Censorship is alive and well in Canada – just ask government scientists February 24, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in Canada, Civil Liberties, Media, Science and Technology.Tags: Canada, canada science, climate change, elizabeth renzetti, environment, freedom of information, Freedom of speech, roger hollander, science, scientists, Stephen Harper, university of victoria
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Roger’s note: Canada under the leadership of J. Edgar Harper.
Elizabeth Renzetti
The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Feb. 22 2013, 8:27 PM EST
Last updated Saturday, Feb. 23 2013, 9:01 AM EST
Freedom to Read Week begins on Feb. 24, bringing with it the perfect opportunity to kick the tires of democracy and make sure the old jalopy’s still running as she should.
What’s that you say? The bumper fell off when you touched it? The engine won’t turn over? That’s not so good. Better look under the hood.
We like to think of censorship as something that happens over there, in the faraway places where men break into houses at night to smash computers, or arrive in classrooms to remove books they don’t like. Not in lovely, calm, respectful Canada. Here we don’t necessarily notice freedoms being eroded slowly, grain by grain, “like sands through the hourglass,” if you’ll allow me to quote from Days of Our Lives.
Just ask Canada’s government scientists. Oh wait, you can’t ask them, because they’ve got duct tape over their mouths (metaphorical duct tape, but hey – it’s still painful). This week the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Clinic and Democracy Watch asked federal Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault to investigate claims that scientists are being prohibited from speaking freely with journalists – and through them, the public.
In a report called Muzzling Civil Servants: A Threat to Democracy, the UVic researchers present some chilling findings: Scientists are either told not to speak to journalists or to spout a chewed-over party line, rubber-stamped by their PR masters; the restrictions are particularly tight when a journalist is seeking information about research relating to climate change or the tar sands; Environment Canada scientists require approval from the Privy Council Office before speaking publicly on sensitive topics “such as climate change or protection of polar bear and caribou.”
You wouldn’t want the average citizen to learn too much about caribou, now. Who knows how crazy he could get with that kind of information? It could lead to panel discussions about Arctic hares, town halls on ptarmigans. The report states that government scientists are “frustrated,” which is hardly surprising. It’s like hiring Sandy Koufax and never letting him pitch.
The other thing that the report makes clear is how deliberate this strategy is: “The federal government has recently made concerted efforts to prevent the media – and through them, the general public – from speaking to government scientists, and this, in turn, impoverishes the public debate on issues of significant national concern.”
This is not an issue that’s going away. The Harper government’s heavy-handed control of scientists’ research has raised concerns across the world for a few years, including condemnation from such bastions of Marxism as Nature magazine.
A couple thousand scientists from across the country marched on Parliament Hill last July to protest cuts in research (many in the highly sensitive area of environment and climate change) and restrictions on their ability to speak freely about their work. They created what might be the best chant in the history of political protest: “What do we want? Science! When do we want it? After peer review!”
Last week, Margaret Munro of Postmedia News reported that a University of Delaware scientist was up in arms over a new confidentiality agreement brought in by Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans. “I’m not signing it,” Andreas Muenchow told the reporter. What does this mean for bilateral co-operation on research? Nothing good, that’s for sure.
The Vise-Grip on information is tightening and Ottawa is the muscle. Last month, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression released a report about the dire state of freedom of information requests: “Canada’s access to information system is in a deep crisis and without urgent reform could soon become dysfunctional,” the report noted. That means fewer requests being processed, at a more glacial pace, with more of the juicy bits blacked out by the government censor’s pen. This is the good stuff, people. The stuff the government doesn’t want you to know about. The stuff that’s kept in a filing cabinet in Gatineau under a sign that says, “Nothing here. Nope. Just a three-week-old tuna sandwich. And it’s radioactive.” This is the information we need to keep an eye on the government’s internal gears – and it’s being withheld.
Canada recently plummeted 10 places to No. 20 in the World Press Freedom Index, which measures how unfettered a country’s media is. Reporters Without Borders, which compiles the index, is concerned about the access-to-information issue and about the protection of journalists’ sources. The beacon we should now follow is Jamaica, whose press freedoms rank highest in the region.
It’s the perfect time to welcome Freedom to Read Week. There are events all over Canada and countless ways to celebrate our precious liberties. Bring your kids to the library. Read something you shouldn’t. Even better, write something you shouldn’t. A letter to your MP, perhaps?
US Congress passes authoritarian anti-protest law March 3, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Civil Liberties, Criminal Justice, Democracy, Occupy Wall Street Movement.Tags: #occupy movement, anti-protest, civil liberties, congress, Criminal Justice, democracy, demonstrations, dhs, first amendment, Freedom of speech, Homeland Security, ndaa, occupy wall street, political protest, roger hollander, tom carter
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By Tom Carter 3 March 2012, World Socialist Web Site, www.wsws,org
A bill passed Monday in the US House of Representatives and Thursday in the Senate would make it a felony—a serious criminal offense punishable by lengthy terms of incarceration—to participate in many forms of protest associated with the Occupy Wall Street protests of last year. Several commentators have dubbed it the “anti-Occupy” law, but its implications are far broader.
The bill—H.R. 347, or the “Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011”—was passed by unanimous consent in the Senate, while only Ron Paul and two other Republicans voted against the bill in the House of Representatives (the bill passed 388-3). Not a single Democratic politician voted against the bill.
