It was a rather peculiar diatribe by the Secretary of Defense, especially considering that, oh so many ages ago, he'd been a member of the Air Force himself. Even more puzzling, considering that the Air Force is running at least four mega bases in Iraq, including the Balad Air Field, which rivals O'Hare in traffic, was Robert Gates' assertion that the Air Force is not pulling its weight in the Iraq and Afghanistan endeavors.

What was he thinking?

Over at NHFree.com we have been kicking around various ideas for civil disobedience. I'm kind of a perfectionist about CD and think it should be done mostly when it's something average people could support. So I'd like to know what you progressive NH folks think, before I decide whether to do this. Right now I'd say there's a 10% chance I will.

Considering how many people have been harmed by the TSA, how expensive it has gotten, how ineffective it is generally acknowledged to be... how it even endangers people...perhaps *something* harmless needs to be done to show them that at least some folks have had enough. The images of despondent, shuffling, compliant humanity in those lines...do not remind me much of the America I read about in history books.

What if I were to touch base with all the authorities at Manch airport and inform them I and others will be appearing at a given time near the security checkpoint. I'd be wearing a shirt that reads something like: "Report TSA abuses here." I'd want to stay out of the way. If people approach me with complaints about the authorities, I give out phone numbers they can call. Maybe I bring a camera and interview passengers who come up to me, air their stories, let them use my phone, provide some other form of humanitarian assistance. Probably I do not try to videotape the checkpoint itself unless something controversial happens there. I broadcast live on Porcupine 411. Media gets invited.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MANCHESTER – The Friends of Patrick Arnold PAC has launched a campaign website at Democracy for America’s DFA-Link.

Patrick Arnold, a resident of Manchester’s Ward 12, is running for State Representative to represent citizens of Manchester’s west side (Hillsborough Co., Dist. 17) in the State Legislature.

SEN CLINTON AND SEN OBAMA

PLEASE STEP UP AND LEAD!

To All House And Senate Members

NO RETROACTIVE IMMUNITY FOR THE TELECOM GIANTS!

Thank You Sen. Dodd for heading back to Washington and taking your stand on this all important issue. Thank you for upholding your sworn oath to defend our Constitution. Most Constitutional Law Scholars believe the NSA warrant less spying program violated the Fourth Amendment of The Bill Of Rights concerning Unreasonable Search and Seizure. In no way, should any Bill be passed giving retroactive immunity to the phone companies. They were accomplices to law breaking.

We need to send a clear message to future Commanders in Chief that if you engage Corporations into becoming accomplices in law breaking, there will be a price to pay, for both the President, and the guilty Corporations. I only wish more of the Presidential candidates would have left Iowa for one day, and stood with you. You Sen. Dodd, Sen Feingold, and Rep. Kucinich seem to be of the very few in Washington who have the courage to take the correct stand for "We The People." The FISA courts were set up in 1978, necessary, due to the Nixon administration and it's abuse of Executive Branch Power.

SOURCE: SALON.COM

by Glenn Greenwald

During yesterday’s chat with Washington Post Congressional reporter Paul Kane, this extremely revealing exchange occurred, regarding the view of Harry Reid and other anonymous Democrats of Chris Dodd’s actions this week, whereby Dodd disrupted their collective desire for quick, smooth, trouble-free passage of Bush’s surveillance and immunity bill:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NH Coalition for Common Sense Marijuana Policy
1 603-391-7450
info@nhcommonsense.org
www.nhcommonsense.org
12/14/2007

The New Hampshire Coalition for Common Sense Marijuana Policy today announced the launch of its online petition to support a marijuana decriminalization measure in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. The bill would reduce penalties for possession of less than 1.25 ounces of marijuana from a misdemeanor to a "civil violation" offense punishable only by a fine.

Executive Director Matt Simon said the measure that will be considered is a far cry from legalization. "This bill will simply reduce the penalties for marijuana possession and acknowledge an obvious fact: that marijuana is far less harmful than some other currently illegal drugs," he said.

