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Though the announcement of TIME magazine’s ‘Person of the Year’ designation isn’t until next month, it was reported on Monday that the leading contender—at least among the magazine’s readership—is Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the Democratic presidential candidate calling for a ‘political revolution’ with his grassroots-driven campaign against establishment candidate Hillary Clinton.
According to the magazine:
Explaining the phenomenon of his surging popularity, TIME said Sanders “has become a hero on the Democratic left among progressives disillusioned by growing income inequality and money in politics.” Though still trailing Clinton, Sanders has been attracting record-sized crowds nationwide and is polling well in the key early states of both Iowa and New Hampshire as he “casts a long shadow over the Democratic primary with his ability to introduce a progressive wish-list including breaking up the big banks, instituting public financing of elections, socialistic single-payer healthcare system and tuition free college at public institutions.”
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Among other people who Sanders is leaving in the popularity-contest dust is current GOP frontrunner and billionaire entertainer Donald Trump. Though latest political polls have also showed that Sanders would easily beat Trump in a general election, TIME noted that Sanders substantial lead over Trump in their online survey was additionally ironic given how the controversial Republican firebrand had “told supporters at a rally in Birmingham, Alabama, Saturday that he believed the magazine was considering him for the annual recognition.”
While only the editors of the magazine ultimately choose who they think deserves the annual note of prestige, TIME invites readers to cast their opinion on which person they think “most influenced the news this year for better or worse” by voting online.
Voting on the reader’s choice poll ends at midnight on December 6 and the magazine will announce the winner on December 9.
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Words matter.
That’s what women’s health and reproductive rights advocates are repeating in the wake of Friday’s shooting at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs that killed three people and left nine others injured.
“How we talk about abortion matters,” wrote columnist Jessica Valenti at the Guardian on Sunday. “We know it, and anti-choice extremists and politicians know it… Do we really think that there are no consequences to claiming that abortion is murder, or that Planned Parenthood is an organization of money-hungry monsters selling baby parts?”
Those consequences, said Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountains president and CEO Vicki Cowart immediately after the attack, include the creation of “a poisonous environment that feeds domestic terrorism in this country.”
As details trickle out about the man who opened fire on a clinic in Colorado Springs, observers say the specifics of the case matter just as much the context in which they emerged.
The alleged shooter, 57-year-old Robert Lewis Dear, was arrested Friday after a five-hour standoff at the facility and is scheduled to appear in court on Monday. While his motives are still under investigation, law enforcement sources say the suspect told police “no more baby parts” as he was taken into custody—an apparent reference to the anti-choice video smear campaign that began over the summer.
On Saturday, the architect of that campaign—shadowy anti-choice group Center for Medical Progress (CMP)—took to social media to condemn “the barbaric killing spree in Colorado Springs by a violent madman.”
But for Ilyse Hogue, president of advocacy group NARAL Pro-Choice America, that censure rang hollow.
“Sorry, David Daleiden,” she wrote online, addressing the CMP founder. “You don’t get to create fake videos and accuse abortion providers of ‘barbaric atrocities against humanity’ one day and act shocked when someone shoots to kill in those same facilities the next.”
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“It’s America. You are free to have your speech,” she continued. However, she warned: “The language you choose matters. You are not free from the judgement of the consequences of your hate-filled rhetoric.”
Indeed, as Vicki Saporta, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation, pointed out in a statement Friday, abortion providers have seen “an unprecedented increase in hate speech and threats” since the CMP videos came out.
Writing for The Nation over the weekend, Zoë Carpenter noted:
Those on the front lines see a clear link between such violent acts and escalating anti-abortion rhetoric—which has gained traction not just on the fringes but even in the GOP primary fight.
“Although anti-abortion groups may condemn this type of violence when it happens, the way that they target and demonize providers contributes to a culture where some feel it is justifiable to murder doctors simply because they provide women with the abortion care they need,” Saporta said.
In the meantime, while security remains tight at Planned Parenthood facilities across the country, clinic doors are staying open. The organization’s national president, Cecile Richards, told NPR on Monday that “thousands” of women accessed Planned Parenthood healthcare services over the weekend.
“This kind of violence just can’t keep happening,” Richards said, adding that the group and many people are concerned about the “increased sort of hateful rhetoric and intimidation of both doctors and women who are both providing health care and getting health care in America.”
“It’s really un-American,” she declared. “It’s been hard to see the kind of dehumanization of both healthcare providers and of course, women who are simply looking for healthcare.”
