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The news from San Antonio two weekends ago was sickening: Ten migrants died inside a trailer parked in a Wal Mart shopping center in sweltering heat. The victims were among as many as 70 human beings who were being smuggled into the United States by ruthless human traffickers.

The tractor-trailer where the migrants were locked in had no air conditioning. No water was available. This disregard for human life is not the first time ruthless human smugglers have show their callousness. Nineteen people died in a similar 2003 case in Victoria, about 123 miles southeast of San Antonio.

Federal lawmakers who have been unable to cobble together legislation that will end the loss of human lives, both in tractor-trailer trucks where they are packed like sardines, or in hostile environments of barren deserts.

It is easy to put the blame on human smugglers, but everyone who benefits from undocumented immigration bears part of the guilt. From the employers who hire them, to the customers who benefit from the crops they pick or the services they provide, to federal lawmakers who believe a secure the border first approach is the answer.

We are all guilty!

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick placed the blame on the recent incident on sanctuary cities.

Sanctuary cities entice people to believe they can come to America and Texas and live outside the law, said Patrick. Sanctuary cities also enable human smugglers and cartels.

Employers and consumers in the U.S. also enable human smugglers and cartels. Without a market for their labor, undocumented immigration would dry up.

Efforts like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) are just a Band-Aid for a serious issue.

So is a bipartisan DREAM Act introduced last month in the House which would allow hardworking young immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as minors to apply for legal status and eventual citizenship if they meet certain educational or military requirements, successfully pass a background check, and remain in good legal standing.

Like DACA, this does not address the majority of about 11 million undocumented residents who have worked, lived and stayed out of trouble in this country.

This is all political. When a bipartisan group of Senators introduced legislation in 2013 that would take a big step toward fixing the countrys immigration system, the House never brought it up for a vote. Never mind that there were enough votes to pass the bill.

President Donald J. Trump has made building a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border a high priority, even though experts doubt that will dry up undocumented immigration to this country. More than half of undocumented immigrants do so by overstaying their visa rather than by crossing the border.

Until this country gets serious about immigration reform, expect more deaths due to inhumane traffickers.

More:
Lack of immigration reform takes a deadly toll - Vida en el Valle

(Reuters) - In 1986, when Congress enacted the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Internet was still in its larval stage. Some U.S. government agencies communicated via the Defense Departments Arpanet, the Internets precursor. Universities and research centers were just starting to network with the government and each other. Commercial Internet service providers didnt exist. Tim Berners-Lee hadnt yet published his revolutionary proposal to link computers around the worldto share information. Mark Zuckerberg was 2 years old.

The CFAA, in other words, was not written to answer the question posed in litigation between the data analytics company hiQ and the social media site LinkedIn: Does a social media site control access to information its users post publicly? As Ive previously explained, hiQs business is to sell employers data analysis bases on their employees public LinkedIn profiles. LinkedIn believes hiQs data harvesting violates its rules. In May, LinkedIn sent hiQ a cease-and-desist letter advising the data company that LinkedIn had blocked its access to members profiles. If hiQ attempted to circumvent the block, LinkedIn said, it could face prosecution under the 1986 computer fraud law, which criminalizes unauthorized access to a computer.

Last month, hiQ sued LinkedIn, seeking an injunction to allow hiQ to continue scraping public data from LinkedIn. LinkedIn is allowing hiQ access while the litigation moves forward, but hiQs CEO, Mark Weidick, has said (including to me in an interview Tuesday) that his business probably wont survive if it loses its case against LinkedIn.

But hiQs fate is hardly the only consequence of the case. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco, who presided last week over a hearingon hiQs motion for a preliminary injunction, will have to decide whether the CFAA is in tension with the First Amendment. Can private Internet companies use the CFAA to control access to public information? Or does the doctrine of constitutional avoidance preclude interpreting the 1986 law in a way that implicates the First Amendment?

Its no accident that both hiQ and LinkedIn brought in top-notch constitutional lawyers to argue at last weeks hearing. Former U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli of Munger Tolles & Olson represented LinkedIn, which contends hiQ has no First Amendment right of access to LinkedIns computer servers. Under the 9th Circuits interpretation of the CFAA, LinkedIn argued, hiQ is akin to a trespasser who has been warned to go away.

