I came across an interesting website today, The Innocence Project, which according to its website is a “national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.” The organization was founded in 1992 to help prisoners who could be proven innocent through DNA testing.

One of the most startling facts presented on the website is this one:

To date, 194 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 14 who served time on death row. These people served an average of 12 years in prison before exoneration and release.

In other words, 194 people since 1992 have been cleared of all charges and were proven to be innocent through the help of DNA testing. These people were innocent and wrongfully convicted, and had their lives nearly destroyed. If 194 cases have thus far been caught, then how many other innocent people are rotting away in jail having been convicted of a crime they did not commit?

The Innocence Project goes even further than just tossing out a bunch of numbers. Available on their website is a national view of exonerations across the United States. By mousing over each state, you can find out how many people have been cleared. Clicking on the state will provide you access to even more information, including the nitty gritty details of each of the individuals cleared - including their full names, pictures, case info, and more.

It really makes you think about the whole justice system here in the United States, how things aren’t always fair or perfect, and how the system can be abused and manipulated. And for those who believe in the death penalty, I hope that these figures at least give you cause to think about how you feel about that issue again.

Julie Amero, a 40-year-old Connecticut substitute teacher, faces up to 40 years in prison after she was convicted in January of four counts of risk of injury to a minor. Amero was charged and convicted for exposing her students to pornography on a classroom computer.

Prosecutors insist that she intentionally was looking at lewd and pornographic images, while experts believe that it was more likely the fault of hidden spyware and adware, which can cause pop-up ads to take over a computer. Furthermore, Amero and her supports insist that the computer lacked a firewall and anti-spyware software that could have prevented the pop-up porn.

Amero was working as a substitute in October 2004 in a seventh-grade classroom. Some of the students were working on computers looking at hair styles, and then the pop-up ads began appearing on the one of the screens, featuring pornographic images. While the logical thing to do would have been to shut the computer off, Ms. Amero was under strict orders not to shut down any computer. So, she thus proceeded to shoo the students away, and shield the screen from their view.

Unfortunately for Julie Amero, her case seems to have been handled by a bunch of computer illiterate old men, who don’t understand not only is pornography readily accessible online whenever you want it, but it is also rampant in places and times when you don’t want it, such as in the form of pop-up ads.

Julie Amero was scheduled to be sentenced earlier this month, but it was delayed and will now occur on March 29. While we don’t yet know what kind of sentence she will be given, the fact that she has the potential to receive up to 40 years in prison for something that wasn’t her fault, is appalling. Rapists and child molesters get lesser punishments than this.

The people who should really be charged in this case are those working in the school district’s IT department who were too incompetent to protect the computers from today’s ever-present spam, spyware, and adware.

This week, the US will begin initial hearings for fourteen individuals that were transferred from secret CIA jails to the Guantanamo Bay military prison camp in Cuba. The trials are set to begin on Friday, March 9th, and amongst the detainees is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11th attacks. Noticeably missing from the trials, however, will be the press. The Bush administration made the decision to bar news media from being present at the hearings, closing off the hearings entirely.

The Associated Press, in a letter to Pentagon officials, criticized the decision to close off the hearings completely violates the Defense Department’s own regulations. And while they understand that some portions of the trial may need to be conducted without the press present, the AP notes that it is “an unconstitutional mistake to close the proceedings in their entirety.”

The purpose of the hearings is to determine whether a prisoner is an “enemy combatant”. If a prisoner is found to be an enemy combatant, the President may then designate him as eligible for a military trial. The first military trials are expected to begin this summer.

The Pentagon states that the hearings will be closed to the media to protect national security interests that could be compromised by statements made by the detainees. However, others don’t quite believe that that is the true reason behind barring the media. According to Scott Horton, chair of the international law committee of the New York City Bar Association, what they are really concerned about is that “these 14 will open their mouths and say what was done to them. They were tortured and mistreated, and that fact is classified secret, which just shows you the perversity in which this whole process is traveling.”

Not only will no press be allowed, but the detainees are also not allowed to have an attorney present, placing the legal burden on the detainee himself to demonstrate that he is not an enemy combatant. Classified evidence that the US military uses against the detainees is not revealed to them, which makes the possibility of them proving themselves innocent nearly non-exsistant.

