Category: Justice

No Prosecution for Photographing Unclothed Teens in Their Houses

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Because when a school does it, it’s OK:

Federal authorities announced Tuesday they will not prosecute administrators connected to a webcam spying scandal at a suburban Philadelphia school district.

Prosecutors and the FBI opened an inquiry following a February privacy lawsuit accusing Lower Merion School District officials of spying on students with webcams on the 2,300 district-issued MacBooks. The lawyers who filed the lawsuit claim the district secretly snapped thousands of webcam images of students, including images of youths at home, in bed or even “partially dressed.”

Zane David Memeger, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, said he found no criminal intent in the alleged surveillance.

I cannot understand how there isn’t a trial of someone involved in this.

I guess that the prosecutor decided that high school students have no right to privacy.

Earlier posts are here.

But Will They Roll on Bush and His Evil Minions&trade

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Polish prosecutors are considering charging the former Polish President and PM with war crimes for allowing the CIA to operate gulags in their country:

Polish prosecutors are considering bringing charges of war crimes against the country’s former prime minister and former president over allegations of secret CIA prisons.

Former president Aleksander Kwasniewski and former prime minister Leszek Miller, who held office between 2001 and 2004, may stand trial before the State Tribunal, a court specifically designed to try Poland’s top officials, Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza reported on Wednesday (4 August).

The court’s prosecutor wants to ask the speaker of parliament to initiate the criminal procedure against the two men. The case would first have to go to a parliamentary committee and then to the lower house of parliament, which would decide whether or not to press charges, the news report says.

One hopes that eventually we find someone who is willing to sing on this, and the Shrub and the Smiler will end up in the dock.

It does seem that this is all beginning to unravel, and perhaps we are near a point where revelations breed further revelation.

Blago: A Swing and a Miss

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A hung jury on 23 of the 24 counts, and a conviction on lying to an FBI agent:

The jury is finally in on Rod Blagojevich — and the verdict is decidedly undecided.

A federal jury of six men and six women just returned a split verdict against the former governor, convicting him on only one of the 24 criminal corruption counts he faced.

Verdict reached: Blagojevich brothers arrive in court The Blago blog: Latest updates Complete coverage of the Blagojevich trial

The governor was found guilty of giving a false statement to federal agents.

In a courthouse where prosecutors win more than 90 percent of the time and after listening to a treasure trove of secretly recorded conversations, the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous decision on the other 23 counts.

So, the lesson here is that maybe US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is not all that, which I kind of figured when all he got out of Plamegate was Scooter Libby lying to federal officers (funny similarity there).

Actually, there is a broader lesson: Don’t talk to law enforcement if you think that there is the vaguest possibility that you are a target, even minor misstatements get thrown into the mix.

FWIW, I don;t think that Rahm will testify at the inevitable retrial, there is simply no “there” there.

I still cannot figure out how the prosecution screwed the pooch this badly, but I haven’t followed the minutiae, and most of what I have heard have been prosecution statements, so I won’t 2ndguess the jury.

Torturing a 15 Year Old Boy and Using the Confession Extracted Against Him, That’s the American Way

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So says Barack Obama on the Omar Khadr military tribunal:

Military commissions were one of those Bush/Cheney policies which provoked virtually universal outrage among progressives and Democrats back in the day when executive power abuses and rule of law transgressions were a concern. The Obama administration’s claim that the commissions are now improved to the point that they provide a forum of real justice is being put to the test — and blatantly failing — with the first such commission to be held under Obama: that of Omar Khadr, accused of throwing a grenade in 2002 which killed an American solider in Afghanistan, when Khadr was 15 years old. This is the first trial of a child soldier held since World War II, explained a U.N. official who condemned these proceedings. The commission has already ruled that confessions made by Khadr which were clearly obtained through coercion, abuse and torture will be admitted as evidence against him. Prior to the commencement of Khadr’s “trial,” the commission ruled in another case that the sentence imposed on a Sudanese detainee Ibrahim al-Qosi — convicted as part of a plea bargain of the dastardly crime of being Osama bin Laden’s “cook” — will be kept secret until he is released. What kind of country has secret sentences?

