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Monthly Archives: July 2017
Georgia National Guard enhances NATO’s mission with European allies – Savannah Morning News
Posted: July 30, 2017 at 1:56 pm
Exercise Noble Partner 2017 is underway and your Georgia National Guard is critically involved.
On Tuesday, July 25, 2017, three C-130 H3 cargo aircraft departed Savannah with three crews, aircraft maintainers, and members of the Georgia Army National Guard for exercises as the state of Georgia is a partner with the Republic of Georgia in preparing their troops for NATO response forces. Exercise Noble Partner is part of the National Guard State Partnership program under the Department of Defense which includes security cooperation and global engagement.
For members of the 165th Airlift Wing, Georgia Air National Guard, based out of Savannah International Airport, the mission was an essential part of helping their sister country with training their force to enhance the NATO military force. This includes training the Georgians in C-130 interoperability and cargo loading and unloading and with joint airdrop training and foreign jumper familiarization training which will include parachutists with the Georgia Army National Guard, the Georgian infantry and members of Great Britains military.
Other countries participating in Noble Partner include Armenia, Germany, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey and the Ukraine.
For the United States, U.S. Army Europe will lead exercise Noble Partner 2017 at Vaziani and Camp Norio training areas in the country of Georgia to support the training, progression, and eventual certification of the Republic of Georgias second light infantry company. These exercises also provide the participating nations with the opportunity to engage in realistic and challenging multi-national training environments while enhancing their interoperability for real world crisis events.
Lieutenant Colonel Jon Mims, a navigator for the 165th AW and the chief planner for the Wings participation in the exercise, is looking forward to the real-world training. This is an excellent opportunity for us to train with our partner nations in NATO in conducting exercises which may have to be utilized in the future, said Lt. Col. Mims. For both our preparedness and our partners preparedness, these exercises are the cornerstone of what we bring to NATO and helping our partner nations develop a better military structure.
According to Major Erika Wonn, Commander of the 165th Maintenance Squadron, Its an honor to work with our partner, Georgia, who has been such a valuable ally. Partnerships are a key component to what makes the National Guard so imperative to the nations warfight. Were proud to be part of our nations state partnership program with our partnership with the Republic of Georgia.
For the next several weeks, your Georgia National Guard will be preparing for the future of NATO and the world in order to protect freedom.
Lt. Col. David Simons is the Public Affairs Officer for the 165th Airlift Wing, Georgia Air National Guard.
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Georgia National Guard enhances NATO's mission with European allies - Savannah Morning News
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Online site backing defense of accused NSA leaker founded to promote fearless journalism – The Augusta Chronicle
Posted: at 1:56 pm
The founders of the online news publication that will help in the defense of a Fort Gordon contractor accused of leaking a classified document were among the first to report on the National Security Agency surveillance of citizens in other countries and at home in 2013, using thousands of documents leaked by a former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden.
While the document published by The Intercept which the government says came from NSA contract employee Reality Leigh Winner of Augusta is still considered classified by prosecutors, it allegedly concerns the NSA analysis of Russias efforts to infiltrate a voting software company and infect computers used by state election officials. The Intercept published a story based on the analysis, and Winner was arrested June 3.
According to The Intercepts site, journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill founded the online publication dedicated to fearless, adversarial journalism. EBays founder Pierre Omidyar provided the funding in 2013 for First Look Media in 2013, a non-profit, which launched The Intercept.
The Intercept has an average of 5 million visitors a month, said Vivian Siu, director of communications for First Look.
The online publication has a lot of readers in and outside of the U. S., said Rick Edmonds, media business analysis with the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit school for journalism. The Intercept began as a site for leaked documents but has expanded into other areas, Edmonds said. Non-profit, online publications are definitely a growing part of journalism and investigative reporting, he said.
The non-profit, online publication ProPublica has been publishing significant investigative work, Edmonds noted. There is also the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that won a Pulitzer Prize for the Panama Papers investigation into the finances of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which led to his resignation Friday. The new form of journalism has a significant presence, Edmonds said.
I believe that great journalism boils down to a few key principles, Scahill wrote in an article asking for readers support for investigative journalism. Hold those in power accountable, regardless of their political or corporate affiliations; give voice to the voiceless; provide people with information they can use to make informed decisions; be transparent with your readers about how you know what you know; (and) make sure your facts are straight.
Scahill won a George Polk Award for his reporting in war zones and for his 2008 report about Blackwater, the private armed security force. Greenwald is a journalist and attorney who wrote four New York Times best-sellers on politics and law. He also wrote No Place to Hide about the U.S. surveillance and his experience in reporting on the Snowden documents. In 2013 he was awarded a George Polk award and several others for his reporting on the Snowden documents.
