Search result for "Irene Khan alma mater".
  • Petition to the Democratic Florida superdelegates: Hear the will of the Florida electorate, or re...
    As citizens and elected officials, we have deep rooted concerns for the Democratic party’s primary system. We the People of Florida ask that you pledge, as a superdelegate, to provide a means for citizens in your districts to determine your vote at the convention, just as Florida superdelegate Alan Grayson has recently accomplished. If you choose not to conduct a poll, we ask that you pledge to refrain from voting and participating at the convention in Philadelphia.
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    Created by James Deininger
  • We Demand Criminal Investigations Of Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and Other Facebook Executives
    Dear Attorney General Garland, Chairwoman Khan, and Chairman Gensler, We write to ask you to open a criminal investigation into Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and other relevant Facebook executives. Numerous and damning reports on company documents indicate Facebook seems to routinely violate the laws your offices are empowered to enforce. Facebook executives including Zuckerberg and Sandberg have privately discussed plans to deceive investors, regulators, and clients in building their empire. Documents from two investor lawsuits provide “smoking gun” evidence that Facebook leaders seem to have knowingly, intentionally, and chronically violated the law. These scandalous revelations are also supported in documents released by the whistleblower Frances Haugen. Millions of advertisers took Facebook at its word when making decisions about how to spend money – and we now have a trove of evidence suggesting Facebook knowingly lied to win that business. We ask you to act on that evidence. Some of us are direct victims of Facebook's likely fraudulent activities. Some of us have been indirectly injured as Facebook used ill-gotten gains to overpower and undermine the local institutions our communities rely upon for honest information and healthy local commerce. All of us live in a world shaped disproportionately by Facebook – a company that once seemed like a modern success story, but which today appears built on flagrant and pervasive criminal activity. You are entrusted with the vital work of holding corporations and powerful individuals accountable to the law when they violate it. Your predecessors have allowed white-collar crime to go unchecked for years. You have an opportunity to reverse that trend. The alarming and damning evidence that has already come to light about Facebook provides an opportunity to send a clear message that no one, no matter how powerful, is above the law. Signed,
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    Created by Sarah Miller
  • Release Lawyer Ousainou Darboe
    The Gambia, Ousainou Darboe, leader of the United Democratic Party Gambia, was jailed with 18 officials. The women were beaten, raped, and jailed with life-threatening injuries.
    536 of 600 Signatures
    Created by Fatou Jaw Manneh
  • Trump is unfit to lead our nation
    It becomes clearer each day that Donald Trump represents not only a serious national security threat to our nation, but to our most basic American values. I cannot support anyone who fails to recognize the real threat that a Trump administration would pose to our country’s safety, both domestically and internationally. Will you join me in voting against Donald Trump and any candidate—whether at the national, state, or local level—who fails to publicly disavow him?
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    Created by Alan Pitts Picture
  • Ask Lester Holt and other debate moderators to do better than Matt Lauer and fact check Trump's lies
    Presidential forum and debate moderators have an obligation to hold candidates accountable and correct misinformation. NBC News and its on-camera personality Matt Lauer botched this job during its September 7 Commander in Chief Forum. Respected NBC anchor Lester Holt, who has a long track record of journalistic integrity, moderates the first presidential debate later this month. We encourage Holt and every other presidential debate moderator–Martha Raddatz (ABC News), Anderson Cooper (CNN), and Chris Wallace (Fox News)–to avoid repeating Lauer's mistakes and to instead ask serious, substantial questions and hold candidates accountable with real-time fact checking of misleading and factually inaccurate statements.
