RSS FeedGeorge McGovern’s 1972 campaign against Nixon changed many lives, including John Lennons’s. Lennon had moved to New York City in 1971, and it was his support for McGovern—who died October 21 at age 90—that led the Nixon administration to try to deport the ex-Beatle.
The story begins with Jerry Rubin. 1972 was going to be the first election in which 18-year-olds were given the right to vote—before that it had been 21. Everyone assumed that young first-time voters were likely to be anti-war and thus pro-McGovern. But all politicos knew that young people were (and remain) the least likely to register and vote of all age groups. Thus the problem for McGovern supporters was clear: how to get young people, who had become disillusioned by mainstream politics, to register and vote.
Jerry Rubin’s solution: get John Lennon to headline a national concert tour that would coincide with the election season, a tour that would combine rock music with voter registration and anti-war organizing. None of the ex-Beatles had performed live in the US for six years, so it would have been a tremendous thing.
Lennon had been singing “Give Peace a Chance” at anti-war rallies, but he wanted to do more to use his power as a celebrity to end the war. He understood the logic of Jerry Rubin’s idea, and eagerly set to work, recruiting other rock stars to join him at different venues.
Lennon did the first of the planned concerts in Ann Arbor in December 1971. He was joined onstage by Stevie Wonder and by Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party. 20,000 people showed up. It was a memorable night, and a promising one.
But the Nixon White House understood the significance of Lennon’s effort and resolved to put an end to the planned tour. “If Lennon’s visa were terminated, it would be a strategic counter-measure,” a memo to Nixon’s attorney general John Mitchell explained. (The memo came from Strom Thurmond, the segregationist Republican from South Carolina, not known to have been a Beatles fan.) Nixon’s Immigration Service promptly began deportation proceedings against Lennon, and his attorneys advised him that his case was not a strong one and he should not do anything to further antagonize the Nixon people. So Lennon’s plan for a Vote McGovern tour was canceled.
While McGovern campaigned for president, Lennon spent many days in immigration court, arguing that the deportation order was an attempt to silence him as a critic of the president. The Immigration Service attorneys said they were merely enforcing the then-existing law under which Lennon was inadmissible for a visa because of a misdemeanor conviction for possession of cannabis in London in 1969.
On election night in November 1972, Nixon won 60.7 percent of the vote, more than any Republican candidate in history up to that point. Lennon had thought McGovern might win, even though polls showed he didn’t’ have a chance. McGovern’s defeat meant not only that the war would continue but also that the INS would remain in Nixon’s hands and that Lennon’s deportation was now more likely.
I interviewed Jerry Rubin in 1982 about election night a decade before that. John and Yoko went to Rubin’s place to watch the returns, but when they arrived the facts of McGovern’s crushing defeat had become clear. “He came into the house screaming,” Rubin told me, “crazy with rage.”
“This is it?” Lennon shouted. “This is IT? I can’t believe this is fuckin’ IT. I mean, here we are… this is the fuckin’ middle-class bunch that’s gonna protect US from THEM!”
Somebody at the party replied, “You, John, you are gonna protect you from them. You and your friends. Organize your friends, organize your block, organize your neighborhood!” Somebody else said “Yeah, organize people. They’ll listen to you.”
“Listen to me?” Lennon shouted. “Man, where’ve you been? They haven’t been listening to me!”
That night marked the end of Lennon’s engagement with American politics. It also marked a turning point in his personal life: shortly afterwards, he separated from Yoko, left New York City and moved to Los Angeles for his “lost weekend” of alcohol and drugs.
A year earlier, when he arrived in New York City, he said he wanted to live in the home of the free. He had no idea at that point of the power of the American state, especially in the Nixon years, to silence critics and punish “enemies.”
The potential significance of Lennon’s support for McGovern can be measured by the severity of the measures the Nixon White House took to stop him. And of course the story didn’t end on election night 1972. Not long after, Nixon would be forced to resign in the face of evidence of his abuse of power—and when Nixon left the White House, Lennon got to stay in the USA.
Adapted from Come Together: John Lennon in His Time, by Jon Wiener.
For more on the legacy of George McGovern, check out Katrina vanden Heuvel's "George McGovern: American Patriot and Truth-Teller."
Sunday, October 28, 2012
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[Subversives] - C-SPAN Video Library
[Subversives] - C-SPAN Video Library
SUBVERSIVES :Seth Rosenfeld at University of California, Berkeley (9-19-12)
Author Seth Rosenfeld, former investigative reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner, discusses his book, Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power. In his book, he reports on the FBI’s covert actions at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1960s. The author argues that the J. Edgar Hoover-led Agency attempted to weaken activist student groups, including the Free Speech Movement (FSM). Mr. Rosenfeld’s research draws upon 250,000 pages from the Agency’s files. Seth Rosenfeld spoke at the University of California Berkeley.
SUBVERSIVES :Seth Rosenfeld at University of California, Berkeley (9-19-12)
Author Seth Rosenfeld, former investigative reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner, discusses his book, Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power. In his book, he reports on the FBI’s covert actions at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1960s. The author argues that the J. Edgar Hoover-led Agency attempted to weaken activist student groups, including the Free Speech Movement (FSM). Mr. Rosenfeld’s research draws upon 250,000 pages from the Agency’s files. Seth Rosenfeld spoke at the University of California Berkeley.
