Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: Illinois Dem
proposes bill to ban deadbeat parents from ballot

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? IL-08: Hahah! I love political theater like this:

A bill clearly inspired by U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh's child support issues would forbid people owing more than $10,000 in back child support from running for office in Illinois.

Unfortunately, even if the bill passed, it wouldn't actually ensnare Walsh because the bill doesn't apply retroactively. And I suspect it probably wouldn't even be constitutional anyway. But the real goal is to squeeze (yet) another news cycle out of this story, so none of this matters. As the bill's sponsor cannily says, "If I wanted to get political, I would have filed it six months ago." Uh huh, sure. We're winking along with you.

Meanwhile, it actually looks like Walsh caught a break: DuPage County Regional Superintendent of Schools Darlene Ruscitti is dropping out of the GOP primary in the 8th CD, where Walsh is attempting to seek re-election. You'll recall that Walsh pissed off a lot of local Republicans by clumsily bigfooting back into the 8th District after spending most of the year running in the 14th. He even tried to get Ruscitti to abandon her bid, but she had some powerful allies, including Reps. Peter Roskam and Judy Biggert. Walsh was undeterred, though, since John Boehner reportedly offered him $3.5 million in re-election assistance, to dissuade him from a primary with fellow Republican incumbent Randy Hultgren. And I guess that was enough for Ruscitti to ultimately change her mind and decide the whole thing wasn't worth it.

Senate:

? VA-Sen: Quinnipiac, which only started polling Virginia this year, has consistently shown less optimistic numbers for Democrats in the Old Dominion than their colleagues at Public Policy Polling, and that's particularly true of their latest poll. While PPP recently saw Democrat Tim Kaine finally put some daylight between himself and Republican George Allen, Quinnipiac has Allen leading, 44-42. That's changed from a 45-44 Kaine edge in October. They also find Barack Obama trailing Mitt Romney, again by 44-42, which contrasts with PPP's 48-42 lead for the president. Part of it may be sample composition: Quinnipiac's survey has a 30D-29R-28I breakdown, while PPP was at 36D-33R-31I.

Gubernatorial:

? NH-Gov: Count Steve Marchand out of the race for governor: The former Democratic mayor of Portsmouth just accepted a job as director of corporate relations at the University of New Hampshire, which means he won't be running for office any time soon. That means former state Senate Majority Leader Maggie Hassan is still the only announced Democrat in the race.

House:

? IL-13: Conservative activists, for whom Rep. Tim Johnson is not conservative enough, staged a last-minute effort to recruit state Sen. Sam McCann to challenge the incumbent in the GOP primary. But McCann says he'll continue with his plans to seek re-election instead.

? KY-04: I'm starting to feel like the list of Northern Kentucky Republicans who aren't considering a run in the suddenly-open 4th CD is actually shorter than the list of those who are. Here's yet another new name, and it definitely stands out:

Republican K. Lance Lucas, a Florence-based lawyer and son of former Democratic Congressman Ken Lucas, said in a phone interview that he is considering jumping in the Republican primary.

?Public service has always been something in our family,? Lucas said. ?And I think people are looking for something very different.?

Ken Lucas, of course, was the last Democrat to hold this seat, before retiring in 2004. Gee, I'm sure dad must be so proud right now.

? NC-02: It's certainly unsurprising, since his name's been circulating at least since August and he even attended a DCCC candidate training event in October, but ex-Rep. Bob Etheridge now confirms that he's thinking about a comeback bid. The woman who defeated him last year, freshman Rep. Renee Ellmers, was one of the weakest and therefore most surprising GOP victors of 2010's red wave, but her fellow Republicans did her a huge solid and made the 2nd CD much redder in redistricting. (It went from a district Obama won by 52-47 to one McCain won 56-43, a net change of 18 points.) And at age 70, Etheridge is pretty old to be considering un-retirement. So all in all, I don't see this as a winning move for him?though he may nonetheless be our best bet to take this seat back.

Grab Bag:

? NY-St. Sen.: Some big news in the closely-divided New York state Senate: Dem Sen. Carl Kruger pleaded guilty to charges of corruption and resigned his post on Tuesday. That summary, though, does even remotely do justice to how weird and sordid a tale this is. Just a taste:

[Kruger] could not control his emotions, mumbling and sobbing as he admitted abusing his position and detailed his crimes: bribery schemes in which he accepted nearly half a million dollars in exchange for taking official action as a senator. Beside him, separated by one of Mr. Kruger?s lawyers, sat the gynecologist who court papers suggested was the senator?s intimate companion; he, too, would weep uncontrollably as he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge a few minutes later.

Mr. Kruger, who has said he is not gay, had emphatically declared his innocence after his arrest in the broad corruption case in March. But people briefed on the matter said Tuesday that he had decided not to fight the charges, in part because the doctor, Michael S. Turano, 50, would have had to go to trial with him. [?]

Mr. Kruger and Dr. Turano lived with the doctor?s brother, Gerard I. Turano, also a gynecologist, and their mother in a garish mansion in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, that prosecutors said was financed with bribery payments to the senator and was originally built for the boss of the Luchese crime family.

