UPDATE FROM THE ACLU ON THE ANTI-MUSK ANTI-DRUMPF / TRUMP-VANCE RESISTANCE 26FEB25

THANK GOD for the ACLU, just one of the many organizations taking direct action against the neo-nazi fascist musk-drumpf / trump-vance administration and the authoritarian oligarchy they with the gop / greed over people-republican party are trying to establish. Do not give up, keep the faith and join the anti-musk, anti-drumpf / trump-vance, anti-gop / greed over people-republican party opposition! To find your representative's e mail address click here, for your senator's e mail addresses ( e mail both )click here, to e mail the White House click here.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the news lately? If so, you're not alone. It's not easy – especially when the news is filled with story after story of unconstitutional attacks on our most fundamental rights. But the overwhelm is the point. Would-be rights suppressors are trying to keep up the chaos to prevent us from putting up a real resistance. We won't let them. With supporters like you, the ACLU community is putting up a fight – and we're winning. A month into President Trump's second term, here are just a few of the fights for our rights we're achieving together: In the courts… We're filing dozens of court cases to challenge the most egregious of Trump's executive orders. We're suing to protect birthright citizenship and to stop Trump from using Guantánamo Bay to hold immigrants incommunicado with no legal resources. At the same time, we've won in court over Trump's attacks on medical care for trans youth – and while that case proceeds, we're also suing to protect trans people's right to access accurate passports. And just last week, we filed over 40 FOIA requests to federal agencies demanding more information about DOGE's reckless, unauthorized access to our personal data (not to mention the over 180,000 of you who contacted Congress directly to demand oversight and check this abuse of power). In the states… We're putting up a nationwide resistance that we call the firewall for freedom – urging state and local governments to hold firm against federal attempts to intimidate and coerce them into using local resources to carry out the worst of their anti-immigrant plans. We're fighting legislation like H.R. 32, the Defund Our Communities Act, which would cut off funding to cities and states that resist mass deportation efforts. And our affiliates are working every day in state legislatures to stop bad laws in their tracks. In the streets… Our supporters have been with us every step of the way – and we've shown up in force over the past month. Hundreds of supporters joined us in New York to design panels for our trans justice quilt. On Presidents' Day, we held events in four different states to oppose the abuses of power we've seen from this administration and mobilize to protect our rights and liberties. We'll keep exercising our First Amendment right to protest and continue to prove that the people are on the side of civil liberties. While the last month may have felt overwhelming, the power of the ACLU community has never been clearer. We're taking real action to protect our rights – and it's working. We'll continue to show up wherever our rights are threatened and keep bringing you clarity through the chaos at every turn. Thank you for all you do to keep up the fight, The ACLU Team

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2 Years Later, Grim Photos From the BP Disaster 7MAI12

A picture is worth a thousand words, and these pictures should be enough to show bp and the government lied to us about the severity of bp's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the short and long term damage done to the environment. There are links to several related articles following this. KEEP IN MIND, BIG OIL WANTS TO BRING THIS SAME TECHNOLOGY AND THREAT TO THE ENVIRONMENT TO THE ARCTIC. Greenpeace, the NRDC and other environmental organizations are fighting them every step of the way, go to their websites for more information on their campaigns. This from Mother Jones / MOJO......

—By Kate Sheppard

|

Photo courtesy of Greenpeace

It's been two years since the Deepwater Horizon disaster unleashed 4.9 million barrels of oil on the Gulf of Mexico. In the midst of the disaster, BP and its contractors did everything they could to keep people from seeing the scale of the disaster. But new photos released Monday offer some new insight to just how grim the Gulf became for sea life.
The images were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request that Greenpeace filed back in August 2010, asking for any communication related to endangered and threatened Gulf species. Now, many months later, Greenpeace received a response from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that included more than 100 photos from the spill, including many of critically endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtles dead and covered in oil.
Most photos are missing dates and descriptions, though the FOIA request covered the period of April 20, 2010, to July 30, 2010. But they're pretty shocking—which is probably why they weren't made public at the height of the spill. "It just makes me furious," said John Hocevar, a marine biologist who works for Greenpeace. "I had so many conversations with people in various government agencies working on the Gulf spill, and I feel like they were hiding things from all of us."
"The White House was sitting on this stuff for over two years, at the same time they were saying everything was fine, that the oil was gone, and while they were rushing ahead with plans for new drilling in the Gulf, the Arctic, elsewhere," Hocevar continued. "It's just not okay. This is not an acceptable type of collateral damage."
Mother Jones has requested comment from NOAA but had not received a response at press time.
Jump below the fold to see some of the photos that have been kept under wraps for the past two years:

