Clipmarks | pokkets's 'law' clips

Judge on Rove citizen arrest: "It's about time"

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:56:23 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: “Mamn [sic], what were you doing at the Wakonda Country Club?”

“I was attempting to make a citizen’s arrest of Karl Rove, your honor,” Shaw answered.

“Well,” the judge looked up and said, “it’s about time.”

Clip Source: thinkprogress.org

Judge on Rove’s citizen arrest: ‘It’s about time.’»

Last Friday, police in Des Moines, Iowa arrested four people who attempted to make a citizens’ arrest of former top White House aide Karl Rove, who was in town to speak at a GOP fundraiser. A retired minister and three members of the Des Moines Catholic Workers community were cited for trespassing. However, according to a press release, the judge presiding over the case praised their efforts:

[Mona] Shaw was the first called before Polk County Fifth Judicial District Associate Judge William Price.

After entering her plea, the judge asked Shaw, “Mamn, what were you doing at the Wakonda Country Club?”

“I was attempting to make a citizen’s arrest of Karl Rove, your honor,” Shaw answered.

“Well,” the judge looked up and said, “it’s about time.”

Tags: rove, law

Yahoo,Jailed Chinese Journalists Lawsuit Settled

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 23:54:40 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: "The past week has been a PR nightmare for Yahoo." What about the Journalists?
Business Professor Peter Navarro said that "Congress has not worked out that Yahoo are not the only culprits."
They have too much trouble with the budget, and there is too much money involved, to see internet collusion unless it's placed right under their noses, and they know the public is aware of it. What's a little ignorance amongst "Friends?" The first thing they want to know if they discover something like this is "Who else knows about this?".......every body? We'd better act like we're doing Something. Sure China is Fundamentally Totalitarian, but business is business. They could be famous last words. It also seems remarkable that the case has been settled in a civil suit. How far will lawyers get the Journalists in a Chinese Trial? Yahoo had to comply with the Chinese. Why? How much money wouldn't they earn if they failed to comply.

Clip Source: www.mail.com

PAUL ELIAS

Yahoo Inc., reeling from a growing backlash over human rights and its China operations, settled a lawsuit Tuesday that accused it of illegally helping the Chinese government jail and torture two journalists

Neither side disclosed details other than to agree Yahoo would pay the attorneys fees of Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning and the family member who sued on their behalf. Yahoo also said it would "provide financial, humanitarian and legal support to these families."

settlement has reopened debate over Internet companies cooperating with governments that deny freedom of speech and crack down on journalists

It marked a dramatic

change of heart for Yahoo, which had steadfastly maintained it had to comply with a request from Chinese authorities to share information about the online activities of the two Chinese nationals

Yahoo's cooperation turned into a public relations nightmare

Shi and Wang sued Yahoo and Alibaba in April

"Congress hasn't figured out that Yahoo is not the only culprit,"

Tags: yahoo, china, internet, journalist, human rights, congress, suit, law

Judge Orders White House to hold Emails

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 21:45:20 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: Bush Administration lawyers are arguing strongly against the decision. They protest the decision, of a federal judge, when it should be remembered that Bush owes his Presidency to a Supreme court decision, after the 2000 election. Maybe they want it to be taken to the Supreme Court. They know some people there.

Clip Source: www.mail.com

By PETE YOST

A federal judge Monday ordered the White House to preserve copies of all its e-mails, a move that Bush administration lawyers had argued strongly against.

U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy directed the Executive Office of the President to safeguard the material in response to two lawsuits that seek to determine whether the White House has destroyed e-mails in violation of federal law.

The White House is seeking dismissal of the lawsuits brought by two private groups -- Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government and the National Security Archive.

The organizations allege the disappearance of 5 million White House

e-mails. The court order issued by Kennedy, an appointee of President Clinton, is directed at maintaining backup tapes which contain copies of White House e-mails.

The Federal Records Act details strict standards prohibiting the destruction of government documents including electronic messages, unless first approved by the archivist of the United States.