I get it. Barack Obama and His Evil Minions™ know that this is wrong, but they don’t want to spend the political capital or make the political risks to stop this.

This is worse the Bush and Cheney, because they saw torture and kangaroo courts as an independent good, but the Obama administration is doing this because they are worried about attacks that are happening anyway.

I will repeat what I said earlier, I am so writing in “Howard Dean,” in the 2012 general, and I don’t care if some it’s some recombinant DNA Chimera combination of Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, I am voting for whoever opposes him in the primary.

This is just evil, and should this ever see justice in the Hague, everyone in the chain of command today, right to the very top, should be put in the dock.

Naomi Campbell Should Go to Jail

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I understand that she’s a model, and so I really don’t care all that much about her flirting with former Liberian dictator, and accused war criminal, Charles Taylor, and getting gifts, in this case blood diamonds, as a result.

That being said, she testified in front of the war crimes trial at the Hague about the diamonds, and what happened, and her former agent and actress Mia Farrow contradicted her on every point. (also here)

I’m sure that Ms. Campbell is embarrasses about (almost literally) playing footsie with a murderous dictator, but it’s clear that she is perjuring herself for no good reason.

H8* Amendment Declared Unconstitutional

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Federal District Court Judge Vaughn Walker has ruled that California’s anti-gay marriage initiative is unconstitutional:

A federal judge in San Francisco struck down California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage on Wednesday, handing a temporary victory to gay rights advocates in a legal battle that seems all but certain to be settled by the Supreme Court.

Wednesday’s decision is just the latest chapter of what is expected to be a long legal battle over the ban — Proposition 8, which was passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote — and proponents were already promising to appeal, confidently predicting that higher courts would be less accommodating to the other side than Vaughn R. Walker, the judge who issued the ruling.

You can be sure of that last bit.

While I cannot speak to the proclivities of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, I know that they are a rather liberal circuit, but that is it, but I am aware of the proclivities of the Supreme Court, and I cannot see this ruling surviving there.

My assesment of the court:

  • Scalia has publicly stated his position, even before hearing a case in numerous public speeches.
  • Alito and Roberts chomping at the bit to throw red meat to the “cultural conservatives.”
  • Thomas wants to find an ethnic group to crap on.
  • Kennedy being of an age where gay marriage squicks him out, notwithstanding his opinion striking down the criminalization of gay sex in Lawrence v. Texas.
  • Between Sotamayor and (almost certainly on the court by the time that this is heard) Kagan, there is at least one vote, and probably 2 votes there for “Civil unions is good enough,” which is, after all, Barack Obama’s official position.

What worries me is that if Roberts has the votes, he will cast the broadest net possible, as he did in the Citizens United and Heller, and so do his level best reinstitute the criminalization of homosexuality, and probably take a big hack at Roe v. Wade.

It’s a good decision, and I support it, but I think that the ratf%$#ers on the Supreme Court will do whatever they can to turn this to evil.

What needs to be done now is to put Scalia on his back heel. He has prejudged the case, and has admitted it in public, so he must recuse himself.

Of course, he won’t, not unless the pressure placed on him forces him to.

We need to go after him the way Scientology went after judges they targeted, though obviously no one should drown his pet dog.

I am saying that it is clear that on numerous occasions, in numerous public events, Antonin Scalia has stated that his mind is made up on gay marriage.

As such any rudimentary understanding of legal ethics mandates that he recuse himself, and that Antonin Scalia does not posses even a rudimentary level of legal ethics, so unless there is a constant drum beat pointing out this fact, he will sit on the case with no intention of reviewing either the facts of the law fairly.

*Proposition 8=H8=Hate, OK?

Obama Administration Goes Full Eric Blair*

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Or maybe Franz Kafka.

