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Jamilia Land

By Dylan Ferguson

CALIFORNIA Jamilia Landa member of the Abolish Slavery National Network (ASNN) in California and the founder of A.S.A.P, an organization centered on the mental health and well-being of children impacted by police and community murder, gun violence, and incarcerationhosted a webinar about abolishing slavery, mass incarceration, and involuntary servitude Monday.

Abolish Slavery National Network is a national coalition that is fighting to abolish constitutional slavery and involuntary servitude in all forms for all people, and believes that all people are protected by their state and federal constitutions.

The panel featured Max Parthas, a host on Abolition Today and a member of ASNN, Dennis Febo, the CEO of Guazabara Insights and an ASNN member in New Jersey, and Samuel Brown, the founder of the 10p program and a member of ASNN in California.

The conversation mainly emphasized the need to get rid of language in the constitutions that allows for slavery and involuntary servitude.

In 2020, the ASNN coalition members were able to successfully get rid of this language and abolish slavery language without any caveats in Utah and Nebraska. Max Parthas stated, Utah had as much as 80 percent of the people voting to end slavery and Nebraska had around 60 percent.

The ASNN also worked in Alabama to get the fourth amendment passed, which will allow government officials to take out any racist language. With the largest constitution in the world, Alabama has a lot of race-based or slavery-based language that needs to be taken out, ASNN said.

Parthas mentioned that the ASNN has plans to meet with Alabama government officials in two weeks in order to work on removing the exception clause of slavery from their constitution.

The ASNN does not just work on language in state constitutions, they also work to remove slavery language in general. Specifically, with changing the name of the state of Rhode Island from Rhode Island and Providence Plantations to just Rhode Island in June 2020.

Dennis Febo passionately discussed how our criminal justice system is driven by the incentive of profiting off of human bodies. He asked the audience to consider how much it costs from the moment a person is placed in handcuffs, to the moment justice is being served, to when that person is released.

Febo said that per human body, you can calculate how much it costs if you know on average how many people go through this in your state every year. He continued by saying that those incarcerated each represent a monetary amount per day, per year.

Febo then raised the question, asking what is the difference between now and pre-1865? He argued that there are still ledgers. Ledgers that were once used for cattle, property, and naming slaves. The criminal justice system does the same thing, prisoners not only represent a monetary value, but they are now insured with things, such as bonds.

The same exact structures that were in place then are in place today, Febo said.

So how do we move forward when our foundations are rooted in stripping humanity away from people? Febo suggested that we have to begin to hold people accountable. We have to acknowledge that justice cannot be justice, if everything is based on money, he said.

Samuel Brown spoke to this statement. As a man who has been incarcerated for the last two decades and attended this conversation via phone call from a facility, he has become intimate with involuntary servitude.

Brown is currently being paid 55 cents per hour to clean COVID-19 cells in the facility where he is imprisoned. Brown risks his health and safety and recalls that he was scared for his life the first time he cleaned a cell.

Over the last 24 years, Brown has become familiar with the prison system. He notes that it could be very beneficial to provide opportunities for people that have been incarcerated for an extended period of time. Things such as support services, vocational training programs, and getting compensated for the work prisoners do could equip them to survive in societynot set them up to return.

Brown knows that the pandemic has been difficult for everyone, but he suggested that the audience imagine what it would be like for prisoners to be released without things like support services, vocational training, or compensation, especially due to how COVID-19 has negatively impacted Americans throughout 2020.

An unfair disadvantage has always been placed on those incarcerated, but it has been emphasized by COVID-19. Brown believes that if prisoners were trained and paid, it could make them more employable.

Dylan Ferguson is a second-year at Westmont College, majoring in kinesiology with a minor in Spanish. She is from Las Vegas, Nevada.

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Webinar Focuses on Eliminating Slavery Language in Constitutions - The Peoples Vanguard of Davis

A new piece over at OneZero examines the rising trend of local neighborhood associations installing private license plate readers to keep tabs on who comes and goes from their precious white suburbs;

ALPR technology, invented in 1976 by the U.K.'s Police Scientific Development Branch, has become a popular law enforcement tool over the past decade and is nowcommonly usedto track down alleged lawbreakers, to gather information about vehicles of interest, and to track down individuals who owe fines.

But now, ALPR companies are targeting the private realm as well. "Live in an HOA or neighborhood? Work in law enforcement?" reads the intro text on Flock's website. In either case, the call to action is the same: "Use license plate readers to capture evidence and stop crime." The company, which was founded in 2017, claims 700,000 neighbors in 400 cities and 35 states live in communities that rely on its technology.

