Homeless in Arizona

NSA Surveillance - Lady Liberty Raped

Arpaio says crosses to be put where bodies found

1st Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion

Arizona Constitution

No public money or property shall be appropriated for or applied to any religious worship, exercise, or instruction, or to the support of any religious establishment.

Arpaio says crosses to be put where bodies found

By D.S. Woodfill The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Aug 15, 2013 9:03 PM

Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies will begin erecting white wooden crosses to mark the final resting places of immigrants who die after crossing the border into the U.S. from Mexico, the Sheriff’s Office announced Thursday.

The crosses aren’t mere memorials, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said as he stood in front of several perched in a patch of desert in Laveen.

Arpaio said the crosses bear a number that, when given to 911 operators by a person seeking help, will be used to identify his or her location.

Sheriff’s spokesman Chris Hegstrom said responders had previously relied on identifying landmarks provided by those stranded.

Arpaio said the crosses would also provide a reminder of the risks of illegal border crossing.

“The crosses symbolize death,” Arpaio said, pointing out that four bodies had been found in the previous four days near Gila Bend.

The crosses are made by Maricopa County Jail inmates, and Arpaio said he hopes to have Sheriff’s Posse members and inmates erect more in other areas of county desert.

“This is just one way to try and save some lives,” he said.

Ariz. delegates scrutinize border housing

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Ariz. delegates scrutinize border housing

By Bob Ortega The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Aug 15, 2013 10:30 PM

Members of Arizona’s congressional delegation are seeking answers from the Department of Homeland Security on why Customs and Border Protection spent about $15 million for housing in the former mining town of Ajo.

At a town-hall meeting Tuesday in Tucson, in response to questions about the housing, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said, “It’s disgraceful.” Asked by a constituent how it could be justified, he replied, “It can’t. It can’t be; and people should be fired.”

As The Arizona Republic reported Monday, the CBP paid more than $600,000 each to build 21 modest homes for its personnel in Ajo, a small southern Arizona town where similar-size homes typically cost less than $100,000. The CBP also paid more than $2 million to buy 20 park-model trailer homes and lease land on which to park them. The housing project opened in February.

The CBP has declined to say how many of the homes and trailers are occupied or how much personnel pay to rent them, other than to say they pay what a spokesman called “market rates.”

“We’re going to ask for some real answers and follow up on the tremendous costs,” said U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., whose district includes Ajo. “If we don’t get a response, we’ll ask the (Office of the) Inspector General to take a thorough look at that, and I hope some of my colleagues will join me. I’d bet that this situation is not unique.”

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., also said he intends to pursue answers about the housing controversy.

“I’d like to know some more details, but, boy, on its face, it looks like a lot of wasted money,” Flake said. “On its face, how you can justify spending that much money on new housing is beyond me.”

Several other delegation members said they, too, already have or will shortly query Homeland Security about the costs. Rep. Ron Barber, D-Ariz., provided a copy of a letter he sent Thursday to Thomas Winkowski, the acting CBP commissioner, asking for an explanation and justification of the costs and value of the homes and trailers.

Barber said he wants “immediate answers from the Department of Homeland Security on how and why these outrageous expenses were approved.”

The controversy over the taxpayer-funded homes comes as Congress debates immigration reform and whether to massively increase spending on border security, including a possible doubling of the Border Patrol to about 40,000 agents. With more than $107 billion spent on securing the border over the last seven years, Homeland Security has regularly faced criticism by government audit and budget agencies for ineffective cost oversight.

Customs and Border Protection officials didn’t answer a Republic request for a detailed explanation of the cost of the Ajo housing. In a written statement, the CBP said that the projects followed federal laws, rules and regulations and that the “CBP chose to build housing because quality, affordable housing was not available in the area.”

Even before the housing project was built, similar questions arose. In December 2010, Pima County Administrator C.H. Huckelberry complained in a letter to the project manager that a draft environmental assessment “does not contain any cost comparisons,” making it impossible to substantiate the CBP’s claim that renovating existing housing would be more expensive than building new housing. Huckelberry could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The assessment, by the General Services Administration, the agency that manages most federal property, briefly discussed alternatives such as building homes on existing federal property in Lukeville, 38 miles away near the Sonoyta border crossing, or near the Border Patrol station in Why, 11 miles from Ajo. But the assessment didn’t include detailed cost estimates.

Ajo, a town of about 4,400, sits amid piles of mine tailings about 40 miles north of the U.S.-Mexican border. Since the New Cornelia mine closed in 1983, the town has struggled. A GSA assessment for the housing project said that fewer than 30 percent of the CBP personnel assigned to the area rented in the Ajo market before the construction and that there wasn’t adequate housing for agents and officers, a claim some local real-estate agents and property owners have disputed.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, between 2007 and 2011, nearly 30 percent of the houses in Ajo were vacant.

Both Grijalva and Barber said they see a value in making it easier for agents and customs officers to live in the community and in ensuring they have adequate housing. But both also said the government needs to protect against wasteful spending.

Grijalva said his office had previously suggested the CBP look at renovating existing housing stock in Ajo. His letter to the DHS also raised questions about spending on private detention facilities for undocumented immigrants; it cited The Republic’s story as an example of the need for the DHS to release more information that can explain why its expenses are justified.

“This looks like a classic example of spending money without worrying about the cost or consequences,” Grijalva said.

Republic reporter Dan Nowicki contributed to this article.

Goldwater files suit to stop Phoenix pension ‘spiking’

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Goldwater files suit to stop Phoenix pension ‘spiking’

By Craig Harris The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Aug 15, 2013 10:37 PM

The Goldwater Institute, a conservative taxpayer-watchdog group, is taking Phoenix to court again, this time to stop so-called pension spiking for public-safety officers.

Goldwater, a Phoenix non-profit, filed suit Thursday in Maricopa County Superior Court to stop the practice that allows Phoenix police officers and firefighters to increase the amount of their pensions by cashing in unused sick leave, vacation and other benefits at the end of their careers.

The two sides also are embroiled in a suit about whether it’s legal for the city to allow police employees to be compensated for work they do on behalf of a labor union. That case is pending.

The suit filed Thursday came after The Arizona Republic in May reported on the policy, which raised questions about the legality of the practice.

Pension spiking, which is popular with police officers and firefighters, has allowed a handful of Phoenix public-safety retirees to become millionaires, and 10 others increased their lump-sum retirement benefits to more than $700,000 each through the Deferred Retirement Option Plan. All of them also received annual pensions greater than $114,000 a year.

Recipients with the biggest payouts are veteran, upper-level managers who have the highest salaries in the Police and Fire departments. Pension spiking, however, does benefit rank-and-file officers.

The average public-safety pension for a Phoenix retiree is $59,341, about $10,000 more than the statewide average. Those employees typically have not contributed to Social Security and will not recieve it.

Records show that the city’s public-safety retirement cost has ballooned to roughly $129million for fiscal 2014, compared with $7.2million in fiscal 2003. Investment losses have been one of the biggest reasons for the increased cost, though pension spiking also has contributed to the increase.

That’s because cities such as Phoenix pay higher premiums to the statewide Public Safety Personnel Retirement System based on liabilities of its members.

Inflated pensions from spiking increase liabilities.

Doug Cole, a spokesman for the public-safety retirement system, said that the pension system has no position on the suit and that it pays benefits based on compensation records provided to the trust by Phoenix and other members.

“This is an issue that the system is not involved with,” Cole said.

The Goldwater Institute contends the policy violates state law and costs taxpayers millions of additional dollars. The group sued the city, Mayor Greg Stanton, the City Council, City Manager David Cavazos and the Phoenix Police Sergeants and Lieutenants Association.

“This is not about cops or public-safety officers,” said Jon Riches, an attorney for Goldwater who previously was with the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps. “This is about the city of Phoenix blatantly violating a state law. I served on active duty, and I know what it’s like to serve a dangerous job. Public-safety officers should be rewarded for a hazardous profession. Police work and being a firefighter is a noble profession. But it doesn’t allow that profession or the city of Phoenix to break rules.”

The lawsuit, which has three Phoenix residents as plaintiffs, asks for the practice to be declared illegal and for it to be stopped.

If successful, the suit will apply to all of Phoenix’s public-safety unions and management not covered by collective bargaining, Riches said.

The lawsuit contends that the city is unlawfully including payment in lieu of vacation, sick leave, unused compensatory time and fringe benefits, such as a uniform allowance, in computing the officer’s salary at the end of his or her career.

City officials and Phoenix public-safety union members have said using such benefits to increase compensation is a negotiated benefit and is not illegal.

The increased compensation number significantly increases or “spikes” annual retirement benefits — and the cost to taxpayers. That’s because the pay at the career’s end is a key component in determining pension benefits. The other is length of service.

State law defines what type of payments are included as compensation to compute retirement benefits for those in the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System, of which Phoenix is the largest member.

The law says that “unused sick leave, payment in lieu of vacation, payment for unused compensatory time or payment for any fringe benefits” cannot be used as compensation to compute retirement benefits.

State law also says that only “base salary, overtime pay, shift differential pay, military differential wage pay, compensatory time used by an employee in lieu of overtime not otherwise paid by an employer and holiday pay” can be used to calculate pension benefits.

Stanton and City Council members Thelda Williams and Daniel Valenzuela in July asked Cavazos to end the policy, but no changes have been made because the city plans to honor its labor-contract obligations until next fiscal year.

“As a matter of policy, I do not comment on litigation against the city,” Stanton said in a statement sent to The Republic.

“Last month, I joined with two members of the City Council to ask the city manager to present options to eliminate pension spiking for all employees. I will continue to work with my colleagues to end this practice."

Cavazos, however, on Aug.1 said he was leaving the city to take a similar position in Santa Ana, Calif.

He is retiring effective Oct.16, after nearly three decades in city government.

The announcement came about seven months after the City Council approved his controversial $78,000 pay raise, bumping his base salary to $315,000.

The pay raise will significantly increase his city pension.

A call to his office Thursday was not returned.

“As soon as the city receives the lawsuit, we will carefully review it and appropriately respond,” city spokeswoman Toni Maccarone said.

Cavazos, as a longtime member of the City of Phoenix Employee Retirement System, is eligible for a full pension and can cash in up to 60percent of his unused sick leave to enhance his retirement benefits, according to his contract with the city.

The lawsuit filed Thursday does not affect Cavazos or any municipal employees who are members of the Phoenix retirement system, Riches said.

“What is of interest with the city manager’s contract is reflective in the culture of the city of Phoenix and its deliberative process,” Riches said. “This is simply not an appropriate way to use sick leave.”

Goldwater has expressed confidence that it will win its latest suit, citing case law from across the country in which judges have ruled that accrued vacation time cannot be included to increase compensation when calculating public pension benefits.

Sal DiCiccio, named as a defendant because he is on the City Council, has been an outspoken critic of public pension systems.

He said the City Council should immediately end pension spiking.

“Taxpayers have been ripped off for so many years,” DiCiccio said. “It’s clearly illegal.”

DiCiccio said the additional money used for public-safety pensions is taking funding from after-school programs, libraries, senior services and police on the streets.

Phoenix, like other cities across Arizona, was forced to cut public-safety positions because of the recession and rising pension costs.

Republic reporter Dustin Gardiner contributed to this article.

Phoenix should obey the law and end pension spiking

Phoenix should obey the law and end pension spiking

As expected, the Goldwater Institute sued the city of Phoenix today, hoping to end an obviously illegal scheme that has allowed some high-level police and fire officials to not just feather their retirement nests but to gild the things.

This should be welcome news to Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton who during his campaign called for an end to pension spiking. [Rubbish!!!! Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton is owned by the Phoenix Police union and shovels pork and money to the cops in exchange for their votes]

Or not.

It’s been three months since Republic reporter Craig Harris brought the spiking issue to light. Thus far the city’s response has been to insist that the spiking is legal and punt until contract negotiations this fall.

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

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

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

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

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

Nicely danced, don’t you think?

Most rank-and-file police officers and firefighters see only a modest increase in their pensions due to spiking. But some in the top echelons have turned the spike into the fine art of a slam dunk, earning more in retirement than while actually doing the job.

If Phoenix police and firefighters are underpaid, then raise their pay. But Phoenix officials should do it in a way that doesn’t break the law — not to mention the public’s trust.

NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year

NSA - trust us, we are not illegally spying on Americans - Honest!!! Swear to God!!!

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NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds

By Barton Gellman, Published: August 15 E-mail the writer

The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.

Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by statute and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.

The documents, provided earlier this summer to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, include a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

In one instance, the NSA decided that it need not report the unintended surveillance of Americans. A notable example in 2008 was the interception of a “large number” of calls placed from Washington when a programming error confused the U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt, according to a “quality assurance” review that was not distributed to the NSA’s oversight staff.

In another case, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has authority over some NSA operations, did not learn about a new collection method until it had been in operation for many months. The court ruled it unconstitutional.

[FISA judge: Ability to police U.S. spying program is limited]

The Obama administration has provided almost no public information about the NSA’s compliance record. In June, after promising to explain the NSA’s record in “as transparent a way as we possibly can,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole described extensive safeguards and oversight that keep the agency in check. “Every now and then, there may be a mistake,” Cole said in congressional testimony.

The NSA audit obtained by The Post, dated May 2012, counted 2,776 incidents in the preceding 12 months of unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications. Most were unintended. Many involved failures of due diligence or violations of standard operating procedure. The most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders.

In a statement in response to questions for this article, the NSA said it attempts to identify problems “at the earliest possible moment, implement mitigation measures wherever possible, and drive the numbers down.” The government was made aware of The Post’s intention to publish the documents that accompany this article online.

“We’re a human-run agency operating in a complex environment with a number of different regulatory regimes, so at times we find ourselves on the wrong side of the line,” a senior NSA official said in an interview, speaking with White House permission on the condition of anonymity.

“You can look at it as a percentage of our total activity that occurs each day,” he said. “You look at a number in absolute terms that looks big, and when you look at it in relative terms, it looks a little different.”

There is no reliable way to calculate from the number of recorded compliance issues how many Americans have had their communications improperly collected, stored or distributed by the NSA.

The only known details of a 2011 ruling that found the NSA was using illegal methods to collect and handle the communications of American citizens.

The causes and severity of NSA infractions vary widely. One in 10 incidents is attributed to a typographical error in which an analyst enters an incorrect query and retrieves data about U.S phone calls or e-mails.

But the more serious lapses include unauthorized access to intercepted communications, the distribution of protected content and the use of automated systems without built-in safeguards to prevent unlawful surveillance.

The May 2012 audit, intended for the agency’s top leaders, counts only incidents at the NSA’s Fort Meade headquarters and other ­facilities in the Washington area. Three government officials, speak­ing on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified matters, said the number would be substantially higher if it included other NSA operating units and regional collection centers.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who did not receive a copy of the 2012 audit until The Post asked her staff about it, said in a statement late Thursday that the committee “can and should do more to independently verify that NSA’s operations are appropriate, and its reports of compliance incidents are accurate.”

Despite the quadrupling of the NSA’s oversight staff after a series of significant violations in 2009, the rate of infractions increased throughout 2011 and early 2012. An NSA spokesman declined to disclose whether the trend has continued since last year.

One major problem is largely unpreventable, the audit says, because current operations rely on technology that cannot quickly determine whether a foreign mobile phone has entered the United States.

In what appears to be one of the most serious violations, the NSA diverted large volumes of international data passing through fiber-optic cables in the United States into a repository where the material could be stored temporarily for processing and selection.

The operation to obtain what the agency called “multiple communications transactions” collected and commingled U.S. and foreign e-mails, according to an article in SSO News, a top-secret internal newsletter of the NSA’s Special Source Operations unit. NSA lawyers told the court that the agency could not practicably filter out the communications of Americans.

In October 2011, months after the program got underway, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled that the collection effort was unconstitutional. The court said that the methods used were “deficient on statutory and constitutional grounds,” according to a top-secret summary of the opinion, and it ordered the NSA to comply with standard privacy protections or stop the program.

James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has acknowledged that the court found the NSA in breach of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, but the Obama administration has fought a Freedom of Information lawsuit that seeks the opinion.

Generally, the NSA reveals nothing in public about its errors and infractions. The unclassified versions of the administration’s semiannual reports to Congress feature blacked-out pages under the headline “Statistical Data Relating to Compliance Incidents.”

The only known details of a 2011 ruling that found the NSA was using illegal methods to collect and handle the communications of American citizens.

What's a 'violation'?

Members of Congress may read the unredacted documents, but only in a special secure room, and they are not allowed to take notes. [Wow!!! Sounds like the folks in the NSA are telling Congress what to do. Not vise versa like it should be.] Fewer than 10 percent of lawmakers employ a staff member who has the security clearance to read the reports and provide advice about their meaning and significance.

The limited portions of the reports that can be read by the public acknowledge “a small number of compliance incidents.”

Under NSA auditing guidelines, the incident count does not usually disclose the number of Americans affected.

“What you really want to know, I would think, is how many innocent U.S. person communications are, one, collected at all, and two, subject to scrutiny,” said Julian Sanchez, a research scholar and close student of the NSA at the Cato Institute.

The documents provided by Snowden offer only glimpses of those questions. Some reports make clear that an unauthorized search produced no records. But a single “incident” in February 2012 involved the unlawful retention of 3,032 files that the surveillance court had ordered the NSA to destroy, according to the May 2012 audit. Each file contained an undisclosed number of telephone call records.

One of the documents sheds new light on a statement by NSA Director Keith B. Alexander last year that “we don’t hold data on U.S. citizens.”

Some Obama administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, have defended Alexander with assertions that the agency’s internal definition of “data” does not cover “metadata” such as the trillions of American call records that the NSA is now known to have collected and stored since 2006. Those records include the telephone numbers of the parties and the times and durations of conversations, among other details, but not their content or the names of callers.

The NSA’s authoritative def­inition of data includes those call records. “Signals Intelligence Management Directive 421,” which is quoted in secret oversight and auditing guidelines, states that “raw SIGINT data . . . includes, but is not limited to, unevaluated and/or unminimized transcripts, gists, facsimiles, telex, voice, and some forms of computer-generated data, such as call event records and other Digital Network Intelligence (DNI) metadata as well as DNI message text.”

In the case of the collection effort that confused calls placed from Washington with those placed from Egypt, it is unclear what the NSA meant by a “large number” of intercepted calls. A spokesman declined to discuss the matter.

The NSA has different reporting requirements for each branch of government and each of its legal authorities. The “202” collection was deemed irrelevant to any of them. “The issue pertained to Metadata ONLY so there were no defects to report,” according to the author of the secret memo from March 2013.

The large number of database query incidents, which involve previously collected communications, confirms long-standing suspicions that the NSA’s vast data banks — with code names such as MARINA, PINWALE and XKEYSCORE — house a considerable volume of information about Americans. Ordinarily the identities of people in the United States are masked, but intelligence “customers” may request unmasking, either one case at a time or in standing orders.

The only known details of a 2011 ruling that found the NSA was using illegal methods to collect and handle the communications of American citizens.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said he will hold a hearing on the matter.

In dozens of cases, NSA personnel made careless use of the agency’s extraordinary powers, according to individual auditing reports. One team of analysts in Hawaii, for example, asked a system called DISHFIRE to find any communications that mentioned both the Swedish manufacturer Ericsson and “radio” or “radar” — a query that could just as easily have collected on people in the United States as on their Pakistani military target.

The NSA uses the term “incidental” when it sweeps up the records of an American while targeting a foreigner or a U.S. person who is believed to be involved in terrorism. Official guidelines for NSA personnel say that kind of incident, pervasive under current practices, “does not constitute a . . . violation” and “does not have to be reported” to the NSA inspector general for inclusion in quarterly reports to Congress. Once added to its databases, absent other restrictions, the communications of Americans may be searched freely.

In one required tutorial, NSA collectors and analysts are taught to fill out oversight forms without giving “extraneous information” to “our FAA overseers.” FAA is a reference to the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which granted broad new authorities to the NSA in exchange for regular audits from the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and periodic reports to Congress and the surveillance court.

Using real-world examples, the “Target Analyst Rationale Instructions” explain how NSA employees should strip out details and substitute generic descriptions of the evidence and analysis behind their targeting choices.

“I realize you can read those words a certain way,” said the high-ranking NSA official who spoke with White House authority, but the instructions were not intended to withhold information from auditors. “Think of a book of individual recipes,” he said. Each target “has a short, concise description,” but that is “not a substitute for the full recipe that follows, which our overseers also have access to.”

Julie Tate and Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.

Court: Ability to police U.S. spying program limited

So as they have said all along it appears that this so call FISA court is really just rubber stamp to allow the police to flush the Bill of Rights down the toilet and spy on us whenever the feel like it.

Source

Court: Ability to police U.S. spying program limited

By Carol D. Leonnig, Published: August 15

The leader of the secret court that is supposed to provide critical oversight of the government’s vast spying programs said that its ability to do so is limited and that it must trust the government to report when it improperly spies on Americans.

The chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said the court lacks the tools to independently verify how often the government’s surveillance breaks the court’s rules that aim to protect Americans’ privacy. Without taking drastic steps, it also cannot check the veracity of the government’s assertions that the violations its staff members report are unintentional mistakes.

The only known details of a 2011 ruling that found the NSA was using illegal methods to collect and handle the communications of American citizens.

Lawmakers on Friday were quick to express their dismay over the latest surveillance revelations. [Yea, the same lawmakers that voted to flush the Bill of Rights down the toilet by passing the unconstitutional Patriot Act.]

“The FISC is forced to rely upon the accuracy of the information that is provided to the Court,” its chief, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, said in a written statement to The Washington Post. “The FISC does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance, and in that respect the FISC is in the same position as any other court when it comes to enforcing [government] compliance with its orders.”

Walton’s comments came in response to internal government records obtained by The Post showing that National Security Agency staff members in Washington overstepped their authority on spy programs thousands of times per year. The records also show that the number of violations has been on the rise.

The court’s description of its practical limitations contrasts with repeated assurances from the Obama administration and intelligence agency leaders that the court provides central checks and balances on the government’s broad spying efforts. They have said that Americans should feel comfortable that the secret intelligence court provides robust oversight of government surveillance and protects their privacy from rogue intrusions.

President Obama and other government leaders have emphasized the court’s oversight role in the wake of revelations this year that the government is vacuuming up “metadata” on Americans’ telephone and Internet communications.

“We also have federal judges that we’ve put in place who are not subject to political pressure,” Obama said at a news conference in June. “They’ve got lifetime tenure as federal judges, and they’re empowered to look over our shoulder at the executive branch to make sure that these programs aren’t being abused.”

Privacy advocates and others in government have voiced concerns about the ability of overseers to police secret programs of immense legal and technological complexity. Several members of the House and Senate intelligence committees told The Post last week that they face numerous obstacles and constraints in questioning spy agency officials about their work.

In 2009, for example, a Justice Department review uncovered a major operational glitch that had led to a series of significant violations of the court’s order and notified the court, according to records that were declassified July 31 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The government described the problem as one of “over-collection” of metadata records for U.S. phone calls.

In September 2009, NSA Director Keith B. Alexander made a presentation to the FISA court about the agency’s effort to remedy the problem.

“FISA Court placed several restrictions on aspects of the business records collection program until the compliance processes were improved to its satisfaction,” the memo stated.

The only known details of a 2011 ruling that found the NSA was using illegal methods to collect and handle the communications of American citizens.

Lawmakers on Friday were quick to express their dismay over the latest surveillance revelations.

The public summaries of the violations do not say how long the problem went undetected and unreported to the court, or what information was improperly gathered by the agency’s automated collection systems.

“The problems generally involved the implementation of highly sophisticated technology in a complex and ever-changing communications environment which, in some instances, results in the automated tools operating in a manner that was not completely consistent with the specific terms of the Court’s orders,” according to unredacted portions of a December 2009 memo provided to the Senate and House intelligence committees.

Two people familiar with the 2009 flaw said that the agency was collecting more “fields” of information from the customer records of telephone companies than the court had approved. The NSA declined to answer questions about the event.

One senior intelligence official, who was authorized by the White House to speak on the condition of anonymity, described the 2009 incident as a “major event” that prompted the agency to dramatically increase its compliance staff.

“We uncovered some disconnects between us and our overseers, disconnects between what we had put in documentation, the way we had described things in documentation,” the official said.

Although the violation was unintentional, the official said, “it wasn’t always the easiest of discussions” with the court.

The agency paused, “got ourselves with our overseers back into fair territory,” and has since made “substantial improvement” in compliance, the official said.

Privacy advocates say they fear that some violations are never reported to the court.

In January 2008, the NSA appeared to have mistakenly collected data on numerous phone calls from the Washington area code 202, thinking they were foreign phone calls from Egypt, whose country code is 20. According to a 2013 “quality assurance” review of the incident, a communications switch misread the coding of the calls and presumed they were international. The NSA has broad authority that is not subject to the FISA court to collect and monitor foreign communications under certain circumstances.

The description of the 2008 problem suggests that the inadvertent collection of U.S. phone calls was not reported to the FISA court.

“However, the issue pertained to Metadata ONLY so there were no defects to report,” the review stated.

Under FISA rules, the government is required to immediately notify the court if it believes it has violated any of its orders on surveillance.

The government does not typically provide the court with case-specific detail about individual compliance cases, such as the names of people it later learned it was improperly searching in its massive phone or e-mail databases, according to the two people familiar with the court’s work.

In contrast to the dozens of staff available to Congress’s intelligence and judiciary committees, the FISA court has five lawyers to review compliance violation reports.

A staff lawyer can elevate a concern about a significant compliance issue to a judge on the court, according to a letter Walton recently sent to the Senate describing the court’s role.

The court can always demand and obtain more details about cases, but it is unclear how often that occurs. In the past, while grappling with rules for implementing the surveillance programs, judges on the court have requested a visit to NSA headquarters to inspect the operations, the officials said.

Last week, the president said that he recognizes that some Americans may lack trust in the oversight process — in which the secret court approves the rules for collecting Americans’ communications — and that he will work with Congress on reforms, which could include a privacy advocate to the court.

“In other words, it’s not enough for me as president to have confidence in these programs,” Obama said in his news conference. “The American people need to have confidence in them, as well.”

Barton Gellman, Peter Wallsten and Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Can Obama write his own laws?

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Can Obama write his own laws?

By Charles Krauthammer, Published: August 15

As a reaction to the crack epidemic of the 1980s, many federal drug laws carry strict mandatory sentences. This has stirred unease in Congress and sparked a bipartisan effort to revise and relax some of the more draconian laws.

Traditionally — meaning before Barack Obama — that’s how laws were changed: We have a problem, we hold hearings, we find some new arrangement ratified by Congress and signed by the president.

That was then. On Monday, Attorney General Eric Holder, a liberal in a hurry, ordered all U.S. attorneys to simply stop charging nonviolent, non-gang-related drug defendants with crimes that, while fitting the offense, carry mandatory sentences. Find some lesser, non-triggering charge. How might you do that? Withhold evidence — for example, the amount of dope involved.

In other words, evade the law, by deceiving the court if necessary. “If the companies that I represent in federal criminal cases” did that, said former deputy attorney general George Terwilliger, “they could be charged with a felony.”

But such niceties must not stand in the way of an administration’s agenda. Indeed, the very next day, it was revealed that the administration had unilaterally waived Obamacare’s cap on a patient’s annual out-of-pocket expenses — a one-year exemption for selected health insurers that is nowhere permitted in the law. It was simply decreed by an obscure Labor Department regulation.

Which followed a presidentially directed 70-plus percent subsidy for the insurance premiums paid by congressmen and their personal staffs — under a law that denies subsidies for anyone that well-off.

Which came just a month after the administration’s equally lawless suspension of one of the cornerstones of Obamacare: the employer mandate.

Which followed hundreds of Obama­care waivers granted by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to selected businesses, unions and other well-lobbied, very special interests.

Nor is this kind of rule-by-decree restricted to health care. In 2012, the immigration service was ordered to cease proceedings against young illegal immigrants brought here as children. Congress had refused to pass such a law (the DREAM Act) just 18 months earlier. Obama himself had repeatedly said that the Constitution forbade him from enacting it without Congress. But with the fast approach of an election that could hinge on the Hispanic vote, Obama did exactly that. Unilaterally.

The point is not what you think about the merits of the DREAM Act. Or of mandatory drug sentences. Or of subsidizing health care premiums for $175,000-a-year members of Congress. Or even whether you think governors should be allowed to weaken the work requirements for welfare recipients — an authority the administration granted last year in clear violation of section 407 of the landmark Clinton-Gingrich welfare reform of 1996.

The point is whether a president, charged with faithfully executing the laws that Congress enacts, may create, ignore, suspend and/or amend the law at will. Presidents are arguably permitted to refuse to enforce laws they consider unconstitutional (the basis for so many of George W. Bush’s so-called signing statements). But presidents are forbidden from doing so for reasons of mere policy — the reason for every Obama violation listed above.

Such gross executive usurpation disdains the Constitution. It mocks the separation of powers. And most consequentially, it introduces a fatal instability into law itself. If the law is not what is plainly written, but is whatever the president and his agents decide, what’s left of the law?

The problem is not just uncertain enforcement but the undermining of the very creation of new law. What’s the point of the whole legislative process — of crafting various provisions through give-and-take negotiation — if you cannot rely on the fixity of the final product, on the assurance that the provisions bargained for by both sides will be carried out?

Consider immigration reform, now in gestation. The essence of any deal would be legalization in return for strict border enforcement. If some such legislative compromise is struck, what confidence can anyone have in it — if the president can unilaterally alter whatever (enforcement) provisions he never liked in the first place?

Yet this president is not only untroubled by what he’s doing, but open and rather proud. As he tells cheering crowds on his never-ending campaign-style tours: I am going to do X — and I’m not going to wait for Congress.

That’s caudillo talk. That’s banana republic stuff. In this country, the president is required to win the consent of Congress first.

At stake is not some constitutional curlicue. At stake is whether the laws are the law. And whether presidents get to write their own.

Read more from Charles Krauthammer’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.

Members of Congress haven't had a raise in years

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Members of Congress haven't had a raise in years

USA Today Thu Aug 15, 2013 1:47 PM

WASHINGTON — Haven't had a raise in a while? Well, neither has your member of Congress.

This month, congressional salaries slid to their lowest inflation-adjusted levels since December 1990.

When congressional approval ratings are at historic lows, congressional pay — $174,000 for rank-and-file senators and House members — may seem high. But some argue that shrinking paychecks for public service perpetuates a political culture where mostly the rich can afford to serve in office.

Members of Congress have to maintain households in two locations, one being Washington, one of the most expensive housing markets in the country even for rentals. [Must be tough making ends meet. On the other hand I probably could maintain households in 3 or 4 locations if I was make $174,000 for a job which I only had to work a lousy 126 days a year. And of course that $174,000 yearly income doesn't include the hundreds of thousands and in many cases millions of dollars in bribes, oops, I mean campaign contributions they get. ]

"It's always shocking to see members of Congress sleeping in their offices," says Brad Fitch, president and CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation. "I know one who turned their office couch into a bed and their file cabinet into a laundry bin." [of course he doesn't actually do the laundry, the laundry bin is where is maid picks the laundry up at. And sleeping on a couch??? That's just a quaint story he tells the folks back at home to get re-elected. They think he actually sleeps on the couch instead of hanging out in topless bars where he is usually found]

"The pay is adequate but not extravagant," agrees Norm Ornstein, resident scholar at American Enterprise Institute. "It's hard to make that case to most Americans. But in Washington, you're competing for housing with second-year associates at law firms who are already making the same salary as you." [Yea, $174,000 base salary for working 125 days a year certainly isn't extravagant. At least that's what they tell the folks back home to get re-elected]

Since 1992, congressional pay has not kept up with inflation. To keep up, pay would have to be closer to $219,000, according to a June report by the Congressional Research Service. [Life's a bitch when you only make a lousy $174,000!!!, well at least before you throw in the bribes, oops, I mean campaign contributions of hundreds of thousands and many times millions of dollars]

By law, Congress obtains an annual automatic pay adjustment, equivalent to the prior year's average private sector wage change. However, the raise can't be a higher percentage than for other federal employees. [Yea, a lot of Congressmen are envious of the janitors that clean their offices, who only make $20,000 a year, but percentage wise got much higher pay raises then the Congressmen!!!]

Congress can vote to delay or deny this raise and has done so five times since the last increase in 2009, most recently in January of this year. If each of those increases had gone into effect, congressional pay would today be 5.5% higher, still less than inflation.

While lawmakers' relative pay is declining, their wealth is increasing: Many in Congress have vast personal wealth. Since 1992, according to Stanford University and the Center for Responsive Politics, congressional net worth increased significantly. Average American household net worth during that time declined. Yet average net worth among freshman members first elected last November stands at more than a million dollars. [Some mean spirited people will point out that the $174,000 doesn't include hundreds of thousands and many times millions of dollars in bribes, oops, I mean campaign contributions, but hey a few extra hundred thousand dollars or even a million bucks doesn't go that far in Washington D.C.]

Thomas Mann says this is not coincidence.

"It's politically impossible to set salaries at a reasonable rate," says Mann, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution. "So it's not realistic to expect Congress to proportionally reflect America in terms of bartenders or construction workers. Especially to have two homes – one in Washington and one in the district – if you don't have personal wealth, you almost can't do it."

"Most would make far more money in their former jobs or the private sector," Fitch concurs. "Probably the only ones doing better than before are those who have been in public service their whole lives. That's definitely the minority, since most come from the legal or business worlds."

One factor causing this slide was the 1992 passage of the 27th Constitutional Amendment, which required that any pay adjustment Congress votes for itself would not take effect until after the next election. That way, representatives could not vote themselves a self-serving immediate pay raise and would have to risk that any such vote may benefit successors who may be ideological or political rivals.

Since ratification of the amendment, congressional pay has increased at less than half the rate of inflation. By contrast, in the five years before passage, congressional pay increased at almost twice the inflation rate.

Ornstein says lower congressional pay perpetuates a "revolving door" between Congress and K Street.

"When lobbying pays five to 10 times congressional pay, that is genuinely corrupting," Ornstein says. "Almost 50% of those leaving office [either due to retirement or being voted out] stay in Washington, compared to a blip a few decades ago."

Though denying themselves pay increases could earn members of Congress short-term brownie points with their constituents, the consequences could be damaging further out.

"If you continue to let the differential grow, at some point, Congress would be forced to make up for it with pay increases greater than inflation," Fitch predicts. "And there will be hell to pay."

Source

Want a Job With 239 Vacation Days? Become a Member of Congress

New statistics show that Congress may be more dysfunctional than at any time in the last 60 years.

We have to let our representatives know that business as usual isn't acceptable and we expect them, above all else, to get stuff done. The number of laws passed by Congress last year was fewer than at any point since 1947. And to make matters worse, Congress will get 239 "vacation days" in 2013.

The figures from the House Clerk's office paint a bleak picture of Congressional productivity.

But what remains most astonishing about our representatives on the Hill is not only the quantity of legislation, but the amount of time spent working. The Congressional calendar for this coming year consists of 126 days, [let's see, if if they work 126 days a year that is $1,380 a day at their pay rate of $174,000 a year] leaving members of Congress 239 days to perhaps tour our great nation, toy with the idea of running for higher office, and maybe visit a natural disaster or two. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's calendar releases rather embarrassing scheduling without a single 5-day work week or weekend. If you are already feeling riled up about this, I would not suggest looking at the month of August.

So, how? How can hard-working Americans, residents of one of the most overworked countries in the world, commute five times a week to and from work while their money is squandered away in one of the two or three weekly meetings Congress manages in squeeze in?

Well, perhaps my take on activities is somewhat cynical (not that you should have expected any less). Apparently, these weeks off are called "District work periods," also known as free travel at taxpayer expense.

Even Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) admits the wrongdoing of his colleagues: "I think we'd get more work done if we spent more time in Washington. We come in, we go straight to votes, and then we go to our separate quarters. We don't really get to know each other anymore."

But Cantor disagrees in publishing a schedule with many long breaks allowing for travel and "district work periods."

This isn't the beginning. This unabashed congressional laziness has run rampant over the past decade and is only inflating. In 2007, Fox News reported expensive monthly trips taken by members of Congress to far-off lands on whose dime? Oh yes, that’s right. I think I'm starting to understand her point.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) and his wife are particularly cultured because of his spot on the Hill. He and his wife frequent Aspen Institute conferences, along with many other members of Congress. The Aspen Institute, an international nonprofit dedicated to fostering enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue, has covered the costs of sending members of Congress to their seminars and workshops in the past. From 2000-2007, the Miller couple has attended 30 conferences with a total value of over $200,000. But that is not the kicker. Rep. George Miller, House Education and Labor Committee Chairman, did not even have a place at these conferences. Only 3 of the 30 conferences he has attended were related to education. And don't let the name fool you: The Aspen Institute certainly does not hold conferences in Aspen only. Mr. and Mrs. Miller have traveled to Aspen conferences in:

Naples, Florida, San Juan, Vancouver, Prague, Grand Cayman, Florence, Helsinki, Punta Mita, Mexico, Scottsdale, China, Barcelona, Montega Bay, Jamaica, Rome, Cancun, Venice, Dublin, Istanbul, and Hawaii.

Not only do these luxurious conferences take place across the globe, but they also ended up consuming about half a year in total, or 10% of every year.

So, does the Aspen Institute represent 10% of Rep. George Miller's constituents?

Jesus Bombs You???

Sal DiCiccio claim about non-profit charity

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The issue: Claim about non-profit charity

Who said it: Sal DiCiccio, City Council member

by Christina Leonard - August 16, 2013, 5:24 pm

What we're looking at: Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio's campaign sent out a mailer claiming Karlene Keogh Parks' non-profit spent 96 percent of donations on salaries and perks.

The comment: "Karlene Keogh Parks runs a non-profit charity that used 96 percent of donations to pay themselves salaries and perks."

The forum: The claim was included in a mailer that the "DiCiccio for City Council" campaign sent to voters in August.

Analysis: Keogh Health Foundation, founded by Keogh Parks and her late husband, Kevin Keogh, received 501(c)(3) status in 2004, according to the group’s website.

The group later changed its name to Keogh Health Connection. Karlene Keogh Parks is listed as chair emeritus on the non-profit’s board.

The organization’s mission is to connect "underserved individuals and families in need to healthcare and community resources," according to its website.

From 2009 to 2011, which are the years cited in the mailer, Keogh Health Connection reported $1,193,036 in contributions and grants, according to reports submitted to the Internal Revenue Service.

During the same period, it paid employees $836,398 in salaries and benefits.

By that calculation, the foundation spent about 70 percent of the revenue generated from donations on employee salaries.

If other expenses — such as professional fundraising fees, accounting fees, office expenses, insurance, postage — are tacked on, the non-profit spent 94 percent of the donations on salaries and office expenses. However, many people would not consider things like postage and office expenses "perks" as cited in the mailer.

However, DiCiccio campaign spokeswoman Amy Rezzonico said the campaign used different measures to come up with the 96 percent figure.

Rezzonico said the 96 percent came from "everything that is not paid as a grant."

"In other words, only 4 percent of funding went to help people," she wrote in an e-mail. "The rest paid salaries, perks, and office expenses."

The non-profit's executive director, Saundra Johnson, said the organization puts more money into staff resources because their goal is to help people navigate the health-care system and other social-service programs vs. simply giving them money.

"We believe that we’re ... more effective if we can get people into ongoing medical homes, for example," she said.

Rezzonico broke down how the campaign arrived at the final figure, using two different calculations.

The campaign used the number of grants provided by the foundation ($28,498) and divided that by the salaries it paid to employees ($836,398) to come up with 3.4 percent. They rounded the percentage to 4 percent.

But that figure shows the percentage of grants the non-profit provided as a percentage of salaries it paid its employees — it does not show the percentage of donations paid in salaries and "perks."

The campaign also calculated the number of grants as a percentage of total expenditures, which was 2.5 percent. Again, this figure does not show the percentage of donations used to pay salaries and perks.

BOTTOM LINE: Although the mailer does contain some accurate figures, the claim about the percentage of donations the non-profit spent on salaries and perks is misleading unless you consider office expenses "perks."

RNC votes to punish CNN and NBC for Clinton films

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RNC votes to punish CNN and NBC for Clinton films

By Martha T. Moore USATODAY Fri Aug 16, 2013 11:51 AM

BOSTON — As expected, Republican Party officials voted Friday not to allow CNN and NBC to sponsor Republican primary debates in 2016 if the networks air planned programs about potential 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

In a resolution passed at the party's summer meeting in Boston, national committee members called CNN's planned documentary and NBC's planned biopic "little more than extended commercials supporting Secretary Clinton" and an attempt to put "a thumb on the scales" for the 2016 presidential election.

GOP chair Reince Priebus had sent a letter to the networks Aug. 5. telling them to drop plans for the programs or face the RNC action. NBC News has said the fictionalized biography is being developed by the network's entertainment division, a separate entity from the news division. CNN asked the RNC to "reserve judgment" until the documentary is further along.

Though the RNC is making Hispanic outreach a priority, the ban nonetheless includes NBC's cable networks and Telemundo and CNN Espanol, RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said. Both networks aired debates during the 2012 campaign.

The RNC is trying to find ways to limit the number of debates in 2016 after the marathon of 20 debates in the 2012 primaries, which Priebus said gave the party's candidates too much opportunity to "slice and dice" each other. Republican candidates could agree to debates regardless of the RNC action, Kukowski said.

Clinton, who recently stepped down as secretary of State, has not said whether she plans to run for office, but activists around the country are organizing a campaign infrastructure for her.

After the vote, CNN issued the following statement:

"CNN Films, a division of CNN Worldwide, commissioned a documentary about Hillary Clinton earlier this year. It is expected to premiere in 2014 with a theatrical run prior to airing on CNN. The CNN broadcast date has not been determined. This documentary will be a non-fiction look at the life of a former First Lady and Secretary of State. The project is in the very early stages of development, months from completion with most of the reporting and the interviewing still to be done. Therefore speculation about the final program is just that. We encouraged all interested parties to wait until the program premieres before judgments are made about it. Unfortunately, the RNC was not willing to do that."