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In a move that civil liberties groups decried as allowing for “blanket discrimination,” the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted to increase restrictions on the Visa Waiver Program (VWP).
The legislation passed easily in a 407-19 vote. The New York Times called it “a rare area of bipartisan agreement,” and noted that it has the backing of President Barack Obama.
The VWP allows citizens of 38 countries, which include many western European nations like France, the UK, and Ireland, to travel to the U.S. without needing a visa for stays of 90 days or less. Among other things, the revamp would deny the visa-free entry to citizens of those countries who have traveled to Iraq, Syria, Iran, or Sudan within the last five years.
“It also would also require countries participating in the program to share information with U.S. authorities about suspected terrorists,” Reuters reports.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) praised the passage of the measure authored by Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.) as “a major step forward in our effort to prevent foreign terrorists from reaching our shores.”
But that spin was countered by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who criticized what she described as unnecessary restrictions, saying in statement Wednesday: “The legislation that was voted on today claims to prevent terrorists from entering this country, but instead of preventing high-risk individuals from entering this country, many low-risk individuals will be barred from the Visa Waver Program.” The measure, H.R. 158, “would only prevent many law abiding individuals from entering this country,” she stated.
H.R. 158 was also opposed by a number of rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), and the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC).
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The ADC called it “an ineffective mechanism to prevent terrorism or protect the security of our nation,” and outlined its opposition with these four points:
The ACLU expressed its opposition in a letter to the House on Monday, urging representatives to amend the measure and writing that “[b]y singling out these four nationalities to the exclusion of other dual nationals in VWP countries, H.R. 158 amounts to blanket discrimination based on nationality and national origin without a rational basis.”
It’s not just “discriminatory, it is arbitrary,” the letter states. Among those who would lose VWP privileges, the letter notes, include a “Dual-national Austrian citizen (born to Syrian father) traveling to the U.S. to take care of grandchild;” or a “British citizen, working as a reporter for the London-based Daily Telegraph who traveled to Syria to cover the civil war;” or a “Belgian citizen, working as a human rights investigator to document abuses committed by ISIL against Syrians.”
In a statement issued Tuesday, NIAC Action executive director Jamal Abdi said, “Unfortunately, the House of Representatives took a page from Donald Trump today and voted for legislation that discriminates against certain dual nationals by barring them from the visa waiver program.”
“This proposal will not make our country safer, it compromises our core values and risks discriminating against American citizens,” Abdi stated.
The ADC was also joined by several other organizations including Human Rights Watch, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Just Foreign Policy, and the NAACP in sending a letter (pdf) to the House earlier this week, urging that “In the aftermath of recent terrorist attacks, America must show its leadership by ensuring we remain an open society that welcomes people of all nationalities, faiths and backgrounds.”
On H.R. 158, the Guardian reports: “The legislation is considered likely to advance through the Senate and become law by the end of the year.”
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2015 is shaping up to be “one of the most intensely anti-Muslim periods in American history,” according to reports, as increasing xenophobia and hateful rhetoric has propelled a record number of attacks on mosques and Islamic centers across the U.S.
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In the past few days alone, a man was arrested for setting fire to a mosque in California’s Coachella Valley and two additional mosques in nearby Hawthorne were targeted—one with graffiti and the other with the placement of a plastic grenade.
And in the North Texas town of Richardson, members of the so-called Bureau of American Islamic Relations carried guns alongside American flags as they protested outside a local mosque in the Dallas suburb.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)—which was the target of such an attack last week—has estimated that, as of December 8, mosques and Islamic centers in the U.S. “have been the victims of vandalism, harassment and anti-Muslim bigotry at least 63 times this year,” CNN reported late last week. This marks a threefold increase over last year and the highest tally since the Muslim civil rights group began keeping track in 2009.
“This November alone saw 17 anti-Muslim incidents at mosques, with the vehemence rising after terrorists aligned with the Islamic State killed 130 people in Paris,” CNN reported. “Death threats and vandalism spiked again after December 3, when a Muslim couple killed 14 people and injured 21 more in San Bernardino, California.”
“There is, it turns out, a serious problem of domestic terrorism in the U.S., but it’s not the kind that typically receives attention or concern.”
