Malheur or "Beware the Slighted White Man"

How do you get to this point?

Less than a second after this image was taken, the man in the hat will be fatally shot.

He is 54 years old, married and father of 11 children. And he will be shot down as he stands in the snow, reaching for a 9mm handgun as four law enforcement officers are aiming weapons at him.

What is this man thinking?

I've heard more than a few people react to this as "Good!" or "he got what he deserved," but really - this is a genuine tragedy.

Eleven people call this man 'dad,' yet he chose to illegally occupy federal buildings with a gun. Chose to declare to the national media that "these buildings will never, ever return to the federal government."

When pulled over by authorities, this man - with other people in the car - chose to flee. Risking his own life and the lives of his passenger & those of the officers who had to give chase.

With officers in hot pursuit and a roadblock ahead of his vehicle, this man chose not to slow down, but attempted to drive around it - burying the front of his truck in the snow & missing an officer by a few feet. Again, this man and his passenger could have been injured or killed in the crash. Had the officer in question taken a few more steps before the crash, they might have been seriously injured or killed.

The police could have (justifiably) fired into the truck as it narrowly missed one of their officers. This man or his passenger could have died as a result.

And finally, this man chose to exit their truck & raise their arms, the first sane thing they do in this entire sad affair. They are confronted by five officers in front and one behind. After noticing the officer behind them, the man lowers his hands and puts one into his coat four seconds later.

So the police kill him.

I have a lot of sympathy for this man's family. To watch a family member do what this man did must baffle them. Even steeped in a family mindset, surely they are wondering why didn't he keep his hands up?

And the capstone to this entire thing is that this man died for a cause that was lost before he was even born.

There is no chance that all federal lands in the west are going to become private lands, or even state lands in this century.

This man threw his life away for complete bullsh!t. Bullsh!t he apparently believed above everything else - above even love for his children. That is just sad beyond measure.

Think of how deluded a person would have to be to think that seizing a federal bird sanctuary would cause the federal government to give up federal lands. This is something that can only be done by Congress - a body that has never even brought such a bill to the floor in decades. The same body that can barely muster the energy to raise the debt ceiling - this is the group that is suddenly going to spring into action to appease a small group of malcontents camped out in the middle of frozen nowhere.

Had this man bothered to check the political winds even a little bit - he would have learned that the rest of the nation has no idea that the feds own so much land. The rest of the nation could give a sh!t about federal land ownership and less than a half of a sh!t about people who do.

What's that you say, grandpaw? You're mad at the gubment? Well, get in line.

And I get that western residents have locked horns with the feds over land for ages. Some of their grievances I might have patience to listen to. But the reality is that the federal lands belong to everyone.

And everyone outnumbers the hell out of the few folks out west who want to graze for free. That's democracy - majority rule, with rights for all. And there is no right in the Constitution that says you can use or take federal land just because you're unhappy. Unless you can win over enough people to sway Congress - you're pretty much outta luck.

And guys like this unfortunate father of eleven, were fed up with being out of luck. They will not be ignored....!  

But they are, nobody cares about them - or even thinks about them.

Oh, but they will.... Frustrated and unknown, these folks are gonna get heard. So they grab a gun, all the stuff they own that looks mil-spec and dress up like soldiers of the government they claim to hate.

Because it makes them feel powerful. And they get attention. And their ranks begin to swell.

The gun makes people have to pay attention. Not because they care about the message, but because they are afraid you are going to hurt someone. This laughable nonsense that the guns are there for "defense" is even dumber than the idea that Congress is going to do what they ask.

The militia have guns for defense - in case the cops attack them.

Psst! You in the cowboy hat! I'll let you in on a secret. GUNS ATTRACT COPS.

It's a fact. You go to a public place as an armed group and cops will come to you. Guns are cop catnip, and everybody knows it except these militia idiots. Take the "defense" argument another few steps down the road and you're at the next secret these idiots don't appear to realize: GUNS HAVE NEVER MADE THE COPS GO AWAY.
If you have the weapons, they come to you - but if you SHOOT any of the weapons near the police, you will have attracted the attention of ALL OF THE POLICE. For how long? UNTIL THEY GET YOU.

So, your "defense" argument is stupid from any angle, cowboy-man.

