Corruption Corner – Page 19

Sovereign Immunity Means Never Having To Take Responsibility For Your Actions

If a private company poisoned your water supply you’d have grounds for a lawsuit. The reason for this is obvious, poisoning your water causes damage to both your person and property. Because of this the only way to make things as right as possible is for the poisoner to pay reparations. But the rules are different when the State poisons your water supply because it enjoys a legal fiction called sovereign immunity:

Michigan’s state and local officials poisoned Flint’s water with lead but innocent federal taxpayers are the ones having to foot the cleanup bill. President Obama has pledged to hand Flint $85 million in aid money. This sounds like a lot, but the fact of the matter is that it is far less than what Flint’s victims would have gotten if a corporation — rather than government — had been the culprit. That’s because, unlike private companies, the government is shielded from liability lawsuits.

[…]

The main reason that they don’t have a prayer of collecting much more is something called the doctrine of sovereign immunity. Under this doctrine, citizens are barred from suing their government for screw-ups that it has caused in the course of discharging a core function unless the government itself consents. Some very narrow exceptions exist but it is very difficult to make them stick.

We’re often told that governing bodies within the United States contain a series of checks and balances. The federal government has legislative, executive, and judicial branches that are supposed to keep each other in check. Municipal governments are supposed to be kept in check by country governments which are supposed to be kept in check by state governments which are supposed to be kept in check by the federal government. Reality is much different though.

Instead of acting as a checks and balances the various pieces of the government more accurately reflect a circlejerk. Each part works to absolve the other of responsibility.

People have sued parts of the government before but only after it consented to being sued. Herein lies the major difference between private entities and the State. When a private entity causes you damage you can sue them whether they agree to allow you to do so or not. Suing the State requires getting its permission to do so. Since the State enjoys a monopoly on legal services within its borders you have no recourse if the State tells you to go pound sand when you come asking for permission to sue it.

Police Body Cameras Won’t Save Us

Setting aside the severe privacy implications of pervasive police body cameras the biggest issue is that the police remain in sole control of the devices and data. Even in cities that require police to wear body cameras I still urge people to record any and all police interactions they’re either a party to or come across. When individuals record the police the footage isn’t in the polices’ control so there are barriers that make it more difficult for them to use it to prosecute somebody. Footage recorded by individuals is also more resilient to the body camera memory hole:

Chicago Police Department officers stashed microphones in their squad car glove boxes. They pulled out batteries. Microphone antennas got busted or went missing. And sometimes, dashcam systems didn’t have any microphones at all, DNAinfo Chicago has learned.

Police officials last month blamed the absence of audio in 80 percent of dashcam videos on officer error and “intentional destruction.”

When the only footage of a police encounter comes from a police controlled device it’s a simple matter for the officer to disable it. The best way to counter such a threat is to record police interactions yourself.

Most people carry smartphones, which usually come equipped with a decent camera. You can use the builtin video recording app but there are better options in my opinion. A friend of mine who spends a lot of time recording the police uses and recommends Bambuser. The American Civil Liberties Union has region specific apps for recording the police. Both options are good because they upload the video to a remote server so a cop cannot destroy the footage by confiscating or destroying your recording device.

Police body cameras sound like a great idea on paper but as with most things in life if you want something done right you should do it yourself.

Judges Don’t Have To Understand Something To Rule On It

In most professions the opinions of those who lack an understanding of a pertinent topic are rightfully ignored. Why would anybody waste time asking somebody who knows nothing about software development about the best method to implement a software feature? But the legal field is not most professions. In the legal field you can lack an understanding of a pertinent topic and still be taken seriously as proven time and again when a judge attempts to rule on a case involving technology:

In short, Judge Byran, despite hearing the views of those who took part in the investigation, and having read the briefs submitted by the defense and prosecution several times, could not fully grasp what the NIT was doing.

“If a smart federal judge still has trouble understanding after hours of expert testimony what is actually going on,” then the average judge signing warrant applications has little hope of truly understanding what the FBI is proposing, Nate Wessler, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told Motherboard in a phone interview. (The ACLU has agreed to a protective order for the Michaud case, allowing it access to the sealed filings.)

“It appears in this case, and that’s consistent with other cases we’ve seen elsewhere in the country involving use of malware, the government explanations and warrant applications are quite sparse, and do not fully explain to judges how these technologies works,” Wessler added.

