- Oct 16, 2014
Apparently, free speech can only be exercised on college campuses in after students completing the necessary steps to do so. That includes meeting officials, filling out paperwork, and being limited to a specific area on campus.
A group of four students at SOU handed out copies of the Constitution on Southern Oregon University's campus Tuesday while collecting signatures to end the university’s restrictive speech policies, which limit free speech to an area that totals less than one percent of campus. While doing so, the students were approached multiple times by school administrators and campus police who all asked the students to move to a different area of campus.
It bothered college officials so much, police were called in that resulted in...nothing.
Oregon Capitol Watch is proud to highlight one of the students in the story's video, Josh Brainard is Project Liberty's (a part of Oregon Capitol Watch dedicated to conserving liberty across the state of Oregon) state coordinator. Great job Josh!
Lake Oswego Citizens Action League (LOCAL) is reporting the number of people employed by the City of Lake Oswego increased rapidly during prior administrations (from 2004 to 2012). The increase was faster than the population grew.
When Mayor Studebaker and the new City Council took office in January 2013, they had a City staff that totaled almost 362 employees. However, with a focus on fiscal responsibility, employees have declined to 350 for the current year. The Budget Committee is looking for further reduction.
Despite these reductions, personnel costs are up 16% in the last five years; yet Full Time Equivalent employees are down two percent. Why is that....
Lake Oswego Has Much More Staff Than Other Comparable Cities.
Look at the number of employees per one thousand population. At 9.39, Lake Oswego is 54 percent above the average! While there are some differences in services provided among the cities, Lake Oswego is certainly costing its citizens a lot more than other cities.
Staff Costs are the Primary Use of Citizen's Tax Dollars.
These staff levels cost all of our tax dollars! Yes, only fees for water and other things allow the City to make up the difference.
The current Council has, since 2013, begun the task of reducing City costs. If these important trends are to continue, we must elect fiscally responsible people to the Council this year. The Council can then continue to deal with City cost issues and work to hold our taxes down.
Staff and city services are important but so is careful spending of our tax dollars.
Oregonians might remember the Christmas bomb plot, where Mohamed Mohamud attempted to detonate a bomb at the crowded Pioneer Courthouse Square in downtown Portland.
Mohamud was found guilty on January 30, 2013. His sentencing is set for October 1, 2014. One might wonder, why the delay in sentencing? The Oregonian claims sentencing was delayed due to the Constitutionality of evidence gained to convict Mohamud.
"Mohamud's lawyers argued that the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the U.S. to sweep information on foreign nationals outside the country and collect data from citizens communicating with people overseas, violated the Constitution.
That sort of data collection was used in Mohamud's trial; emails exchanged between Mohamud and two terror suspects were used as evidence."
That reporting is incomplete. Documents show the "The FBI wiretapped two conversations and one voicemail defense investigators for Mohamed Osman Mohamud had...and then handed those recordings over to the prosecutor..." The FBI gained some intelligence on Mohamud from another case and thought the prosecutors might find it handy and gave it to them. No warrant was used. No legal proceedings.
While the Mohamud case is being heralded as the litmus test for cases where FISA warrantless wiretapping is used to help prosecute domestic terrorists, it is worth noting that the very same technology used to root out Mohamud and thwart his bomb plot, is also being used in the courtroom to take away his attorney-client rights.
One might also write this incident off as an isolated incident. Just north of Oregon in Washington state, the "U.S. Navy has been engaged in a 'routine' and 'widespread' program of 'hacking' into private citizens’ computers and turning over information to law enforcement agencies." Again, no warrants were used.
