Saturday, May 9, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/05/08/405252184/snowden-ruling-against-nsa-extraordinarily-encouraging

Snowden Calls Ruling Against NSA 'Extraordinarily Encouraging'
Scott Neuman
MAY 08, 2015

Photograph – Edward Snowden is shown during a live broadcast from Moscow at the CeBIT in Hanover, Germany, in March. On Friday, Snowden said a federal court ruling against the NSA program that he revealed was "extraordinarily encouraging."
Ole Spata/DPA/Landov

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has praised a federal appeals court's ruling that the agency's surveillance program is illegal, saying the decision was "extraordinarily encouraging."

As we reported on Thursday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 2nd District in New York issued a ruling Thursday that the bulk collection of metadata that Snowden's leaks revealed was not authorized under federal law, including the USA Patriot Act.

In an interview on livestream published by Forbes, Snowden, speaking from exile in Russia, called the ruling "significant."

"The importance of it in the U.S. legal community — the policy community — can't be overstated," Snowden said. "This decision will not affect only the phone metadata program. It will affect every other mass surveillance program in the U.S. going forward."

"What's extraordinary about this is the fact that in 2013 before the leaks, the same issues had been tried to be reviewed by the courts," Snowden told livestream. "Another NGO called Amnesty International brought the same challenge against the same individual. They threw it out of court because Amnesty could not prove it had been spied upon."

"It is extraordinarily encouraging to see the courts are beginning to change their thinking to say 'if Congress will not pass reasonable laws, if the executive will not act as a responsible steward of liberty and rights in how they execute the laws, it falls to the courts to say this has gone too far,' " Snowden said.




“In an interview on livestream published by Forbes, Snowden, speaking from exile in Russia, called the ruling "significant." "The importance of it in the U.S. legal community — the policy community — can't be overstated," Snowden said. "This decision will not affect only the phone metadata program. It will affect every other mass surveillance program in the U.S. going forward." …. "It is extraordinarily encouraging to see the courts are beginning to change their thinking to say 'if Congress will not pass reasonable laws, if the executive will not act as a responsible steward of liberty and rights in how they execute the laws, it falls to the courts to say this has gone too far,' " Snowden said.”

After 9/11 the US population and government went into panic mode and passed more than one dangerous law. The rise of right wing thought after that shocking and terrible event has found its way into many positions of power and across many states, which would not have happened as easily if it weren't for 9/11. The Bush administration's equally shocking citizen's mass surveillance programs and the Abu Ghraib torture policies as though they were ordinary, daily and completely legal events were approved by many US citizens despite their unconstitutional and unethical nature. As a result we are now in what I consider to be very perilous times as a society.

I am happy to say that in addition to our highly publicized policing problems, this new court attention to mass surveillance is very hopeful. I never gave up hope, but I did fear that the number of moderate and liberal citizens had dwindled to the point that our nation was likely to become something like a police state, or as some “conservatives” would have it, a Dominionist government. One Tea Party politician actually suggested that mandatory attendance at church on Sundays would be a good idea, and another one that mandatory work without a fair rate of pay would be one way to enable destitute citizens to pay back their debts. As an adjunct to the troublesome police abuse, several city governments and local courts have been essentially criminalizing the inability to pay debts by sentencing the destitute to prison terms. Debtors prison is coming back into fashion, it seems.

Snowden, though what he did was a desperate act, is in fact a hero. He exposed an unthinkable trend in post 9/11 times which our nation has stood against from the beginnings. Several suggestions by Tea Party members were among the reasons why so many people left England to come to the US. I hope to see him allowed back into the US if he wants to return, and without his having to serve any time in prison or without having any Patriot assassinate him. Perhaps he will even run for office or write a book, or better still, join a think tank for democratic social policies. I was pleased to see his face in today's news photo – for the first time he was smiling broadly.





POLICE ISSUES – TWO ARTICLES


http://www.npr.org/2015/05/08/405222336/a-new-baltimore-model-officer-on-the-beat-pastor-on-the-corner

A New Baltimore Model? 'Officer On The Beat ... Pastor On The Corner'
Hansi Lo Wang
Reporter, National Desk
MAY 08, 2015

Photograph – Pastor Rodney Hudson sits on the steps of Ames Memorial United Methodist Church in West Baltimore, blocks away from the center of the protests and rioting that occurred last month.
Hansi Lo Wang/NPR

The federal investigation into Baltimore's police force is one of the first steps some in the city believe will rebuild the relationship between officers and residents.

Some faith leaders are optimistic that can be done, and past police programs have helped. But other residents are skeptical that West Baltimore residents' trust can be regained.

Just a few blocks away from the center of Baltimore's unrest last month, William Scipio, 49, recently stopped by Ames Memorial United Methodist Church to help sort through clothing donations. Born in Baltimore, he initially had a good impression of the police when he was younger.

"During school time, we used to have an Officer Friendly. He used to come to our classroom and talk to us," he says. "So as I started growing up, I see a police ride down the street, and I'll speak to him, wave to him — and he looks at me like I'm crazy or I didn't exist. So I'm like, 'Wow, where's Officer Friendly at?' "

Scipio says he respects the police and how stressful their job can be.

"Not all police officers are bad," he says, but later adds that Baltimore officers' relationships with West Baltimoreans aren't good.

