GAO and Lady Peach

January 17, 2015.

Passing Thoughts

Yeay!!!!!!! Obama is making an announcement talking about cyber crime.
Law enforcement needs data occasionally to do their job - there are occasions when you need to access data in order to save lives.  Yeah!!!

The blogger who got flogged is getting a reprieve, he was sentenced to a thousand lashes - but he won't get his flogging this week.

Wow these two stories give The Lady so much to ponder.   I believe that law enforcement needs to have access to electronic data - but this is exactly what some powerful folks were able to access and use against Greg.  We were wire tapped, cell phones e-mail - all legal because some agenicies were asked to help and certain companies had to comply as well.  This was a battle about money not about saving lives.

This is a very very delicate area of freedom versus policing.  This is exactly the subject of debate  after 9/11 and now with crazy terrorost attcks in Australia, Canada and France how do we as a free society balance what Edward Snowden told us is the reality of Government power.   I am one of the true believers to always tell the truth.   It was shocking to discover that we were 'spied' upon legally.
All of the wire tapping would be acceptable if there was evidence that a crime had been committed, but the whole problem with Greg's case was that the indictment was based on falsehoods.

The arrest, as I have explained, left Greg in prison for 10 days - all of his rights were taken away because he was accused of doing something.  I felt that his Jail experience was horrific and tried to reach out to the ACLU to report what Greg had seen.  When I tried to contact the ACLU to tell them about Greg's experience in Cook County jail, it was hard to accept that they did not care.  Please try my challenge, please try calling the ACLU and see if you actually get speak to someone. You only get voice mail if you are lucky, or simply hear a recording.  They do however make it very easy to donate money.  Donations appear to be their top priority, but just try to actually speak to someone.  Why would you want to?  People who are interested in civil liberties perhaps?  I tried to contact the Washington office, the Alabama office as well as the Chicago office.  I was only able to leave voice message with the Chicago office, and I did get a return phone call from an assistant two days later.  I reported the incident of the 19 hours with no food or water and how dangerous that was to a 65 year old man and the lady who was listening agreed that "it is horrible in jail" and after I told her "Gee you are not doing a very good job getting that message out to people like me - my husband's experience and his position in the business world would lend credibiltiy to the issue"  I never heard a peep out of the ACLU.  I will not be donating any money to them in the near future.  I don't know who finances them, nor do I understand what their real agenda is, but in my case they were not even interested in the assault on civil liberty of a foreign citizen.  They were not interested to have a white business man
possibly be a spokesperson for black youth in jail.

Flogging?  Some people get a thousand lashes??? What???  Flogging sentences can be given even to women for driving a car.  Wow - there are seven Billion people on earth now.  Seven billion people are crowding out many species of fishes and mammals.  Species that don't behave as badly as humans, and not a  peep out of  5 billion? 4 billion? 3 billion? Anybody brave enough to speak up?  WHAT ONLY THE FRENCH JOURNALIST?CAROONISTS?   Wow  - shame on people.  Shame on all of the holy people preaching.  The silence is shameful.  Now I am even more upset about the women who drive cars in Canada wearing the head coverings.  Remember the women going to get her photo taken in the license bureau in a Burka?  The clerk in the office did not have the intellectual resources to confront the issue.  We need to engage in an honest conversation which addresses the nuance of oppression and equality, freedom and slavery.  Have we all gone mad?

The Tale

I left Greg in Alabama.  He now was alone and focused on his legal battle.  He asked Abe to get a real bond amount established with the prosecution.  It took several weeks, but finally the bond was set as $30 MILLION.  Please look up record bonds - information freely accessed on the internet, all part of the public record.  Robin told me that the great equalizer for justice was the internet.  He was right.  If you have an inquisitive mind and you are searching to answer questions, the internet is the most amazing tool available to all who have access to it.

And that is how I discovered that the US Federal Government has the Accountability Office the GAO.