Controversies

Too Many Prisoners in Oklahoma and Ohio

In Oklahoma, the Department of Corrections (DOC) has had to handle a 368% population rise in state prisons, from 7,000 in 1983 to more than 26,000 today. During this period, the state’s overall population only grew by 25%. But what’s not kept going up is the DOC’s budget for correctional officers, who number 300 fewer than a decade ago. read more

EPA Finally Asks Fracking Companies to Self-Report Which Toxins Are Dumped in the Ocean

About 20% of fracking materials injected into the ground come back up as wastewater. On land, that dubious product is slammed back into the ground in a separate wastewater well. At sea, a lot of that wastewater is dumped back into the ocean. A new regulation published Thursday by the EPA merely requires the oil companies to self-report what they have only recently been discovered doing in sensitive waters read more

Government Accountability Office Can Provide Oversight of NSA…if Congress would just Ask

Back in the 1990s, the GAO worked closely with the NSA to perform audits and investigations of the spy agency’s work. But over time lawmakers inexplicably stopped asking GAO auditors to check in on NSA programs, resulting in the congressional watchdog vacating its offices at NSA headquarters. read more

Florida Manatees Dying at Record Pace

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute reported last month that more than 800 of the giant sea cows died in 2013, which was the highest total on record since the institute began researching the mammals 40 years ago. A record number of manatees died from red tide (276) caused by high concentrations of algae in the ocean. Seventy-two were killed by watercraft and 36 died of cold stress. read more

Insane Clown Posse Sues U.S. Government for Treating Fans as Gang Members

“Among the supporters of almost any group—whether it be a band, sports team, university, political organization or religion—there will be some people who violate the law,” the plaintiffs say. “However, it is wrong to designate the entire group of supporters as a criminal gang based on the acts of a few. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened here.” read more

99% of Police Brutality Complaints in Central New Jersey are Dismissed or Ignored

The Central Jersey Courier News and Home News Tribune reviewed hundreds of citizen complaints from 2008 to 2012 claiming excessive force, bias and civil rights violations by officers in more than seven dozen police departments in Central New Jersey. It found that only 1% of complaints alleging police brutality were sustained by internal affairs units. The national average is 8%, according to a 2007 Bureau of Justice Statistics report. read more

As FBI Shifts Mission to National Security, Old-Fashioned Crime-Fighting Slips Away

FBI agents referred 10,000 white-collar crime cases to prosecutors in 2000. By 2005, the total had plummeted to 3,500 cases. “I think they’re trying to rebrand,” Kel McClanahan, a Washington-based national security lawyer, told Foreign Policy. “So many good things happen to your agency when you tie it to national security.” read more

Appeals Court Blocks Release of Secret Consumer Privacy Memo

In January 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued a memorandum stating that officials could collect calling records of phone company customers without first obtaining a subpoena or any other authorization from a judge. Neither the FBI nor the OLC released a copy of the memo, whose existence only came to light after the Justice Department’s inspector general issued a report in 2010 discussing its legal ramifications. read more

Crime Labs Still Unregulated despite Scandals

These two scandals and others have drawn attention to the fact that no uniform standards or regulations for forensic labs exist in the United States. Labs are accredited, but by only one organization: the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board (ASCLD/LAB). Accreditation is good for five years, and is supposed to include yearly, planned inspections. read more

Federal Judge Rules Indiscriminate Drug Testing of Welfare Applicants Unconstitutional

Judge Scriven concluded that the state had it all wrong: “In sum, there simply is no competent evidence offered on this record of the sort of pervasive drug problem the State envisioned in the promulgation of this statute.” Going even further, Scriven wrote that if even Florida had been right and the poor actually did have a higher rate of drug use, placing them in a class of people denied constitutional rights would be dangerous. read more

Anti-White Police Hiring Case Goes to Trial in San Francisco

SFPD unveiled a modified selection process called “banding” for use after the first eleven vacancies were filled. Banding treats exam scores that fall within a particular range or “band” as equivalent, regardless of their exact order. Buckley and Hofmann allege that SFPD decided to use banding because it “felt a need to promote more blacks and Asians to Captain.” read more

Citizens Deserve to Understand How the Government Uses Executive Order 12,333 to Spy on Americans…32 Years after it was Issued

Signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and modified since, Executive Order 12,333 covers government surveillance of Americans’ international communications—but the government’s interpretation of it is secret. the ACLU argues that there is no outside supervision of EO 12,333 surveillance, which is outside the jurisdiction of the FISA Court and is “not meaningfully overseen” by Congress. read more

Obama Proposes Increased Limits on Gun Sales to Mentally Ill

DOJ proposes to clarify that the statute covers “persons who are found incompetent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, lack of mental responsibility, or insanity, and that the term includes persons found guilty but mentally ill.” The rule would also “clarify that the statutory term ‘committed to a mental institution’ applies to involuntary inpatient or outpatient treatment.” read more

Haphazard Police Spying Across U.S. Puts Americans’ Civil Liberties in Jeopardy

The haphazard efforts have undermined counterterrorism aims, and perhaps more importantly, compromised the constitutional rights of Americans. “Many police departments and fusion centers have reported on constitutionally protected activities such as photography and political speech,” Michael Price wrote at Salon. Officers in California often report on “suspicious” activities that amount to little more than standing around at bus or train stations, or talking at length on public phones. read more

California Supreme Court Says Undocumented Immigrant Can Practice Law…but It’s against the Law to Hire Him

The 36-year-old put himself through college and Cal Northern School of Law. Garcia was working as a paralegal when he applied to the bar. He passed the examination on his first try in 2009. His father, a naturalized U.S. citizen, applied for his son’s legal residency in 1994. Garcia was put on a waiting list and was told he could get his green card in six years. He’s still waiting. read more

Calls for Snowden Clemency Grow in Media

Major newspapers in the United States and the United Kingdom have come out in support of Edward Snowden, calling on President Barack Obama to go easy on the National Security Agency whistleblower living in exile in Russia. In the view of The New York Times, The Guardian and other news outlets, Snowden is a hero for exposing NSA spying operations that have compromised the privacy of millions of people around the world. read more