The Little Brown Reader

U.S. Justice Department memo on torture sets dangerous precedent, Libertarians say

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NEWS FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY
2600 Virginia Avenue, NW, Suite 100
Washington DC 20037
World Wide Web: http://www.LP.org
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For release: June 9, 2004
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For additional information:
George Getz, Communications Director
Phone: (202) 333-0008
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U.S. Justice Department memo on torture
sets dangerous precedent, Libertarians say

WASHINGTON, DC -- A secret legal opinion by the Justice Department that
reportedly justifies torture should be repudiated by the U.S. government
before it backfires on U.S. troops or civilians overseas, Libertarians
say.

“Iraqis can torture Americans just as easily as Americans can torture
Iraqis,” said Joseph Seehusen, Libertarian Party executive director.
“Not only is the U.S. government’s rationale for torturing prisoners
uncivilized and un-American, it could have a dangerous boomerang effect
on the very people President Bush claims he’s trying to protect.”

In an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday,
Attorney General John Ashcroft refused to release 2002 Justice
Department memos on interrogation techniques being used at U.S. prisons
in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. But according to documents that
have been leaked to the press, the department’s lawyers say that a
wartime president is not bound by anti-torture laws or treaties, and
that inflicting physical and psychological pain might be justified
during enemy interrogations.

Of course there’s no legal or moral justification for torture,
Libertarians say, which is why the U.S. government should repudiate the
Justice Department’s legal opinion.

But Bush and Ashcroft seem to have overlooked a dangerous and immediate
consequence of “reinterpreting” anti-torture statutes: The same
rationale could be used by foreign governments against U.S. military
personnel, as well as American civilians traveling and working overseas.

“The U.S. government has signed international treaties banning torture
not just to protect foreign troops, but also to protect American troops
when they’re captured,” Seehusen said. “It’s in America’s self-interest
to abide by these laws. Flouting these standards gives tyrants and
dictators around the world the green light to do the same.”

Unfortunately, U.S. troops have already been captured in Iraq, and may
be captured again, Seehusen observed.

“Imagine opening your morning newspaper and seeing a photo of a captured
U.S. soldier wearing a black hood while being forced to stand on a box
with electrodes attached to his body,” Seehusen said. “Or imagine photos
of naked American men and women being piled on top of each other for the
amusement of prison guards, or lying naked on the floor wearing only a
dog leash held by a smiling Iraqi soldier.

“The American public would be justifiably outraged, and would demand
that the enemy troops be brought before a war crimes tribunal.”

Yet under the Bush administration’s “reinterpretation” of anti-torture
laws, such a prosecution might be impossible, he noted.

“No civilized person wants to see such brutal, thuggish behavior go
unpunished,” Seehusen said. “Yet that’s exactly what could happen if
George Bush insists that wartime presidents have the power to exempt
themselves from anti-torture laws.”

Capitol Hill Blue: TIA is Alive and Well

Capitol Hill Blue: Where Big Brother Snoops on Americans 24/7

Customers of the Bank of America branch at 3625 Fairfax Drive in Arlington, Virginia, often wonder about the Arlington police car that is always parked in front of the building in the next block.

...

Gmail Still Sparking Debates

Wired News: Gmail Still Sparking Debates

A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter

Keep and Bear Arms - A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter

Cooperate -- Or Else!

Cooperate -- Or Else!
by Timothy Lynch
Cato Institute

Few people seem to like the Fourth Amendment to the American Constitution. The Fourth Amendment is the provision that places limits on the power of the police to detain and search people. The unpopularity of the constitutional provision is perhaps understandable because it's usually mentioned in the news only when a court declares that a police raid on a drug dealer's apartment was unconstitutional. In the minds of many Americans, the Fourth Amendment only seems to benefit criminals.

The Fourth Amendment has gotten a bad rap. The Founding Fathers understood that a free society necessarily requires that the power of government to detain, interrogate, and search must be limited. It is a pity that so many Americans give the Fourth Amendment an adolescent -- "What's the big deal?" -- shrug that runs something like this: I've never been searched or arrested and never will be since I'm not doing anything illegal. Such a view misses the point. It is not so much how many times a person benefits from the Fourth Amendment that matters. Rather, the key point is that this constitutional safeguard will be there when you need it.
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Supreme Court hears case on "right to remain silent"

MSNBC - Supreme Court hears privacy case

WASHINGTON - Do you have to tell the police your name? Depending on how the Supreme Court rules, the answer could be the difference between arrest and freedom.

The justices heard arguments Monday in a first-of-its-kind case that asks whether people can be punished for refusing to identify themselves.

“I would do it all over again,” Hiibel, dressed in cowboy hat, boots and a bolo tie, said outside the court Monday. “That’s one of our fundamental rights as American citizens, to remain silent.”
...

Swearing on stage could cost stars $500

Ananova - Swearing on stage could cost stars $500

Officials in Florida want to fine rockers for swearing during public performances.

Council member Bill Foster told the paper: "Constant vulgarity is not going to be tolerated. We can't be the morality police, and we can't be the constant saviors of the First Amendment. But we can dictate what goes on in our public parks."
...

Wel,, he got one right. They clearly can't be the constant saviors of the First Amendment. We'll have to look elsewhere for them.

Judge: School must tell feds about war protest

The Miami Herald | 02/08/2004 | Judge: School must tell feds about war protest
(TruthOut permacopy)

Drake University was subpoenaed for a list of those who attended, and four activists who attended a related forum have been ordered before a grand jury.

BY RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa - In what may be the first subpoena of its kind in decades, a federal judge has ordered Drake University to turn over records about a gathering of antiwar activists.

...

AOL, You've Been Sued!

