Saving lazy Libertarians
Robert Robb demonizes Libertarians by calling them "Lazy Libertarians"
Who needs the facts, when you can demonize Libertarians by calling them names???First the Libertarians didn't pass the existing laws which set the requirements for signatures. That was done years ago by the Democrats and the Republicans. Just like the latest law which makes it almost impossible for Libertarians and Greens to run for office was passed by the Republicans.
Second the signature requirements don't let you get in the GENERAL election. They are to allow you to enter YOUR parties PRIMARY election. Making a Libertarian get 5,000+ signatures to get on the Libertarian Party primary and run for governor doesn't make any sense where there are only something like 25,000 registered Libertarian voters in Arizona.
And remember that unlike the Republicans and Democrats only LIBERTARIANS can vote in the LIBERTARIAN primary elections.
Third, the Libertarians have said for years that it is time to end the taxpayer financed primary elections and let the political parties pay for their primary elections. Of course Robert Robb didn't mention that because it wouldn't help his rant to demonize the Libertarian Party. Now if that was true then it should be the PARTIES, not the STATE that decides who can run in their primary election.
Posted on September 12, 2013 4:25 pm by Robert Robb
Saving lazy Libertarians
Opponents of the Legislature’s omnibus election law, House Bill 2305, appear to have enough signatures to suspend its provisions and put it on the 2014 ballot.
That should be enormous relief to lazy Libertarians planning to run for office in 2014. Otherwise, it’s a lot of sound and fury over not much. The actual provisions of HB 2305 hardly warrant the outrage being expressed.
Let’s start with the lazy Libertarian provision and begin by conceding the cynical motivation of legislative Republicans in enacting it. Republicans believe that Libertarians can cost them close elections and want to make it more difficult for Libertarians to get on the ballot.
Currently, it is ridiculously easy for small-party candidates to get on the ballot because the signature requirement is expressed as a percentage of party registration. Instead, Republicans would require all candidates to meet the same signature requirement based on total voter registration.
The new requirements aren’t that daunting. To qualify for statewide office would take around 5,400 signatures. For Congress, 1,200. For the Legislature, 360. Since Libertarian and Green Party candidates can get signatures from independents, that’s not a killer obstacle for a candidate who’s in it for more than giggles.
And despite the cynical motivation, there’s sense in making the signature requirement the same for all candidates irrespective of party. Why should candidates from parties with less support, as measured by voters willing to affiliate with them, have easier ballot access than candidates from parties with more support?
Opponents are also exercised by HB 2305’s provision requiring that initiative and recall petition drives strictly comply with all constitutional and statutory requirements. The courts already require strict compliance for efforts to refer a legislative act to a vote. But they have allowed initiatives to just substantially comply.
This is entirely a judge-invented distinction. The Arizona Constitution treats initiatives and referendums exactly the same. Moreover, the substantial compliance standard gives judges too much power to decide which measures get to the ballot and which do not. Why should a judge get to decide which legal requirements are important and which are not, or what constitutes “close enough” to complying?
If modern-day populists think Arizona’s requirements for direct democracy are too tough, the answer is to change them, not to empower judges to ignore them.
The heart of the outrage, however, is over two provisions dealing with early ballots. The first would clean up the permanent early ballot list by sensibly assuming that if someone doesn’t vote by early ballot in four consecutive elections, that person isn’t really an early voter. Those not on the permanent list can still vote in person, or request an early ballot for any particular election, or sign up for the permanent list again at any time.
Before anyone’s name was removed from the list, the voter would receive a notice and could remain on the list simply by mailing back a postcard. And that somehow constitutes voter suppression.
The second provision would prohibit organized drives to collect early ballots and delivery them to the polls. People could ask a relative, friend or neighbor to drop off their ballot. But political groups couldn’t do it on a broad or systematic basis.
It seems that certain Democratic and Latino political activists are aspiring ward heelers. They want to sign people up for early ballots and then collect and deliver their ballots.
Early ballots, however, are meant to be mailed. Delivering them by hand in bulk quantities on or near Election Day exacerbates the delay in counting the vote that caused such heartburn last election.
Moreover, having hundreds or thousands of ballots outside the custody of either the voter or election officials is a disturbing security breach. In the last election, there were credible reports of people going door to door falsely claiming to be election officials collecting early ballots.
While the outrage over HB 2305 is grossly overdone, I suppose I shouldn’t complain. There are worse liberal causes than rescuing lazy Libertarians.
(column for 9.13.13)
New York claims Muslim surveillance warranted
SourceNew York claims Muslim surveillance warranted
Associated Press Thu Sep 12, 2013 8:05 PM
NEW YORK — The New York Police Department had legitimate reasons to put specific mosques and Muslim worshippers under surveillance as part of its counterterrorism efforts, a city lawyer said Thursday at the first court date in a civil rights lawsuit accusing the NYPD of religious profiling.
Peter Farrell of the city Law Department argued that before the case goes forward, the city should be allowed to present evidence specific to the six plaintiffs that he said would prove police were acting with legitimate law enforcement purposes. If the judge agrees, “then this case is over,” he said.
An American Civil Liberties Union attorney, Hina Shamsi, countered that her clients already had sufficient legal standing to sue the city and that the NYPD should be ordered to begin turning over sensitive reports and documents detailing the alleged spying on Muslims.
U.S. Magistrate Joan Azrack said she would rule at a later date.
The suit was filed in June following a series of Associated Press reports, detailing the NYPD’s Muslim surveillance programs. It alleges that the programs undermined free worship by innocent people and asked the court to halt the surveillance.
In a letter filed on Tuesday, city lawyers outlined evidence they say shows that a security team at a mosque named as a plaintiff in the suit sponsored survival training outings and referred to team members as “jihad warriors.” Another plaintiff mosque was frequented by a man convicted earlier this year of lying to the FBI about plans to team up with the Taliban or al-Qaida, the letter said.
An NYPD investigation of a third plaintiff, college student Asad Dandia, “is based on information that he has made statements and conducted activities in support of violent jihad,” the letter said. Dandia also “attempted to organize a trip to Pakistan in 2011 to train and fight alongside extremist elements there,” it added.
An NYPD informant acknowledged last year in an interview with the AP that he had spied on Dandia and others.
The NYPD didn’t target particular mosques “simply because the attendees were Muslim,” the letter said. “Rather, the NYPD followed leads suggesting that certain individuals in certain mosques may be engaging in criminal and possibly terrorist activity.”
In response, the ACLU accused the city of vilifying its clients “through inflammatory and insinuation and innuendo, suggesting (they) are worthy of criminal investigation on the basis of First Amendment-protected speech, activities or attenuated — and unwitting — association alone.”
It added: “This strategy is a deliberate distraction at best. At worst, it verges on the very type of discriminatory and meritless profiling at the heart of this case.”
Last month, the AP reported that confidential documents show that the NYPD has secretly labeled entire mosques as terrorist organizations, a designation that allows police to use informants to record sermons and spy on worshippers. Police officials have insisted that the department only acts on legitimate leads about terror threats.
Detective ordered to hack iPad of officer's wife
With crooked cops like this do you really think you will get a fair trial if you are falsely arrested for something????Lawsuit: Will Co. detective ordered to hack iPad of officer's wife
By Andy Grimm Tribune reporter
9:37 a.m. CDT, September 13, 2013
A former Will County sheriff's detective claims a top deputy ordered him to hack the deputy's wife's iPad to look for evidence that she was cheating and then demoted the detective when he complained about it to a supervisor.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday in Will County, Josh Fazio says Deputy Chief Ken Kaupas in 2012 told him to crack the pass code on Kaupas' wife's computer to investigate "whether she was cheating on (Kaupas)." When Fazio asked his superior, Sgt. Dan Troike, about it, Troike told him to do as he was asked.
"I can't imagine in what universe that is legitimate police work," said Michael Booher, Fazio's attorney.
Fazio is suing Kaupas and Will County.
Ken Kaupas has announced he is running for sheriff in 2014, hoping to succeed his cousin, Paul Kaupas, who is retiring. Ken Kaupas, who often acts as spokesman for the sheriff's department, declined comment on the lawsuit Thursday.
Paul Kaupas said the suit was filed to damage his cousin politically.
"Anybody can say anything they want in a lawsuit and the newspaper, and it will go into print," Paul Kaupas said. "The knowledge I have of the case, in my opinion, I know this is being done for political purposes. None of the accusations are true."
Fazio also claims in the lawsuit that Lt. Jeff McKenzie in 2010 ordered Fazio to send him a pornographic DVD while McKenzie was attending the FBI academy in Virginia "because (McKenzie) apparently had no Internet there."
When Fazio complained about both the DVD and iPad requests two years later, he claims he was chewed out by Ken Kaupas and McKenzie, then demoted to patrol duty, despite receiving numerous commendations for his work during seven years as computer forensics expert for the department.
Fazio resigned rather than take the demotion and is now working in the private sector, Booher said. Booher said he had contacted the department about resolving Fazio's complaint before filing the lawsuit, which seeks damages in excess of $50,000.
"Will County had ample time to resolve this, but they didn't respond to us," the attorney said.
The suit claims that Fazio met with Paul Kaupas before resigning and that Kaupas told Fazio he "should have just kept his mouth shut and did what he was told."
