August 28, 2012

We Don't Need No Stinking Warrant: The Disturbing, Unchecked Rise of the Administrative Subpoena | Threat Level | Wired.com

When Golden Valley Electric Association of rural Alaska got an administrative subpoena from the Drug Enforcement Administration in December 2010 seeking electricity bill information on three customers, the company did what it usually does with subpoenas — it ignored them.
That’s the association’s customer privacy policy, because administrative subpoenas aren’t approved by a judge.
But by law, utilities must hand over customer records — which include any billing and payment information, phone numbers and power consumption data — to the DEA without court warrants if drug agents believe the data is “relevant” to an investigation. So the utility eventually complied, after losing a legal fight earlier this month.
Meet the administrative subpoena (.pdf): With a federal official’s signature, banks, hospitals, bookstores, telecommunications companies and even utilities and internet service providers — virtually all businesses — are required to hand over sensitive data on individuals or corporations, as long as a government agent declares the information is relevant to an investigation. Via a wide range of laws, Congress has authorized the government to bypass the Fourth Amendment — the constitutional guard against unreasonable searches and seizures that requires a probable-cause warrant signed by a judge.
In fact, there are roughly 335 federal statutes on the books (.pdf) passed by Congress giving dozens upon dozens of federal agencies the power of the administrative subpoena, according to interviews andgovernment reports. (.pdf)
“I think this is out of control. What has happened is, unfortunately, these statutes have been on the books for many, many years and the courts have acquiesced,” said Joe Evans, the utility’s attorney.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that federal officials from a broad spectrum of government agencies issue them hundreds of thousands of times annually. But none of the agencies are required to disclose fully how often they utilize them — meaning there is little, if any, oversight of this tactic that’s increasingly used in the war on drugs, the war on terror and, seemingly, the war on Americans’ constitutional rights to be free from unreasonable government trespass into their lives.
That’s despite proof that FBI agents given such powers under the Patriot Act quickly began to abuse them and illegally collected Americans’ communications records, including those of reporters. Two scathing reports from the Justice Department’s Inspector General uncovered routine and pervasive illegal use of administrative subpoenas by FBI anti-terrorism agents given nearly carte blanche authority to demand records about Americans’ communications with no supervision.
When the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, perhaps the nation’s most liberal appeals court based in San Francisco, ordered Golden Valley to fork over the data earlier this month, the court said the case was “easily” decided because the records were “relevant” to a government drug investigation.
With the data the Alaska utility handed over, the DEA may then use further administrative subpoenas to acquire the suspected indoor-dope growers’ phone records, stored e-mails, and perhaps credit-card purchasing histories — all to build a case to acquire a probable-cause warrant to physically search their homes and businesses.
But the administrative subpoena doesn’t just apply to utility records and drug cases. Congress has spread the authority across a huge swath of the U.S. government, for investigating everything from hazardous waste disposal, the environment, atomic energy, child exploitation, food stamp fraud, medical insurance fraud, terrorism, securities violations, satellites, seals, student loans, and for breaches of dozens of laws pertaining to fruits, vegetables, livestock and crops.
Not one of the government agencies with some of the broadest administrative subpoena powers Wired contacted, including the departments of Commerce, Energy, Agriculture, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI, would voluntarily hand over data detailing how often they issued administrative subpoenas.
The Drug Enforcement Administration obtained the power under the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 and is believed to be among the biggest issuers of administrative subpoenas.
“It’s a tool in the toolbox we have to build a drug investigation. Obviously, a much, much lower threshold than a search warrant,” said Lawrence Payne, a DEA spokesman, referring to the administrative subpoena generically. Payne declined to discuss individual cases.
Payne said in a telephone interview that no database was kept on the number of administrative subpoenas the DEA issued.
But in 2006, Ava Cooper Davis, the DEA’s deputy assistant administrator, told a congressional hearing, “The administrative subpoena must have a DEA case file number, be signed by the investigator’s supervisor, and be given a sequential number for recording in a log book or computer database so that a particular field office can track and account for any administrative subpoenas issued by that office.”
After being shown Davis’ statement, Payne then told Wired to send in a Freedom of Information Act request, as did some of the local DEA offices we contacted, if they got back to us at all. “Would suggest a FOIA request to see whether you can get a number of administrative subpoenas. Our databases have changed over the years as far as how things are tracked and we don’t have access to those in public affairs unfortunately,” Payne said in an e-mail.
He said the agency has “never” been asked how many times it issued administrative subpoenas.

