From the Archives: Attorney General Cuccinelli calls Charlottesville ABC sting operation 'overkill'

Attorney General Cuccinelli calls Charlottesville ABC sting operation 'overkill'
July 3, 2013 4:17 PM MST

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli characterized as “overkill” an ABC sting operation in Charlottesville that resulted in a University of Virginia coed spending a night in jail and being charged with three felonies.

Cuccinelli, who is also the 2013 Republican nominee for governor, made his remarks during a July 3 interview with afternoon radio host Coy Barefoot on WCHV-FM.

The April 11th incident has received national attention since the charges against Elizabeth Daly were dropped by Charlottesville Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Chapman on June 27. Change.org is currently circulating a petition demanding that the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control apologize to Daly and her two companions and to discipline the officers involved.

Late in the evening of April 11, Daly and two friends purchased cookie dough, ice cream, and canned sparkling water at the Harris Teeter store in Barracks Road Shopping Center. A group of six ABC agents, mistaking the water for beer, approached them.

The women did not recognize the agents as law enforcement personnel, called 911 to report their fears, panicked, and drove away. Daly was subsequently charged with striking two of the agents with her car and evading arrest, charges that brought with them the threat of up to 15 years in prison.

Well-placed concern

“I think your concern for overkill is well-placed,” Cuccinelli told Barefoot. “Mind you, I have not spoken to the agency about this,” he explained, so his knowledge of the situation has been based upon press reports.

However, Cuccinelli added, “these folks have a job to do, but do you really need a half dozen of them? Let's say this was hard liquor” that Daly allegedly bought. “So what?”

Based on the descriptions he had seen, the Attorney General said, “it seems to me that frankly – even if she bought beer or something – she got more than enough punishment in jail.”

Cuccinelli said, putting himself in the shoes of the women that night, “if I see a bunch of men surrounding me, that's going to instill a lot of fear in me.”

'Extreme measures'

Noting that, as an undergraduate at UVA, he had helped start a sexual assault prevention group on campus, Cuccinelli explained that he is “glad it didn't turn out worse than it did. It would have turned out worse for the agents. If I'm defending myself and I'm in my car, and I'm a young woman worried about sexual assault, I'm going to use extreme measures to keep myself safe.”

Why, he asked, “do we have six ABC agents staking out one store? It doesn't seem particularly wise. You end up with confrontations like this that could turn out a lot worse.”

Asked by Barefoot if he would teach his daughters to behave with the same sort of caution that Daly and her companions displayed that night, Cuccinelli exclaimed: “Absoflippinlutely!”

“I would never suggest to my daughters that they just trust what they've been told,” by people who might or might not be law enforcement officers. Those women, he said, “did exactly the right thing” by calling 911 and attempting to drive to the nearest police station.

“The important thing for us on the law enforcement side is we need to learn from this,” Cuccinelli said. “We need to be more concerned about the perspective of the person on the street.”

He pointed out that “the average person buying alcohol, even if they're buying it illegally, does not have the idea of escalating [the act] violently to complete the crime.”

Cuccinelli expressed confidence that higher-level officials at the ABC had already “had some serious conversations with [the agents] about their tactics.”

Looking forward, the gubernatorial candidate concluded, “what the rest of us need to do is [to ensure] the likelihood of this ever happening again gets as close to zero as we can make it.”

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on July 3, 2013. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Rutherford Institute asks local lawmakers to speak out against drones

Rutherford Institute asks local lawmakers to speak out against drones
January 23, 2013 1:11 AM MST

A Charlottesville public-interest law firm has sent a letter to both the Charlottesville City Council and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors warning of the dangers to civil liberties posed by the use of drones and asking both bodies to pass resolutions demanding protections against drones' misuse.

In a letter dated January 21 and addressed to Charlottesville Mayor Satyendra Huja, Rutherford Institute president John Whitehead points out that recent legislation signed by President Barack Obama “has opened the door for unmanned aerial vehicles” (drones) to fly in the skies of the United States.

In the letter, Whitehead cites predictions that by 2020, there may be as many as 30,000 drones operating in U.S air space. He calls these drones “robotic threats to privacy and security.”