In a meeting before he was demoted, Fazio contends, Ken Kaupas told him that Fazio "broke his trust" by complaining to Troike about the iPad and that McKenzie said the complaint about the DVD could "ruin (McKenzie's) career."
Fazio also claims in the lawsuit that Ken Kaupas told other police and government officials that Fazio was not trustworthy, "a thief, a fake, and could not do his job."
agrimm@tribune.com
Twitter @agrimm34
NSA secretly kept encryption standards weak
This article reminds me of the "Data Encryption Standard" or the "DES Standard", which the government, and probably the NSA was accused of supporting because of it's ridiculously week 56 bit key.The rumor then was that the government wanted to be able to break any data easily that was encrypted with the DES Standard.
That was probably 20 to 30 years ago and the DES Standard was mostly used by large businesses in mainframe to mainframe computer transactions. Personal computers were just getting started and the Internet didn't exist.
NSA secretly kept encryption standards weak
Records reveal agency's dual role as locksmith and lock-picker
Sep. 11, 2013
WASHINGTON — Years ago when computer users were dialing up the Internet, civilian government scientists already expressed concerns about the National Security Agency’s role in developing global communication standards, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
The records mirror new disclosures, based on classified files 24 years later, that the NSA sought to deliberately weaken Internet encryption in its effort to gather and analyze digital intelligence.
This week, the government’s National Institute of Standards and Technology sought to shore up confidence in the important behind-the-scenes role it plays in setting standards that are used by consumers to make purchases online, access their bank accounts, digitally sign legal documents or file their income taxes electronically. The agency said it “would not deliberately weaken a cryptographic standard” and would continue to work with experts “to create the strongest possible encryption standards for the U.S. government and industry at large.”
It also noted that, under federal law, it was required to consult with the NSA on its computer standards.
Meanwhile, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that “it should hardly be surprising that our intelligence agencies seek ways to counteract our adversaries’ use of encryption.”
That office criticized recent disclosures — based on classified records revealed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden — that the NSA for years has used computing power, legal instruments and its role as adviser to NIST to undermine encryption technologies that protect consumers but also could make digital surveillance more difficult for the U.S. government.
NSA dominated encryption
Historical NIST records released under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act more than two decades ago show that tensions over security software arose in the early 1990s between the NSA and other scientists in the government who had been working together since 1989 to develop the Digital Signature Standard, a way to electronically sign documents and guarantee their authenticity. That became a federal processing standard by 1994 and was most recently updated in July.
“It’s increasingly evident that it is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile the concerns and requirements of NSA, NIST and the general public using this approach,” the government experts, who included NSA representatives, wrote in a January 1990 memorandum.
Then, in 1992, Stanford University Professor Martin Hellman wrote in an industry journal that the then-proposed standard, eventually embraced by NIST and the NSA, had such serious weaknesses that it undermined NIST’s credibility among civilian cryptography experts.
Additionally, the NSA wanted details of its decisions kept secret. Even the NSA’s reasoning for selecting an algorithm was closely held, stamped “classified” and accessible only to officials with a top secret security clearance. The documents the AP reviewed had been turned over to David Sobel, now senior counsel to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group.
“This was really the first opportunity the public had to learn of the dominant role that the NSA played in the realm of civilian cryptography and security,” Sobel told the AP.
The recent disclosures by Snowden, he said, “demonstrate that dynamic has not changed over the past 20 years — and, if anything, NSA might have become more dominant since those original disclosures were made.”
On one hand, the NSA is responsible for being the Internet’s chief digital locksmith, helping the U.S. government devise standards that have for years protected e-commerce, sensitive documents and citizens’ privacy. On the other, the agency is charged with being cyberspace’s chief electronic lock-picker, capable of stealing the world’s most closely guarded secrets.
“If you wanted to put it in exaggerated terms, the fox is in charge of henhouse,” said Richard Aldrich, whose study of Britain’s signals intelligence agency GCHQ details how it and the NSA worked together to weaken the quality of the encryption used by international diplomats in the 1960s, ’70s and beyond.
But even if the NSA’s campaign to loosen the world’s digital locks has a long pedigree, experts say the fact that encryption has moved out of embassy cypher rooms and into the mainstream means there’s much more at stake. Cryptographers say that the weaknesses left by the NSA might one day be used by America’s rivals in Moscow or Beijing — or even savvy cybercriminals, if the loopholes aren’t being used already.
“What one person can discover, another person can discover. In the end, somebody will figure it out,” said Ben Laurie, a core developer behind OpenSSL, a protocol that helps protect a big chunk of the world’s Internet users from fraudulent websites, credit-card scams and identity theft. “If you deliberately weaken stuff, it will come back to bite you.”
---
BACK DOORS
Cryptographers generally accept that the National Security Agency devotes an enormous amount of time and money cracking enemies’ and others’ codes.
• But the tactics exposed in the newly revealed classified documents — deliberately weakening or installing hidden “back doors” in widely-used encryption protocols — have distressed academics and practitioners alike.
• “We’re both surprised and disappointed in the way that they’re doing it,” said Matthew Green, a professor of cryptography at Johns Hopkins University.
Bloated nuclear spending comes under criticism
Like the police "war on drugs" is a jobs program for cops, the American government's obsession with nuclear weapons is a jobs program for the corporations in the military industrial complex.As H. L. Mencken said:
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."Source
Bloated nuclear spending comes under criticism
By Jeri Clausing and Matthew Daly Associated Press Fri Sep 13, 2013 8:32 PM
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. At Los Alamos National Laboratory, a seven-year, $213 million upgrade to the security system that protects the lab’s most sensitive nuclear bomb-making facilities doesn’t work. Those facilities, which sit atop a fault line for potential earthquakes, remain susceptible to collapse and dangerous radiation releases, despite millions more spent on improvement plans.
In Tennessee, the price for a new uranium processing facility has grown nearly sevenfold in eight years, to beyond $6 billion, because of problems that include a redesign to raise the roof.
And the estimated cost of an effort to refurbish 400 of the country’s B61 bombs has grown from $1.5 billion to $10 billion.
Virtually every major project under the National Nuclear Security Administration’s oversight is behind schedule and over budget — the result, watchdogs and government auditors say, of years of lax accountability for the agency responsible for maintaining the nation’s nuclear stockpile.
The NNSA has racked up $16 billion in cost overruns on 10 major projects that are a combined 38 years behind schedule, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reports. Other projects have been canceled or suspended, despite hundreds of millions of dollars already spent, because they grew too bloated.
Advocates say spending increases are necessary to keep the nation’s nuclear arsenal operating and safe, and to continue cutting-edge research at the nation’s nuclear labs. But critics say the nuclear program — run largely by private contractors and overseen by the NNSA, an arm of the U.S. Energy Department — has turned into a massive jobs program with duplicative functions.
U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security financial and contracting oversight subcommittee, said a key problem is the Energy Department’s reliance on private contractors to carry out its mission. The DOE has fewer than 16,000 employees and more than 92,000 contractors.
The retired head of one of those contractors, former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, told Congress this spring that the absence of day-to-day accountability and an ineffectual structure at the NNSA pose a national security risk.
DOE and NNSA officials agree there are problems. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said this month that addressing the cost overruns and the embarrassing security breaches at some facilities is a top priority. A congressionally appointed panel, co-chaired by Augustine, recently began studying a potential overhaul of the NNSA.
Moniz acknowledged some projects had seen “substantial cost overruns.”
An NNSA spokesman referred a reporter to congressional testimony by the agency’s project and acquisitions manager, Bob Raines, who said projects completed in the past two years had met cost goals and finished under budget.
“We are making progress,” Raines testified in March before a House of Representatives subcommittee.
The problems have resulted in renewed scrutiny and changes in leadership at the NNSA over the past year. In August, President Barack Obama nominated retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz as its next head. He’s awaiting Senate confirmation.
Will Humble's convoluted cockamamie definition of medical marijuana
I wonder if Will Humble was smoking some of the medical marijuana when he came up with these silly imaginary rules that are allegedly in Prop 203.
Last while I think Will Humble is full of BS on this issue, you have to remember that Will Humble's thugs who are called police, have guns and will arrest and jail you if you don't obey the law in the convoluted, cockamamie way that Will Humble views it.
[Will Humble] warned Friday that medical marijuana soda pop or hard candy you bought may still land you ... in jail.
Humble cautioned that the law is crafted to require that the food products contain actual pieces of the marijuana plant [just where does it say that in the law Mr. Humble???]
he said the statute is very clear that only "useable marijuana'' is legally protected and not the extracts minus the plant [just where does it say that in the law Mr. Humble???]
possessing — the brewed [marijuana] tea in a bottle, with no plant material, could be a felony [could be??? It is, or it isn't Mr. Humble!!! Please give us some solid answers, not drug war propaganda designed to scare off medical marijuana patients.]
Humble said the 2010 law did not legalize cannabis [gee Mr. Humble, just what part of a marijuana plant isn't cannabis???? All my life I thought it was the same stuff!!!!! Of course under Arizona criminal law technically cannabis is hashish. But under the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act I would say hashish is just another form of medical marijuana which is legal only for medical marijuana patients]
Hashish is ... not protected under the medical marijuana law [Again Prop 203 seems to say that any form of marijuana can be used by medical marijuana users which would include hashish, hash oil and other concentrated forms of marijuana]
Are Marijuana and Cannabis the same thing when it comes to Arizona Law? The short answer is no [Well Mr Humble that certainly is true. BUT!!!! I am sure that the folks that wrote Prop 203 intended for medical marijuana users to be covered by the definition in Prop 203, not the definition in the criminal code. After all, any form of marijuana is legal only for a person with a medical marijuana prescription or recommendation.]