You see, last month, the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights were retained by Nasser al-Awlaki, “the father of Obama assassination target (and U.S. citizen) Anwar al-Awlaki,” to get a court injunction to keep him from being killed by the U.S. government..

The government’s response was declare Anwar al-Awlaki a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist,” which meant that lawyers could not represent him without a special license from the government.

George W. Bush never asserted a right to assassinate American citizens, and they never used Treasury Department anti money laundering legislation to prevent lawyers from representing someone pro bono in a case to prevent their assassination:

Left with no choice, the ACLU and CCR this morning filed a lawsuit on their own behalf against Timothy Geithner and the Treasury Department. The suit argues that Treasury has no statutory authority under the law it invokes — The International Emergency Economic Powers Act — to bar American lawyers from representing American citizens on an uncompensated basis. It further argues what ought to be a completely uncontroversial point: that even if Congress had vested Treasury with this authority, it is blatantly unconstitutional to deny American citizens the right to have a lawyer, and to deny American lawyers the right to represent clients, without first obtaining a permission slip from Executive Branch officials (the Complaint is here). As the ACLU/CCR Brief puts it: “The notion that the government can compel a citizen to seek its permission before challenging the constitutionality of its actions in court is wholly foreign to our constitutional system” and “[a]s non-profit organizations dedicated to protecting civil liberties and human rights, Plaintiffs have a First Amendment right to represent clients in litigation consistent with their organizational missions.” The Brief also argues that it is a violation of Separation of Powers to allow the Executive Branch to determine in its sole discretion who can and cannot appear in and have access to a federal court.

Obama’s positions on national defense and surveillance indisputably worse than those of George W. Bush’s.

Bootnote:
After stonewalling for weeks, the Treasury Department granted a license once the ACLU and CCR filed a separate lawsuit against the denial of such a license, probably because they want to assert the right again, even if it is just for a few weeks to f%$# with the ability of some guy to get proper legal counsel.

I am so writing in “Howard Dean,” in the 2012 general.

*George Orwell’s real name.

I’m Buying Futures in Fig Newtons and Ice Cream Sammiches

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It appears that California’s Proposition 19, which would legalize and tax marijuana in the state has support fairly consistently polling ahead of opposition.

It should be noted that on human mediated polling, the initiative is down by between 1% and 4%, while in automated polling it is ahead by 10% and 16%, which Nate Silver thinks this is largely because people do not want to tell another person that they are voting for pot, though automated polls might miss minorities who tend to be more opposed to legalization.

I think that it will pass, because it is being sold on unrealistic magical thinking: If you vote for pot, and it is taxed, then California’s fiscal crisis is washed away by a font of “potro-dollars”.

This argument has a grain of truth, reduced costs of enforcement and the resulting criminality, along with the tax revenue, are not insignificant, but it’s not enough to fix the state that was ruined by the California voters and their initiative petition process.

Judge Suspense Portions of Arizona’s “Papers Please” Law

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I’m a hard liner on immigration, but I oppose this law.

It has been passed by people who as a matter of course disenfranchise Arizona hispanics for political advantage, so the judge’s ruling is a welcome development:

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona’s immigration enforcement law from going into effect, a ruling that at least temporarily squashed a state policy that had inflamed the national debate over immigration.

Judge Susan Bolton of Federal District Court issued a preliminary injunction against sections of the law, scheduled to take effect on Thursday, that called for police officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws and required immigrants to prove that they were authorized to be in the country or risk state charges. She issued the injunction in response to a legal challenge brought against the law by the Obama administration.

If you want to get tough on illegal aliens, go after the employers.

World Court Rules Kosovo Independence Not Illegal

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Serbia brought the case to them, arguing that the Kosavar declaration of independence was an infringement on the sovereignty of their country, and the court rules that such a secession is not against international law:

Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 did not break international law, top UN judges have ruled in a non-binding decision.

