School Cop Investigated for Porn Link on Friend's MySpace Profile -- Updated

By Kevin Poulse

In the goofiest waste of law enforcement time we've seen in weeks, an on-campus police officer for a Florida middle school is facing a criminal investigation over his MySpace account. Why? It turns out one of the people on his friends list had a link on his or her profile to an internet porn site.

Or, as the St. Peterburg Times puts it, "kids could navigate from Officer John's page on the social networking site to 'Amateur Match Free Sex' in just three clicks."

You're reading correctly. Gulf Middle School resource officer John Nohejl didn't have porn on his MySpace profile, and he didn't link to porn. But one of the 170-odd people on his friends list, which seems mostly populated by students at his school, had a link to a legal adult site. Now the New Port Richey Police Department and the Florida attorney general's elite cyber crimes unit are investigating him for making adult content available to underage children.

Nohejl set up his MySpace account late last year with the school's and the police department's support, in a laudable bid to communicate with students where they live.

Presumably, he was expected to check all of his friends' profiles every day for inappropriate links -- because a school cop has nothing better to do.

Lauren Weinstein of People for Internet Responsibility correctly calls the investigation a "witch hunt," and points out that the school itself can be accused of the same crime, if we're now holding people responsible for content three clicks away.

And golly, it looks like the school involved has its own indirect link contents problems, too. Gulf Middle School's "Resources" page links to a variety of clip art sites, and they link to ... well ... let's just say that the entire internet opens up at that stage. ...

If authorities start applying "safe for children" standards to everyone whose Web page links to other pages that themselves at some point and in some fashion link to "inappropriate" material, the entire Internet will be on the chopping block in a "degrees of separation" accusation orgy.

Update: The Tampa Tribune reports that the school has taken down the official school page that Weinstein found, admitting that it contained a direct link to a gay porn site. How embarrassing.

The link at one time led to a legitimate educational site, said Summer Romagnoli, a spokeswoman for the district. Recently, the company that operated the site was bought out and the Internet domain name was picked up by the more objectionable site.

UPI says the school principal is outraged.

"Obviously, we're going to investigate this," Principal Stan Trapp said. "I'm hoping that there will be some legal recourse. It's outrageous."

Legal recourse? Under the theory being used against Officer John, shouldn't Principal Stan be headed for the clink?

What Our Top Spy Doesn't Get: Security and Privacy Aren't Opposites

Bruce Schneier

National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell (right) listens as Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff (left) testifies on Capitol Hill in Sept. 2007 before the Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on post-9/11 terrorist threats.

If there's a debate that sums up post-9/11 politics, it's security versus privacy. Which is more important? How much privacy are you willing to give up for security? Can we even afford privacy in this age of insecurity? Security versus privacy: It's the battle of the century, or at least its first decade.

In a Jan. 21 New Yorker article, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell discusses a proposed plan to monitor all -- that's right, all -- internet communications for security purposes, an idea so extreme that the word "Orwellian" feels too mild.

The article (not online) contains this passage:

In order for cyberspace to be policed, internet activity will have to be closely monitored. Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the authority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer or Web search. "Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation," he said. Giorgio warned me, "We have a saying in this business: 'Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.'"

I'm sure they have that saying in their business. And it's precisely why, when people in their business are in charge of government, it becomes a police state. If privacy and security really were a zero-sum game, we would have seen mass immigration into the former East Germany and modern-day China. While it's true that police states like those have less street crime, no one argues that their citizens are fundamentally more secure.

We've been told we have to trade off security and privacy so often -- in debates on security versus privacy, writing contests, polls, reasoned essays and political rhetoric -- that most of us don't even question the fundamental dichotomy.

But it's a false one.

Security and privacy are not opposite ends of a seesaw; you don't have to accept less of one to get more of the other. Think of a door lock, a burglar alarm and a tall fence. Think of guns, anti-counterfeiting measures on currency and that dumb liquid ban at airports. Security affects privacy only when it's based on identity, and there are limitations to that sort of approach.

Since 9/11, two -- or maybe three -- things have potentially improved airline security: reinforcing the cockpit doors, passengers realizing they have to fight back and -- possibly -- sky marshals. Everything else -- all the security measures that affect privacy -- is just security theater and a waste of effort.

By the same token, many of the anti-privacy "security" measures we're seeing -- national ID cards, warrantless eavesdropping, massive data mining and so on -- do little to improve, and in some cases harm, security. And government claims of their success are either wrong, or against fake threats.

The debate isn't security versus privacy. It's liberty versus control.

You can see it in comments by government officials: "Privacy no longer can mean anonymity," says Donald Kerr, principal deputy director of national intelligence. "Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information." Did you catch that? You're expected to give up control of your privacy to others, who -- presumably -- get to decide how much of it you deserve. That's what loss of liberty looks like.

It should be no surprise that people choose security over privacy: 51 to 29 percent in a recent poll. Even if you don't subscribe to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it's obvious that security is more important. Security is vital to survival, not just of people but of every living thing. Privacy is unique to humans, but it's a social need. It's vital to personal dignity, to family life, to society -- to what makes us uniquely human -- but not to survival.

If you set up the false dichotomy, of course people will choose security over privacy -- especially if you scare them first. But it's still a false dichotomy. There is no security without privacy. And liberty requires both security and privacy. The famous quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin reads: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." It's also true that those who would give up privacy for security are likely to end up with neither.

Cop tickets police cars for expired stickers on last day on job

MIDDLETOWN, N.J. - A Middletown police officer spent his last day on the job writing tickets for 14 patrol cars that had expired inspection stickers.

Cpl. Frank Holden says he was just doing his job.

The 26-year veteran tells the Asbury Park Press he retired at the end of the year because Police Chief Robert Oches is hurting morale.

Holden says he spoke to the chief about the vehicles that needed to be inspected several months ago.

The township is investigating whether the tickets are valid because some of the vehicles were out of service.

Driving a vehicle with an expired inspection sticker may result in fines between $100 and $200.

Insanitized

Radley Balko

A 14-year-old boy in Lewisville, Texas was arrested, booked, and fingerprinted last October for sniffing his teacher's hand sanitizer.

Mr. Ortiz said the family's ordeal began Oct. 19, when his son picked up a bottle of hand sanitizer from the desk of his fifth-period reading teacher at Killian Middle School in Lewisville. He rubbed the gel on his hands and smelled it.

In the view of school officials, the boy "inhaled heavily," according to Mr. Ortiz, who said his son sniffed the cleanser "because it smelled good."

The youth was sent to the principal's office, and the Lewisville police officer assigned to the school began investigating.

[...]

The teen was required to serve a brief in-school suspension and was also fingerprinted and photographed at the Lewisville Police Department. He returned to regular classes at the school, including one with the teacher whose sanitizer he sniffed.

Mr. Ortiz said he believed the matter was over until Tuesday when he was served with a petition charging his son with delinquency for inhaling the hand sanitizer to "induce a condition of intoxication, hallucination and elation."

He said he couldn't believe that his son would have to go to court for smelling hand sanitizer. "I think it's ludicrous," said Mr. Ortiz, who blames overzealous police and prosecutors for initially pursuing the case.

Joni Eddy, assistant police chief in Lewisville, said Friday that hand sanitizer has become a popular inhalant. "That is the latest thing to huff," she said.

The local prosecutor had the common sense to not pursue the charges.

How Teenage Rebellion Has Become a Mental Illness

By Bruce E. Levine

Big pharma has some new customers. Not complying with authority is now, in many cases, labeled a disease.

For a generation now, disruptive young Americans who rebel against authority figures have been increasingly diagnosed with mental illnesses and medicated with psychiatric (psychotropic) drugs.

