Help Fight the Government's Massive Spying Campaign Join the Expose and Expunge Movement 20DEZ10

AS a person who has had a FBI file since I was in the 9th grade (started during the Nixon years), and having proof of continued government surveillance of my activities (my brother who was in the USAF was denied a promotion and transfer to a missile silo because I was involved in anti-war protest (covert war in Central America) and involved with a No Nuke organization (Union of Concerned Scientist, just doing office drudge volunteer work for them), I know what it is like to have the government watch and listen in on my life....and though I have joked about it with my friends I do resent it. I am an American, a Christian and a left wing Socialist. I participate in non-violent civil disobedience , have been arrested at some of these protest, and am not afraid to speak out against threats to the Republic, threats to our civil and human rights. I resent the increasing erosion of the freedoms that I learned about in school, the freedoms so many in the military as well as in civil actions died for, resent the propaganda campaign of fear used against us to justify the attacks on the freedoms that have made our nation great. I hope you will sign on to this action by the Partnership For Civil Justice in defense of our freedom, our civil rights, our Constitution, our Republic! DON'T BE AFRAID, SIGN THE LETTER TODAY!

JusticeOnline.org Subscribe Help Fight the Government's Massive Spying Campaign Join the Expose and Expunge Movement Spread the word The Washington Post today has given extensive coverage to the U.S. government's massive and growing operation of domestic spying on the American people – a threat that the PCJF has been at the forefront of exposing and fighting. Please join the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and thousands of others and sign the letter that states, "The people's rights protected under the Constitution are fundamentally diminished unless these illegal operations are halted." (Click here to read the letter.) The PCJF is also undertaking a People's Investigation and Audit using FOIA, public records demands and other legal means to compel disclosure and expungement. "We will not stand by and allow the Constitution to become a mere ornament affixed to a police state," emphasized Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, co-founder of the PCJF. As today's article states, "The Post findings paint a picture of a country at a crossroads..." where enshrined constitutional protections against government intrusion and surveillance into our lives are being dismantled in practice by a monster intelligence complex that uses national security as its pretext. The article details how, "Technologies and techniques honed for use on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan have migrated into the hands of law enforcement agencies in America." "The occupied people of Iraq have become the guinea pigs, and their land the testing ground, for the implementation of a new surveillance state in the United States," stated Mara Verheyden-Hilliard. The Post's report, "Monitoring America," includes that: The FBI's Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative contains 161,948 files on people who have not been accused of any crime, but simply were targeted for reporting by local or federal authorities, or even just a neighbor or stranger. The files include employment history, financial documents, photos and more.   The Department of Homeland Security's massive fusion center program -- which feeds into the FBI's Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative -- is so out of control that they can't account for the $31 billion in tax-payer funds they have handed out to state and local law enforcement.   There are no professional standards or qualifications for the "expertise" that is hired for training and advising law enforcement, and as such right wing and racist anti-Muslim so-called "experts" have been paid to advise and influence operations. A broad and diverse cross-section of leaders, human rights advocates, attorneys and legal scholars have come together to take a stand against these continuing violations. Please join them and add your name to the Sign-On Letter for the Expose and Expunge Campaign that demands that the government disclose and purge the data collected through its domestic spying and surveillance programs. Take Action Read and Sign the letter here. See the initial list of signers. If you have signed the letter, get five friends and family members to do so by clicking here. Make an urgently needed tax-deductible end of year contribution to support this critical campaign. Initial list of signers Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General Noam Chomsky Geronimo ji Jaga, former political prisoner held for 27 years Cindy Sheehan Cynthia McKinney Michel Shehadeh, LA8 defendant; Committee for Justice Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, co-founder Partnership for Civil Justice Fund Carl Messineo, co-founder Partnership for Civil Justice Fund Jennifer Harbury, Human Rights Lawyer Michael Ratner, President, Center for Constitutional Rights* Ron Kovic, author, Born on the 4th of July Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator, Voices for Creative Nonviolence Blase and Theresa Bonpane, Office of the Americas John Passacantando, former Executive Director, Greenpeace USA Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild Mahdi Bray, Executive Director, Muslim American Society Freedom Michael Berg, father of Nicholas Berg, killed in Iraq Brian Becker, National Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition Mounzer Sleiman, Vice Chair, National Council of Arab Americans Michael Prysner, co-founder, March Forward! Michael Avery, former President, National Lawyers Guild, professor Suffolk Law School Michael Steven Smith, Board of Directors, Center for Constitutional Rights* Carol Sobel, Civil Rights Attorney James Lafferty, Exec. Director, National Lawyers Guild Los Angeles Eric Mar, Board of Supervisors, City & County of San Francisco Shakeel Syed, the Executive Director of the Shura Council of Southern California* Marina Drummer, Angola 3 Defense Committee Frank Dorrel, Publisher, Addicted to War Mike Ferner, President, Veterans for Peace * Organization