Amy Baggio, a Portland, Oregon federal public defender representing drug defendants for a decade, said DEA agents “use these like a doctor’s prescription pad on their desk.” Sometimes, she said, they issue “hundreds upon hundreds of them” for a single prosecution — often targeting mobile phone records.
“They are using them exponentially more in all types of federal criminal investigations. I’m seeing them in every drug case now,” Baggio said. “Nobody is watching what they are doing. I perceive a complete lack of oversight because there isn’t any required.”
A typical DEA investigation might start with an informant or an arrested dealer suspected of drug trafficking, she said. The authorities will use an administrative subpoena to get that target’s phone records — logs of the incoming and outgoing calls — and text-message logs of the numbers of incoming and outgoing texts. Then the DEA will administratively subpoena that same information for the phone numbers disclosed from the original subpoena, and so on, she said.
Often, Baggio said, the records not only show incoming and outgoing communications, they also highlight the mobile towers a phone pinged when performing that communication.
“Then they try to make a connection for drug activity and they do that again and again,” Baggio said. “They used a subpoena to know that my client used a phone up in Canada, but he said he was playing soccer with his kids in Salem.” That client is doing 11 years on drug trafficking charges, thanks to an investigation, Baggio said, that commenced with the use of administrative subpoenas.
The FBI was as tight-lipped as the DEA about the number of administrative subpoenas it issues.
Susan McKee, an FBI spokeswoman, suggested that some of the bureau’s figures for how many administrative subpoenas it has issued, for as many years back as possible, “may be classified.”
In a follow-up e-mail, McKee offered the same advice as the DEA.
“I am sorry the statistics you are looking for are not readily available. I would suggest that you explore the FOIA process,” she said.
If all of those statistics are classified, that would be very odd. The FBI is required to report annually how often they use the terrorism and espionage-specific administrative subpoenas known as National Security Letters to target Americans.
In all, the bureau has reported issuing 290,000 National Security Letters directed at Americans in the past decade.
But those aimed at foreigners are not required to be accounted for publicly. Likewise, FBI anti-terrorism requests for subscriber information — the name and phone numbers associated with phone, e-mail or Twitter accounts for example, aren’t included in that tally either, regardless if the account holder is an American or foreigner.
All of which means that, even in the one instance where public reporting is required of administrative subpoenas, the numbers are massively under-reported, according to Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.
“I think it’s ridiculous they won’t release the real numbers,” she said. Richardson speculated that the government has “something to hide.”
Some of the stranger statutes authorizing administrative subpoenas involve the Agriculture Department’s power to investigate breaches of the Floral Research and Consumer Information Act and the Fresh Cut Flowers and Fresh Cut Greens Promotion and Information Act. The Commerce Department has administrative subpoena power for enforcing laws relating to the Atlantic tuna and the Northern Pacific halibut. It also has those powers when it comes to enforcing the National Weather Modification Act of 1976, requiring “any person to submit a report before, during, or after that person may engage in any weather modification attempt or activity.”
In a 2002 government report, the Commerce Department said it had not used its administrative subpoena powers to enforce the National Weather Modification Act “in the recent past.” (.pdf) Susan Horowitz, a Commerce Department spokeswoman, urged Wired to send in a FOIA in a bid to obtain data surrounding how often it issues administrative subpoenas.
Lacking in all of these administrative subpoenas is Fourth Amendment scrutiny — in other words, judicial oversight. That’s because probable cause — the warrant standard — does not apply to the administrative subpoena. Often, the receiving party is gagged from disclosing them to the actual targets, who could, if notified, ask a judge to quash it.
And even when they are challenged in court, judges defer to Congress — the Fourth Amendment notwithstanding.

