. Do you really need an arsenal M-16 machine guns to make these arrests for victimless crimes that hurt no one. "Police Beat" is usually at the bottom of the first page of this web site which is the student newspaper of ASU - http://www.statepress.com Usually about half to two thirds of the arrests documented in "Police Beat" of the Arizona State University newspaper the State Press are not for real crimes that hurt people like robbery or rape, but for victimless drug war crimes or liquor violations. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/tempe/2014/09/29/asu-police-plan-return-surplus-m-16-assault-rifles/16448959/ ASU police plan to return surplus M-16 assault rifles ASU officials acknowledge that most officers hadn't been trained on assault weapons. Anne Ryman, The Republic | azcentral.com 7:09 a.m. MST September 30, 2014 Less than two weeks after it was disclosed Arizona State University had acquired M-16 assault rifles under a government surplus weapons program, ASU officials said Monday they plan to return them. ASU spokeswoman Julie Newberg said the department is in the process of returning the weapons and replacing with "standard but newer rifles," which could be used in situations such as confronting a shooter. ASU officials have not decided which rifles to replace them with yet. The surplus M-16 weapons were distributed to local agencies as part of the the Department of Defense Excess Property Program.The M-16s once had the capability of firing more than one round but had been converted to fire once each time the trigger is pulled, ASU officials said. Sgt. Daniel Macias, a spokesman for ASU Police, told Cronkite News earlier this month that the rifles were acquired a year and a half ago from the Arizona Department of Public Safety, which wanted to get rid of the weapons it acquired under the program. ASU interim Police Chief Mike Thompson said in a statement Monday that the majority of sworn personnel haven't been trained on the M-16s because ASU police didn't have a rifle range available for the 40 hours of required range and classroom training. About five members of the department received training, he said The rifles have been stored at the Police Department since they were acquired except for when they were used for training, he said. Thompson said the lack of training was not because of a shortage of ASU police patrol officers. The Arizona Republic recently reported a story about staffing shortages in the university's police department. The Republic found ASU police struggled to schedule a full complement of patrol officers, failing to meet its own requirements a majority of the days during the spring semester. Six out of seven days during the semester, at least one shift did not have all seven officers scheduled that ASU police requires to patrol Tempe and three other satellite campuses. As a result, supervisors had to either pay overtime, reassign someone from another job or leave positions on a shift vacant. The department couldn't say how often it left a post empty on any given patrol shift. ASU's ratio of sworn officers to students is about 25 percent below the national average for large, public schools, a national report found. ASU officials acknowledged there have been staffing challenges but say they have been hiring to bolster department resources. The police budget was increased for the budget year that began July 1 with six new officers hired since then. Jim Rund, an ASU senior vice president, was asked about police staffing during an Arizona Board of Regents committee meeting last week, when student safety was discussed. Rund said that some of the recent media coverage on staffing "was more historical than current," adding that "I think we're in good stead as we sit here today and going forward." Reach the reporter at: (602-444-8072) oranne.ryman@arizonarepublic.com Emilie Eaton of Cronkite News service contributed to this story.
Phoenix VA whistle-blowers get retaliation settlements This is kind of odd, the government actually admitting it f*cked up. Of course don't expect the higher up government bureaucrats who punished these folks for exposing corruption to be punished. And of course in the future these whistle-blowers in the VA could still be punished for telling the truth and embarrassing their bosses. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/investigations/2014/09/29/phoenix-va-whistle-blowers-get-retaliation-settlements/16435309/ Phoenix VA whistle-blowers get retaliation settlements Dennis Wagner, The Republic | azcentral.com 10:07 p.m. MST September 29, 2014 The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has reached settlement terms with three Phoenix whistle-blowers who filed retaliation complaints after helping to expose mismanagement and health-care breakdowns at the Phoenix VA medical center. The trio — Dr. Katherine Mitchell, Paula Pedene and Damian Reese — accepted mostly confidential settlements for demotions and harassment they suffered at the hands of VA administrators after exposing delays in patient care, fraudulent wait-time data, bullying and other misconduct. In a news release, VA Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner praised all three whistle-blowers, saying they "followed their consciences and reported wrongdoing, and their efforts have improved care and accountability." "I applaud the VA's leadership for taking actions quickly to reverse these (retaliation) cases and concrete steps to change the VA's culture," Lerner added. "The settlements allow these courageous employees to return to successful careers." Pedene, a Phoenix VA spokeswoman who was banished to work in a basement library 22 months ago after disclosing misconduct, cried Monday morning as she discussed her experience and its resolution. "I feel vindicated and happy and sad. There are so many mixed emotions," she said. "I'm moving forward and looking forward." Pedene served as the Phoenix VA Health Care System public-affairs officer for two decades and was a longtime director of the Phoenix Veterans Day Parade until she blew the whistle on a hostile work environment and financial