100’s of Attorneys Build Tool to Document Bad Cops: Introducing the “Cop Accountability Program”

By Jay Syrmopoulos

New York, N.Y. – Defense attorneys have a new tool at their disposal to question the credibility of police officers in court, thanks to the largest organization of public defenders in the nation.

The Legal Aid Society is a New York-based nonprofit with a staff of over 650 attorneys that represents over 230,000 people yearly. They have created the “cop accountability” database as a means of systematically tracking rogue actions by officers.

By creating a database that records accusations of officer misconduct it becomes easier for defense attorneys to identify problem officers. The database allows the defense to bring these credibility issues to light. This subsequently forces judges and juries to take this information into consideration when passing judgment.

Cynthia Conti-Cook, a former civil rights lawyer, joined the Legal Aid Society last spring with the idea for the database, formally called the Cop Accountability Program, already in mind, according to Slate.

The impetus behind the project is that during a criminal case there’s typically a “big red arrow that says ‘criminal’ pointing to the defendant.” There’s very little the defense can respond with other than to say, “my client denies the charges,” according to Conti-Cook.

With the database in use, any past misconduct by an officer can be discovered if it has been entered into the system. With that information, the defense attorney can “start shifting that red arrow toward the police officer, by showing that they’ve also been engaged in activity that deteriorates their credibility.”

Conti-Cook went on to say, “It takes the judge’s attention away from what your client did wrong to get here, and puts more of a burden on the police officer to prove that your client actually did something.” She stressed the importance, because “more and more, in this broken-windows climate, the main and sometimes only witness in a case will be a police officer.”

According to Justine Luongo, the attorney-in-charge of the Legal Aid Society’s criminal practice, attorneys at Legal Aid are instructed to be very comprehensive in uploading information. The information includes complaints that were dismissed or unsubstantiated and noting the outcome.

Other informational sources that will be included in the database are civil lawsuits against the city, news reports, grievances filed with the Civilian Complaint Review Board, and criminal trials in which an officer was deemed not to be credible by the judge.

The largest police union in New York has come out strongly opposed to the accountability database.

“Compiling a list of police officers who are alleged to be ‘bad’ based upon newspapers stories, quick-buck lawsuits and baseless complaints does nothing more than soil the reputation of the men and women who do the difficult and dangerous job of keeping this city and its citizens safe,” Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch said in a statement.

Contrary to Lynch’s comments, the potential implications of this database could be far-reaching and go well beyond merely affecting individual cases as noted by Joanna Schwartz, assistant professor at UCLA School of Law.

Schwartz, who researches the manner in which departmental policy is formed by lawsuits against the police, believes this technology could eventually change the way departments handle misconduct internally.

“It might create external pressure on police agencies to better police their own,” Schwartz told Slate, adding, “Because if there’s a bad apple officer out there who has had multiple incidents of lying on the stand or unconstitutionally searching someone, that officer’s ability to assist in a prosecution is going to be compromised. … Their ability to help prosecute cases will be constrained by their prior behavior in a way it hasn’t been previously.”

With great power comes great responsibility and by creating a database that can be used to hold officers accountable for their actions over the long-term, it ensures that those entrusted to enforce the law, follow it as well or suffer the consequences of their actions.

This program is a great start, but to truly stem the tide of systemic corruption rampant in policing across the whole of the U.S., a nationwide database of every officer in the country is needed.

Krispy Kreme’s ‘KKK Wednesdays’ promotion backfires, obviously

Joanna Rothkopf

A United Kingdom branch of Krispy Kreme has officially apologized after advertising their short-lived “KKK [Krispy Kreme Klub] Wednesdays” promotion for their Hull location. Apparently, people outside the U.S. — including the representatives from Krispy Kreme’s British headquarters who approved the promotion — are unfamiliar with the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist organization known for grotesque violence primarily against black people.

“Krispy Kreme apologizes unreservedly for the inappropriate name of a customer promotion at one of our stores,” said a Krispy Kreme spokesperson in a statement. “The promotion was never intended to cause offense. All material has been withdrawn and an internal investigation is currently underway.”

According to the Hull Daily Mail, the promotion was part of a calendar of children’s activities and was advertised on the company’s national Facebook page. It wasn’t long before commenters began pointing out the regrettable oversight.

“This was sent from the head office, so it has been advertised at all the outlets,” said the spokesperson in an interview. “But we have now taken down the sign from our point of sale. We don’t have a new name for the event yet but it is still going ahead this week.”

The promotion has scheduled events including “Colouring Tuesday” and “Face Painting Thursday.”

Hundreds of South Carolina Inmates Sent to Solitary Confinement Over Facebook

In the South Carolina prison system, accessing Facebook is an offense on par with murder, rape, rioting, escape and hostage-taking.

Back in 2012, the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) made “Creating and/or Assisting With A Social Networking Site” a Level 1 offense [PDF], a category reserved for the most violent violations of prison conduct policies. It’s one of the most common Level 1 offense charges brought against inmates, many of whom, like most social network users, want to remain in contact with friends and family in the outside world and keep up on current events. Some inmates ask their families to access their online accounts for them, while many access the Internet themselves through a contraband cell phone (possession of which is yet another Level 1 offense).

Through a request under South Carolina’s Freedom of Information Act, EFF found that, over the last three years, prison officials have brought more than 400 hundred disciplinary cases for “social networking”—almost always for using Facebook. The offenses come with heavy penalties, such as years in solitary confinement and deprivation of virtually all privileges, including visitation and telephone access. In 16 cases, inmates were sentenced to more than a decade in what’s called disciplinary detention, with at least one inmate receiving more than 37 years in isolation.

The sentences are so long because SCDC issues a separate Level 1 violation for each day that an inmate accesses a social network. An inmate who posts five status updates over five days, would receive five separate Level 1 violations, while an inmate who posted 100 updates in one day would receive only one.

In other words, if a South Carolina inmate caused a riot, took three hostages, murdered them, stole their clothes, and then escaped, he could still wind up with fewer Level 1 offenses than an inmate who updated Facebook every day for two weeks.

So extreme is the application of this policy that SCDC is forced to regularly suspend solitary confinement sentences because of a lack of space in disciplinary segregation. In many cases, the punishments associated with using social media are so unnecessarily long that inmates will never actually serve them since they exceed their underlying prison sentences.

Prison systems have a legitimate interest in keeping contraband devices out of their facilities and preventing inmates from engaging in illegal activities through the Internet. But South Carolina’s policy goes too far, and not only because of the shockingly disproportionate punishments. The policy is also incredibly broad; it can be applied to any reason an inmate may ask someone outside to access the Internet for them, such as having a family member manage their online financial affairs, working with activists to organize an online legal defense campaign, sending letters to online news sites, or just staying in touch with family and friends to create the type of community support crucial to reintegrating into society.