In one seminal case on the power of the administrative subpoena, the Supreme Court in 1950 instructed the lower courts that the subpoenas should not be quashed if “the inquiry is within the authority of the agency, the demand is not too indefinite and the information sought is reasonably relevant.”
In the mobile age, one of the biggest targets of the administrative subpoena appears to be the cellphone. AT&T, the nation’s second-largest mobile carrier, replied to a congressional inquiry in May that it had received 63,100 subpoenas for customer information in 2007. That more than doubled to 131,400 last year. (AT&T did not say whether any of the subpoenas were issued by a grand jury. AT&T declined to elaborate on the figures.)
By contrast, AT&T reported 36,900 court orders for subscriber data in 2007. That number grew to 49,700 court orders last year, a growth rate that’s anemic compared to the doubling of subpoenas in the same period.
In all, the nation’s mobile carriers reported that they responded to 1.3 million requests last year for subscriber information. Other than AT&T, most of the figures that the nine mobile carriers reported did not directly break down the numbers between warrants and subpoenas.
In a letter to Rep. Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts), AT&T said it usually always positively responds to subpoenas except when “law enforcement may attempt to obtain information using a subpoena when a court order is required.” While there is much confusion as to when a court order is needed, they are generally required for wiretapping and sometimes for ongoing locational data.
Markey’s office did not respond for comment.
Many, including Baggio, charge that the government’s use of administrative subpoenas is often nothing less than a “fishing expedition.” And the courts don’t seem to mind.
In the Golden Valley case, the San Francisco federal appeals court said the outcome was a no-brainer, that Congress had spoken.
“We easily conclude that power consumption records at the three customer residences satisfy the relevance standard for the issuance of an administrative subpoena in a drug investigation,” the court ruled.
The decision seemingly trumps a Supreme Court ruling in 2001 that the authorities must obtain search warrants to employ thermal-imaging devices to detect indoor marijuana growing operations. Ironically, the justices ruled that the imaging devices, used outside a house, carry the potential to “shrink the realm of guaranteed privacy.”
Rewind to 1996, when the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the drug-trafficking conviction of a man arrested aboard an Amtrak train in December 1993. A DEA agent issued an administrative subpoena demanding Amtrak hand over passenger lists and reservations for trains stopping in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the agent was based.
The agent reviewed the reservation information looking for passengers who paid cash, booked sleeping cars, and purchased tickets on the day of departure, “all of which in his experience suggested possible drug trafficking,” the appeals court said, in upholding the challenged subpoena.
Hilman Moffett was found to be carrying 162 pounds of baled marijuana in his luggage.
In one high-profile case, the Securities and Exchange Commission used the administrative subpoena power to help unwind the Enron financial scandal in 2003.
And a decade ago, the Justice Department used administrative subpoenas to investigate a Cleveland, Ohio, podiatrist for an alleged kickback scheme with two medical testing labs. The subpoenas sought the doctor’s professional journals, copies of his and his children’s bank and financial records, files of patients who were referred to the labs in question, and his tax returns.
In another example, a judge sided with the Commodities Futures Trading Commission in 2007, ordering publisher McGraw-Hill to turn over documents concerning data used in one of its publications tocalculate the price of natural gas as part of the government’s probe into a price-manipulation scandal.
Records obtained by a federal agency don’t have to stay with that agency or be destroyed, either. Some of them may be transferred to other agencies if “there is reason to believe that the records are relevant to a legitimate law enforcement inquiry of the receiving agency,” according to a Justice Department Criminal Resource Manual.
The records can be transferred to state agencies, too.
But the states may not need the federal government’s assistance. They have an undetermined number of statutes authorizing the issuance of their own administrative subpoenas. For instance, most every state has that authority when it comes to investigating child-support cases. (.pdf)
Consider the Boston case in which Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley issued an administrative subpoena in December demanding “subscriber information” for several alleged members of Anonymous as part of an investigation into who sabotaged Boston police’s website and released officers’ e-mails.
A Suffolk County judge in February sided with Conley’s administrative subpoena that ordered Twitter to hand over IP addresses of accounts identified as “Guido Fawkes,” “@p0isAn0N,” and “@OccupyBoston.”
Christopher Slobogin, a Vanderbilt Law School scholar who has written extensively on administrative subpoenas, said the power of the administrative subpoena was born at the turn of the 20th century, when the U.S. began developing the regulatory state.
Administrative subpoenas initially passed court muster since they were used by agencies to get records from companies to prosecute unlawful business practices, he said. Corporations weren’t thought to have the same privacy rights as individuals, and administrative subpoenas weren’t supposed to be used to get at private papers.
When the Supreme Court upheld that the Federal Trade Commission’s administrative subpoena of internal tobacco company records in 1924, Justice Wendell Holmes limited the power to companies,writing that anyone “who respects the spirit as well as the letter of the Fourth Amendment would be loath to believe that Congress intended to authorize one of its subordinate agencies to sweep all our traditions into the fire and to direct fishing expeditions into private papers.”
But times have changed.
“In some ways, they were a good thing if you were liberal,” Slobogin said of the administrative subpoena. “But they have migrated from corrupt businesses to people suspected of crime. They are fishing expeditions when there is no probable cause for a warrant.”
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David Kravets is a senior staff writer for Wired.com and founder of the fake news site TheYellowDailyNews.com. He's a dad of two boys and has been a reporter since the manual typewriter days.
Read more by David Kravets
Follow @dmkravets and @ThreatLevel on Twitter.

