Category: Justice

Australian Activists Present Brief to International Criminal Court Against Former PM John Howard

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Here

Meanwhile, the Australian Broadcast Corp. reported June 1 that a legal brief has been sent to the International Criminal Court alleging Howard committed a war crime by sending troops to Iraq. A loose alliance of peace activists, lawyers, academics and politicians is behind the brief, organized by the ICC Action Group, based in Melbourne.

One paragraph in the article, but I’m beginning to thing that we should think of filing similar briefs on Bush and His Evil Minions™, because justice will never be served in the USA.

Dang, No Lawsuit Against MediaDefender

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You may recall that I wrote about MediaDefender’s terrorist DDOS attack on internet TV station Revision3 last Friday.

As promised, I sent Revision3 an email saying that if they wanted to sue, and set up a legal fund, I’d throw in a few bucks.

Well they got back to me, and they are not suing, at least not now.

reprinted with permission

Jim Louderback <@@@@@@@@> Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 3:24 PM
To: @@@@@@@@@

Ha, that’s a good idea. Probably won’t do it, but I appreciate the thoughts!

jim

–snipped forward form support email—

—– Forwarded Message —–
From: “Matthew Saroff” <@@@@@@@@>
To: @@@@@@@@
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2008 12:10:55 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Re: The MediaDefender DDOS Attack, Will You Set Up a Legal Fund?

Have you considered putting up a link for a legal fund to sue those folks?

If you did, I’d throw in a few bucks.

—
Matthew Saroff
Standard Disclaimer Applies
Yadda, Yadda, Yadda, I Gotta Blog
http://40yrs.blogspot.com

Geoff Fieger Acquitted in Politically Motivated Trial

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It appears that the US attorney scandal is bearing bitter fruit, and that the defense’s suggestions that this was a politically motivated prosecution found favor with the jury as a result. Feiger was found not guilty of felony campaign finance violations.

Unfortunately, once destroyed, faith in the Department of Justice will not come back simply through regime change, so public corruption charges will be difficult to prosecute for many years to come.

Political Kangaroo Court

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Col. Peter Brownback, the judge on the Omar Khadr case, has been dismissed by the Pentagon:

U.S. Army Col. Peter Brownback, 60, a Vietnam veteran who once admitted he was under pressure from Washington concerning Khadr’s case, was relieved of his duties yesterday and replaced by another military judge.

There was no comment from the Pentagon or the U.S. Office of Military Commissions last night concerning the short email announcing Brownback’s departure.

There had been speculation that Brownback had wanted to return to retirement, but most observers had assumed it would be at the end of Khadr’s trial.

Khadr’s military lawyer, U.S. navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, said the announcement took him by surprise and suggested that the motive for the military judge’s removal was political. Brownback had refused to set a trial date for Khadr, which Kuebler said angered those eager to have his case wrapped up before a change in the U.S. administration.

“The timing is certainly suspicious,” Kuebler said yesterday. “They’re trying to get to trial as quickly as possible. The one thing you can say in (Brownback’s) favour was that he was holding the government’s feet to the fire.”

If you recall, he was 14 at the time of his alleged crimes, and as a child soldier, in civilized worlds, though apparently not in the US military tribunal system, he would be adjudged a victim, not a criminal.

In related news, It appears that the government is pulling out all the stops to make sure that the trials of the alleged 911 conspirators are a part of the presidential campaign:

The U.S. military attorneys included the claim in a 20-page brief asking the military judge to dismiss the capital charges against alleged al Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other Guantánamo detainees.

The document includes an e-mail from a civilian member of the prosecution team proposing to set the trial date for Sept. 15, the Monday after the seventh anniversary of the suicide attacks.

”Not coincidentally,” the defense attorneys say, “that would force the trial of this case in mid-September, some seven weeks before the general elections.”

This means that the defense will be given about 3 months to prepare for 5 death penalty cases where much of the evidence is classified, which is clearly inadequate.

Viacom Going Postal On YouTube

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The DMCA is pretty clear on this. If someone posts something to an internet service, and they get a notice, and then take it down, it’s no harm, no foul.

