Police Brutality

<No doubt he was given suspension with pay (read "vacation") when this was let out>

Bertrand Russell on God (1959)

High Court: ‘Sexually Dangerous’ Can Be Kept in Prison

Jesse J. Holland

WASHINGTON (May 17) — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that federal officials can indefinitely hold inmates considered “sexually dangerous” after their prison terms are complete.

The high court reversed a lower court decision that said Congress overstepped its authority in allowing indefinite detentions of considered “sexually dangerous.”

“The statute is a ‘necessary and proper’ means of exercising the federal authority that permits Congress to create federal criminal laws, to punish their violation, to imprison violators, to provide appropriately for those imprisoned and to maintain the security of those who are not imprisoned by who may be affected by the federal imprisonment of others,” said Justice Stephen Breyer, writing the majority opinion.

President George W. Bush in 2006 signed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which authorized the civil commitment of sexually dangerous federal inmates.

The act, named after the son of “America’s Most Wanted” television host John Walsh, was challenged by four men who served prison terms ranging from three to eight years for possession of child pornography or sexual abuse of a minor. Their confinement was supposed to end more than two years ago, but prison officials said there would be a risk of sexually violent conduct or child molestation if they were released.

A fifth man who also was part of the legal challenge was charged with child sex abuse, but declared incompetent to stand trial.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., ruled last year that Congress overstepped its authority when it enacted a law allowing the government to hold indefinitely people who are considered “sexually dangerous.”

But “we conclude that the Constitution grants Congress legislative power sufficient to enact” this law, Breyer said.

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, saying Congress can only pass laws that deal with the federal powers listed in the Constitution.

Nothing in the Constitution “expressly delegates to Congress the power to enact a civil commitment regime for sexually dangerous persons, nor does any other provision in the Constitution vest Congress or the other branches of the federal government with such a power,” Thomas said.

Thomas was joined in part on his dissent by Justice Antonin Scalia.

Chief Justice John Roberts last year granted an administration request to block the release of up to 77 inmates at a federal prison in North Carolina. These were people whose prison terms for sex offenses were ending. The justice’s order was designed to allow time for the high court to consider the administration’s appeal.

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act also establishes a national sex offender registry, increases punishments for some federal crimes against children and strengthens child pornography protections. Those provisions are not being challenged.

State laws allowing civil commitments of sex offenders also are unaffected.

The case is U.S. v. Comstock, 08-1224.

TSA ejects Oceanside man from airport for refusing security check

By Robert J. Hawkins

SAN DIEGO — John Tyner won't be pheasant hunting in South Dakota with his father-in-law any time soon.

Tyner was simultaneously thrown out of San Diego International Airport on Saturday morning for refusing to submit to a security check and threatened with a civil suit and $10,000 fine if he left.

And he got the whole thing on his cell phone. Well, the audio at least.

The 31-year-old Oceanside software programmer was supposed to leave from Lindbergh Field on Saturday morning and until a TSA agent directed him toward one of the recently installed full-body scanners, Tyner seemed to be on his way.

Tyner balked.

He'd been reading about the scanners and didn't like them for a number of reasons, ranging from health concerns to "a huge invasion of privacy." He'd even checked the TSA website which indicated that San Diego did not have the machines, he said in a phone interview Saturday night.

"I was surprised to see them," said Tyner.

He also did something that may seem odd to some, manipulative to others but fortuitous to plenty of others for whom Tyner is becoming something of a folk hero: Tyner turned on his cell phone's video camera and placed it atop the luggage he sent through the x-ray machine.

He may not be the first traveler tossed from an airport for security reasons but he could well be the first to have the whole experience captured on his cell phone.

During the next half-hour, his cell phone recorded Tyner refusing to submit to a full body scan, opting for the traditional metal scanner and a basic "pat down" -- and then refusing to submit to a "groin check" by a TSA security guard.

He even told the guard, "You touch my junk and I'm going to have you arrested."