Kruger wasn't only notorious for his corruption: You may also recall that he voted against same-sex marriage legislation in 2009, despite quite clearly being in a same-sex relationship himself. (He later voted in favor of the bill when it came back up earlier this year.) In any event, all eyes will now turn to the special election in the 27th Senate District, where Democrats will have a devil of a time holding this seat. The southern part of Brooklyn has been trending hard red in recent years, and in fact, this was John McCain's second-best SD in the entire state (not just the city). The district overlaps considerably with the Brooklyn portion of NY-09, which powered Republican Bob Turner to his big upset win in November. It won't be easy turf at all.

Fortunately, Democrats have what appears to be a strong candidate in City Councilman Lew Fidler, though he's being coy about his intentions. As is always the case with special elections in New York, nominees will be chosen by party leaders, not primaries, and The Brooklyn Politics' Colin Campbell, in gaming out the next steps, expects Dems to tap Fidler. He also thinks the GOP will go with attorney David Storobin, whom Politicker profiles here.

This race won't decide control of the chamber: The GOP already has a 32-30 edge, and Democrats are playing defense here. But it will, of course, affect Democratic chances of taking the Senate back next November. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has a lot of latitude in setting the election date, so we won't know when it will take place until he announces his decision. We'll keep you posted.

Grab Bag:

? New Mexico: PPP's batch of New Mexico miscellany finds surprisingly high approval numbers for its Republican governor (Susana Martinez) and both Democratic senators (Tom Udall and Jeff Bingaman, who is retiring). There are also some optimistic numbers on same-sex marriage as well (45-43 in favor).

Redistricting Roundup:

? AZ Redistricting: Late on Tuesday, Arizona's redistricting commission voted to approve a final congressional map, dividing along expected party lines (independent commissioner Colleen Mathis sided with the two Democrats). Below (with more at this link) is what the redistricting commission is calling its "tentative final map." I'm not sure why "tentative," except for the fact that the plan needs to be precleared by the Department of Justice first. In any event, the map:

The commission also passed new legislative plans, which are also available at the previous link. Interestingly, the vote there did not break down along partisan lines: Colleen Mathis (I), Linda McNulty (D), and Richard Stertz (R) voted in favor, while José Herrera (D) and Scott Freeman (R) voted against.

As a bonus, jeffmd also worked up (in record time!) a new CD distribution chart for the new map:

? CA Redistricting: ProPublica has an interesting new piece in which they argue, based on emails and other records they've acquired, that Democratic politicians and groups engaged in subterfuge to convince an overworked and inexperienced redistricting commission to adopt their aims. For instance, a consultant to Dem Rep. Jerry McNerney created a front group called "OneSanJoaquin," with the aim of keeping the San Joaquin Valley in a single district?something that appeared to benefit Republicans, but could actually only help Democrats. The commission accepted OneSanJoaquin's plan without really inquiring into who was making it, and McNerney moved to the valley to run in the new 9th.

But of course, a number of Democrats have gotten hosed by the new map, including at least one of Reps. Howard Berman and Brad Sherman, and one of Reps. Janice Hahn and Laura Richardson. (These two pairs are facing off in primary battles.) Lois Capps and John Garamendi have seen their districts get tougher, too. So while Democrats did well, it's not like they ran the table. There are also some serious misapprehensions in the piece, such as this claim:

?Very little of this is due to demographic shifts,? said Professor Doug Johnson at the Rose Institute in Los Angeles. Republican areas actually had higher growth than Democratic ones. ?By the numbers, Republicans should have held at least the same number of seats, but they lost.?

As sapelcovits noted, most of this growth "came from Democratic-voting Hispanics"?the fact that it happened to take place in so-called "Republican areas" is just happenstance. What's more, you're probably asking, where were Republicans when it came to giving testimony before the commission? Well, for whatever reason, they were completely AWOL. This was just politics, and the GOP decided not to play. That's their fault, not ours.

? CT Redistricting: Connecticut's bipartisan redistricting panel failed to reach an agreement by Wednesday's noon deadline, which means the new congressional map will get drawn by the state supreme court. I'm guessing that Republicans figure they can't do any worse than the status quo (Democrats currently control all five of the state's House seats), so they're praying that the high court will adopt their radical plan to move heavily blue Bridgeport out of the 4th District. (That would imperil Dem Rep. Jim Himes.) In the worse-case scenario, if the court goes for the Democratic proposal (which is a "minimum change" plan designed to achieve population equality and nothing more), then Republicans haven't lost any ground. So GOP obstructionism actually makes a certain amount of sense here.

? MS Redistricting (PDF): Courtesy the awesome Greg Giroux, we now have a copy of Mississippi's new, court-drawn congressional map (click for larger):

According to Loyola Law School's redistricting website, parties must file any objections to the map by Thursday. A hearing is scheduled for Dec. 28, but I imagine it might not take place if there are no objections.

