Friday, February 07, 2014

BAUAW NEWSLETTER: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2014




AN URGENT FUNDRAISER FOR LYNNE STEWART'S MEDICAL NEEDS

http://lynnestewart.org/

ST. PETER’S CHURCH

THE JAZZ CHURCH

619 Lexington Ave @ 54 St

Buses M57, M31, M50, M101, M103;Subways E, M, 4,  5, 6

Fully accessible

Friday, February 14th at 6pm


On Valentine’s Day – Come to an evening of music, song and sharing love for recently released People’s Lawyer Lynne Stewart. Because of a determined people’s movement, Lynne is finally home with her family. But she has urgent medical needs and costs. Lynne’s Stage 4 breast cancer spread a year ago to both lungs, back, bones and lymph nodes. Now 74, she has lost weight and has trouble breathing; doctors estimate her lifespan at 12 months. Lynne will soon begin treatment requiring her to pay deductibles and co-payments. To boost the odds, she’ll use a special diet, vitamins, and other healing methods – some costly and none covered by insurance.

Lynne’s spirit is indomitable – help her fight to survive!

“I fought lions, I fought tigers, and I’m not goimg to let cancer get me,” Stewart said.

Lynne has always come to the aid of those who needed her. Now it’s our turn to stand by Lynne.

SEND LYNNE A VALENTINE AND A DONATION AT:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/send-lynne-stewart-a-valentine

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Tell Maj. Gen. Buchanan why Chelsea
deserves to be free!

PVT Chelsea Manning has served nearly four years in prison, yet she’s showing a remarkable spirit of persistence. She is unjustly imprisoned, but not defeated. With plans to enroll in a prelaw/political science university program, and a legal name change underway, she continues planning for her future and working to fulfill her dreams. She is determined to make the best of her situation. However, we know she could contribute more to the world if she was free.
Please write a letter to Convening Authority Major General Buchanan today urging him to reduce Chelsea’s sentence!
We began collecting letters to include in PVT Manning’s clemency packet last fall. We expected that the military would finalize her record of trial last December, and that she could then submit her application to Maj. Gen. Buchanan by the end of 2013. Just like so many times before, however, the military’s process has slowed Chelsea’s ability to defend her rights. Defense attorney David Coombs now estimates that it will be at least another month before the clemency application can be submitted.
Want to make sure decision-makers know why you believe Chelsea deserves to go free? If you haven’t done so yet, please write a short letter to Maj. Gen. Buchanan. Hundreds of people have already submitted letters for us to use, including Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and award-winning author Alice Walker.
As Alice Walker wrote:
Private Manning was the one soldier willing to speak out against what he thought was wrong. When others silently followed orders, Manning could not. Pvt. Manning is a humanist, meaning he sees humanity before nationality, and values human life above all else. When he released documents to WikiLeaks in 2010, he wanted the American people, and the world, to judge for themselves if the U.S. military was properly valuing human life in Iraq and Afghanistan. As taxpayers who fund that military, we deserve that opportunity.
Learn now how you can write a letter to be included in Chelsea Manning’s official application for clemency!
Please share this information to friends and community leaders, urging them to add their voice to this important effort before it's too late.
http://www.privatemanning.org/pardonpetition



Help us continue to cover 100%
of Pvt. Manning's legal fees! Donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38591


COURAGE TO RESIST
http://couragetoresist.org
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
510-488-3559
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter

Table of Contents:
A. ARTICLES IN FULL
B. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
D. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.

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A. ARTICLES IN FULL
(Unless otherwise noted)

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1) As Ukraine’s President Returns From Leave, His Options Seem Dismal
By  




2) The Middle Class Is Steadily Eroding. Just Ask the Business World.
By





3) Study Puts Exonerations at Record Level in U.S.
By




4) Hacker Group Accuses Merkel Government of Helping to Spy
By MELISSA EDDY




5) VW Workers in Tennessee to Vote on Union
By




6) In Switch, Refusal to Testify Wins a Brooklyn Man His Freedom
By





7) GM-COLOMBIA 8 RESUME HUNGER STRIKE FEB. 11
VIA Email
February 5, 2014
8) Drone protesters found guilty of trespassing at Beale AFB
By Denny Walsh
dwalsh@sacbee.com
Published: Monday, Feb. 3, 2014 - 7:19 pm
Last Modified: Monday, Feb. 3, 2014 - 10:41 pm
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/02/03/6125513/drone-protesters-found-guilty.html#storylink=cpy
9) Racing to Save the Stray Dogs of Sochi
By




10) Subway Strike Hobbles London, Underground and Above
By




11) At New Brooklyn District Attorney’s Door, a Tidal Wave of Wrongful Conviction Cases
By





12) How to Stop Heroin Deaths
By ROBERT S. HOFFMAN




13) Huge Leak of Coal Ash Slows at North Carolina Power Plant
By and



 












 





















 
 
 

 
 
 

 

 


 





 

 
 

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1) As Ukraine’s President Returns From Leave, His Options Seem Dismal
By  



KIEV, Ukraine — When President Viktor F. Yanukovych returns to work on Monday after a four-day sick leave, he will find that even after that brief absence his options for resolving Ukraine’s political crisis have already narrowed.

His choice may now be between an inevitably bloody suppression of antigovernment protesters or a surrender of authority that could leave him as president but empower his opponents to chart a pro-European course.

Mr. Yanukovych, who has faced a sustained civil uprising since late November, when he backed away from a promise to sign political and free-trade accords with the European Union, has seen his position erode substantially in recent days.

Support he had been relying on from Russia — particularly $15 billion in credit that Ukraine desperately needs to cover basic expenses — was suspended last week by the Kremlin, which expressed pointed displeasure over the growing political uncertainty in Ukraine. And the forced resignation of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and the rest of the cabinet on Tuesday showed Mr. Yanukovych sacrificing some of his staunchest political allies, in a failed bid to appease his critics by offering them senior positions.

On Sunday, tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in Independence Square here in the capital, highlighting that simply suppressing the protests was not enough, and that they were not letting up even after violent clashes with the police led to several deaths and hundreds of injuries. A headline on the Ukrainska Pravda website on Sunday stated: “Viktor Yanukovych: Between War and Defeat.”

Rather than being placated by any of the concessions, the opposition has grown emboldened by the evidence that Mr. Yanukovych’s position has weakened. There have been reports that some military officers have been asked to sign pledges of loyalty to the president or resign — a sign of uncertainty about their willingness to enforce a state of emergency and move against the protesters should he ever give that order.

After attending a security conference on Saturday in Munich, where they were embraced by Western officials, opposition leaders told the crowd in the square on Sunday that they would not accept any compromise that did not give them full control of the government, including the Interior Ministry, which oversees the riot police and other security troops.

“There is one way out,” Vitali Klitschko, the former champion boxer who leads a party called the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform, told the crowd. “To cut this knot, we need a full reset of power and this system.

“Yes?” Mr. Klitschko asked. “Yes!” the people roared back.

The demonstrators reflected a broad mix of Ukrainian society, including parents towing children by the hand, past photographs of dead demonstrators displayed on makeshift shrines, as well as some of the tough young men — many of them members of right-wing groups — who have shown a willingness to battle the police on Kiev’s streets.

Though large, the turnout was far lower than at the movement’s peak in early December, when more than 100,000 people gathered on three successive Sundays. Still, the diversity of the crowd demonstrated the extent to which the opposition to Mr. Yanukovych has hardened across many segments of Ukrainian society. It also helped explain why street protests have spread to regional capitals in eastern Ukraine, long the president’s base of political support.

“I admire peaceful protest, but when it comes to violence I understand it, too, and support it, as a manifestation of the people’s will,” Pavlo Bezsmertnyi, 45, a freelance translator, said of his decision to attend the rally despite the threat of violence. “I don’t judge people who come here to fight. I understand that this government, this president, is not what we deserve, and we want to change it.”

Anna Hrytsenko, 50, in a crowd of people streaming into the square, said, “If you are afraid you won’t achieve anything.”

At various points, the protests had seemed about to fizzle out, only to be inflamed again as a result of missteps by Mr. Yanukovych’s government. The first of those was a violent crackdown by the police on peaceful protesters on Nov. 30, which caused widespread outrage. Ukraine’s post-Soviet identity had been defined by peaceful dissent, and many said they were stunned the government had resorted to force.“They decided to show the population of Ukraine a lesson that they would remember forever,” said Yaroslav Pylynskyi, director of the Kiev office of the Kennan Institute, an American research organization.

Even after the outrage over police beatings led to the occupation of Independence Square and several public buildings, including Kiev’s City Hall, much of the oxygen went out of the protests when Mr. Yanukovych secured the $15 billion financial rescue package from Russia in mid-December.

With no economic or political pressure to force Mr. Yanukovych to change course, and with the holidays near, the crowds dwindled. Opposition leaders said they planned to turn their focus to the next presidential election, which seemed the only opportunity to force change in the government.

Then, on Jan. 16, the government overreached again. Allies of Mr. Yanukovych in Parliament returned from the holiday break and pushed through a raft of laws restricting dissent. Again the crowds surged into the street, but this time the protests turned violent as demonstrators hurled rocks and fire bombs at the police, and set police buses on fire.

While Parliament repealed those laws in yet another conciliatory gesture, opposition leaders said they would now accept only a political surrender by Mr. Yanukovych that was complete enough for them to renegotiate the accords with Europe that he abandoned in November, and to seek a new financial aid package from the International Monetary Fund that would replace the aid from Moscow.

At the Munich conference on Sunday, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, confirmed in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that Europe and the United States were developing a sizable short-term aid package for Ukraine, in anticipation of longer-term assistance from the I.M.F. down the line. Mr. Yanukovych had resisted aid from the fund in part because of conditions that included politically painful austerity measures.

Western officials voiced concern at the conference about evidence of abductions and abuse of Ukrainian protest leaders by the authorities or their surrogates, including some cases of alleged torture. One victim, Dmytro Bulatov, who had been missing for a week, was found on Friday. He had been beaten severely and said he had been “crucified” by having his hands nailed to a door.

On Sunday, Petro Poroshenko, a member of Parliament, a wealthy businessman and a supporter of the Ukrainian opposition, posted on Facebook that Mr. Bulatov, who had been threatened with arrest, had left Ukraine for further medical treatment.

In a speech at Sunday’s rally, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, the leader in Parliament of the opposition Fatherland Party, called on the president to relinquish the entire cabinet to the opposition and agree to constitutional amendments that would weaken the presidency.

Mr. Yatsenyuk, who turned down Mr. Yanukovych’s offer to become prime minister, said the president’s time was limited.

“Enough. We’re fed up,” he told the crowd. “The Parliament should vote for the new Constitution. We need to restore the people’s power. Together to victory!”


Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting.



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2) The Middle Class Is Steadily Eroding. Just Ask the Business World.
By

In Manhattan, the upscale clothing retailer Barneys will replace the bankrupt discounter Loehmann’s, whose Chelsea store closes in a few weeks. Across the country, Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants are struggling, while fine-dining chains like Capital Grille are thriving. And at General Electric, the increase in demand for high-end dishwashers and refrigerators dwarfs sales growth of mass-market models.

As politicians and pundits in Washington continue to spar over whether economic inequality is in fact deepening, in corporate America there really is no debate at all. The post-recession reality is that the customer base for businesses that appeal to the middle class is shrinking as the top tier pulls even further away.

If there is any doubt, the speed at which companies are adapting to the new consumer landscape serves as very convincing evidence. Within top consulting firms and among Wall Street analysts, the shift is being described with a frankness more often associated with left-wing academics than business experts.

“Those consumers who have capital like real estate and stocks and are in the top 20 percent are feeling pretty good,” said John G. Maxwell, head of the global retail and consumer practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

In response to the upward shift in spending, PricewaterhouseCoopers clients like big stores and restaurants are chasing richer customers with a wider offering of high-end goods and services, or focusing on rock-bottom prices to attract the expanding ranks of penny-pinching consumers.

“As a retailer or restaurant chain, if you’re not at the really high level or the low level, that’s a tough place to be,” Mr. Maxwell said. “You don’t want to be stuck in the middle.”

Although data on consumption is less readily available than figures that show a comparable split in income gains, new research by the economists Steven Fazzari, of Washington University in St. Louis, and Barry Cynamon, of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, backs up what is already apparent in the marketplace.

In 2012, the top 5 percent of earners were responsible for 38 percent of domestic consumption, up from 28 percent in 1995, the researchers found.

Even more striking, the current recovery has been driven almost entirely by the upper crust, according to Mr. Fazzari and Mr. Cynamon. Since 2009, the year the recession ended, inflation-adjusted spending by this top echelon has risen 17 percent, compared with just 1 percent among the bottom 95 percent.

More broadly, about 90 percent of the overall increase in inflation-adjusted consumption between 2009 and 2012 was generated by the top 20 percent of households in terms of income, according to the study, which was sponsored by the Institute for New Economic Thinking, a research group in New York.

The effects of this phenomenon are now rippling through one sector after another in the American economy, from retailers and restaurants to hotels, casinos and even appliance makers.

For example, luxury gambling properties like Wynn and the Venetian in Las Vegas are booming, drawing in more high rollers than regional casinos in Atlantic City, upstate New York and Connecticut, which attract a less affluent clientele who are not betting as much, said Steven Kent, an analyst at Goldman Sachs.

Among hotels, revenue per room in the high-end category, which includes brands like the Four Seasons and St. Regis, grew 7.5 percent in 2013, compared with a 4.1 percent gain for midscale properties like Best Western, according to Smith Travel Research.

