Remember that big spending bill Congress passed last month? Somehow, it eliminated an amendment that would have banned the IRS from hiring private firms to go after delinquent taxpayers, a tactic President Bush supported.

So now, the IRS can use commercial debt collectors who will be allowed to keep up to 25% of what they rake in. Where are the controls against harassment? Against the invasion of privacy? There are none. This is the Bush Administration, remember?

Is this a travesty akin to the Tuskeegee experiments? The BBC reports on Guinea Pig Kids in New York. The show first aired on November 30. If there's a re-run, and you get BBC on cable, definitely tune in:

Vulnerable children in some of New York's poorest districts are being forced to take part in HIV drug trials....During a nine month investigation, the BBC has uncovered the disturbing truth about the way authorities in New York City are conducting the fight against Aids.

HIV positive children - some only a few months old - are enrolled in toxic experiments without the consent of guardians or relatives. In some cases where parents have refused to give children their medication, they have been placed in care.

The medication, according to some doctors, is potentially lethal for the children:

by TChris

Jim Taricani has likely been spared a contempt sentence for his failure to identify the person who gave him a videotape that captured a public official accepting a bribe. The journalist was to appear in court next week to be sentenced for his refusal to obey an order to reveal his source, but the source has outed himself, obviating the need for Taricani's information.

Special Prosecutor Marc DeSisto said Joseph Bevilacqua, a Rhode Island defense attorney, voluntarily identified himself last week as the source of the videotape.

The City of Portland, Oregon will pay out $300,000 in damages to protesters affected by excessive police force during anti-Bush and anti-war demonstrations last year:

In the two lawsuits, the plaintiffs argued that the city, Mayor Vera Katz, then-police Chief Mark Kroeker and several officers violated their rights to free speech and free assembly by dousing them with pepper spray at close range and firing rubber stingballs into a crowd. Those who brought the suits used videotaped footage to support the claims.

"We hope that getting a settlement of this size will send a message and result in some more accountability than the police have had to date," said Liz Joffe, one of the lawyers representing the group. "If they continue to attack peaceful protesters and use excessive force to suppress free speech activity, we'll come back again and again until the city recognizes it's too expensive and makes needed reforms."

The settlement has been approved by all necessary parties. [link via Cursor.]

The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Mass. Transit Authority violated free speech rights in refusing to carry advertisements supporting the legalization of marijuana.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority rejected three ads submitted by the group Change the Climate in 2000, claiming they encouraged children to smoke pot. The transit authority argued that it has the right to protect riders from offensive or illegal messages.

But the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found Monday that the MBTA, a quasi-government agency, does not have the right to turn down ads based on its viewpoint. Doing so violates the First Amendment, the court ruled.

"MBTA advertising space is literally a billboard for the expression of opinions to citizens at large. As a government agency, they shouldn't have the right to pick and choose what opinions they allow to be advertised," said Harvey Schwartz, an attorney for Change the Climate.

by TChris

An effort to amend the Alabama Constitution by eliminating provisons once used to disadvantage minority groups appears to have been narrowly defeated.

The proposed amendment would delete unenforced sections of the constitution that mandate racially segregated schools and allow poll taxes, once used to discourage blacks from voting. ... Alabama's constitution mandated separate schools "for white and colored children" and imposed poll taxes. After the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision banning school segregation, Alabama amended its constitution to say there is no constitutional right to an education at public expense.

Unless a recount produces a different result, the proposed amendment failed by 1,850 votes — a margin of 0.13%. The notorious Roy Moore, who championed the display of the Ten Commandments in the state courthouse, opposed the amendment.

by TChris

Bobby Frank Cherry recently died of cancer, ending a life sentence that was imposed two-and-a-half years ago, after he was convicted of participating in the 1963 bombing of Montgomery's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

The violence of that explosion injured 20 people and ended the lives of four black children -- 14-year-olds Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins and 11-year-old Denise McNair. ... Though we did not call it so at the time, the act that killed them was an act of terrorism as brutal in its callousness as the Mideast terrorism we now condemn.

