October 25, 2003
Off to Protest
Heading to downtown San Francisco to protest. Will have pictures up afterwards. Bet the news media will deliberately underestimate the crowd by a factor of 10 like they do with every protest.
Reuters/Billboard Defends Free Speech
Column: in Defense of Free Speech
Fri October 24, 2003 08:42 PM ET
By Keith Girard, Billboard Editor-in-Chief
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Free speech is a precious right. Nowhere is that more evident than in countries where the world's dictators rule.
Almost without exception, the first victim of dictatorship is freedom of expression. Those in power cannot tolerate dissent. As we've seen in countries as diverse as Iraq, North Korea and Cuba, dissidents are frequently jailed -- or worse.
Free speech is one of the cornerstones of the world's democracies. When the Founding Fathers gathered to draft a Bill of Rights to the Constitution, it's no surprise that the protection of free speech and the establishment of religion were foremost in their minds.
Under the King of England, they had experienced religious and political repression firsthand. They realized that a free and unfettered political dialogue would be critical to the functioning of a government based on the rule of law and the political will of the people.
While we're not normally given to providing civics lessons in this space, we think it's important to do our part to remind readers about the importance of our "first freedom." After all, artistic expression is the first cousin of political expression, and that's something that concerns us greatly.
In a time of national crisis, as the nation moves toward a potentially divisive election campaign, some may find it politically expedient to question the loyalty of or brand as "un-American" those who question our government's policies.
We saw evidence of that ugly trend earlier this year, when the Dixie Chicks became the victims of an organized campaign of retribution for speaking out against the government.
Even so, a number of artists are putting their careers at risk to let their voices be heard.
Last week, we reported on efforts by Alanis Morissette and others to raise awareness about the government's environmental policies. We were disappointed to see Interior Department spokesman Mark Pfeifle raise the fact that Morissette is Canadian, as if to suggest that her national origin disqualifies her from expressing her opinion.
This week, John Mellencamp became the latest artist to speak out. He questioned the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq.
"It is not just our 'right' but also our duty to speak out and voice our thoughts and opinions," he wrote in a personal message posted on his Web site. "How, then, was it possible that, in the land of freedom, those who opposed the common opinion were called ... 'un-American?"'
We share his concern.
As Bob Dylan once said, "I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom." Chief among them is the responsibility to speak out without fear of retribution when you believe your government is wrong.
Reuters/Billboard
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I just hope they don't sue me for printing the whole article. Can you imagine - getting sued over printing an entire article defending free speech. In spite of the current interpretation of copyright law - there are things posted to the Internet that are clearly intended to be spread. And this article is clearly one of them. Even though there is a copyright statement on it - it's the same one they put on all their articles. But the content of the article itself has an urgency to get the word out about free expression and I interpret that as permission to repost all of it.
Cheney has millions in Halliburton
Another article you won't see in the mainstream press. This one from The Populist. It appears that Cheney has millions invested in Halliburton who got the lion's share of the no bid contract awarded in Iraq.
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On Meet the Press Sept. 14, Cheney disavowed any present connection to Halliburton: "And since I left Halliburton to become George Bush's vice president, I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interests. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had now for over three years." The statement was subsequently reinforced by spokespersons for both Cheney and Halliburton, who pointed out that Cheney's contract protects his benefits even if the company loses money.
The disclosure form paints a somewhat more nuanced picture. The Vanguard Group holdings are easily among Cheney's largest holdings. Assets are given in ranges (from $100,000 to $1M; from $1M to $5M; etc). Cheney's statement includes two holdings in the $500,000-$1M range; two holdings in the $1M-$5M range; and three holdings in the $5M-$25M range. Thus Cheney's assets invested with Vanguard Group total $18M to $87M. Given the size of Vanguard's stake in Halliburton, it is hard to imagine a mathematical possibility that Cheney's assets are unconnected to Halliburton's fortunes.
Probable return on assets is obviously hard to quantify. Some estimate can be provided by George W. Bush's own financial disclosure statement (see www.opensecrets.org). Bush had relatively piddling assets of $68,766 invested in Vanguard in 2001, on which he declared a quite respectable capital gain of $4,735, or about 6%.
Interestingly, the previous list of top Halliburton shareholders included Texas' Wylie brothers, known as the Maverick Group. The privately owned Maverick Capital last surfaced in headlines back during campaign 2000, when the billionaire Wylies turned out to be behind a group called "Republicans for Clean Air." The group, little known before the campaign, ran a blitz of pro-Bush ads praising Bush on the environment and attacking John McCain, just before the March primaries in 2000, when McCain had been beating Bush, and was credited with damaging McCain's candidacy.
Among other holdings, Maverick also owns millions of shares of the rightwing Liberty Media Corporation and Clear Channel Communications, which sponsored a series of war-boosting rallies around the nation in spring 2003. To these influences can be attributed much of the quality of public discourse about Iraq.
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Now - coinsidering how the press hounded Al Gore for years over making an improper phone call, do you thnk there's any chance they would have let Gore get away with this? Of course not. And you can see how the investment in Clear Channel Communications resulted in media sponsored pro-war rallies. So - when you hear the mainstream media talk about the "liberal press" - it's because their conservative owners made them say it.