Guns work wonders at getting media attention, though - and if you were smart - you'd find a way to attract the media without the cops.

Militias, being idiots, get both.

Still, when cameras are finally aimed at them - they come to a terrible realization:
They are in no way prepared to make a national statement.

If the Bundys had a brain in their head, they would have vetted a group of committed westerners and presented themselves to the nation in a non-threatening, but extremely public way.

The key to protesting is to make the public identify with you - so they sympathize with you.

Bundy and Co announced their collective Other-hood in 60pt bold. Chest thumping stupidity became their brand. Their ranks were stocked with a mix of those who were committed to the cause and those who needed to be committed to a padded room. Tarps, Fluffy Bunny, sumo guy for God's sake.

With every week, the militia added another star to the "We are Freaks" flag flying over Malheur.

The feds did something smart - perhaps not on purpose - by waiting long enough for these malcontents to become a national joke before they made their move.

I have wondered if the totality of their failure became evident to them before the shooting of this sad man. Such a realization might drive a slighted white man to do something rash.

But I still cannot help but wonder what it was in the mind of LaVoy Finicum that kept him going  - even in the face of overwhelming evidence that his personal cause was lost. Did he really think he could shoot his way out? Did he think his death would change anything?

(LaVoy's ghost - if you're reading this, the answer to that last one is NO.)

And what, in the name of anything held holy would compel a man to desert his children like that?

Don't you even say "Patriotism." That is utter bullsh!t, too. If you love your country, live to make it better, don't die to make yourself feel important.

Father of eleven, dead in a snowbank. A month from now, the nation will have forgotten his name and his cause.

Decades from now his family will still be missing him.

Sad.

Forgive us, Rachel Scott

We have failed you.

Again.

It has happened again.

An elementary school, this time.

So far, we have established the 'what.'

The post-massacre pattern is depressingly well-traveled. Photos of stricken family members, eyewitness accounts, and a verified list of the slain.

We demand this, and we get it.

But there is more.

We move on to 'how.'

Timelines are constructed, complete with maps and dotted lines showing the path of the gunmen and icons indicating where the victims were found.

And it is here that we compound our national misery. We love our guns, surely- but far more prevalent than firearms is our pornographic fascination with mass murder.

It is a huge story, surely. Attention must be paid. The public must understand what has happened in order to fashion a response. Yes.

However, I will say something equally obvious: the coverage of these events is part of the problem.

Ask yourself: what do we gain from seeing the picture of the gunman splashed on every newspaper in the country? What insight does a captioned photo of the killer offer a policy maker?

In the case of a live, at-large person - their name is supremely relevant. But do I need to know a dead man's name to damn them for their crimes?

It is beyond fantasy to hope that the gunman's name would never appear in print - but surely there is a point at which we and the media can agree to minimize their celebrity. No photo, no bio, and most definitely no last video message broadcast nationwide. When their death is established, they are the gunman - and nothing else.

We must deny them the infamy they seek.

Nor is there any public value in splashing hi-res images of the weapons used by the gunman. Is our understanding of the crime enhanced by learning a gunman's specific choice of handgun or rifle?

More to the point, if this information is truly essential, how is it we know precisely what weapons were used at Sandy Hook Elementary, yet a professional football player can kill his girlfriend and himself with a pistol that remains nameless?

Is it too much to dream that a question like "What kind of semi-automatic rifle did the gunman use?" would be answered by "Does it really matter?"

Once the deliberate nature of the crime is established (numerous weapons, large reserves of ammunition) anything else is murder-porn.

We should not glorify the tools of mass murder.

Women and children were killed - with guns.

But the most patently offensive and ubiquitous aspect of coverage is the leaderboard.

Any event like this begs for comparison and context. It is the answer to the unspoken "how bad is it?" or "is it the worst ever?"

Our media helpfully supplies this context, so future killers can determine what level of bloodshed will assure them immortality.

I don't pretend that such comparisons will ever stop - but their well-practiced delivery is one of the many things that is wrong with our culture.

These are human beings who have been murdered - they are not points on a scoreboard.

Finally, despite our need to know exactly what happened - the you-are-there narratives supplied by eager journalists serve to supply future gunmen with the training and inspiration they could not otherwise obtain.

A spree killer will almost certainly be a novice. We should not help them prepare by illustrating what security measures they will encounter - or how those measures can be bypassed.

