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In Solidarity
By Kevin Cooper
On Thursday, December 9, 2010, the inmates in the state of Georgia sat down in unity and peace in order to stand up for their human rights.
African American, White, and Latino inmates put aside their differences, if they had any, and came together as a 'People' fighting for their humanity in a system that dehumanizes all of them.
For this they have my utmost respect and appreciation and support. I am in true solidarity with them all!
For further information about Kevin Cooper:
http://www.savekevincooper.org/
http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/essays_content.html?ID=255
Reasonable doubts about executing Kevin Cooper
Chronicle Editorial
Monday, December 13, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/13/EDG81GP0I7.DTL
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.
C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
D. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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Mon. Dec. 13, 5-7pm
Stop AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee)
Oakland Marriott Hotel, 1001 Broadway (12th St. BART)
On Mon., Dec. 13 AIPAC, the leading lobbying group demanding even more military aid to Israel-the No. 1 recipient of U.S. aid-will be holding its annual membership meeting in downtown Oakland. To see a flyer for the protest:
http://www.stopaipac.org/protestaipac.htm
The ANSWER Coalition is an endorser of this action.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org
http://www.AnswerSF.org
Answer@AnswerSF.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
415-821-6545
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TWO PLAYS: Wallace Shawn's, "The Fever" and Howard Zinn's, "Marx in Soho."
We are pleased to present both, Wallace Shawn's, "The Fever" and Howard Zinn's, "Marx in Soho." The two plays are complementary. "The Fever" is a raw portrayal of a person who is coming to social consciousness. "Marx in Soho" humanizes the man whose ideas describe these fundamental realities of our societies' social structure.
Two benefit performances by veteran actor and sociologist, Jerry Levy. LevyArts' mission is to utilize theater and social theory to entertain, enlighten and stimulate a constructive and reflective dialogue about society.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 7:00 P.M. "THE FEVER," a one-man play by Wallace Shawn
Wallace Shawn's play, "The Fever" explores what a sensitive, well educated, arts loving and consumption-driven man or woman of any age discovers when his/her life-affirming existence is related to the often brutal suffering of others. In the bathroom of a hotel our "anti-hero" feverishly defends and relentlessly attacks his own way of life. Inner voices and imagined characters fuel his fever as he narrates and often attempts to enact his story.
Actor Jerry Levy rehearses "The Fever," a one-man play which was be presented Dec. 4 and 10-12 at the Hooker-Dunham Theater in Brattleboro. (Jon Potter/Reformer)
http://www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_16720592
SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1:30 P.M. "MARX IN SOHO," a one-man play by Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn's play, "Marx in Soho" portrays the return of Karl Marx. Embedded in some secular afterlife where intellectuals, artists, and radicals are sent, Marx is given permission by the administrative committee to return to Soho London to have his say. But through a bureaucratic mix-up, he winds up in SOHO in New York. From there the audience is given a rare glimpse of a Marx seldom talked about; Marx the man. The play offers an entertaining and thorough introduction to a person who knows little about Marx's life, while also offering valuable insight to students of his ideas.
Centro del Pueblo
474 Valencia Street
(Between 16th and 15th Streets, San Francisco. Wheelchair accessible.)
Reserved ticket discounts for each play: $10.00
Tickets at the door: $20.00
No one turned away for lack of funds.
To reserve your discount tickets, email:
giobon@comcast.net
(Your name will be placed on a the discount ticket list at the door.)
To benefit: Barrios Unidos and Bay Area United Against War Newsletter, bauaw.org
"The Fever" presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Services Inc.
Marx in Soho by Howard Zinn (c) Howard Zinn Revocable Trust
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NEXT MEETING OF THE UNITED NATIONAL ANTIWAR COMMITTEE (UNAC)
SUNDAY, JANUARY 9, 1:00 P.M.
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO
474 VALENCIA STREET
(BETWEEN 16TH AND 15TH STREETS, SAN FRANCISCO)
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B. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.:
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15 year old Tells Establishment to Stick-it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U_gHUiL4P8&feature=player_embedded#
Andy Cousins
counterfire.org
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POLICE KETTLING (STUDENT DEMONSTRATION against the EDUCATION CUTS), LONDON, 30-11-2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRV9h2dyBVU&NR=1
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Oscar Grant family not convinced of Johannes Mehserle's tears
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anxXupa9_iw
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Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGqE726OAo&feature=player_embedded
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LOWKEY - TERRORIST? (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmBnvajSfWU
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You need to watch this video. It made us furious, and it made us cry.
It's a powerful reminder of the real faces behind unemployment statistics. It's about three minutes and it's worth every second so I hope you'll turn up your speakers and watch the whole thing.
The same senators who are fighting to charge $700 billion in tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires to our national credit card say extending unemployment is "too expensive" and "must be paid for." Meanwhile, more than one person a second is losing his or her lifeline.
If this video doesn't fuel your outrage and give you a sense of the human cost of delay on emergency unemployment, nothing will.
Please watch and send a strong message to your members of Congress. Tell them to restore unemployment insurance benefits for jobless workers who are being cut off right now at the rate of more than one a second.
Then, share this video with your friends and ask them to take action, too.
Let's fix this outrage.
Sincerely,
Manny Herrmann
Online Mobilization Coordinator, AFL-CIO
P.S. The online day of solidarity with jobless workers is coming Tuesday. Get ready to change your Facebook status and photo and to Tweet the word out. Thanks.
http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1011
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41st Native American Day Of Mourning: Thanksgiving Day- Nov. 25, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYmKess4hrc
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Road To Hope Convoy Reaches Gaza - Special Report
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_2sO-T_AjY
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A little holiday levity:
Check this out. It's for Willie Nelson (he's actually in it). It's a video from the Colbert Report and make sure to watch the very end:
http://rutube.ru/tracks/1248708.html
I have no money in my coffer,
No gold or silver do I bring,
Nor have I precious jewels to offer,
To celebrate the newborn king.
Yet do not spurn my gift completely,
O ye three wise men please demur,
Behold a plant that smokes more sweetly,
Than neither frankincense or myrrh.
And like a child born in this manger,
This herb is mild yet it is strong,
And it brings peace to friend and stranger,
Goodwill to men lies in this bong.
And now my wonder weed is flaring, - "Are you high?"
Lit like that special star above, - "Can it be?"
Pass it around in endless sharing, - "On christmas day"
And let not mankind bogart love. - "You'd smoke my tree!"
And the wise men started toking,
And yea, the bud was kind,
It was salvation they were smoking,
And his forgiveness blew their mind.
And still that wonder weed is flaring, - "Are you high?"
Lit like that special star above, - "You're so high!"
Pass it around in endless sharing, - "Dude, man, dude"
And let not mankind bogart love. - "You're really high, I'm gonna tell your savior"
And let not mankind bogart love.
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20 November 2010 Afghanistan: Time to Go
On 20 November 2010, as the Nato leaders met in Lisbon to discuss war strategy thousands of anti-war protesters marched through London calling for all British troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan now.
The march from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square was led by military families who have lost loved ones in the war, or who have relatives serving there now, and by Joe Glenton, the soldier who was jailed and court martialled for refusing to fight a war that he believed to be unjustified.
These videos capture the spirit of the day on which the cry was Afghanistan: Time to Go and Cut War Not Welfare.
Watch the great video's of this demonstration at this site:
http://stopwar.org.uk/content/view/2170/246/
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Don't Touch My Junk (the TSA Hustle) song + video by Michael Adams
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhEMRSp7vaY&feature=player_embedded
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Coal Ash: One Valley's Tale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E7h-DNvwx4&feature=player_embedded
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Bird's Eye View: You've Got To See This
Blog - BPs Oil Drilling Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico
Wednesday, 24 November 2010 11:22
http://healthygulf.org/201011241558/blog/bps-oil-drilling-disaster-in-the-gulf-of-mexico/birds-eye-view-you-ve-got-to-see-this
Yesterday's monitoring trip took me down to an isolated area on the eastern edge of Bay Ronquille on Louisiana's coast. Bay Ronquille is to the southeast of Barataria Bay. I went to this area after being informed by a source that there are stretches of beach near Ronquille that are "completely covered in oil "and "untouched "by any clean-up crew.
Our journey began in Myrtle Grove, LA aboard a boat with Captain Zach Mouton. On board this day was Jo Billups, GRN sponsor and member of the band Sassafrass, Randy Perez, a videographer from New Orleans, and my brother Jason Henderson, a Geography Professor visiting from San Francisco.
My source was correct in that there are miles long stretches of beach that are caked with huge mats of oil. There are enormous mats of tar that stretch from the shore to the water. In some spots, the tide covers the mats as it washes in only to reveal them as it washes back out. In other areas, the mats are so huge that they stretch from the sea bed all the way to the beach. It's impossible to tell how far out underwater they stretch. There are areas where you think you are standing on sand or mud only to realize that you are standing on huge blankets of weathered oil. There are tidal pools in the middle of the island that are filled with oil. The smell of oil is everywhere. Skulls and bones from dead birds and fish litter the sand and coyote tracks are all around. What a pity.
Whether BP has sent anyone to attempt to clean this area anytime in that last few months was hard to discern just by looking at the sand and soil. There were no usual tell-tell signs like tire tracks from four wheelers or left behind plastic bags., water bottles, and gloves. BP is aware of the area because as soon as we got onto the beach, a boat carrying BP workers saw us and sent someone to chase after us. Having been through this song and dance so many times with BP "supervisors", I decided to let my brother run interference while I foraged ahead to document the disaster. According to Jason, the BP contractor was cordial but did ask a lot of questions about who we were and what we were doing. The man explained that BP will be cleaning this area starting Monday, complete with heavy equipment and all. I am planning another trip next week to see if his claim is accurate. I've heard it all before.
By the way, on the way down to Bay Ronquille, we made a pass through Bay Jimmy. While the marsh is still covered in oil, there was not one clean up worker to be found anywhere in the Bay. That's funny considering I know of thousands of struggling out of work Gulf coast residents that would love a job cleaning up BP's mess.
Jonathan Henderson is the Coastal Resiliency Organizer for GRN
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Flashmob: Cape Town Opera say NO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wElyrFOnKPk
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Quantitative Easing Explained
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k&feature=player_embedded#
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Report: "Tar balls and black oily plumes" wash up in Apalachicola Bay, FL - 70 miles EAST of Panama City (VIDEO)
November 12th, 2010 at 09:02 AM Email Post
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Seattle Cop: 'I'll Beat the F--ing Mexican Piss Out of You Homey'
http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/05/seattle_cop_ill_beat_the_f---ing_mexican_piss_out_of_you_homey.html
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Burning Desperation
Self-immolation has become a common form of suicide for Afghan women. Photographer Lynsey Addario speaks with women who survived their suicide attempts.
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/11/07/world/1248069290784/burning-desperation.html?ref=world
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Anonymous BP cleanup worker: The oil "really hasn't even been touched"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vegVKrg84HI&feature=player_embedded
http://allhiphop.com/stories/editorial/archive/2010/11/09/22476630.aspx
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Tag-Team Wrestling
"We have Learned who is For Real and who is Frontin'."
Glen Ford speaks in West Haven, CT just before the Oct. 2010 "One Nation Working Together" DC demo. See his scathing comments about the speakers from the main stage at the actual demo at blackagendareport.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAIuTM3cK9I
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Video of massive French protest -- inspiring!
http://www.dailymotion.com/Talenceagauchevraiment
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UAW Workers Picket The UAW Over Two-Tier
http://rustbeltradical.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/uaw-workers-picket-the-uaw/
Rally To End Two-Tier & Stand in Solidarity with GM Lake Orion | UAW HQ, Detroit MI (1 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bST5aTYZa00&feature=player_embedded
Rally To End Two-Tier & Stand in Solidarity with GM Lake Orion | UAW HQ, Detroit MI (2 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHLb-KMXD9c&feature=player_embedded
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BP Contract Worker "Trenches Dug To Bury Oil On Beaches"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0qop9xbGv4&feature=player_embedded
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RETHINK Afghanistan: The 10th Year: Afghanistan Veterans Speak Out
http://rethinkafghanistan.com/
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Firefighters Watch As Home Burns:
Gene Cranick's House Destroyed In Tennessee Over $75 Fee
By Adam J. Rose
The Huffington Post -- videos
10- 5-10 12:12 AM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/04/firefighters-watch-as-hom_n_750272.html
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Soldier Describes Murder of Afghan for Sport in Leaked Tape
By ROBERT MACKEY
September 27, 2010, 6:43 pm
http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/soldier-describes-murder-of-afghan-for-sport-in-leaked-tape/?ref=world
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"Don't F*** With Our Activists" - Mobilizing Against FBI Raid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyG3dIUGQvQ
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Stephen Colbert's statement before Congress
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/39343087#39343087
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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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The $5 million for selling the Custer flag
should be donated to helping out Native
Americans, particularly those who are in
poverty with Caucasian diseases and freeze
to death on reservations because they cannot
afford to buy space heaters. By doing this, it
would be a minuscule contribution for all of
the indigenous people in the United States
that Custer murdered. Don't you think?
Little Bighorn Battlefield National
Monument
http://www.nps.gov/libi/index.htm
Sothbeys
http://www.sothebys.com/
Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
http://www.sandcreekmassacre.net
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
303-903-2103
"You must be the change you want to see in the world."
- Mahatma Gandhi
If you have received this message in error or do not wish to receive these, messages in future, please accept our apologies and reply with:, REMOVE in the Subject line. We sincerely regret any inconvenience.
Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle
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"Secret diplomacy is a necessary tool for a propertied minority, which is compelled to deceive the majority in order to subject it to its interests."..."Publishing State Secrets" By Leon Trotsky
Documents on Soviet Policy, Trotsky, iii, 2 p. 64
November 22, 1917
http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/foreign-relations/1917/November/22.htm
FREE JULIAN ASSANGE! FREE BRADLEY MANNING! STOP THE FBI RAIDS NOW!
MONEY FOR HUMAN NEEDS NOT WAR!
To understand how much a trillion dollars is, consider looking at it in terms of time:
A million seconds would be about eleven-and-one-half days; a billion seconds would be 31 years; and a trillion seconds would be 31,000 years!
From the novel "A Dark Tide," by Andrew Gross
Now think of it in terms of U.S. war dollars and bankster bailouts!
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Dear Friends, Please forward widely...
Dear Friends,
I write again to correct a possible mis-statement of the facts in my earlier email regarding Lynne's status. I called Lynne's husband, Ralph Poynter, today to learn more of the details of her situation.
Here's the basic facts:
1) Lynne's conviction on frame-up charges of conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism makes her a candidate for a maximum security prison. This is usually what happens with all male prisoners. They are segregated to terrible facilities within various federal prisons.
2) It appears that the treatment for female prisoners may differ, case by case, and especially so since the facilities for females with such a conviction are more limited.
3) At present Ralph reports, based on talks with Lynne, that plans are underway to send her to a permanent prison as opposed to her present place of incarceration at the Manhattan Correctional Institution in New York City.
4) Rumors have it that she is being considered for a terrible facility in Texas as well as for a much better facility in Danbury, Connecticut. No one knows for sure as the government's Bureau of Prisons has made no public decisions and people have been relegated to rumors of every sort.
5) Lynne has been informed that a decision is immanent and that if Ralph doesn't hear from her each day, she will be en route to wherever they choose to send her.
To conclude, there is still some hope that Lynne will be sent to Danbury, CT. As prisons go, this is the best variant and close to NYC by train, making it easier for family visits. But there is also a strong possibility that she will be sent to a bad Texas prison.
I will keep you posted.
In solidarity,
Jeff
I just received a terribly sad one-sentence letter from Ralph Poynter, Lynne Stewart's husband. Lynne will very be shortly (if not already) sent to a maximum security prison, location still unknown, but possibly in Texas.
Lynne had previously requested that her ten-year sentence be served at Danbury Federal Correction Institution, a minimum security prison, but with several amenities that make prison life more tolerable. Danbury was the place where the famous Hollywood Ten were incarcerated in the 1950s. But vindictive prison officials, utilizing the pretext that Lynne was (falsely) convicted of conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism, placed her in a terrible facility far away from her friends and family.
Lynne's appeals of her conviction and sentence will continue to the U.S. Court of Appeals, the very court that previously, in essence, ordered Lynne's sentence to be reviewed and extended. Lynne was originally sentenced to 28 months, only to have her sentence revisited by the same Judge John Koeltl. Judge Koeltl had originally ordered that Lynne serve a 28-month sentence. He undoubtedly bent to the pressures of his "superiors" and handed Lynne a terrible sentence of ten years, a term that Lynne, in poor health, will have a hard time serving. She has already been in prison for about one year and will likely receive an automatic "good behavior" sentence reduction of ten percent, making the date of her release some eight years from now.
Without doubt we must continue the fight for Lynne's freedom and for her assignment to a prison that is the most conducive to Lynne's comfort and well-being.
This will require some significant fund-raising to assist Ralph and Lynne's family to make regular visits.
Please make your generous check payable to:
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York 11216
Please send a note to me as well so I can keep in close touch regarding future developments.
I have enclosed a recent letter of solidarity that Lynne sent to a California meeting celebrating the life of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, whose horrific execution five years ago outraged social justice activists around the world.
In solidarity,
Jeff Mackler,West Coast Coordinator
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
510-268-9429
Tribute to Tookie
Message From Lynne Stewart to the Fifth Annual Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Summit coming up:
Sunday, December 12th, 2010
4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Merritt College
Huey P. Newton/Bobby Seale Student Lounge
12500 Campus Drive, Oakland
Tookie Williams may have left us five years ago but I believe and hope he will live on in our consciousness as a symbol of both the evils of this society and also the possibility of human redemption against overwhelming odds.
For me, Tookie represents the very real genocide in the African American communities of this country. The spiral, as my friend and colleague, ex-convict Eddie Ellis repeats on his "On the Count" radio show on WBAI, is from the plantation to the projects to the penitentiary. This is a descent into death fueled by educational systems that quit on the children before they are even enrolled in school and whose main purpose is to make sure the paychecks leave the inner cities and enrich the suburbs. They dumb-down and then leave alienated adolescents, provided they haven't already dropped out, full of anger, resentment and devoid of any clue of political understanding. Although poverty worsens this despair, it is not limited to those who have little; this racial depression also rages in the Black middle class because it is, at its root, born of the racism that still thrives in this society.