Threats to civil liberties

Whitehead expresses his hope that Charlottesville's City Council will “not only give serious consideration to the dangers posed to our freedoms by these aerial devices but ensure that the people of Charlottesville are protected against any resulting incursions on their rights” that are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

To that end, Whitehead sent a copy of a Rutherford Institute-drafted model resolution for consideration by the city council and the county supervisors.

The resolution is intended to “encourage the General Assembly of Virginia to provide for limitations on the use of evidence obtained from the domestic use of drones and to preclude the domestic use of drones equipped with anti-personnel devices” (that is, weapons).

It notes that “the federal government and the Commonwealth of Virginia have thus far failed to provide reasonable legal restrictions on the use of drones within the United States” and that police departments have started to use drone technology without “any guidance or guidelines from lawmakers.”

In plain language, the resolution calls on Congress and the Virginia General Assembly “to adopt legislation prohibiting information obtained from the domestic use of drones from being introduced into a Federal or State court, and precluding the domestic use of drones equipped with anti-personnel devices, meaning any projectile, chemical, electrical, directed-energy (visible or invisible), or other device designed to harm, incapacitate, or otherwise negatively impact a human being.”

'Get in an uproar'

In an interview on Coy Barefoot's afternoon drive-time radio program on WINA-AM Monday, Whitehead suggested that “if enough cities across the country were to get in an uproar about” the civil liberties threats of drones, “we might be able to limit them some.”

He pointed out that already-existing technology allows drones to “be able to see through the walls of your home.” They are powerful enough, he said, “they are able to watch you in your homes, connect up with all the [electronic] devices in your homes.”

The drones, he said, “are amazing devices,” which include “hummingbird drones that come up to your window and watch you in your home.” Other, non-flying drones look like dogs and can walk "up to your front door.”

Citing Martin Luther King, Jr., Whitehead warned that “it's time to stand up and fight back,” and said that, in the absence of federal limits on drone use, local and state governments must act.

Experts, he said, are “freaking.” If, he said, there is a device “that flies over your home that can see you in your kitchen or upstairs using the bathroom or having sex with your wife, we've entered a whole new era” of threats to privacy and personal liberty.

Drones, he said, are “beyond Orwell. It's scary stuff.”


Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on January 23, 2013. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

'Charlottesville: Our Streets' Premieres as Work-in-Progress at Va. Film Festival

Having its world premiere at the Virginia Film Festival exactly three months after the events of August 12 that it portrays, the Rashomon-like "Charlottesville: Our Streets" appears while psychic and physical wounds are still raw and the political repercussions -- especially for local government -- have not yet been fully played out.

The program notes provided by the Virginia Film Festival are deceptively understated:

A stark look at the devastating events that transpired in Charlottesville in August of this year, there will be much to discuss after this screening. A team of local filmmakers, photographers, and journalists has compiled footage and stills from over 30 cameras, with 20 interviews from first-person witnesses from the fateful Unite The Right rally of August 12th. The country watched as white supremacists’ demonstrations violently escalated, resulting in multiple injuries and the death of Heather Heyer. This feature documentary is an objective observation how the events unfolded, delivering a stark and sometimes brutal telling of individual truths from the perspectives of the people who were there.

Washington Post reporter Joe Heim listed the questions posed by "Charlottesville: Our Streets" in a front-page Metro section story in Sunday morning's editions.

...how that August weekend in Charlottesville will be most remembered is now in the hands of many different storytellers who will shape a shared history. Will it be seen primarily as the place where an ascendant white power movement came out of online nooks and crannies and showed its face to the world? Will it be remembered for those who took to the streets to stand up to the marchers and keep their rally from taking place? Or will it be recalled as a failure of leaders and police to keep the two sides apart and prevent a deadly outcome?

On Sunday afternoon in front of a packed house at the Paramount Theater, the producers of "Charlottesville: Our Streets," Jackson Landers (who also wrote the script) and Brian Wimer (who also directed), participated in a post-screening panel discussion moderated by radio host Coy Barefoot, along with journalist colleague Natalie Jacobsen -- who helped collect and sort the hundred of hours of video clips so they could be reviewed and chosen through a systematic process -- and two interview subjects from the film.

