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Nations Use Fear to Distract From Rights Abuses, Group Says
2007-05-24, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/23/AR20070523014...

Powerful governments and armed groups are spreading fear to divert attention from human rights abuses ... Amnesty International said yesterday in its annual assessment of rights worldwide. "The politics of fear is fueling a downward spiral of human rights abuse in which no right is sacrosanct and no person is safe," said Irene Khan, secretary general of the human rights watchdog. Governments are undermining the rule of law and human rights with "short-sighted fear-mongering and divisive policies." The United States is "the leading country using fear to justify the unjustifiable," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA. "The U.S. used to be in a position to speak out effectively against torture and military tribunals. We can't do that now because we are carrying out some of the same practices," he said. The organization urged the new U.S. Congress to take the lead in restoring respect for humane standards and practices at home and abroad. Citizens in many countries are being manipulated by fear, the group said. Amnesty applauded civil society for its "courage and commitment" in the face of abuses. Marches, petitions, blogs and armbands "may not seem much by themselves," the report said, "but by bringing people together they unleash an energy for change that should not be underestimated. People power will change the face of human rights in the 21st century."

Cops Taser UCLA Student
2006-11-17, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2662158

There is [a] painful six-minute video that has suddenly spread all over the world. It shows part of what happened in front of students who had been studying in the UCLA library when an Iranian-American student reportedly did not show any ID to campus police. The excruciating video clip [shows] enraged students screaming at police; police yelling back and using strong force trying to get students under control. "Here's your Patriot Act!" shouts a student, using profanity after screaming out in anguished pain from the electric jolts of a police Taser. "Stand up or you'll get Tasered again!" the police shout back. Appalled fellow students crowd in, some demanding the badge numbers of the police. To watch the video, click here. Police Department Assistant Chief Jeff Young [said] "He had refused to identify himself; he had refused to leave the library, and...he went limp, which is a form of resistance." Some students saw it differently. "Tabatabainejad was also stunned with the Taser when he was already handcuffed," complained third-year student Carlos Zaragoza. Tasers are increasingly controversial — a powerful means of control for police that is apparently sometimes too powerful. While it is often referred to as a "non-lethal" weapon [a study] found that since 1999, 84 people in the United States and Canada have died after being shocked by a Taser. Four of UCLA's nearly 60 full-time police officers recently won "Taser Awards," given by the manufacturers of the electronic shock device.

Note: For lots more reliable information on "non-lethal weapons," click here.

Judges liken terror laws to Nazi Germany
2005-10-16, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article320005.ece

A powerful coalition of judges, senior lawyers and politicians has warned that the Government is undermining freedoms citizens have taken for granted for centuries and that Britain risks drifting towards a police state. One of the country's most eminent judges has said that undermining the independence of the courts has frightening parallels with Nazi Germany. Senior legal figures are worried that "inalienable rights" could swiftly disappear unless Tony Blair ceases attacking the judiciary and freedoms enshrined in the Human Rights Act.

Blackwater Down
2005-09-22, CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/22/opinion/main878822.shtml

The men from Blackwater USA arrived in New Orleans right after Katrina hit. The company known for its private security work guarding senior U.S. diplomats in Iraq beat the federal government and most aid organizations to the scene. About 150 heavily armed Blackwater troops dressed in full battle gear spread out into the chaos of New Orleans. When asked what authority they were operating under, one guy said, "We're on contract with the Department of Homeland Security." Then, pointing to one of his comrades, he said, "He was even deputized by the governor of the state of Louisiana. We can make arrests and use lethal force if we deem it necessary." Says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, "These private security forces have behaved brutally, with impunity, in Iraq. To have them now on the streets of New Orleans is frightening and possibly illegal." Blackwater is operating under a federal contract...[that] was announced just days after Homeland Security Department spokesperson Russ Knocke told the Washington Post he knew of no federal plans to hire Blackwater. With President Bush using the Katrina disaster to try to repeal Posse Comitatus (the ban on using U.S. troops in domestic law enforcement)...the war is coming home in yet another ominous way. As one Blackwater mercenary said, "This is a trend. You're going to see a lot more guys like us in these situations."

