Tag Archives: morality

IRS Shenanigans

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The IRS, after three years of stonewalling and after a Federal judge’s explicit order to stand and deliver, has at last released the list of the organizations it claims to have targeted for blocking from tax exempt status.  “Claims” because the list has grown, from the 298 avowedly conservative organizations originally identified by the Treasury Department’s IG to a total of 426 that the IRS finally listed for the judge.

Edward Greim, a lawyer for NorCal Tea Party Patriots, a party to the suit demanding the IRS give up its list, had this about the difference in size between the list Treasury released three years ago and the list the IRS released:

Based on these changes, which to date remain unexplained, a very real possibility—if not probability—exists that the IRS modified its targeting in light of the investigations, packing its own internal lists of targeted groups to support its preferred narrative, including by adding ideologically diverse groups[.]

It would be interesting to see the dates of something representing the initial delay applied to each of these groups.

Reassigned

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But not terminated.  She’ll complete her 20 years and get her pension, just as if she’s done nothing wrong.

Irene Martin, who has been with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services for 16 years, was the CIS field supervisor in San Bernardino who delayed for an hour and a half DHS agents (assigned to Homeland Security Investigations, a DHS sister agency of the CIS) attempting to interview and arrest Enrique Marquez, one of the terrorists involved and who was in her custody; from getting access to related records held by her office, and then requiring they make only hand-written copies; and who disdained even meeting with the agents for a half hour.

DHS’ IG report had this about her performance:

We have also concluded that the Field Office Director was not candid with OIG investigators during her interview.

And

We concluded that the USCIS Field Office Director at the San Bernardino office improperly delayed HSI agents from conducting a lawful and routine law enforcement action….

She made conflicting statements to the IG personnel interviewing her:

According to the FPS [Federal Protective Service] contract guards, the Field Office Director did not answer her phone, so an FPS guard searched the building, subsequently found her, and advised her that HSI agents were looking to obtain information regarding a Russian female and Hispanic male who may have been connected to the shootings the previous day.  (When interviewed by OIG agents, the Field Office Director stated that she was notified via phone that HSI agents had arrived at USCIS San Bernardino and wanted to detain and interview someone.  She said in her interview that she was not told for whom they were looking, or why they were looking for the individual.)

And

When interviewed by OIG, the Field Office Director [Irene Martin] denied telling the agents they were not allowed to arrest, detain, or interview anyone in the building.  However, her account is contradicted by that of the other HSI agents present.  Moreover, the Field Office Director herself reiterated to OIG agents during her interview her belief that it was against USCIS “procedure” for law enforcement to detain or interview individuals on USCIS property.  She also gave inconsistent answers about when she discovered that the HSI agents were investigating the shootings from the day prior.  She told OIG in her interview that she discovered the connection between [Mariya, the other terrorist in the San Bernardino attack, and Marquez’ wife] Chernykh and the shootings while reviewing Chernykh’s file.  She also stated that she was only told by the agents that they were investigating the shootings after she gave them the photograph.  In her written statement, however, the Field Office Director stated that the agent told her that they were investigating the shootings when she initially met with him in the conference room.  Either version is contradicted by the building security officer, who said he told the Field Office Director of the purpose behind the agents’ arrival when he first notified her.

The IG report goes on in this vein.

It is not clear what disciplinary action Martin could face….

Under this administration?  Yes, it is.

Computers Sentencing Humans

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court is considering exactly that.

The state’s highest court is set to rule on whether such algorithms, known as risk assessments, violate due process and discriminate against men when judges rely on them in sentencing.

No.  Even when sentencing a criminal, where his crime is substantially similar to other criminals’ crimes, the key is that substantial part.  No two crimes really are alike, no two criminals really are identical, even the criminal convicted today is not the same man he was when he was convicted—even of a substantially similar crime yesterday—history has happened.  One size cannot fit all, even here; sentencing must be unique.

And that sentence must be handed down by a judge or, in many jurisdictions (and my personal favorite), a jury.  It takes a human to assess the man, and it especially takes a human to assess his likelihood of recidivism or rehabilitation.  It takes a human, or a collection of us, to assess the man’s potential redeemability and his likelihood of redemption.

