Monday, Dec. 9: National Day of Action to Reclaim the Promise of Public Education
4:30-6:00 p.m.
Start: Market & 9th St.
It's time to fight back against the corporations that are starving our public schools and colleges by not paying their fair share of taxes, who mistreat their workers, and who displace families. Join students, teachers, parents and tenants on December 9th starting at 4:30 p.m. as we march on local corporate tax evaders and expose this Tale of Two Cities. Gather at 4:30 p.m. at Market & 9th. March to Market & 5th St. at 5:00 p.m.
RSVP at www.uesf.org/dec9.
Gather at 9th & Market in front of Twitter
Demand that the $100 million from this “Tax Free Zone” go to more for more teachers in the classroom, investing in City College and in affordable housing, vital services, transit and more.
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Public presentations by attorney David Coombs
David Coombs, attorney for American prisoner of conscience US Army Pvt. Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, will speak at three upcoming West Coast events hosted by the Private Manning Support Network. Mr. Coombs continues to represent the heroic WikiLeaks whistle-blower recently sentenced to 35-years in military prison.
Sunday, Dec. 8 at 7:00pm -- Los Angeles CA
The Church in Ocean Park, 235 Hill Street, Santa Monica CA 90405 - View flyer (pdf)
Monday, Dec. 9 at 6:30pm -- Oakland CA
Humanist Hall, 390 27th Street, Oakland CA 94612 - View flyer (pdf)
Wednesday, Dec. 11 at 7:00pm -- Seattle WA
University Temple United Methodist Church (Fireplace Room), 1415 NE 43rd St., Seattle WA 98105 - View flyer (pdf)
Events will include Q&A with Mr. Coombs, and a fund pitch by the Support Network to benefit Pvt. Manning's ongoing defense efforts, including pending legal appeals.
Events are presented by the Private Manning Support Network and Courage to Resist, with the help of Veterans for Peace, CODEPINK, Bay Area Military Law Panel, War Resisters League-West, Project Censored and the Media Freedom Foundation, SF Women in Black, World Can't Wait-SF Bay, OccupySF Action Council & Environmental Justice Working Group, OccupyForum, SF LGBT Pride Celebration Committee, Queer Strike, National Lawyers Guild-SF, and the Civilian-Soldier Alliance, MLK Coalition of Greater Los Angeles, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, Progressive Democrats of Santa Monica Mountains, March Forward, The ANSWER Coalition, Common Good Café, G.I. Voice / Coffee Strong, Peace Action Group of Plymouth Church UCC, Fellowship of Reconciliation-Seattle Chapter
$5-$10 donation requested at the door to cover event expenses. Wheelchair accessible. For more info, contact: Courage to Resist, 510-488-3559.
PVT Chelsea Manning tells TIME Magazine what she's thankful for this year
For their special Thanksgiving edition, TIME Magazine asked WikiLeaks whistleblower PVT Chelsea Manning what she's thankful for this year. Her answer was published alongside those from Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, and 14 other well-known public figures. Her response, while demonstrating wisdom beyond her years, is one that many people who work for the betterment of society will appreciate:
"I’m usually hesitant to celebrate Thanksgiving Day. After all, the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony systematically terrorized and slaughtered the very same Pequot tribe that assisted the first English refugees to arrive at Plymouth Rock. So, perhaps ironically, I’m thankful that I know that, and I’m also thankful that there are people who seek out, and usually find, such truths. I’m thankful for people who, even surrounded by millions of Americans eating turkey during regularly scheduled commercial breaks in the Green Bay and Detroit football game; who, despite having been taught, often as early as five and six years old, that the “helpful natives” selflessly assisted the “poor helpless Pilgrims” and lived happily ever after, dare to ask probing, even dangerous, questions.
Such people are often nameless and humble, yet no less courageous. Whether carpenters of welders; retail clerks or bank managers; artists or lawyers, they dare to ask tough questions, and seek out the truth, even when the answers they find might not be easy to live with.
I’m also grateful for having social and human justice pioneers who lead through action, and by example, as opposed to directing or commanding other people to take action. Often, the achievements of such people transcend political, cultural, and generational boundaries. Unfortunately, such remarkable people often risk their reputations, their livelihood, and, all too often, even their lives.
Malcolm X began to openly embrace the idea, after an awakening during his travels to the Middle East and Africa, of an international and unifying effort to achieve equality, and was murdered after a tough, yearlong defection from the Nation of Islam. Martin Luther King Jr., after choosing to embrace the struggles of striking sanitation workers in Memphis over lobbying in Washington, D.C., was murdered by an escaped convict seeking fame and respect from white Southerners. Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician in the U.S., was murdered by a jealous former colleague. These are only examples; I wouldn’t dare to make a claim that they represent an exhaustive list of remarkable pioneers of social justice and equality—certainly many if not the vast majority are unsung and, sadly, forgotten.
So, this year, and every year, I’m thankful for such people, and I’m thankful that one day—perhaps not tomorrow—because of the accomplishments of such truth-seekers and human rights pioneers, we can live together on this tiny “pale blue dot” of a planet and stop looking inward, at each other, but rather outward, into the space beyond this planet and the future of all of humanity.
For those who don't already know, PVT Chelsea Manning grew up in a conservative community in the Midwest. She suffered a dysfunctional home life, and she was bullied at school for being gay. She was even homeless for a period, working two part-time jobs to get by. She dreamed of one day going to college, and for this reason joined the Army at the age of 19. A few years later she realized she was not gay, but transgender; since she was in the Army, her only option was to hide her identity while working 14 hour days in a war zone. Through all these obstacles, she has remained committed to educating herself, asking the hard questions, and taking risks in the name of helping other people.
This year, we give thanks for PVT Manning's humanist idealism, her bravery, and her unyielding belief that through the work of dedicated individuals our society can and will be made more just. It is not only her actions, but also her unique individualism, that has inspired thousands of people around the world to action. We hope you'll join us in showing thanks for Chelsea by making a gift to ensure her legal appeals process is fully funded. 35 years is far too harsh a punishment for showing the public the truth.
Donate to Support the Legal Appeals
So far we've raised just over $16,000 of the $40,000 needed. Please help us meet our goal by Chelsea's birthday on December 17th.
Pvt. Chelsea Manning's fourth birthday in prison
“When
I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for
my country and a sense of duty to others.”-Pvt. Manning
|
On December 17, Private Chelsea Manning will turn 26.
It will be the fourth birthday this young Army whistle-blower has spent in prison.
Thanks to this brave soldier’s heroic actions, the public learned the following startling truths:
- Donald Rumsfeld and General Petraeus helped support torture in Iraq.
- Deliberate civilian killings by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan went unpunished.
- Thousands of civilian casualties were never acknowledged publicly.
- Most Guantanamo detainees were innocent.
“When I
chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my
country and a sense of duty to others.”-Pvt. Manning
See even more of What WikiLeaks revealed
While
some of these documents may demonstrate how much work lies ahead in
terms of securing international peace and justice, their release changed
the world for the better.
Private Manning’s actions showed people everywhere how citizens can use
the Internet to hold their governments accountable.
In Chelsea’s request for pardon from President Obama, she wrote:
“As the late Howard Zinn once said, ‘There is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.’
Private Manning’s brave actions have set an example for us all.
Here are three important ways you can support Chelsea on her birthday:
1. Make a gift to the Private Manning Defense Fund. We are currently in the middle of a fund drive to raise $40,000 for her legal appeals and personal needs, including visits from family.
2. Send her a birthday message at:
PVT Bradley E Manning89289
1300 N Warehouse Rd
Ft Leavenworth KS 66027-2304
USA
Please note that regular letter paper must be used, as cardstock will be turned away.
However, you can easily print out your own card by searching for “free birthday templates” online.
3. Hold a
party with friends and neighbors to raise money for Chelsea’s legal
defense.
Whether a dinner party, cocktail party or concert, bringing people
together for an evening of education and socializing is a great way to
kindle some social consciousness and holiday spirit.
On each person's way out the door, you can ask them to add a personal
message on a joint birthday letter to Chelsea.
If you want your party to be public, send information about your event
to owen@bradleymanning.org
Help us continue to cover 100%
of Pvt. Manning's legal fees! Donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38591
COURAGE TO RESIST
http://couragetoresist.org
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
510-488-3559
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. ARTICLES IN FULL
B. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
D. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.
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A. ARTICLES IN FULL
(Unless otherwise noted)
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1) Wage Strikes Planned at Fast-Food Outlets
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Seeking to increase pressure on McDonald’s, Wendy’s and other fast-food
restaurants, organizers of a movement demanding a $15-an-hour wage for
fast-food workers say they will sponsor one-day strikes in 100 cities on
Thursday and protest activities in 100 additional cities.
As the movement struggles to find pressure points in its quest for substantially higher wages for workers, organizers said strikes were planned for the first time in cities like Charleston, S.C.; Providence, R.I.; and Pittsburgh.
The protests have expanded greatly since November 2012, when 200 fast-food workers engaged in a one-day strike at more than 20 restaurants in New York City, the first such walkout in the history of the nation’s fast-food industry.
“There’s been pretty huge growth in one year,” said Kendall Fells, one of the movement’s main organizers. “People understand that a one-day strike is not going to get them there. They understand that this needs to continue to grow.”
The movement, which includes the groups Fast Food Forward and Fight for 15, is part of a growing union-backed effort by low-paid workers — including many Walmart workers and workers for federal contractors — that seeks to focus attention on what the groups say are inadequate wages.
The fast-food effort is backed by the Service Employees International Union and is also demanding that restaurants allow workers to unionize without the threat of retaliation.
Officials with the National Restaurant Association have said the one-day strikes are publicity stunts. They warn that increasing pay to $15 an hour when the federal minimum wage is $7.25 would cause restaurants to rely more on automation and hire fewer workers.
Industry officials say that only a small percentage of fast-food jobs pay the minimum wage and that those are largely entry-level jobs for workers under 25.
Backers of the movement for higher pay point to studies saying that the average age of fast-food workers is 29 and that more than one-fourth are parents raising children.
Simon Rojas, who earns $8.07 an hour working at a McDonald’s in South Central Los Angeles, said he would join Thursday’s one-day strike.
“It’s very difficult to live off $8.07 an hour,” said Mr. Rojas, 23, noting that he is often assigned just 20 or 25 hours of work a week. “I have to live with my parents. I would like to be able to afford a car and an apartment.”
Mr. Rojas said he had studied for a pharmacy technician’s certificate, but he had been unable to save the $100 needed to apply for a license.
On Aug. 29, fast-food strikes took place in more than 50 cities. This week’s expanded protests will be joined by numerous community, faith and student groups, including USAction and United Students against Sweatshops.
As the movement struggles to find pressure points in its quest for substantially higher wages for workers, organizers said strikes were planned for the first time in cities like Charleston, S.C.; Providence, R.I.; and Pittsburgh.
The protests have expanded greatly since November 2012, when 200 fast-food workers engaged in a one-day strike at more than 20 restaurants in New York City, the first such walkout in the history of the nation’s fast-food industry.
“There’s been pretty huge growth in one year,” said Kendall Fells, one of the movement’s main organizers. “People understand that a one-day strike is not going to get them there. They understand that this needs to continue to grow.”
The movement, which includes the groups Fast Food Forward and Fight for 15, is part of a growing union-backed effort by low-paid workers — including many Walmart workers and workers for federal contractors — that seeks to focus attention on what the groups say are inadequate wages.
The fast-food effort is backed by the Service Employees International Union and is also demanding that restaurants allow workers to unionize without the threat of retaliation.
Officials with the National Restaurant Association have said the one-day strikes are publicity stunts. They warn that increasing pay to $15 an hour when the federal minimum wage is $7.25 would cause restaurants to rely more on automation and hire fewer workers.
Industry officials say that only a small percentage of fast-food jobs pay the minimum wage and that those are largely entry-level jobs for workers under 25.
Backers of the movement for higher pay point to studies saying that the average age of fast-food workers is 29 and that more than one-fourth are parents raising children.
Simon Rojas, who earns $8.07 an hour working at a McDonald’s in South Central Los Angeles, said he would join Thursday’s one-day strike.
“It’s very difficult to live off $8.07 an hour,” said Mr. Rojas, 23, noting that he is often assigned just 20 or 25 hours of work a week. “I have to live with my parents. I would like to be able to afford a car and an apartment.”
Mr. Rojas said he had studied for a pharmacy technician’s certificate, but he had been unable to save the $100 needed to apply for a license.
On Aug. 29, fast-food strikes took place in more than 50 cities. This week’s expanded protests will be joined by numerous community, faith and student groups, including USAction and United Students against Sweatshops.
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2) Scanning the Economic Landscape, and Still Seeing Little on the Horizon
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
From the outside, the financial fissures in Marianne Scarino’s life are easy to overlook. She still steps out the door most weekday mornings in her tailored trousers and kitten heels.
She walks with the confidence of the successful professional she once was, the corporate manager with the office overlooking Times Square, the six-figure salary and those late-night glides back to Staten Island in that sleek company car.
Look closer, though, and you’ll notice the peeling paint on her front porch, the crumbling chimney, the dilapidated garage, the telltale signs of a downsized life.
Ms. Scarino has been laid off twice, “discarded,” as she puts it. Her husband, a project manager at an architectural firm, lost his job, too. His only alternative paid 20 percent less.
“That world, that security we had, is gone,” said Ms. Scarino, 62, who says she and her husband burned through their savings to stay afloat.
This is life in New York City, four years after the Great Recession officially ended. Ms. Scarino, who lost her job at a law firm in 2009, spent two years hunting for work before another law firm hired her in 2011. In March, she was laid off again.
The hard truth, as she has learned it: No one is eager to hire someone of her age — not Lowe’s, not the local nursing home, not the accounting and law firms where she once thrived.
This spring, a friend told her about a temporary position as an elementary school aide in Brooklyn. It paid about $21,000 a year, with no benefits. Ms. Scarino, who once earned $160,000 a year, didn’t think twice.
Some might marvel at her shifting circumstances. Ms. Scarino, whose dreams of retirement have collapsed along with her savings account, is just grateful for the work.
This economic recovery is a nonrecovery for her and for all too many New Yorkers. The old rules, she says, no longer apply.
Look around you. The stock market is booming. The tech sector is thriving. New York is generating tens of thousands of new jobs, more than most big cities, labor statistics show.
Yet the bulk of the new jobs are low-wage jobs in sectors like retail, restaurants and home health care, many without benefits or opportunities for advancement, a study by the Fiscal Policy Institute, a research organization, shows. The pathways that once carried people into the middle class and beyond — and the strategies that sustained them there — seem increasingly unreliable and uncertain.
Median family income in New York City has stalled, according to census data analyzed by Susan Weber-Stoger of Queens College. About 46 percent of New Yorkers are poor or near poor, city officials say. Middle-class families are also feeling the strain.
Bill de Blasio rode this wave of economic anxiety right into City Hall. Here on Staten Island, he won 44 percent of the vote — a feat in this Republican stronghold — snaring voters like Ms. Scarino, who had not voted for a Democrat in more than a decade.
His election puts struggling New Yorkers on center stage. In the coming year, there will be battles and debates over retroactive pay for unions and the living wage. There will be strategizing about new ways to help the poor and talk of new niches and opportunities.
I was born in this city — I grew up on Staten Island, not far from Ms. Scarino’s home — and I will be chronicling this unsettled economic landscape, writing about work, the workplace and the economy.
There will be stories of success, of reinvention and of people just getting by. But there will also be stories of options narrowing, hopes dimming.
Nationally, middle-class incomes are lower than they were 15 years ago, faring worse than over any such period since the 1940s. On Ms. Scarino’s block, the economic tremors are still rumbling, unsettling one family after another.
She ticks off the casualties: The couple with the baby who lost jobs at architectural firms; the laid-off banker; the film editor whose career foundered on the shores of the digital age; and her next-door neighbor, Jeffrey Marks, 58, a father of four, who lost his job as a manager at an auto dealership in January.
His new position, supervising mechanics who work for the city, pays a fraction of what he once earned. “You’re starting everything over,” he said. “That’s the scary part.”
Some experts say our city offers one of the best vantage points for watching this evolving economy. Will the recovery finally gain momentum or is this the new normal? Will Mr. de Blasio revitalize the prospects of the less fortunate or be confounded by economic forces beyond his control? We are, in many ways, a first-class laboratory for observing some of the biggest economic shifts of our time.
But for the people who live here, for the Scarinos, the Markses and the others, this is no lab. This is life.
Rachel Swarns would like to hear about your experiences in New York’s work world. Please leave yours in the comments, or contact her directly by filling out this brief form. She may follow up with you directly for an interview.
Email: swarns@nytimes.com
Twitter: @rachelswarns
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3) Gloomy Numbers for Holiday Shopping’s Big Weekend
By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS
It was a cold, clear day in Leesburg, Va., and a security guard at an outlet mall there said the midmorning crowd was similar to that of a typical busy Saturday.
But an ordinary day it was not. It was Black Friday, traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year.
With the economy bumping along at a lackluster pace, and this year’s shorter-than-usual window between Thanksgiving and Christmas, sales and promotions began weeks before Thanksgiving Day, making this holiday shopping season more diffuse than ever. That left Black Friday weekend itself, the season’s customary kickoff, looking a bit gloomy.
Over the course of the weekend, consumers spent about $1.7 billion less on holiday shopping than they did the year before, according to the National Retail Federation, a retail trade organization.
“There are some economic challenges that many Americans still face,” said Matthew Shay, the chief executive of the retail federation. “So in general terms, many are intending to be a little bit more conservative with their budgets.”
More than 141 million people shopped online or in stores between Thursday and Sunday, according to a survey released Sunday afternoon by the retail federation, an increase of about 1 percent over last year. And the average amount each consumer spent, or planned to spend by the end of Sunday, went down, dropping to $407.02 from $423.55. Total spending for the weekend this year was expected to be $57.4 billion, a decrease of nearly 3 percent from last year’s $59.1 billion.
The holiday season generally accounts for 20 to 40 percent of a retailer’s annual sales, according to the federation, and Thanksgiving weekend alone typically represents about 10 to 15 percent of those holiday sales.
This year, in the scramble to get to shoppers early, retailers tempted buyers with pre-Thanksgiving deals, both in stores and online. On Walmart.com, for example, the holiday season started Nov. 1. And according to the retail federation, 53.8 percent of shoppers surveyed in the first week of November said they had already started their holiday shopping.
John D. Morris, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, said that aggressive promotions the day before Thanksgiving may also have taken some sales from the Black Friday weekend.
“There were a lot of advertised sales that were bleeding into Wednesday this year,” Mr. Morris said. “Sales were being pulled forward.”
On Sunday, the retail federation pointed to the season’s early start, with holiday sales going as far back as October, and said it still expected that sales this holiday season would grow 3.9 percent over last year, despite the year-over-year decline of Black Friday weekend. They also said that altercations involving shoppers in stores on Black Friday seemed to decline this year, despite a number of videos of physical confrontations that attracted widespread attention online and in various news media reports.
Many retailers have been warning of a muted holiday shopping season. Walmart and Target both trimmed their yearly forecasts recently, citing economic factors like slow wage growth, unemployment and sliding consumer confidence. Executives at Best Buy cautioned that intense price competition on some items during the holidays was likely to affect their bottom line, despite its healthier performance recently.
Data from the research firm ShopperTrak, which collects data from more than 700 retailers, painted a more optimistic picture of Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday shopping in brick-and-mortar stores. (The data, released Saturday, did not include shopping online or any shopping done over the weekend.)
