AG Candidate Maura Healey meets with Cambridge Community Leaders

by @SarahCortes- Massachusetts Attorney General candidate Maura Healey spent the week with leaders across Cambridge, defining herself, discussing issues, demonstrating her public speaking ability and setting herself apart from others in the field. "I am the only candidate who has served in the Attorney General's office," she noted. Tonight a crowd gathered to meet with Healey and hear her speak, including artist and former Skadden Arps lawyer and Amnesty International Legal Support Network founder Lori Lander, and former longtime Executive Director of the Cambridge Women’s Commission and former President of the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts Nancy Ryan.

"As a 5'4" pro basketball player, you know I'm scrappy," said the former Miss New Hampshire Basketball and Olympic trial contender, referring to her athletic career. Healey captained Harvard's women's basketball team to an Ivy Championship and played pro basketball in Austria before starting a legal career where she became a top aide to Attorney General Martha Coakley. Healey noted, "I'm a product of Title IX and a beneficiary of Title IX," referring to the federal law that mandated equality for girls and women in educational athletics. As one of the first generation of professional women athletes, former Harvard Briggs Cage top scorer Healey played for UBBC Wustenrot Salzburg, now UNION BSC Salzburg.

In Coakley's office, Healey lead the team that successfully challenged the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which denied federal benefits to same-sex couples by defining marriage exclusively as a union between a man and a woman, in Massachusetts vs. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In handing victory to Healy in a withering decision against HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and others, Judge Joseph L. Tauro ruled that Massachusetts's standing to bring suit against DOMA was "not contingent, as the [US] government suggests, on Thomas Hopkins--or another similarly-situated individual--being lowered into his grave at Winchendon" cemetary, but that Healy had amply demonstrated required financial injury to the state. Further, that, "the [US] government has offered little to disprove the persuasive precedential and historical arguments set forth by the Commonwealth to establish that marital status determinations are an attribute of state sovereignty." Sebelius, no stranger to stinging judicial defeats, received another loss for her actions blocking access to the "morning-after" contraceptive pill. Judge Korman's decision in Tummino v. Hamburg summarily dismissed Sebelious's position as a "...silly argument [that] ignores the fact...that appeal is taken solely to vindicate the improper conduct of the Secretary," and, "this argument...is largely an insult to the intelligence of women."

Healey's record reflects consistent, successful efforts on behalf of the disabled, affirmative action programs, housing subsidy recipients, same-sex marriage proponents, and pregnant women in employment discrimination. In Perry v. Schwarzenegger and later Perry v. Brown, Healey filed amicus briefs in support of the successful effort to invalidate California's Proposition 8, which attempted to define marriage in heterosexual terms. In Massachusetts v. ETrade Access, Healey successfully argued that ATMs must accommodate blind customers, and then followed up and won contempt judgements when banks failed to comply with agreements to do so. In Comfort v. Lynn School Committee, Healey supported a school assignment plan that took race into account. In Joulé Technical Staffing v. Simmons, Healey argued on behalf of an employee who filed a complaint of discrimination against an employer, on the basis of pregnancy. In Diliddo v. Oxford St. Realty, she argued on behalf of a housing subsidy recipient against a landlord seeking to exclude her from renting.

Reflecting her years as a litigator, Healey spoke knowledgeably and articulately about civil rights, consumer protection, gun violence, criminal justice reform, reproductive rights, and encouraging and supporting the technology industry in Massachusetts. A Northeastern University Law school graduate and former Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr associate, Healey has extensive legal credentials. In her campaign, Healey is working to demonstrate her ability to raise funds, speak publicly and endure the rigors of a political race.

Healey's relaxed, engaging manner, intelligence and comfort speaking with individuals in a small group or larger setting impressed observers assessing her viability as a candidate. Other leaders at the gathering included Jonathan Sclarsic, Andrew Lewman, and Cambridge School Committee Member Patty Nolan. Author Cheryl Suchors, reproductive rights activist Susan Yanow, and lawyer, public policy analyst and former White House intern Alex Tischenko also numbered among those Healey consulted at the gathering. Broad Instittue founder, MacArthur Fellow and Rhodes Scholar and biologist, geneticist and MIT Professor Eric Lander co-hosted the event with Lori Lander, who also serves as Director to numerous Cambridge and Boston art and social justice nonprofits.

