security theater, martial law, and a tale that trumps every cop-and-donut joke you've ever heard

By Clark

First, just in case it's not utterly obvious, I'm glad that the two murderous cowards who attacked civilians in Boston recently are off the streets. One dead and one in custody is a great outcome.

That said, a large percent of the reaction in Boston has been security theater. "Four victims brutally killed" goes by other names in other cities.

In Detroit, for example, they call it "Tuesday".

…and Detroit does not shut down every time there are a few murders.

"But Clark," I hear you say, "this is different. This was a terrorist attack."

Washington DC, during ongoing sniper terrorist attacks in 2002 that killed twice as many people, was not shut down.

Kileen Texas, after the Fort Hood terrorist attack in 2009 that killed three times as many people, was not shut down.

London, after the bombing terrorist attack in 2005 that killed more than ten times as many people, was not shut down.

"But Clark," I hear you asking, "what about the lives saved?"

There is no evidence that any lives were saved by the Boston shutdown.

"Yeah, but you can't know for sure!"

True. I can't. But in London, Washington, LA after the El Al shootings, and so on and so on and so on, there were not lockdowns, and there were no further fatalities. It's not perfect proof, but it's suggestive.

"Then why the hell do you care, Clark?"

First, the unprecendented shutdown of a major American city may have increased safety some small bit, but it was not without a cost: keeping somewhere between 2 and 5 million people from work, shopping, and school destroyed a nearly unimaginable amount of value. If we call it just three million people, and we peg the cost at a mere $15 per person per hour, the destroyed value runs to a significant fraction of a billion dollars.

"Yeah, maybe…but in this day and age where the federal government is borrowing an extra $3.85 billion per day, a couple of hundred million doesn't sound like much. After all, if we're borrowing money that our children and grandchildren will have to pay back to fund Cowboy Poetry Festival and military golf courses, then what's another $200 or $400 million to keep people safe?"

I've got multiple answers:

First, just because you're already two hundred pounds overweight doesn't mean that another bowl of ice cream won't hurt you. It will.

Second, the cost isn't just measured in dollars – it's measured in the degree to which it trains a population to freak out over minor risk and to trust blindly in authorities.

Third, keeping citizens off the street meant that 99% of the eyes and brains that might solve a crime were being wasted. Eric S Raymond famously said that "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". It was thousands of citizen photographs that helped break this case, and it was a citizen who found the second bomber. Yes, that's right – it wasn't until the stupid lock-down was ended that a citizen found the second murderer:

The boat’s owners, a couple, spent Friday hunkered down under the stay-at-home order. When it was lifted early in the evening, they ventured outside for some fresh air and the man noticed the tarp on his boat blowing in the wind, according to their his son, Robert Duffy.

The cords securing it had been cut and there was blood near the straps.

We had thousands of police going door-to-door, searching houses…and yet not one of them saw the evidence that a citizen did just minutes after the lock-down ended.

"But Clark," you protest, "you may not trust the government to decide what's risky and what's not, but I do. If it saves even one life, then shutting down a major city is the right move. That's obvious!"

But the Boston police didn't shut down an entire city. They shut down an entire city except for the donut shops.

Law enforcement asked Dunkin' Donuts to keep restaurants open in locked-down communities to provide… food to police… including in Watertown, the focus of the search for the bombing suspect. 

The government and police were willing to shut down parts of the economy like the universities, software, biotech, and manufacturing…but when asked to do an actual risk to reward calculation where a small part of the costs landed on their own shoulders, they had no problem weighing one versus the other and then telling the donut servers "yeah, come to work – no one's going to get shot."

And they were right.

San Diego Police Attack and Arrest Man Video Recording Them, Claiming Phone Could be a Weapon

By Carlos Miller



San Diego police slapped a cell phone camera out of a man’s hands Saturday, claiming it could be a weapon, before pouncing on him and handcuffing him, lacerating his chin in the process.

Adam Pringle ended up jailed overnight on charges of obstruction because he refused to hand the phone over when the cop ordered him to do so.

But it’s already been established by numerous court cases as well as the U.S. Department of Justice that police do not have the right to take your camera unless it is being used in a commission of a crime.

In this case, Pringle’s only crime was smoking a cigarette on a Mission Beach boardwalk, a violation for which he was already getting cited.

“It is against the law to smoke cigarettes on the boardwalk, so I admit I was breaking the law,” Pringle said in a telephone interview with Photography is Not a Crime Tuesday.

The incident took place at 7 p.m. Saturday evening as Pringle and two buddies were walking on the boardwalk and came across two cops on bicycles who stopped them and started writing Pringle a citation.

Pringle pulled out his Samsung Galaxy smartphone and began recording, which as you can see below, can easily be confused for a weapon – if you find yourself starring in a futuristic science fiction drama.



It all seemed pretty civil until the cop writing the citation told him to stop recording, which Pringle refused to do.

“Phones can be converted into weapons …. look it up online,” the cop told him.

Last month, a South Florida cop confiscated a man’s phone citing the same reason, so maybe this is a new trend.

When Pringle tried to talk sense into the cop, the cop slapped the phone out of his hand where it fell onto the boardwalk and broke apart.

The other cop then pounced on him, slamming him down on the boardwalk where he ended up with a laceration on his chin.

“Blood was everywhere,” Pringle said. “I was laying on my stomach and he had one knee on my back and the other knee on the side of my face.

“They kept telling me ‘to calm down,’ that ‘you’re making this worse for yourself,’ that ‘you have no right to record us.’”

They hauled him up and marched him to the patrol car, telling his two friends that they would be arrested if they chose to follow.

His friends picked up his phone, which was damaged but not to the point where it was unsable, which is why the video survived.

Once out of sight, the officer who tackled him elbowed him to the face.

Because he had several wounds on his body, including his knees, hands and face, an ambulance was called.

An internal affairs officer, Lt. Misty Cedrun, was also called, who spoke to him in the back of the ambulance, but who didn’t seem to think the officers did anything wrong because she allowed the two officers to transport him to jail, even though he told her he fear them.

Unfortunately, Pringle was not provided with their names and it’s difficult to make out the cop’s nametag in the video.

He wasn’t released from jail until 4 a.m. His first hearing will be on May 23 where he hopes to have obtained an attorney. He said he has reached out to the ACLU but hasn’t heard back.

However, this incident is still very fresh and this is a case that is ripe for them.

Pringle said he is an Eagle Scout who is actively involved in his community. He doesn’t mean to be a troublemaker but he is just not afraid to stand up for his rights.

And that obviously makes him a criminal in the eyes of the law.

But because the video survived the assault, we are able to see whom the real criminals are in this matter.

UPDATE: Pringle’s friend continued video recording after he was led away and the cop, whose name is M. Reinhold, didn’t have a problem with that.

In the video below, Reinhold tells his friend that they are trained by the police department to suspect that cell phones can be converted into guns.

He also said that “officer safety” trumps the Constitution, meaning they can claim they are fear for their lives while they throw you in jail for any lame excuse.

Such bullshit but that’s the arrogance of these police officers.

Send San Diego Mayor Bob Filner an email by clicking here to let him know how much respect his officers have for the Constitution.

Man in cuffs tazed, kicked by police while his pregnant wife screams

By: Angel Clark


Jeremy being kicked by Corporal Robert Whitman




A man was tazed repeatedly and kicked in the head by police while he was in handcuffs in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. His wife, who was eight and a half months pregnant, watched and recorded the event, begging the police to stop tazing him. Throughout the disturbing and graphic video, the wife’s voice may be heard, begging the three police officers surrounding her husband to let her take him home. She screams “stop tazing him”, and moves in close as an officer, she identifies as “Robert Whitman”, begins to taze her husband in the face and head while he’s on the ground in handcuffs. “What is wrong with you,” the pregnant wife screams as Whitman kicks her husband in the face. The video, uploaded Thursday, includes in the description that the man, identified as Jeremy, was tazed by police 13 times.

Rehoboth Beach is a small, resort town in Delaware. Described as “a welcoming, friendly, Delaware community”, the town boasts a population of 1,300 people during the winter but swells to over 35,000 with tens of thousands more nearby during the summer. Jeremy and his wife were visiting Rehoboth Beach on April 7, 2013, as thousands do every year. The season in Rehoboth Beach has just begun, meaning many of the seasonal police officers specially trained in “Bicycle Patrol Operations”, are not on patrol in the town yet. Rehoboth Beach Police state on their website that they are authorized to have “19 full-time sworn police officers”. During the off-season their police force drops to a staff of around ten. Corporal Robert Whitman, the officer seen kicking Jeremy in the head and tazing him in face, has a LinkedIn profile showing his employment as a “Corporal at Rehoboth Beach Police”, meaning Whitman is most likely employed by the small beach town all year.

The town of Rehoboth, known for its beaches and food, is now making a name for itself in a new way as word of this graphic video spreads. The man identified as Jeremy is yelling, screaming, and cursing as he is repeatedly tazed and kicked while in handcuffs. As Jeremy's wife questions police in the video, police state Jeremy is being detained for "resisting". The pregnant woman is told to "go where you have to go or we'll arrest you too". No one at the City of Rehoboth Beach was available for comment.