The virtually unanimous passage of H.R. 347 starkly exposes the fact that, despite all the posturing, the Democrats and the Republicans stand shoulder to shoulder with the corporate and financial oligarchy, which regarded last year’s popular protests against social inequality with a mixture of fear and hostility.
Among the central provisions of H.R. 347 is a section that would make it a criminal offense to “enter or remain in” an area designated as “restricted.”
The bill defines the areas that qualify as “restricted” in extremely vague and broad terms. Restricted areas can include “a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting” and “a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance.”
The Secret Service provides bodyguards not just to the US president, but to a broad layer of top figures in the political establishment, including presidential candidates and foreign dignitaries.
Even more sinister is the provision regarding events of “national significance.” What circumstances constitute events of “national significance” is left to the unbridled discretion of the Department of Homeland Security. The occasion for virtually any large protest could be designated by the Department of Homeland Security as an event of “national significance,” making any demonstrations in the vicinity illegal.
For certain, included among such events would be the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, which have been classified as National Special Security Events (NSSE), a category created under the Clinton administration. These conventions have been the occasion for protests that have been subjected to ever increasing police restrictions and repression. Under H.R. 347, future protests at such events could be outright criminalized.
The standard punishment under the new law is a fine and up to one year in prison. If a weapon or serious physical injury is involved, the penalty may be increased to up to ten years.
Also criminalized by the bill is conduct “that impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions” and “obstructs or impedes ingress or egress to or from any restricted building or grounds.” These provisions, even more so than the provisions creating “restricted areas,” threaten to criminalize a broad range of protest activities that were previously perfectly legal.
In order to appreciate the unprecedented sweep of H.R. 347, it is necessary to consider a few examples:
A wide area around the next G-20 meeting or other global summit could be designated “restricted” by the Secret Service, such that any person who “enters” a that area can be subject to a fine and a year in jail under Section 1752(a)(1) (making it a felony to enter any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so).
Senator Rick Santorum, the ultra-right Republican presidential candidate, enjoys the protection of the Secret Service. Accordingly, a person who shouts “boo!” during a speech by Santorum could be subject to arrest and a year of imprisonment under Section 1752(a)(2) (making it a felony to “engag[e] in disorderly or disruptive conduct in” a restricted area).
Striking government workers who form a picket line near any event of “national significance” can be locked up under Section 1752(a)(3) (making it a crime to imped[e] ingress or egress to or from any restricted building or grounds).
Under the ancien regime in France, steps were taken to ensure that the “unwashed masses” were kept out of sight whenever a carriage containing an important aristocrat or church official was passing through. Similarly, H.R. 347 creates for the US president and other top officials a protest-free bubble or “no-free-speech zone” that follows them wherever they go, making sure the discontented multitude is kept out of the picture.
The Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act is plainly in violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which was passed in 1791 in the aftermath of the American Revolution. The First Amendment provides: “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . . or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (The arrogance of the Democratic and Republican politicians is staggering—what part of “Congress shall make no law” do they not understand?)
H.R. 347 comes on the heels of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which was signed by President Obama into law on December 31, 2011. The NDAA gives the president the power to order the assassination and incarceration of any person—including a US citizen—anywhere in the world without charge or trial.
The passage of H.R. 347 has been the subject of a virtual blackout in the media. In light of the unprecedented nature of the bill, which would effectively overturn the First Amendment, this blackout cannot be innocent. The media silence therefore represents a conscious effort to keep the American population in the dark as to the government’s efforts to eviscerate the Bill of Rights.
The bill would vastly expand a previous law making it misdemeanor to trespass on the grounds of the White House. An earlier version of the bill would have made it a felony just to “conspire” to engage in any of the conduct described above. The bill now awaits President Obama’s signature before it becomes the law of the land.
What lies behind the unprecedented attack underway on the US Constitution and Bill of Rights is a growing understanding in the ruling class that the protests that took place around the world against social inequality in 2011 will inevitably re-emerge in more and more powerful forms in 2012 and beyond, as austerity measures and the crashing economy make the conditions of life more and more impossible for the working class. The virtually unanimous support in Congress H.R. 347, among Democrats as well as Republicans, reflects overriding sentiment within the ruling establishment for scrapping all existing democratic rights in favor of dictatorial methods of rule.
This sentiment was most directly expressed this week by Wyoming Republican legislator David Miller, who recently introduced a bill into the state legislature that would give the state the power, in an “emergency,” to create its own standing army through conscription, print its own currency, acquire military aircraft, suspend the legislature, and establish martial law. “Things happen quickly sometimes—look at Libya, look at Egypt, look at those situations,” Miller told the Star-Tribune in Casper, Wyoming. Repeating arguments employed by every military dictatorship over the past century, Miller declared, “We wouldn’t have time to meet as a Legislature or even in special session to do anything to respond.” Miller’s so-called “doomsday law” was defeated in the Wyoming legislature Tuesday by the narrow margin of 30-27.
To the Winter Patriot November 23, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Civil Liberties, Occupy Wall Street Movement, War.Tags: #occupy movement, abby zimet, first amendment, Freedom of speech, mitch green, occupy wall street, ows, peace movement, police brutality, roger hollander, universal soldier, veterans for peace, winter patriot, winter soldier
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by Abby Zimet, www.commondreams.org, November 23, 2011
An impassioned open letter from Army vet and PhD economics student Mitch Green to his “brothers and sisters in the armed forces,” asking, What will you do when your bosses call you to put down the Occupy movement? Powerful.
