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What To Do When You're Stopped By Police - The ACLU & Elon James White

What To Do When You're Stopped By Police - The ACLU & Elon James White

Know Anyone Who Thinks Racial Profiling Is Exaggerated? Watch This, And Tell Me When Your Jaw Drops.


This video clearly demonstrates how racist America is as a country and how far we have to go to become a country that is civilized and actually values equal justice. We must not rest until this goal is achieved. I do not want my great grandchildren to live in a country like we have today. I wish for them to live in a country where differences of race and culture are not ignored but valued as a part of what makes America great.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

BBC News - China court 'accepts first HIV job discrimination case'

BBC News - China court 'accepts first HIV job discrimination case'
A Chinese man has filed a lawsuit alleging he was denied a job because he has HIV.
State media say this is the first time that such a discrimination case has been accepted by a Chinese court.
The man said he had passed written tests and interviews for the teaching post in Anhui province.
But he was turned down after medical screening revealed his HIV status, China Daily said.
The newspaper reported that the case will be heard by a court in Anqing city, in Anhui province.
The plaintiff, a recent graduate, was not asking for compensation but wanted to be given the job, it said.
A lawyer for the plaintiff told the BBC that he would defend his client under existing Chinese laws.
"The state already has laws and regulations forbidding discrimination against HIV carriers when they apply for jobs," Zheng Jineng said.
"But the actual practise by some government departments and employers are in direct conflict with the laws.
"The fact that the People's Court has accepted the case indicates that the rule of law in China is progressing."
Officials say an estimated 740,000 Chinese people are living with HIV/Aids.
Many face discrimination in employment, education and healthcare because of the stigma attached to the virus.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

What's Behind A Surge In Anti-Muslim Rhetoric? : NPR

What's Behind A Surge In Anti-Muslim Rhetoric? : NPR
The controversy surrounding the proposed mosque near Ground Zero is the most visible sign of what may be growing anti-Muslim sentiment around the country -- from protests over proposed mosques in California and Tennessee to plans for anti-Islam protests and Quran burnings on Sept. 11. What may be fueling the anti-Muslim rhetoric?

Thursday, August 19, 2010

BBC News - Wikileaks encryption use offers 'legal challenge'

BBC News - Wikileaks encryption use offers 'legal challenge'
Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange responds to a BBC question about why it provides encrypted files for download. (Video: Frontline Club)
A novel use of encryption by whistle-blowing website Wikileaks could "challenge the legal system for years to come," according to an influential observer of the hacking community.
Some suspect the file - as yet unopened - contains further sensitive material.
It has been reposted around the web and is available for anyone to download.
"If you release it in encrypted form, nobody really knows if you've released it or not - or even what the material is," Mr Goldstein told BBC News.
"Then, if something happens to you, all it takes is the revelation of a simple spoken phrase known by a select group of people and everyone who has this mystery file now has all of the secrets."

Friday, August 13, 2010

Reporters' Roundtable: Net neutrality | Reporters' Roundtable Podcast - CNET Blogs

Reporters' Roundtable: Net neutrality | Reporters' Roundtable Podcast - CNET Blogs






Today we're talking about an issue that's been in the news a lot in the past few days: Net neutrality -- the concept of a network infrastructure that is nondiscriminatory when it comes to types and sources and the content of Internet traffic. To support Net neutrality is to support freedom, openness, fair competition, and economic growth, according to supporters. On the other hand, somebody's got to pay for the Internet, both its wires and its wireless towers and radios. Who should that be? And if someone's paying for it, shouldn't they have some say in what goes over their equipment? Isn't telling businesses what they have to do with their privately built infrastructure antibusiness, antigrowth, and short-sighted?


That's the fundamental argument over Net neutrality, and there are some interesting specifics being added to the dialogue. Most recently, Google and Verizon produced what the two companies want to serve as a framework for Net neutrality going forward. AT&T has endorsed this proposal. Facebook has come out against it.


Today we're going to talk about these developments, and look at Net neutrality overall. How we got to where we are, where we're going, and who the actors are in the debate.


My guests today are two regular writers on the topic. First, here in the studio, Larry Downes, a well-known writer and thinker about emerging technology and policy issues. He's the author of the books "Laws of Disruption" and "Unleashing the Killer App," and writes frequently on CNET as well as on other publications about Net neutrality.


Joining us from our New York bureau is CNET writer Maggie Reardon. Maggie reports regularly on telecommunications policy and technology issues for CNET, and was on our show most recently about a month ago when we were discussing the iPhone 4 antenna issues.




Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Facebook differs with Google on Net neutrality | The Social - CNET News

Facebook logoImage via Wikipedia
Facebook differs with Google on Net neutrality | The Social - CNET News

Facebook has released a statement about its stance on the controversial topic of Net neutrality--and it's not in agreement with Google, which recently announced a proposal with Verizon Communications in which it recommends that Net neutrality not extend beyond the "public Internet" of wireline networks.
"Facebook continues to support principles of Net neutrality for both landline and wireless networks," the company's Washington, D.C.-based policy spokesman, Andrew Noyes, said in a statement. "Preserving an open Internet that is accessible to innovators--regardless of their size or wealth--will promote a vibrant and competitive marketplace where consumers have ultimate control over the content and services delivered through their Internet connections."
Noyes clarified to CNET via e-mail that it's reasserting Facebook's existing stance on Net neutrality and that the statement should not be considered specific to the Google-Verizon framework; last fall, Facebook was one of the companies to sign a letter to the FCC in support of Chairman Julius Genachowski's efforts to preserve Net neutrality.
The Google-Verizon proposal draws a line between wireline and wireless broadband networks, meaning that while the two companies--which work together in Google's Android market--support the FCC's regulation of wireline networks, they claim that innovation in the mobile world could be curtailed through the presence of a nondiscrimination policy.

Malaysia 1st women Islamic judges get equal powers - The China Post

Malaysia 1st women Islamic judges get equal powers - The China Post

Updated Wednesday, August 11, 2010 3:20 pm TWN, By Julia Zappei, AP
Malaysia 1st women Islamic judges get equal powers

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Malaysia's first women Islamic court judges are starting to hear cases this month after Shariah legal authorities empowered them with the same authority as their male colleagues, an official said Wednesday.
The two female judges were appointed in May to combat perceptions that Islamic courts unfairly favor men. But one senior judge said Shariah law provisions in this Muslim-majority country barred them from presiding over cases involving divorce and matters involving morality crimes, such as drinking and gambling.

However, a panel of top Malaysian Islamic judges subsequently decided the two women would have the same jurisdiction as male judges "in light of Shariah principles" to uphold justice, said Mohamad Na'im Mokhtar, an official in Malaysia's government-run department for the Islamic judiciary.

Monday, August 09, 2010

Google And Verizon CEOs Unveil Proposed Net-Neutrality Policy : All Tech Considered : NPR

Google And Verizon CEOs Unveil Proposed Net-Neutrality Policy : All Tech Considered : NPR

Google and Verizon announced Monday that the two companies had reached an agreement on a policy proposal surrounding net neutrality.


Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg.


In a conference call, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said the agreement lays out seven principles on how service providers can manage traffic.


The agreement states networks should be transparent about how they manage traffic and that they cannot degrade traffic or provide paid prioritization to any service on the public Internet. The policy does leave room for providers like Verizon to create "additional, differentiated online services."


Seidenberg explained that includes services like Verizon's FIOS TV or hypothetically could include something like a Metropolitan Opera 3D broadcast of a performance.


Some companies, he said, may not want to transmit something like that over the Internet, so they want the ability to be able to provide a differentiated service.


That said, Seidenberg added, these services could not be "designed to circumvent the rules."


Schmidt said that Google "loves the public Internet" and that neither Google nor any of its properties like YouTube would be providing any services outside of the public Internet.


What is net neutrality? Net neutrality is about preventing high-speed Internet providers from discriminating against certain sorts of providers or users of their network. For a hundred years, we've treated communications providers like sidewalks. The sidewalks can't choose between different walkers and have them travel at different speeds.


-- Alan Greenblatt



The big caveat in the proposed policy is that the Federal Communications Commission could enforce these rules only in the wireline world. Wireless broadband would be exempt from all the rules, except that the service providers would be required to be transparent about their network management.


In the conference call, Seidenberg said the two companies came to this proposal after conversations with FCC, including its chairman, and other service providers.


Verizon said is set to begin abiding by the policy proposal, even before the FCC takes any action.

Thursday, August 05, 2010

U.S. Court Overturns Calif. Same-Sex Marriage Ban - NYTimes.com

U.S. Court Overturns Calif. Same-Sex Marriage Ban - NYTimes.com

AN FRANCISCO — Saying that it unfairly targets gay men and women, a federal judge in San Francisco struck down California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage on Wednesday, handing supporters of such unions a temporary victory in a legal battle that seems all but certain to be settled by the Supreme Court.


Wednesday’s decision is just the latest chapter of what is expected to be a long legal battle over the ban – Proposition 8, which was passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote.