An issue the Department has been wrestling with for some time is how the definition of “Marijuana” and “Usable Marijuana” in the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act and the definition of “Cannabis” and “Marijuana” in the Criminal Code fit together. [Again Mr. Humble if you weren't so busy trying to flush Prop 203 down the toilet with lame excuses such as in this blog, it should be perfectly obvious to you that the definition of marijuana in Prop 203 applies to people with medical marijuana prescriptions or recommendations. And the definition of marijuana in the criminal code applies to people who DON'T have a medical marijuana prescription or reccommendation]
Marijuana regulations might not cover all food products
SourceMarijuana regulations might not cover all food products
By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX — You may have a state-issued card allowing you to buy and use marijuana for medical purposes. But the state's top health official warned Friday that medical marijuana soda pop or hard candy you bought may still land you — and the dispensary owner who sold it to you — in jail.
State Health Director Will Humble said the 2010 voter-approved law clearly contemplates that those authorized to sell and use marijuana for medical reasons need not smoke it. Food products are legal.
But Humble cautioned that the law is crafted to require that the food products contain actual pieces of the marijuana plant. He said anything that contains only an extract remains a felony in Arizona.
Humble said he's not an attorney and cannot define exactly when preparing marijuana for brownies, sodas or lollipops crosses the line. But he said the statute is very clear that only "useable marijuana'' is legally protected and not the extracts minus the plant.
What that means, he said, is someone with a medical marijuana card could legally make, sell or possess a tea bag with marijuana. But selling — or even possessing — the brewed tea in a bottle, with no plant material, could be a felony.
Attorney Ryan Hurley, whose clients include dispensary owners, acknowledged that Arizona law does make a difference between marijuana as defined in the 2010 law and what he called an “archaic” definition of marijuana extracts that are illegal under the criminal code. And he conceded the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act does not include extracts.
But Hurley said he believes it was always the intent of those who crafted the law to allow food products made from extracts.
That's also the contention of Morgan Fox, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project which crafted the Arizona law. He said the statute allows use of not only marijuana but also any “preparation” of the drug, which he said includes extracts.
“I have no doubt that the state will be challenged if it tries to exclude edible marijuana products from protection,” he said.
By contrast, Jeffrey Kaufman, who also represents dispensary owners, said the issue may come down to how the THC — the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana — was extracted.
On one hand, he said it's illegal to make hashish or hash oil, the concentrated resins containing the THC, using a butane extraction process. And that would make any food products made with those items illegal.
But Kaufman said he believes there's nothing wrong with extracting THC through a freezing and filtering process and then using what's produced in recipes.
Humble isn't ready to make that kind of distinction, calling it one of the “gray area” in the law. But he said state health inspectors will soon be taking a closer look at the recipes of the food products being sold at marijuana dispensaries and advising operators when they think the items are not protected by the law.
The 2010 laws says those with a doctor's recommendation can get 2 1/2 ounces of “useable marijuana” every two weeks. And the law defines that as being the plant, minus the stems and seeds.
But the criminal code has two definitions.
The first is for “marijuana” which includes the plant “from which the resin has not been extracted.” But there is a separate definition of “cannabis” which includes the resin extracted from the plant.
And Humble said the 2010 law did not legalize cannabis.
“You can produce edibles,” he said. “But you'd better make sure it's made of 'useable marijuana' as covered under the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act and not extracts and resins,” which remain illegal under the state's criminal code.
The problem is where to draw that line.
“Hashish is clearly a resin or extract,” Humble said, and not protected under the medical marijuana law. But he said that, in making food products, there be “a shade of gray that's up to somebody's interpretation of the law.”
“What we're trying to do is to let folks know to stay away from those shades of gray because it could be problematic for them,” Humble said.
“Avoid using extracts in your recipes and stick to what you believe is 'useable marijuana' as defined under the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act,” he continued. “If you can do that, you're probably going to be OK.”
Humble said the initial offerings at the approximately 80 dispensaries now open were pretty much limited to various varieties of the flowers and leaves of marijuana plants.
“What we're starting to see is more diversification in the product mix,” he said.
Humble said inspectors will now start to take closer looks at the various food products being sold. If they conclude the items were made with extracts, they will advise dispensary owners of the possibility of winding up facing criminal charges
At the very least, he said dispensaries that do not come in line could eventually face having their licenses to sell marijuana revoked.
Will Humble's blog at the Arizona Department of Health Services
This is Will Humble's blog at the Arizona Department of Health Services web sites.Marijuana v. Cannabis
August 30th, 2013 by Will Humble
Are Marijuana and Cannabis the same thing when it comes to Arizona Law? The short answer is no- and the distinction may be an important one for Qualified Patients.
The Arizona Medical Marijuana Act provides registry identification card holders and dispensaries a number of legal protections for their medical use of Marijuana pursuant to the Act. Interestingly, the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act definition of “Marijuana” in A.R.S. § 36-2801(8) differs from the Arizona Criminal Code’s (“Criminal Code”) definition of “Marijuana” in A.R.S. § 13-3401(19). In addition, the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act makes a distinction between “Marijuana” and “Usable Marijuana.” A.R.S. § 36-2801(8) and (15).
The definition of “Marijuana” in the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act is “… all parts of any plant of the genus cannabis whether growing or not, and the seeds of such plant.” The definition of “Usable Marijuana” is “… the dried flowers of the marijuana plant, and any mixture or preparation thereof, but does not include the seeds, stalks and roots of the plant and does not include the weight of any non-marijuana ingredients combined with marijuana and prepared for consumption as food or drink.” The “allowable amount of marijuana” for a qualifying patient and a designated caregiver includes “two-and-one half ounces of usable marijuana.” A.R.S. § 36-2801(1).
The definition of “Marijuana” in the Criminal Code is “… all parts of any plant of the genus cannabis, from which the resin has not been extracted, whether growing or not, and the seeds of such plant.” “Cannabis” (a narcotic drug under the Criminal Code) is defined as: “… the following substances under whatever names they may be designated: (a) The resin extracted from any part of a plant of the genus cannabis, and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture or preparation of such plant, its seeds or its resin. Cannabis does not include oil or cake made from the seeds of such plant, any fiber, compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture or preparation of the mature stalks of such plant except the resin extracted from the stalks or any fiber, oil or cake or the sterilized seed of such plant which is incapable of germination; and (b) Every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture or preparation of such resin or tetrahydrocannabinol.” A.R.S. § 13-3401(4) and (20)(w).
An issue the Department has been wrestling with for some time is how the definition of “Marijuana” and “Usable Marijuana” in the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act and the definition of “Cannabis” and “Marijuana” in the Criminal Code fit together. This confusion, which appears to be shared by dispensaries and registered identification card holders alike, is not easy to clear up and has resulted in the Department receiving numerous questions regarding the interplay between the protections in A.R.S. § 36-2811 and the Criminal Code. While we can’t provide legal advice as to whether a certain conduct is punishable under the Criminal Code (only an individual’s or entity’s legal counsel can do this), “Cannabis” is defined as the “resin extracted from any part of a plant of the genus cannabis” and “Cannabis” is listed as a narcotic drug according to the Criminal Code in A.R.S. § 13-3401(4) and (20)(w).
In other words, registered identification card holders and dispensaries may be exposed to criminal prosecution under the Criminal Code for possessing a narcotic drug if the card holder or dispensary possesses resin extracted from any part of a plant of the genus Cannabis or an edible containing resin extracted from any part of a plant of the genus Cannabis. If you’re concerned that your conduct may expose you to criminal prosecution, you may wish to consult an attorney. We’ll be providing some specific guidance for dispensaries licensed by the ADHS next week.
Laws from the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act
This is the Arizona medical marijuana act.SNIP
8. "Marijuana" means all parts of any plant of the genus cannabis whether growing or not, and the seeds of such plant. [And that should included hashish, hash oil, marijuana pollen and other concentrated forms of marijuana]
SNIP
15. "Usable marijuana" means the dried flowers of the marijuana plant, and any mixture or preparation thereof [again usable marijuana seems to mean any part of the marijuana plant which contains the THC - for anybody who is not making a living using the war on drugs to jail people that should include hashish, hash oil, marijuana pollen and other concentrated forms of marijuana]
Laws from the Arizona Criminal Code
This is the Arizona criminal code. I think a reasonable person who does not have a financial interest in locking marijuana users in jail would say this only applies to people who DON'T have a medical marijuana prescription or recommendation.4. "Cannabis" means the following substances under whatever names they may be designated:
(a) The resin extracted from any part of a plant of the genus cannabis, and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture or preparation of such plant, its seeds or its resin. Cannabis does not include oil or cake made from the seeds of such plant, any fiber, compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture or preparation of the mature stalks of such plant except the resin extracted from the stalks or any fiber, oil or cake or the sterilized seed of such plant which is incapable of germination.