'Gitmo On The Platte' Set As Holding Cell For DNC
2008-08-13, CBS4 TV (Denver CBS affiliate)
http://cbs4denver.com/denver2008/denver.protesters.arrested.2.793930.html

CBS4 News has learned if mass arrests happen at the Democratic Convention, those taken into custody will be jailed in a warehouse owned by the City of Denver. Protesters have already given this place a name: "Gitmo on the Platte." Inside are dozens are metal cages. They are made out of chain link fence material and topped by rolls of barbed wire. In past conventions, mass arrests have taken place. Each of the fenced areas is about 5 yards by 5 yards and there is a lock on the door. A sign on the wall reads "Warning! Electric stun devices used in this facility." CBS4 showed its video to leaders of groups that plan to demonstrate during the convention. "Very bare bones and very reminiscent of a political prisoner camp or a concentration camp," said Zoe Williams of Code Pink. "That's how you treat cattle," said Adam Jung of the group Tent State University. "You showed the sign where it said stun gun in use and you just change the word gun for bolt and it's a meat processing plant." The American Civil Liberties Union is asking the City of Denver how prisoners will get access to food and water, bathrooms, telephones, plus medical care, and if there will be a place to meet with attorneys.

Note: For many reliable and verifiable reports on threats to a free and fair electoral process in the U.S., click here.

Greater Use of Privilege Spurs Concern
2008-01-29, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/28/AR20080128024...

The U.S. government has been increasing its use of the state secrets privilege to avoid disclosure of classified information in civil lawsuits. Some legal scholars and members of Congress contend that the Bush administration has employed it excessively as it intervened in cases that could expose information about sensitive programs. These include the rendition of detainees to foreign countries for interrogation and cases related to the National Security Agency's use of warrantless wiretaps. The privilege allows the government to argue that lawsuits -- and the information potentially revealed by them -- could damage national security. It gives judges the power to prevent information from reaching public view or to dismiss cases even if they appear to have merit. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) ... cited statistics that show the Bush administration has used the state secrets privilege substantially more, on a percentage basis, than previous administrations to block or dismiss lawsuits. Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation ... said "The administration is attempting to use the privilege as a back-door immunity to obtain dismissal of any case that attempts to put the NSA wiretapping issue in front of a judge. It is no secret such a program existed."

Note: For many disturbing reports on government secrecy from reliable sources, click here.

Prisons to Restore Purged Religious Books
2007-09-27, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/washington/27prison.html?ex=1348545600&en=0...

Facing pressure from religious groups, civil libertarians and members of Congress, the federal Bureau of Prisons has decided to return religious materials that had been purged from prison chapel libraries because they were not on the bureau’s lists of approved resources. After the details of the removal became widely known this month, Republican lawmakers, liberal Christians and evangelical talk shows all criticized the government for creating a list of acceptable religious books. In an e-mail message Wednesday, the bureau said: “In response to concerns expressed by members of several religious communities, the Bureau of Prisons has decided to alter its planned course of action with respect to the Chapel Library Project. The bureau will begin immediately to return to chapel libraries materials that were removed in June 2007, with the exception of any publications that have been found to be inappropriate, such as material that could be radicalizing or incite violence. The review of all materials in chapel libraries will be completed by the end of January 2008.” Only a week ago the bureau said it was not reconsidering the library policy. But critics of the bureau’s program said it appeared that the bureau had bowed to widespread outrage. “Certainly putting the books back on the shelves is a major victory, and it shows the outcry from all over the country was heard,” said Moses Silverman, a lawyer for three prisoners who are suing the bureau over the program. “But regarding what they do after they put them back ... I remain concerned that the criteria for returning the books will be constitutional and lawful.”

Prisons Purging Books on Faith From Libraries
2007-09-10, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/us/10prison.html?ex=1347076800&en=8aca150d6...

Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries. The chaplains were directed by the Bureau of Prisons to clear the shelves of any books, tapes, CDs and videos that are not on a list of approved resources. In some prisons, the chaplains have recently dismantled libraries that had thousands of texts collected over decades, bought by the prisons, or donated by churches and religious groups. Some inmates are outraged. Two of them, a Christian and an Orthodox Jew, in a federal prison camp in upstate New York, filed a class-action lawsuit last month claiming the bureau’s actions violate their rights to the free exercise of religion as guaranteed by the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The bureau, an agency of the Justice Department, defended its effort, which it calls the Standardized Chapel Library Project, as a way of barring access to materials that could, in its words, “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize.” “It’s swatting a fly with a sledgehammer,” said Mark Earley, president of Prison Fellowship, a Christian group. “There’s no need to get rid of literally hundreds of thousands of books that are fine simply because you have a problem with an isolated book or piece of literature that presents extremism.” A chaplain who has worked more than 15 years in the prison system, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is a bureau employee, said: “At some of the penitentiaries, guys have been studying and reading for 20 years, and now they are told that this material doesn’t meet some kind of criteria. It doesn’t make sense to them."

Journalist in legal battle with military
2007-01-05, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/05/DDG4HNCE5R1.DTL

The questions from the civilian spokesman at Fort Lewis started sounding suspicious to Sarah Olson. He had called to ask the Oakland freelance journalist about the accuracy of quotes in her story about Lt. Ehren Watada, which had appeared on the liberal Web site Truthout.org. As the telephone conversation progressed, Olson realized that the military was using her to fortify its case against Watada, whom it was prosecuting as the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq. While Watada faces a court-martial next month for conduct unbecoming an officer, the U.S. military pursues Olson. Last month, military prosecutors subpoenaed the 31-year-old writer and radio journalist, asking her to appear at his court-martial, scheduled to begin next month, to verify what Watada said. If Olson doesn't testify, she faces six months in jail or a $500 fine and a felony charge for a story she was paid $300 to write. Olson doesn't want to be part of a legal action that she believes limits someone's free speech. She came to journalism six years ago ... hoping to create more places for dissenting or seldom-heard voices, not fewer. "Journalists should not be asked to participate in the prosecution of political speech," Olson said. [She] isn't being asked to reveal unpublished work. "What I don't understand is why they (prosecutors) can't get this information digitally," said Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice. Olson doesn't have a problem with journalists testifying in court. She doesn't want journalists to be coerced to testify in cases that could limit free speech.

Note: Truthout.org is one of the main sources of our information. Interesting that one of their reporters should be targeted in this way. For stories by 20 award-winning journalists on how the media is controlled, click here.

The Agency That Could Be Big Brother
2005-12-25, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/weekinreview/25bamford.html?ex=1293166800&e...

Deep in a remote, fog-layered hollow near Sugar Grove, W.Va., hidden by fortress-like mountains, sits the country's largest eavesdropping bug. The station's large parabolic dishes secretly and silently sweep in millions of private telephone calls and e-mail messages an hour. Run by the ultrasecret National Security Agency, the listening post intercepts all international communications entering the eastern United States. Another N.S.A. listening post, in Yakima,Wash., eavesdrops on the western half of the country. According to John E. McLaughlin, who as the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency in the fall of 2001 was among the first briefed on the program, this eavesdropping was the most secret operation in the entire intelligence network, complete with its own code word - which itself is secret. Jokingly referred to as "No Such Agency," the N.S.A. was created in absolute secrecy in 1952 by President Harry S. Truman. But the agency is still struggling to adjust to the war on terror. At home, it increases pressure on the agency to bypass civil liberties and skirt formal legal channels of criminal investigation. Originally created to spy on foreign adversaries, the N.S.A. was never supposed to be turned inward.

Note: Don't miss the amazing article on Operation Northwoods by the author of this article, former ABC producer James Bamford. It details the 1962 plans of the Pentagon chiefs to foment terrorism in the US as a pretext for war with Cuba. See http://www.WantToknow.info/010501operationnorthwoods

Videos Challenge Accounts of Convention Unrest
2005-04-12, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/12/nyregion/12video.html?ex=1270958400&en=46f3...

Dennis Kyne put up such a fight at a political protest last summer, the arresting officer recalled, it took four police officers to haul him down the steps of the New York Public Library and across Fifth Avenue. "We picked him up and we carried him while he squirmed and screamed," the officer, Matthew Wohl, testified in December. "I had one of his legs because he was kicking and refusing to walk on his own." Accused of inciting a riot and resisting arrest, Mr. Kyne was the first of the 1,806 people arrested in New York last summer during the Republican National Convention to take his case to a jury. But one day after Officer Wohl testified, the prosecutor abruptly dropped all charges. During a recess, the defense had brought new information to the prosecutor. A videotape shot by a documentary filmmaker showed Mr. Kyne agitated but plainly walking under his own power down the library steps, contradicting the vivid account of Officer Wohl, who was nowhere to be seen in the pictures. Nor was the officer seen taking part in the arrests of four other people at the library against whom he signed complaints.