ShopperTrak found that sales were off 13.2 percent on Black Friday. But more stores were open on Thanksgiving this year, and for longer hours, and the combined sales on Thursday and Friday were actually up 2.3 percent over the same two days last year.
“The Thursday store openings did well,” said Bill Martin, ShopperTrak’s founder. “But a lot of it was at the expense of Black Friday.”
And while sales increased for the two-day period, he continued, there are additional costs associated with being open on Thanksgiving, like holiday pay for employees.
“Thursday is going to be a tough day to make any profit,” Mr. Martin said.
The retail federation’s survey found that Black Friday shopping grew a bit, rising to more than 92 million people this year from nearly 89 million people last year, including online and physical stores.
Online sales grew substantially on both Thanksgiving and Friday this year, up nearly 20 percent Thursday and almost 19 percent on Friday, according to IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark, which tracks about 800 retail websites in the United States. Mobile traffic was also up substantially, accounting for nearly 40 percent of all online activity on Friday, said Jay Henderson, the strategy director for IBM Smarter Commerce, which put out the online retail data. “That’s pretty staggering,” he said. “You hear a lot about the year of mobile, and this is probably the fifth annual year of mobile. But 40 percent of all traffic feels like a tipping point.”
Mobile sales accounted for about 26 percent of total online sales on Thursday and nearly 22 percent on Friday. On both days, IBM saw a late surge in online shopping, presumably as people finished spending time with their families and snuggled up on the couch with their credit cards.
Smartphones accounted for about 25 percent of traffic on Friday, in contrast to over 14 percent from tablets. But actual purchasing came predominantly from elsewhere. Tablets made up about 14 percent of online sales, compared with about 7 percent for smartphones.
“You tend to see that a lot of smartphone traffic is predominantly during the day,” Mr. Henderson said. “People are out and about in stores, comparing prices and looking for ratings and reviews. Tablets start to take hold late in the afternoon and in the evening.”
Despite all this growth, online purchases remain a very small portion of retail sales. Mr. Martin of ShopperTrak said that more than 90 percent of all United States retail commerce still takes place in physical stores.
While many people proved perfectly willing to head to the mall on Thanksgiving Day, for some, two days in a row of Black Friday-style shopping was just a bit too much.
Melvina Bolston, 48, ventured to a Walmart on Thanksgiving, waited 85 minutes in a checkout line, and was back in the fray on Friday at her sister’s behest, at an open-air shopping center in Norcross, Ga.
“You can pretty much put it in the books: I will never do it again,” Ms. Bolston said. “This is like torturing yourself on purpose.”
Perhaps next year, she will just shop online instead.
Alan Blinder and Ken Maguire contributed reporting.
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4) Marissa Alexander released on bond until Florida retrial of self-defence case
Trial to reconsider stand-your-ground defense for woman sentenced for 20 years for firing 'warning shot' at husband
A Florida woman who was sentenced to 20 years in prison after firing a "warning shot" during an argument with her abusive husband has been released on bond, while she awaits retrial under a controversial part of the state's self-defense law.
The case of Marissa Alexander, who was convicted of aggravated-assault with a deadly weapon, touched off a furor when her supporters compared it to the self-defense case of George Zimmerman, who was acquitted earlier this year of murdering an unarmed black teenager. Although no one was injured in Alexander's case, the court gave her a 20-year prison sentence under the state's mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines because she had fired a gun during the assault.
A state appeals court ruled in September that Alexander, who is black, deserved a new trial because the judge failed to properly instruct the Jacksonville, Florida jury about her self-defense argument. She was convicted in May 2012.
"This news is vindication for Marissa and all the women who have become criminalized for exercising their basic right to defend themselves and their children," Angie Nixon of Florida New Majority, a social justice organization, said of Alexander's release.
The case drew criticism from civil rights groups concerned about self-defense laws and mandatory minimum sentencing rules, but it received little attention outside north Florida until the Zimmerman case. Zimmerman was arrested for killing Trayvon Martin in 2012 and was acquitted of murder and manslaughter in July 2013. Under the so-called "stand your ground" clause which was added to Florida's self-defense law in 2005, people who use deadly force to defend themselves from serious injury – rather than retreating to avoid confrontation – can be immune from prosecution. Zimmerman never sought immunity under "stand your ground", instead relying on a standard self-defense law.
Alexander's "stand your ground" claim was rejected because she left the house during the confrontation to retrieve a gun from her car, returning to fire a shot near her husband Rico Gray's head.
A slightly built woman who stands 5ft 2in, Alexander said her 245lb husband was about to attack her when she fired into a kitchen wall during the August 2010 incident. He had previously been convicted of domestic violence for attacking her. Prosecutors said the shot endangered Gray. At the time, Alexander had an active restraining order against her husband and she carried a concealed weapons permit.
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5) Seeing the Toll, Schools Revise Zero Tolerance
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Faced with mounting evidence that get-tough policies in schools are leading to arrest records, low academic achievement and high dropout rates that especially affect minority students, cities and school districts around the country are rethinking their approach to minor offenses.
Perhaps nowhere has the shift been more pronounced than in Broward County’s public schools. Two years ago, the school district achieved an ignominious Florida record: More students were arrested on school campuses here than in any other state district, the vast majority for misdemeanors like possessing marijuana or spraying graffiti.
The Florida district, the sixth largest in the nation, was far from an outlier. In the past two decades, schools around the country have seen suspensions, expulsions and arrests for minor nonviolent offenses climb together with the number of police officers stationed at schools. The policy, called zero tolerance, first grew out of the war on drugs in the 1990s and became more aggressive in the wake of school shootings like the one at Columbine High School in Colorado.
But in November, Broward veered in a different direction, joining other large school districts, including Los Angeles, Baltimore, Chicago and Denver, in backing away from the get-tough approach.
Rather than push children out of school, districts like Broward are now doing the opposite: choosing to keep lawbreaking students in school, away from trouble on the streets, and offering them counseling and other assistance aimed at changing behavior.
These alternative efforts are increasingly supported, sometimes even led, by state juvenile justice directors, judges and police officers.
In Broward, which had more than 1,000 arrests in the 2011 school year, the school district entered into a wide-ranging agreement last month with local law enforcement, the juvenile justice department and civil rights groups like the N.A.A.C.P. to overhaul its disciplinary policies and de-emphasize punishment.
Some states, prodded by parents and student groups, are similarly moving to change the laws; in 2009, Florida amended its laws to allow school administrators greater discretion in disciplining students.
“A knee-jerk reaction for minor offenses, suspending and expelling students, this is not the business we should be in,” said Robert W. Runcie, the Broward County Schools superintendent, who took the job in late 2011. “We are not accepting that we need to have hundreds of students getting arrested and getting records that impact their lifelong chances to get a job, go into the military, get financial aid.”
Nationwide, more than 70 percent of students involved in arrests or referrals to court are black or Hispanic, according to federal data.
“What you see is the beginning of a national trend here,” said Michael Thompson, the director of the Council of State Governments Justice Center. “Everybody recognizes right now that if we want to really find ways to close the achievement gap, we are really going to need to look at the huge number of kids being removed from school campuses who are not receiving any classroom time.”
Pressure to change has come from the Obama administration, too. Beginning in 2009, the Department of Justice and the Department of Education aggressively began to encourage schools to think twice before arresting and pushing children out of school. In some cases, as in Meridian, Miss., the federal government has sued to force change in schools.
Some view the shift as politically driven and worry that the pendulum may swing too far in the other direction. Ken Trump, a school security consultant, said that while existing policies are at times misused by school staffs and officers, the policies mostly work well, offering schools the right amount of discretion.
“It’s a political movement by civil rights organizations that have targeted school police,” Mr. Trump said. “If you politicize this on either side, it’s not going to help on the front lines.”
Supporters, though, emphasize the flexibility in these new policies and stress that they do not apply to students who commit felonies or pose a danger.
“We are not taking these tools out of the toolbox,” said Russell Skiba, a school psychology professor at Indiana University who promotes disciplinary changes. “We are saying these should be tools of last resort.”
In Broward County, the shift has shown immediate results, although it is too early to predict overall success. School-based arrests have dropped by 41 percent, and suspensions, which in 2011 added up to 87,000 out of 258,000 students, are down 66 percent from the same period in 2012, school data shows.
Under the new agreement, students caught for the first time committing any of 11 nonviolent misdemeanors are no longer arrested and sent to court. Rather, they attend counseling and perform community service.
Nor do students face suspension for minor infractions. Instead, they also attend a program called Promise for three days or more. Repeat offenders get several chances to change their behavior before more punitive measures kick in.
One recent afternoon, an 18-year-old senior sat in the cafeteria at the Pine Ridge Alternative Center, where students are sent in lieu of a suspension, and spoke with a psychology graduate student on a counseling team. The girl had been caught with a small amount of marijuana in her car on her high school campus, a misdemeanor that would have led to a suspension or arrest in the past. It was the first time she had gotten in trouble at school.
“I was freaking out,” she said. Her first fear was that she would be barred from prom. Here, though, she saw the larger picture and came to view the incident as “her second chance.”
She learned about bullying and drugs and alcohol. “It was a slap in the face,” she said. “I don’t even want to smoke anymore.”
Other students here learn to manage their anger, if that is their issue. Parents are involved in the process. And counselors have helped identify problems at home including abusive situations, something that administrators said underscores how invaluable the counseling component has been for the Promise program, said Belinda Hope, the principal at Pine Ridge.
Mr. Runcie and others said the more punitive measures tended to make a bad situation worse. Suspended and expelled children would be home alone or on the street, falling behind academically. Those arrested could be stigmatized by criminal records.
“The data showed an increase in the harshness of the disciplinary practices in schools — what was once a trip to the principal’s office is now a trip to the jail cell,” said Judith Browne Dianis, co-director of the Advancement Project, a civil-rights group involved in the effort.
Juvenile judges were among the first to express alarm over the jump in the number of students appearing in court on misdemeanors, an increase they said is tied to the proliferation of school police officers.
“We started to see the officers as a disciplinary tool,” said Judge Elijah H. Williams of Broward County Circuit Court, a juvenile judge who said he was “no flaming liberal” but saw the need for change. “Somebody writes graffiti in a stall, O.K., you’re under arrest. A person gets caught with a marijuana cigarette, you’re under arrest.”
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6) As Hospital Prices Soar, a Single Stitch Tops $500
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
SAN FRANCISCO — With blood oozing from deep lacerations, the two patients arrived at California Pacific Medical Center’s tidy emergency room. Deepika Singh, 26, had gashed her knee at a backyard barbecue. Orla Roche, a rambunctious toddler on vacation with her family, had tumbled from a couch, splitting open her forehead on a table.
On a quiet Saturday in May, nurses in blue scrubs quickly ushered the two patients into treatment rooms. The wounds were cleaned, numbed and mended in under an hour. “It was great — they had good DVDs, the staff couldn’t have been nicer,” said Emer Duffy, Orla’s mother.
Then the bills arrived. Ms. Singh’s three stitches cost $2,229.11. Orla’s forehead was sealed with a dab of skin glue for $1,696. “When I first saw the charge, I said, ‘What could possibly have cost that much?’ ” recalled Ms. Singh. “They billed for everything, every pill.”
In a medical system notorious for opaque finances and inflated bills, nothing is more convoluted than hospital pricing, economists say. Hospital charges represent about a third of the $2.7 trillion annual United States health care bill, the biggest single segment, according to government statistics, and are the largest driver of medical inflation, a new study in The Journal of the American Medical Association found.
A day spent as an inpatient at an American hospital costs on average more than $4,000, five times the charge in many other developed countries, according to the International Federation of Health Plans, a global network of health insurance industries. The most expensive hospitals charge more than $12,500 a day. And at many of them, including California Pacific Medical Center, emergency rooms are profit centers. That is why one of the simplest and oldest medical procedures — closing a wound with a needle and thread — typically leads to bills of at least $1,500 and often much more.
At Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, Daniel Diaz, 29, a public relations executive, was billed $3,355.96 for five stitches on his finger after cutting himself while peeling an avocado. At a hospital in Jacksonville, Fla., Arch Roberts Jr., 56, a former government employee, was charged more than $2,000 for three stitches after being bitten by a dog. At Mercy Hospital in Port Huron, Mich., Chelsea Manning, 22, a student, received bills for close to $3,000 for six stitches after she tripped running up a path. Insurers and patients negotiated lower prices, but those charges were a starting point.
The main reason for high hospital costs in the United States, economists say, is fiscal, not medical: Hospitals are the most powerful players in a health care system that has little or no price regulation in the private market.
Rising costs of drugs, medical equipment and other services, and fees from layers of middlemen, play a significant role in escalating hospital bills, of course. But just as important is that mergers and consolidation have resulted in a couple of hospital chains — like Partners in Boston, or Banner in Phoenix — dominating many parts of the country, allowing them to command high prices from insurers and employers.
Sutter Health, California Pacific Medical Center’s parent company, operates more than two dozen community hospitals in Northern California, almost all in middle-class or high-income neighborhoods. Its clout has helped California Pacific Medical Center, the state’s largest private nonprofit hospital, also earn the highest net income in California. Prices for many of the procedures at the San Francisco hospital are among the top 20 percent in the country, according to a New York Times analysis of data released by the federal government.
“Sutter is a leader — a pioneer — in figuring out how to amass market power to raise prices and decrease competition,” said Glenn Melnick, a professor of health economics at the University of Southern California. “How do hospitals set prices? They set prices to maximize revenue, and they raise prices as much as they can — all the research supports that.”
In other countries, the price of a day in the hospital often includes many basic services. Not here. The “chargemaster,” the price list created by each hospital, typically has more than ten thousand entries, and almost nothing — even an aspirin, a bag of IV fluid, or a visit from a physical therapist to help a patient get out of bed — is free. Those lists are usually secret, but California requires them to be filed with health regulators and disclosed.
California Pacific Medical Center’s 400-page chargemaster for this year contains some eye-popping figures: from $32,901 for an X-ray study of the heart’s arteries to $25,646.88 for gall bladder removal (doctor’s fees not included) to $5,510 for a simple vaginal delivery (not including $731 for each hour of labor, or $137 for each bag of IV fluid). Even basic supplies or services carry huge markups: $20 for a codeine pill (50 cents at Rite-Aid or Walgreens), $543 for a breast-pump kit ($25 online), $4,495 for a CT scan of the abdomen (about $400 at an outpatient facility nearby). Plenty of other hospitals set similar prices.
Dr. Warren Browner, the chief executive officer of California Pacific Medical Center, said that there were good reasons that hospitals charged what they did: They must have highly trained professionals available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They must constantly upgrade to the latest equipment and building standards to meet patients’ expectations and state mandates. They charge paying or well-insured patients more to compensate for others they treat at a loss.
“Hospital care is extremely expensive to produce and to have available for everyone in the community,” he said, noting that hospitals needed to have a neurosurgeon on call in case a patient turned up with a blood clot on the brain. “We take every penny of the revenue we earn and use it to build new and better facilities for everyone in the city.”
Some health economists say that even though most hospitals are nonprofit, they nonetheless are often flush with revenue and guilty of unnecessary spending.
“Hospitals are self-fueling, ever-expanding machines,” said James Robinson, an economist and professor of health policy at the University of California, Berkeley. “There is an infinite amount of stuff to buy — amenities, machines, new wings, higher salaries, more nurses.”
“But,” he asked, “to deliver good health care, what do you need?”
Few Constraints
There is little science to how hospitals determine the prices they print on hospital bills.
“Chargemaster prices are basically arbitrary, not connected to underlying costs or market prices,” said Professor Melnick, the economist. Hospitals “can set them at any level they want. There are no market constraints.”
Prices for any item or service are set by each hospital and move up and down yearly, and show extraordinary variability, health economists say. The codeine that costs $20 and the bag of IV fluid that costs $137 at California Pacific are charged at $1 and $16 at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, across town. But U.C.S.F. Medical Center charges $1,600 for an amniocentesis, which costs $687 at California Pacific.
After each hospital stay or visit, computer programs and human coders and billers use the chargemaster price list to translate the services rendered into a price. Sutter employs more than 1,300 people at a special center in Roseville, Calif., to perform this and other administrative tasks for its hospitals. Emergency room visits typically include separate charges for doctor’s services and for supplies, as well as a “facility fee” — the charge for walking in the door.
Orla Roche’s bill, for example, included $529 for “supplies and devices,” though her mother is perplexed about what those are: Orla left the emergency room with gauze wrapped round her head (under $1 at Internet supply stores), festooned with a pink cartoon sticker. According to the chargemaster price list for California Pacific, a vial of skin glue is billed at $181, a tube of antibiotic cream at $125.84 and a vial of local anesthetic at $79.73. These items can be purchased for $15.99, $36.99 and $5 on the Internet, though hospitals — which buy wholesale and in bulk — pay far less.
The bill also included $1,167 for the facility fee, which was classified at Level 3 — the middle of the scale, though Orla’s treatment was one of the most simple emergency room interventions. At Lenox Hill in New York, Daniel Diaz’s unusually detailed bill for his stitches included $1,828 for emergency room services, $628 for repairing the wound, $571.83 for “application of a finger splint,” $97.10 for a tetanus shot, and $311 for someone to give the injection. At Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Mich., 2-year-old Ben Bellar’s bill for six stitches, more than $2,000, included $145.20 for “pharmacy” — a spoonful of ibuprofen and local anesthetic, his mother said.
Economists note that hospitals can bill for emergency room care with relative impunity, since injured patients generally rush to the nearest treatment facility. But worried about high prices, even the sick sometimes shop around. When Jamie Burke, 33, a graduate student in North Carolina, came to after she was knocked out during a soccer game in April, she started searching on her smartphone for an in-network hospital as a friend drove.
“It was crazy,” she said, “but luckily I wasn’t unconscious, so I could figure it out.”
She is glad she did: Though the hospital billed $5,039, her insurer’s in-network contracted rate was about $2,700. With copays and coinsurance, she owed $600 for the visit.
The uninsured are particularly vulnerable to high prices since they have no one to argue on their behalf. When Arch Roberts Jr. got his bill of more than $2,000 for stitches, he explained that he was uninsured and his business had failed during the housing crisis, so he could not afford the fee. The hospital offered him a “charity care discount” — a price that was still out of range. “I don’t have $800 to pay them any more than I have $2,000” for three stitches, he said, noting that the hospital has been “relentless” in its collection efforts.
Paths to Profit
Once perennial money pits, emergency rooms have become big moneymakers for most hospitals in the last decade, experts say, as they raised their fees and “managed” their patient mix. California Pacific Medical Center has nearly doubled its emergency room fees since 2005, its chargemaster price lists show.
California Pacific’s emergency room is not a trauma center; poor or uninsured trauma patients who require lengthy inpatient stays can strain a hospital budget. And insurers allow emergency rooms to bill more than urgent-care centers for simple procedures like stitches or X-raying a sprained ankle, making such procedures profitable. Indeed, the financial prospects are so appealing that doctors’ groups in Texas are opening free-standing “emergency rooms” that are not connected to hospitals.
“Hospitals see where they’re making money and try to do more of that,” said Dr. David Gifford, a former health commissioner of Rhode Island, who has studied how labs price their tests. He said that laboratory tests and X-rays are priced high and are profitable, though there is no difference in quality from national commercial labs that charge far less. A blood count and blood electrolyte test — ordered every day for most inpatients and often in the emergency room — are priced at $259.06 and $293.25 on California Pacific Medical Center’s chargemaster price list. Insurers often pay outside labs less than $10 for the services.
