7 Laws To Fix American Justice TODAY

As recent events (George Floyd is just the most recent)  have proven there are bad cops out there.   People keep asking for change, but we are not talking about what kind of change.    There are a lot of fairly well proven changes that need to be made to the US legal system.    So here are the known ways we can fix real systematic problems with the US legal system and how it deals with both cops and civilians.

1. All accusations of criminal conduct by police will be investigated by a state agency whose sole job will be to investigate and prosecute police misconduct.  Said employees will be judged on their conviction rate.  They must begin each case within 3 days of being reported and must provide an initial public report within 1 week, with at a minimum an estimate of when it will be finished.  At that date they must provide another report, and so on until the case is closed.
2. Union or other employment contracts can not limit the state agency investigations in any way.  You are entitle to a contract with your employer, not with other agencies.    Police officers shall receive no rights in this investigation not granted to the general population.
3. Bail will no longer be offered at all.  The judge may decided to release or not to release, and should they not release and the prosecutors asks for a single continuance, then the suspect must be released.  If you do not have enough evidence to charge, do not arrest them.   Prosecutors need to do their job on time and quickly.
4. The state may not sell or take possession of property unless the owner has been notified of the trial and is allowed to present a case against the taking.
5. When a judge declares any taking - whether it be a fine or any other taking of property,  the owner may decide to pay said penalty in community service rather than property.  Said penalty may not exceed 800 hours of community service per year.
6. The refusal to testify, attempt to destroy evidence or prevent evidence from being created or collected (including video evidence created by criminals) shall be grounds for immediate dismissal of any officer of the law, regardless of whether or not any crime occurred.  This specifically includes pleading the Fifth Amendment.  The state may not use that against you in court, but is not required to employ you as an officer of the law.
7. The intentional destruction of evidence or keeping evidence from a defense lawyer by a prosecutor shall be considered felony perjury. 

There are a lot of really bad arguments against these things that have been made.  But harsh experience has demonstrated why these legal changes are necessary.

The police union must stop pretending that police are likely to be unfairly targeted.  The honest truth is that cops give them special, advantageous treatment when investigating other cops, as do prosecutors and as do judges and juries.   Yes, there might be a one in a million cop that is falsely accused and goes to jail, but that happens to innocent civilians every day.   The cops have enough extra protection merely from the respect due the badge.

Bail has been thoroughly and repeatedly proven to not work.   People accused of minor offenses show up.  We have their ID, names, addresses, phone numbers, finger prints, and photos.    They know this.  Most importantly it is EASIER to arrest, charge and convict people for running from the law than it is to arrest them for minor offenses.  Except for major crimes, it saves the state cash, the innocent suspects time and money when they do not have to spend time in jail.   Yes, some times someone will end up on the street and do more crime.  That happens already.   And it will stop horrendous cases where innocent people are blackmailed by bad prosecutors to confessing to crimes they did not commit.  Which currently happens more often than people committing major crimes after they get out of jail.

The state has routinely abused Civil forfeiture laws.  They take money from people without proving their guilt.   This needs to stop.  If people have the right to demand payment in labor, it will end the major abuses WITHOUT causing real criminals to get away with it.   Honestly, anyone willing to trade community service for the money is not a criminal - they make (or think they make) more money doing their crimes than community service would give.

The outright lies and deception used by cops and prosecutors needs to stop.  It is illegal, but we look the other way.  We need to stop doing that and treat it like the serious criminal offense it is.

Torture, the Weak Willed and Confusion.

First note, that I labelled this Crime, as in it is a crime to torture people.   Too often we forget that, and let the torturers off scott free.

One of the flaws in the US Legal system is that it has done a poor job preventing torture.  Basically we have two amendments, the 8th to stop the cruel and unusual punishments of convicted criminals, and the 5th allows us to refuse to answer questions.

These left a lot of leeway and the Courts had to make some tough decisions, both of which made the situation worse.

First, the Eighth Amendment.  The problem with this was the wording ''and unusual".   Which means things that were usual punishments, even if we later discovered they were particularly cruel, get grandfathered in.

Oh, "Solitary Confinement" drives people mad?  Too bad, it's been going on for so long, it is now considered usual, and not unconstitutional.  Oh, poisoning you with multiple poisons, one to stop the pain and another to kill may result in a painful death, where just filling you with heroin will kill you painlessly?  Too bad, it's been going on for so long, it's usual.  

It took a long time to get the right to be fed according to your beliefs/religions, because of this.  This was a bad wording mistake by either James Madison who wrote the actual amendment, or more accurately, the English Bill of Rights (1689), where Madison took the  words "cruel and unusual punishment" from. 

The Fifth amendment is more problematic.  The problem is that it doesn't outright outlaw behavior, but instead prevents the cops from compelling  you to speak.   The idea was that compelling you to speak implies torture, but the courts had to work with the language, so they set up complex rules defining what was compelling, rather than the behavior that was torture.  So the cops found ways to do things that was not 'them compelling you to speak', that reasonable people would call torture, but that they would not get arrested for. 


It wasn't until 1963 that they established the Miranda Ruling, and over the past 55+ years, the cops have found ways to abide by these rules about 'compelling' speech, but most would consider to be loopholes.  That is, they clearly compelled the speech, but can pretend they did not.


So let's talk about the the things cops do that should be illegal, but are generally still accepted in a court of law as acceptable.


1) Questioning before someone receives medical treatment - often with the implication or outright threat that the treatment depends on answers.  This may be the suspect or someone they care about.

2) Questioning after someone has threatened in a believable manner.  This includes the drawing of a firearm, actual physical assault, etc.  None of this needs to be done by the police, it could also be done by someone associated with them or under their control - including other criminals.

3) Keep questioning for more than 8 hours - upto 16 hours - a day, usually switching off cops (because forcing a single cop to question you for 16 hours a day would be torture to the cop, and they don't want the cop to break.)


4) Delaying, or limiting the quantity or quality of food or water. 

5) Questioning while you are under the influence of drugs, such as alcohol (some states regulate this, but not the federal government).

6) Questioning Children or those with similar mental capabilities.

7) Confessions obtained using a translator - particularly for sign language.  The person interrogating should speak the same language.  

8) Confessions where the police fed the informant ANY accurate details of the crime.  The details exist for one purpose only, to verify if the confession is true or false.  Feeding them the details only makes sense if you are looking to disguise a false confession as true.

These are common issues in many cases that were overturned.  They fall into three categories:

A)  Torture.  First few are examples of actual torture, even if no actual harm is done.   Here, the cops are using sufficient fear and stress that that even normal people become willing to lie to get out of the situation.    Different people have different levels of will power, and a cop that goes anywhere near his own will power will end up sending someone an innocent man with just slightly weaker will power to jail.
 B) Stress on a weak mind   A little less severe than torture, but peoples who minds are not working right - whether they be children the disabled, or the drugged, routinely make false statements that implicate themselves.  Throw in stress and you can get them to do it on command.

