BLACK OMAHA CURSING TODDLER UPDATE: He's In Protective Custody (Civil Rights Were Violated)

#ToddlerTHUG


UPDATE: CURSING BLACK OMAHA TODDLER MOCKED BY POLICE UNION IS NOW IN PROTECTIVE CUSTODY.

I repeat.

Posting a video of this Child's antics on a Police Union website was NOT about "Educating the Public"!

Instead it's about RACISM & perpetuating STEREOTYPES.

This Child's CIVIL RIGHTS were clearly VIOLATED.

#ToddlerTHUG

CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES DOESN'T CARE ABOUT BLACK CHILDREN

The OMAHA, Nebraska CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES claims to have been Monitoring a BLACK Family ("Toddler Thug's") since August of 2013.

So even though the Toddler's 16-year-old Mother was Shot in front of him & he too was Injured.....

CPS still chose to leave this Toddler in the Family home with 3 other Minor Children.

Why??

When it was apparent all Minor Children in this Family were in possible Danger, why didn't Omaha's CPS officials step him to remove these Children before now??

Yet when DON LEMON & the OMAHA Police Union expose what's going on in this Toddler's world and begins to question why CPS hasn't intervened, suddenly CPS steps in and removes all Minor Children from the home.

I've just described CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICE Agencies in EVERY State & County!

CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES DOESN'T CARE ABOUT BLACK CHILDREN





ARTICLE: "Swearing Toddler In 'Thug' Video Taken Into Protective Custody"

A Nebraska toddler who repeated a slew of profanities in an online video has been taken into child protective custody, Omaha police said Wednesday.

While authorities found nothing criminal in the video, officials from the Omaha police's Child Victim Unit and the Nebraska Child Protective Services took the infant and three other children into custody on Wednesday, the police department said on its Facebook page.

The joint investigation found safety concerns, the statement said.

CNN learned of development through Twitter.

In the video, the diapered child is bombarded with obscenities and racial slurs by the adults around him.

The African-American toddler knocks down a chair and gives nearly as good as he gets, responding to some of the comments with an upraised middle finger and telling one of the adults at one point, "Shut up, bitch." The adults laugh and prompt him to repeat other crudities.

Just another day on the Internet -- until the police union in Omaha, Nebraska, posted the clip on its website to highlight what it called the "cycle of violence and thuggery" the community faces.

The Omaha Police Officers Association came under fire from the city's police chief, the ACLU and at least one community leader. They say the move needlessly antagonizes the city's minority communities, who make up about a quarter of Omaha's 409,000 residents.

Sgt. John Wells, the union's president, said the video was "disturbing" and "offensive."

"The focus here isn't on any particular ethnic group. The focus here is on the troubling behavior towards this child," Wells said. "This behavior is going to potentially lead this child down a path that is completely unhealthy."

On the website where the video is hosted, the union said the clip came from "a local thug's public Facebook page."

"We here at OmahaPOA.com viewed the video and we knew that despite the fact that it is sickening, heartbreaking footage, we have an obligation to share it to continue to educate the law abiding public about the terrible cycle of violence and thuggery that some young innocent children find themselves helplessly trapped in," the police union wrote in a post accompanying the video.

"Now while we didn't see anything in this video that is blatantly 'illegal,' we sure did see a lot that is flat out immoral and completely unhealthy for this little child from a healthy upbringing standpoint," it added.

Wells said one of the adults mentions a local street gang in the video.

"That is why when we talk about the culture, the criminal culture, that this is to try to break the cycle and deal with the culture of violence and the culture of gang activity," he said.

But in a city where police officers' treatment of minorities led to lawsuits, criminal charges against two officers and the firings and reassignments of several others in the past year, critics say the video is poking at raw wounds. Willie Hamilton, president of the community activist group Black Men United, said the union "crossed a line by doing this."

"For them to take a video out of context -- a 2-year-old who doesn't have the brain capacity to know what's going on -- and to say that this child, because two adults acted inappropriately, is going to end up in a life of crime is totally inappropriate," Hamilton said.

And the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska, which filed an excessive-force suit against the Omaha Police Department on behalf of an African-American family on Monday, said the union's use of "racially charged language" was "very disconcerting."

Police Chief Todd Schmaderer tried to distance his agency from the controversy in a statement issued Tuesday, saying that the union's website and Facebook page are separate from those of the Omaha Police Department and that he has little authority over the public statements of union members.

"With that background and understanding, I want to make it explicit and clear that the views expressed on the OPOA Facebook page do not necessarily reflect the official stance of the Omaha Police Department," Schmaderer said. "I strongly disagree with any postings that may cause a divide in our community or an obstacle to police community relations."

Wells said union members have turned the video over to the department's child victim unit, which will work with child-welfare agencies to investigate the circumstances. He said the organization "didn't think we'd get this big of a reaction."

"Hopefully, the impact is, it gives law-abiding citizens what law enforcement deals with on a daily basis, and it sort of throws back the blinders that these type of problems are going on," he said. "And we can have a very frank and open discussion on how to tackle these issues and come up with solutions."





Source: CNN, Daily Mail, Fox News, NY Daily News, Youtube

OMAHA Police Union Post Video Of BLACK Toddler Cursing & Flipping The Bird (It's Plain RACISM!)

#ToddlerTHUG


OMAHA "TODDLER THUG"?? Let's be real!