UPDATE: Robert Whitman was suspended as a result of a temporary Ex Parte Order against him in 2009 when he had a Protection from Abuse (PFA) Order filed against him. No more is known about the situation at this time.

Students Asked to ‘Argue That Jews Are Evil’ and Prove Nazi Loyalty in Assignment Linked to Common Core

Tiffany Gabbay


Students in some Albany High School English classes were asked to participate in the unthinkable this week as part of a persuasive writing assignment. The objective? Prove why Jews are evil and convince the teacher of their loyalty to the Third Reich in five paragraphs or less.

“You must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!” read the description on the assignment, which the school superintendent said reflects the kind of sophisticated writing expected of students under the new Common Core standards and was meant to hone students’ persuasive argument abilities.

The TimesUnion reports that students were asked to digest Nazi propaganda material, then imagine that their teacher was an SS officer who needed to be persuaded of their loyalty by arguing that Jews are the root of all the world’s ills.

“I would apologize to our families,” Albany Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard said. “I don’t believe there was malice or intent to cause any insensitivities to our families of Jewish faith.”

The TimesUnion explains more of the reasoning behind the offensive assignment:

Vanden Wyngaard said the exercise reflects the type of writing expected of students under the new Common Core curriculum, the tough new academic standards that require more sophisticated writing. Such assignments attempt to connect English with history and social studies.

She said she understood the academic intent of the assignment — to make an argument based only on limited information at hand. Still, she acknowledged that it was worded in a very offensive manner. She did not identify the English teacher or discuss whether the educator faced any discipline.

Students were asked to draw on elements of the great philosopher Aristotle, and frame their arguments as either: “Logos” (persuasion by reasoning), “Pathos” (persuasion by emotional appeal) or “Ethos” (persuasion by the author’s character).

Nonetheless, a reported one-third of the Albany students refused to complete the assignment.

Whether school faculty chose this particular subject matter for the writing assignment, or if the subject matter came directly from Common Core remains unclear (it could have been the justification and not a direct lesson), but the amount of controversial lessons administered under curriculum system is indeed mounting.

Dad Furious After Finding This Crayon-Written Paper in Florida 4th-Grader’s Backpack: ‘I Am Willing to Give Up Some of My Constitutional Rights…to Be Safer’

Madeleine Morgenstern

The words are written in crayon, in the haphazard bumpiness of a child’s scrawl.

“I am willing to give up some of my constitutional rights in order to be safer or more secure.”

They’re the words that Florida father Aaron Harvey was stunned to find his fourth-grade son had written, after a lesson in school about the Constitution.


Aaron Harvey’s son wrote as part of a school lesson, “I am willing to give up some of my constitutional rights in order to be safer or more secure.” TheBlaze has redacted the child’s name.

Harvey’s son attends Cedar Hills Elementary in Jacksonville, Fla. Back in January, a local attorney came in to teach the students about the Bill of Rights. But after the attorney left, fourth-grade teacher Cheryl Sabb dictated the sentence to part of the class and had them copy it down, he said.

The paper sat unnoticed in Harvey’s son’s backpack for several months until last week, when his son’s mother almost threw it away. The words caught her eye in the trash, and she showed it to Harvey, who said he was at a loss for words. He asked his son, who said Sabb had spoken the sentence out loud and told them to write it down. Harvey said he asked some of his son’s classmates and got a similar answer.

“Everybody has their opinions,” Harvey told TheBlaze. “I am strongly for proper education, for the freedom of thought so you can form your own opinion and have your own free speech in the future… [but] the education is, ‘when was the Constitution drafted, when was it ratified, why did this happen, why did we choose to do this…all these things, why did they particularly choose those specific rights to be in our Bill of Rights.’”

Kandra Albury, a spokeswoman for Duvall County Public Schools, which includes Cedar Hills, told TheBlaze she didn’t know what prompted Sabb to have students write the sentence.

She said the principal had fielded one parent’s concern about the lesson in January, but it wasn’t Harvey. She said Thursday the district and principal were “checking into” what had happened.

Harvey, rather than asking the school for answers when he found the paper, wrote his concerns in an email, which was then forwarded to TheBlaze. He said he did it that way because he wasn’t sure he would have gotten a straightforward answer if he asked the school directly.

He said he just wants to see a “proper, unbiased education” system and doesn’t want any kind of religion or politics brought into the classroom.

“I believe in our Constitution. I am a veteran, I served for six-and-a-half years proudly and I served to protect our rights,” he said. “Now whenever I have someone coming in and trying to pollute my child’s mind with biased opinions…there’s no education in that.”

​Update, 11:36 a.m.:​ Harvey told TheBlaze he received a call from the school Friday morning that featured the principal, guidance counselor and Sabb. He was told the sentence came during the lesson with the lawyer, that Sabb had nothing to do with it, and that Harvey’s son “wrote it on his own free will.”

Harvey said he had spoken to a girl in the class who specifically said Sabb handpicked students to write the sentence.

“All the children are pointing at the teacher,” Harvey said Friday. “They [the school] told me that my son wrote that on his own free will — there’s no way he knew how to write that on his own free will. He likes to use some big words to flourish — [but] if he was going to put together a sentence that political I’m sure it would be more jumbled than a nice sentence like that.”

​Update, 4:20 p.m.: ​Read the school district’s response here.

Police Surveillance May Earn Money for City

By SAM ROBERTS

A unique public-private partnership that joined gut-level police acumen with advanced computer algorithms is proceeding toward two goals that rarely coincide: The policing system is making New York safer and it will also make money for the city, which is marketing it to other jurisdictions.

In the six months since the Domain Awareness System was unveiled, officials of Microsoft, which designed the system with the New York Police Department, said they have been surprised by the response and are actively negotiating with a number of prospective buyers, whom Microsoft declined to identify.

“The interest from the United States has come from smaller municipalities, from sheriff’s departments, and police chiefs from several major cities,” said Dave Mosher, vice president of Microsoft Services. “Outside the U.S., large sporting events have approached us, and also law enforcement — people who are interested in providing public security.”

Buyers would pay to access the software (at least several million dollars and more depending on the size of the jurisdiction and whether specifications have to be customized). New York City will receive 30 percent of the gross revenues from the sale of the system and access to any innovations developed for new customers. The revenue will be directed to counterterrorism and crime prevention programs.

The new system incorporates more than 3,500 cameras in public places, license-plate readers at every major Manhattan entry point, fixed and portable radiation detectors, real-time alerts transmitted from the 911 emergency system and a trove of Police Department data, including arrests and parking summonses.

The system cost about $30 million and took several years to put into effect. Since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced in August that the system would be marketed elsewhere, it has figured in a number of investigative coups that went beyond the system’s original purpose of counterterrorism in Lower Manhattan after the Sept. 11 attack.

Surveillance footage fed to a windowless suite on Lower Broadway tracked a 20-year-old Bangladeshi man in the fall as he scoped out the fortresslike Federal Reserve Bank downtown, his target for a car-bomb attack (the videotaped evidence led to his guilty plea in February).

Officers responding to reports of shots fired outside the Empire State Building in August were immediately alerted that the victim had been felled by a single gunman and that there was no apparent terrorist threat.

While the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, has hailed the innovative software as “a transformative tool” for law enforcement, it has also raised privacy concerns.

Amitai Etzioni, a sociologist at George Washington University, warned on The Huffington Post in January that the system was so encompassing that even with built-in legal and technological constraints, it subjected the public to a potential invasion of privacy “much greater than anything we have seen so far.”

The Police Department says it is scrupulous about ensuring the system is not misused.

Richard Daddario, the department’s deputy commissioner for counterterrorism, said that the system had been developed after “we looked at the software that was available and didn’t find anything that met our needs.

“In 2006,” he said, “we hired Microsoft to build a customized application and by 2010 we developed a product that is head and shoulders above anything on the market, for the reason alone that it was developed by cops for cops after thousands of hours of focus groups about what they do and how they do it to help them do it better.”

Mr. Mosher of Microsoft said that while “the scale of what the N.Y.P.D. does is unmatched by most places in the world,” the design goal was applicable everywhere, “for the technical complexities to melt away so the cops can focus on doing their job and less about navigating 17 screens.”

Mr. Daddario said, “The more quality information you get to act on intelligently, the more efficient you are and the fewer mistakes you make."

Dog-Killer Cops Face Kafkaesque Lawsuit

By JACK BOUBOUSHIAN

CHICAGO (CN) - Cops in suburban Chicago left a woman's backyard gate open, killed her dog when it ran out the open gate, then cited her for having a dog at large, the woman claims in court.

Chanette Weaver sued the Village of Hazel Crest and Officers N. Lagunas and James Rollins, in Federal Court. Hazel Crest, pop. 14,000, is a far south suburb of Chicago.

"Early on December 24, 2012, Lagunas and Rollins responded to a call that an escaped convict was hiding in the basement of Weaver's next-door neighbor," the complaint states.

