Bahaa Bahaulddin

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/28/AR2010072806141.html

White House proposal would ease FBI access to records of

Internet activity
On Thursday, July 29, 2010 the Obama administration announced that it’s trying
to make obtaining internet activity data easier for the FBI through removing the need of a
court order to view the web activity of an individual that is suspected to be involved in
terrorism or threats to the country. This data can include Emails sent during a certain time
period and even browsing history. Also the recipient is required to keep the request to
view his data a secret. Some individuals like Stewart A. Baker who’s a former senior
Homeland Security official says that this will make the process of obtaining the data
much faster and may impact positively on stopping the threat in time. But the critics say
its effect would be a great threat to privacy and civil rights where a huge amount of
personal data is being submitted to the government without any judicial review.

Officials claim that taking this data is no different than taking telephone records which
the FBI can do without a court approval. Orders from the Justice Department's Office of
Legal Counsel, whose opinions are binding on the executive branch, made clear that the
four categories of basic subscriber information the FBI may obtain and those do not
include the content of the emails sent nor search history. This is showing a situation
where the Executive branch is enforcing a policy that will take the power from the
judicial branch by taking away the judicial reviews of these cases.

Opinion:

This should strike big concerns of privacy violation to the citizens of the United States,
it’s basically proposes that the Federal Government can have access to your personal life
and personal data without proper reasoning or a review by the Judicial branch. It’s
absolutely preposterous and a violation of the fourth Amendment. The American people
should not stand down to such claims, because although it may have a higher cause in the
bigger picture, it’s still conflicting with the simple rights of privacy that every person in
this country should have.

Once you open the door to such policies, it will be taken advantage in the future. The
government may start monitoring citizens simply because they seemed suspicious or they
seem to be against the ideas of the Federal Government. This news just throws the
concept of the constitution out of the window.
 Bahaa Bahaulddin

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/03/08/vaccine.dangers/index.html

Supreme Court accepts appeal over vaccine safety

On March 8, 2010 Lawsuits from Parents who claim that vaccine related injuries
have affected their kids are going to be heard in the Supreme Court. Therefore deciding if
those injuries could’ve been avoided by simply having better quality drugs or if the
Federal Government had provided different types of vaccines.

The law suit started by the parents of Hannah Bruesewitz, a girl from the Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, area. Who was a healthy child in 1992 when given a series of DPT shots --
a combination of vaccines to prevent diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus.
After the third set of shots, the child began having seizures and became disabled. Now a
teenager, Hannah still suffers what is described as "residual seizure disorder."

Wyeth (the company that’s being sued) and other drug manufacturers say their products
are generally safe, but side effects can occur in very rare cases. They also say that the
vaccine industry is generally not profitable, but that the health benefits for society in
general have kept them in the business. That’s why they claim that they need full legal
protection from the congress in order to continue making their products without hassle
and help the public. This is showing how support from the Legislative branch of the
Federal Government can help assure the continuation of the drugs from the vaccine
companies

Opinion:

It amazes me the limited thinking of some people. This can be compared to the fact that
99% of us can eat peanuts without a problem, and probably 95% of us can be stung by a
bee or an ant, without a reaction. However some people die from both. How can we
expect more from a drug we put in our bodies? There is no possibility to make anything
that works for all people, and does not have a negative effect on some. Obviously even
Mother Nature could not accomplish that. Why can't we as a society accept the fact that
something can be very good overall, but never perfect.

So what is the solution? Take all vaccines off the market to prevent 1% of children from
experiencing rare side effects? That sounds reasonable. Let's go back to the days where
millions of children died every year from. If this lawsuit works against the companies of
vaccines then it will only have negative effects on the people of the United States.
 Bahaa Bahaulddin

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/08/23/stem-cells-obama.html#socialcomments

Judge rules against Obama's stem cell policy

On August 23, 2010 U.S. stem cell research have been temporarily been blocked
by a U.S. judge. A group called Nightlight Christian Adoptions; claims that the new
guidelines on stem cells made by U.S. President Barack Obama's administration will
affect the number of human embryos available for adoption.

