February, 26 2020, 11:00pm EDT
Final #Cabeza9 Misdemeanor Charge Against Dr. Scott Warren Dismissed
Late Wednesday, February 26th, prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the final #Cabeza9 charge against Dr. Scott Warren. At a hearing in Tucson at 10AM Judge Raner Collins granted the motion, ending over two years of government prosecution.
TUCSON, ARIZONA
Late Wednesday, February 26th, prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the final #Cabeza9 charge against Dr. Scott Warren. At a hearing in Tucson at 10AM Judge Raner Collins granted the motion, ending over two years of government prosecution.
Dr. Warren was acquitted last November of felony charges for offering food, water, and beds to two undocumented migrants in Ajo, Arizona. On the same day, Judge Collins issued a long-awaited decision regarding separate misdemeanor charges for humanitarian aid on the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in an area known as "the trail of death." Dr. Warren was found not guilty of one charge, abandonment of property, due to a religious freedom claim under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), however, he was found guilty of "Operating a Motor Vehicle in a Wilderness Area." This final charge has now been dismissed.
"Today the government took the position that people of conscience should not be prosecuted for acts of humanitarian aid," said Defense Attorney Greg Kuykendall in a statement outside court. "In other words humanitarian aid, by definition, is not a crime."
The Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge covers over 803,000 acres of remote desert with no natural water sources and very few publicly accessible roads, making it one of the deadliest migration corridors along the border. Since 2001, 179 people have been recovered in this remote area and countless more remain missing. No More Deaths has been active in the area since 2014. Four additional No More Deaths volunteers faced the same charges for humanitarian aid work in the area, were convicted and sentenced, but recently had their convictions reversed on appeal, also due to a RFRA claim.
"We will continue to provide care and solidarity to people in the borderlands," said media coordinator Paige Corich-Kleim outside of court. "Despite our organization's victory today, we must also acknowledge the escalating violence toward directly affected communities--many people who seek justice in this country never find it."
Read the full statements here.
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Report Exposes US Corporations That Pay Their Execs More Than They Pay in Taxes
"Both kinds of corporate misbehavior—underpaying taxes and overpaying executives—ultimately make working families the victim through smaller paychecks and diminished public services."
Mar 13, 2024
Top executives at dozens of major, profitable U.S. businesses received more in total compensation in recent years than their companies paid in federal taxes, underscoring the twin outrages of skyrocketing CEO pay and rampant corporate tax dodging.
A report published Wednesday by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) identifies 35 profitable U.S. corporations that paid their top executives more than they paid the federal government in taxes between 2018 and 2022. The list of companies includes Ford, Netflix, NextEra Energy, and Tesla—whose CEO, Elon Musk, is the richest man in the world.
ATF and IPS found 64 companies that paid their top five executives more than they paid in taxes in at least two of the five years examined.
Tesla, which has received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal subsidies and loans, paid nothing in federal taxes during the period examined by the new report, as the electric car company carried forward losses from previous years to offset the $4.4 billion in U.S. profits it made between 2018 and 2022—the first five years of the Trump-GOP tax law that slashed rates for the rich and corporations.
Additionally, the report points to Tesla's apparent use of "accounting schemes" such as "shifting American profits to offshore tax havens."
Meanwhile, in 2018, Tesla's board gave Musk a staggering $2.28 billion pay package, which was at the time "the largest compensation plan in public corporate history." (In 2021, the ratio of Musk's compensation and that of the median Tesla employee was roughly 18,000 to 1.)
"In the intervening years, with the rise in the price of Tesla shares, the value of those options has grown to an eye-watering $56 billion. It became so outlandish as compensation for a single individual that a court in corporate-friendly Delaware struck it down," the new report notes. "Even if that decision survives appeal, whatever Tesla winds up paying Musk will still be more than it pays Uncle Sam."
The other profitable companies that paid their top executives more than they paid in taxes during the five-year study period were T-Mobile, American International Group, Duke Energy, DISH Network, Principal Financial, Metlife, American Electric Power, Kinder Morgan, Dominion Energy, Oneok, Williams, Xcel Energy, FirstEnergy, NRG Energy, Salesforce, DTE Energy, Ameren, Sempra Energy, United States Steel, Entergy, AmerisourceBergen, PPL, CMS Energy, Evergy, Voya Financial, Darden Restaurants, Atmos Energy, Alliant Energy, Match Group, UGI, and Agilent Technologies.
"America's working families are cheated twice when major corporations pay too little to the federal government in taxes while paying too much to their top executives."
The new report argues it is "no coincidence" that companies notorious for paying little to nothing in federal taxes despite massive profits also grant their executives huge pay packages.
"Executives are rewarded for 'tax efficiency'—the euphemism for corporate tax dodging—which is often an easier way to raise profits than by creating goods and services more customers want to buy," the report notes. "And compliant corporate boards have more money to throw around the executive suite when their firms pay less in taxes."