"In investigating this call, Lagunas and Rollins entered Weaver's backyard, unlocking the gate to her backyard in the process.

"When exiting Weaver's property, Lagunas and/or Rollins failed to secure the gate to Weaver's backyard.

"At approximately 7 a.m. that same morning, Weaver let Kobi out of her home and into her fenced-in backyard."

Kobi was Weaver's pet Rhodesian ridgeback.

She "did not know that Lagunas and/or Rollins had left her backyard gate unsecured," Weaver says in the complaint.

"Due to the gate being left unsecured, Kobi exited through the open gate in Weaver's back yard and wandered onto Weaver's driveway in the front of her home where Lagunas and Rollings were conversing.

"Officers Lagunas and Rollins each fired two bullets at Kobi, killing him."

When Weaver filed a complaint with the Hazel Crest Police Department, "the police officer on duty accepted Weaver's complaint, then issued Weaver a citation for having a dog at large in violation of Hazel Crest Ordinance Section 5-23," the complaint states.

Weaver seeks damages and special damages for unreasonable seizure, aggravated animal cruelty and emotional distress.

She is represented by Lance Ziebell with Lavelle Law in Palatine.

Vicious cycle: Seized ATVs still auctioned, despite law

BY DANA DiFILIPPO

FOR YEARS, cops who caught anyone riding ATVs and dirt bikes illegally in streets or parks confiscated the vehicles and sent them to the Philadelphia Parking Authority, which would auction them off - often to people who planned to ride them illegally in streets or parks.

After the Daily News exposed the trend in June, City Council closed that vicious-cycle loophole in October by passing a law that ordered police to destroy seized vehicles or at least quit sending them to auction.

The law took effect March 1, but you can still visit almost any PPA auction, held three times a week, and find ATVs and dirt bikes for sale. Thirteen ATVs and dirt bikes are listed for auction through the next three weeks.

"If the Police Department sends them to us, the Parking Authority has to auction them," PPA spokesman Marty O'Rourke said.

Lt. John Stanford, a police spokesman, acknowledged that police still are sending seized off-roaders to auction. But Capt. Francis Healy, special adviser to Commissioner Charles Ramsey, said there's a good reason for the delay.

"We're taking people's property, so we need to make sure we do it right, not that we do it fast. There's a due process," Healy said.

But expect big change this weekend, he warned.

Healy is finalizing the Police Department's new policy on confiscating off-roaders and citing their riders. He aims to announce the details Friday, circulate word to officers throughout the weekend and launch the new policy Monday.

Under the policy, cops are supposed to cite anyone they spot with an ATV or dirt bike on any public property - whether parked or mobile - and confiscate the vehicle, Healy said. The PPA has agreed to tow seized two- and four-wheelers to police impound lots.

The offender will then get notice from the city's Office of Administrative Review to appear for a hearing within 30 days. At the hearing, the offender can pay a $2,000 fine to retrieve their off-road vehicle, with proof of ownership, or forfeit it (without paying a fine). There is, however, an "innocent-person provision," in which owners who claim they didn't know a relative or friend rode their vehicle illegally may contest the citation and confiscation, Healy said.

Skip the hearing and the city will keep and crush the vehicle. Confiscated vehicles will be stored for 45 days in case an offender appeals, and then be crushed for disposal. Whatever money the city gets from salvagers will go into the city's general fund, but Healy doesn't expect a jackpot.

"I think there is going to be an initial spike that will level off once people realize they'll get their vehicles seized and destroyed if they ride them in Philadelphia," Healy said. "We are just trying to change behavior. We don't particularly want to take property. Go to an ATV park and enjoy yourself, just don't do it in Philly."

Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown, who introduced and championed the new law, said she was "surprised but not disturbed" that police haven't yet started enforcing it.

"Major policy changes take time and careful planning," she said. "We need to give them some space and the benefit of the doubt that they are indeed determining a strategy that makes sense for the department."

She added: "I am also fully aware that spring and summer are at our doorstep."

Cops Detain 6-year-old for Walking Around Neighborhood (And It Gets Worse)

by lskenazy

Readers — The story below makes me so sad and so angry, and you will see why. If anyone at Child Protective Services or the police department would pick up a single book written before predator panic swept the country, they’d see that 6-year-olds were always part of the neighborhood scene, scampering, playing, or even — in many eras and areas — working! The idea that a 6-year-old can’t be outside without constant supervision is new and warped.

It also seriously underestimates kids. Is there a law requiring parents to stunt their children’s curiosity, competence, maturity and independence? I fear it may only be a matter of time. – L.

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Dear Free-Range Kids: I’ve run across your site a few times and generally ascribe to the parenting principles that you write about. I’d like to anonymously share what just happened to my family with you and your readers to elicit some feedback.

We’ve taught our six-year-old, whom I’ll call Emily, about crossing the street, reading maps, etc. As she’s learned these skills we’ve let her try them out, first with supervision, and then on her own, to make short trips around the neighborhood. We live in a fairly average residential neighborhood that has a mixture of stop signs, stop lights, and crosswalks. The state that we live in does not have any laws regarding a minimum age for a child to be unattended.

Recently, Emily went by herself to a small store a few blocks away. When she was out a little longer than I expected, I went looking for her. The shopkeeper said that as she was walking out the door the police were coming in, asking if anyone there was her parent. Then they took her.
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POLICE REFUSE TO LET HER GO
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Once I got to the police station they would not release her to me for over 20 minutes, though she was sitting behind bullet-proof glass just 20 feet away. When the police finally came to talk to me, I was told that they had responded to a call of a young child being unsupervised. They refused to identify a reasonable cause for her detention, or even what law had been broken. They insisted that they were waiting for CPS to respond before they would let me see my daughter, but then they later came back and said that they were releasing me to her because CPS had told them to give her to me, since I was waiting for her.
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I received a letter from CPS today.

Emily knows her name, address, phone number, etc. Furthermore, the responding officer knows exactly who both Emily and I are since she responded to a complaint regarding Emily crossing the street by herself just a few days prior, during which we were detained for more than half an hour. After this previous incident her supervisor had confirmed that there was no law against a child crossing the street by themselves.

So what say you Free-Rangers to the cops picking up a 6-year-old, not contacting the parents, and then refusing to give her back? – A Dad in Distress

Mont. school district likely to join growing number of schools using drug dogs

By: Mikael Thalen

Last Monday night, the Helena Public School Board of Trustees received a demonstration from the Houston based Interquest Detection Canines as they prepare to start using contraband sniffing dogs in several schools next year.

Three staff members from the company, including Dennis Jones, the regional operations manager, and three dogs, were showcased for their ability to detect drugs such as prescriptions, marijuana and alcohol. Interquest also offers on-site drug testing and alcohol breath test kits. Several dogs are also trained in firearms and explosives detection.

According to Kent Kultgen, superintendent of Helena Public Schools, the plan is to hire Interquest to do random inspections in Helena High, Capital High, Helena Middle School and C.R. Anderson beginning in 2014, pending a hearing to get the public's comments before deciding if the use of the canines will be permitted. According to the school board, parents are in favor of the move.

Kultgen asserted that the move is not meant to be “a gotcha” program but that it would be part of the growing security effort set to be rolled out in Helena’s public schools.

Civil liberties advocates have argued that random searches are not prompted by probable cause and a warrant therefore making them questionable legally. Interquest claims their searches stand up in court, saying that a dog alerting to a locker or car provides reasonable suspicion.

Just last month the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the Florida v Harris case, where it was decided in a 9-0 ruling, authored by Justice Sotomayor, that a drug dog’s “alert” establishes probable cause.

Worries over false positives when a dog is mistaken in thinking there is an illegal item present are also brought into question. Several reports, including one out of a North Caldwell, N.J., high school, showed that lockers were searched and deemed to be clean after dogs had alerted to them.

The Superintendent of Sachem High School North on Long Island Charles J. Murphy admitted back in 2009 that several lockers searched ended up being false positives.

"Dogs have searched the school twice since January, and no narcotics have been found, though the dogs did indicate several lockers which were found to contain nothing illegal," Dr. Murphy said.

Just last month, a student in Texas had her brownies confiscated after a dog alerted to them. The police allegedly informed the student that there was "no way the dog would ever be attracted to the chocolate" and would only be alerting to marijuana in the brownies. After results from a lab test that took two and a half months came in, the brownies ended up not containing any drugs.

"Do students give up all of their constitutional rights when they enter onto school property? Do they keep some rights but forfeit others? If yes, which rights?" said attorney office Pratt & Simmons, referring to another case of false positive.

"Should high school students be given more constitutional protections than middle school or elementary school students? Should school lockers be allowed to be searched but automobiles not be allowed to be searched? Should drug sweeps be allowed? In other words, should drug dogs be allowed to sniff every locker? Every bag? Every automobile? Every student? Or should only focused searches be allowed? Should there be articulable suspicion for focused searches? There are many questions and very few answers."

