September 30, 2019

Mississippi City claims that undocumented immigrants have no constitutional rights...WTF?

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/30/chilling-mississippi-city-claims-undocumented-man-killed-police-had-no

A court filing publicized late last week drew outrage on Monday over the case of Ismael Lopez, a 41-year-old man who was killed by police two years ago in Southaven, Mississippi.

To avoid responsibility for the man's death, attorneys for the city are arguing that Lopez had no constitutional rights due to his status as an undocumented immigrant—blatantly contradicting U.S. law and numerous rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court. Kristen Clarke, executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, was among the immigrant rights defenders who drew attention to the case on social media.

Cops in Southhaven Mississippi knocked on the door of the wrong house and killed an innocent man, Ismael Lopez - shooting him in the head

His family sued the city

The city is now moving to dismiss the case, arguing that undocumented people have no rightshttps://t.co/x1ePIfYJCE

— Kristen Clarke (@KristenClarkeJD) September 29, 2019

Lopez was shot in the back of the head when the police came to his home, where he'd lived for 16 years, in July 2017. His widow, Claudia Linares, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Southaven this past summer, a year after a grand jury declined to indict the two officers involved in his death.

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I can't even wrap my head around this type of thinking.

September 26, 2019

Privacy threat flying mostly under the radar...

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/26/just-digital-privacy-advocates-warned-bezos-admits-amazon-writing-its-own-laws

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A casual announcement made Wednesday by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos that his company is writing facial recognition regulations for legislators to enact is exactly what "digital rights activists have been warning" would emerge from Silicon Valley unless lawmakers pass a full ban on facial recognition surveillance.

Bezos told reporters at a product launch event that the company's "public policy team is actually working on facial recognition regulations."

"It makes a lot of sense to regulate that," Bezos said. "It's a perfect example of something that has really positive uses so you don't want to put the breaks on it. At the same time there's lots of potential for abuses with that kind of technology and so you do want regulations."

Amazon earlier this year released facial recognition guidelines that it hoped lawmakers would consider when creating regulation.

Now, Amazon is writing draft legislation to pitch to lawmakers, Jeff Bezos said in a surprise media appearance yesterday https://t.co/MdWwkWZxgj pic.twitter.com/YMOnKjBL9r

— Jason Del Rey (@DelRey) September 26, 2019

For a form of technology that digital rights advocates call "uniquely dangerous," regulations—especially those that Amazon lobbyists have a hand in developing—are not sufficient to keep Americans safe from the privacy violations facial recognition can cause, said Fight for the Future.

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September 20, 2019

45's lawyers argue that it is unconstitutional to even investigate him....WTF?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/nyregion/trump-tax-returns-lawsuit.html

Lawyers for President Trump argued in a lawsuit filed on Thursday that he could not be criminally investigated while in office, as they sought to block a subpoena from state prosecutors in Manhattan demanding eight years of his tax returns.

Taking a broad position that the lawyers acknowledged had not been tested, the president’s legal team argued in the complaint that the Constitution effectively makes sitting presidents immune from all criminal inquiries until they leave the White House.

Presidents, they asserted, have such enormous responsibility and play a unique role in government that they cannot be subject to the burden of investigations, especially from local prosecutors who may use the criminal process for political gain.

Several constitutional law scholars interviewed by The New York Times said that if the lawyers’ position were accepted by the court, it would set a sweeping new precedent.

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I wonder what legal basis they are using to underpin that argument.

September 19, 2019

This article explains the inner workings of MSM news organizations and why we can't count on them.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/the-incredible-belief-that-corporate-ownership-does-not-influence-media-content/

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As a journalist who has worked both inside and outside of establishment media, I see influence as embedded in a corporate media culture rather than in isolated cases of CEO dictates. It happens in little ways, such as how an interviewer frames a question, and in big ways, like the decision to exclude a topic, a person or a group of people from the airwaves.

Like most US companies, news organizations are hierarchies, which people who have worked in corporate offices can readily understand. Given that “90% of the United States’ media is controlled by five media conglomerates,” the top executive at many news outfits is likely the CEO of a multinational corporation. The word comes down from the business execs to the company’s division chiefs, as seen in countless movies (like the 1976 classic Network). This was how it was when I worked on primetime national news at CBS in the 1990s.

On the inside, it wasn’t easy to see organizational bias, when job security and team work required overlooking it. The response to the heavily promoted primetime news pairing of two well-known anchors exemplified how news personnel learn to toe the line. The two anchors had zero chemistry, but no one mentioned it, as if an unwritten code had been instantly internalized. This dragged on for two years, pulling down the network’s ratings.

Higher-ups would never offer editorial staff direct input on content. That’s what the executive and middle management were for. Would these managers confide to their staff that the big guns gave them a certain direction? No. Whatever it was, they would present it as their own, and it would be adopted.

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