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Senate Advances Expanded, "Orwellian" Gov't Surveillance With FISA Amendments, CISPA

Thu, 24 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez - May. 24 (News Analysis) - The Senate is closer to renewing controversial measures that critics say would allow the emails and phone calls of U.S. citizens to be monitored without a warrant. The Select Committee on Intelligence has voted to extend controversial amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that were set to expire at the end of this year. "What we’re asking is that they slow down this process and start first with the question: What type of information are they picking up? How many Americans are being affected? What is the government doing with it?," says Michelle Richardson of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has sued over the U.S. government’s surveillance practices, saying agencies would be able to tap their communications with clients and sources overseas.

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New Legislation Would Give Power to Keyboard Cops

Mon, 07 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Naomi Wolf - May. 07 (Special Report) - The respected Internet technology site Techdirt has called the bill "insanity." It has written that "CISPA can no longer be called a cybersecurity bill at all. The government would be able to search information ... for the purposes of investigating American citizens with complete immunity from all privacy protections as long as [it] can claim someone committed a ‘cybersecurity crime.'"

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CISPA Critics Warn Cybersecurity Bill Will Increase Domestic Surveillance and Violate Privacy Rights

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Apr. 26 (Special Report) - CISPA Critics Warn Cybersecurity Bill Will Increase Domestic Surveillance and Violate Privacy Rights

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Judicial Activists in the Supreme Court

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

nationofchange.org - By E. J. Dionne Jr. - Mar. 29 (News Analysis) - Three days of Supreme Court arguments over the health-care law demonstrated for all to see that conservative justices are prepared to act as an alternative legislature, diving deeply into policy details as if they were members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

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Murder is Legal, According to Eric Holder

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By David Swanson - Mar. 08 (News Analysis) - Holder isn't talking about those wars that still sort of look like wars. He's talking about a war paralleling the Soviet Threat, a war that is everywhere all the time, a war that encompasses the murder of anybody anywhere as an "act of war," even if there's nothing warlike about the victim or the situation other than the fact that we are mudering him or her.

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Attorney General Eric Holder Defends Legality of Targeted Killings of U.S. Citizens Overseas

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Mar. 06 (News Analysis) - Using armed drones, President Obama has overseen the targeted killing of at least three U.S. civilians overseas — more than President Bush did in office. Are the killings legal? Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, says Attorney General Eric Holder’s defense on Monday of the Obama administration’s policy authorizing the assassination of U.S. citizens abroad “left open more questions than it answered.” She says Holder’s speech amounted to a broad defense of the administration’s claimed expansive authority to kill its own citizens, far from any battlefield and without judicial review or oversight of legal standards.

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The Right's Inside-Out Constitution

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Robert Parry - Feb. 14 (News Analysis) - 'In recent decades, the American Right has sought to rewrite the founding narrative of the United States through selective 'scholarship,' by snatching a few quotes out of context and then relying on a vast propaganda machine (and much ignorance about U.S. history) to turn the Constitution inside out.' Robert Parry, Consortium News

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Journalist Chris Hedges Sues Obama Admin Over Indefinite Detention of U.S. Citizens Approved in NDAA

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jan. 17 (News Report) - Sections of the bill are written so broadly that critics say they could encompass journalists who report on terror-related issues, such as Hedges, for supporting enemy forces. "It’s clearly unconstitutional," Hedges says of the bill. "It is a huge and egregious assault against our democracy. It overturns over 200 years of law, which has kept the military out of domestic policing."

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If You Are Not Outraged, You Are Not Paying Attention: 5 Major Ways Corporate Elites Are Degrading America

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Jim Hightower - Dec. 15 (News Analysis) - Benjamin Franklin put it at the time, "America's destiny is not power, but light." The light is our historic commitment to the common good, shared prosperity, and a government of, by, and for the People. Whatever happened to that audacious reach, that grand vision, that proud progressive purpose?

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Sanders Files "Saving American Democracy Amendment'

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Op Ed News - Dec. 11 (News) - The first constitutional amendment ever proposed by Sanders during his two decades in Congress would reverse the narrow 5-to-4 ruling in Citizens United vs. the Federal Elections Commission. In that controversial decision almost two years ago, justices gave corporations the same First Amendment free-speech rights as people.

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"Corporations Are Not People": Activists Push Amendment to Revoke "Corporate Personhood"

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Nov. 09 (News Report) - After an Election Day that saw a number of wins for progressive causes nationwide, activists opposed to "corporate personhood" — the notion that corporations have equal rights to individuals — are pushing ahead with a campaign to add a twenty-eighth amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would reject the idea that corporations are people and reverse the 2010 landmark case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In a 5-to-4 vote, the Court ruled corporations have First Amendment rights and that the government cannot impose restrictions on their political speech — clearing the way for corporations and other special interest groups to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections. We speak to John Bonifaz, a constitutional attorney and co-founder and director of Free Speech for People. [Rush transcript to come. Please check back soon.]

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Scott Campbell Films Police Shooting At Occupy Oakland: Video Sparks National Outrage (VIDEO)

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - Nov. 08 (News Report) - Early Thursday morning after Occupy Oakland's general strike, Campbell filmed police as they surrounded the remaining protesters. According to Campbell, an officer asked him to step back as he approached the police line with a video camera. Campbell obliged, and then began filming about ten feet from the officers. On the video, Campbell can be heard asking "is this OK?" twice. Several seconds later, an officer shoots him with what appears to be a rubber bullet.

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Missoula voters say corporations are not people, ask for constitutional amendment

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

missoulian.com - Nov. 08 (News) -

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Six First-Hand Observations From Last Night's Chaos between Riot Police and Occupy Oakland

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Joshua Holland - Oct. 27 (News Report) - We're taught from an early age that we have a right to peaceably assemble and protest, and that this right is guaranteed by the Constitution and can't be over-ridden by the city of Oakland.

