Search Results for “willinger”

Turmoil In Courts On Gun Laws In Wake Of Justices’ Ruling

February 19, 2023 8:45 am 2 Comments

A landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment is upending gun laws across the country, dividing judges and sowing confusion over what firearm restrictions can remain on the books. The high court’s ruling that set new standards for evaluating gun laws left open many questions, experts say, resulting in an increasing number of conflicting decisions as lower court judges struggle to figure out how to apply it. The Supreme Court’s so-called Bruen decision changed the test that lower courts had long used for evaluating challenges to firearm restrictions. Judges should no longer consider whether the law serves public interests like enhancing public safety, the justices said. Under the Supreme Court’s new test, the government that wants to uphold a gun restriction must look back into history to show it is consistent with the country’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Courts in recent months have declared unconstitutional federal laws designed to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers,felony defendants and people who use marijuana. Judges have shot down a federal ban on possessing guns with serial numbers removed and gun restrictions for young adults in Texas and have blocked the enforcement of Delaware’s ban on the possession of homemade “ghost guns.” In several instances, judges looking at the same laws have come down on opposite sides on whether they are constitutional in the wake of the conservative Supreme Court majority’s ruling. The legal turmoil caused by the first major gun ruling in a decade will likely force the Supreme Court to step in again soon to provide more guidance for judges. “There’s confusion and disarray in the lower courts because not only are they not reaching the same conclusions, they’re just applying different methods or applying Bruen’s method differently,” said Jacob Charles, a professor at Pepperdine University’s law school who focuses on firearms law. “What it means is that not only are new laws being struck down … but also laws that have been on the books for over 60 years, 40 years in some cases, those are being struck down — where prior to Bruen — courts were unanimous that those were constitutional,” he said. The legal wrangling is playing out as mass shootings continue to plague the country awash in guns and as law enforcement officials across the U.S. work to combat an uptick in violent crime. This week, six people were fatally shot at multiple locations in a small town in rural Mississippi and a gunman killed three students and critically wounded five others at Michigan State University before killing himself. Dozens of people have died in mass shootings so far in 2023, including in California, where 11 people were killed as they welcomed the Lunar New Year at a dance hall popular with older Asian Americans. Last year, more than 600 mass shootings occurred in the U.S. in which at least four people were killed or wounded, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The decision opened the door to a wave of legal challenges from gun-rights activists who saw an opportunity to undo laws on everything from age limits to AR-15-style semi-automatic weapons. For gun rights supporters, the Bruen decision was a welcome development that removed what they see as unconstitutional restraints on Second Amendment rights. “It’s a true reading of what the

Hacking Terrorist’s iPhone Was Easy Compared To Next FBI Hurdle

May 20, 2016 3:00 pm No Comments

The next frontier in the battle between the FBI and technology companies over encrypted communications will be more legally complicated — and messy — than trying to get into the iPhone of a dead terrorist. Messaging tools like Facebook’s WhatsApp and Internet services that automatically encrypt the content of texts, phone calls and other data while they’re being sent are increasingly becoming a problem for national security and criminal investigations, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Capturing that data while it’s in transit is essential, the agency says. Not so fast, say privacy advocates. Not even possible, say the companies. “We’re kind of all waiting for the next big test case,” said Andrew Crocker, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, which is suing the Justice Department over whether the government has ever used secret court orders to force technology companies to decrypt the private communications of their customers. And while legal strategies are plotted in the U.S., the threat of encrypted applications isn’t theoretical. Supporters of Islamic State and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula have already found alternatives to U.S.-based apps, potentially limiting intelligence gathering on terrorist plots after a year in which scores were killed in attacks in Paris, Brussels and San Bernardino, California. Although the FBI found workarounds for two high-profile cases involving data on locked iPhones, law enforcement agencies confront unique legal challenges to compel companies to provide access to encrypted communications, including laws written more than two decades ago when the Internet was just emerging. And as players in the debate stake out their positions, the results of new cases are likely to define the rules for digital rights for several decades. “This is the new frontier and it is a much more expansive frontier in terms of its effect on law enforcement investigations,” said Edward McAndrew, a former federal prosecutor who’s now a partner with the law firm Ballard Spahr. While the FBI and other law enforcement agencies can seek court orders compelling companies to comply with wiretap orders, at least two issues make it harder for agencies to get the data they’re seeking in cases that are likely to come: –Investigators say they have been left behind by rapid advances in technology. In order to intercept the content of communications being sent in real-time, investigators have to use laws that limit their reach, such as the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. –The ability to protect information with encryption, which scrambles data using a secret code that can be unlocked only with a special key known solely to the user, means companies may not even be able to provide law enforcement the data sent on their networks or through their applications. WhatsApp on April 5 finished giving its users encryption by default as well as complete control over the keys for all its messaging services, including photos, phone calls and group chats, said spokesman Matt Steinfeld. Apple Inc. said it began offering full end-to-end encryption for its iMessage platform and FaceTime video service about five years ago. WhatsApp’s encryption arose as an issue in Brazil this month, when a judge shut down the service for a day for not making data available to law enforcement. Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg called the move against WhatsApp, which