Why Separate Men and Women in the Synagogue? - The Mechitzah Partition

Why Separate Men and Women in the Synagogue?

The Mechitzah Partition

By Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, The Lubavitcher Rebbe

By the Grace of G‑d
10th of Nissan, 5721
[March 27, 1961]
Brooklyn, NY

Greeting and Blessing:

This is in reply to your letter and questions:

(1) Regarding the Mechitzah[partition between the men and the women] in the synagogue.

You mention several explanations which have been suggested to you, according to which the necessity for a Mechitzah would be qualified and limited to certain conditions only.

Let me preface my answer with a general observation about a misconception in this matter. It is a mistake to think that the Mechitzah is degrading to the honor or dignity of the Jewish woman. The best proof of this is that although the love of parents for their children is not only a very natural one, but has even been hallowed by the Torah, as we pray to G‑d to show us the same fatherly feeling (“As a father has mercy on his children”), yet there is a Din [law] in the Shulchan Aruch [the Code of Jewish law, the volume of] Orach Chaim 98,1 that it is forbidden to kiss one’s little children in Shul [synagogue], and, moreover, even not during the time of prayer. Not to mention the Din of the Torah to esteem and honor every human being created in the “image” of G‑d. To think that there could be anything degrading in the Mechitzah is to betray complete ignorance not only of the significance of the Mechitzah but of the whole attitude and way of the Torah.

One of the inner and essential reasons for the Mechitzah—since you insist on an explanation—is that the synagogue, and the time of prayer in general (even when recited at home), are not merely the place and time when a formal petition is offered to Him Who is able to fulfill the petition; it is much more profound than that. It is the time and place when the person offering the prayer unites himself with Him to Whom the prayer is offered, by means of the prayer. And as our Sages declare: Know before Whom you stand: before the Supreme King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He. “Know” (da), as the term daas [knowledge] is explained in the Tanya, in the sense of unity, as in “And Adam knew Eve.” The union of two things can be complete only when there is not a third element involved, be it even a matter of holiness and the like.

From the above it follows that there certainly must be nothing to distract the attention and the attunement of the heart and mind towards the attainment of the highest degree of unity with G‑d.

From the above it also follows that the separation of the sexes by a Mechitzah has nothing to do with any particular condition or state in the women, as has been suggested to you.

It further follows also that the purpose of the Mechitzah is not just to set up a visible boundary, for which a Mechitzah of several inches might do, but it must be one that completely hides the view, otherwise a Mechitzah does not accomplish all its purposes.

