December 18, 2013

Supreme Court Ruling Allows Strip Searches for Any Arrest

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/us/justices-approve-strip-searches-for-any-offense.html

December 18, 2013

In Bizarre No-Fly List Trial, Even the Verdict Might Be Top Secret

Is former Stanford University scholar Rahinah Ibrahim connected to Malaysian jihadists, as the FBI once suggested, or is she the victim of misguided U.S. bureaucrats who erroneously placed her on a U.S. terror watchlist? Is she even on a watchlist at all?

Those are the lingering unanswered questions in the first-of-its kind federal trial challenging a traveler’s alleged placement on America’s notorious no-fly list. The 48-year-old Malaysian woman’s case against the U.S. government — in which she seeks solely to clear her name — is awaiting a judge’s verdict after a week of testimony, the bulk of it classified and given behind closed doors here in a San Francisco federal courtroom.

But underscoring the Kafkaesque flavor of the trial, there’s a real possibility the verdict itself will be kept a secret, even from Ibrahim.

“It is conceivable? If the government continues to keep this information secret from her and the public, and the judge sustains that objection, it is possible we can have a ruling in this case and she would not know the result,” Elizabeth Marie Pipkin, Ibrahim’s pro-bono attorney, said in a telephone interview.


Rahinah Ibrahim: Photo: University Putra Malaysia
It’s one of those strange moments in the U.S. legal system, when national security secrecy is allowed to trump transparency.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/12/no-fly-list-verdict-secrecy/

December 18, 2013

Sean Penn with US businessman wanted in Bolivia

Actor Sean Penn said Tuesday that he's with Jacob Ostreicher after the New York businessman was secretly spirited out of Bolivia, where he's been fighting for more than two years to clear his name in a money-laundering investigation.

Penn, through his publicist, said Ostreicher is safe, doing well and receiving medical attention at an undisclosed location.

In a statement sent by his publicist, Penn said a "humanitarian operation" had been mounted to extract Ostreicher "from the corrupt prosecution and imprisonment he was suffering in Bolivia." He didn't provide additional details or say who was behind it.

Ostreicher spent 18 months in a Bolivian jail without charges on suspicion of money laundering while trying to salvage a rice-growing venture. He was released a year ago and put under house arrest after Penn traveled to Bolivia and directly appealed to President Evo Morales to free him. An Orthodox Jew with a flooring business in Brooklyn, Ostreicher has claimed his innocence and complained that he was being fleeced by corrupt officials to drop the case against him.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Sean-Penn-with-US-businessman-wanted-in-Bolivia-5071625.php

December 17, 2013

Large group of U.S. scholars endorse academic boycott of Israel

Source: CBS

The American Studies Association on Monday endorsed a boycott of Israeli universities, the largest group of U.S. scholars to do so.

About one-third of the group's more than 3,800 members voted, approving the boycott by 66 percent. Last April, the smaller Association for Asian American Studies, which has about 800 members, became the first scholarly group in the U.S. to support an academic boycott of Israel.

"The ASA condemns the United States' significant role in aiding and abetting Israel's violations of human rights against Palestinians and its occupation of Palestinian lands through its use of the veto in the UN Security Council," the American Studies Association said in a statement explaining the endorsement.

The vote, which is largely symbolic, is nonetheless a sign of the increasing momentum of the international boycott movement against Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians. While the movement - which presses for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel - has scored some successes in Europe and elsewhere, it has had far less influence in the United States, Israel's closest and most important ally.


Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/large-group-of-us-scholars-endorse-academic-boycott-of-israel/

December 17, 2013

Judgment Day Arrives For Oakland End-Of-The-World Preacher

Harold Camping, the Bay Area preacher who used his evangelical radio ministry and thousands of billboards to broadcast the end of the world and then gave up public prophecy when his date-specific doomsdays did not come to pass, has died at age 92.

Family Radio Network marketing manager Nina Romero said Harold Camping, a retired civil engineer who built a worldwide following for the nonprofit, Oakland-based ministry he founded in 1958, died at his home on Sunday. She said he had been hospitalized after falling.

Camping’s most widely spread prediction was that the Rapture would happen on May 21, 2011. His independent Christian media empire spent millions of dollars — some of it from donations made by followers who quit their jobs and sold all their possessions– to spread the word on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 RVs plastered with the Judgment Day message.

