Rights

[CptSternn]

From the wires today, bush says he now needs more powers to go after terrorists. Under the new legislation, the bush administration wants to take away even more rights from U.S. citizens...

Bush administration seeks to expand surveillance law

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...SA_N.htm?csp=1

WASHINGTON — FBI agents and other federal investigators would have greater leeway to eavesdrop on foreigners in the USA suspected of having information on terrorism or national security threats, under a Bush administration proposal.

The bill has the backing of the Justice Department and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell. It would allow the telephone calls, e-mails and other activities of persons who are not U.S. citizens or legal residents to be secretly monitored if they are thought to "possess significant foreign intelligence information." Individuals and groups who deal in "weapons of mass destruction" would also become surveillance targets, under the proposed law.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requires that a surveillance target be an agent of a foreign power or connected to a terrorist group before a secret FISA court authorizes monitoring. The proposed law, a copy of which was furnished to USA TODAY by McConnell's office, would amend that requirement.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is scheduled to conduct hearings on the bill today.

Other proposed changes would:

•Permit all forms of "electronic surveillance" and eliminate requirements that restrict monitoring to specific categories such as "radio" and "wire" intercepts.

•Allow the FBI, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies to intercept foreign phone calls and e-mails routed through U.S. carriers, even if the senders and recipients are based abroad. Currently, one party must be based in the USA.

•Provide for the first time immunity from lawsuits to communications companies that aid government investigators, retroactive to Sept. 11, 2001.

•Require that legal challenges to foreign surveillance operations be heard by a secret FISA court rather than in an open federal court as is now the case.

•Give investigators one week rather than the current 48 hours to perform surveillance before seeking approval from a FISA court judge.

•Let investigators keep information unrelated to the reason for the surveillance, provided it was collected "unintentionally" and contains "significant foreign intelligence." Current law requires such information be destroyed.

The proposed changes, the bill says, would enhance U.S. intelligence capabilities by taking into account the "revolutions in communications technology" since 1978, when FISA was first passed.

The bill does not address a controversial program that allows warrantless monitoring of telephone, e-mail and other communications between persons in the USA and abroad when at least one party is a terrorism suspect. That program, begun in October 2001 and revealed in December 2005, was struck down by a federal judge in Detroit in a ruling that the Bush administration has appealed.

The new law seemingly would remove such cases from federal court and require the FISA court to hear them in secret.

McConnell and Army Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency, are among officials scheduled to testify in support of the legislation during today's hearing.

Jameel Jaffer, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union's national security project, said the proposed law would "not just be reforming (FISA) but doing away with it."

"No one has made the case that FISA needs to be changed," Jaffer said. "And no one has made the case that it has to be gutted, which is what this bill would do."

The bill's prospects are uncertain. A similar measure failed to pass the House of Representatives last year, when Republicans generally more sympathetic to the Bush administration controlled Congress.


Thats right - they want to remove all restrictions on surveillance. If they have an order to bug you, they want it to carry over to every place you visit, every phone you use, every house you go to. So in essence, you, your family, your friends, your workplace all now will be officially recognised under a survellience request, meaning if they find out a co-worker is breaking the law, they can use it (any anything else - meaning they can monitor pretty much everywhere without ever having a warrant for what they are looking for).

Also note they want to move the time restrictions from 48 hours to a week, meaning they can go on even longer 'fishing expeditions' when they have no evidence they can sit around for a week watching you to see if you are breaking the law (or if there is enough there to trump up charges).

All that and they want to remove the court that is supposed to oversee the process altogether and put it behind closed doors so the public cannot see when there is an abuse of power, PLUS retroactively eliminate any current lawsuits against phone companies who did NOT have authority to release customer records but did illegally anyway.

But the best part, is the monitoring of 'communications' outside of America with no recipients inside of America. That means anyone who sends email can legally be monitored by the bush administration without a warrant, and then they can build a case against you, as you sit in your own country not breaking any local laws.

Freedom isn't what it used to be, eh?

[CptSternn]

Looks like congress might start working on reversing this trend of stripping people of their rights...

Senators vow to restore rights to detainees

http://news.**********/s/nm/20070426....ppO34lOXMWM0F

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Influential U.S. senators vowed on Thursday to restore to foreign terrorism suspects the right to challenge their imprisonment, saying Congress made an historic blunder by stripping them of that right last year.

Hundreds of suspected al Qaeda and Taliban members held at a U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could be affected.

The United States has drawn international criticism over its continued detention of terrorism suspects in Guantanamo, with human rights groups demanding the prison be closed and detainees charged with crimes or released.