Supporters note that similar 'decrim' measures have been in effect since the 1970's in other states, including Maine. "We're just trying to minimize the harms done by Marijuana Prohibition," Simon explained.

SOURCE: Boston Globe

By David Abel

Globe Staff / December 10, 2007

A federal jury ruled last week that State Police troopers at Logan International Airport unlawfully detained the coordinator of the American Civil Liberties Union's Campaign Against Racial Profiling while he was passing through the airport in the fall of 2003, attorneys on both sides said yesterday.
King Downing sued the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs the airport, and State Police, alleging the troopers violated his constitutional rights by unreasonably stopping, questioning, and asking him for identification after he left the gate area. He had arrived in Boston to attend a meeting on racial profiling.

SOURCE: Baltimore Sun

by Ralph E. Shaffer and R. William Robinson

With overwhelming bipartisan support, Rep. Jane Harman’s “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act” passed the House 404-6 late last month and now rests in Sen. Joe Lieberman’s Homeland Security Committee. Swift Senate passage appears certain.

Not since the “Patriot Act” of 2001 has any bill so threatened our constitutionally guaranteed rights.

If you didn't get around to watching the most recent Democratic presidential candidates sounding off in Las Vegas, you didn't miss much. As usual, a couple of candidates got to monopolize the time and the really important issue of the week, immunity for the telephone companies who've been helping our security agencies spy on the American people, got short shrift.

Cross-posted at the Dodd Blog.

An anonymous poster on the Dodd Blog, presumably in an effort to be reassuring, provides this helpful perspective:

That's what it boils down to. Our national security interests depend on the telecom corporations snitching on the customers they're supposed to serve, while "private security guards" make an example in Iraq of what happens to people who don't behave.

While the electronic home invasions by the telecommunications industry on behalf of the federal government has finally gotten the people to sit up and take notice (everybody knows that people don't need immunity from prosecution, if they've done nothing wrong), it almost looks like Senator Chris Dodd holds the key in his hand to a much bigger story.

The campaign of Presidential candidate Senator Chris Dodd issued a statement yesterday.

"Today's report that Verizon provided the Bush Administration with personal information of American citizens absent judicial authorization is deeply troubling. We must be told the full extent of Verizon's activities and what other private information they have provided to the Bush Administration.

"More troubling still is that the United States Senate would sanction those telecommunications companies that have violated the law and the privacy of our citizenry, enabling this Administration's assault on the Constitution."

While I certainly share the sentiment and appreciate that Senator Dodd is paying close attention to the duties of his current position in the Congress, the statement could have been much clearer. Still, as it is, I think the statement provides an opportunity to consider some really important matters and offer the following critique in hopes of spurring that on.

Source: New York Times

House Panels Reject Appeal on Eavesdropping

By STEPHEN LABATON
Published: October 10, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 — Two Congressional panels today rejected President Bush’s request to renew without added restrictions his administration’s broad eavesdropping authority, and instead adopted a measure that gives federal judges greater oversight authority over foreign electronic surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency.

The bill approved by the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees was along straight party lines, just as they split to defeat the administration’s proposal. The legislation, sponsored by Representative John Conyers of Michigan and Representative Silvestre Reyes of Texas, the chairmen of the Judiciary and Intelligence committees, respectively, conspicuously did not contain two provisions demanded by the White House. One would have provided retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies that had helped the N.SA. to conduct eavesdropping without warrants. A second would have made the surveillance program permanent — instead, the legislation expires in two years.

SOURCE: KOS

by markthshark
Thu Oct 04, 2007 at 05:44:07 PM PDT

When the State Department tried to shield the CEO of Blackwater USA, Erik Prince, from testifying before Waxman’s oversight committee on Tuesday, it not only displayed the ties between the two entities, it also showed just how far the State Department was willing to go to keep that relationship intact.

