033 The Erickson Report for March 11 to 25, Page 2: Updates on LGBTQ+ Rights

033 The Erickson Report for March 11 to 25, Page 2: Updates on LGBTQ+ Rights

We have some updates on something I talked about last time.

Last time, I referred to the nearly 200 bills across the legislatures of at least two dozen states have been introduced this year attacking transgender youth by denying them the option of playing scholastic sports or even denying them medical transitional care.

Vivian Topping, director of advocacy and civic engagement at the Equality Federation, called it "one of the worst sessions I've seen."

The first update is that a number of those bills are advancing; at least one, in Mississippi is headed for the governor's signature with more coming. What's really disturbing is how reactionary these bills are in light of the fact that they are so unpopular, opposed in some cases even by majorities of GOPpers in the states that are pushing them.

Another update is that of course, while transgender youth seem to be the particular target of the bigots now, they are not the only ones. All LGBTQ+ people are in the crosshairs.

At least 36 states have seen what are called "RFRA-type" bills introduced since January.

RFRA is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 federal law saying that government cannot "substantially burden" religious practices without a compelling interest. Originally designed to protect religious minorities from discrimination, it has been twisted by the right into a weapon against LGBTQ+ rights. It was, for example, the basis for the Supreme Court ruling that Hobby Lobby could deny its employees contraception coverage.

States are now including language modeled on RFRA in bills ostensibly meant to allow churches to operate during the COVID pandemic but which actually are relying on a now-familiar ploy: Claiming a "religious freedom" exemption from respecting civil and human rights, insisting that invoking a god creates a constitutional right to be a bigot.

But our third update is that on the other hand, there is progress and the reality is that the bigots are fighting a losing battle and all these sorts of bills are approaching last-ditch attempts to hold on to legalization of their hate.

For one example of progress, Virginia is about to become the 12th state to ban the so-called "gay panic" defense in criminal trials, the one where someone accused of violently attacking an LGBTQ+ person says the shock of being hit on by them was so severe that they can't be held responsible for their actions.

More significantly, the Equality Act has passed the US House Representatives and while with numbskulls like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema around, it doesn't have a good chance in the Senate, it does at least have a fighting one. Not that long ago that would have been unimagineable.

25.4 - Update: What's wrong with Section 702 of FISA

Update: What's wrong with Section 702 of FISA

Last week, I reported on the Not Good News that the reactionaries in Congress want to make Section702 of FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a permanent part of US law. As of now, that section is supposed to expire the end of this year.

I also noted how Section 702 is the part of FISA that "allows the NSA to sink its hooks directly into the infrastructure of ISPs and just suck up all the internet traffic passing through that point," which means including the content, and the threat to privacy that represents.

I wanted to update that a bit with some additional information about the threat Section 702 presents that I didn't cover then, which is the danger presented through the domestic use of the data that is gathered.

The first thing is that under Section 702 the targets of NSA spying are supposed to be limited to non-US persons living outside the US - but those targets do not have to be terrorists or criminals or even be suspected of any crime.

According to Sarah St.Vincent, a researcher at Human Rights Watch,

as long as "a significant purpose" of the surveillance is to obtain "foreign intelligence information," a term FISA defines broadly, any non-U.S. person outside the country's borders is fair game. In 2016, the government had an estimated 106,469 such targets.

What's more, it is essentially unarguable that such surveillance will suck up a lot of data about US citizens. The government calls this seizure of personal information "incidental," but "incidental" does not mean it is accidental or inadvertent; in fact it is neither. All "incidental" means is that it is not the supposedly primary focus, that those people whose information is gleaned are not the targets of the surveillance.

Here's where it gets extra good. The FBI has the authority to "query" that data, the data the NSA has amassed and stored about US citizens, data which the NSA insists it doesn't look at but which it stores all the same. In 2016, David Medine, at the time chair of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the FBI made such queries "routinely," even at the "assessment" stage, that is, before an actual investigation even starts, the point at which the FBI is thinking about if there is even a case to be investigated. Medine described the agency as being "sort of entitled to poke around and see if something is going on."

Amy Jeffress, who served as an impartial adviser to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, said that court described such queries as "routine and encouraged" and she added that "there is no requirement that the matter be a serious one, nor that it have any relation to national security."

Put more directly, through Section 702 the FBI can and does engage in warrentless searches of warrantlessly-gathered information and do it without any requirement of even a suspicion of wrongdoing. And before anyone tries to jump in by saying the NSA acted with a warrant from the FISC, that warrant would refer to the target of the surveillance - which means that all that "incidental" data on Americans, the very data the FBI is querying, was gathered without a warrant.

And if they miss something, there's a backup: The NSA can share with the FBI or other law enforcement agencies any data which it "reasonably believe[s] to contain evidence of a crime."

In fairness, there isn't a lot of evidence that the FBI has been using this option to pursue cases that did not involve "foreign intelligence information," but leaving aside the troubling implication that as soon as the words "foreign intelligence" or "national security" are invoked, Constitutional rights are supposed to go out the window, the equally troubling fact is that if the FBI has been milking the NSA's database for information on domestic crimes, we might never know.

The practice is called "parallel construction" and it involves taking information obtained either through such a warrantless search or by a tip from the NSA and using it to create a separate investigation, using the information you gained to "find out" what you in fact already knew, or even just to create a different investigatory trail, dating the investigation as starting sometime after the tip and not because of it - and in either case just pretending the NSA database had nothing to do with it. In other words, lying to everyone - prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys, juries, everyone - about the source of the info.

Here's the bottom line: Even if you want to insist that no one has actually done anything wrong here, that the fears have - thus far - been overblown (which again, there's no way to really know), but even if you are prepared to insist that, are you prepared to make the guarantee about all the future years, all the future FBI directors and agents, all the future NSA directors and spooks, all the future NSCs, all the future administrations, White houses, Justice Departments? Are you prepared to guarantee complete, on-going scrupulous adherence to the highest ethical standards on the part of everyone involved, now and  indefinitely into the future?

Section702 should be stopped. It should be allowed to die. I say again what I said last week: If your reps in Congress won't agree to at minimum actively oppose making Section 702 permanent, they do not deserve to be in Congress; they do not deserve to claim the mantle of representative of a free people.