Poitras was also awarded a George Polk award and shared the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for public service with The New York Times. Poitras left The Intercept for Field of Vision, which is also part of First Look Media. She was awarded an Academy Award for best documentary in 2015.
The Intercept has won a number of national journalism awards. It focuses on national security, politics, civil liberties, the environment, international affairs, technology, criminal justice, the media and more, according to its website. And it seeks whistleblowers, providing an email site and online drop box.
In Winners case, the Press Freedom Defense Fund of the First Look Media is giving $50,000 in matching funds to Stand with Reality, a fundraising campaign. First Looks attorney Baruch Weiss, a former U.S. attorney with experience in NSA investigations, will support Winners local defense team.
Winner is in custody without bond. She has pleaded not guilty to one count of willful retention and transmission of national defense information.
Reach Sandy Hodson at sandy.hodson@augustachronicle.com or (706) 823-3226
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Online site backing defense of accused NSA leaker founded to promote fearless journalism - The Augusta Chronicle
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It’s Time to Deal with the Police Threat to the Second Amendment – National Review
Posted: at 1:54 pm
Its happened again. Police officers in Southaven, Miss., were trying to serve an arrest warrant for aggravated assault on a man named Samuel Pearman, but instead they showed up at a trailer owned by an auto mechanic named Ismael Lopez. It was nighttime, and according to his wife, Lopez went to the door to investigate a noise. She stayed in bed.
What happened next was tragic. According to the police, Lopez opened his door and a pit bull charged out. One officer opened fire on the dog, the other officer fired on the man allegedly holding a gun in the doorway, pointing it at the men approaching his home. As the Washington Post reported on July 26, it was only after the smoke cleared that the officers made their heart-dropping discovery: They were at the wrong home.
Lopez died that night. Just like Andrew Scott died in his entrance hall, gun in hand, when the police pounded on the wrong door late one night, Scott opened it, saw shadowy figures outside, and started to retreat back into his house. Police opened fire, and he died in seconds.
Angel Mendez was more fortunate. He only lost his leg when the police barged into his home without a warrant and without announcing themselves. They saw his BB gun and opened fire, inflicting grievous wounds.
If past precedent holds, its likely that the officers who killed Ismael Lopez will be treated exactly like the officers in the Scott and Mendez cases. They wont be prosecuted for crimes, and theyll probably even be immune from civil suit, with the court following precedents holding that the officers didnt violate Lopezs clearly established constitutional rights when they approached the wrong house. After all, officers have their own rights of self-defense. What, exactly, are they supposed to do when a gun is pointed at their face?
In other words, the law typically allows officers to shoot innocent homeowners who are lawfully exercising their Second Amendment rights and then provides these same innocent victims with no compensation for the deaths and injuries that result. This is unacceptable, its unjust, and it undermines the Second Amendment.
Think where this leaves homeowners who hear strange sounds or who confront pounding on the door. Should they risk their safety by leaving their gun in the safe while they check to make sure its not the police? Should they risk their lives by bringing the gun to the door, knowing that the police may not announce themselves and may simply be trying to barge into the wrong home? Doesnt the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure include a right to be free of armed, mistaken, warrantless, home intrusions?
Its time for the law to accommodate the Second Amendment. Its time for legal doctrine to reflect that when the state intrudes in the wrong home or lawlessly or recklessly even into the right home that it absolutely bears the costs of its own mistakes. Its time for law enforcement practice to reflect the reality that tens of millions of law-abiding men and women exercise their fundamental, constitutional rights to protect themselves and their families.
What does this mean, in practice? First, extraordinarily dangerous and kinetic no-knock raids should be used only in the most extreme circumstances. Writers such as Radley Balko have written extensively about the prevalence of the practice (even in routine drug busts), the dangers inherent in dynamic entry, and the sad and terrible circumstances where the police find themselves in a gunfight with terrified homeowners.
Second, prosecutors should closely scrutinize every single instance of mistaken-identity raids. Good-faith mistakes are always possible, but given the stakes involved when police raid homes or pound on doors late at night with their guns drawn, they should exercise a high degree of care and caution in choosing the right house. Its hard to imagine a worse or more tragic injustice than being gunned down in your own home by mistaken agents of the state.
Third, if and when police do kill or injure innocent homeowners, they should be stripped of qualified immunity even when the homeowner is armed. There are circumstances where it would improper to file criminal charges against an officer who makes a good-faith mistake and finds himself making an immediate life-or-death situation, but when the mistake is his, then he should face strict liability for all the harm he causes.