In the 1960's (and not to idealize) the "revolution" was recruiting everywhere but most successfully in the Universities and the Prisons. George Jackson, Attica, were the textbooks studied by persons similarly situated. Now the prisons hold elderly, respected heroes, political prisoners, POWs, and those more recently framed by the police state (Mumia, the Scott Sisters, Troy Davis, entrapped Muslims). Many of these came to jail already politicized and active. But the vast majority in prison today, are scooped off the street-a generation of mostly young men. They have attitude but not much else to build with.
Not Tookie-while he represented the vast majority of prisoners who ended up in jail, programmed for the trip since birth for all the reasons advanced above-but because the human spirit is indomitable and he was a person whose innate intellect had not been destroyed and who was able to discern the enticements and bling of a false, fraudulent society and begin to resist them. He changed, in jail. And that change led to his homicide by the State of California.
However, the careless society that produced him and thousands like him that remain in our prisons has not changed. Their goals are political-to remove and imprison the unlit dynamite of social change, to prove that crime can be deterred by the death penalty that kills and the lifetime imprisonments that throw away redeemable human beings. Tookie represented the bright hope. He was a shining example that change was possible, achievable. His efforts toward negotiation between warring factions and his understanding of the root causes that sparked "gang" wars made him stand out and so, THEY took him out.
We are here today to affirm out belief in the Tookie Williams' who are still behind bars, to acknowledge forthrightly the death of the intellect and curiosity of children wrought by the schools they attend and to stand against the genocide of African Americans. You can't see the boxcars or the concentration camps? Just sniff the air for the smoke of lives burnt up/out.
Love Struggle Lynne Stewart
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MIDDLE EAST CHILDREN'S ALLIANCE
Your Year-End Gift for the Children
Double your impact with this matching gift opportunity!
Dear Friend of the Children,
You may have recently received a letter from me via regular mail with a review of the important things you helped MECA accomplish for the children in 2010, along with a special Maia Project decal.
My letter to you also included an announcement of MECA's first ever matching gift offer. One of our most generous supporters will match all gifts received by December 31. 2010 to a total of $35,000.
So, whether you are a long time supporter, or giving for the first-time... Whether you can give $10 or $1,000... This is a unique opportunity to double the impact of your year-end gift!
Your contribution will be matched dollar for dollar, making it go twice as far so that MECA can:
* Install twenty more permanent drinking water units in Gaza schools though our Maia Project
* Continue our work with Playgrounds for Palestine to complete a community park in the besieged East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, where violent Israeli settlers attack children and adults, Israeli police arrest the victims, and the city conducts "administrative demolitions" of Palestinian homes.
* Send a large medical aid shipment to Gaza.
* Renew support for "Let the Children Play and Heal," a program in Gaza to help children cope with trauma and grief through arts programs, referrals to therapists, educational materials for families and training for mothers.
Your support for the Middle East Children's Alliance's delivers real, often life-saving, help. And it does more than that. It sends a message of hope and solidarity to Palestine-showing the people that we are standing beside them as they struggle to bring about a better life for their children.
With warm regards,
Barbara Lubin
Founder and Director
P.S. Please give as much as you possible can, and please make your contribution now, so it will be doubled. Thank you so much.
P.S.S. If you didn't receive a MAIA Project decal in the mail or if you would like another one, please send an email message to meca@mecaforpeace.org with "MAIA Project decal" in the subject line when you make your contribution.
To make a gift by mail send to:
MECA, 1101 8th Street, Berkley, CA 94710
To make a gift by phone, please call MECA's off at: 510-548-0542
To "GO PAPERLESS" and receive all your MECA communications by email, send a message to meca@mecaforpeace.org with "Paperless" in the subject line.
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AN ATTACK AGAINST ONE IS AN ATTACK AGAINST ALL! WE ARE ONLY AS STRONG AS OUR WEAKEST LINK! UNITY AND SOLIDARITY AGAINST THESE ATTACKS IS OUR MOST POWERFUL DEFENSE!
THIS JUST IN: NEW GRAND JURY INVESTIGATIONS; AND ATTACK AGAINST JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE ACTIVISTS:
FBI Raid Victims Get New Grand Jury Subpoenas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIlMwbkIo2E
APNewsBreak: Activists called back to grand jury
By AMY FORLITI
The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 17, 2010; 6:10 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/17/AR2010111705560.html
MINNEAPOLIS -- Three Minnesota anti-war activists who refused to testify before a federal grand jury in Chicago after their homes were raided in a terrorism investigation have been told they'll be called again, an attorney told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
In late September, authorities searched seven homes and an office in Minneapolis and Chicago in what the FBI said was an investigation into material support of terrorism. Fourteen activists in the two states were summoned to testify, but they refused and their subpoenas were postponed.
None of the activists have been charged. Warrants suggest agents were looking for connections between them and terrorist groups in Colombia and the Middle East.
Bruce Nestor, an attorney who represents some of the activists, said Wednesday that three of them have been told they'll be called back to the grand jury, but it's not clear when. Individual attorneys for those activists are working out details with prosecutors, Nestor said.
"They don't have a specific date, but they are being told that basically they will be called back in front of the grand jury," Nestor said. "They all have individual counsel, and those individual counsel are in the process of discussing with the U.S. attorney the details as to how proceed."
Randall Samborn, a spokesman with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago, declined to comment about the case, saying he could neither confirm nor deny anything involving a federal grand jury because such proceedings are confidential.
Nestor said activists Anh Pham, Sarah Martin and Tracy Molm - whose homes were raided in September - have been told they'll be called again before the grand jury.
"These three are being called back, and within a matter of weeks will be facing the decision of testifying or facing contempt," Nestor said.
Pham said Wednesday she knew little about the situation and declined comment until she had a chance to talk to her attorney. Messages left for Martin were not immediately returned, and a phone number for Molm was not immediately available.
The activists said previously that they wouldn't appear before a grand jury because they felt grand juries had historically been used to harass activists and that testifying in secret would stifle free speech.
The government has not revealed the target of its investigation, but the activists have said they felt singled out because of their work in the anti-war movement.
"The government is not saying much, and they kind of hold all the cards at the moment," Nestor said.
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NOTE TO READERS:
The BAUAW Newsletter stands squarely opposed to the Grand Jury investigation of antiwar and social justice activists. An injury to one is an injury to all. We are all under attack now! We must stand united in defense of our fellow activists!
We have a right to fight injustice wherever it occurs in the world! Justice is an inalienable human right for everyone!
We are also alarmed and outraged about the recent pepper-spray attack against Jewish Voice for Peace activists at their own meeting carried out by Zionist thugs:
Right-wing Israel advocacy group San Francisco Voice for Israel/StandWithUs
Member Pepper Sprays Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) members
at Bay Area JVP Chapter Meeting. Wraps self in Israeli flag.
Group well known in Bay Area for harassing and intimidating peace activists
Contact: Jesse AT Jvp.org
[Oakland, CA November 15, 2010]
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/blog/right-wing-israel-advocacy-group-pepper-sprays-jewish-voice-peace-jvp-members
Sunday night, November 14, 2010, up to a dozen members of San Francisco Voice for Israel/StandWithUs, a right-wing Israeli advocacy group with a documented track record of aggressively taunting and intimidating grassroots peace activists, attended a Bay Area Jewish Voice for Peace community meeting at a South Berkeley Senior Center.
Jewish Voice for Peace is the largest U.S. Jewish peace group dedicated to a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on democracy and full equality --- the Bay Area chapter is the founding chapter of the organization. Approximately 50 to 60 people were at the meeting, and numerous witnesses are available to corroborate the events.
Watch video of some of the disruptions and the victims and perpetrator of attacks here:
StandWithUs/SF Voice for Israel Pepper-sprays peace activists
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLO2xKcYDwc
Eyewitness testimonies are here:
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/blog/eyewitness-testimony-jvp-member-about-stand-us-swu-attacks
and here:
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/blog/eyewitness-report-stand-us-attacks-jvp-meeting
Article by a Berkeley Daily Planet reporter here:
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/blog/eyewitness-testimony-berekeley-daily-planet-reporter-about-swu-attacks
Americans for Peace Now condemned the attack here:
http://peacenow.org/entries/post_25
and Meretz USA called it not a legitimate part of Jewish communal discourse here.
http://meretzusa.blogspot.com/2010/11/meretz-usa-violence-not-legitimate-part.html
Wrapped in an Israeli flag, San Francisco Voice for Israel/StandWithUs (SFVI/SWU) member Robin Dubner, an Oakland based attorney, pepper-sprayed two JVP members in the eyes and face after they attempted to nonviolently block her ability to aggressively videotape the faces of JVP meeting attendees against their will. The members, Alexei Folger and Glen Hauer, were careful to make no physical contact with her or her camera prior to the attack.
Folger said, "I did not see it coming and all of a sudden there was gooey stuff all over my head and hand. I have never been pepper-sprayed before, my whole head felt like it was on fire."
JVP had earlier this year filed a police report about a June SFVI/SWU protest at which JVP and (peace group) Women in Black members were intimidatingly videotaped and threatened by a StandWithUs supporter after being taunted with chants like "Nazi, Nazi, Nazi" or "Kapo,Kapo,Kapo".
Caught on a widely seen videotape was a SFVI/SWU supporter pointing his camera to the faces of silent peace vigil participants while saying "You're all being identified, every last one of you...we will find out where you live. We're going to make your lives difficult. We will disrupt your families..."
For that reason, JVP members were particularly concerned about protecting the safety of meeting attendees and preventing the videotaping.
Hauer, a retired attorney and member of San Francisco's Congregation Sha'har Zahav who was treated for pepper spray explained, "When one of the intruders [Dubner] continued standing and filming people despite the facilitator and facility manager repeatedly telling her that she could not, I first asked her politely to please put away the video camera, then several times told her to put away the camera, and then tried nonviolently to stay in front of the camera with my body, even when she shoved me. I could have taken the camera but decided instead to talk to the woman and to try to be the only person she photographed."
Hauer, who also leads groups on healing from WWII & the Holocaust, and speaks to churches about anti-Semitism as it relates to the movement for peace in the Middle East, went on:
"In my mind was the history of targeting of Jewish peace activists by the right wing of the Jewish community--the posting of our photos on internet hate sites, for example, followed by acts of vandalism at our homes and places of work. There were many in the room for whom I care deeply. I could also see that many at the meeting were new to the work we were doing, and I did not want them to be scared away."
Dubner was accompanied by up to a dozen other StandWithUs members--including Dan Spitzer, Susan Meyers, Mike Harris, Bea Lieberman, Faith Meltzer, and Ross Meltzer--who repeatedly disrupted and aggressively videotaped the JVP meeting and JVP members against their will, wielding the cameras in an intimidating and belligerent manner. Despite repeated requests from the JVP meeting facilitator and other JVP activists to desist from recording and put away their videocameras, the SFVI/SWU activists - who had spread themselves throughout the room - continued to record and launch lengthy monologues while the presenters attempted to speak.
They were explicitly invited by the JVP facilitator to stay in the meeting and participate without videotaping but they refused. They also refused offers for floor time by the presenters. The manager of the facility asked the SFVI/SWU members to abide by JVP's rules or face the police, and when SFVI/SWU refused to comply with JVP's protocol, the police were called.
At one point, JVP members and presenters worked to restore calm and de-escalate by singing the Hebrew peace song, Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu (Peace will come to us) while waiting for the police to arrive. Most meeting attendees did not know until later that 2 people had been attacked with pepper spray.
When police arrived, Dubner was temporarily placed in handcuffs while other members of San Francisco Voice for Israel/StandWithUs remained inside the meeting blowing loud whistles, using videocameras to intimidate meeting attendees.
Dubner refused repeated requests by JVP members or the police to identify the substance she sprayed. A police officer later identified it as pepper spray and paramedics were called to help treat the victims of the attack. One of them, Alexei Folger, looked visibly red and swollen, as though she had been burned on more than half her face.
Immediately following the attack, Ms. Folger, not knowing the nature of the substance on her face, rubbed some of it on Ms. Dubner's shirtsleeve at which point Ms.Dubner, who is a large woman, started physically shoving the petite Ms. Folger. A Jewish Voice for Peace staff member stood between them to prevent further escalation or physical contact between Ms Dubner and the shocked and injured Ms. Folger.
This deliberate confrontation is part of a pattern of escalating intimidation and attacks against peace activists in the Bay Area. Earlier this year, the home of Tikkun Magazine editor Michael Lerner was covered in threatening posters. In addition to the videotaped harassment of Women in Black and JVP members, several months ago someone placed threatening graffiti outside of the JVP offices.
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These actions cannot be tolerated by the peace and justice movement--anywhere! We have a right to meet and protest injustice without being harassed, videotaped, pepper-sprayed, disrupted or summoned by the FBI for Grand Jury questioning!
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War Newsletter. bauaw.org
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For Immediate Release
Antiwar movement supports Wikileaks and calls for and independent, international investigation of the crimes that have been exposed. We call for the release of Bradley Manning and the end to the harassment of Julian Assange.
12/2/2010
For more information: Joe Lombardo, 518-281-1968,
UNACpeace@gmail.org, NationalPeaceConference.org
Antiwar movement supports Wikileaks and calls for and independent, international investigation of the crimes that have been exposed. We call for the release of Bradley Manning and the end to the harassment of Julian Assange.
The United National Antiwar Committee (UNAC) calls for the release of Bradley Manning who is awaiting trial accused of leaking the material to Wikileaks that has been released over the past several months. We also call for an end to the harassment of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks and we call for an independent, international investigation of the illegal activity exposed through the material released by Wikileaks.
Before sending the material to Wikileaks, Bradley Manning tried to get his superiors in the military to do something about what he understood to be clear violations of international law. His superiors told him to keep quiet so Manning did the right thing; he exposed the illegal activity to the world.
The Afghan material leaked earlier shows military higher-ups telling soldiers to kill enemy combatants who were trying to surrender. The Iraq Wikileaks video from 2007 shows the US military killing civilians and news reporters from a helicopter while laughing about it. The widespread corruption among U.S. allies has been exposed by the most recent leaks of diplomatic cables. Yet, instead of calling for change in these policies, we hear only a call to suppress further leaks.
At the national antiwar conference held in Albany in July, 2010, at which UNAC was founded, we heard from Ethan McCord, one of the soldiers on the ground during the helicopter attack on the civilians in Iraq exposed by Wikileaks (see: http://www.mediasanctuary.org/movie/1810 ). He talked about removing wounded children from a civilian vehicle that the US military had shot up. It affected him so powerfully that he and another soldier who witnessed the massacre wrote a letter of apology to the families of the civilians who were killed.
We ask why this material was classified in the first place. There were no state secrets in the material, only evidence of illegal and immoral activity by the US military, the US government and its allies. To try to cover this up by classifying the material is a violation of our right to know the truth about these wars. In this respect, Bradley Manning and Julian Assange should be held up as heroes, not hounded for exposing the truth.
UNAC calls for an end to the illegal and immoral policies exposed by Wikileaks and an immediate end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and an end to threats against Iran and North Korea.
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FREE THE SCOTT SISTERS
http://mije.org/node/1343
freethescottsisters.blogspot.com/
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Courage to Resist needs your support
By Jeff Paterson, Courage to Resist.
It's been quite a ride the last four months since we took up the defense of accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning. Since then, we helped form the Bradley Manning Support Network, established a defense fund, and have already paid over half of Bradley's total $100,000 in estimated legal expenses.
Now, I'm asking for your support of Courage to Resist so that we can continue to support not only Bradley, but the scores of other troops who are coming into conflict with military authorities due to reasons of conscience.
Please donate today:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
"Soldiers sworn oath is to defend and support the Constitution. Bradley Manning has been defending and supporting our Constitution."
-Dan Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistle-blower
Iraq War over? Afghanistan occupation winding down? Not from what we see. Please take a look at, "Soldier Jeff Hanks refuses deployment, seeks PTSD help" in our December newsletter. Jeff's situation is not isolated. Actually, his story is only unique in that he has chosen to share it with us in the hopes that it may result in some change. Jeff's case also illustrates the importance of Iraq Veterans Against the War's new "Operation Recovery" campaign which calls for an end to the deployment of traumatized troops.
Most of the folks who call us for help continue to be effected by Stoploss, a program that involuntarily extends enlistments (despite Army promises of its demise), or the Individual Ready Reserve which recalls thousands of former Soldiers and Marines quarterly from civilian life.
Another example of our efforts is Kyle Wesolowski. After returning from Iraq, Kyle submitted an application for a conscientious objector discharge based on his Buddhist faith. Kyle explains, "My experience of physical threats, religious persecution, and general abuse seems to speak of a system that appears to be broken.... It appears that I have no other recourse but to now refuse all duties that prepare myself for war or aid in any way shape or form to other soldiers in conditioning them to go to war." We believe he shouldn't have to walk this path alone.
Sincerely,
Jeff Paterson
Project Director, Courage to Resist
First US military service member to refuse to fight in Iraq
Please donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
P.S. I'm asking that you consider a contribution of $50 or more, or possibly becoming a sustainer at $15 a month. Of course, now is also a perfect time to make a end of year tax-deductible donation. Thanks again for your support!
Please click here to forward this to a friend who might
also be interested in supporting GI resisters.
http://ymlp.com/forward.php?id=lS3tR&e=bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com
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San Francisco Labor Council Resolution Adopted unanimously on Nov. 8, 2010
Resolution Condemning Police Attack on Free Speech & Assembly following Oscar Grant Rally
Whereas, on Friday November 5, former BART cop Johannes Mehserle was given a jail sentence of 2 years for the 'involuntary manslaughter' of Oscar Grant. Subtracting time served and 'good behavior', Mehserle may be back on the streets in as little as 7 months; and
Whereas, the organizers of a November 5th Rally and Gathering in Frank Ogawa Plaza to honor Oscar Grant and Respond to the sentencing of Johannes Mehserle, were refused a permit for an organized march after the rally to an indoor gathering at DeFremery Park; and
Whereas, after the rally many hundreds of community members spontaneously started marching toward Fruitvale BART, the site of Oscar Grant's murder, and after the cops sealed off an entire city block, police did not allow people to disperse, called it a 'crime scene', and arrested 152 people, including San Francisco Labor Council Delegate Dave Welsh, resulting in more arrests than at any other Oscar Grant-related protest; and
Whereas, most arrestees have been cited on misdemeanor charges, held for 24 hours and have mass arraignments in the first week of December at Wiley Manuel Courthouse, 661 Washington Street in Oakland.