Pastor Rodney Hudson says that strain between police and the community has driven many here to seek help from faith leaders instead.

"Do you really want to know where the true community police officers are? You looking at them!" he says. "Because who do they come to in the moments of crisis? 'Reverend, I'm hungry! Reverend, my boyfriend just beat me up! What I'm goin' do?' "

The Baltimore police are aware this is happening; they even enlisted Hudson and other ministers to help calm tensions on the streets after Freddie Gray's death, and called their contributions "instrumental."

Hudson sees providing that sort of assistance as a natural part of his duties as a minister.

"Community policing is the officer on the beat joined together with the pastor on the corner," he says.

While there are a number of community outreach programs listed on the Baltimore Police Department's website, the department did not respond to multiple requests for an interview about them.

Many residents point to the Police Athletic League, or PAL, centers, which are no longer available in West Baltimore, as a program that helped build trust between officers and families in the neighborhood.

Eric Paige, who retired from the police department in 2006, had been assigned to work at some of the 27 PAL centers once spread across Baltimore.

"A lot of times the kids ate at the PAL center. We helped them with their homework," he says. "The father figure that many of them were missing, we gave them that."

Some in the department felt the program wasn't the best use of police resources in a crime-ridden city. But Paige says the program was effective.
"It is social work. But what's the goal?" he says. "The goal is to deter crime. The goal is to make a better, healthy Baltimore. That's the goal."

Linwood Davis, 20, stands outside the former home of one of West Baltimore's PAL centers, where he says his friendly relationship with the police first took root.

"It was the only place you could come to to have fun around here," Davis says.

But his memories have been tainted, Davis says, after seeing police using excessive force in his neighborhood.

Paige says that when officers aren't connected with the community, an avoidable us-against-them mentality can develop.

"You're going to have some people that are going to be cold, hard criminals; you're going to have times when officers are going to have to shoot people," Paige says. "But that does not mean that you can't have a relationship with people in the communities because of that."

Davis isn't optimistic that that sort of relationship or trust can be rekindled in West Baltimore after what happened to Freddie Gray and how the community reacted.

"I just don't see it happening again — at all," he says.

Additional reporting by Evie Stone.




“Just a few blocks away from the center of Baltimore's unrest last month, William Scipio, 49, recently stopped by Ames Memorial United Methodist Church to help sort through clothing donations. Born in Baltimore, he initially had a good impression of the police when he was younger. "During school time, we used to have an Officer Friendly. He used to come to our classroom and talk to us," he says. "So as I started growing up, I see a police ride down the street, and I'll speak to him, wave to him — and he looks at me like I'm crazy or I didn't exist. So I'm like, 'Wow, where's Officer Friendly at?' " …. "Not all police officers are bad," he says, but later adds that Baltimore officers' relationships with West Baltimoreans aren't good. Pastor Rodney Hudson says that strain between police and the community has driven many here to seek help from faith leaders instead. …. Hudson sees providing that sort of assistance as a natural part of his duties as a minister. "Community policing is the officer on the beat joined together with the pastor on the corner," he says. …. Many residents point to the Police Athletic League, or PAL, centers, which are no longer available in West Baltimore, as a program that helped build trust between officers and families in the neighborhood. Eric Paige, who retired from the police department in 2006, had been assigned to work at some of the 27 PAL centers once spread across Baltimore. "A lot of times the kids ate at the PAL center. We helped them with their homework," he says. "The father figure that many of them were missing, we gave them that." …. But his memories have been tainted, Davis says, after seeing police using excessive force in his neighborhood. Paige says that when officers aren't connected with the community, an avoidable us-against-them mentality can develop.”

“Some in the department felt the program wasn't the best use of police resources in a crime-ridden city. But Paige says the program was effective. It is social work. But what's the goal?" he says. "The goal is to deter crime. The goal is to make a better, healthy Baltimore. That's the goal." Eric Paige, a retired police officer, is now an active member of PAL, a police group that reaches out to blacks, especially young people. Unlike so many “conservative” thinkers, he understands the necessity for good human interactions to put young people on the right path, and he cares about the human soul inside the black skin. He says that there will be hardcore criminals and necessary police shootings, but " that does not mean that you can't have a relationship with people in the communities because of that."

I can tell from reading this article that Paige is a white man who knows how to interact with others on a one-to-one basis and not from a standpoint of class-based enmity. It is a social skill that was not stressed nearly as much when I was in high school, but I learned it from my parents, my Girl Scout troop, and my church. There simply were no blacks in our schools and the old Southern class structure prevailed. All the blacks lived down at the western side of the city, and if a black person had tried to buy or rent a house outside that area he would have been punished, I'm afraid. Cross burnings were still an occasional occurrence.

That was an era of cliques and peer group pressure, when some were bullied and others were simply “not as popular” as others. I was one of the latter, partly because I had a quick temper and anyone messing with me got told off in no uncertain terms. As a result, I was not uniformly popular, but there were others who liked me well enough and, perhaps more importantly, respected me. In Thomasville, NC it was a money-based class structure. There were those who owned the mills, and those who worked in them on a non-supervisory level.

