Feds Nab UCLA Worker for Selling Celeb Files

31. Hey # 26 James Earl Ray you must be named after all the men who fatherd you. I also have insurance and would love to ram in to your ass but, on another note you would like that wouldn't you? Go back to Craigslist see if you can make that happen.

Posted at 4:38PM on Apr 29th 2008 by Lets play

32. # 31
I feel sorry for John cause he's white and sterotyping low-self esteem. Are you proud of yourself?

Posted at 4:53PM on Apr 29th 2008 by candy

33.
this is what our pop culture covets...secrets. it's all wrong. what it should covet is privacy. but those who are slaves to pop culture, and don't call me a racist, are just intellectually bankrupt, and need a meaningful life of their own, not what the media can dish up. so turn off the tv, turn off the media, and contribute something personally to making someone's life better.

dang, y'all, this is sad.

Posted at 4:53PM on Apr 29th 2008 by what I see is what i see

34. The Airlines Sell INFO on CELEBRITIES WHERABOUTS TOO,,IS THIS A CRIME,,NPG GETS THE INFO

Posted at 4:59PM on Apr 29th 2008 by bob

35. WHY IS IT THAT PRIVACY, A SUPPOSED BASIC RIGHT, IS ONLY A RIGHT WHEN IT COMES TO GOV'T PERSONNEL AND CELEBRITIES BUT IS IRRELEVANT WHEN IT APPLIES TO THE REST OF US? IF 'LAWANDA' OR THELMA OR BEULAH OR YOLANDA HAD SPIED ON MY RECORDS, WOULD IT BE A LEGAL ISSUE OR WOULD I BE A MALCONTENT FOR DARING TO COMPLAIN? STRANGE SET OF DOUBLE STANDARDS WE HAVE IN THIS COUNTRY!

Posted at 5:14PM on Apr 29th 2008 by Lee Larson

36. Dr. Phil has Lawanda Jackson booked for the end of May sweeps.

Posted at 12:47PM on May 1st 2008 by S. W. F.

37. Fool, there is no double standard. Cut out that ghetto paranoia. It is illegal to sell or otherwise make public anyone's medical records. It's just that when it comes to us regular folks, nobody is willing to pay thousands of dollars for them. DUH.

Posted at 5:54PM on Apr 29th 2008 by wait what

38. If you're going to jail and wreck your life...do it for more than $4,600.

Posted at 6:11PM on Apr 29th 2008 by TBA

39. What kind of an imbecile takes a CHECK for a criminal act. How fecking stupid can you be?
I cannot stop laughing.

Posted at 6:39PM on Apr 29th 2008 by FlBiker

40. whoever started the racist crap is an idiot, but the rest of you who have entertained the comments with replies are even bigger idiots. all of you who have participated need to stfu.

Posted at 7:53PM on Apr 29th 2008 by me

41. Imagine being at the kitchen table when they hatched their plan ........ I KNOW ! We can have the check made out to you Leroy . The Man will never catch us now ! Good Idea ,Dopewanda !

Posted at 8:15PM on Apr 29th 2008 by Bubba Zanetti

42.
The Hidden Upside to the End of Constitutional Protections

We have been dismayed by the parlor game going on in the halls of power, true enough. An anti-torture bill designed to codify torture; the acceptance and legalization of domestic espionage without court order or demonstrable cause; the removal of habeas corpus, one of those petty legal terms that the entire arc of American law relies upon. The Republican Party decided that their election-year strategy, this September, would be to take boxcutters to the Constitution, and they found just enough accomplices to do it.

But there are upsides, here. And the primary upside is that, after being a movement dominated by the terror of government ready to go amok, people who carried the Bill of Rights on cards in their wallets and stockpiled guns with the belief that only guns would save them, the conservative and far-right movements have finally given us the precise legal tools to remove the far-right from the national landscape. Forever.

Before Osama bin Laden, there was the American citizen and terrorist Timothy McVeigh, who drove a truck full of explosives to the front of a government building and detonated it, as an act of terrorism against the United States. Before the Cole bombing, there was an organized series of mail bombings against judges, bombings of abortion clinics, assassinations of abortion doctors, conducted by those affiliated with Operation Rescue and an assortment of domestic terrorist organizations. Weaponized anthrax, sent to news outlets and liberal politicians. The Atlanta Olympics were attacked by terrorists as well, a shrapnel-laced explosive detonated in the crowded Olympic village in order to cause as many deaths as possible. Even if al Qaeda had not existed, the unholy wraith of terrorism against Americans, on American soil, still would be a compounding and urgent problem. And all of those acts were perpetrated by Americans, and specifically by the American far-right.