C) Confusion about what was actually confessed to.   Here, improper care, whether intentional or accidental is made over what was actually confessed to, and the court is presented false information as if it were true.


None of these should be allowed.  If for some reason they need to be questioned when the prerequisites are there by accident, the cops should get a defense attorney or call it inadmissiable.

Our legal system is one of the best in the world.  It jails a higher percent of our population that most other countries.  It is designed to work on tough, smart criminals.  The weak willed need more protection, and I assure you the legal system is more than tough enough to  convict a criminal kid, even if he has an attorney when questioned.

Anti-Male sexism exists.

I met this guy the other day.   He claimed he wasn't a racist because he liked black folk just fine, it was just n-word he hated.   I was shocked of course. 

This man is a racist.  The n-word is just code for black people he dislikes.   Just because you recognize that not all of a group conforms to your racist beliefs does not mean you are not a racist.

A transvestite is a man that refuse to conform to our sexist stereotypes.  They dress and act like women.  That's all.  Nothing necessary sexual about it.  Nothing perverted or otherwise evil.  Just refusing to abide by the sexist stereotype.  

Please note the t word is used almost exclusively to talk about men dressing as women.  No one calls a women that dresses in slacks a transvestite.

To the extent that our society is prejudiced against transvestites, it is prejudiced against ALL men.  You can't say "I only dislike men that dress and act like women", that  is just as bigoted as saying you like black people fine, just not n-word. 

The real issue here is that the our society evolved out of a heavily sexist culture that considered women second class citizens.  Which means that men that trying to act like women get treated as if they are trying to be weak.

As we evolved, we have begun to overcome these issues, but obviously we still have a long way to go.  Women have earned the right to vote, the right to work, and the right to choose if they will  have a child or not.  Men have not been given similar rights.   But if I were to name those rights, you would claim I was defending weaklings.   The men that want those rights are called unworthy of being called men.

Our society has reluctantly come to accept the women that break these stereotypes.  Powerful women (even while we pay them less than men, and generally mistreats them) are still admired.  Now a days, a woman that becomes a doctor, lawyer, etc. is considered a 'catch' as a wife.  But a man that becomes a nurse, para-legal, etc. is not.

Men are considered weak if we break these stereotypes.  Which is why the men's rights groups are full of horrible, weak people.  Most of us are still taught to hide our weakness, and the men's rights groups tend to attract only those that embrace those weaknesses.

But that does not change the fact that we are still massively prejudiced against these men - even if they complain about it in a manner that reflects poorly on them.

The self same behavior that we dislike about them would be much more accepted as normal if done by women.   Women complaining about men all the time.  Most men don't dare complain about women, on pain of, well, being treated like those poor men in Men's Rights Groups.

Transvestites are men that dress and act as women. If our society is prejudiced against transvestites, then we are prejudiced against ALL men.

3 new laws America needs

1)  All money confiscated by the police must fund Legal Aid Society.   There is nothing wrong with police confiscating money from criminals, the problems is letting them spend it on themselves.  They want to take the jewelry off of little girls, then they have to spend it to defend accused criminals.

2)  No political district may touch one that is more than 10% different percent of the top party, nor can it be entirely surrounded by another district.  That is, if a district is 80% democrat, then it can not touch another district that is less than 70% democrat, and must touch at least two such districts.  This rule makes gerrymandering much much more difficult.

3) No jail for failure to pay.  Any fine, bail, or other payment less than $3,000, may be fulfilled by community service, at the request of the person required to pay.  Said service will be paid back at the federal minimum wage, so if the federal minimum wage was $8/hour, then a fine of $800 could be paid with 100 hours of community service.

How to Fix America's Schools

America's pre-College education, ages 10-18 have well known issues. 

We have some of the world's best Universities, and some good early education, focusing on creativity and learning, rather than memorizing facts.  Primary school does OK (Elementary school), but our Junior High and High Schools have major issues.

These issues are complex.  But most of them can be summarized with one word:  Money.  Mos schools are paid for out of local taxes, particularly property taxes.  This leaves certain schools cash poor.  Worse, those schools are often from poor neighborhoods so their parents do not have the skills to compensate for the school's problems.  Sometimes the parents ARE the problems - drugs, crime, etc.

I am liberal capitalists.   My solution to the United State's education problem is simple, apply capitalism properly.  The key word there is 'properly'. 

People often confuse capitalism with money or money obsession.  As such they falsely think the problem is to either throw more money at the education problem, or worse, take away money from the schools that are doing poorly.

This is wrong.  Money is simply a score keeping method.  It is used to tell who is winning and who is losing, not to solve a problem.   No teacher ever got into teaching for the money.   Not even in the most corrupt, school systems run by the worst possible unions (and most unions are run by good people).  In the worst cases, some people got into education for the job security and perks (summers off, retirement plans) of teaching, but never the money per se. 

Capitalism is not about money, it is about competition .   As such, to fix the education system, you need to properly reward those that win the competition and to properly correct those that fail.   Money ends up rewarding or punishing the kids, not the school.

To reward or punish the school (rather than the kids), you need to increase or decrease the number of students attending the school.

Take a school system with 10 schools.  Rank all the schools, into five rankings (1 being the best, 5 being the worst).   Also, create a minimum and maximum number of students per school.

If a school is ranked 5, reduce the number of incoming freshmen students attending that school by 20% of the maximum (by shrinking their district).  This will reduce the number of students attending a 4 year institute by 5%.  If the total number of students falls below the minimum, that school closes down.   Non-tenure people are fired (they may apply for a job elsewhere), tenure people are moved to other schools.  We can put in rules to let parents request that siblings stay together.


Similarly, schools that do well (ranked 1) and are not at maximum, increase the number of incoming students by 20%.    

When a school is closed down, we spend a summer fixing up the school, replace text books, etc.   We bring in a new principal, and hire all new teachers, with a rule that NONE of the old teachers may work there.  They can work at other schools, but not this one.   All the new teachers must either be new hires or transfers from a school of rank 3 or better.   One year bonuses will be offered to induce transfers.  

Racism

There are lots of different kinds of prejudice.  "Prejudice" just means judging someone/thing without knowledge of them.  I for example am prejudiced against the taste of manure.  While I have never actually tasted any, I fervently believe that it tastes bad and I have zero desire to test my belief - in fact I will strongly resist any attempt to force me to do so.

There are two major categorizes of prejudice:

• Intellectual
• Emotional

My prejudice against the taste of manure is intellectual and organized.  I can give you a list of well thought our reasons, from smell, germ theory, how much effort my body took to eliminate the stuff, cultural bias, etc.

