NEW YORK, August 27, 2008-The historic ServiceNation Summit will begin
the evening of Thursday, September 11, 2008 with a Presidential Forum
featuring Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. On September 12, New
York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will open the day-long summit with
welcoming remarks and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be
the keynote speaker and conclude the day.

The co-hosts of the summit are Caroline Kennedy, attorney, editor and
writer; Alma Powell, Chair, America’s Promise Alliance; Vartan
Gregorian, President, Carnegie Corporation; Bill Novelli, CEO, AARP, and
Richard Stengel, Managing Editor, TIME. Confirmed participants and
speakers include:

* Senator Hillary Clinton, New York
* Senator Chris Dodd, Connecticut
* Usher Raymond IV, Summit Youth Chair; Founder, New Look
Foundation
* Governor Charlie Crist, Florida
* Governor David Paterson, New York
* Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, The King Hussein Foundation
* Dr. Mehmet Oz, Founder and Chairman, HealthCorps
* Jeffrey Sachs, Director, Earth Institute at Columbia University
* Laurie Tisch, Philanthropist, Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund
* Robert Kennedy, Jr., President, Waterkeeper Alliance
* Kenneth Cole, Fashion Designer
* Martin Luther King III, CEO, Realizing The Dream
* Kelly Caffarelli, President, Home Depot Foundation
* Geoffrey Canada, President and CEO, Harlem Children’s Zone
* Laysha Ward, President, Target Foundation
* Dr. Amy Gutmann, President, University of Pennsylvania
* David Gergen, Professor, Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of
Government
* Scott Cowen, President, Tulane University
* Jean Case, CEO, The Case Foundation
* Ray Chambers, Amelior Foundation
* Chancellor Joel Klein, New York City Schools
* Wendy Kopp, Founder and CEO, Teach For America

The ultimate vision of ServiceNation is an America in which, by 2020,
100 million citizens will volunteer time in schools, workplaces, and
faith-based and community institutions each and every year (up from 61
million today), and that increasing numbers of Americans annually will
commit a year of their lives to national service.

ServiceNation’s bipartisan Summit Leadership Council includes mayors,
governors, former senators and leaders from every sector of American
society (attached is complete list). Major supporters-in addition to
AARP, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Target and TIME-include the
Peter G. Peterson Foundation, The Home Depot Foundation, Bank Of
America, Case Foundation, Charina Endowment Fund, The Jenesis Group, the
Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund and Goldman Sachs.

At the bottom of the email are instructions on getting press credentials just like all other releases I’ve received. The difference in this latest one is the inclusion of “PLEASE NOTE: NYPD/U.S. STATE DEPT. CREDENTIALS REQUIRED!” I do not have a NYC press ID and according to the NYPD website it takes 3 to 4 weeks to acquire one… and that’s assuming they’d actually issue one to me. I’ve sent an email to the Service Nation media person concerning this as well as my fellow Manhattan Libertarian Party members. Worse case, I make up my own press ID and show up. Worst that could happen is I get arrested.

http://wcbstv.com/…

It’s called “Operation Sentinel” and it proves just how far the NYPD will go to protect this city from terrorists. The plan involves some high-tech tracking that is coming under fire from some groups.

New York City is going to great lengths to make sure that bomb-toting terrorists can’t reach us.

“New York City is something special,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday. “It’s not just a very big city in this world. It is, in many senses, the iconic city. It represents Western Democracy.

As part of the plan the NYPD is creating a huge buffer zone, working with cops in a 50-mile radius of the city. Officials in New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Long Island are given radiation detectors to stop terrorists as far away from New York City as possible.

Police also plan to track every vehicle that enters Manhattan.

“We’re going to be adding cameras as we go forward,” NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

That part of that plan calls for photographing and scanning license plates of cars and trucks at all bridges and tunnels. Even small ones like the Willis Avenue Bridge will also be used to detect radiation.

“I don’t think it’s hyperbole to call this Big Brotherish,” said Christopher Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “The New York City Police Department is creating a huge computer database of the movement of everyone in a vehicle in Manhattan.”

Civil libertarians take issue with one aspect of that plan – data on each vehicle entering Manhattan would be stored for at least one month. Bloomberg, however, defended the idea.

“It is always a balance between freedoms to come and go between civil liberties and security, and I think we pretty much have the balance pretty much right,” Bloomberg said.

The reaction of New Yorkers CBS 2 HD spoke to were mixed.

“I guess I would feel safer in light of everything that happened,” said Tavis Rivere of Ridgewood, N.J. “The city has been under a lot of, you know, pressures and stuff.”

“It’s a violation — I mean it’s ridiculous,” said Sharday Hill of Teaneck, N.J. “I don’t know want everybody or someone knowing where I’m at 24 hours a day.”

The city also intends on putting Lower Manhattan in a so-called “ring of steel,” with 3,000 public and private security cameras below Canal Street. There will be 600 cops assigned to protect ground zero.

Thank you Sharday Hill of Teaneck.

Cameras are too inefficent. I think the government should mandate GPS trackers be installed in every car and have them all tracked in real time. They should also perform random vehicle checks at all entryways to the city and those roaming gangs of paramilitary should be stopping people on the street who look suspisious to ask for identification. Then I guess I’d feel safer in light of everything that happened. The city has been under a lot of, you know, pressures and stuff.

http://www.ballot-access.org/…

http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_cens.html

The Constitution includes the phrase “[An] Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.” Congress first met in 1789, and the first national census was held in 1790.

