These Chinese Unity laws also don’t ban people from learning or using their original family language, and in fact enshrine protections so that people can continue to learn and pass on these languages.
This article is nothing but anti-communist propaganda. These unity laws do nothing but but ensure minorities are able to interact with the larger culture and society, while allowing for the continued existence and teaching of minority languages and cultures.
If these laws are cultural genocide, then English as a Second Language (ESL) classes in the United States are also cultural genocide.
We have had the technology to completely switch to sustainable energy for at least 20 years, but we haven’t because it wouldn’t be profitable to the capitalist class. This problem isn’t caused by us, it’s caused by them.
Yes, which is why organization and political education is so critical, and also why MLs place importance on vanguard parties. The capitalists are never going to give us the time for everyone to realize we can demand better, so those of us who already realize it need to step up and help guide those who don’t.
That’s never going to happen under capitalism though, so until socialism is achieved, I’m going to do the best I can to ensure that my fellow workers have as much access to good paying jobs as possible.
Prosecutors charge that LAPD officer Daniel Flores violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act, which prohibits recording others without their consent.
Flores filed an internal affairs complaint against his LAPD colleagues after recording them making racist, homophobic and sexist comments.
Flores’ lawyer said the case sends a message that “if you document bigotry inside the LAPD, you will be the one who ends up in a courtroom.”
Los Angeles County prosecutors on Friday charged an LAPD officer with felony eavesdropping for making secret recordings of his colleagues’ racist, sexist and homophobic comments on the job.
The officer, Daniel Flores, was charged with 16 felony counts of eavesdropping on or recording confidential communications — crimes that carry a sentence of up to 13 years in prison, if convicted.
In a statement announcing the charges, L.A. Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said that while he found the recorded comments deplorable, Flores still violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act, which prohibits recording others without their consent.
“This case serves as a warning to anyone seeking to record a conversation without the other person’s permission that doing so is illegal and has been a crime in the state of California for over 50 years,” the statement read. “It doesn’t matter where you work or who you are - a neighbor, a coworker or, in this case, a police officer. Your right to privacy in a confidential conversation is protected, no matter who is doing the recording or, with few exceptions, why they are doing the recording.”
Flores turned over roughly 90 recordings to his superiors, according to an internal affairs complaint he filed with the department last year, which said he hoped the evidence would be used to discipline those responsible.
Flores’ attorney, Alan Jackson, blasted the decision by prosecutors to pursue charges.
“Today the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office charged a police officer with a crime for reporting racism inside the Los Angeles Police Department,” Jackson said. “Not the officers who were recorded using racial, sexist, and anti-gay slurs. Not the officers who sat in a government building and said those things while holding the power to decide who becomes an LAPD officer. The officer who reported them.”
Jackson said he intends to argue that Flores made the recordings within the scope of his duties as a police officer, investigating misconduct within the workplace.
The conversations were taped between March and October 2024 involving members of the department’s recruitment unit, whose officers are tasked with deciding who can join the police force.
After The Times revealed the recordings, their existence drew wide condemnation, including by LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, Mayor Karen Bass and the police union, which called them “reprehensible” and “unacceptable” at a time when the department was struggling to attract recruits.
Jackson said the officer will fight the charge and plead not guilty, and that the law only applies where the speakers have a reasonable expectation that what they say would not be overheard or recorded.
Jackson said the anticipated charge against Flores sends a message that “if you document bigotry inside the LAPD, you will be the one who ends up in a courtroom. It tells them the safe move is to hear slurs and say nothing.”
A separate administrative investigation of Flores by the LAPD found him guilty of policy violations and recommended a 22-day suspension without pay, according to Greg Smith, Flores’ civil attorney. The discipline has not yet been finalized by the LAPD chief, Smith said.
Smith said it wasn’t clear whether any of the officers that Flores recorded have been punished. California law requires most police personnel investigations to be kept confidential.
In a retaliation lawsuit that Flores filed last month against the city, the officer claimed he overheard his supervisor, who was Asian, remark that an “Asian invasion” had begun, before starting to recruit officers of Asian descent to the unit. Other times, according to the lawsuit, the supervisors and unnamed colleagues made inappropriate comments about women, referring to them as “bitches” who couldn’t be trusted.
In another conversation described in the lawsuit, Flores said he heard his supervisor discuss the death of Dodgers legend Fernando Valenzuela from septic shock, allegedly telling subordinates that the Mexican pitcher “ate too many” tacos.
Flores alleged in the suit that the officers referred to other colleagues they believed to be queer with a slew of derogatory terms. They also referred to Black people as monkeys, the complaint said. “Black people like grape soda — they enjoy watermelon between basketball,” one was overheard saying, according to the lawsuit.
Susan Seager, a UC Irvine law professor who is not involved in the case, previously told The Times that Flores’ lawyer is correct in stating that the eavesdropping law bans secret taping of conversations only in situations in which there is a reasonable expectation that the communication would not be overheard or recorded.