There is also a censorship component.

Facebook has processed hundreds of requests from SCDC officers who want inmates’ profiles taken down. Facebook’s stated policy is to suspend these pages under the auspices of Terms of Service (ToS) violations—specifically, purported violations of terms banning users from using aliases or sharing passwords with third parties—effectively allowing SCDC to censor inmates’ online speech. Yet, as described below, Facebook goes beyond its stated policy and agrees to SCDC requests to censor inmate pages even when no ToS violation has been alleged. In addition, Facebook seems to have taken no action against SCDC investigators who regularly violate these same terms in uncovering inmate profiles.

What’s more, this process is veiled in secrecy, with both Facebook and SCDC failing to create a public record paper trail documenting the takedown of inmate pages.

It’s time for South Carolinians to demand a review of this policy and for Facebook to reevaluate its role in helping prison systems censor and excessively punish inmates.

Social Media in South Carolina Lockups

Prisons and jails across the country have been looking for new ways to keep inmates off the Internet, not only by investing in controversial new cell-tracking technologies such as Stingrays and DRTboxes, but also using social networks as avenue to find and punish inmates.

South Carolina adopted a Level 1 social media offense [PDF] to punish “Creating and/or Assisting With A Social Networking Site,” defined as: “The facilitation, conspiracy, aiding, abetting in the creation or updating of an Internet web site or social networking site.”

SCDC defines “social networking” very broadly, covering everything from YouTube and Twitter to blogs and email, although all of the cases EFF reviewed [PDF] involved Facebook. Investigations are conducted by corrections officers and inmates are convicted during disciplinary hearings that often last mere minutes.

Since the policy was implemented, SCDC has brought 432 disciplinary cases against 397 inmates, with more than 40 inmates receiving more than two years in solitary confinement [PDF].

Here are some of the most severe social media punishments we’ve seen:

• In October 2013, Tyheem Henry received 13,680 days (37.5 years) in disciplinary detention and lost 27,360 day (74 years) worth of telephone, visitation, and canteen privileges, and 69 days of good time—all for 38 posts on Facebook.
• In June 2014, Walter Brown received 12,600 days (34.5 years) in disciplinary detention and lost 25,200 days (69 years) in telephone, visitation, and canteen privileges, and 875 days (2.4 years) of good time—all for 35 posts on Facebook.
• In May 2014, Jonathan McClain received 9,000 days (24.6 years) in disciplinary detention and lost 18,000 days (49 years) in telephone, visitation, and canteen privileges, and 30 days of good time—all for 25 posts on Facebook.

The average punishment length for a “social networking” case was 512 days in disciplinary detention, and the average length of lost privileges was even longer.

So disproportionate are these punishments that South Carolina doesn’t have space in disciplinary detention for all the offenders and “regularly” is forced to put the punishments on hold. In the cases of the three above inmates, SCDC says that none will serve the full punishment since they will be released from prison within the next five to 10 years.

As punishment for social media use, inmates also lose “good time” days that would had otherwise resulted in early release. Since 2012, inmates have collectively lost 14,564 “good time” days, the equivalent of 44 extra years in prison. In fiscal terms, that’s approximately $842,000 [PDF] more that taxpayers will have to pay to keep inmates behind bars—just because they posted on Facebook.

Social Media Investigations

SCDC investigators uses a variety of tools to catch inmates on social media. Sometimes, evidence is obtained during cell phone searches. Other times, investigators simply hear inmates talking about accessing Facebook.

In summer 2014, SCDC launched a mechanism for crowdsourcing social media investigations with a prominent button on the front page of its website, encouraging the public to report inmates using social media to SCDC. In only eight months, SCDC has collected more 230 submissions from the public about inmates using social networks and cell phones.

SCDC also uses outside contractors in its investigations, paying $12,500 to an unnamed entity for unspecified services. All but the price tag was redacted from the document [PDF] provided to EFF under South Carolina’s Freedom of Information Act.

Certain other tactics are more alarming. In response to inquiries from EFF [PDF], SCDC acknowledged that staff obtained inmate passwords through various means, including from inmates informing on inmates, family members, and the inmates themselves. In violation of Facebook’s Terms of Service, SCDC staff have used those passwords to access inmate accounts.

SCDC investigators have also created fake social media profiles in order to catch inmates in the act—again, a clear violation of Facebook’s Terms of Service. Unfortunately, all information regarding these investigations is shielded from disclosure under the state’s Freedom of Information Act.

In addition to the potential legal issues these practices may raise, the policies also pose problems for Facebook, which, as of February 3, has processed 512 “deactivation requests” from South Carolina corrections officers since 2012.

Facebook: Prison Censor

Facebook has made it all too easy for prisons to report inmates for having profiles: the site has a form titled “Inmate Account Takedown Request.” A corrections officer only needs to enter a few pieces of information about the inmate—the inmate’s name, profile link, and the crime for which they’re being imprisoned, but not the purported violation of Facebook’s Terms of Service—to 

get the inmate’s profile taken down.

 

In direct discussions with EFF, Facebook repeatedly asserted it does not enforce prison policies. Rather, according to Facebook, when a corrections officer contacts Facebook about an inmate page, Facebook staff may suspend the account on the grounds that the inmate violated the site’s Terms of Service.

Specifically, Facebook pointed to terms that forbid users from sharing their passwords or otherwise allowing other people to access their accounts, a practice common among inmates. Facebook claims that they suspend inmate accounts for violations of this policy not only because of the ToS violation, but also because it protects the inmate’s privacy. Facebook also forbids the use of aliases, which inmates also frequently employ.

However, prisons are very aware of how to exploit Facebook’s Terms of Service, with the Federal Bureau of Prisons even quoting the terms in handbooks [PDF] and presentations [PDF], adding that "Facebook also deactivates prisoner pages, regardless of who set up the page."

Facebook says this isn't true, but its claim that it does not enforce prison policies is contradicted by correspondence that shows Facebook explicitly censored a South Carolina inmate’s page when no ToS violation was alleged.

In July 2014, a South Carolina corrections officer emailed Facebook asking for the removal of the profile of an inmate who had violated prison policy by accessing Facebook through a cell phone. Accessing Facebook through a contraband cell phone in itself does not seem to be a ToS violation. But as the below email shows, Facebook still removed the page—not for a ToS violation, 

but for breach of “inmate regulations.”

Remarkably, this email exchange occurred after Facebook assured EFF it was not doing this exact thing.

