Journalists arrested in Ferguson face charges a year later
Huffington Post’s Ryan Reilly (L) and Washington Post’s Wesley Lowery (R) © Twitter
RT | August 11, 2015
Two reporters have been summoned to face criminal charges related to their arrests last August in Ferguson, Missouri. Their media outlets, the Washington Post and the Huffington Post, have slammed the decision as “abuse” and “contemptible overreach.”
Ferguson police arrested Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post and Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post on August 14, 2014, at a McDonald’s on Florissant Avenue, where the reporters had set up shop to cover the ongoing protests over the shooting of black teenager Michael Brown.
When the police ordered them to clear out, Reilly tried to take a photo. Officers then demanded his ID, which he lawfully declined to provide. He was then detained, along with Lowery, “for not packing up fast enough.”
Both reporters were charged by the St. Louis county with “trespassing and interfering with a police officer,” almost a year after their arrest. They could face a fine of $1,000 and up to a year in a county jail, according to the St. Louis county’s municipal code.
Martin Baron, executive editor of the Washington Post, blasted the decision to prosecute the journalists in a statement Monday.
“Charging a reporter with trespassing and interfering with a police officer when he was just doing his job is outrageous,” Baron said. “You’d have thought law enforcement authorities would have come to their senses about this incident. Wes Lowery should never have been arrested in the first place. That was an abuse of police authority.”
“This latest action represents contemptible overreaching by prosecutors who seem to have no regard for the role of journalists seeking to cover a major story and following normal practice,” Baron said.
“At least we know St. Louis County knows how to file charges,” Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim and senior politics editor Sam Stein of the Huffington Post wrote, denouncing the decision. If a reporter can be “charged like this with the whole country watching, just imagine what happens when nobody is,” they said.
According to the San Francisco-based Freedom of the Press Foundation, 24 journalists were arrested in Ferguson between August and November 2014, including RT’s Denise Reese. Several have sued the St. Louis County for unlawful arrest. Last week, the county settled with Gerald “Trey” Yingst and Turkish photographer Bilgin Sasmaz, paying out several thousand dollars and pledging to expunge arrest records and not file criminal charges.
More lawsuits are pending. One American and three German reporters sued the St. Louis police in March over their August 2014 arrests. One of them, Ansgar Graw of Die Welt, said he had covered many disputed areas and conflict zones, from Gaza and Georgia to Iran and Cuba. “But to be arrested and yelled at and be rudely treated by police? For that I had to travel to Ferguson and St. Louis in the United States of America.”
READ MORE: State of emergency declared in St. Louis county; activists arrested at federal courthouse
Palestinian Family Victimized by Immolation Ineligible for Compensation
By Stephen Lendman | August 11, 2015
Dawabsha family survivors aren’t afforded the same rights as Jews. Israel’s Property Tax and Compensation Fund Law (1961) provides monetary payments for property damage caused by terrorism.
Its Victims of Hostile Action Law (1970) provides compensation for bodily injuries suffered from terrorist attacks – as well as payments to family members of deceased victims.
Palestinians don’t qualify, only Jews, another example of a racist state, ignoring the rights of all people it’s obligated to protect.
Riham Dawabsha and her four-year-old son Ahmad are the remaining family survivors – both in intensive care precariously clinging to life with severe third-degree burns covering most of their bodies.
They’re physically unable to seek redress. They may not survive their ordeal. Yet Israeli law requires Palestinian victims of terrorism to appeal to a Defense Ministry committee – hostile to their interests – for compensation unlikely to be received.
Palestinian MK Yousef Jabareen called Israel’s system “absurd” and discriminatory. “Victims of nationalistic action must be eligible for compensation, and it doesn’t matter if they’re Arab or Jewish,” he said.
He wants Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to assure Palestinian terrorism victims are treated the same as Jews.
Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) attorney Dan Yakir called Israeli discrimination “another example of the intolerable disparity between settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank in all areas of life.”
Firebombing the Dawbsha home on July 31 sparked worldwide outrage. Israeli officials called the attack “terrorism.” Riham and Ahmad deserve no less compensation and overall redress than Jews.
Nothing can replace the loss of 18-month-old Ali and Riham’s husband Saad. No amount of redress can reunite all family members in peace and security. Nothing can change what happened that fateful day.
Israeli security forces routinely conspire with settler terrorists against defenseless Palestinian victims – letting them rampage freely, commit near daily acts of violence and vandalism with virtual impunity.
Police states operate this way – including whitewashing their worst high crimes. Israeli forces last summer alone mass murdered over 2,200 Gazans, injured over 11,000, and turned large parts of the Strip to rubble – still not rebuilt because construction materials and other vital supplies are blocked from entering except in too small amounts to matter.
While horrendous crimes of war and against humanity were being committed, Israeli security forces viciously assaulted Arab citizens peacefully protesting ongoing carnage. Jewish activists joined them in solidarity.