David Letterman-style, the Top Ten shareholders for Halliburton Company, Inc., are as follows: Link
#10: The Vanguard Group, with 7.6 million shares of Halliburton stock, worth about $176 million. Vanguard, also 10th largest mutual-fund shareholder in Halliburton, is a huge owner in ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. It moved onto this list recently when Dallas-based Maverick Capital, privately owned by the Wylie family, moved off. Vice President Cheney's disclosure statement (above) shows millions of his retirement money invested through Vanguard.
#9: Lord Abbett & Co., with about 8 million shares of Halliburton. Lord Abbett's trustees, who manage billions controlled by this investment firm, include Bush uncle William H. T. Bush. Lord Abbett is also one of Halliburton's top ten mutual fund holders (another 4.7 million shares).
#8: Deutsche Bank, with 8.3 million shares of Halliburton. Deutsche Bank was home to Alvin B. Krongard, now Bush's number-three man at the CIA. Krongard, whom the CIA web site lists as a longtime consultant, was a director at Alex Brown Bankers Trust, which got a multi-million management contract with FMR (see #7).
#7: FMR Corporation (Fidelity Management & Research), with 10 million shares. FMR, the world's largest mutual fund company, and Wellington (see #2, below) are by far the biggest shareholders in TB Woods Corp., where presidential cousin Craig Stapleton was a director before becoming ambassador to the Czech Republic. FMR also owns big in United Defense/Carlyle, connected to former President George H. W. Bush, and Fresh Del Monte, where presidential brother Marvin P. Bush is back on the board. Interestingly, FMR also owns about 50,000 shares of Harken Energy, George W. Bush's old stomping grounds (current value: about $20,000). Fidelity's Magellan Fund is also the second largest mutual fund holder in Halliburton.
#6: Putnam Investment Manage-ment, LLC, with more than 12.5 million shares. Putnam also owns stock in United Defense/the Carlyle Group and in Fresh Del Monte. Putnam is another top mutual fund holder in Halliburton.
#5: State Street Corporation, with 13 million shares. State Street, which reportedly controls $6 trillion in investments, recently revealed plans for a multi-million deal with (#8) Deutsche Bank, and owns $4.5B worth of Morgan Stanley (#3, below). State Street is also hugely invested in ExxonMobil, one of Saddam's biggest customers, and BP, which started life as "Iraq Petroleum." Also owns big in United Defense/Carlyle.
#4: Barclays Bank PLC, with 17.5 million shares of Halliburton. Barclays is also into United Defense and Fresh Del Monte, and has successfully hung on to 85,000 shares of Harken Energy.
#3: Morgan Stanley, with over 20 million shares. Morgan Stanley, among other connections on this list, is also a shareholder in United Defense and Fresh Del Monte, as well as in #8 Deutsche Bank.
#2: Wellington Management Co., LLP: Headquartered in Boston, Wellington calls itself one of America's oldest investment firms. It holds about 23 million shares, or more than half a billion dollars' worth, of Halliburton, and is linked with most of the rest of this list.
#1: Capital Research and Manage-ment Company, with 25 million shares, also worth over half a billion dollars. Los Angeles-based Capital Group is also a major investor in military contractors Lockheed and Raytheon, and is linked with FMR and Wellington in other large holdings.
Preemptive War Is the Wrong Weapon
By Stan Crock Link
If you want to see how cynical President Bush growing legion of critics are about the Administration's Iraq policy, take a gander sometime at the electronic newsletter sent out by Chuck Spinney, a retired Pentagon analyst. He starts out with a quote from the late journalist H. L. Mencken: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed [and hence clamorous to be led to safety] by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
Spinney then quotes Nazi Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering, who explained at his Nuremberg trial how easy it is for leaders to get the people to do their bidding. "All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger," Goering said. "It works the same way in any country."
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There's no doubt in my mind that the Anthrax scare was an act of US sponsored terrorism whose sole purpose was to ensure the passage of the Patriot Act. Why do I say that? How do I come to that conclusion? Because we are no longer going after the person responsible for it. When there's an extremely serious crime and the investigation stops - the investigator are the ones behind it.
October 24, 2003
Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?
That's the question that really needs to be asked. What's the answer? Well - here's a couple charts that seem to shed some light on the subject.
Jobs
Deficit
This doesn't take into account the fact that we are no longer a free country. For those who think that who the president is doesn't matter - isn't this an amazing coincidence that all the good news is under the Clinton administration and the bad news is under Bush.
Right wing Republican apologists will say that Clinton's success was a time delayed effect of the Reagan/Bush administration and that W's failure is a time delay from Clinton's failure. But - we have a Republican president and a Republican controlled congress and there's no oine to blame but the Republicans.
And - there's the 9-11 excuse. Well - they only knocked down 2 buildings and if America is such a wuss nation that it can be brought to it's knees over 2 buildings - well - sounds like poor leadership to me.
Tracking how the Press lies
Here are two stories about the same event - both available on Yahoo. The story is about how sucessful the Bush administration is at getting OTHER countries to donate to Bush's war. The first (the lie) is from Reuters - the second is from the Associated Press. I present the lie first. Read the articles and answer this question. How much money was pledged from non US sources.