Citing FBI Quest, Apple Asks Judge to Delay iPhone Data Case

March 25, 2016 6:30 pm No Comments

Apple wants a judge to delay government demands for data from a locked iPhone in a Brooklyn drug case while the FBI sees if it can get contents from a San Bernardino attacker’s phone without Apple’s help. Apple attorney Marc Zwillinger asked U.S. District Judge Margo Brodie in Brooklyn late Thursday to postpone deadlines until the Department of Justice reports the FBI’s findings to a California judge. Zwillinger said the Brooklyn case will be affected by the outcome in California regardless of what the Justice Department concludes regarding its methods of obtaining data without Apple’s help. He said if the same method can be used to unlock the iPhone in the Brooklyn case, Apple’s assistance will no longer be needed. He added that Apple will seek to test any claims by the government that the method cannot work on the iPhone in Brooklyn or claims that other methods cannot be used. The government is scheduled to update a California magistrate judge on April 5 about its efforts to access iPhones without the company’s assistance. Investigators want information from a phone used by a shooter who with his wife killed 14 people in December. Days ago, prosecutors notified the magistrate judge that the FBI may be able to break into phones without Apple’s help but needed more time to be sure. (AP)

How Apple Helped Crack iPhones Like Clockwork

March 16, 2016 3:00 pm No Comments

For years, cops who wanted to break into iPhones knew the drill. “Get a warrant. Then you make an application under the All Writs Act,” said Michael Yaeger, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn who oversaw efforts to obtain warrants for phones from about 2012 to 2014. The All Writs Act is a catch-all law prosecutors use to get court orders to enforce search warrants. Warrant in hand, prosecutors would send the locked phones of suspected or convicted criminals and terrorists to Apple Inc.’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. Weeks later, Apple would send data from the phones, such as text messages, photos and contacts, back to law enforcement. Apple even had a guide including the preferred language for warrants. It was “not exotic,” Yaeger said in an interview. “Let’s just call it a ‘back door,’ because that’s pretty much what it was,” said Adam Wandt, an expert in digital forensics and information security at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in Manhattan, of the company’s extraction procedures. But isn’t that exactly what Apple says the government is asking it to create now, for the first time? – – – Tensions between Apple and law enforcement over privacy, simmering since 2014, reached a boiling point when a judge ordered the company to help the Federal Bureau of Investigation unlock a phone used by one of the shooters in last year’s terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California. The phone is outfitted with newer technology that Apple developed to be impenetrable, even to the company itself. Making a tool to unlock the phone would be like creating a “cancer,” Apple’s chief executive officer, Tim Cook, declared last month as Apple launched its battle against the Justice Department. Cook warned the fix could be used as a “back door” by criminals and spies. The company argues that the All Writs Act shouldn’t be used to force it to write new software. But it’s not just phones with tough-to-crack encryption that are at the heart of Apple’s privacy battle. The company is fighting against warrants for phones with older technology, too — the kind it used to hack for Yaeger and other prosecutors all the time. That could look inconsistent, or even contradictory, to the judge in California, and cloud Apple’s argument that the government’s extraordinary demands in this new case have crossed a line. “Apple never wanted this code leaked out, but they did have [a back door], and a lot of people would use it,” Wandt said. While Apple may have legal and technical arguments on its side, its staunch position on the older technology “affects public perception” of its motives, said Scott Vernick, head of the data security and privacy practice at Fox Rothschild. “The government is making the argument that the past is prologue,” said Jeffrey Vagle, executive director of the Center for Technology, Innovation and Competition at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In a reply brief filed Tuesday in court in Riverside, California, Apple focused on the newer technology at issue in the shooter’s device. “Forcing Apple to create new software that degrades its security features is unprecedented and unlike any burden ever imposed under the All Writs Act,” Apple said. The company said it has protected its users’ privacy and security through “increasingly secure operating systems” and