The movie drew both applause and jeers as it featured comments from both the neo-Nazis and Confederate nostalgists who invaded Charlottesville for the so-called "Unite the Right" rally over the weekend of August 11-12, and various counterprotesters from the clergy, antifa, and regular folks opposed to racism and anti-Semitism.

Landers and Wimer endeavored to be as objective as possible, letting the interviews and images tell the story and putting the burden of drawing conclusions on the audience, whose members are intelligent enough to interpret what they see.

Using a combination of talking-head interviews and "found footage" from among hundreds of hours of video taken by dozens of amateur and professional photographers on the scene that day, "Charlottesville: Our Streets" shows the chaos and the violence in a nearly unfiltered manner. Much of the video has not been previously seen by anyone other than those who took it, and one takeaway is that what did make its way to television news programs pulled its punches.

Writing in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Monday, Tony Farrell described the film as

an astounding feat of bootstrapping journalism: a near-definitive visual chronicle of a day that spun slowly but wildly out of control, told through the mostly dispassionate points of view of countless cameras that captured all sides of the action.

He added:

Landers and Wimer also conducted 32 interviews with people who took part in or witnessed the violence that day — pastors, peace activists, Charlottesville residents and even members of the white supremacist groups that descended on the city for the long-planned Unite the Right rally to protest the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in the center of town.

Landers and Wimer, longtime area residents unacquainted before Aug. 12 but both witnesses to the day’s brawling and mayhem, connected in the weeks after the violence and saw the value in documenting events they felt had been incorrectly reported or misrepresented through rumor-mongering and conspiracy theories.

In a report for public radio station WCVE, veteran Charlottesville journalist Hawes Spencer sampled the opinions of audience members at Sunday's screening. He found three widely different reactions:

Militia member Daniel Bollinger appears in “Our Streets” and attended its premiere. “It’s almost undescribable because it brings back so many memories from that day.”

Filmgoer Jim Hingeley says the picture succeeds. “It pulled it all together in a coherent way.”

However, transgender activist Emily Gorcenski finds the film unfair. “This drive towards objectivity is just enabling the side that wants to kill all Jewish people.”

Speaking of local journalists, a few of them are interviewed on screen.  Chris Suarez of the Daily Progress and Lisa Provence of C-VILLE Weekly both describe what they saw that Saturday morning.  (WCHV radio host Joe Thomas is seen arguing with a protester in a video clip.)

One thing I learned from the film was that the violence on August 12 was much worse than I had thought, based on the TV news reports I had seen; "Our Streets" shows clearly how the local and state police failed to intervene when the street fights began, standing at a distance and observing without taking action. As former Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris says in an interview in the film, anyone who asserts there was no "stand-down" order is being "deceitful."

I earlier referred to "Charlottesville: Our Streets" as Rashomon-like, and this is borne out by its multiple points of view. One of the things that struck me was how, in almost every shot, there were several other cameras making their own recordings of the same scene from different angles. What those photographers captured could well compose another movie from which entirely different conclusions could be drawn.

"Charlottesville: Our Streets" does not yet have a distributor, but the producers hope to take it to other film festivals and to college campuses around Virginia and beyond. A "pay-what-you-can" screening is tentatively planned for next month. The filmmakers' aim is to return Charlottesville's name to what it was before it became a hashtag.

Full disclosure: Jackson Landers and I, along with Shaun Kenney, are weekly guests on Coy Barefoot's radio program on 94.7 WPVC-FM in Charlottesville, where we discuss local, state, and national politics for an hour beginning at 5:00 o'clock each Monday afternoon. The events of August 12 have been a frequent topic of our conversation since even before they occurred.  On November 13, with Jeff Lenert substituting for Shaun Kenney, we spent more than an hour in a panel discussion about the panel discussion.  Listen to the podcast.

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Note: This post is adapted and expanded from a previous article on Bearing Drift by the same author.

From the Archives: Civil liberties lawyer John Whitehead recalls Beatles' social, political impact

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on February 13, 2014. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Civil liberties lawyer John Whitehead recalls Beatles' social, political impact

Sunday, February 9, will mark the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' first appearance on American television. That evening in 1964, the Fab Four – John, Paul, George, and Ringo – were guests on The Ed Sullivan Show. In the studio audience were hundreds of screaming teenagers but across the country, 73 million viewers tuned in, almost twice as many as had previously watched a single television broadcast.

