ACLU Names Inside-the-Beltway 'Best and Worst' for Civil Liberties in 2007

Top 10 ways our government failed us:

1. Not putting an end to warrantless NSA spying. Congress instead has continued to let the NSA spy without warrants and is considering letting the telephone companies off the hook for spying on Americans illegally. The Senate debated FISA last month before the holiday recess, and in a gift to the American people, legislation that would have forgiven telecom companies for spying on their customers and given the NSA more freedom to spy on Americans was not voted on. Congress is expected to take up the legislation when members return later in January.

2. Not repealing the Military Commissions Act or restoring habeas corpus. Despite a valiant effort and near success, an amendment to restore habeas corpus received 56 votes when it needed 60 votes. The support in the Senate indicates that legislation to fix the Military Commissions Act could pass. The Supreme Court will also issue a decision in 2008 regarding habeas corpus.

U.S. moves immigration inmates without notice

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- U.S. Immigration officials were under fire Sunday for moving detainees from a California immigration detention center to other states without warning.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency did not release the number of detainees moved, nor did it release their whereabouts, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The American Civil Liberties Union said more than 100 detainees were moved Saturday from the Terminal Island facility to various facilities in the southern United States.
Their attorneys -- caught by surprise -- were stymied in their efforts to find their clients.

ACLU attorney Ahilan Arulanantham called the move "a serious injustice by the government" and predicted many trial delays will result.

Nine Murdered in Burmese crackdown

Fascist Bush Government keeping track of every move and every thought

The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.

The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security's effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department's Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country.

Wheelchair-Bound Woman Dies After Being Shocked With Taser 10 Times

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Family attorney Rick Alexander said Delafield's death could have been prevented and that there are four things that jump out at him about the case.

"One, she's in a wheelchair. Two, she's schizophrenic. Three, they're using a Taser on a person that's in a wheelchair, and then four is that they tasered her 10 times for a period of like two minutes," Alexander said.

According to a police report, one of the officers used her Taser gun nine times for a total of 160 seconds and the other officer discharged his Taser gun once for a total of no more than five seconds.

A medical examiner found Delafield died from hypertensive heart disease and cited the Taser gun shock as a contributing factor, the report said. On her death certificate, the medical examiner ruled Delafield's death a homicide.

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Bad Cops! No Doughnuts! Citizen tasered at Kerry Speech.

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"John kerry did try to interfere with the police. at one point, police where holding on to meyers. kerry got to a point where he almost lost his composure and said officer guy. you, let him go. i do want to hear his question, i do want to hear to what he has to say. i do want to answer him. that was at the point the officers said will pull you aside to ask your question. but as he was attempting to ask his question. the officers themselves appeared to me to make themselves clear not allowing him to stay and hear the question and yelling into his ear."
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Police Abuse a Citizen yet again

Notes from the POLICE STATE where a person can't even choose their own clothing

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Proposals to ban saggy pants are starting to ride up in several places. At the extreme end, wearing pants low enough to show boxers or bare buttocks in one small Louisiana town means six months in jail and a $500 fine. A crackdown also is being pushed in Atlanta. And in Trenton, getting caught with your pants down may soon result in not only a fine, but a city worker assessing where your life is headed.
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Bad Cops! No Doughnuts!

Police Abuse captured on Video

Cowboy Justice

Law enforcement officers did not act with excessive force when they fired 104 times at an armed suspect, hitting him 34 times and killing him, investigators announced.

Seven Bakersfield Police Department officers and four Kern County Sheriff's deputies were found to have acted properly in the fatal shooting of Jesus German Sarabia, 24, who was killed when he refused to drop his weapon, investigators with the Bakersfield Police Department's shooting review board announced Friday.

Sarabia is not thought to have fired his weapon, Sheriff Donny Youngblood said.

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Justice Dept. against ‘Net neutrality’

The agency told the Federal Communications Commission, which is reviewing high-speed Internet practices, that it is opposed to "Net neutrality," the principle that all Internet sites should be equally accessible to any Web user.

the government is becoming more actively prepared for the implementation of martial law

George W. Bush issuing a presidential directive declaring that he is a dictator during the case of a national emergency be it a natural disaster, a terror attack or any number of crises.

KSLA reporting that members of clergy will be used to convince people to submit to government in the case of declare martial law. (See Video on site)

The U.S. Department of Treasury conducting a disaster drill to prepare for a potential economic crisis.

In addition to the announcement of Vigilant Shield 08, USNORTHCOM also announced that they have been using the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina to better respond to crises. The response to Hurricane Katrina was essentially used as a test laboratory to implement martial law in a city. People were forced to relocate against their will and authorities stole people�s firearms in the name of safety despite these actions being entirely unconstitutional.