Last year's Congress, with a Republican majority, passed a law setting specific rules for U.S. military tribunals. It included a ban on non-citizens labeled "enemy combatants" from using "habeas corpus" petitions to challenge the legality of their detention in court, asserting that military panels at Guantanamo were a substitute for court review.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record) warned that the rights of some 12 million legal aliens in the United States -- as well as any foreigners visiting the country -- had also been infringed by the new law.

"This new law means that any of these people can be detained forever ... without any ability to challenge their detention in federal court, or anywhere else, simply on the government's say-so that they are awaiting determination as to whether they are enemy combatants," the Vermont Democrat said.

"This is wrong. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American," Leahy said in testimony to the
Senate Armed Services Committee, which would share jurisdiction on changing the law.

'SERIOUS AND CORROSIVE PROBLEM'

A Defense Department lawyer and some committee Republicans said the law should be allowed to work and be examined by U.S. courts before Congress acts again.

"Detention of enemy combatants in wartime is not criminal punishment and therefore does not require that the individual be charged or tried in a court of law," said Daniel Dell'Orto, principal deputy general counsel at the
Pentagon.

Leahy, along with Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), has introduced legislation to restore habeas corpus right to detainees. With the help of Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), "I hope we can fix this serious and corrosive problem by this summer," Leahy said.

Levin, a Michigan Democrat, agreed "we have an obligation to act now to establish a process that we can defend."

The writ of habeas corpus -- the phrase in Latin for "you have the body" -- has been a centerpiece of Anglo-American jurisprudence since it was first developed over 300 years ago in Britain. It gives defendants the right to have their imprisonment reviewed by a court.

Administration officials say that some of those at Guantanamo have pledged to attack the United States again if released. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has recommended that Congress discuss with
President George W. Bush ways to close the military prison without freeing the most dangerous detainees.

The congressional hearing occurred as civil liberties groups criticized an administration proposal to restrict the number of meetings between Guantanamo prisoners and their lawyers and to limit the attorneys' access to some classified evidence in their cases.

"Creating a legal black hole where rights are denied is as un-American as it is illegal," said Anthony Romero, of the
American Civil Liberties Union.

A U.S. appeals court has scheduled a hearing on May 15 to consider the administration's proposed restrictions.

[mindless1]

I'm a Pacifist. I dont beleive in WAR. I do not like what the government's doing.
I think that our president should be impeached and put on trial for war crimes.
I think we need a structure that's reliable. I dont think that right now we have peace in the United States. I think that we have messed up Iraq.
I know about the torture that has gone on in secret. I think that Money and Oil might have something to do with Iraq. I know that Bush Lied about the weapons.
I know how the government controls our media, and what the people see. I dont see a connection between Iraq and September 11th- i see a terrorist attack but I dont see a connection. I dont feel like I have a voice in this place because everywhere more people are just silenced.

What are we fighting? A war against torture? A war against violence? A war on terror? We're fighting terror with weapons...instilling peace by violence...we're supposedly fighting a war against terror- but then we're torturing people? Everyone has the right to freedom of speech. Everyone should be treated equally.

Why should I feel threatend by my own government? Because I cant trust it.
The people in it have lied and they arent telling the truth. They're doing things behind our backs, they're spying on us, they're supporting things that are wrong- morally. What about sweat shops? Child Labor? What about the laws that we had? Do they just not apply? The things that have happened are serious. If people dont have liberty then there's no real peace.

What do the Iraqis say? I want to know what everyone says, not just what i see on television or read in the newspaper I want to see with my own eyes and know with my own mind that it's true. What is humanity doing? Why are we destroying ourselves? Why cant there be a solution, a peaceful one...why cant we shake hands and agree on something- every single person born on this earth has the right to be free. But these governments, laws, become tools of descrimination. News becomes propaganda...are the lives of people important to our government? there are too many people who have died.

The things that are wrong- will always be wrong no matter what government we have. You can go by common sense, by God, by what we have experienced throughout our existence our history. What's a basic fundamental human need? We dont need money, we need truth, equality.
We need a world where everyone is safe, there is no terror. Because some say that there will always be war...there will always be war as long as their are weapons, guns, terror, there will always be war as long as there are people who support it. If you support war- you are only letting it continue.
The question is, does one person have the right over another's life? does a rapist have the right to do as he pleases or should he be stopped. I dont know if I would call Americans Lazy, but i dont know what to call them- because i dont know where the "them" is.
these are thoughts of mine. not intended towards anyone but this is what I think.

[Drake Dun]

these are thoughts of mine. not intended towards anyone but this is what I think.

I think you have good instincts.