Disruptive young people who are medicated with Ritalin, Adderall and other amphetamines routinely report that these drugs make them "care less" about their boredom, resentments and other negative emotions, thus making them more compliant and manageable. And so-called atypical antipsychotics such as Risperdal and Zyprexa -- powerful tranquilizing drugs -- are increasingly prescribed to disruptive young Americans, even though in most cases they are not displaying any psychotic symptoms.

Many talk show hosts think I'm kidding when I mention oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). After I assure them that ODD is in fact an official mental illness -- an increasingly popular diagnosis for children and teenagers -- they often guess that ODD is simply a new term for juvenile delinquency. But that is not the case.

Young people diagnosed with ODD, by definition, are doing nothing illegal (illegal behaviors are a symptom of another mental illness called conduct disorder). In 1980, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) created oppositional defiant disorder, defining it as "a pattern of negativistic, hostile and defiant behavior." The official symptoms of ODD include "often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules" and "often argues with adults." While ODD-diagnosed young people are obnoxious with adults they don't respect, these kids can be a delight with adults they do respect; yet many of them are medicated with psychotropic drugs.

An even more common reaction to oppressive authorities than overt defiance is some type of passive defiance.

John Holt, the late school critic, described passive-aggressive strategies employed by prisoners in concentration camps and slaves on plantations, as well as some children in classrooms. Holt pointed out that subjects may attempt to appease their rulers while still satisfying some part of their own desire for dignity "by putting on a mask, by acting much more stupid and incompetent than they really are, by denying their rulers the full use of their intelligence and ability, by declaring their minds and spirits free of their enslaved bodies."

Holt observed that by "going stupid" in a classroom, children frustrate authorities through withdrawing the most intelligent and creative parts of their minds from the scene, thus achieving some sense of potency.

Going stupid -- or passive aggression -- is one of many nondisease explanations for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Studies show that virtually all ADHD-diagnosed children will pay attention to activities that they enjoy or that they have chosen. In other words, when ADHD-labeled kids are having a good time and in control, the "disease" goes away.

There are other passive rebellions against authority that have been medicalized by mental health authorities. I have talked to many people who earlier in their lives had been diagnosed with substance abuse, depression and even schizophrenia but believe that their "symptoms" had in fact been a kind of resistance to the demands of an oppressive environment. Some of these people now call themselves psychiatric survivors.

While there are several reasons for behavioral disruptiveness and emotional difficulties, rebellion against an oppressive environment is one common reason that is routinely not even considered by many mental health professionals. Why? It is my experience that many mental health professionals are unaware of how extremely obedient they are to authorities. Acceptance into medical school and graduate school and achieving a Ph.D. or M.D. means jumping through many meaningless hoops, all of which require much behavioral, attentional and emotional compliance to authorities -- even disrespected ones. When compliant M.D.s and Ph.D.s begin seeing noncompliant patients, many of these doctors become anxious, sometimes even ashamed of their own excessive compliance, and this anxiety and shame can be fuel for diseasing normal human reactions.

Two ways of subduing defiance are to criminalize it and to pathologize it, and U.S. history is replete with examples of both. In the same era that John Adams' Sedition Act criminalized criticism of U.S. governmental policy, Dr. Benjamin Rush, the father of American psychiatry (his image adorns the APA seal), pathologized anti-authoritarianism. Rush diagnosed those rebelling against a centralized federal authority as having an "excess of the passion for liberty" that "constituted a form of insanity." He labeled this illness "anarchia."

Throughout American history, both direct and indirect resistance to authority has been diseased. In an 1851 article in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, Louisiana physician Samuel Cartwright reported his discovery of "drapetomania," the disease that caused slaves to flee captivity. Cartwright also reported his discovery of "dysaesthesia aethiopis," the disease that caused slaves to pay insufficient attention to the master's needs. Early versions of ODD and ADHD?

In Rush's lifetime, few Americans took anarchia seriously, nor was drapetomania or dysaesthesia aethiopis taken seriously in Cartwright's lifetime. But these were eras before the diseasing of defiance had a powerful financial ally in Big Pharma.

In every generation there will be authoritarians. There will also be the "bohemian bourgeois" who may enjoy anti-authoritarian books, music, and movies but don't act on them. And there will be genuine anti-authoritarians, who are so pained by exploitive hierarchies that they take action. Only occasionally in American history do these genuine anti-authoritarians actually take effective direct action that inspires others to successfully revolt, but every once in a while a Tom Paine comes along. So authoritarians take no chances, and the state-corporate partnership criminalizes anti-authoritarianism, pathologizes it, markets drugs to "cure" it and financially intimidates those who might buck the system.

It would certainly be a dream of Big Pharma and those who favor an authoritarian society if every would-be Tom Paine -- or Crazy Horse, Tecumseh, Emma Goldman or Malcolm X -- were diagnosed as a youngster with mental illness and quieted with a lifelong regimen of chill pills. The question is: Has this dream become reality?

Predictions for 2008: The un-parodiable state of civil liberties in America

Radley Balko

As the end of the year approaches, it's time for another column of government overreach predictions for the New Year. What outrageous, beyond-parody grabs at power and erosions of civil liberties will transpire in 2008? My predictions:

• The Bush administration will claim it has the power to kidnap citizens of foreign countries for violating U.S. law, and extradite them to the U.S. for trial and imprisonment—even for white collar crimes unrelated to terrorism, and even for acts that aren't illegal in the countries where the target is a citizen.

• Police will take enforcement of prostitution laws to a new level, by arresting and seizing the cars of anyone who merely talks to an undercover cop posing as a sex worker. Good samaratans, beware.

• The war on prescription painkillers will also reach new absurdities, as people will begin to be arrested and convicted of possessing painkillers for which they have a prescription . Prosecutors will weirdly argue that there is no "prescription defense" to possessing prescribed medication.

• How about sex crimes laws? I predict that here too, prosecutors will overreach. Watch, as some overzealous district attorney will charge middle school kids with sex crimes for such childhood shenanigans as slapping fellow classmates on the buttocks.

• While it continues to federalize crime and find new reasons to toss people in prison, members of Congress will simultaneously continue to attempt to put themselves above the law. I predict that the House of Representatives will attempt to prevent police from searching the computers of one of its members, even if that member is being investigated for soliciting sex with minors.

• Public schools will teach not just reading, writing, and arithmetic, they'll start teaching students to spy on their parents , and to report their parents to local authorities for minor violations of city codes, such as failing to recycle, or failing to keep their lawn trimmed.

• Pressed for revenue, at least one state in the country will pass draconian new traffic laws mandating fines of $1,000 or more for routine traffic violations, in a bald attempt to fill state treasury coffers. The bill will be sponsored by a lawmaker who, conveniently enough, also has a law practice that specializes in defending people accused of traffic violations. He will not disclose during the debate that the bill will almost certainly benefit him financially. He'll be reelected, anyway.

• A state governor will propose legislation calling for two-year prison terms for people who play online poker . Rather shamelessly, the proposal will come in the same bill that calls for allowing the construction of three new casinos in the same state.

• While we're talking about gambling, states will continue to crack down on the poker craze. Even VFW posts won't be immune. Soon, we'll see cops sent to break up $5 cribbage games, and SWAT teams to break up charity poker games. In fact, cops will raid bars where it merely looks like people are gambling, even if no gambling is actually taking place. Meanwhile, states will continue to spend millions promoting their own lotteries.

• Standing on the sidewalk will become a crime .

• Cities will begin seizing the cars of people who play their stereos too loud . In fact, they'll seize the cars based on little more the word of someone else that the car's owner was playing his stereo too loud.