This appears to be YouTube at a glance, but Viacom is now claiming, “that YouTube is guilty of public performance of such content due to the way it presents and plays the videos“, because it allows for embedding and sharing (actually referrals) to the material.

This is going to get very, very ugly.

Poppy Cultivation Makes for Tough Choices in Afghanistan

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Found in a rather odd place, specifically an Aviation Week defense blog, is the realization by experts that the poppy eradication program is bolstering the Taliban.

Seeing as how the current plan is to threaten people and burn their crops if they are caught with poppies again, I can’t imagine why this would be a problem.

This really needs to be addressed on the demand end, but with the biggest market for Heroine, the USA, hopelessly mired in a punitive “war on drugs”, that ain’t happening in the foreseeable future.

Refuting George Washington, Bush and His Evil Minions™ say, “Let There Be Kings”

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That’s what they are asking for in the Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a legal resident of the United States who was arrested on US soil.

They are claiming that the President can wave a wand, and call anyone an enemy combatant, and detain them without trial or access to counsel forever.

If the president has this right, than we have no rights.

They claim that he’s a major terrorist, but they are unwilling to try him.

It’s clear that the political fallout of a successful prosecution would be positive Bush and the Republicans, which implies very strongly that they have no case whatsoever.

House Dems Looking to Short Circuit the Preemption Doctrine

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Over the past few years, an obscure legal concept called the preemption doctrine, has gained increasing currency in the Federal courts.

Basically, the concept is that if a medical product gets FDA approval, that this strips the consumer of any right to sue should it prove defective, even if deliberate wrong doing or a cover-up can be shown (think Viiox).

There has been a big push for this by Bush and His Evil Minions™, because they believe that poor people should not be able to inconvenience large companies.

In fact, the FDA supported consumer lawsuits as a way to help keep medical companies on their toes until 2002.

It now appears that Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is looking at eliminating this argument legislatively. He has started to hold hearings.

Point man for the Republicans is Connecticut’s 2nd most prominent prostitute*, Christopher Shays, who vehemently argued the administration’s position, “juries of laymen shouldn’t be usurping the rigorous decision-making process of federal scientists.”

Seeing as how politically appointed laymen are, “usurping the rigorous decision-making process of federal scientists”, throughout the Bush administration, this seems to me to be awfully weak tea.

In any case, I would expect legislation some time in 2009.

*Number 1 is Joe Lieberman….Come on, get with the program.

30 Former Officials Became Corporate Monitors – NYTimes.com

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Over the past few years, Bush and His Evil Minions™ have aggressively expanded a program called, “deferred prosecutions” where the companies avoid a court case by paying a fine and agreeing to supervision.

Well, it now appears that in addition to helping along one goal of the Bush adminsitration, slaps on the wrist for corporate law breakers, they have gotten a twofer by creating lucrative private contracts for former political allys, in the form of “corporate monitors”.

You may recall that John Ashcroft got a $52,000,000.00 contract to do this, for example.

Texas Appeals Court Rules Revokes Texas Custody In Raid on Polygamy Compound

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I already noted that the original complaint call leading to the raid was a hoax, and now the appeals court has ruled unanimously that, “the the state did not establish proper grounds to remove the children from their families.”

The ruling — an unusual mandamus opinion granting relief in a case not yet decided — came on the application of 38 women who challenged state custody and another 54 who filed a second action. But lawyers said the burden was on the state to show why it should not apply to the rest of the children as well.

It sounds to me like someone was cowboying way too much on this.

Someone screwed up, big time.

The Government’s Secret Detention List

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I’m wondering if I am on that list.

My guess would be that if martial law were to be declared, it would be in mid to late November, following a Democratic victory,* because it would be to cover up their own wrongdoing.

Christopher Ketcham of Radar Magazine makes the case that the US government has a list of 8 million people that they will detain without process if martial law is declared. That’s just under 3% of the population.

He makes a convincing case that the entire scene with Ashcroft in the hospital being browbeaten to sign a document was in fact a surveillance program connected to a, “so-called Continuity of Government (COG) programs”, centered in FEMA‡, where it evades the oversight done on what is normally considered the state security apparatus (FBI, CIA, other TLAs, etc.).