Donors Promise Iraq $33 Billion, Smashing Expectations
Fri October 24, 2003 02:47 PM ET
By David Chance and Mona Megalli
MADRID (Reuters) - International donors pledged at least $33 billion in aid and loans over the next four years to help rebuild war-ravaged Iraq on Friday as the response to a U.S.-led drive for funds far outstripped expectations.
Spanish Economy Minister Rodrigo Rato said the combined offer -- made at a gathering of more than 70 nations in Madrid -- was equivalent to twice Iraq's annual national income and was a global vote of confidence in the country's future.
"If you take the American contribution which is hopefully totally a grant, then we have at least $33 billion, of which $25 billion is grants," said Marek Belka, a former Polish finance minister who is spearheading the fund raising efforts of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.
"All in all we are overwhelmed, we are very happy, it surpasses all expectations," Belka told Reuters.
He said the figure took the lowest likely contribution from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and excluded trade finance and grants in kind.
The highest estimate for pledges from non-U.S. donors came from the Iraqis themselves. Planning Minister Mahdi Hafez told reporters they had matched Washington's promise of $20 billion.
That is on top of $20 billion promised by Washington and is far in excess of what had been expected a few weeks ago, when political divisions threatened the existence of the meeting.
"A little over six months ago Iraq was the black sheep of the international community," Iraq Governing Council President Iyad Allawi told a news conference. "Today I am again proud to be Iraqi."
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Now - here is an exerpt from the Associated Press Story. Again - how much money came in from sources outside the United States? Also - note the diference in the headlines.
Iraq Rebuilding Money Short of $56B Goal
By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer
MADRID, Spain - Iraq (news - web sites)'s postwar reconstruction received a boost Friday as nations from Japan to Saudi Arabia pledged $13 billion in new aid on top of more than $20 billion from the United States. But the figure fell well short of the estimated $56 billion needed to rebuild the country, and much came in the form of loans that could saddle Iraq with new debts.
Continued in extended section ....
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In the first article you can see that it gives the impression that Bush raised $33 billion. The second article clearly states that Bush only raised $13 billion and that $20 billion was from America. When you read further in the complete second article you'll see in the details that most of the $13 billion was loans and that only about $5 billion was actually donated.
The interesting thing is - if you reread the first article you will see that they sort of say the same thing just enough to give them plausable deniability. The can say that "technically" they aren't lying. But they have a different standard of lying that I do and I'm calling it a lie.
The point here is that this is a tutorial about how the media lies and what to watch out for in this age of deception. You can get the truth even when everyone is lying to you. You just have to understand the lying process.
Here's the rest of the article.
Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) and U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow promised to immediately campaign to convert the loans into outright grants.
"The United States will work with other nations to get the level down," Snow said at a news conference, while Powell acknowledged the contributions were solicited so arduously it was not clear how many were in loans and how many grants.
Iraq already has a debt of $120 billion, with annual servicing charges of $7 billion to $8 billion. The Bush administration, mindful of the burden, planned all U.S. aid to be in grant form, but Congress is still weighing that approach. Some U.S. lawmakers favor loans based on the prospect that Iraq will be oil-rich in a few years and able to pay its debts with oil revenue.
After the conference closed, Spanish Finance Minister Rodrigo Rato said it raised $33 billion in pledges, including the American money, a figure that did not include export credits, technical assistance or other non-cash aid.
European Union (news - web sites) official Chris Patten noted that past fund-raisers have experienced long delays in making good on pledges. "We need to get the money out of the banks and into Iraq as soon as possible," he said.
The pledges were drawn from Asia and, far less so, from Europe. Japan offered the second-biggest pledge: $1.5 billion in grants for 2004 and $3.5 billion in loans for 2005-07.
Saudi Arabia pledged $1 billion. The richest country in the Arab world said half would be in loans through 2007 and the rest would be in export credits.
However, the kingdom also hinted at supporting a U.S. push to relieve some of Iraq's debt. Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the foreign minister, said Saudi Arabia was ready to reduce some of the $24 billion it was owed by Iraq, but he did not give specifics.
In an interview with European newspapers published Friday, Powell expressed regret that France and Germany weren't pledging new aid. The two leading opponents of the U.S.-led war in Iraq are holding back to show their disapproval of the U.S. blueprint for restoring Iraqi sovereignty.
Some of the pledges were unusual. Vietnam offered rice to Iraq, and Sri Lanka gave tea.
China pledged $24.2 million. Poorer countries chipped in too, like Slovakia with $290,000. Bulgaria and Egypt offered technical assistance but no money.
Iran, which fought Iraq from 1980-88 in a war that claimed 1 million lives, said it would let Iraq export oil through Iranian ports and supply its neighbor with electricity and gas.
Ayad Allawi, interim Iraqi president, called the donors conference "a historic occasion for my country, which a little over six months ago was the black sheep of the international community."
"Today, I am again proud to be an Iraqi," he told reporters. "The pledges made today will help us get back on our feet."