The public will gain from news accounts that detail security gaps and lessons learned - I do not advocate for censorship, only a tactical level of restraint.

As we prepare for the next gunman, we should not ensure that same gunman is forewarned.

There are countless aspects to the larger issue of mass-killings.
We can expect school lockdown drills to become more rigorous. School doors that can be secured against gunfire and forced entry. These things will happen.

And we should re-evaluate the need for private citizens to access high capacity magazines.

But before all this - we should take a good look at how we portray and elevate these events and those who commit them.

Gunmen are nothing - yet we make them famous. The same nation that effortlessly recalls serial and spree killers cannot locate the memory it owes a young woman named Rachel Scott.

We must do better.

Or there will be other schools in other towns that will wish we had.

Sequel

Roger Ebert: We've Seen This Movie Before

Yes.

Yes we have.

Father of the Year

(via The Two-Way)

"Zach Tomaselli, 23, of Lewiston, Maine, said Sunday that he told police that [Syracuse University assistant basketball coach Bernie] Fine molested him in 2002 in a Pittsburgh hotel room. The third accuser to come forward, Tomaselli said Fine touched him "multiple" times in that one incident." Tomaselli's father, however, told the AP he is certain his son never had any contact with Fine.

As in, "Gee, dad. Why don't you shut the hell up and let your grown son speak his mind, huh?"

Penn State, You Suck

The Grand Jury document is unbelievable.

• Grad student reports sodomy of a minor to Paterno.
• Paterno brings in the Athletic Director Tim Curley and Senior VP for Finance and Business Gary Schultz.
• According to the grad student, the grad student tells Curley and Schultz that Sandusky was seen sodomizing a minor.
• According to Curley, the grad student said Sandusky had "inappropriate conduct" but specifically denied that the student mentioned "sexual conduct...of any kind"
• According to Schultz, the grad student said Sandusky had "disturbing" and "inappropriate" conduct with a young boy - but he was very unsure about what he remembered. Also, that the conduct was "not that serious" and he had "no indication that a crime had occurred."

Here's some wonderfully understated Grand Jury snark

Although Schultz oversaw the Universtiy Police as part of his position, he never reported the 2002 [shower sex with minor] incident to the University Police or other police agency, never sought or reviewed a police report on the 1998 incident [where Sandusky was alleged to have behaved in a sexually inappropriate manner with minor boys in the football showers] and never attempted to learn the identity of the child in the shower in 2002. No one from the University did so. Schultz did not ask the graduate assistant for specifics. No one ever did.

They follow up with

The Grand Jury finds that portions of the testimony of Tim Curley and Gary Schultz are not credible.

Paterno's going to retire - he should be fired, sued and prosecuted.

Likewise Curley, Schultz and the Penn State President Spanier.

Heads gotta roll.

Calling Gableman Out

illusory tenant makes a great call - Appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the alleged judge-on-judge action. Not that Gableman really wants that, based on how badly he's managed his accusation. Interesting to see if his actions are scrutinized as much as say, a women who accuses a man of assault?

And there's also this hugely awesome call out

Gableman also told the police:

Justice Gableman said he has not told anyone about that incident and has not talked about that incident with anyone, including Justice Bradley, after it happened.

Then Justice Ziegler tells the police (page 69 of 70):

She then said, recently Justice Gableman told her about Justice Bradley hitting him on the back of the head, but she said she did not have any details of that and did not know when it happened. Justice Ziegler said she could not be specific on when Justice Gableman told her that happened.

Gableman's interview was on July 5, and Ziegler's was on July 18, so presumably Gableman told her about the September 18, 2009 (née 2008) incident after July 5. But Ziegler hadn't known anything about it.

Even though Justice Zeigler would have been present.

Followed by the even more awesome comment by gnarlytrombone:

"Not only present, but a witness: 'Justice Gableman said that he believed Justice Bradley was not joking because nobody was laughing at the time.' [page 64 of 70] i.e., they had to have seen it happen to choose not to laugh. Because it was serious. But not memorable."

Gableman's tying himself in a bit of a knot there, isn't he?

Bring on the investigation!

