Update from the Heartland
No.528
23.1.12 – 29.1.12
Blog version: http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/
To all,
The follow-up news items:
--The Supremes rendered judgment on the appeal of the Maynard [509], warrantless, GPS tracking case (see below).
-- Another relevant opinion on the recent Marine video [526]:
“On video of Taliban corpses, let’s not be so quick to pass judgment”
by Leonard Pitts Jr.
Miami Herald
Posted on Tuesday, 01.17.12
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/17/2594306/on-video-of-taliban-corpses-lets.html
Now, we do not see this everyday. John Kiriakou, 47, of Arlington, the former CIA officer who told reporters he participated in the interrogation of terrorist Abu Zubaydah has been charged with violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 [PL 97-200; 96 Stat.122; 23.June.1982] [348] and the Espionage Act of 1917 [PL 65-030; 40 Stat. 217; 15.June.1917]. This is going to be an interesting case to watch as it works its way through the Judiciary.
On Tuesday, President Obama gave his constitutionally mandated State of the Union message [Article II, Section 3, Clause 1] to Congress and the Nation. I recognize and acknowledge that some of us accept what he says without questions, while others reject every single thing he says outright, also without questions. I am at neither pole. I think he gave us a well-crafted message expertly delivered. He warned the nation that the decades-old promise of a secure and rising middle class is threatened by economic unfairness. Much of the unfairness of which the President speaks is based in the ridiculously lopsided tax code that allows the enormously wealthy to shield and protect their income from the tax collector. Yet, all the great words are just words. What matters are actions, and in our system, compromise enables actions on behalf of We, the People. When one side refuses moderation and compromise, then actions tend to be beyond reach. Nonetheless, well done, Mr. President.
The State of Texas appears to be in a bit of a pickle, resultant from the constitutionally mandated decennial census (Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 . . . since 1790) that documented over four million new residents in the state. Article IV, Section 4, amplified by the 14th Amendment, Section 2 and the Equal Protection Clause, codified the “one-person, one-vote” rule, i.e., equal apportionment of representation based on population (thus the census). The Supreme Court validated “one person, one vote” in their ruling Reynolds v. Sims [377 U.S. 533 (1964)]. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 [PL 89-110; 79 Stat. 437, 439; 6.August.1965] established the judicially supervised, preclearance, approval process in use to this day. The process for validating an apportionment, re-districting plan is rather tortuous and too burdensome to recount in this humble forum; bottom line: the court did not validate the state’s plan, and the Supremes rejected the lower court’s alternative plan – Perry v. Perez [565 U.S. ___ (2012); no 11-713; 20.January.2012]. The pickle for Texas is, they do not have valid election districts and they cannot get an approved re-districting plan with a primary election scheduled for 3.April.2012. This is quite a conundrum worthy of our attention.
The Supreme Court affirmed again a citizen’s fundamental right to privacy as they rejected the Government’s arguments in support of warrantless GPS tracking of an automobile – United States v. Jones [565 U.S. ___ (2012); no. 10–1259]. The unanimous Court agreed on the outcome but not on the legal path to the objective. I first became aware of and this humble forum was introduced to this case from the decision of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia – United States v. Maynard [CCA DC no. 1:05-cr-00386-ESH-10 (2010); 6.August.2010] [509]. You may recall the Circuit Court affirmed the conviction of Lawrence Maynard but overturned the District Court conviction of Antoine Jones. The U.S. Government (USG) appealed the Jones portion of the DC Circuit ruling. There is little doubt in my little pea-brain that Jones was indeed guilty of the crimes for which he was convicted. He was set free by the FBI and Metropolitan Police Department task force use of a GPS tracker without a proper warrant. The sad reality here is the agents did in fact obtain a warrant, but they failed to comply with two of the warrant's restrictions: They did not install the GPS device within the required 10-day period, and they did not install the GPS device within the District of Columbia. For the want of a nail . . . Nonetheless, the Court determined that “the Government's installation of a GPS device on a target's vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle's movements, constitutes a ‘search,’” and thus, without a properly executed warrant, the FBI violated the Fourth Amendment rights of Antoine Jones. The Supremes got this one right! The continuing legal debate regarding a citizen’s fundamental right to privacy rambles on, but this is a positive step forward.
News from the economic front:
-- The Japanese government announced that the country recorded its first annual trade deficit since 1980. Economists warned that Japan could run trade deficits for years to come, if the yen remains strong and global demand weak. Welcome to the reality of the United States.
-- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected the world economy will expand 3.25% in 2012 -- down from the 4% last fall. They also predicted the world economy would continue to slow, and the euro region was probably headed for recession this year. Behind the global forecast, the IMF estimated an 8.2% growth for the People’s Republic of China, 7% growth in India and a meager 1.8% growth for the United States as well as a “mild recession” for the 17-nation euro zone. The IMF also warned that matters could easily worsen with the ongoing financial crisis in the euro zone.
-- In contrast to the IMF’s forecast, the Federal Reserve predicted the U.S. economy would grow between 2.2% and 2.7% this year, which is down from November's forecast of between 2.5% and 2.9%. The Fed also forecasted unemployment may fall as low as 8.2% from its November estimate of 8.5%. They also said there were unlikely to raise interest rates before late 2014, extending a period of record-low rates by more than a year.
-- The Commerce Department reported the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at an annual rate of 2.8% between October and December – up from 1.8% growth in 3Q2011 and 1.3% in 2Q2011 – the fastest pace in more than a year and a half.
Comments and contributions from Update no.527:
Comment to the Blog:
“The Middle East is a continuing example of’ ‘you can’t make this stuff up.’ As of this morning, Yahoo was reporting that the EU is cutting off Iran’s oil sales. That renders their support of Syrian oil sales mostly irrelevant.
“I write enough to have concern about copyright issues. I believe a deep and serious examination of copyright as a multi-faceted issue is in order. What I do not believe is that PIPA/SOPA or any other law designed by only one party has any chance of being a net benefit to society, to creators, or even to the corporate owners of copyrights.
“The Supreme Court (what you refer to as SCOTUS) has surprised me by actually defending Americans’ privacy. The Katz decision and one featured today in newscasts that ruled warrantless use of GPS trackers to be unconstitutional may be a light at the end of our tunnel. I certainly hope so.
“I have no notion of the usage of ‘yellow card, not a red card.’ I suspect you are attempting to excuse the brutality of war by citing its commonness. That one does not reach me. Urinating on a corpse and all the rest of it is wrong in any situation, regardless whether your fellow soldiers do it or whether the other side is equally brutal.”
My reply to the Blog:
Re: IRI. I do believe the PRC and other countries do not ascribed to or support the U.S./EU sanctions against the IRI, i.e., the IRI still has ample customers for their oil, to include the laundered Syrian oil.
Re: copyright. I am not sure what your point is relative to PIPA/SOPA?
Re: privacy. This week’s ruling – United States v. Jones [565 U.S. ___ (2012); no. 10–1259] – was actually an appeal by the USG of the reversal for Antoine Jones in the Maynard ruling mentioned in the Blog. I know it is a bit complicated; I expect to review the latest ruling in this week’s Update. Nonetheless, you are correct; the Supremes added another notch in favor of a citizen’s fundamental right to privacy. The USG does not have the authority to conduct general, warrantless searches, and they established that covertly attaching a GPS tracker to a citizen’s vehicle and recording his every move 24/7 for a month is an invasion of his privacy.
Re: war crimes. Yellow card/red card is used in international futball (soccer). I could have said penalty versus ejection in an American football analogy. I am excusing nothing. What those Marines did was wrong and a lapse of discipline; it was NOT a war crime and certainly does NOT deserve a court-martial. If we continue on this path, pretty soon we will be insisting upon humane killing of our enemies, and if that continues further, to abolishing killing all together. Those who seek to do us harm will simply kill us as we turn the other cheek. War is killing, plain & simple; there is no way to sweeten the image; the quicker, more efficiently it is done, the better.
. . . and a follow-up:
“My point regarding PIPA/SOPA was simply that beyond the ethical issues, such a creation is unworkable. In days past, the publishers would have had some degree of control over their paper or physical media properties under such a law. Less than perfect, but it would have been a useful tool. In the 21st Century, we have Anonymous hackers, Wikileaks, and any number of others who can find nearly any file and communicate it worldwide in essentially no time. That leaves the most likely result of PIPA/SOPA to be damage to mostly-innocent web sites, which would certainly inhibit creative people of all sorts and thus deprive potential consumers of their works. Nobody wins. I will leave the legalities to those more qualified; the obvious result of such action is damage to all parties. The damage to short-sighted copyright owners of future suppliers of product, harming even those who sought the statute in the beginning.
