Land Of The Flea

Mandatory Sentences Face Growing Skepticism

"Three decades of stricter drug laws, reduced parole and rigid sentencing rules have lengthened prison terms and more than tripled the percentage of Americans behind bars. The United States has the highest reported rate of incarceration of any country: about one in 100 adults, a total of nearly 2.3 million people in prison or jail. State spending on corrections, after adjusting for inflation, has more than tripled in the past three decades, making it the fastest-growing budgetary cost except Medicaid. Even though the prison population has leveled off in the past several years, the costs remain so high that states are being forced to reduce spending in other areas." Continue reading →

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Prison Labor Booms As Unemployment Remains High; Companies Reap Benefits

"The American government has been critical of China's forced-labor policies, but the United States has a burgeoning prison labor pool of its own. Hundreds of companies nationwide now benefit from the low, and sometimes no-wage labor of America's prisoners. Nearly a million prisoners are now making office furniture, working in call centers, fabricating body armor, taking hotel reservations, working in slaughterhouses, or manufacturing textiles, shoes, and clothing, while getting paid somewhere between 93 cents and $4.73 per day. Companies that pay workers can get up to 40 percent of the money back in taxpayer-funded reimbursements." Continue reading →

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Slowing down the surveillance state: a guide to warrantless government spying

"If the growing use of governmental tip-toeing to wiretap phone lines and emails doesn’t seem serious, think again. So heightened lately are concerns over surveillance that two major organizations have published a primer on federal spy programs. Both ProPublica and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have released thorough guides this week that explore what the US government can and can’t do in terms of tracking US citizens using an array of weirdly-worded wiretap laws currently on the books." Continue reading →

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Public buses being outfitted with sophisticated audio surveillance across U.S.

"In cities across the United States, government officials are installing sophisticated audio surveillance equipment on public buses. Documents obtained by The Daily indicated that at least seven cities throughout the United States were installing surveillance systems capable of capturing riders’ conversations in addition to the video already being captured by existing systems. While transit agencies say that the system is intended to enhance saftey and resolve passenger complaints, experts have warned that the technology could easily be misused." Continue reading →

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They Can Do That?! 10 Outrageous Tactics Cops Get Away With

"The cops can do almost anything they want, and often the most maddening tactics are actually completely legal. There are many reasons for this, but three historical developments stand out: the war on drugs provided the template for social control based on race; 9/11 gave federal and local officials the opportunity to ensnare Muslims (and activists) in the ever-increasing surveillance and incarceration state; and a lack of concern from the public at large means these tactics can be applied, often controversy-free, to anyone who resists them." Continue reading →

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A Plan to Stop the Feds From Reading Your Emails

"The reform proposals are all pretty simple: Don't spy on Americans (which the government claims it's not doing anyway), tell Americans how much the government has spied on them in the past, and explain to the American people exactly how much authority the government believes it has to spy on its own citizens without a warrant. For a Congress bubbling over with Republican anti-big-government crusaders and Democrats who slammed Bush for shredding the Constitution, that ought to be an easy sell, right?" Continue reading →

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Americans Are The Most Spied On People In World History

"In a radio interview, Wall Street Journal reporter Julia Angwin (who’s been one of the best at covering the surveillance state in the US) made a simple observation that puts much of this into context: the US surveillance regime has more data on the average American than the Stasi ever did on East Germans. The American government is collecting and storing virtually every phone call, purchases, email, text message, internet searches, social media communications, health information, employment history, travel and student records, and virtually all other information of every American." Continue reading →

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Border Agents’ Power to Search Devices Is Facing Increasing Challenges in Court

"The government has historically had broad power to search travelers and their property at the border. But that prerogative is being challenged as more people travel with extensive personal and business information on devices that would typically require a warrant to examine. Several court cases seek to limit the ability of border agents to search, copy and even seize travelers’ laptops, cameras and phones without suspicion of illegal activity. Courts have long held that Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches do not apply at the border, based on the government’s interest in combating crime and terrorism." Continue reading →

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Where You Register Your Domain Name May Land You In Jail

"Richard O’Dwyer has never been to the United States. Not once. His Internet site ran on servers in Sweden. Neither Sweden nor his home country has charged him with a crime. So how in the world could the United States government make a case against O’Dwyer and enforce its laws against a foreign citizen like this? Because he used a .com domain name. All .com domains (among many other global top level domains or gTLDs) are registered with Versign, a US-based company. The implications of this are huge. Can the US government exert its laws against a non-US website based on the registry used for that domain name?" Continue reading →

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11 Secret Documents Americans Deserve to See

"Many documents produced by the U.S. government are kept secret for questionable reasons. The fact that presidents and other government officials have the power to deem materials classified provides them with an opportunity to use national security as an excuse to suppress documents and reports that would reveal embarrassing or illegal activities. Now I have chosen 11 examples that were created—and buried—by both Democratic and Republican administrations and which cover assassinations, spying, torture, 50-year-old historical events, presidential directives with classified titles and…trade negotiations." Continue reading →

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