While spending among the most affluent consumers has managed to propel the economy forward, the sharpening divide is worrying, Mr. Fazzari said.

“It’s going to be hard to maintain strong economic growth with such a large proportion of the population falling behind,” he said. “We might be able to muddle along — but can we really recover?”Mr. Fazzari also said that depending on a relatively small but affluent slice of the population to drive demand makes the economy more volatile, because this group does more discretionary spending that can rise and fall with the stock market, or track seesawing housing prices. The run-up on Wall Street in recent years has only heightened these trends, said Guy Berger, an economist at RBS, who estimates that 50 percent of Americans have no effective participation in the surging stock market, even counting retirement accounts.

Regardless, affluent shoppers like Mitchell Goldberg, an independent investment manager in Dix Hills, N.Y., say the rising stock market has encouraged people to open their wallets and purses more.

“Opulence isn’t back, but we’re spending a little more comfortably,” Mr. Goldberg said. He recently replaced his old Nike golf clubs with Callaway drivers and Adams irons, bought a Samsung tablet for work and traded in his minivan for a sport utility vehicle.

And while the superrich garner much of the attention, most companies are building their business strategies around a broader slice of affluent consumers.

At G.E. Appliances, for example, the fastest-growing brand is the Café line, which is aimed at the top quarter of the market, with refrigerators typically retailing for $1,700 to $3,000.

“This is a person who is willing to pay for features, like a double-oven range or a refrigerator with hot water,” said Brian McWaters, a general manager in G.E.’s Appliance division.

At street level, the divide is even more stark.

Sears and J. C. Penney, retailers whose wares are aimed squarely at middle-class Americans, are both in dire straits. Last month, Sears said it would shutter its flagship store on State Street in downtown Chicago, and J. C. Penney announced the closings of 33 stores and 2,000 layoffs.

Loehmann’s, where generations of middle-class shoppers hunted for marked-down designer labels in the famed Back Room, is now being liquidated after three trips to bankruptcy court since 1999.

The Loehmann’s store in Chelsea, like all 39 Loehmann’s outlets nationwide, will go dark as soon as the last items sell. Barneys New York, which started in the same location in 1923 before moving to a more luxurious spot on Madison Avenue two decades ago, plans to reopen a store on the site in 2017.

Investors have taken notice of the shrinking middle. Shares of Sears and J. C. Penney have fallen more than 50 percent since the end of 2009, even as upper-end stores like Nordstrom and bargain-basement chains like Dollar Tree and Family Dollar Stores have more than doubled in value over the same period.

Competition from online giants like Amazon has only added to the problems faced by old-line retailers, of course. But changes in the restaurant business show that the effects of rising inequality are widespread.

A shift at Darden, which calls itself the world’s largest full-service restaurant owner, encapsulates the trend. Foot traffic at midtier, casual dining properties like Red Lobster and Olive Garden has dropped in every quarter but one since 2005, according to John Glass, a restaurant industry analyst at Morgan Stanley.

With diners paying an average tab of $16.50 a person at Olive Garden, Mr. Glass said, “The customers are middle class. They’re not rich. They’re not poor.” With income growth stagnant and prices for necessities like health care and education on the rise, he said, “They are cutting back.” On the other hand, at the Capital Grille, an upscale Darden chain where the average check per person is about $71, spending is up by an average of 5 percent annually over the last three years.

LongHorn Steakhouse, another Darden chain, has been reworked to target a slightly more affluent crowd than Olive Garden, with décor intended to evoke a cattleman’s ranch instead of an Old West theme.

Now, hedge fund investors are pressuring Darden’s management to break up the company and spin out the more upscale properties into a separate entity.

“A separation could make sense from a strategic perspective,” Mr. Glass said. “Generally, the specialty restaurant group is more attractive demographically.”



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3) Study Puts Exonerations at Record Level in U.S.
By



The number of exonerations in the United States of those wrongly convicted of a crime increased to a record 87 during 2013, and of that number, nearly one in five had initially pleaded guilty to charges filed against them, according to a report to be released on Tuesday as part of a project led by two university law schools.

Nearly half of the exonerations — 40 — were based on murder convictions, including that of a man wrongly convicted and subsequently sentenced to death in the fatal stabbing of a fellow inmate in a Missouri prison in 1983, according to the report by the National Registry of Exonerations. The registry is a joint program of the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law.

The previous record of known exonerations in the country came in 2009, when the group reported 83. The organization said it has documented 1,300 exonerations since 1989, most of them after convictions for murder, rape or other sexual assaults.

Fewer exonerations than in the past involved DNA evidence, a circumstance the registry attributed to the police and prosecutors exhibiting greater concern about the problem of false convictions.

But the report also found that 17 percent of those exonerated in 2013 had originally pleaded guilty to a crime they did not commit — usually because the defendant had been offered a plea bargain that guaranteed a lesser sentence on the condition of a guilty plea.

A case highlighted in the report was that of Nicole Harris, a 23-year-old with two young children and a degree in psychology. She was convicted by an Illinois jury in 2005 of murdering her 4-year-old son, Jaquari, after the boy was asphyxiated by an elastic band that had come loose from a fitted bedsheet.

The Chicago police, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, had coerced Ms. Harris into confessing by pushing her, threatening her, withholding food and water, and refusing to let her use the bathroom.

After 27 hours of questioning, Ms. Harris gave a videotaped confession in which she said she had strangled her son because he would not stop crying. She was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 30 years.

The organization however found that the case had been deeply flawed, citing a ruling by the trial judge that barred testimony from Ms. Harris’s surviving 6-year-old son.

The child had said that Jaquari had liked to play a game in which he would pretend to be Spider-Man and would wrap the elastic band from a sheet around his neck and leap off his bed.

Ms. Harris’s appeals and a request for a new trial based on her lawyer’s failure to provide effective representation were denied.

But in 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit vacated her conviction and ordered a new trial — over the objections of the state, which appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

In June 2013, days after the Supreme Court rejected the state’s appeal, prosecutors dismissed the murder charge.

Ms. Harris, now 32, is currently applying to graduate schools, according to the organization.


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4) Hacker Group Accuses Merkel Government of Helping to Spy
By MELISSA EDDY



MUNICH — The Chaos Computer Club, a leading hacker organization based in Germany, filed a criminal complaint against Chancellor Angela Merkel and members of her government on Monday, accusing them of violating the law by helping intelligence agencies in the United States and Britain to spy on German citizens.

The move comes days after Secretary of State John Kerry visited Berlin to try to smooth over relations that have been strained by revelations of the extent of the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities in Germany. While filing the complaint with the Federal Prosecutor General is only a first step in the cumbersome German legal process and does not guarantee that an investigation will be opened, it demonstrates unwillingness by some here to drop the issue.

Along with the International League for Human Rights, based in New York, the 32-year-old hacker group said in the complaint that Ms. Merkel’s government and German intelligence agencies violated the personal privacy of German citizens through “illegal and prohibited covert intelligence activities, along with aiding and abetting such activities” by tolerating and cooperating with the N.S.A. and the British eavesdropping agency, known as GCHQ.

“Every German citizen has been affected by the massive surveillance of his or her communication data,” Julius Mittenzwei, a lawyer and member of the hacker group, said in a statement issued by the Chaos Computer Club. “Our laws protect us and threaten anyone responsible for such surveillance with punishment. Consequently, an investigation by the Federal Prosecutor General is necessary and mandatory by law.”

Ms. Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said that every German citizen had the right to file such a complaint, but declined to comment further.

Germany’s debate of the N.S.A. has focused heavily on the extent to which the agency might have broken the law by carrying out surveillance in Germany. Information from documents released by Edward J. Snowden, the fugitive former contractor for the agency, indicating that the chancellor’s cellphone had been monitored and that surveillance was being conducted from the United States Embassy in the heart of the city, helped fuel the debate.

But in an interview with Hubert Seipel, a reporter for the German public television station NDR, Mr. Snowden described the relationship between Germany’s foreign intelligence service, known by the initials BND, and the N.S.A. as “intimate.”

“They not only share information, the reporting of results from intelligence, but they actually share the tools and the infrastructure,” Mr. Snowden said. But he declined to say whether the German service was giving data to the N.S.A.

The Germans have sought unsuccessfully to draw up a “no-spying” agreement with Washington. During a visit to Berlin on Friday, Mr. Kerry did not mention the surveillance issue, focusing instead on the importance of the relationship between the two countries.

“We want this to be a year of renewal of the strength of that relationship,” Mr. Kerry said.

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5) VW Workers in Tennessee to Vote on Union
By



In what will be one of the most closely watched unionization elections in the South in decades, Volkswagen announced on Monday that the 1,600 workers at its assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., will vote next week on whether to join the United Automobile Workers.

The union has voiced unusual optimism about winning because Volkswagen, unlike many United States companies, is not opposing the unionization drive and because U.A.W. organizers say the majority of workers have already signed cards backing a union.

In announcing the secret-ballot election, which will be held Feb. 12 through Feb. 14, Volkswagen said the U.A.W., if voted in, would work to set up a works council — a common industry practice in Germany in which managers work with representatives of white- and blue-collar workers to foster collaboration and increase productivity.

“Volkswagen Group of America and the U.A.W. have agreed to this common path for the election,” said Frank Fischer, chairman and chief executive of Volkswagen Chattanooga. “Volkswagen is committed to neutrality and calls upon all third parties to honor the principle of neutrality.”

Many Tennessee lawmakers, including Gov. Bill Haslam and Senator Bob Corker, have voiced concern about the U.A.W.’s drive, warning that the unionization of the plant would make it less competitive and hurt Chattanooga’s and Tennessee’s business climate. But U.A.W. officials and many pro-union workers argue that having a union will make the plant more efficient and productive by increasing labor-management collaboration.

“Volkswagen is known globally for its system of cooperation with unions and works councils,” said Bob King, the union’s president. “The U.A.W. seeks to partner with Volkswagen Group of America and a works council to set a new standard in the U.S. for innovative labor-management relations that benefits the company, the entire work force, shareholders and the community.”

The U.A.W. and many labor relations experts say it would be illegal to have a works council at an American company without first having a union voted in, because without one the works council might be considered an improper employer-dominated employee group.

Works councils traditionally represent employees on a wide range of internal matters at a plant, Volkswagen said, while their union represents the employees on matters relating to terms and conditions like pay, benefits and length of workweek. VW said the detailed distribution of responsibilities between union and works council would be negotiated if the U.A.W. wins next week’s vote.

William L. Canak, a labor relations expert at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, said he expected a surge in anti-U.A.W. activity in Chattanooga over the next week.

“This effort will inflame many lawmakers and the Chamber of Commerce and other groups that oppose unions and collective bargaining,” Professor Canak said. “There’s going to be a strong oppositional response. But if the U.A.W. wins here, it would encourage workers hoping to unionize Nissan in Mississippi, Mercedes-Benz in Alabama and BMW in South Carolina.”

The U.A.W. had initially hoped that Volkswagen would grant union recognition based on what it said was a majority of pro-union cards signed by the plant’s workers. But Volkswagen faced intense pressure from Senator Corker and others who opposed granting recognition through a so-called card check, asserting that a secret-ballot election would be fairer.

Mike Burton, a quality assurance worker who has set up an anti-union website, no2uaw.com, said the woes of Detroit’s automakers and the closing of the plant that Volkswagen had in Pennsylvania pointed to underlying problems with having the U.A.W. at the VW plant in Chattanooga. “The U.A.W. wouldn’t be the best partner for our company,” he said.Mr. Burton questioned the U.A.W.’s optimism, saying that in a two-week period he collected 600 anti-U.A.W. signatures on a petition. Mr. Burton, backed by several outside anti-union groups, protested that Volkswagen was giving the U.A.W. the names and addresses of all of the plant’s workers, but would not give him the names and addresses.

Justin King, another assembly line worker, supports the union. “I feel VW would benefit from having a union,” he said. “It would give workers a voice in decisions. I think when just a few managers make decisions for thousands of people without input from those people, they don’t always make the best decisions.”

Ron Harr, president of the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce, voiced concern about a union victory. “We believe the U.A.W. organizing at Volkswagen will make it more difficult for us from an economic development point of view as a community,” he said.

But the city’s mayor, Andy Berke, did not seem to worry.

“Chattanooga has unique assets that allow us to grow economically,” he said. “The same things that brought VW here — quality of life, a productive work force, wages that compare favorably to the rest of the country — those will still exist regardless of what happens with unionization.”

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6) In Switch, Refusal to Testify Wins a Brooklyn Man His Freedom
By



For the last eight months, a Brooklyn man had been held in jail because of his refusal to testify before a grand jury that was believed to be examining a 2008 explosion in Times Square.

But last week, the continued refusal of the man, Gerald Koch, won him his release.

Mr. Koch’s unusual path — held in civil contempt after his initial refusal, then released thanks to the same recalcitrance that landed him behind bars — illustrates a process that the judge in the case labeled seemingly “counterintuitive.”

In a written opinion, the judge, John F. Keenan of Federal District Court in Manhattan, explored the logic in how “the refusal to testify is somehow transmogrified from a lock to a key.”

Federal law holds that people who refuse to provide grand jury testimony may be jailed for the panel’s duration, usually up to 18 months. But the law also states that the detention may end if it crosses from coercive to punitive.

The grand jury for which Mr. Koch was subpoenaed appeared to be examining events from 2008, when a bicyclist approached the armed forces recruiting center in Times Square, then pedaled away before a homemade bomb exploded, damaging the center but harming nobody. Mr. Koch, who has identified himself as an anarchist, said that investigators believed that he had heard a conversation in a bar about who was behind the episode but that he remembered no such event.