This was the only email chain [PDF] between Facebook and SCDC that EFF received in response to the FOIA request. That’s because Facebook’s system allows for secret censorship. Inmate takedown requests usually occur through Facebook’s online form, which, as a Facebook employee told SCDC in a follow-up email, does not generate a receipt email. This means that more than 500 inmate take down requests have been filed without any kind of paper trail accessible to the inmate or the public—a lack of transparency that is simply not acceptable when government-instigated censorship is involved.

Even if you take Facebook at its word—i.e., that it only enforces its own Terms of Service (despite the evidence to the contrary)—Facebook is guilty of applying a double standard when it comes to ToS violations. SCDC’s practices of logging into inmate’s accounts and creating fake profiles is a clear violation of not only its ToS, but also the very same terms inmates are accused of violating. Despite SCDC’s rule-breaking, Facebook allows SCDC to maintain its own public Facebook page, where it posts career fair notices and positive news stories about its programs.

When EFF pointed this out, Facebook said it would remove any of SCDC’s secret alias pages we could identify—but this is a next to impossible feat given that information about such secret aliases isn’t publicly available through South Carolina’s FOIA.

Ensuring Accountability

South Carolina may be unique only in the frequency and severity with which it enforces social media punishments. In New Mexico, an inmate was sentenced to 60 days in solitary confinement after his family members accessed Facebook on his behalf. In Alabama, a law was recently passed to make it a misdemeanor to serve as a go-between for an inmate who wants to post information to the Internet.

These policies have not gone unchallenged. An Arizona law forbidding inmates from accessing the Internet through a third party was struck down as unconstitutional. The Florida Department of Corrections backtracked on a policy proposal similar to South Carolina's after the Florida Justice Institute and other civil liberties groups threatened litigation [PDF]. Just last week, the ACLU of Indiana filed a lawsuit alleging First Amendment violations when prison officials punished an inmate after his sister launched a social media campaign to get him freed.

SCDC has set up a system that allows prison administrators to hold inmates longer, in harsher conditions, and to largely cut them off from the rest of the world. South Carolinians should demand an immediate review of how this policy is applied.

We’re also calling on Facebook to embrace the position that inmate communication often has public value, such as when inmates raise issues about possibly unconstitutional prison conditions and other irregularities in the criminal justice system.

Steps Facebook should take include:

• Stop censoring inmates without first evaluating whether a serious ToS violation has occurred (such as harassing a victim or engaging in a criminal enterprise).
• Eliminate the inmate takedown feature, or, at the very least, ensure that a public record (such as a receipt email) is generated every time a prison official files a takedown request and every time Facebook complies.
• Revise its transparency report to include detailed numbers of takedown requests Facebook has received, what agency sent each request, and how Facebook responded.
• Hold law enforcement agencies, such as prisons, accountable for abusing Facebook’s ToS.
• Revise its transparency report to include detailed numbers of takedown requests Facebook has received, what agency sent each request, and how Facebook responded.

Balancing the rights of inmates with public safety is a tricky task, but prisons—and the companies that assist them—must consider proportionality and fairness for justice to be truly served.

88 Founding Father Quotes That Will Enrage The Religious Right

By Tiffany Willis

From Wikipedia:

The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights.

I began this list of quotes a few weeks ago, but the fact is, I didn’t realize just how many quotes there are the prove that the Founding Fathers didn’t intend the U.S.A. to be a Christian nation. The evidence is overwhelming. So I put it on hold until I had time to do it justice.

I could just as easily write up a list of quotes by the Founding Fathers that prove that many of them were Christians. But the point is that whatever their personal beliefs, this country was founded on the separation of church and state.

Many of my Christian friends say “well but the Founders didn’t know that we’d become such a melting pot of so many religions.” That’s probably true. My Christian friends add “had they known, they’d have written things up differently.” Maybe. Who knows? It’s an irrelevant point. They didn’t write things up differently. What we have to go on is what we have. Period.

If you are a Christian and you don’t like the “separation of church and state,” then that means that you are unhappy with the Constitution that you so vehemently defend when it aligns with your beliefs. So let me ask you this: what other parts of the Constitution do you want to change? What else doesn’t align with your beliefs? Because if we start changing it to accommodate you, you can no longer claim that you’re working from the mindset of Constitutionalism and patriotism.

Indeed, the Constitution was created as a living document that could be amended. So when you “take our country back,” what else are you going to change about the fundamental basis upon which our nation was founded?

Many people ask me why I, as a Christian, am so vehemently and violently supportive of a complete separation of church and state. The fact is, I’m so adamant about this BECAUSE I’m a Christian. I like my personal belief system, which incidentally, differs slightly from that of many Christians. I don’t want to be forced to practice what I don’t believe, or participate in rituals that I don’t support or accept.

I equally am strongly in support of people who practice other religions. Is not their belief as valid and sacred to them as mine is to me? They should be as free as I am to practice their own faith.

There’s another side to this — I want to be free TO worship. There are people in this country who would like to see all religion abolished. We on the left have our own set of radicals, you know. I like things as they are. We must NEVER, EVER stop fighting for the 1st Amendment and the separation of church and state. Not for one minute.

If I’ve missed any important quotes that belong here, please put them in the comments. I’d like for this to be a comprehensive list.

1. “While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.”
The Writings of Washington, pp. 342-343.

2. “Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.”
George Washington — letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792

3. “The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.”
John Adams

4. “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; That a revolution of the wheel of fortune, a change of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by Supernatural influence! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in that event.”
Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, p. 237

5. “The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation,” wrote Washington. “All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens.”
George Washington in a letter to Touro Synagogue (1790)

6. “Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God … What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be.”
Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Vol. III, p. 9.

