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Started by Telarus, February 16, 2012, 01:06:06 PM

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Junkenstein

My bad, I was implying the earlier offences were plea bargains (Some had incredibly petty offences as kids so I'd assume the early small shit got plead down, in at least some cases. Seems fine at the time until 3 strikes rules get implemented and suddenly ANYTHING fucks you.

I know that US courts have been strongly against any kind of jury education, is there still any kind of push for it over there? There were a couple of organisations doing this kind of stuff, but I'm assuming their impact has been minimal. 
Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

Q. G. Pennyworth

Quote from: Junkenstein on November 13, 2013, 06:51:55 PM
My bad, I was implying the earlier offences were plea bargains (Some had incredibly petty offences as kids so I'd assume the early small shit got plead down, in at least some cases. Seems fine at the time until 3 strikes rules get implemented and suddenly ANYTHING fucks you.

I know that US courts have been strongly against any kind of jury education, is there still any kind of push for it over there? There were a couple of organisations doing this kind of stuff, but I'm assuming their impact has been minimal.

Oh, yeah early stuff almost always is. And the earlier convictions are used to justify or trigger bullshit sentencing.

Junkenstein

Some HA with your HA?
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/crime/after-prison-stint-tough-guy-ex-cop-bernie-kerik-now-crusades-against-mandatory

QuoteSome people can learn only through experience. All the factual presentations and logical arguments in the world do nothing for them. Disgraced former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik is one of those people. But better to learn by experience than not at all.

The onetime hard-as-nails lawman now crusades to reform the U.S. justice system.

As a law-and-order tough guy who sat at the right hand of New York's iron-fisted Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Kerik presided over a dramatic drop in New York's crime rate and like his patron, became a national media darling following his cool performance in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

But later in the decade, Kerik (pictured as he appears today) fell fast and hard as scandal after Kerik scandal unfolded in the New York press. His extramarital affair with publishing queen Judith Regan was prime fodder for tabloids, but his shady financial dealings are what landed him in prison for three years.

Kerik got out this past May a changed man. While in prison, he saw first-hand the upside-down insanity of the criminal justice system on which he'd built his life and previous reputation. Kerik is now on the media circuit, not in an attempt to rebuild his personal reputation, but as a born-again reformer who now sees the injustice in mandatory sentencing laws.

QuoteDespite his earlier position as the country's best-known policeman, he now claims that before going to prison himself, he had no idea that nonviolent offenders could have their lives destroyed by the system for almost nothing.

I would suggest this man to be either lying or mentally ill.
Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Junkenstein on November 19, 2013, 03:25:25 PM
Some HA with your HA?
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/crime/after-prison-stint-tough-guy-ex-cop-bernie-kerik-now-crusades-against-mandatory

QuoteSome people can learn only through experience. All the factual presentations and logical arguments in the world do nothing for them. Disgraced former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik is one of those people. But better to learn by experience than not at all.

The onetime hard-as-nails lawman now crusades to reform the U.S. justice system.

As a law-and-order tough guy who sat at the right hand of New York's iron-fisted Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Kerik presided over a dramatic drop in New York's crime rate and like his patron, became a national media darling following his cool performance in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

But later in the decade, Kerik (pictured as he appears today) fell fast and hard as scandal after Kerik scandal unfolded in the New York press. His extramarital affair with publishing queen Judith Regan was prime fodder for tabloids, but his shady financial dealings are what landed him in prison for three years.

Kerik got out this past May a changed man. While in prison, he saw first-hand the upside-down insanity of the criminal justice system on which he'd built his life and previous reputation. Kerik is now on the media circuit, not in an attempt to rebuild his personal reputation, but as a born-again reformer who now sees the injustice in mandatory sentencing laws.

QuoteDespite his earlier position as the country's best-known policeman, he now claims that before going to prison himself, he had no idea that nonviolent offenders could have their lives destroyed by the system for almost nothing.

I would suggest this man to be either lying or mentally ill.

:lulz: :lulz: :lulz: Priceless.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


minuspace

Quote from: Junkenstein on November 13, 2013, 06:51:55 PM
My bad, I was implying the earlier offences were plea bargains (Some had incredibly petty offences as kids so I'd assume the early small shit got plead down, in at least some cases. Seems fine at the time until 3 strikes rules get implemented and suddenly ANYTHING fucks you.

