"We the People" and International Justice

I have posted on the interesting ideas put forth by Americans (and others) on the White House "We the People" website previously, but recent developments are worth noting particularly as they involve a crime committed in another country.

As a bit of background, way back in December 1994, Chinese student Zhu Ling was poisoned by an unknown assailant and suffered from loss of hair, the ability to speak and facial paralysis among other symptoms.  Today, she remains blinded, neurologically damaged and bedridden by the attack and requires constant and expensive care that is beyond the ability of her parents to provide.  The poison used was thallium, a toxic heavy metal that is often used in rat poison in China.  While the perpetrator was never caught, suspicions that Ms. Zhu was poisoned by her college room mate, Sun Wei, who, although she had access to thallium, was questioned by police and released without charges due to a "lack of evidence".  Coincidentally, or not, Ms. Sun's grandfather was the nation's Vice President of the Democratic Revolutionary Council and it has been suggested that this is why the  investigation was dropped.  Since that time, Ms. Sun has married and has reportedly emigrated to the United States.

Here is a photograph of Zhu Ling from before the attack from the Help Zhu Ling Fund website:

Now, you might ask, what does a nearly 20 year old attempted murder case in China have to do with the We the People website?  Since Ms. Zhu's name was at least temporarily blocked by authorities on the Chinese Weibo social website, recently, attention on the subject by Chinese parties interested in the matter shifted to the White House website in an attempt to get the investigation reopened one way or another.  Here is the petition that requests that the United States government deport Jasmine Sun:

Keep in mind that, in order for the Obama Administration to review a petition, it must receive 100,000 signatures within a one month timeframe.  This petition was created on May 3 and, thus far, has received over 145,000 signatures in just over a week, a very substantial response.

Of the current most recent 20 petitions on the website, ten have a China-slant with this one being the most entertaining of the bunch:

Now that Chinese web surfers have noted the ready availability of the We the People website  to promote their agendas, here is another China-linked petition that makes this request:

Here's another one along the same line:

Yet another China-linked petition makes this suggestion:

Of the current most recent 20 petitions on the website, ten have a China-slant with this one being the most entertaining of the bunch:

Back to the Zhu Ling case and the White House petition.  Now that the petition to deport Ms. Sun has surpassed the key 100,000 signature level, the current administration in Washington will have to issue a response.  It will be interesting to see what response they give, particularly since the issue has been receiving international attention once again.  On the other hand, I suspect that the other China-based petitions will never receive the necessary signatures that are required to get a formal response, unless there is a strong undercurrent of society that really likes sweet tofu.

We The People - The Desires of Main Street America

The mainstream media had relatively heavy coverage of the White House response to the petitions seeking permission to succeed from the union and the regarding succession and the construction of the DS-1 Orbital Battle Station.  Despite that, the We the People website is still alive and well and providing us with hours of entertainment.

For those of you who aren't aware, the We the People website was launched in September 2011 so that ordinary, Main Street Americans would have an opportunity to petition the U.S. federal government about issues that concerned them, a right that is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.  Once these online petitions have received 150 signatures, they are searchable on the We the People website.  Originally, to receive a response from the White House, petitions had to receive 5,000 signatures in 30 days; this was increased to 25,000 in October 2011 and further to 100,000 in January 2013.  In order to participate as a petitioner or signatory, users must create a WhiteHouse.gov user account and must be 13 years of age or older.  Users must also agree that they will not create petitions that contain threats of unlawful violence or harm to another individual or group, they must not be lewd, vulgar or obscene, the must not contain terms that are considered profanities and they must not be defamatory.  

What happens once the petition reaches the magically moving 30 day target set by the White House?  The petition is placed into a queue and is then reviewed by the White House who will then issue a response.

Here is an example of a response asking the Obama Administration to disclose the knowledge that the government has long withheld knowledge of government interactions with extraterrestrial beings, a petition that was signed by 5387 signatories in 2011:

"Thank you for signing the petition asking the Obama Administration to acknowledge an extraterrestrial presence here on Earth.  

The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race. In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public's eye.

However, that doesn't mean the subject of life outside our planet isn't being discussed or explored. In fact, there are a number of projects working toward the goal of understanding if life can or does exist off Earth. Here are a few examples:

•    SETI—the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence—was originally stood up with help from NASA, but has since been moved to other sources of private funding. SETI's main purpose is to act as a giant ear on behalf of the human race, pointing an array of ground-based telescopes towards space to listen for any signal from another world.

•    Kepler is a NASA spacecraft in orbit that's main goal is to search for Earth-like planets. Such a planet would be located in the "Goldilocks" zone of a distant solar system—not too hot and not too cold—and could potentially be habitable by life as we know it. The Kepler mission is specifically designed to survey our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover Earth-sized, rocky planets in or near the habitable zone of the star (sun) they orbit.

•    The Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity, is an automobile-sized rover that NASA is launching soon. The rover's onboard laboratory will study rocks, soils, and other geology in an effort to detect the chemical building blocks of life (e.g., forms of carbon) on Mars and will assess what the Martian environment was like in the past to see if it could have harbored life.

A last point: Many scientists and mathematicians have looked with a statistical mindset at the question of whether life likely exists beyond Earth and have come to the conclusion that the odds are pretty high that somewhere among the trillions and trillions of stars in the universe there is a planet other than ours that is home to life.

Many have also noted, however, that the odds of us making contact with any of them—especially any intelligent ones—are extremely small, given the distances involved.

But that's all statistics and speculation. The fact is we have no credible evidence of extraterrestrial presence here on Earth."

The Area 51 believers would beg to differ!

Now, let's look at the most popular topics among petitioners.  Right now, there are 96 petitions about civil rights and liberties, 78 about human rights, 52 about criminal justice and law enforcement and, not surprisingly, 50 about firearms.

Currently, the most popular petition is this one:

followed by this one:

which is followed by this one:

Interestingly, all three were created by different individuals in vastly different parts of the United States.  Westboro Baptist Church also appears near the top of the list two additional times.  Since the all three of these petitions surpassed the original 25,000 signature cutoff, a response will have to be issued by the White House.  That one will be interesting!

Here are a variety of issues that are of concern to petitioners and the number of signatures received:

Most importantly, here's one final petition:

Admittedly, some of these suggestions are a tad off the wall, however, it is interesting to get a sampling of what Main Street America is thinking, particularly as President Obama is beginning his second and last term in office....unless, of course, someone comes up with a petition about extending the two term maximum....