Former Narcs Say Drug War is Futile

It's understandable why when many people first see Howard Wooldridge, they might at first think he's a crank.

The slender, mustachioed man of middle-age frequently wears a cowboy hat, and has been known to get around town on a horse. He also wears a black shirt with loud, conspicuous lettering on both the front and back. You'd be forgiven to dismiss him as a religious zealot proclaiming the coming apocalypse, or a disciple of Lyndon Larouche.

But look closer. The shirt reads: "COPS SAY LEGALIZE DRUGS: ASK ME WHY."

And people do.

"I get stopped just about everywhere," he says. "The shirt works. I have several different for different occasions – I can get my point across in 30 seconds in an elevator, a few minutes in a restaurant, or full-blown speech at a Rotary Club."

If he doesn't leave people convinced, he at least leaves them asking the right questions.

So does Norm Stamper, former police chief for the city of Seattle.

"People ask how a former cop could say drugs should be legalized, but it's precisely because I love police and love police work that I'm saying it. The drug war stops real cops from doing real police work. It's corrupting. It's wasteful. And it has wrecked communities."

(LEAP), a relatively new but powerfully motivated group of current and former police officers, judges, prosecutors, and politicians who have come out against America's failed war on drugs.

LEAP was founded in 2002 by Jack Cole, a 26-year veteran of the New Jersey State Police. Cole spent 12 of those years as an undercover narcotics detective. According to his bio, it was his post-retirement struggle with the "emotional residue" left over from his work as a narcotics officer that led him to the realization that the war on drugs has failed.

After forming LEAP, Cole, Wooldridge, and three other founding members hit the public speaking circuit, talking to government classes, Rotary Clubs, and campus organizations. They wrote op-eds for local newspapers, and they debated on radio programs. In just under five years, LEAP now claims more than 6,500 members.

Proponents of drug prohibition tend to dismiss reform groups like NORML or the Drug Policy Alliance as fringe ideologues (politicians seem fond of dismissing the latter group for no other reason than that it gets its funding from George Soros). But when decorated police officers, former police chiefs, and ex-judges and prosecutors speak up, audiences can't help but take notice.

These aren't stoners. They're former public servants, and many risked their lives for a cause they now say is mistaken.

That's powerful stuff. When a guy tells you he regrets what he's done for most of his career -- and what he could well have died for -- his words take on a unique credibility and urgency.

One common characteristic you'll find in many members of LEAP is guilt. Most of these former officers lug around a weighty burden. Many concede they realized early in their careers that the drug war was a failure, and would always be a failure. They regret now that they didn't speak up sooner.

Stamper says in LEAP's promotional video, "Even though I knew that the drug war was harmful financially and psychically and spiritually . . . I should have been saying much more of that, much more strenuously."

One thing LEAP's members can attest to that other drug war critics can't is the drug war's corrupting influence on police officers.

Tony Ryan, one of LEAP's newest member and a well-decorated, 36-year Denver police officer recently wrote in an op-ed, "the huge lure of money is always there, either through bribes by drug dealers, or during busts where piles of money are lying around. Corruption of law enforcement was at its highest during alcohol prohibition and we see it now with drug prohibition."

Any Lexis or Google News search will confirm Ryan's warning about corruption a dozen times over. That's not an indictment of police officers. Rather, it's an indictment of policy that puts police officers in situations where temptation and corruption come begging. But it's still a difficult argument for someone without law enforcement experience to make. Coming from a retired cop – in fact from dozens of them affiliated with LEAP – it becomes impossible for drug war proponents to ignore.

LEAP's message is powerful. I've now heard or seen four of its speakers' presentations. They use tales from the front lines to illustrate their broader points on public policy. Their delivery is authentic and gently persuasive, not didactic. They come from all political stripes, from hippy-ish liberals to live-and-let-live libertarians to law-and-order conservatives, the latter having come to the realization that the drug war consists of bad laws that cause much disorder.

For several years now, LEAP has been looking for a debate with the country's top drug policymakers – anyone from DEA Administrator Karen Tandy to Drug Czar John Walters to powerful prohibition politicians like Indiana Rep. Mark Souder.

So far, they've had little luck. That's too bad. If the drug war is still as important and necessary as our leaders in government say it is, it's champions should be able to defend it--especially against the law enforcement officers they've asked to fight it.

U.S. civilians can face military trials

A last-minute addition to a federal spending bill at the end of the last U.S. Congress now makes civilians eligible for military courts-martial.
With the addition of just five words, the provision sponsored by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., was signed into law by President Bush, and makes civilian government employees and journalists eligible for prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Washington Post reported Monday.
"Right now, you have two different standards for people doing the same job," Graham said. "This will bring uniformity to the commander's ability to control the behavior of people representing our country."
Legal experts say the change will likely raise constitutional challenges, as civilians prosecuted in military court don't receive a grand jury hearing and are tried by members of the military, rather than by a jury of their peers.
Until now, civilians could be tried under the military code only during a declared war, but neither operations in Afghanistan nor Iraq involve such a declaration.

East St. Louis man finds his home demolished

Lewis Hill stands next to his home located in East St. Louis. He says his home was mistakenly demolished.

Lewis Hill couldn't believe it, but there it was: A crane was knocking down his house.

Hill said he bought the home at 1830 St. Clair Ave. in East St. Louis in October and had a lot of work done to make it livable.

While Hill was away recently, a wrecking crew came to the residence and began to knock the three-bedroom, full-basement home to the ground.

This happened despite the efforts of Hill's cousin, Kevin Monk, 28, who lives near Hill's home. Monk saw the wrecking crew come to the home, and told the crew his cousin owned the house. He then called Hill.

"I told them he was on his way and told them, 'Don't tear the house down.' They told me they were going to tear it down and they did," he said.

Monk and Hill both said they believe the house was knocked down for the bricks. It sits between two frame houses that are vacant and in bad shape. The frame houses are still standing.

"They hauled 10 pallets of bricks away every other day. They must have carried about 30 to 40 pallets of bricks," Monk said, shaking his head.

Hill said he did not receive a phone call or a letter informing him the city planned to knock his house down before McKinney Brothers Hauling knocked it down.

An angry, dejected Hill and his cousin James O'Neal have been trying to reach city leaders in hopes of getting answers about why the house he holds the deed to was destroyed. He said all he got was a runaround. He is waiting to see what response he gets from city leaders.

"This should never happen to anyone," O'Neal said. "Can you imagine coming home to find your home torn down?"

Hill and O'Neal tried to talk to council members at the City Council meeting Thursday, but were prevented because they were not listed on the agenda.

City Manager Robert Betts said after the meeting he could not believe proper authorities had not notified Hill of the status of his property. He said if the city was in error, the right thing would be done to correct the error.

Richard Bonner, director of the city's TIF department, which is responsible for the demolition contracts, said department records show the property was listed in the names of J. D. and Annie M. Rencher. He said records show a letter was sent to the house Feb. 6 informing the Renchers the property had been deemed hazardous.

"Nothing was returned to us, and no one came into our office about the property," he said.

Bonner said his office was not made aware of the October sale to Hill by St. Clair County.

He said it's the buyer's responsibility to research the property to see whether it is slated for demolition.

"We advertised for demolition bids for the property in the East St. Louis Monitor from May 4-12," Bonner said.

Demolition coordinator Marcus Johnson said the house, which was torn down in December, was not destroyed because of the dollar value of the bricks. He said the frame houses are still standing because the contractor hasn't had time to get to them.

French court favors personal privacy over piracy searches

PARIS: A French court has ruled that music companies and other copyright holders cannot conduct unrestrained Internet monitoring to find pirates.

The decision, which could leave record companies open to lawsuits in France for invasion of privacy, pits European Union-sanctioned data protection rules against aggressive tracing tactics used by the music and film industry.

"The judge's decision defends the privacy of individuals over the intrusion from record labels," said Aziz Ridouan, president of the Association of Audio Surfers, a group that defends people charged with illegal downloading. "This should send a strong message and hopefully affect every one of the hundreds of people defending themselves."

The case involved an Internet user in the Paris suburb of Bobigny whose internet provider address — a unique computer identifier — was traced while the user was on the peer-to-peer software Shareaza.

"The right-holders found the IP address of my client and reported it to the police," said Olivier Hugot, the defending lawyer, who declined to name his client. "The annulment of the case is important because it has direct impact on the tactics used by record companies in dozens of cases in France."

The organization responsible for tracing down Internet users, the Society of Music Authors, Composers and Publishers, played down the impact of the court decision and said that it would appeal.

"This is just an isolated decision amid the many cases that we have successfully pursued," said Sophie Duhamel, communications director for the organization. "That said, it is not so good to have the decision in the jurisprudence."

The ruling sends a strong message about privacy, said Mathias Moulin, a legal adviser at the French government watchdog that defends privacy on the Internet, the National Commission for Information Technology and Liberty.

