Computer pathbreaker and World War II codebreaker Alan Turing has been finally pardoned. It only took 61 years after his 1952 conviction for homosexuality and his chemical castration for the British government who contributed so mightily to the defeat of the Germans. What is particularly astonishing is not just that “moral people” in the United States and Britain not only did this to their citizens, but did this to a man who was protecting his nation so brilliantly and barred him from continuing work that was so pathbreaking in computer science. In the aftermath of the Sister Wives decision and our discussion of morality laws, Turning is a reminder of the hateful measures meted out in the name of morality or science or both.
Category: Politics
There is a disturbing controversy building in South Carolina where South Carolina’s attorney general has joined calls for a state supreme court justice to recuse himself from criminal cases after Donald Beatty spoke out against prosecutorial abuse — a continuing if not growing problem across the country that we have discussed in prior postings (here and here and here and here and here and here and here). For a prior column, click here . Attorney General Alan Wilson says that he will ask for the recusal in a move that seems intended to signal other justices and judges that such criticism of prosecutors will not be tolerated.
Last week, I wrote about the dangers of tasks forces bearing gifts for civil libertarians and noted how Obama stacked the task force on NSA surveillance with hawks to guarantee the preservation of the program. One of those was former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell who served during the secret development and use of the program. Obviously, if he were to conclude that the program was illegal, it would have meant that he was part of the violations. Not only did the task force maintain the program was legal (in conflict with the recent ruling of a federal court), but now Morell has called not for the limitation of the program but its expansion. That is what President Obama considers a reformer in the national security field.
Continue reading “NSA Task Force Member Says Program Should Be Expanded Not Limited”
Below is my column in the Sunday Los Angeles Times on the basis for a pardon for Edward Snowden. It is clear that President Obama (and ranking congressional members) are opposed to such clemency. Snowden embarrassed a great number of powerful people in Washington, including the President. However, there is historical precedent for such a pardon and compelling arguments that such a course may be the right course for the country.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
We have all heard the political arguments for and against an Estate Tax, or as some have called it, a Death Tax. Over the years while I attended several Continuing Legal Education seminars and Trust School presentations, I have often learned about the estate and gift tax avoidance strategy called a Grantor Retained Annuity Trust, or GRAT. Since these estate reduction strategies are best used with very large estates, I have rarely had the opportunity to recommend it to any of my clients or trust customers. Recently, I read an article that provided some documentation just how prominent and popular the GRATS are with the super wealthy.
Just what is a GRAT and why should any of us be concerned with its use? In my opinion, it is important to understand that when the über wealthy complain about any tweaking of the estate tax, most of them pay little or no estate or gift taxes due to the use of techniques like the GRAT. Just how does a GRAT work?
Simply put, the donor transfers money or stock into a trust and if the assets increase in value, any increase in the stocks beyond the principal and the minimum interest rate that must be paid back to the donor, goes directly to the beneficiaries tax-free. When you are talking assets worth millions and in some cases, billions, huge sums of money can escape the estate and gift tax process entirely. Continue reading “GRATS: Loophole or Blackhole?”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The enduring icon of the Christian tradition is the birth of a world savior under inauspicious circumstances who rises to great heights only to meet a tragic fall but in doing so achieves ultimate and everlasting victory. Our Christmas holiday for all its secular permutations and protestations remains explicitly religious and serves as a life marker for a vast number of the population. So it’s worth thinking about how a Jesus figure would actually be received today by those self-professed religious if he decided to make a return visit.
Below is my column in the Washington Post (Sunday) on our recent victory in the Sister Wives case. The column looks at the most significant aspect of the case — the rejection of morality codes that once controlled across the country in prohibiting everything from homosexuality to adultery to fornication. These morality laws were upheld in the decision in Reynolds in 1876 in a polygamy case out of Utah. The Brown decision returned us to the same question involving the same issue in the same state. Some 136 years later however the answer from this federal court was very different. We are a different country today and, despite what one hears from politicians like Rick Santorum, I believe that we are a better country today.
