"...While the Department of Homeland security is throwing money at cities and towns to put cameras everywhere to film the public, and police routinely film public gatherings, the right of citizens to film and photograph in the streets is under direct attack... Such moves represent an attack on freedom of the press, liberty in general and the flow of information. They set a precedent for a national ruling to crack down on documentation of important events and incidents and give police the power to selectively enforce unconstitutional measures to restrict freedom..."
With vague reasoning and little explanation, moves are afoot in the city of New York to stamp out all forms of filming in public, be it by professional television crews, protestors or simply by tourists on sightseeing trips.
Some tourists, amateur photographers, even would-be filmmakers hoping to make it big on YouTube could soon be forced to obtain a city permit and $1 million in liability insurance before taking pictures or filming on city property, including sidewalks, reports the New York Times.
Though the Mayor's Office of Film has said that the new rules are not aimed at families on vacation or amateur filmmakers or photographers, the enforcement would require any group of two or more people who want to use a camera in public for more than a half hour to get a city permit and insurance. The same ruling would also apply to any group of five or more people who plan to use a tripod in a public location for more than 10 minutes, including the time it takes to set up the equipment.
Even people simply holding cameras could be subject to the rules, the ACLU says.
The ACLU has pointed out that there is no distinction in the wording of the rules that excludes non professionals and it would be down to the discretion of the police as to whom to enforce the rules upon.
Given that camera crews are routinely threatened with arrest for filming peaceful demonstrations and the fact that cops have been caught stealing protestor's cameras in the past, the new ruling does not bode well for photographers and independent reporters.
Filming in public is a right every American citizen has under the first and fourth amendments, which is why the cops in the cases above had to steal the camera and the footage, because there was no legal basis to seize it.
We have even seen police seize cameras and film from innocent people under bogus charges of "wiretapping". Earlier this month a man was charged in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with filming police officers during a routine traffic stop and faces up to seven years in prison. Last year a North Middleton Twp. man was charged in a street racing case that involved a wiretapping charge. Police claimed the man ordered associates to tape police breaking up an illegal race after officers told him to turn off their cameras. Furthermore, last month a 48-year-old man from Dover, New Hampshire was arrested for "wiretapping" for allegedly recording police while they were investigating him for driving while intoxicated.
The charge is invalid because it flouts privacy laws. Under the fourth amendment the expectation of privacy is not reasonable at such public places as automobile thoroughfares.
In other words filming on a public highway cannot be classed as an invasion of privacy.
Furthermore, the expectation of privacy is not reasonable if there exists a vantage point from which anyone, not just a police officer, can see or hear what is going on.
With the greater availability of camera technology there have been numerous incidents in recent years where the heavy handed police actions have importantly been caught on camera. Just yesterday we covered a story out of Hot Springs where a cop was caught on film choking out kids merely for skateboarding down the street. Without such evidence the cop might not have been placed on leave and an investigation may not have taken place.
While the Department of Homeland security is throwing money at cities and towns to put cameras everywhere to film the public, and police routinely film public gatherings, the right of citizens to film and photograph in the streets is under direct attack.
In addition, the Mayor of New York is Michael Bloomberg, who owns one of the biggest media outlets in the country. This move also therefore represents a direct conflict of interest on behalf of the mayor's office.
It seems that filming and photographing is now deemed to be a threat per se. Pick from any number of stories archived at www.freedomtophotograph.com for example.
* In Seattle, police banned a photography student from a public park. He was taking photographs of a bridge for a homework assignment. The officers who ban him from the park do so without the knowledge of park officials and have no authority to do so. * In Texas a man was first threatened by neighbors and then reportedly accosted and sprayed with pepper spray by police. He was walking around his neighborhood, filming with his new video camera. * In New York, National Press Photographers Association members staged a protest in the New York subway system to bring attention to a proposed law to ban photography in the subway system. * In Philadelphia a magazine photographer was detained and questioned after a parade for taking architectural shots while waiting for a subway train. * In Harrisburg, PA a man was swarmed by 8 Police and accused of being a member of Al-Qaeda after shooting pictures of his new car under a bridge.
Such moves represent an attack on freedom of the press, liberty in general and the flow of information. They set a precedent for a national ruling to crack down on documentation of important events and incidents and give police the power to selectively enforce unconstitutional measures to restrict freedom.
