Local News | Man jailed in photo incident awarded $8,000 | Seattle Times Newspaper:


An amateur photographer who was taken into custody last year after shooting pictures of two Seattle police officers making an arrest on a public street received an $8,000 settlement this week, the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington announced Thursday.

The photographer, Bogdan Mohora, later was released and was never charged with a crime. The two officers who arrested him were disciplined, according to police.

During a news conference Thursday, Mohora, 26, said he was walking on Pike Street near Second Avenue on Nov. 2 when he saw two Seattle police officers arresting a man.

Mohora said he snapped a few shots of the arrest from a distance of more than 10 feet and was walking away when he was approached by a female friend of the man being arrested.

Mohora said the woman told him she believed the arrest of her friend was wrong, and that he was being arrested on a warrant that had been quashed. She asked Mohora about obtaining copies of the photos, he said.

Two officers, James Pitts and David Toner, then ordered Mohora to hand over his camera, according to ACLU staff attorney Aaron Caplan, who handled the case. Mohora said that when he asked what he had done wrong, the officers handcuffed him and took his camera, wallet and satchel. They then drove him to a holding cell at the Seattle Police Department's West Precinct, Mohora said.

When he was released about an hour later, he said, he was told that he could be charged with disturbing the peace, provoking a riot or endangering a police officer.

Mohora was not charged and, in violation of department policy, police did not write up an incident report on the arrest, according to ACLU Legal Director Sarah Dunne.

"Being arrested for simply being a witness to police activity was frightening and humiliating," Mohora wrote in a claim he later filed against the city. "It bothers me to think that police can abuse their authority by arresting innocent witnesses and then not even make standard police reports to document what happened."

After the ACLU intervened on Mohora's behalf, the city's claim department agreed to pay Mohora $8,000.

The ACLU said the police Office of Public Accountability investigated the officers' actions and sustained the complaint, finding the officers acted inappropriately. Seattle Police Department spokeswoman Deanna Nollette said both officers were disciplined with written reprimands for a lack of professionalism and poor exercise of discretion.

City Attorney Tom Carr said he couldn't comment on the settlement because the claim was handled by the city's risk-management department.

Caplan said the public has a right to observe and document police activity that occurs in a public location.

Posted by mikki at 01:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pilots Want UFOs Investigated:


A group of 19 pilots and government officials met at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Monday, to call on the government to investige reports of unidentified flying objects -- that's right, UFOs. All of the pilots said they have had an unexplained encounter with something in the sky, and the government seems to be covering up, or dragging its feet, or just trying to ignore the problem. A pilot from Peru's Air Force said he fired many rounds at a UFO, which was not affected. Another pilot, from Iran's Air Force, said he tried to fire at a UFO, but his airplane's control panel froze up. Both pilots spoke about their experiences for the first time in public at the Press Club event. Also on the panel were former accident investigators from the FAA and the Department of Defense. Fife Symington, who was formerly an Air Force pilot and governor of Arizona, moderated the event. He has said he saw a UFO in 1997.

Posted by mikki at 01:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Too bad they won't close down the ADIZ to do this....

FAA Opens ATC Tower At Cessna Plant:


So, how busy is your aircraft plant that it needs it’s own tower? The FAA started daily 7 a.m.-to-7 p.m. staffing of an air traffic control tower at Independence, Kan. last week and Cessna’s piston single and Mustang entry level jet traffic is the main reason. "This is another milestone in the expansion of the Independence facility" Rod Holter, manager of Cessna’s Independence plant said in a news release "With the increase in traffic following the successful launch of Mustang production here, installing a tower was the right thing to do for the convenience and safety of our customers and our employees who fly"

Posted by mikki at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Remember when our Shrubbery said that America has the best healthcare in the world, and we would be maintaining the "status quo?" Gee...I guess that only applies to those who don't ever get sick.