Kate Sheppard

Reporter

Kate Sheppard is a staff reporter Mother Jones' Washington bureau. For more of her stories, click here. She Tweets here. RSS | Twitter

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Poolside Service and Prostitutes: Legal Group's FOIA Demands Taxpayer Cost of Secret Service's "Party" in Colombia 17APR12

WE, the people, do have a right to know what the Secret Service "Spring Break, Secret Service Boys Gone Wild" antics have cost us financially (we already know the nation and our President have been humiliated). I am sure these few don't represent the service as a whole, but in difficult times when people are still having a hard time paying bills and mortgages and buying food and gas there is no justification for these public servants to be drinking and whoring on our dime.....

Poolside Service and Prostitutes: Legal Group's FOIA Demands Taxpayer Cost of Secret Service's "Party" in Colombia

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on Monday, April 16 with the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) demanding that the agency release records reflecting the use of taxpayer funds for expenditures for, " flight, hotel, dining, drinking, bar service, room service, prostitution, escorts, companions, recreational or entertainment services" as well as costs " necessitated by the removal and/or transport of the Secret Service’s agents from Colombia and their return and/or transport to the United States, as well as any expenditures or payments to the local police agencies or law enforcement." The FOIA to the Secret Service states: “The American public in general has a right to know the extent of the federal government's public expenditures and how its tax dollars are being spent on entertainment and leisure activities, poolside drinking, prostitution, and protection of Secret Service agents from law enforcement in Cartenega, Colombia, particularly given the current state of the economy, budget cuts to education, healthcare and housing, and the Secret Service's budget demands for asserted security functions.” “Time and again, the public is expected to bow to the Secret Service's decisions to bar, remove or distance protesters from being able to have their messages heard by the President, candidates or other officials, with the untested assertion that there is a 'security' need for such abridgement of First Amendment rights. Fundamentally, the public has an interest in the functioning and representations and conduct and character of the U.S. Secret Service in the execution of Presidential security functions, particularly where Courts and the public are asked to defer to the representations of the Secret Service,” stated Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director for the PCJF. "There is nothing about this incident that suggests it was an aberration," Verheyden-Hilliard continued. "Given that it only came to light because one woman went to the police, it raises the question as to whether women worldwide who are forced into prostitution for survival are used by Secret Service personnel on the public's dime when they carry out their Presidential advance duties." Updates and information received from this FOIA request will be made available at www.JusticeOnline.org. Read the Freedom of Information Act request here.

Civil Rights Legal Groups Demand Records on Federal Law Enforcement Involvement in Coordinated Crackdown on Occupy Movement 16NOV11

THE American government has voiced support for many occupations and demonstrations around the world this year, especially the Arab Spring revolutions (when they haven't threatened the profit margins of American corporations and the U.S. military-industrial complex, as in Bahrain). But here, in the U.S.A., the Occupy Wall Street movement is under attack by local, state and federal government agencies. It would seem freedom, civil liberties and human rights don't apply here when actual practice of these rights are a threat to the profits of the American financial cabal and corporate America. The PCJF and the NLG is fighting back to expose our governments abuse of our freedoms and civil liberties.....

