Law

Net Neutrality Rules Already Forcing Companies To Play Fair

May 22, 2015 Karl Bode, www.techdirt.com Educate! FCC, Internet, Law, Net Neutrality, Telecommunications

The FCC's net neutrality rules don't even go into effect until June 12, but they're already benefiting consumers. You'll recall that the last year or so has been filled with ugly squabbling over interconnection issues, with Level 3 accusing ISPs like Verizon of letting peering points congest to kill settlement-free peering and drive Netflix toward paying for direct interconnection. But with Level 3 and Cogent hinting they'd be using the FCC's new complaint process to file grievances about anti-competitive behavior, magically Verizon has now quickly struck deals with Level 3 and Cogent that everybody on board appears to be happy with. And it's not just Verizon; Level 3 also quickly managed to strike a new interconnection deal with AT&T, and Cogent CEO Dave Schaeffer recently proclaimed Comcast has also become suddenly more amicable of late, turning on ports for capacity quickly and when needed.

Foreclosure Victims Occupy Senate Stump Speech Of Kamala Harris

May 22, 2015 Occupy Fights Foreclosure, www.la.indymedia.org Resist! Capitalism, Foreclosure, Housing, Law

Homeowners frustrated at being denied a meeting with California Attorney General Kamala Harris for over four years attended this weekend’s California Democrats State Convention at the Anaheim Convention Center. Harris, who is running for the Senate seat that will be vacated upon Barbara Boxer’s retirement at the end of 2016, was scheduled to deliver a stump speech to the LA County Young Democrats in the Grand Plaza on Saturday afternoon. Some of the foreclosure victims at Saturday’s protest were present for the much-heralded May 2011 launch of the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force. At that press conference, after identifying themselves as homeowner stakeholders, the foreclosure fighters were directed to a side room that Harris never addressed.

The Women’s Court: A Feminist Approach To Justice

May 22, 2015 Peace Is Loud, www.peaceisloud.org Create! Bosnia, Feminism, Justice, Law, Patriarchy

Karima Bennoune: What is critical about the Women’s Court in Sarajevo was the way it was constructed for and with the full participation of women victims themselves. Women designed the court. Women testified. Women were the experts and judges. The process employed feminist pedagogy, with the organizers consulting extensively on the ground over a period of years, and providing support to victims before, during and after the court met. The Women’s Court was the first of its kind in the Europe region. This symbolic tribunal was jointly organized by women’s groups from every part of the Former Yugoslavia. As the Algerian sociologist Marieme Helie-Lucas, Founder of Secularism Is a Women’s Issue (SIAWI), who attended the hearings wrote, “This, in and by itself, is a huge achievement, at a time when Europe is plagued with the rise of nationalisms, of extreme right forces that divide peoples along ethnic and religious lines…”

9 Days Of Protest To Expose FERC

May 21, 2015 Anne Meador and John Zangas, www.dcmediagroup.us Resist! Environment, FERC, Fracking, Law, Oil & Gas

Several days of protests are about to kick off in Washington, DC in response to the increasing toll which hydraulic fracking is taking on communities in the United States and the global climate. A coalition group called Beyond Extreme Energy has planned direct actions on the doorstep of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which approves construction of interstate gas pipelines, compressor stations, gas storage facilities and other infrastructure around the country. On weekdays from May 21 to 29, the protests, called “FERCus,” will highlight the agency’s sham process of evaluating infrastructure projects, which always favors industry. People in communities affected by these projects say that their voices aren’t heard, and that FERC disregards the consequences to their health and safety while abusing powers of eminent domain.

Message From Plea Deal: Criminal Behavior Rampant On Wall St.

May 21, 2015 Robert Weissman, www.citizen.org Educate! Capitalism, Criminal Justice, Law, Wall Street

There are two messages in today’s plea deal: First, criminality is rampant on Wall Street. Second, the era of too-big-to-jail is alive and well. Even as they beat their chests announcing how tough they are, government regulators refuse to apply to the giant banks the same rules that apply to everyone else. The illegal acts to which the five banks have admitted wrongdoing weren’t accidents or technical violations. They were intentional violations of the law. They were conducted in concert with purported competitors. And they were hidden through use of code words. Many of the five banks are repeat lawbreakers, and the Department of Justice deserves credit for revisiting a prior non-prosecution agreement, and now prosecuting prior crimes at the giant company UBS.