Baby Messiah case brings religious right, ACLU together

Baby Messiah case brings religious right, ACLU together

By Robin Abcarian

August 18, 2013, 6:22 p.m.

It's not very often that the ACLU gets love from the religious right, but after a Tennessee judge took it upon herself to rename a 7-month-old boy because she found his name offensive to Christians, the civil liberties group, which had strenuously objected, found some new friends.

"I got the classic call the other day," said Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the ACLU of Tennessee, who called the judge's action "totally unacceptable." "They said, 'I really don't like the ACLU, but I support what you are saying and doing about the baby Messiah."

You've undoubtedly heard about the baby Messiah.

This was the little boy whose mother, Jaleesa Martin, 22, took the father, Jawaan P. McCullough, 40, to family court to establish paternity and to set child support. The unmarried pair also had a quarrel about the boy's last name.

Although the father had wanted to name the baby Jawaan P. McCullough Jr., by the end of the Aug. 8 hearing, according to the judge, he no longer objected to calling the boy Messiah Deshawn. But he wanted the boy to bear his surname.

Nevertheless, the judge decided to give the baby a total name makeover.

"It is not in this child's best interest to keep the first name 'Messiah,'" Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew wrote in a breathtaking display of authoritarian gall. "'Messiah' means Savior, Deliverer, the One who will restore God's Kingdom. 'Messiah' is a title that is held by only Jesus Christ."

The name would impose an "undue burden on him that as a human being he cannot fulfill," she wrote. (Like, how would she know that?)

Furthermore, she noted, the boy's home of Cocke County, Tenn., has a "large Christian population" as evidenced by its "many churches of the Christian faith."

"Therefore," she concluded, "it is highly likely that he will offend many Cocke County citizens by calling himself 'Messiah.'"

I called around to a few Christian churches in Jaleesa Martin's town, Newport, Tenn., to see if I could find anyone who was offended by Messiah's name.

No one wanted to talk on the record. One pastor, who refused to let me name him, put it this way: "Nobody around here much cares for naming the kid Messiah, but a whole lot more are upset with the judge. That's gall. That's across the board."

A local TV reporter pointed out to Ballew that plenty of people are named Jesus. Ballew paused for a moment, then declared that information "not relevant to this case." Nor, presumably, is the widely reported statistic that "Messiah" is an increasingly popular American baby name. (Along with Lord and King. But I digress.)

With the sweep of her pen, Ballew has caused many to wonder: Can the government deprive parents of the right to name their children?

"Parents, not the government or anybody else, name children," wrote UC Davis constitutional law professor Carlton F.W. Larson in a law review article about the constitutional dimensions of baby-naming laws. "I am aware of no circumstances in American history, other than slavery, in which this right has been exercised by anyone other than parents."

In an interview, Larson called the judge's move "totally outrageous."

"Her entire line of reasoning totally violates basic freedom of religious purposes," Larson said. "This kid can't be a Messiah because the Messiah is Jesus Christ? Judges don't get to make pronouncements on the bench about who is the Messiah and who is not."

The ACLU's Weinberg agreed: "The judge is crossing the line by interfering in a very private decision and is imposing her own religious faith on this family. The courtroom is not a place for promoting personal religious beliefs, and that's exactly what the judge did when she changed the baby Messiah's name to Martin."

Larson suggested there could be what he called "a racial dimension" to the story, as the judge is white and the baby is black. "You wonder if she would have done that if it was a white couple," he said.

In his 2011 article for the George Washington Law Review, Larson wrote that baby-name law "is a legal universe that has scarcely been mapped, full of strange lacunae, spotty statutory provisions, and patchy, inconsistent case law."

For instance some states don't require names at all, some don't allow epithets or symbols or numerals or illegible combinations thereof. In Massachusetts, names must be composed of characters found on the "standard American keyboard." California once rejected a name that contained the N-word. New Mexico rejected a name that began with a common four-letter profanity followed by "Censorship."

Adolf Hitler Campbell, a New Jersey 3-year-old whose father made a stink when a bakery refused to write the boy's name on his birthday cake in 2008, had a perfectly legal moniker. (One of the boy's sisters was JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell. Years later, the father made news again when his fourth wife became pregnant and the couple publicly discussed naming her Eva Braun.)

Although there is nothing illegal about naming a child for one of history's most despicable mass murderers, Larson wrote, when a San Francisco couple tried to name their baby girl Lucía, they were not able to put their preferred spelling on her birth certificate because California's Office of Vital Records bans diacritical marks.

When Larson tried to put his full name on his daughter's birth certificate, including his two middle names "Frederick William," a five-generation tradition in his Swedish family, he ran into an even lamer snag. He was told it was too long to fit.

"Prior to computers you could have done this with no problem at all," Larson said. "Now all of a sudden, my rights have shrunk because of your software?"

Next month, Jaleesa Martin will return to court to fight to restore Messiah's perfectly good name.

Lord willing, and a good attorney at her side, she will prevail.

robin.abcarian@latimes.com

Suppressing AZ’s suppression supremacy

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Suppressing AZ’s suppression supremacy

Once again, the liberal media is unfairly downplaying the accomplishments of Gov. Jan Brewer and the Republicans who control the Arizona legislature.

The governor and her associates have every reason to be offended.

They worked very hard during the last legislative session to establish Arizona as No. 1 in the nation when it comes to voter suppression.

And they did it.

And the media snubbed them.

Even former Secretary of State and potential presidential candidate Hillary Clinton joined the bias onslaught against us, touting the voter suppression work of North Carolina while not even acknowledging Arizona. Secretary Clinton described North Carolina’s latest efforts as “a greatest hits of voter suppression.”

And that’s not all. Many so-called mainstream news operations have said the same thing about North Carolina. And even other states, like Pennsylvania. The magazine Mother Jones published an article under the headline: “Why North Carolina’s Voter ID Bill Might Be the Nation’s Worst.”

If the governor and her cohorts were not so… humble they could answer, “Hogwash!”

Sure, the folks in North Carolina made it more difficult for some of their citizens to vote. They eliminated same-day registration, cut back early voting by a week, and outlawed some forms of identification, among other things.

But Arizona already outlaws same-day registration. We shut down voter registration about a month before our elections. And we’ve already imposed numerous restrictions and logistical difficulties on those interested in early voting.

But instead of resting on their laurels (If that what you’d call them?) Arizona’s politicians pressed forward. (Or is it the opposite way?)

They passed House Bill 2305.

Republican officials apparently were upset by the results of some recent Congressional races. They believe their candidates would have won if not for the presence of Libertarian candidates on the ballot. One way to prevent such an outcome in the future, of course, would be to convince Libertarians to vote for Republicans.

But that’s difficult.

So they went the easy route, passing HB 2305, which makes it tough for third parties to get on the ballot by significantly increasing the number of signatures their candidates need to qualify. Libertarians said some of their signature requirements increased 4,000 percent.

How is that not better (Or is it worse?) than what was done in North Carolina?

Brewer and friends should be outraged.

The new Arizona law also makes it much more difficult for citizens to get initiatives on the ballot. (While the legislature is able refer a proposal to the ballot with a simple vote).

HB 2305 also makes it illegal for anyone working for an organization or a political party from collecting individual ballots and dropping them off at a polling place. The ballots are sealed and signed, so one might ask, “What’s the problem?” Particularly since this is helpful to the elderly, the homebound and the disabled. Or is this because Democrats better at collecting such ballots than Republicans?

The law also makes it easier to kick voters off the permanent early voting lists.

The impact of these measures alters Arizona’s voting landscape. So much so that a group calling itself the Protect Your Right To Vote Arizona Committee is attempting to overturn HB 2305 through referendum.

A while back I had a conversation with the chairwoman of the committee, Julie Erfle.

“This really was an outrageous law to pass,” she told me. “In this country we’re supposed to look for more and better ways of getting people involved in the election process. In Arizona we have politicians trying to restrict that process. All for their own self interest. We feel pretty confident Arizona voters will see through that.”

The group believes it will collect enough signatures to get the referendum on the November 2014 ballot. If the committee collects 86,405 valid signatures by Sept. 12 the law passed by the legislature will be on hold until that election.

Either way Arizona voters will get a chance to determine if our state, like all other states in the union, is a laboratory for democracy, or, as Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” described us, the “meth lab of democracy.”

City Hall’s open, but no sign of San Diego mayor

City Hall’s open, but no sign of San Diego mayor

Associated Press Mon Aug 19, 2013 9:29 AM

SAN DIEGO — San Diego City Hall has opened but there is no sign of the mayor as he faces sexual harassment allegations.

City Council President Todd Gloria says he doesn’t know if Mayor Bob Filner will be at City Hall, despite his vow to return to work Monday after undergoing therapy.

Gloria says Filner is not obligated to make an appearance but owes the people of San Diego an explanation of his whereabouts.

Filner has not made his schedule public. His spokeswoman and lawyers did not respond to calls.

Multiple accusations of sexual harassment by Filner have prompted an avalanche of calls for him to resign.

A recall campaign kicked off in earnest on Sunday, and if he does go back to work, Filner faces an uphill battle to prove he can still govern.

The Phoenix Police Union is the PROBLEM

Without Sal DiCiccio, Phoenix could become Detroit

Keating: Rallying against unions will keep city vibrant

By James Keating My Turn Mon Aug 19, 2013 11:09 AM

The decision that voters in Phoenix City Council District 6 make on Aug. 27 will determine whether we remain a great city for generations or embark on the path of decline already laid out by cities like Detroit.

Cities become and remain great when voters elect responsible, independent leaders. The opposite is also true. Great cities decline when voters elect candidates more beholden to public-sector unions than to the people they were elected to serve.

We will either vote for responsible fiscal management and opportunity under Councilman Sal DiCiccio, or we will choose union-dominated decisions and decline under Karlene Keogh Parks.

The recent recession has made it abundantly clear that union-driven spending commitments and poor planning, coupled with unreasonable investment expectations, also union driven, will wreak havoc on even the best managed city budgets. In those cities where public-sector unions have been left unchecked by leaders like Sal DiCiccio, the result has been disaster.

The story goes like this. Unions influence voters to elect their chosen candidates to public office (in this case, Keogh Parks). Those candidates, now in office, reward that support by voting to increase public-sector employee salary, health and pension benefits.

The city spends more and more on public-employee commitments and less and less on schools, vital infrastructure and other pro-growth investments. Eventually, tax rates are raised to fill the ever-deepening hole. Finally, industry and talent flee to better managed climates, employment rates drop and overall tax revenue declines.

The dominoes are already falling: Detroit, Harrisburg, Penn., and Stockton and San Bernadino, Calif., are just a few early examples of what happens to cities run by union-dominated officials.

Phoenix is no exception. According to the 2012 Phoenix Annual Financial Report the total unfunded liability for city pensions, including public safety, is more than $2.5 billion.

If the unions are successful in defeating Sal DiCiccio in this election, current and future council members will almost certainly be less willing to stand up to them. Over time, our liabilities will outpace our tax revenues, and Phoenix will begin its journey down the path of decline.

Phoenix needs Sal DiCiccio. He is committed to ensuring that the city your children inherit will be more vibrant and full of opportunity than the one we are fortunate to share today. He has shown both the foresight to recognize our challenges and the courage to speak out on them.

We all say we want honest politicians who are willing to do what is right even if it may not be easy or in their own best interest. We all know we must be able to trust our elected officials to responsibly manage our city's -- and our children's -- future.

The responsible District 6 vote is for Sal DiCiccio. If not, we will get what we deserve. Just ask Detroit.

James Keating is CEO of The Keating Group, which is based on Phoenix's District 6.

Maryland lawmaker charged with DUI/DWI

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Maryland lawmaker charged with driving under the influence of alcohol

By Maggie Fazeli Fard and John Wagner, Updated: Tuesday, August 20, 7:19 AM E-mail the writers

Maryland Del. Donald H. Dwyer Jr., who recently pleaded guilty to drunken boating, is being charged with drunken driving.

The 55-year-old state lawmaker was pulled over Tuesday about 12:40 a.m., near the intersection of Edwin Raynor Boulevard and Route 100 in Pasadena, after an Anne Arundel County police officer saw him commit several traffic violations, according to an arrest report.

The officer wrote in the report that Dwyer (R-Anne Arundel) smelled strongly of alcohol and that “his eyes were red and glossy and his face was flushed. Dwyer’s speech was also very slow and slurred.”

Dwyer told the officer he was driving from a tavern in Baltimore, where he said he drank two beers, the report said.

Dwyer failed three field sobriety tests and was arrested, the report said. He has been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, driving while impaired and other counts.

Dwyer attorney David W. Fischer declined to comment Tuesday.

Dwyer recently pleaded guilty to a drunken boating charge stemming from a collision last year that injured seven people.

Sentencing in that case is scheduled for Oct. 25 in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court. Prosecutors reached a plea deal with Dwyer that calls for no additional incarceration.

But in court two weeks ago, retired Judge Emory A. Plitt Jr., who was brought in from Harford County to handle the case, said records from alcohol treatment programs in which Dwyer enrolled after the crash would be key to his decision about a sentence.

“I want to see evaluations from those programs,” said Plitt, who does not have to honor the plea deal.

Plitt indicated that he would also hear from victims. Among those injured was a 5-year-old girl who suffered a fractured skull.

News of Dwyer’s new arrest prompted calls for his resignation Tuesday, including from fellow Del. Ronald A. George (Anne Arundel), who is a Republican candidate for governor.

“Out of concern for others who could be harmed and for Don Dwyer himself, I call on him to resign and get help,” George said. “His constituents deserve good representation.”

Because all of the earlier charges filed against Dwyer were misdemeanors and none was directly related to his job as a legislator, he has not been under threat of automatic expulsion from the General Assembly.

In May, during an appearance in Anne Arundel County District Court, Dwyer said that he was “very remorseful” for what had happened in the boating collision and said that he was continuing to seek help for a drinking problem that stemmed in part from marital issues.

The District Court judge imposed a 30-day jail sentence, saying that as a lawmaker, Dwyer should be held to a higher standard for drinking excessively before the crash. Dwyer promptly appealed that sentence to the Circuit Court.

EPA might have used private emails to avoid FOIA

And of course that is why the Founders gave us the Second Amendment. So when our government masters refuse to obey the Constitution that we can do something about it.

Source

Judge: EPA might have used private emails to avoid FOIA

By The Associated Press

Published: Thursday, August 15, 2013, 7:33 p.m.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge said the Environmental Protection Agency's use of personal email accounts may have been aimed at skirting public disclosure requirements.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled on Wednesday that a conservative public interest law firm, the Landmark Legal Foundation, can question and obtain records from EPA officials as part of the firm's Freedom of Information lawsuit against the federal agency. The judge granted Landmark the right to seek the information to determine whether top EPA officials used personal email accounts to conduct official business — and whether the agency initially excluded those accounts from Landmark's Freedom of Information request.

“The possibility that unsearched personal email accounts may have been used for official business raises the possibility that leaders in the EPA may have purposefully attempted to skirt disclosure under the FOIA,” Lamberth wrote.

He said the possibility that the agency purposefully excluded the top leaders of the EPA from the FOIA search, at least initially, “suggests an unreasonable and bad faith reading of Landmark's FOIA request and subsequent agreement to narrow its scope.”

In the lawsuit last year, the foundation asked for any records that indicated the EPA was delaying the announcement of new environmental regulations until after the 2012 presidential election.

In June, The Associated Press reported that some top Obama administration officials were using secret government accounts to conduct official business. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the senior Republican on the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has said the practice undermines congressional oversight and complicates access to records under FOIA.

Late last year, some EPA critics accused former Administrator Lisa Jackson of using an email account under the name “Richard Windsor” to sidestep disclosure rules. The EPA said emails Jackson sent using her Windsor alias were turned over under open records requests. That email account is an EPA.gov email address, not a personal one.

The EPA did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.

Cops pose as horny young girls who want to have sex with old men

Jesus, don't these cops have any real criminals to hunt down????

This sounds like a huge waste of our tax dollars.

Paying cops to spend hours on the web pretending to be an imaginary hot, horny, beautiful, 15 year old girl who loves to have sex with old men.

Source

2 men arrested for luring a minor in northern Ariz. sting

By Matthew Longdon The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Wed Aug 7, 2013 7:38 PM

Two men are behind bars in northern Arizona after separate attempts to lure for sex a member of the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office posing as a young girl online, authorities said.

Deputies arrested Ken Roberts, 60, of Tucson, on Aug. 2 upon his arrival at a hotel in Cottonwood where he agreed to meet who he thought was a young girl, according to a Sheriff’s Office statement.

The Sheriff’s Office said Roberts first met the person posing as the girl on a social networking site in July and sent her pictures of his genitalia, face and underwear he bought for her.

Deputies said they arrested Kai Keller, 30, of Cottonwood. after a similar encounter July 19. Keller made contact with who he thought was a young girl online a few days before his arrest and mentioned having a recent sexual encounter with another 15-year-old.

Authorities said Keller was arrested at the place he agreed to meet the deputy posing as a young girl. He told deputies it was good thing they arrested him before he could hurt a young girl, the Sheriff’s Office said.

Both men were booked into the Camp Verde Detention Center and are each being held on a $50,000 bond.

Sanjay Gupta: the DEA is a bunch of liars about marijuana???

"Gupta said he had mistakenly believed the Drug Enforcement Agency had sound scientific proof when it placed marijuana in the category of the most dangerous drugs"

"I mistakenly believed the Drug Enforcement Agency listed marijuana as a schedule 1 substance because of sound scientific proof"

Source

Sanjay Gupta: I was wrong about weed

By Alia E. Dastagir USA TODAY Thu Aug 8, 2013 3:29 PM

Sanjay Gupta is apologizing for "misleading" the American public on weed.

CNN's chief medical correspondent, whose documentary Weed airs on CNN this Sunday, said he was wrong about the effects of the drug.

"I have apologized for some of the earlier reporting because I think, you know, we've been terribly and systematically misled in this country for some time," Gupta told Piers Morgan on CNN Wednesday night. "And I did part of that misleading."

Gupta has spoken out against the use of medical marijuana in the past, including penning a TIME magazine article in 2009 titled, Why I Would Vote No on Pot.

In an op-ed that appeared on CNN's website Thursday, Why I Changed My Mind on Weed, Gupta said he had mistakenly believed the Drug Enforcement Agency had sound scientific proof when it placed marijuana in the category of the most dangerous drugs:

"I apologize because I didn't look hard enough, until now. I didn't look far enough. I didn't review papers from smaller labs in other countries doing some remarkable research, and I was too dismissive of the loud chorus of legitimate patients whose symptoms improved on cannabis.

Instead, I lumped them with the high-visibility malingerers, just looking to get high. I mistakenly believed the Drug Enforcement Agency listed marijuana as a schedule 1 substance because of sound scientific proof. Surely, they must have quality reasoning as to why marijuana is in the category of the most dangerous drugs that have 'no accepted medicinal use and a high potential for abuse.' "

Gupta says he hopes his upcoming documentary will help set the record straight on medical marijuana.

Sheriff Arpaio, ACLU at odds over court-appointed monitor

Sheriff Arpaio, ACLU at odds over court-appointed monitor in profiling case

By JJ Hensley The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Aug 16, 2013 10:10 PM

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and American Civil Liberties Union have agreed on a number of measures Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s agency will need to take to resolve a federal racial-profiling case.

But the two parties could not come to terms on the powers of the court-appointed monitor who will oversee any agreement to ensure the Sheriff’s Office is no longer profiling, a key component to any resolution, according to U.S. District Judge Murray Snow.

The two parties agreed to increase the racial-profiling training that deputies will receive each year and to implement more systems to collect data on the nature and length of deputies’ traffic stops, according to a joint statement filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix on Friday.

The longtime foes filed a joint agreement with Snow that detailed the agreed-upon measures and highlighted 11 specific areas that remain disputed.

Besides disagreeing on the monitor, the two sides remain apart on the amount of community input that will be part of any court-ordered resolution, the nature of racial-profiling training that deputies receive, and whether deputies can request ID from passengers in cars they have stopped.

The ongoing disputes over how to resolve the profiling ruling did not sit well with activists and community leaders who have for years accused Arpaio of discrimination.

“We hope that this time Judge Murray Snow stops this and actually imposes on Arpiao the monitor he has to impose, imposes on Arpaio the community liaison he has to work with and imposes all those conditions he disagrees with,” said Salvador Reza, a longtime Arpaio critic.

Snow left little doubt at a hearing in June that a monitor would be in place to oversee the agreement, with or without Sheriff’s Office approval.

With that in mind, ACLU attorney Dan Pochoda said it was the sheriff’s resistance to court-ordered community input and an overhaul of the sheriff’s disciplinary system that were among the most disturbing points of contention.

“We feel it is very problematic and does not indicate a desire to reverse the widespread harms done to this community,” Pochoda said.

The sheriff’s attorney, Tim Casey, said some of the ACLU’s proposals were beyond the scope of the racial-profiling lawsuit, which began in 2007 after sheriff’s deputies stopped a Mexican man, who was legally in the United States, near Cave Creek and detained him for nine hours.

The lawsuit was later certified as a class-action suit to include every Latino driver sheriff’s deputies have stopped since 2007.

Snow oversaw a tightly managed trial in downtown Phoenix and issued his landmark ruling in December that found the sheriff’s immigration-enforcement tactics, which had brought Arpaio worldwide acclaim and criticism, amounted to constitutional violations.

Casey said Arpaio remains opposed to a court-appointed monitor in any capacity, but the Sheriff’s Office is committed to complying with Snow’s ruling and the agency has already taken steps to improve data collection, for example.

The agreement filed Friday, despite the disputed areas, is another step toward resolving the six-year old lawsuit, Casey said, and a hearing on Aug. 30 will offer a more definitive outlook for the future of the Sheriff’s Office after Snow offers his thoughts on the proposed remedies.

“I think both sides entered into these discussions very earnestly and in good faith,” Casey said. “I believe Sheriff Arpaio also was very receptive and cooperative. Obviously, he disagrees with the court’s findings, but he also recognizes that he needs to comply and must comply.”

But Casey said the ACLU’s proposal to create a system that would allow the Sheriff’s Office or court-appointed monitor to review a deputy’s performance to ensure compliance with the racial-profiling ruling goes beyond the issues discussed in court.

The ACLU’s proposal also includes changes to the way the Sheriff’s Office handles complaints about deputies and conducts internal investigations.

“This (lawsuit) was not about any malfeasance in internal-affairs matters,” Casey said. “We object to it as beyond the scope.”

Snow allowed each side 20 hours to present its case in the trial last summer, which limited the witnesses the Sheriff’s Office and ACLU could bring before the judge. But Pochoda said if the goal of the ruling is to create systemic change in the Sheriff’s Office, areas that were not the subject of much testimony would have to be addressed in the agreement.

“You’re not starting on a clean slate here. You’re starting after six, seven years of unconstitutional actions, and you have to reverse those,” Pochoda said. “The fact that it was not part of significant testimony doesn’t necessarily lead to the conclusion that it’s beyond the scope. We did have testimony from some of our witnesses, and to the extent they testified about internal discipline and complaint processes, it was, ‘I couldn’t get anyone to take my complaint.’”

The proposed agreement mirrors settlements from other jurisdictions, including an Arizona Department of Public Safety racial-profiling agreement that created a traffic-stop advisory board. The ACLU has proposed a similar board, which the Sheriff’s Office has rejected out of concerns that it will become a political entity intent on removing Arpaio from office, Casey said.

And Arpaio’s role as an elected law-enforcement officer further sets him apart from other police chiefs and department heads whose agencies have settled racial-profiling agreements, which Snow will have to consider in determining the role of any court-appointed monitor, Casey said.

“Whatever powers the monitor has, it has to be consistent with the elected sheriff’s powers under the Arizona Constitution. Unlike with a police chief, the monitor cannot have the ultimate veto,” Casey said. “He can advise, he can recommend, he can urge or argue, and we welcome that type of professional input. But if he says, ‘You will do this,’ that is not the type of authority that is consistent with the Constitution.”

Photo radar bandits terrorize schools????

It looks like our government masters have discovered that they can use photo radar bandits to steal money from people who commit victimless crimes such as going 16 mph in a 15 mph school zone and other trivial crimes.

Let's face it these photos radar bandits don't have anything to do with safety and are just a lame excuse for our government masters to rob us when we commit victimless trivial traffic violations.

Source

Traffic-cam makers eye school-bus safety for new revenue

By Ryan Randazzo The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Aug 16, 2013 3:36 PM

The traffic-camera industry is banking on fast-growing school-bus programs to provide a significant new revenue stream, officials from Phoenix-based Redflex Traffic Systems said.

The company provided a tour of its facilities for the first time since James Saunders took over as president/CEO earlier this year in the wake of a company scandal in Chicago that led to the departure of several top executives.

Among the tour highlights was the demonstration of the Student Guardian, technically referred to as a school-bus stop-arm system.

Like the speed and red-light cameras the company uses to help police issue citations around the country, Student Guardian relies on cameras. These cameras are mounted on the left side of school buses to catch video of people passing while the stop sign is out and children might be getting on or off the bus.

While many people are deeply opposed to speed cameras, the opposition is slightly less intense for red-light cameras. Redflex officials expect even less public opposition for school-bus cameras.

From a business perspective, the stop-arm cameras are a potential high-growth market. Only a handful of states today have workable laws that allow issuing tickets from cameras on school buses, but officials expect that to change fast. Arizona doesn’t allow the cameras.

“We have police in various states pushing for legislation,” said Thomas O’Connor, who ran a company called SmartBus Live before Redflex acquired it last year, putting him in charge of the bus program.

The company’s installations jumped from two states last year to eight today, with 72 contracts for various school districts.

Rival company American Traffic Solutions Inc. of Tempe has a similar product.

The cameras catch a violation and video is sent for review by a Redflex employee. A second employee verifies the footage and finally it is sent to the appropriate police department for verification. If the police agree a violation took place, a ticket is issued.

Capturing violations is trickier on the buses. The cameras get a different angle and different lighting for each shot. The cameras are motion-triggered. That requires a bit more labor to filter out actual violations from false alarms caused by children triggering the camera to record footage. Every segment of film from every stop when the cameras were triggered is sent for review.

But the violations are also quite clear when a driver passes a bus with the stop-arm extended, and more lucrative, too. The average fine in the U.S. for such a violation is in the $300 range. Speeding tickets are less than $100. So the higher revenue makes up for the lower number of violations and slightly higher labor cost of reviewing camera footage.

“That is the business model,” O’Connor said.

Arrangements vary from place to place regarding what percentages of the fine goes to the police, the state, Redflex and the school district (if any).

On average, a bus equipped with the Student Guardian cameras captures one prosecutable violation per day with footage good enough for police to sign off on a citation, O’Connor said.

In Arizona, fines are $250, $750 and $1,000 for the first, second and third violations, respectively.

O’Connor said that Redflex is not lobbying in Arizona to amend the law allowing the cameras, though he expects such a proposal eventually will come from either schools or public-safety officials.

27 arrested in Ariz. drug, firearms investigation

That is followed by people in Federal prison for victimless firearm possession crime.

I attached a graph from the Feds on the percent of people in prison for crimes and again most people are in federal prison for victimless drug war crimes, followed b victimless firearms crimes.

Source

27 arrested in Ariz. drug, firearms investigation

Associated Press Thu Aug 15, 2013 10:18 AM

KINGMAN — Dozens of law-enforcement officers went to locations throughout Mohave County Thursday morning to arrest 27 people sought on arrest warrants alleging drugs and firearms crimes.

The arrests are a result of a seven-month undercover operation conducted by the Mohave Area General Narcotics Enforcement Team and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

ATF Special Agent Thomas Magnan says many of the arrests are being made in the Kingman area.

Magnan says many of the alleged firearms violations are for sawed-off shotguns and felons being in possession of firearms. According to Magnan, the drug violations deal primarily with methamphetamine.

Magnan says the 12 arrests made by mid-morning were without incident.

House panel withheld document on NSA surveillance

House panel withheld document on NSA surveillance program from members

By Peter Wallsten, Published: August 16 E-mail the writer

A letter drafted by the Obama administration specifically to inform Congress of the government’s mass collection of Americans’ telephone communications data was withheld from lawmakers by leaders of the House Intelligence Committee in the months before a key vote affecting the future of the program.

The February 2011 document was declassified last month and has been cited repeatedly by administration officials and legislative leaders as evidence that the surveillance program had been properly examined by Congress as part of an aggressive system of checks and balances.

A cover letter to the House and Senate intelligence committees that was sent with the document asked the leaders of each panel to share the written material with all members of Congress.

Ronald Weich, who was an assistant attorney general at the time, wrote that making the material available to Congress would be an “effective way to inform the legislative debate about reauthorization” of the provision of the Patriot Act that served as the legal basis for the phone surveillance. A similar document was available to all members of Congress in 2009, prior to a 2010 reauthorization vote.

But the House Intelligence Committee opted against making the 2011 document widely available. Instead, the committee invited all 435 House members to attend classified briefings where the program was discussed — briefings that critics say were vague and uninformative.

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), who has emerged as a leading critic of the National Security Agency program, said he and dozens of other members elected in 2010 did not have access to the information they needed to fully understand the program until the leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The withheld document “doesn’t provide enough details, but it would have at least been a starting point to ask questions,” Amash said. He said confronting intelligence officials during the briefings was “like a game of 20 questions,” and added: “If you don’t know about the program, you don’t know what to ask about.”

A spokeswoman for the House committee, Susan Phalen, declined to say whether the panel had voted to withhold the letter or if the decision was made by Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.).

“Because the letter by itself did not fully explain the programs, the Committee offered classified briefings, open to all Members of Congress, that not only covered all of the material in the letter but also provided much more detail in an interactive format with briefers available to fully answer any Members’ questions,” Phalen wrote in an e-mail. “The discussion of the letter not being distributed is a side issue intended to give the false impression that Congress was denied information. That is not the case.”

The dispute over the 2011 document comes amid growing questions about the ability of Congress and the judiciary to perform their roles in overseeing the country’s vast intelligence system, with lawmakers on key oversight committees and the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court expressing concerns in recent days.

The five-page document, headlined “Report of the National Security Agency’s Bulk Collection Programs for USA PATRIOT Act Reauthorization,” was posted online by the government in a redacted form last month.

A white paper issued by the Obama administration last week noted that lawmakers had been granted access to a similar document in 2009. The white paper credits the chairs of the House and Senate committees for sharing the document in 2009. A footnote in the white paper says the 2011 document was made available to all senators — but is notably silent on the House.

Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Kyrsten Sinema isn't a worse crook then the rest of Congress???

Last but not least Neil B. Johnson forgot to say that when Kyrsten Sinema was a member of the Arizona legislator she tried to flush Arizona's Medical marijuana law down the toilet by introducing a bill that would have slapped a 300 percent tax on medical marijuana.

Source

Recall is part of representation

Fri Aug 16, 2013 6:16 PM

I wish to make two points regarding the attempted recall of Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz. (“Man seeking recall of Sinema over NSA vote,” Valley & State, Sunday).

A representative represents the people of his or her district and he or she should be subject to recall as a matter of law.

It doesn’t make sense that the people who elect a person to represent them cannot recall that person if the people determine that the person no longer represents them.

If the people were to recall every representative whose vote violated the Constitution, I daresay that virtually every member of the Senate and Congress would have to be recalled.

And the president, too.

— Neil B. Johnson, Glendale

Government employees get a slap on the wrist for their crimes????

Source

The Associated Press

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – An 82-year-old man convicted of tax evasion was sentenced Friday to two years of home confinement for his role in a kickback scheme that cost the U.S. Navy $18 million.

The judge said she spared Ralph Mariano Jr. prison time because of his age and because it would cost taxpayers more to keep him behind bars.

Mariano, of North Providence, is the father of one of the scheme's admitted ringleaders, Ralph M. Mariano, a former civilian employee of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Virginia. The younger Mariano has pleaded guilty to using his position to add money to contracts held by Georgia-based contractor Advanced Solutions for Tomorrow, or ASFT. In return, the contractor funneled kickbacks to the elder Mariano, corrupt subcontractors and others.

The elder Mariano is the first of six people convicted in the federal investigation into the scheme to be sentenced.

Prosecutors said he received $2.5 million in payments from a subcontractor over 8 years. He was charged only for the years 2006 through 2009, and received $1.4 million during that time, never reporting the income on his tax returns. Prosecutors calculated that he failed to pay $488,000 in federal taxes during those years.

During Friday's sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Mary Lisi asked Mariano why he evaded taxes. He said he had retired with no pension, then acknowledged that he had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars gambling.

"I'm sorry all this happened, because of my family, what I put them through. I do apologize to the court," he said.

Lisi told Mariano it is her usual practice to sentence people to prison when they are convicted of tax evasion, because it is a crime against everyone.

"In order for the system to work, we rely on the honesty of the taxpayer," she said. "All of us have to make up for you not paying."

Prosecutors had recommended against imprisonment because of the cost and Lisi agreed, sentencing him to four years' probation, two of those to be spent on home confinement.

The others who have pleaded guilty in the case are Mariano's son; the son's girlfriend, Mary O'Rourke, a former executive based at ASFT's office in Middletown, R.I.; ASFT's founder, Anjan Dutta-Gupta of Roswell, Ga.; former ASFT executive Patrick Nagle of Marietta, Ga.; and ASFT subcontractor Russell Spencer. ASFT has gone out of business.

The five are scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in Providence in October.

A pending federal whistle-blower lawsuit alleges similar illegal conduct by the younger Mariano, Dutta-Gupta, Spencer, Nagle and others. The 2006 complaint, first filed under seal in Georgia and then transferred to Rhode Island and unsealed, was made under a rule that allows private citizens to sue on the government's behalf. The government this month said it would intervene in a portion of the claims brought in the lawsuit.

Mexico’s new government follows old drug war strategy

I bet it's because of all that cold hard CASH the American government gives to Mexico to carry our OUR war on drugs.

"Before leaving office, Calderon repeatedly touted the fact that his forces had captured 25 of Mexico’s 37 most-wanted drug lords, a strategy backed by the U.S. government with hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and close cooperation with American law-enforcement, military and intelligence agencies"

Source

Mexico’s new gov’t follows old drug war strategy

Associated Press Sun Aug 18, 2013 12:36 PM

MEXICO CITY — With the capture of two top drug lords in little more than a month, the new government of President Enrique Pena Nieto is following an old strategy it has openly criticized for causing more violence and crime.

Mario Armando Ramirez Trevino, a top leader of Mexico’s Gulf Cartel, was detained Saturday in a military operation near the Texas border, just weeks after the arrest of the leader of the brutal Zetas cartel near another border city, Nuevo Laredo.

Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong came to his post last December saying the strategy of former President Felipe Calderon to focus on cartel leadership only made the drug gangs more dangerous. The new administration, he said, would focus less on leadership and more on reducing violence.

Yet the new strategy appears almost identical to the old. The captures of Ramirez and top Zeta Miguel Angel Trevino Morales could cause a new spike in violence with battles for leadership of Mexico’s two major cartels.

“The strategy of the military is exactly the same,” Raul Benitez, a security expert at Mexico’s National Autonomous University, said Sunday. “It’s not a failure of the new government. It’s the reality they face … Changing strategy is a very slow process. In the short term, you have to act against the drug-trafficking leaders.”

Ramirez, a drug boss in Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas, had been vying to take over the cartel since the arrest of the Gulf’s top capo, Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, alias “El Coss,” last September. Some say he succeeded by reportedly killing his main Gulf rival, Miguel Villarreal, known as “Gringo Mike,” in a gunbattle in March. Villarreal’s death is still disputed by some.

The U.S. State Department also offered a reward of $5 million for the capture of Ramirez for several federal drug violations.

He was taken down during a major military offensive that involved air and ground forces in Rio Bravo, according to the Tamaulipas state government.

The once-powerful Gulf Cartel still controls most of the cocaine and marijuana trafficking through the Matamoros corridor across the border from Brownsville, Texas, and has an international reach into Central America and beyond. But the cartel has been plagued by infighting since Costilla’s arrest, while also being under attack in its home territory by its former security arm, the Zetas.

The split is blamed for much of the violence in Reynosa, where there have been regular, public shootouts between Gulf factions and authorities in the last six months. The factions are willing to fight for the largest piece of the lucrative business of transporting illegal drugs to the biggest market, the United States. Mexico continues to be the No. 1 foreign supplier of marijuana and methamphetamines to the U.S. An estimated 93 percent of South American cocaine headed to the U.S. travels through Mexico, according to 2010 FBI statistics.

Before leaving office, Calderon repeatedly touted the fact that his forces had captured 25 of Mexico’s 37 most-wanted drug lords, a strategy backed by the U.S. government with hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and close cooperation with American law-enforcement, military and intelligence agencies.

With that strategy, Osorio Chong said, “we have moved from a scheme of vertical leadership to a horizontal one that has made them more violent and much more dangerous.”

The new government also said it was going to limit the widespread and casual access that U.S. agents had to Mexican forces under Calderon.

But security analysts agree that close cooperation between the Mexican military and the U.S. continues along the border, despite messages from Mexico City. The coordinated efforts to track and capture Zeta leader Trevino had started under Calderon and continued, said George Grayson, a College of William & Mary professor who has written extensively on the Gulf and Zetas cartels.

“Enrique Pena Nieto would really like to not be going after capos,” Grayson said Sunday. “He wants to change the agenda. He doesn’t want the headlines to be about capos. But the situation in Morelos and Michoacan (states), and now the takedowns in the north have kept the capos on the front pages.”

Violence also continues in the western state of Michoacan near the border of Jalisco state, where two other cartels fight for territory.

The administration tactic again has mirrored that of Calderon, sending more troops and federal police to try to regain control of the region, so far with little result.

Nine bodies, hands bound and shot, were found on an abandoned property near the town of Buenavista Tomatlan in Michoacan on Saturday. At least 23 bodies in total were found, counting those in neighboring Guerrero state, where drug cartels, vigilantes and security forces also have been fighting for much of the year.

Meanwhile, the Pena Nieto government continues to say its focus is on crime prevention to bring down violence. But there is very little evidence so far.

“It’s a campaign slogan, a political discourse designed to convince the public,” Benitez said. “They’re giving very few resources to the prevention campaign.”

San Francisco fire chief bans helmet cams

I wonder did the helmet cam help document the fact that a fire truck ran over and killed one of the passengers on the crashed plane??? If so I bet that is one of the reasons these helmet cams are being banned.

Our royal government masters like to tell us they are "public servants" but when they do stuff like this we see that they act like "royal rulers"

Source

After airliner crash, SF chief bans helmet cams

Associated Press Sun Aug 18, 2013 12:34 PM

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco’s fire chief says helmet-mounted cameras no longer will be allowed after images from July’s airliner crash became public.

Chief Joanne Hayes-White told the San Francisco Chronicle that she is concerned about the privacy of victims and firefighters.

The decision comes after images at the scene of the Asiana Airlines crash from Battalion Chief Mark Johnson’s helmet camera were published in the San Francisco Chronicle.

That led to questions about whether the department is liable in the death of a 16-year-old who survived the crash but was run over by a fire truck. She was covered with fire-retardant foam.

Police, the coroner and the National Transportation Safety Board are reviewing the footage.

Hayes-White said her 2009 ban on video cameras in facilities was meant to include fire scenes.

Navy changes how alcohol is sold on-base

Source

Navy changes how alcohol is sold on-base

By Brock Vergakis Associated Press Sat Aug 17, 2013 11:04 AM

NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va. — On the world’s largest naval base, sailors can pull into a gas station and buy a bottle of liquor before sunrise.

But as the Navy works to curb alcohol abuse in a push reduce sexual assaults and other crimes, the days of picking up a bottle of Kahlua along with a cup of coffee are coming to an end.

The Navy’s top admiral has ordered a series of changes to the way the Navy sells booze. Chief among them, the Navy will stop selling liquor at its mini marts and prohibit the sale of alcohol at any of its stores from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.

“It’s not going to fix everything, but it is a real step in the right direction,” said David Jernigan, Johns Hopkins University’s director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth. “Historically, the military, as elsewhere, has viewed these problems as individual problems to be dealt with by identifying the individual with the problem. While that’s important, the research shows it’s much more effective actually to look at it as a population problem and to deal with things that are affecting everybody across the population.”

The changes are the latest addition to a broader, long-standing alcohol education and awareness program that appears to have had some success. Throughout the Navy, the number of alcohol-related criminal offenses dropped from 5,950 in the 2007 fiscal year to 4,216 in the 2012 fiscal year. The number of DUI offenses dropped from 2,025 to 1,218 during that same period, according to Navy Personnel Command.

Liquor will still be sold on U.S. bases at a discount of up to 10 percent for what it can be bought at in a civilian store, but sales will be limited to dedicated package stores or exchanges that sell a wide variety of items.

At Naval Station Norfolk, the main exchange is comparable to a small shopping mall that sells clothing, electronics and jewelry, among other things, at a discount. At smaller naval bases, the exchanges aren’t as sprawling but still often have the feel of big-box retail. While hours at those stores vary, most open at 9 a.m. close by 9 p.m.

The Navy’s minimarts at the Norfolk base currently start selling liquor as early as 5 a.m. That’s five hours earlier than people can buy at Virginia’s state-run ABC stores off-base that are typically open from from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays.

Jernigan said a growing preference among young people for distilled spirits over beer and wine means the Navy’s moves could be particularly helpful.

“But that said, alcohol is alcohol, so reducing the availability of one kind is a step in the right direction, but you can certainly get just as impaired from drinking beer and wine as you can from distilled spirits,” he said.

In the 2012 fiscal year, the Navy reported $91.9 million in distilled spirits sales, compared with $39.3 million in wine and $62.3 million in beer. The Navy uses 70 percent of the profits from its sales of alcoholic and non-alcoholic products to support morale, welfare and recreation programs.

Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert also ordered the exchanges to display alcohol only in the rear of its stores. The new rules are set to take effect by mid-October.

Greenert’s order on alcohol sales was issued the same day in late July the Navy unveiled other initiatives to battle sexual assaults that range from hiring more criminal investigators to installing better lighting on bases.

The effort follows a Pentagon report, released in May, that estimates as many as 26,000 service members may have been sexually assaulted last year.