Therefore be It Resolved, that the San Francisco Labor Council condemns this assault on freedom of speech and assembly and demands that all these misdemeanor assembly charges be dropped.
Presented by Marcus Holder, delegate from ILWU Local 10, and adopted unanimously at the regular delegates meeting of the San Francisco Labor Council held Nov. 8, 2010 in San Francisco, California.
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Add your name! We stand with Bradley Manning.
"We stand for truth, for government transparency, and for an end to our tax-dollars funding endless occupation abroad... We stand with accused whistle-blower US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning."
Dear All,
The Bradley Manning Support Network and Courage to Resist are launching a new campaign, and we wanted to give you a chance to be among the first to add your name to this international effort. If you sign the letter online, we'll print out and mail two letters to Army officials on your behalf. With your permission, we may also use your name on the online petition and in upcoming media ads.
Read the complete public letter and add your name at:
http://standwithbrad.org/
Courage to Resist (http://couragetoresist.org)
on behalf of the Bradley Manning Support Network (http://bradleymanning.org)
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
510-488-3559
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Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Dear Friend,
On Friday, September 24th, the FBI raided homes in Chicago and Minneapolis, and turned the Anti-War Committee office upside down. We were shocked. Our response was strong however and we jumped into action holding emergency protests. When the FBI seized activists' personal computers, cell phones, and papers claiming they were investigating "material support for terrorism", they had no idea there would be such an outpouring of support from the anti-war movement across this country! Over 61 cities protested, with crowds of 500 in Minneapolis and Chicago. Activists distributed 12,000 leaflets at the One Nation Rally in Washington D.C. Supporters made thousands of calls to President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder. Solidarity statements from community organizations, unions, and other groups come in every day. By organizing against the attacks, the movement grows stronger.
At the same time, trusted lawyers stepped up to form a legal team and mount a defense. All fourteen activists signed letters refusing to testify. So Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Fox withdrew the subpoenas, but this is far from over. In fact, the repression is just starting. The FBI continues to question activists at their homes and work places. The U.S. government is trying to put people in jail for anti-war and international solidarity activism and there is no indication they are backing off. The U.S. Attorney has many options and a lot of power-he may re-issue subpoenas, attempt to force people to testify under threat of imprisonment, or make arrests.
To be successful in pushing back this attack, we need your donation. We need you to make substantial contributions like $1000, $500, and $200. We understand many of you are like us, and can only afford $50, $20, or $10, but we ask you to dig deep. The legal bills can easily run into the hundreds of thousands. We are all united to defend a movement for peace and justice that seeks friendship with people in other countries. These fourteen anti-war activists have done nothing wrong, yet their freedom is at stake.
It is essential that we defend our sisters and brothers who are facing FBI repression and the Grand Jury process. With each of your contributions, the movement grows stronger.
Please make a donation today at stopfbi.net (PayPal) on the right side of your screen. Also you can write to:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
This is a critical time for us to stand together, defend free speech, and defend those who help to organize for peace and justice, both at home and abroad!
Thank you for your generosity! Tom Burke
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Deafening Silence, Chuck Africa (MOVE 9)
Check out other art and poetry by prisoners at:
Shujaas!: Prisoners Resisting Through Art
...we banging hard, yes, very hard, on this system...
http://shujaas.wordpress.com/
Peace People,
This poem is from Chuck Africa, one of the MOVE 9, who is currently serving 30-100 years on trump up charges of killing a police officer. After 32 years in prison, the MOVE 9 are repeatly denied parole, after serving their minimum sentence. Chuck wanted me to share this with the people, so that we can see how our silence in demanding the MOVE 9's freedom is inherently an invitation to their death behind prison walls.
Deafening Silence
Don't ya'll hear cries of anguish?
In the climate of pain come joining voices?
But voices become unheard and strained by inactions
Of dead brains
How long will thou Philly soul remain in the pit of agonizing apathy?
Indifference seems to greet you like the morning mirror
Look closely in the mirror and realize it's a period of mourning....
My Sistas, mothers, daughters, wives and warriors
Languish in prisons obscurity like a distant star in the galaxies as does their brothers
We need to be free....
How loud can you stay silence?
Have the courage to stand up and have a say,
Choose resistance and let go of your fears.
The history of injustice to MOVE; we all know so well
But your deafening silence could be my DEATH KNELL.
Chuck Africa
Please share, inform people and get involve in demanding the MOVE 9's freedom! www.MOVE9parole.blogspot.com
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Say No to Islamophobia!
Defend Mosques and Community Centers!
The Fight for Peace and Social Justice Requires Defense of All Under Attack!
http://www.petitiononline.com/nophobia/petition.html
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Kevin Keith Update: Good News! Death sentence commuted!
Ohio may execute an innocent man unless you take action.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-kevin-keith
Ohio's Governor Spares Life of a Death Row Inmate Kevin Keith
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/us/03ohio.html?ref=us
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Please sign the petition to release Bradley Manning
http://www.petitiononline.com/manning1/petition.html (Click to sign here)
To: US Department of Defense; US Department of Justice
We, the Undersigned, call for justice for US Army PFC Bradley Manning, incarcerated without charge (as of 18 June 2010) at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait.
Media accounts state that Mr. Manning was arrested in late May for leaking the video of US Apache helicopter pilots killing innocent people and seriously wounding two children in Baghdad, including those who arrived to help the wounded, as well as potentially other material. The video was released by WikiLeaks under the name "Collateral Murder".
If these allegations are untrue, we call upon the US Department of Defense to release Mr. Manning immediately.
If these allegations ARE true, we ALSO call upon the US Department of Defense to release Mr. Manning immediately.
Simultaneously, we express our support for Mr. Manning in any case, and our admiration for his courage if he is, in fact, the person who disclosed the video. Like in the cases of Daniel Ellsberg, W. Mark Felt, Frank Serpico and countless other whistleblowers before, government demands for secrecy must yield to public knowledge and justice when government crime and corruption are being kept hidden.
Justice for Bradley Manning!
Sincerely,
The Undersigned:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?manning1
--
Zaineb Alani
http://www.thewordsthatcomeout.blogspot.com
http://www.tigresssmiles.blogspot.com
"Yesterday I lost a country. / I was in a hurry, / and didn't notice when it fell from me / like a broken branch from a forgetful tree. / Please, if anyone passes by / and stumbles across it, / perhaps in a suitcase / open to the sky, / or engraved on a rock / like a gaping wound, / ... / If anyone stumbles across it, / return it to me please. / Please return it, sir. / Please return it, madam. / It is my country . . . / I was in a hurry / when I lost it yesterday." -Dunya Mikhail, Iraqi poet
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Please forward widely...
HELP LYNNE STEWART -- SUPPORT THESE BILLS
These two bills are now in Congress and need your support. Either or both bills would drastically decrease Lynne's and other federal sentences substantially.
H.R. 1475 "Federal Prison Work Incentive Act Amended 2009," Congressman Danny Davis, Democrat, Illinois
This bill will restore and amend the former federal B.O.P. good time allowances. It will let all federal prisoners, except lifers, earn significant reductions to their sentences. Second, earn monthly good time days by working prison jobs. Third, allowances for performing outstanding services or duties in connection with institutional operations. In addition, part of this bill is to bring back parole to federal long term prisoners.
Go to: www.FedCURE.org and www.FAMM.org
At this time, federal prisoners only earn 47 days per year good time. If H.R. 1475 passes, Lynne Stewart would earn 120-180 days per year good time!
H.R. 61 "45 And Older," Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (18th Congressional District, Texas)
This bill provides early release from federal prison after serving half of a violent crime or violent conduct in prison.
Please write, call, email your Representatives and Senators. Demand their votes!
This information is brought to you by Diane E. Schindelwig, a federal prisoner #36582-177 and friend and supporter of Lynne Stewart.
Write to Lynne at:
Lynne Stewart 53504-054
MCC-NY 2-S
150 Park Row
New York, NY 10007
For further information call Lynne's husband, Ralph Poynter, leader of the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759
Send contributions payable to:
Lynne Stewart Organization
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York, 11216
---
Listen to Lynne Stewart event, that took place July 8, 2010 at Judson Memorial Church
Excerpts include: Mumia Abu Jamal, Ralph Poynter, Ramsey Clark, Juanita
Young, Fred Hampton Jr., Raging Grannies, Ralph Schoenman
http://www.takingaimradio.com/shows/audio.html
And check out this article (link) too!
http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/2010/062210Lendman.shtml
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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL GRAVELY CONCERNED THAT RULING PUTS TROY DAVIS ON TRACK FOR EXECUTION; CITES PERSISTING DOUBTS ABOUT HIS GUILT
"Judge William T. Moore, Jr. ruled that while executing an innocent person would violate the United States Constitution, Davis didn't meet the extraordinarily high legal bar to prove his innocence."
Amnesty International Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Contact: Wende Gozan Brown at 212-633-4247, wgozan@aiusa.org.
(Washington, D.C.) - Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) today expressed deep concern that a federal district court decision puts Georgia death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis back on track for execution, despite doubts about his guilt that were raised during a June evidentiary hearing. Judge William T. Moore, Jr. ruled that while executing an innocent person would violate the United States Constitution, Davis didn't meet the extraordinarily high legal bar to prove his innocence.
"Nobody walking out of that hearing could view this as an open-and-shut case," said Larry Cox, executive director of AIUSA. "The testimony that came to light demonstrates that doubt still exists, but the legal bar for proving innocence was set so high it was virtually insurmountable. It would be utterly unconscionable to proceed with this execution, plain and simple."
Amnesty International representatives, including Cox, attended the hearing in Savannah, Ga. The organization noted that evidence continues to cast doubt over the case:
· Four witnesses admitted in court that they lied at trial when they implicated Troy Davis and that they did not know who shot Officer Mark MacPhail.
· Four witnesses implicated another man as the one who killed the officer - including a man who says he saw the shooting and could clearly identify the alternative suspect, who is a family member.
· Three original state witnesses described police coercion during questioning, including one man who was 16 years old at the time of the murder and was questioned by several police officers without his parents or other adults present.
"The Troy Davis case is emblematic of everything that is wrong with capital punishment," said Laura Moye, director of AIUSA's Death Penalty Abolition Campaign. "In a system rife with error, mistakes can be made. There are no do-overs when it comes to death. Lawmakers across the country should scrutinize this case carefully, not only because of its unprecedented nature, but because it clearly indicates the need to abolish the death penalty in the United States."
Since the launch of its February 2007 report, Where Is the Justice for Me? The Case of Troy Davis, Facing Execution in Georgia, Amnesty International has campaigned intensively for a new evidentiary hearing or trial and clemency for Davis, collecting hundreds of thousands of clemency petition signatures and letters from across the United States and around the world. To date, internationally known figures such as Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter have all joined the call for clemency, as well as lawmakers from within and outside of Georgia.
Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.8 million supporters, activists and volunteers who campaign for universal human rights from more than 150 countries. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.
# # #
For more information visit www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis.
Wende Gozan Brown
Media Relations Director
Amnesty International USA
212/633-4247 (o)
347/526-5520 (c)
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Please sign the petition to stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal and
and forward it to all your lists.
"Mumia Abu-Jamal and The Global Abolition of the Death Penalty"
http://www.petitiononline.com/Mumialaw/petition.html
(A Life In the Balance - The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, at 34, Amnesty Int'l, 2000; www. Amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/001/2000.)
[Note: This petition is approved by Mumia Abu-Jamal and his lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan, San Francisco (E-mail: MumiaLegalDefense@gmail.com; Website: www.MumiaLegalDefense.org).]
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
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Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense in the U.S. Our legal effort is the front line of the battle for Mumia's freedom and life. His legal defense needs help. The costs are substantial for our litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court and at the state level. To help, please make your checks payable to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). All donations are tax deductible under the Internal Revenue Code, section 501c)3), and should be mailed to:
It is outrageous and a violation of human rights that Mumia remains in prison and on death row. His life hangs in the balance. My career has been marked by successfully representing people facing death in murder cases. I will not rest until we win Mumia's case. Justice requires no less.
With best wishes,
Robert R. Bryan
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work
The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected over the past nine years.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl
Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial support to carry out its work.
To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the simple instructions.
Thank you for your generosity!
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT!
FLASHPOINTS Interview with Innocent San Quentin Death Row Inmate
Kevin Cooper -- Aired Monday, May 18,2009
http://www.flashpoints.net/#GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE
To learn more about Kevin Cooper go to:
savekevincooper.org
LINKS
San Francisco Chronicle article on the recent ruling:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/13/BAM517J8T3.DTL
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling and dissent:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/05/11/05-99004o.pdf
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COURAGE TO RESIST!
Support the troops who refuse to fight!
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
Donate:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/21/57/
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D. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) Militarism as Cause and Consequence of Climate Change
Expulsion of Organizer from COP16 Leads to Cancellation of Press Conference from Climate SOS, Biofuel Watch, and Global Compliance Research Project
Contacts for media:
-Maggie Zhou, Ph.D. Climate SOS mzhou_us@yahoo.com, 1-781-316-8283, 52-9981083832 skype: mzhou_us
-Rachel Smolker, Ph.D. Biofuel Watch, and Climate SOS rsmolker@riseup.net, 1- 802 482 2848, 1- 802 735 7794
-Joan Russow, Ph.D. Global Compliance Research Project jrussow@gmail.com
PRESS RELEASE: Dec 10, 2010 VIA EMAIL
2) Thousands of Georgia Prisoners go on Strike
Contributed by: Anonymous
Friday, December 10 2010 @ 05:07 PM UTC
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20101210170702158
3) Activists Say Web Assault for Assange Is Expanding
By RAVI SOMAIYA
December 10, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/world/europe/11anonymous.html?ref=world
4) After Attack on Royal Limo, Questions and Reproach
By RAVI SOMAIYA and ELISSA GOOTMAN
December 10, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/world/europe/11royal.html?ref=world
5) Activists Target Dutch Website After Boy Arrested
By REUTERS
Filed at 12:11 p.m. ET
December 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/12/11/technology/tech-us-wikileaks.html?src=busln
6) Following the Money, Doctors Ration Care
"Wealthy people will always be able to buy most of what they want. But for everyone else, if we stay on the current course, the lines are likely to get longer and longer."
By TYLER COWEN
December 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/business/12view.html?src=busln
7) 6 Companies That Haven't Wussed Out of Working with WikiLeaks
By Tana Ganeva, AlterNet
Posted on December 10, 2010, Printed on December 11, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/149142/
8) Pentagon Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg: Julian Assange is Not a Terrorist
Democracy Now!
December 10, 2010
http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/369-wikileaks/4234-julian-assange-is-not-a-terrorist
9) Justice Department Prepares for Ominous Expansion of "Anti-Terrorism" Law Targeting Activists
by: Michael Deutsch, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis
Saturday 11 December 2010
http://www.truth-out.org/justice-department-prepares-expansion-laws-targeting-activists
10) A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives
"The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable - and controversial - fields in finance. They also share a common secret: The details of their meetings, even their identities, have been strictly confidential. ... In theory, this group exists to safeguard the integrity of the multitrillion-dollar market. In practice, it also defends the dominance of the big banks."
By LOUISE STORY
December 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/business/12advantage.html?hp
11) Prisoners Strike in Georgia
By SARAH WHEATON
December 12, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/us/12prison.html?ref=us
12) Reasonable doubts about executing Kevin Cooper
Chronicle Editorial
Monday, December 13, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/13/EDG81GP0I7.DTL
13) Why Are the Feds Cultivating Their Own "Homegrown Terrorists"?
By Seth Freed Wessler, ColorLines
Posted on December 12, 2010, Printed on December 13, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/149160/
14) CALIFORNIA NAACP TO HOLD PUBLIC HEARING ON REPORTED BRUTALITY AND CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATIONS CARRIED OUT BY LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS IN OAKLAND
CALIFORNIA STATE
CONFERENCE OF THE
N A A C P
1215 K Street, Suite 1609, Sacramento , CA 95814
Alice A. Huffman, President
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 10, 2010
Contact: Joy Atkinson
323.954.3777
213.840.4173
VIA EMAIL
15) Afghans Overwhelmingly Want US Troops Out - and Soon
by: Jean MacKenzie | GlobalPost | Report
Thursday 09 December 2010
http://www.truth-out.org/afghanistan-war-public-opinion-turns-sharply-against-us-forces65879
16) Study Shows Depth of Unemployment for Blacks in New York
"Only One in Four Young Black Men in New York City Have a Job."
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
December 13, 2010, 10:17 am
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/study-shows-depth-of-unemployment-for-blacks-in-new-york/?hp
17) Health Care Law Ruled Unconstitutional
[We need to demand free, universal healthcare for all! Stop the wars now! Tax the wealthy to pay for healthcare!...bw]
By KEVIN SACK
December 13, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/health/policy/14health.html?hp
18) Los Angeles Confronts Homelessness Reputation
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
December 12, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/us/13homeless.html?ref=us
19) Decriminalizing Poverty
By Bruce Western
The Nation
December 9, 2010
http://www.thenation.com/article/157007/decriminalizing-poverty
Read more from the special forum on drug policy reform:
Ethan Nadelmann, "Breaking the Taboo"
http://www.thenation.com/../../../../../../article/157010/breaking-taboo
Marc Mauer, "Beyond the Fair Sentencing Act"
http://www.thenation.com/../../../../../../article/157009/beyond-fair-sentencing-act
Tracy Velázquez, "The Verdict on Drug Courts"
http://www.thenation.com/../../../../../../article/157005/verdict-drug-courts
David Cole, "Restoring Lost Liberties"
http://www.thenation.com/../../../../../../article/157003/restoring-lost-liberties
Laura Carlsen, "A New Model for Mexico"
http://www.thenation.com/../../../../../../article/157002/new-model-mexico
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1) Militarism as Cause and Consequence of Climate Change
Expulsion of Organizer from COP16 Leads to Cancellation of Press Conference from Climate SOS, Biofuel Watch, and Global Compliance Research Project
Contacts for media:
-Maggie Zhou, Ph.D. Climate SOS mzhou_us@yahoo.com, 1-781-316-8283, 52-9981083832 skype: mzhou_us
-Rachel Smolker, Ph.D. Biofuel Watch, and Climate SOS rsmolker@riseup.net, 1- 802 482 2848, 1- 802 735 7794
-Joan Russow, Ph.D. Global Compliance Research Project jrussow@gmail.com
PRESS RELEASE: Dec 10, 2010 VIA EMAIL
(Cancun, Dec 10, 2010): As climate negotiations in Cancun become increasingly chaotic and the outcomes uncertain, over 70 diverse environmental, peace and social justice organizations declare that on this 62nd International Human Rights Day, we must recognize that all efforts to address climate change or human rights will fail unless we contend with the "elephant in the living room": militarism, and a logic of Might is Right. The group sent their statement (available at www.climatesos.org) to delegates at the COP16, and to president Obama. On the same website is a factsheet with detailed resources on this topic.
