The Conscience of Abe’s Turn - an online drama serial by J. Timothy King

Should We Fear Sea-Smurfs?

TimK — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:00:00 -0800

At first, I didn’t know what to do with this blog post. It’s about the Sea-Smurfs. That is, about CCMRF teams (pronounced “C Smurf”), which stands for “CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force.” And as everyone knows, CBRNE clearly and obviously refers to “Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear or high-yield Explosive.” And as you can probably figure out by now, this has something to do with the military.

Benjamin Friedman posted on the Cato Institute’s blog an article asking “Should We Fear Sea-Smurfs?” That’s kind of hard to answer if you don’t know what they are. I’ve read the article, and I’m still not sure I know what they are. Maybe no one knows. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Briefly, a CCMRF is a team of soldiers trained to perform police duties. Just what we need to make our police forces more civil, huh? But will they be unleashed on the unsuspecting American public?

Sea-smurfs can then do tasks short of law enforcement, including cleaning up after attacks. If terrorist attacks qualify as an insurrection, troops could perform law enforcement tasks in their aftermath. That might explain why the Sea-Smurfs received law enforcement training, but the Army denies that the training was related to domestic duties. It is good that the ACLU is trying to figure what exactly is intended.

Even if this mission is legal, however, it does not make it wise. Homeland defense activities like storms and terrorist attacks are the job of local and state authorities, and in extreme cases, the National Guard. Historically, these forces have been sufficient.

-TimK

Possible Justice in Drug Raid Gone Wrong?

TimK — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:00:00 -0800

Relying on the word of an informant, over a dozen officers stormed into Ryan Frederick’s home on the night of January 17, 2008, in yet another botched, no-knock drug raid, looking for Marijuana. Ryan was in bed, grabbed his gun. End result: two cops dead.

Now, the prosecutor wants to move the Ryan Frederick case to a different venue because of “adverse and inaccurate publicity.” The judge said, no, we’ll try the case here.

Says Radley Balko:

I’ve never heard of a change of venue being granted to prosecutors over the objections of the defense. None of the defense attorneys I’ve asked about the case could, either.

That Ebert [the prosecutor] even tried I think shows that he knows his case against Frederick is coming apart at the seams.

On top of that, the defense is saying the warrant used for the raid was invalid, because the evidence used to support it was gotten by breaking into Ryan’s home.

Ryan’s next pretrial hearing is scheduled for December 5, and the trial is scheduled to start January 20, 2009.

-TimK

Will Obama Restore Civil Rights?

TimK — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:00:00 -0800

I’ve been pondering this question ever since before the election, and I have not been hopeful.

During the campaign, Obama’s “civil rights” plank had more to do with removing rights than restoring them. Quoting from that page, he wants to:

overturn the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that curtails women’s and racial minorities’ ability to challenge pay discrimination [even though employers are people, too, with the right to control their own livelihoods]
pass the Fair Pay Act to ensure that women receive equal pay for equal work [which I’m sure will eliminate what happens when government agents get too much power]
[pass] the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or expression [and make every forward-thinking businessperson absolutely fall in love with gays all over again, even though they would now be a business liability]
reverse the politicization that has occurred in the Bush Administration’s Department of Justice [which might actually sound good, if I knew what it meant]
put an end to the ideological litmus tests used to fill positions within the Civil Rights Division [and replace them with a different ideology]
strengthen federal hate crimes legislation [creating even harsher federal criminal laws—Oh goody!]
expand hate crimes protection [at least for protection against alleged hate-criminals, but not for protection against official government agents]
reinvigorate enforcement at the Department of Justice’s Criminal Section [and I can hardly wait!]

If this is Obama’s vision of strengthening civil rights, oh my God… Whatever happened to due process? The First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments? Leave it to a big-government politician to ignore the abuses that happen at the hands of too-powerful government enforcers and to think that more government power will make America a better place.

Of course, those were just campaign promises. When he fails to keep them, people will “understand.” By the way, Obama also promised to repeal executive orders that “trample on liberty” and to cut wasteful government spending. I don’t believe he’s actually going to come through with either, at least not to any meaningful degree. (Because of what Roosevelt promised in his campaign in 1932, and history repeats itself.)

