‘No customer oversight’: Dreaded cybersecurity bill CISA is back
RT | October 21, 2015
After a delay, cybersecurity legislation dreaded by privacy advocates and relentlessly pursued by national security officials, known as CISA, will get a vote on the Senate floor “in a couple of days,” a top sponsoring senator anticipates.
The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, also known as CISA, is as polarizing as it is close to a vote. It finally hit the Senate floor for debate on Tuesday, with top sponsor Senator Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) highlighting its necessity because “actors around the world continue to attack US systems, and in many cases penetrate it.”
Under the bill, private companies would have increased liability protection with respect to collecting American’s personal data that could potentially be related to security threats. It would also make it easier for them to share such data with the government, including departments like the National Security Agency.
Prominent CISA opponent and privacy advocate, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), challenged Burr, who chairs the Select Committee on Intelligence, on one argument in particular.
“He said that the most important feature of the legislation is that it’s voluntary. The fact is, it is voluntary for companies. It will be mandatory for their customers,” Wyden said, “and the fact is the companies can participate without the knowledge and consent of their customers, and they are immune from customer oversight and lawsuits if they do so.”
In many cases, customers have been able to nudge companies from a pro to a con position on CISA. In one instance last month, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) sent a letter to legislators, in part calling for “cyber threat information sharing legislation” granting them immunity so that they could “more easily share that information voluntarily.” However, after Fight for the Future, an internet freedom advocacy group, set up YouBetrayedUs.org to criticize the organizations, the BSA changed its tune.
The BSA, which includes Apple, IBM, and Microsoft, now opposes CISA, as does the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which includes Google, Facebook, and Amazon. Reddit, Wikimedia, Twitter, and Yelp have also released anti-CISA statements.
“Leading security experts argue that CISA actually won’t do much, if anything, to prevent future large-scale data breaches such as the federal government has already suffered, but many worry it could make things worse, by creating incentives for private companies and the government to widely share huge amounts of Americans’ personally identifiable information that will itself then be vulnerable to sophisticated hacking attacks,” added the American Library Association in a press release.
The discussion on CISA comes after a stall in the Senate’s schedule before its August recess. Lawmakers agreed to delay a vote on the bill when it became clear that senators had many amendments to submit, some of which included so-called “riders,” or unrelated issues, such as Senator Rand Paul’s (R-Kentucky) amendments to audit the Federal Reserve and defund “sanctuary cities.” At least 22 amendments will be given a chance to be added to CISA before a final passage vote.
Burr optimistically told The Hill that “a couple of days” was all that was needed to get to a final vote on CISA. He may have overshot, however, because there could be a scrimmage over amendments despite his efforts. Burr, with support of other Senate leaders, has managed to combine eight amendments into a legislative package he shares with CISA co-sponsor Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California), but the grouping includes only one of Wyden’s two amendments.
Wyden told reporters that the one he feels “most strongly about” hadn’t been included. It would have provided a review system for deleting private info before data gets passed on to the government. The Wyden amendment that was included in the bill only requires that people be notified when their data is inappropriately shared.
Although no vote has been scheduled yet, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) is trying to end debate by Thursday. Beyond CISA, the Senate has an ambitious to-do list. It will decide whether to extend government spending beyond September 30, address the Iran nuclear deal, and fund highways and transportation systems in a comprehensive bill.
Human Rights Center Suing CIA Broken Into, Research Stolen
teleSUR – October 21, 2015
Just over two weeks after the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights filed a lawsuit in federal court against the CIA for the intelligence agency’s refusal to release declassified documents, the office of the center’s director was broken into, with data and equipment stolen.
Sensitive documents, including personal details about ongoing investigations in El Salvador, pertaining to a lawsuit filed by the University of Washington against the the CIA were stolen from the office of Professor Angelina Godoy, University officials reported on Wednesday.
The robbery has been described by university officials as a “possible act of retaliation” by individuals interested in compromising the university’s case against the CIA due to circumstances that suggest this wasn’t just a common burglary.
“We are concerned because it is also possible this was an act of retaliation for our work. There are a few elements that make this an unusual incident,” the Center for Human Rights said in a statement.
Following the incident, Center for Human Rights Director Dr. Angelina Godoy reported that her desktop computer was stolen along with a hard drive containing about 90 percent of the information relating to the center’s research in El Salvador. However, according to the center, what was peculiar about the circumstances is that her office was the only one targeted and that the stolen hard drive has no real monetary value; what was valuable was the data on the drive.
“Lastly, the timing of this incident — in the wake of the recent publicity around our freedom of information lawsuit against the CIA regarding information on a suspected perpetrator of grave human rights violations in El Salvador — invites doubt as to potential motives,” added the press statement.
On Oct. 2 the center filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act alleging that the CIA is illegally withholding information on retired Salvadoran Army officer, Col. Sigifredo Ochoa, who is currently under criminal investigation for complicity in the 1981 Santa Cruz massacre in El Salvador.