That threat triggered a code red of sorts as TSA agents, supervisors and eventually the local police gravitated to the spot where the reluctant traveler stood in his stocking feet, his cell phone sitting in the nearby bin (which he wasn't allowed to touch) picking up the audio.

According to TSA at the time the controversial body scanners were installed, travelers would have the option to request walking through the traditional metal detector but that option would be accompanied by a "pat down."

Why Tyner was targeted for a secondary pat down is unknown.

Asked if he thought he looked like a terrorist, Tyner said no. "I'm 6-foot-1, white with short brown hair," he said Saturday night.

Was he singled out for "punishment"?

Before Tyner was told he was getting a "groin check," a TSA agent is heard on the recording telling another agent "I had a problem with the passenger I was patting down. So I backed down. He was obnoxious."

Tyner is sure he was talking about someone else. On the whole, with a single final exception, he found the agents "professional if standoffish."

He did marvel that while his own situation was being deliberated, many passengers passed through the metal detector and on to their flights with no pat-down. "One guy even set off the alarm and they sent him through again without a pat-down," he said.

Once he threatened to have the TSA agent arrested though, events turned surreal.

A supervisor is heard re-explaining the groin check process to Tyner then adding "If you're not comfortable with that, we can escort you back out and you don't have to fly today."

Tyner responded "OK, I don't understand how a sexual assault can be made a condition of my flying."

"This is not considered a sexual assault," replied the supervisor, calmly.

"It would be if you were not the government," said Tyner.

"By buying your ticket you gave up a lot of rights," countered the TSA supervisor.

"I think the government took them away after 9/11," said Tyner.

"OK," came the reply.

More senior TSA administrators showed up, and one San Diego police officer. Tyner's personal information was taken down and then he was escorted out of the security area. After he put his shoes back.

His father-in-law, a 40-year retired deputy sheriff, can be heard pleading in the back ground for some common sense.

Tyner went over to the American Airlines counter where an agent, to his amazement, refunded the price of his non-refundable ticket.

Before he could leave, however, he was again surrounded by TSA employees who told him he couldn't leave the security area. One, who kept insisting he was trying to help Tyner, told him that if he left he would be subject to a civil suit and a $10,000 fine.

Tyner asked if the agents who had escorted him from the security area would also be sued and fined.

The same man who told Tyner he would be sued and fined if he left, also insisted that he did not tell him he couldn't leave.

So Tyner left.

Two hours later he wrote the whole experience up on his blog and posted the audio files to YouTube.

You could say it has gone viral.

By Saturday evening, 70,000 people had accessed the entry and 488 comments were posted to the blog item. Those comments are divided over Tyner's experience. "Only 5 percent say I'm an idiot," he said.

Far more applaud him for "standing up" to the security forces. Many more people share his disdain for how airport security is conducted.

"People generally are angry about what is going on," said Tyner, "but they don't know how to assert their rights....there is a general feeling that TSA is ineffective, out of control, over-reaching."

If Tyner has touched some undercurrent of resentment, he doesn't want to be the guy who leads the charge to overturn the machines. "I'm not so sure I'm the right person to start a movement," he said.

If he isn't, he can sound at times like he's auditioning for the job.

Tyner points out that every terrorist act on an airplane has been halted by passengers. "It's time to stop treating passengers like criminals and start treating them as assets," he said.

Notorious paedophile priest found helping with children

Defrocked Irish cleric Oliver O'Grady discovered running children's parties, volunteering at women's refuge and assisting at Dutch church

DEFROCKED Irish paedophile priest Oliver O'Grady has been living in the Netherlands where he acted as a church deacon assisting mass and helped out at a shelter for vulnerable women and their children, the Sunday Tribune has discovered.

The photograph published here today shows O'Grady, a serial abuser who has served seven years in a US prison for his crimes, watching over a christening at a Rotterdam church where he used his middle name, Francis.