Hartford Advocate: You've Been Sued!

by Dan Levine - December 25, 2003

Without a judge's signature, a warrant is nothing more than a neato-toledo looking legal paper, with no power to compel anyone to do anything.

...

Federal Judge Rules Part of Patriot Act Unconstitutional

Federal Judge Rules Part of Patriot Act Unconstitutional (washingtonpost.com)

(TruthOut permacopy)

2003 Year in Review from BORDC

2003 Year in Review

In 2003, millions of U.S. citizens and noncitizens turned to the Bill of Rights and exercised its protections to restore and uphold essential rights and freedoms that help define our country. Congress and the Justice Department noticed.

As we look forward to 2004, BORDC reviews some highlights of the past year.

Grassroots news

• The number of Civil Liberties Safe Zones increased more than tenfold, from 22 communities in 2002 to 230 cities, towns, and counties and three states by the end of 2003. The number of people protected by Civil Liberties Safe Zones grew to over 30 million (more than 10 percent of the United States population!).

  • March 4: highest number of resolutions passed in one day, twelve, including the first ballot initiative (Montpelier, VT).
  • April 2: first ordinance passed (Arcata, CA).

  • April 25: first state resolution passed (Hawai'i).

• The distribution of civil liberties resolutions across 37 of the 50 states should surprise former Justice Department spokesperson Barbara Comstock, who claimed that “about 45 percent of them, almost half, are either in cities in Vermont, very small populations, or in sort of college towns in California.”

• Attention to the Patriot Act also increased among campuses, labor unions, religious bodies, and other types of organizations.

• On June 5, Attorney General Ashcroft mentioned the "Bill of Rights defense movement" twice in his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.

• In August and September, the Attorney General embarked on a month-long 30-city tour to defend the Patriot Act. Thousands of protestors showed up at his campaign stops and held signs outside his closed-door meetings before hand-picked audiences of uniformed law enforcement. During the tour, 27 cities passed resolutions against the Patriot Act, and tens of thousands of Americans looked into the Patriot Act.

• In October, more than 200 people from 27 states met for the first time at the first annual Grassroots America Defends the Bill of Rights conference. Participants look forward to more regional and national conference and ongoing communication via a listserve.

Legislation

• On February 7, the Center for Public Integrity posted the leaked Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 on its website. The public outcry over the bill dubbed "Patriot II" has prevented its subsequent introduction in Congress. However, a section of the bill, which expands the FBI's authority to issue national security letters by changing the definition of "financial institutions," was inserted into the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004, which President Bush signed into law in December. Other Patriot II sections may be introduced piecemeal in 2004.

• Last March, Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced the first piece of legislation aimed at rolling back the powers granted by the USA Patriot Act, the Freedom to Read Protection Act (HR 1157). The bill enjoys bi-partisan support with 144 co-sponsors. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) introduced the companion Library, Bookseller, and Personal Records Privacy Act (S.1507). The SAFE Act and the Benjamin Franklin True Patriot Act are among more than a dozen other bills to restore liberties and rights already introduced. The CLEAR Act and other legislation to strengthen the Patriot Act have also been introduced.

• On July 23, by a vote of 309-118, the House approved a bipartisan amendment offered by Congressmen C.L. "Butch" Otter (R-ID), Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) and Ron Paul (R-TX) to withhold funding for "sneak-and-peek" searches under the USA PATRIOT Act. The nearly 3-1 vote marks the first time either chamber of Congress has acted to roll back any provision of the law. Despite the amendment's overwhelming House support, the conferees who worked out differences between the House and Senate versions of the Intelligence Authorization Act dropped the amendment from the final bill.

• On September 25 Congress de-funded the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)'s controversial Terrorism Information Awareness (formerly the Total Information Awareness) program. A month earlier, John Poindexter resigned as head of the Office of Information Awareness. DARPA has transferred some TIA research and tools to other agencies.

Reports and Court Decisions: Special Registration, Detentions, and Enemy Combatants

• In June, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine released a report concluding that the Justice Department had detained hundreds of Arab and Muslim men who had no ties to the September 11 attacks or to terrorism for several months without charges or access to attorneys. In December, Fine released another report finding that dozens of detainees held in a federal detention center in Brooklyn were physically and verbally abused by prison guards.

• In November, the Supreme Court agreed to test the constitutionality of powers that the Bush Administration has claimed since September 11, 2001: in Rasul v. Bush and Odah v. United States, it will decide whether the non-U.S. citizens being held in prison at Guantanamo Bay should be given access to U.S. courts. In early January the Supreme Court also agreed to hear Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, to decide whether the government can hold Yaser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen captured in Afghanistan, indefinitely without charges filed and without access to an attorney.

• On December 18, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New York, ruled that it is unlawful for the U.S. government to detain a U.S. citizen captured on U.S. soil as an enemy combatant. The court ordered the government to either release Jose Padilla (the only person whom the ruling affects) or transfer him to civilian custody within 30 days.

• On the same day, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, ruled that the cases of some 600 detainees at Guantanamo have to be open to judicial scrutiny, and that the Bush administration is violating international law and the U.S. Constitution by holding detainees on a U.S. Navy base without legal protections.

• Nearly 85,000 men from North Korea and 24 Muslim countries reported to INS facilities for NSEERS "special registration." The expensive program did not turn up any terrorists, but 13,000 of the men who voluntarily reported are in deportation proceedings. Rumors that the program has ended are untrue: Beginning December 2, 2003, men from 25 countries who have already registered do not need to reregister annually. Point of entry follow-up interviews are also suspended. However, several parts of the Special Registration program remain. Read AILA's summary of changes to the Department of Homeland Security's Special Registration program.