And, like any business, many hospitals try to do fewer services that are not well paid. In 2012, over loud patient protests, California Pacific Medical Center outsourced its kidney dialysis unit to DaVita Health Care Partners, a commercial company, citing decreasing reimbursement. More than five years ago, after Sutter acquired St. Luke’s, a decrepit hospital in a poor neighborhood, it tried to shut the facility and convert it to an outpatient clinic, which often generate scans and other expensive tests. (The City of San Francisco rejected the plan.) It did close the hospital’s acute psychiatric unit, a division that almost always loses money.
“You need a Ph.D. in health economics” to understand medical pricing, said Dr. Browner, who has acknowledged that California Pacific’s chargemaster prices might appear high. But he added, “We have to recoup what it costs to keep open, what it costs to take care of the un- and underinsured and to rebuild.”
He said that MediCal, California’s Medicaid program, pays California Pacific Medical Center only 10 to 20 percent of its actual costs for care. Medicare pays about 70 percent, he said, generally with a predetermined flat fee for each admission based on the patient’s diagnosis. In contrast, many private insurers still pay separately for services rendered, based on discounts from the chargemaster prices.
Dr. Browner also pointed to what health care executives call the “Saudi sheikh problem” at some hospitals.
“You don’t really want to change your charges if you have a Saudi sheikh come in with a suitcase full of cash who’s going to pay full charges,” he said.
But how much actual charity care does a hospital like California Pacific Medical Center perform? And are insurers and patients paying hospitals for better quality? Or also for amenities like valet parking, useless medical gadgetry and inflated salaries?
Though hospitals’ nonprofit status allows them to reap tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in tax benefits, California Pacific Medical Center’s main campuses spent 1.27 percent of their more than $1.1 billion in net patient revenues in 2011 on free care for indigent or uninsured patients, lower than the state average of 2.07 percent, according to statistics compiled by the San Francisco Department of Public Health. The far smaller St. Luke’s branch spent 5.32 percent that year.
Sutter, based in Sacramento, employs 28 officials who make more than $1 million a year, and four of them are among the top-paid hospital executives in the state. Sutter’s chief executive officer makes more than $5 million. In 2011, Dr. Browner, 62, a distinguished physician who spent much of his career in academics, made more than $1.2 million, according to tax documents.
California Pacific, Sutter’s main campus, is in upscale Pacific Heights. It has just broken ground on a $2.7 billion renovation, which includes a new flagship hospital. Though the project was initiated to meet new state earthquake standards, the facility is designed as a sleek glass and marble structure with all private rooms, underground parking and roof gardens with flowers and bees “to enhance the quality of the healing environment,” according to California Pacific Medical Center’s website. Its Facebook page has called it “the coolest hospital in San Francisco, possibly the country and even the world.”
Consumers may appreciate — or demand — features that contribute to bigger hospital bills. But studies have found no correlation between prices and patient outcomes. A California state rating of hospital services by the California Health Care Foundation gave California Pacific Medical Center average scores in most categories, though its surgical-care measures were rated “superior.”
Its crosstown neighbor, University of California San Francisco, a nationally ranked academic institution, charges far less per day than California Pacific, when the greater severity of illnesses of its patients is factored in, Professor Melnick said. In fact, a recent study in the publication Annals of Surgery, a monthly review of surgical science, found that hospitals with the highest complication rates tended to have higher prices.
From such variations, economists conclude that “costs” are highly discretionary, noting that hospitals in other developed countries often provide high-quality care, with better outcomes in comparatively no-frills environments. Said Dr. Robinson, the Berkeley health economist: “If you pay hospitals more, they spend it. If you pay them less, they adjust. The only way to pay less for health care — is to pay less for health care.”
Hospital officials like to say that their list prices do not reflect what most patients actually pay, because private and government insurers negotiate discounts. Simone Singh, a professor of health management and policy at the University of Michigan, estimated that insurers generally paid 40 to 50 percent of charges. But with powerful chains like Sutter, prices are high and the discounts often are not so generous. Patients are left paying more.
A Price ‘Sequoia’
For her three stitches at California Pacific Medical Center, Deepika Singh ended up paying $768.56 — a lot of money for a 26-year-old retail supply chain manager — of the $1,813 rate her insurer negotiated for the approximately $2,200 bill. Ms. Duffy owed $1,366 after her insurer’s discount on 2-year-old Orla’s $1,700 bill, since the family had not met its annual deductible. “How much is that per minute?” she asked.
Across California, Sutter hospitals have proved expert at the business of medicine. “Our members are very exercised about Sutter — it has increased prices disproportionately,” said David Lansky, chief executive officer of the Pacific Business Group on Health, which represents 60 of California’s biggest private employers in its health care negotiations. “Sutter has been successful at leveraging their huge size in dictating not just price but contract terms.”
Its major competitor is Kaiser, a health maintenance organization that runs a closed network of hospitals and doctors. California Pacific Medical Center delivers more than half the babies in San Francisco and is the city’s largest employer after Wells Fargo. Sutter contracts also include “gag clauses” that prevent employers from knowing what rates have been negotiated by their insurers on their behalf, Mr. Lansky said.
Chuck Idelson, a spokesman for the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy, the research arm of the California Nurses Association, said Sutter prices were 40 to 70 percent above its rivals’ for similar services. When Sutter bought Summit Hospital in Oakland in 1999, rates there went up 29 percent to 72 percent, researchers found. Because of pricing issues, proposed insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act did not initially include Sutter hospitals.
Terry Miller, 62, a businessman in the Bay Area, got a bill for $117,000 for a two-night stay at California Pacific Medical Center to place a stent to open one of his heart’s clogged arteries — a charge that did not include fees for the cardiologist and radiologist. According to the Medicare database, California Pacific Medical Center charged $43,679 for hospitalization to treat a simple pneumonia and $96,642 to treat a stroke; the Medicare payments for those illnesses were $8,046 and $9,583.
The high prices have had a ripple effect across Northern California, allowing smaller hospitals to charge more as well. “Sutter is the tallest Sequoia and everyone goes up just underneath them a bit,” said Professor Melnick. He noted that hospital prices in California had more than doubled in the past decade, after adjustment for inflation.
And payouts in the Pacific region for simple emergency room treatments — stitches, a sprained ankle and an upper respiratory infection — were by far the highest in the country, about 50 percent higher than in the Northeast, according to an analysis performed for The Times. by the health care consulting firm Truven Health Analytics.
The Merger Factor
In theory, health care consolidation can lead to economies of scale, but not if it produces complex supersize systems. Excess administrative costs accounted for about $190 billion of the $2.5 trillion medical bill of the United States in 2009, the Institute of Medicine estimated this year — money that could be used for other purposes.
“There is a big flurry of consolidation and the effects depend on what the objective of the health care system is,” said Orry Jacobs of the health care consulting firm BDC Advisors. “If the intent is to improve care and bend cost curves, then networks can do so. If the objective is to corner the market and demand higher rates, then that will happen.” Indeed, research shows that today’s hospital mergers tend to drive up prices.
And employers have limited ability to fight back. Sutter operates the only hospital in some California cities. Beginning on Jan. 1, the University of California, Berkeley, will exclude Sutter’s two nearby hospitals from its plan because it could not reach a price agreement. The university’s employees will have to cross the bay or drive inland for in-network hospital treatment, or pay more.
As is often the case in American medicine, patients will decide if they are willing to pay the high price of care. Back home in New York City, Orla Duffy’s head wound has healed nicely without further treatment. Deepika Singh had her stitches taken out at an urgent care clinic, costing $25 with her copay, during a business trip to Washington.
Daniel Diaz, who had been treated at Lenox Hill, Mr. Roberts and Amy Bernstein had no choice but to visit an emergency room this year for stitches. But they all refused to see a doctor for the follow-up.
“The amount was outrageous for the time it took to put them in,” said Ms. Bernstein, 54, a real estate lawyer from Long Island, who cut herself cleaning knives while fixing a kitchen damaged by Hurricane Sandy. “I was so disgusted, I took them out myself.”
Jo Craven McGinty contributed reporting from New York.
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7) Drone Surveillance Begins in Congo
By REUTERS
The United Nations will start using surveillance drones for the first time in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday, United Nations officials said Monday. The drones will be used to monitor the volatile border between Congo and Rwanda and the movements of armed groups in the region. The United Nations has a huge peacekeeping mission in Congo, and the drones will be “an important tool to assist the mission in fulfilling its mandate to protect civilians,” said a United Nations spokesman, Martin Nesirky. The mission will start with two drones, built by an Italian company, officials said.
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8) Editor Details State Tactics After Leaks By Snowden
By RAVI SOMAIYA
The top editor of the British newspaper The Guardian told Parliament on Tuesday that since it had obtained documents on government surveillance from a former National Security Agency contractor, Edward J. Snowden, it has been subjected to measures “designed to intimidate” and has met with government agencies in Britain and the United States more than 100 times.
The editor, Alan Rusbridger, said that the governments’ measures “include prior restraint,” as well as visits by officials to his office, the destruction of Guardian computer disks with power tools and repeated calls from lawmakers “asking police to prosecute” The Guardian for disclosing the classified material in news articles.
Mr. Rusbridger was testifying before a Parliamentary committee looking into national security matters. He was questioned aggressively by lawmakers, particularly those of the ruling Conservative Party. Some said the paper had handled the material irresponsibly, putting it at risk of interception by hostile governments. Others said the paper had jeopardized national security.
His testimony gave a public airing to the debate over how to balance press freedom against national security concerns, an issue that became more acute once The Guardian began publishing material leaked by Mr. Snowden in June.
The American and British governments have said the disclosures, which detail how the National Security Agency and its equivalent in Britain, Government Communication Headquarters, gather vast amounts of data, damage national security and help hostile governments. Journalists and transparency advocates have countered that the leak spurred a vital debate on privacy and the role of spy agencies in the Internet age.
At one point during the hearing, Mr. Rusbridger was asked, to his evident surprise, whether he loved his country. He answered yes, noting that he valued its democracy and free press.
He also said The Guardian would “not be put off by intimidation” but would not act recklessly.
After Mr. Rusbridger appeared before the committee, a senior British police officer, Cressida Dick, refused to rule out prosecutions as part of an investigation into the matter.
“It appears possible once we look at the material that some people may have committed offenses,” she said.
Newspapers, particularly those that have dealt with Mr. Snowden’s material, have also been trying to adjust to a new reporting environment that sometimes resembles a spy novel, security experts and journalists said, as governments aggressively investigate leaks of sensitive material and others seek to gain access to it as well.
“The old model was kind of like your house,” said Marc Frons, the chief information officer of The New York Times. “You locked your front door and windows, but not your desk drawer, even if it had your passport inside. In the new model, you have locks on everything.” The Guardian, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal declined to comment about internal security arrangements.
But Mr. Rusbridger told Parliament that the newspaper was “not blind to the sensitivity of this material, and we went to more precautions over this material than any other story we have ever handled.”
Senior editors at The Guardian were initially skeptical this year when asked to hand over their cellphones before discussing Mr. Snowden’s documents, said a person with knowledge of the reporting process, who did not want to be named discussing confidential security procedures.
That soon changed when they reviewed the information Mr. Snowden had supplied, this person said. The documents, they came to realize, would be of intense interest to any of several parties — the American and British governments, from which they were taken, other governments like China and Russia seeking an espionage edge and hackers seeking to embarrass either government agencies or the publications writing articles about the material.
Eventually, skepticism about the precautions receded, and the same editors insisted that meetings be held in rooms without windows and that any electronic devices nearby be unplugged. Computers that contained the information could never be connected to the Internet. And reporters who needed to consult with colleagues in other countries about the documents had to fly them over physically and meet in person, despite the extra costs. On one occasion, Mr. Rusbridger said on Tuesday, encrypted documents were sent via Federal Express.
Nicholas Weaver, a computer security researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, said effective countermeasures for all reporters covering such issues begin with first contact with a source.
Noting that electronic devices “leave fingerprints everywhere you go,” he described precautions for news gatherers. “Leave all your high-tech gadgets at home; meet in a public location that’s kind of noisy, and wear a hat so you don’t get caught on camera.”
“You have to walk there, because we have this network of license plate readers now,” he said, or buy a transit ticket with cash and dispose of it afterward. As for making first contact with a sensitive source, Mr. Weaver said, “You have to wait for them to contact you.” Trench coats are optional.
Communicating with existing sources, said Ashkan Soltani, a security expert and reporter who has worked with The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, should be done on a computer isolated from all other “promiscuous communications” like web browsing and downloading files, to avoid the secret installation of malicious software to monitor activity.
“If the computers have malware, no amount of secure email, no amount of encryption is going to help,” he said. The threat is not abstract: Several news organizations have been victimized by hacking in recent years. In 2012, Chinese hackers infiltrated The New York Times’s systems, seeking access to reporters’ inboxes.
The United States government, too, seeks access to email information involving news organizations. Several secret subpoenas to companies like Google for data related to accounts linked with WikiLeaks have surfaced. Ultimately, Mr. Soltani said, sensible security might take the shape of special computers issued to those in high-risk reporting roles. But that will most likely take time. “It’s hard to change a newsroom, harder to change a company’s network and even harder to change human behavior,” he said.
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9) One Man Lost and Impaired, the Other Fearful and Armed
By KIM SEVERSON
CHICKAMAUGA, Ga. — Deanne Westbrook had tried everything to keep her husband, Ronald, in the house.
He was 72. Alzheimer’s had erased much of his talent for music and flying airplanes.
No one is sure how, in the frigid hours before dawn last Wednesday in this small north Georgia community near the Tennessee border, Mr. Westbrook ended up nearly three miles from home with a handful of other people’s mail, jiggling Joe Hendrix’s doorknob.
Mr. Hendrix, 34, stepped onto his porch with a Glock pistol in his hand and his fiancée inside on the phone with a 911 dispatcher. He fired four shots. One hit Mr. Westbrook in the chest.
On a cold and damp day Tuesday, Mrs. Westbrook buried her husband of 51 years, his death adding another chapter to the debate over the nation’s patchwork of self-defense laws.
“I understand the man who shot him is real upset, and I think he should be,” Mrs. Westbrook said in an interview. “He shot an innocent man. He should have stayed in the house like a normal person would.”
Investigators and a district attorney are weighing whether to charge Mr. Hendrix, a decision that exposes the challenge of balancing the right to use deadly force to defend oneself with the imperfect reality of snap decisions.
Unlike a case last month in Michigan when a white man shot a young black woman on his porch and the closely followed case of Trayvon Martin in Florida last year, this one had no racial overtones. Both men were white.
The legal issue revolves around the question of how scared was Mr. Hendrix — a young man who had just moved into the quiet neighborhood with his fiancée — in those early hours.
According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Sheriff Steve Wilson of Walker County, a sheriff’s deputy first encountered Mr. Westbrook about 2:30 a.m. the day he died.
In the confusion that comes from Alzheimer’s, Mr. Westbrook had taken to collecting the mail from neighbors’ mailboxes. He was doing so that night on Marbletop Road, which is a mile or so from his home. He told the deputy he lived in a nearby house, which at one time, years ago, he had.
“Better get home,” the deputy said. “It’s cold.”
The deputy drove on, and Mr. Westbrook, in a straw hat and a jacket too light for the weather, continued walking with his dogs.
Just before 4 a.m., he was nearly three miles from home in the subdivision of modest new houses where Mr. Hendrix lives, near Chattanooga.
Mr. Hendrix, a veteran of the Iraq war who last year served as the spokesman for a Republican candidate for Congress from Tennessee, Scottie Mayfield, did not return calls seeking an interview.
At least twice, Mr. Westbrook climbed onto the small porch, tried to open the door and rang the doorbell, Sheriff Wilson said. Dogs were barking. The police were called.
The sheriff and Mr. Westbrook had played together in their church’s orchestra. Mr. Westbrook had been a skilled trumpet player, retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel.
Sheriff Wilson said he wished Mr. Hendrix had just stayed inside. But he knows it was a tense situation.
“When you listen to the 911 calls, it’s evident to me that there was fear displayed at least by the female who lived there,” he said.
As Mr. Westbrook came around a corner of the house, Mr. Hendrix took his gun and repeatedly called for him to identify himself, he told the police. Then he fired the shots. Mr. Hendrix told investigators that Mr. Westbrook continued to approach him, so he fired the shot into his chest.
Deputies were six minutes away.
“When we sat down and told him the age of the victim and the diagnosis, he broke down and became emotional,” Sheriff Wilson said.
Within two weeks, investigators will meet with Herbert Franklin, the district attorney, to decide if Mr. Hendrix will face charges.
Mr. Franklin is already weighing another so-called Stand Your Ground case. Earlier in November, a 69-year-old man in neighboring Catoosa County came home to find two teenagers trying to break into his house. He shot one in the neck, a 17-year-old boy who died at the hospital.
In both cases, Mr. Franklin will be guided by what legal experts call the “reasonable person” standard as outlined in the state’s 2006 self-defense law.
“In order to use deadly force, you have to reasonably believe you are in imminent danger,” said the Gwinnett County district attorney, Danny Porter. “You weigh whether the homeowner can show he was in fear of receiving death or great bodily injury.”
Nearly two dozen states have some version of a Stand Your Ground law, and their popularity continues to grow. The Ohio House of Representatives last month approved a bill that, like many, would remove the need for a person to retreat before using deadly force in self-defense.
Georgia’s Stand Your Ground law was recently challenged by the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, whose leader, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, came to the state in early November to announce a lawsuit against Gov. Nathan Deal and the state attorney general.
Citing two recent cases, Mr. Jackson argued that the state’s law was being unequally applied to whites and blacks.
Mr. Westbrook’s death shows the continuing controversy over the law, even here in a part of the country where gun ownership is treated as a cherished right.
Chris Brown, 50, who lives down the street from the Westbrooks, supports Stand Your Ground laws. He is well-armed and not afraid to pull out a gun if someone broke into his home or tried to steal his truck.
“But if he’s out in my yard and I’ve done called the cops, I’m waiting for the cops,” he said. “What that guy did wasn’t Stand Your Ground.”
Mr. Westbrook’s widow herself is not sure that Mr. Hendrix should be charged.
“I don’t know what his mind-set was, and I don’t know enough about the law to know,” Mrs. Westbrook said. “But that’s all over now. His life is already taken. He took the life of a real gentle man, and it’s a crying shame.”
Alan Blinder contributed reporting from Atlanta.
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10) Hopi Tribe Sues Paris Auction House
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Native American Hopi tribe took a Paris auction house to court Tuesday to try to block the sale of 32 sacred tribal masks, arguing they are “bitterly opposed” to the use as merchandise of sacred objects that represent their ancestral spirits. The Katsinam masks are scheduled for sale at the Drouot auction house on Dec. 9 and 11, alongside a Zuni altar and Native American frescoes and dolls. In April, a Paris court ruled that such sales are legal in France, and Drouot sold around 70 Hopi masks despite vocal protests from the United States. A verdict in the new case is expected Friday.
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11) Documents Say Phones Outside U.S. Are Tracked
By JAMES GLANZ
The National Security Agency is tracking the location and movements of hundreds of millions of cellphones outside the United States in an effort to find suspicious travel patterns or coordinated activities by intelligence targets, according to secret documents leaked by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden.
To carry out the tracking, the agency collects nearly five billion records on cellphones outside the United States each day from taps on fiber optic cables and other communication conduits that carry cellphone traffic, the documents say. Enough of that data is saved to track a small fraction of the phones over time.
The documents and the tracking program were described by The Washington Post on Wednesday.