Prosecutors have declined to discuss his assertion and did not respond to a request for comment on Mr. Koch’s release; by law grand jury proceedings are secret. Moira Meltzer-Cohen, a lawyer for Mr. Koch, who was considered a witness rather than a suspect, said that her client regarded the grand jury process as unfair and believed his testimony would lead only to a widening circle of similar subpoenas.

“Jerry was not trying to protect criminals,” Ms. Meltzer-Cohen said. “He was protecting other innocent people from what he was subjected to.”

Reached by telephone after his release, Mr. Koch, 24, said that his detention had been arduous. He had been buoyed by letters of support, he said, but his mail had been withheld or delayed on several occasions. At one point, he said, he was placed for five days in 24-hour solitary lockdown without a shower or contact with the outside world.

“I lost much more and suffered much more than I expected,” he said, adding, “I certainly have no regrets about the decision I made.”

Ultimately, few of those involved in Mr. Koch’s grand jury narrative, which stretches over more than four years, would appear to be gratified by the results. Mr. Koch, a former student at the New School, experienced conditions that he called “remarkably unpleasant.” Prosecutors failed to elicit his testimony. And Judge Keenan dedicated several pages of his opinion to a discussion of the “perverse results” of a 30-year-old ruling that provided the precedent to release him.

Mr. Koch was first called to testify in 2009 but was excused after citing his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, Judge Keenan wrote. Last year, prosecutors granted Mr. Koch immunity, but he still refused to testify. At the time he said that he knew nothing about the case and thought the authorities would embark on a “fishing expedition” while examining his political views and associations.

Judge Keenan wrote that he was skeptical of Mr. Koch’s assertion that he knew nothing. He also disagreed with Mr. Koch’s belief that he had been singled out because of his views, writing, “There is simply no evidence that the government, threatened by Koch’s subversive prowess, seeks to bring him before a grand jury on a pretext, either to gain access to the treasure trove that is his circle of friends or to send an ominous message to political dissidents.”

But the only relevant issue in deciding whether Mr. Koch should be released, Judge Keenan also wrote, hinged on whether continued incarceration could persuade him to testify. Although Mr. Koch told the court that he had suffered weight loss, joint problems and depression in custody, Judge Keenan wrote, submissions from family and friends made a persuasive case that he would not change his mind about the grand jury.

“There will thus never come a time for Koch where his only remaining option is to testify,” the judge wrote. “The court concludes that continued confinement will not move Koch from the reflexive ideology that forbids his cooperation with the serious investigation at hand.”


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7) GM-COLOMBIA 8 RESUME HUNGER STRIKE FEB. 11
VIA Email
February 5, 2014

The GM-Colombia 8 autoworkers announced on February 1st that they are resuming their water-only hunger strike, with their lips sewn shut, on Tues., Feb. 11th.  That’s the date in 1937 when militant UAW workers in Flint ended a historic 44-day sit-down strike, after GM agreed to recognize the UAW as the workers’ exclusive bargaining agent.

Their first fast in August 2012 ended after 22 days when GM agreed to a mediation with the workers’ association, ASOTRECOL - which ended without a settlement.  Citing the workers’ rejection of their paltry “final offer,” GM has since refused the workers’ demand to go back to the table.   

Out of the 68 members who formed ASOTRECOL in 2011, eight are holding steadfast and remain in the fight today.  Employed an average of 8 years, they suffered debilitating injuries working 12-14 hours/day on an antiquated assembly line.  4-6 years ago GM devised illegal ways to get rid of them.  With no union to turn to, and stonewalled by the Colombian legal system, the workers in August 2011 set up a tent encampment in front of the US Embassy in Bogota – where they’ve been ever since  – (as of Feb. 1st) 914 days.

GM: FLINT 1937 = COLOMBIA TODAY

The working conditions in their factory were eerily similar to those in Flint in the 1930s.  These include: hazardous and unhealthy work conditions, job insecurity, extreme speedup, firings, anti-union policies including espionage and intimidation, and displacement of workers at an extremely early age - all with the backdrop of no government oversight and weak or no unions.  This is what gave rise to the struggle by the GM workers 80 years ago in Flint - and today in Colombia. 

After these conditions were exposed by ASOTRECOL, GM made safety improvements, corrected some management practices and changed management personnel at the Colmotores plant.  GM must now end its war of attrition against the GM-Colombia 8, and make them whole!
  

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8) Drone protesters found guilty of trespassing at Beale AFB
By Denny Walsh
dwalsh@sacbee.com
Published: Monday, Feb. 3, 2014 - 7:19 pm
Last Modified: Monday, Feb. 3, 2014 - 10:41 pm
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/02/03/6125513/drone-protesters-found-guilty.html#storylink=cpy 
A Sacramento federal judge Monday found four people who protested the Obama administration’s use of killer drones outside a gate at Beale Air Force Base last spring to be guilty of trespassing.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Allison Claire sentenced the four to 90 days of unsupervised probation, which will end for each defendant after he or she completes 10 hours of community service.

The maximum punishment on the misdemeanors is six months in prison and a $5,000 fine.

The case was tried in less than a day before Claire, who refused to give the protestors a jury trial, though it was within her discretion to do so.

The defendants – Mari Toby Blome, 58, of El Cerrito; William C. Doub, 78, of Camptonville; Martha E. Hubert, 60, of San Francisco; and Robin L. Ryan, 47, of San Francisco – are the second group of peace advocates in less than six months to be convicted at a non-jury trial in Sacramento federal court of penetrating the boundary of the Yuba County air force base.

Prosecutors fought to keep the cases away from a jury. Defense attorneys are convinced that prosecution fears “juror nullification,” which occurs when jurors ignore the law because they disagree with it, or because they believe it should not be applied in the case before them.

While milling around April 30 outside the Wheatland gate in the southwest corner of the base, the four defendants stepped across a “demarcation line,” marked by white paint, that is within the outer boundary of the base but well short of the gate itself.

Master Sgt. Michael Hodgden, a security manager at Beale, testified the demonstrators were repeatedly warned not to cross the line, but the defendants ignored the warnings.

“We need to prosecute people who have guilty minds and convict people with guilty hearts,” not people who seek to express their disapproval of “criminal and immoral acts of their government,” defense lawyer Mark Reichel told Claire in his closing remarks. “Their purpose was lawful and heartfelt, and the government has no evidence to the contrary.”

Beale has been a target of anti-drone protests for years. It is home to the U-2, the venerable 1950s spy plane, and the unmanned Global Hawk, an unarmed reconnaissance drone that some describe as an “accomplice” to strikes later carried out by armed drones. It gives a theater commander a broad overview and pinpoint target surveillance.

Call The Bee’s Denny Walsh, (916) 321-1189. 

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9) Racing to Save the Stray Dogs of Sochi
By

SOCHI, Russia — A dog shelter backed by a Russian billionaire is engaged in a frantic last-ditch effort to save hundreds of strays facing a death sentence before the Winter Olympics begin here.

Already, hundreds of animals have been killed, with the local authorities apparently wanting the stray dogs cleared from the streets before Friday’s opening ceremony.

While the authorities say the dogs can be wild and dangerous, reports of their systematic slaughter by a pest removal company hired by the government in recent months have outraged animal rights advocates and cast a gruesome specter over the traditionally cheery atmosphere of the Games.

The handling of the matter has also sharply undercut the image of a friendlier, welcoming Russia that President Vladimir V. Putin has sought to cultivate in recent months.

“We were told, ‘Either you take all the dogs from the Olympic Village or we will shoot them,’ ” said Olga Melnikova, who is coordinating the rescue effort on behalf of a charity called Volnoe Deloe (roughly, Good Will), which is financed by Oleg V. Deripaska, one of Russia’s billionaire oligarchs.

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10) Subway Strike Hobbles London, Underground and Above
By

LONDON — A strike on the London Underground crippled much of the city’s transportation network on Wednesday, disrupting the plans of millions of travelers and forcing commuters to cram into overcrowded buses and trains or walk or cycle to work.

The 48-hour strike, which began Tuesday evening, was called by two unions to protest plans to cut about 950 jobs and close all ticket offices as part of a restructuring that the London transportation authority says could save around 50 million pounds, or about $81 million, a year.

The strike shut down several parts of the system, which normally has three and a half million subway rides each day. The lines that remained open were operating on a reduced schedule.

Despite promises of extra bus service, long, snaking lines built up on Wednesday at stops. Many people faced long walks to work unless they could pounce on one of the city’s shared bicycles.

There was frustration, too, for drivers. “Traffic congestion was far more intense and went on much longer than normal,” said Chris Lambert, a traffic analyst at Inrix, a company that monitors traffic flows. An 11-mile traffic jam on one of the main arteries into the west of the city did not clear until around noon, Mr. Lambert said.

At the Old Bailey, London’s criminal court, a judge commended jurors who appeared despite the disruption, thanking them for showing the “Dunkirk spirit,” a reference to the evacuation of British and some Allied forces from France in 1940 during World War II.

Manuel Cortes, leader of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association, one of the unions that called the strike, said there had been overwhelming support for it from his members.

“All we have is a fringe service in the outer suburbs with virtually the whole of central London dependent on a skeleton service,” Mr. Cortes said in a statement. “Over 70 percent of the normal service is at a standstill.”

Transport for London, the city’s transportation authority, described the strike as “completely unnecessary” and said it was running at 35 percent of normal Underground service, with eight of 11 lines and 70 percent of stations operating.

In Parliament, Prime Minister David Cameron condemned the disruption. “There is absolutely no justification for a strike,” he said. “We need a modernized Tube line working for the millions of Londoners who use it every day.”

But politically, Mr. Cameron may gain from the strike if angry travelers blame the trade unions, which have close links to the opposition Labour Party. According to British news reports, Mr. Cameron is considering changes to the law to make it harder to call strikes in some sectors, possibly including transportation.

The government may also welcome the news media focus on the leader of one of the striking unions, Bob Crow, the general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, who has a reputation as one of the country’s more outspoken union bosses. He is facing criticism after a newspaper published photographs of him over the weekend on vacation in Brazil as negotiations to avert the strike were continuing.

On Wednesday, Mr. Crow, now back in Britain, staged a verbal confrontation with Mayor Boris Johnson of London, an outspoken critic of the strike, by calling in to a radio show on which Mr. Johnson routinely appears.

 


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11) At New Brooklyn District Attorney’s Door, a Tidal Wave of Wrongful Conviction Cases
By



Antonio Yarbough is serving a sentence of 75 years to life in prison, convicted of stabbing and garroting his mother, his 12-year-old sister and another 12-year-old girl in a Coney Island housing project in 1992. Yet no physical evidence links him to the crime, and DNA evidence found under his mother’s fingernails matches DNA found on another murder victim in 1999 — when Mr. Yarbough had already been imprisoned for seven years.

William Lopez was freed from prison last year after 23 years when a federal judge threw out his murder conviction, condemning it as “rotten from Day 1.” Originally convicted of fatally shooting a drug dealer in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, in 1989, Mr. Lopez faces another obstacle in his quest to clear his name: Prosecutors have appealed to uphold his guilt.

Jonathan Fleming has been in prison for 24 years for shooting a man outside a Williamsburg, Brooklyn, housing project in 1989, a murder that new evidence suggests he may not have committed: One witness has recanted; another has confirmed his alibi and identified a different shooter.

These men are just three of many whose fates rest with Kenneth P. Thompson, the new Brooklyn district attorney. Little more than a month after sweeping into office amid promises to restore justice to the wrongfully convicted, Mr. Thompson is confronting the possibility that the barrage of killings that battered Brooklyn in the drug-plagued 1980s and early 1990s bred a wave of wrongful convictions that could dwarf other exoneration scandals.

“The term ‘tip of the iceberg’ is clichéd, but if ever it was applicable, it’s applicable to this situation,” said Steven Banks, the chief lawyer for the Legal Aid Society. “There’s no question that this is going to be painstaking work to undo a problem that was years in the making.”

Thursday offers Mr. Thompson one of his first opportunities to wield his newfound power: Mr. Yarbough and his co-defendant, Sharrif Wilson, who have been in prison since they were teenagers, will appear at a court hearing where their lawyers are confident their convictions will be vacated.

Daunting in their own right, the dozens or hundreds of potential wrongful convictions also present a political quagmire for Mr. Thompson. His predecessor, Charles J. Hynes, was credited for creating a conviction integrity unit after several convictions were questioned in recent years, but sharply criticized for moving too slowly, defending prosecutors accused of misconduct and clinging to convictions even after they were discredited.

Now, in Mr. Thompson’s fifth week in office, defense attorneys are eager for the reforms Mr. Thompson promised while campaigning to unseat Mr. Hynes. Though the lawyers say they understand Mr. Thompson has inherited a formidable task and needs time to establish his office, several privately grumble that members of his staff have not returned calls while their clients languish in prison.

“This is what Ken campaigned on. He said, ‘I don’t think Hynes put enough resources into it,’ so he’s got to do that,” said Barry C. Scheck, one of the founders of the Innocence Project, who has met with Mr. Thompson’s transition team about the wrongful convictions. “And I expect that he will.”

He deserves patience, Mr. Scheck added, because “it’s important to get it right.”

In an interview in December, Mr. Thompson said he planned to add more prosecutors, paralegals and investigators to the conviction integrity unit, which had just a few employees under Mr. Hynes. But he has not yet appointed a leader for the unit.

On Wednesday, Mr. Thompson said he had been reviewing the questionable convictions and had begun the process of rebuilding and expanding the conviction integrity unit, which he called “a top priority.”

