Mayor meddles in public pension panels. ACLU report alleges widespread racial profiling by FBI. From dictatorship to free elections – what’s next for Tunisia and the "Arab Spring"? "What would Jesus cut?” Christian groups debate poverty programs. Conficker Worm vs. The Cabal – The world’s first chapter in its digital warfare saga.
Mayor meddles in public pension panels
With prospective cuts looming, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has to be concerned about the city budget. But how much influence should he exert?
As reported in the Los Angeles Times, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been leaning on the public retirement boards who oversee city employees’ pension plans. The seven-member panel that oversees the $11 billion portfolio has been debating lowering the long-term projection of its investment return from 8 percent to 7.75 percent, and will vote on the issue today.
The change would mean upping the city’s contribution to the fund by nearly $27 million next year. Two weeks ago, Villaraigosa warned the panel that this would necessitate a new round of layoffs, and asked them to delay the decision for a year. Two panel members who have recently been removed from their positions contend that the act was payback for going against the mayor’s wishes.
Villaraigosa has also been reportedly trying to influence the Fire and Police Pensions board to disregard a legal opinion that affects the health benefits owed to retired police and firefighters. Pension board members are publicly appointed and supposed to be free of political influence – but they feel the recent firings are meant to send a message to them to toe the mayor’s line.
Police and firefighter labor representatives think he’s trying to balance next year’s budget on the backs of their members.
WEIGH IN:
Officials from Villaraigosa's office say there’s nothing wrong with him expressing his opinion when it comes to cutting corners - in fact, he should be involved. But is he going too far? Is this responsible budget-minding, or an undue flexing of mayoral muscle? How much mixing should he be allowed to do?
Guest:
Miguel A. Santana, Los Angeles City Administrative Officer
Roberta Conroy, former president, City Employees’ Retirement System
Bob Stern, former president of the Center for Governmental Studies
ACLU report alleges widespread racial profiling by FBI
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) claims the FBI targets specific American communities across the United States based on race, ethnicity, national origin and religion for “assessments” and possible criminal investigation.
Citing records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the ACLU alleges that FBI agents identified Chinese and Russian communities in San Francisco as a place to look for organized crime syndicates and Arab-American and Muslim communities in Michigan as a possible terrorist recruitment ground, among others.
The ACLU calls this practice “racial profiling on an industrial scale” and has asked Attorney General Eric Holder to ban it. But according to law enforcement officials, this isn’t racial profiling at all. It’s just effective crime mapping, something that’s been utilized by various federal, state, and city law enforcement agencies for over two decades.
More information about the ACLU's new initiative, "Mapping the FBI," including a searchable database of FOIA documents: click here.
WEIGH IN:
Who’s right? Is this actually racial profiling or just an efficient tool in law enforcement?
Guests:
Mike German, senior policy counsel for ACLU; former FBI agent
Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies; former Justice Department counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for civil rights
From dictatorship to free elections – What's next for Tunisia and the ‘Arab Spring'?
Tunisians at home and abroad voted in free elections for the first time over the weekend. Ennahda, a moderate Islamic party, is on track to win the largest number of seats, according to early domestic results. Party officials told reporters that Ennahda was ahead in nearly every voting district, and it expects to receive over half of the vote when the final results are tallied.
So far, the Tunisian electoral commission reports that Ennahda has won 15 out of 39 domestic seats in a 217-member assembly meant to write a new constitution. Together with the results announced Monday from Tunisians living abroad, Ennahda now has 24 out of 57 seats total, or just over 42 percent.
These elections are the first prompted by the "Arab Spring" revolutions. In January, Tunisia's longstanding dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted.
Voter turnout was a significant victory in itself. An estimated 90 percent of the country's 4.1 million registered voters flocked to Sunday's polls, which have been praised by international observers.
Bechir Blagui, the founder of human rights advocacy group Free Tunisia, described Tunisia as being a mix of cultures: European, Muslim and Arabic.
"I believe they have no choice but to be moderate," Blagui said of Tunisia's government.
There were six polling stations in the U.S., including one in Los Angeles.
"It was a great moment," Blagui said of the election, with 288 people showing up to vote in L.A.
The final results from Sunday's elections could boost other Islamist parties running in elections in North Africa and the Middle East.
Ennahda, which had long been suppressed by the previous regime, was the best organized party in the election.
The next most popular party, the Congress for the Republic, is a distant second so far with just 10 seats.
The results of the domestic seats were from 726,000 voters from five of the 27 electoral districts inside Tunisia and included the large cities of Sfax and Sousse.
"The voting process was marked by peaceful and enthusiastic participation, generally transparent procedures, and a popular confidence about Tunisia's democratic transition," said a statement by the Carter Center, which observed the contests.
Results, however, were being released in a trickle. Election officials said the painstaking nature of the counting process has caused the delay.