17.8 - Update: progress on implementing Colombian peace accord

Update: progress on implementing Colombian peace accord

Next up, an Update on the progress of implementing the peace agreement between the rebel group known as FARC - in English, The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - and the government of Colombia to end a civil war that went on for more than 50 years. Nearly a quarter-million people were killed in the war and millions more were driven from their homes.

The settlement, which came last summer, was my choice for Good News of the year for 2016, a title that the peaceful, negotiated end of a 50-year-old war would seem to deserve.

With all that in mind, an Update is certainly not out of line.

Progress has been slower than hoped, delayed and delayed again, but it is progressing. In accordance with the agreement, former FARC fighters are making their way to UN-overseen camps where they are handing over thousands of weapons and other materials. Those weapons are to be stored in secure containers until they can be turned into three memorial statues.

Originally, the surrender of arms was supposed to have been completed by December 31, a date which proved to be hopelessly optimistic. It now is to be completed by June. So yes, implementation has been delayed - but it is happening.

There are still difficulties and resentments, some driven by the hard fact that the camps are not up to the standards promised in the accords, with some on each side grumbling that the other side is responsible for the delay in getting them fully ready.

A bigger threat, though, is found in reports that the Colombian military is trying to undermine the peace process by bribing FARC rebels heading for the camps to abandon the peace process and sell their weapons to the army rather than turning them in. If enough former rebels do so and do not go to the camps for demobilization, the agreement could fall apart, preventing FARC from participating in reconstruction and from becoming a legal political movement, a key part of the agreement.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International is reporting that violence is continuing in parts of Colombia because right-wing militias are moving in to areas vacated by FARC and committing what - this is my judgment, not AI's - are likely revenge murders, doing it even as the Colombian government refuses to recognize the existence of such paramilitary groups.

Finally, it should be noted that there is another guerrilla group, the ELN - in English, the National Liberation Army. The ELN is more radical than FARC but a fraction its size. Negotiations between government and ELN broke down, but are now being restarted.

Let's just hope that Colombia can continue on the rocky road down which it has already gone some distance.

What's Left #17

What's Left
for the week of April 6 to 12, 2017

This week:

Good News: Alabama limits power to impose death penalty
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/alabama-judicial-override-ends_us_58c83063e4b09cd957673398?

Footnote: Arkansas to create "assembly line of death"
http://www.salon.com/2017/04/04/assembly-line-of-death-arkansas-is-going-to-execute-8-people-over-an-11-day-stretch/
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/jurisdictions-no-recent-executions
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state#MRalpha
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/states-and-without-death-penalty

Good News: celebrating resistance
http://www.alternet.org/activism/diverse-protest-groups-unite-majority-aiming-large-scale-demonstrations-may-1st
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html
http://www.mcall.com/opinion/yourview/mc-martin-luther-king-vietnam-speech-50th-anniversary-lang-yv-0403-20170402-story.html

Good News: Appeals Court supports rights of transgender people
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/04/04/us-civil-rights-law-protects-lgbt-workers-from-workplace-bias/22026101/

Good News/Not Good News: Virginia repeals part of HB2
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/30/522009335/north-carolina-lawmakers-governor-announce-compromise-to-repeal-bathroom-bill
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/03/10/poll-americans-oppose-bathroom-laws-limiting-transgender-rights/21879293/
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Steven-Petrow-You-can-t-compromise-on-civil-11043391.php
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/NCAA-NC-back-in-running-to-host-events-after-law-11048783.php

RIP: Gilbert Baker
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/gilbert-baker-whose-rainbow-flag-flew-over-the-rise-of-gay-rights-dies-at-65/2017/04/01/07becbe8-16e5-11e7-833c-503e1f6394c9_story.html?utm_term=.a0fc7e51e399

For the Record: a brief comment on the gas attack in Syria
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/04/days-after-tillerson-mouths-russian-line-on-syria-assad-uses-gas.html
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/04/05/an-infantile-argument-experts-pour-cold-water-on-russias-fanciful-explanation-syrian-gas-attack/22027154/
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/04/04/white-house-blames-obama-administration-assad-regime-chemical-attack-syria/22025672/
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/30/politics/tillerson-haley-syria-assad-turkey

Update: progress on implementing Colombian peace accord
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2017/01/86-good-news-of-year-2016-peace.html
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/03/31/colombias-farc-rebels-give-up-guns-in-disarmament-camps/22020673/
http://colombiareports.com/evidence-indicates-colombia-military-bribing-farc-rebels-abandon-peace-process/
https://panampost.com/julian-villabona/2017/03/22/colombian-armed-conflict-despite-farc-peace-deal/

Footnote: mudslides in Colombia kill hundreds
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39469033
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39478189
http://colombiareports.com/farc-caused-south-colombia-flooding-disaster-opposition-senator/

Clown Award: Pennsylvania state Senator Scott Wagner
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/global-warming-report-sunday-shows_us_5884ca53e4b070d8cad322b3
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/09/politics/scott-pruitt-global-warming-human/
https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2017/03/28/wagner-keynotes-for-natural-gas-advocates-in-harrisburg/
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17228-why-is-the-earth-moving-away-from-the-sun/
http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/89424/how-much-does-increased-world-population-contribute-to-global-warming

Outrage of the Week: new illegal Israeli settlement
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2004/11/yasser-arafat.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2004/10/and-this-is-why-in-lot-of-ways-it-wont.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2004/07/peas-in-pod.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-settlement-idUSKBN1711K6
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/30/middleeast/israel-approves-new-settlement/

15.12 - Update: government spying on citizens

Update: government spying on citizens

Finally, last week I also talked some about privacy in a digital age, specifically, government intrusions into that privacy.

Here's another aspect of that.

Court records have revealed that the FBI has recruited and paid technicians at Best Buy's Geek Squad to do deep scans of the hard drive of computers brought in for service and report anything they find that seems sketchy to them.

Defenders of the practice argue that when you bring in a computer for service, you allow the technicians access to your hard drive and if they find something criminal - kiddie porn is the example invariably thrown up - it's their obligation to report it.

