The Suppression of Dissent
Resurgent McCarthyism
Archive 11/01

Anti-Terror Surveillance Law Mulled  11/30/01 AP 

Union: Flight attendants groped at checkpoints  11/30/01 CNN 

Internet Samizdat Releases Suppressed Voices, History  11/30/01 Common Dreams: "Nor has Albright been asked whether she still feels that even if sanctions against Iraq have led to the deaths of half a million children, “the price is worth it” -- as she said in a quote from a 1996 “60 Minutes” interview that circulates widely on the Net. Although issues like Al Shifa and the plight of Iraqi kids loom large in Islamic countries, they are virtually off-limits when U.S. journalists interview policy makers, past or present."

Disappeared in the Southland  11/30/01 Counterpunch: "[Dr.] Al-Hazmi said FBI agents routinely kicked him in the small of his back while shouting at him as he was being interrogated."

New anti-terrorism bill makes face paint and masks criminal offenses in public forums Civil rights and media latest casualties of our times  11/30/01 Lakota Journal 

U.S. Heads for Civil Liberties Showdown  11/30/01 Reuters 

INS memo cites possible detention for those questioned in terror probe  11/29/01 CNN 

Al Qaeda Link Seen in Only a Handful of 1,200 Detainees  11/29/01 NYT 

Oregon Cities Reject Anti-Terror Interviews  11/29/01 Reuters 

Too Late To Stop National ID  11/29/01 TooGood Reports 

Rep. Barr Criticizes Bush  11/29/01 Washington Post 

Most detainees are Pakistanis: US  11/28/01 Dawn, Pakistan: "Attorney-General John Ashcroft, under pressure to release details of those being kept in federal custody, said 641 people were in detention of whom over 200 came to the United States from Pakistan. These are among 548 held on immigration charges."

Ashcroft Offers Accounting of 641 Charged or Held  11/28/01 NYT 

The Case Against Torture  11/28/01 Village Voice 

Ex-FBI Officials Criticize Tactics On Terrorism  11/28/01 Washington Post 

DOJ's Already Monitoring Modems  11/28/01 Wired 

'Anti-Terror' Bill Splits Conservatives  11/27/01 Antiwar.com 

Democrats Question Tribunal Concept  11/27/01 AP 

Dangerous Ashcroft is Worse Than We Imagined  11/27/01 Common Dreams 

A Year Later, It’s Still a Sham  11/27/01 NY Observer: Election 2000…

US jail hell for bomb joke  11/27/01 This is London 

'Lantern' Backdoor Flap Rages  11/27/01 Wired: "Network Associates has been snared in a web of accusations over whether it will place backdoors for the U.S. government in its security software. Since Network Associates (NETA) makes popular security products, including McAfee anti-virus software and Pretty Good Privacy encryption software, reports of a special arrangement with the U.S. government have drawn protests and threats of a boycott. "

Journalism and the CIA: The Mighty Wurlitzer  11/26/01 Name Base: on how the US press is riddled with CIA and Council on Foreign Relations related journalists and editors…

Fear rides in cab with hate crime victim  11/25/01 Chicago Tribune 

Bush's New Rules to Fight Terror Transform the Legal Landscape  11/25/01 NYT 

Journal axes gene research on Jews and Palestinians  11/25/01 The Observer, UK: "A keynote research paper showing that Middle Eastern Jews and Palestinians are genetically almost identical has been pulled from a leading journal. Academics who have already received copies of Human Immunology have been urged to rip out the offending pages and throw them away. Such a drastic act of self-censorship is unprecedented in research publishing and has created widespread disquiet, generating fears that it may involve the suppression of scientific work that questions Biblical dogma. 'I have authored several hundred scientific papers, some for Nature and Science, and this has never happened to me before,' said the article's lead author, Spanish geneticist Professor Antonio Arnaiz-Villena, of Complutense University in Madrid. 'I am stunned.' "

Indefensible: The case against military tribunals.  11/25/01 Wall Street Journal: The WSJ is not usually given to such a defense of liberty

American Council of Trustees and Alumni  11/24/01 : Resurgent McCarthyism: The "Council" has list of 117 anti-American statements heard on college campuses compiled by this conservative nonprofit group devoted to curbing liberal tendencies in academia. The list, part of a report that was posted on the group's Web site (www.goacta.org/Reports/defciv.pdf) last week, accuses several dozen scholars, students and even a university president of what they call unpatriotic behavior after Sept. 11.