Is this 84-year-old woman the new poster child of the Occupy movement? November 16, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Civil Liberties, Occupy Wall Street Movement.Tags: #occupy movement, dorli rainey, first amendment, Freedom of speech, joshua trujillo, lorianna de giorgio, occupy seattle, occupy wall street, pepper spray, rich lang, roger hollander, seattle police, westlake park
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Activist Dorli Rainey, 84, was hit with pepper spray during an Occupy Seattle protest on Tuesday at Westlake Park in Seattle.
Joshua Trujillo/AP
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Roger’s note: This photo depicts some of the damage resulting from the WWII Allied bombing of Dresden, a city with no military strategic value whatsoever. The fire-bombing of Dresden (which sort of prefigures the napalming of Vietnam) was promoted I believe by that great humanitarian Winston Churchill, as a way of punishing the German people for “allowing” the Nazi takeover of their country. As an aside, in a rare show of heart, Obama got rid of a statue of Churchill from the Oval Office because of torture of the president’s grandfather in Kenya under Churchill’s rule. Kurt Vonnegut had been captured by the Germans and was a prisoner of war in Dresden, where he survived the fire-bombing, which destroyed the city and killed thousands of civilians, in a shelter. His acclaimed novel, “Slaughterhouse Five,” was inspired by this experience.
by Abby Zimet
A nicely Tralfamadorian response to a decision by the Republic, Mo. school board to ban Slaughterhouse-Five,” Kurt Vonnegut’s trippy anti-war classic about the fire-bombing of Dresden, from its high school: the Vonnegut Memorial Library will offer a free copy to 150 students. The book was deliberately “jumbled and jangled,” he once said, “because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.”
“All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values… and I say let’s get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States.”
Anything Goes: The New FBI Guidelines June 23, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Civil Liberties, Criminal Justice, Democracy.Tags: church committee, civil liberties, dissent, fbi, fbi abuse, fbi informants, fbi spying, first amendment, frank church, free speech, Freedom of speech, michael ratner, michael ratner kunstler, police state, roger hollander
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The FBI should not be given more power to spy on dissenters in America. In fact, it should not have that power at all.
Once upon a time, the FBI could investigate a person or organization only when the agency had reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. This crucial requirement came about after the revelations of massive FBI abuse in the 1960s and early 1970s.
In 1976, Sen. Frank Church of Idaho held hearings on FBI wrongdoing. The Church Committee’s findings shed crucial light.
In the wake of the hearings, the attorney general of the United States drafted guidelines that mandated a criminal predicate before the FBI could launch an investigation. While often honored in the breach, and watered down over the years, until 9/11 this requirement served as a crucial bulwark against FBI intrusion into our protected First Amendment activities.
Unfortunately after the Sept. 11 attacks, first under Attorney General John Ashcroft and then under Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the requirement of a criminal predicate was removed. As a result, the FBI and other anti-terrorist agencies spied on many forms of legitimate protest and dissent. For example, pacifist groups such as the Thomas Merton Center and Catholic Worker were investigated under the rubric of domestic terrorism.
Protests have been a special target. For instance, 15 months prior to the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., a specially created FBI Intelligence Center began to spy on, and place informants in, groups it suspected were going to participate in demonstrations.
President Obama campaigned on protecting our civil liberties, so you might have expected his attorney general, Eric Holder, to provide people with greater protections from FBI snoops. But he has not. And it is about to get even worse.
The new Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide will empower the FBI to dispatch surveillance teams, to follow targets, to dig through trash, to search commercial databases and to expand the use of informants to infiltrate a wide range of organizations.
If you are part of a group that disagrees with government policy in Iraq or Afghanistan, or that dislikes nuclear energy, the next time you throw out your trash, an FBI agent may be examining it a few hours later — from what you eat to what you buy to what you read and think.
The next time you attend a meeting to fight for better schools, protest drug testing on animals or criticize almost any aspect of government policy, the person next to you may be an informant, recording everything you say. Or perhaps the informant will participate in the meeting, steering the organization’s activities in ways the government wishes.
It is now almost ten years after 9/11, the event that frightened many into giving the FBI broad spying authority — authority that now threatens the very essence of democracy. Piece by piece, the constitutional protections for dissent are disappearing.
It’s time for new congressional hearings, similar to the Church Committee’s, on FBI spying. We must protest the new expanded powers about to be bestowed on the FBI and follow that with a demand to Attorney General Holder for new guidelines ensuring that dissent and protest will be off-limits to the FBI.
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Michael Ratner is the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He is co-author with Margaret Ratner Kunstler of “Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in the Twenty-First Century”
Margaret Ratner Kunstler is former education director at the Center for Constitutional Rights. She is co-author with Michael Ratner of “Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in the Twenty-First Century”
Terrorism Law, the New McCarthyism February 23, 2010
Posted by rogerhollander in Civil Liberties, Criminal Justice, War on Terror.Tags: chandler davis, civil liberties, eric holder, first amendment, Freedom of speech, guilt by association, human rights, humanitarian law, McCarthyism, patriot act, roger hollander, smith act, stephen rohde, supreme court, terrorism, terrorist, war on terror
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Monday 22 February 2010
by: Stephen Rohde | The LA Daily Journal
(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: Joe Gratz, GrungeTextures)
Tomorrow, the US Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the first encounter with the free speech and association rights of American citizens in the context of terrorism since the 9/11 attacks, and in the first test of the constitutionality of a provision of the USA Patriot Act.
