{"article":{"id":73721,"heading":"REPEAL THE PATRIOT ACT – Hollywood Rally","author":"builder123","created":"2003-07-22 20:36:19","modified":"2005-08-15 01:36:56","last_modified":"Mon, 15 Aug 2005 08:36:56","article":"

Organizations active in the effort:

International Answer – Los Angeles 213- 487- 2368

Refuse and Resist – Los Angeles 323-962-8084

South Asia Network (SAN): 562-403-0488

Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights LA

United Teachers L. A. Human Rights Committee

National Lawyers Guild

American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)

Main stream media chimes in:

http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2003\/07\/21\/politics\/21JUST.html?ex=1059772218&ei=1&en=7d66e75634160646<\/a>

==== see comment section, \"Main stream media chimes in\" if above link is dropped ------



<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","summary":"Hollywood CA – July 19th \r\nActivists converge on Hollywood and Highland determined to halt the erosion of civil liberties that has taken place under the guise of September 11th. \r\n","numcomment":21,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2003\/07\/image1201.jpgid2bmm.jpg","filesize":"24.7 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2003\/07\/73721.php","image":{"original":"\/uploads\/2003\/07\/image1201.jpgid2bmm.jpg","small":"\/uploads\/2003\/07\/image1201.jpgid2bmm.jpgthumb.jpg"}},"attachments":[{"id":73722,"heading":"Millions To Be Spent On Border Wall","article":"“Right now the INS has plans to extend a border wall two hundred and fifty-five miles. A border wall; that will seal off seventy-five percent of the Arizona border and be fifteen feet tall… The border plans need to go away… Did anybody know that they are planning on basically connecting California to Texas, did anybody know? Seven-hundred and fifty million dollars, meanwhile we don’t have healthcare… meanwhile more and more people can’t even conceive of sending their kids to college…” \r\n\r\n“We are having a human rights crisis on the border. Since the inception of OPERATION GATE KEEPER and all these other polices over two thousand immigrants Mexicanos, Central Americans, …, South Americans have died on our borders and it makes a horrible, horrible death. To die by the desert has been described by one doctor as being crushed by a large weight. That’s the way your organs shut down when you are denied water and you’re out there in the desert which is a 110 degrees… More and more we’re seeing women and children who are coming, trying to be with their families. Please join us in supporting the struggle against the wall, against the border plans.” \r\n\r\nNote: If you would like to help save lives contact - WATER STATION PROJECT 213-346-0123 \r\n","author":"builder123","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2003-07-22 20:36:19","modified":"2005-08-15 01:36:56","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/image1603.jpgn7phaz.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/image1603.jpgn7phaz.jpg"}},{"id":73723,"heading":"Some of the Sights","article":"The boulevard is transformed as word is spread, REPEAL THE PATRIOT ACT!","author":"builder123","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2003-07-22 20:36:20","modified":"2005-08-15 01:36:56","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/project2.jpguqyutg.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/project2.jpguqyutg.jpg"}},{"id":73724,"heading":"How Safe Does the Patriot Act Make You Feel?","article":"“Here’s what’s important to remember. When John Ashcroft got that Patriot Act passed they said they were doing it to make you and me safer. They were doing it to make you and me safer. So when they read your check out list at the library do you feel safer? Do you feel safer when they read your messages to your friends on the internet? When the brother that spoke to you before lands in solitary confinement just because he’s a Muslim does that make you feel safer? Is there anything at all in that GOD DAMN PATRIOT ACT that makes you and I any safer or feel any safer?”\r\n\r\n-- Jim Lafferty of The Lawyers Guild\r\n","author":"builder123","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2003-07-22 20:36:20","modified":"2005-08-15 01:36:56","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/image2202.jpgfsbnyp.