• In December 2003, the NSEERS program was supplemented by US-VISIT, a program that takes biometric measurements of people including fingerprints and face scans from certain countries. For more information, see the Center for American Progress's analysis of the new program.

Silencing Dissent

• The Secret Service shelters President Bush from peaceful protesters. The Administration also demanded that areas of the U.K. and Australia be "scrubbed" of protesters during the president's visits.

• In October, police stifled dissent at the FTAA protests.

• An FBI memo dated October 15 asks local law enforcement to report antiwar protests and other activities protected by the First Amendment which they consider "suspicious" to the FBI's counterterrorism units.

Supreme Court Backs Police Random Roadblocks

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said the ruling "will allow law enforcement in Illinois and across the nation to seek voluntary assistance from citizens in their efforts to solve crime."

Right, voluntary forced assistance. It will allow them to use force to get voluntary assistance.

FOXNews.com - Top Stories - Supreme Court Backs Police Random Roadblocks

Detained in America

This is an awesome story about the very many people who have been detained in contravention with the Bill of Rights since 9/11.

Detained in America: A Guest Column by Bruce Jackson

The Desaparecidos of George W. Bush

Presidential Powers: A Court Pushes Back

MSNBC -
How do you solve a problem like Padilla?

By Michael Isikoff
Newsweek

Judges beginning to balk in war on terror

KRT Wire | 12/28/2003 | Judges beginning to balk in war on terror

Congress Expands FBI Spying Power

Wired News: Congress Expands FBI Spying Power

(Also archived at Civil Liberties Watch)

FBI urges police to watch for people carrying almanacs

FBI urges police to watch for people carrying almanacs

Coffee, Tea or Handcuffs?

LA Weekly: Columns: Open City: Coffee, Tea or Handcuffs?
An Australian journalist gets a taste of Department of Homeland Security hospitality

by Steven Mikulan
(TruthOut permacopy)

Checks and Balances Live On

Rebuff for Bush on civil liberties (December 20, 2003)
(TruthOut permacopy)

THE Bush administration may be forced to rethink its war on terrorism strategy after two US courts ruled yesterday that detainees should not remain indefinitely in a legal twilight zone.

...

Bill of Rights day in Noho

This is about Northampton, MA's Bill of Rights Day celebration. I've lived and worked in Northampton in the past. It's a great little Northeast city.

Jail-in comments on Guantanamo prisoners

Bush Overruled on 'Dirty Bomb' Suspect

Yahoo! News - Bush Overruled on 'Dirty Bomb' Suspect
(TruthOut permacopy)

NEW YORK - President Bush does not have power to detain American citizen Jose Padilla, the former gang member seized on U.S. soil, as an enemy combatant, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

...

3 senators urge Rumsfeld to free or try terror detainees

3 senators urge Rumsfeld to free or try terror detainees

TruthOut permacopy

BillofRightsDay.com

Here's a new site I put together to help folks organize their Bill of Rights Day celebration efforts:

Bill of Rights Day

Patriot Act Expansion Moves Through Congress

Patriot Act Expansion Moves Through Congress
by Jim Lobe
(TruthOut permacopy)

Patriot Act Author Has Concerns

Patriot Act Author Has Concerns

By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer

Detaining citizens as 'enemy combatants' -- a policy not spelled out in the act -- is flawed, the legal scholar says.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department's war on terrorism has drawn intense scrutiny from the left and the right. Now, a chief architect of the USA Patriot Act and a former top assistant to Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft are joining the fray, voicing concern about aspects of the administration's anti-terrorism policy.

At issue is the government's power to designate and detain "enemy combatants," in particular in the case of "dirty bomb" plot suspect Jose Padilla, the Brooklyn-born former gang member who was picked up at a Chicago airport 18 months ago by the FBI and locked in a military brig without access to a lawyer.
...

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F.B.I. Scrutinizes Antiwar Rallies

F.B.I. Scrutinizes Antiwar Rallies

By Eric Lichtblau
New York Times

Sunday 23 November 2003

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators and has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism squads, according to interviews and a confidential bureau memorandum.

But some civil rights advocates and legal scholars said the monitoring program could signal a return to the abuses of the 1960's and 1970's, when J. Edgar Hoover was the F.B.I. director and agents routinely spied on political protesters like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ...

Full story...

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -2
Learning Percentage: 20%

Ashcroft Slams Critics as Patriot Act Backlash Grows

Ashcroft Slams Critics as Patriot Act Backlash Grows

By Tom Regan
Christian Science Monitor
Tuesday 16 September 2003

The war of words over the USA Patriot Act heated up considerably over the past few days, thanks in part to a recently completed "Patriot Act Tour" conducted by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. The tour, conducted in front of small, law enforcement friendly audiences, excluded participation from the general public. (At Faneuil Hall in Boston, Ashcroft addressed a crowd of 150, while outside the hall a crowd of 1200 chanted "This is what democracy looks like.") The tour was designed to create support for the act, but in some ways may have done just the opposite.

...

Full story

Original @ CSMonitor.com

Read It Rating: 8.1
Left/Right Rating: L1.5
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 20%

Georgia runs from the MATRIX

Georgia runs from the MATRIX

By Ashlee Vance in Chicago
Posted: 22/10/2003 at 19:45 GMT

The state of Georgia has pulled out of the U.S. Department of Justice sponsored MATRIX information collection program, leaving data only on its felons and sexual offenders behind in the Orwellian database.

Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue has cited both privacy concerns and costs as the two key reasons the state will no longer participate in the MATRIX (Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange) pilot project. ...

Full story

Read It Rating: 4.5
Left/Right Rating: L4
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 55%

Driving dangerously with the Patriot Act

Driving dangerously with the Patriot Act

By Pat M. Holt

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General John Ashcroft is running a dead heat with A. Mitchell Palmer, attorney general in the Wilson administration, for the distinction of being the worst in that job in the history of the United States.

