Bollox America

A New York man who runs a travel company specializing in trips to Thailand and the Philippines has been charged with promoting prostitution.

He was the victim of a sting operation. An online investigator pretended that he wanted to use Allen's company, Big Apple Oriental Tours, to go overseas and have sex for money. The district attorney's office said the investigator paid Allen $2,500.

Allen allegedly told the investigator he would be taken to Angeles City in the Philippines, where he could negotiate with women for sex acts.

If convicted, he faces to up to seven years in prison.

The adult entertainment industry may be hurting badly, but the sex addiction industry is doing quite fine, thanks ironically to online porn, which corporate investors believe is spurring an epidemic in 'sex addiction'.

The field has so much growth potential that private equity firms are getting in on the action by underwriting investments in new sex addiction centers.

The tipping point for thousands of people came with the revelation that Tiger Woods was having sex with about a thousand women from every walk of life despite being married to a gorgeous woman who loved him and bore him beautiful children. Visits by Woods and other high-profile celebrities to sex addiction clinics have, according to the Los Angeles Times, moved sex addiction, a controversial diagnosis not recognized by the medical establishment, into the mainstream and led a growing number of Americans to conclude that they—or in many cases, their spouses—needed treatment.

One private-equity-backed corporate investor, Cerritos-based Elements Behavioral Health, announced only this week that it is buying a Westside treatment center, the Sexual Recovery Institute, as part of an expansion that will eventually include luxe in-patient facilities like Promises (the high-end Malibu drug rehab center) for wealthy sex addicts and a national network of two-week outpatient programs for those of lesser means.

CEO David Sack said Elements was making a significant investment on the belief that the Internet, with its easy access to pornography and casual liaisons, had created an epidemic of untreated sex addiction in America and that the rehab stays of Woods, actors Russell Brand and David Duchovny and others had informed a previously ignorant public about the existence of treatment programs.

Sack, a psychiatrist, added, You have a backlog of people who need this treatment, and all of a sudden through a celebrity they have become aware that something can be done.

Airline passengers and civil liberties groups have expressed disgust and outrage at new security measures that are tantamount to foreplay.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration trialled a new pat-down technique at Logan International Airport and is now rolling out the measures to all 450 of its airports.

The technique, described as horribly invasive by a passengers rights group, involves security staff sliding their hand over passengers bodies, rather than patting them down, if they object to going through full-body imaging scanners.

Kate Hinni, founder of the non-profit FlyersRights.org consumer group, said the new searches amount to a foreplay pat-down that for many people is going to feel like a moral issue. It's like having to choose the lesser of two evils, Hinni said: Both are horribly invasive.

One shell-shocked female passenger who was subjected to the measures after her underwire bra set off metal detecting scanners said the experience left her in tears.

Rosemary Fitzpatrick, who works for news channel CNN, said a female screener ran her hands around her breasts, over her stomach, buttocks and her inner thighs, and briefly touched her crotch: I felt helpless, I felt violated, and I felt humiliated, said Fitzpatrick. Choice:

Passengers who refuse to walk through the full-body image scanners are subjected to the pat down searches, and the TSA also picks random passengers for the searches.

Lots of airline passengers are in for a surprise, said Chris Ott, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, which objected to the new pat-downs when the were trialled at Logan Airport: Travelers are being asked to choose between being scanned 'naked and exposed to radiation, or getting what people are describing as just a highly invasive search by hands of their entire bodies.

Maryland state police were wrong to arrest and charge a man for taping his own traffic stop and posting it on YouTube, a judge ruled earlier this week.

Motorcyclist Anthony Graber was charged with illegal wiretapping for recording plainclothes state trooper J.D. Uhler jumping from his unmarked sedan and drawing his gun -- and waiting a good five seconds before identifying himself as a police officer. The tape was shot with a conspicuous, helmet-mounted camera that captured the video and audio of the confrontation.

On Monday, a Maryland state judge stated in no uncertain terms that the felony charge never should have been filed.

Those of us who are public officials and are entrusted with the power of the state are ultimately accountable to the public, Circuit Court Judge Emory A. Plitt Jr. wrote. When we exercise that power in a public forum, we should not expect our activity to be shielded from public scrutiny.

Under such circumstances, I cannot, by any stretch, conclude that the troopers had any reasonable expectation of privacy in their conversation with the defendant which society would be prepared to recognize as reasonable.

After he posted the video on YouTube, police raided his home, hauled away his computers and the state's attorney charged him under a law that went onto the books before cell phones even existed.