—Glenn Greenwald
Commenting on this trend, journalist Glenn Greenwald on Saturday cataloged a week’s worth of such incidents. In addition to the aforementioned attacks and demonstrations, Greenwald cited: Attack on two hijab-wearing Muslim women in Tampa; the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama vows to “fight the spread of Islam” in the U.S.; “Muslim hijab-wearing middle school student asked by teacher if she has a bomb”; “Woman hurls slurs and hot coffee at Muslims praying in a California park”; vandalism at a Phoenix mosque; planned Quran burning outside the White House; Man in Manhattan restaurant throwing chairs and screaming slurs at Muslim workers: “Queens deli owner beaten by man screaming ‘I kill Muslims'”; hateful letters sent to Jersey City mosque; “Pig’s head thrown at Philadelphia mosque”; and another case of arson, this time at a North Dakota Somali restaurant.
“There are numerous causes, most of them obvious,” Greenwald writes, listing the forces driving this flood of anti-Muslim crime: “14 years of nonstop war waged by the U.S. and its allies in predominantly Western countries; the U.S. media’s mainstreaming of anti-Muslim polemicists; the bile unleashed and legitimized by the Trump campaign; the vile and deeply irresponsible rhetoric coming from U.S. politicians such as Democratic Rep. (and Senate candidate) Loretta Sanchez of California; the attempts to exploit attacks in Paris and San Bernardino for long-standing agendas designed to demonize Muslims and Islam.”
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“Just imagine what it’s like to be an American Muslim living under these threats and attacks,” he urged, concluding, “There is, it turns out, a serious problem of domestic terrorism in the U.S., but it’s not the kind that typically receives attention or concern.”
In fact, Reuters on Monday noted that growing fear within Muslim communities is driving some religious centers to beef up their security. Reportedly some have even contacted the Department of Homeland Security for help while others have hired armed guards, among other measures.
Judith Browne-Dianis, co-director of national racial justice organization Advancement Project, issued a statement on Monday condemning this wave of hate crimes. “Attacks on our Muslim neighbors are attacks on all of us. We must decide if racist hate and fear mongering shall rule or if we will become the inclusive America we yearn to be,” she said.
Advancement Project co-director Penda Hair added, “As hard as those who seek to divide us might try, the days of using fear to breed hate, of vilifying and victimizing innocent people, cannot be sustained.”
Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, noted last week that the threats and violence against Muslims “are also fueled by government policies that rest on the same underlying prejudice, namely that all Muslims are somehow suspect and that it is rational, indeed necessary, to treat them differently.”
From police surveillance of Muslim communities in the wake of 9/11 to the House of Representative’s landslide passage last week of new visa-waiver restrictions, with policies such as these, Warren asks, “Is it really any wonder that Muslim schoolgirls are harassed and called terrorists by their classmates” or ” surprising that mosques get vandalized, or that a presidential candidate calls for closing them?”
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British Muslims—including a family of 11 headed to Disneyland—are increasingly being barred from the U.S. without explanation, according to critics in the UK, who are calling on Prime Minister David Cameron to step in and address the problem.
Despite the family having been granted travel authorization online ahead of their planned December 15 flight to Los Angeles, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security refused to allow them to board the plane at London’s Gatwick Airport. No one has told them why they were prevented from traveling.
But Mohammad Tariq Mahmood, one of the family members, told the Guardian that the reason was “obvious.”
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“It’s because of the attacks on America,” he said. “They think every Muslim poses a threat.”
Mahmood’s comments echo those of prominent British imam Ajmal Masroor, who reportedly had his U.S. visa revoked on December 17 just after checking in for a Virgin Atlantic flight at Heathrow Airport.
In a Facebook post, Masroor said he had been made aware of at least 10 other similar cases, but that those affected were “very afraid they’ll never be able to visit America again” if they speak publicly about the issue.
He said he believed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim statements were poisoning the U.S.’s approach to followers of the religion. “Trump’s rhetoric is dangerous,” Masroor wrote, “and is influencing foreign affairs between the U.S. and other countries.”
“If America is going to develop zero Muslim tolerance, it’s a very worrying disposition,” Masroor continued. “Muslims are not responsible for all the atrocities in the world. I would tell Barack Obama, if he were here, that it’s about being fair.”
For Mahmood, whose family was denied their trip to Disneyland, fairness—or the lack thereof—was also in question.
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According to the Guardian:
Labour MP Stella Creasy, who said she “hit a brick wall” while making inquiries on behalf of Mahmood and his family, has written to Cameron calling on him to challenge the U.S. on its “secretive security policies.”
Not to do so, she warned, could have grave consequences in British society.