...

Full column

Pat M. Holt is former chief of staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: L1.1
Freedom Rating: 1.1
Learning Percentage: 1%

Local Peace Group Infiltrated By Government Agent

Local Peace Group Infiltrated By Government Agent

By Mike Rhodes
October 4, 2003

Peace Fresno was infiltrated by an agent working for the Fresno Sheriff's Department. Aaron Kilner, known by Peace Fresno activists as Aaron Stokes, attended several Peace Fresno meetings. Peace Fresno activist Nicholas DeGraff remembers him taking voluminous notes and several members say they saw him at peace vilgils held at Shaw and Blackstone. He was also on the bus local anti-globalization activists took to attend the WTO ministerial-level conference on Agricultural Science and Technology demonstration in Sacramento in June 2003.

...

Full story

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Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: -2
Learning Percentage: 45%

Terror suspect tortured: dad claims

Terror suspect tortured: dad claims

By Rebecca Urban
October 8, 2003

Australian terrorist suspects David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib had likely been tortured while detained at Guantanamo Bay, a lawyer and Hicks' father said today.

...

Read It Rating: 6
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -3
Learning Percentage: 30%

Sullum: Ashcroft's Patriot Act tour

Ashcroft's Patriot Act tour

The Washington Times: Commentary
By Jacob Sullum

August 26, 2003

Attorney General John Ashcroft is on a publicity tour, promoting the Patriot Act and preparing the public for a sequel. But just as you can't always believe an actor who tells you his latest film is sure to be a hit, you have to take what Mr. Ashcroft says with a grain of salt.

...

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .3
Learning Percentage: 10%

Media elite debate Patriot Act

Arbiter Online - Media elite debate Patriot Act
Privacy policies concern librarians

by Amy Olsen
October 06, 2003

Pulitzer Prize winner and Washington Post reporter David Broder spoke Oct. 2 at Boise State, encapsulating the day-long “Freedom and Secrecy: Trading Liberty for Security?� conference held by the Andrus Center for Public Policy.

...

Read It Rating: 4.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 35%

Fed Court tells NY to back off Russell Simmons and Hip Hop Summit

FEDERAL COURT ISSUES ORDER SUSPENDING NY LOBBYING COMMISSION INVESTIGATION OF RUSSELL SIMMONS AND THE HIP-HOP SUMMIT ACTION NETWORK

The link

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- OCTOBER 2, 2003 - Russell Simmons and Dr. Benjamin Chavis, who together with the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, filed a lawsuit in July of this year charging the New York Temporary State Commission on Lobbying with violating their First Amendment rights, reconvened in federal court this morning to ask Judge Loretta A. Preska to enforce the suspension of the Lobbying Commission's investigation into Russell Simmons and Dr. Chavis.

Today, Judge Loretta A. Preska issued an order suspending the Lobbying Commission's investigation into Plaintiffs' First Amendment activities, which were aimed at raising public awareness about the unfairness of the Rockefeller Drug Laws. The Judge found that the Lobbying Commission had unfairly tried to back out of a court-approved agreement to suspend the investigation. The suspension that Judge Preska ordered today will last until the Court can issue a full decision in this case.

...

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: 4
Learning Percentage: 85%

Ashcroft Is Unprintable, and Glad of It

Ashcroft Is Unprintable, and Glad of It
On tour, he bars the press and cozies up to local TV reporters.

September 25, 2003
COMMENTARY

By Todd Gitlin and Jay Rosen

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, who is continuing his tour of the country to promote the Patriot Act, has at several stops, including Buffalo and Philadelphia, refused to speak to print reporters. While television correspondents can often breeze right in, their newspaper colleagues are kept at bay by Secret Service agents doing the bidding of the nation's chief law enforcement official, who prefers audiences of handpicked enthusiasts and interviews with local television reporters.

...

Full story

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Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 50%

Chicago City Council votes against parts of USA-PATRIOT Act

Below is an official news story about it. Here is a slightly less journalistic story that provides more background info on the movement behind the resolution. (That story, by Elaine Cassel, seems to have originated at her blog here.

Council decries Patriot Act in watered-down resolution

October 2, 2003

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter

Warning of civil liberties abuses similar to those that preceded the Holocaust, the City Council on Wednesday approved a watered-down resolution urging repeal of portions of the USA Patriot Act.

The 37-7 vote followed an emotional debate that invoked the chilling words of Nazi leader Hermann Goering and ignored Mayor Daley's warning that the federal government needs extraordinary tools to fight terrorism.

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1.5
Learning Percentage: 75%

Patriot Act Finds Trouble in Texas

You can read a news story about the vote mentioned below -- Austin did indeed pass a resolution against the USA-PATRIOT Act -- here. There's also a pretty interesting local news video clip about the meeting here. The story aims to be a transcript of the video, though that's not fully the case. The U.S. Attorney who is interviewed sounded like he might have only read the beginning of the act, and then skipped the rest.

t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt | Patriot Act Finds Trouble in Texas

[TruthOut] Editor's Note | The following remarks were delivered by William Rivers Pitt at a Town Hall meeting in Austin, Texas on Tuesday, September 16. The meeting was called on the eve of an historic vote; the capitol city of Texas is very near to joining hundreds of other American communities in passing a resolution that repudiates the Patriot Act.

Patriot Act Finds Trouble in Texas
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 22 September 2003

I have listened to the defenses of the Patriot Act offered tonight. The essence of the defenses, the essence of the rebuttals to our reservations and complaints, is "Trust us. We're the government. We're the constitutional scholars. Trust us."