Federal and local officials are preparing for the upcoming national exercise TOPOFF 4, which will take place in October. The U.S. Department of Defense's Pacific Command Joint Task Force for Homeland Defense hosted a conference today at the Westin Hotel in Tumon, to help facilitate disaster plans among all stakeholder agencies.
Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Toy told KUAM News, "By virtually the fact that we have all these stakeholders at this venue allows us to better collaborate, achieve that level of interoperability...so that we can ensure that we have applied the capability and resources at the appropriate levels with mitigation during a disaster." Experts were able to give presentations on topics including the principles of radiation, radiation control and chemical agents as well as the roles and responsibilities of the first responders and other signs associated with terrorism.
Meanwhile, new homeland security advisor Dennis Santo Tomas says he's prepared to take on the task of working on the local end to ensure that Guam is prepared if any disaster should happen. "I would like to let the people of Guam know," he stated, "That TOPOFF is putting Guam on center stage and I ask that we all collectively take it as a serious exercise. We are probably the model of where you have true joint interoperability between military, civil authorities, and even non-profit organizations and private businesses all coming together to get out of a sticky situation."
The 2007 Joint Preparedness Conference will conclude on Friday.
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer 39 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - President Bush's immigration plan to legalize as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants while fortifying the border collapsed in the Senate on Thursday, crushing both parties' hopes of addressing the volatile issue before the 2008 elections.
The Senate vote that drove a stake through the delicate compromise was a stinging setback for Bush, who had made reshaping immigration laws a central element of his domestic agenda. It could carry heavy political consequences for Republicans and Democrats, many of whom were eager to show they could act on a complex issue of great interest to the public.
"Legal immigration is one of the top concerns of the American people and Congress' failure to act on it is a disappointment," a grim-faced president said after an appearance in Newport, R.I. "A lot of us worked hard to see if we couldn't find common ground. It didn't work."
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., his party's lead negotiator, called the defeat "enormously disappointing for Congress and for the country." But, he added: "We will be back. This issue is not going away."
Still, lawmakers in both parties said further action was unlikely this year, dooming its prospects as the political strains of a crowded presidential contest get louder.
"I believe that until another election occurs, or until something happens in the body politic, that what occurred today was fairly final," said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., the GOP chairman.
"I don't see where the political will is there for this issue to be dealt with," said Martinez, who helped develop the bill.
House Democratic leaders signaled they had little appetite for taking up an issue that bitterly divides both parties and has tied up the Senate for weeks.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who heads the House Judiciary subcommittee that was to write a version of the bill, said the Senate's inability to move forward "effectively ends comprehensive immigration reform efforts" for the next year and a half.
"The Senate voted for the status quo," the California Democrat said in a statement.
The vote already had led to partisan finger-pointing.
Howard Dean, the Democratic Party chairman, said it was "a reminder of why the American people voted Republicans out in 2006 and why they'll vote against them in 2008."
The measure was the product of a liberal-to-conservative alliance led by Kennedy and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., that forged an immigration compromise intended to withstand challenges from the left and right.
They advocated the resulting measure as an imperfect but necessary fix to the current system, in which millions of illegal immigrants use forged documents or lapsed visas to live and work in the U.S.
The proposal would have made those millions eligible for lawful status while tightening border security and creating an employee verification system to weed out illegal workers from U.S. jobs.
The bill also would have set up a temporary worker program and a system to base future legal immigration more heavily on employment criteria, rather than family ties.
Ultimately, though, what came to be known as their "grand bargain" commanded only lukewarm support among important constituencies in both parties. That was no match for the vehement and vocal opposition of Republican conservatives, who derided it as amnesty.
"The end result was a blanket that was too small to cover everyone," said Tamar Jacoby, an analyst at the conservative Manhattan Institute who was a strong supporter. "By its nature, because it was a compromise, it was hard to muster intense support. But the opposition was very intense."
Conservative foes' were among the loudest voices during the debate, led by Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and David Vitter, R-La. Their views were amplified by talk radio and television hosts who attacked the bill and urged listeners to flood Congress with calls, faxes and e-mails.
The conservatives hailed the demise of the bill as a fitting death of an effort that had thwarted the public's will. They faulted Bush and their own party for trying to push through a measure that lacked public support and placed Republicans in a politically tough spot.
