[Onthebarricades] Repression in America 1 of 2
Andy
ldxar1 at tesco.net
Mon Apr 14 18:51:12 PDT 2008
* Cop to get training after illegal sign grab
* Security guards stop masked man from getting on train
* "Disruptive" signs banned from council meeting
[WTF?! Disruptive signs?! How is holding a sign disruptive? This kind of regulation is a typical example of micro-management for the sake of chilling free speech
And as for a cop getting “retraining” for illegally taking a banner – I can imagine a protester would face far worse]
* US court tries to close down whistleblower website Wikileaks
* American imam at risk of deportation
* Airport pervs order woman with nipple rings to remove it
* Lynne Stewart - convicted for defending her client; associate gets 28 years in prison just for sharing information
* Absurd charges over Evergreen unrest; media bias is so bad that activists ask for change of trial venue
* Administration target SDS at Evergreen
* Evergreen student victim of crap arrest
* Police steal valuables, guns after Kansas tornado
* LA launches attack on murals
* SWAT team stages violent raid on family... to take boy to hospital
* Police arrest mall-goer for anti-war T-shirt
* Princeton students punished for protest
* Man faces felony charge... for being ill
* California judge outlaws homeschooling
* National ID card opposed
* Activist reports jail term for swearing in court
* US seeks to extradite Puerto Rican
* San Jose to use microwave weapons on protesters
* UCSC arrests for giving food to treesitters
Publicly Archived at Global Resistance: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/352851_protest27.html
Trooper to get more training after protest sign altercation
By LEVI PULKKINEN
P-I REPORTER
A state trooper will be receiving additional training following an altercation with a handful of student protesters Monday on a University District overpass.
Six members of the student chapter of Justice Works, a group advocating reform in the criminal justice system, were holding a large mesh sign on the 45th Street bridge of Interstate 5 when they were approached by the trooper, said Jon Yousling, one of the students organizing the protest.
Protesters had been holding the sign -- which read "Education not incarceration" -- for more than an hour without disturbance when the trooper arrived. Heated words were exchanged as the trooper demanded the protesters remove the sign, which the State Patrol now acknowledges was displayed within the law.
"We knew what the regulations are," said Jaime Brown, a junior at the University of Washington. "He was still trying to get us to release the sign."
The trooper grabbed the sign, then dragged it and one of the protesters into the street, Yousling said. As more officers arrived, it became clear that the broken sign was returned to the protestors.
No arrests were made and no one was injured in the incident.
State Patrol Lt. Bill Gardiner said the incident will be noted in the personnel file of the trooper, who's been with the department for about 18 months. He will also receive training in conflict resolution.
"The bottom line is the trooper was probably a little gruff toward these students," Gardiner said. "It also looks like they were kind of egging him on as well, so there's a little of that."
http://ringospictures.com/index.php?page=20080315
What actually made the story interesting to me was the question of allowing a person with a full backpack, and their face covered, to ride on a subway car.
Is it their right to do so?
The security guard was prepared to call the police, and… the train was not about to leave the station until it was settled.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/story/508867.html
Protest signs at Jackson County Legislature meetings confined to back of room
If you want to hold up a sign expressing an opinion at Jackson County Legislature meetings, step to the rear.
That’s the new policy in response to small signs displayed by former legislative aide Bob WitbolsFeugen.
On Monday, a deputy sheriff escorted WitbolsFeugen out of the meeting to show him a notice posted on the door that all protest signs should be confined to the back of the room.
Dennis Waits, Legislature chairman, said he encourages free expression but signs can be disruptive.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/392191.html
Wikileaks censored by US Court
imc-uk-features | 24.02.2008 12:57 | Repression | World
Transparency website Wikileaks has been muzzled with a legal injunction by a US court following the publication of leaked documents about a Swiss bank implicated in alleged money laundering. The anonymous whistleblower site, devoted to battle against corruption and censorship, published several hundred documents from a Swiss banking whistleblower purportedly showing that Bank Julius Baer and its Cayman Islands subsidiary had been involved in offshore tax evasion and money laundering by extremely wealthy and, in some cases, politically sensitive clients from the US, Europe, China and Peru. Rather than ordering the removal of specific documents, however, the San Francisco District Court ordered Wikileak's DNS registrar, Dynadot, to remove all DNS hosting records for the wikileaks.org domain name and prevent it from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page. There have also been reports of attempts to lock down the site through Denial of Service attacks and threats to its DNS record.
>From the newswire: US judge arranges summary execution of Wikileaks.org | US Court order shuts down Wikileaks.org | US court attacks web freedom, enjoins Wikileaks.org out of existence | Wikileaks and Internet Censorship: a comparative study | Full correspondence between Wikileaks and Bank Julius Baer | Reports elsewhere: IndyBay | Indymedia Ireland | About Wikileaks
Wikileaks has published important leaked documents in the past, such as the Rules of Engagement for Iraq, the Guantanamo Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures and evidence of major bank fraud in Kenya that apparently affected the Kenyan elections. It has recently faced similar legal threats after publishing a confidential briefing memo relating to the dramatic collapse of the Northern Rock bank.
Knowing that governments and institutions will go to extreme lengths to censor the truth, its founders had created an extensive network of cover names from which one can access their materials or continue leaking secret documents. Thus, while Wikileaks.org is down, other mirrors (copies of the site) are still up and running, like wikileaks.be. The site can also still be accessed via its IP address in Sweden.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/19/wikileaks_shut_down_in_us/
US judge arranges summary execution of Wikileaks.org
Many-headed whistleblower site still standing
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco → More by this author
Rate this story
Published Tuesday 19th February 2008 02:31 GMT
Reg Whitepaper - Data Quality and your Business: Keep it clean Nail down your security priorities. Ask the experts and your peers at The Register Security Debate, April 17, 2008
The US arm of Wikileaks, a website that makes it easy for whistleblowers to leak documents, has been cut off after hosting evidence that claimed a bank located in the Cayman Islands engaged in money laundering and tax evasion.
Dynadot, the US-based company that hosted Wikileaks' main site, not only severed wikileaks.org from the net; it also agreed to lock the domain name so it can't be transferred to another provider. A federal judge in San Francisco signed off on the agreement on Friday (15 Feb).
The agreement came in a lawsuit brought by bank Julius Baer, the parent company of the accused Cayman bank. After trying unsuccessfully to get Wikileaks to remove the documents, Swiss-based Julius Baer went after Dynadot, which according to this copy of the court order, agreed to roll over in exchange for the suit against it being dismissed. Dynadot also agreed to turn over records related to Wikileaks, including "IP addresses and associated data used by any person, other than Dynadot, who accessed the account for the domain name".
Wikileaks allows whistleblowers to post documents anonymously - at least when its webhost isn't coerced into turning over IP addresses and other information most customers would consider confidential.
According to this piece from Wired News, Wikileaks was unable to argue its position on the matter at a Friday court hearing because it only learned of the hearing a few hours before it started. Astonishingly, US District Judge Jeffrey White of the Northern District of California signed off on the stipulation, anyway.
The episode is another reminder that an organization's security is only as good as the security of the people who provide its internet connection. Wikileaks claims that it is an "uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis". But this is true only if its webhosts can be trusted not to pull the plug on its customers or divulge sensitive client information.
In this case Julius Baer quickly realized it couldn't silence Wikileaks, so it went after a weaker link in the chain, which evidently was much less willing to put up a fight.
Wikileaks was founded in 2006 by people from a host of countries, including the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa. It has generated headlines by hosting documents exposing several high-profile scandals, including those related to the collapse of the UK's Northern Rock bank and to prisons in Iraq and and Guantanamo Bay. The site says it has posted more than 1.2 million documents.
According to Julius Baer, a former vice president called Rudolf Elmer posted the documents, which purport to show that the Cayman Islands bank helped customers hide assets and launder funds.
The contested documents remain available on Wikileaks websites hosted in other countries, including in here in Belgium and here in India. The site says here that over the past few days it has also withstood a 500 Mbps denial-of-service attack and a fire to its uninterruptible power supply.
Of course, there's no evidence that Julius Baer was behind either the attacks or the fire. But it's clear that Wikileaks hasn't been silenced, at least for now.
Hey, maybe there really is something to these claims about being uncensorable.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/392040.html
Wikileaks and Internet Censorship: a comparative study
Jonathan Werve (Director of Operations, Global Integrity) | 22.02.2008 13:56 | Repression | World
Using data from the Global Integrity Index, we put a U.S. court's recent order to block access to anti-corruption site Wikileaks.org into context. In summary: The Wikileaks.org shutdown is unheard of in the West, and has only been seen in a handful of the most repressive regimes. Good thing it doesn't work very well.
Starting in 2007, Global Integrity added specific questions about Internet censorship to the Integrity Indicators, which are a set of 304 questions addressing the practice of anti-corruption in national governments. We have always held that a free and critical media is an essential component of good governance; adding an analysis of Internet censorship was an overdue refinement.
We asked two questions:
Are Internet users prevented from reaching political material on the Internet?
Are content creators prevented from posting political material to the Internet?
The results of this work are generally encouraging. In examining a diverse group of 50 countries, a majority earn a full score on both counts. Freedom of speech is a widely held right. Moreover, Internet censorship is difficult and is often ineffective in suppressing political activity. Most governments, aside from targeted libel restrictions, don't bother regulating online political speech at all.
The Many Flavors of Internet Censorship
A few countries, however, are deeply committed to trying to make censorship work. On this list in 2007 are Algeria, China, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Russia and Thailand. Each has it's own flavor to the repression of online speech -- Internet censorship is still in an experimentation phase, and even the most aggressive approaches don't seem to work very well.
Algeria has no firewalls or filters, but outlaws hosting content critical of the government, and monitors chat rooms for political speech.
China is home to 1.3 billion people and has a highly scalable technological approach based onextensive content filters known satirically as the Great Firewall of China. China is also uses technology to discourage content creation, deploying cute animated police characters (pictured above) to remind Internet users they are being watched.
Egypt has limited technical means to discourage content creation, so it relies on an old-fashioned technique -- harassment, beatings and arrests. Hala Al-Masry used to publish in a blog entitled "Cops Without Boundaries" until the government harassed her, "unknown people" beat her father, and she and her husband were arrested and signed a commitment to shut down the blog. Similar techniques have shut down websites of opposition parties.
Kazakhstan has little Internet capacity. The government uses this to mask censorship -- rather than block sites, it slows them down, frustrating the users of political content into looking elsewhere. The KNB (formerly the KGB) has a special program called Bolat, which slows down, but does not stop, access to sites of terrorist organizations. Popular opinion holds that it is used to slow opposition party sites as well.
Russia has a mixed bag of state persecution and neglect, allowing a rare opening for free expression in a country with highly restricted media. However, the sophistication of the attacks that do occur is frightening, with hackers singling out individual online targets. For instance, the website of Ekho Moskvy, a liberal Moscow radio station critical of the Kremlin, was brought down by a DDoS attack last year.
Thailand's military junta moved aggressively to shut down message boards and the formerly-ruling party Thai Rak Thai website after taking over the country in 2006. But the junta's censorship cops work to keep the thinnest appearance of tolerance -- message boards were allowed to reopen under the condition that they did not "provoke any misunderstandings." Message received.
So how does the United States fit into this picture?
The court order that muzzled Wikileaks.org (covered here) was prompted not by the government but by a bank registered in the Cayman Islands. The bank used American courts and a compliant domain registrar to scrub the wikileaks.org URL from the Internet. It is extremely unlikely that this decision will stand up in an appeals court, but the larger point is that there is no reason this case should even be fought. Wikileaks should not need a legal team to explain to the courts that the First Amendment requires freedom of speech.
The whole event seems to encapsulate the constant criticism of governance in the United States: that the government has been captured by corporate interests, and that the world-leading rule of law and technocratic mechanisms in place can be hijacked to serve as tools for narrow, wealthy interests.
Online Censorship: Sounds good, but it never works.
While there is much diversity in the style of Internet censorship among the world's worst offenders, one common thread unites them: Internet censorship doesn't work. Cut off one site, and a thousand more pop up. In China, censorship online is sparking criticism that off-line censorship has rarely seen.
