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By David King Dunaway
$12.53
By Perry Anderson
$26.37
$18
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Wikimedia Commons/Scrumshus
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“The federal government experimented with indefinite detention of United States citizens during World War II, a mistake we now recognize as a betrayal of our core values,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Wednesday as she introduced an amendment to end the provision. “Let’s not repeat it.”
Posted on Nov 29, 2012
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AP / Hassan Ammar
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Only 118 years after New Zealand kicked off this dangerous trend, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has decided to allow women to vote and run in municipal elections as soon as 2015. (more)
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kodomut (CC-BY)
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By David Sirota — From warrantless wiretapping to ever-present surveillance cameras, our world is right now in the midst of a long war on anonymity.
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U.S. Navy / Matthew Bash
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A suspected Somali terrorist who was captured and secretly interrogated aboard a U.S. Navy ship for two months while a terror case was built against him was flown from the Gulf of Aden to New York earlier this week to be tried in civilian court. (more)
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AP / Andy Manis
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By Chris Hedges — Workers in this country paid for their rights by suffering brutal beatings, crippling strikes, targeted assassinations and armed battles with thugs hired by the Koch brothers of another time.
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Flickr / wisaflcio
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Upwards of 100,000 people turned out at a protest in the Wisconsin capital after Republican lawmakers and the Republican governor pushed through a new anti-union law eliminating most collective-bargaining rights for public employees.
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AP / Andy Manis
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Wisconsin Democratic lawmakers fled their state to avoid voting on a controversial anti-union bill that would boost public workers’ pension and medical contributions and deny them the right to collectively bargain. In Madison, meantime, thousands of protesters milled around the state Capitol building Friday in a fourth day of demonstrations.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Are we seeing the next “Battle of Algiers”? Coming only a day after the fall of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, thousands of people defied a government ban to hold a pro-democracy rally in Algeria.
Posted on Feb 12, 2011
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You may have caught sight of Christine Yvette Lewis setting Stephen Colbert straight with lines such as “Woman’s work is real work and it should be compensated.” Lewis is a working nanny and member of Domestic Workers United, a group that organizes the “invisible work force” of in-home cleaners and caregivers.
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Flickr / Stefano Mortellaro (CC-BY-ND)
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Gulet Mohamed is an 18-year old American citizen who was effectively exiled while traveling abroad for the apparent crime of exploring his Muslim heritage. While in Kuwait, Mohamed was added to the no-fly list, arrested, beaten and threatened with torture. Glenn Greenwald has posted a 50-minute conversation with Mohamed.
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What rights do you have on an airplane, the political honesty of one’s own eyes, and Virginia’s school textbooks are chock full of lies. These gems and more after the jump.
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AP / J. Scott Applewhite
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Denying a request by the Log Cabin Republicans, U.S. Supreme Court justices Friday allowed the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy to remain in place while the issue cycles through the federal appeals court circuit.
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Flickr / Tinou Bao (CC-BY)
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The French Senate voted 246-1 Tuesday to make it illegal for women to wear garments that cover their entire faces. The measure, if greenlighted by a constitutional body, will affect only a few thousand people, but its implications for religious freedom and women’s rights have attracted international interest.
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The ACLU has this crazy idea that the government should not be able to kill American citizens it doesn’t like without charge, trial or due process. Hippies.
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By Eugene Robinson — We have a Bill of Rights that protects our freedoms against the whims of public opinion. Thomas Jefferson understood this. A bunch of opportunistic politicians—who love to quote him—obviously do not.
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White House / Pete Souza
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As the gay marriage train prepares to leave the station, it’s odd but telling to see Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urging the resumption of same-sex marriages in California while Democratic President Barack Obama remains opposed.
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Fake news by Andy Borowitz —
According to the head of the domestic spying operation, China decided to scrap its elaborate array of spy satellites, eavesdropping devices and closed-circuit surveillance cameras after recognizing that Facebook put them all to shame.
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Egypt has officially been in a state of emergency since 1981, allowing the government extraordinary powers such as the ability to arrest and detain someone forever for no reason. The Egyptian government has just extended the emergency powers for two years, using Guantanamo and the Patriot Act as political cover.
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Flickr / Ranoush. (CC-BY-SA)
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It isn’t an outright ban—yet—but the French parliament agreed unanimously (except for 30 protesters who walked out) to condemn the face veil worn by some Muslim women as “an affront to the nation’s values of dignity and equality.”
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By Eugene Robinson — The notion that the first thing to do is “secure the border” between the United States and Mexico—and only then worry about comprehensive immigration reform—falls somewhere between hopeful fantasy and cynical cop-out.
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By Amy Goodman — Arizona was the only territory west of Texas to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy during the Civil War. A century later, it fought recognition of the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday. This week, an anti-immigrant bill was signed into law.
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The Mexican Foreign Ministry has issued an alert to all citizens living in or traveling to Arizona after the state passed an immigration law that essentially requires brown people to carry papers. “It must be assumed that every Mexican citizen may be harassed and questioned,” the alert warns.
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google.com / governmentrequests/
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Google has a new service, but it won’t help you find pictures of Justin Bieber or stay in touch with friends. It’s a map that shows how many times governments around the world have contacted the company with requests—either to remove content or retrieve data about Google users. Who knew Brazil was so nosy? (continued)
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Flickr / HeatedGroundPhotography
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Lagging a few years behind the liberal media, public opinion and common sense, the justice system has come to the conclusion that President George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program broke the rules. (continued)
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By Frankie Colmane —
There’s great value in exploring our rights to make the death and funerary process more personal and less of a consumer affair.
