SALT LAKE CITY, Utah A mother is upset after a 14-year-old babysitter engaged in sexual conduct with her eight-year-old boy, and the eight-year-old was charged with lewd conduct.
Prosecutors have since dropped the charges against the boy, but his mother is still concerned.
The sexual conduct occurred during a game of “truth or dare” while the boy was being watched by the babysitter.
Prosecutors say that, while the babysitter initiated the contact, the young boy was a willing participant.
“She dared my son to touch her breasts,” says Michelle Grosbeck, the boy’s mother.
After hiring the teenager to baby sit, Grosbeck got the feeling something was wrong.
“It was just that sense that something wasn’t quite right with this 14-year-old girl,” she said. She asked her son what had happened. “He just came right out as if nothing was awry, and just started talking about what had happened.”
Grosbeck went to police and child protection workers, and the case went to the district attorney, after which her son, age eight, had been charged with an act of lewdness with a minor.
Grosbeck says the Salt Lake County District Attorney told her both the child and teenager were equal participants. But Mrs. Grosbeck didn’t believe that.
“My son is eight, he’s a little boy. He does not have the ability to participate on the same level as a fourteen-year-old,” she said.
Although the charges against her son were dropped, she is concerned that the same thing could happen to other victims of sexual abuse.
“I don’t want parents to be afraid to go to the state agencies that are supposed to be protecting our children when things like this happen, out of fear that their children are going to be charged
The district attorney’s office confirmed the charges had been made, and that they had been dropped. Other than that, they wouldn’t comment. The Division of Child and Family Services also declined to comment.
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8-Year-Old Charged For Sexual Conduct With Sitter
$250K Robotic Toilet to Stop Gay Sex
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL -- Fort Lauderdale's Republican Mayor Jim Naugle wants to spend a quarter million dollar on a robotic toilet that is supposed to make it more difficult of horny gays to have public sex on the beach.
"We're trying to provide a family environment where people can take their children who need to use the bathroom," he said, "without having to worry about a couple of men in there engaged in a sex act."
The proposed location for the toilet is the world-famous gay beach Sebastian Beach, where the high-tech toilet will allow occupants to stay inside for only a short period of time before the door opens. Naugle thinks this will prevent the "homosexual activity" that he said plagues other public restrooms.
Naugle also said, "I don't use the word 'gay.' I use the word 'homosexual.' Most of them aren't gay. They're unhappy."
Fort Lauderdale police say sex in restrooms is not a problem in the city. "There's no evidence, no reports or arrests made for any men having sex in any restrooms," said Sgt. Frank Sousa.
But still the mayor thinks it is. "Public restrooms are pickup places for "homosexuals. ... They're engaging in sex, anonymous sex, illegal sex," he said.
Openly gay lawyer Dean Trantalis, who sat on the Commission with Naugle for three years, laughed when told of the comments. Trantalis said he's proud the beach welcomes gay families and continues to attract gay visitors.
The beach needs more toilets regardless of whether people will use them for sex, he said. And they still might, he said, even if the time is limited.
"I'm not an expert on public toilet sex," said Trantalis, "but there are those who would say one minute would be enough. Or 30 seconds."
Mayor Naugle, who's a social and political conservative Christian, is no stranger to public controversy. Last year he said housing prices would be affordable if people worked more hours instead of sitting on the couch drinking beer. Earlier this year, he refused to sign a mayor's pact to reduce greenhouse gases. Naugle said global warming is not caused by humans and that the pact contained "hate-America stuff that the environmental wackos want in."
Sun-scorched Phoenix takes more heart for its homeless
The heat wave hitting the Sun Belt's homeless population is being met with new rigor.
Phoenix - Bottles of water don't last long these days at the Lodestar Day Resource Center in downtown Phoenix. One homeless person after another grabs an ice-cold bottle, untwists the cap, and drains it in an instant.
"That's so good," says Nicholas Travis, who is living at a nearby shelter while working to get his life back on track after a stint in jail. "They keep us well stocked."
Water is a precious commodity in Arizona generally, but for the homeless, access to it can become a matter of life or death. With much of the West sizzling – temperatures in Phoenix have climbed above 110 degrees F. for 12 straight days, the third-longest such heat wave in state history – people living on the street are at just as much risk from exposure to the elements as they are in the Northeast during the harsh blasts of winter.
"Living outside, whether summertime or wintertime, is both dangerous and life-threatening to the homeless," says Michael Stoops, acting director of the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington. "Phoenix," he adds, "has had a sorry history in dealing with the issue."
That's changing, say experts in Arizona. After 30 homeless people died during a similar hot streak in 2005, officials and faith-based groups in the Phoenix area redoubled efforts to coordinate services for the homeless, ensuring that they have access to shelter, water, and food during the most dangerous times of day.
"The community responded," says Jacki Taylor of the Arizona Coalition to End Homelessness. "And not just in Phoenix. There's been a statewide effort to reach out and help care for our men, women, and children on the streets."
In 2006 – the year the National Coalition for the Homeless designated Phoenix as the 17th meanest city in the US (out of 200) for how it treats the homeless – about 7,300 homeless people lived in the metro area, according to Ms. Taylor's group. The number statewide was 14,960.
Phoenix has added hydration stations and "low-demand centers" for women, men, and families, says Taylor. These large, cooled rooms have cots or mats on the floor to temporarily house people who can't find spots in permanent shelters.
The United Methodist Outreach Ministry (UMOM), which runs the centers for women and families, is full this summer. Calls from families seeking shelter have roughly doubled since the heat wave struck, says Nichole Churchill, community relations manager for UMOM.
Much of the West is sitting under a high-pressure system that is causing record highs from Arizona to Idaho. Arizona, though, has been in the center of that high, says Valerie Meyers, a forecaster with the National Weather Service's Phoenix office, which has issued an extreme heat advisory for the region.
"Our 400 beds are maxed out every night," says Mr. Bridge. After the 30 deaths in 2005, CASS opened an emergency overflow shelter – a big room with 300 mats for sleeping on the floor – across the street. Lately, that's maxed out, too.
At the North Hills Church complex on Phoenix's northern fringes, which also opened after the 2005 crisis, 50 homeless men, women, and children sit in a darkened, cooled room after dining on barbecue-beef or pastrami sandwiches, chocolate cake, milk, and lots of water.
"We go through about six cases [35 bottles per case] of water per day," says volunteer Earl Brightman, director of the North Hills Church facility. It provides shelter, water, two hot meals, showers, and clothing to 50 people per day, on average. The shelter opened June 4 and will close at the end of September. Last year, it served 277 people over the entire season. During the first four weeks of this season, it has served 500, says Mr. Brightman.
"This place is a gift from God," says a middle-age man who didn't want to give his name. He lives in a nearby wash.
Man in teen sex case should go free, judge rules
At 17, he was sentenced to 10 years even though sex was consensual
ATLANTA - A Georgia judge ordered the release Monday of a man sentenced to 10 years in prison for consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17, a sentence that had been widely criticized as grossly disproportionate to the crime.
Several influential people, including former President Jimmy Carter, publicly supported Genarlow Wilson’s appeals, and state lawmakers voted to close the loophole that led to his 10-year term.
Monday’s ruling doesn’t ensure Wilson’s freedom, though.
Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker said Monday afternoon that he had filed notice of appeal, arguing that Georgia law does not give a judge authority to reduce or modify the sentence imposed by the trial court. He said he would seek an expedited ruling from the Georgia Supreme Court.
Wilson defense lawyer B.J. Bernstein said she believes Baker is just trying to stop Wilson’s immediate release.
“It is extremely, extremely disturbing that the attorney general would take this action now,” she said. “In essence, the attorney general is saying, ’Keep Genarlow Wilson in prison for 10 years and keep him on the sex offender registry.”’
The judge’s ruling Monday threw out Wilson’s 10-year sentence and amended it to misdemeanor aggravated child molestation with a 12-month term, plus credit for time served, and he would not be required to register as a sex offender.