1878 Military Law Gets New Attention  11/24/01 AP: Now they want to take away Posse Comitatus and turn the US into a military dictatorship, where activists are terrorists.

En Estados Unidos la censura llegó a Internet  11/24/01 CENIAI Noticias, Cuba 

An Organization on the Lookout for Patriotic Incorrectness  11/24/01 NYT 

Wait Until Dark  11/24/01 NYT: Now that Ashcroft is known to have detained 50 Israelis, he becomes a bad guy for the New York Times…

Analysis: So near and yet so far  11/24/01 UPI: "Spanish sources in Madrid, reached by telephone, said there had so far been no formal U.S. request for extradition of the eight detainees. But if the Bush Administration did not agree to the Spanish pre-conditions -- which seems probable -- the result would be a legal stand-off -- with the same situation likely to be re-enacted in other European countries holding terrorist suspects."

Antiterror law gives U.S. sweeping Net power  11/23/01 CNN: ""It's a massive expansion of U.S. sovereignty," said Mark Rasch, now with computer security firm Predictive Systems. A prosecution can occur if any part of a crime takes place within U.S. borders. A large part of the Internet's communications traffic goes through the United States, even in messages that travel from one foreign country to another."

US plans TV station to rival al-Jazeera  11/23/01 Guardian, UK: The repression of dissent on a global scale: first you bomb the station, then you set up a competitor. When and where will they bomb it again?

Police Are Split on Questioning of Mideast Men  11/22/01 NYT 

POLITICAL DEATH-ROW PRISONER MUMIA ABU-JAMAL LOSES ANOTHER LEGAL BATTLE  11/22/01 Radio Havana 

U.S. Death Penalty Stops Spain Extraditing Suspects  11/22/01 Reuters: Viva España, where the military tribunals don't count: "Spain cannot extradite suspected Islamic extremists to the United States while the death penalty is in force there, judicial sources said on Thursday. Eight suspected members of a radical Spanish Islamic group were detained in Spain last week, accused of involvement in the September 11 hijacked aircraft attacks on the United States."

Will Americans End Up Before Secret Military Tribunals?  11/22/01 VDARE 

Police Brutality Is Back  11/22/01 Village Voice 

U.S. political prisoners need support  11/22/01 Worker's World: Sundiata Acoli and numerous others in lockdown, solitary since 9-11

Investigators Say Fire That Destroyed Sikh Temple in New York Was Arson  11/21/01 AP 

Arrest Every Muslim That Enters Georgia  11/21/01 Counterpunch 

Operation Condor: Deciphering the U.S. Role  11/21/01 Crimes of War: "Chile's Truth and Reconciliation Commission later learned that the capture of Fuentes was a cooperative effort by Argentine intelligence services, personnel of the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, and Paraguayan police. Fuentes was transferred to Chilean police, who brought him to Villa Grimaldi, a notorious DINA detention center in Santiago. He was last seen there, savagely tortured. Recently declassified U.S. documents include a letter from the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires (written by FBI official Robert Scherrer) informing the Chilean military that Fuentes had been captured. Additionally, Scherrer provided the names and addresses of three individuals residing in the United States whom Fuentes named during his interrogation, and told his counterparts in the Pinochet regime that the FBI was conducting investigations of the three. This letter, among others, confirms that U.S. officials and agencies were cooperating with the military dictatorships and acting as a link in the Condor chain. Perhaps most striking is that this coordination was routine (if secret), standard operating procedure within U.S. policy."

The Velvet Banana, Part One: The Coup d'etat of 2000  11/21/01 Democratic Underground 

The Poster Police: A Durham student activist gets a visit from the Secret Service  11/21/01 Durham Independent: Secret Service: "Ma'am, we've gotten a report that you have anti-American material, or something like that, in your apartment,"

State Judge Dembe Rejects Mumia's Appeal  11/21/01 FreeMumia.org 

A Police Force Rebuffs F.B.I. on Querying Mideast Men  11/21/01 NYT: "Mr. Kirkland, who is black, said his own background had also played a role in his decision. "I grew up in Detroit," he said, "and I hated the police with a passion. They were always stopping and bothering me."