Friday, October 19, 2012
Borderline Crazy: Prop. 32′s Anti-Immigrant Allies
Borderline Crazy: Prop. 32′s Anti-Immigrant Allies
In October of 2011, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the California Dream Act—which allows undocumented but high-achieving immigrant students to receive state funds to help pay for college. It was a monumental victory for tolerance and the culmination of a long fight—Arnold Schwarzenegger repeatedly vetoed similar measures during his tenure in the California governor’s office.
Come November 6, however, that fight could begin all over again if California’s Proposition 32 passes. The initiative will outlaw the use of automatic payroll deductions from union members and corporations for political purposes, crippling union political activity and empowering the measure’s billionaire backers to impose their political will on the state. While state unions passionately fought for the California Dream Act’s passage, they were opposed by politicians with ties to Prop. 32′s backers. Though they might not be rabid with anti-immigrant bile, Prop. 32′s moneymen have no problem funneling money to politicians who are.
Take, for instance, Allan Mansoor, currently running for the State Assembly. He is an avowed enemy of the Dream Act, calling it “A slap in the face to people who followed the rules.” Mansoor has received major donations and support from Prop. 32 backers like Larry T. Smith and his powerful political action committee Family Action and the Lincoln Club of Orange County, as well as Howard Ahmanson.
When he served as mayor of the Orange County city of Costa Mesa in the early aughts, Mansoor launched a very public crackdown on Mexican lunch trucks—or, in his words “roach-coaches” blaring “La Cucaracha”—that were supposedly despoiling the suburban tranquility of his once peaceful town.
The move was blasted by the local press. Wrote OC Weekly food critic Gustavo Arellano: “Trust me on this one: As someone who has followed [these trucks] for nearly a decade, they’re not going into Costa Mesa . . . Mansoor is a bigot.”
The lunch truck crackdown, however, paled besides Mansoor’s next foray into immigration politics. In 2005, well before Arizona ever passed its anti-immigrant law SB 1070, Mansoor authorized Costa Mesa police to run immigration checks on individuals suspected of crimes, as well as on unlicensed drivers. He even proposed authorizing local police to investigate federal immigration crimes—creating a national news story over fear the rule would result in the racial profiling of Latinos.
The situation was ultimately resolved by installing a permanent Immigration and Customs Enforcement official in the local jail. But not before the American Civil Liberties Union sued Mansoor and Costa Mesa, after an immigrant rights advocate was arrested for speaking up against the plan at a city council meeting.
Belinda Escobosa Helzer, director and senior attorney of the ACLU’s Orange County office, which filed the suit, says that during the discovery phase of the lawsuit her group uncovered close ties between Mansoor and the anti-immigrant vigilante group the Minutemen, as well as its founder, Jim Gilchrist. Mansoor was even made an honorary member of the organization at one event.
“We believe the Minutemen to be a very dangerous group,” says Helzer. “Given the history of [Mansoor’s] activities in Costa Mesa, we would be concerned with any public servant who has those kinds of connections.”
Mansoor isn’t the only anti-immigrant zealot receiving material support from Prop. 32’s backers. San Bernardino Republican State Assemblyman Tim Donnelly recently received a $3,900 contribution from Howard Ahmanson’s political asset manager, Fieldstead and Company, for his reelection bid. Donnelly is probably best known for bringing a loaded .45-caliber Colt Mark IV on board a flight to Sacramento in January of this year. His excuse? Illegal immigrants were after him!
Donnelly is one of California’s most publicly anti-immigrant politicians. He’s the founder of his town’s chapter of the Minuteman—the xenophobic group that has tasked itself with patrolling the borders for undocumented immigrants. He was also the leading opponent of the Dream Act. Not only did he vote against the bill’s passage, Donnelly began collecting signatures to have the law repealed by ballot measure shortly after it was signed into law.
Fieldstead, incidentally, donated to Donnelly’s campaign well after his airplane adventure and anti-immigrant paranoia made national news. Ahmanson, rather disingenuously, claims that he himself isn’t anti-immigrant: “Most immigrants,” he told the Sacramento Bee in 2011, “are conservative on the social issues.”
Perhaps more hypocritical than disingenuous, however, is major Prop. 32 donor Jerry Perenchio. Even though he made much of his fortune as a co-owner of the Spanish-language TV network Univision, Perenchio has channeled $2.5 million in this election cycle to Republican candidates across America who could easily be described as anti-immigrant. The money was largely routed through Karl Rove’s American Crossroads Super PAC.
In Nevada alone, American Crossroads has supported Republican Senator Dean Heller, who vowed to alter the 14th Amendment to prevent those born in this country from automatically becoming citizens—in order to eliminate immigrant “anchor babies.” Earlier, in a 2011 special election, American Crossroads helped finance the campaign of Republican Mark Amodei, who compares the effects of illegal immigration to the devastation Hurricane Katrina wreaked on New Orleans.
Even before this election cycle, Perenchio donated money to such anti-immigrant California politicians as Santa Barbara Republican Tony Strickland—who voted against both the Dream Act and the Trust Act, the latter of which would have limited California law enforcement’s cooperation with federal officials in rounding up undocumented immigrants for deportation.
