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Outrage over plans by Poland's governing party to put the judicial system under its political control sparked another day of nationwide protests Saturday, with some people gathering outside the home of ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and accusing him of being a dictator.

Polish democracy icon and former President Lech Walesa addressed a protest in Gdansk, urging young Poles to fight to preserve the separation of powers that his Solidarity movement helped to achieve more than a quarter century ago when Poland threw off communist rule.

Later, thousands of government opponents gathered in Warsaw, Krakow and other cities to urge President Andrzej Duda to reject legislation that would give Law and Justice, the conservative ruling party, control of the Supreme Court and the judiciary.

"We are all in danger. Every citizen is in danger now," said Tomasz Gromadka, a 32-year-old playwright protesting in front of the home of Kaczynski, who is the power behind the government and presidency. "Because now they are taking the courts, then they will take the media, they will take everything. But we still have the streets. This is our power. I think we should do whatever we can."

The European Union and many international legal experts say the changes would mark a dramatic reversal for a country that has been hailed as a model of democratic transition over the past quarter century, and move Poland closer toward authoritarianism.

The party "is about to finish democracy," said Ewa Krasucka, a 32-year-old photographer. "Honestly I don't think we will stop him now, but at least in 10 years, in 15 years, when we will still be with these people in the government I will feel good with myself for being here now."

Many of the protesters then moved to the Supreme Court, where people sang John Lennon's "Imagine" and held up candles.

Law and Justice won parliamentary elections in 2015 with nearly 38 percent of the vote, which translated into a slim majority in the parliament. It has maintained support of about 35 to 40 percent of voters, according to recent polls, with many supporting its cash handouts for families and its conservative and pro-Catholic worldview.

The party says the changes are needed to reform a justice system that Kaczynski says was never purged of former communists after that system collapsed in 1989.

In Warsaw, 29-year-old lawyer Marzena Wojtczak disputed that logic, saying many judges working today had actually been anti-communist dissidents and others are too young to have been communists.

Demonstrations have taken place almost every day in Poland over the past week as lawmakers pushed forward with the legislation to impose greater control over the courts.

"This will sound strange, but this is the worst and best moment in Poland since 1989," Tomasz Lis, the editor of Newsweek Polska and an outspoken government critic, said on Twitter. "A great nation is defending democracy and its own freedom."

The Supreme Court's powers include ruling on the validity of elections, and government critics fear the ruling party could use friendly judges to falsify future elections. They also fear the courts, under political pressure, will prosecute political opponents.

After winning power in 2015, Law and Justice has acted quickly to cement its power, prompting numerous street protests.

The party has asserted control over government-owned media, purged the army of most of its leadership and has neutralized the power of the Constitutional Tribunal to block any new legislation that might violate the constitution.

On Saturday, presidential spokesman Krzysztof Lapinski said Duda sees some flaws in the new legislation on the Supreme Court. But he stopped short of saying whether the president would reject the bill or seek the opinion of the Constitutional Tribunal.

Duda has 21 days to sign the bill into law.

The European Commission has expressed its concerns about Poland's judicial changes and recently threatened to strip Poland of its EU voting rights, but has so far proven powerless to do anything. Any sanctions would require unanimity of the remaining 27 EU members.

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Protests across Poland over law to control judiciary - ABC News

NBCUniversals Oxygen recently rebranded to focus on true crime content, and one of its new shows in that genre isThe Jury Speaks, which features perspectives from people who served on the juries of famous court cases. To promote that show, Oxygen is running a clever promotion online: It will bring some of its featured jurors to Reddit, where they will field questions posed by the websites IAMAcommunity.

The people Oxygen will bring to Reddit include jurors from the Robert Durst, George Zimmerman, and Michael Jackson cases. Christopher Darden(pictured above), who famously served as a member of the prosecution during O.J. Simpsons murder trial, will show up for a question-and-answer session as well.

Oxygens use of Reddit as a promotional tool is not surprising given the degree to which the cable hubhas embraced digital media companies. Notably, it will be one of the first channels to distribute a TV show produced by BuzzFeed when itreleases a true crime series discussing the death of a Mississippi teen.

The first of Oxygens Reddit depositions will take place on July 22 at 9 PM ET, when Darden will take the stand onthe IAMA forum (The Jury Speakswill premiere at the same time.)If were lucky, well finally get the famous prosecutors thoughts on the legendary legal case of Duck-Sized Horses v. Horse-Sized Duck.

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Oxygen To Promote New True Crime Series By Letting Reddit Users Question Famous Jurors - Tubefilter

Its now possible to tour Beijings Forbidden City, without actually setting foot there.A social networking app allows would-be visitors to take virtual tours of parts of the city.