On August 11, the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel published a report titled “Silencing the Opposition: Israel’s Law Enforcement’s Restrictions on Freedom of Expression in Israel during ‘Operation Protective Edge’ in Gaza, 8 July – 26 August 2014.”
Israeli authorities “adopted a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to citizens opposing” aggressive war against 1.8 million Gazans trapped under siege, said Adalah.
The entire Strip was turned into a free-fire zone. No safe havens existed – not private homes, mosques, refugee camps, schools, or UN facilities to keep civilians out of harm’s way.
Israeli Arabs and Jews were denied their free expression right to protest. Police brutality confronted them. Serious violations of Israel’s Criminal Procedure Code and other statutes were committed.
“The police exhibited a complete disregard for the principles and criteria that apply to its authority for preventing and dispersing demonstrations, which are stipulated in rulings of the Israeli Supreme Court as well as Guideline 3.1200 issued by the Attorney General regarding the right to protest,” said Adalah.
After one month of conflict, over 1,500 protesters were violently arrested – mostly Arabs, some requiring hospitalization. Children were brutalized like adults.
Police viciously attacked every peaceful demonstration held throughout 51 days of conflict. Courts rubber-stamped their actions – ordering lengthy detentions for people exercising their legitimate rights peacefully, committing no crimes.
Judges showed overt sympathy with aggressive war murdering Palestinians in cold blood. They were intolerant of peaceful protesters.
Nearly 350 criminal indictments were filed on bogus charges of violating public peace, congregating unlawfully, acting unruly in public, assaulting police, inciting racism or committing violent acts.
Legitimate anti-war activism was criminalized – Israeli Arab citizens especially singled out for harsh treatment. Arab workers were fired for opposing government policies on Facebook and other social networking sites. Students and faculty members were disciplined the same way.
Adalah concluded its report saying “the attitude of the Israeli law enforcement authorities has not changed since the grave events of October 2000 (start of the second intifada), nor since the police’s gross misconduct against protestors during Israel’s previous military offensive in Gaza in 2009 (Operation Cast Lead).”
“(T)he incidents described in this report indicate that a public atmosphere of intolerance, racism, persecution and incitement characterized the most recent war.”
“Social networking sites became a frontier for targeting individuals opposed to the war on Gaza, with employees harassed and followed by co-workers and sometimes fired for online posts or statements.”
“The situation was just as severe for students and faculty members, whose political activities were closely monitored by universities and who faced disciplinary measures for speaking out against the military operation.”
“Altogether, the widespread phenomenon of Israel’s restrictions on the freedom of expression of Palestinians citizens reached a point to which that freedom was almost rendered non-existent, all with the aim of silencing opposition against a devastating war” – premeditated lawless aggression by any standard.
Stephen Lendman can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Israeli forces demolish 3-story building in Qalandiya industrial zone
Ma’an – August 11, 2015
JERUSALEM – Israeli forces on Tuesday morning demolished a three-story commercial building in the industrial zone of Qalandiya north of Jerusalem, the owner told Ma’an.
Mazin Abu Diab said that Israeli forces stormed the industrial zone and sealed it completely before bulldozers demolished a three-story building he owns in the area.
He said that the building consisted of two meeting halls, four offices and additional utilities measuring 220 square meters in total.
Abu Diab said that part of the building was constructed in 1971, and another part measuring 100 square meters was added on in 2013.
He said that he had tried to obtain the necessary permits from the Israeli authorities for the additional structure, but said that the Jerusalem municipality decided to demolish the entire building rather than give him a license.
Abu Diab said that he started to refurbish the building about five months ago.
According to the Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem, 98 percent of Qalandiya’s territories are classified as Area C.
Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, building permits must be approved by the Israeli Civil Administration for Palestinians to build in Area C.
As a result of rarely-approved permits, however, Palestinian residents are often forced to build structures without permits, which are liable to be torn down later by Israeli forces.
According to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Israel has demolished at least 27,000 Palestinian homes and structures since occupying the West Bank in 1967.
Don’t Be Fooled by the Political Game: The Illusion of Freedom in America
By John W. Whitehead | Rutherford Institute | August 10, 2015
“The shaping of the will of Congress and the choosing of the American president has become a privilege reserved to the country’s equestrian classes, a.k.a. the 20% of the population that holds 93% of the wealth, the happy few who run the corporations and the banks, own and operate the news and entertainment media, compose the laws and govern the universities, control the philanthropic foundations, the policy institutes, the casinos, and the sports arenas.”—Journalist Lewis Lapham
Being a citizen in the American corporate state is much like playing against a stacked deck: you’re always going to lose.
The game is rigged, and “we the people” keep getting dealt the same losing hand. Even so, most stay in the game, against all odds, trusting that their luck will change.