(b) Every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture or preparation of such resin or tetrahydrocannabinol.
Watching the watchers
SourceWatching the watchers
By Alessandra Soler Viewpoints Fri Sep 13, 2013 12:05 PM
Many Americans were shocked earlier this year to learn that the National Security Agency has engaged in massive, sustained and systemic surveillance of millions of people. Unfortunately, the ACLU was not surprised to learn how the NSA has abused the law and its authority to invade the privacy of countless Americans.
Government tracking of Americans’ daily activities and movements is not limited to the federal level. Indeed, many state and local agencies track our day-to-day activities, such as our driving habits and how we use our cellphones. We should be concerned about how these bodies intrude upon our privacy rights.
But the media explosion around the NSA’s big-brother behavior has stimulated a necessary and long-overdue conversation about how this one federal agency spies on innocent Americans all too easily. So, it’s worth taking a look at what the NSA says it’s doing, what it’s actually doing and what it has no business even trying to do.
The Patriot Act grants dangerously broad surveillance powers to the federal government. Various entities within the federal government, including the NSA, have relied specifically on Section 215 of the act to justify spying on innocent Americans. Now, the American Civil Liberties Union believes Section 215 is unconstitutional because it violates the Fourth Amendment. Ordinarily, the Fourth Amendment requires the government to show probable cause and obtain a warrant before it can conduct a search. Section 215, however, allows the government to conduct such searches without showing probable cause and without bothering to get a warrant.
But even if Section 215 is constitutional, the NSA is still taking things way too far. The NSA conducts a domestic call-tracking program wherein it eavesdrops on people’s phone calls as a matter of routine. The NSA claims that this program is targeted, the implication being that you have nothing to worry about if you’re behaving yourself.
Not true.
How NSA operates
The program is not limited to terrorists or those associated with foreign powers. On the contrary, the NSA uses this program to collect “on an ongoing daily basis” the records of every call made in the United States, even those by innocent Americans. And congressional intelligence committees have confirmed that the government has been collecting the phone records of practically all Americans for at least seven years. In doing so, the NSA has developed a database filled with revealing information about every American’s associations and affiliations.
Think about the sweeping breadth of information being collected. Every time a resident of the United States makes a phone call, the NSA knows who he or she called, when the call was placed and how long the conversation lasted. The NSA knows if that resident called a doctor, a pastor, a political party, an addiction support group or a romantic interest. Calling patterns can indicate when we are asleep and when we are awake, our work habits and the number of friends we have. How many people would be comfortable with the government knowing this kind of information about their private lives?
Also, the NSA claims that the domestic call-tracking database is examined only sparingly. More specifically, the executive branch has stated that the database was “queried” only 300 times last year. But again, the truth is more complicated and far more alarming because these queries aren’t limited to a single person or phone number.
Instead, NSA analysts can examine the phone information of people within three “hops”— or degrees of separation — from the initial target. If each person has only 50 telephone contacts, applying this three-hop approach to even a single individual could implicate the phone records of more than 125,000 people. So, those 300 queries last year could have actually yielded information on more than 37 million people.
Even worse, the NSA aggregates these records to construct social graphs and to study their development and communications patterns over days, week, months and even years. This information can reveal the rise and fall of intimate relationships, the diagnosis of a serious illness, the identity of a potential government whistle-blower and even the signs of a corporate merger or acquisition.
Congress can fix this
Security is important, and so is privacy. One does not have to be sacrificed in order to guarantee the other. The ACLU recently supported bipartisan congressional legislation, the Amash-Conyers amendment, which would have ensured the government’s ability to protect Americans while limiting the government’s power to overreach.
The amendment would have changed Section 215 to require that requests for private records be targeted at those who are actually the subject of an investigation. This change would prevent the NSA from collecting, storing and using the records of all Americans. The amendment would not hinder the government’s ability to gather information about terrorists — it would just limit the government’s ability to spy on the rest of us in the process.
And, of course, the government would still enjoy considerable authority under many other laws and programs to pursue important intelligence leads. While Democrats and Republicans broke party lines to support the Amash-Conyers amendment, the legislation fell short of passage by just 12 votes.
The NSA and the Obama administration dismiss legitimate concerns about our privacy rights by regurgitating half-truths and tired talking points. Their response to our concerns seems to be, “Don’t worry, just trust us.” But given how the NSA has betrayed Americans’ trust by spying on all of us, whether we’re implicated in a crime or not, it’s difficult and unwise to maintain that trust.
The government may have genuine concerns about protecting our security, but it can’t use them to steamroll our genuine concerns about our privacy. And while the ACLU strongly believes that Americans’ privacy rights must be respected for constitutional and policy reasons, don’t think that this is a purely academic exercise. After all, the NSA has been spying on the ACLU’s phone calls, too.
Alessandra Soler is executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona.
You think your going to get a fair trial??? Don't make me laugh!!!!
Debra Milke - Alex Garcia - Detective Armando Saldate - Detective Louis Scarcella
You think your going to get a fair trial??? Don't make me laugh!!!!In the Buddhist Temple murders, first the 4 kids from Tucson was framed for murder by the Maricopa County Sheriff. They were Mike McGraw, Leo Bruce, Mark Nunez, 19, and Dante Parker.
After it was discovered they were innocent Alessandro Garcia and Johnathan Doody had their civil rights violated, and may have also been framed for the murder.
Next we have the Debra Milke case. Even if she is guilty she was framed by crooked Phoenix Detective Armando Saldate who seems to have made up an imaginary confession out of thin air.
Last in New York City we have Brooklyn homicide detective Louis Scarcella. He is suspected of framing 50 people for murder. He uses the same techniques of Phoenix Detective Armando Saldate. Make up confessions out of thin air. Beat up people to get confessions. Bribe criminals with drugs, special favors and reduced prison sentences to make up imaginary evidence to help him frame real people for murder.
Temple witness has history of lying
SourceTemple witness has history of lying
By Laurie Merrill The Republic | azcentral.com Mon Sep 16, 2013 9:40 PM
The state’s key witness in the retrial of a man accused of being his accomplice in the 1991 Buddhist temple massacre admits a history of lying about the case.
Ultimately, it will be up to the jurors to decide whether Alessandro “Alex” Garcia is now being honest about Johnathan Doody’s involvement in the murders.
Doody and Garcia were convicted more than 20 years ago in the fatal shooting of six Thai monks, two acolytes and a nun in the temple’s sitting room.
Doody’s retrial is in its second month, and closing arguments may take place as early as Thursday.
Defense attorney Mark Rothschild had his first chance on Monday to question Garcia, who began testifying last month. His cross-examination was postponed because of a defense attorney’s personal emergency.
Garcia testified on Monday that, when police first interrogated him, he lied and said he had nothing to do with the brazen robbery and murder of nine people at the Wat Promkunaram temple in Waddell.
He again lied to investigators when he falsely implicated four men from Tucson, known at the time in the media as the Tucson Four, and two others, even though they had nothing to do with the state’s largest massacre on record, Garcia testified.
Additionally, Garcia admitted that he lied by initially withholding information that he had committed a 10th murder about two months after the temple slayings.
Garcia pleaded guilty in 1993 in a deal that allowed him to avoid the death penalty. Doody was convicted by a jury the same year. Garcia was sentenced to 271 years and Doody to 281 years in prison.
But Doody’s conviction was overturned when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that his confession, elicited over 12 hours of questioning, was illegally coerced.
Doody’s was not the only confession found to be false. There were six false confessions in the case obtained under tactics by investigators under then-Maricopa County Sheriff Tom Agnos.
There was Garcia’s initial false confession implicating the “Tucson Four”; four false confessions from each of the Tucson suspects, who later won lawsuits over the ordeal; and Doody’s confession, which was later thrown out by an appeals court.
Garcia’s testimony in the retrial gives an eyewitness account placing Doody at the scene of the slayings and putting the murder weapon — a Marlin .22-caliber rifle — in Doody’s hands. It was Doody who insisted there be no witnesses and insisted that all victims must die, Garcia testified.
Defense attorney Maria Schaffer said before Doody’s retrial that the defense would attempt to show that Garcia is an unreliable witness and that Doody was not at the temple that night.
Under redirect testimony from Deputy Maricopa County Attorney Jason Kalish, Garcia said jurors should believe his account.
“It is the truth,” he said.
Bill Montgomery takes 9th Circuit to woodshed over Milke decision
SourcePosted on September 16, 2013 4:58 pm by Laurie Roberts
Bill Montgomery takes 9th Circuit to woodshed over Milke decision
So, it seems the Phoenix police detective who put away Debra Milke — a woman once considered Arizona’s most notorious baby killer — now has a sudden bout of … well, let’s just call it shyness.
Former Detective Armando Saldate doesn’t want to testify against Milke.
This, after sending her to prison 23 years ago in a case that was basically his word that she confessed to setting up her four-year-old son’s murder against her word that she didn’t.
The jury went with his word and Milke went to death row.
In March, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out her conviction due to substantial and alarming questions about the detective’s character. Saldate, a three-judge panel wrote, had a “long history” of trampling people’s Miranda rights and lying under oath – something that should have been, but never was, disclosed to the Milke jury.
The opinion painted a scathing and scary portrait of police and prosecutors who abused their power to send a woman to death row. Or, as Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery sees it, a doctored photo.