The expatriate community attending the Church of the Holy Heart, Christ Our Redeemer, had no knowledge of the past of the man who called himself "Brother Francis". He also volunteered at a homeless shelter and worked at a fast-food restaurant in Rotterdam where he helped organise children's parties.

O'Grady, whose crimes include the sexual abuse of over 20 boys and girls, including a nine-month-old baby, recently returned to Ireland and is living in a hostel in Dublin city centre.

In an email to one of the Rotterdam parishioners on 30 March 2010, he referred to himself as "Brother Francis", implying that he is affiliated with a religious order.

He worked at the Rotterdam restaurant, part of a global chain, until the end of 2009 and was a regular host of birthday parties there. Prior to this he worked as a telemarketer.

O'Grady is regarded as one the world's most dangerous clerical sex abusers. He has admitted in depositions to the rape, molestation and abuse of over 20 children from 1973 onwards. He was sent to the US after his ordination in 1971 and never served as a priest in Ireland. The 64-year-old was deported to Ireland in 2000 after serving half his 14-year sentence in prison in California for sexually abusing two brothers.

He was defrocked after his conviction and gained notoriety when he agreed to feature in a critically acclaimed documentary discussing his sexual abuse of children. In Deliver Us From Evil, released in 2006, O'Grady tells how he preyed on children and how he was moved from parish to parish by church authorities.

The documentary, which has been broadcast around the world, was aired on national television in Holland two weeks ago. Several parishioners at the Church of the Holy Heart, Christ our Redeemer, recognised him. He had been volunteering at a weekly English language religious service at the church, to facilitate expatriates.

Parishioners told the Sunday Tribune he was acting as a church deacon, helping the priest with the sacraments and organising the choir singing. On one occasion, when the priest was late, the defrocked cleric celebrated the mass until he arrived.

Fr Avin Kunnekkadan, one of the rotating priests at the church, said he was unaware of O'Grady's criminal past.

"I did not know about his background. I did not know about his past at all," he said this weekend. An announcement was made at the church last week informing the congregation about O'Grady's criminal past.

O'Grady also volunteered at the Missionaries of Charity in Rotterdam.

The religious order runs a homeless shelter and there is a refuge for vulnerable mothers and their children at the premises. No one at the charity was available for comment this weekend.

Last week, O'Grady was served with a civil action at his Dublin hostel by Californian attorneys Manly, McGuire & Stewart.

The firm specialises in clerical sex abuse cases and represents several of O'Grady's victims who are taking civil actions against him.

Fr Tom Doyle, a Dominican priest from Virginia in the US who has met some of O'Grady's victims, said O'Grady should never have been permitted to volunteer at the church in Rotterdam and that background checks should have been carried out.

The priest said he believed O'Grady should be institutionalised.

"It's a concern that he was able to help out at the church. The problem with O'Grady is that he's a highly compulsive sex offender and no matter where he is, he's a danger to children. There is no effective way to monitor him other than to make sure he is not in the presence of children."

<Is not his debt to society paid? Is it not better to have him working in the public eye? How does what he is doing now balance against what he did before?>

Oral arguments in violent game case focus on nature of violence

By Ben Kuchera

The oral arguments in the Supreme Court case deciding the fate of a California law that would punish stores selling certain content to children were heard today, and the transcripts are now available online. It sounds like it was a lively day in court, with the Justices grilling both sides.

All in all, it did not go smoothly for the state of California. While there were some arguments about why the states could in fact keep violent games from children, there were more troubling questions raised about how to define deviant violence, why games should be legislated and Bugs Bunny should not, and the danger of all forms of media coming under government scrutiny.

Zackary Morazzini, the supervising deputy attorney general of California, argued that the government should, in fact, have a say in what violent media can be sold to minors. The issue is games that are not just violent, but feature deviant violence. He was then asked if there are any kind of established norms for violence. Of course none exist. He was also asked if fairy tales should be banned, as they also have high levels of violence.