Debate over the accuracy of the dogs is still ongoing. Records of drug-sniffing dogs in a Washington state school district alone showed that dogs were incorrect 85 percent of the time they alerted. A Chicago study of drug dogs used for roadside vehicle searches showed a 56 percent rate of false positives. UC Davis researchers published a study that found that drug dogs falsely “alerted,” or identified a scent, when there was no scent present more than 200 times.

"They can tell you that something's there, that's not there, simply to get praise, to get food, to get whatever they're working for," says Auburn University professor Larry Myers, one of the country's leading experts on canine detection programs.

"It is a tremendous problem. We have trainers that can't train. Dogs are being used that can't --don't know how to do anything. We honestly don't have a set curriculum. We've got to get everybody up to some minimal agreed level," said Myers, speaking to the lack of regulation to certify drug dogs.

Others say the accuracy is much higher in the better dogs. "The best-trained dogs have an accuracy rate of 85 to 90 percent," said James Greco, head trainer for Long Island K-9 Service.

Few would argue against the importance of using dogs with the ability to detect such things as explosives in many security related situations. The argument nationally appears to be over whether or not such programs actually reduce drug use or most importantly, if they uphold students and people's constitutional rights.

Although there isn't an official database with statistics on how many schools currently use drug dogs, Interquest alone contracts dogs to 1,200 school districts and 5,000 campus locations in 19 states.

6-y.o. Who Walked Alone to Post Office May be Removed from Her Home

by lskenazy

Readers — This is the continuing story of the 6-year-old detained by the cops for walking outside. It is disturbing and distressing. The family needs pro bono legal help. If any of you are lawyers or know someone who can help, please let me know and I will forward the info to the family. Remember: I am posting this story NOT because it is common and we should all worry about being hounded by CPS if we let our kids go outside. I am posting it in utter outrage at the idea that a child on her own could be considered neglected or in danger when she is so obviously, clearly, and indisputably neither. – L

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Dear Free-Range Kids: A few days ago CPS served my wife and me with a complaint alleging that we are neglectful. They want to take custody. Here is the chain of events that has led to this:

Day 1: Six-year-old “Emily” walks three blocks by herself to the post office for the second time. This is after having made the trip with her many times in past through our quiet, residential neighborhood. All the streets have sidewalks, and the walk requires crossing one ‘T’ intersection that has a stop sign and crossing at a traffic light.

Day 2: ”Emily” and I are both walking back from the library. She wants to do it herself, so I let her walk separate from me some of the time. The cops get a phone call from a concerned citizen who says there’s a strange guy talking to a little girl. Three officers respond and cite a concern for Emily’s safety in crossing the street. I confirm that I am her father and give my name, as is required by law. They refuse to state any reasonable suspicion of a crime being committed or say what law has been broken, and so, in accordance with my 5th amendment rights, I refuse to answer any questions. We are detained for over half an hour before being released. (I asked many times over the course of the detention whether I was “free to go” and I was told that I was not. We were told that we were being held for an “investigative detention.”) The sergeant who responded to the scene stated over the radio that he wanted to “hook this guy” for child endangerment. (The recording of radio traffic during the encounter was later received through a public records request that I made.)

Day 6: I call the sergeant who reported on Day 2 to ask if we were still under investigation. He responded that we were not and that an “incident supplement” had been filed by the reporting officer and “that was all.” He confirms in that there is no law prohibiting a school-age child from crossing residential streets. That afternoon we let Emily walk to the post office to mail a letter. (That’s the story that was shared before on this blog.) The same officers who responded on Day 2 remove Emily from the post office and detain her. Contrary to the complaint that is filed later, they do not contact me — I go looking for her when she doesn’t come right back home — and they refuse many times to release her. According to the complaint, Emily, who has known her phone number and address for quite some time, refuses to give them to the officers, but the officers know who she is, who I am, and where we live.

Day 7: A social worker with CPS leaves a letter at my door addressed to a different person than anyone in my family. I mail it back.

Day 12: CPS leaves a letter addressed to my wife and I that cites unspecified concerns about the children.

Day 13: I call CPS twice and leave a message. The phone call is not returned for two days.

Day 14: We give Emily the Free Range Kid ID card to function as a sort of “permission slip” so that she can demonstrate to other people that she has not merely escaped unnoticed. Then we let Emily go to the post office again. When she is just around the corner from the house on her way home, she is stopped by a city utility worker and a school bus driver (though she is not enrolled in public school). She calls me on the cell phone since the bus driver is preventing her from leaving, so I go get her. That night two officers knock on the door, but we do not answer.

Day 15: I talk with the supervisor at CPS on a recorded phone call. I refuse to answer any questions or make any statements. Though he did relay that he was concerned about a child “roaming the streets of [Our City, OH],” he refuses to tell me what law has been broken. We go around and around for about 25 minutes. I find out through my employer shortly after the phone call that if I do not “cooperate” CPS is threatening to seek an ex parte* order, which would allow CPS to take custody without a hearing, to separate us that Friday (and then keep Emily all weekend since a hearing would not have to be held until close of business on Monday). Note that I have cooperated to the full extent required by law. The Home School Legal Defense Assn. is very helpful in getting CPS to agree not to seek an ex parte order so long as Emily does not go outside again by herself.

Since then CPS has knocked on the door many times. I did answer the door when the CPS supervisor came by–I thought that he was a delivery guy or what not since he didn’t have a uniformed police officer with him–but otherwise we have simply ignored them. There is no law requiring someone to answer their door, and since I had no interest in talking to them or getting detained by the cops simply ignoring them seemed the best course of action.

Day 41: We are served with a complaint alleging neglect and dependency. The County wants to take Emily into “protective supervision” or “temporary custody.” The complaint contains many factual errors and inaccuracies.

There is also a motion for “pre-dispositional interim orders.” As I understand it, this is a mechanism by which CPS can intervene even before the merits of the case against us for neglect are even heard, but less decided. It is scheduled to take place more than a month before the hearing on the neglect charge. It asks the court to force my wife and I to “allow ______ County Children Services to complete an assessment with the family. This is including allowing the agency access in the home, allowing the agency to interview the children, and participate openly in the assessment process.” In other words, they want to search our house, interrogate the children, and force us to testify.

We are trying our best to raise Emily to be responsible, curious, and capable. We have chosen to include teaching her about using the library, navigating the neighborhood, and mailing letters as elements of her homeschooling. Needless to say, this entire ordeal has been quite distressing for the entire family, and we view it as a threat to our homeschooling her, our parental rights, and both my and Emily’s civil liberties. Since our family is being threatened by legal action, I have tried to confine my comments to a dispassionate statement of known facts.

*When at least one party to a legal action isn’t represented, the result is an ex parte order. In this context, CPS would have asked a judge to issue an order to get custody of Emily without allowing any rebuttal to their accusations of neglect. In other words, they considered it so dangerous for Emily to continue to live with us that they didn’t think there was any time to wait for an emergency hearing in which everyone would be represented.

P.S. To write directly to the dad in this post, drop a note to: ohiosidewalkkid@gmail.com

IRS claims it can read your e-mail without a warrant

The ACLU has obtained internal IRS documents that say Americans enjoy "generally no privacy" in their e-mail messages, Facebook chats, and other electronic communications.

by Declan McCullagh
 
The IRS continued to insist on warrantless e-mail access, internal documents obtained by the ACLU show, even after a federal appeals court said the Fourth Amendment applied. (Credit: Getty Images)

The Internal Revenue Service doesn't believe it needs a search warrant to read your e-mail.

Newly disclosed documents prepared by IRS lawyers says that Americans enjoy "generally no privacy" in their e-mail, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and similar online communications -- meaning that they can be perused without obtaining a search warrant signed by a judge.

That places the IRS at odds with a growing sentiment among many judges and legislators who believe that Americans' e-mail messages should be protected from warrantless search and seizure. They say e-mail should be protected by the same Fourth Amendment privacy standards that require search warrants for hard drives in someone's home, or a physical letter in a filing cabinet.

An IRS 2009 Search Warrant Handbook obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union argues that "emails and other transmissions generally lose their reasonable expectation of privacy and thus their Fourth Amendment protection once they have been sent from an individual's computer." The handbook was prepared by the Office of Chief Counsel for the Criminal Tax Division and obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

Nathan Wessler, a staff attorney at the ACLU's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, says the IRS's view of privacy rights violates the Fourth Amendment:

Let's hope you never end up on the wrong end of an IRS criminal tax investigation. But if you do, you should be able to trust that the IRS will obey the Fourth Amendment when it seeks the contents of your private emails. Until now, that hasn't been the case. The IRS should let the American public know whether it obtains warrants across the board when accessing people's email. And even more important, the IRS should formally amend its policies to require its agents to obtain warrants when seeking the contents of emails, without regard to their age.

The IRS did not immediately respond to a request from CNET asking whether it is the agency's position that a search warrant is required for e-mail and similar communications.

The IRS continued to take the same position, the documents indicate, even after a federal appeals court ruled in the 2010 case U.S. v. Warshak that Americans have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their e-mail. A few e-mail providers, including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook, but not all, have taken the position that Warshak mandates warrants for e-mail.