But I also have the other kind of prejudice - emotional prejudice.  Emotional prejudice is less organized - it's practically subconscious.  Even if you somehow convinced me that this particular manure smelled nice, had been sterilized and did not come from a human body, I still would not be willing to taste it.   In fact, studies have shown that people will refuse to eat chocolate if it is merely molded into a shape reminiscent of manure.  That is not logical, it is instead purely emotional.

Emotional prejudice lasts long after the intellectual prejudice is removed.   You can't teach it away, it is self -reinforcing. 

Most (not all) of American culture has removed the intellectual racial prejudice.  No one goes around talking about racial superiority anymore.    For this reason, if you ask people if they are prejudiced they say 'no' and get offended.

But the emotional prejudice remains.  Studies have found that unconsciously, people still have racist reactions.  People are more afraid of black men then white men.   Porn stars are considered tainted if they have sex with a black men.  The list of unconscious, illogical, emotional biases go on for a very long time.

The problem is that it doesn't matter to the victim of racism if their racism is organized or unconscious.  Blacks don't care if they are pulled over because the cop thinks all blacks are criminals, or if the cop simply thought "hm, he looks suspicious".   Neither do Mexicans care if you think Mexicans are rapists, murderers and thugs or if you just think that Mexico sends their rapists, murders and thugs to the US.   Jews don't care if you think they are crooked thieves, or merely good with money, it's still prejudice.

Nobody cares that you don't want to be a racist, they care if your actions reflect inherent bias. And yes it does matter.   Ask any short guy or overweight woman that can't get a date.  It doesn't matter if the bias is intentional or unconscious, it still stings.

That is the major problem conservatives and the Republican party in particular have failed to understand.  They get the intellectual racism and stand firmly against it.  But they refuse to admit the emotional racism exists, they refuse to admit that under the civilized actions, we still harbor unconscious biases.  So they let them run riot.  They let TSA and cops racially profile, they allow situations where black kids get rejected from colleges not because they were black, but because they were arrested by cops six times (and found innocent all six times).

As long as we refuse to have government fight back against the pernicious emotional bias form of racism, we will never achieve a race-blind society. 

It's not enough to reject the idea of racism, we have to ensure that it doesn't affect our choices even without evil intent.

Church and State: Taxes

In the United States we have laws preventing churches from engaging in political speech.   We don't arrest the holy men, we just take away their tax free status.  When some people hear about this they get all upset - mainly because they think we are taxing holy men.   No - we are taxing criminals.  

The thing they forget is that in the US, we accept ALL religions.  Including the 'bad ones'.  It's not just the Catholic church, the Protestants, the Jews, that get tax free status.

It's also the Mormons, the Muslims, the Scientologists, and the Moonies (until a court found them to be propagating political views, so it took away their tax status).  But that's not the worst of it - it's also The Children of God, Heaven's Gate, the Branch Davidians, the Order of the Solar Temple, and Jim Jone's The People's Temple.

And don't forget those TV Evangelists that tell poor people to send them money, all the while living in mansions and buying airplanes for personal use.  While the people sending them money are literally unable to pay their own rent.

So how do you tell the difference between a "real" religion and a cult?  Well, we can't.  There is NO way to do it.  NONE.   As strange as you think some of the religions are, in the eyes of the law, they are the same - as long as they obey the law.  That doesn't just mean not killing people, not forcing them to work for free - it also means obeying the law to not interfere in our political process.


All of them get the same tax free status.  Yes, even the Branch Davidians had legal tax free status, - at least until they got caught breaking laws. 

Lots of people have abused these laws.  Not just the violent and crazy cults I mentioned.  There are also the thieving liars.  People that start a church not because of a true belief in god, but simply out of a greedy desire to not pay taxes.  They even have a preferred system, called "the prosperity gospel".  You preach that giving money to the church will put you in God's favor.   This is NOT in any of the 'real' bibles - not the christian, Jewish, or Muslim versions.   They just made it up for their own benefit.   You can do that too, and it's all legal.  It just requires you to be a soul-less, corrupt, evil, son of a bitch, willing to lie to everyone about what you belief - and not get caught doing so. 

The United States has not found a legal, constitutional way to stop them.   Because the real problem is not their philosophy, but the fact that they don't really, truly believe in it (with perhaps some exceptions for those that are really good at self-deception).  

[If you find a way to stop them, that does no make a value judgement on their religion  (the US Constitutions says the government shall not make value judgements on religions - we accept all, no matter how bat shit crazy it is, because of how badly the English and other European countries did at judging religions), speak up.  But I doubt you can, lots of very intelligent people have tried for a very long time.]

But we did find a way to stop ONE clear and obvious abuse of religion - political lobbying.

Remember - the US is supposed to not favor any one religion.  As politicians are not supposed to favor any one religion, that means religions should not be trying to tell politicians what to do.  If the politicians obeyed, that would mean favoring one religion over the other ones that disagreed with them.  So any religion that attempts to influence politics is attempting to violate one of the most sacred principles of our Constitution.

Which is why we made it illegal for churches to do this - with the minor punishment of removing their tax free status.  This stopped just one of the several abuses 'fake' religions that were set up only for tax purposes.

Is this evil?  No.   Churches are not entitled to tax free status.   Do you think that the Moonies, who worship a North Korean man and want to establish a world wide government ruled by Moonies should get tax free status?

The Mormons have walked a very fine line, basically running the state of Utah, but being careful to not step over it.  So we let them stay tax free as long as the church itself doesn't engage in political lobbying.

God's honest truth say there is nothing about democracy or capitalism that exempts churches from  paying taxes.  That is just an old hold over from the European custom of not taxing churches because they were basically an arm of the government.

Unlike the Middle ages, we have religious freedom, there should be no connection between church and state, so there is no reason to give ANY church tax free.  We have however graciously given all churches tax free status on the one condition that they don't get involved in politics.

You break that rule, you give up your special, UNEARNED status.  The same rule applies to the Moonies, the Mormons, the Muslims, the Protestants, the Catholics, and the Jews.

Tragedy in Dallas the start of a Race War.

The only question is will it continue, or will calmer heads prevail.

After a week of multiple unwarranted attacks on unarmed black men by police, two or more deranged criminals went on a killing spree and shot and killed 5 police men, wounding others. In the end, one of the criminals was blown up by a bomb that the police delivered via a robot.  Another was arrested.

The question is, is it a terrorist attack?  It was a horrendous mass shooting, a crime, a tragedy, might be considered an act of war, but it is in a gray area when it comes terrorism.

To be a terrorist attack, it requires three separate factors:

• Attempting to kill or harm people
• that are not combatants
•  for political goals.

Obviously if you don't have political goals, then you are a criminal, not a terrorist.  Shooting your spouse (and her parents ) so you don't have to pay her alimony (and to get ride of witnesses)  is a horrible crime, but not an act of terror.

Merely having political goals is not enough.  If I have political goals and hold a sit in, that doesn't make me a terrorist, or if neo-nazis steal every yard sign for a black politician, that doesn't make them terrorists.  Even if some people are scared.