“War is indeed ‘killing, plain and simple,’ which is why nobody has a right to surprise at barbaric behavior by all parties. If a person's business is killing people and destroying property, decency becomes an unreasonable expectation. Just plain silly. People have begun to realize that; therefore, military actions and people have become less and less popular. That applies every place where free media exist, not just the USA--and the media have become very difficult to control as stated above. In the long term, war may become a less popular method of resolving conflicts.”
. . . my follow-up reply:
All righty then, I think we are in agreement. My point was, this is quite a conundrum. As much as I would like to protect my copyrights from piracy, I must err on the side of freedom. Hopefully, someone will invent a means to distribute material on the Web and protect the intellectual property of the creators.
I have no disagreement with your assessment of the situation regarding the Press and war. If you will recall, I made no reference to the imposition of Press restrictions. If the Press took those images, then fair game and those Marines made an even greater mistake. Nonetheless, those Marines deserve a penalty for their mistake(s). They do NOT deserve rejection, castigation, and possibly prison. I only urge . . . let us keep things in perspective. Those were Marines in the middle of combat.
My very best wishes to all. Take care of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap :-)
The follow-up news items:
--The Supremes rendered judgment on the appeal of the Maynard [509], warrantless, GPS tracking case (see below).
-- Another relevant opinion on the recent Marine video [526]:
“On video of Taliban corpses, let’s not be so quick to pass judgment”
by Leonard Pitts Jr.
Miami Herald
Posted on Tuesday, 01.17.12
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/17/2594306/on-video-of-taliban-corpses-lets.html
Now, we do not see this everyday. John Kiriakou, 47, of Arlington, the former CIA officer who told reporters he participated in the interrogation of terrorist Abu Zubaydah has been charged with violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 [PL 97-200; 96 Stat.122; 23.June.1982] [348] and the Espionage Act of 1917 [PL 65-030; 40 Stat. 217; 15.June.1917]. This is going to be an interesting case to watch as it works its way through the Judiciary.
On Tuesday, President Obama gave his constitutionally mandated State of the Union message [Article II, Section 3, Clause 1] to Congress and the Nation. I recognize and acknowledge that some of us accept what he says without questions, while others reject every single thing he says outright, also without questions. I am at neither pole. I think he gave us a well-crafted message expertly delivered. He warned the nation that the decades-old promise of a secure and rising middle class is threatened by economic unfairness. Much of the unfairness of which the President speaks is based in the ridiculously lopsided tax code that allows the enormously wealthy to shield and protect their income from the tax collector. Yet, all the great words are just words. What matters are actions, and in our system, compromise enables actions on behalf of We, the People. When one side refuses moderation and compromise, then actions tend to be beyond reach. Nonetheless, well done, Mr. President.
The State of Texas appears to be in a bit of a pickle, resultant from the constitutionally mandated decennial census (Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 . . . since 1790) that documented over four million new residents in the state. Article IV, Section 4, amplified by the 14th Amendment, Section 2 and the Equal Protection Clause, codified the “one-person, one-vote” rule, i.e., equal apportionment of representation based on population (thus the census). The Supreme Court validated “one person, one vote” in their ruling Reynolds v. Sims [377 U.S. 533 (1964)]. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 [PL 89-110; 79 Stat. 437, 439; 6.August.1965] established the judicially supervised, preclearance, approval process in use to this day. The process for validating an apportionment, re-districting plan is rather tortuous and too burdensome to recount in this humble forum; bottom line: the court did not validate the state’s plan, and the Supremes rejected the lower court’s alternative plan – Perry v. Perez [565 U.S. ___ (2012); no 11-713; 20.January.2012]. The pickle for Texas is, they do not have valid election districts and they cannot get an approved re-districting plan with a primary election scheduled for 3.April.2012. This is quite a conundrum worthy of our attention.
