Civil Liberties Be Damned!

Let's first start with the Patriot Act, since most people actually have no idea the extent to which our civil liberties are being threatened. The USA PATRIOT Act is a clever little acronym that stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism". Here's a few bullet points, unabashadly plagerized from The Village Voice:
It is a crime for anyone in this country to contribute money or other material support to the activities of a group on the State Department's terrorist watch list. Now keep in mind that this is a "secret" list designated by the government, and you can't challenge the list in court. So, since I donate monthly to OSPIRG, and suddenly the government decides they are eco terrorists, I'm committing a crime, even though I'm donating legally to a legal organization, who are operating, (you guessed it) LEGALLY. It's important to emphasize that this list is chosen randomly and secretly. You have no way of knowing if that check you sent to your local mosque will land you in jail.
The FBI can monitor and tape conversations and meetings between an attorney and a client who is in federal custody, whether the client has been convicted, charged, or merely detained as a material witness.
Ok, attorney-client priviledge? Out the window baby. This has actually already happened. NYC lawyer Lynne Stewart has been indicted for aiding and abetting terrorism based on conversations with her client. Her client, by the way, was Sheik Abdel Rahman, who was convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Foreign citizens charged with a terrorist-related act may be denied access to an attorney
By the way, this one doesn't just apply to those "damn foreigners" either...
American citizens and aliens can be held indefinitely in federal custody as "material witnesses
This is a great way to imprison people for whom you have no evidence of terrorist activity.
The government can conduct surveillance on the Internet and e-mail use of American citizens without any notice
Big brother is alive and well, and he's on your computer......oops, guess I better get rid of all of my bookmarked politcal websites...especially the Palestinian Authority and Al Jazeera.... but I just wanted more accurate reporting.....
The FBI can conduct aerial surveillance of individuals and homes without a warrant, and can install video cameras in places where lawful demonstrations and protests are held
Keep in mind the ramifications here; a protest against a war can be deemed an act of terrorism, and with the FBI's facial recognition software, you could be identified and imprisoned.
.....and hey, let's not forget those Military Tribunals.Any idea what those are? They operate on rules not based on the American justice system (innocent until proven guilty, yahdah yahday...) but rather on procedure defined by the Pentagon and the DOJ. And to qualify for the exceptional honour of landing in a military tribunal? Weeellllll...glad you asked. Just get fingered as an "unlawful combatant." And how would one qualify for that title? All it takes to be named an unlawful combatant is the affidavit of a Pentagon employee, who is not required to provide the rationale for his or her decision, even to a federal judge. Go ask all the "unlawful combatants" in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They are without access to attorneys, family contact, and under conditions said by some to be tantamount to physical and psychological torture. A federal court ruled in March that these persons had no access to the federal courts since they were on Cuban, not American, soil. That's clever! Move them off country! God we're amazingly resourceful.
Now hold your horses, there's actually a new version of the patriot act coming out. It's benignly titled the Domestic Security Enhancement Act, and it allows for even more civil liberty violations. This is some seriously scary shit. Listen to this:
*Grants government the power to strip away the citizenship of any American involved in the lawful activities of an organization deemed to have terrorist ties. Such people could be held indefinitely, or deported to any country that agreed to take them.
*Broadens the definition of Americans who could be under surveillance without a warrant
*Creates new crimes and punishments relating to nonviolent activities linked to terrorist groups, which could include making charitable contributions to a group on the State Department's terrorist list.
*Expands surveillance powers to grant easier government access to bank accounts, home computers, telephones, and credit card accounts based upon subpoenas issued by the Department of Justice. You would have no right to know why you were charged.
*Amends the Freedom of Information Act to curtail even further the public's ability to obtain information about people detained or charged. If you were arrested for a crime of terror, your accuser could remain nameless. Does this not sound like the New England witch hunts?? Seriously. At least those poor women knew who their accuser was before they burned to death.
So what does this all mean?? I know one thing for sure, I'm scared. My last name is Persian, and you can damn well bet your bottom dollar I'm being surveilled.
- posted by SassGirl @ 2:33 PM

 
More on the Democratic Republic of the Congo
I've gathered that the current fighting is specifically between the rival ethnic groups of the Lendu and the Hema, Lendu being the majority, Hema being the minority. The struggle is mainly for the reasource rich land that yeilds gold, rich mineral deposits, vast timber forests and fertile land. Hemas, traditionally cattle-raisers, and Lendus, predominantly farmers, have sparred for centuries over land and other resources in Ituri.