In addition there were blacks versus whites, but there was a much smaller minority of blacks in our town as compared to the kind of cities like Baltimore, DC and New York which drew thousands of black people after the end of slavery and then again during the Great Depression, bringing them northward to get factory jobs and usually better civil rights as well. At the time that I lived there the Jim Crow laws were still in place. The school system was desegregated the year after I graduated and went away to college. At that point I began to become acquainted with black peers on jobs and in classes, and I found them friendly if I behaved in a friendly way with them. That's really the long and short of improving relationships with blacks – treat them with fairness and respect, and most of them will respond in kind.







http://www.cbsnews.com/news/san-francisco-police-officers-text-messages-review-cases/

Cops' offensive texts prompt review of thousands of cases
CBS NEWS
May 8, 2015

Photograph – Then-San Francisco Police Chief George Gascon pauses during a news conference at the San Francisco Hall of Justice May 5, 2010, in San Francisco, California.  JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES

SAN FRANCISCO -- Three retired judges will be working with San Francisco prosecutors to review roughly 3,000 criminal cases that have potentially been tainted by 14 police officers who sent homophobic, racist and sexist text messages,CBS San Francisco reports.

Justice Cruz Reynoso, Judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell and Judge Dickran Tevrizian Jr. were selected to join the District Attorney George Gascon's task force investigating police officer misconduct based on their experience with civil rights and criminal justice reform, Gascon said Thursday.

The trio will review criminal cases, arrests and convictions by the 14 officers from the last 10 years for possible evidence bias, according to Gascon.

Cases involving individuals who are incarcerated will be moved to the top of the list, he said.

Gascon said in cases where evidence is in question, his task force will -- and already is -- providing that information to defense attorneys.

Gascon estimated that perhaps 60 or 70 cases involving individuals in custody have already been identified, but he stressed that those numbers are likely to fluctuate as the investigation continues.

The text messages, released publicly in March through a motion by the U.S. attorney's office following the conviction of disgraced police Officer Ian Furminger on four felony charges related to the theft of money and property seized from drug suspects during searches in 2009, revealed inappropriate exchanges between Furminger and 14 other officers.

Gascon said Thursday that he decided to bring in the judges from outside of San Francisco because of concerns that he and the task force had regarding "deeper systemic issues" within the police department.

The judges will be equipped with a team of investigators that will review each case to check for possible racial bias, misconduct, wrongful convictions as well as statistical arrest patterns.

Gascon said the judges will be working pro bono. He said while he hopes their work will be completed by the end of the year, they will continue until all of the reviews have been completed.

The task force also aims to identify officers and department protocols that promulgate a dangerous or biased culture within the police force, Gascon said.

He said a report of the task force's findings will be released to the public upon completion of the investigation.

Gascon said that while the text messages were only made public in March, they had been turned over to the police department in 2012, which he said "creates many concerns for us because many people have been prosecuted since December of 2012 that involve some of the officers who were participating in these text messages."

The text messages included racist and derogatory language toward members of the public and police colleagues.

Gascon said the language in the text messages is hateful and that the recent misconduct exhibited by police officers is unacceptable. He explained that bigotry and police misconduct is a major issue across the country.

"As evidenced in events in Baltimore; Staten Island; Ferguson, Missouri; South Carolina and far too many other places, when a police officer engages in misconduct, there are significant implications for public safety and for the public trust, particularly in our minority communities," Gascon said.

"Issues of police misconduct and bias in policing are not limited to far-off places. Usually, San Francisco leads national conversations on equality and fairness, instead of racism, sexism, and homophobia. However, as recent revelations have shown, we are not immune to this epidemic," he said.

The Rev. Amos Brown, a NAACP board member, said he thinks the addition of the judges to the task force shows that the task force is seeking transparency.

Brown said the "bigoted, demeaning, and destructive texts" speak volumes about the culture in San Francisco and the Police Department.

He said black people are not treated fairly in San Francisco as exhibited by the high rate of black inmates in county jail and juvenile hall, despite the city's small black population.

He said the task force gives him hope that justice will be delivered to a city that "far too many times has been mute, silent and indifferent in the face of injustice."




“Justice Cruz Reynoso, Judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell and Judge Dickran Tevrizian Jr. were selected to join the District Attorney George Gascon's task force investigating police officer misconduct based on their experience with civil rights and criminal justice reform, Gascon said Thursday. The trio will review criminal cases, arrests and convictions by the 14 officers from the last 10 years for possible evidence bias, according to Gascon. Cases involving individuals who are incarcerated will be moved to the top of the list, he said. …. The text messages, released publicly in March through a motion by the U.S. attorney's office following the conviction of disgraced police Officer Ian Furminger on four felony charges related to the theft of money and property seized from drug suspects during searches in 2009, revealed inappropriate exchanges between Furminger and 14 other officers. Gascon said Thursday that he decided to bring in the judges from outside of San Francisco because of concerns that he and the task force had regarding "deeper systemic issues" within the police department. The judges will be equipped with a team of investigators that will review each case to check for possible racial bias, misconduct, wrongful convictions as well as statistical arrest patterns. Gascon said the judges will be working pro bono. He said while he hopes their work will be completed by the end of the year, they will continue until all of the reviews have been completed. The task force also aims to identify officers and department protocols that promulgate a dangerous or biased culture within the police force, Gascon said. He said a report of the task force's findings will be released to the public upon completion of the investigation. …. The text messages included racist and derogatory language toward members of the public and police colleagues. .... The Rev. Amos Brown, a NAACP board member, said he thinks the addition of the judges to the task force shows that the task force is seeking transparency. Brown said the "bigoted, demeaning, and destructive texts" speak volumes about the culture in San Francisco and the Police Department.”