Cellphone calls, text messages and other traffic must be routed through global networks from the caller or sender to the intended recipient — another cellphone, for example. That routing is guided by so-called metadata, which acts as a sort of addressing system for the network. The metadata inevitably contains information about where a call originated, and therefore the location of a cellphone.
In October, The New York Times reported that the agency carried out a secret test project in 2010 and 2011 to collect large amounts of data on the location of Americans’ cellphones inside the United States. James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, confirmed the existence of the test program but said that it was never put into practice.
At the time, Mr. Clapper said that the United States was not collecting location information on Americans under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which the agency says is the basis for its formerly secret program to collect telephone logs — another term for metadata — of all domestic calls. The domestic logs are collected directly from telephone companies.
The overseas collection described in the latest documents do not appear to raise legal questions in the United States, even though it is likely that cellphones carried by many Americans overseas would be included in the collection effort. Still, the revelation is certain to stoke further resentment by foreigners because the scope of N.S.A. spying overseas seems to widen with the leak of each new document.
The American Civil Liberties Union, in a statement, protested the collection of cellphone data on such a wide scale, saying that the program was particularly disturbing “given the substantial number of Americans having their movements recorded by the government.”
The premise of the N.S.A.’s overseas tracking program seems to be that algorithms can sift through billions of records and pick out suspicious activity like a terrorist planning session, or a series of phone calls to initiate an attack. The agency’s algorithms — like the methods used to track a contagion in a disease outbreak — would follow intelligence targets and provide agents with information on what sort of plan is afoot and how to stop it.
The N.S.A. has been either reluctant or unable to provide detailed information on whether its vast collection programs have an extensive record of pulling those needles out of the haystack of data.
It has long been standard in criminal investigations to use cellphone tracking data as a way of finding a suspect’s location. It can be “triangulated,” for example, based on its relative proximity to nearby cell towers. The latest documents make clear that the N.S.A. is collecting location data on a scale that was heretofore unimaginable: on millions of people around the world every day.
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12) In Detroit Ruling, Threats to Promises and Assumptions
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
Someday, Detroit’s bankruptcy may well be seen as the start of an era of broken promises.
For years, cities have promised rock-solid pensions without setting aside enough money to pay for them, aided by lax accounting practices, easy borrowing and sometimes the explicit encouragement of labor unions.
Officials were counting on rich investment gains to fill the holes; unions and their retirees were counting on legal provisions — like Michigan’s Constitution — that said pensions were unassailable and that benefits would always be paid, whether through higher taxes or budget cutbacks elsewhere.
But a bankruptcy judge, Steven W. Rhodes, threw a wrench into that thinking on Tuesday, ruling that pension benefits could be reduced in a bankruptcy proceeding. The decision recast the landscape and gave distressed cities leverage to backtrack on their promises.
“Last night, as a public employees’ union leader, you went to bed thinking, ‘My workers’ pensions have special protection; I can continue to play hardball,’ ” Karol K. Denniston, a lawyer with the firm Schiff Hardin who has been advising residents of California cities on fiscal issues, said Tuesday after the judge issued his ruling. “This morning you woke up and found yourself in a new world.”
Public employees’ unions are already fighting back, though not against the chronic underfunding of their benefits. They are fighting the notion that at some point, the state protection of benefits does not hold.
Detroit’s biggest municipal union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or Afscme, swiftly asked permission to appeal directly to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, rather than Federal District Court, citing the wide public interest in the case. Officials of Detroit’s pension system said Wednesday that they planned to appeal as well.
“The state Constitution represents the people’s will,” they said in a statement. “That will cannot be ignored or subverted because it’s financially convenient to do so.”
Afscme leaders were also girding for battle in California, Florida and Illinois — places where public pension costs are rising beyond the local population’s willingness to pay, prompting cutbacks, whether in bankruptcy or not. They and other union officials argue that their members bargained away potential salary increases in favor of pensions, so cutting them now would be like refusing to issue paychecks at the end of the workweek.
“It’s a horror film,” said Anders Lindall, a spokesman for Afscme in Illinois, where the state legislature voted Tuesday to cut back retirees’ cost-of-living adjustments as part of a broad effort to bring the state’s pension system into balance. Illinois, like Michigan, has an explicit reference to protecting public pensions in its Constitution.
Sharon Levine, a lawyer who helped lay out the unions’ case before Judge Rhodes, warned that his decision would “be a road map for governors across the country to use Chapter 9 to create a self-created emergency.”
Fiscal hawks argue that states and cities already have a pension emergency, just not an easy one to see. Economist after economist has begun to argue in recent years that trillions of dollars are missing from state and local pension systems, but the shortfall is obscured by murky accounting. Governmental accounting rules, in turn, were written differently from corporate ones on the thinking that a city differs from a company. One big difference is that companies go bankrupt by the thousands but cities are thought to last forever, supposedly giving them infinite time and little reason to disclose pension values precisely.
Detroit illustrates the flaw in that thinking, but not just since Tuesday’s ruling. Its painful decline has been happening for decades. As city workers continued to build up their benefits over the years, the cost of the pension promises grew beyond the means of the city’s shrinking tax base. In 2005, the city needed more cash for its pension funds, so it tapped the municipal bond markets for $1.4 billion.
Detroit, by that time, had already reached its legal borrowing limit, but its financial advisers were able to structure the deal to make it appear as if it did not add to the city’s debt. The unions signed on because the mayor at the time, Kwame M. Kilpatrick, warned that the only other option was to lay off 2,000 workers, many of them union members. The prospectus’s description of the constitutional pension protection made it seem as if the city was simply complying with its mandate.
Those securities were the first to go into default as Detroit plunged toward bankruptcy last summer. The investors who bought them have discovered that they, too, are unsecured creditors in bankruptcy — and they, too, thought they had legal protections from the state. “No one should be surprised,” said Richard Ravitch, the former lieutenant governor of New York who is conducting a research project to track the sustainability of state finances. “Every incentive in this system is to kick the can, and everybody’s doing it.”
“The unions knew the contracts would be abrogated in bankruptcy,” he said. “The bankers, too.”
Mr. Ravitch recalled the way company pensions were handled in Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases. In those cases, workers and retirees are treated as secured creditors to the extent that there is money in the pension fund. That money serves as collateral, fully backing the benefits. In the typical company bankruptcy these days, however, the pension fund has a shortfall, and the workers’ claim for that amount is treated as unsecured credit, as Judge Rhodes has ruled for Detroit.
Workers for companies owe their relative protection to big unions, like the United Auto Workers and the United Steelworkers, which pushed for a landmark pension law enacted in 1974. It set up a federal pension insurance program and required companies that promised pensions to fund them. It also empowers the federal government to penalize companies that fail to fund their benefits.
Members of Congress wanted the funding rules to cover state and city pensions, too. Russell Mueller, an actuary who spent months researching public pensions for a House subcommittee, filed a report in 1978 describing a pension Wild West, where the federal government was running dozens of plans that no one seemed to know about, and the states and cities had more than 7,000 overlapping plans. The accounting was so haphazard that when Mr. Mueller totaled the forgotten assets, the discrepancy had a material effect on the gross national product.
The report quoted a Michigan state representative, Dan Angel, complaining about the way pensions in his state were being granted: “This takes place in a totally political atmosphere, without any regard for how the bill will be paid, by whom, and when,” he said. “Employees had better get concerned that there is enough cash on hand to meet retirement needs, and taxpayers had better get concerned with these massive and increasing debt obligations.”
“Public pension legislation is inevitable,” Mr. Mueller concluded in his report.
But he was wrong. State and local officials shot down the proposed federal funding requirements. Mr. Mueller’s research was filed away and forgotten for the next 35 years, leaving governments and their workers to rely on state laws and constitutions, whose protection now has been called into serious question.
For years, cities have promised rock-solid pensions without setting aside enough money to pay for them, aided by lax accounting practices, easy borrowing and sometimes the explicit encouragement of labor unions.
Officials were counting on rich investment gains to fill the holes; unions and their retirees were counting on legal provisions — like Michigan’s Constitution — that said pensions were unassailable and that benefits would always be paid, whether through higher taxes or budget cutbacks elsewhere.
But a bankruptcy judge, Steven W. Rhodes, threw a wrench into that thinking on Tuesday, ruling that pension benefits could be reduced in a bankruptcy proceeding. The decision recast the landscape and gave distressed cities leverage to backtrack on their promises.
“Last night, as a public employees’ union leader, you went to bed thinking, ‘My workers’ pensions have special protection; I can continue to play hardball,’ ” Karol K. Denniston, a lawyer with the firm Schiff Hardin who has been advising residents of California cities on fiscal issues, said Tuesday after the judge issued his ruling. “This morning you woke up and found yourself in a new world.”
Public employees’ unions are already fighting back, though not against the chronic underfunding of their benefits. They are fighting the notion that at some point, the state protection of benefits does not hold.
Detroit’s biggest municipal union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or Afscme, swiftly asked permission to appeal directly to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, rather than Federal District Court, citing the wide public interest in the case. Officials of Detroit’s pension system said Wednesday that they planned to appeal as well.
“The state Constitution represents the people’s will,” they said in a statement. “That will cannot be ignored or subverted because it’s financially convenient to do so.”
Afscme leaders were also girding for battle in California, Florida and Illinois — places where public pension costs are rising beyond the local population’s willingness to pay, prompting cutbacks, whether in bankruptcy or not. They and other union officials argue that their members bargained away potential salary increases in favor of pensions, so cutting them now would be like refusing to issue paychecks at the end of the workweek.
“It’s a horror film,” said Anders Lindall, a spokesman for Afscme in Illinois, where the state legislature voted Tuesday to cut back retirees’ cost-of-living adjustments as part of a broad effort to bring the state’s pension system into balance. Illinois, like Michigan, has an explicit reference to protecting public pensions in its Constitution.
Sharon Levine, a lawyer who helped lay out the unions’ case before Judge Rhodes, warned that his decision would “be a road map for governors across the country to use Chapter 9 to create a self-created emergency.”
Fiscal hawks argue that states and cities already have a pension emergency, just not an easy one to see. Economist after economist has begun to argue in recent years that trillions of dollars are missing from state and local pension systems, but the shortfall is obscured by murky accounting. Governmental accounting rules, in turn, were written differently from corporate ones on the thinking that a city differs from a company. One big difference is that companies go bankrupt by the thousands but cities are thought to last forever, supposedly giving them infinite time and little reason to disclose pension values precisely.
Detroit illustrates the flaw in that thinking, but not just since Tuesday’s ruling. Its painful decline has been happening for decades. As city workers continued to build up their benefits over the years, the cost of the pension promises grew beyond the means of the city’s shrinking tax base. In 2005, the city needed more cash for its pension funds, so it tapped the municipal bond markets for $1.4 billion.
Detroit, by that time, had already reached its legal borrowing limit, but its financial advisers were able to structure the deal to make it appear as if it did not add to the city’s debt. The unions signed on because the mayor at the time, Kwame M. Kilpatrick, warned that the only other option was to lay off 2,000 workers, many of them union members. The prospectus’s description of the constitutional pension protection made it seem as if the city was simply complying with its mandate.
Those securities were the first to go into default as Detroit plunged toward bankruptcy last summer. The investors who bought them have discovered that they, too, are unsecured creditors in bankruptcy — and they, too, thought they had legal protections from the state. “No one should be surprised,” said Richard Ravitch, the former lieutenant governor of New York who is conducting a research project to track the sustainability of state finances. “Every incentive in this system is to kick the can, and everybody’s doing it.”
“The unions knew the contracts would be abrogated in bankruptcy,” he said. “The bankers, too.”
Mr. Ravitch recalled the way company pensions were handled in Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases. In those cases, workers and retirees are treated as secured creditors to the extent that there is money in the pension fund. That money serves as collateral, fully backing the benefits. In the typical company bankruptcy these days, however, the pension fund has a shortfall, and the workers’ claim for that amount is treated as unsecured credit, as Judge Rhodes has ruled for Detroit.
Workers for companies owe their relative protection to big unions, like the United Auto Workers and the United Steelworkers, which pushed for a landmark pension law enacted in 1974. It set up a federal pension insurance program and required companies that promised pensions to fund them. It also empowers the federal government to penalize companies that fail to fund their benefits.
Members of Congress wanted the funding rules to cover state and city pensions, too. Russell Mueller, an actuary who spent months researching public pensions for a House subcommittee, filed a report in 1978 describing a pension Wild West, where the federal government was running dozens of plans that no one seemed to know about, and the states and cities had more than 7,000 overlapping plans. The accounting was so haphazard that when Mr. Mueller totaled the forgotten assets, the discrepancy had a material effect on the gross national product.
The report quoted a Michigan state representative, Dan Angel, complaining about the way pensions in his state were being granted: “This takes place in a totally political atmosphere, without any regard for how the bill will be paid, by whom, and when,” he said. “Employees had better get concerned that there is enough cash on hand to meet retirement needs, and taxpayers had better get concerned with these massive and increasing debt obligations.”
“Public pension legislation is inevitable,” Mr. Mueller concluded in his report.
But he was wrong. State and local officials shot down the proposed federal funding requirements. Mr. Mueller’s research was filed away and forgotten for the next 35 years, leaving governments and their workers to rely on state laws and constitutions, whose protection now has been called into serious question.
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13) Poor Black and Hispanic Men Are the Face of H.I.V.
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
The AIDS epidemic in America is rapidly becoming concentrated among poor, young black and Hispanic men who have sex with men.
Despite years of progress in preventing and treating H.I.V. in the middle class, the number of new infections nationwide remains stubbornly stuck at 50,000 a year — more and more of them in these men, who make up less than 1 percent of the population.
Giselle, a homeless 23-year-old transgender woman with cafe-au-lait skin, could be called the new face of the epidemic.
“I tested positive about a year ago,” said Giselle, who was born male but now has a girlish hair spout, wears a T-shirt tight across a feminine chest and identifies herself as a woman. “I don’t know how, exactly. I was homeless. I was escorting. I’ve been raped.”
“Yes, I use condoms,” she added. “But I’m not going to lie. I slip sometimes. Trust me — everyone here who says, ‘I always use condoms’? They don’t always.”
Besides transgender people like Giselle, the affected group includes men who are openly gay, secretly gay or bisexual, and those who consider themselves heterosexual but have had sex with men, willingly or unwillingly, in shelters or prison or for money. (Most of those interviewed for this article spoke on the condition that only their first names be used.)
Nationally, 25 percent of new infections are in black and Hispanic men, and in New York City it is 45 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the city’s health department.
Nationally, when only men under 25 infected through gay sex are counted, 80 percent are black or Hispanic — even though they engage in less high-risk behavior than their white peers.
The prospects for change look grim. Critics say little is being done to save this group, and none of it with any great urgency.
“There wasn’t even an ad campaign aimed at young black men until last year — what’s that about?” said Krishna Stone, a spokeswoman for GMHC, which was founded in the 1980s as the Gay Men’s Health Crisis.
Phill Wilson, president of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles, said there were “no models out there right now for reaching these men.”
Federal and state health officials agreed that it had taken years to shift prevention messages away from targets chosen 30 years ago: men who frequent gay bars, many of whom are white and middle-class, and heterosexual teenagers, who are at relatively low risk. Funding for health agencies has been flat, and there has been little political pressure to focus on young gay blacks and Hispanics.
Reaching those men “is the Holy Grail, and we’re working on it,” said Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of H.I.V. prevention at the C.D.C. His agency created its Testing Makes Us Stronger campaign — the one Ms. Stone referred to — and has granted millions of dollars to local health departments and community groups to pay for testing.
But he could not name a city or state with proven success in lowering infection rates in young gay minority men.
“With more resources, we could make bigger strides,” he said.
Reaching Out
Gay black youths are hard to reach, experts say. Few are out to their families. Many live in places where gays are stigmatized and cannot afford to move. Few attend schools with gay pride clubs or gay guidance counselors.
“When we talked about H.I.V. in sex ed, the class started freaking out,” said Alex, 20, who was born in St. Croix but raised in New York. “One guy said, ‘We ain’t no faggots; why do we have to learn this stuff?’ So the teacher stopped and moved on to another topic.”
When those who are poor and homeless go to traditional gay hangouts, they become prey.
Kwame, a 20-year-old from Philadelphia, said that on his first day wandering around New York last year, he was propositioned by an older homeless man and by an older transgender person. The homeless man later admitted that he was infected, and added: “If you sit here long enough, you’re going to get some propositions — and that’s where you’re going to sleep tonight. It happened to me, and it’s going to happen to you.”
Kwame said he had sex that night — with a man he met at a gay services center, where he had gone in search of emergency housing. “I wore a condom,” he said. “I did it sort of out of guilt, or pity. It’s how I was raised. I didn’t want him to think I thought less of him. Also, I needed someplace to stay.”
According to a major C.D.C.-led study, a male-male sex act for a young black American is eight times as likely to end in H.I.V. infection as it is for his white peers.
That is true even though, on average, black youths in the study took fewer risks than their white peers: they had fewer partners, engaged in fewer acts of sex while drunk or high, and used condoms more often.
They had other risk factors. Lacking health insurance, they were less likely to have seen doctors regularly and more likely to have syphilis, which creates a path for H.I.V.
But the crucial factor was that more of their partners were older black men, who are much more likely to have untreated H.I.V. than older white men.
Among the poor, untreated or inadequately treated H.I.V. is the norm, not the exception, said Perry N. Halkitis, a professor of psychology and public health at New York University. According to the C.D.C., 79 percent of H.I.V.-infected black men who have sex with men and 74 percent of Hispanics are not “virally suppressed,” meaning they can transmit the infection, either because they are not yet on antiretroviral drugs or are not taking them daily.
Giselle admitted to sometimes skipping days. “The medicine gets you sick,” she said. “It messes up your mental state. Or it can be freezing and I’m sweating.”
Missed doses let the virus rebound, sometimes in drug-resistant strains, experts said.
Other risk factors include depression and fatalism. In a 2012 project by the National Youth Pride Services, an advocacy organization for gay black youths, more than half of the young gay black people questioned said they feared their friends or families would disown them if they came out as gay, and about 4 in 10 said they had contemplated suicide over being gay.
“The image of a black gay man almost doesn’t exist,” said Shariff Gibbons, 25, who works with other young men at GMHC. “In the black community, the image that ‘gay men are sissies’ is amped up a billion times. And we all have an aunt who goes to church and says, ‘Being gay is wrong.’ That makes young men hide.”
Fighting Isolation
Roderick, 22, said his aunt, who took him in after his parents were arrested on drug charges, became furious after he told her at age 15 that he was gay. Later he attended a small New Jersey university and studied to be a veterinarian. But when his aunt learned that he was dating a white man, she demanded that he return home and go to a local community college.
She and his cousins called him an “Oreo” and even viler names, he said. “It got to where I felt I was going to snap, and kill myself or kill them. I didn’t want to do either, so one night I took my cousin’s bike and I left, and took a train to New York. I’m just basically dead to my family now.”
In New York, he found housing through the Ali Forney Center, which is named after a young gay rights advocate murdered in 1997 and which shelters gay minority youths, who are often abused in regular shelters. Roderick briefly supported himself by having sex for money at parties organized through Craigslist. But he gave that up, he said, has one partner and is applying for veterinary scholarships.
Several young men described having felt isolated and scared as teenagers, and so depressed that they hardly cared if they lived or died, which left them indifferent about using condoms, especially when they were offered money not to. And many turned to empathetic older men who had gone through the same crises in their youth. Alex said his mother threatened to throw him out when she caught him with another boy when he was a teenager — but she needed the disability checks he receives because of nerve damage done at birth.