I have indicated above, though quite briefly, some of the basic facts about a Mechitzah and the essential explanation behind it in order to answer your questions and satisfy your curiosity. I must say, however, quite emphatically, that the approach of testing and measuring Torah andmitzvoth by the yardstick of the limited and often fallacious human reason is totally wrong. The human intellect is a very unreliable gauge, and quite changeable from one extreme to the other. Even in the so-called exact sciences, the unreliability of human reason and deduction has been amply demonstrated, and what was one day considered as an “absolute” truth is the next day abrogated with equal certainty and absoluteness. Hence to presume to make conditions in regard to the eternal and G‑d-given Torah and mitzvoth is completely out of place.

Therefore, inasmuch as we have been instructed to have a Mechitzah in the house of prayer, it would violate even common sense to present a petition to the Almighty in a manner which displeases Him, and to add insult to injury, to declare that “the reason I do not accept this regulation is because my human intelligence suggests to act otherwise than is the will of the En Sof [the Infinite G‑d], yet, please fulfill my request anyway!”

Much more should be said on this subject, but it is difficult to do so in a letter.

I trust that in harmony with your search for knowledge which you display in your letter, you have regular daily periods of study of the Torah and the Torah view, and that it is the kind of study which leads to action and practice in the daily life, as our Sages emphasized that the essential thing is the deed.

The enclosed message will surely be of interest to you.

Wishing you and your fellow students a kosher, happy and inspiring Pesach[Passover],

With blessing,

American Academy of Pediatrics: Circumcise Me, Baby - The Daily Beast

American Academy of Pediatrics: Circumcise It!

Aug 27, 2012 4:45 AM EDT

To snip or not to snip? Rates have been sliding for decades. Enter the nation’s top pediatricians, who are now recommending the procedure for the first time. Lizzie Crocker reports.

The nation's most influential pediatricians have given male circumcision a second look, and they like what they see.

In a new policy report published Monday, the American Academy of Pediatrics endorsed the procedure and its medical benefits for the first time, urging third-party insurance providers to cover the cuts. The landmark guidelines come on the heels of a surprising study published last week by Johns Hopkins researchers, which linked declining rates in circumcision in recent years to rising health-care costs—and a measurable spike in sexually-transmitted infections.

Whether the new findings will reverse a decades-long slump is up for debate. The traditional Jewish practice was culturally ensconced in the U.S. as recently as the 1970s and 80s, when a finely sculpted mushroom top was practically de rigueur and roughly 79 percent of newborn boys had their biologically bestowed foreskins snipped and discarded like toenails. Through the 90s, it seemed, America was averse to foreskin. In one famous Seinfeld episode, Elaine turned her nose up at the thought of an uncircumcised pecker, complaining that it “lacked personality” and “looked like a Martian.”

But rates had begun a freefall in the late 80s, due in part to the growing population of immigrant Hispanics who are less likely to circumcise their children,according to a 2007 CDC study. By 1999, the frequency had dipped to 63 percent—the same year the AAP, in its previous policy report, voiced a neutral stance on the procedure’s health benefits. Eighteen states have since eliminated Medicaid coverage for circumcision, a change that both the AAP and John Hopkins researchers say has largely contributed to an even further dip in the rate of the procedure. Today, fewer than 55 percent of newborn boys go under the knife.

“There’s enough medical evidence to suggest we shouldn’t have been neutral before,” says Dr. Michael Brady, a member of the AAP’s circumcision task force, who allows that by not recognizing procedural health benefits in previous reports, the AAP gave Medicaid the opportunity to decline payment. “Now, we’re clearly stating that third-party payers and Medicaid should cover circumcision so that parents aren’t having the decision made for them.”

91270054 — Tate Michael Davidson / Getty Images

And boy, the newly recognized health benefits are many: for starters, lower risks of men acquiring HIV, genital herpes, HPV, syphilis, penile cancer, and UTIs, in addition to reduced cervical cancers among their female sexual partners. In this respect, the report affirms many national and international scientific studies, including one in 2005 by French and South African researchers who found that male circumcision cuts the risk of HIV infection by up to 60 percent.

“The medical benefits of circumcision are already abundantly clear,” concurs Dr. Aaron Tobian, a senior author on the Johns Hopkins study, which analyzed the cost implications of declining circumcision rates in the U.S. If circumcision rates were to be trimmed down to 10 percent—the average in Europe, where the procedure is not routinely covered and sometimes even outlawed—the country’s annual net increase in medical costs would amount to roughly $500 million dollars, according to the study.