Alcohol is often involved. In a survey, 55 percent of Navy women said they or the offender had consumed alcohol before unwanted sexual contact.

Navy officials have stressed they’re not trying to keep sailors from drinking, but they want them to do so responsibly.

The Navy is already giving many sailors random alcohol-detection tests when they report for duty, and soon the devices will be found on store shelves for personal use. The single-use product will sell for $1.99.

Jernigan suggested the Navy may want to eliminate its discounts on alcohol — just as it recently did with tobacco — if it wants to make further strides.

Not all sailors think the new rules will help.

“If people are going to drink, they’re still going to buy it wherever,” Seaman Bryan Free said after buying a bottle of vodka from a Naval Station Norfolk gas station. “So if they take it out of here, it’s not going to do nothing because they’re going to go to the package store right out of base. That’s usually where everybody gets it. So it doesn’t really matter.”

Most of the Navy’s large bases are in urban areas with plenty of convenience and grocery stores nearby.

And in the Navy, on-base housing options are typically limited, leading Free and other sailors commute to work rather than living in barracks.

Robert Parker, a University of California at Riverside sociology professor who has studied the links between alcohol and crime, said restricting on-base alcohol sales should help even if there are places to buy it nearby.

“If you make something like alcohol harder to get, you restrict the hours, you restrict the places it can be bought, then generally consumption goes down in that community or that area because people have a lot of things to do in addition to buying alcohol,” Parker said. “There will be some individuals that will be determined no matter what, and they’ll travel 100 miles to buy a six pack, but most people won’t do that.

Politicians send granny to prison???

Source

Graying Prisoners

By JAMIE FELLNER

Published: August 18, 2013

MORE and more United States prisons resemble nursing homes with bars, where the elderly and infirm eke out shrunken lives. Prison isn’t easy for anyone, but it is especially punishing for those afflicted by the burdens of old age. Yet the old and the very old make up the fastest-growing segment of the prison population.

Today, the New York State Board of Parole is scheduled to decide whether to give medical parole to Anthony D. Marshall, who was convicted of stealing from his mother, Brooke Astor. Mr. Marshall is 89 and suffers from Parkinson’s and congestive heart failure. His lawyers say he cannot stand or dress himself. He is one of at least 26,100 men and women 65 and older incarcerated in state and federal prisons, up 62 percent in just five years.

Owing largely to decades of tough-on-crime policies — mandatory minimum sentences, “three strikes” laws and the elimination of federal parole — these numbers are likely to increase as more and more prisoners remain incarcerated into their 70s and 80s, many until they die.

I try to imagine my 90-year-old father in prison. His body and mind whittled by age, he shuffles, takes a painful eternity to get up from a chair and forgets the names of his grandchildren.

How would he fare climbing in and out of an upper bunk bed? Would he remember where his cell was in the long halls of many prisons? How would his brittle bones cope with a thin mattress and blanket in a cold cell in winter, or his weak heart with the summer heat. If he had an “accident,” would someone help him clean up? Unlike Mr. Marshall, some older inmates committed violent crimes, and there are people who think such prisoners should leave prison only “in a pine box.”

Anger, grief and the desire for retribution are understandable, and we can all agree that people who commit serious crimes should be held accountable. But retribution can shade into vengeance. While being old should not be an automatic get-out-of-jail-free card, infirmity and illness can change the calculus of what justice requires.

It is worth asking: What do we as a society get from keeping these people in prison? People like the 87-year-old I met who had an “L” painted on his left shoe and an “R” on his right so he would know which was which and who didn’t even seem to know he was in prison. Or the old men I watched play bingo in a prison day room who needed staff members to put the markers on the bingo cards for them.

Attorney General Eric Holder gave his answer to this question on Aug. 12 when he announced new compassionate release policies for the Bureau of Prisons. Elderly and infirm federal prisoners who have served a significant part of their sentence and pose no danger will now be eligible for early release.

Recidivism studies consistently show declining rates of crime with age. Those who are bedridden or in wheelchairs are not likely to go on crime sprees. The scores of older prisoners I have met want to spend their remaining time with their families; they are coming to terms with mortality, regret their past crimes and hope, if time permits, to make amends.

Keeping the elderly and infirm in prison is extraordinarily costly. Annual medical costs for older prisoners range from three to nine times higher than those for younger ones, because, as in the general population, older people behind bars have high rates of chronic disease and infirmities and require more hospitalizations and medical care.

I have talked with dozens of correctional staff members who acknowledge that officers are not trained to manage geriatric prisoners. Nor are there enough of them to give the extra attention such prisoners may need — to ensure they take their medications, find their way to their cell, are clean if they are incontinent.

So what can be done? Compassionate release and medical parole programs exist in many prison systems, but they are poorly used and often exclude people who committed violent crimes or sex offenses even if those people are no longer able to repeat such crimes.

If the programs were properly devised and used, some aging prisoners could go back to their families. Others could be released to nursing homes or assisted-living facilities — although it is increasingly difficult to find private facilities that will take former prisoners. States and the federal government should also jettison laws requiring mandatory sentences that condemn offenders to old age in prison, without regard to whether they pose a threat to the public or have the potential for rehabilitation.

If we aren’t willing to change sentencing laws or make more use of compassionate release, we’ll need to pour vast sums of money into prisons to provide adequate conditions of care for the soaring population of geriatric prisoners.

That means investing in special training for correction officers; in round-the-clock medical care; in retrofitting buildings, wheelchair-accessible cells and bathrooms; in units with lower bunks and no stairs; and in increased hospice care for the terminally ill.

But do we really want to go that route? In the case of frail and incapacitated prisoners who can safely be released to spend what remains of their lives under supervised parole, release is a far more compassionate, sensible course.

Jamie Fellner is a senior adviser at Human Rights Watch, focusing on criminal justice in the United States.

School zone photo radar bandits

Let's face it, it has nothing to do with safety and is all about raising revenue.

Source

Traffic-cam makers eye school-bus safety for new revenue

By Ryan Randazzo The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Aug 16, 2013 3:36 PM

The traffic-camera industry is banking on fast-growing school-bus programs to provide a significant new revenue stream, officials from Phoenix-based Redflex Traffic Systems said.

The company provided a tour of its facilities for the first time since James Saunders took over as president/CEO earlier this year in the wake of a company scandal in Chicago that led to the departure of several top executives.

Among the tour highlights was the demonstration of the Student Guardian, technically referred to as a school-bus stop-arm system.

Like the speed and red-light cameras the company uses to help police issue citations around the country, Student Guardian relies on cameras. These cameras are mounted on the left side of school buses to catch video of people passing while the stop sign is out and children might be getting on or off the bus.

While many people are deeply opposed to speed cameras, the opposition is slightly less intense for red-light cameras. Redflex officials expect even less public opposition for school-bus cameras.

From a business perspective, the stop-arm cameras are a potential high-growth market. Only a handful of states today have workable laws that allow issuing tickets from cameras on school buses, but officials expect that to change fast. Arizona doesn’t allow the cameras.

“We have police in various states pushing for legislation,” said Thomas O’Connor, who ran a company called SmartBus Live before Redflex acquired it last year, putting him in charge of the bus program.

The company’s installations jumped from two states last year to eight today, with 72 contracts for various school districts.

Rival company American Traffic Solutions Inc. of Tempe has a similar product.

The cameras catch a violation and video is sent for review by a Redflex employee. A second employee verifies the footage and finally it is sent to the appropriate police department for verification. If the police agree a violation took place, a ticket is issued.

Capturing violations is trickier on the buses. The cameras get a different angle and different lighting for each shot. The cameras are motion-triggered. That requires a bit more labor to filter out actual violations from false alarms caused by children triggering the camera to record footage. Every segment of film from every stop when the cameras were triggered is sent for review.

But the violations are also quite clear when a driver passes a bus with the stop-arm extended, and more lucrative, too. The average fine in the U.S. for such a violation is in the $300 range. Speeding tickets are less than $100. So the higher revenue makes up for the lower number of violations and slightly higher labor cost of reviewing camera footage.

“That is the business model,” O’Connor said.

Arrangements vary from place to place regarding what percentages of the fine goes to the police, the state, Redflex and the school district (if any).

On average, a bus equipped with the Student Guardian cameras captures one prosecutable violation per day with footage good enough for police to sign off on a citation, O’Connor said.

In Arizona, fines are $250, $750 and $1,000 for the first, second and third violations, respectively.

O’Connor said that Redflex is not lobbying in Arizona to amend the law allowing the cameras, though he expects such a proposal eventually will come from either schools or public-safety officials.

Politicians love marijuana because it gives them a license to steal????

Marijuana is stinking weed that even a person with a black thumb can grow. If the free market set the price of marijuana a pound of weed would cost less then a pound of tomatoes.

But instead of letting anybody grow and sell marijuana our government masters are creating monopolies on marijuana which allow the business to charge outrageous black market prices for marijuana and allow the government to collect outrageous taxes on marijuana.

Source

Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 1:07 PM EDT

Colorado's marijuana industry: Legal, not cheap

DENVER (AP) -- Want to be in the legal pot industry in Colorado? Open your checkbook.

Colorado's pot regulators opened three days of hearings Tuesday to lay out licensing specifics before retail sales begin in January.

The proposed rules require would-be "ganjapreneurs" to pay up to $5,000 just to apply to be in the recreational pot business. Operational licenses cost another $2,750 to $14,000.

Successful applicants must also pass a gauntlet of criminal background checks and residency requirements.

The result is expected to be an industry that will have as much red tape as green leaves. Colorado is trying to show it can strictly regulate and control a drug that has been operating in the shadows for decades, despite the advent of medical marijuana more than a decade ago.

Officials say steep application fees are needed to properly screen marijuana workers, checking fingerprints and checking for recent drug felons and people with possible ties to criminal drug cartels. [That's 100 percent bullsh*t!!!]

Colorado will also be screening future marijuana businesses to make sure no owners live out of state, a requirement set forth by state lawmakers earlier this year. The residency requirements — which apply from owners all the way down to so-called "bud-tenders" who man the counters and measure out marijuana — are a holdover from Colorado's existing medical marijuana industry.

The hefty operational license fees, according to state officials, are needed to pay for enforcement of the nascent industry. Plans call for an ambitious seed-to-sale tracking system in which Colorado will require video surveillance of all plants as they grow and are prepared, packaged and sold to customers.

The Department of Revenue aimed to use seed-to-sale tracking for Colorado's medical marijuana business, but the agency ran out of money before getting the program fully operational. The Department doesn't plan to make the same mistake twice, so operational fees are high. Retail stores will have to pay $3,750 to $14,000 a year, depending on their size. Growers will pay $2,750 a year.

Retail pot stores will also have to submit detailed floor plans to show they're meeting security requirements. They'll have to get surety bonds to ensure contract completion in the event of contractor default.

Once the retail stores clear all the tests for state licensing, they're not done yet. Local governments can add their own layers of specialized licensing and zoning requirements, taking up to a year to review applications for would-be recreational pot shops. Local governments can also ban the retail sale of marijuana altogether, as many have already opted to do.

___

Kristen Wyatt can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/APkristenwyatt @yahoofinance on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook

Glendale council eyes prayers before meetings

Glendale council eyes prayers before meetings

By Paul Giblin The Republic | azcentral.com Tue Aug 20, 2013 9:58 PM

The Glendale City Council is reflecting on whether to pray before meetings.

Typically, City Council meetings convene with the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence, but Mayor Jerry Weiers has proposed “solemnizing” city proceedings with a prayer or invocation.

It’s no simple matter. Glendale officials have proposed a 16-point set of guidelines on how to pray without showing favoritism to any particular prayer leader, faith or belief, according to the proposed guidelines.

Among the proposed policy’s points:

No member of the council or anyone else attending council meetings will be required to participate in prayers.

Prayer leaders will not be paid.

City officials will recommend, but not require, that prayer leaders limit their orations to two minutes.

City employees will be barred from examining, censoring or participating in the preparation of prayers before they’re given.

At least 32 municipalities statewide convene council meetings with prayers or invocations, according to research compiled by Glendale officials. [So if 32 other government entities are violating the Constitution that makes it OK for Glendale to also violate the Constitution??? Sorry your just trying to find a lame excuse to justify the city of Glendale breaking the law and mixing government and religion]

Councilman Manny Martinez said during a public workshop Tuesday that he opposed the idea of Glendale joining the list. He prefers the current prayer-free protocol.

“No matter what faith, what religion, you can pray, you can meditate, you can do whatever you want in that moment of silence,” he said.

“The only thing I can think of with this — and I know I’m in the minority — is that down the line, it could cause some problems.”

Vice Mayor Yvonne Knaack agreed.

“This has turned into such a complicated issue, and I just don’t think that prayer should be that complicated,” she said. [Of course obeying the Constitution and not having ANY prayers is much simpler]

“I just think that to have all this to tell you how to pray, and who can pray, and how many times, I think, I’m sorry, I think, it’s just, I just, ah ...” she said searching for the right words.

“I agree prayer is wonderful, but I’m also in agreement that I would prefer to still see a moment of silence.”

Weiers, a former state representative, told his colleagues that prayers have been offered before sessions in the state Legislature for more than a century without causing an issue. [That's a lie. Every year anybody who expects the government to obey the Constitution makes an issue of it]

But a secular invocation caused a stir three months ago.

Rep. Juan Mendez, D-Tempe, who’s atheist, used his turn to offer the invocation on May 21 to ask lawmakers to celebrate their “shared humanness.”

“This is a room in which there are many challenging debates, many moments of tension, of ideological division, of frustration,” he said at the time. “But this is also a room where, as my secular-humanist tradition stresses, by the very fact of being human, we have much more in common than we have differences.”

The following day, Rep. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, who’s Christian, asked lawmakers to join him in a second daily prayer in repentance for Mendez’s secular invocation.

The debate resurfaces fairly regularly.

In 2011, Litchfield Park Councilman Peter Mahoney started walking out during prayers after the council replaced its moments of silence with invocations that Mahoney felt were Christian-oriented.

No disrespect was intended, he said at the time.

“I’m a Christian and a true believer in the separation of church and state,” Mahoney said.

The same year, the Chandler Unified School District went the opposite direction. It switched from public prayers to moments of reflection after officials at an Arizona School Boards Association law conference suggested that boards avoid prayers to prevent lawsuits.

The Glendale council is scheduled to vote on the prayer proposal Sept. 10.

The members of the Glendale, Arizona city council are:

• Mayor Jerry Weiers
  mayorweiers@glendaleaz.com
  (623)930-2260
  City of Glendale
  5850 W. Glendale Ave.
  Glendale, AZ
  85301
• Vice Mayor Yvonne J. Knaack
  yknaack@glendaleaz.com
  (623)930-2249
  City of Glendale
  5850 W. Glendale Ave.
  Glendale, AZ
  85301
• Ian Hugh
  ihugh@glendaleaz.com
  (623)930-2249
  (602)615-7672
  City of Glendale
  5850 W. Glendale Ave.
  Glendale, AZ
  85301
• Manny Martinez
  mmartinez@glendaleaz.com
  (623)561-8263
  City of Glendale
  5850 W. Glendale Ave.
  Glendale, AZ
  85301
• Norma Alvarez
  nalvarez@glendaleaz.com
  (623)930-2249
  (623)930-2249
  City of Glendale
  5850 W. Glendale Ave.
  Glendale, AZ
  85301
• Gary Sherwood
  gsherwood@glendaleaz.com
  (623)930-2245
  City of Glendale
  5850 W. Glendale Ave.
  Glendale, AZ
  85301
• Sammy Chavira
  schavira@glendaleaz.com
  (623)930-2249
  City of Glendale
  5850 W. Glendale Ave.
  Glendale, AZ
  85301

Congressmen are unproductive parasites???

Source

Letter: Elected officials need to earn their pay like everyone else

Posted: Tuesday, August 20, 2013 3:55 pm

Letter to the Editor

Congress was in session for 112 days in 2012. It may make it to 126 days in session this year. Our country is in almost insurmountable debt. I think Congress is to blame for not preventing most of our problems. Its members are well paid and have an unprecedented lucrative retirement and healthcare system. I think of them being somewhat akin to a bunch (535) of unproductive parasites. Why shouldn’t they have to earn their pay like almost everyone else?

Bill Baxter

Apache Junction

Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years

While Bradley Manning is guilty as hell of all the charges, the jury should have voted to acquit him.

Sure he committed a few victimless crimes, but he only did it to expose even worse crimes our government masters have committed.

The same goes for Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. They are all freedom fighters who should be given medals, not time in prison.

The real criminals are the members of the US Congress, the US Senate and Presidents Obama and Bush who allowed the American government to flush the Bill of Rights down the toilet and turn Amerika into a police state.

Source

Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years

By Julie Tate, Updated: Wednesday, August 21, 8:17 AM E-mail the writer

A military judge on Wednesday morning sentenced Army Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.

Manning, 25, was convicted last month of multiple charges, including violations of the Espionage Act for copying and disseminating the documents while serving as an intelligence analyst at a forward operating base in Iraq. He faced up to 90 years in prison.

Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg says Bradley Manning did not deserve any prison time.

Manning is required to serve one-third of the sentence, minus three and half years of time served, before he is eligible for parole. That will be in eight years when he is 33.

Judge Denise Lind, an Army colonel, said Manning was dishonorably discharged. He was also reduced in rank and forfeits all pay.

Manning stood at attention, flanked by his attorneys, to hear the verdict with his aunt, Debra Van Alstyne, sitting behind him. He did not appear to react when the sentence was read.

As Manning was escorted out of the packed courtroom, more than half a dozen supporters shouted out to him, “We’ll keep fighting for you, Bradley! You’re our hero!”

The decision was immediately condemned by the American Civil Liberties Union.

“When a soldier who shared information with the press and public is punished far more harshly than others who tortured prisoners and killed civilians, something is seriously wrong with our justice system,” said Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.

The government had asked the judge to sentence Manning to 60 years. “There is value in deterrence, your honor; this court must send a message to any soldier contemplating stealing classified information,” said Capt. Joe Morrow, a military prosecutor. “National security crimes that undermine the entire system must be taken seriously.”

Defense lawyer David Coombs portrayed Manning as a well-intentioned but isolated soldier with gender identification issues, and he asked Lind to impose “a sentence that allows him to have a life.”

“He cares about human life,” said Coombs as the sentencing phase of the court-martial at Fort Meade ended last week. “His biggest crime was he cared about the loss of life he was seeing and was struggling with it.”

Manning also addressed the court and apologized for his actions, saying he was “sorry that I hurt the United States.”

Manning will receive a credit of 1,293 days for the time he has been confined prior to the sentence, including 112 days of credit for abusive treatment he was subjected to in the brig at the Quantico Marine Base.

Manning transmitted the first documents to WikiLeaks in February 2010, sending what came to be known as the Iraq and Afghanistan “War Logs” — field reports from across both theaters. Manning’s lawyers said he had become disillusioned by what he was seeing in Iraq and hoped that the public release of the secret material would prompt greater public understanding of the wars.

Manning established a relationship online with a person who is thought to be Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. As their personal correspondence deepened, Manning continued to transmit more material, including assessments of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and an enormous cache of diplomatic cables. He also leaked a video that showed a U.S. Apache helicopter in Baghdad opening fire on a group of Iraqis, including two journalists and children, that the helicopter crew believed to be insurgents.

According to his lawyers, Manning became more and more stressed in Iraq, wrestling with his sexuality and the breakup of a relationship. At one point, in April 2010, he sent an e-mail to a superior with the subject line “My Problem” and a photo of himself wearing a blond wig and lipstick.

On May 7, Manning was found on the floor of a supply room with a knife at his feet. After some brief counseling, he was returned to his workstation. Later that same day, he struck a fellow soldier and was removed permanently from the secure environment where he worked.

Following these events, Manning boasted to hacker Adrian Lamo that he had been working with WikiLeaks. After engaging Manning for several days, Lamo informed Army investigators and the FBI about the breach of information and provided them with his chat logs with Manning.

Manning was arrested in Iraq on May 27, 2010.

Legal proceedings against Manning began in December 2011 and, in February of this year, Manning pleaded guilty to 10 lesser included charges. The trial portion of the proceedings began June 3, and on July 30, Lind found Manning guilty of 20 of the 22 charges he faced.

U.S. helping hook smokers overseas

And will I think ALL drugs should be legal, I certainly am not encouraging people to use drugs for recreational uses.

Source

How a secretive trade deal could help American tobacco companies hook new smokers

By Lydia DePillis, Published: August 21 at 9:00 am

Pretty soon, if U.S. representatives negotiating a secretive trade deal get their way, tariffs on tobacco in poor Asian countries will sink to zero — and those countries will have a hard time protecting their citizens against a tidal wave of cheaper cigarettes.

Over several decades, the U.S. has relentlessly fought tobacco use. Anti-smoking ad campaigns, prominent warning labels, smoking bans and high taxes have had their desired effect: The smoking rate has been dropping for decades and this year reached a new low of 18 percent among people over age 18.

Now, the U.S. is pushing to help tobacco companies find new customers overseas, by allowing them easier access to developing countries in Asia through a sweeping trade deal that would make it more difficult for countries to pass the kinds of laws that reduced smoking in the U.S.

“If those markets are transformed, you are going to see an epidemic of enormous proportions among those least prepared to pay for it,” says Greg Connolly, director of the Center for Global Tobacco Control at Harvard. “We’re basically turning around and siding with the actual agents of that disease, and enhancing their ability to claim a billion lives in a century.”

Screen Shot 2013-08-20 at 1.26.03 AM

The world’s four biggest cigarette manufacturers — Altria (formerly Philip Morris), British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco and R.J. Reynolds — have been looking to new markets to offset their domestic losses for decades. During the 1980s and 1990s, U.S. trade officials were a big help, negotiating bilateral measures that helped pry open markets for American companies. Smoking rates soared, to the point of shaming Congress into banning U.S. agency personnel from promoting tobacco sales, which President Bill Clinton extended by executive order in 2001.

That didn’t stop the tobacco companies, though. When other nations try to take steps such as limiting marketing to children and banning flavored cigarettes, Philip Morris and the others complain to the World Trade Organization that the country’s actions unfairly discriminate against imported goods, as the WHO documented in a report last year. For example, there are currently cases pending against Uruguay and Australia over their decisions to require cigarettes to be sold in either completely generic or very prominently labeled packaging.

President George W. Bush strengthened the companies’ hand by refusing to join the WHO’s key international agreement on tobacco control and lobbying to weaken some of its key provisions, allowing international sales to take off: The trajectory of Philip Morris' sales--with international in pink and domestic in blue. (Source: Philip Morris annual reports, collected by the Harvard School of Public Health)

The trajectory of Philip Morris’ sales–with international in pink and domestic in blue. (Source: Philip Morris annual reports, collected by the Harvard School of Public Health)

President Obama was expected to help stem the flow of tobacco into developing countries with the Trans Pacific Partnership, a free trade agreement that’s been in clandestine negotiations for three years now. Last May, the U.S. Trade Representative outlined a tobacco proposal that would have recognized the uniquely harmful status of the substance and created a “safe harbor” for countries to regulate it within their borders. Public health advocates including Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) applauded the step, while voicing hope that it might be strengthened even further.

The proposal didn’t get far, however, before facing an intense opposition campaign from companies and tobacco state legislators. They’re backed supported by a U.S. business establishment that doesn’t want to see exceptions created for any products on public health grounds, fearing that junk food could be next.

“Nowhere have they said publicly that they think their initial position was mistaken,” says Robert Stumberg, director of Georgetown University’s Harrison Institute for Public Law, of the U.S. trade negotiators. “What they’ve done instead is refer to the criticisms from industry, which is they are creating a precedent that would lead to a slippery slope… Everybody knows that tobacco is the vanguard for control of non-communicable diseases. If they can defend tobacco, they can defend themselves.”

Finally, on Friday the U.S. Trade Representative briefed Stumberg and a group of about a dozen other academics and nonprofits on a change in policy, reported simultaneously by Inside U.S. Trade, that would add steps for countries to justify restrictions on tobacco sales and get rid of the “safe harbor” against trade-related lawsuits. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids slammed the reversal:

The new USTR proposal does not recognize tobacco as a uniquely harmful product or provide a safe harbor for nations to regulate in order to reduce tobacco use, as the initial proposal would have done. The new proposal states the obvious – that tobacco control measures involve public health – and then directs public health officials from the countries that are party to the trade agreement to consult each other before launching tobacco-related trade challenges.

The new plan preserves the status quo, which allows tobacco companies to sue countries over their public health measures on the grounds that they violate free trade rules.

But it also strengthens it: The Trans Pacific Partnership will also make those free trade rules a lot stronger, through provisions lowering tariffs to zero and protecting the use of trademarks (which would support a company’s right to advertise). And countries that can’t afford to fight trade lawsuits that can cost many millions of dollars might just not act to protect their citizens in the first place.

North Korea pushes crack???

Source

How North Korea got itself hooked on meth

By Max Fisher, Published: August 21 at 7:00 am

A new study published in the journal North Korea Review says that parts of North Korea are experiencing a crystal meth “epidemic,” with an “upsurge” of recreational meth use and accompanying addiction in the country’s northern provinces.

“Almost every adult in that area [of North Korea] has experienced using ice and not just once,” a study co-author told the Wall Street Journal. “I estimate that at least 40% to 50% are seriously addicted to the drug.”

You might want to treat those sky-high numbers with some skepticism; it’s not clear how the authors could know this with such certainty or how so many North Koreans could get their hands on the drug when so many can’t afford or find basic medicine and when undernourishment remains a serious issue. A 2010 Brookings Institution report found that meth addiction rates were significant and growing but far from this scale. Still, the report is drawing attention to North Korea’s meth problem, which, whatever the scale, is well-documented and an apparently significant problem for the country.

So how do people in North Korea, a country where markets are so tightly regulated that even video CDs can be considered dangerous contraband and where social controls are often beyond Orwellian, manage to get hold of meth? It’s an interesting story, regardless of the scale of drug use today, and one that offers some interesting lessons for how North Korea works.

The problem actually goes back to the 1990s, when North Korea experienced a famine so devastating that virtually the entire world believed the country would collapse at any moment. But it didn’t, in part because Pyongyang finally decided to open up the world’s most closed economy just a small crack, by allowing a degree of black market trade across North Korea’s border with China. The idea was that the black market would bring in food, which it did, preventing North Korea’s implosion.

The black market trade into China has remained that little bit open ever since, either because Pyongyang authorities can’t close it now or because they see some trade as beneficial, probably both. Some provinces along the border have seen their economies liberalize a tiny, tiny bit — most notably North Hamgyung, which is named in the North Korea Review report as particularly blighted by meth addiction.

In the years after the border with China opened that little crack, two other things have happened that led to the current meth crisis. First, medicine ran out and the once-not-terrible health system collapsed — more on this later. Second, North Korea started manufacturing meth in big state-run labs. The country badly needs hard currency and has almost no legitimate international trade. But it was able to exploit the black market trade across the Chinese border by sending state-made meth into China and bringing back the money of Chinese addicts.

This is where things started to spin out of control for North Korea. The state-run meth factories and the cross-border black market trade started to mingle. And some of that meth ended up migrating back across the border and into North Korea, through the black market trade that brings in Chinese rice and DVDs and the like. It’s possible that some North Korean civilians started making meth on their own domestically, although it’s not clear where they would get the chemicals or the cooking space, and the scale would surely not match that of the state factories. But, either way, the influx of meth into northern North Korean cities was a product of the same barely tolerated black markets that the state allowed to open to fight the famine now almost 20 years ago.

This is where the collapse of the North Korean health system becomes relevant. As Isaac Stone Fish reported in a great 2011 Newsweek story, many regular North Koreans started using meth to treat health problems. Real medicine is extremely scarce in the country. But meth is much more common, which means that the prices of medical drugs are artificially inflated, while the price of meth is artificially low. In a culture without much health education and lots of emphasis on traditional remedies, people were ready to believe that meth would do the trick for their medical problems, and many got addicted.

The meth problem is hard for North Korea to deal with for three reasons: (1) because its health system is ill-equipped, (2) because the state doesn’t want to shut down North Hamgyung’s quasi-liberalized economy but also can’t regulate the black market effectively, and (3) because the country believes it needs to keep making meth and shipping it across the border to bring in hard currency. Meanwhile, North Korean addicts, whatever their numbers, are on their own.

NSA can ‘reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic’

Does anybody remembers the FBI program "carnivore"??? It sounds like a base for all this stuff. I remember the "carnivore" software being talked about around 1996, 1997 in the early internet days.

According to those stories "carnivore" was placed by the FBI in servers across the country and just looked at all the emails and data that passed thru saving any data it found which had the keywords it was looking for.

Source

Report: NSA can ‘reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic’

By Timothy B. Lee, Published: August 20 at 11:49 pm

The U.S. surveillance state, or at least the parts the public knows about, keeps getting bigger. Initial leaks by Ed Snowden indicated that the National Security Agency was collecting telephone metadata and had a program called PRISM to seek information from the servers of certain major Internet companies. Last month, the Guardian reported the existence of XKeyscore, an NSA program that allows NSA analysts to intercept the contents of e-mail and other online communications. But previous reporting had suggested that the NSA’s Internet interception capabilities were concentrated outside the borders of the United States.

A new report by the Wall Street Journal casts doubt on that comforting notion. According to the Journal, the NSA “has the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic.” And while the NSA is only supposed to “target” foreigners, the NSA sometimes “retains the written content of e-mails sent between citizens within the U.S.”

The Journal says the NSA relies on extensive collaboration with domestic telecommunications companies to get access to Internet traffic. “The programs, code-named Blarney, Fairview, Oakstar, Lithium and Stormbrew, among others, filter and gather information at major telecommunications companies.” Filtering occurs at more than a dozen “major Internet junctions.”

These programs have a long history. The NSA was already intercepting international Internet traffic before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. After those terrorist attacks, the government expanded its surveillance activities to include more collection points inside the United States. One of those collection points became the target of an Electronic Frontier Foundation lawsuit after an AT&T whistleblower revealed the existence of a secret, NSA-controlled room inside an AT&T facility in San Francisco.

Like the other NSA programs revealed in recent weeks, this one involves minimal judicial oversight. Surveillance must be “covered by a broad court order” under the FISA Amendments Act. But that 2008 law doesn’t require judicial scrutiny of individual surveillance targets. Instead, judges bless broad surveillance programs, leaving decisions about specific surveillance targets up to the NSA itself.

And sometimes surveillance activities can be quite extensive. For example, the NSA engaged in dragnet surveillance during the 2002 Winter Olympics. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation and NSA arranged with Qwest Communications International Inc. to use intercept equipment for a period of less than six months around the time of the event,” the Journal reports. “It monitored the content of all email and text communications in the Salt Lake City area.”

Court limits appeal rights for ‘sensitive’ federal jobs

Court limits appeal rights for ‘sensitive’ federal jobs

By Josh Hicks, Published: August 21 at 6:00 am

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that the Merit Systems Protection Board has no standing to review the Defense Department’s security determinations, drawing criticism from labor groups and whistleblower-protection advocates concerned about due process for the agency’s employees.

In a 7-3 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the government’s authority to designate certain jobs as “noncritical sensitive,” even when the positions do not allow access to classified information.

Critics have raised concerns that the ruling could allow supervisors to punish employees with impunity by classifying their positions as “noncritical sensitive” and then declaring the workers unfit for their jobs.

“The court created a ‘sensitive jobs loophole’ without citing any direct legal authority and openly backed a proposed administration rule to declare virtually any job as national-security sensitive,” the Government Accountability Project said in a statement.

The Office of Personnel Management brought the case to the appeals court, challenging the MSPB’s claim that it could review personnel actions against two low-level Defense Department workers because their jobs did not require access to classified information.

The employees in the case were accounting technician Rhonda Conyers, who was suspended indefinitely, and commissary worker Devon Northover, who was demoted.

The majority in Tuesday’s decision wrote that the review board focused too narrowly on access to classified information while ignoring “the impact employees without security clearances, but in sensitive positions, can have.” The judges said a commissary worker could tip off the enemy to a deployment after noticing a surge in inventory.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents the two employees, said in a statement Tuesday that it will review the court’s decision and that it expects to seek a Supreme Court review.

AFGE president J. David Cox said the court “dismissed our appeal and with it the due process rights of tens of thousands of current and future federal workers.”

“Due process rights are the very foundation of our civil service system,” Cox added. “That system itself has been undermined by the court today, if this ruling is allowed to stand.”

To connect with Josh Hicks, follow his Twitter feed or email josh.hicks@washpost.com. For more federal news, visit The Federal Eye, The Fed Page and Post Politics. E-mail federalworker@washpost.com with news tips and other suggestions.

Costa Mesa councilmen accuse police union of intimidation in suit

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Costa Mesa councilmen accuse police union of intimidation in suit

By Jeremiah Dobruck

August 21, 2013, 9:00 a.m.

Costa Mesa Mayor Jim Righeimer and Mayor Pro Tem Steve Mensinger have sued the city's police officers union, alleging the group and two other defendants intimidated and harassed them for political gain.

Much of the lawsuit stems from an Aug. 22, 2012, incident in which private investigator Chris Lanzillo followed Righeimer as he left a local bar and restaurant owned by Councilman Gary Monahan, the Daily Pilot reported.

According to a 911 recording obtained by the Daily Pilot, Lanzillo called to report a potential drunk driver, whom he did not identify as Righeimer, driving erratically and reaching a speed of 50 mph down a residential street.

Police administered a sobriety test in front of Righeimer's Mesa Verde home while his children watched in fear, the lawsuit alleges.

Righeimer was found not to be impaired and soon after the incident held a news conference where he produced a receipt for two Diet Cokes from Skosh Monahan's.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, names the Costa Mesa Police Officers' Assn.; Upland-based law firm Lackie, Dammeier, McGill & Ethir; and Menifee private investigator Lanzillo, alleging they intentionally inflicted emotional distress and violated civil rights, among 15 other complaints.

Righeimer's wife, Lene, is also included as a plaintiff.

"They're coercing and intimidating these people so that they change their vote in favor of the police association," said attorney Vince Finaldi, who filed the suit on behalf of Mensinger and the Righeimers.

At the time of the incident, Righeimer accused political enemies of trying to set him up. He asserted that the association employed Lanzillo to tail him -- an allegation the association strongly denied at the time.

Representatives from the association could not be reached for comment Tuesda.

Righeimer and the council majority have been working to reduce public employee compensation, a move that has drawn fierce resistance from public employee associations, collective-bargaining units that share some characteristics with but are not technically unions.

The suit alleges that the police association, Lanzillo and the law firm were all involved in the situation at least indirectly.

"What we're saying is it's a conspiracy, that they were all conspiring together to do this," said Finaldi, of the Irvine-based law firm Manly, Stewart & Finaldi.

The plaintiffs have asked for a jury trial, during which any damages would be decided, Finaldi said.

Lanzillo and the law firm also could not be reached after work hours Tuesday evening.

Emanuel defends hiring indicted ex-aide despite red flags

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Emanuel defends hiring indicted ex-aide despite red flags

By John Byrne Clout Street

6:31 a.m. CDT, August 21, 2013

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday he didn't know his ex-comptroller was under federal investigation until the former aide was indicted last week and dismissed the notion that he should have heeded red flags about the man in Ohio before hiring him.

In his first public comments about Amer Ahmad, Emanuel said he took at face value Ahmad's assertion nearly a month ago that he was abruptly resigning as comptroller without another job lined up because he wanted to spend time with his family and return to the business world.

"He said he wanted time with his family. I understand that, having worked for two presidents and in Congress," Emanuel said. "He wanted personal time and he wanted the ability to go to the private sector to make some money given that he had a young family. That's what he asked for."

Instead, Ahmad was indicted about three weeks later.

He has pleaded not guilty to taking part in a kickback scheme between 2009 and 2011 when he was deputy Ohio state treasurer. The federal indictment says Ahmad gave state investment work to a former high school classmate and that man in turn funneled $400,000 to a landscaping company Ahmad part-owned and another $123,000 to lobbyist Mohammed Noure Alo, described by prosecutors as a "close personal friend and business associate" of Ahmad.

As early as 2010, Ohio newspapers had questioned the connection between Ahmad and Alo because of a treasurer's office contract given to a Boston-based bank that hired Alo as its lobbyist two days before bids were due. At that point, State Street Bank was Alo's only lobbying client, according to reports. The Ohio treasurer's office also hired Alo's wife, the reports said.

Those questions became the basis of a TV attack ad that helped the Republican candidate defeat Ahmad's boss, Democratic Treasurer Kevin Boyce, in Boyce's re-election bid in November 2010.

Despite the red flags, Emanuel on Tuesday contended it was reasonable for him to assume Ahmad was a good choice for the key financial position in Chicago because he was screened during the application process. Mayer Brown attorneys Vincent Connelly and Zaldwaynaka "Z" Scott vetted Ahmad in early 2011 by interviewing him over the phone about the 2010 Ohio banking contract. Emanuel said Ahmad's former employers also gave him the "thumbs up."

"They did a comprehensive background check like they do in any vetting process in any transition," Emanuel said after a ribbon-cutting at the new Jones College Preparatory High School campus in the South Loop. "And as Mr. Connelly answered today in the papers, he answered those in the sense of what they did in the background check."

Ahmad worked at the same New York-based firm, Wasserstein Perella & Co., where Emanuel made his fortune as an investment banker after leaving the Clinton White House and before running for Congress. Emanuel said Tuesday that he had not met Ahmad before he was hired to become Chicago's comptroller.

Ahmad joined the Emanuel administration when the mayor took office in May 2011. The indictment accuses Ahmad of lying to FBI agents during a September 2012 interview. Emanuel said he learned about that interview "when I read it in the papers" after Ahmad's indictment was announced Thursday.

The mayor said Ahmad, not his administration's vetting process, is to blame.

"I think he let the mayor's office and the mayor down," Emanuel said. "He had an obligation when he started to get asked to say he was under questioning. And that's where he violated, in my view, the first trust."

As part of the cleanup, the Emanuel administration last week asked Corporation Counsel Stephen Patton and Inspector General Joseph Ferguson to oversee a joint probe into Ahmad's work in Chicago. On Tuesday, the administration said it had hired two attorneys to help with the review. Emanuel spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton did not say how much it will cost.

jebyrne@tribune.com

Twitter @_johnbyrne

La CIA confirma existencia de base secreta "Área 51" en Nevada

La CIA confirma existencia de base secreta "Área 51" en Nevada

Hasta ahora el lugar no ha aparecido en los mapas o en las imágenes de satélite oficiales.

La Agencia Central de Inteligencia de Estados Unidos (CIA, por sus siglas en inglés) confirmó esta semana, por primera vez, la existencia de una base militar secreta conocida como "Área 51", que está ubicada en el desierto de Nevada.

Hasta ahora el lugar no ha aparecido en los mapas o en las imágenes de satélite oficiales.

Las revelaciones fueron divulgadas por nuevos documentos desclasificados que detallan cómo el área fue utilizada durante la Guerra Fría, en 1955, para realizar pruebas secretas de los aviones espía U-2.

Los documentos obtenidos por la Universidad George Washington afirman que el sitio fue creado por una orden del presidente Dwight Eisenhower, a mediados de la década de los 50.

Aunque su existencia no era un secreto, el hecho de que el gobierno no reconociera su existencia dio lugar a diversar teorías de conspiración.

Corresponsales aseguran que es muy poco probable que la revelación acabe con esta sospechas conspirativas, que sostienen que en el "Área 51" también está ubicado un centro de investigación de extraterrestres y objetos voladores no identificados (ovnis) perteneciente al gobierno de EU.

Getting paid to do nothing in politics is a career goal?

"Getting paid to do nothing is not a matter of dishonor in politics; it’s a career goal. One that many, many, many, many Arizona politicians manage to achieve"

Last since Governor Jan Brewer obviously doesn't believe that people in prison should be pardoned she should just disband the parole board and let all it's positions go unfilled until the next governor comes along.

Source

Real mystery of clemency board

The mystery is not why Jesse Hernandez, the man Gov. Jan. Brewer went out of her way to name chairman and executive director of the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency, suddenly resigned.

The mystery is why Arizona even bothers to pretend that it has a Board of Executive Clemency.

Brewer doesn’t believe in it.

She’s made that clear.

She purged the previous board and put in what she apparently hoped were obedient sycophants and now one of them has left.

We’re not sure what Jesse Hernandez’s reasons were just yet.

He was making $84,146 a year to do nothing.

Getting paid to do nothing is not a matter of dishonor in politics; it’s a career goal. One that many, many, many, many Arizona politicians manage to achieve.

But I’m guessing the job could be frustrating.

The clemency board exists for a reason. There are times when reasonable people like the board members will carefully weigh the accumulated evidence in a particular case and for reasons that could be humanitarian or could be legal will come to conclusion that clemency is appropriate.

But if the boss doesn’t want you to come to such a conclusion.

If the boss put you on the clemency board so that you would not consider clemency an option, what’s a board member to do?

They could change the name to better suit your situation and call it the Clemency Bored.

Or they could act like so many other Arizona politicians and political appointee and do … nothing.

Burbank PD may be liable in suit by cop who alleged misconduct

You expect the police to honor your constitutional rights??? Don't make me laugh!!!

"Dahlia witnessed other officers physically abuse suspects ... he saw a lieutenant grab a suspect by the throat, put a gun under his eye and threaten him ... he heard yelling and the sound of somebody being hit and slapped from a room where a sergeant was interviewing a suspect ... When Dahlia reported what he had allegedly witnessed to a superior, the officer told him to stop his “sniveling”"

Burbank PD may be liable in suit by cop who alleged misconduct

By Maura Dolan

August 21, 2013, 1:20 p.m.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A former Burbank police detective who was placed on administrative leave after reporting that fellow officers beat and threatened suspects may pursue a 1st Amendment retaliation lawsuit against several Burbank officers and the city, a federal appeals court decided Wednesday.

An 11-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals revived the suit by Angelo Dahlia, a detective who charged that he was put on leave after he told the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department about alleged misconduct in the Burbank department.

A lower court threw out Dahlia’s suit on the grounds that he reported the misconduct as part of his official duties, not as a private citizen expressing free speech, and that administrative leave did not constitute punishment.