Two on Foreclosure

CJR's Ryan Chittum says about all that needs to be said about the current state of foreclosures in America, netting a fistfull of great articles- like this one from American Banker:

Several dozen documents reviewed by American Banker show that as recently as August some of the largest U.S. banks, including Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., Ally Financial Inc., and OneWest Financial Inc., were essentially backdating paperwork necessary to support their right to foreclose.

Oooh! Tell us more, do!

And then there's Reuters, saying that the Federal Housing Finance Agency is suing the big banks.

The government will argue the banks, which pooled the mortgages and sold them as securities to investors, failed to perform due diligence required under securities law and missed evidence that borrowers' incomes were falsified or inflated...

Ya don't say...

"If the World Knew What I Was Doing, They Would Hang Me From the Highest Tree"

Well, Mr. Jeffs - the world will take what it can get:

(Via the AP and NPR)

The head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints stood quietly as the decision of the Texas jury was read Tuesday. He received the maximum sentence on both counts.

The jury deliberated less than half an hour. The 55-year-old Jeffs was convicted Thursday. During the trial, prosecutors used DNA evidence to show Jeffs fathered a child with a 15-year-old and played an audio recording of what they said was him sexually assaulting a 12-year-old.

 (Via the CSM)

Jeffs was sentenced to life in prison for his assault on the 12-year-old. He received a 20-year sentence for the assault on the 15-year-old. The two sentences are to be served consecutively.

Danziger Bridge Cops Found Guilty

...unfortunately none of them were for murder.

8 Innocents. 6 were shot, 2 were killed, 1 lost a limb, 0 were armed.


Every time I read about this event I'm infuriated. Let's recap:

The Danziger shootings were originally portrayed as a home run for the [New Orleans Police] department, a victory in restoring order to a city that had begun to come apart after [hurricane Katrina]. But a state grand jury that investigated the shootings didn't buy the testimony of the involved officers, seven of whom were charged with murder or attempted murder.

When the "Danziger Seven" turned themselves in at Central Lockup in December 2006, fellow officers joined them in a show of solidarity, clapping them on the back and calling them heroes. The state case fell apart for procedural reasons in 2008, when the charges were dismissed by a judge.

At that point, federal authorities, who had been monitoring the case, took over, and the pressure intensified. Last year, five officers wound up taking plea deals, agreeing to testify at trial in hopes of receiving leniency when their own prison sentences are handed down.

Their pleas contained shocking details of a seemingly coordinated cover-up: a planted gun retrieved by Kaufman from his garage; officers successively revising their accounts of the shooting; phony witnesses; a secret meeting to coordinate stories.

Three of the cooperating officers were involved in the shooting, including two men who admitted they themselves fired at civilians.

At trial, the three officers told jurors that after the shooting ended, they saw no evidence that the civilians, many of them grievously wounded, had been armed.

Brissette was shot numerous times, from the heel of his foot to his head. He was killed by shotgun pellets that struck the back of his head, experts testified. Susan Bartholomew's arm was nearly blown off by a large-caliber round, and it was later amputated. Her daughter's legs were torn apart by bullets. Holmes was struck multiple times, from his face to his abdomen, and had to wear a colostomy bag for years after the incident.

Oh, and after they riddled an unarmed family with bullets, they chased a man and his mentally handicapped brother down and shot them as they fled - killing the handicapped man.

Then they stomped on his body. Then they dragged it to a nearby car. Then they set it on fire.Then they all agreed to cover it up.

Then their department whitewashed the investigation into the shootings.

And on and on.

Life without parole would be too good for these people - so being cleared of murder, their sentence can only be inadequate.

Ye gods.

Would you Give This Man 100,000 Quid?

Mulcair: No hush money = no hush.

Cos, y'know, the News of the World did. But now they don't.

Gosh, whatever did they pay this man for? I mean, I know he's gone to prison for his role in hacking into personal voicemail, but now that he's out - what's he up to?

Answer: He is deeply mired in legal troubles.The kind that cost lots and lots of money. Until recently Mr. Mulcair has been silent and apparently able to pay his attorney. Wonder if those two facts have a common cause?

Ryan Chittum has one theory.

July 20, 2011 - News International lets it be known that it will no longer pay for Mulcair's attorney.  As in "Oh, you know about us paying his legal bills? Well... we just stopped doing that. So there."