Which is all true and all completely irrelevant because here we are not talking about accidentally finding criminal material, we are talking about people actively looking for it - and no, contrary to what I have seen claimed, except for some potential unusual circumstances, you do not have to actually examine the content of de-allocated sectors on a hard drive in order to service it. You may see something is an image file or a text file, but you do not have to view the image or read the text to do your job - unless your job is to be a paid snoop for the feds.

Two bits of advice: encrypt your data and don't go to Geek Squad.

15.11 - Update: repressing protest

Update: repressing protest

Next up, last week I referred to my Rules for Right-wingers, with #18 being "If you lose by the rules, change them." I listed a number of recent attempts by right-wingers to change the rules to shut down public opposition to their regimes.

Turns out I missed one.

Arizona has seen some progressive victories lately through the use of citizen initiatives, including an increase in the minimum wage and a paid leave measure in November. So the reactionaries in control of the legislature want to make it harder for such initiatives to get on the ballot.

One measure would ban campaigns from paying petition gatherers by the signature, which would sharply increase the cost of mounting a petition campaign by removing any incentive for the gatherers to maximize the number of signatures they get. GOPpers claim this is to prevent fraud but since signatures are validated before a measure is approved for the ballot, that is obvious nonsense.

Another proposal, which could be an even bigger hurdle, is to require that for a measure to quality for the ballot, in each and every one of the state's 30 legislative districts the petitions must have signatures totalling at least 10% of the vote for governor in that district.

Finally, there is a provision in the state constitution that the legislature can't alter a voter-approved law in a way that would undermine the law's intent. The GOPpers are trying to get rid of that provision.

15.10 - Update: DAPL

Update: DAPL

Some updates on things I've talked about recently.

First, I said just a couple of weeks ago that "the stench of corruption ... continues to thicken" around the drive to build the Dakota Access pipeline, the DAPL. It just thickened some more.

When the Army Corps of Engineers released an Environmental Impact Statement about the project last August, it included a controversial conclusion regarding environmental justice issues that "the proposed [pipeline] would not disproportionately affect identified minority or low-income populations."

It now turns out, based on court records, that the source for that bit of supposed analysis was not the Corps of Engineers. It was the pipeline's builders, Dakota Access LLC and its contractor, HDR Inc.

And how did the corporation reach that oh-so-convenient conclusion? Not by examining the economic status of the Standing Rock Sioux and the impact an oil leak could have on the community's drinking water and agriculture, but by making comparisons with other low-income communities in the state. And because the pipeline would "cross less than the overall state average of 12 percent of impoverished populations," that, they said, meant the pipeline does not disproportionately impact low-income populations. And if that wasn't enough of a slammer, the report also argued that the route would impact one percent fewer Native Americans and Alaska Natives than a previously considered route.

So, see? No problem of environmental justice!

In other words, the corporations didn't look at actual potential environmental and cultural impacts, they just looked at population sizes as if that was the whole issue.

Then that self-serving corporate assessment was largely wrapped into the Army Corps impact statement.

This whole thing just stinks.

13.9 - Update: Dakota Access Pipeline

Update: Dakota Access Pipeline

Now for an Update regarding something we have talked about a couple of times: the Dakota Access Pipeline, or DAPL.

The first thing to note is that North Dakota state police, with armored vehicles and riot gear and with guns drawn, have forcibly shut down the Oceti Sakowin encampment, the main encampment established to protest the pipeline and its potential impact on the drinking water and the sacred lands of the Standing Rock Sioux.

The excuse, the one that is always employed in such cases, is that it was done for the safety and protection of those in the encampment. Not, of course, for the protection of the profit of any corporation.

On February 15, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed an emergency evacuation order claiming the risk of spring floods was justification to accomplish what they had desired to do all along: drive the people out. The order set a deadline of February 22 for everyone to get out or get arrested.

With just 200-300 of the earlier thousands of protesters still in the camp as the deadline approached, the remaining occupants burned down a number of the structures in what was described as a ceremony of departure as the people marched out, chanting and beating drums.

About 50 refused to leave, preferring nonviolent civil disobedience and arrest rather than submission in order to express their opposition to the order and their continuing opposition to the pipeline.

This bringing down of the hammer comes in the wake of TheRump signing executive actions last month to advance and accelerate approval of the DAPL by streamlining the regulatory process for construction and shortening any environmental review - and at the same time, we need to mention because it will doubtless come up later, tried to put the Keystone XL pipeline back in business.

That was followed up by TheRump canceling an an environmental-impact review mid-stream and the Army Corps of Engineers granting the final easement for pipeline construction beneath Lake Oahe without the usual two-week waiting period before an easement can be acted on.

This does not mean the fight is over, although if I'm to be blunt it looks pretty grim right now. But the spiritual occupation continues even if in a less dramatic way: New encampments are popping up on private land in the area, including one the Cheyenne River Sioux had earlier set up about a mile - or 1.5 kilometers - from the main camp.

And the fight in the courts goes on. On February 14, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed a new challenge to the project, arguing that the canceling of the environmental review is illegal, the waiving of the waiting period for the easement is "arbitrary and capricious," and the process "wholly disregard[s] the treaty rights of the Standing Rock Sioux."

Meanwhile, the stench of corruption over this whole thing continues to thicken. For one thing, it came out in November that TheRump had as much as $1 million invested in Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the pipeline, in 2015. In May 2016, the most recent information available, he still had as much as $50,000 invested in the company, along with as much as $250,000 invested in Phillips 66, an oil company which has a one-quarter share of Dakota Access.

And now it has emerged that when on last October 25 the Governors of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa sent a letter sent to the Army Corp of Engineers demanding approval of DAPL, they were quite literally working on behalf of Energy Transfer Partners: The letter contained only minor alterations from one provided to the governors by the LS2Group, a PR firm contracted by the pipeline builders to promote the project.

So right now things don't look so bright - but we need to keep on keepin' on. There is no other way.