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee filed Freedom of Information Act requests with various federal law enforcement agencies today. Below is the press release issued about the filings. We encourage you to read and circulate the press release among friends and supporters. SPREAD THE WORD
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	November 16, 2001
Civil Rights Legal Groups Demand Records on Federal Law Enforcement Involvement in Coordinated Crackdown on Occupy Movement PCJF and NLG Mass Defense Committee File Multi-Agency Requests
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) and the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests today with the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Park Service (NPS) requesting that the agencies release information that they possess related to the involvement of federal agencies in the planning of a coordinated law enforcement crackdown that has taken places in multiple cities against the Occupy Movement in recent days and weeks. The FOIA to the various federal law enforcement agencies states: “This request specifically encompasses disclosure of any documents or information pertaining to federal coordination of, or advice or consultation regarding, the police response to the Occupy movement, protests or encampments.” The Occupy Movement has been confronted by a nearly simultaneous effort by local governments and local police agencies to evict and break up encampments in cities and towns throughout the country. It is now known that mayors and other local officials have met together on conference calls in recent weeks and developed a coordinated strategy to dislodge and break up the encampments using common talking points including a public pretextual rationale to justify police action. Mara Veheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice and the co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild’s National Mass Defense Committee, states: “The severe crackdown on the occupation movement appears to be part of a national strategy to crush the movement. This multi-jurisdictional coordination shows that the crackdown is supremely political." “The FOIA requests seek critical information regarding the role of federal law enforcement agencies,” Verheyden-Hilliard explained. “The Occupy demonstrations are not criminal activities, and police should not be treating them as such. This protest movement for social and economic justice has captured the imagination of the country. The coordinated effort of law enforcement to suppress it is a reflection of its political challenge to the status-quo.” “We see the scapegoating of these movements, the attacks at night, and in general tactics designed to terrorize and to scare protesters away," stated Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild. "This request is critical to the transparency that is required in order for the people of the United States to be informed as to the U.S. government's action in regard to free speech activities." Read the Freedom of Information Act request here. ### The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) is a not-for-profit constitutional rights legal and educational organization which, among other things, seeks to ensure constitutional accountability within police practices and government transparency in operations. It is counsel on the Barham and Becker class action cases in which more than 1,000 persons were falsely arrested during protests in Washington, D.C., resulting in settlements totaling $22 million and major changes in police practices. The PCJF previously brought the successful litigation in New York challenging the 2004 ban on protests in the Great Lawn of Central Park. It is counsel with the National Lawyers Guild in Oakland, CA challenging police mass arrest tactics. It won a unanimous ruling at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals finding the MPD’s unprecedented military-style police checkpoint program unconstitutional. The PCJF previously uncovered and disclosed that the D.C. police employed an unlawful domestic spying and agent provocateur program in which officers were sent on long-term assignments posing as political activists and infiltrated lawful and peaceful groups. For more information go to: www.JusticeOnline.org. The National Lawyers Guild was formed as the nation's first racially integrated voluntary bar association, with a mandate to advocate for fundamental principles of human and civil rights including the protection of rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution. The Guild has championed the First Amendment right to engage in vigorous political speech for 75 years. The Guild has a long history of defending individuals accused by the government of espousing "dangerous" ideas, including in hearings conducted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities and other examples of governmental overreaching now popularly discredited. See e.g. Kinoy v. District of Columbia, 400 F.2d 761 (1968). Since then, it has continued to represent thousands of Americans critical of government policies, from civil rights advocates and anti-war activists during the Vietnam era to current anti-globalization, peace, environmental and animal rights activists. Its Mass Defense Committee is a coordinated body of hundreds of lawyers, legal workers and law students who are defending the free speech rights of the Occupy actions around the country.

Factsheet: Top ten truths government officials hoped you’d never know from WIKILEAKS

I LOVE MY COUNTRY BUT EVEN WITH PRES OBAMA IN OFFICE IT SEEMS I STILL CAN'T TRUST MY GOVERNMENT.....ISN'T THAT SAD????
2.5 million people had access to the classified information released by Wikileaks. That’s not a very good secret, but Bradley Manning now faces life in prison or the death penalty for releasing it. Here are some of the possible reasons they didn’t want the rest of us in the know.