    62,457 of 75,000 Signatures
    Created by Brian Stewart
  • In the Spirit of Mutual Respect
    March 10, 2014 Dear Santa Clara University Colleagues, We find ourselves in the midst of a very challenging academic year. Ever since the President’s initial decision regarding the curtailment of certain health care benefits, the University has been in a very painful place. Many have concerns about the content of the decision itself, and most of us have concerns about the initial process by which the President reached his decision. Expressions of dissatisfaction have escalated to extreme levels, creating a culture of suspicion in which even routine administrative decisions are perceived as essentially duplicitous and/or nefarious. Many of us have remained relatively silent in the recent public conversations. Frankly, more than a few of us have been afraid to engage in conversation because established faculty with passionate and powerful voices have implicitly or explicitly indicated that such interventions would be dismissed or admonished. Hence, rather than allowing our silence to give consent to the prevailing notion that there has been a thoroughgoing breakdown in the proper functioning of our Santa Clara community, we offer here an alternative point of view. Though many among us may wish that President Engh had not chosen to eliminate non-therapeutic abortion coverage from Santa Clara University’s insurance policies, we do understand the complexity of the issue for him. Our President walks a fine line in attempting to support the Catholic identity of the institution while, at the same time, honoring the choices of faculty, staff and students. The President made a decision to eliminate non-therapeutic abortion coverage. Whereas many Catholic constituencies may have preferred that he take an even stronger stand against current California and Federal law mandating coverage of contraception, therapeutic abortion, etc., President Engh limited his decision to one specific area. We see this as a compromise ruling, still allowing generous coverage for women’s health within the given parameters. Though many among us may wish that President Engh had availed himself of the shared governance processes in advance of making this benefits-related decision, he has since been very accommodating in meeting with faculty, learning more about the governance process, and exploring more deeply the particular concerns and needs of women. In a gesture of good faith, President Engh suspended his decision for a year to allow the Benefits Committee time to consider and propose workable alternatives. This willingness to be moved and changed as a result of significant dialogue with colleagues (not to mention his longstanding availability to meet regularly with the Faculty Senate Council) speaks of a President who is open to our concerns and committed to strengthening shared governance. In the course of these several months, some faculty have questioned whether this decision is the first of many that might erode academic freedom. We are confident that the President, a professor of history himself, knows that academic freedom is the sine qua non of the academy. Not only has President Engh done nothing to indicate that he has a restrictive intellectual agenda, he has supported the good work of faculty in even the most potentially controversial areas of scholarship, teaching and creative work. Santa Clara University is our home and, in very real ways, we are family to one another. Admittedly, there are many things we need to discuss in the months and years ahead, some of which may be difficult. In the wake of the recent decision of the Trustees to deny the appeal of the Faculty Senate, we urge faculty and administrators alike to commit to constructive dialogue, avoiding polarizing rhetoric that would imprison us all in cycles of negativity and cynicism. While we will never agree on everything, we certainly do agree on the work that is most important—creating new knowledge, caring for students, and increasing the quotient of justice in the world. May we continue in this great work in a spirit of mutual respect. Sincerely, Barbara Means Fraser Michael Zampelli Frederick J. Parrella Tom Plante Francisco Jiménez Alma M. Garcia Paul Crowley David Gray Michelle Marvier John Hawley Gary Macy Jerald Enos Terry Shoup Ana Maria Pineda Greg Baker Dennis Smolarski Aldo Billingslea Bob Senkewicz Rose Marie Beebe Paul Soukup David Pinault Charles Powers Barbara Murray Additional Signatures: Stephen Lee Jill Pelletteri Deirdre Frontczak Thiadora Pina Elizabeth Day Cheryl McElvain Ramon Chacon Luis Calero Maria Del Socorro Castaneda-Liles Donald St.Louis David Popalisky Tim Healy David DeCosse Gerald McKevitt Jim Reites
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    Created by barb fraser
  • Stop Corrections Corporation of America Immigrant Prison in San Diego
    Why This Is Important          Problems With Private Prisons  - STOP CCA IN San Diego & CCA Contracts with ICE.     Imagine going into Family Court, Superior Court, Civil Court or Federal Court and you see the letters CCA underneath.  You don't know that CCA means Corrections Corporation of America. You don't know that in a major, influencing way a private prison that needs 90% of it's beds filled to cover costs and make a profit is part of your court system.  You don't know that there have been $180 million dollars in law suits against this prison corporation including employees selling drugs to inmates, problems with controlling violence, poor to no medical care, and wrongful death litigation among others.      You don't know that two judges in Pennsylvania are serving prison sentences for accepting $2.8 million dollars in bribes from a prison corporation that gave the judges money for giving minors longer sentences in their private prison.      Now imagine you don't have a car and your court has been moved outside the San Diego City limits so far away that you might miss your court date and receive a prison sentence because you didn't have transportation and you weren't able to reach the court.  You also find people reluctant to help you because you struggle with the language.       All this works in favor of the company that runs the prison.  They have to keep their prison 90 % full to cover costs and make a profit. The company is Corrections Corporation of America.  The court is the Immigration Court.  The charges are not criminal, they're civil so you are not even a criminal and you are being forced to run a legal gauntlet leading to a company making a profit from your poverty and suffering simply by not having proper documentation.        The only thing missing from the Immigration Court/CCA sign on this page is an insignia of a kangaroo.  Corrections Corporation of America is bad news with a bad history.         We don't want another prison in San Diego, especially a private one run by a corporation with a checkered history. The potential for abuse is manifold.  Private prisons had such a bad record of prisoner abuse in the nineteenth century in the United States they were outlawed by the turn of the century.        A report released in December of 2003 by Philip Mattera and Mafruza Khan of Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First in Washington, DC and Stephen Nathan of Prison Privatization Report International in London made the following conclusion about privatization of prisons and Corrections Corporation of America:        As this report shows, in spite of these efforts to improve, CCA has not been a success even by its own standards. CCA continues to be plagued by many of the same kinds of operational deficiencies, scandals and mismanagement that characterized its performance during its early years. It is no surprise that the company acknowledges that, “The operation of correctional and detention facilities by private entities has not achieved complete acceptance by either governments or the public. CCA’s record is a clear example of how the pursuit of profit stands in the way of carrying out a core public function such as corrections. It is time for the public to know that independent investigators have failed to find clear evidence that private prison management is superior in terms of quality, recidivism rates or cost. CCA has succeeded in staying in business for two decades, but it has not succeeded in demonstrating that prison privatization is socially, economically or ethically acceptable.        Indeed, there have already been lawsuits against CCA in San Diego County, e.g., the litigation for medical negligence to Francisco Castaneda, who had his penis amputated and died several months later when pleas for cancer treatment were ignored by CCA and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.). And isn't what happened to Mr. Castaneda a metaphor for the history of racism (slavery, Jim Crow, Prison-Industrial Complex - see Ruth Gilmore and her book Golden Gulag) in this country and the emasculation of men of color?   CCA also faced litigation from San Diego ACLU for triple-celling, a practice where two man cells are packed with a third man who then sleeps on a mat by the toilet.  A bad practice for ethics but good for profits from cruel and unusual punishment.  Read about it at the ACLU website, www.aclusandiego.org  or my website at www.jimpoet.com Type in a search for Corrections Corporations of America.  Bring some coffee; you'll be reading for a while about unconstitutional, unethical neglect and abuse that seems to be policy. Now is the time to write and call your congressional representatives, President Obama, and especially the Bureau of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) and demand the end of detention contracts with Corrections Corporation of America.