You have to actually try to kill or harm people, or at least threaten them.

Moreover you can't attack their their military.  Attacking a US Navy Ship (USS Cole), or bombing the Pentagon is not a terrorist attack, as you are attacking combatants.  That is called an Act of War, not an act of terrorism.

That is a very important detail, not an insignificant factor.  We WANT our enemies to attack our armed combatants, rather than attacking our children and grandparents.   Terrorists get treated with little respect, soldiers get treated with much greater respect because they play by the rules.

The question is, do policemen count as armed combatants?  They are not soldiers, so calling attacking them an Act of War may be extreme.  But this killing was also done in revenge for police killing multiple unarmed black men.  Let's face it here, our police are armed.  And not just with guns, the officers in Dallas used a drone to deliver a bomb to kill their opponent.

If this happened in England, with unarmed bobbies, that would be an act of terror.

But here on American soil where cops use drones to bomb you?  Where it is in retaliation for police killing black man?  That's an act of war.   Specifically a Race War - one the criminals did not start.

It's wrong and we need to stop it here and now in it's tracks.   We need real control of the police, real punishment for killing unarmed civilians, we can no longer look the other way, not with cameras catching the crimes and mistakes of police left and right.

We need real reform, so that police are judged by people that actually WANT to arrest police men, just as civilians are judged by prosecutors that actually want to arrest them.

As for the criminals that shot at police?  They deserve to go to jail, but have their legal rights respected, because they did not attack school civilians.
 
Should the cops be protected?  Yes.  But let's not dishonor them by pretending they are victims. They are defenders shot down protecting us from revenge against their own failings. 

How the GOP could win back the Black vote.

Sixty years ago, the black vote went to the GOP.   Back then there were a lot of southern, racists Democrats.  In the 1960's Lyndon B Johnson turned that around, signed a Civil Rights Act and turned everything around - now blacks are among the most reliable voters for the Democrats.

The GOP keeps pushing their same, current philosophy and tries to convince people that it will help the blacks more than the Democrats.

It will never work.  That strategy has been tried and failed so many times, it has become my go-to example of Albert Einstein's definition of INSANITY ("Trying the same thing and expecting different results").

So, how could the GOP win back the black vote?  Yes, it is possible to do without abandoning their ideals.

They could do it by doing the following:

1)  Carry through on their false claim of fiscal responsibility and 'freedom from oppressive government' by massively reducing budgets for small and local government police mismanagement.   Note the "mis" in that sentence.

• Make it illegal to ever hold a person in jail for failure to pay a fine less than $5000.  Many poor people, a distressing number of whom are black, end up in jail, costing local governments hundreds of dollars per day, for failing to pay fines that are less than the government paid to arrest, adjudicate and hold in prison.    Stop that stupid crap and sentence them to community service, not time in jail.  (Note, this will also put a stop to abusive debt law suits.)
• Make it legal to fire any police officer or guard whose action - even if legal - causes the city to lose more than $100k  via a lawsuit.   If the police officer wants to fight the charges, they can pay to defend themselves.   Business fire idiots that get them sued, so should the government.
• Pass a law that any deal made with a prosecutor to prevent the government being sued is null and void.   Prosecutors have no business protecting the city from being sued, it is their job to prosecute the guilty - EVEN IF THE GUILTY ARE POLICEMEN.  They are not their to save money by letting the guilty go free, it doesn't matter if the guilty are cops or burglars, doing that is directly the opposite of their job.
• Have the GOP actively push for 'community policing' by requiring that all new hires and promotions of  police officers must be hired from within the community they serve.  Right now, police are about 30% less white than the communities they serve.  They want to police an area they have to live among them.

2)  Demand equal rights for black gun owners.  If a black man is arrested for using a gun that does not kill or wound an innocent, have the NRA/GOP pay for their defense.  Go all out defending their rights, something they do not do now.

3)  Stop insisting on using Sales Tax to fund local governments, it affects the poor far too much.  Instead, eliminate sales tax and use a state Property Taxes.   Property Taxes are shared equally by the rich and the poor - as rental prices go up when property taxes do.  Yes, that means property taxes (and rents) will go up a lot.  Not important.

4)  Speaking of property tax, insist that each school district gets the same amount of money per student enrolled.

5)  Start calling out racism and prejudice among their own.  Idiots doing things like "Make America White Again"  (actual billboard used by a Republican in 2016) should be literally kicked out of the Republican party.

If the GOP took these steps, ten years from now, they would have a whole bunch of new, darker republicans.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins133991.html

How to Beat the NRA and Get Real Gun Control

In the aftermath of the horrible, bigoted mass murder in Orlando, a lot of us have been thinking about gun control. This is demonstrated Connecticut Senator's Chris Murphy successful filibuster that forced a gun control vote, and by the House Democrat's sit-in - without CSPAN cameras - protesting the GOP's inaction.

But these are mainly symbolic, and frankly it wasn't enough.  All the gun control votes done after the filibuster have failed, and predictions are just for further failures.

The thing is the majority of Americans are in favor of gun control.  The majority of Republicans are in favor of stricter gun control, and even the majority of NRA members are in favor of stricter gun control.   (source)

So why can't we get any gun control, if so many of us want it?

Representative Democracy is not about what's right, nor is it even always about what most people want.  It's also about how much we want it.

And while most NRA members, Republicans, and Americans all want stricter gun control, it's a weak and disorganized desire while the Pro-Gun forces are FANATICAL and strongly organized.

They have so much power they passed a law called the Dickey Amendment that prevents the collection of gun data (for use in lobbying - but the definition of Lobbying is so poor that it basically prevents the collection of any data).

How do we fight this insidious, fanatical, well funded, and well organized threat?

By being better organized and better funded.  We need an organization that is the polar opposite of NRA

Note, this will take money.  Pro gun forces spend about $30 million in an election year.  We will need to spend at least $3 million to fight them - and honestly I would prefer to outspend them.  If you can't out spend them, that means you don't care as much as they do.

When senators and congressman vote on gun control, they get calls.  And they get about 20 calls for gun control and 200 calls against.

Those numbers are relatively small.  We can beat them.

We need a list of every single person killed by or wounded by a gun.  If they survived, recruit them.  If someone passed, recruit every single person that loved them.

This is our potential army.

Get our army to agree to push three SIMPLE and easily explainable goals:

1. Remove the Dickey amendment.
2. Create a new license from the federal government that you are required to have in order to buy, sell, carry, or own any hand gun .    This license will also allow concealed carry - in all US territory.  Failure to have that license is a felony.
3. Create a single, downloadable and freely available online list of all people that are legally forbidden from buying, selling, or owning any gun, according to existing laws.   It is now a felony, punishable by a minimum of 1 year in jail to sell a gun without getting their ID and checking that list.