As the hearing continued, Judge Byran said “I suppose there is somebody sitting in a cubicle somewhere with a keyboard doing this stuff. I don’t know that. It may be they seed the clouds, and the clouds rain information. I don’t know.”

Emphasis mine. The judge openly admits that he doesn’t know how the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) malware works and further emphasizes this fact but saying something entirely nonsensical. In almost any other profession the judge’s rambling would have been dismissed but in the legal profession his ruling, even though he has no idea what he’s ruling on, is respected.

This is yet another item in a long list of problems with the United States legal system. The fate of accused parties is being put into the hands of individuals who are entirely unqualified to make the decisions they’re tasked with making. As soon as Judge Byran said he didn’t know what was going on he should have been replaced by somebody qualified. In any other profession he would have been. But a judge’s power is more important than their knowledge in the courtroom. How anybody can look at such a system and claim it dispenses justice is beyond me.

No Hero Goes Unpunished In The United States

The United States has a very proud history of punishing its heroes. William Binney had armed goons storms his home and kidnap him because he revealed rather concerning National Security Agency’s (NSA) programs. When Chelsey Manning revealed war crimes being committed by the United States military she ended up in a military prison. Edward Snowden is still in exile for revealing the NSA’s illegal surveillance operations. Now the United States government is going after the man who revealed the corruption in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court:

A former Justice Department lawyer is facing legal ethics charges for exposing the President George W. Bush-era surveillance tactics—a leak that earned The New York Times a Pulitzer and opened the debate about warrantless surveillance that continues today.

The lawyer, Thomas Tamm, now a Maryland state public defender, is accused of breaching Washington ethics rules for going to The New York Times instead of his superiors about his concerns about what was described as “the program.”

Tamm was a member of the Justice Department’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review and, among other things, was charged with requesting electronic surveillance warrants from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals Board of Professional Responsibility said Tamm became aware in 2004 that certain applications to the FISA Court for national security surveillance authority “were given special treatment.“

Isn’t it ironic how the State keeps urging whistleblowers to come forth if their information is related to a private organization but prosecute any whistleblower who comes forth with information about government corruption? If a whistleblower can lead the government to some wealth to steal it is grateful but when its dirty laundry is aired it becomes angry and violent.

Assumption Of Guilt

We truly live in wondrous times. At one time people held inconvenient beliefs about people being innocent until proven guilty by a jury of 12 impartial individuals. Today is a simpler time where most cases never go to trail. Instead the State merely coerces accused individuals into admitting guilt:

The presumption of innocence helps to combat prejudice and prejudging in the U.S. criminal justice system. But because plea bargains have supplanted trials in our criminal justice system, that presumption does not apply to most cases in the United States.

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Unfortunately, the system that is described by our school teachers and that Americans see on television and in the movies is now defunct. Jury trials are now rare events in the United States. In fact, about 95 percent of the cases moving through the system will not go to trial. The overwhelming majority of cases will be resolved by plea bargains.

In a plea bargain, the prosecutor typically offers the defendant a reduced prison sentence if he agrees to waive his right to a jury trial and admit guilt in a brief hearing before a judge. Prosecutors use their power to pressure people who have been accused of a crime, and are presumed innocent, to waive their right to a trial and admit guilt.

We know this is true because prosecutors admit that this is what they are doing. The Supreme Court has approved these prosecutorial tactics in the landmark 1978 case, Bordenkircher v. Hayes. By a close 5-4 vote, the court said there was no constitutional problem with pressuring the accused to waive his trial and admit guilt. According to the court, there is no illegal coercion “so long as the accused is free to accept or reject the prosecution’s offer.”

The article touches on the folly of this system but I want to make another important point.

A person accused of a crime isn’t involved in a fair game. From the very beginning of a case, where the accused is arrested, the deck is stacked against them. Cops can lie to them but they can’t lie to the cops. So the accused is at an immediate information disadvantage because the cops and lie about evidence, witness testimony, and other things that can make a charge look hopeless to fight. Prosecutors have the right to threaten an accused with decades of prison time whereas the accused has no right to threaten the prosecutor with, say, a retaliatory lawsuit if it’s later found out that they’re innocent. In addition to that it’s also not uncommon for an accused party to front their legal defense fees even if they are found innocent.