CBS Early Show Removes Anti-War Protesters from View in Kansas City

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“One Day of the Iraq War Equals.” (Such as $720 million, or 84 elementary schools, etc.)

“We started assembling the banners in the park,” Harritt says, “and immediately, a CBS staff person said, ‘You can’t be here. You can’t have those here.’ ”

Harritt and the other activists challenged her, saying, “This is a public park. We have a right to be here,” he recalls. And the anti-war activists had a lawyer with them who defended their right to be there.

They reached a compromise. The CBS employee, along with security, allowed them to stay in the park so long as they did not get into camera view.

“I promise you the TV cameras will not span this area,” the CBS employee said.

That’s not exactly what the protesters had hoped for.

“I was very disappointed,” says Harritt. “CBS was censoring what messages Kansas Cityans were bringing to the Early Show.”

Harritt says other signs were allowed to be seen on camera.

“One was supporting the Navy,” he says. “One said, ‘Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.’ There were signs for things for sale, and commercial signs.”

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Mounted ThugCops break up anti-war meeting in Washington

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"The police suppressed the press conference. In the middle of the speeches, they grabbed the podium" erected in a park in front of the White House for the small gathering, Brian Becker, national organizer of the ANSWER anti-war coalition, told AFP.

"Then, mounted police charged the media present to disperse them," Becker said.

The charge caused a peaceful crowd of some 20 journalists and four or five protestors to scatter in terror, an AFP correspondent at the event in Lafayette Square said. No one appeared to have been hurt.

Three people -- Tina Richards, the mother of a marine who did two tours of duty in Iraq; Adam Kokesh, a leader of the Iraq Veterans Against the War group; and lawyer Ian Thompson, who is an organizer for ANSWER in Los Angeles -- were arrested, Becker said.

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government sanctioned mugging

"Mere possession of approximately $23,700 does not establish probable cause for a search or seizure," the lawsuit said.

It said Prieto pulled into the weigh station about 10:30 a.m. Aug. 8 and was let go about 4 p.m.

DEA agents told Prieto he would receive a notice of federal proceedings to permanently forfeit the money within 30 days and that to get it back, he'd have to prove it was his and did not come from illegal drug sales.

They told him the process probably would take a year, the ACLU said.

The ACLU's New Mexico executive director, Peter Simonson, said Prieto needs his money now to pay bills and maintain his truck. The lawsuit said Prieto does not like banks and customarily carries his savings as cash.

"The government took Mr. Prieto's money as surely as if he had been robbed on a street corner at night," Simonson said. "In fact, being robbed might have been better. At least then the police would have treated him as the victim of a crime instead of as a perpetrator."

The DEA did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

Americans may need passports to board domestic flights or to picnic in a national park next year

Colorado and New Hampshire lawmakers are not alone. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation say the IDs and supporting databases -- which Chertoff said would eventually be federally interconnected -- will infringe on privacy.

EFF says on its Web site that the information in the databases will lay the groundwork for "a wide range of surveillance activities" by government and businesses that "will be able to easily read your private information" because of the bar code required on each card.

The databases will provide a one-stop shop for identity thieves, adds the ACLU on its Web site, and the U.S. "surveillance society" and private sector will have access to the system "for the routine tracking, monitoring and regulation of individuals' movements and activities."

The civil liberties watchdog dubs the IDs "internal passports" and claims it wouldn't be long before office buildings, gas stations, toll booths, subways and buses begin accessing the system.

Bush demads to eavesdrop without warrant or reason and democratic congress gives it to him

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Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.

They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens.

“This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who has studied the new legislation.

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Judges OK warrantless monitoring of Web use

Man Calls for Emergency Medical Help and gets Tasered

The 52-year-old partially disabled man - who also suffers from rheumatoid arthritis - was having a diabetic seizure during the early morning hours of April 28 when his girlfriend, Josie Edwards, called 911 to request paramedics.

“I respect the law and police but on this day I was a shooting target for them when I needed help,” Nelms said in his May 3 written complaint to the police department.

The couple’s statements indicate an officer came to the residence on Perry Avenue and inquired as to what was going on - and then called for backup.

Nelms told the Daily Light that he was in his bed in the couple’s bedroom when officers burst in with their guns drawn and yelling at him to get on the floor.

He said he told them he needed medical help, not the police, but officers continued yelling at him to get on the floor. He said he went to roll over to his right, with photographs indicating he was struck by Taser barbs on his left side, his back and his shoulder. He said he was handcuffed, with paramedics intervening when the officers began trying to yank the Taser barbs from his skin.

Paramedics removed the Taser barbs and then checked his blood sugar, with officers then releasing him from the handcuffs.

In her statement, Edwards, who has Lou Gehrig’s disease and is on oxygen, said an officer came to the door and asked her what was the matter before calling for backup and the paramedics.