The ONLY reason why this BLACK Omaha Toddler's Profanity-laced antics were posted online by a POLICE UNION is due to RACISM plain & simple!!

IT'S NOT ABOUT EDUCATING THE PUBLIC......IT'S RACISM.

Posting such a video online is actually a Violation of this Toddler's CIVIL RIGHTS!

FYI: By the way No CHILD ABUSE Charges were filed against the Toddler's Family members.




ARTICLE: "Police Union Draws Fire Over Swearing Toddler 'Thug' Video"

The diapered child is bombarded with obscenities and racial slurs by the adults around him.

The African-American toddler knocks down a chair and gives nearly as good as he gets, responding to some of the comments with an upraised middle finger and telling one of the adults at one point, "Shut up, bitch." The adults laugh and prompt him to repeat other crudities.

Just another day on the Internet -- until the police union in Omaha, Nebraska, posted the clip on its website to highlight what it called the "cycle of violence and thuggery" the community faces.

Now, the Omaha Police Officers' Association is under fire from the city's police chief, the ACLU and at least one community leader. They say the move needlessly antagonizes the city's minority communities, who make up about a quarter of Omaha's 409,000 residents.

Sgt. John Wells, the union's president, said the video was "disturbing" and "offensive."

"The focus here isn't on any particular ethnic group. The focus here is on the troubling behavior towards this child," Wells said. "This behavior is going to potentially lead this child down a path that is completely unhealthy."

On the website where the video is hosted, the union said the clip came from "a local thug's public Facebook page."

"We here at OmahaPOA.com viewed the video and we knew that despite the fact that it is sickening, heartbreaking footage, we have an obligation to share it to continue to educate the law abiding public about the terrible cycle of violence and thuggery that some young innocent children find themselves helplessly trapped in," the police union wrote in a post accompanying the video.

"Now while we didn't see anything in this video that is blatantly 'illegal,' we sure did see a lot that is flat out immoral and completely unhealthy for this little child from a healthy upbringing standpoint," it added.

Wells said one of the adults mentions a local street gang in the video.

"That is why when we talk about the culture, the criminal culture, that this is to try to break the cycle and deal with the culture of violence and the culture of gang activity," he said.

But in a city where police officers' treatment of minorities led to lawsuits, criminal charges against two officers and the firings and reassignments of several others in the past year, critics say the video is poking at raw wounds. Willie Hamilton, president of the community activist group Black Men United, said the union "crossed a line by doing this."

"For them to take a video out of context -- a 2-year-old who doesn't have the brain capacity to know what's going on -- and to say that this child, because two adults acted inappropriately, is going to end up in a life of crime is totally inappropriate," Hamilton said.

And the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska, which filed an excessive-force suit against the Omaha Police Department on behalf of an African-American family on Monday, said the union's use of "racially charged language" was "very disconcerting."

"Officers should be working to build a culture where anyone feels comfortable calling law enforcement," ACLU of Nebraska Executive Director Becki Brenner said in a written statement. "The manner in which the Officers Association has discussed this incident has done nothing but further erode community trust and reinforce the need for independent oversight, trainings, and other reforms."

Police Chief Todd Schmaderer tried to distance his agency from the controversy in a statement issued Tuesday, saying that the union's website and Facebook page are separate from those of the Omaha Police Department and that he has little authority over the public statements of union members.

"With that background and understanding, I want to make it explicit and clear that the views expressed on the OPOA Facebook page do not necessarily reflect the official stance of the Omaha Police Department," Schmaderer said. "I strongly disagree with any postings that may cause a divide in our community or an obstacle to police community relations."

Hamilton said the statement was too little, too late. Schmaderer was speaking out only "because this thing is on the Internet and went viral," he said.

"What do you think it's going to do about the trust level? You think we're going to call you and tell you anything? No. All this is doing is highlighting that."

Wells said union members have turned the video over to the department's child victim unit, which will work with child-welfare agencies to investigate the circumstances. He said the organization "didn't think we'd get this big of a reaction."

"Hopefully, the impact is, it gives law-abiding citizens what law enforcement deals with on a daily basis, and it sort of throws back the blinders that these type of problems are going on," he said. "And we can have a very frank and open discussion on how to tackle these issues and come up with solutions."


Sources: AP, CNN, OmahaPOA.com, Youtube

NSA: New Ruling Claims NSA Overreach Does Not Violate 4th Amendment Rights (It Does!)

#NSARuling

ANOTHER NSA RULING:

WHO SHOULD MANAGE THE NSA??

U.S. MILITARY vs U.S. FEDERAL GOV'T:

Friday a New York Federal Judge ruled NSA Data Mining & Mass Phone Surveillance of American Citizens is LEGAL.

Can someone please explain how can a procedure be LEGAL if it Violates the U.S. Constitution?? (4th Amendment)

I thought that Federal Judges were supposed to use LEGAL Precedent to Interpret & Enforce Laws, Not use the Judicial Bench to Legislate NEW Laws,
Or use the Judicial Bench to Destroy the U.S. Constitution!!

Now let's be clear.

If the U.S. Military manages the NSA Program, it Is LEGAL & I concur.

Why??

Because the U.S. Military will use ONLY use the Collected Metadata & Collected Personal Citizen Info to Target Real TERRORISTS.....

Not TARGET U. S. Citizens.
(i.e., National Security Purposes)

However.....