There was actually some debate about whether how and on what time table a census should have been held. In early 1790, several Congressmen argued against a census prior to the next election. Some in the Congress, who advocated an immediate census, noted that those who did not want one were the people from states which were generally regarded as being over-represented in the Congress based on the initial figures provided for in the Constitution. Others were concerned that the questions to be asked in the census, while others felt that more questions should be asked to get a better picture of the citizenry.

For example, on February 2, 1790, Samuel Livermore of New Hampshire lamented that the question about profession would be hard for his constituents to answer, since some had three or four professions, depending on the season. Connecticut Representative Theodore Sedgwick, on the same day, wondered why the questions were not extended further - “The state of society could be ascertained, perhaps, in some degree, by observing [the] proportions.”

The final bill, Statute 2 of March 1, 1790, provided that census marshals be appointed, directed to “cause the number of the inhabitants within their respective districts to be taken; omitting in such enumeration Indians not taxed, and distinguishing free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, from all others; distinguishing also the sexes and colours of free persons, and the free males of sixteen years and upwards from those under that age.” The act directed that the names of the heads of families be recorded, the number of white males sixteen and older, the number of white males under sixteen, the number of white females, the number of all other free persons, and the number of slaves. Failure of an assistant marshal to make a return, or to make a false return, was punishable by a $200 fine. Failure of a marshal to do the same was punishable by up to an $800 fine. The questions about profession, and other information Representative Sedgwick spoke of, were not made part of the final census. Census day was set at the first Monday in August, 1790. Failure to cooperate with a marshal or assistant was punishable by a $20 fine.

Today, the controlling law for the U.S. Census is Title 13 of the U.S. Code. There is a lot of census data collected in the United States today, such as economic figures, sales and production figures, and agricultural statistics. Still, the head count is the only part of the census that is called for by the Constitution. The code for the enumeration can be found in 13 USC 141. In this code, the census is directed to be taken in 1980 and every ten years thereafter, and that the count is to be taken on April 1. The returns must be completed within nine months for use in apportionment of representatives. The code also specifies a mid-decade census be taken in 1985 and every ten years thereafter. This count need not be a head count (sampling may be used) though the data cannot be used for apportionment.

The code, at §141(g), notes that “As used in this section, ‘census of population’ means a census of population, housing, and matters relating to population and housing.”

There are fines for non-response and for false response as well, though the amount has risen from the 1790’s $20. Today failure to respond can result in a $100 fine; providing false answers is a more severe offense, and carries a $500 fine. Recent news reports, however, indicate that punishment for failure to respond is not usually enforced. The controlling section of the Code is 13 USC 221.

Today, all persons are counted as whole persons - the original census counted “other persons” (slaves) as three-fifths persons for the purposes of apportionment. This fractionalization was removed by the 14th Amendment. The Attorney General ruled, in 1940, that there were no longer any Indians in the United States who could be classified as “not taxed.” In the Constitution, non-taxed Indians are not counted.

In 2000, a group of citizens are suing the Census over the questions on the long form - a form sent to one out of every six households. Though the 2000 log form is 18 questions shorter than the long form in 1990, and the shortest since the 1940 census, distrust of the Census Bureau’s ability to keep the data private have many people up in arms about the questions. The suit challenges the ability of the census to ask all of the questions asked. The biggest problem for the suit is the Constitution itself: “[The Census] shall be made … in such Manner as [Congress] shall by Law direct.”

The questions on the long form are there because of legislation duly enacted into law by the Congress and signed by the President. Though the ire of citizens is being directed at the Bureau, the Bureau itself says that the Congress is to blame. The Census Bureau is looking to find ways to collect the data on the long form in other manners, such as polling and sampling. Though there is a possible $100 fine for failing to file with the Census, the Bureau also notes that no one has been penalized for failing to file in the past. The fine is more of a psychological reminder of the importance of the census than a source of income for the government.

Advice to leave the form blank or to fail to fill it in may actually bring more of the government into your life than you want - unfiled and incomplete forms will be followed-up upon by actual census workers, either in person or by telephone.

The U.S. Census Bureau has a web site at Census.gov and also has lots of data about the 2000 Census.

The 2000 census data, along with data from other sources, has been compiled into a user-friendly web-based database by LocalCensus.com.

$20 huh? That’s pretty extreme for 1790. It’s nice to know that they don’t generally enforce the fine but why bother then really? If you don’t hear back from someone why not just pick another house? They are wasting their time (aka our money) by trying to hunt me down. I’m not going to respond.

http://wcbstv.com/…

CLINTON, Conn. (AP) - A 14-year-old student at Morgan School in Clinton is facing a weapons charge, accused of tinkering with a disposable camera to make it capable of zapping people with an electrical charge.

Police say the camera, modified according to instructions available on the Internet, had been converted into an improvised electronic demobilizing device similar to a Taser.

Police say the student never managed to use the device because a teacher intervened.

School Resource Officer Kyle Strunjo says the makeshift device is potentially capable of a 600-volt shock.

The 14-year-old student has been charged with possession of a dangerous weapon on school grounds, attempted assault and breach of peace.

I did that like 10-12 years ago. I had my entire class in a circle holding hands and would have the people at the end grab the wires I had ran from the capacitor. If people moved it minimized the surface area and hurt more so as they squirmed they’d yell louder. The teachers thought it was funny people would keep zapping themselves over and over. We even used it for one class to spot weld some coins together for some project. People need to lighten up.