Criminal // Current TV

Owe Money? Be Careful, or You Might End Up in Jail | | AlterNet

Owing money is not a criminal offense in the USA. But big business has found a way to end-run this process.
June 19, 2010 |

Reports of mild-mannered Americans getting arrested for being in debt are starting to pop up in states across the country. All over the Net, we've been reading about these poor saps snatched off the street — right in front of their horrified children — by glowering cops and locked up just for missing a few credit card payments.

Right, but they're not. They can't. In this country, owing money is not a criminal offense. It is in Dubai, where nearly half of the prison population is behind bars for defaulting on bank loans. But in the United States, incarceration for debt was abolished in 1833, and now debt itself is a mere civil matter. Sure, collection agencies want you to think the FBI cares whether or not you pay that Nordstrom bill. But they risk losing their licenses for so much as implying this, thanks to the U.S. Fair Trade Commission's Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, in effect since 1966.

Read between the lines and you'll see that these debtors weren't arrested for being debtors but — in most cases — for missing court dates for negotiating their debts.

Incur debt and your creditor can call you, write you, hire a collection agency and finally sue you. At that point a subpoena, delivered via process server or registered mail, announces that you're now a defendant, your creditor a plaintiff. This subpoena lists a date and time at which you are ordered to appear before a judge in civil court "to disclose your assets and liabilities and determine how this defendant is going to pay this plaintiff," explains Will Lund, superintendent of Maine's Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection, which enforces the FDCA and licenses collection agencies.

"Attendance by the defendant is mandatory. To ensure that it's mandatory, a subpoena is involved. To not show up is not dissing the plaintiff. It's dissing the court," Lund says. "It's contempt of court, and that can lead to arrest."

Most debtors don't realize that ignoring the summons means crossing that line, exiting the stressful but safe realm of owing money and entering the stark realm of mugshots and body searches and jail-issued sandwiches eaten among robbers and arsonists. This transit happens when a judge signs a capias, a civil warrant for arrest on the basis of failure to appear in court.

"If you've got a capias against you for failure to appear, you could be arrested if you're stopped by the police," affirms Katherine Martell of Fairfax, Virginia-based K&M Law Group, which specializes in debt restructuring and debt recovery. "That's not the same as snatching people off the street for not paying debts."

The frequency of such arrests, and law-enforcement officers' eagerness to make them, vary from county to county and state to state, but given the severity of other crimes that cops have to deal with, this one is always low priority.

"It's not like a roundup where the police say, 'Hey, we're gonna go out and pick up all the debtors today," says attorney Marshall Meyers of Phoeniz, Arizona-based Weisberg & Meyers. "But if you get pulled over for a traffic ticket, say, and you've got a warrant for failure to appear in court, they can bring you in."Owing money is not a criminal offense in the USA. But big business has found a way to... more

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Stop Supporting the Troops and End the Wars

War is terrorism. Soldiers are not heroes. Presidents are not saviors. A powerful call... more

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Barack Obama’s Imperial Presidency « SpeakEasy

If there’s any one axiom that Barack Obama has epitomized, it’s that nobody, it seems, willingly cedes back power to its rightful source — even when that power was acquired illegally.

When the Democrats won the Congress in 2006, progressives demanded that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hold the Bush administration for its many sins, not least of them the seizure of power from both the legislative and judicial branches, with its use of illegal surveillance, its radical redefinition of the term “enemy combatant,” and its denial of civil liberties to whomever its leaders felt unworthy of such liberties — Constitution be damned.

I sat in a meeting the new speaker convened with a group of bloggers in 2007, listening to Nancy Pelosi make her case for why the Congress’s energies would be better spent working on bread-and-butter issues, including health-care reform. The thinking seemed to be that once the Congress got some good stuff done, the problems of the Bush imperial presidency would disappear with the subsequent election of a Democrat.

Would that it were so. It seemed a dubious proposition to me. If the Congress was unwilling to impeach Bush or hold war-crimes hearings, the very least it could do was to pass laws that would return power to the branches from which it originated. But that was not to be. And with that decision of inaction the Constitution was broken rather bad, in a way that Barack Obama, the constitutional law professor, seems quite content with.

