University of California students disrupted a meeting of the UC regents in Sacramento this morning, protesting tuition increases in a sustained chant that forced regents to break early for a closed session meeting.
Join the ACLU of California for our 2012 Conference & Lobby Day in downtown Sacramento!
Lobby Day - Monday, April 16, 2012
11:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Go to the California State Capitol
The Capitol is 0.6 miles from the Holiday Day Inn ACLU Conference Hotel.
Transportation is available for those who are not able to walk.
12:00-1:00 p.m. Rally & Lunch at the Capitol
1:00 – 4:00 p.m. Lobby Visits with Senate and Assembly Offices
4:00 – 5:30 p.m. Closing Reception near the Capitol
An Oakland judge on Friday set the stage for the release of most of an investigation into the Nov. 18 pepper-spraying incident at UC Davis, but he agreed to keep confidential some portions about individual police officers – at least for now.
The ruling by Alameda Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo left both sides claiming partial victory in a dispute over how much detail can be released about the actions of UC Davis police during a campus demonstration last fall over tuition hikes.
He also appeared to clear the way for release soon of a lengthy report on the incident by former state Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, the first in a series of inquiries into how plans to remove the protesters turned into a nightmare for the university and its students.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced at Northwestern University law school that the U.S. can assassinate U.S. citizens without any without disclosure of why they are even alleged to be baddies and without any review of any nature whatsoever by any judge, Congress or the American people.
Northwestern University’s law school professor Joseph Margulies said:
I defy anyone to read [Holder's] speech and show any differences between Obama and Bush on these issues, They both say we are in a war not confined to particular battlefield. … Both say we can target citizens without judicial oversight and that can happen anywhere in the world.
Columbia law school professor Scott Horton notes that this assassination strategy was created by Dick Cheney, and is being carried out by the Obama administration:
A lot of this seems to have been put in place under the tutelage of Dick Cheney. So here we see one of Dick Cheney’s ideas being ratified by Barack Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder.
Update II - This post (8000+ hits) seems to be generating a lot of rancor over the internet at "liberal" websites, because I used a link to a Russia Today article, and also because there are blogs decrying the bill on "libertarian" websites. I guess I should take that as a compliment because normally ACLU members are accused of being "liberals"; IMHO, truth doesn't have a political ideology, or bias --- but people do. FYI, I could have linked to this Dailykos diary but I thought the RT article was more informative. And I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know the nuances of the law, but Wells C. Bennett is, and he writes
So how important is the elimination of the “willfully” requirement? The answer will depend on how the revised statute is enforced, but, on first glance, the change is not obviously trivial. “Willfully” generally requires more than “knowingly.” As the Supreme Court once put it, in order convict under the “willfully” standard, a jury “must find that the defendant acted with an evil-meaning mind, that is to say, that he acted with knowledge that his conduct was unlawful.” Contrast this with the “knowingly” standard, which only “requires proof of knowledge of the facts that constitute the offense,” unless a statute’s text dictates otherwise – and H.R. 347’s text certainly doesn’t dictate otherwise. Also remember that many people – foreign leaders, vice presidential and presidential candidates, and so on – sometimes can qualify for Secret Service protection. In an election year, that can mean a lot of areas restricted on account of official visits, and thus a lot more opportunities for citizens to wander, deliberately or not, into temporarily restricted places.
