Law

FBI Charges President Of Company For West Virginia Chemical Spill

December 10, 2014 Joanna Rothkopf, www.salon.com Educate! Energy, Environment, EPA, FBI, Law

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has arrested Gary Southern, former president of the company responsible for contaminating the drinking water of 300,000 West Virginians earlier this year, on criminal fraud charges. According to a complaint unsealed on Monday, Southern was charged with bankruptcy fraud, wire fraud and lying under oath in hearings following the spill. This January, up to 300,000 people were left without tap water after 10,000 gallons of a coal-cleaning chemical began leaking into the Elk River in Charleston, West Virginia, just upstream of the largest water treatment plant in the state. The leak sprung at a storage tank run by Southern’s former company, Freedom Industries, which manufactures chemicals for coal and steel production.

Senate Report Says Torture Of Little Use In CIA Hunt For Bin Laden

December 10, 2014 Ben Mathis-Lilley, www.slate.com Educate! Bin Laden, CIA, Human Rights, Law, Senate, Torture

The question of whether torture helped the United States locate Osama Bin Laden has been debated since almost immediately after the news broke on May 2, 2011 that the al-Qaida leader had been killed, especially after the hit 2012 film Zero Dark Thirty portrayed "enhanced interrogation" as the first step in finding Bin Laden's Pakistan hideout. The Senate torture report released today addresses the issue specifically, arguing at length that the CIA's past statements on the question have been misleading and that the "vast majority" of the information used to find Bin Laden was not obtained through torture. In all, the Senate's account jibes with earlier reports about Bin Laden's capture written by observers critical of the idea that torture was essential to the operation.

Garner’s Public Defender: Cops & Prosecutors ‘A Team’

December 10, 2014 Joseph Doyle, Bina Ahmad and Michael Rooney, www.vanityfair.com Educate! Eric Garner, Law, NYPD, police brutality

When a non-officer is accused of a crime, invoking his or her Miranda rights is the typically the role of the accused and their defense attorney. Yet, when a police officer is the accused, the entire department and district attorney’s office defer to an employment policy, rather than the overarching public interest of investigating serious crime by police officers. If we as a society expect police to be held accountable for unlawful, and sometimes abusive and deadly actions, we must rid these cases of secrecy, favorable bias, and conflicts of interest. Immediate answers include independent prosecutors and investigators, or employing the use of public preliminary hearings.

Dec. 10th: Rally For States’ Right To Require GMO Labeling

December 8, 2014 Organic Consumers Association, www.salsa3.salsalabs.com Organize! Capitalism, GMOs, Law, Protest

The battle for the right to know if your food contains genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could come to a screeching halt with the signing of one bill in Congress. We need to stop that bill in its tracks. H.R. 4432—the DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) ACT—was introduced by Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) at the bidding of Monsanto, Big Food and the Koch Brothers. If passed, H.R. 4432 will strip your state of the right to pass a GMO labeling law. The DARK ACT will have its first hearing on Capitol Hill, on December 10. If we don’t turn out in numbers to protest this bill, our voice could be silenced.

Your Right To Protest And Police Enforcing Laws

December 8, 2014 Steve Rosenfeld, www.alternet.org Strategize! Human Rights, Law, Protests

Everyone knows the First Amendment guarantees free speech and freedom of assembly—the right to protest. But as demonstrations build across the country over institutional racism and excessive force in policing, there are other things protesters need to know, from legal limits on protests to what to do if arrested. In some cities, there’s no guarantee that police will behave, balancing the rights of protesters with what they will say are the rights of everyone else. What follows are summaries and links to five guidelines and legal analyses for protesters from civil rights’ lawyers. They say what you can and cannot do, tell protesters to be prepared for possible arrest, what to do if arrested and more.

Workers Win ‘Retail Workers Bill Of Rights’

December 8, 2014 Alyssa Figueroa, www.alternet.org Organize! Labor Rights, Law

But 40,000 retail workers in San Francisco will soon be seeing significant improvements thanks to the recent approval of the Retail Workers Bill of Rights. Last week, the city’s Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in favor of the bill, which will now be passed to the desk of Mayor Ed Lee. He is expected to approve it by the December 25 deadline. More than 80 percent of workers report having unstable work schedules. This provision requires employers to post schedules at least two weeks in advance. If employers change a worker’s schedule with less than a week’s notice, the employee will receive one hour of pay. If a worker's schedule is changed with less than 24 hours’ notice, workers will receive two or four hours of pay, depending on the length of the shift.

Will Obama Commission Make Police Militarization Worse?

December 8, 2014 Steven Rosenfeld, www.alternet.org Educate! Law, police brutality, Wars and Militarism

Real specifically, the 1033 program [distributing military surplus weapons to local departments] is providing lots and lots of military armaments, war discards, from Iraq and Afghanistan, and it’s bringing it to Main Street America. Now, what the Obama administration is essentially saying is that they’re going to keep the spigots open, in terms of military-grade gear going to cops. But their solution is to provide better training on how to use it. Now, what could be more counterproductive than continuing the flow of arms to local cops and saying that now they need better training? And who is going to give them that training? The only people qualified to give them that training are two entities. Either the Department of Defense itself or for-profit training agencies that mostly employ ex-military special operations people.