July 29, 2011 - Mulcair makes a public statement:

Glenn Mulcaire has already expressed his sincere regret to those who have been hurt and affected by his activities and he repeats that apology most sincerely.


He was effectively employed by News of the World from 2002 to carry out his role as a private investigator.
As he accepted when he pleaded guilty in 2007 to charges of phone interception he admits that his role did include phone hacking. As an employee he acted on the instructions of others.

There were also occasions when he understood his instructions were from those who genuinely wished to assist in solving crimes. Any suggestion that he acted in such matters unilaterally is untrue. In the light of the ongoing police investigation, he cannot say any more.

Oh, but he will. He'll say a lot more, now that the News International money fairy has gone away. Most likely under oath.
Best prepare yourself for a smear-a-thon, Mr. Mulcair - NI is not going to be happy with you.

Expect every bad thing you've ever done to start appearing on the front page.

They Call This a Paperwork Problem

(Via ProPublica)

While it may be true that (as the NPR news helpfully informed me the other day) Courts are holding up the foreclosure process - they're only holding it up because they're encountering this kind of crap:

GMAC, one of the nation's largest mortgage servicers, faced a quandary last summer. It wanted to foreclose on a New York City homeowner but lacked the crucial paperwork needed to seize the property.

GMAC has a standard solution to such problems, which arise frequently in the post-bubble economy. Its employees secure permission to create and sign documents in the name of companies that made the original loans. But this case was trickier because the lender, a notorious subprime company named Ameriquest, had gone out of business in 2007.

And so GMAC, which was bailed out by taxpayers in 2008, began looking for a way to craft a document that would pass legal muster, internal records obtained by ProPublica show.

"The problem is we do not have signing authority—are there any other options?" Jeffrey Stephan, the head of GMAC's "Document Execution" team, wrote to another employee and the law firm pursuing the foreclosure action. No solutions were offered.

Three months later, GMAC had an answer. It filed a document with New York City authorities that said the delinquent Ameriquest loan had been assigned to it "effective of" August 2005. The document was dated July 7, 2010, three years after Ameriquest had ceased to exist and was signed by Stephan, who was identified as a "Limited Signing Officer" for Ameriquest Mortgage Company. Soon after, GMAC filed for foreclosure.

An examination by ProPublica suggests this transaction was not unique. A review of court records in New York identified hundreds of similar assignment documents filed in the name of Ameriquest after 2008 by GMAC and other mortgage servicers.

In other words years after Ameriquest died a spectacularly public death - banks would like us to believe they are signing over loans to banks who just happen to need those very documents in ongoing foreclosure cases.

Also:If the banks cannot locate the proper documents - or convince the court to accept a "recreated" one - they'll just swear it was lost and try to foreclose anyway.

Because, really would a bank lie about something so serious?

Can we please get some coverage that calls the foreclosure mess what it truly is?

My Very Good and Trusted Friends

(Via CJR)

Imagine a parent losing a child to violent crime. Then imagine that crime becomes a national cause thanks to a team of newspaper reporters who refuse to let the story fade away. Laws are changed as a result of the coverage.

It would be easy to understand that the parent would have some affection for the newspaper that championed their lost child's cause.

Even if the paper was the now infamous News of the World.

Were it me, I could see myself writing a supportive column very similar to the one Sara Payne wrote in the NotW's final edition.

It is easy to forget in these dark times that the News of the World has often been a force for good and that has more than anything to do with the people that work on it  And its these people I have come to respect and it is for these people write this piece I do  not pretend that they are perfect or always got it right but I can tell you on a personal level there have been many times when they have stayed close and stood beside me not for the headline or public credit but just because it was the right thing to do.

 And were it me- I could hardly imagine what I would be thinking after reading this:

Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter Sarah was abducted and murdered in July 2000, has been told by Scotland Yard that they have found evidence to suggest she was targeted by the News of the World's investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who specialised in hacking voicemail.

Police had earlier told her correctly that her name was not among those recorded in Mulcaire's notes, but on Tuesday officers from Operation Weeting told her they had found her personal details among the investigator's notes. These had previously been thought to refer to a different target.

Here's the thing: NotW was attempting to hack into a cell phone that - of all people - Rebekah Brooks gave to her.

