CARACAS (ANP) - De Venezolaanse regering en de oppositie zijn donderdag in Caracas onder leiding van de Verenigde Staten begonnen aan gesprekken die kunnen leiden tot een politieke overgang en verkiezingen. De onderhandelingen beginnen zeven maanden na de gevangenneming van president Nicolás Maduro door het Amerikaanse leger.

Oppositieleider en Nobelprijswinnaar voor de Vrede María Corina Machado, die in ballingschap leeft, neemt niet deel aan de gesprekken. Washington vreest volgens berichten dat haar terugkeer de regeling met interim-president Delcy Rodríguez in gevaar kan brengen. De voormalige vicepresident bestuurt Venezuela sinds de gevangenneming van Maduro onder zware druk van Washington. Ook probeert ze de olie-industrie nieuw leven in te blazen.

De gesprekken op de militaire basis La Carlota begonnen enkele uren later dan gepland. Vooraf gingen beide delegaties samen op de foto. Ze legden geen verklaringen af.

Parlementsvoorzitter Jorge Rodríguez, de broer van de interim-president, leidt de regeringsdelegatie. De relatief onbekende oud-parlementariër Dinorah Figuera leidt de oppositiedelegatie. Ze keerde op verzoek van Washington terug uit ballingschap.

alternative_right shares a report from The Hill: A federal judge in Mississippi ruled Wednesday that "tower dump" warrants are unconstitutional, declining to reverse a lower court decision refusing the government's request to obtain the search warrants in a series of violent crime investigations. A "tower dump" involves cellphone companies providing law enforcement with access to the time and location data of all mobile devices connected to specific cell towers during a designated time window.

Law enforcement had sought approval for several of these search warrants as part of criminal investigations into gang-related activity in the Jackson, Miss., area last year, arguing the data could help identify all those potentially involved, particularly in incidents with unknown suspects. A magistrate judge denied the applications, holding that "tower dumps" are impermissible general warrants. The district judge agreed. The order repeatedly referenced the Supreme Court's recent decision in Chatrie v United States, in which the majority held that geofence warrants require constitutional privacy protections.

"With this information, the Government asserts that it will be able to identify all potential suspects," Judge Carlton Reeves wrote in a 30-page order (PDF). "Even so, law enforcement would also have access to the cellular records of countless individuals, the vast majority of whom were merely passing by a location at the 'wrong' time."

"That is an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment," the judge concluded.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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NYC, 2012

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