Montgomery took the 9th Circuit to the woodshed on Friday, saying basically that the appellate court was out to get Saldate and misrepresented his work in eight previous cases in order to discredit the detective.
“In a rush to draw a conclusion that would support the 9th Circuit’s apparent desire to take out the detective, they glossed over all the facts,” Montgomery said, in summarizing one of those cases cited by appellate judges as evidence of “the detective’s lack of compunction about lying” and his tendency to violate suspects’ rights.
In one case, for example, the appellate court pointed out that Saldate got a confession from a murder suspect who was in intensive care and drifting in and out of consciousness. A judge, the appellate court noted, tossed out the confession as “involuntary and inadmissible” due to a violation of the suspect’s Fifth Amendment rights.
Montgomery acknowledges that the suspect confessed as he drifted in and out of consciousness. But he says Saldate stopped that interview because of the suspect’s condition and never submitted that confession. Instead, he came back 10 days later, after the suspect’s condition had improved, and interviewed him again. The resulting confession was suppressed, Montgomery says, not due to Fifth Amendment concerns but because the man hadn’t been properly given an initial court appearance.
“It is safe to say that any unbiased third party reviewing this distortion of the facts would wonder whether the appellate court had an agenda which was not supported by the truth,” according to an analysis of the case by Montgomery’s office.
Montgomery says that Saldate was never accused of misconduct in any of the eight cases cited by the 9th Circuit and faces no possibility of prosecution.
Which brings us to the curious decision by ex-Detective Saldate.
Mum’s apparently the word with this guy as his attorney, Larry Debus, said last week that he’s advising his client to take the Fifth if he’s called to testify. On Monday, Saldate will have to appear in court and tell Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Rosa Mroz whether he intends to invoke his privilege against self-incrimination.
If he does, that presumably would mean that he’s done something for which he needs protection from prosecution.
It almost certainly would mean that Debra Milke would not be retried for the 1989 murder of her son, Christopher.
Saldate’s no saint. Montgomery raises sizable questions about the 9th Circuit’s grasp of events — though, interestingly, he didn’t bring up the appellate court’s revelation of the 1973 incident when Saldate pulled over a woman for a traffic stop, took “liberties” with her and later lied about it to internal affairs investigators.
The question now is this: Was he corrupt enough to invent a mother’s confession to murdering her son, as the appellate court suggests? If so, then silence is golden.
But if not, is he honorable enough to let a jury decide – his word against hers, with all the information out there this time?
That is something for Saldate to consider, as he ponders his reputation and Milke’s future.
If he lied, then a potentially innocent woman was robbed of her life.
But if he was telling the truth, then by his silence he’s now letting a murderer go free.
NYPD Detective Louis Scarcella may have framed 50 people for murder???
SourceSeveral Murder Confessions Taken by Brooklyn Detective Have Similar Language
By FRANCES ROBLES
Published: June 12, 2013
As the Brooklyn homicide detective Louis Scarcella told it, the suspect in a ruthless home invasion that left one man dead and two more people in a coma started talking after just a few minutes of questioning.
A confession by Jabbar Washington in his 1997 murder trial uses phrases found in other confessions recorded by Mr. Scarcella.
“You got it right,” the suspect, Jabbar Washington, said. “I was there.”
The phrase was straightforward and damning, introducing the central piece of evidence that sent him to prison for 25 years to life. At the 1997 trial, Mr. Scarcella told the jury that it was the easiest confession he had obtained in more than two decades working for the Police Department.
But if the interrogation was unique for him, the wording was not. In at least four more murder cases, suspects questioned by Mr. Scarcella began their confessions with either “you got it right” or “I was there.”
Mr. Scarcella, 61, was a member of the Brooklyn North Homicide squad who developed a reputation for eliciting confessions when no other detective could. But questions about his credibility have led the Brooklyn district attorney’s office to reopen all of his trial convictions.
The similarity of the confessions, which was discovered in a review of cases by The New York Times, raises new doubts about the statements that Mr. Scarcella presented and that the prosecutors used to win convictions in dozens of murder cases. One of the men, David Ranta, who had spent more than two decades arguing that he never made the confession attributed to him that began “I was there,” has already been released from prison.
Defense lawyers fighting the convictions say the resemblance of statements attributed to inmates who shared nothing in common makes it more likely that Mr. Scarcella fabricated evidence, laying the groundwork for cases to be dismissed and millions to be paid in wrongful conviction lawsuits.
“It’s sort of beyond belief that it would be coincidental,” said Steven Banks, chief lawyer for the Legal Aid Society, which is reviewing 20 cases handled by Mr. Scarcella.
Mr. Scarcella, a 26-year veteran who retired in 1999, stood by his record, saying he was one of the best detectives in the department. As for the similarities, he said: “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. I will say this again: I have never fabricated a confession in my life.”
In a previous interview, Mr. Scarcella said that because of Mr. Ranta’s recent exoneration, inmates now considered him a “get-out-of-jail-free key.”
However, records show that in many cases, the allegations of misconduct and manufactured confessions are not new.
Mr. Washington, who is still in prison for the 1995 killing of Ronald Ellis, took the stand in his trial and testified that Mr. Scarcella provided the script for the confession. The detective, he said, grabbed him by the neck and testicles and forced him to sign his name to a document the detective wrote. “He always said the cop fed him what to say,” said Mark Pollard, who was Mr. Washington’s lawyer at the trial.
Mr. Washington, who was 23 during the trial, had an alibi, and the survivors of the shooting were unable to identify him in court, leaving the confession as the crux of the prosecution’s case. Mr. Washington’s claim of a forced confession was undermined, prosecutors wrote in response to his appeal, by a video of the confession that showed he did not appear to be looking to Mr. Scarcella for cues.
“The D.A. broke the confession down and tried to show it was extemporaneous,” Mr. Pollard said. “But I would not accept these similarities as coincidence. It definitely doesn’t smell right.”
By then the language had already appeared in several other cases. One of them centered on a 1994 arson in Williamsburg in which two people died. The suspect, Hector Lopez, had been entangled in a dispute with his former girlfriend and her new boyfriend, both of whom survived, and was accused of setting the man’s building on fire.
After about 12 hours in custody, Mr. Scarcella said that Mr. Lopez began to weep and said: “You guys got it right.”
Mr. Lopez, who was confronted with other evidence like a gas can in his car, is serving 25 years to life at the Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, N.Y. But his lawyer, William Loeb, wrote in an appeal that discrepancies between the confession and evidence suggested “the disturbing likelihood” that Mr. Scarcella had made up the confession.
Pierre Sussman, Mr. Ranta’s lawyer, said that was precisely what Mr. Scarcella did with Mr. Ranta, who in 1990 was an unemployed drug addict when the detective questioned him for the killing of a Hasidic rabbi. Mr. Scarcella testified that he was at central booking with Mr. Ranta when his prisoner did an about-face and decided to come clean about the robbery and shooting.
Mr. Scarcella said he scribbled the man’s exact words on the back of a manila envelope, starting with “I was there.”
Mr. Ranta, who has frequently said he never confessed to the detective, was exonerated in March after 23 years in prison. “If you take a look at statements given to Detective Scarcella, and they start out the same way — ‘I was there’ — and then follow with a narrative, that’s a huge problem,” Mr. Sussman said. “It’s a sign that it may be Scarcella’s words, and not the suspects’.”
Scholars who study police interrogations say it is not uncommon for confessions to include traces of the detective’s speech, particularly law enforcement jargon the suspect was unlikely to have used without prompting. In addition, sometimes a detective will prompt a person to admit being present at the crime scene, while still playing down the role in the crime, a technique known as minimizing, which has been cited as sometimes leading to false confessions.
“It’s hard to imagine all five people used the same exact words,” said Richard Leo, a University of San Francisco law professor who specializes in confessions. “It almost sounds like a template.”
The phrases still seemed etched in Mr. Scarcella’s memory. Even in spontaneous retellings of various confessions in recent years, he has reached for those exact words.
In an interview with The New York Post last month, he said he still remembered Mr. Ranta’s confession from a quarter century earlier: “I said: ‘You come from 66th Street. I come from 66th Street. We’re both Italian. Why don’t you tell me the truth?’ So he says, ‘Yeah, you’re right. I was there.’ ”
And talking about a different case during an appearance on the “Dr. Phil” television program in 2007, where he discussed the tactics he used to get suspects to admit their misdeeds, Mr. Scarcella recalled a similar conversation with a suspect. “He says to me, ‘Louis, you were right. I was there, but he kicked me, and I shot him by accident.’ I said, ‘Don’t you feel better now?’ And he’s now doing 37 ½ years to life.”
Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, has declined to publicly identify the 50 cases that are under review by the office’s Conviction Integrity Unit. So it is unclear how many more may have featured such language.
“We are looking for certain patterns,” said Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for the office. The wording “may be a pattern.”
An earlier examination by The Times also showed that Mr. Scarcella used the same crack-addicted prostitute as a witness in a series of unrelated murder cases.
The Legal Aid Society was informed by the office that 20 of the cases under review involved the agency’s clients. At the request of The Times, the organization’s lawyers reviewed those cases and found two with similar wording at the start of the confession. They declined to reveal the names but said both defendants served about 14 years in prison for shootings that took place in the 1990s, six years apart.