I know that US courts have been strongly against any kind of jury education, is there still any kind of push for it over there? There were a couple of organisations doing this kind of stuff, but I'm assuming their impact has been minimal.
The Judge tells potential Jurors that their job is not to interpret the Law, but to determine if the defendant actually broke it.  The Defense then proceeds to select Jurors by asking them questions like whether they can articulate the distinction between relative and absolute law.  In the case of petty and/or non-violent crimes, the upshot is how some cases clearly demonstrate how, relatively, convicting someone /just/ for having broken a Law is a greater evil than simply allowing oneself NOT to be ordered by the Judge to stop thinking and questioning the nature of said Law.

Turns out the Judge can sometimes be full of shit, and it spreads, go figure.

This grass-roots message has been brought to you by "someone else".

Bu🤠ns

Well this is pretty fucking scary...granted all it takes is a little extrapolation to come up with the implications of location data but shit...i wasn't quite ready to do that yet...

https://www.aclu.org/meet-jack-or-what-government-could-do-all-location-data

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Looks like Jack recently moved from Portland to Springfield.  :lol:
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


minuspace

Which is why I always travel with my dog.  Awe, ain't he just th cutest little thing?  Just rescued him; sometimes he gets lost at night.  I'm so glad I found him again.

Junkenstein

Quote from: Bu☆ns on December 11, 2013, 04:50:52 AM
Well this is pretty fucking scary...granted all it takes is a little extrapolation to come up with the implications of location data but shit...i wasn't quite ready to do that yet...

https://www.aclu.org/meet-jack-or-what-government-could-do-all-location-data

Utter bullshit. No government would design a UI that functional.

Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

Bu🤠ns

Quote from: Junkenstein on December 11, 2013, 12:56:12 PM
Quote from: Bu☆ns on December 11, 2013, 04:50:52 AM
Well this is pretty fucking scary...granted all it takes is a little extrapolation to come up with the implications of location data but shit...i wasn't quite ready to do that yet...

https://www.aclu.org/meet-jack-or-what-government-could-do-all-location-data

Utter bullshit. No government would design a UI that functional.



Of course not--this is commercial.  We gave up our privacy for this really sweet app!

Junkenstein

#445
QuoteAaron Key wasn't sure he wanted a tattoo on his neck. Especially one of a giant squid smoking a joint.

But the guys running Squid's Smoke Shop in Portland, Ore., convinced him: It would be a perfect way to promote their store.

They would even pay him and a friend $150 apiece if they agreed to turn their bodies into walking billboards.

Key, who is mentally disabled, was swayed.

He and his friend, Marquis Glover, liked Squid's. It was their hangout. The 19-year-olds spent many afternoons there playing Xbox and chatting with the owner, "Squid," and the store clerks.

So they took the money and got the ink etched on their necks, tentacles creeping down to their collarbones.

It would be months before the young men learned the whole thing was a setup. The guys running Squid's were actually undercover ATF agents conducting a sting to get guns away from criminals and drugs off the street.

The tattoos had been sponsored by the U.S. government; advertisements for a fake storefront.

The teens found out as they were arrested and booked into jail.

Earlier this year when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel exposed a botched ATF sting in Milwaukee — that included agents hiring a brain-damaged man to promote an undercover storefront and then arresting him forhis work — ATF officials told Congress the failed Milwaukee operation was an isolated case of inadequate supervision.

It wasn't.
http://m.jsonline.com/more/news/watchdog/watchdogreports/atf-uses-rogue-tactics-in-storefront-stings-across-the-nation-b99146765z1-234916641.html#continue_reading

QuoteAmong the findings:

■ ATF agents befriended mentally disabled people to drum up business and later arrested them in at least four cities in addition to Milwaukee. In Wichita, Kan., ATF agents referred to a man with a low IQ as "slow-headed" before deciding to secretly use him as a key cog in their sting. And agents in Albuquerque, N.M., gave a brain-damaged drug addict with little knowledge of weapons a "tutorial" on machine guns, hoping he could find them one.

■ Agents in several cities opened undercover gun- and drug-buying operations in safe zones near churches and schools, allowed juveniles to come in and play video games and teens to smoke marijuana, and provided alcohol to underage youths. In Portland, attorneys for three teens who were charged said a female agent dressed provocatively, flirted with the boys and encouraged them to bring drugs and weapons to the store to sell.