Our Miscount, and We're Sticking to It: How reductions in the World Trade Center death toll are quietly ignored  11/21/01 St Louis Times: Now that we may be down to 3,000 victims, surely the US has passed that number in Afghanistan. But according to the 10 to 1 kill ratio generally accepted for massacres of whites in the past century, we can can expect another 30,000 in Afghanistan, at least.

Military Favors a Homeland Command  11/21/01 Washington Post 

Basic rights under siege  11/20/01 Chicago Sun Times 

Moving Toward A Police State (Or Have We Arrived?)  11/20/01 Counterpunch 

Liberty Is Dying, Liberal by Liberal  11/20/01 LA Times 

Muslim Group Seeks to Meet Billy Graham's Son  11/20/01 NYT: "According to a transcript of the interview, Mr. Graham said Islam had attacked the United States on Sept. 11. He said that Muslims worshiped a different God than Christians and that he believed Islam to be "a very evil and wicked religion." The remarks came amid a longer interview, devoted mainly to Mr. Graham's Christian theology. Mr. Graham has emerged as a major figure among evangelical Protestants, offering prayers at national events, including President Bush's inauguration."

US targeting journalists not portraying their viewpoint, The Guardian  11/20/01 PakNews 

War's reporting provokes sharp criticism by readers  11/20/01 The Plain Dealer, US: Hide your head in the sand and then complain about themes of collective US guilt…

Terrorists push plots from jail  11/19/01 Chicago Tribune 

SafeWeb Shuts Free Anonymous Web Service  11/19/01 Reuters: "An Internet privacy firm has closed an anonymous Web surfing service that had been partly funded by the CIA and intended to give Web users in countries such as China and Iran a way to circumvent censors, the company said on Monday. Emeryville, California-based SafeWeb last week quietly shut down its service which allowed people to surf the Web anonymously for free, and is unlikely to restart it, spokeswoman Sandra Song said."

Lynne Cheney's campus crusade  11/19/01 Working for Change 

Lawmakers Demand Hearings on Bush's Order to Allow Trials of Terrorist Suspects Before Military Tribunals  11/18/01 AP: "Black lawmakers and some of the House's more liberal white Democrats and conservative Republicans are urging hearings into President Bush's decision to try by military tribunals foreigners charged with acts of terror. "They're literally dismantling justice and the justice system as we know it," Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said Friday. She suggested the effects could "spill over into domestic affairs."

Homeland Czar Said To Favor White Contractors Back Home  11/18/01 BlackPressUSA 

Patriot Act would make watchdogs of firms  11/18/01 Boston Globe: The Gestapo was pretty good at getting tips too -- everyone chimed in to rat on the lovers that jilted them, old enemies, new enemies… it was the greatest revenge roulette around!

Graham stands by comments on Islam  11/18/01 Charlotte Observer 

Screening Free Speech?  11/18/01 Washington Post 

The United States of Concealment  11/17/01 LA Times 

Thousands to Converge on School of the Americas at Ft. Benning Nov. 17-18 to Protest U.S. Army Training of Latin American Terrorists  11/17/01 NewsWire 

Online message boards increasingly screened  11/17/01 SiliconValley.com: "Critics say double standard exists in favor of harsh, anti-Arab messages"

Stunned by FBI raid, Pakistani talks to the news media  11/17/01 The News, Pakistan: The Federal Bureau of Incompetency strikes again. Try looking through your US Nazi files, boys, you might have better luck. You know, the ones that deal with all the Nazi cells in various police outfits, in certain military units, in certain companies…