Tags: white house, email, protest, judge, order, law

Advocates sue to enforce pesticide order

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 07:59:44 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: Pesticides that kill salmon in minute quantities. Most will wash down to the ocean. but many won't break down.

Clip Source: www.mail.com

By JEFF BARNARD

Salmon advocates filed a lawsuit Monday to force the Bush administration to obey a 5-year-old court order requiring it to make permanent rules to keep agricultural pesticides from killing salmon.

Filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, the lawsuit asks a judge to order NOAA Fisheries, the agency in charge of protecting salmon, to formally consult with the Environmental Protection Agency over the use of 37 pesticides. Several are commonly found in rivers around the country and can kill salmon at minute concentrations.

U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour had ordered the formal consultations in 2002 and imposed temporary restrictions

that barred crop-dusting next to salmon streams and required home and garden stores to post warnings for consumers.

"Apparently what it takes to get this administration to do its job under (the Endangered Species Act) is to have someone there enforcing the law every step of the way," said Joshua Osborne-Klein, an attorney for Earthjustice

Tags: pesticide, agriculture, bush, law, pollutionadministration

Capital punishment at crossroads in U.S.

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 05:58:08 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: There are appeals whether the methods used, particularly lethal injections, could be unconstitutional, by the Eighth Amendment with regard to cruel and unusual punishment. It is unlikely the Supreme Court will ban Capital punishment, but States who are in doubt, could halt it if was clear the appeals process could make it impractical.

Clip Source: www.mail.com

By MARK SHERMAN

Stop executions for a while and perhaps they can be stopped forever. That calculation has been part of the strategy of capital punishment opponents for decades.

The Supreme Court-inspired slowdown in executions offers the first nationwide opportunity in 20-plus years to test whether the absence of regularly scheduled executions will lead some states to abandon the death penalty and change public attitudes about capital punishment.

Recent decisions by judges and elected officials have made clear that most executions will not proceed until the Supreme Court rules in a challenge by two death row inmates to the lethal injection procedures

used by Kentucky. The inmates say Kentucky's method creates the risk of pain severe enough to be cruel and unusual punishment, banned by the Eighth Amendment.

justices could decide whether Kentucky's procedures violate the Constitution and what standard the courts should use to evaluate the risk a prisoner will feel pain as he is put to death

Tags: capital, punishment, constitution, law, execution, appeal

Aging Inmates clogging Nation's prisons

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 03:02:17 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: Will they introduce voluntary euthanasia ?

Clip Source: www.mail.com

By SHANNON McCAFFREY

Razor wire topping the fences seems almost a joke at the Men's State Prison, where many inmates are slumped in wheelchairs, or leaning on walkers or canes.

It's becoming an increasingly common sight: geriatric inmates spending their waning days behind bars. The soaring number of aging inmates is now outpacing the prison growth as a whole.

Tough sentencing laws passed in the crime-busting 1980s and 1990s are largely to blame. It's all fueling an explosion in inmate health costs for cash-strapped states.

"It keeps going up and up," said Alan Adams, director of Health Services for the Georgia Department of Corrections. "We've

got some old guys who are too sick to get out of bed. And some of them, they're going to die inside. The courts say we have to provide care and we do. But that costs money."

Justice Department statistics show that the number of inmates in federal and state prisons age 55 and older shot up 33 percent from 2000 to 2005

faster than the 9 percent

overall

Tags: prison, inmate, cost, nation, geriatric, growth, sentence, law

N Carolina Med board to appeal executions ruling

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 01:09:44 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: Hippocratic Oath :"I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.
To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor nor give advice which may cause his death."
Doctors today are not obliged to swear to the Hippocratic Oath.
I wonder why they need a doctor, when the description of cruel and unusual punishment, and torture is so vague. From some reports I've heard the Doctors presence has been to record the time of death, and why exactly a means of execution failed to go as planned. I would have absolutely no faith in a Doctor that refused to take the Hippocratic oath, who has the hubris to believe they have the authority, and judgment to be takers of life as opposed to be sworn to save life. Clearly Authority considers life as a principle to be subject to it's demands. Surely a Monitor has the objectivity that would be missing in a 'doctor' complicit with an execution.