Before the Warshak decision, the general rule since 1986 had been that police could obtain Americans' e-mail messages that were more than 180 days old with an administrative subpoena or what's known as a 2703(d) order, both of which lack a warrant's probable cause requirement.

The rule was adopted in the era of telephone modems, BBSs, and UUCP links, long before gigabytes of e-mail stored in the cloud was ever envisioned. Since then, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Warshak, technology had changed dramatically: "Since the advent of e-mail, the telephone call and the letter have waned in importance, and an explosion of Internet-based communication has taken place. People are now able to send sensitive and intimate information, instantaneously, to friends, family, and colleagues half a world away... By obtaining access to someone's e-mail, government agents gain the ability to peer deeply into his activities."

A March 2011 update to the IRS manual, published four months after the Warshak decision, says that nothing has changed and that "investigators can obtain everything in an account except for unopened e-mail or voice mail stored with a provider for 180 days or less" without a warrant. An October 2011 memorandum (PDF) from IRS senior counsel William Spatz took a similar position.

A phalanx of companies, including Amazon, Apple, AT&T, eBay, Google, Intel, Microsoft, and Twitter, as well as liberal, conservative, and libertarian advocacy groups, have asked Congress to update the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act to make it clear that law enforcement needs warrants to access private communications and the locations of mobile devices.

In November, a Senate panel approved the e-mail warrant requirement, and last month Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat whose district includes the heart of Silicon Valley, introduced similar legislation in the House of Representatives. The Justice Department indicated last month it will drop its opposition to an e-mail warrant requirement.

Feds Identify 300,000 Americans as Terrorists

Joe Wright

Do you hate paying taxes? Are you fighting foreclosure? Do you feel like no one should be allowed to commit violence against you and don't always blindly follow the commands of the authorities? Do you film encounters with police or believe gold makes better currency than Federal Reserve Notes? Well you might be part of a domestic terrorism movement and not even know it.

On Friday, the Los Angeles Times posted an article attempting to define a domestic terrorist movement consisting of as many as 300,000 Americans. Some are even labeled as non-violent "paper terrorists".

Is there a more Orwellian term than "non-violent terrorist"? If you can think of one please share it in the comments below.

They refer to this so-called terror group as "sovereigns, zealots who refuse to recognize government authority in virtually any form."

When attempting to further define and identify individuals in this movement, some very broad and dangerous stereotypes appear.

"Sovereigns believe U.S. currency has no value but recognize precious metals as valid currency," wrote the LA Times, much like the US Constitution does.

"A central tenet of the sovereigns movement is that its adherents believe they owe no income taxes," also much like the Constitution forbids.

What's more, federal and state law enforcement are being trained that anyone who disobeys their commands falls into this terrorist movement and may pose a violent threat to them.

"Sovereign citizens are more likely not to obey their commands and more likely to commit violence during a traffic stop," said Detective Rob Finch who's made a cottage industry of anti-sovereigns police training.

"They refuse to recognize your authority, and that creates a dangerous situation," Finch emphasized.

The LA Times piece points to a handful of colorful examples of people who defended themselves against police aggression, or who were plain crazy, as to why the movement should be considered violent.

But they don't stop there. The FBI has even invented a new form of terrorism committed by nonviolent sovereigns called "paper terrorism".

Even nonviolent sovereigns can cause headaches through what Finch calls "paper terrorism." Some squat in foreclosed homes and file phony deeds claiming ownership, "paying" with photos of silver dollars. Who knew fighting foreclosure was a form of terrorism? Paying taxes and mortgages with hand-written notes and photos is just funny, not really a threat to anyone.

However, self-described "sovereign citizen" James Turner faces "a potential maximum prison term of 164 years, a maximum potential fine of $2,350,000, and mandatory restitution" to the state for the nonviolent act of paper terrorism.

A blog for law officers, PoliceOne.com, also tries to help cops identify sovereign citizens, saying they'll "likely to be argumentative with police authorities...may attempt to videotape your encounter...may refuse to give you their name or documents..."

To his credit, the article's author states that the "Sovereign Citizen movement is not an organized civil or criminal enterprise. It’s a fractured series of loosely affiliated individuals who adhere to anti-government ideologies."

It should be noted that the Feds and local law enforcement all received these characteristics and tactics from one original source: The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The SPLC has been on a publicly-funded partisan crusade to demonize so-called rightwing or patriotic extremists.

In 2010, SPLC put together a short documentary about "sovereign citizens" and the threat they supposedly pose. To help identify potential sovereigns, they warn about certain bumper stickers and challenges to authority in a professionally produced propaganda video.

Significantly, the video below has three times as many down-votes on YouTube as up-votes. Watch it below:



Many believe that SPLC gets paid to make mountains out of mole hills to keep the terror-industrial complex thriving. After all, when are bumper stickers and paperwork a threat to anyone? And only an extreme minority react defensively when they are threatened by men in costumes they don't worship as authority.

What's confusing is that those who would try to either lump people with these characteristics into a collective group are either operating out of ignorance or with an agenda, or a little of both. The adjective "sovereign" when referring to a citizen or a state is defined as "enjoying autonomy, or independence".

The most extreme sovereigns would certainly not adhere to the authority of any collective that aims to define them as a group. And just because one person who adopts this philosophy ends up shooting a cop, doesn't mean all people who hate taxes or fight foreclosure are violent threats. To think otherwise smacks of a demonization agenda, nothing more.

The few examples of "terrorists" who committed violence are used as examples in every single article about Sovereign Citizens clearly aiming to smear the entire ideology as inherently violent. Yet, in every case, who initiated force against whom?

Some may argue that if an armed stranger forced you to pull over your car, or demanded entry into your home at the threat of shooting you or putting you in a cage, it could be considered an act of aggression or violence against you as a free and sovereign human no matter what assumed authority the aggressors think they possess. Strip away labels and you are defined by your actions. What does that say about actions of the cops or the feds?

Is that really too complicated to add to these articles? The problem with doing that of course is that too many people may then sympathize with these people and the label of terrorist may not stick very well. In fact, it may expose the entire war on terror as a complete fraud, looking under cracks for perceived threats against people who just want to be left alone.

It's unclear where the Feds came up with number 300,000 for potential terrorists wrapped in this label, but the number may not even be half of it. Now, anyone who protests the government can be considered anti-government which is also now considered domestic terrorism. And, apparently, everyone fighting the banks in foreclosure with creative paperwork are also terrorists.

This begs the question, who isn't a terrorist?

If the fraudulent banks and the guys with the badges, guns, armored vehicles, drones, surveillance equipment, and torture cages are the good guys in this plot, while foreclosure victims and advocates of individual liberty are terrorists, our society is in very big trouble.

1984 is here.

'Norfolk Four' Man Catches Eye of Supreme Court

By RYAN ABBOTT

WASHINGTON (CN) - The U.S. Supreme Court may offer hope to a man who wants to clear his name after doing seven years for a rape he did not commit.

Eric C. Wilson and three other sailors, known as the "Norfolk Four," were convicted of the rape and murder of a Virginia woman in 1997. The other three men were convicted of rape and murder and sentenced to life in prison; Wilson got seven years for rape.

Wilson's federal petition for habeas corpus was denied: a district court ruled such a petition could not be filed by someone who's already served his sentence, and an appeals court refused to take the case.
Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli refused to respond to Wilson's petition to the Supreme Court, but in March the high court ordered that the Cuccinelli must respond.

In 1997, Wilson and the other three men confessed to the rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosco in Norfolk, Va., though their lawyers claim that the confession was coerced by a corrupt detective, Robert Ford, who is serving a 12-year sentence for extortion and making false statements to the FBI.
DNA evidence exonerated the Norfolk Four, implicating Omar Ballard, who confessed to raping and killing Moore-Bosco by himself.

Wilson served his seven years and was released, but must register as a sex offender, which, his petition claims, severely limits his life.

He filed a writ of habeas corpus, but was denied at the district court level and the 4th Circuit begrudgingly refused to take his case.

"The district court dismissed Wilson's petition for lack of jurisdiction, holding that because Wilson had fully served the sentence for his rape conviction, he was no longer 'in custody,'" 4th Circuit Judge Paul Niemeyer wrote for the three-judge panel. "We affirm. While it appears that Wilson has mounted a serious constitutional challenge to his conviction, in which he vigorously asserts his innocence, we conclude that the sex offender registration requirements of Virginia and Texas are collateral consequences of his conviction that are independently imposed on him because of his status as a convicted sex offender and not as part of his sentence."

Fourth Circuit Judge James Wynn Jr., in dissent, wrote that "Wilson's completion of an arguably undeserved sentence is the condition that the majority opinion contends serves to seal off the courts is especially egregious. It is in effect an additional punishment that the majority opinion inflicts upon Wilson."

Cuccinelli failed to respond to Wilson's petition to the Supreme Court, which has asked that Cuccinelli file a response by April 25.

As a registered sex offender, Wilson must report to the police in person every year and notify local authorities if he travels. His employment opportunities as an electrician are limited and he cannot go to school functions for his son.