Tuesday, Healey attended a briefing Tuesday on domestic violence and sexual assault issues with Cambridge-based advocates, including Emerge Batterer Intervention Program Co-Executive Director David Adams, Transition House Executive Director Risa Mednick, and a group of leaders and advocates for eliminating domestic violence.

Orignially published at  CCTVcambridge.org/MauraHealy

Feminist Gloria Steinem Continues to Draw Huge College Crowds at 80

by @SarahCortes-Lining up more than two hours in advance in the freezing cold, college students and community members estimated at more than a thousand strong at this North Adams college queued around the block and down a steep hill for a chance to hear feminist author, journalist, and activist feminist Gloria Steinem speak last night. Squeezing into the main hall of the Church Street Center at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) as well as overflow rooms, hallways and even vestibules, the audience packed into every available space for her address.

Steinem, 80, who has worked for women's rights and gender and racial equality for over 50 years, stood at the podium for almost two hours, speaking and taking questions from the audience. Energetically urging the men and women in the audience to continue to engage in "Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions", also the title of one of her books, she drew a standing ovation at the end of her remarks. Afterwards, she remained standing and greeted a mob of well-wishers and petitioners.

Steinem recalled her Cambridge connection when discussing Emerge, the first Abuser Education Program in the country, headquartered on Massachusetts Avenue. One of six organizations Steinem "endorses," and to which she links on her website. Emerge works to end domestic violence by holding abusers accountable for their behaviour. "Emerge was one of the first recipients of our Ms. Foundation grants over 30 years ago," Steinem noted.

Founded in 1977, Cambridge-based Emerge was the first abuser education program in the United States. Since its creation, Emerge has been a national leader in working to end violence in intimate relationships. In working toward this goal, Emerge seeks to educate individual abusers, prevent young people from learning to accept violence in their relationships, improve institutional responses to domestic violence, and increase public awareness about the causes and solutions to partner violence. "They were the only men's organization we funded," explained Steinem. "I'm glad to see Emerge is still going strong."

Steinem graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Smith College in 1956. In her 1963 article, "I Was A Playboy Bunny," she famously exposed the exploitative working conditions endured by Playboy Bunnies, including the sexual demands made of them. She based the article on her own experiences as an undercover reporter, when she worked for Playboy Enterprises as a Bunny. Author of seven books and countless articles, winner of dozens of journalism awards, Steinem also founded Ms. Magazine in 1972 while working for New York Magazine.

Regarding domestic violence, Steinem commented and responded to questions on abuser education organizations like Emerge and other domestic violence service providers like its sister organization, Cambridge's Transition House. Regarding her views on various strategies  and approaches to domestic violence, including holding abusers accountable as well as providing services directly to victims, "both [types of organizations] do both," she remarked.

photo credit: Sarah Cortes

House Speaker DeLeo, State Rep Decker visit Transition House, meet with victims of Intimate Partner Violence

by @SarahCortes-Six victims of Intimate partner violence quietly told their stories to key politicians Monday inside the protected walls of Cambridge's Transition House shelter. In an effort to increase understanding in the wake of the Jennifer Martel murder/Jared Remy homicide case, State Representative, 25th Middlesex District (Cambridge) and Cambridge City Councillor @MarjorieDecker brought Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo and his staff into the heart of the facility. Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas and Detectives Joanne MacEachern and Beth Halloran, among others, also participated, dedicating over three hours to discussing root causes of intimate partner abuse and intimate partner violence. Det. MacEachern explained "the attitude of entitlement and the desire for power and control" over the victim that drives abusers. Representatives from Emerge, the nation's oldest abuser education program, which sprang from Transition House's work, Boston Area Rape Crisis Center (BARCC), the YWCA and Community Legal Services also participated. 

Transition House Executive Director Risa Mednick has met regularly since 2009 with Rep. Decker, Commissioner Haas and others to help improve understanding and combat domestic abuse. The second oldest shelter for victims of domestic abuse and domestic violence, Transition House has offered services to victims since 1975. The agency provides education, work opportunities, training and other resources to victims "to increase skills and foster self-sufficiency," according to Mednick. It also provides youth education, peer mentoring and counseling on healthy relationship development. State and local agencies provide about half its funding, according to its 990 form, while they rely for the balance on donations from individuals.