The lawsuit hopes to support justice-seeking survivors of the U.S-backed counterinsurgency against left-wing rebels that left more than 75,000 people dead and over 30,000 disappeared between 1980 and 1992.
“Access to the documents … could facilitate justice proceedings in these and other cases of grave rights abuses,” the lawsuit claims.
Turkish teen arrested outside an Internet Café for ‘insulting’ Erdogan
Press TV – October 22, 2015
A Turkish teenager has been arrested by police forces for allegedly “insulting” the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reports say.
The Cihan News Agency said on Thursday that the teenager identified as U. E. was detained outside an Internet Café on Wednesday night.
The 15-year-old is expected to be brought before court later in the day, which will determine whether he will be charged or fined.
Details regarding the accusations brought against him have not been released.
It is illegal to insult the country’s president under Turkish law, and those found guilty of doing so are at risk of facing up to four years in prison. The law has led to the arrest and prosecution of a number of journalists, activists, intellectuals, students and even celebrities.
Last month, a 16-year-old Turkish youth was handed a suspended 11-month jail sentence for calling Erdogan a thief during a student protest last December.
Earlier, Bülent Keneş, the editor-in-chief of the Turkish English-language newspaper Today’s Zaman, was handed down a suspended jail term of 21 months by a court in the capital, Ankara, for insulting Erdogan in a message posted on Twitter.
Tolga Tanış, a US-based journalist, was also detained in June over suspicions that he insulted Erdogan in a book he had authored.
Rights groups and free speech advocates have criticized the government for suing people over expressing their opinions, describing it as a means of aggressive muzzling of dissent in Turkey.
Erdogan, a former premier who ascended to presidency last year, has faced growing popular dissatisfaction over what critics say is his growing autocratic manner.
72% of Saudi death sentences handed down for non-violent crimes – report
Reprieve | October 21, 2015
The vast majority of people facing execution in Saudi Arabia were convicted for non-violent crimes including political protest and drugs offences, according to new research from the human rights organization Reprieve.
The report includes data gathered by Reprieve on 171 of the prisoners currently on death row in Saudi Arabia. It finds that 72 per cent of those prisoners whose alleged offences Reprieve has been able to determine were sentenced to death for non-violent crimes – including attendance at political protests and drug offences. Reprieve has also been able to establish that of 62 of the 224 prisoners estimated to have been executed in Saudi Arabia since January 2014, some 69 per cent had also been sentenced to death for non-violent offences.
Among those facing execution are prisoners who were sentenced to death as children, such as Ali Mohammed al-Nimr and Dawoud Hussain al-Marhoon. The two juveniles were arrested at 2012 protests, and were tortured into ‘confessions’ that were later used to convict them in the country’s secretive Specialized Criminal Court (SCC). Reprieve’s report also establishes that the use of torture to extract ‘confessions’ is widespread, with specific cases identified where prisoners have been beaten to the point of suffering broken bones and teeth.
The death sentences handed down to the two juveniles have provoked strong public concern from countries allied to Saudi Arabia such as the UK, the US and France. Yesterday, speaking to MPs both about Ali’s case and that of British citizen Karl Andree, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said: “I do not expect Mr Andree to receive the lashings that he has been sentenced to, and I do not expect Mr al-Nimr to be executed.” However, Mr Hammond provided no details of any assurances received from the Saudi government.
Speaking to human rights organization Reprieve earlier today, Ali’s father Mohammed al-Nimr, said while he was glad politicians may have received some assurances from the Saudis, “the facts on the ground leave much fear and doubt”. He revealed that Ali was now being held “in the solitary cells reserved for those facing execution”, adding: “I tried to visit him yesterday but they prevented me.”
Commenting, Kate Higham, caseworker at Reprieve, said: “This report shows how Ali and Dawoud’s death sentences are just the tip of the iceberg. The Saudi government appears to be routinely sentencing people, including juveniles, to death for non-violent crimes such as attending protests. All too often, these sentences are handed down on the basis of ‘confessions’ extracted through torture, as in Ali and Dawoud’s cases. Ali and Dawoud are now being held in solitary confinement and could face imminent execution at any time. The UK and other close allies of Saudi Arabia must redouble their efforts to see the juveniles released to their families – they must also send a strong message to the Saudis that these widespread abuses are utterly unacceptable.”
Chicago PD detained 7,000 people at off-the-books interrogation site
RT | October 19, 2015
More than 7,000 people have been detained, ‘disappeared’ and not given access to an attorney at a police-run facility in Chicago, Illinois, according to documents obtained by the Guardian. This number is much higher than previously believed.
Only 68 of the 7,125 people held at Homan Square, the Chicago Police Department (CPD)-run facility, were allowed access to attorneys or a public notice of their whereabouts, according to information obtained as a result of a Guardian transparency lawsuit.