The problem, of course, is that luck will not save us. As I make clear in my book, Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the people dealing the cards—the politicians, the corporations, the judges, the prosecutors, the police, the bureaucrats, the military, the media, etc.—have only one prevailing concern, and that is to maintain their power and control over the citizenry, while milking us of our money and possessions.
It really doesn’t matter what you call them—Republicans, Democrats, the 1%, the elite, the controllers, the masterminds, the shadow government, the police state, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex—so long as you understand that while they are dealing the cards, the deck will always be stacked in their favor.
Incredibly, no matter how many times we see this played out, Americans continue to naively buy into the idea that politics matter, as if there really were a difference between the Republicans and Democrats (there’s not).
As if Barack Obama proved to be any different from George W. Bush (he has not). As if Hillary Clinton’s values are any different from Donald Trump’s (with both of them, money talks). As if when we elect a president, we’re getting someone who truly represents “we the people” rather than the corporate state (in fact, in the oligarchy that is the American police state, an elite group of wealthy donors is calling the shots).
Politics is a game, a joke, a hustle, a con, a distraction, a spectacle, a sport, and for many devout Americans, a religion.
In other words, it’s a sophisticated ruse aimed at keeping us divided and fighting over two parties whose priorities are exactly the same. It’s no secret that both parties support endless war, engage in out-of-control spending, ignore the citizenry’s basic rights, have no respect for the rule of law, are bought and paid for by Big Business, care most about their own power, and have a long record of expanding government and shrinking liberty.
Most of all, both parties enjoy an intimate, incestuous history with each other and with the moneyed elite that rule this country. Don’t be fooled by the smear campaigns and name-calling. They’re just useful tactics of the psychology of hate that has been proven to engage voters and increase voter turnout while keeping us at each other’s throats.
Despite the jabs the candidates volley at each other for the benefit of the cameras, they’re a relatively chummy bunch away from the spotlight, presenting each other with awards (remember when Jeb Bush presented Hillary Clinton with a Liberty Medal for her service to the country), attending each other’s weddings (Bill and Hillary had front-row seats for Trump’s 2005 wedding), and embracing with genuine affection.
Trump’s various donations to the Clintons (he donated to Hillary’s Senate campaigns, as well as the Clinton Foundation) are not unusual. Remember, FOX News mogul Rupert Murdoch actually hosted a fundraiser for Hillary’s Senate reelection campaign back in 2006 and contributed to her presidential campaign two years later. In fact, FOX News has reportedly been one of Hillary’s biggest donors for the better part of two decades.
Are you starting to get the picture? It doesn’t matter who wins the White House, because they all work for the same boss: Corporate America. In fact, many corporations actually hedge their bets on who will win the White House by splitting their donations between Democratic and Republican candidates.
We’re in trouble, folks, and picking a new president won’t save us.
We are living in a fantasy world carefully crafted to resemble a representative democracy. It used to be that the cogs, wheels and gear shifts in our government machinery worked to keep our republic running smoothly. However, without our fully realizing it, the mechanism has changed. Its purpose is no longer to keep our republic running smoothly. To the contrary, this particular contraption’s purpose is to keep the corporate police state in power. Its various parts are already a corrupt part of the whole.
Just consider how insidious, incestuous and beholden to the corporate elite the various “parts” of the mechanism have become.
Congress. Perhaps the most notorious offenders and most obvious culprits in the creation of the corporate-state, Congress has proven itself to be both inept and avaricious, oblivious champions of an authoritarian system that is systematically dismantling their constituents’ fundamental rights. Long before they’re elected, Congressmen are trained to dance to the tune of their wealthy benefactors, so much so that they spend two-thirds of their time in office raising money. As Reuters reports, “For many lawmakers, the daily routine in Washington involves fundraising as much as legislating. The culture of nonstop political campaigning shapes the rhythms of daily life in Congress, as well as the landscape around the Capitol. It also means that lawmakers often spend more time listening to the concerns of the wealthy than anyone else.”
The President. With the 2016 presidential election shaping up to be the most expensive one in our nation’s history, with estimates as high as $10 billion, “the way is open for an orgy of spending by well-heeled interest groups and super rich individuals on both political sides.” Yet even after the votes have been counted and favors tallied, the work of buying and selling access to the White House is far from over. President Obama spends significant amounts of time hosting and attending fundraisers, having held more than 400 fundraising events over the course of his two terms in office. Such access comes with a steep price tag. It used to be that $100,000 got you an overnight stay at the White House. Now it will cost you $500,000 for four meetings a year with President Obama. Yet as Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig asks, “[H]ow does a man, as a person, run the nation when he’s attending 228 fundraisers? And the answer is not very well. It’s pretty terrible for your ability to do your job. It’s pretty terrible for your ability to be responsive to the American people, because—let me tell you—the American people are not attending 228 fundraisers. Those people are different.”
The Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court—once the last refuge of justice, the one governmental body really capable of rolling back the slowly emerging tyranny enveloping America—has instead become the champion of the American police state, absolving government and corporate officials of their crimes while relentlessly punishing the average American for exercising his or her rights. Like the rest of the government, the Court has routinely prioritized profit, security, and convenience over the basic rights of the citizenry. Indeed, law professor Erwin Chemerinsky makes a compelling case that the Supreme Court, whose “justices have overwhelmingly come from positions of privilege,” almost unerringly throughout its history, sides with the wealthy, the privileged, and the powerful. For example, contrast the Court’s affirmation of the “free speech” rights of corporations and wealthy donors in McCutcheon v. FEC, which does away with established limits on the number of candidates an entity can support with campaign contributions, and Citizens United v. FEC with its tendency to deny those same rights to average Americans when government interests abound, and you’ll find a noticeable disparity.
The Media. Of course, this triumvirate of total control would be completely ineffective without a propaganda machine provided by the world’s largest corporations. Besides shoving drivel down our throats at every possible moment, the so-called news agencies which are supposed to act as bulwarks against government propaganda have instead become the mouthpieces of the state. The pundits which pollute our airwaves are at best court jesters and at worst propagandists for the false reality created by the American government.
The American People. “We the people” now belong to a permanent underclass in America. It doesn’t matter what you call us—chattel, slaves, worker bees, drones, it’s all the same—what matters is that we are expected to march in lockstep with and submit to the will of the state in all matters, public and private. Through our complicity in matters large and small, we have allowed an out-of-control corporate-state apparatus to take over every element of American society.
Our failure to remain informed about what is taking place in our government, to know and exercise our rights, to vocally protest, to demand accountability on the part of our government representatives, and at a minimum to care about the plight of our fellow Americans has been our downfall.
Now we find ourselves once again caught up in the spectacle of another presidential election, and once again the majority of Americans are acting as if this election will make a difference and bring about change—as if the new boss will be different from the old boss.
When in doubt, just remember what comedian and astute commentator George Carlin had to say about the matter:
The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests.
They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork…. It’s a big club and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club. …The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice…. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on…. It’s called the American Dream, ’cause you have to be asleep to believe it.
5 Examples of Highly Decorated Criminal Cops that Annihilate the “Bad Apple” Theory
By Jay Syrmopoulos | The Free Thought Project | August 9, 2015
It’s become apparent that there is a systemic problem in policing, yet many Americans continue to be willfully ignorant of the dark reality transpiring outside of their front doors. Often people will claim “it’s just a few bad apples,” but the truth is that problem is much more deeply ingrained.
Imagine for a moment being bestowed one of the highest honors of your profession, and what that recognition would represent. In policing that honor would be called the “Officer of the Year,” and would represent the elite of the police force within which these officers work.
It would make sense to expect that the officers awarded this prestigious honor to be those who uphold and exemplify the highest ideals and values of law enforcement.
In a telling sign of the current state of policing in America, we have seen five former “Officer of the Year” recipients reveal their true nature in 2015 and show exactly how corrupt the soul of American law enforcement system has become.
This is what an “Officer of the Year” looks like in 2015:
Eric Casebolt: “Officer of the Year” in 2008 in McKinney, TX. Casebolt resigned in disgrace this year after assaulting children at a pool party while a grand jury investigation was pending.
Noe Juarez: “Officer of the Year” in 2009 in Houston, TX. Juarez was indicted on charges of trafficking drugs and weapons for Los Zetas, one of the most ruthless and violent Mexican cartels.
Edwin Guzman: “Officer of the Year” in 2012 in Boston, MA. Guzman was arrested and charged with sexual assault charges against a minor.
Jonathan Bleiweiss: “Officer of the Year” in 2013 in Broward County, FL. Bleiweiss plead guilty to confining and raping 20 male immigrants.
Jerad Gale: “Officer of the Year” in 2014 in Champaign, IL. Gale was arrested and charged for choking and raping two women.
Americans should be very troubled that men like theses are being honored as the best of the best in policing. People must come to the realization that these weren’t simply a few bad apples that had simply people fooled into believing they were good cops.
The sinister reality is these men are exactly what law enforcement looks for, modern day cowboys with too much machismo and a bully complex. Theses borderline sociopathic tendencies, which are rampant within the profession, are a canary in the coal mine and a stark warning about the systemic brutality that has taken firm root in U.S. policing today.
When men such as these are honored as the best of “America’s Finest” it’s apparent the system is broken!
Hillary’s Libyan Torturers
By Daniel McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | August 4, 2015
Remember when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was so intent on a US attack on Libya that she disregarded the US Intelligence Community, the Pentagon, and even her colleagues in the Obama Administration to force her “humanitarian intervention”? Clinton was so distrusted by the Pentagon that they opened up their own lines of communication with Libyan officials — they knew she was feeding them and the State Department boldfaced lies.