A U.S. district court issued an order Monday pausing federal funding for human
embryonic stem cell research. The guidelines, which allow researchers to use stem cells
from surplus embryos donated by patients at fertility clinics, went into effect in July
2009.They came out of the executive order issued by Obama in March 2009 where he
removed the restrictions on the funding of stem cell research

The law suit by Nightlight Christian Adoptions claims that the guidelines violate a law
banning the use of federal funds to destroy human embryos. Embryonic stem cell
research "is clearly research in which an embryo is destroyed," said Judge Royce
Lamberth. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. Department of Justice and
U.S. National Institutes of Health, which funds medical research. The funding for the
stem cell research was authorized by an executive branch order and now is being halted
by a judicial branch judge.

Opinion:

Once again religious fanatics have forced millions to suffer needlessly. Stem
cells are useful and can be used to cure many diseases. It is time all religious
rules get outlawed as unnecessary and coercive when they cause more harm
than benefits to the people. If you want to worship or believe in a god then do it
without letting that fact hurt other people. The people of the United States need
to be more rational and more logical than this, and realize that stopping this
project will return tons of negative effects on their country.

Obama keeps dragging the screaming Americans into the 21st century and the
screaming Americans keep pushing themselves back into the 19th. The country
already spent millions of dollars from tax money to fund this project and it would
be irrational to simply stop a thing that has positional for greatness.
 Bahaa Bahaulddin

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/17/same.sex.marriage/index.html

Activists vow to fight on after court puts same-sex

marriages on hold
On August 18, 2010  an appeal court ruling temporarily blocking same-sex
marriages from resuming in California drew strong reactions from opponents and
supporters of the state's controversial 2008 referendum on the issue. Couples hoping to
marry rushed to cancel their plans after an order from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
late Monday put away a judge’s diction of allowing same-sex marriages to resume in
California as early as Wednesday. And the people on both sides of the issue said they
were prepared to make their arguments in court.

"This delay is just really going to screw us up," said Harry Seaman, who was planning to
marry his boyfriend Friday afternoon. Oral arguments will now be held the week of
December 6, meaning a decision on whether same-sex couples can legally married will
not be decided until sometime next year. Same sex marriage is currently legal in five
states and in the District of Columbia, while civil unions are permitted in New Jersey.
The five states are Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Iowa, and New Hampshire.
This shows how a judicial branch (Supreme Court) halted the diction to allow same-sex
marriage until after further review

Opinion:

Same sex marriage has been an issue in this country since it began, with the two sides
being religion vs. human rights. The idea is that if the United States claims to be equal to
all then they need to allow the same legal rights to all sexual orientations, but if they do
so they will be hurting the believes of those who are against it which hurts the basic idea
of equality.

Marriage is a religious aspect rather than a legal one, and if a person chose to be a
homosexual then by doing so they let go of their rights to claim religious rights such as
marriage and what comes along with it. The people of the United States have the right to
be against same sex marriage because it’s deflecting the idea of what marriage is in the
first place.

If this gets approved then the idea of marriage can be taken advantage of, what’s next?
Marrying your pet because you have equal rights?. Gay individuals have equal rights as
straight ones which is a good thing but Marriage should not be in their category due to
the reasons I stated above.
 Bahaa Bahaulddin

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/20/mojave.cross.replaced/index.html

Replica of missing Mojave cross mysteriously erected

On May 20, 2010  A memorial shaped like a cross in the California which is 6-
foot-tall metal structure disappeared May 9, according to park officials and veterans
groups that have been fighting for years to keep the cross on national park land. The U.S.
Supreme Court ruled last month that the original cross didn't violate church-state
separation and left it to lower courts to decide the circumstances for its display.

On Thursday morning, park officials discovered the replica of the original at the same
spot, according to a National Park Service statement. The cross itself was embedded in
rock held in place by concrete. Whoever removed the original would have had to climb
up the steep outcropping, maneuvering around rattlesnakes that hide in the crevices.
A federal judge in 2001 ordered the cross covered with plywood until the legal issues
were resolved. Many tourists driving by the site had believed the memorial was a
neglected billboard.