"What's the difference? I mean, if you are supposing a category of violent materials dangerous to children, then how do you cut it off at video games?" Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg asked. "What about films? What about comic books? Grimm's fairy tales? Why are video games special? Or does your principle extend to all deviant, violent material in whatever form?"

Morazzini argued that studies show violent video games are harmful to children. Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed to a study in evidence that showed Bugs Bunny cartoons had the same effect as violent video games and asked if California should ban those as well. Would California begin censoring movies and music if similar studies could be found showing that the media is harmful to children?

The vulcan defense

And then there was this surreal exchange:

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Would a video game that portrayed a Vulcan, as opposed to a human being, maimed and tortured, would that be covered by the act?

MR. MORAZZINI: No, it wouldn't, Your Honor, because the act is only directed towards the range of options that are able to be inflicted on a human being.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: So if the video producer says this is not a human being, it's an android computer simulated person, then all they have to do is put a little artificial feature on the creature and they could sell the video game?

MR. MORAZZINI: Under the act, yes, because California's concern—I think this is one of the reasons that sex and violence are so similar—these are base 12 physical acts we are talking about, Justice Sotomayor. So limiting, narrowing our law here in California, there in California to violence—violent depictions against human beings.

So let's say we have the image of a person being brutally raped in a game. That could lead to huge fines if the game was sold to a minor in California. Slap pointy ears on the character and call it an Elf? Fair game.

The problem is that the law has no strong, clear definition or explanation of what content would be in violation, and could lead to penalties for the person selling it. The Court tried multiple times to get Morazzini to put the law in common language or to explain clearly how he would define deviant content, and he was unable to. He did suggest that for every case a jury should be formed that would judge each piece of content.

"I'm not concerned about the jury judging," Justice Antonin Scalia replied. "I'm concerned about the producer of the games who has to know what he has to do in order to comply with the law... A law that has criminal penalties has to be clear. And how is the manufacturer to know whether a particular violent game is covered or not?" That's the rub—they wouldn't. The content would be judged post-release, after a lawyer raises a complaint, and then, according to Marrazini, the content itself would be put on a sort of trial.

After being asked if California has a panel that judges violence and gives guidance on whether or not it is deviant, Marrazini said it does not. "You should consider creating such a one. You might call it the California office of censorship. It would judge each of these [games] one by one. That would be very nice," Justice Scalia countered.

The other side of the coin

"Let me be clear about exactly what your argument is. Your argument is that there is nothing that a State can do to limit minors' access to the most violent, sadistic, graphic video game that can be developed. That's your argument," Justice Samuel Alito asked lawyer Paul Smith, who argued against the law. After a little bit of hemming and hawing, Smith agreed.

"Mr. Smith, how can you say that? There is plenty of proof children are going into stores and buying these games despite the voluntary rating system, despite the voluntary retailer restraint by some. There is still proof out there, and an abundance of it, that kids are buying the games," Justice Sotomayor responded. In other words, this seems to be a problem that the State can address legally, which is a major point in favor of the California's gaming law.

In another interesting exchange, Justice Ginsberg brought up the FCC's finding that as a governmental organization it could define violence the same way it had sex. "What they did was they spent several years trying to come up with a definition that would allow anybody to figure out which violent TV shows have to be put into this violent adult category and which don't, and they eventually punted and said, we have no idea how to do that," Smith responded. "Congress asked us to do it; we cannot do it; and they punted it back to Congress to try to come up with a definition."

The final report?

The transcript makes for absolutely fascinating reading, and it's worth going over in detail to see how heavily both sides were grilled; the justices made excellent points on both sides of the debate.

What's clear is that no one had a clear definition of deviance, making application of the law problematic, and California's counsel didn't seem to have much of an idea of how that definition would ever be created. The idea of putting artistic expression on trial with experts, video, and a jury is clearly absurd; how much taxpayer money would be spent with people sitting down and judging whether or not certain kinds of violent acts are deviant? Who pays for the content's defense?

