Civil Rights Threatened and Under Fire Directory
See also articles
and documents in the
following Directories:
Law and Legal Issues
Battle for the Judiciary
Directory of the CIA Leak
Abu Ghraib Articles
Congressional
Scandals
Government Abuse
Directory
NEW: Spy Program Secrecy Affects Judges
By ADAM LIPTAK
The Bush administration has employed extraordinary
secrecy in defending the National Security Agency’s
highly classified domestic surveillance program from
civil lawsuits. Plaintiffs and judges’ clerks cannot see
its secret filings. Judges have to make appointments
to review them and are not
allowed to keep copies.
Bush Could Seize Absolute
Control of U.S. Government
By DOUG THOMPSON
Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue
Jan 13, 2006, 07:42
President George W. Bush has
signed executive
orders giving him sole authority to impose martial
law, suspend habeas corpus and ignore the Posse
Comitatus Act that prohibits deployment of U.S.
troops on American streets. This would give him
absolute dictatorial power over the government
with
no checks and balances.
U.S. Judge Strikes Down
Parts of Ohio Election Law
By Lisa A. Abraham
Beacon Journal staff writer
CLEVELAND - A federal judge in
Cleveland
this afternoon struck down portions of the new
state election law, ruling they would have a
chilling effect on voter registration. U.S. District
Judge Kathleen O'Malley granted a preliminary
injunction that prohibits enforcement of sections
of House Bill 3, the election measure that went
into effect earlier this year. The case was brought
against Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell
by numerous groups involved in statewide
voter
registration efforts.
Judge Declines to Dismiss
Privacy Suit Against AT&T
By JOHN MARKOFF
A federal judge on Thursday rejected a motion
by the Bush administration to dismiss a lawsuit
against AT&T over its cooperation with a government
surveillance program, ruling that state secrets would
not be at risk if
the suit proceeded.
Twenty-first Century Religion and
the Backlash Against Women's Autonomy:
Three Recent Events that Show that
Women's Freedom Is Imperiled
By MARCI HAMILTON
[email protected]
Thursday, Apr. 20, 2006
There is a growing threat to women's autonomy
arising from religious groups, which deserves closer
attention than it has received to date. Three recent
events, in particular, should make women who
value
their freedom shudder.
Sex Reporting Nixed by Federal Court
AKA: "Kiss and Tell No
More"
A federal judge in Kansas
has dealt another blow
to the crusade by the state's attorney general, Phill
Kline, to restrict abortions under the phony banner of
combating child abuse....This week, a federal trial
judge in Wichita killed Mr. Kline's daft idea to require
doctors, school counselors and psychotherapists,
among others, to report all sexual activity by people
under 16, from kissing
to sexual intercourse.
Punch-card Voting is Illegal in Ohio
Professor: Appellate ruling
in Ohio is first in U.S.
to say a state's equipment violates equal protection
By Lisa A. Abraham
The 2002 case, which was decided
in December 2004,
was filed against Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth
Blackwell by the ACLU on behalf of voters in Summit,
Hamilton and Montgomery counties. The suit claimed
the use of punch-card voting in some Ohio counties
but not in others violated voters' rights to equal protection
under the law. The suit also claimed the system violated
voters' rights to have their votes counted, and violated the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 by having a larger negative
impact on
African-American voters.
Outrage at Funeral Protests
Pushes Lawmakers to Act
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
NASHVILLE, April 11 — As dozens of mourners
streamed solemnly into church to bury Cpl. David
A. Bass, a fresh-faced 20-year-old marine who was
killed in Iraq on April 2, a small clutch of protesters
stood across the street on Tuesday, celebrating
his
violent death.
Gonzales Suggests Legal Basis
for Domestic Eavesdropping
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON, April 6 —
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales suggested
on Thursday for the first time that the president
might have the legal authority to order wiretapping
without a warrant on communications between
Americans that occur exclusively within the
United States.
Justices Decline Terror
Case of a U.S. Citizen
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, April 3 — Jose Padilla, the
American citizen held for more than three years
in military custody as an enemy combatant, fell
one vote short on Monday of persuading the
Supreme Court to
take his case.
Bush Rewrites Patriot
Act Requirement
In signing addendum, he says
oversight rules are not binding
By Charlie Savage
WASHINGTON -- When President Bush
signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot
Act this month, he included an addendum
[a signing statement] saying that he did
not feel obliged to obey requirements that
he inform Congress about how the FBI was
using the act's expanded
police powers.