When the Judgment Day he foresaw did not materialize, the preacher revised his prophecy, saying he had been off by five months. The preacher, who suffered a stroke three weeks after the May prediction failed, said the light dawned on him that instead of the biblical Rapture in which the faithful would be swept up to the heavens, the date had instead been a “spiritual” Judgment Day, which placed the entire world under Christ’s judgment.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/12/17/judgment-day-comes-for-oakland-end-of-the-world-preacher/

December 17, 2013

Indian official: Diplomat's arrest in NYC barbaric

Source: SFGate

The arrest and alleged strip search of an Indian diplomat in New York City escalated into a major diplomatic furor Tuesday as India's national security adviser called the woman's treatment "despicable and barbaric."

Devyani Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York, is accused of submitting false documents to obtain a work visa for her Manhattan housekeeper. Indian officials said she was arrested and handcuffed Thursday as she dropped off her daughter at school, and was kept in a cell with drug addicts before posting $250,000 bail.

A senior Indian official confirmed reports that she also was strip-searched, which has been portrayed in India as the most offensive and troubling part of the arrest. The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

Her U.S. attorney said he didn't know if she was strip-searched. Federal authorities said they were looking into the arrest.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Indian-official-Diplomat-s-arrest-in-NYC-barbaric-5070491.php

December 17, 2013

Apple CEO Tim Cook Gives Remarkable Speech on Gay Rights, Racism

Tim Cook, Apple’s media-shy chief executive, made a rare public speech at the U.N. this week. Auburn University, Cook’s alma mater, posted his 13-minute talk on Saturday.

Cook made his comments after receiving an achievement award from the university. He talked of personally witnessing a cross burning during his youth, an event that “changed his life forever,” and went on to say, “Since these early days, I have seen and have experienced many types of discrimination and all of them were rooted in the fear of people that were different than the majority.”

Cook, 53, continued by describing the values he says he found in Apple and its founder Steve Jobs when he joined the company in the late 1990s. These include creating products accessible to the disabled and, later, backing national nondiscrimination legislation.

Cook went on to talk of gay rights, saying, “Now is the time to write these basic principles of human dignity into the book of law.” He also backed an immigration overhaul, adding of proposed reforms, “Do not do them because they are economically sound — although they are — do them because they are right and just.”

http://business.time.com/2013/12/15/apple-ceo-tim-cook-gives-remarkable-speech-on-gay-rights-racism/

December 16, 2013

Simunic banned for 10 games for pro-Nazi chant

Source: AP

FIFA has banned Croatia defender Josip Simunic for 10 games — including the entire World Cup — for leading fans in a pro-Nazi chant after the team qualified for the tournament in Brazil.

Simunic invoked a World War II-era slogan used by Croatia's then-puppet regime following a 2-0 playoff victory against Iceland last month.

"After taking into account all of the circumstances of the case, and particularly given the gravity of the incident, the committee decided to suspend the player for 10 official matches," FIFA said in a statement.

The incident is the latest to discredit football in Croatia, after UEFA President Michel Platini described its fans as the worst behaved at the 2012 European Championship.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Simunic-banned-for-10-games-for-pro-Nazi-chant-5068643.php

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December 16, 2013

Hug earns Georgia high school student a year of suspension, delayed graduation

Sometimes, you just need a hug. Other times, not so much as a Duluth High School senior recently learned, according to CBS Atlanta.

Surveillance camera footage captured Sam McNair as he wrapped his arms around one of his teachers and placed his head against her neck.

Innocent, right? Not from the teacher’s perspective. She says Sam touched his cheeks and lips on the back of her neck and cheek, and had previously warned him about giving teachers hugs. She filed a sexual harassment report and a hearing officer agreed that Sam had violated the school district’s sexual harassment policy.

Sam’s mom, April, says she was shocked about the suspension, saying her son’s hug was innocent.

http://blog.sfgate.com/hottopics/2013/12/16/hug-earns-georgia-high-school-student-a-year-of-suspension-delayed-graduation/

December 16, 2013

Relative: Mandela signer in group that burned men

The bogus sign language interpreter at last week's Nelson Mandela memorial service was among a group of people who accosted two men found with a stolen television and burned them to death by setting fire to tires placed around their necks, one of the interpreter's cousins and three of his friends told The Associated Press Monday.

But Thamsanqa Jantjie never went to trial for the 2003 killings when other suspects did in 2006 because authorities determined he was not mentally fit to stand trial, said the four. They insisted on speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the fake signing fiasco, which has deeply embarrassed South Africa's government and prompted a high-level investigation into how it happened.

Their account of the killings matched a description of the crime and the outcome for Jantjie that he himself described in an interview published on Sunday by the Sunday Times newspaper of Johannesburg.

"It was a community thing, what you call mob justice, and I was also there," Jantjie told the newspaper.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/Relative-Mandela-signer-in-group-that-burned-men-5068132.php