Even members of Hillary’s own party in Congress were skeptical of her claims.
Gaddafi’s son and presumed heir, Saif, told then-Rep. Dennis Kucinich (an RPI Board Member) that Hillary was using false information to justify the coming US attack on his country. (Thankfully, Mr. Kucinich understood his Constitutional obligation to act as member of an equal branch of government and did his own investigation of Hillary’s claims.)
Saif told Kucinich that Hillary’s “information” about Libya was:
[L]ike the WMDs in Iraq. It was based on a false report. Libyan airplanes bombing demonstrators, Libyan airplanes bombing districts in Tripoli, Libyan army killed thousands, etc., etc., and now the whole world found there is no single evidence that such things happened in Libya.
Hillary’s rebels, according to Saif were, as a Washington Times article reports, “not freedom fighters” but rather jihadists whom he described as “gangsters and terrorists.”
Hillary got her war. The Washington Post, ever the lickspittle in the service of the US regime, shortly after the attack praised Hillary’s great foresight in forcing the US war on Libya:
Seven months later, with longtime U.S. nemesis Moammar Gaddafi dead and Libya’s onetime rebels now in charge, the coalition air campaign has emerged as a foreign policy success for the Obama administration and its most famous Cabinet member, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
What a success! Libya is now in the hands of ISIS and various Islamist terror gangs. The population is devastated. Saif was right: they were a bunch of terrorist jihadists.
Gaddafi’s other son, Saadi, is currently being held by “Libyan Dawn,” an al-Qaeda group that has emerged since the US “liberation” and has taken control of key parts of Libya. This week we see in a new video that Hillary’s humanitarian freedom fighters have taken to torturing Saadi Gaddafi in the must un-humanitarian manner (warning, graphic). Hillary’s humanitarians are a bunch of torturing thugs, and it’s all there on the tape. Will she be challenged on this? Don’t bet on it.
Meanwhile, another group of Hillary’s extremists have sentenced Saif to death in a mass trial with scores of others from the previous government. The trials were so bad they were even condemned by the International Criminal Court, which would also like to get its hands on Saif. The defendants had little access to legal council in what was a textbook show trial.
Hillary Clinton squealed with joy when Muammar Gaddafi was sodomized with a knife and murdered by her rebels. Is she likewise giggling somewhere as Gaddafi’s son has his feet beaten to a pulp with a metal rod while he is bound and slapped in the face and his other son is sentenced to death in a trial with no semblance to actual rule of law?
This is human rights, Hillary-style.
Unarmed civilians killed in Turkish strikes on northern Iraq
Aftermath of a Turkish airstrike against Zergele village in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region on August 1, 2015. (© Firat news agency)
Press TV – August 8, 2015
Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has dismissed Ankara’s claims that its attacks targeted positions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, saying unarmed civilians have fallen victim to the raids.
The HDP, in a statement released on Friday, said Turkish fighter jets pounded Zergele village in the remote and far-flung Qandil Mountain of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq earlier this month, arguing that the area is populated by civilians contrary to the Turkish government’s allegations that the warplanes hit a PKK training base there.
“Those who lost their lives due to the bombing were civilians and unarmed people. The responsibility of the airstrike that resulted in the massacre of civilians rests with Ankara,” the statement noted.
On August 1, at least nine civilians lost their lives and 15 others sustained injuries, when Turkish military aircraft struck Zergele village.
“Two people initially lost their lives in the airstrikes. Turkish jets later bombed the villagers that had gone to the scene, leaving seven more people dead. Turkey is targeting Kurds. All the people living here, and all those killed in the strikes, were civilians and villagers,” Suleyman Nebi Boki, a Zergele resident, said.
Another villager, Feqi Muhammed, said, “There were six houses in this area, and all of them have been destroyed. The people targeted are innocent civilians. The Turkish government is targeting Kurdish villagers in place of PKK fighters.”
Meanwhile, Turkish military has denied allegations that the country’s jets bombarded civilians in Zergele.
Aftermath of a Turkish airstrike against Zergele village in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region on August 1, 2015. (© Firat news agency)
On August 6, Selahattin Demirtas, the HDP’s co-chair, called on the international community to censure Ankara’s new “unjust war” on Kurds, accusing the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of using the so-called anti-ISIL fight as a cover to pursue its main goal of targeting the PKK and undermining the HDP.
Turkey recently launched airstrikes against purported ISIL targets in Syria as well as PKK positions in Iraq, after a deadly bomb attack attributed to ISIL Takfiris left 32 people dead in the southeastern Turkish town of Suruc, across the border from the northern Syrian town of Kobani.
A shaky ceasefire that had stood since 2013 was declared as null by PKK following the Turkish airstrikes against the group, narrowing chances of the two sides reaching a deal in the near future.