Rep. and Councilor Decker has served on the Cambridge City council since 1999. According to her website, she is one of only "13 women to be elected to City Council in more than 150 years." She initiated and chaired a city wide summit on Domestic Violence Prevention, and recently spearheaded a public awareness campaign.

House Speaker DeLeo, a Democrat representing Winthrop and Revere, has presided over the legislature as House Speaker since 2009, after serving as Chairman of the Massachusetts House Committee on Ways and Means from 2005-2009. "I spent a number of years as a probation officer," DeLeo said, explaining how he was first exposed to domestic violence cases.

Smart Grid Technology Reveals Your Activities in Your Home: Privacy Panel Raises CyberSecurity Concerns

By Sarah Cortes-Ever since Chinese computer hackers reportedly brought down the entire power grid of northeastern New York State, utilities and the US government have collaborated to strengthen the US energy infrastructure to prevent similar occurrences. Smart Grid technology, including computerized Smart Meters, have been rolled out around the US, and there are plans to install more, including in Cambridge and the entire state of Massachusetts.

New Smart Grid technology can make your energy consumption data much more interesting, creating benefits- and problems.  Collected at intervals as low as every hour or 15 minutes, increased granularity of your energy consumption paints a distinct picture of your activities in your home. And, the activities of others in your home while you are away. Each person may create a unique "digital energy usage signature" that can be used to identify who is in your home doing what, when. This is helpful when you want to understand how to cut down your energy usage. It also interests businesses that want to sell you things, other individuals who want to track your activities, and law enforcement and related government agencies, when they wants to track your whereabouts and activities. 

EnergySec, a consortium of industry leaders and concerned citizens, invited a panel of lawyers, information security researchers and state public utility employees to Portland, Oregon last week to educate attendees of the EnergySec Summit about privacy issues with Smart Grid Energy Consumption Technology. The Smart Grid is the new energy infrastructure the US has been seeking to implement. Panelists included Lee Tien from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). EFF, like the ACLU, is active in defending civil liberties. EFF's focus is freedom relating to digital, internet and computer-related issues. EFF has been active in keeping an eye on how energy consumption data collection and storage may create new threats to civil liberties, privacy and security.

Other panelists included Gal Shpantzer, and information security researcher from EnergySec, moderator, Chris Shepherd, ICCT, Chris Villarreal, California Public Utilities Commission, and myself, from Cambridge, representing the National Institue of Standards and Technology (NIST) Smart Grid CyberSecurity Working Group (CSWG) that is currently rewriting a NIST Smart Grid CyberSecurity and Privacy guide, including legal and regulatory issues.

The panel discussed the very recent rulings by the Ninth Circuit Court, US v. Golden Valley Electric Association, and the Maine Supreme Court, in Friedman v. Maine Public Utilities Commission, regarding privacy and security issues relating to government subpoenas of consumer energy usage data for law enforcement, as well as concerns about health and general privacy issues of Smart Grid technology.

Whistleblower Bradley Manning Supporters Protest in Cambridge, Boston, Demand Obama Free Him

by @SarahCortes-As over 30 press outlets filed an amicus brief to protest secrecy surrounding PVC Bradley Manning's trial, protestors in Cambridge, Boston and 33 Obama campaign headquarters around the US joined yesterday in the demand to free Manning.

Manning is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents and media, including the video www.CollateralMurder.com, to Wikileaks. Many view Wikileaks as a news outlet similar to the New York Times, and Manning as a whistleblower similar to Daniel Ellsberg of the Pentagon Papers. Documents and media allegedly leaked by Manning to Wikileaks portray misconduct by the US military, such as that in the Collateral Murder video. Wikileaks director Julian Assange is currently in refuge in the Ecuadoran embassy in London, under threat of arrest and deportation to Sweden. Four US congressional representatives have called for Assange's death. The US seeks his extradition for publishing the classified material. Manning faces 22 charges, including aiding the enemy, unauthorized disclosure of national security information and violating orders. The maximum punishment for these crimes includes life imprisonment. The government has not charged any of those persons revealed in the material to have committed atrocities or other crimes.

