Senator Warren provides an example of what amazing things a single Senator can accomplish. Grounding Gomez’ promises in the actual reality of Republicans would instead read, “Elect me as Senator and I will provide the Club for Growth and the rest of the Republican caucus a shiny new target in their hatred of RINOism.”

How about an mint. It is only a tiny little thin one. It is wafer-thin.

Just elect Gabriel Gomez and Jim Inhofe will stop denying climate change. Just elect Gabriel Gomez and Mitch McConnell will stop abusing the filibuster. Just elect Gabriel Gomez and Ted Cruz & Rand Paul will stop peddling fringe conspiracy theories. They’re all just waiting for Gabriel Gomez.

After all, we all recall just how effective Scott Brown was at convincing Jim DeMint and John Cornyn to build consensus with Democrats, right?

Charley is exactly right. Gomez is promising unicorns (when he’s not denying his own policy positions or distracting from his shady business record).

This guy is a moron.

According to federal law, only crimes with a minimum one year prison sentence are eligible for a wiretap.

#2. unless you read the word gang in the bill itself then “gang’ was used as an example of other kinds of crime that didn’t meet the definition of Organized Crime from the bill from the 60′s. (didn’t do a search on the bill, let me know if it in there).

It’s also disingenuous to pretend this debate is about public transportation. Buses now have to wend their way through a complicated mess of an intersection that is nearly impassible at rush hour and has been for years. Funny how these activists have been silent on this issue for years even as the busiest bus route in the city has been consistently messed up by this intersection.

A bridge suits the needs of out-of-town car commuters very well and does not serve the neighborhood at all. This sad attempt to paint this as a racial issue appears to signal that the pro-bridge crowd is out of real arguments.

See “Liberal Groups Say They Received IRS Scrutiny Too”; http://www.npr.org/2013/06/19/193383914/liberal-groups-say-they-received-irs-scrutiny-too

This time, I have mixed thoughts. With Menino leaving, voters have no choice but to take some sort of chance. Conventional disdain for voters says they’re too timid for big moves, but in the occasional election, they surprise.

Right now we have at least two (Mike Ross as well as Walczak) asking that folk sign onto their visions for this city. That’s a hard sell, but not an impossible one if the mood of the electorate is just right, just ripe.

TBD

I don’t want grand visions of glory for what a mayor is going to achieve in office. I want a sensible, savvy politician who will gradually improve the quality of life here without degrading what we already have.

And please don’t brag about having a full platform before you actually have one. No one is going to keep going to his website to see when stuff appears. I know that John Connolly, for instance, has had detailed proposals on his web site for months now.

Deval Patrick, though, doesn’t have to worry about support. He’s not running again.

No idea why none of the debates have included any questions on this issue. At least they asked about Keystone once.

Mr. Potter won and won big; we live in his world.

Mr. Potter was a piker. He was bought out by a global conglomerate 25 years ago.

We really need an overhaul of this legislature.

The defendant was charged with possession with intent to distribute, and a key factor emphasized by the prosecution was that the defendant was in possession of three one-ounce bags of marijuana. Say what? I submit that just about anybody who partakes of the evil weed has had three (or more) lids in their possession for personal consumption at one time or another. I grant you that somebody caught with a dry-cleaning bag full of weed probably intends to distribute it — but a few ounces is for many a modest one-month supply. BTW, we found the defendant guilty of the lesser offense (possession) — the prosecution utterly failed (they didn’t seriously try) to prove “intent to distribute”.

Don’t forget school-zone violations as well — this provides an additional prize to tempt a resume-building prosecutor. The prosecution in my case charged that as well. That violation provides draconian penalties for possession with intent to distribute (but not simple possession) if the violation occurs within 1,000 feet of a school or public park. We, of course, found the defendant not guilty of the school violation because the prosecution failed to prove intent to distribute.

The bill put forward is bad enough on its face — the second update is at best a misleading distortion of what actual prosecutors do every day.

The cases are the courts’ concern, said Coakley spokesman Harry Pierre. “At this time, this office has not issued any advisory or opinion on this issue.’’

So – people were being harassed, arrested, and prosecuted for exercising a right that a federal court ruled was theirs*. The harassment and prosecutions were fine with Coakley.

She does not display any commitment to the rights of citizens in the hands of police. So many of her efforts have been aimed at making prosecutions easier while ignoring the impact those changes would have on the public. Too much politics; far too little justice.