As the law now stands, police are not only rarely prosecuted when they violate the Fourth and Second Amendment rights of innocent homeowners by gunning them down in their own home, its often difficult even to impose civil liability. Innocent men and women are left with no recourse, and officers remain immune from judicial accountability for their own, tragic mistakes.
Last year a Minnesota police officer shot a lawfully armed Philando Castile during a traffic stop despite the fact that Castile was precisely following the officers commands. The officers acquittal unquestionably undermined the Second Amendment, but such shootings are mercifully rare. More common are the panicked, confused moments late at night or early in the morning when a homeowner hears shouts at his door, or someone breaks it down, and all he knows is that armed men are in his house. In those moments, a persons rights of self-defense are at their unquestioned apex. Its the states responsibility to protect those rights, not snuff out a life and escape all legal consequence.
READ MORE: Another Federal Court of Appeals Attacks the Second Amendment The Need for Smarter Second Amendment Jurisprudence The Real Reason Officers Are Rarely Convicted of Shooting Suspects
David French is a senior writer for National Review, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, and an attorney.
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It's Time to Deal with the Police Threat to the Second Amendment - National Review
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DC gun ruling again raises an issue the Supreme Court has been reluctant to review – Washington Post
Posted: at 1:54 pm
When a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decided an important gun rights case last week, some advocates were already thinking ahead.
Clark Neily of the Cato Institute told my colleague Ann E. Marimow that the 2-to-1 ruling against the Districts requirement of a good reason to obtain a permit to carry a gun in public was thoroughly researched and carefully reasoned.
[Appeals court blocks D.C.s concealed carry law]
It would make an ideal vehicle for the Supreme Court to finally decide whether the Second Amendment applies outside the home, Neily said.
As if.
The fact is the justices have shown a remarkable lack of interest in deciding that issue, or in expanding upon their landmark 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. They have had multiple chances to define with specificity what the Second Amendment protects beyond Hellers guarantee of individual gun ownership in ones home, and they have declined each opportunity.
Just last month, the court decided to stay out of a similar case from California, where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit decided that the Second Amendment does not protect the right to carry a concealed weapon in public.
[Supreme Court declines to review California concealed-carry law]
Declining to even review the ruling brought an impatient rebuke from Justice Clarence Thomas.
It reflects a distressing trend: the treatment of the Second Amendment as a disfavored right, wrote Thomas, who was joined by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch.
Thomas said he found the 9th Circuits ruling indefensible.
But even if other members of the court do not agree that the Second Amendment likely protects a right to public carry, the time has come for the court to answer this important question definitively. Twenty-six states have asked us to resolve the question presented, he wrote.
Circuit Judge Thomas B. Griffith acknowledged the absence of clear direction at the beginning of his opinion last week on the D.C. permit procedure.
Constitutional challenges to gun laws create peculiar puzzles for courts, he wrote, because they require balancing the highest goal of government protecting innocent lives against individual rights bestowed by the Constitution.
The Supreme Court, he observed, has offered little guidance.
The courts first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment is younger than the first iPhone, Griffith wrote. And by its own admission, that first treatment manages to be mute on how to review gun laws in a range of other cases.
By listening closely to what the court had to say in Heller, Griffith and Judge Stephen F. Williams blocked the Districts law as a violation of a core Second Amendment protection.
The law requires those who seeking a permit to carry a concealed firearm show that they have good reason to fear injury or a proper reason, such as transporting valuables. Living in a high-crime area shall not by itself qualify as a good reason.
As of July 15, D.C. police had approved 126 concealed-carry licenses and denied 417 applicants.
Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson came up with a very different interpretation than her colleagues. Heller blessed the Districts regulation, she wrote, because of the citys unique security challenges as the nations capital and because the permit process does not affect the right to keep a firearm at home.
The sole Second Amendment core right is the right to possess arms for self-defense in the home, Henderson wrote.
She added that by characterizing the Second Amendment right as most notable and most acute in the home, the Supreme Court necessarily implied that that right is less notable and less acute outside the home.
She noted that her colleagues had put on blinders to the historical analyses of the D.C. Circuits sister circuits: All who have considered the issue concluded that restrictive state regulations on carry permits are constitutional.
There arent many states with such stringent requirements Maryland, New Jersey and New York are among them. They are outliers, said attorney Alan Gura, a go-to Second Amendment lawyer who successfully argued Heller at the Supreme Court and the D.C. case, Wrenn v. District of Columbia, as 44 states allow citizens to claim their rights.