What's Left #13

What's Left
for the week of March 2-8, 2017

This week:
Good News: minimum wage raise in St. Louis
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/2/28/1638759/-Minimum-Wage-in-St-Louis-Unexpectedly-Jumped-Today-from-7-70-per-hour-to-10-00

Good News: voting rights victory in Virginia
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/3/1/1638995/-Major-win-Supreme-Court-reverses-ruling-that-protected-Virginia-GOP-s-legislative-gerrymander
http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91402
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/3/1/1638995/-Major-win-Supreme-Court-reverses-ruling-that-protected-Virginia-GOP-s-legislative-gerrymander
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-680_c07d.pdf

Good News: 5th circuit says filming cops is 1st Amendment right
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/2/27/1638392/-Federal-Appeals-Court-rules-in-favor-of-the-First-Amendment-you-can-film-cops
https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/photographers-rights/filming-and-photographing-police
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/divided-federal-appeals-court-rules-you-have-the-right-to-film-the-police/

Clown Award: Bill O"Reilly
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/23/politics/louie-gohmert-gabby-giffords/
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/02/28/education-secretary-betsy-devos-faces-twitter-backlash-after-linking-hbcus-with-school-choice/21858125/
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/devos-tries-to-walk-back-statements-historically-black-colleges-school-choice
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/welcome-to-the-trump-plantation-historically-black-college-vandalized-after-betsy-devos-gaffe/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/2/19/1635487/-Trump-proclaims-new-terror-attack-Look-at-what-happened-last-night-in-Sweden-Sweden
https://mediamatters.org/blog/2017/02/24/bill-o-reilly-hosted-fake-swedish-defense-advisor-fearmonger-about-refugees/215463
http://mobil.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/fake-sweden-expert-on-fox-news-has-criminal-convictions-in-us-no-connection-to-swedish-security/
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2017/02/25/Fox-News-claims-Swedish-unknown-Nils-Bildt-is-national-security-advisor/3121488075119/

For the Record: Amnesty International says US not safe for refugees
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immgration-canada-border-idUSKBN1602NG

For the Record: Shell Oil knew about climate change in 1991
https://thecorrespondent.com/6285/shell-made-a-film-about-climate-change-in-1991-then-neglected-to-heed-its-own-warning/692663565-875331f6?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email

For the Record: Grace Slick donates Chick-fil-a money to Lambda Legal
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/2/27/1638374/-Singer-Grace-Slick-licenses-song-to-Chick-fil-A-and-then-donates-money-to-LGBTQ-organization
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/02/28/jackie-evanchos-transgender-sister-juliet-just-won-lawsuit-over/21858875/

For the Record: DOJ back to using private prisons
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/08/2582-good-news-federal-private-prisons.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/doj-private-prisons-sessions_us_58af529ce4b0a8a9b780669a#pt0-135499

Update: Dakota Access Pipeline
https://www.governor.nd.gov/news/burgum-issues-emergency-evacuation-order
http://www.alternet.org/activism/dakota-access-pipeline-protesters-set-fire-camp-ahead-evacuation
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/24/politics/trump-keystone-xl-dakota-access-pipelines-executive-actions/index.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/02/the-dakota-access-pipelines-final-stand/516225/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/dakota-access-standing-rock-deadline-1.3993636
http://standwithstandingrock.net/standing-rock-sioux-tribe-asks-federal-court-set-aside-trumps-pipeline-reversal/
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-11-25/trump-s-stock-in-oil-pipeline-company-raises-concern
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dapl-pr-firm-wrote-pro-pipeline-letter-sent-by-three_us_58ac8bd7e4b0acc17645d7e6

Footnote: Seattle cuts ties to Wells Fargo over DAPL
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/seattle-cutting-ties-with-wells-fargo-over-dakota-access-pipeline/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/seattle-wells-fargo-dapl_us_589b56b2e4b0c1284f29da4b?7wtielrujdfs9k9
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118884/quotes

Outrage of the Week: GOPpers attack First Amendment right to assemble
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2017/02/113-rules.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/arizona-bill-protesters-racketeering_us_58af3692e4b060480e05e81d
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2017/02/23/arizona-senate-oks-racketeering-charges-riots/98296298/
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/legislature/2017/02/23/5-things-know-arizona-bill-arrest-protesters-riot/98302932/
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/plan-a-protest-lose-your-house-bill-sb-1142-killed-by-arizona-house-9121181
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/2/28/1638615/-In-a-victory-for-Democracy-Arizona-s-House-kills-Republican-led-anti-protest-bill
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/24/republican-lawmakers-introduce-bills-to-curb-protesting-in-at-least-17-states/?utm_term=.7e71adf974a8

6.8 - Update: DACA students advised to be in US on January 20

Update: DACA students advised to be in US on January 20

This is a relatively quick Update. The bare facts speaks for themselves. Or as much as they can in the fact-free world of Donald TheRump.

Two weeks ago, I noted that hundreds of college and university presidents from across the US had signed a statement calling for continuing the policy called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. That policy, begun by executive order in June 2012, allows certain undocumented immigrants who entered the country as minors to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation.

The Update is that advocates for immigrants are now advising folks covered by the program to make sure that they are not traveling abroad when President Xenophobe is sworn in on January 20 because they are afraid that he might immediately rescind the program, with the result that they might be barred from returning to the US.

That is how deep, how real, the fear is; how deep, how real, the threat it.

Because no one can say that fear is an irrational one. TheRump made immigration the cornerstone of his campaign, promising to build a wall along the Mexican border and to deport undocumented immigrants by the millions.

Then later it was oh, no, he wants to focus on those who have committed crimes - which is exactly the Obama policy that he denounced as too soft during the campaign, even though the Amazing Mr. O deported more people than any previous president.

Continuing his pattern of spewing whatever bilge happens to be flushing through his sewer system of a mind at a given moment, during a recent magazine interview, TheRump expressed sympathy for the 741,000 people in the DACA program - despite having called it "illegal amnesty" during the campaign.

On top of that, no matter what he said, his advisers would rush out to walk back his comments almost as soon as they were published.

All of which gives those who had lived in hope and tried to build a life in the country they knew as home good and legitimate reason to fear that they will be forced back into the shadows - or worse.

And it gives the rest of us good cause to stand with them - because as the saying goes, no human being is illegal.

