These terms of service constitute a legally binding agreement (the "Agreement") between you and Lyft, Inc. ("Lyft," "we," "us" or "our") governing your use of the Lyft application, website, and technology platform (collectively, the "Lyft Platform").
Please be advised: This Agreement contains provisions that govern how claims you and Lyft have against each other can be brought (see Section 17 below). These provisions will, with limited exception, require you to submit claims you have against Lyft to binding and final arbitration on an individual basis, not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, group or representative action or proceeding. As a Driver or Driver applicant, you have an opportunity to opt out of arbitration with respect to certain claims as provided in Section 17.
By entering into to this Agreement, and/or by using or accessing the Lyft platform you expressly acknowledge that you understand this Agreement (including the dispute resolution and arbitration provisions in Section 17) and accept all of its terms. If you do not agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of this Agreement, you may not use or access the Lyft Platform. If you use the services of Lyft or its affiliates in another country, by using the Lyft Platform in that country you agree to be subject to Lyft's terms of service for that country.
The Lyft Platform provides a marketplace where persons who seek transportation to certain destinations ("Riders") can be matched with persons driving to or through those destinations ("Drivers"). Drivers and Riders are collectively referred to herein as "Users," and each User shall create a User account that enables access to the Lyft Platform. Each person may only create one User account, and Lyft reserves the right to shut down any additional accounts. As a User, you authorize Lyft to match you with a Driver or Rider based on factors such as your location, the estimated time to pickup, your destination, user preferences, and platform efficiency, and to cancel an existing match and rematch based on the same considerations. For purposes of this Agreement, the driving services provided by Drivers to Riders that are matched through the Platform shall be referred to collectively as the "Services". Any decision by a User to offer or accept Services is a decision made in such User's sole discretion. Each transportation Service provided by a Driver to a Rider shall constitute a separate agreement between such persons.
In the event Lyft modifies the terms and conditions of this Agreement, such modifications shall be binding on you only upon your acceptance of the modified Agreement. Lyft reserves the right to modify any information referenced in the hyperlinks from this Agreement from time to time, and such modifications shall become effective upon posting. Continued use of the Lyft Platform or Services after any such changes shall constitute your consent to such changes. Unless material changes are made to the arbitration provisions herein, you agree that modification of this Agreement does not create a renewed opportunity to opt out of arbitration (if applicable).
The Lyft Platform may only be used by individuals who can form legally binding contracts under applicable law. The Lyft Platform is not available to children (persons under the age of 18) or Users who have had their User account temporarily or permanently deactivated. By becoming a User, you represent and warrant that you are at least 18 years old and that you have the right, authority and capacity to enter into and abide by the terms and conditions of this Agreement. You may not allow other persons to use your User account, and you agree that you are the sole authorized user of your account.
As a Rider, you understand that request or use of the Services may result in charges to you ("Charges"). Charges include Fares and other applicable fees, tolls, surcharges, and taxes as set forth on your market's Lyft Cities page (www.lyft.com/cities), plus any tips to the Driver that you elect to pay. Lyft has the authority and reserves the right to determine and modify pricing by posting applicable pricing terms to your market's Lyft Cities page or quoting you a price for a specific ride at the time you make a request. Pricing may vary based on the type of service you request (e.g., Lyft Plus, Lyft SUV) as described on your market's Lyft Cities page. You are responsible for reviewing the applicable Lyft Cities page or price quote within the Lyft app and shall be responsible for all Charges incurred under your User account regardless of your awareness of such Charges or the amounts thereof.
Variable Fares. Variable fares consist of a base charge and incremental charges based on the duration and distance of your ride. For particularly short rides, minimum fares may apply. Please note that we use GPS data from your Driver's phone to calculate the distance traveled on your ride. We cannot guarantee the availability or accuracy of GPS data. If we lose signal we will calculate time and distance using available data from your ride.
Quoted Fares. In some cases Lyft may quote you a Fare at the time of your request. The quote is subject to change until the ride request is confirmed. If during your ride you change your destination, make multiple stops, or attempt to abuse the Lyft Platform, we may cancel the fare quote and charge you a variable fare based on the time and distance of your ride. Lyft does not guarantee that the quoted fare price will be equal to a variable fare for the same ride.
Service Fee. You may be charged a "Service Fee" for each ride as set forth on the applicable Lyft Cities page.
Prime Time. At times of high demand for Services ("Prime Time") you acknowledge that Charges may increase substantially. For all rides with a variable fare, we will use reasonable efforts to inform you of any Prime Time multipliers in effect at the time of your request. For quoted fares we may factor in the Prime Time multiplier into the quoted price of the ride.
Cancellation Fee. After requesting a ride you may cancel it through the app, but note that in certain cases a cancellation fee may apply. You may also be charged if you fail to show up after requesting a ride. Please check out our Help Center to learn more about Lyft's cancellation policy, including applicable fees.
Damage Fee. If a Driver reports that you have materially damaged the Driver's vehicle, you agree to pay a "Damage Fee" of up to $250 depending on the extent of the damage (as determined by Lyft in its sole discretion), towards vehicle repair or cleaning. Lyft reserves the right (but is not obligated) to verify or otherwise require documentation of damages prior to processing the Damage Fee.
Tolls. In some instances tolls (or return tolls) may apply to your ride. Please see our Help Center and your market's Lyft Cities page for more information about toll charges and a list of applicable tolls and return charges. We do not guarantee that the amount charged by Lyft will match the toll charged to the Driver, if any.
Other Charges. Other fee and surcharges may apply to your ride, including: actual or anticipated airport fees, state or local fees, event fees as determined by Lyft or its marketing partners, and processing fees for split payments. In addition, where required by law Lyft will collect applicable taxes. See your market's Lyft Cities page for details on other Charges that may apply to your ride.
Tips. Following a ride, you may elect to tip your Driver in cash or through the Lyft application. Any tips will be provided entirely to the applicable Driver.
Facilitation of Charges. All Charges are facilitated through a third-party payment processing service (e.g., Stripe, Inc., or Braintree, a division of PayPal, Inc.). Lyft may replace its third-party payment processing services without notice to you. Charges shall only be made through the Lyft Platform. With the exception of tips, cash payments are strictly prohibited. Your payment of Charges to Lyft satisfies your payment obligation for your use of the Lyft Platform and Services.
No Refunds. All Charges are non-refundable. This no-refund policy shall apply at all times regardless of your decision to terminate usage of the Lyft Platform, any disruption to the Lyft Platform or Services, or any other reason whatsoever.
Coupons. You may receive coupons that you can apply toward payment of certain Charges upon completion of a Ride. Coupons are only valid for use on the Lyft Platform, and are not transferable or redeemable for cash except as required by law. Coupons cannot be combined, and if the cost of your ride exceeds the applicable credit or discount value we will charge your payment method on file for the outstanding cost of the Ride. For quoted or variable fares, Lyft may deduct the amount attributable to the Service Fee, Tolls, or Other Charges before application of the coupon. If you split payment for a Ride with another User, your coupon will only apply to your portion of the Charges. Additional restrictions on coupons may apply as communicated to you in a relevant promotion or by clicking on the relevant coupon within the Promotions section of the Lyft App.
Credit Card Authorization. Upon addition of a new payment method or each ride request, Lyft may seek authorization of your selected payment method to verify the payment method, ensure the ride cost will be covered, and protect against unauthorized behavior. The authorization is not a charge, however, it may reduce your available credit by the authorization amount until your bank's next processing cycle. Should the amount of our authorization exceed the total funds on deposit in your account, you may be subject to overdraft of NSF charges by the bank issuing your debit or prepaid card. We cannot be held responsible for these charges and are unable to assist you in recovering them from your issuing bank. Check out our Help Center to learn more about our use of pre-authorization holds.
If you are a Driver, you will receive payment for your provision of Services pursuant to the terms of the Driver Addendum, which shall form part of this Agreement between you and Lyft. The Driver Addendum is available in the Driver dashboard when you log into your account.
By entering into this Agreement or using the Platform, you agree to receive communications from us, including via e-mail, text message, calls, and push notifications. You agree that texts, calls or prerecorded messages may be generated by automatic telephone dialing systems. Communications from Lyft, its affiliated companies and/or Drivers, may include but are not limited to: operational communications concerning your User account or use of the Lyft Platform or Services, updates concerning new and existing features on the Lyft Platform, communications concerning promotions run by us or our third-party partners, and news concerning Lyft and industry developments. Standard text messaging charges applied by your cell phone carrier will apply to text messages we send.
If you wish to opt out of promotional emails, you can unsubscribe from our promotional email list by following the unsubscribe options in the promotional email itself. If you wish to opt out of promotional calls or texts, you may text "END" to 46080 from the mobile device receiving the messages. You acknowledge that you are not required to consent to receive promotional texts or calls as a condition of using the Lyft Platform or the Services. If you wish to opt out of all texts or calls from Lyft (including operational or transactional texts or calls), you can text the word "STOPALL" to 46080 from the mobile device receiving the messages, however you acknowledge that opting out of receiving all texts may impact your use of the Lyft Platform or the Services.
You may be able to create or log-in to your Lyft User account through online accounts you may have with third party social networking sites (each such account, an "SNS Account"). By connecting to Lyft through an SNS Account, you understand that Lyft may access, store, and make available any SNS Account content according to the permission settings of your SNS Account (e.g., friends, mutual friends, contacts or following/followed lists (the "SNS Content")). You understand that SNS Content may be available on and through the Lyft Platform to other Users. Unless otherwise specified in this Agreement, all SNS Content, if any, shall be considered to be your Information.
Lyft, at its sole discretion, may make available promotions with different features to any Users or prospective Users. These promotions, unless made to you, shall have no bearing whatsoever on your Agreement or relationship with Lyft. Lyft reserves the right to withhold or deduct credits or benefits obtained through a promotion in the event that Lyft determines or believes that the redemption of the promotion or receipt of the credit or benefit was in error, fraudulent, illegal, or in violation of the applicable promotion terms or this Agreement.