So Wikileaks.org went offline, but Wikileaks mirror sites hosted overseas hold the same content, and the original site is still up and running from Sweden (http://88.80.13.160) without its easier-to-type URL. As it turns out, shutting down Wikileaks-the-website has focused our attention on Wikileaks-the-idea, which is spreading at the speed of light.
Jonathan Werve (Director of Operations, Global Integrity)
Homepage: http://wikileaks.be/wiki/Wikileaks_and_Internet_Censorship_-_a_comparative_study
-------------------------------------------------
Asalaamu Alaikum Brothers and Sisters. Please sign the online petition www.americans4qatanani.com. Dr/Imam Qatanani of the "Islamic Center of Passaic County", in NJ is currently facing deportation and needs our support. The story is disturbing but unfortunately a very common practice. Do your part, pass it on!
---------------------------------------------------
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSREE85411920080328
Nipple rings fall foul of airport check
Fri Mar 28, 2008 11:03am EDT
By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A woman who claims she was ordered by federal airport screeners to remove her nipple rings with pliers demanded an apology from the U.S. Transportation Security Administration on Thursday.
Mandi Hamlin, 37, also called for an investigation into the February 24 incident in Lubbock, Texas, saying that snickering male agents violated TSA policy by forcing her to remove the jewelry.
"I felt surprised, embarrassed, humiliated, scared and angry," Hamlin told reporters at the offices of her Los Angeles attorney, Gloria Allred.
"This situation was totally out of control. I will not sit quietly. No one deserves to be treated this way."
The TSA, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security that was set up after the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, said it was investigating the incident but that agents were trained to search people with piercings in "sensitive areas" with dignity and respect.
"TSA is well aware of terrorists' interest in hiding dangerous items in sensitive areas of the body, therefore we have a duty to the American public to resolve any alarm we discover," the agency said in a written statement.
The TSA said incidents of female terrorists hiding explosives in "sensitive areas" were on the rise and provided a picture of a "bra bomb" that was used in training its agents.
Allred said the incident began when Hamlin, who has a number of piercings, set off a hand-held metal detector and told a TSA officer that her nipple rings were the problem.
A small group of TSA officers gathered around Hamlin, Allred said, and told her she would have to remove the jewelry from her nipples if she wanted to board her flight.
Hamlin went behind a curtain and removed one of her nipple piercings but could not budge the other, tearfully telling the officers it could not be taken out without pliers, Allred said.
"As Ms. Hamlin struggled to remove the piercing behind the curtain, she could hear a growing number of predominantly male TSA officers snickering in the background," the attorney said.
Allred said TSA policy called for a pat-down under such circumstances but did not require the piercings to be removed.
(Editing by John O'Callaghan)
http://www.counterpunch.org/lendman04032008.html
Apri1 3, 2008
Targeting Defense Lawyers
Lynne Stewart's Long Struggle for Justice
By STEPHEN LENDMAN
On April 9, 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft made a symbolic
visit to "Ground Zero." While in New York, he held a well-publicized
press conference at the US Attorney's Office and used the occasion
for an indictment. Four individuals were named on charges of
conspiracy and materially aiding a terrorist organization. One of
them was long-time civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart. On the same
day, FBI agents arrested her at her home and illegally seized
documents there and from her office that are protected by attorney-
client privilege.
In July 2003, Federal District Court Judge John Koeltl (a 1994
Clinton appointee) dismissed the original charges for
being "unconstitutionally void for vagueness" and because
they "revealed a lack of prosecutorial standards." Nonetheless,
Stewart was symbolically reindicted on November 22, 2003 (the 40th
year anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination) on five counts
of aiding and abetting a terrorist organization under the 1996
Antiterrorism Act. Specific charges included:
* "conspiring to defraud the United States;
* conspiring to provide and conceal material support to terrorist
activity;
* providing and concealing material support to terrorist activity;
and
* two counts of making false statements."
Stewart was also accused of violating US Bureau of Prisons-imposed
Special Administrative Measures (SAMS) that included a gag order on
her client, Sheik Abdel Rahman. These measures are imposed on some
prisoners to forbid discussion (even with an attorney) of topics DOJ
claims are outside the scope of their "legal representation." It's
all very vague, does more to harass and obstruct justice than
protect state secrets, yet Stewart was forced to accept them to gain
access to her client.
In her case, police state-type attorney-client monitored
conversations provided the basis for her indictment. However,
engaging in this practice stretches the limit of the law, gives DOJ
sole authority to decide how far and for what purpose, and in this
instance egregiously overstepped it by charging defense counsel with
aiding and abetting terrorism for representing her client as
required.
At former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark's request, Stewart agreed
to join him as a member of Rahman's court-appointed defense team. He
was convicted in his 1995 show trial and is now serving a life
sentence for "seditious conspiracy" in connection with the 1993
World Trade Center Center bombing despite evidence proving his
innocence.
However, in what's now common practice, the government's case
related more to his affiliations and anti-western views than
specific evidence presented. Rahman was connected to the Egyptian-
based Al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group) - a 1997 State
Department-designated "Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).
Ironically in the 1980s, he was handled much differently as
a "valuable (CIA) asset" for his influential role in recruiting
Mujahadeen fighters against the Soviets in Afghanistan. It was no
accident that he got a US visa, green card and State Department-CIA
protection for as long as he was valued. When he wasn't, he became a
target along with Lynne Stewart who represented him at trial.
Stewart's charges were trumped up, outrageous, and likely first time
ever instance of a defense attorney in a terrorism case facing
terrorism-related counts - for doing her job as the law requires and
that renders attorney-client confidentiality sacrosanct under our
criminal justice system. No matter, if convicted, she faced a
possible 30 year sentence.
In America's "war on terrorism," her precedent-setting case is
chilling, and president of the Center for Constitutional Rights,
Michael Ratner, explained it: Its "purpose....was to send a message
to lawyers who represent alleged terrorists that it's dangerous to
do so." It's also an effort to exploit the current atmosphere,
incite fear and suspicions, stifle dissent, and make it just as
risky for anyone with openly critical views of government policies.
In Police State America, we're all Lynne Stewarts.
At the time of her indictment, her attorney, Michael Tigar,
explained what was at stake:
"This case (still ongoing) is an attack on a gallant, charismatic
and effective fighter for justice (and has) at least three
fundamental faults: (it) attack(s) the First Amendment right of free
speech, free press and petition; (it) attack(s)....the right to
effective assistance of counsel ....chills the defense....(and)
the 'evidence' in this case was gathered by wholesale invasion of
private conversations, private attorney-client meetings, faxes,
letters and e-mails. I have never seen such an abuse of government
power." In America's "war on terrorism," many other defense
attorneys can cite similar instances of lawlessness and injustice
today.
However, in targeting Stewart, DOJ may have gotten more than it
bargained for. Whatever the outcome, her case shamed the government,
gave her worldwide recognition, made her a powerful symbolic figure,
and elevated her to iconic stature. For her honor, devotion to
principles, and lifetime of service to society's most abused, she
deserves it and more.
Throughout her 30 year career, she never shunned controversy or her
choice of or duty to clients. She represented the poor, the
underprivileged and society's underdogs and unwanted who never get
due process unless they're lucky enough to have an advocate like
her. She knew the risks and understood the state uses every
underhanded trick possible to convict these type defendants and
overwhelm, outspend and/or discredit their counsel doing it.
Nonetheless, she did what the American Bar Association's Model Rules
state all lawyers are obligated to do: "devote professional time and
resources and use civic influence to ensure equal access to our
system of justice for all those who because of economic or social
barriers cannot afford or secure adequate legal counsel."
Defending Sheik Rahman was especially risky, and Stewart knew it.
His case was so high-profile, it made her a target, and she remains
one today. It was the beginning of her long struggle (six years and
running) that included a battle against breast cancer that's now in
remission.
Her trial played out in the same Foley Square courtroom where Julius
and Ethel Rosenberg were unjustly framed, convicted and sentenced to
death in April 1951 on charges of conspiracy to violate the
Espionage Act. It was an earlier time of hysteria when "communism"
was the "threat," national security again the issue, and, in
Stewart's case, she's the victim.
Her trial was a travesty and gross miscarriage of justice with
echoes of the worst type McCarthyist tactics. Inflammatory terrorist
images were displayed in court to prejudice the jurors, and
prosecutors vilified Stewart as a traitor with "radical" political
views. In fact, she always embraced the rule of law with equity and
justice for everyone under it. Nonetheless, prosecutors falsely
accused her of saying violence may be justified to overthrow
oppressive governments and claimed she advocated regime change in
Egypt under its president, ruling despot, and close US ally Hosni
Mubarak.
In addition, just days before the verdict, the extremist pro-Israel
Jewish Defense Organization put up flyers near the courthouse
displaying Stewart's home address, threatened to "drive her out of
her home and out of the state," and said she "needs to be put out of
business legally and effectively." Prosecutors ignored it. It was
all part of a government-orchestrated scheme inside and outside the
courtroom to heighten fear, convict Stewart, and tell other defense
attorneys to expect the same treatment if they represent "unpopular"
clients.
It worked on the jury, and on February 10, 2005 (after a seven month
trial and 13 days of deliberation) Stewart was convicted on all five
counts. Key now would be sentencing for a decisive DOJ victory. If
gotten it would seriously weaken First Amendment free expression
rights and Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable
searches and seizures. It would also destroy fundamental ones under
Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment that guarantees all US
citizens won't be deprived of their right of "life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within
its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
In addition, it would challenge the landmark 1963 Supreme Court
Gideon v. Wainwright decision that affirmed defendants' Sixth
Amendment rights "in all criminal prosecutions (to) the right to a
speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury....to have compulsory
process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the
Assistance of Counsel for his defense."
October 17, 2006 was Stewart's sentencing date. Prosecutors asked
for 30 years and hoped getting it would set a precedent. Instead,
the same Judge Koeltl, who dismissed Stewart's first indictment,
again defied DOJ. He sentenced Stewart to 28 months, let her remain
free on bail pending appeal, implied it might be overturned as a
gross miscarriage of justice, effectively rebuked the government,
and handed them a major defeat.
The trial ended with Stewart proud and vindicated. Next came her
chance for a full exoneration before the US Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit three judge panel. Defense attorney Joshua Dratel
represented her on January 29, 2008 in a packed courtroom of mostly
Stewart supporters with many others denied admittance for lack of
space.
Dratel's job was to convince the court that Stewart had First
Amendment protected speech rights to release her client's statement
to his followers and other interested parties. He also cited Judge
Koeltl's unconstitutional use of US Code Title 18, Part I, Chapter
113B, 2339 (a) relating to "harboring or concealing terrorists"
because he "failed to abide by his promise to impose a specific
intent requirement" when he charged the jury.
In addition, Dratel argued that evidence against Stewart amounted to
no more than three meetings with her client over a two year period.
He further said that she was charged for "isolated and sporadic
conduct" in an alleged plot where no "violent acts were planned or
occurred," and, in fact, there was no plot.
In response to one judge's question about her allegedly saying
Rahman withdrew his support for a cease fire, Dratel stated
the "cease fire was not abrogated. It remained in effect." He
insisted that Rahman merely said it was time to "reevaluate" the
cease fire because of the Egyptian government's oppression and
recalcitrance. Dratel stressed that with no intent to "incite
imminent unlawful conduct or violence," the First Amendment
protected Stewart's statements.
So does the Supreme Court's unanimous 1969 Brandenburg v. Ohio
decision that overturned Ohio's Criminal Syndicalism statute. The
Court ruled that government cannot constitutionally punish abstract
advocacy of force or law violation and only can do so in instances
of directly inciting "imminent lawless actions." Dratel referenced
the "Brandenburg standard" that's the law of the land and under
which Stewart was within her rights.
Assistant US attorney in the Southern District Anthony Barkow, who
was part of the prosecutorial team, argued for the government before
a potentially sympathetic court. It's at a time two-thirds of all
federal judges are from or affiliated with the extremist Federalist
Society. It advocates rolling back civil liberties; ending New Deal
social policies; opposing reproductive choice, government
regulations, labor rights and environment protections; and
subverting justice in defense of privilege.