6.7 - Update: Court delays ruling on Standing Rock

Update: Court delays ruling on Standing Rock

Next up, a couple of Updates and the first one is another case of taking your good news where you can find it because the news isn't all good.

Last week, in discussing the victory at Standing Rock, I mentioned that Energy Transfer Partners, the developers of the Dakota Access Pipeline, were suing in federal court in Washington, DC, insisting that the court should order the Army Corps of Engineers to grant the easements the company desires. The good part of the Update is that on December 9, the judge in the case, James Boasberg, denied a motion by Energy Transfer Partners, or ETP, for an immediate ruling in the company's favor, preferring to order the company and the Army Corps of engineers to submit additional motions and pleadings by January 31, 2017.

What this means is the the court is prepared for a full hearing on the matter, meaning a decision would likely not be delivered for a couple of months or even more. As I said before, I know of no particular reason to just assume the decision, when it comes, will be a bad one, but the fact is, this is a case where delay is good, delay works to our benefit.

The bad part of the Update - and it is bad - is that NBC News is reporting that it wasn't actually the Corps of Engineers that turned away the application for easements. In fact, the Corps recommended granting the easements. But the agency was overruled by Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy.

The problem is, that position makes her a management-level "political appointee" whose tenure will end with the end of the Obama administration unless she is re-appointed by TheRump - and considering that he claims an intent to "bring back coal," he wants the CEO of Exxon-Mobil to be Secretary of State, and it turns out that Rick "Oops" Perry, his pick for Energy Secretary, is on the board of directors of ETP, that seems to put it mildly highly unlikely. With some new, more agreeable Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works in place, the decision to overrule the Corps could be undone within days and what's more, the Corps could go into Judge Boasberg's court on January 31 and say it is declining to offer a defense to ETP's suit, which could easily lead to a summary judgement in ETP's favor.

Now, that would not be the end of it because, as I said last week, the attempt to simply undo the decision to do more environmental review of the project would most certainly spark its own lawsuits, which could tie up the project for years.

So the news only emphasizes that the fight is not over - but I have to admit that nonetheless it brings a certain sense of discouragement, a sense for which there is only one cure: renewed people power. I look forward to seeing it, taking part as I can even though that is limited, and celebrating it wherever and whenever it happens.

4.3 - Update: death penalty passes in state initiatives

Update: death penalty passes in state initiatives

Finally, a couple of weeks ago I ran down some good outcomes from the election, most of them involving state-level initiative campaigns by local activists. I had examples of victories on the minimum wage, gun control, and campaign finance, among a couple of others.

The Update here is that unhappily, there was one other big winner in such initiatives on election night: death. Or, to be more precise, the death penalty.

A total of four ballot initiatives relating to the death penalty were on the ballot in three states: two in California and one each in Nebraska and Oklahoma. In all four cases, death won.

The California case involved one initiative, Proposition 62, which would outright ban the death penalty, lost by 54-46. It was the second time in four years that Californians rejected a measure to abolish capital punishment.

Meanwhile, Proposition 66, according to its proponents, would hasten official murders by limiting the time and opportunity for appeals. It likely won't because it is so poorly and confusingly written - besides raising questions about illegal interference with the jurisdiction of state courts - that it is already facing legal challenges that could take years to work through. Nonetheless, it squeaked through 51-49.

In Nebraska, the state legislature had passed a ban on capital punishment over the veto of death-eater Gov. Pete Ricketts. Ricketts - who, by way, is CEO of Ameritrade - dumped $200,000 of his own money into what proved to be a successful initiative campaign to undo the legislative action.

Finally, Oklahoma, the state that has become the poster child for the failures of the system, pockmarked with convictions based on little or no evidence, botched executions, and shocking incompetence and deceit among officials, easily passed an amendment to the state constitution saying that no matter the means of execution, the death penalty is not cruel or unusual punishment.

The silver lining in all this is that it comes against a background of a slow but pretty steady decline in the use of capital punishment in the US. California, for example, has not had an execution in nearly 11 years. The number of executions per year keeps dropping as does the number of new death sentences.

And according to both Gallup and Pew Research, while public support for the death penalty remains pretty high, in the range of 55 to 60 percent, that figure also marks a 40-year-low.

Unhappily, the death penalty remains and unhappily, it remains popular. But happily it is slowly being put the death it itself deserves.

4.2 - Update: hate crimes increase

Update: hate crimes increase

We have two other updates, neither of which carries any good news or encouragement with them.

There first is that two organizations which track hate crimes, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, say there has been a spike in the number of cases of hate crimes, harassment, or intimidation in the wake of TheRump's election win, a spike even worse that what which took place immediately after 9-11.

Last show, I reported that the SPLC had recorded more than 200 hate incidents in just the five days following the election. The Update here is that by 10 days after the election, that number had increased to 867 - not counting online instances.

4.1 - Update: support for sanctuary campuses

Update: support for sanctuary campuses

Updated I'll start off the week with some good news in the form of an Update. Although I suppose I should temper that and change "good news" to "encouraging news."

I mentioned last show about a move by students at colleges and universities around the country to pressure their respective school administrations to declare them sanctuary campuses, schools that will limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

The Update here is that those students are gaining some significant allies in higher education.

For one thing, on November 22 the American Association of University Professors expressed its support for the movement for sanctuary campuses.

For another, as of November 29, just under 400 college and university presidents from public and private institutions across the US have signed a statement in support of continuing the policy called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. That policy allows certain undocumented immigrants who entered the country as minors to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation.

Unfortunately, DACA establishes neither lawful status nor a path to citizenship for those covered, but at least it does provide some protection against deportation as long as it remains in effect.

A 2011 memo from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement - with the appropriate acronym ICE - appears to establish that as a general rule, ICE agents can't set foot on campus - or other specified "sensitive locations" - to investigate or initiate deportation unless there is either prior consent by the facility or express permission given by one of four high officials in the agency.

The effect of this is that while colleges and universities can't actually prevent ICE from coming on campus to grab someone for deportation, the schools can hinder the effort by refusing to cooperate in any way not required by law or court order. How effective that act of hindering would be would obviously depend on circumstances, but a school could go a long way toward protecting the security of their students.