Much of the $13 billion came from international lending institutions: $4 billion from the International Monetary Fund (news - web sites) and $3 billion from the World Bank (news - web sites). While the bank might provide up to $5 billion, the lower figure was used in the calculations.
The bank had estimated Iraq would need about $55 billion in the next four years, far above what the conference raised in pledges. Powell called that an "ultimate goal," and the bank has said much will likely be covered by Iraq's oil revenues, private investment and other resources, rather than donations.
"These have been two wonderful days in the life of Iraq and the world," Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, told the closing session. "Iraqis are shedding tears. Humanity has stood beside them."
In all, the European Union is giving $812 million next year, said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, whose country holds the EU presidency.
That's less than the $931 million the 15-nation bloc offered to Afghanistan (news - web sites) last year, reflecting the absence of France and Germany.
However, Germany's deputy minister for economic cooperation, Erich Stather, said Berlin might offer export credits and would play a "constructive role ... in finding a solution of Iraq's debts."
French Trade Minister Francois Loos said his country is "willing to envisage and adapt its treatment of Iraq's debt compatible with the country's finance capacity."
RIAA sues SCO for Patent Infringement
The Recording Industry of America Association (RIAA) announced today that it is suing Santa Cruz Operations (SCO) for patent infringement. The infringment claim states the SCO is infringing on the RIAA's business model patent based on the idea of suing it's customers.
"We developed this business model of suing customers rather than trying to make a quality product and we are entitled to our intelectual property rights. Any time anyone sues a customer over a bullshit claim for the purpose of shaking them down for an unjust fee is an infringment", states a spokesperson for the RIAA.
In response to the suit, SCO filed a counterclaim stating that it owns a copyright to the copyright symbol and that the RIAA was violating it's copyrights by using the copyright symbol and the word "copyright" on it's product. At a press conference SCO displayed a slide from it's Unix source code with the copyright symbol and the words "All Rights Reserved" and compared it to an identical phrase on the back of CD covers. SCO is demanding a royalty of $700 for everytime anyone uses the copyright symbol or the phrase "All Rights Reserved".
In response to the SCO counterclaim the RIAA asked for an injunction baring the suit on the basis of infringment. "As a user of Linux ourselves we believe this suit is really about suing us as a customer and that should be barred because they are stealing our business model."
An attempt to contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation for their take on these lawsuits was unsucessful. EFF lead attorney Cindy Cohn was hospitalized with a broken rib from laughing to hard and had to be sedated.
October 22, 2003
Response to a Rush Limbaugh Apologist
The hypocracy of the religious right is amazing.
Jerry Brooks writes for the Washington Dispatch Link
Talk show host Rush Limbaugh recently revealed his addiction to prescription painkillers on his nationally syndicated radio program and also announced that he was seeking immediate treatment to deal with his problem. Limbaugh told his national audience that he’s been dealing with this addiction for several years after failed back surgery in the ‘90s. This startling confession came days after Limbaugh resigned from ESPN’s Sunday morning football pre-game show after comments he made about the NFL and Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb.
Maybe Rush and his dittoheads will now support treating drug addiction rather than jailing them.
I always find it sad to hear of stories like this because addictions are terrible, devastating things and I’ve seen their effects up close and personal. Broken relationships, financial hardships, and even permanent physical damage and psychological damage are just some of the effects I’ve seen in people’s lives because of addiction to various things.
Sound like a bleading heart liberal to me. Do you feel his pain? Oh - but this is a setup paragraph. He didn't mean a word of it. He will now take the opportunity to bash Liberals.
I am in no way, shape, or form condoning Limbaugh’s actions. However, I’m not going to behave like a pack of ravenous wolves like so many left leaning media (Got to get the "media is left" propoganda in there) and critics have. I never liked the idea of kicking someone when they’re down. When you’re dealing with a problem of this magnitude, the last thing you need is a group of accusing fingers pointing out the obvious. Excuse me - You just insulted what Rush does for a living!
The "left" are ravenous wolves? Not hardly! We are just quoting Rush just like you ditto heads do! Rush fans love kicking people when they are down. That what his show is about. To liberals it's like watching a rattlesnake bite itself.
For those who are gleefully accusing Limbaugh of hypocrisy, I think you should keep the following in mind. Your rationale for judging someone’s character is just as flawed as everyone else’s. The liberal left in this country has prided itself on the premise that they’re more compassionate, more tolerant, and able to embrace diversity more readily than anyone else. This form of arrogance is bad enough, but I can name several instances where liberal “compassion” has gone out the window when it comes to conservatives. The same group of people who profess their undying devotion to fairness and kindness are the same folks who spout some of the most vicious, toxic, and mean-spirited rhetoric I’ve ever heard.
Thanks for admitting that the left is more tolerant. That is true. The attacks on Rush from the left are far less than the attacks of Rush's fans. But - pointing out rush's hypocracy - or any hypocracy - is a good thing. Rush always did that - so - do we not honor Rush by following in his footsteps? Do you believe that Rush can dish it out but can't take it? Sir - you insult the great Rush Limbaugh if you believe that!
Hypocrisy, like many other traits, doesn’t discriminate. Conservatives can be just as hypocritical and vicious as liberals. The fact is that no one political or ideological entity really holds the high moral ground on anything.
