Preserving the Intent behind

Considering that, in many areas esp. outside cultural heritage, preserving the intent behind activities or projects, is at least as important as preserving the associated digital data, we argue that project policies are the natural means to describe an intent in a sustainable implementation-independent way, after the project actors have reached an agreement

Never Hanging Defendants Out to Dry: Preserving the Policy Behind the Statute of Limitations in Money Laundering Conspiracies

How should conspiracies to commit money laundering that rely on stale evidence be handled by the federal government? Marusarz argues that an amendment to the Money Laundering Control Act is needed to preserve a defendant’s interest in having a conspiracy prosecution based on evidence proving the existence of a money laundering conspiracy long after the actual conspiracy to launder money has ended. The Money Laundering Control Act is widely applicable and implies that prosecutors have an unlimited amount of time to bring an indictment for conspiracy to launder money due to the complexity of money laundering crimes. Marusarz proposes amendments to the Money Laundering Control Act that provide temporal limits on conspiracy charges brought under the Act. The proposed amendment provides that prosecutions under 18 U.S.C. § 1956 must be brought within five years of the last overt act committed in furtherance of any money laundering offenses

Urbanization of irrigated land and water transfers

Presented at Urbanization of irrigated land and water transfers: a USCID water management conference on May 28-31, 2008 in Scottsdale, Arizona.An ever increasing challenge for rural irrigation districts in the agriculturally rich San Joaquin Valley of California is adjusting to urbanization while maintaining an effective and efficient irrigation water delivery system. The Oakdale Irrigation District (OID) is currently facing this challenge and has developed a Subdivision/Parcel Map Development Policy that attempts to bring balance to that concern. This paper will present OID's Subdivision Policy and discuss the reasoning behind the conditions and requirements within the policy. It is the intent of this paper to provide other irrigation districts, facing similar urbanization pressures, a foundation for development of similar policies in the hopes of preserving and protecting the water delivery systems so vital to our agricultural communities

Intention, Torture, and the Concept of State Crime

Notwithstanding the universal prohibition against torture, and almost universal agreement that in order to qualify as torture, the act in question must be committed intentionally with an illicit purpose, the intentional element of torture remains ambiguous. I make the following claims about how we should interpret the intent requirement as applied to states. First, state intent should be understood objectively with reference to the apparent reasons for state action. The subjective motivation of particular state actors is not directly relevant. While we focus on subjective intent in the context of individual crime because of its relation to culpability and blameworthiness, in the context of state crime we should be concerned with preserving the legitimacy of political authority, and the conditions for legitimacy turn on the apparent reasons rather than subjective motivations behind state action. Second, the primacy of questions of legitimacy also makes irrelevant the distinction between specific and general intent. Instead, state-directed torture that is committed secretly and in a manner that removes it from public scrutiny should be regarded as quasi-criminal. Finally, the official interpretation of the Convention against Torture (CAT) adopted by the United States is flawed because it imposes a specific intent requirement that is not objective, and accords ambiguous weight to publicity. In doing so we make a double error: We treat state crimes as essentially the same as individual crime, and we fail to distinguish between the quasi-criminal and humanitarian functions of the CAT To identify a state act as torture, courts should ask whether alleged acts (which otherwise meet the actus reus of torture) appear to have been motivated by radical indifference to the suffering of the torture victim and the aim of stripping her and/or other members of the political community of their humanity. Only to the extent they seek to further establish the acts as quasi-criminal should courts ask whether the alleged acts were committed secretly or in a manner calculated to avoid accountability

Intention, Torture, and the Concept of State Crime

Notwithstanding the universal prohibition against torture, and almost universal agreement that in order to qualify as torture, the act in question must be committed intentionally with an illicit purpose, the intentional element of torture remains ambiguous. I make the following claims about how we should interpret the intent requirement as applied to states. First, state intent should be understood objectively with reference to the apparent reasons for state action. The subjective motivation of particular state actors is not directly relevant. While we focus on subjective intent in the context of individual crime because of its relation to culpability and blameworthiness, in the context of state crime we should be concerned with preserving the legitimacy of political authority, and the conditions for legitimacy turn on the apparent reasons rather than subjective motivations behind state action. Second, the primacy of questions of legitimacy also makes irrelevant the distinction between specific and general intent. Instead, state-directed torture that is committed secretly and in a manner that removes it from public scrutiny should be regarded as quasi-criminal. Finally, the official interpretation of the Convention against Torture (CAT) adopted by the United States is flawed because it imposes a specific intent requirement that is not objective, and accords ambiguous weight to publicity. In doing so we make a double error: We treat state crimes as essentially the same as individual crime, and we fail to distinguish between the quasi-criminal and humanitarian functions of the CAT. To identify a state act as torture, courts should ask whether alleged acts (which otherwise meet the actus reas of torture) appear to have been motivated by radical indifference to the suffering of the torture victim and the aim of stripping her and/or other members of the political community of their humanity. Only to the extent they seek to further establish the acts as “quasi-criminal,” courts should ask whether the alleged acts were committed secretly or in a manner calculated to avoid accountability