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Flickr user k.a.i.
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Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court has rejected cuts to the welfare state, ruling that all citizens, even the poor, have a right to a “minimum level of participation in social, cultural, and political life.” That’s a much higher standard than providing for food and other basic needs.
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By Joe Conason — Preparing for what they hope will be their return to power in Washington, Republican congressional leaders have revived the fear-mongering and flag-flapping used by Karl Rove to win the 2002 midterm elections.
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Original: Flickr / CarbonNYC
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Ted Olson and David Boies, who argued opposite sides of Bush v. Gore, have teamed up to legalize gay marriage by way of the Supreme Court. They are a few wins, appeals and years away from getting there, but the two lawyers are off to a hot start. (continued)
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Two Malawian men could spend the next 14 years in jail after taking part in an unofficial marriage ceremony in the southeast African country. Under the guise of the law, the couple have been subjected to beatings, they say, as well as other indignities, such as the threat of a medical examination to determine whether they’ve had sex.
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Flickr / Richard.Fisher
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China has plenty of Prada and an economy to match, but don’t think Beijing has gone soft on “stability preservation.” A speech published by state media shortly after a prominent dissident was thrown in the can encourages security forces to “Strike hard against hostile forces at home and abroad.”
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Original: crd! CC-BY-SA
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Most mobile phones have tiny GPS chips that do things like give directions or route your call to the right city when you dial 911. It turns out that law enforcement can ask phone companies for GPS info that reveals exactly where a phone owner is, and, according to a disturbing piece of audio making the rounds, the cops asked Sprint-Nextell for the locations of customers 8 million times in one year. (continued and video)
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By Amy Goodman — Going to Canada? You may be detained at the border and interrogated. I was, last week.
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White House / Pete Souza
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President Obama’s remarks at a Shanghai town hall meeting Monday were unlikely to please either the power brokers in Beijing or the hawks on the home front. Obama said China and the U.S. were not adversaries, but he also spoke of “universal rights,” which ... (continued)
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Flickr / David Boyle
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Lubna Ahmed Hussein went to jail on principle. The Sudanese journalist didn’t feel she should have to pay a fine for wearing pants that a court ruled indecent. She was lucky. Twelve other women were lashed for the same offense.
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State Department
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Hillary Clinton’s presidential run thrived on her appeal to women. Now the secretary of state wants to give something back to the finer sex—and not just in America. Women’s rights will top her agenda everywhere she goes, and, in order to elevate them, everywhere she goes she’ll meet with women who “may not even be known by their own leaders,” she explains to
The Washington Post.
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Flickr / ProComKelly
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Equality California, possibly the biggest gay rights group in California, will wait until the 2012 election to attempt to overturn the state’s gay marriage ban. The organization’s director says “we think we have one shot” and that it will take time to marshal the necessary forces. Other groups have their sights set on 2010. Update
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Flickr / 200MoreMontrealStencils
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Burma’s military junta has kept Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for the majority of the last 20 years and it looks as if she isn’t going anywhere. The sentence of the opposition leader was extended for the crime of being home—under house arrest—when an uninvited American came calling.
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Flickr / Rennet Stowe
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President Obama has ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by January 2010. To meet that deadline, the administration may push for a new detention facility on U.S. soil. Such a compound, sources tell AP, would include space for the indefinite detention of prisoners deemed too dangerous to face trial.
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hugh.freeshell.org
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Here’s an update in the case of Mohammed Jawad: On Thursday the Afghan, one of the youngest detainees at Guantanamo Bay, was ordered released. He has been held there since 2002 and reportedly has been tortured.
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U.S. Navy / Shane T. McCoy
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Although a judge had called the case “an outrage” that was “riddled with holes,” just last week the government said it would continue to try to prosecute Mohammed Jawad, a Guantanamo detainee whose “confession” was reportedly obtained through torture. Now the administration plans to free Jawad and return him to Afghanistan.
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By Amy Goodman — Tools of mass communication that were once the province of governments and corporations now fit in your pocket. As these technologies have developed, so too has the ability to monitor, filter, censor and block them.
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By Amy Goodman — Ken Saro-Wiwa and Alberto Pizango never met, but they are united by a passion for the preservation of their people and their land, and by the fervor with which they were targeted by their respective governments.
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A group of determined Afghan women took to the streets of Kabul on Wednesday, suffering chants of “Dogs!” from a much larger crowd in order to challenge a law that essentially legalizes marital rape. The AP reports on a scene that underscores the complexities of that country—there were more women among the angry counterprotesters than in the women’s rights group.
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Wikimedia Commons/supremecourthistory.org
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Perhaps his rather unpleasant experience in the public eye during his 1991 confirmation hearings has something to do with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ taciturnity, but he recently gave a roomful of high school students a rare peek at his more private side, discussing what he does when he’s blue and whether Americans feel too entitled to their rights.
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White House / Pete Souza
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By Marie Cocco — Indefinite and secret detention at the U.S. air base in Bagram, Afghanistan, was a fundamental breach of justice and morality when the Bush administration did it. It is made worse by the stench of hypocrisy when the Obama administration does it.
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By Amy Goodman — It turns out that people can still be arrested and deported based on the same charges they’ve been acquitted of in court. The U.S. Constitution protects people from “double jeopardy,” being charged twice with the same offense. But in the murky world of immigrant detention, double jeopardy is perfectly legal.
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