At least seven homeowner associations (HOAs)in San Diego County, 100 neighborhoodsin Georgia, 10in the Denver area, and dozens throughout North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee,Texas, and elsewhere have installed A.I.-infused ALPRs manufactured by Flock and a handful of other companies such as Vigilant Solutions and Obsidian Integration. Flock providesa calculatorthat recommends the number of cameras that neighborhoods should install: For 50 homes with two entrances, it recommends between two to four cameras; for 100 homes with five entrances, it recommends between five and 10. Each camera costs $2,000 per year. ALPR's expansion beyond law enforcement may be one reason investors have betmore than $35 millionin venture capital funding on Flock. The company closed its most recent and largest round of funding $15 million in March.

The article explores the dystopian impact of this utterly excessive surveillance profiteering on some of the neighborhoods that have willingly embraced it. Even if somehow a neighborhood association was able to install this license plate readers in a way that wasn't creepy and authoritarian say there was the rare instance of outsider crime that they genuinely hoped to catch the amount of data they would end up collecting would render the whole project moot. Suffice to say: no one in these communities is actually safer, or happier.

Since Fourth Amendment privacy rules do not apply to private citizens, HOA boards are not subject to any oversight. "Whatever motivates an individual gatekeeper racial biases, frustration with another neighbor, even disagreements among family members could all be used in conjunction with ALPR records to implicate someone in a crime or in any variety of other legal but uncomfortable situations," according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that defends civil liberties in the digital world.

Neighborhood Watch Has a New Tool: License-Plate Readers [Ella Fassler / One Zero / Medium]

How Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) technology works

Image: Public Domain

See the original post:
Neighborhood associations are installing license plate readers to privately police who drives on their streets - Boing Boing

One of the most consequential appointments that a new president must make is director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Unfortunately, this appointment is usually made late in the transition process, getting insufficient attention and typically ending up with a mediocre selection. Presidents have named liberals (Ted Sorenson and Tony Lake) who couldnt survive the confirmation process; former CIA analysts and operatives (Richard Helms, William Colby, Robert Gates, John Brennan, andthe current directorGina Haspel) who failed for various reasons; veterans from Capitol Hill (Rep. Porter Goss and George Tenet) who politicized intelligence; and an eclectic group (John Deutch, General David Petraeus, General Michael Hayden, Leon Panetta, and Jim Woolsey) who failed to provide leadership in the post-Cold War era.

President Bill Clintons selection of Woolsey, the poster child for failure, was typical. It was late in the transition period; Clinton had no likely candidate; and Woolsey was virtually unknown to the key advisors around the president-elect. But he did have one singular attribute. He was a hard-liner and nominally a Democrat, and Clintons advisers favored the idea of picking someone from the right-wing in order to appease the military-intelligence communities.

The meeting between Clinton and Woolsey in Little Rock, Arkansas, was classic. Woolsey wasnt quite sure why he was being called to the meeting, and college football was the main subject of discussion. There was virtually no substantive discussion. Clinton and Woolsey never established a working relationship; Woolsey, an introvert, worked behind closed doors and alienated the agencys leadership, and he thoroughly antagonized both Democrats and Republicans on the congressional intelligence committees.

The directors who were agency professionals were a particularly motley group. Haspel is best known for her leading role in the CIAs sadistic torture and abuse program; she never should have been considered. Brennan held an executive position during the planning and imposition of the program and never demurred. CIA director William Casey (former OSS) found Bob Gates to be the perfect sycophant, and the two of them enforced a program of politicized intelligence for President Ronald Reagan. James Schlesinger, Porter Goss, and George Tenet also excelled at the politicization of intelligence.

Meanwhile, there is the sterling example of Helms, who testified to Congress that it had to trust that honorable men were working inside Americas intelligence services. Several years later, he was fined $2,000 and given a two-year suspended sentence for perjuring himself before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. General Hayden stands out for his leadership role at the National Security Agency, where he broke the Fourth Amendment against illegal searches and seizures, and at the CIA, where he actively lobbied on the Hill to permit CIA interrogators to torture and abuse suspected terrorists in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

The CIA has floundered at key moments because of the lack of a stable and senior leader at the top, and a culture of secrecy that has blurred the judgment of many CIA leaders who have allowed the tailoring of intelligence at key junctures. There probably is no perfect resume to suggest suitability for the role of CIA director, but the professional military, Capitol Hill, and perhaps the Agency itself may not be the best place to train a tough-minded leader who recognizes the central role of intelligence analysis and is suited to tell truth to power.

But I would suggest that President-elect Joe Biden look at the one department of government that has never produced a CIA directorthe Department of State. In the early 1950s, President Harry Truman wanted the director of the Department of States Policy Planning Division, George Kennan, to consider taking over the leadership of the CIA. Unfortunately, Kennan refused, denying the agency a leader who recognized the importance of intelligence gathering and analysis and would have been a rigorous enforcer of trenchant estimates and assessments. President Clinton was very close to naming Ambassador Thomas Pickering as CIA director, but Clinton decided that Pickering was a perfect choice as ambassador to Russia in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ive been beating the drums for Pickering over the years, but at the age of 89 he is no longer an obvious choice even in an age of aged leaders.

