Government Nanny Censoring "Conspiracy Theories" Is Also Responsible for Letting Bush Era Torture and Spying Conspiracies Go Unpunished

Washingtons Blog, Oct. 7, 2010

EXCERPT...

Prosecuting government officials risks a “cycle” of criminalizing public service, (Sunstein) argued, and Democrats should avoid replicating retributive efforts like the impeachment of President Clinton — or even the “slight appearance” of it.

SOURCE w links n details:
https://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2010/10/main-obama-adviser-blocking-prosecution.html?m=1

Authorized use of data still has the power to do tremendous good.
by Cass R. Sunstein

March 19, 2018, 1:21 PM EDT

The horrendous actions by Cambridge Analytica, a voter profiling company, and Aleksander Kogan, a Russian-American researcher, raise serious questions about privacy, social media, democracy and fraud.

Amidst the justified furor, one temptation should be firmly resisted: for public and private institutions to lock their data down, blocking researchers and developers from providing the many benefits that it promises – for health, safety, and democracy itself...

...The U.S. government has faced, and solved, similar problems: Data.gov discloses a great deal of information, with more than 230,000 data sets involving health, safety, travel, energy, and the environment. Available apps, made possible by that information, are helping people to save money and to avoid health risks.

For social media providers, including Facebook, the Cambridge Analytica fiasco underlines the need for more careful vetting of all developers who seek access to their data. But it would be a mistake to take the fiasco as a reason to keep treasure troves of information out of the hands of people who can provide immensely valuable services with it.

On Monday, the White House announced the creation of a Federal Commission on School Safety, chaired by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, to recommend proposals for school violence prevention. Included in the mandate of DeVos’ commission is a starkly worded objective: “Repeal of the Obama Administration’s ‘Rethink School Discipline’ policies.”

It’s fair to wonder what this plan is doing on a list of items supposedly responding to school shootings. Prior school discipline history does not indicate that a youth will commit a school shooting. In Parkland, discipline policies did not thwart the district from taking action, and the attacker had been expelled from school. In fact, while most perpetrators of school shootings are white, children of color and students with disabilities are the ones disproportionately subject to school discipline...

...The plain truth is that this has nothing to do with preventing school shootings — the administration has had its eye on repealing the Obama-era discipline guidance for some time already as part of its deregulation agenda. And while the guidance is still characterized as under review by the administration, Secretary DeVos tipped her hand on Sunday.

In an appearance on 60 Minutes, she stated that racial disparities in school discipline come “down to individual kids.” To be clear about the implications of this statement, Ms. DeVos is saying that when Black students are disciplined more harshly than their white peers, the fault lies with Black youth. Secretary DeVos isn’t grappling with the right approach to disparate school discipline; she’s denying the problem exists.

On Monday, the White House announced the creation of a Federal Commission on School Safety, chaired by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, to recommend proposals for school violence prevention. Included in the mandate of DeVos’ commission is a starkly worded objective: “Repeal of the Obama Administration’s ‘Rethink School Discipline’ policies.”

It’s fair to wonder what this plan is doing on a list of items supposedly responding to school shootings. Prior school discipline history does not indicate that a youth will commit a school shooting. In Parkland, discipline policies did not thwart the district from taking action, and the attacker had been expelled from school. In fact, while most perpetrators of school shootings are white, children of color and students with disabilities are the ones disproportionately subject to school discipline...

...The plain truth is that this has nothing to do with preventing school shootings — the administration has had its eye on repealing the Obama-era discipline guidance for some time already as part of its deregulation agenda. And while the guidance is still characterized as under review by the administration, Secretary DeVos tipped her hand on Sunday.

In an appearance on 60 Minutes, she stated that racial disparities in school discipline come “down to individual kids.” To be clear about the implications of this statement, Ms. DeVos is saying that when Black students are disciplined more harshly than their white peers, the fault lies with Black youth. Secretary DeVos isn’t grappling with the right approach to disparate school discipline; she’s denying the problem exists.

We support Fix NICS | The Liberal Gun Club
Ed Gardner

There is currently legislation being pondered in the Senate called Fix NICS.