The Collateral Murder video, shot from the gunsight of a US Army helicopter in Iraq in 2007, shows the killing of unarmed civilians, children and two Reuters photographers by a soldier identified only as "Crazyhorse 1/8." The US Army refused to release it under a 2007 FOIA request by Reuters, claiming its release would jeopardize national security. No one is known to have been harmed since the release of the material attributed to Manning.

Protestors at the Primary Day rally likened Bradley Manning's alleged crimes to the disclosures by Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers, which revealed widespread atrocities and corruption in the US military in southeast asia in the 1960s and 1970s. Susan McLucas stated, "Manning has been held in jail for over two years without a trial. We're here on the eve of Obama's nomination to demand that he free Manning, who [allegedly] released information vital to our interests, which should never have been secret."

Many of the protestors had previously supported Occupy Boston. Jesse Perrier, of Veterans for Peace added, "to a lot of people [Manning] is a hero, for letting people know a lot of falsehoods about the Iraq war." Leslie Tetrault added, "I learned some things today about the torture of Bradley Manning that I couldn't believe. We have to all stand together. Because that could be me in there [in the US military prison in Ft. Meade}, too." Susan Rose of Cambridge, who participated in the protest, and Pat Scanlon, who helped organize itagreed. Dave Lewit of www.NewEnglandAlliance.org, a member of the Alliance for Democracy, added that Manning's Treatment was "an indictment of a corrupt justice system- civilian as well as military."

Politico reporter @JoshGerstein reported, "The amicus brief filed with the military's highest court, the Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces, supports a request from the Center for Constitutional Rights to allow public access to motions, briefs, written rulings and the docket in Manning's court-martial."

The Boston and Cambridge protets were supported and publicized by a wide variety of organizations, including www.wiki.OccupyBoston.org and www.DirectActionRadio.blogspot.com, as well as www.MassPirates.org

According to www.BradleyManning.org, emails turned over to Manning's legal defense team after months of wrangling over discovery, revealed that Lieutenant General George Flynn, who was serving as the Commanding General of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command at the time, ordered Manning’s solitary confinement.

Computer Hackers Share Tips at DefCon, Sound Alarms about Government Surveillance

by @SarahCortes-Former Cantabridgian Chris Soghoian spoke today at Defcon, possibly the world's largest conference for computer hackers. Soghoian highlighed numerous ways cellphone and location data is easily accessed by law enforcement with little or no judicial or other oversight. Laws such as the Communications and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 ("CALEA") have been expanded beyond their original scope to assist law enforcement investigations in the hope of keeping us safer. The problem, Soghoian states, is that this expanded ease of government surveillance now extends to millions of individuals as well, dismantling constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.

Also on the panel with Soghoian were Catherine Crump and Ben Wizner from the ACLU and computer technologist Ashkan Soltani.

Soghoian referenced a recent judicial opinion from a Texas court finding law enforcement had exceeded their authority in the use of subpoenas for cellphone data, which can include not only the target of an investigation, but everyone who has had cellphone contact with a target. "We're not talking about a judge from San Francisco. When a Texas judge says government surveillance had gone too far, you need pay attention, Soghoian stated."

Soghoian has published and spoken extensively on government surveillance of its citizens, and the collaboration of the largest telecommunications and other technology corporations with law enforcement.

Soghoian is a PhD candidate at Indiana University, where he submitted his doctoral dissertation July 15. He was a fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society in Cambridge from 2008-2009. "They gave me the impossible task of trying to measure the scale of government surveillance," Sogoian states in his dissertation. "Thankfully, they were not upset when I failed."

He first gained notoriety in 2006 when the FBI raided his home during the night and seized his computer. He had created a website featuring a fake airline boarding pass which anyone could print out, which defaulted to printing the name "Osama bin Laden." Soghoian had created the website to call attention to TSA security weaknesses to create public awareness about what he saw as the TSA's habit of ignoring obvious threats and vulnerabilities in transportation infrastructure. Instead, he has asserted, TSA focused unduly and ineffectively on a set of threats and a series of purchases that have left real threats unidentified and unmitigated.

Soghoian revealed at DefCon that he is currently "fighting his own lawsuit" against the government.

13,000 information Security professionals and hackers are expected to attend DefCon this year in Las Vegas, Nevada between July 26-29.