Around the world on March 8th, countries celebrated International Women’s Day, which is a a day set aside internationally to celebrate achievements in women’s rights, and to protest injustice and violence against women and girls.

In Ghana, advocates spoke out against the removal of the rape clause from the country’s Domestic Violence Law. The marital rape clause sought to criminalize marital rape, but by removing it, it has exempted the perpetrators from punishment. Palestinian and Lebanese women came together in the Middle East for a conference which focused on the status of Palestinian women in Lebanon. The women came together to discuss the current state of women’s rights and injustices towards women, as well as celebrate achievements of the past.

All around the world, from Canada to India and everywhere in between, women made a call and pledge to stop the injustices committed towards women around the world, and within their own countries.

Just this week, French officials passed a law that makes it illegal for anyone other than professional journalists to film real-world violence and distribute the images on the Internet. The supposed purpose of the law is to put a stop to a new fad in France called “happy slapping.” While the name implies something less than violent, the reality is that “happy slapping” is the act a bunch of thugs and gang members going around and assaulting random, innocent people and filming it for distribution on the web.

While it is admirably that they wish to put a stop to such heinous acts of violence, the manner in which they are trying to accomplish this is severely hampering free speech. Sure, it bans the filming and distribution of “happy slapping”, but it goes much further and would make it illegal for a non-journalist to film, for instance, the recent riots in France or even videos of police brutality.

Imagine you witness a horrible police brutality on the streets of France, and you just happen to have a camcorder with you. Under old law, you could have filmed it and the victim would have some visual proof that would surely help their case. But now, under the new law, France discourages and even punishes citizen journalists for taping such acts of violence. Sure, an eyewitness testimony is helpful in such cases, but nothing beats visual proof.

This new law is troubling. I doubt it will stop the violence from occuring; the gangs will still go about beating random people, and they’ll probably even still video tape it. But what they might not do is share it with people through sites like YouTube. However, just because we can’t see the crimes happening, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It just means that now police will have a harder time tracking down the videos and finding out who is involved in the crimes. While the law makes it harder for cops to track down the criminals, it does make it easier for them to commit acts such as police brutality and penalize those who try to expose them.

What is commonly referred to as the Iran-Contra Affair was actually made up of two separate aspects: The sale of arms to Iran, a contravention of American Policy and Law; and the funneling of the profits from those sales to the anti-communist Contra resistance movement in Nicaragua.

Even though the affair happened more than 20 years ago, it is still pertinent to today’s world in that similarly immoral and illegal covert operations are allegedly being run by the current administration all over the Middle East, some say toward the end of provoking a military confrontation with Iran.

( http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact )

What was the Plan?

The plan, concocted by members of the CIA, the state department, and the armed forces, was to sell weapons to Iran in order to gain their help in securing the release of 30 American hostages being held by terrorists inside Iran. As the plan developed it was decided that profits from these sales should be funneled to the Nicaraguan Contra resistance fighters who were fighting a CIA directed battle to oust the Communist Sandanista Government.

The CIA was heavily involved with funding and training resistance movements in any South American country feared to be leaning toward communist governance, which would have bad results for American companies wishing to gain access to resources and markets. There are numerous atrocities that were committed directly by the CIA all over South American such as mining harbors and bombing airports (see Bob Woodward’s book: Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987 ). As knowledge of these acts spread through the senate action was taken to try to bring the CIA under control. This led to the Boland Amendment that outlawed financial support for the training of the Contras. Thus need to get money from other sources.

Who were the major players?

The main actors in the affair were CIA director William Casey, National Security Council (NSC) aide Oliver North, and National Security Advisor William Poindexter. Although President Ronald Reagan was shown not to have had knowledge of the affair by the Tower Commission he was criticized for not having better control over the NSC and the intelligence services.