Lawsuit claims Health Net gave bonuses for policy rescissions:


Health Net Inc., one of the state's largest health insurers, tied rewards and savings to its employees' ability to cancel policies based on misrepresentations in members' applications, according to documents in a lawsuit against the company.
The documents showed Health Net saved $35.5 million in "unnecessary" health care expenses for rescinding more than 1,000 policies between 2000 and 2006. At the same time, a Health Net analyst received about $21,000 in bonuses for her work, which included exceeding company goals for policy rescissions.
The information was revealed during an arbitration hearing this week in San Bernardino County in a lawsuit filed by Patsy Bates, a 51-year-old hairdresser from Gardena (Los Angeles County) who is suing Health Net for $6 million plus punitive damages for revoking her policy after her breast cancer was diagnosed.
Health insurers in California and nationwide have come under fire for reviewing applications of members after they file medical claims and rescinding their policies based on any discrepancies found in the original health questionnaire. The issue affects members with individual, rather than group, plans because those policies undergo medical underwriting before an applicant is accepted.
Insurers say the practice is legal and necessary because it protects them against fraud, and keeps premiums lower for those members who truthfully reveal their health history. But state regulators and plaintiffs' lawyers have argued that the applications often are vague and confusing, and that it's not fair for insurers to review applications only after members file an expensive claim.
In Bates' case, her lawyers contend that Health Net tied an employee's bonus to her ability to review cases and rescind coverage. State law prohibits insurance companies from offering financial incentives to reduce or deny care.
According to the documents, Health Net analyst Barbara Fowler, who conducted Bates' investigation, exceeded the company's 2002 goal of 15 rescissions a month by averaging 22.9. Fowler's rescission successes were repeatedly lauded in her performance evaluations, which noted she saved the company $5.5 million in 2002 for rescinding 275 contracts. Her bonuses ranged from $1,654 in 2001 to a high of $6,310 in 2005.
"It's certainly reprehensible to set goals for so many health insurance contracts to be rescinded and to give somebody bonuses to achieve that goal," said William Shernoff, Bates' attorney, in a telephone call during a break in the hearing. The proceeding, which is being held in Rancho Cucamonga, is expected to continue through next week.
Health Net officials called Shernoff's interpretation misleading and said the unfolding case will support the insurer's position.
"The evidence will show that nothing in our employees' goals causes them to (stray from) following a fact-based process of identifying misrepresentations on applications," Health Net spokesman Brad Kieffer said.
Health Net contends that Bates' rescission was justified because Bates failed to disclose a heart condition and lied about her weight when she applied for the policy in July 2003, omissions that would have caused the insurer to reject her application.
Bates underwent surgery for breast cancer in September 2003 and her coverage was canceled while she was undergoing chemotherapy in January 2004, leaving her with $190,000 in bills. Kieffer said Bates' cancer diagnosis brought about the review of her application.
Shernoff said Bates, who had insurance when she switched to Health Net to save money, had no incentive to lie. He said an agent filled out the application for her while she was cutting hair.
State regulators said they plan to investigate the case.
State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner considers the actions taken by Health Net to be "indefensible, immoral and possibly illegal," said department spokesman Byron Tucker, adding that the agency needs to evaluate the case before taking any steps.
Cindy Ehnes, director of the Department of Managed Health Care, said the case underscores why the department is in the process of investigating insurers and clarifying regulations governing rescissions.
"That process must be fair to the enrollee who has relied on the plan giving them coverage and has sought care relying on that promise," she said.

Posted by mikki at 02:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Getting On His Wick: Monk Gets Candle Stuck In Penis | Anorak News:


“HE did a very stupid and shameful thing,” says a Romanian “monastry source” to the Daily Sport. The man with the tonsure is speaking of trainee monk Dumitru Ilie who is said to have got “hammered” and spent the night a woman he met at a party. A woman who may or may not have been a nun.

In the morning Dumitru awoke full of regret and with candle wedged up his penis. Says the doctor who treated him: “I have no idea how he managed to do that but it looked extremely painful.” Albeit unlit…

Posted by mikki at 02:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yeah, right. We can trust businesses and the government with our privacy. I mean, after all, they only screw up millions of times every year releasing confidential data and personal identifiers to the world. What are the odds?

Intel official: Expect less privacy - Yahoo! News:


WASHINGTON - As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.

Kerr's comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Lawmakers hastily changed the 1978 law last summer to allow the government to eavesdrop inside the United States without court permission, so long as one end of the conversation was reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S.

The original law required a court order for any surveillance conducted on U.S. soil, to protect Americans' privacy. The White House argued that the law was obstructing intelligence gathering because, as technology has changed, a growing amount of foreign communications passes through U.S.-based channels.

The most contentious issue in the new legislation is whether to shield telecommunications companies from civil lawsuits for allegedly giving the government access to people's private e-mails and phone calls without a FISA court order between 2001 and 2007.

Some lawmakers, including members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, appear reluctant to grant immunity. Suits might be the only way to determine how far the government has burrowed into people's privacy without court permission.