Charlottesville civil liberties attorney John Whitehead reminisced on February 7 about that night and what followed that decade in an interview on WCHV-FM's “Inside Charlottesville.” On Friday afternoon's program, host Coy Barefoot asked him to recall the beginnings of Beatlemania and its subsequent impact on society.

Taken by surprise
Whitehead, founder of the Rutherford Institute, began by noting that, according to their photographer, when the Beatles landed in New York on February 7, 1964, “and they heard all this yelling and stuff, they thought the President had landed, or some dignitary. They didn't realize [until] they went down the ramp that all those 5,000 teenagers” who crowded the runway “were there for them. They were taken totally by surprise.”

They should not have been so surprised, however, because the Beatles' popularity had preceded them to America.

“They had the top five tunes in the Top 40” in February 1964, Whitehead explained. “No one's ever duplicated that, which is amazing. I think that seven out of the top 10 songs were Beatles songs when they landed in the country.”

So many people were indoors that Sunday to watch the band on Ed Sullivan, he said, the country experienced its lowest crime rate in something like ten years. George Harrison later quipped that “even the Kremlin was tuned in,” Whitehead recalled. “It was amazing.”

The Sixties begin
Reflecting on the Beatles' later impact on politics and society, he suggested that “the Sixties, in my opinion, started that night on The Ed Sullivan Show.”

That performance began “all that upheaval” that continued with the worldwide broadcast over the BBC of “All You Need Is Love” (with 400 million viewers) and culminated with “the summer of love” and Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967.

The Beatles, he said, “captivated the world with peace, harmony, and love, which was their great message.”

He added that John Lennon “took off on his own and started his worldwide campaign for peace, and anti-war.” In reaction to that, he said, “the FBI went after him, collected 400 pages” of intelligence on Lennon's activities “and tried to intimidate him and get him deported. Richard Nixon considered John Lennon his number one enemy at that time. It was really weird.”

Horrified parents
Asked by Barefoot where he was that night 50 years ago, Whitehead recalled that he “watched the show” and his “parents were horrified.”

Years later, he continued, shortly before his mother passed away, “I asked her, what was the worst thing that ever happened to America? She looked at me and said 'The Beatles.'”

His mother was not alone. He also remembered attending a conference in “1983 or 1984” when a prominent minister took the stage and said to the audience of 10,000, “I want to tell you what has really destroyed America: The Beatles.”

Whitehead looked around at the young people around him and they all had the same puzzled looks on their faces. The minister “never explained what he meant” but he was probably referring to “the youth rebellion” of the 1960s.

That rebellion, Whitehead went on, “was focused.” It “brought down a crooked president” and the protesters “stopped the Vietnam War.”

Youth in rebellion
He expressed his admiration for the youth rebellion of that era.

“I'd like to see all that again, folks. I've often said, if you've got a picket sign and you're out there active, I don't care what you believe. I may not like what you're saying, [but] I'll go to my death to defend it," Whitehead said. "I just like activism."

John Lennon, he pointed out, “epitomized” the spirit of youthful rebellion and was even vilified by some on the Left for his idealism.

When Lennon released the song “Revolution” (on The White Album) and said “if you want destruction, count me out,” Whitehead remembered, “The Village Voice actually criticized him for being too peaceful.” Lennon's response was along the lines of, “What do you want to do, kill people? Why would we destroy anyone if we want peace?”

It's that kind of idealism that Whitehead would “like to see all that again but I don't see a lot of it.”

Expressing some frustration, he added: “Here's the thing. A guy like Lennon, the other Beatles -- they took their fame and tried to advance an agenda, a very positive agenda, but I'm looking around for entertainers today like that. Justin Bieber? I don't know.”

John Whitehead, author of A Government of Wolves, has also published an essay, “50 Years After the Beatles: Isn’t It Time for Another Political & Cultural Revolution?,” on the Rutherford Institute's web site.