Scandal and Aftermath

News of the affair broke after a Lebanese newspaper reported the sale of weapons to Iran in exchange for hostages. The resulting nationally televised senate hearings resulted in indictments for North, Poindexter and others. But through presidential pardons and legal technicalities none of those involved with the planning of the affair were actually sent to prison. William Casey, the CIA director who was a driving force behind the whole CIA South America anti-communist policy, conveniently died as the hearings began.

The treatment of the United States’ war veterans is beyond appalling. Despite the billions and billions of dollars that is being spent on the war in Iraq, soldiers have faced equipment and food shortages, and have seen their benefits cut. And then while they’re doing the honorable thing serving in Iraq and come home after having been wounded, soldiers face deplorable conditions in military hospitals.

In recent weeks, the Washington Post revealed the truly disgusting state of affairs at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Soldiers who stayed there in the past have spoken up, as have visitors to the center, and even some staff members.

Walter Reed is often the first stop for many American servicemen returning home with war-related injuries. You would assume that the medical center would be a top-of-the-line treatment facility with all of the best rehabilitation and treatment available. However, such an assumption was proven to be entirely wrong as Walter Reed was revealed to be a place where soldiers endured filthy and unsanitary environments, rampant drug use, and less-than-adequate medical care. Upon hearing this news, the nation was shocked, and at the same time embarrassed.

What makes this even more worse is the fact that top officials were informed of the problem and did absolutely NOTHING to stop it. It disgusts me that this country would send these soldiers into war expecting them to risk everything, and then upon their return having been injured, they are treated like low-life scum. Instead of supporting the troops, the government turned their backs on them, and for that they should be ashamed and punished.

The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, one of the largest man made natural disasters of all time, is commonly believed to have been caused by the negligence of the skipper who was drunk at the wheel. But recent research has shown the skipper was not at the wheel at all but was actually sleeping off his drunk when the third mate grounded the ship in the rocky straights of Prince William Sound. The result was the spilling of 11 million gallons of oil into the environmentally sensitive area.

The great tragedy of the matter is that it could have been prevented had Exxon followed their own safety standards. But in efforts to save money they left the boat running with faulty equipment for more than a year before the accident. Even more shocking is the fact that the Rycas Radar System, which would have allowed the 3rd mate to maneuver the ship safely through the straights, was turned off because the executives at Exxon deemed it too expensive to run. Even worse, the clean up ship that was legally required to ride alongside all oil tankers going through the strait was in dry dock at the time of the accident, allowing what should have been a containable spill to become one of the greatest environmental disasters in history.

Shocking evidence collected by Greg Palast ( www.gregpalast.com ) shows how efforts made by Captain James Woodle, Valdez Port Commander, to express the dangers of an oil spill in the Prince William Sound due to aging equipment, undermanned and undertrained clean up teams were not only ignored but purposely disregarded. The captain was apparently told when he reported a previous smaller spill in the same area, “You made a mistake. There was not an oil spill.”

This attitude is shown by Palast to have been standard operating procedure for Exxon and their partner company British Patrolium. The companies hired native workers who lived in the area to train for oil-spill containment. But what they found was that they were actually told to cover up oil spills rather than contain them. 2000 gallon spills were to be reported as 2 gallon spills. In the end however, the native teams were all fired once Exxon and BP broke the dock workers union strike, the dock workers were then put back on oil-clean up duty. With little training, old or non-existent equipment and a mandate to keep the area clean by leaving spills unreported.

The irony is that after the mistakes and downright criminal negligence shown by Exxon that led to the accident they were highly praised for their clean-up efforts. Even though many accounts show Exxon trying to deal with the problem as quickly and cheaply as possible, passing most of the work off onto locals and volunteers.

The Rwanda Genocide was a gruesome episode in human history which resulted from the conflict between the minority Tutsi peoples and the Hutu peoples between April and June 1994 in which as many as 1,000,000 people were slaughtered.

Historical Background

In the 15th century the Kingdom of Rwanda was formed when several clans of Tutsi merged. 85% of the population were Hutu, mostly peasants. The result was a serfdom with the Tutsis as rulers and landowners and the Hutu as landless farmers. During the late 1800s Rwanda fell under German colonial rule. The Germans didn’t however directly occupy the land, they instead appointed the Tutsi as their local representatives, further exacerbating the division between Hutu and Tutsi. Following World War I Rwanda was ruled by Belgium who continued the German method of indirect rule, further empowering the elite Tutsi minority. In 1959 Belgium allowed Rwanda the practice of self-government. This improved the lot of the Hutu greatly in general elections, however violence ensued and up to 20,000 Tutsis are thought to have died.