A three-judge 9th Circuit panel reluctantly agreed, declaring it was bound by a 2009 precedent.

But the larger panel overturned that precedent and decided that police officers, in some instances, may receive 1st Amendment protection when they disclose misconduct. The court also said that forced leave could be considered punitive.

“It is relevant to the resolution of Dahlia’s case that Dahlia disclosed misconduct to LASD in contravention of the numerous threats and admonitions from his superiors not to reveal the misconduct to anyone,” wrote Judge Richard A. Paez, a Clinton appointee. “Even assuming arguendo that Dahlia might normally be required to disclose misconduct pursuant to his job duties, here he defied, rather than followed, his supervisors’ orders.”

Dahlia alleged that he witnessed other officers physically abuse suspects who were taken into custody during a high-profile robbery probe that began in late 2007. He said he saw a lieutenant grab a suspect by the throat, put a gun under his eye and threaten him.

Dahlia also reported that he heard yelling and the sound of somebody being hit and slapped from a room where a sergeant was interviewing a suspect.

When Dahlia reported what he had allegedly witnessed to a superior, the officer told him to stop his “sniveling,” he said.

“The physical beatings continued in BPD interview rooms and in the field, evidenced by the booking photos of various suspects,” the court said.

The panel’s decision to revive the lawsuit was unanimous, but two judges disagreed that Dahlia had presented a valid claim for 1st Amendment retaliation and agreed only that he should be permitted to amend his suit.

“Federal courts have no business managing the daily activities of police departments,” wrote Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, joined by Judge Alex Kozinski, both Reagan appointees.

“The malfeasance by officers of the Burbank Police Department which Dahlia witnessed and the threats and intimidation he endured — if true — are shocking and intolerable,” O’Scannlain wrote. “Yet we must stay our collective hand.”

Arpaio: Armed militias beware or be shot

Personally I think we should just end the insane and unconstitutional "war on drugs" to stop all this nonsense.

Source

Arpaio: Armed militias beware or be shot

Associated Press

PHOENIX — Tough-talking Sheriff Joe Arpaio is warning civilians who embark on armed patrols in remote desert terrain that they could end up “seeing 30 rounds fired” into them by one of his deputies.

His unapologetically terse comments came Tuesday after a member of an Arizona Minuteman border-watch movement was arrested over the weekend for pointing a rifle at a Maricopa County sheriff’s deputy he apparently mistook for a drug smuggler.

“If they continue this there could be some dead militia out there,” Arpaio said.

Richard Malley, 49, was heavily armed with two others dressed in camouflage Saturday night along Interstate 8 near Gila Bend, a known drug-trafficking corridor in the desert about 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, when he confronted the deputy who was on patrol conducting surveillance, authorities said.

According to court records, the deputy and his partner stopped their vehicle, then flashed their headlights and honked their horn, a common practice used by law enforcement to trick drug smugglers into thinking the car is there to transfer their narcotics load and lure them out of hiding.

The deputies then got out, also dressed in camouflage but clearly marked with sheriff’s patches on their clothing, and began to track what appeared to be fresh footprints, authorities said.

That’s when Malley emerged from the darkness with his rifle raised “yelling commands,” according to the probable-cause statement.

The deputy, illuminated by Malley’s flashlight at this point, identified himself as law enforcement, pointing out the “word sheriff across his chest,” and ordered Malley to drop his gun.

“You aren’t taking my weapons,” replied Malley, who was armed with a semi-automatic rifle, a .45-caliber handgun and a knife, according to court records.

Another deputy eventually arrived and arrested Malley for aggravated assault. He was released on $10,000 bail and is set for a court appearance on Monday. It wasn’t clear if Malley had an attorney, and telephone numbers listed for him were disconnected.

Malley claimed “he had the right to point his rifle at the individual because he had reasonable suspicion to believe a crime was occurring,” according to the probable-cause statement. He identified himself as a “militia Minuteman.”

Such Minuteman-type militias of armed civilians patrolling the deserts for illegal border crossers and smugglers grew to prominence in the early 2000s, but the organizations’ numbers have since dwindled as they fractured into multiple splinter groups, such as crews like Malley’s who were on patrol with just three armed men.

Arpaio, whose county doesn’t run along the border but has seen an increase in drug and human trafficking, warned there will be “chaos if you’re going to have private citizens dressed just like our deputies taking the law into their own hands.”

“I have to commend my deputy for not killing this person, which easily could have happened,” Arpaio said. “He’s lucky he didn’t see 30 rounds fired into him.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Andy Adame also expressed concern for the safety of both the militia members and Border Patrol agents.

Adame said the civilian groups could easily trigger remote sensors operated by the Border Patrol to detect illegal crossers.

“And we respond to them in a manner where we expect to encounter illegal immigrants or drug traffickers,” he said. “We can encounter them (militia members) out in the middle of the desert, which may result in disastrous personal and public safety consequences.”

In short, he noted, someone could get shot and killed, either an agent or a civilian.

Glenn Spencer, president of American Border Patrol, a civilian group that operates from a ranch along the Mexican border in Southern Arizona, won’t condemn the actions of private armed militia organizations, but he also doesn’t recommend it.

“It’s a free country. They’re not violating any law. They’re not trespassing,” said Spencer, whose group uses technology, including sensors and unmanned aircraft rather than boots on the ground, to monitor the border.

“But I wouldn’t do it, and I wouldn’t encourage anyone to do it,” Spencer added. “Going out there is dangerous.”

NSA collected thousands of U.S. communications

Source

NSA collected thousands of U.S. communications

Associated Press Wed Aug 21, 2013 12:57 PM

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency declassified three secret U.S. court opinions Wednesday showing how it scooped up as many as 56,000 emails and other communications by Americans with no connection to terrorism annually over three years, how it revealed the error to the court and changed how it gathered Internet communications.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper authorized the release Wednesday.

The opinions show that when the NSA reported that to the court in 2011, the court ordered the NSA to find ways to limit what it collects and how long it keeps it.

The NSA reported the problems it discovered in how it was gathering Internet communications to the court and shortly thereafter to Congress in the fall of 2011.

Three senior U.S. intelligence officials said Wednesday that the NSA realized that when it was gathering up bundled Internet communications from fiber optic cables, with the cooperation of telecommunications providers like AT&T, that it was often collecting thousands of emails or other Internet transactions by Americans who had no connection to the intended terror target being tracked.

The officials briefed reporters on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to describe the program publicly.

While the NSA is allowed to keep the metadata — the address or phone number and the duration, but not the content, of the communication — of Americans for up to five years, the court ruled that when it gathered up such large packets of information, they included actual emails between American citizens, it violated the U.S. Constitution’s ban against unauthorized search and seizure.

In the opinion by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court denouncing the practice, the judge wrote that the NSA had advised the court that “the volume and nature of the information it had been collecting is fundamentally different than what the court had been led to believe,” and went on to say the court must consider “whether targeting and minimization procedures comport with the 4th Amendment.”

For instance, two senior intelligence officials said, when an American logged into an email server and looked at the emails in his or her inbox, that screen shot of the emails could be collected, together with Internet transactions by a terrorist suspect being targeted by the NSA — because that suspect’s communications were being sent on the same fiber optic cable by the same Internet provider, in a bundled packet of data.

These interceptions of innocent Americans’ communications were happening when the NSA accessed Internet information “upstream,” meaning off of fiber optic cables or other channels where Internet traffic traverses the U.S. telecommunications system.

The NSA disclosed that it gathers some 250 million internet communications each year, with some 9 percent from these “upstream” channels, amounting to between 20 million to 25 million emails a year. The agency used statistical analysis to estimate that of those, possibly as many as 56,000 Internet communications collected were sent by Americans or persons in the U.S. with no connection to terrorism.

Under court order, the NSA resolved the problem by creating new ways to detect when emails by people within the U.S. were being intercepted, and separated those batches of communications. It also developed new ways to limit how that data could be accessed or used. The agency also agreed to only keep these bundled communications for possible later analysis for a 2-year period, instead of the usual 5-year retention period.

The agency also, under court order, destroyed all the bundled data gathered between 2008, when the FISA Court first authorized the collection under section 702 of the Patriot Act, until 2011 when the new procedures were put in place.

The newly released court opinions revealed the court signed off on the new procedures, deeming them constitutionally acceptable.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the White House still contends there is no domestic surveillance program despite new revelations about the scope of U.S. emails and Internet communications that can get swept up by the NSA. He said the program is specifically to gather foreign intelligence, adding that the fact that the extent of incidental American surveillance has been documented is proof positive that accountability measures are working properly.

“The reason that we’re talking about it right now is because there are very strict compliance standards in place at the NSA that monitor for compliance issues, that tabulate them, that document them and that put in place measures to correct them when they occur,” Earnest said.

Audit: Glendale covered up losses

As you grow up you are constantly brainwashed by our government masters that the only people you can trust are the government. Rubbish. You can't trust the government any more then you can trust the mafia.

Source

Audit: Glendale covered up losses

By Paul Giblin The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Aug 21, 2013 10:50 PM

Top Glendale administrators improperly shifted millions of dollars among several internal accounts for years in an attempt to cover the true costs of an early-retirement program, according to a 250-page financial audit released Wednesday.

The audit could trigger a criminal investigation.

The City Council is expected to submit the findings to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office this week for review.

According to the audit, former City Manager Ed Beasley and others working under his direction intentionally misled the City Council about the ballooning costs of the retirement program, which originally was intended to save money.

The audit was commissioned by the council in February and conducted by a Phoenix law firm and forensic accountants at a projected cost of $500,000.

During the six-month investigation, auditors secured 19 work stations, computers and electronic devices and scoured nearly 557,000 files and 74,200 pages of documents.

According to the audit, Beasley also paid two high-level executives beyond what was in the “best interest” of the city.

Beasley retained Alma Carmicle as executive director of human resources in 2011 with full pay and perks worth $140,000, including a car allowance, after she moved to Mississippi, where she negotiated union contracts by phone for 10 months, according to the audit.

He also allowed Assistant City Manager Art Lynch to cash out on the early-retirement program despite missing the deadline.

Lynch returned the next day as a consultant, according to the audit, and made more than $930,000 in about three years in his new role.

Beasley and Carmicle have since retired, and Lynch is no longer used as a consultant.

Beasley disputed the findings in a telephone call with The Arizona Republic.

“I would never, nor did I ever, direct staff to keep information from council. That’s not the way I operate,” said Beasley, who is now a vice president of government solutions for Colliers International in Phoenix.

The cost projections for the early-retirement program were produced by a group of city employees, rather than by him, he said.

“Whatever calculations came about were based on the resource experts that were providing me the information,” Beasley told The Republic.

Vice Mayor Yvonne Knaack and other City Council members were still sifting through the audit a day after they were briefed in a closed-door session.

She said council members had no reason at the time to believe city administrators were hiding information.

“It just makes me feel like we were betrayed,” Knaack said.

The council ordered the outside audit in February after an internal audit in 2012 revealed several questionable fund transfers.

City administrators moved quickly in response to the audit, headed by the firm Haralson, Miller, Pitt, Feldman & McAnally.

Late Wednesday, new City Manager Brenda Fischer placed Financial Services Executive Director Sherry Schurhammer on paid administrative leave, acting Assistant City Manager Julie Frisoni said.

On Aug. 2, Fischer placed Assistant City Manager Horatio Skeete on administrative leave. Both will remain on leave until Fischer and other administrators fully analyze the audit, Frisoni said.

Schurhammer and Skeete both worked with Beasley on the early- retirement program, which was rolled out in 2009.

Disciplinary action is possible for other employees, Frisoni said.

Also Wednesday, Fischer moved to change the city’s policy on retaining records, pushing to preserve e-mails and other communications for at least a year instead of two months. Auditors said the current policy hindered their investigation. The city will re-publicize its ethics hotline to all employees and allow the city auditor greater direct dialogue with the City Council, Frisoni said.

City Auditor Candace MacLeod told auditors she had tried for several years to audit one of the misused trust funds but was repeatedly rebuffed by Beasley.

The report recommended that the city auditor report directly to the council, instead of the city manager.

Other changes are imminent, Frisoni said.

In all, investigators outlined 12 major findings, most related to the early-retirement program.

Beasley and other administrators started the program without conducting adequate analysis of its costs, according to the auditors.

Fifty-five employees opted to leave early, which was five times as many as some of the projections, according to the report.

When administrators became aware of millions of dollars of penalties imposed by the state retirement system for employees leaving early, plus other expenses associated with the program such as early-retirement incentives, city administrators hid the costs from the council, according to the auditors.

Instead, staff shifted $6.1 million from other city trust funds to cover the expenses. The three accounts were related to risk management, employee benefits and workers’ compensation.

Later, when those accounts became low, staff shifted money among them to cover the deficits, all without approval from the council.

Former risk manager Jim Loeb acknowledged in a 2009 e-mail to administrators that state law “precludes taking money out of trusts for other purposes.”

He then suggested a strategy to “circumvent” the restriction by diverting money before it ever was placed into the trust funds, according to the e-mail in the audit.

Former Assistant City Manager Pam Kavanaugh introduced the early-retirement program to the council in late March 2009. When then-Mayor Elaine Scruggs asked about the costs, Kavanaugh said others would address that later in the presentation. They never did, according to the audit.

When Scruggs asked again a year later, Skeete told her the costs would be covered by keeping positions vacant. “This statement is false,” the report said, as the costs were paid through the trust funds.

When auditors asked about it, Skeete said all presentations were rehearsed with the city manager, who at the time was Beasley.

In February 2010, administrators told the council about the penalty but didn’t reveal how long they had known, the audit said.

Mayor Jerry Weiers said he was still analyzing the report. “We’ll try to figure out the issues that happened, how they happened, and make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again,” Weiers said.

Auditors interviewed 28 people, several multiple times each.

However, investigators reported that seven former employees with knowledge of the transactions either failed to respond or declined to be interviewed.

Among those were Beasley, Carmicle and Lynch.

Republic reporter Caitlin McGlade contributed to this article.

State clemency-board chief quit amid wide range of misconduct allegations

State clemency-board chief quit amid wide range of misconduct allegations

By Craig Harris The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Aug 21, 2013 10:34 PM

Jesse Hernandez, the ex-chairman and director of the state Board of Executive Clemency, suddenly quit last week after an investigation found nine cases of inappropriate behavior, including giving an unqualified female employee he was dating a promotion and a $21,340 pay raise, records obtained by The Arizona Republic show.

The Republic acquired heavily redacted documents through the Arizona Public Records Law on Wednesday after Gov. Jan Brewer’s office refused to explain why Hernandez abruptly quit Aug. 16.

Brewer appointed Hernandez, a Republican political operative, to the post last year even though he had no experience in corrections or criminal justice, according to his resume. Messages left on his cellphone were not returned.

The five-member clemency board considers parole for eligible inmates and recommends certain clemency actions to the governor, who appoints board members. Brewer last year sacked the prior board chairman, who had 20 years of experience, and two other board members in favor of Hernandez and two other new appointees.

One of the new appointees also quit recently and said another state probe is under way to determine whether Hernandez shorted the pay of other board members.

An Arizona Department of Administration investigation was launched after a May 16 complaint against Hernandez was filed by an employee who alleged retaliation and discrimination. The subsequent probe examined a dozen allegations of misconduct. Nine were substantiated. The investigation found:

Hernandez dated a female employee and promoted her with a substantial pay raise even though she did not meet entry-level qualifications for the job and did not perform the majority of the duties required. Hernandez also tried to get her an additional raise. Investigators were told that Hernandez would kiss the woman and play with her hair, while she would give him “play slaps.”

Hernandez began associating with New York Knicks star Amar’e Stoudemire after the athlete attended an early-release hearing for a relative. Hernandez was given tickets to basketball games, met for lunch with Stoudemire and had his picture taken with Stoudemire, who once played for the Phoenix Suns.

Hernandez did not hold public hearings in accordance with state law and policies, and he treated clemency-board members and visitors inappropriately.

Board members were not allowed to review their recommendations before they were submitted to the Governor’s Office. Instead, the letters were edited and the board members’ names were stamped on the letters.

A female employee was picked on, harassed and subjected to a hostile work environment by Hernandez.

Hernandez ogled women as they walked by.

Hernandez regularly made discriminatory and inappropriate comments, such as saying one employee was promiscuous and another was a “heathen” because she did not attend church. [So I guess Jesse Hernandez, the director of the state Board of Executive Clemency doesn't believe in that First Amendment thing of separation of church and state???]

Hernandez was paid $84,146 a year.

Another of Brewer’s appointees, Melvin Thomas, also has quit, leaving the board with just three members.

Thomas, a former public and private prison warden, told The Republic that he resigned on Aug. 5, hoping the governor would take notice of problems with Hernandez.

“I needed to send a message to the Governor’s Office,” Thomas said.

Thomas said the Department of Administration is conducting a second investigation into whether Hernandez shorted the pay of other board members. Thomas said board members may not have been paid for all of their work because there was confusion about whether board members were salaried or hourly employees.

Department of Administration Director Brian McNeil said his office does not comment on pending investigations.

The Governor’s Office said board members are hourly employees, making $23.46 an hour.

Thomas also said Hernandez ordered the board to take a week of unpaid furlough in late July and early August, even though the state no longer mandates furloughs. When he contacted the Administration Department, Thomas said, officials there knew nothing about a furlough.

Brewer, who is traveling in India, could not be reached. Her spokesman, Andrew Wilder, declined to answer questions about Brewer’s appointment of Hernandez.

“Mr. Hernandez’s conduct as chairman and executive director was unacceptable,” Wilder said. “Consequently, Mr. Hernandez recognized that and the governor welcomed his resignation.”

Wilder on Monday said he was not familiar with the reasons Hernandez had resigned, even though the Administration Department had been investigating Hernandez since May and Thomas had submitted his resignation to the governor on Aug. 5.

In his letter, Thomas wrote: “I can no longer endure the way me and my fellow board members have been treated.”

The Department of Administration works directly for Brewer and is in constant contact with the Governor’s Office.

Brian Livingston, Brewer’s third appointee last year, has become the new executive director and chairman. He did not return calls on Wednesday. The remaining board members are Jack LaSota and Ellen Kirschbaum.

Obama doesn’t favor medical marijuana ‘at this point’

Currently over 51 percent of the people in Federal prisons are there for victimless drug war crimes. 80 percent of those people in Federal prisons are not there for SALES of drugs, but for simple possession of drugs. So Obama is a liar when his White House spokesman said the following statement:

“The priority in terms of the dedication of law enforcement resources should be targeted toward our drug kingpins, drug traffickers and others who perpetrate violence in the conduct of the drug trade”

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White House: Obama doesn’t favor medical marijuana ‘at this point’

By Aaron Blake, Published: August 21 at 5:22 pm

White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday that President Obama doesn’t favor changing medical marijuana laws “at this point.”

Several states have moved toward legalizing marijuana — mostly medical but also recreational — and Dr. Sanjay Gupta recently came out in favor of medical marijuana after initially opposing it.

Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, creating a conflict in states that have moved to legalize it. Earnest said the Obama administration is not targeting individual users in those states.

“The priority in terms of the dedication of law enforcement resources should be targeted toward our drug kingpins, drug traffickers and others who perpetrate violence in the conduct of the drug trade,” Earnest said. “But at the same time, the president does not, you know, at this point advocate a change in the law.”

States that have legalized marijuana say they believe the administration has given them tacit approval to more forward, even as it remains illegal according to federal law.

The Emperor Wears No Clothes

The Emperor Wears No Clothes

If you want a thousand good reasons to legalize, or re-legalize marijuana the book The Emperor Wears No Clothes has those reasons for you.

Proper channels for whistle blowers - Keep your mouth shut!!!!

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The price Gina Gray paid for whistleblowing

By Dana Milbank, Published: August 20

President Obama, in his news conference this month, said that Edward Snowden was wrong to go public with revelations about secret surveillance programs because “there were other avenues available for somebody whose conscience was stirred and thought that they needed to question government actions.”

This is a common refrain among administration officials and some lawmakers: If only Snowden had made his concerns known through the proper internal channels, everything would have turned out well. The notion sounds reasonable, as do the memorandums Obama signed supposedly protecting whistleblowers.

But it’s a load of nonsense. Ask Gina Gray.

Gray is the Defense Department whistleblower whose case I have been following for five years. She was the Army civilian worker who, before and after her employment, exposed much of the wrongdoing at Arlington National Cemetery — misplaced graves, mishandled remains and financial mismanagement — and she attempted to do it through the proper internal channels. Pentagon sources have confirmed to me her crucial role in bringing the scandal to light.

For her troubles, Gray was fired. The Pentagon’s inspector general recommended corrective action to compensate Gray.

According to documents just obtained by Gray’s lawyer, Mark Zaid, Army Secretary John McHugh rejected the inspector general’s suggestion. McHugh wouldn’t offer Gray anything because she was on “probationary status at the time of her termination.”

Gray, who worked in Iraq as an Army contractor and Army public affairs specialist, is now unemployed and living in North Carolina.

“I went all the way up the channels,” Gray told me on Tuesday. “This is what happens when you do that.”

In response to my inquiries to the Pentagon, an Army spokesman, Col. David H. Patterson Jr., issued a statement saying that Gray’s status as a whistleblower was limited and that her firing was unrelated. “We consider the matter closed,” he said, calling the Army’s position “validated” by a federal court’s “dismissal of Ms. Gray’s lawsuit — with prejudice.”

The lawsuit was dismissed this week — because Gray dropped it. She could no longer afford the legal fees.

Sadly, Gray’s case is emblematic of the way this administration has handled whistleblowers. Obama came into office pledging transparency and professing admiration for government workers who expose abuses. But his administration has pursued more cases under the 1917 Espionage Act than all previous administrations combined (including the prosecution of National Security Agency workers who tried to register their objections through “proper” channels). And the alleged intimidation of would-be whistleblowers goes beyond those involved in sensitive intelligence. For example, diplomat Gregory Hicks told a House committee that he was demoted because he gave congressional investigators a description of the attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya, that was at odds with the official version of events.

Gray’s ordeal began in April 2008 after I covered the Arlington funeral of an officer killed in the Iraq war. While there, I observed a dispute between Gray and deputy superintendent Thurman Higginbotham, the man later at the center of the Arlington scandals. Higginbotham was trying to prevent reporters from observing the burial, in violation of the family’s wishes and Arlington’s regulations — and Gray, though new on the job, told him he was wrong.

Gray registered her objections internally — but loudly. She refused to sign off on a report to the Army secretary’s office that was a whitewash of the way burials were handled at Arlington because, she said, her higher-ups were violating Defense Department regulations. She began to learn of other misdeeds by Arlington management and attempted to let military officials know; in June 2008, according to one of Gray’s legal filings, she told the commanding general of the Military District of Washington about “major problems” at the cemetery, involving fraud, mismanagement and broken regulations.

Two days later, she was fired.

A 2010 report by the Pentagon’s inspector general designated Gray as a whistleblower and concluded that, contrary to regulations, Arlington management “elected to terminate her, rather than make a reasonable effort to address public affairs policy issues that she raised” or to “document performance deficiencies that ANC management later claimed formed the basis for Ms. Gray’s termination.”

After her firing, Gray passed along information about mismanagement at Arlington to three congressional offices, all of which received false assurances from the Army that everything was under control. Gray eventually provided her findings to reporters and to the inspector general, leading to the ouster of the Arlington management.

Snowden’s case is quite a bit different, and murkier; his dalliances with China and now Russia raise questions about his motives. But Gray’s case shows that Snowden was correct about one thing: Trying to pursue the proper internal channels doesn’t work.

If the Obama administration wants whistleblowers to take the “proper” route, it needs to protect them when they do.

Glendale puts more officials on paid leave

Glendale puts more officials on paid leave

By Paul Giblin The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Aug 22, 2013 10:01 PM

Glendale placed two more top administrators on paid leave Thursday in response to an extensive audit that detailed how employees shifted millions of dollars among internal accounts to cover the true costs of an early-retirement program.

In all, new City Manager Brenda Fischer has placed four administrators on leave in response to the audit, which was commissioned by the City Council at a projected cost of $500,000.

All four were aware of the ballooning costs of the early-retirement program but failed to promptly notify members of the council, according to the audit.

They will remain on paid administrative leave for a week in accordance with city policy, giving them time to appeal further disciplinary action, acting Assistant City Manager Julie Frisoni said.

Fischer declined to specify the disciplinary actions, but her range of options include termination.

The four administrators:

Chief Budget Officer Don Bolton, who was placed on leave Thursday.

Chief Financial Officer Diane Goke, who also was placed on leave Thursday.

Financial Services Executive Director Sherry Schurhammer, who was placed on leave Wednesday, the day the audit was released.

Assistant City Manager Horatio Skeete, who was placed on leave Aug. 2 as the audit was still being prepared by a Phoenix-based team of attorneys, forensic accountants and computer specialists.

Glendale officials did not immediately respond to a records request seeking their pay, lengths of service and information about their employment.

“The city allows for the due process of a review in these circumstances and I look forward to my opportunity to meet with (Fischer) in the near future to discuss this action,” Bolton said.

Goke declined comment to The Arizona Republic; the other two did not respond to requests for comment.

City auditor Candace MacLeod will serve as interim financial services executive director until further notice, Frisoni said. Other possible staff changes to fill in for those on leave have yet to be specified, Frisoni said.

Last year, MacLeod performed an internal audit that revealed some of the problems.

“The city manager doesn’t anticipate any additional disciplinary measures at this time, unless some other information comes to light,” she said.

The four, and others, worked with former City Manager Ed Beasley to develop and administer the early-retirement plan, which was rolled out in 2009.

The top employees failed to consider all of the program’s costs, including incentive pay offered by the city, and penalties imposed by the state retirement system for employees leaving early, according to the audit.

Glendale administrators then shifted $6.1 million from trust funds to cover early-retirement-related expenses without proper authorization, according to the audit.

In a related matter, civil-rights leader the Rev. Jerrett Maupin, City Councilwoman Norma Alvarez and Councilman Ian Hugh held a news conference at City Hall on Thursday to publicly ask the state Attorney General’s Office to expand upon the existing state investigation into the city’s finances.

Maupin and Alvarez told reporters that they believe city administrators improperly used city funds to pay the National Hockey League $25 million to manage Jobing.com Arena while the NHL searched for a private owner to buy the Phoenix Coyotes.

The city twice agreed to pay the NHL $25 million to run the arena, owned by the city, although NHL executives recently allowed the city to spread out the second payment over several years. The city made the first payment to the NHL in 2011 from the city’s landfill and sanitation fund. City administrators placed millions from a water and sewer fund into escrow to cover most of the second payment, despite telling the Council it would come from the general operating fund.

Maupin noted that in a letter dated Aug. 5, Assistant Attorney General Christopher Munns asked Glendale’s attorney to review several transactions to ensure they were legal. Munns also sought an overview of the process by which city funds are transferred. He requested a response by today.

“To answer the attorney general’s question about the transfer of money and the NHL, I believe, and we believe, that the process is exactly the same that the city used in relation to the employee retirement fund — illegally; it’s done illegally,” Maupin said.

Several City Council members told The Republic that they have asked the city attorney to forward the entire audit to the Attorney General’s Office by today to review for possible criminal prosecution.

Councilman Gary Sherwood, who was reached by phone, said he wasn’t surprised by the findings in the auditor’s 256-page report.

“Obviously, it’s disappointing to see the actual printed words,” he said. “The city manager has what she needs to move forward, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see other news made this week.”

Local governments cutting hours over Obamacare costs

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Local governments cutting hours over Obamacare costs

By Reid Wilson, Published: August 22 at 10:00 am

Many cash-strapped cities and counties facing the prospect of shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars in new health-care costs under the Affordable Care Act are opting instead to reduce the number of hours their part-time employees work.

The decisions to cut employee hours come 16 months before employers — including state and local governments — will be required to offer health-care coverage to employees who work at least 30 hours a week. Some local officials said the cuts are happening now either because of labor contracts that must be negotiated in advance, or because the local governments worry that employees who work at least 30 hours in the months leading up to the January 2015 implementation date would need to be included in their health-care plans.

On Tuesday, Middletown Township, N.J. said it would reduce the hours of 25 part-time workers to avoid up to $775,000 in increased annual health-care costs. Earlier this month, Bee County, Tex., said it would limit its part-time workers to 24 hours per week when the new fiscal year starts Oct. 1.

Last month, department heads in Brevard County, Fla., were told to plan similar cuts in advance of the 2015 deadline. Brevard County Insurance Director Jerry Visco estimated the new mandate would cost the county $10,000 per part-time employee — or $1.38 million a year if all 138 part-time employees who work more than 30 hours a week are covered, he told Florida Today. The Brevard County libraries have already cut hours for 37 employees.

“It’s not something we prefer to do, but the cost of health insurance is significant and would really impact municipal budgets,” said Anthony Mercantante, Middletown’s township administrator. “It’s not something we can take on, particularly when we don’t know some of the other ramifications of the Affordable Care Act. There are far more questions than answers right now.”

Middletown spends about $9 million a year, out of its $65 million budget, on employee health policies, Mercantante said.

Elsewhere, Lynchburg, Va., administrators have cut hours for 35 to 40 part-time employees. Chesterfield County, just south of Richmond, is likely to cut the hours of “several hundred” employees, the county director of human resources told the Richmond Times-Dispatch earlier this year. Chippewa County, Wisc., will drop 15 part-time positions to avoid up to $163,000 in annual health care costs, the county administrator told Wisconsin Public Radio in April.

In a statement provided to GovBeat, White House Council of Economic Advisers chairman Jason Furman said there is no evidence that the Affordable Care Act is prompting employers to add part-time rather than full-time positions.

“Since the ACA became law, nearly 90% of the gain in employment has been in full-time positions. Furthermore, the law is helping make health insurance coverage more affordable which supports job growth,” Furman said. “Just yesterday, we learned that the growth in employers’ health care premiums has slowed significantly recently, to less than a third of the growth rate in the late ’90s and early 2000s.”

Other supporters of the law suggested the cuts could actually cost counties and cities more money than if they simply paid for part-time workers’ health-care costs.

“There are some costs of doing business where it really does cost you more money to have multiple people on the job,” said Gary Burtless, a senior fellow of economic studies at the Brookings Institution. “Why would you create more jobs than you need to at 20 hours a week, when if you’re really responding to the Affordable Care Act you would assign people to work 29 hours a week?”

“I don’t think this is going to be a big direct-cost burden for counties and municipalities,” Burtless added.

Mercantante, the Middletown administrator, says it’s the uncertainty that’s driving his town’s actions. “Towns are going to have to start looking at different types of health-care packages to offer to people given the new mandates, but I can’t tell you what those are going to be or how much they’re going to cost us,” he said.

Online tax loophole sinking local retailers

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Online tax loophole sinking local retailers

By Luci Scott The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Aug 22, 2013 3:36 PM

Jeremy Smith will spend two days with a customer in his family’s plumbing-supply showroom, picking out items for a home, only to be asked if he can match online pricing.

Matching a price is usually not a problem, but he has to charge sales tax of about 8 percent, which can kill the deal because online retailers are not charging tax.

“It can be a $5,000 bathroom remodel, up to $30,000 or $40,000,” said Smith, who works at Central Arizona Supply in Mesa, which is among the company’s 10 stores in the state.

“Any decent-size ticket item, like a $3,000 tub or a $1,000 toilet ... a customer wants to save that 8 percent,” he said. “It’s incredibly frustrating.”

Smith has lobbied members of the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013, which would require sales tax to be charged by online retailers of a certain size. The size is being debated. A version was passed in May by the U.S. Senate, and the bill now is in the House Judiciary Committee.

A study by economists Art Laffer and Donna Arduin found that closing the sales-tax loophole has the potential to lower overall tax rates and create more than 39,000 jobs in Arizona.

Lance Muzslay, co-owner of Sole Sports in Tempe, Scottsdale and Glendale, which specializes in shoes for walking and running, says the same shoes can be found at sporting-goods stores. The difference is that Sole Sports’ staff has the expertise to assess customers’ feet and gait to help them find the right shoe, he said.

“Our service is highly valued when someone doesn’t know what shoe is best for them,” Muzslay said.

But once a customer is fitted with the correct shoe, he or she often will not return because they buy the shoe online and save tax. Muzslay’s business has an online store, but Arizona is losing out on collecting tax from out-of-state online shoppers, he said.

Bill Morrison, owner and manager of Adventure Bicycle in Mesa, a store on the Gilbert town line, has a similar problem. People come in and ride his bicycles and try on his shoes and then buy online.

“It happens all the time,” he said. “It’s hard for us to compete with online sales when they’re not taxed.”

In Chandler, John Wolfe, owner of the downtown gift and souvenir store Sibley’s West, said his business is not greatly affected because he sells items made in Arizona that are not readily available online. But he laments the governmental entities losing out by online buyers not following the law.

Consumers are supposed to include online purchases on their state tax form.

“If you buy something from Walmart online, you’re not at the end of the year going to tally it up,” Wolfe said.

He says that when consumers look at merchandise in brick-and-mortar stores and then buy it online, it is known as “showrooming.” Shipping costs do not deter online buyers and often online retailers are providing free shipping, Wolfe said.

Online shopping adversely affects Southeast Valley municipalities, he said.

“The bricks-and-mortar store in the community doesn’t get the sale. So, if that happens, more and more often you’re going to have a retail area ... deteriorating because people aren’t buying there,” Wolfe said.

Furthermore, he said, government agencies are losing the revenue they could use for operations and services. A previous argument against taxing online sales was that it would be too complicated because each city has a different tax rate, but Wolfe said software now can calculate the tax based on ZIP code.

In Gilbert, Brock Cleaver owns Diecast Cars Now, where he sells collectibles related to racing, including NASCAR items. He sells online.

“I do better online because I can do the no-taxes thing like everybody else when they’re out of state,” he said.

The bill being considered in Congress as it is written would allow businesses selling less than $1 million annually to have a tax exemption, which Cleaver sees as a good thing.

“If it’s a million dollars and over, it will help me fight against my big competition, the giant stores that are corporately owned,” he said.

At the same time, he fears a slippery slope, and expects Congress to gradually lower the revenue cap to where smaller dealers like him would be required to collect tax.

“Arizona sales tax is so high that’s going to price me out again,” he predicted. “I don’t think this legislation is the one that needs to go forward.”

Republican state Rep. J.D. Mesnard, who represents Chandler, Gilbert and Sun Lakes, said the disparity in the way retailers are treated must be addressed, and that if Congress passes the Marketplace Fairness Act, it is important that it not impose additional taxes.

“From a public-policy or a tax-policy perspective, we need to come up with a system that treats everybody fairly,” Mesnard said.

“Talking with my colleagues, we would not be looking to use new revenue from online retailers. We’d probably reduce our sales-tax base or, more likely, reduce our income-tax rates.”

There would not be new taxes coming into the state. Instead, the state would set up a better tax structure, Mesnard said.

“I’m pretty open-minded, but it has to be revenue neutral,” he said. “We are not looking for tax increases but are looking for good tax policy, and that’s the goal in Congress.”

Judge throws out blood tests in Scottsdale DUI cases

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Judge throws out blood tests in Scottsdale DUI cases

By JJ Hensley The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Aug 22, 2013 3:28 PM

Blood-test results will be suppressed in at least 11 felony drunk-driving cases that originated in Scottsdale following a Superior Court Judge’s ruling this week, which could affect hundreds of other cases.

The DUI cases were consolidated and set before Superior Court Judge Jerry Bernstein because they all had one thing in common: a challenge to the validity of the blood-testing equipment in the Scottsdale Police Department’s crime lab.

The decision could affect hundreds of DUI cases in which the suspect’s blood was tested on the malfunctioning machine, and has the potential to impact thousands of other cases that have already been through court in recent years, according to defense attorneys.

And the number of affected cases could grow even higher because the lab’s employees testified as much about scientific processes and procedures in the lab which are designed to address flawed equipment, said Joe St. Louis, an attorney representing one of the 11 defendants.

“It potentially affects all of them. If you’re using the same equipment, doing things the same way and the results aren’t reliable, then why wouldn’t you expect unreliable results?” St. Louis asked. “It takes some courage for a judge to make a decision that’s going to put fresh blood into a DUI case, but at the end of the day, the results weren’t reliable.” [Why on earth should it take courage to for a judge to do the job he is SUPPOSED TO DO??? Probably because the system is corrupt and he is not raising as much revenue as expected???]

A spokesman for County Attorney Bill Montgomery said the agency will appeal the ruling.

Court documents indicate Scottsdale police were aware for years of potential problems with the blood-testing equipment, known as a gas chromatograph. For example, the equipment mislabeled vials with wrong names or numbers, quit running during tests and erased baseline information from measurements during test runs, according to court documents

Crime lab employees insisted throughout 17 days of highly technical testimony that the equipment was fine and that any flawed blood-testing results were caught before they left the lab, ensuring that faulty information was not used in any prosecutions.

But Bernstein found that the testimony of crime-lab employees was misleading, particularly after some of the emails from crime-lab employees were introduced well into the hearings.

The Arizona Republic requested emails about the equipment under the Arizona Public Records law, and defense attorneys filed a similar request after a story was published about the content of the emails, which spoke to the lab’s employees’ shaky confidence in their own equipment despite what they told the court.

Deputy County Attorney Aaron Harder said throughout the hearings that the equipment was in fine condition and that defense attorneys were trying to focus on technical aspects instead of their clients’ guilt or innocence.

But an email that a representative from the machine's manufacturer wrote to a scientist in May 2012 indicates that not everyone agrees with the prosecutor defending the lab's work.

"Thank you very much for sharing your concerns about our HS-GC (headspace gas chromatograph) you have in your lab. Let's work on resolving the issue quickly so you don't have to face defense attorney's challenges in court related to our malfunctioning equipment," the manufacturer's representative wrote.

Bernstein took note of those emails, among others, in the 21-page ruling issued late Wednesday.

“What is so troubling about these exchanges is that (crime laboratory manager Kris) Whitman never revealed them when she was testifying. It only came to light after The Arizona Republic discovered them,” Bernstein wrote in his ruling. [So the job of the lab techs is to raise revenue, not determine guilt or innocence???]

“Given the errors or problems, and the refusal to determine the why or the basis for them, significant questions arise as to the reliability and confidence in this gas chromatography instrument,” he wrote. “Although there are policies and procedures that purport to act as safeguards, it is apparent they haven’t been sufficient.”

The ruling raises that distinct possibility that the suspects in the felony cases before Bernstein could avoid jail. [What's wrong with that??? It sounds like they are escaping from being railroaded by a kangaroo court???]

All 11 of the cases involve serious DUI allegations, according to court documents. At least two suspects submitted themselves to preliminary breath tests, and their blood-alcohol content measured above 0.20 percent, more than twice the legal limit.

At least eight suspects had prior DUI convictions, the documents said. One was supposed to have an ignition-interlock device in his car when he was arrested. Another had her 11-year-old daughter in the car when she was pulled over in late March 2011. Her preliminary breath tests put her blood-alcohol content at more than twice the legal limit.

The NSA is losing the benefit of the doubt

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The NSA is losing the benefit of the doubt

By Ruth Marcus, Published: August 22 E-mail the writer

Footnote 14 should scare every American. Even the parts that aren’t blacked out.

The footnote is contained in the just-declassified 2011 opinion by U.S. District Judge John Bates, then the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

In the ruling, Bates found that the government had been sweeping up e-mails before receiving court approval in 2008 and, even after that, was illegally collecting “tens of thousands of wholly domestic communications.”

That’s not the really scary part. This is: “The court is troubled that the government’s revelations . . . mark the third instance in less than three years in which the government has disclosed a substantial misrepresentation regarding the scope of a major collection program,” Bates wrote in Footnote 14.

He cited a 2009 finding that the court’s approval of the National Security Agency’s telephone records program was premised on “a flawed depiction” of how the NSA uses metadata, a “misperception . . . buttressed by repeated inaccurate statements made in the government’s submissions, and despite a government-devised and Court-mandated oversight regime.

“Contrary to the government’s repeated assurances, NSA had been routinely running queries of the metadata using querying terms that did not meet the required standard for querying. The Court concluded that this requirement had been ‘so frequently and systemically violated that it can fairly be said that this critical element of the overall . . . regime has never functioned effectively.’ ”

Followed by two full paragraphs of redactions. We can only imagine what that episode entailed.

To judge the significance of Bates’s footnote, it helps to know something about the judge. This is no wild-eyed liberal. Bates spent almost two decades in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington. He served as deputy to independent counsel Kenneth Starr during the investigation of President Bill Clinton. He was named to the bench by President George W. Bush.

If Bates is worked up about being misled by the government — and the sober language of that footnote is the judicial version of a severe dressing-down — people should listen.

Security demands secrecy. The Constitution demands that secrecy be coupled with oversight. In theory, that oversight is twofold, from Congress and the judiciary, through the mechanism of the surveillance court.

In practice, oversight necessarily depends on some measure of good will from the overseen. No matter how well-intentioned and diligent the overseers, particularly in an area as technologically murky and politically fraught as surveillance, the intelligence experts tend to hold the cards.

Their deeply ingrained institutional bias is to reveal only what is absolutely necessary, to trust their secrets and secret methods to as few outsiders as possible. When that instinct for secrecy edges into a willingness to mislead, tacitly or explicitly, effective oversight collapses.

We have already seen this phenomenon on display before Congress, in the person of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. In March, Sen. Ron Wyden asked Clapper whether the NSA collects “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.” Clapper’s answer, “No . . . not wittingly.”

This was, as Clapper acknowledged, “clearly erroneous.” His belated apology rings hollow. Clapper was not only forewarned about the question, he refused to correct his misrepresentation for months, until it was proved false.

His subsequent explanations for responding in the “least untruthful manner” are unconvincing and contradictory: He had a different understanding, perhaps “too cute by half,” of “collect” — he thought the Oregon Democrat was asking about the contents of phone records, not simply archiving them. Actually, Clapper wasn’t thinking of telephone records at all; he thought Wyden was referring to the separate program to intercept foreigners’ e-mail.

So when Clapper, in announcing the documents’ release, asserts that they demonstrate “the government’s serious commitment to getting it right,” he hauls along a mountain of baggage.