Drake

[emeraldlonewoulf]

Sad thing is, I think on a gut level, most Americans - the "them" - feel the same way.

We may all disagree on who started stuff in Iraq, how it was started, or why, who is responsible for the 9/11 attacks, decisions our president has made, whether those decisions were bad or good, whether or not China/Korea/Iran/ substititute your favorite foriegn government/ is our next "big threat", whether or not there is really any major threat at all, human rights in Guantanamo bay or elsewhere, abortion, euthanasia, EPA regs on emissions, whether we should support hydrogen, electricity or alcohol vehicles, vegatarianism, immigration, or the thousands of other issues that make up the fabric of our country.

Any more, I believe the one thing most of us can agree on is that we don't trust our government, or feel that they represent our interest. The "average american" (whoever that actually is) doesn't think that their vote will count. The laws that are presented for us to vote on are written in another dialect, "lawyereese". We are "expected" by those in power to make our choice of governmental representatives based on tv commercials, charisma, and appearance. Histories of these individuals are twisted and spun beyond recognition. Unfortunately, the "average american" must be concerned with things like putting food on the table, raising children, and keeping a roof over their head, and does not have the hours necessary to research their options in voting, or political decisions.

We are just beginning to genuinely feel the freedoms we have lost. We are just beginning to see the value of what has been handed over,bit by bit. We are just beginning, as a people, to bristle against this new control, to realize its' effect in our lives. More and more of us are choosing not to do things, because of some regulation or other. We find it easier to submit than to object. We will continue to submit and allow these freedoms to be stripped from us, until it affects our ability to live.

It is only when the situation progresses to the point where those laws passed start affecting a large percentage of us in a negative manner on an almost daily basis that we will truly do something about it. Then, it will be too late to handle things in a peaceful manner. No one will remember how.

Here is something to think about. How much is too much? I don't mean in general, I mean on a personal level. I know it is something that will be different for each person. How much are you willing to deal with to live the life you have now? How much invasion by law enforcement, how much imprisonment of innocent people? How many private conversations listened to? How much of your earnings taken? How much of your daily life observed? How many restrictions on the jobs you can perform in order to provide for your family? How many personal habits or pastimes forbidden by law, how many people incarcerated, held prisoner for these same things? How many rapists,murderers, and child molesters do you wish your tax dollars to house, feed and clothe? How many of your freedoms to be limited/destroyed on a daily basis in order to do what you need to to live the way you are accustomed?

How much is too much? Will it have to take your full belly and warm bed, your roof and the wellbeing of your family before you are willing to do something about it? Your reaction may be to be offended at the question. Be honest with yourself. A person doesn't like to think so, but for many of us, I'm afraid the answer is yes.

[CptSternn]

Originally Posted by emeraldlonewoulf

SHow much is too much? Will it have to take your full belly and warm bed, your roof and the wellbeing of your family before you are willing to do something about it? Your reaction may be to be offended at the question. Be honest with yourself. A person doesn't like to think so, but for many of us, I'm afraid the answer is yes.

Wow, all great responses in this thread, but thought I'd comment on this statement which is very insightful.

When is too much and when is the point when you do something about it? Well, sad thing is this administration has moved the bar on this. People now have to fear losing their homes, jobs, way of life so much they can't dedicate the time needed to properly rebel/protest such actions.

Even if they could, like the protests in DC, they are now criminalised, arrested, and told they can only protest in designated zones setup by the government - out of the sight of most Americans.

So the bar is raised - how much can you take until you are willing to lose what you have to make things better? How much killing in a far off land, a land you will never visit, nor probably in your life ever meet a person from, has to happen before you are willing to risk your way of life or your families way of life?

Then, if you reach that limit, what exactly do you plan to do now that most of the common avenues of protest have been taken away, media censored, protesting banned in its purest form?

What exactly are you going to do?

[CptSternn]

In a new blow to the rights of Americans...

Cities sue gangs in bid to stop violence

http://news.**********/s/ap/20070730...fGiD0iucqs0NUE

ORT WORTH, Texas - Fed up with deadly drive-by shootings, incessant drug dealing and graffiti, cities nationwide are trying a different tactic to combat gangs: They're suing them.

Fort Worth and San Francisco are among the latest to file lawsuits against gang members, asking courts for injunctions barring them from hanging out together on street corners, in cars or anywhere else in certain areas.

The injunctions are aimed at disrupting gang activity before it can escalate. They also give police legal reasons to stop and question gang members, who often are found with drugs or weapons, authorities said. In some cases, they don't allow gang members to even talk to people passing in cars or to carry spray paint.