If the U.S. Federal Gov't manages the NSA Program, and SPIES on American Citizens,
We could be held HOSTAGE & have Collected Private Info used against Us.

Thus this action is Not LEGAL if the NSA is Managed by the Federal Gov't because it Violates Our 4th Amendment Rights.

I am also concerned if the U.S. Federal Gov't manages the NSA Program, it will use Collected Metadata & Personal Citizen Info for POLITICAL Purposes........

Not for National Security purposes!


Source: USA Today

Rick Perry's Prayer Rally Draws Praise & Ire: Politics, Faith Or Both? (Decision 2012)

Perry Leads Prayer Rally for ‘Nation in Crisis’

Standing on a stage surrounded by thousands of fellow Christians on Saturday morning, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas called on Jesus to bless and guide the nation’s military and political leaders and “those who cannot see the light in the midst of all the darkness.”

“Lord, you are the source of every good thing,” Mr. Perry said, as he bowed his head, closed his eyes and leaned into a microphone at Reliant Stadium here. “You are our only hope, and we stand before you today in awe of your power and in gratitude for your blessings, and humility for our sins. Father, our heart breaks for America. We see discord at home. We see fear in the marketplace. We see anger in the halls of government, and as a nation we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us, and for that we cry out for your forgiveness.”

In a 13-minute address, Mr. Perry read several passages from the Bible during a prayer rally he sponsored. Thousands of people stood or kneeled in the aisles or on the concrete floor in front of the stage, some wiping away tears and some shouting, “Amen!”

The rally was seen as one of the biggest tests of Mr. Perry’s political career, coming as he nears a decision on whether to seek the Republican nomination for president. While the event will be sure to help Mr. Perry if he tries to establish himself as the religious right’s favored candidate, it also opens him up to criticism for mixing religion and politics in such a grand and overtly Christian fashion.

In many ways, the rally was unprecedented, even in Texas, where faith and politics have long intersected without much controversy — the governor, as both a private citizen and an elected leader, delivering a message to the Lord at a Christian prayer rally he created, while using his office’s prestige, letterhead, Web site and other resources to promote it. Mr. Perry said he wanted people of all faiths to attend, but Christianity dominated the service and the religious affiliations of the crowd. The prayers were given in Jesus Christ’s name, and the many musical performers sang of Christian themes of repentance and salvation.

Mr. Perry, a lifelong Methodist who regularly attends an evangelical megachurch near his home in West Austin, has been speaking and preaching in sanctuaries throughout Texas since he was state agricultural commissioner in the 1990s. Organizers for the event, called The Response: A Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis, estimated that more than 30,000 people were at Reliant Stadium when Mr. Perry spoke. The seating capacity is 71,500, and tens of thousands of seats in the upper decks were empty.

“I wish you could see what I see here,” announced Luis Cataldo, a leader of the International House of Prayer, a Christian ministry in Kansas City, Mo., as the event began at 10 a.m. “This is the body of Christ.”

While those on the stage avoided making overt political statements or expressions of political support for Mr. Perry, many in the audience made it clear in interviews that they would vote for the governor should he enter the presidential race.

Liz Lara, 62, who lives in La Vernia, Tex., drove about 200 miles to Houston with her daughter and two grandchildren to attend the rally. She said the family came to support Mr. Perry and pray for God’s help in solving the nation’s problems. “I believe that God has prepared Rick Perry for such a time as this,” she said. “I believe he will be our next president.”

At one point, Mr. Perry asked those in the audience to pray for President Obama. “Father, we pray for our president, that you impart your wisdom upon him, that you would guard his family,” he said.

Mr. Perry addressed the crowd nine days after a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed against him by a national group of atheists arguing that his participation in the rally in his official capacity as governor violated the First Amendment’s requirement of separation of church and state.

Members and supporters of that group, the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, were among dozens of people protesting outside the stadium. Others included gay activists who criticized Mr. Perry for supporting the American Family Association, which organized and financed the rally. The association is a conservative evangelical group based in Mississippi that is listed as an antigay hate group by the nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center.

Mr. Perry had invited his fellow governors to join him, but only Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas, a Republican, attended. Gov. Rick Scott of Florida made a video statement that was played in the stadium.


View Larger Map

Sources: CNN, Fox News, NY Times, Youtube, Google Maps

Wake Co. School Board Sued For Blocking Freedom Of Speech & Segregation

A copy of the lawsuit documents filed against Wake County for violating Freedom of Speech and N.C. Open Meeting laws can seen on PDF at this link.










Lawsuit Filed Against Wake County School Board



A group of Wake County residents filed a lawsuit this morning asking the court to throw out recent votes ending the diversity policy on the grounds that the school board violated N.C. state law.

In the lawsuit filed in Wake County Superior Court, the residents say the Wake County school board violated the N.C. State Open Meetings Law by not holding the March 23 meeting at a large enough venue and by requiring people to get tickets to attend.

During the meeting, the board passed by a 5-4 vote a resolution calling for the creation of community-based schools and the end of the district’s socio-economic diversity policy.

The lawsuit asks the court to throw out the March 23 vote.

The lawsuit also asks that the court throw out Tuesday's initial board vote on changes to the student assignment policy that would make family proximity to school a priority while also eliminating socioeconomic diversity. The suit contends that Tuesday's vote has been tainted by the board's continued refusal to move meetings to a larger venue.

"This is about democracy and the way we make decisions in this country," said Swain Wood, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs.