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/image2202.jpgfsbnyp.jpg"}},{"id":73725,"heading":"Crowd Participation","article":"“Let’s be clear. Let’s be clear. The Patriot Act wasn’t passed to make you and I safe from terrorism. It was passed to make the terrorist who run this country safe from you and I!!! But they can’t be safe from you and I if you and I remember something very essential. It’s all well and good to talk about the same congress that passed the damn act in the first place is maybe going to do by way of tinkering with it. It’s all well and good when lawyers from the Lawyers Guild and ACLU and others go into court, Republican court and get defeated. We should keep trying to do that. But that’s not our salvation. That’s not what’s going to protect us from this Patriot Act. YOU AND I ARE ALL THAT STANDS BETWEEN TRYANNY IN THIS COUNTRY AND FASCISM IN THIS COUNTRY AND THAT PATRIOT ACT. If we depend on the Bill of Rights the Republicans in congress won’t have any better luck this time then they had during the 50’s under McCarthyism…”\r\n\r\n-- Jim Lafferty of The Lawyers Guild\r\n","author":"builder123","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2003-07-22 20:36:20","modified":"2005-08-15 01:36:56","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/project0.jpggwskya.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/project0.jpggwskya.jpg"}},{"id":73726,"heading":"One Things Stands in Their Way – You!","article":"“McCarthyism, the witch-hunt of the fifties was not defeated by the politicians. They weren’t defeated by the courts. They were defeated because there were enough people brave enough and tough enough and determined enough not to let their voices be silenced! So, we can defeat the patriot act … They want empire, they want world conquest and they know they can’t have it if there is an aroused opposition united in this country. That is our salvation, it is the world’s salvation, so together let’s remember. Keep speaking up, refuse to be quiet, refuse to be intimated, history is on our side. OUR DAY WILL COME. WE WILL PREVAIL! Thank-you.”\r\n\r\n-- Jim Lafferty of The Lawyers Guild\r\n","author":"builder123","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2003-07-22 20:36:20","modified":"2005-08-15 01:36:56","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/image2401.jpgbjkotz.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/image2401.jpgbjkotz.jpg"}},{"id":73727,"heading":"A War Budget Leaves All Our Children Behind","article":"United Teachers L. A. says yes to Students and no to the ROTC build up on campus.","author":"builder123","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2003-07-22 20:36:20","modified":"2005-08-15 01:36:56","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/image301.jpgin7lxr.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/image301.jpgin7lxr.jpg"}},{"id":73728,"heading":"Canaries in a Coal Mine","article":"Librarians - one of the first to stand up to the Patriot Act.","author":"builder123","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2003-07-22 20:36:20","modified":"2005-08-15 01:36:56","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/image903.jpgzawe1n.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/image903.jpgzawe1n.jpg"}},{"id":73729,"heading":"REPEAL THE PATRIOT ACT – Hollywood Rally","article":"","author":"builder123","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2003-07-22 20:36:20","modified":"2005-08-15 01:36:57","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/image1104.jpgc242hm.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/image1104.jpgc242hm.jpg"}}],"comments":[{"id":73749,"heading":"thank","article":"great keep it up spread the word no more dictators...!!!!","author":"menn","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-07-22 22:52:38","modified":"2003-07-22 22:52:38","fileurl":""},{"id":73755,"heading":"no it's snot","article":"But if you want a date, all you have to do is beg.","author":"jackel","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-07-22 23:05:30","modified":"2003-07-22 23:05:30","fileurl":""},{"id":73759,"heading":"BA,Don't you wish.","article":"Study the chart. (photos later if you wish)\r\nAs you can see there's no resemblance.