"It is another tool," said Kevin Rousseau, a Tarrant County assistant prosecutor in Fort Worth, which recently filed its first civil injunction against a gang. "This is more of a proactive approach."

But critics say such lawsuits go too far, limiting otherwise lawful activities and unfairly targeting minority youth.

"If you're barring people from talking in the streets, it's difficult to tell if they're gang members or if they're people discussing issues," said Peter Bibring, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. "And it's all the more troubling because it doesn't seem to be effective."

...

The injunctions prohibit gang members from associating with each other, carrying weapons, possessing drugs, committing crimes and displaying gang symbols in a safety zone — neighborhoods where suspected gang members live and are most active. Some injunctions set curfews for members and ban them from possessing alcohol in public areas — even if they're of legal drinking age.

Those who disobey the order face a misdemeanor charge and up to a year in jail. Prosecutors say the possibility of a jail stay — however short — is a strong deterrent, even for gang members who've already served hard time for other crimes.

"Seven months in jail is a big penalty for sitting on the front porch or riding in the car with your gang buddies," said Kinley Hegglund, senior assistant city attorney for Wichita Falls.


Sounds good right? Allowing the cities to target gang members to keep down violence?

However, as the critics point out, you now have officially removed even more rights of the average American.

Under these new 'injuctions', anyone in the designated zones can be stopped, searched, and arrested without cause.

People who live in the same neighborhoods are now kept from congregating with their friends, because of their beliefs.

People are arrested for driving through an area if they have ties to people with the same beliefs.

People of legal drinking age are arrested on their own front porch if caught drinking if they share the same beliefs as the people the police are trying to target.

Some say its a new 'tool' to fight 'crime', when in reality they have again found a way to arrest more Americans, persecute Americans for their beliefs and for who they choose to associate with.

They have also now found yet another way around the 4th amendment, and can search you without cause.

No freedom of speech. No freedom to assemble. No right to unwarranted searches.

At least not for those that the US government deems do not deserve those rights.

Sure, this time they are targeting 'gangs'. But with this new precedent in place, how long before they target other groups as well?

It's a short leap over to stopping anti-war protesters, or people protesting G8 summits using the same tactics.

America, the land you can say what you want, as long as you do so in designated areas where no one can hear you. Failure to do this ends in jail time for yourself, and those who also share the same ideas and beliefs who might be in the area at the time.

[CptSternn]

Court Says Travelers Can't Avoid Airport Searches

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...says-trav.html

U.S. airline passengers near the security checkpoint can be searched any time and no longer can refuse consent by leaving the airport, the nation's largest federal appeals court ruled Friday.

The decision (.pdf) by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the circuit's 34-year-old precedent that over time was evolving toward limiting when passengers could refuse a search and leave the airport after they had checked their bags or placed items on the security screening X-ray machine. Citing threats of terrorism, the court ruled passengers give up all rights to be free of warrantless searches once a "passenger places hand luggage on a conveyor belt for inspection" or "passes though a magnetometer."

"…Requiring that a potential passenger be allowed to revoke consent to an ongoing airport security search makes little sense in a post-9/11 world," Judge Carlos Bea wrote for the unanimous 15-judge panel. "Such a rule would afford terrorists multiple opportunities to attempt to penetrate airport security by 'electing not to fly' on the cusp of detection until a vulnerable portal is found."

The U.S. Supreme Court has never squarely addressed the limits of the Fourth Amendment in the context of airport searches. The attorney representing a man imprisoned for drug possession who tried to leave the airport rather than be searched is weighing whether to petition the justices to review the decision.

The case concerns Daniel Aukai, a Hawaiian man arrested with 50 grams of methamphetamine at the Honolulu International Airport in 2003. After he passed the initial screening station to board a flight to Kona, Hawaii, he was placed in a secondary search, as required by government protocol, because he did not have identification. He refused the search and asked to leave. Transportation Security Officials searched him and discovered the drugs and a glass pipe.

He was handed 70 months. (See Ryan's story from last year.) The sentence was upheld by the San Francisco appeals court.

"This is a post-9/11-bunker mentality," said Aukai's attorney, Pamela O'Leary Tower of Honolulu. "He said 'I want to leave.' The purpose of an airport search is to keep people off planes with bombs. The opinion seems to gut that."

In 1973, the circuit court ruled that airport searches were valid "only if they recognize the right of a person to avoid search by electing not to board the aircraft." In later rulings, the court began backing off, ruling passengers could not opt out of searches if they had checked luggage or if carry-on items were flagged during the initial screening to enter the terminal area.

The case is United States v. Aukai, 04-10226.