Now give our army of gun victims four phone numbers and have them spend 10 minutes every single week.   The first week of the month they call their state Representative.  The second week, their Senator, the third week their Congressman, and the fourth week they call their Governor.  Have them do that every week without fail for a year.

At the end of that year, we will have gun control.


Note, I have avoided the various stupidity traps that the anti-gun control lobby has fallen into.   No talk about 'assault weapons ' (a made up term that just confuses the issue.)  No talk about clips, silencers, or rifles at all.    We concentrate on the real problems - the horrible Dickey Amendment,  the ease of getting dangerous hand guns (ignoring the far safer long guns), and finally the systematic problem we have in enforcing our current laws.

Don't compare Trump to Hitler - Trump is nicer than Hitler

Everyone loves to compare their political opponent to Hitler.   He is the 'go-to' bad guy.  Unarguably evil, unarguably a bad military and governmental leader - despite having significant public speaking skills, he makes for a powerful and therefor overused comparison.

Let me be very clear - Donald Trump is not Hitler.  There are several ways that Trump is better.   Hitler was stupider than Trump (Hitler dropped out of college and repeatedly screwed up good military strategy).   Few if any people will disagree when I say that Donald Trump is nicer than Hitler.  (Good T Shirt...) That statement is pretty clearly true.  A low bar, but Trump can make it over the bar.

But there IS a World War II leader that Trump is comparable too.  No, I am not going to compare Trump to other bad guys.  It's not Stalin or Mussolini.   It's Henri Petain, leader of Vichy France, the 'Lion of Verdun' that surrendered to Nazi Germany, and was later sentenced to death for his treason (sentence was commuted to life in prison).

The similarities are clear.  Petain was a bigot, that refused to help refugees based on things he had heard about their religion.   Previously he demanded a giant wall to keep invading murders out.

Petain was an anti-Semite that went beyond preventing Jews from entering France, he also specifically removed protections originally granted to french Jews.  (source)  He was scared that the Jews would not be loyal to France - and instead would engage in acts of violence, perhaps try to take over France.  In truth, the Jews were just fleeing persecution.  Trump, like Petain, want's to block a group of refugees - Muslims in Trump's case - from entering the US.

Petain was one of the major forces behind the Maginot Line - a giant wall that was supposed to keep Germans out of France. (source)   But the Germans had  airplanes to fly over the wall.   It was also so big, that it had week spots - too expensive to build a strong wall that large.  Similarly, Trump want's to keep Mexican out because he thinks they are murders.   Petain at least was right about Germany, but Trump doesn't even have that going for him.  

Petain also married a woman 20 years younger than him, violated the Constitution of France, and ran the government along the lines of his previous profession (military) rather than using the normal political means.  Trump has married a woman 20 years younger than him, has been told by the military that they will not obey illegal orders to torture the family of enemy soldiers, and claims that he will run the government like his previous profession (business).

Donald Trump is nothing more than America's Henri Petain.   We can't afford to let Trump do to America, what Petain did to France.

We need to do better.  We need someone that does NOT simply try to offer up simple, obvious solutions to complex problem.  Because if the answer was simple, we would have already solved it.

Real life is complex and requires harder, more difficult solutions.   Simple solutions are simply wrong.  Walls haven't worked since the invention of the airplane.   Judging people - even for a short amount of time - on their religion is called prejudice, and history has shown that it is evil, not good.

"Check Your Privileged" is evil.

Sometime before April 2006, an autocratic idiot, possibly at Shrub.com came up with an incredibly  evil concept. They coined the phrase "check your privilege" in a rather inept attempt to explain to racists that the reason why blacks, latinos, women, lbgt, non-christians, etc. etc. do poorly is because of systematic biases that do not affect tall, white, straight christian male Americans.

Some people still think it is a socially acceptable way to explain things.  Let me be clear, those people are wrong.  It does not in any way explain anything to a prejudiced person.  It makes things worse.  Yes, often people that have never had their rights violated do not understand how pervasive the problem is.  But using the word privilege makes it harder, not easier, for them to understand the problem.



This is partly because it is often used as an insult, but that is a side issue.

It is NOT a 'privilege' to:

• Walk down the street without being catcalled.
• Not be stopped by a police officer for walking/driving/standing while black, latino, etc.
• Wear my religious gear, including artifacts of faith - such as a kirpan blade.
• Get a mortgage based on my financials without regard to race, gender, etc.
• Get married to the man/women of my choice without regard to my own gender

Those are not privileges. These are Rights.  Constitutional Rights in America, Chartered Rights in Canada, Human Rights in England, etc.

When you call these things as privileges, not rights you are saying these violations are not so bad.  You are saying that certain people get the advantage of not having to deal with them.   These things do not happen to tall, white, straight christian male Americans but that is not an unearned privilege that can/should be taken away from them, putting them in the same place as minorities.

That is the idea of an autocratic, dictatorial tyrant, not a democracy.

When you talk about "privileges" in this manner, including the incredibly obnoxious phrase "Check  Your Privilege", you are being totalitarianist.  You are making the problem worse, not better.

Anyone using the words "Check Your Privilege" is worse than the racists they are talking to.    The racist may not be aware of rights being violated, but at least they know Rights exist.

Three Surpreme Court Decisions.

There are three interesting Supreme Court decisions I want to talk about.  Two of which I agree with and one is clearly a bad decision by 5 out of 9 judges.


First the bad decision.  SCOTUS had no business tearing apart the Voting Rights Act.  (Huffington Post News story)


They specifically declared the formula in Section 4 unconstitutional. "The formula in that section can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdictions to preclearance.”

Specifically they said that our country has changed and they the formula must be updated.

This is a bad decision because they admitted that at one time the formula was good.   Roberts said  "Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions"

But you see, that is CONGRESS's decision, not the Courts.  The court is there to determine if the Congress overstepped it's bounds, NOT to determine if they did a good job or a bad job.  If Congress has the power to  make that determination, they have the right to do so poorly.

Honestly, I believe that Congress should simply say, screw it, EVERYONE has to be subject to jurisdiction for preclearance.   That is, every single state and every single county should be forced to ask the DOJ if their voting procedures are racist.


It would end a lot of vile and corrupt practices, such as gerrymandering.

Second, the good news.  SCOTUS said that the Federal Government must recognize the Marriage of Gays, done by states.  Gays are people too, and as such have the rights to obtain the legal status of married, with all the tax, medical, etc. benefits. (CBS news story)

This is fairly obvious and not that surprising.  Scalia himself predicted it would happen 10 years ago  - although he was too preejudiced to understand it is a good thing.  He was kind of like an old racist from the 1860's saying "Why if we free the slaves, they might marry our white people."  Yes, his prediction was true but he was too prejudiced, and frankly, illogical to see that it was not a bad thing.