As is its custom, the Supreme Court has not given reasons when it declined to review the lower court decisions upholding the state restrictions. That unanimity, though, could be one reason the Supreme Court has not gotten involved.
The court most often steps in when there is a conflict in the lower courts. The D.C. Circuits panel decision creates that for now.
The city has not decided on its next legal move, but it seems likely to ask the full D.C. Circuit to review the panels decision. As David Kopel, a University of Denver law professor and gun rights activist notes, when Heller was decided in that court a decade ago, the full circuit declined to review and overturn the panels groundbreaking endorsement of an individual right to gun ownership.
But the court has changed dramatically since then. It is more liberal now, with a majority of judges appointed by Democratic presidents.
If the full D.C. Circuit joined its sister circuits in upholding the good reason requirement, gun rights activists would be back to the Supreme Court, again asking for review.
As Thomass dissent indicates, there is some division on the court on the matter, and reasons for why the justices have not stepped in are a matter of speculation.
Perhaps a solid majority agrees the lower courts have read Heller correctly and that it leaves space for jurisdictions to impose stringent requirements for carrying a gun outside the home.
Or perhaps the court remains closely divided Heller was decided on a 5-to-4 vote and the justices simply have little appetite for tackling the controversial matter of guns in the absence of a lower court disagreement that would force their hands.
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DC gun ruling again raises an issue the Supreme Court has been reluctant to review - Washington Post
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Unite the Right rally sparks First Amendment questions | Virginia … – Roanoke Times
Posted: at 1:54 pm
CHARLOTTESVILLE The limits of constitutionally protected speech and freedom of assembly are being put to the test in Charlottesville.
In less than two weeks, members of the National Socialist Movement, the pro-secessionist League of the South and hundreds of their allies in the Nationalist Front and alt-right movement will gather in Emancipation Park for the Unite the Right rally.
Arranged by self-described pro-white activist Jason Kessler, the rally is expected to also draw hundreds of confrontational counter-protesters who will be able to gather at McGuffey and Justice parks, per event permits recently secured by University of Virginia professor Walt Heinecke.
While the stage for Aug. 12 is nearly set, with massive demonstrations and protesters expected, questions regarding the enforcement of law and order remain.
City officials said they have been working with Kessler to relocate the rally elsewhere, because of the number of people the event is expected to draw to the downtown area. Kessler, however, does not want to change venues, according to authorities.
The director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression says the city is allowed to move the event in order to maintain public safety and prevent disruption to traffic and business downtown.
They should be able to relocate it to a more suitable location, said the centers director, Clay Hansen. As long as its for legitimate reasons and they dont try to minimize or hide the rally in some far-off corner.
An attorney supporting Kessler says the city is prohibited from doing so.
It would be ridiculously unconstitutional for the city to try to move the event elsewhere on that basis, said Kyle Bristow, an attorney and director of the Michigan-based Foundation for the Marketplace of Ideas, a self-described nonpartisan civil liberties nonprofit.
The groups board of directors includes Mike Enoch, a white nationalist commentator and podcaster. Enoch will be one of the featured speakers at the Unite the Right rally.
In an email last week, Bristow said his recently founded legal network is quickly becoming the legal muscle behind the alt-right movement.
The alt-right is a far-right movement that combines elements of racism, white nationalism and populism while rejecting mainstream conservatism and multiculturalism.
Earlier this year, according to Bristow, his organization helped coordinate the legal case that led to an Alabama court requiring the University of Auburn to let white nationalist Richard Spencer speak on campus. Auburn settled the case earlier this year with a $29,000 payout to cover the legal fees of the student who filed the suit, according to the universitys student-run newspaper, The Auburn Plainsman.
In recent weeks, business owners, activists and others have commented on the possibility of violence at the rally, sometimes comparing it to the melees between self-styled anti-fascist protesters and alt-right ideologues at protests in Berkley, California, earlier this year.
In a letter to city officials last week, Bristow said law enforcement officials could potentially deprive the right-wing activists of their constitutional rights if authorities do not prevent leftist thugs from attacking the rally.
If the Charlottesville Police Department stands down on Aug. 12, it would not be farfetched to postulate that the alt-right rally participants will stand up for their rights by effectuating citizens arrests or by engaging in acts of self-defense, Bristow said. It would be imprudent, reckless, unconstitutional and actionable for the Charlottesville Police Department to not maintain order.
