Law

FCC Used Title II To Fine AT&T & World Didn’t End

October 22, 2014 Mike Masnick, www.techdirt.com Educate! Law, Net Neutrality, Technology

You may have heard the story a few weeks ago about how the FCC and FTC teamed up to fine AT&T $105 million for mobile cramming (allowing unauthorized mobile charges for premium -- costly -- SMS, of which AT&T kept 35% of all money made). This was the largest fine the FCC has ever given out. Some, quite reasonably, pointed out that it took the FCC (and the FTC) quite a long time to catch up on this, as such practices had been called out for years and years. However, there was a much more interesting element to this fine, as it relates to the current net neutrality "Title II" fight. Remember, the telcos (including AT&T) are pretty adamant that if broadband is classified under Title II it will be the death of all good things. It will be a huge regulatory burden and companies like AT&T are likely to cease all investment and such. Similarly, AT&T and others insist that there's enough competition in the market to prevent anti-consumer practices, and that Title II simply isn't necessary in such a "competitive" market.

Activist Jailed, Investigated Soldiers’ Disappearances

October 21, 2014 Associated Press, www.ryot.org Resist! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Law, Russia, Wars and Militarism

MOSCOW (AP) — A veteran activist who investigated the deaths and disappearances of Russian soldiers in Ukraine has been jailed, an advocacy group said Saturday. Ten Russian troops were captured in August in eastern Ukraine amid fighting between pro-Moscow separatists and Ukrainian troops after weeks of Moscow denying involvement in the Ukrainian conflict. Authorities insisted the captured soldiers got lost while patrolling the border, and the deaths were accidental and happened in Russia. The Soldiers’ Mothers of St. Petersburg, a highly respected non-governmental organization with a long history of working to defend the rights of soldiers, said Saturday that its colleague in southern Russia who was investigating the deaths and disappearances was detained on Friday.

How The Supreme Court Made A Mess Of Our Voting System

October 21, 2014 Michael Waldman, www.brennancenter.org Educate! Law, Supreme Court, Voter Rights

In 2011, my organization, the Brennan Center for Justice, calculated that the first wave of these new laws, if implemented, could have made it far harder for five million citizens to vote. At first, the judiciary seemed to recognize that risk. In the run up to the 2012 election, courts around the country routinely blocked or postponed the new voting regulations. On Election Day, few of those disenfranchising laws were in effect. Then last year, the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in. In Shelby County v. Holder, it gutted the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act by neutering its requirement, under Section 5 of the law, that states with a history of discrimination clear changes to voting regulations with a court or the Justice Department. The court was bitterly divided, five to four. During oral argument in February 2013, Justice Antonin Scalia called the Voting Rights Act little more than a “racial entitlement.”

Intergenerational Trauma & The Bakken Oil Fields

October 20, 2014 Winona Laduke, www.indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com Educate! Energy, Environment, Fracking, Indigenous Rights, LandRights, Law, Oil & Gas, Poverty, Water

For me, this story began at Lake Superior, a place that is sacred to the Anishinaabeg, the source of a fifth of the world’s fresh water. I rode my horse with my family, my community and our allies, from that place, Rice Lake Refuge, to Rice Lake, on my own reservation. Those two lakes are the mother lode of the world’s wild rice. Those two lakes—in fact, the entire region—are threatened by a newly proposed pipeline of fracked oil from what is known as the Bakken Oil Fields of North Dakota, from the homeland of those Arikara people. The pipeline proposed is called the Sandpiper. We rode, but we did not stop. Driven to go to the source, we traveled to North Dakota. That is this story. Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara territory lies along the northern Missouri River, a land of gentle rolling hills, immense prairie diversity and the memory of 50 million buffalo.

Denver Jury Awards $4.6 Million In Police Killing Of Homeless Preacher

October 18, 2014 Susan Greene, www.coloradoindependent.com Organize! Denver, Justice, Law, police brutality, Police the Police

A federal jury has delivered what may be the costliest verdict yet in a Denver excessive force case. The $4.6 million jury award to Marvin Booker’s family came after jurors found five Denver sheriff deputies excessively restrained and subdued homeless street preacher Marvin Booker, failed to try to save his life and acted with “evil motive” or intent when he died in July 2010 on the floor of the city jail booking room. “The truth has finally been spoken and now our brother and father can rest in peace,” said Calvin Booker, a pastor in the Booker family’s hometown of Memphis. “The jury spoke loud and clear about what’s sick in the sheriffs department and sick in the city. It’s corruption, plain and simple. It’s corruption that needs to be cleaned up from the top down.”

