The nude photo scandal currently rocking the Marine Corps is much bigger than first imagined, going way beyond the one branch and a single Facebook page. According to Business Insider, the U.S. Department of Defense has widened its investigation into the secret sharing of naked photographs of female Marines on social media to include all branches of the military.

Investigators discovered dozens more photos on the website AnonIB, which first gained notoriety for publishing stolen nude photos of Jennifer Lawerence and other celebrities. Under a message board dedicated to military personnel, men from all branches of the military shared sexually-explicit photos of female service members and veterans containing their full names, rank, where they were stationed, and even their links to their social media accounts.

The exposure of the message board comes shortly after hundreds of photos of nude, semi-nude, and clothed women were discovered on the private Facebook group Marines United, which had approximately 30,000 male active duty and retired Marines.

The photos–some appearing to have been taken without the women’s knowledge–were accompanied by vulgar and obscene comments, many encouraging rape. The Facebook group also contained links to a now-deleted Google Drive containing even more images, and an invitation to any members to contribute.

The page was discovered last week by journalist Thomas Brennan, who is also a Marine veteran. Brennan’s reporting led to the Marine Corps opening an investigation into the Facebook page and its users. The Marine Corps responded with a 10-page guidance, which lists resources for victims and a website to report crimes

The guidance contained the following statement:

The Marine Corps is deeply concerned about allegations regarding the derogatory online comments and sharing of salacious photographs in a closed website. This behavior destroys morale, erodes trust, and degrades the individual. The Marine Corps does not condone this sort of behavior, which undermines our core values.

“A Marine who directly participates in, encourages, or condones such actions could also be subjected to criminal proceedings or adverse administrative actions,” the Marine Corps says.

Several active-duty marines have already been discharged and NCIS investigators are considering felony charges that could carry a maximum penalty of seven years in prison.

The scandal comes at time when the military has repeatedly been accused of mishandling sexual harassment and sexual assault cases. Victims have already begun to come forward and encourage others to do so as well.

A former Marine, Erin Kirk-Cuomo, told CBS News that servicewomen have been reporting websites like “Marines United” for more than 10 years but were ignored. She said the issue was “laughed off by military leadership and members as harmless, expected, or invited.”

This time around, military officials and investigators seem devoted to pursuing justice. However, investigators could run in to trouble trying to find and prosecute active duty servicemen who used the AnonIB website. Unlike on the Facebook page where many active duty members posted using their personal accounts, the message board’s users are mostly anonymous. According to Business Insider, the site also appears to be registered in the Bahamas, which is outside U.S. law enforcement’s jurisdiction.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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In the fall of 2015, President Obama signed a defense policy bill that included directions for the Pentagon to release a detailed report of the backgrounds of all the remaining prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Obama gave the Pentagon a deadline of January 24, 2016. That date was missed, but the report was delivered exclusively to Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), a fervent opponent of Obama’s Guantanamo strategy, in June. On Tuesday, that report was released to the public.

The report includes the basis for the prisoners’ detentions, from low level to high level “indefinite detainees.” It includes backgrounds on the 107 prisoners detained at Guantanamo as of late 2015, when Obama signed the bill directing the report be compiled. At present, there are 76 prisoners left at Guantanamo, 34 of which have been cleared for transfer. One of Obama’s campaign promises was to close Guantanamo before his term ended, and some Republican lawmakers who oppose shutting down the prison see him as too quickly clearing prisoners for release in order to make good on that promise before January.

Ayotte has been calling for a single unclassified report on the Guantanamo prisoners for years. In an email to The Associated Press regarding the report, she said:

While the Department of Defense watered down information and failed to provide key details regarding some detainees, the report still provides Americans with a consolidated, unclassified source of information regarding the dangerous terrorists at Guantanamo who the administration has recently released or plans to release soon.

Among the high level suspected terrorists the report details Karim Bostan, a 13-year detainee, ran an al-Qaeda affiliated cell that targeted U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He has been cleared for transfer to a country outside the U.S. that is willing to accept him. Those negotiations are ongoing. The report also details the backstories of low-level detainees like Muhammad Said Salim Bin Salman. Detained in Guantanamo for 14 years, Bin Salman was suspected of traveling to Afghanistan to train at an al-Qaida camp. The Yemeni native said he never fought, and was deemed a medium intelligence risk. He was transferred to Oman in January.

Ayotte might be one of the most vocal opponents of shuttering Guantanamo–a proposition also supported by George W.Bush–but she is hardly the only Republican opposed to closing the prison. They say it’s irresponsible and could result in former terrorists re-engaging in terrorist activities. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported that five percent of detainees released under Obama have re-engaged in terrorism operations. Eight percent are suspected of re-engaging. Under Bush, 21 percent of released prisoners re-engaged and 14 percent were suspected of re-engaging. 500 prisoners were released or transferred under Bush and 162 under Obama.