CEOs are often able to make use of so-called "top hat" plans that allow them to set aside unlimited sums, tax-free, for retirement.
David Kass, ATF's executive director, said that "both kinds of corporate misbehavior—underpaying taxes and overpaying executives—ultimately make working families the victim through smaller paychecks and diminished public services."
Thanks to cuts to the corporate tax rate and persistent loopholes, the effective U.S. corporate tax rate has declined sharply in recent decades, falling from around 50% in the 1950s to 17% in 2022—depriving the government of revenue that could be used for key domestic priorities, from healthcare to housing to environmental protection.
"America's working families are cheated twice when major corporations pay too little to the federal government in taxes while paying too much to their top executives in lavish compensation packages," the study argues.
The report estimates that hiking the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% would bring in $1.3 trillion in federal revenue over the next decade.
ATF and IPS also point to the "wealth of proposals" in Congress aimed at reining in out-of-control CEO pay. Earlier this year, progressive lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced legislation that would hike taxes on corporations that pay their top executives over 50 times more than their median workers.
The bill's supporters estimate that it could raise up to $150 billion over 10 years.
"For corporations to reward a handful of top executives more than they are contributing to the cost of all the public services needed for our economy to thrive reflects the deep flaws in our public regulation of corporations," said ATF and IPS. "Rather than more tax breaks, Congress should focus on addressing these deficiencies by cracking down on the use of tax havens, eliminating wasteful corporate subsidies, and closing loopholes that further enrich wealthy corporate executives."
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'Disturbing': Intel Chair Used Schumer Protests to Push Warrantless Spying
"If any lawmakers were still on the fence and waiting for a smoking gun, THIS IS IT," said one advocate of reforming Section 702.
Mar 12, 2024
Privacy advocates issued fresh calls for changes to a historically abused U.S. spying program on Tuesday after Wiredreported that a top Republican congressman privately tried using peaceful protests as proof of the need to block long-demanded reforms.
"If you care about the First Amendment, please stop everything and read this Wired article," Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Liberty & National Security Program, said on social media, sharing the piece.
Wired's Dell Cameron obtained a pair of presentation slides and spoke with multiple GOP staffers who attended a December 11 meeting with Rep. Mike Turner, the Ohio Republican who chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).
"This is ice in the heart of our democracy."
The meeting was about competing legislation to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows warrantless surveillance targeting noncitizens located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information, but also sweeps up Americans' data—and has been misused, particularly by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. One of the bills would require the FBI to get a warrant before accessing U.S. citizens' communications.
Turner—who opposes the bill with that and other reforms—reportedly displayed the slides about 15 minutes into the meeting, which latest over an hour. The first shows a photo of opponents of Israel's genocidal U.S.-backed war on the Gaza Strip protesting outside the Brooklyn residence of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). It does not note that the October 13 action was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace.
The second slide features a social media post from Washington Free Beacon staff writer Matthew Foldi that contains misinformation suggesting Hamas—which governs Gaza and is designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. government—was tied to a November demonstration at the Democratic leader's residence. The slides do not make clear that they were different events.
"At the outset of the presentation, he's running through slides, making his case for why 702 reauthorization is needed," one senior Republican aide told Wired about Turner's presentation. "Then he throws up that photo. The framing was: 'Here are protesters outside of Chuck Schumer's house. We need to be able to use 702 to query these people.'"
As Cameron detailed:
Jeff Naft, the HPSCI spokesperson, says the purpose of the slides was to illustrate that, even if the protesters did have ties to Hamas, they would "not be subject to surveillance" under the 702 program. "702 is not used to target protestors," he says. "702 is used on foreign terrorist organizations, like Hamas. Chairman Turner's presentation was a distinction exercise to explain the difference between a U.S. person and Hamas."
Wired's sources, who are not authorized to discuss closed-door briefings and requested anonymity to do so, describe this as a conflation of two separate issues—a tactic, they say, that has become commonplace in the debate over the program's future. "Yes, it's true, you cannot 'target' protesters under 702," one aide, a legislative director for a Republican lawmaker, says. "But that doesn't mean the FBI doesn't still have the power to access those emails or listen to their calls if it wants."
In response to Wired's reporting, Goitein—who was quoted in the piece—said on social media that "if any lawmakers were still on the fence and waiting for a smoking gun, THIS IS IT. Turner has made the stakes crystal clear. A vote to reauthorize Section 702 without a warrant requirement is a vote to allow the FBI to keep tabs on protesters exercising [First Amendment] rights."
"HPSCI leaders are reportedly trying to persuade congressional leaders to slip a Section 702 reauthorization into one of the upcoming funding bills," she pointed out. "Lawmakers must be given the opportunity to vote on Section 702 reforms, including a warrant requirement and other critical protections for Americans' civil liberties. Our First Amendment rights depend on it."