While in a great many respects, Barack Obama is a far more reasonable and small-D democratic president than was George W. Bush, there’s not a lot of daylight between the two on the matter of executive power. As the nation’s chief executive, Barack Obama likes executive power very much, thank you.

Just look at his administration’s position on the holding of detainees at the American-run Bagram Prison in Afghanistan. The administration contends that habeas corpus extends to none of the detainees at Bagram — even those picked up outside of Afghanistan and shipped there deliberately to avoid allowing non-Afghan detainees rights they would otherwise be entitled to. Bagram, as a war-zone facility, is not required to accord such rights to its denizens; the American obligation to the Bagram detainees begins and ends with the Geneva Conventions, and there are serious doubt as to whether the treatment of the Bagram prisoners meets the basic international standard for the treatment of prisoners of war.

Last month, a federal appeals court upheld the administration’s position, overturning an earlier decision by a lower court. As described by the New York Times editorial board:

What makes the ruling especially distressing is that the extravagant claim of executive power upheld by the court — to create a law-free zone at the Bagram lockup — was dreamed up by Mr. Bush and subsequently embraced by President Obama. The appellate court ruled that there was no right to federal court review for the detainees, who say they were captured outside of Afghanistan, far from any battlefield, and then shipped to Bagram to be held indefinitely in harsh conditions.

As the world continues to become unglued by crisis upon crisis, progressives would do well to step back momentarily and come up with a plan for restoring the Constitution. Without that, any and all national progress will rest on the whim of the chief executive, whomever he or she shall be.If there’s any one axiom that Barack Obama has epitomized, it’s that... more

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Gulf oil spill: US begins criminal investigations

The US government has begun criminal and civil investigations into the Gulf of Mexico... more

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Have You Slept With This Acrobat?

"Until a few weeks ago, Godfrey Zaburoni (pictured) had more sex before breakfast... more

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The Infuriating Cell Phone Racket | | AlterNet

May 29, 2010 |

If you're not angry with AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint -- America's four national wireless providers that reportedly control 90 percent of the market -- then here's some ridiculous news to raise your righteous ire.

Perhaps you'd be interested to know about one of the most outrageous cell phone scams? It's simple: Charge customers for being forced to listen to 15 seconds of unnecessary voicemail instructions reminding them how to leave a message after the beep. According to New York Times technology writer David Pogue, if Verizon customers leave voicemails or check their messages twice a day, the mammoth New Jersey-based telco takes in around $620 million. In return, you lose wasted hours of your life and have to pay for it.

Speaking of Verizon, have you heard about the representative who refused to shut down a dead man's service, even though his daughter produced a death certificate and needed the account closed so settlement of his estate could proceed? Or the rep who tried to collect an overdue $308 bill from customer Al Burrows by threatening to, and I quote, "blow your muthafucking house up"? Do we need to even talk about AT&T's various controversies, from censoring Pearl Jam to allegedly helping the National Security Agency unlawfully monitor the American people's communications?

The telco giants' latest disgrace, according to a recent Federal Communications Commission report, has been given the egregious name of "bill shock" (PDF). Which is a misnomer, actually: it's certainly not shocking to find, as the FCC explains, that "30 million Americans -- or one in six mobile users -- have experienced...a sudden increase in their monthly bill that is not caused by a change in service plan." It's even less alarming to discover that "nearly half of cell phone users who have plans with early termination fees (ETFs) -- and almost two-thirds of home broadband users with ETFs --don’t know the amount of the fees they’re accountable for."

"In January, we sent letters to the major wireless providers asking the rationale for their ETFs," FCC spokesperson Rosemary Kimballl told AlterNet. "While the business model of subsidizing phones by the ETFs is the carriers' choice, our position is that the ETF charge must be made clear to the consumer when he is signing the contract. And this does not seem to be the case in many instances."

It is the kind of obscure legalese the industry is known for. Their contracts are dense with clauses that no self-respecting human should have to wade through, just to place a call or send a text. ETFs are a particularly blatant insult to wireless customers, who can't leave an underperforming carrier (and that's really all of them) without forking over hundreds of hard-earned dollars. In fact, AT&T just nearly doubled its $175 early termination fee to $325 in May. That cold, capitalist logic is built specifically for bottom lines and earnings reports, not for flawless customer service. ETFs are financial shackles to mediocrity, and they're just the start.