“We understand the need to work quickly, but are not willing to sacrifice speed for thoroughness in the pursuit of justice,” Mr. Thompson said in a statement.Perhaps hundreds of murder convictions may need review because of coerced confessions, intimidated or untrustworthy witnesses, prosecutorial misconduct or discredited detectives like Louis J. Scarcella, whose hard-charging tactics as a Brooklyn homicide detective, reported by The New York Times last year, prompted Mr. Hynes to begin an official review of more than 50 of Mr. Scarcella’s cases.

Pressure to solve cases during the violent years of the crack epidemic, along with a lack of oversight, bred a “round up the usual subjects, the ends justify the means” attitude that may have produced wrongful convictions, Mr. Banks said.

Legal Aid represents 20 clients in whose cases Mr. Scarcella was involved, 15 of whom remain in jail. Believing that other detectives probably used similar tactics, the group has sent Mr. Thompson a list of more than 900 clients it represented on appeal involving murders in Brooklyn during the years Mr. Scarcella was active. Already, many of the cases defense lawyers are pushing Mr. Thompson to revisit were not Mr. Scarcella’s.

Representatives of Legal Aid, the Innocence Project and other legal advocacy groups, along with a few defense lawyers, are asking to meet with Mr. Thompson to help devise a protocol similar to that used in areas where clusters of exonerations have been warranted. One model is Dallas County, Tex., where 24 men have been exonerated using DNA evidence since 2001.

Yet the Dallas effort pales next to Brooklyn’s in complexity as well as size. DNA evidence can make guilt or innocence relatively straightforward. But in many of the Brooklyn cases, potential police or prosecutorial misconduct that may have violated defendants’ due process rights, not physical evidence, is casting doubt on convictions.

Chief among Mr. Scheck’s recommendations, he said, is instituting an information-sharing agreement between defense lawyers and conviction integrity unit investigators. The two sides may disagree about whether evidence points to innocence, exposes misconduct or compels a new trial, he said, but both would have the tools to argue constructively before a judge. Collaboration between both sides would also combat bias, he said.

In another complication, prosecutors who still work in the district attorney’s office could be accused of misconduct as more cases are reviewed, raising the possibility that Mr. Thompson will need to refer cases to an independent reviewer. He endorsed the idea in a Huffington Post column in April, calling for Mr. Hynes to turn over Mr. Lopez’s case, among others, to a state authority. (Mr. Hynes commissioned an independent panel to review the Scarcella cases, but drew criticism for stacking it with friends and donors.)

Many of the cases will be new to the office, but a few, including Mr. Fleming’s, had already received reviews under Mr. Hynes. His investigators had been expected to resolve several cases before he left office, but did not.

Other defendants, like Mr. Lopez, have been released. His conviction was overturned because of weak evidence, a witness who said she had cut a secret deal with prosecutors to testify and what the judge called bewildering or simply bad behavior by every stakeholder in the trial, from judge to jury. But his case remains urgent because Mr. Hynes appealed the overturning of his conviction to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which some lawyers believe is more likely to side with prosecutors, and which will schedule oral arguments soon. Mr. Lopez’s lawyer, Richard Levitt, hopes Mr. Thompson will drop the appeal before then. He has reason to feel confident: Mr. Thompson repeatedly criticized Mr. Hynes over Mr. Lopez’s case while campaigning.

“It’s important that Mr. Lopez have some closure here, and the sooner he has it, the better,” Mr. Levitt said. “They have said nothing to us, but we completely understand that he has a thousand different things he has to do to get up to speed as D.A. of a county as large as Brooklyn.”

In the case of Mr. Yarbough, who was 18 at the time of the murders, and Mr. Wilson, who was 15, Mr. Hynes’s office resisted requests to reinvestigate for months, their lawyers said. Investigators eventually confirmed that no physical evidence linked either man to the crime scene, and matched the DNA found on Mr. Yarbough’s mother to that found on the 1999 murder victim.

Medical records showed that the victims probably died when both defendants were known to be still in Manhattan. Mr. Wilson recanted his confession and testimony incriminating Mr. Yarbough, saying that his confession had been coerced and that he had been offered a lighter sentence to testify against Mr. Yarbough. And in an affidavit, Mr. Yarbough’s original lawyer said she had been unprepared to defend him.

Now they have pinned their hopes on Mr. Thompson.

“It’s only been a month,” said Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma, Mr. Yarbough’s lawyer. “But the urgency is that every day somebody wrongfully spends in prison is another tragedy.”


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12) How to Stop Heroin Deaths
By ROBERT S. HOFFMAN



PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN, who died of an apparent heroin overdose on Sunday, was just one of hundreds of New Yorkers who fall victim to this drug each year. Heroin-related deaths increased 84 percent from 2010 to 2012 in New York City and occur at a higher rate — 52 percent — than overdose deaths involving any other substance.

I am an emergency physician at NYU Langone Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital, but I rarely see victims die of heroin overdose because most fatalities occur before patients get to the hospital. Overdoses often take place over one to three hours. People just slowly stop breathing; often they are assumed to be sleeping deeply, or they are alone.

The most frustrating part is that each of these deaths is preventable, because there is an antidote to heroin overdose that is nearly universally effective. Naloxone, an opioid antidote, is a simple compound that has been in clinical use for more than 30 years. It can be administered via needle or as a nasal spray, and it works by displacing heroin from its receptors in the brain and rapidly restoring the overdose victim to consciousness and normal breathing.

An analysis in the Annals of Internal Medicine last year suggested that up to 85 percent of users overdose in the presence of others. This provides an opportunity for friends, family and other non-health care providers to intervene. In New York State, it has been legal to distribute naloxone to ordinary citizens since 2006. But the distribution has to be done with medical supervision. Naloxone is purchased by the city and state health departments, which then distribute the antidote through hospitals, harm-reduction programs and other outlets at no cost to patients.

Some New York City hospitals are now distributing kits containing naloxone to users and their friends and families. For the past three years, the New York City Department of Homeless Services has administered naloxone in shelters. And a new pilot program on Staten Island — which has the highest rate of heroin overdose deaths in New York City — is supplying the antidote through the Police Department’s 120th Precinct there.

The city’s health department is conducting a large study following people who get naloxone to assess how frequently the antidote is used to reverse overdose. In 2012, the health department filed a public letter to the Food and Drug Administration recommending that the F.D.A. approve naloxone for over-the-counter use. The letter stated that more than 20,000 kits had been distributed in New York City. It also noted that more than 500 overdose reversals had been reported by civilians who had administered the antidote.

Some people might argue that the widespread distribution of a safe, effective and inexpensive antidote might actually encourage drug use. But that’s like suggesting that air bags and seatbelts encourage unsafe driving. Naloxone is a public-health method of intervening when a life is in the balance. Its distribution is endorsed by the American Medical Association.

A new bill that would make it easier for users to obtain naloxone was introduced in the New York State Legislature just last week, and on Tuesday it passed the State Senate Health Committee. It would increase access to the antidote by allowing doctors and nurses to write standing orders — prescriptions that can be used for anyone — and issue them to community-based drug treatment programs. The programs would then train people on the signs of overdose and provide them with the naloxone kits. This means that the programs would not have to have a doctor present to distribute the antidote, overcoming one major hurdle that impedes widespread distribution.

This bill empowers a community to protect itself and others. If the bill becomes law, it would be one step closer to making naloxone available over the counter — as it already is in Italy.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug overdose is now the leading cause of injury-related fatalities in the United States, ahead of motor-vehicle collisions and firearms accidents. We make cars safer by having speed limits, seatbelts, crumple zones and D.W.I. laws. We make it harder to buy a firearm with background checks and waiting periods, and we teach gun safety and sometimes mandate trigger locks. We can make heroin safer, too, by supplying methadone or buprenorphine as medications to treat physical dependence, providing clean needles to help prevent the spread of hepatitis and H.I.V., and facilitating the wide availability of naloxone to counteract overdoses.

While Mr. Hoffman’s death was without a doubt a tragedy, it is also emblematic of a societal need to take action to prevent the hundreds of deaths that otherwise go largely unnoticed. We can’t control heroin — that’s the job of law enforcement — but we can make it safer.


Robert S. Hoffman is an emergency physician at NYU Langone Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital and the director of the Division of Medical Toxicology at the New York University School of Medicine.

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13) Huge Leak of Coal Ash Slows at North Carolina Power Plant
By and



A massive leak of toxic coal ash from a retired North Carolina power plant into a neighboring river dwindled on Thursday, utility officials said, but hundreds of workers had yet to seal the breach in a drainage pipe where the leak was detected more than four days ago.

State regulators promised a detailed inquiry into the accident once the area was stabilized and the Dan River’s water was shown to be safe. But environmental and citizens’ groups criticized the response, saying the leak was the result of decades of lax oversight.

From 50,000 to 82,000 tons of coal-ash slurry flowed into the Dan after the collapse of a corrugated metal drainpipe only a few feet beneath a 27-acre pond, known as an impoundment. Duke Energy, the utility that owns the impoundment and the Dan River Steam Station in Eden, N.C., which closed in 2012, says that 27 million gallons of contaminated water also leaked into the river. Coal ash, a murky gray sludge that is the residue from burning powdered coal to generate electricity, contains high levels of toxic elements, including lead, mercury, selenium and arsenic.

The state said it began testing the Dan’s waters on Tuesday for the presence of 28 toxic metals. A spokesman for the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Jamie Kritzer, said Thursday that the first results would be available by Friday.

The department said that five downstream communities that take drinking water from the river were monitoring and filtering the water and had deemed it safe.

In Danville, Va., a town of 43,000, “we’ve done some testing, and it’s been verified that there is none of the heavy metals coming downstream” in the treated water, David Stiles, the chemist for the Danville Water Treatment Plant, said in an interview. The river was opaque with ash on Monday, the day after the spill was detected, he said, but the latest measurements indicated that the ash content was less than a quarter of its recent peak.

Officials in Virginia Beach closed a drinking-water intake at Lake Gaston, a reservoir fed by the Dan, The Associated Press reported.

A spokeswoman for Duke Energy, Lisa Hoffmann, said the company’s own tests of river water near the plant showed that levels of lead, arsenic and selenium were below two parts per billion, well below federal Environmental Protection Agency standards.

“We’re doing water samples every four hours in 11 different places” on the river, she said. “The priority is to safely plug the pipe and at the same time conduct the necessary environmental remediation.”

The Duke samples were taken two miles or more away from the spill. The clean-water advocacy group Waterkeeper Alliance said Thursday that its own tests of water just yards from the leak showed levels of arsenic 10 times greater than the Duke tests showed.

Both Duke and the Dan River Basin Association, a regional conservation group, said the leak’s impact on wildlife remained unclear. The federal Fish and Wildlife Service sent experts to help assess the damage to fish stocks that live in the river, including the endangered Roanoke logperch.

The Dan River spill is but the most recent in a string of problems in coal-ash ponds in North Carolina and nationally. But it is a particular embarrassment to state regulators and to Duke, both of which have come under attack for what critics call lackadaisical oversight of ash ponds at all 14 power plants where Duke burns or once burned coal.

The company agreed in November to spend at least $1.5 million to install public water lines in Flemington, N.C., after tests showed that arsenic and other chemicals from a coal-ash pond had leaked into groundwater. Last March, a clutch of environmental groups threatened to sue Duke for coal-ash chemical leaks that they said had polluted Mountain Island Lake, which supplies drinking water to Charlotte.

Duke officials said then that the leak was “extremely small” and did not affect the lake’s water quality. State regulators have since filed lawsuits against Duke accusing it of allowing coal-ash leaks at Mountain Island Lake and its 13 other plants. But they came only after environmental groups served notice that they would be filing suits under the Clean Water Act unless the state compelled the utility to comply with the law.

The groups have since argued in court that the state’s settlement of two lawsuits was inadequate because it required only that Duke study the leaks further, not stop them. They are seeking to intervene in other actions against Duke that have yet to be settled.

North Carolina has all but ignored mounting problems at coal-ash basins for years, said Peter Harrison, a staff lawyer for Waterkeeper Alliance.

State discharge permits for such facilities are “extremely lax, in many cases expired, and they completely ignore the issue of leaking contamination from coal-ash impoundments,” Mr. Harrison said. “It wasn’t until citizen groups put the spotlight on the problem that the state undertook enforcement action.”

Mr. Kritzer, the state resources department spokesman, disagreed, saying that Gov. Pat McCrory was the first to take action on the ash basins.

The Environmental Protection Agency stated in 2012 that 45 ash storage sites nationwide had a “high hazard potential,” meaning that failure could cause loss of life.


Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

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B. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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Forwarded from the San Francisco Tenants Union:

After hosting successful neighborhood conventions in the Mission, Chinatown, Richmond/ Haight, Castro and SOMA/ Tenderloin, the citywide convention will bring us all together to discuss and vote on the proposals that were generated from the neighborhoods.

If you live in rent-controlled housing in San Francisco, please join us.

Saturday, February 8th,

Tenderloin Elementary School

627 Turk St. @ Van Ness

Lunch at Noon. Convention from 1:00-4:00pm.

The San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition (SFADC) is a new coalition of organizations that have joined together in this moment of crisis to fight the widespread displacement of residents from San Francisco. Our focus for 2014 is to support policies and actions that stop the wave of evictions and loss of rent controlled housing that is devastating our communities and that threatens the economic and social diversity of our city.