This is what Stewart is up against as she awaits the decision that
can go either way in an age of police state justice. Under New York
state law, she was automatically disbarred, and the state Supreme
Court's Appellate Division denied her petition to resign
voluntarily. Adding insult to her unjust conviction, it ruled
that "federal convictions provide a proper predicate for automatic
disbarment."
It was the fourth injustice against a woman who spent a lifetime
advocating for society's most disadvantaged. It followed two
falsified indictments, a kangaroo court proceeding, and an
unjustifiable conviction on all counts. Combined they represent an
outrageous miscarriage of justice.
An appeals verdict is due any time, and legions of Stewart
supporters hope justice delayed won't be denied to her. She deserves
full exoneration, readmittance to the state bar, and to be able
again to represent society's most unwanted who need her advocacy and
remain hopeful. So does everyone who respects the law at a time it's
being desecrated.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen at sbcglobal.net.
http://www.thevillager.com/vil_94/lynnestewart.html
Volume 74, Number 41 | February 16 - 22, 2005
Villager photo by Mary Reinholz
Lynne Stewart outside Revolution Books — after hearing a talk on an uprising in Nepal — two days after her conviction on charges of aiding terrorism.
Lynne Stewart still combative after terror verdict
By Mary Reinholz
Two days after an anonymous jury convicted her in federal court of aiding terrorism by conveying messages from her imprisoned terrorist client Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman to an Islamic network in Egypt, Downtown activist lawyer Lynne Stewart took the cold evening air in Manhattan with her husband Ralph Poynter. The couple stopped at Revolution Books on W. 19 St. to listen to an author discuss an uprising in Nepal.
“Like I told The Times, I feel like a truck hit me,” said Stewart, 65, bundled up in a black coat and red stole as she paused to let a reporter snap pictures of her outside the bookstore, which forbade taking photographs inside. She held a bottle of Schweppes seltzer water and smiled wanly.
But during a subsequent Valentine’s Day telephone interview from her Lower Broadway office, across the street from her former headquarters, which she was required to leave eight months ago when a jittery landlord refused to renew her lease “for any amount of money,” Stewart resumed her characteristic feistiness. She dismissed her five-count Feb. 10 conviction as the work of “paranoid” prosecutors and jurors who went along with a government line “like little tin soldiers.”
“They basically strung together their own paranoid view of the world,” Stewart said of the prosecution team, one of whose members, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Dember, had claimed in his summation that Stewart “secretly” hoped to overthrow the Egyptian government by issuing a press statement for the blind and diabetic sheik, a fundamentalist Muslim cleric, in defiance of jailhouse rules. Stewart contended that the jurors who convicted her “wanted to believe” what the government charged in her case, like the general public “wanted to believe there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The government must be right when they said there were W.M.D. The government said we were terrorists and that must also be so,” she added sardonically, referring to herself and two co-defendants, Arabic interpreter Mohammed Yousry and Ahmed Abdel Sattar, a paralegal for the sheik.
Both men were also convicted on all counts following a closely watched post-9/11 trial that spanned more than seven months and ended after 12 days of jury deliberation before U.S. District Court Judge John G. Koetl at Foley Sq.
The verdict shocked and disappointed Stewart and her supporters, some of whom had attended her trial nearly every day.”The motivating factor would have to be a terrible fear of the government,” Stewart continued in evaluating the jurors’ decision, noting that three of the women jurors “wept throughout the entire verdict. This tells me they were unhappy with the verdict but didn’t have the spine to stand up” to the other jurors.
Sattar, a former Staten Island postal worker who had made thousands of government-tapped telephone calls to the sheik’s followers, was found guilty of the most serious charges and faces the prospect of life imprisonment. Yousry faces 20 years in jail. Stewart, who could spend 30 years in prison after sentencing, remains free on a $500,000 bond put up by her three adult children after her 2002 indictment, but must remain in New York. She was unable to explain why prosecutors permitted her stay out of prison, claiming she expected to be “locked in irons” after being pictured in court as “the Devil incarnate.” Herbert Hadad, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York, Southern District, acknowledged the arrangement, but would not comment on details.
As for her current plans before sentencing on July 15, Stewart said: “We’re going to organize” a letter-writing campaign.”We have just been overwhelmed, deluged really, with support from people stopping me in the middle of the street and writing e-mails.” Stewart noted that when she and Poynter went into a Village store to get some valentines “people came up and said, ‘We’re with you.’ There are people all over the country who thought I was going to win and now they’re fighting mad. We’re going to make a big push. We’re hoping to get 100,000 letters” to present to Judge Koeltl, she said.
Stewart also is “crafting an appeal” with her lead defense attorney Michael E. Tigar, who will file motions before the judge late in March, Stewart said, calling to set aside the verdict and schedule a new trial. She is more optimistic for success in sentencing, claiming there are “new sentencing rules” and Koeltl is no longer bound by federal guidlines on sententencing in her case.
Federal prosecutors successfully argued that Stewart defrauded the U.S. government and aided Islamic terrorists when she released a May 2000 press statement to a Reuters reporter in Cairo on behalf of Abdel Rahman, after first signing an agreement that severely limited his communication to the outside world. In the press statement, the sheik announced to fellow members in the militant Islamic Group that he was withdrawing his support for a ceasefire with the Egyptian government. He is currently serving a life sentence at a U.S. prison hospital facility for inciting the first attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993 and conspiring in a thwarted conspiracy to bomb New York City landmarks.
Alberto Gonzales, President Bush’s designated attorney general suceeding John Ashcroft — who had flown from Washington to announce Stewart’s 2002 arrest and indictment — said the convictions “send a clear, unmistakable message that this department will pursue both those who carry out acts of terrorism and those who assist them with their murderous goals.”
Stewart, who was Abdel Rahman’s trial lawyer and continued visiting him after his 1995 conviction, said the government’s claim that she was engaged in a conspiracy with Islamic fundamentalists was based mainly on “just talk” secretly monitored by prosecutors. She adamantly denies she’s a terrorist, noting that no terrorist violence resulted from her conduct. Stewart added she has no Islamic leanings either:
“I’m no fundamentalist, that’s for sure. And I have a fairly strong aversion to most religions. When I represented Sammy the Bull,” she went on, alluding to her former Mafia turncoat client, Salvatore Gravano, prosecutors “didn’t say I was a murderous moll from Bensonhurst.”
In issuing the press statement for Abdel Rahman, Stewart said she was simply acting as a zealous advocate for the ailing sheik, hoping that the publicity she provided him would ease his isolation in jail and facilitate his transfer to a prison in his native Egypt.
As for breaking jailhouse rules, Stewart claimed: “I never felt I was breaking anything. I thought they could cut me off from the client,” she acknowledged of the Bureau of Prison rules known as Special Administrative Measures or SAMS that she signed under both the Clinton and Bush administrations. “It said on this piece of paper that breaking the SAMS could result in being cut off from visits. Neither Reno nor Ashcroft threatened any kind of prosecution,” she added, referring to former Attorney Generals Janet Reno and Ashcroft when they headed the U.S. Justice Department.
New York’s legal community appears to be divided on whether Stewart’s conviction sends a chilling message to criminal defense lawyers who represent unpopular clients. Some clearly think it does.
“I think the jury verdict, like the decision by the government to charge Lynne Stewart, will have an enormously chilling affect on the abillity of lawyers to take on unpopular clients,” said Downtown lawyer Daniel L. Alterman, a former president of the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and an adjunct professor at New York Law School who has taken on constitutional cases. “They will perceive that their actions will come under greater scrutiny by the govenrmment and hit them where they don’t want to be hit — in the public eye and the pocketbook.”
Michael G. Dowd, a Manhattan criminal defense lawyer who has represented defendants ranging from battered women who have killed abusive husbands to accused gunrunners for the I.R.A., said he felt “physically ill” over the verdict and predicted that it “will curtail really good advocacy. It means there’s a new set of rules.This is about politics and it smacks of the kind of fear I would have imagined was from the McCarthy era but am too young to remember,” added Dowd, whose license was suspended in the 1980s for three and a half years after he acted as a whistle blower in the Parking Violations Bureau scandal. Stewart faces automatic disbarment because she’s been convicted of felonies.
Martin Stolar, who is the current president of the New York City Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and a strong supporter of Stewart, said she had an obligation as a criminal defense lawyer for the sheik “to do everything she could to keep him in the public eye, rather than having him locked away in the dark hole the government put him in. So it makes me a little nervous because I do these kinds of cases and feel I have a target on my back.”
In response to the verdict, on Feb. 17, Both Stolar and Stewart will be among the speakers at a Guild-sponsored “Day of Outrage” forum starting 7:30 p.m. at the Community Church of New York, 40 E. 35th St., between Park and Madison Aves.
But other legal minds in the city are clearly not outraged by Stewart’s legal problems, claiming she crossed a professional line.”I’m not troubled by the verdict,” said Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University School of Law who specializes in legal ethics. “A bar license is not a license to violate the criminal law,” he said. “I don’t know whether or not Stewart did what the government said she did, but its evidence did not merely show zealous behavior by an aggressive lawyer. Defense lawyers who fight hard for their clients are not threatened from this prosecution or verdict.”
Former Mayor Ed Koch, who now works for a New York law firm, said he “agreed with the verdict” and contended the jury did a “splendid job.” He said Stewart had “an obligation under the law” to abide by the prison agreements she repeatedly signed. “She was convicted by a jury who had the facts before them,” he said. “Her defense is that she was immune to such charges because she was a lawyer. I think she violated her responsibility as a lawyer and as an officer of the court.” Koch said he “wasn’t going get into details” about the government’s charge that Stewart participated in an Islamic conspiracy “because I wasn’t in the courtroom.”
Ron Kuby, the radical lawyer and radio talk show host who briefly represented Sheik Abdel Rahman with the late William Kunstler in the 1990s, said the jurors who convicted Stewart were clearly not “drawn from the ranks of those activists steeped in the robust tradition of political dissent. Their view was more narrow — lawyers, of all people, should know where the line is drawn and should not cross it,” he said. “We are expected to know exactly what is and what is not permissible. In the context of Lynne’s case — a radical lawyer in the post-9/11 era — trying to explain not only why her actions were justified, but why they were necessary to uphold the liberty of us all — it was just not going to fly.”
Some of Stewart’s friends who are not lawyers took a decidedly earthy view about her conviction. “It sucks,” said Brooklyn prankster Aron Kay, a Yippie known for splattering political enemies with pies. “It’s a prelude to a police state.”
http://ahmedabdelsattar.org/
[see link for action suggestions]
The Tragedy of Ahmed Abdel Sattar: Egyptian-American Political Prisoner
The case of Ahmed Abdel Sattar should be a matter of serious concern for all Americans. It is the classic case of the U.S. government targeting a U.S. citizen merely because he is an opponent of a client regime of the White House.
Who is Ahmed Abdel Sattar?
Originally from Egypt, Ahmed is an unassuming, humble U.S. citizen, who worked honestly and diligently for the U.S. Postal Service in New York. He was never involved in criminal activity of any kind. In fact, he was known in his community for his piety and virtue, and no one"friend or foe"ever accused him of any underhanded or crooked activities.
A long-time community activist, he was deeply involved in his local mosque in the hopes of creating a better future for the children of his largely Egyptian community. He never preached, instigated, or supported violence against the United States.
Ahmed had deep roots in America. Married to Lisa Sattar, an attractive and compassionate Caucasian-American Muslim from Chicago, Ahmed was confident that he had a future in this land of immigrants. Lisa and Ahmed have four children: Omar (age 19); Ali ( age 18); and twins Amina and Mohamed (age 14).
Fusion of American Democratic Values and Knowledge from the Qur'an led to Opposition to the Egyptian Regime
As Ahmed studied the Qur'an and surveyed the Egyptian political scene, he become an opponent of the murderous Hosni Mubarak regime in Egypt. It seemed to him that anyone who supported democracy and human rights should oppose such a regime.
Ahmed's Relationship with Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman
Many Americans are not aware of the cataclysmic changes which occurred in Egypt during the '70s and '80s. These changes included the Egyptian government's decision to recognize Israel, against the will of the majority of Egyptian people. The CIA had evidently infiltrated the top echelons of the Egyptian government.