Thirdly, the Supreme Court also confirmed a lower courts decision that said being homeless does not mean you are not allowed to own anything.  Specifically they stated that the state of California could not take the possessions of homeless people and destroy them simply because they were on 'public grounds' and the homeless people had stepped away from them (to go to the bathroom or get on a food line.)  (Death and Taxes Blog)

Note, California had previously stolen and destroyed such possessions including identification (such as driver licenses, social security cards, etc.) and cellphones (if you don't have an address, a cellphone is vitally important to stay in touch with people.)

Frankly it was a rather evil attempt by the state of California and not that surprising that the Supreme Court sided with the homeless people.

We don't need Morphine, we have Asprin????

One in a while I see people complaining about the problems of major bulwarks of our civil defense, often using the existence of other, relatively minor legal protections as an excuse to get rid of our most important rights.  For example some claims that we don't need the fifth amendment because we have laws against torture and unreasonable punishment.

But you see, the rules against torture are actually rather weak  I would call them paper thin..  Government torture happens all the time.   I am not just talking about being water boarded by the CIA, I am talking about police officers routinely using pain on criminals.  Part of the problem is that the line between torture and other, reasonable activities is rather blurry.  Hit a guy?  Is it torture, self defense, or an accident?   Or perhaps you were trying to get him to obey a reasonable order.

The fifth amendment however is a huge giant wall, one or the strongest protections we have. Punish a guy for not answering a question, that's a fifth amendment violation.  We easily see that and know it is wrong.

Lets talk a bit more about the thin line between torture and legal activities.  Cops love Tasers and they don't restrict them to preventing violence.    In fact, the very famous line "Don't Tase me Bro."  came from such an incident.  The guy was not a danger to anyone, he simply was refusing to cooperate with the police.  He wouldn't leave an event, and wouldn't give up the microphone.  (Source)

The cops tased him not because he was a threat, but to force him to obey.  They caused him pain and physically controlled him.  Some would say that is torture.  They hurt him to convince him to obey.   They didn't put hand cuffs on him first, they made no attempt at all to control him without pain, they moved directly to pain.  

Torture is not used just to get information.  As per the US legal definition:


(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;


Tasers are supposed (i.e the company says their purpose is to) to be used not to obtain compliance, but to deal with dangerous situations.  As per Wikipedia:

"Tasers were introduced as non-lethal weapons to be used by police to subdue fleeing, belligerent, or potentially dangerous people, who would have otherwise been subjected to more lethal weapons such as a firearm."

Instead, they are often used as 'pain compliance' devices.  The difference between pain compliance and torture?   If you are under the control of the cop, it is torture.  If you are not yet under their control, it is pain compliance.  Who decides if you are under their control?  The cop.  With no second judging of his decision.
Torture is a relative word.  Hence the controversy under George Bush where moronic lawyers tried to argue that water boarding is not torture.   But there are many circumstances where torture is perfectly legal.   It is easy and COMMONPLACE for cops to claim you were resisting arrest and therefore use pain compliance.

They can even make that claim if you are already arrested, in handcuffs, in prison, and on the floor crying. They just have to claim you were not complying.

The fifth amendment is the big gun.  It is the brick wall.  Other laws are the small arms, the velvet rope.  We can't depend on the rope line to hold back the cops, we need the brick wall.

In part because if we have the brick wall, as opposed to just a rope line, it lets the cops slam you up against the brick wall, without worrying about going over it by mistake.  If we have just a rope line, then cops will mistakenly cross it.

You don't demolish the brick wall because we have a velvet rope.  You don't get rid of morphine because we have aspirin.  The Fifth Amendment, which protects US citizens from self-incrimination is the strong protection and we must keep it that way.

It doesn't just stop torture, it stops many other problems caused by the police.  For example it stops the government from punishing you for not revealing something that you don't know (no matter how much they THINK you know it.  It also helps stop the government from learning things they have no right to know - such as your sexual orientation, accidentally or on purpose.  
Similarly, laws against excessive prosecution are not enough.   We need some ways to incentive criminals, some discretion by the government.   Given that we want to the cops to be able to talk to the criminals, and even bribe/punish them, we need strong laws that stop them from going too far.   If the cops won't even let you remain silent, that's going too far.  Honestly, if we really need the information, we can always offer immunity.

If immunity is not worth the trade, then don't demand they speak.

On Snowden Leaks

First let me discuss the facts about the Snowden leaks.

1. Snowden was an employee of a private contractor.  He did not work directly for the government.
2. Snowden had access to top secret information.  Specifically he ran computer programs that had the ability to obtain certain specific information about people's electronic communications, including american citizens.
3. He leaked the existence of those programs to the press.
4. He fled to Hong Kong
5. He then publicly admitted what he had done.
6. He claimed he did it because he had moral objections to the existence of that tracking abilitiy, believing it to be an immoral and unethical invasion of american citizen's privacy, that should be illegal.
7. Some members of the government want him arrested for treason
8. Some members of the government want to arrest the press for releasing that information.

I have not talked about this for a while because it is a complex issue.

First, let me talk about crime in general.   Intent, or the mental state of the criminal, is key to most crimes.

If you go to a car that looks like yours, put the key in, it works, and you drive off, then most people don't think you have committed a crime - even if it turns out to be someone else's car (car manufacturers re-use keys, so this can happen - it used to be common).

Similarly, the difference between:  Murder (tried to kill), manslaughter (tried to hurt, but killed), gross negligence (didn't care if he got hurt/died so did not take precautions), and an accident (took reasonable precautions but he died anyway)  are all about intent.

Mr. Snowden's actions clearly indicate he was attempting to be a whistleblower, not a traitor.

1. He leaked to the press, not to a foregin nation or terrorist organization
2. He publicly admitted responsibility, risking jail time
3. He only released the information about what the government was doing.  He with-held sensitive specific information, instead of releasing everything he had access to.

This brings us to the first question:

Should it matter what he was trying to be?  That is, should we judge him by the results alone, or take into account his intent/motive?

Yes it does matter.   By giving a reduced/no punishment for whistle-blowers as opposed to traitors, we as a government and a culture gain the following:

• Incentive for whistleblowers as opposed to simply spying for foreign powers.  (leaking to the press rather than a foreign organization, admitting your actions)  We as a nation are much better off if we know what they know, rather than being left in the dark about them knowing our secrets.   It also saves us money in the investigation, prevents innocent people from being targeted, and allows us to fire him immediately (which we did), as opposed to leaving a spy in our midst.
• Incentives for whistle-blowers to report actual crimes (even if you don't think Snowden was a whistle-blower.   By treating people trying to be whilstle-blowers better than traitors, we encourage people to be whistle-blowers, as opposed to terrifying them into submission with possible false claims of treason.  
• The knowledge that whistlblowing is legal/punished less than treason also encourages us to TRUST the government.

These are all valuable qualities that governments can not buy except by treating people trying to be whistleblowers different than regular traitors that do it for money.