Scrutiny for Law on
Detaining
Witnesses
By ADAM LIPTAK
A 22-year-old federal law that allows people
to be held without charges if they have information
about others' crimes is coming under fresh scrutiny
in the courts, in Congress and within the Justice
Department after reports that it has been
abused in terrorism
investigations.
TV Stations Fined Over
CBS Show Deemed to Be Indecent
By JULIE BOSMAN
The Federal Communications Commission
leveled a record $3.6 million fine yesterday
against 111 television stations that broadcast
an episode of "Without a Trace" in December
2004, with the agency saying the CBS show
suggested that its teenage characters were
participating in
a sexual orgy.
In Defense of Free Thought
By Robert Scheer
Wednesday 22 February 2006
The news on Monday that an Austrian court
has sentenced crackpot British historian David
Irving to three years' imprisonment for having
denied the Holocaust 17 years ago should have
alarmed free speech advocates - particularly at a
time when Muslim fundamentalists are being
lectured as to the freedom of expression that
should be
afforded cartoonists.
Senate Strips Habeas
Corpus
Rights of U.S. Detainees
By ERIC SCHMITT
November 11, 2005
The Senate voted Thursday to strip captured
"enemy combatants" at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,
of the principal legal tool given to them last year
by the Supreme Court when it allowed them to
challenge their detentions in United States courts.
VA Nurse Investigated for
'Sedition' for Criticizing Bush
By Matthew Rothschild
The Progressive
8 February 2006
Laura Berg is a clinical nurse specialist at the VA
Medical Center in Albuquerque, where she has
worked for 15 years. Shortly after Katrina, she
wrote a letter to the editor of the weekly paper
the Alibi criticizing the Bush Administration.
After the paper published the letter in its
September 15-21 issue, VA administrators
seized her computer, alleging that she had
written the letter on that computer and accused
her
of "sedition."
Spies, Lies and Wiretaps
A New York Times Editorial
January 29, 2006
A bit over a week ago, President Bush
and his men promised to provide the legal,
constitutional and moral justifications for
the sort of warrantless spying on Americans
that has been illegal for nearly 30 years. Instead,
we got the familiar mix of political spin, clumsy
historical misinformation, contemptuous
dismissals of civil liberties concerns, cynical
attempts to paint dissents as anti-American
and pro-terrorist, and a couple of big,
dangerous
lies.
Gore Speech On Illegal
Wiretapping Transcript
Mon Jan 16, 2006
Congressman Barr and I have disagreed many
times over the years, but we have joined together
today with thousands of our fellow citizens--Democrats
and Republicans alike--to express our shared
concern that America's Constitution is
in grave danger.
Gore Assails Domestic
Wiretapping Program
Former Vice President: Bush
'Repeatedly
WASHINGTON - Former Vice President Al
Gore asserted Monday that President Bush
“repeatedly and persistently” broke the law
by eavesdropping on Americans without a
court warrant and called for a federal investigation
of
the practice.
Court Ruling Allows Challenge
to Bush's Faith Initiative
By Staff and Wire Reports
Jan 15, 2006, 05:29
A group can sue the federal government
over claims
that President Bush's faith-based initiative is an
unconstitutional endorsement of religion, a federal
appeals court ruled.
A three-judge panel of the 7th
Circuit Court of
Appeals on Friday reinstated the lawsuit brought
by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The group
claims Bush's program, which helps religious
organizations get government funding to provide
social services, violates the separation of
church
and state.
Bush's War on Professionals
The president is determined
to stop whistle-
blowers and the press from halting his
administration's illegal, ever-expanding
secret government. But it may be too late.
By Sidney Blumenthal
Jan. 05, 2006 | New ranges of
secret government
are emerging from the fog of war. The latest disclosure,
by the New York Times, of domestic surveillance by
the National Security Agency performed by evasion
of the special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
surfaces a vast hidden realm. But the NSA spying is
not an isolated island of policy; it is connected to the
mainland of Bush's expansive new
national security
apparatus.
Basis for Spying in
U.S. Is Doubted
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and
SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 - President
Bush's rationale for eavesdropping on
Americans without warrants rests on
questionable legal ground, and Congress
does not appear to have given him the
authority to order the surveillance, said
a Congressional analysis released
Friday.
