The United States Department of Justice is trying to take a bite out of Apple. The tech giant has been hauled before a Manhattan court to answer accusations that it gouged consumers by conspiring with publishers to inflate the price of ebooks.

The Department of Justice alleges that, in a bid to break Amazon.com’s stranglehold on the ebook market, Apple tried to convince publishers to set prices across the industry. At the time, Amazon enjoyed 90% of the e-book market, due in large part to the popularity of their Kindle reader. In order to steer customers toward the Kindle, Amazon would sometimes sell ebooks at a loss, making it difficult for other retailers to compete.

The government claims that Apple’s late founder, Steve Jobs, was intimately involved in the price-fixing scheme. The Department of Justice believes it has a ‘smoking gun’ in the form of emails that Jobs sent to other Apple executives as well as executives at major publishing houses. For example, in an email to News Corp executive James Murdoch, Jobs asked News Corp to “[t]hrow in with Apple and see if we can all make a go of this to create a real mainstream ebooks market at $12.99 and $14.99.”

Apple’s legal team has vigorously contested the government’s attempt to use these emails. “There’s something inherently unfair and uncomfortable about placing such reliance on the out-of-court statements of someone who’s not here to explain them or place them into context — particularly when in almost every instance the government either omits key language to draw an inference, or blatantly mischaracterizes what the statements mean,” said Apple attorney Orin Snyder said in his opening statement.

Five publishers were named alongside Apple as co-defendants: the Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster. However, all of them decided to settle out of court. The presiding judge, District Judge Denise Cote, has urged Apple to settle as well. “I believe that the government will be able to show at trial direct evidence that Apple knowingly participated in and facilitated a conspiracy to raise prices of ebooks,” she said back in May.

But Apple vows to fight on. “We’re taking a very principled position on this,” said CEO Tim Cook. “We were asked to sign something that says we did do something, and we’re not going to sign something that says we did something we didn’t do. And so we’re going to fight.”

Image credit: Adam Fagen via Flickr

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New York, U.S.A. — President Barack Obama announced a renewed commitment by the U.S. government to fight human trafficking through the Partnership for Freedom: Innovation Awards to Stop Human Trafficking, a public-private initiative led by Humanity United, the Department of Justice and other federal agencies, with support from the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women initiative. The Partnership for freedom will fund innovative solutions to improve care for survivors of human trafficking and modern-day slavery.

“Trafficking survivors all too often face obstacles in accessing the comprehensive services they need to rebuild their lives,” Humanity United CEO Randy Newcomb said. “While federally-funded efforts to assist trafficking survivors have laid a strong foundation, there is still so much to be done. We can and must do better to find evidence-based models to effectively support survivors, and this initiative is a step in that direction.”

Humanity United, a foundation established by philanthropists Pierre and Pam Omidyar that is dedicated to building peace and advancing human freedom, is joining together with the federal government and with founding support from the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women initiative to establish a $6 million challenge award.

The challenge will call upon local communities to develop collaborative and comprehensive solutions to human trafficking survivor care that can be evaluated and expanded nationally and internationally through federal policies and programs. ”We are honored to support the public-private Partnership for Freedom,” said Dina Habib Powell, president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation. “By bringing together the corporate, governmental and nonprofit sectors to fund and scale practical solutions, we believe this initiative can have a real impact in the lives of trafficking survivors.”

Purpose of the commitment

Over the next few months, Humanity United will convene leading researchers, stakeholders, community organizations and government officials to help design and administer the award. The initial round of the award, to launch in 2013, will support the most innovative approaches in three areas:

• sustainable housing and shelter solutions for all types of trafficking survivors
• comprehensive care and case management for survivors who are minors
• law enforcement engagement with survivors

The federal government, along with private donors such as the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women initiative, will commit financial resources and technical expertise to support the award, and will offer evaluation services to determine which approaches are proven to work. The goal will be to identify promising ideas and solutions at the local and community level that can later be nationally scaled and internationally replicated.