People can end up in Homan Square for anything from minor drug crimes to murder, raising a few eyebrows on the legality of such broad-spectrum detentions. The warehouse compound has also drawn scrutiny because of the racial makeup of the detainees: 82 percent are black, the Guardian said.
The newspaper’s earlier reporting on Homan detailed allegations of beatings and sexual abuse that are reminiscent of the treatment of terror suspects at CIA ‘black sites.’
Further solidifying the parallel with the secret prisons, no contemporaneous public record of someone’s presence at Homan is currently known to exist. The lack of booking information released by police makes detainees effectively “disappeared” from the public, including family and even attorneys who are just trying to speak to their clients.
“The reality is, no one knows where that person is at Homan Square,” Craig Futterman, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School who studies policing, told the Guardian. “They’re disappeared at that point.”
But CPD maintains that officers at the secretive facility “follow all the rules.” Detainees are advised of their rights to counsel by police personnel at the site, and there is “clearly visible” signage that communicates arrestees’ rights and access to a lawyer, according to a statement from the department sent to Business Insider.
“When looking at data regarding the number of attorney visits it’s important to remember that the vast majority of arrestees, most of those not under arrest for a violent crime, bond out in a matter of hours,” the statement read. “Many may not request an attorney because it would only prolong their detention, as opposed to just bonding out.”
The Guardian first published its investigation into Homan Square in February of this year, leading some government officials to call for a deeper look into the facility and protesters to clamor for its closure. But some think that the problem is a much larger one than the facility itself.
“Everything that was described [in the Guardian story] was something that happens every day,” criminal defense lawyer Richard Dvorak told the Chicago Tribune. “I think it’s pretty systemic throughout CPD.”
Uncivil Rites of the Corporate Neoliberal University: the Curious Case of Steven Salaita
By Fawzia Afzal-Khan | CounterPunch | October 16, 2015
Donna Nevell’s Oct 7th article about a new report called “The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US” – released by Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights (See more here.) points to the rise in North American academia, of a phenomenon that I encountered head-on back in the late 1970s when I arrived as a grad student in Massachusetts from my native Pakistan, and which I’ve continued to witness (and experience the brunt of, throughout my 25 years of teaching, via demands for “civility” whenever I criticized Israeli policies in public settings, earning me the ire of Zionist colleagues, with those in power using that privilege on various committees to deny me academic awards, funding support, etc )–but which I thought was on the wane in recent years. This is the phenomenon of the facile canard of accusations of anti-semitism (a silencing tactic par excellence)–levelled against anyone and everyone who wants to approach the topic of Israel/Palestine with a critical eye, or who wishes to speak out against Israel’s use of disproportionate violence against Palestinian civilians year after year, or who wishes to raise legitimate questions about the illegitimacy of Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands which continue unabated to date, in contravention of countless UN resolutions against such occupation.[1]
In recent years, however, I’ve felt a shift in public opinion and discourse around issues of Israel/Palestine, as attested to by my students, who have become more aware of, and thus more critical of the imbalance of military and economic power between Israel and its disenfranchised Palestinian second-class citizens as well as the Palestinians of the Occupied Territories, which has led them to become more aware of the dominant media bias in favor Israel. Yet, the recent, ignominious case of Prof Steven Salaita’s “unhiring” by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne in the wake (ostensibly) of some tweets he wrote criticizing Israel during its 2014 “Operation Protective Edge” military blitzkrieg against Palestinian civilians of Gaza,[2] points to the desperate push-back occurring on US campuses against this perceived shift in public (and student) opinion. Opines Nevell:
As Israeli violence against the Palestinian people escalates, support across the globe for justice in Palestine, and calls in this country for the US government and corporations to stop facilitating Israel’s gross violations of international law and human rights, are increasingly common-place. However, rather than engage substantively about those well- documented violations, Israel’s defenders recklessly and baselessly smear Israel’s critics with charges of anti-Semitism, promoting terrorism, and seeking to “delegitimize” Israel.
What is particularly troubling about this propaganda tactic—a longstanding one as it is—is that because it enjoys the support of rich donors who can and do, influence the corporate culture of universities (those of us who’ve been around long enough have witnessed the acceleration of the corporatization of US academia over the past several decades), there are increasingly virulent attacks occurring against faculty and students alike who dare to speak out against Israeli state policies. Nevell tells us how:
These campaigns are largely directed at college campuses where consistent, bold, and creative organizing is ongoing against Israel actions and against university complicity in supporting Israeli crimes. Those whose views are considered unacceptable to Israel’s supporters have been targeted with personal and ad hominem attacks that include, but are not limited to, intimidation, campaigns to get professors fired, and ongoing harassment. When speaking on college campuses, I was told story after story of students who were hesitant to speak out because of fear of reprisals. Further, accusations of “creating hostile environments” or being “uncivil”–ironic as they are—are yet another attempt to derail the call for equality, for accountability, and for fairness.