Her friends at NotW give her a phone to help her keep in contact with her many supporters - and since the phone's details are known to the paper, their hacking wing swings into action to try and get personal information illegally.


Un. Be. Lievable.

Naomi Campbell, Ahead of the Curve

(Via CJR)

Funny how things are in plain sight as "no big deal" until those things turn out to be hacking into a dead girl's cell phone.

Here's Naomi Campbell going after now CNN anchor Piers Morgan back in 2007:

CAMPBELL: What do you think of the News Of The World reporter who was recently found guilty of tapping the Royals’ phones? Did you ever allow that when you were there?

MORGAN: Well, I was there in 1994-5, before mobiles were used very much, and that particular trick wasn’t known about. I can’t get too excited about it, I must say. It was pretty well-known that if you didn’t change your pin code when you were a celebrity who bought a new phone, then reporters could ring your mobile, tap in a standard factory setting number and hear your messages. That is not, to me, as serious as planting a bug in someone’s house, which is what some people seem to think was going on.

CAMPBELL: It’s an invasion of privacy, though.

MORGAN: It is, yes. But loads of newspaper journalists were doing it. Clive Goodman, the NOTW reporter, has been made the scapegoat for a very widespread practice.

So that's CNN's current anchor saying "loads of newspaper journalists were doing it" back in 2007. Wonder if anybody's going to ask him about that?

And you have to wonder who else is going to get caught up in this chain reaction of crazy.

I mean Hugh Grant and Naomi Campbell?

Who writes this crap?

Phone Hacking Scandal - Has There Ever Been a Less Adequate Title?

Not that I think any title could keep up with the crazy now unfolding over the pond.

But consider:

• Corrupt Cops
• The Royal Family
• Actors wearing hidden microphones
• Murder victims
• Victims of Terrorism
• Political resignations
• Police resignations
• 168 year old newspapers vanishing in a puff of smoke
• Multiple arrests of corporate minions of one of the world's most influential billionaires
• Said billionaire being hauled into public hearings
• Said billionaire being attacked with a pie

Seriously, there's video and everything.

(Admit it, you thought I made that bit up... but no!)

Now the hackers are getting involved.
LulzSec claims they've obtained a host of News International emails - making you wonder what other insanity will come to light.

I mean, there isn't enough popcorn in the world for this kind of thing. And we're barely into the first reel.

What. The. Hell?

Also, just an aside, but it occurs to me that a (dubious) but immensely satisfying tactic of a hacking/leak organization would be to announce that they will release a major trove of compromised corporate emails the day after the company's CEO testifies under oath.

Hunting Down Malware

This was awesome.

Computer security experts get a copy of malware called Stuxnet so they can write the counter for it - and in the process they discover something very, very interesting:

Within a week ... about 38,000 infected machines were reporting in from dozens of countries. Before long, the number would surpass 100,000. Stuxnet was spreading rapidly, despite signatures distributed by antivirus firms to stop it.

As Chien and O Murchu mapped the geographical location of the infections, a strange pattern emerged. Out of the initial 38,000 infections, about 22,000 were in Iran. Indonesia was a distant second, with about 6,700 infections, followed by India with about 3,700 infections. The United States had fewer than 400. Only a small number of machines had Siemens Step 7 software installed—just 217 machines reporting in from Iran and 16 in the United States.

The infection numbers were way out of sync with previous patterns of worldwide infections—such as what occurred with the prolific Conficker worm—in which Iran never placed high, if at all, in infection stats. South Korea and the United States were always at the top of charts in massive outbreaks, which wasn't a surprise since they had the highest numbers of internet users. But even in outbreaks centered in the Middle East or Central Asia, Iran never figured high in the numbers. It was clear the Islamic Republic was at the center of the Stuxnet infection.

The sophistication of the code, plus the fraudulent certificates, and now Iran at the center of the fallout made it look like Stuxnet could be the work of a government cyberarmy—maybe even a United States cyberarmy.

Read the whole thing at Wired.

(H/t Schneier)

Fruits of Their Labor

So Rebekah Brooks has finally resigned.

*Yawn*

In other news - the Telegraph has posted an online archive of the News of The World Stories that mention voicemail and email. I realize that hindsight is 20/20, but looking at newspaper stories that quote voicemail would be a pretty large indication that private voicemails are being accessed by the press.

