Part of state's financial privacy law upheld

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, September 5, 2008

(09-04) 23:29 PDT San Francisco -- A federal appeals court reinstated part of California's financial privacy law Thursday, allowing consumers to prevent banks from sharing information with affiliated companies about a customer's savings account or buying habits.

Click Here to sign the pledge and get your bumper sticker. https://secure.aclu.org

I Am a Constitution Voter

* I believe that no one -- including the President -- is above the law.
* I oppose all forms of torture, and I support both closing the Guantánamo Bay prison and ending indefinite detention.
* I oppose warrantless spying.
* I believe that government officials, no matter how high-ranking, should be held accountable for breaking the law and violating the Constitution.
* I believe that the Constitution protects every person's rights equally -- no matter what they believe, how they live, where or if they worship, and whom they love.
* I reject the notion that we have to tolerate violations of our most fundamental rights in the name of fighting terrorism.
* I am deeply committed to the Constitution and expect our country's leaders to share and act on that commitment -- every day, without fail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w1eSymFBOg
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A pay discrimination fix

California lawmakers should seize an opportunity to correct a flaw in gender-discrimination law.
August 26, 2008

A bill to restore to women (and men) the right to fully recover damages for gender-based pay discrimination got stuck in the U.S. Senate earlier this year, but California has an opportunity to move forward with a corrective measure of its own. Unfortunately, that bill too -- AB 437 by Assemblyman Dave Jones (D-Sacramento) -- is in danger of being blocked by critics who brand it a job killer.

That's absurd. Jones' bill simply makes clear that under state labor and fair-employment laws, an oddly reasoned 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision interpreting federal law does not apply.

And it shouldn't. The 5-4 decision in Ledbetter vs. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. undermined Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by impossibly restricting the period during which a victim of unlawful discrimination can try to get full compensation. The employee has to know she's being discriminated against (most victims are women) and must file within 180 days of the gender-based decision to pay her less than men in the same job. If she discovers the unequal treatment only after it has been perpetrated for years, it's too late. A career's worth of inequity turns into less than half a year's worth of compensation.

California Supreme Court: Docs Can’t Refuse to Treat Gays on Basis of Religious Beliefs

Continuing to blaze the way through gay rights law, the California Supreme Court decided yesterday (Monday) that doctors may not discriminate against gays and lesbians in medical treatment, even if the procedures being sought conflict with religious beliefs. Here are reports from the L.A. Times and the Recorder.

“The 1st Amendment’s right to the free exercise of religion does not exempt defendant physicians here from conforming their conduct to the . . . antidiscrimination requirements,” Justice Joyce L. Kennard wrote for the court. Here’s the opinion. [pdf]

Here’s what happened in the case: Guadalupe Benitez, a lesbian who lives with her partner and wants to become pregnant with donated sperm, filed a suit after Dr. Christine Brody said she wouldn’t perform an intrauterine insemination. In her lawsuit, Benitez alleged that Brody said her religious views prevented her from providing the procedure to a lesbian. Benitez also claimed that another physician at the clinic told her that the staff was uncomfortable helping her conceive a child.

[...]

More from Feminist Law Professors blog

Sister Helen Prejean, the Death Penalty, and the DNCC

By: Chloe Breyer
Wednesday August 20, 2008

Advance applause goes to the Democratic National Convention Committee for its decision to include Sister Helen Prejean author of Dead Man Walking in the historic interfaith service opening the 2008 Democratic Convention in Denver on August 24th.

[...]

Like secular anti-death penalty activists, Sister Helen's rationales for ending the death penalty include its racial and economic bias and the strong likelhood of wrongful executions. Another powerful argument grounded in Sister Helen's Roman Catholic faith is the "collateral" damage done by the death penalty on the wardens and corrections officials who are directly responsible for overseeing executions. What are the spiritual costs to men and women like Texas Warden, Jim Willett who from 1998-2001 oversaw 89 executions?

"There are times," Willet said in an award-winning NPR radio show Witness to an Execution, "when I'm standing there, watching those fluids flow and wonder whether what we are doing here is right. It is something I'll be thinking about for the rest of my life." The same program chronicled Fred Allen a member of the tie-down team in Texas' Wall Unit who after 120 executions had a mental breakdown and retired from his work.

[Click the picture below for video of the Rev. Ashiya Odeye and the link below for the story and videos of both the Rev and The Chairman of the Board, Jim Updegraff]

Council To Discuss Police Racial Profiling

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A report that suggests Sacramento police have been involved in racial profiling will be discussed tonight by the City Council.

A study released last week found that African-American drivers were more than twice as likely to be pulled over by police compared to non-black motorists. The study found Hispanic drivers are more likely to be searched after they are stopped.

[...]

Jim Updegraff of the local American Civil Liberties Union said the city now needs to root out officers involved in racial profiling. He said more training is needed and some offending officers may need to be fired.

"This is only the tip of the iceberg because the report only deals with motor vehicle stops and it doesn't deal with the most stops that happen, which are the ones that happen to the kids and people on the street or on their bicycles and things like that," the Rev. Ashiya Odeye from the ACLU said.

[...]

The City Council will meet at 6 p.m. at City Hall, located at 915 I St

[Agenda]

http://www.kcra.com/news/17167028/detail.html

[A story from the Bee, a story and video from KCRA, and the CRPC's website]

Report: Blacks stopped more often
By Ryan Lillis

Last Updated 10:12 am PDT Friday, August 8, 2008
Story appeared in OUR REGION section, Page B1

Black motorists are twice as likely to be pulled over by Sacramento police as nonblack drivers, according to a report [pdf] analyzing the Police Department's traffic stops.

The report, released to the city's Community Racial Profiling Commission late Thursday, also said black and Latino motorists were asked to get out of their vehicles at a higher rate than Asian and white drivers.

Black and Latino motorists, however, were no more likely to be cited than drivers of other races.

[DHS Sec. Michael Chertoff deliberately wants to scare you and has asserted that the REAL ID Act is going to protect you from some boogeyman, which is absurd as noted in the following story, for the simple fact that all technology can be hacked, and that when your info is in a so-called secure central database it's still vulnerable]

Biometric passport chips can be cloned in an hour, researcher warns

James Meikle
guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday August 06 2008 11:49 BST

New microchipped passports designed to protect against identity theft by terrorists and criminals can easily be faked, it was claimed today.

Tests showed that personal information could be cloned and manipulated within an hour before being inserted into new chips, the Times reported.

False confession videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xJlsxCGw9w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkLHXKHb1Vc

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False confessions: Even judges are biased by camera perspective

Category: News
Posted on: March 15, 2007 7:49 AM, by Dave Munger

When a suspect confesses to a crime, it's often seen as a clear victory for the prosecution. But what if the confession was coerced? Under the emotional strain of an interrogation, it happens more often than you'd think. In response to the problem of coercion, many police departments now videotape interrogations. This should eliminate all potential for abuse, right? Wrong. Teams led by Daniel Lassiter have found that when the camera is focused on the suspect instead of both the suspect and the interrogator, people are more likely to view the confession as voluntary rather than coerced (the video the viewers saw was based on the transcript of an actual false confession). Even when a judge warns jurors of the potential for bias due to camera perspective, the bias still occurs.