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Glenn Greenwald on Two-Tiered U.S. Justice System, Obama’s Assassination Program & the Arab Spring

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Glenn Greenwald - Oct. 26 (News Analysis) - Glenn Greenwald’s new book,"With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful,” offers a scathing critique of what he calls the two-tiered system of justice that ensures the political and financial class is virtually immune from prosecution in the United States. Greenwald explores how the media, both political parties, and the courts have abetted a process that has produced torture, war crimes, domestic spying, financial fraud and even the assassination of U.S citizens. [Transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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Police Fire Tear Gas, Flash Grenades as Protesters Try to Retake Occupy Oakland After Predawn Raid

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Oct. 26 (News Report) - Oakland police repeatedly fired tear gas and flash grenades Tuesday night as protesters attempted to retake the Occupy Oakland encampment outside City Hall—only 12 hours after police tore apart the camp and arrested more than 90 people in a pre-dawn raid. Observers said that at times the downtown resembled a war zone last night. Some protesters are being held on $10,000 bail. We speak to Rachel Jackson of the Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality and State Repression about how the police are handling Occupy Oakland.

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Dozens Arrested at Occupy Oakland As Police Raid Encampment, Tear Down Tents

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Oct. 25 (News Report) - Oakland police stormed the Occupy Oakland protest encampment outside City Hall just before 5:00 a.m. PDT. Police lobbed flash grenades and reportedly fired tear gas. Initial reports say at least 70 people have been arrested and the police tore apart the protest camp.

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Constitutional Rights Lawyer Michael Ratner: Failed Occupy Wall Street Evacuation Order is Illegal

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Oct. 14 (News Report) - attorney Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights says New York City’s efforts to displace Occupy Wall Street protesters in order to clean the park violates their First Amendment rights and would have led to a major confrontation. "Apart from the illegality of it, it was just too massive," Ratner says. "It would have been a bloodbath. The idea that they were going to come in here when there were thousands of people all over the place, union people everywhere, they could not have successfully closed this park down... It’s too big now. This park is becoming a permanent feature of the next generation of protests."

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Tea Party Gets the Constitution Wrong

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Robert Parry - Sep. 18 (News Analysis) - Like any government document, the Constitution can only be understood in the context of what it replaced – and why. The Constitution superseded the Articles of Confederation, which guided the new country starting in 1777. The Articles granted broad authority to the states with only a weak national government. As the Revolutionary War wore on and during the early years of peace, many American leaders – including George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson – came to view the Articles as unworkable and a threat to the survival of the new nation.

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14th Amendment: Democratic Senators See Debt Ceiling As Unconstitutional

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Ryan Grim, Samuel Haass - Jun. 29 (News Report) - Growing increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for a deal that would raise the debt ceiling, Democratic senators are revisiting a solution to the crisis that rests on a simple proposition: The debt ceiling itself is unconstitutional.

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Michigan Residents File Lawsuit Challenging Emergency Law Installing Unelected City Managers

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Juan Gonzalez - Jun. 23 (News Report) - A group of Michigan residents have filed a suit challenging a controversial new state law that allows the governor to appoint an un-elected emergency manager or corporation to take over financially distressed towns and cities and effectively fire elected officials. The law empowers these unelected managers to sell off public property, shred union contacts and privatize government services without any input from local voters. Michigan now has un-elected emergency managers running the schools in Detroit, as well as the cities of Pontiac, Ecorse and Benton Harbor. We speak to longtime Detroit resident, Edith Lee-Payne, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit; and John Philo, legal director of the Maurice & Jane Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice, which filed the lawsuit against the state of Michigan.

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Is U.S. Attack on Libya Legal? Rep. Dennis Kucinich Debates Former Reagan Attorney Robert Turner

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jun. 16 (News Analysis) - On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of 10 members of Congress sued President Obama for violating the War Powers Act of 1973 by failing to obtain congressional approval for military operations in Libya longer than 60 days. We host a debate between Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, one of the congressmembers suing President Obama, and Robert Turner, who worked as an attorney in the Reagan White House and is a longtime critic of the War Powers Act. "President Obama's position is absolutely clear: we are not engaged in war in Libya and thus if the War Powers Resolution were constitutional, it still would not apply," Turner says. "I ask you, if another country sent 2,000 planes over the United States and some of those missions dropped bombs on us, would that be an act of war against the United States?," says Kucinich. "That is exactly what we have done in Libya."

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FBI to Expand Domestic Surveillance Powers As Details Emerge of Its Spy Campaign Targeting Activists

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - Jun. 14 (News Analysis) - Civil liberties advocates are raising alarm over news the FBI is giving agents more leeway to conduct domestic surveillance. According to the New York Times, new guidelines will allow FBI agents to investigate people and organizations "proactively" without firm evidence for suspecting criminal activity.

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Restricting Choice

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AU.org - By Sandhya Bathija - Jun. 09 (News Report) - In March, Gov. Dennis Daugaard signed a measure that requires women to consult with a “crisis pregnancy center” (CPC) and wait at least 72 hours before going forward with a pregnancy termination. According to Sedor and other reproductive justice and civil liberties groups, the law is the equivalent of an all-out state abortion ban. Already, access to the procedure was extremely limited within the state, she said.

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Pinckney’s Promise

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AU.org - By Rob Boston - Jun. 09 (Research) - “[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” How did this stipulation end up in our founding document? You can thank Charles Pinckney, a 29-year-old delegate to the Constitutional Convention from South Carolina.

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