…Sanjay Dutt has surrendered before a Mumbai court and will begin serving time for a weapons conviction linked to a deadly terror attack in the city in 1993. The Bollywood actor surrendered on Thursday to a five-year jail sentence handed by India’s Supreme Court in March for illegal possession of weapons supplied by mafia bosses linked to the terror attack, which killed 257 people in the city ten years ago.
more.
…it fundamentally damages the character of society. “To be a radical means to reject the status quo, which in some cases propels society forward…Equating radicalism with terrorism can produce a dampening effect on free expression—either by government or by self-censorship.”
more.
The contest between liberty and security has been…fought on the public stage by every President from George Washington to Barack Obama. Each generation, from those facing rebellion in the 1860s to those pushing back against government intrusions a century later, has debated where to strike a balance. But in the…world of 21st century law enforcement, where terrorist threats can hide behind our most cherished freedoms, the battle sometimes takes place in government documents so obscure that they escape public notice.
more.
…After receiving his driver’s license, he was pulled over around the corner from his house. When the officer asked for his license and registration, out of habit, Pillo replied that he didn’t have one. “When he repeated, ‘You don’t have one?’ I remembered, ‘Wait a minute, I do.’” Although Pillo is thankful for what Deferred Action has given him, he adds, “Its only temporary, it doesn’t fix anything. Who knows? Two years from now, I could be back in limbo.” As of now, Pillo’s main concern is to push for broader change. “They won’t hear one, but they’ll hear millions,” he says.
much more, here.
…while black women may have been particularly vulnerable to wartime rape, the Lieber Code brought them for the first time under the umbrella of legal protection. In fact, some black women were able to mobilize military law to their advantage. In the summer of 1864, Jenny Green, a young “colored” girl who had escaped slavery and sought refuge with the Union Army in Richmond, Va., was brutally raped by Lt. Andrew J. Smith, 11th Pennsylvania Calvary. Thanks to the Lieber Code, though, she was able to bring charges against him, and even testify in a military court…The idea that a former slave, and an adolescent girl at that, could demand and receive legal redress was revolutionary. Despite his attorney’s argument that Green had consented, Smith was discharged from the Army and sentenced to 10 years of hard labor.
more.
…awash in an excess of Border Patrol agents and oft-squandered funds dispatched to cooperating local cop shops. Then there’s the 650 miles of border fencing that seems most adept at preventing wildlife from sneaking into America…Although this…cost(s) taxpayers billions of dollars, it curiously receives little criticism from fiscal hawks in Congress, who nonetheless always seem ready to slash comparatively minuscule funding for programs aiding the poor.
more.
My chief lament about the decline of the local newspaper is that with each outlet that closes, opportunities to ferret out fraud and public waste and abuse are lost. Just as we and the FBI are adding resources to fight public corruption, if you run a newsroom, I would hope you would think of adding reporters and resources to the investigative side of the business. I bet it’s as fun a beat as a reporter can have. So all of you press folks back there, tell your editors I said that.
U.S. attorney for the Southern District, Preet Bharara
…who brought national attention to the “rampant” corruption in New York politics by announcing complaints against a number of local legislators and operatives.
Urban manhunts have captivated cities and provided fodder for a frenzied 24-hour media. But at what cost?
For a country that so often purports to be color blind, that insists too many people of color are overly obsessed with race, and that claims to live up to Dr. King’s dream of not judging people ‘by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,’ the last two days have revealed a much uglier reality. They have revealed that—’doth protest too much’ claims to the contrary—America is anything but color blind, that too many white folk are the ones obsessed with race, and that Dr. King’s dream is still just that: a distant dream. And that’s not just a general truism that is irrelevant to this moment of national emergency—it is, on the contrary, a very specific point that must be made, right now, precisely because of that national emergency.
David Sirota, at Salon, in regard to
…the blatant ethnic/religious profiling of an Arab student injured at the Boston Marathon bombing. In that…episode, he was…targeted as a suspect because—like thousands of others—he was running away from the blast…then came CNN’s declaration that police had arrested a “dark-skinned male”—again, unquestioningly blared all over the world, drowning out a CBS News report alleging that the “man sought as a possible suspect is a white male, wearing white baseball cap on backwards, a gray hoodie and a black jacket.”…
…Though it’s not an official policy, at least five California state prisons have a color-coding system.On any given day, the color of a sign could mean the difference between an inmate exercising in the prison yard or being confined to their cell. When prisoners attack guards or other inmates, California allows its corrections officers to restrict all prisoners of that same race or ethnicity to prevent further violence. Prison officials have said such moves can be necessary in a system plagued by some of the worst race-based gang violence in the country…But legal advocates say such practices are…problematic. “I haven’t seen anything like it since the days of segregation, when you had colored drinking fountains,” said Rebekah Evenson, an attorney with the nonprofit Prison Law Office.
more.
…details how the case of one 9/11 defendant after the next was legally and ethically poisoned by the sadism, amateurism, and zealotry of their questioners. The interrogators and the bureaucrats who authorized their brutality posed as Hollywood tough guys…by resorting to criminal misconduct they unwittingly weakened America’s efforts to win the war on terror in countless ways for which the country is still paying.
more.
![It’s been nearly seven years since the last execution in North Carolina, but that could soon change…the state Senate passed a bill to resume executions…The halt in executions stemmed largely from challenges to the state’s lethal injection protocol and questions about whether medical professionals can participate in a state-sponsored killing. Additionally, the 2009 Racial Justice Act allowed death row inmates to appeal their conviction if racial bias may have played a role in his or her sentence…North Carolina’s move bucks the national trend towards repealing the death penalty. Six states in as many years have eliminated [it]…
more.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/4ee281335d6f9fb433c006c80306603c/tumblr_mksjgeUfOk1qcwnv4o1_500.jpg)
It’s been nearly seven years since the last execution in North Carolina, but that could soon change…the state Senate passed a bill to resume executions…The halt in executions stemmed largely from challenges to the state’s lethal injection protocol and questions about whether medical professionals can participate in a state-sponsored killing. Additionally, the 2009 Racial Justice Act allowed death row inmates to appeal their conviction if racial bias may have played a role in his or her sentence…North Carolina’s move bucks the national trend towards repealing the death penalty. Six states in as many years have eliminated [it]…
more.
New York state Sen. Malcolm Smith and a New York City councilman have been arrested in an alleged plot to rig the New York City mayor’s race. Smith and City Councilman Dan Halloran were arrested early Tuesday at their homes…U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Smith “tried to bribe his way to a shot at Gracie Mansion”…In meetings with a cooperating witness and an undercover FBI agent posing as a wealthy real estate developer, Smith agreed to bribe leaders of Republican Party county committees around New York City in an attempt to run for mayor as a Republican, even though he was a registered Democrat…
Tyra for Yves Saint Laurent, s/s 1995
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