Chicago Attorney Files Request For Special Prosecutor in Smollett Case

A Chicago attorney filed a petition Thursday requesting a special prosecutor be assigned to the recently dismissed charges against Jussie Smollett.

Saani Mohammed confirmed over the phone that he filed the petition with the Cook County Clerk’s office.

“The way the case was dismissed, it was not appropriate,” he said. “It makes it appear there are two separate justice systems, one for the wealthy and one for ‘we the people.’”

He said everything from the ‘”false recusal” to the emergency nature of the dismissal of charges prompted him to file.

Mohammed left his post with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office last month and now has his own practice.

Meanwhile, Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx said she has no plans of stepping stepping down amid calls for her resignation over her involvement in the case.

“I was elected by the people of Cook County to pursue community safety, prevent harm, and uphold the values of fairness and equal justice. I’m proud of my record in doing that, and I plan to do so through the end of my term and, if the people so will it, into the future," she said in a statement Thursday.

A group of suburban Chicago police chiefs called on Foxx to resign in the wake of her office's decision to drop charges against Jussie Smollett that accused him of staging a racist, anti-gay attack.

Some 30 police chiefs attended a joint news conference Thursday with the Chicago police union president, Kevin Graham, to support that call.

Steven Stelter, of the West Suburban Chiefs of Police Association, told reporters it wasn't only about her handling of Smollett's case. He also pointed to broader Foxx policies to not prosecute many lower-level felonies. He said residents needed to know Foxx "is letting them down."

Asked why there were no African-American police chiefs at the event, Graham said only that all county police chiefs had been invited. The county includes Chicago and more than 130 other communities.

Foxx's office told a local news station earlier that the chiefs' criticism was "an excuse to justify" resistance to reform.

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicago-smollett-special-prosecutor-508135551.html

Use sure of the notability but will cause anons to kek… more like chuckle…

Google disbands AI ethics board following pushback

Google on Thursday announced that it opted to disband its newly-formed artificial intelligence (AI) ethics council following aggressive pushback from more than 2,000 Google employees.

A Google spokesperson in a statement said Google is "going back to the drawing board."

"It’s become clear that in the current environment, ATEAC can’t function as we wanted," the spokesperson said. "So we’re ending the council and going back to the drawing board."

Google announced its new AI ethics board, a body tasked with serving as an ethical check on Google's AI technology production, last week.

The board was immediately met with controversy as thousands of Google employees and hundreds of external petitioners took issue with one of the board's members, who they said had an "anti-trans" and "anti-immigrant" record.

More than 2,380 Google employees signed onto a petition asking the company to remove Kay Cole James, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, from the panel. They said James' positions on transgender and immigrant rights should have disqualified her from weighing in on AI ethics.

“By appointing James … Google elevates and endorses her views, implying that hers is a valid perspective worthy of inclusion in its decision making,” the petition read. “This is unacceptable.”

Conservatives in response urged the company to stand its ground, saying they supported James' inclusion on the panel.

The group of protesting Google employees, who organized under the title "Googlers Against Transphobia and Hate," on Thursday evening celebrated the AI panel's dissolution.

"[The AI ethics council] is over, and we did this together," the "Googlers Against Transphobia" account tweeted. "So many people (over 2300 Googlers & over 300 supporters from industry, academia and civil society) answered the call to #StandAgainstTransphobia. We thank you for your support & unwillingness to compromise on hate."

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/437505-google-disbands-ai-ethics-board-following-pushback

They disbanded the ethics board but the shit is still flying… err back to the 'drawing board'.

Is their drawing board ____?