It is possible to construct a happier narrative. After all, Bates’s rebuke was prompted by the intelligence community’s own disclosures. The government then cleaned up its act, with court-approved procedures to minimize privacy invasions. Congress was informed of the program, the court’s problems with it and the fixes being made. The relevant documents were declassified and released (albeit in the face of a lawsuit). President Obama has proposed additional oversight mechanisms, such as building adversary procedures into the surveillance court.

These are hopeful signs, but they do not erase the ugly history: “repeated inaccurate statements” to the court, “clearly erroneous” congressional testimony. Current assurances, made under the duress of unauthorized disclosure, must be judged in light of past performance. An intelligence community consistently too cute by half ends up harming itself, along with the country it strives to protect.

Read more from Ruth Marcus’s archive, follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her updates on Facebook.

Defendants’ legal rights undermined by budget cuts

On the other hand I suspect this is a just another plea for more money. I suspect if you get your money, it won't be given to the public defenders, but to the cops who will continue to arrest people for victimless drug war crimes and make things worse.

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Defendants’ legal rights undermined by budget cuts

By Eric H. Holder Jr., Published: August 22

Eric H. Holder Jr. is attorney general of the United States.

Fifty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that everyone who is charged with a serious crime has the right to an attorney. In Gideon v. Wainwright, Justice Hugo Black observed for the court that “in our adversary system, any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured of a fair trial unless counsel is provided to him.” As a prosecutor, as a judge and as our nation’s attorney general, I have seen this reality firsthand.

Despite the promise of the court’s ruling in Gideon, however, the U.S. indigent defense systems — which provide representation to those who cannot afford it — are in financial crisis, plagued by crushing caseloads and insufficient resources. And this year’s forced budget reductions, due largely to sequestration, are further undermining this critical work.

In stark contrast to many state defender programs, the federal public defender system has consistently served as a model for efficiency and success. According to court statistics, as many as 90 percent of federal defendants qualify for court-appointed counsel, and the majority of criminal cases prosecuted by the Justice Department involve defendants represented by well-qualified, hardworking attorneys from federal defender offices. Yet draconian cuts have forced layoffs, furloughs (averaging 15 days per staff member) and personnel reductions through attrition. Across the country, these cuts threaten the integrity of our criminal justice system and impede the ability of our dedicated professionals to ensure due process, provide fair outcomes and guarantee the constitutionally protected rights of every criminal defendant.

I join with those judges, public defenders, legal scholars and countless other criminal justice professionals who have urged Congress to restore these resources, to provide needed funding for the federal public defender program and to fulfill the fundamental promise of our criminal justice system.

The Justice Department is strongly committed to supporting indigent defense efforts through an office known as the Access to Justice Initiative, which I launched in 2010, and a range of grant programs. The department took this commitment to a new level on Aug. 14 by filing a statement of interest in the case of Wilbur v. City of Mt. Vernon — asserting that the federal government has a strong interest in ensuring that all jurisdictions are fulfilling their obligations under Gideon and endorsing limits on the caseloads of public defenders so they can provide quality representation to each client.

Unfortunately the federal public defender program is in dire straits. As I write, federal defenders representing the Boston Marathon bombing suspect are facingabout three weeks of unpaid leave. In Ohio, the director of one federal defender office who had served there for nearly two decades has laid himself off rather than terminate several more junior attorneys.

This shameful state of affairs is unworthy of our great nation, its proud history and our finest legal traditions. In purely fiscal terms, the cuts imposed by sequestration defy common sense because they will end up costing taxpayers much more than they save. The right to counsel is guaranteed under the Constitution. On the federal level, this means that every defendant who is unable to afford a lawyer must be represented by either a federal public defender or an appointed attorney from a panel of private lawyers. While federal defender offices are staffed by experienced, dedicated professionals operating in a framework that has proved both effective and efficient, panel attorneys often possess less experience and incur significantly higher fees. An increased reliance on panel attorneys may result in less desirable outcomes as well as significantly higher costs.

Five decades after the Supreme Court affirmed that adequate legal representation is a basic right, sequestration is undermining our ability to realize this fundamental promise. The moral and societal costs of inadequate representation are too great to measure. Only Congress has the ability to restore the funding that federal defenders need to ensure that justice can be done. It is past time for our elected representatives to act.

Cops kick man out of game for letting his son hold his beer!!!

Source

Officers: Man kicked out of NFL game for letting son hold beer was belligerent

By Chris Strauss USA TODAY Sports Fri Aug 23, 2013 7:38 AM

Arizona Cardinals season ticket holder John Coulter claimed earlier this week that “abuse and overzealous pursuit” by undercover state liquor control officers got him kicked out of last Saturday’s game against the Dallas Cowboys at University of Phoenix for allowing his 15-year-old son to hold a beer while he took a picture.

An investigation report released Thursday by the State of Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control claims there’s more to the story than that. The department has undercover officers stationed at the stadium to crackdown on underage drinking. The officer involved in this case claims that he was only following procedure and was attempting to question Coulter’s son when Coulter became belligerent with him and his partner.

“I retrieved my police badge from under my shirt and identified myself as a Police Officer with this department, showing both my badge and ID card. I then turned to and requested to see his ID,” Investigator K. Turner wrote in the report. ”Immediately, Mr. Coulter reacted to our presence with hostility. He stated something to the effect of, “Who the [expletive] are you?” and, “He doesn’t have an ID, he’s only fifteen.” I again informed Mr. Coulter that we were Police Officers. I informed him that I had observed him hand alcohol to and that I needed to see both of their ID’s. Mr. Coulter was very upset and argumentative and was talking in a very loud voice, when he asked, “What right do you have to ask my son for his [expletive] ID!” I again pointed to me badge and stated we were officers. I then informed Mr. Coulter that it was a violation of state law to provide alcohol to a minor and that I needed to talk to his son about the alcohol. I again asked for both of their ID’s. As they retrieved their ID’s, Mr. Coulter looked at my badge and stated something like, “Oh, I see you have your little [expletive] badge!” When I did not respond, Mr. Coulter then stated, “And I see that you’re wearing your cute little Marine Corps shirt, too!”

The report (and a supplemental statement from Turner’s partner) claims that Coulter became more disorderly and refused to let the officers explain the process or ask his son if he had consumed the beer.

“It was at approximately this time that Investigator Webb suggested I use my police radio and call for a uniformed Officer,” Turner wrote. “I attempted one more time to calm Mr. Coulter, to no avail. He began saying things such as, “That’s all we need, is more [expletive] rules!” and, “You just made a big [expletive] mistake buddy! You don’t know who I am!”

The officer claims that Coulter’s increasingly aggressive behavior is what led them to escort him to a nearby exit, at which point Coulter demanded to speak to a security supervisor. The report says that he was instructed to wait at the gate while one was summoned but instead chose to leave the premises with his son.

Coulter was only ejected from last Saturday’s game and has not been banned from future visits to University of Phoenix Stadium.

Source

Who fumbled the beer hand-off at the Arizona Cardinals game vs. Dallas Cowboys?

By Dan Bickley, columnist azcentral sports Fri Aug 23, 2013 7:39 AM

I once handed a beer to my 10-year old son.

“Hold this,” I said. ”And if you take a sip, it’s your #@$. I’ll make you go on Tower of Terror with me.”

He was properly petrified. And I was lucky to be standing in Disney World, and not the University of Phoenix stadium last Saturday afternoon.

So who fumbled the beer hand-off? Everyone.

Start with the officers that removed a father and his 15-year old son from the Cardinals’ preseason game against the Cowboys. If a father figure hands a beer to someone who is obviously underage, common sense should require that (a) officers actually witness the boy taking a sip; or (b) the father was suspiciously carrying another beer of his own before disrupting their afternoon.

Assuming one of your customers is also a derelict parent can be a very slippery slope, and a sure way to ruin everyone’s weekend.

Yet judging by the police report, it’s also clear that the father of the 15-year old boy also fumbled the hand-off, failing to diffuse the issue on every level.

It should have been elementary:

“Hey, officers, I’m sorry. I know this looks bad. But I was just taking a picture. And while a can of Natural Light goes missing from the ‘fridge occasionally, the boy knows better than to drink alcohol in public at age 15.”

Instead, the report states that the father became very combative and foul-mouthed. He belittled and challenged authority, at a time when challenging authority comes with real consequences. [What rubbish. When a moron with a gun and a badge does something stupid he deserves to have his authority challenged!!!]

Overzealous security is a touchy subject for most Americans. Airports are full of ill will and negative energy. Attending sporting events is more complicated than ever. The NFL is implementing strict back-checking measures that will surely aggravate a large number of fans who are standing in queue, in desperate need of a bathroom. The Boston Marathon bombings raised the stakes once again. [And that's the problem. I police state has been created, not to protect us, but to give cops jobs]

Personally, I prefer that security focus on backpacks and not who’s carrying my beer. But I also know that the NFL has a drinking problem. It’s part of the culture, part of the appeal, part of the addiction. Outside of Las Vegas, football stadiums are about the only place where drunk before noon is socially acceptable, maybe even the norm.

Just don’t blame the Cardinals. They are extremely diligent at customer relations, and one of the first franchises to adopt philosophies from the renowned Disney Institute. You might even find this rule in the Disney playbook:

If you must hand a beer to your son, make sure you’re in one of our theme parks, where your intent is deemed pure.

Court forces atheist to participate in religious programs???

Judge: Former Calif. parolee needs compensation

Associated Press Fri Aug 23, 2013 6:59 PM

SAN FRANCISCO — A Northern California former parolee and atheist who went back to prison after refusing to participate in a religiously-tinged inpatient treatment program is entitled to monetary compensation, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

In an opinion for the 9th U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote that a jury must award Barry Hazle Jr. of Redding compensatory damages for the violation of his constitutional rights.

“Now that the Ninth Circuit has ruled, Barry Hazle will finally be able to obtain the vindication to which he’s entitled,” Hazle’s attorney John Heller said in a statement Friday.

A district court ruled in 2010 that Hazle’s First Amendment rights were violated. But a jury tasked with assessing monetary damages awarded Hazle nothing over a question of whether the defendants named in the suit, including state corrections department officials, should be on the hook for the compensation, Heller said.

“The District Court had concluded they were liable for violating his rights,” Heller said. “The question was were they responsible for the damages that occurred.”

The state corrections department referred questions about the case to a federal receiver who controls inmate medical care in California. The receiver’s office did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Hazle had served a year in prison on a drug charge. After being released in 2007, he was ordered to take part in the program, but refused saying he’s an atheist.

He was then arrested and jailed again.

After serving three more months, Hazle sued state corrections department officials.

Heller said the case will now be remanded to district court and new proceedings could begin in the next several months.

He said in addition to damages, the suit seeks to show that the organization the state contracts with to provide such treatment programs shares responsibility for the violations.

Army Maj. Nidal Hasan guilty of murder for Fort Hood shootings

The British called George Washington a terrorist, Americans called him a "Freedom Fighter".

While the American government calls Army Maj. Nidal Hasan a terrorist, I am sure many anti-war Americans, along with many Arabs call Army Maj. Nidal Hasan a "freedom fighter".

While Army Maj. Nidal Hasan certainly is guilty of murdering 13 American soldiers, you have to remember that both George W. Bush and Barack Obama are guilty of murdering thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Also both George W. Bush and Barack Obama are guilty of using drones to intentionally murder hundreds of suspected Arab military leaders along with many innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Source

Soldier guilty of murder for Fort Hood shootings

Associated Press Fri Aug 23, 2013 12:02 PM

FORT HOOD, Texas — Army Maj. Nidal Hasan was convicted Friday in the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, a shocking assault against American troops at home by one of their own who said he opened fire on fellow soldiers to protect Muslim insurgents abroad.

The Army psychiatrist acknowledged carrying out the attack in a crowded waiting room where unarmed troops were making final preparations to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq. Thirteen people were killed and more than 30 wounded.

Because Hasan never denied his actions, the court-martial was always less about a conviction than it was about ensuring he received the death penalty. From the beginning of the case, the federal government has sought to execute Hasan, believing that any sentence short of a lethal injection would deprive the military and the families of the dead of the justice they have sought for nearly four years.

A jury of 13 high-ranking military officers reached a unanimous guilty verdict on all charges — 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder — in about seven hours. Hasan had no visible reaction as the verdict was read. After the jury and Hasan left the courtroom, some victims who survived the shooting and family members began to cry.

In the next phase of the trial that will begin Monday, they must all agree to give Hasan the death penalty before he can be sent to the military’s death row, which has just five other prisoners. If they do not agree, the 42-year-old could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Hasan, a Virginia-born Muslim, said the attack was a jihad against U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He bristled when the trial judge, Col. Tara Osborn, suggested the shooting rampage could have been avoided were it not for a spontaneous flash of anger.

“It wasn’t done under the heat of sudden passion,” Hasan said before jurors began deliberating. “There was adequate provocation — that these were deploying soldiers that were going to engage in an illegal war.”

All but one of the dead were soldiers, including a pregnant private who curled on the floor and pleaded for her baby’s life.

The sentencing phase is expected to include more testimony from survivors of the attack inside an Army medical center where soldiers were waiting in long lines to receive immunizations and medical clearance for deployment.

About 50 soldiers and civilians testified of hearing someone scream “Allahu akbar!” — Arabic for “God is great!” — and seeing a man in Army camouflage open fire. Many identified Hasan as the shooter and recalled his handgun’s red and green laser sights piercing a room made dark with gun smoke.

Hasan, who acted as his own attorney, began the trial by telling jurors he was the gunman. But he said little else over the next three weeks, which convinced his court-appointed standby lawyers that Hasan’s only goal was to get a death sentence.

As the trial progressed, those suspicions grew. The military called nearly 90 witnesses, but Hasan rested his case without calling a single person to testify in his defense and made no closing argument. Yet he leaked documents during the trial to journalists that revealed him telling military mental health workers that he could “still be a martyr” if executed.

Death sentences are rare in the military and trigger automatic appeals that take decades play out. Among the final barriers to execution is authorization from the president. No American soldier has been executed since 1961.

Hasan spent weeks planning the Nov. 5, 2009, attack. His preparation included buying the handgun and videotaping a sales clerk showing him how to change the magazine.

He later plunked down $10 at a gun range outside Austin and asked for pointers on how to reload with speed and precision. An instructor said he told Hasan to practice while watching TV or sitting on his couch with the lights off.

When the time came, Hasan stuffed paper towels in the pockets of his cargo pants to muffle the rattling of extra ammo and avoid arousing suspicion. Soldiers testified that Hasan’s rapid reloading made it all but impossible to stop the shooting. Investigators recovered 146 shell casings inside the medical building and dozens more outside, where Hasan shot at the backs of soldiers fleeing toward the parking lot.

The first person to charge Hasan, a civilian doctor, was shot dead while wielding a chair. Another soldier who ran at him with a table was stopped upon being shot in the hand.

Chief Warrant Officer Christopher Royal saw an opening after hearing the distinct clicking of the gun’s chamber emptying. But he slipped on a puddle of blood while starting a sprint toward Hasan. He was shot in the back.

Tight security blanketed the trial. The courthouse was made into a fortress insulated by a 20-foot cushion of blast-absorbing blockades, plus an outer perimeter of shipping containers stacked three high. A helicopter ferried Hasan back and forth each day. The small courtroom was guarded by soldiers carrying high-powered rifles.

In court, Hasan never played the role of an angry extremist. He didn’t get agitated or raise his voice. He addressed Osborn as “ma’am” and occasionally whispered “thank you” when prosecutors, in accordance with the rules of admitting evidence, handed Hasan red pill bottles that rattled with bullet fragments removed from those who were shot.

His muted presence was a contrast to the spectacles staged by other unapologetic jihadists in U.S. courts. Terrorist conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui disrupted his 2006 sentencing for the Sept. 11 attacks multiple times with outbursts, was ejected several times and once proclaimed, “I am al-Qaida!”

Prosecutors never charged Hasan as a terrorist — an omission that still galls family members of the slain and survivors, some of whom have sued the U.S. government over missing the warning signs of Hasan’s views before the attack.

Tempe Police begin back-to-school operation

Tempe cops shake down ASU students for victimless crimes?

Tempe Police begin back-to-school operation

By Mark Remillard

August 21, 2013 at 8:30 pm

Police officers in Tempe are gearing up for the new school year.

Officers began increasing patrols during the first week of August looking for traffic violations around elementary, middle and high schools. [Looks like the cops are using the schools as an excuse to arrest people for a bunch of petty, victimless crimes, rather then to hunt down real criminals. ]

Now the focus will shift slightly to coincide with the start of the fall semester at ASU.

Operation Safe and Sober will have officers saturating Tempe on the lookout for out-of-control parties, people driving under the influence and minors consuming alcohol [also called raising revenue] and even checking in with registered sex offenders to make sure their information is up-to-date [to justify their jobs], Tempe Police Sgt. Mike Pooley said.

Pooley said the ramp-up in police presence is part of the department’s attempt to send a strong message to new students.

“For the first couple months of the school year, it seems like our calls for service go up,” he said. “So we feel this operation, Safe and Sober, is going to be able to go out … and we’re going to really try and attack these trends.”

The operation will involve some officers working during days off [translation - cops love OVERTIME pay], Pooley said, but it will also include help from agencies across the Valley thanks to a grant from the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety [a government welfare program for cops].

“Our night motors are going to be out here with a DUI task force with officers from all over the local agencies,” Pooley said. “We got people from MCSO, Scottsdale PD, Gilbert PD, Mesa PD all coming out here to help with DUI enforcement.” [Which is how cops and local city government spell REVENUE - each DUI arrest brings in fines of at least $2,000 and fines and surcharges can reach over $10,000 - and that means lots of OVERTIME pay for the cops who which is making sure the cops get a cut of the loot]

The ASU Police Department will also assist with this enforcement, Assistant Police Chief Jim Hardina said.

“We have officers that participate in the party patrols,” he said. “So we’ll also have four officers on the weekend riding with Tempe officers working the parties and those kinds of things around campus.”

Hardina said his officers will focus on traffic violations, aimed mostly at pedestrians and bicyclists.

“Typically, we have every year someone on a bike hit by a car or a pedestrian hit by a car, and it’s almost always the pedestrian’s or the bicyclist’s fault, and it’s typically a right-of-way violation,” Hardina said. [Yea, while every year in the same span of time there are hundreds of automobile accidents]

Hardina said officers will use the first week for warnings and passing out informational flyers, but then officers will begin handing out citations.

For alcohol, though, strict enforcement begins right away. [translation - we love the money we raise shaking down students for the victimless crime of drinking]

“We enforce immediately,” Hardina said. “We have our youth alcohol detail (that) will be out the first couple weekends of school and plain-clothes officers in and around the resident halls.” [don't these pigs have any real criminals to hunt down????]

Pooley said Safe and Sober includes education in addition to party patrols, DUI enforcement and the strict focus on alcohol laws. [but the cops could care less about the safe part, DUI enforcement is all about cold hard $cash$!!!! - As I said before each DUI bust is a minimum of $2,000 in fines.]

The Tempe Police Department’s Downtown Unit will be heading to local bars to educate workers on how to spot fake identification and inform them about alcohol laws, Pooley said.

“Every year, it seems like they get new staff at these bars so our bike squad goes out, they educate them and make sure they understand the current laws,” Pooley said. “(We want) to build that relationship, so they don’t feel they’re doing something bad by calling the police.” [Cops love to brainwash us to think that it's OK to arrest people for victimless crimes that hurt no one - after all it creates jobs for cops! Safe jobs for cops. It's dangerous hunting down real criminals like armed robbers]

Part of the education process is also about teaching the students about alcohol, laws and safety. [Translation - we could care less about the safety part, we LOVE the cash from those $2,000 DUI fines]

Detective Jeff Lane with the Tempe Police Department’s Crime Prevention Unit said he will be out with officers over the next two weeks meeting with fraternities and sororities to educate them.

“We’re going to actually talk to all the fraternities (and sororities) in small groups and then in a larger group to talk about working with them (and) not against them,” Lane said. “How they can call us ahead of time, getting the proper permits if they’re going to have a party and doing the right thing.”

Detective Dan Brown, also with the Crime Prevention Unit, spent Saturday at ASU’s Wells Fargo Arena meeting with students and parents during move-in to answer questions and pass out information on everything from bike safety and registration to avoiding sexual assault.

“This is our biggest program of the year, Safe and Sober,” he said. “We’re just one part of it doing the booth today. This is a great opportunity to speak with the parents.”

Tempe Police is not the only agency readying itself for the new school year and the influx of new students.

In a statement, Phoenix Police Lt. Jeff Lazell said his Downtown Operation Unit, which oversees the Downtown campus, will provide public safety talks, education on traffic and jaywalking enforcement and some drug recognition training for ASU staff. [jaywalking enforcement????? Don't these pigs have any REAL criminals to hunt down????]

Each campus has its own issues, so campus police will try to tailor enforcement to each campus’s individual needs, Hardina said. [Wow that sounds really professional!!! But if you ask the cops they are mostly interested in those $2,000 fines each DUI ticket bring in]

Operation Safe and Sober went into full swing on Aug. 15 and will run through the end of the month.

Reach the reporter at mark.remillard@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @markjremillard

Prosecutor won't drop questionable confession

Currently there are two trials going on because the Maricopa County Attorney's office didn't give the people a fair trial in the first place.

The first trial is for Johnathan Doody who is accused of the Buddhist Temple murders which happened 20 years ago in the Phoenix area. The first time around the cops violated his 5th Amendment rights and forced a confession out of him. (see this link)

The second trial is that of Debra Milke. She is also getting a second trial because again the cops seem to have framed her the first time around and made up an imaginary confession from her. Her case is also 20 years old.

If I had my way I would throw out both cases because the cops framed both people and don't deserve a second chance to commit perjury and frame them both again.

Personally I suspect neither of these trials has anything to do with getting justice. I suspect they are both aimed at proving the county attorney is "tough on crime" so he can get reelected.

Source

Prosecutor in Debra Milke case won't drop questionable confession

By Michael Kiefer The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Aug 23, 2013 10:35 PM

Debra Milke’s 1990 murder conviction and death sentence were thrown out by a federal court of appeals because of a questionable confession purportedly obtained by a Phoenix police detective with a spotty record.

But a Maricopa County prosecutor made it clear in a Superior Court hearing Friday that he intends to debate the higher-court ruling and keep the tainted confession in evidence — despite the misgivings of the Superior Court judge overseeing Milke’s retrial in the slaying of her 4-year-old son.

The clock is ticking.

The confession was supposed to be argued next Friday; Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Rosa Mroz doubted it will get done by then, especially given that Deputy County Attorney Vince Imbordino asked for more time to prepare his arguments on the confession.

According to an order by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Milke’s retrial is supposed to start by Oct.7 or she must be released from custody. The trial will go forward.

Milke's conviction hinged on a detective named Armando Saldate, who claimed that Milke confessed the murder to him, though it was not recorded and there were no witnesses. Milke denies that she confessed.

In May, the 9th Circuit threw out her conviction and death sentence because her defense in the original trial had been denied the chance to obtain Saldate’s sullied personnel record and question him about it.

Milke’s attorneys want the confession excluded altogether.

But Imbordino told Mroz, “There are things in the 9th Circuit ruling that are false.”

Mroz has said that the opinion will be the law of the case.

“You don’t have to accept a 9th Circuit ruling if they are wrong,” Imbordino said.

There is to be a separate hearing on Friday dealing with whether Milke can be released on bond.

The trial is currently scheduled to begin Sept.30.

Friday’s hearing mostly centered on Milke’s defense attorneys’ contention that the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office should be disqualified from retrying Milke because of its actions during the 1990 trial, when it blocked Milke’s attorneys from accessing Saldate’s personnel record, which mentions eight cases in which he was caught lying or violating suspects’ rights.

Mroz took the matter under advisement and said she would issue a decision next week.

Milke, 49, is charged with first-degree murder in the 1989 death of her son, Christopher; she is accused of having arranged the killing. She spent 22 years on death row before the 9th Circuit decision in May.

Two men are still on death row because of the crime.

James Styers, who was Milke's roommate, is believed to have been the triggerman who shot the boy and left his body in a desert wash in December 1989. The boy thought he was going to see Santa Claus.

The third person convicted in the murder, Roger Scott, confessed that he was with Styers when Christopher was killed, and Scott led police to the boy’s body. Scott also implicated Milke, but he refused to testify at her trial.

The prosecutor from Milke’s first trial and the elected county attorney at the time of her conviction have both retired. But in their briefs, Milke’s attorneys claimed that the new prosecutor and his supervisors worked closely with them and could therefore be unjustly biased against Milke. They asked that the entire office be disqualified, which would require that the case be tried by attorneys from another county or by the state.

At the end of Friday’s hearing, Milke’s ex-husband, who changed his first name from Mark to Arizona, tried to give a packet of papers to Mroz, saying he has been harassed by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, which prosecuted the Milke case through years of appeals. Arizona Milke told Mroz that the Attorney General’s Office is responsible for his own father’s death because of the alleged harassment. And he expressed his own displeasure with the county attorney, though he has steadfastly lobbied for the punishment of his ex-wife for their son’s death.

Mroz told him it wasn’t the proper venue.

Snowden suspected of covering electronic tracks

Think of it as those cops who are wearing video cameras which will supposedly prevent the cop from beating up people. Ain't much you can do when the cop erases the videos of his own crimes. The same applies to Snowden here.

Of course Snowden isn't a crooked cop violating people rights. Snowden is a freedom fighter who has exposed government corruption.

Source

Snowden suspected of covering electronic tracks

Associated Press Sat Aug 24, 2013 12:29 AM

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government’s efforts to determine which highly classified materials leaker Edward Snowden took from the National Security Agency have been frustrated by Snowden’s sophisticated efforts to cover his digital trail by deleting or bypassing electronic logs, government officials told The Associated Press. Such logs would have showed what information Snowden viewed or downloaded.

The government’s forensic investigation is wrestling with Snowden’s apparent ability to defeat safeguards established to monitor and deter people looking at information without proper permission, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the sensitive developments publicly.

The disclosure undermines the Obama administration’s assurances to Congress and the public that the NSA surveillance programs can’t be abused because its spying systems are so aggressively monitored and audited for oversight purposes: If Snowden could defeat the NSA’s own tripwires and internal burglar alarms, how many other employees or contractors could do the same?

In July, nearly two months after Snowden’s earliest disclosures, NSA Director Keith Alexander declined to say whether he had a good idea of what Snowden had downloaded or how many NSA files Snowden had taken with him, noting an ongoing criminal investigation.

NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines told the AP that Alexander “had a sense of what documents and information had been taken,” but “he did not say the comprehensive investigation had been completed.” Vines would not say whether Snowden had found a way to view and download the documents he took, without the NSA knowing.

In defending the NSA surveillance programs that Snowden revealed, Deputy Attorney General James Cole told Congress last month that the administration effectively monitors the activities of employees using them.

“This program goes under careful audit,” Cole said. “Everything that is done under it is documented and reviewed before the decision is made and reviewed again after these decisions are made to make sure that nobody has done the things that you’re concerned about happening.”

The disclosure of Snowden’s hacking prowess inside the NSA also could dramatically increase the perceived value of his knowledge to foreign governments, which would presumably be eager to learn any counter-detection techniques that could be exploited against U.S. government networks.

It also helps explain the recent seizure in Britain of digital files belonging to David Miranda — the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald — in an effort to help quantify Snowden’s leak of classified material to the Guardian newspaper. Authorities there stopped Miranda last weekend as he changed planes at Heathrow Airport while returning home to Brazil from Germany, where Miranda had met with Laura Poitras, a U.S. filmmaker who has worked with Greenwald on the NSA story.

Snowden, a former U.S. intelligence contractor, was employed by Booz Allen Hamilton in Hawaii before leaking classified documents to the Guardian and The Washington Post. As a system administrator, Snowden had the ability to move around data and had access to thumb drives that would have allowed him to transfer information to computers outside the NSA’s secure system, Alexander has said.

In his job, Snowden purloined many files, including ones that detailed the U.S. government’s programs to collect the metadata of phone calls of U.S. citizens and copy Internet traffic as it enters and leaves the U.S., then routes it to the NSA for analysis.

Officials have said Snowden had access to many documents but didn’t know necessarily how the programs functioned. He dipped into compartmentalized files as systems administrator and took what he wanted. He managed to do so for months without getting caught. In May, he flew to Hong Kong and eventually made his way to Russia, where that government has granted him asylum.

NBC News reported Thursday that the NSA was “overwhelmed” in trying to figure what Snowden had stolen and didn’t know everything he had downloaded.

Insider threats have troubled the administration and Congress, particularly in the wake of Bradley Manning, a young soldier who decided to leak hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents in late 2009 and early 2010.

Congress had wanted to address the insider threat problem in the 2010 Intelligence Authorization Act, but the White House asked for the language to be removed because of concerns about successfully meeting a deadline. In the 2013 version, Congress included language urging the creation of an automated, insider-threat detection program.

Feds seize office building because it was rented to a pot dispensary???

In Anaheim, the Feds are trying to seize a $1.5 million two-story commercial building because the guy rented one of his 12 office spaces to medical marijuana dispensary.

Source

In marijuana policy, the confusing smoke signals continue to burn

By Steve Lopez

August 24, 2013, 9:00 a.m.

Marijuana policy, like immigration policy, is something the country just can't seem to get right.

For the latest evidence of how confusing pot laws can be, just take a look at Anaheim, where a property owner is fighting a federal government attempt to seize his two-story commercial building, which is worth about $1.5 million.

Tony Jalali's crime?

On two occasions he rented one of his 12 office spaces to medical marijuana dispensaries, thinking such operations were perfectly legal in California.

But the feds see things differently. After an undercover Anaheim police officer used a doctor's recommendation card to purchase $37 worth of marijuana from the tenant, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration swooped in, and Jalali was notified last year that the federal government had initiated proceedings to seize the entire building in which the sale had taken place.

It's not hard to understand why Jalali was confused by mixed signals on marijuana policy, or why he was unaware of an Anaheim ordinance prohibiting dispensaries in the city. For one thing, there were other dispensaries in town when he rented space to an operator. And at its convention center, Anaheim hosts an annual event billed as the "the world's biggest marijuana festival."

"I saw banners on Artesia Boulevard," said Jalali. "Kush Expo. City of Anaheim."

That's right. Anaheim is home to a gigantic annual pot emporium, with more smoke in the air than you get from the average California wildfire.

Last month's extravaganza featured a "Hot Kush Girl Contest" and awards for the "best strains" in Southern California. Festival attendees were informed they couldn't sample the goods without marijuana recommendations from doctors, but no worries.

"Doctors will be on site!"

After looking at photos of the Kush Expo, I'm guessing that nearby Disneyland is only the second-happiest place on earth. And I'm wondering why the feds didn't just seize the convention center.

Adding to Jalali's confusion is the fact that California voters approved medical cannabis in 1996. Even the U.S. attorney's office in recent years has sent confusing signals as to where it stands.

"I had no idea I was doing anything wrong," said Jalali, who kicked out his pot tenant as soon as he got the seizure notice last year. But that wasn't enough to call off the dogs, and Jalali is still fighting to save his property in federal court, with the next hearing scheduled for Monday.

"I have property rights in this country," said Jalali, a computer engineer married to a dentist, with two kids in college. "I pay my taxes. I obey the law. I have a spotless record."

Jalali said he moved to the U.S. from Iran in 1978 to enjoy the benefits of country where rule of law prevails. He never dreamed the government could take his property without even accusing him of a crime. The city has claimed it sent two notices about problems with a dispensary to Jalali's home in Irvine, according to a Jalali attorney, but he denies receiving anything. As for the U.S. attorney's office, which initiated the seizure, it has admitted in court that it sent no warning to Jalali before moving to snatch property he bought in 2003 as a nest egg investment.

Not that it's any solace, but Jalali has lots of company. One of his attorneys, Matthew Pappas, represents four other Southern California clients with similar seizures. Another of Jalali's attorneys, Larry Salzman of the Institute for Justice, said the Los Angeles branch of the U.S. attorney's office has filed 30 civil forfeiture cases against Southern California landlords with marijuana dispensaries since 2011, and sent "threatening letters" to an additional 500 landlords.

This is happening in other states as well.

"But California is really ground zero for the use of forfeiture in states that have decriminalized marijuana," said Salzman, who added that state law prohibits forfeiture of property unless the owner is convicted of a crime.

Salzman suggested a motive other than cracking down on drug use. He said that under what's called "equitable sharing," federal and local agencies are sharing the proceeds from confiscating property.

"If they take Tony's building," said Salzman, "the money is split between the Drug Enforcement Administration and the city of Anaheim. That financial incentive has driven a literal explosion in civil forfeiture activity…."

A spokesman for the Anaheim city attorney told me there'd be no comment on the Jalali case while it's being litigated.

Thom Mrozek, a U.S. attorney spokesman, said the sale of marijuana is against federal law and the "vast majority" of California's medical dispensaries do not comply with state law, either because they are for-profit operations or because they do not serve as primary caregivers. He said most of the 30 cases have not resulted in seizures, but that landlords in 11 cases have forked over a total of $532,000 to settle. And he added that his office is responding to an explosion of dispensaries that led to lots of problems for cities and for neighbors of the pot shops.

No doubt, many shops used the medical cover to sell pot for recreational use. But why not stop with the mixed signals, end the winless and costly war on drugs, and legalize, regulate and tax marijuana, which is nowhere near as big a social or medical problem as perfectly legal alcohol?

And if we're not yet ready for that, can't the feds simply shut an "illegal" pot dispensary rather than steal an entire building from a law-abiding landlord?

steve.lopez@latimes.com

In Paper War, Flood of Liens Is the Weapon

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In Paper War, Flood of Liens Is the Weapon

Ben Garvin for The New York Times

Published: August 23, 2013 231 Comments

MINNEAPOLIS — One of the first inklings Sheriff Richard Stanek had that something was wrong came with a call from the mortgage company handling his refinancing.

“It must be a mistake,” he said, when the loan officer told him that someone had placed liens totaling more than $25 million on his house and on other properties he owned.

But as Sheriff Stanek soon learned, the liens, legal claims on property to secure the payment of a debt, were just the earliest salvos in a war of paper, waged by a couple who had lost their home to foreclosure in 2009 — a tactic that, with the spread of an anti-government ideology known as the “sovereign citizen” movement, is being employed more frequently as a way to retaliate against perceived injustices.

Over the next three years, the couple, Thomas and Lisa Eilertson, filed more than $250 billion in liens, demands for compensatory damages and other claims against more than a dozen people, including the sheriff, county attorneys, the Hennepin County registrar of titles and other court officials.

“It affects your credit rating, it affected my wife, it affected my children,” Sheriff Stanek said of the liens. “We spent countless hours trying to undo it.”

Cases involving sovereign citizens are surfacing increasingly here in Minnesota and in other states, posing a challenge to law enforcement officers and court officials, who often become aware of the movement — a loose network of groups and individuals who do not recognize the authority of federal, state or municipal government — only when they become targets. Although the filing of liens for outrageous sums or other seemingly frivolous claims might appear laughable, dealing with them can be nightmarish, so much so that the F.B.I. has labeled the strategy “paper terrorism.” A lien can be filed by anyone under the Uniform Commercial Code.

Occasionally, people who identify with the movement have erupted into violence. In Las Vegas this week, the police said that an undercover sting operation stopped a plot to torture and kill police officers in order to bring attention to the movement. Two people were arrested. In 2010, two police officers in Arkansas were killed while conducting a traffic stop with a father and son involved in the movement.

Mostly, though, sovereign citizens choose paper as their weapon. In Gadsden, Ala., three people were arrested in July for filing liens against victims including the local district attorney and Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew. And in Illinois this month, a woman who, like most sovereign citizens, chose to represent herself in court, confounded a federal judge by asking him to rule on a flurry of unintelligible motions.

“I hesitate to rank your statements in order of just how bizarre they are,” the judge told the woman, who was facing charges of filing billions of dollars in false liens.

“The convergence of the evidence strongly suggests a movement that is flourishing,” said Mark Pitcavage, the director of investigative research for the Anti-Defamation League. “It is present in every single state in the country.”

The sovereign citizen movement traces its roots to white extremist groups like the Posse Comitatus of the 1970s, and the militia movement. Terry L. Nichols, the Oklahoma City bombing conspirator, counted himself a sovereign citizen. But in recent years it has drawn from a much wider demographic, including blacks, members of Moorish sects and young Occupy protesters, said Detective Moe Greenberg of the Baltimore County Police Department, who has written about the movement.

The ideology seems to attract con artists, the financially desperate and people who are fed up with bureaucracy, Mr. Pitcavage said, adding, “But we’ve seen airline pilots, we’ve seen federal law enforcement officers, we’ve seen city councilmen and millionaires get involved with this movement.”

Sovereign citizens believe that in the 1800s, the federal government was gradually subverted and replaced by an illegitimate government. They create their own driver’s licenses and include their thumbprints on documents to distinguish their flesh and blood person from a “straw man” persona that they say has been created by the false government. When writing their names, they often add punctuation marks like colons or hyphens.

Adherents to the movement have been involved in a host of debt evasion schemes and mortgage and tax frauds. Two were convicted in Cleveland recently for collecting $8 million in fraudulent tax refunds from the I.R.S. And in March, Tim Turner, the leader of one large group, the Republic for the united States of America, was sentenced in Alabama to 18 years in federal prison. (His group does not capitalize the first letter in united.)

Sovereign citizens who file creditor claims are helped by the fact that in most states, the secretary of state must accept any lien that is filed without judging its validity.

The National Association of Secretaries of State released a report in April on sovereign citizens, urging state officials to find ways to expedite the removal of liens and increase penalties for fraudulent filings. More than a dozen states have enacted laws giving state filing offices more discretion in accepting liens, and an increasing number of states have passed or are considering legislation to toughen the penalties for bogus filings.

The Eilertsons, who were charged with 47 counts of fraudulent filing and sentenced in June to 23 months in prison, were prosecuted under a Minnesota law that makes it a felony to file fraudulent documents to retaliate against officials. John Ristad, an assistant Ramsey County attorney who handled the case, said he believed the Eilertsons were the first offenders to be prosecuted under the law. “It got me angry,” he said, “because at the end of the day, these two are bullies who think they can get their way by filing paper.”

The liens were filed against houses, vehicles and even mineral rights. In an affidavit, the Hennepin County examiner of titles said that in a conversation with the Eilertsons about their foreclosure, one of them told her, “We’re gonna have to lien ya.” The examiner later found that a lien for more than $5.1 million had been placed on her property.

If the purpose was to instill trepidation, it worked. Several county and state officials said in interviews that they worried that they might once again find themselves in the crosshairs. One state employee said it was scarier to engage with offenders who used sovereign citizen tactics than with murderers, given the prospect of facing lawsuits or fouled credit ratings.

Like many who identify with the ideology, the Eilertsons learned the techniques of document filing online from one of many sovereign citizen “gurus” who offer instruction or seminars around the country.

In hours of recorded conversation found by the authorities on their computer, the Eilertsons consulted with a man identified on the recordings as Paul Kappel, learning what he called “death by a thousand paper cuts.”

Mr. Eilertson, interviewed at the state prison in Bayport, Minn., denied being anti-government or belonging to any movement. But he was familiar with the names of some figures associated with sovereign citizen teachings, including an activist named David Wynn Miller, who Mr. Eilertson said was “ahead of his time.” (Mr. Miller writes his name as David-Wynn: Miller.)

Mr. Eilertson, who had no previous criminal record, said his actions were an effort to fight back against corrupt banks that had handed off the couple’s mortgage time after time and whose top executives never faced consequences for their actions.

“It seemed like we were being attacked every day,” he said. “We needed some way to stop the foreclosure.

“We tried to do our part with as much information as we had available,” he said, though he conceded that “it kind of got out of control eventually.”

NSA Surveillance - TSA goons destroying America

A 40 percent tax on charity????

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Donations to hotshot families could take till 2014

By Robert Anglen The Republic|azcentral.com Fri Aug 23, 2013 11:31 PM

Tax concerns could force the families of the 19 hotshots killed in the Yarnell Hill Fire to wait until next year to receive their share of $4.7 million in donations collected in the wake of the tragedy.

Officials with two firefighters associations in Phoenix and Prescott, which have collected more in donations than any other groups, said Friday that they are worried the families could receive the cash only to be hit with a giant tax bill.

They said their concerns were magnified this month when the federal government denied major-disaster status for the region. The absence of the disaster designation, they said, could leave victims vulnerable to federal and state taxes exceeding 40 percent combined.

The tax implications are not clear-cut, even among financial experts. Some tax advisers and charity analysts called the delay unnecessary, arguing that money received by victims and surviving families should be viewed as tax-exempt gifts.

Others urged prudence, saying there is a real threat of taxation.

While surviving family members wait to receive donations from the two firefighters associations, the 100 Club of Arizona is disbursing money on an as-needed basis.

The 100 Club is a non-profit that supports families of firefighters, police officers and paramedics injured or killed in the line of duty. It has raised $3 million, of which $1.3 million already has been given to survivors for household expenses, car-loan payments, counseling, medical benefits and other costs.

Officials with the 100 Club, the United Phoenix Fire Fighters Association and Prescott Firefighter’s Charities said they remain committed to making sure the families get every penny that has been raised.

At a news conference Friday in front of the Yavapai County Courthouse, representatives of the three charities outlined publicly for the first time a plan for safeguarding the donations and making sure the money is used for its intended purpose.

The picture that is emerging indicates each of the 19 families will not receive the same amount from the donations.

Prescott and Phoenix firefighters’ representatives said they hope the distribution ultimately will be equal. But the 100 Club officials said need trumps equal division.

“Individual families will be treated fairly,” 100 Club Executive Director Sharon Knutson-Felix said. “But if there are 10 individuals in a family, they may not be treated the same as if there were two in a family.”

Some family members of the fallen hotshots attending the news conference supported the charitable efforts, saying they were not concerned with how the donations were being distributed.

“All of our needs are different,” said Amanda Marsh, widow of Eric Marsh, a Granite Mountain Hotshots superintendent. She said that as a widow without children, she is in different circumstances than a widow with several children.

The 19 firefighters, who were employed by Prescott, died June 30 when flames overran their position near Yarnell. A 20th member of the crew serving as a spotter was in another location and survived.