The Latin cross was first erected in 1934 by a local VFW unit to honor war dead. It has
been rebuilt several times over the years, and Easter services are held annually at the
desert site. The Supreme Court ruling on April 28 did not completely resolve the fight
over the fate of the cross. While reaffirming recent rulings that there is a limited place for
religious symbols on government land, has left it to the lower end courts to settle down
the issue. The American Civil Liberties Union, which had brought the original lawsuit to
have the cross removed, promised to continue the court fight. This case is getting taken
care of by judicial branch of the Federal Government

Opinion:

It saddens me to see that people in this country can be so childish and simply stupid to
care about taking down a tiny cross that represents honoring hundreds of soldiers that
died in war. The Supreme Court showed that the cross doesn’t affect the separation of
state and church; therefore it doesn’t violate any laws and simply shows religious
freedom. With so many issues with the country right now it’s amazing how some liberal
morons can push the time money that the supreme court need in order to take down
something that’s nothing more than a small symbol of the values of this country.
Unfortunately most people are forgetting the meaning of this cross. To the people who
come to see this cross religion really doesn’t matter. This cross represents to them what
they went through during the war they fought for US. The cross is a personal healing
process for the veterans. If everyone is offended from calling it a “cross” why not just
name it the big “t” in the desert?
 Bahaa Bahaulddin

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/19/scotus.strip.search/index.html#cnnSTCText

13-year-old's school strip-search case heads to Supreme Court

April 19, 2009 In 2003 a 13 year old girl Savana Redding, who’s now 19,was an
eighth grade honors student at Safford Middle School Redding and was strip-searched by
school officials after a fellow student accused her of providing prescription-strength
ibuprofen pills (similar to strong Advil). The reason that school did this is that they have
a zero-tolerance policy for all prescription and over-the-counter medication, including the
ibuprofen, without prior written permission.
"In this case, the United States Supreme Court will decide how easy it is for school
officials to strip search your child," Adam Wolf, an attorney with the American Civil
Liberties Union who is representing Redding. A search of Redding's backpack found
nothing. Then, although she never had prior disciplinary problems, a strip search was
conducted with the help of a school nurse and Wilson's assistant, both females.
According to court records, she was ordered to strip to her underwear and her bra was
pulled out. And no drugs were found.
A federal appeals court found the search "traumatizing" and illegal. In its appeal to the
Supreme Court, the school district said restrictions on conducting student
searches would cast a "roadblock to the kind of swift and effective response that
is too often needed to protect the very safety of students, particularly from the
threats posed by drugs and weapons." It’s shown here how the Judicial branch of
the Federal Government is deciding whether the actions of the school were legal
or not

Opinion:

Her perfect discipline record and high scholastic achievement do mean nothing; this
should have not happened even to the lowest achieving and most troubled kid in the
school. Those three school employees should have been fired, the school should have
apologized, but instead they hire lawyers and defend their idiocy all the way to the
Supreme Court. They have been wrong all the way and I pray the Supreme Court finds
this to be true, too.

Rush to judgment by the school started this mess. Calling the parent in before going
further would have been the right and smart thing to do. When elementary teachers and
supervisors abuse their positions by making these decisions without thinking they are
taking the first step in selective law abuses. As a matter of fact, the school needs to pay
for any treatments or therapy this girl might need because being traumatized at that age is
never an easy thing. All you can do is hope that schools around the United States do not
have similar actions when they’re solving drug suspicion with their students.
 Bahaa Bahaulddin

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/17/scotus.sex.offenders/index.html

Supreme Court: Sex offenders can be held indefinitely

On May 17, 2010  The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that the federal
government has the power to keep some sex offenders in jail indefinitely even if they
have served their sentences if officials find them possibly "sexually dangerous" in the
future. "The federal government, as custodian of its prisoners, has the constitutional
power to act in order to protect nearby (and other) communities from the danger such
prisoners may pose," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the 7-2 majority. The government
says about 83 people are being held under the civil commitment program.

Corrections officials and prosecutors determined the men remained a risk for further
sexually deviant behavior if freed. The inmates' attorneys maintain the continued
imprisonment violates their constitutional right of due process and argue Congress
overstepped its power by allowing inmates to be held for certain crimes that normally
would fall under the jurisdiction of state courtsMost violent sex offenses are handled at
the state level, and at least 20 states run programs in which sexual predators are held
indefinitely or until they are no longer considered dangerous. The federal government's
civil commitment program is relatively new.

The act also increased punishments for certain federal crimes against children and created
a national registry for sex offenders. No one challenged those aspects of this bill. This is
shown how the Judicial branch of the Federal Government can be overruled by Federal
officials therefore taking away the laws or rights the citizens may have, in order to protect
the majority

Opinion:
The way any trial should go is that the accused is tried by a jury of his or her peers and if
found guilty is sentenced according to the law. If the sentence is for a term of years, the
convict is free to go after serving his or her time. The legislator can change the sentence.
And non judicial federal official should not be able to sentence anyone to indefinite
prison.