? OH Redistricting: I'm not buying this for one second. Dem Rep. Marcy Kaptur is only now following Ohio Democratic Party chair Chris Redfern in blaming the DCCC for the failure of the redistricting referendum drive. But where on earth was she when her complaining might have made a difference? Was she on the horn to Steve Israel, asking him for an infusion of cash? Was she calling her own donors, exhorting them to give to the ODP? She could have been out there raising hell and calling attention to the issue when it mattered. Now, though, I think she and Redfern are just piling on to an easy target that simply can't and won't defend itself in the press.

The reality is that Kaptur got a district that was very favorable to her under the original map. Yes, she'd have to face Dennis Kucinich in a primary, but almost every observer felt the odds were strongly on her side. And when the newest (and final) map came out, the lines were better still. And how about rest of Ohio's remaining House Democrats? Marcia Fudge and Tim Ryan certainly wound up with districts that suited them, and Kucinich was too stupid to realize he'd been screwed (to the point that he even tried to whip votes for the first GOP map). Only Betty Sutton really got the shaft. So the majority of the delegation had plenty of selfish reasons to see this map pass into law. And when that's the case, the DCCC simply can't contradict the wishes of its dues-paying members, no matter how badly it might want to.

Meanwhile, Democrats in the legislature requested all of one tweak to the final map: They asked that state Rep. Ted Celeste's house be moved into OH-03, a new (and open) Democratic district centered around Columbus. So they were obviously looking out for one of their own as well. And don?t forget that Redfern himself is running for the state House. If Republicans could pass a second congressional map, it's not inconceivable they could have reconvened the special panel which draws legislative lines?something their rules (PDF) specifically allow for. That means Redfern had a personal incentive to lay low on the congressional map lest the GOP decide to mess with him on the legislative map.

I'm no fan of conspiracy theories, and I resent having to operate on what is clearly less than complete information. But the fact remains that progressive interests succeeded in collecting enough signatures for not one but two referenda in the past year (SB5 and HB194). It's very doable, and I refuse to believe that somehow the ODP was so hamstrung that they couldn't accomplish the job this time. If they wanted the referendum to get on the ballot, I'm absolutely convinced that they could have. I'm casting about for alternative explanations only because this failure makes no sense. What's more, we've seen self-interest rear its ugly head with regard to redistricting countless times in many states this year?far more often than we've seen any examples of selflessness (of which there are almost none). So in this case, yeah, I believe there were bad actors on our own side here, except they were in the Buckeye State, not Washington, DC.

? PA redistricting: As we've mentioned, Pennsylvania's Congressional redistricting map passed the state House on Tuesday by an unnecessarily large 136-61 margin, which means that 36 Democrats voted for the Republican plan (while 8 Republicans voted against it). The Dems are primarily from the Philly area and many are allies of Bob Brady (the 1st District Rep. and, more importantly, boss of the Philly machine), who'd been publicly whipping Democratic votes in favor of the map. PoliticsPA also notes that several Dems from Tim Holden's part of the state voted "yes," suggesting that Holden (who gets a much safer NE PA district, though at the possible risk of a primary) may have been whipping votes too, just not publicly. GOP "no" votes were from the rural parts of the SE, apparently upset over the crazy-quilt line drawing. (David Jarman)

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Mike's Blog Round Up

Hey! It's been a year since the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell policy was signed into law by President Obama.

Political Gates is running a series on the Fallacy of Reaganomics. Everything old is new again. sigh.

A List Apart says NO to SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act).

The Reaction handicaps the GOP and uses geometric logic to prove that the nominee will be Santorum.

Bonus Track: Stinque tells us about a long-standing Navy tradition, now updated.

Round-up by Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors who also blogs at Dependable Renegade. Send tips to: mbru@crooksandliars.com

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Lakeside Diner

A variety of links to articles/interviews on current topics that may, or may not, be of interest.[...]

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Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: House GOP compared
to roadkill

Visual source: Newseum

Reuters:

Republican reins slipping from Boehner

WaPo:

House Republicans faced mounting pressure Wednesday from critics inside and outside Congress who worry that their standoff with President Obama over whether to extend a payroll tax cut could do lasting damage to the GOP.

The Hill:

Former Bush adviser Karl Rove said he agreed with the Wall Street Journal?s blistering assessment on the failure of House Republican leadership in the payroll-tax debate, and conceded that Republicans have ?lost the optics? and should fold on the issue.

?I think the Wall Street Journal editorial hit it right on the nail, the question now is how do Republicans get out of it,? Rove told Fox News on Wednesday.

Back before the 2010 election, I made the case that the Republicans were into wielding power with no interest in actual governance. Alas, that's been proven true time and time again. But this time, they've really stepped in it. Rove's comments, of course, are part of a coordinated message: your elders are unhappy with you. For another example:

Greg Sargent:

These leaks are starting to seem deliberate: Senate GOP aides are sending a message to the House side that if they don?t pass the Senate short-term extension, they won?t be able to count on any help in getting themselves out of the hole they?ve dug for themselves. Have any GOP Senators come out and said anything supportive of what the House side is up to? Senator Mitch McConnell has been awfully quiet lately.