“The fact that Genarlow Wilson has spent two years in prison for what is now classified as a misdemeanor, and without assistance from this Court, will spend eight more years in prison, is a grave miscarriage of justice,” wrote Judge Thomas H. Wilson, no relation to Genarlow Wilson.
“If this court or any court cannot recognize the injustice of what has occurred here, then our court system has lost sight of the goal our judicial system has always strived to accomplish ... justice being served in a fair and equal manner,” the judge wrote.
Bernstein said she plans to look into filing a bond to have Wilson, now 21, release while the appeal is pending.
When the judge’s order arrived Monday morning, Wilson’s lawyers had applauded and hugged his mother, Juannessa Bennett, who wiped away tears.
“I just feel like a miracle happened,” Bennett said.
A jury had found Wilson, an honor student, guilty in 2005 of aggravated child molestation for having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl during a 2003 New Year’s Eve party involving alcohol and marijuana. Although the sex act was consensual, it was illegal under Georgia law.
Wilson was also charged with rape for being one of several male partygoers at the Douglas County hotel to have sex with a 17-year-old girl, but was acquitted. The party was captured on a videotape that was played for the jury.
Court Rebuffs Bush On Enemy Combatants
 Alleged al Qaeda sleeper agent Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri has been held in solitary confinment in the Navy jail in Charleston, S.C., since June 2003. He is seen in booking photo at Peoria County, Ill., Sheriff's Office, Dec. 12, 2001.Quote  "To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the President calls them 'enemy combatants,' would have disastrous consequences for the constitution — and the country." 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling |
The ruling bluntly tells President Bush he has gone too far arresting civilians as enemy combatants, reports CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews.
"To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the President calls them 'enemy combatants,' would have disastrous consequences for the constitution — and the country," the court panel said.
The decision has no legal bearing on detainees at Guantanamo, adds Andrews, but it is another hurdle for an adminstration that has yet to try a single enemy combatant. And it will add to demands in Congress to grant Guantanamo prisoners access to U.S. courts.
In the 2-1 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel found that the federal Military Commissions Act doesn't strip Ali al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident, of his constitutional rights to challenge his accusers in court. It ruled the government must release al-Marri from military detention.
"This ruling actually could – emphasis on could – do to the new Military Commissions Act what the Democratically controlled Congress has been thinking about doing for a few months now," says CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen, "which is to change the impact of the law to preclude it from taking away from resident aliens here in this country the right to challenge their detention or confinement in court."
Cohen added that the ruling doesn't mean the suspect will be freed.
"Like former enemy combatant Jose Padilla, al-Marri now likely is to be charged in federal court with various terror related charges and then we'll likely see a replay of the sorts of issues that only now are coming to light at Padilla's trial in Miami, mainly the difficultly in transferring a military case into a civilian one," said Cohen.
The government intends to ask the full 4th Circuit to hear the case, Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said.
"The President has made clear that he intends to use all available tools at his disposal to protect Americans from further al Qaeda attack, including the capture and detention of al Qaeda agents who enter our borders," Boyd said in a statement.
Al-Marri has been held in solitary confinement in the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., since June 2003. The Qatar native has been detained since his December 2001 arrest at his home in Peoria, Ill., where he moved with his wife and five children a day before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to study for a master's degree at Bradley University.
"This is a landmark victory for the rule of law and a defeat for unchecked executive power," al-Marri's lawyer, Jonathan Hafetz, said in a statement. "It affirms the basic constitutional rights of all individuals — citizens and immigrants — in the United States."
The court said its ruling doesn't mean al-Marri should be set free. Instead, he can be returned to the civilian court system and tried on criminal charges.
"But the government cannot subject al-Marri to indefinite military detention," the opinion said. "For in the United States, the military cannot seize and imprison civilians — let alone imprison them indefinitely."
Al-Marri is currently the only U.S. resident held as an enemy combatant within the U.S.
Jose Padilla, who is a U.S. citizen, had been held as an enemy combatant in a Navy brig for 3 1/2 years before he was hastily added to an existing case in Miami in November 2005, a few days before a U.S. Supreme Court deadline for Bush administration briefs on the question of the president's powers to continue holding him in military prison without charge.
Federal investigators found credit card numbers on Al-Marri's laptop computer and charged him with credit card fraud. Upon further investigation, the government said, agents found evidence that al-Marri had links to al Qaeda terrorists and was a national security threat. Authorities shifted al-Marri's case from the criminal system and moved him to indefinite military detention.
Al-Marri has denied the government's allegations and is seeking to challenge the government's evidence and cross-examine its witnesses in court.
Lawyers for al-Marri argued that the Military Commissions Act, passed last fall to establish military trials, doesn't repeal the writ of habeas corpus — defendants' traditional right to challenge their detention.
If the government's stance was upheld, civil liberties groups said, the Justice Department could use terrorism law to hold any immigrants indefinitely and strip them of the right to use civilian courts to challenge their detention.
The Bush administration's attorneys had urged the federal appeals panel to dismiss al-Marri's case, arguing that the act stripped the courts of jurisdiction to hear cases of detainees who are declared enemy combatants. They contended that Congress and the Supreme Court have given the president the authority to fight terrorism and prevent additional attacks on the nation.
The court, however, said in Monday's opinion that the MCA doesn't apply to al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident who wasn't captured outside U.S. soil, detained at Guantanamo Bay or on other foreign soil, who has not received a combatant status review tribunal.
"The MCA was not intended to, and does not apply to aliens like al-Marri, who have legally entered, and are seized while legally residing in, the United States," according to the court's majority opinion, written by Judge Diana G. Motz.
The court also said that the government failed to back up its argument that the Authorization for Use of Military Force, enacted by Congress immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, gives the president broad powers to detain al-Marri as an enemy combatant. The act neither classifies certain civilians as enemy combatants, nor otherwise authorizes the government to detain people indefinitely, the court ruled.
The case, which is expected to reach the Supreme Court, could help define how much authority the government has to indefinitely detain those accused of terrorism and to strip detainees of their rights to challenge the lawfulness or conditions of their detention.
God Said Pi = 3; Stand By Your Beliefs Dammit
Ed note: Given the amount of number pseudo-crunching I’ve seen apologists perform, I would like to reference the readers to the following explanation. You may or may not agree but it’s just as much a tug of war as using the ‘inner circumference’ argument.Ed ed note: Some people woefully take this article personally. Allow me to elucidate for those who have not managed to interpret my word correctly (ha). I am not bashing the Bible. I am not bashing Christianity as a whole. I am trying a reductio ad absurdum of the Creationist stance of Biblical Infallibility. That one can interpret the Bible in one way or another is beside the point.
Ed ed ed note: The Bible is a fantastic source of literary entertainment and a strong case can be made for secular biblical literacy lessons in schools as a complement to English Literature lessons since a lot of English Literature owes its heritage to biblical influence.
In other words, it’s a great piece of fiction. Some people misguidedly choose to base their life on the assumption that it’s absolutely true. Other people pick and choose from pieces which are actually moral (or in some cases, not all that moral - the Catholic Church’s stance on sex and homosexuality is an example of misguided morals), and dismiss the obviously inane as mythology.
That’s great. But there’s a point when I take great offense in the book which is when it’s forced down my throat. I choose to read the Bible like I read Greek mythology. That certain lobbyists try to hijack the education system by infiltrating the Bible in, not as a source of literary study, but as a source of ‘moral and scientific’ rectitude (whatever that means) is what provokes me into pointing out clear (or not so clear) discrepancies in the whole biblical infallibility thing.
I Kings 7:23-26
He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it. Below the rim, gourds encircled it - ten to a cubit. The gourds were cast in two rows in one piece with the Sea. The Sea stood on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south and three facing east. The Sea rested on top of them, and their hindquarters were toward the center. It was a handbreadth in thickness, and its rim was like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held two thousand baths. (NIV)
The Bible is the word of God, yes? Anyone who claims otherwise is a heretic bastard.
Well look at this grave, grave offense to your beliefs.
Pi. π. 