At a recent gathering of students and faculty of Columbia University and the general public, Professors Steven Salaita and Rashid Khalidi (the latter is Edward Said chair of Middle Eastern Studies at Columbia), while celebrating the publication of Salaita’s book which chronicles his year since he was unhired/fired by UIUC for an allegedly anti-semitic tweet during august of 2014, provided the standing-room-only audience also with a glimpse into the darkening atmosphere on university campuses which has arisen in the wake of a successful BDS movement (the campaign for Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights), as a means to curtail freedom of speech for those criticizing the Israeli state. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.
What is truly inspiring and refreshing, however, about Salaita’s take on the current manifestation of this chronic disease afflicting academe, is that he rises above his personal predicament (no mean task, given loss of employment and livelihood for himself and his family, and the need to relocate abroad to earn a living: as he pointed out, while it’s wonderful that he was finally able to land a very prestigious position as the Edward Said Chair at AUB in Beirut, it is only a one-year appointment). Beyond his personal tribulations, then, he discusses the full ramifications of the “civility” argument that has become the official discourse of the corporate university, which he persuasively describes as simply the latest instance of a colonial mechanism aimed at “controlling”—i.e disempowering—those professors and students who represent marginalized/colonized groups, and whose scholarship challenges received wisdom or the “hegemony” of the “dominant discourse” that rules the roost. To be critical of the power apparatus, of the corporatization of academe which routinely silences opposing voices by depriving us of jobs, tenure, promotions, this evil corporatization that has led to the de-funding of departments and programs that challenge dominant knowledge paradigms and the (il)logic of profit over humanity and democratic education, which has led to the infantilizing and punishing of students who wish to organize for their rights—in short, to raise critical voices for justice and for an end to dehumanization, is to now stand accused of “uncivility.” This is precisely what happened to Salaita. As he puts it so pithily in his book, Uncivil Rites: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom :
In the hegemon, state violence is never violent. Expressions of the subaltern, however, are always said to be conducted violently. Indicting a lone tweeter allows those invested in the colonial apparatus to avoid confronting their own complicity in the cruelties of racism and war. Many folks wrung their hands—teeth gnashed into rugged nubs—about my tweets critical of Israel while saying nothing of Israel’s wanton slaughter in Gaza. If, in the imagination of the liberal state, racism is but an individual failing, then critique of structural violence is a collective evasion (14).
In other words, while Salaita was indicted as an “individual” for practicing “uncivil behavior” through his critical tweets of Israel, the hegemonic university and its administrators did not need to confront their complicity in supporting Israeli racism and its unremitting and unjust war against Palestinians. Here are some sobering statistics Salaita provides that highlight the injustice which disingenuous accusations of “uncivility” directed at the victims or those angry at the situation and wishing to expose it, like Salaita, cover over:
Since 2000, Israelis have killed 2,060 Palestinian children while Palestinians have killed 130 Israeli children. The overall death count during this period is over 9,000 Palestinians and 1,190 Israelis….Israel has imposed hundreds of settlements on the West Bank [in direct violation of UN resolutions], while Palestinians inside Israel increasingly are squeezed and continue to be internally displaced. Israel has demolished nearly thirty thousand Palestinian homes as a matter of policy. Palestinians have demolished zero Israeli homes. (17)
But such techniques of silencing the “other” which today are directed with unrelenting and almost single-minded force against supporters of Palestinian human rights by the corporate university, have a long history aimed at other marginalized communities as well. Observes Salaita,
What happened to me has been happening to ethnic, sexual and cultural minorities in academe for decades, African Americans especially, and it continues to happen today. A shameful irony is that Jews were long marginalized in the academy because of their supposed dangers to Anglo civility, victims to rationalizations for their exclusion that, sadly, don’t look terribly different than the ones being used against supporters of Palestinian human rights. (49)
The supreme irony here, is that it is the victims of incivility who are being treated as its perpetrators! Plus ca change…. Indeed, blaming the victim is an age old strategy of the powerful. But, as Salaita notes, as Nevell recently observed, and which is where I began this piece, change is definitely in the air, and things will not remain the same, the French adage notwithstanding. Salaita notes, with some optimism
Israel is losing the PR battle, the proverbial hearts and minds. Its supporters, in turn, are lashing out with the sort of desperation endemic to any strong party in decline. They are punitive and belligerent in the absence of honest debate. This is about undemocratic power reasserting itself, refusing to cede a word to Palestinians in a severely compromised public discourse. It is, simply stated, colonial paranoia. (53)
As history has shown us, even the most entrenched colonial apparatuses come to an end, at times, seemingly suddenly (it seems this way especially to those who haven’t been paying attention to subaltern discourses!) A fairly recent case in point: South Africa. Injustice, apartheid, do not last forever. And neither will that other corporate hegemon: the neoliberal university. In the unjust, shameful, ludicrous and illegal case brought against Salaita by UIUC to deny him the position he was hired for, to teach in the Department of Native American Studies (yes, the ironies just multiply!)—it is the corporate university that has already lost in the court of public opinion.