Report on USA Patriot Act Alleges Civil Rights Violations
2003-07-21, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/21/politics/21JUST.html?ex=1374206400&en=169d1...

A report by internal investigators at the Justice Department has identified dozens of recent cases in which department employees have been accused of serious civil rights and civil liberties violations involving enforcement of ... the USA Patriot Act. The report said that in the six-month period that ended on June 15 [2003], the inspector general's office had received 34 complaints of civil rights and civil liberties violations by department employees that it considered credible, including accusations that Muslim and Arab immigrants in federal detention centers had been beaten. The accused workers are employed in several of the agencies that make up the Justice Department, with most of them assigned to the Bureau of Prisons. The report said that credible accusations were also made against employees of the F.B.I., the [D.E.A.] and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The report ... suggests that the relatively small staff of the inspector general's office has been overwhelmed by accusations of abuse, many filed by Muslim or Arab inmates in federal detention centers. The inspector general said that from Dec. 16 through June 15, his office received 1,073 complaints "suggesting a Patriot Act-related" abuse of civil rights or civil liberties. 272 [accusations] were determined to fall within the inspector general's jurisdiction, with 34 raising "credible Patriot Act violations on their face." In those 34 cases, it said, the accusations "ranged in seriousness from alleged beatings of immigration detainees to B.O.P. correctional officers allegedly verbally abusing inmates."

Invoking Secrets Privilege Becomes a More Popular Legal Tactic
2006-06-04, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/washington/04secrets.html?ex=1307073600&en=...

Facing a wave of litigation challenging its eavesdropping at home and its handling of terror suspects abroad, the Bush administration is increasingly turning to a legal tactic that swiftly torpedoes most lawsuits: the state secrets privilege. Officials have used the privilege...to ask the courts to throw out three legal challenges to the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program. The privilege claim, in which the government says any discussion of a lawsuit's accusations would endanger national security, has short-circuited judicial scrutiny and public debate. While the privilege...was once used to shield sensitive documents or witnesses from disclosure, it is now often used to try to snuff out lawsuits at their inception. "If the very people you're suing are the ones who get to use the state secrets privilege, it's a stacked deck," said Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut. Robert M. Chesney, a law professor at Wake Forest University...said the administration's legal strategy "raises profound legal and policy questions." Under Mr. Bush, the secrets privilege has been used to block a lawsuit by a translator at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Sibel Edmonds, who was fired after accusing colleagues of security breaches. Two lawsuits challenging the government's practice of rendition, in which terror suspects are seized and delivered to detention centers overseas, were dismissed after the government raised the secrets privilege.

Note: Sibel Edmonds is one of several whistleblowers with powerfully incriminating information on 9/11 who have been silenced with tactics like those mentioned above. To learn more about this critical case which has been blocked, see http://www.WantToKnow.info/050131sibeledmonds

Climate change activist stopped from travelling to Copenhagen
2009-10-14, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/14/climate-change-activist-held

UK border police used anti-terrorist legislation to prevent a British climate change activist from crossing over into mainland Europe where he planned to take part in events surrounding the forthcoming United Nations summit in Denmark. Chris Kitchen, a 31-year-old office worker, said he feared his treatment by police could mark the start of a clampdown on protesters, hundreds of whom are planning to travel to Copenhagen for the climate change talks in December. [He had hoped] to take part in discussions organised by a network of protest groups coming together under the banner Climate Justice Action. He said he was prevented from crossing the border ... when the coach he was travelling on stopped at the Folkestone terminal of the Channel tunnel. Kitchen said police officers boarded the coach and, after checking all passengers' passports, took him and another climate activist to be interviewed under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, a clause which enables border officials to stop and search individuals to determine if they are connected to terrorism. The passports were not initially scanned, Kitchen said, suggesting the officials knew his name and had planned to remove him from the coach before they boarded. During his interview, he was asked questions about his family, work and past political activity. The police also asked him what he intended to do in Copenhagen. When Kitchen said that anti-terrorist legislation does not apply to environmental activists, he said the officer replied that terrorism "could mean a lot of things". Police are understood to be monitoring protesters on a number of databases, some of which highlight individuals when they pass through secure areas, such as ports.