At a Congressional hearing in March, Paul Lewis, the Pentagon’s official on the Guantanamo closing, alluded to American deaths that have come at the hand of released prisoners, saying, “there have been Americans that have died because of Gitmo detainees.” It’s a contentious issue that will surely remain relevant for months to come, but for now at least, we have a bit more transparency than in the past.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Things continue to get worse for the University of Phoenix. After the FTC began investigating the parent company of the for-profit string of schools–Apollo Education Group–more government agencies are either launching investigative probes or turning away from the company.

On Thursday the U.S. Department of Defense officially put the University of Phoenix on probation. Essentially that means that the for-profit schools will be barred from recruiting on military bases, and veterans won’t be able to use the money they receive from the department’s tuition assistant program for education at any of the University of Phoenix branches. However, any students that are currently using the DoD’s benefits and are enrolled in classes are allowed to continue their education.

The DoD didn’t necessarily disclose the exact reasons for its dismissal of the University of Phoenix. However, Military Times reported on a letter it obtained that was sent by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Defense to the University of Phoenix. Reasons it cited for putting the for-profit collection of schools on probation included the probes by the FTC and the state of California, as well as recruitment attempts that broke the DoD’s policies. One of those was the use of “challenge coins” According to the Wall Street Journal:

The coins—which are bigger than a silver dollar and often have unit insignia—are often given by those in the military to one another for a job well done or to commemorate an event. The University of Phoenix used trademarked seals and insignia on their coins without the consent of the military, according to the Defense Department. The university said it has since stopped using such coins.

However, the DoD isn’t the only government agency that’s not getting along with the University of Phoenix. On Friday, just a day after the DoD’s announcement, the Justice and Education Departments announced joint investigations into the University of Phoenix. They will be establishing an interagency task force to ensure that the company is held to proper accountability and oversight. These moves by the DoD, the Justice Department, and the Department of Education are consistent with the FTC probe, which is attempting to determine if the University of Phoenix used unfair or deceptive recruiting practices, particularly when it came to recruiting veterans.

In light of the DoD’s announcement, the University of Phoenix stock fell nine percent. The University of Phoenix is almost certainly on a downturn–this is just the latest bad news for the for-profit education giant.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Recent media attention has shed light on many of the controversial aspects of police militarization, from excessive force to the use of paramilitary units in routine policing. Less frequently discussed, however, is the significant lack of transparency of these trends. The public lacks information about the extent and impact of equipment transfers and the increasingly hostile police culture. While the military has historically been able to invoke claims to national security to justify its secrecy, should local police departments, tasked to serve and protect our communities, be able to do the same?

Despite the significant lack of information on police militarization, Peter Kraska, a justice studies professor at Eastern Kentucky University, found some disturbing trends among law enforcement agencies. His article, “Militarizing Mayberry and Beyond,” documents research on police departments in small localities and demonstrates the recent changes in U.S. law enforcement. Kraska’s findings suggest that more and more low-population areas are forming SWAT teams, which are increasingly used for proactive deployment.

Roughly 40 percent of police paramilitary units, or PPUs, were engaged in warrant work in 1984. By 1995 that  statistic skyrocketed: 94 percent of these specialized, soldier-like teams were used to serve warrants. Kraska notes that the majority “of these PPUs serve in the organization as regular patrol officers during their normal duties.” Despite being trained and designed for emergency situations, PPUs are most often deployed for routine practices.

Capt. Chris Cowan of the Richland County (South Carolina) Sheriff’s Department, told the New York Times that an armored vehicle with a mounted gun, “allows the department to stay in step with the criminals who are arming themselves more heavily every day.” Kraska dismisses this perceived arms race saying, “there’s not evidence that the citizenry is grabbing this heavy weaponry themselves, going after cops.”

There is little information about the weaponization of criminals in general, which seems to be a recurring theme in FBI data collection. Kraska claims, “we don’t have good national-level statistics that provide us a good measure of the extent to which the police are fired upon using heavy weaponry, or the policing occupation is more dangerous.” The absence of data is twofold, as little information is available about the increasing militarization of both criminals and police forces.

The Relationship Between Police and Criminals

The U.S. lacks important data on the relationship between police and criminals. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report does include a publication called “Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted,” which contains an entire table specifically dedicated to the “Number of victim officers killed with firearms while wearing body armor and receiving torso wounds,” yet they provide no national statistics on killings by police.