“I remember how uncircumcised kids were treated in the locker room.”

Doctors’ advice aside, parents—especially those born during the golden age of circumcision—tend to point out that the decision to snip or not snip is ultimately a cultural one. “A lot of it has to do with whether you’re circumcised yourself,” says Austin Olney, 32, whose two boys had their genitalia scalpelled shortly after birth.

The cultural standard is evident among Latin Americans in the U.S., who generally keep their elongated foreskins. For the few who would choose to circumcise their sons, Tobian warns that decreasing Medicaid coverage may stymie their efforts and exaggerate the country’s racial and socioeconomic disparities. “Some populations likely to qualify for Medicaid have the lowest rates of male circumcision and the highest risks of STIs,” he says. “In the end I think we should remove all the barriers to the procedure, at which point parents can discuss the risks and benefits with their physician and make an informed decision.”

Sure, but what’s the likelihood that state legislatures, which set Medicaid guidelines, will reverse their coverage policies? “Getting them excited about adding a health benefit with new costs to Medicaid is not going to happen easily,” admits Brady.

Nor will virulent opposition from those who think the procedure is barbaric won’t make the process any easier.

“The research is conducted by circumcised men, it’s reviewed by circumcised men, and it completely ignores the functions of the foreskin,” Dr. Ronald Goldman, executive director of the Circumcision Resource Center in Boston, tells The Daily Beast. “On average, the adult foreskin is 12 inches of highly erogenous tissue,” says Goldman, author of Circumcision: The Hidden Traumaand Questioning Circumcision: A Jewish Perspective. A 2006 study published in the British Journal of Urology concluded that “circumcision ablates the most sensitive parts of the penis,” therefore making sex less pleasurable. “We’re talking about a double layer of skin with specialized nerves that is completely foreign to circumcised men,” says Goldman, himself a circumcised Jew. “They literally don’t know what they’re missing.”

Goldman is outspoken about the supposed harmful psychological effects of having one’s foreskin sliced off, which he compares to PTSD and even rape. “It’s a psychological issue that is being disguised as a medical issue,” he says, claiming that a growing number of Jewish people in the U.S. and abroad are not circumcising their sons. “Unfortunately there’s very little political will to come up with the money to study the harm of circumcision. Culturally, we don’t want to hear about it.”

The AAP’s new report refutes the theory that circumcision decreases sexual pleasure, citing one study in which a group of sexually active African men underwent the procedure as adults. The majority didn’t notice a difference during sex afterwards, but among those who did notice a difference, the majority said it made sex better. “Even if we weren’t going to routinely recommend circumcision, we could tell parents the risks and benefits and be confident that we weren’t subjecting their child to a lifelong change he would be uncomfortable with,” says Brady.

Despite the health benefits confirmed by the AAP, tradition and culture continue to have the final say on both sides of the debate. For Olney, ensuring that his kids fit in was ultimately the deciding factor. “I remember how uncircumcised kids were treated in the locker room,” he says. “At the end of the day, you’re not basing your decision on what the AAP says.”

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

Lizzie Crocker is a researcher and reporter at the Newsweek Daily Beast Company.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast ateditorial@thedailybeast.com.

August 18, 2012

Garry Kasparov: When Putin's Thugs Came for Me - WSJ.com

By Garry Kasparov

Moscow

The only surprise to come out of Friday's guilty verdict in the trial here of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot was how many people acted surprised. Three young women were sentenced to two years in prison for the prank of singing an anti-Putin "prayer" in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Their jailing was the next logical step for Vladimir Putin's steady crackdown on "acts against the social order," the Kremlin's expansive term for any public display of resistance.

In the 100 days since Mr. Putin's re-election as president, severe new laws against public protest have been passed and the homes of opposition leaders have been raided. These are not the actions of a regime prepared to grant leniency to anyone who offends Mr. Putin's latest ally, the Orthodox Church and its patriarch.

Enlarge Image

Reuters

Police detain author Garry Kasparov during the trial of the female punk band "Pussy Riot" outside a court building in Moscow, August 17, 2012.