A final board vote on the student assignment changes is scheduled for May 18.

School board chairman Ron Margiotta said the lawsuit was merely a tactic by opponents who couldn't accept that the elected board has the right to move forward.

"I think we bent over backwards to allow people to speak," he said. "If they want to just bring us into court, all this will do is take more money from the children of this county. Accept the wishes of the people of this county."

Wood said that a 2 p.m. hearing has been scheduled for the case on Wednesday in courtroom 5B of the Wake County Courthouse.

The citizens are represented by the ACLU of North Carolina, Southern Coalition for Social Justice, NC NAACP, UNC Center for Civil Rights, NC Justice Center and multiple private lawyers.

Citing security and crowding concerns, the school district had required people to get tickets for a seat in the board room.

The overflow crowd at the meeting stretched into the hallways and outside the building. Three people were arrested at a protest.

The lawsuit cites the offer by The News & Observer and Capitol Broadcasting to pay for the cost of relocating the meeting to a larger site. Citing logistical concerns, school board chairman Ron Margiotta turned down the request.

The civil rights groups representing the people filing the lawsuit had also raised concerns that day about the ticket policy.


View Larger Map


Sources: ACLU, McClatchy Newspapers, WRAL, Youtube, Creepygif.com, Google Maps

Obama's 9-11 Trial About Face Angers Liberals, Closes Gitmo

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Trying 9/11 Suspects In Military Court Could Pave Way To Closing Gitmo



Moving the trial of suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed out of criminal court and into a military tribunal could finally enable President Obama to close the terrorist detainee center at Guantanamo Bay.

Moving the trial of suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed out of criminal court and into a military tribunal could finally enable President Obama to close the terrorist detainee center at Guantanamo Bay.

But how it will sit with his supporters on the left remains an open question.

The administration is considering reversing its decision to try Mohammed and four others accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks in civilian court, moving them instead to a military court -- either at Guantanamo or a military facility within the U.S. Such a move could prove poisonous for the administration's relationship with its liberal base.

The president has already disappointed his supporters by maintaining military tribunals after temporarily suspending them, by continuing the option of indefinite detention and by faltering in his vow to close Guantanamo Bay one year after his inauguration.

"If this stunning reversal comes to pass, President Obama will deal a death blow to his own Justice Department, not to mention American values," American Civil Liberties Union Director Anthony Romero said in a written statement.

"Hope and change will not rectify the damage today to the United States' international reputation," Amnesty International USA Director Larry Cox said.

But reversing course on the plan to try suspected terrorists in criminal courtrooms could be pitched as a concession made for the greater goal of closing the Guantanamo detention camp. A source familiar with the administration's policy review told Fox News that Obama is testing the waters to see how far he can push his base without sending it over the edge, for the sake of an elusive bipartisan bargain that would ultimately allow him to follow through on his pledge one day after his inauguration to close the Cuban military prison for good.

The venue for the Sept. 11 terror suspects has emerged as somewhat of a bargaining chip in that effort. Republicans, namely Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who are willing to support Obama's effort to close Guantanamo are fiercely opposed to civilian trials.

Asked on Friday whether the view exists that turning over the suspects to tribunals would help free up funding in Congress to close Guantanamo, Graham told Fox News, "Not that I'm aware of."

But he said sending the suspects to tribunals would demonstrate "good leadership," and he suggested it could grease the wheels toward closing the Cuba-based camp.

"I have advocated the closing of Guantanamo Bay if you can do it safely," Graham said. Trying the suspects in tribunals "would give us a chance to close Guantanamo safely."

Graham said more research will need to be done to determine what to do with those detainees the administration has determined are too dangerous to be released or tried.

The Washington Post reported Friday, citing unnamed administration officials, that top advisers are close to a decision recommending that the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks be prosecuted in a military tribunal.

According to the report, the president's advisers have grown increasingly wary of bipartisan opposition to the planned civilian federal trial for Mohammed and his four alleged conspirators in New York City, mere blocks from where nearly 3,000 Americans were killed in the attack on the World Trade Center.

White House officials told Fox News that no final decision has been made. The administration has been considering tribunals for the alleged Sept. 11 attack plotters for several weeks. At issue is both the location of the planned trial and the venue.

First the administration would have to decide whether to have the trials in New York City, and then whether to hold them in a tribunal elsewhere. A military tribunal would have to be held at a military base -- and Guantanamo Bay itself is one option. Other possibilities are Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C.

Sources: MSNBC, Fox News

Senate Passes Temporary Re-Authorization Of Patriot Act..."Sneak & Peek"

Senate Passes Short-Term Patriot Act Re-authorization


The Senate passed by voice vote Wednesday night legislation that would temporarily extend three Patriot Act provisions set to expire at the end of this month.

The bill would keep in place the Patriot Act’s “lone wolf,” business records and “roving wiretap” powers until Feb. 28, 2011. The House has yet to consider the measure.

Both the House and Senate had begun work on long-term renewals, but the bills contained major differences.

The Senate Patriot Act bill would reauthorize all of the authorities. The House version would renew the records and “roving wiretap” powers but not the “lone wolf” authority, which the government has never used. The bills also would include new oversight for the authorities.

The Senate bill was approved by the Judiciary Committee last October and is awaiting floor action. The House bill, which won Judiciary Committee approval last November, is also awaiting floor action.

“I would have preferred to add oversight and judicial review improvements to any extension of expiring provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act,” Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said in a statement Wednesday night.