Members of Charleston City Council decided Monday that an obscure statute in city code outlawing adultery and sex between unmarried individuals should be stricken from the books.

The council voted unanimously to repeal Chapter 78, Article V, Sec. 78-291, which labeled sex acts between unmarried people a misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $500 fine.

There was little discussion on the matter before the vote was finalized. Mayor Danny Jones laughed at the law before casting his vote to repeal it: How did they ever put something like this on the books? the mayor said.

Councilwoman Mary Jean Davis was a cosponsor of the bill to repeal the adultery and fornication law. She only recently became aware of the law's existence. She said times have changed and the law needed to go.

But the adultery and fornication law isn't the only ordinance on the city's books that some might find outdated.

Take Chapter 78, Article V, Sec. 78-311, for example. That ordinance makes it a crime to sell, give away or possess pornography or immoral books in city limits.

It shall be unlawful for any person within the city to sell, distribute, lend, give away, exhibit or offer to sell, distribute, lend, give away, exhibit or have in his possession for any such purposes any obscene, lewd, lascivious or immoral book, magazine, pamphlet, paper, writing, advertising, picture, circular or newspaper, the code states.

Another section of Chapter 78 declares it a crime to use indecent language in public performances like plays and concerts.

Ellis said he doubts any of those provisions could ever be enforced. Davis said those sections of the code also will be reviewed.

A British teenager has been banned from America for life for sending Barack Obama an abusive email, in which he calls the President a 'prick'.

Luke Angel, 17, insulted Obama while drunk after watching a programme about the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.

Angel was reprimanded by police on both sides of the Atlantic after firing off the message to the White House.

The FBI intercepted the message and contacted police in the UK who went to see Angel at his home. The college student is now on a list of people who are banned from visiting the States.

When asked about the ban, Luke said: I don't really care. My parents aren't very happy about it. The police who came round took my picture and told me I was banned from America forever.

A Bedfordshire Police spokesman said: The individual sent an email to the White House full of abusive and threatening language. We were informed by the Metropolitan Police and went to see him. He said, "Oh dear, it was me".

Police will take no criminal action.

A mall in Cincinnati, Ohio is now requiring anyone under 18 to have a 21+ escort with them after 4pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

Apparently, security guards at all the entrances will card shoppers and provide wristbands.

Management at Tri-County Mall says it should make for a more pleasant shopping experience for their customers. Being youth, and being in large numbers unsupervised, they tend to get loud and rowdy and detract from a comfortable shopping atmosphere., said General Manager Michael Lyons.

Perhaps Tri-County Mall should also require vetting certificates from the adults, lest dodgy characters take the opportunity to offer their services as escorts.

A US bankruptcy court has said that a man committed defamation just by forwarding an email with links in it to online material that was defamatory. The court said that the man published the blog to his email recipients.

The US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas was dealing with the bankruptcy of William Perry. It examined Perry's sending of an email with links in it to a blog. Perry had not commented on or added to the links, US pressure group the Reporters Committee For Freedom Of The Press (RCFP) said.

The sending of those links was enough to constitute publication under Texas defamation law, the Court found, in a ruling which has alarmed free speech activists including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the RCFP.

[W]hen Perry 'published' the Blog, he acted with actual malice or, alternatively, with reckless disregard of the truth, said the Court, according to the RCFP. Therefore, this Court concludes that Perry committed defamation in 'publishing' the Blog to certain individuals.

...Read full article

When Christian school teacher Jarretta Hamilton informed her employers that she was pregnant, she expected to have a discussion about maternity leave.

Instead, she was asked when her baby was conceived, and, after admitting it was three weeks before her wedding, she was fired.

Hamilton is now suing Southland Christian School, in St Cloud, Florida, over the loss of her job in April 2009, and for emotional stress caused when the school released details about why she was dismissed.

In a pending lawsuit, the couple also claim the school's principal, Jon Ennis, invaded Hamilton's privacy by telling other teachers and the parents of her students the exact reason she was fired.

When they let me go, they told the entire staff in a staff meeting that I had been fired and the reason why they let me go. And then they called all of my parents to my fourth-grade students and told them as well, Hamilton said.

The school, which has strict morality rules, which ban teachers from fornication before marriage, said Hamilton was informed of the values when she was hired as a fourth-grade teacher in January 2008.

Suzanne Corona faces prosecution under the rarely used adultery laws after she was caught with Justin Amend.

The pair were arrested on suspicion of having sex on a picnic table in a park in the small upstate New York town of Batavia.