Bristow alleged in his letter that Kessler recently was told that law enforcement officials would not have to intervene should left-wing protesters attack the rally attendees. A police spokesman refuted that claim Friday, saying that the department officials met with Kessler and a representative of his security staff earlier this month and discussed several security concerns.
At no time was Mr. Kessler informed officers would not take action against those that attempted or committed violence towards another, said Lt. Steve Upman.
Kessler did not reply to calls and messages last week.
Some suspect that the possible violence could be the result of intentional right-wing agitation, as local activists with Solidarity Cville have recently exposed posts on social media and far-right blogs in which supporters of Unite the Right rally seemed to revel in the possibility of violence and call on others to prepare for a fight.
Denounced by both parties
Republicans and Democrats alike have cast the hardcore conservatives and populists associated with the alt-right movement as racist for its provocative leaders explicit anti-Semitism and unabashed calls for a white-ethno state.
While their beliefs and activism have turned off many, the rallys primary goal of protesting the citys effort to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee has caused some Southern heritage supporters and political moderates to become sympathetic to Kesslers cause.
But the slow revelation that the events extreme far-right elements will be met by liberals, leftists and anti-racists has scared others away.
According to Albemarle County spokeswoman Lee Catlin, the organizers of the Patriot Movements planned 1Team1Fight event in Darden Towe Park, which was being relocated from Greenville, South Carolina, have called it off.
Catlin said the organizers reportedly canceled their event because of unknown variables with the opposition.
Earlier in the week, an organizer for the event, who goes by the name Chevy Love on Facebook, said the event was not affiliated with the Unite the Right rally, saying that she did not want to associate with any of the hate groups expected to attend, listing both left- and right-wing activist groups.
Earlier in the week, before the organizers canceled the event in Darden Towe Park, the National Socialist Movement announced that members will be in attendance at the Unite the Right rally to defend Free Speech and our Heritage at the Lee Monument.
In an interview, Butch Urban, the movements chief of staff, said the organization had been planning to attend the event after it was arranged by Kessler earlier this summer.
The event also will draw leaders and followers of other groups in the Nationalist Front, an alliance of groups such as the Traditionalist Worker Party and The League of the South all of which are united in working toward the creation of an ethno-state for white people.
Although National Socialism is typically cited as the definition of Nazi ideology, Urban said his organization is not a neo-Nazi group.
Thats what everybody takes it to be. Thats not what it is, Urban said. National Socialism is about your country and your people come first. You dont support wars around the world and giving billions of dollars to other countries.
As for the calls for a white-ethno state, Urban said multiculturalism has only been pushed down everyones throat in the last 30 to 40 years. Thats not what everyone wants, he said.
Take a look at Chicago, theres a prime example of multiculturalism, he added, citing the citys reputation of having high murder and unemployment rates.
First Amendment
U.S. courts have grappled with the First Amendment questions involving Nazi demonstrations and displays. Many of those cases have determined that Nazi and white supremacist rhetoric is constitutionally protected.
And while many object to those ideals, authorities cannot justify restricting speech despite the threat of violence and public disorder a principle known as the Hecklers veto. Both Bristow and local attorney Lloyd Snook recently mentioned the doctrine in comments about the upcoming rally.
In First Amendment theory, it is fundamental that a government cannot regulate speech based on its content, including on the fact that some people may be hostile to it, Snook wrote on his law firms website.
About two weeks after a North Carolina chapter of the Ku Klux Klan held a rally in Justice Park to protest the planned removal of the Lee statue, Snook wrote that there has been a disturbing complaint about law enforcement being hand in hand with the Klan and white nationalists.
In fact, the city police department is required to preserve order to allow the demonstration to go forward, Snook said. This is not a matter of choice, but of constitutional law.
Snook cited the 1992 Supreme Court decision that invalidated an ordinance in Forsyth County, Georgia, that required fees for any parade, assembly or demonstration on public property. According to Snook, Forsyth County passed the ordinance after a violent civil rights demonstration in 1987 cost the county over $670,000.
Two years later, when the Nationalist Movement had to pay fees to hold a protest against the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, the group sued the county.
In a 5-4 opinion, the Supreme Court decided that the countys ordinance violated the First Amendment.
In recent weeks, some opposed to the Unite the Right rally have called on the city to ensure Kessler pays the fees and obtains liability insurance of no less than $1 million that the city requires for special events.
In an email last week, city spokeswoman Miriam Dickler clarified that the city makes distinctions between demonstrations and special events, and that the two are not interchangeable under the citys regulations.
The differences are attributable to United States Supreme Court decisions involving the First Amendment, Dickler said.