The Partnership for Freedom will consist of three levels of support aimed at innovation, evaluation and scale:

• Community Conversation Grants will be awarded to encourage dialogue and activate local coordination.
• Challenge Grants will be awarded to innovative community-level initiatives with the most promise of being scaled.
• Scale will be achieved by pairing challenge grant winners with evaluators to identify which innovations can be expanded nationally and internationally through federal policies, practices and funding.

Community Conversation Grants

Recognizing that not all communities have existing expertise to design these innovations, Community Conversation Grants will enable a series of local stakeholder convenings to explore and establish a coordinated response to meet the needs of trafficking victims in communities around the country.

Challenge Grants

Challenge Grants will support solutions that address major challenges to survivor assistance. Paired with third-party evaluations, Challenge Grant recipients will help to build the body of knowledge for what works for survivors.

In addition to the Community Conversation Grants and Challenge Grants, the Partnership for Freedom will pair grant winners with academic researchers and program evaluators to build an evidence base of the most effective approaches. These projects will be coordinated with existing federal government efforts in order to fill key gaps in knowledge and practice, and to maximize the potential for these approaches to inform future policies and programs.

To ensure widespread commitment to this effort, an advisory board composed of a variety of stakeholders including prominent leaders in the field, advocates, senior law enforcement officials and survivors will be established to help inform the award criteria and selection process, and determine the award parameters.

Background of the proposal

Human trafficking has been identified as the fastest-growing criminal industry in the world. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that human trafficking generates $32 billion annually. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), at any given moment more than 20 million people are trapped in slave-like conditions around the world. While Humanity United and many others continue to work on the root causes of this global phenomenon, this initiative will address much-needed efforts to help those who are survivors of human trafficking.

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Indianapolis, U.S.A. – Eli Lilly and Company applauded law enforcement officials for their successful investigation and the recovery of more than $70 million in pharmaceuticals stolen from its United States distribution center located in Enfield, Connecticut, on Sunday, March 14, 2010.

“For more than two years, Lilly has cooperated with this criminal investigation – providing important information to federal and local authorities to help piece together the details of the theft,” said Maria Crowe, President, Manufacturing Operations, Eli Lilly and Company.

“We applaud the dedication of the Enfield Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice prosecutors in New
Haven, Newark, and Miami, and the Miami Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force,  who have worked tirelessly to identify and apprehend those suspected of being involved in the March 2010 burglary,” said Crowe.

The pharmaceuticals taken from Lilly’s warehouse have been successfully recovered, preventing them from entering pharmaceutical distribution channels. Lilly plans to destroy the products when they are no longer needed as evidence.

Crowe added that Lilly is committed to partnering with the Food and Drug Administration, law enforcement, and other officials and organizations to help ensure patient safety and the secure distribution of Lilly medicines.

To that end, in addition to strengthening security for its facilities and pharmaceutical transportation, Lilly is one of seven pharmaceutical companies that formed the Coalition for Patient Safety and Medicine Integrity in 2011. Two primary goals of the coalition are to protect patients from risks posed by stolen and inappropriately handled medical products that enter legitimate distribution channels and increase the associated federal criminal penalties for crimes involving stolen medical products.

Image Courtesy of    http://www.lilly.com

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More than half of America’s states now have Voter ID laws. Nine states have passed or strengthened their voter ID laws since 2008, when President Barack Obama became the first African-American President.

Critics say this is a direct rollback on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that prohibited the government from blocking people’s right to vote by using Jim Crow era tactics, such as literacy tests.

Pennsylvania’s General Assembly passed Voter ID legislation on Wednesday. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett then signed legislation law making Pennsylvania the 32nd state to adopt a Voter Identification law.

More than half the states in America have some form of voter ID laws. Nine states, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin, have strict photo ID guidelines requiring photos must be used shown to vote. Another seven states ask for a photo ID, but will allow people to vote if they can provide another form of identification or meet other criteria. Those states are Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan and South Dakota. Other states require non-photo IDs which can include a bank statement or utility bill in some instances. Those states are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia and Washington State.