“One of the confessions includes ‘I was there’ and the other says, ‘I want to tell you the truth: you are right,’ ” Mr. Banks said. “Given the patterns that are emerging, clearly that gives great concern about the detective’s techniques.”
Steve Benson - Gun Grabber
Feds want gays bumped from federal juries
Our government masters hate juries, because they can nullify stupid, unfair and unconstitutional laws.Our government masters also hate jurors who can think on their own for the same reason. They would prefer zombie jurors who rubber stamp whatever the prosecutor says.
And in this article it sounds like our government masters also hate the idea of gay folks on juries because they might not agree with the government's religious war against gay folks.
I suspect the government would also love to prohibit people who think that drugs should be legalized. Again for the same reason. Those folks tend to think the government's war on drugs is unjust, unfair, racist, selectively enforced and unconstitutional.
Court to decide whether gays can be bumped from federal juries
By Maura Dolan
September 18, 2013, 8:25 a.m.
SAN FRANCISCO -- An appeals court will consider Wednesday whether gays and lesbians may be struck from federal jury pools because of their sexual orientation.
The issue before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeal arose in an antitrust dispute two years ago between two drug makers, Abbott Laboratories and SmithKlineBeecham.
An attorney for Abbott used a peremptory challenge to bump a man who had spoken of his “partner.” Peremptory challenges do not require an explanation.
SmithKline objected to the strike, charging that Abbott did not want gays on a jury that was deciding whether the company improperly raised the price an HIV drug. An Abbott attorney denied removing the man because of his perceived sexual orientation. The trial judge permitted the removal.
The jury rejected most of SmithKline’s claims and decided that Abbott should pay only $3.5 million, a fraction of the damages SmithKline had sought. SmithKline has asked the 9th Circuit to overturn the verdict and grant a new trial based on the removal of the gay panelist.
The Supreme Court has barred the removal of prospective jurors because of their race or gender, but has never extended the prohibition to sexual orientation. Thirteen civil rights groups, citing rulings in gay marriage cases, have urged the 9th Circuit to bar juror strikes based on sexual orientation.
Three liberal 9th Circuit judges — Stephen Reinhardt, Marsha Berzon and Mary Schroeder — will decide the issue. They asked the lawyers to address the effect of the Supreme Court ruling in June that struck down a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act. That ruling required the federal government to give same-sex married couples the same benefits as heterosexual married couples.
The outcome of the 9th Circuit case will only affect federal juries. California has long prohibited litigants in state court from striking panelists on the basis of sexual orientation.
Collection of 'suspicious activity' reports is challenged
Source
Surveillance: Civil rights groups seek end to collection of government reports on 'suspicious activity' by Americans
By Thomas Peele and Josh Richman
Posted: 09/19/2013 06:47:05 PM PDT
SAN FRANCISCO -- Be careful if you're heading out to buy a lot of bottled water or photograph a California landmark. The government is watching, and it may put details about what you're doing into a giant antiterrorism database, especially if you appear to be Arab or Muslim.
More than 1,800 "suspicious activity reports" collected by law enforcement officers and shared with federal agencies through clearinghouses called "fusion centers" that were released Thursday showed for the first time in California that activities like photographing buildings, flying the U.S. flag upside down, or even just giving the cold shoulder to a neighbor may result in the firm rap of FBI agents on your door and demands that you explain yourself.
This is especially true for Arabs, Muslims and people of South Asian descent, who are more often the subject of the secret reports, the value of which are dubious and have never been shown to have resulted in a terrorism-related arrest, members of civil rights groups said Thursday.
The government "should not be putting us in databases as potential terrorists when we have nothing to hide and haven't done anything wrong," said Linda Lye, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. "This is wrong and it needs to stop."
A computer analysis by this newspaper of the documents released Thursday showed that about half of the suspicious activity reports resulted in the FBI interviewing the people named in them about their activities.
A U.S. Justice Department spokesman said Thursday the agency would not comment on the release of the reports.
In a letter sent Thursday to Attorney General Eric Holder, the ACLU called for immediate reforms to the post-Sept.11 national "Suspicious Activities Reporting Program," in which activities such as "photography, videography and note taking" are considered "inherently suspicious" and recorded.
The reports, obtained under state Public Records Act and federal Freedom of Information Act requests, came from the so-called fusion centers in central and Southern California. Similar requests to the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, based in San Francisco, were denied, Lye said.
Mike Sena, the Northern California fusion center's director and president of the National Fusion Center Association, said the Suspicious Activity Report initiative is merely a more organized way of organizing and vetting the sort of tips and leads people have been passing along for years.
Sena said his center -- one of 72 across the country -- won't release its data because it could compromise criminal investigations or investigative practices. But he said his center, like all the fusion centers, has a formal privacy policy. In addition, Sena said, he also has a full-time privacy officer.
"We take it very seriously," Sena said. "Our role is protecting public safety, but also protecting privacy, civil rights and civil liberties."
Of about 800 such tips and leads his fusion center receives per year, only about 100 meet the standards for being passed along to the FBI and the area's Joint Terrorism Task Force, Sena said.
He added that others deemed unrelated to terrorism but perhaps related to local crimes are referred to local police. Those that aren't referred are retained for one year, he said, but anything that meets the standard of being criminal intelligence can be kept for up to five years.
A report earlier this year by the U.S. Government Accountability Office ripped the Suspicious Activities Reporting Program, saying that average Americans going about their everyday lives were getting swept up in the program and that their names were being retained in databases.
A bipartisan report issued in October 2012 by the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs' Investigations Subcommittee suggested that the fusion centers sometimes forward intelligence of uneven quality -- "oftentimes shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering citizens' civil liberties and Privacy Act protections, occasionally taken from already-published public sources, and more often than not, unrelated to terrorism."
The reports the ACLU released Thursday from Southern and central California included details like these:
"Suspicious ME (Middle Eastern) males buying several large pallets of water."
"Female subject taking photos of the Folsom Post Office."
A police officer in the city of Elk Grove "reported on a suspicious individual in his neighborhood" who was a doctor of Middle Eastern ancestry. The officer thought the doctor might be a terrorist because he was "very unfriendly."
"Suspicious photocopy of Folsom Dam by Chinese Nationals."
A man "nonchalantly taking photos" inside a Los Angeles subway car.
A university art professor from San Diego taking photos in an industrial area.
Someone writing anti-government slogans on the wall of a room at UC Davis.
A "noticeable increase" of female Muslims wearing veils and burqas at a shopping mall.
Someone taking photos of the Al Zampa Bridge over the Carquinez Strait between Contra Costa and Solano counties.
A trucker flying the American flag upside down on a big rig.
Four "clean-cut Middle Eastern males speaking excitedly in a foreign language."
"They still think that it is legitimate and constitutional to treat someone as a possible terrorist because of their race" or skin color, said Yaman Salahi, a lawyer with the Asian Law Caucus.
Although suspicious activity reports for the Bay Area were not obtained, he said he routinely hears from Muslims and Asians across the region reporting that they had been questioned by FBI agents.
Hal Bergman, a 29-year-old freelance photographer from Los Angeles, said that he was taking stock photos from a public street of an oil refinery at the port of Los Angeles two years ago when a security guard approached him. After a brief conversation, Bergman continued his work.
Two weeks later, there was a pounding on his door. Two FBI agents, he said, were carrying a stack of documents, a photocopy of his driver's license and were demanding to know what he was doing at the port, who he worked for and why anyone would want a photo of a refinery. The security guard had filed a suspicious activity report.
"It is a permanent record," he said of the inclusion of his name in the fusion center databases. "Who has access to this? Am I going to have a problem flying or getting across the border?
Staff writer Daniel J. Willis contributed to this report. Contact Thomas Peele at tpeele@bayareanewsgroup.com and follow him twitter.com/thomas_peele.
ACLU says domestic spying goes too far
Associated Press Fri Sep 20, 2013 11:24 AM
SAN FRANCISCO — Two men of Middle Eastern descent were reported buying pallets of water at a grocery store. A police sergeant reported concern about a doctor “who is very unfriendly.” And photographers of all races and nationalities have been reported taking snapshots of post offices, bridges, dams and other structures.
The American Civil Liberties Union and several other groups released 1,800 “suspicious activity reports” Thursday, saying they show the inner-workings of a domestic surveillance program that is sweeping up innocent Americans and forever placing their names in a counterterrorism database.
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the federal government created a multibillion-dollar information-sharing program meant to put local, state and federal officials together to analyze intelligence at sites called fusion centers.
Instead, according to a Senate report the Government Accountability Office and now the ACLU, the program has duplicated the work of other agencies, has appeared rudderless and hasn’t directly been responsible for any terror-related prosecutions. According to the GAO, the government maintains 77 fusion centers throughout the country and their operations are funded by federal and local sources.
The ACLU obtained about 1,700 suspicious activity reports filed with the Sacramento office through a California Public Record Acts request. Another 100 were submitted as part of a court case in Los Angeles filed by the ACLU on behalf of photographers who say they are being harassed by Southern California law officials.
The documents do not appear to show valuable counterterrorism intelligence.
A report from Bakersfield, phoned in to a police officer by a “close personal friend,” describes two men who appear to be of Middle Eastern descent stocking up on water.