Strickland is a popular choice among Prop. 32 donors, receiving a rare direct donation to a California politician from Koch Industries—to the tune of $5,000.
Admittedly, most of Prop. 32’s backers aren’t aggressively anti-immigrant. At least not openly. They’re too savvy for that—after all, 38 percent of California is Latino. On a statewide level, pushing for an Arizona-type law would ultimately mean political suicide for California Republicans.
However, while political considerations may be keeping Prop. 32’s known backers from frothing at the mouth over immigration, it’s the unknown that is cause for concern. Earlier this week, the Prop. 32 campaign netted a massive $11 million donation from a mysterious non-profit calling itself Americans for Responsible Leadership. The organization is based in Arizona.
Little is known about ARL, and even less about its financial supporters. Our efforts to contact the group by press-time were unsuccessful.
Despite the scant details over the Arizona money’s origins, however, its infusion into the political process ultimately points to the greatest cause for concern over Prop. 32—the complete unknown. Even if California Republicans are too timid to launch an Arizona-type crackdown, that doesn’t mean shadowy out-of-state money from wealthy xenophobes couldn’t push for such a measure. As Perenchio’s national donations, as well as pro-Prop. 32 donations to candidates like Mansoor and Donnelly, indicate, curbing anti-Latino rhetoric and stemming the tide of xenophobic legislation is nowhere on the Prop. 32 donors’ priority list.
Tags: immigration • Proposition 32
Borderline Crazy: Prop. 32′s Anti-Immigrant Allies
by Matthew Fleischer onIn October of 2011, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the California Dream Act—which allows undocumented but high-achieving immigrant students to receive state funds to help pay for college. It was a monumental victory for tolerance and the culmination of a long fight—Arnold Schwarzenegger repeatedly vetoed similar measures during his tenure in the California governor’s office.
Come November 6, however, that fight could begin all over again if California’s Proposition 32 passes. The initiative will outlaw the use of automatic payroll deductions from union members and corporations for political purposes, crippling union political activity and empowering the measure’s billionaire backers to impose their political will on the state. While state unions passionately fought for the California Dream Act’s passage, they were opposed by politicians with ties to Prop. 32′s backers. Though they might not be rabid with anti-immigrant bile, Prop. 32′s moneymen have no problem funneling money to politicians who are.
Take, for instance, Allan Mansoor, currently running for the State Assembly. He is an avowed enemy of the Dream Act, calling it “A slap in the face to people who followed the rules.” Mansoor has received major donations and support from Prop. 32 backers like Larry T. Smith and his powerful political action committee Family Action and the Lincoln Club of Orange County, as well as Howard Ahmanson.
When he served as mayor of the Orange County city of Costa Mesa in the early aughts, Mansoor launched a very public crackdown on Mexican lunch trucks—or, in his words “roach-coaches” blaring “La Cucaracha”—that were supposedly despoiling the suburban tranquility of his once peaceful town.
The move was blasted by the local press. Wrote OC Weekly food critic Gustavo Arellano: “Trust me on this one: As someone who has followed [these trucks] for nearly a decade, they’re not going into Costa Mesa . . . Mansoor is a bigot.”
The lunch truck crackdown, however, paled besides Mansoor’s next foray into immigration politics. In 2005, well before Arizona ever passed its anti-immigrant law SB 1070, Mansoor authorized Costa Mesa police to run immigration checks on individuals suspected of crimes, as well as on unlicensed drivers. He even proposed authorizing local police to investigate federal immigration crimes—creating a national news story over fear the rule would result in the racial profiling of Latinos.
The situation was ultimately resolved by installing a permanent Immigration and Customs Enforcement official in the local jail. But not before the American Civil Liberties Union sued Mansoor and Costa Mesa, after an immigrant rights advocate was arrested for speaking up against the plan at a city council meeting.
Belinda Escobosa Helzer, director and senior attorney of the ACLU’s Orange County office, which filed the suit, says that during the discovery phase of the lawsuit her group uncovered close ties between Mansoor and the anti-immigrant vigilante group the Minutemen, as well as its founder, Jim Gilchrist. Mansoor was even made an honorary member of the organization at one event.
“We believe the Minutemen to be a very dangerous group,” says Helzer. “Given the history of [Mansoor’s] activities in Costa Mesa, we would be concerned with any public servant who has those kinds of connections.”
Mansoor isn’t the only anti-immigrant zealot receiving material support from Prop. 32’s backers. San Bernardino Republican State Assemblyman Tim Donnelly recently received a $3,900 contribution from Howard Ahmanson’s political asset manager, Fieldstead and Company, for his reelection bid. Donnelly is probably best known for bringing a loaded .45-caliber Colt Mark IV on board a flight to Sacramento in January of this year. His excuse? Illegal immigrants were after him!
Donnelly is one of California’s most publicly anti-immigrant politicians. He’s the founder of his town’s chapter of the Minuteman—the xenophobic group that has tasked itself with patrolling the borders for undocumented immigrants. He was also the leading opponent of the Dream Act. Not only did he vote against the bill’s passage, Donnelly began collecting signatures to have the law repealed by ballot measure shortly after it was signed into law.