Verrilli drew an analogy between LinkedIns publicly available profiles and books in a public library. You go and get books and other information and material from the public library, but the fact that the information's available to the public in that sense doesn't mean that you can break into the library with a crowbar at two in the morning because you're seized with a desire to read 'Moby Dick', Verrilli said. It doesn't mean that you can take a book out, when you're supposed to return it in two weeks, and keep it for a year, because you want that information. It doesn't mean if your library privileges have been revoked for abusing the rules, that you can show a fake ID at the door to get back in. The information's public, but it's subject to conditions.

Verrillis library comparison was sufficiently compelling that hiQs constitutional heavyweight, Harvard professor Laurence Tribe, took care to counter it. Library books, he said, used to have borrowing cards in the back of books showing how often books were checked out. A borrower could presumably could have looked at those cards to figure out which books were most popular a rudimentary form of the data analytics hiQ performs. LinkedIn, in Tribes analogy, is trying to use the threat of government prosecution under the CFAA to bar hiQ from looking at an electronic equivalent of those old-school library book cards.

For the government to make it a crime for me to make use of that information because they want to be the exclusive distributors of information about what's popular to read would, of course, be unconstitutional, Tribe said. That's the setting in which I want to put this case.

According to hiQ, which is also represented by Farella Braun & Martel, LinkedIns trespassing comparisons dont apply because hiQ never ventured beyond public LinkedIn profiles. The data company didnt use someone elses password to access LinkedIn, for example, or hack LinkedIn servers. HiQ argued that social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are modern-day public forums, as the U.S. Supreme Court just held in June, in Packingham v. North Carolina. The CFAA, hiQ contends, cannot be read to give LinkedIn the power to use government authority to suppress the public flow of information.

Giving any powerful entity, public or private, the ability to choke off, at its discretion, speech is a dangerous path down which we should not go, Tribe said at the hearing.

Judge Chen, who previously presided over one of the 9th Circuits landmark CFAA cases, U.S. v. Nosal, was admirably engaged with both sides lawyers during oral argument, thanking them at the end of the hearing for their superb presentations. He promised a quick decision, since, as he said, I've got a feeling it's not going to end here.

Ive got a feeling hes right about that.

View original post here:
HiQ v. LinkedIn: Does First Amendment limit application of computer ... - Reuters

Shirley Tipton's Friday, July 28 Herald and News letter, "Johnson Amendment needs to be kept alive", deeply disturbs bothers and angers me.

This letter is predicated upon blatant ignorance! Her letter in essence is not only promoting continuing government censorship of the First Amendment and free speech by targeting and censoring pastors, but likewise defends another career criminal politician from America's shameful past.

I previously alluded to this in my Sept. 27, 2016 letter, also to the Herald and News, titled: "Trump description would fit LBJ well."

question: why are the worse socialists in America ignorant, deluded self righteous senior citizens who blindly "suck up to the party line," continue to re-elect repeat offenders to both houses of Congress and state legislatures, and stubbornly embrace the almighty nanny state?

Perhaps the links listed below will help expose and rebuke the unconstitutional 1954 Johnson Amendment which rightly is government censorship. These include:

"How the Johnson Amendment Threatens Churches's Freedoms" by Michelle Terry

"Come Out of Hiding Pastors, Trump Has Set You Free", May 11, 2017 by Dave Daubenmire.

This along with other credible writers such as Devvy Kidd, Chuck Baldwin, etc. remain archived

"Lawmakers Have a Plan to Stop IRS From Censoring the Free Speech of Pastors" by Rachel del

guidice", October 4, 2016.

Need I continue on? Probably not. Again, after reading Shirley Tipton's letter "I got heated up

like the barrel jacket on a World War II German MG-42 machine gun!" Yet, the Bible states: "Be ye angry and sin not, do not let the sun go down on your wrath."

I attempt to channel my anger into civic activism.

Read the original:
Promoting First Amendment censorship | Letters | heraldandnews.com - Herald and News

As a chapter chair of College Republicans, I have never been more alarmed by the blatant attack on our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech than I am at the present.

Over the past decade (and particularly the past year), universities across the country have left conservative-leaning students and faculty reeling over their treatment of seemingly benign ideas. Organizations like Campus Reform were forced into existence as a response to faculty and administration officials on various campuses to expose behavior that was intended to stifle conservative views. While student groups like College Republicans and Turning Point USA are attempting to reverse the dangerous course that many of these campuses are set on, the have a long way to go before higher-education can be taken seriously again.