"The rights-holders should now understand that they cannot set up a system to identify downloaders on the Internet without proper authorization from us," said Moulin, whose organization has the ability to grant such permission. "It is important to have these protections established by a court."

Invasion of privacy carries fines of up to €300,000, or $395,000, and five years in prison, Moulin added.

While it is up to the individuals to pursue such legal action, one government-supported organization is considering moves against monitors.

"We do not know how many families or individuals were monitored before they chose who to prosecute," said Jean- Pierre Quignaux, a representative of the government-supported National Union of Family Associations. "Given the judge's decision, we are considering action against those invading privacy to catch music downloaders."

French privacy law is based on a directive from the European Commission, but the ruling is not likely have an impact beyond France because of national laws.

FBI Considered "It's A Wonderful Life" Communist Propaganda

I love It's a Wonderful Life because it teaches us that family, friendship, and virtue are the true definitions of wealth.

In 1947, however, the FBI considered this anti-consumerist message as subversive Communist propaganda (read original FBI memo).

According to Professor John Noakes of Franklin and Marshall College, the FBI thought Life smeared American values such as wealth and free enterprise while glorifying anti-American values such as the triumph of the common man.

The FBI specifically detested the way Mr. Potter was portrayed:

The casting of Lionel Barrymore as a "scrooge-type" resulted in the loathsome Mr. Potter becoming the most hated person in the film. According to the official FBI report, "this was a common trick used by the communists."

"What's interesting in the FBI critique is that the Baileys were also bankers," said Noakes. " and what is really going on is a struggle between the big-city banker (Potter) and the small banker (the Baileys). Capra was clearly on side of small capitalism and the FBI was on the side of big capitalism.

The FBI misinterpreted this classic struggle as communist propaganda. I would argue that 'It's a Wonderful Life' is a poignant movie about the transition in the U.S. between small and big capitalism, with Jimmy Stewart personifying the last hope for a small town. It's a lot like the battle between Home Depot and the mom and pop hardware store." Source: Franklin and Marshall College and Delilah Boyd

As you can imagine, Life is more than just a Christmas movie for us here at Wise Bread. Heck, George Bailey's life story is practically the blueprint for our mission statement!

Naturally I want to get to the bottom of this. I don't want to become an anti-consumerist, especially when our Commander in Chief has decreed that it is our duty as Americans to do more shopping.

So I fired up "The Google" and dug up the original FBI report just to make sure Professor Noakes was right. The original document was a bit hard to read so I transcribed it for your reading pleasure (I did this for free, maybe I am a pinko):

To: The Director

D.M. Ladd

COMMUNIST INFILTRATION OF THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY

(RUNNING MEMORANDUM)

There is submitted herewith the running memorandum concerning Communist infiltration of the motion picture industry which has been brought up to date as of May 26, 1947....

With regard to the picture "It's a Wonderful Life", [redacted] stated in substance that the film represented rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a "scrooge-type" so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists.

In addition, [redacted] stated that, in his opinion, this picture deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters. [redacted] related that if he made this picture portraying the banker, he would have shown this individual to have been following the rules as laid down by the State Bank Examiner in connection with making loans. Further, [redacted] stated that the scene wouldn't have "suffered at all" in portraying the banker as a man who was protecting funds put in his care by private individuals and adhering to the rules governing the loan of that money rather than portraying the part as it was shown. In summary, [redacted] stated that it was not necessary to make the banker such a mean character and "I would never have done it that way."

[redacted] recalled that approximately 15 years ago, the picture entitled "The Letter" was made in Russia and was later shown in this country. He recalled that in this Russian picture, an individual who had lost his self-respect as well as that of his friends and neighbors because of drunkenness, was given one last chance to redeem himself by going to the bank to get some money to pay off a debt. The old man was a sympathetic character and was so pleased at his opportunity that he was extremely nervous, inferring he might lose the letter of credit or the money itself. In summary, the old man made the journey of several days duration to the bank and with no mishap until he fell asleep on the homeward journey because of his determination to succeed. On this occasion the package of money dropped out of his pocket. Upon arriving home, the old man was so chagrined he hung himself. The next day someone returned the package of money to his wife saying it had been found. [redacted] draws a parallel of this scene and that of the picture previously discussed, showing that Thomas Mitchell who played the part of the man losing the money in the Capra picture suffered the same consequences as the man in the Russian picture in that Mitchell was too old a man to go out and make money to pay off his debt to the banker.

We can look back at the FBI report with scorn and ridicule. But are we really that much more enlightened today as a society.

We live in an America where romantic love is defined by three-month-salary diamonds and parental affections are expressed through ridiculously-priced video games (don't forget to check out our report on the Wii and PS3 locator, by the way).

Perhaps the FBI was (and still is) correct when it said It's a Wonderful Life did not reflect American values. If you don't believe me, try telling your loved ones tonight that they won't be getting a materialistic gift from you, because your love for them already makes them the "richest man in town!"

Bus passengers get $50 Christmas gifts

A mysterious woman hopped aboard buses, greeted passengers with “Merry Christmas” and handed each an envelope containing a card and a $50 bill before stepping off and repeating the process on another bus.

She did it so quickly that descriptions of the woman varied among surprised Spokane Transit Authority passengers on several North Division routes Thursday.

“She kind of kept her head down. I don’t remember ever seeing this lady before,” said bus driver Max Clemons, who witnessed the woman’s generosity.

“I had a young man in the back of the bus. He looked like he was going to start crying. He said in broken English, ‘She don’t know how much this will mean to me at Christmas,’” Clemons said.

STA spokesman Dan Kolbet said Friday that efforts to identify the gift-giver were unsuccessful. He said it didn’t appear to be part of a marketing gimmick.

The woman gave away enough envelopes to total about $1,000, he said. Each envelope was sealed with a sticker that said: “To a friend from a friend.”

The woman, accompanied by one or two young boys, pulled the envelopes out of a cloth satchel. The buses were pulling away from stops before riders even knew what happened.

Senator to FCC: Don't even think about a broadcast flag

Senator John Sununu (R-NH) has just announced that his office is working on legislation that would prevent the FCC from creating specific technology mandates that have to be followed by consumer electronics manufacturers. What's his target? The broadcast flag.

Television and movie studios have wanted a broadcast flag for years. The flag is a short analog or digital signal embedded into broadcasts that specifies what users can do with the content. It would most often be used to prevent any copying of broadcast material, but there's an obvious problem with the plan: it requires recording devices to pay attention to the flag. Because no consumers wander the aisles at Best Buy thinking, "You know, I would definitely buy this DVD recorder, but only if it supported broadcast flag technology," the industry has asked the federal government to step in and simply require manufacturers to respect the flag.

At first they approached the FCC, and the FCC complied by dutifully trotting out some new broadcast flag regulations. Unfortunately for the content industry, the FCC doesn't generally have the right to tell manufacturers how to build their products. The rules were thrown out by an appeals court in 2005.

Undaunted, the industry tried again in Congress. Last year, when a rewrite to the 1996 Telecommunications Act was being considered, broadcast flag legislation was in fact attached to the bill and even made it through committee before bogging down.

Sununu's bill will attempt to rein in the FCC and prevent it from reviving the broadcast flag without Congressional authorization to do so. "The FCC seems to be under the belief that it should occasionally impose technology mandates," Sununu said in a statement. "These misguided requirements distort the marketplace by forcing industry to adopt agency-blessed solutions rather than allow innovative and competitive approaches to develop. We have seen this happen with the proposed video flag, and interest groups are pushing for an audio flag mandate as well. Whether well-intentioned or not, the FCC has no business interfering in private industry to satisfy select special interests or to impose its own views."

San Franciscans Hurl Their Rage at Parking Patrol

Parking on the streets of San Francisco is growing tougher and more dangerous. Tow trucks carried cars from the Embarcadero last month.

It bears the hallmarks of a classic urban scourge: back-channel sales, assaults on enforcement officials and even death.

As the demand for parking spots grows, the city’s regulations become increasingly complex.

It is the price of parking in San Francisco.

Burdened with one of the densest downtowns in the country and a Californian love for moving vehicles, San Franciscans have been shocked in recent months by crimes related to finding places to park, including an attack in September in which a young man was killed trying to defend a spot he had found.

More recently, the victims have been parking control officers — do not call them meter maids — who suffered four attacks in late November, and two officers went to a hospital.

Over all, 2006 was a dangerous year for those hardy souls handing out tickets here, with 28 attacks, up from 17 in 2005.

All of which has left officials in this otherwise civilized community scrambling to explain, and solve, “parking rage.”

“It’s hard for me to understand people reacting in such a hostile manner,” said Nathaniel P. Ford Sr., executive director of the Municipal Transportation Agency, which oversees parking. “Clearly, this is a working person simply doing their job. I’ve gotten parking tickets, and I sort of slap myself on the wrist and pay the ticket.”