Now, Jim Babka at DownsizeDC shares my cynicism, but promises to apply the screws to the government to get them to lighten up, and gives some hope for change. He notes that after the New York Times exposed the Bush administration’s illegal citizen-spying program, the administration…

… stonewalled, misdirected, and refused to provide documents to Congress. They even subpoenaed the phone records of the investigating reporters.

Then they demanded that Congress legalize their crimes retroactively, and immunize the phone companies that had conspired with them.

It took two years, but the Bush administration got what it wanted.

First, they had to wait for an election to provide a Congressional majority of “change Democrats.” It was the Democrats who gave the president his “get out of jail free card.”

One notable “change Democrat” showed us what change really means. His name was Barack Obama. He changed from his 2006 stance and voted to give President Bush the unconstitutional powers and immunity from prosecution that President Bush so desperately wanted and needed.

Call me cynical, but perhaps the aspiring President Obama was looking ahead and decided he wanted those powers too. If so, it may be wishful thinking to hope that our “change” president will tell us where the bodies are buried — even though he could simply direct his team to do so. But actually, our hopes are more well-founded.

(Click here to read the whole article.)

He goes on to point out that there are many in the government now who hate what has been going on in the name of home security. And that all Obama really has to do once he takes office is just to stay out of the way, and those people will see to it that the secrets of the Bush administration are brought to light. DownsizeDC also has campaigns to reverse the abusive policies of the Bush administration and to restore some of the checks on government power.

-TimK

New IRS Snooping Powers Sneaked into the Bailout Bill

TimK — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:00:00 -0800

You may not have realized it, but buried in Sections 401 and 402 of Division C in H.R. 1424 (the bailout bill) are provisions giving the IRS the power to:

set up undercover operations to entrap unsuspecting taxpayers, and
release confidential tax returns to law enforcement and intelligence agencies

DownsizeDC has been running a campaign to reduce the chance that crap like this will happen in the future.

-TimK

Senator Ted Stevens: Victim of His Own System?

TimK — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:48:28 -0800

When someone last week on Twitter grumbled that Alaska had elected a convicted felon to the Senate, I quipped that it was one of his job qualifications.

Now, I’m having second thoughts, because Bill Bailey (former Federal Inmate #60733-066), whom I’ve mentioned here before, set me straight.

Bill notes firstly that Ted Stevens is not actually a convicted felon (not yet, anyhow). Yes, a jury found him guilty, but he hasn’t been sentenced, and until then, he’s not convicted. He can vote. He can run for office. He can take office. He’s not a criminal—at least not officially.

More importantly, Stevens has significant grounds for appeal. There are allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, including withholding exculpatory evidence. On top of that, federal law is particularly harsh and unfairly tilted toward the government. Most of us have at one time or another, without even knowing it, committed a federal offense that could send us to prison, because there are way too many federal crimes, and they’re way too easy to prosecute, and the penalties are way too harsh. And in this case, Stevens was not accused of being corrupt. He “had failed to disclose information about his residence on his personal financial disclosure.”

But—I know you’re arguing—residences are exempt from disclosure. (Or at least you would have been arguing that if you knew.)

Uh, oops, almost. It’s like filling out a bloody IRS form. It’s enough to give you an ulcer. And the dirty little secret is that the tax professionals don’t know all the answers, either. Hell, the IRS doesn’t even know all the answers. Federal filings are usually a mass of useless paperwork with convoluted rules that no mere human can understand. And now Ted Stevens is being threatened with felony prison time for this?

In other words, maybe he’s actually not guilty, or shouldn’t be guilty, or at least not that guilty. But that’s not how it often turns out, and that’s not what the uninformed populace assumes. Bill Bailey says it poignantly:

Unfortunately, most citizens don’t pay attention to details on matters like this and automatically assume he’s a crooked politician and that the prosecution wears the white hat.

You would think that I, as a writer of a civil-rights blog, would have given him the benefit of the doubt. Even if he were currently serving time, you’d think I’d give him the benefit of the doubt. But I knee-jerked.