Here is a summary of the provisions that are due to expire:

* Lone wolf: Allows the government to track a target without any discernible affiliation to a foreign power, such as an international terrorist group. The provision applies only to non-U.S. persons. The government has never used it.

* Business records: Allows Investigators to compel third parties, including financial services and travel and telephone companies, to provide them access to a suspect’s records without the suspect’s knowledge.

* Roving wiretaps: Allows the government to monitor phone lines or Internet accounts that a terrorism suspect may be using, regardless of whether others who are not suspects also regularly use them. The government must provide the FISA court with specific information showing the suspect is purposely switching means of communication to evade detection.






U.S. House Renews Patriot Act


The House of Representatives re-authorized the Patriot Act for one year Thursday.

The vote was 315-97 .

Many liberals in the House opposed the controversial act, saying it tramps Constitutional protections and civil liberties.

Congress adopted the Patriot Act shortly after September 11th.

Many lawmakers wanted to rewrite or even kill some of the most controversial provisions in the act. But Congressional leaders didn’t have the appetite for a major battle with the economy and health care reform swinging in the balance.

Many of the renewed provisions involve wiretaps and eavesdropping measures.

The Senate ok'd the package earlier this week. President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law.

Sources: Main Justice, Fox News, Wikipedia, Youtube

Immigrants Dying In American Jails; Feds Hid Evidence

Federal Officials Hid Truth About Immigrant Deaths In Jails


Silence has long shrouded the men and women who die in the nation’s immigration jails. For years, they went uncounted and unnamed in the public record. Even in 2008, when The New York Times obtained and published a federal government list of such deaths, few facts were available about who these people were and how they died.

But behind the scenes, it is now clear, the deaths had already generated thousands of pages of government documents, including scathing investigative reports that were kept under wraps, and a trail of confidential memos and BlackBerry messages that show officials working to stymie outside inquiry.

The documents, obtained over recent months by The Times and the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act, concern most of the 107 deaths in detention counted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement since October 2003, after the agency was created within the Department of Homeland Security.

The Obama administration has vowed to overhaul immigration detention, a haphazard network of privately run jails, federal centers and county cells where the government holds noncitizens while it tries to deport them.

But as the administration moves to increase oversight within the agency, the documents show how officials — some still in key positions — used their role as overseers to cover up evidence of mistreatment, deflect scrutiny by the news media or prepare exculpatory public statements after gathering facts that pointed to substandard care or abuse.

As one man lay dying of head injuries suffered in a New Jersey immigration jail in 2007, for example, a spokesman for the federal agency told The Times that he could learn nothing about the case from government authorities. In fact, the records show, the spokesman had alerted those officials to the reporter’s inquiry, and they conferred at length about sending the man back to Africa to avoid embarrassing publicity.

In another case that year, investigators from the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that unbearable, untreated pain had been a significant factor in the suicide of a 22-year-old detainee at the Bergen County Jail in New Jersey, and that the medical unit was so poorly run that other detainees were at risk.

The investigation found that jail medical personnel had falsified a medication log to show that the detainee, a Salvadoran named Nery Romero, had been given Motrin. The fake entry was easy to detect: When the drug was supposedly administered, Mr. Romero was already dead.

Yet those findings were never disclosed to the public or to Mr. Romero’s relatives on Long Island, who had accused the jail of abruptly depriving him of his prescription painkiller for a broken leg. And an agency supervisor wrote that because other jails were “finicky” about accepting detainees with known medical problems like Mr. Romero’s, such people would continue to be placed at the Bergen jail as “a last resort.”

In a recent interview, Benjamin Feldman, a spokesman for the jail, which housed 1,503 immigration detainees last year, would not say whether any changes had been made since the death.

In February 2007, in the case of the dying African man, the immigration agency’s spokesman for the Northeast, Michael Gilhooly, rebuffed a Times reporter’s questions about the detainee, who had suffered a skull fracture at the privately run Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey. Mr. Gilhooly said that without a full name and alien registration number for the man, he could not check on the case.

But, records show, he had already filed a report warning top managers at the federal agency about the reporter’s interest and sharing information about the injured man, a Guinean tailor named Boubacar Bah. Mr. Bah, 52, had been left in an isolation cell without treatment for more than 13 hours before an ambulance was called.

While he lay in the hospital in a coma after emergency brain surgery, 10 agency managers in Washington and Newark conferred by telephone and e-mail about how to avoid the cost of his care and the likelihood of “increased scrutiny and/or media exposure,” according to a memo summarizing the discussion.

One option they explored was sending the dying man to Guinea, despite an e-mail message from the supervising deportation officer, who wrote, “I don’t condone removal in his present state as he has a catheter” and was unconscious. Another idea was renewing Mr. Bah’s canceled work permit in hopes of tapping into Medicaid or disability benefits.

Eventually, faced with paying $10,000 a month for nursing home care, officials settled on a third course: “humanitarian release” to cousins in New York who had protested that they had no way to care for him. But days before the planned release, Mr. Bah died.

Among the participants in the conferences was Nina Dozoretz, a longtime manager in the agency’s Division of Immigration Health Services who had won an award for cutting detainee health care costs. Later she was vice president of the Nakamoto Group, a company hired by the Bush administration to monitor detention. The Obama administration recently rehired her to lead its overhaul of detainee health care.