Note: For many reports from reliable sources on increasing government erosion of civil liberties, click here.

Arrest Puts Focus on Protesters’ Texting
2009-10-05, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/nyregion/05txt.html

As demonstrations have evolved with the help of text messages and online social networks, so too has the response of law enforcement. On Thursday, F.B.I. agents descended on a house in Jackson Heights, Queens [NY], and spent 16 hours searching it. The most likely reason for the raid: a man who lived there had helped coordinate communications among protesters at the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh. The man, Elliot Madison, 41, a social worker who has described himself as an anarchist, had been arrested in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24 and charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication facility and possession of instruments of crime. The Pennsylvania State Police said he was found in a hotel room with computers and police scanners while using the social-networking site Twitter to spread information about police movements. He has denied wrongdoing. American protesters first made widespread use of mass text messages in New York, during the 2004 Republican National Convention. Messages, sent as events unfolded, allowed demonstrators and others to react quickly to word of arrests, police mobilizations and roving rallies. Mass texting has since become a valued tool among protesters, particularly at large-scale demonstrations. Mr. Madison [may be] the first to be charged criminally while sending information electronically to protesters about the police. “He and a friend were part of a communications network among people protesting the G-20,” Mr. Madison’s lawyer, Martin Stolar, said on Saturday. “There’s absolutely nothing that he’s done that should subject him to any criminal liability.”

Note: For many reports from reliable sources on increasing government erosion of civil liberties, click here.

The Military Is Not the Police
2009-07-30, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/opinion/30thu1.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pag...

It was disturbing to learn ... just how close the last administration came to violating laws barring the military from engaging in law enforcement when President George W. Bush considered sending troops into a Buffalo suburb in 2002 to arrest terrorism suspects. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily a problem of the past. More needs to be done to ensure that the military is not illegally deployed in this country. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits the military from law enforcement activities within the United States. The Lackawanna Six controversy is history, but there are troubling signs the military may be injecting itself today into law enforcement. The American Civil Liberties Union has been sounding the alarm about the proliferation of "fusion centers," in which federal, state and local law enforcement cooperate on anti-terrorism work. According to the A.C.L.U., the lines have blurred, and the centers have involved military personnel in domestic law enforcement. Congress should investigate. Civil libertarians are also raising questions about a program known as the Chemical, Biological, Radiological/Nuclear and High-Yield Explosives Consequence Management Response Force. The Army says its aim is to have active-duty troops ready to back up local law enforcement in catastrophic situations, like an attack with a nuclear weapon. That could be legal, but the workings of these units are murky. Again, Congress should ensure that the military is not moving into prohibited areas. After the lack of respect for posse comitatus at the highest ranks of the previous administration, the Obama White House and Congress must ensure that the lines between military and law enforcement have been restored, clearly, and that they are respected.

Note: For many revealing reports from reliable sources on government and military threats to civil liberties, click here.

Ariz. police say they are prepared as War College warns military must prep for unrest
2008-12-17, Phoenix Business Journal
http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2008/12/15/daily34.html

A new report by the U.S. Army War College talks about the possibility of Pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks. �Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,� said the War College report. The study says economic collapse ... and loss of legal order are among possible domestic shocks that might require military action within the U.S.. U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., both said U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson brought up a worst-case scenario as he pushed for the Wall Street bailout in September. Paulson ... said that might even require a declaration of martial law, the two noted. State and local police in Arizona say they have broad plans to deal with social unrest, including trouble resulting from economic distress. The security and police agencies declined to give specifics, but said they would employ existing and generalized emergency responses to civil unrest that arises for any reason. �The Phoenix Police Department is not expecting any civil unrest at this time, but we always train to prepare for any civil unrest issue. We have a Tactical Response Unit that trains continually and has deployed on many occasions for any potential civil unrest issue,� said Phoenix Police spokesman Andy Hill.