Apple: Feds Want to Circumvent Security on Other Phones, Too

February 24, 2016 11:15 am 2 Comments

Apple is challenging government efforts to overcome encryption on at least 14 electronic devices nationwide in addition to the phone of a San Bernardino, California, shooter, its lawyers say. Lawyers told U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein in Brooklyn that Apple is opposing relinquishing information on at least 15 devices in a dozen court cases in California, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York. In a Feb. 17 letter unsealed Tuesday, the Cupertino, California-based company described fighting the government in criminal cases after first opposing the government in a request to extract information from the phone of a drug dealer in Brooklyn federal court in October. Before that, the government says, Apple had helped it retrieve information from at least 70 devices since 2008. Apple’s opposition began after Orenstein invited the company to challenge the government’s use of a 1789 law, the All Writs Act, which the government cited in the Brooklyn case. Apple said the government was trying to use the law more aggressively in its effort to look inside the iPhone of a shooter in the Dec. 2 massacre in San Bernardino that killed 14 people. In the California case, Apple was being asked “to perform even more burdensome and involved engineering … to create and load Apple-signed software onto the subject iPhone device to circumvent the security and anti-tampering features of the device in order to enable the government to hack the passcode to obtain access to the protected data,” the letter signed by Apple attorney Marc Zwillinger said. Zwillinger said the California case was proof that “the issue remains quite pressing” since Orenstein first raised questions about the applicability of the All Writs Act. Apple and the U.S. government have asked Orenstein to continue to rule in the case even though the defendant whose phone was at issue has since pleaded guilty. At an October hearing, Zwillinger said Apple feared the government would try “pushing the law to a new frontier” by forcing the company to modify software or change its products. “We’re being forced to become an agent of law enforcement, and we cannot be forced to do that with our old devices or with our new devices,” he said. In a letter Monday to Orenstein, federal prosecutors noted that numerous judges nationwide have found it appropriate under the All Writs Act to require Apple, when presented with a search warrant, to assist in extracting information from its products. Prosecutors said Apple was being misleading in the list submitted to Orenstein by claiming it objected to the court orders. They said Apple “simply deferred complying with them, without seeking appropriate judicial relief.” “Apple’s position has been inconsistent at best,” prosecutors wrote. They suggested in a footnote that Apple was even cooperating in the Brooklyn case until Orenstein made its cooperation public with an October court order. (AP)

Apple Began iPhone Encryption Fight Last Fall, in Brooklyn

February 22, 2016 8:00 pm No Comments

By prosecutors’ count, Apple helped federal law enforcement agents extract information from iPhones in criminal investigations at least 70 times in seven years before suddenly expressing a change of heart last fall in an otherwise ordinary drug case out of Brooklyn. Asked to help break into the phone of a suspected methamphetamine dealer, Apple refused to cooperate, taking a stand that foreshadowed last week’s clash with the federal government over a phone belonging to one of the San Bernardino, California, attackers. “Public sensitivity to issues regarding digital privacy and security is at an unprecedented level,” the company’s lawyers said in a court filing. Forcing Apple to extract the data, they said, “could threaten the trust between Apple and its customers and substantially tarnish the Apple brand.” The reversal stunned prosecutors, but they quickly girded for a broader fight. Even after the defendant in the drug case, Jun Feng, pleaded guilty at the end of October, both Apple and the Justice Department lawyers told the court they still wanted a ruling. The issue wasn’t just that phone, they wrote, but the millions of other Apple devices with even tougher encryption technology that might someday be seized in connection with a criminal case. At an October court hearing, Apple attorney Marc Zwillinger said the company feared the government would try “pushing the law to a new frontier” by forcing the company to modify software or change its products. “We’re being forced to become an agent of law enforcement, and we cannot be forced to do that with our old devices or with our new devices,” he said. A decision still hadn’t come when the case was overtaken by a similar one in California, where Apple had refused to help the FBI break down the security of a new version of its operating system so agents could look inside the iPhone of a shooter in the Dec. 2 massacre in San Bernardino that killed 14 people. The technical and legal issues in that case are more complex. Apple has maintained that its iOS 8 operating system is so secure that even it can’t get at data inside the phones without creating sophisticated software to bypass a self-destruct feature. The phone in the Brooklyn case didn’t have those security features. But at the heart of both cases is the government’s reliance in recent terrorism investigations on a 1789 law, called the All Writs Act, which was written to compel action when other laws do not provide the authority. Apple’s surprising October opposition in the Brooklyn case arose in part because a U.S. magistrate judge, James Orenstein, invited the Cupertino, California, company to challenge the government’s use of the law. He asked whether the government’s request was too burdensome. Orenstein questioned the government’s application of the law, saying “using an aggressive interpretation of that statute’s scope to short-circuit public debate on this controversy seems fundamentally inconsistent with the proposition that such important policy issues should be determined in the first instance by the legislative branch after public debate.” In court papers, Apple said it did have the technical capability to retrieve some data from the drug dealer’s phone, largely because it was running an older operating system. And it could afford to send Apple personnel to testify in any related court case. Zwillinger told Orenstein