Fieldstead, incidentally, donated to Donnelly’s campaign well after his airplane adventure and anti-immigrant paranoia made national news. Ahmanson, rather disingenuously, claims that he himself isn’t anti-immigrant: “Most immigrants,” he told the Sacramento Bee in 2011, “are conservative on the social issues.”
Perhaps more hypocritical than disingenuous, however, is major Prop. 32 donor Jerry Perenchio. Even though he made much of his fortune as a co-owner of the Spanish-language TV network Univision, Perenchio has channeled $2.5 million in this election cycle to Republican candidates across America who could easily be described as anti-immigrant. The money was largely routed through Karl Rove’s American Crossroads Super PAC.
In Nevada alone, American Crossroads has supported Republican Senator Dean Heller, who vowed to alter the 14th Amendment to prevent those born in this country from automatically becoming citizens—in order to eliminate immigrant “anchor babies.” Earlier, in a 2011 special election, American Crossroads helped finance the campaign of Republican Mark Amodei, who compares the effects of illegal immigration to the devastation Hurricane Katrina wreaked on New Orleans.
Even before this election cycle, Perenchio donated money to such anti-immigrant California politicians as Santa Barbara Republican Tony Strickland—who voted against both the Dream Act and the Trust Act, the latter of which would have limited California law enforcement’s cooperation with federal officials in rounding up undocumented immigrants for deportation.
Strickland is a popular choice among Prop. 32 donors, receiving a rare direct donation to a California politician from Koch Industries—to the tune of $5,000.
Admittedly, most of Prop. 32’s backers aren’t aggressively anti-immigrant. At least not openly. They’re too savvy for that—after all, 38 percent of California is Latino. On a statewide level, pushing for an Arizona-type law would ultimately mean political suicide for California Republicans.
However, while political considerations may be keeping Prop. 32’s known backers from frothing at the mouth over immigration, it’s the unknown that is cause for concern. Earlier this week, the Prop. 32 campaign netted a massive $11 million donation from a mysterious non-profit calling itself Americans for Responsible Leadership. The organization is based in Arizona.
Little is known about ARL, and even less about its financial supporters. Our efforts to contact the group by press-time were unsuccessful.
Despite the scant details over the Arizona money’s origins, however, its infusion into the political process ultimately points to the greatest cause for concern over Prop. 32—the complete unknown. Even if California Republicans are too timid to launch an Arizona-type crackdown, that doesn’t mean shadowy out-of-state money from wealthy xenophobes couldn’t push for such a measure. As Perenchio’s national donations, as well as pro-Prop. 32 donations to candidates like Mansoor and Donnelly, indicate, curbing anti-Latino rhetoric and stemming the tide of xenophobic legislation is nowhere on the Prop. 32 donors’ priority list.
Tags: immigration • Proposition 32Thursday, October 18, 2012
Civil Rights Today: The Landmark Case of Adkins et. al. v. Morgan Stanley | Equal Justice Society
Civil Rights Today: The Landmark Case of Adkins et. al. v. Morgan Stanley | Equal Justice Society
Oct17
Oct17
Civil Rights Today: The Landmark Case of Adkins et. al. v. Morgan Stanley
Posted by Keith Kamisugi 0 Comments This is a guest post by john a. powell, Executive Director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society and The Robert D. Haas Chancellor’s Chair in Equity and Inclusion at UC Berkeley.
On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against Morgan Stanley in what may become the most important civil rights case in a generation. If successful, the implications of this suit are profound and the impact could be staggering, both in addressing the damages suffered by devastated communities as a result of predatory lending triggering the foreclosure crisis and the symbolic importance of framing these damages as civil rights violations.
Too often, the story of the foreclosure crisis is told as a story of the failure of communities of color and individuals who signed loans they could not afford rather than the story of how sophisticated financial institutions and their investors preyed on these communities to earn billions by deliberately pushing bad loans. And, until now, there has been very little done to address the harms suffered by these communities. And where the government has acted, it has sued banks, not the secondary market, on grounds of fraud rather than civil rights violations.
This suit alleges that Morgan Stanley violated the Fair Housing Act by discriminating on the basis of race in the secondary mortgage market. Specifically, Morgan Stanley is liable under Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act by purchasing, pooling, and selling securitized mortgages in predominantly non-white neighborhoods. To be clear, this lawsuit is not alleging that Morgan Stanley or its employees held racial hostility to the black community, but that the policies and practices of the investment bank had a manifest racial impact in clear violation of the 1988 amendments to the Fair Housing Act.
Subprime loans were five times more likely in African American neighborhoods than in white neighborhoods. Subprime lenders targeted these communities – a process known as reverse-redlining –in order to satisfy the voracious investor demand for subprime securities. Because low-income, minority areas were historically excluded from the traditional lending markets through redlining, subprime lenders were able to saturate these communities with subprime loans, which were securitized and sold to investors. Morgan Stanley did not make these loans to homeowners themselves. Instead, they pushed the originating banks to make loans that were defective in violation of sound underwriting practices. They often knew, or should have known, that many these loans would fail.
