True Spirit of American Innovation: CORRUPTION

President Obama's appointee as Chief Information Officer for the White House is being investigated by the FBI for corruption. Please, humor me and act surprised. WOW!

The CIO of the White House is in charge of federal technology spending and strategic IT planning. This position is supposed to keep a lock-down on things like information privacy + security.

What happened? President Obama appointed Vivek Kundra, previously D.C.'s CTO responsible for technology operations and strategy for 86 agencies, to be CIO of the White House. This was officially executed on March 5 according to official White House press release. BAM! About a week later, FBI storms Kundra's office after getting wind of a fraud scheme. The FBI has arrested Yusuf Acar who worked in the DC information security office and Sushil Bansil, another Indian dude that worked in technology (no surprises on that one!). Both were under Kundra's office.

Court documents state Acar was accused of conspiring to commit bribery, fraud, money laundering and conflict-of-interest violations. Bansal was accused of conspiring to commit bribery and money laundering. Of course, Kundra is on "leave". Sounds pretty good.

Obama stated in a March 5th press release that his appointed Kundra "to ensure that we are using the spirit of American innovation and the power of technology to improve performance and lower the cost of government operations." Hey no problem. It would be nice if next time we knew he meant corruption. Jeez. All we ask for is a little transparency in governance. But then again, overall, things are fairly predictable. Don't you think?

reference:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-Names-Vivek-Kundra-Chief-Information-Officer/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123687217235808365.html

Latham & Watkins drops 190 lawyers in a "one shot deal"

Latham & Watkins, the nations 2nd highest grossing law firm (2nd to Skadden Arps) booted 440 employees! A total of 190 lawyers and 250 supporting staff were dropped in what Chairman Robert Dell calls a "one shot deal". That's not good news. Especially considering Latham grossed $2 Billion in 2007.

Does this mean they didn't maintain enough padding for this hard of a hit? Or do their shareholders just love lacing their pockets as much as possible? After all, firms do have 2 options: retain earnings, or pay out shareholder salaries and bonuses. So if earnings fall, all else equal, associate salaries gotta go.

Boy am I glad my undergrad was in paper clip manufacturing. Then again, if law firms are slowing down that means less senseless paper work. Less senseless paper work means less legal secretaries. As secretaries decrease, office supply theft will decrease. Which equates to greater inventories of paper clips. Which means demand for paper clips will decline significantly. Now that really sucks.

reference: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123575323300395661.html#mod=testMod

White Collar Black Market: Allen Stanford's $8B Fraud Scheme

If you haven't heard about this yet, it's likely you are still trying to figure out Mr. Madoff's grand scheme. That guy was a former NASDAQ Chairman, and another "trusted" member of our financial society. The new "Sir" is Allen Stanford. He's from the Bush homeland of TX, where the frauds are always bigger and better. Stanford is the Chairman of Stanford Financial and has managed to support the Mexican drug cartel, launder money through off-shore accounts, create false certificates of deposits, etc... BTW, Stanford has mysteriously disappeared. Just in time for a nice investigation. The irony.

These guys are well connected. Remarkably, Vice Prez's Joe Biden's son managed some interesting hedge funds marketed by Stanford's firm. Some of Stanford's directors held prominant positions. Two were financial regulators: Fredrick Fram and Lena Stinson. They were both at FINRA! [I wonder if they are also related to Madoff's FINRA family members? Like the ones he used to cover up his $50B ponzi scheme.]

So it's bad enough these guys continue to perpetuate fraud with innocent money. But even worse is the fact that people at the top of these schemes are politicians/elected officials/regulators that are supposed to protect our interests, right?. Wait, you mean centralized unchecked power yields corruption?

DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH AND SEE WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON.

References:
http://www.stanfordfinancial.com/sir_allen
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/24/allen-stanford-had-links-_n_169361.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/allenStanford/idUSTRE51N5RO20090224

Law Schools with FREE TUITION!!!!