The “Material Support” law takes a sweeping approach to its ban on aid to terrorist groups, prohibiting the provision of cash, weapons and the like, as well as four more ambiguous categories – “training,” “personnel,” “expert advice or assistance” and “service.” Opponents of the law say that when it comes to providing lawful legal advice or training in nonviolence, the law is nothing more than “guilt by association,” reminiscent of the witch hunts of McCarthyism.
These are no paranoid fears. “Congress wants these organizations to be radioactive,” Douglas N. Letter, a Justice Department lawyer, said in a 2007 appeals court argument in the case, referring to the dozens of groups that have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the State Department. Letter admitted that it would be a crime for a lawyer to file a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of a designated organization or “to be assisting terrorist organizations in making presentations to the U.N., to television, [or] to a newspaper.”
The Humanitarian Law Project, a nonprofit group that has a long history of mediating international conflicts and promoting human rights, brought the case in 1998. Two years earlier, passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) had made it a crime to provide “material support” to groups the State Department had designated as “foreign terrorist organizations.” The definition of material support included “training” and “personnel.” Later versions of the law, including amendments in the USA Patriot Act, added “expert advice or assistance” and “service.”
In 2007, the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the bans on training, service and certain types of expert advice were unconstitutionally vague, but upheld the bans on personnel and expert advice derived from scientific or technical knowledge. Both sides appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the consolidated cases in October. The cases are Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, No. 08-1498, and Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder, No. 09-89.
David D. Cole, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents the challengers, is arguing that the case concerns speech protected by the First Amendment “promoting lawful, nonviolent activities,” including “human rights advocacy and peacemaking.”
A number of victims of McCarthy-era persecution filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Supreme Court to remember the lessons of history.
“I signed the brief,” said Chandler Davis, an emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Toronto, “because I can testify to the way in which the dubious repression of dissent disrupted lives and disrupted political discourse.” Professor Davis refused to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1954, and was dismissed from his position at the University of Michigan. Unable to find work in the United States, he moved to Canada. In 1991, the University of Michigan established an annual lecture series on academic freedom in honor of Professor Davis and others it had mistreated in the McCarthy era.
The material support law authorizes the secretary of state to designate “foreign terrorist organizations,” and makes it a crime to provide certain statutorily defined “material support” for even the nonviolent and humanitarian activities of such groups. Similar to the Smith Act and federal executive orders in the 1940s and ’50s, the law grants the executive branch unreviewable discretion to designate groups as “terrorist” and creates vague bans on providing “expert advice or assistance,” “training,” “service” or “personnel” to designated groups. It threatens, once again unconstitutionally, to interfere with the rights of free speech and association.
The AEDPA’s vague ban on “assistance” and “advice” is essentially no different from the McCarthy-era attempt to root out association with and advocacy for groups unpopular with the government. Starting in the 1930s, and through the 1960s, Congress and the executive branch identified organizations – the Communist Party and groups with ties to the Communist Party – as using illegal means, including terrorism, with the aim of overthrowing the US government by force and violence. The Smith Act and the Subversive Activities Control Act made it a crime to associate with these designated groups or to speak in support of these groups. These were crimes regardless of whether or not that speech or association supported or furthered the groups’ unlawful activities.
Our society now recognizes that the McCarthy era was a shameful episode in American history, characterized by widespread abuses of executive and legislative power, fueled by demagoguery and overzealous government action, ultimately encompassing “loyalty” investigations of over four million American citizens. See, e.g., Ellen Schrecker, “Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America” (1998), (the McCarthy era is “the most widespread and longest lasting period of political repression in American history.”).
While few individuals were ultimately prosecuted under the McCarthy-era laws, thousands were persecuted. Among the latter, larger group were Amici and their relatives, none of whom intended to or actually did engage in violence against this country. Nonetheless, they were investigated, libeled, terminated from and unable to secure employment, blacklisted, prosecuted and imprisoned. One of the key lessons from this era is that when the federal government fans the flames of public passion by enacting overreaching criminal statutes, staging Congressional hearings and investigating the loyalty of millions of American citizens, it implicitly condones and sanctions retributions against individuals, such as Amici. Eventually, our society and this court understood that these consequences were unacceptable. We should not make these mistakes again.
It is against this background that this court issued the decisions that are the controlling law that governs this case. In a series of landmark First Amendment decisions, this court struck down these statutes, restored freedom of speech and halted guilt by association. This court concluded that the Congressional and executive branch excesses were unconstitutional. The court held that punishing speech without showing incitement to crime and punishing association without showing specific intent to further illegal ends penalizes innocents and chills the political freedoms at the very core of our democracy.
These principles are equally applicable today, where the federal government (once again) has designated certain organizations as proscribed and purports to make it a crime to speak for or otherwise associate with such organizations. Now, when, once again, our safety and security have been threatened, this court should reaffirm the rights to free speech and association.