RENTERS: WE WANT TO HEAR YOUR VOICE!
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Call to Action for February 8 Solidarity Rally against LGBTQ and Political Repression in Russia on the Opening Day of the Olympic Games


What: Planning meeting to organize an action in solidarity with targets of fascism in Russia
When: Tuesday, January 21, 2014, 6:00-7:30pm
Where: New Valencia Hall, 747 Polk Street, Civic Center (at Ellis Street and on/near Civic Center BART/Muni and #19, 31, 47, 48 & 49 Muni bus lines)

Dear friend,

Please don't miss the next community organizing meeting on Tuesday, January 21, 2014, the purpose of which is to further decided details for a public rally on Saturday, February 8 in San Francisco demanding queer and civil rights in Russia during the Olympic Games and to show solidarity with targets of escalating fascism.

The 2014 Winter Olympics will be held in Sochi, Russia from February 7–23.  Many of you are aware that state-supported violent bigotry and repression against the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/queer community and others in Russia is an increasingly serious reality.  Also being targeted are dissidents, radicals, feminists, artists, immigrants, and national and religious minorities.  The Putin Administration, instead of advancing equality for all, is dragging Russia backward by instituting laws making it a crime to be gay or to even advocate for LGBT rights, throwing socialists, anarchists, and feminists like punk rock group Pussy Riot into prison, and clamping down on all forms of public protest. These policies aim to divert working people’s anger at economic austerity measures and are emboldening a growing fascist movement.  (Links to more information can be found below.)

We believe that oppressed and working people everywhere have a stake in the fight to stamp out dangerous rightwing scapegoating. What’s needed is a public display of solidarity in order to show that people in the Bay Area support civil liberties for all, the separation of church and state, and solidarity with the oppressed—in Russia and here at home.

We invite you to join the ad hoc community group meeting to discuss and plan a visible and disciplined protest rally happening at UN Plaza 11am-1pm on Saturday, February 8 in San Francisco to oppose Putin’s repression and also hopefully plan other community actions on February 7 as well. Your ideas, support, endorsement, and help are all greatly needed.  The next planning meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 21, 6:00–7:30pm at New Valencia Hall, 747 Polk Street in San Francisco (between Ellis and Eddy and near Civic Center BART/Muni).  Wheelchair accessible. Everyone is welcome.  We hope to see you there—please spread the word.

For more information or to get involved, please contact Masha at 415-678-8232 or Toni Mendicino at 415-730-2917, or email .

More information can be found here:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/10/gay-russian-teens-avoid-propaganda-law
http://therussianreader.wordpress.com/2013/11/09/dmitry-chizhevsky/
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/downfall-toward-fascism/489100.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/rising-russian-nationalism-sets-off-ethnic-tension/2013/11/11/9c9c15ae-495c-11e3-b87a-e66bd9ff3537_story.html
www.socialism.com/drupal-6.8/?q=node/2594   (“Russia’s new anti-LGBT law denounced”)
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t1006504/
http://www.vocativ.com/11-2013/russian-neo-nazis-now-beating-gays-ukraine/
 

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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND
ONGOING CAMPAIGNS


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End Drone Killing, Drone Surveillance and Global 
Militarization 
United National Antiwar Coalition Call for Spring Days of
 Action 2014

Today we issue an international call for Spring Days of Action—2014, a coordinated campaign in April and May to end drone killings, drone surveillance and global militarization.

The campaign will focus on drone bases, drone research facilities and test sites and drone manufacturers.

The campaign will provide information on:

1. The suffering of tens-of-thousands of people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Gaza who are under drone attack, documenting the killing, the wounding and the devastating impact of constant drone surveillance on community life.

2. How attack and surveillance drones have become a key element in a massive wave of surveillance, clandestine military attacks and militarization generated by the United States to protect a global system of manufacture and oil and mineral exploitation that is creating unemployment and poverty, accelerating the waste of nonrenewable resources and contributing to environmental destruction and global warming.

In addition to cases in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, we will examine President Obama’s “pivot” into the Asia-Pacific, where the United States has already sold and deployed drones in the vanguard of a shift of 60 percent of its military forces to try to control China and to enforce the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership. We will show, among other things, how this surge of “pivot” forces, greatly enabled by drones, and supported by the U.S. military-industrial complex, will hit every American community with even deeper cuts in the already fragile social programs on which people rely for survival. In short, we will connect drones and militarization with “austerity” in America.

3. How drone attacks have effectively destroyed international and domestic legal protection of the rights to life, privacy, freedom of assembly and free speech and have opened the way for new levels of surveillance and repression around the world, and how, in the United States, increasing drone surveillance, added to surveillance by the National Security Agency and police, provides a new weapon to repress black, Hispanic, immigrant and low-income communities and to intimidate Americans who are increasingly unsettled by lack of jobs, economic inequality, corporate control of politics and the prospect of endless war.

We will discuss how the United States government and corporations conspire secretly to monitor U.S. citizens and particularly how the Administration is accelerating drone surveillance operations and surveillance inside the United States with the same disregard for transparency and law that it applies to other countries, all with the cooperation of the Congress.

The campaign will encourage activists around the world to win passage of local laws that prohibit weaponized drones and drone surveillance from being used in their communities as well as seeking national laws to bar the use of weaponized drones and drone surveillance.

The campaign will draw attention to the call for a ban on weaponized drones by RootsAction.org that has generated a petition with over 80,000 signers:

http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6180

And to efforts by the Granny Peace Brigade (New York City), KnowDrones.org and others to achieve an international ban on both weaponized drones and drone surveillance.

The campaign will also urge participation in the World Beyond War movement.
The following individuals and organizations endorse this Call: 
Lyn Adamson, Co-chair, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace; Dennis Apel, Guadalupe Catholic Worker, California; Judy Bello, Upstate NY Coalition to Ground the Drones & End the Wars; Medea Benjamin, Code Pink; Leah Bolger, Former National President, Veterans for Peace; Canadian Voice of Women for Peace; Sung-Hee Choi, Gangjeong Village International Team, Jeju, Korea; Chelsea C. Faria, Graduate student, Yale Divinity School; Promoting Enduring Peace; Sandy Fessler, Rochester (NY) Against War; Joy First; Bruce K. Gagnon, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space; Holly Gwinn Graham, Singer/songwriter, Olympia, WA; Regina Hagen, Darmstaedter Friedensforum, Germany; Kathy Kelly, Voices for Creative Nonviolence; Malachy Kilbride; Marilyn Levin and Joe Lombardo, Co-Coordinators, United National Antiwar Coalition; Tamara Lorincz, Halifax Peace Coalition, Canada; Nick Mottern, KnowDrones.org; Agneta Norberg, Swedish Peace Council; Pepperwolf, Director, Women Against Military Madness; Lindis Percy, Coordinator, Campaign for the Accountability of American; Bases CAAB UK; Mathias Quackenbush, San Francisco, CA; Lisa Savage, Code Pink, State of Maine; Janice Sevre-Duszynska; Wolfgang Schlupp-Hauck, Friedenswerkstatt Mutlangen, Germany; Cindy Sheehan; Lucia Wilkes Smith, Convener, Women Against Military Madness (WAMM),  Ground; Military Drones Committee; David Soumis, Veterans for Peace; No Drones Wisconsin; Debra Sweet, World Can’t Wait; David Swanson, WarisACrime.org; Brian Terrell, Voices for Creative Nonviolence; United National Antiwar Coalition; Veterans for Peace; Dave Webb, Chair, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (UK); Curt Wechsler, Fire John Paki Wieland, Northampton (MA) Committee to Stop War(s); Loring Wirbel, Citizens for Peace in Space (Colorado Springs, CO); Women Against Military Madness; Ann Wright, Retired U.S. Army colonel and former diplomat; Leila Zand, Fellowship of Reconciliation.
United National Antiwar Coalition
UNACpeace@gmail.com
UNAC
P.O. Box 123
Delmar, NY 12054
518-227-6947
www.unacpeace.org

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Sireen Khudairy Appeal Update.

Sireen Khudairy was arrested again at 4am on Tuesday 7th January 2014. According to reports she has been taken to Huwwara military point. When the Israeli army took her from her home they didn't show any papers to her or the person she was with.

This follows eight months of harassment of this 24-year-old Palestinian woman who is a teacher, activist and supporter of the non-violent action against the Israeli occupation. She was previously imprisoned from May to July 2013, and has been subjected to frequent harassment ever since. See further details at:

http://freesireen.wordpress.com

Please help by contacting your Embassies urgently to demand her release and spread her appeal widely. Follow updates on:

https://www.facebook.com/FreeSireenKhudiri?ref=hl

Please contact us to let us know any action you take. We will pass this information on to her family. Thanks for your solidarity and support.  

Steven Katsineris, January 2014
 
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U.S. Court of Appeals Rules Against Lorenzo Johnson’s
New Legal Challenge to His Frame-up Conviction!
Demand the PA Attorney General Dismiss the Charges!
Free Lorenzo Johnson, Now!

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit denied Lorenzo Johnson’s motion to file a Second Habeas Corpus Petition. The order contained the outrageous declaration that Johnson hadn’t made a “prima facie case” that he had new evidence of his innocence. This not only puts a legal obstacle in Johnson’s path as his fight for freedom makes its way (again) through the state and federal courts—but it undermines the newly filed Pennsylvania state appeal that is pending in the Court of Common Pleas.

Stripped of  “legalese,” the court’s October 15, 2013 order says Johnson’s new evidence was not brought into court soon enough—although it was the prosecution and police who withheld evidence and coerced witnesses into lying or not coming forward with the truth! This, despite over fifteen years and rounds of legal battles to uncover the evidence of government misconduct. This is a set-back for Lorenzo Johnson’s renewed fight for his freedom, but Johnson is even more determined as his PA state court appeal continues.

Increased public support and protest is needed. The fight for Lorenzo Johnson’s freedom is not only a fight for this courageous man and family. The fight for Lorenzo Johnson is also a fight for all the innocent others who have been framed and are sitting in the slow death of prison. The PA Attorney General is directly pursuing the charges against Lorenzo, despite the evidence of his innocence and the corruption of the police. Free Lorenzo Johnson, Now!

—Rachel Wolkenstein, Esq.
   October 25, 2013

For more on the federal court and PA state court legal filings.
Hear Mumia’s latest commentary, “Cat Cries”
Go to: www.FreeLorenzoJohnson.org for more information, to sign the petition, and how to help.
 
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PUSH CHELSEA'S JAILERS TO RESPECT HER IDENTITY
Call and write Ft Leavenworth today and tell them to honor Manning's wishes around her name and gender:
Call: (913) 758-3600


Write to:
Col. Sioban Ledwith, Commander
U.S. Detention Barracks
1301 N Warehouse Rd
Ft. Leavenworth KS 66027

Private Manning has been an icon both for the government transparency movement and LGBTQ activists because of her fearlessness and acts of conscience. Now, as she begins serving her sentence, Chelsea has asked for help with legal appeals, family visits, education, and support for undergoing gender transition. The latter is a decision she’s made following years of experiencing gender dysphoria and examining her options. At a difficult time in her life, she joined the military out of hope–the hope that she could use her service to save lives, and also the hope that it would help to suppress her feelings of gender dysphoria. But after serving time in Iraq, Private Manning realized what mattered to her most was the truth, personal as well as political, even when it proved challenging.

Now she wants the Fort Leavenworth military prison to allow her access to hormone replacement therapy which she has offered to pay for herself, as she pursues the process to have her name legally changed to ‘Chelsea Elizabeth Manning.’

To encourage the prison to honor her transgender identity, we’re calling on progressive supporters and allies to contact Fort Leavenworth officials demanding they acknowledge her requested name change immediately. Currently, prison officials are not required to respect Chelsea’s identity, and can even refuse to deliver mail addressed to the name ‘Chelsea Manning.’ However, it’s within prison administrators’ power to begin using the name ‘Chelsea Manning’ now, in advance of the legal name change which will most likely be approved sometime next year. It’s also up to these officials to approve Private Manning’s request for hormone therapy.
Call: (913) 758-3600


Write to:
Col. Sioban Ledwith, Commander
U.S. Detention Barracks
1301 N Warehouse Rd
Ft. Leavenworth KS 66027

Tell them: “Transgender rights are human rights! Respect Private Manning’s identity by acknowledging the name ‘Chelsea Manning’ whenever possible, including in mail addressed to her, and by allowing her access to appropriate medical treatment for gender dysphoria, including hormone replacement therapy (HRT).”

While openly transgender individuals are allowed to serve in many other militaries around the world, the US military continues to deny their existence. Now, by speaking up for Chelsea’s right to treatment, you can support one brave whistleblower in her personal struggle, and help set an important benchmark for the rights of transgender individuals everywhere. (Remember that letters written with focus and a respectful tone are more likely to be effective.) Feel free to copy this sample letter.

Earlier this year, the Private Manning Support Network won the title of most “absolutely fabulous overall contingent” at the San Francisco Pride Parade, the largest celebration of its kind for LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning) people nationwide. Over one thousand people marched for Private Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning in that parade, to show LGBTQ community pride for the Iraq War’s most well-known whistleblower.

Help us continue to cover 100%
of Pvt. Manning's legal fees! Donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38591

COURAGE TO RESIST
http://couragetoresist.org
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
510-488-3559
 

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 SAVE CCSF!


Two campaigns that need funds – Please donate!
Posted on August 25, 2013

Cartoon by Anthonty Mata for CCSF Guardsman

DOE CAMPAIGN
We are working to ensure that the ACCJC’s authority is not renewed by the Department of Education this December when they are up for their 5-year renewal. Our campaign made it possible for over 50 Third Party Comments to be sent to the DOE re: the ACCJC. Our next step in this campaign is to send a delegation from CCSF to Washington, D.C. to give oral comments at the hearing on December 12th. We expect to have an array of forces aligned on the other side who have much more money and resources than we do.
So please support this effort to get ACCJC authority revoked!