• Proving there's no part of your life the Nanny State can't reach, states will begin asking bars to install talking urinal cakes, which will warn men as they relieve themselves that drinking and driving isn't cool.

• Another state's lawmakers will propose a bill that bans "eating, drinking, smoking, reading, writing, personal grooming, playing an instrument, interacting with pets or cargo, talking on a cell phone or using any other personal communication device" while driving.

• Two years after banning traffic cameras in the name of "liberty," the Virginia legislature will decide that revenue is more important than liberty, and will revoke the ban .

• The FBI will imply to Congress that sometimes it has to let it's undercover informants get away with murdering American citizens so as not to disrupt drug investigations.

• Following up on the enormous "success" (that's sarcasm) of laws putting cold medicine behind the drug store counters because they can be used to make meth, legislators will propose putting baking soda behind the counter , too, because it can be used to make crack.

Too over-the top? Too paranoid? As you may have guessed from clicking the embedded links (of if you read either of my two prior year-end columns ), none of the bullet points above were actual predictions. Each of the above already happened in the past 12 months, in 2007.

Each year, government at all levels encroaches a bit more on our personal, economic, and political freedom. One prediction that I'm pretty confident will come true: Come December 2008, there will be more than enough material for another column like this one.

Nude buttocks may cost ABC $1.4 million

WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a $1.4 million fine against 52 ABC Television Network stations over a 2003 broadcast of cop drama NYPD Blue.

The fine is for a scene where a boy surprises a woman as she prepares to take a shower. The scene depicted "multiple, close-up views" of the woman's "nude buttocks" according to an agency order issued late Friday.

ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Co. The fines were issued against 52 stations either owned by or affiliated with the network.

FCC's definition of indecent content requires that the broadcast "depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities" in a "patently offensive way" and is aired between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.

The agency said the show was indecent because "it depicts sexual organs and excretory organs — specifically an adult woman's buttocks."

The agency rejected the network's argument that "the buttocks are not a sexual organ."

<Let's not forget how damned sexual elbows and earlobes can be! ...and lips, and hips, and...>

Comments on the Moro Massacre

by Mark Twain (March 12, 1906)

This incident burst upon the world last Friday in an official cablegram from the commander of our forces in the Philippines to our Government at Washington. The substance of it was as follows: A tribe of Moros, dark-skinned savages, had fortified themselves in the bowl of an extinct crater not many miles from Jolo; and as they were hostiles, and bitter against us because we have been trying for eight years to take their liberties away from them, their presence in that position was a menace. Our commander, Gen. Leonard Wood, ordered a reconnaissance. It was found that the Moros numbered six hundred, counting women and children; that their crater bowl was in the summit of a peak or mountain twenty-two hundred feet above sea level, and very difficult of access for Christian troops and artillery. Then General Wood ordered a surprise, and went along himself to see the order carried out. Our troops climbed the heights by devious and difficult trails, and even took some artillery with them. The kind of artillery is not specified, but in one place it was hoisted up a sharp acclivity by tackle a distance of some three hundred feet. Arrived at the rim of the crater, the battle began. Our soldiers numbered five hundred and forty. They were assisted by auxiliaries consisting of a detachment of native constabulary in our pay -- their numbers not given -- and by a naval detachment, whose numbers are not stated. But apparently the contending parties were about equal as to number -- six hundred men on our side, on the edge of the bowl; six hundred men, women and children in the bottom of the bowl. Depth of the bowl, 50 feet.

Gen. Wood's order was, "Kill or capture the six hundred."

The battle began-it is officially called by that name-our forces firing down into the crater with their artillery and their deadly small arms of precision; the savages furiously returning the fire, probably with brickbats-though this is merely a surmise of mine, as the weapons used by the savages are not nominated in the cablegram. Heretofore the Moros have used knives and clubs mainly; also ineffectual trade-muskets when they had any.

The official report stated that the battle was fought with prodigious energy on both sides during a day and a half, and that it ended with a complete victory for the American arms. The completeness of the victory for the American arms. The completeness of the victory is established by this fact: that of the six hundred Moros not one was left alive. The brilliancy of the victory is established by this other fact, to wit: that of our six hundred heroes only fifteen lost their lives.

General Wood was present and looking on. His order had been. "Kill or capture those savages." Apparently our little army considered that the "or" left them authorized to kill or capture according to taste, and that their taste had remained what it has been for eight years, in our army out there - the taste of Christian butchers.

The official report quite properly extolled and magnified the "heroism" and "gallantry" of our troops; lamented the loss of the fifteen who perished, and elaborated the wounds of thirty-two of our men who suffered injury, and even minutely and faithfully described the nature of the wounds, in the interest of future historians of the United States. It mentioned that a private had one of his elbows scraped by a missile, and the private's name was mentioned. Another private had the end of his nose scraped by a missile. His name was also mentioned - by cable, at one dollar and fifty cents a word.

Next day's news confirmed the previous day's report and named our fifteen killed and thirty-two wounded again, and once more described the wounds and gilded them with the right adjectives.

Let us now consider two or three details of our military history. In one of the great battles of the Civil War ten per cent. Of the forces engaged on the two sides were killed and wounded. At Waterloo, where four hundred thousand men were present on the two sides, fifty thousand fell, killed and wounded, in five hours, leaving three hundred and fifty thousand sound and all right for further adventures. Eight years ago, when the pathetic comedy called the Cuban War was played, we summoned two hundred and fifty thousand men. We fought a number of showy battles, and when the war was over we had lost two hundred and sixty-eight men out of our two hundred and fifty thousand, in killed and wounded in the field, and just fourteen times as many by the gallantry of the army doctors in the hospitals and camps. We did not exterminate the Spaniards -- far from it. In each engagement we left an average of two per cent. of the enemy killed or crippled on the field.

Contrast these things with the great statistics which have arrived from
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that Moro crater! There, with six hundred engaged on each side, we lost fifteen men killed outright, and we had thirty-two wounded-counting that nose and that elbow. The enemy numbered six hundred -- including women and children -- and we abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby alive to cry for its dead mother. This is incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States.

Now then, how has it been received? The splendid news appeared with splendid display-heads in every newspaper in this city of four million and thirteen thousand inhabitants, on Friday morning. But there was not a single reference to it in the editorial columns of any one of those newspapers. The news appeared again in all the evening papers of Friday, and again those papers were editorially silent upon our vast achievement. Next day's additional statistics and particulars appeared in all the morning papers, and still without a line of editorial rejoicing or a mention of the matter in any way. These additions appeared in the evening papers of that same day (Saturday) and again without a word of comment. In the columns devoted to correspondence, in the morning and evening papers of Friday and Saturday, nobody said a word about the "battle." Ordinarily those columns are teeming with the passions of the citizen; he lets no incident go by, whether it be large or small, without pouring out his praise or blame, his joy or his indignation about the matter in the correspondence column. But, as I have said, during those two days he was as silent as the editors themselves. So far as I can find out, there was only one person among our eighty millions who allowed himself the privilege of a public remark on this great occasion -- that was the President of the United States. All day Friday he was as studiously silent as the rest. But on Saturday he recognized that his duty required him to say something, and he took his pen and performed that duty. If I know President Roosevelt -- and I am sure I do -- this utterance cost him more pain and shame than any other that ever issued from his pen or his mouth. I am far from blaming him. If I had been in his place my official duty would have compelled me to say what he said. It was a convention, an old tradition, and he had to be loyal to it. There was no help for it. This is what he said:

Washington, March 10. Wood, Manila:- I congratulate you and the officers and men of your command upon the
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brilliant feat of arms wherein you and they so well upheld the honor of the American flag. (Signed) Theodore Roosevelt.