* Note: if you’re going to record cops, do not conceal that you’re doing it.

Sal Dimasi is given 8 years in a southern federal prison for having his law firm get inappropriate payments from company doing state business. He is denied treatment for cancer for months while feds shuffle him around trying to get him to testify about nothing. He is denied transfer to a MA prison so his family can visit while he battles end stage cancer.
Compare that to the murderer Matarano who the US Attorney’s office dealt a 12 year sentence for 20 murders (they could prove) and gave him $20,000 tax payers dollars to help him get started back in business when he was released!! (Not to mention the book deal his business partner Howie Carr gave him which helped with funds to operate again)
JUSTICE? WHERE’S THE JUSTICE? Shame all around.

I am truly, deeply, and genuinely eager to get these allegedly “progressive” officials un-elected. I am so very weary of being ashamed and embarrassed by the official actions of the leaders of my own party.

No matter how much lipstick is applied, this proposal is still very much a pig.

It will be interesting to see what locals apply. Maybe Roger Harris will try to jump the sinking Boston Renaissance Charter School in Hyde Park? Maybe Mary Grassa O’Neil will escape the Boston Archdiocese!

I wasn’t aware the US ever had much to do with that country.

All the more reason not to get involved in Syria then, you aren’t even aware of the consequences of our foray into Libya.

But the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 flooded the Sahara with pillaged weapons and ammunition. Tuareg separatists used them to seize power in northern Mali, only to be ousted by even better-armed Islamists who set up training camps and imposed harsh Islamic law until the French forces arrived.

The Islamists have also exploited Libya’s weakness. Veteran al Qaeda commander Moktar Belmokhtar bought weapons there after Gaddafi’s fall and his fighters passed through southern Libya to carry out a mass hostage-taking at an Algerian gas plant in January, in which 37 foreigners died.

I refer interested readers to the analysis of seamusromney above, who is not affiliated with Digital Fourth, but who believes, I think accurately, that the bill does leave space for marijuana possession to be eligible for electronic wiretapping warrants.

It is, of course, possible that this is unintentional or a result of poor drafting, and that the AG’s office does not intend to take out electronic wiretapping warrants for such minor crimes. But Mr. Puffer simply asserts that the bill doesn’t cover marijuana possession, without showing language from the bill itself that would limit wiretaps to crimes carrying a one-year prison sentence or more. Perhaps the AG’s office did not feel such language was necessary to add to the bill. In the light of the revelation that the federal authorities certainly don’t seem to feel constrained by federal law in this matter, we believe that more clarity within the bill itself would be appropriate, to forbid such wiretaps for minor crimes.

The current wiretap law has not been updated since 1968, back when criminal activity and technology was vastly different. In 1968, the law was focused on “organized crime.” A 2011 SJC decision that upheld the suppression of statements obtained by a wire interception during a murder investigation stated very clearly that the investigation and prosecution of some of today’s most destructive crimes, including street violence, are hampered by this antiquated statute. The SJC urged an update to the law.

We appreciate that it is frustrating for law enforcement to be bound by the constraints of laws that are 55 years old. Indeed, it is no doubt frustrating for them to be bound by constitutional constraints that are over 200 years old. However, in order to have these constraints loosened, the AG’s office has to describe to the people of Massachusetts, with particularity, cases where the constraints of the law as it stands have actually prevented people being convicted of crimes. The only example they have publicly announced is the Paolo Tavares case. Tavares was accused of murder, and had to be retried after his initial trial fell apart on the exclusion of wiretap evidence that was not collected within the constraints of the existing Massachusetts statute. However, even in that case, the defendant was convicted at his retrial and is now serving a long sentence for first-degree murder.

They have simply presented no evidence to suggest that there are any criminals who are walking free as a result of having very limited circumstances where electronic wiretapping warrants are permitted. If the problem were as severe as they claim, they ought to be able to present plenty of examples, and we invite them to do so publicly.

The current list of designated offenses does not include some of the most violent and egregious crimes that law enforcement must investigate and prosecute today—and that the Legislature has correctly passed since the law’s inception— including human trafficking; firearms offenses; and child pornography offenses.

I’m sorry, but many firearms offenses are not in fact “violent and egregious.” Even setting aside the concerns over the fact that the law does not make explicit whether crimes carrying a sentence of less than one year are excluded or not, there are non-violent crimes that ARE covered that can carry longer sentences, such as knowingly filing a firearms license application containing false information (General Laws ch. 140 section 131(h)) – an inadvisable crime, to be sure, but not a violent one in itself.