This, by the way, is another reason it?s getting less and less likely that Dems will drop their refusal to negotiate further until the House GOP passes the Senate proposal. Dems believe that the pressure on House Republicans from their own side is only going to mount, and that their political situation will continue deteriorating at an exponentially rapid pace.

Ana Marie Cox:

A friend covering the Hill impasse over the payroll tax cuts insists that Speaker John Boehner's job has become a task of "herding squirrels." Not cats, the more typical go-to cliché for trying to organize the unorganizable, but squirrels: "Squirrels are panicky and prone to irrational running into traffic."

This is an apt enough metaphor, as no matter what the eventual policy outcome ? an extension of the tax cut or no ? Congressional Republicans are roadkill. The question is just whether or not Democrats will chase out into the street after them.

Kirsten Powers:

It seems the GOP ?class warfare? argument has been a dud. True, most Americans don?t begrudge rich people their largesse, nor should they, if it is lawfully earned. What is unseemly is the GOP?s insistence in treating the well off as though they matter more than the middle class. Most Americans just want a fair shake, and there is nothing fair about insisting that tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires are necessary and don?t need to be paid for, and then turn around and try to block a middle-class tax cut and complain that it?s not paid for.

Furthermore, it doesn?t take a genius to see that the Bush tax cuts have been in effect for 10 years and the middle class is still waiting to be ?trickled down? upon by the wealthy.

Even millionaire Republican presidential candidates like Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich seem to sense something is amiss in the American economic structure, as evidenced by their recent Kinsley gaffes, which acknowledged that the super rich aren?t always the magnificent benefactors or ?job creators? the GOP tries to pawn them off as. Yeah, I?m talking about you, Mitt Romney.

Too bad for them that embracing reality counts as being ?off message? in the Republican Party.

Dana Milbank:

Atop the House chamber Wednesday morning, the flag fluttered in the breeze. In his office underneath the Capitol dome, House Speaker John Boehner twisted in the wind.

His House Republicans had killed a bipartisan plan to cut taxes for 160 million Americans, earning themselves an avalanche of criticism and condemnation from friend and foe alike. So Boehner assembled nine of his House Republican colleagues in his conference room, invited in the TV cameras, and proclaimed that Republicans really and truly want to enact the payroll-tax break that they just defeated.

?We?re here. We?re ready to go to work,? Boehner announced.

But the only thing he was working on, it turned out, was damage control.

EJ Dionne:

The one thing Obama cannot do is yield and make new substantive concessions now. This would undermine the very image of strength he has been building since September, after the debt-ceiling fiasco, which weakened the Republicans but also weakened him. He?s come back in the polls by standing up to the GOP right. If even the Wall Street Journal editorial page concedes that the Democrats occupy the political high ground, maybe even the most skittish in the GOP?s ranks will start believing it.

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Schaeffer Cox: FBI Informants Kidnapped Me,
Turned My Life Into The Truman Show

Alaska militia leader Schaeffer Cox is asking the court to throw out FBI recordings made by a confidential informant because the informant took actions that were "analogous to kidnapping" and turned Cox's life into a version of the Jim Carrey movie The Truman Show.

In a filing on Monday, Cox attorney Nelson Traverso argued that the judge should suppress all of the recordings made by the FBI's confidential informant, Gerald Olson.

"Cox -- like Jim Carrey's character in the movie The Truman Show -- has eventually found out that the intimate details of his private life, including the gatherings of his friends and family, were unbeknownst to him broadcast to an audience and preserved for that audience's own future use," the filing says. "Since this entire case is the fruit of that unlawful and heinous surveillance, all the evidence obtained by the government must be suppressed."

Olson agreed to inform on Cox and other members of the Alaska Peacemakers Militia in exchange for a reduced sentence on a fraud charge over a septic tank business scam. The other FBI informant was Bill Fulton, the former owner of Dropzone Security, who also recorded Cox and his compatriots after he was allegedly contacted to provide them with weapons.

In March, Cox and four others were arrested and charged with stockpiling weapons as part of a plot to kill several Alaska officials.

"With the benefit of hindsight," the brief says, "it is easy to see that [Olson] was desperate and did what he did in order to create a situation where he could be the 'hero' and thereby benefit his own penal interests, thus receiving a slap on the hand when instead he should be behind bars for a decade or more."

Cox alleges that Olson, though only an entry-level member of the militia, "refused on numerous occasions to abide by the directives of Cox but instead implemented his own agenda and attempted to inject himself into the command structure." Cox says Olson also advocated using violence, to the point where he had "worn out his welcome" and other members of the group had plans to "decommission" him.

"Cox explicitly and specifically told [Olson] not to try to obtain the explosive C-4; yet, [Olson] did so," the brief claims. "Cox explicitly and specifically told [Olson] not to be involved with anything illegal; yet, [Olson] engaged in a campaign of doing so."

