Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Citing anti-competitive concerns, the Justice Department sued Election Systems & Software in order to force the company to divest itself of the voting machine assets it obtained from Premier Election Solutions [Diebold] last year.
The department’s antitrust division, along with nine state attorneys general, filed the civil antitrust lawsuit (.pdf) in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged Antitrust, Corporate Mergers, Corporatism, Diebold, DOJ, Elections, ESS, Law, Monopolies, Premier Election Solutions, Voting Machines
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Monday, February 15, 2010
There are times when governments fight to keep documents secret to protect sensitive intelligence or other vital national security interests. And there are times when they are just trying to cover up incompetence, misbehavior or lawbreaking.
Last week, when a British court released secret intelligence material relating to the torture allegations of a former Guantánamo prisoner, [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged Barack Obama, Binyam Mohamed, CIA, Crime, Detainees, Dick Cheney, George W Bush, Guantanamo, Hillary Clinton, Intelligence, Law, MI5, Rendition, Torture, War Crimes
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Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Wow, the corruption is/was worse than even my imagination is capable of thinking up… and the DoJ isn’t taking action? WTF?
The former employees who filed the lawsuit, a married couple named Brad and Melan Davis, said there was little financial oversight of the money.
Last year, an audit by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction [...]
ProPublica has interviewed or obtained complaints from 85 current and former air marshals in nearly every one of the agency’s 21 field offices over the past year and half. They all told similar stories of being treated unfairly in promotions, assignments or discipline by supervisors who target those who speak up or don’t fit a [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged Air Marshals, Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver, Discrimination, EEOC, Homophobia, Las Vegas, Law, LGBT, Miami, Orlando, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Racism, Sexism, TSA, Veterans
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In sum, there is clearly a bipartisan and institutional craving for a revival (more accurately: ongoing preservation) of the core premise of Bush/Cheney radicalism: that because we’re “at war” with Terrorists, our standard precepts of justice and due process do not apply and, indeed, must be violated. To relieve ourselves of guilt and of the bad [...]
“Nothing has stopped the dragnet,” said Cindy Cohn, the EFF’s legal director, whose case had grown to include all of the nation’s leading internet service providers.
The Bush administration and now the Obama administration have neither admitted nor denied the allegations. Instead, they have declared the issue a state secret — one that would undermine the [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged ATT, Big Brother, Congress, EFF, Intelligence, Law, Mark Klein, Privacy, Retroactive Immunity, Surveillance, Telecoms, TSP, Vaughn Walker, Wiretapping
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When it comes to Obama transparency, Electronic Frontier Foundation privacy attorney Kurt Opsahl points out that the chief executive told the American public one thing Wednesday night and a federal appeals court another just a few weeks ago.
The issue at hand surrounds lobbying. “It’s time to require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged Barack Obama, DOJ, EFF, Kurt Opsahl, Lobbyists, Retroactive Immunity, Surveillance, Telecoms, Transparency, Warrantless Wiretapping, Wiretapping
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Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Last year, the EPA issued a long awaited set of guidelines on regulating large, stationary sources of CO2. The rules, known as the “Endangerment Finding,” used the authority granted to the agency through a Supreme Court ruling that found CO2 to be a pollutant that the EPA could regulate. While environmentalists, especially those skeptical of Congress’ [...]
Filed in Green Living, News Blurbs
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Also tagged Big Coal, Big Oil, Blanche Lincoln, Campaign Finance, Clean Air Act, Climate Change, CO2, Endangerment Finding, EPA, GHG, Law, Lawsuit, Lisa Murkowski, Lobbyists, Massachusetts v EPA, Massey Energy, SCOTUS
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Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision ensuring that immigrants facing deportation have fair process in the review of their cases. The Court ruled that individuals who seek to reopen their deportation orders have the right to appeal to the federal courts if the immigration court refuses to reopen the case. The Court’s decision [...]
I’ve been thinking a little more about the Supreme Court’s decision. This ruling gives foreign powers more rights than U.S. citizens. Imagine that! Aramco, a corporation owned by the Saudi Arabian government (whose citizens attacked the U.S. on 9/11/2001 from their base in Afghanistan), will have enormously more influence in choosing your senator than you [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged Arlen Specter, Campaign Finance Reform, Citizens United v FEC, Congress, Corporatism, Dick Durbin, House, John Roberts, Law, SCOTUS, Senate
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Saturday, January 23, 2010
In Baghdad, Vice President Joe Biden announced that the U.S. will appeal a court decision dismissing manslaughter charges against five Blackwater guards involved in a 2007 Baghdad shooting that killed 17 people including women and children. (Jan. 23)
via YouTube – Associated Press – Biden: U.S. to Appeal Blackwater Dismissal.
You read that right. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker has dismissed (.pdf) a lawsuit in San Francisco’s federal courthouse against the U.S. government, stating in his ruling that the plaintiffs’ complaint that they were illegally monitored under the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretap program is shared by too many other American citizens.
At issue is [...]
Three private security guards working for Blackwater Worldwide who witnessed a 2007 episode in Baghdad in which at least 17 Iraqi civilians were killed by other Blackwater guards told a federal grand jury that they believed the shootings were unjustified, according to newly unsealed court documents.
Two senior United States military officers who arrived at the [...]
Thursday, January 14, 2010
The American Civil Liberties Union is working with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to find lawyers whose laptops or other electronic devices were searched at U.S. points of entry and exit. The groups argue that the practice of suspicionless laptop searches violates fundamental rights of freedom of speech and protection against unreasonable seizures [...]
Thursday, January 14, 2010
The trial that started on Monday in San Francisco over the constitutionality of California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage could have been a moment for the entire nation to witness a calm, deliberative debate on a vitally important issue in the era of instant communications. Instead, the United States Supreme Court made it a sad [...]
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