"They made a big mistake. I think the president's approach didn't work," Sessions said. Republicans "need to be careful we don't walk into such an adverse circumstance again. This did not work out well. Our own members were placed in difficult positions."
Bush made an unusually personal appeal for passage of the legislation, appearing at a luncheon with Senate Republicans this month to urge them to put aside their skepticism.
He sent Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, as well as his top policy aides, to spend hours in Capitol Hill meetings with senators over a period of months to develop and then help push through the deal.
The two secretaries were on hand to buttonhole senators as they entered the chamber for votes.
The outcome, though, was a stunning reversal from just a few weeks ago, when Bush confidently declared, "I'll see you at the bill-signing."
Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, said the Senate had made a "grave error" in killing the legislation. The action, he said, would cut off legal immigration, permit continued unlawful immigration and human rights violations and decrease security on both sides of the border.
The bill's Senate supporters fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to limit debate and clear the way for final passage of the legislation. The vote was 46 to 53 in favor of limiting the debate.
Voting to allow the bill to proceed by ending debate were 33 Democrats, 12 Republicans and independent Joe Lieberman, Conn. Voting to block the bill by not limiting debate were 37 Republicans, 15 Democrats and independent Bernard Sanders, Vt. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., who has been absent from the Senate all year due to an illness, did not vote.
In a mark of lawmakers' ambivalence on the issue, the outcome was substantially different from a test-vote earlier in the week, when the Senate voted 64-35 to revive the bill. Then, 24 Republicans joined 39 Democrats and Lieberman to move ahead with the bill. On Thursday, 12 of those Republicans and six of the Democrats switched their votes and opposed moving forward.
All the Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate voted to end debate and advance the bill. Among the Republican candidates, only Sen. John McCain of Arizona voted to keep the measure alive.
WHITE HOUSE HAS EXEC ORD READY IN CASE AMNESTY VOTE FAILS!
ALERT - WHITE HOUSE HAS EXECUTIVE ORDER READY TO SIGN (Uncoroborated, but believable) Source: Confidential URL Source: http://N/A Published: Jun 28, 2007 Author: IK Post Date: 2007-06-28 12:17:10 by irish kate 68 Comments
It has been brought to my attention from a co-Patriot who has a very high ranking viable source that President Bush has an Executive Order drawn up ready for signature should the cloture vote fail. It is speculated that once this order is signed, that rioting and civil disobedience may start and hence, Marital Law will be declared, therefore handing over to the President all powers.
Please start calling the White House and tell them that the RULE OF LAW will be demanded and that an Executive Order signed for this Amnesty bill will not be tolerated.
I am sorry I cannot reveal my source, but it is a viable one.
By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent 33 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - President Bush, in a constitutional showdown with Congress, claimed executive privilege Thursday and rejected demands for White House documents and testimony about the firing of U.S. attorneys
His decision was denounced as "Nixonian stonewalling" by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Bush rejected subpoenas for documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor. The White House made clear neither one would testify next month, as directed by the subpoenas.
Presidential counsel Fred Fielding said Bush had made a reasonable attempt at compromise but Congress forced the confrontation by issuing subpoenas. "With respect, it is with much regret that we are forced down this unfortunate path which we sought to avoid by finding grounds for mutual accommodation."
The assertion of executive privilege was the latest turn in increasingly hostile standoffs between the administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress over the Iraq war, executive power, the war on terror and Vice President Dick Cheney's authority. A day earlier, the Senate Judiciary Committee delivered subpoenas to the offices of Bush, Cheney, the national security adviser and the Justice Department about the administration's warrantless wiretapping program.
While weakened by the Iraq war and poor approval ratings in the polls, Bush has been adamant not to cede ground to Congress.
"Increasingly, the president and vice president feel they are above the law," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Bush's assertion of executive privilege was "unprecedented in its breadth and scope" and displayed "an appalling disregard for the right of the people to know what is going on in their government."
White House press secretary Tony Snow weighed in with unusually sharp criticism of Congress. He accused Democrats of trying "to make life difficult for the White House. It also may explain why this is the least popular Congress in decades, because you do have what appears to be a strategy of destruction, rather than cooperation."