The Prescott and Phoenix firefighters associations announced the formation of a five-member board to oversee the $4.7 million relief fund, called the Granite Mountain Distribution Advisory Committee.

The board is made up of firefighter-union members in Prescott and Phoenix. Retired Yavapai County Superior Court Judge James Hancock has agreed to arbitrate disputes arising from distribution of the money, officials said. A certified public accountant and a lawyer, both from Prescott, are serving as volunteer advisers to the board.

Phoenix Firefighter Russ Kirk, a committee member, said he does not expect that the money will be distributed this year.

If the board waits, it will delay any potential tax burdens for more than a year because taxes for 2014 are not due to be filed until April 2015. Kirk said waiting gives the board a chance to find a solution that will not require the families to pay any taxes on the donations.

“We will possibly disburse the money in December, but I think it could go into 2014,” Kirk said.

Worrisome precedents

Recent tragedies that have spurred an outpouring of support for individuals, including a deadly fire in California and the Virginia Tech massacre, have led to threats of steep taxes for recipients of donations.

Organizations managing the donations also have risked losing their non-profit status for violating rules that prohibit raising money for individuals.

Matt Hardsworth, a Prescott-based CPA and committee adviser, said Friday that he is concerned that special state and federal legislation may be needed to obtain tax-exempt status for families of the 19 firefighters.

He cited a 2006 case involving the deaths of five firefighters in the Esperanza Fire near Palm Springs, Calif. In the aftermath, he said, the Internal Revenue Service determined that the firefighters’ survivors did not meet the definition of a “charitable class.”

In essence, the survivors were too small a group and did not qualify for charitable aid, he said.

More than $1.3 million was raised, primarily through the United Way, for surviving family members. But it took federal and state legislation to ensure the funds could be distributed without taxation. The legislation also protected the Esperanza donors from losing their tax-exempt status.

In general, Hardsworth said, charities making donations must follow a needs-based assessment to determine whether recipients qualify to receive funds. If a non-profit donates to an individual who doesn’t meet the criteria, then its non-profit status could be revoked.

Hardsworth said special legislation was also needed to create tax-donation protection for survivors of those killed, as well as those injured, in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. A gunman shot and killed 32 people and wounded 17 others.

“This is an area of concern,” Hardsworth said. “It is one of those questions that need to be answered.”

He said he recently circulated a memo among tax experts asking for opinions on this highly specialized question of disaster-relief donations.

“I’d be delighted to hear any opposing views,” he said.

Delay in distribution

The tax issue for the donations touches on a nebulous section of the Internal Revenue Code — one on which experts seem to disagree.

Mark Luscombe, principal federal-tax analyst at researcher CCHCQ in Chicago, said he believes the charities’ decision to delay distributions probably was warranted.

A family’s needs can be liberally interpreted and could include long-term projections, he said, but he cautioned that a charity might jeopardize its tax-exempt status with the IRS by donating money beyond actual needs of victims and their families.

But Washington, D.C., attorney Ken Feinberg, who has run some of the nation’s biggest charity funds tied to natural disasters and episodes of violence, expressed surprise that taxes are being brought up in the aftermath of the Yarnell Hill tragedy.

“In the similar funds that I have designed and administered ... Boston Marathon, Newtown shootings, Virginia Tech shootings, etc., all compensation was tax-free. I would be surprised if the Arizona compensation was otherwise,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Arizona Republic.

“We have received formal rulings from the IRS as recently as two months ago in Boston confirming the fact that the compensation awarded to the families of lost loved ones is considered a gift and is tax-exempt. Why would it be any different in Arizona?”

The IRS declined a request to comment directly. An IRS spokeswoman responded that the agency can’t discuss situations specific to a particular taxpayer or tax-exempt organization and suggested contacting certified public accountants or tax attorneys.

She also cited “IRS Publication 3833,” which deals with relief efforts tied to disasters. The publication indicates that payments received by victims and beneficiaries generally aren’t taxable.

“Payments that individuals receive under a charitable organization’s program as a result of a disaster or emergency hardship are considered to be gifts and are excluded from (the) gross income of recipients,” the pamphlet reads in one section.

The publication also cites the federal gift-tax rule, which makes clear that people who receive gift money directly from other individuals don’t pay taxes on it.

Individuals can make tax-free gifts provided they give less than $14,000 to any other person in a year. Gifts above that level could subject donors (or more accurately, their estates) to taxation, although recipients wouldn’t be taxed.

Person-to-person gifts don’t qualify for an income-tax deduction. Donations to charitable groups qualify if the person donating itemizes deductions on tax returns.

Next steps

Alex Vakula, a Prescott lawyer and committee adviser, said he has talked with Feinberg, who may visit Prescott to lend advice on distributing donations.

He said Feinberg also recommended creating a timeline that includes taking public input on the donations. Vakula said the board hopes to hold a public session in late September.

Hotshot widow Juliann Ashcraft, who has four children, attended Friday’s news conference. She said she is not concerned with how much money she receives through donations and trusts the disbursement process will be handled responsibly.

“I am OK with whatever the people who know what they are doing decide,” she said.

Ashcraft is involved in a dispute with Prescott over the amount of public benefits she is receiving based on her husband’s seasonal job status. She said she believes her husband, Andrew, should be treated as a permanent city employee based on the number of hours he worked and his position on the crew.

She said Friday that the outpouring of public support for all the hotshots has been awe-inspiring.

“We are grateful for anything. I am overwhelmed with gratitude,” she said. “It is not a money issue. It is a tragedy.”

Reach the reporters at robert.anglen@arizonarepublic.com and russ.wiles@arizonarepublic.com.

Feds: South Mountain Freeway impact study flawed

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Feds: South Mountain Freeway impact study flawed

By Sean Holstege The Republic | azcentral.com Sun Aug 25, 2013 11:14 PM

Federal regulators say the state’s $21 million report on the environmental impact of the proposed South Mountain Freeway is “inadequate” and lacks basic information about what the 22-mile route will mean for air quality and human health.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency called for a new supplemental study to better analyze the concerns.

The agency also found that the traffic and population projections in the current report came from pre-recession forecasts, resulting in “overstated” benefits of the $2 billion Laveen-to-Chandler freeway.

The EPA cannot stop the proposed freeway.

It is one of many agencies that advise the Federal Highway Administration, the agency that will decide whether to contribute money to the project.

If the feds take the highly unusual step of opting out, the state could still build the freeway if it found other sources of money, including a recent offer of private investment.

Freeway opponents, including environmentalists and locals, said they felt “vindicated” by the EPA’s findings.

They noted that the agency’s 13-page critique will strengthen their position if they challenge the freeway project in court, as planned. They questioned whether taxpayers got their money’s worth from the study.

Supporters — along with regional, state and federal transportation planners — stood by the study, which took 12 years to complete. And they described the EPA’s critique as one of 5,700 comments from the public that need to be evaluated.

“EPA can only offer guidance on these projects. They cannot veto a project,” Arizona Department of Transportation spokesman Tim Tait said in an e-mail. He called the draft environmental-impact study released in April “well researched.”

He said the state remains on track to finalize the environmental review next summer.

The highway administration said it is evaluating all of the comments and hasn’t decided if a supplemental report is warranted.

Such a report would be an unusual step, said Sandy Bahr, executive director of the Arizona chapter of the Sierra Club. “My guess is they will blow off the EPA the same way they’ve blown off the public,” she said, adding she felt vindicated by the EPA’s comments.

“The air-quality issues are the Achilles’ heel of this project,” Bahr said. “The EPA said they didn’t provide enough information. We said the same thing. We think this freeway will harm air quality.”

She called the technical study “flimsy.” She was not alone.

“I’d hate to think for $21 million this was the best we can do,” said Chad Blostone, a veteran of several local advisory committees who favors shifting the route onto the Gila River Reservation. “A hard look should be taken at how much money was spent for the quality.”

ADOT hired transportation firm HDR Engineering Inc. to study the environmental effects of the freeway. The firm chose not to comment.

Blostone said the study was “deficient and outdated in so many ways.” He says he’d favor taking more time, even years, to study the proposed freeway properly. If so, he’d support the project. But if ADOT does not take the EPA’s concerns to heart, “it will go a long way in court.”

Several homeowners associations teamed up with a freeway opposition group, Protecting Arizona’s Resources and Children, to raise money to review the study and pay legal experts in an anticipated environmental lawsuit. The groups turned in a 320-page critique of the ADOT study, with much of the focus on air pollution.

Air-quality problems are significant because the EPA has declared the Maricopa County region in violation of Clean Air Act provisions for years. Federal funding for highways could be in jeopardy if the region’s transportation plans don’t show improvement in air quality.

Eric Anderson, transportation director for the Maricopa Association of Governments, said there has been recent progress and the region is on track for compliance.

But the EPA raised other concerns, consistent with other challenges already lodged.

Gila River Alliance for a Clean Environment, a coalition of tribal members and environmentalists that is against the proposed freeway, filed a civil-rights complaint last month with ADOT.

The complaint alleges that the state discriminated against the tribe by proposing to desecrate sacred land in South Mountain Park, leaving tribal members with disproportionate adverse impacts from the freeway and not properly consulting with the tribe.

ADOT said only that the matter was referred to the Federal Highway Administration, which declined comment.

In its critique of the environmental study, though, the EPA called out its deficiencies in an area of law known as environmental justice.

“There is a growing body of evidence that low-income and minority communities are more vulnerable to pollution impacts than other communities,” the EPA wrote. It added that a presidential order requires agencies like the Federal Highway Administration to address these issues and that the “current analysis does not consider the full suite of potential impacts of the proposed project.”

The EPA urged further study of the health impacts on, among others, “indigenous populations.”

It also encouraged ADOT and the highway administration to “work closely with (the Gila River Indian Community) to reduce impacts to sacred sites and traditional cultural properties.”

Another recommendation called for analyzing alternatives on tribal land. In 1998, the tribe released a planning study identifying one route on tribal land that would curve around South Mountain Park.

Private landowners and developers have proposed a new route on tribal land that would do the same. The proposal garnered signatures to place the question before voters in a coming initiative, but the tribal government ruled after an investigation that too many signatures were fraudulently gathered to validate the initiative petition.

Officials with the development company Pangea Development Corp. LLC said they have still not seen the results of the investigation and they believe the initiative to shift the South Mountain Freeway is still valid. They have filed a complaint with the Bureau of Indian Affairs over the tribe’s handling of the matter.

ADOT has said consistently that on the eastern part of the proposed alignment there are no alternatives because the tribe has not approved any alignments on its land. Earlier this year, the Gila River Indian Community government took a “no-build” position on the freeway.

The EPA asked what effect introducing toll lanes in the region would have on traffic projections for the South Mountain Freeway.

But a toll road was ruled out for the Loop 202 extension when a private consortium offered in February to build the Loop 202 extension faster and cheaper with private investment. ADOT is reviewing that proposal. A representative of the South Mountain Development Group, made up of three of the nation’s largest construction and engineering companies, declined to discuss the EPA’s findings.

It isn’t clear if the EPA’s concerns will further stall the freeway, which was first proposed in 1983. But the federal regulators join a chorus of critics.

“They are in trouble with this” environmental-impact study, Bahr said.

Freeway backers aren’t convinced.

“I can’t imagine there are any issues that can’t be resolved. They’ll figure out a way to get it approved, and it will be done correctly,” said Roc Arnett, president of the East Valley Partnership, a business group that supports the freeway.

RFS program - a welfare program for corn farmers???

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EPA protects drivers by delaying fuel standards

By Mike Tully My Turn Sun Aug 25, 2013 6:29 PM

The Environmental Protection Agency recently finalized 2013 standards for the Renewable Fuels Standard program, which requires renewable fuels, such as ethanol, to be blended into gasoline in increasing amounts each year.

When the RFS program was implemented, policy makers predicted that U.S. gasoline consumption would continue to rise, supporting higher ethanol use. In recent years, consumption has remained relatively flat due to fuel-efficient vehicles, a weaker economy and changes in driving habits. As such, the agency recently announced that it would consider adjusting planned ethanol increases in 2014 and the years ahead.

Renewable fuel is a good thing, so what’s the problem? The answer: The industry was not ready.

E10 gasoline, composed of 90 percent gasoline and 10 percent ethanol, represents more than 95 percent of our nation’s fuel supply. In order to meet new standards, it was extremely likely that fuel blenders would be forced to use potentially damaging E15 gasoline to reach targeted levels. This would have put motorists and their cars at risk.

Last year, the American Automobile Association voiced serious concerns about the sale of E15 gasoline to motorists. Consumer education and protection was insufficient, and motorists and their vehicles were at risk.

AAA conducted a survey last year and found that only 12 million out of the 240 million light-duty vehicles on the roads were approved by manufacturers to use E15. Thirteen manufacturers, including Ford, Honda, Nissan and Toyota, stated that the use of E15 may void warranty coverage.

In addition, AAA’s automotive-engineering experts believe that sustained use of E15 could result in costly problems such as accelerated engine wear and failure, fuel-system damage and false “check engine” lights in some cars. And, an overwhelming 95 percent of consumers surveyed by AAA were not familiar with E15, indicating a strong likelihood of consumer confusion on the potential risks of E15.

Ethanol-blended fuels have the potential to provide motorists a clear choice at the pump that supports jobs, promotes energy independence and reduces fuel costs. As an advocacy organization representing 850,000 Arizonans and 54 million members nationwide, AAA believes that our country lacks a clear strategy that promotes alternative fuels while also protecting consumers.

AAA applauds the EPA’s recent decision, which provided a temporary solution to prevent the use of potentially damaging E15 gasoline or a possible surge in gas prices. With congressional help, the agency can obtain the authority and direction needed to change unachievable fuel targets in the future.

Our leaders must act now so drivers aren’t left scrambling to pay higher gas prices because of market uncertainty. By adjusting and making the RFS sustainable, we can keep our nation moving forward.

Mike Tully is the president and CEO of AAA Arizona.

Taxes or gasoline: What drives up cost of driving

www.gaspricewatch.com/web_gas_taxes.php

Federal gas taxes are 18.4 cents for gas 24.4 cents diesel fuel. On average, as of April 2012, state and local taxes add 31.1 cents to gasoline and 30.2 cents to diesel for a total US average fuel tax of 49.5 cents (cpg) per gallon for gas and 54.6 cents per gallon (cpg) for diesel.

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Taxes or gasoline: What drives up cost of driving in California?

By Jerry Hirsch

August 26, 2013, 7:00 a.m.

Taxes, not gasoline prices, are the reason California is the state with the second-highest cost for operating a car, Bankrate.com contends.

Californians pay an average $1,809 in taxes and fees for their cars, the financial website said. That’s almost double the national average of $1,058.

Overall, Californians pay an average of $3,966 annually to operate a vehicle. That compares with a national average of $3,201.

Drivers here pay an average of $980 for gasoline, slightly below the $1,028 average.

That may sound odd considering pump prices in California are among the highest in the nation, but Bankrate cites federal data that show residents here drive fewer miles than the national average. Californians drive about 8,600 miles per capita compared with the national average of 9,600, according to the Department of Transportation.

When it comes to insurance, Californians pay an average $786, just above the $762 national average. They pay $390 for repairs, somewhat higher than the $353 national average.

Georgia, at $4,233, has the highest annual cost of motor vehicle operation; Oregon at $2,698 is the least expensive. Oregonians benefit from the absence of a state sales tax as well as relatively low car insurance costs, Bankrate said.

Bankrate said it determined total car-ownership expenses using median insurance premiums for 2006 to 2010 from the National Assn. of Insurance Commissioners, average 2012 repair costs from CarMD.com and taxes and fees from Kelley Blue Book. It derived gasoline spending from government statistics and GasBuddy.com average pump prices.

Obama is a liar - Unions are the problem!!!

Patterson: Other cities may follow Detroit's lead but government would be scary

Posted: Monday, August 26, 2013 6:42 am

Guest commentary by Tom Patterson

In the 2012 presidential campaign, President Obama claimed Detroit as evidence of his successful policies: “We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt. We bet on American workers and American ingenuity and, three years later, that is paying off in a big way.”

Yet last month, Americans were shocked when Detroit — long a symbol of our economic might and cultural vibrancy — filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. The collapse has already sent tremors through the municipal bond markets and threatened the economic security of defined benefit pensioners everywhere.

But Detroit isn’t a one-off, exceptional tragedy that we can afford to pity but otherwise ignore. It is on the same trend line as scores of other American cities and even our national government.

In the first half of the 20th century, Detroit’s auto industry produced 200,000 manufacturing jobs. These weren’t government programs or the result of government subsidies nor the product of government “investment” in training programs. If anything, they were the result of government staying out of the way and allowing visionary industrialists working in a decidedly capitalistic system to produce wealth for all. Detroit had a prosperous middle class as well as great buildings, civic spaces and art institutions.

In 1941, the auto companies first began collective bargaining with the United Auto Workers. By the 1950s, Detroit’s eminence in automobile manufacturing begin to fade, as foreign competition emerged and companies were forced into wage hikes, work rules and pension commitments they couldn’t afford.

As jobs and population declined, the city of Detroit made its fatal mistake. Instead of responding to the decline in tax revenues with belt-tightening, a succession of corrupt, incompetent Detroit mayors and City Councils continued to spend recklessly and to negotiate lavish pension funds with a new but immensely powerful political support: public employee unions.

As crime rates soared and schools deteriorated, taxpayers fled Detroit, yet the alliance between unions and the politicians they supported continued to flourish.

The consequences of spending money you don’t have are eventually predictable. Detroit’s debt load today is $18 billion, a sum it can’t pay partly because 38 cents of every new tax dollar goes to retirement benefits, a figure expected to grow soon to 65 cents. Detroit mismanaged itself into a hole it couldn’t get out of. The only question now is whether bondholders or pensioners should take the major hit. Once proud Detroit is a pitiful basket case.

Chicago appears headed on the same course. It’s population has declined over 1 million since 1950. It’s predicted budget shortfall is 1 billion by 2015 while its pension funds are 32 billion underfunded.

Los Angeles hasn’t experienced a population decline but also runs an annual budget deficit and has an unfunded pension liability of 27 billion. Philadelphia’s pension plans are only 50 percent funded even though the city pays 28 percent of its total budget for pension and health benefits.

But the federal government may be in the most trouble of all. For decades now the feds have been operating public retirement and health care programs without evidencing the slightest intent to fund the promises they are making. Instead of saving contributions in the “trust” to fund future benefits for the people making the payments, they spend the money is if there is no tomorrow and no need to save or to reduce debt.

Social Security has unfunded liabilities – not liabilities, unfunded liabilities – of 9.6 trillion over the next 75 years. If you include Medicare and federal employees pension benefits, that number is an unthinkable 86.8 trillion.

It’s bizarre to see our leaders, slack-jawed and vacant-eyed, ignoring all the obvious signs of danger. Even though a modest, expected increase in interest rates on our national debt will precipitate a profound crisis, we still employee recruiters to coerce the dubious into programs like food stamps and SSDI. Even though Americans are aging and every year there are fewer workers to support each retiree, we can’t muster the courage to do something as logical and painless as gradually raising the retirement age to 67.

The lesson of Detroit is clear. Foolish fiscal policies eventually result in less freedom, less opportunity and a declining standard of living for all. Is anybody listening?

• East Valley resident Tom Patterson is a retired physician and former state senator. He can be reached at pattersontomc@cox.net.

Arizona sure sounds like a religious theocracy with laws like these

Women, men celebrate 'topless' for equal gender rights

Posted: Sunday, August 25, 2013 7:17 pm | Updated: 8:08 pm, Sun Aug 25, 2013.

By Josh Frigerio, ABC15.com

Both men and women took off their tops Sunday in Tempe for "Go Topless Day," a protest against gender inequality.

Despite the cooler temps, individuals walked down Mill Avenue carrying signs demanding equal rights when it comes to men and women legally being allowed to be bare chested in public.

Protesters shouted, "What do we want? Topless right," as the group made their way down Mill Avenue.

Arizona law classifies indecent exposure as when a female "exposes the areola or nipple of her breast or breasts and another person is present," according to the Arizona Legislature's website.

For it to be criminal, the persons exposing themselves must be "reckless about whether the other person, as a reasonable person, would be offended or alarmed by the act."

In protest, men and women used colored tape to cover their nipples to, according to them, stay within the confines of the law.

Protesters said they didn't expect the law to change overnight, but the ultimate goal was to raise awareness.

The law goes on to say that breast-feeding is not considered indecent exposure.

Mexican drug cartel activity in U.S. grossly exaggerated???

Mexican drug cartel activity in U.S. said to be exaggerated in widely cited federal report

By Scott Higham, Sari Horwitz and Steven Rich, Published: August 25 E-mail the writers

When Sen. John McCain spoke during an Armed Services Committee hearing last year on security issues in the Western Hemisphere, he relayed a stark warning about the spread of Mexican drug cartels in the United States.

“The cartels,” the Arizona Republican said, “now maintain a presence in over 1,000 cities.”

McCain based his remarks on a report by a now-defunct division of the Justice Department, the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), which had concluded in 2011 that Mexican criminal organizations, including seven major drug cartels, were operating in more than 1,000 U.S. cities.

But the number, widely reported by news organizations across the country, is misleading at best, according to U.S. law enforcement officials and drug policy analysts interviewed by The Washington Post. They said the number is inflated because it relied heavily on self-reporting by law enforcement agencies, not on documented criminal cases involving Mexican drug-trafficking organizations and cartels.

The Post interviewed local police officials in more than a dozen cities who said they were surprised to learn that the federal government had documented cartel-related activity in their communities.

“That’s news to me,” said Randy Sobel, chief of police in Middleton, N.H.

“I have no knowledge of that,” said David Lancaster, chief of police in Corinth, Miss.

NDIC’s headquarters in Pennsylvania was closed last year and its personnel folded into the Drug Enforcement Administration. DEA officials declined to release a list of the cities, calling it “law enforcement sensitive.”

Privately, DEA and Justice Department officials said they have no confidence in the accuracy of the list.

“It’s not a DEA number,” said a DEA official who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the report. “We don’t want to be attached to this number at all.”

The Post was able to identify more than a third of the cities using computer mapping techniques and government documents. The analysis located government claims of Mexican drug activity in numerous cities in unexpected places: 20 in Montana, 25 in Oregon, 25 in Idaho, 30 in Arkansas.

There is no disputing that Mexican cartels are operating in the United States. Drug policy analysts estimate that about 90 percent of the cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine on U.S. streets came here courtesy of the cartels and their distribution networks in Mexico and along the Southwestern border. DEA officials say they have documented numerous cases of cartel activity in Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta.

But analysts who study drug trafficking scoffed at the contention that the violent cartels and other Mexican-based drug organizations are operating in more than 1,000 U.S. cities.

“They say there are Mexicans operating here and they must be part of a Mexican drug organization,” said Peter Reuter, who co-directed drug research for the nonprofit Rand think tank and now works as a professor at the University of Maryland. “These numbers are mythical, and they keep getting reinforced by the echo chamber.”

The former chief of NDIC defended the work of his former agency.

“It doesn’t surprise me that the DEA doesn’t support those numbers,” said Michael F. Walther, who ran the agency between 2005 and 2012. “They like to paint a more positive portrait of the world. I stand by the work that our analysts did at NDIC.”

Drug policy analysts said the wide dissemination of the number is part of a pattern in the decades-long “war on drugs” of promoting questionable statistics in an attempt to quantify the drug problem in the United States and justify budgets.

“Washington loves mythical numbers,” said John Carnevale, a former drug policy and budget official who served three presidents and four “drug czars” at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. “Once the number is out there and it comes from a source perceived to be credible, it becomes hard to disprove, almost impossible, even when it’s wrong.”

NDIC closed in June 2012 after 19 years of operation and more than $690 million in taxpayers’ money spent. But the NDIC number lives on, cited in congressional reports on security along the Southwest border and in testimony by high-ranking members of the military and key lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

“The cartels now have a presence in more than 1,000 U. S. cities,” said a 2012 report by the House Homeland Security oversight subcommittee on violence and terrorism on the Southwest border.

“A terrorist insurgency is being waged along our Southern border,” then-House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Connie Mack (R-Fla.) said during a 2011 hearing on combating international criminal organizations. He cited “the operations across Mexico and Central America, as well as in over 1,000 U.S. cities.”

Drug policy analysts called NDIC’s definitions of what constitutes a Mexican drug organization murky and not particularly useful, paving the way for confusion and misinterpretation. In its 2010 report, the center used the phrase “Mexican drug trafficking organizations,” defining them as being based in Mexico or the United States, with Mexican nationals serving as their leaders. The report’s definition of “presence” in a U.S. city was met if at least one member of the organization was engaged in “some type of trafficking activity.”

In its 2011 report, the center used the phrase “transnational criminal organizations,” and said they included seven cartels based in Mexico, the well-known Sinaloa and Zetas syndicates among them. The report broadened the definition in a footnote to include traffickers who purchased drugs from cartel associates.

Under such definitions, the analysts said, anyone from Mexico caught selling a small amount of marijuana in a U.S. city could be counted as a Mexican drug organization or cartel presence.

“These definitions are interchangeable and indistinguishable,” said Peter Andreas, a drug policy analyst at Brown University who has written a book about the politics of drug policy called “Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide.” “This is a particularly egregious example of a pattern that unfortunately has not gotten a lot of scrutiny.”

Walther, the former NDIC chief, said it is difficult to determine what constitutes a Mexican cartel presence because there are varying degrees of separation between street dealers, distribution networks and operations south of the border. But he said that his agency did the best it could under the circumstances and that NDIC was frequently attacked because it became the bearer of bad news.

“It’s in the nature of government that agencies don’t like to be told they are not entirely successful,” said Walther, who now works as a criminal defense lawyer in Pennsylvania and recently authored a study for the Army War College titled “Insanity: Four Decades of U.S. Counterdrug Strategy.”

“There’s no uniformly accepted glossary of terms,” he said. “Some of the distinctions are too fine to be appreciated by people who are not engaged full time in the counterdrug world.”

The story behind the NDIC number dates to the days of the first drug czar, during the George H.W. Bush administration in 1989. With 19 federal agencies generating drug intelligence reports at the time, administration officials wanted to create a clearinghouse to coordinate the flood of information.

In theory, the National Drug Intelligence Center seemed to be a solution. Then-Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) got involved. Murtha chaired the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, and in 1992 he obtained a $40 million Defense Department earmark. The center was established in an abandoned department store in his hometown of Johnstown, Pa., 180 miles from Washington.

At its dedication ceremony in Johnstown in 1993, then-Attorney General Janet Reno called NDIC “a crucial turning point” in the Clinton administration’s efforts to combat drugs.

But some White House officials, such as Carnevale, saw NDIC as a Washington boondoggle.

“They were getting so much money,” he said. “They hired a lot of staff. But they were so far away, and a lot of us didn’t read their reports.”

In a recent interview, Murtha’s former chief of staff defended NDIC.

“They did a hell of a job. It wasn’t a pork-barrel type of thing,” said John Hugya, who worked for Murtha for 23 years. “They had a lot of professionals working there. I respected the whole damn group.”

On Feb. 8, 2010, Murtha died at age 77, and NDIC lost its protector.

Two months after Murtha’s death, NDIC issued a “Situation Report” titled: “Cities Where Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations Operate Within the United States.” With “high confidence,” the report said they were operating “in at least 1,286 cities.”

To arrive at that figure, the center used a methodology that federal law enforcement officials now say was questionable. NDIC field intelligence officers surveyed 1,200 law enforcement agencies across the nation and asked them if they had Mexican drug-trafficking organizations in their communities. Of those agencies, 1,039 said they did, according to the report. The center then added that total to a total based on case information kept by the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces, which reported that Mexican drug organizations were operating in 247 U.S. cities.

NDIC added the two numbers to come up with 1,286 cities.

“The methodology was flawed from the start,” said one Justice Department official who was familiar with the report and also spoke on the condition of anonymity. “I heard that they just cold-called people in different towns, as many as they could, and said, ‘Do you have any Mexicans involved in drugs?’ And they would say, ‘Yeah, sure.’ ”

Drug policy analysts say self-reported surveys are subject to exaggeration, particularly when local and state law enforcement agencies are looking for federal grant money to bolster their budgets.

“At a time when agency budgets are being cut, you want to demonstrate that you are protecting the public from a menace,” said Eric E. Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, a drug- and policing-policy reform group. “If you say there are Mexican henchmen in 1,000 cities, you don’t want to cut their budget.”

More than a year after Murtha’s death, NDIC issued its second report in August 2011, titled “National Drug Threat Assessment.” In it, the center modified the 1,286 number by saying Mexican “transnational criminal organizations” were “operating in more than a thousand U.S. cities during 2009 and 2010.”

Drug policy analysts said the NDIC number and other questionable claims have important consequences.

“We have no idea how many Mexican drug cartel operatives are out there and where they are, and these kinds of claims are a really big problem for public policy,” said David A. Shirk, a political science professor at the University of San Diego who examines Southwest border issues. “Citizens have a right to know if federal agencies are doing their jobs, and without verifiable information it calls a lot of this work into question.”

Although the DEA declined to release the list of cities, The Post was able to pinpoint the locations of hundreds of them by analyzing a map included with an early version of an NDIC report.

The Post contacted police officials in 24 cities. While a few said they found possible connections to the cartels, officials in 18 cities said they were unaware of cartel-related activity in their communities.

NDIC reported a Juárez Cartel connection in the former mining town of Ladd, Ill., in the north-central part of the state. Ladd Police Chief William Gaefcke said he can think of only one reason why his city of 1,300 residents was listed in the report. A few years back, his department, along with two federal agents, investigated a claim that the cartel was smuggling assault weapons in the region.

The investigation went nowhere.

“The case was dismissed as unfounded,” Gaefcke said.

NDIC reported that the Juárez Cartel was tied to a drug operation in Garden City, Kan., made famous as the site of the murder trial depicted in Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood.”

“We have drugs in our community,” said Capt. Michael Utz of the Garden City Police Department. “But as far as the Juárez Cartel operating in this city, I don’t have any information on that.”

NDIC reported Tijuana Cartel activity in South Lake Tahoe, Calif.

“I haven’t seen a link to the Tijuana Cartel,” Police Chief Brian T. Uhler said. “That’s surprising to me. There are gangs here that have a statewide connection, and there may be linkages to the cartels. I guess an affiliation can mean a lot of different things in law enforcement.”

Senator Don Shooter didn't read his criminal sentence????

Shooter, R-Yuma, said he “didn't read all the details” of the agreement, which he signed Thursday and the Yuma city prosecutor signed today.

I suspect that State Sen. Don Shooter will later use this as a lame excuse to deny that he accepted a plea bargain for his crimes at the Yuma school.

Source

State lawmaker settles school intrusion case

By Mary Jo Pitzl The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Aug 23, 2013 5:17 PM

State Sen. Don Shooter has agreed to pay $2,500 to settle the case resulting from his abrupt intrusion into his grandson’s Yuma classroom last spring.

The settlement technically defers prosecution on three misdemeanor counts for a year, with the prospect of the charges being re-filed if Shooter doesn’t abide by the terms of the agreement.

Shooter, R-Yuma, said he “didn't read all the details” of the agreement, which he signed Thursday and the Yuma city prosecutor signed today.

“Whatever it is, it is,” he said.

In March, Shooter rushed into his grandson’s classroom at the EOC Charter High School in Yuma, ignoring requests to stop. He confronted the teacher, whom he believed was bullying his grandson. A teacher captured video of the confrontation using a cell phone.

Shooter left the classroom after repeated requests to do so.

The settlement calls for him to immediately pay $1,500 in restitution to the high school, as well as $1,000 to the city of Yuma for a deferred-prosecution fee.

“It’s been a sad situation for everybody,” Shooter said of the incident. He said his grandson has transferred to another school and is doing well.

The city prosecutor in June charged him with three misdemeanors: criminal trespass, disorderly conduct and interference or disruption of an educational institution.

NSA decrypted United Nations’ communications

Source

German magazine: NSA decrypted, spied on, United Nations’ internal video conferencing system

By Associated Press, Sunday, August 25, 6:32 AM

BERLIN — The German magazine Der Spiegel says the U.S. National Security Agency secretly monitored the U.N.’s internal video conferencing system by decrypting it last year.

The weekly said Sunday that documents it obtained from American leaker Edward Snowden show the NSA decoded the system at the U.N.’s headquarters in New York last summer.

Quoting leaked NSA documents, the article said the decryption “dramatically increased the data from video phone conferences and the ability to decode the data traffic.”

In three weeks, Der Spiegel said, the NSA increased the number of decrypted communications at the U.N. from 12 to 458.

Snowden’s leaks have exposed details of the United States’ global surveillance apparatus, sparking an international debate over the limits of American spying.

Illinois medical marijuana law draws big-money interest

Illinois medical marijuana law draws big-money interest

By Peter Frost, Chicago Tribune reporter

9:53 p.m. CDT, August 24, 2013

Talk long enough to anyone in the business of growing or selling medical marijuana, and you'll hear plenty about risk.

It's hard to find a bank. It's difficult to find insurance. The plants are finicky. Security systems are expensive. Good, trusted employees are hard to find. State laws change at the whim of legislators and regulators. And, of course, because the drug remains illegal under U.S. law, federal agents could swoop in at any time, shut the operation down and put its owners in jail.

The risks may be even greater in Illinois, where Gov. Pat Quinn this month signed a bill into law that will allow a temporary, for-profit medical marijuana industry, permitting cannabis sales to patients with certain medical conditions starting in 2014.

Still, as two events over the past three days have proved, plenty of people are willing to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars — in some cases several million — to get a shot at serving a new market of marijuana consumers.

More than 200 people crowded into a second-floor meeting area of the Embassy Suites in River North on Saturday, paying up to $375 each to learn more about the business of medical marijuana and to network with experienced purveyors of the product from states like California, Colorado and Michigan. That followed an event Thursday at another downtown hotel that drew more than 50.

"I've talked to several potential investors here thinking home-run dollars from the beginning," said Michael Mayes, the Chicago-based chief executive officer of Quantum 9, a marijuana consulting and technology company. "But, here at least, if you're swinging for the fences, you have to know you might strike out."

Mayes, 30, who also operates two marijuana cultivation centers and three retail dispensaries in Colorado, had conversations with attorneys, doctors, prospective growers and capitalists who see opportunities in Illinois to carve out a niche in the nascent industry.

While there appears to be plenty of interest, the potential rewards may not outweigh the risks.

"There is a lot of optimism here, but it's going to take a minimum of a year before any of these businesses can start operating, maybe even 15 to 18 months," said Hilary Bricken, a Seattle-based attorney who has worked with growers and sellers in other states.

Although the new state law kicks in Jan. 1, three state agencies must also draft rules and regulations to govern the industry. Then there's an intensive application and review process, which could take several months depending on the number of individuals or businesses that apply for a limited number of licenses to grow and sell the product.

By the time the first ounce of medical marijuana is sold to a patient with a qualified condition at a licensed dispensary in Illinois, it could be mid-2015. And because the four-year pilot program could end Dec. 31, 2017, there may be only two and a half years to recoup an investment that would likely surpass $1 million.

"There are just so many unknowns about Illinois. From a capital perspective, it seems pretty tough," said Elliott Klug, an industry veteran who operates a growing operation and chain of dispensaries based in Denver under the Pink House banner.

While Klug isn't willing to test the waters in Illinois, many of his contemporaries have shown interest in competing for one of 22 licenses to grow the product and 60 to sell it across the state.

"I think what you're going to see are the big players, who are already established in other states, be the ones who can come in, take the risk and get a lot of the licenses," said Gabriel Plotkin, a Chicago attorney with Miller Shakman & Beem. "These are businesspeople with experience, credentials and money."

pfrost@tribune.com

DNC targets Arizona election-law overhaul

Source

DNC targets Arizona election-law overhaul

By Dan Nowicki The Republic | azcentral.com Sat Aug 24, 2013 9:56 PM

National Democrats will support the fight to overturn a controversial election-law overhaul signed by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Friday.

Wasserman Schultz called the Arizona legislation, House Bill 2305, an attempt at intimidation and an example of “Republican efforts to do everything they can to throw obstacles in the path of voters who simply want an opportunity to cast their ballot and exercise their right to vote.” An effort to refer the state law to the ballot is under way.

“We’re organizing here and across the country to fight voter-suppression efforts at every turn,” Wasserman Schultz told The Arizona Republic.

“Where lawsuits are necessary, we’ll engage in them. We are providing staff and resources on the ground and working with allied groups to fight these voter-suppression efforts.”

In June, a Brewer spokesman defended the Arizona legislation to The Republic as “a critical election-reform bill” supported by county elections officials statewide and downplayed the charges of voter disenfranchisement.

Wasserman Schultz, a U.S. representative from Florida, was in Scottsdale last week for the DNC’s summer meeting. The two-day session was held Thursday and Friday at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess resort.

Wasserman Schultz singled out for special criticism a provision in the Arizona law that puts restrictions on the ability of someone to pick up and turn in the early ballot of another voter. Anyone working at the direction of a political party or organization is prohibited from delivering another voter’s ballot to a polling place.

“What’s really disturbing about Arizona and the step that Republicans here have taken is that they are making it harder for the elderly and for the disabled to cast a mail-in ballot,” she said.

In her interview with The Republic, Wasserman Schultz also reiterated her belief that changing demographics are turning Arizona from a traditionally Republican red state to a Democratic blue state.

“We’re here for a reason,” she said. “We’re very excited. We’re planting a flag here in Arizona. We deliberately came to Scottsdale because we wanted to make sure that people understand that there is no region of this country that we’re going to cede to the Republicans. Look at Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado: Those are three Western states that previously were much more reliably red and now are reliably blue in national elections and down-ballot.”

National Republicans shrugged off Wasserman Schultz’s forecast for Arizona, and took a jab at the Democrats’ finances. As of July 31, the DNC listed $18.5 million in debts and only $4.1 million on hand.

“We have heard this from the DNC before but Arizona continues to vote Republican across the board,” Ryan Mahoney, a Republican National Committee spokesman, said in an e-mail. “Considering the DNC’s financial situation, it’s difficult to believe they’ll be able to make inroads in the state.”

Arizona’s governor, two U.S. senators and other statewide elected officials are Republicans and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney carried the state in 2012. However, the state’s nine-member U.S. House delegation tilts 5-4 Democratic.

Nowicki is The Republic’s national political reporter.

Government welfare program for property owners!!!

Phoenix preservation money for rehab of old buildings runs low

By Tessa Duvall The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Aug 22, 2013 1:14 PM

When a new owner bought the historic C.P. Stephens DeSoto Six Motorcars building in downtown Phoenix in January 2012, some contractors might have balked at the needed repairs.

“It was in such horrible condition,” said Bob Graham, the architect who oversaw the building’s rehabilitation. “Anybody who walked inside, you walk in the front door and look around and what you saw was a forest of columns because the entire roof had been shored up with a bunch of big, fat timbers.

“People looked at that and they looked at the condition of the structure and they just ran away — screaming,” Graham said with a chuckle.

With assistance from the city’s Historic Preservation Office in the form of a $250,000 grant, Graham helped save the building. The owners plan to rent out the former auto dealership, originally opened in 1928, this fall.

Graham, the principal architect at the Motley Design Group, said the project wasn’t feasible without the city’s financial support.

But officials say the city’s ability to protect historical buildings is in jeopardy.

The city’s money for historic preservation has dried up. The city has spent or committed nearly all of the $13 million raised from a voter-approved 2006 bond.

And officials said the city likely won’t hold another bond election for historic preservation for “some time.”

Funding levels

Michelle Dodds, Phoenix’s historic preservation officer, said property owners can apply to four grant programs. The city provides rehabilitation funds in exchange for a promise that owners will protect the building’s historic qualities.

The exterior-rehabilitation grant program, which will provide 20 matching grants totaling $200,000 over the next two years, is the only program with money still remaining, Dodds said.

However, if previously approved projects fall through, the city can recommit those funds to another rehabilitation, Dodds said.

Bonds also support specific city-preservation projects, like the Ellis-Shackelford House at 1242 N. Central Ave. and the Winship House at 216 W. Portland St.

The city delayed two other city projects — $589,000 rehabilitation of historic buildings at South Mountain Park and $831,600 for Matthew Henson Hope VI, northeast of Seventh Avenue and Buckeye Road.

Mark Briggs, chairman of the 2006 Historic Preservation Bond Subcommittee and member of the Historic Preservation Commission, said there’s no guarantee when the city will complete the delayed projects.

“Based on what I’ve heard in various meetings now, in those two capacities, is that anything that’s been delayed is never going to happen, or not with this bond,” he said. “If the money has not been earmarked and set aside within the budget of the city by now, there’s no assurance that it will ever get done.”

This puts the historic preservation program in a tough spot, Briggs said.

“You could have a threatened building, you could have a historic home that needs rehab work, you could be a low-income person who needs rehab work, and it won’t matter,” he said. “There won’t be any money to allocate (from the bond funds). ...

“That will force us back to the city to say, ‘We want general funds.’ ”

Bond-funded projects

For the DeSoto Six building, 915 N. Central Ave., the city grant made all the difference in repairing the roof.

“That was the big elephant in the room that nobody wanted to touch,” Graham said.

Construction crews began working on the property in December, and the building will be ready for a tenant in September, Graham said.

Mark Abromovitz, the owner of the O.S. Stapley buildings on Grand Avenue, also said the $300,000 matching grant he received from the city made the project possible.

“Really, without their type of support, these types of projects are overlooked or just not feasible,” he said.

Abromovitz said the four Stapley buildings, constructed in the 1920s, were in such bad condition that “some people probably would have thought about razing” them.

The rehabilitation has included roof replacement, new windows, masonry work and sandblasting, Abromovitz said. The building likely will attract tenants in creative fields, like architects and advertising agencies, he said.

“It’s a process,” he said. “You’ve got to really love this stuff to want to do it.”

Why it matters

Because Phoenix is young compared with cities in the Midwest and East, some residents may fail to appreciate the historical value of some of Phoenix’s older buildings, Graham said. But for Graham, who grew up in Phoenix, these buildings are the “city’s soul.”