“It is not just the family themselves who are livid,” she wrote in an op-ed on Tuesday. “The vacuum created by a refusal to provide any context for these decisions is fueling resentment and debate. Online and offline discussions reverberate with the growing fear that UK Muslims are being ‘trumped’—that widespread condemnation of Donald Trump’s call for no Muslim to be allowed into America contrasts with what is going on in practice.”
“Faced with such claims, our concern should be to offer more than a critique of American Republican primary political positioning,” she said. “Because this isn’t happening in the US. It’s happening on British soil, at our airports and involving our citizens and challenging their sense of place in our society too.”
She argued: “If the embassy won’t answer to the family’s MP, it should answer to their prime minister and he to us about what he is doing to ensure that no British citizen is being discriminated against for their faith on our shores.”
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Hundreds of women, including former “comfort women” or sex slaves, protested across the street from the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on Wednesday, decrying a recent reparations deal between Japan and South Korea addressing World War II atrocities.
Under an agreement that both nations described as “final and irreversible,” Japan on Monday offered an apology and an $8.3 million settlement to 46 surviving South Korean women who were forced to become prostitutes serving Japanese soldiers during the 1930s and 1940s.
But the surviving victims say they were never consulted by officials as the agreement was negotiated. What’s more, they argue, the deal falls far short of their demand that Japan admit legal responsibility for the wartime atrocities.
“We did nothing wrong,” said one survivor, 88-year-old Lee Yong-su. “Japan took us to be comfort women and still tries to deny its crime.”
“The fight is still on,” she declared. “We will continue to fight to make Japan take formal legal responsibility and apologize so that victims who have already perished will have justice.”
As human rights activist César Chelala pointed out earlier this week, an International Commission of Jurists stated in November 1994: “It is indisputable that these women were forced, deceived, coerced and abducted to provide sexual services to the Japanese military … [Japan] violated customary norms of international law concerning war crimes, crimes against humanity, slavery and the trafficking in women and children … Japan should take full responsibility now, and make suitable restitution to the victims and their families.”
The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, an organization of survivors and their supporters, has staged a weekly rally for nearly 24 years to demand Japan’s acknowledgement of its crimes, which affected an estimated 200,000 young women, the majority of them Koreans.
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This week’s rally swelled in response to the reparations deal, with people chanting, “Cancel the agreement!” Many also expressed opposition to Seoul’s plan to try to remove a comfort women memorial statue from outside the embassy, with signs that read, “Say no to relocation of the statue!”
According to the Korea Herald:
Reuters reports that the United States, “keen to see its Asian allies improve ties, welcomed the accord.”
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A coalition of cyber activists and advocacy groups from 42 countries on Monday released a letter defending encryption and calling on governments to end efforts at undermining such digital privacy tools.
“Encryption tools, technologies, and services are essential to protect against harm and to shield our digital infrastructure and personal communications from unauthorized access,” reads the letter, a project of digital rights group Access Now and signed by organizations such as the ACLU, Amnesty International, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Human Rights Watch, and La Quadrature du Net, among nearly 200 others.
“As we move toward connecting the next billion users, restrictions on encryption in any country will likely have global impact,” the letter continues. “Encryption and other anonymizing tools and technologies enable lawyers, journalists, whistleblowers, and organizers to communicate freely across borders and to work to better their communities. It also assures users of the integrity of their data and authenticates individuals to companies, governments, and one another.”
U.S. officials have increasingly urged tech companies to create “backdoors” to encrypted communications as an aid to law enforcement investigating alleged terrorist activity. But many of those companies’ high-profile executives, such as Apple’s Tim Cook, have resisted the call, warning that reducing encryption safeguards threatens users’ safety online by making them vulnerable to third-party hackers.
And human rights leaders, such as United Nations special rapporteur for freedom of expression David Kaye, who also signed the letter, have said that privacy is a human right.
“Encryption and anonymity, and the security concepts behind them, provide the privacy and security necessary for the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression in the digital age,” Kaye said in a press release accompanying the letter.
Last week, top U.S. officials met with tech leaders in a private summit in San Jose, California, with news reports circulating copies of a vague agenda for the meeting that read in part, “How can we make it harder for terrorists to use the internet to mobilize, facilitate, and operationalize attacks, and make it easier for law enforcement and the intelligence community to identify terrorist operatives and prevent attacks?”