In response to this hijacking of Egyptian national policy (and the resultant domestic crackdown on dissidents), various Islamic groups evolved. The most successful of these was Gamaa al-Islamiyya, known for its social work in the Egyptian slums. Gamaa also urged its members to resist the regime's repression, torture and murder.
Gamaa al-Islamiyya proliferated into thousands of decentralized groups. Its spiritual leader was Dr. Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, a Ph.D from al-Azhar University, whose dissertation was on the meaning of jihad in the Qur'an. The mass movement "rooted in mosques, villages, and the poor" posed a serious challenge to Mubarak's brutal regime.
Under severe repression and after repeated arrests, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman emigrated to the U.S. Blind and diabetic, he viewed the U.S. as a place of refuge where he hoped to live in peace, as a traditional Muslim scholar teaching the rulings of Islam on a variety of issues. His learning won him the admiration of thousands of American Muslims, and he was invited to speak at mosques around the country. He did not preach against the U.S., but was a harsh critic of the Mubarak regime. The era of Osama bin Laden had not begun.
Ahmed Abdel Sattar was drawn to the Shaikh, as a valuable source of Islamic knowledge. Ahmed admired the honesty of the Shaikh's rulings, his otherworldliness, his erudition in Qur'an and hadith, and his opposition to the Hosni Mubarak regime. Ahmed often disagreed with the Shaikh, but even in disagreement, he found the Shaikh's learning attractive and infectious. The more he listened to the Shaikh, the more he was drawn to him. It never dawned on Ahmed that the U.S. was being taken over by Israel, and would no longer be a haven for opponents of regimes linked to Israel.
The Arrest of Shaikh Omar
The Shaikh was eventually arrested, charged, and convicted on trumped up charges, likely to please Hosni Mubarak, who was disturbed by the former's growing support in the U.S. Ahmed could hardly believe that a man of God could be arrested and brought to trial in the Land of the Free on terrorism charges, simply because he opposed the criminal regime of Hosni Mubarak.
Why is Ahmed Abdel Sattar in Prison?
The Zionists in New York wanted to 'get' Ahmed for his unwavering efforts to mobilize support to stop violation of the Shaikh's human rights. Initially they did not succeed, because U.S. law did not allow a person who stands up for the rights of a dissident to be labeled terrorist for his views. Ahmed had lived a clean life, giving the authorities no ammunition for their witch hunt against him.
Soon after 9-11, Ahmed's house was raided on the pretext that there might be weapons there. None were found. Then, in April 2002, he was arrested on charges which may only be described as absurd. The government had monitored his phone conversations with Egyptian dissidents, in which he'd urged opposition to Hosni Mubarak. Ahmed was kept in solitary confinement for a year and four months. When his case finally came up for review, the judge found there was no case of terrorism to be made against Ahmed.
Despite this, Ahmed continued to be held without bail. Because of his standing in the Egyptian community, upstanding members of the community offered their homes as collateral for bail. However, at the bail hearing, the judge accepted the prosecution notion that Ahmed was a "flight risk." As he was led away following the hearing, he waved to Lisa and his children and said: "Be not afraid. Allah is with us." (Slight abbreviation of the Prophet's (PBUH) words to Abu Bakr (R.A.) given in Sura Taubah.) From July 2003 onwards, the government held Ahmed without bail on frivolous charges of "soliciting violence" and "fraud."
On October 24, 2006, Ahmed was convicted and sentenced to 28 years in prison as punishment for his phone conversations with members of the Egyptian opposition. Sattar had been held in solitary confinement and on 24-hour lockdown for an extended period leading up to his conviction, and appeared pale at his sentencing. His co-defendants, Lynne Stewart and Mohammad Yousry were sentenced to 28 months and 20 months, respectively. In January 2007, Sattar was moved from New York to Colorado's infamous Supermax, far away from family and friends.
Left without head of household, Sattar's family was hounded and persecuted in New York. His sons were fired from their jobs by an employer who invoked 9-11 (as if these children had been personally involved in the event!). The bank accounts of Lisa Sattar, and the Sattar children were closed without explanation by Sovereign Bank, where they'd held accounts. They were completely and utterly abandoned by New York's major masajid and Majlis-e-Shura (largest Islamic organization in the New York area).
2001-10-27 Sat 15:23ct
Ahmed Abdel Sattar , the reknowned human rights activist, paralegal/translator to Shaikh Omar 'Abdel Rahman, ( NewTrendMag.org/rahman.html ) lived in Staten Island, New York. He went downstairs from his apartment to stop a fight between two 15-year olds. Minutes later, after he had come upstairs, the police entered his apartment without a search warrant claiming he had beaten up one of the young people. They had been keeping an eye on his apartment and used this opportunity to carry out a search without a warrant, messing up his home and disturbing his family.
2004-07-14 Wed 19:18ct
Lisa Abdel Sattar:
On July 7, 2004, after 8 months of reliable and prompt service my sons were fired from their jobs as busboys at the corner restaurant, The Elm Park Inn 238 MorningStar Rd. in Staten Island, NY 10303. We live two doors from this establishment which proved to be very convenient for the owners.
However, upon learning of my husbands incarceration, nationality/religion, the owner Jim Walsh, confided in a waitress that he had fired my sons because of who their father was. Knowing that this could have negative repercussions, he covered up by telling co workers that my sons were fired because business was slow and they needed to cut back.
Not satisfied with this explanation my oldest son, Omar 17, decided to look into the real reasons. After questioning the cooks and waitresses it was disclosed that they were indeed fired for who they are. My son Omar decided to go straight to the boss and ask him to his face why they were fired. Well, the truth came out in front of customers and other employees. "My wife died 9-11, every time I look at you I think of my wife and I don't want you working here!" My son told him that firing him for this reason was discrimination and that was illegal, not to mention the fact. His response," I don't care." Approximately half an hour later two men, 30-35 6ft. 200lbs, door asking for my 17 year old son. came to my They proceeded to tell him that if he caused any problems for his father or the business they would come back and take care of the problem and that he and his brother, Ali 15 yrs. old, should stay out of the restaurant.
During the incident I was on the phone with 911 explaining that there were two men at my door threatening my 17 year old son. It took police over 45 min to get here.
http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_030508WAB_evergreen_riot_arrests_SW.25436f35.html
Five charged in Evergreen riot case
09:59 PM PST on Wednesday, March 5, 2008
KING5.com Staff
OLYMPIA - Five people have been charged with felonies in connection with the riot at Evergreen State College in Olympia last month.
Raw cell phone video of the riot
All five suspects are being held without bail until their first court appearance Thursday.
The Thurston County Sheriff's Office says four of the suspects are Evergreen students, and fellow students came out to protest the arrests.
Officials say more arrests are coming, but they won't say how many more suspects face charges or when they'll be rounded up.
"This isn't retribution, this is justice," said Thurston County Sheriff Dan Kimball.
Related Content
More arrests coming
Charged with Riot and Malicious Mischief in the 1st degree are Monica L. Ragan, 18, of Olympia; Nina R. Hinton, 19, of Mount Vernon; and Peter B.B. Sloan, 18, of Olympia. Ragan and Hinton are students at Evergreen.
Chase E. Hill, 23, of Olympia has been charged with Theft 2nd Degree. He is listed as a student at Evergreen. Jake D. Silberman, 19, of Olympia has been charged with Riot while armed with a deadly weapon and Malicious Mischief 1st degree. Silberman is also listed as a student at Evergreen.
Videotapes from the riot helped detectives identify suspects. Roughly 200 people were involved in the melee on the campus following a rap concert in the school gym. A Thurston County patrol car was destroyed in the incident.
Investigators say Silberman, an Evergreen baseball player, pulled the bumper off the car. Hill allegedly admitted to stealing a rear seat from the squad car and taking it to his dorm room.
Sloan is accused of spray-painting the car, and Hinton and Ragan apparently kicked the car.
"We'll see what happens with this, let's hope justice is served," Ragan said Wednesday.
An Evergreen spokesperson says the school is conducting an internal investigation. It's possible students could face suspension or even expulsion from the college.
Anyone with information is asked to [***************]
http://www.theolympian.com/570/story/379497.html
TCSO
Five people have been charged with felonies in connection with the riot at Evergreen State College in Olympia in Feb., 2008.
Arrests made in connection with Evergreen campus riot
Jeremy Pawloski
The Olympian
OLYMPIA - The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office arrested five people - three males and two women - Wednesday morning in connection with the destruction of sheriff’s patrol cars during a riot outside a hip-hop concert at The Evergreen State College Feb. 15.
Photo gallery: 5 Arrested in Evergreen Riot Case
Four of the five individuals to be arrested in connection with the behavior of concertgoers at the riot are Evergreen students, said Thurston County Chief Criminal Deputy James Chamberlain. The two women who were arrested are members of the 2007 Evergreen women’s soccer team, according to Evergreen’s Web site.
One of the males who was arrested is a member of Evergreen’s club baseball team.
All were arrested on felony warrants, according to Chamberlain.
One of the male arrestees was arrested at campus housing at around 7 a.m. Wednesday. The rest were arrested off-campus.
Jake Silberman, 19, of Bush St. Northwest in Olympia, was arrested on suspicion of riot while armed with a deadly weapon and first-degree malicious mischief. Silberman is listed as a student at Evergreen. He is a member of Evergreen’s club baseball team, according to the team's Web site.
Peter Sloan, 18, of Schinke Road Northeast in Olympia, was arrested on suspicion of riot and first-degree malicious mischief. He is not an Evergreen student.
Chase Hill, 23, of Indian Pipe Loop, Northwest in Olympia was arrested on suspicion of second-degree theft. He is listed as an Evergreen student.
Monica Ragan, 18, of 9th Avenue Northwest in Olympia, was arrested on suspicion of riot and first-degree malicious mischief. She is listed as an Evergreen student.
Nina Hinton, 19, of Mt. Vernon, Wash., was arrested on suspicion of riot and first-degree malicious mischief. She is listed as an Evergreen student.
Evergreen’s Web site lists Ragan and Hinton as members of Evergreen’s women’s soccer team.
A total of four sheriff’s patrol cars were damaged during the riots, including one that was flipped over and completely destroyed.
Sheriff’s detectives are still investigating. Anyone with information about the riots can call the sheriff’s office at 786-5500, or Crime Stoppers at 360-493-2222.
Thurston County Sheriff Dan Kimball said of Wednesday morning’s arrests, “On the morning of February 15, mob rule took over on the campus of the Evergreen State College. This morning you began to see the rule of law take back over.”
Kimball said the arrests were made by identifying students on video footage of the riots that was seized by Evergreen police and handed over to Thurston County detectives. Detectives also used other investigatory techniques to develop probable cause for arrests, Kimball said.
First-degree malicious mischief is a class B felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine. Riot is a class C felony when a committed while in possession of a deadly weapon. Class C felonies are punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Second-degree theft also is a class C felony, punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
http://www.theolympian.com/southsound/story/401698.html
Two riot defendants ask for change of trial venue
Jeremy Pawloski
The Olympian
Two of the five people charged with the destruction of Thurston County Sheriff's patrol cars during a Feb. 15 riot outside a hip-hop show at The Evergreen State College want a change of venue, saying that inflammatory coverage in The Olympian has prejudiced Thurston County's jury pool.
"In the case at hand there has been extensive media coverage (especially photographs of the defendants) allegedly involved in the Saint Valentine's day unrest at Evergreen State College," reads Joseph Sloan's motion. "The local newspaper, The Olympian, has provided not only photographs of the events, but video images of the events on its Web site, including individuals destroying a Sheriff's Office patrol car, and the Defendant being taken into custody in handcuffs."
A fair trial
A change of venue to Pierce County would ensure a fair trial, Sloan argues in his motion.
Joseph Sloan is the father of his client, Peter B. Sloan.
Four patrol cars were damaged at a cost of about $50,000 during the riot, according to the sheriff's office, and one was flipped and destroyed. The riot started after concertgoers outside a Dead Prez show at the Campus Recreation Center challenged an Evergreen officer's arrest of another concertgoer accused of fighting, court papers state. Some members of the crowd thought the arrest was racially motivated.