“I have three strikes against me: I’m black, I’m gay, and I’m in a wheelchair,” he said. “All I wanted was love and comfort and being with someone in the world.”
Sex with strangers was as close as he could get. His first time was in a stairwell of his housing project with a man he met on a black gay chat site.
“It was a hit and a bounce and leave,” he said. “Unprotected oral and anal.” When he was older, he sold himself on the Chelsea Piers.
Two scary events — getting syphilis and being raped by an older man he thought loved him — brought him to GMHC, which offers separate support groups for black and Hispanic men, teenagers and transsexuals. They offer advice, H.I.V. tests and help on being openly gay.
For example, several men said they joined after being handed GMHC “I Love My Boo” fliers, which show young black male lovers holding hands and kissing in Central Park.
An Inadequate Response
But scattered local programs like these, and those offering housing, legal and medical help and other services, are not turning the tide of infections because the national response is fragmented and hesitant.
Few black political or religious leaders talk regularly about the problem — though there are exceptions, including Representative Barbara Lee, a Democrat from Oakland, Calif., and the Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts III of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Ms. Lee and several other congresswomen publicly take annual H.I.V. tests. Few men in the Congressional Black Caucus agree to join them, one of her aides said.
Dr. Butts has endorsed home H.I.V. tests from the pulpit and exhorted his congregants to accept gay relatives, but many black clergy members are far less accepting; some have fought same-sex marriage ballot measures.
Many programs have been proposed and tested, including financial incentives: paying parents who accept their gay sons to meet with parents who reject theirs; paying men who bring in friends for H.I.V. tests; and paying older black men to give cooking lessons and safe-sex advice to younger ones. But none have been widely adopted.
At a recent GMHC forum on why its programs for young black men were being cut, Janet Weinberg, the agency’s acting chief executive, said the epidemic was in some ways still where it was 30 years ago. “We have the tools to end it,” she said, “except for the government’s indifference.”
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14) Arizona Agency Is Faulted in Deaths of Firefighters
"A commission report said the forestry division had kept the firefighters on the mountains even after commanders realized that they could not control the flames burning through the parched, thick chaparral along the western edge of the old gold-mining village of Yarnell, 80 miles northwest of Phoenix."
By FERNANDA SANTOS
PHOENIX — A state safety commission recommended fines totaling $559,000 against the Arizona State Forestry Division on Wednesday, saying the agency wrongly put the protection of “structures and pastureland” ahead of the safety of firefighters battling a wildfire in central Arizona last summer, including 19 who died trapped by the flames at the base of a mountain.
A commission report said the forestry division had kept the firefighters on the mountains even after commanders realized that they could not control the flames burning through the parched, thick chaparral along the western edge of the old gold-mining village of Yarnell, 80 miles northwest of Phoenix.
In the report, inspectors for the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health said the agency’s actions resulted in “multiple instances of firefighters being unnecessarily and unreasonably exposed to the deadly hazards of wildland firefighting.”
The inspectors wrote that the agency did not protect the firefighters from “recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm.”
The investigators recommended that the forestry division pay a penalty of $70,000, and $25,000 per firefighter who died, to be paid directly to their families or estates, a total of $545,000. Penalties of $14,000 were recommended for other safety infractions.
The report, released during a meeting of the Industrial Commission of Arizona, which enforces rules governing the health and safety of state employees, also faulted the team that ran firefighting operations on June 30, when the firefighters died, for being understaffed, which led to “an organization that lacked the initial cohesion needed” to successfully fight the fire. Safety officers who were recruited to help arrived only after firefighting operations were well underway that day, when thunderstorm winds sent flames racing toward the firefighters, all members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a highly trained front-line fire suppression squad.
At the meeting, Marshall Krotenberg, safety compliance supervisor for the state’s division of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, told the commission’s members that the absence of safety officers “increased the risk of firefighter exposure to hazards.”
“Do we know why there was a delay?” Susan Strickler, the commission’s vice chairwoman, asked him.
“The ball got dropped,” Mr. Krotenberg replied. “That’s what our understanding is.” In a statement, Carrie Dennett, a spokeswoman for the state’s forestry division, said the agency “cooperated fully” with the investigation, but “cannot provide any statement” on the report or the fines it recommended until they were reviewed.
The fire began when a bolt of lightning ignited a small area on the mountains west of Yarnell on June 28. The area was deemed inaccessible to vehicles and was hard to reach on foot, and the fire did not initially seem to pose a significant threat to homes or people despite a prolonged drought.
A fire management officer chose to delay firefighting efforts until the next morning. Flames were escaping, but fire managers nonetheless failed to assess the changing nature of the fire, compromising the safety of the operations that would follow, Mr. Krotenberg said. The report cited several additional problems. Members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots — the 19 who died and their lookout, Brendan McDonough, who escaped — were tired, having just returned from fighting two fires. The report indicated that exhaustion could have affected their judgment.
A significant problem, Mr. Krotenberg said, was that despite forecasts and repeated warnings that a severe thunderstorm was on the way, there was no plan in place to account for it. There was, he added, “no information indicating that anyone had a plan in place,” addressing when and how the fire teams on the ground should evacuate to protect themselves from the dangers brought by the storm. Still, the report says that “even up to and including their last radio transmission,” Eric Marsh, the crew’s superintendent, who had been placed in charge of a region of the fire that day, and the rest of the Granite Mountain Hotshot team “were alert, unimaginably calm, thinking clearly and taking decisive actions.” That the 19 men died together — “no one ran,” the report says — was a testament to the strength of their bond and leadership, Mr. Krotenberg said. A separate report, by a team of local, state and federal investigators that was released in September, found no evidence of recklessness or negligence, but mentioned poor radio communication.
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15) Student Debt Load Found to Vary by College and State
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
Rising student debt has become a national concern, but the picture is far from uniform, with students at some colleges borrowing 10 times as much as their counterparts at other colleges, a report released Wednesday says.
The Institute for College Access and Success, a research group, reported not only an enormous variation in student debt from college to college — from less than $5,000 per borrower at some to almost $50,000 at others — but also wide differences by region, with students in the East and Midwest borrowing far more than those in the West and South.
The report underscores the murkiness of college costs, with students and parents often focusing on sticker prices that have little to do with how much aid they might receive, how much they might pay out of pocket, and how much they might have to borrow.
“There’s a growing awareness of the importance of student debt, and there are many more tools available now for people to learn about costs, but we still have a long way to go in informing people about how to finance an education, and how much it varies from school to school,” said Lauren Asher, president of the institute.
The report came a day after the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that it would regulate large loan servicers like Sallie Mae — companies that do not lend the money in the first place, but take over the management of the loans — in the $1.2 trillion student debt market. The federal bureau, created after the 2008 financial crisis, already oversees lenders, but it recently reported that people with student debts are often tripped up by the loan servicers, particularly when they seek to change repayment terms.
The Institute for College Access and Success estimated that of the students who earned bachelor’s degrees in the United States in 2011-12, 71 percent had student loans, and the average borrower had $29,400 in debt, compared with 68 percent and $23,450 four years earlier. The group derived the figures from an annual survey of more than 1,000 colleges and a federal government survey of former students conducted every four years.
The numbers are skewed somewhat by for-profit colleges, which award about 6 percent of bachelor’s degrees, and where students are much more likely to borrow money, and borrow far more on average. Excluding for-profit schools, the institute reported that 68 percent of graduates had student debt, averaging $27,850; a recent report by the College Board, using different methodology, put those figures at 60 percent and $26,500.
The institute’s report lists some of the colleges where students borrow the most and the least, based on the college survey, but cautions that some colleges that did not take part in the survey might have made those rosters. Nearly all for-profit colleges did not take part. The high-debt private colleges listed are concentrated in the Northeast, while half of the high-debt public colleges are state schools in Pennsylvania or New Jersey.
The institute also posted college-specific figures on Wednesday in a searchable online database. It shows two private colleges, Anna Maria College and Wheelock College, both in Massachusetts, with more than 80 percent of graduates having student loans, and the highest average debt per borrower, around $49,000, among colleges that provided figures. At two other private schools, Becker College in Massachusetts and Marylhurst University in Oregon, average debt was a few thousand dollars lower, but there were more borrowers — more than 90 percent of their graduates had debts.
The colleges on the report’s low-debt list are a geographically diverse mix of public and private, ranging from little-known places like Campbellsville University in Kentucky to Princeton University.
At California State University at Sacramento, fewer than half of graduates had student loans, which averaged less than $4,500. At Bernard M. Baruch College of the City University of New York, the average debt per borrower was slightly higher, but only about one graduate in five borrowed any money for college.
State-wise, graduates of colleges in Arizona, California, Louisiana, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming were among the least likely to have student debt, and those who did borrowed relatively little. Graduates in New Mexico had the lowest average debt per borrower of any state, about $18,000.
At the other end of the spectrum, graduates in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Maine, Minnesota and Ohio were among the most likely to borrow and had some of the highest debt loads. Delaware colleges had the highest debt per borrower, almost $34,000.
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16) Report Details the Extent of a Crime Lab Technician’s Errors in Handling Evidence
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
The crime lab technician mislabeled samples, using “the victim’s name instead of suspect’s name,” her evaluation said. Her supervisors disqualified her from testifying in court because of her inability to “explain and retain basic concepts.”
Indeed, for a time, the technician, Serrita Mitchell, was only allowed to perform the most rote assignments at the New York City medical examiner’s office.
When she was given another chance, more errors occurred and she overlooked crucial evidence in a number of rape investigations, according to a new report by the state inspector general’s office.
The report describes a troubling pattern of mistakes at the city’s premier crime lab, also considered among the best in the country.
The inspector general’s office, which has already presented its findings to the medical examiner’s office, is expected to release its report Thursday morning.
The report was commissioned after The New York Times revealed some of Ms. Mitchell’s errors and efforts by the medical examiner’s office to determine the extent of her mistakes. It questioned the office’s application of a new method for interpreting complicated mixtures of DNA.
The method, known as the forensic statistical tool, is frequently used by the medical examiner’s office in cases where trace amounts of DNA might be found on a handgun that several people had handled.
But the report found that scientists in the medical examiner’s office often disagreed about how to read the results, sometimes overruling one another. Yet in those cases, disputes over the accuracy of the DNA analysis were never acknowledged in the case report shared with the district attorney, much less the defense lawyers.
The inspector general, Catherine Leahy Scott, said in a statement that such dissent should have been described in the case reports prepared for prosecutors.
Regarding Ms. Mitchell’s mistakes, the report underscores how much her supervisors knew about her “myriad failures,” but “did not terminate” her employment.
For starters, Ms. Mitchell regularly overlooked stains on the clothing of sexual assault victims, a lapse that meant crucial DNA evidence went ignored and untested.
In 2011, for instance, she was reprimanded after finding only six stains on a T-shirt and pair of jeans gathered as evidence in a sexual assault; a supervisor found 20 other stains on the clothing that should have been tested for DNA.
Even more troubling was evidence that Ms. Mitchell was not testing the few stains that she found, instead, in some instances, simply marking them negative for DNA. Her supervisors reviewing her work noted that it was an open question whether these were paperwork errors or whether she was “actually falsifying” test results.
For more than two years, the office of the chief medical examiner has been reviewing Ms. Mitchell’s casework. It has found discrepancies in the contents of 24 sexual assault kits that were a result of her misplacing evidence, sometimes returning it to an unrelated case.
The review also found 37 sexual assault cases in which she had overlooked evidence, preventing DNA profiles in some cases from being discerned until many years later.
In 2001, a 14-year-old girl told the police that an 18-year-old acquaintance had forced himself on her, but the case foundered. Ms. Mitchell was charged with examining the girl’s underwear for DNA, but none was found. In 2012, the evidence was re-examined and male DNA was discovered, leading to the man’s arrest.
The charges were ultimately dropped after the girl, now in her 20s, refused to testify.
In a statement, the medical examiner’s office noted that it had put in place numerous changes since the lab technician’s errors were discovered. “The inspector general concurred with the new policies and procedures we put in place, and found their recommendations to be valuable to our ongoing policy changes,” the office said.
Ms. Mitchell, who left her job in 2011, could not be reached for comment. Efforts to reach Ms. Mitchell at two telephone numbers were unsuccessful.
In examining the office’s use of the forensic statistical tool, the inspector general’s report cited a case of DNA taken from a gun in which the report examining the evidence “was rewritten six times” because of a dispute within the lab over how to interpret the mixture.
The disagreement centered on whether the DNA had come from two or three people; the answer would influence the degree to which a suspect was considered a likely contributor to the DNA mixture.
Despite having rules for how to resolve such disagreements, the inspector general found that a leading scientist at the lab, Theresa Caragine, had rewritten final reports and reassigned cases “when she disagreed with the findings” of lower-ranking analysts. No records of the disputes were ever given to prosecutors or defense lawyers. Dr. Caragine subsequently resigned. The report notes that lawyers involved in the criminal prosecution who read “the final report would be ignorant of the dissension among the criminalists and Caragine regarding the case.”
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17) Unarmed Man Is Charged With Wounding Bystanders Shot by Police Near Times Square
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
December 4, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/nyregion/unarmed-man-is-charged-with-wounding-bystanders-shot-by-police-near-times-square.html?ref=nyregion
An unarmed, emotionally disturbed man shot at by the police as he was lurching around traffic near Times Square in September has been charged with assault, on the theory that he was responsible for bullet wounds suffered by two bystanders, according to an indictment unsealed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Wednesday.
The man, Glenn Broadnax, 35, of Brooklyn, created a disturbance on Sept. 14, wading into traffic at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue and throwing himself into the path of oncoming cars.
A curious crowd grew. Police officers arrived and tried to corral Mr. Broadnax, a 250-pound man. When he reached into his pants pocket, two officers, who, the police said, thought he was pulling a gun, opened fire, missing Mr. Broadnax, but hitting two nearby women. Finally, a police sergeant knocked Mr. Broadnax down with a Taser.
The shootings once again raised questions about the police use of firearms in crowded areas and drew comparisons to a shooting a year ago, when officers struck nine bystanders in front of the Empire State Building when they killed an armed murder suspect.
Initially Mr. Broadnax was arrested on misdemeanor charges of menacing, drug possession and resisting arrest. But the Manhattan district attorney’s office persuaded a grand jury to charge Mr. Broadnax with assault, a felony carrying a maximum sentence of 25 years. Specifically, the nine-count indictment unsealed on Wednesday said Mr. Broadnax “recklessly engaged in conduct which created a grave risk of death.”
“The defendant is the one that created the situation that injured innocent bystanders,” said an assistant district attorney, Shannon Lucey.
The two police officers, who have not been identified, have been placed on administrative duty and their actions are still under investigation by the district attorney’s office, law enforcement officials said. They also face an internal Police Department inquiry.
Mr. Broadnax’s lawyer, Rigodis Appling, said Mr. Broadnax suffered from anxiety and depression and had been disoriented and scared when the police shot at him. He was reaching for his wallet, not a gun, she said. “Mr. Broadnax never imagined his behavior would ever cause the police to shoot at him,” she said.
After his arrest, Mr. Broadnax was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center, where he told a detective that “he was talking to dead relatives in his head and that he tried throwing himself in front of cars to kill himself,” according to a court document released on Wednesday.
A judge ordered a mental evaluation, and a psychiatrist later found Mr. Broadnax competent to stand trial, Ms. Appling said.
On Wednesday, Justice Gregory Carro set bail at $100,000 bond or $50,000 cash. Mariann Wang, a lawyer representing Sahar Khoshakhlagh, one of the women who was wounded, said the district attorney should be pursuing charges against the two officers who fired their weapons in a crowd, not against Mr. Broadnax. “It’s an incredibly unfortunate use of prosecutorial discretion to be prosecuting a man who didn’t even injure my client,” she said. “It’s the police who injured my client.”
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18) $15 Wage in Fast Food Stirs Debate on Effects
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
As fast-food workers plan yet another round of one-day strikes on Thursday in cities around the country, labor leaders, economists and industry officials continue to debate the potential effects of raising wages at companies that often assert that such increases would raise consumer prices and shrink the work force.
Organizers of the fast-food workers’ nascent movement are clamoring for a $15 an hour wage, which would mean a 67 percent pay increase in an industry where wages average around $9 an hour.
Restaurant industry officials have balked at so high a wage, saying it would sharply raise fast-food prices and reduce employment, in part by fueling automation of some jobs. They call the demand of $15 an hour a nonstarter as far as initiating negotiations.
“When you start by insisting on $15 an hour, that’s not conducive to substantive dialogue,” said Scott DeFife, an executive vice president with the National Restaurant Association.
But Mary Kay Henry, the president of the Service Employees International Union, which has spent several million dollars to underwrite the fast-food strikes around the country that began a year ago, said it was only a matter of time before the worker protests became so great that McDonald’s, Burger King and other companies agreed to negotiate.
“I think there’s growing recognition that a nerve has been touched,” Ms. Henry said. “The industry had better start to take this seriously, because this isn’t going to blow over.”
But even experts who support some increase worry that a raise to $15 an hour would have profound effects on the industry. Arindrajit Dube, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, said an increase in pay to $15 would push up fast-food prices by nearly 20 percent. With the industry estimating that one-third of its costs go to labor, he said a $15 wage would mean wage increases averaging around 60 percent, raising the cost of a $3 hamburger to $3.50 or $3.60.
Ken Jacobs, chairman of the University of California, Berkeley, Center for Labor Research and Education, differed slightly on the effects, saying a $15 wage would cause a somewhat lesser price increase, perhaps 10 percent, and adding that higher pay would save restaurants some money by leading to less turnover and higher productivity per worker. In addition, he said, franchisees might swallow some of the increases instead of totally offsetting them with higher prices.
Stephen J. Caldeira, president of the International Franchise Association, estimated that the demand for $15 wages would lead to a 25 percent to 50 percent increase in fast-food prices. “It would definitely hurt the consumer,” he said. “Increasing the cost of labor would lead to higher prices for the consumer, lower foot traffic and sales for franchise owners and ultimately lost entry-level jobs.”
Within academia, there has been a fierce debate about how much increases in the minimum wage affect employment.
Professor Dube has been a leading voice in arguing that a modestly higher minimum wage does not harm employment levels. Nonetheless, he acknowledged that an increase as steep as the rise to $15 could hurt employment.
“Would I be concerned about possible job losses if there were a $15 minimum wage in the restaurant industry, yes, I’d be concerned,” he said. “There are concerns that it might lead to the substitution of automation for workers.”
Several fast-food chains have already cut labor costs by allowing self-service for soft drinks. And some restaurants have begun replacing counter workers with computer screens that greet customers and ask them to tap in their orders, which are relayed to the cooks.
David Neumark, an economics professor at University of California, Irvine, who has studied minimum wage increases in depth, estimated that raising fast-food pay to $15 would result in a 5 percent or 6 percent reduction in employment. He and Professor Dube said they were reluctant to speculate about the effects of a $15 wage because while many studies have been done about the effects of a 50 cent or $1 increase in the minimum wage, hardly any have been done about the effects of a sharp jump to the $15 area.
Still, Professor Neumark said, “Anyone who thinks sensibly about this should be concerned that $15 would have a big effect on employment.”
He said one advantage of a $15 wage was that it would save the government money by reducing workers’ reliance on food stamps and other programs. A study by the University of California, Berkeley, found that fast-food workers receive nearly $7 billion a year in public assistance.