They were charged with public lewdness but Corona was also maliciously hit with an additional charge of adultery because the arresting officer said he knew she was married. Amend was not charged with adultery because he said he did not know Corona was married.

Under a law enacted during the early 1900s, adultery is a criminal offence punishable by a fine and prison sentence. The law has rarely been used but remains on the statute books of ten U.S. states. Section 255.17 of the New York State penal law states: A person is guilty of adultery when he engages in sexual intercourse with another person at a time he has a living spouse, or the other person has a living spouse. It is now considered a Class B misdemeanour and is punishable by a £350 fine and 90 days in jail. adultery story

Legal experts said Corona was only the 13th person in New York in the past 40 years to be charged with adultery.

Corona and Amend were spotted by police sitting on a picnic table in full view of people in the park. When officer Matthew Baldwin approached the couple, they insisted they were just talking. Corona was fully clothed but Amend's shirt was off and his trousers were unbuttoned as Corona sat on his lap.

Corona denied they were having sex and said they had chosen a picnic table out of the view of others in the park. She later made a brief appearance at Genesee County Courthouse where she arrived with her husband. Corona did not enter a plea but instead said she planned to challenge the constitutionality of the laws making adultery a crime.

Her husband of six years said he planned to stand by his wife and help her fight the adultery charges.

The US woman convicted of offering sex for baseball World Series tickets has been sentenced to one year's probation.

Susan Finkelstein was convicted in March of attempted prostitution. She was also sentenced to 100 hours of community service.

Last year, she placed an online ad on Craigslist seeking tickets for a Philadelphia Phillies game.

She was caught after meeting an undercover policeman who responded to the ad.

Judge Albert Cepparulo called Finkelstein's crime incredibly stupid, saying her ad could have left her vulnerable to a predator, the Associated Press news agency reported.

The judge suggested she spent her community service speaking to groups of women about the dangers of the internet.

Finkelstein said she had wanted to get tickets to take her husband to the opening game of the World Series - in which the Phillies beat the New York Yankees 6-1.

Contrary to the recommendation of a recent government report advising against prosecuting teens for sexting, a Pennsylvania district attorney is doing just that with a group of teens from Susquenita High School. The age of teens in question range from 13 to 17. Perry County District Attorney Charles Chenot says he wants to teach them a lesson they will not soon forget.

Take a photograph of yourself or somebody else nude and send it to somebody else, you've committed the crime, he said. The teens have been charged with felonies related to sending child porn via the internet. Chenot has previously prosecuted two sexting cases within the past year that involved a total of ten minors.

According to CBSnews, The teens at Susquenita High, who all knew each other, were accused last fall of using their cell phones to take, send, or receive nude photos of each other and in one case a short video of oral sex. That resulted in a felony pornography charge for each minor.

Chenot said the charges fit the crime, adding that a lesser alternative was not available to him.

A Harrisburg civil rights attorney and former U.S. representative, Don Bailey, who is representing one of the children, questions leveling any charges against the teens.

Should they be crimes at all? he asked, rhetorically, before answering the question himself. This is an overzealous and inappropriate application of the criminal law.

Why should we criminalize a kid for taking and possessing a photo of herself? said Marsha Levick, legal director of the non-profit Juvenile Law Center. There is no problem that needs to be solved.

The Ohio House passed sexting legislation that prohibits minors from using a telecommunications device to send nude material to another minor.

The bill also says that children would not have to register as sex offenders if committing a sexting offense.

The ban on the practice that passed by an 86-12 vote said minors cannot post, forward, receive or possess photographs, video or other material that shows them or another minor in a state of nudity.

The bill must still be approved by the Ohio Senate before becoming law.

Those who support the measure said it is needed to protect minors from serious adult child pornography charges if they share nude pictures of themselves or classmates using cell phones, e-mail or websites such as Facebook.

The new legislation would send young sexting offenders to juvenile court for punishment that would not include jail.

1st Amendment attorney Lawrence Walters said: Ohio, along with other states is adopting specific laws that take sexting out of the realm of child pornography, creating a new offense that according to reports only punishes sexting minors as committing unruly or delinquent acts — not crimes.

Police in the United States have been plunged into a race row over a video showing two officers attacking and racially abusing an innocent.

In the video, a male and female officer are seen taking turns to stamp on the suspected armed robber's head as he lies face down on the pavement.

The policeman says I'm going to beat the fucking Mexican piss out of you homey before realising he was not involved in the crime and helping him up.

The video emerged in Seattle and was shot by a photographer as police responded to an emergency call out of an armed robbery in the car park of a night club.