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is a United States system for determining if prospective firearms or explosives buyers’ name and birth year match those of a person who is not eligible to buy. It was mandated by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Brady Law) of 1993 and launched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1998.

Source: Wiki

When you buy a new firearm, the FFL runs these checks in real time with the FBI to determine if you are prohibited from buying a firearm. The FBI tells the FFL to Proceed with the sale, Deny the sale, or Defer the sale. In the case of the Defer, the FBI has 72 hours to give a definitive answer or the sale is allowed to proceed, so its critical that data be available, complete and accurate.

There have been several shooters who should have been prohibited from purchasing their weapons prior to their murders. Charlotte’s perpetrator had a drug conviction that hadn’t been reported appropriately to the FBI, so the “Defer” apparently turned into a “Proceed.” The Texas shooter had a military conviction that the sentence alone put him in a prohibited class. There are other examples, but these that come to mind immediately.

This bill seems to address one of our central positions, the completeness and accuracy of the NICS system. We know that not all relevant records make it into NICS, from states who were reluctant to submit adjudicated records, to agencies like the Department of Defense simply failing to report convictions.

This bill seems to address those issues to some extent, and as we said after Texas, its the sort of thing that might actually have an impact, eliminating the legal avenues that bad guys bent on killing have to acquire ANY firearm. The summary from GovTrack:

-Establish a new “Domestic Abuse and Violence Prevention Initiative” in order to better prevent those convicted of those crimes from obtaining weapons.
-Publicly report any federal agencies that fail to upload relevant information to the system, and withhold certain pay from political appointees who neglect to upload the info.
-Establish new measures to verify the accuracy of existing records already uploaded into the system.

The full text of the bill in the Senate can be found here*, a version has passed out of committee in the House.

We support this.

So, apparently, does the NRA and the folks at Sandy Hook Promise. With support from a broad range of organizations from across the spectrum, there is no reason for this bill to be delayed. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Will Congress act? Have you called your representatives?

We support Fix NICS | The Liberal Gun Club
Ed Gardner

There is currently legislation being pondered in the Senate called Fix NICS.

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is a United States system for determining if prospective firearms or explosives buyers’ name and birth year match those of a person who is not eligible to buy. It was mandated by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Brady Law) of 1993 and launched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1998.

Source: Wiki

When you buy a new firearm, the FFL runs these checks in real time with the FBI to determine if you are prohibited from buying a firearm. The FBI tells the FFL to Proceed with the sale, Deny the sale, or Defer the sale. In the case of the Defer, the FBI has 72 hours to give a definitive answer or the sale is allowed to proceed, so its critical that data be available, complete and accurate.

There have been several shooters who should have been prohibited from purchasing their weapons prior to their murders. Charlotte’s perpetrator had a drug conviction that hadn’t been reported appropriately to the FBI, so the “Defer” apparently turned into a “Proceed.” The Texas shooter had a military conviction that the sentence alone put him in a prohibited class. There are other examples, but these that come to mind immediately.

This bill seems to address one of our central positions, the completeness and accuracy of the NICS system. We know that not all relevant records make it into NICS, from states who were reluctant to submit adjudicated records, to agencies like the Department of Defense simply failing to report convictions.

This bill seems to address those issues to some extent, and as we said after Texas, its the sort of thing that might actually have an impact, eliminating the legal avenues that bad guys bent on killing have to acquire ANY firearm. The summary from GovTrack:

-Establish a new “Domestic Abuse and Violence Prevention Initiative” in order to better prevent those convicted of those crimes from obtaining weapons.
-Publicly report any federal agencies that fail to upload relevant information to the system, and withhold certain pay from political appointees who neglect to upload the info.
-Establish new measures to verify the accuracy of existing records already uploaded into the system.

The full text of the bill in the Senate can be found here*, a version has passed out of committee in the House.

We support this.

So, apparently, does the NRA and the folks at Sandy Hook Promise. With support from a broad range of organizations from across the spectrum, there is no reason for this bill to be delayed. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Will Congress act? Have you called your representatives?