People in the field say abuse is common, often frightening and, occasionally, humiliating. In November, an officer was spat on, another was punched through the window of his Geo Metro, and an irate illegal parker smashed the windshield of another officer’s golf-cart-like vehicle.

“Just driving down the street, you get yelled at,” said Lawanna Preston, staff director for Local 790 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents parking control officers.

The officers are city employees but not in the Police Department.

“They can’t even eat lunch with that uniform on, because people approach them and curse at them,” Ms. Preston said.

About 75 officers demonstrated on Friday at the Hall of Justice asking for more protection.

Psychologists, planners and others familiar with the parking problems say they include underpriced meters and overloaded streets.

Officials have been looking into solutions to prevent attacks, including adding cameras to the officers’ vehicles and pepper spray to their equipment, which now includes a flashlight, a radio and, of course, the ticket pad.

District Attorney Kamala D. Harris said she was considering lobbying the state to increase the penalties for attacking parking officers.

A public service announcement warning against violence against ticket writers is to start appearing on buses this month.

Last month, the police announced the arrest of a second suspect in the killing of Boris Albinder, 19, on Sept. 16 near Golden Gate Park as he tried to save a parking space for a friend by standing in it. The authorities say Mr. Albinder was attacked by a group of men in a van who demanded that he cede the space.

Many local planners say the lack of parking is in part an unfortunate byproduct of the city’s popularity.

“Any city that is worth visiting is going to have a terrible parking problem,” said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, a public policy center. “If you don’t want it to be Disneyland or Houston, you’re going to be experiencing a parking shortage.”

Mr. Metcalf added, however, that the density of San Francisco, with an estimated 740,000 residents in 49 square miles, also put in a different category from New York, which is also known for its parking nightmares.

“It’s too dense for people to drive easily and not dense enough for really great public transit,” he said. “So the result is frustration.”

That opinion was seconded by Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, widely considered something of a parking theory guru. (His fans are called Shoupistas.)

Professor Shoup said the chronic lack of parking here was a result of a decision to encourage a bustling downtown free of atmosphere-killing parking lots, a phenomenon echoed in other parking-challenged — and popular — cities like Boston, Chicago and New York.

“Whenever someone from San Francisco calls to whine about the fact there’s no parking,” he said, “I always say, ‘Well, you have to choose, do you want to be more like San Francisco or more like L.A.?’ And that usually ends the conversation.”

That said, Professor Shoup noted that San Francisco had some questionable parking policies, namely cheap on-street parking and expensive garages and lots, a dynamic that encourages drivers to look endlessly for meters rather than pay for the privilege of parking off the street.

“A lot of the traffic in downtown San Francisco is people looking for curb parking,” he said. “And they’re apparently so fed up that they’re willing to assault parking officers to protest the idea of shortage of spaces.”

That frustration extends all the way to people like George Anderson, president of the American Association of Anger Management Providers, a mental health group, who said the parking problems here were so notorious that he had stopped holding paid lectures here.

“They’d be angry when they walked in,” said Mr. Anderson, a clinical social worker who lives in Los Angeles. “I’d spend half my time defending why I couldn’t include parking in the fee.”

Mr. Anderson said that his anger management patients regularly complained about the road and that not finding parking could be the last straw.

“If you’re driving on a highway,” he said, “you’re already stressed to the max. So that by the time you get to the parking stall, you end up with an inappropriate expression of anger.”

Ms. Preston of the officers’ union said many attackers had another motivation.

“They think they can take out their frustration on government in general” by abusing the officers, who work 40-hour weeks for about $40,000 a year,” she said, adding, “They say, ‘I’m tired of the city taking my money.’ ”

There certainly is money in parking tickets. San Francisco issues 1.9 million parking citations and brings in more than $40 million a year from violators, according to the transportation agency.

The city has a pilot program to scan license plates for 8,000 repeat offenders who owe an estimated $6.1 million. In addition, the city manages 41 lots and garages. It owns most of them.

Nationally, parking is a $20 billion industry, experts say, with revenues divided almost equally between public and private entities.

Private citizens have also gotten into the act, selling or trading spaces on Web sites like Craigslist, where a prime spot can bring in thousands of dollars a year.

Whitney Schmucker, 22, who lives on Nob Hill, has just agreed to pay $280 a month for a spot after advertising herself online. (“Great credit!” was a lure.)

“If you live in San Francisco, it’s not a choice of whether or not you get a parking spot,” Ms. Schmucker said in an e-mail message. “You either get one or you don’t have a car.”

Parking bloggers like John Van Horn, an editor in Los Angeles who compiles thoughts about parking on the Web site parkingtoday.typepad .com said the situation — and the attacks — in San Francisco were not unique but merely a reminder of how crazed Californians can be about all things automotive.

“I’ve noticed lately watching some of the citation writers,” Mr. Van Horn said. “They don’t get very far away from their vehicles. They want to be able to get away.”

Flour in condoms sent her to jail

A College Student Spent 3 Weeks in Jail After a Field Test Said She Was Carrying Drugs. She Filed a Lawsuit.

She was a freshman on an academic scholarship at Bryn Mawr College, preparing to fly home to California for Christmas, sleep-deprived, with questions from a calculus exam still racing through her head.

In the space of a few hours on Dec. 21, 2003, Janet Lee landed in a Philadelphia jail cell, where she would remain for three weeks, held on $500,000 bail and facing 20 years in prison on drug charges.

All over flour found in her luggage.

"I haven't let myself be angry about what happened, because it would tear me apart," Lee said. "I'm not sure I can bear to face it... . I'm amazed at how naive I was."

That naivete, she said, began when screeners at Philadelphia International Airport inspecting her checked luggage found three condoms filled with white powder. Lee laughed and told city police they were filled with flour. It was just part of a phallic gag at a women's college, she told them, a stress-reliever, something to squeeze while studying for exams.

The police didn't find it funny. They told her a field test showed that the powder contained opium and cocaine.

A lab test later proved the substance was flour - and no one now disputes that Lee is innocent, including the prosecutor.

But the case returned to the courts last week as Lee filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against city police. The lawsuit seeks damages for pain and suffering, financial loss, and emotional distress.

Capt. Benjamin Naish, a spokesman for the Police Department, declined to comment, noting that the department rarely comments on litigation. Cathie Abookire, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office, also declined to comment.

Lee's lawsuit seeks to answer a central question: Why did the police field test initially conclude that the white powder contained drugs?

Her lawyers, former prosecutors David Oh and Jeremy Ibrahim, say there are two possibilities: Either the field test was faulty or someone fixed the results.

Ellen Green-Ceisler, who directed the Police Department's Office of Integrity and Accountability from 1997 to 2005, called Lee's case highly unusual. Field tests are rarely wrong.

'Almost Never Happens'

"I've looked at thousands of these cases, and in the context of trained narcotics officers, it almost never happens," she said. "The whole issue will come down to the field test. Was the officer trained? Was the test contaminated?"

Ibrahim said he waited to file the lawsuit until last week, on the eve of the end of the two-year statute of limitations, because Lee needed time to process what happened.

"She was devastated emotionally," Ibrahim said, noting that the event became a minor scandal among her Korean American family and friends. "She lost significant face with this event."

Many records in the case are still confidential, not yet accessible even to Lee's lawyers. What is undisputed is that she was detained at the airport shortly before she was to board a plane to Los Angeles. Court records confirm her arrest and three-week detention on drug charges. Records also confirm why prosecutors dropped the charges.

Lee, who is now a junior comparative-literature major at Bryn Mawr, gave the following account in an interview this week.

Just before she was to board the plane, someone called her name on the public-address system, and she reported to the ticket counter.

An officer told her that she had something in her luggage that shouldn't be there.

"I was like, 'Is it my curling iron? Because it's metal?' He was like, 'No, something else.' "

The officer asked about the white powder in the condoms.

They were filled with flour, she said, and were silly stress-relief contraptions that she had made with classmates as part of a freshman rite of passage in her Main Line dorm.

'It's A Girl Thing'

"I tried to explain that it was a joke, a gag gift for friends. It's a girl thing. I said, 'You squeeze them to reduce stress.' "

Police stared skeptically. They took her to the Southwest Detective Division, where they tested the powder. Lee figured it would be sorted out soon.

"Mostly, I was worried because I had missed my flight, and now I had to make up an excuse to tell my parents."

When the detective returned, he said the powder tested positive for opium. Police returned her to her cell. "I started hyperventilating," Lee recalled. "The detective was very nice, and said he would test again."

The result was the same.

She said that someone came by her cell and read her an arrest warrant, which mentioned amphetamines. Then police fingerprinted and photographed her. She called her father but couldn't quite express herself through her tears and panic.

"A detective gave me a hug because I was crying so hard," she said.

Police put her into a van for the trip to court. She said she overheard talk about "a kilo."

"Up to that point, I still thought it was a joke, that someone was trying to teach me a lesson," she said. "I was telling everyone my story, and no one believed me - except the people locked up inside with me."

