Today’s POV blog

In a story reported by CNN, Gen. Anthony Cucolo has outlined a number of new restrictions designed to ensure that soldiers under him fulfill their deployment. At his sole discretion, the 20,000 soldiers, 1682 of whom are female, will be held accountable — with the threat of court martial — for individual behavior that prohibits them from completing their deployment.

Prohibited actions include gambling, using drugs, and engaging in behavior that may offend Iraqis, but his restrictions on becoming or causing a pregnancy is at the heart of this controversy. Cucolo believes that unexpected leave, including maternity leave, creates a burden on the remaining soldiers and should be dealt with accordingly.

The rule prohibits a soldier from becoming non-deployable for reasons within the control of the soldier, including becoming pregnant, or impregnating a soldier that results in the redeployment of the pregnant soldier.

While the stricter application of existing rules may seem extreme, they appear to be legal, and in some cases have already been exercised.

In a non-binding ruling, the Florida Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee found this week that judges and lawyers may not be friends on Facebook — in order to prevent the perception of improprieties. The committee expounded that listing lawyers who may appear before the judge as friends on a judge’s social-networking page — a public forum — reasonably conveys to others the impression that these friends are in a special position to influence the judge. Some judges have already begun un-friending lawyers.

To further muddy the waters, it is not objectionable to this committee for a lawyer to become a Facebook fan of a judge — but only so long as the judge does not have approval rights over who may become a fan.

The Committee concludes that such identification in a public forum of a lawyer who may appear before the judge does convey this impression and therefore is not permitted.

So what of the judge and lawyer at a sporting event, restaurant, or FAC? If a Facebook relationship causes concern, surely a weekly poker game should raise an eyebrown or two.

Judges are appointed officials. They are appointed based upon there reputation for unbiased and ethical decision making. Should we be concerned about the interactions of a judge that may come to sway their future decision making? What is it about a social-networking relationship that conveys improprieties where a Sunday-afternoon golf game does not? Aren’t such rulings in stark contrast to the very premise of trusting a person with impartiality to the point that they are appointed as judges?

According to CareerBuilders.com, almost 30 percent of hiring managers said they were using Facebook to research new hires and about 26 percent are using LinkedIn. This type of snooping has armed Judge Susan Criss with a judicial-campaign tool. Most people, lawyers included, do not have full appreciation for exactly how public social networks have become — despite privacy controls.

Criss noted a case before her where a lawyer asked for a continuance because of the death of her father, but in a series of Facebook updates had revealed a week of drinking and partying. She pointed also to a number of times when lawyers blur the ethical lines complaining about clients and opposing counsel in these public forums.

Criss says he follows her ethical canons and is careful about what she says and who she adds as a friend to her network. Her policy is to accept friend requests from all lawyers to avoid an appearance that she favors one side over another. Adding friends from the general public is trickier and a place where she tends to be much more selective.

According to Law.com, the legal blogwatch, during a child-custody trial, a lawyer and judge became friends and exchanged a number of postings relevant to the case. The mother of the child learned of the exchange and her lawyer moved for a new trial and to have the judge disqualified. She succeeded in gaining both.

To make matters worse, the judge had Googled the wife and visited the web site of her business that contained personal photographs and poetry. He went so far as to read one of her poems into the record as he announced his decision. None of the content he found had been entered into evidence, thus ethically preventing him from referencing it at all.

Judges have a code of ethics that outlines the requirements for holding that office and this includes their behavior in public and in public forums. We should not have to be concerned that Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the like are negative influence on the ethics of a judge. Maybe they offer an insight that exposes those who have always been unqualified for the job.

On 19 October 2009, the Obama administration announced new policy guidelines for federal prosecutors instructing them to cease arresting medical marijuana users and suppliers who are conforming to state laws.

Describing the new policy, two Justice Department officials said prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws. This policy is vastly different from that of the Bush administration that staunchly enforced federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.

Despite the announcement by the Obama administration, at an online town hall meeting in March of this year, Obama rejected the argument that legalizing, regulating, and taxing marijuana would be a good way to raise money in this recession. Obama did not elaborate with any particular details on his position.

Contrary to the opinion of Obama, in Colorado, Denver City Council members Chris Nevitt and Charlie Brown believe that the establishment of a city sales tax on medical marijuana sales could generate millions of dollars. “We’ve got to tax this damn thing at the city rate, which is 3.62 percent,” Brown told 420Butts.com.

There are currently fourteen states that allow some use of marijuana for medical purposes (Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington), and about a dozen more have considered or are considering it. Polls across America show broadening support for marijuana legalization.

On Tuesday, the American Medical Association announced that it has reversed its policy establishied in 1997 that marijuana should be classified as a Schedule I controlled substance, the most restrictive category, which also includes heroin and LSD. The AMA now states that it will promote clinical research and development of cannabis-based medicines and alternative delivery methods. Despite the reversal, the AMA cautions, “This should not be viewed as an endorsement of state-based medical cannabis programs, the legalization of marijuana, or that scientific evidence on the therapeutic use of cannabis meets the current standards for a prescription-drug product.”

