Strip-Search of 13 Year-Old Student, a Violation of Constitutional Rights?.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced Friday it will decide if the 2003 strip-search of a 13-year-old Arizona female student was reasonable or if it violated her Constitutional rights. The Court will also determine whether the girl is entitled to a financial settlement from the school district or the school official who ordered the search.

The decision could have a lasting affect on a school's drug enforcement policies.

The case, Redding v. Safford Unified School District, was appealed from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which found the strip search to be unconstitutional. A six-judge majority of the appeals court further held that the school official who ordered the search is not entitled to immunity as a result of his actions.

"Overzealous school officials stripped our client of her clothes and her constitutional rights," said Steven R. Shapiro, Legal Director of the ACLU, a plaintiff in the case. "We are confident that the Supreme Court will recognize that such conduct has no place in America’s schools and will protect the privacy rights of America’s students."

Savana Redding, an eighth grade honor roll student at Safford Middle School in Safford, Arizona, was pulled from class on October 8, 2003 by the school’s vice principal, Kerry Wilson. Earlier that day, Wilson had discovered prescription-strength ibuprofen - 400 milligram pills equivalent to two over-the-counter ibuprofen pills, such as Advil - in the possession of Redding’s classmate. Under questioning and faced with punishment, the classmate claimed that Redding, who had no history of disciplinary problems or substance abuse, had given her the pills. Safford maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward all prescription medicines, including prescription-strength ibuprofen.

After escorting Redding to his office, Wilson presented Redding with the ibuprofen pills and informed her of her classmate’s accusations. Redding said she had never seen the pills before and agreed to a search of her possessions, wanting to prove she had nothing to hide. Joined by a female school administrative assistant, Wilson searched Redding’s backpack and found nothing. Instructed by Wilson, the administrative assistant then took Redding to the school nurse’s office in order to perform a strip search.

In the school nurse’s office, Redding was ordered to strip to her underwear. She was then commanded to pull her bra out and to the side, exposing her breasts, and to pull her underwear out at the crotch, exposing her pelvic area.

The strip search failed to uncover any ibuprofen pills.

"The strip search was the most humiliating experience I have ever had," said Redding in a sworn affidavit following the incident. "I held my head down so that they could not see that I was about to cry."

The ACLU says the strip search was undertaken based solely on the uncorroborated claims of the classmate facing punishment. The groups says no attempt was made to corroborate the classmate’s accusations among other students or teachers, no physical evidence suggested that Redding might be in possession of ibuprofen pills or that she was concealing them in her undergarments. Furthermore, the classmate had not claimed that Redding currently possessed any pills, nor had the classmate given any indication as to where they might be concealed. No attempt was made to contact Redding’s parents prior to conducting the strip search.

"It offends both common sense and the Constitution to undertake such an excessive, traumatizing search based on nothing more than an uncorroborated accusation of ibuprofen possession," said Adam Wolf, an attorney with the ACLU and counsel of record in the case. "Our fundamental right to privacy must not be cast aside when faced with groundless allegations rooted in unfounded fears of adolescent Advil abuse.

Police Officer violating Civil Rights beaten a man while restrained in a wheelchair.

I wonder why some fellow Citizens refuse to call to Police for help.!!!!!!!!!!.
A Chicago police officer pleaded guilty today to violating the federal civil rights of a man whom the officer struck repeatedly with a dangerous weapon while the man was handcuffed and shackled in a wheelchair, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Loretta King, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI’s Chicago Field Office announced.

William Cozzi, 51, pleaded guilty to a one-count information in U.S. District Court in Chicago, admitting he used excessive or unreasonable force while acting under color of law. Cozzi joined the Chicago Police Department in 1992 and was assigned to the 25 th District at the time of the alleged incident. He was subsequently suspended from duty. Cozzi was indicted in April 2008 for depriving the victim of his civil rights.