Because the amount of powder was so large, Lee faced 20 years in prison. A judge set bail at $500,000. He also mentioned something about cocaine.

"That's when it sunk in that they were serious," she said. "I said, 'I didn't do it. It's flour.' No one listened."

At that point, having just finished her finals, she had been up for four straight days, she said. "I'm the kind of person who can sleep anywhere or eat anything, but I stopped eating and sleeping," she said.

Later, she hit a bit of luck. A prison guard recognized her from a Bryn Mawr volunteer job at Overbrook High School and took pity on her. The guard told Lee that she believed her and that the whole thing was probably racial. The guard got her a trashy romance novel to help kill time.

Lee acted tough to protect herself. She did modern-dance moves to keep limber. Inmates saw this and gossiped: "Everyone thought I knew karate because I'm Asian." She certainly didn't discourage the stereotype.

Inmates saw the high volume of visitors and figured she was important. Again, she did not discourage the notion. She did not tell her cell mates that the visitors were actually volunteers from Catholic churches in Philadelphia who had taken up her cause.

The volunteers helped her hire Oh.

"I believed her story because things just didn't add up," Oh said. For one thing, Oh said, the field tests were odd because they detected the presence of not one drug but three.

"People don't mix drugs like that," Oh said.

First, Oh contacted Bryn Mawr and confirmed that Lee's dorm mates had, in fact, made the condoms together during a pre-exam session they call a "hall tea."

Then, Oh said, he called Assistant District Attorney Charles Ehrlich, who agreed to expedite laboratory tests. Ehrlich also agreed to help seek reduced bail, Oh said. A day after the new test came back and confirmed that the substance was flour, Lee was released.

She flew home first class.

<What kind of test finds THREE drugs when it's flour?>

Deaf student's dog turned away from school

For the second day in a row, officials at W. Tresper Clarke High School prevented a 14-year-old deaf student from bringing his assistance dog to class.

"I feel like they aren't being fair," ninth-grader John Cave of Westbury said Thursday of East Meadow School District officials, who don't believe he needs the dog to attend class. "They act like they're against me because of my dog."

John's parents, Nancy and John Sr., have battled district officials for more than a year over the right of their son to bring a service dog to school.

The Caves believe John and Simba must bond around the clock so that the dog can work most effectively as an assistance dog, trained to alert a deaf child to potential danger, such as fire or smoke alarms and cars.

John has limited hearing with the aid of cochlear implants.

While the Caves believe Simba and John must be together constantly in order to bond, school officials say the family needs approval from the district's committee on special education.

The federal Americans with Disabilities Act says schools and other public facilities must make "reasonable accommodations" for disabled people, said Thomas Dern, associate executive director of YAI/National Institute for People With Disabilities. While the Caves face an uphill battle arguing that John and Simba cannot be separated, the district may be opening itself to a federal discrimination lawsuit, Dern said.

"It's astounding to me that a school district would take this position," he said. "To me, it doesn't sound like the student is asking for an unreasonable accommodation. ... It's not unusual to have guide dogs on buses and trains and other public accommodations."

Superintendent Robert Dillon did not return a call seeking comment.

The district and John's parents should follow due process to resolve the dispute, said Tom Dunn, a spokesman for the state Education Department. "This is a complex situation without an overnight solution," he said.

The war of nerves between the district and the Caves continued Thursday with a display of civil disobedience. One day after school officials called police when John and his mother brought Simba to the school, the boy returned with the dog, along with his twin sister, Jessica, and two friends.

As John's parents stood across the street, about 100 yards from the school, Principal Timothy Voels and Assistant Principal J. Darryl Strabuk held the door open for other students but closed it when John and Simba tried to enter at 7 a.m. Voels told reporters to leave the premises.

At about 7:30 a.m., John, Jessica and Simba walked away from the school after being told the dog was not allowed in school. Nancy Cave said Voels and Strabuk jeopardized her son's health.

"They made him wait in the cold for a half an hour," she said, "which in my mind is child abuse."

She and her husband took Simba home while John returned to school. "He's already missed two days," Nancy Cave said. "He can't miss school."

John and Jessica walked into the building without incident. Voels glanced at them over his right shoulder as they passed. Through it all, Simba was well-behaved, John said.

"He looked up as people walked by, but he stayed," he said. "He's a good boy."

Men face jail for rape if women are 'too drunk' to consent in bed to boost convictions

Men who have sex with drunk women could face a rape charge

Men who have sex with drunken women will be at risk of being convicted of rape under new laws to be considered by ministers.

The legal shake-up would mean a woman would be considered incapable of giving consent to sex if she had been drinking heavily.

Police would be asked to carry out blood and urine tests on a woman who complained of rape to find out how much alcohol is in her body. They would then used "back calculations" to work out how drunk she was at the time of the alleged attack.

A "drink and sex limit" would sweep away the confusion and controversy in the courts surrounding the issue of when a man accused of rape can claim he believed a woman gave her consent to sex.

But it would open the way to prosecutions of husbands or regular boyfriends who have sex with drunken wives or partners as well as fierce arguments over medical evidence and real levels of intoxication of alleged victims.

A consultation document is to be published by the Home Office in the New Year that will lay down the basis for new laws and try to meet Labour's aim of forcing up numbers of rape convictions. At present only one rape accusation in 20 ends in a conviction and ministers are convinced that means rapists are getting away with it.

Almost all disputed rape cases are of "partner", "acquaintance" or "date" rape in which both parties were known to each other before the alleged attack happened.

A rape law making it an offence to have sex with a woman who has reached a set level of drunkeness is to be proposed by the Home Office committee that four years ago recommended the disastrous reclassification of cannabis that made possessing the drug less of a crime.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs is to report next month suggesting the use of medical tests and back calculation.

A study carried out last month for the Association of Chief Police Officers suggested that a women could be expected to show 'marked intoxication levels' after drinking the equivalent of two bottles of wine.

It found that in 120 cases of sexual assault examined by researchers, in 119 cases the woman had been drinking.

But because of "marked time delays between the collection of samples and the incident", alcohol could be detected by tests in only 62, just over half, of the cases. Blood tests can find alcohol in the body 24 hours after drinking and urine tests after 72 hours.

The ACPO research found that in 31 cases alcohol levels at the time of the incident could be estimated by "back-calculating".

It said it was "significant" that 22 cases showed the woman had 200 milligrams of alcohol for every 100 millilitres of blood.

This level is equivalent to eight 175 milliletre pub "standard" glasses of wine, or two and a half times the drink driving limit.

But the ACPO report warned that there are "caveats about the approximate nature of the calculations".

Back calculations usually work on the basis that the body breaks down one unit of alcohol - half a pub standard glass of wine - every hour. However, alcohol breaks up in different bodies at different rates.

The ACPO report said: "If one considers a social drinker, one could expect marked intoxication at levels of 200 milligrams per 100 millilitres and symptoms could include reduced inhibitions, disorientation, impaired judgement and co-ordination, drowsiness, memory loss and, at higher levels, unconsciousness."

The law already suggests that a woman who is asleep or unconscious is less likely to have consented to sex. Since 2003, a man accused of rape has had to show he had "reasonable" grounds for believing a woman consented. Before then, he had only to demonstrate that he believed she had consented.

Solicitor General Mike O'Brien is considering the drink and sex limit among proposals for new rules that could also include fresh guidance for juries on matters of consent and the right for defendants to call experts on rape who would explain to juries how damaging to a victim the offence is.

A Home Office spokesman confirmed yesterday that the Advisory Council has produced a report and added: "The results will be published in the New Year. It will then be for ministers to decide what may be the right policies to take forward."

But criminologist Dr David Green of the Civitas think tank said: "They are trying to introduce scientific certainties where there are no scientific certainties. The pretence that there can be certainty is likely to lead to miscarriages of justice.

"It is much better to leave these things to the good sense of juries to decide." The legal pitfalls around rape and alcohol were powerfully illustrated in a landmark case last year in which a security guard had sex with the 21-year- old woman student while she was lying drunk and unconscious in a corridor outside her flat in a university hall of residence.

Even though the security guard, 20-year-old Ryairi Dougal, was a stranger to the woman, a judge at Swansea Crown Court instructed the jury to bring in a not guilty verdict because she could not remember whether she had given consent.

"Drunken consent is still consent," Mr Justice Roderick Evans told the jury.

Case study: Ryairi Dougal was cleared of rape in a landmark case last year because his alleged victim was too drunk to recall events.

The security guard had sex with the student while she was lying drunk and unconscious in a corridor outside her flat in Aberystwyth University.

The case hinged on whether the 21-year-old he was accused of assaulting had consented to sex.

Swansea Crown Court was told by the woman there was "no way" she would have agreed, but when questioned by the defence, she acknowledged she could not remember anything and therefore could not definitively say if she had consented or not.