SUGGESTED LINKS

Charlottesville civil liberties lawyer assesses 2012-13 Supreme Court term
Rutherford Institute asks local lawmakers to speak out against drones
Charlottesville lawyers compile rules against ‘politically correct’ Xmas
Rutherford Institute endorses Charlottesville marijuana resolution
Attorney General Cuccinelli calls Charlottesville ABC sting operation 'overkill'

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/civil-liberties-lawyer-john-whitehead-recalls-beatles-social-political-impact

From the Archives: Senate candidate Robert Sarvis reacts to Ferguson events in radio interview

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on August 15, 2014. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Senate candidate Robert Sarvis reacts to Ferguson events in radio interview

On August 15, U.S. Senate candidate Robert Sarvis was a guest on “Inside Charlottesville,” hosted by Coy Barefoot on WCHV-FM. Their conversation focused on recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, and Sarvis' reaction to them.

“There's a lot of reasons to be unhappy” about the situation in Ferguson, said Sarvis, who is the Libertarian Party nominee running against incumbent Democrat Mark Warner and Republican nominee Ed Gillespie. “I think everyone was shocked looking at their TVs and seeing what's going on” there.

All of this, he continued, “is seriously problematic. The event that started it all was the tragic death of an unarmed young black man,” adding that “from beginning to end, it's been a serious problem and a question of what's happened to our civil liberties: freedom of the press, private property, freedom to assemble to protest. We should all be standing up and saying something's wrong here.”

'Militarization'
Sarvis identified “the heart of the matter” as “the militarization of the police, the loss of civil liberties, and the changing relationship between police and citizens.”

The real issue, he continued, “is the drug war,” which has led to the militarization of local police forces. He noted, however, that with legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington state, and polls showing support for more widespread legalization, “we're moving forward on it as a country.”

Barefoot asked whether there is a contradiction when conservatives argue that government is too big but then support laws that limit individual freedoms.

“When people ask the difference between a libertarian and a conservative,” Sarvis replied, “I jump at the chance to point out that I'm consistent on individual freedom. Republicans care a lot about law and order; I do too. Being a policeman is a hard job but that doesn't mean we should give up our civil liberties.”

The federal government, he pointed out, sells – and often gives outright – military equipment to local police forces, including armored vehicles and high-powered weapons.

Sarvis noted that although these events are happening in Missouri, “it still affects Virginia.” He brought up the example of last year's controversy when ABC agents arrested a University of Virginia student who was buying sparkling water, which the plainclothes agents mistook for beer before surrounding her vehicle and drawing their weapons on her.

“How could that have turned out differently,” Sarvis asked, “if it was a young black man rather than a young white woman?”

Too many laws
One of the issues that concerns Sarvis, he said, “is this mentality that we have to extirpate everything we don't like in society. We have too many criminal laws.”

He pointed to a study, highlighted in Harvey Silverglate's book Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent, which "shows individuals commit three felonies a day – not because they're criminals but because we have too many laws.”

American citizens, he said, “need autonomy in their own lives. We can't be micromanaged” by the government.

Despite all that's happening – not just in Ferguson but also with regard to NSA spying, the continuing drug war, and attempts by the government to insinuate itself into the private lives of citizens – Sarvis maintained that he is “optimistic.”

He explained that, “if you look at technological changes that are undermining government's ability to control our lives, it's a good thing for freedom.”

In addition, he said, “the growing interest in third party and independent candidates is a good thing. I think we all ought to take advantage of opportunities like this year's Senate election to register a huge protest vote,” which could result in expanding the number of parties recognized as political parties in Virginia. (If Sarvis manages to earn 10 percent of the vote or more, the Libertarian Party will qualify under Virginia law as the equal of the Republican and Democratic parties with regard to ballot access and other rules.)

“This discussion is healthy,” Sarvis said. In this election, “critical issues like immigration and legalization of marijuana [are] really important. People call it the 'libertarian moment.'”

Our future, he concluded, “can go in different directions. Elections are about choosing our future.”