Vaughn R. Walker, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, who heard the case without a jury, immediately stayed his decision pending appeals by proponents of Proposition 8, who confidently predicted that higher courts would be less accommodating than Judge Walker. But on Wednesday, at least, the winds seemed to be at the back of those who feel that marriage is not, as the voters of California and many other states feel, solely the province of a man and a woman.


"Proposition 8 cannot survive any level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause," wrote Mr. Walker. "Excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to a legitimate state interest."

Kagan Joins Supreme Court After 63-37 Vote in Senate - NYTimes.com

Sonia Sotomayor, U.S. Supreme Court justiceImage via Wikipedia
Kagan Joins Supreme Court After 63-37 Vote in Senate - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed Elena Kagan to a seat on the Supreme Court on Thursday, giving President Obama his second appointment to the high court in a year, and a political victory as the Senate neared the end of its business for the summer.

Ms. Kagan, a former dean of the Harvard Law School and a legal adviser in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, was approved by a vote of 63 to 37 after hearings and floor debate that showcased competing views of Democrats and Republicans about the court, but exposed no significant stumbling blocks to her confirmation.

She becomes the fourth woman ever named to the court, and will join two other woman currently serving, including Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Obama administration nominee, who was confirmed almost exactly one year ago.

“Her qualifications, intelligence, temperament and judgment will make her a worthy successor to Justice John Paul Stevens,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said of Ms. Kagan.

Five Republicans joined 56 Democrats and two independents in supporting the nomination; 36 Republicans and one Democrat, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, opposed her. In a sign of the import of the moment, senators were asked to record their votes from their desks.

The sharp partisan divide over the nomination illustrated the increasing political polarization of fights over high court nominees, who in years past were backed by both parties in the absence of some disqualifying factor. Ms. Kagan received fewer Republican votes than Justice Sotomayor, who was supported by nine in her 68-31 confirmation on Aug. 6, 2009. Democrats balked at President George W. Bush’s nominee, Samuel A. Alito Jr., with only four endorsing him in a 58 to 42 vote in January 2006.

At age 50, Ms. Kagan could have a long tenure on the court, but her confirmation is not seen as significantly altering the current, closely divided ideological makeup of the court, which is often split 5-4 on major decisions.

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Kagan avoids drama on way to court - POLITICO.com Print View

Supreme Court Nominee Sonia SotomayorImage by talkradionews via Flickr
Kagan avoids drama on way to court - POLITICO.com

Senate floor debate on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan kicked off Tuesday, beginning the final chapter in what has proved to be a low-drama process well-suited to a hot Washington summer.

Conservative and liberal judicial activists generally agreed that the struggle over Kagan’s nomination has produced fewer fireworks and drawn less public attention than any nomination since President Bill Clinton tapped Stephen Breyer in 1994. Even the structure of the Senate’s final three-day debate over Kagan was indicative of a less-than-riveting process: Majority Leader Harry Reid warned colleagues to expect repeated interruptions to take up other pressing Senate business.

The ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions of Alabama has tried tirelessly to get attention for GOP criticism of Kagan. But even he conceded that it has been a challenge to get the public and the Senate to focus on a low-key nominee that everyone predicted would be confirmed anyway.

“There are a lot of big issues occurring right now,” Sessions said. “We have teachers’ bailouts, we’ve got energy [legislation] and we got this confirmation, and other things keep popping up, too.”

Indeed, soon after the Kagan debate began Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was on the floor — but he wasn’t talking about the Supreme Court. Instead, he slammed the Democrats’ economic agenda and talked about the bill to prevent teacher layoffs.

Later, the Republicans had their weekly lunch to discuss official business. When the GOP leaders addressed reporters afterward, no one uttered a word about Kagan. As one GOP aide put it: “No one really cares about Kagan.”

After Afghan War Leaks, Revisions in a Shield Bill - NYTimes.com

After Afghan War Leaks, Revisions in a Shield Bill - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — Democratic senators who have been working on legislation providing greater protections to reporters who refuse to identify confidential sources are backpedaling from WikiLeaks, the Web site that recently disclosed more than 75,000 classified documents related to the Afghanistan war.


Senators Charles E. Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, Democrats of New York and California, are drafting an amendment to make clear that the bill’s protections extend only to traditional news-gathering activities and not to Web sites that serve as a conduit for the mass dissemination of secret documents. The so-called “media shield” bill is awaiting a vote on the Senate floor.


“WikiLeaks should not be spared in any way from the fullest prosecution possible under the law,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement. “Our bill already includes safeguards when a leak impacts national security, and it would never grant protection to a Web site like this one, but we will take this extra step to remove even a scintilla of doubt.”