Clip Source: www.mail.com

The state Medical Board will appeal a judge's decision that the panel overstepped its authority by threatening to punish physicians for participating in executions.

The board's policy effectively triggered a moratorium on the state's death penalty. North Carolina has not executed a condemned inmate since August 2006.

The ruling issued last month by Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens said executions are not medical procedures and whether to ban doctors from them is strictly a legislative decision

The board, which licenses and disciplines doctors in North Carolina, adopted the policy in January, saying the practice violates

the ethics of a profession tasked with saving life

The panel still believes its position "accurately reflects the ethics of the medical profession

"The board determined that the principle that physicians should not take an active role in judicial executions is a principle that should not be abandoned,"

State law requires that a doctor be present during a lethal injection

Tags: judgment, doctor, hippocratic, execution, physician, law

$100.000 bail for man who taunted police dog

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 03:29:37 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: It's a Felony in Pennsylvania to taunt a police dog.

Clip Source: www.mail.com

A Pittsburgh man accused of taunting a police dog on Sunday was being held in jail on $100,000 bail. Police say Kenneth King, 23, taunted Benny, a German shepherd, as he walked by a police vehicle.

Police say King screamed that he hates dogs and threatened to kill the animal after it started barking.

King's mother said the situation is serious, but questioned the high bail. She said people have been arrested for hurting people and they don't have bail set that high.

Taunting police animals is a felony under Pennsylvania's animal cruelty law.

Tags: taunt, dog, police, bail, felony, law

4D ultrasounds may test abortion laws

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:39:40 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: 4D ultrasounds can show movement of the foetus, developing features from early stages. Early growth can be seen in a new light. The inception of consciousness is more difficult to pinpoint. The development of consciousness may be a gradual acquisition of sensory information, and subsequent associated perspective, that does not stop until we die, perhaps beyond. The difference between a foetus and an the old may just be experience.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Dani Cooper

Ultrasounds that produce video-quality moving images of the foetus have changed the debate about late-term abortion and is challenging current regulations, an Australian ethics expert says.

Video-like 4D ultrasounds are changing the abortion debate, says one researcher

Senior law lecturer Dr Kristin Savell, of the University of Sydney, says so-called 4D ultrasound technology has "democratised foetal imagery" by giving the public direct visual access to realistic images.

The deputy director of the Centre for Health Governance, Law and Ethics says these images have prompted a change in the language of the abortion debate with a greater focus on the "personhood" of the foetus.

Savell says the 4D scans produce images that are like photographs of newborns and features such as eyes, faces and lips are recognisable to people without medical training.

"The idea that you can see a face and facial features is very central to how we understand ourselves," she says.

Tags: 4d, ultrasound, abortion, law, ethics, medicine, foetus, health

Know Your Rights: Why is copyright law so screwed up?

Sat, 06 Oct 2007 06:06:36 GMT

clipped by: SteveJohnSteele
clipper's remarks: FYI
the Steve mentioned in the clip is NOT me

Clip Source: www.engadget.com

Know Your Rights: Why is copyright law so screwed up?

What on earth is going on with that $222,000 RIAA judgment against that poor woman in Minnesota? Is the system really that broken?

Highest Ranked

Brian @ Oct 5th 2007 7:04PM

I understand why the woman is being fined... she broke the law. However, if the RIAA sued me, and took my house, my car, my children's college funds, my retirement, and put my family into poverty, I'd do whatever I could to assassinate members of the board of the RIAA.

If they ruined your life, as well as your family, what would you do?

Highly Ranked

steve @ Oct 5th 2007 7:26PM

your right. I'm just waiting for the day that someone in the RIAA gets killed over this shit. Ruining someone's life to set an example is terrible. Hope they go to Hell for this(in the very serious sense)

Tags: riaa, p2p, law

2 Patriot Act Provisions ruled unlawful

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 05:08:28 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: They bugged a Portland Attorney. Brilliant!

Clip Source: www.mail.com

By WILLIAM McCALL

Two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled Wednesday

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, "now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment."