Thats right - once you enter an airport, now, you lose your right to unreasonable searches in America. Forget the 4th Amendment, you can now be held and searched even if your not getting on a plane.

[CptSternn]

Wives struggled after FBI framed spouses

http://news.**********/s/ap/20070816..._2F20ietys0NUE

BOSTON - For three decades, Marie Salvati and Olympia Limone essentially lived as widows, struggling to make ends meet as they raised four children on their own. Their husbands grew old behind bars after being convicted of a murder the FBI knew they did not commit.

Now the women hope a judge's ruling awarding them and two other families nearly $102 million marks the end of their struggle in a long story of love, devotion and survival.

For many years, the two women would see each other about once a month, across the visiting room of a state prison. Their conversations were rarely more than a wave hello or a "how's the family?" but they didn't really need words to understand each other's lives.

In the days after the verdict, the two women and their husbands spoke to The Associated Press about living apart for so long, and the bonds that kept them together.

___

For Marie Salvati, there was never a moment of doubt, even after her husband, Joe, was charged with murder, convicted and sentenced.

"He told me, 'Marie, I want you to know I had nothing to do with this,' and you know, from that moment on, I knew I was in this with him for his life sentence," she said.

"I used to tell him, 'You take care of yourself in there and I'll take care of the family on the outside'," she said.

And for 30 years, that's exactly what she did.

Every week, she traveled up to two hours each way to visit her husband in prison. She and the kids endured humiliating pat-downs and searches. The visits, she said, were to buoy her husband's spirits and to preserve the bond between a father and his children.

It was hardly the life they had planned.

The first time Joe Salvati saw his future wife, she was 16 and wearing a two-piece white bathing suit decorated with a big red lobster. He tried to edge closer on his beach blanket, but Marie's mother shooed him away.

Salvati, who was two years older, didn't give up. Three years later, they were married.

The first years of their marriage were typical of many working-class couples in Boston's largely Italian North End neighborhood. Salvati worked two or three jobs — truck driver, dock worker, doorman — while his wife stayed home and took care of their kids.

Then came Oct. 25, 1967, when Salvati was fingered as the driver of the getaway car in the 1965 slaying of small-time hoodlum Edward "Teddy" Deegan.

At first, the couple thought the police would discover the mistake and release Salvati, who insisted mob hitman Joseph "The Animal" Barboza had framed him over a $400 debt. Salvati had been arrested just once before — for petty larceny.

After a two-month trial, Salvati, then 34, was convicted, along with Limone, Louis Greco and Henry Tameleo. Salvati was sentenced to life in prison, while the others were sentenced to die in the electric chair.

Marie Salvati, then 32, tried to reassure their children, then 5, 9, 11 and 13.

"I said, 'You know, Daddy will be OK,'" she recalled. "But nothing got better. If anything, it got worse."

From prison, her husband spent years working on appeals, motions for a new trial and commutation requests. When his kids came to visit, he got a glimpse of what life was like for them.

"My kid came up and asked me one time, 'Gee, Daddy, what's an electric chair?' I said, 'Where'd you hear that?' and he said, 'Well, the kids in school said they're going to give you the electric chair,'" he said. "They were always getting picked on."

___

It was the day before her 10th wedding anniversary when officers came to Olympia Limones' home in Medford to arrest her husband, Peter. The plainclothes officers told the kids — two boys, two girls, all under age 9 — that they were delivering a shipment of oil, but the boys knew better.

Olympia Limones, then 31, sank into a deep depression in the days after his conviction. "I felt like my life was over, but that I had to take care of my kids, which I did," she said.

She visited her husband faithfully twice a week on death row, before his sentence was commuted to life in prison after the U.S. Supreme Court suspended executions in 1972.

At first, Peter Limone would not allow the children to see him.

"I said, 'My children are not going to walk through this prison,'" he recalled. But eventually, the superintendent arranged for Limone to see his children in a visiting room that was separated from the prison population.

To get by, his wife made curtains, cleaned houses and relied on the charity of family and friends. When their two daughters celebrated their first communion, she took them to prison so their father could see them in their white silk dresses.

"I just always kept telling them that their father was innocent and that a man who didn't like him blamed him for something he didn't do," she said.

Meanwhile, she went to all the boys' baseball games and hockey practices, took them to get haircuts and learned to fix things around the house. She hated that her children lost out on having a father.

"Sometimes if they gave me any problems I figured — especially the boys — he would have been able to handle it better than I would," she said. "Do you know how many times I said, 'If your father was home, you wouldn't be doing that?'"

