Sex offenders awarded $1 in liability suit over N.Y. illegal 'civil commitments'

Six sex offenders got no damage awards from former New York Gov. George Pataki and other officials who had confined to mental institutions after they served their sentences. One official is liable for $1 to each, a federal jury decided in a case that tested attitudes toward social outcasts.

By Harry Bruinius,?Staff writer / August 2, 2013

Former New York Gov. George Pataki (l.) arrives for a federal court appearance in New York on July 23. A jury found Mr. Pataki and two former state officials are 'not liable' for illegally confining six sex offenders to state mental institutions after they had completed their sentences.

Richard Drew/AP

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A federal jury this week found former New York Gov. George Pataki and two other former state officials ?not liable? for illegally confining six sex offenders to state mental institutions after they had completed their sentences.

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On one hand, Wednesday's decision was not surprising. American politics and society have long struggled with the demand to continue to keep locked up criminals who have committed the most vile crimes but who, according to law, are allowed to go free.?Yet that tendency threatens the integrity of the judicial process, with few willing to stand up for people who have done such reprehensible things, some legal experts say.

Such cases are emotionally fraught and constitute a delicate legal balance between public safety and due process, and the jury's verdict in the New York sex offenders' civil suit points to the difficulty of striking that balance.?

?It?s an ominous development,? says Robert Burt, a law professor at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. These kinds of legal efforts seek ?to turn?confinement [of sexual offenders] away from the ordinary criminal justice system, into a mental health issue, and then to offer treatment."?But the offer is a "fraud" that's not followed up on, he says.

The case centered on a 2005 Pataki administration initiative that called for the psychiatric evaluation and continued confinement of potentially dangerous prisoners slated to be released. Twenty states, including California, Florida, and Illinois, have enacted laws permitting the civil commitment of sexual offenders as of 2010. The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 also authorizes the federal government to commit and treat federal sex offenders. But these include legal safeguards that have passed constitutional muster, including judicial review. The Pataki initiative was simply an administrative policy.

In 2006, a federal judge found the Pataki administration's Sexually Violent Predator Initiative to be unconstitutional, and those confined under civil commitments were released. The offenders in the civil suit, each convicted of horrendous sex crimes, sought $10 million in damages.

The jury found Mr. Pataki; Glenn Goord, former correctional services commissioner; and Eileen Consilvio, the former executive director of the Manhattan Psychiatric Center, the hospital where the plaintiffs were held, not liable. The jury did find the former commissioner of the State Office of Mental Health, Sharon Carpinello, liable for their involuntary confinement. It awarded the former prisoners $1 each in damages.

In his instructions to the jury, federal district Judge Jed Rakoff explained that it was ?undisputed? that the procedures of the Sexually Violent Predator Initiative violated constitutional due process. So the issue was, he said, whether this "violation of a plaintiff's rights was done intentionally, recklessly, wantonly, maliciously or the like, or was done, by contrast, in good faith."

For all but Ms. Carpinello, the jury found that they acted in good faith.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/D0GhkJh_Iuk/Sex-offenders-awarded-1-in-liability-suit-over-N.Y.-illegal-civil-commitments

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Human Cells Make Mice Smarter

Astrocyte nerve cell

Image: FROM ?FOREBRAIN ENGRAFTMENT BY HUMAN GLIAL PROGENITOR CELLS ENHANCES SYNAPTIC PLASTICITY AND LEARNING IN ADULT MICE,? BY XIAONING HAN ET AL., in CELL STEM CELL, VOL. 12. NO. 3; MARCH 7, 2013. WITH PERMISSION FROM ELSEVIER

In spring a band of brainy rodents made headlines for zipping through mazes and mastering memory tricks. Scientists credited the impressive intellectual feats to human cells transplanted into their brains shortly after birth. But the increased mental muster did not come from neurons, the lanky nerve cells that swap electrical signals and stimulate muscles. The mice benefited from human stem cells called glial progenitors, immature cells poised to become astrocytes and other glia cells, the supposed support cells of the brain.

Astrocytes are known for mopping up excess neuro-transmitters and maintaining balance in brain systems. During the past couple of decades, however, researchers started suspecting astrocytes of making more complex cognitive contributions. In the 1990s the cells got caught using calcium to accomplish a form of nonelectrical signaling. Studies since then have revealed how extensively astrocytes interact with neurons, even coordinating their activity in some cases.