The Justices also seemed concerned that California would begin legislating other forms of expression, such as film and music. By Marrazini's own arguments, all it would take would be a few studies showing them to be harmful to children, and then movies would also be put on trial.

Licensed gun-holder loses guns & permits after he and cops lock horns -- twice

By STEPHANIE FARR

John Solomon thinks the police are messing with him. The police think the same thing about John Solomon.

On two afternoons in a row last week, Solomon, 24, was arrested after hanging out at a North Philadelphia bus stop, and each time, the cops confiscated from him a legally owned gun and a separate license to carry a gun, the licensed security guard said yesterday.

"They locked me up for loitering at a bus stop," said Solomon, who has a special concealed-carry permit for security-training officers and one of the controversial gun permits issued by Florida. "And they took my guns away."

Police think that Solomon was being insolent and used poor judgment, including by showing up armed at the same bus stop at which he was arrested the previous day.

"If he's that defiant, should this guy have a gun?" said Sgt. Ray Evers, a police spokesman. "The most uncommon human trait is common sense. He's not using good, adult judgment."

The first day, cops charged Solomon with a summary citation for failure to disperse when he refused to leave the bus stop at Broad Street and Olney Avenue, a "known drug corner," after being asked to do so four times by police, Evers said.

Solomon said that it's the same bus stop he waits at every day and that he allowed four buses to pass by him because it was about 3 p.m. and he didn't feel like riding a bus full of kids leaving school.

He agrees that he refused to leave when asked repeatedly by two beat cops.

"I was mad. I told them you can't lock me up for waiting for a bus," he said. "I'm allowed to miss a bus or two."

Solomon, of Germantown, an independent contractor who works with the Parapet Group, a security and law-enforcement training company, said he was taken into custody and held for seven hours. He said city police confiscated his gun and his Act 235 license, issued by State Police to security-training officers.

Solomon had received that same gun back one week earlier, after petitioning the courts for months to return it. The gun had been confiscated when he was a passenger during a 2009 car stop, he said, adding that he was never charged in that case.

When cops took his gun and Act 235 permit yesterday, they let him keep the Florida license.

Solomon said he never applied for a Pennsylvania permit, and got the Florida permit because he travels often for security work.

Residents in Pennsylvania can get a license through the mail from Florida - even if they have been denied a license here or if theirs has been revoked - because of a reciprocity agreement between Pennsylvania and a handful of other states. Anti-gun activists and politicians have called for the abolition of the so-called Florida gun loophole.

Solomon was one of nine men in an August Daily News story whose legally owned guns were taken by police while they carried a Florida permit or an Act 235.

The day after his first arrest last week, Solomon returned to the same bus stop and began taking pictures of others who were standing around, as he was instructed to do by an attorney he consulted, he said.

"A bunch of other people was loitering, but they [police] didn't say nothing to them," Solomon said.

He said that the same two beat cops approached him and that one of them erased the pictures from his cell phone. He said that one of the cops pocketed his Florida gun permit and that they took another handgun away from him.

"If I'm up there taking pictures, what is wrong with that?" he said. "What was the reason for you taking me in for investigation?"

He was again taken into custody and held for six hours. He said he received a property receipt for his gun, but not his permit. He was not charged with a crime, according to online court records.

Evers said that Solomon has been "evasive and uncooperative" and that police had every right to take his guns and permits.

"The gun has been taken because when you go through the process of arrest, we have the right to take your gun and secure it and you have to fight to get it back," he said. "If the cops tell you to move four times and you don't move, what do you expect?"

Compare...

Compare Orange to Grey, nothing more to say.

Researchers discover how to erase memory

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers working with mice have discovered that by removing a protein from the region of the brain responsible for recalling fear, they can permanently delete traumatic memories. Their report on a molecular means of erasing fear memories in rodents appears this week in Science Express.