There does seem to be confusion about the ruling with some saying that polygamy is still not legal after the opinion. That is simply wrong. Polygamy is not the same a bigamy. One is the crime defined under cohabitation statutes of living as a plural family or with a person married to another person. The other is the crime of having two or more marriage licenses. The latter has nothing to do with the structure of your family and has almost exclusively involved people who hold themselves out (falsely) as monogamous. We always argued that the state could prosecute people who obtained more than one marriage license. Bigamy has not been an offense committed by polygamists who traditionally have one official marriage license and multiple spiritual licenses. Indeed, the law targeted polygamy with the cohabitation provision precisely because there is a difference between the two. The state fought for years to preserve this law because it reached beyond simple bigamy. Before this opinion, it was a crime for polygamists to live, as do the Browns, in a plural family. After the opinion, it is legal. This is precisely what occurred in Lawrence v. Texas where homosexual unions were a crime but then became legal when the Texas law was struck down. This decision legalizes tens of thousands of polygamous families who will no longer been viewed as criminal enterprises. They will be allowed to be open plural families. They are now legal relationships. Legality of polygamy is entirely different from recognition of plural marriages just as the legality of homosexual relations is different from the recognition of same-sex marriage.
There is also a lack of knowledge about the existence of such laws outside of Utah. This law does exist outside of Utah. Indeed, the very same language is found in the Canadian cohabitation law. I was called as a legal expert in the recent challenge to that law. However, the Canadian Supreme Court in British Columbia upheld the law. Putting these distinctions aside, the thrust of this article is how this decision is part of a larger trend toward the repeal or the striking down of morality codes, including the rejection of a cohabitation law in Virginia this year.
Continue reading “A Moral Victory: The Sister Wives Case And The Rejection of State Morality Codes”
Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
“The Hunger Games” represents a wildly popular trilogy of science fictions books aimed at first toward the Teen and young adult market, but then becoming popular with the “adult” market as well. It has become a very popular movie trilogy; the second installment was released in November, with the final film next year. A synopsis is a dystopian North America of the future and a country named “Panem”. The narrator is a 16 year old girl named Katniss Everdeen, living in District 12. Panem consists of twelve districts, rigidly controlled by a central government located “The Capital”, a city of wealth and great technological advancement. Each of the other districts are dedicated to particular industry’s and the people of each are kept at a subsistence level of life. There is little hope for the future and brutal retribution for disobeying the “The Capital’s” edicts. We are told that there had been a revolution some 70 years before that was brutally repressed and ultimately failed. As a reminder of the futility of revolution, each year there is a lavish production made for TV of a gladiatorial conflict and called “The Hunger Games.” From each of the 12 districts two young people are chosen randomly to fight to the death. Each district sends a male and a female. The ultimate winner (survivor) is gives a life of wealth, luxury and status. The “Game” is set up in such a way that each of the contestants tries to compete for the affections of those privileged to be citizens of “The Capital”. These elite citizens can spend exorbitant sums of money to send aid to the contestants of their choice to try to ensure their survival. The “Game” is further rigged by the “Gamekeeper” in ways that tend to favor some contestants, so ultimately the contests are deadly shams. Their purpose is to show the 12 districts the punishment that will be meted out should they ever again disobey “The Capital”, the futility of resistance and also to supply hope that one could survive the games to attain the benefits of a privileged citizen. Continue reading “American “Hunger Games””
Below is my column in USA Today on the NSA proposed reforms. I do believe that there are many worthy suggestions among the 46 recommendations, particularly the amending of Section 215 of the Patriot Act. However, what is missing is any true reform in ending this massive surveillance program since the White House panel started with the presumption that it was lawful. What remains are interesting but largely collateral changes. This includes a worthy proposal of adding an advocate to the FISA secret court. However, the panel does not (as with the program itself) seriously consider the need or the questionable legality of the secret court. Indeed, by tinkering around the edges of the program, the task force would effectively legitimize the program for the future. It will become the new normal in the President’s vision of a surveillance-friendly model of privacy.