A press conference scheduled for today inside the COP16 had to be cancelled, because its main organizer, Dr. Maggie Zhou, a biologist with Climate SOS, was expelled from the UN climate conference, due to supposedly showing 'disrespect' to UN security by demanding an explanation when her badge was forcefully snatched away on Tuesday, following her very marginal participation in a peaceful, non-disruptive demonstration on the conference grounds. The majority of other participants had their badges returned. An interview with Zhou is still on the official UNFCCC website (http://www.climate-change.tv/maggie-zhou-december-2010), as of the time of this release.
According to Zhou's article published in today's Alter-ECO newsletter (issue #4, see www.climate-justice-now.org), USA alone spends well over $1 trillion/year on military related expenses, magnitudes higher than the climate 'assistance' of $10 billion/y for 2010-2012, or $100 billion/y by 2020, from all developed countries combined! Worse, these climate 'aid' pledges under the Copenhagen Accord will come mostly as loan guarantees, private investments for profit, and even recycled aid commitments. She added: "President Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace prize exactly one year ago, although it has done nothing to stop him from further increasing the U.S.'s military budget."
"Using military force to control access to oil and other resources, at the expense of millions of lives and countless misery, is a clear violation of human rights, while refusing to take strong action on climate change and repay climate debt directly threatens with extinction-scale global human rights violation (the UN high commission has recognized climate change as a direct human rights threat)", she continued.
The human toll of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere have been horrific, but extend even further than usually acknowledged: a UN environmental report about the first Gulf War for example, points to the damage inflicted by 70-ton tanks like the M-1 Abrams on the ecology of the desert: Approximately 50% of Kuwait's land area has had its fragile soil surface destroyed as scores of tanks moved out of that country each day, headed for Iraq. This kind of damage to landscapes, along with chemical and radioactive contamination from military operations leaves a legacy of disease, poverty, hunger, and death.
Dr. Rachel Smolker, an ecologist with Biofuewatch observed: "The magnitude of the world's military funding belies the claim that strong climate actions (or even the extremely weak targets as the current pledges) must depend on profit-driven carbon markets and the commodification of the global commons. While trillions are offered for ongoing warfare, funding to protect forests is made dependent on programs like REDD (which threatens the rights of millions of indigenous peoples, on top of merely providing polluters an "offset" substitute for reducing their own emissions), and mitigation efforts are focused on false solutions like large scale biofuels (which threaten agriculture, water and land resources, and lead to further deforestation), and Carbon Capture and Sequestration (which enables continued reliance on fossil fuels, and creates an extremely dangerous time bomb, given that storage formations will eventually, inevitably leak, or even, heaven forbid, abruptly fail.)"
The US military is also the world's largest institutional source of greenhouse gases (equipping, manning, training, and transporting for military operations and bases, patrolling oil shipping routes for what's dubbed "oil protection service", etc.), while causing massive ecosystem destruction worldwide. According to rankings in the 2006 CIA World Factbook, only 35 countries (out of 210 in the world) consume more oil per day than the Pentagon, who refers to fuel consumption in terms of "gallons per mile," "gallons per minute," and "barrels per hour." Yet, none of this was discussed in any climate negotiations.
According to Dr. Joan Russow, of Global Compliance Research Project, "The US military operates in the shadows of climate negotiations, having demanded that their emissions be exempted from scrutiny or regulation. This absolutely cannot continue: the climate crisis has reached the point where all of life - now and for future generations - is threatened. We cannot just ignore the largest polluter on earth, fight more wars over access to oil, and continue to feed this vicious cycle!"
Ironically, even the Pentagon recognizes that climate change is a "threat multiplier", that will result in mass migrations, and far more wars and conflicts, threatening US "national security". But their response is more of the same: build up fortress America, and run the military on liquefied coal and biofuels to reduce reliance on foreign oil. Their total disregard for human rights around the world is apparent from a 2003 Pentagon report, which calculated dispassionately: "Deaths from war as well as starvation and disease will decrease population size, which overtime, will re-balance with carrying capacity."
"What the imperialist warlords don't understand", said Zhou, "is that no one nation or elite class can survive the climate catastrophe without saving the planet as a whole, given the multitude of interconnectedness of the earth's eco- and geophysical/chemical/climate systems. In fact, allowing massive suffering in 'unimportant' regions will logically lead to further decimation of ecosystems and the transfer of their biomass carbon into the atmosphere, as people will be driven to seeking out the last of water and sustenance amid crop failures, droughts and wildfires... We are literally one people, sharing one fate. Human rights is not only a moral issue, it has very sound physical and existential basis."
The groups demand an end to militarism, that the impacts of militarism be fully and transparently assessed, and that the multi-trillion USD world military budgets be redirected towards domestic and international obligations to ensure adequate human rights, and enabling real solutions to the climate crisis.
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2) Thousands of Georgia Prisoners go on Strike
Contributed by: Anonymous
Friday, December 10 2010 @ 05:07 PM UTC
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20101210170702158
In an action which is unprecedented on several levels, black, brown and white inmates of Georgia's notorious state prison system are standing together for a historic one day peaceful strike today, during which they are remaining in their cells, refusing work and other assignments and activities. This is a groundbreaking event not only because inmates are standing up for themselves and their own human rughts, but because prisoners are setting an example by reaching across racial boundaries which, in prisons, have historically been used to pit oppressed communities against each other.
Thousands of Georgia Prisoners go on Strike
December 9th, 2010
Georgia, USA
In an action which is unprecedented on several levels, black, brown and white inmates of Georgia's notorious state prison system are standing together for a historic one day peaceful strike today, during which they are remaining in their cells, refusing work and other assignments and activities. This is a groundbreaking event not only because inmates are standing up for themselves and their own human rughts, but because prisoners are setting an example by reaching across racial boundaries which, in prisons, have historically been used to pit oppressed communities against each other.
The action is taking place today in at least half a dozen of Georgia's more than one hundred state prisons, correctional facilities, work camps, county prisons and other correctional facilities. We have unconfirmed reports that authorities at Macon State prison have aggressively responded to the strike by sending tactical squads in to rough up and menace inmates.
Outside calls from concerned citizens and news media will tend to stay the hand of prison authorities who may tend to react with reckless and brutal aggression. So calls to the warden's office of the following Georgia State Prisons expressing concern for the welfare of the prisoners during this and the next few days are welcome.
Macon State Prison is 978-472-3900.
Hays State Prison is at (706) 857-0400
Telfair State prison is 229-868-7721
Baldwin State Prison is at (478) 445- 5218
Valdosta State Prison is 229-333-7900
Smith State Prison is at (912) 654-5000
The Georgia Department of Corrections is at http://www.dcor.state.ga.us and their phone number is 478-992-5246
Prisoner leaders issued the following call: "No more slavery. Injustice in one place is injustice to all. Inform your family to support our cause. Lock down for liberty!" The prisoners have also set forth the following demands: ·
A LIVING WAGE FOR WORK: In violation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude, the DOC demands prisoners work for free. ·
EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES: For the great majority of prisoners, the DOC denies all opportunities for education beyond the GED, despite the benefit to both prisoners and society. ·
DECENT HEALTH CARE: In violation of the 8th Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments, the DOC denies adequate medical care to prisoners, charges excessive fees for the most minimal care and is responsible for extraordinary pain and suffering. ·
AN END TO CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS: In further violation of the 8th Amendment, the DOC is responsible for cruel prisoner punishments for minor infractions of rules. ·
DECENT LIVING CONDITIONS: Georgia prisoners are confined in over-crowded, substandard conditions, with little heat in winter and oppressive heat in summer. ·
NUTRITIONAL MEALS: Vegetables and fruit are in short supply in DOC facilities while starches and fatty foods are plentiful. ·
VOCATIONAL AND SELF-IMPROVEMENT OPPORTUNITIES: The DOC has stripped its facilities of all opportunities for skills training, self-improvement and proper exercise. ·
ACCESS TO FAMILIES: The DOC has disconnected thousands of prisoners from their families by imposing excessive telephone charges and innumerable barriers to visitation. ·
JUST PAROLE DECISIONS: The Parole Board capriciously and regularly denies parole to the majority of prisoners despite evidence of eligibility.
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3) Activists Say Web Assault for Assange Is Expanding
By RAVI SOMAIYA
December 10, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/world/europe/11anonymous.html?ref=world
LONDON - The online activist group Anonymous, which has been waging a campaign of cyberattacks in defense of WikiLeaks, opened new offensives on Friday as Internet security experts said that tens of thousands more supporters had downloaded the attack software in the days since the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, was jailed in Britain.
The Web site for Moneybookers, a British PayPal competitor that ceased dealings with WikiLeaks in recent days, was under attack on Friday, according to members of Anonymous who were reached by e-mail and online chat services and who asked for anonymity in discussing activity that could be illegal. Independent Internet security analysts confirmed the accounts.
Amazon.com, MasterCard, Visa and PayPal are among the other commercial sites that, after halting their dealings with WikiLeaks, have been struggling with overwhelming demands for access that have crashed or drastically slowed their sites.
Some governmental sites have also been hit. On Friday, Dutch prosecutors said their Web site had been overwhelmed in attacks they connected to their arrest of a 16-year-old in The Hague on Thursday, Reuters reported. The police said the teenager had admitted to aiding in the attacks on MasterCard and Visa. He has been ordered to spend 13 days in custody while the case is being examined, according to Reuters.
The attackers - operating by the thousands behind the shroud of the Internet - are rallying behind Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks as champions of freedom of information, and are defying those who they believe are influenced by the American government to halt the disclosures of classified documents.
That belief appears to be broadening, despite denials from the companies, the American government and the Swedish prosecutors seeking to question Mr. Assange on accusations of sexual coercion.
An international Internet security company, Imperva, said Friday that until Tuesday there had been less than 1,000 daily downloads of the Anonymous software used against Moneybookers and in other attacks. That was when Mr. Assange was jailed in Britain on an extradition warrant in the Swedish case. The number of downloads then leaped to about 10,000 a day, most coming from the United States, it said.
The United States government has been looking into ways to pursue prosecutions over the leaks, and on Friday, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said that the Justice Department was investigating the Web attacks as well, Reuters reported.
But Mr. Holder also added to the denials that American pressure was behind the moves against Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks, telling reporters in San Francisco, "We have not pressured anybody to do anything."
Paul Mutton, a Web security analyst with the British firm netcraft, said that the attackers were not being as invisible as they might hope. "Maybe people taking part think they're just downloading software," he said, "but they are doing something illegal, and particularly if they have a high-bandwidth Internet connection, they may be found."
In conversations late Thursday, several of the group's members said that support for the campaign was growing significantly beyond the 1,000 or so core activists who began it last weekend with the release of two manifestos. Many of the new attackers, they said, are ordinary people using available tools to defend the right to information.
"We're technically not hackers, though we do have some professionals on board," one said. "We're mostly normal people, we have doctors and lawyers and guys who work at McDonald's."
He said, "We see WikiLeaks as a litmus test for freedom of speech."
Previous high-profile campaigns by Anonymous, most notably against the Church of Scientology in 2008 and 2009, put enough infrastructure in place for the group to be able to handle the rush of new supporters, said Gregg Housh, a member of the group who helped instigate that campaign but who disavowed any personal illegal action.
"There are propaganda people and programming people and different groups with different levels of engagement," he said.
In the campaign in defense of WikiLeaks, those groups are marshaled by five to 10 core members who occupy a private chat room on an Anonymous online forum, according to group members.
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4) After Attack on Royal Limo, Questions and Reproach
By RAVI SOMAIYA and ELISSA GOOTMAN
December 10, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/world/europe/11royal.html?ref=world
LONDON - The British police promised an investigation into the attack on a limousine carrying Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, while security experts and the news media raised questions Friday about how the royal couple were placed into the potentially dangerous situation.
Dozens of protesters broke through a cordon of police motorcycles on Thursday to smash and deface the Rolls-Royce Phantom VI that was carrying the prince and his wife. The demonstrators dented a rear panel, splattered the glossy dark brown exterior with white paint, pelted the car with sticks and bottles, and smashed a side window. Some yelled, "Off with their heads!"
Photographs splashed across the front pages of newspapers on Friday showed the couple, who were on their way to a royal gala, in the back seat wearing formal attire, mouths agape, as the car crawled through the theater district in London.
The public initially was sympathetic to the trapped and terrified couple. But by Friday, the reaction had turned into criticism and recriminations, with questions raised about why the couple were not riding in an armored car, why they took the route they did and why, once crowds of angry youths were visible, they kept to their route.
"Prince Charles and Camilla's Rolls-Royce was wrong car," declared a headline in The Telegraph. "Could Charles and Camilla have been better protected?" asked a headline on the Web site of the BBC.
The police focused on the protesters, thousands of whom were demonstrating against a sharp increase in college tuition fees. More than 50 people were injured, according to news reports, and 33 protesters were arrested, the police said.
The Metropolitan Police force said Friday that it had opened a "major investigation" into the attack and into "all of the circumstances behind the violent disorder." Prime Minister David Cameron said he wanted to make sure "the people who behaved in these appalling ways feel the full force of the law of the land."
But the stately vintage vehicle, a gift to the queen, was not armored and, The Telegraph reported, was "designed to give the public the best possible view of members of the royal family."
Ken Wharfe, a former royal protection police officer, said it was "old, heavy, has a poor turning circle and has no protective qualities." The route, he wrote in The London Evening Standard, "was dangerous and should have been avoided."
The head of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Paul Stephenson, said the route had been checked "several minutes beforehand" and had been clear.
"The unpredictability of thugs and how they moved about the capital meant the protection officers were placed in a very difficult position," he said. He praised the officers for showing restraint and keeping their guns holstered.
Witnesses said the car continued toward the crowd, even after it was apparent that the road was blocked with protesters. But from videos of the episode, it appeared that by then there may have been no way to turn back.
Charles and Camilla, who eventually arrived unscathed at their destination, an annual pre-Christmas variety show at the London Palladium, had nothing but praise for the police.
"Their Royal Highnesses totally understand the difficulties which the police face," a spokesman said, "and are always very grateful to the police for the job they do in often very challenging circumstances."
Ravi Somaiya reported from London, and Elissa Gootman from New York.
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5) Activists Target Dutch Website After Boy Arrested
By REUTERS
Filed at 12:11 p.m. ET
December 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/12/11/technology/tech-us-wikileaks.html?src=busln
LONDON (Reuters) - Cyber activists attacking organizations seen as foes of WikiLeaks briefly blocked a Dutch prosecution website on Friday after a 16-year-old suspected of involvement in the campaign was arrested in the Netherlands.
The activists also tried to block the website of online payment firm Moneybookers, but denied their attacks were intended to create business turmoil or badly disrupt online Christmas shopping.
Several companies have ended services to WikiLeaks after it published thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic reports that have caused tension between Washington and several of its allies.
The website continued its release of U.S. cables on Friday, with the latest reports including a prediction by the U.S. ambassador to Cairo that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would "inevitably" win 2011 elections and stay in office for life.
U.S. authorities said they had not pressured companies to stop working with WikiLeaks.
"We have not pressured anybody to do anything," Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters in San Francisco, where he was attending a financial fraud conference.
Holder said authorities were aware of the attacks and looking at them, pointing to a computer crimes section of the Justice Department that can "trace back" where the attacks originate.
A lawyer for Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks website, told ABC News in London she expected U.S. prosecutors would indict her client soon for espionage, but the report offered no further details or comment.
A U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the lawyer's prediction.
Dutch prosecutors said activists targeted their website with "denial-of-service" attacks that slowed it for several hours and briefly made it unavailable. The incident was probably related to the teenage boy's arrest, they said.
INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION
"We have been investigating this with international authorities and we are working together with the FBI," Dutch prosecution service spokesman Wim de Bruin said.
A Rotterdam judge ordered the boy, who was arrested in The Hague on Thursday, to spend 13 days in custody while the investigation continues, the prosecution service said.
The maximum prison sentence in the Netherlands for distributed denial-of-service attacks is six years, de Bruin said.
The suspect, whose identity was not disclosed, told investigators he participated in the attacks on the MasterCard and Visa websites, authorities said.
The attack on Moneybookers froze the site for about two minutes. Activists said they picked Moneybookers because it informed WikiLeaks in August it had closed its account. They promised to continue their attacks, and spoke of MasterCard and Interpol as fresh targets.
Some participants in a chat room used by the "Operation Payback" campaign were defiant, but others voiced despair at what they considered a lack of discipline.
"The whole thing is getting out of control, people are attacking local police websites and giving us a bad reputation. This was supposed to be to help WikiLeaks and not an excuse for kids to crash random websites," one wrote.
"SYMBOLIC ACTION"
Online retail and web-hosting powerhouse Amazon stopped hosting WikiLeaks' website last week, and on Thursday it briefly became the pro-WikiLeaks campaigners' main target -- before they admitted it was too big for them, for the moment.
The statement by the activists, who collectively call themselves "Anonymous," added that a lack of firepower was not the only reason the attack on Amazon had not succeeded. They felt "attacking a major online retailer when people are buying presents for their loved ones, would be in bad taste."
The Anonymous statement followed one by WikiLeaks, which said the website had no links to the cyber attacks, and neither supported nor condemned them. It quoted WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson as saying the attacks were "a reflection of public opinion on the actions of the targets."
Some freedom of information campaigners sympathetic to WikiLeaks say its cause cannot be furthered by denying freedom of information to others. On an online chat service used by the campaign, participants debated whether to end the attacks and focus instead on discovering more embarrassing material in the leaked documents.
(Additional reporting by Georgina Prodhan in London, Marius Bosch in Johannesburg, Greg Roumeliotis in Amsterdam, Dan Levine in San Francisco and Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington; Writing by William Maclean and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Eric Walsh and Peter Cooney)
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6) Following the Money, Doctors Ration Care
"Wealthy people will always be able to buy most of what they want. But for everyone else, if we stay on the current course, the lines are likely to get longer and longer."