But those ties don’t begin to expose the deep connections between the notorious security firm and the Bush regime writ large. Nor does it reveal the links between Blackwater and other prominent Republicans, a virtual rogue’s gallery - from former Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr to convicted uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

From 2001 to 2007, Blackwater employees passed effortlessly through the proverbial turnstile between the firm and the administration, several leaving important posts in the Pentagon and the CIA to take high-paying jobs at the security company.

When I was growing up, reasonable people agreed on the facts and disagreed on the solutions.

Yet now, and especially over the last six years, our political discourse has grown ever more shrill, especially on the Republican side, with name-calling, demonizing and attacking the messenger, personal insults – anything to draw attention from the truth.

What are the Bush/Cheney administration and their Republican apologists afraid of? What is the dirty and terrible secret they are apparently frantic to protect?

What is the common thread behind this administration’s hideous legacy, which includes:

1) Their failure to detect and prevent 9/11
2) The squandered golden opportunity to bring America and the world together in the aftermath of 9/11
3) Their failed invasion of Afghanistan
4) Their failure to capture Osama Bin Laden
5) Lying America into war with an unthreatening sovereign country
6) Fabricating, falsifying and exaggerating intelligence information, then blaming the messenger

Editor's Note: These two articles from Greg Palast published in 2006 show why we all need to be more than a little concerned that VoteTrustUSA, the only "grassroots" election reform lobbyist on the Hill pushing for passage of the Holt Bill (HR811) has a curiously and disturbingly cozy relationship with Donna Curling, the wife of ChoicePoint CEO Doug Curling.

SOURCE: Buzzflash AND Stealing Mexico May 12, 2006, By Greg Palast The Times and USA Today have Missed the Bigger Story -- Again A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION by Greg Palast I know you're shocked -- SHOCKED! -- that George Bush is listening in on all your phone calls. Without a warrant. That's nothing. And it's not news. This is: the snooping into your phone bill is just the snout of the pig of a strange, lucrative link-up between the Administration's Homeland Security spy network and private companies operating beyond the reach of the laws meant to protect us from our government. You can call it the privatization of the FBI -- though it is better described as the creation of a private KGB.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Matt Simon
NH Coalition for Common Sense Marijuana Policy
(603) 391-7450
info@nhcommonsense.org
www.NHCommonSense.org

NH Coalition for Common Sense Marijuana Policy Launches Presidential Project, Urges Federal Marijuana Reform

Pembroke, NH (May 29) – The New Hampshire Coalition for Common Sense Marijuana Policy (NH Common Sense) has created two new websites which announce and promote the group’s plans to raise drug and marijuana policy issues more effectively in the media. NH Common Sense will participate in the presidential primary process as a focal point of raising its issues, and results of candidate interactions will be published at the websites: RescheduleCannabis.org and SendTheRightMessage.com.

“Our issues have received some very good coverage in local and state media,” said NH Common Sense spokesman Matt Simon. “As we educate and activate responsible citizens in New Hampshire and across the country, we believe decriminalization and other marijuana reform issues can be raised more effectively in national media as well.”

SOURCE: Boston.com
The Associated Press
Collins introduces bill to delay implementation of Real ID

By David Sharp, Associated Press Writer | February 9, 2007

PORTLAND, Maine --A senator from the state that's leading the rebellion against a national driver's license said Friday she will try to delay implementation of the program.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, announced that she'll sponsor the bill that would give states more time to comply with the Real ID Act as well as a say in modifying the rules.

The Maine Legislature was the first to oppose the Real ID Act. Critics said the program would cost Maine taxpayers $185 million in the first five years and invite identity theft.

"I am fully aware that the costs of complying with Real ID are enormous and overly burdensome to states, including Maine. I will be introducing this legislation so that we can pause and take a more measured approach to Real ID," Collins said in a statement after a Capitol Hill meeting with Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap.