Month: August 2014

“The Fight Against California’s Electric Skateboard Ban” is the
latest video 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.

When Los Angeles enacted
a rule requiring condom-use in porn, the ostensible reason was
to stop the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
Nevermind that this isn’t really a problem in the up-and-up adult
film industry, which has voluntarily adopted strict STI-testing
standards and boasts an on-set HIV transmission rate of zero over
the past decade. The county was going to “protect” performers
from condomless sex,
whether anyone in porn wanted it or not. 

Since the measure’s passage, in 2012, the number of porn stars
utilizing condoms hasn’t really risen, but the number of porn films
made in L.A. has plummeted. According
to Film L.A., the organization that issues local film
production permits, there were around 480 adult films shot there in
L.A. county in 2012, before the condom law went into effect; in
2013, there were about 40. 

“It’s
a safe bet to say that the world didn’t lose its appetite for porn
during that time,” writes Los Angeles Times editor Jim
Newton. “Instead, many of those who produce it are either moving
outside the county … or filming without permits.”

Newton spoke with Kayden Kross, a porn actress and director who
moved filming from L.A.
to Ventura County to skirt the condom law. But she may be
forced out of the state of California entirely, if lawmakers in
Sacramento have their way. State Assemblyman Isadore Hall is
sponsoring AB 1576, a measure to take the condoms-in-porn
requirement statewide, as well as implement new state-mandated
testing and reporting requirements. It’s under consideration by a
Senate committee today. 

Given the way the condom law has played out in L.A., it’s hard
not to see this as a move by California legislators to unload it’s
porn-production hub status to places beyond state lines. At the
least, it’s a downright illogical and ineffective way to try and
make porn safer, as Newton explains: 

At first blush, the requirement seems sensible. Who could oppose
safe sex? But the effort to require condom use in adult films is
misdirected — the porn business isn’t the hub of AIDS or sexually
transmitted diseases. Moreover, asking people to wear condoms is
one thing; having the government order it and enforce it is
another. And, most important, it doesn’t work. Measure B is taking
a fairly safe business and pushing it underground, outside Los
Angeles and quite possibly into places that don’t honor protocols
put into place to protect adult film actors, which require that
every performer be tested every two weeks for sexually transmitted
diseases and cleared for work only if the test is negative.

“It’s time to accept that Measure B’s impact hasn’t been to
encourage condom use; it’s been to encourage evasion and flight,”
Newton concluded. 

For more on Cali’s quixotic campaign to solve a porn problem
that doesn’t exist, check out this 2012 video from Reason TV. For
other avenues of neo-“war
on porn” activism, check out Peter Suderman from the March 2014
issue of Reason.

The scandal over the absolutely
horrible treatment of patients by the Department of Veterans
Affairs (VA) has a
secondary scandal: VA employees who have attempted to blow the
whistle on the agency’s corruption have faced retaliation.

The Washington Post
spent time with the woman who used to be the spokesperson for
the hospital in Phoenix (the one that had been Ground Zero for the
scandal, but problems have been exposed at hospitals across the
country). She is no longer the hospital’s spokesperson. She is now
essentially a living joke about government bureaucracy:

[Paula] Pedene, 56, is the former chief spokeswoman for this VA
hospital. Now, she is living in a bureaucrat’s urban legend. After
complaining to higher-ups about mismanagement at this hospital, she
has been reassigned — indefinitely — to a desk in the basement.

In the Phoenix case, investigators are still trying to determine
whether Pedene was punished because of her earlier complaints. If
she is, that would make her part of a long, ugly tradition in the
federal bureaucracy — workers sent to a cubicle in exile.

In the past, whistleblowers have had their desks moved to break
rooms, broom closets and basements. It’s a clever punishment,
good-government activists say, that exploits a gray area in the
law.

The whole thing can look minor on paper. They moved your
office. So what? But the change is designed to afflict the
striving soul of a federal worker, with a mix of isolation, idle
time and lost prestige.

The Post describes her workday in the basement, which
is exactly what you’d think it is—she’s a second receptionist in a
basement library where the visitors rarely need any help at
all.

The Washington Post attempted to get an explanation
from the VA on why Pedene is being treated the way she was. The hit
a wall, partly because the person responsible for sending Pedene to
the basement has been put on leave because of the big scandal, and
partly because of the typical “no comment on personnel matters”
response that thwarts any journalist trying to figure out what
happens to any human being who works for any government from lowly
garbage collectors, to police officers, to city managers.
 

Read the whole thing
here.

Watertown, Connecticut, a
city
of 22,000 people with crime rates that seem to be enviably
below the national average, now has itself a slightly used
Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicle. Nearby Waterbury
has one, too. All they had to pay for the military surplus hardware
was a few grand for shipping and handling (new, the vehicles run
$733,000)—and maintenance from here on out. And now they have
themselves some mobile armor designed to survive insurgents armed
with small arms and explosives.

“It’s a great opportunity for the public to learn about the
police and what we do,” says Watertown Police Sgt. Curt Molnar.
“It’s definitely a big icebreaker with the kids.”

And brick-breaker, and timber-breaker, and cinder-block
breaker…

Writes Bill Bittar at
Stars and Stripes:

WATERTOWN, Conn. — When Waterbury’s Emergency Response Team set
out to arrest two suspects in a home-invasion case early this
month, they went in force: Two heavily armored trucks led a convoy
of officers to nab the suspects at a house on Laurel Street.

The mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles used in the raid
were acquired for free by Watertown and Waterbury, which are among
11 Connecticut police departments to own such gear.