There are additional safeguards that ensure that only the conversations with direct correlation to the alleged crime are recorded and then permissible in any legal action.

We would be interested in more specificity here, especially in the context of the switching station wiretaps. We appreciate that it is unlikely that everyone’s calls going through a switching station would be permissibly used in a legal action investigating a target’s calls at that time. However, our understanding of both the Fourth Amendment and its stronger state cousin Article XIV, is that collecting non-suspects’ phone call data even with an intent to discard it if it doesn’t prove relevant is also Constitutionally barred.

For all of these reasons, these updates are supported by district attorneys, police, mayors, and many other community leaders who know that the only way that we will be able to better keep our communities safe is to give our investigators effective tools, with proper safeguards, to take the most dangerous criminals off the streets.

There is no evidence presented by Mr. Puffer that such a change in the law will make us materially safer. Despite the bill’s supporters’ scaremongering on this matter, criminals do not “have the upper hand” here in Massachusetts: crime per head is at historic lows. This is not the time to be giving law enforcement a freer hand to nose into people’s communication.

Let’s take the points one by one.

1) The proposed update to the wiretap law does not legalize mass interception of telecommunication switching stations. Each wiretap must be applied for and authorized individually by a Superior Court judge.

Undoubtedly, each wiretap must be applied for and authorized individually. However, the bill envisions single wiretap orders that would intercept communications on a mass basis, at phone company switching stations. An appropriate analogy here is with the recently disclosed FISC order to Verizon to disclose metadata on all calls to the NSA. It was one wiretap, “applied for and authorized” by a federal judge, but it covered every Verizon user’s calls.

The language in question in the bill is as follows:

Old language:

1. The term “wire communication” means any transfer made in whole or in part through the use of facilities for the transmission of communications by the aid of wire, cable, or other like connection between the point of origin and the point of reception

New language:

1. The term “wire communication” means any transfer made in whole or in part through the use of facilities for the transmission of communications by the aid of wire, cable, or other like connection between the point of origin and the point of reception, including the use of such connection in a switching station, furnished or operated by any person engaged in providing or operating such facilities for the transmission of such communications and shall include: any transfer of signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data or intelligence of any nature transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photo-electronic or photo-optical system, but shall not include: (i) any communication made through a tone-only paging device; (ii) any communication from a tracking device, defined as an electronic or mechanical device which permits the tracking of the movement of a person or object; or (iii) electronic funds transfer information stored by a financial institution in a communications system used for the electronic storage and transfer of funds.

Why does the bill contain language specifically revising the definition of a “wire communication” eligible for a wiretap order to include a “connection in a switching station, furnished or operated by any person engaged in providing or operating such facilities”, if not to allow specifically this kind of interception?

To say, Oh, it’s not mass interception because there would only be one wiretap order, in the light of recent revelations, is deeply misleading, in the absence of a guarantee that the single wiretap order would not be used to collect data relating to all people’s communications passing through a switching station.

Oh, and I almost forgot, they also kill a lot of civilians, children who will never grow up, parents who won’t get to raise their children, loved ones who will lose lives or limbs.

So the understandable focus on American casualties in these sorts of conflicts really has murderous consequences.

In Rwanda what would the US have done? You had an army of 800,000 civilians armed with machetes wipe out another 800,000 with machetes? We would have needed to send in probably 500k troops, and they would be shooting on essentially civilians and getting right in the middle of an ethnic civil war. Many would’ve died, and we might’ve failed. Why aren’t we in Congo? That war has had six times the number of casualties of Rwanda let alone Syria. What about Mali, we did cause it after all why are we letting the French clean up our mess? What about Burma which has had ethnic cleansing against the Katyn people for decades? What about our allies in Indonesia and their genocide in East Timor and Achen? What about North Korea shouldn’t we invade there? Nearly ten times the number of Syrian dead are dying and getting tortured in hard labor camps as we speak? What about the women in Iran? Or the best examples, what about the Kurds Saddam used gas and chemical weapons against? Way more casualties than Assad, but no one would argue that war was a good idea.

I am saying at this point any intervention, short of a massive commitment to ground troops, will fail. Read your Waltz, read your Mearsheimer, read your Pape-air power alone has never won wars. It just increases civilian casualties, minimizes domestic losses, but also minimizes the totality of victory.