Investment banks such as Morgan Stanley sought out high-risk loans disproportionately concentrated in non-white neighborhoods that were likely to default, bundled them and marketed them to investors, often, as the SEC complaint in the lawsuit settled with Goldman Sachs in 2010 illustrated, with the expectation that these loans would fail. In doing so, they created a market for subprime loans and other high risk loans, driving a subprime industry that targeted minority borrowers and borrowers in largely non-white neighborhoods. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are players in what is called the “secondary market” since they do not originate these loans, but they package them for investors through securitization. In many respects, it is the secondary market that set the terms for lending, not just to borrowers, but also for originating banks.
Minority borrowers were more willing to agree to the terms of such loans on account of the inadequate access to prime loans or traditional financing options. Consequently, lenders steered African American borrowers with prime credit to take out subprime loans through both intentional discrimination and discriminatory impact created by their policies. These borrowers paid more for loans that often featured balloon payments and adjustment rates. Consequently, they were more likely to default.
The damages for these practices, which are not limited to Morgan Stanley, may be in the billions. If successful, this suit will be the first of several. But it also might inspire the government to take meaningful action to protect homeowners and others from a financial system that is sometimes out of control. Part of the importance of this case lies in the fact that all of the government’s attempts to litigate the harms of the subprime crisis have typically been rooted in fraud, including the government’s recent lawsuit against Wells Fargo. This is the first major suit that alleges Civil Rights violations, which is, in some sense, a much clearer case. The regulations under the Amendments to Title VIII clearly specify that “pooling or packaging” loans on the basis of race is a violation of Title VIII (42 C.F.R. § 100.125). Since disparate impact claims are recognized under Title VIII, not just disparate treatment, a statistical showing of a racial impact provides the foundational proof of a Title VIII violation.
In my role as the Executive Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at the Ohio State University, and as a former national legal director of the ACLU, in 2007 I convened a team of researchers to investigate the emerging subprime lending and foreclosure crisis and its impact on communities of color across the nation. In October of 2008, a month after the failure of Lehman Brothers, we held a national convening supported by W.K Kellogg foundations that drew together academic researchers, community advocates, fair housing attorneys, and civil rights workers. In 2010, when the SEC filed suit against Goldman, I asked my team to examine grounds for a potential civil rights intervention on behalf of impacted communities. After all, if investors were defrauded, wouldn’t that suggest that the homeowners were also defrauded? Stephen Menendian, my senior legal researcher, identified clear grounds under Title VIII for suit, but the provision had apparently never been litigated. We brought this to the attention of Dennis Parker at the ACLU, who is lead counsel in the case against Morgan Stanley. With an initial grant from the Akonadi Foundation, we began the research of applying this Title VIII provision to subprime loans.
Too often today we conceptualize civil rights law narrowly. We tend to be backward looking, defensive and ambivalent about the role of courts. Some of us even believe that civil rights have become overly court-centric. This myopic view has diminished both the practice of civil rights and our training of the next generation of civil rights attorneys to think creatively and innovatively about the future of civil rights litigation. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, educational equity suits had run their course in federal courts, but along with few innovative lawyers, I helped develop the legal theory of educational adequacy that was used in cases like Leandro v. North Carolina. While legislative change is critical and the law may be too narrow, we must not forget the important role that courts can play in both protecting civil rights and generating meaningful societal change.
When the Brown litigation was first being developed by Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall, the courts were far from receptive to their cause. Yet, through painstaking advocacy, inside and outside the courtroom over several decades, they were able to change our nation. Cases like Adkins v. Morgan Stanley, the ACLU’s voter ID case in Pennsylvania, and the various stop and frisk suits are part of the future of civil rights advocacy, using clear, but rarely litigated provisions to address great harm, challenging discriminatory legislation, or creatively applying civil rights laws to new situations.
Wherever there is a dual system, whether it is a dual school system or a dual credit system, it suggests we are treating some groups as though they are not full members of society, as truly belonging. Addressing this is what civil rights has always been about. We must not cede this vision to the courts, those opposed to civil rights, or the government, which has not brought these suits on our behalf. Rather, it is our responsibility as lawyers and citizens to advocate for change. Until this is fully addressed, there is not a post-civil rights movement, only a civil rights one.
On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against Morgan Stanley in what may become the most important civil rights case in a generation. If successful, the implications of this suit are profound and the impact could be staggering, both in addressing the damages suffered by devastated communities as a result of predatory lending triggering the foreclosure crisis and the symbolic importance of framing these damages as civil rights violations.Too often, the story of the foreclosure crisis is told as a story of the failure of communities of color and individuals who signed loans they could not afford rather than the story of how sophisticated financial institutions and their investors preyed on these communities to earn billions by deliberately pushing bad loans. And, until now, there has been very little done to address the harms suffered by these communities. And where the government has acted, it has sued banks, not the secondary market, on grounds of fraud rather than civil rights violations.
This suit alleges that Morgan Stanley violated the Fair Housing Act by discriminating on the basis of race in the secondary mortgage market. Specifically, Morgan Stanley is liable under Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act by purchasing, pooling, and selling securitized mortgages in predominantly non-white neighborhoods. To be clear, this lawsuit is not alleging that Morgan Stanley or its employees held racial hostility to the black community, but that the policies and practices of the investment bank had a manifest racial impact in clear violation of the 1988 amendments to the Fair Housing Act.
