Full Disclosure Network® _™ Alerts

September 2003, California’s Emmy Award winning public access series Full Disclosure with Leslie Dutton has just released the following public affairs programs to forty cable systems which will be shown throughout California over the next six weeks.

Budget Crisis, Consent Decree Costs, and Racial Data…

Councilman Bernard Parks told Leslie Dutton “Do they search more black people? Do they search more Hispanic people? Those are the issues they’re trying to evaluate. What’s unfortunate about that process, no one in the United States that collects data has been able to come up with any form of valid assessment of the data once you collect it. And what’s unfortunate is that because we’re in a Consent Decree, we must keep collecting data that we cannot make sense of.” “…the largest cost item is going to be over $50 million on the computer system that tracks officers.” “…it still raises the price to where you’re going to be approaching $100 million (to implement) and several million to maintain each year.”

ACLU Defends costs of collecting racial data…LAPD Consent Decree

ACLU Executive Director Ramona Ripston appeared with UC Regent Ward Connerly discussing the Racial Privacy Initiative. She defended racial data collecting and the Consent Decree by stating “It’s not costing a hundred million dollars to collect. What he was talking about was the Consent Decree. The entire Consent Decree that mandated different kinds of training that mandated keeping information about particular officers.”

Ms. Ripston also defended illegal immigration saying “…there are more people who come here unlawfully because they overstay visas than people who cross the borders illegally. People who come here on visas and then just overstay their time.”

Ambassador urges US to open Hungarian visa policy…

Andras Simonyi, Ambassador to the United States from the United Republic of Hungary agreed with Ms. Ripston. In his interview with Leslie Dutton, “There are some statistics that say that there are too many Hungarians who are staying overtime in the United States. We are working on it and we are telling Hungarians not to do that, to make sure that this statistical issue gets out of the way, and then we can start talking about the visa issue.” What “visa issue?” Leslie questioned. “…we would like to see a non-visa arrangement with the United States so that Hungarians can travel freely to the United States. Hungary is an ally, and I think citizens do not pose a threat.” Also discussed was the Ambassador’s transition from a communist leader to a pro-democracy advocate.

Full Disclosure Network® is independently produced and distributed to 40 cable systems throughout California. Check our website at www.fulldisclosure.net for channel listing.