5th Feb - court date for Prince Harry visa case

[veraswaistcoat]

I believe this is the first time under Trump's Presidency that Prince Harry's visa records case is due. Lawyers representing the Heritage Foundation and Harry are to meet in Washington DC. Is Harry not sick of court?

The judge has issued a court order on 13th Feb, releasing the full, non-public court file to the Heritage Foundation.

Actually, correction, it's the release of the docket (summary of the proceedings) not the file. The judge has ordered DHS to tell the judge by 20th Feb what info from their in camera submissions relating to the 'August order can be released to THF.

In regard to Invictus and Better Up, I had a look at the Invictus website and found this a while back, and just had another look then and nothing has changed -

“ These BetterUp resources will continue to support and encourage the recovery journey of wounded, injured, and sick veterans and service personnel at no cost via the We Are Invictus online platform. In the past year, members of the Invictus Games Foundation who used BetterUp experienced increases in optimism (+35%), self-awareness (+42%), resilience (+52%), goal attainment (+58%), self-compassion (+31%) and emotional regulation (+35%).”

I have no idea how it works but if veterans of countries that have poor mental health services can access mental health services for free from Better Up through Invictus I think that’s pretty helpful.

I have no idea how it works but if veterans of countries that have poor mental health services can access mental health services for free from Better Up through Invictus I think that’s pretty helpful

It said "at no cost to the We Are Invictus online platform", @Jacquette, which seems to me - though I could be wrong - to be different to the issue of costs to the veterans themselves

They may be accessing help for free or they may not, but I wouldn't want to assume from that statement ... maybe someone else knows?

I understood it to mean if veterans or serving members of Invictus access Better Up services ‘via the We Are Invictus online platform’ (as it states) it costs the veterans and serving members nothing.

I think that is how it works, Invictus pays for a Better Up corporate package and their members then have free access to Better Up services.

They get some terrible user reviews online though.

The one Harry 'works for'? Is that not a massive conflict of interest?

The one Harry 'works for'? Is that not a massive conflict of interest?

One would think so. Unless Better Up is providing the service pro bono. But it all seems a bit murky.

In the past year, members of the Invictus Games Foundation who used BetterUp experienced increases in optimism (+35%)...

35% of what, though?

There were reports about 18 months ago about staff at Better Up being very unhappy. Talking about the org being cult-like, bullying and toxic.

You could be right, Jacquettes, but I'd want that clarified and getting accurate info isn't easy - the more so with the non-disparagement arrangement and BetterUp's reportedly litigious nature

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14419743/prince-harry-visa-records-drug-use.html#

How much info will be released we don’t know yet. But there will be three documents released.

I’m not surprised.

A trump appointed judge gives The Heritage Foundation aka authors of the Project 2025 manifesto access to Harry’s visa papers. By this point I don’t think anyone expected it wasn’t going to happen. We are in crazy times. We’ve got Trump saying Zelensky is dictator who started the war and that Putin is the good guy really, and he (Trump) is not hiding the fact he wants to be king. He’s advertising it.

Official ‘The White House’ Twitter account

I cracked up at one of the comments:

“Finally, a president who understands the importance of looking like a Renaissance fair dictator.”

No. I have zero idea if its a good service or not.
But it is pretty common for Patrons of charities or people heavily involved in a charity to get the business they work for to offer free services or reduced services to people their charity supports. Most corporate support is leveraged through personal connections.

That is terrible news. Really terrible.
As I have said before, this is not about Harry. I do not care about Harry the Heritage Foundation do not care about Harry. They wanted to establish a legal precedent that will be used against others. Lets hope they lose any appeal Harry launches

Now we will get organisations like the Heritage Foundation going to court demanding to see the visa documents of any human rights activists or anyone they simply see as an opponent. It will be used as a way to attack any opposition to Trump and Musk.

Harry can't launch an appeal, he is not a party to the action. The Department for Homeland Security is the other party, and it's a Freedom of Information Act case, not an immigration case.

The FOI method has been used by many journalists trying to find out why the US is allowing nefarious characters into the US. For example, one of the cases cited in the current action related to a jounralist's FOIA request on the visa application of Irishman George Gibney. Gibney was the head coach of the Rep of Ireland Olympic swimming team, and faces a plethora of SA charges in Ireland against his swimmers, girls who were underage and vulnerable who were abused by him over decades. Shortly before his trial, he fled to America. The FOIA showed that a powerful body of American swim coaches had made statements on Gibney's behalf in his visa application to grease the wheels in his favour, and that, whilst he had failed to let the DHS know that he was facing charges at home, this had not prevented DHS from allowing him to stay in the US. That FOI request took place under the first Trump administration.

The first principle is that these documents are a matter of public record. Privacy for the individual with regard to certain details they supply is then applied as an exception to the first principle. Privacy is not the starting point. The point of these actions is to expose DHS decision making practices, and whether they are applying them evenly towards all applicants, or giving favourable treatment to certain connected individuals that would not be given to ordinary applicants. This is a case about the process and alleged corrupt practices within the DHS, not about the individuals themselves. Harry just served himself up, through Spare, as a useful idiot test case.

@PigeonDress That case is being cited because it is one that nobody would disagree with. But that is not what the Heritage Foundation are interested in. They will use it to target any opposition to Trump and Musk.

No, plenty of people would disagree with the Gibney FOIA, plenty of people who have been protecting that man, both sides of the Atlantic. But that is besides the point. The Gibney case was cited because it was a leading FOIA case on the applicability of privacy rights as balanced against the public interest in exposing the government’s inner workings and possible malfeasance, under a standard in a court case called National Archives and Records Administration v Favish. These FOIA cases aren't about the individuals requesting visas per se. Those individuals provide the vehicle for the FOI requesting party to look into the decision making process of public bodies like the DHS. Because, when it appears that the individual - from all that is publicly known about them - should have been denied a visa if the DHS was properly applying its own rules to their application, then there is an inference of malfeasance on the part of the DHS. The HF agenda is to go after DHS (and probably to dismantle it), not after small fry individual applicants.

I doubt there will be much to see, the information that was deemed damaging to Prince Harry is not going to be released and I can imagine the three documents that are will be that heavily redacted that it will be pointless exercise.