Subprime loans were five times more likely in African American neighborhoods than in white neighborhoods. Subprime lenders targeted these communities – a process known as reverse-redlining –in order to satisfy the voracious investor demand for subprime securities. Because low-income, minority areas were historically excluded from the traditional lending markets through redlining, subprime lenders were able to saturate these communities with subprime loans, which were securitized and sold to investors. Morgan Stanley did not make these loans to homeowners themselves. Instead, they pushed the originating banks to make loans that were defective in violation of sound underwriting practices. They often knew, or should have known, that many these loans would fail.
Investment banks such as Morgan Stanley sought out high-risk loans disproportionately concentrated in non-white neighborhoods that were likely to default, bundled them and marketed them to investors, often, as the SEC complaint in the lawsuit settled with Goldman Sachs in 2010 illustrated, with the expectation that these loans would fail. In doing so, they created a market for subprime loans and other high risk loans, driving a subprime industry that targeted minority borrowers and borrowers in largely non-white neighborhoods. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are players in what is called the “secondary market” since they do not originate these loans, but they package them for investors through securitization. In many respects, it is the secondary market that set the terms for lending, not just to borrowers, but also for originating banks.
Minority borrowers were more willing to agree to the terms of such loans on account of the inadequate access to prime loans or traditional financing options. Consequently, lenders steered African American borrowers with prime credit to take out subprime loans through both intentional discrimination and discriminatory impact created by their policies. These borrowers paid more for loans that often featured balloon payments and adjustment rates. Consequently, they were more likely to default.
The damages for these practices, which are not limited to Morgan Stanley, may be in the billions. If successful, this suit will be the first of several. But it also might inspire the government to take meaningful action to protect homeowners and others from a financial system that is sometimes out of control. Part of the importance of this case lies in the fact that all of the government’s attempts to litigate the harms of the subprime crisis have typically been rooted in fraud, including the government’s recent lawsuit against Wells Fargo. This is the first major suit that alleges Civil Rights violations, which is, in some sense, a much clearer case. The regulations under the Amendments to Title VIII clearly specify that “pooling or packaging” loans on the basis of race is a violation of Title VIII (42 C.F.R. § 100.125). Since disparate impact claims are recognized under Title VIII, not just disparate treatment, a statistical showing of a racial impact provides the foundational proof of a Title VIII violation.
In my role as the Executive Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at the Ohio State University, and as a former national legal director of the ACLU, in 2007 I convened a team of researchers to investigate the emerging subprime lending and foreclosure crisis and its impact on communities of color across the nation. In October of 2008, a month after the failure of Lehman Brothers, we held a national convening supported by W.K Kellogg foundations that drew together academic researchers, community advocates, fair housing attorneys, and civil rights workers. In 2010, when the SEC filed suit against Goldman, I asked my team to examine grounds for a potential civil rights intervention on behalf of impacted communities. After all, if investors were defrauded, wouldn’t that suggest that the homeowners were also defrauded? Stephen Menendian, my senior legal researcher, identified clear grounds under Title VIII for suit, but the provision had apparently never been litigated. We brought this to the attention of Dennis Parker at the ACLU, who is lead counsel in the case against Morgan Stanley. With an initial grant from the Akonadi Foundation, we began the research of applying this Title VIII provision to subprime loans.
Too often today we conceptualize civil rights law narrowly. We tend to be backward looking, defensive and ambivalent about the role of courts. Some of us even believe that civil rights have become overly court-centric. This myopic view has diminished both the practice of civil rights and our training of the next generation of civil rights attorneys to think creatively and innovatively about the future of civil rights litigation. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, educational equity suits had run their course in federal courts, but along with few innovative lawyers, I helped develop the legal theory of educational adequacy that was used in cases like Leandro v. North Carolina. While legislative change is critical and the law may be too narrow, we must not forget the important role that courts can play in both protecting civil rights and generating meaningful societal change.
When the Brown litigation was first being developed by Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall, the courts were far from receptive to their cause. Yet, through painstaking advocacy, inside and outside the courtroom over several decades, they were able to change our nation. Cases like Adkins v. Morgan Stanley, the ACLU’s voter ID case in Pennsylvania, and the various stop and frisk suits are part of the future of civil rights advocacy, using clear, but rarely litigated provisions to address great harm, challenging discriminatory legislation, or creatively applying civil rights laws to new situations.
Wherever there is a dual system, whether it is a dual school system or a dual credit system, it suggests we are treating some groups as though they are not full members of society, as truly belonging. Addressing this is what civil rights has always been about. We must not cede this vision to the courts, those opposed to civil rights, or the government, which has not brought these suits on our behalf. Rather, it is our responsibility as lawyers and citizens to advocate for change. Until this is fully addressed, there is not a post-civil rights movement, only a civil rights one.
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Friday, October 12, 2012
Friday, October 5, 2012
Facebook Is Losing Your Mail in Hopes of Receiving More Bribes | FAIR Blog
Facebook Is Losing Your Mail in Hopes of Receiving More Bribes | FAIR Blog
Facebook Is Losing Your Mail in Hopes of Receiving More Bribes
Back in May, Facebook introduced its Promoted Posts program, giving groups and companies with pages on the social media site the option of paying to get their posts seen by more of their fans.
The way Facebook works is that you don't see every post by every friend or every page that you like–Facebook has a formula called Edgerank that tries to determine how interested you'd be in that post, based mainly on how much you've "liked," shared or commented upon similar posts in the past, and how many people are liking, sharing and commenting on that particular post.
