A border fence and gate did not prevent thousands in the Caravan of Immigrants from crossing the Mexican border despite the preventive efforts and large numbers of Mexican police. Here is the most compelling slideshow of images I've found, just scroll down the page to them as there is no independent link.

The Mexican police ultimately gave up. Here is a one minute video of the moment they succeeded into crossing the border.

Starbucks announced today it will close all of its 8,000 stores and its affilaiate stores for an afternoon next month during which more than 175,000 employees will undergo racial bias training.

The curriculum to be designed by nationally recognized experts and will be available for other companies to use:

The curriculum will be developed with guidance from several national and local experts confronting racial bias, including Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative; Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; Heather McGhee, president of Demos; former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder; and Jonathan Greenblatt, ceo of the Anti-Defamation League. Starbucks will involve these experts in monitoring and reviewing the effectiveness of the measures we undertake.

I've met Bryan Stevenson and have listened to him speak several times. He is beyond top notch. Good for Starbucks, not only for recognizing the problem, but engaging in meaningful dialogue on how to correct it. And for offering to share the training with other companies. [More...]

A video has been revealed of Cambridge Analyitca officials. You can watch it here. In it they talk to an undercover reporter "how Cambridge Analytica secretly campaigns in elections across the world. Bosses were filmed talking about using bribes, ex-spies, fake IDs and sex workers."

Channel 4 news also recorded CA CEO Alexander Nix saying CA ran the Trump digital campaign , ran the TV campaign, that he personally met Donald Trump many times. Nix says on the tape CA did all the research, got all the data, did all the analytics, all the targeting. He says their data informed all of Trump's strategy.

Here's a video presentation by Nix in his Online Marketing Rockstars Keynote in Germany on the work CA did for Trump's Campaign and the strategies the company used.[More...]

The FTC has opened an investigation into Cambridge Analytica.

At issue for the company -- and at the heart of the FTC probe -- is a settlement they reached with the agency in November 2011, ending an investigation that Facebook deceived users about the privacy protections they are afforded on the site.

...Among other requirements, the resulting consent decree mandated that Facebook must notify users and obtain their permission before data about them is shared beyond the privacy settings they have established. It also subjected Facebook to 20 years of privacy checkups to ensure its compliance. [More...]

In the "You Can't Make This Stuff Up" and "Why They Hate Us" Departments: ICE sat outside a hospital this week where a 10 year old with cerebral palsy was undergoing emergency gall bladder surgery, and when it was over and she was out of the recovery room, took her to an immigration facility 150 miles from her home.

"It is stunning that federal agents would wait outside of a hospital room for a 10-year-old child with cerebral palsy," U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro of Texas said. "They are treating her like a convict."

The child, Rosa Maria, was three months old when she was brought to the U.S. She has has the mental capacity of a four or five year old, and has no idea what is happening.

AG Sessions wants Congress to tighten asylum rules.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions called on Congress Thursday to tighten the rules for people seeking asylum through a system he said is filled with “rampant abuse and fraud.”

...“The system is being gamed,” Sessions said. “Over the years, smart attorneys have exploited loopholes in the law, court rulings and lack of resources to substantially undermine the intent of Congress. . . . There is no cost or risk for those who make a baseless asylum claim.”

Did he mention how the Department of Justice games the system by offering asylum to large scale drug traffickers in exchange for their testimony against other traffickers? Including murderers? I'd bet not.

Muhammad Rabbani, the Director of CAGE has been convicted in the UK of a terrorism offense for refusing to provide the pin number to cell phone and password to his laptop during a search at Heathrow Airport. He was returning from a wedding in Syria.

He was convicted at Westminster Magistrates' Court of one count of wilfully obstructing a stop-and-search under Section 7 of the Terrorism Act.

... Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act gives officers their right to stop and search people "with or without suspicion".

He was given a conditional discharge and fined. [More...]

The D.C. Court of Appeals has overturned the convictions of a man named Prince Jones because the police employed a "sting ray" (cell-site simulator) device without a warrant. The opinion is here.

We agree with Mr. Jones that the government violated the Fourth Amendment when it deployed the cell-site simulator against him without first obtaining a warrant based on probable cause. Further, we reverse the trial court‘s inevitable-discovery ruling and reject the government‘s argument (not resolved by the trial court) that the good-faith doctrine precludes applying the exclusionary rule in this case. Because the admission at trial of the evidence obtained as a result of the unlawful search was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, we reverse Mr. Jones‘s convictions.

The ACLU and EFF wrote amicus briefs for defendant Prince. As I've written before, stingrays are particularly intrusive because they capture data from all phones in the area they are searching, not just the suspect's phone: [More...]