The deal presented to the accused party isn’t fair by any sane definition. No matter what avenue they choose they’re at a major disadvantage. Admitting guilt and taking the lesser sentence seems like a good choice when the alternative is a longer sentence and tremendous legal defense fees. Especially when, as far as the accused knows, the evidence against them is thoroughly damning.

A legal system that favors one side over the other cannot be considered an engine for justice. It is merely a formality that allows the advantaged side to declare its actions just when it crushes the disadvantaged side.

They’re All In It Together

The primary duty of law enforcers is to expropriate wealth from the general populace. Few law enforcement agencies are as glib about this as the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). From Medical records to identities the DEA has a long history of theft. But cash is king. The DEA was recently caught recruiting an agent of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to steal cash for them:

A Department of Justice watchdog officially condemned the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration this month, following a report that the agency had recruited a Transportation Security Administration security screener to search bags for cash that the DEA could confiscate.

[…]

In a summary of its investigation, the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General concluded that the agreement “violated DEA policy” on a number of levels. While the OIG determined that the TSA informant never provided any actionable information to the DEA, it concluded that the plans to pay the agent out of the cash he or she helped seize “could have violated individuals’ protection against unreasonable searches and seizures if it led to a subsequent DEA enforcement action.”

In effect, the OIG was questioning the propriety of an arrangement in which a TSA agent would use his or her power to tip off the DEA to the presence of cash in travelers’ luggage, and then receive compensation based on how profitable that information was to the agency.

Mind you, partnerships between the DEA and other government agencies isn’t unusual. However, such a blatant partnership aimed expressly at stealing cash from air travelers is pretty brazen even for the DEA.

The important question is what will happen now? If history is any indicator nothing will happen, which is why corrupt shit like this never ends. So long as nobody in the DEA is punished for trying to pull shit like this the agency is going to continue doing what is has been doing all along. And since the DEA is a money maker for the State it’s unlikely any other government agency is going to actually issue punishments where they are due.

Intellectual Property Means Not Owning Your Stuff

Intellectual property laws are always justified as being necessary for human innovation. Setting aside the fact humans have been innovating for longer than intellectual property laws have existed, the belief many people hold is that nobody would invest the resources necessary to innovate if they weren’t promised a monopoly on manufacturing afterwards. More and more though we’re seeing what the real purpose behind intellectual property laws are. It’s not to encourage innovation, it’s to curtail ownership.

Copyright is the biggest offender. Due to software copyright laws it’s getting more and more difficult to say you own anything because manufacturers are claiming anything with a computer in it is licensed, not sold. What’s that mean? It means when your product breaks down you are legally prohibited from fixing it:

How many people does it take to fix a tractor? A year ago, I would have said it took just one person. One person with a broken tractor, a free afternoon, and a box of tools.

I would have been wrong.

When the repair involves a tractor’s computer, it actually takes an army of copyright lawyers, dozens of representatives from U.S. government agencies, an official hearing, hundreds of pages of legal briefs, and nearly a year of waiting. Waiting for the Copyright Office to make a decision about whether people like me can repair, modify, or hack their own stuff.

[…]

Thanks to the “smart” revolution, our appliances, watches, fridges, and televisions have gotten a computer-aided intelligence boost. But where there are computers, there is also copyrighted software, and where there is copyrighted software, there are often software locks. Under Section 1201 of the DMCA, you can’t pick that lock without permission. Even if you have no intention of pirating the software. Even if you just want to modify the programming or repair something you own.

Enter the tractor. I’m not a lawyer. I’m a repairman by trade and a software engineer by education. I fix things—especially things with computers in them. And I run an online community of experts that teaches other people how to fix broken equipment. When a farmer friend of mine wanted to know if there was a way to tweak the copyrighted software of his broken tractor, I knew it was going to be rough. The only way to get around the DMCA’s restriction on software tinkering is to ask the Copyright Office for an exemption at the Section 1201 Rulemaking, an arduous proceeding that takes place just once every three years.

Ownership implies you have sole control over something. It can’t exist under intellectual property laws. So long as you stand the chance of being severely punished for repairing, modifying, or selling something you cannot claim to own it. Intellectual property claims are promises granted by the State that it will dish out those severe punishments.

This problem is also going to become exponentially worse as the number or products with embedded software increases exponentially. Soon we won’t be able to claim ownership over our refrigerators, coffee makers, or door bells. Everything in our homes will be rented property of the manufacturer. And if we violate the terms of the rental agreement the State will send its armed goons at oh dark thirty, kick down our doors announced, and shoot our pets.

