Joanna Lydgate Reveals High Costs of Operation Streamline

Dallas Observer, October 21, 2010 by Stephen Lemons
http://bit.ly/dkjEkT

In a report published by the University of California-Berkeley Law School’s Warren Institute on Race and Diversity, titled Assembly-Line Justice: A Review of Operation Streamline, researcher Joanna Lydgate estimated that it costs DHS $52.5 million per year to detain Streamline defendants in Tucson, at a rate of $100 per person per day…. She and other Warren Institute researchers suggested that zero-tolerance in Tucson alone could cost $1 billion a year.

Jesse Choper Believes ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Will Hold

The Vancouver Sun, October 21, 2010 by Peter Henderson
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Obama+fights+reinstate+tell/3703937/story.html#ixzz131M0zewX

While California’s 9th Circuit is regarded as one of the more liberal appeals courts in the nation, some legal scholars thought it likely that Phillips’s injunction would at least be set aside there temporarily. “I just don’t think the action of a single judge, no matter how right she might be, will be allowed to trump that entire process,” said Jesse Choper.

Stanley Lubman Says Chinese Workers More Conscious of Rights

The Wall Street Journal, China Real Time Report, October 20, 2010 by Stanley Lubman
http://on.wsj.com/co5K2A

Chinese workers have increasingly been taking grievances to the Chinese courts, which are having difficulty handling them. The numbers may continue to grow, as Chinese employers delay improving working conditions and as more workers seek to vindicate their rights under Chinese law.

Daniel Farber Questions Move to Redefine Birthright Citizenship

The Michigan Messenger, October 20, 2010 by Elise Foley
http://michiganmessenger.com/42732/redefining-birthright-citizenship-one-state-at-a-time

Daniel Farber, a constitutional law professor at Berkeley Law, said the 14th Amendment does not need to be interpreted by the Supreme Court because its meaning is already clear: Anyone born in the United States is a citizen…. “I usually am not this emphatic about what I think the answer is because Constitutional law has a lot of gray areas, but I do feel this one is pretty cut and dry. The 14th Amendment is clear about who is a citizen.”

Jason Schultz Wants Agencies to Curb Online Snooping

ColorLines, October 19, 2010 by Seth Freed Wessler
http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/10/government_snoops_are_using_facebook.html

The realm of government surveillance and policing through online social networks is a relative legal void, with agencies making their own rules and with little legislated oversight or regulation in place. “The rules,” says Schultz, “are just not up to date. We’re still using rules for email and voicemail, for a different world.”

Stephen Maurer Questions New Synthetic DNA Screening Guidelines

Nature News, October 18, 2010 by Heidi Ledford
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101018/full/467898a.html

Stephen Maurer … adds that the guidelines call for an initial automated screen of sequences by computer, a less stringent survey than getting employees to analyse each order as it comes in, as many companies already do. “You have a strange situation in which the US government is urging a lower security standard on the world,” he says.

Barry Krisberg Finds Crime Rate Drops as Immigration Rises

-KPBS FM, October 18, 2010 by Ruxandra Guidi
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2010/oct/18/criminologist-says-crime-california-drops-immigrat/

“Criminologists have historically found that first generation immigrants have much lower rates of crime than similarly situated people in terms of socioeconomics,” says Barry Krisberg, author of the most recent study and criminologist at Cal Berkeley’s School of Law.

-The Bay Citizen, Pulse of the Bay, October 20, 2010 by Jacob Simas
http://www.baycitizen.org/blogs/pulse-of-the-bay/immigrants-dont-bring-crime-berkeley/

Krisberg said he was motivated to conduct the study … because a number of politicians have sought to increase voter support for their election campaigns this year by appealing to the misconception that most immigrants are criminals who pose a threat to public safety…. “The dangerous thing,” Krisberg told La Opinion, “is to produce public policies based on fear, myths and political manipulation.”

Susan Gluss Says Partisan Politics Threaten Judicial Freedom

San Francisco Chronicle, October 17, 2010 by Susan Gluss
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/17/INCK1FRMSV.DTL

Judicial elections used to be sleepers: rarely advertised and seldom contested. But in the last decade, across the nation many have become multimillion-dollar duels. High-court candidates raised about $207 million for campaign war chests between 2000 and 2009, more than double the money raised in the previous 10 years.

Ann O’Leary Studies Alzheimer’s Impact on Families

ABC News, This Week, October 17, 2010 Host Christiane Amanpour
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/womans-nation-takes-alzheimers-11901384

“It’s a tremendous burden on families. We estimate that families are spending 56-thousand dollars a year—they’re paying out of pocket. We don’t have any insurance for this. One of the great things about the health reform bill is we’re going to start. There’s going to be long-term insurance now that’s going to be provided to people through their employers, but there’s so much more we can do to relieve that financial burden.”