Duke Energy Fined Penny Per Ton For Massive Spill

October 14, 2014 Lisa Evans, www.earthjustice.com Educate! Energy, Environment, Law, North Carolina, Regulation

Although the North Carolina Department of Natural Resources found Duke Energy in gross violation of the federal Clean Water Act, the state agency placed so little value on public health that they were willing to settle for a pittance—a penny per ton of toxic coal ash stored at Duke’s two illegally polluting plants. To rub ash into the wound, the agency didn’t even require Duke to stop the flow of arsenic, cadmium, chromium and other toxic metals from the millions of tons of coal ash at the plants, much less clean up the pollution. The state was willing to accept $99,000 in settlement with the utility giant. Duke Energy can spare this chump change. The utility just announced a 50 percent increase in corporate profits in 2013, amounting to $2.6 billion per year for a company already valued at $50 billion. Duke’s $99,000 penalty was nothing—it’s like one of us, earning $50,000 a year, getting fined $1.90. Barely amounting to a library fine, this is no deterrent for the likes of Duke.

UK Passes Symbolic Motion To Recognise Palestine

October 14, 2014 William James, www.news.yahoo.com Organize! Israel, Law, Palestine, United Kingdom (UK)

LONDON (Reuters) - British lawmakers voted in favour of recognising Palestine as a state on Monday in a move which will not alter the government's stance on the issue, but which carries symbolic value for Palestinians in their pursuit of international recognition. Britain does not classify Palestine as a state, but says it could do so at any time if it believed it would help peace efforts between the Palestinians and Israel. Prime Minister David Cameron abstained from the vote, which was called by an opposition lawmaker, and Cameron's spokesman earlier said that foreign policy would not be affected whatever the outcome.

Trials Of Egyptian Activists, Many On Hunger Strike, Begin

October 11, 2014 Dahlia Kholaif, www.aljazeera.com Resist! Egypt, Law, militarism, political prisoners

Twenty-three Egyptian activists are due to stand trial for breaching a widely criticised law that bars protests unauthorised by the government. Among those to appear before the court in Cairo on Saturday is 20-year-old Sana Seif, who was arrested on July 21 while peacefully demonstrating against the arrest of her brother, renowned blogger and activist Alaa Abdel Fattah. Abdel Fattah has since been released, while Seif's trial has faced repeated postponements. "We don't know what to expect anymore," Laila Soueif, Seif's mother and an assistant professor of mathematics at Cairo University, told Al Jazeera. "We've given up on understanding. If things proceed according to logic, it should be postponed, since the case was referred to a new judicial circuit and a new judge. But our lawyers are braced for all scenarios."

Santa Ana Mayor Cancels Meeting After Battle With Activists

October 11, 2014 Adam Elmahrek, www.voiceofoc.org Resist! California, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Law, police brutality

Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido called off Tuesday night’s City Council meeting after a chaotic confrontation over free speech and decorum that began when the mayor ordered the council chambers cleared because a man would not abide by his order to remove a hat with an obscene statement directed at police. The man, a 22-year-old member of an activist group called CopWatch Santa Ana and who goes by the name Bijan, was sitting in the nearly packed chambers wearing a hat with the words “Fuck the Police.” Before the public portion of the meeting began, Pulido ordered Bijan to remove the hat or leave, declaring the hat a threat to decorum. When Bijan ignored the order, Pulido directed everyone in the council chambers to leave. But a group of approximately 20 residents also refused to go and said the mayor was trying to shut down free speech.

How Oil & Gas Waste Became Exempt From Federal Regulation

October 10, 2014 Zahra Hirji and Paul Horn, www.insideclimatenews.org Educate! Climate Change, Energy, Environment, History, Law

In the small town of Nordheim, Texas, residents are trying to stop a commercial oil and gas waste facility proposed for a large plot of land less than a mile away. They worry that the Texas wind will carry toxic air emissions into the town and across the campus of the local school. The residents' effort is hampered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's decision in 1988 to classify most oil and gas waste as "non hazardous," even though it contains chemicals, including benzene, that are known to cause health problems. The industry lobbied hard for the non-hazardous classification, arguing that the cost of treating the waste as hazardous would be exorbitant. Here's a look at how the exemption came about, and a recent effort to repeal it.