Because if you look at Ted Steven’s voting record, you see a sadistically ironic justice at work here. Stevens voted to ban “desecration” of the U.S. flag. He voted for a Federal ban on gay marriage. He voted to make it easier for the government to tap cell phones and easier for the government to snoop on you in general. He helped re-authorize the hideous PATRIOT Act, and also to extend its wiretapping provisions. He voted against habeas corpus for Guantánamo prisoners, and against requiring the CIA to report on its interrogation methods. He’s voted to limit appeals in capital cases and for mandatory prison terms. He votes for the War on Drugs. He’s voted for harsher Federal penalties in gun and drug “crimes,” so called. (Fortunately, other than that, he has a pro-gun-rights voting record.)

Stevens seems to want more and harsher Federal crimes, even though there are already too many of them, even though most of those already on the books are bullshit, even in areas the Federal government has no business legislating. He’s a politician, and politicians vote for shit like this. They do it because we the voters are ignorant of the true costs of these bad laws. They do it because they’re afraid of seeming “soft on crime.” They do it because we’re afraid of criminals, and politicians love to wave their magic legislative wand and calm our fears with assurances that they’ve taken care of it, by passing yet another useless law in the convoluted web in which even more people are now going to get caught.

And now Stevens himself is caught in this same web that he himself helped to spin. There’s a certain sadistic justice in that.

-TimK

When the Bully Has the Teacher on His Side

TimK — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:00:00 -0800

An anonymous commenter wrote (poorly):

I’m 48 and law enforcement subhumans have fucked with me all my life, and I don’t have a record I try to live a lawful life as best I can. I call them subhumans because to be a law enforcer you had to have been a bully as a child, why they know better to fuck with people that will harm them. When a law enforcer approaches you in there corrupt minds you are guilty of something, so even if your dead right and know it, you have to prove yourself innocent. So to save yourself money and time, just play along with yes em officer I be going home right now and will do what you say, then when they turn there back just say fuck em…

The law is on there side all of the time and on your side sometimes, remember you are guilty in the eyes of the law until you prove yourself innocent Not innocent till proven guilty as it is written.

“Subhumans…” Hmm… I might not have put it so colorfully—or maybe I would have. And I (hopefully) wouldn’t have made so many spelling errors. Regardless, there’s unfortunately a lot of truth in this tirade.

One of the blogs in my blogroll is the Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog, written by Samuel Goldberg, a criminal defense lawyer and former prosecutor. He’s always warning his readers:

If the cops are questioning you about your actions, that means they already suspect you and are trying to prove you guilty.
If they have enough evidence to arrest you, they will do so, regardless of what you say. If they don’t have enough evidence, you blabbing your mouth off can only hurt you. This is true even if you’re completely innocent of any wrongdoing.
Even if you’re completely innocent, contact an experienced criminal defense lawyer.
Never argue with the police. Never fight with them. Never resist arrest. Always do exactly what they tell you, even if they have no right to tell you that, even if they’re completely in the wrong.
The law may say you’re innocent until proven guilty, but in practice, it often works the other way around: you’re assumed guilty until proven innocent.

If you want a glimpse into the criminal justice system from a defendant’s perspective, especially the perspective of the innocent defendant, I highly recommend the Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog and other websites from criminal lawyers.

For example, the site Falsely-Accused.com, by the Clancy Litigation Group, who specialize in sexual abuse crime defense law in California. The videos at the site explain why sex crimes can be falsely reported, why it’s so difficult to defend even against bogus sexual assault charges, and how politicians have created this problem by passing laws that ignore solid science and the principles of justice on which this country was founded. This site was instrumental in helping me write episode 4 and episode 5 (coming soon) of Abe’s Turn.

-TimK

Prisoner Abuse Photo Release Appealed by Defense Dept

TimK — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 07:00:00 -0800

The photographs show detainee abuse by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In September, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ordered the government to release the photos as part of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit seeking information on the abuse of prisoners held in U.S. custody overseas. Now, the Bush administration petitioned to appeal the order.

“This petition is a transparent attempt to delay accountability for the widespread abuse of prisoners held in U.S. custody abroad by keeping the public in the dark,” said Amrit Singh, staff attorney with the ACLU. “These photographs demonstrate that the abuse of prisoners held in U.S. custody abroad was not aberrational and not confined to Abu Ghraib, but the result of policies adopted by the highest-ranking officials in the administration. The immediate release of these photos is critical to bringing an end to the Bush administration’s torture policies and for preventing prisoner abuse in the future.”