Stephen Rohde, a constitutional lawyer, was co-counsel with Arnold & Porter on the amicus brief filed by victims of McCarthyism in Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder.
© 2010 Daily Journal Corporation. All rights reserved.
U.S. journalist grilled at Canada border crossing November 30, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Canada, Civil Liberties, Media.Tags: amy goodman, border crossing, Canada, canada border, canada liberties, democracy, Democracy Now, free speech, Freedom of speech, journalism, Media, roger hollander, vancouver, vancouver olympics, winter olympics
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Officials demanded to know what she would say publicly about 2010 Olympics
Last Updated: Thursday, November 26, 2009 | 5:01 PM PT
CBC News
U.S. broadcaster and author Amy Goodman said she is concerned a journalist would have to undergo an interrogation while trying to enter Canada. (CBC)U.S. journalist Amy Goodman said she was stopped at a Canadian border crossing south of Vancouver on Wednesday and questioned for 90 minutes by authorities concerned she was coming to Canada to speak against the Olympics.
Goodman says Canadian Border Services Agency officials ultimately allowed her to enter Canada but returned her passport with a document demanding she leave the country within 48 hours.
Goodman, 52, known for her views opposing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, told CBC News on Thursday that Canadian border agents asked her repeatedly what subjects she would cover at scheduled speaking engagements in Vancouver and Victoria.
‘You’re saying you’re not talking about the Olympics?’—Canadian border agent
Goodman said she told them she planned to speak about the debate over U.S. health care reform and the wars in Asia.
After much questioning, Goodman said the officials finally asked if she would be speaking about the 2010 Olympics.
“He made it clear by saying, ‘What about the Olympics?'” said Goodman. “And I said, ‘You mean when President Obama went to Copenhagen to push for the Olympics in Chicago?'”
“He said, ‘No. I am talking about the Olympics here in 2010.’ I said, ‘Oh I hadn’t thought of that,'” said Goodman.
“He said, ‘You’re saying you’re not talking about the Olympics?'”
“He was clearly incredulous that I wasn’t going to be talking about the Olympics. He didn’t believe me,” Goodman said.
The CBSA declined comment on the incident Thursday.
Searched car, computer and notes
Goodman said her car was searched and the officials demanded to look at her notes and her computer.
Goodman is best known as the principal host of Democracy Now, a U.S. syndicated radio broadcast.
She was coming to Canada as part of a tour to promote a new book, Breaking The Sound Barrier.
“I am deeply concerned that as a journalist I would be flagged and that the concern – the major concern – was the content of my speech,” said Goodman.
Memos Provide Blueprint for Police State March 4, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Criminal Justice, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush.Tags: al-Qaeda, berkeley law school, bush justice department, cia, constitution, enemy combatants, eric holder, federal maiming statute, first amendment, fourth amendment, freedom of press, Freedom of speech, geneva conventions, international treaties, interrogation, jay bybee, john yoo, marjorie cohn, national lawyers guild, office professional responsibility, opr, police state, roger hollander, steven bradbury, Taliban, torture convention, torture memo, torutre, warrantless searches, warrantless seizures, waterboarding
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Seven ne wly released memos from the Bush Justice Department reveal a concerted strategy to cloak the President with power to override the Constitution. The memos provide “legal” rationales for the President to suspend freedom of speech and press; order warrantless searches and seizures, including wiretaps of U.S. citizens; lock up U.S. citizens indefinitely in the United States without criminal charges; send suspected terrorists to other countries where they will likely be tortured; and unilaterally abrogate treaties. According to the reasoning in the memos, Congress has no role to check and balance the executive. That is the definition of a police state.
Who wrote these memos? All but one were crafted in whole or in part by the infamous John Yoo and Jay Bybee, authors of the so-called “torture memos” that redefined torture much more narrowly than the U.S. definition of torture, and counseled the President how to torture and get away with it. In one memo, Yoo said the Justice Department would not enforce U.S. laws against torture, assault, maiming and stalking, in the detention and interrogation of enemy combatants.
What does the federal maiming statute prohibit? It makes it a crime for someone “with the intent to torture, maim, or disfigure” to “cut, bite, or slit the nose, ear or lip, or cut out or disable the tongue, or put out or destroy an eye, or cut off or disable a limb or any member of another person.” It further prohibits individuals from “throwing or pouring upon another person any scalding water, corrosive acid, or caustic substance” with like intent.
The two torture memos were later withdrawn after they became public because their legal reasoning was clearly defective. But they remained in effect long enough to authorize the torture and abuse of many prisoners in U.S. custody.
The seven memos just made public were also eventually disavowed, several years after they were written. Steven Bradbury, the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in Bush’s Department of Justice, issued two disclaimer memos – on October 6, 2008 and January 15, 2009 – that said the assertions in those seven memos did “not reflect the current views of this Office.” Why Bradbury waited until Bush was almost out of office to issue the disclaimers remains a mystery. Some speculate that Bradbury, knowing the new administration would likely release the memos, was trying to cover his backside.
Indeed, Yoo, Bybee and Bradbury are the three former Justice Department lawyers that the Office of Professional Responsibility singled out for criticism in its still unreleased report. The OPR could refer these lawyers for state bar discipline or even recommend criminal charges against them.