By TYLER COWEN
December 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/business/12view.html?src=busln
UNEQUAL access to health care is hardly a new phenomenon in the United States, but the country is moving toward rationing on a scale that is unprecedented here. Wealthy people will always be able to buy most of what they want. But for everyone else, if we stay on the current course, the lines are likely to get longer and longer.
The underlying problem is that doctors are reimbursed at different rates, depending on whether they see a patient with private insurance, Medicare or Medicaid. As demand increases relative to supply, many doctors are likely to turn away patients whose coverage would pay the lower rates.
Let's see how this works. Medicare is the major federal health program for the elderly, who vote at high rates and are politically influential, and so it is relatively well financed. Medicaid, which serves poorer people, is paid for partly by state governments, and the poor have less political clout than the elderly, so it is less well financed. Depending on the state and on the malady, it is common for Medicaid to reimburse at only 40 percent to 80 percent the rate of Medicare. Private insurance pays more than either.
A result is that physicians often make Medicaid patients wait or refuse to see them altogether. Medicare patients are also beginning to face lines, as doctors increasingly prefer patients with private insurance.
Access to health care will become problematic, and not only because the population is aging and demand is rising. Unfortunately, the new health care legislation is likely to speed this process. Under the new law, tens of millions of additional Americans will receive coverage, through Medicaid or private insurance. The new recipients of private insurance will gain the most, but people previously covered through Medicaid will lose.
Ideally, higher demand for medical care would prompt increases in supply, which in turn would lower prices and expand access. But the health care sector does not always work this way.
Doctors are highly regulated and in that manner restricted in supply. The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that the United States could face a shortage of 150,000 doctors in the next 15 years. To its credit, the new health care bill does improve incentives for general practitioners, but still, supply probably will not keep up with the crush of demand.
We could go further by giving greater scope to nurse practitioners, admitting more immigrant doctors, reforming malpractice law and allowing cheap, retail "Wal-Mart style" medical care, all to increase access and affordability. Yet these changes do not seem to be in the offing, so access is likely to decline.
The health care bill will further privilege private insurance coverage by offering many individuals new subsidies for its purchase. That will create incentives for employers to game the system, dropping or discouraging coverage and sending their workers to buy health insurance on the more expensive federally subsidized exchanges. That will strain the federal health care budget. This problem is outlined by Amy Monahan and Daniel Schwarcz, law professors at the University of Minnesota, in their new paper "Will Employers Undermine Health Care Reform by Dumping Sick Employees?"
There is also the danger that a few governors with tight budgets will shirk their Medicaid responsibilities, with an eye toward sending potential recipients to the federally subsidized insurance exchanges. In both cases, the quest for a better deal will strain the federal budget.
The American system of federalism, with its checks and balances and slow policy evolution, has many strengths, but it has also helped create this crazy quilt of health care reimbursement rates. The more demand-side pressure is placed on medical supply, the more Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements rates will determine who and what is rationed.
One option is to simply allow budget pressures to dominate, forcing down even private insurance reimbursements. Most people would end up with low, Medicaid-like reimbursement rates, and would endure long waits and low-quality service. But wealthier people could jump the line by paying more. Think of "Medicaid for everyone" but the rich.
An alternative is giving most people means-tested vouchers for a fixed amount of insurance coverage - which can run out or face up-front caps - making Medicaid and Medicare less of a blank check. The cost explosion would be checked by shifting more of the burden onto consumers. We would have better incentives for consumer-oriented care, and cost control, but we would be making an explicit public decision, at some point or another, to let some people do without medical care.
Recently the Arizona state government restricted transplant coverage for Medicaid patients, but it remains to be seen whether such measures can be applied to Medicare recipients. President Obama already has reversed some of the planned, budget-saving cuts to Medicare.
AN entirely different approach is suggested by the system in Singapore, where the government requires savings (say 10 percent to 12 percent of income), patients pay for medical care from those savings, and the government takes care of additional catastrophic expenses. That system has a good record for cost control and access, but would Americans accept so much required saving?
The default course is to maintain or extend Medicare reimbursement rates, raise taxes considerably and accept that Medicaid recipients will face worsening health care access. If you hear of a new solution to the health care puzzle, put aside the politics and instead think through the endgame. Ask not about the rhetoric, but rather about the reimbursement rates.
Tyler Cowen is a professor of economics at George Mason University.
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7) 6 Companies That Haven't Wussed Out of Working with WikiLeaks
By Tana Ganeva, AlterNet
Posted on December 10, 2010, Printed on December 11, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/149142/
Giants like PayPal, Amazon.com, Visa and MasterCard almost instantly crumbled under government (and p.r.) pressure to drop WikiLeaks, depriving the site of vital funding sources and online platforms. But other companies, some of them small, independent start-ups, have decided to risk the wrath of Joe Lieberman, the State Department, and their European counterparts and help keep WikiLeaks afloat by providing funding sources (yeah, you can now donate to WikiLeaks even if you only have Visa or MasterCard.) and hosting the site. Here's a list of companies that have stood by WikiLeaks:
1. Xipwire:
The Philly online payment company has announced that unlike PayPal they welcome customer donations to WikiLeaks. According to their site, they're even waiving fees and charges so that 100% of the money goes to the whistleblower site. "While people may or may not agree with WikiLeaks, we at XIPWIRE believe that anyone who wishes to support the organization through a donation should be able to do so," they say on their site. While the publicity advantages are obvious, there's also the threat of backlash. One of the founders told the tech blog BaltTech, "We're fully aware that not everyone likes what Wikileaks is. But we are prepared to accept the consequences."
(For the moment the money goes to an escrow account because they haven't been able to reach WikiLeaks.)
2. Flattr
Flattr, which was started by one of the founders of Pirate Bay, has also been funneling money to WikiLeaks. The site lets users put money into accounts; when they run into a website they want to support, they can click on their "flattr" button to donate money to site. According to TechCrunch, WikILeaks has used Flattr since August and received over 3,000 Flattr donations when they released the Afghanistan war diary.
3. Datacell
The Icelandic company processes debit and credit card donations to WikiLeaks, so Visa and Mastercards' recent decision to cut all donations to the site has not done great things for their business.
In a statement published on their site, CEO Andreas Fink slammed Visa for letting political considerations get in the way of customer service: "The suspension of payments towards Wikileaks is a violation of the agreements with their customers. Visa users have explicitly expressed their will to send their donations to Wikileaks and Visa is not fulfilling this wish."
Founder Ólafur Sigurvinsson pointed out in an interview with an Icelandic news channel, "I've got confirmed today that I am capable of supporting Al-Qaeda, Ku Klux Klan, buy weapons, drugs and all sorts of pornopraphy with a VISA card. But that's not being investigated. Instead I can not support a humanitarian organisation fighting for the freedom of speech."
4. OVH
WikiLeaks moved to the French data server OVH after getting kicked off Amazon. This did not sit well with French Industry Minister Eric Besson, who demanded that the site be purged from all French servers. Rather than instantly boot WikiLeaks offline, the company asked the courts to clarify Besson's order. Earlier this week a judge ruled that the French government had to actually prove that WikiLeaks broke the law, instead of just saying so and then trying to intimidate private companies. A company spokesperson said, "OVH is neither for nor against this site. Now that it's with us, we will fulfill the contract. That's our job."
5. Twitter
WikiLeaks relies on Twitter to communicate, and their account seems to be safe for now. The micro-blogging site has been accused of blocking #WikiLeaks and #Cablegate from the trending topics though, a claim they dispute.
6. Facebook
Facebook recently released a statement saying that they have no plans to delete the WikiLeaks account, which has 1,187,990 fans.
Tana Ganeva is an AlterNet editor. Follow her on Twitter. You can email her at tanaalternet@gmail.com.
(c) 2010 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/149142/
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8) Pentagon Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg: Julian Assange is Not a Terrorist
Democracy Now!
December 10, 2010
http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/369-wikileaks/4234-julian-assange-is-not-a-terrorist
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will remain in a London prison until a British court takes up a Swedish request for extradition for questioning on sexual crime allegations. An international group of former intelligence officers and ex-government officials have released a statement in support of Assange. We speak to one of the signatories, Daniel Ellsberg, the famous whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War in 1971. "If I released the Pentagon Papers today, the same rhetoric and the same calls would be made about me," Ellsberg says. "I would be called not only a traitor-which I was then, which was false and slanderous-but I would be called a terrorist... Assange and Bradley Manning are no more terrorists than I am."
AMY GOODMAN: The Guardian newspaper, for whom [John Vidal] writes, is a British newspaper that is one of the partners with WikiLeaks in releasing the State Department cables. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been transferred to the segregation unit of the London prison he has been held since his arrest earlier this week, this according to The Guardian newspaper.
Assange was been denied bail following his arrest in London on Tuesday on an international warrant to face sexual crime allegations in Sweden. He will remain in custody until at least December 14th, when a British court takes up a Swedish request for extradition. Assange has not been charged with a crime, but he's wanted for questioning on allegations of unlawful sexual contact with two women in Sweden. Assange has maintained his innocence. He's called the case a political witch-hunt that's intensified with WikiLeaks' release of secret U.S. diplomatic cables.
Meanwhile, in the United States, the Justice Department has made it clear it hopes to prosecute Julian Assange over the leaked documents. This is U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER: We have an active, ongoing, serious investigation of that matter. We had, I think, informal conversations about the WikiLeaks matter, the concern that it has raised in the minds of all of us. And the hope here in the United States is that the investigation that we are conducting will allow us to hold accountable the people responsible for that unwarranted disclosure of information that has put at risk the safety of the American people and people who work on behalf of the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: The New York Times reports the Justice Department is considering ways to indict Julian Assange beyond the Espionage Act. Other possible offenses under consideration include conspiracy or trafficking in stolen property.
Julian Assange has also received support from people around in the world. In Australia, hundreds rallied in Sydney today in support of Assange and condemned the Australian government for its stance on the issue. Meanwhile, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva criticized Assange's arrest as "an attack on freedom of expression."
And an international group of former intelligence officers and ex-government officials have released a statement in support of Assange. It reads in part, quote, "WikiLeaks has teased the genie of transparency out of a very opaque bottle, and powerful forces in America, who thrive on secrecy, are trying desperately to stuff the genie back in."
The signatories include Colonel Larry Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell; former FBI special agent Coleen Rowley; former British Intelligence employee Katharine Gun; and Daniel Ellsberg, perhaps the country's most famous whistleblower, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, the secret history of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
Dan Ellsberg now joins us in our studio in New York, as I speak to him from Cancún.
Dan Ellsberg, welcome to Democracy Now! Julian Assange behind bars in Britain. We'll see what happens on December 14th. Talk about the significance of what has happened so far.
DANIEL ELLSBERG: Well, as I listened to Attorney General Holder on your program just now, I realize that he's in the same position of that Attorney General Mitchell was in 40 years ago with the Pentagon Papers when they came out. We have an act of free speech, of free press, of informing the public, an act in search of a crime, in search of a law that would call it criminal. No one had ever been prosecuted for what I had done then, revealing top secrets. There had been many leaks in the past, then as now, and no one had ever been prosecuted. I was the first. The act they found was the Espionage Act, which was passed in 1917, was never intended to work as an Official Secrets Act, as in England, which would criminalize any release of classified information. But they tried it on me. I was faced with a possible 115 years in prison, which is the kind of sentence they would love to hang on Bradley Manning, who is accused of being the leaker in this case. We don't know if he was, but I'm going to give him credit for it, since I regard it as a very admirable act, for which I thank him at this time. And if he's-if the credit is not due, it's due to the source, whoever that was.
So, I think, actually, what this is about, to a large extent, is trying to, once again, to instate the Espionage Act as if it were an Official Secrets Act, use it to cut down, close off unauthorized disclosures to the American public from inside the government, and also to accompany that with a legislative move to supplement it with an act that is explicitly an Official Secrets Act, one that clearly Congress intends to criminalize any release of classified information, such as the one you were just quoting to-in Cancún. I was interested that the recent release-Amy, you must have been reading it, actually, unlike most people, and found something of note in the cables that were released by the New York Times, given to them by WikiLeaks, and eventually by the source, about what Bradley Manning is reported to have said, the U.S. throwing its weight around against the poor countries of the world to exploit their resources, something that he said he was determined to expose to the American people.
AMY GOODMAN: In the letter that you've joined with others, very significantly among them Larry Wilkerson, the former chief of staff of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, you are fiercely critical of the media. Talk about the role that it has played.
DANIEL ELLSBERG: Well, in this case, as in the Pentagon Papers, I do give the New York Times credit for working with these materials and presenting material to their readers. And in fact, there really-if they find a crime, or if they invent a crime or pass a crime-criminal law that would cover WikiLeaks, it will cover the New York Times, and you, Democracy Now!, and anyone who presents news that in part reflects leaks, unauthorized disclosures from within the government.
Actually, the wording of the Espionage Act, which, as I say, was not intended for this purpose, but the wording of it is so broad that it applies to readers of this classified information. If they are unauthorized possessors, which they are from the point of view of the government, then they can't discuss it. They can't join chat logs, let's say, discussing it, and they have to, quote, "return" it, which is quite challenging with digital material like this. But they'd have to return their copy of the New York Times, I guess, to the Justice Department. That actually is in line with what the government has been saying right now, directing its employees that they cannot download WikiLeaks or the New York Times sites that reports the WikiLeaks onto their computers at work or at home-just where that leaves their family members, for instance. Is it possible that it could be discussed around the family table, if someone else has downloaded it?
We're in an absurd position here with a close down of public discussion of official matters, very similar to that of China. In fact, I even wonder whether there's a rule that absurd in China. And that's the kind of information system, I think, that our leaders aspire to, and have for a long time.
AMY GOODMAN: Julian Assange has been the target of assassination and arrest calls from a number of U.S. politicians and commentators since the release of the diplomatic cables. This week, a Democratic Party consultant, Fox Business commentator Bob Beckel, called for illegally shooting Assange. This is what he said.
BOB BECKEL: We've got special ops forces. I mean, a dead man can't leak stuff. This guy's a traitor, a treasonous, and he has broken every law of the United States. The guy ought to be-and I'm not for the death penalty, so if I'm not for the death penalty, there's only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a [bleep].
AMY GOODMAN: OK, now, that's Bob Beckel. That's Bob Beckel, Dan Ellsberg, on Fox, right? Bob Beckel, who was what? What was he? The campaign manager for Walter Mondale in 1984, in the presidential campaign of Walter Mondale?
DANIEL ELLSBERG: Well, it's appalling. I didn't remember that, but it's appalling. You are reminding us that it's not only Republicans like Sarah Palin and others, and Peter King, who will be a high-have high position in the House in the next term, who are calling for this kind of thing. In my case-I'm sure, by the way, that if I released the Pentagon Papers today, the same rhetoric and the same calls would be made about me at this time, the same material, same instigations. I would be called not only a traitor, which I was then, which was false and slanderous, but I would be called a terrorist, as a matter of fact. Now, that's the word today for someone who is beyond the pale of any rights, of any rights of citizenship or any human rights, someone who can be just dealt with summarily like that. The reason for calling for illegal shooting, which is an odd and unusual call, is, as I said at the beginning, because our legal system, with its glorious First Amendment, we don't have a law that makes it clearly illegal to do what-the truth telling that WikiLeaks and New York Times and Julian Assange has done. Assange and Bradley Manning are no more terrorists than I am, and I'm not.
And that is a-it's appalling that our conversation after 9/11, in the last ten years, has reached a point where what Nixon did to me covertly can now be called for and actually done openly and very specifically. Nixon brought a dozen Cuban American émigrés, Bay of Pigs veterans, up from Miami to at least beat me up. The words were "incapacitate Ellsberg totally," which covers the word "kill," which, as their prosecutor said to me at the time, these guys, who were CIA assets, they don't use the word "kill." They avoid it. They use words like "neutralize" and "eliminate" and "with extreme prejudice," "terminate," that sort of thing. They avoided the word "kill." I notice that the change now is that not only is that, which was a covert action, which actually was critical in bringing Nixon down because it was recognized as not only illegal, but really against American values in a fundamental sense, that has now become something you can talk about quite openly. And even the President can refer to special operations teams worldwide whose work is to capture or kill. The word "kill" is no longer avoided in these circles, assassinating people who get in the way by telling the truth.
AMY GOODMAN: Dan, we're going to have to leave it there. I thank you very much for being with us, Dan Ellsberg, a premier American whistleblower, released the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago.
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9) Justice Department Prepares for Ominous Expansion of "Anti-Terrorism" Law Targeting Activists
by: Michael Deutsch, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis
Saturday 11 December 2010
http://www.truth-out.org/justice-department-prepares-expansion-laws-targeting-activists
In late September, the FBI carried out a series of raids of homes and antiwar offices of public activists in Minneapolis and Chicago. Following the raids, the Obama Justice Department subpoenaed 14 activists to a grand jury in Chicago and also subpoenaed the files of several antiwar and community organizations. In carrying out these repressive actions, the Justice Department was taking its lead from the Supreme Court's 6-3 opinion last June in Holder v. the Humanitarian Law Project, which decided that nonviolent First Amendment speech and advocacy "coordinated with" or "under the direction of" a foreign group listed by the Secretary of State as "terrorist" was a crime.
The search warrants and grand jury subpoenas make it clear that the federal prosecutors are intent on accusing public nonviolent political organizers, many of whom are affiliated with Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), of providing "material support" through their public advocacy for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The Secretary of State has determined that both the PLFP and the FARC "threaten US national security, foreign policy or economic interests," a finding not reviewable by the courts, and listed both groups as foreign terrorist organizations (FTO).
In 1996, Congress made it a crime - then punishable by 10 years, which was later increased to 15 years - to anyone in the US who provides "material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization or attempts or conspires to do so." The present statute defines "material support or resources" as:
... any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safe houses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel and transportation except medicine or religious materials.
In the Humanitarian Law Project case, human rights workers wanted to teach members of the Kurdistan PKK, which seeks an independent Kurdish state, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which sought an independent state in Sri Lanka, how to use humanitarian and international law to peacefully resolve disputes and obtain relief from the United Nations and other international bodies for human rights abuses by the governments of Turkey and Sri Lanka. Both organizations were designated as FTOs by the Secretary of State in a closed hearing, in which the evidence is heard secretly.