mismanagement. Pedene, who is legally blind, said the harassment against her included a challenge of her disability as well as allegations that resulted in criminal and administrative investigations. She also worked behind the scenes with Dr. Sam Foote, the Phoenix VA whistle-blower whose allegations of delayed care ultimately turned into a national scandal. Under terms of the settlement, Pedene will become a national program specialist for the communications office of the Veterans Health Administration. "My hope is that settlements like these will help change the VA culture," Pedene said. "What remains to be seen is how far it will go. I think the way to answer that is to have accountability and disciplinary action against those who reprised against me." Mitchell, a 16-year employee at the VA, was transferred to a program for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans after she filed complaints with hospital administrators four years ago about patient-threatening problems in the Emergency Department. She later was subjected to an investigation and reprimand after raising concerns about veterans' suicides. Along with Foote and Pedene, Mitchell provided detailed information to Congress, the VA inspector general and The Arizona Republic about delayed care, falsified appointment data, mismanagement and other issues. Mitchell, who will now work at the VA's Southwest regional office overseeing the quality of patient care, said she relied on friends and ice-cream cones to get her through her ordeal. Dr. Katherine Mitchell "I'm encouraged that the national VA is willing to take a step forward and start to heal from within," she said. "It's a question now whether this is a one-dip-cone or a two-dip-cone day." Mitchell, who recently testified before the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, said the Office of Special Counsel assured her that, although the retaliation complaint has been settled, the VA will investigate those responsible and take appropriate disciplinary action. "That's incredibly important," Mitchell said, adding that the VA's systemic problem with bullying will remain unchanged unless administrators are held accountable. Reese, a Phoenix VA program analyst, raised internal complaints last year about falsified data on patient wait times for doctors' appointments. He asserted in a memo that the fraudulent practice was "unethical and a disservice to our veterans." It is unclear what retaliation he suffered. The Office of Special Counsel news release does not spell out any terms of Reese's settlement, and he could not be reached for comment. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, said the settlements are "at least a tacit admission from the department that its actions were wrong." However, he added, "until VA officials at all levels take aggressive action to fire all managers who have sought to punish employees for exposing fraud, waste and abuse within the system, I have no confidence (the) VA's shameful treatment of whistle-blowers will end anytime soon." Besides the three Phoenix cases, the Office of Special Counsel is investigating 125 other complaints of retaliation against VA whistle-blowers and is reviewing 89 disclosures from employees who allege threats to patient health or safety. Fifty-one of those have been referred to the Office of Inspector General. The Phoenix VA whistle-blowers sparked a nationwide furor over patient care in the dysfunctional federal agency. Investigators concluded that VA administrators knowingly falsified patient-access data, in part to earn bonus pay, and that veterans suffered as a result of protracted delays in care. While inspectors could not conclusively assert that Phoenix patients died because of untimely treatment, the Office of Inspector General acknowledged that delays contributed to fatalities. The controversy led to the ouster of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, passage of a $16billion VA reform bill, inspector-general probes at more than 80 VA medical centers and the suspension of top administrators, including three in Phoenix.
Lesbian couple denied homecoming bid at Surprise school I always wonder how the government schools ever find time to teach the kids anything when they are doing politically correct nonsense like this. Also I suspect this is a violation of both the 1st Amendment and the Arizona Constitution since it seems to be and attempt to force the Biblical values that gays are third class citizens on the rest of us. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/surprise/2014/09/29/lesbian-couple-homecoming-nomination-denied-phoenix-abrk/16458461/ Lesbian couple denied homecoming bid at Surprise school Paige Shacklett, The Republic | azcentral.com 6:42 a.m. MST September 30, 2014 Students at Willow Canyon High School in Surprise are banding together behind a lesbian couple who has been denied the opportunity to be nominated as homecoming queen and queen due to a school practice where homecoming royalty must be made up of a male and female pair. Supporters of the couple say any ballots nominating the couple for homecoming royalty were discounted in a recent poll of students. "We're tired of the social normality that the king and queen have to be male and female," said junior Kody Jiles, who added that it was unfair for the school to void student ballots. Senior Samantha Breedveld said she supports the couple and is discouraged by her school's opposition to having a same-sex king and queen. "You're our school, you're meant to support your students, not shut them down saying you're only supposed to do this," Breedveld said. "It's just wrong." Breedveld said Monday just hours before homecoming week kicked off with a powder puff game later that night. The Dysart Unified School District responded with a statement, saying the high school's homecoming traditions have been in place for years and that they work with students on the planning for these events. "The Willow Canyon High School students do not elect a couple as Homecoming Queen and King, rather individual students self -nominate or are nominated to run for Homecoming Queen