Notes.
[1] The UN Human Rights Council formed in 2006 has issued 45 resolutions condemning Israeli actions; the UN’s Security Council has issued dozens of such resolutions, all of which Israel has, to date, flouted with impunity, thanks to blind support from its most powerful ally, the government of the USA. Between 1955 and 1992 alone, the UN issued 65 resolutions against Israel, but to date, Israel remains in contravention of most of them. Israel continues to be in violation of the U.N. Charter, the Geneva Conventions, laws of international terrorism, and other norms of international law.
[2] during its 2014 attacks on Gaza Between 8 July and 27 August, more than 2,100 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip, along with 66 Israeli soldiers and seven civilians in Israel. The UN says the vast majority of Palestinian deaths are civilian.
Fawzia Afzal-Khan is a Professor of English, University Distinguished Scholar, Director of Women and Gender Studies at Montclair State University. She can be reached at: khanf@mail.montclair.edu
NYPD Cop Convicted of Falsifying Arrest Report on New York Times Photographer
By Carlos Miller | PINAC | October 15, 2015
An NYPD cop who arrested a New York Times photographer, accusing him of interfering with an investigation by blinding him with his flash, was convicted today on a felony count of falsifying records.
It turned out, Robert Stolarik’s camera did not even have a built-in flash. Nor did he have an external flash on him when arrested.
Not that it would have been illegal.
Nevertheless, New York City police officer Michael Ackermann swore in his arrest report that Stolarik’s repeated use of his flash ended up “blinding him and preventing him from performing his duties.”
He also claimed that Stolarik “violently resisted being handcuffed,” even cutting another officer in the hand during the struggle.
The NYPD also released a statement claiming that Stolarik used his camera to “inadvertently” strike an officer in the face.
The way they described it, Stolarik was an out-of-control madman, using his flash to blind officers before striking them with his camera – just the type of behavior you would expect from a veteran photojournalist with more than two decades of experience.
The truth is, it was the officers who were violent with Stolarik as reported by the New York Times on August 5, 2012, the day after his arrest.
The photographer, Robert Stolarik, 43, who has worked regularly for The Times for more than a decade, was charged with obstructing government administration and with resisting arrest. He was taking photographs of a brewing street fight at McClellan Street and Sheridan Avenue in the Concourse neighborhood.
Mr. Stolarik was taking photographs of the arrest of a teenage girl about 10:30 p.m., when a police officer instructed him to stop doing so. Mr. Stolarik said he identified himself as a journalist for The Times and continued taking pictures. A second officer appeared, grabbed his camera and “slammed” it into his face, he said.
Mr. Stolarik said he asked for the officers’ badge numbers, and the officers then took his cameras and dragged him to the ground; he said that he was kicked in the back and that he received scrapes and bruises to his arms, legs and face.
The Police Department said in a statement that officers had been trying to disperse the crowd and had given “numerous lawful orders” for both the crowd and Mr. Stolarik to move back, but that he tried to push forward, “inadvertently” striking an officer in the face with his camera.
The police said that Mr. Stolarik then “violently resisted being handcuffed” and that, in the process, a second officer was cut on the hand. A video of the episode taken by one of the reporters who was with Mr. Stolarik shows Mr. Stolarik face down on the sidewalk, beneath a huddle of about six officers.
Stolarik ended up spending a night in jail on charges of obstructing government administration and resisting arrest, the usual contempt-of-cop charges issued by NYPD.
Now it’s Ackermann who is facing four years in prison after today’s conviction in a bench trial. He will be sentenced on December 2.
During the trial, Ackermann claimed he made an honest mistake when he lied about Stolarik’s use of the flash.
“I keep going over it and trying to figure out how I could have made that big of a mistake,” he testified, according to the New York Daily News.
What he really meant to say is that he was unable to figure out why the Bronx District Attorney would file charges on him when filing false reports is an everyday occurrence for the NYPD and is usually ignored by prosecutors.
Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom today, Stolarik pointed out the irony in the outcome.
According to Gothamist :
“I’m overwhelmed, and I’m emotional,” and added that the “DA took this case very seriously. Justice has been served. He was comfortable sending me to prison to ruin my career and I think that turned around on him, he was charged with a felony and it ruined his career.”
Ackermann’s career is definitely over. At least with the NYPD, even though he is still officially a cop. He might as well go into fiction writing considering he has a knack for it.
But it would still be surprising if he spends a day in jail. Cops rarely serve time for the crimes they commit, even the ones who commit sexual abuse.
The incident took place on August 4, 2012 as Stolarik was covering the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk routine and came across a group of officers attempting to arrest a 15-year-old girl.
One cop placed her hand in front of his lens to prevent him from shooting. When he showed her his credentials – not that it should matter in public – another cop walked up and shoved the camera into his face.
When he demanded names and badge numbers, several cops pounced on him and began beating and kicking him.