As part of your User account, Lyft may provide you with or allow you to create a "Lyft Code," a unique alphanumeric code for you to distribute to your friends and family (each a "Referred User") to become new Lyft Riders ("Referred Riders") or Drivers ("Referred Drivers") in your country. Lyft Codes may only be distributed for promotional purposes and must be given away free of charge. You may not sell, trade, or barter your Lyft Code. You are prohibited from advertising Lyft Codes in any way, including through any of the following: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Bing and Craigslist. Lyft reserves the right to deactivate or invalidate any Lyft Code at any time in Lyft's discretion.
From time to time, Lyft may offer you with incentives to refer your friends and family to become new Users of the Lyft Platform in your country (the "Referral Program"). These incentives may come in the form of Lyft Credits, and Lyft may set or change the incentive types, amounts, terms, restrictions, and qualification requirements for any incentives in its sole discretion. Your distribution of Lyft Codes and participation in the Referral Program is subject to this Agreement and the additional Referral Program rules.
You possess a valid driver's license and are authorized and medically fit to operate a motor vehicle and have all appropriate licenses, approvals and authority to provide transportation to Riders in all jurisdictions in which you provide Services.
You will not engage in reckless behavior while driving, drive unsafely, operate a vehicle that is unsafe to drive, permit an unauthorized third party to accompany you in the vehicle while providing Services, provide Services as a Driver while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or take action that harms or threatens to harm the safety of the Lyft community or third parties.
You will only provide Services using the vehicle that has been reported to, and approved by Lyft, and for which a photograph has been provided to Lyft, and you will not transport more passengers than can securely be seated in such vehicle (and no more than seven (7) passengers in any instance).
You will not, while providing the Services, operate as a public or common carrier or taxi service, accept street hails, charge for rides (except as expressly provided in this Agreement), demand that a rider pay in cash, or use a credit card reader, such as a Square Reader, to accept payment or engage in any other activity in a manner that is inconsistent with your obligations under this Agreement.
You will not attempt to defraud Lyft or Riders on the Lyft Platform or in connection with your provision of Services. If we suspect that you have engaged in fraudulent activity we may withhold applicable Fares or other payments for the ride(s) in question.
You will make reasonable accommodation for Riders and/or for service animals, as required by law and our Service Animal Policy.
All intellectual property rights in the Lyft Platform shall be owned by Lyft absolutely and in their entirety. These rights include database rights, copyright, design rights (whether registered or unregistered), trademarks (whether registered or unregistered) and other similar rights wherever existing in the world together with the right to apply for protection of the same. All other trademarks, logos, service marks, company or product names set forth in the Lyft Platform are the property of their respective owners. You acknowledge and agree that any questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, feedback or other information ("Submissions") provided by you to us are non-confidential and shall become the sole property of Lyft. Lyft shall own exclusive rights, including all intellectual property rights, and shall be entitled to the unrestricted use and dissemination of these Submissions for any purpose, commercial or otherwise, without acknowledgment or compensation to you.
LYFT and other Lyft logos, designs, graphics, icons, scripts and service names are registered trademarks, trademarks or trade dress of Lyft in the United States and/or other countries (collectively, the "Lyft Marks"). If you provide Services as a Driver, Lyft grants to you, during the term of this Agreement, and subject to your compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement, a limited, revocable, non-exclusive license to display and use the Lyft Marks solely in connection with providing the Services through the Lyft Platform ("License"). The License is non-transferable and non-assignable, and you shall not grant to any third party any right, permission, license or sublicense with respect to any of the rights granted hereunder without Lyft's prior written permission, which it may withhold in its sole discretion. The Lyft Marks may not be used in any manner that is likely to cause confusion.
You acknowledge that Lyft is the owner and licensor of the Lyft Marks, including all goodwill associated therewith, and that your use of the Lyft Marks will confer no additional interest in or ownership of the Lyft Marks in you but rather inures to the benefit of Lyft. You agree to use the Lyft Marks strictly in accordance with Lyft's Trademark Usage Guidelines, as may be provided to you and revised from time to time, and to immediately cease any use that Lyft determines to nonconforming or otherwise unacceptable.
You agree that you will not: (1) create any materials that use the Lyft Marks or any derivatives of the Lyft Marks as a trademark, service mark, trade name or trade dress, other than as expressly approved by Lyft in writing; (2) use the Lyft Marks in any way that tends to impair their validity as proprietary trademarks, service marks, trade names or trade dress, or use the Lyft Marks other than in accordance with the terms, conditions and restrictions herein; (3) take any other action that would jeopardize or impair Lyft's rights as owner of the Lyft Marks or the legality and/or enforceability of the Lyft Marks, including, challenging or opposing Lyft's ownership in the Lyft Marks; (4) apply for trademark registration or renewal of trademark registration of any of the Lyft Marks, any derivative of the Lyft Marks, any combination of the Lyft Marks and any other name, or any trademark, service mark, trade name, symbol or word which is similar to the Lyft Marks; (5) use the Lyft Marks on or in connection with any product, service or activity that is in violation of any law, statute, government regulation or standard.
Violation of any provision of this License may result in immediate termination of the License, in Lyft's sole discretion. If you create any materials bearing the Lyft Marks (in violation of this Agreement or otherwise), you agree that upon their creation Lyft exclusively owns all right, title and interest in and to such materials, including any modifications to the Lyft Marks or derivative works based on the Lyft Marks. You further agree to assign any interest or right you may have in such materials to Lyft, and to provide information and execute any documents as reasonably requested by Lyft to enable Lyft to formalize such assignment.
Lyft respects the intellectual property of others, and expects Users to do the same. If you believe, in good faith, that any materials on the Lyft Platform or Services infringe upon your copyrights, please view our Copyright Policy for information on how to make a copyright complaint.
The following disclaimers are made on behalf of Lyft, our affiliates, subsidiaries, parents, successors and assigns, and each of our respective officers, directors, employees, agents, and shareholders.
Lyft does not provide transportation services, and Lyft is not a transportation carrier. Lyft is not a common carrier or public carrier. It is up to the Driver to decide whether or not to offer a ride to a Rider contacted through the Lyft Platform, and it is up to the Rider to decide whether or not to accept a ride from any Driver contacted through the Lyft Platform. We cannot ensure that a Driver or Rider will complete an arranged transportation service. We have no control over the quality or safety of the transportation that occurs as a result of the Services.
The Lyft Platform is provided on an "as is" basis and without any warranty or condition, express, implied or statutory. We do not guarantee and do not promise any specific results from use of the Lyft Platform and/or the Services, including the ability to provide or receive Services at any given location or time. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we specifically disclaim any implied warranties of title, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. Some states do not allow the disclaimer of implied warranties, so the foregoing disclaimer may not apply to you.
We do not warrant that your use of the Lyft Platform or Services will be accurate, complete, reliable, current, secure, uninterrupted, always available, or error- free, or will meet your requirements, that any defects in the Lyft Platform will be corrected, or that the Lyft Platform is free of viruses or other harmful components. We disclaim liability for, and no warranty is made with respect to, connectivity and availability of the Lyft Platform or Services.
We cannot guarantee that each Rider is who he or she claims to be. Please use common sense when using the Lyft Platform and Services, including looking at the photos of the Driver or Rider you have matched with to make sure it is the same individual you see in person. Please note that there are also risks of dealing with underage persons or people acting under false pretense, and we do not accept responsibility or liability for any content, communication or other use or access of the Lyft Platform by persons under the age of 18 in violation of this Agreement. We encourage you to communicate directly with each potential Driver or Rider prior to engaging in an arranged transportation service.
Lyft is not responsible for the conduct, whether online or offline, of any User of the Lyft Platform or Services. You are solely responsible for your interactions with other Users. We do not procure insurance for, nor are we responsible for, personal belongings left in the car by Drivers or Riders. By using the Lyft Platform and participating in the Services, you agree to accept such risks and agree that Lyft is not responsible for the acts or omissions of Users on the Lyft Platform or participating in the Services.
You are responsible for the use of your User account and Lyft expressly disclaims any liability arising from the unauthorized use of your User account. Should you suspect that any unauthorized party may be using your User account or you suspect any other breach of security, you agree to notify us immediately.
It is possible for others to obtain information about you that you provide, publish or post to or through the Lyft Platform (including any profile information you provide), send to other Users, or share during the Services, and to use such information to harass or harm you. We are not responsible for the use of any personal information that you disclose to other Users on the Lyft Platform or through the Services. Please carefully select the type of information that you post on the Lyft Platform or through the Services or release to others. We disclaim all liability, regardless of the form of action, for the acts or omissions of other Users (including unauthorized users, or "hackers").
Opinions, advice, statements, offers, or other information or content concerning Lyft or made available through the Lyft Platform, but not directly by us, are those of their respective authors, and should not necessarily be relied upon. Such authors are solely responsible for such content. Under no circumstances will we be responsible for any loss or damage resulting from your reliance on information or other content posted by third parties, whether on the Lyft Platform or otherwise. We reserve the right, but we have no obligation, to monitor the materials posted on the Lyft Platform and remove any such material that in our sole opinion violates, or is alleged to violate, the law or this agreement or which might be offensive, illegal, or that might violate the rights, harm, or threaten the safety of Users or others.
Location data provided by the Lyft Platform is for basic location purposes only and is not intended to be relied upon in situations where precise location information is needed or where erroneous, inaccurate or incomplete location data may lead to death, personal injury, property or environmental damage. Neither Lyft, nor any of its content providers, guarantees the availability, accuracy, completeness, reliability, or timeliness of location data tracked or displayed by the Lyft Platform. Any of your Information, including geolocational data, you upload, provide, or post on the Lyft Platform may be accessible to Lyft and certain Users of the Lyft Platform.