This is true. Except that Conservatives are generally far more vicoius than liberals. Rush used to call Bill Clinton's 12 year old daughter a dog. Rush has elevated being vicious into a billion dollar business.
The issue of character has come to the forefront especially since the Clinton era. (Got to kick Clinton one more time.) The 1990s certainly had its share of scandals, but what stood out to me was the meteoric rise of character assassinations and assassins. Politics certainly is a blood sport, but the politics of personal destruction has become the sport of choice for liberals today. Demean the accusation by demeaning the accuser by any means necessary. Forget the nature of the evidence; focus on the seriousness of the charge. (Clarence Thomas can tell you about that one)
Yes - politics is a blood sport - and Rush is one of the pioneers that made it that way. Rush made hundreds of millions of dollors by leading Conservatives in moral masturbation sessions where conservatives got a macabre thrill from reveling in the suffering of others. But then - when it's one of your own - out comes the compassion.
I think it’s a shame that good people are being kept out of the political arena because they don’t want to undergo intrusive life exams by unscrupulous political operatives and their allies in the mainstream media. Now more than ever, good people need to step up on all levels and run for office because our nation has an entrenched political class who’ve become intoxicated with money, power, position, and a blind loyalty to agendas that are slowly turning our great nation into a quasi-socialist nightmare that would make the Founding Fathers pop a blood vessel.
When good people come forward it's people like Rush Limbaugh who put them through the ringer.
Nobody I know is 100 percent perfect. By historical accounts, the only person I know of who lived a perfect life died on a cross. (Play the Jesus card) If our culture insists on going down the road of comparative morality as criteria for credibility on issues, then we might as well put the proverbial gun to our head and pull the trigger. Because when it comes to the issue of character, every single human being at one time or another, has horribly flunked the perfection test.
Jesus is a mythical figure who never existed. And conservatives hardly can claim they believe in the Bible because if they did - they wouldn't be involved in moral masturbation with Rush.
I do pray that Rush beats his addiction. I believe there is good that can come out of this situation and I pray that Rush sees that and uses it. As for those who sit in their seats of power awaiting Limbaugh’s demise, I’d take some time and take a look at your own lives and see what flaws you might have before you break out your poison pens (or poison tongues).
Oh this makes me want to cry! Swear to Koresh it does. I pray for Rush too. I hope he recovers not only from is addiction but also repents from his life of hate and distruction. I hope he sees the light and come out regretting his sins against the human race the way Lee Atwater did when he was close to dying of Cancer. When he apologized for what he did to Micheal Dukakis and his family.
As holy scripture tell us, (The Bible card)“Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.” So, who wants to throw the first rock?
I'm without sin - so I'll cast the first stone. haha - as if this is the first stone! Tell it to the conservative talk show hosts who are filling in for Rush. So - is Rush down for the count? Depends on how you look at it. The way I see it - he's going to at least have to stop bashing drug addicts. Rush's life is now changed. We will see if he learns anything from it.
I would ask the conservatives this question. If the liberals show compassion and forgiveness for Rush - will they start showing compassion and forgiveness for Bill Clinton? Or is this just a one way thing? I remember how Christians (yes - true Christians) were frothing at the mouth at the posibility of Bill and Hillary getting divorced and how disapointed they were when they stuck it out.
So Mr. Jerry Brooks - thanks for the load of bullshit. I'm looking forward to seeing Conservatives give up hate radio and become forgiving and compassionate to the downtrodden as you suggest. Anyone want to place any bets that will happen?
This article by Jerry Brooks is a classic right wing rant because it has all the elements of a right wing story:
This is what makes him such a great right wing journalist. Look how make elements he covered in so few words.!
October 20, 2003
Ashcroft Persecuting Free Speech
Atty. Gen. Ashcroft is pulling out all the stops to prosecute protesters.
It has lain dormant in the darkest recesses of American law for 125 years, but this month Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft introduced critics of the administration to his latest weapon in law enforcement.
In a Miami federal court, the attorney general charged the environmental group Greenpeace under an obscure 1872 law originally intended to end the practice of "sailor-mongering," or the luring of sailors with liquor and prostitutes from their ships. Ashcroft plucked the law from obscurity to punish Greenpeace for boarding a vessel near port in Miami.
Not only is the law being used to prosecute one of the administration's most vocal critics in an unprecedented attack on the 1st Amendment, but it appears to be part of a broader campaign by Ashcroft to protect the nation against free speech, a campaign that has converted environmentalists into "sailor-mongers" and nuns into terrorists.
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The case against Greenpeace started with a protest in April 2002. The activist group was leading an international effort to stop the illegal importing of mahogany. It believed that a ship, the APL Jade, was engaging in this illegal trade and decided to conduct one of its signature demonstrations to protest the Bush administration's failure to stop the imports.
In clearly marked boats, Greenpeace followed the ship. Two of its members boarded the vessel about eight miles outside the Miami port, carrying a banner that read "President Bush, Stop Illegal Logging."