Even though 20-year-old Mr Dougal was a stranger to the woman, the judge told the jury to bring in a not guilty verdict because she could not remember whether she had given consent.

World Sex Laws

Sex laws around the world are as diverse as indigenous spices — an acceptable Scandinavian method of grinding genitalia together might get you barbarically executed in another region of the globe.

Globetrotting seducers and seductresses should exercise caution when they indulge in international orifices — flesh in one foreign harbor might be contraband in the next. Be sure to memorize local codes before you frolic with the natives.

Take adultery, for example.

The sophisticated French sport of extra-marital mounting hasn’t quite been embraced yet in Somalia. Five wives who were convicted of humping and harrumphing the Sixth Commandment were publicly stoned to death in 1993 by cheering villagers in this East African nation. The rock-headed primitiveness was even videotaped.

Age-of-consent is another tricky topic. Roman Polanski — who fled the USA as a fugitive to avoid an “unlawful intercourse with a minor” charge after he nestled a 13-year-old nymphet — would not have been prosecuted in a tri-racial choice of nations: Spain, Nigeria, or Japan (where obsession with schoolgirls is bigger than Sumo.) His lover-girl’s vagina would be considered fully adult in these areas. If the Pole contented himself with a 14-year-old romper, his field-of-play would be enormous: Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Croatia, Honduras, Hungary, Russia, and Serbia.

Polanski’s nastiness was in tangling with a Hollywood teen; California has an ancient age-of-consent: 18. The only nations that are more daughter-cautious than this are Egypt, Pakistan (21), and Saudi Arabia, where the law states simply that all women “must be married.”

Nudity laws are also either stripped-down or grossly over-dressed. Le Cap d’Agde in France is an entirely clothing-optional city (population 40,000), thousands of bare buns bake on beaches in Europe, Australia, and Canada, and naturist joggers publicly flap and jiggle in San Francisco’s annual Bay-To-Breakers footrace.

But skin is a carnal crime elsewhere: “unveiled” college girls in Algeria have been shot for exposing their lascivious mouths and chins, and have had acid thrown in their tempting faces. In Iran, women are flogged by “morality patrols” if their lovely hair slips wickedly out of their veils.

Needless to say, Islamic locales are generally ill advised for “sex adventurers.” Here are some highlights, culled from this page:

1. Most Middle Eastern countries recognize the following Islamic law: “After having sexual relations with a lamb, it is a mortal sin to eat its flesh.”

2. In Lebanon, men are legally allowed to have sex with animals, but the animals must be female. Having sexual relations with a male animal is punishable by death.

3. In Bahrain, a male doctor may legally examine a woman’s genitals, but is forbidden from looking directly at them during the examination. He may only see their reflection in a mirror.

4. Muslims are banned from looking at the genitals of a corpse. This also applies to undertakers; the sex organs of the deceased must be covered with a brick or piece of wood at all times.

5. The penalty for masturbation in Indonesia is decapitation.

Rape laws ’round the planet are also perplexing — the ugliest legislation exists in Latin American Catholic countries that exempt rapists from prosecution if they marry the victim. (Many raped women are pressured to wed their attackers because they’re seen as “shamed” and “unmarriageable” after they’ve been penetrated.) In 1997, Peru repealed this rape-escape clause, but it smarmily lingers on in the skewed court books of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, The Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and Paraguay.

On a cheerier note, it’s entertaining to observe the silly USA city laws. Newcastle, Wyoming bans sex inside a store’s meat freezer, and Tremonton, Utah has outlawed intercourse in ambulances — neither would I pick as a hot spot. In Connorsville, Wisconsin, it’s illegal for a man to shoot off his gun when his female partner has an orgasm, and in Willowdale, Oregon, a man can’t curse during sex. Both measures curb celebration, in my opinion.

Most repressive, though, is the Alexandria, Minnesota edict that says a man can’t make love to his wife if he’s got the stench of garlic, onions, or sardines on his breath — if his wife demands it, he is legally forced to brush his teeth first.

Plan would create '.xxx' Web porn domain

NEW YORK - The Internet's key oversight agency has revived a proposal it earlier rejected to create an online red-light district, after adding stronger provisions to prohibit child pornography and require labeling of Web sites with sexually explicit materials.

The use of the proposed ".xxx" domain name would remain voluntary, but any porn sites that choose to use it instead of the more popular ".com" would be subject to the new terms issued late Friday by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

The idea of a separate ".xxx" domain has generated significant opposition from conservative groups and even some pornography Web sites.

But ICANN officials said they initially rejected the proposal in May not because of the opposition but because of concerns that the agency might be put in a difficult position of having to enforce all of the world's laws governing pornography. They noted that various nations' speech-related laws sometimes conflict with one another.

The new proposal does not directly address any potential conflicts in laws, but it calls for the company backing it, ICM Registry Inc. of Jupiter, Fla., to hire independent organizations to monitor porn sites' compliance with the new rules.

ICANN, the agency in Marina del Rey, Calif., designated by the U.S. government to oversee domain name policies, opened the proposal to public comment but did not indicate when it would rule.

If approved, ICM would be required to help develop mechanisms for promoting child safety and preventing child pornography, "including practices that appeal to pedophiles or suggest the presence of child pornography on the site."

Porn sites would have to participate in a self-descriptive labeling system, likely one from the Internet Content Rating Association. Under it, Web sites add tags based on such criteria as the presence of nudity and whether it is in an artistic or educational context, such as for sites on breast feeding. Relatively few sites now participate, although major Web browsers have mechanisms for reading the tags.

ICM also would have to develop automated tools to check for compliance and give users ways to report violations.

ICM believes the domain would help the $12 billion online porn industry clean up its act, as those using it must abide by rules designed to bar such trickery as spamming and malicious scripts.

Anti-porn advocates, however, countered that sites would be free to keep their current ".com" address, in effect making porn more easily accessible by creating yet another channel to house it.

Many porn sites also objected, fearing that an ".xxx' domain would pave the way for governments or even private industry to filter speech that is protected in the United States by the First Amendment.

NYC Addresses Complaints Over School Cell Ban By Charging Students To Store Them

Several years ago, the New York City school district decided to solve the problem of in-class cellphone use by banning the devices in schools completely, which as you might expect -- hasn't gone over very well with text-happy students. Teachers enjoyed having the devices out of the classroom, while parents were annoyed that they couldn't reach their children in emergencies. In a feeble effort to appease parents, officials have now come up with an even dumber proposal: charging students to store their cellphones in lockers outside school entrances, despite a lack of funds or room for new lockers. The idea being kids could at least communicate with mom and pop on the way to school, and during off-campus breaks. Parents don't like this either -- and argue that the school shouldn't profit off a bad idea, and that it discriminates against poor students who can't pay the rental fee. One solution would be the legalization of short-range jammers for use in schools, though that would impede teacher and legit wireless communications, and as we've discussed, the more pervasive jamming technologies are (in theaters, hotels, schools, etc.), the more collateral communications issues will surface. Perhaps Mayor Bloomberg should start building giant faraday cages anywhere cellphones aren't wanted, or line school walls with signal absorbing magnetic wood. If cost is such an issue for many school districts, it's still not entirely clear why confiscating phones from disruptive students is such an unworkable solution.

<Perhaps because they'd rather ignore the actual problem and come up with a capitalist bullshit solution to the most visible symptom which is overbroad and unnecessary?>

70 Million More Guns…38% Less Violent Crime

Data released by the FBI on Monday showed that in 2005, the nation’s total violent crime rate was 38% lower than in 1991, when violent crime hit an all-time high. Rates of the individual categories of violent crime were also much lower in 2005 than in 1991. Murder was 43% lower, rape 25% lower, robbery 48% lower, and aggravated assault 33% lower. The FBI’s report came on the heels of a Bureau of Justice Statistics crime survey that found that violent crime was lower in 2005 than anytime in the survey’s 32-year history.

Defying the anti-gunners’ claim that more guns means more crime, from 1991-2005 the number of privately owned guns increased by more than 70 million.

The news media often characterize violent crime as a primarily gun-oriented problem, but the FBI’s report showed that only one in every four violent crimes in 2005 was committed with a gun. In 2005, as in previous years, most violent crimes were robberies and aggravated assaults, most of which were committed with knives or bare hands.

Recently, anti-gun politicians and activists have intensified their rhetoric over the “lack” of bans on handguns, so-called “assault weapons”, and .50-caliber rifles; gun registration, gun owner licensing, and mandatory background checks on sales of guns between friends and family members; and limits on the frequency of gun purchases, all of which they say are necessary to reduce the nation’s murder rate. But for the last seven years, the murder rate has been steady¾in the 5.5-5.7 per 100,000 population range¾at all times lower than anytime since the mid-1960s. In 2005, for example, the murder rate was 5.6.