US Threatened Yahoo With Huge Fine Over Emails

September 12, 2014 9:15 am 2 Comments

Yahoo’s free email service could have cost the company an extra quarter of a million dollars a day. The government called for the huge fine in 2008 if Yahoo didn’t go along with an expansion of U.S. surveillance by surrendering online information, a step the company regarded as unconstitutional. At stake, according to the government, was the nation’s security. “International terrorists, and (redacted) in particular, use Yahoo to communicate over the Internet,” the director of national intelligence at the time, Mike McConnell, said in a court document supporting the government’s position. “Any further delay in Yahoo’s compliance could cause great harm to the United States, as vital foreign intelligence information contained in communications to which only Yahoo has access, will go uncollected.” The outlines of Yahoo’s secret and ultimately unsuccessful court fight against government surveillance emerged when a federal judge ordered the unsealing of some material about Yahoo’s court challenge. Sections of some of the documents were redacted, such as the names of the terrorists McConnell cited. In a statement Thursday, Yahoo said the government amended a law to demand user information from online services, prompting a challenge in 2007 during the George W. Bush administration. “Our challenge, and a later appeal in the case, did not succeed,” Yahoo general counsel Ron Bell said. The new material about the case underscores “how we had to fight every step of the way to challenge the U.S. government’s surveillance efforts,” Bell added. “At one point, the U.S. government threatened the imposition of $250,000 in fines per day if we refused to comply.” Bell said the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court upheld the predecessor to Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. Section 702 refers to the program called PRISM, which gave the government access to online communications by users of Yahoo. Former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden disclosed the program last year. Yahoo said it is committed to protecting users’ data and that it will continue to contest requests and laws that it considers unlawful, unclear or overly broad. “We consider this an important win for transparency, and hope that these records help promote informed discussion about the relationship between privacy, due process and intelligence gathering,” Bell said. The newly released documents show that the Bush administration was taking a hard line and was miffed that Yahoo had even been allowed to get into court with its complaint. In sum, the FISA court erred in permitting Yahoo to challenge the directives, said a court brief signed by then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Yahoo was arguing that what the Bush administration was doing violated the Fourth Amendment rights of customers of Yahoo customers. “The government has conducted warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance for decades, and such surveillance has been upheld under the Fourth Amendment by every appellate court to decide the question,” Mukasey wrote. “The government’s implementation of the Protect America Act is consistent with decades of past practice and adequately protects the privacy of U.S. persons,” Mukasey said. In its court papers, Yahoo urged that the government be reined in. Yahoo requested that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review reverse the lower court’s judgment and find that “the surveillance authorized by the directives is not ‘otherwise lawful,’” wrote Marc Zwillinger, a lawyer representing the Internet service provider. Yahoo lost the battle in