Unfortunately, I was not there to hear the judge's decision, which she took several hours to read. The crowds outside the court building made entry nearly impossible, so I stood in a doorway and took questions from journalists. Suddenly, I was dragged away by a group of police—in fact carried away with one policeman on each arm and leg.

The men refused to tell me why I was being arrested and shoved me into a police van. When I got up to again ask why I had been detained, things turned violent. I was restrained, choked and struck several times by a group of officers before being driven to the police station with dozens of other protesters. After several hours I was released, but not before they told me I was being criminally investigated for assaulting a police officer who claimed I had bitten him.

It would be easy to laugh at such a bizarre charge when there are already so many videos and photos of the police assaulting me. But in a country where you can be imprisoned for two years for singing a song, laughter does not come easily. My bruises will heal long before the members of Pussy Riot are free to see their young children again. In the past, Mr. Putin's critics and enemies have been jailed on a wide variety of spurious criminal charges, from fraud to terrorism.

But now the masks are off. Unlikely as it may be, the three members of Pussy Riot have become our first true political prisoners.

Such a brazen step should raise alarms, but the leaders of the Free World are clearly capable of sleeping through any wake-up call. If this was all business as usual for the Putin justice system, the same was true for the international reaction. A spokesman for the Obama administration called the sentence "disproportionate," as if the length of the prison term were the only problem with open repression of political speech. The Russian Constitution is freely available online, but this was a medieval show trial with no connection to the criminal code.

Mr. Putin is not worried about what the Western press says, or about celebrities tweeting their support for Pussy Riot. These are not the constituencies that concern him. Friday, the Russian paper Vedomosti reported that former Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann could be put in charge of managing the hundreds of billions of dollars in the Russian sovereign wealth fund. As long as bankers and other Western elites eagerly line up to do Mr. Putin's bidding, the situation in Russia will only get worse.

If officials at the U.S. State Department are as "seriously concerned" about free speech in Russia as they say, I suggest they drop their opposition to the Magnitsky Act pending in the Senate. That legislation would bring financial and travel sanctions against the functionaries who enact the Kremlin's agenda of repression. Mouthing concern only reinforces the fact that no action will be taken.

Mr. Putin could not care less about winning public-relations battles in the Western press, or about fighting them at all. He and his cronies care only about money and power. Today's events make it clear that they will fight for those things until Russia's jails are full.

Mr. Kasparov, a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal, is the leader of the Russian pro-democracy group United Civil Front and chairman of the U.S.-based Human Rights Foundation. He resides in Moscow.

JOIN THE DISCUSSION102 Comments, add yours MORE IN

August 16, 2012

Zynga Continues To Dominate And Expand Social Gaming As COO Schappert Exits - Seeking Alpha

Zynga's (ZNGA) second half of 2012 will bring to fruition several recent seminal events. Take a look at how CEO Mark Pincus has positioned his company to expand Zynga's brand.

"Draw Something" Television Game Show Coming This Fall

Ryan Seacrest, CBS, and Zynga will launch "Draw Something" the TV game show. This is an incredible branding opportunity that will drive viewers to play online.

The popular Zynga gaming app is being turned into a television game show, and CBS was victorious in the bidding war for the pilot. The show is a product ofRyan Seacrest Productions, Sony Pictures Television and Embassy Row (the team behind Bravo's "Watch What Happens Live" and "The Glee Project"). On board to executive produce the pilot are Ryan, RSP CEO Adam Sher, and Michael Davies ("Who Wants To Be A Millionaire").

Hasbro (HAS) Is Creating Zynga Toys And Board Games

There's a good chance this Christmas some of you will purchase a first edition Zynga/Hasbro board game or toy for your children.

Through this agreement, Hasbro has obtained the license to develop and distribute wide ranging product lines based on Zynga's game brands in a number of toy and game categories. This deal also creates an array of opportunities for co-branded merchandise featuring a combination of both Hasbro and Zynga brands.

