ACLU And EFF Plan To Appeal Ruling In Case Challenging Government Attempt To Obtain Private Data in WikiLeaks Investigation
via www.eff.org
March 14, 2011
February 22, 2011
"this slim majority ... hurling bombs at our democracy"
"From behind the imposing marble walls of Washington's majestic Supreme Court building, this slim majority of five unelected, unaccountable government officials with lifelong tenure has been hurling bombs at our democracy. They've hit us with decision after decision enhancing the power of corporations at the direct expense of workers, consumers, local communities, our air and water, voters, the elderly, and... well, anyone and everyone who stands up in court to resist the rise of corporate hegemony in America...."
ACSblog - The Roberts Court’s Unabashed Activism on Behalf of Corporations: An Examination by Jim Hightower (Posted Feb 22 2011). [ Hightower Lowdown / By Jim Hightower. "Top 4 Victories Handed to Corporate America by the Supreme Court -- So Far" ... "Judicial activism" is way too tame a phrase for what Chief Justice Roberts & Co did here. This was a coup -- a plotted overthrow to enthrone corporate political interests." February 19, 2011 ]
See also "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
-- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864
(letter to Col. William F. Elkins)
Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY)
February 08, 2011
“Irvine 11” charged with conspiracy | 89.3 KPCC
The Orange County District Attorney has charged the so-called “Irvine 11” with conspiring to disrupt a speech by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren at UC Irvine last year. In a statement, District Attorney Tony Rackauckas defended the misdemeanor charges against the Muslim students saying “we cannot tolerate a preplanned violation of the law, even if the crime takes place on a school campus and even if the defendants are college students.” Last month, AirTalk broke the story that an Orange County grand jury had been convened and was considering conspiracy charges against the students. Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of UCI’s School of Law, said the students didn’t have a first amendment right to disrupt the speech, but that the criminal charges aren’t warranted. UCI had already taken disciplinary action against the disruptive students and suspended the Muslim Student Union (MSU) for the fall 2010 quarter. The MSU is also serving two years of probation. If convicted, the students face possible fines, probation, community service or jail time. Are the charges fair or overly harsh? What impact will they have?
via www.scpr.org
February 04, 2011
The Cranky Redskins Fan's Guide to Dan Snyder - Washington City Paper
We’ve been told a New Dan Snyder walks among us. The line that’s been in heavy rotation out of Redskins Park (and Snyder’s wholly-owned media empire) all season holds that he’s letting football people run the football team. His wife, Tanya Snyder, is out selling the transformation, too. Last week she went on local TV to tell an interviewer that he is now surrounded by “better people,” and that he’s “grown and he’s evolved.”
Well, maybe his wife can find evidence of Snyder’s growth and evolution. I can’t. Sure, some names have changed—Jeff George and Bruce Smith are now Donovan McNabb and Albert Haynesworth—but the ages and the bonuses have a familiar ring. So do the results: The epic humiliation of the Redskins on national television Monday night, coming mere hours after McNabb signed a mega-publicized deal with a dubious dollar value, recalls so many pages in the old Snyder’s scrapbook.
So before we welcome the New Dan Snyder, let’s look back at the one we know. That’s the Dan Snyder who left his mark, or stain, on more than just a football team. That’s the Dan Snyder who got caught forging names as a telemarketer with Snyder Communications, made a great view of the Potomac River for himself by going all Agent Orange on federally protected lands, and lost over $121 million of Bill Gates’ money while selling an “official mattress” while in charge of Six Flags. That’s the Dan Snyder I’ve found to be the most fascinating and consistent man on the planet, responsible for the hilarious and/or heinous deeds outlined in the following pages.
[ the original offending document -- to honor free expression and the first amendment of, you know, the constitution ... ]
Redskins Owner Sues Local Paper Over Satirical Listing Of Grievances... Making Sure More People Read It | Techdirt
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We've talked about the ridiculous management of the Washington Redskins a few times before. This is the football team that took the extraordinary step of suing a bunch of fans who, due to the economic crisis, were unable to pay for season tickets they had ordered. While most other teams simply take back the tickets and find other buyers, the Redskins sued over 100 such fans (probably ex-fans now). The team has also been extremely aggressive in terms of what it requires of reporters, including trying to claim that posting photos of disgruntled fans was prohibited and creating "media guidelines" that seriously stifle what reporters can talk about, if they want to continue to be given any access to the team. The latest situation is even more extreme. The team's owner, Dan Snyder, appears to be the subject of much displeasure among Redskins fans. There are lots of fans of lots of sports teams who dislike the ownership. However, I don't think I've ever heard the level of dislike towards an owner like the publicly expressed feelings many fans have towards Dan Snyder. The local Washington City Paper has, of course, played up on this general dislike of Snyder, and back in November published an amusing Cranky Redskins Fan's Guide to Dan Snyder, which includes an A to Z listing of "offenses." You see this kind of column all the time about various sports owners. And most ignore it. But not Dan Snyder. He had his lawyers send a threat letter not to Washington City Paper, but to Atalaya Capital Management, the investment firm that owns Creative Loafing, which is the company that publishes Washington City Paper. Got that? Atalaya pointed out that they have nothing to do with the management of the paper -- and especially have nothing to do with the content of the paper, but even so, sent back a wonderful letter explaining the basics of the First Amendment to Snyder, especially with regards to public figures. The full letter is embedded below (and worth the read), but a few choice snippets: The purpose of this letter is not to correct each of your misstatements and mischaracterizations but rather to assert the media's First Amendment right to comment on public figures (which your client undeniably is) and matters of public interest (into which your client voluntarily injected himself through his prominent ownership of the Washington Redskins). The Column plainly is a tongue-in-cheek opinion piece expressing fans' frustration with your client's ownership of the Redskins. This is quintessential First Amendment-protected speech. Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that "one of the prerogatives of American citizenship is the right to criticize public men and measures. Such criticism, inevitably, will not always be reasoned or moderate; public figures as well as public officials will be subject to vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks." The letter also highlights that Atalaya had been informed by the paper that it was more than happy to allow Mr. Snyder the ability to respond in the pages of its publication. Snyder, apparently, decided not to pay much heed to this letter, as he proceeded with the lawsuit (full suit embedded below), in which he makes a number of claims. Now, there certainly were some statements that were made in the original article that, if untrue, could be defamatory. However, some of the claims were just downright crazy. The most ridiculous, of course, is his decision to claim that the illustration that accompanied the original article (shown below) was somehow anti-semitic. Yeah, that's a photo of Dan Snyder with a scribbling of devil horns and facial hair. I'm not sure how a childish scribbling to make someone look like the devil is anti-semitic. And that's because it's not. At all. And Snyder is being widely mocked for thinking otherwise. Of course, the even bigger issue is that in bringing this lawsuit, you can bet that a hell of a lot more people have now seen the original article totally trashing Dan Snyder. If his goal was to suppress this content, then he's failed badly (yet again). On top of that, a lot more folks now think that Snyder has an incredibly thin skin. I would also imagine that Snyder will not enjoy any actual legal fight, in which the various assertions about him in that original column are dragged into court and examined for accuracy. Even if there are libelous statements in there, is Snyder really interested in going through a courtroom analysis of each of the claims in the column?
via www.techdirt.com
[ such an ass ]
February 03, 2011
CIA Realizes It's Been Using Black Highlighters All These Years | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
LANGLEY, VA—A report released Tuesday by the CIA's Office of the Inspector General revealed that the CIA has mistakenly obscured hundreds of thousands of pages of critical intelligence information with black highlighters.
CIA Director Porter Goss.
According to the report, sections of the documents— "almost invariably the most crucial passages"—are marred by an indelible black ink that renders the lines impossible to read, due to a top-secret highlighting policy that began at the agency's inception in 1947.
via www.theonion.com
[ and they still use the same black highlighters to this day]
January 21, 2011
Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union » When Free Speech Isn't Really Free
When is free speech not really free? (This isn't a riddle, unfortunately.)
It's when your First Amendment-protected rights are subject to unlawful government surveillance. Since 9/11, law enforcement agencies across America have continued to monitor and harass groups and individuals for doing little more than peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights.
If you're a death penalty protestor peacefully calling for an end to capital punishment in Maryland, you were spied upon by the state police.
via www.aclu.org
December 15, 2010
December 05, 2010
The Shameful Attacks on Julian Assange - David Samuels - International - The Atlantic
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Julian Assange and Pfc Bradley Manning have done a huge public service by making hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. government documents available on Wikileaks -- and, predictably, no one is grateful. Manning, a former army intelligence analyst in Iraq, faces up to 52 years in prison. He is currently being held in solitary confinement at a military base in Quantico, Virginia, where he is not allowed to see his parents or other outside visitors.
Assange, the organizing brain of Wikileaks, enjoys a higher degree of freedom living as a hunted man in England under the close surveillance of domestic and foreign intelligence agencies -- but probably not for long. Not since President Richard Nixon directed his minions to go after Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg and New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan - "a vicious antiwar type," an enraged Nixon called him on the Watergate tapes -- has a working journalist and his source been subjected to the kind of official intimidation and threats that have been directed at Assange and Manning by high-ranking members of the Obama Administration.
November 30, 2010
Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union » Wikileaks Doc: U.S. Tried to Stop Accountability Abroad
We’re still reviewing the most recent mass of Wikileaks documents, but already they reveal improper government conduct: Bush administration officials pressured Germany not to prosecute CIA officers responsible for the kidnapping, extraordinary rendition and torture of German national Khaled El-Masri, an ACLU client. Mr. El-Masri was kidnapped from Macedonia in 2003, taken to a secret CIA-run prison in Afghanistan where he was held for several months and tortured before being released on a hillside in Albania.
In 2007, even as the ACLU was asking a federal court to find that former CIA director George Tenet violated U.S. and international human rights laws when he authorized agents to abduct and abuse Mr. El-Masri, a Wikileaks-released diplomatic cable describes a U.S. official’s efforts to prevent international accountability. According to the cable, which is from the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, Chargé d'Affaires John M. Koenig told German officials to “weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S.” of issuing international arrest warrants in the El-Masri case.
In the end, the lower courts in the United States refused to hear Mr. El-Masri’s case on the grounds that it concerned state secrets, the Supreme Court declined the ACLU’s appeal on Mr. El-Masri’s behalf, no German prosecution of CIA officials has yet taken place, and Mr. El-Masri, an acknowledged innocent, has never received an official apology, let alone compensation for the abuses he suffered.
via www.aclu.org