The video recorded by another New York Times reporter that shows him laying underneath a pile of cops apparently has not been released to the public, but we will post it if it is ever released.
After spending the night in jail, it took another three weeks for them to return his camera gear, which included a Nikon D4, as well as his NYPD-issued press credentials, making it impossible for him to continue working during that time.
The National Press Photographers Association, specifically General Counsel Mickey Osterreicher, was instrumental in getting the NYPD to return his items as well as having Ackermann investigated by both the district attorney and internal affairs.
This is what Osterreicher had to say in a statement emailed to Photography is Not a Crime :
I am very pleased to see that justice has been served by the verdict in this case. Robert Stolarik should have never been arrested for exercising his constitutional rights as a journalist cover a story of great public concern. Credit goes to Robert for standing up for his rights and the rights of all of us. I also commend the Bronx District Attorney and ADA Jacoub Pishoy for prosecuting this case. I also think we should acknowledge that the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB) took this case very seriously from the start and helped provide some of the evidence needed to obtain this conviction. I hope it will send a clear message to police officers to stop interfering, harassing and arresting citizens and journalists for doing nothing more than photographing or recording on public streets.
We also hope this sends a clear message to the NYPD and the rest of the cops in this country who have long become accustomed to falsifying charges, not only against photographers, but against anybody who dares question their authority – including the ones we wrote about earlier today.
Study: Tasers Are Not Nearly as Safe for Community as Police Proclaim
By Alexandra J. Gratereaux | PINAC | October 15, 2015
As the Berkeley City Council in California toys around with the idea of allowing cops to carry tasers, a new study published by Stanford Law School earlier this week questions the effectiveness of tasers and other electronic control weapons.
The Berkeley Police Department is pushing the use of tasers in its department, but cannot move forward without the green light from the city council.
The new study questions if the use of tasers actually reduces the use of lethal force by cops.
Or do they just allow cops to torture suspects, whether they end up killing them or not?
The law school’s Justice Center examined 150 studies conducted on tasers, and other similar weapons, and came to the conclusion that the safety measures and effectiveness of taser use among police officials is not as clear as it has been portrayed to be in past years when cops would claim tasers reduced lethal force.
First, the study found that tasers are mostly used in the wrong situations, such as when subjects are on drugs and alcohol, or have mental illnesses and physical disabilities. While the study says tasers have been found effective in minimizing danger for cops, the same cannot be said for the suspects.
The study highlights how taser prongs usually have to be medically removed – a finding most police departments overlook.
“Our own conclusion is that, while the literature suggests that [electronic control weapons] may have benefits, these benefits are easily overstated,” the authors of the study told Vice News.
“Moreover, realizing those potential benefits – such as reducing the rate of injuries to officers and possibly suspects – may require accepting the possibility that vulnerable populations are more likely to be exposed to the painful effects of [electronic control weapons.]”
Back in 2005, another study conducted by The Stanford Criminal Justice Center had similar findings.
“Tasers pose some grave risks that warrant significant research and study. Not enough is known about the risks of taser use to children, the elderly, pregnant women, or those under the influence of drugs,” the document read.
“From what little scientific research exists, it appears that prolonged and/or multiple use of a taser dramatically increases the risk of ventricular fibrillation and consequent cardiac arrest, even in healthy adults. In addition, there appears to be a risk of vision impairment if a subject is tasered in the eye, and of seizure if a subject is tasered in the head. It is unclear whether there are medical risks associated with the barbs that are left in a subject’s body once the probes are removed. There also appear to be permanent, if not fatal, dermatological impairments associated with the use of a taser in stun mode.”
Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan disagrees and is urging the council to give his department the green light on taser use.
“The combined body of evidence and decades-long experience leads me to believe that he availability of [electronic control weapons] is in the best interests of our employees and our community,” Meehan told the publication. “I would not say this if I did not think it was in the best interests of both.”
However, a report published just over a year ago stated that there were 634 taser deaths between 2001 and 2014, an average of 48 deaths a year. Or almost one death a week.
Last month, we published a horrid video of a woman named Natasha McKenna who died in a Virginia jail after she was repeatedly tasered.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 81 percent of local police departments in the U.S. are using tasers or similar weapons.
No Eric Garner or Tamir Rice: FBI fails to adequately count civilian deaths by police
RT | October 16, 2015
An the old saying goes: “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” It may not quite apply to a new FBI report on officer-involved shootings, but the phrase expresses some of the frustrations felt by activists on behalf of the victims who went uncounted.
Released Thursday, the FBI’s figures for police-on-civilian deadly shootings lacked adequate substance and included errors, according to a report by the Guardian. The data was collected on a voluntary basis from local police departments, but 99 percent of them did not volunteer any information.
The FBI counted 439 police killings for the year 2014 based on reports from 224 local law enforcement agencies, of which there are 18,000 in the country. That’s up from 392 homicides reported in 2009, but the number of reporting agencies also increased from 196 in the same year. No trend can be surmised from the data.
