Month: August 2014

The California Assembly has passed a bill
that would
require law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before
using a surveillance drone as part of a criminal investigation. The
bill specifically states:

 (a) A public agency shall not use an unmanned
aircraft system, or contract for the use of an unmanned aircraft
system, except as provided in this title. This title shall apply to
all public and private entities when contracting with a public
agency for the use of an unmanned aircraft system.

(b) A law enforcement agency may use an unmanned aircraft
system if it has obtained a warrant based on probable cause
pursuant to this code.

(c) (1) A law enforcement agency, without obtaining a
warrant, may use an unmanned aircraft system in emergency
situations if there is an imminent threat to life or of great
bodily harm, including, but not limited to, fires, hostage crises,
“hot pursuit” situations if reasonably necessary to prevent harm to
law enforcement officers or others, and search and rescue
operations on land or water.

(2) A law enforcement agency, without obtaining a warrant,
may use an unmanned aircraft system to assess the necessity of
first responders in situations relating to traffic accidents,
and to inspect state parks and wilderness areas for
illegal vegetation,
vegetation or fires.

(d) (1)A public agency other
than a law enforcement agency may use an unmanned aircraft system,
or contract for the use of an unmanned aircraft system, to achieve
the core mission of the agency provided that the purpose is
unrelated to the gathering of criminal intelligence.

In addition, public agencies other than law enforcement have to
give the public reasonable notice that they plan to deploy a
surveillance drone and describe its capabilities. Images and other
information collected for public agencies by drones may not be
disseminated outside of relevant public agencies and must be
destroyed within a year if they are not obtained pursuant to a
warrant or if they are not evidence in any claim filed or any
pending litigation.

In addition, the legislation outlaws armed hunter drones:

Unless authorized by federal law, the bill would prohibit a
person or entity, including a public agency subject to these
provisions, or a person or entity under contract to a public
agency, for the purpose of that contract, from equipping or arming
an unmanned aircraft system with a weapon or other device that may
be carried by or launched from an unmanned aircraft system and that
is intended to cause bodily injury or death, or damage to, or the
destruction of, real or personal property.

The bill awaits a vote in California’s Senate. All states and
the federal government should require that law enforcement agencies
obtain a warrant based on probable cause before being permitted to
fly surveillance drones.

Go here to mine
Reason’s extensive archive on drones.

A Denver bar has been cited by
the state’s Division of Civil Rights for discrimination because it
refused to let a gay man dressed in drag enter. The bar is the
Denver Wrangler, and
despite what its name might suggest, it is not some Country Western
joint. It is, in fact, a gay bar. So the state has determined that
a gay bar has discriminated against a gay person.

What happened last summer is that a gay man named Vito Marzano,
dressed in drag from a fundraiser elsewhere, wanted to enter the
Wrangler. He was denied entry. The bar claims it wasn’t because he
was cross-dressing but because his image didn’t match his driver’s
license. The bar had been previously cited for serving somebody
underage and were now being extra cautious. For those not in the
know, gay bars have a history of
being targets of scrutiny by authorities looking for excuses to
raid them and shut them down.

Marzano is not transgender and has made no claims that he is.
Nevertheless, the State of Colorado has determined that the
Wrangler has likely violated Marzano’s right to public
accommodation on the basis of his appearance.

The state’s report notes that the bar has a dress code
forbidding high-heeled shoes, wigs or appearance-altering make-up
or strong perfumes. While the report states there’s nothing wrong
with the dress code itself, it has determined that the bar uses
this code as an excuse to exclude overly feminine women or
transgender people. The Wrangler is a “bear” bar, whose target
demographic is the burlier of the gay men. What’s alarming about
the ruling is that it seems to act as though catering to a
particular demographic is in fact evidence of a likelihood of
discriminating against others:

“[T]he Respondent caters to a gay subculture known as “Bears,”
which are bisexual or gay males which tend to place importance on
presenting a hypermasculine image and often shun
interaction with men who exhibit effeminacy. This is
evident from the pictures and statements made by employees
regarding the “Bear” culture of the club and several links on the
Respondent’s webpage referencing “Bear” clubs … .”

Emphasis added by me because WT-bloody-F? You know what gay
people love? Having the government tell them how their various
subcultures work and think on the basis of talking to a bunch of
people at a bar and looking at pictures. The preference for dating
or friendship with certain types of people is not the same as
“shunning” other types of people. And to the extent that there are
social rifts between various parts of the gay demographic, nobody
should want the state government policing how they should be
interacting with each other.