Such protests are common, and the two activists wore Greenpeace jackets, identified themselves as Greenpeace members and allowed themselves to be arrested. They ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and were released. The wood was unloaded and everyone seemed satisfied.
Everyone, that is, except Ashcroft.
Fifteen months after the incident, the Justice Department filed an indictment in Miami against the entire Greenpeace organization under the 1872 law, a law that appears to have been used only twice.
A New York court in 1872 described the law as both "inartistic and obscure." An Oregon court in 1890 described the purpose of the law as preventing "the evil" of "sailor-mongers [who] get on board vessels and by the help of intoxicants, and the use of other means, often savoring of violence, get the crews ashore and leave the vessel without help to manage or care for her."
Of course, there did not appear to be many sailors on the APL Jade being lured out to join Greenpeace. But proceeding against two protesters on trivial misdemeanor charges wasn't enough for the Justice Department. So it decided to treat Greenpeace activists not as protesters but as sailor-mongers.
Greenpeace now could lose its tax-exempt status — a potential death knell for a large public interest organization. A conviction could also force Greenpeace to regularly report its actions to the government. Such a prospect must secretly delight many in the administration who see the group as an ever-present irritant. After all, it was Greenpeace that held the first demonstration at the president's ranch after his inauguration, causing a stir when activists unfurled a banner reading "Bush: the Toxic Texan. Don't Mess With the Earth."
Since that time, Greenpeace has waged a continual campaign against Bush's environmental record. Ashcroft's jihad against free speech, however, is not limited to environmentalists. Consider the case of three Dominican nuns. Last year, Sister Ardeth Platte, 66, Sister Jackie Hudson, 68, and Sister Carol Gilbert, 55, participated in a peaceful demonstration for nuclear disarmament.
As part of the protest, the three nuns cut through a chain-link fence around a Minuteman III missile silo. There is only a light fence because the missile is protected by a 110-ton concrete cap that is designed to withstand a nuclear explosion. The nuns proceeded to paint crosses on the cap and symbolically hit it with hammers. They then knelt, prayed, sang religious songs and waited for arrest. The most the government could allege in terms of damage was $3,000.
However, the Ashcroft Justice Department wanted more than compensation and a common misdemeanor. It charged the nuns with obstructing national defense, which subjected each to a potential 30-year prison term. When the government pushed the court to impose sentences of as much as eight years, the judge refused. However, the judge found, as alleged by the government, that the three nuns had put military personnel "in harm's way." Accordingly, he imposed on them sentences ranging from 2 1/2 years to 3 1/2 years.
The administration has pursued a similar zero-tolerance policy in other cases. It has been accused of using unconstitutional "trap-and-arrest" tactics to suppress protests in Washington, D.C., where hundreds of journalists, bystanders and student protesters were arrested en masse without a warning or an opportunity to disperse. They were then left hog-tied in holding areas for as long as 20 hours, with their hands bound to their ankles.
The Greenpeace case is particularly chilling because of the extraordinary effort to find a law that could be used to pursue the organization. The 1872 law is a legal relic that must have required much archeological digging through law books to find.
It is also notable that other organizations have not faced such attacks. For example, in this same judicial district in Florida, the Cuban American group Democracy Movement organized a protest in which members sailed into a government-designated security zone. Although the members were charged, the organization was not. Similarly, other groups viewed favorably by the administration — such as anti-abortion groups — have not been subject to criminal indictments of their organizations for such protests.
The extraordinary effort made to find and use this obscure law strongly suggests a campaign of selective prosecution — the greatest scourge of the 1st Amendment.
Greenpeace was engaged in a classic protest used by countless organizations, from those of the civil rights movement to anti-abortion groups. It is a way for citizens to express their opposition by literally standing in the path of the government.
None of these organizations contest the right of the government to punish them for trespass or even criminal misdemeanors. Indeed, they view such punishment as a badge of honor.
However, Ashcroft is now seeking symbols of his own: The image of a major environmentalist organization placed on probation or nuns being sent to jail is clearly meant to send a chilling message from the man who once accused his critics of aiding and abetting terrorists.
Unless deterred by Congress or the courts, Ashcroft will continue his campaign to protect Americans from the ravages of free speech. If he succeeds, it will not be sailors but free speech that will be shanghaied in Miami.
Why not go after Bin Laden
Letter to the Editor
The CIA confirmed the voice in the latest Bin Laden tape actually is Bin Laden - so - why aren't we going after him? Bin Laden is in Pakistan - not Iraq. It seems to me that the Bush administration is confused about who and where the enemy is.
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Bin Laden at Large Day 769 since 9-11
Bin Laden is Free - Are you?
Music Swappers to become international felons.
IP Justice Media Release
October 20, 2003
Media contact: Robin Gross, IP Justice Executive Director
+1 415-553-6261 robin@ipjustice.org
FTAA Treaty Chapter on IP '"Threatens Freedom and Free Trade"
IP Justice White Paper Reveals Treaty Would Send P2P File-Sharers to Prison
Sponsors Petition to Delete Intellectual Property Chapter
- International civil liberties group IP Justice published a report today entitled "FTAA: A Threat to Freedom and Free Trade," that analyzes key sections of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) Treaty. The FTAA Treaty will govern the lives of 800 million Americans in the Western Hemisphere in 2005.