The value for pi used in calculators is 3.141592654. But if we look at the word of God, it states that the ratio of the circumference to the diameter is 30:10 cubits. In other words:
3
Also known as 3.00 or 3.0. But here we have these self important mathematicians who believe they can improve on the word of God! What an effrontery. Biblical literalists, you are faced, as when with evolution, with an important dilemma if you wish to continue your peace of mind.
You can either accept that the word of God is fallible and men have improved upon it, therefore casting into doubt your claims of Creation.
Or you could hold steadfast to your God-given beliefs. Stand by in the face of scientific persecution and shout loud to the heavens that PI, goddammit, is equal to 3.0 because God said so.
Chances are if you’re not a hypocritical believer that you’ll take the second road. I’ve anticipated this, and I’ve made a partial list of all the things which you are going to have to forbid teaching in schools and universities if you want to preserve moral rectitude:
- Trigonometry
- Radians
- Complex numbers
- Circular motion
- Physics
- Electrostatic force
- Isotropic transmission
- …
I invite the readers to contribute to this list in order to make sure no further offenses to God’s word take place.
Interesting dilemma for biblical literalists: Either recant and accept the Bible is just a cute collection of bloodthirsty stories (Genesis included) or stand strong in face of the whole world of science and maintain that Pi = 3. Teach it in schools.
You can stop me here, now. You can say that “Ah, but if you look at the volume measurements and cook some of the values here and there you end up with Pi = 3.14, which is the modern version! QED, bitch!”. That the Bible doesn’t state that the value of Pi has no end is a testament to the fact that it was written by Middle East settlers in the BRONZE AGE. Clearly nobody expects the people who wrote the Bible to put down all of the digits of Pi - the book would be a greater pain in the ass than it is now if only out of sheer size. But a simple disclaimer, a simple Pi 3:23 “Oh yeah, but it has no end” or Numbers 1:1 “And God told Moses: ‘Pi, it hath no end’” or even I Kings 3:27 “And God rudely interjected: ‘Sorry guys, I forgot to mention, Pi is irrational’” would have done.
Family's winner becomes a loser and loser a winner
The name of the game is not always what it seems to be, Sean Gardiner writes from New York.
One son was named Loser, the other Winner.
One became a policeman and was eventually promoted to detective.
The other fell into the life of a small-time crook, racking up at least 31 arrests before being jailed for two years.
But for the brothers Lane it was not a case of their unique names sealing their fates. "I went a totally separate route right from the start," said Loser Lane, 41, a detective in the South Bronx.
Loser, a star student and athlete, went on scholarship to an elite prep school, on to Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, and then joined the force.
Winner's life has gone the other way. Now 44, Winner last month completed a two-year jail sentence for breaking into a car. He is living in a homeless shelter in upstate New York, shuttling back and forth between it and the city trying to get his life on track.
Why did he commit so many crimes? "It's just some situations I got in," Winner said.
Loser said of his brother: "Most of the crimes are minor crimes. He's just kooky, not a heavy drinker, some domestic violence problems, but was never a heavy drinker, never into drugs ... He's just not all there, I think."
The brothers rarely see each other, though Winner will phone Loser when he is short of money, but they are no longer close. "I'm a cop," said Loser, who is known as Lou on the job. "And I have a way with me, I don't tolerate a lot."
The Lane boys ran in the same circles while growing up in public housing in Harlem, where their names never seemed to arouse curiosity or ridicule from the neighbourhood kids.
"When you're young you don't know that it's a bad name, and by the time you hit grade school, everybody knows you. It was a regular thing," Loser Lane said.
It helped that Loser was the youngest of eight brothers and sisters and that he was a natural athlete, admired by the other kids for his on-field achievements.
The story of how Loser got his name is simple. The day he was born, their late father, Robert, asked his daughter what to name the baby. "My dad comes home and asks my oldest sister what to name me and she said, 'Well, we've got a Winner, why don't we have a Loser?' And there you go."
While Loser's friends had no problem calling him by his name, his teachers and other adults "couldn't bring themselves to call me Loser", so he became Lou.
Disappeared: Five Years in Guantanamo
By Lou Dubose
FIFTEEN AMERICAN SOLDIERS WATCHED over a man, shackled to a seat in the cargo bay of a C-17 Globemaster -- the Air Force workhorse that usually moves Abrams tanks, Chinook helicopters or infantry vehicles. Wearing goggles that shut out all light, a soundproof headset and a mask that covered his mouth so he could not speak, spit or bite, the prisoner arrived at Ramstein Air Force Base in Kaiserslautern, Germany, under the tightest security. The plane had burned through 36,000 gallons of jet fuel and had refueled in flight. During the seventeen-hour ride, the prisoner was provided with neither food nor water. Nor was he allowed to stretch his legs or relieve himself.
This was how what had been the world's greatest democracy when George W. Bush took the presidential oath in 2001 repatriated an innocent man who'd never represented a security threat to the United States. Murat Kurnaz was nineteen when he was taken off a bus in Peshawar, Pakistan. He had, as many first- or second-generation Muslims in Europe do, turned to a religion his family had abandoned when they emigrated from their native land. His religious awakening put him in proximity to Islamic fundamentalists: sufficient justification for detention by American forces, after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, as a supposed member of Al Qaeda.
Kurnaz was twenty-four and had been the last European held at the American prison camp in Cuba when the Globemaster touched down in Kaiserslautern in August 2006. He didn't know he'd been returned home to Germany until an American enlisted man removed his goggles and he saw three German policemen standing outside the airplane.
"He was dumped on German soil like some sort of alien," said Bernhard Docke, one of Kurnaz's attorneys, from the north German city of Bremen.
Murat’s Story
Murat Kurnaz, German born of Turkish parents, could be an expert witness and fact witness for any legislative or judicial procedure that would cast a cold eye on the transgressions of law, the Constitution or the fundamental precepts of human rights perpetrated by George Bush's terror warriors. Pick your amendment. Fifth: one is not compelled to be a witness against oneself, or deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law. Eighth: protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Fourteenth: the state cannot deprive someone of life, liberty or property without due process.
The habeas corpus statute? For innocent detainees caught up in the sweeps that followed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, there is no legitimate legal process that can be resorted to. No legal cause of action against the U.S. government. Not even an apology, if you're released.
"They threw my clothes over the fence," Kurnaz said in an interview in his lawyer's office in Bremen. "They told me, get ready to move. I thought to another prison; then I was back in Germany." That the U.S. soldiers continued to curse and humiliate him during the flight from Guantánamo gave him reason to believe he wasn't flying home to freedom. "They treated me the same as always," he said. "Like I was the number one terrorist."
Kurnaz represents a secondary problem related to the human rights violations occurring in the prison system Donald Rumsfeld situated ninety miles from Key West, beyond the reach of American law. After a prisoner has been subjected to "enhanced interrogation" (a phrase in U.S. military manuals and memos that is a direct translation of verschärfte Vernehmung, a euphemism for torture the Gestapo coined in 1937), you don't want him returning home to tell his story.
But that's precisely what Murat Kurnaz has done. His Fünf Jahre meines Lebens: Ein Bericht aus Guantánamo (Five Years of My Life: A Report from Guantánamo), is a straightforward account of his rendition, torture, detention and interrogation by American forces--torture that continued in Guantánamo. It even identifies a few of his tormentors, whose name tags were visible until Major General Geoffrey Miller took command and ordered all American personnel to remove anything that might identify them.
Kurnaz is beginning to appear in public to promote his book, described in the June 7 issue of The Economist as "a Swiftian tale" of a man who "survived by brawn and brains." On June 19 he was a guest on the TV show Beckamm, Germany's equivalent of PBS's Charlie Rose. On the same day in Washington, George Bush's nomination for the CIA's general counsel, John Rizzo, spent an hour equivocating before the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding one subject with which Kurnaz has experience: torture.
For one man torture was abstract and theoretical. For the other, it was concrete and immediate.