GOP leaders say voter ID laws are needed to prevent widespread voter fraud from occurring. Republican leaders say people who are not on voter registration rolls, double voters and dead people have voted in previous elections. The GOP said Democratic-supportive organizations are to blame because they have submitted illegal voter registration ID cards.

There have been instances of voter fraud but it is extremely rare, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a division of the New York University School of Law. The Center is a non-partisan public policy and law institute which advocates for voting rights, campaign finance reform, civil justice, fair courts and racial justice.

“There is no documented wave or trend of individuals voting multiple times, voting as someone else, or voting despite knowing that they are ineligible,” according to a Justice Center policy brief.

The Center further says there is no proof that non-profit organizations have illegally registered voters. Many of the duplicate voting discrepancies have arisen through computer mistakes, people voting in two states or voting for a deceased relative. Reports from the Center also point out that these voting fraud cases would not have been prevented by asking for photo identification.

“We find absolutely no proven cases of fraudulent votes that could be prevented by the restrictive ID law being challenged,” the Justice Center said after reviewing more than 250 claims of fraud.

An interview from a top Texas Republican Party member suggests that the Republicans know that voter fraud is not an expanding problem, yet Republicans are trying to discourage primarily Democratic voters from the polls.

In a May 2007 Houston Chronicle article, former Political Director for the Texas Republican Party Royal Masset said Republicans could gain 3 percent of votes because requiring photo IDs could result in less Democratic voters casting ballots.

“Among Republicans it is an ‘article of religious faith that voter fraud is causing us to lose elections,’ Masset said. He doesn’t agree with that, but does believe that requiring photo IDs could cause enough of a dropoff in legitimate Democratic voting to add 3 percent to the Republican vote,” stated the Houston Chronicle article.

Democrats are continuing to fight against the recent wave of Voter ID registration laws. The Obama Administration’s Justice Department rejected Texas preclearance for its Voter ID law. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires Texas and 15 other states to submit changes to their Voting ID laws to the federal government for review to ensure minorities would not be discriminated against.

U.S. Asst. Attorney General Thomas Perez wrote in a letter to the Texas Secretary of State’s Director of Elections, that the Department of Justice objected to Texas’ voter identification law because it could directly and adversely affect the voting rights of up to nearly 604,000 of registered voting Hispanics. The state did not provide any data regarding how African-American or Asian voters would be impacted by the new law.

The Texas law would require people to show a state-issued id, either a driver license, personal ID card, military ID card, passport, a U.S. citizenship certificate with photo, concealed handgun permit or free voting ID card. The driver license, personal ID cards are only available through the Department of Public Safety. The lack of extended hours, the distance some people would have to travel and the availability of people affected having a vehicle to travel to a DPS office.

Only 49 of the 221 state’s DPS offices have extended hours and 81 out of the state’s 254 counties do not have an office, Perez letter stated.

Perez letter also points out that the state did not show any “significant in-person voter impersonation not already addressed by the state’s existing laws.”

The state of Texas has the option of asking the Department of Justice to reconsider its decision or seek a decision from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

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The Department of Justice sent a letter rejecting Texas’ voter identification law saying Hispanic voters in the state are as much as 120% more likely than non-Hispanic voters to lack a driver’s license or personal state-issued photo ID.

“The announcement by the Department of Justice in opposition to Texas’ voter ID law is a prime example of a government agency putting partisan politics above reality and the law. The decision is not based on accurate data or the merits of the argument; instead, it appears that some Democrats and far left groups believe the more lawful an election the less likely they are to emerge victorious,” said David Norcross, Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) Chair.

“Neighboring New Mexico, the state with the highest percentage of Hispanic voters, requires voter ID for city elections in Albuquerque without any problems. Just as some liberals defended corrupt election groups like ACORN, now others are attacking processes that will make it harder to cheat on Election Day.”