On Aug. 2, 2005, while performing his duties as a police officer, Cozzi admitted that he used a “sap,” a dangerous weapon similar to a blackjack, to repeatedly strike the victim who was handcuffed and shackled in a wheelchair at Norwegian American Hospital, resulting in bodily injury. At the time, the victim was awaiting treatment in the hospital emergency room after being stabbed in the shoulder.

“The defendant violated the public trust by abusing his law enforcement authority,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King. “This prosecution demonstrates that the Civil Rights Division is committed to aggressively prosecuting law enforcement officers who willfully use excessive force.”


“No law enforcement officer may use unreasonable force with impunity and every citizen, regardless of being in police custody, has a constitutional right to be free from the use of excessive force,” U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald said.

Cozzi pleaded guilty while reserving his right to appeal a ruling last year denying his motion to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that the prosecution was based in part on compelled statements he made to the Chicago Police Department’s Office of Professional Standards and during a police review board hearing.

According to a plea agreement, Cozzi was dispatched to the hospital to respond to the stabbing and approached the victim who was being loud and verbally abusive while awaiting treatment for the stabbing. Shortly after approaching the victim, Cozzi placed him in handcuffs and left the emergency room to retrieve leg shackles, which he then placed on the victim. With the victim restrained, Cozzi used a sap to repeatedly strike him in the face and body. According to the plea agreement, at the time of the assault the victim posed no physical threat to Cozzi or anyone else at the hospital.

Cozzi also admitted that he subsequently prepared a false arrest report and misdemeanor complaints stating that the victim attempted to punch him and two hospital security guards, as well as a false tactical response report stating that he used an “open hand strike” on the victim but omitted that he struck the victim with a sap.

U.S. District Judge Blanche Manning set sentencing for March 26, 2009. Cozzi faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Drury from the U. S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois and Trial Attorney Betsy Biffl of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Another Brutal and racist attack against Latinos.!!!!

Ya Bastaaaa. Ya BASTA, Enough is enough. One single hate crime is more than enough.!!!!!!! Alert, Alert. Alert, Alert, Alert.
This situation must called for immediate action Know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Action. Action.
The question is how are all these haters succeeding in the face of hate crime legislation?. High Alert! Some “hate groups,” they warn, are changing their approach and attempting to use Latinos, Hispanics people as vehicles for their purposes. Ashamed and Outrageous this type of crimes still happen in United States of America.!!!!!!

Colombian immigrant Wilter Sanchez, 33, was brutally attacked in Wednesday afternoon by a gang of hate-filled thugs in the town of North Plainfield, New Jersey.

Doctors at the Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Brunswick say that Sanchez is lucky to be alive given his injuries. They are set to perform reconstructive surgery on Sanchez' face as soon as the swelling eases.

Five African American men between the ages of 17 and 19 young years of age were arrested for the hate crime. Continue Reading here: Source:

Patriot Act. U.S. Citizen Jailed without evidence.

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The story of one US Citizen who was wrongfully detained without charges and later sentenced to jail without evidence. It is just one of the many examples of scapegoats produced by the ideological-hatred, indifference and incompetence reflected in both the 'under-the-table' Congressional agendas and the Bush Administration's controversial Patriot Act.

Detention Center officer pleade guilty of Civil Rights Violations.

FORMER GRANT COUNTY, KENTUCKY DETENTION CENTER OFFICERS FOUND GUILTY OF CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN TEENAGER RAPE CASE.

A Kentucky jury convicted Wesley Lanham and Shawn Freeman, both former deputy jailers, on federal civil rights, conspiracy and obstruction charges, the Justice Department announced today. The defendants, former deputies at the Grant County Detention Center, were found guilty of conspiring to violate the civil rights of a teenage traffic offender when they arranged for him to be raped by inmates. The jury convicted the defendants on all charges and specifically found that the defendants were responsible for the aggravated sexual assault carried out by the inmates.

The defendants face up to life in prison when they are sentenced on Dec. 8, 2008.