Bush Could Bypass
New Torture Ban
By Charlie Savage
The Boston Globe
Wednesday 04 January 2005
Waiver right is reserved.
Washington - When President Bush last
week signed the bill outlawing the torture of
detainees, he quietly reserved the right to
bypass the law under his powers as
commander
in chief.
Abortion Rights in Latin
America
For proof that criminalizing
abortion doesn't
reduce abortion rates and only endangers
the lives of women, consider
Latin America.
U.S. to Seek Dismissal of
Guantánamo Suits
By NEIL A. LEWIS
WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 - The Bush
administration notified federal trial judges
in Washington that it would soon ask them
to dismiss all lawsuits brought by prisoners
at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, challenging their
detentions, Justice Department officials said
Tuesday. The action means that the administration
is moving swiftly to take advantage of an
amendment to the military bill that President Bush
signed into law last Friday. The amendment strips
federal courts from hearing habeas corpus petitions
from
Guantánamo detainees.
Bush Renews Patriot Act
Campaign Against Civil Rights
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 - President Bush
assembled a phalanx of United States attorneys
at the White House on Tuesday to bolster his
call for Congress to renew the antiterrorism law
known as the USA Patriot Act, intensifying a
coming clash with Capitol Hill over civil liberties
and
national security.
Agency First Acted on Its Own
to Broaden Spying, Files Show
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 - The National Security
Agency acted on its own authority, without a
formal directive from President Bush, to expand
its domestic surveillance operations in the weeks
after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to declassified
documents released Tuesday. The N.S.A. operation
prompted questions from a leading Democrat,
Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who
said in an Oct. 11, 2001, letter to a top intelligence
official that she was concerned about the agency's
legal authority to expand its domestic operations,
the documents
showed.
Bush Defends Spy Program
and Denies Misleading Public
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 - President Bush
continued on Sunday to defend both the
legality and the necessity of the National
Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping
program, and he denied that he misled the
public last year when he insisted that any
government wiretap required
a court order.
Pentagon Expanding Its
Domestic Surveillance Activity
By Walter Pincus
New powers granted to the military:
The Defense Department has expanded its
programs aimed at gathering and analyzing
intelligence within the United States, creating
new agencies, adding personnel and seeking
additional legal authority for domestic security
activities in the post-9/11 world. Includes
even economic espionage.
Fixing the Game
A New York
Times Editorial
The Washington Post's Dan Eggen
reported
last week that the Justice Department has
been suppressing for nearly two years a
73-page memo in which six lawyers and
two analysts in the voting rights section,
including the group's chief lawyer, unanimously
concluded that the Texas redistricting plan
of 2003 illegally diluted the votes of blacks
and Hispanics in order to ensure a Republican
majority in the state's Congressional delegation.
Original Intent
Revisionist rhetoric notwithstanding,
the founders left God out of the
Constitution–and it wasn't an oversight.
Susan Jacoby
November/December 2005 Issue of Mother Jones.com
When the Supreme Court, in one
of its most important
decisions of 2005, ordered two Kentucky counties to
dismantle courthouse displays of the Ten Commandments,
Justice Antonin Scalia declared that the Court majority
was wrong because the nation's historical practices clearly
indicate that the Constitution permits "disregard of polytheists
and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits
the disregard
of devout atheists."
Judges on Surveillance Court To
Be Briefed on Spy Program
By Carol D. Leonnig and
Dafna Linzer
Thursday, December 22, 2005; A01
The presiding judge of a secret
court that
oversees government surveillance in espionage
and terrorism cases is arranging a classified
briefing for her fellow judges to address their
concerns about the legality of President Bush's
domestic spying program, according to several
intelligence and government sources.
Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove,
Officials Report
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and
JAMES RISEN
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The National Security
Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes
of telephone and Internet communications flowing
into and out of the United States as part of the
eavesdropping program that President Bush approved
after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence
of terrorist activity, according to current and former
government
officials.
Administration Sets Its
Own Rules in Terror Cases
Can the Administration Become
the
Judge, Jury and Executioner for
Anyone Accused of Unknowingly
Helping or Supporting an Organization
that Is a Front to Raise Money for Al
Quaeda? The Answer is "Yes."