Gyrocopter Face 9.5 Years In Jail, Facing Six Charges

May 21, 2015 Jesse Byrnes, www.thehill.com Resist! Drones, Law, Surveillance

The Florida postal worker who flew his gyrocopter under the radar into Washington and onto the West Lawn of the Capitol earlier this year faces nearly 10 years in prison after being indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday. Doug Hughes, 61, was indicted in U.S. District Court in D.C. on two felony counts of flying without a pilot's certificate and lacking registration for his small aircraft, each carrying up to three years in prison. He was also indicted on four misdemeanor counts, including flying in restricted airspace, that carry a total of three and a half years in prison as well as potential fines. Hughes is scheduled to appear in court Thursday afternoon. If convicted on either felony count, Hughes would be forced to turn over his gyrocopter and any property involved in the stunt to the United States government, according to his indictment.

Official: Palestinians To Prosecute Israel At ICC On June 25

May 21, 2015 Fars News, www.english.farsnews.com Resist! Criminal Justice, Israel, Law, Palestine

A senior diplomat announced on Wednesday that Palestinians are to submit two lawsuits against Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on June 25. Nabil Abu Zneid, the Palestinian ambassador in the Netherlands, told "Voice of Palestine" radio that the two suits are related to the Israeli settlement in the West Bank and the Israeli war waged on the Gaza Strip last summers, Xinhua reported. "Palestinian Foreign Minister Reyad el-Malki is to head a high-ranking Palestinian delegation that comprises rights groups, and will submit the two suits against Israel to the international court on June 25," said Abu Zneid. On April 1, the non-member observer state of Palestine became a member in the ICC and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Protest Over Decision Not To Prosecute Police In Vonderrit Myers Case

May 20, 2015 Joe Millitzer, www.fox2now.com Resist! Criminal Justice, Law, police brutality, St. Louis, Vonderrit Myers

Protesters took to the to the streets of downtown St. Louis Tuesday morning over the Circuit Attorney’s decision not to charge an officer for the October shooting death of Vonderrit Myers. There were about 40 demonstrators near the intersection of 10th and Market. Police met with protesters on the scene. The Circuit Attorney’s officer released the results of their investigation into the shooting on Monday. Investigators found that Myers shot at the officer therefore deadly force was justified. Demonstrators have dispersed from the scene. The protest in front of the Courts building lasted for about two hours.

Texas Fears Fracking Democracy Bans Local Ordinances

May 20, 2015 Earthworks | Denton Drilling Awareness Group | Earthjustice | Natural Resources Defense Council, www.earthworksaction.org Resist! Community, Law, Oil & Gas, Texas

Today Texas Governor Abbott signed HB 40 into law. Written by former ExxonMobil lawyer Shannon Ratliff, the statute forces every Texas municipality wanting common sense limits on oil and gas development to demonstrate its rules are “commercially reasonable”. It effectively overturns a Denton ballot initiative banning fracking that passed last November. “HB 40 was written by the oil and gas industry, for the oil and gas industry, to prevent voters from holding the oil and gas industry accountable for its impacts,” said Earthworks’ Texas organizer Sharon Wilson. Wilson, who played a key role in the Denton ballot initiative, continued, “It was the oil and gas industry’s contempt for impacted residents that pushed Denton voters to ban fracking in the first place. And now the oil and gas industry, through state lawmakers, has doubled down by showing every city in Texas that same contempt.”

Transform Now Plowshares Anti-Nuke Protesters Released

May 16, 2015 Frank Munger, www.knoxnews.com Resist! Criminal Justice, Environment, Law, Nuclear Energy

Attorneys for Sister Megan Rice, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed plan to seek the protesters’ immediate release from federal prison following last week’s appeals court ruling that overturned their conviction on sabotage charges for the July 28, 2012 break-in at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge. Bill Quigley, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans and a member of the legal team, said attorneys hope to free the three pending the government’s possible appeal of the ruling by the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or the resentencing hearing that’s tentatively scheduled for July 8 in Knoxville. Attorneys for the government and the defense participated in a teleconference Monday with U.S. District Judge Amul Thapar, who presided at the trial and sentencing two years ago, about possible dates for resentencing if the case proceeds in that direction.