7. “We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society.”
Founding FatherJohn Adams — letter to Dr. Price, April 8, 1785

8. “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.”
James Madison — Letter to Wm. Bradford, April 1, 1774

9. “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is error alone that needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.”
Thomas Jefferson — in a letter to Horatio Spofford, 1814

10. “The human understanding is a revelation from its maker, which can never be disputed or doubted. There can be no scepticism, Pyrrhonism, or incredulity or infidelity here. No prophecies, no miracles are necessary to prove this celestical communication. This revelation has made it certain that two and one make three, and that one is not three nor can three be one. We can never be so certain of any prophecy, or the fulfilment of any prophecy, or of any miracle, or the design of any miracle, as we are from the revelation of nature, that is, nature’s God, that two and two are equal to four.”
Adam’s Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 14 September 1813

12. “History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”
Thomas Jefferson — in letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813

13. “No one sees with greater pleasure than myself the progress of reason in its advances towards rational Christianity. When we shall have done away the incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic, that three are one, and one is three; when we shall have knocked down the artificial scaffolding, raised to mask from view the simple structure of Jesus; when, in short, we shall have unlearned everything which has been taught since His day, and get back to the pure and simple doctrines He inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily His disciples; and my opinion is that if nothing had ever been added to what flowed purely from His lips, the whole world would at this day have been Christian. I know that the case you cite, of Dr. Drake, has been a common one. The religion-builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in mysticisms, fancies and falsehoods, have caricatured them into forms so monstrous and inconceivable, as to shock reasonable thinkers, to revolt them against the whole, and drive them rashly to pronounce its Founder an imposter. Had there never been a commentator, there never would have been an infidel.”
Jefferson’s Letter to Timothy Pickering, 21 Feb 1821

14. “It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet the one is not three, and the three are not one: to divide mankind by a single letter into [“consubstantialists and like-substantialists”]. But this constitutes the craft, the power and the profit of the priests. Sweep away their gossamer fabrics of factitious religion, and they would catch no more flies. We should all then, like the quakers, live without an order of priests, moralise for ourselves, follow the oracle of conscience, and say nothing about what no man can understand, nor therefore believe; for I suppose belief to be the assent of the mind to an intelligible proposition.”
Jefferson’s Letter to John Adams, August 22, 1813

15. “The civil government functions with complete success by the total separation of the Church from the State.”
Founding Father James Madison, 1819, Writings, 8:432, quoted from Gene Garman, “Essays In Addition to America’s Real Religion”
16. “And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”
James Madison — letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822

17. “Every new and successful example of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance.”
James Madison — letter, 1822

18. “Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years?”
John Adams

19. “Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?”
John Adams — letter to Thomas Jefferson

20. “When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obligated to call for help of the civil power, it’s a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”
Benjamin Franklin — letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780

21. “It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to unsurpastion on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinence of the Gov’t from interfence in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others.”
James Madison, “James Madison on Religious Liberty”, edited by Robert S. Alley, ISBN 0-8975-298-X. pp. 237-238.

22. “And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human errors.”
Jefferson’s letter to John Adams, April 11 1823

23. “That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forebearance, love, and charity towards each other.”
George Mason — Virginia Bill of Rights, 1776

24. “God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there will never be any liberal science in the world.”
John Adams

25. “A man of abilities and character, of any sect whatever, may be admitted to any office or public trust under the United States. I am a friend to a variety of sects, because they keep one another in order. How many different sects are we composed of throughout the United States? How many different sects will be in congress? We cannot enumerate the sects that may be in congress. And there are so many now in the United States that they will prevent the establishment of any one sect in prejudice to the rest, and will forever oppose all attempts to infringe religious liberty. If such an attempt be made, will not the alarm be sounded throughout America? If congress be as wicked as we are foretold they will, they would not run the risk of exciting the resentment of all, or most of the religious sects in America.”
Edmund Randolph — address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 10, 1788

26. “I never liked the Hierarchy of the Church — an equality in the teacher of Religion, and a dependence on the people, are republican sentiments — but if the Clergy combine, they will have their influence on Government”
Rufus King, Rufus King: American Federalist, pp. 56-57

27. A general toleration of Religion appears to me the best means of peopling our country… The free exercise of religion hath stocked the Northern part of the continent with inhabitants; and altho’ Europe hath in great measure adopted a more moderate policy, yet the profession of Protestantism is extremely inconvenient in many places there. A Calvinist, a Lutheran, or Quaker, who hath felt these inconveniences in Europe, sails not to Virginia, where they are felt perhaps in a (greater degree).”
Patrick Henry, observing that immigrants flock to places where there is no established religion, Religious Tolerance, 1766

28. “As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?”
John Adams — letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816

29. “What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not.”
James Madison — “A Memorial and Remonstrance”, 1785

30. “The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. And ever since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality, is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes.”
John Adams — letter to John Taylor

31. “The question before the human race is, whether the God of Nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?”
John Adams

32. “And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”
Thomas Jefferson to John Adams

33. “Congress has no power to make any religious establishments.”
Roger Sherman, Congress, August 19, 1789

34. “The American states have gone far in assisting the progress of truth; but they have stopped short of perfection. They ought to have given every honest citizen an equal right to enjoy his religion and an equal title to all civil emoluments, without obliging him to tell his religion. Every interference of the civil power in regulating opinion, is an impious attempt to take the business of the Deity out of his own hands; and every preference given to any religious denomination, is so far slavery and bigotry.”
Noah Webster calling for no religious tests to serve in public office, Sketches of American Policy, 1785

35. “The office of reformer of the superstitions of a nation is ever dangerous. Jesus had to walk on the perilous confines of reason and religion; and a step to right or left might place Him within the grasp of the priests of the superstition, a bloodthirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the Being whom they represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel. They were constantly laying snares, too, to entangle Him in the web of the law. He was justifiable, therefore, in avoiding these by evasions, by sophisms, by misconstructions and misapplications of scraps of the prophets, and in defending Himself with these their own weapons, as sufficient, ad homines, at least. That Jesus did not mean to impose Himself on mankind as the Son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in the lore.”
Thomas Jefferson’s letter to William Short, August 4, 1820

36. “. . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.”
John Adams

37. “God has appointed two kinds of government in the world, which are distinct in their nature, and ought never to be confounded together; one of which is called civil, the other ecclesiastical government.”
Isaac Backus — An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty, 1773

38. “If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.”
George Washington, letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia, May 1789

39. “The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs.”
Thomas Jefferson — Letter to James Smith, December 8, 1822

40. “The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.”
John Adams, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” 1787-1788

41. “Manufacturers, who listening to the powerful invitations of a better price for their fabrics, or their labor, of greater cheapness of provisions and raw materials, of an exemption from the chief part of the taxes burdens and restraints, which they endure in the old world, of greater personal independence and consequence, under the operation of a more equal government, and of what is far more precious than mere religious toleration–a perfect equality of religious privileges; would probably flock from Europe to the United States to pursue their own trades or professions, if they were once made sensible of the advantages they would enjoy, and were inspired with an assurance of encouragement and employment, will, with difficulty, be induced to transplant themselves, with a view to becoming cultivators of the land.”
Alexander Hamilton: Report on the Subject of Manufacturers December 5, 1791

42. “Knowledge and liberty are so prevalent in this country, that I do not believe that the United States would ever be disposed to establish one religious sect, and lay all others under legal disabilities. But as we know not what may take place hereafter, and any such test would be exceedingly injurious to the rights of free citizens, I cannot think it altogether superfluous to have added a clause, which secures us from the possibility of such oppression.”
Oliver Wolcott, Connecticut Ratifying Convention, 9 January 1788