Watertown Police Sgt. Curt Molnar said his department shares its
MRAP as a regional vehicle with Waterbury, Naugatuck Valley
Community College, Wolcott and Middlebury.

“You hope not to use it much, because it could mean there’s a
shooter or a serious call,” Molnar said.

Just a few weeks ago, the same publication
pointed out, “MRAP armored troop carriers, night-vision rifle
scopes, camouflage fatigues, Humvees and dozens of M16 automatic
rifles are just some of the tools that have found their way to
Michiana police, courtesy of the federal government.”

Reason has covered the ongoing militarization of
policing for years, well before it hit the national radar as a
serious concern (see our video, below). The American Civil
Liberties Union recently reported on the phenomenon,
cautioning:

Across the country, heavily armed Special Weapons and Tactics
(SWAT) teams are forcing their way into people’s homes in the
middle of the night, often deploying explosive devices such as
flashbang grenades to temporarily blind and deafen residents,
simply to serve a search warrant on the suspicion that someone may
be in possession of a small amount of drugs.

Even the federal government’s own Justice Department is
concerned. Karl Bickel, a senior analyst in the DOJ’s Community
Oriented Policing Services Office,
wrote this past December:

Police chiefs and sheriffs may want to ask themselves—if after
hiring officers in the spirit of adventure, who have been exposed
to action oriented police dramas since their youth, and sending
them to an academy patterned after a military boot camp, then
dressing them in black battle dress uniforms and turning them loose
in a subculture steeped in an “us versus them” outlook toward those
they serve and protect, while prosecuting the war on crime, war on
drugs, and now a war on terrorism—is there any realistic hope of
institutionalizing community policing as an operational
philosophy?

Of course, much of the impetus for small-town police departments
with military vehicles, weapons and tactics comes from the feds
themselves. That free MRAP in Watertown comes courtesy of the

Defense Logistics Agency’s 1033 program, which supplies
law-enforcement agencies with military surplus. “Preference is
given to counter-drug and counter-terrorism requests.”

The
program’s current catalog (get your shopping done early!) lists
all sorts of goodies, including tactical vehicles and assault
rifles. It’s a bargain many police departments can’t resist.

And it’s such an icebreaker with the kids.

Watertown, Connecticut, a
city
of 22,000 people with crime rates that seem to be enviably
below the national average, now has itself a slightly used
Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicle. Nearby Waterbury
has one, too. All they had to pay for the military surplus hardware
was a few grand for shipping and handling (new, the vehicles run
$733,000)—and maintenance from here on out. And now they have
themselves some mobile armor designed to survive insurgents armed
with small arms and explosives.

“It’s a great opportunity for the public to learn about the
police and what we do,” says Watertown Police Sgt. Curt Molnar.
“It’s definitely a big icebreaker with the kids.”

And brick-breaker, and timber-breaker, and cinder-block
breaker…

Writes Bill Bittar at
Stars and Stripes:

WATERTOWN, Conn. — When Waterbury’s Emergency Response Team set
out to arrest two suspects in a home-invasion case early this
month, they went in force: Two heavily armored trucks led a convoy
of officers to nab the suspects at a house on Laurel Street.

The mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles used in the raid
were acquired for free by Watertown and Waterbury, which are among
11 Connecticut police departments to own such gear.

Watertown Police Sgt. Curt Molnar said his department shares its
MRAP as a regional vehicle with Waterbury, Naugatuck Valley
Community College, Wolcott and Middlebury.

“You hope not to use it much, because it could mean there’s a
shooter or a serious call,” Molnar said.

Just a few weeks ago, the same publication
pointed out, “MRAP armored troop carriers, night-vision rifle
scopes, camouflage fatigues, Humvees and dozens of M16 automatic
rifles are just some of the tools that have found their way to
Michiana police, courtesy of the federal government.”

Reason has covered the ongoing militarization of
policing for years, well before it hit the national radar as a
serious concern (see our video, below). The American Civil
Liberties Union recently reported on the phenomenon,
cautioning:

Across the country, heavily armed Special Weapons and Tactics
(SWAT) teams are forcing their way into people’s homes in the
middle of the night, often deploying explosive devices such as
flashbang grenades to temporarily blind and deafen residents,
simply to serve a search warrant on the suspicion that someone may
be in possession of a small amount of drugs.

Even the federal government’s own Justice Department is
concerned. Karl Bickel, a senior analyst in the DOJ’s Community
Oriented Policing Services Office,
wrote this past December:

Police chiefs and sheriffs may want to ask themselves—if after
hiring officers in the spirit of adventure, who have been exposed
to action oriented police dramas since their youth, and sending
them to an academy patterned after a military boot camp, then
dressing them in black battle dress uniforms and turning them loose
in a subculture steeped in an “us versus them” outlook toward those
they serve and protect, while prosecuting the war on crime, war on
drugs, and now a war on terrorism—is there any realistic hope of
institutionalizing community policing as an operational
philosophy?

Of course, much of the impetus for small-town police departments
with military vehicles, weapons and tactics comes from the feds
themselves. That free MRAP in Watertown comes courtesy of the

Defense Logistics Agency’s 1033 program, which supplies
law-enforcement agencies with military surplus. “Preference is
given to counter-drug and counter-terrorism requests.”

The
program’s current catalog (get your shopping done early!) lists
all sorts of goodies, including tactical vehicles and assault
rifles. It’s a bargain many police departments can’t resist.

And it’s such an icebreaker with the kids.