Yes. There are eight law schools that do NOT charge a dime for law school, or room and board!! Okay, for some you might need to work in the school's cafeteria, or perhaps live 45 minutes from the nearest hospital, i.e. Deep Springs Law in CA. Even still. What luxuries do most law students really have? Most are not spoiled (like living 20 mins from campus in a rent free 6 bedroom w/ a dive pool, jacuzzi and 7 cars). So the opportunity cost to attend 3 years tuition free, assuming bar passage, is really not high at all. Most law students would go head over heels for such an opportunity. Take the new tuition-free UC Irvine Law. Dean Erwin Cherminsky is a notable Constitutional Law scholar. If he's dean, the school likely has stellar credentials. UC Irvine's first admitted this fall class size = 60. And apparently they will be ranked in the top 20. Sounds like a good deal.

Reference: http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/22573.html

Agency Heads + Bribes?

It's no coincidence that Leon Panetta, nominee to head the CIA, happened to collect over $700,000 in bribes (a.k.a. consulting fees?).

Why do that? This is a position that empowers him to decide which government contractors get our tax money to perform "national security work." So wait, you mean to say contractors that have material pecuniary interests in government's contracts can pay "fees" to get contracts? That's interesting. In legal ethics that's called a CONFLICT OF INTEREST . A conflict so material and substantial to the interests of representation that every state bar would sanction. The ethical rules that apply to the regulation of lawyers is a great analogy because like Federal civil servants, we represent people. Ask yourself why we have the Office of Government Ethics and also the General Accounting Office. Might it be possible (and highly probable) that positions of power yield self-interested results?

Federal civil servants take an oath. Remember that oath? Read below (pay attention to the bold words) :

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Good 'ole fashion American corrupt-capitalism permeates democracy. Let's just admit it. Browse the real headlines and do your own research.

Reference: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123378062602049003.html
http://www.opm.gov/constitution_initiative/oath.asp

American Bar Association Spots New Law-Grad's Unemployment...YES it's BAD!

http://www.abajournal.com/news/unable_to_find_a_job_law_grads_hang_out_a_shingle

Note: "shingle" is a reference to a sign that is typically displaced outside a small office. It's synonymous to "opening up shop". It's not the "shingle" of the STD type. (Yes, someone asked me.)

Five Unanimous Decisions handed down by U.S. Supreme Court

5 decisions with no dissenting opinions is rare, especially in this short span of time. Justice Roberts, Jr. is moving the bench towards his goal of a buddy club.

http://www.abajournal.com/news/supreme_court_unanimous_in_10_out_of_15_signed_opinions_this_term/#When:07:07:56Z

The subject matter for each of the five include:
1. Title VII Discrimination
2. Uranium Anti-Dumping in international trade
3. Distribution of pension benefit upon divorce (very murky area of community property law)
4. Official actions with prosecutorial immunity.
5. Fourth Amendment pat-downs without reasonable suspicion.

Links to each of the cases can be found below.
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202427754738&rss=newswire

Some New Art

This is a rose that I am presently working on. Thus far, it's pencil on cardboard. I will be adding layers of color using oil pastel and brush techniques to create a softer glow. I'll post more pics as I progress. Let me know what you think.

Who said law school had to be dull ALL the time?

I couldn't pass up the chance to jam at the law school with Professor Charles Calleros, my International Contract professor. Lawyers rocking out? No...ALL are not boring.

That is a $3000 Taylor Electric Acoustic and it plays like butter--sounds even better coming out of a P.A. system.
We ended up playing an impromptu jazz riff which turned out okay. He's a good percussionist and plays drums in a band of all lawyers.

Surveillance Technologies and The Law: Big Sister Beats Up Big Brother.

Fears of privacy intrusion today are compounded by the advent of new technologies. Private data can be gathered, stored, and analyzed with increasing ease. As surveillance technologies progress so have privacy concerns. But modern concerns with the ease of government data gathering using surveillance technologies are not novel. Judicial oversight has kept a formidable eye on this trend.