Note: Use of military forces to maintain domestic order has been forbidden since 1878 by the Posse Comitatus Act. The Pentagon appears to be planning to abrogate this key support of civil liberties.

Despite Ruling, Detainee Cases Facing Delays
2008-10-05, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/us/05gitmo.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss...

When the Supreme Court ruled in June that detainees at Guantánamo had the right to challenge their detention in federal court, the justices said that after more than six years of legal wrangling the prisoners should have their cases heard quickly because “the costs of delay can no longer be borne by those who are held in custody.” But nearly four months later, as the Bush administration has opened a new defense of its detention policies in federal court, none of the scores of cases brought by detainees have been resolved by any judge. Since the Supreme Court issued its ruling, lawyers for most of the 255 detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have pressed ahead with habeas corpus lawsuits, yet most of those cases have been delayed by battles over issues like whether some court sessions will be held in secret, whether detainees can attend and what level of proof will justify detention. Some of the arguments made by the Justice Department appear to challenge the Supreme Court’s conclusion that the federal courts have a role in deciding the fate of the detainees. Officials and lawyers inside and outside of the government say the new legal confrontation suggests that the Bush administration will most likely continue its defense of the detention camp until the end of President Bush’s term and is not likely to close the camp, as administration officials have said they would like to do. Detainees’ advocates say that the administration is using the legal battle to delay judicial review of its evidence.

Note: For many disturbing reports from reliable, verifiable sources on threats to civil liberties, click here.

U.S. town turned into an open-air prison
2008-08-15, National Post (Canada)
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=726632

The town of Postville, Iowa, population 2,000, has been turned into an open-air prison. On May 12, immigration officials swooped in to arrest 400 undocumented workers from Mexico and Guatemala at the local meat-packing plant, a raid described as the biggest such action at a single site in U.S. history. The raid left 43 women, wives of the men who were taken away, and their 150 children without status or a means of support. The women cannot leave the town, and to make sure they do not they have been outfitted with leg monitoring bracelets. "The women are effectively prisoners," said Father Paul Ouderkirk at St. Bridget's Roman Catholic Church. "What kind of a government makes prisoners of 43 mothers who all have children and then says, ‘You can't work, you can't leave and can't stay?' That boggles the imagination." Since the raid, St. Bridget's, with a staff of four, has raised $500,000 to pay for rent, clothing, food and other necessities of life. The men were taken to the National Cattle Congress building in Waterloo, Iowa, where immigration judges were on hand. They were charged and then sent to nine different prisons around the state. Fr. Ouderkirk said some of the men were deported and others are serving five-month prison terms for violating immigration laws - but he said no one ever explained why some were held and others sent home. The men were all working at Agriprocessors, believed to be the largest kosher meat-packing plant in the world. Fr. Ouderkirk and others have said the plant was a disgrace that abused workers who had little understanding of their rights.

Note: For many disturbing reports on increasing threats to civil liberties from reliable sources, click here.

Bush Unveils Spy Guidelines, Angering House Overseers
2008-08-01, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/31/AR20080731028...

The Bush administration unveiled new operating guidelines for the nation's intelligence community yesterday in a move that boosted the authority of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) while triggering protests from lawmakers who complained that they weren't properly consulted. The changes affirmed the DNI's role as head of the 16 U.S. spy agencies and expanded its power to set priorities and coordinate the sharing of intelligence. The DNI also was given an expanded role in foreign intelligence collection and in the hiring and firing of senior intelligence officials. The changes were part of a long-awaited overhaul of Executive Order 12333, a Reagan-era document that establishes the powers and responsibilities of U.S. intelligence services. Although the revamped order had been in the works for a year, its formal unveiling prompted a rare revolt from congressional Republicans, some of whom walked out on Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell during a morning briefing. Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee, led several GOP colleagues to the exit after complaining that the administration had made the changes secretly without consulting with congressional overseers -- part of a pattern dating to the beginning of the Bush presidency, Hoekstra said. "Given the impact that this order will have on America's intelligence community, and this committee's responsibility to oversee intelligence activities, this cannot be seen as anything other than an attempt to undercut congressional oversight," Hoekstra said in a statement afterward.

Note: For lots more on threats to civil liberties, click here.

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