StopWatching.Us is broad bipartisan coalition of organizations including the ACLU, American Library Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Free Press, Freedom Works, the Libertarian Party, Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition, MoveOn.org, Mozilla, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, PEN American Center, RootsAction.org, Women in Media & News, World Wide Web Foundation, Writers Guild of America West, and many others. They’re all gathering in Washington DC on Saturday, October 26th to protest against mass surveillance. Participants will gather at Columbus Circle in front of Union Station at Noon and march to the Capitol Reflecting Pool. More here.
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Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
“Well, I understand people’s concern about it, but an intelligence program that does reveal sources and methods, which in fact is what you’re talking about, is significantly less effective because you’re not just revealing it to the American people, you’re revealing it to your targets, to your adversaries, to the enemy.”
“Imagine you’re a human rights activist working for an NGO in Sri Lanka. After a hard day’s work in a humid office building, you walk into your apartment, fire up your laptop and fire off the following tweet:
‘Holding workshop with @LTTE and Sri Lankan govt. about easing roadblocks for medical supplies to be trucked in. Conf. going well, God-willing.’
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive (“Ho-ho-ho” does not qualify), concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
This year’s National Bollard Festival® will salute the brave men, women, and sniffer dogs who protected two million people during the Presidential Inaugural festivities, say producers of the Washington, DC event.
Crowds will gather on the chilly National Mall and give a standing ovation to members of the U.S. Capitol Police, Secret Service, Federal Protective Service, National Park Police, FBI, DC Metropolitan Police Department, Senate Sergeant-at-Arms and dozens of security corporations with federal contracts. The exact date and time of the event is being withheld for security reasons.
The Purple Ticket Mass Choir will give an a cappella doo-wop concert in a tunnel under the Capitol grounds. “It’s standing room only,” said a U.S. Capitol Police officer, “but there’s a great echo.” The rest of the program is available on a need-to-know basis.
The Constitution of the United States was signed on this day in 1787. If a “signing statement” accompanied it, it has not survived.
The “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act” or “USA PATRIOT Act” was signed in 2001. It took away many of the rights granted in the United States Constitution, but only for this emergency period, until the end of the “War on Terror.”
The Constitution will be restored when the President of Terrorists marches onto the USS Missouri, presents his sword to someone-or-other, and accepts Ronald Reagan as his personal savior.
The Swiss canton of Glarus has officially exonerated Anna Göldi, beheaded for causing a child to convulse and spit pins in 1782. Ms. Göldi is widely considered to have been the last witch executed in Europe. A Swiss source calls the case “a tragic illustration of religious fanaticism, superstition and the abuse of power.”
Anna Göldi confessed to witchcraft after enhanced interrogation techniques, admitting she was in a pact with the Devil, who appeared to her as a black dog. The 48-year-old woman withdrew her confession after interrogation ended and she was no longer strung up by her thumbs with stones tied to her feet, but was sentenced on June 18, 1782. She was executed by decapitation for “poisoning,” not witchcraft, although non-lethal poisoning was not a capital crime.
The U.S. Senate has decided to postpone today’s vote on the telecom surveillance bill until tomorrow so senators may attend this afternoon’s funeral for the late Jesse Helms. Mr. Helms himself has not replied to telephone calls from the press.
More work for the Guantanamo Audio-Visual Squad. Defendants in the trial planned for the U.S. Naval Base prison can’t speak with their attorneys without being documented on tape. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons the American Bar Association will have nothing to do with these proceedings. As I understand it, U.S. civilian and military legal proceedings consistently recognize attorney-client privilege.
It is now known that all interrogations have been videotaped, over 24,000 at Gitmo in a three-year period, as previously posited by NotionsCapital. The government claims it has routinely recorded over them, that is to say, erased them. Erasing these tapes violates federal records acts and clearly constitutes obstruction of justice.
Have interrogation tapes been re-used to record lawyer-client conversations? Let’s not put anything past these folks. It is time for investigators to confiscate every tape, DVD, CD, hard drive, flash drive, and notebook and index card at Gitmo before the ghost of Rose Mary Woods destroys every relevant document in the place.
Vice President Dick Cheney bragged to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday morning that the U.S. has been “waterboarding” detainees — submitting them to a drowning torture outlawed by the world and our own laws — and this has prevented more 9/11s. For the record, I note that it has been equally effective in preventing asteroids from colliding with earth, Godzilla from stomping LA, and invasions from Mars.
![Happy Constitution [Redacted] Day, 2008](https://i0.wp.com/farm4.static.flickr.com/3044/2864993949_c66e8d5b8b.jpg)
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