At the time, Cox had begun to feel he "had no choice but to walk away from it all now," and Olson was only kept on board because he told Cox he had a way for him to get out of the state, according to the court documents. Olson allegedly told Cox that for $500 "a sympathetic trucker" would transport him to the lower 48 states, and then "made further recorded misrepresentations explaining the fictitious trucker's delay on February 26 and March 1, and then told Cox that the trucker was there to transport Cox on March 10 when instead that was the guise for effecting Cox's arrest." Cox also says he lost use of his family car because Olson took his car battery and promised to fix it, but never did.

"Were there any question as to the magnitude of the seizure of Cox," the filing says, "that question is answered by observing that the government's actions in preventing Cox and his family from leaving Alaska and instead holding him in the Fairbanks area from February 19 till March 10, 2011 are analogous to kidnapping."

Olson isn't the only informant who Cox claims conspired against him. He also alleges that on February 4 and 5, Bill Fulton "resorted to physical force when the Peacemakers would not implement [Fulton's] own plan for violence. In short, as Cox was well aware, [Fulton] put a knife to one of the Peacemakers' throats and was prepared to kill him when the Peacemaker indicated that the Peacemakers had no plans for violence."

In previous filings, Cox has accused Fulton of "pushing and pushing the question 'what my plan was' and that his men were being mobilized to attack the government."

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One Nation Under The Drone: The Rising Number Of
UAVs In American Skies

A secret air show in Houston. An unmanned blimp in Utah. A sovereign citizen arrested in North Dakota.

Each of these is just one small part of the bigger story of the proliferation of unmanned aircraft use within the U.S., and each is likely to become smaller still if the FAA goes through with plans to loosen regulations governing domestic use of drones.

News reports about Predator attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan are common if not always complete, but what's gotten much less attention is the increase in drones that are buzzing around within the U.S. itself. Primarily, Predator B drones are only used by government agents to patrol the borders for illegal immigrants, but there are a (very large) handful of other agencies and companies that use smaller, unarmed drones for a slew of other purposes. And that number is only expected to grow.

The FAA says that as of September 13, 2011, there were 285 active Certificates of Authorization (COA) for 85 different users, covering 82 different unmanned aircraft types.

Though the exact breakdown of the organizations who have authorization is unclear -- and the FAA would not elaborate for "privacy" and "security" reasons -- in January the Washington Post reported that as of December 1, 2010, 35% of the permissions were held by the Department of Defense, 11% by NASA, and 5% by the Department of Homeland Security. The FBI and law enforcement agencies also hold some, as do manufacturers and even academic institutions.

Between pressure from trade groups (like the drone manufacturers group the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International), proposed legislation from Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) to expand the number of drone testing sites in the U.S., and petitioning from states like
Oklahoma for an approved 80-mile air corridor reserved exclusively for drone development and testing, there is great potential for drone use to expand within the U.S. in the next few years.

Les Dorr, a spokesman for the FAA, says that there are currently two types of authorizations -- one for public operations, as in state and local governments, and one for private entities. In each case, the application process involves telling the FAA what type and where and when aircraft will be flown, so the agency can determine if it can ensure the safety of other aircraft. Dorr said that next month the FAA hopes to propose new, looser rules for use of small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) because "that's where the demand is."

He told TPM that they're hoping to publish the new regulations in January, which will be followed by a comment period for industry and other interested parties. That usually lasts 60 days, at which point the FAA will take the comments into consideration when drafting the final language of the rule.

So who would use these small drones?

Kevin Lauscher, a Grant Assistance Specialist for the Canada-based manufacturers of the Draganfly drones, couldn't say how many they've sold in the U.S. so far. But he said that aside from law enforcement agencies, they've sold drones to companies in real estate, manufacturing, academic institutions and even resorts. He described how some construction companies use drones for safety reasons, in place of a person on top of a crane or scaffolding.

But, the FAA said in a press release in October, though "interest is growing in civil (non-government) uses" for drones, "one of the most promising potential uses for sUAS is in law enforcement."

"The FAA is working with urban police departments in major metropolitan areas and national public safety organizations on test programs involving unmanned aircraft," the release says, also noting that members of law enforcement agencies participated in the committee that is drafting the new sUAS rule.

So far, there is a handful of law enforcement agencies that already have authorization to use drones, like sheriff's departments in Queen Anne's County, Maryland and Lane County, Oregon and the Texas Department of Public Safety. Police in Arlington, Texas have a drone they acquired to help with security during the February, 2011 Superbowl. The Mayor of Ogden, Utah is working to get an "unmanned blimp" that would fly over the city and serve as "a deterrent to crime."

But there are some cases that are particularly concerning for civil liberties advocates. In North Dakota, a family of "sovereign citizens" was arrested with the help of a Predator B drone, borrowed from border patrol agents by the local sheriff in an effort to avoid a standoff over missing cows. In the first reported case of a drone being used to aid in the arrest of a U.S. citizen, the drone was able to detect when the family was carrying weapons so officials could move in without fear of a firefight.

