Entries Tagged with ACLU
April 27th, 2007
A couple of days ago, FW, MJ and I went down to Starbucks to get our morning salvation.
Inside there was this elderly black woman, the kind of woman you look at and just immediately assume is one of those wise old women who has wonderful old stories to share and some sort of fascinatingly wickedly fun past full of adventure and daringness and history, the kind of woman you think must be one of the last remnants of true human compassion, enlightenment, and tolerance.
She wasn’t ready to pay yet as she was searching through her bags — one of those carry-ons on wheels with the pull out handle and a stuffed-to the gills totebag — so MJ and FW went on and ordered and paid and got their coffees. She was ready right as I was stepping up, so she stepped right on up and managed to roll over my foot, but I just smiled, because she was older and I’ve been taught to have patience with my elders. Despite the two cash registers, she managed to edge me away from the counter with her bulk and baggage and by rolling over my feet another couple of times, but I just smiled and waited my turn.
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Tags: WTF, Starbucks, ACLU, coffee, crazy
December 20th, 2005
“The president does not get to pick and choose which laws he wants to follow.”
– Senator Russell Feingold, Democrat [“Bush stands by right to order spying inside US (FT.com)]
Traditionally, US law forbids the NSA and the CIA from spying inside the US. That sort of thing usually falls into the FBI’s realm of operations and then only with a court order for setting up wire taps and the like.
Yet shortly after 9/11, President Bush ordered the NSA to tap telephone conversations inside the US, supposedly targeting persons (yes, including American citizens — especially American citizens) suspected of “connections with terrorists”. Mind you, among those targeted were the ACLU, a vegan group, and Americans involved in anti-war protests — Americans exercising their freedom to disagree with the government.
Sounds a little like Nixon to me.
We all remember Nixon, right? Well, those of us who are too young to have followed it closely at the time got a full helping of it in American History classes anyway. One of the things Nixon got in trouble for was abusing his Presidential power by authorizing the illegal wiretapping of Americans. He used wiretaps on all sorts of groups, people, politicians…anyone who didn’t agree with him…
Since 1979, 19,000 requests for eavesdropping the Federal Intelligence Security Court has received from the Executive Branch since 1979, only five have ever been refused.[“A TIME TO IMPEACH”] While President Bush claimed that his authorization of wiretaps without warants was necessary because action has to be taken quickly against the “terrorists”, reportedly, the secret FISA court can grant approval for wiretaps “within hours”.
If that’s the case, then why wouldn’t our President want to do everything by the book? If FISA’s court has a tradition of handing out warants at the drop of the hat, why wouldn’t he want those wiretap on some sort of official and legal record? Why wouldn’t our President want anyone backing him up officially?
Obviously, if he’s trying to circumvent the law, he must have something to hide, right? I mean, it just seems so suspicious…and he seems awfully defensive of the whole thing. Why did he choose the NSA for this task rather than the FBI if it was all legal and proper? Who didn’t he want to know and why? If it were all on the up-and-up, why is he worried?
Tags: politics, George W. Bush, warrantless wiretapping, NSA, spying on Americans, FBI, Russ Feingold, FISA, ACLU, CIA, Conspiracy Theories
August 16th, 2005
I heard this story on NPR this morning and it made me laugh. It’s funny because of the ineptness of the whole thing and not because it’s becoming a hassle to people.
I’m all for airport security. I’ve said so in the past — even if I’m inevitably the one watching them take out every single item from my purse to display to the world because the combination of an iPod Mini and a Palm Pilot in one small bag might indicate evil-doing. If it makes me safer in the long run, I’m good. I hate flying as it is, I don’t want to add worrying about terrorists on the plane to my list of worries like plunging from the air and smashing into the ground.
[“Israeli military releases another baby photo(Scarily, this is a real Middle Eastern baby in military garb)”] Anyway, so I heard this story on NPR this morning about children being stopped from boarding planes because their names match or are similar to names from the Transportation Security Administration’s no-fly list. This results in a major hassle as parents are forced to miss flights while trying to have birth certificates, passports, and other identification faxed to the airport security folks.
Critics including the American Civil Liberties Union say the government doesn’t provide enough information about the people on the lists, so innocent passengers can be caught up in the security sweep if they happen to have the same name as someone on the lists. [“Babies Caught Up in ‘No-Fly’ Confusion”]
I think if a child is five or under, he or she is probably not a terrorist…unless maybe it’s that baby from Family Guy. I also think that real terrorists don’t fly under their real names, but that’s just me. Anyway, I think airport security needs to exercise some common sense here — especially since TSA claims they’ve instructed security not to detain anyone under 12. Really, is this too hard to figure out?