Perhaps even more intriguing, our astrocytes are enormous compared with the astrocytes of other animals?20 times larger than rodent astrocytes?and they make contact with millions of neurons apiece. Neurons, on the other hand, are nearly identical in all mammals, from rodents to great apes like us. Such clues suggest astrocytes could be evolutionary contributors to our outsized intellect.

The new study, published in March in Cell Stem Cell, tested this hypothesis. A subset of the implanted human stem cells matured into rotund, humanlike astrocytes in the animals' brains, taking over operations from the native mouse astrocytes. When tested under a microscope, these human astrocytes accomplished calcium signaling at least three times faster than the mouse astrocytes did. The enhanced mice masterfully memorized new objects, swiftly learned to link certain sounds or situations to an unpleasant foot shock, and displayed un-usually savvy maze navigation?signs of mental acuity that surpassed skills exhibited by either typical mice or mice transplanted with glial progenitor cells from their own species.

Alexei Verkhratsky, a glia researcher at the University of Manchester in England who was not involved in the mouse study, calls the work ?truly remarkable,? both conceptually and technically. He notes that the new results do not necessarily conflict with astrocytes' support role. Rather, Verkhratsky argues, the apparent advantages afforded by human astrocytes may be a consequence of their housekeeping abilities, underscoring the interdependence between glia and neurons.

This article was originally published with the title Human Cells Make Mice Smarter.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/~r/sciam/biology/~3/8mFhBftPQFo/article.cfm

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Insider Selling: Kimberly Frye Dumps 25,000 Shares of Key Energy Services Stock (KEG)

Key Energy Services (NYSE:KEG) SVP Kimberly Frye sold 25,000 shares of Key Energy Services stock on the open market in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.23, for a total transaction of $155,750.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 254,121 shares of the company?s stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link.

KEG has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Analysts at Deutsche Bank raised their price target on shares of Key Energy Services from $8.00 to $9.00 in a research note to investors on Tuesday. They now have a ?buy? rating on the stock. Separately, analysts at SunTrust raised their price target on shares of Key Energy Services from $9.00 to $10.00 in a research note to investors on Monday, July 29th. They now have a ?buy? rating on the stock. Finally, analysts at Global Hunter Securities raised their price target on shares of Key Energy Services from $6.00 to $7.25 in a research note to investors on Monday, July 29th. They now have a ?neutral? rating on the stock.

Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company. Key Energy Services has an average rating of ?Hold? and a consensus price target of $8.78.

Key Energy Services (NYSE:KEG) opened at 6.34 on Friday. Key Energy Services has a 1-year low of $5.61 and a 1-year high of $9.57. The stock?s 50-day moving average is currently $6.34. The company?s market cap is $966.1 million.

Key Energy Services (NYSE:KEG) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, July 25th. The company reported $0.01 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the analysts? consensus estimate of $0.01. The company had revenue of $411.40 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $421.24 million. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.21 earnings per share. Key Energy Services?s revenue was down 20.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that Key Energy Services will post $0.11 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Key Energy Services, Inc (NYSE:KEG) is an onshore, rig-based well servicing contractor.

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Source: http://utahpeoplespost.com/2013/08/insider-selling-kimberly-frye-dumps-25000-shares-of-key-energy-services-stock-keg/

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94% Still Mine

All Critics (48) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (45) | Rotten (3)

Writer-director Michael McGowan covers all the bases here -- the long-standing romance between the aging couple, the hovering concerns of their son and daughter, the constant head-butting with the building inspector -- with well-paced confidence.

Writer-director Michael McGowan (Saint Ralph) shows affinity for the subtle undercurrents of a long, happy marriage, but the friction between Cromwell and the government bureaucracy stays one-note.

Bring a handkerchief, or possibly a bedsheet, to "Still Mine"; this fact-based, beautifully acted drama could wring tears from a brick.

[A] tough-minded tearjerker, based on a true story ...

It is about a husband and wife, partners through six decades, grappling with issues of aging, and how to spend what time together remains with grace and dignity.

While this slight Canadian film has limited appeal for general audiences, seniors and families affected by Alzheimer's will find much to identify with.

An Occupy Wall Street supporter is part of the most conservative indie film you'll see all year. Still Mine is a heartbreaking classic no matter your ideology, though.