At least, that's how it used to work. Now it's got the additional factor of whether Facebook has received a bribe to show you a post that its formula tells it you won't necessarily find to be that interesting.
Now, say your mail carrier lets it be known that they'll accept a small fee to make sure that your mail doesn't get lost–and you decline to pay the fee. What do you expect is going to happen? That's right, more of your mail is going to get lost.
And sure enough, on September 20, Facebook decided to start losing more of your mail.
As reported by the marketing blog Social@Ogilvy (9/25/12), Facebook changed is algorithm for what they call "brand pages" in order to "to minimize brand page posts being seen by those who have opted in to 'liking' that page." Ostensibly, the point of this was "to de-clutter the amount of posts served up to mobile and tablet users by brands." But as Social@Ogilvy pointed out:
Looking at the stats for FAIR's own Facebook page, the drop is obvious–and even more precipitous than Edgerank Checker's average. In the week of September 14-20, we reached 14,927 people through Facebook; in the week from September 21-27, it was 4,992. That's a drop of 67 percent.
The change in Edgerank illustrates the double-edged sword of social media. On the one hand, such outlets have the potential to vastly increase the ability of individuals to choose what information interests them, to influence what their friends and the general public are seeing, and to discuss and debate the media they receive in real time. On the other, when these activities are all taking place in a privatized communication network, all these choices can be manipulated to serve the profit needs (or political agenda) of the network's corporate owner.
Today it's messages from groups that are being blocked by Facebook in order to extract more money. But don't think the company is going to stop there: "We are expanding a test that started last May that enables people to pay to promote a status update so that more friends may see it in their news feed," Facebook announced in a statement (WebProNews, 9/19/12). "This particular test is simply to gauge people's interest in this method of sharing with their friends."
In other words–look for Facebook to soon be losing even more of your mail.
The way Facebook works is that you don't see every post by every friend or every page that you like–Facebook has a formula called Edgerank that tries to determine how interested you'd be in that post, based mainly on how much you've "liked," shared or commented upon similar posts in the past, and how many people are liking, sharing and commenting on that particular post.
At least, that's how it used to work. Now it's got the additional factor of whether Facebook has received a bribe to show you a post that its formula tells it you won't necessarily find to be that interesting.
Now, say your mail carrier lets it be known that they'll accept a small fee to make sure that your mail doesn't get lost–and you decline to pay the fee. What do you expect is going to happen? That's right, more of your mail is going to get lost.
And sure enough, on September 20, Facebook decided to start losing more of your mail.
As reported by the marketing blog Social@Ogilvy (9/25/12), Facebook changed is algorithm for what they call "brand pages" in order to "to minimize brand page posts being seen by those who have opted in to 'liking' that page." Ostensibly, the point of this was "to de-clutter the amount of posts served up to mobile and tablet users by brands." But as Social@Ogilvy pointed out:
The change comes at a time when Facebook is trying to maximize the amount of paid advertising it has on the platform, in an effort to bump its share price after a struggling stock share post-IPO.The blog of a company that tracks Facebook hits, Edgerank Checker (10/1/12), did a survey of 3,000 brand pages and found that the number of users they reached in the week after September 20 dropped by 36.5 percent–from 26 percent of their fans to 19.5 percent–compared to the week before September 20.
Looking at the stats for FAIR's own Facebook page, the drop is obvious–and even more precipitous than Edgerank Checker's average. In the week of September 14-20, we reached 14,927 people through Facebook; in the week from September 21-27, it was 4,992. That's a drop of 67 percent.
The change in Edgerank illustrates the double-edged sword of social media. On the one hand, such outlets have the potential to vastly increase the ability of individuals to choose what information interests them, to influence what their friends and the general public are seeing, and to discuss and debate the media they receive in real time. On the other, when these activities are all taking place in a privatized communication network, all these choices can be manipulated to serve the profit needs (or political agenda) of the network's corporate owner.
Today it's messages from groups that are being blocked by Facebook in order to extract more money. But don't think the company is going to stop there: "We are expanding a test that started last May that enables people to pay to promote a status update so that more friends may see it in their news feed," Facebook announced in a statement (WebProNews, 9/19/12). "This particular test is simply to gauge people's interest in this method of sharing with their friends."
In other words–look for Facebook to soon be losing even more of your mail.
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Sunday, August 19, 2012
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Panel on Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks - C-SPAN Video Library
Panel on Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks - C-SPAN Video Library
Chase Madar and Kevin Gosztola had each authored a book about Bradley Manning, accused of passing classified material to the Website WikiLeaks. They talked about PFC Manning's upcoming court-martial and the treatment he received since being detained. Additional commentary was provided by Mark Doten and Ted Hearne, who were working on an opera about Manning. The panelists, who had attended Manning's hearings, responded to questions from members of the audience at this "Manning Monday" Brecht Forum in New York City. Kevin Gosztola participated by video link from Chicago.