Peter Limone, now 73, has been reputed to be a member of the New England Mob, an allegation he denies.

His wife said she never considered ending her marriage.

"Maybe if I thought he was a killer, I might have ended the marriage," she said. "But I never believed for a minute he was."

___

Marie Salvati maintained the same devotion.

She took classes and eventually became a program director at an early childhood center. The rest of her time she spent with her children.

Family friend Mickey Luongo remembers seeing her each week, carrying a big shopping bag full of eggplant parmesan, frittatas and other homemade Italian dishes to bring to her husband in prison.

"She kept her family close all those years," Luongo said. "She knew what her priorities were for her family, and she just did it somehow."

Joe Salvati and his wife sometimes lost hope that he would ever get out of prison. Salvati, now 74, said he once told his wife he would understand if she wanted a divorce. But she quickly said no and reminded him of their wedding vows.

"'Til death do we part," he said. "They broke the mold when they made Marie."

Finally, in 1997, Gov. William Weld commuted Salvati's sentence, and he was released from prison. It would be another four years before he and Limone were exonerated by a state judge. The judge found two Boston FBI agents had allowed Barboza to frame the men because Barboza and his friend, Vincent "Jimmy" Flemmi, one of Deegan's killers, were FBI informants who provided evidence in the agency's highly publicized war against La Cosa Nostra.

Last month, a federal judge excoriated the agency for withholding evidence of the men's innocence and ordered the government to pay a record $101.7 million to the Salvati and Limone families and those of two other men convicted with them who died in prison.

For Marie Salvati, now 72, the money does not mean much. They plan to use it to send their six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren to college. The Justice Department has not said whether it will appeal the judgment.

"It was so cruel — for my children, for myself, for my husband," she said. "It should never have happened."


So the American government knowing imprisoned 4 innocent men for 30 years in efforts to keep their undercover officer from being detected. Even after the officer was 'outed', they kept the men in prison to hide the fact they framed an imprisoned 4 innocent men in their efforts to 'fight crime'.

Goes to show how much the American government cares about it's own people. It's willing to take away the lives of four men, and their families, just to make an arrest. Makes you wonder what they are hiding from us right now when it comes to 'fighting terror' doesn't it?

[CptSternn]

Police break up anti-war meeting in Washington

http://news.**********/s/afp/usiraqd...sZvRJch8Ws0NUE

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Mounted police charged in to break up an outdoor press conference and demonstration against the Iraq war in Washington on Thursday, arresting three people, organizers and an AFP reporter said.

"The police suppressed the press conference. In the middle of the speeches, they grabbed the podium" erected in a park in front of the White House for the small gathering, Brian Becker, national organizer of the ANSWER anti-war coalition, told AFP.

"Then, mounted police charged the media present to disperse them," Becker said.

The charge caused a peaceful crowd of some 20 journalists and four or five protestors to scatter in terror, an AFP correspondent at the event in Lafayette Square said. No one appeared to have been hurt.

Three people -- Tina Richards, the mother of a marine who did two tours of duty in Iraq; Adam Kokesh, a leader of the Iraq Veterans Against the War group; and lawyer Ian Thompson, who is an organizer for ANSWER in Los Angeles -- were arrested, Becker said.

The ANSWER coalition is trying to rally support for an anti-war demonstration in Washington that is due to take place on September 15.

Last month, the movement was threatened with a fine of at least 10,000 dollars unless it removed posters in the city announcing the September 15 march.

Washington city authorities have said the posters had to come down because they were stuck on with adhesive that did not meet city regulations.

"At our demonstration today we were showing the media that the paste we use conforms to the rules," Becker said.

"One of our activists was making a speech when the police barged in and grabbed the podium. At that point, Tina Richards started to put up a poster, so they arrested her and two others."

"This strategy of suppression has not worked. We expect many tens of thousands of people" in Washington for the September 15 anti-war demonstration, he said.

The march has been timed to coincide with the release of a report by the US military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and will be part of a week of protests led by veterans of the Iraq war.

A petition calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush, allegedly carrying one million signatures and endorsed by former US attorney general Ramsey Clark, will also be submitted to officials during the week's activities, ANSWER has told AFP.


Freedom of speech? Freedom of assembly? Not anymore. People in the Cuba thread talk about the government trying to stifle political dissent. Here, we see it first hand as the bush administration goes head to head with American citizens, and US soldiers.

Apparently, only citizens and soldiers who share the same views as the bush administration are allowed to meet and share ideas.

