Inhumanity Has a Price

Corpses, a flesh-eating virus, the most-sued sheriff in America. Lawsuits against Joe Arpaio have cost us $41 million, so far
By John Dickerson

Maricopa County law enforcement violated the constitutional rights of this newspaper's readers in October. Using secret grand jury subpoenas, County Attorney Andrew Thomas sought records that would reveal the identity of anyone who'd looked at New Times online in the past four years. When the paper's leaders revealed the grand jury probe in a cover story, sheriff's deputies arrested them.

The assault on New Times began in 2004 when the paper published Sheriff Joe Arpaio's address as part of an investigation into his hidden commercial real estate transactions. Arpaio demanded that the newspaper be prosecuted under an arcane statute that makes it illegal to publish law enforcement officers' addresses in cyberspace, even though that data is readily available on government Web sites and is perfectly legal to publish on newsprint.

Thomas responded by appointing a special prosecutor, who demanded not only the records and e-mails of the paper's writers and editors — but also sought sensitive information on the Internet-viewing habits of our readers. On October 18, New Times published a cover story revealing the invasive subpoenas.

That story violated grand jury secrecy statutes, but the revelations in the article, compounded by the subsequent arrest of Village Voice Media Executive Editor Michael Lacey and CEO Jim Larkin, sparked public outrage. County Attorney Thomas fired the special prosecutor and dropped all charges. He also abandoned the Arpaio-inspired probe of the paper.

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2007-12-20/news/inhumanity-has-a-price/

July 10, 2001
Prisons are rife with infectious ilnesses -- and threaten to spread them to the public.




Curious combination:

• No follow-up of prisoners released into communities with diseases
  
• For-profits prisons reduce healthcare as a cost saving measure
  
• General Healthcare reduction
  

We have biological warfare labs working around the clock to keep the world safe for Democracy.
Then there's genetically modified food crops, bovine growth hormone.
I guess global warming might be construed as the "ultimate culling!"

COALINGA, Calif. — When any of the 5,300 inmates at Pleasant Valley State Prison begin coughing and running a fever, doctors do not think flu, bronchitis or even the common cold.

They think valley fever; and, more often than they would like, they are right.

In the past three years, more than 900 inmates at the prison have contracted the fever, a fungal infection that has been both widespread and lethal.

At least a dozen inmates here in Central California have died from the disease, which is on the rise in other Western states, including Arizona, where the health department declared an epidemic after more than 5,500 cases were reported in 2006, including 33 deaths.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/us/30inmates.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

and not just him

I remember reading about him bragging about the crappy (and apparently contaminated) food he feeds prisoners and about forcing the men to wear pink panties. Sad that people like the defense attorney and her child had to suffer horribly because of this pig's disregard for human rights.

They still believe this bullshit. It's why capital punishment is still touted as a deterant.