While stories about liberal campuses enforcing liberal policies and in some cases disenfranchising their conservative students go back many years, it appears that incidents have spiked over the past year in particular. It doesnt take much for many of us to recall the riots in Berkeley, California over Milo Yiannopoulos and the violence that was caused. However, the nonsense continues heavily in California, where a case in which conservative students at Orange Coast College allege that their college hired an investigator to harass them is only one of many in the state.

However, its clear that the problem isnt just California, its everywhere. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has logged hundreds of cases across the nation, including ones in Louisiana and Texas. The organization has handled cases at LSU, Texas A&M San Antonio, TCU, Texas Tech, and others over cases regarding free speech and other topics. As recently as yesterday, in a case that has not been noted by FIRE but rather by media outlets, a student government diversity chair from the University of Central Florida declared on social media that Trump supporters are not welcome on our campus. These cases are not isolated; they are rampant throughout the United States.

Today, that very same sort of case came to Southern Methodist University in the worst sort of way. Last week, the SMU chapter of Young Americans for Freedom submitted a request in order to place 2,977 flags in memory of the victims of the September 11th attacks. Not only was their request denied by SMU administration, but the administration included in its response letter that The University also respects the right of all members of the community to avoid messages that are triggering, harmful, or harassing. The SMU College Republicans, along with SMU College Democrats, Turning Point USA at SMU, Mustangs for Life, SMU Feminist Equality Movement, and SMU Young Americans for Freedom all responded with a fierce bipartisan rebuke of the administrations decision.

A flag memorial to honor those who lost their lives in the events of 9/11, or displays promoting the education and discussion of the pro-life, pro-choice movements among SMU students must not be viewed as attacks on others. In choosing to view these displays as such, SMU is deviating from its call as a center of higher learning. Its mission is to be a place where ideas are challenged and intellect thrives, not a place to hide or silence alternative points of view, reads the letter from the student groups to the SMU president. The letter is absolutely correct: inhibition of free speech, no matter which side of the spectrum, no matter how much you individually disagree with it, and no matter how stupid it may seem to you, is not good for a free society. Its insulting to the memory of the 2,977 victims of 9/11 to insinuate that a memorial to them would be triggering, and its even more disconcerting the standard that this policy would set. Colleges and universities will undoubtedly produce our nations next set of leaders, conservative or liberal. By teaching these students that its okay to void another persons opinion simply because it offends you in some way isnt diverse, and its intellectually bankrupt. In fact, its degrading the very purpose of our Constitution. It teaches potential future leaders that its okay to take away the rights of someone due to their opinions.

Luckily for us, it appears that the student body at Southern Methodist University at least understands that free speech is something to be valued. Lets hope that message is spread to the rest our campuses as well.

Go here to read the rest:
SMU Becomes the Face of the Collegiate War On The First Amendment - The Hayride

Between Russian meddling in last years election, Donald Trumps decision to fire FBI Director James Comey and the presidents public drubbing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions,the House Judiciary Committee has a lot it could be looking into.

But its Republican chairman, Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, has a different priority: investigating Hillary Clinton.

Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Goodlatte has called for new scrutiny of decisions made by President Barack Obamas Justice Department in its probe of Clintons use of a private email server, as well as alleged Clinton ties to foreign governments and the leaking of classified information.

Thats put House Democrats in the odd position of praising another Republican -- Goodlattes Senate counterpart, Chuck Grassley of Iowa. The Senate Judiciary chairman has threatened to subpoena Trumps son to testify about possible collusion with Russia during the presidential campaign and demanded records about Russian interactions with Trump family members and campaign officials.

"Weve got to give Grassley and the Senate credit,"Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, a House Judiciary Committee Democrat, said at a hearing last week. "They are not over there denying the reality of what is going on."

Republicans in Congress have struggled to calibrate their approaches to the Russia investigation and the current administrations actions, with many of them torn between protecting a Republican administration from partisan attacks and conducting defensive oversight in case significant wrongdoing emerges.

The House Judiciary panel has remained unusually standoffish. When Democrats on the panel triedlast week to force through a resolution demanding more information on Sessionss role in Comeys firing, Goodlatte and Republicans on the panel turned it into a request demanding new probes into Clinton.

Goodlatte has done zero - absolutely zero -- as chairman to look into these things," Jerrold Nadler of New York, a Democrat on the House Judiciary panel, said in an interview. "Certainly, Senator Grassley doesnt agree with that thinking."