According to the citys Standard Operating Procedure for special events, a demonstration is defined as a non-commercial expression protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution (such as picketing, political marches, speechmaking, vigils, walks, etc.) conducted on public property, the conduct of which has the effect, intent or propensity to draw a crowd or onlookers.
Regardless, she said, Kessler has voluntarily provided a certificate of insurance.
1977 Skokie decision
Looking at another Supreme Court case, Hansen, of the local Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, said the courts 1977 decision in the National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie case feels closest to what were dealing with here in the city.
The case centered on a planned National Socialist demonstration in Skokie, Illinois, which at the time had a large population of Jewish residents who survived detention in Nazi concentration camps or were related to Holocaust survivors.
Fearing violence would be directed at the demonstrators who were planning to dress in Nazi-era uniforms with swastika armbands, a local court prohibited the event, an action that the U.S. Supreme Court later found to be unconstitutional in a 5-4 opinion.
In particular, the litigation in that didnt have to do with the march and the gathering itself it was more about symbols, Hansen said. The Supreme Court had to decide whether Nazi imagery could constitute fighting words, a legal distinction that prohibits some forms of speech that are likely to incite violence.
The court found that those symbols do not pass that threshold, which has in recent years largely fallen out of favor as doctrinal tool, Hansen said. Instead, the doctrine in recent years has morphed into a new rationale thats based on allowing authorities to stop speech that could lead to imminent lawless action, he said. Its useful if something goes wrong.
While the city could theoretically stop the Unite the Right rally as its happening, according to Hansen, its not a decision to take lightly.
Its a high hurdle to legally justify stopping a demonstration, Hansen said.
The city has an obligation to handle any crowds that are on site as a result of a lawful and protected speech activity, he said. In a public park, and given the proper permit police are obliged to make sure that the event goes unimpeded.
Free-assembly zones
Concerned that people protesting the Unite the Right could be arrested for participating in an unlawful assembly, Heinecke earlier this month applied to hold demonstrations at McGuffey Park and Justice Park.
At the Klan rally earlier this month, 22 people were arrested on various charges. About half of the arrests occurred after the rally had ended and authorities declared that the hundred or so people still on the street were illegally gathered. Authorities used tear gas to disperse the crowd.
The best way to avoid that is to have some free-assembly zones at the parks, Heinecke said. He said the permits will allow the protesters to gather from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Aug. 12. The Unite the Right rally is scheduled for noon to 5 p.m.
Heinecke said there will be programming at the two parks. He declined to say which activist groups and organizations hes collaborating with to contend with Kesslers rally.
He said Charlottesville in particular has unfinished business in regard to racial justice.
I think the city will be the epicenter of a conversation about racial justice in a new era were going toward with changing racial demographics, he said.
Asked about the alt-right activists concern that the nations changing demographics are tantamount to a displacement of white people, Heinecke said it saddens him that they are so fearful.
I think theyre operating out of fear rather than seeing an opportunity to create a diverse and equal society, he said. Thats a sad thing when theres an opportunity to think about what the United States of America really means.
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Unite the Right rally sparks First Amendment questions | Virginia ... - Roanoke Times
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To restore First Amendment on campus, open universities to competition – Eagle-Tribune
Posted: at 1:54 pm
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following commentary was written byMary Clare Amselem, a policy analyst in the Institute for Family, Community and Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation.
American universities were once welcome spaces for intellectual exploration and civil debate. Unfortunately, we have exchanged intellectual spaces for "safe spaces," and we are worse off for it.
Indeed, the culture on college campuses today is so hostile toward views outside of the leftist status quo, that students and administrators alike have taken drastic measures to silence the speech of others. Whether it is shouting down other students or physically blocking conservative speakers from entering their campus, it is clear that many of our universities no longer welcome contrarian viewpoints.
There is plenty of blame to go around for how we got here. But one underlying issue plagues our university system: Colleges are insulated from market pressures that would drive up quality and drive out bad ideas.
The assault on free speech is indicative of the intellectual decay of our university systems. It makes sense that universities that teach courses such as "Tree Climbing," "Kanye Versus Everybody" and "The Sociology of Miley Cyrus" are failing to instill important American values in their students.
The prevalence of free-speech zones on college campuses is impossible to reconcile with American democracy. These zones, typically the size of about three parking spaces and requiring prior registration with the university to use, violate the most fundamental rights of students. Additionally, this treatment shames students out of their beliefs and shuts down meaningful debate in the name of political correctness.
We clearly need significant reforms to get our colleges back on track, yet little is done. There are significant barriers in place that maintain the status quo, protecting long-standing universities from competing with new education models.