or for Homecoming King," the statement said. "Students can nominate themselves or another student. One person is voted in by fellow students to represent female students at Homecoming and one male student is voted in by the students to represent the boys. Who that female and male student is, is up to the student vote." The same-sex couple whose ballots were deemed invalid by administrators were not available for comment. Aaron Brown, a sophomore at Willow Canyon, said while the tradition of homecoming may be important to school officials, they should consider student opinions. "This is what students want and what they are doing is basically discrimination," Brown said. Jiles and Breedveld agreed that change is unavoidable and not always a bad thing. "They have to realize that there are going to be gays and lesbians out there," Breedveld said. "They can't basically say, 'We don't want you. You can't do this, or we will ignore (your) existence'." Homecoming week at Willow Canyon began Monday night with a powder-puff football game.
Is it the purpose of the government and the police to spy on us 24/7, just in case we do something wrong??? I am sure that neither the "Founders" nor the "People" would have ever approved a Constitution where one of the purposes of the government and police is to spy on us 24/7, just in case we do something wrong. And this isn't just related to drones as in this articles. Many city, county and state government has been placing cameras every where, which are watched by cops 24/7, just so the police can arrest us in case we accidental do anything wrong. And of course we have those photo radar bandits that monitor our driving habits 24/7 and shake us down for draconian fines every time we run a red light or go 10 mph above the speed limit. Remember the book "1984" which many of you had to read in high school. Sadly 1984 is here, even if it is 30 years late. http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_26626949/gov-brown-vetoes-bill-limiting-drone-surveillance Gov. Brown vetoes bill limiting drone surveillance Associated Press Posted: 09/29/2014 07:20:26 AM PDT SACRAMENT -- Gov. Jerry Brown's office announced Sunday that he has vetoed a bill that would have placed strict limits on law enforcement agencies using unmanned aerial drones for surveillance. AB1327 by Republican Assemblyman Jeff Gorrell of Camarillo would have required government agencies to get warrants before conducting surveillance with drones. It also would have required that agencies publicly announce their intent to buy and use drones and destroy most of the data collected within a year. Brown said in a statement to the Assembly that the bill does not give law enforcement enough leeway. "There are undoubtedly circumstances where a warrant is appropriate," the statement said. "The bill's exceptions, however, appear to be too narrow and could impose requirements beyond what is required by either the Fourth Amendment or the privacy provisions in the California Constitution." Gorrell said the veto was "very disappointing." "We're increasingly living in a surveillance society as the government uses new technology to track and watch the activities of Americans," he told the Los Angeles Times. "It's disappointing that the governor decided to side with law enforcement in this case over the privacy interests of California." The bill was passed by the Legislature in the last days of its session last month along with another bill, AB2306, which expands invasion-of-privacy statutes to include paparazzi photographers pursuing celebrities with drones in their homes and backyards. The governor has yet to sign or veto the paparazzi bill.
Spy Agencies Urge Caution on Phone Deal Our government masters tell us that they are "public servants". Do your servants spy on you record everything thing do 24/7 and turn it over to the police, just in case you accidentally do something wrong, like these phony baloney public "public servants" in this article??? I wonder how long the servants of Paris Hilton would have jobs if they tape recorded her 24/7 and turned over everything to the government, just in case she committed a crime. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/us/spy-agencies-urge-caution-on-phone-deal.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LedeSum&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 Spy Agencies Urge Caution on Phone Deal By ERIC LICHTBLAUSEPT. 28, 2014 WASHINGTON — An obscure federal contract for a company charged with routing millions of phone calls and text messages in the United States has prompted an unusual lobbying battle in which intelligence officials are arguing that the nation’s surveillance secrets could be at risk. The contractor that wins the bid would essentially act as the air traffic controller for the nation’s phone system, which is run by private companies but is essentially overseen by the government. And with a European-based company now favored for the job, some current and former intelligence officials — who normally stay out of the business of awarding federal contracts — say they are concerned that the government’s ability to trace reams of phone data used in terrorism and law enforcement investigations could be hindered. A small Virginia company, Neustar, has held the job since the late 1990s, but a private phone-industry panel has recommended to the Federal Communications Commission that an American division of Ericsson, the Swedish-based technology company, get the work instead. No final decision has been made. In its bid to hold on to the $446 million job, Neustar has hired Michael Chertoff, a well-connected former secretary of homeland security, to examine the implications of the proposed switch. In a 45-page report that Neustar plans to send to the F.C.C. this week, Mr. Chertoff, now a private consultant, argues that national security concerns have been slighted in the contracting process. An advance copy of his report was provided to The New York Times. Without a fuller assessment of the risks posed in switching the contract to a European-based outfit, “security would become obsolete in the