“You would think that given these are all taxpayer-funded items, and that they’re coming either directly out of the Department of Defense or they’re coming out of the Department of Homeland Security, and they’re being transferred to supposedly democratically-controlled civilian-based police agencies all over the country, that sort of simple, straight-forward program based in tax dollars, that the data and all the information about that would be easily coughed up.”

-Peter Kraska

Where’s the Data?

It is disturbing that we know so little and that such information is consistently difficult to come by. To gather information about the effects of police militarization, we have to rely on nongovernmental organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) or the Cato Institute. Moreover, the little information that is available is constrained, as many law enforcement agencies will not answer independent surveys.

While data should be limited in certain circumstances, I question the possible reasons for concealing or not collecting so much important data about our law enforcement. What justification could there be for not granting U.S. citizens access to information about our law enforcement? Agencies’ justifications for refusing to provide information to the ACLU include, “the requested documents contained trade secrets, concerns about jeopardizing law enforcement effectiveness… and the costs associated with producing the documents were simply prohibitive.”

As the issue of proactive, if not aggressive, paramilitary units becomes increasingly prevalent, the situation is exacerbated by the disturbing secrecy with which our government handles data. As Kraska says in his 1997 work, the deep bureaucracy behind this kind of law enforcement “acts as a barrier to police-community ties by fostering a ‘we-they’ attitude.” This barrier not only distinguishes our police from citizens, but also separates citizens from information about our police.

Why isn’t our government providing us with uniform information? Kraska says it is a result of “the nature of military bureaucracy, and increasingly police bureaucracy. The bottom line is it’s one of secrecy.” As police culture transforms into military culture, law enforcement naturally distances itself from the community. The increase in police militarization is inexorably linked with a tightened grip on information about law enforcement practices.

I know I will not stand alone in demanding different treatment by not only those who enforce the law, but also by those who create the law. I demand that this policing style come to end. I demand that the FBI Uniform Crime Reports include information on how many people are killed by our police. I created a petition on WhiteHouse.gov asking the President to request this and filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI. We are all disenfranchised when deprived of information about the enforcement of our laws, so I think we should all demand.

#WeDemand

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Jake Ephros (@JakeEphros)

Featured image courtesy of [CHPSocialMedia via Wikimedia]

Jake Ephros

Jake Ephros is a native of Montclair, New Jersey where he volunteered for political campaigns from a young age. He studies Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy at American University and looks forward to a career built around political activism, through journalism, organizing, or the government. Contact Jake at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Arming the Police Against American Citizens, Part II appeared first on Law Street.

Last month, a SWAT team in Georgia severely injured a 19-month old child with a flash-bang grenade during a drug raid. No weapons or drug charges ended up being made and the child is currently hospitalized. It is not the first time something like this has happened. A former Marine was shot 23 times after police invaded his home, and false assumptions once led to a 92-year old woman’s death. Countless stories like these reflect how police culture is being reshaped to look more like the military.

Over $4.3 billion worth of surplus equipment, which was originally designed for warfare, has been transferred to state and local police agencies, according to the Law Enforcement Support Office. Nearly $450 million of that was transferred in 2013 alone. Since the 90s, federal law has enabled state and local police departments to receive old military equipment from the Department of Defense, often for free. Agencies can apply for and request surplus military equipment on a “first-come, first-served basis.”

Created by the 1997 National Defense Authorization Act, the 1033 program encourages state and local agencies to embrace paramilitary policing methods and equipment, even for drug raids. According to the U.S. Grants Office, “All DoD excess property can be used for counter-drug and other law enforcement activities with the exception of the operation of jails.”

In 1997, Professor Peter Kraska of Eastern Kentucky University provided substantial data and analysis in a paper titled “Militarizing Mayberry and Beyond.” His work states, “Between 1985 and 1995, the number of paramilitary units in agencies serving small jurisdictions (25,000 to 50,000 people) increased by 157 percent.” This helps illuminate the proliferation of American SWAT teams or police paramilitary units (PPUs). To find out more, I sought to interview Professor Kraska and was fortunate enough to speak with him over the phone.

“Forget causality, there was not even a correlation between the formation and the deployment of SWAT teams and the rise and fall of property and violent crimes… there’s no direct use of these teams to have any kind of impact on violent crime or property crime. It’s just not what they’re used for.”

– Professor Peter Kraska

The rationale for equipping police with military gear is generally rooted in their safety. Kraska acknowledges that paramilitary units may be useful in situations like school shootings, but he reminds us, “that’s the extreme rarity.” Instead of reacting, they are “mostly doing proactive contraband raids on people’s private residences for the purpose of collecting criminal evidence.” Kraska asserts that PPUs are not being forced to act for the safety of the community; they’re trained to, and choosing to, treat the War on Drugs as if it were actual war.