These acts of conservative terrorism have been all but forgotten, after bin Laden's crimes. But they are domestic terrorism, and were explicitly intended as such, and of the sort that these new Republican, conservative laws are precisely aimed at taking on.

The advantage of these new laws in these new times is, bluntly, that normal rules of evidence no longer apply, and that those charged with aiding terrorism need not be granted a trial; no actual crime need be alleged; no evidence need be presented against them; nobody else is required to be even informed of their imprisonment; there is no appeal. If the President of the United States determines them to be affiliated with terrorism -- and it does not matter if that President is Republican or Democrat -- the judgment is final. All that is required to strip an American citizen of their Constitutional rights, strip them of their citizenship itself, and declare them an enemy combatant in the fight against terrorism is the say-so of the President. That's it.

So if we are dejected, today, that Americans no longer are protected by the Constitution, cheer up just a bit. Because from now on, American terrorists and their conservative supporters aren't protected by the Constitution either. It has been changed, in this time of war, according to their own new laws -- and that means that at the first point in which the Republicans lose power, these same new laws can be used to imprison those that all reasonable men agree are terrorists, and their supporters, and those giving them assistance and comfort.

The entire far-right conservative movement is tied, in no more than two or three degrees of separation, to U.S. terrorist Timothy McVeigh. His roots and his support were based in the conservative militia movement, a collection of far-right groups and organizations, many of them white supremacist in nature or affiliated with the even more noxious Christian Identity movement. Many of these groups stockpile guns and ammunition in the direct belief that those guns will be required against the U.S. government, and in places like Ruby Ridge and Waco, have brought those weapons to bear. They are proven terrorists; this much is indisputable. Under the new laws, future Attorneys General will be able to mark these individuals as enemy combatants, and no further Constitutional protections will apply. Janet Reno will be marked as the last Attorney General to have had to deal with terrorism unequipped with the new laws designed to strip such figures of their citizenship and trial rights.

A mere presidential finding, now, is now sufficient to determine which men among these conservative militia groups are the terrorist leaders, and which are the followers, and which are supporters. The acts of Timothy McVeigh were praised by many, on the right. Those men are themselves terrorists; arrest them. The men supporting the militia movements through word and deed; they, too are terrorists. Arrest them as well. Then there are merely the abettors. The Timothy McVeighs of the movement are supported by figures such as right-wing radio hosts Hal Turner; Turner himself is a right-wing racist figure who rose to fame because of the support and endorsement of his "good friend", Sean Hannity. The links between Sean Hannity and the dozens of militia members who have shaken his hand, repeatedly, are more than enough to prove complicity.

Posted at 9:11PM on Apr 29th 2008 by Truth

43. OMG Truth [post #42] your LENGTHY post has WHAT to do with the topic at hand???

Posted at 9:48PM on Apr 29th 2008 by AARRGGHH

44.
lawanda wants the check made out to leroy;

enough about that, stupidity speaks for itself;

whatever happened to in "god we trust ", all other pay in CASH ?

hello, it sets up a paper trail.

inquiring minds want to know which media outlet was the issuer ?

Posted at 10:13PM on Apr 29th 2008 by james earl ray

45. Have been following information tech closely since the early '80s. And it's my livelihood. If there's one thing I've learned it's this: all -- ALL -- databases will eventually be abused. Just accept it; there's no escape. If it's in a database, it will eventually be seen by those who shouldn't (whether legally or morally) see it.

Includes where you surf the Web, every purchase made with plastic or using a "savings card," any electronically stored health information, legal data, phone calls you make or receive, driving checkpoints (such as "E-ZPass" toll collectors), and so on.

I'm not being paranoid. The above isn't even a comment on whether the phenomenon is in aggregate good or bad. I'm just trying to inform of what is, nothing more.

Smile for the camera.

Posted at 12:03AM on Apr 30th 2008 by Newer Realities