The case stemmed from an incident that occurred on Valentine’s Day in 2003, when the defendants, along with their supervisor, former Sergeant Shawn Sydnor, taunted an 18-year-old high school student who had been brought to the detention center on a speeding charge. The deputies teased the teenager about his physical appearance and told him that he would make a good “girlfriend” for the other inmates. The defendants then solicited a group of convicted felons housed in a general population cell to scare the teenager. After eliciting an agreement from the inmates, the officers left the teenager in the cell where he was sexually assaulted by the other inmates.

When the teenager’s father reported the incident and demanded an investigation, the defendants falsified their official reports relating to the treatment of the teenager.

Sydnor, previously pleaded guilty to civil rights and conspiracy charges and faces up to 15 years in prison.

This case was prosecuted by Special Litigation Counsel Kristy L. Parker and Trial Attorney Forrest Christian of the Criminal Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, with assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation

Comprehensive Immigration reform an Identity and a hope stolen!!!!!

Characterisation of identity crime varies widely, with inconsistent use of terms such as identity theft, impersonation, fraud, forgery, false pretences, spoofing, misappropriation and even identity pollution, vandalism and assault.
In all relationships private and public, lies are used to protect or promote one's self or others. There are institutional lies to sell, to protect turf, to improve competition, to motivate staff, and so forth. There are lies in politics, advertising, and education. There are even lies in medicine: doctors to patients and patients to their doctors. Deception is plentiful—it is there all the time; we just do not like to look at it.

Last year Americans were not fair and balance appropriation with Undocumented Immigrants when they were discussing Immigration issues. They were accused, criminalized, persecuted, diminished, scapegoated, blamed for bringing diseases and for Stealing identities but the major roles on this unfairly public debate were the Anti's, the so called patriots, Nativists and many others. I want to exposed one of the issues were Undocumented Immigrants are part of the solution and not the problem.

what is identity

That range derives from the nature of identity, particularly the nature of identity in urban environments within advanced economies.

Many people conceptualise identity as static and readily discernable, implicit in notions that 'I am who I am ... and everyone can see that without much difficulty'. In reality identity is far more mutable. In most circumstances it is a manifestation of social relationships, not of innate characteristics.

Those relationships may be as fundamental (and thus invisible) as gender or age, although even those attributes may be 'negotiated' through mechanisms such as clothing, a haircut and application of Photoshop to a student ID card. They may instead be as malleable as possession of a key or clipboard, with a long history of incidents in which scammers were provided with access to a restricted facility or removed assets merely because they wore the right uniform and looked authoritative. If your identity is your credit card you may face difficulty in environments where a transaction does not necessitate directly sighting the plastic or the person at the checkout is so alienated that Mickey Mouse could be providing the signature.

Identity is performed. As a result it can be subverted.

offences

Identity offences abound and as the following pages indicate have taken a variety of forms, from hackers wholesaling stolen credit card details to honey-tongued conmen and women who recurrently sold the Eiffel Tower or 'true' stories of their triumph over adversity.

Statute and case law regarding those offences is similarly diverse.

There is considerable disagreement within and between governments regarding the conceptualisation of identity offences (sometimes narrowly construed as only involving financial loss) and corresponding terminology.

A common element to all offences is simply 'identity' rather than financial injury and that accordingly we can discern three broad groups of offences -

Identity theft
Identity enhancement
Identity pollution

Identity theft

Identity theft has been hyped as the "crime of the century" or even "of the millennium" but is as old as the hills, discernable since the beginning of history and evident in tales such as Rebekah and Jacob's deception of Isaac.

Identity theft involves appropriation of someone else's identity for personal gain.

That appropriation might involve unauthorised use of a checkbook, a credit card or a deposit account. It might involve ordering/receiving goods or services in the guise of someone else, for wining and dining through Europe after persuading your hosts that you are a famous film star, director, author or political figure. It might involve using someone else's name to commit a crime; some of the nastier identity thieves have used the names of dead children

Identity Enhancement

Identity enhancement involves action intended to provide the offender with some advantage, often a financial advantage. It is distinguishable from identity theft because the fraud involves the offender's own identity rather than appropriation of someone else's identity. It may be additive or substractive.Subtractive identity enhancement involves deletion of inconvenient, even deeply stigmatised, attributes from a curriculum vitae or other representation - for example airbrushing a criminal conviction, bankruptcy or other problem from a cv. The vicissitudes of major corporations whose executives are revealed to have lied about their personal history may provide hours of amusement (were the headhunters asleep?) and welfare fraud (omitting to report employment in order to receive income support) may be an acceptable cost of the liberal democratic state but health scandals in Australia and elsewhere indicate the seriousness of 'cooking' a cv. Would you blithely go under the knife if you knew, for example, that the surgeon had been struck off the medical register in another jurisdiction over egregious malpractice involving the death or serious disfigurement of numerous patients?Additive identity enhancement, as the term suggests, involves improving the offender's public persona by adding the bling that is desirable in a credentialist society - unearned academic or professional qualifications (why stop at an MBA when you can give yourself a PhD?), military honours, sports trophies and awards from peers. At a more mundane level, as practiced by many students, it can involve adding a few years to their proof of age cards or other identity documents in order to get through the doors at nightclubs or other age-restricted venues. Enhancement offences are illustrated through resume fraud.

Identity pollution takes two forms.In contrast to the preceding categories of offences, much identity pollution is typically not concerned with financial gain and not concerned to airbrush the offender's public profile. Instead it seeks to erode or destroy a victim's public reputation and self-esteem.That erosion has traditionally featured mechanisms such as letters and statements that purport to come from a political or commercial rival, the expectation being that third parties will mistakenly believe that the falsehood peddled by the offender comes from the victim and will accordingly shun the victim. Identity pollution in recent years has involved 'joe job' email messages and faxed media releases. It has also involved fake blogs, wikipedia entries and social network service profiles (in which, for example, a former lover in the guise of the victim 'reveals' that he likes to strangle kittens, engage in unorthodox sexual activities and steal money from his employer).Some identity pollution - perhaps the pollution most frequently encountered by people online - involves using someone else's identity to persuade a recipient to read (or merely to receive) an email or other communication. It is exemplified by spammers engaging in the forgery of email headers in an effort to subvert filtering (eg network operators often do not block messages that purport to come from trusted personal contacts or organisations) and to encourage a recipient to open the message that has not been filtered out by the network operator or by personal filter lists.

other perspectives

Identity Theft may be characterised as assuming the identity of someone else. As such it has a long and often colourful history, from the days when individuals claimed to be the Son of God (or other relatives) or royalty - typically having miraculously survived murderous attention by Ivan the Terrible, Boris Godunov, Richard III or Robespierre and emerged to claim the throne of France, Russia or England. Difficulty with authentication and the desire to believe (irrespective of signs to the contrary) meant that multiple imposters were often common.

A classic example is the thirty of so individuals claiming to be the Dauphin Louis - otherwise thought to have perished in prison during the French Revolution after his father Louis XVI met Madame Guillotine. One claimant was described as improbably "of Black appearance, with frizzy hair and slightly mad", although presumably more sane than some of his advocates.

The bureaucratisation of Western cultures over the past two hundred years has seen a shift from blood to signifiers of authority (eg the second-hand army uniform that successfully allowed tailor Wilhelm Voigt to commandeer Kopenick town hall at the beginning of last century) and thence to mundane identifiers such as AFNs and Social Security Numbers.

Economically significant ID theft now does not involve supposed heirs of Nicholas II or missing English baronets, miraculously emerging in Australia after drowning off Patagonia. It instead involves misuse of your credit card or cheque book, since in the digital era your identity is embodied in information rather than flesh - something that is explored in the Privacy guide and Surveillance & Authentication profile .

We are also starting to see what is generously described as 'spoofing' or 'joe jobs': email or even sites that purport to emanate from a public figure or private individual. That misuse of someone else's name and email address may be used to defeat restrictions on spam. It may also be used to damage a reputation, with the supposed author being incorrectly assigned responsibility for racist or other offensive comments.