The iPhone X (ten) does away with the home button and fingerprint ID and uses Face ID instead.

What's wrong with it?

From Slate: In the event you get arrested, a cop can just put your phone in front of your face and get all the stuff on it.

Even more likely, in my opinion, since most of us won't get arrested, muggers and robbers will know they can put your phone in front of your face and get all your banking info -- and after emptying your bank account at an ATM or charging up a storm for a few hours, sell the phone to a hacker.

I need a new phone now. The iPhone 8 and 8plus, which are revamped versions of the iPhone 7, are taking pre orders starting tomorrow. [More...]

U.S. District Court Judge Orlando Garcia has issued a 94 page opinion (available here) blocking the implementation the most significant provisions of Texas S.B. 4, which had been scheduled to go into effect Sept. 1. The case is City of El Cenizo v State of Texas.

The ACLU says:

The law, recently signed by Gov. Greg Abbott, strips localities and local law enforcement in the state of the authority to determine how to best use their limited resources to ensure the safety of their communities. The law also turns Texas into a “show me your papers” state. Law enforcement

Thank you, ACLU.

In a 205 page opinion, available here, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, rejected most of Trump's travel ban. A Washington Post article is here.

In a 10-to-3 decision, the Richmond-based court said the president’s power to deny entry into the United States is not absolute and sided with challengers, finding that the travel ban “in context drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination.”

...All of the judges in the majority were nominated to the court by Democratic presidents, and the three dissenting judges — Paul V. Niemeyer, Dennis W. Shedd and G. Steven Agee — were nominated to the bench by Republican presidents.

[More...]

The latest appalling action by ICE: Check out its "Voice Program", announced yesterday. It stands for "Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office." There's even a VINE feature to help anyone track find and track undocumented persons who have been convicted of a crime.

ICE also says this is just a beginning. It is going to be also expanding services to allow the agency "to collect metrics and information." On whom? The victims or the perpetrators? Or both?

It uses deprecated terms like "illegal" to refer to undocumented persons.

My view: This program is an unacceptable use of federal resources that highlights the shameful bigotry in the Trump Administration's agenda.

U.S. Border Patrol agents viciously beat Anastacio Hernandez, an undocumented immigrant, to death with batons and tasers. It was filmed by passers-by, and even though the agents tried to grab the cameras, one got by them. The U.S. will now pay Mr. Hernandez's family $1 million.

The United States settled a lawsuit with Hernandez’s estate last month, agreeing to dole out $1 million to his five children and his common-law wife, Maria Puga. The battle could have dragged on for years longer in court, the family’s attorney said, but they were worried President Trump could make Hernandez’s death a political issue amid efforts to beef up border security.

Still, none of the agents involved have been fired or disciplined or “lost a dime of pay,” for a beating that broke five of Hernandez’s ribs, damaged his spine and ultimately killed him, according to Eugene Iredale, the family’s attorney, who claims the immigrant was handcuffed as he was beaten.

“In 90 minutes, this case exemplifies the range of deficiency and misconduct that typifies the action of law enforcement that handles immigration enforcement,” Iredale told The Washington Post. “These agents are doing this in front of G-d and the world.”

Here is the Justice Department press release from 2015 with a bizarrely different version of the facts explaining why the officers aren't being charged. Here's what the other groups found: [More...]

The Senate has voted to repeal internet privacy rules enacted under President Obama:

According to the rules approved by the Federal Communications Commission in October under then-President Barack Obama, internet providers would need to obtain consumer consent before using precise geolocation, financial information, health information, children's information and web browsing history for advertising and internal marketing.

The vote was a victory for internet providers such as AT&T Inc (T.N), Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O) and Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N), which had strongly opposed the rules.

Excessive intrusive advertising, especially auto-play video and non-properly scaled, ad-laden and ugly-as* news websites have already ruined the internet. [More...]

DHS today, following Donald Trump's Executive Order on public safety in January, released an ICE report with a week's worth of numbers for detainers requested and their outcome. The report is called "a Declined Detainer Outcome Report."

The Declined Detainer Outcome Report is a weekly report that shows those jurisdictions with the highest volume of declined detainers, and includes a list of sample crimes associated with those released individuals. This report is mandated by the president’s executive order “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States.”

The full report, covering 1/28 to 2/3/17 is here.

The report is merely an attempt to create a shaming list. Non-compliance with an ICE detainer request is nothing to be ashamed of. ICE detainer requests are just that -- requests -- they are not orders, and compliance is voluntary. [More...]