Loss of Freedom Archives - Page 4 of 33

Abercrombie & Fitch Bad for Firing Muslim Woman for Wearing Head Scarf

Wall St. Journal: “A federal judge in California ruled last week that clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Co. discriminated against a Muslim employee on religious grounds, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Monday. The lawsuit was filed by the EEOC in 2011 on behalf of Umme-Hani Khan, a Muslim who was fired in February 2010 because her head scarf didn’t conform to the company’s dress code called its ‘Look Policy’.”

D.C. Cops Arrest People Who Have Empty Bullet Casings

Washington Examiner: “Washington police are operating under orders to arrest tourists and other non-residents traveling with spent bullet or shotgun casings, a crime that carries a $1,000 fine, a year in jail and a criminal record, . . . ‘Empty shell casings are considered ammunition in Washington, D.C., so they are illegal to possess unless you are a resident and have a gun registration certificate’,”

Drug Agents Use Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing N.S.A.’s

New York Times: “For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counternarcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans’ phone calls — parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency’s hotly disputed collection of phone call logs. . . . The government pays AT&T to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country. Those employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data from as far back as 1987.”

President Obama on President’s Authority to Take Unilateral Military Action

In 2007 former constitutional law professor Barack Obama answered a question about the President’s authority to unilaterally cause the U.S. to take military action.

Q. In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites — a situation that does not involve stopping an IMMINENT threat?)

OBAMA: The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

Obama was also asked about the ability of the federal government to conduct searches without a warrant.

Does the president have inherent powers under the Constitution to conduct surveillance for national security purposes without judicial warrants, regardless of federal statutes?

The Supreme Court has never held that the president has such powers. As president, I will follow existing law, and when it comes to U.S. citizens and residents, I will only authorize surveillance for national security purposes consistent with FISA and other federal statutes.

How To Roll Back Police Militarization In America

Huffington Post: “When the FBI finally located Whitey Bulger in 2010 after searching for 16 years, the reputed mobster was suspected of involvement in 19 murders in the 1970s and ’80s, and was thought to be armed with a massive arsenal of weapons. He was also 81 at the time, in poor physical health . . . . he was arrested without incident. There was no battering ram, there were no flash grenades, there was no midnight assault on his home. . . . That peaceful apprehension of a known violent fugitive, found guilty this week of participating in 11 murders and a raft of other crimes, stands in stark contrast to the way tens of thousands of Americans are confronted each year by SWAT teams battering down their doors to serve warrants for nonviolent crimes, mostly involving drugs. . . . Today in America, SWAT teams are deployed about 100 to 150 times per day, or about 50,000 times per year — a dramatic increase from the 3,000 or so annual deployments in the early 1980s, or the few hundred in the 1970s. The vast majority of today’s deployments are to serve search warrants for drug crimes. But the use of SWAT tactics to enforce regulatory law also appears to be rising”