Tracey Lien, writing for "The Verge" comments on Zynga's licensing agreement:

The results of this deal are a slew of Zynga games coming to retail this fall. Some of the games that are crossing over from digital into the board game world include CityVille Monopoly ($24.99), Hungry Hungry Herd (a cross between FarmVille and Hungry Hungry Hippos,$22.99), Words With Friends ($19.99), and Draw Something (TBA). The games are expected to be available at retail in October and November.

Zynga's Mobile Gaming Strategy

Zynga just released "Gems With Friends" for mobile only on August 9th, and there is a strong pipeline of new games that will be strategically rolled out during Q3 and Q4. Pincus is ramping up Zynga to dominate the mobile gaming space. Zynga's mobile games for iPhone, iPad, Android and Android tablets can be viewed and downloaded here.

Zynga's Latest Facebook (FB) Game "The Ville" Is Climbing The Charts

"The Ville" has soared to an unbelievable 54.7 million MAU (monthly average users) and is ranked number one according toAppData. AppData ranks "FarmVille" second, and "CityVille" third, all Zynga games. The aggregate of these 3 Zynga games is over 130 million MAU. Once again Zynga demonstrates that it reaches the largest and broadest audience of any social gaming company. Look for more of the same as Zynga continues to expand its footprint.

Although "The Ville" is ranked number one, there is a fly in the ointment. Electronic Arts (EA) filed a lawsuit against Zynga alleging copyright infringement. Zynga's General Counsel issued this response:

It's unfortunate that EA thought that this was an appropriate response to our game, and clearly demonstrates a lack of understanding of basic copyright principles. It's also ironic that EA brings this suit shortly after launching SimCity Social which bears an uncanny resemblance to Zynga's CityVille game. Nonetheless, we plan to defend our rights to the fullest extent possible and intend to win with players.

Zynga is cooking up something special this week with the release of "ChefVille." Emily Price, a tech writer for Mashable, writes:

Ingredients are key in game play, and each item you learn to cook in the game is made from scratch using the same things you might use if you were making the dish in the real world. Just like you might ask to borrow a cup of sugar from your neighbor in real life, ChefVilleencourages you to ask your neighbors for help with ingredients you don't have.

McDonalds (MCD) and Zynga Partnership

Zynga and McDonalds joined forces for a one day campaign on "FarmVille" during the latter part of 2010. If Pincus seals a McDonalds' advertising deal on "FarmVille," or gets those scaled down collectible farm animals into a Happy Meal, this would he huge for Zynga's revenue and branding. I would not be surprised to hear that Pincus has partnered with Mickey D's before the end of the year.

Pincus Sets A New Tone For Zynga

CEO Mark Pincus has set the tone for Zynga's management and staff. If you are complacent, lack initiative, unproductive, or fail to successfully perform your responsibilities, you will be replaced. And so it goes, we bid farewell to COO John Schappert, whom experienced a rude awaking when he appeared to be sleeping at the switch.

Pincus's decision to strip Schappert of his responsibilities was not a scapegoat tactic as Zynga's enemies allege, but a necessary action to correct a perceived deficiency. There is no reason to sell Zynga's stock, but every reason to consider buying at these historically low prices. As I explained in a recent article "Zynga: No Games, Just The Facts" the financial facts and metrics are solid. The stock is oversold and a low risk investment.

Schappert's recruitment was based upon his experience at Electronic Arts. Unfortunately, "past performance should not be considered an indicator of future results." There is no guarantee that the passion, commitment and vision success requires will follow an executive to his next position. Sometimes the veteran guy is unable to catch the vision, and consequently, takes down the company -- a memory that would haunt Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs for the remainder of his life.

When Steve Jobs hired former PepsiCo's (PEP) VP John Sculley to run Apple (AAPL), he never imagined Sculley's ineptness would nearly destroy Apple and lead to one of the worst decisions ever made by an executive,firing the founder and gifted visionary, Steve Jobs. Just like Jobs, Pincus concluded he had the wrong man minding the operation. But unlike Jobs, Pincus acted decisively. Suffice it to say, the success of Zynga is paramount to any man's position.

Disclaimer: The information herein is the exclusive opinion of the author and should not be used as a basis for investment decisions. Investors should do their own research before investing.

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