More at the link:May 29, 2010 | If you're not angry with AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile... more

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Man indicted for Email to Jim Bunning

When Sen. Jim Bunning complained on the Senate floor in February that he'd missed the Kentucky-South Carolina basketball game because of a debate on unemployment benefits -- a debate the Kentucky Republican himself prevented from proceeding to a vote -- Bruce Shore got angry.

"I was livid. I was just livid," said Shore, 51, who watched the floor proceedings on C-SPAN from his home in Philadelphia. "I'm on unemployment, so it affects me. I'm in shock."

Instead of just being angry, Shore took action: He sent several emails to Bunning staffers, blasting the senator for blocking the benefits.

"ARE you'all insane," said part of one letter Shore sent on Feb. 26 (which he shared with HuffPost). "NO checks equal no food for me. DO YOU GET IT??"

In that letter he signed off as "Brad Shore" from Louisville. He said he did the same thing in several other messages sent via the contact form on Bunning's website. "My assumption was that if he gets an email from Philadelphia, who cares?" he said. "Why would he even care if a guy from Philadelphia gets upset?"

Bunning might not have cared, but the FBI did. Sometime in March, said Shore, agents came calling to ask about the emails. They read from printouts of the messages sent via the contact form and asked if Shore was the author, which he readily admitted. They asked a few questions, and then, according to Shore, they said, "All right, we just wanted to make sure it wasn't anything to worry about."

But on May 13, U.S. Marshals showed up at Shore's house with a grand jury indictment. Now he's got to appear in federal court in Covington, Ky. on May 28 to answer for felony email harassment. Specifically, the indictment (PDF) says that on Feb. 26, Shore "did utilize a telecommunications device, that is a computer, whether or not communication ensued, without disclosing his identity and with the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, and harass any person who received the communication."

The language of Shore's indictment is taken directly from the statute -- there's no description of the actual crime. The Kentucky U.S. Attorney's Office said it's a typical indictment but that the Department of Justice prohibited further comment beyond what's in the charging document. The crime carries a penalty of up to two years in prison and a $250,000 maximum fine.

Shore swears he didn't intend to make a threat. He's not sure what he said that crossed the line; he said he doesn't have copies of the messages sent via Bunning's site. He said he thought sending angry letters to Congress was a First Amendment thing. "If I send 50 letters to Congress, is that illegal or is it just me wasting paper?"

More at link
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20100526/cm_huffpost/588798When Sen. Jim Bunning complained on the Senate floor in February that he'd missed... more

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2 Williamsburg police officers accused of buying drugs - Crime - Kentucky.com

The Williamsburg police police chief and a fellow officer purchased drugs in early... more

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DSM-V - Psychiatry Enters Dangerous Territory - Inventing Disorders Again

Written by Bruce Walker
Thursday, 20 May 2010 15:40

The new fourth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) published by the American Psychiatric Association may define several new psychiatric disorders. Some of these do not sound like varieties of mental illness at all, but rather opinions and attitudes. What would “oppositional defiant disorder,” for example, represent?

According to the new edition of the Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, this would include those who have “negativistic, defiant, disobedient and hostile behavior toward authority figures.” Other varieties of newly created mental illnesses included being antisocial, arrogant, or cynical.

Those familiar with psychiatry in the Soviet Union will cringe at this sort of neo-psychiatry. Authority, for example, may often be wrong in a society. The right to contend with authority has long been considered a primary right of a free people. Soviet psychiatrists, however, institutionalized and “treated” those who defied Soviet authority, which was considered, per se, a variety of mental illness.

Cynicism is often the most sensible attitude of those who find government and politics to be a cesspool of corruption. The presumption that society and government are functioning properly, which is implicit in these new psychiatric “disorders,” looks very Orwellian. Only the dullest mind, or the most sheepish people, can look at our tax code, our school system, our immigration policies, and our foreign policy and see only goodness and wisdom.