LEGAL CAMPAIGN
Save CCSF members have been meeting with Attorney Dan Siegel since last May to explore legal avenues to fight the ACCJC. After much consideration, and consultation with AFT 2121’s attorney as well as the SF City Attorney’s office, Dan has come up with a legal strategy that is complimentary to what is already being pursued. In fact, AFT 2121’s attorney is encouraging us to go forward.
The total costs of pursuing this (depositions, etc.) will be substantially more than $15,000. However, Dan is willing to do it for a fixed fee of $15,000. He will not expect a retainer, i.e. payment in advance, but we should start payments ASAP. If we win the ACCJC will have to pay our costs.

PLEASE HELP BOTH OF THESE IMPORTANT EFFORTS!
Checks can be made out to Save CCSF Coalition with “legal” in the memo line and sent to:
Save CCSF Coalition
2132 Prince St.
Berkeley, CA 94705
Or you may donate online:  http://www.gofundme.com/4841ns

http://www.saveccsf.org/
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16 Years in Solitary Confinement Is Like a "Living Tomb"

American Civil Liberties Union petition to end long-term solitary confinement:
California Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard: We stand with the prisoners on hunger strike. We urge you to comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons 2006 recommendations regarding an end to long-term solitary confinement.

In California, hundreds of prisoners have been held in solitary for more than a decade – some for infractions as trivial as reading Machiavelli's "The Prince."

Gabriel Reyes describes the pain of being isolated for at least 22 hours a day for the last 16 years:

“Unless you have lived it, you cannot imagine what it feels like to be by yourself, between four cold walls, with little concept of time…. It is a living tomb …’ I have not been allowed physical contact with any of my loved ones since 1995…I feel helpless and hopeless. In short, I am being psychologically tortured.”

That’s why over 30,000 prisoners in California began a hunger strike – the biggest the state has ever seen. They’re refusing food to protest prisoners being held for decades in solitary and to push for other changes to improve their basic conditions.

California Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard has tried to dismiss the strikers and refuses to negotiate, but the media pressure is building through the strike. If tens of thousands of us take action, we can help keep this issue in the spotlight so that Secretary Beard can’t ignore the inhumane treatment of prisoners.

Sign the petition urging Corrections Secretary Beard to end the use of long-term solitary confinement.

Solitary is such an extreme form of punishment that a United Nations torture rapporteur called for an international ban on the practice except in rare occasions. Here’s why:

The majority of the 80,000 people held in solitary in this country are severely mentally ill or because of a minor infraction (it’s a myth that it’s only for violent prisoners)
Even for people with stable mental health, solitary causes severe psychological reactions, often leading people to attempt suicide
It jeopardizes public safety because prisoners held in solitary have a harder time reintegrating into society.

And to add insult to injury, the hunger strikers are now facing retaliation – their lawyers are being restricted from visiting and the strikers are being punished. But the media continues to write about the hunger strike and we can help keep the pressure on Secretary Beard by signing this petition.

Sign the petition urging Corrections Secretary Beard to end the use of long-term solitary confinement.

Our criminal justice system should keep communities safe and treat people fairly. The use of solitary confinement undermines both of these goals – but little by little, we can help put a stop to such cruelty.

Thank you,
Anthony for the ACLU Action team
P.S. The hunger strikers have developed five core demands to address their basic conditions, the main one being an end to long-term solitary confinement. They are:

-End group punishment – prisoners say that officials often punish groups to address individual rule violations

-Abolish the debriefing policy, which is often demanded in return for better food or release from solitary

-End long-term solitary confinement

-Provide adequate and nutritious food

-Expand or provide constructive programming and privileges for indefinite SHU inmates

Sources
“Solitary - and anger - in California's prisons.” Los Angeles Times July 13, 2013
“Pelican Bay Prison Hunger-Strikers' Stories: Gabriel Reyes.” TruthOut July 9, 2013
“Solitary confinement should be banned in most cases, UN expert says.” UN News October 18, 2011
"Stop Solitary - Two Pager" ACLU.org
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What you Didn't know about NYPD's Stop and Frisk program !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rfJHx0Gj6ys#at=990

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Egypt: The Next President -- a little Egyptian boy speaks his remarkable mind!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeDm2PrNV1I

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Wealth Inequality in America

[This is a must see to believe video...bw]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QPKKQnijnsM

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Read the transcription of hero Bradley Manning's 35-page statement explaining why he leaked "state secrets" to WikiLeaks.

March 1, 2013

Alternet

The statement was read by Pfc. Bradley Manning at a providence inquiry for his formal plea of guilty to one specification as charged and nine specifications for lesser included offenses. He pled not guilty to 12 other specifications. This rush transcript was taken by journalist Alexa O'Brien at Thursday's pretrial hearing and first appeared on Salon.com.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/bradley-mannings-surprising-statement-court-details-why-he-made-his-historic?akid=10129.229473.UZvQfK&rd=1&src=newsletter802922&t=7

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You Have the Right to Remain Silent: NLG Guide to Law Enforcement Encounters

Posted 1 day ago on July 27, 2012, 10:28 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

Occupy Wall Street is a nonviolent movement for social and economic justice, but in recent days disturbing reports have emerged of Occupy-affiliated activists being targeted by US law enforcement, including agents from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. To help ensure Occupiers and allied activists know their rights when encountering law enforcement, we are publishing in full the National Lawyers Guild's booklet: You Have the Right to Remain Silent. The NLG provides invaluable support to the Occupy movement and other activists – please click here to support the NLG.

We strongly encourage all Occupiers to read and share the information provided below. We also recommend you enter the NLG's national hotline number (888-654-3265) into your cellphone (if you have one) and keep a copy handy. This information is not a substitute for legal advice. You should contact the NLG or a criminal defense attorney immediately if you have been visited by the FBI or other law enforcement officials. You should also alert your relatives, friends, co-workers and others so that they will be prepared if they are contacted as well.

You Have the Right to Remain Silent: A Know Your Rights Guide for Law Enforcement Encounters

What Rights Do I Have?

Whether or not you're a citizen, you have rights under the United States Constitution. The Fifth Amendment gives every person the right to remain silent: not to answer questions asked by a police officer or government agent. The Fourth Amendment restricts the government's power to enter and search your home or workplace, although there are many exceptions and new laws have expanded the government's power to conduct surveillance. The First Amendment protects your right to speak freely and to advocate for social change. However, if you are a non-citizen, the Department of Homeland Security may target you based on your political activities.

Standing Up For Free Speech

The government's crusade against politically-active individuals is intended to disrupt and suppress the exercise of time-honored free speech activities, such as boycotts, protests, grassroots organizing and solidarity work. Remember that you have the right to stand up to the intimidation tactics of FBI agents and other law enforcement officials who, with political motives, are targeting organizing and free speech activities. Informed resistance to these tactics and steadfast defense of your and others' rights can bring positive results. Each person who takes a courageous stand makes future resistance to government oppression easier for all. The National Lawyers Guild has a long tradition of standing up to government repression. The organization itself was labeled a "subversive" group during the McCarthy Era and was subject to FBI surveillance and infiltration for many years. Guild attorneys have defended FBI-targeted members of the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, and the Puerto Rican independence movement. The NLG exposed FBI surveillance, infiltration and disruption tactics that were detailed during the 1975-76 COINTELPRO hearings. In 1989 the NLG prevailed in a lawsuit on behalf of several activist organizations, including the Guild, that forced the FBI to expose the extent to which it had been spying on activist movements. Under the settlement, the FBI turned over roughly 400,000 pages of its files on the Guild, which are now available at the Tamiment Library at New York University.

What if FBI Agents or Police Contact Me?

What if an agent or police officer comes to the door?

Do not invite the agents or police into your home. Do not answer any questions. Tell the agent that you do not wish to talk with him or her. You can state that your lawyer will contact them on your behalf. You can do this by stepping outside and pulling the door behind you so that the interior of your home or office is not visible, getting their contact information or business cards and then returning inside. They should cease questioning after this. If the agent or officer gives a reason for contacting you, take notes and give the information to your attorney. Anything you say, no matter how seemingly harmless or insignificant, may be used against you or others in the future. Lying to or misleading a federal agent is a crime. The more you speak, the more opportunity for federal law enforcement to find something you said (even if not intentionally) false and assert that you lied to a federal officer.

Do I have to answer questions?

You have the constitutional right to remain silent. It is not a crime to refuse to answer questions. You do not have to talk to anyone, even if you have been arrested or are in jail. You should affirmatively and unambiguously state that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to consult an attorney. Once you make the request to speak to a lawyer, do not say anything else. The Supreme Court recently ruled that answering law enforcement questions may be taken as a waiver of your right to remain silent, so it is important that you assert your rights and maintain them. Only a judge can order you to answer questions. There is one exception: some states have "stop and identify" statutes which require you to provide identity information or your name if you have been detained on reasonable suspicion that you may have committed a crime. A lawyer in your state can advise you of the status of these requirements where you reside.

Do I have to give my name?

As above, in some states you can be detained or arrested for merely refusing to give your name. And in any state, police do not always follow the law, and refusing to give your name may make them suspicious or more hostile and lead to your arrest, even without just cause, so use your judgment. Giving a false name could in some circumstances be a crime.

Do I need a lawyer?

You have the right to talk to a lawyer before you decide whether to answer questions from law enforcement. It is a good idea to talk to a lawyer if you are considering answering any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer present during any interview. The lawyer's job is to protect your rights. Once you tell the agent that you want to talk to a lawyer, he or she should stop trying to question you and should make any further contact through your lawyer. If you do not have a lawyer, you can still tell the officer you want to speak to one before answering questions. Remember to get the name, agency and telephone number of any investigator who visits you, and give that information to your lawyer. The government does not have to provide you with a free lawyer unless you are charged with a crime, but the NLG or another organization may be able to help you find a lawyer for free or at a reduced rate.

If I refuse to answer questions or say I want a lawyer, won't it seem like I have something to hide?

Anything you say to law enforcement can be used against you and others. You can never tell how a seemingly harmless bit of information might be used or manipulated to hurt you or someone else. That is why the right not to talk is a fundamental right under the Constitution. Keep in mind that although law enforcement agents are allowed to lie to you, lying to a government agent is a crime. Remaining silent is not. The safest things to say are "I am going to remain silent," "I want to speak to my lawyer," and "I do not consent to a search." It is a common practice for law enforcement agents to try to get you to waive your rights by telling you that if you have nothing to hide you would talk or that talking would "just clear things up." The fact is, if they are questioning you, they are looking to incriminate you or someone you may know, or they are engaged in political intelligence gathering. You should feel comfortable standing firm in protection and defense of your rights and refusing to answer questions.

Can agents search my home or office?

You do not have to let police or agents into your home or office unless they have and produce a valid search warrant. A search warrant is a written court order that allows the police to conduct a specified search. Interfering with a warrantless search probably will not stop it and you might get arrested. But you should say "I do not consent to a search," and call a criminal defense lawyer or the NLG. You should be aware that a roommate or guest can legally consent to a search of your house if the police believe that person has the authority to give consent, and your employer can consent to a search of your workspace without your permission.

What if agents have a search warrant?

If you are present when agents come for the search, you can ask to see the warrant. The warrant must specify in detail the places to be searched and the people or things to be taken away. Tell the agents you do not consent to the search so that they cannot go beyond what the warrant authorizes. Ask if you are allowed to watch the search; if you are allowed to, you should. Take notes, including names, badge numbers, what agency each officer is from, where they searched and what they took. If others are present, have them act as witnesses to watch carefully what is happening. If the agents ask you to give them documents, your computer, or anything else, look to see if the item is listed in the warrant. If it is not, do not consent to them taking it without talking to a lawyer. You do not have to answer questions. Talk to a lawyer first. (Note: If agents present an arrest warrant, they may only perform a cursory visual search of the premises to see if the person named in the arrest warrant is present.)

Do I have to answer questions if I have been arrested?

No. If you are arrested, you do not have to answer any questions. You should affirmatively and unambiguously state that you wish to assert your right to remain silent. Ask for a lawyer right away. Do not say anything else. Repeat to every officer who tries to talk to or question you that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to speak to a lawyer. You should always talk to a lawyer before you decide to answer any questions.

What if I speak to government agents anyway?

Even if you have already answered some questions, you can refuse to answer other questions until you have a lawyer. If you find yourself talking, stop. Assert that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to speak to a lawyer.

What if the police stop me on the street?

Ask if you are free to go. If the answer is yes, consider just walking away. If the police say you are not under arrest, but are not free to go, then you are being detained. The police can pat down the outside of your clothing if they have reason to suspect you might be armed and dangerous. If they search any more than this, say clearly, "I do not consent to a search." They may keep searching anyway. If this happens, do not resist because you can be charged with assault or resisting arrest. You do not have to answer any questions. You do not have to open bags or any closed container. Tell the officers you do not consent to a search of your bags or other property.

What if police or agents stop me in my car?

Keep your hands where the police can see them. If you are driving a vehicle, you must show your license, registration and, in some states, proof of insurance. You do not have to consent to a search. But the police may have legal grounds to search your car anyway. Clearly state that you do not consent. Officers may separate passengers and drivers from each other to question them, but no one has to answer any questions.

What if I am treated badly by the police or the FBI?

Write down the officer's badge number, name or other identifying information. You have a right to ask the officer for this information. Try to find witnesses and their names and phone numbers. If you are injured, seek medical attention and take pictures of the injuries as soon as you can. Call a lawyer as soon as possible.