The Supreme Court affirmed again a citizen’s fundamental right to privacy as they rejected the Government’s arguments in support of warrantless GPS tracking of an automobile – United States v. Jones [565 U.S. ___ (2012); no. 10–1259]. The unanimous Court agreed on the outcome but not on the legal path to the objective. I first became aware of and this humble forum was introduced to this case from the decision of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia – United States v. Maynard [CCA DC no. 1:05-cr-00386-ESH-10 (2010); 6.August.2010] [509]. You may recall the Circuit Court affirmed the conviction of Lawrence Maynard but overturned the District Court conviction of Antoine Jones. The U.S. Government (USG) appealed the Jones portion of the DC Circuit ruling. There is little doubt in my little pea-brain that Jones was indeed guilty of the crimes for which he was convicted. He was set free by the FBI and Metropolitan Police Department task force use of a GPS tracker without a proper warrant. The sad reality here is the agents did in fact obtain a warrant, but they failed to comply with two of the warrant's restrictions: They did not install the GPS device within the required 10-day period, and they did not install the GPS device within the District of Columbia. For the want of a nail . . . Nonetheless, the Court determined that “the Government's installation of a GPS device on a target's vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle's movements, constitutes a ‘search,’” and thus, without a properly executed warrant, the FBI violated the Fourth Amendment rights of Antoine Jones. The Supremes got this one right! The continuing legal debate regarding a citizen’s fundamental right to privacy rambles on, but this is a positive step forward.
News from the economic front:
-- The Japanese government announced that the country recorded its first annual trade deficit since 1980. Economists warned that Japan could run trade deficits for years to come, if the yen remains strong and global demand weak. Welcome to the reality of the United States.
-- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected the world economy will expand 3.25% in 2012 -- down from the 4% last fall. They also predicted the world economy would continue to slow, and the euro region was probably headed for recession this year. Behind the global forecast, the IMF estimated an 8.2% growth for the People’s Republic of China, 7% growth in India and a meager 1.8% growth for the United States as well as a “mild recession” for the 17-nation euro zone. The IMF also warned that matters could easily worsen with the ongoing financial crisis in the euro zone.
-- In contrast to the IMF’s forecast, the Federal Reserve predicted the U.S. economy would grow between 2.2% and 2.7% this year, which is down from November's forecast of between 2.5% and 2.9%. The Fed also forecasted unemployment may fall as low as 8.2% from its November estimate of 8.5%. They also said there were unlikely to raise interest rates before late 2014, extending a period of record-low rates by more than a year.
-- The Commerce Department reported the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at an annual rate of 2.8% between October and December – up from 1.8% growth in 3Q2011 and 1.3% in 2Q2011 – the fastest pace in more than a year and a half.
Comments and contributions from Update no.527:
Comment to the Blog:
“The Middle East is a continuing example of’ ‘you can’t make this stuff up.’ As of this morning, Yahoo was reporting that the EU is cutting off Iran’s oil sales. That renders their support of Syrian oil sales mostly irrelevant.
“I write enough to have concern about copyright issues. I believe a deep and serious examination of copyright as a multi-faceted issue is in order. What I do not believe is that PIPA/SOPA or any other law designed by only one party has any chance of being a net benefit to society, to creators, or even to the corporate owners of copyrights.
“The Supreme Court (what you refer to as SCOTUS) has surprised me by actually defending Americans’ privacy. The Katz decision and one featured today in newscasts that ruled warrantless use of GPS trackers to be unconstitutional may be a light at the end of our tunnel. I certainly hope so.
“I have no notion of the usage of ‘yellow card, not a red card.’ I suspect you are attempting to excuse the brutality of war by citing its commonness. That one does not reach me. Urinating on a corpse and all the rest of it is wrong in any situation, regardless whether your fellow soldiers do it or whether the other side is equally brutal.”
My reply to the Blog:
Re: IRI. I do believe the PRC and other countries do not ascribed to or support the U.S./EU sanctions against the IRI, i.e., the IRI still has ample customers for their oil, to include the laundered Syrian oil.
Re: copyright. I am not sure what your point is relative to PIPA/SOPA?
Re: privacy. This week’s ruling – United States v. Jones [565 U.S. ___ (2012); no. 10–1259] – was actually an appeal by the USG of the reversal for Antoine Jones in the Maynard ruling mentioned in the Blog. I know it is a bit complicated; I expect to review the latest ruling in this week’s Update. Nonetheless, you are correct; the Supremes added another notch in favor of a citizen’s fundamental right to privacy. The USG does not have the authority to conduct general, warrantless searches, and they established that covertly attaching a GPS tracker to a citizen’s vehicle and recording his every move 24/7 for a month is an invasion of his privacy.