Naturally, anti-gunners will downplay the downward trend in violent crime since 1991, and focus on the fact that the FBI’s report showed a 1% increase in total violent crime, and a 2% increase in murder in 2005, compared to 2004. But those changes are miniscule, compared to the huge decrease in crime over the last 14 years.

The FBI’s report once again confirmed that violent crime rates are lower in states with Right-to-Carry (RTC) laws. In 2005, RTC states had, on average, 22% lower total violent crime, 30% less murder, 46% lower robbery, and 12% lower aggravated assault rates, compared to the rest of the country.

As usual, Washington, D.C., which leads the nation in anti-gun laws, led the nation in murder, with a rate six times higher than the rest of the country. Neighboring Maryland, where gun control advocates have been particularly active recently, once again had the highest robbery rate among the states, but also tied for the unenviable distinction of “first place” in murder among the states. However, despite Maryland’s high crime counts, CeaseFire Maryland, the local Brady Campaign affiliate that recently released a paper demanding an “assault weapon” ban, was unable to point to any crimes in the state involving such a gun.

The FBI’s report must have displeased New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg (R). Despite the mayor’s recent posturing on the gun issue, and his self-laudatory comments about fighting crime, the Big Apple’s murder rate was more than double that of the rest of the state. Similarly, in Philadelphia, where anti-gun politicians are calling for a statewide one-gun-a-month law, the murder rate was more than seven times higher than the rest of Pennsylvania.

Adding to the reasons why voters should “Dump Doyle” in Wisconsin’s upcoming gubernatorial election, their state had the greatest total violent crime rate increase (15.1%) between 2004-2005. Murder was up 25.2%; robbery up 11.2%; and aggravated assault up 20.2%. Wisconsin is one of only two states that prohibits Right-to-Carry entirely, but in 2005, 11 of the 12 states that had the greatest decreases in total violent crime, and 12 of the 14 states with the greatest decreases in murder were Right-to-Carry states. The seven states with the lowest total violent crime rates in 2005, and 11 of the 12 states that had the lowest murder rates, were Right-to-Carry states.

Last, but not least, is good news from Florida, the state that during the last 20 years has been most often attacked by anti-gunners, for (among other reasons) setting the Right-to-Carry and “Castle Doctrine” movements in motion. In 2005, Florida recorded a murder rate 13% lower than the rate for the rest of the country (4.96 per 100,000, vs. 5.67 for the rest of the country). For the record, Florida’s 2005 murder rate was 58% lower than it was in 1986, the last year before the state’s landmark Right-to-Carry law took effect.

Conscientious Rejector?

First Lieutenant Ehren Watada still refuses Iraq deployment orders, calling the war illegal. A six-year prison term could result. Preliminary hearings are set for Thursday.

First Lt. Ehren Watada, a 28-year-old Hawaii native, is the first commissioned officer in the U.S. to publicly refuse deployment to

Iraq

" type="hidden"> SEARCH
News | | Images | Web

" type="hidden">

Iraq. He announced last June his decision not to deploy on the grounds the war is illegal.

Lt. Watada was based at Fort Lewis, Washington, with the Army's 3rd (Stryker) Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. He has remained on base, thus avoiding charges of desertion.

He does, however, face one count of "missing troop movement" and four counts of "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman." If convicted, he faces up to six years in prison.

First Lt. Ehren Watada
Photo courtesy:
Jeff Paterson/thankyoult.org

Watada's court martial is on February 5. A pre-trial hearing is set for January 4, with an added scope of controversy: the Army has ordered two freelance journalists, Sarah Olson and Dahr Jamail, to testify against Lt. Watada at the hearing. Both journalists are fighting the subpoenas.

Kevin Sites recently spoke with Lt. Watada about the reasoning behind his decision, the controversy the decision has caused and how he is dealing with the repercussions.

Lt. Watada spoke on the phone from his family's home in Hawaii. Click here to listen to the full audio version of the conversation. A transcript of the interview follows.

KEVIN SITES: Now, you joined the Army right after the US was invading Iraq and now you're refusing to go. Some critics might look at this as somewhat disingenuous. You've taken an oath, received training but now you won't fight. Can you explain your rationale behind this?

EHREN WATADA: Sure. I think that in March of 2003 when I joined up, I, like many Americans, believed the administration when they said the threat from Iraq was imminent — that there were weapons of mass destruction all throughout Iraq; that there were stockpiles of it; and because of

Saddam Hussein

" type="hidden"> SEARCH
News | | Images | Web

" type="hidden">

Saddam Hussein's ties to al-Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorist acts, the threat was imminent and we needed to invade that country immediately in order to neutralize that threat.

Since then I think I, as many, many Americans are realizing, that those justifications were intentionally falsified in order to fit a policy established long before 9/11 of just toppling the Saddam Hussein regime and setting up an American presence in Iraq.

SITES: Tell me how those views evolved. How did you come to that conclusion?

WATADA: I think the facts are out there, they're not difficult to find, they just take a little bit of willingness and interest on behalf of anyone who is willing to seek out the truth and find the facts. All of it is in the mainstream media. But it is quickly buried and it is quickly hidden by other events that come and go. And all it takes is a little bit of logical reasoning. The Iraq Survey Group came out and said there were no weapons of mass destruction after 1991 and during 2003. The 9/11 Commission came out and said there were no ties with Iraq to 9/11 or al-Qaeda. The president himself came out and said that nobody in his administration ever suggested that there was a link.

And yet those ties to al-Qaeda and the weapons of mass destruction were strongly suggested. They said there was no doubt there were weapons of mass destruction all throughout 2002, 2003 and even 2004. So, they came out and they say this, and yet they say it was bad intelligence, not manipulated intelligence, that was the problem. And then you have veteran members of the

CIA

" type="hidden"> SEARCH
News | | Images | Web

" type="hidden">

CIA that come out and say, "No. It was manipulated intelligence. We told them there was no WMD. We told them there were no ties to al-Qaeda. And they said that that's not what they wanted to hear."

SITES: Do you think that you could have determined some of this information prior to joining the military — if a lot of it, as you say, was out there? There were questions going into the war whether WMD existed or not, and you seemingly accepted the administration's explanation for that. Why did you do that at that point?

WATADA: Certainly yeah, there was other information out there that I could have sought out. But I put my trust in our leaders in government.

SITES: Was there a turning point for you when you actually decided that this was definitely an illegal war?

WATADA: Certainly. I think that when we take an oath we, as soldiers and officers, swear to protect the constitution — with our lives as necessary — and those constitutional values and laws that make us free and make us a democracy. And when we have one branch of government that intentionally deceives another branch of government in order to authorize war, and intentionally deceives the people in order to gain that public support, that is a grave breach of our constitutional values, our laws, our checks and balances, and separation of power.

SITES: But Lieutenant, was there one specific incident that happened in Iraq or that the administration had said or done at a certain period that [made you say] "I have to examine this more closely"?

WATADA: No, I think that certainly as the war went on, and it was not going well, doubts came up in my mind, but at that point I still was willing to go. At one point I even volunteered to go to Iraq with any unit that was short of junior officers.

SITES: At what point was that?

WATADA: This was in September of 2005. But as soon as I found out, and as I began to read and research more and more that the administration had intentionally deceived the public and Congress over the reasons for going to Iraq, that's when I told myself "there's something wrong here."

"I saw the pain and agony etched upon the faces of all these families of lost soldiers. And I told myself that this needs to stop."— Lt. Ehren Watada

SITES: Was there any kind of personal conviction as well, I mean in terms of exposure to returning soldiers or Marines — the kinds of wounds they suffered, the kinds of stories that they were bringing back with them — did that have any kind of influence or create any factors for you in coming to this decision?

WATADA: Sure, I felt, well, in a general sense I felt that when we put our trust in the government, when we put our lives in their hands, that is a huge responsibility. And we also say that "when we put our lives in your hands, we ask that you not abuse that trust; that you not take us to war over flimsy or false reasons; that you take us to war when it is absolutely necessary." Because we have so much to lose, you know — the soldiers, our lives, our limbs, our minds and our families — that the government and the people owe that to us.

SITES: Was there a fear that played into that? Did you see returning soldiers with lost limbs? Was there a concern for you that you might lose your life going to Iraq?

WATADA: No, that had nothing to do with the issue. The issue here is that we have thousands of soldiers returning. And what is their sacrifice for? For terrorism or establishing democracy or whatever the other reasons are. And I saw the pain and agony etched upon the faces of all these families of lost soldiers. And I told myself that this needs to stop. We cannot have people in power that are irresponsible and corrupt and that keep on going that way because they're not held accountable to the people.

SITES: You know on that note, Lieutenant, let me read you something from a speech that you gave in August to the Veterans for Peace. You had said at one point, "Many have said this about the World Trade Towers: never again. I agree, never again will we allow those who threaten our way of life to reign free. Be they terrorists or elected officials. The time to fight back is now, the time to stand up and be counted is today." Who were you speaking about when you said that?