One other quick point on this is that there were some schools that were not targets of the protests because they didn't need to declare themselves sanctuary campuses because they at least in some way already had.

Updated to note that as of December 3, the number of signatories was up to 475.

What's Left #4

What's Left
for the week of December 1-7, 2016

This week:

Update: support for sanctuary campuses
https://www.aaup.org/news/atmosphere-campus-wake-elections#.WD41VFyE3p7
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Action_for_Childhood_Arrivals
https://www.ice.gov/doclib/ero-outreach/pdf/10029.2-policy.pdf

Update: hate crimes increase
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/11/12/post-election-spate-hate-crimes-worse-than-post-911-experts-say/93681294/
https://www.splcenter.org/20161129/ten-days-after-harassment-and-intimidation-aftermath-election

Update: death penalty passes in state initiatives
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/11/the-death-penalty-won-big-on-election-day-but-the-devil-is-in-the-details/
http://www.richardeglossip.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oklahoma-botched-executions_us_573e3615e4b0613b5129c9d9
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/6329
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/08/16/the-slow-decline-of-the-death-penalty/?utm_term=.2784a19e11bd

Outrage of the Week: Standing Rock
http://sacredstonecamp.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dqm0XyhBZE
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/sheriff-refuse-dapl-outrage/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/pipeline-protest-arrests-strain-north-dakotas-court-system/2016/11/29/53bdf8aa-b65c-11e6-939c-91749443c5e5_story.html
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/27/arrests-of-journalists-at-standing-rock-test-the-boundaries-of-the-first-amendment/
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/21/medics-describe-how-police-sprayed-standing-rock-demonstrators-with-tear-gas-and-water-cannons/
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/dakota-pipeline-protests/north-dakota-governor-orders-pipeline-protesters-leave-citing-winter-weather-n689366
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/north-dakota-law-enforcement-are-blocking-protesters-from-getting-supplies_us_583dc5f8e4b0860d6116a48a
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-north-dakota-pipeline-idUSKBN13O2FD
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/us/veterans-to-serve-as-human-shields-for-pipeline-protesters.html?_r=0

Excuses for failures of Democrats continue to come
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/10/politics/gary-johnson-jill-stein-spoiler/
http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37932230
http://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-misogyny-apocalypse-turns-out-being-white-and-male-counts-for-more-than-intelligence-grace-or-decency/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/americans-keep-looking-away-from-the-elections-most-alarming-story/2016/11/25/83533d3e-b0e2-11e6-8616-52b15787add0_story.html
http://www.salon.com/2016/10/21/hillary-clinton-campaign-chariman-john-podestas-email-was-hacked-because-he-clicked-on-a-phishing-link/
http://time.com/4569766/bernie-sanders-ralph-nader-2016/?xid=tcoshare
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlmuKtyhDKg
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/02/2364-rare-and-potentially-my-only.html
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/23/reporter-who-laughed-at-keith-ellisons-trump-prediction-gives-platform-to-his-anonymous-critics/
http://www.politico.com/blogs/ben-smith/2008/04/obama-on-small-town-pa-clinging-to-religion-guns-xenophobia-007737
http://fusion.net/story/368198/white-people-elected-trump/
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.html?_r=0
http://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/how-groups-voted-2012/
http://newamericamedia.org/2016/11/clinton-did-well-with-black-votes-but-obama-fared-better.php

259.3 - Update: phasing private prisons out of the federal system

Update: phasing private prisons out of the federal system

On the last show, I offered the Good News about the decision of the Department of Justice to phase out the use of private prisons in the federal prison system.

Unfortunately, I also offered the Not Good News that this did not apply to the Department for the Protection of the Fatherland because it and the DOJ are separate departments. And it is Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, which I think is a remarkably appropriate acronym and which is part of the Department for the Protection of the Fatherland, which oversees the nation's network of immigrant detention centers. Which means the DOJ's decision did not affect them.

Now, however, the Obama administration is considering an end to the practice of keeping immigrant detainees in for-profit prisons. And yes, they call them immigrant detention centers but I still call them prisons because if you can't leave, it's prison.

Jeh Johnson

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, whose agency includes the immigration service and the Border Patrol, ordered a review of ways to end the use of the private facilities. A decision is supposed to be made by the end of November.

Grassroots Leadership, an advocacy group, estimates that about half of the federal spending on the prisons, about $1 billion, goes to private companies capitalizing on the desperation of immigrants and refugees, even as those private prisons display a pattern of poor medical care and abuse as documented by civil rights organizations, a pattern that is the direct result of those prisons' incentive to cut costs to increase profits. While the federally-run facilities are not without similar problems, Bob Libal, executive director of Grassroots Leadership, notes that the problems are "magnified" in the private prisons.

So a favorable decision would be a major victory for civil rights and immigrant advocacy groups and much to be hoped for.

But immigration officials have pushed back against the idea, arguing that it would cost taxpayers billions of dollars more a year and take more than a decade to implement and the alternatives could be worse. Put another way, typical "this is the best of all possible worlds, don't rock the boat" bureaucratic bullshit.

Admittedly, it would be an undertaking: Nine of the country's 10 largest immigrant prisons are operated by private companies, and they hold about two-thirds of the detainees in a system that currently keeps more than 31,000 people in custody on a typical day.

But officials, too comfortable with the status quo, are resorting to what approach doomsday scenarios where cutting down on private prisons would bring ruin not to the corporations, not to the prison system, but to the imprisoned immigrants. Why, they'd have to stuff them into state and local jails where conditions may be even worse and besides that would mean putting people who have not been accused of a crime into facilities where they are in contact with potentially dangerous criminals.

Uh-huh. Well, I can think to two answers right off the top of my head. One is that if people have not been accused of a crime, maybe at least for a good number of them it wouldn't be necessary to lock them up at all, especially if, as advocacy groups argue, the government could allow more community organizations to vouch for immigrants and work with courts to ensure that people show up for legal proceedings.

Here's another: If the issue is that in order to stop using private prisons the feds would have to build entirely new ones to replace them, which I expect is where the "it will take more than 10 years to do" comes from, how about we forget about building new ones and just take all those existing private prisons and seize them by eminent domain?