His whole utterance is merely a convention. Not a word of what he said came out of his heart. He knew perfectly well that to pen six hundred helpless and weaponless savages in a hole like rats in a trap and massacre them in detail during a stretch of a day and a half, from a safe position on the heights above, was no brilliant feat of arms - and would not have been a brilliant feat of arms even if Christian America, represented by its salaried soldiers, had shot them down with Bibles and the Golden Rule instead of bullets. He knew perfectly well that our uniformed assassins had not upheld the honor of the American flag, but had done as they have been doing continuously for eight years in the Philippines - that is to say, they had dishonored it.

The next day, Sunday, -- which was yesterday -- the cable brought us additional news - still more splendid news -- still more honor for the flag. The first display-head shouts this information at us in the stentorian capitals: "WOMEN SLAIN MORO SLAUGHTER."

"Slaughter" is a good word. Certainly there is not a better one in the Unabridged Dictionary for this occasion

The next display line says:

"With Children They Mixed in Mob in Crater, and All Died Together."

They were mere naked savages, and yet there is a sort of pathos about it when that word children falls under your eye, for it always brings before us our perfectest symbol of innocence and helplessness; and by help of its deathless eloquence color, creed and nationality vanish away and we see only that they are children -- merely children. And if they are frightened and crying and in trouble, our pity goes out to them by natural impulse. We see a picture. We see the small forms. We see the terrified faces. We see the tears. We see the small hands clinging in supplication to the mother; but we do not see those children that we are speaking about. We see in their places the little creatures whom we know and love.

The next heading blazes with American and Christian glory like to the sun in the zenith:

"Death List is Now 900."

U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Ban on Abortion Methods

<There are two primary issues on which Haven/Bastion clearly separates from the liberal agenda; Abortion and Gun Control. While it is sad that we must depart from the ACLU, and therefore cannot whole-heartedly support it, there are clear issues of a most immediate and critical nature which require it in these instances. We stidently disagree with the very principles upon which these issues are based. What follows is an annotated showing of which precise exceptions we make with that view/agenda and why.>

Ruling Undermines Women’s Health and Equality

<This statement is purely biased. The issue is NOT only about the welfare of the mother but the welfare of the child as well. Equality would mean that both their rights are "paramount" and that the woman is held to the same standards of reasonableness in causing the death of another individual as any other person.>

May 2007
On April 18, 2007, the United States Supreme Court dealt a devastating blow to women’s health, reproductive rights, and equality. In a 5-4 decision that puts politics before women’s health, the Court upheld the first-ever federal ban on abortion methods – called by its sponsors the “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.”

<Again, completely and obviously biased. It could equally be seen as FOR the child's health, rights, and equality. This is not a matter of politics but of reasonable balance of rights between two people. The doctors are not qualified to make that kind of moral distinction, it can only be governed by community standards of national law. However unfortunate it is for the government to make moral distinctions due to the use of politics rather than reason in our current system, that is precisely what it exists to do. If the standard of equality were present in the core values of the abortion issue, much of this would be moot.>

In upholding the ban, the Court undermined a core principle of Roe v. Wade – that women’s health must remain paramount. In the three decades since Roe, the Court has always demanded that abortion restrictions include protections for women’s health. Yet with its decision in Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America (a single decision referred to below as Carhart II), the Court upheld the federal ban despite the fact that it fails to contain a health exception.

<A woman's health is NOT paramount, nor should it be. There is NOT one person's rights at stake here, there are two. As stated in the core values of Haven/Bastion, there are only two ways we have to determine whether someone is a person or not; a soul, or a working brain. One is not measurable, the other is, and it begins around the end of the first tri-mester. After that, the child has every bit as much potential, as many rights, etc, as the mother and to treat it any other way is contrary to the most basic principles of human rights. Each case must be based on the value of those rights weighed against each other. Certainly that would include the health of the woman, and certainly it would include the health of the child.>

Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy evoked antiquated notions of women’s place in society and called into question their decision-making ability. Furthermore, the Court held that in the face of “medical uncertainty” lawmakers could overrule a doctor’s medical judgment. In other words, the Court sanctioned placing medical decisions in the hands of politicians, not doctors. Notwithstanding the Court’s claim that it merely followed precedent, the Court’s ruling in Carhart II stands in stark contrast to one it made only seven years prior in a nearly identical case, Stenberg v. Carhart (Carhart I).

<This is nonsensical. A woman's place in society is NOT the issue. Their decision-making ability is. In order to terminate the life of another person, you MUST have your decision-making ability questioned. Furthermore, anyone in that kind of emotionally deep situation can be presumed not to have an unbiased or "correct" decision-making ability. This issue is one of life & death. The doctor can certainly create a triage decision which is appropriate but it can certainly not automatically go to one side or the other of humans with equal rights. If there is a clear distinction as to why one should be more important than the other it has never been enumerated, it has never been written into the rule of law. Law of death is obviously and properly one of the most scrutinized and furthest examined in every other instance, why is it so fuzzy here?>

Additionally, and for the first time, the Court held that the “State’s interest in promoting respect for human life at all stages in the pregnancy” could outweigh the woman’s interest in protecting her own health. Again, this is a radical departure from more than 30 years of precedent holding unequivocally that women’s health interests outweigh any other State interests regardless of the stage of pregnancy. Here the Court’s language sets a dangerous precedent allowing politicians to endanger women’s health.

<Of course that interest "could" outweigh her right to protect her own health. The problem is that one side says "all stages" which is rediculous since the fetus is at some point NOT a person, and the other side says her right is "paramount" when at some point the fetus clearly IS a person. The precedent was wrong, and so any departure from it can only be right, however incomplete or badly phrased. It is a state interest to protect life. It is for this reason that they are involved in this issue at all.>

In an impassioned dissent, Justice Ginsburg attacked the majority for placing women’s health in danger and for undermining women’s struggle for equality. She wrote, women’s “ability to realize their full potential . . . is intimately connected to ‘their ability to control their reproductive lives.’” And she concluded that “the Act, and the Court’s defense of it, cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by the Court – and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s lives.”
The ACLU, acting on behalf of the National Abortion Federation and several individual physicians, brought one of three legal challenges to the federal ban. In each of those cases, the lower courts had struck down the ban, relying on clear precedent – now swept away by the Court’s decision in Carhart II – that prohibited the government from endangering women’s health when it regulates abortion. Below is a summary of the three cases.THE LEGAL CHALLENGES TO THE FEDERAL BAN National Abortion Federation v. Gonzales: The National Abortion Federation and seven individual physicians, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, the ACLU of Illinois, and the New York Civil Liberties Union, filed a legal challenge to the federal ban in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. That court struck down the ban "because it does not provide for an exception to protect the health of the mother." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed, and then placed the case on hold once the Supreme Court agreed to hear the government’s appeal in Gonzales v. Carhart (see below). Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the ban, the Second Circuit lifted the injunction in this case. Gonzales v. Carhart: Dr. LeRoy Carhart and three other physicians, represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, filed a legal challenge to the federal ban in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska. That court struck down the law, in part, because it fails to include an exception to protect women’s health. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. The Department of Justice asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review this lower court ruling and, on November 8, 2006, the Court heard argument in the case, along with Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood (see below). The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban on April 18, 2007, reversing the lower court rulings in both cases.

<How can it be valid to protect the healfh of one person and not of another? The entire issue ignores the health of the child Utterly! Yes, the woman's health is important. NO, it is not paramount.>

Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America: Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood of Golden Gate filed a legal challenge to the federal ban in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. That court struck down the ban, in part, because of the “omission of a health exception.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. The Department of Justice asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review this lower court ruling and, on November 8, 2006, the Court heard argument in the case, along with Gonzales v. Carhart (see above). The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban on April 18, 2007, reversing the lower court rulings in both cases.