Also, one million signatures to impeach bush. Thats brilliant. If you take the fact 55% of Americans can't stand the man, that means over 160 million don't like him. It's safe to say at least one million would sigh a petition to see him impeached. I'd love to see this go forward. I mean, how can any government ignore the wishes of a million of their own people? Of course, this is the American government we are talking about - they are ignoring the wishes of 160 million of their own people as we speak who want to end the war now...

[CptSternn]

There were a few articles today that I thought emphasized the new changes in the American legal system.

First, we have this article from Indiana...

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...,5116664.story

Fired teacher honking for justice

Kissimmee Middle School reading teacher Deborah Mayer said her world has been "devastated" by four words she uttered in an Indiana classroom four years ago: "I honk for peace."

Mayer, who now lives in Celebration, was fired from her teaching job in Bloomington, Ind., after that 2003 comment. Now she's appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, asserting that her dismissal for expressing her political views violated her First Amendment rights.

It's a case with national implications for what teachers can -- and can't -- say in a public-school classroom.

"This has been devastating to me," Mayer, 57, said of her case, which has cost her $70,000 in legal fees. "What's important is that when I decided to stand up for my rights and take this school system to court, the court said teachers have no right of free speech."

But Thomas Wheeler, attorney for the Monroe County Community School Corp., said her real problem is she was a bad teacher. Besides, he said, teachers don't have First Amendment rights in the classroom because they teach a curriculum decided by state and local officials. So far, lower courts have agreed -- and the Supreme Court has not decided whether to hear her appeal.

Martin Sweet, an assistant professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University, said Mayer's case has a decent chance of getting a hearing.

"The First Amendment does not go away for either teachers or students. But it has to be measured," he said. One measure is subject matter, he said: A teacher discussing current events could more appropriately voice political opinions than, for instance, a biology teacher.

Mayer said her troubles started Jan. 10, 2003 -- the eve of the Iraq war -- during a weekly current-events discussion in her Grades 4-6 class at Clear Creek Elementary School in Bloomington, Ind. A pupil asked if she would participate in a peace rally.

"I honk for peace," Mayer, a veteran teacher in her first year at Bloomington, said she told them. She said she also told the students, "People ought to seek out peaceful solutions before going to war."

She said several parents subsequently complained about her comments, leading to the non-renewal of her contract at the end of the year.

"I said four little words, and it destroyed my life," said Mayer, whose grown son subsequently served in Afghanistan.


Thats right - a teacher was sacked because multiple parents complained that she said people should try peaceful solutions before they go to war.

Thats right - messages like that anger Americans to the point they call for a teachers job. Also note - the Federal Government regulates what teachers can say, that statement was deemed 'inappropriate'.

Anyone else bothered by the fact a teacher that promoted peace in a few words was fired because her views against the war conflicted with what the US government wanted children to hear?

If not, you should be.

This is followed by an article out of DC...

Rev. Lennox Yearwood Arrested at Petraeus Hearing

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/0...raeus-hearing/

Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr., president of the Hip Hop Caucus, was attacked by six capitol police today, when he was stopped from entering the Cannon Caucus Room on Capitol Hill, where General Petreaus gave testimony today to a joint hearing for the House Arms Services Committee and Foreign Relations Committee on the war in Iraq. After waiting in line throughout the morning for the hearing that was scheduled to start at 12:30pm, Rev. Yearwood was stopped from entering the room, while others behind him were allowed to enter. He told the officers blocking his ability to enter the room, that he was waiting in line with everyone else and had the right to enter as well. When they threatened him with arrest he responded with “I will not be arrested today.” According to witnesses, six capitol police, without warning, “football tackled” him.

A Reverend, a man of the cloth, 'football tackled' by police resulting in the breaking of his ankle because he wore a badge which said he loved the people in Iraq. Again, love, who is this man to talk about such things when the current administration is preaching hate, war, and death? Breaking his ankle to keep him from spreading his message - thats a way to get people to forget about peace and love right there.

Finally, we have an article from Texas...

Judge to decide whether Woodruff’s rights violated

http://www.heraldbanner.com/local/lo...255012925.html

A state district judge said he would decide by early next week whether capital murder defendant Brandon Woodruff’s constitutional rights were violated when prosecutors ordered the taping of Woodruff’s telephone calls made from the Hunt County Jail.

...

Lead defense attorney Jerry Spencer Davis has claimed the chief jailer had been instructed by a representative with the District Attorney’s Office to monitor and tape Woodruff’s calls from the jail and turn the recordings over to the prosecution. Davis argued the recordings violated the attorney/client privilege and denied Woodruff a right to a fair trial, as the recordings may have included vital defense trial strategy.


