Author Archive

Burn Pits: VA Needs to Reflect Soldiers’ Commitment and Sacrifice

September 20th, 2010. By Hunter West

Signing up for military service—in other words, putting your life as you know it on hold for the benefit of your country—should not be met with questions, stonewalling, or delays from the US Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA) when you come back from some god-forsaken sector of the world half the man you used to be.

The VA should kiss the ground you walk on—that is, if you can even walk at all.

Tim Wymore can barely walk. He can do so only with a cane. He can barely stand. Of course, he can’t work. Worse, it seems he can’t look after himself, either. His wife has had to put her career on hold, and suffer the loss of her income (a loss felt by the entire family of five) in order to care for her husband.

Yes, Wymore gets VA disability benefits. But he doesn’t get the full measure of his due. That’s because, incredibly, the VA does not consider his disability permanent. In fact, the VA, according to an article at stltoday.com, thinks Wymore’s condition “may improve”. The obvious question is that if his condition “may” improve, then isn’t it reasonable to think it also “may not”?

So even though the man cannot work, can barely stand, can only walk with a cane and is 44 years old, the VA is withholding benefits that would ensure his family would be looked after once Wymore is gone.

For the Wymores, that sad day is not an ‘if’, but a ‘when.’ And they worry that the ‘when’ is Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: burn pit, burn pit lawsuit, Iraq, VA, Veterans, Veterans Benefits
Posted in Veterans | 1 Comment »

Employers vs Sick Employees: Whose Side Are You On?

September 14th, 2010. By Hunter West

The recent spate of incidents where employees have been unjustly fired for health issues through no control of their own leaves an unsavory aftertaste, and paints employers guilty of such conduct as mean-spirited. A case in point is the former employee of a Michael’s store who felt pressured to return to work early after a double mastectomy, only to be fired soon after while continuing to undergo chemotherapy. 

As inconvenient as it might be to have a vital employee sidelined for health issues, basic human rights suggest that the employer has a moral obligation to stand behind an employee who is suffering. There are also legal requirements to that end. 

Nor should an employee who has health issues through no fault of his own—but still capable of working—find himself shut out by an employer, and from a job he needs and is quite capable of doing, just because he is not the pristine specimen that may fit the company profile. 

Employees who suffer health discrimination in the workplace can, and do fight back. Recently a breast cancer patient sued her former employer for what she claimed to be an unjust firing and was awarded millions in compensation. 

But there are two sides to every issue—and it can go both ways. 

To wit, employees have to take some responsibility for their own health. When they fail to do so, who can blame an employer for feeling angry and betrayed? 

How long have we known that smoking kills? And yet there are those who smoke like a Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Employment, Job Discrimination, Sick Workers, Wellness, Workplace Discrimination
Posted in Employment | No Comments »

Open-Season Surveillance: GPS Under the Hood

September 13th, 2010. By Hunter West

How far is too far?

The capacity for a police department to surreptitiously affix a GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) unit under a suspect’s car and track the hapless individual for weeks at a time without his knowledge (and without a warrant) is not only raising the hackles of human rights activists—it’s also fostering disagreements amongst judges.

Either way, the Fourth Amendment needs an overhaul in this day of high-tech, advanced technology.

I suppose there were complaints about this same thing in a bygone era, when telephones were all the rage (land phones, not cell phones) and police figured out that if they tapped into someone’s phone line, they could recover secrets and private conversations (read: evidence) they would otherwise not have access to.

But they needed a warrant for that. And a warrant for searching someone’s premises. Approaching the court and seeking permission to invade the privacy of a suspect for the purpose of an investigation—assuming the police could provide adequate grounds for the request—added a welcome buffer into the mix.

But should the police require a warrant to put a GPS tracking device under someone’s car?

The courts are divided on the differences between long-term, and short-term surveillance.

Traditionally, the Fourth Amendment is held by the courts as not covering the trailing of a Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Fourth Amendment, GPS, Invasion of Privacy, Police, Surveillance
Posted in Emerging Issues, Human/Civil Rights | 1 Comment »

Taming the Egg Salmonella Outbreak Will Take an Inside Job

August 30th, 2010. By Hunter West

It’s ironic that just a month after new rules for egg safety came into effect, the US is hammered with one of the largest eggs recalls in its history due to salmonella poisoning. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had been working on the portfolio for the better part of a decade before the rules were finally rolled out like so many Grade A extra large whites and browns.

It’s a further irony that during the 10 years or so when the FDA was mulling over the rules, a grand experiment in the UK was being met with stunning success.

And that’s where we go for the back-story.

A similar outbreak of salmonella in eggs hit Britain a little over a decade ago. While Brits stared en masse at their scrambled yellows and wondered if they were safe to eat, the British government assessed the available safety protocols—similar to what the FDA was already considering—and decided a more advanced step was required.

So they started vaccinating hens—essentially attacking the problem from the inside out, and the results were spectacular. Cases of salmonella infection have effectively disappeared. According to the latest data from the Health Protection Agency of England and Wales, salmonella infections from eggs have dropped a stunning 96 percent since 1997. That represents a caseload of just Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Egg Recall, Food Poisoning, Salmonella
Posted in Emerging Issues | No Comments »

What Happens to Your Image After the Airport Scan?

August 23rd, 2010. By Hunter West

A group known as the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), working through a Freedom of Information Act request, obtained what was described as a “representative sample” of more than 35,000 ‘whole body images’ of attendees at a US courthouse in Orlando. 

The images are captured by millimeter wave technology and are ghost-like, not showing much detail. 

However, what bothers the EPIC and privacy advocates everywhere, is that the images were even available at all. 

The Bijot Gen2 imaging system scans and captures the images of people entering the court facility, for security purposes. US marshals have the capacity to view the current image, and the previous two images, while on security detail. 

But instead of being automatically purged the images—according to an August 4^th CNN report—are automatically stored in the system’s hard drive. While the images are available for viewing after the fact, they can only be accessed with the use of a system pass code. 

Privacy advocates maintain that this type of archiving makes them nervous with regard to the use of backscatter X-ray machines at the nation’s airports. While the full-body scans Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Airline, Airport Security, Privacy
Posted in Airlines, Intellectual Property | 1 Comment »