Judge, Joyce Hens Green of the
Federal
District Court in Washington, asked a
series of hypothetical questions about
who might be detained as an enemy
combatant under the government's
definition. What about "a little old lady in
Switzerland who writes checks to what
she thinks is a charitable organization
that helps orphans in Afghanistan but
really is a front to finance Al Qaeda
activities?" she asked. And what about a
resident of Dublin "who teaches English
to the son of a person the C.I.A. knows to
be a member of Al Qaeda?" And "what about
a Wall Street Journal reporter, working in
Afghanistan, who knows the exact location
of Osama bin Laden but does not reveal it
to the United States government in order
to protect her source?"
Mr. Boyle said the military had
the power
to detain all three people as enemy combatants.
Pentagon Expanding Its
Domestic Surveillance Activity
By Walter Pincus
New powers granted to the military:
The Defense
Department has expanded its programs aimed
at gathering and analyzing intelligence within
the United States, creating new agencies,
adding personnel and seeking additional legal
authority for domestic security activities in the
post-9/11 world.
The moves have taken place on
several fronts.
The White House is considering expanding the
power of a little-known Pentagon agency called
the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA,
which was created three years ago. The proposal,
made by a presidential commission, would transform
CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security
efforts - including protecting military facilities from
attack - to one that also has authority to investigate
crimes within the United States such as treason,
foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic
espionage.
The Won't-be-bullied Pulpit
A Pasadena cleric cited by
the IRS
refuses to surrender 'the very soul of our ministry.'
By George Regas
I gave the sermon on the Sunday
before the
presidential election. It was called, "If Jesus
Debated Sen. Kerry and President Bush." In it
I took great care to say that I did not want to
tell people how to vote, but that I was challenging
them to go into the voting booth on Tuesday taking
with them all that they knew about Jesus, the
peacemaker. To take all that Jesus meant to them
and then vote their deepest values. No one from
the IRS attended my sermon, to my knowledge...
So many of the political issues that we confront
today coincide with deeply held, core religious
beliefs: issues relating to marriage, family,
community and yes, even war and foreign policy.
Antiwar Sermon Brings IRS Warning
All Saints Episcopal Church
in Pasadena risks
losing its tax-exempt status because of a
former rector's remarks in 2004.
by Patricia Ward Biederman
and Jason Felch
The Internal Revenue Service has warned one of
Southern California's largest and most liberal churches
that it is at risk of losing its tax-exempt status
because of an antiwar sermon two days before the
2004
presidential election.
The FBI's Secret Scrutiny
In Hunt for Terrorists, Bureau
Examines
Records of Ordinary Americans
By Barton Gellman
Washington Post
The FBI now issues more than
30,000 national
security letters a year, according to government
sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms.
The letters -- one of which can be used to sweep
up the records of many people -- are extending the
bureau's reach as never before into the telephone
calls, correspondence and financial lives
of ordinary
Americans.
Lawmakers Call for Limits
on F.B.I. Power to Demand
Records in Investigations
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Republicans and Democrats in Congress
called on Sunday for greater restrictions
on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's
bility to demand business and personal
records in terrorism investigations without
a judge's approval and to retain
the records
indefinitely.
Bloggers May Be Forced to
Reveal Sources
By LAURIE J. FLYNN
SAN FRANCISCO, March 4 - A state
judge in California heard arguments on
Friday in a lawsuit brought by Apple
Computer to force three Web site
publishers to reveal the names of
confidential sources who disclosed to
them Apple's plans
for future products.
Alphabetical Index
Analysis of the Revised Marriage Amendment
Bill On Gay Marriage by Katherine Yurica..
British Court Ruled Against Pratice of
Detaining
Prisoners Indefintely
Broadcasting Fines Raised for Alleged
Indecency
Court Hears Case on Detainees..
Supreme Court Heard Case on U.S.
Detainees, April 2004
FBI Secret Scrutiny Of Citizens
has exponentially grown into domestic
surveillance..
Herbert, Bob: Resegregating Has Been
Under way. The Quiet Reversal of Brown
v. Board of Education..
See also the Inspector General's Report
on Tomlinson's activities, Nov. 16, 2005
Raped
Kidnapped And Silenced in
Pakistan..
The Normality of Gay Marriages, a NYTimes
Editorial
What
Brown v Board Should Have Said
by Jack M. Balkin, excerpts PDF
Wolfowitz
Called for End of Posse Comitatus Law
"to enhance the nation's ability to counter
terrorism. Those laws kept the U.S. military
from engaging in domestic law enforcement
activities since 1878.
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