The TSA has a “passenger ombudsman” who will investigate individual claims from passengers who say they are mistakenly on the lists. TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said 89 children have submitted their names to the ombudsman. Of those, 14 are under the age of 2. [“Babies Caught Up in ‘No-Fly’ Confusion”]
Tags: NPR, no-fly list, Transportation Security Administration, ACLU, innocent, Terrorists
July 21st, 2005
So Molly Ivins wrote a brilliant editorial at freepress.org about how Americans seem to be missing the point with this whole Karl Rove thing. We’re focusing on who the leak was and whether or not it was a criminal act and losing site of the fact that it was done as political payback to a man who disagreed with President Bush’s so-called evidence of WMD in Iraq.
Actually, we are missing the point here. The point being that Joseph Wilson is merely one of the many people who provided one of the by now innumerable pieces of evidence that this administration lied about why we went to war in Iraq. When former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill wrote that Bush planned to invade Iraq from the day he took office, the administration went after O’Neill. When Richard Clarke disclosed that the Bushies wanted to use Sept. 11 to go after Saddam Hussein from Sept. 12 on, they went after Clarke. They went after Gen. Zinni, they went after Gen. Shinseki and everyone else who opposed the folly or told the truth about it. After they got done lying about weapons of mass destruction and about connections to Al Qaeda, they switched to the stomach-churning pretense that we had done it all for democracy. Urp.
She also talks about how the Bush administration has set the FBI on the ACLU:
The ACLU works solely through the legal system: It does not advocate violence, terrorism or any other damn thing except the Bill of Rights. Since when is that extremist? Why in the name of heaven are we wasting the FBI’s time on this idiocy? I don’t pretend to be an expert on counter-terrorism, but if it were up to me, I wouldn’t start looking for the violence-prone in pacifist groups either…
…We are living in a time when our government is investigating an organization that stands for the highest and best American ideals. And claiming the mantle of patriotism while they are about it. This is cuckoo — and such an idiotic waste of the FBI’s time and the taxpayers’ money that whoever thought up this idiocy should be fired yesterday.
And I love this line:
If you support someone politically, you are not required to believe they are perfect.
I wish all of those people who voted for Bush or even Kerry would take a moment and really think about that one. Your candidate is not God. Take a step back and really look hard at what’s happing in American and the world. I don’t understand how two groups of people can hear the same news and only hear what they want even if what they want completely conflicts with the facts presented.
Tags: Molly Ivins, Karl Rove, Joe Wilson, Iraq, FBI, ACLU, George W. Bush, politics
June 16th, 2005
According to CNN.com House limits Patriot Act rules on library records!
WASHINGTON (AP) — Advocates of rewriting the USA Patriot Act are claiming momentum after the House, despite a White House veto threat, voted to restrict investigators from using the anti-terrorism law to peek at library records and bookstore sales slips.
Wednesday’s 238-187 vote came as lawmakers ramped up efforts to extend the Patriot Act, which was passed quickly in the emotional aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. When Congress passed the law, it included a sunset provision under which 15 of its provisions are to expire at the end of this year.
Since the Patriot Act passed, liberals and libertarian-oriented conservatives have pressed for changes, citing privacy and civil liberties concerns. The administration has said weakening of the act would draw a veto from President Bush.
“No question, this is a real shot in the arm for those of us who want to make changes to the USA Patriot Act,” said Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vermont, sponsor of the provision that would curtail the government’s ability to investigate the reading habits of terror suspects. He said the vote would help “rein in an administration intent on chipping away at the very civil liberties that define us as a nation.”
The real irony is that the Patriot Act hadn’t been used to investigate bookstore receipts or library records as of March 30th. Yet, the Justice Department claims that the authority to be able to do so is a great benefit to investigating possible terrorists and terrorist enablers. WTF? Shouldn’t there be a rule that if they haven’t used it in 3 years, then it should just go away? Obviously they don’t need it. It’s kind of like my George Foreman Grill. Yeah, it’s trendy to have but I never use it and it’s just taking up space in my cabinet. 
I particularly like this quote:
“It bodes well that the first vote Congress has taken on the Patriot Act this year has been in favor of liberty and freedom,” said Gregory Nojeim, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union.
And this is actually kind of funny:
Supporters of the Patriot Act countered that the rules are potentially useful and argued that the House was voting to make libraries safe havens for terrorists.
So, now I’m seeing the backrooms of libraries filled with smoke and bomb-making supplies and little gray-haired ladies in bifocals running after shady-looking types and fussing about how they treat the books on bomb-making. I really think that’s a bit extreme. Like the House wants terrorists to win. Please.
Anyway, it’s a small victories for people concerned with civil liberties and the freedoms Americans claim to be passing on to other countries, but with President Bush’s promise to veto any “weakening” of the Patriot Act, we still have a long way to go.
Tags: Public Library, Patriot Act, ACLU, House of Representatives, Freedoms, Terrorists