43. “We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition… In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.”
George Washington — letter to the members of the New Church in Baltimore, January 27, 1793

44. “This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.”
John Adams

45. “Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.”
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

46. “The legislature of the United States shall pass no law on the subject of religion.”
Charles Pinckney, Constitutional Convention, 1787

47. “No religious doctrine shall be established by law.”
Elbridge Gerry, Annals of Congress 1:729-731

48. “Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.”
Founding Father John Adams, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” (1787-88)

49. “Some very worthy persons, who have not had great advantages for information, have objected against that clause in the constitution which provides, that no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. They have been afraid that this clause is unfavorable to religion. But my countrymen, the sole purpose and effect of it is to exclude persecution, and to secure to you the important right of religious
liberty. We are almost the only people in the world, who have a full enjoyment of this important right of human nature. In our country every man has a right to worship God in that way which is most agreeable to his conscience. If he be a good and peaceable person he is liable to no penalties or incapacities on account of his religious sentiments; or in other words, he is not subject to persecution. But in other parts of the world, it has been, and still is, far different. Systems of religious error have been adopted, in times of ignorance. It has been the interest of tyrannical kings, popes, and prelates, to maintain these errors. When the clouds of ignorance began to vanish, and the people grew more enlightened, there was no other way to keep them in error, but to prohibit their altering their religious opinions by severe persecuting laws. In this way persecution became general throughout Europe.”
Oliver Ellsworth, Philip B Kurland and Ralph Lerner (eds.), The Founder’s Constitution, University of Chicago Press, 1987, Vol. 4, p. 638

50. “Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”
James Madison, Ibid, 1785

51. “Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity.”
Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, 1791

52. “It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin. Let us, then, look to the great cause, and endeavor to preserve it in full force. Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.”
James Monroe — First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1817

53. “It is contrary to the principles of reason and justice that any should be compelled to contribute to the maintenance of a church with which their consciences will not permit them to join, and from which they can derive no benefit; for remedy whereof, and that equal liberty as well religious as civil, may be universally extended to all the good people of this commonwealth.”
George Mason, Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776

54. “Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.”
James Madison; Monopolies, Perpetuities, Corporations, Ecclesiastical Endowments

55. “The Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
1797 Treaty of Tripoli signed by Founding Father John Adams

56. “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.”
Founding Father Thomas Jefferson — letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, 1802

57. “I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved– the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!”
John Adams — letter to Thomas Jefferson

58. “Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects.”
James Madison

59. “Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, then that of blindfolded fear.”
Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

60. “In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced, and both by precept and example inculcated on mankind.”
Samuel Adams — The Rights of the Colonists (1771)

61. “Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person’s life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the “wall of separation between church and state,” therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. We have solved … the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.”
Thomas Jefferson — in a speech to the Virginia Baptists, 1808

62. “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.”
James Madison — 1803 letter objecting use of gov. land for churches

63. “I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.”
Founding Father Thomas Jefferson — letter to Elbridge Gerry, January 26, 1799

64. “I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism makes me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not strictly speaking, whether I am one or not.”
Ethan Allen, Revolutionary War Hero — preface, Reason the Only Oracle of Man

65. “Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.”
Thomas Paine

66. “Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.
Thomas Paine

67. “What is it the New Testament teaches us? To believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married; and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.”
Thomas Paine

68. “We do not admit the authority of the church with respect to its pretended infallibility, its manufactured miracles, its setting itself up to forgive sins. It was by propagating that belief and supporting it with fire that she kept up her temporal power.”
Thomas Paine

69. “I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.”
Thomas Paine

70. “The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead is the story of an apparition, such as timid imaginations can always create in vision, and credulity believe. Stories of this kind had been told of the assassination of Julius Caesar.”
Thomas Paine

71. “All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
Thomas Paine

72. “The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion.”
Thomas Paine

73. “I wish it (Christianity) were more productive of good works … I mean real good works … not holy-day keeping, sermon-hearing … or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments despised by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity.”
Benjamin Franklin — Works, Vol. VII, p. 75

74. “Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.”
Benjamin Franklin — in Poor Richard’s Almanac

75. “We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication .”
Thomas Jefferson

76. “No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever.”
Thomas Jefferson — Virginia Act for Religious Freedom

77. “… I am not afraid of priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying and slandering. I have contemplated their order from the Magi of the East to the Saints of the West and I have found no difference of character, but of more or less caution, in proportion to their information or ignorance on whom their interested duperies were to be played off. Their sway in New England is indeed formidable. No mind beyond mediocrity dares there to develop itself.”
Thomas Jefferson — letter to Horatio Spofford, 1816

78. “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
Thomas Jefferson

79. “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”
Thomas Jefferson — letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT “The Complete Jefferson” by Saul K. Padover, pp 518-519

80. “Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.”
Thomas Jefferson — “Notes on Virginia”

81. “On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.” Thomas Jefferson — to Carey, 1816

82. “Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a common censor over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.”
Thomas Jefferson — Notes on Virginia.

83 “Creeds have been the bane of the Christian church … made of Christendom a slaughter-house.”
Thomas Jefferson — to Benjamin Waterhouse, Jun. 26, 1822

84. “There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.”
Thomas Jefferson

85. “I looked around for God’s judgments, but saw no signs of them.”
Ben Franklin

86. “Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies.”
Thomas Paine

87. “It is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told in the New Testament, and the wild and visionary doctrine raised thereon, against which I contend. The story, taking it as it is told, is blasphemously obscene.”
Thomas Paine

88. “Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by the difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be depreciated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.”
George Washington

Planting false memories fairly easy, psychologists find

New study bolsters notion that memory is fragile and aggressive police interrogations don’t always serve justice.

By: Sarah Barmak

Subject: “I remember the two cops. There were two. I know that for sure . . . I have a feeling, like, one was white, and one maybe Hispanic . . . I remember getting in trouble. And I had to like, tell them what I did. And why I did it, and where it happened . . . ”

Interviewer: “You remember yelling?”

Subject: “I feel like she called me a slut. And I got ticked off and threw a rock at her. And the reason why I threw a rock at her was because I couldn't get close to her . . . ”

Interviewer: “So you threw a rock instead?”

Subject: “That was bad. That was bad. Bad scene . . . Oh wow, that’s crazy.”

The person being interviewed is confessing on videotape to a serious crime — throwing a rock so hard at a girl’s head that it left her bleeding and unconscious.

