Bradley Manning has been sentenced to 35 years in prison with the possibility of parole. Was the judge too harsh or too lenient on Manning? Also, California and Nevada lawmakers are trying to agree on environmental rules for Lake Tahoe, and we discuss if non-vaccinating parents should be liable when other kids get sick. Then, do cell phone searches require warrants, and is gentrification good for your hometown? Lastly, AirTalk remembers NPR host and jazz musician Marian McPartland.
Is Bradley Manning’s 35-year sentence fair or overly harsh?
Former Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison today for giving hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks. The ACLU and Amnesty International are among the groups denouncing the sentence as too severe.
RELATED: Update: Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years for giving US secrets to WikiLeaks
Ben Wizner, who heads the ACLU's speech and technology project, says, “When a soldier who shared information with the press and public is punished far more harshly than others who tortured prisoners and killed civilians, something is seriously wrong with our justice system.”
But supporters of the sentence argue it’s appropriate and sends an important message of deterrence for others who might want to leak documents. Manning stood at attention and showed no emotion as the verdict was announced at Fort Meade in Maryland. Prosecutors had asked for at least 60 years, as a warning to other soldiers and Manning’s lawyer proposed no more than 25.
Will the decision be appealed? How much of the sentence will Manning likely serve?
Guests:
Ben Wizner, Director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project
Jeffrey F. Addicott, Director of the Center for Terrorism Law; Professor of Law at St Mary’s University of Law in San Antonio, Texas
Local groups concerned over future of Lake Tahoe development
Environmental groups are objecting to the aims of the Tahoe Regional Planning Association (TRPA), claiming it has become an economic development group above its obligation to protect the health of Lake Tahoe. A coalition that includes groups like the Tahoe Area Sierra Club are protesting the TRPA as well as a California senate bill that supports it.
The measure currently before the California Legislation could change an agreement reached last year with Nevada over the development at Lake Tahoe. The agreement between California and Nevada sought to limit the powers of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. Nevada wanted more control over the developmental decisions made around Lake Tahoe.
“California ceded its authority to the state of Nevada to dictate the terms of the agreement,” said Laurel Amels, Sierra Club spokesperson in an article to the LA Times. Amels expects a lot more developments along the lake because of the changes to the potential plan.
What impact does changing the agreement have on the environment? Who should have more power over the developments in Lake Tahoe?
Guests:
Darcie Goodman Collins, Executive Director of the League to Save Lake Tahoe
Laurel Ames, Co-chair of the Conservation Committee at the Tahoe Area Sierra Club
Should anti-vaccine parents be held liable if their child spreads an illness? (Poll)
Say an unvaccinated child has the measles and passes the disease onto a baby who’s too young to be vaccinated. If that baby gets ill (or worse), should its parents be able to sue the infected child’s parents for negligence?
That’s the question that’s recently been raised by one bioethicist in the Journal of Law Medicine and Ethics.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that children under the age of six be vaccinated for 14 infectious diseases including hepatitis, measles and mumps—all diseases that are spread from person to person. Some hold that vaccinations are the most effective form of health intervention of the 21st century, preventing the spread of deadly diseases.
While some opt out for religious or philosophical reasons, or because of a prior reaction to vaccinations, others choose to forgo vaccinations due to personal beliefs—that’s a choice that proponents of vaccinations argue is a threat to public health and safety.
Some states that have been affected, including New York, blame the rise in preventable diseases like measles on the fact that fewer people are getting vaccinated.
KPCC's online polls are not scientific surveys of local or national opinion. Rather, they are designed as a way for our audience members to engage with each other and share their views. Let us know what you think on our Facebook page, facebook.com/kpcc, or in the comments below.
Does foregoing vaccinations really pose a public health risk? Can parents who don’t vaccinate their children be held legally liable for the spread of a disease? Is science able to prove where a disease originates?
Guests:
Arthur Caplan, Head of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University Langone Medical Center; he wrote "Liability for Failure to Vaccinate."
Dorit Reiss, Professor of Law at University of California Hastings College of Law
Should the cops be able to search your cell phone without a warrant?