I find this ruling maddening as somebody who has been
fighting against the illogical slippery slope arguments that
acknowledging and respecting transgender people will result in
absurd outcomes like men faking it in order to peep on women in the
bathroom. It’s a stupid, irrational fear. And now we have a man who
is not transgender nevertheless using the law to punish a business
for not letting him in. And we have a state agency in Colorado
declaring that a subculture within the gay community is inherently
sexist for having a preference for masculinity.

This case is a good demonstration as to why it’s so important to
hold a hard line on the right to freedom of association. The
Wrangler should have the right to pursue whatever customer
demographic it wants for its bar. And if the community finds it
significantly discriminatory, they can use social pressures to push
for change (as Marzano has apparently
done with a call for a boycott).

Read more coverage of the ruling
here.

In 2005 prosecutors in New Jersey pointed to the violent rap
lyrics written by a criminal suspect as evidence of that man’s
“motive and intent” to commit murder and other misdeeds. During the
trial, those lyrics—which had zero connection to the actual crimes
at issue—were read to the jury, which ultimately voted to convict
the man of attempted murder.

In an opinion issued on Monday, the New Jersey Supreme Court
nullified that verdict, ordering a new trial on the grounds that
“the violent, profane, and disturbing rap lyrics authored by
defendant constituted highly prejudicial evidence against him that
bore little or no probative value as to any motive or intent behind
the attempted murder offense with which he was charged.” Unless
such material has “a direct connection to the specifics of the
offense,” the court ruled, prosecutors are forbidden from
introducing it as evidence.

The
New Jersey Supreme Court got it right. As the ACLU noted in an
amicus brief it filed in
the case, “that a rap artist wrote lyrics seemingly embracing a
world of violence is no more reason to ascribe to him a motive and
intent to commit violent acts” than it would be “to indict Johnny
Cash for having ‘shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.'”

The New Jersey Supreme Court’s ruling in State v.
Skinner is available
here.

In 2005 prosecutors in New Jersey pointed to the violent rap
lyrics written by a criminal suspect as evidence of that man’s
“motive and intent” to commit murder and other misdeeds. During the
trial, those lyrics—which had zero connection to the actual crimes
at issue—were read to the jury, which ultimately voted to convict
the man of attempted murder.

In an opinion issued on Monday, the New Jersey Supreme Court
nullified that verdict, ordering a new trial on the grounds that
“the violent, profane, and disturbing rap lyrics authored by
defendant constituted highly prejudicial evidence against him that
bore little or no probative value as to any motive or intent behind
the attempted murder offense with which he was charged.” Unless
such material has “a direct connection to the specifics of the
offense,” the court ruled, prosecutors are forbidden from
introducing it as evidence.

The
New Jersey Supreme Court got it right. As the ACLU noted in an
amicus brief it filed in
the case, “that a rap artist wrote lyrics seemingly embracing a
world of violence is no more reason to ascribe to him a motive and
intent to commit violent acts” than it would be “to indict Johnny
Cash for having ‘shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.'”

The New Jersey Supreme Court’s ruling in State v.
Skinner is available
here.

We seem to
be at the height of kids-in-cars hysteria, with emergency
personnel breaking
car windows to save dolls and vigilantes
filming mothers they have deemed monsters for letting kids
wait out short errands in cars. Recently, another
such video aired on KHOU in Houston. The network’s
storyline: A mom by the name of Araceli Cisneros left her
kids in the car to wither and perhaps die while she gallivanted off
to get a haircut. An eyewitness filmed the negligence on a cell
phone camera.

A few hours later, the station changed its report. In actuality,
the mom had accidentally locked her kids in the car with her keys
and had been frantically trying to get them out,
not getting her hair done.

The mommy wasn’t evil. In fact, she was “frantically calling for
help,” the entire time, according to the Houston
Chronicle.

Now Cisneros is suing the TV station for $200,000 for not
checking its facts. She fears for her family after the story went
viral: nationally syndicated TV personality Nancy Grace even picked
it up, calling Cisneros an unfit mother. As reports
the Houston
Chronicle:

“As a result of KHOU’s objectively false news report, Cisneros
feared that she would be subject to prosecution for leaving her
children in a locked car,” the suit alleges. “Based on the public’s
response to the article … Cisneros also feared for the safety of
herself and her family.”