The incident happened on April 17 but only came to light when the film was broadcast.

The male officer seen kicking the man is said to be Gang Unit Detective Shandy Cobane, who has spent 16 years on the police force and was named president of his cadet class.

He and the woman officer been reassigned as police carry out an internal review. Seattle police chief John Diaz said he was very disappointed in what has occurred.

Jennifer LaPenta was jailed this week by Lake County Associate Judge Helen Rozenberg who held her in contempt for wearing the T-shirt in her courtroom. It was emblazoned with the words: I have the Pussy so I make the Rules.

The judge asked me if I thought the shirt was appropriate for the courtroom, LaPenta said. I said I didn't think it was offensive but said I wouldn't have worn it if I was the defendant.

LaPenta said she offered to take the shirt off but that Rozenberg told her it was too late and was having her jailed for 48 hours for contempt of court.

LaPenta said she was asked by a friend to drive her to the courthouse in Waukegan so the friend could settle some minor traffic tickets. It wasn't long after she sat down that Rozenberg summoned her to the front of the courtroom and asked about the slogan.

I didn't mean to offend anybody, LaPenta said.

First Amendment Issues

Based on article from firstamendmentcenter.org

A similar situation occurred more than 30 years ago in another Illinois courtroom involving a then-19-year-old Sue Watts, who wore a T-shirt that read Bitch, Bitch in 5-inch letters. The Stephenson County court judge sentenced her to three days in jail for the vulgar shirt, saying: You're not very lady-like wearing that on the street, I don't think. … It is a vulgarity. It borders on obscenity and it impinges on the dignity of the court.

On appeal, the Illinois appeals court reversed the trial judge's three-day contempt sentence, finding that the judge failed to act reasonably. In In Re Watts (1978), the court said contempt requires some form of constructive or actual knowledge of what conduct is forbidden in order that people can avoid such conduct.

The appeals court explained that Watts' shirt was not proper courtroom attire but noted that she was not given a reasonable opportunity to alter her behavior.

A key question is whether LaPenta was given an opportunity to replace her T-shirt. If she was not, the actions of the judge become questionable.

Investigators looking into a school district in Pennsylvania that lent out laptops have discovered thousands of secret photographs were taken of students in their homes.

The pictures were made possible by tracking software that was installed on laptops by the Lower Merion School District (LMSD) to allow them to locate the computers in the event of them being lost or stolen.

A lawsuit filed by the parents of one of the pupils, 15-year-old Blake Robbins of Harriton High School in Rosemont, claims that the tracking system captured more than 400 images via his school-issued laptop over the course of two weeks last autumn and that thousands of webcam pictures and screen shots have been taken of numerous other students in their homes.

A minute camera mounted on the computer took snaps of the unwitting teenager and his relatives including pictures of Blake partially undressed and of Blake sleeping, as part of a system designed to take a new picture every 15 minutes while it was switched on, they claim.

He and his family only became aware that they were being secretly spied on when Blake was called in by the assistant principal at his school to be quizzed about one of the images. It showed the boy sifting through a handful of sweets, which school officials had wrongly presumed to be illegal drugs.

The school district has claimed that it activated the secret camera in Blake's computer because his parents had not paid the necessary insurance fee that allowed him to take it home.

Federal investigators are examining whether the spy programme was illegal.

Update: Confirmation

8th May 2010. Based on article from bigbrotherwatch.org.uk

An independent report has been released about it today. In essence, it confirms that the story was true and blames the IT personnel.

According to the report... conducted by a local law firm, the IT staff not only failed to inform school officials and administrators of the tracking capabilities of the LANrev software, but argued that telling students about the software's ability to remotely trigger notebook Webcams would defeat its purpose as a way to recover lost or stolen computers.

Update: Secret Webcams Banned

20th May 2010. Based on article from bigbrotherwatch.org.uk

A judge has permanently banned a suburban Philadelphia school district from secretly monitoring students with webcams on their school-issued laptops.

The Lower Merion School District acknowledges capturing 56,000 screen shots and webcam images supposedly so it could locate missing laptops.

The new ruling says Lower Merion can use other kinds of technology to find laptops but only if parents and students agree to it.

The order also requires school officials to arrange for the nearly 40 high school students who were unknowingly photographed by their laptops to see the images.

Update: Criminal Prosecution Avoided

22nd August 2010. See article from theregister.co.uk

Philadelphia school administrators involved in a webcam spying episode will escape criminal prosecution, federal authorities have decided after concluding there was no criminal intent in the alleged surveillance.