face of constantly morphing threats,” Mr. Chertoff says in the report. If a foreign intelligence service were to gain access to the phone-routing system and identify the targets of United States surveillance efforts, Mr. Chertoff said, “that would be a counterintelligence bonanza for adversaries of the nation and a security disaster for the United States.” Neustar declined to say how much it paid Mr. Chertoff for the report, indicating only that it was a “modest sum.” Officials from the F.B.I., the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency have weighed in on the debate, as have senators and House members who supervise American intelligence operations. The F.B.I. and other law enforcement agencies said that while they had “no position” on who should get the contract, they did want to make sure that their professional needs were adequately addressed and that there would be no disruption in access to call-routing data “in real time or near real time.” “Law enforcement cannot afford to have a lapse in this vital service,” the agencies told the F.C.C. in a letter. The agencies expressed particular concern that a contractor with access to the phone system from outside the United States could mean “unwarranted, and potentially harmful” access to American surveillance methods and targets. The debate echoes the 2006 controversy over a $6.8 billion deal that would have allowed a Dubai company to manage six American ports. The proposal was met with outrage in Congress over the idea that such vital pieces of American infrastructure would be placed in foreign hands, and the contract was ultimately killed. Ericsson is a Swedish technology firm, but its supporters in the contract debate point out that the network’s operation would be handled by an American-based division, Telcordia Technologies, and that it would be run more cheaply than Neustar without any harm to the system’s operations. Mark Wigfield, a spokesman for the F.C.C., said there was no timetable for deciding whether Telcordia would get the phone-routing contract, as recommended by the industry panel. He said the agency would examine all aspects of the job — including the national security implications — before any decisions were made. The battle over the little-known routing network reflects the central role that the phone companies play in the government’s surveillance and phone-tracing capabilities. The surveillance system has been intensely criticized in the 14 months since Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency analyst, released classified information detailing the wide scope of the government’s capabilities. As a result, Apple and Google took steps this month to encrypt smartphone data in ways that would make it much more difficult for government investigators to crack. The phone-routing system grew out of a 1997 law that allowed cellphone and landline users to keep the same number even when they switched carriers. These so-called portability standards made things easier for consumers but created potential complications for intelligence and law enforcement officials in tracing phone calls and determining which numbers were tied to which carriers. The routing network that was put in place, with Neustar as its administrator, was designed partly to allow the government nearly instant access to the data on where calls were being routed. In an interview, Lisa Hook, the chief executive of Neustar, insisted that “irregularities” in the F.C.C. bidding process had weighed against her company in trying to hold onto the lucrative contract, which provides nearly half its revenues. She said that the major phone carriers, who pay for the contract, would clearly rather see an international industry leader like Ericsson end up with the work. “We’re a small company,” she said. “We’re just looking for a level playing field.” Ms. Hook predicted that if the Ericsson division did win the contract, the changeover to a new administrator to run the system could take years and would leave the nation’s phone grid vulnerable in the meantime. “Any claim that this is simple and can be done easily is just wrong,” she said. A version of this article appears in print on September 29, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Spy Agencies Urge Caution on Phone Deal. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
Ain't religion great. Those religious hypocrites always know how to run your life better then you do. "Here’s the town drunk, who has become a zealous follower of the Islamic State, beating those who consume alcohol — though he still drinks in secret himself." Last it's not just the Muslims that are hypocrites, Christians can be just as annoying and hypocritical. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/new-iraqi-comedy-show-aims-to-counter-islamic-state-extremists/2014/09/28/821c2119-52a4-456d-b670-0ef4dff22e4b_story.html?hpid=z4 New Iraqi comedy show aims to counter Islamic State extremists By Loveday Morris September 28 at 10:23 PM BAGHDAD — Reclining on a gold-rimmed purple sofa, the leader of the Islamic State extremist group mulls his social-media strategy as an overaffectionate sword-wielding dwarf looks on. Here’s the town drunk, who has become a zealous follower of the Islamic State, beating those who consume alcohol — though he still drinks in secret himself. And there’s the shop owner who is informed that vegetables with names in the Arabic language that are female in gender can’t mix with those of the male gender. That’s right, a new weapon has been unleashed in this country devastated by Islamist militant violence — comedy. A new 30-part satirical series, “State of Myths,” which started airing on Iraqi state television Saturday, aims to expose the true nature of the Islamic State extremist organization — through slapstick and puns. The show demonstrates the extraordinary ability of people in this war-scarred nation to challenge violence with humor. But making light of the group notorious for beheadings and massacres brings serious risks. Some of the cast members have not allowed their names to appear on the show’s credits, while the scriptwriter