You're in the Hole - A CRACKDOWN ON DISSIDENT PRISONERS  11/17/01 The Progressive: USA is a police state: "Since 1973, Sundiata Acoli has been serving a life sentence for the murders of a police officer and a fellow Black Liberation Army member in a shootout in which Acoli drove the getaway car. Shortly after the September 11 attack, he found himself in the hole. Soffiyah Elijah, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School's Criminal Justice Institute, is one of several lawyers who represent Acoli. "None of us have had access to him," she says. I talked to Elijah on October 25. The day before, she said, was her first opportunity to speak with Acoli in nearly six weeks. She said she made so many calls that she lost count. "I was constantly on the phone to the lawyers of the B.O.P. [Bureau of Prisons]," she said. Elijah gave me a copy of a letter on U.S. Department of Justice/Bureau of Prisons stationery. It is dated September 26 and is signed Jake Mendez, Warden of the U.S. Penitentiary in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, where Sundiata Acoli (whose former name, used on all Bureau of Prison records, is Clark Squire) is incarcerated. "Dear Ms. Elijah," says the letter, "I am in receipt of your letter wherein you request Inmate Clark Squire be permitted a legal telephone call. . . . Inmate Squire is currently not authorized telephone privileges, including legal telephone calls. This has been enacted for security reasons. Moreover, my review indicates Inmate Squire does not have legal action pending at this time. Accordingly, I am denying your request to allow Inmate Squire a legal telephone call." Elijah says that the order for Acoli's segregation did not come from the individual prison, but from Washington."

Bush going too far curtailing our rights  11/16/01 Houston Chronicle 

Terrorists Don't Deserve Constitutional Safeguards, Cheney Asserts  11/16/01 IHT: Cheney emerges from his hiding place behind a duck blind. Others respond: "The military order Mr. Bush signed this week as commander in chief "sends a message to the world that it is acceptable to hold secret trials and summary executions without the possibility of judicial review, at least when the defendant is a foreign national," said Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee."

LETHAL LESSON  11/16/01 Trentonian, Philadelphia: Danny Glover talks sense: "Glover spent the first 30 minutes of his presentation at McCosh 50 auditorium deriding the death penalty, which he called "homicide as the official tool of the state." He went on to chide the U.S. government for incarceration of nearly 1,000 illegal immigrants in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, and derided John Ashcroft for asking permission to listen to conversations between terrorist suspects and their lawyers. "It gets even worse," he added. "This week President Bush implemented a military tribunal ... which will make it easier for us to execute (people)." "This clearly is a slippery slope. We must stand vigilant against Bush in these times and work with the abolitionists. "One of the main purveyors of violence in this world has been this country, whether it's been against Nicaragua, Vietnam or wherever," Glover added."

Lawmakers demand hearings on tribunals  11/16/01 USA Today 

End-Running the Bill of Rights  11/16/01 Washington Post: Editorial: "When Americans accused of terrorism are tried in secret courts by hooded judges in Peru or other nations, the U.S. government rightly objects. To authorize comparable trials in this country will erase any legitimacy of such objections. Worse, it will erode throughout the world the image of America as a place where certain freedoms cannot be compromised -- freedoms that ultimately provide the most basic justification for this country to stake its claim to lead the world and wage the war on terrorism. And worse in turn than the blow to the U.S. image abroad will be the potentially irreversible injury at home if Mr. Bush proceeds, as his order would allow, to undermine the rule of law."

On Left and Right, Concern Over Anti-Terrorism Moves  11/16/01 Washington Post 

Global Justice Activist Detained At Canadian Border!  11/16/01 Zmag: Now the jackasses in Canada adopt the new American model. Suddenly, everyone is a terrorist. The US and Canadian government included.

Al-Jazeera says correspondent in US detained  11/15/01 Al-Jazeera: "Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite channel said one of its correspondents in the United States was detained by police while covering the US-Russian summit in Texas."

Feds Questioning 5,000 Male Foreigners  11/15/01 AP: The feds are questioning people between 18 and 33, looking to jail young people in an attempt to salvage their antiterrorist campaign. But if al Qaeda has made a deal with the Nazis, this foolishness won't find them - "Civil rights groups say investigators are threatening the basic privacy rights of people from particular ethnic groups. ``We have serious concerns about what appears to be a dragnet approach rather than a targeted investigation,'' said Lucas Guttentag, head of the American Civil Liberties Union's immigration rights project."

America’s Disgraceful History Of Military "Trials"  11/15/01 Lew Rockwell 

YOU Might Be a Terrorist  11/15/01 Lew Rockwell 

Not That It Was Reported, but Gore Won  11/15/01 Newsday: "But as the consortium found when it actually looked at the overvotes, one often could tell what the voter's intent was. Many of the overvotes involved, for example, a voter punching the hole next to a candidate's name, and then writing in the same candidate's name. Since the intent of the voter is clear, these are clearly valid votes under Florida law. And Gore picked up enough of such votes that it almost didn't matter what standard you used when looking at undervotes - whether you counted every dimple or insisted on a fully punched chad, the consortium found that Gore ended up the winner of virtually any full reexamination of rejected ballots."