Rich Parsons, the communications director for the Texas Secretary of State, called the data which the Department of Justice requested “unreliable.” Parsons explained, “Texans are not required to identify themselves by race or ethnicity when they register to vote, so the data they ask for doesn’t exist.”

The Department of Justice kept asking Texas for data even if it was not accurate, so it could claim to justify blocking the voter ID law. On September 23, 2011, the Department of Justice requested data from Texas about how many Hispanic voters do not have photo identification.

After Texas responded that the data was not collected, on October 5, 2011, the Department of Justice still requested data, asking for the number of voters with Hispanic surnames — an inaccurate way to count voters of a certain racial background.

This marks the second time the Department of Justice has objected to a Voter ID law using dubious statistics and math. When they did so the first time in South Carolina, the Department of Motor Vehicles found that the numbers the Department of Justice relied upon were wrong, and actually were 86% lower than initially reported.

Every single court that has so far evaluated voter ID laws has found them constitutional. When the Supreme Court evaluated Indiana’s voter ID law, the Court upheld the law in an opinion written by liberal Justice John Paul Stevens. When Georgia’s voter ID law was challenged, an appellate court approved the voter ID law.

The Texas voter ID law received support from State Representative Joe Pickett, a Democrat from El Paso. He said, “If I really, truly thought that this would disenfranchise somebody, I would’ve voted against it. In these days and times, it’s just not the case… Having a basic identification is a function of everyday life.” Other states, including Democratic Party-controlled Rhode Island, joined Texas in passing a voter ID law this year.

After receiving requests in September from liberal organizations like the ACLU asking for the voter laws to be blocked, the Department of Justice obeyed and did the far left’s bidding.

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A report issued by the Department of Justice in March has confirmed a long standing belief by many of New Orleans’ minority residents—the New Orleans police department is racist and abusive.  The city’s African-American population has complained about the frequent abuses at the hand of the police force, long before Hurricane Katrina swept into town, making an already bad situation much worse.

The 115-page DOJ report, which details the findings of a 10-month-long investigation, attacked nearly every area of the department’s operation, from the recruiting, training and supervision of its officers to its tactics of policing.  The investigation found a pattern of unconstitutional conduct and violations of federal law, extensive use of excessive force, and unwarranted stops and searches.  The report also detailed discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.  The Justice Department accused the NOPD of gender-biased policing and a systematic failure to investigate sexual assaults and domestic violence.

The document “is as damning a report as you could possibly imagine for any institution where people are allowed to carry weapons,” said William P. Quigley, who is a law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans and the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “If this was a business I think it would be declared bankrupt. If New Orleans was a foreign country, I think this would be enough to constitute a no-fly zone.”

Quigley added: “What this shows is that the people that are supposed to be serving and protecting, are actually a serious threat to the people of New Orleans.”

Being a police officer in New Orleans is not an easy job.  The city has had a high murder rate for decades and communities filled with drugs and violence.  However, in those communities hit hardest by crimes, residents do not fear the criminals as much as the police officers.

“When you have the type of brutality that has happened in our community, going on from generation to generation, from white police committing atrocities, to blacks committing them and often being more brutal than the whites, it leaves a traumatic impact,” said Malik Rahim, an activist who has long decried police brutality and violence in the city. “But what can you do? You can’t do nothing. If you do something you risk getting shot or killed. And then it’s like, who cares?”

Federal and city officials will soon begin negotiations toward a consent decree that would formally place the department under federal oversight and create a strategy to implement specific systematic reforms.

“The challenges confronting the New Orleans Police Department are serious, systematic, wide-ranging, and deeply rooted,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s civil rights division, in a letter to Mayor Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans. “As devastating as Hurricane Katrina was, our investigation has revealed that these serious deficiencies existed long before the storm.”

Although the report is alarming to some, it is expected to others.  “This report validates what many in the African-American community had been saying all along,” said John Penny, a criminologist at Southern University of New Orleans. “Their voice is finally being heard after years of silence. I think that now there’s a confirmation, so something has to be put in place so that integrity is the heart and soul of the Orleans Parish police department.”

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