The technical definition of treason says either "wages war against the US, adheres to enemy, giving them aid or comfort".  Snowden clearly did not intend to do any of those things.  He should not be treated as a traitor, if for no other reason than to encourage other people considering revealing top secret information to leak it to the press and publicly admit their guilt as opposed to leaking to China and keeping their identity secret.

Next up, did he do it by mistake?

Second question:

Was he really a whistle-blower, or just a traitor?


Polls show that Americans have mixed views on Snowden.  The numbers are all between 40% and 60% approval dissaproval.

It doesn't matter.  You see, you don't convict someone of a crime if 40% of people think he's innocent.

This is America.  If there is reasonable doubt, you go free.   40% thinking he is a patriot is reasonable doubt.

It's too close a call to send a guy to jail for something many of us consider to be a patriotic act. 

We don't even need to know if he actually was a whistle-blower.  We just need to ask does a reasonable person have reasonable doubts about his actions?   At least forty percent of our population does.   Therefore he is innocent.

More about this later (see the last issue).

This brings us to the third question:

Should the NSA be contracting our 'suspect' work to private industry, as opposed to doing it in hourse?

This answer is a clear NO.  This is a horrendous mistake on the part of our government.  Even assuming the electronic surveillaince in question is legal and appropriate, it should in NO way be done by private industry.

We don't let military contractors operate nuclear weapons.  The weapons in question are too powerful and too dangerous.  They may build them and even maintain them, but we insist they hand them over to the US government and we guard and operate them.

You don't let private contractors do the work that has extreme issues.   We don't let them control our nuclear issues and we certainly should not let private contractors spy on American citizens. 

What's appropriate for the US government to do is not always appropriate for contractors to do.

Even assuming the espionage in question is appropriate for the US to do, it can not in any way be appropriate for us to pay private contractors to do.


Should the electronic surveillance in question be legal?

To answer this question, lets start out discussing what should be happening.

I expect our government agencies to be MORE concerned about security than our privacy.  They should be trying to push up as close as possible to the wall of what is legal.  It is not their job to safeguard our privacy, it is their job to safeguard our country.

If they are not taking risks and getting close to the edge of what is legal, then they are failing.

Traditionally the 'movie' traitors do something like the following:

• Reveal technical secrets on how to make top secret devices
• Reveal top secret names of people who operate in secret and  would be at risk if their identities become known.
• Reveal top secret locations that cold be targeted by enemies.
• Reveal specific military plans currently being executed, allowing the enemy to counter-act them.

He did none of these things.  Instead he revealed the current practices of the USA, not it's current plans, nor even the possible capabilities (just because Snowden couldn't listen to your phone calls doesn't mean no one else working for the US government can't)

They claim that by maintaining secrecy of our current practices, they can make it harder for the bad guys to counter them.  Note, our capabilities keep increasing, so the bad guys still have to take more precautions than just avoid what they know we used to do.

There is a technical term for this type of secrecy:  "Security through Obscurity"  If your opponent does not know how you do things, it makes it harder for them to defeat your efforts.   But if you check the wikipedia page I linked to you can instantly see what a bad reputation Security through Obscurity has.

Honestly, the food industry wanted to do a similar thing.  We laughed and told them NO.  We required them to list all the ingredients, if not the proportions.    They clearly have an interest in preventing their competitors from knowing what they put into their food.   Why didn't we let them keep their ingredients simple?   Because our personal interest in knowing what we are consuming is more important.

Similarly, our personal interest in knowing what information the government is gathering on us FAR exceeds any minor increased efficiency the government gains by having the terrorists not know for certain some of the things the government is doing.

Especially when a large portion (over 40%) consider the government's actions to be questionable, if not innapropriate.

If your actions are close to the wall between ethical spying and unethical spying, then you have to accept the fact that the public will get to examine at least the actions that are closest to the wall, if not the ones far from it.

You want security through obscurity?  Then do your stuff away from the wall.  Not right up next to it.

The NSA leak did damage security, the same way requiring food companies to list their ingredients damaged their profits.   That is, it damaged security a tiny, insignificant amount, and gave the country a massive amount of information that we desperately needed.

It is our job to determine whether your security measures are worth the effort.   Therefore you must reveal the most questionable security methods you use to the public.  If you want to keep something secret, then you create a public, more invasive 'throw away'  method and see how the public responds to you admitting you do that.  If they object, then you cancel the 'throw away' method and then reveal the one you wish you could keep secret and hope they accept it.

You definitely should not under any circumstances, keep your most invasive privacy violating security methods secret.  

Because the damage that your most privacy violating methods do the country will always be greater than the damage you are protecting.   If only in  destroying the people's trust in the government and creating a climate of distrust.


Conclusions:

Snowden may not be a hero, but he is definitely NOT a traitor.  The NSA has clearly made some bad decisions - having private contractors spy on American Citizens???? Shame on you for stupidity, let alone privacy violations

We need to slap the NSA down and have them re-think their strategies. 

The ACLU Agrees with me.

Just a short update.

A while ago I posted here and said the recent snooping by the government may give people standing to sue the government.  Previously  the Supreme Court said they could not sue to stop being spied upon because they could not prove they were being spied upon.


This article says the ACLU agrees with me about the snooping.

A Victory for the Cowardly Idiots

The TSA, an agency known for spending excessive amounts of energy and money to avoid miniscule risks, declared that it was safe to take Swiss army knives and similar sports equipment onto planes.

Then a bunch of scared fools complained.   They complained so loudly that the TSA had to back down.

This is how the terrorists win - when we become so scared of them that we give up minor liberties in exchange for ZERO increased safety.

The TSA does not say that the weapons and sports equipment (golf clubs for example) are dangerous.  Instead the TSA continues to insist that they pose no danger to the aircraft.

But do admit that they can be used to harm individual passengers.    Big deal. So can eyeglasses.  I'm not talking about eyeglass ground into a shiv.  I mean regular normal, unaltered eyeglasses.

Not to mention what you can do with an ordinary, non-sharp piece of alkali metal and the water they give you on the plane.

The devices they are preventing are NOT in any way a danger to the plane, nor are they any more dangerous to airline passengers, air-marshals, or stewards than everything else they let passengers take on a plane.

They are being outlawed because of stupidity, not logic.

The TSA has no business attempting to control people and protect people.   It's their job to prevent terrorist related crime, not all crime. Attempting to prevent all crime is way too expensive and a massive invasion of our civil rights.

The cowardly morons that are too stupid to realize how deadly your belt, crutches, eyeglasses,rings, etc are helping the terrorists to win.  They are wasting our money, our time, and slowly eroding our personal rights.

The search and removal of such items - which is NOT done in other countries - takes up time and effort of the TSA.

More importantly, it lets the terrorists perform simple blocking maneuvers without any risk.  I.E.  they send a shill with a simple Swiss army knife who complains loudly when they take it away, distracting the TSA and taking their attention while the real terrorists breezes through the checkpoint with a perfunctory check.