■ As they did in Milwaukee, agents in other cities offered sky-high prices for guns, leading suspects to buy firearms at stores and turn around and sell them to undercover agents for a quick profit. In other stings, agents ran fake pawnshops and readily bought stolen items, such as electronics and bikes — no questions asked — spurring burglaries and theft. In Atlanta, agents bought guns that had been stolen just hours earlier, several ripped off from police cars.

■ Agents damaged buildings they rented for their operations, tearing out walls and rewiring electricity — then stuck landlords with the repair bills. A property owner in Portland said agents removed a parking lot spotlight,damaging her new $30,000 roof and causing leaks, before they shut down the operation and disappeared without a way for her to contact them.

■ Agents pressed suspects for specific firearms that could fetch tougher penalties in court. They allowed felons to walk out of the stores armed with guns. In Wichita, agents suggested a felon take a shotgun, saw it off and bring it back — and provided instructions on how to do it. The sawed-off gun allowed them to charge the man with a more serious crime.

■ In Pensacola, the ATF hired a felon to run its pawnshop. The move widened the pool of potential targets, boosting arrest numbers.Even those trying to sell guns legally could be charged if they knowingly sold to a felon. The ATF's pawnshop partner was later convicted of pointing a loaded gun at someone outside a bar. Instead of a stiff sentence typically handed down to repeat offenders in federal court, he got six months in jail — and a pat on the back from the prosecutor.

It goes on and gets worse.
Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

Cain

More from Hopsicker on the American plane which crashed in Mexico carrying several tons of cocaine:

QuoteThe affidavit sates, "On September 24, 2007, a 1975 Gulfstream II turbo jet bearing tail number N987SA crashed in the Yucatan Peninsula while carrying 3723 kilograms of cocaine, which was recovered by the Mexican Government, as documented by DEA Mexico City."

"N987SA was owned by Donna Blue Aircraft Inc, which was subsequently identified as a front company for a Tampa Florida-based ICE undercover operation named Operation Mayan Jaguar." (emphasis mine.)

The "Tampa-based ICE undercover operation" likely provided "cover" for a CIA operation, which "sheep-dipped"  an already-owned CIA plane, the Gulfstream II, to a dummy front company, Donna Blue Aircraft.

QuoteBill Conroy of NarcoNews had reported that the now-mangled drug plane had been used for at least a decade by the CIA to fly "extraordinary renditions "to the US base in Guantanamo and to ferry extradited drug traffickers from Colombia to the USA.

At least on the surface, the DEA affidavit appears to indicate otherwise.

On the other hand, there is the possibility that the DEA was looking at pilots O'Conner and Smith as "persons of interest" in drug trafficking investigations at the same time the CIA was employing them as pilots?

Anyone who remembers Barry Seal would seem to have no trouble answering, at least tentatively,  "yes."

QuoteThis is a case of ICE running amok," a DEA source told Conroy. "If this [operation] was being run by the book, they would not be doing it unilaterally" – without the participation of DEA – "and without the knowledge of the Mexican government."

For my part, I'd interviewed the No 2 DEA official in Miami, who insisted on anonymity for reasons which will soon become obvious.

In my whiniest citizen-journalist voice, I asked him plaintively, "How come you guys aren't investigating the planes out of St Petersburg busted with 10 tons of cocaine?"

He calmly replied that one Federal Agency does not, as a matter of course, investigate the operations of another Federal Agency.

What had been exposed by the Dc-9 and Gulfstream II seizures, he said,  was a rogue U.S. Customs operation (ICE is part of Customs, which in turn is part of Homeland Security).

For further answers, he pointed my to the Homeland Security's Office of Professional Responsibility, charged with investigating internal misconduct.

Five years later, I'm still waiting to hear back from them.

For what it's worth on the drug-running/rendition angle...I've heard rumours that more than just people are taken on those rendition flights.  Only rumours, supposition and suspicions, no evidence.  But when you've got a secret, international smuggling system with state sanction, well, whose to say it wont be hijacked to serve multiple goals?

minuspace

QuoteThis is a case of ICE running amok," a DEA source told Conroy. "If this [operation] was being run by the book, they would not be doing it unilaterally" – without the participation of DEA – "and without the knowledge of the Mexican government."

