August 7, 2015
“Today’s verdict in the Aurora Theater shooting trial means that James Holmes will spend the rest of his life behind bars. It is the appropriate and harsh punishment for his crimes.
“The jury recognized that executing someone with severe mental illness is morally and legally indefensible. It is fortunate that Colorado will not be in the terrible position of having to do so. Furthermore, this verdict means the victims and their family members will be spared from years of appeals and from having to relive the details of that night over and over.
“This verdict shows that Colorado, like the rest of the country, is moving away from the death penalty. It is deeply unfortunate that our taxpayer dollars had to pay for one of the most expensive trials in the state’s history only to achieve the same outcome offered by the defense before the trial even began. The death penalty is a costly, broken policy and this trial is proof of that. We are hopeful that lessons learned from this process will lead Coloradans to rethink this outdated and deeply flawed policy.”
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According to documents recently obtained by The Intercept in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the government is surveilling the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
Records from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Operations Coordination show that since August 2014, DHS officials have been trolling public social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, and Vine, to map and collect information on #BlackLivesMatter protests –and supposedly related events. Targeted activities include silent vigils held across the country following the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, an anti-police brutality protest in Philadelphia, and an April 2015 #BlackLivesMatter protest in Washington D.C. The documents even show a plan to gather information on a funk music parade in a historically Black neighborhood in the nation’s capital.
Perhaps most troubling are the Google maps and live updates tracking, minute-by-minute, the movements of participants in an April 2015 #BlackLivesMatter protest in Washington, D.C. A DHS email released to the Intercept confirms that on the day before the event, several DHS officials were aware of a Federal Bureau of Investigation joint intelligence bulletin characterizing the protest as a “First Amendment-protected event,” and noting that there was “no information suggesting that violent behavior is planned for Washington, DC.”
What will be done with this trove of information? We know that DHS shares what it gathers with local and federal law enforcement for targeting police stops and investigations. Information about specific individuals can also be funneled into the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting system, which provides reports to the FBI through regional fusion centers.
The problem with this is obvious. Modern protest movements speak, associate, and organize through social media. Their tweets, blogs, protests, marches, and die-ins are the trumpets by which they call for reform and social justice. Government monitoring of activists’ protests – simply because these activists dissent and without any evidence of wrongdoing – threatens to discourage them from speaking, associating, and expressing as is their right under the First Amendment. Surveillance of #BlackLivesMatter protests also opens the door to racial profiling because the movement is Black-led.
Throughout our country’s history, the federal government has used the fear of threats – real or perceived – to conduct surveillance on domestic groups and people who look or act different. Civil rights and anti-Vietnam War activists in the 1960’s and 1970’s, American Muslim civil rights leaders and academics post-9/11, and the FBI’s recent, expansive racial, religious, and ethnic mapping program are a handful of examples.
Today, at a time when the public is outraged and sickened that Black men and women are killed by police in too many incidents raising concerns about racial profiling, excessive force, and gross disregard for Black lives, the tracking of #BlackLivesMatter threatens to harm that movement and all others seeking equal treatment for minority Americans.
Progress toward racial justice in America has been made precisely because brave people, particularly people of color, have raised their voices to hold America accountable to its promises of equality and liberty. Courageous men and women of color have stood up in order to call for the abolition of the chattel slavery, to urge the adoption of a constitutional amendment promising equal protection of the law, to demand an end to the legalized racial segregation that ruled America for 90 years, and to insist on federal protection for Black people’s right to vote after decades of disenfranchisement through enforced terror.
The generations of civil rights activists who made these calls were branded as “dangerous,” “terrorist,” and “subversive.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his family, his colleagues in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Congress for Racial Equality, and countless other individuals and groups heralded today for their vision of racial equality in America were victims of FBI surveillance in the 1960’s.
Surveillance of today’s civil rights activists is equally wrong. We do not need to wait 50 years to understand that.
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Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - 11:47amShow featured image
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(This post originally appeared on the Huffington Post website at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-woodliffstanley-/the-mall-is-for-all_b_7852292.html?utm_hp_ref=denver&ir=Denver)
A recent article in the Denver Post raised concerns about whether enough people "linger" on the 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver. The role of the shuttles, the types of shops on the mall, and the overall environment of the mall are among factors under consideration. The focus of the article was not primarily about security or the types of people who spend time on the mall.
Nevertheless, a follow-up Denver Post editorial places blame on "transients, vagrants, panhandlers and pot users" who "congregate" on the mall, apparently spending too long there. "Lingering" is only to be desired, it seems, for a subset of the public. I suspect that the line between "lingering" and "loitering" is primarily a function of money and appearance. But the right of access to public spaces belongs to the whole public, not just a part of it.
The editorial acknowledges that security concerns are not the only reason people may not linger more on the mall, and that in fact safety concerns are more a matter of perception than reality. The mall is "hardly a hotbed of criminal activity." But because people "act on their perceptions," the editorial suggests that "police could definitely be a more visible presence on the mall."
Whatever else we do, it's a bad idea to bring in more police simply to address people's perceptions, not reality. It could backfire, too. Rather than providing reassurance, a heavy police presence could give the impression that the mall must be awfully dangerous to require so many police. It might also lead to more profiling, more unnecessary arrests for minor charges, or more harassment of people who are homeless or look like they might be.
In reality, people without a home who seek help or refuge in public places are in a vulnerable spot, far more likely to be victims of crime than a threat to others. Nonaggressive panhandling is protected speech under the First Amendment, sending a message not only about individual need but also about the worth of each person and the failures of our social structures. Our response should be to seek better ways to meet human need, not to attempt to drive away or hide from sight the people who remind us of those needs.
In any case, "vagrants" or "transients" are likely not the primary cause of insufficient "lingering" on the 16th Street Mall. The free shuttle on the mall was designed to be a key link in our public transportation system, and it fulfills that role well. The mall should be expected to have a higher rate of people simply passing through than a place not designed for that purpose.
New York City thrives as a tourist destination despite being far grittier, more diverse, and filled with greater extremes of wealth and visible poverty than the 16th Street Mall in Denver. Building on the attractions of the mall might help it more than cracking down on people identified as undesirable. We certainly should not want to replicate the racially-biased policing and excessive use of practices such as stop-and-frisk that New York is finally moving away from.
When I go to the 16th Street Mall, I find it a bustling urban corridor, a welcoming place to grab a bite to eat, and a very helpful way to get around downtown. Sometimes it is my destination and sometimes not. Either way, I have never felt unsafe. I may feel discomfort around the reality of poverty and homelessness if I see people asking for help, but that can happen anywhere, and it may be a message I need to hear. In any case, simple discomfort is not a justification for violating human rights, calling in the police, or keeping the public out of public spaces.
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Wednesday, July 22, 2015 - 4:23pmShow featured image
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