Feral Jundi

Under the congressionally approved provision, the federal government would not be able to do business with companies with $1 million or more in contracts that deny court hearings for victims of assault, false imprisonment or emotional distress. Victims of assault would be able to sue the employers of the alleged attacker, as well as the attacker. The Defense Department can apply a waiver for national security reasons. 

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   Interesting news, and I am not too sure how this ‘really’ applies to contractors, both male and female, who are ‘victims of assault, false imprisonment or emotional distress’. I assume this only applies to U.S. citizens, and this law only works if they are seeking legal action against others who U.S. citizens and working as contractors? But yeah, I think it is great that individual contractors have a little more teeth to deal with companies who mistreat us.

   The problem here though, is that I am not a legal expert about this stuff, and I do not know how this new legal mechanism will fair in court. Boy, where is the Feral Jundi legal team when you need them? Guns, money, and lawyers is all you need for a party. lol

     I think the most important part to look at in this amendment in the defense bill, is that the DoD reserves the right to apply a waiver for national security reasons.  That is smart, because I could easily see this law being abused.  I want those that have truly been wronged, to get justice.  But I also want to emphasize how much more important it is to maintain national security and to not hinder the war effort in any way. We will see how it goes, and hopefully commonsense dictates on how this is used.

     Oh, and for the guys that did those things to Jamie Leigh Jones, and to those leaders that allowed it to happen or did nothing about it, may you all rot in hell for your crimes. –Matt

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Amendment ensures contractors have legal rights

Dec. 20, 2009

By MARIA RECIO

McClatchy Newspapers

Four years ago, Jamie Leigh Jones, a 20-year old Texas contract employee working in Iraq, was drugged, stripped, beaten and gang-raped by her co-workers on her fourth day in country. She finally managed to get a phone call out from the shipping container where she was being detained – by her employer, KBR, then a Halliburton company.

That call to her father led to a call to her congressman, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, and her rescue after Poe had the State Department locate her. But Jones’ attempts at justice – and restitution – were blocked by a little-noticed compulsory arbitration clause in the contracts of private employees working for federal government contractors.

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