The PKK had been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since the 1980s. The conflict has left tens of thousands of people dead.
School ‘banishes’ 7yo student for saying he doesn’t believe in God – lawsuit
RT | August 5, 2015
A seven-year-old Indiana student was “banished” from sitting with his classmates at lunch after stating that he did not believe in God, according to a lawsuit which claims the school violated the child’s First Amendment rights.
The suit – filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Indiana and obtained by the Washington Post – claims the punishment occurred after the student, named only as AB, told a classmate on the playground that he didn’t go to church and didn’t believe in God.
That child then started to cry, stating that AB had hurt her feelings by saying that he didn’t believe in God.
The girl’s visible distress prompted a playground supervisor to report the incident to AB’s teacher, identified in the suit as Michelle Myer.
In response, Myer told AB that she was “very concerned” about what he had done, and said she was going to contact his mother.
Myer forced the child to sit by himself at lunch for three days, and told him that he shouldn’t talk to the other students because he had offended them.
The lawsuit states that this was distressing to AB, as it implied that he had done something wrong by expressing his personal opinion.
However, according to the suit, the hurt did not end there.
The matter was then sent to “another adult” employed at Forest Park Elementary School. Upon hearing the story, the adult reportedly told AB’s classmate that she should be “happy she has faith” and that she “should not listen to AB’s bad ideas.” She then patted the girl’s hand.
Despite Myer’s claim that she would contact AB’s parent, that phone call never took place. Instead, AB’s mother found out about the incident from her son, who came home from school upset and stating that he was hated by teachers and students at the school.
This prompted his mother to call the assistant principal of the school, demanding that her child not be punished for expressing his religious views. The teacher was also included in the call, during which she confirmed her involvement in the matter.
After the phone call, AB was apparently told by Myer and other teachers that he could believe what he wants to believe.
Following his three days of punishment, AB was allowed to sit with his fellow classmates at lunch. However, the lawsuit stresses that lasting damage has been inflicted on the student.
That damage includes the fact that some students refuse to talk to the child, and that AB is now “anxious and fearful” about school.
In response to the incident, the school district released a statement: “It is clear that it is not the province of a public school to advance or inhibit religious beliefs or practices. Under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, this remains the inviolate province of the individual and the church of his/her choice. The rights of any minority, no matter how small, must be protected.”
Citing the violation of First Amendment rights, the suit is seeking damages and attorneys’ fees. The child’s mother has been allowed to proceed with the lawsuit anonymously, in order to protect her child’s identity.
Mandatory Reporting of User Content Chills Speech and Violates Privacy Rights
By Kelsey Harclerode and Erica Fisher | EFF | August 5, 2015
EFF joined a broad coalition of 31 organizations in sending a letter to Senate leadership opposing an unconstitutionally vague law that would require Internet companies to report to the government when they obtain “actual knowledge” of any “facts and circumstances” related to “terrorist activity.” Section 603 of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 (S. 1705), which does not define “terrorist activity,” raises significant First and Fourth Amendment concerns, including the chilling of protected speech and the warrantless search and seizure of private electronic content.
First Amendment Concerns
The most obvious flaws in Section 603 are its vagueness and overbreadth: it will chill wholly legal speech and conduct. The key reason is that there is no clear agreement in U.S. society about what counts as “terrorism” (and triggers mandatory reporting). The single, tiny island of clarity in the term “terrorist activity” is one non-exclusive reference to 18 U.S.C. § 842(p), which makes it unlawful for a person to distribute information relating to explosives if the person has knowledge that the recipient intends to use the information to commit a violent crime. Otherwise, Section 603 is a Rohrschach blot.
Because Section 603 leaves both companies and users uncertain as to what exactly triggers the mandatory reporting requirement, this vague obligation to report will encourage service providers to broadly implement the law and will, in turn, encourage users to self-censor to avoid being reported to the federal government as possible “terrorists.” Without further clarification, the law will likely put innocent political activists, journalists, engaged citizens, professors and students participating in wholly lawful debate and research under a cloud of suspicion. For many, the risk of being put on a mysterious government watch list will more often than not outweigh the benefit of speaking.
With limited context for, say, a tweet or private direct message, service providers will err on the side of over-reporting and submit First Amendment-protected speech through content-flagging or automated monitoring systems. Section 603 includes a “protection of privacy” subsection, which clarifies that nothing in the provision “may be construed to require [a] service provider…to monitor any user…or the content of any communication.” Yet this “protection” does little to counteract the pressure on intermediaries to monitor their users’ behavior and content. While intermediaries often rely on content-flagging systems that enable users to report apparent unlawful or abusive activity of other users, this mechanism is prone to fraudulent notices. An automated monitoring system based on keywords would allow intermediaries to avoid having to themselves make decisions about their users’ content. But because it’s not obvious what constitutes “terrorist activity,” a user could be reported any time she uses a buzzword related to terrorist groups, the Middle East, U.S. foreign policy, or a particular political ideology.