The task force does call for serious changes in clearance rules however to avoid future disclosures of the abuses revealed by Edward Snowden. What is lacking is one measure that would go far in showing good faith by this President after years of rolling back on privacy: a pardon for Edward Snowden. Such pardons are not given because the subject is innocent or that a president agrees with his actions. They are granted in the totality of circumstances that mitigate the crime, including the disclosure of abuses that were long ignored, if not supported, by both the White House and Congress. A pardon can be legitimately conditioned on certain measures such as the return of undisclosed documents (which is a massive amount of files) and the signing of a non-disclosure agreement to allow prosecution for future disclosures. That would prevent further damage with disclosures, as suggested by at least on ranking intelligence official. I do not take violations of classification laws lightly and I understand the anger of many officials. However, the current standoff is not just undermining the credibility of the Administration but also doing little to limit further damage. I do not believe that Snowden is using the document to force such a pardon which remains unlikely. However, it is time to consider it. Despite the President’s understandable opposition to his method for raising the abuses, the Snowden disclosures have caused a comprehensive and international reexamination of surveillance rules, including new international measures to protect privacy. Perhaps it may be time to stop hunting the man and focus exclusively on the abuses that he disclosed. The column below is unfortunately limited in space, but it tries to raise some of these issues.
I am often surprised (despite prior cases of religious lunacy) of how self-described religious people can commit the most heinous and unjustified acts of violence in the name of faith. We have seen a series of riots and murders committed by Muslims after word has spread of the desecration of a Koran (Quran). The latest riot however is truly one for the books in sheer insanity. A rumor spread in Quetta, Pakistan that a crate of pomegranates from Iran contains some pages ripped from a Koran. As a result, Muslims went on a rampage looking for Shiites to kill. The mob ended up killed one man and wounded three others and torching neighborhoods to get right with Allah.
Environmentalists have been fighting the expanding use of fracking operations in the United States as a harmful practice, particularly for water contamination. The practice involves injecting millions of gallons of chemical-laced water and sand deep underground to crack shale formations to extract oil and gas. Not only does it use a huge amount of water in areas of water shortage but the chemicals contaminate both surface and underground water resources. Now a study in the journal Endocrinology has found a linkage to chemicals that have been linked to infertility, birth defects and cancer as well as elevated levels of the hormone-disrupting chemicals in the Colorado River.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey has one wish for the holidays: for Edward Snowden to be tried for treason and “hanged.” That was Woolsey’s response to the suggestion of amnesty for Snowden.Of course, the National Intelligence Director can commit perjury and CIA officials can lie to Congress without nary an investigation let alone prosecution. Intelligence officials can run a torture program in violation of treaties and international law without punishment. CIA officials can openly destroy evidence so that it cannot be used against them in a criminal case and continue in office without penalty. The CIA director can even reveal classified evidence to a filmmaker working on a pro-torture movie. All of that is perfectly correct, but Snowden must die.
Continue reading “Ex-CIA Director Calls For Snowden To Be “Hanged By His Neck Until He Is Dead””
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon has handed down a blockbuster decision this afternoon finding that the massive National Security Agency surveillance program is unconstitutional – a view shared by many constitutional scholars including myself. The decision is not only a courageous defense of privacy but a reaffirmation of the integrity and independence of the courts. While President Obama often insists that his authority for such surveillance is clear, the Justice Department has fought mightily (and until now successfully) to block all major challenges of the program from securing judicial review. The decision is also an embarrassment to the “reform” boards set up by the White House, including one that just released its findings on the NSA program (including the assurance that the NSA program is perfectly legal).
Continue reading “Federal Court Declares NSA Program Unconstitutional”
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, was irate this Sunday in declaring that the CIA lied to him and to Congress about a retired FBI agent, Robert Levinson, being held in Iran. However, unlike demands for the jailing of whistleblowers like Edward Snowden for revealing government abuses, McCain notably did not even suggest prosecuting CIA officials who allegedly consistently and repeatedly lied to Congress. No, he suggests that the latest example of false statements to Congress might require a reexamination of congressional oversight. Now that must be chilling for people who could be charged with federal crimes ranging from perjury to obstruction to false statements to federal officers.
Continue reading “McCain: The CIA Lied To Congress About American Hostage”
The intolerance and abuse of religious minorities in Pakistan reached a new low this case with the incarceration of Dr. Masood Ahmad, 72, a British doctor who is has been charged with the ridiculous crime of “posing as a Muslim.” In 1984, a law was passed declared Ahmadis to be “non-Muslims.” He could face three years in prison after being caught reading and interpreting the Koran.