The committee is expected to decide this week whether its version of the bill will protect telecommunications companies. About 40 wiretapping suits are pending.

The central witness in a California lawsuit against AT&T says the government is vacuuming up billions of e-mails and phone calls as they pass through an AT&T switching station in San Francisco.

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician, helped connect a device in 2003 that he says diverted and copied onto a government supercomputer every call, e-mail, and Internet site access on AT&T lines.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the class-action suit, claims there are as many as 20 such sites in the U.S.

The White House has promised to veto any bill that does not grant immunity from suits such as this one.

Congressional leaders hope to finish the bill by Thanksgiving. It would replace the FISA update enacted in August that privacy groups and civil libertarians say allows the government to read Americans' e-mails and listen to their phone calls without court oversight.

Kerr said at an October intelligence conference in San Antonio that he finds concerns that the government may be listening in odd when people are "perfectly willing for a green-card holder at an (Internet service provider) who may or may have not have been an illegal entrant to the United States to handle their data."

He noted that government employees face up to five years in prison and $100,000 in fines if convicted of misusing private information.

Millions of people in this country — particularly young people — already have surrendered anonymity to social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, and to Internet commerce. These sites reveal to the public, government and corporations what was once closely guarded information, like personal statistics and credit card numbers.

"Those two generations younger than we are have a very different idea of what is essential privacy, what they would wish to protect about their lives and affairs. And so, it's not for us to inflict one size fits all," said Kerr, 68. "Protecting anonymity isn't a fight that can be won. Anyone that's typed in their name on Google understands that."

"Our job now is to engage in a productive debate, which focuses on privacy as a component of appropriate levels of security and public safety," Kerr said. "I think all of us have to really take stock of what we already are willing to give up, in terms of anonymity, but (also) what safeguards we want in place to be sure that giving that doesn't empty our bank account or do something equally bad elsewhere."

Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group that defends online free speech, privacy and intellectual property rights, said Kerr's argument ignores both privacy laws and American history.

"Anonymity has been important since the Federalist Papers were written under pseudonyms," Opsahl said. "The government has tremendous power: the police power, the ability to arrest, to detain, to take away rights. Tying together that someone has spoken out on an issue with their identity is a far more dangerous thing if it is the government that is trying to tie it together."

Opsahl also said Kerr ignores the distinction between sacrificing protection from an intrusive government and voluntarily disclosing information in exchange for a service.

"There is something fundamentally different from the government having information about you than private parties," he said. "We shouldn't have to give people the choice between taking advantage of modern communication tools and sacrificing their privacy."

"It's just another 'trust us, we're the government,'" he said.

Posted by mikki at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Or...could Congress' meddling become the end to the ASRS database?

Report: Pilots Fell Asleep During Approach To DIA - Denver News Story - KMGH Denver:


DENVER -- A commercial pilot and his first officer fell asleep while approaching Denver International Airport in an A319 Airbus jet, going twice the speed as allowed, according to a federal safety Web site.
The incident, which occurred on March 4, 2004, was one of several incidents that was brought out during a congressional hearing on airline safety in Washington this week.

Rep. Bart Gordon , D-Tenn., wanted to know why this information was available on a public Web site where pilots anonymously report the incidents themselves, while NASA wasn't willing to release it as part of a larger survey.



NASA had initially refused to release its National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service survey, saying it could make the public unnecessarily afraid to fly.

In the report filed by the pilot, who was not identified, he said he was flying a red-eye, overnight flight from Denver to Baltimore, and after he landed at Baltimore, he sat on the ground for one hour before he flew back to Denver.

"No rest. Just straight seven hours and 55 minute-flight to Baltimore and back. On this particular day in March 2004, after two previous red-eyes, this being the third red-eye in a row, the last 45 minutes of the flight, I fell asleep and so did the first officer," the pilot wrote.

"Missed all the calls from Air Traffic Control to meet crossing restrictions (where pilots have to be at a certain altitude at a certain location) at the DANDD intersection (the intersection in the sky) in the southeast corridor to Denver. The crossing restriction to be at DANDD was to be at flight level 19,000 and 250 knots. Instead we crossed DANDD at 35,000 feet at Mach .82 (approximately 590 mph)," the pilot continued.

That means that the aircraft was speeding towards DIA's crowded airspace with no one awake at the wheel.
"I woke up, why I don't know, and heard frantic calls from Air Traffic Control approximately 5 nautical miles inside DANDD (about 5 miles past DANND)," the pilot said.

More at the link above

Posted by mikki at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)