has insisted on remaining anonymous. The comedy also shows something else: the jaundiced view that many Iraqis have of the countries that are coming to their government’s defense against the militants. The original trailer for the series played into widely held conspiracy theories alleging that the United States, Qatar and Israel were responsible for the rise of the Islamic State. That idea, however, was scrapped after executives decided that amid a U.S-led bombing campaign, ridiculing their allies had become too sensitive. The power of laughter Set in a fictional Iraqi town that is taken over by the extremists, the show now concentrates on poking fun at Islamic State rule instead. The local drunk takes on the uncompromising passion of a convert — which doesn’t interfere with the hypocrisy of enjoying a few drinks on the side. When the grocer learns he can’t mix noun genders when it comes to vegetables, the show is making fun of the warped interpretation of Islam that the Islamic State espouses. In the years following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, satirical television has flourished in Iraq, though it regularly comes under fire for making light of the country’s crippling violence. Other regional shows mocking the Islamic State have already been broadcast. “We are giving the audience the real image of Daish,” said Khalil Ibrahim, an Iraqi actor who plays the town’s mayor, using the Arabic acronym for the fighters. “We are educating people, talking to the people who are supporting this group,” he added, as he sat on a street bench on the set, where black Islamic State flags were draped over shop signs. Sending a message Broadcast nationally, the show will be available in Islamic State-controlled land — large portions of the western and northern provinces. Since the extremist group began a rapid advance in June, it has expelled and killed minorities and imposed oppressive restrictions on those who remain. “In Tikrit and Mosul, there were open-minded people,” Ibrahim said of militant-controlled cities. “But some people switched and support these extremists. Maybe we can reach some of them.” While modest by international standards, the $600,000 production is a milestone for Iraq’s struggling television industry — with the largest set created in a studio since the invasion. “Even in Hollywood, I don’t think you’ll see that kind of detail,” Taha Alwan, an actor who plays the imam of the local mosque, said of the set, as he waited to have his beard applied. The makeup artist carefully glues on at least 35 beards a day. Nearby, in one of its chipboard buildings, an actor playing Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed leader of the Islamic State’s caliphate, was reclining on the gaudy sofa, accompanied by a dwarf, during the rehearsal of a scene about the extremists banning Facebook. The show is intended to be family-friendly, so brutal Islamic State actions such as beheadings and slaughter are alluded to but glossed over. Still, on the set in Baghdad, violence is at the forefront of people’s minds. “For now we’ve had nothing, but I expect I’ll receive threats when it begins to air,” said the actor who plays Baghdadi, who like several others has asked not to have his name on the credits. Some actors declined roles for security reasons. But for others, there was no hesitation. “For me, it’s personal,” said Alwan, who lost two children to extremist violence — one during Iraq’s sectarian bloodletting in the years after the invasion, and another in a bombing during the civil war in Syria. “It might be dangerous, but we need to send a message of how ugly these people are.” Broadcast on the state-owned al-Iraqiya television, the show initially skewered not just the Islamic State but also countries that many Iraqis assume are somehow connected to the group. In the opening sequence of the trailer, an American cowboy swigging from a hip flask welcomed guests to a desert wedding party. The groom was the devil, the bride Israel. Their child: Baghdadi, the Islamic State leader, who hatched from an egg. From the streets of Baghdad to its halls of power, there’s little escaping the theory that the United States along with Sunni Arab nations such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia created and supported the Islamic State. Delicate relationships Some people reason that the radical Sunni group was created to draw away the West’s home-grown extremists and allow them to kill each other on foreign soil. Others maintain that the creation of the Islamic State provides an excuse for another ground invasion of Iraq. But with the United States now waging an air campaign in Iraq against the Islamic State, and bombing its fighters in Syria along with Arab partners Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, such conspiracy theories have become a harder sell. “The relationship with the Gulf countries and others became better, and we didn’t want to do anything to affect that in a negative way,” said Thaer al-Hasnawi, deputy manager of Iraqi Media Network, al-Iraqiya’s parent company. Director Ali al-Kasem said he was instructed to remove the Qatari and American characters after complaints. He was frustrated, he said, but part of the mission had been accomplished. “We had already delivered our message,” he said. “Everybody saw it, and everybody knew what we meant.” Mustafa Salim contributed to this report.