CIA counsel nominee Rizzo said in response to a question asked by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI): "I'm trying to be responsive . . . without getting into a detailed explanation. We believed then and we have believed throughout this process that the CIA program, as it was conceived, when taken in toto, justifies the conclusion that the program was, from the outset, and remains conducted in a humane fashion."
Murat Kurnaz was more direct. "In Kandahar," he said, "they hanged me by my hands."
A massive, muscular man with a long reddish beard down to his chest and hair pulled back in a ponytail, Kurnaz speaks good, if basic English. He's a bit of a contradiction: a fundamentalist Muslim who drives a sports car and dresses as though he selects his clothes from GQ ads. His English improved considerably at Guantánamo. Kurnaz reluctantly agrees to interviews with reporters, though he earned a substantial amount of money for two exclusives with Der Stern magazine and a German television network. He tends to end interviews abruptly with the same line."I have to stop now."
From Jail to Justice
There are two Murat Kurnaz narratives. One is found in the paper trail and legal pleadings assembled by his two lawyers, Bernhard Docke in Bremen, Germany, and Baher Azmy from Seton Hall Law School in New Jersey. The other is his personal account of his five years in American custody.
The legal process by which Kurnaz was freed from Guantánamo was, in a sense, irrelevant. It's not precedent-setting, because there is no effective process that provides detainees access to justice. He is one of very few whose situation was eventually considered by an American court. His case is the best example of why the military tribunals conducting trials at Guantánamo are fundamentally flawed.
In January 2005, Washington, D.C., federal district Judge Joyce Hens Green ruled on Kurnaz's case, along with the cases of ten other detainees. During his Combat Review Status Hearing in Guantánamo, Kurnaz had appeared before a panel of three military officers. He had no legal representation and was not allowed to see the classified evidence used to declare him a member of Al Qaeda. Before his hearing in Washington, some of the classified evidence used against him was inadvertently declassified and obtained by the Washington Post> It included reports that established that two years earlier, the Command Intelligence Task Force that oversees Guantánamo had concluded there was "no definite link/evidence of detainee having an association with Al Qaeda or making specific threats against the U.S."
Judge Green reviewed the evidence and found nothing that justified holding Murat Kurnaz in prison. Among the hundreds of pages used to declare him a member of Al Qaeda, the smoking gun was a single document with vague allegations made by an unidentified officer. The judge was disturbed by the fact that Kurnaz, like other detainees, was never permitted to see or rebut the allegations that kept him in a cage in Guantánamo.
During the trial it was also revealed that a friend of Kurnaz's who was reported to have carried out a suicide bombing in Turkey--another bit of incriminating evidence--was alive and well in Bremen. And that German intelligence officers traveled to Guantánamo to interview Kurnaz and concluded he had not been involved in any terrorist activity in Germany. They even tried, at one point, to recruit him to return to Bremen and work undercover for them in the mosque he attended before going to Pakistan to study Islam. They later concluded he was so unconnected--and unsophisticated--he would be of no use to them as a snitch.
Yet nothing the judge did would result in his release. Judge Green ruled in his favor, devoting a number of pages in her 75-page opinion (some redacted) to the government's sloppy prosecution and lack of evidence against this man. But the heart of her ruling was that the process was basically illegal. The ruling was stayed, pending a decision at the appellate level. And after the trial, the then-Republican Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, which included a controversial provision by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that denyed all detainees the right to file habeas corpus petitions. The habeas corpus right that Judge Green had provided as an avenue out of Guantánamo was stripped away by Congress.
Kurnaz was released only because Azmy and his colleague in Germany, Bernhard Docke, took his case to the court of public opinion in Germany. Their skillful use of the media persuaded German chancellor Angela Merkel to prevail on George Bush to release Kurnaz. Merkel raised the issue on her first visit to the White House in January 2006. The irony was evident: the Conservative chancellor who defeated Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder, who had led a "red-green" coalition and was Europe's most strident critic of Bush's Iraq War, had delivered a German resident from Guantánamo, after Schroeder had allowed him to languish there for years.
"No one gets out of Guantánamo by any legal process," Azmy said. "Because there is none."
Counter-attack
It's now clear that the administration's attempt to maintain a detention center beyond the reach of U.S. law has failed. Eleven district judges have ruled against Guantánamo. There have been adverse rulings by the Supreme Court. And on June 4, two military judges in Guantánamo ruled that two detainees on trial were not properly designated "unlawful enemy combatants." A week later, a three-judge panel on the federal appeals court in Richmond, VA, ruled that the President cannot designate civilians who are in this country "enemy combatants" and order the military to hold them indefinitely. The ruling pertained to a citizen of Qatar arrested in 2001in Illinois, where he was a computer science student. A mid-June campaign by high-level White House staffers to begin planning to close Guantánamo was stopped by Dick Cheney. But there are enough stand-up judges to put Bush's squalid extra-judicial prison out of business. Or It will be done by the Congress in 2009, if no President Giuliani or Thompson is in office to veto it.
Kurnaz's five-year detention brings up another grave issue, one that the courts and the Congress have largely avoided. It was briefly addressed on June 19 at the Senate Intelligence Committee meeting, when committee chair John Rockefeller (D-WV) questioned John Rizzo. Rockefeller asked Rizzo about the memo Jay Bybee wrote at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel in August 2002. (Bybee is now a Federal Appeals Court judge.) The memo, written in collaboration with John Yoo and widely known as the "Torture Memo," redefined torture as an act that inflicts pain equivalent in intensity "to the pain accompanying serious physical injury such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."Rizzo told Rockefeller he initially thought the expanded definition of torture was acceptable. The memo was later repudiated by the Office of Legal Counsel, but it was written both to expand the legal definition of torture and to provide cover for CIA agents pushing the envelope to the extreme limits described in the memo. Rockefeller pursued a second line of questioning, one that human-rights and personal-injury lawyers should be considering regarding cases like that of Murat Kurnaz. The senator asked Rizzo if he was aware of CIA agents' concerns that they could be exposed to criminal prosecution for their involvement in the interrogation program. Rizzo said yes.
Murat Kurnaz was picked up in Pakistan in December 2001, before then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales signed off on the torture memo. Kurnaz and hundreds of others were subjected to "illegal torture" (what a concept) before Bybee and Yoo drafted a memo that would protect the torturers from prosecution. The expanded legal definition of torture in their memo doesn't provide cover for those agents who tortured Kurnaz immediately after he was detained.
"The beatings began as soon as I was turned over to the Americans," Kurnaz said. Once in the Americans' hands, he was transferred to a camp at Kandahar, in Afghanistan, where suspected terrorists were held in tents. His account of his torture at the hands of the Americans--in his book and in interviews--is clear-eyed and consistent. He has repeated it in testimony before a committee of the German parliament, where he was described as a "very credible witness."
In the prison camp in Kandahar, Kurnaz said, he was hoisted on chains and was forced to hang by his hands while he was being interrogated. He was left hanging for "hours and days" after the interrogators left. An American physician in camouflage would come and check his vital signs to determine if he could withstand more enhanced interrogation.
The doctor's house call must have failed Kurnaz's neighbor in the next room. "They were hanging me and pulled me up higher than the other times. I could see the man in the other room. He was hanging, too. Maybe they lifted him higher that time, too, I don't know. I had heard him moaning and breathing; this is the first time I saw him. He was dead. The color of his body was changed and I could see he was dead."
Kurnaz said he was also subjected to waterboarding and electric shock. And that beatings were routine and constant. He theorizes that much of the torture was a result of the failure of the American soldiers and agents to capture any real terrorists in the initial sweeps. (He was told that he was sold to the Americans for $3,000 by Pakistani police, who identified him as a terrorist.) "They didn't have any big fish. And they thought that by torture they could get one of us to say something. 'I know Osama' or something like that. Then they could say they had a big fish."
The German government is still conducting a parliamentary inquiry into its complicity in the Kurnaz case. Ultimately Kurnaz may have a legal cause of action to seek some reparations from his government. As for the U.S. regime, the Bush administration's attempt to create a unitary presidency that uses war to justify executive powers never imagined by the men who negotiated our Constitution has been unmasked, and the Bush-Cheney presidency is in its last throes. When it is gone, or even before it packs up and moves on, some plaintiff will likely find legal counsel and a forum in which to litigate these issues.