When backup arrived, police used pepper spray and batons or flashlights to move the crowd, which was blocking the Evergreen officer. Police said crowd members threw objects at them, according to court papers.
The two defendants who are part of the change-of-venue motion are Sloan, 18, and Jake Silberman, 20, both of Olympia.
The Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney's Office has opposed the motion.
"In any event, any defendant, no matter what his appearance, would be hard pressed to find a more diverse community than Thurston County," reads prosecutor Michael Maltby's motion to deny change of venue.
Maltby's motion also argues that it is premature to argue that the jury pool is prejudiced.
Sloan, the only one of the five defendants who is not a student at Evergreen, has pleaded not guilty to charges of riot and first-degree malicious mischief. He is accused in court papers of tagging the rear bumper of a Thurston County Sheriff's patrol car with black spray paint.
Silberman, a member of Evergreen's baseball team, has pleaded not guilty to riot while armed with a deadly weapon and first-degree malicious mischief. He is accused of striking a sheriff's patrol car and tearing off its rear bumper.
Sloan and Silberman have signed declarations stating they do not think they can get a fair trial in Thurston County.
Joseph Sloan also has filed a motion asking prosecutors to file a "bill of particulars" disclosing what specific behavior establishes his client's criminal liability. The motion also asks prosecutors to disclose all evidence supporting their theory of liability in the case.
The change-of-venue motion is pending. All five of the defendants face prospective jail sentences and felony convictions if they are found guilty.
http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2008/03/265325.shtml
Political Repression at TESC: Administration and Police Move Against SDS
author: Olympia SDS
Mar 12, 2008 15:02
The Evergreen State College administration has specifically targeted Olympia Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) for political repression by canceling events and threatening to suspend its student group status. This is an attack on student activism and free speech generally and on SDS' political statements and affiliations specifically. After the events of February 14th, SDS discovered that the administration had encouraged the police to investigate the organization as well as prominent activists from the Port of Olympia demonstrations. SDS was the first group to come out publicly against the administration's cooperation with law enforcement and police racism, sexism, and violence. The fact that SDS has been singled out for scrutiny highlights the administration's focus on repressing dissent.
This scrutiny culminated in the cancellation of two events that SDS planned for Friday, March 7th. The events were planned months ahead of time and all the paperwork was finished weeks in advance. One of the events, a panel discussion and film screening, centered on the San Francisco 8 (SF8), a group of former Black Panthers and community activists brought up on thirty-five-year-old charges obtained through torture. Following this event was an acoustic performance headlined by David Rovics. This event was a benefit for an anti-war activist, Carlos Arredondo. Given that the concert moratorium did not pertain to some other events, such as The Tim and Travis Grievance Show, The Wet Spots (a musical comedy), Contra Dancing, and Kimya Dawson (drawing three hundred people), the folk performance was singled out and cancelled for purely political reasons. Also, since the concert moratorium had absolutely no bearing on non-musical events, such as Christa Bell's She-ism, Diversity Race and Power in Academe, Resisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention Centers, the Palestine Education Project, and Jo Kadi on Feminism and Militarism, the SF8 panel discussion should not have been cancelled.
These events were publicized as separately occurring one after the other, not as a single concert. Given the punitive reason for the cancellations, SDS consulted with the various performers and speakers about their wishes for the events and decided to hold them anyway. This decision was not made lightly, as organizers had spent over one hundred hours planning, promoting, and executing both events. Roughly one hundred people packed Lecture Hall One on Friday for the SF8 presentation, and nearly fifty people stayed for the acoustic benefit afterward.
On Monday morning, SDS was informed by the administration that it faced potential suspension as a student group for its actions, which would include a ban on the use of pre-approved funds, holding events, and access to school facilities and meeting spaces. This is not in keeping with the Student Activities Handbook, as the first course of action for the administration is not suspension but a warning. Furthermore, disciplinary action is usually reserved for violating official written policy. The concert moratorium was a publicity stunt announced to pacify the public, not official school policy. If the administration continues its unprecedented use of executive decrees as school policy, then SDS will challenge them with legal and community action.
In one of his recent emails to all members of the campus community, college president Les Purce stated that "open discourse is a core element of our learning process" at Evergreen. His administration is in direct violation of this statement, as he is trying to prevent a large segment of the community from exercising its right to free speech.
Profit-Based?
Posted by: ./ at Mar 14, 2008 10:20
Evergreen is a state college, dude.
The arrests aren't about college money -- public or private. It would have been easy to brush the incident off as the results of rowdy college students, the strangely hypnotic power of hip hop, or some phat ass chronic. However, the incident occurred during television sweeps, so the local media chose to distort the story in order to generate a climate of public fear and anger. Why? Because fear/anger equals news rating. Nothing creates fear in a liberal like a police car flipped over.
Shame on the Evergreen administration for not standing up against the news hype. The University of Washington administration would have been in front of the story -- and thoroughly investigated the situation itself rather than let the media (and the cops) run roughshod over its students.
tesc administration's evalution
Posted by: mariposa d9, serial number 949623 at Mar 17, 2008 12:34
your swastikas are showing
Dear OlySDS
Posted by: Andy Rosenberger at Mar 19, 2008 15:24
I myself was stopped carrying a few beers late at night and was basicly tackled and threatened to be tazor'd. I've talked to folks who went to Evergreen decades ago and they said on spring days like this you'd see kids leaving class, lighing up joints and walking around free, instead of this annoying police state found there today.
The issue is students should be policing themselves, the fact that a large number of students end up getting arrested every year for drug use, causing a disturbance, or for beer in their own dorm disheartening to say the least. Especially at a university like evergreen, that now seems to be straining towards the right, this situation comes off as a bit embarrising. When students realize the real problem is from invasive police department then action can be effectively taken to rid the campus of the complex, to send the goat out.
Thats right, the only sane response is a reconnoiter, the police ought to be kicked off campus, the power of RAs limited, and on various level the parties will improve.
http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2008/03/265502.shtml
Olympia SDSer Arrested!
author: Kyle Kaunas
Mar 21, 2008 00:14
Free Forrest Student!
On Tuesday, March 18, local activist Forrest Student and member of SDS at The Evergreen State College in Olympia was targeted by Officer Perez of the Evergreen Police. Perez has a history of harassing and abusing students and other people on campus. When Perez approached him and started questioning him, the person said he had the right to have an attorney present and because of that, Perez arrested him for obstruction. Forrest continued in his refusal, demanding an attorney while in jail and at his arraignment. In response his charges were increased to misdemeanor criminal mischief. The judge refused to set bail and Forrest is still sitting in jail. He will not be released until he appears before a judge, which at the earliest will be on Friday.
Forrest has been very involved in local politics of late, participating in the Port of Olympia protests in November and being very vocal in his criticism of the conduct by the Administration on campus in the wake of the events on Feb. 14th. In the current environment of political repression on campus and elsewhere, this development proves significantly troublesome. Forrest has been held in jail and is facing charges for exercising a right protected by the Fifth Amendment, the right not to speak to law enforcement without representation.
If you would like to lend assistance to Forrest for legal matters, send check or money to:
Forrest Student
910 4th Ave. E
Olympia, WA 98506
http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2008/03/265258.shtml
Evergreen 6 Legal Defense Fund
author: Tom
Mar 08, 2008 18:24
Please help the Evergreen 6!
Olympia SDS has set up a legal defense fund to contribute to the defense of the Evergreen 6, the individuals charged with felonies in relation to the incident at Evergreen on February 14th. We have also set up a website at http://evergreen6.x10hosting.com/ which has more information and allows you to donate online.
Please donate if you can, and let others know about the defense fund and the website (the site will soon be located at http://www.evergreenlegaldefense.org/ once the domain registration goes through). The people unjustly arrested need all the support we can give them. For more info, please contact evergreenlegaldefense at gmail.com.
Free the Evergreen 6!
http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2008/03/265208.shtml
Report from the Support Rally For Evergreen Arrestees
author: dj questionmark
Mar 06, 2008 18:11
Five people were arrested Wednesday March 5th in relation to the events at The Evergreen State College on February 14th . They were arraigned March 6th at the Thurston County Courthouse. Supporters of these members of our community called for a rally outside of the Courthouse. Audio from Courthouse Rally
Five people were arrested Wednesday March 5th in relation to the events at The Evergreen State College on February 14th . They were arraigned March 6th at the Thurston County Courthouse. Supporters of these members of our community called for a rally outside of the Courthouse.
---------------------------------------------------------------
GREENSBURG KANSAS POST TORNADO GUN CONFISCATIONS
This town was locked down tight for several days and no one was allowed in or out. The only people in that town during this time were Sheriffs Officers, Kansas Highway Patrol Officers, ATF, FEMA, National Guard, Police Officers from surrounding areas and some volunteers from Ft. Riley, generally speaking, government officials. Authorities claim no one else was there or could have gotten in or out. Interestingly enough, I have been told repeatedly by all sources that the media was allowed to roam freely without escorts through Greensburg. Shall we ask why residents were not allowed to stay on their own property but media was allowed unfettered access?
Many guns and other valuables such as jewelry have gone permanently missing and have never been recovered. There were some houses that were not destroyed and were in tact and habitable. Those folks did not want to leave but were forced to do so. When they returned they found their houses had been broken in to and all of their guns missing. One gentleman reports that when he went to claim his guns, taken from his secure home, they were returned to him in damaged condition. They were not damaged by the tornado. They were locked up in his home and illegally confiscated. So how do we suppose that damage occurred? www.whatreallyhappened.com
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=121607
GREENSBURG KANSAS POST TORNADO GUN CONFISCATIONS
Posted By: J <Send E-Mail>
Date: Monday, 31 March 2008, 5:04 p.m.
READ AND KEEP THESE IN MIND:
NEVER have firearms purchased through a 4477 federal registration form. Buy privately, with cash for no records.
NEVER openly store your firearms, and that includes a standard rifle safe. Make a sturdy hidden safe or hidden room that will withstand high wind, fire, or earthquake. Have more than one in case one is broken into/lost.
ALWAYS expect the government's priority post disaster to be setting up a control grid, and rounding up YOUR GUNS. Maybe, they'll let you have them after you re-register them.
ALWAYS expect the worst response by federal goons for even the mildest reasonable objection you might have to their police state tactics.
ALWAYS expect the cops and feds to lie to you-except when they say they'll kill you.
J. Croft
http://freedomguide.blogspot.com
GREENSBURG GUN CONFISCATIONS
By Patricia A. Stoneking
I would like to start this report by noting that I have personally spoke with several sources who were directly involved in the incidents that I am about to report that took place in Greensburg, KS in the aftermath of the horrible CAT 5 tornado that ravaged and destroyed that town. I will not be divulging their names in this article as they have requested I not do so.
The first thing I would like for everyone to acknowledge is that the residents of Greensburg were forced to evacuate and that, in and of itself, was an illegal action as martial law had not been declared. There were many people who wanted to stay and they were threatened with arrest and forcible removal if they did not leave as ordered. The tornado happened at 9:46pm on Friday evening, May 4, 2007 and they were forced to leave within a couple hours of it, being given no time to collect themselves or assess the damages or even try to pick up anything such as guns and valuables. Ed Klummp, Police Chiefs Association, testified at the House committee hearing with a position opposing The Emergency Powers Act and said the evacuations were so they could search for bodies and shut off gas and power and that the evacuation was for the safety of the residents. I have been told by a reliable source that the electricity was shut off prior to the tornado striking and the gas was shut off within a few hours after. It would seem that the evacuation was not necessary in light of that information. Perhaps the position should have been that those who want to leave be provided a way to do so and those who wish to stay be allowed to stay.
This town was locked down tight for several days and no one was allowed in or out. The only people in that town during this time were Sheriffs Officers, Kansas Highway Patrol Officers, ATF, FEMA, National Guard, Police Officers from surrounding areas and some volunteers from Ft. Riley, generally speaking, government officials. Authorities claim no one else was there or could have gotten in or out. Interestingly enough, I have been told repeatedly by all sources that the media was allowed to roam freely without escorts through Greensburg. Shall we ask why residents were not allowed to stay on their own property but media was allowed unfettered access?