In his memos, Yoo justified giving unchecked authority to the President because the United States was in a “state of armed conflict.” Yoo wrote, “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.” Yoo made the preposterous argument that since deadly force could legitimately be used in self-defense in criminal cases, the President could suspend the Fourth Amendment because privacy rights are less serious than protection from the use of deadly force.
Bybee wrote in one of the memos that nothing can stop the President from sending al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners captured overseas to third countries, as long as he doesn’t intend for them to be tortured. But the Convention Against Torture, to which the United States is a party, says that no country can expel, return or extradite a person to another country “where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.” Bybee claimed the Torture Convention didn’t apply extraterritorially, a proposition roundly debunked by reputable scholars. The Bush administration reportedly engaged in this practice of extraordinary rendition 100 to 150 times as of March 2005.
The same day that Attorney General Eric Holder released the memos, the government revealed that the CIA had destroyed 92 videotapes of harsh interrogations of Abu Zubaida and Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, both of whom were subjected to waterboarding. The memo that authorized the CIA to waterboard, written the same day as one of Yoo/Bybee’s torture memos, has not yet been released.
Bush insisted that Zubaida was a dangerous terrorist, in spite of the contention of one of the FBI’s leading al Qaeda experts that Zubaida was schizophrenic, a bit player in the organization. Under torture, Zubaida admitted to everything under the sun – his information was virtually worthless.
There are more memos yet to be released. They will invariably implicate Bush officials and lawyers in the commission of torture, illegal surveillance, extraordinary rendition, and other violations of the law.
Meanwhile, John Yoo remains on the faculty of Berkeley Law School and Jay Bybee is a federal judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. These men, who advised Bush on how to create a police state, should be investigated, prosecuted, and disbarred. Yoo should be fired and Bybee impeached.
Maryland Police Redefine “Terrorist” – Activists Beware October 10, 2008
Posted by rogerhollander in Political Commentary.Tags: Freedom of speech, Maryland State Police and Terrorism, political activists targeted, roger hollander, terrorism, war on terrorism abuses
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“Terrorist” has been redefined by the Maryland State Police. If you oppose the death penalty or against the war in Iraq – so basically anyone that believes killing is immoral – now is a “terrorist.”
The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects. Police Superintendent Terrence B. Sheridan revealed at a legislative hearing that the surveillance operation, which targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq war, was far more extensive than was known when its existence was disclosed in July.
The department started sending letters of notification Saturday to the activists, inviting them to review their files before they are purged from the databases, Sheridan said. “The names don’t belong in there,” he told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. “It’s as simple as that.”
The surveillance took place over 14 months in 2005 and 2006, under the administration of former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R). The former state police superintendent who authorized the operation, Thomas E. Hutchins, defended the program in testimony yesterday. Hutchins said the program was a bulwark against potential violence and called the activists “fringe people.”
The police looked upon protestors as common criminals also. I guess they forgot the part of the Constitution that allows for free speech. They are using the Patriot Act to violate our civil rights; these over zealous police officers have over stepped their boundaries of authority. This is what Sheridan had to say on the subject.
Sheridan said protest groups were also entered as terrorist organizations in the databases, but his staff has not identified which ones. Stunned senators pressed Sheridan to apologize to the activists for the spying, assailed in an independent review last week as “overreaching” by law enforcement officials who were oblivious to their violation of the activists’ rights of free expression and association. The letter, obtained by The Washington Post, does not apologize but admits that the state police have “no evidence whatsoever of any involvement in violent crime” by those classified as terrorists.
Hutchins told the committee it was not accurate to describe the program as spying. “I doubt anyone who has used that term has ever met a spy,” he told the committee. His officers sought a “situational awareness” of the potential for disruption as death penalty opponents prepared to protest the executions of two men on death row, Hutchins said.
“I don’t believe the First Amendment is any guarantee to those who wish to disrupt the government,” he said. Hutchins said he did not notify Ehrlich about the surveillance. Ehrlich spokesman Henry Fawell said the governor had no comment.
Some activists said yesterday that they have received letters; others said they were waiting with anticipation to see whether they were on the state police watch list. Laura Lising of Catonsville, a member of the Baltimore Coalition Against the Death Penalty, received her notification yesterday. She said she wants a hard copy of her file, because she does not trust the police to purge it. “We need as much protection as possible,” she said.
Both Hutchins and Sheridan said the activists’ names were entered into the state police database as terrorists partly because the software offered limited options for classifying entries. The police also entered the activists’ names into the federal Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area database, which tracks suspected terrorists. One well-known antiwar activist from Baltimore, Max Obuszewski, was singled out in the intelligence logs released by the ACLU, which described a “primary crime” of “terrorism-anti-government” and a “secondary crime” of “terrorism-anti-war protesters.”
The Senators are stunned, my answer to that is, where the hell have you been for the last eight years. Or are they really that stupid.. Police State, coming soon, to a former Democracy near you!
“Always vote for principal, though you may vote alone, and you shall enjoy the sweet reward that your vote was never wasted.” John Quincy Adams
roger hollander 
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During the Vietnam conflict many African-American soldiers refused to be sent from Vietnam to the United States where they would have been part of a force that would have had to crack down on those who were taking part in demonstrations outside the Democratic presidential convention in Chicago in 1968. Many of them, just like those who participated in the GI movement back then, went to jail because of the principled stand that they had taken. So the members of the armed forces have to ask themselves if they feel that they belong, as Mitch Green inquires, to the world of humanity or to the world of the state.