Lyft advises you to use the Lyft Platform with a data plan with unlimited or very high data usage limits, and Lyft shall not responsible or liable for any fees, costs, or overage charges associated with any data plan you use to access the Lyft Platform.
This paragraph applies to any version of the Lyft Platform that you acquire from the Apple App Store. This Agreement is entered into between you and Lyft. Apple, Inc. ("Apple") is not a party to this Agreement and shall have no obligations with respect to the Lyft Platform. Lyft, not Apple, is solely responsible for the Lyft Platform and the content thereof as set forth hereunder. However, Apple and Apple's subsidiaries are third party beneficiaries of this Agreement. Upon your acceptance of this Agreement, Apple shall have the right (and will be deemed to have accepted the right) to enforce this Agreement against you as a third party beneficiary thereof. This Agreement incorporates by reference Apple's Licensed Application End User License Agreement, for purposes of which, you are "the end-user." In the event of a conflict in the terms of the Licensed Application End User License Agreement and this Agreement, the terms of this Agreement shall control.
Certain jurisdictions require additional disclosures to you. You can view any disclosures required by your local jurisdiction at www.lyft.com/terms/disclosures. We will update the disclosures page as jurisdictions add, remove or amend these required disclosures, so please check in regularly for updates.
You will defend, indemnify, and hold Lyft including our affiliates, subsidiaries, parents, successors and assigns, and each of our respective officers, directors, employees, agents, or shareholders harmless from any claims, actions, suits, losses, costs, liabilities and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) relating to or arising out of your use of the Lyft Platform and participation in the Services, including: (1) your breach of this Agreement or the documents it incorporates by reference; (2) your violation of any law or the rights of a third party, including, Drivers, Riders, other motorists, and pedestrians, as a result of your own interaction with such third party; (3) any allegation that any materials that you submit to us or transmit through the Lyft Platform or to us infringe or otherwise violate the copyright, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property or other rights of any third party; (4) your ownership, use or operation of a motor vehicle or passenger vehicle, including your provision of Services as a Driver; and/or (5) any other activities in connection with the Services. This indemnity shall be applicable without regard to the negligence of any party, including any indemnified person.
In no event will Lyft, including our affiliates, subsidiaries, parents, successors and assigns, and each of our respective officers, directors, employees, agents, or shareholders (collectively "Lyft" for purposes of this section), be liable to you for any incidental, special, exemplary, punitive, consequential, or indirect damages (including damages for deletion, corruption, loss of data, loss of programs, failure to store any information or other content maintained or transmitted by the Lyft Platform, service interruptions, or for the cost of procurement of substitute services) arising out of or in connection with the Lyft Platform, the Services, or this Agreement, however arising including negligence, even if we or our agents or representatives know or have been advised of the possibility of such damages. The Lyft Platform may be used by you to request and schedule transportation, goods, or other services with third party providers, but you agree that Lyft has no responsibility or liability to you related to any transportation, goods or other services provided to you by third party providers other than as expressly set forth in this agreement. Certain jurisdictions may not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages. If these laws apply to you, some or all of the above disclaimers, exclusions or limitations may not apply to you, and you may have additional rights.
This Agreement is effective upon your creation of a User account. This Agreement may be terminated: a) by User, without cause, upon seven (7) days' prior written notice to Lyft; or b) by either Party immediately, without notice, upon the other Party's material breach of this Agreement, including but not limited to any breach of Section 9 or breach of Section 10(a) through (i) of this Agreement. In addition, Lyft may terminate this Agreement or deactivate your User account immediately in the event: (1) you no longer qualify to provide Services or to operate the approved vehicle under applicable law, rule, permit, ordinance or regulation; (2) you fall below Lyft's star rating or cancellation threshold; (3) Lyft has the good faith belief that such action is necessary to protect the safety of the Lyft community or third parties, provided that in the event of a deactivation pursuant to (1)-(3) above, you will be given notice of the potential or actual deactivation and an opportunity to attempt to cure the issue to Lyft's reasonable satisfaction prior to Lyft permanently terminating the Agreement. For all other breaches of this Agreement, you will be provided notice and an opportunity to cure the breach. If the breach is cured in a timely manner and to Lyft's satisfaction, this Agreement will not be permanently terminated. Sections 2, 6, 7 (with respect to the license), 11-12, 14-19, and 21 shall survive any termination or expiration of this Agreement.
(a) Agreement to Binding Arbitration Between You and Lyft.
You and Lyft mutually agree to waive our respective rights to resolution of disputes in a court of law by a judge or jury and agree to resolve any dispute by arbitration, as set forth below. This agreement to arbitrate ("Arbitration Agreement") is governed by the Federal Arbitration Act and survives after the Agreement terminates or your relationship with Lyft ends. Any arbitration under this Agreement will take place on an individual basis; class arbitrations and class actions are not permitted. Except as expressly provided below, this Arbitration Agreement applies to all Claims (defined below) between you and Lyft, including our affiliates, subsidiaries, parents, successors and assigns, and each of our respective officers, directors, employees, agents, or shareholders. This Arbitration Agreement also applies to claims between you and Lyft's service providers, including but not limited to background check providers and payment processors; and such service providers shall be considered intended third party beneficiaries of this Arbitration Agreement.
Except as expressly provided below, all disputes and claims between us (each a "Claim" and collectively, "Claims") shall be exclusively resolved by binding arbitration solely between you and Lyft. These Claims include, but are not limited to, any dispute, claim or controversy, whether based on past, present, or future events, arising out of or relating to: this Agreement and prior versions thereof (including the breach, termination, enforcement, interpretation or validity thereof), the Lyft Platform, the Services, any other goods or services made available through the Lyft Platform, your relationship with Lyft, the threatened or actual suspension, deactivation or termination of your User Account or this Agreement, background checks performed by or on Lyft's behalf, payments made by you or any payments made or allegedly owed to you, any promotions or offers made by Lyft, any city, county, state or federal wage-hour law, trade secrets, unfair competition, compensation, breaks and rest periods, expense reimbursement, wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, fraud, defamation, emotional distress, breach of any express or implied contract or covenant, claims arising under federal or state consumer protection laws; claims arising under antitrust laws, claims arising under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and Fair Credit Reporting Act; and claims arising under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Americans With Disabilities Act, Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Older Workers Benefit Protection Act, Family Medical Leave Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, Employee Retirement Income Security Act (except for individual claims for employee benefits under any benefit plan sponsored by Lyft and covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 or funded by insurance), and state statutes, if any, addressing the same or similar subject matters, and all other federal and state statutory and common law claims. All disputes concerning the arbitrability of a Claim (including disputes about the scope, applicability, enforceability, revocability or validity of the Arbitration Agreement) shall be decided by the arbitrator, except as expressly provided below.
By agreeing to arbitration, you understand that you and Lyft are waiving the right to sue in court or have a jury trial for all Claims, except as expressly otherwise provided in this Arbitration Agreement. This Arbitration Agreement is intended to require arbitration of every claim or dispute that can lawfully be arbitrated, except for those claims and disputes which by the terms of this Arbitration Agreement are expressly excluded from the requirement to arbitrate.
You understand and agree that you and Lyft may each bring Claims in arbitration against the other only in an individual capacity and not on a class, collective action, or representative basis ("Class Action Waiver"). You understand and agree that you and Lyft both are waiving the right to pursue or have a dispute resolved as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective or representative proceeding. Notwithstanding the foregoing, this subsection (b) shall not apply to representative private attorneys general act claims brought against Lyft, which are addressed separately in Section 17(c).
The arbitrator shall have no authority to consider or resolve any Claim or issue any relief on any basis other than an individual basis. The arbitrator shall have no authority to consider or resolve any Claim or issue any relief on a class, collective, or representative basis. The arbitrator may award declaratory or injunctive relief only in favor of the individual party seeking relief and only to the extent necessary to provide relief warranted by that party's individual claims.
Notwithstanding any other provision of this Agreement or the Arbitration Agreement, to the fullest extent permitted by law: (1) you and Lyft agree not to bring a representative action on behalf of others under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 ("PAGA"), California Labor Code § 2698 et seq., in any court or in arbitration, and (2) for any claim brought on a private attorney general basis, including under the California PAGA, both you and Lyft agree that any such dispute shall be resolved in arbitration on an individual basis only (i.e., to resolve whether you have personally been aggrieved or subject to any violations of law), and that such an action may not be used to resolve the claims or rights of other individuals in a single or collective proceeding (i.e., to resolve whether other individuals have been aggrieved or subject to any violations of law) (collectively, "representative PAGA Waiver"). Notwithstanding any other provision of this Agreement, the Arbitration Agreement or the AAA Rules, disputes regarding the scope, applicability, enforceability, revocability or validity of this representative PAGA Waiver may be resolved only by a civil court of competent jurisdiction and not by an arbitrator. If any provision of this representative PAGA Waiver is found to be unenforceable or unlawful for any reason: (i) the unenforceable provision shall be severed from this Agreement; (ii) severance of the unenforceable provision shall have no impact whatsoever on the Arbitration Agreement or the requirement that any remaining Claims be arbitrated on an individual basis pursuant to the Arbitration Agreement; and (iii) any such representative PAGA or other representative private attorneys general act claims must be litigated in a civil court of competent jurisdiction and not in arbitration. To the extent that there are any Claims to be litigated in a civil court of competent jurisdiction because a civil court of competent jurisdiction determines that the representative PAGA Waiver is unenforceable with respect to those Claims, the Parties agree that litigation of those Claims shall be stayed pending the outcome of any individual Claims in arbitration.
As part of the arbitration, both you and Lyft will have the opportunity for reasonable discovery of non-privileged information that is relevant to the Claim. The arbitrator may award any individualized remedies that would be available in court. The arbitrator may award declaratory or injunctive relief only in favor of the individual party seeking relief and only to the extent necessary to provide relief warranted by that party's individual claims. The arbitrator will provide a reasoned written statement of the arbitrator's decision which shall explain the award given and the findings and conclusions on which the decision is based.