Despite the nonviolent, peacemaking goal of the Humanitarian Law Project's speech and training, the majority of the Supreme Court nonetheless interpreted the law to make such conduct a crime. Finding a whole new exception to the First Amendment, the Court decided that any support, even if it involves nonviolent efforts towards peace, is illegal under the law since it "frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends," and also helps lend "legitimacy" to foreign terrorist groups. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts, despite the lack of any evidence, further opined that the FTO could use the human rights law to "intimidate, harass or destruct" its adversaries, and that even peace talks themselves could be used as a cover to re-arm for further attacks. Thus, the Court's opinion criminalizes efforts by independent groups to work for peace if they in any way cooperate or coordinate with designated FTOs.
The Court distinguishes what it refers to as "independent advocacy," which it finds is not prohibited by the statute, from "advocacy performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization," which is, for the first time, found to be a crime under the statute. The exact line demarcating where independent advocacy becomes impermissible coordination is left open and vague.
Seizing on this overbroad definition of "material support," the US government is now moving in on political groups and activists who are clearly exercising fundamental First Amendment rights by vocally opposing the government's branding of foreign liberation movements as terrorist and supporting their struggles against US-backed repressive regimes and illegal occupations.
Under the new definition of "material support," the efforts of President Jimmy Carter to monitor the elections in Lebanon and coordinate with the political parties there, including the designated FTO Hezbollah, could well be prosecuted as a crime. Similarly, the publication of op-ed articles by FTO spokesmen from Hamas or other designated groups by The New York Times or The Washington Post, or the filing of amicus briefs by human rights attorneys arguing against a group's terrorist designation or the statute itself could also now be prosecuted. Of course, the first targets of this draconian expansion of the material support law will not be a former president or the establishment media, but members of a Marxist organization who are vocal opponents of the governments of Israel and Colombia and the US policies supporting these repressive governments.
In his foreword to Nelson Mandela's recent autobiography "Conversations with Myself," President Obama wrote that "Mandela's sacrifice was so great that it called upon people everywhere to do what they could on behalf of human progress. ... The first time I became politically active was during my college years, when I joined a campaign on behalf of divestment, and the effort to end apartheid in South Africa." At the time of Mr. Obama's First Amendment advocacy, Mr. Mandela and his organization the African National Congress (ANC) were denounced as terrorist by the US government. If the "material support" law had been in effect back then, Mr. Obama would have been subject to potential criminal prosecution. It is ironic - and the height of hypocrisy - that this same man who speaks with such reverence for Mr. Mandela and recalls his own support for the struggle against apartheid now allows the Justice Department under his command to criminalize similar First Amendment advocacy against Israeli apartheid and repressive foreign governments.
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10) A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives
"The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable - and controversial - fields in finance. They also share a common secret: The details of their meetings, even their identities, have been strictly confidential. ... In theory, this group exists to safeguard the integrity of the multitrillion-dollar market. In practice, it also defends the dominance of the big banks."
By LOUISE STORY
December 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/business/12advantage.html?hp
On the third Wednesday of every month, the nine members of an elite Wall Street society gather in Midtown Manhattan.
The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable - and controversial - fields in finance. They also share a common secret: The details of their meetings, even their identities, have been strictly confidential.
Drawn from giants like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the bankers form a powerful committee that helps oversee trading in derivatives, instruments which, like insurance, are used to hedge risk.
In theory, this group exists to safeguard the integrity of the multitrillion-dollar market. In practice, it also defends the dominance of the big banks.
The banks in this group, which is affiliated with a new derivatives clearinghouse, have fought to block other banks from entering the market, and they are also trying to thwart efforts to make full information on prices and fees freely available.
Banks' influence over this market, and over clearinghouses like the one this select group advises, has costly implications for businesses large and small, like Dan Singer's home heating-oil company in Westchester County, north of New York City.
This fall, many of Mr. Singer's customers purchased fixed-rate plans to lock in winter heating oil at around $3 a gallon. While that price was above the prevailing $2.80 a gallon then, the contracts will protect homeowners if bitterly cold weather pushes the price higher.
But Mr. Singer wonders if his company, Robison Oil, should be getting a better deal. He uses derivatives like swaps and options to create his fixed plans. But he has no idea how much lower his prices - and his customers' prices - could be, he says, because banks don't disclose fees associated with the derivatives.
"At the end of the day, I don't know if I got a fair price, or what they're charging me," Mr. Singer said.
Derivatives shift risk from one party to another, and they offer many benefits, like enabling Mr. Singer to sell his fixed plans without having to bear all the risk that oil prices could suddenly rise. Derivatives are also big business on Wall Street. Banks collect many billions of dollars annually in undisclosed fees associated with these instruments - an amount that almost certainly would be lower if there were more competition and transparent prices.
Just how much derivatives trading costs ordinary Americans is uncertain. The size and reach of this market has grown rapidly over the past two decades. Pension funds today use derivatives to hedge investments. States and cities use them to try to hold down borrowing costs. Airlines use them to secure steady fuel prices. Food companies use them to lock in prices of commodities like wheat or beef.
The marketplace as it functions now "adds up to higher costs to all Americans," said Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates most derivatives. More oversight of the banks in this market is needed, he said.
But big banks influence the rules governing derivatives through a variety of industry groups. The banks' latest point of influence are clearinghouses like ICE Trust, which holds the monthly meetings with the nine bankers in New York.
Under the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul, many derivatives will be traded via such clearinghouses. Mr. Gensler wants to lessen banks' control over these new institutions. But Republican lawmakers, many of whom received large campaign contributions from bankers who want to influence how the derivatives rules are written, say they plan to push back against much of the coming reform. On Thursday, the commission canceled a vote over a proposal to make prices more transparent, raising speculation that Mr. Gensler did not have enough support from his fellow commissioners.
The Department of Justice is looking into derivatives, too. The department's antitrust unit is actively investigating "the possibility of anticompetitive practices in the credit derivatives clearing, trading and information services industries," according to a department spokeswoman.
Indeed, the derivatives market today reminds some experts of the Nasdaq stock market in the 1990s. Back then, the Justice Department discovered that Nasdaq market makers were secretly colluding to protect their own profits. Following that scandal, reforms and electronic trading systems cut Nasdaq stock trading costs to 1/20th of their former level - an enormous savings for investors.
"When you limit participation in the governance of an entity to a few like-minded institutions or individuals who have an interest in keeping competitors out, you have the potential for bad things to happen. It's antitrust 101," said Robert E. Litan, who helped oversee the Justice Department's Nasdaq investigation as deputy assistant attorney general and is now a fellow at the Kauffman Foundation. "The history of derivatives trading is it has grown up as a very concentrated industry, and old habits are hard to break."
Representatives from the nine banks that dominate the market declined to comment on the Department of Justice investigation.
Clearing involves keeping track of trades and providing a central repository for money backing those wagers. A spokeswoman for Deutsche Bank, which is among the most influential of the group, said this system will reduce the risks in the market. She said that Deutsche is focused on ensuring this process is put in place without disrupting the marketplace.
The Deutsche spokeswoman also said the banks' role in this process has been a success, saying in a statement that the effort "is one of the best examples of public-private partnerships."
Established, But Can't Get In
The Bank of New York Mellon's origins go back to 1784, when it was founded by Alexander Hamilton. Today, it provides administrative services on more than $23 trillion of institutional money.
Recently, the bank has been seeking to enter the inner circle of the derivatives market, but so far, it has been rebuffed.
Bank of New York officials say they have been thwarted by competitors who control important committees at the new clearinghouses, which were set up in the wake of the financial crisis.
Bank of New York Mellon has been trying to become a so-called clearing member since early this year. But three of the four main clearinghouses told the bank that its derivatives operation has too little capital, and thus potentially poses too much risk to the overall market.
The bank dismisses that explanation as absurd. "We are not a nobody," said Sanjay Kannambadi, chief executive of BNY Mellon Clearing, a subsidiary created to get into the business. "But we don't qualify. We certainly think that's kind of crazy."
The real reason the bank is being shut out, he said, is that rivals want to preserve their profit margins, and they are the ones who helped write the membership rules.
Mr. Kannambadi said Bank of New York's clients asked it to enter the derivatives business because they believe they are being charged too much by big banks. Its entry could lower fees. Others that have yet to gain full entry to the derivatives trading club are the State Street Corporation, and small brokerage firms like MF Global and Newedge.
The criteria seem arbitrary, said Marcus Katz, a senior vice president at Newedge, which is owned by two big French banks.
"It appears that the membership criteria were set so that a certain group of market participants could meet that, and everyone else would have to jump through hoops," Mr. Katz said.
The one new derivatives clearinghouse that has welcomed Newedge, Bank of New York and the others - Nasdaq - has been avoided by the big derivatives banks.
Only the Insiders Know
How did big banks come to have such influence that they can decide who can compete with them?
Ironically, this development grew in part out of worries during the height of the financial crisis in 2008. A major concern during the meltdown was that no one - not even government regulators - fully understood the size and interconnections of the derivatives market, especially the market in credit default swaps, which insure against defaults of companies or mortgages bonds. The panic led to the need to bail out the American International Group, for instance, which had C.D.S. contracts with many large banks.
In the midst of the turmoil, regulators ordered banks to speed up plans - long in the making - to set up a clearinghouse to handle derivatives trading. The intent was to reduce risk and increase stability in the market.
Two established exchanges that trade commodities and futures, the InterContinentalExchange, or ICE, and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, set up clearinghouses, and, so did Nasdaq.
Each of these new clearinghouses had to persuade big banks to join their efforts, and they doled out membership on their risk committees, which is where trading rules are written, as an incentive.
None of the three clearinghouses would divulge the members of their risk committees when asked by a reporter. But two people with direct knowledge of ICE's committee said the bank members are: Thomas J. Benison of JPMorgan Chase & Company; James J. Hill of Morgan Stanley; Athanassios Diplas of Deutsche Bank; Paul Hamill of UBS; Paul Mitrokostas of Barclays; Andy Hubbard of Credit Suisse; Oliver Frankel of Goldman Sachs; Ali Balali of Bank of America; and Biswarup Chatterjee of Citigroup.
Through representatives, these bankers declined to discuss the committee or the derivatives market. Some of the spokesmen noted that the bankers have expertise that helps the clearinghouse.
Many of these same people hold influential positions at other clearinghouses, or on committees at the powerful International Swaps and Derivatives Association, which helps govern the market.
Critics have called these banks the "derivatives dealers club," and they warn that the club is unlikely to give up ground easily.
"The revenue these dealers make on derivatives is very large and so the incentive they have to protect those revenues is extremely large," said Darrell Duffie, a professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, who studied the derivatives market earlier this year with Federal Reserve researchers. "It will be hard for the dealers to keep their market share if everybody who can prove their creditworthiness is allowed into the clearinghouses. So they are making arguments that others shouldn't be allowed in."
Perhaps no business in finance is as profitable today as derivatives. Not making loans. Not offering credit cards. Not advising on mergers and acquisitions. Not managing money for the wealthy.
The precise amount that banks make trading derivatives isn't known, but there is anecdotal evidence of their profitability. Former bank traders who spoke on condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements with their former employers said their banks typically earned $25,000 for providing $25 million of insurance against the risk that a corporation might default on its debt via the swaps market. These traders turn over millions of dollars in these trades every day, and credit default swaps are just one of many kinds of derivatives.
The secrecy surrounding derivatives trading is a key factor enabling banks to make such large profits.
If an investor trades shares of Google or Coca-Cola or any other company on a stock exchange, the price - and the commission, or fee - are known. Electronic trading has made this information available to anyone with a computer, while also increasing competition - and sharply lowering the cost of trading. Even corporate bonds have become more transparent recently. Trading costs dropped there almost immediately after prices became more visible in 2002.
Not so with derivatives. For many, there is no central exchange, like the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq, where the prices of derivatives are listed. Instead, when a company or an investor wants to buy a derivative contract for, say, oil or wheat or securitized mortgages, an order is placed with a trader at a bank. The trader matches that order with someone selling the same type of derivative.
Banks explain that many derivatives trades have to work this way because they are often customized, unlike shares of stock. One share of Google is the same as any other. But the terms of an oil derivatives contract can vary greatly.
And the profits on most derivatives are masked. In most cases, buyers are told only what they have to pay for the derivative contract, say $25 million. That amount is more than the seller gets, but how much more - $5,000, $25,000 or $50,000 more - is unknown. That's because the seller also is told only the amount he will receive. The difference between the two is the bank's fee and profit. So, the bigger the difference, the better for the bank - and the worse for the customers.
It would be like a real estate agent selling a house, but the buyer knowing only what he paid and the seller knowing only what he received. The agent would pocket the difference as his fee, rather than disclose it. Moreover, only the real estate agent - and neither buyer nor seller - would have easy access to the prices paid recently for other homes on the same block.
An Electronic Exchange?
Two years ago, Kenneth C. Griffin, owner of the giant hedge fund Citadel Group, which is based in Chicago, proposed open pricing for commonly traded derivatives, by quoting their prices electronically. Citadel oversees $11 billion in assets, so saving even a few percentage points in costs on each trade could add up to tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
But Mr. Griffin's proposal for an electronic exchange quickly ran into opposition, and what happened is a window into how banks have fiercely fought competition and open pricing. To get a transparent exchange going, Citadel offered the use of its technological prowess for a joint venture with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which is best-known as a trading outpost for contracts on commodities like coffee and cotton. The goal was to set up a clearinghouse as well as an electronic trading system that would display prices for credit default swaps.
Big banks that handle most derivatives trades, including Citadel's, didn't like Citadel's idea. Electronic trading might connect customers directly with each other, cutting out the banks as middlemen.
So the banks responded in the fall of 2008 by pairing with ICE, one of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's rivals, which was setting up its own clearinghouse. The banks attached a number of conditions on that partnership, which came in the form of a merger between ICE's clearinghouse and a nascent clearinghouse that the banks were establishing. These conditions gave the banks significant power at ICE's clearinghouse, according to two people with knowledge of the deal. For instance, the banks insisted that ICE install the chief executive of their effort as the head of the joint effort. That executive, Dirk Pruis, left after about a year and now works at Goldman Sachs. Through a spokesman, he declined to comment.
The banks also refused to allow the deal with ICE to close until the clearinghouse's rulebook was established, with provisions in the banks' favor. Key among those were the membership rules, which required members to hold large amounts of capital in derivatives units, a condition that was prohibitive even for some large banks like the Bank of New York.
The banks also required ICE to provide market data exclusively to Markit, a little-known company that plays a pivotal role in derivatives. Backed by Goldman, JPMorgan and several other banks, Markit provides crucial information about derivatives, like prices.
Kevin Gould, who is the president of Markit and was involved in the clearinghouse merger, said the banks were simply being prudent and wanted rules that protected the market and themselves.
"The one thing I know the banks are concerned about is their risk capital," he said. "You really are going to get some comfort that the way the entity operates isn't going to put you at undue risk."
Even though the banks were working with ICE, Citadel and the C.M.E. continued to move forward with their exchange. They, too, needed to work with Markit, because it owns the rights to certain derivatives indexes. But Markit put them in a tough spot by basically insisting that every trade involve at least one bank, since the banks are the main parties that have licenses with Markit.
This demand from Markit effectively secured a permanent role for the big derivatives banks since Citadel and the C.M.E. could not move forward without Markit's agreement. And so, essentially boxed in, they agreed to the terms, according to the two people with knowledge of the matter. (A spokesman for C.M.E. said last week that the exchange did not cave to Markit's terms.)
Still, even after that deal was complete, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange soon had second thoughts about working with Citadel and about introducing electronic screens at all. The C.M.E. backed out of the deal in mid-2009, ending Mr. Griffin's dream of a new, electronic trading system.
With Citadel out of the picture, the banks agreed to join the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's clearinghouse effort. The exchange set up a risk committee that, like ICE's committee, was mainly populated by bankers.
It remains unclear why the C.M.E. ended its electronic trading initiative. Two people with knowledge of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's clearinghouse said the banks refused to get involved unless the exchange dropped Citadel and the entire plan for electronic trading.
Kim Taylor, the president of Chicago Mercantile Exchange's clearing division, said "the market" simply wasn't interested in Mr. Griffin's idea.
Critics now say the banks have an edge because they have had early control of the new clearinghouses' risk committees. Ms. Taylor at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange said the people on those committees are supposed to look out for the interest of the broad market, rather than their own narrow interests. She likened the banks' role to that of Washington lawmakers who look out for the interests of the nation, not just their constituencies.
"It's not like the sort of representation where if I'm elected to be the representative from the state of Illinois, I go there to represent the state of Illinois," Ms. Taylor said in an interview.
Officials at ICE, meantime, said they solicit views from customers through a committee that is separate from the bank-dominated risk committee.
"We spent and we still continue to spend a lot of time on thinking about governance," said Peter Barsoom, the chief operating officer of ICE Trust. "We want to be sure that we have all the right stakeholders appropriately represented."
Mr. Griffin said last week that customers have so far paid the price for not yet having electronic trading. He puts the toll, by a rough estimate, in the tens of billions of dollars, saying that electronic trading would remove much of this "economic rent the dealers enjoy from a market that is so opaque."
"It's a stunning amount of money," Mr. Griffin said. "The key players today in the derivatives market are very apprehensive about whether or not they will be winners or losers as we move towards more transparent, fairer markets, and since they're not sure if they'll be winners or losers, their basic instinct is to resist change."
In, Out and Around Henhouse
The result of the maneuvering of the past couple years is that big banks dominate the risk committees of not one, but two of the most prominent new clearinghouses in the United States.
That puts them in a pivotal position to determine how derivatives are traded.
Under the Dodd-Frank bill, the clearinghouses were given broad authority. The risk committees there will help decide what prices will be charged for clearing trades, on top of fees banks collect for matching buyers and sellers, and how much money customers must put up as collateral to cover potential losses.
Perhaps more important, the risk committees will recommend which derivatives should be handled through clearinghouses, and which should be exempt.
Regulators will have the final say. But banks, which lobbied heavily to limit derivatives regulation in the Dodd-Frank bill, are likely to argue that few types of derivatives should have to go through clearinghouses. Critics contend that the bankers will try to keep many types of derivatives away from the clearinghouses, since clearinghouses represent a step towards broad electronic trading that could decimate profits.
The banks already have a head start. Even a newly proposed rule to limit the banks' influence over clearing allows them to retain majorities on risk committees. It remains unclear whether regulators creating the new rules - on topics like transparency and possible electronic trading - will drastically change derivatives trading, or leave the bankers with great control.
One former regulator warned against deferring to the banks. Theo Lubke, who until this fall oversaw the derivatives reforms at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said banks do not always think of the market as a whole as they help write rules.