Without The TSA Who Would Molest 10 Year-Old Girls

When a job description involved feeling up small children nobody should be surprised when the applicants turn out to be pedophiles. Granted, the grounds on which I accused the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) goon in this story of being a pedophile are speculative but I can’t think of any other reason why she spent two minutes “patting down” a 10 year-old girl:

A young girl’s family is speaking out after a TSA agent patted her down for nearly two minutes at an airport over the holiday break, leaving the girl feeling like screaming.

The girl should have screamed. She should have also kicked the TSA officer as hard as she could and ran as fast as she could. Her parents should have intervened. But what makes this story even more angering is the fact the girl’s father just filmed the molestation and then got down and licked the TSA’s boots like a good little slave:

Her father shot video of the incident at an airport in North Carolina, for a flight back to San Diego. Kevin Payne told NBC San Diego he’s all for airport security and making sure people have a safe trip, but he and his daughter feel the pat-down was uncomfortable, long and inappropriate.

Apparently the father is all for sexual molestation but only if it lasts for less than two minutes. And herein lies my biggest problem with American culture: complacency. For a nation full of people who pride themselves on not taking shit from anybody it seems most Americans are more than happy to roll right the fuck over when somebody with a badge orders them to. Unless the culture can be changed there is no hope for freedom for the masses currently incarcerated in the United States.

The Unpayable Debt To Society

The United States has reached the logical conclusion of the tough on crime mentality. This country has become so tough on crime that even a wrongful conviction and ruin somebody’s life:

Simmons, at the time a contract systems analyst making $90 an hour, was arrested in Seattle’s University District in 2006 and charged with selling crack as well as resisting arrest. He was convicted of the drug-dealing charge and sentenced to a year in prison.

Three months after his conviction, though, the King County deputy whose testimony led to Simmons’ conviction, James Schrimpsher, was fired for dishonesty in a different drug case. That the deputy was being investigated for lying at the same time as Simmons’ trial had not been disclosed to Simmons’ attorneys.

Simmons insists he didn’t sell drugs and believes he was profiled. Save for a marijuana possession charge from the 1990s in Tennessee, he has no criminal convictions before or since. Regardless, he served the full prison term at the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, plus a year of probation when he got out.

[…]

What’s alarming about Simmons’ story is that his drug-dealing conviction was eventually stricken from the record. He was retroactively exonerated in 2010 because the testimony that convicted him was no longer considered credible. Yet he struggles to get a job because the story stalks him on the Internet.

Based on the job offers Simmons has received he’s a very capable individual. What he was original charged with, selling crack, wasn’t even a crime (because crimes require victims). But now, even after he has been exonerated, he cannot get a job.

Sadly this is exactly what the tough on crime crowd wanted. In their pursuit of an impossible goal, a society free of crime, they demanded harsh punishments be issued. The politicians, always happy to take up the cause of fear mongering, acted on these pleas and passed harsher laws. When the new harsher punishments failed to bring about Nirvana the the cycle continued. Now we’re at a point when anybody who has been incarcerated, regardless of the offense, is nearly unemployable.

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

Liberté, égalité, fraternité! It’s the national motto of France and in the only important language it means libero, egaleco, frateco. For you English readers it mean liberty, equality, fraternity. For a country that uses emergency powers to suppress free speech it’s an ironic motto to have:

At least 24 activists who advocate for climate change have been placed under house arrest ahead of the highly anticipated United Nations talks in Paris. France used emergency laws that were implemented after the Paris shootings to arrest the green campaigners, the French government confirmed on Saturday. Earlier, the Guardian had reported the news, noting that the warrants delivered to the activists cited state of emergency laws that were imposed after 130 people were killed in terrorist attacks earlier this month.

You have to hand it to France, it sure knows how to milk a crisis for everything it’s worth. The terrorist attacks occurred 17 days ago and the French government is still has a state of emergency in place and is using its fancy emergency powers to lock people in their homes under the threat of imprisonment (or death).

I wonder how long the French government will keep these emergency powers in place and who else they’ll suppress with them. Maybe it can make the powers permanent and use them to silence everybody who disagrees with it.

One thing is certain, freedom is entirely dead in France. The nation is just another giant police state.