Corporation With Long History Of Abuse Mining Tar Sands

December 8, 2014 Rachel Stoeve, www.truth-out.org Educate! Energy, Environment, Law, Tar Sands, Wars and Militarism

The debate over the Keystone XL pipeline has launched Canadian tar sands into mainstream American discourse, but few people seem to know that a tar sands mine is now being constructed in the United States. The project is being managed by former Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. KBR is not without its own controversies. In March 2008, The Boston Globe reportedthat the company "avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies" based in the Cayman Islands. When it comes to environmental and health matters, of most concern is KBR's alleged use of "burn pits" to improperly dispose of waste in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Disturbing Findings By DOJ Of City Police Forces

December 8, 2014 Nick Wing, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Eric Holder, Ferguson, Law, police brutality, Police the Police

On Thursday, the Justice Department released the results of a 20-month investigationinto the use of force by Cleveland police. The review was unequivocally damning, finding the department responsible for an alarming pattern of excessive and sometimes deadly force, as well as other forms of misconduct and a general failure among supervisors to respond to this behavior. The Justice Department doesn't bring a case against state or local police unless it has reason to believe officers are systematically depriving citizens of their rights -- which means reviews are often compelled by particularly egregious allegations of law enforcement violations, or at the request of an official or a group that has collected complaints from the community.

Cop Who Killed Garner Sued By African Americans Three Times For Abuse

December 6, 2014 Kevin McCoy, www.thv11.com Educate! Eric Garner, Law, NYPD, police brutality, Police the Police

The Garner case wasn't the first time Pantaleo, 29, was accused of misconduct, however. Darren Collins and Tommy Rice alleged in a 2013 federal court lawsuit that Pantaleo and at least four other officers subjected them to "humiliating and unlawful strip searches in public view" after handcuffing them during a March 2012 arrest on Staten Island. The court complaint charged that the cops, searching for illegal drugs, "pulled down the plaintiffs' pants and underwear, and touched and searched their genital areas, or stood by while this was done in their presence." Pantaleo and three of the officers repeated the searches after they took the suspects to Staten Island's 120th police precinct, the complaint alleged.

GMO Labeling Campaign Claims Opponents Playing Dirty

December 6, 2014 Tracy Loew, www.statesmanjournal.com Organize! Elections, GMOs, Law, Oregon

The No on 92 Coalition attempted to place out-of-state election observers in at least four Oregon counties Tuesday, in violation of state law, proponents are complaining. Measure 92, which would require foods containing genetically modified ingredients to be labeled, failed by just 812 votes during the first, computerized tally last month. A hand recount began Tuesday in 19 counties and continues in the rest through Dec. 9. Under Oregon law, each campaign may authorize an observer to watch each counting table. Authorized observers must be registered Oregon voters. But out-of-state observers still registered and showed up in Marion, Multnomah, Linn and Benton Counties, said Dave Murphy of Food Democracy Now, which is helping coordinate volunteers for the Yes on 92 Campaign.

Will International Criminal Court Finally Hold US Accountable?

December 6, 2014 David Bosco, www.foreignpolicy.com Educate! Afghanistan, Human Rights, Law, United Nations, Wars and Militarism

The International Criminal Court in The Hague is tiptoeing closer to a confrontation with the United States. The key issue is U.S. detention practices, and the alleged use of torture, in Afghanistan. A report just released by the office of the court’s prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, for the first time explicitly names U.S. forces as potential culprits. The back story of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC’s) inquiry into possible crimes in Afghanistan extends more than a decade. Afghanistan joined the ICC in early 2003, less than a year after the court opened its doors. That move gave the international prosecutor potentially broad jurisdiction over crimes committed by all combatants on Afghan soil.

Charges Dropped For 64 Arrested At Governor’s Office Sit-In

December 6, 2014 Rising Tide Vermont, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Energy, Environment, Law, Vermont

Vermont State Police today announced that all charges have been dropped against the 64 Vermonters who occupied Governor Peter Shumlin's office on October 27, to demand an end to the fracked gas pipeline and a ban on fossil fuel infrastructure. The Governor was the focus of the sit-in due to his continued support of the pipeline, which would transport dirty, climate-disrupting fracked gas from Alberta Canada through Addison County, underneath Lake Champlain to the International Paper mill in Ticonderoga, Ny., and eventually to Rutland. The pipeline, opposed by thousands of people across the state, would continue Vermont's reliance on greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels that cause climate change.

Environmental Groups To Intervene In Defense Of Fracking Ban

December 5, 2014 Steve Horn, www.desmogblog.com Resist! Energy, Environment, Fracking, Law

Just days after attorneys representing Denton, Texas submitted their initial responses to two legal complaints filed against Denton — the first Texas city ever to ban hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) — environmental groupshave filed an intervention petition. That is, a formal request to enter the two lawsuits filed against the city after its citizens voted to ban fracking on election day. Denton Drilling Awareness Groupand Earthworks are leading the intervention charge, represented by attorneys from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) andEarthjustice. The drilling awareness group runs the Frack Free Denton campaign. Those groups have joined up with attorneys representing Denton to fight lawsuits filed against the city by both the Texas Oil and Gas Association and theTexas General Land Commission.

Why We Need A “No Compromise” Climate Movement

December 4, 2014 Scott Parkin, www.counterpunch.org Strategize! Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Law, Politics

Fast forward to 2014, the crisis surrounding the fossil fuel industry’s exploitation and destruction of the earth has only worsened. According to climate scientists, April, 2014 became the first month that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere reached 400 parts per million further pushing us towards a climate catastrophe that includes floods, droughts, mega-storms and greater social and economic inequity. Another recent report states that the earth has lost half of its wildlife in the past forty years due to unsustainable killing for food practices and habitat destruction. Studies have also found that people living near mountaintop removal mine sites are twice more than likely to suffer from cancer than people from other parts of Appalachia. Furthermore, mountaintop removal has been linked to high rates of birth defects.

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