Intention, Torture, and the Concept of State Crime

Notwithstanding the universal prohibition against torture, and almost universal agreement that in order to qualify as torture, the act in question must be committed intentionally with an illicit purpose, the intentional element of torture remains ambiguous. I make the following claims about how we should interpret the intent requirement as applied to states. First, state intent should be understood objectively with reference to the apparent reasons for state action. The subjective motivation of particular state actors is not directly relevant. While we focus on subjective intent in the context of individual crime because of its relation to culpability and blameworthiness, in the context of state crime we should be concerned with preserving the legitimacy of political authority, and the conditions for legitimacy turn on the apparent reasons rather than subjective motivations behind state action. Second, the primacy of questions of legitimacy also makes irrelevant the distinction between specific and general intent. Instead, state-directed torture that is committed secretly and in a manner that removes it from public scrutiny should be regarded as quasi-criminal. Finally, the official interpretation of the Convention against Torture (CAT) adopted by the United States is flawed because it imposes a specific intent requirement that is not objective, and accords ambiguous weight to publicity. In doing so we make a double error: We treat state crimes as essentially the same as individual crime, and we fail to distinguish between the quasi-criminal and humanitarian functions of the CAT To identify a state act as torture, courts should ask whether alleged acts (which otherwise meet the actus reus of torture) appear to have been motivated by radical indifference to the suffering of the torture victim and the aim of stripping her and/or other members of the political community of their humanity. Only to the extent they seek to further establish the acts as quasi-criminal should courts ask whether the alleged acts were committed secretly or in a manner calculated to avoid accountability

Preserving Homeownership: Analyzing the Elements of Leading Foreclosure Prevention Programs

Foreclosures have been increasing across the nation, reaching record levels in 2006 and 2007, with elevated levels of foreclosure likely for several more years. Responses to the rise in foreclosure have been decidedly local. Local governments and local nonprofits working on the ground have developed unique solutions to help keep families from losing their homes and neighborhoods from becoming blighted by foreclosed properties. These efforts have generally been small, and few have reached a national scale. This report summarizes lessons from five successful foreclosure prevention programs that may be instructive for national and local replication. While each program is unique, together these five leading strategies provide examples of innovative practices that can be adopted by other organizations and other communities

Preserving the ‘Jewel of their Souls’: How North Carolina’s Common Law Could Save Cyber-Bullying Statutes

In State v. Bishop, the North Carolina Supreme Court struck down the state’s cyber-bullying statute on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Cyber-bullying, bullying that occurs through electronic technology, has become more prevalent in recent years as much of adolescent life shifts to social media and digital communications. Increasing evidence of cyber-bullying’s negative effects on children has prompted numerous state legislatures to take action. Many states have enacted generic policies for school personnel to take reasonable action to combat cyber-bullying during school hours. This note, however, argues for an alternative approach to combat cyber-bullying; one that looks to the common law torts of libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress as means to reframe the constitutional debate surrounding the issue. Given the Supreme Court’s established framework of dignitary tort jurisprudence, a carefully crafted cyber-bullying law could withstand the First Amendment challenges that rendered North Carolina’s law unconstitutional

Changing Practice in a National Legal Deposit Library

This two-part essay considers how digital culture has influenced ideas about permanence and looks at the change in collecting practice in a legal deposit library. The author asks: how is the idea of permanence, understood in cultural heritage terms, influencing digital culture and thus digital technology? The first part of the essay touches upon the concepts associated with permanence, digital culture, digital technology, social change, and cultural institutions, in relation to collecting digital cultural material. The second part of this essay focuses on the change in collecting practice of the Alexander Turnbull Library (Turnbull Library) at the National Library of New Zealand in developing its heritage collection of electronically published material with the benefit of legal deposit, with a particular focus on the change in practice to include the collection of online publications