In such a case, Kurnaz's book and testimony will be useful. He's written a primer on rendition, incarceration and torture. It's being translated by a U.S. publisher for a January release. It's not Solzhenitsyn, but it's a gripping account of life in an American gulag.
Movie rights have been sold in the U.S.
An appeal to Muslim scholars throughout the world
(The case of a teenage girl facing the death sentence in Saudi Arabia as the result of a tragedy being misunderstood as a crime)
The Asian Human Rights Commission is writing this appeal to all the Muslim scholars in the world regarding the case that the AHRC believes deserves of all Muslim scholars.
This is a case where a teenage girl, who was in charge of bottle feeding a four-month old child, which due to her inexperience resulted in an accident of the child choking and while she was desperately trying to help by way of soothing and stroking the chest, face and neck of the baby a tragic death took place. These circumstances are explained below. However, due to misunderstandings this case was presented as the murder of a baby by strangulation and the teenager was sentenced to death by a court in Saudi Arabia on June, 16.
After careful consideration of all facts we are of the view that what has happened is an enormous tragedy but it can lead to, if not prevented soon, a further tragedy of an innocent inexperienced teenager being executed.
We believe that this is a case in which scholarly considerations can help to make the necessary reflections distinguishing a tragedy from a crime and from such reflections interventions can be made to prevent a further tragedy taking place. We believe that the Muslim scholars, if they think it appropriate can communicate with this unfortunate family, faced with this situation to provide them with wise advise to help them deal with this issue.
Details of the relevant incidents:
This case concerns Naffeek Rizana who is facing the death sentence in Saudi Arabia, allegedly for the strangulation of a four month old baby. Through close study of the case the Asian Human Rights Commission is satisfied that, in fact, what has taken place was the tragic death of a baby in the process of being fed by an inexperienced teenager.
Naffeek Rizana was born on February 4, 1988 and comes from a war-torn, impoverished village. Here, many families, including those of the Muslim community try to send their under aged children for employment outside the country, as their breadwinners. Some employment agencies exploit the situation of the impoverished families to recruit under aged girls for employment. For that purpose they engage in obtaining passports by altering the dates of birth of these children to make it appear that they are older than they really are. In the case of Naffeek Rizana, the altered date, which is to be found in her passport now, is February 2, 1982. It was on the basis of this altered date that the employment agency fixed her employment in Saudi Arabia and she went there in May, 2005.
Later in 2007 she went to work at the house of Mr. Naif Jiziyan Khklafal Otaibi whose wife had a new-born baby boy. A short time after she started working for this family she was assigned to bottle feed the infant who was by then four months old. Naffeek Rizana had no experience of any sort in caring for such a young infant. She was left alone when bottle feeding the child. While she was feeding the child the boy started choking, as so often happens to babies and Naffeek Rizana panicked and while shouting for help tried to sooth the child by feeling the chest, neck and face, doing whatever she could to help him. At her shouting the mother arrived but by that time the baby was either unconscious or dead. Unfortunately, misunderstanding the situation the family members treated the teenager very harshly and handed her over to the police, accusing her of strangling the baby. At the police station also, she was very harshly handled and did not have the help of a translator or anyone else to whom she could explain what had happened. She was made to sign a confession and later charges were filed in court of murder by strangulation.
On her first appearance in court she was sternly warned by the police to repeat her confession, which she did. However, later she was able to talk to an interpreter who was sent by the Sri Lankan embassy and she explained in her own language the circumstances of what had happened as stated above. This version was also stated in court thereafter.
According to reports, the judges who heard the case requested the father of the child to use his prerogative to pardon the young girl. However, the father refused to grant such pardon. On that basis the court sentenced her to death by beheading. This sentence was made on June 16, 2007.
There is a period of one month for the lodging of an appeal. However, an appeal has not yet been lodged. The initiative for lodging the appeal is with the Sri Lankan government. The AHRC also understands that the Sri Lankan authorities have sought the help of a legal firm which had initially demanded the equivalent of US$ 160,000. In the initially reports in the media there were different figures quoted. However, this matter has now been clarified. The Foreign Ministry in Colombo, Sri Lanka has not authorised such money and the family of Naffeek Rizana is of course unable to raise any funds for her appeal. This matter of legal assistance is being pursued with the government at the moment.
However, under Saudi Arabian law it is the prerogative of the family of the victim, in this case the parents of the baby that has the right to pardon the teenaged, Naffeek Rizana. Such pardon will be valid in law under the Saudi Arabian legal system.
The Asian Human Rights Commission is of the view that was has happened is a tragedy and not a crime. At no stage was any allegation made of any animosity between the teenaged helper and the family. If such animosity existed it is very unlikely that a four month old infant would have been handed over to her care. The inexperience of the helper, as well as the difficulties of communication due to the language problems have ended up in an extremely unfortunate situation being misunderstood as a crime. If the nature of this tragedy is not dealt with within a matter of days from now there will be a further tragedy of a teenaged, inexperienced helper being given capital punishment for a crime she did not commit or intend to commit.
The Former Fourth Amendment
The Former Fourth Amendment
“Criminal means, once tolerated, are soon preferred.”~ Edmund Burke, from Reflections on the Revolution in France
Ascencion Alvarez-Tejada probably swore in frustration as he pulled up behind a disabled car at the intersection of Highway 97 and Veteran's Way near La Pine, Oregon. And there's no reason to believe that his mood improved a second later when his Ford Focus was gently but firmly rear-ended by a truck with Minnesota license plates.
As Alvarez inspected the damage, a patrol car arrived carrying Deschutes County Sheriff's Deputy Robert Short. After examining the scene for a minute or two, Deputy Short told Alvarez and his passenger, Diana Maria Volerio-Perez, that the driver of the truck was intoxicated. Alvarez was instructed to drive his car over to a parking lot in front of a nearby restaurant. As Alvarez complied, a second policeman, Officer Jeff Pullig, arrived. Pullig ordered Alvarez and Volerio out of the car, and didn't permit them to turn off the motor or to remove the keys.
Alvarez and Volerio were both ordered to show their driver's licenses. Volerio tried to get back into the car to retrieve her purse, but Deputy Short refused to permit this. Both the driver and passenger underwent a pat-down search and were told to sit in the patrol car; they were sitting there when they were informed that someone had stolen the Ford Focus. Deputy Short evicted them from the patrol car and gave chase.
About twenty minutes later, Officer Pullig materialized with Alvarez's cell phone and Volerio's purse, explaining that for some reason the carjacker had thrown them out the window. Volerio was so upset by the news that she became violently ill. A short while later, Deputy Short and Officer Pullig drove Alvarez and Volerio to a nearby motel, where they spent the night.
Meanwhile, Pullig and Short – along with Tom Sullivan, the man who drove the truck that rear-ended Alvarez's car, and carjacker Sean Cummings – were probably at a watering hole nearby toasting their own cleverness. Pullig, Sullivan, and Cummings work for the Drug Enforcement Administration, and together with Deputy Short they had “punk'd” Alvarez, a suspected narcotics courier.
A subsequent search of the Focus turned up a fairly large quantity of cocaine and methamphetamine. For reasons that defy the understanding of honest and rational people, the DEA, in collaboration with the Deschutes County Sheriff's Department, decided to mount an elaborate, multi-bank-shot deception in order to facilitate an “administrative seizure” – that is, government theft – of the Ford Focus. The play-acting was utterly gratuitous, given that all of it occurred after the suspect and his vehicle were in police custody.
Investigators had discovered the previous August that the Focus had been used to ferry drug shipments on a route from California to Washington State. At any subsequent time they could have obtained a warrant and conducted a routine seizure and search of the vehicle. Why, then, did they carry out this needlessly complex little scheme – sort of an idiot child's version of a “Mission: Impossible” sting – apart from the adolescent thrills it provided to the tax-engorged predators who carried it out?