An editor’s note since added to the story on the KHOU website
says, “The witness who shot the cell phone video was mistaken when
he thought the mother left the children in the car while she got a
haircut. We have removed that part of the story.”

The note goes on to confirm Cisneros’ story. “The mother
accidentally locked her keys in the car and recruited other
witnesses to help smash the window,” the editor’s note says.

In a world where everyone—bystanders, the media, and the people
watching the media—are all eager to leap to the worst-case
scenario, it’s not surprising that the story aired as another tale
of a mother who put her own needs first and ignored her kids.

There’s nothing America loves more at this moment than
mama-shaming, which I declare my new word of the month. I’m glad
this mama is shaming the haters back.

Barry Township, Michigan, with
a population of about 4,000, has four full-time
police officers, four part-time officers, two Humvees, two
armored personnel carriers (free, courtesy of the
Defense Department’s 1033 program)—and, until recently, about
three dozen unpaid but armed and empowered reserve police officers
patrolling the streets. All those cops need to find something to do
with themselves, and many of the people of Barry Township are more
than a bit bent out of shape that they’ve been on the receiving end
of that something.

Writes L.L. Brasier of the
Detroit Free Press:

Early morning May 10, Jack Nadwornik stepped behind Tujax
Tavern, the bar and restaurant he has owned for 30 years in this
small, western Michigan town.

Nadwornik, out drinking with friends for his 58th birthday,
urinated in a corner of the empty parking lot because the bar was
locked up.

Within seconds, two Barry Township police cars and three
officers — two of them unpaid reserves — confronted him as he was
zipping up his pants. What happened next is up for debate: Police
said he resisted arrest. Nadwornick said he didn’t, and a waitress
who was leaving work agreed.

What everyone does agree on is the aftermath: Nadwornik had a
broken hand from a police baton, bloody elbows, and he had been
kneed in the back. He was handcuffed, jailed and charged with
disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, a two-year felony.

If this was just a one-off incident, Nadwornik’s friends would
be bent out of shape and his lawyer would be prepping a lawsuit.
But this is only one high-profile incident in a sleepy town where
people complain that the cops are out of control, and police chief
Victor Pierce justifies his paramilitary machine on the grounds of
“terrorism, barricaded gunmen and mass shootings.”

Oh, yeah. And God.

“I have preached a vision and the Lord put me here for a
reason,” he told the township board.

The township’s insurance company finally forced
the police chief to make his small army of reserve officers stand
down and confine themselves to special events (it also forced the
town of Oakley, population 290, to put its army of 100 reserve
officers on ice).

After a packed town meeting last night that had to be moved to
the high school to accommodate attendees, the township board

unanimously voted to review Pierce’s continuing employment in a
special meeting to be held tonight. A notice of the meeting
occupies the township
Website‘s entire front page.

So, one small step in rolling back the militarization of
modern policing? Or just the latest bit of evidence that law
enforcement in the United States has gone full-on into occupying
enemy territory mode?

That might depend on the outcome of tonight’s meeting.

H/T to a Michigan reader (let me know if you want to be
named)

Barry Township, Michigan, with
a population of about 4,000, has four full-time
police officers, four part-time officers, two Humvees, two
armored personnel carriers (free, courtesy of the
Defense Department’s 1033 program)—and, until recently, about
three dozen unpaid but armed and empowered reserve police officers
patrolling the streets. All those cops need to find something to do
with themselves, and many of the people of Barry Township are more
than a bit bent out of shape that they’ve been on the receiving end
of that something.

Writes L.L. Brasier of the
Detroit Free Press:

Early morning May 10, Jack Nadwornik stepped behind Tujax
Tavern, the bar and restaurant he has owned for 30 years in this
small, western Michigan town.

Nadwornik, out drinking with friends for his 58th birthday,
urinated in a corner of the empty parking lot because the bar was
locked up.

Within seconds, two Barry Township police cars and three
officers — two of them unpaid reserves — confronted him as he was
zipping up his pants. What happened next is up for debate: Police
said he resisted arrest. Nadwornick said he didn’t, and a waitress
who was leaving work agreed.

What everyone does agree on is the aftermath: Nadwornik had a
broken hand from a police baton, bloody elbows, and he had been
kneed in the back. He was handcuffed, jailed and charged with
disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, a two-year felony.