Dueling Surveillance Rulings Stir Legal Ripples

January 7, 2014 6:56 am No Comments

Opposing court rulings on the National Security Agency’s massive phone record surveillance — one threatening the program and the other supporting it — are stirring fast legal footwork as both cases start to wind their way through federal appeals courts and possibly to the Supreme Court. A conservative lawyer who persuaded a federal district judge in Washington last month to rule that the government’s phone data collection likely was unconstitutional said a related case in New York spurred him to ask a Washington appeals court this week to send his case directly to the Supreme Court. Attorney Larry Klayman said he will petition the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to sidestep an appeal requested by government lawyers and refer his case to the nation’s top court. Klayman said he is pressing for a Supreme Court decision because he worries that government lawyers are angling to have the New York ruling — which upheld the NSA surveillance operation — reviewed by a New York appeals court before Klayman’s case is heard in the Washington appeals court. The Obama administration, Klayman claimed in a motion filed last week, is “hanging back” and “likely intends to stretch out the appellate process.” A Justice Department official declined to comment. Klayman’s maneuver and recent decisions by government lawyers and the American Civil Liberties Union to file appeals in the conflicting cases are the latest legal ripples that could shape the future of the NSA’s phone data collection program even as President Barack Obama is considering his own changes to U.S. surveillance practices. Legal experts caution that while the opposing lawyers are girding for a landmark Supreme Court decision, it is not certain the top court will intervene. They warn that the prospect of administration and congressional changes in the next few months could complicate the two appeals rulings that are still more than a year away. And several said the fact that the judges in both cases allowed challenges to the NSA programs to go forward could lead to a spate of new lawsuits questioning other government surveillance practices. In the Washington case, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled last month that the NSA phone surveillance was “almost Orwellian” and likely violated constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure. But in a similar lawsuit filed last month by the ACLU in New York, U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III validated the NSA operation as an effective “counterpunch” to terrorist acts and spurned the legal group’s challenge. “It’s not at all inevitable that the Supreme Court takes these cases,” said Stewart A. Baker, a former NSA general counsel and specialist in national security law who has staunchly defended NSA surveillance programs. “If both appeals courts rule for the government, I’m skeptical we’d see the court get involved at all.” Baker said surveillance legislation in Congress and the Obama administration’s apparent plans to alter the phone surveillance could dim the Supreme Court’s interest in taking up the case. The USA Patriot Act provision under assault in both lawsuits “is going to get tinkered with for sure,” Baker said, “and if you’re a Supreme Court justice, why would you take a case if the law might be revised before you reach your opinion?” Both Klayman and Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU deputy legal

Docs Not Giving Clear Advice on Infant Sleep Positions

December 7, 2009 5:03 pm 10 Comments

New research finds that although far more caregivers now place babies on their backs to sleep — a practice that reduces the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)– that encouraging trend has leveled off since 2001. The study also shows that black mothers and caregivers are more likely than whites to place infants on their stomachs to sleep. But among all races, the most common reasons for using the stomach position were concerns about infant choking and infant comfort, said Dr. Eve Colson, lead author of the study published in the December issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. “It also still looks like the really important thing is that they get very specific advice that they should only put the baby on its back,” added Colson, an associate professor of pediatrics at Yale University School of Medicine. The onus to deliver that message, she said, lies largely with physicians and health-care providers. According to background information in the study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health, SIDS is the leading cause of death after birth in the United States. “SIDS is extremely tragic, but the risk period is relatively short. Most occur between 0 and 6 months and the peak period is 2 to 4 months, although cases can occur during the first year,” said Marian Willinger, special assistant for SIDS research at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Since the NICHD launched its Back to Sleep campaign in 1994, the number of babies placed on their backs to sleep jumped from 25 percent to about 70 percent and the SIDs rate declined by more than 50 percent. Still, black infants have more than double the incidence of SIDS as white infants and are also more likely to be placed on their stomachs for sleeping, the researchers found. This National Infant Sleep Position study consisted of telephone surveys of nighttime caregivers (usually mothers) of babies aged 7 months or younger. About 1,000 interviews were conducted each year between 1993 and 2007 across the United States. Throughout the period, the rate of supine sleep (on the back) increased while prone sleeping (on the stomach) decreased over all groups. But in 2001, that downward slope leveled off across the board. Those putting babies to sleep on their stomachs, regardless of race, were more likely to express worries about comfort and choking and say they had not been given a clear directive from a doctor. Yet neither choking nor comfort should be a concern. “There have been a couple of good studies that babies do not choke on their backs, that there are no adverse health outcomes of putting babies on their back,” Colson said. “Stomach sleepers spend more time in deeper sleep but that doesn’t mean they’re not sleeping when they’re on their back,” Willinger said. Back sleepers “may wake up more frequently but young babies like that are going to be up to nurse anyway.” Even sleeping on the side can be risky for babies, Willinger stressed. That’s because babies placed on their sides often roll on to their stomachs. Almost half the mothers surveyed in the study said that they had received no advice at all from their physician or that he/she had recommended stomach sleeping. “This