The arbitrator will decide the substance of all claims in accordance with applicable law, and will honor all claims of privilege recognized by law. The arbitrator shall not be bound by rulings in prior arbitrations involving different Riders or Drivers, but is bound by rulings in prior arbitrations involving the same Rider or Driver to the extent required by applicable law. The arbitrator's award shall be final and binding and judgment on the award rendered by the arbitrator may be entered in any court having jurisdiction thereof, provided that any award may be challenged in a court of competent jurisdiction.
If you initiate arbitration under this Arbitration Agreement after participating in the optional Negotiation process described in subsection (k) below and are otherwise required to pay a filing fee under the relevant AAA Rules, Lyft agrees that, unless your claim is for $5,000 or more, your share of the filing and arbitration fees is limited to $50, and that, after you submit proof of payment of the filing fee to Lyft, Lyft will promptly reimburse you for all but $50 of the filing fee. If, however, the arbitrator finds that either the substance of your claim or the relief sought in the claim is frivolous or brought for an improper purpose (as measured by the standards set forth in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b)), then the payment of all such fees will be governed by the AAA Rules.
If Lyft initiates arbitration under this Arbitration Agreement, Lyft will pay all AAA filing and arbitration fees.
With respect to any Claims brought by Lyft against a Driver, or for Claims brought by a Driver against Lyft that: (A) are based on an alleged employment relationship between Lyft and a Driver; (B) arise out of, or relate to, Lyft's actual deactivation of a Driver's User account or a threat by Lyft to deactivate a Driver's User account; (C) arise out of, or relate to, Lyft's actual termination of a Driver's Agreement with Lyft under the termination provisions of this Agreement, or a threat by Lyft to terminate a Driver's Agreement; (D) arise out of, or relate to, Fares (as defined in this Agreement, including Lyft's commission or fees on the Fares), tips, or average hourly guarantees owed by Lyft to Drivers for Services, other than disputes relating to referral bonuses, other Lyft promotions, or consumer-type disputes, or (E) arise out of or relate to background checks performed in connection with a user seeking to become a Driver (the subset of Claims in subsections (A)-(E) shall be collectively referred to as "Driver Claims"), Lyft shall pay all costs unique to arbitration (as compared to the costs of adjudicating the same claims before a court), including the regular and customary arbitration fees and expenses (to the extent not paid by Lyft pursuant to the fee provisions above). However, if you are the party initiating the Driver Claim, you shall be responsible for contributing up to an amount equal to the filing fee that would be paid to initiate the claim in the court of general jurisdiction in the state in which you provide Services to Riders, unless a lower fee amount would be owed by you pursuant to the AAA Rules, applicable law, or subsection (e)(1) above. Any dispute as to whether a cost is unique to arbitration shall be resolved by the arbitrator. For purposes of this Section 17(e)(3), the term "Driver" shall be deemed to include both Drivers and Driver applicants who have not been approved to drive.
Although under some laws Lyft may have a right to an award of attorneys' fees and non-filing fee expenses if it prevails in an arbitration, Lyft agrees that it will not seek such an award.
If the arbitrator issues you an award that is greater than the value of Lyft's last written settlement offer made after you participated in good faith in the optional Negotiation process described in subsection (k) below, then Lyft will pay you the amount of the award or U.S. $1,000, whichever is greater.
Unless you and Lyft agree otherwise, any arbitration hearings between Lyft and a Rider will take place in the county of your billing address, and any arbitration hearings between Lyft and a Driver will take place in the county in which the Driver provides Services. If AAA arbitration is unavailable in your county, the arbitration hearings will take place in the nearest available location for a AAA arbitration. If your Claim is for $10,000 or less, Lyft agrees that you may choose whether the arbitration will be conducted solely on the basis of documents submitted to the arbitrator, through a telephonic hearing, or by an in-person hearing as determined by the AAA Rules. If your Claim exceeds $10,000, the right to a hearing will be determined by the AAA Rules.
This Arbitration Agreement shall not require arbitration of the following types of claims: (1) small claims actions brought on an individual basis that are within the scope of such small claims court's jurisdiction; (2) a representative action brought on behalf of others under PAGA or other private attorneys general acts, to the extent the representative PAGA Waiver in Section 17(c) of such action is deemed unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction under applicable law not preempted by the FAA; (3) claims for workers' compensation, state disability insurance and unemployment insurance benefits; and (4) claims that may not be subject to arbitration as a matter of generally applicable law not preempted by the FAA.
Nothing in this Arbitration Agreement prevents you from making a report to or filing a claim or charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, U.S. Department of Labor, Securities Exchange Commission, National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB"), or Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, or similar local, state or federal agency, and nothing in this Arbitration Agreement shall be deemed to preclude or excuse a party from bringing an administrative claim before any agency in order to fulfill the party's obligation to exhaust administrative remedies before making a claim in arbitration However, should you bring an administrative claim, you may only seek or recover money damages of any type pursuant to this Arbitration Provision, and you knowingly and voluntarily waive the right to seek or recover money damages of any type pursuant to any administrative complaint, except for a complaint issued by the NLRB. Should you participate in an NLRB proceeding, you may only recover money damages if such recovery does not arise from or relate to a claim previously adjudicated under this Arbitration Provision or settled by you. Similarly, you may not recover money damages under this Arbitration Provision if you have already adjudicated such claim with the NLRB. Nothing in this Agreement or Arbitration Agreement prevents your participation in an investigation by a government agency of any report, claim or charge otherwise covered by this Arbitration Provision.
In addition to the severability provisions in subsections (c) above, in the event that any portion of this Arbitration Agreement is deemed illegal or unenforceable under applicable law not preempted by the FAA, such provision shall be severed and the remainder of the Arbitration Agreement shall be given full force and effect.
(i) Driver Claims in Pending Settlement.
If you are a member of a putative class in a lawsuit against Lyft involving Driver Claims and a Motion for Preliminary Approval of a Settlement has been filed with the court in that lawsuit prior to this Agreement's effective date (a "Pending Settlement Action"), then this Arbitration Agreement shall not apply to your Driver Claims in that particular class action. Instead, your Driver Claims in that Pending Settlement Action shall continue to be governed by the arbitration provisions contained in the applicable Agreement that you accepted prior to this Agreement's effective date.
(j) Opting Out of Arbitration for Driver Claims That Are Not In a Pending Settlement Action.
Cases have been filed against Lyft and may be filed in the future involving Driver Claims. You should assume that there are now, and may be in the future, lawsuits against Lyft alleging class, collective, and/or representative Driver Claims in which the plaintiffs seek to act on your behalf, and which, if successful, could result in some monetary recovery to you. But if you do agree to arbitration of Driver Claims with Lyft under this Arbitration Agreement, you are agreeing in advance that you will bring all such claims, and seek all monetary and other relief, against Lyft in an individual arbitration provision, except for the Driver Claims that are part of a Pending Settlement Action. You are also agreeing in advance that you will not participate in, or seek to recover monetary or other relief, for such claims in any court action or class, collective, and/or representative action. You have the right to consult with counsel of your choice concerning this Arbitration Agreement and you will not be subject to retaliation if you exercise your right to assert claims or opt- out of any Driver Claims under this Arbitration Agreement.
Before initiating any arbitration or proceeding, you and Lyft may agree to first attempt to negotiate any dispute, claim or controversy between the parties informally for 30 days, unless this time period is mutually extended by you and Lyft. A party who intends to seek negotiation under this subsection must first send to the other a written notice of the dispute ("Notice"). The Notice must (1) describe the nature and basis of the claim or dispute; and (2) set forth the specific relief sought. All offers, promises, conduct and statements, whether oral or written, made in the course of the negotiation by any of the parties, their agents, employees, and attorneys are confidential, privileged and inadmissible for any purpose, including as evidence of liability or for impeachment, in arbitration or other proceeding involving the parties, provided that evidence that is otherwise admissible or discoverable shall not be rendered inadmissible or non-discoverable as a result of its use in the negotiation.
You agree not to use any technical, financial, strategic and other proprietary and confidential information relating to Lyft's business, operations and properties, information about a User made available to you in connection with such User's use of the Platform, which may include the User's name, pick-up location, contact information and photo ("Confidential Information") disclosed to you by Lyft for your own use or for any purpose other than as contemplated herein. You shall not disclose or permit disclosure of any Confidential Information to third parties. You agree to take all reasonable measures to protect the secrecy of and avoid disclosure or use of Confidential Information of Lyft in order to prevent it from falling into the public domain. Notwithstanding the above, you shall not have liability to Lyft with regard to any Confidential Information which you can prove: was in the public domain at the time it was disclosed by Lyft or has entered the public domain through no fault of yours; was known to you, without restriction, at the time of disclosure, as demonstrated by files in existence at the time of disclosure; is disclosed with the prior written approval of Lyft; becomes known to you, without restriction, from a source other than Lyft without breach of this Agreement by you and otherwise not in violation of Lyft's rights; or is disclosed pursuant to the order or requirement of a court, administrative agency, or other governmental body; provided, however, that You shall provide prompt notice of such court order or requirement to Lyft to enable Lyft to seek a protective order or otherwise prevent or restrict such disclosure.
As a Driver on the Lyft Platform, you acknowledge and agree that you and Lyft are in a direct business relationship, and the relationship between the parties under this Agreement is solely that of independent contracting parties. You and Lyft expressly agree that (1) this is not an employment agreement and does not create an employment relationship between you and Lyft; and (2) no joint venture, franchisor- franchisee, partnership, or agency relationship is intended or created by this Agreement. You have no authority to bind Lyft, and you undertake not to hold yourself out as an employee, agent or authorized representative of Lyft.