What if the police or FBI threaten me with a grand jury subpoena if I don't answer their questions?

A grand jury subpoena is a written order for you to go to court and testify about information you may have. It is common for the FBI to threaten you with a subpoena to get you to talk to them. If they are going to subpoena you, they will do so anyway. You should not volunteer to speak just because you are threatened with a subpoena. You should consult a lawyer.

What if I receive a grand jury subpoena?

Grand jury proceedings are not the same as testifying at an open court trial. You are not allowed to have a lawyer present (although one may wait in the hallway and you may ask to consult with him or her after each question) and you may be asked to answer questions about your activities and associations. Because of the witness's limited rights in this situation, the government has frequently used grand jury subpoenas to gather information about activists and political organizations. It is common for the FBI to threaten activists with a subpoena in order to elicit information about their political views and activities and those of their associates. There are legal grounds for stopping ("quashing") subpoenas, and receiving one does not necessarily mean that you are suspected of a crime. If you do receive a subpoena, call the NLG National Hotline at 888-NLG-ECOL (888-654-3265) or call a criminal defense attorney immediately.

The government regularly uses grand jury subpoena power to investigate and seek evidence related to politically-active individuals and social movements. This practice is aimed at prosecuting activists and, through intimidation and disruption, discouraging continued activism.

Federal grand jury subpoenas are served in person. If you receive one, it is critically important that you retain the services of an attorney, preferably one who understands your goals and, if applicable, understands the nature of your political work, and has experience with these issues. Most lawyers are trained to provide the best legal defense for their client, often at the expense of others. Beware lawyers who summarily advise you to cooperate with grand juries, testify against friends, or cut off contact with your friends and political activists. Cooperation usually leads to others being subpoenaed and investigated. You also run the risk of being charged with perjury, a felony, should you omit any pertinent information or should there be inconsistencies in your testimony.

Frequently prosecutors will offer "use immunity," meaning that the prosecutor is prohibited from using your testimony or any leads from it to bring charges against you. If a subsequent prosecution is brought, the prosecutor bears the burden of proving that all of its evidence was obtained independent of the immunized testimony. You should be aware, however, that they will use anything you say to manipulate associates into sharing more information about you by suggesting that you have betrayed confidences.

In front of a grand jury you can "take the Fifth" (exercise your right to remain silent). However, the prosecutor may impose immunity on you, which strips you of Fifth Amendment protection and subjects you to the possibility of being cited for contempt and jailed if you refuse to answer further. In front of a grand jury you have no Sixth Amendment right to counsel, although you can consult with a lawyer outside the grand jury room after each question.

What if I don't cooperate with the grand jury?

If you receive a grand jury subpoena and elect to not cooperate, you may be held in civil contempt. There is a chance that you may be jailed or imprisoned for the length of the grand jury in an effort to coerce you to cooperate. Regular grand juries sit for a basic term of 18 months, which can be extended up to a total of 24 months. It is lawful to hold you in order to coerce your cooperation, but unlawful to hold you as a means of punishment. In rare instances you may face criminal contempt charges.

What If I Am Not a Citizen and the DHS Contacts Me?

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is now part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and has been renamed and reorganized into: 1. The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS); 2. The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP); and 3. The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). All three bureaus will be referred to as DHS for the purposes of this pamphlet.

? Assert your rights. If you do not demand your rights or if you sign papers waiving your rights, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may deport you before you see a lawyer or an immigration judge. Never sign anything without reading, understanding and knowing the consequences of signing it.

? Talk to a lawyer. If possible, carry with you the name and telephone number of an immigration lawyer who will take your calls. The immigration laws are hard to understand and there have been many recent changes. DHS will not explain your options to you. As soon as you encounter a DHS agent, call your attorney. If you can't do it right away, keep trying. Always talk to an immigration lawyer before leaving the U.S. Even some legal permanent residents can be barred from returning.

Based on today's laws, regulations and DHS guidelines, non-citizens usually have the following rights, no matter what their immigration status. This information may change, so it is important to contact a lawyer. The following rights apply to non-citizens who are inside the U.S. Non-citizens at the border who are trying to enter the U.S. do not have all the same rights.

Do I have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any DHS questions or signing any DHS papers?

Yes. You have the right to call a lawyer or your family if you are detained, and you have the right to be visited by a lawyer in detention. You have the right to have your attorney with you at any hearing before an immigration judge. You do not have the right to a government-appointed attorney for immigration proceedings, but if you have been arrested, immigration officials must show you a list of free or low cost legal service providers.

Should I carry my green card or other immigration papers with me?

If you have documents authorizing you to stay in the U.S., you must carry them with you. Presenting false or expired papers to DHS may lead to deportation or criminal prosecution. An unexpired green card, I-94, Employment Authorization Card, Border Crossing Card or other papers that prove you are in legal status will satisfy this requirement. If you do not carry these papers with you, you could be charged with a crime. Always keep a copy of your immigration papers with a trusted family member or friend who can fax them to you, if need be. Check with your immigration lawyer about your specific case.

Am I required to talk to government officers about my immigration history?

If you are undocumented, out of status, a legal permanent resident (green card holder), or a citizen, you do not have to answer any questions about your immigration history. (You may want to consider giving your name; see above for more information about this.) If you are not in any of these categories, and you are being questioned by a DHS or FBI agent, then you may create problems with your immigration status if you refuse to provide information requested by the agent. If you have a lawyer, you can tell the agent that your lawyer will answer questions on your behalf. If answering questions could lead the agent to information that connects you with criminal activity, you should consider refusing to talk to the agent at all.

If I am arrested for immigration violations, do I have the right to a hearing before an immigration judge to defend myself against deportation charges?

Yes. In most cases only an immigration judge can order you deported. But if you waive your rights or take "voluntary departure," agreeing to leave the country, you could be deported without a hearing. If you have criminal convictions, were arrested at the border, came to the U.S. through the visa waiver program or have been ordered deported in the past, you could be deported without a hearing. Contact a lawyer immediately to see if there is any relief for you.

Can I call my consulate if I am arrested?

Yes. Non-citizens arrested in the U.S. have the right to call their consulate or to have the police tell the consulate of your arrest. The police must let your consulate visit or speak with you if consular officials decide to do so. Your consulate might help you find a lawyer or offer other help. You also have the right to refuse help from your consulate.

What happens if I give up my right to a hearing or leave the U.S. before the hearing is over?

You could lose your eligibility for certain immigration benefits, and you could be barred from returning to the U.S. for a number of years. You should always talk to an immigration lawyer before you decide to give up your right to a hearing.

What should I do if I want to contact DHS?

Always talk to a lawyer before contacting DHS, even on the phone. Many DHS officers view "enforcement" as their primary job and will not explain all of your options to you.

What Are My Rights at Airports?

IMPORTANT NOTE: It is illegal for law enforcement to perform any stops, searches, detentions or removals based solely on your race, national origin, religion, sex or ethnicity.

If I am entering the U.S. with valid travel papers can a U.S. customs agent stop and search me?

Yes. Customs agents have the right to stop, detain and search every person and item.

Can my bags or I be searched after going through metal detectors with no problem or after security sees that my bags do not contain a weapon?

Yes. Even if the initial screen of your bags reveals nothing suspicious, the screeners have the authority to conduct a further search of you or your bags.

If I am on an airplane, can an airline employee interrogate me or ask me to get off the plane?

The pilot of an airplane has the right to refuse to fly a passenger if he or she believes the passenger is a threat to the safety of the flight. The pilot's decision must be reasonable and based on observations of you, not stereotypes.

What If I Am Under 18?

Do I have to answer questions?

No. Minors too have the right to remain silent. You cannot be arrested for refusing to talk to the police, probation officers, or school officials, except in some states you may have to give your name if you have been detained.

What if I am detained?

If you are detained at a community detention facility or Juvenile Hall, you normally must be released to a parent or guardian. If charges are filed against you, in most states you are entitled to counsel (just like an adult) at no cost.

Do I have the right to express political views at school?

Public school students generally have a First Amendment right to politically organize at school by passing out leaflets, holding meetings, etc., as long as those activities are not disruptive and do not violate legitimate school rules. You may not be singled out based on your politics, ethnicity or religion.

Can my backpack or locker be searched?

School officials can search students' backpacks and lockers without a warrant if they reasonably suspect that you are involved in criminal activity or carrying drugs or weapons. Do not consent to the police or school officials searching your property, but do not physically resist or you may face criminal charges.

Disclaimer

This booklet is not a substitute for legal advice. You should contact an attorney if you have been visited by the FBI or other law enforcement officials. You should also alert your relatives, friends, co-workers and others so that they will be prepared if they are contacted as well.

NLG National Hotline for Activists Contacted by the FBI

888-NLG-ECOL

(888-654-3265)

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Free Mumia NOW!

Prisonradio.org

Write to Mumia:

Mumia Abu-Jamal AM 8335

SCI Mahanoy

301 Morea Road

Frackville, PA 17932

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Rachel Wolkenstein

August 21, 2011 (917) 689-4009

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL ILLEGALLY SENTENCED TO

LIFE IMPRISONMENT WITHOUT PAROLE!

FREE MUMIA NOW!

www.FreeMumia.com

http://blacktalkradionetwork.com/profiles/blogs/mumia-is-formally-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-w-out-hearing-he-s



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"A Child's View from Gaza: Palestinian Children's Art and the Fight Against

Censorship" book

https://www.mecaforpeace.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=25

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Justice for Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace: Decades of isolation in Louisiana

state prisons must end

Take Action -- Sign Petition Here:

http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/justice-for-albert-woodfox-and-herm\

an-wallace

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WITNESS GAZA

http://www.witnessgaza.com/

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Write to Bradley

http://bradleymanning.org/donate

View the new 90 second "I am Bradley Manning" video:

I am Bradley Manning

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-P3OXML00s

Courage to Resist

484 Lake Park Ave. #41

Oakland, CA 94610

510-488-3559

couragetoresist.org

"A Fort Leavenworth mailing address has been released for Bradley Manning:

Bradley Manning 89289

830 Sabalu Road

Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027

The receptionist at the military barracks confirmed that if someone sends

Bradley Manning a letter to that address, it will be delivered to him."

http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/update-42811

This is also a Facebook event

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=207100509321891#!/event.php?eid=2071005093\

21891

Courage to Resist needs your support

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

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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The Battle Is Still On To

FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!

The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal

PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610

www.laboractionmumia.org

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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT! FREE KEVIN COOPER!

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

Death penalty -- Kevin Cooper is Innocent! Help save his life from San Quentin's

death row!

http://www.savekevincooper.org/

http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/essays_content.html?ID=255

URGENT ACTION APPEAL

- From Amnesty International USA

17 December 2010

Click here to take action online:

http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&\

b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=15084

To learn about recent Urgent Action successes and updates, go to

http://www.amnestyusa.org/iar/success

For a print-friendly version of this Urgent Action (PDF):

http://www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa25910.pdf

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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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D. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.:

[Some of these videos are embeded on the BAUAW website:

http://bauaw.blogspot.com/ or bauaw.org ...bw]

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Checkpoint - Jasiri X 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq6Y6LSjulU



Published on Jan 28, 2014
"Checkpoint" is based on the oppression and discrimination Jasiri X witnessed firsthand during his recent trip to Palestine and Israel "Checkpoint" is produced by Agent of Change, and directed by Haute Muslim. Download "Checkpoint" at https://jasirix.bandcamp.com/track/ch....

Follow Jasiri X at https://twitter.com/jasiri_x

LYRICS
Journal of the hard times tales from the dark side
Evidence of the settlements on my hard drive
Man I swear my heart died at the end of that car ride
When I saw that checkpoint welcome to apartheid
Soldiers wear military green at the checkpoint
Automatic guns that's machine at the checkpoint
Tavors not m16s at the checkpoint
Fingers on the trigger you'll get leaned at the checkpoint
Little children grown adults or teens at the checkpoint
All ya papers better be clean at the checkpoint
You gotta but your finger on the screen at the checkpoint
And pray that red light turns green at the check point

If Martin Luther King had a dream of the checkpoint
He wake with loud screams from the scenes at the checkpoint
It's Malcolm X by any means at the check point
Imagine if you daily routine was the checkpoint

Separation walls that's surrounding the checkpoint
On top is barbwire like a crown on the checkpoint
Better have ya permits if your found at the checkpoint
Gunmen on the tower aiming down at the checkpoint
The idea is to keep you in fear of the checkpoint
You enter through the cage in the rear of the checkpoint
It feels like prison on a tier at the check point
I'd rather be anywhere but here at this checkpoint
Nelson Mandela wasn't blind to the check point
He stood for free Palestine not a check point
Support BDS don't give a dime to the checkpoint
This is international crime at the checkpoint
Arabs get treated like dogs at the checkpoint
Cause discrimination is the law at the checkpoint
Criminalized without a cause at the checkpoint
I'm just telling you what I saw at the checkpoint
Soldiers got bad attitudes at the checkpoint
Condescending and real rude at the checkpoint
Don't look em in they eyes when they move at the checkpoint
They might strip a man or woman nude at the checkpoint
Soldiers might blow you out of ya shoes at the checkpoint
Gas you up and then light the fuse at the checkpoint
Everyday you stand to be accused at the checkpoint
Each time your life you could lose at the checkpoint

If Martin Luther King had a dream of the checkpoint
He wake with loud screams from the scenes at the checkpoint
It's Malcolm X by any means at the check point
Imagine if you daily routine was the checkpoint

At the airport in Tel Aviv is a checkpoint
They pulled over our taxi at the checkpoint
Passport visa ID at the checkpoint
Soldiers going all through my things at the checkpoint
Said I was high risk security at the checkpoint
Because of the oppression I see at the checkpoint
Occupation in the 3rd degree at the checkpoint
All a nigga wanna do is leave fuck a checkpoint

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Exceptional art from the streets of Oakland:

Oakland Street Dancing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQRRnAhmB58

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqH9s5mwTEY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atyTZ8prhCg

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NYC RESTAURANT WORKERS DANCE & SING FOR A WAGE HIKE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_s8e1R6rG8&feature=player_embedded

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On Gun Control, Martin Luther King, the Deacons of Defense and the history of Black Liberation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzYKisvBN1o&feature=player_embedded

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Fukushima Never Again

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU-Z4VLDGxU

"Fukushima, Never Again" tells the story of the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdowns in north east Japan in March of 2011 and exposes the cover-up by Tepco and the Japanese government.