But the assault in this story never happened. The interviewee was the unknowing subject of an experiment showing that innocent people can be led to falsely remember having committed crimes as severe as assault with a weapon.

The new study proves for the first time what psychologists have long suspected: that manipulative questioning tactics used by police can induce false memories — and produce false confessions.

Published in January in the journal Psychological Science by Julia Shaw of Britain’s University of Bedfordshire and Stephen Porter, a forensic psychologist who studies the role of memory in the legal system at the University of British Columbia, the study holds striking implications for the justice system.

“The human mind is very vulnerable to certain tactics in interviews,” Porter told the Star in an interview.

Shaw and Porter recruited 70 students at a Canadian university who had never committed a crime, and told them they’d be taking part in a study about how well people could remember their childhoods. They asked students’ past caregivers for details about a vivid event that had taken place in the students’ lives between ages 11 and 14, such as an accident or an emotional first day at school. Caregivers and students agreed not to communicate about the experiment while it was ongoing.

Researchers questioned the students for three sessions of about 40 minutes each. They asked them to recall two events in their past: the true event and an added false one, both of which they said the caregivers had told them about. The false event was described in as general terms as possible — simply “an assault” or “an incident where you were in contact with the police.”

If subjects said they couldn’t remember the false event, questioners reassured them they would be able to retrieve their “lost memories” if they tried hard enough. If they began to “remember,” experimenters asked for more detail. Do you recall any images? How did you feel? Visualize what it might have been like, they said, and the memory will come back to you.

By the end of the third interview, more than 70 per cent of subjects came to believe they had committed a crime just five or so years in the past. They didn’t merely agree they had done what the experimenters suggested — they generated all the details of the crime themselves, recalling vivid sensory memories and often becoming emotional and guilt-ridden.

Some subjects persisted in believing they were guilty after they had been told the “crime” had been invented. “A few people argued with the experimenter and said, ‘Well no, I know this happened,’ ” says Porter.

Think that’s scary? The psychologists did.

“We ended the study prematurely,” says Porter. Once he and Shaw had interviewed 60 of the students and realized the proportion of them generating false memories was high enough to support their hypothesis, they decided to spare the remaining 10 subjects the unnecessary upheaval.

It’s the stuff of disturbing sci-fi fantasies such as Inception and Blade Runner: planting an idea or memory in another’s mind that’s so convincing, they believe it’s their own. Except it isn’t science fiction — it’s science fact. And instead of fanciful technology, all the psychologists needed to implant a false idea was a room, three hours and some innocent-sounding questions.

A few details make this study different from a police interrogation. Subjects may have been less afraid to admit a crime to psychologists than to police. The hippocampus, the part of the brain that forms memory, also isn’t completely developed between the ages of 11 and 14. And subjects were being questioned about an act committed five years in the past — but police investigations often involve questioning about events that are decades old.

And while manipulative, these tactics pale at what police regularly do — interrogating suspects for far longer, being more confrontational and wearing them down emotionally.

The study is only the latest to show that false memories can be induced, adding to a growing consensus that memory is inherently fragile. Harvard psychologist Daniel Schacter has shown that memory is always in part a construction — a delicate process of rebuilding.

Simply remembering something can leave it slightly changed. Even vivid recollections can get distorted because of the way we recount them to others, our mood or whether we’ve had enough sleep.

While this changeable, plastic model of memory has become standard in psychology and neuroscience, in the justice system, an older, outdated model persists.

“(It’s) the old view that memory works as a videotape,” says Porter. “The ancient Greeks used to talk about the storehouse of memory or the wax tablet of memory. That when we perceive our world around us, those perceptions are in our minds permanently, and it’s just a matter of getting them out.”

The outdated belief that memory is largely infallible supports the use of the Reid police questioning model, an often aggressive technique meant to confirm suspects’ guilt rather than uncover the facts. The American technique, which allows interviewers to lie to suspects, has become standard around the world, including in Canada.

“These manipulative tactics aren’t enhancing legal decision-making,” says Porter. “They’re making it more difficult, if not, in fact, impossible.”

A well-known U.S. exoneration involving a man convicted on the basis of a Reid technique interrogation is that of Texan Chris Ochoa. Ochoa spent 12 years in prison for a murder he did not commit; he was freed when DNA evidence proved his innocence.

Ochoa confessed to the crime after two 12-hour interrogation sessions that led him to conclude he had no hope of evading conviction.

False memories are responsible for countless false convictions and wrongful imprisonments, Porter believes. The Innocence Project in the U.S. has found that in at least 30 per cent of cases where convicts were exonerated by DNA testing, they had made false confessions. Some of those may have been the result of falsely induced memories.

Porter believes both police and the law need an overhaul in the way they treat testimony and confessions. He argues eyewitness testimony is valuable and can be largely accurate if suspects are questioned in ways that help preserve their recall.

Advocates like Brent Snook, professor of psychology at Memorial University in St. John’s, have been trying to change police departments across Canada.

He’s successfully worked with officers at the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, Peel Regional Police and other forces to stop using Reid and adopt the PEACE model, which has been in use for decades in the United Kingdom and has been adopted in Norway and New Zealand. That model demands officers collect more corroborating evidence before questioning suspects, and doesn’t allow threatening or lying. Advocates say it results in stronger cases.

“The message I try to get across to the officers is that memory is like a crime scene,” says Snook. “One of the first things you don’t want to be doing at a crime scene is contaminating it . . . You make sure no one gets in there and starts moving evidence around.”

A separate challenge is changing the court system, says Paul Pearson, a Victoria, B.C. defence lawyer. He says in his 15 years in court, he’s heard clients say they made confessions they no longer believe are true. But that has been a tough sell with judges.

“When we go to court as defence lawyers and try to argue to a judge that we should bring in psychological evidence about the frailty of human memory and false memory syndrome, we’re often met with a great deal of resistance,” he says. “Judges want to be the judges (of whether memories are true).”

There are signs that courts are slowly starting to change, however. Alberta judge Mike Dinkel denounced the Reid technique “in the strongest terms possible” in 2012 for its potential to render false confessions and wrongful imprisonment.

Dinkel made that critique while dismissing aggravated assault charges against daycare owner Christa Lynn Chapple, who had been charged after a child in her care suffered a head injury. Chapple endured an oppressive eight-hour interrogation even though she said at least 24 times she wanted to remain silent, only confessing when her “free will” was broken, said Dinkel.

In the light of Shaw and Porter’s discovery that it takes far less than that to trick someone into a false memory, advocates hope that change will come faster to the justice system.

Who Should Have Access to Your DNA?