There's also the Houston Police Department, which scrapped a plan to bring on a drone shortly after KPRC-TV filmed local officials participating in a secret air show for drones, about 70 miles outside of the city. The police chief mentioned in a press conference that the drones could be used for issuing traffic tickets, and the backlash was such that the Mayor put the kibosh on the program. But, according to KPRC-TV, the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office near Houston still used $300,000 in federal grant money from the DHS to buy a ShadowHawk unmanned helicopter.

"We're not going to use it to be invading somebody's privacy. It'll be used for situations we have with criminals," Montgomery County Sheriff Tommy Gage said.

Law enforcement officials agree with Gage, and emphasize that drone use is to protect officers and nothing more.

Ben Miller, the UAS Operations Manager at the Mesa County Sheriff's Office, said his office primarily uses their two drones for search-and-rescue missions or taking aerial photos of potential crime scenes. He described how the UAS unit was tasked with searching a mile-long area for a man who went missing and was thought to be suicidal -- a search they completed in an hour. Normally, he said, a search like that would be conducted with agents standing shoulder-to-shoulder, and would have taken much longer.

Miller told TPM that there have been concerns expressed about potential privacy violations, but the department is careful to get warrants when necessary. "That's definitely a sensitive subject," he said, but "probably 1% of the application potential is surveillance" for drones.

"Flying cameras are not a new thing. What's new is doing it smaller and cheaper," he added. "There probably are going to be some challenges in the future," but for now there's enough case law to keep law enforcement in check. "If we're going to fly below 400 feet we're going to get a search warrant," Miller said.

Sgt. Andrew Cohen of the Miami-Dade Police Department says their two drones are still in testing and training, but would mostly be used to provide tactical air support to police units, such as in a hostage situation. He said that there is a "misconception" that drones will be used to infringe on people's privacy -- if for no other reason than because they're very noisy. "This thing is not stealth technology," Cohen said. "It's being used on a police scene" where there are already a number of police units present. "We're not going to see anything with this probably any more than if we had a helicopter up there."

"Everything is a tool, it's how you use it that makes it good or bad," Cohen said.

But civil liberties advocates are worried that it'll be a slippery slope as more and more law enforcement agencies acquire this type of technology under the potential new FAA regulations.

The ACLU put out a report this month analyzing the increase in domestic drones, noting that since 2005 the Customs and Border Protection agency has operated seven Predator B drones along the southern border, and it hopes to increase that number to 24 by 2016. "The prospect of cheap, small, portable flying video surveillance machines threatens to eradicate existing practical limits on aerial monitoring and allow for pervasive surveillance, police fishing expeditions, and abusive use of these tools in a way that could eventually eliminate the privacy Americans have traditionally enjoyed in their movements and activities," the report says.

Jennifer Lynch, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that a big concern right now is how murky the statistics are on the number of domestic drones. "They're concerning for the privacy of Americans, and we just don't know at this point how the agencies are using them," she said.

"The Department of Homeland Security is working with state and local law enforcement to use drones for basic criminal activity," Lynch said. "And in my mind that type of activity hasn't been approved for the use of these drones."

"I don't believe that law enforcement agencies have the proper standards in place for when using drones is appropriate," she said.

Ryan Calo, the Director for Privacy and Robotics at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society, wrote in a report that "these machines are disquieting. Virtually any robot can engender a certain amount of discomfort, let alone one associated in the mind of the average American with spy operations or targeted killing. If you will pardon the inevitable reference to 1984, George Orwell specifically describes small flying devices that roam neighborhoods and peer into windows."

Calo told TPM that local sheriffs and other law enforcement agencies are using the smaller drones "more regularly," though it's still not routine. But Calo noted that under the possible new FAA regulations it'll become much more common. "There's a little bit of a trickle, but it would turn into a waterfall if they loosen their restrictions," he said.

"You can imagine some pretty mischievous uses" for drones, Calo said. "The kind of privacy violations I'm worried about are from government and big corporations alike." If the restrictions are loosened, he said, some estimates put the number of domestic drones at 15,000 by 2018. But he emphasized that if there is such a dramatic increase in the number of drones out there, there will likely be a reexamining of existing privacy laws. "I think we're not going to be comfortable with some of the doctrine on the books for privacy law."

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Justice Department Facing Deadline On Voter ID
Decision

The Justice Department has to decide by Tuesday whether South Carolina has proven that their new voter ID law doesn't deny or abridge the voting rights of residents on the basis of race, nationality or language -- a decision bound to enrage either the mostly progressive opponents of voting restrictions or the mostly conservative backers of the identification measure, depending on how they come down on the matter.

While a number of states have passed voter ID laws, only South Carolina and Texas are subject to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires certain states with a history of discrimination to have changes to their voting laws pre-cleared by officials in DOJ's Civil Rights Division.

Progressive and civil rights leaders have been pushing DOJ to probe voter ID laws in other states under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting laws which discriminate on the basis of race across the country. But as TPM previously reported, they're unlikely to pursue such cases because it's tough to prove discrimination takes place until after an election takes place when the law is enacted.

In South Carolina, an evaluation by the Associated Press found that the voter ID law appeared "to be hitting black precincts in the state the hardest."