Asked about the conference call on Mr. Bah, Ms. Dozoretz said: “How many years ago was that? I don’t recall all the specifics if indeed there was a call.” She added, “I advise you to contact our public affairs office.” Mr. Gilhooly, the spokesman who had said he had no information on the case, would not comment.

On the day after Mr. Bah’s death in May 2007, Scott Weber, director of the Newark field office of the immigration enforcement agency, recommended in a memo that the agency take the unusual step of paying to send the body to Guinea for burial, to prevent his widow from showing up in the United States for a funeral and drawing news coverage.

Mr. Weber wrote that he believed the agency had handled Mr. Bah’s case appropriately. “However,” he added, “I also don’t want to stir up any media interest where none is warranted.” Helping to bury Mr. Bah overseas, he wrote, “will go a long way to putting this matter to rest.”

In the agency’s confidential files was a jail video showing Mr. Bah face down in the medical unit, hands cuffed behind his back, just before medical personnel sent him to a disciplinary cell. The tape shows him crying out repeatedly in his native Fulani, “Help, they are killing me!”

Almost a year after his death, the agency quietly closed the case without action. But Mr. Bah’s name had shown up on the first list of detention fatalities, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, and on May 5, 2008, his death was the subject of a front-page article in The Times.

Brian P. Hale, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in an interview that the newly disclosed records represented the past, and that the agency’s new leaders were committed to transparency and greater oversight, including prompt public disclosure and investigation of every death, and more attention to detainee care in a better-managed system.

But the most recent documents show that the culture of secrecy has endured. And the past cover-ups underscore what some of the agency’s own employees say is a central flaw in the proposed overhaul: a reliance on the agency to oversee itself.

“Because ICE investigates itself there is no transparency and there is no reform or improvement,” Chris Crane, a vice president in the union that represents employees of the agency’s detention and removal operations, told a Congressional subcommittee on Dec. 10.

The agency has kept a database of detention fatalities at least since December 2005, when a National Public Radio investigation spurred a Congressional inquiry. In 2006, the agency issued standard procedures for all such deaths to be reported in detail to headquarters.

But internal documents suggest that officials were intensely concerned with controlling public information. In April 2007, Marc Raimondi, then an agency spokesman, warned top managers that a Washington Post reporter had asked about a list of 19 deaths that the civil liberties union had compiled, and about a dying man whose penile cancer had spread after going undiagnosed in detention, despite numerous medical requests for a biopsy.

“These are quite horrible medical stories,” Mr. Raimondi wrote, “and I think we’ll need to have a pretty strong response to keep this from becoming a very damaging national story that takes on long legs.”

That response was an all-out defense of detainee medical care over several months, including statistics that appeared to show that mortality rates in detention were declining, and were low compared with death rates in prisons.

Experts in detention health care called the comparison misleading; it also came to light that the agency was undercounting the number of detention deaths, as well as discharging some detainees shortly before they died. In August, litigation by the civil liberties union prompted the Obama administration to disclose that more than one in 10 immigrant detention deaths had been overlooked and omitted from a list submitted to Congress last year.

Two of those deaths had occurred in Arizona, in 2004 and 2007, at the Eloy Detention Center, run by the Corrections Corporation of America. Eloy had nine known fatalities — more than any other immigration jail under contract to the federal government. But Immigration and Customs Enforcement was still secretive. When a reporter for The Arizona Republic asked about the circumstances of those deaths, an agency spokesman told him the records were unavailable.

According to records The Times obtained in December, one Eloy detainee who died, in October 2008, was Emmanuel Owusu. An ailing 62-year-old barber who had arrived from Ghana on a student visa in 1972, he had been a legal permanent resident for 33 years, mostly in Chicago. Immigration authorities detained him in 2006, based on a 1979 conviction for misdemeanor battery and retail theft.

“I am confused as to how subject came into our custody???” the Phoenix field office director, Katrina S. Kane, wrote to subordinates. “Convicted in 1979? That’s a long time ago.”

In response, a report on his death was revised to refer to Mr. Owusu’s “lengthy criminal history ranging from 1977 to 1998.” It did not note that except for the battery conviction, that history consisted mostly of shoplifting offenses.

A diabetic with high blood pressure, he had been detained for two years at Eloy while he battled deportation. He died of a heart ailment weeks after his last appeal was dismissed.



View Larger Map


Sources: NY Times, Youtube, Google Maps

Michael Chertoff: ACLU Partially To Blame For Lax Airport Security

Is the ACLU partially to blame for America's current lax Airport Security crisis? Former Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff seems to think so.

Chertoff says the ACLU's issue was over Body Scanning machines and Violation of Privacy.

I have to admit that I agree with Chertoff's perspective on this one.

What's more important or the lesser of two evils?

Someone seeing my underwear or being blown to bits by a radical Al-Qaida Terrorist?

Come on ACLU man up!

Your organization is most certainly necessary in Western Society but please use some common sense and work with our Gov't.

I'm not sure about anyone else but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

After all you can't really sue anyone for "Violation of Privacy" if your dead right?

Check out Mr. Chertoff's discussion on the video below.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

View Larger Map


Sources: MSNBC, ACLU, Wikipedia, Google Maps

FBI Scanning Driver's Licenses To Catch Fugitives...Mistaken Identity Possibilities, Privacy Violations

(Illinois Exoneree Jerry Miller discusses his 1982 wrongful conviction and the 24 years he was incarcerated for a crime DNA now proves he didn't commit. Jerry was the 200th person exonerated by DNA testing nationwide - learn more at www.innocenceproject.org)







Driver's licenses scanned in search for fugitives


In its search for fugitives, the FBI has begun using facial-recognition technology on millions of motorists, comparing driver's license photos with pictures of convicts in a high-tech analysis of chin widths and nose sizes.