Rev. Brown speaks of San Francisco as being “mute, silent and indifferent” in the past over racist issues in the city, but that the addition of the three judges to the city's task force will make an improvement. The demeaning emails were first shown to the police management in 2012, but nothing was done until the present. The events that prompted this review by the DA are not described here, but a biography of Gascon is below in which he is described as “a visionary.” He is a very impressive man, who rose from the bottom after being a high school dropout to the DA of a major US city.

The two articles clipped below would be good models for police departments with abuse and racism problems. This man should write a book on his views. The whole theory of Broken Windows policing was the result of a book, and a more fair and ethical kind of Community Policing could perhaps take the place of practices like beating people up for walking in the wrong part of a road or running away. Running away, after all, is not really “an admission of guilt,” but a human fear response, and many people are understandably afraid of the police.


http://www.sfdistrictattorney.org/index.aspx?page=20

Biography
District Attorney George Gascón

George Gascón is the District Attorney for the City and County of San Francisco. He has earned a national reputation as a criminal justice visionary that uses evidence based practices to lower crime and make communities safer. He is the first Latino to hold the office in San Francisco and is the nation’s first police chief to become District Attorney.

Gascón has focused on making San Francisco the safest large city in America by working to implement a modern justice system that focuses on crime prevention, victims, and violent offenders. Throughout his thirty year career in law enforcement he has successfully lowered crime by taking a surgical approach to crime and offenders, and by seeking the right amount of intervention to change behavior and improve public safety. Despite a traditional prosecutor’s interaction with crime being largely reactive, District Attorney Gascón has put significant emphasis and resources into crime prevention. One less crime means one less tragedy, and one less victim.

Since taking office, District Attorney Gascón has focused staff resources on more serious and violent offenders. In fact, drug prosecutions went from 63 percent of the office’s felony caseload down to 32 percent in a 5 year period from 2009 to 2013, allowing more resources to be focused on serious and violent crime. This has caused convictions for assault, domestic violence, and robbery to increase. Additionally, homicides are down 36 percent in the first six months of 2014, and felony assault, gun and robbery prosecutions are up 14 percent, 17 percent and 9 percent respectively from 2012 to 2013.

Looking to find alternatives to incarceration for low-level offenders, DA Gascón created the nation’s first Alternative Sentencing Program to support prosecutors in assessing risk and determine the most appropriate course of action for each case. The goal is to protect victims and the community by addressing offenders’ risk factors in order to break the cycle of crime and reduce recidivism.

In addition, District Attorney Gascón launched the Neighborhood Courts and Neighborhood Prosecution Program as a way to keep low-level offenders from entering the criminal justice system. The program takes non-serious cases away from overcrowded courtrooms and into the community where trained neighborhood stakeholders can ensure law breakers are accountable to victims and the community without criminalizing first time low-level offenders.

Under District Attorney Gascón’s leadership, San Francisco created the first Sentencing Commission in California with the goal of reforming sentencing guidelines by applying evidence based practices to prosecutions.

In addition to initiatives aimed at increasing the safety of San Francisco’s communities and reforming California’s criminal justice system, District Attorney Gascón is regarded as a leader in the effort to end the global epidemic of smartphone theft. In partnership with the New York State Attorney General and the Mayor of London, District Attorney Gascón launched the Secure Our Smartphones initiative in 2013 in response to the growing number of violent smartphone thefts. The coalition now boasts over 300 public safety leaders, consumer advocates and lawmakers. Since the formation of the coalition in June of 2013, the manufacturers that sell 97 percent of all smartphones sold in the United States have agreed to implement technology that research suggests will end the epidemic of smartphone theft.

A former high school dropout, District Attorney Gascón understands the importance of keeping kids in school to reduce violence and prevent crime. In partnership with the San Francisco Unified School District, the District Attorney’s Office has launched innovative programs to reduce truancy, increase mentoring opportunities for youth, and reduce bullying.

District Attorney Gascón is also working to address crime underreporting by breaking down cultural and language barriers that prevent victims and witnesses from engaging with law enforcement. He expanded his office’s multilingual Victims Services Unit beyond the Hall of Justice and into community centers in the Mission, Chinatown, Tenderloin and Bayview Hunters Point.

District Attorney Gascón is a known innovator for his use of technology to prevent and predict crime. He improved the COMPSTAT system at the Los Angeles Police Department and introduced the system to the San Francisco Police Department during his tenure as Police Chief. District Attorney Gascón believes in using well developed metrics and technology to drive organizational performance and improve public safety. He is currently working on launching a version called “DA Stat” to the District Attorney’s Office.

District Attorney Gascón’s thirty years in law enforcement have taken him through the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department from a patrol officer all the way to Assistant Chief. He was Chief of Police in Mesa, Arizona and Chief of Police in San Francisco. In addition to his criminal justice work at the local, state, and national level, District Attorney Gascón has worked on public safety initiatives in Latin America and the Middle East. He is a Board member of the Council of State Government’s Justice Center, a graduate of the FBI’s National Executive Institute, and a member of the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government’s Executive Session on Policing and Public Safety.

District Attorney Gascón has a Bachelor of Arts in History from California State University, Long Beach, and a Juris Doctor Degree from Western State University, College of Law.  