\r\nI'm far more handsome. ","author":"Sheepdog","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"image\/gif","created":"2003-07-22 23:33:18","modified":"2005-08-15 01:36:57","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/oldenglishsheepdog_bw.gif","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/oldenglishsheepdog_bw.gif"}},{"id":73762,"heading":"Jim C.","article":"The photos and the commentary need to get a lot better.","author":"observer","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-07-22 23:46:08","modified":"2003-07-22 23:46:08","fileurl":""},{"id":73864,"heading":"main stream media chimes in","article":"Report on USA Patriot Act Alleges Civil Rights Violations\r\n\r\nWASHINGTON, July 20 - A report by internal investigators at\r\nthe Justice Department has identified dozens of recent\r\ncases in which department employees have been accused of\r\nserious civil rights and civil liberties violations\r\ninvolving enforcement of the sweeping federal antiterrorism\r\nlaw known as the USA Patriot Act. \r\n\r\nThe inspector general's report, which was presented to\r\nCongress last week and is awaiting public release, is\r\nlikely to raise new concern among lawmakers about whether\r\nthe Justice Department can police itself when its employees\r\nare accused of violating the rights of Muslim and Arab\r\nimmigrants and others swept up in terrorism investigations\r\nunder the 2001 law. \r\n\r\nThe report said that in the six-month period that ended on\r\nJune 15, the inspector general's office had received 34\r\ncomplaints of civil rights and civil liberties violations\r\nby department employees that it considered credible,\r\nincluding accusations that Muslim and Arab immigrants in\r\nfederal detention centers had been beaten. \r\n\r\nThe accused workers are employed in several of the agencies\r\nthat make up the Justice Department, with most of them\r\nassigned to the Bureau of Prisons, which oversees federal\r\npenitentiaries and detention centers. \r\n\r\nThe report said that credible accusations were also made\r\nagainst employees of the F.B.I., the Drug Enforcement\r\nAdministration and the Immigration and Naturalization\r\nService; most of the immigration agency was consolidated\r\nearlier this year into the Department of Homeland Security.\r\n\r\n\r\nA spokeswoman for the Justice Department, Barbara Comstock,\r\nsaid tonight that the department "takes its obligations\r\nvery seriously to protect civil rights and civil liberties,\r\nand the small number of credible allegations will be\r\nthoroughly investigated." \r\n\r\nMs. Comstock noted that the department was continuing to\r\nreview accusations made last month in a separate report by\r\nthe inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, that found broader\r\nproblems in the department's treatment of hundreds of\r\nillegal immigrants rounded up after the terrorist attacks\r\nof Sept. 11, 2001. \r\n\r\nWhile most of the accusations in the report are still under\r\ninvestigation, the report said a handful had been\r\nsubstantiated, including those against a federal prison\r\ndoctor who was reprimanded after reportedly telling an\r\ninmate during a physical examination that "if I was in\r\ncharge, I would execute every one of you" because of "the\r\ncrimes you all did." \r\n\r\nThe report did not otherwise identify the doctor or name\r\nthe federal detention center where he worked. The doctor,\r\nit said, had "allegedly treated other inmates in a cruel\r\nand unprofessional manner." \r\n\r\nThe report said that the inspector general's office was\r\ncontinuing to investigate a separate case in which about 20\r\ninmates at a federal detention center, which was not\r\nidentified, had recently accused a corrections officer of\r\nabusive behavior, including ordering a Muslim inmate to\r\nremove his shirt "so the officer could use it to shine his\r\nshoes." \r\n\r\nIn that case, the report said, the inspector general's\r\noffice was able to obtain a statement from the officer\r\nadmitting that he had verbally abused the Muslim inmate and\r\nthat he had been "less that completely candid" with\r\ninternal investigators from the Bureau of Prisons. The\r\ninspector general's office said it had also obtained a\r\nsworn statement from another prison worker confirming the\r\ninmates' accusations. \r\n\r\nThe report did not directly criticize the Bureau of Prisons\r\nfor its handling of an earlier internal investigation of\r\nthe officer, but the report noted that the earlier inquiry\r\nhad been closed - and the accused officer initially cleared\r\n- without anyone interviewing the inmates or the officer. \r\n\r\nThe report is the second in recent weeks from the inspector\r\ngeneral to focus on the way the Justice Department is\r\ncarrying out the broad new surveillance and detention\r\npowers it gained under the Patriot Act, which was passed by\r\nCongress a month after the 9\/11 attacks. \r\n\r\nIn the first report, which was made public on June 2, Mr.