"Fundamentally, the banks are not good at self-regulation," Mr. Lubke said in a panel last March at Columbia University. "That's not their expertise, that's not their primary interest."
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11) Prisoners Strike in Georgia
By SARAH WHEATON
December 12, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/us/12prison.html?ref=us
In a protest apparently assembled largely through a network of banned cellphones, inmates across at least six prisons in Georgia have been on strike since Thursday, calling for better conditions and compensation, several inmates and an outside advocate said.
Inmates have refused to leave their cells or perform their jobs, in a demonstration that seems to transcend racial and gang factions that do not often cooperate.
"Their general rage found a home among them - common ground - and they set aside their differences to make an incredible statement," said Elaine Brown, a former Black Panther leader who has taken up the inmates' cause. She said that different factions' leaders recruited members to participate, but the movement lacks a definitive torchbearer.
Ms. Brown said thousands of inmates were participating in the strike.
The Georgia Department of Corrections could not be reached for comment Saturday night.
"We're not coming out until something is done. We're not going to work until something is done," said one inmate at Rogers State Prison in Reidsville. He refused to give his name because he was speaking on a banned cellphone.
Several inmates, who used cellphones to call The Times from their cells, said they found out about the protest from text messages and did not know whether specific individuals were behind it.
"This is a pretty much organic effort on their part," said Ms. Brown, a longtime prisoner advocate, who distilled the inmates' complaints into a list of demands. "They did it, and then they reached out to me." Ms. Brown, the founder of the National Alliance for Radical Prison Reform in Locust Grove, Ga., said she has spoken to more than 200 prisoners over the past two days.
The Corrections Department placed several of the facilities where inmates planned to strike under indefinite lockdown on Thursday, according to local reports.
"We're hearing in the news they're putting it down as we're starting a riot, so they locked all the prison down," said a 20-year-old inmate at Hays State Prison in Trion, who also refused to give his name. But, he said, "We locked ourselves down."
Even if the Corrections Department did want to sit down at the table with the inmates, the spontaneous nature of the strike has left the prisoners without a representative to serve as negotiator, Ms. Brown said.
Ms. Brown, who lives in Oakland, Calif., said she planned to gather legal and advocacy groups on Monday to help coordinate a strategy for the inmates.
Chief among the prisoners' demands is that they be compensated for jailhouse labor. They are also demanding better educational opportunities, nutrition, and access to their families.
"We committed the crime, we're here for a reason," said the Hays inmate. "But at the same time we're men. We can't be treated like animals."
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12) Reasonable doubts about executing Kevin Cooper
Chronicle Editorial
Monday, December 13, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/13/EDG81GP0I7.DTL
The legal effort to prevent the execution of Kevin Cooper has run its course. Unless the governor of California intervenes, Cooper is likely to be put to death next year for the brutal 1983 murders of a Chino Hills couple, their 10-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old houseguest.
Just one eyewitness survived the horrific scene, a 9-year-old boy whose throat had been sliced. His initial account of the attack is one of many disturbing contradictions that led five federal judges to take issue with their colleagues' decision to put a stop to Cooper's appeals.
The boy recalled three attackers - all white. Cooper is black. The surviving victim later changed his story to claim that he saw a black man with a great "poof" of hair standing over his parents' bed. Cooper, who had just escaped from a nearby minimum-security prison, wore his hair in cornrows at the time.
"He is on Death Row because the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department framed him," federal appeals Judge William Fletcher told Gonzaga University law students in an April speech.
Fletcher and four fellow judges were searingly blunt in a 2009 dissent that meticulously catalogued the extent that investigators ignored and even destroyed evidence that might have exonerated Cooper.
Especially unsettling is the investigators' disregard for evidence that seemed to point to a white ex-con who had served time for murder. That potential suspect's girlfriend testified that he had come to change out of his overalls on the night of the murder. When she and her father saw they were spattered with blood, they alerted authorities. The overalls were never tested or turned over to Cooper's legal team. They were tossed in a Dumpster on the day of his arraignment.
To be sure, there is evidence linking Cooper to the crime. But when the doubts are sufficient to persuade federal judges that the case against Cooper is not only flawed - but a potential frame job - leaders have a moral obligation to intervene.
Cooper's legal team has asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to invoke his powers to commute the sentence to life without the possibility of parole. If Schwarzenegger refuses, Cooper's attorneys will then press the issue with Jerry Brown when he takes office in January.
Their legal strategy raises the question: If Cooper is innocent, why merely ask for life without parole?
"Right now, we're trying to save a man's life," said Lanny Davis, a former White House counsel to Bill Clinton and member of Cooper's legal team. "Where there's life, there's hope."
As Judge Fletcher pointedly suggested to the law-school audience, faults with the application of the death penalty do not begin and end in Texas. The problems are "widespread and endemic," he said. And they pervade the case of Kevin Cooper.
Californians cannot just look the other way while their state proceeds toward an execution that five federal judges have found a sound basis to halt.
It will take an act of courage to prevent a potential lethal injustice.
Gaps and contradictions
Among the flaws in the evidence used to convict Kevin Cooper of the murders of Douglas Ryen, Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica and 11-year-old Christopher Hughes:
-- DNA doubts: Was Cooper's blood planted on a T-shirt found near the scene? Lab technicians were startled to find the DNA of two people when they tested a vial containing Cooper's blood. Appellate Judge William Fletcher's suspicion: "Remember the trick of the teenager who takes whiskey from his parents' bottle and who then adds something to the bottle to bring it up to the right level?"
-- More DNA doubts: Fletcher questioned the efficacy of tests ordered by the appeals court to determine whether the blood identified as Cooper's on a beige T-shirt found at the crime scene contained a preservative used on samples drawn from suspects - which would have suggested the blood was planted.
-- Shoes: A key prosecution point was that footprints found at the scene matched shoes issued only at prisons - pointed to escapee Cooper. It turned out they were from Pro-Ked "Dude" sneakers widely available at retail stores.
-- Urge Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to prevent Kevin Cooper's execution by invoking his powers to reduce the sentence to life without parole. E-mail: governor@governor.ca.gov.
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13) Why Are the Feds Cultivating Their Own "Homegrown Terrorists"?
By Seth Freed Wessler, ColorLines
Posted on December 12, 2010, Printed on December 13, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/149160/
The FBI caught another homegrown terrorist this week, except like many recent plots the agency has "uncovered," the attack was a plant, a plan concocted by the FBI itself. It's the latest in a growing number of terrorism plots that the FBI stirs up by infiltrating communities and helping to devise attack plans. The practice raises serious questions about the government's implementation of it's ongoing war on terror.
The recent case involves 21-year-old from Baltimore named Antonio Martinez, who'd reportedly converted to Islam, changed his name to Muhammad Hussain and planned to blow up a bomb outside a military recruitment center in Baltimore. None of the plot, however, existed before the FBI instigated it and Martinez had no contact with any real terrorist organization.
The FBI deployed an informant to pose as an accomplice by adding Martinez as a friend on Facebook and communicate with him through Facebook messages. Martinez reportedly updated his status with comments about his devotion to Jihad. Once the young man had been identified as a target, the FBI informant helped imagine and orchestrate the plot, and supplied Martinez with a fake bomb and a vehicle to transport it. After he attempted to detonate the explosive remotely, the FBI arrested Martinez. If convicted of charges, he could face life in prison.
The case is the second since Thanksgiving and one of many more over the past decade, in which the federal government has deployed informants to "catch" terrorists inside the country. It's all part of the FBI's wider practice of targeting American Muslims-largely, according to some reports, Muslim converts as well as American born black Muslims. But far from stopping ongoing plots and interrupting "radicalization," the FBI is fabricating plans, providing the tools to carry out attacks and inciting suspects to do so.
As U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein told the AFP [Agence France-Presse], "There was no actual danger," because the people posing as accomplices were FBI employees.
Nonetheless, the FBI claims that Martinez posed a real threat because, according to Richard McFeely, an FBI special agent, the young man was "absolutely committed to carrying out an attack which would have cost lives."
"The case," reports the AFP:
bore a striking resemblance to that of a Somali-American arrested in Portland, Oregon, last month after trying to set off what he thought was an explosives-laden van parked near a Christmas tree ceremony.
The device was actually a dummy bomb supplied by undercover FBI agents who had contacted him months before and pretended to be accomplices, and the would-be attacker, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was charged with "attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction."
The informant program targeting American Muslims is part of a larger and developing FBI policy. As I wrote in October:
An extensive investigation, Anjali Kamat reports that the FBI has repeatedly used secret informants to gather questionable information and even entrap groups of people into supporting acts of terrorism. These informants are often Muslim men found guilty of non-terrorism related crimes and who face deportation or jail time.
In numerous cases, documented at length by the DN investigation, there are serious questions as to whether the tactic is creating crimes out of thin air. In one case, an FBI informant befriended a Muslim business owner. When that business started failing, the informant, who was himself facing deportation, offered the other man a loan that was allegedly laundered for weapons buying. The exchange led to terrorism convictions.
Karen Greenberg of the NYU Center for Law and Security explains, "the conviction rate for cases that involve informants is almost 100 percent." But according to James Wedick, a former FBI agent, "90 percent of the cases that you see that have occurred in the last 10 years are garbage."
Wedick also says that economic strains are often the way that informants entrap others. In Newburgh, NY, an FBI informant allegedly entrapped four black Muslim men from a poor neighborhood, pushing them to participate in an attempted attack on a synagogue in the area
High profile domestic terrorism plots appear to have increased in recent months, but they've been largely concocted. As the 10th anniversary of September 11th approaches, the government appears to be one of the key players in the maintenance of a believable terrorist threat.
Amna Akbar, fellow at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice of New York University School of Law, says, "What's really interesting is that there's been a significant increase in high profile so-called homegrown terrorism cases recently where the the actual threat is constructed by the government. There does not seem to be very much actual threat to justify the ongoing 'war on terror' and there are serious questions about why the government is going to such lengths in these cases."
An archive of writer Seth Freed Wessler's articles for RaceWire's Colorlines Blog is available here.
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14) CALIFORNIA NAACP TO HOLD PUBLIC HEARING ON REPORTED BRUTALITY AND CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATIONS CARRIED OUT BY LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS IN OAKLAND
CALIFORNIA STATE
CONFERENCE OF THE
N A A C P
1215 K Street, Suite 1609, Sacramento , CA 95814
Alice A. Huffman, President
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 10, 2010
Contact: Joy Atkinson
323.954.3777
213.840.4173
VIA EMAIL
CALIFORNIA NAACP TO HOLD PUBLIC HEARING ON REPORTED BRUTALITY AND CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATIONS CARRIED OUT BY LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS IN OAKLAND
(Sacramento, CA)......Alice Huffman, President of the California State Conference of the NAACP, announced that the CA NAACP will hold a public hearing to discuss and explore solutions to brutality and civil rights violations carried out by Oakland law enforcement. The hearing will be held on Thursday, December 16, 2010 from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. at Jack London Aquatic Center, 115 Embarcadero, Oakland.
Huffman stated, "In recent weeks, the City of Oakland has contended with the brutal killing of Derrick Jones, an unarmed African American man slain by the bullets of police officers, along with the injustice of Officer Johannes Mehserle's 2-year sentencing for the January 2009 murder of Oscar Grant. It is important to note that during this same period, on November 11, there were drastically different law enforcement tactics employed towards a white man named Craig Valentino, who shut down the Bay Bridge while waving a pistol, and told authorities that there were explosives in his vehicle, as he endangered his 16 year old daughter. This inconsistency is questionable and an issue that needs to be explored."
The Oakland Police Department has been under investigation for several years and under court orders to make changes in their administration of justice regarding police misconduct. In the backdrop of the recent killings and Mehserle sentencing in Oakland, the NAACP continues to be confronted with scores of civil rights violations. A local disconcerting fact is that just 13 percent of the children in Alameda County are African-American, according to U.S. census estimates,
yet two of every three youths booked into the juvenile hall facility there in August and September of 2010 were African-American. Half of the new detainees were black boys.
According to Huffman, "The purpose of this hearing is to address civil rights violations in Oakland and the perpetual devaluation of African American lives." The planned agenda will cover the following topics:
1. Frame the police officer practices in the City of Oakland and County of Alameda, and their relationship to the experiences of local African American individuals, families and communities; and to provide a forum for affected families to share their experiences, attempts and desires to receive justice, as well as have their questions answered by the responsible authorities.
2. Provide the NAACP, other community leaders and elected policymakers with a vehicle to receive testimony from, ask questions to and dialogue with, families, local law enforcement authorities, and state and federal officials regarding their perspectives, and relevant details about the current civil rights and criminal justice landscape.
3. Set in motion a series of next steps resulting in several alternatives that may include law enforcement admission of culpability, terminations, disciplinary and corrective actions, accountability, oversight, police officer standards, training and practices addressing the wrongful demonization of African Americans.
4. Produce a report with a set of concrete findings and recommendations
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15) Afghans Overwhelmingly Want US Troops Out - and Soon
by: Jean MacKenzie | GlobalPost | Report
Thursday 09 December 2010
http://www.truth-out.org/afghanistan-war-public-opinion-turns-sharply-against-us-forces65879
Kabul, Afghanistan - First the good news: U.S. forces are still more popular in Afghanistan than Osama bin Laden. Fully 6 percent of respondents in a new poll expressed a "very favorable" opinion of American troops, versus just 2 percent for the fugitive Al Qaeda leader.
To be fair, the United States scored much higher in the more grudging "somewhat favorable" category, outstripping the world's most wanted man by 36 percent to just 4. But more than half of all Afghans - 55 percent - want U.S. forces out of their country, and the sooner the better.
Add it all up, and it is pretty bad news for the U.S. military as it examines its options ahead of next week's Afghanistan strategy review.
During U.S. President Barack Obama's lightening visit to Kabul on Dec. 3, White House aides said confidently that no major adjustments were expected to the present strategy, which, in the minds and words of most military leaders, is now firmly on course.
That strategy has foreign troops in Afghanistan for at least another four years, while the focus turns to training and equipping Afghan forces to handle their own security, the much-vaunted "transition" to full Afghan sovereignty.
But the poll, commissioned by The Washington Post, ABC, the BBC and Germany's ARD, and conducted by the perennial survey organization ACSOR (Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research), shows a nation yearning for an end to hostilities.
While human rights organizations and women's advocacy groups mount a spirited campaign against any accommodation with the Taliban, 73 percent of those polled said it was time to negotiate with the insurgents. While the Taliban do not enjoy much popularity in the country - only 9 percent said they would prefer them to the current government - it seems that the appetite for conflict has waned among Afghans, who mainly just want to get on with their lives.
Those who moan about the lack of readiness among the Afghan National Security Forces might be surprised to learn that more than twice as many Afghans think the police are better able to provide security in their areas than U.S. or NATO forces. Of those polled, only 36 percent said they trusted the foreigners to protect them, while 77 percent voted for their local police.
They show a lot more optimism than Gen. David Petraeus, who told ABC news over the weekend that it was far from a sure thing that Afghan troops would be able to take over from the United States and NATO by 2014, the new target date set by the NATO summit in Lisbon last month.
"I don't know that you say confident. I think no commander ever is going to come out and say 'I'm confident that we can do this,'" Petraeus said in answer to a question about the likelihood that Afghan forces would be competent to assume the burden four years from now.
Consistency is not a particularly strong suit among Afghans, if the poll data is to be trusted. The same respondents who lauded the Afghan troops complained bitterly about corruption in the police, with 85 percent of respondents saying it was a big or moderate problem in their area.
Polls are tricky tools, especially in conflict zones. ACSOR itself freely acknowledges that there were many areas it could not go to because of security concerns. That real estate would, of course, include the south, where U.S. and NATO forces are now battling the Taliban.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the popularity of U.S. forces would be even lower in these areas, given the higher incidence of civilian casualties from airstrikes, and the greater frequency of night raids, in which U.S. Special Forces descend on housing compounds, often with a mission to kill or capture alleged Taliban fighters.
The latter was a bitterly disputed topic last month, when Afghan President Hamid Karzai told the media that he wanted the night raids stopped, prompting Petraeus to say that such an attitude risked making his own position "untenable."
The poll shows that Afghans are implacably against airstrikes by U.S. or NATO troops, with 73 percent saying that they opposed them even if they help to defeat the Taliban.
There is, of course, some doubt as to the validity of any public opinion surveys in a country with a largely uneducated and unsophisticated population, suspicious of strangers and unwilling to share personal information for fear of possible consequences.
But to the extent that ACSOR's data is deemed reliable, it paints a fairly depressing picture for the international community hoping to gain public support in their struggle with a surprisingly resilient insurgency.
Fewer than half of respondents - 49 percent - support the U.S. troop surge that added 30,000 pairs of boots on the ground over the past year. The same number opposed the surge.
More troops almost always means more violence; 39 percent of respondents said that civilian casualties had increased over the past 12 months; 30 percent thought they had decreased, while 31 percent said there had been no change.
In fact, civilian casualties are up sharply, according to a United Nations report released in August. And the poll shows that Afghans primarily blame the international forces, rather than the Taliban, when innocent people are caught in the crossfire.
Of those polled, 35 percent said that U.S. and NATO troops bore responsibility, 32 percent blamed the "anti-government forces," and an equal number assigned blame to both.
As the recent WikiLeaks revelations have shown, Karzai is not the U.S. government's favorite international partner. He is seen as weak, unpredictable, often paranoid and incapable of effective governance, according to the leaked cables.
None of that holds sway with the Afghan people, though, 82 percent of whom judged Karzai favorably. Only 62 percent gave his government as a whole such high marks, however.
Perhaps most striking is the sense of lost opportunity revealed in the poll. While the vast majority of Afghans - 74 percent - still support the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban, they are now convinced that they would be better off alone.
This, according to Western observers, is part and parcel of Afghan psychology.
"They just do not want us here," said one foreign diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The Western troops, when they came here [in 2001] said 'the Soviets were invaders, we are liberators. But for Afghans it is all the same - we are all 'foreigners.' They will fight anyone who comes here."
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16) Study Shows Depth of Unemployment for Blacks in New York
"Only One in Four Young Black Men in New York City Have a Job."
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
December 13, 2010, 10:17 am
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/study-shows-depth-of-unemployment-for-blacks-in-new-york/?hp
The headline on a new report tells the bad news: "Only One in Four Young Black Men in New York City Have a Job." The report, prepared by the Community Service Society of New York, has other unhappy news about this group - that the unemployment rate for African-American men in New York, age 16 to 24, was 33.5 percent from January 2009 through June 2010, while the labor force participation rate was 38 percent.