The law enforcement agencies involved in this little mini-drama, which took place on December 18, 2004, insisted that it was necessary in order to preserve the “confidentiality” of their investigation into a suspected drug ring. I suspect that its real purpose was to backstop the investigation in the event the Ford Focus had been clean. In that event, the “stolen” car could simply have disappeared, or narcotics could have been planted therein.
Asset forfeiture is a routine form of highway robbery in which law enforcement agencies seize forms of personal property – generally cars, but also cash and homes – on the theory that they are “guilty” of involvement in narcotics trafficking. The charade conducted at La Pine – let's call it the La Pine Maneuver – adds a small but significant additional dimension to this corrupt practice: Outright theft through deception.
Thanks to the Ninth Circuit Court, (.pdf) we can expect this variety of officially sanctioned crime to proliferate: On Friday a three-judge panel, in a decision written by the generally sensible Judge Alex Kozinski, overturned a lower court decision and ruled that the DEA-conceived carjacking was not a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
In his concurring opinion, Judge Raymond C. Fisher seemed to display a tremor of equivocal remorse about the inevitable abuses the ruling will unleash: “I do not ... mean to endorse this police action as a model for future creative seizures.”
Why not? If this operation was utterly copasetic from a constitutional point of view, why shouldn't it serve as the template for countless others just like it?
In any case, Ray baby, it's too late: You and your comrades have just green-lit countless similar projects to be carried out by the Feds and their local franchisees, who are in pre-production as we speak: Storylines are being broken, scripts are taking form, and auditions are underway, casting couches are being defiled....
In a way, the La Pine Incident is a microcosm of the drug war: It was an elaborate and pointless ruse funded by taxpayer dollars and staged solely for the benefit of the State-employed protagonists – and their indispensable symbiont partners, the narcotics traffickers. The only material benefit it produced for anyone was a tiny, perhaps immeasurably small, increase in the street value of the drugs that were confiscated from the Ford Focus. This is a tiny but telling illustration of the fact that the War on Drugs should be called the Federal Narcotics Price Support Program.
If you doubt this, here's a reminder of how the process works.
When SWAT teams were introduced in the late 1960s, they were intended to be used only in hostage rescues and similar extraordinary circumstances, and those recruited for such duty were taught that the mission was a failure if innocent people were endangered. Today, SWAT teams are entirely useless in hostage situations, and are promiscuously used to carry out routine police duties. And SWAT operators who kill innocent people enjoy nearly bullet-proof immunity.
We can anticipate that the use of police carjackings and similar deceptions will follow a similar trajectory.
One critical disclosure shaken loose by this case involves the extent to which the dishonestly named USA PATRIOT act has become embedded in our law enforcement system.
It its earlier, and subsequently overturned, ruling (.pdf) suppressing the evidence obtained through the carjacking the US District Court for Eastern Washington chided the DEA agents and Deputy Short for acting as if there were some “exigency” involved in seizing the Ford Focus: “There was ample time to seek approval for a covert search and seizure [of the car] under the Patriot Act.” It was only the “tactics” used in this particular theft that “were not authorized by the USA Patriot Act,” according to the Federal District Court.
As bad as the “Patriot” Act has proven to be, the Ninth Circuit Court has just ruled, in effect, that federal law enforcement agencies and their state/local hangers-on can amend that act in practice as they see fit – even in cases, like the one examined above, that have no colorable connection to terrorism.
Student suspended after voicing marijuana opinion
Matthew Barton
Kieran King's views on marijuana have led to his suspension from Wawota Parkland School.King said he was threatened with police action by Principal Susan Wilson previously after making the case that marijuana was less harmful than alcohol.
"In my opinion, cannabis is safer than they say, it is not worse than alcohol or tobacco," said King, a 15-year-old Grade 10 student.
Wilson accused King of using and selling marijuana at school, according to a media release issued by the Saskatchewan Marijuana Party. King has offered to submit to a voluntary drug test to prove otherwise.
"I've never smoked marijuana. I've never even seen it," said King.
He said he had done independent research on marijuana use out of personal curiosity and decided to share the information with his friends at school.
Feeling his right to freedom of speech had been violated by Wilson, he organized a walkout to begin at 11:05 a.m on Tuesday.
Instead, he said the school was locked down in anticipation of the attempted walkout. Teachers reportedly stood in the doorways threatening punishment for leaving the school.
King and his brother Lucas were given three-day-suspensions for disobeying the lockdown.
Outside the school, three members of the Saskatchewan Marijuana Party, one member of the NDP and one protester gathered in the parking lane in front of the school. They used a megaphone to show their support for King and the students, said Ethan Erkiletian, an executive member of the Saskatchewan Marijuana Party.
Only four students walked out of the school, including King and his brother. The other two students returned to the school to avoid punishment.
"When we asked them why they locked down the school they said we were from outside the community and had a megaphone and might be frightening to the parents and students," said Erkiletian.
Two RCMP officers arrived and observed the walkout. No arrests were made and no charges were pressed.
The group of seven disbanded at 12:30 p.m.
"The main purpose wasn't cannabis. It was the defence of the freedom of speech. I believe we have a right to freedom of expression. I don't believe in vulgarity," said King.
The three-day suspension will prevent King from writing his final exams before he goes to China on a correspondence course. He's to leave Thursday.
The honour student said he will still pass Grade 10 because his marks are in the 80s and 90s. By missing his final exams he will lose 30 per cent of his marks.
"I know my children don't smoke, drink or take drugs," said King's mother, Jo Ann Buler. "As a parent I feel I need to support Kieran but I can see both sides of the issue."
Buler is a teacher and works in the school division which oversees Wawota Parkland School. She said she holds no ill will for the school and believes Kieran and the school have a point of view.
"He doesn't feel he's promoting drug use by talking about it. I don't think he deserves a permanent black mark on his school record," said Buler.
Man Faces 7 Year Sentence Under "Wiretapping Law" For Filming Police
By Steve Watson
A man has been charged in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with filming police officers during a routine traffic stop and faces up to seven years in prison for "wiretapping".
Brian D. Kelly is charged under a state law that bars the intentional interception or recording of anyone's oral conversation without their consent, reports the Patriot News.
The criminal case relates to the sound, not the pictures, that his camera picked up.
His camera and film were seized by police during the May 24 stop, he said, and he spent 26 hours in Cumberland County Prison until his mother posted her house as security for his $2,500 bail. Police also took film from his pockets that wasn't related to the traffic stop, he said.
Kelly, just 18 years old, is obviously extremely scared and has apologized profusely for not knowing the law. He has sought the help of the ACLU in the case.
The charge is invalid because it flouts privacy laws. Under the fourth amendment the expectation of privacy is not reasonable at such public places as automobile thoroughfares.
In other words filming on a public highway cannot be classed as an invasion of privacy.
Furthermore, the expectation of privacy is not reasonable if there exists a vantage point from which anyone, not just a police officer, can see or hear what is going on.
Charging someone with wiretapping for filming on a public highway in this sense would be akin to charging someone with arson for cooking burgers on a grill.
The charge also becomes bogus because the "wiretapping" law is not adhered to by police officers themselves. An exception to the wiretapping law allows police to film people during traffic stops.
In addition police routinely carry microphones that are wired up to their vehicles to record conversations without the knowledge of anyone whom they stop or question.
This is not the first time this has happened either. Last year a North Middleton Twp. man was charged in a street racing case that involved a wiretapping charge. Police claimed the man ordered associates to tape police breaking up an illegal race after officers told him to turn off their cameras.
Furthermore, just last month a 48-year-old man from Dover, New Hampshire was arrested for "wiretapping" for allegedly recording police while they were investigating him for driving while intoxicated.
In addition we have previously covered stories where camera crews have been threatened with arrest for filming peaceful demonstrations, and where cops have been caught stealing protestor's cameras.
Filming in public is a right every American citizen has under the first amendment, which is why the cops in the case above had to steal the camera and the footage, because there was no legal basis to seize it.
It seems that filming and photographing is now deemed to be a threat per se. Pick from any number of stories archived at www.freedomtophotograph.com for example.