Similar to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the FTAA Treaty seeks to bind the 34 democracies in the Western Hemisphere (including the US) to a single trade agreement. It will require all countries to change their domestic laws on a wide range of topics, including intellectual property rights.
The draft intellectual property rights chapter in the FTAA Agreement vastly expands criminal procedures and penalties against intellectual property infringements throughout the Americas. One clause would require countries to send non-commercial infringers such as Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharers to prison. It is estimated that 60 million Americans use file-sharing software in the US alone.
According to the IP Justice report, "unless the second proposed clause to Article 4.1 is deleted from the FTAA Treaty, Internet music swapping will be a felony throughout the Western Hemisphere in 2005."
The proposed agreement forbids consumers from bypassing technical restrictions on their own CDs, DVDs and other property, similar to the controversial US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Even though bills are pending in the US Congress to repeal the DMCA, FTAA proposes to outlaw even more speech and legitimate conduct.
Mislabeled as a "free trade" agreement, the FTAA Agreement would actually make it illegal to bypass trade barriers such as DVD region code restrictions and it would enable price discrimination against consumers in the Americas.
The draft treaty also imposes new definitions for "fair use" and "personal use," curtailing traditional fair use and personal use rights to a single copy and only under limited circumstances. This prevents consumers from backing-up their media collections, using their media in new and innovative ways, and accessing media for educational and non-commercial purposes.
Another clause would require all countries to amend their copyright laws to extend copyright's term to at least 70 years after the life of the author, essentially forcing the new US standard on all other 33 countries in the hemisphere. Although forbidden by the US Constitution, FTAA's copyright section would allow companies to copyright facts and scientific data.
Another provision requires all domain name trademark disputes to be decided by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a private and unaccountable organization that is ill equipped to determine the limits of freedom of expression rights or the scope of intellectual property rights. Americans would no longer have access to their local public courts to adjudicate rights over their Internet domain names.
"The FTAA Treaty's IP chapter reads like a 'wish list' for RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft lobbyists," said IP Justice Executive Director Robin Gross. "Rather than promote competition and creativity, it is bloated with provisions that create monopolies over information and media devices," stated the intellectual property attorney.
In conjunction with the White Paper, IP Justice published an online petition calling upon the FTAA Trade Ministers to delete the entire chapter on intellectual property rights from the trade agreement. Earlier this year Brazil called for scrapping the chapter on intellectual property rights also.
FTAA Treaty negotiators, including the Office of the US Trade Representative who negotiates on behalf of US government, will meet in Miami from November 16-21, 2003. Debate over the text of the FTAA Treaty will conclude by January 2005 and the treaty is due to take effect by December 2005.
IP Justice White Paper on FTAA IP Chapter:
http://www.ipjustice.org/ftaa/whitepaper.shtml
IP Justice FTAA Educational Campaign:
http://www.ipjustice.org/ftaa
IP Justice's Top 10 Reasons to Delete FTAA's IP Chapter:
http://www.ipjustice.org/ftaa/topten.shtml
IP Justice Petition to Delete FTAA's IP Chapter:
http://www.ipjustice.org/ftaa/petition.shtml
Official FTAA Website:
http://www.ftaa-alca.org
Draft chapter on intellectual property rights in FTAA Agreement:
http://www.ftaa-alca.org/ftaadraft02/eng/draft_e.asp
IP Justice is an international civil liberties organization that promotes balanced intellectual property law. IP Justice defends individual rights to use digital media worldwide and is a registered California non-profit organization. IP Justice was founded in 2002 by Robin D. Gross, who serves as its Executive Director. To learn more about IP Justice, visit the website at http://www.ipjustice.org.
October 19, 2003
Republicans steal 2 elections in Georgia
From New Zeland Herald
US voting system vulnerable to fraud
19.10.2003
Part 1 of a 4-part investigation by ANDREW GUMBEL of the Independent
INVESTIGATION - Something very odd happened in the mid-term elections in the US state of Georgia last November.
On the eve of the vote, opinion polls showed Roy Barnes, the incumbent Democratic governor, leading by between 9 and 11 points.
In a somewhat closer, keenly watched Senate race, polls indicated that Max Cleland, the popular Democrat up for re-election, was ahead by two to five points against his Republican challenger, Saxby Chambliss.
Those figures were more or less what political experts would have expected in Georgia, a state with a long tradition of electing Democrats to statewide office.
But then the results came in, and all of Georgia appeared to have been turned upside down.
Barnes lost the governorship to the Republican, Sonny Perdue, 46 per cent to 51 per cent, a swing of as much as 16 percentage points from the last opinion polls.
Cleland lost to Chambliss 46 per cent to 53, a last-minute swing of 9 to 12 points.
Red-faced opinion pollsters suddenly had a lot of explaining to do and launched internal investigations.
Political analysts credited the upset, part of a pattern of Republican successes around the country, to a huge personal campaign push by President Bush in the final days of the race.
They also said that Roy Barnes had lost because of a surge of "angry white men" punishing him for eradicating all but a vestige of the old confederate symbol from the state's flag.