I have concluded that bringing criminal charges is not warranted in this matter, Zane David Memeger, US attorney for the Easter District of Pennsylvania said in a statement, Wired reports.

For the government to prosecute a criminal case, it must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person charged acted with criminal intent. We have not found evidence that would establish beyond a reasonable doubt that anyone involved had criminal intent.

The civil lawsuit - which has a much lower burden of proof - is unaffected by the decision not to bring charges against the school administrators involved in the episode. Mark Haltzman, a lawyer suing the district, told Wired that the prosecutor's ruling in the case highlighted the need for tougher privacy-protecting legislation.

Update: Schools coughs up but lawyers get most of it

22nd August 2010. See article from telegraph.co.uk

A school authority has agreed to pay out $610,000 (£385,000) after admitting it spied on pupils in their homes through the cameras on their laptop computers.

About 56,000 pictures of more than 40 pupils were taken by a remote tracking system controlled by officials from the Lower Merion School District in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Blake Robbins, a pupil of Harriton High School who was then 15, was awarded $175,000 (£110,000), which is to be placed in a trust.

Blake discovered through evidence unearthed when he sued the school authority in February that he was photographed 400 times over two weeks. He was alerted to the practice when the vice principal of his school told him he had been seen engaging in improper behaviour. Blake said this meant that sweets he was eating were mistaken for drugs.

Jalil Hassan, a second pupil who filed a lawsuit against the school authority, was awarded $10,000 (£6,300). He has since graduated from Lower Merion High School.

The lion's share of $425,000 (£268,000) of the settlement will be paid to the boys' lawyer, Mark Haltzman, for his work on the case.

A shocking video of police beating a student has provoked outrage across America and led to a probe by the FBI into police brutality.

John McKenna is still recovering from his injuries after three officers clad in riot gear assaulted him with batons as he offered no resistance.

The 21-year-old was beaten unconscious and needed eight staples put into a gaping wound on his skull.

Despite not provoking police, he was told he was arrested and told not to make a fuss about his injuries as the officers involved would have to fill out more paperwork. The officers later filed a report claiming McKenna had suffered minor injuries thanks to the police horses

The latest incident occurred after a basketball match between the University of Maryland and Duke University on March 3. Riot police were out in force on the streets of Maryland after reports of trouble and on the video McKenna can be seen approaching a mounted policeman.

The video of McKenna's beating was captured by a remote CCTV camera and has been played extensively on U.S. TV.

Prince George's County Police Chief Roberto Hylton has handed one of the officers who's been identified on the tape a paid suspension and launched an investigation into the incident: I was outraged. I was very disappointed at the conduct that I saw on the part of my officers on the video tape. Hylton said that other officers involved in the beating will likely be fired, but McKenna's family thinks the punishment for some officers should be even tougher.

The FBI have also launched an inquiry into the incident.

The charges against McKenna have since been dropped.

Wikileak's published a helicpter video revealing the shocking spree of killings by the US military force in Iraq 2007, leaving twelve dead including two Reuter's journalists.

One account of this horrifying attack that showed people running for their life in the streets was highlighted in the video , internet guru Clay Shirky cited, Wikileaks has had more scoops in three years than the Washington Post has had in 30. The latest and perhaps the most famous (or infamous) is the graphic video Wikileaks unveiled this week of a US Army attack in Iraq in 2007 that left 12 people dead, including two employees of Reuters.

IThis initiative was taken by WikiLeaks to reflect their commitment to their work, unhindered by the fact of extreme criticism from the opposition: We never censor.

More to Come

Based on article from telegraph.co.uk

Wikileaks, the whistle-blower website, is now reportedly preparing to release another secret video of a notorious US air strike said to have killed scores of Afghan civilians.

The video apparently shows previously classified footage from US warplanes called in to bomb Taliban fighters during a fire fight in Farah province last year.

The Afghan government said at the time that the strikes by F-18 and B1 planes near Granai killed 147 civilians. An independent Afghan inquiry later put the toll at 86.

Video footage of the strike could prove highly damaging to the Nato-led coalition if it showed pilots failing to safeguard civilian lives. The jets repeatedly dropped 500lb and 2,000lb bombs to support US and Afghan forces at they battled Taliban fighters and tried to evacuate wounded soldiers.

The inability to discern the presence of civilians and avoid and/or minimise accompanying collateral damage resulted in the unintended consequence of civilian casualties, the US inquiry found.

Employees of Wikileaks have said they are facing intimidation and attempts by intelligence services to shut them down after releasing a series of sensitive documents.