More than 400,000 Imperial artifacts have been digitized.

But as CGTNs Roee Ruttenberg reports, the job is far from complete.

For some 500 years, the corridors of Chinas Imperial Palace were off-limits to non-royals. The Forbidden City, as it became known, opened-up just in the last century. Now, a museum it attracts more visitors each year than any other in the world.

A new social networking app now allows those visitors to share their stories online. And museum administrators are working in other ways to deepen the experience.

Su Yi oversees an ambitious effort to digitize nearly two million artifacts. Her teams just a quarter of the way there.

The technology is changing every day. It can help us become more efficient, said Su, who is the director of the Palace Museum Institute for Digitization. But it also poses a challenge. New equipment makes our older methods outdated.

In April, the museum announced it had found another 55,000 artifacts.One by one, thousands of items are being photographed by highly-skilled professionals. A smaller number are being captured using 3D technology, and then placed inside virtual replicas of Palace rooms.

Everything has to be very precise, to reflect the true nature of the building, Senior Digitization Engineer Ouyang Hong said. And it can be very challenging to convert the large scale numbers into an accurate 3D representation.

Now, patrons of the Forbidden City, or Palace Museum as its also known, can virtually visit areas still closed-off to the public. Curators hope the digital data will also help researchers get a fuller picture of what life was like during Imperial times.Theres nothing quite like being here in person to experience the majesty, the history, and the culture. The digitalization process isnt meant to replace that, but rather supplement the old with something very new.

China has a long history, Su said. But the world doesnt fully understand Chinese culture or the Chinese people very deeply. We want to use the internet to help change that.

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Social network app provides digital tours of Beijing's Imperial Palace - CGTN America (blog)

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The Fourth Amendment Implications of Sharing Server Space - JD Supra (press release)

Recently, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the revival of civil asset forfeiture practices. Such a phrase is ambiguous enough to disinterest average citizens, yet anyone whose assets have been sized through this method may attest to its truly malevolent and un-natural ramifications.

Effectively, civil asset forfeiture allows law enforcement to confiscate possessions from anyone suspected of illegal activity without filing any criminal charges; cases are between law enforcement and alleged criminally-connected assets, not owners. Notorious case names include Texas v. .39 Acres and Texas v. One 2004 Chevrolet Silverado. During such cases, 59.02 (c) of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure requires forfeiters to prove their innocence instead of requiring law enforcement to prove guilt.

One stark example of abuse was endured by Austin resident Javier Gonzalez in 2005. The Texas Observer reported Gonzalez was traveling from Austin to Brownsville with approximately $10,000 budgeted for his aunts funeral; however, despite no contraband, after Jim Wells County sheriff deputies stopped him for missing a front license plate, he was arrested and coerced into forfeiting the funds. Javier was told forfeiture represented the only way to prevent felony money laundering charges. Similarly, under Sessions direction, any UT student could experience disenfranchisement and have their possessions removed under the pretense of mere suspicion.

Civil asset forfeiture exists as an un-natural legal practice. The term un-natural reflects Ciceros timeless observation that, true law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions. And it does not lay its commands or prohibitions upon good men in vain Civil asset forfeiture, conversely, represents wrong reason in disagreement with nature. Imagine no property laws, or any laws whatsoever, existed: Would theft suddenly become acceptable? One does not need statutes to grasp the concept that taking from another without cause is not tolerable.

Unfortunately, even the Texas Supreme Court has ostensibly sanctioned civil asset forfeiture by holding in Texas v. Richards that the Texas Constitution does not protect owners from having assets forfeited, and in El-Ali v. Texas the Court refused to review its previous ruling. Courts, attorneys general and other entities may attempt to defend civil asset forfeiture, yet they stand in perpetual contempt of natural law enshrined within the Bill of Rights. The Fourth Amendment states, the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, which represents a restatement of natural law existing before ratification.

Sessions has promised reforms to curb previous abuses, yet law enforcement will still have perverse incentives to seize assets, which they regularly retain for local funding. Nonetheless, a ray of hope has emerged through Rep. Beto O'Rourke and Rep. Randy Webers bipartisan sponsorship of legislation guaranteeing legal representation for those whose assets have been seized, and redirecting seized assets into the U.S. Treasurys general fund. One hopes bipartisan legislative opposition and an engaged citizenry will quickly stymie civil asset forfeitures, because un-natural laws cannot be gradually reformed: They must be actively abolished.

Wayne R. Beckermann is a member of the Texas Law Class of 2020 from Brenham, Texas.

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Civil asset forfeiture: Un-natural law - UT The Daily Texan