"The mechanism for tallying requires a lot of effort and time because all the votes in a district are taken to one place and this is for security reasons," said Boubker Bethabet, the secretary general of the election commission.
He added that, in many cases, poll officials sealed the tally sheets inside the ballot boxes after the initial count in the voting stations. The boxes can only be reopened in the presence of representatives of the more than 80 political parties involved in the vote.
Tunisia is hailed as a trendsetter of the so-called "Arab Spring," energizing similar dictatorship-toppling revolutions in other Arab countries, including Egypt and Libya. Egypt’s first round of parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place in late November. Libya’s national council announced that it will hold elections in the near future after longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi was killed last week.
WEIGH IN:
What are the politics of the Ennahda party? How did the other parties fare at the polls? What are the next steps in creating a new Tunisian government? Will high voter turnout be replicated in Egypt and Libya? Will Tunisia’s win set the trend for victory of Islamic political parties in other countries’ elections? How does this all fit into the larger context of the ‘Arab Spring?’
Guests:
Bechir Blagui, founder of Free Tunisia, an advocacy organization for human rights, political freedom and economic development in Tunisia; Blagui also organized a Los Angeles polling station for the Tunisian election (288 Tunisian-Americans cast a ballot there)
This story incorporates information from the Associated Press.
'What would Jesus cut?': Christian groups debate poverty programs
There is no debating that Jesus Christ has always come across as a charitable guy. He spoke a lot about caring for orphans, widows, the sick and the poor. Where we don't have Jesus on the record are his thoughts on the current fiscal debate. What would Jesus have said in a news conference about the debt ceiling showdown, for instance? What comment would he offer on the Affordable Care Act? Would he say high taxes are a necessary sacrifice?
A massive coalition of Christian organizations and churches has teamed up to lobby for what they think Jesus would do. Dubbed the Circle of Protection, it was established earlier this year to lobby for protecting social welfare and aid programs, such as Medicaid, food stamps and Head Start.
The coalition is described as the strongest and most unified Christian voice in the budget debate. They say it's extraordinary that for the first time the progressive National Council of Churches has come together with the National Evangelical Association, because in their view the moral question leaves no room for disagreement. They argue the choices being made in Washington are economic, political and moral – and that protecting programs for the poor is the moral thing to do.
Still there are other Christian groups who have a different interpretation of aiding the poor. The Acton Institute – a think tank that integrates Judeo-Christian truths with free market principles – has called the Circle of Protection "disturbing." Acton argues that some poverty programs "actually demean the poor, undermine their family structures and trap them in poverty, dependency and despair for generations." They are calling for cuts to some entitlement programs.
WEIGH IN:
How do you think Jesus would balance the budget? Which policy platforms line up with Christian theology? With religion playing so prominently in national politics, is this a crucial question to answer? Or is it irrelevant considering the diversity of religions in this country? How much traction has the Circle of Protection had with lawmakers?
Guests:
Michael Miller, research fellow and director of Acton Media at the Acton Institute, a think tank described as integrating Judeo-Christian truths with free market principles
Michael Livingston, director of the National Council of Churches Poverty Initiative; signatory of the Circle of Protection, a large coalition of Christian churches lobbying to sustain social welfare and aid programs
Conficker Worm vs. The Cabal: The world’s first chapter in its digital warfare saga
In late 2008, the Internet was struck by “a worldwide digital blitzkrieg,” according to Mark Bowden. In his new book, “WORM: the First Digital World War,” he expounds on a destructive piece of malware that has puzzled experts and infected more than 12 million computers worldwide. It was called the Conficker worm, and it infected business networks, Britain’s defense ministry and parliament systems, France and Germany’s military computer networks, the Houston Municipal Court and Southwest Airlines among others.
In November 2008, the worm made its first appearance and by the first of December, it had established itself in 500,000 computers worldwide. Over time, the infected networks were saved, thanks to “The Cabal,” a group of Internet entrepreneurs, computer programmers and security experts who volunteered their time for five months to cripple the worm. But the question remains: How was the worm able to grow at such a rapid rate, infecting millions of computers within weeks?
The answer lies in the nature of the worm itself. Once it infiltrated one system, it was able to link it with others to form a single network under illegal outside control known as a “botnet.” When Conficker’s creators became aware that their creation was encountering resistance, they began refining the worm’s code to make it more difficult to trace. The Cabal was able to keep the worm contained by predicting and pre-registering all domain names it might seek to control.
The researcher’s attempts to quell the worm proved effective, and for the last two years, Conficker has been dormant.
WEIGH IN:
Who are the culprits behind this worm? Will the Cabal ever completely lock down the worm? Why was the U.S. reportedly weak in their response to all of this? How are we as individuals at risk?
Guest:
Mark Bowden, author of "WORM: the First Digital World War," writer for Vanity Fair and The Atlantic