Notorious cases, including Eric Garner from New York City, and Ohio’s Tamir Rice and John Crawford, were not included. Information regarding whether or not the victim was armed was also not included. Other methods and mistakes also complicate any goal of arriving at an accurate estimate.
The reason for not including Garner, the man choked to death by an New York Police Department (NYPD) officer, was simply because the NYPD has not participated in such FBI data gathering since 2006. The NYPD, the nation’s largest police force, promises to release details on officers’ deadly use of force next year.
Garner’s daughter, Erica, told the Guardian she was “outraged but not shocked” at this missing tally from the FBI.
“It’s just another part of the cover-up and erasing of his murder from the record,” she said. “It says to the NYPD and the city and state of New York that my father’s life doesn’t matter.”
Rice, the 12-year-old holding an airsoft gun who was shot in under two seconds by Cleveland police, was not included, and neither was Crawford, the man shot by Beavercreek police in a Walmart while holding a BB gun carried by the store. Both police departments did not participate in the FBI report.
Meanwhile, some cases were recorded incorrectly. Darrien Hunt, a 22-year-old killed by Sarasota Springs police in Utah while running away with a replica sword, was listed as the killer even though he was the one who died. A knife or blade was jotted down as the deadly weapon, even though it was a police officer who shot him. Furthermore, the officer and Hunt were described as acquaintances.
The victim’s mother, Susan, told the Guardian, “There has been so much wrong with the entire incident.”
Several outlets are attempting to keep track of police shootings or non-shootings that end in civilian deaths. The Guardian’s “The Counted” aggregates all deaths at the hands of police and has counted 908 so far in 2015. The Washington Post counts 776 shot dead by police this year.
Last week, FBI Director James Comey told a group of politicians and law enforcement officials that in the same way movie tickets are counted or cases of the flu are counted, so should police killings. “It’s ridiculous – embarrassing and ridiculous – that we can’t talk about crime in the same way, especially in the high-stakes incidents when your officers have to use force,” Comey said.
In a separate 2014 FBI report, 1.16 million incidents of violent crime were reported in 2013. Violent crime hadn’t been that low in 35 years. The population has grown nearly one and a half times in that period, but police-on-civilian killings could be a type of violent crime on the rise. Until there are reliable statistics, no one knows.
Rabbis: Killing captive Palestinian resistance fighters ‘a religious duty’
Chief Rabbi of the city of Safed, Shmuel Eliyahu
MEMO | October 16, 2015
Rabbis have declared the killing of Palestinian resistance fighters “a religious duty”, Israeli media reported.
Israeli news website Walla reported that right-wing rabbis replied to questions including: “Am I allowed to kick the insurgent, hit him or shoot him in order to kill him after he has been arrested or is this prohibited?”
Rabbi Rav Benzion Mutzafi replied: “It is not only desirable to do so, but it is a religious duty that you hold his head down to the ground and hit him until his last breath.”
Mutzafi expressed anger towards Rabbi David Staph’s response. Staph said it is prohibited for people to attack a Palestinian perpetrator of an operation after he has been injured or when he is posing no danger. Mutzafi responded: “Do not listen to Staph because those who have mercy on the cruel will end up being cruel toward the righteous.”
Chief Rabbi of the city of Safed, Shmuel Eliyahu called on all Israeli police officers and soldiers who allow Palestinian resistance fighters to live after their arrest:
“It is prohibited to keep the vandal alive after the operation, because if he is left alive, there is a fear that he would be released and then he would kill others,” Eliyahu wrote on Facebook.
Israeli forces in Jerusalem attack Palestinians at random
International Solidarity Movement | October 16, 2015
Occupied Palestine – The Old City of al-Quds (Jerusalem) in the last few weeks has witnessed an explosion of Israeli forces’ presence, supposedly for ‘security reasons’. But having a closer look at – or just opening your eyes for – the multitude of restrictions, hindrances and fears aroused by this, proves that all of this has nothing to do with ‘security’ – but everything with instilling fear in the Palestinians still resisting the manifold ways the Israeli forces are trying to expel them not only from the Old City of Jerusalem, but all of Jerusalem in general. … Full article
Sometimes People Fight Back: Amer Jubran Names His Torturers
By Lana Habash | CounterPunch | October 16, 2015
When Amer Jubran reported that he had been tortured by Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate (Jordan’s secret police or mukhabarat) while in detention in Jordan in 2014, no one was surprised. For years, human rights groups have cited the Jordanian government’s abysmal human rights record. Violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), of which Jordan is a signatory, have continued with impunity at every level of what is supposed to be Jordan’s “justice system.”
