Unless the courts stop them, [federal prosecutors] are incapable of stopping themselves. – Michael Piccarreta
If only there were a concise term for “having sex without consent”:
A [typical and representative Texas cop named Hector Aaron Ruiz has] pleaded guilty…to kidnapping a…woman he pulled over in 2019 and…[raped after forc]ing her [under color of law to] follow him…to a [remote area]…eight months a[go]…Ruiz [was found] guilty of obstructing, destroying and altering records…[when he] raped [a different woman] in her home…[even though the] jury [let him skate on the actual crime]…
Rapist cops are rarely caught after only one victim:
Brian Helfert, a…[typical and representative cop paid to spy on, untimidate, and harass high school students in Michigan, regularly moles]ted teen boys between 2003 and 2019. In December, he was convicted of [a lesser charge, and has previously been slapped on the wrist for molesting boys]…He…[now] faces two more c[harges]…for…sexually assault[ing yet another 13-year-old boy]…
A small and soon-to-be-circumvented obstacle to Amazon’s fascist collaboration with cops:
Amazon’s Ring has announced that it will no longer facilitate police’s warrantless requests for footage from Ring users. This…will…not stop police from trying to [intimidate] Ring…owners [into handing over recordings] without a warrant….[Several] years ago, after public outcry and a lot of criticism from EFF and other organizations, Ring ended its practice of allowing police to automatically send requests for footage to a user’s email inbox, opting instead for a system where police had to publicly post requests onto Ring’s Neighbors app. Now, Ring hopefully will altogether be out of the business of platforming casual and warrantless police requests for footage…This is a step in the right direction, but has come after years of cozy relationships with police and irresponsible handling of data…We also remain deeply skeptical about law enforcement’s and Ring’s ability to determine what is, or is not, an emergency…and…the mass existence of doorbell cameras, whether subsidized and organized into registries by cities or connected and centralized through technologies like Fusus, will continue to threaten civil liberties…
The most significant national threat to reproductive rights is…a…long dormant law from 1873 that could ban abortion nationwide: the Comstock Act…named after Anthony Comstock, a…[deeply-deranged, self-loathing pervert] who used his power as a special agent of the US Postal Service to enforce his beliefs about sex…He was able to persuade Congress to pass laws against “indecent or immoral” materials, including broad definitions of contraception, pornography and abortion. Some [forced-birth] advocates are interpreting this law, which remained on the books during the half century that Roe v. Wade was in force, to ban mailing anything that induces an abortion. Because virtually everything used for an abortion — from abortion pills, to the instruments for abortion procedures, to clinic supplies — gets mailed to providers in some form, this interpretation…could mean a nationwide ban on all abortions, even in states where it remains legal. The Comstock Act must be repealed, and in our view, that process needs to begin this year…
A 61-year-old man is suing Macy’s and the parent company of Sunglass Hut over the stores’…use of a facial recognition system that misidentified him as the culprit behind an armed robbery and led to his wrongful arrest. While in jail, he was beaten and raped, according to his suit. Harvey Eugene Murphy Jr was accused…of robbing a Houston-area Sunglass Hut of thousands of dollars of merchandise in January 2022, though…he was living in California at the time…He was arrested on 20 October 2023…when…he [tried]…to renew his [Texas driver’s] license. Within minutes of identifying himself to a DMV clerk…he was arrested and…brutally beaten and gang-raped by three other men in the jail…
Remember that old legal protection we used to have against double jeopardy?
On Tues., Jan. 23, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix informed federal Judge Diane Humetewa of its intention to retry veteran journalist Michael Lacey on 84 counts, for which a [hung] jury did not return verdicts during a 2023 trial. Th[is]…means the Backpage case, which began in April 2018 with the FBI’s destruction of the website and the arrests of six people…will drag on into its seventh year and likely longer…
The Puritan Recrudescence (#1391)
An anti-porn bill in Oklahoma is so extreme that it [w]ould even make sexting outside of a marriage a crime. The…bill would make merely viewing “obscene materials” a felony…It’s part of a wave of conservative plans targeting a very broad definition of “porn”—First Amendment be damned—that threatens not just “hardcore pornography” but all sorts of erotic expression…[b]y attempt[ing] to drastically expand what is considered illegal obscenity or pornography…Oklahoma Senate Bill 1976—comes from state Sen. Dusty Deevers…who also put forth legislation to repeal no-fault divorce…the…bill attempts to carve out a new category of largely prohibited content called “unlawful pornography”…which…is broad enough to include all partnered or solo porn photos and videos (even the more tame stuff), and possibly even erotic drawings, strip clubs, burlesque, drag, depictions of domination, and more…and…would be partially enforced by private lawsuits…
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