Over the years, Congress and the White House have avoided a full-blown court test about the constitutional balance of power and whether the president can refuse demands from Congress. Lawmakers could vote to cite witnesses for contempt and refer the matter to the local U.S. attorney to bring before a grand jury. Since 1975, 10 senior administration officials have been cited but the disputes were all resolved before getting to court.
Congressional committees sought the documents and testimony in their investigations of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' stewardship of the Justice Department and the firing of eight federal attorneys over the winter. Democrats say the firings were an example of improper political influence. The White House contends that U.S. attorneys are political appointees who can be hired and fired for almost any reason.
In a letter to Leahy and Conyers, Fielding said Bush had "attempted to chart a course of cooperation" by releasing more than 8,500 pages of documents and sending Gonzales and other officials to Capitol Hill to testify.
The president also had offered to make Miers, Taylor, political strategist Karl Rove and their aides available to be interviewed by the Judiciary committees in closed-door sessions, without transcripts and not under oath. Leahy and Conyers rejected that proposal.
The Senate Judiciary Committee's senior Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said the House and Senate panels should accept Bush's original offer.
Impatient with the "lagging" pace of the investigation into the U.S. attorney firings, Specter said he asked Fielding during a phone call Wednesday night whether the president would agree to transcripts on the interviews. Fielding's answer: No.
"I think we ought to take what information we can get now and try to wrap this up," Specter told reporters. That wouldn't preclude Congress from reissuing subpoenas if lawmakers do not get enough answers, Specter said.
Fielding explained Bush's position on executive privilege this way: "For the president to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisers and between those advisers and others within and outside the Executive Branch."
This "bedrock presidential prerogative" exists, in part, to protect the president from being compelled to disclose such communications to Congress, Fielding argued.
In a slap at the committees, Fielding said, "There is no demonstration that the documents and information you seek by subpoena are critically important to any legislative initiatives that you may be pursuing or intending to pursue."
It was the second time in his administration that Bush has exerted executive privilege, said White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto. The first instance was in December 2001, to rebuff Congress' demands for Clinton administration documents.
The most famous claim of executive privilege was in 1974, when President Nixon went to the Supreme Court to avoid surrendering White House tape recordings in the Watergate scandal. That was in a criminal investigation, not a demand from Congress. The court unanimously ordered Nixon to turn over the tapes.
Mineta Confirms Cheney Ordered Stand Down 06-26-2007 Jones Report Aaron Dykes
Former Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta answered questions from members of 9/11 Truth Seattle.org about his testimony before the 9/11 Commission report.
Mineta says Vice President Cheney was "absolutely" already there when he arrived at approximately 9:25 a.m. in the PEOC (Presidential Emergency Operations Center) bunker on the morning of 9/11. Mineta seemed shocked to learn that the 9/11 Commission Report claimed Cheney had not arrived there until 9:58-- after the Pentagon had been hit, a report that Mineta definitively contradicted.
Norman Mineta revealed that Lynn Cheney was also in the PEOC bunker already at the time of his arrival, along with a number of other staff.
"During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President...the plane is 50 miles out...the plane is 30 miles out....and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president "do the orders still stand?" And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said "Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?
Mineta confirmed his statements with reporters, saying "When I overheard something about 'the orders still stand' and so, what I thought of was that they had already made the decision to shoot something down."
Mineta was still in the PEOG bunker when the plane was reported down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
"I remember later on when I heard about the Shanksville plane going down, the Vice President was right across from me, and I said, 'Do you think that we shot it down ourselves?' He said, 'I don't know.' He said, 'Let's find out.' So he had someone check with the Pentagon. That was about maybe, let's say 10:30 or so, and we never heard back from the DoD until probably about 12:30. And they said, 'No, we didn't do it.'"
Norman Mineta's Testimony Before the 9/11 Commission-- which was NOT included in the final report and which DISPUTES the Commission's timetable for Vice President Dick Cheney on 9/11
"We had access, secured communications with Air Force One, with the secretary of Defense over in the Pentagon. We had also the secure videoconference that ties together the White House, CIA, State, Justice, Defense--a very useful and valuable facility. We have the counterterrorism task force up on that net. And so I was in a position to be able to see all the stuff coming in, receive reports and then make decisions in terms of acting with it."
At a bare minimum, this confirmation by Norman Mineta is in gross contradiction to the 9/11 Commission Report and poses serious questions about the Vice President's role in ordering NORAD to stand down on 9/11.