<At the end of the first trimester, the human brain begins working. At this point it is a viable entity, no more or less parasitic than after birth, only in a different fashion. The issue could be looked at in a different light, that the mother has had her time on Earth and it's time for her to make way for another. It can be looked at (in most cases) that she actively participated in the decision to grow a human life and is therefore to be held responsible for ALL the potential risks associated (she certainly is willing to accept the rewards.) Until the issue is about these issues rather than all the subordinate ones that it currently is, it will never be clear, never fair, never just, never right.>

Coffee, Tea, or Should We Feel Your Pregnant Wife’s Breasts Before Throwing You in a Cell at the Airport and Then Lying About Why We Put You There?

by Nicholas Monahan

This morning I’ll be escorting my wife to the hospital, where the doctors will perform a caesarean section to remove our first child. She didn’t want to do it this way – neither of us did – but sometimes the Fates decide otherwise. The Fates or, in our case, government employees.

On the morning of October 26th Mary and I entered Portland International Airport, en route to the Las Vegas wedding of one of my best friends. Although we live in Los Angeles, we’d been in Oregon working on a film, and up to that point had had nothing but praise to shower on the city of Portland, a refreshing change of pace from our own suffocating metropolis.

At the security checkpoint I was led aside for the "inspection" that’s all the rage at airports these days. My shoes were removed. I was told to take off my sweater, then to fold over the waistband of my pants. My baseball hat, hastily jammed on my head at 5 AM, was removed and assiduously examined ("Anything could be in here, sir," I was told, after I asked what I could hide in a baseball hat. Yeah. Anything.) Soon I was standing on one foot, my arms stretched out, the other leg sticking out in front of me àla a DUI test. I began to get pissed off, as most normal people would. My anger increased when I realized that the newly knighted federal employees weren’t just examining me, but my 7½ months pregnant wife as well. I’d originally thought that I’d simply been randomly selected for the more excessive than normal search. You know, Number 50 or whatever. Apparently not though – it was both of us. These are your new threats, America: pregnant accountants and their sleepy husbands flying to weddings.

After some more grumbling on my part they eventually finished with me and I went to retrieve our luggage from the x-ray machine. Upon returning I found my wife sitting in a chair, crying. Mary rarely cries, and certainly not in public. When I asked her what was the matter, she tried to quell her tears and sobbed, "I’m sorry...it’s...they touched my breasts...and..." That’s all I heard. I marched up to the woman who’d been examining her and shouted, "What did you do to her?" Later I found out that in addition to touching her swollen breasts – to protect the American citizenry – the employee had asked that she lift up her shirt. Not behind a screen, not off to the side – no, right there, directly in front of the hundred or so passengers standing in line. And for you women who’ve been pregnant and worn maternity pants, you know how ridiculous those things look. "I felt like a clown," my wife told me later. "On display for all these people, with the cotton panel on my pants and my stomach sticking out. When I sat down I just lost my composure and began to cry. That’s when you walked up."

Of course when I say she "told me later," it’s because she wasn’t able to tell me at the time, because as soon as I demanded to know what the federal employee had done to make her cry, I was swarmed by Portland police officers. Instantly. Three of them, cinching my arms, locking me in handcuffs, and telling me I was under arrest. Now my wife really began to cry. As they led me away and she ran alongside, I implored her to calm down, to think of the baby, promising her that everything would turn out all right. She faded into the distance and I was shoved into an elevator, a cop holding each arm. After making me face the corner, the head honcho told that I was under arrest and that I wouldn’t be flying that day – that I was in fact a "menace."

It took me a while to regain my composure. I felt like I was one of those guys in The Gulag Archipelago who, because the proceedings all seem so unreal, doesn’t fully realize that he is in fact being arrested in a public place in front of crowds of people for...for what? I didn’t know what the crime was. Didn’t matter. Once upstairs, the officers made me remove my shoes and my hat and tossed me into a cell. Yes, your airports have prison cells, just like your amusement parks, train stations, universities, and national forests. Let freedom reign.

After a short time I received a visit from the arresting officer. "Mr. Monahan," he started, "Are you on drugs?"

Was this even real? "No, I’m not on drugs."

"Should you be?"

"What do you mean?"

"Should you be on any type of medication?"

"No."

"Then why’d you react that way back there?"

You see the thinking? You see what passes for reasoning among your domestic shock troops these days? Only "whackos" get angry over seeing the woman they’ve been with for ten years in tears because someone has touched her breasts. That kind of reaction – love, protection – it’s mind-boggling! "Mr. Monahan, are you on drugs?" His snide words rang inside my head. This is my wife, finally pregnant with our first child after months of failed attempts, after the depressing shock of the miscarriage last year, my wife who’d been walking on a cloud over having the opportunity to be a mother...and my anger is simply unfathomable to the guy standing in front of me, the guy who earns a living thanks to my taxes, the guy whose family I feed through my labor. What I did wasn’t normal. No, I reacted like a drug addict would’ve. I was so disgusted I felt like vomiting. But that was just the beginning.

An hour later, after I’d been gallantly assured by the officer that I wouldn’t be attending my friend’s wedding that day, I heard Mary’s voice outside my cell. The officer was speaking loudly, letting her know that he was planning on doing me a favor... which everyone knows is never a real favor. He wasn’t going to come over and help me work on my car or move some furniture. No, his "favor" was this: He’d decided not to charge me with a felony.

Think about that for a second. Rapes, car-jackings, murders, arsons – those are felonies. So is yelling in an airport now, apparently. I hadn’t realized, though I should have. Luckily, I was getting a favor, though. I was merely going to be slapped with a misdemeanor.

"Here’s your court date," he said as I was released from my cell. In addition, I was banned from Portland International for 90 days, and just in case I was thinking of coming over and hanging out around its perimeter, the officer gave me a map with the boundaries highlighted, sternly warning me against trespassing. Then he and a second officer escorted us off the grounds. Mary and I hurriedly drove two and a half hours in the rain to Seattle, where we eventually caught a flight to Vegas. But the officer was true to his word – we missed my friend’s wedding. The fact that he’d been in my own wedding party, the fact that a once in a lifetime event was stolen from us – well, who cares, right?

Upon our return to Portland (I’d had to fly into Seattle and drive back down), we immediately began contacting attorneys. We aren’t litigious people – we wanted no money. I’m not even sure what we fully wanted. An apology? A reprimand? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter though, because we couldn’t afford a lawyer, it turned out. $4,000 was the average figure bandied about as a retaining fee. Sorry, but I’ve got a new baby on the way. So we called the ACLU, figuring they existed for just such incidents as these. And they do apparently...but only if we were minorities. That’s what they told us.

In the meantime, I’d appealed my suspension from PDX. A week or so later I got a response from the Director of Aviation. After telling me how, in the aftermath of 9/11, most passengers not only accept additional airport screening but welcome it, he cut to the chase:

"After a review of the police report and my discussions with police staff, as well as a review of the TSA’s report on this incident, I concur with the officer’s decision to take you into custody and to issue a citation to you for disorderly conduct. That being said, because I also understand that you were upset and acted on your emotions, I am willing to lift the Airport Exclusion Order...."

Attached to this letter was the report the officer had filled out. I’d like to say I couldn’t believe it, but in a way, I could. It’s seemingly becoming the norm in America – lies and deliberate distortions on the part of those in power, no matter how much or how little power they actually wield.