I mean, after all, why not? The 5th Amendment that says that "nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation" but courts right up to the Supremos have held that the phrase "public use" doesn't actually mean "for use by the public," it means "public purpose" or even more broadly, "public benefit," so that, for example, seizing people's homes to turn the land over to a private developer in the hope that some project, if it works out, will increase property tax revenue is just fine under the Constitution. In fact, the concept of eminent domain had been distorted and stretched so far that even private corporations are invoking it in pursuit of their own profit.

So why not just take the private prisons? Certainly, it would meet the criteria. It would advance the "public purpose" of ending the use of private prisons and bring a "public benefit" in that while the former owners would have to be compensated, that surely would be less than the cost of building entirely new facilities, thus saving the public money.

The fact that I am quite sure that idea has not even been broached - and if someone did, they were probably fired - is just one more indication of what is wrong in our society and our governing affairs and how the interests of corporations still drive too much of our national policy and more importantly national psychology to the point where questioning them for anything short of the most outrageous criminality usually doesn't even enter the conversation.

Still, the fact that the idea of putting an end to federal prisons in the immigration service is even being considered, that the question is actually being asked, is hopeful news.

Don't shed any tears for the private prison industry just yet, though: Even if the federal government completely ended its use of private prisons, the industry could still thrive because most inmates in the US are in state and local prisons and jails, not federal ones, and many of those are run by private companies.

In fact, Damon Hininger, the chief executive of Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison company in America, told investors in June that his firm will be "just fine" no matter who wins the White House.

On the other hand, in August the California legislature passed the Dignity Not Detention Act, which would block local governments from contracting with private companies to run immigration detention centers in the state. The bill went to Gov. Jerry Brown's desk, but as of September 11, he still hadn't signed it. I deeply hope that will have changed by the time you read this.

The funny thing is, I can easily remember a time when the idea of private prisons would have seemed utterly bizarre, even far-fetched. Instead, they were another outgrowth of the war on drugs, when the exploding prison populations which that created produced overcrowding and rising costs. And it was, of course, the '80s, when the word "private" was spoken with reverence normally reserved for religious artifacts until we came to regard them as so normal, so much a part of our broken criminal injustice system, that we dared not undo them.

Happily, it appears that hand has been played out and the tide of opinion, of knowledge, is turning for the better.

Sources cited in links:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/08/2582-good-news-federal-private-prisons.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/08/2583-not-good-news-phaseout-does-not.html
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-immigration-detention-20160906-snap-story.html?track=lat-pick
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2004/10/in-case-you-missed-it.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2005/06/so-do-tell-whats-been-going-on-while-i_27.html
http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/08/31/profit-pipeline-company-claims-public-benefit-seizing-private-lands-pennsylvania
https://theintercept.com/2016/06/27/private-prison-trump-clinton/
http://www.sfexaminer.com/wheres-pen-gov-brown/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison#In_the_United_States

258.1 - Good News: Being good to employees pays off

Good News: Being good to employees pays off

Let's tart off with some good news in the form of an update; consider it a dose of feel-good news.

Back in April 2015, Dan Price, the founder and owner of a credit card processing company called Gravity Systems, and I talked about this at the time, shocked his employees by announcing that over the course of the next three years he was going to raise the minimum pay at his company to $70,000 a year - an amount at least $22,000 above the current average at the company.
He would pay for this, he said, by cutting his own yearly salary from about $1 million to $70,000 and using 75-80% of anticipated profits.

The right wing of course hated the idea, called it nothing but a publicity stunt, labeled it "pure, unadulterated, socialism," and predicted the 130 employees of the company would soon be on welfare. It'll never work, they said, instead it would wind up serving as a case study in how socialism is doomed to eternal failure.

So as you might have guessed, the update is on how the company is doing.

Pretty good, in fact.

Business volume is up 30%. Profits are up 85%. Client retention is up. About the only thing down is employee turnover.

In fact, things are good enough this summer, the employees pitched in and bought Dan Price a car - not just any car, but a Tesla battery-operated car, the average sale price of which, perhaps significantly, is $70,000.

Remember, of course, that this is still a business. It still aims to make a profit. But what Dan Price has shown is that consciously and deliberately being good to your employees - in fact, being very good to them - is not the losing proposition we're usually told either directly or by implication that it must be and that it is possible to run a successful, profit-making business without turning into an amoral, soul-dead greed hog or a smirking little prig. It's just that is usually does.

Dan Prince's success is good news.

Sources cited in links:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/11/2254-update-gravity-systems-company.html
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/8/10/1558819/-One-year-later-Gravity-employees-happily-flip-off-FOX-with-a-70k-gift-to-their-generous-boss
https://gravitypayments.com/thegravityof70k/#infographic-1

250.8 - Update: what to expect from Hillary Clinton

Update: what to expect from Hillary Clinton

We'll wrap up the week with a quick update to my lengthy rant last week about the ending of the presidential primaries and what that will mean in terms of issues that will not be discussed - or to be more precise, issues that Hillary Clinton and Donald TheRump will do their best to avoid discussing - in the fall. It's a bit more about what we can expect from, in particular, Clinton.

1. She is the candidate of Wall Street, which has raised nearly $23 million for her campaign.

2. She is the candidate of the neocons, a number of who have crossed party lines to support her, declaring, in the words of one of them, James Kirchick, that "Clinton is the candidate of the status quo," one who will provide "continuity with the present," she is the candidate of reaction, the president who will resist "systematic change."

3. She is the candidate of the hawks; she is the true hawk in the race for president, far more prepared to be far more aggressive militarily than Obama was and far readier to give the generals whatever they ask for.

This should not be taken as an ad for TheRump; I said months ago and I still say that for all her faults - and they are legion - she is still clearly preferable to anybody the GOPpers had going; hell, even the status quo (with perhaps incremental change) she represents is better than where that crew would take (or at least try to take) us.