SFDA'S OFFICE ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Homicides
Secured convictions in 85 to 90% of homicide trials each year
Prosecuted 85% of homicides brought to our office each year
 Neighborhood Courts
Established Neighborhood Court program
Restorative Justice approach aims to cut recidivism
Cut time and money spent handling cases that diminish the livability of the City
Elder Abuse
Secured convictions in over 95% of all elder abuse cases in 2007 and 2008
Comprehensive evaluation of elder abuse cases through multi-agency Elder Abuse Forensic Center
Child Assault
Run the City's first stand alone Child Assault Unit



What are Neighborhood Courts?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_court

Community court
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the United States and several other countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and South Africa, a community court is a neighborhood-focused problem-solving court that applies a problem-solving approach[1] to local crime and safety concerns.[2] Community courts can take many forms, but all strive to create new relationships, both within the justice system and with outside stakeholders such as residents, merchants, churches and schools. Community courts emphasize collaboration, crime prevention, and improved outcomes, including lower recidivism and safer communities. Community courts are also sometimes referred to as community or neighborhood justice centers.

In Australia, a community court is the name given to “indigenous court” proceedings conducted in the Magistrates Court of the Northern Territory. (Australia also has a “neighbourhood justice centre” in [Melbourne], which is based on the U.S.-style community court.) [3]

The first community court in the United States was the Midtown Community Court, launched in 1993 in New York City.[4] The court, which serves the Times Square neighborhood of Manhattan, targets quality-of-life offenses, such as prostitution, illegal vending, graffiti, shoplifting, farebeating, and vandalism.[5]

Operated as a public/private partnership among the New York State Unified Court System, New York City, and the Center for Court Innovation[6] the court initially opened as a three-year demonstration project, designed to test the ability of criminal courts to forge closer links with the community and develop a collaborative problem-solving approach to quality-of-life offenses.

The Midtown Court experiment was born of a profound frustration with the conventional response to quality-of-life crime. Supporters of the initiative, which included justice system innovators, business leaders and neighborhood residents, felt that the justice system did not take community concerns seriously. They also felt that a court could use its leverage to more effectively address the causes and conditions that contribute to crime.

Principles of community courts[edit]

According to the Center for Court Innovation, community courts are animated by six key principles.[9] They are:

Restoring the community:
Bridging the gap between communities and courts;
Knitting together a fractured criminal justice system;
Helping offenders deal with problems that lead to crime;
Providing the courts with better information; and
Building a physical courthouse that reflects these ambitions.





https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/07/congress-argues-cant-investigated-insider-trading/

CONGRESS TELLS COURT THAT CONGRESS CAN’T BE INVESTIGATED FOR INSIDER TRADING
BY LEE FANG
May 7, 2015

(This post is from our new blog: Unofficial Sources.)

In a little-noticed brief filed last summer, lawyers for the House of Representatives claimed that an SEC investigation of congressional insider trading should be blocked on principle, because lawmakers and their staff are constitutionally protected from such inquiries given the nature of their work.

The legal team led by Kerry W. Kircher, who was appointed House General Counsel by Speaker John Boehner in 2011, claimed that the insider trading probe violated the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branch.

In 2012, members of Congress patted themselves on the back for passing the STOCK Act, a bill meant to curb insider trading for lawmakers and their staff. “We all know that Washington is broken and today members of both parties took a big step forward to fix it,” said Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, upon passage of the law.

But as the Securities and Exchange Commission made news with the first major investigation of political insider trading, Congress moved to block the inquiry.

The SEC investigation focused on how Brian Sutter, then a staffer for the House Ways and Means Committee, allegedly passed along information about an upcoming Medicare decision to a lobbyist, who then shared the tip with other firms. Leading hedge funds used the insider tip to trade on health insurance stocks that were affected by the soon-to-be announced Medicare decision.

Calling the SEC’s inquiry a “remarkable fishing expedition for congressional records,” Kircher and his team claimed that the SEC had no business issuing a subpoena to Sutter. “Communications with lobbyists, of course, are a normal and routine part of Committee information-gathering,” the brief continued, arguing that there “is no room for the SEC to inquire into the Committee’s or Mr. Sutter’s purpose or motives.”

Wall Street investors routinely hire specialized “political intelligence” lobbyists in Washington to get insider knowledge of major government decisions so that they may make trades using the information. But little is known about the mechanics of political intelligence lobbying, which falls outside the scope of traditional lobbying law, and therefore does not show up in mandatory lobbying disclosure reports.

There are occasional hints, though.

Personal finance forms reveal that from July of 2011 through May of 2013, David Berteau served as a consultant to Height Analytics, the political intelligence firm at the center of the SEC’s current probe. At the time of his work for Height Analytics, Berteau simultaneously worked as a vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a prominent think tank in Washington. Berteau is now the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Logistics and Materiel Readiness.

Congressional travel forms show that on December 12, 2012, Emily Porter, at the time an employee of Boehner’s office, traveled to New York on a sponsored trip to meet with JNK Securities for a group lunch with business clients. According to the Wall Street Journal, JNK “has emerged as one of the most aggressive” political intelligence firms on Capitol Hill.

This is hardly the first time Congress has moved to undermine its own ethics rules. In 2011, congressional Republicans quickly abandoned their promise to post the text of bills online “for at least three days” before voting on them.