Thursday’s one-day strikes are planned for 100 cities, and will include Boston, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York and Washington. The organizers say that there will be protest activities in an additional 100 cities and that thousands of fast-food workers will walk out. Industry officials insist that few workers will go on strike and that most of the protesters will be union or community activists.
Some fast-food workers who participated in a one-day strike in August say that they dream of getting a raise to $15, but would be happy to receive $12 or $13.
For the movement’s strategists, the big question is how to achieve their $15 goal. One option being debated is to push for referendums or city council measures that require restaurants and retailers to pay at least $15 an hour — similar to the recently approved referendum in SeaTac, Wash., requiring that workers at the international airport there be paid at least $15 an hour.
Ms. Henry, the service employees’ president, said the movement hoped to persuade McDonald’s and other companies to require franchisees to pay $15 an hour. To help the franchisees afford that, she said, the chains might agree to have their franchises pay them lower fees.
But Mr. Caldeira bridled at requiring a $15 wage. “It would put folks out of business,” he said.
Ms. Henry responded: “In our 90-year history as a union, I’ve never seen a time when workers got a wage increase that put people out of business. It’s in our interest to make sure we secure our employment, not to reduce employment.”
In some ways, the fast-food strikes parallel the Black Friday protests urging Walmart to pay its workers more. Some economists maintain that giving raises to low-paid fast-food and retail workers would stimulate the underperforming economy by increasing their ability to spend. But other economists counter that the stimulus would be negated when the raises forced restaurants and retailers to raise prices, subtracting from other consumers’ spending power. “The real problem with the economy is there aren’t enough people working,” said David French, a senior vice president at the National Retail Federation. “There’s been a lot of growth of jobs in the retail and service sector. It’s been one of the bright spots. Why then should the policy response be to create fewer jobs? That’s a bizarre remedy to a crushing problem.”
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B. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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Monday, Dec. 9: National Day of Action to Reclaim the Promise of Public Education
4:30-6:00 p.m.
Start: Market & 9th St.
It's time to fight back against the corporations that are starving our public schools and colleges by not paying their fair share of taxes, who mistreat their workers, and who displace families. Join students, teachers, parents and tenants on December 9th starting at 4:30 p.m. as we march on local corporate tax evaders and expose this Tale of Two Cities. Gather at 4:30 p.m. at Market & 9th. March to Market & 5th St. at 5:00 p.m.
RSVP at www.uesf.org/dec9.
Gather at 9th & Market in front of Twitter
Demand that the $100 million from this “Tax Free Zone” go to more for more teachers in the classroom, investing in City College and in affordable housing, vital services, transit and more.
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Public presentations by attorney David Coombs
David Coombs, attorney for American prisoner of conscience US Army Pvt. Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, will speak at three upcoming West Coast events hosted by the Private Manning Support Network. Mr. Coombs continues to represent the heroic WikiLeaks whistle-blower recently sentenced to 35-years in military prison.
Sunday, Dec. 8 at 7:00pm -- Los Angeles CA
The Church in Ocean Park, 235 Hill Street, Santa Monica CA 90405 - View flyer (pdf)
Monday, Dec. 9 at 6:30pm -- Oakland CA
Humanist Hall, 390 27th Street, Oakland CA 94612 - View flyer (pdf)
Wednesday, Dec. 11 at 7:00pm -- Seattle WA
University Temple United Methodist Church (Fireplace Room), 1415 NE 43rd St., Seattle WA 98105 - View flyer (pdf)
Events will include Q&A with Mr. Coombs, and a fund pitch by the Support Network to benefit Pvt. Manning's ongoing defense efforts, including pending legal appeals.
Events are presented by the Private Manning Support Network and Courage to Resist, with the help of Veterans for Peace, CODEPINK, Bay Area Military Law Panel, War Resisters League-West, Project Censored and the Media Freedom Foundation, SF Women in Black, World Can't Wait-SF Bay, OccupySF Action Council & Environmental Justice Working Group, OccupyForum, SF LGBT Pride Celebration Committee, Queer Strike, National Lawyers Guild-SF, and the Civilian-Soldier Alliance, MLK Coalition of Greater Los Angeles, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, Progressive Democrats of Santa Monica Mountains, March Forward, The ANSWER Coalition, Common Good Café, G.I. Voice / Coffee Strong, Peace Action Group of Plymouth Church UCC, Fellowship of Reconciliation-Seattle Chapter
$5-$10 donation requested at the door to cover event expenses. Wheelchair accessible. For more info, contact: Courage to Resist, 510-488-3559.
Help us continue to cover 100%
of Pvt. Manning's legal fees! Donate today.
of Pvt. Manning's legal fees! Donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38591
COURAGE TO RESIST
http://couragetoresist.org
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
510-488-3559
http://couragetoresist.org
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
510-488-3559
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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND
ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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U.S. Court of Appeals Rules Against Lorenzo Johnson’s
New Legal Challenge to His Frame-up Conviction!
Demand the PA Attorney General Dismiss the Charges!
Free Lorenzo Johnson, Now!
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit denied Lorenzo Johnson’s motion to file a Second Habeas Corpus Petition. The order contained the outrageous declaration that Johnson hadn’t made a “prima facie case” that he had new evidence of his innocence. This not only puts a legal obstacle in Johnson’s path as his fight for freedom makes its way (again) through the state and federal courts—but it undermines the newly filed Pennsylvania state appeal that is pending in the Court of Common Pleas.
Stripped of “legalese,” the court’s October 15, 2013 order says Johnson’s new evidence was not brought into court soon enough—although it was the prosecution and police who withheld evidence and coerced witnesses into lying or not coming forward with the truth! This, despite over fifteen years and rounds of legal battles to uncover the evidence of government misconduct. This is a set-back for Lorenzo Johnson’s renewed fight for his freedom, but Johnson is even more determined as his PA state court appeal continues.
Increased public support and protest is needed. The fight for Lorenzo Johnson’s freedom is not only a fight for this courageous man and family. The fight for Lorenzo Johnson is also a fight for all the innocent others who have been framed and are sitting in the slow death of prison. The PA Attorney General is directly pursuing the charges against Lorenzo, despite the evidence of his innocence and the corruption of the police. Free Lorenzo Johnson, Now!
—Rachel Wolkenstein, Esq.
October 25, 2013
For more on the federal court and PA state court legal filings.
Hear Mumia’s latest commentary, “Cat Cries”
Go to: www.FreeLorenzoJohnson.org for more information, to sign the petition, and how to help.
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PUSH CHELSEA'S JAILERS TO RESPECT HER IDENTITY
Call and write Ft Leavenworth today and tell them to honor Manning's wishes around her name and gender:
Chelsea's supporters were awarded the title “absolutely fabulous overall contingent” at the San Francisco Pride Parade
|
Call: (913) 758-3600
Write to:
Col. Sioban Ledwith, Commander
U.S. Detention Barracks
1301 N Warehouse Rd
Ft. Leavenworth KS 66027
Private Manning has been an icon both for the government transparency movement and LGBTQ activists because of her fearlessness and acts of conscience. Now, as she begins serving her sentence, Chelsea has asked for help with legal appeals, family visits, education, and support for undergoing gender transition. The latter is a decision she’s made following years of experiencing gender dysphoria and examining her options. At a difficult time in her life, she joined the military out of hope–the hope that she could use her service to save lives, and also the hope that it would help to suppress her feelings of gender dysphoria. But after serving time in Iraq, Private Manning realized what mattered to her most was the truth, personal as well as political, even when it proved challenging.
Now she wants the Fort Leavenworth military prison to allow her access to hormone replacement therapy which she has offered to pay for herself, as she pursues the process to have her name legally changed to ‘Chelsea Elizabeth Manning.’
To encourage the prison to honor her transgender identity, we’re calling on progressive supporters and allies to contact Fort Leavenworth officials demanding they acknowledge her requested name change immediately. Currently, prison officials are not required to respect Chelsea’s identity, and can even refuse to deliver mail addressed to the name ‘Chelsea Manning.’ However, it’s within prison administrators’ power to begin using the name ‘Chelsea Manning’ now, in advance of the legal name change which will most likely be approved sometime next year. It’s also up to these officials to approve Private Manning’s request for hormone therapy.
Call: (913) 758-3600
Write to:
Col. Sioban Ledwith, Commander
U.S. Detention Barracks
1301 N Warehouse Rd
Ft. Leavenworth KS 66027
Tell them: “Transgender rights are human rights! Respect Private Manning’s identity by acknowledging the name ‘Chelsea Manning’ whenever possible, including in mail addressed to her, and by allowing her access to appropriate medical treatment for gender dysphoria, including hormone replacement therapy (HRT).”
While openly transgender individuals are allowed to serve in many other militaries around the world, the US military continues to deny their existence. Now, by speaking up for Chelsea’s right to treatment, you can support one brave whistleblower in her personal struggle, and help set an important benchmark for the rights of transgender individuals everywhere. (Remember that letters written with focus and a respectful tone are more likely to be effective.) Feel free to copy this sample letter.
Earlier this year, the Private Manning Support Network won the title of most “absolutely fabulous overall contingent” at the San Francisco Pride Parade, the largest celebration of its kind for LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning) people nationwide. Over one thousand people marched for Private Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning in that parade, to show LGBTQ community pride for the Iraq War’s most well-known whistleblower.
Help us continue to cover 100%
of Pvt. Manning's legal fees! Donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38591
COURAGE TO RESIST
http://couragetoresist.org
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
510-488-3559
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Please sign the NEW petition for Lynne Stewart.
Your signature will send a letter to Bureau of Prisons Director Samuels and to Attorney General Holder requesting that they expedite Lynne Stewart’s current application for compassionate release. The NEW petition is at https://www.change.org/petitions/new-petition-to-free-lynne-stewart-support-compassionate-release
Your signature will send a letter to Bureau of Prisons Director Samuels and to Attorney General Holder requesting that they expedite Lynne Stewart’s current application for compassionate release. The NEW petition is at https://www.change.org/petitions/new-petition-to-free-lynne-stewart-support-compassionate-release
Free Lynne Stewart: Support Compassionate Release
http://www.change.org/petitions/free-lynne-stewart-support-compassionate-release
Renowned defense
attorney Lynne Stewart, unjustly charged and convicted for the “crime”
of providing her client with a fearless defense, is dying of cancer
while imprisoned in the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, Texas.
Your action now can lead to her freedom so that she
may live out her remaining days with the comfort and joy of her family
and those closest to her, including her devoted husband Ralph Poynter,
many children, grandchildren, a great grandchild and lifelong friends.
The conservative medical prognosis by the
oncologist contracted by the prison is that Lynne Stewart has but
16-months to live. Breast cancer, in remission prior to her
imprisonment, reached Stage Four more than a year ago, emerging in her
lymph nodes, shoulder, bones and lungs.
Despite repeated courses of chemotherapy, cancer
advances in her lungs, resistant to treatment. Compounding her dire
condition, Lynne Stewart’s white blood cell count dropped so low that
she has been isolated in a prison hospital room since April 2013 to
reduce risk of generalized infection.
Under the 1984 Sentencing Act, upon a prisoner’s
request, the Bureau of Prisons can file a motion with the Court to
reduce sentences “for extraordinary and compelling reasons,” life
threatening illness foremost among these.
Lynne Stewart’s recent re-application for
compassionate release meets all the criteria specified in guidelines
issued by the Bureau of Prisons in August 2013.
These “new guidelines” followed a searing report
and testimony before Congress by the Department of Justice’s Inspector
General Michael Horowitz. His findings corroborated a definitive report
by Human Rights Watch. Inspector General Horowitz excoriated the Federal
Bureau of Prisons for the restrictive crippling of the compassionate
release program. In a 20-year period, the Bureau had released a scant
492 persons – an average of 24 a year out of a population that exceeds
220,000.
Over 30,000 people of conscience from all walks of
life in the United States and internationally took action to free Lynne
Stewart following her first application for compassionate release in
April of this year.
Among those who raised their voices are former
Attorney General Ramsey Clark – who was co-counsel in the case that led
to Lynne Stewart’s imprisonment, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former
President of the United Nations General Assembly, Father Miguel D’Escoto
Brockmann, Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Ed Asner,
Daniel Berrigan, Liz McAllister Berrigan, Richard Falk, Daniel Ellsberg,
Noam Chomsky, Cornell West, Dick Gregory, Alice Walker and Bianca
Jagger.
They along with thousands of individuals and
organizations, such as the Center for Constitutional Rights, the
National Lawyers Guild and Lawyers Rights Watch Canada, directed
letters, phone calls and public declarations to the Federal Bureau of
Prisons Director Charles E. Samuels, Jr. and to Attorney General Eric H.
Holder, Jr.
Dick Gregory has refused all solid food since April
4 and his remarkable moral witness will not end until Lynne Stewart is
released.
We call upon all to amplify this outpouring of
support. We ask all within our reach to convey to Bureau of Prisons
Director Samuels his obligation to approve Lynne Stewart’s application
and instruct the federal attorney to file the requisite motion for Lynne
Stewart’s compassionate release.
Please sign this new petition and
reach out to others to sign. The letter below will be sent on your
behalf via email to Charles E. Samuels, Jr., Director of the Federal
Bureau of Prisons and to Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. Telephone
calls also can be made to the Bureau of Prisons:
(202) 307-3250/3262.
http://www.change.org/petitions/free-lynne-stewart-support-compassionate-release
Write to Lynne Stewart at:
Lynne Stewart #53504-054Unit 2N
Federal Medical Center, Carswell
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TX 76127
Federal Medical Center, Carswell
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TX 76127
or via:
www.lynnestewart.org
What you can do:
Demand Compassionate Release for Lynne Now!
Write and call:
President Obama
The White House
Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500
(202) 456-1111
Attorney General Eric Holder
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001
(202) 353-1555
Charles E. Samuels, Jr.
Director, Federal Bureau of Prisons
320 First Street, NW
Washington, DC 20534
(202) 307-3250/3262
Write to Lynne Stewart:
Lynne Stewart #53504-054
Unit 2N, Federal Medical Center, Carswell
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TX 76127
Write to Lynne Stewart Defense Committee at:
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York 11216
For further information: 718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759
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Kimberly Rivera
Imprisoned pregnant resister seeks early release for birth
495 supporters from around the world write letters in support of clemency applicationBy James Branum and Courage to Resist. November 4, 2013
Fort Carson, Colorado – Imprisoned war resister PFC Kimberly Rivera has submitted a clemency application seeking a reduction by 45 days in the 10 month prison sentence she received for seeking asylum in Canada rather return to her unit in Iraq.
The request for clemency was based on humanitarian reasons due to pregnancy. Unless clemency is granted, Private First Class Kimberly Rivera will be forced to give birth in prison and then immediately relinquish custody of her son while she continues to serve the remainder of her sentence.
Unfortunately military regulations provide no provisions for her to be able to breastfeed her infant son while she is in prison.
Fort Carson Senior Commander Brigadier General Michael A. Bills will be making a decision on PFC Rivera’s clemency request in the coming weeks.
PFC Rivera’s case made international news when she was the first female US soldier in the current era to flee to Canada for reasons of conscience. After a protracted struggle through the Canadian legal system, she was deported back to the United States in September 2012. She was then immediately arrested and sent back to the Army to stand trial.
In an interview with Courage to Resist on the eve of her court-martial,
Rivera said, “When I saw the little girl [in Iraq] shaking in fear, in
fear of me, because of my uniform, I couldn’t fathom what she had been
through and all I saw was my little girl and I just wanted to hold her
and comfort her. But I knew I couldn’t. It broke my heart. I am against
hurting anyone… I would harm myself first. I felt this also made me a
liability to my unit and I could not let me be a reason for anyone to be
harmed—so I left... Even though I did not fill out the official
application to obtain conscientious objector status, I consider myself a
conscientious objector to all war.”On April 29, 2013, PFC Rivera pled to charges of desertion. She was sentenced by the military judge to fourteen months in prison, loss of rank and pay, and a dishonorable discharge; thanks to a pre-trial agreement her sentence was reduced to an actual sentence to ten months of confinement and a bad-conduct discharge.
Kimberly Rivera has been recognized by Amnesty International as a “prisoner of conscience.” She is the mother of four children, ages 11, 9, 4 and 2.
Kimberly Rivera’s request for clemency was accompanied by 495 letters of support, written by family members, friends, as well as members of Amnesty International from 19 countries.
“We have many organizations to thank for the outpouring of support for Kimberly Rivera, including Amnesty International, Courage to Resist, the War Resisters Support Campaign of Canada, Veterans for Peace and Coffee Strong,” said James M. Branum, civilian defense attorney for PFC Rivera. “We also want to recognize the tireless efforts of local supporters in Colorado Springs and San Diego who have taken the time to visit Kim in prison as well as to provide important support to Kim’s family in her absence.”
While the official clemency request is now complete, supporters of PFC Rivera are still encouraged to continue to speak out on her behalf. Letters in support of PFC Rivera’s clemency request can be sent directly to:
Brigadier General Michael A. Bills
c/o Fort Carson Public Affairs Office
1626 Ellis Street
Suite 200, Building 1118
Fort Carson, CO 80913
(fax: 1-719-526-1021)
Supporters are also encouraged to sign an online petition posted at:c/o Fort Carson Public Affairs Office
1626 Ellis Street
Suite 200, Building 1118
Fort Carson, CO 80913
(fax: 1-719-526-1021)
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/752/756/678/free-a-pregnant-war-resister/
Photos: Top-Kimberly with husband Mario
during her court martial. Middle-Kimberly in Canada prior to being
deported. Bottom-Courage to Resist rallies outside Canadian Consulate,
San Francisco CA, prior to Kimberly's forced return.
Initial press release
by The Center for Conscience in Action, an Oklahoma City-based
organization dedicated to the intersection of peace, conscience and
direct action. CCA’s Legal Support Project provides low and no cost
legal representation to military service members seeking discharge on
the grounds of conscience.For more information or to schedule an interview about this subject, please contact James M. Branum, lead defense counsel for PFC Rivera, at 405-494-0562 or girightslawyer(at)gmail(dot)com. Consolidated Brig Miramar generally forbids inmates from doing interviews with the press, but you are welcome to see if an exception can be made by contacting the Brig Public Affairs office at 858-577-7071.
Additional case updates will be posted at couragetoresist.org and freekimberlyrivera.org.
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SAVE CCSF!
Two campaigns that need funds – Please donate!
Cartoon by Anthonty Mata for CCSF Guardsman
DOE CAMPAIGN
We are working to ensure that the ACCJC’s authority is not renewed by the Department of Education this December when they are up for their 5-year renewal. Our campaign made it possible for over 50 Third Party Comments to be sent to the DOE re: the ACCJC. Our next step in this campaign is to send a delegation from CCSF to Washington, D.C. to give oral comments at the hearing on December 12th. We expect to have an array of forces aligned on the other side who have much more money and resources than we do.
So please support this effort to get ACCJC authority revoked!
LEGAL CAMPAIGN
Save CCSF members have been meeting with Attorney Dan Siegel since last May to explore legal avenues to fight the ACCJC. After much consideration, and consultation with AFT 2121’s attorney as well as the SF City Attorney’s office, Dan has come up with a legal strategy that is complimentary to what is already being pursued. In fact, AFT 2121’s attorney is encouraging us to go forward.
The total costs of pursuing this (depositions, etc.) will be substantially more than $15,000. However, Dan is willing to do it for a fixed fee of $15,000. He will not expect a retainer, i.e. payment in advance, but we should start payments ASAP. If we win the ACCJC will have to pay our costs.