911 FIRST RESPONDER SICKNESSES DUE TO RADIATION...THIS IS ACCURATE!!!
Researchers claim 9/11 sicknesses in the U.S. related to environmental radiation contamination
by David Jones
Various researchers and activists inspired by the work of Dr. Karl Ziegler Morgan claim that 9/11 sicknesses are related to environmental radiation contamination.
The International 9/11 Citizen's War Crimes Tribunal documents that Leuren Moret reported for example, "elevated radiation readings downwind from the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001. Two days after 9/11, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed that the Pentagon crash site rubble was radioactive and that the probable contaminant was Depleted Uranium (DU)."
"The entry and exit holes through the Pentagon crash site were the signature of a kinetic energy penetrator, such as a Cruise missile, and the term "punch-out hole" was written by crash site investigators over the exit hole. This is a military term used for kinetic energy penetrators. Major Doug Rokke, former Director of the Gulf War I DU Cleanup Team, reported that an email from the Pentagon 30 minutes after impact confirmed a nuclear device hit the Pentagon on 9/11."
In April, 2007, Leuren Moret exposed the U.S. military's illegal use of Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons in target practice in Hawaii, in violation of U.S. military environmental regulations. The elevated radiation readings she recorded were carried by ABC-TV news in Hawaii on April 29 and 30, 2007.
The demonstrated public health effects of Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons include: Diabetes; Cancer; Birth defects; Chronic diseases caused by neurological and neuromuscular radiation damage; Mitochondrial diseases (Chronic fatigue syndrome, Lou Gehrig's, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's; Heart and brain disorders); Global DNA damage in men's sperm; Infertility in women; Learning disabilities such as autism, and dyslexia; Mental Illness; Infant mortality and low birth weights; Increase in death rates and decrease in birth rates.
Around the Pentagon there were reports of high radiation levels after 9-11 American Free Press has documentation that radiation levels in Alexandria and Leesburg, Va., were much higher than usual on 9-11 and persisted for at least one week afterward.
In Alexandria, seven miles south of the burning Pentagon, a doctor with years of experience working with radiation issues found elevated radiation levels on 9-11 of 35 to 52 counts per minute (cpm) using a "Radalert 50" Geiger counter.
One week after 9-11, in Leesburg, 33 miles northwest of the Pentagon, soil readings taken in a residential neighbourhood showed even higher readings of 75 to 83 cpm.
"That's pretty high," Cindy Folkers of the Washing ton-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) told AFP. Folkers said 7 to 12 cpm is normal background radiation inside the NIRS building, and that outdoor readings of between 12 to 20 cpm are normal in Chevy Chase, Md., outside Washington.
The Radalert 50, Folkers said, is primarily a gamma ray detector and "detects only 7 percent of the beta radiation and even less of the alpha." This suggests that actual radiation levels may have been significantly higher than those detected by the doctor's Geiger counter.
"The question is, why?" Folkers said.
If the radiation came from the explosion and fire at the Pentagon, it most likely did not come from a Boeing 757, which is the type of aircraft that allegedly hit the building.
"Boeing has never used DU on either the 757 or the 767, and we no longer use it on the 747," Leslie M. Nichols, product spokesperson for Boeing's 767, told AFP. "Sometime ago, we switched to tungsten, because it is heavier, more readily available and more cost effective."
The cost effectiveness argument is debatable. A waste product of U.S. nuclear weapons and energy facilities, DU is reportedly provided by the Department of Energy to national and foreign armament companies free of charge.
DU is used in a wide variety of missiles in the U.S. arsenal as an armor penetrator. It is also used in the bunker-buster bombs and cruise missiles. Because no photographic evidence of a Boeing 757 hitting the Pentagon is available to the public, 9-11 skeptics and independent researchers claim something else, such as a missile, struck the Pentagon.
A white flash, not unlike those seen in videos of the planes as they struck the twin towers, occurs when a DU penetrator hits a target.
Workers and FEMA officials at the Pentagon were seen wearing special protective outfits and respirators. FEMA photos show the workers going through decontamination procedures. Bellinger told AFP that the U.S. Department of Defense was responsible for on-site safety procedures at the Pentagon.