Lyft does not, and shall not be deemed to, direct or control you generally or in your performance under this Agreement specifically, including in connection with your provision of Services, your acts or omissions, or your operation and maintenance of your vehicle. You retain the sole right to determine when, where, and for how long you will utilize the Lyft Platform. You retain the option to accept or to decline or ignore a Rider's request for Services via the Lyft Platform, or to cancel an accepted request for Services via the Lyft Platform, subject to Lyft's then-current cancellation policies. With the exception of any signage required by law or permit/license rules or requirements, Lyft shall have no right to require you to: (a) display Lyft's names, logos or colors on your vehicle(s); or (b) wear a uniform or any other clothing displaying Lyft's names, logos or colors. You acknowledge and agree that you have complete discretion to provide Services or otherwise engage in other business or employment activities.
In addition to connecting Riders with Drivers, the Lyft Platform may enable Users to provide or receive goods or services from other third parties. For example, Users may be able to use the Lyft Platform to order a delivery of goods, purchase a digital item, request a carpool ride from a commuter going in your direction, or when travelling outside of the United States, to connect with local transportation platforms and request rides from local drivers (collectively, the "Other Services"). You understand and that the Other Services are subject to the terms and pricing of the third-party provider. If you choose to purchase Other Services through the Lyft Platform, you authorize Lyft to charge your payment method on file according to the pricing terms set by the third-party provider. You agree that Lyft is not responsible and may not be held liable for the Other Services or the actions or omissions of the third- party provider. Such Other Services may not be investigated, monitored or checked for accuracy, appropriateness, or completeness by us, and we are not responsible for any Other Services accessed through the Lyft Platform.
Except as provided in Section 17, this Agreement shall be governed by the laws of the State of California without regard to choice of law principles. This choice of law provision is only intended to specify the use of California law to interpret this Agreement and is not intended to create any other substantive right to non- Californians to assert claims under California law whether by statute, common law, or otherwise. If any provision of this Agreement is or becomes invalid or non- binding, the parties shall remain bound by all other provisions of this Agreement. In that event, the parties shall replace the invalid or non-binding provision with provisions that are valid and binding and that have, to the greatest extent possible, a similar effect as the invalid or non-binding provision, given the contents and purpose of this Agreement. You agree that this Agreement and all incorporated agreements may be automatically assigned by Lyft, in our sole discretion by providing notice to you. Except as explicitly stated otherwise, any notices to Lyft shall be given by certified mail, postage prepaid and return receipt requested to Lyft, Inc., 185 Berry St., Suite 5000, San Francisco, CA 94107. Any notices to you shall be provided to you through the Lyft Platform or given to you via the email address or physical you provide to Lyft during the registration process. Headings are for reference purposes only and in no way define, limit, construe or describe the scope or extent of such section. The words "include", "includes" and "including" are deemed to be followed by the words "without limitation". A party's failure to act with respect to a breach by the other party does not constitute a waiver of the party's right to act with respect to subsequent or similar breaches. This Agreement sets forth the entire understanding and agreement between you and Lyft with respect to the subject matter hereof and supersedes all previous understandings and agreements between the parties, whether oral or written.
If you have any questions regarding the Lyft Platform or Services, please contact our Customer Support Team through our Help Center.


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The Life & Death of Isaac Babel
No iron spike can pierce a human heart as icily as a period in the right place.
—Isaac Babel
At any rate, here was Babel's book and I found it disturbing. It was obviously the most remarkable work of fiction that had yet come out of revolutionary Russia, the only work, indeed, that I know of as having upon it the mark of exceptional talent, even of genius.
—Lionel Trilling, remarking about Red Cavalry,
in Isaac Babel's Collected Stories
Isaac Babel's widow, Antonina Pirozhkova, died on September 12th at her home in Sarasota, Florida. Ms. Pirozkhova, who was 101, was the wife of one of the Soviet Union's most famous short-story writers, Isaac Babel.
Babel, born in Odessa in 1894, the son of a Jewish merchant family, moved to St. Petersburg at age 21. There, he had to be careful of the Tsarist police, as he lacked the proper residency permits required of all Jews. After having met Gorky, who published two of his stories in his magazine, Babel became a published writer, and eventually a well-regarded one, at least until Gorky's death in 1936. Gorky had became his protector of sorts from the reproaches of Soviet authorities.
After this period, Babel's last years under the steel grip of Stalinism and its purges were generally ones of silence. His inability to serve the causes of socialism caught up with Babel, and eventually silenced him with bullets from a firing squad on January 27, 1940. He was arrested on May 15, 1939, and charged with espionage. There was a perfunctory short 20-minute trial on January 26, 1940, and then the state-sanctioned execution the next day. Babel was 45.
Those are the barest details of the short life of Isaac Babel. Yet, there's more to be told.
Isaac Babel's life and untimely death matters greatly, as his life and stories show that revolutions take on a life of their own, and that truth is always a casualty of war, particularly truths that go against the official narrative put forth by its leaders. Isaac Babel, in some extreme test of the idealistic renderings of Brotherhood of Man, pushed himself out of his natural skin to better understand the ambient life of the Soviet Union and its destructive forces.
That his and the Jewish people's hopes for a better life quickly turned sour is a well-told story. Yet Babel remained and wrote, like a stoic soldier, even for the most unlikely sources. Babel, as a war correspondent for ROSTA, the Soviet news agency, re-crafted his stories of the Cossacks in Red Cavalry (1926), his most famous work. A masterpiece, it vividly recounts the command of Semyon Budyonny and the Cossacks in the Red Army's 1920 campaign to spread the revolution outside Russia's borders.
"Under the non-Jewish name of Lyutov, the Jewish Babel served with this army, and the stories fictionalize—sometimes without even changing names—what happened to the invading soldiers, to the Polish and Jewish inhabitants they encountered, and to Lyutov (the name of the stories' principal narrator) himself," says Gary Saul Moroson in the New Criterion's Isaac Babel's Genre of Silence:
The cycle, taken as a whole, remains one of the masterpieces of Russian literature. If one thinks of a great work as one that will be read by nonspecialists a hundred years hence, then I think there are only three works of post-Revolutionary Russian prose that are without qualification great: Mikhail Bulgakov's comic masterpiece about the devil's visit to Soviet Russia, The Master and Margarita; Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, which finds an appropriate strategy for making an endless chronicle of horrors into compelling reading; and Babel's Red Cavalry.
It is precisely such horrors that make the book disturbing, in a way that great literary works often are, an assault to the expected order of things, says Lionel Trilling, the noted literary critic in a 1955 essay.
There was anomaly at the heart of the book, for the Red cavalry of the title were Cossacks regiments, and why were Cossacks fighting for the Revolution, they were the instruments and symbol of tsarist repression. The author, who represented himself in the stories, was a Jew; and a Jew in a Cossack regiment was more than an anomaly, it was a joke, for between Cossack and Jew there existed not merely hatred but polar opposition. Yet here was a Jew riding as a Cossack and trying to come to terms with the Cossack ethos.
Isaac Babel in 1908.
In The Complete Works of Isaac Babel (2001: Norton), edited by Nathalie Babel (Isaac Babel's first daughter) and translated by Peter Constantine), an article in The Independent by Robert Chandler points out a side of Babel not completely understood, even today:
It is uncertain whether Babel witnessed pogroms in his youth, but he was clearly fascinated by sadism and violence. Once he boasted to a friend: "I've now learned to watch calmly as people are shot." He was on friendly terms with Yezhov, head of the secret police during the height of the Purges. According to Nadezhda Mandelstam, her husband Osip once asked Babel why he was drawn to such people. Was it a desire to see what it was like in the exclusive store where the merchandise was death? Did he want to touch it with his fingers? No, Babel replied. "I just like to have a sniff and see what it smells like."
However perverted this seems, there is nothing voyeuristic about Babel's art. The greatness of Red Cavalry stems from the depth and clarity of Babel's understanding of the human capacity for violence. Sadism and vengefulness, in Babel's world, come in a variety of guises, and victims and executioners absorb one another's identity.
Babel went to great lengths to find out how The Other thinks, feels and even smells, even at great risk to self. It begs the question if the Other differs than us. He had a chance to leave the Soviet Union, particularly after the death of Lenin in 1925 made life more ominous for writers. Babel moved members of his family, including his first wife, Yevgeniya Borisovna Gronfeyn, to Western Europe. His daughter, Nathalie, was born in Paris, France in 1929. (She became a scholar in her own right, and died in 2005.)
Yet, Babel remained apart from his family. Although he took frequent trips to Western Europe, his heart remained in the Soviet Union. "Nathalie's only personal memory of Babel was from when she was 5. Babel, then a privileged Soviet writer, visited an international writers' congress in Paris, along with Boris Pasternak, in 1935," writes the New York Times. Although Babel was pressured to stay, he resisted it, Nathalie writes, chiefly out of sense of patriotism and personal honour:
"Babel was convinced that a writer mutilates himself and his work when he leaves his native country. He always refused to emigrate and never once thought of his trips abroad as a means to escape. Moreover, his sense of honour demanded that he stay among his own people,"
He began living with Antonina Pirozhkova in 1934, and in 1937 she gave birth to a daughter, Lidiya. And there Babel remained to the bitter end, knowing that his voice was being silenced. "In a remarkable appearance at the Congress of Writers in 1934, Babel gave a wry speech in which, with multiple layers of irony, he praised the Soviet regime for having deprived writers of the right to write badly," says Moroson writes in the same New Criterion article noted above, adding:
[C]commenting on his lack of publications in recent years, he also claimed to have mastered "the genre of silence." It was as if his own laconism had merely been taken a step further. And yet, even in the writings we do have, the hint often speaks loudest. We hear, in the resonant tonalities of the barely but piercingly audible, the appreciation, in extraordinary times, of all that is careful, precise, and ordinary.