PLEASE HELP BOTH OF THESE IMPORTANT EFFORTS!
Checks can be made out to Save CCSF Coalition with “legal” in the memo line and sent to:
Save CCSF Coalition
2132 Prince St.
Berkeley, CA 94705
Or you may donate online: http://www.gofundme.com/4841ns2132 Prince St.
Berkeley, CA 94705
http://www.saveccsf.org/
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16 Years in Solitary Confinement Is Like a "Living Tomb"
American Civil Liberties Union petition to end long-term solitary confinement:
California Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard: We stand with the prisoners on hunger strike. We urge you to comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons 2006 recommendations regarding an end to long-term solitary confinement.
Sign the petition:
https://www.aclu.org/secure/ca-hunger-strike?emsrc=Nat_Appeal_AutologinEnabled&emissue=criminal_justice&emtype=petition&ms=eml_130719_acluaction_cahungerstrike&af=k%2FxKX1cIRdoonPVmvnAfAit8jzOCulLOnCX4AAFljff%2B%2BVOdOHNe6CKwl7glWQSjSakzXt53zF%2FodPf00T3rRHlglO3tjEA6DcMSLJRlTbfVBHAizX6uOxoSy5%2FbP93EBFj5xi6Lwm3RWHjmDOZDARHLBSl1rqTr07kLhONZrnU1UIIgPs0P%2FXQ%2BJL3reyE8%2BoiI1nlfPZPBVhbfYxUzMQ%3D%3D&etname=130719+CA+prisoners+hunger+strike&etjid=946739
In California, hundreds of prisoners have been held in solitary for more than a decade – some for infractions as trivial as reading Machiavelli's "The Prince."
Gabriel Reyes describes the pain of being isolated for at least 22 hours a day for the last 16 years:
“Unless you have lived it, you cannot imagine what it feels like to be by yourself, between four cold walls, with little concept of time…. It is a living tomb …’ I have not been allowed physical contact with any of my loved ones since 1995…I feel helpless and hopeless. In short, I am being psychologically tortured.”
That’s why over 30,000 prisoners in California began a hunger strike – the biggest the state has ever seen. They’re refusing food to protest prisoners being held for decades in solitary and to push for other changes to improve their basic conditions.
California Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard has tried to dismiss the strikers and refuses to negotiate, but the media pressure is building through the strike. If tens of thousands of us take action, we can help keep this issue in the spotlight so that Secretary Beard can’t ignore the inhumane treatment of prisoners.
Sign the petition urging Corrections Secretary Beard to end the use of long-term solitary confinement.
Solitary is such an extreme form of punishment that a United Nations torture rapporteur called for an international ban on the practice except in rare occasions. Here’s why:
The majority of the 80,000 people held in solitary in this country are severely mentally ill or because of a minor infraction (it’s a myth that it’s only for violent prisoners)
Even for people with stable mental health, solitary causes severe psychological reactions, often leading people to attempt suicide
It jeopardizes public safety because prisoners held in solitary have a harder time reintegrating into society.
And to add insult to injury, the hunger strikers are now facing retaliation – their lawyers are being restricted from visiting and the strikers are being punished. But the media continues to write about the hunger strike and we can help keep the pressure on Secretary Beard by signing this petition.
Sign the petition urging Corrections Secretary Beard to end the use of long-term solitary confinement.
Our criminal justice system should keep communities safe and treat people fairly. The use of solitary confinement undermines both of these goals – but little by little, we can help put a stop to such cruelty.
Thank you,
Anthony for the ACLU Action team
P.S. The hunger strikers have developed five core demands to address their basic conditions, the main one being an end to long-term solitary confinement. They are:
-End group punishment – prisoners say that officials often punish groups to address individual rule violations
-Abolish the debriefing policy, which is often demanded in return for better food or release from solitary
-End long-term solitary confinement
-Provide adequate and nutritious food
-Expand or provide constructive programming and privileges for indefinite SHU inmates
Sources
“Solitary - and anger - in California's prisons.” Los Angeles Times July 13, 2013
“Pelican Bay Prison Hunger-Strikers' Stories: Gabriel Reyes.” TruthOut July 9, 2013
“Solitary confinement should be banned in most cases, UN expert says.” UN News October 18, 2011
"Stop Solitary - Two Pager" ACLU.org
What you Didn't know about NYPD's Stop and Frisk program !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rfJHx0Gj6ys#at=990
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Egypt: The Next President -- a little Egyptian boy speaks his remarkable mind!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeDm2PrNV1I
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Wealth Inequality in America
[This is a must see to believe video...bw]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QPKKQnijnsM
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Read the transcription of hero Bradley Manning's 35-page statement explaining why he leaked "state secrets" to WikiLeaks.
March 1, 2013
Alternet
The statement was read by Pfc. Bradley Manning at a providence inquiry for his formal plea of guilty to one specification as charged and nine specifications for lesser included offenses. He pled not guilty to 12 other specifications. This rush transcript was taken by journalist Alexa O'Brien at Thursday's pretrial hearing and first appeared on Salon.com.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/bradley-mannings-surprising-statement-court-details-why-he-made-his-historic?akid=10129.229473.UZvQfK&rd=1&src=newsletter802922&t=7
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Call for a Compassionate Release for Lynne Stewart:
Attorney General Eric Holder: 202-514-2001
White House President Obama: 202-456-1414
Bureau of Prisons Director Charles Samuels: 202-307-3198 ext 3
Urgent: Please sign the petition for compassionate release for Lynne Stewart
http://www.change.org/petitions/petition-to-free-lynne-stewart-save-her-life-release-her-now-2
For more information, go to http://www.lynnestewart.org
Write to Lynne Stewart at:
Lynne Stewart #53504-054
??Federal Medical Center, Carswell
PO Box 27137
Fort Worth, TX 76127
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You Have the Right to Remain Silent: NLG Guide to Law Enforcement Encounters
Posted 1 day ago on July 27, 2012, 10:28 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Occupy Wall Street is a nonviolent movement for social and economic justice, but in recent days disturbing reports have emerged of Occupy-affiliated activists being targeted by US law enforcement, including agents from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. To help ensure Occupiers and allied activists know their rights when encountering law enforcement, we are publishing in full the National Lawyers Guild's booklet: You Have the Right to Remain Silent. The NLG provides invaluable support to the Occupy movement and other activists – please click here to support the NLG.
We strongly encourage all Occupiers to read and share the information provided below. We also recommend you enter the NLG's national hotline number (888-654-3265) into your cellphone (if you have one) and keep a copy handy. This information is not a substitute for legal advice. You should contact the NLG or a criminal defense attorney immediately if you have been visited by the FBI or other law enforcement officials. You should also alert your relatives, friends, co-workers and others so that they will be prepared if they are contacted as well.
You Have the Right to Remain Silent: A Know Your Rights Guide for Law Enforcement Encounters
What Rights Do I Have?
Whether or not you're a citizen, you have rights under the United States Constitution. The Fifth Amendment gives every person the right to remain silent: not to answer questions asked by a police officer or government agent. The Fourth Amendment restricts the government's power to enter and search your home or workplace, although there are many exceptions and new laws have expanded the government's power to conduct surveillance. The First Amendment protects your right to speak freely and to advocate for social change. However, if you are a non-citizen, the Department of Homeland Security may target you based on your political activities.
Standing Up For Free Speech
The government's crusade against politically-active individuals is intended to disrupt and suppress the exercise of time-honored free speech activities, such as boycotts, protests, grassroots organizing and solidarity work. Remember that you have the right to stand up to the intimidation tactics of FBI agents and other law enforcement officials who, with political motives, are targeting organizing and free speech activities. Informed resistance to these tactics and steadfast defense of your and others' rights can bring positive results. Each person who takes a courageous stand makes future resistance to government oppression easier for all. The National Lawyers Guild has a long tradition of standing up to government repression. The organization itself was labeled a "subversive" group during the McCarthy Era and was subject to FBI surveillance and infiltration for many years. Guild attorneys have defended FBI-targeted members of the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, and the Puerto Rican independence movement. The NLG exposed FBI surveillance, infiltration and disruption tactics that were detailed during the 1975-76 COINTELPRO hearings. In 1989 the NLG prevailed in a lawsuit on behalf of several activist organizations, including the Guild, that forced the FBI to expose the extent to which it had been spying on activist movements. Under the settlement, the FBI turned over roughly 400,000 pages of its files on the Guild, which are now available at the Tamiment Library at New York University.
What if FBI Agents or Police Contact Me?
What if an agent or police officer comes to the door?
Do not invite the agents or police into your home. Do not answer any questions. Tell the agent that you do not wish to talk with him or her. You can state that your lawyer will contact them on your behalf. You can do this by stepping outside and pulling the door behind you so that the interior of your home or office is not visible, getting their contact information or business cards and then returning inside. They should cease questioning after this. If the agent or officer gives a reason for contacting you, take notes and give the information to your attorney. Anything you say, no matter how seemingly harmless or insignificant, may be used against you or others in the future. Lying to or misleading a federal agent is a crime. The more you speak, the more opportunity for federal law enforcement to find something you said (even if not intentionally) false and assert that you lied to a federal officer.
Do I have to answer questions?
You have the constitutional right to remain silent. It is not a crime to refuse to answer questions. You do not have to talk to anyone, even if you have been arrested or are in jail. You should affirmatively and unambiguously state that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to consult an attorney. Once you make the request to speak to a lawyer, do not say anything else. The Supreme Court recently ruled that answering law enforcement questions may be taken as a waiver of your right to remain silent, so it is important that you assert your rights and maintain them. Only a judge can order you to answer questions. There is one exception: some states have "stop and identify" statutes which require you to provide identity information or your name if you have been detained on reasonable suspicion that you may have committed a crime. A lawyer in your state can advise you of the status of these requirements where you reside.
Do I have to give my name?
As above, in some states you can be detained or arrested for merely refusing to give your name. And in any state, police do not always follow the law, and refusing to give your name may make them suspicious or more hostile and lead to your arrest, even without just cause, so use your judgment. Giving a false name could in some circumstances be a crime.
Do I need a lawyer?
You have the right to talk to a lawyer before you decide whether to answer questions from law enforcement. It is a good idea to talk to a lawyer if you are considering answering any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer present during any interview. The lawyer's job is to protect your rights. Once you tell the agent that you want to talk to a lawyer, he or she should stop trying to question you and should make any further contact through your lawyer. If you do not have a lawyer, you can still tell the officer you want to speak to one before answering questions. Remember to get the name, agency and telephone number of any investigator who visits you, and give that information to your lawyer. The government does not have to provide you with a free lawyer unless you are charged with a crime, but the NLG or another organization may be able to help you find a lawyer for free or at a reduced rate.
If I refuse to answer questions or say I want a lawyer, won't it seem like I have something to hide?
Anything you say to law enforcement can be used against you and others. You can never tell how a seemingly harmless bit of information might be used or manipulated to hurt you or someone else. That is why the right not to talk is a fundamental right under the Constitution. Keep in mind that although law enforcement agents are allowed to lie to you, lying to a government agent is a crime. Remaining silent is not. The safest things to say are "I am going to remain silent," "I want to speak to my lawyer," and "I do not consent to a search." It is a common practice for law enforcement agents to try to get you to waive your rights by telling you that if you have nothing to hide you would talk or that talking would "just clear things up." The fact is, if they are questioning you, they are looking to incriminate you or someone you may know, or they are engaged in political intelligence gathering. You should feel comfortable standing firm in protection and defense of your rights and refusing to answer questions.
Can agents search my home or office?
You do not have to let police or agents into your home or office unless they have and produce a valid search warrant. A search warrant is a written court order that allows the police to conduct a specified search. Interfering with a warrantless search probably will not stop it and you might get arrested. But you should say "I do not consent to a search," and call a criminal defense lawyer or the NLG. You should be aware that a roommate or guest can legally consent to a search of your house if the police believe that person has the authority to give consent, and your employer can consent to a search of your workspace without your permission.
What if agents have a search warrant?
If you are present when agents come for the search, you can ask to see the warrant. The warrant must specify in detail the places to be searched and the people or things to be taken away. Tell the agents you do not consent to the search so that they cannot go beyond what the warrant authorizes. Ask if you are allowed to watch the search; if you are allowed to, you should. Take notes, including names, badge numbers, what agency each officer is from, where they searched and what they took. If others are present, have them act as witnesses to watch carefully what is happening. If the agents ask you to give them documents, your computer, or anything else, look to see if the item is listed in the warrant. If it is not, do not consent to them taking it without talking to a lawyer. You do not have to answer questions. Talk to a lawyer first. (Note: If agents present an arrest warrant, they may only perform a cursory visual search of the premises to see if the person named in the arrest warrant is present.)
Do I have to answer questions if I have been arrested?
No. If you are arrested, you do not have to answer any questions. You should affirmatively and unambiguously state that you wish to assert your right to remain silent. Ask for a lawyer right away. Do not say anything else. Repeat to every officer who tries to talk to or question you that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to speak to a lawyer. You should always talk to a lawyer before you decide to answer any questions.
What if I speak to government agents anyway?
Even if you have already answered some questions, you can refuse to answer other questions until you have a lawyer. If you find yourself talking, stop. Assert that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to speak to a lawyer.
What if the police stop me on the street?
Ask if you are free to go. If the answer is yes, consider just walking away. If the police say you are not under arrest, but are not free to go, then you are being detained. The police can pat down the outside of your clothing if they have reason to suspect you might be armed and dangerous. If they search any more than this, say clearly, "I do not consent to a search." They may keep searching anyway. If this happens, do not resist because you can be charged with assault or resisting arrest. You do not have to answer any questions. You do not have to open bags or any closed container. Tell the officers you do not consent to a search of your bags or other property.
What if police or agents stop me in my car?
Keep your hands where the police can see them. If you are driving a vehicle, you must show your license, registration and, in some states, proof of insurance. You do not have to consent to a search. But the police may have legal grounds to search your car anyway. Clearly state that you do not consent. Officers may separate passengers and drivers from each other to question them, but no one has to answer any questions.
What if I am treated badly by the police or the FBI?
Write down the officer's badge number, name or other identifying information. You have a right to ask the officer for this information. Try to find witnesses and their names and phone numbers. If you are injured, seek medical attention and take pictures of the injuries as soon as you can. Call a lawyer as soon as possible.
What if the police or FBI threaten me with a grand jury subpoena if I don't answer their questions?
A grand jury subpoena is a written order for you to go to court and testify about information you may have. It is common for the FBI to threaten you with a subpoena to get you to talk to them. If they are going to subpoena you, they will do so anyway. You should not volunteer to speak just because you are threatened with a subpoena. You should consult a lawyer.
What if I receive a grand jury subpoena?
Grand jury proceedings are not the same as testifying at an open court trial. You are not allowed to have a lawyer present (although one may wait in the hallway and you may ask to consult with him or her after each question) and you may be asked to answer questions about your activities and associations. Because of the witness's limited rights in this situation, the government has frequently used grand jury subpoenas to gather information about activists and political organizations. It is common for the FBI to threaten activists with a subpoena in order to elicit information about their political views and activities and those of their associates. There are legal grounds for stopping ("quashing") subpoenas, and receiving one does not necessarily mean that you are suspected of a crime. If you do receive a subpoena, call the NLG National Hotline at 888-NLG-ECOL (888-654-3265) or call a criminal defense attorney immediately.
The government regularly uses grand jury subpoena power to investigate and seek evidence related to politically-active individuals and social movements. This practice is aimed at prosecuting activists and, through intimidation and disruption, discouraging continued activism.
Federal grand jury subpoenas are served in person. If you receive one, it is critically important that you retain the services of an attorney, preferably one who understands your goals and, if applicable, understands the nature of your political work, and has experience with these issues. Most lawyers are trained to provide the best legal defense for their client, often at the expense of others. Beware lawyers who summarily advise you to cooperate with grand juries, testify against friends, or cut off contact with your friends and political activists. Cooperation usually leads to others being subpoenaed and investigated. You also run the risk of being charged with perjury, a felony, should you omit any pertinent information or should there be inconsistencies in your testimony.
Frequently prosecutors will offer "use immunity," meaning that the prosecutor is prohibited from using your testimony or any leads from it to bring charges against you. If a subsequent prosecution is brought, the prosecutor bears the burden of proving that all of its evidence was obtained independent of the immunized testimony. You should be aware, however, that they will use anything you say to manipulate associates into sharing more information about you by suggesting that you have betrayed confidences.
In front of a grand jury you can "take the Fifth" (exercise your right to remain silent). However, the prosecutor may impose immunity on you, which strips you of Fifth Amendment protection and subjects you to the possibility of being cited for contempt and jailed if you refuse to answer further. In front of a grand jury you have no Sixth Amendment right to counsel, although you can consult with a lawyer outside the grand jury room after each question.
What if I don't cooperate with the grand jury?
If you receive a grand jury subpoena and elect to not cooperate, you may be held in civil contempt. There is a chance that you may be jailed or imprisoned for the length of the grand jury in an effort to coerce you to cooperate. Regular grand juries sit for a basic term of 18 months, which can be extended up to a total of 24 months. It is lawful to hold you in order to coerce your cooperation, but unlawful to hold you as a means of punishment. In rare instances you may face criminal contempt charges.
What If I Am Not a Citizen and the DHS Contacts Me?
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is now part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and has been renamed and reorganized into: 1. The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS); 2. The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP); and 3. The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). All three bureaus will be referred to as DHS for the purposes of this pamphlet.
? Assert your rights. If you do not demand your rights or if you sign papers waiving your rights, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may deport you before you see a lawyer or an immigration judge. Never sign anything without reading, understanding and knowing the consequences of signing it.
? Talk to a lawyer. If possible, carry with you the name and telephone number of an immigration lawyer who will take your calls. The immigration laws are hard to understand and there have been many recent changes. DHS will not explain your options to you. As soon as you encounter a DHS agent, call your attorney. If you can't do it right away, keep trying. Always talk to an immigration lawyer before leaving the U.S. Even some legal permanent residents can be barred from returning.
Based on today's laws, regulations and DHS guidelines, non-citizens usually have the following rights, no matter what their immigration status. This information may change, so it is important to contact a lawyer. The following rights apply to non-citizens who are inside the U.S. Non-citizens at the border who are trying to enter the U.S. do not have all the same rights.
Do I have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any DHS questions or signing any DHS papers?
Yes. You have the right to call a lawyer or your family if you are detained, and you have the right to be visited by a lawyer in detention. You have the right to have your attorney with you at any hearing before an immigration judge. You do not have the right to a government-appointed attorney for immigration proceedings, but if you have been arrested, immigration officials must show you a list of free or low cost legal service providers.
Should I carry my green card or other immigration papers with me?
If you have documents authorizing you to stay in the U.S., you must carry them with you. Presenting false or expired papers to DHS may lead to deportation or criminal prosecution. An unexpired green card, I-94, Employment Authorization Card, Border Crossing Card or other papers that prove you are in legal status will satisfy this requirement. If you do not carry these papers with you, you could be charged with a crime. Always keep a copy of your immigration papers with a trusted family member or friend who can fax them to you, if need be. Check with your immigration lawyer about your specific case.
Am I required to talk to government officers about my immigration history?
If you are undocumented, out of status, a legal permanent resident (green card holder), or a citizen, you do not have to answer any questions about your immigration history. (You may want to consider giving your name; see above for more information about this.) If you are not in any of these categories, and you are being questioned by a DHS or FBI agent, then you may create problems with your immigration status if you refuse to provide information requested by the agent. If you have a lawyer, you can tell the agent that your lawyer will answer questions on your behalf. If answering questions could lead the agent to information that connects you with criminal activity, you should consider refusing to talk to the agent at all.