Yeah, yeah, easy for me to say.

Not Much of a Fan of Gordon Brown, But...

This is downright obscene:

In October 2006, the then editor of the Sun, Rebekah Brooks, contacted the Browns to tell them that they had obtained details from the medical file of their four-month-old son, Fraser, which revealed that the boy was suffering from cystic fibrosis. This appears to have been a clear breach of the Data Protection Act, which would allow such a disclosure only if it was in the public interest. Friends of the Browns say the call caused them immense distress, since they were only coming to terms with the diagnosis, which had not been confirmed. The Sun published the story. On the Sun's website it claims it 'set the news agenda' by 'breaking the sad news that Gordon Brown's baby boy Fraser has Cystic Fibrosis'.

Five years earlier, when their first child, Jennifer, was born on 28 December 2001, a small group of specialist doctors and nurses was aware that she had suffered a brain haemorrhage and was dying. By some means which has not been discovered, this highly sensitive information was obtained by news organisations, who published it over the weekend before Jennifer died, on Monday 6 January 2002.

In 2003, Devon and Cornwall police discovered that one of their junior officers was providing information from the police national computer to a network of private investigators. The Guardian has established that one of these investigators, Glen Lawson of Abbey Investigations in Newcastle upon Tyne, used this contact to commission a search of police records for information about Brown on 16 November 2000. Lawson also commissioned searches related to two other Labour MPs – Nick Brown and Martin Salter.

Lawson made these searches on behalf of journalists, a previously unreported court hearing was told. Transcripts obtained by the Guardian show that the search on Martin Salter was made at a time when the News of the World, then edited by Brooks, was attacking him for refusing to support the paper's notorious "Sarah's law" campaign to name paedophiles. Lawson currently refuses to name the journalists who commissioned him.

An attempt to prosecute this network was blocked by a West Country judge, Paul Darlow, who shocked police by ruling that it would be a misuse of public money to pursue the case. However, Devon and Cornwall police contacted the office of the then chancellor to warn him that he had been a victim, as they also did with his two Labour colleagues.

(H/t The Awl)

Allonges...Not Throat Lozenges from Switzerland

Adam Levitin posted this awhile back, but it's a great issue to raise - now that we know banks are willing to pay for document fabrication so they can foreclose.

Do We Have a Fraud Problem? The Case of the Mysteriously Appearing Allonge

The shorter version is that bank paperwork is supposed to be processed and signed in a specific manner. The chaos and complexity of life has led to an accommodation  called an allonge - basically another piece of paper affixed (stapled) to the primary document that provides additional, relevant information.

This is a very unusual procedure - since most times a document can be corrected electronically and re-issued for wet ink signatures on the spot. But if a document was jam packed with text and the process was strapped for time - they might create an allonge and staple it to the transfer documents.

Again, a safety valve for the weirdness of everyday life.

But now bankruptcy courts are seeing allonges falling like rain. And after discovering that their initial trust of the banking industry was seriously misplaced - they are beginning to wonder if these allonges are merely the newest attempt to fabricate proper documents where none previously existed.

(H/t naked capitalism)

News International's Version of Cooperating Fully

Oh, how the rats are running over at News International's News of the World:

(Via the Guardian)

Police are investigating evidence that a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive, in an apparent attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard's inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal.

The archive is believed to have reached back to January 2005 revealing daily contact between News of the World editors, reporters and outsiders, including private investigators.

...

The allegation directly contradicts repeated claims from News International that it is co-operating fully with police in order to expose its history of illegal news-gathering. It is likely to be seen as evidence that the company could not pass a 'fit and proper person' test for its proposed purchase of BSkyB.

A Guardian investigation has found that, in addition to deleting emails, the company has also:

• infuriated police by leaking sensitive information in spite of an undertaking to police that it would keep it confidential; and

• risked prosecution for perverting the course of justice by trying to hide the contents of a senior reporter's desk after he was arrested by Weeting detectives in earlier this year.

CJR's Dean Starkman puts it well. "...like a trapped wolf chewing off its own leg."

Phone Hacking Money Quote

...courtesy of the Guardian's Alexander Chancellor:

"...it is worth pointing out that, however ghastly journalists may be, nobody would know anything about anything without us – not even the extent of our own ghastliness."

Bravo!