So let us, as patriots, speak tonight about the Patriot Act....

Full speech

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: 1.2
Learning Percentage: 15%

Mr. Bush and the Flag

Here's the whole short editorial. The original is linked to in the title.

Mr. Bush and the Flag
Washington Post | Editorial

Sunday 31 August 2003

THE WHITE HOUSE supports the wrongheaded constitutional amendment that would give Congress the power "to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." Yet in light of an incident last month, Mr. Bush should consider whether he might be the first person jailed should this perennial foolishness -- passed most recently by the House of Representatives earlier this year -- ever become part of the Constitution. Mr. Bush, at a political event in Livonia, Mich., autographed supporters' flags, an apparent violation of an obscure provision of American law that details the respect with which flags should be treated. "The flag," reads the code, "should never have placed upon it . . . any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature." The last time Congress sought to ban flag-burning, in a statute the Supreme Court struck down in 1989, it made a criminal out of anyone who "defaces" a flag -- language Mr. Bush likewise appears to have violated. Never mind the fact that he clearly meant no disrespect; if Congress had the power to criminalize flag desecration, he would at least arguably be indictable.

We say arguably because there's no telling what "desecration" actually means. The proposed amendment is meant to deal with flag-burning, but what about that American soldier who, in a moment of unadulterated patriotism, wrapped a flag around a statue of Saddam Hussein? What about a person who proudly wears a ripped T-shirt displaying the flag? Of course, such cases would never be brought in court. The amendment, in practice, would be used to punish only unpopular political expression, expression that, though sometimes odious, is today unambiguously protected by American constitutional law -- as it should be. But the notion that the president, or anyone, could be charged with signing a flag should not be even arguable. It should be laughable -- as it would be if politicians such as Mr. Bush had the guts to stand against constitutional pollution rather than pandering to it.

Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: L4
Freedom Rating: 3
Learning Percentage: 25%

Fear as human shield faces jail

BBC NEWS | Americas | Fear as human shield faces jail

Sitting in her modest two-bedroom home on the west Florida coast, Faith Fippinger begins to cry as she talks about the prospect of going to jail.

This spring, the 62-year-old retired schoolteacher decided to travel to Iraq as a human shield.

To many she is a humanitarian, but in the eyes of the US Government she is a criminal.

...

when she returned home there was a letter waiting for her from the US Treasury Department.

"It was a requirement to send information as to why I was in Iraq," she says.

"It also said the penalties for being there could be as high as a million dollars and up to 12 years in jail."

'Freedom of speech'

By going to Iraq Faith Fippinger had broken the US economic embargo on Iraq, which had been in place for many years.

The letter explained that by travelling to the country and spending money there, Miss Fippinger was now liable for prosecution.

Full story

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Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: -4
Learning Percentage: 25%

Ashcroft Rips Anti-Patriot Act 'Hysteria'

The last statement quoted below is a common technique used by Justice Department folks to diffuse "hysteria" (a.k.a., legitimate concern about civil liberties): you could call it the "We don't want to search you" method. The FBI guy who spoke at the public forum I organized in March used the same line, multiple times in different forms. "You regular, law abiding folks have nothing to worry about."

Right -- because law enforcement has never investigated, searched, or surveilled an innocent person.

They don't care what you're reading -- just what the bad guys are reading. So, no worries. Carry on.

(In the preceding paragraph, Ashcroft uses another common rhetorical trick -- painting a silly, cartoonish scenario, and attributing it to the law's critics. I call him on this in the local news hour segment that I posted on my main blog recently.)

Ashcroft Rips Anti-Patriot Act 'Hysteria'

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON Sept. 15 — Attorney General John Ashcroft denounced as "hysteria" the contention by some librarians and civil liberties groups that the FBI can use a new anti-terror law to snoop into Americans' reading habits.

"Now, you may have thought with all this hysteria and hyperbole, something had to be wrong," Ashcroft said. "Do we at the Justice Department really care what you are reading? No."

Full story

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -2
Learning Percentage: 5%

Patriot II -- More Power, Please, Says Bush

So, they just want the power to violate the privacy of tens of thousands of people on the spot, on their own discretion.

Here's the question then: Why bother having warrants or judicial approval in any cases? What's the logic wall which prevents the example they give below from proceeding to the government simply always having instant access to all the hotel bases to check for any "known offender" in all fields of law enforcement?

Bush Seeks to Expand Access to Private Data

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 -- For months, President Bush's advisers have assured a skittish public that law-abiding Americans have no reason to fear the long reach of the antiterrorism law known as the Patriot Act because its most intrusive measures would require a judge's sign-off.

But Mr. Corallo gave a hypothetical example in which the F.B.I. received a tip in the middle of the night that an unidentified terrorist had traveled to Boston. Under Mr. Bush's plan, the F.B.I., rather than waiting for a judicial order, could subpoena all the Boston hotels to get registries for each of their guests, then run those names against a terrorist database for a match, he said.

Full story

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Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: L1
Freedom Rating: -4
Learning Percentage: 50%

PATRIOTs and Chicken Littles

The Burden of Bad Memes
PATRIOTs and Chicken Littles

by Julian Sanchez
ReasonOnline

It's official: The fashionable fall meme for unreconstructed Bush administration cheerleaders is the notion that civil-libertarian concerns about the PATRIOT Act have been much ado about nothing: the squawking of so many Chicken Littles.

The defense of PATRIOT has been slow in coming, in part because it was possible, at first,
to dismiss criticism as predictable carping from the usual suspects: the
American Civil Liberties Union,
the
Electronic Frontier Foundation,
and other notorious "fifth columnists," to borrow the new right's sledgehammer-subtle
imprecation du jour. Things became trickier once
American Baptist Churches,
the
American Conservative Union,
Gun Owners of America,
and folks like Georgia ex-representative
Bob Barr
began voicing reservations. The
conservative base has begun to get nervous.