Originally published at CCTVcambridge.org/SoghoianDefCon

Anonymous Protesters Continue Second Day and Night of Occupation in front of Cambridge, MA British Consulate

by @SarahCortes-Protestors spent a second day and night outside the British Consulate in Cambridge MA in response to the UK's continued threats against the sovereignty of Ecuador's London Embassy and Julian Assange. Identifying themselves with the philosophy of the loose collective of computer hackers known as "Anonymous," individuals in "V for Vendetta" masks occupied the space in front of the Consulate, located at One Broadway in Kendall Square.

Assange has sought refuge from UK extradition in Ecuador's London embassy since June 16. In a new development, Ecuador announced yesterday it has extended Assange permanant asylum. In response, the UK has stated it will arrest Assange the minute he steps outside the embassy.

Assange founded Wikileaks, the organization that published hundreds of thousands of pages of US diplomatic and military cables allegedly leaked by US Pvt. Bradley Manning. Among other artifacts, Wikileaks published 39 minutes of classified US Army helicopter cockpit gunsight footage, which can be seen in the video "Collateral Murder," at www.collateralmurder.com. The video footage includes the shooting and sometimes slow deaths of unarmed civilians, children and Reuters journalists during an American airstrike in Baghdad on July 12, 2007. In the video, US soldiers "Crazyhorse 1/8" and "Crazyhorse 1/9" direct fire from a US Army helicopter at two unarmed Reuters journalists, two small children, their father (while he is attempting to aid the wounded), other individuals attempting to aid the wounded, and other unarmed civilians. "Crazyhorse 1/9" then directs US soldiers to take the wounded children to a local clinic lacking basic medical supplies, refusing to allow their transport to the well-supplied US Army hospital nearby. The wounded children, shot in the face, were the only survivors of the airstrike.

Image: Sarah Cortes

Manning has been detained without trial in conditions called by his lawyer "harsh and flagrantly unlawful," since his arrest in 2010. The Guardian reported that, according to "a 14-month investigation by Mendez [Juan Mendez, the UN's special rapporteur on torture] concluded that Manning had been subjected to cruel and inhuman conditions." David House, co-founder of the Bradley Manning support network www.bradleymanning.org, was unable to join the protests..

According to Amnesty International, Ecuador is on its watch list due to "curbs on freedom of expression [which] included the use of criminal defamation charges against journalists critical of the government or local officials. In July, a judge ordered three directors and a former columnist of the newspaper El Universo to pay President Correa US$40 million in damages and sentenced them to three years’ imprisonment for criminal defamation. President Correa brought a criminal complaint against the four men in March, a month after an article was published referring to him as a “dictator” and suggesting that he might face criminal prosecution over the September 2010 disturbances when the armed forces rescued him from a hospital in Quito. He had sought refuge there from police officers protesting against proposed cuts in their pay and benefits. An appeal against the sentence imposed on the directors and columnist was pending in the National Court of Justice at the end of the year."

When Reuters requested an explanation of the 20007 murders of its photographers, and an investigation, US military authorities insisted the circumstances were legal, refused to release information regarding the shootings, and denied the existence of the cockpit gunsight footage. It was only with the 2010 release by Wikileaks that the evidence and details surrounding this and other incidents came to light.

Senator Diane Feinstein has called on US Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute Assange under the Espionage Act (18 USC 793e), which carries the death penalty as a potential punishment. The three other members of the US Congress have called for Assange's execution or death. Ecuador and Assange contend that the extradition which the UK is demanding will lead to his death in the US.

Cambridge protestors followed similar protests at British consulates and embassies around the world. "Unprecedented UK threats to violate the sovereign designation of Ecuador's London embassy threatens the safety of British subjects around the world, and all of us. It is intended to retaliate against Assange for publishing information of vital importance to all of us, concealed from the public," stated one of the protestors at the corner of Third and Main Streets. When asked how long Anonymous intended to continue its occupation at One Broadway in Cambridge, protestors replied only with the smile on their "V for Vendetta" masks. "V for Vendetta" is a trademark of multinational Viacom, which derives a fee from the sale of every mask based on its copyright.

Originally published at CCTVcambridge.org/AnonymousManningAssange