The gist of his report was this: From the get go I wasn’t following the screener’s directions. I was "squinting my eyes" and talking to my wife in a "low, forced voice" while "excitedly swinging my arms." Twice I began to walk away from the screener, inhaling and exhaling forcefully. When I’d completed the physical exam, I walked to the luggage screening area, where a second screener took a pair of scissors from my suitcase. At this point I yelled, "What the %*&$% is going on? This is &*#&$%!" The officer, who’d already been called over by one of the screeners, became afraid for the TSA staff and the many travelers. He required the assistance of a second officer as he "struggled" to get me into handcuffs, then for "cover" called over a third as well. It was only at this point that my wife began to cry hysterically.

There was nothing poetic in my reaction to the arrest report. I didn’t crumple it in my fist and swear that justice would be served, promising to sacrifice my resources and time to see that it would. I simply stared. Clearly the officer didn’t have the guts to write down what had really happened. It might not look too good to see that stuff about the pregnant woman in tears because she’d been humiliated. Instead this was the official scenario being presented for the permanent record. It doesn’t even matter that it’s the most implausible sounding situation you can think of. "Hey, what the...godammit, they’re taking our scissors, honey!" Why didn’t he write in anything about a monkey wearing a fez?

True, the TSA staff had expropriated a pair of scissors from our toiletries kit – the story wasn’t entirely made up. Except that I’d been locked in airport jail at the time. I didn’t know anything about any scissors until Mary told me on our drive up to Seattle. They’d questioned her about them while I was in the bowels of the airport sitting in my cell.

So I wrote back, indignation and disgust flooding my brain.

"[W]hile I’m not sure, I’d guess that the entire incident is captured on video. Memory is imperfect on everyone’s part, but the footage won’t lie. I realize it might be procedurally difficult for you to view this, but if you could, I’d appreciate it. There’s no willful disregard of screening directions. No explosion over the discovery of a pair of scissors in a suitcase. No struggle to put handcuffs on. There’s a tired man, early in the morning, unhappily going through a rigorous procedure and then reacting to the tears of his pregnant wife."

Eventually we heard back from a different person, the guy in charge of the TSA airport screeners. One of his employees had made the damning statement about me exploding over her scissor discovery, and the officer had deftly incorporated that statement into his report. We asked the guy if he could find out why she’d said this – couldn’t she possibly be mistaken? "Oh, can’t do that, my hands are tied. It’s kind of like leading a witness – I could get in trouble, heh heh." Then what about the videotape? Why not watch that? That would exonerate me. "Oh, we destroy all video after three days."

Sure you do.

A few days later we heard from him again. He just wanted to inform us that he’d received corroboration of the officer’s report from the officer’s superior, a name we didn’t recognize. "But...he wasn’t even there," my wife said.

"Yeah, well, uh, he’s corroborated it though."

That’s how it works.

"Oh, and we did look at the videotape. Inconclusive."

But I thought it was destroyed?

On and on it went. Due to the tenacity of my wife in making phone calls and speaking with relevant persons, the "crime" was eventually lowered to a mere citation. Only she could have done that. I would’ve simply accepted what was being thrown at me, trumped up charges and all, simply because I’m wholly inadequate at performing the kowtow. There’s no way I could have contacted all the people Mary did and somehow pretend to be contrite. Besides, I speak in a low, forced voice, which doesn’t elicit sympathy. Just police suspicion.

Weeks later at the courthouse I listened to a young DA awkwardly read the charges against me – "Mr. Monahan...umm...shouted obscenities at the airport staff...umm... umm...oh, they took some scissors from his suitcase and he became...umm...abusive at this point." If I was reading about it in Kafka I might have found something vaguely amusing in all of it. But I wasn’t. I was there. Living it.

I entered a plea of nolo contendere, explaining to the judge that if I’d been a resident of Oregon, I would have definitely pled "Not Guilty." However, when that happens, your case automatically goes to a jury trial, and since I lived a thousand miles away, and was slated to return home in seven days, with a newborn due in a matter of weeks...you get the picture. "No Contest" it was. Judgment: $250 fine.

Did I feel happy? Only $250, right? No, I wasn’t happy. I don’t care if it’s twelve cents, that’s money pulled right out of my baby’s mouth and fed to a disgusting legal system that will use it to propagate more incidents like this. But at the very least it was over, right? Wrong.

When we returned to Los Angeles there was an envelope waiting for me from the court. Inside wasn’t a receipt for the money we’d paid. No, it was a letter telling me that what I actually owed was $309 – state assessed court costs, you know. Wouldn’t you think your taxes pay for that – the state putting you on trial? No, taxes are used to hire more cops like the officer, because with our rising criminal population – people like me – hey, your average citizen demands more and more "security."

Finally I reach the piece de resistance. The week before we’d gone to the airport my wife had had her regular pre-natal checkup. The child had settled into the proper head down position for birth, continuing the remarkable pregnancy she’d been having. We returned to Portland on Sunday. On Mary’s Monday appointment she was suddenly told, "Looks like your baby’s gone breech." When she later spoke with her midwives in Los Angeles, they wanted to know if she’d experienced any type of trauma recently, as this often makes a child flip. "As a matter of fact..." she began, recounting the story, explaining how the child inside of her was going absolutely crazy when she was crying as the police were leading me away through the crowd.

My wife had been planning a natural childbirth. She’d read dozens of books, meticulously researched everything, and had finally decided that this was the way for her. No drugs, no numbing of sensations – just that ultimate combination of brute pain and sheer joy that belongs exclusively to mothers. But my wife is also a first-time mother, so she has what is called an "untested" pelvis. Essentially this means that a breech birth is too dangerous to attempt, for both mother and child. Therefore, she’s now relegated to a c-section – hospital stay, epidural, catheter, fetal monitoring, stitches – everything she didn’t want. Her natural birth has become a surgery.

We’ve tried everything to turn that baby. Acupuncture, chiropractic techniques, underwater handstands, elephant walking, moxibustion, bending backwards over pillows, herbs, external manipulation – all to no avail. When I walked into the living room the other night and saw her plaintively cooing with a flashlight turned onto her stomach, yet another suggested technique, my heart almost broke. It’s breaking now as I write these words.

I can never prove that my child went breech because of what happened to us at the airport. But I’ll always believe it. Wrongly or rightly, I’ll forever think of how this man, the personification of this system, has affected the lives of my family and me. When my wife is sliced open, I’ll be thinking of him. When they remove her uterus from her abdomen and lay it on her stomach, I’ll be thinking of him. When I visit her and my child in the hospital instead of having them with me here in our home, I’ll be thinking of him. When I assist her to the bathroom while the incision heals internally, I’ll be thinking of him.

There are plenty of stories like this these days. I don’t know how many I’ve read where the writer describes some breach of civil liberties by employees of the state, then wraps it all up with a dire warning about what we as a nation are becoming, and how if we don’t put an end to it now, then we’re in for heaps of trouble. Well you know what? Nothing’s going to stop the inevitable. There’s no policy change that’s going to save us. There’s no election that’s going to put a halt to the onslaught of tyranny. It’s here already – this country has changed for the worse and will continue to change for the worse. There is now a division between the citizenry and the state. When that state is used as a tool against me, there is no longer any reason why I should owe any allegiance to that state.

And that’s the first thing that child of ours is going to learn.

December 21, 2002

Nick Monahan works in the film industry. He writes out of Los Angeles where he lives with his wife and as of December 18th, his beautiful new son.

Montana Governor Foments Real ID Rebellion

By Ryan Singe

Montana governor Brian Schweitzer (D) declared independence Friday from federal identification rules and called on governors of 17 other states to join him in forcing a showdown with the federal government which says it will not accept the driver's licenses of rebel states' citizens starting May 11.

If that showdown comes to pass, a resident of a non-complying state could not use a driver's license to enter a federal courthouse or a Social Security Administration building nor could he board a plane without undergoing a pat-down search, possibly creating massive backlogs at the nation's airports and almost certainly leading to a flurry of federal lawsuits.