“When a traumatic event occurs, it creates a fearful memory that can last a lifetime and have a debilitating effect on a person’s life,” says Richard L. Huganir, Ph.D., professor and director of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. “Our finding describing these molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in that process raises the possibility of manipulating those mechanisms with drugs to enhance behavioral therapy for such conditions as post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Behavioral therapy built around “extinction training” in animal models has proven helpful in easing the depth of the emotional response to traumatic memories, but not in completely removing the memory itself, making relapse common.

Huganir and postdoctoral fellow Roger Clem focused on the nerve circuits in the amygdala, the part of the brain known to underly so-called fear conditioning in people and animals. Using sound to cue fear in mice, they observed that certain cells in the amygdala conducted more current after the mouse was exposed to a loud, sudden tone.

In hopes of understanding the molecular underpinnings of fear memory formation, the team further examined the proteins in the nerve cells of the amygdala before and after exposure to the loud tone. They found temporary increases in the amount of particular proteins — the calcium-permeable AMPARs — within a few hours of fear conditioning that peaked at 24 hours and disappeared 48 hours later.

Because these particular proteins are uniquely unstable and can be removed from nerve cells, the scientists proposed that they might permanently remove fear by combining behavior therapy and protein removal and provide a window of opportunity for treatment. “The idea was to remove these proteins and weaken the connections in the brain created by the trauma, thereby erasing the memory itself,” says Huganir.

In further experiments, they found that removal of these proteins depends on the chemical modification of the GluA1 protein. Mice lacking this chemical modification of GluA1 recovered fear memories induced by loud tones, whereas littermates that still had normal GluA1 protein did not recover the same fear memories. Huganir suggests that drugs designed to control and enhance the removal of calcium-permeable AMPARs may be used to improve memory erasure.

“This may sound like science fiction, the ability to selectively erase memories,” says Huganir. “But this may one day be applicable for the treatment of debilitating fearful memories in people, such as post-traumatic stress syndrome associated with war, rape or other traumatic events.”

This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

More information: Publication: Science, "Calcium-Permeable AMPA Receptor Dynamics Mediate Fear Memory Erasure," by R.L. Clem; R.L. Huganir at Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Baltimore, MD; R.L. Clem; R.L. Huganir at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD. http://www.science … s/recent.dtl

Oregon Man Wins Right to Give Police the Finger

An Oregon man has settled a federal lawsuit over what he says was his First Amendment right to express himself by giving the finger to sheriff's deputies.

The Oregonian reports Robert Ekas settled the suit for $4,000.

In his lawsuit, Ekas said that in July 2007, he flipped off a Clackamas County deputy while driving, and the deputy gave him tickets for illegal lane change and improper display of license plates. Ekas was acquitted on the citations. A month later, he gave the finger to another deputy, who detained him but wrote no tickets.

Ekas alleged he was being harassed.

A story earlier this year in the Portland newspaper brought Ekas national media attention, including an appearance on Comedy Central's "Colbert Report."

County officials say it was cheaper to settle the case than to proceed with defending the suit.

WTF is the controversy in Wakefield

WAKEFIELD - Three little letters are causing a stir in one town. The Wakefield Track and Field team's sweatshirts are the talk of the town.

Why? They have decided to put the initials of their organization on the back. Those initials, WTF, are also a popular vulgar internet colloquialism.

Boosters gave the sweatshirts out to team members last year after the season. The familiar winged-shoe logo was supposed to be on the back, but it's believed that a student had the design changed.

Gregory Hampton-Boyd has one. He tells FOX25’s Sharman Sacchetti that he doesn't believe it's offensive. "It’s kinda funny. It throws people off because they look at it. WTF. It's inappropriate but at the same time it stands for something else."

The school's superintendent, Joan Landers, says she had to ask what the phrase meant, and it's not the way she wanted the student population represented.