When the secret police took Babel, they also seized his manuscripts, which were destroyed along with him. Babel's last words before he was executed were: "I am asking for only one thing—let me finish my work." In a sense of poetic justice, his work has outlasted the Soviet Union. Babel the man is no longer with us, but Babel's writings remain.
Posted by Perry J Greenbaum at 7:00 AM
Labels: death, government, individual dignity, Isaac Babel, justice, Red Calvary, Russia, Stalin, values, war, writers
David Bowie: Changes
Barbara Streisand: The Way We Were
The Problem of Power
Neil Diamond: I Said I Am
John Lennon: Woman
Crosby, Stills & Nash: Teach Your Children
Sonny and Cher: I Got You Babe
Joan Baez: We Shall Overcome
Pink Floyd: Money
Pay Me My Money Down: Bruce Springsteen
On Poverty
Peter, Paul & Mary: Blowin' in the Wind
Louis Armstrong: What a Wonderful World
The Beatles: Something
Pausing for Harold Pinter
Fitzgerald & Armstrong:Dream a Little Dream of Me
Beat It: Michael Jackson
Law & Order's Siren Song
Horowitz plays SchumannTraumerei in Moscow: April ...
Paul McCartney: Back In The USSR
Freedom of Speech: Edward R. Murrow
On Imagination
Paul McCartney : Hey Jude: Live In Red Square
Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run
Johnny Cash: San Quentin (Live from Prison)
John Lennon: Mind Games
Johnny Cash: Walk The Line
The Beatles: With a Little Help From My Friends
Articulating InHumanity: Primo Levi
The Beatles "Help!"
Efficiency & The Cult of Taylorism
David Bowie: Space Oddity
Alien Song to Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive"
Leonard Cohen: Tower of Song
Nobel's Notables 2010
Joni Mitchell in Big Yellow Taxi
Elvis Presley: Always on my Mind
John Lennon & Yoko Ono: Give Peace A Chance
Reading for Pleasure & Imagination
Leornard Cohen in Dance Me To The End of Love
Unwilling Participants
Fundraising Fatigue
Elvis Presley: In the Ghetto
On Courtesy
Leonard Cohen's Take This Waltz
Frank Sinatra's My Way
Silencing Dissent: Part II
Silencing Dissent

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Nephrotoma unicingulata är en tvåvingeart som beskrevs av Alexander 1917. Nephrotoma unicingulata ingår i släktet Nephrotoma och familjen storharkrankar. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Storharkrankar
unicingulata

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Global company seeks talented Strategic Pricing Analyst to support pricing and proposal efforts in UK and US markets. The ideal candidate will have 5+ years of pricing analysis experience, including market research, competitive analysis and financial modeling. We are looking for an excellent communicator to interface with internal and external stakeholders.
Flexible working arrangement and competitive compensation package offered.


As the year draws to a close, it's become clear that people care more about dragons and treacherous royalty than zombies and socially inept scientists: HBO's Game of Thrones is the most pirated show of 2015, according to TorrentFreak.
This year's season finale saw an estimated 14.4 million downloads via BitTorrent. Runners-up The Walking Dead and The Big Bang Theory weren't even close at with an estimated 6.9 and 4.4 million downloads respectively.
That marks the fourth year in a row that Game of Thrones has ruled the roost when it comes to pirated TV shows — without taking into consideration the other channels by which users may have illegally obtained copies.
Also among the top 10 most downloaded shows this year are Arrow, The Flash, Mr. Robot, Vikings, Supergirl, The Blacklist and Suits.
But if you ask me, the shows you really need to check out (preferably legally) are on Netflix: Making a Murderer and Master of None are perfect for binge-watching the holidays away.
Game of Thrones' sixth season airs in April 2016.


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INTERPOL Announces Large-Scale Operation to Arrest nearly 250 Fugitives across Asia
October 2, 2019 by Alexandra Haris Leave a Comment
On September 23, INTERPOL announced the recent success of its coordinated operation, Operation Tighten the Net, arresting 241 fugitives across Asia between June and August 2019. These fugitives were wanted for serious crimes including human trafficking, terrorism, and murder, and some of the fugitives had been on the run for decades.
The operation involved the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China, Japan, and Korea (ASEAN+3). Operation Tighten the Net targeted fugitives that these countries wanted for years, but only with a coordinated effort were they able to find success. The countries took a multilateral approach to share information about the fugitives' cases, which serves as an example of the power and success that can arise with international cooperation.
In order to achieve the goals of the operation, the countries identified high-profile fugitives and shared intelligence with participating members. Equipped with new and crucial information, these countries could then target the fugitives to bring them to justice. Of the individuals arrested, 80 were subjects of INTERPOL Red Notices for crimes ranging from fraud, drug trafficking, money laundering, and crimes against children.
One particular case that stands out involves a Korean national who was wanted on fraud charges and had been on the run for 25 years. Through this operation, the national was finally discovered living in Thailand, their home for the last 20 years.
The results encompassed not only hundreds of arrests, but they also included the issuance of 248 Red Notices and 20 Blue Notices. A Blue Notice differs from a Red Notice in that it is used by member countries to collect additional information about an individual's identity, location or activities in relation to a crime.
INTERPOL's goal is to continue this cooperative crackdown and arrest more fugitives suspected of these serious crimes. INTERPOL's Head of the Liaison Office in Thailand, Kitaek Kang, reaffirmed the organization's intent to continue working with all ASEAN+3 partners to build on the momentum of the operation.
INTERPOL credits some of the operation's success to a training it held in May for participating member states. The training workshop focused on INTERPOL's fugitive investigation capabilities and criminal databases, as well as the organization's support to mutual legal assistance matters. This educated participants on the organization's resources and illustrated how they could then use these resources to capture the alleged criminals.
INTERPOL also claimed the operation's success derived from the efforts of the participating National Central Bureaus (NCBs) as well as partner law enforcement organizations.
This operation is distinctive as it marks the first regional fugitive investigative action coordinated by the INTERPOL Liaison Office in Bangkok, Thailand, with support from the INTERPOL NCB in Korea.
As a result, the Commissioner General of the Korean National Police Agency, Min Gab Ryong, commented on the operation with the confirmation of Korea's commitment to collaborate with INTERPOL against crime while securing the rule of law in the region by "synchronizing efforts with regional partners as a member of ASEAN+3."
This positive reception was encouraging for INTERPOL since, in the past, the organization has experienced scrutiny over its true effectiveness due to its absence of police power and ability to make arrests. However, this action helps to demonstrate the impact that the organization can have on global policing. In this case, the organization facilitated international cooperation and policing while providing resources in order to complete these 241 arrests. It will be interesting to see if INTERPOL attempts to make similar efforts in other global regions.
Filed Under: INTERPOL
U.S. Director of INTERPOL NCB Remarks Help Celebrate USNCB's 50th Anniversary
September 20, 2019 by Bruce Zagaris Leave a Comment
On September 17, 2019, Wayne H. Salzgaber, Director of the United States National Central Bureau (USNCB) of INTERPOL gave remarks, highlighting some of its unique achievements.
A unique aspect of the USNCB has been that it co-managed by the Deputy Attorney General and the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS – formally Treasury). The co-management structure enables to USNCB to marshal the resources necessary to handle whatever international challenge occurs.
Salzgaber pointed as a reason to the USNCB's success as its partner agencies in the U.S. United States partners detail their subject matter experts to the USNCB, helping the USNCB deliver the support required to all 18,000 U.S. law enforcement agencies across the United States.
An example of the contribution of the USNCB to INTERPOL is the development and operation of INTERPOL's Maritime Piracy database out of the USNCB before the latter gate it to INTERPOL as a means of bringing in more international partners. Nearly a decade later, that database is still being utilized to combat maritime piracy and prosecute persons involved in maritime piracy. (see https://www.interpol.int/Crimes/Maritime-crime)
USNCB personnel and detailees with expertise in traveler screening and passport data, collaborated with a handful of member country representatives to develop INTERPOL's Stolen and Lost Travel Document database. The database now has more than 90 million records of stolen or lost travel documents reported by more than 160 countries and is used virtually every second of every day to screen international travelers across the globe.
Since 9/11, USNCB has developed and used multiple Counter Terrorism Information sharing programs with its law enforcement and Department of defense partners. Operations such Vennlig,[1] Hamah, Tread, and Cellblock.
According to Salzgaber, INTERPOL has adopted the USNCB's model under a program called "MILEX" or Military to Law Enforcement Exchange. Today, a number of U.S.> foreign partners are using MILEX to collect and disseminate foreign terrorist fighter identity data obtained from conflict zones across the globe.
Salzgaber said of the more impactful programs USNCB developed was the integration of the INTERPOL notice system with U.S. national law enforcement indices. The solution enables any border official or law enforcement officer to access INTERPOL's global advisories on missing or wanted persons, foreign terrorist fighters and other subjects of interest within minutes of their publication right on their agency's native law enforcement or border systems.
However, on September 12, the Helsinki Commission held a hearing on the abuse of the INTERPOL Red Notice and diffusion systems, whereby many autocratic countries use the system to prevent political exiles from traveling and they try to arrest them. The following day members of the Helsinki Commission introduced a bill to remedy the abuses.
Salzgaber said the success of the USNCBI solution has resulted in the USNCB and now INTERPOL deploying technical assistance teams to help other countries in integrating their immigration and border security systems with INTERPOL's system, thereby creating truly global security architecture.
[1] Project Vennlig successfully provides terrorist information among INTERPOL member countries and the U.S. law enforcement community. See INTERPOL USNBC, U.S. Department of Justice, FY 2010 Performance Budget, Congressional Submission, 2. Sept. 18, 2013 https://www.justice.gov › legacy › 2013/09/28 › fy10-usncb-justification.