\r\nFine, whose job is to act as the department's internal\r\nwatchdog, found that hundreds of illegal immigrants had\r\nbeen mistreated after they were detained following the\r\nattacks. \r\n\r\nThat report found that many inmates languished in unduly\r\nharsh conditions for months, and that the department had\r\nmade little effort to distinguish legitimate terrorist\r\nsuspects from others picked up in roundups of illegal\r\nimmigrants. \r\n\r\nThe first report brought widespread, bipartisan criticism\r\nof the Justice Department, which defended its conduct at\r\nthe time, saying that it "made no apologies for finding\r\nevery legal way possible to protect the American public\r\nfrom further attacks." \r\n\r\nMs. Comstock, the spokeswoman, said tonight that the\r\ndepartment had been sensitive to concerns about civil\r\nrights and civil liberties after the 9\/11 attacks, and that\r\nthe department had been aggressive in investigating more\r\nthat 500 cases of complaints of ethnic "hate crimes" linked\r\nto backlash from the attacks. \r\n\r\n"We've had 13 federal prosecutions of 18 defendants to\r\ndate, with a 100 percent conviction rate," she said. "We\r\nhave a very aggressive effort against post-9\/11\r\ndiscrimination." \r\n\r\nA copy of the report, which was dated July 17 and provided\r\nto the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, was made\r\navailable to The New York Times by the office of\r\nRepresentative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the ranking\r\nDemocrat on the House panel. \r\n\r\n"This report shows that we have only begun to scratch the\r\nsurface with respect to the Justice Department's disregard\r\nof constitutional rights and civil liberties," Mr. Conyers\r\nsaid in a statement. "I commend the inspector general for\r\nhaving the courage and independence to highlight the degree\r\nto which the administration's war on terror has misfired\r\nand harmed innocent victims with no ties to terror\r\nwhatsoever.` \r\n\r\nThe report is Mr. Fine's evaluation of his efforts to\r\nenforce provisions of the Patriot Act that require his\r\noffice to investigate complaints of abuses of civil rights\r\nand civil liberties by Justice Department employees. The\r\nprovision was inserted into the law by members of Congress\r\nwho said they feared that the Patriot Act might lead to\r\nwidespread law enforcement abuses. \r\n\r\nThe report draws no broad conclusions about the extent of\r\nabuses by Justice Department employees, although it\r\nsuggests that the relatively small staff of the inspector\r\ngeneral's office has been overwhelmed by accusations of\r\nabuse, many filed by Muslim or Arab inmates in federal\r\ndetention centers. \r\n\r\nThe inspector general said that from Dec. 16 through June\r\n15, his office received 1,073 complaints "suggesting a\r\nPatriot Act-related" abuse of civil rights or civil\r\nliberties. \r\n\r\nThe report suggested that hundreds of the accusations were\r\neasily dismissed as not credible or impossible to prove.\r\nBut of the remainder, 272 were determined to fall within\r\nthe inspector general's jurisdiction, with 34 raising\r\n"credible Patriot Act violations on their face." \r\n\r\nIn those 34 cases, it said, the accusations "ranged in\r\nseriousness from alleged beatings of immigration detainees\r\nto B.O.P. correctional officers allegedly verbally abusing\r\ninmates." \r\n\r\nThe report said that two of the cases were referred to\r\ninternal investigators at the Federal Bureau of\r\nInvestigation because they involved bureau employees. In\r\none case, the report said, the bureau investigated - and\r\ndetermined to be unsubstantiated - a complaint that an\r\nF.B.I. agent had "displayed aggressive, hostile and\r\ndemeaning behavior while administering a pre-employment\r\npolygraph examination." \r\n\r\nThe report said that the second case involved accusations\r\nfrom a naturalized citizen of Lebanese descent that the\r\nF.B.I. had invaded his home based on false information