Nancy Grape finds in Cherry's death "a timely chance this Thanksgiving weekend to remember that long before this country was set off in blocs of red and blue states, it had been shriven by a far deeper conflict, this one in colors of black and white." She asks a timely question: is the Bush administration's Justice Department committed to the struggle for civil rights? (TalkLeft's background coverage of the Department's lessened attention to the enforcement of civil rights laws is here.)

Meet your new big brother: The Department of Transportation. Along the same lines as the national ID card, the government is working on developing and implementing a nationwide system for tracking drivers of vehicles. This hit the news in September, but we've seen very little about it.

The agency is the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office.

Most people have probably never heard of the agency, called the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office. And they haven't heard of its plans to add another dimension to our national road system, one that uses tracking and sensor technology to erase the lines between cars, the road and the government transportation management centers from which every aspect of transportation will be observed and managed.

If your passport is due to expire soon, you might want to consider renewing it earlier than usual-- like now. The State Department has plans to put an embedded computer chip in passports, as early as next year, that raise serious privacy concerns. Critics charge the information can be viewed from several feet away by utlizing a practice called "skimming." It's not just the ACLU that is concerned: Britain, Canada and Germany are chiming in as well.

This is like putting an invisible bull's-eye on Americans that can be seen only by the terrorists," said Barry Steinhardt, the director of the A.C.L.U. Technology and Liberty Program. "If there's any nation in the world at the moment that could do without such a device, it is the United States."

The organization wants the State Department to take security precautions like encrypting the data, so that even if it is downloaded by unauthorized people, it cannot be understood.

Think of it like a "smart card" used at the subway turnstiles or toll booths. The card will soon be required of all visitors to the U.S. who are considered low security (because of the country they are traveling from)and don't need a visa:

A new study finds that since 1999, criminal prosecutions for civil rights violations have declined.

One of the study's authors, David Burnham, said the results showed that civil rights enforcement dropped across the board in President Bush's first term in office. "Collectively, some violators of the civil rights laws are not being dealt with by the government," Professor Burnham said. "This trend, we think, is significant."

It is unlikely the decline has occurred because of fewer civil rights violations occurring, the study suggests. The number of complaints about possible violations received by the Justice Department has remained at about 12,000 annually for each of the past five years.

The largest number of prosecutions brought by the Justice Department overwhelmingly have been for drug crimes.

Let's hope James Dobson and his fellow radical evangelicals are crying in their eggnog tonight, after losing a round at the Air Force Academy in their home town of Colorado Springs. A 'Jesus banner' will be taken down from the team's locker room. This was no ordinary banner. The message, part of something called the "competitor's creed," read:

"I am a Christian first and last ... I am a member of Team Jesus Christ."

The banner was put up Wednesday by the team's coach, Fisher DeBerry, who agreed Friday to take it down. The Academy seems to be taking the right course. It has warned staffers against including biblical verses as taglines on Academy e-mail. It disapproved of cadets using Academy e-mail to urge seeing Passion of the Christ. And on Thursday, the Superintendant announced the Academy would begin religious tolerance training.

Outgoing Air Force Secretary James Roche issued a statement about it. Note the use of the positive vs. the negative. Instead of saying intolerance won't be permitted, he says:

"Our policy is clear. Tolerance of gender, racial, ethnic and religious diversity is required at our Air Force," Roche said.

I like it. I bet James Dobson doesn't. His role at the Academy seems to be dwindling--it's been two years since the Academy Parachute team, which in 1993 delivered the keys to Dobson's new building to him, has performed at a religious event.

It's still Mountains High, Bias Deep at the Academy. But good for its leadership for recognizing the problem and making an effort to change.

by TChris

To show his support for free expression, Ray Morris spent a week living on the roof of an adult bookstore in Salina, Kansas.

"I can't stress enough that I am not promoting porn," Morris said. "I'm promoting the idea of choice. Everyone has a right to choose whether they want to enter these stores."

Morality activists are circulating petitions calling for a grand jury to investige whether the store is selling obscene materials. A similar petition drive resulted in indictments against a bookstore near Abilene.

Morris considered his week-long protest to be a positive experience. Ironically, a few people disagreed with his position on obscenity by making obscene gestures.