I may be ok with giving anti tank and anti aircraft weapons to even the odds, but even then, Al Nusrah could traffic those overseas and we might see them used against civilian airliners. I am very leery of this one.

So, yeah, I think Obama has been better.

I agree that it’s a moral failure that no one stopped the massacre.

So, does marijuana possession violate 94C? Yes. Even under the decriminalization statute, section 32L of 94C, possessing an ounce or less of marijuana is a civil offense. Thus, still a violation of 94C. And possession larger amounts is still a criminal violation of 94C.

Please, AG Coakley, show us a little more respect.

The Bush Administration was convinced that, in Chalabi, they had their fantasy democratic, secular, American-loving government. But that’s because the Bush Administration was full of murderous fools (See Fallujah, Destruction of) . Now that we’re going through this for the fourth or fifth time, we should bring enormous skepticism to any claims that there are “democratic forces” for us to support. We want so bad for them to exist that we believe they exist.

They don’t.

If you can find them, I’m happy to be wrong, but you haven’t even named any one specific yet. None of them are as large or disciplined as the al-Nusra Front.

Right now the dominant forces in the Syrian opposition are Islamists. The non-Islamists are unbeloved by human rights organizations: Take the Free Syrian Army. Wikipedia:

The Daoud Battalion, operating in the Jabal-al-Zawiya area, has reportedly used captured soldiers in proxy bombings. This involved tying the captured soldier into a car loaded with explosives and forcing him to drive to an Army checkpoint, where the explosives would be remotely-detonated

So right now people claiming that these “democratic forces exist” really have a huge burden of proof to meet.

We’ve already been fooled by Chalabi once.

And this is to say nothing of the Photo IDs, so some drug addict parent’s hungry kid can’t go get food that night because that kid is expected to take care of themselves… but the cashier now won’t take the card.

Actually, I’m willing to bet the vast majority of the new expenses in the Senate Plan is over the Photo ID requirements, the costs of which would far exceed any ‘waste’ in the program and do nothing to resolve the limited problems our Auditor unearthed.

The people who designed these ‘reforms’ clearly don’t know very many people who use these programs and care about them even less. Poor does not equate to bad and draconian punishments does not equate to more jobs.

But I think that’s what the voters are going to want. Maybe the memory of the Big Dig is too fresh, or perhaps we’re just too complacent around here. All I know is, if a mayoral candidate rolls out a list of “initiatives” that look as though they may threaten traffic, s/he’s dead in the water.

My guess is, beyond tribal loyalties, the candidate who wins will be the one who promises a “bold day” yadda yadda, but doesn’t get into specific plans that will put voters off. Nobody wants a mayoral candidate who promises to be a competent manager, but I bet 50%+1 voters want a mayor who does.

*Given the state of the GOP, I see them more as a private concern in the public sphere than anything of the private sector. Kind of like Halliburton.

I’m not saying that I want to intervene in Syria. There’s really nobody on whose behalf to intervene, and this place is too explosive. However, I have no problem with people looking to do a little more than we have been doing. I don’t want to invade Syria, but a no-fly zone wouldn’t be a bad idea.

I don’t think this one has an easy solution. Saying “yes” to Hillary isn’t the right answer, but “no” isn’t the right answer either.

2. What is the definition of a gang or the words used in the bill which would apply to what is commonly referred to as a gang.

Thank you

The US was founded on the principle that just powers derive from the consent of the governed

Which is exactly why it is up to the Syrian people to win this fight for themselves. Maybe, just maybe, early on we could’ve used air power to wipe out the Assad air force and destroy his long range capabilities and let the rebels duke it out.

But now we are looking at getting into a civil war two years into it, while the loose opposition is losing, while Iran and Russia are actively supplying one side,and with the entire region destabilized. Sitting back and doing nothing sucks, but every time America has intervened it’s been a disaster. I can think of few examples where our intervention saved lives or made a bad situation better.

Kosovo? We bombed a lot of civilians, the Chinese embassy, and have littered the region with depleted uranium. In some instances we may have assisted in the ethnic cleansing of Serbians by their opponents. We can decry Rwanda all we want, but while we stopped a potential genocide in Libya we have spread warfare to Chad, Mali, Algeria and elsewhere that may lead to more warfare and suffering, The brotherhood is worse than Muburak, Pinochet was worse than Allende, Sze Sotho was worse than Lumumba, Diem was as bad if not worse than Minh. Let’s allow people their right to self determination without American interference, the best way to make the world safe for American democracy is to decrease rather than increase American militarism.