Amer Jubran is a Jordanian citizen of Palestinian descent. He is an internationally known activist and speaker who has written about the rights of Palestinians and against unjust policies of the US and Israel in the Arab world. The Jordanian government violently arrested and detained Jubran in May, 2014 and he was later sentenced to ten years in prison in July, 2015. His verdict and sentence are currently being appealed in Jordan’s Court of Cassation. Amer Jubran’s experiences as a political prisoner highlight the human rights abuses for which Jordan is best known:
1) Arrest without a warrant;
2) Incommunicado detention for 2 months;
3) No access to legal counsel for at least 2 months while in detention;
4) Torture including forced stress positions, sleep deprivation, beatings, 72 to 120 hour interrogation sessions, and threats to family members;
5) Forced confessions obtained through torture that the defendant was not even permitted to read before signing;
6) Charges that include “committing acts that threaten to harm relations with a foreign government” based on a law promulgated one month after his arrest and that effectively criminalizes speech or any expression of protest directed at a foreign government;
7) A trial in Jordan’s State Security Court, a military tribunal with no judicial independence (the UN has called for its abolition since 1994); and
8) The State Security Court ruling on July 29, 2015 which states openly that the Court is “not obliged to discuss defense’s evidence presented by defense attorneys since accepting prosecution’s evidence automatically implies rejection of defense’s evidence” and relies solely on the forced confessions obtained through torture that Jubran and all his co-defendants recanted during trial.
What is disturbing is that Jubran’s case is not the exception, but rather the rule in Jordan’s State Security Court system. Inès Osman, Legal Officer at Alkarama Foundation states, “The Jordanian special courts continue to rely heavily on confessions extracted under torture, which, added to their lack of independence, often leads to the arbitrary sentencing of people like Amer.”
But this is not just the story of Jordanian prisoners either. It is the story of the thousands of Arabs and Muslims who continue to be detained illegally by proxy governments of the US and Israel, for the US and Israel.
The involvement of foreign governments in Jubran’s detention is not mere speculation. Jubran was told by his GID interrogators that the outcome of his arrest and detention would be determined by the GID’s “American and Israeli friends.” During his interrogation, Jubran was questioned about his friends in the US, and when Jubran asked why, he was told that the information was for the GID and their “friends in the States.” Even the nature of the charges that Jubran finally received months after he was arrested points to an arrest at the behest of foreign governments. A review of Jubran’s activism and writing clearly show that his efforts were not directed at Jordan’s king or the Jordanian government and certainly involved no threat to the people of Jordan. Jubran’s charges involved alleged threats to only two entities: the US and Israel. The charges included “planning attacks” on American soldiers in Jordan (although the Jordanian government had denied the presence of American soldiers in Jordan during the alleged period) and affiliation with Hizballah, an organization that poses no direct threat to Jordanian citizens or the royal family, but is the only organization that poses a threat to American and Israeli interests in the region. Though Jubran has expressed his respect for Hizballah, he denies any affiliation and has stated that all the charges against him are false.
What is compelling about Jubran’s case is that he knows the names of those who tortured him. And the reason Jubran knows those names underlines the absolute confidence that the Jordanian government has in the State Security Court to act as a rubber stamp for the government’s agenda. There is not even the need for the pretense of a fair system. Coerced confessions of different co-defendants carried identical phrasing and were literally edited several times throughout the course of the trial to serve the needs of the prosecution. Jubran discovered the names of his torturers because they were the first five witnesses for the prosecution. In a recent statement by Jubran on October 10, 2015, he names two of the torturers: Colonel Habes Rizk (who threatened Jubran with being disappeared) and Captain Motaz Ahmad Abdurrahman (who threatened to assault Jubran’s wife to get Jubran to cooperate and also physically tortured Jubran). (See transcript of Jubran’s October 10th statement here).
Impunity for torturers is dependent on a system that permits those who torture to remain anonymous. Though it may benefit repressive regimes to advertise what can happen to you if you are criminalized, it certainly doesn’t benefit those regimes for the names of those doing the dirty work to be common knowledge. Anonymity is the main source of protection for those who torture. It is what permits them to “dissolve into the mist of the system.” (St. Clair, When Torturers Walk, Counterpunch, March, 2015 ). But the Jordanian government’s hubris in the trial of Amer Jubran threw a wrench into their own plans. The government was so confident in its ability to intimidate that they saw no risk in having the torturers testify at the trial. They didn’t calculate on Jubran naming them publicly.
Sometimes people fight back.
Jubran has taken great personal risks to expose Captain Adurrahman and Colonel Rizk, and Jubran has already experienced retaliation within the prison for speaking out. It is our job as those not held captive by Jordan’s penal system, to demand and assure that Jubran at long last receives justice, and that the people responsible for his torture be held accountable for their crimes. As long as the torturers can still do their jobs with impunity, the Jordanian government will continue to play a central role in the US and Israel’s geopolitical agenda for the region– playing the henchman to oppress their own people.
More details about the case of Amer Jubran can be found at freeamer.wordpress.com .
Lana Habash is a Palestinian physician living in Boston, MA. She can be reached at defense@amerjubrandefense.org.
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