See, because otherwise the rendition would not be "extraordinary". :lol:

Telarus

#448
http://m.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213

QuoteIf you've ever been arrested on a drug charge, if you've ever spent even a day in jail for having a stem of marijuana in your pocket or "drug paraphernalia" in your gym bag, Assistant Attorney General and longtime Bill Clinton pal Lanny Breuer has a message for you: Bite me.

Breuer this week signed off on a settlement deal with the British banking giant HSBC that is the ultimate insult to every ordinary person who's ever had his life altered by a narcotics charge. Despite the fact that HSBC admitted to laundering billions of dollars for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels (among others) and violating a host of important banking laws (from the Bank Secrecy Act to the Trading With the Enemy Act), Breuer and his Justice Department elected not to pursue criminal prosecutions of the bank, opting instead for a "record" financial settlement of $1.9 billion, which as one analyst noted is about five weeks of income for the bank.

....
They're now saying that if you're not an important cog in the global financial system, you can't get away with anything, not even simple possession. You will be jailed and whatever cash they find on you they'll seize on the spot, and convert into new cruisers or toys for your local SWAT team, which will be deployed to kick in the doors of houses where more such inessential economic cogs as you live. If you don't have a systemically important job, in other words, the government's position is that your assets may be used to finance your own political disenfranchisement.

On the other hand, if you are an important person, and you work for a big international bank, you won't be prosecuted even if you launder nine billion dollars. Even if you actively collude with the people at the very top of the international narcotics trade, your punishment will be far smaller than that of the person at the very bottom of the world drug pyramid. You will be treated with more deference and sympathy than a junkie passing out on a subway car in Manhattan (using two seats of a subway car is a common prosecutable offense in this city). An international drug trafficker is a criminal and usually a murderer; the drug addict walking the street is one of his victims. But thanks to Breuer, we're now in the business, officially, of jailing the victims and enabling the criminals.


Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213#ixzz2oQOQbF6V
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

More at link.
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inode_buddha

Quote from: Telarus on December 24, 2013, 08:05:22 PM
http://m.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213

QuoteIf you've ever been arrested on a drug charge, if you've ever spent even a day in jail for having a stem of marijuana in your pocket or "drug paraphernalia" in your gym bag, Assistant Attorney General and longtime Bill Clinton pal Lanny Breuer has a message for you: Bite me.

Breuer this week signed off on a settlement deal with the British banking giant HSBC that is the ultimate insult to every ordinary person who's ever had his life altered by a narcotics charge. Despite the fact that HSBC admitted to laundering billions of dollars for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels (among others) and violating a host of important banking laws (from the Bank Secrecy Act to the Trading With the Enemy Act), Breuer and his Justice Department elected not to pursue criminal prosecutions of the bank, opting instead for a "record" financial settlement of $1.9 billion, which as one analyst noted is about five weeks of income for the bank.

....
They're now saying that if you're not an important cog in the global financial system, you can't get away with anything, not even simple possession. You will be jailed and whatever cash they find on you they'll seize on the spot, and convert into new cruisers or toys for your local SWAT team, which will be deployed to kick in the doors of houses where more such inessential economic cogs as you live. If you don't have a systemically important job, in other words, the government's position is that your assets may be used to finance your own political disenfranchisement.

On the other hand, if you are an important person, and you work for a big international bank, you won't be prosecuted even if you launder nine billion dollars. Even if you actively collude with the people at the very top of the international narcotics trade, your punishment will be far smaller than that of the person at the very bottom of the world drug pyramid. You will be treated with more deference and sympathy than a junkie passing out on a subway car in Manhattan (using two seats of a subway car is a common prosecutable offense in this city). An international drug trafficker is a criminal and usually a murderer; the drug addict walking the street is one of his victims. But thanks to Breuer, we're now in the business, officially, of jailing the victims and enabling the criminals.


Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213#ixzz2oQOQbF6V
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

More at link.

Saw that yesterday, ya beat me to it. Good on ya! You know the weird thing is, I don't do drugs at all, don't drink or anything. Never been to jail. And ya know, this stuff *still* pisses me off cuz its just *wrong* ya know? "too big to fail" I guess it also means "too big to jail"
C|N>K