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At least one executive told the Guardian that White House chief of staff Denis McDonough issued invitations to discuss terrorism, making the surprise focus on encryption feel like a “bait and switch.”
As Guardian columnist and Freedom of the Press co-founder Trevor Timm explained at the time, “Despite the huge security benefits to encryption and the fact that it has not played a significant role in any of the recent terrorist attacks, the FBI has been on a warpath to get tech companies to stop using end-to-end encryption in some of their communications tools, essentially asking tech giants to give the government a ‘backdoor’ to make sure there is not any communication platform that they cannot spy on.”
Timm is also a signatory to the letter. As its list of international backers reflects, the push for backdoors to encryption is growing throughout the world.
In November, just days after the attacks in Paris which killed 130 people, French President François Hollande announced that he would propose a bill to extend the country’s state of emergency by three months and make changes to the French Constitution that would strip citizenship of convicted terrorists, increase surveillance, and employ “more sophisticated methods” to curb the weapons trade.
That announcement was met with skepticism and warnings from digital rights groups who said reflexive nationalism and reduction of civil liberties “is not only irreverent, it also [puts] us and many others in a difficult position,” as the German organization Digitalcourage put it. “Grief and anger are understandable emotions. But they must not be abused.”
Monday’s letter concluded, “Strong encryption and the secure tools and systems that rely on it are critical to improving cybersecurity, fostering the digital economy, and protecting users. Our continued ability to leverage the internet for global growth and prosperity and as a tool for organizers and activists requires the ability and the right to communicate privately and securely through trustworthy networks.”
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Migrants and refugees are vowing to peacefully defy the French government’s imminent plans to destroy the makeshift homes of up to 2,000 people living in the Calais camp known as the “Jungle.”
The government has given residents just days to leave before roughly a third of the camp, located in northern France, is bulldozed. The initial deadline of Thursday was moved to Monday, but some groups argue that residents are already facing displacement—through intimidation and pressure.
The Calais camp houses roughly 5,000 people who have fled war, violence, and poverty in countries including Sudan, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Syria, Iran, Iraq—and then survived dangerous voyages by land and sea. Residents are hoping for refuge and sanctuary, with some seeking to reach the United Kingdom.
The impending destruction is slated to displace a significant proportion of residents. Some are now pledging to resist their forcible removal.
“We, the united people of the Jungle, Calais, respectfully decline the demands of the French government with regards to reducing the size of the Jungle,” residents declared in a statement released on Monday night. “We have decided to remain where we are and will peacefully resist the government’s plans to destroy our homes.”
“We plead with the French authorities and the international communities that you understand our situation,” the statement continued.
Authorities want those displaced to move to other parts of the camp, or a new government facility—claiming that the space offers better accommodations.
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But the grassroots campaign Calais Migrant Solidarity had a different take. “They veil their threats of eviction with the sweetness of compassion, they begin by offering limited sleeping space in a camp designed to trap people and rob them of their freedom,” the organization said on Thursday.
And indeed, reports are emerging that many refugees fear the new government facility, which they say resembles a prison.
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The impending mass eviction comes amid mounting distrust of police, who have beaten, tear gassed, and evicted camp residents in the past.
Many expressed outrage to reporters. An unnamed woman from Eritrea told Vice News that there is “no humanity” in France.
Afghan refugee Khanzaman, who runs a restaurant at the camp, told the outlet, “Everybody has to move. Police have already [said that] but I’m not going to move.”
Meanwhile, Calais residents—and the volunteers supporting them—have faced recent attacks from fascist groups.
The horrific circumstances, social justice campaigners argue, underscore the inhumane conditions that refugees face across the continent. Clare Moseley, founder of U.K.-based charity group Care 4 Calais, recently told Al Jazeera: “Someone needs to think about a real solution, not just for these refugees, but for all of the refugees stuck across Europe.”
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The U.S. Department of Defense is asking the American Psychological Association (APA) to place its ethical considerations aside and reconsider its ban prohibiting psychologists from participating in torture at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere.
In a memo dated January 8 and reported by the New York Times on Sunday, Brad Carson, the acting principal deputy secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, called on the group to reconsider the “blanket prohibition” approved this summer.
Although “the Department of Defense understands the desire of the American psychology profession to make a strong statement regarding reports about the role of former military psychologists more than a dozen years ago, the issue now is to apply the lessons learned to guide future conduct,” Carson wrote.
“The context of future conflicts—whether a traditional international armed conflict like World War II or the Korean War, a defense of the homeland against international terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda or the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or something entirely unpredictable — is today unknown,” he continued.