The “general” mentality of those in these chosen types of work, fits well with what they are told to do. I suspect the percentage that will think for themselves and then have the courage to act on it ,will be few- unfortunately.
Great open letter. Exceptionally well written. Whether the very important distinction between sworn allegience to the constitution and allegience to the command structure will be well and fully appreciated by most ordinary “grunts” remains to be seen. But, if it is, the real American Revolution – Part II might be getting closer.
It’s about time we saw more of this. Huzzah Mitch Green and all of the other patriots who understand your duty. Those of us who took the oath need now more than ever to recognize who the enemy of the Constitution is. Is it those in Afghanistan or Iraq or many other locations in the world we are told are the enemy, or those who openly assault the Constitution as our current leaders so brazenly have done, some even calling it mere paper.
Thank you Mitch!
“Sadly, society has placed a twin tax upon you by asking that you sacrifice both your body and your morality…Now, more than ever we need your sacrifice. But, I’m asking you to soldier in a different way. If called upon to deny the people their first amendment right to peaceably assemble and petition their government for a redress of grievance, disregard the order. Abstain from service. Or if you are so bold, join us.–Mitch Green
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ He’s 5 foot 2 and he’s 6 feet 4 He fights with missiles and with spears He’s all of 31 and he’s only 17. He’s been a soldier for a thousand years
He’s a catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain A Buddhist, and a Baptist and Jew. And he knows he shouldn’t kill And he knows he always will kill You’ll for me my friend and me for you
And He’s fighting for Canada. He’s fighting for France. He’s fighting for the USA. And he’s fighting for the Russians. And he’s fighting for Japan And he thinks we’ll put an end to war this way.
And He’s fighting for democracy, He’s fighting for the reds He says it’s for the peace of all. He’s the one, who must decide, who’s to live and who’s to die. And he never sees the writing on the wall.
But without him, how would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau? Without him Caesar would have stood alone He’s the one who gives his body as a weapon of the war. And without him all this killing can’t go on
He’s the universal soldier And he really is the blame His orders comes from far away no more.
They come from him. And you and me. And brothers can’t you see. This is not the way we put an end to war –Buffy Sainte-Marie ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
Okay, nice letter. It is the question of the day for sure. In fact, it is the question that has gone unasked for many decades.
However, if you take a good look at the photo above what do you see?
Take a good look. Look at the details.
The upper one and the lower one both show well dressed people in affluent surroundings, (compared to say, most of Africa.) Both the police and the students have some access to money, obviously from the photos.
Now where does all this stuff come from? The nice jackets. The t shirts. The helmets, the guns, the backpacks, the glasses and the flag.
It comes from resources from the planet, which are delivered through supply chains, which are then made into products, which are then delivered through supply chains, and then put into the stores for people to buy.
Supply chains being the key factor here. Do you really think that if protestors block ports, as they did in Oakland, that is going to be allowed?
Do you want to starve in the next two weeks? Where do you think your food comes from? Where do you think all the jobs come from that make the t shirts, the glasses, the backpacks, the helmets, and all the rest?
Also, if the military and police stand down, at what point do you want them to stand back up? When YOUR job fails due to a strike, or maybe when your laptop isn’t delivered on time.
We live in an intricate network of resources and supply chains that crisscrosses the planet. Shut down this, and over here people will starve, or go to war.
Yes, people have a right to assembly, but yes, if you even THINK about shutting down the supply chains, you will face the full wrath of the world police, starting with the one’s closest to you, and working their way into more lethal fare.
What else would happen? Do you think people who own factories and stores will just let you shut them down out of principle?
Yes, the climate is changing. Yes resources are running out.
So, that’s the real trick. How do you change the system, without first shutting it down? And stay peaceful. (Because honey, they have weapons and weapons and weapons and weapons to deal with any kind of violence.)
How do you change the system that is destroying the environment and the economy, but at the same time prevent massive famine. If you fuck with the supply chain, you will cause massive famine. If you don’t change the system, the climate and environment are going to cause lots of trouble.
THAT is the question facing the young intelligent people today.
Soldiers who stand down will also have to face it.
Shutting down the supply with general strikes is EXACTLY what needs to happen if the occupies are anything more than a bourgeois hissy fit, I must admit I am starting to have my doubts. When workers start occupying factories like in Argentina (see the excellent film The Take Down) then I’ll be truly impressed. And the latest moves to roll up and become an old style day protest that disdains the actual occupation campers let by aging white middle class ex campus radical like Chris Hedges?
Not so much…
Prognosis gloomy I don’t think Americans have the balls for a general strike to shut down the supply chain that is raping the planet and third world workers, and our own workers though out sourcing.
Maybe not, but “queerplanet” seems extremely concerned about the possibility, and not alone one suspects.
Keep the resistance “passive”, folks. Do nothing that might actually cause inconvenience for your masters.
No wonder we have all the problems we do today – what with people like you letting their rights be trampled in the name of security, I have no doubt fascism will rule.
Figures you’d look at those two pictures, and instead of a seeing bunch of out of work people protesting and police abuse, you see products the terrible possibility that you may not be able to obtain them.