Portland attorney Brandon Mayfield sought the ruling in a lawsuit against the federal government after he was mistakenly linked by the FBI to the Madrid train b

ombings that killed 191 people in 2004

The federal government apologized and settled part of the lawsuit for $2 million after admitting a fingerprint was misread.

s part of the settlement, Mayfield retained the right to challenge parts of the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the authority of law enforcers to investigate suspected acts of terrorism.

Tags: patriot act, law, constitution, surveillance, probable cause

Bush wants spy law permanent,more extensive

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 01:12:41 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: www.mail.com

By DEB RIECHMANN

President Bush said Wednesday he wants Congress to expand and make permanent a law that temporarily gives the government more power to eavesdrop without warrants on suspected foreign terrorists.

Without such action, Bush said, "our national security professionals will lose critical tools they need to protect our country."

"It will be harder to figure out what our enemies are doing to train, recruit and infiltrate operatives into America," the president said during a visit to the super-secret National Security Agency's headquarters. "Without these tools, our country will be much more vulnerable to attack."

This year's update

allows more efficient interceptions of foreign communications

Under the new law, the government can eavesdrop without a court order on communications conducted by a person reasonably believed to be outside the U.S., even if an American is on one end of the conversation -- so long as that American is not the intended focus or target of the surveillance.

Tags: spy, law, bush, surveilance, security, privacy, rights.

God sued for "terroristic threats"

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 03:24:21 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.ksat.com

To prove a point about frivolous lawsuits, Nebraska state Senator Ernie Chambers is suing God.

He said his main objection is the constitution requires that the doors to the courthouse be open to all. Chambers said, "Thus anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody-- even God."

Chambers' lawsuit, which was filed on Friday in Douglas County Court, seeks a permanent injunction ordering God to cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats.

The lawsuit admits God goes by all sorts of aliases, names, titles and designations and it also recognizes the fact that the defendant is “Omnipresent.”

The lawsuit also accuses God “of making and continuing to make terroristic threats of grave harm," and alleges God has caused, “fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects, and the like.”

Tags: god, religion, law, lawsuit, legal, terrorism, belief, court

Spy Chief : Russia,China Spying on the U.S.

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:27:45 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: Protect America Act? If only it was an act. How is that Law going to protect the people from the government

Clip Source: www.mail.com

By PAMELA HESS

China and Russia are spying on the United States nearly as much as they did during the Cold War, according to the top U.S. intelligence official.

Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, says in testimony prepared for a Tuesday congressional hearing that a law passed last month expanding the U.S. government's eavesdropping power is needed to protect not just against terrorists but also against more traditional potential adversaries, such as those two Cold War foes.

Congress last month hastily adopted the Protect America Act just before it went on summer vacation, propelled by McConnell's warnings of a need to close a dangerous gap in U.S. intelligence law.

Some lawmakers are now having second thoughts as the complicated law -- intended to make it easier for the government to intercept foreign calls and e-mails -- has come under attack by civil liberties and privacy advocates who contend it gives the government broader powers than intended.

Tags: spy, cia, kgb, intelligence, law, cold war

'War on Drugs' Clock

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 16:31:59 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: The clock is running at the site. The money spent is rising at about $600 a second

Clip Source: www.drugsense.org

It is Fri Sep 14 2007

Money Spent on the War On Drugs this Year

Federal
State
Total

The U.S. federal government spent over $19 billion dollars in 2003 on the War on Drugs, at a rate of about $600 per second. The budget has since been increased by over a billion dollars.

Source: Office of National Drug Control Policy

State and local governments spent at least another 30 billion.

Source: National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University: "Shoveling Up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets," January, 2001.

People Arrested for Drug Law Offenses this Year

Arrests for drug law violations in 2007 are expected to exceed the 1,678,192 arrests of 2003.

Someone is arrested every 20 seconds.

Source: Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation

People Arrested for Cannabis Law Offenses this Year

Source: Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation

People Incarcerated for Drug Law Offenses this Year

Preventable HIV Infections this Year