Subtler and more far-reaching means of invading privacy have become available to the government. Discovery and invention have made it possible for the government, by means far more effective than stretching upon the rack, to obtain disclosure in court of what is whispered in the closet...The progress of science in furnishing the government with means of espionage is not likely to stop with wire tapping. Ways may some day be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. Advances in the psychic and related sciences may bring means of exploring unexpressed beliefs, thoughts and emotions.

If the late Justice Brandeis knew today’s means of catching what is “whispered in the closet” he would turn over in his grave. His words are prophetic. His dissent in Olmstead quoted above was in response to a conviction that used wiretap evidence to produce 775 pages of private conversations in typewritten transcripts for trial. The defendants were convicted of conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act of 1919 by unlawfully possessing, transporting and importing intoxicating liquors. The crime was expansive. Seventy two others were indicted in the conspiracy. Annual sales of the illegal liquor were estimated to be $2,000,000. But did the intelligence means justify the conspiracy conviction ends? Justice Brandeis obviously didn’t think so.

To the extent that technology advancements in 1928 created fear of privacy invasions, today’s technological capabilities are unfathomable. As predicted succinctly by Justice Brandeis, today’s technology advancements provide a means of peering into unexpressed beliefs, thoughts and emotions, all for unclear ends (e.g. “national security”, “War on Terror”, “security threat”).

The Government’s data gathering and analysis methodology can be quite unorthodox. A simple contrast is exemplary. Generally, analysts attempt to predict future events as do financial analysts on Wall Street, by gathering large amounts of data and using historical models to forecast results. However, Wall Street forecasts end where private enterprise and undisclosed financial data begin. Unlike such analysts, government surveillance analysts may begin their research where ostensibly private conduct and undisclosed data begins.

Our post-9/11 society perceives the trade-offs between civil liberties and crime control in a new light. But the precise extent to which the government uses surveillance technology is unclear; thus the trade-offs cannot be assessed properly. State and private entities often make concerted surveillance efforts blurring the line between public and private conduct. These identities are often undisclosed and their apparent surveillance purposes remain ambiguous. Additionally, federal and state laws dictate boundaries for permissible government conduct. However, without knowing who and for what purposes surveillance is occurring, oversight becomes impractical. Oversight is particularly impractical when the mechanisms to proscribe conduct, namely legislative, are inept to parallel the dynamic pace of technology.

The introduction above provides context for further discussions of government sponsored surveillance technologies and their domestic use. This paper discusses these issues and considers the legal and policy questions that remain unanswered. The following section provides an overview of the latest and most popular surveillance technologies available to the public, followed by the Government’s use of surveillance technologies led by agencies such as the CIA and DARPA. The conclusion discusses public accessibility to surveillance technologies and the legal implications on 4^th Amendment search and seizure, and expectations of privacy.

Miranda: A Few Steps Shorts of a Walk

Miranda v. Arizona, decided in 1966 was a landmark case, and in a sense, was also a land mine for for official misconduct. But, the real compelling question, is whether this case was even necessary. Justice Warren's apprehensions with creating a more clear standard against compelled statements and against throwing out psychological coercion was in fact futile. The underlying policy behind Miranda was to allow a suspect in custody the chance to realize their rights as to confessions in order to provide a bright-line for confessions. Retrospectively speaking, issues that are often raised as legitimate questions to the Supreme Court for review should be answered in their entirety prior to resorting to the old 'reverse and remand' kick-back.

Is that what happened here in Miranda? Was Miranda even needed?

Why did Justice Warren, a defense-liberal proponent, not incorporate the attention given to psychological coercion into the Miranda Rule?
Without question, at the time of the opinion and ever since, the concern with psychological manipulation/coercion of suspects during interrogations was and has been a focal point in assessing the Constitutionality of these measures to extract confessions. In fact, this concern is voiced throughout the majority opinion. However, this concern was not addressed within the narrow holding of Miranda which creates a bright-line standard required by all law enforcement officials to recite particular rights to criminal suspects taken into custody prior to asking questions regarding the commission of a crime.

Miranda Rights read: You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.

Oh yeah, but government sponsored psychological coercion, "It's the truth serum."