Bill to Curb INTERPOL Abuse Follows Helsinki Commission Hearing
Helsinki Commission Chairman Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (FL-20) and Ranking Member Rep. Joe Wilson (SC-02) today introduced the Transnational Repression Accountability and Prevention (TRAP) Act in the House of Representatives. Helsinki Commission Co-Chairman Sen. Roger Wicker (MS) and Ranking Member Sen. Ben Cardin (MD) plan to introduce the TRAP Act in the Senate on Monday.
On September 12, 2019, the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), also known as the Helsinki Commission, convened a hearing on the Tools of Transnational Repression: How Autocrats Punish Dissent Overseas, focusing on the role of International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL).
The Commission issued an explanation for the hearing, state that, as modern technology permits political dissidents and human rights defenders to operate from almost anywhere on the planet, repressive regimes have increasingly tried to intimidate them. .
To silence dissent from abroad, autocrats often turn to INTERPOL to file bogus criminal claims seeking the arrest and extradition of their political targets. This abuse of INTERPOL Red Notices and Diffusions enables autocratic governments to harass and intimidate their opponents thousands of miles away, even within free and democratic societies.
The U.S. Helsinki Commission convened an expert panel to highlight how present-day autocrats use INTERPOL and other means such as surveillance, abduction, and assassination to punish dissent overseas. The witnesses suggested how the United States and other democratic nations can defend against these threats to the rule of law domestically and internationally.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Ms) chaired the hearing. He is the chair of the Commission and Vice-President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. He said INTERPOL can be manipulated by autocratic governments. He said Red Notices and diffusions are constantly abused. INTERPOL regularly receives requests for human rights defenders and journalists on trumped up charges, such as the Kremlin's efforts to go after Bill Browder. Russia has issued at least eight diffusions about Browder over a decade. INTERPOL has not punished Russia. In fact, last fall Russia proposed a candidate for Secretary General.
Before the hearing, the Commission received statements about persons targeted by Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, and other governments.
Sen. Wicker will introduce legislation on limiting the use in U.S. immigration and law enforcement of INTERPOL notices and requiring the State Department to report on trends and transnational repression in its annual Human Rights report.
According to Sen. Wicker, INTERPOL is in need of greater transparency. The matter has been brought to the attention of the CSCE Parliamentary Assembly at its last meeting. The hearing will bring policy recommendations.
Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), a member of the Commission, commended Sen. Wicker's role and said he looks forward to working with Mr. Wicker on his legislation. Sen. Cardin noted that the Magnitsky statute has been expanded. He lamented that the Magnitsky Act has not been sufficiently used against Saudi Arabia for the murder of the late Saudi journalist Jamal Khashogghi.
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) also explained they supported the work of the hearing.
The following witnesses testified:
Alexander Cooley, Director, Columbia University's Harriman Institute for the Study of Russia, Eurasia, and Eastern Europe; Claire Tow Professor of Political Science, Barnard College, testified about harassment of political exiles and the denial to them of due process. The rise of technology enables autocratic governments to intimidate political exiles more than ever. Autocrats are networking to try to repurpose international organizations to meet their goals. INTERPOL diffusion notices are mushrooming. Azerbaijan, Venezuela, India, and Tajikistan are among the governments that abuse the diffusions. The diffusion notices make it difficult for targets to travel and use bank accounts and it costs them significant legal fees to extricate themselves from the problems arising out of the diffusion notices. The proposed Transnational Repression Accountability Procedures (TRAP) Act will help combat some of these dangers. Cooley said the TRAP Act would send a powerful signal about the importance of maintaining clear international standards against the politicization of our most important international organizations.
Nate Schenkkan, Director for Special Research, Freedom House, discussed the global campaign by Turkey after the 2016 attempted coup. It uploaded tens of thousands of diffusion notices, kidnapped 104 of its nationals from other countries (at least one was the wrong person although that person is still in jail), and cancelled thousands of passports. The U.S. should support exiled political exiles and journalists, including diaspora in the U.S. Schenkkan also endorsed
Freedom House will publish a new study, documenting the transnational oppression and violence against political exiles.
Bruno Min, Senior Legal and Policy Advisor, Fair Trials (FT), testified that INTERPOL is not subject to oversight and hence the U.S. government's role is very important. A major issue is how INTERPOL reviews Red Notices. We do not know how many Red Notices and diffusions are rejected and do not know what it would take to have INTERPOL review the requests more carefully. We see many abuses against refugees with high public profiles. INTERPOL only has a staff of about 30-40 persons to review 10,000 Red Notices and 50,000 diffusions each year. Diffusions are not subject to the same scrutiny. Hence, there is the risk that unchecked data will enter into national databases.
There is concern about procedures of the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL files (CCF). INTERPOL has improved it and made it more independent. FT has concerns about interpretation of INTERPOL's rules with respect to international human rights. INTERPOL has taken steps to protect persons who have been accorded refugee status. However, INTERPOL needs to do more.
INTERPOL needs encouragement to implement the recent reforms and adopt more reforms.
A crucial issue is lack of funding and understaffing of INTERPOL, which makes them depend on member countries to do its work at the risk of compromising its independence.
Sandra A. Grossman, Partner, Grossman Young & Hammond, Immigration Law, LLC, testified how autocratic governments are using the U.S. immigration system to abuse exiles. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) uses Red Notice to detain people. ICE treaties many Red Notices as conclusive evidence of criminality. ICE and immigration judges use Red Notices to mistreat people. ICE and immigration judges often become tools of corrupt governments, often detaining asylum applications. Jurisprudence and reports by CCF must be published so that more transparency exists about CCF.
To Sen. Wicker's inquiry, Grossman said the U.S. contributed $19.4 million and Japan, China, and Europe followed. The U.S. government is by far the greatest contributor.
At the end of the hearing, Sen. Wicker expressed hope that he and the U.S. Congress can do something about some of the abuses both in the U.S. law enforcement system and INTERPOL itself.
TRAP Act
Following reports that U.S. immigration authorities have cited such politically-motivated INTERPOL Red Notices and diffusions to detain some individuals and consider removing them from the United States, the TRAP Act formally codifies strict limitations on how INTERPOL requests can be used by U.S. authorities.
The TRAP Act further declares that it is the policy of the United States to pursue specific reforms within INTERPOL and use its diplomatic clout internationally to protect the rights of victims and denounce abusers. The bill requires the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and State, in consultation with other relevant agencies, to provide Congress with an assessment of autocratic abuse of INTERPOL, what the United States is doing to counteract it, and how to adapt United States policy to this evolving autocratic practice. The State Department would also be required to publicly report on the abuse of INTERPOL in its annual Country Reports on Human Rights to create a transparent, public record of these violations of the rule of law.
Original co-sponsors of the legislation include Helsinki Commission members Sen. Marco Rubio (FL), Sen. Cory Gardner (CO), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Rep. Steve Cohen (TN-09), Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01), Rep. Richard Hudson (NC-08), Rep. Gwen Moore (WI-04), and Rep. Marc Veasey (TX-33). Rep. John Curtis (UT-03), Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18), and Rep. Tom Malinowski (NJ-07) are also original co-sponsors.
Filed Under: Administrative Penal Law, Counterterrorism & International Human Rights, extradition, Governmental networks, Human Rights, Immigration, Immigration Enforcement, institutional cooperation, International Cooperation, International Criminal Law, international evidence gathering, international human rights and Magnitsky Act, INTERPOL
Helsinki Commission Hearing to Probe Autocratic Abuse of Interpol
The following is an announcement of a Helsinki Commission hearing (TOOLS OF TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION: How Autocrats Punish Dissent Overseas) on September 12, 2019, that should be of interest to followers of international enforcement cooperation — especially the role of INTERPOL.
WASHINGTON—The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, today announced the following hearing:
TOOLS OF TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION
How Autocrats Punish Dissent Overseas
Cannon House Office Building
Live Webcast: www.youtube.com/HelsinkiCommission
As modern technology has allowed political dissidents and human rights defenders to operate from almost anywhere on the planet, repressive regimes have searched for opportunities to reach those who threaten their rule from afar.
To silence dissent from abroad, autocrats often turn to the International Criminal Police Organization, known as INTERPOL, to file bogus criminal claims seeking the arrest and extradition of their political targets. This abuse of INTERPOL Red Notices and Diffusions enables autocratic governments to harass and intimidate their opponents thousands of miles away, even within free and democratic societies.
The U.S. Helsinki Commission will convene an expert panel to highlight how autocrats today use INTERPOL and other means such as surveillance, abduction, and assassination to punish dissent overseas. Witnesses will suggest how the United States and other democratic nations can defend against these threats to the rule of law domestically and internationally.
The following witnesses are scheduled to participate:
Alexander Cooley, Director, Columbia University's Harriman Institute for the Study of Russia, Eurasia and Eastern Europe; Claire Tow Professor of Political Science, Barnard College
Sandra A. Grossman, Partner, Grossman Young & Hammond, Immigration Law, LLC
Bruno Min, Senior Legal and Policy Advisor, Fair Trials
Nate Schenkkan, Director for Special Research, Freedom House
Additional witnesses may be added.
The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission, is an independent commission of the U.S. Government charged with monitoring compliance with the Helsinki Accords and advancing comprehensive security through promotion of human rights, democracy, and economic, environmental, and military cooperation in 57 countries. The Commission consists of nine members from the U.S. Senate, nine from the House of Representatives, and one member each from the Departments of State, Defense, and Commerce.