If I am arrested for immigration violations, do I have the right to a hearing before an immigration judge to defend myself against deportation charges?
Yes. In most cases only an immigration judge can order you deported. But if you waive your rights or take "voluntary departure," agreeing to leave the country, you could be deported without a hearing. If you have criminal convictions, were arrested at the border, came to the U.S. through the visa waiver program or have been ordered deported in the past, you could be deported without a hearing. Contact a lawyer immediately to see if there is any relief for you.
Can I call my consulate if I am arrested?
Yes. Non-citizens arrested in the U.S. have the right to call their consulate or to have the police tell the consulate of your arrest. The police must let your consulate visit or speak with you if consular officials decide to do so. Your consulate might help you find a lawyer or offer other help. You also have the right to refuse help from your consulate.
What happens if I give up my right to a hearing or leave the U.S. before the hearing is over?
You could lose your eligibility for certain immigration benefits, and you could be barred from returning to the U.S. for a number of years. You should always talk to an immigration lawyer before you decide to give up your right to a hearing.
What should I do if I want to contact DHS?
Always talk to a lawyer before contacting DHS, even on the phone. Many DHS officers view "enforcement" as their primary job and will not explain all of your options to you.
What Are My Rights at Airports?
IMPORTANT NOTE: It is illegal for law enforcement to perform any stops, searches, detentions or removals based solely on your race, national origin, religion, sex or ethnicity.
If I am entering the U.S. with valid travel papers can a U.S. customs agent stop and search me?
Yes. Customs agents have the right to stop, detain and search every person and item.
Can my bags or I be searched after going through metal detectors with no problem or after security sees that my bags do not contain a weapon?
Yes. Even if the initial screen of your bags reveals nothing suspicious, the screeners have the authority to conduct a further search of you or your bags.
If I am on an airplane, can an airline employee interrogate me or ask me to get off the plane?
The pilot of an airplane has the right to refuse to fly a passenger if he or she believes the passenger is a threat to the safety of the flight. The pilot's decision must be reasonable and based on observations of you, not stereotypes.
What If I Am Under 18?
Do I have to answer questions?
No. Minors too have the right to remain silent. You cannot be arrested for refusing to talk to the police, probation officers, or school officials, except in some states you may have to give your name if you have been detained.
What if I am detained?
If you are detained at a community detention facility or Juvenile Hall, you normally must be released to a parent or guardian. If charges are filed against you, in most states you are entitled to counsel (just like an adult) at no cost.
Do I have the right to express political views at school?
Public school students generally have a First Amendment right to politically organize at school by passing out leaflets, holding meetings, etc., as long as those activities are not disruptive and do not violate legitimate school rules. You may not be singled out based on your politics, ethnicity or religion.
Can my backpack or locker be searched?
School officials can search students' backpacks and lockers without a warrant if they reasonably suspect that you are involved in criminal activity or carrying drugs or weapons. Do not consent to the police or school officials searching your property, but do not physically resist or you may face criminal charges.
Disclaimer
This booklet is not a substitute for legal advice. You should contact an attorney if you have been visited by the FBI or other law enforcement officials. You should also alert your relatives, friends, co-workers and others so that they will be prepared if they are contacted as well.
NLG National Hotline for Activists Contacted by the FBI
888-NLG-ECOL
(888-654-3265)
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Free Mumia NOW!
Prisonradio.org
Write to Mumia:
Mumia Abu-Jamal AM 8335
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Rachel Wolkenstein
August 21, 2011 (917) 689-4009
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL ILLEGALLY SENTENCED TO
LIFE IMPRISONMENT WITHOUT PAROLE!
FREE MUMIA NOW!
www.FreeMumia.com
http://blacktalkradionetwork.com/profiles/blogs/mumia-is-formally-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-w-out-hearing-he-s
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"A Child's View from Gaza: Palestinian Children's Art and the Fight Against
Censorship" book
https://www.mecaforpeace.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=25
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Justice for Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace: Decades of isolation in Louisiana
state prisons must end
Take Action -- Sign Petition Here:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/justice-for-albert-woodfox-and-herm\
an-wallace
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WITNESS GAZA
http://www.witnessgaza.com/
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Write to Bradley
http://bradleymanning.org/donate
View the new 90 second "I am Bradley Manning" video:
I am Bradley Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-P3OXML00s
Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org
"A Fort Leavenworth mailing address has been released for Bradley Manning:
Bradley Manning 89289
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027
The receptionist at the military barracks confirmed that if someone sends
Bradley Manning a letter to that address, it will be delivered to him."
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/update-42811
This is also a Facebook event
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=207100509321891#!/event.php?eid=2071005093\
21891
Courage to Resist needs your support
Please donate today:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
"Soldiers sworn oath is to defend and support the Constitution. Bradley Manning
has been defending and supporting our Constitution." --Dan Ellsberg, Pentagon
Papers whistle-blower
Jeff Paterson
Project Director, Courage to Resist
First US military service member to refuse to fight in Iraq
Please donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
P.S. I'm asking that you consider a contribution of $50 or more, or possibly
becoming a sustainer at $15 a month. Of course, now is also a perfect time to
make a end of year tax-deductible donation. Thanks again for your support!
Please click here to forward this to a friend who might also be interested in
supporting GI resisters.
http://ymlp.com/forward.php?id=lS3tR&e=bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com
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The Battle Is Still On To
FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610
www.laboractionmumia.org
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT! FREE KEVIN COOPER!
Reasonable doubts about executing Kevin Cooper
Chronicle Editorial
Monday, December 13, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/13/EDG81GP0I7.DTL
Death penalty -- Kevin Cooper is Innocent! Help save his life from San Quentin's
death row!
http://www.savekevincooper.org/
http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/essays_content.html?ID=255
URGENT ACTION APPEAL
- From Amnesty International USA
17 December 2010
Click here to take action online:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&\
b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=15084
To learn about recent Urgent Action successes and updates, go to
http://www.amnestyusa.org/iar/success
For a print-friendly version of this Urgent Action (PDF):
http://www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa25910.pdf
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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work
The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's
work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown
on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l
Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected
over the past nine years.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl
Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial
support to carry out its work.
To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html
and follow the simple instructions.
Thank you for your generosity!
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D. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.:
[Some of these videos are embeded on the BAUAW website:
http://bauaw.blogspot.com/ or bauaw.org ...bw]
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Exceptional art from the streets of Oakland:
Oakland Street Dancing
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NYC RESTAURANT WORKERS DANCE & SING FOR A WAGE HIKE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_s8e1R6rG8&feature=player_embedded
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On Gun Control, Martin Luther King, the Deacons of Defense and the history of Black Liberation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzYKisvBN1o&feature=player_embedded
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Fukushima Never Again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU-Z4VLDGxU
"Fukushima, Never Again" tells the story of the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdowns in north east Japan in March of 2011 and exposes the cover-up by Tepco and the Japanese government.
This is the first film that interviews the Mothers Of Fukushima, nuclear power experts and trade unionists who are fighting for justice and the protection of the children and the people of Japan and the world. The residents and citizens were forced to buy their own geiger counters and radiation dosimeters in order to test their communities to find out if they were in danger.
The government said contaminated soil in children's school grounds was safe and then
when the people found out it was contaminated and removed the top soil, the government and TEPCO refused to remove it from the school grounds.
It also relays how the nuclear energy program for "peaceful atoms" was brought to Japan under the auspices of the US military occupation and also the criminal cover-up of the safety dangers of the plant by TEPCO and GE management which built the plant in Fukushima. It also interviews Kei Sugaoka, the GE nulcear plant inspector from the bay area who exposed cover-ups in the safety at the Fukushima plant and was retaliated against by GE. This documentary allows the voices of the people and workers to speak out about the reality of the disaster and what this means not only for the people of Japan but the people of the world as the US government and nuclear industry continue to push for more new plants and government subsidies. This film breaks
the information blockade story line of the corporate media in Japan, the US and around the world that Fukushima is over.
Production Of Labor Video Project
P.O. Box 720027
San Francisco, CA 94172
www.laborvideo.org
lvpsf@laborvideo.org
For information on obtaining the video go to:
www.fukushimaneveragain.com
(415)282-1908
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1000 year of war through the world
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiG8neU4_bs&feature=share
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Anatomy of a Massacre - Afganistan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6BnRc11aug&feature=player_embedded
Afghans accuse multiple soldiers of pre-meditated murder
To see more go to http://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures
Follow us on Facebook (http://goo.gl/YRw42) or Twitter
(http://www.twitter.com/journeymanvod)
The recent massacre of 17 civilians by a rogue US soldier has been shrouded in
mystery. But through unprecedented access to those involved, this report
confronts the accusations that Bales didn't act alone.
"They came into my room and they killed my family". Stories like this are common
amongst the survivors in Aklozai and Najiban. As are the shocking accusations
that Sergeant Bales was not acting alone. Even President Karzai has announced
"one man can not do that". Chief investigator, General Karimi, is suspicious
that despite being fully armed, Bales freely left his base without raising
alarm. "How come he leaves at night and nobody is aware? Every time we have
weapon accountability and personal accountability." These are just a few of the
questions the American army and government are yet to answer. One thing however
is very clear, the massacre has unleashed a wave of grief and outrage which
means relations in Kandahar will be tense for years to come: "If I could lay my
hands on those infidels, I would rip them apart with my bare hands."
A Film By SBS
Distributed By Journeyman Pictures
April 2012
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Photo of George Zimmerman, in 2005 photo, left, and in a more recent photo.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/02/us/the-events-leading-to-the-sooti\
ng-of-trayvon-martin.html?hp
SPD Security Cams.wmv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WWDNbQUgm4&feature=player_embedded
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Kids being put on buses and transported from school to "alternate locations" in
Terror Drills
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFia_w8adWQ
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Private prisons,
a recession resistant investment opportunity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIGLDOxx9Vg
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Attack Dogs used on a High School Walkout in MD, Four Students Charged With
"Thought Crimes"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wafMaML17w
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Common forms of misconduct by Law Enforcement Officials and Prosecutors
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViSpM4K276w&feature=related
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Organizing and Instigating: OCCUPY - Ronnie Goodman
http://arthazelwood.com/instigator/occupy/occupy-birth-video.html
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Rep News 12: Yes We Kony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68GbzIkYdc8
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The New Black by The Mavrix - Official Music Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4rLfja8488
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Japan One Year Later
http://www.onlineschools.org/japan-one-year-later/
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The CIA's Heart Attack Gun
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/assassination-studies/the-cias-heart-attack-g\
un-.html
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The Invisible American Workforce
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/5/new_expos_tracks_alec_private_prison
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Labor Beat: NATO vs The 1st Amendment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbQxnb4so3U
For more detailed information, send us a request at mail@laborbeat.org.
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The Battle of Oakland
by brandon jourdan plus
http://vimeo.com/36256273
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Officers Pulled Off Street After Tape of Beating Surfaces
By ANDY NEWMAN
February 1, 2012, 10:56 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/officers-pulled-off-street-after-ta\
pe-of-beating-surfaces/?ref=nyregion
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This is excellent! Michelle Alexander pulls no punches!
Michelle Alexander, Author of The New Jim Crow, speaks about the political
strategy
behind the War on Drugs and its connection to the mass incarceration of Black
and Brown people in the United States.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P75cbEdNo2U&feature=player_embedded
If you think Bill Clinton was "the first black President" you need to watch this
video and see how much damage his administration caused for the black community
as a result of his get tough attitude on crime that appealed to white swing
voters.
This speech took place at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem on January 12,
2012.
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FREE BRADLEY MANNING
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/national-call-in-for-bradley
I received the following reply from the White House November 18, 2011 regarding
the Bradley Manning petition I signed:
"Why We Can't Comment on Bradley Manning
"Thank you for signing the petition 'Free PFC Bradley Manning, the accused
WikiLeaks whistleblower.' We appreciate your participation in the We the People
platform on WhiteHouse.gov.
The We the People Terms of Participation explain that 'the White House may
decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or
similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or
agencies, federal courts, or state and local government.' The military justice
system is charged with enforcing the Uniform Code of
Military Justice. Accordingly, the White House declines to comment on the
specific case raised in this petition...
That's funny! I guess Obama didn't get this memo. Here's what Obama said about
Bradley:
BRADLEY MANNING "BROKE THE LAW" SAYS OBAMA!
"He broke the law!" says Obama about Bradley Manning who has yet to even be
charged, let alone, gone to trial and found guilty. How horrendous is it for the
President to declare someone guilty before going to trial or being charged with
a crime! Justice in the U.S.A.!
Obama on FREE BRADLEY MANNING protest... San Francisco, CA. April 21, 2011-
Presidential remarks on interrupt/interaction/performance art happening at
fundraiser. Logan Price queries Barack after org. FRESH JUICE PARTY political
action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfmtUpd4id0&feature=youtu.be
Release Bradley Manning
Almost Gone (The Ballad Of Bradley Manning)
Written by Graham Nash and James Raymond (son of David Crosby)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAYG7yJpBbQ&feature=player_embedded
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Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGqE726OAo&feature=player_embedded
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School police increasingly arresting American students?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl-efNBvjUU&feature=player_embedded
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FYI:
Nuclear Detonation Timeline "1945-1998"
The 2053 nuclear tests and explosions that took place between 1945 and 1998 are
plotted visually and audibly on a world map.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lquok4Pdk&feature=share&mid=5408
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We Are the 99 Percent
We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to
choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are
suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay
and no rights, if we're working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1
percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent.
Brought to you by the people who occupy wall street. Why will YOU occupy?
OccupyWallSt.org
Occupytogether.org
wearethe99percentuk.tumblr.com
http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/
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We Are The People Who Will Save Our Schools
YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFAOJsBxAxY
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In honor of the 75th Anniversary of the 44-Day Flint Michigan sit-down strike at
GM that began December 30, 1936:
According to Michael Moore, (Although he has done some good things, this clip
isn't one of them) in this clip from his film, "Capitalism a Love Story," it was
Roosevelt who saved the day!):
"After a bloody battle one evening, the Governor of Michigan, with the support
of the President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, sent in the National
Guard. But the guns and the soldiers weren't used on the workers; they were
pointed at the police and the hired goons warning them to leave these workers
alone. For Mr. Roosevelt believed that the men inside had a right to a redress
of their grievances." -Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story'
- Flint Sit-Down Strike http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8x1_q9wg58
But those cannons were not aimed at the goons and cops! They were aimed straight
at the factory filled with strikers! Watch what REALLY happened and how the
strike was really won!
'With babies & banners' -- 75 years since the 44-day Flint sit-down strike
http://links.org.au/node/2681
--Inspiring
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HALLELUJAH CORPORATIONS (revised edition).mov
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws0WSNRpy3g
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ONE OF THE GREATEST POSTS ON YOUTUBE SO FAR!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8C-qIgbP9o&feature=share&mid=552
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ILWU Local 10 Longshore Workers Speak-Out At Oakland Port Shutdown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JUpBpZYwms
Uploaded by laborvideo on Dec 13, 2011
ILWU Local 10 longshore workers speak out during a blockade of the Port of
Oakland called for by Occupy Oakland. Anthony Levieges and Clarence Thomas rank
and file members of the union. The action took place on December 12, 2011 and
the interview took place at Pier 30 on the Oakland docks.
For more information on the ILWU Local 21 Longview EGT struggle go to
http://www.facebook.com/groups/256313837734192/
For further info on the action and the press conferernce go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz3fE-Vhrw8&feature=youtu.be
Production of Labor Video Project www.laborvideo.org
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UC Davis Police Violence Adds Fuel to Fire
By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News
19 November 11
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/275-42/8485-uc-davis-police-violence-add\
s-fuel-to-fire
UC Davis Protestors Pepper Sprayed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4&feature=player_embedded
Police PEPPER SPRAY UC Davis STUDENT PROTESTERS!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuWEx6Cfn-I&feature=player_embedded
Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM&feature=player_embedded
*---------*
UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walks to her car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CZ0t9ez_EGI#!
Occupy Seattle - 84 Year Old Woman Dorli Rainey Pepper Sprayed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTIyE_JlJzw&feature=related
*---------*
THE BEST VIDEO ON "OCCUPY THE WORLD"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S880UldxB1o
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Shot by police with rubber bullet at Occupy Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0pX9LeE-g8&feature=player_embedded
*---------*
Copwatch@Occupy Oakland: Beware of Police Infiltrators and Provocateurs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrvMzqopHH0
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Occupy Oakland 11-2 Strike: Police Tear Gas, Black Bloc, War in the Streets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tu_D8SFYck&feature=player_embedded
*----*
Quebec police admitted that, in 2007, thugs carrying rocks to a peaceful protest
were actually undercover Quebec police officers:
POLICE STATE Criminal Cops EXPOSED As Agent Provocateurs @ SPP Protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoiisMMCFT0&feature=player_embedded
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Quebec police admit going undercover at montebello protests
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAfzUOx53Rg&feature=player_embedded
G20: Epic Undercover Police Fail
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrJ7aU-n1L8&feature=player_embedded
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WHAT HAPPENED IN OAKLAND TUESDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 25:
Occupy Oakland Protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlPs-REyl-0&feature=player_embedded
Cops make mass arrests at occupy Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R27kD2_7PwU&feature=player_embedded
Raw Video: Protesters Clash With Oakland Police
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpO-lJr2BQY&feature=player_embedded
Occupy Oakland - Flashbangs USED on protesters OPD LIES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqNOPZLw03Q&feature=player_embedded
KTVU TV Video of Police violence
http://www.ktvu.com/video/29587714/index.html
Marine Vet wounded, tear gas & flash-bang grenades thrown in downtown
Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMUgPTCgwcQ&feature=player_embedded
Tear Gas billowing through 14th & Broadway in Downtown Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU4Y0pwJtWE&feature=player_embedded
Arrests at Occupy Atlanta -- This is what a police state looks like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YStWz6jbeZA&feature=player_embedded
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Labor Beat: Hey You Billionaire, Pay Your Fair Share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY8isD33f-I
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Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA48gmfGB6U&feature=youtu.be
Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjKZpOk7TyM&feature=related
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#Occupy Wall Street In Washington Square: Mohammed Ezzeldin, former occupier of
Egypt's Tahrir Square Speaks at Washington Square!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziodsFWEb5Y&feature=player_embedded
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#OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street
By adele pham
http://vimeo.com/30146870
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Live arrest at brooklyn bridge #occupywallstreet by We are Change
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yULSI-31Pto&feature=player_embedded
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FREE THE CUBAN FIVE!
http://www.thecuban5.org/wordpress/index.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmS4kHC_OlY&feature=player_embedded
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One World One Revolution -- MUST SEE VIDEO -- Powerful and beautiful...bw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE3R1BQrYCw&feature=player_embedded
"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty." Thomas Jefferson
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Japan: angry Fukushima citizens confront government (video)
Posted by Xeni Jardin on Monday, Jul 25th at 11:36am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVuGwc9dlhQ&feature=player_embedded
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Labor Beat: Labor Stands with Subpoenaed Activists Against FBI Raids and Grand
Jury Investigation of antiwar and social justice activists.
"If trouble is not at your door. It's on it's way, or it just left."
"Investigate the Billionaires...Full investigation into Wall Street..." Jesse
Sharkey, Vice
President, Chicago Teachers Union
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSNUSIGZCMQ
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Coal Ash: One Valley's Tale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E7h-DNvwx4&feature=player_embedded
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