Fourth Amendment Concerns
Section 603 not only chills lawful speech, it also tries to evade constitutional barriers that protect against unreasonable searches and seizures of private communications by the government.
EFF has consistently argued that a warrant based on probable cause is required for compelled government access to content stored by “cloud” service providers. In United States v. Warshak, the Sixth Circuit held that the government cannot access email content without a warrant because users have a Fourth Amendment-protected reasonable expectation of privacy in the email content that they store with these intermediaries.
While Section 603 does not permit the government to demand the production of content, it does require Internet companies to report content—including private content—reflecting “terrorist activity.” There is no question that this kind of mandatory reporting statute is subject to Fourth Amendment scrutiny, not unlike the ordinance found unconstitutional in Los Angeles v. Patel.
The applicability of the Fourth Amendment is particularly important given the amount of private content the government will acquire under this provision. As noted above, this mandatory provision will encourage companies to over-report both public and private content to the government. This will enable the government to evade normal due process requirements—including meeting legal standards such as probable cause and submitting to judicial review—while collecting much private content protected by the Fourth Amendment.
Future Action
Section 603’s constitutional implications have not gone unnoticed in Congress. On July 27, the Senate was set to pass the bill by unanimous consent until Sen. Wyden objected to this expedited procedure. The Senate will now have to engage in the normal process of debate and amendment, or remove this provision from the bill to prompt Sen. Wyden to withdraw his objection and enable the bill to pass by unanimous consent. The government should not be permitted to evade constitutional limits by turning private companies into watchdogs with no leashes. We urge Senate leadership to withdraw Section 603 from the intelligence authorization bill.
Where’s the outrage? White South Carolina teen gunned down by cop gets no attention
© J. Knight / YouTube
RT | August 5, 2015
After an independent autopsy showed that Zachary Hammond was shot by police from behind, the family of the unarmed South Carolina teen is wondering at the lack of national outrage in this case. Hammond was white.
According to the police in Seneca, South Carolina, an officer shot Hammond “in self-defense” when the teen allegedly tried to run him over with a car during a drug arrest. An officer approached Hammond’s car in the parking lot of a Hardee’s restaurant on July 26, after an undercover officer arranged a marijuana buy with the teen’s date, 23-year-old Tori Morton. The initial police report mentions finding a bag of marijuana on Morton – who was charged with simple possession – but makes no note of the lethal shooting.
The official autopsy confirmed Hammond was shot twice, but did not say from what angle. Hammond’s family arranged for an independent autopsy, which showed the 19-year-old had been shot from above and behind, suggesting that the official police story was inaccurate.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, attorney for Hammond’s family Eric Bland said that Hammond had been shot in the left rear shoulder, and through the back of his chest, indicating the officer fired from the side of a stopped car, through the open window. Bland says Hammond was on a first date with Morton, who was eating ice cream at the time, and that the police should have never used deadly force.
Seneca is a city of 8,200 in the northwestern corner of South Carolina, near the university town of Clemson, and about 30 miles west of Greenville.
Hammond’s death came a week after Samuel Dubose was killed in Cincinnati, Ohio under very similar circumstances. University of Cincinnati police officer Raymond Tensing said Dubose was trying to run him over with his car, and that he fired in self-defense. Once Tensing’s body camera footage was released, showing otherwise, the officer was indicted for murder. Tensing is white; Dubose was black.
Dubose’s killing has attracted national attention, but Hammond’s was barely noticed. According to the Los Angeles Times, while Dubose’s name was mentioned in over 43,000 tweets between July 26 and August 4, Hammond’s appeared in 289 tweets in the same time period.
Bland, the attorney for Hammond’s family, finds the discrepancy “very disturbing.”
“An unarmed white teenager whose life is wrongfully taken at the hands of overzealous police is the same and equal to an unarmed black teenager whose life is wrongfully taken at the hands of overzealous police,” he told the LA Times.
Police in Seneca are standing by their officer, though. Speaking to the Greenville News last week, Chief John Covington said the officer “actually had his hand on or very close to the car, possibly pushed off from the car,” and the teen “was not shot from behind.”
“The attorney wasn’t there either,” Covington said. “He’s got to put his spin on things. His clients are the parents and they’re grieving. I understand that. My heart goes out to them.”
Seneca police’s refusal to publish the official autopsy results or name the officer involved in the fatal shooting has raised eyebrows. The Charleston Post and Courier filed an open records request for the officer’s name, and the copy of the official incident report, neither of which have been released by the police.
“It’s outrageous,” Bill Rogers, executive director of the South Carolina Press Association, told the Post and Courier. “The policeman is a public official. They can’t redact his name. That’s a clear violation of the law.”