The project in North Carolina has already helped nab at least one suspect. Agents are eager to look for more criminals and possibly to expand the effort nationwide. But privacy advocates worry that the method allows authorities to track people who have done nothing wrong.

"Everybody's participating, essentially, in a virtual lineup by getting a driver's license," said Christopher Calabrese, an attorney who focuses on privacy issues at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Earlier this year, investigators learned that a double-homicide suspect named Rodolfo Corrales had moved to North Carolina. The FBI took a 1991 booking photo from California and compared it with 30 million photos stored by the motor vehicle agency in Raleigh.

In seconds, the search returned dozens of drivers who resembled Corrales, and an FBI analyst reviewed a gallery of images before zeroing in on a man who called himself Jose Solis.

A week later, after corroborating Corrales' identity, agents arrested him in High Point, southwest of Greensboro, where they believe he had built a new life under the assumed name. Corrales is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in Los Angeles later this month.

"Running facial recognition is not very labor-intensive at all," analyst Michael Garcia said. "If I can probe a hundred fugitives and get one or two, that's a home run."

Law enforcement database?

Facial-recognition software is not entirely new, but the North Carolina project is the first major step for the FBI as it considers expanding use of the technology to find fugitives nationwide.

So-called biometric information that is unique to each person also includes fingerprints and DNA. More distant possibilities include iris patterns in the eye, voices, scent and even a person's gait.

FBI officials have organized a panel of authorities to study how best to increase use of the software. It will take at least a year to establish standards for license photos, and there's no timetable to roll out the program nationally.

Calabrese said Americans should be concerned about how their driver's licenses are being used.

Licenses "started as a permission to drive," he said. "Now you need them to open a bank account. You need them to be identified everywhere. And suddenly they're becoming the de facto law enforcement database."

State and federal laws allow driver's license agencies to release records for law enforcement, and local agencies have access to North Carolina's database, too. But the FBI is not authorized to collect and store the photos. That means the facial-recognition analysis must be done at the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles.

"Unless the person's a criminal, we would not have a need to have that information in the system," said Kim Del Greco, who oversees the FBI's biometrics division. "I think that would be a privacy concern. We're staying away from that."

Dan Roberts, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, added: "We're not interested in housing a bunch of photos of people who have done absolutely nothing wrong."


Scanning for similarities

Gone are the days when states made drivers' licenses by snapping Polaroid photos and laminating them onto cards without recording copies.

Now states have quality photo machines and rules that prohibit drivers from smiling during the snapshot to improve the accuracy of computer comparisons.

North Carolina's lab scans an image and, within 10 seconds, compares the likeness with other photos based on an algorithm of factors such as the width of a chin or the structure of cheekbones. The search returns several hundred photos ranked by the similarities.

"We'll get some close hits, and we'll get some hits that are right on," said Stephen Lamm, who oversees the DMV lab.

The technology allowed the DMV to quickly highlight 28 different photos of one man who was apparently using many identities. It also identified one person who, as part of a sex change, came in with plucked eyebrows, long flowing hair and a new name — but the same radiant smile.

Mistaken for a terrorist?

The system is not always right. Investigators used one DMV photo of an Associated Press reporter to search for a second DMV photo, but the system first returned dozens of other people, including a North Carolina terrorism suspect who had some similar facial features.

The images from the reporter and terror suspect scored a likeness of 72 percent, below the mid-80s that officials consider a solid hit.

Facial-recognition experts believe the technology has improved drastically since 2002, when extremely high failure rates led authorities to scrap a program planned for the entrances to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Lamm said investigators reviewing the galleries can almost always find the right photo, using a combination of the computer and the naked eye.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, questioned whether the facial-recognition systems that were pushed after the Sept. 11 attacks are accurate or even worthwhile.

"We don't have good photos of terrorists," Rotenberg said. "Most of the facial-recognition systems today are built on state DMV records because that's where the good photos are. It's not where the terrorists are."



DNA exonerates a second Forsyth Inmate


While Joseph Abbitt grew older in prison, forensic science grew more sophisticated, enough to prove the truth he'd been telling since 1991.

Abbitt walked out of jail Wednesday, 14 years after a jury found that he raped two teenage sisters in the early morning darkness as they dressed for school. He swore his innocence from the day police found him, which, at the time, sounded like hot air from a man who had seen plenty of trouble on the streets of Winston-Salem.

On Wednesday, new DNA tests on long-kept evidence proved that an unidentified man had violated the girls.

"We're here today not because of any wrongdoing by any one person," David Hall, a Forsyth County assistant district attorney, told the judge. "We're here because of the inexact science long ago. Science has marched on over the years."

Abbitt is the seventh man in North Carolina exonerated by DNA evidence years after being sentenced. Nationally, he joins 241 men exonerated by more sophisticated testing of DNA; three quarters of them, like Abbitt, had been wrongly identified by witnesses. An untold number of others never had the chance to prove their innocence because evidence from the crime was destroyed long before the state passed laws requiring that the pieces be kept forever.