Outside of the federal government, the American Civil Liberties Union has sued Wisconsin (which isn't covered by Section 5) over their voter ID law, maintaining it "imposes a severe and undue burden on the fundamental right to vote under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution; violates the Twenty-Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution as an unconstitutional poll tax; and violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in arbitrarily refusing to accept certain identification documents."

Attorney General Eric Holder, in his address on voting rights earlier this month, said that in-person voting fraud -- the type of fraud voter ID laws would prevent -- is "uncommon" and said that "making voter registration easier is simply not likely, by itself, to make our elections more susceptible to fraud."

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British bankers prepare to sue for bonuses

If ever there was an industry that deserves to be knocked down a few notches, it's the banking industry. Of course the bankers expect their fat bonus checks because they've been receiving them for years. Everyone knew what they were doing was garbage before yet they were still paid ridiculously high bonuses. Even after it all came tumbling down, they weren't sued and asked to pay back the bonuses that they all received which was a major mistake both by the governments who rescued the banks as well as the banks themselves. Let them sue and let them push the public and make them even angrier with the bankers so the political class will finally get off their backsides and do something about it. The right wing loves to talk about a sense of entitlement from the poor but this group is the mother of all entitlement demanders. Even worse, they really cost a lot in terms of payouts and bailouts plus they can ruin an economy, unlike the poor. Breach of contract this, you bunch of jerks:

The prediction comes as the banks are in the process of deciding how to pay their staff for 2011 ? a year in which the sector's share prices have been among the worst performers in the FTSE 100 ? and despite banker bonuses being viewed with a mixture of horror and astonishment outside the Square Mile.Paul Quain, a partner at GQ Employment Law, said: "Although the banks will have a robust case, there are still likely to be legal claims in the new year because the concept of having the right to receive a discretionary bonus is so strongly embedded in the minds of many bank staff."There is huge disconnect between bankers' perception of their rights and the legal reality. Bankers seem to have an expectation that they are entitled to a bonus under almost any circumstances, which has been fed by over 20 years of high bonus rounds."

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-to-sue-for.html

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Thursday Open Thread

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say,
abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans)

Born December 22, 1819

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.

It's never too late to be who you might have been.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving.

There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.

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One Nation Under The Drone

A secret air show in Houston. An unmanned blimp in Utah. A sovereign citizen arrested in North Dakota.

Each of these is just one small part of the bigger story of the proliferation of unmanned aircraft use within the U.S., and each is likely to become smaller still if the FAA goes through with plans to loosen regulations governing domestic use of drones.

News reports about Predator attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan are common if not always complete, but what's gotten much less attention is the increase in drones that are buzzing around within the U.S. itself. Primarily, Predator B drones are only used by government agents to patrol the borders for illegal immigrants, but there are a (very large) handful of other agencies and companies that use smaller, unarmed drones for a slew of other purposes. And that number is only expected to grow.

The FAA says that as of September 13, 2011, there were 285 active Certificates of Authorization (COA) for 85 different users, covering 82 different unmanned aircraft types.

Though the exact breakdown of the organizations who have authorization is unclear -- and the FAA would not elaborate for "privacy" and "security" reasons -- in January the Washington Post reported that as of December 1, 2010, 35% of the permissions were held by the Department of Defense, 11% by NASA, and 5% by the Department of Homeland Security. The FBI and law enforcement agencies also hold some, as do manufacturers and even academic institutions.

Between pressure from trade groups (like the drone manufacturers group the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International), proposed legislation from Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) to expand the number of drone testing sites in the U.S., and petitioning from states like
Oklahoma for an approved 80-mile air corridor reserved exclusively for drone development and testing, there is great potential for drone use to expand within the U.S. in the next few years.

Les Dorr, a spokesman for the FAA, says that there are currently two types of authorizations -- one for public operations, as in state and local governments, and one for private entities. In each case, the application process involves telling the FAA what type and where and when aircraft will be flown, so the agency can determine if it can ensure the safety of other aircraft. Dorr said that next month the FAA hopes to propose new, looser rules for use of small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) because "that's where the demand is."

He told TPM that they're hoping to publish the new regulations in January, which will be followed by a comment period for industry and other interested parties. That usually lasts 60 days, at which point the FAA will take the comments into consideration when drafting the final language of the rule.

So who would use these small drones?

Kevin Lauscher, a Grant Assistance Specialist for the Canada-based manufacturers of the Draganfly drones, couldn't say how many they've sold in the U.S. so far. But he said that aside from law enforcement agencies, they've sold drones to companies in real estate, manufacturing, academic institutions and even resorts. He described how some construction companies use drones for safety reasons, in place of a person on top of a crane or scaffolding.

But, the FAA said in a press release in October, though "interest is growing in civil (non-government) uses" for drones, "one of the most promising potential uses for sUAS is in law enforcement."

"The FAA is working with urban police departments in major metropolitan areas and national public safety organizations on test programs involving unmanned aircraft," the release says, also noting that members of law enforcement agencies participated in the committee that is drafting the new sUAS rule.