and\r\nwrongly accused him of possessing an AK-47 rifle. That\r\ncase, it said, is still under investigation by the bureau. \r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2003\/07\/21\/politics\/21JUST.html?ex=1059772218&ei=1&en=7d66e75634160646\r\n\r\n","author":"builder123","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-07-23 10:42:27","modified":"2003-07-23 10:42:27","fileurl":""},{"id":74492,"heading":"Congress Has Second Thoughts On Patriot Act","article":"WASHINGTON, D.C., July 23 (IPS) -- Taking a clear stand against anti-privacy provisions in the Patriot Act, the U.S. House of Representatives in an overwhelmingly bipartisan effort last night agreed to an amendment that would bar federal law enforcement from carrying out secret \u201dsneak and peek\u201d searches without notifying the target of the warrant. \r\n\r\n\r\n\u2022 American Civil Liberties Union \r\n\u2022 Lawyer's Committee for Human Rights \r\n\u2022 Tom Paine \r\n\u2022 OneWorld on United States \r\n\r\n\r\nSupported by\r\nCable & Wireless \r\n \r\n\r\nThe Otter Amendment, added to the Commerce, Justice and State Departments funding bill and named after Rep. C.L. \u201dButch\u201d Otter, an Idaho Republican, passed by an extraordinary margin of 309 to 118, with 113 Republicans voting in favor. \r\n\r\n\r\n\u201dNot only does this provision allow the seizure of personal and business records without notification, but it also opens the door to nationwide search warrants and allowing the CIA (news - web sites) (Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites)) and NSA (National Security Agency) to operate domestically,\u201d Otter said. \r\n\r\n\r\nThe Patriot Act, which significantly expands the government's domestic spying powers, was passed within weeks of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The House amendment represents the first major change to the act since it was signed into law by Pres. George W. Bush. \r\n\r\n\r\nCivil liberties activists immediately hailed the decision as a huge win. \r\n\r\n\r\n\u201dCongress took a courageous stand last night in its response to widespread public concern over civil liberties--hopefully this is the first trickle in a flood of Patriot fixes,\u201d said Laura W. Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites)'s Washington Legislative Office. \r\n\r\n\r\n\u201dCongress is beginning to respond to what regular Americans have been saying at backyard barbecues and across their kitchen tables for months now: we can--and must--be both safe and free,\u201d she said. \r\n\r\n\r\nThe amendment would effectively prohibit any implementation of the controversial section 213 of the Patriot Act, which enables federal agents to obtain so-called \u201dsneak and peek\u201d warrants with far less evidence than was required before the bill was passed.. \r\n\r\n\r\nUnder these warrants--also referred to as \u201dblack bag\u201d warrants--agents have the permission to search homes, confiscate certain types of property and monitor computers, without notifying the subject of the search. \r\n\r\n\r\nThe amendment still has to get past the Senate and Pres. Bush before it becomes law. \r\n\r\n\r\nYesterday's House vote was preceded by a unanimous vote in the Senate last week to deny funding for the domestic cyber-surveillance system known as the Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) project-- recently renamed from \u201dTotal Information Awareness\u201d. \r\n\r\n\r\nA provision blocking funding for the program was included in the Senate version of a military spending bill currently being considered in Congress. In contrast to the House version, which only restricted TIA's use against U.S. citizens, the Senate version denies funding for \u201dresearch and development on the Terrorism Awareness System.