Seizing Dictatorial Power by William Safire  11/15/01 NYT 

Loss of rights feared in Bush security moves Lawmakers say courts, Congress bypassed  11/15/01 San Francisco Chronicle: Leahy, who has received Anthrax letter, is among those against it.

"Public Servants" Going After "Constitutional Terrorists"?  11/14/01 Keep and Bear Arms 

Neuroscientist forced off plane  11/14/01 the Oregonian: "The neuroscientist and assistant professor at Oregon Health & Science University checked in, used the restroom, called his wife twice and then sat in Portland International Airport reading scientific papers for more than an hour until Flight 572 to San Diego was called. He was in Seat 19C, the meeting agenda on his lap, awaiting the 2:41 p.m. takeoff when a ground-based Alaska Airlines employee boarded and asked him to step outside. You cannot fly, he was told, because a passenger had complained that his behavior was strange."

Pentagon Fires on Critical Scientist Going Ballistic  11/14/01 Village Voice 

Congress bristles at military trials  11/14/01 Virtual NY 

Bush Order: Terror Trials by Military  11/13/01 AP 

New Jersey Trooper Billboards Ask for Praise, Not Profiling Complaints  11/13/01 AP: We have documented the role of Nazi cells in the New Jersey State Police.

Conservatives denounce dissent  11/13/01 Boston Globe: "A conservative academic group founded by Lynne Cheney, the wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, fired a new salvo in the culture wars by blasting 40 college professors as well as the president of Wesleyan University and others for not showing enough patriotism in the aftermath of Sept. 11. ''College and university faculty have been the weak link in America's response to the attack,'' say leaders of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni in a report being issued today. The report names names and criticizes professors for making statements ''short on patriotism and long on self-flagellation.'' Several of the scholars singled out in the report said yesterday they felt blacklisted, complaining that their words had been taken out of context to make them look like enemies of the state. ''It's a little too reminiscent of McCarthyism,'' said Hugh Gusterson, an associate professor of anthropology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was named in the report for his comments at a campus peace rally where he made a connection between American suffering after Sept. 11 and the suffering in war-torn Afghanistan. ''This kind of document reminds me of the Soviet Union, where officials weren't satisfied until 98 or 99 percent of people voted with them,'' Gusterson said."

Passenger Prompts Landing At Dulles  11/13/01 Washington Post: Getting a little testy there, boys? "Two sky marshals -- one with a gun drawn -- and a third man ordered Ortiz to get on the ground. He complied without a struggle, Cannon said. He "kept saying: 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just wanted to go to the bathroom.' " Flight attendants had announced the ban on getting up during the last half-hour of the flight, passengers said. After the sky marshals had Ortiz handcuffed on the ground, the marshals ordered the other 106 passengers to put their hands behind their heads and later on the seats in front of them for the rest of the trip, several passengers said. Some said they briefly thought that the plane was being hijacked and panicked."

Pushing the Media Right  11/12/01 Alternet: "Times readers are told that since Sept. 11, ratings have gone up 50 percent for ITN's "World News For Public Television," a British production that provides what the Times calls a "blunter" alternative to the US made-for-TV news. "World News without the sugar coating," James calls the British version, and provides strong, clear examples of how the Brits are telling truths U.S. reporters would rather sweeten up. James concludes that the British reporter's version, "May not be pleasant to hear, but it does something American television usually does not: it assumes that the public is smart and grown-up enough to handle what the rest of the world thinks."

Gore's Victory  11/12/01 Consortium News: In other words, the elite media’s judgment is in: "Bush won, get over it." Only "Gore partisans" – as both the Washington Post and the New York Times called critics of the official Florida election tallies – would insist on looking at the fine print. While that was the tone of coverage in these leading news outlets, it’s still a bit jarring to go outside the articles and read the actual results of the statewide review of 175,010 disputed ballots. “Full Review Favors Gore,” the Washington Post said in a box on page 10, showing that under all standards applied to the ballots, Gore came out on top. The New York Times' graphic revealed the same outcome.

