Defend our civil liberties.

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Marty Kaplan
Huffingtonpost.com 2/15/08

Friday morning, President Bush came out of a meeting with Republican Congressional leaders and blasted House Democrats for not performing precisely the kind of fellatio on his FISA bill that he had requested. His statement was designed to get Democrats-are-soft-on-terror into the news cycle as he headed off on Air Force I to Africa. It worked: the cable nets covered it live. And then, CNN cut away to DeKalb, Illinois, where, we were told, "CNN correspondents have fanned out" to explore every conceivable aspect of the tragedy of the shooter-suicide.

 In the beginning was the fingerprint.

It was in the 19th century that scientists realized the ridged whorls on the tip of the finger constituted a unique marker that could be used to tell one person from another. And eventually, the FBI built a massive database of fingerprints.

Then came DNA. In the 20th century, scientists learned to use the double helix nucleic acid molecule as a means of identification even more definitive than the fingerprint. And the FBI built a DNA database as well.

Now the feds are building yet another database. And it has some folks worried.

Academic Freedom is at Risk in America

SAREE MAKDISI

Counterpunch

"Academic colleagues, get used to it," warned the pro-Israel activist
Martin Kramer in March 2004. "Yes, you are being watched. Those
obscure articles in campus newspapers are now available on the
Internet, and they will be harvested. Your syllabi, which you've also
posted, will be scrutinized. Your Web sites will be visited late at
night."

HEATHER MALLICK

CBC News Canada

The sight and sound of someone screaming in pain as a cop shoots
50,000 volts into him, well, it Tasers my soul.

Now I have a new trauma: the sight and silence of hundreds of students
at the University of Florida sitting quietly and obediently last week
as a young man was wrestled to the floor by a gang of cops, handcuffed
and then repeatedly given agonizing zaps that made eerie clicking
sounds. The student had no gun, only a loud voice. For this, he was
tortured with a hand-held cattle prod?

On August 4, ignoring former House Speaker Newt Gingrich who had spoken of Bush's "phony war" on terrorism, Congress authorized vast authority for repressive agencies to spy further on the public. Under the pretext of "fighting terror," the bill opens further already existing wide parameters for telephone and email intrusion without court warrants.

By Craig Wiesner

23 year-old Douglas Richardson is described by his mother as “a very spiritual being… sensitive to others… a gifted violin player who shares that as his universal language of love.” That spirit carried him up a tree in Berkeley, trying to protect the Oak Grove from being cut down to make room for a new athletic center. While for most people such an act of civil disobedience would result in a slap on the wrist and a fine, for Canadian citizen Douglas, it has led to a cell in the Yuba County Jail. He was sent there by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service (ICE).

Martin Wachtelborn
The San Francisco Chronicle

“Another world is possible” is the motto of those who are protesting against this year’s Group of Eight summit, which began Wednesday at the German resort town of Heiligendamm. For globalization critics, such as the Attac network, human rights organizations and environmental groups, the motto was to suggest an alternative to the domination of the Western world by the world’s industrialized nations, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States. But for those in Germany who want to express their ideas and ideals, the slogan has a double meaning. In advance of the meeting, they were confronted with a restriction of their civil liberties, which seemed rather impossible only a few months ago — another world for a democracy like Germany, if you will.