The man-against-the-system story is good and hopeful, but the love story between senior citizens is the reason to watch "Still Mine."

Like his character, Cromwell has the timber to build great things and make it last.

Still Mine mourns days gone by without being mawkish and meditates on age without being maudlin.

It's a tender, sharply observed drama.

Hits the high notes even though the tone of sorrow and frustration does not vary.

For those who thought "Amour" too sadistic or the recent "Unfinished Song" too sentimental, here's a senior love story with the realities of aging that falls right in the middle.

This movie does not work without Cromwell; plain and simple.

Etches a moving portrait of the enduring love of a couple whose life together only appears to be ordinary.

At its best, Still Mine gives off that feeling that we're watching something private, something genuine between two people who absolutely adore each other and have for decades.

Handled with care and patience by McGowan, proves mightily compelling, and deftly sidesteps sentimentality and cliche.

... has a sincerity and an authenticity that creates a bittersweet portrait of aging and lifelong devotion.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/still_mine/

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Whatever happened to our dream of a free Internet? | TechnoLlama

The latest NSA revelations appear to have done something quite interesting. More and more people are looking at the level of surveillance, and they are beginning to wonder how it is possible for one government organisation to have such access to information. The Internet is open and free, how is it possible for the NSA to have such control? Whatever happened to our dream of an open Internet?

Back in December 2012, we were bombarded with a campaign to save the free Internet. We were told that the ITU, the UN?s telecommunications body, was planning to take control over the Web during an intergovernmental meeting. A large coalition of private enterprises, activists and some governments (including the US government) came out in strong opposition of this move.

The story went something like this: the Internet is free and nobody owns it. Repressive regimes (Russia, China and Saudi Arabia were often mentioned) want to take control to make it easier for governments to keep an eye on their citizens. Any change on the current open state of affairs is bad.

The ITU-12 conference came and went, and it became evident that as far as evil takeovers went, this one had been a rather poorly organised one. Nothing changed. The Internet had been saved. As you were.

One of the things that always struck me about this campaign was the assumption that the Internet is free. While it is true that in theory anyone can create their own network and join the Internet, the idea that this makes the Web a free and open space seems to be an illusion.The problem is that we tend to think of Internet governance in the wrong terms. We concentrate on the existing multi-stakeholder institutions that have decision-making power over domain names and protocols as the governing bodies that excercise some level of control over the Internet. But we seldom think of the reality. The Web is more centralised than we would like to believe, few countries and few private companies have disproportionate amount of power with regards to the existing architecture. This is where the real power lies.

The Internet as we know it is a network of networks that relies on standard communication protocols and a shared backbone infrastructure to get information from one point to another. ISPs, education institutions, workplaces, households, governments, organisations, each has its own network of computers that can communicate with one another. In order for this network to communicate to the world, it requires a connecting infrastructure into the wider Internet in the shape of network access points. So the real Internet is the basic infrastructure that permits one network to talk to the external world, this consists of the domain name server system, Internet routers, the optic cable backbone, and Internet exchange points (IXP).?At home, we pay an ISP for Internet access. The ISP then has to run its servers, but it also has to pay those companies that provide bandwidth, more commonly done by connecting to one of the world?s 188 IXPs. It is in these points that most of the world?s traffic passes through, and where it is possible that there is an increasing level of centrality.

The distributed and open Internet is a worthy cause to support. Information wants to be free, but somebody has to pay for it.? So besides the common fear of governments prevalent in online communities, we need to take a hard look at the way in which the Internet has become a sizeable business, and how some few companies command a disproportionate amount of power. These companies no longer respond to self-imposed promises not to be evil, their reason for existing is to make a profit. The NSA revelations have uncovered a public-private conglomerate of gigantic proportions, with the US government and many US-based companies at the centre. Each new revelation has uncovered layers of collaboration that many suspected, but the reality seems to surpass even the worst conspiracy theories.

The PRISM program unveiled collaboration at the service level. Most of the largest Internet services are based in the United States, so PRISM uses that fact by co-opting these companies into allowing surveillance of its users. One PRISM slide boasts that most communications pass through the US, while another chronicles the dates in which companies like Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Skype were added to the program.