Various typologies of ID crime have been suggested, reflecting different positions in the enforcement (or academic/media feeding) chain. One of the more useful categorisations suggests that in relation to financial services we should differentiate between

- short-term Identity Access
- Account Theft
- Application Fraud
- broader Identity Appropriation

Identity Access involves appropriating someone's identity for quick access to existing financial or other accounts. Typically the thief uses an individual's information to purchase services or products through either a physical credit card (eg stolen from the individual and used to rack up purchases before the financial institution queries unusual spending patterns) or that card's account number and expiration date (eg carbons from credit card slips), with the victim discovering that the account has been access when studying a monthly billing statement or online report.

Account Theft may occur over a longer time frame when a stolen identity is used to take possession of an existing account by changing existing address details. The theft has typically involved mechanisms such as thieves intercepting mail from letterboxes or removing it from an individual's possessions, thereby gaining information needed to change the address on credit card and bank accounts. Victims often attribute missing statements to loss in the postal system and discover the theft when a credit card is declined because the thief has maxed-out the card.

Application Fraud involves unauthorised creation of new accounts through a stolen identity, with the victim sometimes not aware of the theft because financial statements are mailed to a new address used by the thief. The theft is often discovered only when a collection company seeks recovery action or applications for new credit are rejected because of the hidden debt.

Identity Assumption has been a literary and Hollywood favourite, with the thief assuming the victim's identity, sometimes as a cover for the commission of non-financial crimes. Proponents of biometrics and identity reference/validation services have claimed for example that criminals have used forged driver registration documents - the de facto official and commercial ID papers in countries such as Australia - that feature the victim's name and other characteristics but the villain's photo.

Such victims supposedly most often discover the imposture when law enforcement agencies approach them about offences that they have supposedly committed. Other offenders have 'rebirthed' dead children, assuming an identity after obtaining death certificates.

Other observers have argued that damage to reputation may be as important as any pecuniary loss through misuse of a bank account or credit card, with for example long-term damage to consumer credit ratings (discussed in a separate profile) or loss of esteem in a particular community through appropriation of a real name or avatar used in an online forum.

Identity Fraud, an associated offence, has attracted a lot of media attention thanks to Nativists, Anchor News, (Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, Bill O;Reilly), Politicians (Tommy Tan Credo, Jeff Sessions, and some republicans).
It can take two forms

Most commonly, it involves an individual 'massaging' data: adding a degree or two, deleting a conviction or a divorce, adding a few years of age (popular among teenagers facing age-based access restrictions) or taking a few years off once the individual reaches a certain age.

As such it is popular among all classes, from high school kids enhancing ID passes to get into nightclubs through to company directors and members of parliament buffing their profiles.

More rarely, some individuals have created a new identity altogether - one that is sometimes used to live an otherwise law-abiding existence rather than as the basis for theft. Self reinvention is arguably a central theme of US culture, where - like people in the rest of the world - many have dreamed of shucking off an inconvenient past and starting afresh, often with the aid of a glossier resume and fewer wrinkles.

As discussed later in this profile, statistics about theft/fraud are problematical. In 1985 the US Congress for example noted indications that up to 500,000 false tertiary degrees are in 'use' in the USA (eg were cited for employment purposes), that 10,000 false medical degrees are in use and that 30% of employees were hired with 'massaged' credentials.

Identity crime is a generic term with broad scope to describe a wide range of identity-related offences in which a defendant uses a false identity to commit, or facilitate the commission of, a crime.
Identity fraud describes the gaining of money, goods, services or other benefits, or the avoidance of obligations, through the use of a false identity. It includes fraudulently obtaining a financial benefit (eg by credit card skimming), avoidance of taxes or financial loss, and intangible benefits, such as access to citizenship, professional affiliation, and medical services.
Identity theft describes the theft or assumption by one person of another person's identity, whether the other person is alive or dead. It may also extend to the use of a fictitious identity.

Identity Theft and Fraud is where the Law is so diverse and non Understandable of the facto to solve the Nature of Identity for an Humane and comprehensive Immigration reform rather just compiled one issue thru another to the intangible Anti Immigrant sentiment against undocumented Immigrants.