Goodlatte, who didnt respond to a request for an interview, has said there are plenty of other investigations underway, including by the House and Senate Intelligence panels, as well as a continuing FBI probe led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

"Until Mr. Muellers investigation is complete, it is redundant for the House of Representatives to engage in fact-gathering on many of the same issues he is investigating," Goodlatte said at a hearing last week.

Given all the probes, he said theres no reason for his panel to use taxpayer dollars to investigate the Trump campaigns connections -- or lack thereof -- to the Russian government."

John Conyers of Michigan, the top Democrat on the committee, does credit Goodlatte for trying to schedule a briefing with Mueller, where the pair are expected get an update on his probe. But unless Goodlatte and his committee gets more involved in doing its own work, Conyers warns "lasting damage" could be inflicted on the Justice Department on Goodlattes watch.

Nadler added that it is the responsibility of the Judiciary Committee to oversee or even protect the independence of the Justice Department and FBI, and thats whats at stake now, he says.

Both the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees are looking into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. The Senate Judiciary panel is also looking into Trumps dismissal of Comey, who had been leading the investigation into Russias meddling any possible connections to the Trump camp.

But concern from lawmakers from both parties has continued to rise in recent weeks, fueled by Trumps repeated public criticisms of Sessions for recusing himself from the Justice Departments Russia probe. Lawmakers from both parties have said they stood by Sessions and that the presidents comments were inappropriate.

Yet rather than turn to those issues, Goodlatte and the Republican members of his panel sent a letter to Sessions demanding he appoint a second special counsel to investigate troubling, unanswered questions related to Trumps Democratic opponent in the election, as well as several officials appointed by Obama.

Many congressional entities have been engaged in oversight of Russian influence on the election, but a comprehensive investigation into the 2016 presidential campaign and its aftermath must, similarly, be free of even the suggestion of political interference, they wrote.

Goodlatte, 64, is a conservative Republican representing some of the reddest parts of Virginia. He has a lifetime grade of A from the National Rifle Association and branded as unconstitutional the Obama administrations plan to defer deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants.

His panel is also the one that would have jurisdiction over any impeachment proceeding, a step that several Democrats have called for. For that to happen, the Republican-dominated House would have to authorize the Judiciary Committee to investigate, and then Goodlattes panel would vote on whether theres enough evidence for impeachment.

While Goodlatte has been willing over the years to collaborate with Democrats on some issues, Russia isnt one of them.

"This president is a threat to this nation, to its constitution, to its democracy -- and we are doing nothing to respond, said Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, a House Judiciary Committee Democrat, at a hearing last week. Except, lets go back and look at Hillary Clintons emails?"

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Grassley, who for months has defended the Trump administration, recently has taken a harder line. Last week, Grassleys committee held a hearing that touched on whether the Kremlin might have been behind a June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer. Grassley also joined with his panels top Democrat,Dianne Feinstein of California, in using the threat of subpoenas to force former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and Trump Jr. to provide documents and sit down for interviews.

When Trump recently began publicly criticizing Sessions,a former senator from Alabama, over his recusal from the Russia investigation, Grassley said his panel wouldnt consider confirming a replacement this year.

Goodlatte has been silent on Trumps criticisms of Sessions, which has left Democrats in the unusual position of defending the former senator from Alabama.

"Whatever we think about the political views of Attorney General Sessions, this conduct is not right. It is not normal. And it deserves the immediate attention of this committee," Conyers said during last weeks hearing.

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee say they back Goodlattes position.

"The Democrats make sure that just about all we talk about in Judiciary is Russia -- even though they dont even know how to find Russia on the map, said Representative Trent Franks of Arizona in an interview. They just want to use it as a political bludgeon against Trump."

Andy Biggs of Arizona, another Republican on the panel, says there are plenty of Russia investigations already underway. Like Goodlatte, he sees a need to investigate Obama administration officials, saying there are unresolved questions about Clintons emails and other topics.

Those need to be answered, he said at last weeks hearing.

Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland has a different view: "If all this is simply meant to somehow distract and divert from the ongoing special counsel investigation and somehow to create the idea of symmetry and parity, that strikes me as antithetical to the purposes of this committee."

Read more here:
House Judiciary Chairman's Priority: Investigating Hillary Clinton - Bloomberg