If this was just a one-off incident, Nadwornik’s friends would
be bent out of shape and his lawyer would be prepping a lawsuit.
But this is only one high-profile incident in a sleepy town where
people complain that the cops are out of control, and police chief
Victor Pierce justifies his paramilitary machine on the grounds of
“terrorism, barricaded gunmen and mass shootings.”

Oh, yeah. And God.

“I have preached a vision and the Lord put me here for a
reason,” he told the township board.

The township’s insurance company finally forced
the police chief to make his small army of reserve officers stand
down and confine themselves to special events (it also forced the
town of Oakley, population 290, to put its army of 100 reserve
officers on ice).

After a packed town meeting last night that had to be moved to
the high school to accommodate attendees, the township board

unanimously voted to review Pierce’s continuing employment in a
special meeting to be held tonight. A notice of the meeting
occupies the township
Website‘s entire front page.

So, one small step in rolling back the militarization of
modern policing? Or just the latest bit of evidence that law
enforcement in the United States has gone full-on into occupying
enemy territory mode?

That might depend on the outcome of tonight’s meeting.

H/T to a Michigan reader (let me know if you want to be
named)

“Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers on Silicon Valley, Millennials and
the GOP on Social Issues,” is the latest from Reason TV. Watch
above or click on the link below for video, full text, supporting
links, downloadable versions, and more Reason TV clips.

View this article.

Alabama will have to reconsider
a requirement that abortion-clinic
doctors have hospital admitting privileges. In a 172-page court
decision released Monday, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson
declared the requirement—part of a package of Alabama abortion
regulations passed in 2013—unconstitutional and admonished state
lawmakers for exceeding their authority in passing it. 

A similar
law in Mississippi was deemed unconsitutional last week.

In Thompson’s comprehensive decision,
he said that evidence “compellingly demonstrates” that the
requirement would result in three out of Alabama’s five remaining
abortion clinics closing. “Indeed, the court is convinced that, if
this requirement would not, in the face of all the evidence in the
record, constitute an impermissible undue burden, then almost no
regulation, short of those imposing an outright prohibition on
abortion, would,” Thompson wrote. 

Drawing what some might see as an odd parallel (but many have
pointed out here in the past), the Judge wrote that “the right to
decide to have an abortion and the right to have and use firearms
for self-defense” aren’t all that different. For both, the Supreme
Court has ruled that some regulation is okay but it must not “tread
too heavily” on these protected rights. And both constitutional
protections are rejected “as more or less important” to people
based on their subjective beliefs.

“With this parallelism in mind,” wrote Thompson,

the court poses the hypothetical that suppose … the federal or
state government were to implement a new restriction on who may
sell firearms and ammunition and on the procedure they must employ
in selling such goods and that, further, only two vendors in the
State of Alabama were capable of complying with the restriction:
one in Huntsville and one in Tuscaloosa.

The defenders of this law would be called upon to do a heck of a
lot of explaining–and rightly so in the face of an effect so
severe. Similarly, in this case, so long as the Supreme Court
continues to recognize a constitutional right to choose to
terminate a pregnancy, any regulation that would, in effect,
restrict the exercise of that right to only Huntsville and
Tuscaloosa should be subject to the same skepticism.

He rejected the state’s argument that new abortion clinics would
open to take the place of those closing if only clinic
administrators would pay doctors more competitively. 

In the words of the State’s expert Dr. Peter Uhlenberg,
describing the potential for new clinics opening, “If we think of
this as a supply and demand and the demand is high, the market is
there, there’s no reason to expect that someone wouldn’t step
forward to provide that service.”

As the discussion above makes clear, there are in fact several
very good reasons to expect that no one would step in to provide
abortion services. Many OB/GYNs in Alabama do not know how to
perform an abortion because many residency programs in the region
to not offer the training; many OB/GYNs have strong anti-abortion
convictions; and others fear, reasonably, that they could not
provide abortions without sacrificing another part of their
practice or that providing abortions would expose them and their
families to violence. The court finds, therefore, that the
inability to obtain local abortion doctors is not a matter of
money, but rather a reflection of the difficulty of pursuing that
occupation in the State.

Judge Thompson extended an order blocking enforcement of the
hospital admitting privileges rule and said he would issue a final
order on the law after considering more arguments. Alabama Attorney
General Luther Strange promised that his office would appeal the
decision. In a statement, Gov. Robert Bentley said he was
“extremely disappointed” by the ruling and would support the
appeal.