Another report shows a Lodi police sergeant “reporting on a suspicious individual in his neighborhood.” The sergeant, whose name was redacted, said he “has been long concerned about a residence in his neighborhood occupied by a Middle Eastern male adult physician who is very unfriendly.”
A third report states, “An off-duty supervising dispatcher with Sacramento P.D. noticed a female subject taking pictures of the outside of the post office in Folsom on Riley Street this morning. The female departed as a passenger in a silver Mazda.”
The fusion center project was a target of a blistering Congressional report last year complaining that too many innocent Americans engaging in routine and harmless behavior have become ensnared in the program.
The ACLU and others are calling on the Obama administration to make overhauls so that only activities with legitimate links to terrorism investigations are reported.
“We want the administration to stop targeting racial and religious minorities,” ACLU lawyer Linda Lye said.
A Senate report last year concluded that the program has improperly collected information and produced little valuable intelligence on terrorism. The report suggested the program’s intent ballooned far beyond anyone’s ability to control.
What began as an attempt to put local, state and federal officials in the same room analyzing the same intelligence has instead cost huge amounts of money for data-mining software, flat screen televisions and, in Arizona, two fully equipped Chevrolet Tahoes that are used for commuting, investigators found.
The lengthy, bipartisan report was a scathing evaluation of what the Department of Homeland Security has held up as a crown jewel of its security efforts.
A Homeland Security spokesman countered that the program is “safe and effective.”
“In recent years, reporting of suspicious activity by the public has led to the arrest of multiple individuals planning mass casualty attacks,” Peter Boogaard said. “These programs are governed by robust privacy and civil rights and civil liberty protections.”
Homeland Security Department spokesman Matthew Chandler at the time the Senate report was released called it “out of date, inaccurate and misleading.”
He said it focused entirely on information being produced by fusion centers and didn’t consider the benefit to involved officials from receiving intelligence from the federal government.
Remember, trust our government masters! They know what's best for us and will always protect us. Well at least that's what they want us to think.
Of course if you ask me I think H. L. Mencken was right with his quote:
US narrowly escaped nuclear blast in 1961 H-bomb accident
US narrowly escaped nuclear blast in 1961 H-bomb accident
"The whole aim of practical politics is
to keep the populace alarmed (and hence
clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing
it with an endless series of hobgoblins,
all of them imaginary."
Source
Declassified document: US narrowly escaped nuclear blast in 1961 H-bomb accident
By Associated Press, Updated: Saturday, September 21, 4:09 AM
LONDON — A U.S. hydrogen bomb nearly detonated on the nation’s east coast, with a single switch averting a blast which would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that flattened Hiroshima, a newly published book says.
In a recently declassified document, reported in a new book by Eric Schlosser, the supervisor of the nuclear weapons safety department at Sandia national laboratories said that one simple, vulnerable switch prevented nuclear catastrophe.
The Guardian newspaper published the document (http://bit.ly/1fi4Y2S ) on Saturday.
Two hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina on Jan. 24, 1961 after a B-52 bomber broke up in flight. One of the bombs apparently acted as if it was being armed and fired — its parachute opened and trigger mechanisms engaged.
Parker F. Jones at the Sandia National Laboratories analyzed the accident in a document headed “How I learned to mistrust the H-Bomb.”
“The MK39 Mod 2 bomb did not possess adequate safety for the airborne-alert role in the B-52,” he wrote. When the B-52 disintegrates in the air it is likely to release the bombs in “a near normal fashion,” he wrote, calling the safety mechanisms to prevent accidental arming “not complex enough.”
The document said the bomb had four safety mechanisms, one of which is not effective in the air. When the aircraft broke up, two others were rendered ineffective.
“One simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe!” Jones wrote, adding that it could have been “bad news — in spades” if the switch had shorted.
Schlosser discovered the document, written in 1969, through the Freedom of Information Act.
It is featured in his new book on nuclear arms, “Command and Control,” which reports that through FOI he discovered that at least 700 “significant” accidents and incidents involving 1,250 nuclear weapons were recorded between 1950 and 1968.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
U.S. moves drone fleet from Camp Lemonnier
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U.S. moves drone fleet from Camp Lemonnier to ease Djibouti’s safety concerns
By Craig Whitlock and Greg Miller, Published: September 24 E-mail the writers
The U.S. military has been forced to relocate a large fleet of drones from a key counterterrorism base on the Horn of Africa after a string of crashes fanned local fears that the unmanned aircraft were at risk of colliding with passenger planes, according to documents and interviews.
Air Force drones ceased flying this month from Camp Lemonnier, a U.S. installation in Djibouti, after local officials expressed alarm about several drone accidents and mishaps in recent years. The base serves as the combat hub for counterterrorism operations in Yemen and Somalia, playing a critical role in U.S. operations against al-Shabab, the Somali Islamist militia that has asserted responsibility for the Nairobi shopping mall attack, which killed more than 60 people.
The Pentagon has temporarily moved the unmanned aircraft from the U.S. base in Djibouti’s capital to a makeshift airstrip in a more remote part of the country. U.S. military officials said the disruption has not affected their overall ability to launch drone strikes in the region, but they declined to say whether it has forced them to curtail the frequency of drone missions or hindered their surveillance of al-Shabab camps and fighters.
The Djiboutian government’s growing unease over drone flights casts doubt on its commitment to host the aircraft over the long term. It is unclear whether the temporary drone base can be transformed into a permanent home or whether the U.S. military will have to hunt for another site in the region, according to previously undisclosed correspondence between the Defense Department and Congress.
That uncertainty raises fresh questions about the Pentagon’s plan to invest more than $1 billion to upgrade Camp Lemonnier into a major regional base, supporting operations throughout Africa, as well as in parts of the Arabian Peninsula and Indian Ocean. Those plans include a $228 million compound to house up to 700 personnel from the highly secretive Joint Special Operations Command.
More broadly, however, the concerns about drone safety present a strategic challenge for the Pentagon as it begins to shift more of the robot planes to new frontiers, where they must share congested airspace with commercial aircraft.
A rash of accidents
Unlike in the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the U.S. military essentially has ruled the skies, the drones in Djibouti and other foreign locations have flown from the same runways and relied on the same air traffic controllers as civilian pilots.
At least five drones based at Camp Lemonnier have crashed since January 2011, Air Force records show, including one that plowed into the ground next to a neighborhood in Djibouti’s capital, which goes by the same name as the country.
Last year, the Pentagon was forced to suspend drone operations in Seychelles, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, after two Reaper drones crashed on the runway at the main international airport, which serves half a million passengers a year.
The overseas accidents could have repercussions in the United States, where the military and the drone industry are pressing the federal government to open up the skies to remote-controlled aircraft.
Under a law passed by Congress last year, the Federal Aviation Administration is preparing rules that would integrate drones into U.S. airspace by the end of 2015. Until then, the Defense Department can fly drones at home only in restricted military airspace or with special permits.
In Djibouti, a tiny and parched African country that borders the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, the government notified the Obama administration early this year that it was concerned about a series of drone accidents and near-misses. It was time, Djiboutian officials said, to find another home for the aircraft.
The U.S. military intensified its drone operations at Camp Lemonnier in 2011 as part of a crackdown against al-Qaeda targets in nearby Yemen and Somalia, with up to 16 takeoffs and landings each day.
But elbowroom was at a premium. The base was already crammed with military fighter jets, cargo planes and other manned aircraft. Lemonnier is shoehorned onto a stretch of shore front and shares a single runway with Djibouti’s only international airport for commercial flights. French and Japanese troops also have small bases next to the airport, alongside the Djiboutian military.
Rattled by the rash of drone crashes, the Djiboutian government asked the Pentagon to move its unmanned aircraft away from the city to a rarely used airstrip in the desert, Chabelley Airfield, according to the unclassified documents, which were obtained by The Washington Post as part of a public records request.
In a letter to Congress in February, the Pentagon asked for urgent authorization of $13 million in funds and equipment to build “minimal facilities necessary to enable temporary operations” at Chabelley. To save time on construction, the military used troop labor instead of private contractors.
“The construction is not being carried out at a military installation where the United States is reasonably expected to have a long-term presence,” the documents stated. “No decisions have been made about long-term [drone] operations in the region.”
The military gradually transferred the drone operations to Chabelley and flew the last drone flight from Lemonnier this month, U.S. defense officials said.
Air Force Maj. Matt Hasson, a spokesman for a U.S. counterterrorism task force that oversees most military operations at Camp Lemonnier, declined to comment when asked whether the move had hindered drone operations in Yemen or Somalia. But he said that basing the drones at Chabelley “enables us to continue to fully support our partners to secure their borders against illegal activities.”
Airport safety ‘paramount’
The U.S. government has a fixed, long-term lease for Camp Lemonnier and pays Djibouti $38 million a year in rent. Djiboutian officials said that they were happy with their military partnership with Washington but that the armed Predator and Reaper drones were flying — and crashing — too close to their capital for comfort.
“The safety of the airport is paramount,” said Roble Olhaye, Djibouti’s ambassador to the United States. “The airport seems to be congested. There are so many military aircraft based at the airport and around the airport — French aircraft, American aircraft, Japanese aircraft.”
He said that U.S. and Djiboutian officials were still discussing possible long-term solutions but that Chabelley was “the best option available at the moment, for them, for us.”