"The recession has created a landscape of the unemployed and underemployed with particular catastrophic consequences for young African-American men," said David R. Jones, president of the Community Service Society, an advocacy group for New York's low-income residents. "Now young black men between 16 and 24 years have become the banner of hopelessness, particularly here in New York City."
The report, written by Michelle Holder, a labor market analyst with the Community Service Society, noted that during the recession that began in December 2007, working-age black men suffered an especially large increase of unemployment. The jobless rate for that group jumped to 17.9 percent in 2009 from 9 percent in 2006. Among young men of all races, age 16 to 24, the overall jobless rate rose to 24.6 percent during the recession.
The report, entitled "Unemployment in New York City During the Recession and Early Recovery," noted that the jobless rate for Hispanic men, age 16 to 24, rose to 24.7 percent during the recession, while their labor force participation rate was 42 percent. For all men age 16 to 24 in New York City, the jobless rate was 22.4 percent during the period studied, while the labor force participation rate was 42 percent. According to the report, women with less than a high school diploma had the lowest labor force participation rate of any group: 28 percent.
The group with the lowest jobless rate during the recession and the early part of the recovery - the recession ended in June 2009 - was Asian women, age 55 to 64. Their unemployment rate in 2009 was 4.5 percent, the report found.
Nearly 40 percent of black New Yorkers who had held a job previously were unemployed for more than 12 months during the recession and early part of the recovery. That compared with 24 percent for whites, 27 percent for Latinos and 26 percent for Asians. For men aged 55 to 64, 34 percent were unemployed for more than a year.
In one especially grim finding, the report noted that among black men in New York City age 16 to 24 who do not have a high school diploma, just one in 10 had a job. Ms. Holder wrote that the findings of her report were disturbing "because young African-American men without a job and without an adequate education become at-risk for involvement in the criminal justice system."
She added, "We need to ensure that young men of color in New York City are achieving the basic educational requirements to either get a decent job or go on to college if they so choose."
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17) Health Care Law Ruled Unconstitutional
[We need to demand free, universal healthcare for all! Stop the wars now! Tax the wealthy to pay for healthcare!...bw]
By KEVIN SACK
December 13, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/health/policy/14health.html?hp
A federal district judge in Virginia ruled on Monday that the keystone provision in the Obama health care law is unconstitutional, becoming the first court in the country to invalidate any part of the sprawling act and insuring that appellate courts will receive contradictory opinions from below.
Judge Henry E. Hudson, who was appointed to the bench by former President George W. Bush, declined the plaintiff's request to freeze implementation of the law pending appeal, meaning that there should be no immediate effect on the ongoing rollout of the law. But the ruling is likely to create confusion among the public and further destabilize political support for legislation that is under fierce attack from Republicans in Congress and in many statehouses.
In a 42-page opinion issued in Richmond, Va., Judge Hudson wrote that the law's central requirement that most Americans obtain health insurance exceeds the regulatory authority granted to Congress under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The insurance mandate is central to the law's mission of covering more than 30 million uninsured because insurers argue that only by requiring healthy people to have policies can they afford to treat those with expensive chronic conditions.
The judge wrote that his survey of case law "yielded no reported decisions from any federal appellate courts extending the Commerce Clause or General Welfare Clause to encompass regulation of a person's decision not to purchase a product, not withstanding its effect on interstate commerce or role in a global regulatory scheme."
Judge Hudson is the third district court judge to reach a determination on the merits in one of the two dozen lawsuits filed against the health care law. The others - in Detroit and Lynchburg, Va. - have upheld the law. Lawyers on both sides said the appellate process could last another two years before the Supreme Court settles the dispute.
The opinion by Judge Hudson, who has a long history in Republican politics in northern Virginia, continued a partisan pattern in the health care cases. Thus far, judges appointed by Republican presidents have ruled consistently against the Obama administration while Democratic appointees have found for it.
That has reinforced the notion - fueled by the White House - that the lawsuits are as much a political assault as a constitutional one. The Richmond case was filed by Virginia's attorney general, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, a Republican, and all but one of the 20 attorneys general and governors who filed a similar case in Pensacola, Fla., are Republicans. Other lawsuits have been filed by conservative law firms and interest groups.
The two cases previously decided by district courts are already before the midlevel courts of appeal, with the Detroit case in the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati and the Lynchburg case in the Fourth Circuit in Richmond.
The Justice Department, which is defending the statute, is also considering whether to appeal Judge Hudson's ruling to the Fourth Circuit, which hears cases from Virginia and four other states. That would leave that court to consider opposite rulings handed down over two weeks in courthouses situated only 116 miles apart.
The Richmond ruling is the latest in a string of recent setbacks for the Obama administration, following the Democrats' loss of the House in the midterm elections and last week's intraparty mutiny over Mr. Obama's agreement to extend the Bush era tax cuts.
But administration officials, who have been bracing for an adverse ruling, emphasized that Judge Hudson's opinion was just one among several. They said they maintained high confidence that the law eventually would be upheld, and expressed frustration that negative rulings were attracting more attention than affirming ones.
The officials stressed that the judge's decision to not enjoin the law would defer any actual impact for years. They noted that the insurance requirement does not even take effect until 2014, when the Supreme Court presumably will have ruled.
The administration has said that if that provision eventually falls, related insurance reforms would necessarily collapse with it, most notably the ban on insurer exclusions of applicants with pre-existing health conditions. But officials said other innovations, including a vast expansion of Medicaid eligibility and the sale of subsidized insurance policies through state-based exchanges, would withstand even a Supreme Court ruling against the insurance mandate.
"It's our strongly held view that those provisions survive" in judicial decisions invalidating the insurance requirement, one administration official said, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
However, even state officials who support the new law said Monday's ruling would reinforce calls by many Republican governors and lawmakers to slow down its implementation.
"I think you might see some air taken out of the balloon nationwide," said Jason A. Helgerson, the Medicaid director in Wisconsin, which is about to transition from Democratic to Republican control of the executive and legislative branches.
Mr. Helgerson said states still ignore looming federal deadlines at their peril. For instance, if states do not make adequate progress toward setting up their insurance exchanges by January 2013, the federal government can take control.
Judge Hudson, who previously was best known for sentencing the N.F.L. quarterback Michael Vick to 23 months for dog fighting, had telegraphed his leanings in a series of hearings and preliminary opinions. But the ruling was nonetheless striking given that only nine months ago prominent law professors were dismissing the constitutional claims as just north of frivolous.
The case centers on whether Congress has authority under the Commerce Clause to compel citizens to purchase a commercial product - namely health insurance - in the name of regulating an interstate economic market. Plaintiffs in the lawsuits argue there effectively would be no limits on federal power, and that the government could force people to buy American cars or, as Judge Hudson remarked at one hearing, "to eat asparagus."
The Supreme Court's position on the Commerce Clause has evolved through four signature cases over the last 68 years, with three decided since 1995. Two of the opinions established broad powers to regulate even personal commercial decisions that may influence a broader economic scheme. But other cases have limited regulation to "activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce."
A major question, therefore, has been whether the income tax penalties levied against those who do not obtain health insurance are designed to regulate "activity" or, as Virginia's solicitor general, E. Duncan Getchell Jr., has argued, "inactivity" that is beyond Congress' reach.
Justice Department lawyers have responded that individuals cannot opt out of the medical market, and that the act of not obtaining insurance is an active decision to pay for health care out of pocket. They say that such decisions, taken in the aggregate, shift billions of dollars in uncompensated care costs to governments, hospitals and the privately insured.
The ruling is a political score for Mr. Cuccinelli, who filed the lawsuit on his own rather than join the Pensacola case. It upstages a major hearing in Florida scheduled for Thursday before Judge Roger Vinson of Federal District Court in Pensacola, Fla., who is expected to rule early next year. Like Judge Hudson, Judge Vinson has expressed reservations about the insurance mandate.
Mr. Cuccinelli, who was elected in 2009, has said he filed on his own because Virginia passed a law this year aimed at nullifying the federal insurance requirement, giving the commonwealth a distinct constitutional claim. Others attribute the strategy to political ambition, suggesting that Mr. Cuccinelli did not want to share the spotlight and knew he could exploit the accelerated pace of judging in Richmond's "rocket docket" to raise his profile.
Mr. Cuccinelli filed the lawsuit minutes after President Obama signed the law on March 23, and has been discussing the case since on cable television shows and think tank panels. He follows each hearing and ruling with a news conference.
Even before Monday's ruling, Mr. Cuccinelli and Gov. Robert F. McDonnell of Virginia, also a Republican, were seeking an agreement with the Justice Department to bypass the Court of Appeals and file for expedited review by the Supreme Court. That would have the effect of further marginalizing the Pensacola case, and the politicians bringing it. The Supreme Court rarely takes such requests and the Justice Department has not publicly expressed an opinion.
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18) Los Angeles Confronts Homelessness Reputation
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
December 12, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/us/13homeless.html?ref=us
LOS ANGELES - It was just past dusk in the upscale enclave of Brentwood as a homeless man, wrapped in a tattered gray blanket, stepped into a doorway to escape a light rain, watching the flow of people on their way to the high-end restaurants that lined the street.
Across town in Hollywood the next morning, homeless people were wandering up and down Sunset Boulevard, pushing shopping carts and slumped at bus stops. More homeless men and women could be found shuffling along the boardwalks of Venice and Santa Monica, while a few others were spotted near the heart of Beverly Hills, the very symbol of Los Angeles wealth.
And, as always, San Julian Street, the infamous center of Skid Row on the south edge of downtown Los Angeles, was teeming: a small city of people were making the street their home in a warm December sun, waiting for one of the many missions there to serve a meal.
At a time when cities across the country have made significant progress over the past decade in reducing the number of homeless, in no small part by building permanent housing, the problem seems intractable in the County of Los Angeles.
It has become a subject of acute embarrassment to some civic leaders, upset over the county's faltering efforts, the glaring contrast of street poverty and mansion wealth, and any perception of a hardhearted Los Angeles unmoved by a problem that has motivated action in so many other cities.
For national organizations trying to eradicate homelessness, Los Angeles - with its 48,000 people living on the streets, including 6,000 veterans, according to one count - stands as a stubborn anomaly, an outlier at a time when there has been progress, albeit modest and at times fitful, in so many cities.
Its designation as the homeless capital of America, a title that people here dislike but do not contest, seems increasingly indisputable.
"If we want to end homelessness in this country, we have to do something about L.A.; it is the biggest nut," said Nan Roman, the president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. "It has more homeless people than anyplace else."
Neil J. Donovan, the executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said he believed that, after years of decline, there had been a slight rise in the number of homeless nationally this year because of the economic downturn, and that Los Angeles had led the way.
"Los Angeles's homeless problem is growing faster than the overall national problem," he said, "trending upwards in every demographic, dashing every hope of progress anywhere."
In a reflection of the growing concern here, a task force created by the Chamber of Commerce and the United Way of Greater Los Angeles has stepped in with a plan, called Home for Good, to end homelessness here in five years. The idea is to, among other things, build housing for 12,000 of the chronically unemployed and provide food, maintenance and other services at a cost of $235 million a year.
The proposal, based on the task force's study of what other cities had done, was embraced by political and civic leaders even as it served as a reminder of how many of these plans have failed over the years.
"This is not rocket science," said Zev Yaroslavsky of the County Board of Supervisors. "It's been done in New York, it's been done in Atlanta, and it's been done in San Francisco."
Part of the impetus for this most recent flurry of attention is concern in the business and political communities that the epidemic is threatening to tarnish Los Angeles's national image and undercut a campaign to promote tourism, particularly in downtown, which has been in the midst of a transformation of sorts, with a boom of museums, concert halls, restaurants, boutiques, parks and lofts.
The gentrification has pushed many of the homeless people south, but they can still be seen settled on benches and patches of grass in the center of downtown.
"If you have a homeless problem, then your sense of security is diminished, and that makes people not want to come," said Jerry Neuman, a co-chairman of the task force. "It's a problem that diminishes us in many ways: the way we view ourselves and the way other people view us."
Fittingly enough, it was even the subject of a movie last year, "The Soloist," which portrayed the relationship between a Los Angeles Times columnist, Steve Lopez, who has written extensively about the homeless, and a musician living on the streets.
The obstacles seem particularly great in this part of the country. The warm climate has always been a draw for homeless people. And the fact that people sleeping outside rarely die of exposure means there is less pressure on civic leaders to act. (In New York City, when a homeless woman known only as "Mama" was found dead at Grand Central Terminal on a frigid Christmas in 1985, it was front-page news that inspired a campaign to deal with the epidemic.)
The governmental structure here, of a county that includes 88 cities and a maze of conflicting jurisdictions, responsibilities and boundaries, has defused responsibility and made it nearly impossible for any one organization or person to take charge.
And Los Angeles is a place where people drive almost everywhere, so there are fewer of the reminders of homelessness - walking around a sleeping person on a sidewalk, responding to requests for money at the corner - that are common in concentrated cities like New York.
"It's easy to get up in the morning, go to work, drive home and never encounter someone who is homeless," said Wendy Greuel, the Los Angeles city controller. "I don't think it's seeped into the public's consciousness that homelessness is a problem."
The homelessness task force offered its plan at a conference that attracted some of the top elected officials here, including Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa and three of the five members of the Board of Supervisors, a notable show of political support.
"We believe that with the release of this plan, we now have a blueprint to end chronic homelessness and veteran homelessness," said Christine Marge, director of housing for the United Way of Greater Los Angeles.
Yet in a time of severe budget retrenchment, the five-year goal seems daunting. Even though the drafters of the plan say that no new money will be needed to finance it - Los Angeles is already spending more than $235 million a year on hospital, overnight housing and police costs dealing with the homeless - government financing of all social services has come under assault.
"I don't for a minute think it's not going to require a tremendous amount of political will to make it happen," said Richard Bloom, the mayor of Santa Monica. "Do I think it can happen? Yes, because I've seen what happens in other cities, like New York City, Denver and Boston."
Still, Mr. Bloom, who said he regularly attended conferences involving officials from other communities, added: "Our numbers are way out of whack with those numbers I hear elsewhere. It's just so much more enormous and daunting here."
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19) Decriminalizing Poverty
By Bruce Western
The Nation
December 9, 2010
http://www.thenation.com/article/157007/decriminalizing-poverty
Read more from the special forum on drug policy reform:
Ethan Nadelmann, "Breaking the Taboo"
http://www.thenation.com/../../../../../../article/157010/breaking-taboo
Marc Mauer, "Beyond the Fair Sentencing Act"
http://www.thenation.com/../../../../../../article/157009/beyond-fair-sentencing-act
Tracy Velázquez, "The Verdict on Drug Courts"
http://www.thenation.com/../../../../../../article/157005/verdict-drug-courts
David Cole, "Restoring Lost Liberties"
http://www.thenation.com/../../../../../../article/157003/restoring-lost-liberties
Laura Carlsen, "A New Model for Mexico"
http://www.thenation.com/../../../../../../article/157002/new-model-mexico
America's drug policy aims to reduce illicit drug use by arresting and incarcerating dealers and, to a lesser extent, users. Whatever its merits (and there are some), the policy is deeply flawed because it is unjust. It applies only to the disadvantaged. As such, it reflects massive deficits in the areas of treatment, education and employment.
Drugs are intensively criminalized among the poor but largely unregulated among the rich. The pot, coke and ecstasy that enliven college dorms, soothe the middle-class time bind and ignite the octane of capitalism on Wall Street are unimpeded by the street sweep, the prison cell and the parole-mandated urine tests that are routine in poor neighborhoods.
The drug war is nitro to the ghetto's glycerin. In neighborhoods of mass unemployment, family breakdown and untreated addiction, punitive drug policy (and its sibling, the war on crime) has outlawed large tracts of everyday life. By 2008 one in nine black men younger than 35 was in prison or jail. Among black male dropouts in their mid-30s, an astonishing 60 percent have served time in state or federal prison.
The reach of the penal system extends beyond the prison population to families and communities. There are now 2.7 million children with a parent in prison or jail. There are 1.2 million African-American children with incarcerated parents (one in nine), and more than half of those parents were convicted of a drug or other nonviolent offense.
In the absence of any serious effort to improve economic opportunity, particularly among young men with little schooling, drug control has become our surrogate social policy. For all the billions spent on draconian criminalization, addiction remains a scourge of the disadvantaged in inner cities and small towns, drugs are still plentiful and the drug trade remains a ready but risky source of casual employment for low-education men and women with no legitimate prospects. Though drugs are at the center of an array of serious social problems in low-income communities, things are made worse by a dysfunctional policy in which arrest, imprisonment and a criminal record have become a normal part of life.
The most important lesson policy-makers can take from this historic failure of social engineering is that the drug problem depends only a little on the narcotics themselves, and overwhelmingly on the social and economic context in which they are traded and taken.
Addiction exacts a toll not because the latest drug is more addictive or more potent than its predecessors but because there is too little treatment, few family or community supports, and acute economic insecurity in low-income households. The drug trade—with all its volatility and violence—is not a mainstay of economic life because of the ghetto-fabulous drug culture and its promise of conspicuous wealth. It succeeds because there is no work for men and women who dropped out of school, who have never held a legitimate job and who read at an eighth-grade level. America doesn't have a drug problem. It has a poverty problem.
Change, however, is in the air. The states are broke and are trying to cut their correctional populations. Parole and probation reforms are successfully reducing reimprisonment for drug and other violations. Libertarians on the right and left are finding common ground on decriminalization. Hard times, it seems, are forcing reform on a profligate policy.
But policy reform—as salutary as it often is, and like the drug war before it—risks mistaking symptom for cause. If we only decriminalize, eliminate mandatory minimums and divert to community supervision rather than reincarcerate, then untreated addiction will remain ruinous, and illegal opportunities will continue to offer more than going straight.
Our best research shows that criminal justice reform must be buttressed by drug treatment, education and employment. These measures complement one another. A less punitive drug control regime acknowledges relapse as a likely stage on the road to recovery. Keeping people out of prison can carry a steep social cost unless they're meaningfully occupied. In this context, school and work are as important for the stability and routine they provide as for the opportunities they expand.
The drug war made an enemy of the poor. A successful ceasefire must do more than lift the burden of criminal punishment. It must begin to restore order and predictability to economic and family life, reducing vulnerability not just to drugs but to the myriad insecurities that characterize American poverty.
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