1. Innocence is no excuse

The government knew that most Guantanamo prisoners were either innocent or just low-level operatives. The U.S. also pressured Spanish courts to drop investigations of torture at Gitmo. Shoddy CIA evidence collection at Guantanamo has cost millions and bred anti-American sentiment abroad. The Guantanamo Files describe how detainees were captured based on highly subjective evidence. How quickly they were released was heavily dependent on their country of origin (1). According to a U.S. diplomatic cable written on April 17, 2009, the Association for the Dignity of Spanish Prisoners requested that the National Court indict six former U.S. officials for creating a legal framework that allegedly permitted torture against five Spanish prisoners. However, “Senator Mel Martinez… met Acting FM [Foreign Minister] Angel Lossada… on April 15. Martinez… underscored that the prosecutions would not be understood or accepted in the U.S. and would have an enormous impact on the bilateral relationship” (2).

2. “We don’t do Body Counts.” At least not publicly

Gen. Tommy Franks famously told reporters in 2002, “We don’t do body counts.” Yet the Iraq War Logs and Afghan War Diary reveal that the military does track casualties. In most cases the military did not conduct a thorough investigation into Afghani civilian deaths. Instead, they offered victims’ families up to US$2400. The Iraq War Logs, which span the period from January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2009, show 109,000 total deaths. Of those, a staggering 66,081 – two-thirds – were civilians –15,000 of whom were not acknowledged or reported anywhere previously (3). In a leaked cable from the U.S. delegation to NATO, it is stated that, “Norway’s ambassador emphasized the need to avoid a public debate about the reporting of the number of [Afghani] civilians killed,” and the cable went on to state that “U.N. employees themselves in Kabul doubt the method [of tracking casualties] that is used” (4).

3. Common enemies make great friends of despots

The U.S. government had documented Tunisian government human rights violations against its own people, but continued providing aid to Tunisia on the basis of being an ally in the war against “terrorism.” About Tunisia, the U.S. Ambassador wrote, “Tunisia is a police state, with little freedom of expression or association, and serious human rights problems.” Nevertheless, he recommended the U.S. continued funding Tunisia’s military (5).

4. Torture is better when others do it for you

The U.S. Military violated the U.N. Convention Against Torture by turning prisoners over to the new Iraqi Security Forces, an organization which, according to the State Department’s own reports, has frequently perpetrated prisoner torture. The Convention, which was ratified by the U.S. in 1994, forbids signatories from transferring a detainee to other countries “where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.” The Iraq War Logs describe thousands of reports of prisoner torture filed against the Iraqi Security Forces, hundreds of which include medical evidence. Methods of torture described include prisoners whipped with heavy cables across the feet, hung from ceiling hooks, having holes bored into their legs with electric drills, urinated upon, and sexually assaulted. A military order issued in 2004 directed U.S. troops not to investigate these allegations (6).

5. Botched Covert-Ops are never our fault

The U.S. State Department endorsed an occasion when the Yemeni government lied to its people about U.S. participation in air strikes in December 2009 that resulted in civilian casualties. “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours,” Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told General David Petraeus in January, 2010. Saleh also said, “mistakes had been made” in the earlier strikes, lamented the use of U.S. cruise missiles that were “not very accurate,” and welcomed the use of precision-guided bombs instead. Yemen’s prime minister also joked about how his president had “lied” to the parliament about the strikes (7).

6. US Tax dollars spent on child trafficking?!

U.S. taxpayer dollars helped support child trafficking when government contractor DynCorp threw a party for Afghan security recruits featuring boys purchased from pimps for entertainment. “Bacha bazi,” or “boy play,” is a practice in which young boys are dressed up in women’s clothing, forced to dance for powerful men, and then sold for sex to the highest bidder. DynCorp was linked to child sex trafficking charges before this incident occurred (8).

7. Freedom of Information. An Act, or just a suggestion?

The U.S. Military attempted to thwart the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by neglecting to release the video (now titled as Collateral Murder) depicting the killing of two Reuters reporters and ten other people. On July 12, 2007, U.S. soldiers manning an Apache helicopter shot and killed 12 individuals in Baghdad, Iraq. Two were Reuters reporters and two were civilians who stopped their van to help the wounded. Reuters news staff were shown the video two weeks after the incident, and then told that if they wanted to receive a copy of the video and other materials, they would have to make a FOIA request. Although Reuters filed the request shortly thereafter, it remained unfulfilled (9).