The American Medical Association has about 250,000 doctor members and as a body has urged the federal government to also reconsider its current classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use.

“This shift, coming from what has historically been America’s most cautious and conservative major medical organization, is historic,” said Aaron Houston, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project.

Dawn Dearden with the Drug Enforcement Administration said: “At this point, it’s still a Schedule I drug, and we’re going to treat it as such.” The Food and Drug Administration has yet to comment on the announcement by the AMA.

In an exclusive story, CBS nearly early 90,000 women reported they were raped in the United States last year and that another 75,000 went unreported.  Of those reported, there is an estimated, paltry, arrest rate of about 25%. When you compare this to the 79% arrest rate for murder and 51% arrest rate for aggravated assault, these numbers are frighteningly low — especially to women who may at some point face the decision to report an assault.

For those women who have reported a rate in the last year, and when a rape kit was collected, some 20,000 kits remained untested. At least twelve major American cities: Anchorage, Baltimore, Birmingham, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Oakland, Phoenix, and San Diego are not clear on how many rape kits in storage are untested.

While rape is typically thought of as assault on women, as many as 1 in 5 males will be sexually abused before the age of 18, according to data from the FBI, and about 1 in 5 adult rape victims is male. Male rape does not only happen in prisons, though that is common. Male rape, like the rape of women and children, can happen almost anywhere and with little regard for how strong the man.

In 1977, Roman Polanski, plied a thirteen-year-old Samantha Gailey with champagne and a quaalude before having her pose for topless photos, joining her nude in a hot tub, and then performing oral sex and intercourse on the young teen. Following his indictment, Polanski agreed to a plea deal that spared him prison time, but when it seemed that the judge might not honor the deal, Polanski fled. He was arrested earlier this year — more than 30 years later.

Though rape is extremely violent, it is often coupled with other violence such as physical beatings and even murder. Authorities have been investigating convicted rapist Anthony Sowell, 50, after discovering two bodies in a fresh grave at his home on 29 October 2009, as reported by NYDailyNews.com. Since that date, nine more bodies have been found. Investigations have just begun into unexplained disappearances and rapes in other cities in which Sowell resided.

On 24 October 2009, a 15-year-old girl was gang raped, robbed, and beaten outside of her high school homecoming dance as a group looked on and did nothing. Investigators in that case are weighing options for charging the onlookers with a crime.

Escalating the beyond rape and into additional violent behavior at least raises the propensity for having the crime thoroughly investigated and solved, but it’s unpalatable to think one has to be murdered just to have their rape solved.

In one of the worst killings ever reported on a US military base, a psychiatrist at the Fort Hood Army base opened fire and killed 12 people. Major Nidal Malik Hasan discharged two handguns that also left 31 others wounded. Hasan, shot multiple times, is now listed in stable condition at the Army hospital.

Asked whether the shootings were a terrorist act, Lieutenant-General Robert Cone, Fort Hood’s commanding officer, said, “I couldn’t rule that out, but I’m telling you that right now the evidence does not suggest that.”

Nader Hasan, the gunman’s cousin, said Hasan was a US-born Muslim who had joined the military from high school. He had served as a psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC, which treats many badly wounded troops. Hasan was due to be deployed to Iraq but was resistant to the deployment.

On June 1, 2009, 23-year-old Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, upset about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, opened fire from his vehicle and killed one soldier and wounded another standing outside a military recruiting station in Little Rock, AR.

Muhammad fled the scene and was arrested minutes later and police confiscated a Russian-made SKS semiautomatic rifle, a .22-caliber rifle and a handgun.

These anti-war measures are a long way from sit-ins of the 60s and 70s. Where to from here?

In 2005, 15 people were killed and 180 injured in an explosion at a BP plant in Texas. After t blast, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) conducted an investigation and discovered 270 safety violations. BP was fined $21.3 million and directed to correct the violations; entering a four-year agreement to do so. BP was further fined $50 million to settle criminal charges, $1 billion dollars to correct the hazards, and $2 billion dollars in civil court cases.

At the end of the four-year period, OSHA ran a six-month inspection of the facility to see if BP had corrected the violations. Once again, BP was found to have failed and this time OSHA levied an $87 million fine. BP has 15 days to correct the remaining problems or contest the fine in court.

To keep the size of these fines in perspective, note that BP reported third-quarter profits of $4.98 billion.

Are OSHA’s fines really having an impact with profits at this level? Is it time the federal government stepped in and started filing criminally against BP? The fines may have temporarily hurt profits, but for a company that is making billions in profits a year, these relatively meager fines are not getting results.

With a world that runs on petroleum, are OSHA and governments powerless when it comes to ensuring the safety of workers at these facilities?