She said there is no expectation of privacy in nonpublic settings, such as a locker room at an LAPD station house. It’s less clear whether such protections extend to conversations at the office that revolve around work, she said.
Separately, police officers are also allowed to secretly record conversations if they are “acting within the scope of his or her authority,” according to Seager.
“Most courts say this exception only applies to taping for criminal investigations,” said Seager.
Ah ok, thank you for explaining. I think we are in agreement that the people that are being targeted by Trump’s regime are not actual leftists. My point was that even if they aren’t leftists by definition, we should still be defending them from the regime because if we don’t, we allow anti-leftist oppression to be normalized.
Maybe instead of disavowing these people who are getting arrested for protesting Israel and ICE, the actual left should be organizing to help them and use their stories to create sympathy for the left?
“First they came for the trust fund babies who were using their money to help victims of genocide, but I didn’t stand up because he wasn’t a socialist.”
Conservative brains typically have larger amygdalas, which are responsible for anger and fear responses. So yes, their brains reward them when they get angry, so they seek more occasions to get angry.
Government owning the means of production is only socialism if the working class controls the government, which is demonstrably not true in the slightest. Instead we have capitalists controlling the government, and when the capitalist class exerts its power over the government to directly seize more ownership of the means of production, that is fascism (or at least often a hallmark of fascism).
This article reads like health insurance propaganda. It’s all about how selfless this guy is, and never talks about how insane it is that he had to risk death to avoid crippling medical debt.
Crazy how you think that the customer is the exploited one in a sex work situation. Loneliness doesn’t excuse contributing to a situation where someone must sell such an intimate part of their humanity to have a good life.
I feel for the lonely person, too, but I don’t excuse their bad choice to engage in prostitution.
Honestly most anarchists I’ve encountered tend to reflexively hate socialist states to the point that any nuanced take on them gets you the label without even expressing principled support as an ML. I sometimes think they hate ML socialism more than they hate capitalism, which is wild to me. Like, I think that most anarchists are idealistic and naive, but I still think they are comrades and I would happily live in their version of communism if it somehow came about.
These Chinese Unity laws also don’t ban people from learning or using their original family language, and in fact enshrine protections so that people can continue to learn and pass on these languages.
This article is nothing but anti-communist propaganda. These unity laws do nothing but but ensure minorities are able to interact with the larger culture and society, while allowing for the continued existence and teaching of minority languages and cultures.
If these laws are cultural genocide, then English as a Second Language (ESL) classes in the United States are also cultural genocide.
We have had the technology to completely switch to sustainable energy for at least 20 years, but we haven’t because it wouldn’t be profitable to the capitalist class. This problem isn’t caused by us, it’s caused by them.
Would you rather everyone be unemployed and destitute while you beg the capitalists to give you money?
Yes, which is why organization and political education is so critical, and also why MLs place importance on vanguard parties. The capitalists are never going to give us the time for everyone to realize we can demand better, so those of us who already realize it need to step up and help guide those who don’t.
That’s never going to happen under capitalism though, so until socialism is achieved, I’m going to do the best I can to ensure that my fellow workers have as much access to good paying jobs as possible.
Agreed. Nice to see we’re on the same page.
Prosecutors charge that LAPD officer Daniel Flores violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act, which prohibits recording others without their consent. Flores filed an internal affairs complaint against his LAPD colleagues after recording them making racist, homophobic and sexist comments. Flores’ lawyer said the case sends a message that “if you document bigotry inside the LAPD, you will be the one who ends up in a courtroom.” Los Angeles County prosecutors on Friday charged an LAPD officer with felony eavesdropping for making secret recordings of his colleagues’ racist, sexist and homophobic comments on the job.
The officer, Daniel Flores, was charged with 16 felony counts of eavesdropping on or recording confidential communications — crimes that carry a sentence of up to 13 years in prison, if convicted.
In a statement announcing the charges, L.A. Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said that while he found the recorded comments deplorable, Flores still violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act, which prohibits recording others without their consent.
“This case serves as a warning to anyone seeking to record a conversation without the other person’s permission that doing so is illegal and has been a crime in the state of California for over 50 years,” the statement read. “It doesn’t matter where you work or who you are - a neighbor, a coworker or, in this case, a police officer. Your right to privacy in a confidential conversation is protected, no matter who is doing the recording or, with few exceptions, why they are doing the recording.”
Flores turned over roughly 90 recordings to his superiors, according to an internal affairs complaint he filed with the department last year, which said he hoped the evidence would be used to discipline those responsible.
Flores’ attorney, Alan Jackson, blasted the decision by prosecutors to pursue charges.