8. Climate “Diplomacy” is a scam

The U.S. Government offered handouts to third-world countries in order to buy signatories for the adopted version of the Copenhagen Climate Accords, which holds the U.S. to lower standards than every other industrialized nation, including India, China and South Africa. U.S. diplomatic cables show the U.S. offered aid unrelated to climate issues to individual countries, persuading developing countries to break with regional bargaining groups and agree to the Accord (10).

9. Human rights abuses as usual

Leaked U.S. cables contain information about human rights abuses around the world, including many cases in which corrupt governments were trying to hide the truth from their own people. In specific cases, American- and British-based international corporations were implicated. These violations are well-documented and include countries the U.S. has publicly supported, including Tunisia, Columbia, Eritrea, India, Pakistan, Si Lanka, Botswana, Egypt, and Papua New Guinea.

10. Protecting torturers is required

U.S. officials put strong, continued pressure on Germany not to pursue charges against CIA officers involved in the extraordinary rendition of a German citizen.In January 2007, a German court issued arrest warrants for 13 CIA agents related to their rendition of a German citizen of Lebanese descent to Afghanistan, where he was tortured. The case against the agents was later dropped. Diplomatic cables written in the interim period shed some light on the reasons why. According to one German Justice Ministry (BMJ) official addressing concerns from the U.S. Ambassador, international arrest warrants could only be issued once the ministry had evaluated their legal soundness and “foreign policy implications” on a case-by-case basis. Another BMJ official assured the embassy that the cases would not be “handled as routine” and that any investigation would require a green light from Berlin (11).

Sources:

(1) Scott Shane and Benjamin Weiser, “The Guatanamo Files: Judging Detainees’ Risk, Often With Flawed Evidence,” New York Times, April 24, 2011,http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/world/guantanamo-files-flawed-evidence-for-assessing-risk.html
(2) “US embassy cables: Don’t pursue Guantánamo criminal case, says Spanish attorney general,”guardian.co.uk, December 1, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/202776.
(3) “Iraq War Logs Reveal 15,000 Previously Unlisted Civilian Deaths,” guardian.co.uk, October 22, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/true-civilian-body-count-iraq
(4) Aled-Dilwyn Fisher, “Norway joined NATO in suppressing reports of civilian Afghan deaths,”uruknet.info, February 21, 2011, http://www.uruknet.info/?new=75223.
(5) “US embassy cables: Tunisia – a US foreign policy conundrum,” guardian.co.uk, December 7, 2010,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/217138.
(6) Alex Spillius, “Wikileaks: Iraq War Logs show US ignored torture allegations,” Telegraph, October 22, 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/8082223/Wikileaks-Iraq-War-Logs-show-US-ignored-torture-allegations.html.
(7) “Cable reveals US behind airstrike that killed 21 children in Yemen,” The Raw Story, December 2, 2010, http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/02/cable-reveals-airstrike-killed-21-children-yemen.
(8) “Foreign contractors hired Afghan ‘dancing boys’, WikiLeaks cable reveals,” guardian.co.uk, December 2, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/02/foreign-contractors-hired-dancing-boys.
(9) Steven Clarke and Joseph Bamat, “Leaked video shows US military killing of civilians, Reuters staff,” France 24, July 27, 2010, http://www.france24.com/en/20100406-leaked-video-shows-us-military-killing-civilians-reuters-staff.
(10) “WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord,” guardian.co.uk, December 3, 2010,http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-us-manipulated-climate-accord
(11) Matthias Gebauer and John Goetz, “The CIA’s El-Masri Abduction: Cables Show Germany Caved to Pressure from Washington,” Der Spiegel, December 9, 2010,http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,733860,00.html

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.

A War on Terror by Any Other Name from JOHN CUSACK / HUFFPOST 18MAI09

On the issue civil and human rights the Obama administration has been a disappointment, really not much better than the bush administration. Obama has been pathetically weak on human rights, refusing to force the issue to the forefront in dealings with the prc, all the nations of the Middle East, including Israel, all the Persian Gulf nations as well as n korea, burma / myanmar and sudan, just to name a few. At least the President has ended torture in our name, but gitmo is still open and the issue of civilian courts vs military tribunals is still unresolved. One thing the administration could, and should do is investigate and consider prosecution of bush administration officials involved with torture, kidnapping, murder and abuse in bush's war on terror. If America is not willing to take action on this issue involving our own we loose the moral authority to address the human rights abuses of other nations. Maybe that is why so little is being done to champion human rights by Pres Obama and his administration, they know they lack the moral courage to take on the violators of human and civil rights in this country, and so recognise the hypocrisy of lecturing and condemning others. Without American leadership on human rights we are all poorer and all at risk.

