Gretna Personal Injury Law Blog

Please take a few minutes this morning to read John Pope's article in the Times-Picayune about the passing of Mrs. Marie Louie Pierce Jones, a pioneer of education and an advocate for racial justice in New Orleans.Mrs. Jones died last week at the age of 95. She retired in 1986 after a teaching career that lasted half a century. Per the article:"She did more than preside over a classroom or school. Because Mrs. Jones was drawn to children with special needs, she earned a master's degree in special education at Wayne State University [in] 1949 and established the first special-education classes for visually impaired and mentally challenged black children at a time when New Orleans' public schools were segregated.And in the early 1940s, Mrs. Jones was a plaintiff in a suit that successfully challenged the system that paid white teachers more than their black counterparts."To devote one's life to educating children is a heroic accomplishment in and of itself; but to fight for equality and justice for people of all colors and types is something we should all hold in the highest esteem. Don't neglect when Mrs. Jones was fighting for racial justice-the 1940s, decades before Martin Luther King, Jr. brought the Civil Rights Movement to national attention.It is for that reason that Mrs. Marie Jones is a shining beacon for teachers everywhere, and somebody to whom educators should look and take pride in their profession.

This week, the Law Office of John Redmann was honored to have received Avvo.com's Clients' Choice Award for Personal Injury. What this means is that our office received five or more four- or five-star reviews on the online legal directory Avvo.com.

Not a week goes by that we do not hear a story about a computer hacking, a stolen identity, or any number of other cybercrimes. Cybercrimes are a relatively new brand of crime, and they are scary because the criminals always seem to be a few steps ahead of law enforcement, as technology constantly changes and evolves.

A Senate bipartisan report has scrutinized the Department of Homeland Security's National Network of Fusion Centers. DHS established fusion centers in order to share information across local, state, and federal levels regarding criminal and terrorist activity. The report cites several problems with fusion centers, including their incompetency to produce any specific data on terrorists, the infringement of civil liberties, the infringement of First Amendment rights, and the inability of both the federal and state governments to account for money spent on fusion centers. The federal government estimates, for example, that it allocated anywhere from less than $300 million to $1.4 billion. The report strongly encourages Congress to decrease the amount of money allocated to fusion centers. In its defense, DHS retorts that the report is inaccurate and misleading. Furthermore, DHS purports that the report completely ignores the benefits received by participating officials from the federal government. Despite this report, it seems that Congress will continue its support for this program without sufficient oversight for the quality of reports coming out of the centers or for the amount of money allocated.