“In 2012, members of Congress patted themselves on the back for passing the STOCK Act, a bill meant to curb insider trading for lawmakers and their staff. “We all know that Washington is broken and today members of both parties took a big step forward to fix it,” said Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, upon passage of the law. But as the Securities and Exchange Commission made news with the first major investigation of political insider trading, Congress moved to block the inquiry. The SEC investigation focused on how Brian Sutter, then a staffer for the House Ways and Means Committee, allegedly passed along information about an upcoming Medicare decision to a lobbyist, who then shared the tip with other firms. …. arguing that there “is no room for the SEC to inquire into the Committee’s or Mr. Sutter’s purpose or motives.” Wall Street investors routinely hire specialized “political intelligence” lobbyists in Washington to get insider knowledge of major government decisions so that they may make trades using the information. But little is known about the mechanics of political intelligence lobbying, which falls outside the scope of traditional lobbying law, and therefore does not show up in mandatory lobbying disclosure reports. …. Personal finance forms reveal that from July of 2011 through May of 2013, David Berteau served as a consultant to Height Analytics, the political intelligence firm at the center of the SEC’s current probe. ….Emily Porter, at the time an employee of Boehner’s office, traveled to New York on a sponsored trip to meet with JNK Securities for a group lunch with business clients. …. In 2011, congressional Republicans quickly abandoned their promise to post the text of bills online “for at least three days” before voting on them.”

The world of big money is profoundly corrupt, and legislative members are included in that group. Many people come to Congress owing money and end up multimillionaires. Some of those financial gains are bound to be dirty. Here they are trying to claim that they are beyond the grasp of the SEC, so hopefully we will hear soon that their law suit is a failure, and that members of Congress will be tried for criminal offenses, which I think includes Insider Trading. If poor Martha Stewart can be sent to prison for it, so should they.






EBOLA – TWO ARTICLES


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ebola-virus-found-lurking-in-doctors-eye/

Ebola virus found lurking in doctor's eye
CBS/AP 
May 8, 2015

Photograph – Ebola virus turned one of Dr. Ian Crozier's eyes from blue to green.
NEW YORK TIMES

For the first time, Ebola has been discovered inside the eyes of a patient months after the virus was gone from his blood.

Ebola has infected more than 26,000 people since December 2013 in West Africa. Some survivors have reported eye problems but how often they occur isn't known. The virus also is thought to be able to persist in semen for several months.

The new report concerns Dr. Ian Crozier, a 43-year-old American physician diagnosed with Ebola in September while working with the World Health Organization in Sierra Leone.

He was treated at Emory University Hospital's special Ebola unitin Atlanta. A report on his case, published online in the New England Journal of Medicine, gives a detailed account of his near-fatal ordeal. Crozier suffered "multiorgan system failure" and spent 12 days on a ventilator.

After improving enough to get off the ventilator, doctors reported "the patient had altered mental status, difficulty walking...and extreme fatigue." With the help of an experimental antiviral drug, plasma infusions and intensive supportive care, he made it through the worst of the illness, regained much of his strength and mental functioning, and was released from the hospital in October when Ebola was no longer detected in his blood.

Two months later, however, he developed an inflammation and very high blood pressure in one eye, which causes swelling and potentially serious vision problems.

Not only that, Crozier told The New York Times his infected eye turned from its normal bright blue to green, which can be a rare consequence of severe viral infections.

Crozier returned to Emory, where ophthalmologist Dr. Steven Yeh drained some of the fluid and had it tested for Ebola. The fluid contained the virus, although Crozier's tears and tissue around the outside of his eye did not.

That suggests that casual contact with an Ebola survivor poses no public health risk, but shows that survivors need to be monitored for the eye problem, Yeh said.

Crozier has not fully recovered his vision but continues to improve, Yeh said.

Dr. Jay Varkey, an Emory infectious disease specialist, said those involved in Crozier's care wore recommended protective gear and monitored themselves for Ebola symptoms for several weeks afterward as a precaution.

Doctors discussed the case at an Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology conference in Denver on Thursday, and the New England Journal of Medicine published their account online.




“Some survivors have reported eye problems but how often they occur isn't known. The virus also is thought to be able to persist in semen for several months.” In other words some people may still be contagious for months after their apparent recovery. Maybe some of those African cases were not from eating bats or bathing the dead prior to burial. This is very discouraging. Of course the fact that eyes can change color is very interesting. According to the article it can happen with “severe viral infections,” in other words with other viruses as well as Ebola. What could be the mechanism? On the other hand why are our eyes one color or the other anyway?

The good news is that Crozier is continuing to improve. “That suggests that casual contact with an Ebola survivor poses no public health risk, but shows that survivors need to be monitored for the eye problem, Yeh said.” Ebola is scary, ancient and fascinating. I hope a vaccine or anti-viral for it will be produced in large enough quantities that the next time one of these epidemics occurs there will be a way to treat everyone who gets it, and not just those who are lucky enough to come to an American hospital.






http://www.cbsnews.com/news/an-american-womans-fight-to-stop-ebola-with-technology/

An American woman's fight to stop Ebola with technology
By PARVATI SHALLOW CBS NEWS
May 8, 2015 , Last Updated May 9, 2015

Photograph – ACT founder Camilla Herman with a group of contact tracers in Liberia.  CAMILLA HERMAN

As Liberia reaches a milestone in its struggle against Ebola, with the World Health Organization on Saturday declaring the nation Ebola-free, new contact tracing technology may help health workers remain vigilant in preventing another outbreak.