Like many other American progressive-types (title for sake of argument), I voted for Obama and hope every day he'll facilitate the change he promised. A big part of the change progressives interpreted that promise to mean was to bring an end to the Bush administration's "War on Terror." The White House no longer uses the term -- but how much of a break has the new administration really made?
I am not condemning his entire presidency -- nor am I debating it, and I would not debate his goodness as an individual man. I'm arguing that so far his administration has failed to resolve (by reversing) a massive constitutional and moral crisis which has resulted in the brutalization of thousands.
A lot of powerful people in Washington may think it's a crazy-leftist-fringe position to think the intellectual authors of a torture regime should be investigated and prosecuted. But recent polling suggests at least half of the American population favors an independent investigation or criminal prosecution of members of the Bush administration for torture. Half is not fringe. Maybe they say this because they're scared, and well they should be.
It seems most people are quite clear -- the law says if someone should be held underwater repeatedly on no sleep until he thinks he's drowning, or tortured in other ways, the people who ordered it or did it should be be arrested, charged, tried, and sent to jail. And even if, say, 40% of the country wants to advocate breaking the law -- they should still be resigned to see those who did it pay the price for it. How that is a left /right debate is beyond me. How that is even debatable is also beyond me.
Of course, I think it is legitimate for the Commander-in-Chief to be concerned for the safety of his soldiers. I am as well. But the reality is that anti-American sentiment has already been inflamed in Iraq, Afghanistan and across the Muslim world by horrific acts of torture and detainee abuse (not to mention arbitrary detentions and civilian casualties). The photos are evidence of what Afghans and Iraqis already know has taken place. And their number -- there are up to 2000 photos allegedly up for release -- is further proof that torture and abuse were widespread and systemically accepted in US detention facilities.
Whether or not the Obama administration releases them now, the pictures will eventually come out. And if Obama wants to make a true break with Bush/Cheney's "War on Terror" -- and not simply rebrand it -- releasing the photos would be an important step, and send a signal to the rest of the world. If the move is judged too dangerous for US troops, the president could at least ask the Department of Defense to release the photos to an independent council charged with investigating and prosecuting those at the highest levels responsible for mandating and creating a culture of torture and abuse. So far, he has done neither.
What is most disturbing about the refusal to release the photos is the broader pattern into which it fits -- a pattern of decisions that effectively preserve the framework of Bush's War on Terror, with all the violations of our constitution that it entails.
I spoke with Constitutional Law professor Jonathan Turley, and this is how he described the series of decisions that the administration has made:

"Well it can't get any worse: extreme executive privilege arguments in court, withholding of abuse photos, adoptions of indefinite detentions without trial, restarting military commissions, and blocking any torture investigation. Welcome to Bush 2.0..."

And..

"In my view, it comes down to a simple question of the rule of law FOIA clearly mandates the release of the photos. Notably, even Obama says that they are not as bad as the first set. However, it does not matter. It would be a dangerous thing if an Administration can withhold documents and photographs on the basis for embarrassment to the country. FOIA is needed to get material that an Administration has refused to release. It is often embarrassing. If an Administration can simply invoke an embarrassment exemption, FOIA would be gutted..."

Obama never promised he would transform the entire architecture of the American system -- he's a pragmatist, not a revolutionary. But he did say he would restore balance and the rule of law to the existing system. For that, the Bush/Cheney "War on Terror" paradigm must be dismantled. Disclosing the photos and mandating an independent prosecutor to investigate those responsible for torture would be one step in signaling a genuine break with this endless-just war paradigm, and ensure the terrible violations it made possible will never again be perpetrated by agents of the United States.
And that a horrible precedent will not be set for future US state crimes.