A year after the FDA shut down 23andMe’s genetic testing service, personal genomics is coming back. But this time, you should own your own data.

The largest single repository of human genetic data in the world is not at any university, research institute, or pharmaceutical company. It sits on the servers of the consumer genomics company 23andMe and consists of data from 820,000 individuals.

The company was well on its way toward its stated goal of 25 million people’s DNA when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered the company to stop selling its $99 “Personal Genome Service” kit in late 2013. The FDA claimed that its decision would benefit consumers, but instead it challenged the fundamental right of individuals to access their genetic information. The questions around personal medical data are only growing more complicated, as 23andMe’s latest move illustrates.

Deprived of the ability to sell its flagship product, the company quietly shifted its priorities. It still had an extremely valuable asset in the self-reported medical information and genetic data from its users. In the first weeks of 2015 23andMe announced two multimillion-dollar partnerships with Big Pharma: a 3,000-person whole-genome sequencing project with Genentech to discover new drugs for Parkinson’s Disease, and a partnership with Pfizer that grants the company extensive access to 23andMe’s data on multiple conditions, such as inflammatory bowel disease and lupus. The company plans to announce ten more such pharma partnerships this year.

Already there are outcries about the potential for breach of privacy. More than 650,000 23andMe customers had consented to having their DNA used for research, including in studies conducted by pharmaceutical companies. At the time, 23andMe reassured its users that every person’s data would be made anonymous and aggregated with many others, to minimize the chance that anyone’s identity could ever become known. Yet critics are now questioning whether the customers really understood what they had consented to at the time of their saliva kit collection. The pharma industry, after all, does not have the best public image.

Patrick Chung, a 23andMe board member, once called the company “the Google of personalized health care.” That is a bit hyperbolic as a true “Google” medical map would include data from biosensors, medical records, the microbiome, the environment and more, as this diagram shows. Credit: Eric Topol, Individualized Medicine from PreWomb to Tomb, Cell, 157, March 27, 2014

Since its launch in 2007 with a $999 saliva test, the whole saga of 23andMe has been mired in controversy, and the pharmaceutical deals simply represent the latest chapter. But there are much bigger matters to consider. The data from 23andMe represents a first step toward a high-definition medical map of every individual — a digitized human being. It represents a single layer of genetic information, which will be greatly enriched as we progress with whole genome sequencing. We are moving into the big data-per-individual era (with your very own “Google” medical map), and we have not yet established any model for the rightful ownership of all this information.

In the months leading to the FDA’s decision to stop 23andMe’s $99 Personal Genome Service — in which customers received risk data for more than 250 medical conditions and 30 drug interactions, along with ancestry and other information — the company made two significant missteps. First, 23andMe let six months elapse between the company’s communications with FDA — a serious faux pas. Further, it unleashed a very aggressive marketing campaign that included promoting the service on TV and selling the saliva kits on Amazon. Had these disturbing actions not taken place one on top of the other, I am convinced that 23andMe would now have the DNA from millions of individuals.

The FDA shutdown of 23andMe was a visceral response. I say this because countless companies provide DNA information to consumers without succumbing to FDA scrutiny. A company called Myriad Genetics, for example, never received FDA approval for its breast cancer (BRCA) gene sequencing, yet more than a million individuals have made use of it. Neither have the roving “Who’s Your Daddy” trucks, which offer paternity tests on the street.

23andMe had been providing affordable, research-grade DNA testing to consumers for more than 6 years. Just the data on drug-DNA interactions alone represented a distinct bargain, since any one of the 30 assays might cost more than $200 in a hospital lab. Many of these tests are not even commercially available. Even when they are, physicians often don’t bother testing for interactions between a drug and a person’s DNA (which could help a patient avoid side effects or assure efficacy), though considerable data supports the practice.

That a consumer genomics company was shut down for collecting a comparatively trivial amount of genetic data is troubling. The 23andMe Personal Genome Service is just a starter kit for genomics. It only provides data from 1 million of the 3 billion letters, or 0.03% of the genome. We are now in the long-trumpeted era of being able to sequence a whole human genome for $1000. Now that Genentech has access to 23andMe’s data, the biotech giant plans to fully sequence the genomes of 3,000 individuals with Parkinson’s disease and their close relatives—not just the letters of DNA that 23andMe had tackled. In the next few years, several million individuals will undergo whole genome sequencing, making this test far more informative. What happens when whole-genome sequencing becomes eminently affordable and widely available? Are we to rely on physicians, who largely have no grounding in genomics, to actualize the genomic medicine revolution? 23andMe demonstrated a different approach, by helping its users to self-educate. Its site provides ample information for uninitiated consumers and could have served as a model for the next wave of personal genomics companies. Except that the FDA intervened.

Assuming the FDA does not start cracking down on other genetics companies, urgent issues are going to emerge around the ownership of genomic data. The individual should rightfully own such information about oneself, even though, overall, the medical community tends to not believe that consumers are intelligent enough to understand their data, or would have anxiety attacks if they were exposed to it. That doesn’t seem to be the case. In 2011 my collaborators and I published a study of more than 2,000 consumers who got their DNA data back from a company similar to 23andMe (they were research participants for a study we set up with Navigenics, which is no longer operational) in the New England Journal of Medicine. We found that people were eager to get their genomic data and did not panic at all. In fact, for a substantial proportion of the people in our study, the information helped guide them on what types of medical screening tests they should undertake. For example, those individuals with an increased susceptibility for colon cancer finally showed up for their overdue colonoscopy. Indeed, a few patients in our study felt their lives were saved because their colon cancer was diagnosed very early, and the screening procedure would not have been done without the DNA test.

Our DNA is just one component of our medical “Google” map. It has to be democratized, fully accessible and owned by the individuals who want it. Moreover, any company that collects such data has a humungous responsibility to protect the individual’s privacy. So long as 23andMe never lets up on that responsibility, their partnerships with the pharma industry might even accelerate new drug discovery. And that’s what many 23andMe customers who are afflicted with serious conditions want to see happen.

Not Very Uplifting

What responsibility do we have for the things we make?

At its root, this is a fairly straightforward science story. Neuroscience researchers at the University of Rochester and the University of Copenhagen successfully transplanted human glial progenitor cells (hGPCs) into a newborn mouse (here's the technical article in The Journal of Neuroscience, and the lay-friendly version in New Scientist). While glial cells are generally considered a support cell in the brain, positioning, feeding, insulating, and protecting neurons, they also help neurons make synaptic connections. The hGPCs out-competed the mouse glial cells, basically taking over that function in the mouse brain, and -- as had been found in similar research (with adult glial cells) -- the mice demonstrated greater intelligence than their unaltered fellows.