In New York, however, considerably less attention was paid to the health risks the burning rubble posed to workers at the WTC site. A recent screening done by Mount Sinai Hospital found that nearly three-quarters of the 1,138 first responders had experienced respiratory problems while working at Ground Zero, and half had respiratory ailments that persisted for an average of eight months afterward.
"We were dumfounded by how many people were sick, and how sick they were, and how sick they still are," said Robin Herbert, co-director of the program.
"If high radioactive levels were found near the Pentagon (and they were) it certainly would not hurt to similarly test for the presence of radiation sickness in those who spent time around Ground Zero, as well," says Cathy Garger.
MORE GREAT WORK IN THE SENATE...NOT!!! NEW BILL PUTS VOTE IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY!!!
We want to alert you to a new and dangerous bill that takes federal elections out of the hands of the people and places them under the control of voting machine corporations and four Presidential appointees (the Election Assistance Commission - EAC). Also shocking, this bill provides legal excuse to expand the disenfranchisement of historically disenfranchised groups, such as racial minorities and other groups the EAC might choose to target. The bill, introduced on May 24 by Senator Dianne Feinstein, is called the "Ballot Integrity Act of 2007", S.1487. Read the bill for yourself here: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s110-1487 And/or read the brief (2-page) summary below our signature line. And/or read our 8-page analysis. http://www.votersunite.org/info/s1487Report.asp. We must stop this outrageous bill before it begins to gain momentum! Contact your Senators and insist they oppose this dangerous and shameful bill. And help publicize this outrage in whatever way you can - letter to editor, posting on the Internet, or even just passing this email along to your friends. Thank you, ~ The VotersUnite team Ellen Theisen and John Gideon ******************************************** U.S. Senate Bill S. 1487: Escalating the Federal Control and Privatization of Elections The name "Diebold," when associated with elections, has come to mean "untrustworthy." But terms that indicate "election dysfunction" aren't wholly owned by Diebold. The name of another voting machine company, "Sequoia," has come to mean foreign ownership of vote-counting software. "ES&S" has come to mean broken contracts, lies to election officials, and questionable federal election results in Sarasota. For those paying close attention, the little-known U. S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) has come to mean incompetent, secretive, derelict in duties, partisan, and unduly influenced by Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S. Instead of safeguarding our elections from these entities, a bill introduced in the Senate would give the EAC and these corporations unprecedented control over federal elections. S. 1487, "The Ballot Integrity Act of 2007," introduced by Senator Dianne Feinstein, would take federal elections out of the hands of the people, out of the hands of local and state officials, and give nearly complete control to the EAC and voting machine corporations. Corporate rights at the expense of citizen rights. Over the last several years, citizens who researched and analyzed election data have exposed the unreliability of electronic voting equipment. Citizens' work led to the conviction of two election workers who rigged the 2004 Presidential recount in Ohio's most populous county. Information provided by citizen researchers has convinced some state legislatures and election officials to institute strong audits, safeguards for high-tech equipment, and, in Indiana, penalties for corporations that violate election laws. S. 1487 would constrict the flow of election-related information that we citizens need in order to oversee our own elections, to discover these serious problems, and to demand solutions. The bill would protect the trade secret rights, intellectual property rights, and confidential commercial information rights of the voting machine corporations, allowing them to hide virtually all election-related information from public view. And, shockingly, it would give those corporations the authority to work in combination with the EAC to establish how to "ensure compliance" with that protection. If this law had been in effect in 2003, would Diebold have had the power to silence Harri Hursti after he demonstrated how easy it was to hack an election in Leon County Florida? Would ES&S have had the power to gag eight eminent computer scientists who discovered dangerous virus vulnerabilities in their touch screen machines? Would Diebold and Sequoia have had the power to protect the source code for their election system software, even after it had been found - by citizens - on unprotected web sites? The corporations tried to obstruct these revelations at the time they occurred. If S. 1487 had been in effect, they would have had the authority to "ensure compliance" with their proprietary rights, so the answer to all these questions is probably "yes." Countless examples of elections that failed simple arithmetic have spurred citizens to action, as authorities have refused to investigate. Even though citizens lack subpoena power, their crucial investigations have included information from open records requests for correspondence, audit logs, and detailed vote data. Diebold has already claimed the right to block a vote data request in Alaska. Would this bill allow voting machine corporations to block virtually all information about OUR elections by calling it "confidential commercial information"? Quite possibly. Federal authority at the expense of state and local authority. The "Help America Vote Act of 2002" (HAVA) established the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) as an agency to assist the states and disburse funds to them for upgrading voting equipment. S. 1487 would transform this agency - composed of four Presidential appointees - into a governing and rule-making agency with authority OVER the states rather than providing a service to them. For example, as of 2010, no state would be allowed to use voting equipment in a federal election unless that equipment had been certified by EAC. Since it is financially and logistically prohibitive for states to use one type of equipment for federal elections and another for state and local elections, the bill, in practice, would give the EAC sole authority to determine the pool of equipment available for use in U.S. elections. This mandate alone gives four Presidential appointees, in combination with the four dominant voting system corporations, enormous control over the conduct of OUR elections.