Take, for example, the significant regulations placed on for-profit colleges. Policies such as "borrower's defense to repayment" (a type of loan forgiveness) and "gainful employment" (which requires for-profit schools to prove their graduates earn a good wage, using one-size fits all metrics) place an undue burden on these institutions, often limiting their ability to grow and improve.
Many for-profit institutions offer a desirable alternative for students who do not want to take the lengthy and expensive bachelor's degree route. A student may also see a for-profit education as a way to focus on a specific skill set and skip the "Tree Climbing" class.
Our outdated accreditation system is also to blame. The current process enables the Department of Education to choose accreditors, who then distribute federal dollars to the schools they accredit. This ensures that the federal government remains intimately involved in deciding which schools are desirable and which are not.
The free market is a much better barometer of quality. If burdensome regulations were removed and the business community got involved in the accreditation process, as the Higher Education Reform and Opportunity Act proposes, colleges would be forced to compete for students against all education models out there. When faced with the option of high quality online school, a vocational school, or a four-year bachelor's degree, each of those institutions would compete to offer students the best skill set at the best price.
Additionally, collaboration between the business community and the academic community would encourage schools to gear their curriculum towards marketable skills needed for the workforce. Unfortunately, the current regulatory environment has made it difficult for these alternative schools to thrive.
Today, universities do not face these market pressures to improve quality. As a result, universities across the country more or less look the same. NYU may have a better biology curriculum than Berkeley, yet the institutional frameworks and campus cultures of these two institutions look remarkably similar.
Unfortunately, it appears that colleges and universities won't shape up unless they fear they will lose students. Reducing federal intervention in higher education could spark the growth of non-traditional education options to challenge the status quo.
Mary Clare Amselem can be reached at the Institute for Family, Community and Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation, 214 Massachusetts Avenue NE, Washington, D.C., 20002. The foundation's website is http://www.heritage.org. Information about the foundation's funding may be found at http://www.heritage.org/about/reports.cfm.
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To restore First Amendment on campus, open universities to competition - Eagle-Tribune
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What is cryptocurrency? – Telegraph.co.uk
Posted: at 1:53 pm
Units of cryptocurrency are created through a process called mining, which involves using computer power to solve complicated maths problems that generate coins. Users can also buy the currencies from brokers, then store and spend themusing cryptographic wallets.
Cryptocurrencies and applications of blockchain technology are still nascent in financial terms and more uses should be expected. Transactions including bonds,stocks and other financial assetscould eventually be traded using the technology.
Cryptocurrencies are known for being secure and providing a level of anonymity. Transactions in them cannot be faked or reversed and there tend to be low fees, making it more reliable than conventional currency. Their decentralised nature means they are available to everyone, where banks can be exclusive in who they will let open accounts.
As a new form of cash, the cryptocurrency markets have been known to take off meaning a small investment can become a large sum over night.
But the same works the other way. People look to invest in cryptocurrencies should be aware of the volatility of the market and the risks they take when buying.
Because of the level of anonymity they offer, cryptocurrencies are often associated with illegal actvity, particularly on the dark web. Users should be careful about the connotations when choosing to buy the currencies.
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What is cryptocurrency? - Telegraph.co.uk
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Bitcoin Just Avoided a Massive Breakup, But It’s Getting a Little One Instead – Fortune
Posted: at 1:52 pm
The Bitcoin community has finally done what for years seemed impossible, pulling together to approve a software upgrade, known as Segwit2x, intended to increase network capacity. That has forestalled the looming threat of a potentially damaging "fork" that could have split the network .
But, unsurprisingly, not all of Bitcoins players are happy with the solution. A relatively small faction, spearheaded by former Facebook engineer Amaury Sechet , still believes that Segwit2x doesnt go far enough in scaling Bitcoins capacity. Sechets faction says that on August 1st, theyll launch a fork known as Bitcoin Cash, and take some of Bitcoin's processing power with them.
Bitcoin Cash is planned to have a bigger "block size" than Bitcoin after Segwit2x, ostensibly giving it more capacity to handle transactions with low fees. But it wont implement the SegWit upgrade that allows more transactions to be handled by secondary systems.
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Bitcoin proper will be basically unaffected by the creation of the new cryptocurrency, and all holders of Bitcoin will get equivalent funds in Bitcoin Cash on the day of the fork. A futures market for Bitcoin Cash has already emerged, and currently values it at around 13% of Bitcoins price. That means that when the split happens, something like $6 billion in new market value will be created from thin air.