So far, there is a handful of law enforcement agencies that already have authorization to use drones, like sheriff's departments in Queen Anne's County, Maryland and Lane County, Oregon and the Texas Department of Public Safety. Police in Arlington, Texas have a drone they acquired to help with security during the February, 2011 Superbowl. The Mayor of Ogden, Utah is working to get an "unmanned blimp" that would fly over the city and serve as "a deterrent to crime."

But there are some cases that are particularly concerning for civil liberties advocates. In North Dakota, a family of "sovereign citizens" was arrested with the help of a Predator B drone, borrowed from border patrol agents by the local sheriff in an effort to avoid a standoff over missing cows. In the first reported case of a drone being used to aid in the arrest of a U.S. citizen, the drone was able to detect when the family was carrying weapons so officials could move in without fear of a firefight.

There's also the Houston Police Department, which scrapped a plan to bring on a drone shortly after KPRC-TV filmed local officials participating in a secret air show for drones, about 70 miles outside of the city. The police chief mentioned in a press conference that the drones could be used for issuing traffic tickets, and the backlash was such that the Mayor put the kibosh on the program. But, according to KPRC-TV, the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office near Houston still used $300,000 in federal grant money from the DHS to buy a ShadowHawk unmanned helicopter.

"We're not going to use it to be invading somebody's privacy. It'll be used for situations we have with criminals," Montgomery County Sheriff Tommy Gage said.

Law enforcement officials agree with Gage, and emphasize that drone use is to protect officers and nothing more.

Ben Miller, the UAS Operations Manager at the Mesa County Sheriff's Office, said his office primarily uses their two drones for search-and-rescue missions or taking aerial photos of potential crime scenes. He described how the UAS unit was tasked with searching a mile-long area for a man who went missing and was thought to be suicidal -- a search they completed in an hour. Normally, he said, a search like that would be conducted with agents standing shoulder-to-shoulder, and would have taken much longer.

Miller told TPM that there have been concerns expressed about potential privacy violations, but the department is careful to get warrants when necessary. "That's definitely a sensitive subject," he said, but "probably 1% of the application potential is surveillance" for drones.

"Flying cameras are not a new thing. What's new is doing it smaller and cheaper," he added. "There probably are going to be some challenges in the future," but for now there's enough case law to keep law enforcement in check. "If we're going to fly below 400 feet we're going to get a search warrant," Miller said.

Sgt. Andrew Cohen of the Miami-Dade Police Department says their two drones are still in testing and training, but would mostly be used to provide tactical air support to police units, such as in a hostage situation. He said that there is a "misconception" that drones will be used to infringe on people's privacy -- if for no other reason than because they're very noisy. "This thing is not stealth technology," Cohen said. "It's being used on a police scene" where there are already a number of police units present. "We're not going to see anything with this probably any more than if we had a helicopter up there."

"Everything is a tool, it's how you use it that makes it good or bad," Cohen said.

But civil liberties advocates are worried that it'll be a slippery slope as more and more law enforcement agencies acquire this type of technology under the potential new FAA regulations.

The ACLU put out a report this month analyzing the increase in domestic drones, noting that since 2005 the Customs and Border Protection agency has operated seven Predator B drones along the southern border, and it hopes to increase that number to 24 by 2016. "The prospect of cheap, small, portable flying video surveillance machines threatens to eradicate existing practical limits on aerial monitoring and allow for pervasive surveillance, police fishing expeditions, and abusive use of these tools in a way that could eventually eliminate the privacy Americans have traditionally enjoyed in their movements and activities," the report says.

Jennifer Lynch, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that a big concern right now is how murky the statistics are on the number of domestic drones. "They're concerning for the privacy of Americans, and we just don't know at this point how the agencies are using them," she said.

"The Department of Homeland Security is working with state and local law enforcement to use drones for basic criminal activity," Lynch said. "And in my mind that type of activity hasn't been approved for the use of these drones."

"I don't believe that law enforcement agencies have the proper standards in place for when using drones is appropriate," she said.

Ryan Calo, the Director for Privacy and Robotics at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society, wrote in a report that "these machines are disquieting. Virtually any robot can engender a certain amount of discomfort, let alone one associated in the mind of the average American with spy operations or targeted killing. If you will pardon the inevitable reference to 1984, George Orwell specifically describes small flying devices that roam neighborhoods and peer into windows."

Calo told TPM that local sheriffs and other law enforcement agencies are using the smaller drones "more regularly," though it's still not routine. But Calo noted that under the possible new FAA regulations it'll become much more common. "There's a little bit of a trickle, but it would turn into a waterfall if they loosen their restrictions," he said.

"You can imagine some pretty mischievous uses" for drones, Calo said. "The kind of privacy violations I'm worried about are from government and big corporations alike." If the restrictions are loosened, he said, some estimates put the number of domestic drones at 15,000 by 2018. But he emphasized that if there is such a dramatic increase in the number of drones out there, there will likely be a reexamining of existing privacy laws. "I think we're not going to be comfortable with some of the doctrine on the books for privacy law."

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rone.php

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