But something about these explanations did not make sense, and they have made even less sense over time.
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When the Georgia secretary of state's office published its demographic breakdown of the election earlier this year, it turned out there was no surge of angry white men; in fact, the only subgroup showing even a modest increase in turnout was black women.
Their embrace of the confederate cause was about as likely as the alleged support for right-wing demagogue Pat Buchanan by retired liberal Jews - using the notorious "butterfly ballot" - in the 2000 presidential election in Palm Beach County, Florida.
There were also big, puzzling swings in partisan loyalties in different parts of the state.
In 58 counties, the vote was broadly in line with the primary election.
Georgia has an open primary system - meaning anyone can vote for either major party, irrespective of their own affiliation - so that consistency was to be expected.
In 27 counties in Republican-dominated north Georgia, however, Max Cleland unaccountably scored 14 percentage points higher than he had in the primaries.
And in 74 counties in the Democrat-leaning south, Saxby Chambliss garnered a whopping 22 points more for the Republicans than the party as a whole had won less than three months earlier.
Now, weird things like this do occasionally occur in elections, and the figures, on their own, are not proof of anything except statistical anomalies worthy of further study.
But in Georgia there was an extra reason to be suspicious.
Last November, the state became the first in the country to conduct an election entirely with touchscreen voting machines, after lavishing US$54 million ($91 million) on a new system that promised to deliver the securest, most up-to-date, most voter-friendly election in the history of the republic.
The machines, however, turned out to be anything but reliable.
With academic studies showing the Georgia touchscreens to be poorly programmed, full of security holes and prone to tampering, and with thousands of similar machines from different companies being introduced at high speed across the country, computer voting may, in fact, be US democracy's own 21st century nightmare.
In many Georgia counties last November, the machines froze up, causing long delays as technicians tried to reboot them.
In heavily Democratic Fulton County, in downtown Atlanta, 67 memory cards from the voting machines went missing, delaying certification of the results there for 10 days.
In neighbouring DeKalb County, 10 memory cards were unaccounted for; they were later recovered from terminals that had supposedly broken down and been taken out of service.
It is still unclear exactly how results from these missing cards were tabulated, or if they were counted at all.
And we will probably never know, for a highly disturbing reason.
The vote count was not conducted by state elections officials, but by the private company that sold Georgia the voting machines in the first place, under a strict trade-secrecy contract that made it not only difficult but actually illegal -- on pain of stiff criminal penalties -- for the state to touch the equipment or examine the proprietary software to ensure the machines worked properly.
There was not even a paper trail to follow up. The machines were fitted with thermal printing devices that could theoretically provide a written record of voters' choices, but these were not activated. Consequently, recounts were impossible.
Had Diebold Inc, the manufacturer, been asked to review the votes, all it could have done was programme the computers to spit out the same data as before, flawed or not.
Astonishingly, these are the terms under which America's top three computer voting machine manufacturers -- Diebold, Sequoia and Election Systems and Software (ES&S) -- have sold their products to election officials around the country.
Far from questioning the need for rigid trade secrecy and the absence of a paper record, secretaries of state and their technical advisers -- anxious to banish memories of the "hanging chad" fiasco and other associated disasters in the 2000 presidential recount in Florida -- have, for the most part, welcomed the touchscreen voting machines as a technological miracle solution.
Georgia was not the only state last November to see big last-minute swings in voting patterns. There were others in Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois and New Hampshire -- all in races that had been flagged as key partisan battlegrounds, and all eventually won by the Republican Party.
Again, this was widely attributed to the campaigning efforts of President Bush and the demoralisation of a Democratic Party too timid to speak out against the looming war in Iraq.
Strangely, however, the pollsters made no comparable howlers in lower-key races whose outcome was not seriously contested. Another anomaly, perhaps.
What, then, is one to make of the fact that the owners of the three major computer voting machines are all prominent Republican Party donors?
Or of a recent political fund-raising letter written to Ohio Republicans by Walden O'Dell, Diebold's chief executive, in which he said he was "committed to helping Ohio to deliver its electoral votes to the president next year" - even as his company was bidding for the contract on the state's new voting machinery?
Alarmed and suspicious, an ad hoc group of Georgia citizens began to look into the background of last November's election to see whether there was any chance the results might have been deliberately or accidentally manipulated.
Their research proved unexpectedly, and disturbingly, fruitful.
First, they wanted to know if the software had undergone adequate oversight.
Under state and federal law, all voting machinery and component parts must be certified before use in an election.
So an Atlanta graphic designer named Denis Wright wrote to the secretary of state's office for a copy of the certification letter.
Clifford Tatum, assistant director of legal affairs for the election division, wrote back: "We have determined that no records exist in the Secretary of State's office regarding a certification letter from the lab certifying the version of software used on Election Day."
Mr Tatum said it was possible the relevant documents were with Gary Powell, an official at the Georgia Technology Authority, so campaigners wrote to him as well.
Mr Powell responded he was "not sure what you mean by the words 'please provide written certification documents'".
"If the machines were not certified, then right there the election was illegal," Mr Wright said.
The secretary of state's office has yet to demonstrate anything to the contrary.