So, mice with grafted human brain support cells are smarter than regular mice. The next phase is testing with rats, which start out even smarter. The researchers insist that there's nothing especially human about these altered mice:

"This does not provide the animals with additional capabilities that could in any way be ascribed or perceived as specifically human," he says. "Rather, the human cells are simply improving the efficiency of the mouse's own neural networks. It's still a mouse." However, the team decided not to try putting human cells into monkeys. "We briefly considered it but decided not to because of all the potential ethical issues," Goldman says.

(...A statement that somewhat undermines his whole "it's still a mouse" argument -- after all, wouldn't it still be a monkey?)

As always, I'm mostly interested in the "what happens next?" question. It's likely that rats with hGPC will show increased intelligence; same with dogs. And just because this set of researchers won't add the hGPC special sauce to monkeys doesn't mean that somebody else won't do it. And maybe even throw in a few neuron precursors for flavor.

But even sticking with hGPCs, the fact remains: we're making these non-human animals demonstrably smarter. We are, in a very limited fashion, uplifting them (to use David Brin's terminology). They will be able to understand the world a bit (or even a lot) better than others of their kind. And at some point, we may well even end up with test subjects significantly smarter than typical and able to demonstrate behaviors unsettlingly close to our own.

What rights should any of these types of uplifted animals have? Do we need to spell out a greater set of rights for the human chimera mice in the news report? Or as we create increasingly more-intelligent-than-typical animals, will there a point at which they could no longer be limited to the rights given to all scientific research animals? At what point would it become a crime to kill them, no matter how humanely or in accordance with ethical standards? It would be easy to draw the line if the uplifted animals exhibit human-like behavior -- complex communication, for example, or the creation of art -- but what about intelligence-boosted animals that exhibit forms of higher intelligence that don't readily map to human-specific behavior but are clearly beyond what a typical animal of that species could do? When do we give them a say in their own lives?

This connects in fairly obvious ways to the ongoing efforts to provide more expansive rights to the Great Apes or Cetaceans, but it's equally an issue for the Magna Cortica project. What it's not is a science fiction question for our distant descendants. This is happening now, and these issues need to be addressed now.

Man Arrested After Trying To Pay Taxes With $1 Bills

By John Vibes

Wichita Falls, Texas – Last week, a man was arrested while he was attempting to pay his property taxes in $1 bills. According to the police report, 27-year-old Timothy Andrew Norris attempted to pay $600 worth of property taxes in intricately folded one dollar bills.

The tax officials refused the payment because it would make their job more difficult. Norris was then asked to leave by a police officer who was at the office.

When Norris refused to leave until they accepted his payment, the officer immediately grabbed him and put him in handcuffs. When he attempted to pull away from the officer, he was thrown to the ground and placed under arrest for criminal trespass and resisting arrest.

The arrest report stated, “The deputy was at the Annex, 600 Scott Street, just after 2 p.m. when Wichita County Tax Assessor-Collector Tommy Smyth asked Timothy Andrew Norris, 27, to leave the tax office. Smyth accused Norris of disrupting the operation and efficiency of the tax office by attempting to pay $600-worth of property taxes with $1 bills. The bills were said to be folded so tightly it “required tax office personnel approximately six minutes to unfold each bill.”

Norris was released on $500 bail over the weekend.

Similar tax and fine protests have been staged by activists in the past, but rarely is there ever an arrest.

Last year we reported on the case of a blogger named “Bacon Moose”, who paid a $137.00 ticket all in ones.

Each of the one dollar bills were meticulously folded into an origami pig and placed into two Dunkin Donut boxes. That protest was even bolder than this one, and Bacon Moose never reported any penalties, and by all reports the state did accept his payment, but after he unfolded them all.

You Could Soon Go To Jail for Protecting Yourself from Bullets: Congress Proposes Body Armor Ban

By Jay Syrmopoulos

Washington, D.C. – A new piece of legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives, H. R. 378, labeled the Responsible Body Armor Possession Act, which if enacted would deprive law abiding citizens of another means of self defense.

The legislation, forwarded by Rep. Mike Honda, would ban citizens from ownership of enhanced body armor, defined as “body armor, including a helmet or shield, the ballistic resistance of which meets or exceeds the ballistic performance of Type III armor, determined using National Institute of Justice Standard-0101.06” in the bill.

Level III and higher body armor can defeat most common rifle ammunition.

The body armor in question has a sole purpose of protecting the wearer from potential serious injury or death from being shot.

If passed, this bill would usurp people’s ability to own a truly defensive form of protection, with penalties for possession/ownership ranging from fines to jail time or both.

In his press release, Rep. Honda states:

“This bill allows law enforcement to respond to active shooting situations more effectively. The bill prohibits the purchase, sale, or possession of military-grade body armor by anyone except certain authorized users, such as first-responders and law enforcement.”

This speaks to the heart of the law enforcement problem in America.

Laws are continually being proposed to solve problems that don’t exist, which is exactly how we have gotten into the current police state mess we find ourselves in.

The reality is America has less major crime than at any point in the last 40 years, and yet we have cops patrolling American streets as if they are in the Korengal or Fallujah, and treating the citizens as such, with absolutely no regard for the Constitution.

Perhaps if Honda put as much effort into disarming the overly militarized police, as attempting to take away law abiding citizens ability to defend themselves from would-be shooters, people wouldn’t have the impetus to wear body armor.

The armor is purely defensive in nature, and people should always have the ability and right to defend themselves against attack.

The right to self-defense is the right from which all other rights are derived. As John Locke stated, self-defense is the first law of nature. Each person owns his or her own life and no other person has a right to take that life, or hinder the preservation thereof.

The Supreme Court has held that the police have no duty to protect citizens, so that responsibility now falls squarely on the shoulders of individuals themselves.

To take away people’s ability to access defensive armor, after telling them that they are on their own and are owed no protection by law enforcement, almost seems like a cruel joke.

Why should a law-abiding American, that takes steps to defend themselves passively, be criminalized?

Interestingly, government employees and personnel who work for the various government agencies, departments, or “political subdivisions” are exempted in the bill.

Additionally, the bill states that citizens who own body armor prior to the bill taking effect, would, in essence be grandfathered in and be treated the same as government personnel.

Where is the sense in government banning something that provides people protection from harm?

The logic of this bill is so askew that it wouldn’t be surprising if perhaps next they will try and pass a bill that outlaws hiding behind things while being shot at.

In a continuation of that logic, law enforcement could use the PR line; “ If you haven’t done anything wrong, why would you need to hide behind anything?”