As of Saturday, May 9, it's been 42 days since the last known case in Liberia, double the incubation period and long enough for officials to consider the outbreak there officially over. But with neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea still reporting cases of the disease, the Liberian government is setting systems in place to monitor the borders and other high-risk parts of the country.

Assisted Contact Tracing (ACT) technology, a new mobile application developed by American social entrepreneur Camilla Herman, will form part of the public health surveillance at Liberia's borders, and it will also provide a way to continue monitoring affected communities within Liberia.

Touched by the enormity of the Ebola crisis in West Africa, 25-year-old Herman felt called to help. She developed the ACT system to provide a link for people living in rural, hard-to-reach areas of Liberia and to also protect the lives of health workers who were trying desperately to contain the outbreak.

"Because I had done work in West Africa prior to the Ebola epidemic, I had an understanding of what the initial barriers would be and what was required for a tech platform to be successful there. Telecommunications form the backbone of infrastructure in the region. For a public health crisis like Ebola, where transmission occurs through physical contact, rapid response marks the difference between outbreak and epidemic," Herman told CBS News.

ACT allows people to self-report symptoms of Ebola via an app on their cellular phones. After a confirmed Ebola case is isolated in a treatment facility, the app allows health workers to monitor anyone who has had close physical contact with the patient for 21 days -- without having to travel to the affected area. People who are being monitored will receive a phone call twice a day asking them in their native dialect if they are experiencing any symptoms. This information is quickly reviewed by health workers who can respond according to each person's level of risk. The quick feedback allows for someone to be isolated immediately if symptoms emerge, thus containing the risk of spreading the virus to others.

After collaborating with health officials in the U.S. to get ACT up and running last fall, Herman traveled to Liberia and began working with the National Ebola Response Incident Management System. In the last few weeks, she completed her first successful trial measuring the effectiveness of ACT. Findings showed a 74 percent call completion rate in which people self-reported symptoms and enabled information gathering by health workers.

Herman hopes that the initial success of ACT in Liberia will open the door to more opportunity to assist other developing countries in public health surveillance and beyond.

"ACT is a low-cost, highly scalable tool for cross-border public health surveillance and contact tracing. Because the system is highly adaptable, diverse applications outside of public health provide potential revenue generating opportunities to ensure long-term sustainability of the tools for public good," says Herman.

Though the Ebola crisis has finally waned in Liberia, the outbreak took a terrible toll, killing more than 4,700 people in that country and 11,000 across West Africa. Implementing public health surveillance tools for developing countries in the event of another outbreak is still vital.

"There is no systematic disease-surveillance process in place today in most poor countries, which is where a naturally occurring epidemic seems most likely to break out," Bill Gates wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine. "Even once the Ebola crisis was recognized last year, there weren't resources to effectively map where cases were occurring and in what quantity."

Herman and her team will continue to address this issue by working with Dr. Mosoka Fallah's Community Based Initiative team in Liberia to map out how to sync ACT with existing human capacity on the ground. Moving forward, Herman says this team will be one the main implementation partners in ongoing public health surveillance in Liberia.




“But with neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea still reporting cases of the disease, the Liberian government is setting systems in place to monitor the borders and other high-risk parts of the country. Assisted Contact Tracing (ACT) technology, a new mobile application developed by American social entrepreneur Camilla Herman, will form part of the public health surveillance at Liberia's borders, and it will also provide a way to continue monitoring affected communities within Liberia. …. She developed the ACT system to provide a link for people living in rural, hard-to-reach areas of Liberia and to also protect the lives of health workers who were trying desperately to contain the outbreak. …. ACT allows people to self-report symptoms of Ebola via an app on their cellular phones. After a confirmed Ebola case is isolated in a treatment facility, the app allows health workers to monitor anyone who has had close physical contact with the patient for 21 days -- without having to travel to the affected area. …. In the last few weeks, she completed her first successful trial measuring the effectiveness of ACT. Findings showed a 74 percent call completion rate in which people self-reported symptoms and enabled information gathering by health workers. Herman hopes that the initial success of ACT in Liberia will open the door to more opportunity to assist other developing countries in public health surveillance and beyond. …. Herman and her team will continue to address this issue by working with Dr. Mosoka Fallah's Community Based Initiative team in Liberia to map out how to sync ACT with existing human capacity on the ground. Moving forward, Herman says this team will be one the main implementation partners in ongoing public health surveillance in Liberia.”

It's good that Liberia is moving to contain outbreaks in the future with Dr. Fallah's Community Based Initiative team. Of course the other areas of West Africa are still going through their own outbreaks, and possibly with less help. For some reason there has been less news about areas outside Liberia, which was the focus of American aid. Since the bats live in the forests and can't be fully exterminated, there will probably be more epidemics over time. What is needed is a vaccine that will prevent Ebola. Hopefully some pharmaceutical group will take that on as a project.





http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2015/05/09/405248917/seattle-restaurants-scramble-to-pay-a-higher-minimum-wage

Seattle Restaurants Scramble To Pay A Higher Minimum Wage
DEBORAH WANG
MAY 09, 2015

Photograph – Carter Jorgensen, with head chef Zephyr Paquette in the background, at Seattle's Coastal Kitchen. The restaurant is trimming its hours in response to the city's new higher minimum wage.
Deborah Wang/KUOW

In the rough and tumble world of restaurants, Jeremy Hardy considers himself something of a survivor.