One might think that allowing a President to directly appoint those officials that may oversee his own re-election is inherently perilous. Yet, this bill does exactly that. ~ Robert Bancroft, Virginia On other fronts, the EAC would also establish guidelines for the number of voting systems, poll workers, and other resources that state should provide in each poll site; guidelines for the locations of early voting sites (which S. 1487 would require in every state); guidelines for conducting audits of elections; and more guidelines as well. Only after the EAC granted permission could a state certify the results of its federal election and declare the winners for Presidential electors, Senators, and U. S. Representatives. What would be left to local and state officials? They could administer elections following the EAC's guidelines, using equipment allowed by the EAC, and submitting federal election results to the EAC for approval. They would become administrative assistants to the EAC bureaucracy that would inevitably result from the enactment of this bill. Undermining of the Voting Rights Act. S. 1487 also gives the EAC authority to set up different classes of voters, with less protection from fraud and machine malfunction for "distinct communities" that have been historically disenfranchised. In this bill, Congress instructs the EAC to use studies of lost votes in prior elections - not, as such studies are intended, to detect problems and investigate the causes - but to expand the potential for future lost votes into other areas where those "distinct communities" are present. By distorting the purpose of lost-vote studies, this bill would invite an increase in lost-vote rates among racial minorities or any other "distinct community" the EAC decided to target. What Should be Done. S. 1487 is unworthy of consideration by Congress. If enacted, it would give large corporations and Presidential appointees control over federal elections, prevent citizens from gaining access to essential information about OUR elections, and provide a blueprint for discriminating among classes of voters. The bill would "reform" our elections into the antithesis of the grand experiment envisioned by the founding fathers. It is beyond amendment. It must be withdrawn or defeated. Instead, if Congress takes action at all, it should attempt to solve, rather than exacerbate, problems that have been uncovered in recent years. It should pass simple, doable, common sense election reform for 2008 to provide meaningful checks and balances without undue federal intrusion into - and obstruction of - the rights of states and citizens. If you found this information valuable, please donate. Your donations are our only funding. Click here to donate. http://www.votersunite.org/donate.asp VotersUnite! is in affiliation with International Humanities Center, a nonprofit public charity exempt from federal income tax under Section 501[c](3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Immigration Called 'Diversion' For Shadowy North American Union By Nathan Burchfiel CNSNews.com Staff Writer June 18, 2007
(CNSNews.com) - The debate over illegal immigration is a "diversion" to distract Americans from government efforts to enter into a North American Union with Canada and Mexico, in the view of activists protesting in Washington, D.C., on Friday.
"The illegal alien problem is a mechanism for leveraging what is yet to come," Daneen Peterson, a researcher who studies the North American Union issue, said at the small rally, which drew about 40 protestors.
"Once the civil unrest and chaos caused by the overwhelming human tsunami of illegal aliens and MS-13 gang members reduces America to complete anarchy ... the federal government will institute martial law," Peterson said.
Peterson, a former university professor, predicted that martial law would then "allow the shadow government to step forward and visibly take over this country. They will use martial law to install a fascist One World Order, dictatorial government in plain sight instead of operating clandestinely as they do now."
She accused the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a foreign policy think tank, of designing and implementing a "shadow government" dedicated to uniting Canada, Mexico and the United States under one government.
"If you continue to believe that the illegal alien invasion is the biggest threat to America, you will never understand that there is something far more dangerous to our country called the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America," Peterson said, referring to the trilateral dialogue between the North American countries.