Nazareth Court Permits Autopsy on Yeshiva Bachur – But Police Withdraw Demand

May 30, 2008 12:52 am 2 Comments

[PHOTO LINK IN EXTENDED ARTICLE] An autopsy will not be performed on Dovid Willinger z”l who was killed in a car accident on Monday, but not because the court does not permit the post mortem. The Nazareth District Court ruled on Thursday afternoon that police may perform an autopsy on yeshiva student Dovid Willinger, who was killed and burned to death in a vehicular accident on Highway 6 on Monday. YWN reported that police demanded an autopsy despite the obvious, since a truck plowed into Willinger’s vehicle and crushed him, setting the vehicle on fire. The victim was unable to extricate himself and was burned to death r”l. Nevertheless, police insist on performing an autopsy to determine the cause of death and the court battle to prevent it has prevented his kvura due to Israel Police insistence on the post mortem. The court however ordered the autopsy be delayed until Friday to permit an appeal to the Supreme Court. ZAKA officials planned to turn to the nation’s highest court on Thursday night, apparently compelling police with withdraw their demand to perform an autopsy. ZAKA officials believe the mounting public pressure significantly contributed to the police decision. In response to the court ruling, protests were held in some chareidi areas of the capital on Thursday. Violence was reported in Meah Shearim, Yechezkel Street, and Bar Ilan Junction. Protesters hurled rocks, bottles and garbage at police. Traffic delays were widespread as a result. Less than half an hour before a hearing at the High Court, which was requested by the ZAKA rescue organization on behalf of the family, the prosecution withdrew its request and returned Willinger’s body to his family. Click HERE to see photos of Thursday’s Hafganos [Photos taken by Yehuda Boltsausher] (Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)

Police Demands for an Autopsy Results in Jerusalem Violence

May 28, 2008 11:49 am 21 Comments

(Click on images) The scene was one of chaos and black acrid smoke at Kikar Shabbos during the afternoon hours on Wednesday. Commuters were compelled to get off of buses and out of taxi cabs near the center of town, and at the corner of Yechezkel and Shmuel HaNavi Streets as a result of the unrests, with local chareidi youths setting garbage receptacles ablaze and rolling them into the streets. Most locals seemed quite upset at the act, shouting at the teenage yeshiva bochrim, who were setting the neighborhood ablaze while exhibiting a zealous demeanor. A number of local shop owners who tried to intervene, pulling garbage receptacles out of the way of cars, were bullied by hoodlums, who decided the streets will remain closed despite causing significant hardship to many, as well as loss of business to local Geula and Meah Shearim merchants, not to mention the property damage and the aftermath which residents are forced to live with for some time until Jerusalem City Hall replaces the trash receptacles. The reason given was this week’s tragic accident on Highway 6 which claimed the life of Dovid Willinger z”l, from Brazil. Police since Monday have not permitted his burial, insisting on an autopsy, not convinced the young man was killed in the vehicular accident. Apparently police seeing that a truck crushed the victim’s car was not enough to convince them that he died of his massive multi-trauma injuries. During yesterday’s Jerusalem court hearing, the judge asked to see the photos from the accident scene. Willinger z”l was a student at Machon Lev in Yerushalayim. He was killed on Highway 6 near the Baka el-Garbiye exit when a truck slammed into his vehicle, setting it ablaze. Dovid was unable to extricate himself from the burning vehicle and he was burned to death. Making things worse, the police appeared in court on Wednesday and told the judge they have not yet been able to locate the photos of the scene. The court ruled the body will be held for another day until police present the photos. All the pleading and intervention of ZAKA officials was for naught, with police insisting on performing an autopsy – despite the prolonged delay in the burial of the young victim z”l. The news of yet another delay today, Wednesday, prompted the violence at Kikar Shabbos and the surrounding area. On Lag B’Omer police also insisted on an autopsy of a young chareidi man who died of a heart attack on his way home from Meron. In that case, the intervention of northern area askanim was enough to get police to back off and permit his levaya after Shabbos. (Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel / Photos: Chadrei Chareidim)

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