Clash of wills - Rights versus security in Fort Benning protest  11/11/01 Creative Loafing, Atlanta 

Protesters Clash Over CNN Coverage  11/11/01 Newsday, NY 

Sen. Leahy, ABA Protest Ashcroft's Monitoring Order  11/11/01 Washington Post: ""I am deeply troubled at what appears to be an executive effort to exercise new powers without judicial scrutiny or statutory authorization," Leahy wrote. He said he had received no warning that Ashcroft was considering acting "unilaterally" in this sensitive area. Ashcroft's action also drew sharp criticism yesterday from legal and civil liberties groups, including a statement by the American Bar Association saying the new policy could violate the rights of innocent people."

What's Happening with the Bangor Airport Incident by Nancy Oden  11/10/01 AfroCubaWeb 

Brace yourself for the new McCarthyism  11/10/01 Japan Times: Cartoonist Ted Rall has to go to Japan to get this published…

Memos forbidding collateral damage pics on Florida newspaper  11/10/01 Poynter.org: "Per Hal's order, DO NOT USE photos on Page 1A showing civilian casualties from the U.S. war on Afghanistan. [Note: "Hal" is News Herald executive editor Hal Foster.] Our sister paper in Fort Walton Beach has done so and received hundreds and hundreds of threatening e-mails and the like. Also per Hal's order, DO NOT USE wire stories which lead with civilian casualties from the U.S. war on Afghanistan. They should be mentioned further down in the story. If the story needs rewriting to play down the civilian casualties, DO IT. The only exception is if the U.S. hits an orphanage, school or similar facility and kills scores or hundreds of children. See me if there are any special situations."

Military Stop Green Party Coordinator at Maine Airport on 11/1/01  11/8/01 AfroCubaWeb 

If Feingold Is Praised, So Should Lee  11/8/01 Black World Today 

Smallpox plan grants sweeping power  11/8/01 Boston Herald 

Screwing the Greens?  11/8/01 Counterpunch: Author of letter defaming Green Party member who was prevented from flying for her political beliefs has had to retract his defamation…

The Black Caucus' Loyalty Problem  11/7/01 Horowitz: by that arbiter of good sense, David Horowitz

U.N. Torture Sleuth Concerned About U.S. Detainees  11/6/01 ABC News 

Illinois School Uses Lie Detectors  11/6/01 AP: Lie detectors are so accurate!

In Light Of 1,000 Detentions It Is Hard To Believe That This Is Not A Government War Guided By Religion And Race  11/6/01 Black Electorate: "...none of the detainees has been charged in the plot or with other acts of terrorism. In addition, the pace of detentions has accelerated visibly as government officials have received information about new threats and issued public warnings -- spiking sharply, for example, after rumors of planned attacks Sept. 22. The government's strategy and methods have elicited protests from defense attorneys and civil libertarians. They say the campaign is a massive act of racial profiling similar to the internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans at the start of World War II... The Post's analysis of the identified 235 detainees shows with greater precision who is being picked up. The largest groups come from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan. Virtually all are men in their twenties and thirties. The greatest concentrations were arrested in several states with large Islamic populations and what law enforcement officials have identified as al Qaeda sympathizers: Texas, New Jersey, California, New York, Michigan and Florida.

Few voting reforms found after Fla. fiasco  11/6/01 Houston Chronicle 

Congress Seeks To Split Environmental Movement  11/6/01 IndyMedia: "Representative Scott McInnis (R-Colorado) today sent a letter signed by himself, Representative James Hansen (R-Utah), Chairman to the House Resources Committee, and other Members of Congress to key environmental organizations calling on them to publicly disavow the actions of eco-terrorist organizations like Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and Animal Liberation Front (ALF), terrorist cells that have exacted a substantial financial and personal toll on scores of individuals and enterprises throughout the United States."

Behind the USA Patriot Act  11/5/01 Alternet: "The new law, known as the USA Patriot Act, reaches into every space that Americans once imagined was private. For instance, police can now obtain court orders to conduct so called "sneak and peak" searches of homes and offices. This allows them to break in, examine and remove or alter items without immediately, if ever, presenting owners with a warrant detailing what they were entitled to do and where. This seismic shift in the government's power of search and seizure also extends to the examination of records. Authorities can browse medical, financial, educational or even library records without showing evidence of a crime. The law overrides existing state and federal privacy laws if the FBI claims that the information is connected to an intelligence investigation. In addition, credit reporting firms like Equifax must disclose to the FBI any information that agents request in connection with a terrorist investigation, without the need for a court order. In the past, this was only permitted in espionage cases."