The other three men were pardoned in 2009 by Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, who did nothing for Wilson because he already had been released.

Iraq War vet faces 10 years in prison after photographing police

A 34-year-old Iraqi War veteran is facing ten years behind bars after photographing police officers in Austin, Texas that he says were mistreating a woman during a routine arrest on New Year’s Eve.

Antonio Buehler was pumping gas on December 31, 2011 when he witnessed officers with the Austin Police Department attempt to detain a woman under suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol at a fueling station. By the end of the evening, though, Buehler also found himself being apprehended by authorities.

"I saw a woman getting assaulted by the police. It looked like police abuse, and I decided to speak up and take pictures. I think that is every person's right,” Buehler told Austin’s KVUE News earlier this year.

The authorities, however, see things differently. According to the officers, Buehler was interfering with their investigation. Buehler says he was simply exercising his First Amendment rights from afar, but the police department begs to differ.

Buehler was “in my face,” Officer Pat Oborski writes in the official police report. The officer also claims that Buehler spit at him, an allegation that Buehler rejects.

"The officer kind of put his hand on his shoulder and tried to back him up and at that time was when Buehler spit in the face of Officer Oborski,” Corp. Anthony Hipolito, an APD spokesman, told KVUE News earlier this year. “At that time he was placed under arrest for harassment of a public servant which is a third degree felony."

When all was said and done on January 1, Buehler was released from a holding cell after 16 hours behind bars. In the six months since the incident, the defendant has been trying to get to the bottom of things. Unfortunately for him, however, it’s been a fight that Austin officials have seemingly been all too unwilling to help with — a late January complained filed with the Austin internal affairs department was essentially ignored, and a letter he received last week informs him that he is forbidden to “view, possess or receive copies of the Internal Affairs Division’s investigation,” forcing him to face his felony charge hearing without little for him or his attorney to work with.

By taking his plight to the Internet, Buehler was able to find a witness that had recorded footage that evening from their cell phone that shows Officer Oborski pinning Buehler against a truck — and not the defendant approaching the police, as described in the department’s report.

“I would not get involved in police action,” Buehler tells KVUE, “unless they were doing something heinous such as man-handling a woman who was no threat to them. There are two criminals on the loose; they are looking to get into fights. They wear blue, are armed and wear badges,”

Buehler will take his case to the Austin Citizen Review Panel next month, who can then make a recommendation regarding the charges to the police department. If the current charges remain, however, Buehler faces a maximum of ten years behind bars for the alleged felony. Last week Buehler introduced a petition to the Web asking for an investigation aimed at the Austin Police Department and has so far garnered over 1,600 signatures.

“These cops assaulted a woman who had committed no crime, and then levied three false charges against her. Antonio Buehler committed no crime, and that they then levied two false charges against him, one being a felony that carries a sentence of 2-10 years in prison that this cop deliberately lied in his affidavit to destroy Antonio Buehler life for not kissing his ass,” reads a plea on the petition page.

As Buehler awaits his hearing, he has also created a project to help other citizens protect themselves from police injustice. Through his Peaceful Street project, Buehler hopes to hand out more than 100 video cameras to Austin residents so they can keep an eye on the police.

“We want to encourage people to take their liberty and security in their own hands,” he tells Pixiq.com.

When a Secretive Stingray Cell Phone Tracking "Warrant" Isn't a Warrant

An Arizona federal court this afternoon will be the battleground over the government's use of a "Stingray" surveillance device in a closely watched criminal case, United States v. Rigmaiden. And in an important development, new documents revealed after an ACLU of Northern California Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request should leave the government with some explaining to do.

"Stingray" is the brand name of an International Mobile Subscriber Identity locator, or “IMSI catcher.” A Stingray acts as a fake cell-phone tower, small enough to fit in a van, allowing the government to route all network traffic to the fake tower. We've warned that Stingrays are dangerous because they have the capability to obtain the contents of electronic and wire communications while necessarily sucking down data on scores of innocent people along the way.

The Fourth Amendment requires searches be "reasonable," generally meaning they must be accompanied by a warrant. To get a warrant, the government must show there is probable cause to believe the place they want to search will have evidence of a crime. And it means the judge must ensure the warrant is "particular," or limited to only allow searches into areas where the evidence is most likely to be found. The only way a judge can make these tough decisions is with the government being forthright about what it's doing.

But when it comes to Stingrays the government has been extremely secretive about its use, withholding documents in FOIA requests, failing to explain (or even understand) the technology to a Texas federal judge and in Rigmaiden, misleading the court about the fact it's even using one at all.

Daniel David Rigmaiden is charged with a variety of tax and wire fraud crimes. Hoping to pinpoint Rigmaiden's precise location within an apartment complex, federal agents applied for an order requesting the court to order Verizon to help the agents pinpoint the physical location of a wireless broadband access card and cell phone they believed Rigmaiden was using. The order is clearly directed towards Verizon:

The Court therefore ORDERS, pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(b); Title 18, United States Code, Sections 2703 and 3117; and Title 28, United States Code, Section 1651, that Verizon Wireless, within ten (10) days of the signing of this Order and for a period not to exceed 30 days, unless extended by the Court, shall provide to agents of the FBI data and information obtained from the monitoring of transmissions related to the location of the Target Broadband Access Card/Cellular Telephone...

Ultimately, it turns out the government did not just get Verizon to give it the data. It also used a Stingray device to find Rigmaiden, sucking up loads of other data from other electronic devices in the complex as well, which it deleted.

When Rigmaiden filed a motion to suppress the Stingray evidence as a warrantless search in violation of the Fourth Amendment, the government responded that this order was a search warrant that authorized the government to use the Stingray. Together with the ACLU of Northern California and the ACLU, we filed an amicus brief in support of Rigmaiden, noting that this "order" wasn't a search warrant because it was directed towards Verizon, made no mention of an IMSI catcher or Stingray and didn't authorize the government—rather than Verizon—to do anything. Plus to the extent it captured loads of information from other people not suspected of criminal activity it was a "general warrant," the precise evil the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent.

The FOIA documents bolster our argument that this isn't a warrant. The documents are a series of internal emails from DOJ attorneys in the United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California, the district where the order in Rigmaiden's case was issued. The emails make clear that U.S. Attorneys in the Northern California were using Stingrays but not informing magistrates of what exactly they were doing. And once the judges got wind of what was actually going on, they were none too pleased:

As some of you may be aware, our office has been working closely with the magistrate judges in an effort to address their collective concerns regarding whether a pen register is sufficient to authorize the use of law enforcement's WIT technology (a box that simulates a cell tower and can be placed inside a van to help pinpoint an individual's location with some specificity) to locate an individual. It has recently come to my attention that many agents are still using WIT technology in the field although the pen register application does not make that explicit.

While we continue work on a long term fix for this problem, it is important that we are consistent and forthright in our pen register requests to the magistrates…

These emails, combined with the text of the disputed order itself, suggest agents obtained authorization to use a pen register without indicating they also planned to use a Stingray. Either at the time of the application or after the fact, the government attempted to transform that order into a warrant that authorized the use of a Stingray.

Judicial superivison of searches is most needed when the government uses new technologies to embark into new and unknown privacy intrusions. But when the government hides what it's really doing, it removes this important check on government power. We hope the court sees its been duped, and makes clear to the government that honesty and a warrant are requirements to using a Stingray.

To (All) the Colleges That Rejected Me

By SUZY LEE WEISS

Like me, millions of high-school seniors with sour grapes are asking themselves this week how they failed to get into the colleges of their dreams. It's simple: For years, they—we—were lied to.

Colleges tell you, "Just be yourself." That is great advice, as long as yourself has nine extracurriculars, six leadership positions, three varsity sports, killer SAT scores and two moms. Then by all means, be yourself! If you work at a local pizza shop and are the slowest person on the cross-country team, consider taking your business elsewhere.

What could I have done differently over the past years?

For starters, had I known two years ago what I know now, I would have gladly worn a headdress to school. Show me to any closet, and I would've happily come out of it. "Diversity!" I offer about as much diversity as a saltine cracker. If it were up to me, I would've been any of the diversities: Navajo, Pacific Islander, anything. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, I salute you and your 1/32 Cherokee heritage.

I also probably should have started a fake charity. Providing veterinary services for homeless people's pets. Collecting donations for the underprivileged chimpanzees of the Congo. Raising awareness for Chapped-Lips-in-the-Winter Syndrome. Fun-runs, dance-a-thons, bake sales—as long as you're using someone else's misfortunes to try to propel yourself into the Ivy League, you're golden.

Having a tiger mom helps, too. As the youngest of four daughters, I noticed long ago that my parents gave up on parenting me. It has been great in certain ways: Instead of "Be home by 11," it's "Don't wake us up when you come through the door, we're trying to sleep." But my parents also left me with a dearth of hobbies that make admissions committees salivate. I've never sat down at a piano, never plucked a violin. Karate lasted about a week and the swim team didn't last past the first lap. Why couldn't Amy Chua have adopted me as one of her cubs?