SUGGESTED LINKS

'Proselytizing for freedom,' Robert Sarvis bids for U.S. Senate in Virginia
'Republicans have learned a lesson' says GOP Senate candidate Ed Gillespie
Robert Sarvis visits Charlottesville, talks about shutdown, health care, polls
Virginia Senator Mark Warner assesses situation in Iraq and the Middle East
LP gubernatorial hopeful Robert Sarvis aims for marriage equality in Virginia

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/senate-candidate-robert-sarvis-reacts-to-ferguson-events-radio-interview

From the Archives: Chinese hackers attack University of Virginia email, cause IT shutdown

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on August 14, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Chinese hackers attack University of Virginia email, cause IT shutdown

Late breaking news from the University of Virginia arrived just as the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner joined radio host Coy Barefoot on WCHV-FM to discuss current affairs on Friday afternoon, August 14.

A message to the University community from executive vice president and chief operating officer Patrick D. Hogan said: "The University of Virginia has confirmed that sophisticated attackers originating from China illegally accessed portions of the University's information technology systems. Federal authorities had alerted the University of a possible cyber attack, and this was confirmed by the University on June 11. Upon becoming aware of the attack, the University engaged Mandiant, an internationally recognized cybersecurity firm, to immediately help the University identify the nature of the attack and take corrective action. This action included enhanced security measures to further fortify University data and systems."

Two targets
While no personal data like Social Security numbers or credit card accounts was accessed by the hackers, it appears the breach was intended to find emails from specific individuals within the University whose work focuses on China.

According to a report by Daily Progress correspondent Dean Seal, published nearly simultaneously with Hogan's University-wide announcement, "The attack specifically targeted the email accounts of two employees whose work is connected with China, university officials told The Daily Progress. However, the identities and departments of those employees have not been released. They remain employed at the university, officials said Friday."

Who did it?
Although it was not clear that the cyberattack had originated from the Chinese government, speculation aired on Coy Barefoot's "Inside Charlottesville" radio program suggested that the employees may be faculty members or researchers who work on democracy issues or human rights in China, or perhaps are involved in some business activities.

Chinese hackers have previously invaded U.S. businesses' computer systems in order to uncover trade secrets. They also recently harvested information from a decades-old database of U.S. government employees maintained by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

The cyberattack did not target the UVA hospital or health system. Those divisions' email, web sites, and databases remain operational.

University officials estimate that it will take approximately 48 hours to install the security fixes needed to protect the emails of faculty, staff, and students. They recommend that, once the system is running again, individuals should change their email and other passwords for additional protection.

SUGGESTED LINKS

UVA political scientist analyzes 2012 election, looks toward 2016 GOP nominee
Talking about 'liberaltarianism' at the University of Virginia
At UVA debate, Creigh Deeds calls libertarians ‘Republicans with guts’
UVA historian explains Ayn Rand's unusual popularity in 2010
WINA radio host Coy Barefoot assesses the Perriello-Clark congressional debate

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/chinese-hackers-attack-university-of-virginia-email-cause-it-shutdown

Radio News: Vote for Rick Sincere

This past July, I had the pleasurable opportunity to sit in for radio host Coy Barefoot on WCHV-FM 107.5 in Charlottesville, while he was on vacation.

More recently, Coy left the show to pursue other fascinating opportunities, making the host's chair vacant. WCHV program director Joe Thomas announced he was looking for a permanent host for the afternoon drive time show (it runs from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. each Monday through Friday).  I put my name in the hopper.

Over on SoundCloud, Monticello Media is hosting an "American Idol"-like contest among the three contenders for the WCHV gig.  The "votes" consist not only of direct emails to the program director, but numbers of plays, downloads, and "likes" on each of the three audition hours.

I encourage you to visit WCHV Afternoon Auditions: Rick Sincere and say something supportive.

While you're on SoundCloud, visit my own page to listen to some of those interviews from July, including:

Science journalist Maryn McKenna
United States Sports Academy president T.J. Rosandich
Lawyer and ethics blogger Jack Marshall
Philosophy professor (and "Gay Moralist") John Corvino
New World University president Steve Foerster

In addition to those radio interviews, I have also posted audio of my recent interview with political scientist Larry Sabato about a new documentary from the UVa Center for Politics about the 1968 presidential election, called "Ball of Confusion" (after The Temptations' song of the same name).