“Today the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office charged a police officer with a crime for reporting racism inside the Los Angeles Police Department,” Jackson said. “Not the officers who were recorded using racial, sexist, and anti-gay slurs. Not the officers who sat in a government building and said those things while holding the power to decide who becomes an LAPD officer. The officer who reported them.”
Jackson said he intends to argue that Flores made the recordings within the scope of his duties as a police officer, investigating misconduct within the workplace.
The conversations were taped between March and October 2024 involving members of the department’s recruitment unit, whose officers are tasked with deciding who can join the police force.
After The Times revealed the recordings, their existence drew wide condemnation, including by LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, Mayor Karen Bass and the police union, which called them “reprehensible” and “unacceptable” at a time when the department was struggling to attract recruits.
Jackson said the officer will fight the charge and plead not guilty, and that the law only applies where the speakers have a reasonable expectation that what they say would not be overheard or recorded.
Jackson said the anticipated charge against Flores sends a message that “if you document bigotry inside the LAPD, you will be the one who ends up in a courtroom. It tells them the safe move is to hear slurs and say nothing.”
A separate administrative investigation of Flores by the LAPD found him guilty of policy violations and recommended a 22-day suspension without pay, according to Greg Smith, Flores’ civil attorney. The discipline has not yet been finalized by the LAPD chief, Smith said.
Smith said it wasn’t clear whether any of the officers that Flores recorded have been punished. California law requires most police personnel investigations to be kept confidential.
In a retaliation lawsuit that Flores filed last month against the city, the officer claimed he overheard his supervisor, who was Asian, remark that an “Asian invasion” had begun, before starting to recruit officers of Asian descent to the unit. Other times, according to the lawsuit, the supervisors and unnamed colleagues made inappropriate comments about women, referring to them as “bitches” who couldn’t be trusted.
In another conversation described in the lawsuit, Flores said he heard his supervisor discuss the death of Dodgers legend Fernando Valenzuela from septic shock, allegedly telling subordinates that the Mexican pitcher “ate too many” tacos.
Flores alleged in the suit that the officers referred to other colleagues they believed to be queer with a slew of derogatory terms. They also referred to Black people as monkeys, the complaint said. “Black people like grape soda — they enjoy watermelon between basketball,” one was overheard saying, according to the lawsuit.
Susan Seager, a UC Irvine law professor who is not involved in the case, previously told The Times that Flores’ lawyer is correct in stating that the eavesdropping law bans secret taping of conversations only in situations in which there is a reasonable expectation that the communication would not be overheard or recorded.
She said there is no expectation of privacy in nonpublic settings, such as a locker room at an LAPD station house. It’s less clear whether such protections extend to conversations at the office that revolve around work, she said.
Separately, police officers are also allowed to secretly record conversations if they are “acting within the scope of his or her authority,” according to Seager.
“Most courts say this exception only applies to taping for criminal investigations,” said Seager.
Ah ok, thank you for explaining. I think we are in agreement that the people that are being targeted by Trump’s regime are not actual leftists. My point was that even if they aren’t leftists by definition, we should still be defending them from the regime because if we don’t, we allow anti-leftist oppression to be normalized.
I’m confused about your point here.
The press is unfortunately entirely too competent at manufacturing consent for capitalist crimes and atrocities.
No it isn’t. Not unless the government is controlled by the working class, which it isn’t.
Maybe instead of disavowing these people who are getting arrested for protesting Israel and ICE, the actual left should be organizing to help them and use their stories to create sympathy for the left?
“First they came for the trust fund babies who were using their money to help victims of genocide, but I didn’t stand up because he wasn’t a socialist.”
Conservative brains typically have larger amygdalas, which are responsible for anger and fear responses. So yes, their brains reward them when they get angry, so they seek more occasions to get angry.
But he’s not implementing socialist policy, he’s implementing fascist policy.
Government owning the means of production is only socialism if the working class controls the government, which is demonstrably not true in the slightest. Instead we have capitalists controlling the government, and when the capitalist class exerts its power over the government to directly seize more ownership of the means of production, that is fascism (or at least often a hallmark of fascism).
This article reads like health insurance propaganda. It’s all about how selfless this guy is, and never talks about how insane it is that he had to risk death to avoid crippling medical debt.
I’m saying that the person buying is making a bad choice and is exploiting the sex worker.
Crazy how you think that the customer is the exploited one in a sex work situation. Loneliness doesn’t excuse contributing to a situation where someone must sell such an intimate part of their humanity to have a good life.
I feel for the lonely person, too, but I don’t excuse their bad choice to engage in prostitution.
Honestly most anarchists I’ve encountered tend to reflexively hate socialist states to the point that any nuanced take on them gets you the label without even expressing principled support as an ML. I sometimes think they hate ML socialism more than they hate capitalism, which is wild to me. Like, I think that most anarchists are idealistic and naive, but I still think they are comrades and I would happily live in their version of communism if it somehow came about.