End the drug war and 90% of the crime will magically disappear??? And of course the 90% of the crime that will disappear is victimless drug war crimes that don't hurt anybody "She said crime has tripled in the past two years and that 90 percent is drug-related"Yes, some people get hooked on drugs and it destroyed their lives. But throwing people in prison for using drugs destroys their lives even more. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2014/09/28/dark-side-of-the-boom/?hpid=z1 Dark side of the boom North Dakota’s oil rush brings cash and promise to reservation, along with drug-fueled crime Written by Sari Horwitz Published on September 28, 2014 FORT BERTHOLD INDIAN RESERVATION, N.D. — Tribal police Sgt. Dawn White is racing down a dusty two-lane road — siren blaring, police radio crackling — as she attempts to get to the latest 911 call on a reservation that is a blur of oil rigs and bright-orange gas flares. “Move! C’mon, get out of the fricking way!” White yells as she hits 102 mph and weaves in and out of a line of slow-moving tractor-trailers that stretches for miles. In just five years, the Bakken formation in North Dakota has gone from producing about 200,000 barrels to 1.1 million barrels of oil a day, making North Dakota the No. 2 oil-producing state, behind Texas, and luring thousands of workers from around the country. But there is a dark side to the multibillion-dollar boom in the oil fields, which stretch across western North Dakota into Montana and part of Canada. The arrival of highly paid oil workers living in sprawling “man camps” with limited spending opportunities has led to a crime wave -- including murders, aggravated assaults, rapes, human trafficking and robberies -- fueled by a huge market for illegal drugs, primarily heroin and methamphetamine. Especially hard-hit are the Indian lands at the heart of the Bakken. Created in 1870 on rolling grasslands along the Missouri River, Fort Berthold (pronounced Birth-Old), was named after a U.S. Army fort and is home to the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation -- known as the MHA Nation, or the Three Affiliated Tribes. “It’s like a tidal wave, it’s unbelievable,” said Diane Johnson, chief judge at the MHA Nation. She said crime has tripled in the past two years and that 90 percent is drug-related. “The drug problem that the oil boom has brought is destroying our reservation.” Once farmers and traders, the Mandan was the tribe that gave Lewis and Clark safe harbor on their expedition to the Northwest but was decimated in the mid-1830s by smallpox. Over many years, the 12 million acres awarded to the three tribes by treaty in 1851 has been reduced to 1 million by the United States. The U.S. government in 1947 built the Garrison Dam and created Lake Sakakawea, a 479-square-mile body of water that flooded the land of the Three Affiliated Tribes, wiped out much of their farming and ranching economy, and forced most of them to relocate to higher ground on the prairie. “When the white man said, ‘This will be your reservation,’ little did they know those Badlands would now have oil and gas,” MHA Nation Chairman Tex “Red Tipped Arrow” Hall said in an energy company video last year. “Those Badlands were coined because they’re nothing but gully, gumbo and clay. Grass won’t grow, and horses can’t eat and cattle or buffalo can’t hardly eat . . . but there’s huge oil and gas reserves under those Badlands now.” Native Americans from regional tribes dance at the grand entrance of the Little Shell Pow Wow, hosted by the Three Affiliated Tribes in New Town, N.D. The reservation, home to the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara nations, is at the epicenter of the fracking and oil boom, but crime and drug trafficking have increased dramatically. The oil boom could potentially bring hundreds of millions of dollars to the tribes, creating the opportunity to build new roads, schools, and badly needed housing and health facilities. But the money is coming with a steep social cost, according to White, her fellow tribal officers and federal officials who are struggling to keep up with the onslaught of drugs and crime. “We are dealing with stuff we’ve never seen before,” White said after leaving the scene of the latest disturbance fueled by drugs and alcohol. “No one was prepared for this.” The 20-member tribal police force is short-staffed and losing officers to higher-paying jobs on the oil fields. Sometimes, there are only two tribal officers on duty to cover the whole reservation, including part of the North Dakota Badlands. There is only one substance-abuse treatment center, with room for only nine patients at a time, to help the soaring number of heroin and meth addicts. Over the summer, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy singled out drug trafficking in the Bakken oil patch as a “burgeoning threat.” Violent crime in North Dakota’s Williston Basin region, which includes the reservation, increased 121 percent from 2005 to 2011. The Bakken is also experiencing a large influx of motorcycle gangs, trying to claim “ownership” of the territory and facilitating prostitution and the drug trade, according to a federal report. “Up until a few years ago, Fort Berthold was a typical reservation struggling with the typical economic problems that you find in Indian Country,” said Timothy Q. Purdon, the U.S. attorney for North Dakota, whose office prosecutes violent crime on the reservation. “But now, boom — barrels of oil mean barrels of money,” Purdon said. “More money and more people equals more crime. And whether the outsiders came here to work on a rig and decided it would be easier to sell drugs or they came here to sell drugs, it doesn’t make any difference. They’re selling drugs. An unprecedented amount.” Three Affiliated Tribes officer Jacob Gadewoltz takes tribal member Troy Yazzie into custody on a federal warrant. Operation Winter’s End Hall, the longtime chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes, called it the “worst tragedy” on the Fort Berthold reservation in his memory. On a November afternoon two years ago, an intruder burst into a home in New Town, the largest town on the reservation, and shot and killed a grandmother and three of her grandchildren with a hunting rifle. A fourth grandchild, a 12-year-old boy, survived by hiding under his slain brother’s body and pretending he was dead. North Dakota U.S. Attorney Tim Purdon has indicted more than 60 people for dealing heroin and methamphetamine on and around Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in an investigation dubbed Operation Winter’s End. The young man responsible for the killings slit his own throat hours later in a nearby town. He was high on meth, according to federal officials. On the same day, in an unrelated incident, Sgt. White stopped a motorist who was