Saskatchewan Train Derailment Investigators Rule Out Operator Error

October 10, 2014 CBC News, www.cbc.ca Educate! Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Law, Transportation

Investigators trying to figure out the cause of a major derailment near Clair, Sask., have ruled out mistakes by the train's operators, Transportation Safety Board officials say. Investigators with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada check out debris from a derailment near Clair, Sask. 1 of 4 "With information from the event recorder and interviews with the crew, there were no issues with they way the train was controlled prior to the incident," Rox-Anne V'Aoust, manager of media relations for the TSB, told CBC News Wednesday. V'Aoust quickly added that there are many other elements, including human actions, that could have played a role in Tuesday's derailment. Twenty-six out of 100 freight cars derailed about one kilometre from Clair, home to about 50 people, around 10:30 a.m. CST Tuesday.

Carl Sagan’s Long Lost Deep Thoughts On The War On Drugs

October 9, 2014 Tom Angell, www.marijuana.com Educate! Law, Marijuana, Science, War On Drugs

Thanks to a huge collection of Sagan’s papers recently made available to the public for the first time at the Library of Congress, we’ve now been given greater insight into his deep thoughts on the drug war and related topics. The documents confirm that Sagan, whose 1985 “Contact” novel includes a scene where a store in fictionalized future 1999 France is selling marijuana imported from California and Oregon, would’ve been thrilled to see the legalization era we’re entering now, even if we’ve taken a bit more time getting here than he once predicted (back during the height of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” crusade, no less). He passed away just a few months after California voters made their state the first to legalize medical marijuana in 1996. Since then, 22 other states and the District of Columbia have passed laws allowing for medical use, and Colorado and Washington have legalized marijuana outright for all adults over 21.

US Supreme Court And Tyranny Of The Minority

October 9, 2014 Greg Coleridge, www.poclad.org Educate! Law, Racial Justice, Racism, SCOTUS

By contrast, the Court has been repeatedly guilty itself of being a tyrant of the minority (as in nine unelected judges reversing laws and regulations) and a tyrant for the minority (as in corporations and the super wealthy) by, for example, overturning 170 democratically enacted laws that protected workers, including children, during the early 20th century. More recently, the Court has granted additional power and authority to corporations and the wealthy few. Supreme Court decisions weakened class action lawsuits against corporations, broadened the immunity protections of pharmaceutical corporations from suits over defective medications, heightened the barriers against workers who sue over workplace retaliation and harassment, increased the ability of commercial corporations to collect damages from municipalities that seek to impose conditions for building permits, and prohibited current US residents from suing Shell Oil corporation for human rights violations in Nigeria.

Challenging Drone Warfare In A U.S. Court

October 9, 2014 Kathy Kelly, www.warisacrime.org Resist! Drones, Law, Wars and Militarism

On October 7, 2014, Kathy Kelly and Georgia Walker appeared before Judge Matt Whitworth in Jefferson City, MO, federal court on a charge of criminal trespass to a military facility. The charge was based on their participation, at Whiteman Air Force Base, in a June 1st 2014 rally protesting drone warfare. Kelly and Walker attempted to deliver a loaf of bread and a letter to the Base Commander, encouraging the commander to stop cooperating with any further usage of unmanned aerial vehicles, (drones) for surveillance and attacks. The prosecutor, USAF Captain Daniel Saunders, said that if Kelly and Walker would plead guilty to the charge, he would seek a punishment of one month in prison and a $500 fine.

Lawsuit After Police Taze A Passenger, Smash Window In Traffic Stop

October 9, 2014 Elliot Hannon, www.slate.com Resist! Law, police brutality

What started as a routine traffic stop in Hammond, Indiana spiraled out of control two weeks ago and ended with local police breaking the window of the car and tasering the passenger in the front seat. On Monday, the passengers in the car filed a federal lawsuit against the officers for assault, battery, and using excessive force during the stop. The incident took place on the afternoon of Sept. 24, when Lisa Mahone was pulled over by local police for not wearing her seatbelt. A friend, Jamal Jones, was in the passenger seat and her two children, age 7 and 14, were in the back seat at the time. One of the children recorded a several minute video (above) on a cell phone of the incident.

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