States have until May 11 to request extensions to the Real ID rules that were released last Friday. They require states to make all current identification holders under the age of 50 to apply again with certified birth and marriage certificates. The rules also standardize license formats, require states to interlink their DMV databases and require DMV employee to undergo background checks.

Extensions push back the 2008 deadline for compliance as far as out 2014 if states apply and promise to start work on making the necessary changes, which will cost cash-strapped states billions with only a pittance in federal funding to offset the costs.

Last year Montana passed a law saying it would not comply, citing privacy, states' rights and fiscal issues.

In his letter (.pdf) to other governors, Schweitzer makes clear he's not going to ask for an extension.

"Today, I am asking you to join with me in resisting the DHS coercion to comply with the provisions of REAL ID, " Schweitzer wrote. "If we stand together either DHS will blink or Congress will have to act to avoid havoc at our nation's airports and federal courthouses."

But Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner says DHS has no intention of blinking.

"That will mean real consequences for their citizens starting in may if their leadership chooses not to comply," Keehner said. "That includes getting on an airplane or entering a federal building, so they will need to get passports."

Keehner says DHS's policy won't change even if Georgia -- one of the 17 states that has signaled strong opposition to the rules -- declines to apply for an extension.

If that scenario came to pass, every Georgian who flies out through the nation's busiest airport -- Atlanta-Hartsfield International -- would have to be patted down by Homeland Security agents and have his carry-on bag hand-screened, likely resulting in massive delays.

Keehner also suggests that patted-down citizens will turn their wrath not on the feds but on their state government.

For his part, Schweitzer wants Congress to step up and pass alternative legislation that would stop Real ID and re-instate a commission that was working on driver's license rules before the REAL ID Act was slipped into must-pass defense legislation in 2005. That legislation assigned DHS the task of setting the rules single-handedly.

Keehner is adamant that the rules will make the country safer and that the price tag is not too high.

"The ability to get false identification must end, and Real ID is that step," Keehner said.

Privacy groups counter that the rules create a de-facto national identification card and won't stop terrorism or identity theft.

For his part, Schweitzer struck back at DHS statements he obviously considers arrogant.

"I take great offense at this notion we should all simply 'grow up'," Schweitzer wrote, referring to Thursday remarks from DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff about border rules regarding Canada. Schweitzer says those remarks "reflect DHS (sic) continued disrespect for the serious and legitimate concerns of our citizens."

A DHS policy maker suggested earlier this week that Real IDs could also be required to buy cold medicine and to prove employment eligibility.

Schweitzer's letter went out to the governors of Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Arizona, Hawaii, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Washington.

Best Buy Forbids You From Buying Assassin's Creed, Insists You're Buying It For A Minor

Matt writes:

Yesterday I went through the horror of taking my 15 year old brother to the Best Buy in Orland Park, IL on LaGrange Ave. I had close to $100 in Best Buy Gift Certificates given to me for Christmas. My brother and I were en route to dinner and we decided to swing by the aforementioned Best Buy to pick up a video game, Assassin's Creed, and XBOX Live Gold. We entered the store. I browsed the camera aisle looking for a cable to possibly purchase for our flat screen then headed to the video game section. I picked up the said items and headed to check out where hell will shortly ensue.

I stepped up to the red haired, slightly obese cashier and she immediately gave me a look of disgrace as if I did something wrong. I replied with a "hi" to make the tension less awkward. She immediately asked me for my ID. I've never been carded for a video game before so I politely handed it to her while asking my brother for my gift cards I gave him while I was busy shuffling through my car just 20 minutes earlier.

She then left the the register booth with my ID and video game and went to her manager. The Best Buy cashier then came back and shouted that I'm purchasing a video game for a minor in front of everyone in line behind me and her fellow cashiers. She even had the nerve to ask, "Is that even your brother with you?!" Hell yes he is! I was embarrassed! It's like she was condemning me for purchasing alcohol for a minor. [ed. Assassin's Creed is rated "M" for Mature, meaning it's considered not suitable for kids under 17. It's a game where you play an assassin during the Third Crusades and you take out various historical figures.]

I quickly responded back that I am 21 year old and that the video game and peripheral are for me. She shook her head with a menacing grim and said that she saw me take gift cards from my brother and that what I am doing is illegal. Enough of this obese 17 year olds shenanigans! I demanded a manager. Unfortunately the manager was probably about 18 years old as well.

In front of the store again he told me that I am illegally purchasing a video game for a minor. I responded back that they are my gift cards! I want to make a purchase. That's when he picked up Xbox Live GOLD. I then asked if I couldn't buy that either. He then took a few minutes to scrutinize the box looking for an online peripherals rating. He never found it and said to me, he's not sure, I might not be able to do that either (Xbox Live was also rated E for everyone mind you). I continued to repeat that these are my gift cards, I'm 21 and I want to make my purchase. The cashier and manager continued to condemn me in front of all that I'm illegally purchasing the game for a minor.

I brought up two ultimatums. "So I have to go drive miles outside Orland Park, IL to another Best Buy to purchase the video game then?" The manager shrugged and said, "I guess so."

I also brought up the option then that if I left the store with my brother, came back in by myself and made the purchase, would that be legal then? The manager replied, "Technically, yes, that will be OK."

I then told them to hold on to the Xbox Live Gold since it was the last one left. I left the store with my brother, told him to go to the car. I then walked back into the store. The manager earlier told me that I can't use the old video game I originally had in hand because it was deemed under "penalty." I then had to walk all the way to the back of the cavernous store, pick up the video game then walk back to the line I was originally in. I stood in line for another 10 minutes waiting. I finally got back up to the obese red head cashier where she smirked and looked at me and said, "Yeah, we can't sell you that video game." What?! "Those gift cards are illegal."

How the hell does she know someone didn't just give me the gift cards on the street or if I had more of my "OWN" gift cards from the car. They just told me that I was able to purchase the video game once I walked my brother out.

I told them that they made a fool out of me before everyone in the store. She continued to be as politely as I can put it a "bitch" to me. I purchased Xbox Live Gold and said to the hell with the game. After making the transaction I told her I didn't need a plastic bag since all I'm carrying out is a small little hand held cardboard box. Who needs a plastic bag for that? She then told me that under company policy if I wanted to exit the store I needed a plastic bag. Absurd! For me to exit the store I need to kill the planet now? I never see people with bags over DVD players that are twice the size as the flimsy Xbox Live cardboard box.

Anyway I left the store, we ate dinner and on the way home we stopped at the Best Buy in Mokena, IL. I purchased the same exact video game, Assassin's Creed with my brother right beside me. I was never carded, I was never interrogated, I was never questioned. I had a wonderful experience there but I had to go through a three hour ordeal of going to the Best Buy in Orland Park, eating dinner than spending another 20 minutes at a Best Buy miles away all for a video game.

Three things Best Buy, first drop the mandatory plastic bag policy. Second, you need to revamp your treatment of customers and not threaten them of their illegal actions in front of all. Three, can I get reimbursed for some gas money for driving miles and miles out of my way since I was banned from buying a video game at your store in Orland Park, IL?

Cheers,

Matt D.

That is one crazy story, Matt. Now, if you had a copy of The Consumerist.com Consumer Action Manual (an as-yet unwritten pocket-sized book in the style of those "How To Escape From Anything" Books), you would turn to page 42, under "Dealing with in-store employee's wacky interpretations of store policy" (just a working section title). There you would see that when little Mr. and Mrs. Blueshirt have decided they are the petty dictators of the cash register universe, you calm yourself down and call their corporate headquarters or customer service line and let them know what is going on. Oftentimes, this results in a call to the store from official company people with a few more firing brain cells who can straighten the whole matter out. Perhaps then corporate would have informed this store that video game ratings are just voluntary recommendations, it's not "illegal" in any sense of the word to sell them to a minor, and especially not to an older sibling who just happens to have a minor with them. We offer this advice based on testimony from readers for whom it has worked, as well as former employees of various retail establishments.