“To my eye, when everything is new, there’s really no roots in the place,” he said. “What is the place all about? It’s really critical to the creation of the city to have a component of historic buildings.

“It’s your roots. That’s what makes Phoenix different than Los Angeles.”

Graham said he’s “really sad to see that they’re out of preservation bond.”

“You’d be surprised how much has been saved as a result of this,” he said.

Briggs said he worries about not being able to help when a valued historic building becomes threatened.

“Here’s the tough part: You don’t know what the next application is going to be,” he said. “As you start running out of money, you start sweating about what if something much more important comes across and you don’t have the money?”

Dodds said the Historic Preservation Office needs more money to continue its work, especially for the delayed projects at Matthew Henson and South Mountain.

“Those two projects, the buildings are in desperate need of rehabilitation and some stabilization work,” she said.

The Historic Preservation Office will request general-fund money in the next fiscal year, Dodds said, although she isn’t sure how much they will pursue.

Scorn for U.S. principles

Source

Scorn for U.S. principles

Sun Aug 25, 2013 7:37 PM

Regarding “Constitutional views can vary” (Opinions, Thursday):

This is sadly true, although completely unnecessary.

If one wants to know what the Founding Fathers meant when they drafted the Constitution, all one must do is read the Federalist Papers, letters from the state constitutional conventions and correspondence between the Founders themselves, particularly between Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Adams.

Progressive politicians and Supreme Court justices since the administration of Theodore Roosevelt (1901-09) have corrupted the meaning and spirit of the Constitution, rendering it as little more than a flexible list of suggestions to allow for whatever meaning best suits those in power.

One hundred and twelve years of corruption by Democrat and Republican progressives have left us with a government that operates almost entirely outside the strict limitations of the Constitution. And much to the chagrin of progressives, the Constitution is still the supreme law of the land.

— David Stover, Tempe

‘Obamacare’ helps costs

Source

‘Obamacare’ helps costs

Sun Aug 25, 2013 7:38 PM

The idea that we should “shut down the government” rather than allow 30 million more Americans access to health care is morally repugnant and fiscally irresponsible.

To claim “Obamacare“ drives up the cost of health care is to forget the constant increases before the Affordable Care Act was conceived. That act has already begun to make headway against rising health-care costs.

The coming exchanges will open competition for health-care dollars which, as any free-market advocate would tell you, should bring down costs.

Even if the random pricing of medical services survives increased public scrutiny, the frequency of expensive, life-saving services will be markedly reduced as more people discover they can afford to seek preventive health care and avoid that midnight run to the emergency room, the most expensive health-care delivery system ever devised.

Can we really support politicians who would choose to bring down the U.S. economy rather than to allow improvements in the health-care system?

— Roger Lateiner, Phoenix

SRP, APS don’t want additional consumer choice

SRP, APS don’t want additional consumer choice

Dranias: Of course, monopolies oppose electricity deregulation

By Nick Dranias My Turn Sun Aug 25, 2013 6:10 PM

A lot of noise is being stirred up by mysterious groups to oppose the Arizona Corporation Commission’s consideration of reforms creating consumer choice and competition among electricity retailers and producers. One of them is the Arizona Power Consumers Coalition (“Electricity deregulation doesn't work in the real world,” Opinions, Aug. 5).

Don’t be fooled by the name. This “consumers coalition” is actually a front group for the utility monopolies — Arizona Public Service Co., Salt River Project and Tucson Electric Power — who own Arizona’s electricity market and want to keep it for themselves.

Of course these utilities don’t want choice and competition in electricity. They are monopolies. Monopolies are quite happy having a guaranteed customer base and getting a guaranteed rate of return without having to compete or innovate. Just ask Saudi Arabia if it likes fracking, nuclear power or cheap abundant renewable energy. OPEC doesn’t want competition either. Surprise.

A real consumer advocate would want consumers to have choices, but choices are not possible for consumers trapped in the exclusive service territories owned by APS, SRP and TEP. Don’t like your pricing plan with APS? Tough. Want better renewable energy options with SRP? Pound sand.

Without choice, competition and innovation, consumers in Arizona are deprived of plans with free electricity on weekends and nights; plans that give you frequent flier miles for customer loyalty; plans that lock in a low rate for up to two years; and plans that offer consumers the option to buy 100 percent renewable energy if they want. These sorts of plans are already offered in Texas, where over half of the state enjoys robust competition for the consumer’s business.

In fact, where electrical choice, competition and innovation exist in Texas, consumers shopping for electricity in competitive regions can find electricity at 7 cents per kilowatt hour. That’s nearly 40 percent less than Arizona’s average monopoly price.

But competition can’t happen, by definition, in the monopoly territories owned by APS, SRP and TEP. And without competition, there is no incentive for innovation. As a result, the quality of service stagnates. Our technological revolution halts at the door of the electrical generation plant. Our economy fails to grow like it otherwise could.

The truth is Arizona’s “consumer advocate” monopolies fear coming innovation. Technology is changing rapidly and the centralized electrical grid model will not be able to compete with what’s coming.

What kind of innovation? For one, the Bloom Box, which already powers server farms for Google and Ebay. You could power your home with a generator that’s no bigger than an air conditioner. With a competitive market providing access to retail and generation firms that use this technology, economies of scale could lead to this technology becoming inexpensive enough to get within the reach of ordinary consumers. The same is true for solar technology, which is on the cusp of becoming competitive without subsidies. And there are other options coming: mini-generators powered by cheap natural gas made possible by fracking; or mini-nuclear reactor technologies, which can provide 10 years of electricity for 20,000 homes at $2,500 per home.

In short, the future is increasingly off-the-grid, and the grid is the mainstay of the regulated monopolies.

The transition to choice and competition will take two to eight years of careful planning, allowing a perfect opening for the introduction of such new and innovative technologies. But Arizona’s electricity monopolies want to snuff out the possibility of competition so they can snuff out the innovative technologies that are coming down the pike.

APS, SRP and TEP don’t want to deal with change, choice or competition. They want your money in their pockets. And they can get it now — guaranteed as a matter of law, with or without good service, low prices or innovation. But consumers should not be fooled. The Arizona Power Consumers Coalition is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Nick Dranias is director of the Joseph and Dorothy Donnelly Moller Center for Constitutional Government at the Goldwater Institute.

State slow to refund overpayment

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Call 12: State slow to refund overpayment

By Veronica Sanchez Call 12 for Action Sat Aug 24, 2013 7:22 PM

Ivan Mester prides himself in being a good father to his four children, providing them not only with emotional support but also financial support.

For nine years, he has never been late with his child-support payments. When he discovered he had overpaid his child support, he attempted to get a refund from the Department of Economic Security. The task proved to be frustrating and time-consuming. And he wasn’t trying to get a lot of money back.

“I don’t like to criticize the government, but I know a lot of people do.” Mester said. “It’s hard not to have a negative feeling about a government agency that’s supposed to be looking out for people.”

In 2011, Mester discovered he had overpaid $286. Every two weeks, the money he paid to support his two teenage sons was taken automatically out of his paycheck and delivered to his ex-wife.

“The way DES does it, they calculate your payment on a monthly basis, but for those of us who get paid every two weeks, you have two months where you get paid three times a year. Basically, you end up ahead on your payments at the end of the year and DES would refund you the money at that time.

“But now they don’t do that,” Mester said.

For two years, Mester called DES representatives on the phone and sent e-mails through the DES website asking for the refund he rightly deserved. He said he got nowhere.

“What they were doing was hanging on to my money when I was paying current anyways, and, I don’t know, maybe making interest on it or whatever,” Mester said.

He decided enough was enough. He e-mailed Call 12 for Action. I personally forwarded the e-mail to Tasya Peterson, DES public-information officer. Within days, Mester received a refund check.

Peterson would not comment on why Mester’s request languished for two years unresolved or provide any other specifics. She offered a statement:

“The department was happy to be able to assist the customer with their issue.”

Mester is grateful to Call 12 for Action. He said he would still be waiting on his refund check had we not intervened.

“I really feel what you guys do is great. It was extremely successful for me,” Mester said.

Standardized tests are flawed measuring tool

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Standardized tests are flawed measuring tool

Sun Aug 25, 2013 7:39 PM

Parents have been sold a bill of goods in regard to the use of standardized tests to determine the quality of a school.

Standardized tests may have their place, but they have their limitations. They do not measure imagination or curiosity. They do not measure creativity or artistic talent. They do not measure effort or hard work. They do not measure the value of a school’s extracurricular activities.

Certainly we want our children to learn age-appropriate English, math, science and her/history, among others. However, don’t we also want our children to be imaginative and to ask questions? Don’t we want to encourage them to think creatively and to develop their artistic talents? Don’t we want our children to work hard? Don’t we want our children to learn the importance of team work and fair play? Or do we want our children to be proficient only in filling in bubbles?

Standardized tests have some value in assessing students’ academic knowledge, but they do not measure the intangibles that are integral to academic and career success. They should never be used as the sole criteria to determine whether a school is failing. It is a flawed system of measurement and should be viewed as such.

— Jane Liljedahl,

Scottsdale

I guess Obama lied about us winning the war in Iraq!!!

Officials: Numerous insurgent attacks in Iraq kill 46 people

Associated Press Sun Aug 25, 2013 11:51 PM

BAGHDAD - Insurgents bent on destabilizing Iraq killed at least 46 people in numerous attacks scattered around the country on Sunday, striking targets as varied as a coffee shop, a wedding party convoy and a carload of off-duty soldiers.

The boldest attack was near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, where militants set up a fake security checkpoint, captured five soldiers and shot them dead, a police officer said. The soldiers were dressed in civilian clothes and returning to base in a taxi.

Inside Mosul, other gunmen in a speeding car shot and killed a grocer, the officer said.

Mosul, a former insurgent stronghold, is about 220 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Another police officer said a car bomb exploded as a judge drove past in the northern town of Balad, killing three nurses and a man who had been walking nearby. Thirteen other people were wounded, including the judge, his brother and a driver, he added.

Attacks have been on the rise in Iraq since a deadly security crackdown in April on a Sunni protest camp. More than 3,000 people have been killed in violence during the past few months, raising fears the country could see an even deadlier, sectarian round of bloodshed similar to what brought the country to the edge of civil war in 2006 and 2007.

Many of Sunday’s victims were civilians going about their normal business despite the rising risks.

For instance, in the town of Madain, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, a car bomb explosion killed four and wounded 12, another police officer said. Authorities reported that another bomb there struck a group of young people playing soccer, killing four and wounding 13.

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release the information.

Somebody needs to tell Cindy Currence about "jury nullification"

Source

Sorry, your honor, I’m no killer

Sat Aug 24, 2013 6:42 PM

This month, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Karen O’Connor invited me down to her very civilized courtroom to participate in the jury trial of a young man who faces a murder charge.

We rode a nice shuttle bus to the nice new courthouse. We checked in on computers that printed official juror badges. They offered us coffee and cinnamon rolls.

And then the judge told us that the young man in front of us may have killed someone and that we may have to kill him. It’s not going to be me.

I was excused from jury duty.

Last week in The Arizona Republic, in an article about a new book on Jodi Arias ( “Author says new Arias book will clear Alexander’s name,” Valley & State), the author says, “How does somebody get to that point of moral degeneracy?” Ask Judge O’Connor and the state Legislature.

Don’t eat their cinnamon rolls — and if they ask you to kill someone, say no.

— Cindy Currence, Phoenix

Keep prayer, government apart

Keep prayer, government apart

Sat Aug 24, 2013 6:42 PM

Apparently, many municipalities and the state Legislature begin their meetings with a prayer. Now Glendale Mayor Jerry Weiers wants to join in (“Glendale council eyes prayers,” Valley & State, Wednesday).

I guess none of these bodies believe in the Constitution because a main cornerstone of this document is separation of church and state.

Prayer should be found in churches and in the home of those who wish to do so, not in secular settings such as governmental meetings.

— Al Stein, Phoenix

Collection of student data raises questions

Collection of student data raises questions

By Cathryn Creno The Republic | azcentral.com Sun Aug 25, 2013 11:29 AM

Rose Fletcher, a Mesa mother of two, agrees that schools need to keep track of some basic information about her children — their grades, standardized-test scores and attendance from year to year.

“I also understand that the state needs to compare schools’ test-score data,” she said. “I don’t mind that.”

But mirroring the concerns of a growing number of parents, Fletcher worries schools are collecting too much data about her kids, ages 7 and 9. She and others worry about identity theft as well as invasion of their families’ privacy.

“I got a letter from my 7-year-old’s school asking whether I am Hispanic and what is the primary language I speak at home,” she said. “That bothers me. Why are they so concerned about the culture I practice in my home? My demographics, race or background should not determine my children’s future.”

She wonders if she will be asked next about her family’s politics or religion.

Another Mesa mom, Brenda Martin, is concerned about the security of the data that schools collect about her sons, who are in junior and senior high school.

“I don’t think they need to know all of the things that they ask,” she said.

Information-technology officials at the Arizona Department of Education say student information is as safe as it has ever been — and will get even safer as they continue to develop a more streamlined and centralized data system in the next few years. [Hey Edward Snowden is in Russia and he won't be leaking any data from Arizona schools!]

In addition, Arizona has a Data Governance Commission that permits state officials to collect only student information that directly relates to education.

Still, many parents have confronted State Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal with fears that his department will either sell their kids’ data or use its new computer system to pry into their finances, politics, religion — even gun ownership.

Because of the questions Huppenthal is regularly asked, the state Education Department developed a five-point fact sheet for him to share when he speaks publicly.

“Will the system track a family’s political affiliations or firearms ownership? Absolutely not,” Huppenthal’s fact sheet states. “The system is intended to do three major things: provide teachers data so they can better instruct their students, simplify the administration of the school system and reduce the burden of required reports.”

In June, about 90 parents from around central Arizona met with Huppenthal about the new Arizona Common Core Standards. Many challenged him with questions about whether the state will collect more personal data from families as the new academic standards and the centralized data system are rolled out.

Reports about data

News reports about weaknesses in the current data system, as well as commentary by conservative figures like Glenn Beck, have raised the suspicions of many parents.

Beck, for instance, recently told a National Public Radio interviewer that he believes the federal government is developing a national education data system to support testing the new Common Core standards.

He said it “calls for massive amounts of personal data on students, including health-care histories, income information, religious affiliation, blood types, ... how are your parents voting.”

Not factual, state officials say.

“People are afraid we want to collect information about politics and firearms — but we are only collecting the data we have always collected,” said Chris Kotterman, the state Education Department’s deputy associate superintendent for policy development and government relations.

Kotterman and other Education Department officials confirmed that they do, and most likely will continue to, collect information about students’ gender and racial background, languages spoken at home and whether their families have incomes low enough to qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches.

That information is used by state and federal education officials to determine whether all students are being properly served by school districts. Officials also sometimes use demographic data to make sure standardized test questions are fair.

“But the data is collected and looked at in the aggregate,” Kotterman said. “We don’t include individual student names in the reports.”

How information is used

Kelly McManus, government-affairs director for the advocacy group Stand for Children Arizona, said she has observed “a tremendous amount of misinformation and fear-mongering around (student) data right now.” [Parents, trust us royal government rulers, we are smarter then you, and know what we are doing, and we would never let you down. Didn't Edward Snowden's boss say something like that!!!] She has developed a fact sheet similar to Huppenthal’s that she uses to dispel myths. “The primary type of data that is being collected is academic in nature,” she said.

“As a former teacher, it was so important for me to know where my students were academically, who had a history of absenteeism and who I needed to be prepared to provide additional supports to. I think people who are concerned should talk to their school and find out what is really being collected. There are state and federal laws protecting individual student data,” McManus added. [Yea, like the ones that stopped Edward Snowden from leaking all that data!]

Kotterman suggested parents keep in mind that the laws regulating the privacy of student data are similar to those that make medical records private. [Well, they didn't work very well in Edward Snowden's case. Nor do they do much good stopping bank robbers who could care less that they are committing a crime]

“We can’t sell your student’s data,” he said. “We can’t give it away.” [Well legally we can, but if some bureaucrat decides to sell your student's data, there ain't much you as a parent can do about it.]

RELATED INFO

About the education data system

Although it received less than a third of the funds it requested for the project, the Arizona Department of Education is moving forward to streamline and centralize the state’s student-data system.

The state Legislature allocated $7 million this year for a program to replace a piecemeal system of data and coding that officials use to track everything from standardized-test scores to students who receive federally funded meals.

The funds also are being used to develop pilot programs in 11 Arizona school districts and charter schools: Balsz Elementary, Deer Valley Unified, Eloy Elementary, Kingman Unified, Nogales Unified, Paradise Valley Unified, Phoenix Elementary, Tolleson Elementary, Vail, the Arizona State School for the Deaf and Blind and AmeriSchools. The program helps the districts instantly connect with student data that is housed in state Education Department databases.

Teachers can access student data through “dashboards” in their classrooms and find out immediately if their students are gifted, need remedial work in certain areas or have had attendance problems.

Department officials hope that as many as 200 school districts will connect to the new system in the next two years.

ASU’s tobacco-free policy — what a conundrum

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Malecka: ASU’s tobacco-free policy — what a conundrum

Corey Malecka is a junior studying journalism at Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and an intern with the East Valley Tribune.

Posted: Saturday, August 24, 2013 7:14 am | Updated: 11:03 am, Sun Aug 25, 2013.

Guest commentary by Corey Malecka | 13 comments

Arizona State University has banned the use of tobacco products on its property, and its enforcement is something difficult to imagine in the bustling university towns at the heart of communities like Tempe, southeast Mesa and Downtown Phoenix.

The “Tobacco-Free Campus” ostracizes users of tobacco products – namely easy-to-spot smokers – off the Sun Devils’ four primary campuses, as well as other property owned, rented or leased by the university.

The move is aligned with the Tobacco-free College Campus initiative, a national program under the guise of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ASU is now among the nearly 800 educational institutions that have implemented such a policy, according to a tally by the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation.

But of that number, only about 100 universities have a similar enforcement policy at ASU, said Kevin Salcido, associate VP and chief HR officer.

So how exactly is the university prepared to enforce and discipline violators?

Enforcement at ASU is dependent on student, staff and visitor participation in a voluntary peer-to-peer model.

ASU Police Department officials have made it clear that it was never the university’s intention to have its police department enforce it.

In reality, anyone can enforce it — even chain smokers if they felt so compelled. Because the program is voluntary, no university official can make someone enforce the tobacco ban; but if you respect the rule of law, then it would make sense that you would be obliged to.

Yet, while the intent to promote a healthy student body is valiant, the idea of having those on campus serve as the sort-of-but-not-really-official enforcement arm is troubling.

To patrol the university grounds by moral authority, rather than legal authority, is – pun intended – just blowing smoke.

With around 73,000 students enrolled, according to the university, enforcement would include trial-and-error, noted Justin Zeien, chair of the Health and Counseling Student Action Committee and Well Devils member

And, chances are, there will be sufficient errors.

Maricopa County Community College District’s Breathe Easy Initiative has a tobacco-free policy that began July 1, 2012. The MCCCD police handle compliance, said Andrew Tucker, district manager of communications for MCCCD.

Tucker asserted MCCCD does not punish violators on a first offense, but neither will ASU. It must be successful because MCCCD has had no write-ups in violation of its policy, only reminders by public safety.

But at ASU, say someone oversteps the purview of the policy’s “soft” enforcement by means of threats or harassment; Salcido admitted that abuse and misconduct of enforcement is a possibility. And to the same end, smokers may even be noncompliant just for the sake of turning their noses up at those attempting to shoo them to the borderlands.

Though, with only a handful of resources and one of the largest university communities in the nation to watch over, a smoking policy shouldn’t be left to university law enforcement, either.

So if the peer-to-peer system isn’t the way to go, and the policy would have been too much weight on the shoulders of an understandably busy ASU police arm, what’s the solution?

The American College Health Association conducted a survey at ASU for the 2011 National College Health Assessment, finding 86.4 percent of students do not smoke cigarettes. Basic arithmetic reveals only 9,928 ASU students smoke cigarettes. Sure, nearly 10,000 students seem like enough of a sample to invoke a tobacco-free policy; but that’s spread over four large campuses, numerous other properties, and not all students are on campus at the same time – nor lighting up together.

With those numbers in play – again considering the sheer size of ASU as a whole – wouldn’t a series of designated, conspicuously-marked smoking zones on each corner of each campus, allowing a compromise between smokers and non-smokers, be a better option? A campus libertarian group, Students for Liberty, fought against the policy change and supported such a move as a best-case consolation. The group’s logic: it would localize littering, and anyone who chose to could avoid the vicinity at will.

Surely $38,700 could have been a good starting point to help zone out smokers. That amount is what the university preliminarily allocated for small regulatory signage around ASU facilities, according to a facilities development and management official.

Or how about another $8,130? That’s what ASU’s Office of Wellness and Health Promotion had requested to spend on “Well Devils” T-shirts over the past three years from IGNITE – that’s Influence, Guide, Network, for Intercollegiate Tobacco Education, a county program for area colleges and universities to promote the dangers of smoking and to help tobacco users quit. Well Devils is mainly a student organization advocating for a healthy mind, body, and community, and the funds were devoted as such “because Well Devils live and breathe tobacco-free,” said Karen Moses, director of ASU Wellness.

In explaining the new ASU policy, director of ASU Health Services and HCSAC adviser Allan Markus said “mostly it’s for students, faculty and staff who made the life choice not to smoke.”

That’s a telling statement. It’s OK that the majority stands to benefit from such a decision, but in this case, it didn’t have to be at the expense of the minority – that being the tobacco users.

What’s clear is that the ASU community missed an opportunity to foster actual engagement between differing viewpoints on a controversial issue, and that the community could have come up with a solution that benefited all parties involved.

I might have been one to help enforce the policy if it were truly at the benefit of the entire student body. But as it sits now, I plan to keep a clean nose, and hope to find an ashtray off campus.

• Corey Malecka, a junior studying journalism at Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, was an intern for the East Valley Tribune this past summer.

Obama’s higher ed fix won’t work

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Obama’s higher ed fix won’t work

From the political notebook:

* Last week, President Barack Obama took what his office described as a “college affordability bus tour.” During it, he proposed that the federal government start evaluating which universities and colleges offer a greater value and direct proportionally greater federal aid to those with higher rankings.

That’s just what the country and higher education needs: another busybody federal program.

Think the federal government is having difficulty coming up with a Volcker rule to limit the investment risks banks can take with their own capital. Wait until it gets into the business of defining “value” in college education.

There is something the federal government could do that would dramatically reduce the cost of a college education: stop financing it.

If the federal government wasn’t massively subsiding higher education, colleges, universities and trade schools would have to sharply reduce the cost or go out of business. There’s room to do it. Higher ed costs have increased largely in administration, not classroom instruction.

They would also have to increase their value proposition far more than would be necessary to game whatever scheme Obama’s federal value apparatchiks come up with.

Students would also benefit from having to rely on private financing. The federal government has a difficult time differentiating between institutions and degrees. Private lenders wouldn’t.

The federal government can’t really say that it will give a loan to attend Virtuous State but not Diploma Mill U or to get an engineering degree but not one in English Lit. With private lenders, there would be money available for degrees from institutions that would result in jobs with incomes sufficient to pay back the loan but not when that was in doubt. Imagine that.

Students wanting to go on to college would have to buckle down more in high school, even if they weren’t aiming at getting into a prestigious school. That high school record is part of what private lenders would be looking at.

There is significant malinvestment in higher education. It won’t be solved by setting off a feeding frenzy among college administrators and federal bureaucrats over what constitutes “value.”

* When Attorney General Eric Holder proposed sentencing reform, state Rep. Bob Thorpe tweeted to the effect that Holder was doing it because he was Black and Blacks make up a substantially disproportionate percentage of those incarcerated in the United States.

Thorpe was lambasted by Democratic politicians, and rightfully so given his crudity. Thorpe sort-of apologized and then restricted access to his twitter account.

But here’s the irony: Race is very much an issue in sentencing reform, particularly with respect to drugs which was part of Holder’s focus.

Drug laws are far more vigorously enforced in low-income, minority communities, for reasons both good and bad. As a result, drug convictions for minorities, particularly young black men, are hugely disproportionate to what the statistics say about their relative drug use. Obviously having a criminal record sharply limits their future prospects. This is a big social issue in the United States.

There are many reasons to change our drug laws. The disproportionate effect on young minorities is one of them.

And, in the ultimate irony, Holder said as much in the speech to which Thorpe responded.

* A superior court judge recently held that Phoenix and Tucson didn’t have to follow a new state law and change their candidate election dates to coincide with the state’s primary and general elections. I doubt that this is the last word. The ruling completely ignored a 1997 Court of Appeals decision saying that the state could dictate municipal election dates, a decision the state Supreme Court referred to approvingly in a 2012 opinion.

However, the ruling did cheer some and occasioned a reprisal of an argument in favor of the current low-turnout, by-invitation-only city elections that is both astonishing and amusing.

Based upon Scottsdale’s experience, moving to the state schedule can double or triple turnout. The smaller turnout is nevertheless better, some claim, because the electorate is focused just on city issues.

So, the judgment of 20 percent of the electorate is to be preferred to the judgment of 60 percent because the 60 percent are making other decisions at the same time?

Really?

Ah-hah!!! Sarin gas!!!!

What's your share of the $16.7 trillion debt???

Of course if you have read the book "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin you probably realize that the National Debt is just an accounting sham where the government pretends to borrow money from itself to justify running the printing presses to print all that money.

Source

U.S. will hit debt limit in mid-October, Treasury secretary Lew says

By Jim Puzzanghera

August 26, 2013, 1:59 p.m.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. will run out of borrowing authority under the nation's $16.7-trillion debt limit in mid-October, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew formally told Congress on Monday as he implored lawmakers to act soon to avoid a government default.

Lew had last updated Congress on the debt limit in May, saying that he expected the Treasury to be able to continue borrowing until at least Labor Day.

The new deadline comes as lawmakers prepare to return to Washington next month to battle over government spending. Republican leaders have demanded budget cuts in exchange for raising the debt limit, and some lawmakers want President Obama and Democrats to agree to other policy concession as well.

Raising the limit doesn't authorize new spending; it simply allows the government to pay the bills for spending Congress already has approved.

But Lew warned that a standoff risked "dire consequences" and urged Congress to act quickly to "remove the threat of default."

"Protecting the full faith and credit of the United States is the responsibility of Congress because only Congress can extend the nation's borrowing authority," Lew wrote to House and Senate leaders, with copies sent to all lawmakers.

"Failure to meet that responsibility would cause irreparable harm to the American economy," he said.

A bitter showdown over raising the debt limit two years ago led Standard & Poor's to cut the nation's AAA credit rating to AA+.

The government technically hit its debt limit again in May. Since then, the Treasury has been using so-called extraordinary measures to juggle the nation's finances and continue borrowing to pay its bills.

The Treasury got additional help this summer when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made a combined dividend payment of nearly $60 billion on their bailouts, extending the deadline for the U.S. to raise its borrowing authority.

Based on the latest estimates, the Treasury's extraordinary measures would reach their limit in the middle of October, Lew said.

At that point, the government would only be able to pay bills with cash on hand of about $50 billion on any given day. Because it's not possible to estimate precisely when that cash would run out, Lew said Congress shouldn't wait until the last minute.

"Congress should act as soon as possible to protect America's good credit by extending normal borrowing authority well before any risk of default becomes imminent," he wrote.

Monster rocket to blast off from Pacific coast, rattle Southland

Monster rocket to blast off from Pacific coast, rattle Southland

By W.J. Hennigan

August 27, 2013, 6:05 a.m.

The nation’s largest rocket is ready to blast off from Vandenberg Air Force Base north of Santa Barbara, carrying a massive, top-secret spy satellite for the federal government.

As early as 10:52 a.m. Wednesday, the 235-foot Delta IV Heavy rocket will lift off from the base's Space Launch Complex 6, leaving a thick white plume over the Pacific.

The rocket, the tallest ever to be launched from the base, is set to place a classified spacecraft into polar orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office, the covert umbrella agency that operates spy satellites.

Southland residents eager to see the blastoff can head to the beaches or the mountains for a glimpse. But it may be difficult to see because it's a daytime launch.

Air Force security and local police have closed nearby locations, such as San Miguelito Canyon and Jalama Beach County Park, as a precaution.

Although little is publicly known about what exactly the rocket will be carrying into space, analysts say it is probably a $1-billion high-powered spy satellite capable of snapping pictures detailed enough to distinguish the make and model of an automobile hundreds of miles below.

This is the second time that a Delta IV Heavy rocket will be launched from Vandenberg. The first time, in January 2011, a sound wave as loud as a freight train swept over nearby Lompoc, a town of about 43,000.

Some people reported hearing the rocket’s roar as far away as 50 miles. Vehicles were pulling off and stopping on the southbound shoulder of U.S. 101 to watch it hurtle into the afternoon sky.

The rocket was built by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. It made its maiden flight in 2004 and is capable of lifting payloads of up to 24 tons into low Earth orbit.

Three hydrogen-fueled engines — each roughly the size of a pickup truck — will guzzle nearly a ton of propellants per second to provide 17 million horsepower. When the engines do roar to life, more than 200 Aerojet-Rocketdyne engineers and technicians will be watching.

It took the company five years to develop the engines at the company's sprawling Canoga Park facility during the 1990s. It was also where the engine parts were fabricated before being assembled in Mississippi.

Wednesday’s mission, designated NROL-65, has been on schedule for months.

Although Cape Canaveral, Fla., is the launch site for NASA's civilian space program, Vandenberg has been the site of military space projects for more than half a century.

Vandenberg, a 98,000-acre base along the Pacific, has been the primary site for launching spy satellites since the beginning of the Cold War because of its ideal location for putting satellites into a north-to-south orbit.

Space Launch Complex 6 is known on base as “Slick Six.” The launch pad was built in the 1960s and later was intended to accommodate space shuttle launches, but they remained in Florida. Since then, the pad has gone through many renovations. Most recently, Vandenberg spent $100 million on upgrades over three years.

The launch is slated to be webcast beginning at 10:32 a.m. at rocket maker United Launch Alliance's website at www.ulalaunch.com.

Uncle Sam has your Facebook password???

Facebook: Governments demanded data on 38K users

By Matt Apuzzo Associated Press Tue Aug 27, 2013 6:50 AM

WASHINGTON — Government agents in 74 countries demanded information on about 38,000 Facebook users in the first half of this year, with about half the orders coming from authorities in the United States, the company said Tuesday.

The social-networking giant is the latest technology company to release figures on how often governments seek information about its customers. Microsoft and Google have done the same.

As with the other companies, it’s hard to discern much from Facebook’s data, besides the fact that, as users around the globe flocked to the world’s largest social network, police and intelligence agencies followed.

Facebook and Twitter have become organizing platforms for activists and, as such, have become targets for governments. During anti-government protests in Turkey in May and June, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called social media “the worst menace to society.”

At the time, Facebook denied it provided information about protest organizers to the Turkish government.

Data released Tuesday show authorities in Turkey submitted 96 requests covering 173 users. Facebook said it provided some information in about 45 of those cases, but there’s no information on what was turned over and why.

“We fight many of these requests, pushing back when we find legal deficiencies and narrowing the scope of overly broad or vague requests,” Colin Stretch, Facebook’s general counsel company said in a blog post. “When we are required to comply with a particular request, we frequently share only basic user information, such as name.”

Facebook and other technology companies have been criticized for helping the National Security Agency secretly collect data on customers. Federal law gives government the authority to demand data without specific warrants, and while companies can fight requests in secret court hearings, it’s an uphill battle.

Facebook turned over some data in response to about 60 percent of those requests.

It’s not clear from the Facebook data how many of the roughly 26,000 government requests on 38,000 users were for law-enforcement purposes and how many were for intelligence gathering.

Technology and government officials have said criminal investigations are far more common than national security matters as a justification for demanding information from companies.

The numbers are imprecise because the federal government forbids companies from revealing how many times they’ve been ordered to turn over information about their customers. Facebook released only a range of figures for the United States.

The company said it planned to start releasing these figures regularly.

Blame Gov. Brewer for this epic clemency fail

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Our View: Blame Gov. Brewer for this epic clemency fail

By Editorial board The Republic | azcentral.com Mon Aug 26, 2013 6:28 PM

Jesse Hernandez, who recently resigned as executive director and chairman of the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency, obviously is not the first political appointee to arrive at an important government post ill-prepared and unqualified.

Usually, the beneficiaries of these opportunities have the good sense to not call attention to their shortcomings, lean heavily on the expertise of staff and ride the gravy train to its lucrative end.

In a backhanded way, such people pay tribute to their benefactor (in this case, Gov. Jan Brewer) in the one way they can: by not making idiots of themselves and calling attention to the fact that the boss (as mentioned, Gov. Brewer) thought so little of the post that she would fill it with such a knucklehead.

Jesse Hernandez, alas, does not appear to have learned this one lesson that is fundamental to political self-seekers: Your goofball antics do not reflect on you because, by virtue of your paper-thin qualifications, you cast no shadow. It all reflects back onto your boss. Who — did we mention? — is Gov. Brewer.

If the appointment had been to some far, wee corner of the political feather-bedder’s universe, that would have been one thing. But the clemency board is a highly visible institution, made more visible by Brewer herself.

Hernandez was appointed last year when Brewer suddenly replaced three of the five clemency board members, apparently because they were recommending too much clemency on behalf of inmates.

As The Republic’s Bob Ortega reported in his series in May on Arizona’s prison system, Brewer is the first Arizona governor in 34 years not to issue a single pardon. She has denied each of the clemency board’s 13 recommendations.

But simply saying no wasn’t enough. Brewer needed a clemency board that was just as averse to clemency as she was. Enter Hernandez, whose political connections in the Republican Party suggest a viewpoint on crime and clemency that would mirror the governor’s.

But if a reluctance to liberate felons had been his only notoriety, Hernandez still would have an $84,000-per-year job. It was the foolish stuff that done him in.

Before a year was out, an internal investigation found nine instances of inappropriate behavior by the new director, including conducting a tacky and obvious in-office romance and arranging a substantial promotion for his special friend, who, like Hernandez himself, appeared otherwise unqualified.

Hernandez also stirred accusations of favoritism by continuing a commutation hearing, repeatedly, for a relative of his friend, basketball star Amar’e Stoudemire. And he accumulated a fulsome record of rude behavior involving other board members, staff and relatives of inmates.

Hernandez has his defenders. Among them, prisoner-rights activist Donna Leone Hamm, who normally is not fond of clemency-averse board directors. But the one defender who mattered to Hernandez is on a promotional tour of India. And she has not commented on her appointee’s behavior, other than to declare that she accepted his resignation without hesitation.

That would be Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who apparently thought someone devoid of corrections experience would be a good director of the state clemency board, as long as his politics aligned with hers.

Sometimes, such political appointments strike pay dirt. Which is to say they kick up no dust. Sometimes, like this one, they splat headfirst into the muck.

This article reminds me of David Dorn!!!!!

Posted on August 26, 2013 2:32 pm by EJ Montini

Recalling the unimaginable

One of the worst things about a job like mine is the realization, based on experience, that human behavior which should be unimaginable… isn’t.

Like a parent killing his child and then himself.

That is supposedly what happened over the weekend, when Chandler police say 25-year-old Rajneesh Saini shot and killed his three-month-old son and then took his own life.

It’s unimaginable.

It’s unthinkable.

It’s … happened before.

Here.

Years ago I received in the mail a letter from a woman named Koby Lyn Robinson.

She was in the news at the time for having put a gun to the head of her 6-year-old daughter, Kaylea, pulling the trigger, and then shooting and killing herself.

But some miracle, Kaylea lived.

The letter I got from Koby Lyn was postmarked the day of the shooting.

She wrote in part, “I’m concerned that despite my careful planning, the press will exaggerate and fudge on the reporting of my suicide. I waited on you once at the Spaghetti Co. and praised your ‘reporting.’ … You have a beautiful daughter, so do I. I had dreams for her, but single moms really struggle to ensure those dreams for their children.”

There is no way of understanding how a loving parent can do such a thing. There’s no explaining it. Or justifying it. Or anything remotely like that.

I don’t understand it. None of us do, I’d guess.

But here is how Koby Lyn explained it: “There is no place in our society for those of us who need emotional and mental healing. There’s no place in our society for those of us who are very young, very old or very vulnerable. I just couldn’t keep on fighting …

“I beg you please don’t let the press butcher my name and hurt my family. I’m not a horrible person, I’m not a murderer, I’m a middle-aged, sad, lonely desperate mom who just couldn’t go on. There are many out there just like me. Maybe God will forgive me and let me help those people from wherever this journey of death takes me.”

Architect of 'dirty DUI' scam says cop helped out

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Architect of 'dirty DUI' scam says cop helped out

Justin Berton

Updated 11:30 pm, Monday, August 26, 2013

The East Bay private investigator who invented the "dirty DUI" - elaborately staging the drunken-driving busts of targeted men - said the ploy grew more efficient after he paid off a Danville-based cop with cocaine and a pistol to ensure the arrests occurred.

Christopher Butler was once a police officer himself, before he sought wealth and fame as a private investigator with side appearances in magazines and on television. On Monday, he became something else: a government witness.

Butler, who cut a plea deal and is serving eight years in prison on drug and conspiracy charges, took the stand at the federal corruption trial of Stephen Tanabe, the former Contra Costa County deputy sheriff who Butler said carried out three drunken-driving arrests on his behalf.

Tanabe's attorneys have said the officer worked for an agency that pressured its employees to make frequent DUI stops - and took tips from Butler in the same way officers learn of drug deals from informants. Tanabe, 50, of Alamo has denied he accepted drugs or any compensation from Butler in exchange for the arrests. 'Designed coincidences'

Sounding at times like the police officer he once was, Butler gave a stoic overview of his once-thriving investigations firm, which was the subject of a reality TV show called "P.I. Moms" - it was never broadcast - and specialized in creating what Butler called "designed coincidences."

"We'd create the illusion that something was happening when it really wasn't," said Butler, who wore a red inmate jumpsuit for his appearance at the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. He said he was hired, at times, to plant drugs on clients, install listening devices in cars and commit insurance fraud.

But it was the dirty DUI stings that Butler described at length. He said he conceived the ruse when a client approached him in 2007 and complained that her husband was driving drunk with the couple's children in the car.

The woman wanted recorded video proof, Butler said, so he dispatched a female "decoy" to approach the man at a bar, flirt and see if the target "would take the bait" by following the decoy in a car to another destination.

Butler, who often represented estranged wives in divorce and child-custody disputes, said he carried out the DUI sting a dozen times on unsuspecting men throughout the Bay Area, but sparked only five arrests.

He said he adhered to strict rules when deciding whether to accept a client's request: The man needed to have a propensity to drink and drive, and children needed to be involved.

"I don't know why," Butler said when asked why children needed to play a role. "It was just my requirement."

At first, Butler said the scam was inefficient. He would call the local police dispatch center to report a drunken driver, but sometimes a patrol car arrived too late or not at all. Then in 2008, he said, he called a close friend who was a Concord police officer on his cell phone to make sure the officer was working the same night as a planned sting. Officer friends involved

Butler said that the Concord officer arrested the targeted man and that he called on several police friends after that.

"I put together a plan where I was able to have direct access to a law enforcement officer," he testified.

Butler also described his friendship with Tanabe, whom he met in the mid-1990s when both men were Antioch police officers. After Butler resigned in 1999, while under investigation for conducting a 33-minute patrol chase that ended in an accident, he opened his firm, Butler and Associates.

He said he often hired Tanabe, who also had resigned, for bodyguard and surveillance work. But Tanabe, he said, used cocaine and once asked Butler to help him quit the drug.

Years later, Butler said, he was at a bar with Tanabe - who had joined the county Sheriff's Office in 2006 - as one of his decoys flirted with a targeted man. Tanabe, he said, asked him to be paid for his involvement with the arrests.

"Mr. Tanabe wanted to be compensated for his time and efforts," Butler said. "I didn't expect him to work for free." Paid in cocaine

The private investigator said he was surprised when Tanabe asked to be paid with $200 worth of cocaine instead of cash - he thought his friend had quit using the drug long ago. Butler said he delivered the drugs to Tanabe when the officer was in uniform and parked in his patrol car outside a market in Danville.

"I put the car in park, reached out the window, and handed him the baggie," Butler said.

Tanabe faces more than 20 years in prison if convicted. His attorneys will begin their cross-examination of Butler on Tuesday.

Justin Berton is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jberton@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @justinberton

Video cameras - proof of police corruption???

"More than 100 prosecutions had to be scuttled when footage from security videos prompted allegations that officers lied about the circumstances of drug searches and arrests or stole from suspects"

Source

S.F. cops will wear cameras to record searches

Jaxon Van Derbeken

Updated 9:24 pm, Monday, August 26, 2013

San Francisco police supervisors will soon wear video cameras on their chests in a pilot project aimed at reassuring the public in the wake of questionable drug raids by plainclothes officers at residential hotels in 2011.

Police Chief Greg Suhr said the $1,000 devices will be rolled out to 50 plainclothes supervisors in the next six weeks as the first part of what is expected to be a deployment of 150 cameras. The goal, Suhr said, is to document every detail of an investigative search.

"We can have a recording of the conversation at the door with regard to consent on consensual entries or the announcement on search warrant entries," he said. "The main goal is to capture for purpose of evidence preservation the conversation at the threshold."

In recent years, some Bay Area cities have decided to equip officers with chest cameras at all times, with the footage used in both criminal investigations and in internal probes of officer misconduct. Suhr said using wearable cameras in other situations, including traffic stops, is under consideration.

The grant-funded program in San Francisco comes as the FBI continues to investigate several residential hotel raids in 2011.

More than 100 prosecutions had to be scuttled when footage from security videos prompted allegations that officers lied about the circumstances of drug searches and arrests or stole from suspects.

Suhr said he hopes the videos will assure the public that officers are acting properly during such raids. Martin Halloran, the head of the police union, voiced a similar sentiment, saying, "I think you are going to find out that once this equipment is out there that our officers are performing in a professional manner and have been all along."

Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who publicly released some of the footage that raised questions about the residential hotel raids, welcomed the use of the cameras, saying they have proven effective elsewhere in reducing complaints of misconduct. He stressed that the technology needed strict guidelines and supervision to protect privacy rights.

"I think it's a good idea," Adachi said. "The question, or problem of police accountability, is one that has plagued San Francisco and other cities for decades. What cameras will do is provide objective evidence of the circumstances in these cases."

In the San Bernardino County city of Rialto, police-deployed video cameras led to an 88 percent drop in complaints against officers and a 60 percent drop in the use of force in a one-year period.

While police are moving toward reliance on video cameras, San Francisco's fire department has explicitly banned firefighters from buying and using helmet-mounted cameras until a policy can be worked out to permit their use.

Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White reinforced a 2009 policy against cameras, saying she needed to protect privacy rights. She acted not long after Battalion Chief Mark Johnson's helmet-mounted camera captured footage that raised questions about the department's handling of the July 6 crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214.

In the response to the fire, a passenger was run over by an airport fire rig after being covered by foam. Fire officials say Johnson violated the rules, but have not yet sought to discipline him.

Jaxon Van Derbeken is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jvanderbeken@sfchronicle.com

Recreational marijuana: Denver sets sales tax, retail rules

Well I guess that is a lot better then Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema who tried to flush Arizona's medical marijuana laws down the toilet with a 300 percent tax on medical marijuana.

It's been a while since I dug up the percent tax on tea that caused the Boston Tea Party, but I think it was something like 3/4 of a percent tax or a 1 and 3/4 percent on tea.

This 3.5 percent tax on marijuana in Denver is at least twice the tax that caused the Boston Tea Party.

Source

Recreational marijuana: Denver sets sales tax, retail rules

By Jeremy P. Meyer, Denver Post

Posted: 08/27/2013 09:28:33 AM PDT | Updated: 53 min. ago

Denver City Council on Monday made several big decisions about the nascent marijuana industry, including allowing stores to sell both medical and nonmedical pot without requiring physical barriers in the shops and setting a proposed 3.5 percent tax rate.

Also, new licensing requirements will give neighbors a chance to raise concerns about public safety, health and welfare of the neighborhood at mandatory public hearings before medical marijuana centers can convert to selling retail marijuana.

"We've done a good job here," Councilman Chris Nevitt said after an afternoon committee meeting. [You ever hear an elected official admitting they did a lousy job??? Nope, they always pat themselves on the back, not for doing an OK job, but for always doing a super, super, super fantastic job]

Denver, which has about 200 medical marijuana centers, is the largest city in Colorado to opt-in on allowing retail marijuana to be sold beginning in January. The City Council has been working on establishing a licensing and regulatory framework since Amendment 64 was passed by state voters last year.

The 3.5 percent sales tax, if approved by voters in November, is expected to raise $3.4 million a year to pay for regulation, enforcement and education around the new industry. [Translation - the 3.5 percent tax is a government welfare program for government bureaucrats!!!] Denver Mayor Michael Hancock had wanted a 5 percent beginning tax rate. The tax would be able to be raised as high as 15 percent without a public vote. [You can bet as time marches on the tax rate will be continually jack up until it hits the 15 percent max. And then the government crooks will ask the voters for permission to raise the tax higher]

"This will create the opportunity to deal with some of those social costs that will come as a result of an expanded presence of marijuana in Denver," said Councilwoman Debbie Ortega. [translation - it's a welfare program for overpaid government bureaucrats]

"The whole country is watching us," said Council President Mary Beth Susman. "Come Jan. 1, we are going to have people from all over the country asking us how is it going? We have thought about what it will mean for the future and to be among the first to legalize marijuana in this fashion."

The council on Monday also set the licensing requirements for the new industry that will begin in January. The new rules range from store hours to the substance of public hearings. The full council will vote on the licensing requirements next month.

Among the highlights :

• For the first two years, the city will allow only established medical marijuana businesses to convert to retail marijuana shops.

• Medical and retail marijuana can be sold in the same store without a physical barrier, which had been called for in an earlier version.

• Retail marijuana shops in Denver can operate from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., despite a state law that allows them to be open until midnight.

• Public hearings will be required when existing medical marijuana shops convert. But the hearings won't be as strict as liquor licenses, which determine whether neighborhoods need or desire that a liquor license be issued.

Some council members were concerned that the public wasn't going to have as much opportunity to make their cases before the pot shops begin operating. Councilman Paul Lopez was pleased that the council put in an allowance for neighbors to talk about their concerns.

"This will give neighborhoods a voice and will keep them at the table and not on the menu," he said.

Mixing government and religion in Mesa???

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Mesa's 5th new college, Benedictine U., blesses, opens downtown campus

Posted: Wednesday, August 28, 2013 7:05 am

By Katie Mayer, Special to Tribune

A crowd of more than 250 gathered in downtown Mesa Tuesday for a blessing and ribbon-cutting in the building that was once Mesa’s Southside Hospital and is now home to Arizona’s first Catholic university.

The 44,000 square-foot contemporary renovated space, located at 225 E. Main Street, is the primary academic building for Benedictine University at Mesa and includes nine classrooms, a nutrition lab, computer lab, a chapel and faculty and administrative offices, along with empty space to grow.

On Sept. 3, students will step foot on campus and be the first to experience a learning style that university officials call “lecture-free classes.” University officials would not release the number of students starting classes, but said the number is changing, as enrollment is ongoing.

“When I came out here to Mesa, I had a big dream, but I didn’t dream big enough,” said Charles Gregory, executive vice president of Benedictine University. “It’s more than I could ever have comprehended.”

The ribbon-cutting event kicked off at 10 a.m. with a program that included a blessing from Diocese of Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted. The bishop and priests then walked around the campus to bless the new building.

Many City of Mesa officials and university officials repeatedly mentioned the lengthy process of what started as a vision for a higher education institution in downtown Mesa and ended with a $10 million joint venture renovation that is now the new Benedictine University at Mesa campus.

Benedictine University President William Carroll said the journey was not “sweet talk” and involved “heavy duty negotiations.”

Mesa Mayor Scott Smith said that officials were not simply looking for a college to offer classes downtown, but that they wanted a university that would actually change the community.

“They saw that in many ways Benedictine University and Mesa were like twin sisters,” Smith said.

Smith said both the city and university are innovative and community-focused and that both are focused on investing in the future of generations to come.

“We are writing the next chapter in Mesa’s history,” said Mesa Councilman Chris Glover, whose grandfather had been a physician at Southside Hospital.

Glover delivered an emotional speech that began with a story about Jesus and ended with his calling the work with the university “one of the most intrinsically rewarding experiences of my life.”

A number of students, wearing the school’s red-colored shirts, attended the event and shared their excitement about starting college classes.

“This school has everything I was looking for,” said incoming freshman Dulce Perez, 18, of Mesa. “It’s small and I liked that it would be hands on.”

Steffen Spreng, who is 20 years old and transferring to the university from Mesa Community College, said he’s excited to “see the Christian Community growing in Mesa,” even though he is not Catholic.

“I like how it’s going to be small and another thing that really intrigued me is the lecture-free environment because I’m a hands-on learner,” Spreng said.

Benedictine University at Mesa Branch Campus President Michael Carroll said rather than passively sit and listen to lectures, students at the university will problem-solve, debate, assess and self-regulate.

Students will work on tablets, download lectures and attend all classes in a learning lab environment. Officials call the classroom style “flipped” because instead of reading a textbook and then looking at a problem, students will learn about a problem or issue first, and then conduct research to find a solution.

“By the time they graduate, they are going to have an electronic portfolio to show employers what they’ve accomplished,” Carroll said.

Benedictine University at Mesa is part of a larger effort city officials launched to attract colleges and universities to Mesa. The first institution, Albright College, opened earlier this year in Mesa’s Bank of America building and throughout August, three more institutions opened – Upper Iowa University, Wilkes and Westminster.

Grand Canyon University also announced in late July that it would begin building a campus in Eastmark in 2014.

The main Benedictine University campus is located in Lisle, Ill., which is 25 miles west of Chicago. Tuition for students attending Benedictine University at Mesa is $20,000 per year. For more information, go to www.ben.edu/mesa.

U.N. warns U.S. against illegal spying on diplomats

According to the US Constitution any treaties the America government enters into must be obeyed before the normal laws passed by Congress and must be obeyed.

Of course the US government doesn't seem to be willing to obey laws that it has agreed to obey when it signed onto treaties any more then it is willing to obey the requirements of the Bill of Rights, such as the 4th Amendment which says it won't spy on us without a search warrant, issued by a court based on probable cause!!!

Source

U.N. warns U.S. against illegal spying on diplomats

By Carol J. Williams

August 26, 2013, 2:15 p.m.

United Nations officials on Monday reacted to the latest leaks about U.S. National Security Agency spying with a reminder to the Obama administration of its legal obligation to respect the “inviolability” of diplomatic missions on U.S. soil.

The German news magazine Der Spiegel reported over the weekend that the NSA, already under fire for reported intelligence gathering on private phone calls and emails around the world, had also infiltrated the U.N. video-conferencing network to eavesdrop on diplomatic missions in New York.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other officials are “aware of the reports and intend to be in touch with the relevant authorities,” spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters at the daily news briefing at U.N. headquarters.

The United States, as host country for the United Nations and its member delegations, is obliged by “well-established international law” to respect the privacy and sovereignty of national and multinational missions, Haq said.

“Member states are expected to act accordingly to protect the inviolability of diplomatic missions,” Haq said.

Der Spiegel reported in its latest issue that its reporters had analyzed secret NSA documents leaked by fugitive intelligence contractor Edward Snowden that disclosed how the U.S. agency gained access to the U.N. communications systems. The respected German magazine also reported that the NSA, in its clandestine surveillance, had discovered similar spying activity conducted by China that U.S. analysts were able to comb for important intelligence insights.

The magazine laid out in detail how the NSA acquired floor plans and diagrams of the European Union's new diplomatic mission at the United Nations in September 2012 in an operation code-named Apalachee.

Under the 1961 Vienna Convention and other international accords, Haq said, the United States is prohibited from conducting covert operations at the United Nations and its associated foreign missions.

The NSA used traditional wiretapping devices to intercept U.N. communications, Der Spiegel said. It also reported that the agency infiltrated the computer networks of foreign diplomatic missions in Washington, including the EU delegation headquarters, and copied computer hard drives.

The magazine referred to an "internal presentation" summing up an NSA objective to acquire "information superiority," not just in its counter-terrorism intelligence gathering, but also with programs aimed at drug trafficking, organized crime and "traditional espionage targeting foreign governments."

Telemarketers ignoring Do Not Call law

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Telemarketers ignoring Do Not Call law

Complaints have jumped 63 percent in past two years

Aug. 26, 2013 |

Written by Megan Kowalski and Meghan Hoyer

The average monthly complaints from consumers who signed up for the national Do Not Call list but still are getting telemarketing calls have jumped 63 percent from 2011.

The statistics are in data from the Federal Trade Commission, which maintains the list.

Much of the blame is on a proliferation of computerized robocalls, according to Lois Greisman, the FTC’s director of marketing practices.

Illegal robocall operations are taking advantage of increasingly sophisticated technology that has made it easier and easier to simultaneously send thousands of robocalls costing less than one cent per minute, Greisman says. “It used to be, in order to blast out these calls you needed a big infrastructure, you needed a lot of service, a lot of computers, and now basically all you need is a computer and a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) connection.”

Instantly popular

The Do Not Call Registry started in 2003 to address the problem of unwanted telemarketing calls. It was an immediate hit, adding more than 51 million phone numbers in its first year. Once a cell or landline number is listed, it stays until disconnected.

While registration growth has leveled out in recent years — there are more than 221 million numbers now on the list — complaints have soared. Since last September, the FTC has handled an average of 308,000 complaints a month, a slight drop from a few record months early in 2012, but more than double two years ago.

Under the rules, only surveys, political calls, charitable requests and informational calls (such as a school announcing a weather delay) are allowed. And charity appeals must be direct, not from a telemarketer.

Greisman says FTC enforcement cases in the past several years have focused on scammers trying to sell bogus products such as extended auto warranties and credit-card debt reduction plans. But legitimate companies such as Mortgage Investors Corp. also have gotten in hot water for violating Do Not Call numbers.

Scammers 'spoof' caller ID number

Along with being cheap and easy, robocalls can be the hardest to trace, says Sid Kirchheimer, author of “Scam-Proof Your Life.” Calls often come from foreign centers, and scammers increasingly use technology to “spoof” caller ID to display whatever number they pick, he says.

“The FTC is doing a great job for what they can do,” he says. “(They) deserve credit. ... It’s a really, really tough thing.”

Since the Do Not Call program started, the FTC has filed 106 enforcement cases against companies and individuals who have violated the rules and has collected $81.9 million in relief and penalties.

NYPD designates mosques as terrorism organizations

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NYPD designates mosques as terrorism organizations

By Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo Associated Press

Wed Aug 28, 2013 7:28 AM

NEW YORK — The New York Police Department has secretly labeled entire mosques as terrorist organizations, a designation that allows police to use informants to record sermons and spy on imams, often without specific evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

Designating an entire mosque as a terrorism enterprise means that anyone who attends prayer services there is a potential subject of an investigation and fair game for surveillance.

Since the 9/11 attacks, the NYPD has opened at least a dozen “terrorism enterprise investigations” into mosques, according to interviews and confidential police documents. The TEI, as it is known, is a police tool intended to help investigate terrorist cells and the like.

Many TEIs stretch for years, allowing surveillance to continue even though the NYPD has never criminally charged a mosque or Islamic organization with operating as a terrorism enterprise.

The documents show in detail how, in its hunt for terrorists, the NYPD investigated countless innocent New York Muslims and put information about them in secret police files. As a tactic, opening an enterprise investigation on a mosque is so potentially invasive that while the NYPD conducted at least a dozen, the FBI never did one, according to interviews with federal law enforcement officials.

The strategy has allowed the NYPD to send undercover officers into mosques and attempt to plant informants on the boards of mosques and at least one prominent Arab-American group in Brooklyn, whose executive director has worked with city officials, including Bill de Blasio, a front-runner for mayor.

The revelations about the NYPD’s massive spying operations are in documents recently obtained by The Associated Press and part of a new book, “Enemies Within: Inside the NYPD’s Secret Spying Unit and bin Laden’s Final Plot Against America.” The book by AP reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman is based on hundreds of previously unpublished police files and interviews with current and former NYPD, CIA and FBI officials.

The disclosures come as the NYPD is fighting off lawsuits accusing it of engaging in racial profiling while combating crime. Earlier this month, a judge ruled that the department’s use of the stop-and-frisk tactic was unconstitutional.

The American Civil Liberties Union and two other groups have sued, saying the Muslim spying programs are unconstitutional and make Muslims afraid to practice their faith without police scrutiny.

Both Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly have denied those accusations. Speaking Wednesday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Kelly reminded people that his intelligence-gathering programs began in the wake of 9/11.

“We follow leads wherever they take us,” Kelly said. “We’re not intimidated as to wherever that lead takes us. And we’re doing that to protect the people of New York City.”

***

The NYPD did not limit its operations to collecting information on those who attended the mosques or led prayers. The department sought also to put people on the boards of New York’s Islamic institutions to fill intelligence gaps.

One confidential NYPD document shows police wanted to put informants in leadership positions at mosques and other organizations, including the Arab American Association of New York in Brooklyn, a secular social-service organization.

Linda Sarsour, the executive director, said her group helps new immigrants adjust to life in the U.S. It was not clear whether the department was successful in its plans.

The document, which appears to have been created around 2009, was prepared for Kelly and distributed to the NYPD’s debriefing unit, which helped identify possible informants.

Around that time, Kelly was handing out medals to the Arab American Association’s soccer team, Brooklyn United, smiling and congratulating its players for winning the NYPD’s soccer league.

Sarsour, a Muslim who has met with Kelly many times, said she felt betrayed.

“It creates mistrust in our organizations,” said Sarsour, who was born and raised in Brooklyn. “It makes one wonder and question who is sitting on the boards of the institutions where we work and pray.”

***

Before the NYPD could target mosques as terrorist groups, it had to persuade a federal judge to rewrite rules governing how police can monitor speech protected by the First Amendment.

The rules stemmed from a 1971 lawsuit, dubbed the Handschu case after lead plaintiff Barbara Handschu, over how the NYPD spied on protesters and liberals during the Vietnam War era.

David Cohen, a former CIA executive who became NYPD’s deputy commissioner for intelligence in 2002, said the old rules didn’t apply to fighting against terrorism.

Cohen told the judge that mosques could be used “to shield the work of terrorists from law enforcement scrutiny by taking advantage of restrictions on the investigation of First Amendment activity.”

NYPD lawyers proposed a new tactic, the TEI, that allowed officers to monitor political or religious speech whenever the “facts or circumstances reasonably indicate” that groups of two or more people were involved in plotting terrorism or other violent crime.

The judge rewrote the Handschu rules in 2003. In the first eight months under the new rules, the NYPD’s Intelligence Division opened at least 15 secret terrorism enterprise investigations, documents show. At least 10 targeted mosques.

Doing so allowed police, in effect, to treat anyone who attends prayer services as a potential suspect. Sermons, ordinarily protected by the First Amendment, could be monitored and recorded.

Among the mosques targeted as early as 2003 was the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge.

“I have never felt free in the United States. The documents tell me I am right,” Zein Rimawi, one of the Bay Ridge mosque’s leaders, said after reviewing an NYPD document describing his mosque as a terrorist enterprise.

Rimawi, 59, came to the U.S. decades ago from the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“Ray Kelly, shame on him,” he said. “I am American.”

***

The NYPD believed the tactics were necessary to keep the city safe, a view that sometimes put it at odds with the FBI.

In August 2003, Cohen asked the FBI to install eavesdropping equipment inside a mosque called Masjid al-Farooq, including its prayer room.

Al-Farooq had a long history of radical ties. Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian sheik who was convicted of plotting to blow up New York City landmarks, once preached briefly at Al-Farooq. Invited preachers raged against Israel, the United States and the Bush administration’s war on terror.

One of Cohen’s informants said an imam from another mosque had delivered $30,000 to an al-Farooq leader, and the NYPD suspected the money was for terrorism.

But Amy Jo Lyons, the FBI assistant special agent in charge for counterterrorism, refused to bug the mosque. She said the federal law wouldn’t permit it.

The NYPD made other arrangements. Cohen’s informants began to carry recording devices into mosques under investigation. They hid microphones in wristwatches and the electronic key fobs used to unlock car doors.

Even under a TEI, a prosecutor and a judge would have to approve bugging a mosque. But the informant taping was legal because New York law allows any party to record a conversation, even without consent from the others. Like the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, the NYPD never demonstrated in court that al-Farooq was a terrorist enterprise but that didn’t stop the police from spying on the mosques for years.

And under the new Handschu guidelines, no one outside the NYPD could question the secret practice.

Martin Stolar, one of the lawyers in the Handschu case, said it’s clear the NYPD used enterprise investigations to justify open-ended surveillance. The NYPD should only tape conversations about building bombs or plotting attacks, he said.

“Every Muslim is a potential terrorist? It is completely unacceptable,” he said. “It really tarnishes all of us and tarnishes our system of values.”

***

Al-Ansar Center, a windowless Sunni mosque, opened in Brooklyn several years ago, attracting young Arabs and South Asians. NYPD officers feared the mosque was a breeding ground for terrorists, so informants kept tabs on it.

One NYPD report noted that members were fixing up the basement, turning it into a gym.

“They also want to start Jiujitsu classes,” it said.

The NYPD was particularly alarmed about Mohammad Elshinawy, 26, an Islamic teacher at several New York mosques, including Al-Ansar. Elshinawy was a Salafist — a follower of a puritanical Islamic movement — whose father was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center attacks, according to NYPD documents.

The FBI also investigated whether Elshinawy recruited people to wage violent jihad overseas. But the two agencies investigated him very differently.

The FBI closed the case after many months without any charges. Federal investigators never infiltrated Al-Ansar.

“Nobody had any information the mosque was engaged in terrorism activities,” a former federal law enforcement official recalled, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the investigation.

The NYPD wasn’t convinced. A 2008 surveillance document described Elshinawy as “a young spiritual leader (who) lectures and gives speeches at dozens of venues” and noted, “He has orchestrated camping trips and paintball trips.”

The NYPD deemed him a threat in part because “he is so highly regarded by so many young and impressionable individuals.”

No part of Elshinawy’s life was out of bounds. His mosque was the target of a TEI. The NYPD conducted surveillance at his wedding. An informant recorded the wedding and police videotaped everyone who came and went.

“We have nothing on the lucky bride at this time but hopefully will learn about her at the service,” one lieutenant wrote.

Four years later, the NYPD was still watching Elshinawy without charging him. He is now a plaintiff in the ACLU lawsuit against the NYPD.

“These new NYPD spying disclosures confirm the experiences and worst fears of New York’s Muslims,” ACLU lawyer Hina Shamsi said. “From houses of worship to a wedding, there’s no area of New York Muslim religious or personal life that the NYPD has not invaded through its bias-based surveillance policy.”

Mesa drug war cops bust Yerberia shops

It allows the cops to steal homes, cars and bank accounts!!!!

I have said the "war on drugs" is just a jobs program for cops before. And in this article it looks like that is true.

In addition to being a jobs program for cops the "war on drugs" is also a legal means for the police to steal property and use it for their agency.

Usually that is done with both Federal and state RICO laws. The RICO laws usually say the "property" is automatically guilty of what ever crimes the "property" is accused of committing, and the cops get to keep the stolen property unless the owners prove the "property" didn't commit the crime. Something which is usually impossible to do, or where the legal fees will be more then the property is worth.

That sounds like what happened in this article:

Landato said police seized homes, businesses, vehicles and bank accounts as part of their investigation.

The article didn't mention ANYBODY that was harmed by the so called illegal drugs sold by the Yerberia stores. So I suspect the main point of the investigation was to allow the cops to steal the homes, cars and bank accounts of the people they were investigating.

Source

Mesa police arrest 12 after year-long undercover investigation of prescription-drug ring

By Jim Walsh and Astrid Verdugo The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Aug 28, 2013 1:22 PM

A year-long undercover investigation by Mesa police led to the arrests of 12 people accused of illegally selling prescription drugs manufactured in Mexico to customers without prescriptions.

Police served 14 search warrants at herbal stores that cater to the Latino community, known as Yerberia shops. The search warrants were also served at the homes of people suspected of operating them, said Sgt. Tony Landato, a Mesa police spokesman.

Landato said the warrants were served at locations throughout the Valley, including Mesa, Phoenix, Tempe, Chandler and Scottsdale.

Police targeted the Los 3 Amigos and El Renacer Yeberia shops in the investigation, which focused on the illegal sale of prescription drugs manufactured in Mexico.

Landato said police seized homes, businesses, vehicles and bank accounts as part of their investigation.

The news about the investigation apparently spread quickly within the Hispanic community in Mesa. A clerk at a Mesa Yeberia, not involved in the investigation, said some of her customers told her about the arrests.

Landato said the Mesa police street crimes unit spearheaded the investigation, but that other agencies throughout the Valley assisted in serving warrants. He said the investigation is still underway and that the names of those arrested and the addresses of the shops are not being released at this time.

The suspects did not resist arrest and there was no violence, Landato said.

Legalize homegrown marijuana

While Arizona and Amerika have become a bigger police state since those days a few things are getting better. Medical marijuana is actually legal in Arizona, and two states have legalized recreational marijuana.

While he doesn't mention their names some of this article is about Keith Floyd and Daniel Cassidy lawsuit to allow ALL medical marijuana patients to group pot at home.

That lawsuit can be viewed at:

www.azdhs.gov/medicalmarijuana/documents/dispensaries/lawsuits/081513-notice-of-claim-CV2013-011447.pdf

Many other lawsuits relating to medical marijuana are also on the DHS website at:

http://www.azdhs.gov/medicalmarijuana/dispensaries/lawsuits.htm

Source

robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8472.

Posted on August 28, 2013 11:50 am by Robert Robb

Legalize homegrown marijuana

A lawsuit has been filed claiming that medical marijuana patients have a state constitutional right to grow their own rather than being required to purchase it from a state-licensed dispensary if there is one within 25 miles.

The claim is based on a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2010 saying that no one could be required to “participate in any health care system.” The measure was intended as a thumbing of the nose at Obamacare.

I don’t think much of the lawsuit’s prospects. Not being compelled to participate in a health care system isn’t the same thing as the right to concoct your own pharmaceuticals.

However, the lawsuit does occasion the thought that legalizing the right to cultivate, possess and use marijuana for personal use would be a good place to begin to rationalize our drug laws.

If the state did so, personal use would still be illegal under federal law. But the feds would be far less likely to go after individuals than large retail outlets. The feds have gone after some medical marijuana dispensaries in other states and have growled at the notion of retail stores in the states that recently legalized recreational use of marijuana.

State law could still make selling marijuana illegal. Just legalize homegrown, personal use.

That would have been a far better place to begin than with medical marijuana. I don’t dispute that marijuana can provide relief for some people and some conditions. But it’s not really a prescribed medical drug and state law doesn’t really treat it as such, although a doctor has to recommend it. And there’s clear gaming of the system to get it principally for recreational purposes.

Although it would pull the rug out from under those who have invested in the dispensaries under existing law, allowing homegrown consumption for any purpose is a more sensible approach, given federal law.

Lawsuit to declare 25 mile marijuana limit unconstitutional

Two men file lawsuit over medical marijuana

August 24, 2013 4:45 am

HOWARD FISCHER Capitol Media Services

PHOENIX — Two Arizona men are arguing that a 2010 voter-approved measure designed to attack the federal Affordable Care Act gives them a constitutional right to grow their own medical marijuana.

Keith Floyd and Daniel Cassidy contend in a lawsuit filed in Maricopa County Superior Court that the state cannot require that medical marijuana recipients can obtain their drug only from a dispensary if they live within 25 miles of any of the state’s licensed facilities. Their attorney, Michael Walz, argues that requirement runs afoul of language now in the Arizona Constitution which prohibits any law that requires anyone to “participate in any health care system.”

Walz said it’s a matter of free choice.

A ruling in his favor could have broad effects.

Most immediately, it would mean that the approximately 95 percent 40,000 medical marijuana cardholders who now live near a dispensary would not need to pay the $250 an ounce — or more — now being charged by dispensaries.

Instead, they could grow up to 12 plants for their own use right at home.

It also could undermine the financial plans of those who have invested thousands of dollars to get one of the limited number of dispensary licenses the state is granting, and many times more than that to set up shop. [I suspect many of these people were counting on having a government issued monopoly to make big bucks off of selling marijuana at black market prices to a captive audience that can't legally purchase it else where. If marijuana is totally legalized and the free market is allowed to govern sales you should be able to a pound of pot for less then a pound of tomatoes at your local Fry's or Safeway!]

But Walz said patients should have that right. More to the point, he said it’s constitutionally guaranteed.

His ammunition is Proposition 106. That measure put a provision into the Arizona Constitution overriding any law, rule or regulation that requires individuals or employers to participate in any particular health-care system.

Sponsors said it was aimed directly at the plan Congress enacted requiring individuals to obtain health coverage or pay a fine. But Walz said the language is broad enough to cover what his clients want.

The Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, also approved by voters in 2010, allows those with a doctor’s recommendation to obtain up to 2 1/2 ounces of marijuana every two weeks. The idea was to have that sold through state-regulated dispensaries. [i.e. government monopolies which charge black market prices]

But the law also provided an exception for anyone living at least 25 miles from such an outlet, with cardholders allowed to grow up to 12 plants at any one time.

With no dispensaries until this year, both men initially had been granted the right to grow. But that was rescinded by the state Department of Health Services when they renewed their medical marijuana user cards.

Walz contends that move is illegal in light of the constitutional amendment.

“The state does have a reasonable right to regulate medicine,” he said. “It’s just that they can’t compel citizens to go to one particular system or one particular outlet for the medications that they’re legally entitled to.”

State Health Director Will Humble said he’s simply enforcing the law as approved by voters. [Well as interpreted by his marijuana hating boss Jan Brewer] But Humble said he doubts that the constitutional provision can be interpreted to let people make their own regulated medications.

“Are people allowed to grow their own amoxicillin?” he asked, referring to the antibiotic that now is available only by prescription — and only through a state-regulated pharmacy. “I mean, this is medication.” [Why yes they are!!! Last time I checked it was legal to have moldy oranges peels with amoxicillin molds growing on it.]

Walz, however, insists this is different.

“You’re dealing with a plant,” he said.

“Should those be regulated as much as pharmaceutical drugs?” Walz continued. “I would say probably not.”

He said it would be no different if the state were to ban people from growing their own aloe plants used by some to treat burns and instead require Arizonans to buy aloe lotion from a local pharmacy “with God-knows what preservatives in it.”

Multiple dispensaries have been licensed for the state’s largest urban areas.

But residents of some communities will not have the luxury of shopping around for the best deal. For example, the state has allocated only one dispensary for Lake Havasu City, though there always is the option to drive to Kingman, Bullhead City — or even Flagstaff or Phoenix.

Humble said, though, it makes sense to have most medical marijuana users obtaining their drugs through a state-regulated system of growers and dispensaries rather than an unregulated system of individuals growing their own. [Of course it makes sense to Will Humble who is a government bureaucrat who will benefit from the silly law. Or at least Will Humble's empire at ADHS will benefit from it.]

That system requires those with licenses to account for what they have grown or sold. Humble said there is no way to determine whether home-grown marijuana is being diverted to some use beyond that of the cardholder.

“We were really clear-headed about putting regulations together that prevented diversion and theft,” he said.

“That’s why the inventory controls are so tight,” Humble continued. “You tell me what the inventory controls are in somebody’s house who’s got 12 plants?”

Ryan Hurley, an attorney who represents dispensary owners, said he does not believe the lawsuit has any merit. [So I guess the dispensary owners do want to keep their government issued monopolies that allow them to sell marijuana at outrageously high black market prices to medical marijuana patients]

And Hurley said he doubts there would be much loss of business for dispensaries even if Walz were to get a judge to decide in favor of his clients. He said most cardholders will find it more convenient to buy the ready-to-use weed from a dispensary than go through the hassle of nurturing a mature plant from seeds. [Then why are the dispensary owners paying Ryan Hurley big bucks to shoot down the lawsuit that will end their monopolies???]

“It’s legal to brew your own beer in this country, but very few people actually do it,” Hurley said. Anyway, he said, it’s not really easy to grow the plant, “especially high-quality cannabis, particularly if you’re old, elderly or very sick.” [Wow! Isn't that shoveling the BS. Marijuana is a stinking weed that even a person with a black thumb can grow!!!!]

Morgan Fox, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project that crafted the Arizona initiative, said that 25-mile rule was intentional, even if it does limit patients in many areas to getting their drugs from dispensaries. [I have often wonder if Prop 203 was written with the 25 mile limit to create monopolies for the people behind the law.]

He said that in most urban areas there will be several choices. “And there will be no problems with neighbors complaining about patients growing medicine in their neighborhoods.” [from that statement it sounds like the Marijuana Policy Project favors keeping the silly 25 mile limit???]

Two file lawsuit for grow-your-own medical marijuana

If you’d like to discuss medical marijuana, contact Ryan Hurley, director of the Rose Law Group Medical Marijuana Dept. rhurley@roselawgroup.com

He is just going to come back and waste your time telling you he wants $325 an hour to talk to you.

Here is the response to a question I sent him.

After saying I had a case he quickly asked for $325 an hour, not to do any work, but to tell tell me if I had a viable claim.

... We would be happy to sit down and do a consult at my hourly rate of $325 to explore the viability of a possible claim

M. Ryan Hurley
RHurley@roselawgroup.com
6613 N Scottsdale Road, Suite 200
Scottsdale Arizona 85250
Direct: 480.240.5585
Fax: 480.505.3925
Mobile: 602.999.2375

Two file lawsuit for grow-your-own medical marijuana

Posted By Phil Riske / August 24, 2013 / No Comments

By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services/Arizona Daily Sun

Two Arizona men are arguing that a 2010 voter-approved measure designed to at- tack the federal Affordable Care Act gives them a constitutional right to grow their own medical marijuana.

MMJKeith Floyd and Daniel Cassidy contend in a lawsuit filed in Maricopa County Superior Court that the state cannot require that medical marijuana recipients can obtain their drug only from a dispensary if they live within 25 miles of any of the state’s licensed facilities. Their attorney, Michael Walz, argues that requirement runs afoul of language now in the Arizona Constitution which prohibits any law that requires any- one to “participate in any health care system.”

Walz said it’s a matter of free choice.

A ruling in his favor could have broad effects.

Most immediately, it would mean that the approximately 95 percent 40,000 medical marijuana cardholders who now live near a dispensary would not need to pay the $250 an ounce — or more — now being charged by dispensaries.

Instead, they could grow up to 12 plants for their own use right at home.

It also could undermine the financial plans of those who have invested thousands of dollars to get one of the limited number of dispensary licenses the state is granting, and many times more than that to set up shop.

If you’d like to discuss medical marijuana, contact Ryan Hurley, director of the Rose Law Group Medical Marijuana Dept. rhurley@roselawgroup.com

Unless you have a boatload of money you don't mind giving to Ryan Hurley you probably shouldn't waste your time emailing him with medical marijuana questions.

He is just going to come back and waste your time telling you he wants $325 an hour to talk to you.

Here is the response to a question I sent him.

After saying I had a case he quickly asked for $325 an hour, not to do any work, but to tell tell me if I had a viable claim.

... We would be happy to sit down and do a consult at my hourly rate of $325 to explore the viability of a possible claim

M. Ryan Hurley
RHurley@roselawgroup.com
6613 N Scottsdale Road, Suite 200
Scottsdale Arizona 85250
Direct: 480.240.5585
Fax: 480.505.3925
Mobile: 602.999.2375

Medical marijuana vendors don't like 25 mile lawsuit????

Lawsuit Tied to Home Grows Could Alter Arizona Medical Marijuana Market

Source

August 28, 2013

Lawsuit Tied to Home Grows Could Alter Arizona Medical Marijuana Market, But Industry Skeptical

Arizona’s medical marijuana industry has already dealt with enough turbulence to last a lifetime. But MMJ professionals might have to brace themselves for more uncertainty and change in the near future.

Two residents have filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the state’s ban on home growing for medical cannabis patients who live within 25 miles of a dispensary, arguing that it violates their rights under a provision in the Arizona Constitution tied to health care. The ban – a highly controversial piece of Arizona’s medical marijuana law – essentially ensures that the lion’s share of the 40,000 registered patients have to buy cannabis from state-licensed MMJ centers rather than cultivate their own or buy it from caregivers. [i.e. medical marijuana dispensaries have a government issued monopoly that allows them to sell marijuana to captive customers at black market prices]

Dispensaries benefit greatly from this regulation, of course, as they have almost total control of the market. [and they love it because it almost is a government issued license to print money when you can sell marijuana at black market prices to captive customers]

So a change in the law could have repercussions for those already operating dispensaries as well as the dozens of entrepreneurs preparing to open one soon. If the suit is successful, it’s conceivable that a few thousand patients would opt to cultivate their own cannabis, deeming it cheaper than paying dispensary prices. That would shrink the overall market available to MMJ centers and limit their future potential. [sounds like the medical marijuana dispensaries don't like this law suit because it will destroy their government monopoly]

Many dispensary owners have invested a considerable amount of money – in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars – to obtain licenses and launch, developing business plans based on a certain number of patients. A decrease in the customer pool could force some dispensaries to scale back or, in a worst-case scenario, even close. [Just because Prop 203 gave medical marijuana dispensaries a government monopoly to sell medical marijuana doesn't make it right, despite the fact that these dispensaries have invested big bucks in their government issued monopolies.]

On the bright side, however, companies that sell cultivation equipment and provide related services targeting home growers would have a sizable market going forward.

“A lot of this has to do with price,” said attorney Michael Walz, who is representing the two men behind the lawsuit. “Many people who are qualifying patients have severe financial problems. At dispensaries it costs about $400 an ounce for medicinal grade marijuana now. A lot of people can’t afford that.”

The lawsuit estimates that home growers can produce medical-grade cannabis for $50 an ounce after the initial investment, once they know what they’re doing and have the proper equipment, Walz said. [$50 an ounce??? That's rubbish!!!! Marijuana is a stinking weed that will grow well even if you have a black thumb!!! If marijuana was grown as a commercial crop I suspect a pound of marijuana would cost less then a pound of tomatoes at you local Fry's, Safeway or Bashas grocery store. ]

Many patients in Arizona have been growing their own cannabis due to delays in the roll out of the state’s dispensary program, which has been beset by delays and challenges. Dispensaries began opening up late last year, and several dozen are now operational. That’s forced patients within 25 miles of these centers to stop growing their own.

So what are the chances the lawsuit will be successful?

Several industry professionals said it doesn’t appear to have much merit, with one even calling it “laughable.” [I suspect that is wishful thinking on the part of the dispensary owners. Or at least I hope it is wishful thinking on the part of the dispensary owners]

“Voters voted for the 25-mile rule, so anybody taking the other side and saying that it’s unfair is basically saying that voters didn’t know what they wanted,” said Moe Asnani, who runs the consulting firm Arizona Dispensary Solutions and operates several dispensaries. “They are taking the approach of those on the far right (who have tried to sink the program). The truth is that when people went to the ballot and picked a side on this issue, they did it with the understanding that this would be regulated through dispensaries.” [I think most people voted for Prop 203 because they think marijuana should be legal. I think if most people had the choice they would have voted for the law WITHOUT the 25 mile limit. I think Moe Asnani is just trying to justify the law which gives his dispensary the right to a government monopoly which will make him rich selling medical marijuana at black market prices]

Indeed, the whole provision tied to home growing was deemed a necessary inclusion to sway voters in favor of MMJ and get the law passed. The Arizona Medical Marijuana Act passed by the slimmest of margins (just 4,300 votes), and it very well could have failed without the home-grow provision.

Walz, however, said that the Arizona Constitution still overrides any state statue.

“The fact that voters passed it has no bearing whatsoever,” Walz said. “It’s an absurd argument.”

Even if the suit is successful, some dispensary professionals believe the impact will be minimal, saying that most people who try to grow their own fail and that the vast majority of patients will prefer the convenience of MMJ centers.

Uncle Sam's "healthy lunch" program is a dismal failure????

Some school districts quit healthier lunch program

By Carolyn Thompson Associated Press Tue Aug 27, 2013 2:37 PM

After just one year, some schools around the country are dropping out of the healthier new federal lunch program, complaining that so many students turned up their noses at meals packed with whole grains, fruits and vegetables that the cafeterias were losing money.

Federal officials say they don’t have exact numbers but have seen isolated reports of schools cutting ties with the $11 billion National School Lunch Program, which reimburses schools for meals served and gives them access to lower-priced food.

Districts that rejected the program say the reimbursement was not enough to offset losses from students who began avoiding the lunch line and bringing food from home or, in some cases, going hungry.

“Some of the stuff we had to offer, they wouldn’t eat,” said Catlin, Ill., Superintendent Gary Lewis, whose district saw a 10 to 12 percent drop in lunch sales, translating to $30,000 lost under the program last year.

“So you sit there and watch the kids, and you know they’re hungry at the end of the day, and that led to some behavior and some lack of attentiveness.”

In upstate New York, a few districts have quit the program, including the Schenectady-area Burnt Hills Ballston Lake system, whose five lunchrooms ended the year $100,000 in the red.

Near Albany, Voorheesville Superintendent Teresa Thayer Snyder said her district lost $30,000 in the first three months. The program didn’t even make it through the school year after students repeatedly complained about the small portions and apples and pears went from the tray to the trash untouched.

Districts that leave the program are free to develop their own guidelines. Voorheesville’s chef began serving such dishes as salad topped with flank steak and crumbled cheese, pasta with chicken and mushrooms, and a panini with chicken, red peppers and cheese.

In Catlin, soups and fish sticks will return to the menu this year, and the hamburger lunch will come with yogurt and a banana — not one or the other, like last year.

Nationally, about 31 million students participated in the guidelines that took effect last fall under the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.

Dr. Janey Thornton, deputy undersecretary for USDA’s Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, which oversees the program, said she is aware of reports of districts quitting but is still optimistic about the program’s long-term prospects.

“Many of these children have never seen or tasted some of the fruits and vegetables that are being served before, and it takes a while to adapt and learn,” she said.

The agency had not determined how many districts have dropped out, Thornton said, cautioning that “the numbers that have threatened to drop and the ones that actually have dropped are quite different.”

The School Nutrition Association found that 1 percent of 521 district nutrition directors surveyed over the summer planned to drop out of the program in the 2013-14 school year and about 3 percent were considering the move.

Not every district can afford to quit. The National School Lunch Program provides cash reimbursements for each meal served: about $2.50 to $3 for free and reduced-priced meals and about 30 cents for full-price meals. That takes the option of quitting off the table for schools with large numbers of poor youngsters.

The new guidelines set limits on calories and salt, phase in more whole grains and require that fruit and vegetables be served daily. A typical elementary school meal under the program consisted of whole-wheat cheese pizza, baked sweet potato fries, grape tomatoes with low-fat ranch dip, applesauce and 1 percent milk.

In December, the Agriculture Department, responding to complaints that kids weren’t getting enough to eat, relaxed the 2-ounce-per-day limit on grains and meats while keeping the calorie limits.

At Wallace County High in Sharon Springs, Kan., football player Callahan Grund said the revision helped, but he and his friends still weren’t thrilled by the calorie limits (750-850 for high school) when they had hours of calorie-burning practice after school. The idea of dropping the program has come up at board meetings, but the district is sticking with it for now.

“A lot of kids were resorting to going over to the convenience store across the block from school and kids were buying junk food,” the 17-year-old said. “It was kind of ironic that we’re downsizing the amount of food to cut down on obesity but kids are going and getting junk food to fill that hunger.”

To make the point, Grund and his schoolmates starred last year in a music video parody of the pop hit “We Are Young.” Instead, they sang, “We Are Hungry.”

It was funny, but Grund’s mother, Chrysanne Grund, said her anxiety was not.

“I was quite literally panicked about how we would get enough food in these kids during the day,” she said, “so we resorted to packing lunches most days.”

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