listed for identification purposes only. Sign-On Letter for the Expose & Expunge CampaignDisclose and purge data collected through illegal domestic spying and surveillance programs We the undersigned call on the Obama Administration and Congress to immediately begin identifying and expunging from all government databases the massive accumulation of information collected by the Bush administration’s illegal domestic spying operations on millions of people who broke no law. Some of these illegal spying programs were suspended and yet the government maintains the illegally collected data. These databases should be expunged. We also oppose the continuation of other programs initiated during the Bush era which continue on in wholesale data collection and mass surveillance, unchecked and unabated. For instance, federal agents, local law enforcement and U.S. military personnel, with input from private right-wing political groups, continue to collect and report surveillance data, including fabricated disinformation, to the 72 government Fusion Centers around the United States. Fusion Centers have been found to target political, student, and religious organizations and activities. The people of the United States have a legal right to be free from government surveillance, the type of which was initiated by the Bush administration on an enormous scale. Using the Sept. 11 attacks as a pretext, the Bush White House permitted the FBI, the National Security Agency, the CIA, Pentagon and other law-enforcement and military agencies to conduct unprecedented data collection against the people. Thousands have been targeted because of their political beliefs and activities, their religious beliefs, their race and ethnicity, or because they inadvertently fell into one of the many broad categories to justify and execute the sweeping data collection programs. This is the modern-day variant of the discredited witch-hunts of the 1950s. We call on the Obama Administration and Congress to order a complete audit of law-enforcement and military data and record-keeping systems and to disclose to the public the scope and parameters of data-collection on people and organizations in the United States. The people’s rights protected under the Constitution are fundamentally diminished unless these illegal operations are halted and the rights of all people are restored by the identification of data collection programs, and the expunging of those databases. I was arrested during the protest in the case below, still remember that fat pig Ramsey laughing while at the barricades about how they trapped all of us.....well, the joke is on the District now..... Becker, et al.      v. District of Columbia, et al.* U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Case No. 01-CV-811 (Class Action)   Mass Arrest of 600+ Lawful Protestors; Raid and Seizure of Activists' Meeting Hall; Confiscation of Political Literature; Brutal Beatings of Peaceful Activists The Partnership for Civil Justice has advanced a class action complaint against the Government for violations of protestors' rights at the April, 2000 Spring joint meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. This lawsuit challenges the disruption efforts of law enforcement against constitutionally protected First Amendment activities and mass political protest, and the unconstitutional trap and arrest tactics of law enforcement in the District of Columbia against mass assembly. The class portion of the Complaint was filed on behalf of nearly 700 protesters, journalists, tourists and bystanders who were trapped on all sides by police and then falsely arrested in an unconstitutional sweep of the streets during a demonstration against the Prison-Industrial Complex on Saturday April 15, 2000. The arrests were made in advance of days of anticipated protests, and were calculated to disrupt First Amendment protected activity. Many arrestees were put in preventive detention overnight, hogtied ankle to wrist, in harsh conditions as described in further detail in the Complaint. Other claims in this litigation relate to the unconstitutional raid and closure of activists’ meeting hall (the Convergence Center), as well as brutal beatings. The plaintiffs and the District of Columbia have reached a settlement of the case. Click here for the Joint Motion for Preliminary Approval. Click here for the Court's Order granting Preliminary Approval. * This case has been previously captioned as both Alliance v. District of Columbia and Fifty Years Is Enough v. District of Columbia.   AP: DC agrees to pay $13M over arrests of protesters Monday, November 23, 2009 Reprint Legal Times: City to Settle Mass Arrest Class Action for $13.7 Million Monday, November 23, 2009 Reprint Calling the Police Version of Events "Fanciful," Magistrate Judge Recommends the Court Find Mass Arrests Were False Thursday, February 28, 2008 U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola has issued a report and recommendation to presiding Judge Paul L. Friedman that summary judgment issue in favor of the Becker class declaring the mass arrest to be a mass false arrest. Magistrate Judge Facciola also recommended that Judge Friedman reject in entirety the District of Columbia's motion to dismiss the claims of all plaintiffs, including those who were beaten by police or suffered injuries when the MPD raided protestors' Convergence Center.l Multimedia Re-Creation of April 15, 2000 Sidewalk March Tuesday, September 11, 2007 The MPD persists in representing to the Court that the April 15, 2000 march that was ultimately subject to false mass arrest by the MPD was a riot. Rather than accepting these false claims at false value, the Partnership for Civil Justice has undertaken a massive review and compilation of the multi-media footage of the march. Bringing together the critical moments, selecting from scores of hours of police channel communications, command center dispatch announcements, reports from the overhead helicopter, MPD and civilian video, the PCJF has re-created the peaceful, law-abiding and, indeed, police escorted march from the moment it steps off (with police permission) to the moment when without warning the MPD uses a trap-and-arrest tactic to surround everyone including protestors, by-standers, journalists, tourists and legal observers. Please visit www.BeckerSettlement.com.