“A code governing psychologists’ ethics in future national security roles needs to fit all such contexts,” Carson added. “We respectfully suggest that a blanket prohibition on participation by psychologists in national security interrogations does not.”
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The APA’s council voted overwhelmingly to approve the ban after an independent report found that “some of the association’s top officials, including its ethics director, sought to curry favor with Pentagon officials by seeking to keep the association’s ethics policies in line with the Defense Department’s interrogation policies,” the Times reported in July.
The 542-page “Hoffman Report,” named after former Assistant U.S. Attorney David Hoffman, who led the review, undermined the APA’s repeated denials that its members were complicit in torture.
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Further, it skewered the role of prominent outside psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who have been charged with designing and implementing the CIA’s brutal interrogation program.
In the January 8 memo, Carson reportedly asked the group to consider its “views regarding the presence of psychologists at Guantánamo” as “a matter of policy, not an ethical mandate.”
The Pentagon penned the memo days after it was reported that the U.S. military had “sharply curtailed” the use of psychologists at Guantánamo, following a formal request from the APA that military psychologists “be protected from actions that might pose a conflict with the APA Ethics Code and that they be withdrawn from any role in national security interrogations or conditions of confinement that might facilitate such interrogations.”
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“Corporate criminals routinely escape meaningful prosecution for their misconduct.”
This is the damning verdict of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) report released Friday, (pdf).
“Justice cannot mean a prison sentence for a teenager who steals a car, but nothing more than a sideways glance at a C.E.O. who quietly engineers the theft of billions of dollars.”
—Sen. Elizabeth Warren
Described as “the first in an annual series on enforcement,” the 12-page booklet “highlights 20 of the most egregious civil and criminal cases during the past year in which federal settlements failed to require meaningful accountability to deter future wrongdoing and to protect taxpayers and families,” according to a press statement from Warren’s office.
Take the Education Management Corporation, the nation’s second-largest for-profit college, for example.
That institution “signed up tens of thousands of students by lying about its programs, it saddled them with fraudulent degrees and huge debts,” Warren wrote in an accompanying New York Times op-ed published Friday. “Those debts wrecked lives. Under the law, the government can bar such institutions from receiving more federal student loans. But EDMC just paid a fine and kept right on raking in federal loan money.”
Other cases outlined in the report include: Standard and Poor’s delivering inflated credit ratings to defraud investors during the financial crisis; “The Cartel”—Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Barclays, UBS AG, and Royal Bank of Scotland—manipulating exchange and interest rates at the expense of clients and investors; the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster that resulted in 29 deaths; and the Novartis Pharmaceuticals kickback scheme that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and undermined patient health.
“The examples raise the disturbing possibility that some giant corporations—and their executives—have decided that following the law is merely optional,” Warren argues. “For these companies, punishment for breaking the law is little more than a cost of doing business.”
And they shed troubling light on the state of the U.S. justice system. “Justice cannot mean a prison sentence for a teenager who steals a car, but nothing more than a sideways glance at a C.E.O. who quietly engineers the theft of billions of dollars,” Warren said in the op-ed.
What’s more, Rigged Justice places blame at the feet of federal agencies and regulators, whose “limp approach to corporate enforcement, particularly in response to serious misconduct that cost Americans their jobs, their homes, or, in some cases, their lives, threatens the safety and security of every American.”
The report lambastes the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as “particularly feeble” in this regard:
And it scoffs at last year’s U.S. Justice Department announcement, known as the Yates memo, in which Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates vowed to finally crack down on corporate criminals. “Despite this rhetoric,” Warren declares, “DOJ civil and criminal settlements—and enforcement actions by other federal agencies—continually fail to impose any serious threat of punishment on corporate offenders.”
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Rigged Justice is also a commentary on the 2016 election, writes David Dayen at The Intercept.
“The focus on how laws are enforced rather than the intricacies of the law itself carries on a theme Warren has stressed throughout primary season—that personnel is policy, that who you will put in power in those key regulatory positions matters as much as your 10-point plan,” he says.
Dayen continues:
Indeed, Warren wrote in the Times: “Legislative agendas matter, but voters should also ask which presidential candidates they trust with the extraordinary power to choose who will fight on the front lines to enforce the laws. The next president can rebuild faith in our institutions by honoring the simple notion that nobody is above the law, but it will happen only if voters demand it.”