wanted on an outstanding warrant. As she grabbed the handle of his car door, the driver, who had drugs in the vehicle, took off, dragging her on the ground for half a block and sending her to the hospital with a concussion. It seemed as though big-city drug violence had arrived like a sudden storm. “We wanted to find out, immediate top priority, what happened here,” Purdon said. “Who was this shooter? Where did he get the meth? Who was he involved with? And what can we do about it?” Purdon and the FBI teamed up with White and other tribal officers, focusing on a large-scale drug-trafficking ring led by two brothers from Wasco, Calif. — Oscar and Happy Lopez. In the summer of 2013, in an investigation dubbed Operation Winter’s End, Purdon indicted 22 people, including the Lopez brothers as well as members of the tribes, for dealing heroin and meth on or around Fort Berthold. The drugs came from Mexico through Southern California, officials said. One suspect, Michael Smith, was wanted on a warrant for drug trafficking in Colorado. He holed himself up in a reservation house with a gun for more than 12 hours before the police knocked down the walls with a front-end loader. “The ‘wow effect’ was pretty strong,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Rick Volk, who oversaw the case. “That’s not something that happens every day in a small town like New Town.” Since then, Purdon has indicted more than 40 other people who have all pleaded guilty to felony drug charges in the ongoing Winter’s End case, with a large amount of the meth and heroin also coming from gangs in Chicago or dealers in Minneapolis. Investigating crime on Fort Berthold is more difficult than most places because the reservation sits in six different counties each with its own sheriff — some of whom do not have a good relationship with the tribe, according to tribal members. If the victim and suspect are both Native American, the tribal police or the FBI handles the arrest. But if the suspect is not Native American, in most cases the tribal police can detain the suspect but then have to call the sheriff in the county where the crime occurred. Sometimes they have to wait several hours before a deputy arrives to make the arrest. In a murder case, the state or the FBI might be involved, depending on the race of the victim and the suspect. “There are volumes of treatises on Indian law that are written about this stuff,” Purdon said. “It’s very complicated. And we’re asking guys with guns and badges in uniforms at 3:30 in the morning with people yelling at each other to make these decisions — to understand the law and be able to apply it.” In the quadruple murder, for example, all four victims were white. But police didn't immediately know if the perpetrator was white or Native American, so there was initial confusion among law enforcement officials about who was in charge of the investigation. “Can you imagine the idea that we didn’t know the race of the shooter, so we didn’t know at first who had jurisdiction over the homicide?” Purdon asked. “That’s not something your typical county sheriff has to deal with.” The killer was later identified as a 21-year-old Native American. Native American Rachelle Baker, 29, a former user of meth and heroin, has the names of her two young children tattooed on her arms to cover up needle scars and to serve as a reminder to stay sober. Baker, who faces up to 56 months in jail on drug charges, hopes to regain custody of her children. ‘I helped bring that heroin here’ In the front seat of her cruiser, White, an Army veteran who grew up in Fort Berthold, carries an eagle feather and a photograph of the rodeo-champion grandfather who raised her. Volk calls her “the eyes and ears of the reservation,” a cop who is able to find anyone. Her fervor to save her people from the ravages of heroin and meth gives White the fortitude to arrest even tribal members she knows well. Sgt. Dawn White removes an open bottle of whiskey from a vehicle while searching for drugs during a traffic stop in New Town. The driver, not a Native American, was detained on charges of driving under the influence and a suspended driver’s license while White waited for a deputy sheriff to make the arrest. “I put the uniform on,” White said, “I have no family. I have no friends.” Before she sets out on patrol, she lights the end of braided sweet grass, a tradition of the Plains Indians to drive away bad spirits. White, a mother of three, places it on her dashboard for protection. White also carries a set of pink handcuffs, a personal signature that she says represents “girl power.” One night last year, White slapped the cuffs on one of her relatives, Rachelle Baker, a 29-year-old former Fort Berthold teacher who became addicted to heroin shortly after it arrived on the Bakken. “I was in the back of her cruiser, cussing her out, telling her to get away from me, ‘you don’t know what you’re doing,’ ” Baker said in a recent interview. “I was bawling my eyes out. I was sweating, my hair was sticking to my face. She took my hair and pushed it back and she said, ‘Rachelle, I don’t want to see you like this anymore. I don’t want to see you live like this. You need to get better for your kids, Rachelle.’ And she closed the door.” Three years ago, Baker’s boyfriend at the time got heroin from an oil rig worker who had brought it with him from Boston. “That was the first time in my life I ever saw it,” Baker said. Soon, she was hooked on heroin, buying from a dealer who came from Minneapolis and shooting up, along with her friends, on a reservation where she said “there’s no other recreation.” “There’s not a movie theater here,” Baker said. “There’s not a swimming pool. There’s nothing. There’s nothing to do here.” She became pregnant and was using when she had her baby boy. “I just couldn’t stop,” Baker said. She shot up so many times that she couldn’t find an easy vein and inserted needles into her neck, legs, ankles and toes. One time, she shot up in her forehead. Photo gallery In North Dakota, tribes have been enriched by drilling on their lands, but the newfound wealth has also brought a surge in crime that the reservation’s poorly funded police force has found difficult to combat. Click on the image for more scenes from North Dakota. By last fall, Baker was also using meth. In January of this year, social workers took away both of her children, now ages 3 and 1. “That was the lowest point in my life,” Baker said. She said she tried to kill herself by swallowing 200 Tylenol pills. Baker was transferred from the hospital to a mental-health facility and then jail, where lying in the bunk she said she felt a sense of peace for the first time in years. “Because it felt like the nightmare I had been living was finally over,” she said. When she was released, Baker enrolled in a treatment program; she’s now been drug-free for nearly eight months. She’s in counseling and finished parenting classes. She is tested for drugs every week and is one step away from regaining custody of her children. She’s helping to start two Narcotics Anonymous groups at Fort Berthold, where there was none. But in a few months, Baker goes to federal court, where she said she faces 56 months in prison. She pleaded guilty to distribution of heroin after being caught in Purdon’s drug sweep. “It is so sad because I am finally getting my life back together,” Baker said. “But I helped bring that heroin here. I sold it to people here on the reservation. I gave it to family members. And if I have to pay that price, then I will.” Miles of pipeline for natural gas wait to be welded along a rural stretch where cows were shooed off the road by a Three Affiliated Tribes officer near Mandaree, N.D. An unsafe community Responding to another call, White pulls up to the reservation’s 4 Bears Casino and Lodge to check on a call about a small child who was left inside a car while her mother went inside to gamble. Lined up outside the casino’s hotel are four other police cars. They are not the cruisers of officers who have come to investigate the child. They belong to several new recruits who have no place to live. The housing shortage has forced officers to move with their families into casino hotel rooms until homes are built for them. Three Affiliated Tribes Police Chief Chad Johnson said he needs at least 50 more officers. View of a 149-passenger yacht purchased last year by the Three Affiliated Tribes. “I get a lot of applicants from all over,” Johnson said. “The first thing they ask is if we have housing available. We’ve been putting them up in the casino, but some of them have families and they don’t want their families living in a casino.” Johnson, the judge, has the same problem recruiting prosecutors. “We can’t get them to come to the MHA Nation because of the lack of housing and the community is becoming so unsafe,” she said. “It is extremely dangerous to live here now.” While Fort Berthold needs more police officers, housing for recruits, more tribal prosecutors and judges, and additional drug treatment facilities, some residents say their leaders have made questionable purchases, including a yacht. Just behind the casino on the lake sits a gleaming white 96-foot yacht that the tribe purchased last year to be used for a riverboat gambling operation. While some federal officials have questioned the tribe's financial priorities, tribe members have called for an investigation into their leader's business dealings. Earlier this year, the seven-member tribal business council led by Hall voted to hire a former U.S. attorney to examine Hall’s private oil and gas business dealings on Fort Berthold -- including his relationship with James Henrikson, a man who was arrested on felony weapons charges and was indicted two weeks ago on 11 counts, including murder-for-hire of an associate. Hall, who served as chairman for 12 years, lost his reelection bid the same week. In a statement, he has denied "affiliation with any gangs" and said he is cooperating with federal investigators in the Henrikson case. Another member of the tribal council, Barry Benson, was arrested this year on drug charges. Federal officials have sent more agents and resources to the Bakken, tripling the number of prosecutions in what Purdon calls a “robust response” to the crime wave. But, he added, “it’s not for me to talk about what the appropriate response is by the state of North Dakota, or these counties and the tribe.” Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) created a task force this month of North Dakotans to focus on the increase in drug-related crime and human trafficking in the Bakken, including Fort Berthold. The state “could absolutely do more,” Heitkamp said in an interview, pointing to the need for more mental-health services, drug treatment facilities and drug courts. “We are blessed with a growing economy and the country’s lowest unemployment rate, but there was a 20 percent increase in drug crimes in North Dakota last year,” Heitkamp said. “A better-coordinated response from the state would be helpful. The lack of roads, housing and law enforcement has stretched this small rural reservation to the max.” Tractor-trailers employed in oil production are a constant sight on the roads throughout the reservation. ‘The last of the last’ Earlier this year at a tribal conference in Bismark, N.D., which Purdon and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. attended, White was presented with an award for her work trying to eradicate drug trafficking at Fort Berthold. She choked back tears as she walked to the podium, where she dedicated her award to her Native American grandparents who raised her. She spoke about the time she has spent away from her three children because of her job. “I sacrifice because this is the only place I’m going to be a cop, the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation,” White said, her voice cracking. “This is the last of what my people have,” White said. “Our people have survived so many things in history. The methamphetamine use, the heroin use, is just another epidemic like smallpox and boarding schools. And the last of the last are going to have to survive. And I want to be in the front lines because that was my vow — to protect my people.” |