Full column...

Read It Rating: 9.7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 2.5
Learning Percentage: 35%

Conservative backlash (against Ashcroft and "PATRIOT Act")

Conservative backlash

Baltimore Sun editorial
---------------------------------------------------------
Originally published August 22, 2003

JOHN ASHCROFT must be sweating bullets.
A grass-roots drive to resist the attorney general's broad expansion of police powers in the name of fighting terrorism has picked up so much support in the American heartland it threatens not only repeal of the legislation but political damage to President Bush as well.

Try as he might, Mr. Ashcroft can no longer dismiss opponents of the USA Patriot Act as a small but whiny band of liberals. Some of the nation's top conservative groups as well as a huge majority of the Republican-led House of Representatives -- in other words, the Bush base -- are now leading the drive to eliminate portions of the law that allow secret spying on anyone.

Full editorial

Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: L1
Freedom Rating: 1.5
Learning Percentage: 15%

Lawsuit filed against "USA-PATRIOT" Act

Suit challenges constitutionality of anti-terror law

Eric Lichtblau
New York Times
Jul. 31, 2003 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union and six Muslim groups Wednesday brought the first constitutional challenge to the sweeping anti-terrorism legislation passed after the Sept. 11 attacks, arguing that the law gives federal agents virtually unchecked authority to spy on Americans.

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 2.5
Learning Percentage: 50%

Victory Act melds war on terror with war on drugs

GOP Bill Would Add Anti-Terror Powers (washingtonpost.com)

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 21, 2003

As Attorney General John D. Ashcroft begins a barnstorming tour of the country to shore up support for existing anti-terrorism laws, Senate Republicans are discussing legislation that would expand the Justice Department's powers to investigate terrorists and drug criminals.

Recent drafts of the Victory Act, which carry the names of Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and four other Senate Republicans, would provide extra penalties for drug dealers alleged to be connected to terrorist groups and would dramatically expand the government's power to seize records and conduct wiretaps in connection with "narcoterrorism" investigations.

Justice Department officials stress that they have not been involved in creating or revising the Victory Act proposal, but copies of the bill that have circulated on Capitol Hill over the last two months include many provisions sought by Justice prosecutors in the areas of terrorism and drug crimes. Several of the measures are similar to proposals made during the early debate over the USA Patriot Act, the controversial anti-terrorism package approved in October 2001 that Ashcroft is defending during his U.S. tour.

TruthOut permacopy

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -4.5
Learning Percentage: 75%

FEMA: The Structure of Tyranny?

Aside from detailing the traditional info about Executive Orders allowing the president to grant martial law powers to FEMA, this analysis draws the connection to the new Department of Homeland Security, which author John Newman (a soon-to-be freshman in college) asserts is largely a giant version of FEMA.

FEMA: The Structure of Tyranny?

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: R1
Freedom Rating: 4
Learning Percentage: 15%

Outlawing Subversives: the US and Hong Kong

David Lindorff contrasts the huge and fervent protests in Hong Kong over a new anti-sedition law with the relatively apathetic reaction in the U.S. over the USA-PATRIOT Act.

David Lindorff: Outlawing Subversives: the US and Hong Kong

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: L5
Freedom Rating: -2
Learning Percentage: 50%

Congress Takes Aim at the USA-PATRIOT Act

In a huge victory, the House voted on Tuesday evening -- by an extraordinary margin -- for an amendment to this year's Commerce, Justice and State funding bill that would bar federal law enforcement agencies from implementing "sneak and peek" search warrants. In one of its most controversial provisions, the USA PATRIOT Act allowed government agents to execute so-called sneak and peek warrants and search homes, confiscate certain types of property and essentially "bug" computers without notifying the subject of the search that it is happening.

Conservative Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter (R-ID) offered the amendment, which passed by a vote of 309 to 118, with 113 Republicans voting in favor. The amendment still has to clear the Senate and the President before it becomes law.

The Otter Amendment is the first unequivocal indication that lawmakers are taking seriously a broad, grassroots backlash against excessive government powers, which has grown exponentially in the past several months. To date, at least 142 communities and three states, encompassing more than 16 million people, have passed pro-civil liberties resolutions that speak out against the PATRIOT Act, many of which call for specific fixes to the bill.

"Although we applaud Rep. Otter and his fellow patriots, there is now more to be done," said Timothy Edgar, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "The PATRIOT Act is replete with similar unnecessary and un-American surveillance, detention and investigative powers that must be repealed before we can really begin to restore civil liberties protections to where they need to be in America."

Learn more on the ACLU's campaign to keep America Safe and Free.

TAKE ACTION!

Click here to send a FREE "Thank or Spank" fax to your Representative!

Much more needs to be done to alleviate the worst provisions of the PATRIOT Act and we need to let our Members of Congress know that we are watching!

Upholding Liberty in America

Upholding Liberty in America

by Ed Crane and William Niskanen
Ed Crane is president of the Cato Institute and William Niskanen is its chairman.

In the aftershock of September 11, 2001, there is a heightened awareness among most Americans of how precious their freedom is. They also realise the need for better government intelligence work to fight terrorism. But they should not let the government usurp basic liberties.

All is not gloom. What is needed now is for limited government conservatives of the variety exemplified by Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater to join forces with libertarians and enlightened liberals who respect civil liberties. They should speak out in support of America's heritage of liberty.