I am so upset writing this blog I can hardly put the words to paper. United Nations officials say they have never seen such "horrific" conditions as those in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This last slaughter in Bunia left over 450 people dead, and I've read that during this five year civil war, over 3 million people have been killed. The UN officials returning from the area have said they had never witnessed such an appalling humanitarian crisis on such a large scale. Here's a few quotes from CNN, describing the carnage:"We've seen the most horrible things in Bunia. Women who've lost their arms and legs, child amputees, men chopped to bits, women raped,"
"I saw the killing. I saw the way they removed the heart, the way they roasted it in a fire and then ate it,"
"We're not just seeing women who have been raped, we're seeing women who have been torn apart, who have been cut up and who are on the edge of death," .......
And what has our response been? NOTHING!!Oh, ok, we sent Green Berets in the year before the full fledged civil war broke out. For some reason that seems a bit suspect. The U.N.'s own humanitarian and human rights agency has appealed three times to the U.N. Security Council about the atrocities in the Congo. Here's another quote: "I'm about to submit my third report on the subject to the security council. I am tired of presenting reports of mass human rights violations in the Congo on mass graves in the Congo and I believe it is time to take preventive measures," said U.N. Human Rights High Commissioner Sergio Vieira de Mello.
And again, our response has been what? To "invest" in the Congo, not offer aid. There's unarmed UN "peacekeepers" there, and ironically, it's France that's offered to send a 1000 member multi national force to the Congo to work with the peacekeepers. There are young girls being kidnapped and forced to join opposing tribal forces, as both murderers and sex slaves. They are repeatedly raped, beaten, and starved. Now I ask you, how the hell do we justify going into Iraq under the auspices of freeing the Iraqi people from a dictator, yet choose to do nothing about the Congo? Of course we all know the answer to that: oil.
Let's just draw some quick parallels between Iraq and the Congo:
Both have (or had) a dictatorship. The Congo has Museveni, Iraq had Saddam.
Neither supported Democracy; one of Museveni's charters is to illiminate muliti party elections. And he supresses his opposition the same way Saddam did. The only difference is while Saddam used guns, Museveni's henchmen tend to like the machete.
Both have multiple human rights violations, including rape as a weapon of war, torture and murder, all documented by several groups including the UN.
And both, ironically have been backed at one time or another by the U.S. Iraq of course was backed during the Iran-Iraq war, when we actually sold arms to them. And when Sadaam gassed the Kurds, we were the only country in the UN that actually abstained from voting to ban chemical weapons.

I don't think I need to illustrate the differences between the action taken by the U.S. in both countries;we've all just witnessed the ridiculous hipocracy called "Operation Iraqi Freedom". Now I understand Bono's comment about putting out a fire in Africa with a watering can. Too bad they don't have oil.




- posted by SassGirl @ 10:21 AM

 
Death in the Congo
Sadly, I don't know as much about this as I'd like. I know that I've been morally absent from this issue, mainly because it hasn't been publicized extensively here in the U.S. It's hard to search for something you have no knowledge of. I do remember seeing an interview with Bono after U2 won an award. He made some remark about how we're "putting out a fire with a watering can in Africa". I had no idea what he was talking about. Now I have a small idea.
There's been a civil war going on in the Congo. In a nutshell, war broke out in August 1998 when Rwanda and Uganda sent troops to back rebels seeking to oust then-President Laurent Kabila. They accused him of backing insurgents threatening regional security.

From what I've been able to find so far, this is another example of ethnic cleansing. In 1997, we sent U.S. Green Berets over to Uganda, their mission described as training African troops to launch a "peace-keeping" force for the continent. According to the U.S. State Department, this peace keeping mission was in response to the 1994 Rwandan massacre of Tutsis by the ruling Hutu government. Like many other foreign scandals, the U.S. is implicated in aiding in the promotion of that civil war. Big surprise. (think Iran-Contra, El Salvador, Vietnam..)After the Tutsi slaughter, the group that took over is widely known to have favor with Washington DC. The Rwandan Patriotic Front originally came from Uganda, and has been a player in this crisis from that time forward. Honestly, there are so many groups involved in this conflict that it's difficult to keep them all straight. My hope is that in the coming days and weeks I"m able to gather more information regarding our role in this crisis, and help disseminate more information on an obviously dire situation that hasn't received the publicity it deserves.

- posted by SassGirl @ 7:37 AM