Remember to go to the auditions page to vote yes for Rick Sincere to host the still nameless afternoon talk show on WCHV-AM and FM.

On the Radio This Week: Guest Hosting 'Inside Charlottesville'

At the invitation of regular host Coy Barefoot, I will be substituting for him two days this week (Thursday and Friday) and two days next week (also Thursday and Friday).

Coy's show is called "Inside Charlottesville" and it is heard Monday through Friday from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. on 107.5 WCHV-FM.  There is also a live stream on line (scroll down for more information).

I have already lined up a good group of guests who, I expect, will provoke an interesting conversation.  We'll be talking about sex offenders, Austrian economics, capital punishment, local politics, libertarianism, poet and Civil War nurse Walt Whitman, ethics, theatre, and the state of the law and litigation -- and that's just in the first four hours this week!

Tomorrow's guests (Thursday, July 23) will be:

Andrew Extein, executive director, Center for Sexual Justice (4:00 p.m. -- all times EDT)
Jimmy Morrison, documentary film maker, “The Bubble” (4:30 p.m.)
Marc Hyden, national advocacy coordinator, Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty (5:00 p.m.)
and
Anson Parker, candidate for Charlottesville City Council (5:30 p.m.)

Friday's guests (July 24) will be:

David Boaz, executive vice president at the Cato Institute and author, The Libertarian Mind: A Manifesto for Freedom (4:00 p.m. EDT)
Garrett Peck, historian and author, Walt Whitman in Washington, D.C. (4:30 p.m.)
Jack Marshall, lawyer/ethicist, and co-founder and artistic director, The American Century Theater (5:00 p.m.)
and
Walter Olson, editor and publisher of Overlawyered.com and author of Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America (5:30 p.m.)

The schedule for next week is not completely filled out, but my guests on Thursday, July 30, and Friday, July 31, will include Wayne State University philosophy professor John Corvino; Steve Foerster, president of New World University; Will Hammer, Libertarian candidate for the Virginia General Assembly; and Thomas P. Rosandich, president of the United States Sports Academy.

I'll have more details about next week's shows as we draw closer to those dates and I've had a chance to flesh out the schedule.

In the meantime, tune in to WCHV-FM 107.5 in Charlottesville or listen to the livestream at www.insidecville.com.  That's where you'll be able to hear the podcasts if you miss the live broadcast.  If you want to call in to join the conversation, the number is 434-964-1075.  (I'll be repeating that a lot when we go on the air.)

Gubernatorial Candidates Weigh in on Alcoholic Beverage Laws and Regulations

Two of the three candidates for Virginia governor in 2013 have addressed questions concerning the state's alcoholic beverage laws, with special scrutiny on the Alcoholic Beverage Control board (ABC) and the scope of its authority.

Ken Cuccinelli in Charlottesville on May 20, 2013

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli characterized as “overkill” an ABC sting operation in Charlottesville that resulted in a University of Virginia coed spending a night in jail and being charged with three felonies.

Cuccinelli, who is also the 2013 Republican nominee for governor, made his remarks during a July 3 interview with radio host Coy Barefoot on WCHV-FM in Charlottesville.

The April 11 incident has received national attention since the charges against Elizabeth Daly were dropped by Charlottesville Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Chapman on June 27. Change.org circulated a petition demanding that the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control apologize to Daly and her two companions and to discipline the officers involved.

Late in the evening of April 11, Daly and two friends purchased cookie dough, ice cream, and canned sparkling water at the Harris Teeter store in Barracks Road Shopping Center. A group of six ABC agents, mistaking the water for beer, approached them.

The women did not recognize the agents as law enforcement personnel, called 911 to report their fears, panicked, and drove away. Daly was subsequently charged with striking two of the agents with her car and evading arrest, charges that brought with them the threat of up to 15 years in prison.


Well-placed concern
“I think your concern for overkill is well-placed,” Cuccinelli told Barefoot. “Mind you, I have not spoken to the agency about this,” he explained, so his knowledge of the situation has been based upon press reports.

However, Cuccinelli added, “these folks have a job to do, but do you really need a half dozen of them. Let's say this was hard liquor” that Daly allegedly bought. “So what?”