Yes, let’s everyone get arrested, beaten, all to just elect our elite’s hand-picked leaders. See what happens? If you would just sign the damn pledge that you’ll get up and pull that lever for Special X candidate, then we wouldn’t be demanding that you get arrested, get beaten, pepper sprayed, sound cannoned, soon to be tank/horse trampled, tasered, shot-at/on, etc, etc, etc… (In other words, if the polls were showing a landslide victory, we wouldn’t ask you to do this in the first place. You need the coaxing and prodding to get you to the voting booth, I predict….)
>>Where do you think all the jobs come from that make the t shirts, the glasses, the backpacks, the helmets, and all the rest?<<
The jobs are in CHINA, of course, where the corporate bastards have sent all of our jobs. It’s part of the reason for the OWS protest movement.
Nice posting, QP. Interesting…thoughtful & insightful.
But, everyone knows, revolution is never easy, pretty or tidy.
If it happens, it will truly be something to see.
Nice letter, BUT I have no doubt that uniformed troops will NOT be on the side of the people. Think about it. Little children glorify them. They have been awarded medals and honored with parades because of their willingness to kill. Very few will side with us. Those who do will be in prison, or worse. Think about Bradley Manning.
I am a vet and a member of VFP. Military training is very effective in removing any taboo against killing, and they do it in a matter of weeks. That’s what military training for officers and enlistees is all about.
Yeah, and for how long has the US sent troops around the world as if it were a football team that gets cheered on by the US citizens?
In a bizarre way the photo of the police holding weapons at the students is sadly amusing. What goes around comes around.
It was fine when those weapons are pointed at everyone else in the world to keep the resources and supplies flowing.
Yeah, some people knew it was happening and yeah, we knew people were being slaughtered OVER THERE, but then you go have more kids and go shopping and it drops from the front of important issues.
Only now…. good gawd…. holy fuck…..they are pointing the guns at OUR CHILDREN!!!
Oh gosh, how did that happen?
We are the ninety nine percent! Just keep chanting. Maybe they will go away.
queerplanet…GREAT COMMENT. The chickens have come home to roost.
And I agree with the other comment here…US citizens do not have the courage to resist in an effective way. In the US the brain washing starts very early – in day care centers, then in elementry schools, and on and on. Try this experiment…over the dinner table or on Main Street, mention the 500,000 Iraqi children who died because of US policies. See how many will deny that that ever happened – even though the official addmission is on tape and was seen around the world.
I talked to a 20s-something, PhD, well educated, Democrat Dept of Energy physicist who completely feels that oil must, MUST be sought out on every inch of this planet in order to fulfill all energy needs, because in his mind, there are no other energy alternatives to oil. I explained the 500K children dead in Iraq for that policy. He balked, and said Iraq had nothing to do with oil and our energy needs. KID YOU NOT! I explained the the Dept of Energy has its own “intelligence unit,” as one of 17 known intelligence agencies openly funded by our gov’t. He balked again, not believing such matters, saying Iraq is a terrorist security issue, and not an energy issue.
AND THIS FROM OUR SUPPOSED BEST AND BRIGHTEST! Imagine what the lesser educated, lesser informed, the lesser critical-thinking are understanding about such matters…
>> Imagine what the lesser educated, lesser informed, the lesser critical-thinking are understanding about such matters<<
Such as Fox “News” watchers…
>>mention the 500,000 Iraqi children who died because of US policies.<<
“We think it was worth it.” — Madame Defarge … er … I mean Madeleine Albright
There were no children on Madame Defarge’s list.
This is one of the existential struggles of Occupy: to neuter the elite’s ability to clamp down, as police brass are not numerous enough to do the actualy dirty work. There are halting signs already this is occuring, as two of the more notorious pepper spraying incidents (New York & UC Davis) were carried out by command personel.
Excellent letter by Mitch Green.
He is taking is oath seriously: I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.
Mitch has it right, we need protection from America’s domestic terrorists now. That would be the 1% that are traitors to the Constitution, the Bill Of Rights, and the 99%.
Army vet and PhD economics student Mitch Green
Thanks Sir, You are an American Patriot, unlike those who vote for , support, and profit from the Patriot Acts. The DHS, TSA, Chertoff and his scanner contracts, Fusion centers, etc.etc.etc.
The worst legislation in American history , created in 30 days by Bush/Cheney. An amazing mount of work done in 30 days, or were they just rewriting Hitlers manifesto.
This is the United States of America , the country that nurtured men who wrote the greatest Deceleration of Independence ever penned, and a constitution that forbids legislation like the Patriot Acts. This is not the Unites Stasi of America, or the United Spys of America.
Protest everything.
Bravo for the impassioned plea to your fellow comrades, Mitch Green!!!
The reality is that when ALL these foot soldiers refuse to brutalize the peaceful protesters, we have WON. So all those foot soldiers who are too cowardly to deny their orders or have a mental illness inside that makes them sadists, if you could sum up that courage to JUST SAY NO just this once in your life, you would have saved this country from this brutal fascist reign! So THINK OF IT. YOU CAN SAVE THIS COUNTRY, Soldiers, if you just say no.
I do not understand….
How does a man/woman put on a uniform and dismiss their conscience and their sense of justice..?
Excellent letter. Thanks Mitch!
Well, soldiers do take an oath to defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign AND domestic (emphasis on domestic), and they also have the right to refuse to obey an UNLAWFUL order…