Two cert petitions have been filed with the Supreme Court seeking ruling on whether searching a cell phone requires a warrant.
In one case, the US government seeks judgment regarding a case from 2007 that involves a Massachusetts man who was arrested on suspicion of selling drugs. When making the arrest an officer noticed the suspect’s flip phone was receiving a call from “my house”, and he traced the number to an address where police later found more drugs, cash and guns. In his case the defendant (Wurie) argued that the police had no right to look at his cell phone’s call history without a warrant, and though the initial district court denied that motion, the US First Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the defendant.
The Obama administration, countering the higher court’s ruling, points to a handful of cases that have given police discretion to search a suspect’s person under the Fourth Amendment, including items like notebooks and pagers, and are seeking judgment on whether searching through a cell phone’s call history is protected in the same way.
In the other case, Riley v. California, the police officer searched a suspect’s iPhone, and appeared to have done a more extensive search through the suspect’s contact information. At first glance it seems that searching a basic cell phone’s call log doesn’t seem to violate the Fourth Amendment, but cell phone technology has advanced so much that people nowadays hold a wealth of information and assets on their phones that make this a thornier issue. It seems that one way or the other the Supreme Court will soon have to decide exactly where cell phone data lies under the rules of the Fourth Amendment.
Is a cell phone or a smartphone akin to rifling through a paper notebook? Or is it more like searching the nooks and crannies of an automobile, which can often require a warrant for searches? What if the smartphone is connected to “the cloud” and could link up to a plethora of data belonging to the arrestee?
Guests:
Jeffrey L. Fisher, Attorney for David Leon Riley in Riley v. California; Fisher authored the current petition before the Supreme Court challenging police searches of cell phone content; Professor of Law and Co-Director, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, Stanford University Law School
Joseph Cassilly, past President of the National District Attorneys Association (NDAA); current State’s Attorney for Harford County, Maryland
'Gentefication' vs. gentrification in Boyle Heights, Long Beach and other SoCal hip spots
The city of Boyle Heights, a working class Latino neighborhood east of Downtown, was recently profiled in The New York Times. The paper looked at the neighborhood’s twist on gentrification.
The people changing Boyle Heights are neither white nor middle-class, but are young, hip Latinos who have moved back into the area, the very place their parents had left years ago, to open up record shops and bookstores—often times the first signs that it is the beginning of the end.
They are called “Chipsters” — short for Chicano hipsters — and what they are doing has been called “gentefication" — gente means "people" in Spanish. However, the shared cultural and ethnic background hasn't made local residents and this spate of newcomers get along any better.
This phenomenon isn’t just happening in Boyle Heights, but also in places like Santa Ana, Silver Lake, Long Beach, Echo Park — cities that have always had a large Latino presence.
Is there a difference between gentefication and gentrification? Have you returned to a neighborhood you grew up in? If so, why?
Guest:
Sarah Mawhorter, Ph.D student at the USC Price School of Public Policy; her research focus is on the gentrification patterns of Echo Park and Highland Park.
Remembering NPR host and jazz musician Marian McPartland
Marian McPartland, renowned jazz pianist and the host of the long-running National Public Radio show “Piano Jazz” passed away Tuesday at her home in Port Washington, N.Y. She was 95.
McPartland was born in Slough, England. Her love for the piano was instant and she was a natural at it. McPartland told Larry in a 2004 interview that she basically sat down at the instrument at the age of three—and just started playing. She developed a passion for jazz , which eventually took her to the United States, where she met, played with, and later married Chicago cornetist Jimmy McPartland. With the encouragement of her husband, McPartland started her own trio and had a 8-year residency at the Hickory House, a New York City jazz club.
McPartland made her foray into public radio in 1964, when she launched a weekly radio show devoted to jazz on a New York City station. That show was a forerunner of sorts to “Radio Jazz” on NPR, which aired between 1978 and 2011, when she stepped down from the job. In addition to countless interviews with fellow musicians, McPartland recorded over 50 jazz albums.
Guests:
John Clayton, bassist and co-leader/Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra
Bill Cunliffe, jazz pianist who has appeared on Piano Jazz