pieceinthepuzzlehumanity:

If you were involved in Icelandic high finance in the runup to the recession, you might want to start watching your back.

That’s because the government has appointed a white collar crime bounty hunter who wants to haul your behind in (alive, to be sure).

LeMonde reporter Charlotte Chabas has a profile of Ólafur Þór Hauksson, a former local police lieutenant whom the Iceland government appointed to track down individuals likely to have helped sink the country’s banking sector during the credit crunch.

[Read More]

(via pieceinthepuzzlehumanity-deacti)

arielnietzsche:

Two Palestinian brothers were deported to Egypt by the US government despite their stateless status, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee stated today:

The brothers, originally from Gaza, were taken by ICE and the U.S. Air Marshalls from their children in Texas and sent to Egypt. The brothers do not have permission to stay in Egypt. Further, due to the blockade of Gaza and Israeli polices they cannot enter Palestine. The brothers are currently detained at the airport in Cairo, and appear likely to be detained indefinitely.

Movement in and out of Gaza has been severely restricted for years and Palestinians do not have control of the borders of their country; all of the land of historic Palestine is under the control of the Israeli apartheid government, aided and abetted by the US. Gaza has also endured five years of Israeli blockade, impacting all areas of life — a policy supported by the US government. Gaza also has yet to be rebuilt after Israel’s three weeks of attacks in the winter of 2008-09 — attacks that killed 1,400 Palestinians who had nowhere to flee, attacks which decimated civilian infrastructure and targeted schools and places of worship, and which were perpetrated with US-supplied weaponry.

Meanwhile, Palestinians advocating for their national rights in the US have been persecuted.

For example, Dr. Sami al-Arian is a stateless Palestinian who has lived in the US for more than 30 years and has been targeted for his political activity. He is under house arrest, awaiting deportation. His daughter, journalist Laila al-Arian, told The Electronic Intifada in 2010:

“…we really hope that there will be a country that will open its doors to a persecuted political prisoner and a victim of the Bush administration, a victim of a wave of anti-Palestinian activism. It’s mind-boggling that in the 21st century, there is a group of people who don’t have a country. Hopefully someone will be able to adopt him. It’s one more battle we have to fight.”

huffingtonpost:

While Republicans lambast the cost of implementing health care reform, a new report shows that their efforts to repeal the law have come at a major cost to taxpayers — to the tune of nearly $50 million.

The House of Representatives again voted to repeal President Obama’s signature health care law on Wednesday, marking the 33rd time Republicans have attempted to take down the legislation. The 32 previous repeal efforts faltered at the hands of the Democrat-controlled Senate; the latest attempt is unlikely to break that pattern.

According to a report by CBS News, these efforts, widely viewed as symbolic political maneuvers, come with a high price tag.

theamericanbear:

“[It] may be worthwhile to look ahead a few generations to the millennium anniversary of one of the great events in the establishment of civil and human rights: the issuance of Magna Carta, the charter of English liberties imposed on King John in 1215. What we do right now, or fail to do, will determine what kind of world will greet that anniversary. It is not an attractive prospect – not least because the Great Charter is being shredded before our eyes.”

The first scholarly edition of the Magna Carta was published in 1759 by the English jurist William Blackstone, whose work was a source for U.S. constitutional law. It was entitled “The Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest,” following earlier practice. Both charters are highly significant today.

The first, the Charter of Liberties, is widely recognized to be the cornerstone of the fundamental rights of the English-speaking peoples – or as Winston Churchill put it more expansively, “the charter of every self-respecting man at any time in any land.”

In 1679 the Charter was enriched by the Habeas Corpus Act, formally titled “an Act for the better securing the liberty of the subject, and for prevention of imprisonment beyond the seas.” The modern harsher version is called “rendition” – imprisonment for the purpose of torture.

Along with much of English law, the Act was incorporated into the U.S. Constitution, which affirms that “the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended” except in case of rebellion or invasion. In 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the rights guaranteed by this Act were “(c)onsidered by the Founders as the highest safeguard of liberty.”

More specifically, the Constitution provides that no “person (shall) be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law (and) a speedy and public trial” by peers.

The Department of Justice has recently explained that these guarantees are satisfied by internal deliberations in the executive branch, as Jo Becker and Scott Shane reported in TheNew York Times on May 29. Barack Obama, the constitutional lawyer in the White House, agreed. King John would have nodded with satisfaction.