\u201d \r\n\r\n\r\nThe program would use data-mining technology to scan vast amounts of personal \u201dtransactional\u201d data, including looking for and monitoring suspicious patterns in telephone records, credit card transactions, broadcasts, internet use, medical files, relationships, travel details and legal information, among others. \r\n\r\n\r\nDemocratic Senators Ron Wyden, from Oregon, and Russ Feingold, from Wisconsin, had pledged last winter to block funding of TIA until Congress has a chance to thoroughly review the project's implications. \r\n\r\n\r\nA fellow senator, Jon Corzine of New Jersey, has complained that TIA takes an \u201dOrwellian approach\u201d--in fact, one of the program's first logos (since discarded) featured an all-seeing eye casting its gaze out over the globe. \r\n\r\n\r\nThe language agreed to in the Senate last week is even more forceful than that suggested by Wyden and Feingold, and stands in clear contrast to the Bush administration's active support for the program and the Pentagon (news - web sites)'s aggressive lobbying on behalf of TIA. \r\n\r\n\r\n\u201dMake no mistake, the Pentagon can't erase history by changing a name--it's the same program and contains the same pitfalls,\u201d said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Liberty and Technology Program. \u201dLuckily the Senate historically stood up to the administration and Pentagon and said 'no' to a surveillance society.\u201d \r\n\r\n \r\n\u201dTerrorism Information Awareness, as it's now called, seeks to catch bad guys by spying on law-abiding Americans, making it ineffective and inherently offensive to civil liberties,\u201d Steinhardt added. \u201dThose lawmakers who sought to shut it down deserve applause for supporting Americans' right to privacy.\u201d \r\n\r\nOpposition to the program, as well as to several sections of the Patriot Act, is growing and has been unusually broad, including groups as diverse as the ACLU and the American Conservative Union. \r\n\r\nEarlier this week, the ACLU kicked off a \u201dCampaign to Defend Our Libraries,\u201d with the aim of warning patrons about Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The section grants law enforcement the ability to obtain--without an ordinary criminal subpoena or search warrant and without probable cause--a court order giving them access to \u201dbusiness records\u201d and \u201dany tangible thing,\u201d including records from libraries, booksellers, doctors, universities, Internet service providers and financial institutions. \r\n\r\nCritics see the section as too broad and structured in a way that allows ordinary citizens to be caught up in the net of intelligence investigations. \r\n\r\n\u201dThe New Mexico Library Association is on record expressing its concerns about the Patriot Act,\u201d said Eileen Longsworth, president of the association. \u201dThe NMLA encourages the library community to educate itself and library customers about the Patriot Act, and the potential dangers to individual privacy and confidentiality of library records resulting from the enforcement of this act.\u201d \r\n\r\nBills are currently pending in the House and Senate that seek to restore privacy in libraries and bookstores. \r\n\r\nOpposition to the Patriot Act is also coming from state legislatures. Yesterday, the city council of Charlottesville, Virginia blocked some implementation of the act, joining more than 140 communities, encompassing more than 16 million people in 27 states, that have passed resolutions against it. \r\n\r\n<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>\r\n__________________________________\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/story.news.yahoo.com\/news?tmpl=story&u=\/oneworld\/20030724\/wl_oneworld\/4536642391059052136","author":"builder123","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-07-25 22:50:28","modified":"2013-11-11 00:24:14","fileurl":""},{"id":74496,"heading":"Question for Builder123","article":"Builder - Just looking at the photos above, I wonder if that might not be you in the red shirt?","author":"Bush Admirer","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-07-25 22:58:16","modified":"2003-07-25 22:58:16","fileurl":""},{"id":74499,"heading":"The guy in the red shirt","article":"Is he a teacher? I'm scared.","author":"Josef","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-07-25 23:04:33","modified":"2003-07-25 23:04:33","fileurl":""},{"id":74515,"heading":"BA -- I'll show you mine, but will you show me yours?","article":"My van Gogh imitation.\r\n\r\nIt's too bad I put Mr. Red Shirt in the photo essay. He's just a hard working teacher and doesn't deserve the redicule. But hey, what do you expect from the toilet joke crowd. \r\n\r\nteeHee-teeHee-giggle-giggle \r\n\r\n ","author":"builder123","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2003-07-25 23:54:45","modified":"2005-08-15 01:36:57","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/dad02.