Based on the descriptions he had seen, the Attorney General said, “it seems to me that frankly – even if she bought beer or something – she got more than enough punishment in jail.”

Cuccinelli said, putting himself in the shoes of the women that night, “if I see a bunch of men surrounding me, that's going to instill a lot of fear in me.”


'Extreme measures'
Noting that, as an undergraduate at UVA, he had helped start a sexual assault prevention group on campus, Cuccinelli explained that he is “glad it didn't turn out worse than it did. It would have turned out worse for the agents. If I'm defending myself and I'm in my car, and I'm a young woman worried about sexual assault, I'm going to use extreme measures to keep myself safe.”

Why, he asked, “do we have six ABC agents staking out one store? It doesn't seem particularly wise.   You end up with confrontations like this that could turn out a lot worse.”

Asked by Barefoot if he would teach his daughters to behave with the same sort of caution that Daly and her companions displayed that night, Cuccinelli exclaimed: “Absoflippinlutely!”

“I would never suggest to my daughters that they just trust what they've been told,” by people who might or might not be law enforcement officers. Those women, he said, “did exactly the right thing” by calling 911 and attempting to drive to the nearest police station.

“The important thing for us on the law enforcement side is we need to learn from this,” Cuccinelli said. “We need to be more concerned about the perspective of the person on the street.”

He pointed out that “the average person buying alcohol, even if they're buying it illegally, do not have the idea of escalating [the act] violently to complete the crime.”

Cuccinelli expressed confidence that higher-level officials at the ABC has “had some serious conversations with [the agents] about their tactics.”

Looking forward, the gubernatorial candidate concluded, “what the rest of us need to do is [to ensure] the likelihood of this ever happening again gets as close to zero as we can make it.”

In an interview with me at a campaign stop in Richmond, Libertarian Party gubernatorial nominee Robert Sarvis expressed his own views on Virginia's liquor laws.

Robert Sarvis in Charlottesville on August 5, 2013

When current Governor Bob McDonnell took office in 2010, the first major proposal that made was to privatize the wholesale and retail sales operations that put Virginia in the liquor business. “Privatizing the ABC” was a rallying cry for the McDonnell administration through the summer and fall of 2010, but when the General Assembly considered his proposals during its 2011 session, it rejected them.

'No-brainer'
“ABC privatization is just a no-brainer for a lot of reasons,” Sarvis said. “That's something that I'm going to press for.”

Sarvis's “approach to liquor laws should be part of a greater push for reform of drug laws,” he added. “We should rationalize our laws in both areas so that we're not having government try [to] do everything and micromanage our lives.”

How could Sarvis succeed where McDonnell failed?

“I'm uniquely positioned to work with people in both parties on issues that would just be non-starters if you have a major-party governor,” he said. “The opposing party in the legislature is going to be obstructionist but” Sarvis believes he can work with the General Assembly “on that and many other issues.”

Success, he said, depends on “not just ramming through what I want” but “it's giving voice to the people” that matters.

'Freedom creates responsibility'
“We should enable people,” he explained, “to engage in activities they want to and be responsible. Freedom creates responsibility just as responsible citizens appreciate freedom. You can't have one without the other.”

The government monopoly on liquor sales in Virginia, Sarvis said, is “partly a nanny-state thing and partly a government-control issue. The government is afraid of relinquishing control over that – it's a moneymaker – [but] we should not be having the government run industries for the purpose of raising money” to add to state coffers.

On a related matter, Sarvis said he is “certainly open to” returning Virginia's minimum legal drinking age to 18.

“Our prohibitionist mentality and treating people like children oftentimes creates the problems that we think are being addressed by the laws that we've created,” and that includes drinking-age laws, he said.

In considering changing the drinking-age laws, Sarvis said, “I'm really pushing for respecting people's freedom and responsibility.”

Sarvis also addressed ABC issues at a press conference in Charlottesville on August 5.

The candidate spoke outside the ABC store located in the Barracks Road Shopping Center, the place where Elizabeth Daly and her companions were ambushed by ABC agents on the night of April 11.

(This article is adapted from two previously published pieces on Examiner.com.)