WATADA: I was speaking about everybody. The American people. That we all have that duty, that obligation, that responsibility to do something when we see our government perpetrating a crime upon the world, or even upon us. And I think that the American people have lost that, that sense of duty. There is no self-interest in this war for the vast majority of the American people. And because of that the American soldiers have suffered.

There really is a detachment from this war, and many of the American people, because there is no draft, or for whatever reason, because taxes haven't been raised, they don't have anything personally to lose or gain with this war, and so they take little interest.

SITES: Do you think

President Bush

" type="hidden"> SEARCH
News | | Images | Web

" type="hidden">

President Bush and his advisers are guilty of criminal conduct in the prosecution of this war?

WATADA: That's not something for me to determine. I think it's for the newly-elected congress to determine during the investigations that they should hold over this war, and pre-war intelligence.

SITES: But in some ways you have determined that. You're saying this is an illegal war, and an illegal act usually takes prosecution by someone with criminal intent. Is that correct?

WATADA: Right, and they have taken me to court with that, but they have refused — or it will be very unlikely that the prosecution in the military court will allow me to bring in evidence and witnesses to testify on my behalf that the war is illegal. So therefore it becomes the responsibility of Congress, since the military is refusing to do that. It becomes the responsibility of Congress to hold our elected leaders accountable.

SITES: Now this is the same Congress though that in a lot of ways voted for this war initially. Do you think that they're going to turn around and in some ways say that they were wrong? And hold hearings to determine exactly that, that they made a mistake as well? It seems like a long shot.

WATADA: Right, well I think some in Congress are willing to do that, and some aren't. And that's the struggle, and that's the fight that's going to occur over the next year.

Lt. Watada with his mother, Carolyn
Ho, and father, Robert Watada
Photo courtesy:
Jeff Paterson/thankyoult.org

SITES: Let me ask you why you decided to go to the press with this. In this particular case you're the first officer — there may have been other officers that have refused these orders, but you're the first one to really do this publicly. Why did you do that?

WATADA: Because I wanted to explain to the American people why I was taking the stand I was taking — that it wasn't for selfish reasons, it wasn't for cowardly reasons.

You know, I think the most important reason here is to raise awareness among the American people that hey — there's a war going on, and American soldiers are dying every day. Hundreds of Iraqis are dying every day. You need to take interest, and ask yourself where you stand, and what you're willing to do, to end this war, if you do believe that it's wrong — that it's illegal, and immoral. And I think I have accomplished that. Many, many people come up to me and say, "because of you, I have taken an active interest in what's going on over in Iraq."

And also, you know, [I want to] give a little hope and inspiration back to a lot of people. For a long time I was really without hope, thinking that there was nothing I could do about something that I saw, that was so wrong, and so tragic. And I think a lot of people who have been trying to end this war felt the same way — that there was just nothing that they could do. And I think by taking my stand publicly, and stating my beliefs and standing on those beliefs, a lot of people have taken encouragement from that.

SITES: You've said that you had a responsibility to your own conscience in this particular situation. Did you also have a responsibility to your unit as well? I just want to read you a quote from Veterans of Foreign Wars communications director Jerry Newbury. He said "[Lt. Watada] has an obligation to fulfill, and it's not up to the individual officer to decide when he's going to deploy or not deploy. Some other officer will have to go in his place. He needs to think about that." Can you react to that quote?

WATADA: You know, what I'm doing is for the soldiers. I'm trying to end something that is criminal, something that should not have been started in the first place and something that is making America less safe — and that is the Iraq war. By just going there and being willing to participate, and doing my job, or whatever I'm told to do — which actually exacerbates the situation and makes it worse — I would not be serving the best interest of this country, nor the soldiers that I'm serving with. What I'm trying to do is end something, as I said, that's illegal, and immoral, so that all the soldiers can come home and this tragedy can come to an end.

It seems like people and critics make this distinction between an order to deploy and any other order, as if the order to deploy is just something that's beyond any other order. Orders have to be determined on whether they're legal or not. And if the order to deploy to a war that is unlawful, if that is given, then that order itself is unlawful.

SITES: How did your peers and your fellow officers react to your decision?

WATADA: I know that there have been some people within the military who won't agree with my stance, and there have been a lot of members of the Army of all ranks who have agreed with what I've done. And I see it almost every other day, where someone in uniform, or a dependent, approaches me in person, or through correspondence, and thanks me for what I have done, and either supports or respects my stand.

SITES: You've remained on base, and that's been a situation that can't be too comfortable for you. Can you fill us in on what that's been like there?

WATADA: I think that for the most part, people that I interact with closely — I have been moved, I'm no longer in the 3rd Striker Brigade, I'm over in 1st Corps — treat me professionally, politely, but keep their distance. I don't think anybody wants to get involved with the position that I've taken, either way. People approach me in private and give me their support.

SITES: Tell me about the repercussions you face in this court martial.

WATADA: Well I think with the charges that have been applied to me and referred over to a general court martial, I'm facing six years maximum confinement, dishonorable discharge from the army, and loss of all pay and allowances.

STES: Are you ready to deal with all those consequences with this decision?

WATADA: Sure, and I think that's the decision that I made almost a year ago, in January, when I submitted my original letter of resignation. I knew that possibly some of the things that I stated in that letter, including my own beliefs, that there were repercussions from that. Yet I felt it was a sacrifice, and it was a necessary sacrifice, to make. And I feel the same today.

I think that there are many supporters out there who feel that I should not be made an example of, that I'm speaking out for what a lot of Americans are increasingly becoming aware of: that the war is illegal and immoral and it must be stopped. And that the military should not make an example or punish me severely for that.

SITES: Do you think that you made a mistake in joining the military? Your mother and father support you in this decision, and your father during the Vietnam War refused to go to Vietnam as well, but instead joined the Peace Corps. He went to his draft board and said, "let me join the Peace Corps and serve in Peru," which is what he did. Do you think in hindsight that that might have been a better decision for you as well?

WATADA: You know I think that John Murtha came out a few months ago in an interview and he was asked if, with all his experience, in Korea, and Vietnam, volunteering for those wars -- he was asked if he would join the military today. And he said absolutely not. And I think that with the knowledge that I have now, I agree. I would not join the military because I would be forced into a position where I would be ordered to do something that is wrong. It is illegal and immoral. And I would be put into a situation as a soldier to be abused and misused by those in power.

STIES: In your speech in front of the Veterans for Peace you said "the oath we take as soldiers swears allegiance not to one man but to a document of principles and laws designed to protect the people." Can you expand upon that a little bit — what did you mean when you said that?

WATADA: The constitution was established, and our laws are established, to protect human rights, to protect equal rights and constitutional civil liberties. And I think we have people in power who say that those laws, or those principles, do not apply to them — that they are above the law and can do whatever it takes to manipulate or create laws that enable them to do whatever they please. And that is a danger in our country, and I think the war in Iraq is just one symptom of this agenda. And I think as soldiers, as American people, we need to recognize this, and we need to put a stop to it before it's too late.

'Ashley X', pictured last month aged nine, will never be taller than 4'5'' or weigh more than 75lb

'Ashley X', pictured last month aged nine, will never be taller than 4'5'' or weigh more than 75lb

Her name is Ashley X, and she is the little girl who will never grow up.

Until New Year’s Day, not even her first name was known. Ashley was a faceless case study, cited in a paper by two doctors at Seattle Children’s Hospital as they outlined a treatment so radical that it brought with it allegations of “eugenics”, of creating a 21st-century Frankenstein’s monster, of maiming a child for the sake of convenience.

The reason for the controversy is this: three years ago, when Ashley began to display early signs of puberty, her parents instructed doctors to remove her uterus, appendix and still-forming breasts, then treat her with high doses of oestrogen to stunt her growth.

In other words, Ashley was sterilised and frozen in time, for ever to remain a child. She was only 6.

Ashley, the daughter of two professionals in the Seattle area, never had much hope of a normal life.

Afflicted with a severe brain impairment known as static encephalopathy, she cannot walk, talk, keep her head up in bed or even swallow food. Her parents argued that “keeping her small” was the best way to improve the quality of her life, not to make life more convenient for them.

Because of her small size, the parents say, Ashley will receive more care from people who will be able to carry her: “Ashley will be moved and taken on trips more frequently and will have more exposure to activities and social gatherings ... instead of lying down in her bed staring at TV all day long.”

By remaining a child, they say, Ashley will have a better chance of avoiding everything from bed sores to pneumonia — and the removal of her uterus means that she will never have a menstrual cycle or risk developing uterine cancer.

Because Ashley was expected to have a large chest size, her parents say that removing her breast buds, including the milk glands (while keeping the nipples intact), will save her further discomfort while avoiding fibrocystic growth and breast cancer.

They also feared that large breasts could put Ashley at risk of sexual assault.