Punishing Thought Crime: Would New Bill Make YOU a Terrorist?

By Scott Thill

Meet the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.

According to Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., House Resolution 1955, otherwise known as the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, is a much-needed piece of national security legislation subject to unnecessary paranoia and fear. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the resolution, which Harman sponsored, is one step too close to an Orwellian nightmare, especially for the Democrats who concocted it.

The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between. But first, let's back up and check the facts.

House Resolution 1955 was introduced without fanfare in April 2007 by Harman and passed with little disagreement in October 2007. In fact, more House politicians missed the vote than voted against it, and if that isn't unanimity as far as American politics go, I don't know what is. Considering the resolution engages three charged terms in succession -- "violent," "radical," "terrorism" -- it's hard to believe that it wasn't designed to scare the living daylights out of every representative who showed up to vote that day. It also might explain why it garnered 404 yeas and barely enough nays -- six, to be exact -- to count on one hand. And while 22 representatives declined to show up for the vote, those who felt that H.R. 1955 was a terrible waste of time and tax funds had no chance at voting it down anyway.

In any case, it's the Senate's headache now.

"Legislation such as this demands heavy-handed governmental action against American citizens where no crime has been committed," Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul complained to the House in December, after missing the vote while campaigning. "It is yet another attack on our constitutionally protected civil liberties. It is my sincere hope that we will reject such approaches to security, which will fail at their stated goal at a great cost to our way of life."

The initial text of H.R. 1955 states its aim clearly enough before falling into obfuscation -- "to prevent homegrown terrorism, and for other purposes" -- a characteristic that could be argued to be its defining template. Speaking of definitions (or the lack thereof), H.R. 1955 defines "homegrown terrorism" and "violent radicalization" nebulously; the former is merely "the use, planned use or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives," while the latter means "the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious or social change." Ideologically based violence, in turn, is defined as "the use, planned use or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual's political, religious or social beliefs."

Sounds fair enough, until you start crunching the language and come to the realization that practically anyone, on any given day, could fit the description. Which is vague on purpose, as one realizes the farther one digs.

H.R. 1955 also aims to establish not just a National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism, but also a university-related Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States, two new bureaucracies sure to attract the type of conceptualists that brought you everything from the lame-duck Meese Commission on the alleged link between pornographers and organized crime to the Project for the New American century's invasion and occupation of Iraq in the first place. In the case of the national commission, its supposedly nonpartisan membership is to be hand-picked by not just majority and minority leaders in the Senate and House, among others, but also the president -- which means George W. Bush until further notice. And if you think there is comfort to be found in the fact that both the House and the Senate are controlled by Democrats, think again.

"The problem lies not so much in who selects them," explained Mike German, ACLU National Security Policy Counsel, "but in the expertise the bill requires commission members to have and in the requirement that they be eligible for, and receive, security clearances. This requirement will make it far more likely government insiders are selected for the commission, which will of course effect the recommendations they later make."

Which is to say that the commission will likely be staffed by those already on board with H.R. 1955's suspicious xenophobia. Given the fact that its definitions of homegrown terrorism and violent radicalization are so wide-ranging to be practically indefinite, it is striking that Islam and Islam alone is the only major religion or belief system specifically mentioned in the bill. Which is no accident: In Jane Harman's prepared statement for H.R. 1955's related House Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment hearing in November, ominously entitled "Using the Web as a Weapon: the Internet as a Tool for Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism," she had nothing to say about terrorists of any other kind. Instead, she mentions three Muslims, one a Jewish convert, who sympathize with al Qaeda or post YouTube videos showing how build bombs out of toy boats, before concluding that "These people no longer need to travel to foreign countries or isolated backwoods compounds to become indoctrinated by extremists and to learn how to kill their neighbors."

And while the text of H.R. 1955 takes some pains to back-door its way out of any anti-Islam imperatives -- with what could only be regarded as a footnote buried in Section 899F, subsection 7, that reads "individuals should not be targeted based solely on race, ethnicity or religion" -- almost all of the examples cited in the resolution itself as well as prepared statements by its sponsor and co-sponsors take pains to only mention Muslims.

But it's not just race and religion: The perception of H.R. 1955 is so bad that Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security Bennie Thompson actually had to post a fact sheet in December arguing, among other hilarious things, that the resolution "does not legislate thought or protected political expression and free speech. There are no provisions seeking to change the criminal code or set up a 'Big Brother' regime to put Americans under surveillance."

Methinks the pol doth protest too much.

But the behavioral aims of the National Commission and its Center of Excellence are irrelevant to the matter at hand, which is the generation of revenue and jobs for its friends in the national security sector. Harman's district alone encompasses defense industry giants, which is reflected in her list of top contributors like Boeing (extraordinary rendition!), Raytheon (the pain ray!) and more. And while Harman told In These Times in November that "We're not looking for political cronies," it would be a crime against credulity to claim that members of both the Commission and the Center will feature anyone she hasn't already known yet, directly or otherwise.

"It will no doubt prove to be another bureaucracy that artificially inflates problems so as to guarantee its future existence and funding," Paul predicted in his House speech. "But it may do so at great further expense to our civil liberties." It is, he concluded, an "unwise and dangerous solution in search of a real problem."

The most pressing liberty Ron Paul, the ACLU, Dennis Kucinich and pretty much most left- and right-leaning organizations fear outright is a restriction on the right of internet access, since the House Subcommittee hearings and text of the resolution seized upon it with almost draconian intent. "The Web as a Weapon?" The question begs another: How do you disarm that weapon?

"I agree that focusing a commission to study how Americans 'adopt' belief systems is problematic," said German, "but focusing the Commission on the Internet as an aid to, or facilitator of violent radicalization, will likely result in a recommendation to censor the internet in some manner, which would obviously be a violation of the First Amendment."

Kucinich, who was one of the scant few to vote against the resolution, was equally suspicious. But as usual, he's a bit more dystopian about such measures in his outlook, calling it the "thought crime bill" during a speech to supporters in December.

"If you understand what his bill does, it really sets the stage for further criminalization of protest," Kucinich said. "This is the way our democracy, little by little, is being stripped away from us."

"It only creates a commission," reminded German. "It does not create any new criminal laws or impose any penalties." But that's the bright side. The dark side is as Orwellian as Paul and Kucinich believe.

"The concern," German added, "is that what the commission might recommend to Congress will have great weight. And as we saw with the Patriot Act and the 9/11 Commission recommendations, in a crisis, Congress might just take something off the shelf to create new legislation rather than make its own determination of what truly needs to be done."

If you need a refresher on what that means, rewind your clocks about a decade. Travel back to a time when terrorism was defined as other people, those with a specific or nebulous grievance, including a great many reasonable ones, against the interests of what H.R. 1955 calls the "political and social objectives" of the United States. Long before America inflated its carbon emissions during a global warming crisis, or invaded a sovereign but nevertheless oil-rich nation without cause and killed upwards of hundreds of thousands of its people. Long before the age of Hummers, hedge funds and horror-porn flying in the face of resource wars started over tsunamis, famines and floods. Now fast-forward to the present, look into the mirror, and identify yourself as the terrorist you already may be.

If you had a good reason, that is. But that's not for you to decide. It's up to the National Commission and the Center for Excellence. And their top contributors.