In 1985 the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RTF), was formed in Uganda mainly of Tutsi refugees. In 1990 the RTF invaded Rwanda in a bid to regain power. The ensuing civil war was ended in 1993 by when joint U.S. / French led to the Arusha Accords which reformed the government and paved the way for new elections to be held. The accords were not signed by all parties involved and thus failed to bring about the hoped for peace.

Lead up to Genocide

The failure of the accords resulted in a campaign of Hutu nationalism with many groups calling for violence against the Tutsis. Militias were formed, weapons amassed and training undertaken. It became the common belief of the Hutu controlled government that if the Tutsis were eliminated all of Rwanda’s problems would be over. This belief was put into action by distributing guns, grenades and other weapons openly. Shockingly, weapons were sold to the Hutu government in vast numbers by both French and British weapons manufacturers with seemingly full knowledge of how these weapons were to be used.

Genocide

The spark that finally ignited the genocide was the assassination of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundi’s Hutu President Cyprien Ntaryamira. This was supposedly carried out by the RTF, however some believe the CIA was involved with, if not directly responsible for, the assassination. The following day the genocide started in earnest with radio broadcasts containing the coded message to “Cut down the tall trees.” Tutsis were rounded up and slaughtered with unbelievable savagery. Between April and July 1994 massacres resulted in the deaths of between 800,000 and 1,000,000 people.

Failure to Intervene

The U.S., France, Russia, and China all refused to intervene in what they saw as an internal matter. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) commander, Canadian Major-General Romeo Dalliare repeatedly urged the U.S. and other nations to intervene. His please were ignored and President Bill Clinton explicitly refused to intervene. Only Belgium sent troops in to intevene but after the savage murder of 10 of their troops pulled out. Dalliare was ordered to assist in helping foreign nationals out of the country, he did this as well as organized Canadian, Ghanian and Dutch soldiers in an effort to protect what Tutsis they could from annihilation.

In April the UN Security Council finally called for troops to be sent in to quell the violence, but squabbles over finances held up their deployment. In June the French decided on their own to send in forces which finally did bring the violence under control.

Relief Efforts and Aftermath

Relief efforts finally did start to begin following the subsiding of violence, but it was meek and ill-organized. There are many tales of heroism and selflessness however as people tried to bring help to the savaged nation. Israel organized the largest medical relief effort in history with thousands of doctors and medical staff volunteering to help out. The UN began to hold trials for crimes against humanity in 1999 and the country slowly started the long journey back to civilization. The country is still however in dire straights.

The inaction of the UN and various world powers helped this nationalist conflict reach inhuman heights of barbarity and depravity. This horrible page of human history should be remembered always when warnings of similar situations are given.

For further information please check out the book co-written by Major-General Dalliare entitled: Shake Hands with the Devil.

The Canadian province of Quebec has stated that the US state of Michigan is guilty of enforcing laws that fail to live up to the standards of human decency. This is resulting from Michigan’s Zero Tolerance drug laws. The law, which has been called the harshest in the nation would put a first time offender behind bars for life, without parole, for possession of 650 grams of cocaine or more with intent to sell.

This law is part of the ‘mandatory minimums’ system of drug enforcement that is popular in many US states. That a first time offender can be jailed for that length of time without parole is not only unbelievable it is also immoral and inhuman.

The law was apparently introduced to target Drug Kingpins, but a rational look at the policy clearly points out that this law is actually aimed at low-level dealers. Most of whom will obviously be young people living in inner-city slums and the like. Here is a list of the graded mandatory minimum sentences:

If this policy truly were aimed at major drug dealers the minimum amount for life in prison would be set much higher as drug kingpins are unlikely to deal in amounts which could easily be carried by one person in a small bag.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill: The truest measure of a society is how it treat’s it’s prisoners.