Full column

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: R1
Freedom Rating: 7.5
Learning Percentage: 10%

Ashcroft gives 'pep talk' in Seattle

Ashcroft gives 'pep talk' in Seattle

Excerpt:

...
And he said that the Justice Department is exploring a legislative refinement of the Patriot Act to give federal agents even more tools to track terrorists. For example, he said that agents should be able to use administrative subpoenas to gain information about terrorist targets. Such subpoenas are currently used by the FBI to obtain records of things like toll phone calls and bank accounts.

Asked if he is concerned that the Patriot Act diminished civil liberties, Lowenberg deferred to Congress, saying federal legislators "are the ones that should be holding hearings and taking testimony to ensure the balance struck is appropriate."

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -7
Learning Percentage: 15%

Hooker denied right to file lawsuit

This is about a guy who's suing the local government officials so much that the government is effectively making it illegal for him to sue them. He sounds like what you might call "a character". It could just be that he's a full-time thorn in their side, and lacks the proper PR.

Hooker denied right to file lawsuit

By Amanda Wardle, awardle@nashvillecitypaper.com
July 17, 2003

Local legal and political personality John Jay Hooker will not be allowed to file suit against Metro incumbent mayoral candidate Bill Purcell, Davidson County Circuit Court Special Master Mary Ashley “Marsh” Nichols ordered Wednesday.

Hooker’s recent filing came despite an order issued against him in June by Davidson County Sixth Circuit Judge Thomas Brothers saying Hooker could not file suits in Davidson County without Special Master approval.

Full story...

Read It Rating: 4.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -2
Learning Percentage: 75%

Ashcroft Could Face Reckoning on Detainee Mistreatment

Exposé Energizes Court Battle
Ashcroft Could Face Reckoning on Detainee Mistreatment
by Chisun Lee
July 16 - 22, 2003

A month after its release, a meticulous exposé of the Justice Department's troubling treatment of immigrants detained after the September 11 attacks has spurred a burst of legal activity that could lead to a reckoning for U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft in a Brooklyn courthouse.

Seven former detainees accuse Ashcroft, FBI director Robert Mueller, former Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner James Ziglar, and prison wardens and guards of ethnic profiling, violating their due process rights, and physical and verbal abuse, among other grievances. CCR wants Brooklyn U.S. District Court judge John Gleeson to hear the lawsuit as a class action encompassing possibly dozens, even hundreds, of other detainees.

Full story...

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: L5
Freedom Rating: 1.5
Learning Percentage: 60%

Families live in fear of midnight call by US patrols

Thought you couldn't get any more appalled at what's going on in Iraq? Think again.

It turns out Bush was telling the truth in his 2000 campaign, when he said he wasn't into nation building. (Just nation destroying.)

If I had a "Read It" rating higher than 10, I'd give it to this article.

Families live in fear of midnight call by US patrols

From Daniel McGrory in Baghdad

NEVER again did families in Baghdad imagine that they need fear the midnight knock at the door.

Mr Akhjan, whose 58-year-old father was arrested three weeks ago for driving a truck with no doors or headlights, said: “People are so sickened by what is happening they talk of wanting Saddam to come back. How bad can the Americans be that in three months we want that monster back?”

Full story...

Read It Rating: 10
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -10
Learning Percentage: 75%

Confess or Die, US Tells Jailed Britons

t r u t h o u t - Confess or Die, US Tells Jailed Britons
Outrage over plight of Guantanamo detainees

Martin Bright, Kamal Ahmed and Peter Beaumont
The Observer
Sunday 06 July 2003

The two British terrorist suspects facing a secret US military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay will be given a choice: plead guilty and accept a 20-year prison sentence, or be executed if found guilty. American legal sources close to the process said that the prisoners' dilemma was intended to encourage maximum 'co-operation'.
The news comes as Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, prepares to urge US Secretary of State Colin Powell to repatriate the two Britons. He will say that they should face a fair trial here under English law. Backed by Home Secretary David Blunkett, Straw will make it clear that the Government opposes the death penalty and wants to see both men tried 'under normal judicial process'.
Lawyers acting for Moazzam Begg, 35, from Sparkbrook, Birmingham, and Feroz Abassi, 23, from Croydon, said that any confessions gathered while the men were kept without charge or access to lawyers in Bagram airbase in Afghanistan and Camp Delta in Cuba would have no status in international law and would be inadmissible in British courts.

Full story...

Observer original

Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -8
Learning Percentage: 50%

The Pentagon's Plan for Tracking Everything That Moves

And here I was thinking a whole two months was going to go by without a new Big Brother-type project being announced. Silly me. TIA, TIPS, LifeLog, and Carnivore have a new baby sibling -- CTS.

Big Brother Gets a Brain
The Pentagon's Plan for Tracking Everything That Moves

By Noah Shachtman
The Village Voice

Wednesday 09 July 2003

The cameras are already in place. The computer code is being developed at a dozen or more major companies and universities. And the trial runs have already been planned.

Fort Belvoir is only the beginning for CTS. Its architects at the Pentagon say it will help protect our troops in cities like Baghdad, where for the past few weeks fleeting attackers have been picking off American fighters in ones and twos. But defense experts believe the surveillance effort has a second, more sinister, purpose: to keep entire cities under an omnipresent, unblinking eye.

Full story...

Village Voice original

Read It Rating: 10
Left/Right Rating: L4
Freedom Rating: -7
Learning Percentage: 90%

Lawyers Furious as US Builds Death Chambers

This a double story at TruthOut, but the first story carries most of the weight, including the headline TruthOut used for the page

t r u t h o u t - Lawyers Furious as US Builds Death Chambers

Lawyers Furious as US Builds Death Chambers
by Frances Gibb and Tim Reid
Times UK Online
TimesUK Original

Saturday 05 July 2003

LAWYERS expressed outrage yesterday at plans to put al-Qaeda suspects, including two Britons and an Australian, on military trial in Guantanamo Bay.