Thats right - the prosecutor ordered the jail to record all conversations with the mans defence attorney. Until the Patriot Act was passed, this was illegal. Now, everything you say can be recorded and used against you - even your private phone calls and conversations with your defence attorney about the case. Forget about attorney/client privilege, your rights as a defendant no longer exist. This isn't just for use on terrorists - all criminal defendants now have no expectation of privacy, even with their own lawyers.

Yet another example of the 'new' America the bush administration is responsible for.

[CptSternn]

This weeks attacks on freedoms...

First, we have yet another city banning peoples attire.

Cities cracking down on saggy pants

http://news.**********/s/ap/20070916...nKD5z4j8Ks0NUE

TRENTON, N.J. - It's a fashion that started in prison, and now the saggy pants craze has come full circle — low-slung street strutting in some cities may soon mean run-ins with the law, including a stint in jail.

Proposals to ban saggy pants are starting to ride up in several places. At the extreme end, wearing pants low enough to show boxers or bare buttocks in one small Louisiana town means six months in jail and a $500 fine. A crackdown also is being pushed in Atlanta. And in Trenton, getting caught with your pants down may soon result in not only a fine, but a city worker assessing where your life is headed.

"Are they employed? Do they have a high school diploma? It's a wonderful way to redirect at that point," said Trenton Councilwoman Annette Lartigue, who is drafting a law to outlaw saggy pants. "The message is clear: We don't want to see your backside."

The bare-your-britches fashion is believed to have started in prisons, where inmates aren't given belts with their baggy uniform pants to prevent hangings and beatings. By the late 80s, the trend had made it to gangster rap videos, then went on to skateboarders in the suburbs and high school hallways.

"For young people, it's a form of rebellion and identity," Adrian "Easy A.D." Harris, 43, a founding member of the Bronx's legendary rap group Cold Crush Brothers. "The young people think it's fashionable. They don't think it's negative."

But for those who want to stop them see it as an indecent, sloppy trend that is a bad influence on children.

"It has the potential to catch on with elementary school kids, and we want to stop it before it gets there," said C.T. Martin, an Atlanta councilman. "Teachers have raised questions about what a distraction it is."

In Atlanta, a law has been introduced to ban sagging and punishment could include small fines or community work — but no jail time, Martin said.

The penalty is stiffer in Delcambre, La., where in June the town council passed an ordinance that carries a fine of up to $500 or six months in jail for exposing underwear in public. Several other municipalities and parish governments in Louisiana have enacted similar laws in recent months.

At Trenton hip-hop clothing store Razor Sharp Clothing Shop 4 Ballers, shopper Mark Wise, 30, said his jeans sag for practical reasons.

"The reason I don't wear tight pants is because it's easier to get money out of my pocket this way," Wise said. "It's just more comfortable."

Shop owner Mack Murray said Trenton's proposed ordinance unfairly targets blacks.

"Are they going to go after construction workers and plumbers, because their pants sag, too?" Murray asked. "They're stereotyping us."

The American Civil Liberties Union agrees.

"In Atlanta, we see this as racial profiling," said Benetta Standly, statewide organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia. "It's going to target African-American male youths. There's a fear with people associating the way you dress with crimes being committed."


We see clothing being banned in the name of stopping 'terrorists'. This is not just confined to hip-hop clothing, we now see goth attire being banned and justified using the same rational.

Thats right folks, your clothing is now the subject of the newest governmental ban in the name of freedom and fighting terror. The type of pants you wear directly affects the war on terror - wearing anything but your sundays best will mean the terrorists win. If you don't believe that, it doesn't matter - you can go to jail plus be fined if you do not obey.

Just a few more things you *can't* do in a *free* country.

Then we have this...

Field has another memorable award speech

http://news.**********/s/ap/tv_emmys...au5iNttQas0NUE

LOS ANGELES - Twenty-two years after her immortal Oscar speech, the Fox network really did NOT like Sally Field.

Accepting her Emmy on Sunday night for lead actress in a drama series ("Brothers and Sisters"), Field stumbled halfway through, lost her train of thought, screeched at the audience to stop applauding so she could finish talking — and then was bleeped by Fox censors as she stammered through an anti-war rant.


What genius let faux broadcast the Oscar's? You have to love fox - like bush, you always get what you expect. Censoring the Oscar speech for a person who just won an Oscar because they had an anti-war message in the speech.

Censoring speech - bleeping out anti-war messages from live television. Is that what they talk about when they say 'free speech'? It appears your speech is anything but free. If it doesn't fit into the current administrations plans, then you can't talk about it. Well you can, but they will censor you and your views in efforts to stop your message from reaching the people.