“It gives them the necessary leeway, the necessary space,” Olhaye said. “I think it’s in the best interest for all.”
The presence of the unmanned aircraft remains a sensitive subject in Djibouti. During a telephone interview, Olhaye shied away from using the term “drone,” chuckling whenever a reporter mentioned it.
In a separate interview, a diplomat from a Middle Eastern country cited rising concern that the civilian side of the Djibouti airport might be targeted by militants looking to retaliate against U.S. drone operations. Regional tensions have risen as the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command has carried out dozens of strikes against al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in Yemen.
“Once you have military installations in civilian facilities, that civilian facility and the public become endangered,” the diplomat said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. drone strategy in the region.
The same potential problem exists elsewhere.
In Ethiopia, for example, the Air Force flies Reaper drones from a civilian airport in the town of Arba Minch. In West Africa, the Air Force began flying Predator drones in February from a small military base in Niger that abuts the capital’s international airport.
Within two months, one of them had crashed while on a surveillance mission in neighboring Mali, according to Air Force records.
Brazilian president, at United Nations, blasts spying by Washington
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Brazilian president, at United Nations, blasts spying by Washington
By Carol J. Williams and Vincent Bevins
September 24, 2013, 7:59 a.m.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff used her lead-off speech at the annual United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday to blast the United States for operating a worldwide spying network that she said violates the sovereignty of other countries and the civil liberties of their citizens.
Rousseff had already signaled her nation's outrage over reports of National Security Agency data interceptions in Brazil by canceling a summit and state dinner with President Obama that had been set for late October.
"What we have before us is a serious case of violation of human rights and civil liberties," Rousseff told the assembly immediately after opening pleasantries.
She described arguments that the technological surveillance of individuals, businesses and diplomatic missions is necessary in the global fight against terrorism as "untenable" and an affront to the sovereignty of nations.
"Brazil can protect itself," Rousseff declared. "Brazil doesn’t provide shelter to terrorist groups."
Rousseff never mentioned Obama or the NSA by name but said her nation's dismay over "this case of disrespect" had been communicated to Washington, along with its insistence that Brazil "cannot possibly allow recurring and illegal actions to go on as if normal practice."
Since July, Brazilian news organization Globo has published three reports based on documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, which alleged that the United States had spied on Brazilian citizens, Rousseff herself, as well as important state-run oil company, Petrobras.
Rousseff has strongly denounced the alleged eavesdropping and asked Obama for a public apology and concrete actions to curb it. The decision to cancel the Washington trip, a rare diplomatic snub of the United States, was well received in many parts of Brazil, especially in the base of her left-of-center Workers Party, many of whose members have memories of a U.S.-backed military dictatorship that spied on dissidents.
On the useless information side the article mentions that some of the obsolete technology used to detonate nukes such as vacuum tubes. I know that one business specializes in making obsolete transistors and other semiconductor devices which are used for the preventative maintenance done on nuclear bombs.
Estimate for uranium facility goes from $600 million to $11.6 billion
By Ralph Vartabedian
September 24, 2013, 10:48 p.m.
The cost of a proposed uranium processing facility for nuclear weapons in Oakridge, Tenn., has soared as high as $11.6 billion — 19 times the original estimate — even as critics accuse the Energy Department of overstating the need for spare bomb parts.
Under a proposal unveiled in 2005, the manufacturing plant at the Y-12 National Security Complex would produce new uranium cores for the nation's stockpile of aging hydrogen bombs.
But not long after the plan was disclosed, with an estimated cost of $600 million, the price tag began to climb. Now, the processing facility would be among the largest investments in the U.S. nuclear weapons infrastructure since the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb during World War II.
The facility has drawn sharp criticism by the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington watchdog group, which advocates that the plan be scrapped. In a report issued Wednesday, the group cites a little-noticed report by the Army Corps of Engineers that made the $11.6-billion cost estimate and argued that the work could be done more cheaply at existing facilities.
The Energy Department has not disputed the corps' estimate, although its own official price tag is $4.2 billion to $6.5 billion. A spokeswoman at Y-12 said the corps' estimate was the highest of three outside agency reviews of the project.
The escalating cost reflects questions that have troubled the Energy Department's nuclear weapons complex since the end of the Cold War: How long will the Pentagon need a stockpile of nuclear weapons, and how can the massive industrial network needed to maintain the bombs be kept going at an affordable level?
The Y-12 plant is the only U.S. facility that melts, casts and machines bomb-grade uranium. About 7,000 people work there.
The facilities, massive brick structures the size of football fields, were built 70 years ago during World War II. The Energy Department says they are "genuinely dilapidated." Similar problems with aged facilities exist at the Pantex nuclear weapons facility in Texas, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, among other places.
But Peter Stockton, lead author of the new report and a former Energy Department special investigator, disputes the need to replace so many uranium cores, known as secondaries. The Energy Department delayed its plans for a new plutonium facility in New Mexico after acknowledging that it had overestimated the number of plutonium triggers it would need for weapons, he noted.
The Energy Department has failed to account for reductions in the size of the U.S. weapons stockpile and has underestimated the resiliency of the weapons parts, Stockton said.
"They can't say how many secondaries we will need," he said.
President Obama signed an agreement with Russia to cut each side's weapons stockpile to 1,550 by 2018, down from about 6,000 weapons about a decade ago.
Stockton said the uranium work could be done more cheaply at existing facilities at Y-12 or at Pantex, where nuclear weapons are disassembled and repaired.
The nation's three types of nuclear bombs are slowly undergoing life-extension programs, in which some parts are replaced and updated. Many of the weapons are more than 30 years old; they can no longer be tested under international treaties to determine conclusively that they will work. Some of the parts are virtual museum pieces, such as the B61 gravity bomb's fusing system, which still uses vacuum tubes.
It is generally accepted that the bombs need to be refurbished. But all of the three design types already would be refurbished by the time the new uranium facility is fully operational in 2038, the date cited by the Army Corps of Engineers.
The corps did not release its cost estimates, but the Government Accountability Office cited them this summer in a briefing addendum.
The GAO, an arm of Congress, found that the Energy Department had made a number of errors in its cost estimates, including pricing a building design with a roof 13 feet too low to accommodate manufacturing equipment. That resulted in a $540-million increase in the project.
After that, the GAO said it was reducing its confidence in the Energy Department's cost estimates. The GAO also found that the department had anticipated that Congress would provide much higher annual funding than was realistic. In addition, the GAO said, a longer construction schedule would drive up the price.
In another report released Tuesday, the libertarian Cato Institute said the cost of the nation's nuclear force could be reduced by eliminating the historic reliance on delivering bombs by three different systems: submarines, bombers and land-based missiles.
Cato defense analysts Benjamin Friedman and Christopher Preble say that submarine-launched missiles are more accurate than land-based missiles and can provide deterrence by themselves at a much lower cost. Friedman and Preble suggest that the Air Force not modernize its fleet of intercontinental ballistic missiles — part of a plan that, they say, could save $20 billion without jeopardizing the nation's deterrence against an attack.
ralph.vartabedian@latimes.com
Saudi Court Ups Gang-Rape Victim Sentence To 200 Lashes After Her Lawyer Protests Original 90-Lash Penalty
By Jonathan Vankin, Sat, September 28, 2013
The Saudi justice system is based on the Islamic religious legal code known as Sharia, but if a case that burst onto the international scene this week is any example, the word “justice” is a misnomer.
In 2007, A Saudi court sentenced a gang-rape victim to a 90-lash whipping for violating the ban on women having contact with men who are not their relatives.
When the woman’s defense lawyer protested the sentence, calling for some compassion for this teenager who was sexually assaulted by seven men, the Saudi General Court increased her punishment to 200 lashes and a six-month jail term.
The incident happened in 2006 in the Eastern Province city of Qatif. The “Qatif Girl," as she has become known in Saudi Arabia — her identity has not been made public — was then 19 years old. She got into a car with a teenage boy she knew in high school, intending to retreive a picture of herself from him.
She was soon to marry someone else, and she couldn’t have this former high school flame carrying her picture around.
That was her offense. What happened next was irrelevant to the court, at least as far as the Qatif’s girl’s punishment was concerned. Seven men kidnapped the pair, assaulting and raping both the woman and her male acquaintance.
The male rape victim was also sentenced to 90 lashes. The rapists received varying sentences, the harshest being five years in prison and 1,000 lashes.
Whipping is a common sentence in Saudi Arabia for crimes ranging from consuming alcohol to homosexuality.
The court cited the fact that the woman’s lawyer went to the media as a reason that her sentence was increased. But there may be other factors. Her attorney, Abdul Rahman al-Lahem, is a human rights activist who has defended critics of Saudi Arabia’s ruling royal family.
Also, the “Qatif Girl” belongs to the Shiite Muslim minority in a country dominated by Sunni Muslims.
Even the original sentence of 90 lashes was considered excessive within Saudi Arabia. The 200-lash sentence has set off international protests.
According to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, this sentence “not only sends victims of sexual violence the message that they should not press charges, but in effect offers protection and impunity to the perpetrators.”
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Estimate for uranium facility goes from $600 million to $11.6 billion
Does the American Empire really need enough nukes to kill everybody on the planet 100 times???
Saudi Court Ups Gang-Rape Victim Sentence To 200 Lashes
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