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) abruptly delayed action on Section 702 last month after Turner announced that the HPSCI had provided members of Congress with "information concerning a serious national security threat," which news outlets reported was that Russia has made alarming progress on a space-based nuclear weapon designed to target U.S. satellites. Critics called it a ploy by the chair to force through the spying program and demanded his immediate resignation.
Among the groups that pressured Turner to step down last month was Demand Progress, a longtime supporter of Section 702 reforms whose policy director, Sean Vitka, was also quoted in Wired's piece and issued a statement about the "disturbing" revelations.
"This is ice in the heart of our democracy," Vitka said. "Americans' right to protest is sacred, and all the more critical given the political volatility 2024 is certain to produce. As intelligence agencies and congressional intelligence committees mislead the public about what's at stake in this fight for privacy, Chairman Turner has been secretly selling his colleagues on backdoor searches of Americans as a way to help the FBI spy on protesters without so much as a court order."
Calling for "a forceful response" from Schumer, Johnson, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), he argued that "Congress must stop letting the House Intelligence Committee dictate its agenda by secretly vetoing any meaningful reform. In the coming weeks, Congress has the opportunity to enact meaningful privacy protections that would protect protesters and all people in the United States from warrantless surveillance, specifically by closing the backdoor search and data broker loopholes."
Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, also weighed in on the reporting.
"Americans exercising their constitutional right to protest have a right to be free from warrantless surveillance. There should be no suggestion that foreign intelligence authorities can be used to target protestors; that would be counter to our core American values," Scott said. "This discussion is one more example of why Congress must pass a warrant requirement to ensure that these searches are not subject to abuse."
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Columbia Sued Over 'Retaliatory' Suspension of Pro-Palestine Student Groups
"Universities should be havens for robust debate, discussion, and learning—not sites of censorship where administrators, donors, and politicians squash political discourse they don't approve of," said the head of the NYCLU.
Mar 12, 2024
The New York Civil Liberties Union and Palestine Legal on Tuesday filed a lawsuit on behalf of members of two pro-Palestine student groups at Columbia University which avocates say were illegally suspended for engaging in peaceful protests and other events protected under the First Amendment.
The suit—filed on behalf of the Columbia chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)—seeks the groups' reinstatement. Under pressure from people including wealthy pro-Israel donors, Columbia officials unilaterally
suspended the school's JVP and SJP chapters in November, claiming the groups repeatedly held "unauthorized" events including protests and teach-ins since October 7, when Hamas-led attacks on Israel prompted genocidal retaliation against the people of Gaza.
"Universities should be havens for robust debate, discussion, and learning—not sites of censorship where administrators, donors, and politicians squash political discourse they don't approve of," NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman said in a statement.
"These student groups were peacefully speaking out on a critical global conflict, only to have Columbia University ignore their own longstanding, existing rules and abruptly suspend the organizations," Lieberman added. "That's retaliatory, it's targeted, and it flies in the face of the free speech principles that institutes of higher learning should be defending. Students protesting at private colleges still have the right to fair, equal treatment—and we are ready to fight that battle in court."
Maryam Alwan, an organizer with Columbia's SJP chapter, said that "Ivy League institutions should not attract students who value justice and equality if they do not want to be held accountable for the ideals that they claim to uphold."
"As a Palestinian American student, I should have the same right to speak out on my campus as everyone else—and no amount of targeted policy changes or illegitimate suspensions will prevent us from advocating for the Palestinian people," Alwan added.
Cameron Jones, a JVP organizer at the school, argued that "Columbia must protect all Jewish students and voices, not just those adhering to a specific political belief."
"The university's decision to suspend a Jewish group sets a concerning precedent for safeguarding free speech on college campuses," Jones added. "It not only took away our rights as a club, but told us that our university does not support or respect anti-Zionist Jews or their beliefs."
Palestine Legal staff attorney Radhika Sainath noted that "for decades, Columbia students have been at the forefront of speaking out against segregation, war, and apartheid and SJP and JVP sit squarely in this tradition."
"It is precisely because these principled students pose a threat to the status quo that they are being targeted for McCarthyist censorship, but the law does not allow it," Sainath asserted. "Universities must abide by their own rules and may not punish student groups speaking out for Palestinian rights in the moment when they are most essential—even if donors and lobby groups complain."
"For decades, Columbia students have been at the forefront of speaking out against segregation, war, and apartheid and SJP and JVP sit squarely in this tradition."
The Columbia suspensions came amid a nationwide campus crackdown on criticizing Israel or advocating for Palestinian rights. Some students have fought back. In November, the University of Florida SJP chapter sued state education officials and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis over their move to deactivate the group over its support for Palestinians' legally enshrined right to resist Israeli occupation, apartheid, and other crimes.
Conversely, five Jewish students and two organizations last month sued Columbia and Barnard College alleging "particularly severe and pervasive" campus antisemitism, while a Jewish student at Columbia's School of Social Work filed a separate discrimination lawsuit last month.
There has been a dramatic increase in reports acts of both antisemitism and Islamophbia on U.S. campuses and in wider society since October 7.
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