“Gasland” Director Josh Fox Arrested In Finger Lakes

May 15, 2015 Joseph Spector, www.polhudson.lohudblogs.com Resist! Environment, Law, Media

Twenty-one protesters, including “Gasland” filmmaker Josh Fox, were arrested yesterday in Schuyler County in the latest protest against a proposed liquid petroleum gas facility in the Finger Lakes. The Star-Gazette in Elmira reported that the group was arrested Wednesday morning at the gates of Crestwood Midstream Partners in the Town of Reading, the group, “We Are Seneca Lake,” said. “People need to see what’s happening at Seneca Lake, and also understand that this isn’t isolated, it is happening everywhere,” Fox told The Daily Beast before the protest. “We need to educate people that our dependency on fossil fuels has got to change, and it has to change now.”

Enbridge Fined $75 Million For Oil Spill In Michigan

May 15, 2015 Ed White, www.thestar.com Resist! Environment, Law, Oil & Gas

Enbridge Energy, the Toronto company responsible for one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history will restore or create 120 hectares of wetlands as part of a sweeping agreement to improve the Kalamazoo River watershed in southwestern Michigan, state officials said. A settlement between the state and Enbridge Energy filed in Calhoun County court Tuesday, nearly five years after a broken pipeline released more than three million litres of oil, requires the company to continue to monitor the impacts of the spill on the environment. The company also agreed to spend $75 million U.S., much of it on various projects, including a dam removal and improved access to boating and fishing on the river. Some have been finished.

TSA Sexual Abuse: Judicial Watch Gets Some Answers

May 14, 2015 Lisa Simeone, www.tsanewsblog.com Educate! Criminal Justice, Law, Security, Sexual Violence

Last August I wrote a post reporting that the non-profit civil liberties organization Judicial Watch was suing the TSA to gain access to documents outlining the sexual abuse of travelers at the hands of TSA workers. I said that Judicial Watch was joining a long line of of other organizations and individual people who had also tried to sue the TSA to get information, and that the TSA, predictably, had stonewalled. I will remind readers that we here at TSA News have been documenting such assaults since 2011, and I personally have been documenting them since 2009. My Master List of TSA Crimes and Abuses, both pages of it, contains thousands of accounts. And again I repeat, these are only the crimes we happen to find out about. Logic dictates that there are more, many more. It is impossible to know how many.

You Can’t Read The TPP, But These Huge Corporations Can

May 14, 2015 Alleen Brown, www.firstlook.org Educate! Capitalism, Congress, Free Trade, Law, TPP

The Senate today is holding a key procedural vote that would allow the Trans-Pacific Partnership to be “fast-tracked.” So who can read the text of the TPP? Not you, it’s classified. Even members of Congress can only look at it one section at a time in the Capitol’s basement, without most of their staff or the ability to keep notes. But there’s an exception: if you’re part of one of 28 U.S. government-appointed trade advisory committees providing advice to the U.S. negotiators. The committees with the most access to what’s going on in the negotiations are 16 “Industry Trade Advisory Committees,” whose members include AT&T, General Electric, Apple, Dow Chemical, Nike, Walmart and the American Petroleum Institute.

Obama Hurls Insults At Democrats And Democratic Base

May 14, 2015 Brent Budowsky, www.observer.com Educate! Law, Obama, Progressive, TPP, Trade

In Mr. Obama’s speech at Nike last week, his comments to Matt Bai of Yahoo over the weekend, and White House press secretary Josh Earnest’s comments to reporters on Monday, Mr. Obama and his White House staff have repeated a string of personal insults directed against prominent liberal Democrats in Congress, liberal Democrats across the nation, organized labor, and leading public interest and environmental groups who share doubts about the TPP trade deal. Mr. Obama’s tirades on trade have included accusations that these liberal Democrats are ignorant about trade policy, insincere when offering their opinions, motivated by politics and not the national interest, and backward looking towards the past. Obama’s repeated attacks against Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), in which he charged that Warren’s concern about the trade bill is motivated not by a reasoned view of what is right for America but by her personal political motivations, is one of the most dishonest and repellant examples of character assassination and contempt by any American president.

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