Chase Madar and Kevin Gosztola had each authored a book about Bradley Manning, accused of passing classified material to the Website WikiLeaks. They talked about PFC Manning's upcoming court-martial and the treatment he received since being detained. Additional commentary was provided by Mark Doten and Ted Hearne, who were working on an opera about Manning. The panelists, who had attended Manning's hearings, responded to questions from members of the audience at this "Manning Monday" Brecht Forum in New York City. Kevin Gosztola participated by video link from Chicago.
Policing for Profit - The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture
Learn more at http://www.ij.org/PolicingForProfit
Civil forfeiture laws represent one of the most serious assaults on private property rights in the nation today. With civil forfeiture, police and prosecutors can seize your property and use it to fund their budgets—all without charging you with a crime. Americans are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but with civil forfeiture, your property is guilty until you prove it innocent—and law enforcement has a huge incentive to police for profit, not justice.
If police suspect that you committed a crime, they can arrest you and put you on trial. At that trial, prosecutors must prove you are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
But if police suspect your car was involved in a crime, they can take it, sell it and, in most places, pocket the proceeds to pad their budgets. They need not prove you committed any crime—or even arrest you—to take your property away.
Welcome to the upside-down world of civil asset forfeiture.
With civil forfeiture, your property is guilty until you prove it innocent to get it back.
And because most state and federal laws allow police and prosecutors to pocket the proceeds, they have a big incentive to pursue profits, not justice.
How big? In 1986, the Justice Departments forfeiture fund took in 94 million dollars. Now it has more than a billion. State and local agencies receive forfeiture funds, too—but we don't know how much because most states don't publicly report on forfeiture.
No surprise—abuse is rampant. One New York police department spent forfeiture funds on food, gifts and entertainment. In Georgia, forfeiture funds paid for football tickets for a DAs office. In Louisiana, cops used funds to pay for ski trips to Aspen. And a DA in Texas used forfeiture dollars to buy TV ads for his re-election campaign.
Meanwhile, citizens are seeing cash, cars and other property taken away for the flimsiest of reasons. Carrying too much cash? Police can accuse you of selling drugs or laundering money and seize it, no conviction or even arrest required.
An Institute for Justice study grades state laws on how well they protect people from wrongful forfeitures. Only three states receive a B or better. The rest range from mediocre to awful—and so does federal law.
Worse, a federal legal loophole allows police and prosecutors to bypass state protections and keep pocketing forfeiture money. IJ's research shows that the easier and more profitable these laws make forfeiture, the more it is used and abused.
Its time to end civil forfeiture. People shouldn't have their property taken away without being convicted of a crime. And law enforcement shouldn't be policing for profit
Learn more at http://www.ij.org/PolicingForProfit
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Anonymous, WikiLeaks, Abraxas, Stratfor, and the TrapWire Surveillance System - Mystic Politics
Anonymous, WikiLeaks, Abraxas, Stratfor, and the TrapWire Surveillance System - Mystic Politics
Is the CIA using Syrian Propaganda to frame Iran?The CIA / Free Syrian Army claims to have captured 48 Iranian spies after receiving US intelligence that Iran had planted people in Syria. | This article originally appeared on Occupy Corporatism / by Susanne Posel.The CIA-controlled Free Syrian ...
Researchers prove Predator Drones can be hacked via GPSby Susanne Posel - Researchers at the University of Texas demonstrated to officials at the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) how drones could be hacked into through their navigation systems.Known as “spoofing”, a false signal through the Global ...
U.S. Analyst: Damascus Bombing Smells of MossadA former U.S. intelligence analyst said Israeli spy network Mossad could be linked to a fatal bombing in Damascus. | This article originally appeared on Hurriyet Daily News (h/t Turkish Weekly ).A former U.S. intelligence analyst said Israeli spy ...
Anonymous, WikiLeaks, Abraxas, Stratfor, and the TrapWire Surveillance System
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Is the CIA using Syrian Propaganda to frame Iran?The CIA / Free Syrian Army claims to have captured 48 Iranian spies after receiving US intelligence that Iran had planted people in Syria. | This article originally appeared on Occupy Corporatism / by Susanne Posel.The CIA-controlled Free Syrian ...Researchers prove Predator Drones can be hacked via GPSby Susanne Posel - Researchers at the University of Texas demonstrated to officials at the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) how drones could be hacked into through their navigation systems.Known as “spoofing”, a false signal through the Global ...U.S. Analyst: Damascus Bombing Smells of MossadA former U.S. intelligence analyst said Israeli spy network Mossad could be linked to a fatal bombing in Damascus. | This article originally appeared on Hurriyet Daily News (h/t Turkish Weekly ).A former U.S. intelligence analyst said Israeli spy ...Speak Your Mind
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When Net Neutrality advocates realize and decide that these gradual "feature" implementations were against neutrality, there will be a coherent outcry and perhaps legislation against this and similar practices.
After that, it was easy to see that my processor was being slowly strangled to death with all the threads the apps on Facebook would shove down it. Every stupid ad wanted a gig of bandwidth it seemed like.
By the time I could begin to play one game, it was like trying to play while wrapped in rubber bands, and drenched in molasses in a cold room. It was a work out to post on FB.
They had not real plans, this is not sustainable, and they knew it. You can't keep using MLM techniques (you just get 5 people to like this….) forever. Its like throwing stones in a pond. If you throw only one a day, not a problem; but if 6,000 people a day do it, big problem real quick; you run out of pond to make ripples in.