Asked if there were any other checks and balances other than that, the official replied: “No, sir.”

Full TruthOut double-story...

Read It Rating: 9.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .5
Learning Percentage: 50%

Bush Picks Six to Face Military Tribunal

I don't know what bothers me the most about military tribunals -- if it's that they don't comply with the Bill of Rights, or that the U.S. regularly criticizes countries that do this sort of thing, or that it seems to indicate that our normal criminal justice system is not competent to administer justice, or that it makes the U.S.'s efforts to establish immunity from the International Criminal Court, and its recriminations over Belgium's war crimes charges against U.S. officials, look so hypocritical that it hurts, or that we are holding these people and probably the tribunals in CUBA (?!?!), or that we are appointing U.S. military lawyers to defend supposed "enemy combatants"...

Maybe it's all those things. They all bother me the most.

Just kidding. It's the Bill of Rights thing, hands down...but the whole package stinks. Bad.

Bush Picks Six to Face Military Tribunal

Excerpts:

``The State Department issues a report every year in which it criticizes those nations that conduct trials before secret military tribunals. What I'm hearing sounds alarmingly like something similar,'' said Neal Sonnett, also a former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

The Pentagon officials also raised the possibility that the military might continue to hold the suspects even if they are acquitted by a tribunal. The prisoners' status as ``unlawful combatants'' in the war against terrorism is separate from their guilt or innocence on charges brought before a tribunal, a military official involved in the tribunal process said.

Full story...

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -10
Learning Percentage: 45%

Weintraub: Cops' protest tactics cost lots in dollars and in liberty

Daniel Weintraub: Cops' protest tactics cost lots in dollars and in liberty

By Daniel Weintraub -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Sunday, June 29, 2003

I thought the anti-globalization demonstrators who descended upon Sacramento last week were, for the most part, overly afraid of the future and hopelessly wedded to the status quo, no matter how bad it is for billions of people in the developing world.

But as the conference of agricultural ministers, and the demonstrations, came to a close, I realized that something else bothered me even more than what the protestors had to say. It was the way the state and local police forces mobilized to keep them from saying it, or at least to keep many people from hearing their message.

The law enforcement tactics I saw last week are part of a growing trend.

Full column...

Weintraub's assessment echoes the appraisal made by one of the other hosts of the news hour when I was on last week.

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: R3
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 45%

Ashcroft: KEEP BIG BROTHER'S HANDS OFF THE INTERNET

I only read the beginning of this and scanned the rest. The irony was too thick -- it was choking up my brain.

This is not a joke article, as much as it might seem so.

KEEP BIG BROTHER'S HANDS OFF THE INTERNET

By Senator John Ashcroft

Republican, Missouri
Chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs, Foreign Commerce and Tourism

[Senator Ashcroft takes issue with administration views on the Internet
and the use of encryption technology.]

Excerpt:

The Clinton administration would like the Federal government to have the capability to read any international or domestic computer communications. The FBI wants access to decode, digest, and discuss financial transactions, personal e-mail, and proprietary information sent abroad -- all in the name of national security. To accomplish this, President Clinton would like government agencies to have the keys for decoding all exported U.S. software and Internet communications.

There is a concern that the Internet could be used to commit crimes and that advanced encryption could disguise such activity. However, we do not provide the government with phone jacks outside our homes for unlimited wiretaps. Why, then, should we grant government the Orwellian capability to listen at will and in real time to our communications across the Web?

Why indeed, Senator?

Read the whole hypocritical thing here.

Read It Rating: 5.5
Left/Right Rating: R?
Freedom Rating: ?
Learning Percentage: 40%

Cal Poly Student Punished for Posting Flier

Cal Poly Student Punished for Posting Flier

Public University Gives Heckler's Veto to Students Who Claim "Offense"

SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA--In the spring of 2003, a student at the California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) was found guilty of “disruption� for posting a flier—in a public area—that some students found “offensive.� The public university placed unequal rights above the Bill of Rights. “Allowing some individuals to veto the protected expression of others is an unconscionable betrayal of Cal Poly’s moral and legal obligations,� said Thor L. Halvorssen, CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

On November 12, 2002, Steve Hinkle, an undergraduate and a member of the Cal Poly College Republicans (CPCR), posted fliers advertising a speech by Mason Weaver, author of It’s OK to Leave the Plantation. In that book, Weaver argues that dependence on the government puts many African-Americans in circumstances similar to slavery. Weaver’s speech was sponsored by both CPCR and the student government. The flier contained merely the title of the book, a photograph of the author (who is African-American), and the time and location of the speech.

Full press release from FIRE

A lot more of background info is posted at FIRE's home page.

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: L7 vs. R2
Freedom Rating: -6.5
Learning Percentage: 85%

Reason's Ronald Bailey: Why I became a card-carrying member of the ACLU

A Libertarian puts aside his reservations, and joins a new wave of conservatives and libertarians flocking to the ACLU.

(I did too, I just haven't written a piece about it...yet.)

Nadine and Me

Why I became a card-carrying member of the ACLU

June 20, 2003

Ronald Bailey

The American Civil Liberties Union has sent me quantities of junk mail soliciting me to
join for years. No doubt they picked my name from the mailing lists of a lot of
left-leaning publications to which I subscribe—after all you've got to know what
the other guys are up to. I often think of reading The Nation or The American
Prospect as opposition research. And just as surely as those ACLU missives arrived,
they were chucked into my garbage can.

Anyway, when I received another ACLU solicitation last month, I decided to send in my
check and sign up. Why now?

Full article...

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: R3
Freedom Rating: 9
Learning Percentage: 55%