Whether that value lasts, though, will hinge on whether cryptocurrency leaders and investors believe in Bitcoin Cash's technical visionand so far, the signals are decidedly mixed. Many prominent cryptocurrency exchanges, including Coinbase and Bitstamp, have said they wont support Bitcoin Cash. Investors who want a piece of the action are being advised to move their Bitcoins either to a wallet they control directly, or to an exchange that has pledged to pass Bitcoin Cash along to them, currently including Kraken and Bitfinex .
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Bitcoin Just Avoided a Massive Breakup, But It's Getting a Little One Instead - Fortune
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Bitcoin teller machines in Boulder let customers jump into the cryptocurrency market – The Denver Post
Posted: at 1:52 pm
Walk into the Amante coffee shop at 2850 Baseline Road in Boulder on any given morning and youll see what looks like an automated teller machine sitting along one wall.
Throughout the day, a handful of people use it. One is a techie, another is a well-dressed, middle-aged couple. But this is not your grandmothers ATM. Its a Bitcoin teller machine, a portal into the brave new world of cryptocurrency.
Some call this new kind of money the grandest experiment of our time. Others fear its rising power and the rest of us have no idea what the heck it is.
Boulders Eric Weissmann was fascinated early on with the potential of digital currency. And when the opportunity arose to own and operate Bitcoin teller machines, or BTMs, he jumped in and founded Modern Tender. Weissmann thought the architecture of the code, the blockchain, had the potential to transform currency markets.
I was interested in Bitcoin and thought the blockchain technology was revolutionary, so I wanted a foothold in the space. We reached out to Amante because we wanted a location that was upscale, easily accessible, and attractive to early adopters and the tech demographic, Weissmann said.
BTMs are still rare. There are 13 statewide, including two in Boulder Weissmanns at Amante Coffee and a second machine in the Spark Boulder tech accelerator at 1310 College Ave.
The two BTMs in Boulder were installed in February of 2015. The Spark machine is owned by Aurora-based XBTeller. Officials there could not be reached for comment.
Operating outside the traditional banking system with no regulatory oversight, BTMs have experienced a surge in use as more people turn to cryptocurrencies as a haven from political instability and distrust of government-backed currencies.
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Bitcoin teller machines in Boulder let customers jump into the cryptocurrency market - The Denver Post
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Bitcoin prices rise as Ether extends recent weakness – MarketWatch
Posted: at 1:52 pm
The price of digital currency bitcoin rose Friday, putting it on track for a modest weekly gain, while rival cryptocurrency Ether extended its recent weakness.
At latest check, a single bitcoin BTCUSD, +0.63% was up 3.8% to $2,783.18, according to cryptocurrency research-and-data site Coindesk. While it remains down from an all-time high above $3,000 on June 11, its recent trend has been largely positive. It is on track for its second straight positive session, and it is up 3.3% over the past week.
The market capitalization of bitcoin rose to nearly $46 billion, meaning it once again accounts for more than half of the entire market cap for cryptocurrencies which stands at $89.9 billion, according to Coinmarketcap.com.
This is the first time since May that bitcoin has represented 50% of all crypto assets, according to Tuur Demeester, a bitcoin investor who is also the founder of Adamant Research. Earlier this year, cryptocurrencies topped $100 billion in market capitalization.
Thus far in 2017, bitcoin prices have gained more than 180%.
Related: Bitcoin investors: things may get very ugly soon, if this chart overlay is right
Ether, the digital currency that runs on the Ethereum network, fell 5.7% to $192.70 on Friday, extending its recent weakness. For the week, Ether is down more than 15%, trimming its market cap to $18.2 billion.
The chief rival to bitcoin remains the bigger year-to-date gainer by farit is up nearly 2,300% in 2017although it has struggled since hitting an all-time peak of $395.16 on June 13. At current levels, Ether is trading at levels last seen in May, according to Coindesk.
Much of this weakness has come on recent regulatory moves, including a recent announcement from the Securities and Exchange Commission that signaled it would scrutinize a recent torrent of so-called initial coin offerings, or ICOs. ICOs refer to previously unregulated offerings of digital currencies, many of which were tied to the Ethereum blockchain.
Read: What is an ICO? What investors need to know about initial coin offerings
More broadly, cryptocurrencies have come under increasing fire of late.
Howard Marks, the co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, said they were nothing but an unfounded fad, adding that bitcoin was based on a willingness to ascribe value to something that has little or none beyond what people will pay for it.
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Bitcoin prices rise as Ether extends recent weakness - MarketWatch
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