Many guns and other valuables such as jewelry have gone permanently missing and have never been recovered. There were some houses that were not destroyed and were in tact and habitable. Those folks did not want to leave but were forced to do so. When they returned they found their houses had been broken in to and all of their guns missing. One gentleman reports that when he went to claim his guns, taken from his secure home, they were returned to him in damaged condition. They were not damaged by the tornado. They were locked up in his home and illegally confiscated. So how do we suppose that damage occurred?
Guns and ammunition that were collected were taken to a trailer and an ATF agent manned the trailer. When people first came to collect their guns they were asked for proof of ownership such as receipts and serial number lists and they had to fill out a 4473 and get a NICS approval before they could claim their guns. No one had paperwork, receipts, or lists of serial numbers because it had all blown away. Later into the process they quit demanding these items and asked only for a list with make, model and description of the firearm. In one case, in the collection trailer, a gun case was claimed by one man who had a very nice trap shotgun in it and when he opened the undamaged and closed case, he found not his nice BT99 but another damaged gun that did not belong to him. That $1500.00 BT99 has never turned up. One comment made by all sources is that many "nice" guns were never recovered. Every source has reported that little to no care was taken with any of the firearms retrieved and taken into protective custody and they were not catalogued in any fashion. One resident said "they were just thrown in there in piles".
One family, whose house was not damaged, reported that officers were going to remove them at gun point when they refused to leave their property and a gun fight was only averted when a KBI agent stepped in front of the other officers and pleaded with them to consider what they were doing. Those residents had taken up their shotguns and were not going to leave. We can only say thank heavens for that KBI officer who had the sense to realize what pressing these people at gun point would mean.
As I talked to these residents of Greensburg the accounts of their personal experiences kept flowing and they all had certain things in common. Their rights were violated, guns were confiscated illegally and they were forced to leave their homes illegally. When government agents came to their property they did not ask them if they were okay or needed help. They were there to forcibly remove them and confiscate their property. Many of them expressed fear of reprisal should they go public. Do they have the names of the officials who they believe acted illegally and inappropriately? In many cases, the answer is yes. Did all officials act illegally and inappropriately? NO. Many were very helpful and had great concern for the well being of the residents and were there to assist them with the best of intentions.
The people in Greensburg are a close, tight knit community, everyone knows everyone kind of place. They were very resentful of government coming in and telling them what they had to do. They would have preferred to stay and help each other locate valuables and guns and not leave their property. Several residents have reported that FEMA did more harm than good and would not even cooperate with local law enforcement. Residents of the town who were firefighters and trained in rescue operations wanted to stay and help their neighbors and friends and were told they could not.
The many stories that have been shared with me are too lengthy to include in this report. I just pose these questions. If there was even one act of misconduct or illegal activity by any governmental official are we to stand by idly and allow it without complaint? Should those who broke the law be allowed to continue to "serve" as law enforcement officials without question? Should the residents of Greensburg have to fear reprisal if they report and file complaints about what happened to them? Should Kansas and its legislative body do nothing to see to it that this never happens again?
I am turning over all of the information I have obtained to the NRA complete with names and numbers of those residents which I have spoke with. I am also going to turn the information over to some members of the Kansas House and Senate. I would urge KSRA members to contact their legislators and demand that a full investigation be conducted in to the events that took place in Greensburg. HB 2811, The Emergency Powers Act is a bill designed to prevent this exact kind of thing from happening and provide a remedy if it does (see that article). At the time of this publication that bill is in the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee. Rise up Kansas! Let your voice be heard! Don't let your town be next!!
http://www.citywatchla.com/content/view/1075/
When did LA Start Hating Murals?
LA Art?
By Judy Baca
Within the borders of the City of Los Angeles all murals must receive a permit from the Cultural Affairs Commission before they can be painted on public or private property. This means that if you chose to paint a mural on the outside of your own property you would need to receive a permit from Cultural Affairs to do so. If you do not have a permit you could be fined or jailed and the mural can be removed by the Department of Building and Safety.
This policy is apparently in question at the moment and rightfully so as it seems to be a blatant violation of first Amendment rights of the public and individual property rights which are held in higher regard than the interest of the public in most all debates in our country.
What seems to be happening is that some muralists who have been given permission to work on private walls with full support of building owners for the creation of a fine art work have sought Cultural Affairs permits and have been told that they cannot apply while the city sorts out this issue. In one case, a mural was removed at Cesar Chavez and Breed Street in January of this year because it was not permitted even though they sought and were denied the right to apply for a permit. The beautiful community mural was destroyed one month after it was painted.
Actually, this is not uncommon. There have been many cases in which works that were controversial, perhaps only to one person who complained, have been removed without notification to the artist by the Department of Building and Safety. A beautiful mural of a Zapatista was removed from a wall in East Los Angeles a couple of years ago because it did not have a permit while many banal murals which are used for decorating pizza houses or little markets with purely advertising intent are not enforced. Has the Department of Building and Safety become a mind-policing agency?
The City of Los Angeles has a sign ordinance that is written ambiguously enough to make it possible to confuse a mural with a sign. Since the percentage of language was one of the methods the city used to distinguish a sign from fine art (is it really that hard?) the advertising companies seized the opportunity to reduce language on supergraphics and declare them fine art. Today every inch of the public's eye space is being filled with advertising and art is disappearing. Most Angelenos would advocate for control of advertising particularly supergraphics as the chosen images to dominate the urban landscape. Who wants to drive through the city and see a ten-story cell phone or Mickey Mouse as the definer of the downtown skyline? Sign legislation seems to be controlling only artists and not the creators of “corporate graffiti” by advertising agencies who essentially are ignoring the law and polluting the urban landscape with what amounts to corporate vandalism.
The most outrageous acts of permit violations are perpetrated by the super graphic advertising companies who often do not seek permits at all and simply pay the fines associated with illegal advertising if they are caught at all. The city does not seem to have the means, or perhaps the will, to enforce the law on advertising agencies consistently. What is occurring as a result is that super graphics are proliferating and art is not.
All public funding for murals in Los Angeles has ended and the SPARC mural program, which existed for 20 years, is gone. This program, through a city and nonprofit partnership, provided public and private monies to produce hundreds of murals in our city. SPARC is working to reinstate this program.
Is Los Angeles fast becoming an environment hostile to murals?
The debate continues.
(Judy Baca posted this report following a March 6 Cultural Affairs Department meeting. She was the founder of SPARC and posts on www.savelamurals.org ) _
http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=5956
6 (article contains links
that
are not available in this posting)
By Bob Unruh
WorldNetDaily.com
Nearly a dozen members of a police SWAT team in western Colorado punched
a hole
in the front door and invaded a family's home with guns drawn, demanding
that an
11-year-old boy who had had an accidental fall accompany them to the
hospital,
on the order of Garfield County Magistrate Lain Leoniak.
The boy's parents and siblings were thrown to the floor at gunpoint and
the
parents were handcuffed in the weekend assault, and the boy's father
told WND it
was all because a paramedic was upset the family preferred to care for
their son
themselves.
Someone, apparently the unidentified paramedic, called police, the
sheriff's
office and social services, eventually providing Leoniak with a report
that
generated the magistrate's court order to the sheriff's office for the
SWAT team
assault on the family's home in a mobile home development outside of
Glenwood
Springs, the father, Tom Shiflett, told WND.
WND calls and e-mails to Garfield County Social Services were not
returned, and
Leoniak, who earlier served as a water court clerk/referee, also was not
available.
Sheriff Lou Vallario, however, did call back, and told WND he ordered
his
officers to do exactly what the magistrate demanded.
"I was given a court order by the magistrate to seize the child, and
arrange for
medical evaluation, and that's what we did," he said.
According to friends of the family, Tom Shiflett, who has 10 children
including
six still at home, and served with paramedics in Vietnam, was monitoring
his
son's condition himself.
The paramedic and magistrate, however, ruled that that wasn't adequate,
and
dispatched the officers to take the boy, John, to a hospital, where a
doctor
evaluated him and released him immediately.
The accident happened during horseplay, Tom Shiflett told WND. John was
grabbing
the door handle of a car as his sister was starting to drive away
slowly. He
slipped, fell to the ground and hit his head, Shiflett said.
He immediately carried his son into their home several doors away, and
John was
able to recite Bible verses and correctly spell words as his father and
mother,
Tina, requested. There were no broken bones, no dilated eyes, or any
other
noticeable problems.
The family, whose members live by faith and homeschool, decided not to
call an
ambulance. But a neighbor did call Westcare Ambulance, and paramedics
responded
to the home, asking to see and evaluate the boy.
The paramedics were allowed to see the boy, and found no significant
impairment,
but wanted to take him to the hospital for an evaluation anyway. Fearing
the
hospital's bills, the family refused to allow that.
"This apparently did not go over well with one of the paramedics and
they
started getting aggravated at Tom for not letting them have their way,"
a family
acquaintance told WND.
"The paramedics were not at all respectful of Tom's decision, nor did
they act
in a manner we would expect from professional paramedics," the
acquaintance
said.
So the ambulance crew, who also could not be reached by WND, called
police, only
to be told the decision was up to the Shiflett familiy.
The paramedics then called the sheriff's office, and officers responded
to the
home, and were told everyone was being cared for.
Then the next day, Friday, social services workers appeared at the door
and
demanded to talk with John "in private."
They were so persistent Tom ended up having to get John out of the
bathtub he
was just soaking in, to bring him to the front porch where the social
workers
could see him, the family reported.
Then, following an afternoon shopping trip to town, the family settled
in for
the evening, only to be shocked with the SWAT team attack.
The sheriff said the decision to use SWAT team force was justified
because the
father was a "self-proclaimed constitutionalist" and had made threats
and
"comments" over the years.
However, the sheriff declined to provide a single instance of the
father's
illegal behavior. "I can't tell you specifically," he said.
"He was refusing to provide medical care," the sheriff said.
However, the sheriff said if his own children were involved in an
at-home
accident, he would want to be the one to make decisions on their
healthcare, as
did Shiflett.
"I guess if that was one of my children, I would make that decision,"
the
sheriff said.
But he said Shiflett was "rude and confrontational" when the paramedics
arrived
and entered his home without his permission.
The sheriff also admitted that the injury to the child had been at least
24
hours earlier, because the fall apparently happened Thursday afternoon,
and the
SWAT attack happened late Friday evening.
Officials with the Home School Legal Defense Association reported they
were
looking into the case, because of requests from family friends who are
members
of the organization.
"While people can debate whether or not the father should have brought
his son
to the ER – it seems like this was not the kind of emergency that
warrants this
kind of outrageous conduct by government officials," a spokesman said.
Tom Shiflett said when John was evaluated by the physician, "they didn't
find
anything wrong with him."
He said the paramedics never should have entered his home, but they
followed his
wife in the front door when she came in.
"My attention was on my son," Shiflett said.
He said the SWAT team punched a hole in his door with a ramrod, and the
first
officer in the home pointed a gun right in the face of Tom's 20-year-old
daughter.
"I don't know where social services ever got started, or where they got
their
authority," he said. "But I want to know why we have something in this
country
that violates our rights, that takes a parental right away."
He said he saw a multitude of injuries in Vietnam, and while he
recognized that
his son needed to be watched, he wasn't willing to turn his child over
to the
paramedics.
With 10 children, most of them older than John, it's not as if he hasn't
seen a
bruise or two, either, he said.
"Now I'm hunting for lawyers that will take the case … I'm going to
sue
everybody whose name was on that page right down to the judge," he said.
Mike Donnelly, a lawyer with the HSLDA, told WND the case had a set of
circumstances that could be problematic for authorities.
"In Doe V. Heck, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals held that parents have
a
fundamental right to familial relations including a liberty interest in
the
care, custody and control of their children," he said.
He also said many social services agencies apply "a one size fits all
approach"
to cases, regardless of circumstances.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/nassau/ny-liwar305631629mar30%2C0%2C1085417.story
Police arrest anti-war protester, 80, at mall
BY ANASTASIA ECONOMIDES AND MATTHEW CHAYES |
March 30, 2008
An 80-year-old church deacon was removed from the Smith Haven Mall yesterday in a wheelchair and arrested by police for refusing to remove a T-shirt protesting the Iraq War.
