Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

What He Said

Posted on November 22, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

This hits the nail on the head:

Racial Profiling at U.S. Airways – TalkLeft: The Politics Of Crime Six imams attending a conference in Minneapolis took time to pray at the gate before boarding a U.S. Airways flight to Phoenix. A passenger handed a note to a flight attendant pointing out the “6 suspicious Arabic men” on the plane. Disturbed by their “unsettling” behavior — which apparently consisted of praying and asking for seat belt extensions — the crew told the police that the imams needed to be removed. They were escorted from the plane in handcuffs and detained for five hours before authorities conceded that they posed no threat.

U.S. Airways refused to book the imams on another flight to Phoenix. According to the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Muslims (both passengers and airline employees) have more complaints about U.S. Airways than other airlines. The incident prompted the Council and the NAACP to ask for Congressional hearings on racial profiling in airports.

Can you imagine the outcry from the religious right if six Christian pastors were removed from a flight because they prayed together at the gate? U.S. Airways would be deservedly out of business in a week.

Posted in Law: Right to Travel | 13 Comments

I Don’t Expect Much Sympathy For This

Posted on November 21, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

I don’t expect much sympathy for this, but it was so cold out today that I had to wear a sweater. And we’re running the heater in the house this evening. I’m told it could get down to to the low 40s (that’s a few degrees centigrade) tonight.

We do expect a brief annual cold snap, but never this early in the year.

Posted in Miami | 5 Comments

Angry Donors Sue Princeton

Posted on November 21, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

The heirs to donors of a substantial gift to Princeton are suing, claiming that Princeton has misapproprpirated millions intended for the training of foreign service graduates and other activities supporiting the US Government. In fact, the heir allege, Princeton used the foundation to fund the general activities of the Woordrow Wilson School — and for some other things too.

The complaint also alleges various types of self-dealing, sloppy record keeping, and failure to observe the necessary formalities — some of which sound quite damning.

The plaintiffs are running a publicity campaign along side of the lawsuit, and they’ve built a web site to tell their side of the story. Unfortunately, their legal page is mostly one-sided and doesn’t list many of Princeton’s replies, which makes it much harder to form a judgment as to the strength of their case. A taste of the reply can be had in Princeton’s reply to a motion for summary judement, which basically suggests that the family’s own trustees were asleep at the switch, that the charges were mostly fair, and that if there were ways to calculate them that would have made the numbers even higher.

If there’s a moral to this story, it’s that it pays to observe legal formalities carefully? If either side had done so, this case might never have happened.

Posted in Law: Everything Else | Comments Off on Angry Donors Sue Princeton

FBI Helped Frame Four Innocent Men (40 Years Ago)

Posted on November 21, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Like a bad novel: Four Were Framed With The FBI’s Help

When a flurry of gunshots ended Edward “Teddy” Deegan’s misspent life more than 40 years ago, there should have been no mystery about who pulled the trigger.

FBI agents had been listening to the murder plot unfold for five months through a microphone hidden in a mob office and through reports from informants. They knew that Vincent “Jimmy” Flemmi and Joseph “The Animal” Barboza, two hoodlums the bureau was recruiting as informants, were behind the conspiracy.

But what should have been an open-and-shut case turned into a legal nightmare. Thousands of recently disclosed U.S. Justice Department records show that the FBI, in order to cultivate Flemmi and Barboza as informants, allowed them to frame four innocent men for the Deegan murder.

Armed with those newly obtained records, the framed men – or their estates – are now seeking more than $100 million in damages from the federal government, arguing that they spent decades in prison because of a morally bankrupt conspiracy between FBI agents and gangsters.

Of course, nothing like this could possibly happen today. No way. No how.

Posted in Law: Criminal Law | 1 Comment

McCain Flip-Flop Watch

Posted on November 20, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

The Carpetbagger Report notes McCain’s flourishing flip-flop list. This weekend, McCain added Roe v. Wade to the list of issues on which he’s done an about-turn.

It really is a little sad to watch someone of at least occasional integrity totally disintegrate into a pandering puddle due to his desparation for the Presidency. I presume the strategy is to run right for the primaries and then try to loop back. But I think the brand will be pretty tarnished by then. Indeed, it is already, although mass media are still clining to the St. McCain narrative.

Actually, that’s good for the Democrats: better if the scales fall from the media’s eyes when more people are paying attention.

Meanwhile, it’s interesting to see just how out of touch with modern realities the increasingly aging McCain seems to be. Pre-YouTube it might have been possible to campaign out of both sides of one’s mouth, but that approach is in the dustbin of history now.

Posted in Politics: McCain, Politics: US: 2008 Elections | 5 Comments

Another “Please Tell Me this Is a Photoshop Job”

Posted on November 20, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Posted in Kultcha | 4 Comments