The underlying principle of “presumption of innocence” has also been given an original interpretation. In the calculus of the president’s “kill list” of terrorists, “all military-age males in a strike zone” are in effect counted as combatants “unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent,” Becker and Shane summarized. Thus post-assassination determination of innocence now suffices to maintain the sacred principle.

This is the merest sample of the dismantling of “the charter of every self-respecting man.”

Read the rest →

think-progress:

File under: Romney reasons to use off-shore tax havens.

“Mitt Romney shouldn’t be criticized for using off-shore tax havens because “it’s really American to avoid paying taxes, legally,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Tuesday.

sinidentidades:

Courts and law enforcement agencies in the United States have asked Twitter to hand over user information far more than any other country, according to a transparency report released by the social networking website on Monday.

“Wednesday marks Independence Day here in the United States,” Jeremy Kessel, the legal policy manager for Twitter, said. “Beyond the fireworks and barbecue, July 4th serves as an important reminder of the need to hold governments accountable, especially on behalf of those who may not have a chance to do so themselves.”

Since January of this year, Twitter has received 679 requests for user account data from the United States. The country that made the second most requests for user information, Japan, has only made 98 requests. Canada and the United Kingdom each made 11 requests, while all other countries listed made less than ten.

The social networking website said it complied with 63 percent of the requests.

As more and more people tweet about their personal life, the amount of requests appears to have grown. Twitter has received more requests for user data in the first half of 2012 than in all of 2011, Kessel said.

Internet giant Google also releases biannual transparency reports. Its most recent report, from July to December 2011, found that the United States made 6,321 requests for user information. That number includes requests made by U.S. authorities on behalf of other governments. 

(via pieceinthepuzzlehumanity-deacti)

President Obama recently announced an aid package of more than $130 million to fight the narcotraficantes (narco-traffickers) in Central and Latin America. The infusion of money was announced at the Summit of the Americas in April in Cartagena, Colombia, to head off criticism of the “war on drugs”—and spreading calls to declare it a failure and end it.

The White House wants the world to believe drug prohibition works, and to forget the murderous legacy of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Central and Latin America.

The CIA and the DEA have been directly involved in drug trafficking in the region for decades. They’ve trained, armed and funded death squads and right-wing paramilitary groups that share control of the lucrative drug trade. Corrupt officials at the highest levels of government and sections of the business class also profit enormously from the illicit drug trade.

Latin America has borne the brunt of the U.S.-led war on drugs that has turned several countries into virtual war zones full of massacres and mayhem. Drug cartels operate with near impunity and assassinate judges, journalists, mayors, police and anyone unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

No country wants to become the “next Mexico,” where more than 60,000 people have died in gruesome, drug-fueled violence. Over 250,000 have been internally displaced, and kidnapping for ransom is rife. In many parts of Mexico, drug cartels now battle openly with government forces for control of cities and towns.

The effects on the Mexican economy, in particular tourism, have been devastating. In Acapulco last year, 15 decapitated bodies were found on a walkway to a popular beach. Another 12 victims, including two police officers, were killed in the city on the same day. The drug war has turned Mexico into vast killing fields and economic wastelands.

(via theamericanbear)

fuckyeahdrugpolicy:

Barney Frank is up right now.

sinidentidades:

RIO DE JANEIRO — Communities in remote corners of Brazil’s Amazon jungle are facing repeated assaults and death threats from illegal loggers who want to steal their lands, Amnesty International said Wednesday.

The human rights group said there was no police presence in parts of Brazil’s northwestern Amazonas state and no investigation into illegal activities reportedly taking place there.

“Those living in the region are in danger,” it said in a statement, urging Brazilian authorities to protect local residents and stop the illegal logging.

The target of the invading land-grabbers known as “grileiros” and illegal loggers are small communities living from timber extraction in legally recognized reserves located south of the town of Labrea.

Many residents have fled the region fearing for their lives, Amnesty said.

Dinhana Nink was gunned down in front of her son in a nearby town in Rondonia state where she has sought refuge after her house was set ablaze, the statement said.

Community leader Nilcilene Miguel de Lima, who has denounced the influx of illegal loggers in the reserves, was beaten up, threatened with a pistol and had her house set ablaze. She has been under armed protection by federal agents since October, according to Amnesty.

In April, she had to be evacuated by authorities after her dog was shot in the head and killed, it said.

The police station covering the area is located hundreds of kilometers (miles) north of Labrea and can be reached only by air.