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/07\/dad02.jpg"}},{"id":74520,"heading":"Jim Casey","article":"I don't care about the toliet joke crowd. If you can't do any better than this crap you've been posting..... let's just say, don't quit your day job.","author":"observer","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-07-26 00:27:25","modified":"2003-07-26 00:27:25","fileurl":""},{"id":74522,"heading":"Observer - Let's Do Lunch","article":"Give me a call.\r\nDaytime 310-753-3841","author":"Jim Casey","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-07-26 00:38:43","modified":"2003-07-26 00:38:43","fileurl":""},{"id":74524,"heading":"builder123","article":"You call here.\r\n213.485.3294","author":"observer","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-07-26 00:51:47","modified":"2003-07-26 00:51:47","fileurl":""},{"id":74527,"heading":"Detractors and Trolls","article":"---- just another night on the newswire ----\r\n\r\n","author":"builder123","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-07-26 01:35:13","modified":"2003-07-26 01:35:13","fileurl":""},{"id":74611,"heading":"Help!","article":"I think I just saw a Communist outside my window!!!","author":"Josef","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-07-26 12:25:05","modified":"2003-07-26 12:25:05","fileurl":""},{"id":74770,"heading":"I know I did","article":"He's wearing a red T-shirt and looks like an alcoholic Krusty the Klown.","author":"Josef","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-07-26 23:30:32","modified":"2003-07-26 23:30:32","fileurl":""},{"id":75043,"heading":"Who Made George W. Bush Our King?","article":"Who Made George W. Bush Our King?\r\nHe Can Designate Any of Us an Enemy Combatant\r\n By Nat Hentoff\r\n VillageVoice.com\r\n\r\n\r\nFriday 25 July 2003\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCourts have no higher duty than protection of the individual freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution. This is especially true in time of war, when\r\nour carefully crafted system of checks and balances must accommodate the vital needs of national security while guarding the liberties the Constitution promises all citizens. -- Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals\r\njudge Diana Gribbon Motz, dissenting, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, July 9.\r\n\r\nSome of the most glorious illuminations of the Bill of Rights in American history have been contained in Supreme Court dissents by, among others, Louis Brandeis, William Brennan, Hugo Black, and Thurgood Marshall. Equal to those was the stinging dissent by judge Diana Gribbon Motz when the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (8 to 4) gave George W. Bush a fearsome power that can be found nowhere in the Constitution--the sole authority to imprison an American citizen indefinitely without charges or access to a lawyer.\r\n\r\nThis case is now on appeal to the Supreme Court, which will determine whether this president--or his successors until the end of the war on terrorism--can subvert the Bill of Rights to the peril of all of us.\r\n\r\nJudge Motz began her dissent--which got only a couple of lines in the brief coverage of the case in scattered media reporting--by stating plainly what the Bush administration has done to scuttle the Bill of Rights:\r\n\r\n"For more than a year, a United States citizen, Yaser Esam Hamdi, has been labeled an enemy combatant and held in solitary confinement in a Norfolk, Virginia, naval brig. He has not been charged with a crime, let\r\nalone convicted of one. The Executive [the president] will not state when, if ever, he will be released. Nor has the Executive allowed Hamdi to appear in court, consult with counsel, or communicate in any way with the outside world."\r\n\r\nI have not seen what I am about to quote from her dissent anywhere in the media. You might want to send what follows to your member of Congress\r\nand senator. Judge Motz said accusingly:\r\n\r\n"I fear that [this court] may also have opened the door to the indefinite detention, without access to a lawyer or the courts, of any American citizen, even one captured on American soil, who the Executive\r\ndesignates an 'enemy combatant,' as long as the Executive asserts that the area in which the citizen was detained was an 'active combat zone,' and the\r\ndetainee, deprived of access to the courts and counsel, cannot dispute this fact." (Emphasis added).