Those are not the values the United States were built on but rather it’s the way of
dictatorships that the country has always decried. It started with non-citizens at prisons
like Guantanamo and now it has come to citizens on the US. This isn’t about showing
mercy or pity to rapists and child molesters; it is about the core values that have made the
American justice system work. I Agree that any rapist deserves to rot in jail but that
would break the system of laws.
 Bahaa Bahaulddin

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/08/31/obama.oval.office.address/index.html?npt=NP1

Obama: 'Time to turn the page' as Iraq combat mission ends

On September 1, 2010 Announcing the end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq,
President Obama said that America would continue supporting the Iraqi government
while also looking to refocus its energies on the U.S. economy and the war in
Afghanistan."The United States has paid a huge price to put the future of Iraq in the
hands of its people," Obama said in an address from the Oval Office. "... Through this
remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our
responsibility. Now, it is time to turn the page."

The August 31 drawdown and end to the U.S. combat phase is a new page in what has
been a controversial seven-year war that erupted over the argument that Iraq has
Weapons of Mass Destruction which lead to the fall of the Iraqi president Saddam
Hussein and then the eruption of violence throughout Iraq for years to come.

The war in Iraq has so far taken the lives of more than 4,400 U.S. troops. Obama stated
the the lives of those who the United States lost in Iraq will always be horned because
they are courage’s men that fought for the Iraqi people and show them the path to safety
when they were in darkness. The war was taken into action after the Legislative and
Executive branches of the government agreed that it’s for the best interest of the country

Opinion:

Having lived through the Iraqi war I would say this article is nothing more than an image
that the president has to show, to establish safety and comfort in the heart of Americans
who have no idea what is going on in the country. The Invasion of Iraq had two reasons
which were to take as much oil supply possible from Iraq to boost the economy of the
United States, and to get rid of a leader that was a hurtful dictator to make the Iraqi
people live in peace. This war established neither.

Unfortunately some members of the United State army increased the destruction and
chaos of the country and did nothing but hurt the people that were living in it.
Throughout 7 years of making Iraq their second home they couldn’t establish a single
stable Iraqi government and during this the economy of the United States kept going
downhill.

I guess us and the people of United States have to watch to wait when the actual
withdraw will occur.
 Bahaa Bahaulddin

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/04/20/dog.fight.videos/index.html

Supreme Court strikes down law banning dogfight videos

On April 20, 2010 The Supreme Court has struck down a federal law designed to
stop the sale and marketing of videos showing dogfights and other acts of animal cruelty,
saying it is an unconstitutional violation of free speech. The diction was a hit to all the
animal rights groups and the people who supported this law. The court made this law
after dealing with tapes showing pit bulldogs attacking other animals and one another in
staged confrontations.

The justices Tuesday concluded the scope and accuracy of the decade-old law was
overly broad. "The First Amendment itself reflects a judgment by the American people
that the benefits of its restrictions on the government outweigh its costs," said Chief
Justice John Roberts. He also clarified that the court could not find enough reasoning to
make these videos a category that deserves to be counted outside freedom of speech.

If the law had been upheld, it would have been only the second time the Supreme Court
had identified a form of speech undeserving of protection by the First Amendment. The
justices in 1982 banned the distribution of child pornography. This indicates that more
crush videos will soon flood the underground market, because the ruling has "the
practical effect of legalizing the sale of such videos." This shows that the judicial branch
can make dictions that will end up hurting the American people and increase violence in
general.

Opinion:

The people who fight dogs and abuse animals are just plain sick, they are getting
a thrill from torturing and killing innocent animals. Also these businesses should
be a Federal crime due to the fact that they don’t pay taxes for it which counts as
an illegal business. Therefore if they can’t arrest the people behind this for doing
the fights (since it counts as “freedom of speech”) then they can be put away for
life because they didn't pay taxes on their illegal operations.

Also if the law was "overly vague", then the law can be changed instead of
counting those horrible videos as part of the United States first amendment. The
American public need to stand up against this to avoid over flooding the market
with videos filled with animal cruelty simply because it’s a way of freedom of
speech.