This is a sad day in American History.  Logic and wisdom has lost to fear and stupidity.

The REAL IRS scandal

There is a real IRS scandal that is being mostly ignored by the main stream media.

It is also being mostly ignored by the conservatives.

And also by the liberals.


Try doing a google search on the words "IRS ADOPTION"

Sixty Nine percent of people that adopt children get audited

This compares with 1% of people that don't adopt.

 Some people get audited TWICE for the same claim.

Of course, this makes perfect sense because the fraud rate was as high as zero.  Yes zero.  In fact, after auditing, additional taxes was due 17% (from honest errors, not fraud) - as compared to an average of 86% of the time for audits for non-adoptions.  (Source)

Adoption is a complicated process that often involves huge fees, with a lot of bureaucratic paperwork. If it is an international adoption, sometimes those fees are more like bribes.  You are told to bring cash and they don't give receipts.  It is in fact legal for the US citizen to claim these expenses as as an Adoption Tax Credit (upto $112,650).   Even if they are cash and you don't have paper receipts.

It is made worse because the IRS does not do a good job telling taxpayers what records they need, how to fill out their forms, or put those forms in their e-filing process.  (Source)

This is what a real scandal looks like.  69% auditing with zero fraud found and a relatively small amount of additional taxes owed.


The partisan crap?  It is not worth of the name scandal.  It's low level partisan bull that has been going on since the IRS was founded.  The only real difference now is that they got a couple of incriminating emails from low level employees.   It is being talked up because the GOP wish it went much higher than it really is.  So they keep digging, hoping to find proof of something that doesn't exist.

P.S.   Warning, some of the people that discovered this adoption scandal are partisan fools.
They see everything through a lens of 'it must be liberals doing it to hurt conservatives".   They can't conceive of people not giving a crap about their personal political wars.

So they come up with ridiculous theories to try and blame this on Obama and the liberals.  (Silly ideas such as the belief that liberals think that people that adopt must be conservatives, because religious people adopt)

That is bull.

This is a real problem but it is not a conservative-liberal thing.  It is a bureaucratic  government screw up that has nothing to do with partisan politics and everything to do with incompetence.  

Supreme Court ruling allows DNA abuses

In one of the few times I agree with Scalia, he has dissented from a 5/4 ruling that says it is OK for cops to take DNA samples upon arrest.

Kennedy incorrectly stated that DNA sampling is like fingerprinting or photographing.

Privacy invasions is not measured solely by how much time or physical inconvenience, but instead by what you can learn about someone, and countered by the safety needs of the cop.  That is, it is OK to to do a strip search to check for weapons before you put someone in jail, but to forensically examine their financials based on a belief they mugged someone.

Fingerprinting and photographing are used solely to identify the person arrested.  Yes, you can sometimes connect fingerprints to a location (proving presence, but not the committing of a crime), but DNA goes far beyond that.

I am going to ignore the facts that DNA is both easier to plant as evidence (anyone can move a liquid sample, prints stick to surfaces)  and less reliable than fingerprints (fingerprints are always unique, some people have twins and they don't do full DNA scans so DNA false positives can happen).

Instead I am going to talk about the many personal and private things that DNA says about you besides your identity.  These are all things DNA can tell you NOW, let alone in a decade.

1. It clearly lists parentage.  People should not be forced to deal with sudden realization that you are a bastard or adopted.
2. It identifies racial groups that can not be identified any other way (As in, wow, I didn't know I was descendent from Jews and apparently my dark skin and curly hair come from a black great grandfather, not from being Italian.)
3. Health issues, including the knowledge of specific deadly disease that DO NOT HAVE ANY TREATMENT.

These things are not minor issues.  They are major ones with major psychological impacts on people.  

I am not saying we should outlaw DNA testing, or even not do it on jailed citizens.  I am saying that arresting someone does not meet the barrier for doing the testing.

Police can arrest ANYONE for ANYTHING.   They don't need a reasonable suspicion, they can do it on a whim.  Cops are known to arrest people based on race, based on political beliefs, or merely for pissing of the cop.  If the cop wants DNA, they can arrest an 4 year old child on an accusation of money laundering, then test his DNA, then release him saying "woops, we got the wrong guy".

Then they can match his DNA up on a familial basis and issue an arrest warrant for his father for an unrelated murder charge.

No, this law is rife with potential abuses.

If we want to do a DNA scan of every single citizen of the country, that is one thing.  I would be happy to consider such a dramatic and drastic change.  It makes a lot more sense than doing it to people arrested.  It could stop quite a bit of crime, rape in particular, as well as make assigning financial responsibility for fathering a child much easier.

But there is NOTHING special about arresting someone except in the mind of the cop, something we can not trust.  Most cops are good guys, but some can not be trusted.  That is why we don't let them search houses without a warrant, and why they should not have the right to pick and choose who gets a DNA test.

Either give it to all of us, or give it only with a warrant.

Doing it on 'arrest' is asking for discriminatory abuse.

Government's snooping on reporters.

First a little background.   The right to privacy in the US  has steadily been eroded over the past ten years.  Partly by the internet, partly by the fear of terrorism.

There are all sorts of new privacy laws we need:

• Right to photograph cops, because after all, they are photographing us all the time.
• The right to end a corporate online relationship(and kill their tracking of you-  and their data)
• The right to SEE all the data they have collected on you 
• Require a warrant to search emails (everyone expects them to be private despite the court ruling that they are not - look at how often people send incriminating evidence through them).
• The right to have online photos of your removed or have the face distorted. - unless the poster has a signed permissions to use said photo.

These are just a few things that could and in my opinion should be set up.   Clearly privacy is under attack and we need to fight back.

Now lets talk about the federal warranted search of reporter's communications.  Th FBI was trying to identify the source of leaked information, particularly about a foiled terror plot involving the CIA operating in Yemen.

Originally it was clearly reporters should be given more respect when the government tries to snoop on them.  No longer.   The line between reporter and blogger and random citizen has begun to blur significantly.

The actual scandal is relatively small.  No reporters charged or even brought in for questioning.  No emails read or telephone calls listened to.   Just reporters telephone records obtained.  So they know who spoke to who, but not what they said.

It is a scandal and it is at the very least questionable behavior by the FBI.  But compared to what happens in Russia and China, it is not a huge deal.  There reporters get jailed or killed.

In my mind, the AP should in fact use government snooping.  Specifically, they should point out that they now have proof that the US government is snooping on them and try to kill the FISA Amendments Act.

They, unlike Amnesty International, can now claim that they have been concretely injured by the existing, known snooping, and therefore can sue to stop the FISA warrant-less wiretapping that Amnesty International failed to stop (in Clapper vs. Amnesty International) because Amnesty International could not prove they were being snooped on.

The AP can prove that the government was snooping on them and they can therefore claim the burden of proof has shifted to the government.