Psychiatric opinions can have a dramatic impact upon court rulings. Laws are often built around those opinions: the right to bear arms, for example, is denied to those who have a history of mental illness. What if that mental illness is defined as a profound distrust of government in America? Then government would have the right to disarm those who saw something very wrong in our political system.

Many parents already worry about the over-medication of children, who may well be the first group diagnosed under these new standards. Eccentric children have often been the greatest men in history. Mozart, for example, was hyperactive (by today’s standards) and approached music differently than conventional composers did. Did he have a mental illness? Or was he rather, as the Pope who knew him said, “Amadeus” — Beloved of God? How about Capablanca, the greatest child chess prodigy in history? Was he mentally ill?

Both of those men led relatively conventional lives, but what about men like Newton and Beethoven, who were considered to be misanthropic. Was this mental illness, which must be treated with therapy and drugs? Or was it, rather, the expected response of geniuses living among men of much weaker minds? Treating such unique men with drugs and therapy might deprive mankind of its greatest innovators and analysts.

The politics of collectivism permeates every aspect of modern life. Individuality, uniqueness, privacy, and separation are inherent rights of free men. These are also anathema to collectivism, which views us all as interchangeable parts of a vast, impersonal, statist machine. Psychiatry which does not account for the particular nature of each of us is not medicine and it is not science: it is simply collectivism lathered on something called medical science.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/health-care/3586-psychiatry-enters-dangerous-territoryWritten by Bruce Walker Thursday, 20 May 2010 15:40 The new fourth revision... more

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Widow sues man charged in Lexington officer's death - Crime - Kentucky.com

The widow of a Lexington police officer killed in a hit-and-run has filed a lawsuit... more

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Ex-Cop Goes Rogue on the Drug War, Tells Pot Smokers How to Outsmart the Police | | AlterNet

Police admired Barry Cooper when he lied to put drug dealers in prison. Then he flipped the game on them.

May 18, 2010 |

Barry Cooper should know better than anyone that you don’t mess with the police. He was once a cop, and a dirty one at that. But for the past three years, this former narcotics officer has been irritating the hell out of law enforcement, and he’s been steadily raising the stakes, damn the consequences.

It began in 2007, when Cooper gained some notoriety for releasing a self-produced DVD series called Never Get Busted Again. In it, Cooper shows pot smokers ways to outsmart the cops and their drug dogs. He says that if you have marijuana in the car, it’s a good idea to also bring along a cat, since that will distract even a drug dog. Got cops knocking on your door? Cooper says it’s best to lock it shut, and then tell them through a closed window that you won’t let them in without a warrant. The Never Get Busted DVDs have a low-budget charm, especially when Cooper uses footage taken from his own patrol-car camera to illustrate a point. Back then, in the mid ’90s, Cooper had short cropped hair. Cop mustache. He liked to lean into suspects and intimidate them until they did what he wanted. On his DVDs, Cooper will freeze the patrol-car video to point out the ways he got people to confess they were carrying drugs or money. (“Don’t ever touch your face when you are talking to a cop. It’s a sign that you’re lying.”)

Cooper dropped out of college at age 20 to join the police force in the small East Texas town of Gladewater, where he trained his own drug dog and started making big busts on the highway. Cooper was talented enough at seizing drugs that he was eventually hired by the Permian Basin Drug Task Force, a West Texas unit that became notorious for using unscrupulous tactics and was eventually shut down by the FBI in 1998. To Cooper, being on the task force was a great assignment; he learned all the ways to bend the law to rack up arrests and chase down suspects. Cooper was young, and he says the thing he loved most about being a cop was the adrenaline rush. One of his favorite things was to pull people over on the highway and then, just for kicks, incite a chase.

“They taught us at the academy that once we found drugs on someone, we should handcuff them immediately,” he says. “Instead, I would look at the suspect and say, ‘That’s some crack cocaine I found in your pocket. That’s a felony, you’re going to prison for life.’ And I would just turn around and walk to my patrol car to fill out my paperwork, giving the suspect time to run, and they often did. And then the foot chase would be on and the fight would ensue. And that would get my adrenaline fix.”Police admired Barry Cooper when he lied to put drug dealers in prison. Then he... more