Elsie Law’s Dose Of The Law: Slave Trade Act of 1788

PhotobucketAccording to Wikipedia, “The Slave Trade Act 1788, also known as Dolben’s Act, was an Act of Parliament which placed limitations of the number of people that British slave ships could transport. Dutch ships were not subject to restrictions on the number of slaves they could carry.”

The fact that the slave trade was “legally” regulated internationally is further proof of how complicit governments were in the slave trade. A clear argument for reparations.

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Elsie Law’s Dose Of The Law: The Code Noir

Photobucket“The French empire in the West Indies was built on sugar production and the labor of enslaved Africans. The Code Noir, a French legal code, regulated slavery in the West Indies. Though it was never made law in Canada, New France’s slaveholders applied the Code Noir when they thought it necessary. In 1685, when the Code was applied to the French West Indies, the governor of New France, the Marquis de Denonville, thought it might as well be applied in New France. Canada’s colonial officials therefore used the Code Noir to give legal foundation to slavery. Under the Code Noir, slaves were declared “movable,” that is, personal property, in the same category as livestock, furniture, and trade goods. The Code Noir regulated other aspects of slave life, such as relations between master and slave, the status of slave children, slave marriages, and so forth.

An important clause of the Code was that all slaves were to be baptized and instructed in the Catholic faith.” -From, “The Hanging of Angelique” By: Afua Cooper

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Elsie Law’s Dose Of The Law

PhotobucketTexas is seeking to implement a requirement into their school system that mandates that all students wear a badge that contains a radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip. This chipped badge will track students’ physical locations while they are on school premises. The badges have been introduced into two Texas schools. However, there are future plans to implement the chipped badge in 112 schools in Texas.

A student who attends one of the schools that have already put the badge requirement in place refused to wear the RFID badge. The student proclaimed that it would be against her religious beliefs to do so. As a result, she was suspended from school for her refusal.

The student went to court to dispute her suspension and was granted a temporary injunction that allowed her to attend the school without wearing the badge. However, a federal court ruling overturned the injunction stating that the student must wear the chipped badge, or she will have t transfer to a new school.

Is this the future of education in America? Will being chipped be a prerequisite to getting a basic education in the public school system?

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Elsie Law’s Dose Of The Law

Photobucket“I remember reading a phrase once that said, ‘the freedom of the press belongs to those who own the press.’ We can thus reiterate that the constitution and the legal system in this soceity are not a neutral instrument, and that the law belongs to those who write it, and to those who use it to control the resources of a society.

Business crime is more damaging than most working class crime and so-called lower-class crime. As a matter of fact, we tend not to even see business-crime as crime itself, but instead as violations of codes, as not following procedure, even though it may rob people of jobs. It may rob people of their very lives. How many people from Dupont will be arrested and put in jail and locked awaay for killing those thousands of Indians? How many people will be destroyed or executed as the result of the stealing of monies, of millions and millions of dollars from the general populace as a whole? Will Chase Manhattan be permitted to go out of business? Or will Citibank, for the mistake of making bad loans? No, they won’t. What will happen? They will rob the very monies out of our pockets so that they may stay in business.

It has been established that while robbery, burglary, auto theft, and larceny account for 15 percent of theft against property, embezzlement, fraud, forgery, and commercial theft (the so-called white-collar crimes) are responsible for 78 percent of crimes agaainst property. It is difficult for people to even see a so-called top business executive as a criminal. The very concept of criminal has an image attached to it. We shall find, of course, that to a great extent that image is non-European, non-middle-class and non-upper-class, but is an image that portrays the so-called lower-classes (or non-Europeans). It is of interest to note that Zacarro, husband of the vice presidential candidate [Geraldine Ferraro], could steal millions and pay a thousand-dollar ($1,000) fine- and continue in business- while our sons and daughters who may steal nickels are sent to jail, and executed, done in, beaten, and assassinated by the police. We are gouged for rent and other kinds of things by the system; yet those that gouge us are perceived as pillars of the community.

These are the kinds of contradictions that breed disrespect for the law, and disrespect for those who enforce the law. It does not matter if a law is written in neutral terms. What really matters is whether that law is enforced non-discriminately; and this society is one that is famous for writing beautiful laws, which are enforced in a non-equal fashion.” -From, “The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness”

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Elsie Law’s Dose Of The Law: Your Facebook “Friends” Can Grant The FBI Access To Your Profile

A New York City racketeering case garnered an interesting ruling that concerns facebook users. The defendant in the trial attempted to suppress evidence that was gathered from facebook to hand down his indictment.

The defendant used the legal defense that the information, which was obtained via an informant giving law-enforcement investigators access to the defendant’s facebook profile, violated his Fourth Amendment constitutional rights- which protects him against unreasonable search and seizure. However, the U.S. District Court Judge overruled this claim, stating that the FBI, are other law enforcement agencies, are entitled to view profile anyone’s facebook and collect evidence – as long as one of the facebook user’s friends gives law-enforcement investigators permission to do so.

Reportedly, the Judge compared such collection of data to a phone tap in which one person participating in the phone call allows the government to listen in without the consent of knowledge of the other party. The Judge reasoned that if this sort of phone tap is considered legal, so is gathering information via a person’s consenting facebook friend.

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