This is the first film that interviews the Mothers Of Fukushima, nuclear power experts and trade unionists who are fighting for justice and the protection of the children and the people of Japan and the world. The residents and citizens were forced to buy their own geiger counters and radiation dosimeters in order to test their communities to find out if they were in danger.

The government said contaminated soil in children's school grounds was safe and then

when the people found out it was contaminated and removed the top soil, the government and TEPCO refused to remove it from the school grounds.

It also relays how the nuclear energy program for "peaceful atoms" was brought to Japan under the auspices of the US military occupation and also the criminal cover-up of the safety dangers of the plant by TEPCO and GE management which built the plant in Fukushima. It also interviews Kei Sugaoka, the GE nulcear plant inspector from the bay area who exposed cover-ups in the safety at the Fukushima plant and was retaliated against by GE. This documentary allows the voices of the people and workers to speak out about the reality of the disaster and what this means not only for the people of Japan but the people of the world as the US government and nuclear industry continue to push for more new plants and government subsidies. This film breaks

the information blockade story line of the corporate media in Japan, the US and around the world that Fukushima is over.

Production Of Labor Video Project

P.O. Box 720027

San Francisco, CA 94172

www.laborvideo.org

lvpsf@laborvideo.org

For information on obtaining the video go to:

www.fukushimaneveragain.com

(415)282-1908


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1000 year of war through the world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiG8neU4_bs&feature=share

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Anatomy of a Massacre - Afganistan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6BnRc11aug&feature=player_embedded

Afghans accuse multiple soldiers of pre-meditated murder

To see more go to http://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures

Follow us on Facebook (http://goo.gl/YRw42) or Twitter

(http://www.twitter.com/journeymanvod)

The recent massacre of 17 civilians by a rogue US soldier has been shrouded in

mystery. But through unprecedented access to those involved, this report

confronts the accusations that Bales didn't act alone.

"They came into my room and they killed my family". Stories like this are common

amongst the survivors in Aklozai and Najiban. As are the shocking accusations

that Sergeant Bales was not acting alone. Even President Karzai has announced

"one man can not do that". Chief investigator, General Karimi, is suspicious

that despite being fully armed, Bales freely left his base without raising

alarm. "How come he leaves at night and nobody is aware? Every time we have

weapon accountability and personal accountability." These are just a few of the

questions the American army and government are yet to answer. One thing however

is very clear, the massacre has unleashed a wave of grief and outrage which

means relations in Kandahar will be tense for years to come: "If I could lay my

hands on those infidels, I would rip them apart with my bare hands."

A Film By SBS

Distributed By Journeyman Pictures

April 2012

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Photo of George Zimmerman, in 2005 photo, left, and in a more recent photo.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/02/us/the-events-leading-to-the-sooti\

ng-of-trayvon-martin.html?hp

SPD Security Cams.wmv

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WWDNbQUgm4&feature=player_embedded

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Kids being put on buses and transported from school to "alternate locations" in

Terror Drills

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFia_w8adWQ

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Private prisons,

a recession resistant investment opportunity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIGLDOxx9Vg

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Attack Dogs used on a High School Walkout in MD, Four Students Charged With

"Thought Crimes"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wafMaML17w

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Common forms of misconduct by Law Enforcement Officials and Prosecutors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViSpM4K276w&feature=related

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Organizing and Instigating: OCCUPY - Ronnie Goodman

http://arthazelwood.com/instigator/occupy/occupy-birth-video.html

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Rep News 12: Yes We Kony

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68GbzIkYdc8

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The New Black by The Mavrix - Official Music Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4rLfja8488

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Japan One Year Later

http://www.onlineschools.org/japan-one-year-later/

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The CIA's Heart Attack Gun

http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/assassination-studies/the-cias-heart-attack-g\

un-.html

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The Invisible American Workforce

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/5/new_expos_tracks_alec_private_prison

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Labor Beat: NATO vs The 1st Amendment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbQxnb4so3U

For more detailed information, send us a request at mail@laborbeat.org.


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The Battle of Oakland

by brandon jourdan plus

http://vimeo.com/36256273

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Officers Pulled Off Street After Tape of Beating Surfaces

By ANDY NEWMAN

February 1, 2012, 10:56 am

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/officers-pulled-off-street-after-ta\

pe-of-beating-surfaces/?ref=nyregion

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This is excellent! Michelle Alexander pulls no punches!

Michelle Alexander, Author of The New Jim Crow, speaks about the political

strategy

behind the War on Drugs and its connection to the mass incarceration of Black

and Brown people in the United States.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P75cbEdNo2U&feature=player_embedded

If you think Bill Clinton was "the first black President" you need to watch this

video and see how much damage his administration caused for the black community

as a result of his get tough attitude on crime that appealed to white swing

voters.

This speech took place at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem on January 12,

2012.

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FREE BRADLEY MANNING

http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/national-call-in-for-bradley

I received the following reply from the White House November 18, 2011 regarding

the Bradley Manning petition I signed:

"Why We Can't Comment on Bradley Manning

"Thank you for signing the petition 'Free PFC Bradley Manning, the accused

WikiLeaks whistleblower.' We appreciate your participation in the We the People

platform on WhiteHouse.gov.

The We the People Terms of Participation explain that 'the White House may

decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or

similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or

agencies, federal courts, or state and local government.' The military justice

system is charged with enforcing the Uniform Code of

Military Justice. Accordingly, the White House declines to comment on the

specific case raised in this petition...

That's funny! I guess Obama didn't get this memo. Here's what Obama said about

Bradley:

BRADLEY MANNING "BROKE THE LAW" SAYS OBAMA!

"He broke the law!" says Obama about Bradley Manning who has yet to even be

charged, let alone, gone to trial and found guilty. How horrendous is it for the

President to declare someone guilty before going to trial or being charged with

a crime! Justice in the U.S.A.!

Obama on FREE BRADLEY MANNING protest... San Francisco, CA. April 21, 2011-

Presidential remarks on interrupt/interaction/performance art happening at

fundraiser. Logan Price queries Barack after org. FRESH JUICE PARTY political

action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfmtUpd4id0&feature=youtu.be

Release Bradley Manning

Almost Gone (The Ballad Of Bradley Manning)

Written by Graham Nash and James Raymond (son of David Crosby)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAYG7yJpBbQ&feature=player_embedded

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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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School police increasingly arresting American students?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl-efNBvjUU&feature=player_embedded

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FYI:

Nuclear Detonation Timeline "1945-1998"

The 2053 nuclear tests and explosions that took place between 1945 and 1998 are

plotted visually and audibly on a world map.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lquok4Pdk&feature=share&mid=5408

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We Are the 99 Percent

We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to

choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are

suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay

and no rights, if we're working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1

percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent.

Brought to you by the people who occupy wall street. Why will YOU occupy?

OccupyWallSt.org

Occupytogether.org

wearethe99percentuk.tumblr.com

http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/

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We Are The People Who Will Save Our Schools

YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFAOJsBxAxY

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In honor of the 75th Anniversary of the 44-Day Flint Michigan sit-down strike at

GM that began December 30, 1936:

According to Michael Moore, (Although he has done some good things, this clip

isn't one of them) in this clip from his film, "Capitalism a Love Story," it was

Roosevelt who saved the day!):

"After a bloody battle one evening, the Governor of Michigan, with the support

of the President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, sent in the National

Guard. But the guns and the soldiers weren't used on the workers; they were

pointed at the police and the hired goons warning them to leave these workers

alone. For Mr. Roosevelt believed that the men inside had a right to a redress

of their grievances." -Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story'

- Flint Sit-Down Strike http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8x1_q9wg58

But those cannons were not aimed at the goons and cops! They were aimed straight

at the factory filled with strikers! Watch what REALLY happened and how the

strike was really won!

'With babies & banners' -- 75 years since the 44-day Flint sit-down strike

http://links.org.au/node/2681

--Inspiring

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HALLELUJAH CORPORATIONS (revised edition).mov

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws0WSNRpy3g

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ONE OF THE GREATEST POSTS ON YOUTUBE SO FAR!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8C-qIgbP9o&feature=share&mid=552

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ILWU Local 10 Longshore Workers Speak-Out At Oakland Port Shutdown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JUpBpZYwms

Uploaded by laborvideo on Dec 13, 2011

ILWU Local 10 longshore workers speak out during a blockade of the Port of

Oakland called for by Occupy Oakland. Anthony Levieges and Clarence Thomas rank

and file members of the union. The action took place on December 12, 2011 and

the interview took place at Pier 30 on the Oakland docks.

For more information on the ILWU Local 21 Longview EGT struggle go to

http://www.facebook.com/groups/256313837734192/

For further info on the action and the press conferernce go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz3fE-Vhrw8&feature=youtu.be

Production of Labor Video Project www.laborvideo.org

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UC Davis Police Violence Adds Fuel to Fire

By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News

19 November 11

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/275-42/8485-uc-davis-police-violence-add\

s-fuel-to-fire

UC Davis Protestors Pepper Sprayed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4&feature=player_embedded

Police PEPPER SPRAY UC Davis STUDENT PROTESTERS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuWEx6Cfn-I&feature=player_embedded

Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM&feature=player_embedded

*---------*

UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walks to her car

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CZ0t9ez_EGI#!

Occupy Seattle - 84 Year Old Woman Dorli Rainey Pepper Sprayed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTIyE_JlJzw&feature=related

*---------*

THE BEST VIDEO ON "OCCUPY THE WORLD"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S880UldxB1o

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Shot by police with rubber bullet at Occupy Oakland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0pX9LeE-g8&feature=player_embedded

*---------*

Copwatch@Occupy Oakland: Beware of Police Infiltrators and Provocateurs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrvMzqopHH0

*---------*

Occupy Oakland 11-2 Strike: Police Tear Gas, Black Bloc, War in the Streets

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tu_D8SFYck&feature=player_embedded

*----*

Quebec police admitted that, in 2007, thugs carrying rocks to a peaceful protest

were actually undercover Quebec police officers:

POLICE STATE Criminal Cops EXPOSED As Agent Provocateurs @ SPP Protest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoiisMMCFT0&feature=player_embedded

*----*

Quebec police admit going undercover at montebello protests

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAfzUOx53Rg&feature=player_embedded

G20: Epic Undercover Police Fail

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrJ7aU-n1L8&feature=player_embedded

*----*

WHAT HAPPENED IN OAKLAND TUESDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 25:

Occupy Oakland Protest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlPs-REyl-0&feature=player_embedded

Cops make mass arrests at occupy Oakland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R27kD2_7PwU&feature=player_embedded

Raw Video: Protesters Clash With Oakland Police

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpO-lJr2BQY&feature=player_embedded

Occupy Oakland - Flashbangs USED on protesters OPD LIES

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqNOPZLw03Q&feature=player_embedded

KTVU TV Video of Police violence

http://www.ktvu.com/video/29587714/index.html

Marine Vet wounded, tear gas & flash-bang grenades thrown in downtown

Oakland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMUgPTCgwcQ&feature=player_embedded

Tear Gas billowing through 14th & Broadway in Downtown Oakland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU4Y0pwJtWE&feature=player_embedded

Arrests at Occupy Atlanta -- This is what a police state looks like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YStWz6jbeZA&feature=player_embedded

*---------*

Labor Beat: Hey You Billionaire, Pay Your Fair Share

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY8isD33f-I

*---------*

Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA48gmfGB6U&feature=youtu.be

Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part II

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjKZpOk7TyM&feature=related

*---------*

#Occupy Wall Street In Washington Square: Mohammed Ezzeldin, former occupier of

Egypt's Tahrir Square Speaks at Washington Square!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziodsFWEb5Y&feature=player_embedded

*---------*

#OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street

By adele pham

http://vimeo.com/30146870

*---------*

Live arrest at brooklyn bridge #occupywallstreet by We are Change

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yULSI-31Pto&feature=player_embedded

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FREE THE CUBAN FIVE!

http://www.thecuban5.org/wordpress/index.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmS4kHC_OlY&feature=player_embedded

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

One World One Revolution -- MUST SEE VIDEO -- Powerful and beautiful...bw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE3R1BQrYCw&feature=player_embedded

"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty." Thomas Jefferson

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Japan: angry Fukushima citizens confront government (video)

Posted by Xeni Jardin on Monday, Jul 25th at 11:36am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVuGwc9dlhQ&feature=player_embedded


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Labor Beat: Labor Stands with Subpoenaed Activists Against FBI Raids and Grand

Jury Investigation of antiwar and social justice activists.

"If trouble is not at your door. It's on it's way, or it just left."

"Investigate the Billionaires...Full investigation into Wall Street..." Jesse

Sharkey, Vice

President, Chicago Teachers Union

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSNUSIGZCMQ

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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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