Black Leaders Blast Anti-Terrorism Law  11/5/01 Chicago Citizen 

White House, Dept. of Justice at Odds Over Arrests  11/5/01 Reuters: "The White House on Monday said the ''lion's share'' of the more than 1,100 people detained in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States have been released -- sharply contradicting the Justice Department (news - web sites) which says most are still being held. As rights groups grow more vocal in their questions about the arrests, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) on Monday claimed that there were not many people still being held by the U.S. government."

GMU Student Charged in Flag Burning  11/4/01 ABC 

Bangor, ME Aiport: Military Stop Green Party Coordinator From Going to Political Meeting at Maine Airport - 11/1/01  11/4/01 AfroCubaWeb: More to this story than meets the eye…

Green Party USA Coordinator Detained at Airport; Prevented by Armed Military Personnel from Flying to Political Meeting in Chicago  11/4/01 Counterpunch: ""An official told me that my name had been flagged in the computer," a shaken Oden said. "I was targeted because the Green Party USA opposes the bombing of innocent civilians in Afghanistan." Oden, a long-time organic farmer and peace activist in northern Maine, was ordered away from the plane. Military personnel with automatic weapons surrounded Oden and instructed all airlines to deny her passage on any flight."

A Deliberate Strategy of Disruption - Massive, Secretive Detention Effort Aimed Mainly at Preventing More Terror  11/4/01 Washington Post: "The document's language offers the clearest window so far into a campaign of detentions on a scale not seen since World War II. As investigators race to comprehend the ongoing terrorist threat, the government has adopted a deliberate strategy of disruption -- locking up large numbers of Middle Eastern men, using whatever legal tools they can. The operation is being conducted under great secrecy, with defense attorneys at times forbidden to remove documents from court and a federal gag order preventing officials from discussing the detainees. Law enforcement officials have refused to identify lawyers representing people who have been detained or to describe the most basic features of the operation. The officials say they are prohibited from disclosing more information because of privacy laws, judges' orders and the secrecy rules surrounding the grand jury investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks."

An Intelligence Giant in the Making  11/4/01 Washington Post 

Green Party activist denied Chicago flight  11/3/01 Bangor Daily News 

FBI arrogance and secrecy dismays US  11/3/01 The Times, UK 

States Devising Plan for High-Tech National Identification Cards  11/3/01 Washington Post 

Mexican American site Aztlan.org being suppressed over critique of Zionism being suppressed over critique of Zionism  11/2/01 AfroCubaWeb: Aztlan is a Mexican American site which recently has been tracking such stories as the arrest of two Israelis armed with grenades, dynamite, and Glock 9mm pistols (see their page http://aztlan.org/blowup.htm), which have been ignored by the US media. They have been told by their hosting provider, Hostex, to remove two pages dealing with an Anthrax mail type incident.

Foreigners are shackled, then jailed and denied their rights in FBI crackdown  11/2/01 Independent, UK 

Judge Rules on Student Anarchy Club  11/1/01 AP: "A judge ruled Thursday that a 15-year-old sophomore cannot form an anarchy club or wear T-shirts opposing the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan because it would disrupt school."

Venezuela Defends Afghan Concern  11/1/01 AP 

Diplomats fault lack of US notice on many detainees  11/1/01 Boston Globe 

CNN to carry reminders of US attacks  11/1/01 Guardian: "News presenters on the service that is shown to US viewers will be required to end each report with a formula such as: "We must keep in mind, after seeing reports like this, that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan continues to harbour terrorists who have praised the September 11 attacks that killed close to 5,000 innocent people in the US." Ah, CNN is now state media…

FBI torturing Muslims held without charge after Sept 11 attacks  11/1/01 Khilafah 

Final Text of USA Anti-Terrorism Bill  11/1/01 Polytechbot 

The alleged patriots who want to do a replay of the 50's need to consider that one of the roots of Al Qaeda was a Saudi dissident movement that turned violent in House Saud's torture cells in the early 90's.