In Seattle, police banned a photography student from a public park. He was taking photographs of a bridge for a homework assignment. The officers who ban him from the park do so without the knowledge of park officials and have no authority to do so.
In Texas a man was first threatened by neighbors and then reportedly accosted and sprayed with pepper spray by police. He was walking around his neighborhood, filming with his new video camera.
In New York, National Press Photographers Association members staged a protest in the New York subway system to bring attention to a proposed law to ban photography in the subway system.
In Philadelphia a magazine photographer was detained and questioned after a parade for taking architectural shots while waiting for a subway train.
In Harrisburg, PA a man was swarmed by 8 Police and accused of being a member of Al-Qaeda after shooting pictures of his new car under a bridge.
We have recently exposed how some police now do not understand that they are violating the rights of individuals. In other cases we have witnessed police pull out pocket constitutions from cars and question their legality.
In addition we have a government which has been mired in scandal for wiretapping US citizens without warrant, yet when the tables are turned US citizens face the full wrath of the corrupt judicial system.
Though clearly Brian D. Kelly had no criminal intent and is likely to escape with just a fine, the case sets a dangerous precedent. US citizens can be arrested and charged for filming on public streets.
It also sets the precedent that those who enforce the law are also above the law.
City of Seattle may ban microwave popcorn
The Justice Center has been evacuated eight times in three years, forcing the evacuation of more than 400 people. If the problem continues, it will result in a ban of all microwave popcorn. How has it happened so many times? SEATTLE – At Seattle City Hall there are rules. No weapons, no animals, no loitering, no alcohol, no lying down, no smoking, no music, no fighting, no trespassing. Could the next thing be no microwave popcorn? "It can be a significant problem in the future," says Seattle Facilities Director Pedro Vasquez. The City Facilities Department has just issued a memo to all City employees. "I really don't know, I can't answer that question for you," says Yolande Williams, City Court Administrator. The biggest offenders are at the Justice Center, but overheated popcorn has also forced evacuations at the Municipal Tower. Popcorn is not the easiest thing to cook. Who knows if it's really two, two-and-a-half or three minutes? An unsupervised bag can destroy productivity for all your co-workers. But just the mention of a possible ban at city offices gets a number of responses. "Perhaps what would happen is there'd be an underground market for microwave popcorn, people would sneak the microwaves into their offices, they'd do illicit popping," says Frank Video, a staff member for the Seattle City Council. Is it possible that if popcorn is outlawed, only the outlaws will have popcorn? "You know, it's not something that we have talked about in that much detail yet," says Vasquez. A spokesman for Mayor Greg Nickels says the Mayor does not eat popcorn. The City just wants employees to follow this simple rule: Listen to the pop to know when to stop. The Facilities director admits even his wife has burned a bag or two. "She hit the popcorn button that had an automatic time associated with it and the popcorn still burned," says Vasquez, who says even though it happened at his home, he did not ban popcorn. Popcorn experts tell us the rule is very simple: When the popping slows to one or two seconds between pops, stop the microwave. That's your common sense tip of the day.
20070707
Nightmare at Reagan National Airport: A Security Story to End all Security Stories
UPDATE: TSA has posted a video in the incident on their website. You can read more about this video, the TSA incident report, and the incident itself HERE.
If you travel enough, you've seen it all -- and possibly some of the awful things that can happen while traveling will have actually happened to you. But nothing I've read about or experienced comes close to what Monica Emmerson experienced while at Reagan National Airport on June 11th while traveling with her 19-month-old toddler. This isn't one of those Catch-22 bureaucratic snafus; this isn't about rules being applied to the letter. This story is mostly about what can happen simply because the authorities in charge decide that they're going to exercise their authority because they can, regardless of whether it's legal or right or makes any sense at all.
And if this can happen to a former law enforcement officer with the United States Secret Service, it can happen to anyone.
The incident started when Monica, who left the Secret Service to raise a family, was stopped while going through airport security because there was water in her son's sippy cup. The sippy cup was seized by TSA. Monica wanted the cup back because the sippy cup was the only way her son would drink -- and it was a long flight between Washington, DC and Reno, Nevada where she was going for a family reunion. If you've ever had a toddler you understand about sippy cups.
So she was willing to spill the water out. Drink the water. Anything -- all that she wanted was to be able to have a cup that her 19-month-old toddler could drink from.
Here's what happened in Monica's words:
"I demanded to speak to a TSA [Transportation Security Administration] supervisor who asked me if the water in the sippy cup was 'nursery water or other bottled water.' I explained that the sippy cup water was filtered tap water. The sippy cup was seized as my son was pointing and crying for his cup. I asked if I could drink the water to get the cup back, and was advised that I would have to leave security and come back through with an empty cup in order to retain the cup. As I was escorted out of security by TSA and a police officer, I unscrewed the cup to drink the water, which accidentally spilled because I was so upset with the situation.
"At this point, I was detained against my will by the police officer and threatened to be arrested for endangering other passengers with the spilled 3 to 4 ounces of water. I was ordered to clean the water, so I got on my hands and knees while my son sat in his stroller with no shoes on since they were also screened and I had no time to put them back on his feet. I asked to call back my fiancé, who I could still see from afar, waiting for us to clear security, to watch my son while I was being detained, and the officer threatened to arrest me if I moved. So I yelled past security to get the attention of my fiancé.
"I was ordered to apologize for the spilled water, and again threatened with arrest. I was threatened several times with arrest while detained, and while three other police officers were called to the scene of the mother with the 19 month old. A total of four police officers and three TSA officers reported to the scene where I was being held against my will. I was also told that I should not disrespect the officer and could be arrested for this too. I apologized to the officer and she continued to detain me despite me telling her that I would miss my flight. The officer advised me that I should have thought about this before I 'intentionally spilled the water!'"
Monica said that the incident ended this way: "I missed my flight, needless to say after being detained for over 40 minutes. After the officer was done humiliating me, I was advised that I could go through the security check point in an attempt to catch my flight. The officer insisted that my son and I be rescreened despite us both being detained and under her control the entire time."
During the weeks and months after 9/11 some passengers who were caught with unidentified fluids while going through airport security were told to drink the liquid (including breast milk) to prove that it wasn't an explosive. In one incident, a fourteen year old boy was ordered to drink water that he was carrying, and it turned out that this was unclean pond water he was carrying for a science project. Monica was more than happy to drink her child's tap water --all three or four ounces of it-- and tried, in fact. But it was the trying and spilling that seems to have escalated this into a situation that required the presence of four TSA officers and three police officers.
TSA found no other security problems with Monica Emmerson. Not even a nail clipper. Just the water and the sippy cup.
TSA's rules allow passengers to take up to three ounces of liquid on board; they also allow parents to take milk or baby formula on board in larger quantities than that, if declared to TSA. But the question that she was asked by TSA --was this "nursery water" in the sippy cup?-- was an unanswerable one, since there's no such thing as nursery water in the TSA regulations, and it's not a generic term.
Monica Emmerson was detained for 45 minutes. She wasn't questioned about possible ties to terrorists. Her carry-on items weren't rigorously searched -- or even searched again. Neither the police nor TSA took any action that indicated that they throught she might be a security risk. She was just detained, harassed and threatened with arrest. All because of a sippy cup with water in it.
Judge Orders Man Not to Have Girlfriend
PETERBOROUGH, Ontario (AP) - A judge has ruled that a 24-year-old Canadian man is not allowed to have a girlfriend for the next three years. The ruling came after Steven Cranley pleaded guilty on Tuesday to several charges stemming from an assault on a former girlfriend. Cranley, who has been diagnosed with a dependent personality disorder, attacked his girlfriend in an argument after their breakup. He tried to prevent her from phoning the police by cutting her phone cord and punched and kicked her. He finally stabbed himself with a butcher knife when police did arrive, puncturing his aorta. Doctors say Cranley has difficulty coping with rejection and runs a high risk to re-offend if he becomes involved in another intimate relationship. Justice Rhys Morgan said Cranley "cannot form a romantic relationship of an intimate nature with a female person. "That is the only way I can see the protection of the public is in place until you get the counseling you need." Cranley had already served 146 days in pre-trail custody, which Morgan said was enough jail time in this case. His lawyer says the no girlfriend order is the first of its kind that he has encountered.