Fortunately, there is a Department of State veteran, William Burns, who would be a perfect choice, although he is reportedly being considered as a possible secretary of state to fill the tiny shoes of Mike Pompeo. Burns is currently the President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; he had a brilliant 33-year career as a Foreign Service Officer and retired as Deputy Secretary of State. Burns would understand the limits of the culture of secrecy and the pitfalls of covert action. More importantly, he would have the strategic sense few CIA directors have had for ensuring the central role of intelligence in identifying challenges and opportunities for decision makers.

My major concern is that the Biden team is looking at a tired list of possible choices as CIA director, which includes former acting director Michael Morell. Morell, like many CIA luminaries, such as John Brennan and John McLaughlin, has never accepted the CIAs role in brutalizing terror suspects and has criticized the Senate intelligence committees authoritative study of torture and abuse as deeply flawed. All of them have whitewashed the CIAs role. There will always be great tension between secrecy and democracy, and Biden will do great harm if he appoints a director who is more interested in keeping secrets from Americans than in keeping secrets to protect Americans.

See the original post:
Biden and the CIA - CounterPunch.org - CounterPunch

If a person is driving on a public road and is in compliance with posted traffic laws and has a valid registration the police have no reasonable suspicion to stop that vehicle.

It is not against the law to drive on public roads at any hour of the night or day.

Chief, you better talk to a decent attorney unless you want to get sued.

Mathew Hopkins

* * *

Is Lookout Mountain is trying to set a precedent for law enforcement? I guess if not having that silly sticker on your vehicle is grounds for a field interview on the big hill then it would be no different than the CPD pulling a vehicle over under the same terms for scanning your plate and not having a city sticker.

Better yet, if youre driving in Hamilton County and your vehicle is not registered in Hamilton County it must be time for a field interview. Maybe even the THP and GSP could pull the same field interviews for out of state vehicles.

See where this is going? I agree with Mr. Hopkins, Chief Wells had better have some really good attorneys on standby.

Chris Morgan

See the article here:
Has Chief Wells Read The Fourth Amendment? - And Response - The Chattanoogan

You might have been under the impression that the U.S. Supreme Court resolved how the Fourth Amendment applies to cell phone location data in 2018, when it decidedCarpenter v. United States, a case concerning the warrantless seizure and search of cell phone records. (The Reporters Committee filed afriend-of-the-court briefinCarpenterto explain why location tracking also implicates First Amendment values, including reporter-source confidentiality.) If you want someones data, the justices concluded in that case, go get a warrant. So far, so simple. But developments sinceCarpenterhave made clear that settled law settles very little.

The Department of Homeland Security maintains, for instance, that the warrant requirement doesnt apply when the agency buys Americans location information from a data broker, according to amemorecently obtained by BuzzFeed News. Which, given whatsavailable for salethese days, makes for quite the constitutional loophole.

The Department argues that individuals have no reasonable expectation of privacy in location information provided to a third-party with a users consent. The consent in question, though, will often have been the users decision to click I agree on a mobile apps tiny and inscrutable terms of service. Given the Departments troubling misuse of its existing authorities tomonitorjournalists, these broad legal claims cant help but raise concerns about how those commercial datasets will be deployed.

Whos to say, meanwhile, that a warrant requirement is enough to prevent dragnet location monitoring? Thats the question presented by a string ofrecentcourtdecisionsinvolving geofence warrants. In each of these cases, rather than serve a court order that asked for location data corresponding to a known phone, police asked for the opposite for information on all of the devices that were in a particular location at a particular time. Of course, the results can expose sensitive interactions that have nothing to do with the crime police are investigating:a doctors visit, say, or a reporters interaction with a confidential source.

These warrants have drawn scrutiny from privacy advocates because, well, they dont really do the thing a warrant is expected to do: prevent the government from invading the privacy of individuals the government has no reason to suspect of a crime. For just that reason, organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundationarguethese reverse warrants violate the Fourth Amendment. But magistrate judges have divided on the question, and no appeals court has weighed in. As a result, it remains unclear whether thisincreasingly popularlaw enforcement tool is legal.

As path-breaking as it might have been, then, whetherCarpenter can meaningfully protect location privacy along with all its associated constitutional values will turn on questions the justices have yet to answer.

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The Technology and Press Freedom Project at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press uses integrated advocacy combining the law, policy analysis, and public education to defend and promote press rights on issues at the intersection of technology and press freedom, such as reporter-source confidentiality protections, electronic surveillance law and policy, and content regulation online and in other media. TPFP is directed by Reporters Committee attorney Gabe Rottman. He works with Stanton Foundation National Security/Free Press Legal Fellow Grayson Clary and Technology and Press Freedom Project Legal Fellow Mailyn Fidler.

Originally posted here:
The next legal battle (or three) over location tracking - Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press