However, to me the most surprising (and chilling) revelation of all is XKeyscore, which implies a level of collaboration at the basic infrastructure level that few suspected. XKeyscore is a NSA program that allows intelligence agents to retrieve metadata and content about anything a user does online simply by providing an email address. Unlike PRISM, which relies on the service providers, there are strong implications in the XKeyscore presentation that lead me to believe that the US intelligence services are able to snoop on Internet traffic almost at the basic level. First there is the fact that XKeyscore is not centralised, it consists of a number of 500 Linux servers located around the world.

Then there is the fact that XKeyscore can be used to obtain an amount of data that cannot come from service collaborations. XKeyscore boasts that it can give an analyst access to ?nearly everything a user does on the internet?. Moreover, it can provide information at a national level that implies deep connections, for example, ?Show me all the encrypted documents in Iran?, or ?Give me all the VPN startups in country X, and give me the data so I can decrypt and discover the users?. These claims are only possible if the NSA can have access to most communications going through the Web. This can only happen if they have taps at the highest level. Maybe I am missing something obvious, but I cannot think of any way this is possible other than by having access to all traffic.

There are a few possible ways in which the NSA is able to pull this off, and none is palatable:

1. The US has made a deal with companies providing backbone services that allows them to snoop Internet traffic. This might be the easiest to achieve, but the hardest to manage as it implies a level of international collaboration that seems difficult to encounter under normal circumstances.
2. Backbone taps. All Internet traffic goes through optic cables at one point or another. The US has built taps to those cables. Highly unlikely.
3. Hardware backdoors. Router and/or server manufacturers have built-in hardware or vulnerabilities that allow intelligence agencies access to traffic. Somewhat likely, but problematic as lots of manufacturing takes place internationally.
4. Software/protocol backdoors. A strong indicator for this is the claim in the XKeyscore slides that the NSA is able to easily decrypt VPN traffic, which leads me to believe that they may have access to a key that unlocks virtual private communications. All you need to do is somehow rig standard-setting bodies by bribing and/or employing a few key people in the decision-making process. This theory has the problem that many standards are open, so it could be easy for someone to find the backdoor.
5. Use sham servers to hoover and store data packets. The Internet operates by redirecting data packets throughout the entire system, so if someone managed routers/servers/DNS servers in key locations, in theory they could begin to collect and store information; one could use the decentralised nature of the Internet against it. I am not entirely sure if this is even technically possible, but?I find this the most likely explanation because it is the hypothesis that requires fewest assumptions, and I am a strong believer in Occam?s Razor.

One thing is clear, the Internet governance debate is over. The assumption that the Internet is free and open has not survived the NSA revelations, if a country is able to have such a level of access to every communication then that country effectively controls the Internet. Everything else is just bickering over the details.

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Source: http://www.technollama.co.uk/whatever-happened-to-our-dream-of-a-free-internet?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=whatever-happened-to-our-dream-of-a-free-internet

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Pac-12 commish Larry Scott wants change to NBA age-limit rule

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Texas withdraws subpoena for tweets on new abortion law

By Marice Richter

DALLAS (Reuters) - The Texas Department of Public Safety said on Thursday it had withdrawn a subpoena for information from Twitter regarding two tweets about conservative Texas lawmakers, including Governor Rick Perry, and the passage of restrictive abortion regulations.

The department had sought information, documents and records related to the Twitter accounts of Denise Romano of Austin and Michael Mayer of New York in an investigation into their tweets between July 17 and 19, the day before and after Perry signed the abortion bill into law.

Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Tom Vinger confirmed in an email that the subpoena had been withdrawn and said the department "will continue to investigate potential threats against public officials."

The tweets were directed at Perry and other Texas lawmakers in response to the ban on abortions in the state after 20 weeks of pregnancy and to new regulations on abortion providers.

One of the tweets on July 18 posted by Romano said, "Should we execute Perry by lethal injection or stoning for all he's killed." That post was retweeted by Mayer.

Both Mayer and Romano received support from their followers on Twitter, who expressed dismay that social media comments could be construed as a threat.

"We are pleased," said Romano's attorney Michelle Kostun, who added that the matter concerning her client is closed.

"We commend Twitter on its commitment to protecting user information and content," she added.

Twitter spokesman Jim Prosser said the social media outlet would not "confirm or comment" on the subpoena.

(Editing by Brendan O'Brien and Jackie Frank)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/texas-withdraws-subpoena-tweets-abortion-law-015035078.html

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