Loss of Privacy

From npr:

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a longtime legal resident of the United States was improperly deported for possession of a small amount of marijuana. By a 7-2 vote, the justices said that it defies common sense to treat an offense like this as an “aggravated felony” justifying mandatory deportation.

Adrian Moncrieffe immigrated with his parents to the United States from Jamaica in 1984. He was 3 years old at the time. He and his family were all legal residents. He grew up, became a home health care worker, got married, and started a family in Georgia. In 2007, during a routine traffic stop, police found a small amount of marijuana in the car, about enough to make two or three cigarettes.

Moncrieffe, with no prior record, was charged in state court with possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, a crime that under Georgia law allows for a wide range of sentences. His lawyer did not advise him that if he pled guilty he could be deported. The U.S. Supreme Court has since required that lawyers give such information to defendants.

The federal government, however, jailed and then deported him to Jamaica, contending that under federal law, there was no discretion on the matter because Moncrieffe had been convicted of an aggravated felony.

Not so, said the court on Tuesday, ruling that Moncrieffe’s Georgia conviction was not in fact an aggravated felony, meaning that the government had discretion to forgo deportation. Writing for the seven-member majority, Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that possession of marijuana with intent to distribute is a federal crime, but she said that where the amount is small and there is no sale, the crime does not qualify as an aggravated felony, or even a felony. The government’s attempt to characterize such an offense as an aggravated felony, she said, “defies the commonsense conception of these terms.”

Montcrieffe has a great chance of now returning to the United States and to his family.

In 2011, I made a post showing how the police in America were becoming more militarized. The recent events in Boston show just how complete the trend towards turning the police into a defacto military has come should be deeply troubling for all Americans.

Here are some photos from Boston that emphasizes that point. You can click on the pictures to see them full sized.

It has just come to the attention of the media that on 8 March 2013, Black and North African railway workers were told they could not work at Paris’ Gare du Nord station during the visit of Israeli President Shimon Peres. The reason? They might be Muslim.

It is now the subject of an official complaint by the SUD-Rail transport union which says everything was done to ensure there were “no Muslim employees to welcome the Head of the State of Israel”.

Mr Peres and a delegation of other senior Israelis arrived on a morning train from Belgium, and were greeted by staff from SNCF, France’s national railway, and their baggage-handling subsidiary, ITIREMIA.

The previous day however, a site manager told all workers at the station about the ban on black staff, and those of North African descent, because they might be Muslim.

Secular France does not officially recognise anybody’s religion, but it was assumed by management that anyone from a “black or Arab” background might be Muslim – an assumption “based on the appearance of the workers”, according to a SUD-Rail statement.

SNCF has said they will conduct a full examination.

Photo.

Nebraska police officers chase down and arrest a man who was video recording the police abusing another man. A third man records the entire incident from what looks like a second story room across the street.

The quote below was taken from the YouTube description. I’ve left the numerous spelling and grammatical errors as they were. It’s still readable and easily understood what the video author was conveying.

The two males were seeing why the vehicles were being towed. The male in the blue truck pulled up late after getting out he asked officers why the cars were being towed, cops asked him things which i wasnt able to hear he moved towards the front left fender then towards the front bumper when he started walking back towards his drivers door it seemed to appear thats what he was either directed to do or was doing out of free will.

Instantly the officer from behind him pursued a takedown forcing extreme force just to cuff him. The office put his knee in his back and neck taking multiple punches also the brother was recording and the officer seen him as to close to the other officers while doing so they proceeded with all that he moved to the side walk the rest of what he did was on the video but when the man filming took off towards the house to give the camera to his aunt, who is handicapped and wheel chair bound sitting in the hallway the whole time when he got into the house she was knocked down. Later admitted by the officer arresting him outside. I was not able to hear much more then the camera itself so everything they said was not heard.

More.

9 April 2013 UPDATE: Four officers have been fired for use of excessive force following this incident.

Police say the discovered device is a standard sized hand-held camera left in plain sight. Wednesday morning, a male student saw it in the top corner of the restroom, found it suspicious and reported it to school administrators.

“We do not know that the officer’s intentions were,” said Lt. T.J. Smith, Anne Arundel County Police. “That’s an important issue that we’re trying to get to the bottom of.”

A police investigation revealed a 14-year veteran assigned with the Special Services Bureau purchased and installed the camera on his own without the knowledge of the police department or school officials.

Although investigators have said that no video or images have been found on the camera, it is unclear if wifi was used to transmit the data.

Given the recent events in Anne Arundel County, most do not expect much, if anything will happen to this officer.

Video.