But if you are going to support Hillary Clinton, you should do it realizing what you are going to get.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.salon.com/2016/05/09/hillary_clinton_is_wall_streets_preferred_candidate_financial_execs_pouring_millions_into_her_campaign_to_defeat_trum/
http://www.salon.com/2016/04/26/a_progressive_in_name_only_charles_koch_joins_a_long_list_of_right_wingers_who_have_lauded_hillary_clinton/
http://www.salon.com/2016/06/10/another_neocon_endorses_clinton_calling_her_2016s_real_conservative_and_the_candidate_of_the_status_quo/
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magazine/how-hillary-clinton-became-a-hawk.html?_r=0

244.4 - Update: what "equitable sharing" spawns

Update: what "equitable sharing" spawns

This is an Update of something I talked about last week: civil asset forfeiture and Equitable Sharing. Civil asset forfeiture is a program under which police can seize your property based merely on their belief that it was used in, or gained through, illegal drug activity. Equitable Sharing is a federal program under which cooperating local police can keep up to 80% of the value of assets seized - enabling local police departments to circumvent state laws, state laws which often allow them to keep a much smaller portion of the value of seized assets, and occasionally none at all: It all goes to the general state fund.

Equitable Sharing had been largely stopped in January; last week I had the bad news that it had been reinstated. Equitable Sharing is corrupt outgrowth of the corrupt regime of civil forfeiture, itself an outgrowth of the corrupt and failed war on drugs. I want to give you an example of what that corruption looks like.

Willow Springs is a suburb of Chicago. Its police department has obtained money from Equitable Sharing. That money is supposed to be used for "enhancing law enforcement operations." But according to a new audit conducted by the Justice Department and released about two weeks ago, the police there have spent just under 1 million dollars on items that do not meet that standard, such as 13 vehicles, including two chromed-up, tricked-out Harleys, a Chevy Camaro, a Ford F-250, and a 26-foot boat, all of which have been rarely used.

The police even bought what the town itself described as a "fully loaded" Ford Expedition SUV for a former police chief.

This is just another example - there are many - of how Equitable Sharing and the whole practice of civil forfeiture which it embraces serve as an incentive for police departments to take first and think about it later. Because since this money comes from the federal program, there is no requirement for them to justify their purchases to local legislators or the public. There is no oversight. The only mechanism for oversight is a possible DOJ audit, which may not occur until years after the fact.

The issue of civil forfeiture goes beyond local police departments, of course. Prosecutors often will resort to seizing the property of people accused of crimes - not convicted, mind you, accused and so much for innocent until proven guilty. Consider the case of Sila Luis, accused by the feds of Medicare and banking fraud. When she was indicted, she had $2 million in assets left and prosecutors, deciding that those assets would be needed for restitution, seized everything she had - including assets that those same prosecutors admitted had no relation to the charged crime.

She challenged the seizure, saying she needed the "untainted" assets to hire a lawyer for her defense. Happily, in a rare even if tiny dent in the who regime of asset seizure, the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 the end of March that seizing the untainted assets was a violation of Luis's 6th amendment right to counsel of her choice and could not be allowed because, in the words of Stephen Breyer, the untainted property "belongs to the defendant, pure and simple."

This is a very narrow victory as it seems only to involve assets which prosecutors agree is unrelated to the crime and which is needed for a defense, but at least it is a victory, it declares that there is a line the government can't cross, even if that line is pretty far away.

By the way, the three dissenters were Anthony Kennedy, Sam Alito, and Elena Kagan - all of who seem to think that the government stripping a defendant of the financial ability to defend themselves is just Jim dandy.

Sources cited in links:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/04/2434-update-equitable-sharing-back-in.html
http://dailysignal.com/2016/03/31/illinois-police-department-bought-motorcycles-chevy-camaro-with-nearly-1-million-seized-under-controversial-program/
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/30/472422503/supreme-court-feds-cant-seize-untainted-assets-needed-for-legal-fees

243.5 - Update: "Equitable sharing" back in force

Update: "Equitable sharing" back in force

This next is an Update and I am really angry about this one.

In January, I spoke about what I called the "mostly" Good News that the feds had largely ended a program called "equitable sharing." This was a corrupt outgrowth of the corrupt practice of "civil asset forfeiture," itself a corrupt outgrowth of the corrupt and miserable failure that is "the war on drugs."

Civil asset forfeiture allows cops to seize assets based on nothing more than a claimed belief - not evidence, I remind you, but "belief" - that the assets in question were involved in, or purchased with the proceeds of, illegal drug activity. They can do this even if they have no basis for any charges against the person possessing the asset.

Under this program, cops have seized money, computers, TVs, jewelry, cars, even homes and businesses without ever presenting - or even having to present - a single shred of evidence that the owners had done anything illegal.

Once an asset is seized, it becomes the responsibility of the person whose property was taken to prove that the asset was not obtained through the drug trade; that is, they have to prove a negative and they have the burden of proof in doing it. And remember, this is a civil matter, not a criminal one, so you have no right to an attorney and have to bear any legal costs to try to regain your property out of your own pocket, costs which can easily run to thousands of dollars and exceed the value of the asset. So very often people just give up and don't even try to get their stuff back.

Well, under "equitable sharing," local cops could choose to pursue civil forfeiture cases under federal law, rather than state law, in any case where federal agencies are involved, even tangentially. Here's the point: Under many state laws, the cops get to keep some portion of the assets seized - but under federal law, they get to keep a whopping 80%.

So "equitable sharing" acted as an incentive for cops to make an end run around their own state's laws and seize anything and everything they could to fatten their departmental budgets.

Which is why it was mostly good news that equitable sharing was being mostly shut down.

But the bastards couldn't leave it alone. On April 4, the Department of Justice reinstated the program, citing - get this - an "improved budget situation."

Civil asset forfeiture has gotten so far out of hand that in 2014, the last year with final figures, cops stole more stuff than burglars did.

And equitable sharing, the evil spawn of civil asset forfeiture, only makes this worse. It is disgusting and both it and the entire regime of civil asset forfeiture should die a quick death.

Sources cited in links:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/01/1901-good-news-mostly-feds-largely-end.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/03/30/justice-department-reinstates-federal-program-that-helps-state-cops-act-like-robbers/
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35429-doj-resurrects-policing-for-profit-program
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-took-more-stuff-from-people-than-burglars-did-last-year/