Then there was summer camp. I should've done what I knew was best—go to Africa, scoop up some suffering child, take a few pictures, and write my essays about how spending that afternoon with Kinto changed my life. Because everyone knows that if you don't have anything difficult going on in your own life, you should just hop on a plane so you're able to talk about what other people have to deal with.

Or at least hop to an internship. Get a precocious-sounding title to put on your resume. "Assistant Director of Mail Services." "Chairwoman of Coffee Logistics." I could have been a gopher in the office of someone I was related to. Work experience!

To those kids who by age 14 got their doctorate, cured a disease, or discovered a guilt-free brownie recipe: My parents make me watch your "60 Minutes" segments, and they've clipped your newspaper articles for me to read before bed. You make us mere mortals look bad. (Also, I am desperately jealous and willing to pay a lot to learn your secrets.)

To those claiming that I am bitter—you bet I am! An underachieving selfish teenager making excuses for her own failures? That too! To those of you disgusted by this, shocked that I take for granted the wonderful gifts I have been afforded, I say shhhh—"The Real Housewives" is on.

Manchester police to record attacks on goths, emos and punks as hate crimes

Decision follows campaign by Sophie Lancaster Foundation, a charity set up in memory of girl fatally attacked in 2007


Manchester police decision follows campaign by Sophie Lancaster Foundation, a charity set up in memory of a 20-year-old who was fatally attacked in a park near Manchester in 2007.

Police in Manchester have said they will begin recording offences against members of alternative subcultures in the same way they do attacks based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity.

The Greater Manchester police force – the first in Britain to take the step – said that "goths, emos, punks and metallers" and members of other alternative groups have often endured abuse.

"People who wish to express their alternative sub-culture identity freely should not have to tolerate hate crime," Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan said.

Manchester police said the change would enable officers to give more support to victims of anti-punk or anti-Goth crime. But it won't necessarily mean tougher sentences.

Although British judicial guidelines call for people convicted of hate crimes to receive tougher sentences, the Manchester decision has not been recognised nationally.

The police decision follows campaigning by the Sophie Lancaster Foundation, a charity set up in memory of a 20-year-old who was fatally attacked in a park near Manchester in 2007 because of her appearance.

The judge at the trial of the five teenage attackers called the assault on Lancaster and her boyfriend a hate crime.

The foundation is campaigning to get hate crime laws expanded to include "alternative subcultures or lifestyle and dress" and has gained support from musicians including Gary Numan and Courtney Love.

The victim's mother, Sylvia Lancaster, said the police move was "a validation of the work we have undertaken in the past five years and hopefully other forces will follow [Manchester police's] lead."

There are no immediate plans to change the national hate crimes register, but last year equalities minister Lynne Featherstone acknowledged that the five recognised categories of hate crime was "an incomplete list."

Copyright As Censorship: University Threatens Own Faculty With Copyright Infringement For Campus Survey

This story is incredible. Saint Louis University is threatening a faculty member with copyright infringement claims for his decision to take a survey of his colleagues. It appears that the faculty and the administration have been battling with each other recently, leading to a "no confidence" vote by students and faculty of the University provost. In response, the Board of Trustees sent around a "climate survey" to faculty, staff and students -- but some had complained that the questions were not useful and only asked one question about the leadership of that provost, Lawrence Biondi. In response, some of the faculty designed their own "supplemental survey" for other faculty members that included more questions, specifically about Biondi's relationship with the faculty itself

The Saint Louis University chapter of the American Association of University Professors responded to the board's surveys by attempting to devise its own "AAUP Supplemental Survey" for faculty members that would include specific questions about Father Biondi. Where the university's survey for faculty members asked how much they agreed or disagreed with the statement "The university appreciates the contributions of the faculty," the AAUP survey would, for example, ask how much respondents agreed with the statement "The president appears to respect and value the faculty."

However, the University is having none of this and has threatened the AAUP's President with claims of copyright infringement.

A St. Louis Post-Dispatch article on March 27 mentioned the AAUP chapter's plan for a survey. The next day the chapter's president, Steven G. Harris, a professor of mathematics and computer science, received a letter from William R. Kauffman, the university's vice president and general counsel, telling him that the university's new surveys are copyrighted and any use of them would violate federal law.

Mr. Kauffman's letter said that anything derived from the university's surveys would likewise be regarded as a violation of the university's rights. "Any infringement," the letter said, "will be addressed by the university and could result in legal action" in which the university could seek injunctive relief, damages, and the recovery of any legal fees.

This is incredible on so many levels, none of which makes Saint Louis University look good. First, this is a clear case of using copyright to censor, rather than for any legitimate purpose of copyright (it's like the University needed the incentives of copyright to develop this survey). Second, the "supplemental survey" is clearly asking different questions, not the same questions. Third, it's difficult to see how basic survey questions would have enough creative element to qualify for copyright protection in the first place, and even in the rare cases where they did, it would be likely that the protection would be quite thin, and hardly likely to be infringed upon by a separate and different set of questions.

But, most importantly, if the University board was looking to suggest that the faculty was happy with the administration, it would appear that threatening a bogus copyright infringement lawsuit demonstrates the exact opposite message. Truly incredible.

Unfortunately, the chilling effects of the threat may be working in silencing the survey attempt:

"The issue," he said, "is not whether the university will prevail in such a suit but whether I would be forced to run up enormous legal bills to defend against such a suit."

Of course, given that the likely point of the supplemental survey was to highlight problems between the administration and the faculty, the threat of the lawsuit seems to have accomplished that goal already.

The Chronicle of Higher Education also notes that Saint Louis University has sued another professor over questionable copyright claims before, and even though that professor won, he still racked up $10,000 in legal bills. And yet, the maximalists tell us, there are no examples of copyright being used to stifle free speech...

Ohio Aerial Surveillance System Moving Forward Without Having to Wait For FAA Drone Rules

By Jay Stanley

I wrote recently about ARGUS, the high-flying drone technology capable of capturing super-high-definition video of a 15-square mile area and automatically tracking all moving vehicles and people within that area. I pointed out that this makes possible our nightmare scenario for drones: wide-area mass surveillance and location tracking of entire cities and towns.

Now it appears that the city of Dayton Ohio is considering actually deploying a system that is in many respects similar to ARGUS—and although it shares many of the features that are causing so much concern over drones around the country, it is not being held back by the FAA and its well-founded safety concerns around drones.

The reason? The surveillance at issue is based on a manned aircraft rather than unmanned drones.

For the same reason, the program has not attracted any of the national attention that is currently swirling around drones. But according to a Dayton Police Department slide presentation obtained by Ohio activists and shared with the ACLU, the department is pursuing a program called “Trusted Situational Awareness” (such a mouthful of euphemisms for surveillance that it almost sounds like a parody). According to the slideshow, entitled “2013 Aerial Surveillance Project,” a test of the system was conducted for 8 days in June 2012 during daylight hours over Sinclair Community College. (I wonder if the students, faculty and visitors to that campus were made aware they were subjects of this surveillance experiment?)

The program is run by a company called “Persistent Surveillance Systems,” which also makes ground-based wide-area surveillance systems, as touted in this online brochure. According to the slideshow, the program is important because it “Can be utilized to prevent and minimize acts of terrorism, crime and murder.” From the slideshow:

“Forensic intelligence” usually means something like, “keeping records of everything everybody is doing so we can go back and carry out retroactive surveillance whenever we need it.”

The slideshow describes how the police “selected 18 incidents for aerial surveillance,” including a burglary in progress and a robbery spree at three commercial locations. “Analysts were able to track the primary suspect to all of these locations as well as to a Clark gas station prior to the robberies,” the police boast. Slides show aerial tracking of moving suspects:

It’s important to note that this is all described as a “test operation,” and it's unclear whether these were merely simulated crimes set up to test the analytical capability of the system. Whether the system would actually be so effective in real-world conditions is always a question with such technologies, but in any case it certainly shows what the company and police department are aiming for.

Obviously it’s a good thing to stop robbers. But in America we do not allow the government to look over everybody’s shoulders (literally or figuratively) just in case they engage in wrongdoing. We require the police to have individualized suspicion of wrongdoing before they invade our privacy in that way. There is no question that there are some crimes the police will solve if we allow our country to turn into a total surveillance state, but that is a bad tradeoff. The police here want to “identify” illegal activity, which is fine, but not if that’s accomplished by watching all activity.

A group of citizen activists assisted by the ACLU of Ohio have been pushing back against this program in Dayton. The police department gave them a proposed policy to cover the program, and after meeting with the citizens and receiving their feedback, provided an updated policy with “a few small changes, but which doesn’t address the substantive concerns shared with the police department,” as my colleague Melissa Bilancini of the ACLU of Ohio put it. The policy has no warrant requirement, and it lacks clear retention and sharing policies as well as any provisions for independent oversight. The program is on the agenda for a special meeting before Dayton’s City Commission next Tuesday April 9.