The International Court of Justice rejected Serbian claims that the move had violated its territorial integrity.

Kosovo officials said all doubt about its status had now been removed, but Serbia’s president insisted Belgrade would never recognise the secession.

Kosovo has been defacto independent for almost 2 decades, so this won’t make much of a difference, but I rather imagine that ¾ or the rulers of African nations are sh$#@ing bullets right now, because the boundaries of those countries are arbitrary artifacts of a horrific colonial past, and it will likely encourage more moves toward redrawing those boundaries.

In the long run, such a move will be good for the people of Africa, but to the corrupt elites who rule most of these nations,* because stoking ethnic divisions in order to create power with a divide and conquer strategy is how many of these corrupt bastards stay in power.†

A change to better drawn boundaries makes this more difficult, and thus would reduce their ability to rob their countrymen blind.‡

*Hell, the corrupt elites rule most of the nations in the world, including ours. See our own White House and Congress.
†Again, true of most nations out there too, including ours, see the Teabagger caucus in Congress.
‡Yes, us too, OK!

OK, This is Jim Crow Bigotry in Israel

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No other way to explain this.

An Arab man in Israel, Sabbar Kashur, hooked with a unnamed Jewish woman in Israel, and told her that he was Jewish in a successful attempt get into her pants.

When she discovered that he had lied to her about his religion, she filed rape charges, and today, he was convicted of rape by deception and sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Men lie to get into women’s pants:

  • I’ll respect you in the morning.
  • I’ve never been married.
  • I’m a stockbroker.
  • This car is a loaner, my Porsche is in the shop.
  • It’s just heat rash.

Certainly, I do not think that what Kashur did is right, but it is clearly not criminal either.

I cannot see any reason behind the fact that the Israeli prosecutors and the Israeli judiciary pursued this as a criminal matter beyond bigotry.

I Hate to Wake Up Sober in Nebraska*

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I must have missed the story earlier, but a Federal Judge has stayed a Nebraska law that requires a psychological evaluation before getting an abortion:

A new law that requires all women to be prescreened for possible mental issues prior to obtaining an abortion has been blocked by U.S. District Court Judge Laurie Smith Camp. The law, which was scheduled to go into effect on July 15th, was challenged by Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, who argued that the law was so vague that it would be impossible to correctly adhere to it.

As I’ve said before, notwithstanding the fact that abortion first emerged as a proxy issue about race and segregated private academies, this issue has taken a life on of its own, and we are beyond any compromise on this issue.

*It’s a song by the group Free Hot Lunch.

This is a Big F%$#ing Deal

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A panel of the 2dd circuit court of appeals has ruled that the FCC’s indecency rules, calling the vague and a violation of 1st amendment rights:

In a sharp rebuke of the Bush-era crackdown on foul language on broadcast television and radio, a federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down the government’s near-zero-tolerance indecency policy as a violation of the 1st Amendment protection of free speech.

………

The case was triggered by unscripted expletives uttered by Bono, Cher and Nicole Richie on awards shows earlier in the decade, and the court’s decision calls into question the FCC’s regulation of foul language and other indecent content on the public airwaves.

………

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals did not have the power to strike down the 1978 Supreme Court decision that affirmed the FCC’s right to police the airwaves for objectionable content. But it reversed the aggressive stance the agency took starting in 2004 that found even a slip of the tongue that got by network censors was a violation subject to fines for the stations that aired it.

The court said that policy on so-called fleeting expletives was “unconstitutionally vague” and created a “chilling effect” on the programming that broadcasters chose to air. The court echoed complaints from network executives that the FCC’s standards were nearly impossible to gauge, noting that the agency allowed the airing of the f-word and s-word in broadcasts of the World War II movie “Saving Private Ryan” but not in the PBS miniseries “The Blues.”

Word up.

Now a special master has to be appointed, because when stations appeal fines, because there is always the implicit threat that the FCC will “lose” license renewal applications when the fines are appealed.