\r\n\r\nAs I have detailed in two previous columns ("A Citizen Shorn of All Rights," Voice, January 1-7, 2003, and "Liberty's Court of Last Resort," Voice, January 29-February 4, 2003), Hamdi was taken into custody by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, and then declared an "enemy combatant" by order of George W. Bush on the flimsies of "evidence" that he had been a soldier of the Taliban--an accusation that Hamdi has not been able to rebut in a court of alleged law.\r\n\r\nJudge Motz is not engaging in scare tactics when she says that with the president having assumed the powers of an absolute monarch, in this kind of\r\ncase, any American citizen can be hauled off an American street and stripped of all his or her rights. On June 5, Attorney General John Ashcroft unequivocally told the House Judiciary Committee that the streets of America are now "a war zone."\r\n\r\nFurthermore, The Washington Post--in a July 13, 2002, lead editorial, a year before the Motz Fourth Circuit dissent--warned of the increasing tendency of the courts to defer to the dangerously overreaching executive branch:\r\n\r\n"FBI Director Robert Mueller has said that a sizable number of people in this country are associated with terrorist groups, yet have so far done nothing wrong [so] there is therefore no basis to indict them. How many of them, one wonders, might the government [by bypassing the courts] hold as enemy combatants? And how many of them would later turn out to be\r\nsomething else entirely?"\r\n\r\nBut how much later would these innocent citizens--locked away until the war on terrorism is over--be let out?\r\n\r\n\r\nThis is an unprecedentedly serious assault, folks, on the core of our system of justice. As Judge Motz said in her passionate dissent, "[This court's] decision marks the first time in our history that a federal court has approved the elimination of protections afforded a citizen by the Constitution solely on the basis of the Executive's designation of that citizen as an enemy combatant, without testing the accuracy of the\r\ndesignation. Neither the Constitution nor controlling precedent sanctions this holding." (Emphasis added).\r\n\r\n\r\nAs for the government's "evidence" that Hamdi is an enemy combatant, Judge Motz emphasizes that all the Defense Department offered is a\r\ntwo-page, nine-paragraph statement by Michael Mobbs, a special adviser for policy in the Defense Department. The buck stops with Donald Rumsfeld.\r\n\r\n As Judge Motz points out, the majority of the Fourth Circuit, in its "breathtaking holding" relying on the Mobbs declaration, ruled that it is "undisputed" that Hamdi was captured in a zone of active combat. This, she charges, is "pure hearsay . . . a thin reed on which to rest abrogation of constitutional rights, and one that collapses entirely upon examination. For Hamdi has never been given the opportunity to dispute any facts."\r\n\r\n\r\nBefore this case reached the Fourth Circuit, it was heard in Federal District Court--with Hamdi unable to be present or to communicate at all with his public defender, Frank Dunham, who therefore could not contest the Mobbs declaration. Nevertheless, Judge Robert Doumar, a Reagan appointee, scathingly demolished the government's "evidence."\r\n\r\n"A close inspection of the [Mobbs] declaration reveals that [it] never claims that Hamdi was fighting for the Taliban, nor that he was a member of the Taliban. . . . Is there anything in the Mobbs declaration that says\r\nHamdi ever fired a weapon?" (Emphasis added.)\r\n\r\nIn the January 9 New York Times, Elisa Massimino of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights exposed an earlier decision by a panel of the Fourth Circuit to bow to Bush and to continue the stripping of Hamdi's\r\ncitizen's rights. "[The Fourth Circuit] seems to be saying that it has no role whatsoever in overseeing the administration's conduct of the war on terrorism . . . the beginning and end of which is left solely to the\r\npresident's discretion."\r\n\r\nNow, the full Fourth Circuit bench has handed George W. Bush the crown that George Washington disdained. What if the Supreme Court agrees? Bush\r\nwill be King George IV.\r\n\r\n","author":"By Nat Hentoff -- posted by builder123","parent_id":73721,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-07-30 01:39:09","modified":"2003-07-30 01:39:09","fileurl":""}]}