7/7/2015 New York City has agreed to pay six Occupy Wall Street protestors between $52,500 and $60,000 each, totaling $332,500 in a settlement over being illegally pepper sprayed by police in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park. The incident happened in the early days of the original September, 2011 anti-inequality protest, when police Deputy Inspector, Anthony Bologna, was
7/6/2015 In an amazing shift of perspective, South Carolina may finally be willing to abandon its most prominent symbol of Confederate heritage after a three-week public shaming by the majority of the Union. After a 150-year effort to keep alive the spirit of the rebellion that almost destroyed the United States of America, the South
6/23/2015 The Justice Department and New York City officials have reached a preliminary agreement to reform one of the most notorious prisons in the U.S., New York’s Rikers Island Correctional Facility. The agreement comes after the office of U.S. Attorney extraordinaire, Preet Bharara, joined a class-action lawsuit last December regarding police brutality and other abuses.
6/22/2015 In the wake of the latest hate-fueled mass shooting of a prominent African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina by 21 year-old racist, Dylan Roof, a major wave of momentum is fomenting towards a longstanding controversy, the public display of the Confederate flag in the state. The controversy over South Carolina’s reluctance to remove the
6/11/2015 This month may spark the beginning of the end for the “tough on crime” congressional strategy among the perpetually campaigning members of the House of Representatives. The House Judiciary committee announced on Wednesday that it will form a panel to address reforms in the criminal justice system. The panel will be led by committee
5/24/2105 ’Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.’ Sir Walter Scott could not have written a more apt fictional parable than the legislative mayhem occurring inside of the Capitol this past week regarding the immediate future of the controversial and secretive National Security Agency’s (NSA) spying program. As we
5/19/2015 Many people were caught off-guard in 2010 by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United vs. FEC ruling that in many ways equated the amount of political speech one was able to express by the amount of money the speaker was able to spend. The New York Times, however, notes that the Court made a similar
5/8/2015 Contrary to yesterday’s post regarding the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that warrantless access to phone records is not an invasion of privacy; a 3-judge panel from the 2nd Circuit ruled unanimously on Thursday, May 07th that the National Security Agency (NSA) spying program is illegal. Although both programs base their justification on
5/7/2015 A panel of judges ruled 9-2 in the 11th District U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta that cell phone customers do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy concerning searches of phone records. The Tuesday, May 5th ruling concerns the case of Miami resident, Quartavious Davis, who was convicted of several felonies, including robbery