    78 of 100 Signatures
    Created by Jim Moreno
  • Support 13 Teen Activists in Demanding Gun Violence Prevention
    I've lived in the US for fourteen years, which is really not a long time. But in that period - 2003-2018 - the US has stood witness to 187 school shootings. 187. That means that on average, school shootings happen more than once a month. Every month, some students sit for a Science test, some make a poster for History class, some turn in an English paper, and some see their classmates shot. Within this bloody routine, it’s not hard to foresee the next tragedy. Still, somehow, we have evaded or postponed a solution. But this has to be confronted, and now. Any later, more of us could already be dead. If you imply through words or actions that gun violence doesn't need to be confronted decisively, you are telling me, my classmates, and all America's children: "I don't care whether you live or die." School shootings aren't unavoidable. Without a gun, Nikolas Cruz couldn't have killed 17 people. There were dozens of reasons why he should've been kept away from the instrument he used to kill. But the laws gave him an easy road to murder. From your place behind those laws, I ask that you close off that road for once and for all. - Lily Erickson Seltz This recent school shooting in the U.S. has sparked the conversation for gun control once again, although this time uproar for gun reform has been taken into the hands of the students. In the past, the youth have stood up for their rights whether it was for the right to love, or for the rights of students in schools, and for the right to not be discriminated against by the government no matter their race, sexuality or gender, or rights of students in schools, and now, the youth have risen again. First in Parkland, Florida, the students directly affected by the shooting in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have been peacefully protesting outside of their school, urging the youth to protest for gun reform. Many say that Cruz had mental health issues and that he needed help, and most youth protesters don't disagree with the fact that we need more mental health care to ensure the safety of students, but like the Stoneman Douglas High student Emma Gonzalez said, "He wouldn't have killed that many people with a knife." Their examples are being followed by more schools in Florida, and now, the message has been passed on to the rest of the youth in the US. The debate of gun control has now rolled around once again, but now students in Florida, and all over the country, are not letting it go. -Raiana Khan On the morning of February 14th, seventeen people left their houses, unaware that it would be their last. Their parents can't remember if they said "I love you," and now they won't have the chance. Ever. Think about how permanent that is. There were a handful of red flags concerning Nikolas Cruz; an obsession with weapons, a school expulsion, and mental instability, all of which should be reported in the future, but it is undeniable that without a gun in his hands, he couldn't have killed seventeen people. Seventeen people would be laughing with their families today, doing everything you do without a second thought. But still, we hear the same set of rehearsed excuses from our government, pressing for reform which targets anything except the problem. In my fourteen years, there have been 187 school shootings; don't let this one fade into the background. Listen to our voices, because something needs to change, and we won’t stop until it does. I am scared. And in your place, it is your responsibility to make me feel safe -- I ask that you push for laws that will. - Sandhya Sethuraman I heard about it that night: Parkland. Nikolas Cruz. School shooting. Seventeen dead. Seventeen dead, all thanks to a gun. My parents told me, that night, to run the other way if I ever saw a shooter, to do anything as long as I stayed alive. What a world we live in, where our parents have to ask themselves if their children will come home. Why do I have to worry about my life in a place that was supposedly safe? Why are there still guns that are floating around? Who dreams of shooting students, students with hopes and dreams just like us? What happens once someone like Cruz has access to weapons? Seventeen dead. Schools aren't safe from guns. 187 school shootings in my lifetime, just fifteen years. We are sitting ducks in this matter, but not silent ones. I want action from those who have the power to act, not words that are only filled with empty words and lies. I don't want debates about our safety, I don't want this shooting to be forgotten for the 187nd time. I just want action from you. - Vanessa Liang Our esteemed leader has outdone himself. In the wake of the horrific massacre of 17 students in Parkland, our president's brilliant solution to gun violence is arming teachers. Despite being ridiculously counter-intuitive and senseless, it was short enough to tweet and therefore was the best idea on the table. Students my age are not only terrified of shoot...
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    Created by Lily Seltz