The case was approved by the hospital’s ethics committee in 2004, which agreed that because Ashley could never reproduce voluntarily she was not being subjected to forced sterilisation, a form of racial cleansing promoted in the 1920s and known as eugenics (it was satirised in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby). However, the case of Ashley X was not made public, and, as a result, no legal challenges were ever made.

Ashley’s doctors, Daniel Gunther and Douglas Diekema, wrote in their paper for the October issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine that the treatment would “remove one of the major obstacles to family care and might extend the time that parents with the ability, resources and inclination to care for their child at home might be able to do so”.

The paper inspired hundreds of postings on the internet: many supportive, others furious. “I find this offensive if not perverse,” read one. “Truly a milestone in our convenience-minded society.”

It was the critical comments that finally provoked Ashley’s father to respond.

While remaining anonymous, he posted a remarkable 9,000-word blog entry at 11pm on New Year’s Day, justifying his decision.

Beliefwatch: Blasphemy

Jan. 8, 2006 issue - With that five-second submission to YouTube, a 24-year-old who uses the name "menotsimple" has either condemned herself to an eternity of punishment in the afterlife or struck a courageous blow against superstition. She's one of more than 400 mostly young people who have joined a campaign by the Web site BlasphemyChallenge.com to stake their souls against the existence of God. That, of course, is the ultimate no-win wager, as the 17th-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal calculated—it can't be settled until you're dead, and if you lose, you go to hell.

The Blasphemy Challenge is a joint project of filmmaker Brian Flemming, director of the antireligion documentary "The God Who Wasn't There," and Brian Sapient, cofounder of the atheist Web site RationalResponders.com. Their intent was to encourage atheists to come forward and put their souls on the line, showing others that you don't have to be afraid of God. The particular form of the challenge was chosen because, by one interpretation, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, a part of the Christian Trinity, is the only sin that can never be forgiven. And once something you've said gets posted on YouTube, as any number of celebrities can attest, you never live it down.

For better or worse, though, hell may not be so easy to get into. Despite the seemingly clear language in Mark 3:28-29 ("all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven"), most theologians are reluctant to pronounce anyone beyond repentance and salvation. Richard Land, a leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, says the passage, read in context, refers to a very narrow and specific definition of blasphemy: maliciously attributing God's miracles to a demon. Merely "denying" the Holy Spirit, by this reading, doesn't qualify. "My response," Land says, "would be to pray for these people: 'forgive them, [for] they know not what they do'."

To which another self-described blasphemer, whose real name is Michael Lawson, replies that he knows exactly what he's doing: he's daring God to send him to hell. "We want to show that we really mean it when we say we don't believe a word in this book," he says. He means the Bible.

God could not be reached for comment.

Police blotter: Detecting computer-generated porn?

What: FBI claims that one of its analysts can simply look at a photo and detect whether it's been altered in Photoshop or generated by a computer.

When: U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner in Massachusetts ruled on August 11 and November 22, 2006.

Outcome: FBI's claim was rejected and its expert was not permitted to testify.

What happened, according to court documents:
In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal law banning the possession of images of minors in lascivious poses that were either Photoshop-altered adults or completely computer-generated. Since then, to secure a conviction, prosecutors must prove that a defendant possessed images of real--not virtual--children.

This brings us to the case of Rudy Frabizio, whose employer discovered sexually explicit images on Frabizio's computer that appeared to involve minors. The FBI was contacted, and Frabizio was indicted on one count of possession of child pornography.

Initially, the FBI chose as its expert witness Hany Farid, a Dartmouth College professor of computer science, who had written a program to determine whether an image was real. But then Frabizio's defense attorney discovered that the program had a 30 percent false-positive error rate: it frequently classified a real photograph as computer-generated. It also classified an image of a cartoon dragon called "Zembad" as real.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which shares responsibility with the FBI for prosecuting child pornography, has paid for Farid's research on image detection. A DHS-funded technical report that Farid published after the Supreme Court's ruling claims his statistical technique "correctly correctly classified 67 percent of the photographic images."

After that revelation, the FBI quickly switched witnesses. Its new expert was Thomas Musheno of the FBI's Forensic Audio, Video, and Image Analysis Unit.

The FBI claimed that Musheno could simply look at each image--with no computer program required--and figure out which is legal and which is not. Musheno concluded that 6 of the 19 JPEG images definitely depict real children and 10 others "appear to be" real children. (Musheno holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in photography, not in any technical disciplines, and the FBI handbook (PDF) does not discuss how to detect computer-altered images.)

In response, Frabizio's defense counsel essentially argued that the line between real and virtual had disappeared. As evidence, the defense cited a computer-generated image of a woman in a fetal position, a "photo" of actress Jennifer Garner, and an image of a woman kneeling on a bed.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner in Massachusetts wrote two opinions, the first on August 11 and the second on November 22. (A preliminary ruling is here).

Gertner seemed to take a dim view of the FBI's witness-switching and its claim that one of its analysts could simply look at a sexually explicit image and say confidently that it was of someone who's 17 years old and a minor--or 18 years old and an adult.

"I have serious doubts as to whether a person visually studying the images in this case can distinguish real pictures from manipulated or wholly virtual ones with the level of confidence required in a criminal prosecution," Gertner wrote. She cited computer science research that said even "experts cannot know whether a digital image is real or virtual."

Gertner ruled in August that the government was welcome to find an expert on computer-based graphical manipulation--but because Musheno was not one, he would not be allowed to testify. In November, she rejected the government's request to reconsider, which had argued that other federal circuits permitted such testimony from nonexperts.

Excerpts from Judge Gertner's August opinion:
I find that visual observation alone is inadequate to the task of evaluating the images in this case. If photographic experts as a general matter are inadequate to the task of identifying computer-generated images, then no level of experience in that field will suffice to qualify one as an expert. Indeed, allowing Musheno to testify would be like allowing a dentist to identify the causes of glaucoma. If the government offered an expert who eliminated the possibility of such imagery in this case, then Musheno's testimony might be admissible.

In a world of rapidly changing technology, where the availability and use of Photoshop and other, similar programs is widespread, substantial evidence suggests it may be possible to digitally create or manipulate photographs in a manner the naked eye cannot detect. The government has not shown otherwise. Under these circumstances, it is unreasonable to expect a lay jury to differentiate the real from the computer-generated. The government must therefore present an expert or other extrinsic evidence to prove that the images in question depict real children.

Whether the images in this case are real or virtual cannot be determined based on mere observation, however, even by a photographic expert. More specialized, computer-based knowledge is required to exclude the possibility that the pictures are wholly virtual. Furthermore, even if visual observation were sufficient, I would find that Musheno's qualifications and expertise do not justify the conclusions he proposes to make. I would allow him to testify to his observations, but not to his ultimate conclusions.

Excerpts from Judge Gertner's November opinion:
The government suggests that the Supreme Court has already resolved the issue in the case at bar. It did not. In Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the Court was addressing a hypothetical question and one from 2002 to boot. The Supreme Court did no more than assume that if the government's position were true, that virtual images are indistinguishable from real ones, that would be irrelevant to a constitutional analysis. The fact that it would be difficult to tell the real images--which are not protected--from the virtual images--which are protected--is not a basis for suppressing lawful speech, i.e. the virtual images.

The argument, in essence, is that protected speech may be banned as a means to ban unprotected speech. This analysis turns the First Amendment upside down. The Government may not suppress lawful speech as the means to suppress unlawful speech. Protected speech does not become unprotected merely because it resembles the latter. The Constitution requires the reverse. The possible harm to society in permitting some unprotected speech to go unpunished is outweighed by the possibility that protected speech of others may be muted.

RIAA Says Ripping CDs to Your iPod is NOT Fair Use

It is no secret that the entertainment oligopolists are not happy about space-shifting and format-shifting. But surely ripping your own CDs to your own iPod passes muster, right? In fact, didn't they admit as much in front of the Supreme Court during the MGM v. Grokster argument last year?

Apparently not.

As part of the on-going DMCA rule-making proceedings, the RIAA and other copyright industry associations submitted a filing that included this gem as part of their argument that space-shifting and format-shifting do not count as noninfringing uses, even when you are talking about making copies of your own CDs:

"Nor does the fact that permission to make a copy in particular circumstances is often or even routinely granted, necessarily establish that the copying is a fair use when the copyright owner withholds that authorization. In this regard, the statement attributed to counsel for copyright owners in the MGM v. Grokster case is simply a statement about authorization, not about fair use."

For those who may not remember, here's what Don Verrilli said to the Supreme Court last year:

"The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod."

If I understand what the RIAA is saying, "perfectly lawful" means "lawful until we change our mind." So your ability to continue to make copies of your own CDs on your own iPod is entirely a matter of their sufferance. What about all the indie label CDs? Do you have to ask each of them for permission before ripping your CDs? And what about all the major label artists who control their own copyrights? Do we all need to ask them, as well?

P.S.: The same filing also had this to say: "Similarly, creating a back-up copy of a music CD is not a non-infringing use...."