Fox News: Universal health care breeds terrorists.
Today on Fox News’s Your World With Neil Cavuto, National Review Online columnist Jerry Bowyer attacked Michael Moore’s movie SiCKO and its positive portrayal of the health care in countries such as Britain and France. He argued that national health care systems are breeding grounds for terrorists because they are “bureaucratic.” “I think the terrorists have shown over and over again…they’re very good at gaming the system with bureaucracies,” said Bowyer.
Bowyer also claimed that in the United States, “if one of your doctors is spending all the time online reading Osama bin Laden fatwas, someone’s going to notice that.”
UPDATE: Michael Roston at Raw Story has compiled conservatives bloggers’ attacks on SiCKO HERE.
Transcript:
A state run health care enterprise is bureaucratic, and I think the terrorists have shown over and over again, whether it’s dealing with INS or whether it’s dealing with airport security, they’re very good at gaming the system with bureaucracies. They’re very good at getting around bureaucracies.
And if one of your guys is a jihadist, if one of your doctors is spending all the time online reading Osama bin Laden fatwas, someone’s going to notice that. But the National Health Serfvice is more like the post office, you know there’s a lot of anonymity, it’s easy to hide in the bureaucracy.
Senator, You Used to Be a Pot Head -- Now You're Talking Like a Narc
By Norman Kent
Editor's Note: The following is a letter addressed to Minnesota Republican Senator Norm Coleman -- a strong advocate of the brutal federal drug laws on the books -- reminding him that he used to be a happy, safe, fun-loving pot smoker.
My friend Norman,
Years ago, in a lifetime far away, you did not oppose the legalization of marijuana. Years ago, in our dorm rooms at Hofstra University, you, me, Billy, your future brother-in-law, Ivan, Jonathan, Peter, Janet, Nancy and a wealth of other students smoked dope.
Sure, we had to tape the doors shut, burn incense and open the windows, but we got high, and yet we grew up okay, without the help of the Office of National Drug Control Policy's advice.
We grew up to become lawyers. Our other friends, as you go down the list, are doctors, professors, parents, political consultants and professionals. No one ever got cancer from smoking pot or diabetes from using a joint. And the days of our youth we look back fondly upon as years where we stood up, were counted and made a difference, from Earth Day in 1970 to helping bring down a president and end a war in Southeast Asia a few years later. We smoked pot when we took over Weller Hall to protest administrative abuses of students' rights. You smoked pot as you stood on the roof of the University Senate protesting faculty exclusivity. As the President of the Student Senate in 1969, you condemned the raid by Nassau County police on our dormitories, busting scores of students for pot possession.
You never said then that pot was dangerous. What was scary then, and is as frightening now, is when national leaders become voices of hypocrisy, harbingers of the status quo, and protect their own position instead of the public good. Welcome to the crowd of those who have become a likeness of which they despised. Welcome to the mindless myriad of legislators who gather in cocktail lounges to manhandle their martinis while passing laws against drunk driving.
We have seen more people die last year from spinach then pot. We have endured generations of drug addicts overdosing on a multitude of drugs, from heroin to crystal methamphetamine. In your public life, as an attorney general, mayor and United States senator, you have been in the forefront of speaking out against abuses which are harmful. You have been a noble and honorable public servant. How about not being such a dope on dope?
How about admitting that if the Rockefeller drug laws were applied to Norman Bruce Coleman on Long Island in 1968, or to me, or to our friends, and fellow students, you, I and others we knew and loved might just be getting out of jail now? How about recognizing that for too long too many have been wrongly arrested, unjustly prosecuted and illegally incarcerated for unconscionable periods of time?
How about recognizing that you have peers who have smoked pot for 25 years or more and they are successful record producers, businessmen and parents?
How about standing up and saying you have heard and witnessed countless stories of persons who have used pot medicinally, as I have, to endure the effects of chemotherapy?
You who have travelled to Africa and seen the face of AIDS so up close and personal would deny medicinal marijuana relief to those souls wasting away from malnutrition, nausea and no access to fundamental medicines?
How about not adopting the sad and sorry archaic path of our office of drug control, which this week suggested pot smokers are more likely to become gang members than others?
How about standing up and saying: "I, Norm Coleman, smoked pot in 1969." That "I am not a gang member, a drug addict or a criminal."
How about saying: "I was able to responsibly integrate my prior pot use into my life, and still succeed on my own merits."
How about standing up not only for who you are, but who you were?
How about it, Norm?
I will always love, admire and cherish what you have achieved and accomplished and the goals you have met. I will always fondly look at the remarkable success of your present.
How about you looking back at your past and saying: "What I did was not so wrong and not so bad and not so hurtful that generations of Americans should still, decades later, be going to jail for smoking pot -- nearly one million arrests for possession last year."
Can't Norm Coleman come out of the closet in 2007 and say "These arrests are wrong -- that there is a better way, and we need to find it."
You might find more integrity and honor in that then adopting the sad and sorry policy of our Office of National Drug Control Policy.
You might find the person you were.
Hotel bans 9/11 survivor
A CONSPIRACY theorist who survived the 9/11 attacks has been banned from a Grange hotel over his controversial views.
Decorated hero William Rodriguez, who believes the US government were behind the attacks, has been told he is not welcome at Graythwaite Manor Hotel because of his “political views”.
Mr Rodriguez, a former janitor credited with saving countless lives on 9/11, is due to give a talk on his experiences at the Victoria Hall in Grange tonight (july 5) as part of his European lecture tour.
In February, Mr Rodriguez planted a tree in the grounds of Graythwaite Manor to remember those who died on September 11, 2001, when terrorists flew jets into the Twin Towers.
He was due back at the hotel tonight and tomorrow night as the guest of owners Jimmy and Jane Duncan.
But in a press statement yesterday, Graythwaite Manor Hotel said he would no longer be staying there.
Mr Rodriguez's lecture was organised by Cumbria 9/11 Truth and Peace Group, which also holds controversial views on September 11.
In a statement Graythwaite Manor Hotel said: "After careful consideration, the new management of Graythwaite Manor Hotel has decided to postpone William Rodriguez visit to the hotel due to his political views.
"Regarding the tree planting. The tree planted in the grounds of the Graythwaite Manor Hotel is purely in remembrance of the victims of 9/11 and is in no way related to Cumbria 9/11 Truth and Peace Group."
Penny Pullen, from the peace group, said it was unclear to her why Mr Rodriguez would not be staying at the hotel.
She said: “I do not know the whole story. There has been one of two complaints about the talk to the tourist information centre.
“Mr Rodriguez does not present political views. He just presents his story and it’s up to everyone to do their research and find out what is the truth for themselves.”
Mr Rodriguez will now be staying at a B&B in the town.
The Puerto Rican-born janitor was working in the New York landmark on one of the stairwells on September 11, 2001, when terrorists flew hijacked jets into the Twin Towers.
Despite the dangers he climbed the north tower and unlocked several doors to let people out.
He was the last man to leave the building and threw himself under a fire truck as the tower collapsed.
But he maintains he heard an explosion in the tower's basement before the first plane struck and suggest a government cover-up.
He is one of three people who have filed a lawsuit against President George Bush alleging conspiracy to murder.
Mr Rodriguez said: "I have tried to tell my story to everybody, but nobody wants to listen. It is very strange what is going on here in supposedly the most democratic country in the world. In my home country of Puerto Rico and all the other Latin American countries, I have been allowed to tell my story uncensored. But here, I can't even say a word."
Cumbria 9/11 Truth and Peace Group were unavailable for comment.
Regarded as a hero Rodriguez, who saved many lives on that fateful day, he has been honoured five times at the White House and is the President of The Hispanic Victims' Group, as well as an internationally recognised peace campaigner.
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