Hardy's restaurant, Coastal Kitchen, has been a fixture of Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood for 20 years. Notoriously low-margin businesses, restaurants have a high failure rate. Hardy says even in good times, running one is like juggling with clubs.

"With the labor pressures that are coming from this $15 eventual minimum-wage increase, we are juggling with razor-sharp daggers," Hardy says. "And if you don't get it right, it's really going to hurt."

Restaurants in Seattle are booming. Amazon and other tech companies are on a hiring spree, and that's been like manna from heaven for the city's more than 4,000 eateries.

But in April, the city's minimum wage rose to $11 an hour, and it will keep rising every year to $15 an hour and beyond. Restaurants are now scrambling to figure out how they will pay.

No major city has ever seen an across-the-board 60 percent increase in its minimum wage. Restaurants employ about a quarter of Seattle's minimum wage workers. Labor typically accounts for about a third of a restaurant's costs.

Hardy says he is making adjustments: trimming staff hours, opening one hour later and closing one hour earlier. He's also considering whether to close some hours during the day.

"I'm going through the hourly sales, and if it is not making money, if it is not profitable, we are not going to do it, because we can't afford to," he says.

Hardy is a small employer, so he has a few years to figure out what to do. The $15 wage will be phased in at different rates for different size employers over the course of several years.

The biggest pressures will be on large employers, who reach $15 an hour sooner. They are the ones now making the most dramatic changes.

Bob Donegan, the president of Ivar's, which runs a chain of fish and chip shops, says the company has increased its prices. At Ivar's Salmon House, for instance, one of the company's sit-down restaurants, the price for all menu items increased 21 percent in April.

"Alaska coho that's today $34, last week would have been $28," Donegan says. "So that meal that last year cost you $100, today costs you $121."

The catch is that when diners pay the bill, they are no longer expected to leave a tip: it's included. The big price increase will allow the Salmon House to start paying a $15-an-hour minimum wage immediately, three years ahead of schedule.

"It's very early, but so far it's working OK," Donegan says.

Many restaurants in the city are watching Ivar's to see if the changes work and if they should follow suit, he says. But not every restaurant is in a position to experiment.

Z Pizza owner Ritu Shah Burnham employs 12 people, but because her business is a franchise, the city considers her a large employer. That means she has to pay $1.50 an hour more this year, $2 more next year and another $2.00 an hour more the year after.

"If you have to pay $15 an hour in 20 months, and that is the largest part of your expenses, it's a little difficult to do a business plan that makes that work," Burnham says. "I tried. Before I made my decision I tried, and I didn't see it happening."

Burnham says she didn't want to go back to working 60 or 80 hours weeks, as she did when she first opened the restaurant, just to make ends meet. So she is shutting down her business at the end of the summer.

It is conceivable that more restaurant owners will follow in Burnham's footsteps. Even Seattle's best-known chef, Tom Douglas, says he may have to close some of his 15 restaurants.

Douglas is raising menu prices 4 percent this year. "I really don't know what your saturation point is for what you're willing to pay for chicken," he says. "That's why I say I don't know. We are going to have to wait and see. I don't know if it is worth it for you to come to our restaurants when chicken is $30 a portion compared with when it was $20 a portion."

But Douglas says if higher prices force diners to cut back on eating out, that's OK. He'd rather have people make a living wage instead of selling more chicken.




Hardy says he is making adjustments: trimming staff hours, opening one hour later and closing one hour earlier. He's also considering whether to close some hours during the day. "I'm going through the hourly sales, and if it is not making money, if it is not profitable, we are not going to do it, because we can't afford to," he says. …. The $15 wage will be phased in at different rates for different size employers over the course of several years. The biggest pressures will be on large employers, who reach $15 an hour sooner. They are the ones now making the most dramatic changes. …. The catch is that when diners pay the bill, they are no longer expected to leave a tip: it's included. The big price increase will allow the Salmon House to start paying a $15-an-hour minimum wage immediately, three years ahead of schedule. "It's very early, but so far it's working OK," Donegan says. …. It is conceivable that more restaurant owners will follow in Burnham's footsteps. Even Seattle's best-known chef, Tom Douglas, says he may have to close some of his 15 restaurants. Douglas is raising menu prices 4 percent this year. "I really don't know what your saturation point is for what you're willing to pay for chicken," he says. "That's why I say I don't know. We are going to have to wait and see. I don't know if it is worth it for you to come to our restaurants when chicken is $30 a portion compared with when it was $20 a portion."

If $20.00 a portion, much less $30, is the going price for chicken I would simply have to stop eating at restaurants. And, No, chicken is greatly overpriced at that level. Lobster, sushi and steak, maybe not. I expect wait staff will find themselves with ten or fifteen tables to handle without help, and no tips. Of course, they'll get $15.00 an hour. That will be a job that only the young and fit can handle. Eliminating some of the staff hours would help. Unfortunately that means less money. Maybe more undereducated young people will go to jobs like cleaning, delivery, and sales. I never did very well at sales, but some do, especially if they are always cheerful, outgoing in personality, and persistent.