Re: war crimes. Yellow card/red card is used in international futball (soccer). I could have said penalty versus ejection in an American football analogy. I am excusing nothing. What those Marines did was wrong and a lapse of discipline; it was NOT a war crime and certainly does NOT deserve a court-martial. If we continue on this path, pretty soon we will be insisting upon humane killing of our enemies, and if that continues further, to abolishing killing all together. Those who seek to do us harm will simply kill us as we turn the other cheek. War is killing, plain & simple; there is no way to sweeten the image; the quicker, more efficiently it is done, the better.
. . . and a follow-up:
“My point regarding PIPA/SOPA was simply that beyond the ethical issues, such a creation is unworkable. In days past, the publishers would have had some degree of control over their paper or physical media properties under such a law. Less than perfect, but it would have been a useful tool. In the 21st Century, we have Anonymous hackers, Wikileaks, and any number of others who can find nearly any file and communicate it worldwide in essentially no time. That leaves the most likely result of PIPA/SOPA to be damage to mostly-innocent web sites, which would certainly inhibit creative people of all sorts and thus deprive potential consumers of their works. Nobody wins. I will leave the legalities to those more qualified; the obvious result of such action is damage to all parties. The damage to short-sighted copyright owners of future suppliers of product, harming even those who sought the statute in the beginning.
“War is indeed ‘killing, plain and simple,’ which is why nobody has a right to surprise at barbaric behavior by all parties. If a person's business is killing people and destroying property, decency becomes an unreasonable expectation. Just plain silly. People have begun to realize that; therefore, military actions and people have become less and less popular. That applies every place where free media exist, not just the USA--and the media have become very difficult to control as stated above. In the long term, war may become a less popular method of resolving conflicts.”
. . . my follow-up reply:
All righty then, I think we are in agreement. My point was, this is quite a conundrum. As much as I would like to protect my copyrights from piracy, I must err on the side of freedom. Hopefully, someone will invent a means to distribute material on the Web and protect the intellectual property of the creators.
I have no disagreement with your assessment of the situation regarding the Press and war. If you will recall, I made no reference to the imposition of Press restrictions. If the Press took those images, then fair game and those Marines made an even greater mistake. Nonetheless, those Marines deserve a penalty for their mistake(s). They do NOT deserve rejection, castigation, and possibly prison. I only urge . . . let us keep things in perspective. Those were Marines in the middle of combat.
My very best wishes to all. Take care of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap :-)
2 comments:
First, one last comment on the thread about Marines urinating on corpses. Nowadays, it matters little who took the pictures. (That’s a functional point, not a legal issue.) Anyone can upload files today, and the story takes off from there. In any case, the print and broadcast press (no capital P for me) has pretty much lost their credibility.
The State of the Union address holds academic interest for me but carries little to no meaning as far as predicting the future. While I noted that the President tried to conciliate disappointed progressives like me and include military/patriotic stuff for others, I spent most of my watching time noting his expertise in delivering the speech. His timing was downright musical, his pitch and tone precise and persuasive, and his delivery confident.
I think I get your point about the Texas redistricting issue. Here in Ohio, we have a redistricting issue of our own, but I believe they made a deal without actually holding another referendum. Our last referendum was over a government-worker labor law and was a disaster for our Republican Governor.
Somehow, the Supreme Court seems to have turned to protecting the rights granted to the people in the Constitution. I have not seen enough to feel confident this will continue, but I have begun to hope it will.
Predicting the world economy has gone from difficult to impossible. Thus far, China and India look like the future leaders but many hurdles lie ahead of them. One of those is a particularly interesting riddle: if your economy depends on foreign trade, do you not need the rest of the world to share the prosperity in order to have markets for your products?
Calvin,
Re: photos. Who took them does matter to me. That video took what should have been a local leadership disciplinary problem and exploded it into a massive international event, which in turn will not serve those Marines fairly or well.
Re: POTUS SOTU address. Oratory has the power to influence. He gave a masterful speech. However, when one portion of the audience refuses to listen, those words or their elegant delivery matter not. Yes, it is fun to listen to him.
Re: Texas. The problem for the state is, they have nothing. They cannot use the old districts, and they cannot get new districts defined. How are they to vote?
Re: Rights. The IX Amendment recognizes “other rights” retained by the People, outside the Constitution. The fundamental right to privacy is one of those rights.
Re: economic forecasting. Spot on! However, doing something is better than doing nothing. At least they are trying predict the future; but, it is just that . . . a WAG.
Cheers,
Cap
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