According to its government-hosted website, the SPP is a "trilateral effort to increase security and enhance prosperity among the United States, Canada and Mexico through greater cooperation and information sharing." Activists like Peterson, however, believe it is a step toward relinquishing United States sovereignty.
"Their goal is to destroy our constitutional republic," she said, repeatedly referring to the "shadow government" and a "cabal" of government officials conspiring to bring the U.S. into a North American Union. Peterson said the argument that three nations are merely engaging in dialogue is "a blatant lie."
The SPP website refutes allegations made by critics like Peterson. It says the conversations among leaders of the three nations "seek to make the United States, Canada and Mexico open to legitimate trade and closed to terrorism and crime. It does not change our courts or legislative processes and respects the sovereignty of the United States, Mexico, and Canada."
More bluntly, the site says the SPP "in no way, shape or form considers the creation of a European Union-like structure or a common currency. The SPP does not attempt to modify our sovereignty or currency or change the American system of government designed by our Founding Fathers."
Nonetheless, U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) in January introduced a sense of Congress resolution stating that the United States should not enter into a union with its neighbors to the North and South.
Goode addressed the rally Friday. He said the SPP "will send us on a glide path to the destruction of our sovereignty, and I always want the United States to be the best country in the world as it is today, and it won't be if we're part of a North American Union."
Robert Pastor, vice president of international affairs at American University and one of the leading proponents of a "North American Community," called Peterson's predictions "completely unrealistic" and "totally absurd."
"Every important initiative requires the consent of our elected officials. None of this can be done by stealth or in secret," he told Cybercast News Service.
"The idea that somehow or other they're going to wake up one day and George Bush will have stolen American sovereignty, or that I would have, or the Council on Foreign Relations, is totally absurd. That doesn't really require a serious conversation," Pastor said.
He called the North American Union a "straw man," explaining that "a union is a unified national state, so if you believe the North American Union, you would be in favor of dissolving the United States ... I don't know anyone who is proposing that."
Pastor said the North American community he envisions "begins with a simple premise, and that is that if our neighbors do well, we will do well. And if our neighbors have problems, we may not be able to contain them. It's a simple principle of interdependence."
"America's strength has always come from opening its doors and embracing and adapting the best in the world," he said. "We ought to continue to adapt our institutions to changes in the world, and that's what's required to advance our interests."
Addressing concerns that his plan would sacrifice American sovereignty, Pastor said the United States has "agreements with hundreds of countries, we belong to hundreds of international organizations. Every treaty we have involves us sharing some responsibility with other countries, sharing some power in the United Nations. That's the real world that we're in today."
But as Cybercast News Service has previously reported, Pastor is not optimistic that the leaders of the three nations are serious about working together to build the community.
"I don't anticipate any serious forward movement during this meeting," he said of a meeting between President Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper scheduled for August.
"The fact they're having a meeting is a positive step and will offer the three governments a chance to hopefully move the relationship forward in a positive manner," Pastor said. "But having said that, my impression from consultations is that this is a very low priority in all three governments."
WHO AMONG US DO NOT BELIEVE WE ARE GOING INTO IRAN?
Bush sanctions "black ops" against Iran! May 28, 2007 - President George W. Bush has given the CIA approval to launch covert "black" operations to achieve regime change in Iran, intelligence sources have revealed.
Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for propaganda and disinformation campaigns intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.
Under the plan, pressure will be brought to bear on the Iranian economy by manipulating the country's currency and international financial transactions. Details have also emerged of a covert scheme to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program, which United Nations nuclear watchdogs said last week could lead to a bomb within three years.
Security officials in Washington have disclosed that Teheran has been sold defective parts on the black market in a bid to delay and disrupt its uranium enrichment program, the precursor to building a nuclear weapon.
A security source in the U.S. told The Sunday Telegraph that the presidential directive, known as a "non-lethal presidential finding", would give the CIA the right to collect intelligence on home soil, an area that is usually the preserve of the FBI, from the many Iranian exiles and émigrés within the U.S.
"Iranians in America have links with their families at home, and they are a good two-way source of information, " he said.
The CIA will also be allowed to supply communications equipment which would enable opposition groups in Iran to work together and bypass internet censorship by the clerical regime.The plans, which significantly increase American pressure on Iran, were leaked just days before a meeting in Iraq tomorrow between the U.S.
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