There have been countless crimes over the years where witnesses to crimes don’t testify, don’t intervene, or worse yet, don’t even call the police. Genovese Syndrome (also known as the bystander effect) is the name given to people who witness a crime or violent act and don’t want to get involved or just stand idly by and watch. The term was coined after Kitty Genovese was raped and murdered in New York in the ’60s. When asked why he didn’t report it, a witness in a nearby building stated, “I didn’t want to get involved.”

Such was the case recently when a girl was gang-raped the evening of her school’s homecoming dance. Police estimate over 20 people were involved or stood by and watched; some even laughing. Witnesses did nothing, not because they didn’t want to get involved, but because the group as a whole had decided to do nothing and thus reaffirmed the notion that what was occurring was acceptable.

Should these witnesses be charged with the same crimes as the actual perpetrators? Are they just as guilty for not standing up for the victim? Is there another side to this story that makes their actions justifiable? Does it matter?

In California, it is illegal not to report a crime if it involves children, but it only covers those who are 14 and younger, so the victim of the homecoming gang-rape is excluded (she is 15 years old). One person is all it would have taken to call the police, or just say stop. Should apathy be punished?

The Federal Aviation Administration has revoked the licenses of two Northwest Airlines pilots who shot 150 miles past their Minnesota destination.

Captain Timothy B. Cheney, and first officer Richard I. Cole, both seasoned pilots with more than 30,000 hours of flight time between them, claim that they were using their laptops and discussing work schedules. The FAA is investigating how it is possible that not only did the pilots ignore 78 minutes of attempts from ground crew to reach them, but that none of the flight attendants were concerned when the flight extended more than an hour past its scheduled landing time.

Backed by union membership in the Delta Air Lines Union, the pilots have ten days to appeal the decision of the FAA. The union is urging caution against a rush to judgment.

Earlier this year, in a story reported by TheStreet.com, a US Airways’ pilot was reinstated after being fired 18 months earlier. Captain James Langenhahn accidentally discharged his gun in the cockpit. He credits his union with getting him back to work.

Also this year, captain Gilbert Ponder is seeking reinstatement after failing an alcohol test. In a suit against Frontier Airlines, the Frontier Airline Pilots Association is claiming that the airlines is refusing to abide by an arbitrator’s recommendation that the pilot would be better served if he were given a chance for conditional reinstatement.

Whether or not Cheney and Cole will be reinstated remains to be seen, but to date officials still have a lot of questions and little confidence in the responses that have come from the pilots thus far.

History references the years of 1650 to 1720 as the Golden Age of Piracy. When sailors were laid off en masse during those years, privateers and pirate captains easily found skilled sailors for crew. Privateers were pirates and other captains in possession of letters of marques (letters giving them permission to attack ships of their home country’s enemies).

No one during that time referred to it as the Golden Age, but our society has greatly romanticized it. Many pirates looted and plundered to just get by, forsaking a landlubber’s job for easier money. This is where pirates of yore share similarities with the pirates today — impoverished people who can barely afford to feed their families taking deadly risks for a a pirate’s bounty.

Today, Somali pirates make up the bulk of pirate attacks on the high seas. Somalis were responsible for 54% of the attacks in 2008, 168 out of 293. This year, pirates are becoming more aggressive, with approximately 310 attacks already this year. According to CNN, five ships are currently being held for ransom.

Countries, such as France, have started sending out more patrols, which has helped to reduce the success rate of these attacks. However, ransoming a ship has made some pirates wealthy men in their impoverished nations, thus encouraging more to become pirates. As if to stoke the fire, the transitional government of Somalia has not been able to police the port cities, which have become a breeding ground for these pirates.

With countries busily worrying about their own economy, many are unable to fund a large-scale military action to flush out the pirates. Perhaps it is time for nations to bring back letters of marques and hire on privateers to help patrol the waters. Pirates to fight the pirates, so to speak.

Should state and federal officials be given the freedom to pursue dangerous criminals without disregard for public rights such as privacy?

In 1949, the International News Service wanted to publish an article about the ‘toughest guys‘ that the FBI would like to catch. The article was so popular that the FBI officially released the list to aid in the capture of these fugitives. Today, the FBI’s most-wanted list includes the likes of Usama Bin Laden.

These criminals have often committed multiple heinous crimes, extortion, bank robberies, money laundering, drug importing, and murder. However, these criminals who are US citizens share the same rights as every other citizen of the US. Should these rights be forfeited for those the FBI deems most wanted?

It may be a slippery slope. Select fugitives losing their rights has the potential of evolving into criminals with lesser offenses losing their rights. On one hand, we have the overwhelming need for public safety and on the other, personal privacy.

A sterling example of this dichotomy is the Patriot Act. In response to our safety concerns after 9/11, the Patriot Act was passed to allow officials to use any means to provide surveillance, detain, arrest, and question people who are thought to be, or might hold information leading to, terrorists. This act has led to many people being locked away and being interrogated in Guantanamo Bay without the basic rights that you or I believe we are guaranteed. Some of the people detained are American citizens, whose rights were forfeited under the application of the Patriot Act.

Are we on the right path? Are our personal-privacy rights of less importance than the need to protect the population?