Computers have none of the comprehension, conscience, intuition, or moral capacity that are so critical to such judgments.  Even a computer’s risk assessment must be suspect, as the inputs cannot include everything a human or that collection of humans that is a jury sees when they assess the man’s record and look into the eyes of the man standing before them.

Aside from the principle of the question, the particular tool in question in the case before the Wisconsin Court is badly flawed.

…a widely used tool called COMPAS, or Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, a 137-question test that covers criminal and parole history, age, employment status, social life, education level, community ties, drug use, and beliefs.

The assessment includes queries like, “Did a parent figure who raised you ever have a drug or alcohol problem?” and “Do you feel that the things you do are boring or dull?”  Scores are generated by comparing an offender’s characteristics to a representative criminal population of the same sex.

Tests, questionnaires, surveys, and the like are extremely easy to game, and any lawyer worthy of his pro bono fee is fully capable of coaching his client to game this one.

Computers shouldn’t sentence humans; humans should sentence humans.  And it shouldn’t be done on the basis of input-limited machine-calculated predictions of the future, in any event.  It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.

On Donald Trump’s San Jose Rally

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San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo had a thought.

The mayor, a Democrat and Hillary Clinton supporter, criticized Trump for coming to cities and igniting problems that local police departments had to deal with.

“At some point Donald Trump needs to take responsibility for the irresponsible behavior of his campaign,” Liccardo said.

A typical Democrat attitude: it’s always someone else’s fault.

No, Liccardo, it was your city’s residents’ conscious decision to protest Trump’s rally—an entirely appropriate thing to do—and it was your city’s residents’ conscious decision to then turn violent and physically attack Trump supporters as they left the rally, and it was your city’s residents’ conscious decision to steal those supporters’ property and destroy it.

…Trump hats grabbed from supporters were set on fire on the ground.

And it was your own conscious decision to hold the police back while your residents carried out their violent attacks and vandalism.

Police stood their ground at first but after about 90 minutes moved into the remaining crowd to break it up and make arrests.

This is what we can look forward to under a Clinton presidency.

Of Course She Does

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Recall the blatant dishonesty of Department of Justice lawyers.

Now Attorney General Loretta Lynch has chosen to fight District Judge Andrew Hanen’s order that her lawyers actually undergo documented ethics training—training that any pre-law pupil might undergo.

In filings Tuesday, the department said the order would “far exceed the bounds of appropriate remedies” and would cost the department millions.

Because requiring lawyers to understand the ethics of their profession is unreasonable for a DoJ lawyer.  Sure.

The Department of Justice responded in the court filing Tuesday, saying that it “emphatically” disagrees with the judge’s ruling, claiming that none of its lawyers intended to deceive.

Now Lynch is adding to the deliberate lies.  Of course her lawyers intended to deceive when they made representations to Hanen’s court that they knew were inaccurate or false.  Words are a lawyer’s stock in trade.  Lynch’s lawyers knew exactly what they were saying at the time they said those things, and they said them anyway.

The filing requests Hanen’s order be put on hold so federal lawyers can review.

No need to put Hanen’s order on hold.  It can be part of the lawyers’ ethics training plan.

In Tuesday’s filing, the DOJ estimated that the ethics training mandated would cost upwards of $7.8 million.

The convenience of the government is not relevant to whether the government’s lawyers should be sanctioned or to the nature of the sanction.  Inconvenience, in fact, is a necessary part of sanctioning.  On the other hand, to the extent this is an unreasonable cost for the government to bear, it would be entirely reasonable to require the misbehaving lawyers pay for their own training.

Compounding matters, the sanctions imposed by this Court…unjustifiably impose irreparable injury on…thousands of innocent third parties[.]

This is plain nonsense.  The only damage done thousands of innocent third parties was done by Lynch’s dishonest lawyers.  As this concerns Lynch’s beef that Hanen’s order is inappropriate, Lynch’s involvement of thousands of innocent third parties is nothing but a cynically dragged red herring.

How dare a mere judge question the Department of Justice?  Why, the nerve of that man.