Police said that Don Zirkel, of Bethpage, was disturbing shoppers at the Lake Grove mall with his T-shirt, which had what they described as "graphic anti-war images." Zirkel, a deacon at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Wyandanch, said his shirt had the death tolls of American military personnel and Iraqis - 4,000 and 1 million - and the words "Dead" and "Enough." The shirt also has three blotches resembling blood splatters.
Police said in a release last night that Zirkel was handing out anti-war pamphlets to mallgoers and that mall security told him to stop and turn his shirt inside out. Zirkel refused to turn his shirt inside out and wouldn't leave, police said. Security placed him on "civilian arrest" and called police. When police arrived, Zirkel passively resisted attempts to bring him to a police car, the release said.
But Zirkel said he was sitting in the food court drinking coffee with his wife Marie, 77, and several others when police and mall security officers approached and demanded they remove their anti-war T-shirts.
The others complied, but Zirkel said he refused, and when he wouldn't stand up to be removed and arrested, authorities brought over a wheelchair. "They forcibly picked me up and put me in the wheelchair," said Zirkel, a deacon at one of the poorest Catholic parishes on Long Island, where a devastating fire recently destroyed the rectory and storage areas.
Zirkel was charged with criminal trespassing and resisting arrest. He was released on bail. A spokeswoman for mall owner Simon Property Group did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Generally speaking, a mall has the right to control what happens on its property, said John McEntee, a Uniondale commercial litigation lawyer.
Activists with dueling opinions had gathered to support and oppose America's five-year campaign.
As Zirkel was being wheeled to the police car, the crowd chanted "We shall not be moved!" Moments later, they moved; police and mall security had ordered them off the property. Many joined a larger anti-war crowd assembled by the mall's entrance, off mall property, on Veterans Memorial Highway.
They were complemented nearby by protesters saying the Iraq war is vital for security.
--------------------------------------------------------
Defend the Princeton HS Walkout Students!
250 Princeton High School students are facing 2 days of detention after walking out of class and attending an hour long rally and speak-out protesting the five-year US occupation of Iraq on March 19th, 2008.Principal Gary Snyder had originally promised that the students would not receive detention, but reneged when it became clear that hundreds of student were planning on walking out. Four weeks earlier, the students were required to miss three periods of class while a New Orleans band played and Mardi Gras beads were thrown at them. What are the priorities of Princeton High School? We urge all student and community members to support students that have the courage to take a stand and educate themselves.
"This detention is unfair, because we were taking a chance to voice our opinions and educate ourselves, which we are not given the opportunity to adequately do so in school," said Aislinn Bauer, a Princeton High School sophomore and one of the organizers of the walkout. "We're turning this punishment into something productive."
"What I do not understand is how we were able to miss three periods to see Terrance Simien and the Zydeco Experience perform and throw Mardi Gras beads at us, which had little to no educational value," said Russell Cavallaro, another Princeton High School sophomore. "This walkout actually had educational value. Students were educated on the causes of the war, why it should never have happened, and had a chance to offer their respects to the fallen soldiers."
CALL and Email Princeton High School Administrators and demand that the students should be commended and not punished
SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION.
Petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/PHS250/petition.html
Office of the Superintendent- Judy Wilson- 609-806-4220
Principal Gary R. Snyder 609-806-4280 Gary_Snyder at monet.prs.k12.nj.us
Assistant Principal for grades 10 & 12 Julianne Inverso 609-806-4280, ext 3503 Julianne_Inverso at monet.prs.k12.nj.us
Assistant Principal for grades 9 & 11 Harvey Highland 609-806-4280, ext 3502 Harvey_highland at monet.prs.k12.nj.us
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jAZcFs8-asSLXGzG3az_hEV3AC3AD8VK83F81
TB Patient Faces Felony Charges in Ariz.
By TERRY TANG – Mar 24, 2008
PHOENIX (AP) — A man with a virulent form of tuberculosis who once was confined to a hospital jail ward for failing to wear a mask in public has been indicted on felony charges.
Prosecutors said Monday there was no evidence that Robert Daniels had exposed anyone to his multiple drug-resistant TB before he was quarantined in 2006, but they still charged him with two counts of unlawful introduction of disease or parasite.
County officials have been putting together a case to prove Daniels knowingly introduced a disease into the state, endangering others.
"We took our time looking at the evidence to make sure the evidence fit the crime," said Sally Wells of the Maricopa County attorney's office.
Daniels, who has American and Russian citizenships, was determined no longer to be contagious after undergoing lung surgery in September. He has been living in Russia since October.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Russian authorities did not know Daniels' exact whereabouts on Monday but were looking for him.
"If he does come here, he'll be arrested on these criminal violations," the sheriff said.
In an interview with The Arizona Republic Monday, Daniels says the case demonstrates that the sheriff is a vindictive man.
"You've got to be kidding me," Daniels said. "They don't really have evidence. They can't accuse me of anything unless there's a person who got the disease from me."
Daniels said he has recovered fully in Moscow. "The TB is gone. I have no diseases whatsoever. If I had stayed in Arizona even a month longer, I'd probably be dead," Daniels said.
A call to the sheriff's office Monday night seeking comment on Daniels' whereabouts was not returned.
A phone message left for Daniels' last known lawyer was not returned.
Daniels lived in Russia for 15 years and returned to the United States in 2006 after doctors discovered he had a difficult-to-treat form of tuberculosis.
He said he briefly worked in an office in Arizona for a chemical company before he was put away.
"Where I come from, the doctors don't wear masks," he told The Associated Press last year. "Plus, I was 26 years old, you know. Nobody told me how TB works and stuff."
In August 2006, a judge ruled Daniels recklessly exposed others to his illness by going out in public without a mask. Even though he was not charged with a crime at the time, he was placed in solitary confinement and spent nearly a year in the jail ward at Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix.
While in custody, he was treated as an inmate, confined in isolation and kept under video surveillance most of the time. Daniels was not given a phone, shower, television or other comforts.
He then underwent lung surgery in Colorado and moved back to Russia.
Atlanta attorney Andrew Speaker, who caused an international health scare in May after he flew to Europe knowing he had a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis, was treated at the same Denver hospital where Daniels underwent surgery.
Speaker was initially thought to have extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis; later tests found he had the less dangerous multidrug-resistant TB.
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=2008030710590758
State of California Outlaws Homeschooling
Friday, March 07 2008 @ 10:59 AM PST
Contributed by: Admin
Views: 712
A California appeals court ruling clamping down on homeschooling by parents without teaching credentials sent shock waves across the state this week, leaving an estimated 166,000 children as possible truants and their parents at risk of prosecution.
Homeschoolers' setback sends shock waves through state
Bob Egelko, Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writers
Friday, March 7, 2008
(03-07) 04:00 PST LOS ANGELES --
A California appeals court ruling clamping down on homeschooling by parents without teaching credentials sent shock waves across the state this week, leaving an estimated 166,000 children as possible truants and their parents at risk of prosecution.
The homeschooling movement never saw the case coming.
"At first, there was a sense of, 'No way,' " said homeschool parent Loren Mavromati, a resident of Redondo Beach (Los Angeles County) who is active with a homeschool association. "Then there was a little bit of fear. I think it has moved now into indignation."
The ruling arose from a child welfare dispute between the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services and Philip and Mary Long of Lynwood, who have been homeschooling their eight children. Mary Long is their teacher, but holds no teaching credential.
The parents said they also enrolled their children in Sunland Christian School, a private religious academy in Sylmar (Los Angeles County), which considers the Long children part of its independent study program and visits the home about four times a year.
The Second District Court of Appeal ruled that California law requires parents to send their children to full-time public or private schools or have them taught by credentialed tutors at home.
Some homeschoolers are affiliated with private or charter schools, like the Longs, but others fly under the radar completely. Many homeschooling families avoid truancy laws by registering with the state as a private school and then enroll only their own children.
Yet the appeals court said state law has been clear since at least 1953, when another appellate court rejected a challenge by homeschooling parents to California's compulsory education statutes. Those statutes require children ages 6 to 18 to attend a full-time day school, either public or private, or to be instructed by a tutor who holds a state credential for the child's grade level.
"California courts have held that ... parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children," Justice H. Walter Croskey said in the 3-0 ruling issued on Feb. 28. "Parents have a legal duty to see to their children's schooling under the provisions of these laws."
Parents can be criminally prosecuted for failing to comply, Croskey said.
"A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare," the judge wrote, quoting from a 1961 case on a similar issue.
Union pleased with ruling
The ruling was applauded by a director for the state's largest teachers union.
"We're happy," said Lloyd Porter, who is on the California Teachers Association board of directors. "We always think students should be taught by credentialed teachers, no matter what the setting."
A spokesman for the state Department of Education said the agency is reviewing the decision to determine its impact on current policies and procedures. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell issued a statement saying he supports "parental choice when it comes to homeschooling."
Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, which agreed earlier this week to represent Sunland Christian School and legally advise the Long family on a likely appeal to the state Supreme Court, said the appellate court ruling has set a precedent that can now be used to go after homeschoolers. "With this case law, anyone in California who is homeschooling without a teaching credential is subject to prosecution for truancy violation, which could require community service, heavy fines and possibly removal of their children under allegations of educational neglect," Dacus said.
Parents say they choose homeschooling for a variety of reasons, from religious beliefs to disillusionment with the local public schools.
Homeschooling parent Debbie Schwarzer of Los Altos said she's ready for a fight.
Schwarzer runs Oak Hill Academy out of her Santa Clara County home. It is a state-registered private school with two students, she said, noting they are her own children, ages 10 and 12. She does not have a teaching credential, but she does have a law degree.
"I'm kind of hoping some truancy officer shows up on my doorstep," she said. "I'm ready. I have damn good arguments."
She opted to teach her children at home to better meet their needs.
The ruling, Schwarzer said, "stinks."
Began as child welfare case
The Long family legal battle didn't start out as a test case on the validity of homeschooling. It was a child welfare case.
A juvenile court judge looking into one child's complaint of mistreatment by Philip Long found that the children were being poorly educated but refused to order two of the children, ages 7 and 9, to be enrolled in a full-time school. He said parents in California have a right to educate their children at home.
The appeals court told the juvenile court judge to require the parents to comply with the law by enrolling their children in a school, but excluded the Sunland Christian School from enrolling the children because that institution "was willing to participate in the deprivation of the children's right to a legal education."
The decision could also affect other kinds of homeschooled children, including those enrolled in independent study or distance learning through public charter schools - a setup similar to the one the Longs have, Dacus said.
Charter school advocates disagreed, saying Thursday that charter schools are public and are required to employ only credentialed teachers to supervise students - whether in class or through independent study.
Ruling will apply statewide
Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association, said the ruling would effectively ban homeschooling in the state.
"California is now on the path to being the only state to deny the vast majority of homeschooling parents their fundamental right to teach their own children at home," he said in a statement.
But Leslie Heimov, executive director of the Children's Law Center of Los Angeles, which represented the Longs' two children in the case, said the ruling did not change the law.
"They just affirmed that the current California law, which has been unchanged since the last time it was ruled on in the 1950s, is that children have to be educated in a public school, an accredited private school, or with an accredited tutor," she said. "If they want to send them to a private Christian school, they can, but they have to actually go to the school and be taught by teachers."
Heimov said her organization's chief concern was not the quality of the children's education, but their "being in a place daily where they would be observed by people who had a duty to ensure their ongoing safety."
Online resources
The ruling: To view the ruling by the Second District Court of Appeal, go to links.sfgate.com/ZCQR.
E-mail the writers at begelko at sfchronicle.com and jtucker at sfchronicle.com.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/07/MNJDVF0F1.DTL
http://www.reason.com/staff/show/135.html
Hiding From REAL ID
Why honest people might run from a national ID card
Kerry Howley | February 1, 2008
When our sad pack of presidential candidates look you in the eye and tell you they can unite a divided America, believe them. The one thing each of them knows how to do—present the citizenry with unworkable, invasive, underfunded mandates—is the one sure way to bring together bizarre masses of humanity.Take the REAL ID Act, the sputtering effort to unite Americans under a common banner of department of motor vehicle regulations and porous databases. In common purpose, it has united the Amish, gun owners, and advocates for victims of domestic abuse, all of whom want to see it killed.