Most of the scrutiny has been placed on the Department of Defense’s 1033 program. Kraska mentions that news coverage frequently overlooks the role of other government departments in militarizing the police. For example, the Department of Homeland Security (DOHS) offers brand new equipment instead of the surplus material available from the DoD. In an episode of their video series called Fault Lines, Al Jazeera sheds light on recent American police militarization, discussing how DOHS grants for military equipment transfers total over $34 billion. The episode notes the lack of federal guidelines for these transfers, as state and local law enforcement have complete discretion in how the equipment is used.

Beyond the potential for abuse, there are deeper implications of police having military-grade weapons laying around at their disposal.

“It changes, or reinforces, the culture of the police department, and a dangerous element of police culture in a police agency, where they go from thinking of themselves as civilian police in the context of a democratically-controlled society to one where they are more like the military, more like soldiers… It provides for a cultural milieu that is antagonistic to the community.”

-Professor Peter Kraska

The political arguments should come to a halt here. Liberals and conservatives do share common sense. It’s common sense that serving warrants, conducting drug searches, and other routine tasks should never be carried out by police units designed to respond to the worst-case scenarios. The authority of the police is not augmented by militarization, it is corrupted by militarization. When our officers have complete discretion to use extreme prejudice with heavy weaponry, the result is a flash-bang grenade entering a toddler’s playpen.

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Jake Ephros (@JakeEphros)

Feature image courtesy of [Oregon Department of Transportation via Flickr]

Jake Ephros

Jake Ephros is a native of Montclair, New Jersey where he volunteered for political campaigns from a young age. He studies Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy at American University and looks forward to a career built around political activism, through journalism, organizing, or the government. Contact Jake at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Militarization: Arming the Police Against American Citizens – Part 1 appeared first on Law Street.

The DOJ has brought new charges against four former Blackwater Security contractors by the names of Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nick Slatten, and Paul Slough. All four men were previously in various branches of the US military before joining Blackwater, a private military and security company founded in 1997.

These four former Blackwater employees are now being charged with multiple counts of voluntary manslaughter and attempt to commit manslaughter because of their involvement in the 2007 Nissor Square Massacre. On September 16, 2007, these four men shot at Iraqi civilians in Nissor square, leading to the 17 deaths and 20 injuries. The Blackwater contractors were in the Square to clear a way for American officials coming in a convoy. Exactly what happened that day is still somewhat unknown: Blackwater argues they were provoked, Iraqi police say they were not. A further FBI investigation determined that at least 14 of the deaths were unprovoked and classified the incident as an “unprovoked illegal attack on civilians.”

A year after the incident, the US charged the contractors who were present with various counts of manslaughter and weapons violations, but the charges were dismissed by a US Judge. The explanation given for the dismissal was that the testimony the case was based on was inadmissible. In 2011, three years later, an appeals court disagreed. Last week, four contractors were re-indicted —of the six involved in the incident, one has already pleaded guilty and another had charges against him dropped.

Last time the charges were brought, Heard, Liberty, Slatten, and Slough all pleaded not guilty and alleged that their actions in Nissor Square in 2007 were exclusively acts of self-defense. As of yet, there is no indication what they plan to plead for these new charges or when the case will actually begin. The indictment says that the four men, “unlawfully and intentionally, upon a sudden quarrel and heat of passion, did commit voluntary manslaughter.” The contractors on trial will need to prove that they did in fact act in self defense.

This opportunity to discuss Blackwater comes at a time when Americans are becoming increasingly frustrated with their government, partly because of a lack of transparency. The history of Blackwater, which has now changed its name to Academi, sheds an interesting light on US military policies. Blackwater was originally founded in 1997, and was intended to supplement already existing military force. One of the founders, Erik Prince, stated , “We are trying to do for the national security apparatus what FedEx did for the Postal Service.”

Blackwater mainly began by helping with training and providing protection services. It was one of a few different private firms hired in the Afghanistan and Iraq war. It is estimated that in 2006, there were 100,000 private contractors working for the Department of Defense. This is a huge departure from previous wars—estimates only place about 10,000 contractors in the Persian Gulf War. This farming-out of war to private militaries has the potential to grow even further in future conflicts. The DOJ is taking an admirable step in forcing accountability for these groups by the indictment of the four contractors involved in Nissor Square Massacre.

[Washington Post]

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Featured image courtesy of [jamesdale10 via Wikipedia]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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