The bill would allow reporters, when faced with subpoenas seeking to compel them to testify about their confidential sources, to ask a federal judge to quash the demand rather than fining or jailing them for contempt of court if they refuse to comply. About three dozen states have such a law for state courts.


Under the bill, federal judges would evaluate requests to quash a subpoena by balancing the public interest against the need to identify a source, providing different levels of protection depending on the nature of the case.


The information seeker would also have to exhaust all other means of obtaining the names before seeking a journalist’s testimony, though matters involving threats to national security would be exempted from some protections.


It is not clear whether WikiLeaks — a confederation of open-government advocates who solicit secret documents for publication — could be subject to a federal subpoena. Federal courts most likely do not have jurisdiction over it or a means to serve it with such a subpoena.


Moreover, WikiLeaks says that its Web site uses technology that makes it impossible to trace the source of documents that are submitted to it, so even if the organization were compelled to disclose a source, it is not clear that it would be able to do so.


Still, in case WikiLeaks or a similar organization sought to invoke a shield law, proponents of the legislation are trying to create legislative history that would show judges that Congress did not intend for the law to cover such organizations. The idea, aides said, would be to add language bolstering a section defining who would be covered by the law as a journalist — an area that can be tricky in an era of blogging and proliferation of online-only news media outlets.


Paul J. Boyle, senior vice president for public policy at the Newspaper Association of America — which supports the bill — said Senate aides had asked his group to consult on the proposed changes.

Monday, August 02, 2010

Wikileaks editor interrogated by US border police - Americas, World - The Independent

Wikileaks editor interrogated by US border police - Americas, World - The Independent

A senior volunteer for Wikileaks in the US has been detained, questioned and had his phones seized when he returned to the country from Europe, as the FBI steps up its investigation into the leak of thousands of Afghanistan war secrets to the whistleblower website.

Jacob Appelbaum, who has stood in for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange since he was advised not to travel to the US, spent three hours at a New York airport while customs officers photocopied receipts and searched his laptop, and he was again approached and questioned by FBI officers at a computer hackers conference in Las Vegas on Saturday.

Two officers approached Mr Appelbaum after he had given a talk on how to subvert Chinese government internet surveillance at the annual DefCon conference. He declined to talk to them.
_______________________________________
This detention by the U.S. government seems like an act of pure naked intimidation without a basis in law. Wikileak actions do not appear tobe in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 793 : US Code - Section 793 and they are protected by the holding of the U.S. Supreme Court in NEW YORK TIMES CO. v. UNITED STATES, 403 U.S. 713 (1971) both linked below. It should be noted that no criminal charges have been filed.  They may try to get a judge to jail him based upon civil contempt if he fails to reveal the source of the leaked documents.

John H. Armwood

Related U.S. Statute and The Pentagon Papers Case





"We granted certiorari in these cases in which the United States seeks to enjoin the New York Times and the Washington Post from publishing the contents of a classified study entitled "History of U.S. Decision-Making Process on Viet Nam Policy." Post, pp. 942, 943.
    "Any system of prior restraints of expression comes to this Court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity." Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U.S. 58, 70 (1963); see also Near v. Minnesota,283 U.S. 697 (1931). The Government "thus carries a heavy burden of showing justification for the imposition of such a restraint." Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U.S. 415, 419 (1971). The District Court for the Southern District of New York in the New York Times case and the District Court for the District of Columbia and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in the Washington Post case held that the Government had not met that burden. We agree.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is therefore affirmed. The order of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is reversed and the case is remanded with directions to enter a judgment affirming the judgment of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. The stays entered June 25, 1971, by the Court are vacated. The judgments shall issue forthwith. So ordered."

Sunday, August 01, 2010

Judge 'inundated' with death threats after Arizona ruling :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Nation

Judge 'inundated' with death threats after Arizona ruling :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Nation

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton received hundreds of threats at her court offices within hours of her ruling last week on Arizona's tough and controversial immigration law.

"She has been inundated," said U.S. Marshal David Gonzales, indicating his agents are taking some seriously. "About 99.9 percent of the inappropriate comments are people venting. They are exercising their First Amendment rights, and a lot of it is perverted. But it's that 0.1 percent that goes over the line that we are taking extra seriously."

Bolton put on hold key provisions, including the heart of the statute that would give police the authority to check a suspect's immigration status during routine stops if there was reasonable suspicion that the suspect was in the country illegally. Her decision also blocks sections of the law that would require documented immigrants to carry their registration papers.

She agreed with the Obama administration that the Arizona law was unconstitutional because legal immigrants and U.S. citizens "will necessarily be swept up" by it.