Though severely hobbled by a state-level revolt, REAL ID is set to enter its first phase in May, when states that have not applied for extensions will be required to comply with new requirements for issuing licenses. Amish groups and other religiously sensitive groups suggest that REAL ID portends the mark of the beast, and those who receive it will be thrown into eternal abyss. Appealing as it is to view REAL ID author Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) as an agent of Satan, it is probably the victims of domestic abuse who provide the best case study in the plan’s overreach. Organizations such as the National Network to End Domestic Violence contend that stores of half-guarded data would empower stalkers, violent exes, and obsessive abusers hunting for information. Abuse survivors are living repudiations of the assumption that only criminals need seek the comforts of anonymity.
But try telling that to the Department of Homeland Security. “Any state or territory that does not comply,” bellowed senior DHS official Richard C. Barth during Congressional testimony, “increases the risk of the rest of the nation.” This is easy to swallow if your chief conception of danger involves foreign evildoers bent on random slaughter of unidentified victims. It’s less so for women who fear actual human beings with whom they may share a history.
DMVs and local governments have always been vulnerable data dumps where a stalker with a good story could potentially score an address. But DMVs were at least limited in scope; you could move from your small town where your abuser knew a guy who knew a police officer who could demand confidential information to another state with another system. The REAL ID Act would interlink all of them, so an irresponsible or incompetent official in Arkansas could track a target in Missouri. “A data breach at one DMV will be a data breach in all of them,” says Guilherme Roschke of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
DHS regulations also demand that a “residence of principal address” be printed on the cards in a machine-readable format, which presents an obvious danger to women trying to hide said residences. More recently, DHS conceded that women enrolled in state confidentiality programs can claim an exemption. According to Jill Morris of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, that’s not enough. Few women are actually enrolled in these programs, which sometimes require participants to provide verification of abuse such as police reports or restraining orders. “There are millions of women who won’t call the police,” says Morris. “And police can be abusers too.”
There are other loose ends that leave abuse victims hanging. One way women escape their histories is changing names and having the court record sealed. This will be more risky with REAL ID in that the history of the name change may be present in the various databases. The record threatens to stymie the task of starting over and erasing the past.
Proponents of REAL ID counter that we’re already living in an age of free information, a nationalized ID system being just a single droplet in the waves of revealing data washing over all of us all the time. But the wave itself is blessedly easy to get lost in, which is, after all, part of what scared our solons into passing REAL ID in 2005. The same technology that brings you the exhibitionism of Twitter-addicted teens is also a powerful force for anonymity. Women trying to avoid detection have benefited from the ability to pay bills online, to contact help undetected, to engage with the world from behind a veil of pixels.
The REAL ID concept poses myriad civil liberties issues, and survivors of domestic abuse pose a small--and perhaps surmountable--problem in a much larger debate over national idenfication. But their predicament lays bare the hubris of a government that thinks itself so completely just, so perfectly coordinated, that no honest person ever needs to hide. DHS officials may claim that no one can be secure so long as anyone remains off the grid, but they risk destroying the lives of people for whom the only real security remains anonymity itself.
Kerry Howley is a senior editor of reason.
-----------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: Otto Yamamoto
To: smygo at yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2008 2:12 AM
Subject: Re: [smygo] California Outlaws Home Schooling
On Saturday 08 March 2008 2.31.11 pm Dan Clore wrote:
> ....Began as child welfare case
The only 'liberals' the facsisti really fear. They make up their own law here
in New York if the criminal law doesn't work for them. Case in point: a
friend's daughter accuses her father of raping her(encouraged in this action
by a 'liberal' school administrator, whose own 24 year old son was caught a
year later in a Connecticut hotel with his pregnant 14 year old girlfriend-he
didn't get one day in gaol, and the Kingston Freeman quietly redacted the
story from it's online archives). The DA gets 4 or 5 different stories from
the girl; takes her to an ob-gyn, who finds an intact hymen. Oops.
Well, for Ulster County National Socialist Services, the facts weren't good
enough. They levelled civil accusations against my friend, and the Family
Court Judge went right along with it, despite the DA's testimony. I was in
the court, as a witness for my friend. I ended up with a 90 day sentence for
contempt for calling the CPS worker Judy Igo a 'filthy hippie cunt'. I served
a week. My friend was not so lucky, he got mandated to a year's attendance in
both the county sex offenders group, and some 'abuse' group run by some
quasi-governmental hippie collective.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Associated PressFeb. 11, 2008Although presumed Machetero Avelino González Claudio requested that he betried in Puerto Rico and declared himself a "political prisoner," federalmagistrate Marcos López ordered his extradition to Hartford, Connecticut,in a generally automatic judicial proceeding.González Claudio's lawyer also denounced to the judge that his client isreceiving "inhumane treatment" en the federal prison, because he is beingheld in a cell where the only window has been sealed with a sheet of metalso he can't see daylight.Migdalia Torres, spokeswoman for MDC Guaynabo, stated in a letter writtento Associated Press that some cells in the prison are being repaired, andthat this work could require that the windows be temporarily sealed. Shedenied that González Claudio is receiving special or different treatmentthan the rest of the prisoners. "The treatment of prisoner González Claudio is no different than that anyother detainee awaiting trial and with the same security needs," Torresdeclared in the letter.González Claudio was arrested last week for allegedly participating in the$7 million Wells Fargo robbery in Hartford, CT, on Sept. 12, 1983.González Claudio stated that he responds to that name, although heestablished through his legal representation that he does not recognizethe authority of the U.S. court in Puerto Rico to extradite him.Avelino González Claudio does not deny his identity. This Puerto Ricancitizen in front of you is Avelino González Claudio," Juan Ramón AcevedoCruz, lead defense attorney for the supposed member of the BoricuaPeople's Army-Machetero, stated to magistrate Lopez."In terms of extradition, we vigorously object to any attempt by the U.S.government to remove González Claudio from his home, Puerto Rico," addedthe attorney during the accused's identification hearing.Federal prosecutor Jose Ruiz indicated to AP that the extradition couldtake more than 20 days and that if no bail is imposed in the jurisdictionto which he will be transferred, he would remain incarcerated. "If bail isimposed here, it is usually respected there," Ruiz indicated.According to Acevedo, González Claudio, as a "political prisoner," demandshis right to remain in his home country, as stated by international law.The attorney also demanded that the U.S. government comply with UN GeneralAssembly Resolution 1514, which declares colonialism to be "the negationof a fundamental human right.""Since 1972, the UN Special Decolonization Committee has recognized theinalienable right of Puerto Ricans to self-determination and independenceaccording to Resolution 1514," added the attorney, citing the resolution.The defense also requested a bail hearing, which was set by the magistratefor Feb. 21 at 1:30 in the afternoon.The federal prosecutor's office, represented by Ruiz and Carlos Cardona,did not object to guaranteeing the suspect's bail hearing.They successfully requested that González Claudio remain incarcerated inMDC Guaynabo because he is considered "a flight risk" and "a danger to thecommunity" because he used false names for 22 years and due to the natureof the crimes he is accused of.The magistrate stated that the denunciation of inhumane treatment is notunder the court's jurisdiction.Faced with the attorney's demands that he be able to visit GonzálezClaudio in a visiting room and not in a conference room where they have noprivacy, and that his shackles be removed so he can sign documents, themagistrate responded that the attorney would have to make the pertinentarrangements with the federal BOP. He indicated that the tribunal couldonly intervene if the situation persisted.While the hearing was taking place, there was a protest by independenceorganizations outside the federal building in Hato Rey."This court represents the interests of the empire and they willfaithfully follow the orders of Washington, but we are going to fight allthe legal battles so he can remain here," expressed the accused's brother,Osvaldo González Claudio. He added that he hopes his brother will be tried"by his peers" and not in Connecticut.
http://www.infowars.net/articles/february2008/270208sound.htm
San Jose Police To Use Crowd Control Sound Wave Weapons
What's good enough to force a terrorist out of a cave is good enough to make you fall into line
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Tuesday, Feb 26, 2008
San Jose police are to begin using high tech sound wave weapons that are designed to disperse crowds by firing concentrated beams of sound at 150 decibels, causing intense pain and possible deafness.
The police department is to get $27,000 in state grant money to purchase the device, which is the exact same model used by armed forces against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The dish-shaped, sonic weapon is officially called a Long Range Acoustic Device — or L-RAD.
It seems that now that the government considers the American people the enemy, defense contractors have a new lucrative market selling high tech weapons, normally sold to the military, to the police.
"Think louder than a jet engine. Think the front row of a Metallica concert. Think of the piercing scream of a smoke alarm - inches from your ear." reports Mercury News.
"Police say it will be used mostly as a high-grade sound system to clearly amplify a police officer's order at great distances. But it can also be used as another of the department's "less-lethal" weapons, along with Tasers and 40mm projectile guns," the report continues.
http://www.scsextra.com/story.php?storySection=Local&sid=65938
30 UCSC faculty, staff support legal fund for tree-sitters
J.M. BROWN
SENTINEL STAFF WRITER
February 20, 2008
Thirty UC Santa Cruz faculty and staff members are supporting a legal
defense fund for tree-sit demonstrators they say are merely
exercising "civil disobedience."
Professors Bettina Aptheker and Paul Ortiz, nationally known social
activists, have founded an nonprofit advocacy group called "Friends
of Flora and Fauna" with the help of filmmaker Mathilde Rand. Also
involved is professor Zack Schlesinger, who was arrested in December
for bringing hot tea and soup to tree-sitters. Former Santa Cruz
mayors Jane Weed, Bruce Van Allen, Celia Scott and UCSC professor Tim
Fitzmaurice also are supporters, according to a solicitation letter
Aptheker said her group has mailed to more than 600 "progressive" residents.
UCSC spokesman Jim Burns said the support is to be expected: "On a
campus as diverse as ours, it's not at all surprising that there
would be UCSC people who would lend their name to a letter of this nature."
The university says the tree-sit violates an overnight camping rule
and endangers demonstrators and pedestrians. Schlesinger, student
Cruz A. Molina and seven others not directly tied to the campus were
brought to court by the UC Regents in December in an attempt to shut
down the three-month protest over UCSC's Long-Range Development Plan,
a growth plan to add 5,000 students by 2020.
Most defendants and others arrested at the site since November are
not accused of climbing into four redwood perches, but rather "aiding
and abetting" by bringing food or other supplies. A judge will hear
arguments March 6.
The letter seeking money for legal fees told potential donors their
contributions would be tax-deductible and "provide help to people
putting themselves on the line to question UCSC expansion plans that
could damage the environment, degrade the quality of education at
UCSC and impose unacceptable traffic, water and housing impact on
Santa Cruz communities."
"The lawsuit, which demands punitive damages from supporters of the
tree-sit, appears designed to intimidate and stifle protest and
dissent," the letter said. "UCSC's bullying tactics are
inappropriate, and especially egregious when aimed at people who have
very little money."
"We'll give money to anyone who was arrested," Aptheker said Tuesday.
Schlesinger said he will pay for his own defense.
UCSC's handling of the demonstration, which has included at least two
pepper spray-laced melees, has put it at odds with some high-profile
employees. But several professors who support the legal defense group
said Tuesday they don't fear retribution.
"It would be foolish," said Aptheker, who also brought food to the
tree-sit but was not cited. "The letter is basically to say, 'That's
enough,'" she said.
Literature professor Christopher Connery said he supports the defense
fund because, "I felt actually that the university or some people in
the university are just taking too confrontational an attitude toward
protests of any kind. The university should understand that the
faculty are the university. I don't think the university should be
arresting them."
Tree-sit spokeswoman Jennifer Charles said lawyers representing
defendants are working for free, "but there are other legal expenses
that could with court cases, so it will be helpful."
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/onthebarricades/attachments/20080415/13b3be69/attachment.html>
More information about the Onthebarricades
mailing list