The statute needed updating years ago as I have cited above, particularly to incorporate current technology and language pertinent thereto. Most reasonable folks can agree with that premise.

Mr. Puffer’s reply however, left me with a taste of gloss covered by ambiguity. I hope ACLU will find the opportunity to provide their reasoning for opposing the bill. I noticed that some of the points in the original post about the potential impacts of the proposed legislation were not in fact answered, but left to interpretation and that is a slippery slope.

Let’s start with, “what’s a street gang?”

I’m truly torn on Hillary 2016. On the one hand I’d love a woman in the White House with the balls of LBJ. That would be fantastic on the domestic front. With Syria the LBJ similarities persist and are troubling.

That said, this legislation is *deeply* troubling and I would be really interested to see Senator Clark, AG Coakley or any of the co-sponsors come here to BMG and explain it to us.

I do not agree that Coakley’s major flaw is over-reach. That may be a tactic she has employed, but her major flaw is not having a belief system that is deeply and unshakably founded in justice and democratic values…..at least not one that rules her priorities and actions. Her political needle leads her values and a decent, let alone good AG, needs it wrapped the other way around.

Add the POTUS’ blatant lack of disclosure to the American public about drones, surveillance, “in bed with the fed,” renditions…..and the SCOTUS’ “values” based justice to your last line.

Berwick at least has a record of trying to bring dignity to those who cannot afford it.

Should be: cannot afford *health care* not dignity. Obviously, dignity is not something you can buy.

Cullen is such a loser. Can he smile? Is he on medication? I know a guy who went to grade school with him in Malden. Without me asking or snooping he volunteered that Kevin “was a dick.”
Take it for what it is worth but, if not for me would we ever know Kevin moved to Southie as an adult?

I hope Kevin makes as money money as he can on these lies and his unsuccessful assassination attempt that he brags about (much like John Martorano brags about his mortal sins). Because when he’s burning in the fire of hell nobody will care about his Southie cred.

But, as I said above, there are a lot of intriguing candidates in the field. I’m not tied to Berwick at all. I like, for example, how progressive Senator Dan Wolf is. I appreciate how much Treasurer Grossman has done for the Commonwealth and has really transformed that office. I like Capuano (and supported him against Coakley when he ran for Senate) and think he could bring a lot to the table should he run. And there are others. So, I guess, we’ll see. But I think Berwick is somebody to pay attention to and at the very least give serious consideration.

The liberty-smashing privacy-shredding hysteria for “security” is, in fact, the most immediate fruit of the terrorist attacks against us. Like an auto-immune disorder (which is how ALL terrorism should be treated), the attacks turn our “protection” capabilities against ourselves.

The Catherine Clarks, Martha Coakley’s, Diane Feingolds, and their ilk are doing precisely what Osama Bin Laden and the terrorists desire.

This is how the tiny number of Muslim extremists in the world destroy the freedom and liberty of our American society.

BTW Mike, I consider you a friend. We are all God’s children and we share in this bounty we call BlueMassGroup.

I love ya man. See you on the Fourth?

Anyway, if you loved the Cahill fiasco, the probation disgrace, the Tookie torture, or any other prosecutorial over-reach and headline grabbing than you will love Catherine Clark.
She wants to tell you and me and everyone else how to live our lives and if we don’t there is a criminal charge for not falling in line.
The Catherine Clarks and martha Coakley’s are the biggest problem facing our country. Not terrorism.

OOPS, Al had to admit the polar bear population has increased over the past few years.

A burden Mike? Sometimes. But knowing the important role I have in mankind gets me out of bed every morning. Knowing of the unwashed masses like you are out there Mike, is what keeps me going.

Thanks for reminding Mike. You give me the strength and emotional hutzpah to make it through this journey.

Peace my friend. Peace

Boo Fricken Hoo, someone at BMG hasn’t already posted something. Obviously, it must be a vast criminal conspiracy to silence EB3 and his insipid crybaby crying. Not everything is about you, crybaby!

The groups that we propose to support in Syria are themselves Muslim extremists — as far as I can tell, there are no secular “moderates” to choose from.

When Gomez, in the first debate, kept calling for us to identify the right group and give it full support, I kept calling to the TV: YOU identify the right group, because I don’t have a clue if any of these groups would be good to have running Syria.