“We feel that releasing his name may possibly subject the officer and family to harassment, intimidation or abuse,” Chief Covington said in a statement, explaining that the department considers the officer a “victim of attempted murder” by Hammond.
Rogers says this argument lacks merit and that the public has a right to know. “Other people might have had encounters with this policeman but they can’t come forward if the public doesn’t know who it is,” he said.
Hammond’s death is currently being investigated by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED). There had been 30 fatal police shootings in the state this year, as of August 3, compared to 42 in all of 2014, according to the LA Times.
“The whole issue of race is getting distorted and what’s getting lost is the real issue which is excessive force,” Bland told the Washington Post. “All people need to be outraged out this. All people need to be asking the hard questions.”
In Victory for Free Speech and Animals, Judge Strikes Down Idaho ‘Ag-Gag’ Law
Banning the filming of factory farm operations is an unconstitutional violation of both free speech and equal protection clauses, says federal judge
A demonstration against Ag-Gag legislation in Idaho outside the state house in 2014. (Credit: Flickr / cc / Mercy for Animals)
By Jon Queally | Common Dreams | August 4, 2015
In a victory for animal rights advocates—and the animals on factory farms they seek to protect—a federal judge on Monday ruled Idaho’s controversial “ag-gag” law unconstitutional in a decision that said criminalizing the undercover documentation of livestock abuse violates both free speech and the equal protection clause.
“The effect of the statute will be to suppress speech by undercover investigators and whistleblowers concerning topics of great public importance: the safety of the public food supply, the safety of agricultural workers, the treatment and health of farm animals, and the impact of business activities on the environment,” U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill stated in his 28-page ruling.
Under the law, people filming agricultural operations without permission in Idaho face up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine. By comparison, a jail sentence for an animal cruelty conviction is capped at six months and a maximum fine of $5,000.
However, as Winmill’s ruling continued, the legal arguments in favor of banning undercover investigations—long a tactic of animal rights groups with no other way to prove or expose such abuse—did not stand up to scrutiny. “Audio and visual evidence is a uniquely persuasive means of conveying a message,” he wrote, “and it can vindicate an undercover investigator or whistleblower who is otherwise disbelieved or ignored. Prohibiting undercover investigators or whistleblowers from recording an agricultural facility’s operations inevitably suppresses a key type of speech because it limits the information that might later be published or broadcast.”
In the end, the judge concluded, “the facts show the state’s purpose in enacting the statute was to protect industrial animal agriculture by silencing its critics.”
Though other states have passed similar laws in recent years, the decision by Winmill marks the first time a federal court has struck down such legislation. And though the Idaho ruling could be appealed to a higher federal court, it is also likely to spur additional challenges in those other states.
Instigated by an undercover operation by the animal rights group Mercy for Animals, Idaho’s law was signed into law in 2014 by the state’s Republican Gov. Butch Otter, but was challenged in court by a coalition of welfare advocates, led by attorneys with the Animal Legal Defense Fund.
ALDF called Winmill’s ruling a “landmark victory” for all those represented by the suit, which in addition to the tens of thousands nameless animals, included a broad-based public interest coalition of national nonprofits, including the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Idaho, journalists Will Potter and Blair Koch, Farm Sanctuary, and the Center for Food Safety (CFS). In a joint statement, the coalition said:
Undercover video and photography has exposed numerous shocking practices that are “industry standards.” These pervasive, systematic procedures include routine mutilation, including debeaking birds with electrically heated blades and castrating male animals by slicing open their scrotum and ripping their testicles out without pain relief or anesthesia and intensive confinement—where animals are literally unable to turn around for months on end. Exposes have also detailed the sickening farming conditions resulting in contaminated meat products—posing serious health risks to the public—and life threatening conditions for farm workers.
These investigations, and the subsequent media coverage, have led to food safety recalls, citations for environmental and labor violations, evidence of health code violations, plant closures, criminal convictions, and civil litigation. The Idaho statute unconstitutionally and unwisely prohibits efforts to bring violations of state and federal laws relating to food safety, environmental protection, and animal handling to the attention of the public and law enforcement.
Ag-Gag laws are notoriously unsupported by the public. Nationwide thirty-two similar Ag-Gag measures have failed. Currently, seven states have Ag-Gag laws on the books. This Idaho decision is just the first step in defeating similar Ag-Gag laws across the country.
Mercy for Animals also hailed the ruling, saying it is now looking forward to continuing its work and producing more undercover videos in Idaho.
“Idaho’s lawmakers should be ashamed of wasting precious time and valuable resources enacting unconstitutional laws that threaten animal welfare, food safety, workers’ rights and the environment,” said Nathan Runkle, president of Mercy for Animals, in response to the ruling. “We hope they will now focus their efforts on improving animal welfare and rewarding the brave whistleblowers who uncover criminal activity in Idaho’s agricultural operation.”
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