I’m not sure which is more depressing to me, the fact that this might be the plan of Bush and His Evil Minions™, or the fact that I have so little faith in those career bureaucrats in the US state security apparatus to obey their vows to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

*And let’s be clear….At this point, that means Barack Obama. Even if all of FL and MI are seated. Unless he is caught with a live boy or a dead girl, he’s the nominee.†
†Not my preferred outcome, but I wanted Howard Dean in 2004 and Bill Bradley in 2000, so I’m used to it.
‡That’s right, the folks who f%$#ed up Katrina are responsible for the continued existence of a law based Democracy in the US.

D.C. Cir. to Comcast: “Making You Obey The Law Is Not A ‘Vendetta.’”

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Care of Harold Feld’s Tales of the Sausage Factory.

One of the things I like about Harold Feld’s writings on the FCC regulatory process is that, in addition to being relatively easily understood, it’s also a fun read:

But the ultimate bitch slap to Comcast and its bully boys and useful idiots comes on page 11 n.2:

The briefs filed by Comcast, the intervenors, and the amici make assertions bordering on accusations of the Commission’s bad faith. We must presume an agency acts in good faith, Thomas v. Baker, 925 F.2d 1523, 1525 (D.C. Cir. 1991), but in any case we see no substance to these assertions. (emphasis added)

Or, to translate from the legalese: “Comcast, you and the rest of the cable industry need to get over yourselves and get a clue. The FCC requiring you to obey the law is not a ‘vendetta,’ even if previous FCC

Heh.

In this case, the Federal Court slapped down Comcast hard over its insistence that it needed an exemption from set top box interoperability rules.

Federal Court Rules US Paper Currency Violates the Rehabilitation Act of 1973

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Basically, there are no tactile differences between the bills, and U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ruled that this is in violation of the law.

Among other things, they said that the government did not shot that fixing this would be an undue burden.

When you consider the stuff that they’ve done lately, putting a bit of texture on the bills has got to be cheaper than the holographic inks, etc. that they are using/

The case is American Council of the Blind v. Paulson.

Bush and His Evil Minions&trade Can’t Even Convict Guilty People Without F%$#ing it Up

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As is to be expected, the defense attorneys in the Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, et al trial are making a number of motions to dismiss. It happens in any trial. It’s what defense attorneys are supposed to do.

This time however, they make a fairly good point, specifically that the convening authority is illegitimate because it’s head acted inappropriately (the equivalent to this in a civil trial would be along the line of a juror talking to an attorney involved in the case).

Seems like they are half way there, because the presiding officer has already removed Brig. Gen. Thomas W., “What, Me, Ethics?” Hartmann from the case for his inappropriate behavior.

The five defense lawyers representing the so-called high-value detainees, who face the death penalty if convicted, argued in a 127-page motion that military commission rules require the legal advisor to provide “neutral and objective” advice.

The lawyers cited testimony that last summer Hartmann urged prosecutors to target “sexy” cases and those in which American blood was shed, hoping to boost the tribunal’s image as the presidential election approaches.

….

The defense motion said Hartmann had steered Guantanamo prosecutors away from other cases and toward the five defendants in hopes of racking up high-profile convictions.

Seriously, they screwed up the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein too, turning one of the more detested figures in the Arab world a martyr.

On the up side, there is no way that these trials start before the elections now.

Texas Attorney General Does Not Think that N***ers Should Vote

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Once again, we have a wingnut trying to prove massive vote fraud, and once again, despite his best effort he cannot find anything, this time in the wingnuttiest of states, Texas.

Attorney General Greg Abbott, a ‘Phant, entered office pledging to, ” root out what he called an epidemic of voter fraud in Texas”.

Net result: 26 prosecutions, almost all against blacks and Hispanics, because in Texas, it’s a crime for darkies to vote.

In 18 of the 26 cases, people were prosecuted for neglecting to put their name on the envelope when they carried it to the mailbox for someone else.

They did encounter some real vote fraud in the remaining cases, it appears to be about a dozen votes, no doubt Bigot Abbot will use as justification to aggressively pursue voting while dark prosecutions.