As these things go, Abbitt, 49, was lucky. He was convicted in Forsyth County, where the exoneration of another man had weighed on the conscience of the district attorney.

Darryl Hunt was freed in 2003 after serving 18 years for the rape and murder of a Winston-Salem woman. His innocence was a sucker punch for Forsyth County District Attorney Tom Keith.

"We did not want another Darryl Hunt case," Keith said. "I couldn't take it."

Keith wanted to sleep through the night not wondering whether his office had banished other innocent men to prison. In 2005, his office compiled a list of every suspect from Forsyth County in prison -- 2,247 total. Keith mailed each a letter, advising the inmates that if they thought a new DNA test would help prove a claim of innocence, he'd make the test happen.

Only 150 inmates took him up on the offer. Of those, 80 were reviewed by the local bar association and students at Wake Forest University Law School, who looked for cases that had evidence that could be tested. Only Abbitt's case resulted in exoneration.

Abbitt appealed directly to the N.C. Center for Actual Innocence, a nonprofit group dedicated to helping prisoners who believe they were wrongly convicted. In 2008, Christine Mumma, the center's director, solicited the help of Keith and the Winston-Salem police department to look for any shred of evidence remaining in Abbitt's case.

In one of the department's six warehouses, Winston-Salem Capt. David Clayton hit pay dirt: the girls' two rape kit exams, undisturbed since the day the state lab sent them back with a report saying it couldn't get a positive read. Clayton immediately drove them to a state lab for more testing. The kits were eventually sent to a private lab for more sophisticated work.

A logical suspect

In 1995, Abbitt's conviction made sense. He'd been in trouble with the law before; he had even been charged in another sex crime years before. The girls, 15 and 13 at the time of the crime, knew him, and said, with certainty, that he was the man who snuck into their house and raped them at knife-point. They saw paint on his shoes and pant-legs; Abbitt had been working as a painter.

Abbitt always swore his innocence. His family believed him and never thought a jury would convict him.

"We all knew he didn't do it," his brother Thurmond Abbitt said Wednesday. "It hurt to watch that fall upon him."

A hulking man in a beige dress shirt and glasses, Joseph Abbitt wept as a judge granted his freedom. Abbitt hung his head and shook with sobs; Mumma rubbed his arm.

The judge offered an apology. Abbitt nodded.

When Abbitt finally spoke, he did not rant against the system that wronged him. Instead, he focused on the girls violated by someone years before.

"I pray for those two young victims every day," Abbitt told a judge. "I hope they catch the one who did this because these two young girls are still the victims of this awful crime."

Keith plans to do that. On Wednesday, a judge signed an order allowing $5,000 to pay for more DNA tests at a private lab, where they hope to decipher the signature of the real rapist.



View Larger Map


Sources: MSNBC, FBI, McClatchy Newspapers, News & Observer, Winston-Salem Journal, Innocence Project, Youtube, Google Maps

U.S. Supreme Court Rules School's Strip Search of Student for Drugs Illegal & Unconstitutional!!

MSNBC, Huffington Post----

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a school's strip search of an Arizona teenage girl accused of having prescription-strength ibuprofen was illegal.

In an 8-1 ruling, the justices said school officials violated the law with their search of Savana Redding in the rural eastern Arizona town of Safford.

Redding, who now attends college, was 13 when officials at Safford Middle School ordered her to remove her clothes and shake out her underwear because they were looking for pills _ the equivalent of two Advils. The district bans prescription and over-the-counter drugs and the school was acting on a tip from another student.

"What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear," Justice David Souter wrote in the majority opinion. "We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable."

In a dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas found the search legal and said the court previously had given school officials "considerable leeway" under the Fourth Amendment in school settings.

Officials had searched the girl's backpack and found nothing, Thomas said. "It was eminently reasonable to conclude the backpack was empty because Redding was secreting the pills in a place should thought no one would look," Thomas said.

Thomas warned that the majority's decision could backfire. "Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments," he said. "Nor will she be the last after today's decision, which announces the safest place to secrete contraband in school."

The court also ruled the officials cannot be held liable in a lawsuit for the search. Different judges around the nation have come to different conclusions about immunity for school officials in strip searches, which leads the Supreme Court to "counsel doubt that we were sufficiently clear in the prior statement of law," Souter said.

"We think these differences of opinion from our own are substantial enough to require immunity for the school officials in this case," Souter said.

The justices also said the lower courts would have to determine whether the Safford United School District No. 1 could be held liable.

A schoolmate had accused Redding, then an eighth-grade student, of giving her pills.

The school's vice principal, Kerry Wilson, took Redding to his office to search her backpack. When nothing was found, Redding was taken to a nurse's office where she says she was ordered to take off her shirt and pants. Redding said they then told her to move her bra to the side and to stretch her underwear waistband, exposing her breasts and pelvic area. No pills were found.

A federal magistrate dismissed a suit by Redding and her mother, April. An appeals panel agreed that the search didn't violate her rights. But last July, a full panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the search was "an invasion of constitutional rights" and that Wilson could be found personally liable.

Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented from the portion of the ruling saying that Wilson could not be held financially liable.

"Wilson's treatment of Redding was abusive and it was not reasonable for him to believe that the law permitted it," Ginsburg said.

The case is Safford Unified School District v. April Redding, 08-479.


View Larger Map

Sources: Huffington Post, MSNBC, Wikipedia, ACLU, WNCT, Google Maps