Since the ACLU’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in 2003, the government has refused to disclose these images by attempting to radically expand the exemptions allowed for withholding records. The government claimed that the public disclosure of such evidence would generate outrage and would violate U.S. obligations towards detainees under the Geneva Conventions.

However, the appeals court rejected the government’s attempt to create “an all-purpose damper on global controversy” and noted that prior government misconduct created “significant public interest in the disclosure of these photographs.” The court also recognized that releasing the photographs is likely to prevent “further abuse of prisoners.”

To date, more than 100,000 pages of government documents have been released in response to the ACLU’s FOIA lawsuit. They are available online at: http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia

Many of these documents are also compiled and analyzed in “Administration of Torture,” a book by ACLU attorneys Jameel Jaffer and Singh. More information is available online at: http://www.aclu.org/administrationoftorture

(Source: Bush Administration Once Again Attempts To Block Release Of Prisoner Abuse Photos In ACLU Lawsuit)

Judge Orders DOJ to Let Him See NSA Wiretapping Memos

TimK — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:02:40 -0800

Stories like this are the reason why we have reason for optimism in this country. This story is also one of the reasons why the ACLU is listed under “The Conscience of America,” because they inform of us police-state-like actions in the U.S. and use the tools at their disposal to stop them.

In 2005, it was reported that Bush had told the NSA it could warrantless surveillance of Americans. The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get government documents about this spying-on-Americans program.

The government ignored them. Tactic 1: If the people ask you for internal documentation that would make you look bad, pretend you didn’t hear them.

So the ACLU sued.

The Department of Justice managed to come up with a bunch of documents the ACLU already had, because they had already been released. The rest of the documentation, the government said, were state secrets. Tactic 2: When Tactic 1 fails, claim that the information being sought is a state secret vital to national security. They wouldn’t even reveal how many documents existed, what they were about, how long they were, … Nothing.

You do know that the Department of “Justice” has as much to do with justice as the Internal Revenue “Service” has to do with service, right?

(This is something Baedes does, BTW, although he hasn’t yet in the story. He sometimes claims that he “can’t discuss it, because it’s part of an ongoing investigation.” And it’s bullshit when he says it, too.)

So the ACLU asked the judge to review the documents, in closed chambers, and decide for himself whether the DOJ is full of shit. (Those are my words, not the ACLU’s, by the way.)

The judge agreed.

“The Justice Department has not offered any legitimate justification for its refusal to release these crucial memos,” said ACLU National Security Project Director Jameel Jaffer. “These memos sought to supply a legal basis for a surveillance program that violated both the Constitution and statutory law. The public has a right to see them.”

“For years, the government has refused to disclose legal memos that justified its most controversial and illegal national security policies - whether the NSA’s illegal spying program, or the unlawful kidnapping, torture, and detention of prisoners,” said Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. “In our democracy, the government cannot keep vital information from the public by making vague, sweeping, and unsubstantiated claims about the need for blanket secrecy.”

U.S. District Court Judge Henry H. Kennedy ruled that the government must provide the legal memos to him on November 17 so that he can determine for himself whether at least portions of the memos can be released to the public.

(Original source: Court Orders Justice Department To Submit NSA Wiretapping Memos For Judicial Review)

Oregon Voters Give Government More Power to Abuse

TimK — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:00:00 -0800

The ACLU is decries that Oregon voters chose to increase mandatory minimums for drug users.

Now, mandatory minimums are generally misguided, and anti-drug laws indeed have a whole host of problems. But for our purposes, one the worst problems is that every time the government mounts a new offensive against consensual acts (like drug use), innocent people end up getting caught in the middle. So much for living in a free country.

May the Lord have mercy on the voters of Oregon, because they’ve just given their own government another weapon it can use against them.

Civil Liberties under Obama

TimK — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:00:00 -0800

I haven’t listened to this yet, but it sounds like a must-listen. Lew Rockwell interviewed Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst and co-host of “Brian & the Judge” radio show, on the topic of “Civil Liberties Under Obama.”

Said Stephan Kinsella, “He’s got me half-believing, half-hoping that Obama might be fairly decent in some aspects—e.g., civil liberties, executive power, interpreting the Constitution, Guantanamo—that McCain would clearly be terrible on.”

Click here to go to the podcast page.