Articles Posted in Commentary and Opinion

On March 30, 2009 we posted information on this blawg about the historic agreement reached by New York lawmakers regarding reform of the Rockefeller drug law. Since that time there has been significant activity related to his effort including the signing of Chapter 56 of 2009 by the Governor on April 7, 2009. Although Chapter 56 is considered as primarily related to budget matters it contains significant material related to the Rockefeller Law reform initiatives.

For your information this posting includes links to those parts of the aforementioned legislation which appear to be relevant to the Rockefeller Drug Law reform issue. The links are to items I have posted on the New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library Blog:

http://www.bloglines.com/blog/PLL?id=12751 for Part AAA of Chapter 56 of 2009.

At least one publisher appears to be experimenting with issuing flash drives to accompany at least some of the serial volumes they publish. How, or should, libraries process flash drives received in this matter and incorporate them into their collections. Below is a question posed via e-mail by someone actually receiving such materials and some responses and recommendations:*

QUESTION:

“Recently our library received an ABA serial, the 23rd Annual National Institute on White Collar Crime, with an accompanying flash drive. We have not received flash drives with print material before, and since this is sure to be a trend, I wanted to find out how others are handling this situation. The flash drive contains the contents of the entire volume, plus some unique material not replicated in the serial volume. Since we’d prefer to keep the information on the flash drive and the book together, one potential idea was to burn the flash drive contents to a CD-ROM and insert the disc in the back of the book.”

Mark Estes, Editorial Director of AALL Spectrum, has forwarded the following Press Release about an important study published in the March/April 2009 issue of American Libraries, the journal of the American Library Association. The study suggests that people with untreated severe mantal illness may pose a greater risk to America’s public libraries than the internet.*

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT:

http://www.msisac.org/April 2009 Volume 2 Number 4.

From the Desk of David Badertscher

The use of credit cards to pay for goods and services is a common practice around the world. It enables business to be transacted in a convenient and cost effective manner. However, more than 100 million personally-identifiable, customer records have been breached in the US over the past two years[1]. Many of these breaches involved credit card information. Continued use of credits cards requires confidence by consumers that their transaction and credit card information are secure. The following provides information as to how the credit card industry has responded to security issues and steps you can take to protect your information.

Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau announced today a 118-count indictment of a Chinese citizen and his company for charges relating to the misuse of Manhattan banks and the proliferation of illicit missile and nuclear technology to the Government of Iran. The Chinese company, known as LIMMT,

is a major supplier of banned weapons material to the Iranian military.

The defendants, LI FANG WEI (a/k/a KARL LEE, a/k/a PATRIC, a/k/a SUNNY BAI, a/k/a K. LEE a/k/a KL, a/k/a DAVID LI, a/k/a F.W. LI) and LIMMT ECONOMIC AND TRADE COMPANY, LTD., (a/k/a LIMMT (DALIAN FTZ)

Posting prepared by Matthew Micka

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Mexican President Felipe Calderón is now deploying nearly 50% (45,000) of his nation’s combat ready troops to wage a war against his nation’s powerful drug traffickers, who supply an estimated 90% of the cocaine entering the United States.

The Office of the Inspector General of the Social Security Administration (SSA) has prepared an audit report, Fugitive Felons Serving As Representative Payees. March 2009. The Report consists of a review and analysis of representative payee issues within the SSA. To conduct the review, a file of fugitive records was obtained from the SSA Office of Investigations. From that file it was determined that 14, 594 inbdividuals for whom arrest warrants had been issued and who were represenative payees for SSA benificiaries as of July 2007 From this group 275 individuals were randomly selected for detailed analysis..

To see the entire Report click on the link below:

Audit Report: Fugitive Felons Serving As Representative Payees

The U.S. Justice Department moved on Wednesday April 1 to drop all charges in the case against former Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska. In a federal court on Wednesday Justice Department lawyers explained that in addition to earlier disclosures they discovered further evidence of misconduct that raised questions about the way the entire case was handled.

Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. issued a statement (see link below) explaining the Department of Justice position and said that he would not seek a new trial.

Statement of Attorney Gereral Eric Holder Jr. Regarding Former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens

In a 75 page, 19 count indictment, prosecutors allege that Mr. Blagojevich and his associates sought illegal profits from the governor’s authority to award money and jobs in construction, legal work, consulting and investmentments. Included in the indictment are allegations that Mr. Blagojevich and his associates “schemed to auction off the Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama”.

To provide you further clarification we refer you to the following two documents:

A one page Fact Sheet prepared by the Office of U.S. Attorney for the Northern District Patrick Fitzgerald

Contact Information