Filed Under: INTERPOL, Uncategorized
INTERPOL's Power to Prevent Diffusion Abuse: Legal, Political and Technological Considerations (in response to Dr. Theodore Bromund's 'INTERPOL's Lack of Power to Act Preemptively in Fighting Government Abuse of the Diffusion System')
July 17, 2019 by Yuriy Nemets Leave a Comment
The Commission for the Control of INTERPOL's Files is an independent body with the exclusive power to adjudicate complaints from individuals seeking the deletion of information about them from INTERPOL's files.[2] In its 2017 annual report (its most recent) published this year, the Commission acknowledges that some governments have succeeded in disseminating diffusions against the same individuals whom the Commission has already found to be victims of their INTERPOL abuse, and INTERPOL lacks a comprehensive mechanism to stop the unlawful practice.[3] Even before the Commission published its report, I had been calling upon INTERPOL to monitor and block all incoming red notices and diffusions to ensure that no such request entered its channels if it concerned an individual already found to be a victim of INTERPOL abuse from the same government.[4] I have suggested that the organization should implement reliable software to conduct such monitoring.[5] In his recent publication 'INTERPOL CCF's Latest Annual Report Highlights Fundamental Flaw in the System,' Dr. Theodore Bromund disagrees with my suggestion and argues that INTERPOL cannot simply introduce a new technology to fix the problem.[6] According to Dr. Bromund, stopping the unlawful practice "would require both changing the diffusion system at a technical level and making appropriate changes in INTERPOL's Rules on the Processing of Data," which "in turn would require a good deal of time and a vote in favor of the changes in INTERPOL's one-nation, one-vote General Assembly — where it is far from clear that the nations wanting reform would be in the majority."[7]
In my article 'INTERPOL's Power to Act Preemptively in Fighting Government Abuse,' I respond to Dr. Bromund's argument by citing and quoting multiple INTERPOL rules that already unequivocally grant the organization the power, and indeed require it, to monitor all incoming diffusions and block the non-compliant ones before they enter its channels.[8] I, therefore, strongly disagree with Dr. Bromund's argument that changes in INTERPOL's rules are needed for the organization to exercise that power. In response, Dr. Bromund has written another article 'INTERPOL's Lack of Power to Act Preemptively in Fighting Government Abuse of the Diffusion System.'[9] It is my understanding from this latter publication that Dr. Bromund agrees with my argument that under its rules, INTERPOL already has the power to monitor and block diffusions before they enter its channels, but at the same time argues that the organization cannot exercise that power, which he refers to as the "legal power," because of "technical and political" barriers.[10] In this regard, Dr. Bromund writes that while he accepts my legal analysis and conclusions as an "accurate depiction of the legal position," he does not accept it as an "accurate assessment of the technical reality."[11] He argues that "INTERPOL's lack of power to act preemptively in fighting government abuse of the diffusion system" stands not on legal grounds but on the lack of INTERPOL's "technical ability to do so."[12] Dr. Bromund reasons that because the nature of diffusions is such that governments exchange them directly, bypassing any preliminary check from the General Secretariat, it is "not currently possible to make this legal position into a reality."[13] He argues that to "allow INTERPOL to screen diffusions before transmission," a "fundamental rewiring" and "fundamental reworking at a technical level of the diffusion system . . . would be necessary," which in turn would "require a vote in the General Assembly, which by adopting the RPD in 2012 has endorsed the diffusion system as it exists and works today."[14] I disagree with this position.
In his article 'INTERPOL's Lack of Power to Act Preemptively in Fighting Government Abuse of the Diffusion System,' Dr. Bromund writes: "Mr. Nemets calls on INTERPOL to "monitor and block all incoming requests, including diffusions, to prevent governments from violating INTERPOL's rules . . . [b]ut he does not explain how this can be done, given the fact that INTERPOL cannot review diffusions – including all abusive diffusions – until after they have been sent and received."[15] Dr. Bromund argues that "INTERPOL can (and must) prevent abuse before it publishes a notice, precisely because it is the one doing the publishing . . . [b]ut in the context of diffusions, INTERPOL is responsible for preventing abuse, but it lacks the technical power to prevent governments from sending or receiving abusive diffusions."[16] Dr. Bromund does not explain what he means by the "technical power," and how it is different from and can exist without the "legal power," as Dr. Bromund calls it, to monitor and block all incoming non-compliant diffusions, the latter of which, it is my understanding, we both agree INTERPOL already has.
Dr. Bromund seems to think that I suggest that prior to allowing a government to communicate a diffusion, the General Secretariat must first approve it following a compliance check akin to the one it carries out for notices. This is not what I suggest. Instead, I propose a simple filter, a software that would match every incoming diffusion with a database containing the names of individuals whose information the Commission or the General Secretariat have decided to delete due to a violation of INTERPOL's rules. It is true that such filter must be maintained by the General Secretariat, but so are all INTERPOL databases, mechanisms, and tools, including those that member countries already use to communicate diffusions, as I have already mentioned in my previous article.[17] The diffusion would be blocked from reaching its intended recipients and rerouted to the General Secretariat for further screening only if the filter were to match an incoming diffusion with a name in the database. Such a mechanism cannot be seen as "akin to the notice system's hub and spoke model," as Dr. Bromund calls it,[18] changing the nature of diffusions,[19] requiring a "fundamental rewiring" or "fundamental reworking on a technical level of the diffusion system," as Dr. Bromund argues,[20] or encroaching on the member countries' right or ability to communicate diffusions directly. In this regard, I also want to reiterate what I have already stressed in my previous article – under INTERPOL's rules, member countries' right to communicate diffusions directly does not trump INTERPOL's power to act preemptively to prevent abuse of its channels and screen and block incoming diffusions before they reach their intended recipients.[21]
In support of his argument, Dr. Bromund also writes: "INTERPOL only receives a diffusion after it has been transmitted and it receives the diffusion simultaneously with the NCBs (or international entities) to which it was sent."[22] He argues that "INTERPOL cannot review diffusions — including all abusive diffusions — until after they have been sent and received."[23] From this, he concludes that the mechanism that I suggest should be implemented "could at best only detect the diffusion once it arrives at INTERPOL, and after it has already arrived at its other intended destinations."[24] Whether this is presented as a legal argument or a description of a process from a purely technical standpoint, we must always remember that although governments exchange diffusions directly, the process, as I have already mentioned here and in my previous article, from its very beginning to its very end, is carried out via INTERPOL's channels and maintained by the General Secretariat, as is the process of publishing notices.[25] To argue that INTERPOL cannot oversee any part of an operation, which is conducted through its channels, is to contradict the organization's rules, which unequivocally require the opposite. Dr. Bromund's argument that INTERPOL does not detect diffusions until after they have already arrived at their intended destination may be an accurate depiction of how the General Secretariat chooses the process to work now, but it is not how it should be working under the INTERPOL rules. If the General Secretariat has indeed adopted the approach that Dr. Bromund describes, it must abandon it and start monitoring all incoming diffusions before they reach their final destination.
Finally, as I have already mentioned here and in my previous article, INTERPOL's rules already contain provisions that unequivocally grant the organization the power, and indeed require it, to screen and block diffusions before they enter its channels to prevent abuse. The rules also give the General Secretariat broad discretion over mechanisms and tools it can implement and use in order to exercise that power.[26] Therefore, no changes to INTERPOL's rules are needed, and none of those rules requires INTERPOL to seek authorization from the General Assembly to exercise that power, even if we accepted Dr. Bromund's recommendation of "fundamental rewiring" and "fundamental reworking at a technical level of the diffusions system." If any such changes or authorization were necessary, neither Dr. Bromund nor I would be justified in drawing the conclusion that INTERPOL has the power, or as Dr. Bromund refers to it the "legal power," to screen and block incoming diffusions before they enter the organization's channels, which, it is my understanding, both Dr. Bromund and I agree INTERPOL already has.
Yuriy Nemets is the managing member at NEMETS, a law firm based in Washington, DC. Yuriy is an attorney with over fifteen years of experience in domestic and international litigation and arbitration, INTERPOL and international extradition defense, corporate, banking, transportation, international trade and investments, and intellectual property law. He has authored publications on INTERPOL and international extradition, corporate, banking, and intellectual property law.
[2] Constitution of the ICPO-INTERPOL, art. 36, June 13, 1956, available at https://www.interpol.int/Who-we-are/Legal-framework/Legal-documents; Statute of the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL's Files, art. 3(2)(C), available at https://www.interpol.int/Who-we-are/Legal-framework/Legal-documents.
[3] Activity Report of the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL's Files for 2017 § 57, available at https://www.interpol.int/Who-we-are/Commission-for-the-Control-of-INTERPOL-s-Files-CCF/CCF-sessions-and-reports.
[4] Yuriy Nemets, Bill Browder's Case Highlights Loopholes in Relief INTERPOL Grants Victims of Red Notice Abuse, Red Notice Abuse Report (July 16, 2018), https://rednoticeabuse.com/interpol-must-publicly-explain-why-russia-finally-succeeded-in-placing-bill-browder-on-the-international-wanted-list.
[6] Ted Bromund, INTERPOL CCF's Latest Annual Report Highlights Fundamental Flaw in the System, Forbes (Mar. 31, 2019), https://www.forbes.com/sites/tedbromund/2019/03/31/interpol-ccfs-latest-annual-report-highlights-fundamental-flaw-in-the-system/#20e6152b3a11.
[8] Yuriy Nemets, INTERPOL's Power to Act Preemptively in Fighting Government Abuse, 35 (Issue 5) International Enforcement Law Reporter 166 (May 2019).
[9] Ted Bromund, INTERPOL's Lack of Power to Act Preemptively in Fighting Government Abuse of the Diffusion System, 35 (Issue 6) International Enforcement Law Reporter 227 (June 2019).
[11] Id. at 227-228.
[17] INTERPOL's Rules on the Processing of Data art. 12(3), 22, 125(1) 2016, available at https://www.interpol.int/Who-we-are/Legal-framework/Legal-documents [hereinafter RPD]; Nemets, supra note 8, at 168-169.
[18] Bromund, supra note 9, at 229.
[20] Id. at 229
[21] Nemets, supra note 8, at 167.
[25] RPD, supra note 17, art. 4(1), 12(3), 22, 125(1); Nemets, supra note 8, at 167-168.
[26] RPD, supra note 17, art. 12(3), 22, 125(1); Nemets, supra note 8, at 168-169.