Although this issue has flown beneath the drone radar because it involves manned aircraft, the issues at stake are much the same. (Maybe we should start calling the Dayton aircraft “manned drones,” oxymoron or not, if that will help people to pay attention.)

Although manned aircraft have never attracted the policy attention that drones have (for the reasons I outlined here), ultimately the same kinds of protections that are so vital in the face of drone technology should also be extended to manned aircraft. There’s no rational reason why adding a human being to a surveillance craft should change the privacy protections that we create against aerial surveillance.

Viacom Filing Attempts To Rewrite DMCA, Shift Burden Of Proof, Wipe Out Safe Harbors And Require Mandatory Filtering

It's been about a year since the 2nd Circuit appeals court sent the Viacom v. YouTube case back to the district court. As we noted at the time, the original district court ruling, which said YouTube was protected by the DMCA's safe harbors, was a good ruling, well reasoned and argued by the court. In contrast, the appeals court ruling dipped into very troubling waters. While it agreed with the district court that YouTube needed "specific" knowledge of infringing works, rather than "general" knowledge that some works were infringing, it also went into questionable territory by arguing that YouTube could be found guilty of "willful blindness," despite the DMCA statute not including any such concept and also being pretty clear that you need specific knowledge in the form of a DMCA-compliant notification.

On Friday, the latest set of (slightly redacted) filings in the case back at the district court were revealed. They were filed in the past few months, but sensitive info was finally redacted and the "public" copies have now been released. Google has, not surprisingly, basically asked the court to reiterate its original ruling, noting that even following the appeals court sending it back, the situation hasn't changed: YouTube obeyed the DMCA's notice-and-takedown procedures and is protected under the DMCA's 512(c) safe harbors (pdf). Google highlights how YouTube has followed notice-and-takedown procedures from early on, and even in the early days blocked some videos that it thought might be infringing. It also notes that Viacom itself pulled a bunch of videos from the lawsuit after it finally signed up to use ContentID and realized that it was beneficial to Viacom's own business. More importantly, as we've pointed out a bunch of times, many videos had to be removed from the case because Viacom had uploaded them itself and even had "confidential (and ever changing) instructions to its copyright-monitoring agent" concerning what to pull off of YouTube. Even worse, apparently, even today, Viacom hasn't fully figured out if all of the clips they're suing over were really infringing. It turns out that many of them are identical to the ones that Viacom itself uploaded as authorized copies (and there's evidence Viacom often uploaded the same clips multiple times itself on purpose).

The basic point: there's no way for Google to know what Viacom uploaded on purpose and what is unauthorized unless it receives direct notification about it. Just like the DMCA safe harbors require. Not only that, but they show that Viacom knew this as fact. First, Viacom tried to buy YouTube itself, and internal memos from Viacom execs noted that "user generated content appears to be what's driving" YouTube's success and even that "consumption of branded content on YT is low." They also specifically stated that YouTube "has many" non-infringing uses.

As for the specific issues raised by the appeals court, YouTube points out that for "willful blindness" to apply, Viacom needs to show that specific clips in this lawsuit were involved in cases where there is evidence of willful blindness by YouTube. That's because the lawsuit is just about those particular clips. If Viacom wants to go after a general willful blindness on the part of YouTube, that's way beyond what the law allows -- and the court is specific about this, noting that Viacom needs to show willful blindness to specific infringements concerning videos in the lawsuit.

But, of course, Viacom doesn't bother to show a single piece of evidence alleging willful blindness by YouTube in regards to any one of the clips in the lawsuit. Instead, in its opposition filing it once again tries to rewrite the law in its favor, trying to create a ridiculously broad general "willful blindness" standard that effectively wipes out the DMCA's 512(c) safe harbors. First, it relies almost entirely on an email sent by an ex-employee of YouTube, in which he claims there is a lot of infringement on the site, but does not name any specific videos. As Google points out, just having someone say there's infringing works on YouTube doesn't (a) show what files need to be removed or (b) even prove the works are actually infringing (see: Viacom uploading its own videos) or, most importantly (c) prove that YouTube failed to remove infringing videos when it learned they were infringing. Viacom doesn't even seem to try to show any of those things. Also, the fact that the email came from an ex-employee certainly doesn't prove that YouTube had knowledge of the specific infringements.

As the filing notes:

The type of generalized guesswork that Viacom engages in bears no resemblance to the showing of specific knowledge of clips-in-suit that the Second Circuit demanded.

In fact, Viacom's filing is really incredible. Having completely lost (at both district and appeals court levels) its ridiculous claim that "general knowledge" of some infringement somewhere on the site leads one to lose safe harbors, Viacom simply tries the same argument again, pretending that the "willful blindness" standard is basically a stand-in for "general knowledge." That's hogwash on many levels, and frankly, I'm surprised that Viacom's pricey lawyers would bother with that argument. The district court already rejected it and the appeals court was pretty clear that Viacom needed to show willful blindness on specific items, not generally.

It also tries to completely flip the burden of proof, arguing that as long as Viacom can show that infringing works were on the site, YouTube has to show that they "lacked such knowledge or awareness of Viacom's clips-in-suit." That's not how the law works. Viacom is actually arguing that the DMCA requires proving the negative. Furthermore, it argues that YouTube's failure to implement an anti-piracy filter that Viacom wanted is more proof of willful blindness. That's similarly ridiculous. The DMCA has been held, repeatedly, to not include a proactive duty to monitor. Failing to do so at the insistence of Viacom (even as YouTube was establishing its own filter anyway) is hardly proof of willful blindness to the infringement of specific clips (and given Viacom's "dizzying array" of authorized videos on the site, such a filter would hardly prove infringement). Incredibly, Viacom insists that it's YouTube trying to flip the burdens in the DMCA, but either Viacom's lawyers have totally misread... um... everything, or they're lying to the court.

They're correct that to get safe harbors the service provider needs to meet certain "burdens," but those are laid out in 512(c). It needs to be a service provider that does not have actual knowledge and when it gets the knowledge, it acts expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material. Those are pretty clearly laid out. Viacom is making things up pretending that the burden also includes the idea that if a copyright holder claims its works are there then the burden shifts to the service provider to prove the negative that it wasn't willfully blind to infringement. Viacom literally argues:

It is not Viacom's burden to prove specific knowledge or awareness. That factual issue is relevant only to the affirmative defense that YouTube is asserting; knowledge of specific infringements is not an element of Viacom's copyright infringement claims against YouTube. At trial, it will be enough for Viacom to prove that the clips-in-suit were on the website, along with some other elements of infringement liability.

Got that? Stuff on the site, plus "some other elements" and boom, no more safe harbors. That's crazy. That's clearly not the purpose of the safe harbors, because that would mean there are no DMCA safe harbors.

As YouTube noted in response:

Viacom does not even try to make the showing of clip-specific knowledge required by the Second Circuit’s ruling. It instead reverses course and claims that it is YouTube’s burden to affirmatively establish its lack of knowledge as to each specific clip-in-suit. Viacom’s novel burden-shifting argument is wrong. It is contrary to the Second Circuit’s decision, all the case law, and the structure of the DMCA itself. Viacom also ignores the record. YouTube has identified more than sufficient evidence of its lack of knowledge of infringement— including the very fact that the voluminous record in this case contains no evidence of such knowledge. Viacom’s inability to offer any evidence from which a jury could find that YouTube had actual or red-flag knowledge of even a single clip-in-suit requires that summary judgment be entered in YouTube’s favor.

Viacom goes on to argue that even though the DMCA is explicit (in 512(m)) that there is no duty to monitor, there really is a duty to monitor! How do they tap dance into that position? By arguing that while there's officially no duty to monitor, if you fail to monitor because it might show you infringing works, then you are guilty of willful blindness. Got that? There's no duty to monitor, but failing to monitor shows that you were making yourself willfully blind. If that's true, then 512(m) makes no sense, which is what Viacom (and other copyright maximalists) have always wanted (in fact, we noted just this three years ago about this case). They want a requirement for others to be their personal copyright cops and 512m gets in the way of that, so Viacom is trying to rewrite it here. In doing this, it relies heavily on the ruling in the Tiffany v. Ebay case -- but that's a very different story, involving trademark (for which the safe harbors don't apply), not copyright.

Viacom also regularly cites shows like South Park, the Daily Show and others despite the fact that Viacom explicitly (in its "rules" sent to BayTSP, its DMCA monitor) had many, if not most, of those clips left on the site as authorized.

There are a few other points up for debate -- concerning things like whether or not YouTube got financial benefits directly from infringement, whether or not reformatting YouTube videos for smartphones removes safe harbors and a few small other points that we won't get into here. Those are unlikely (hopefully) to be the center stage issue, and this post is long enough as is. Frankly, I remain surprised that Viacom's arguments seem so obviously weak. Ever since the case began, I've been surprised at how weak Viacom's arguments are. From the beginning, I expected them to have a stronger lawsuit. Having read the latest filings, it really feels like Viacom went all in early, and rather than admit it never had the goods, it's just going to try crazier and crazier arguments and hope that a court gets confused. Seems like a good way to completely throw away money.