Politics Plus

The Supreme Court Decision, upholding key provisions of the misnamed PATRIOT Act, is an affront to the First Amendment.

Forty-three years ago, when the nation lived in fear of Communist sympathizers and saboteurs, the Supreme Court said that even the need for national defense could not reduce the First Amendment rights of those associating with American Communists.

On Monday, in the first case since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to test free speech against the demands of national security in the age of terrorism, the ideals of an earlier time were eroded and free speech lost. By preserving an extremely vague prohibition on aiding and associating with terrorist groups, the court reduced the First Amendment rights of American citizens.

The case was not about sending money to terrorist organizations or serving as their liaison, activities that are clearly and properly illegal. And it did not stop people from simply saying they support the goals of groups like Hamas or Al Qaeda, as long as they are not actually working with those groups. But it could have a serious impact on lawyers, journalists or academics who represent or study terrorist groups.

The case arose after an American human rights group, the Humanitarian Law Project, challenged the law prohibiting “material support” to terror groups, which was defined in the 2001 Patriot Act to include “expert advice or assistance.” The law project wanted to provide advice to two terrorist groups on how to peacefully resolve their disputes and work with the United Nations. The two groups — the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party — have violent histories and their presence on the State Department’s official list of terrorist groups is not in dispute.

But though the law project was actually trying to reduce the violence of the two groups, the court’s opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. on behalf of five other justices, said that did not matter and ruled the project’s efforts illegal. Even peaceful assistance to a terror group can further terrorism, the chief justice wrote, in part by lending them legitimacy and allowing them to pretend to be negotiating while plotting violence.

In a powerful dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer, also speaking for Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, swept away those arguments. If providing legitimacy to a terror group was really a crime, he wrote, then it should also be a crime to independently legitimize a terror group through speech, which it is not. Never before, he said, had the court criminalized a form of speech on these kinds of grounds, noting with particular derision the notion that peaceful assistance buys negotiating time for an opponent to achieve bad ends.

The court at least clarified that acts had to be coordinated with terror groups to be illegal, but many forms of assistance may still be a criminal act, including filing a brief against the government in a terror-group lawsuit. Academic researchers doing field work in conflict zones could be arrested for meeting with terror groups and discussing their research, as could journalists who write about the activities and motivations of these groups, or the journalists’ sources… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

In 1967, I was working in the peace movement as a liaison between SDS and other antiwar groups.  In the process, I associated with many groups and people whose policies I personally opposed.  However, in a few afternoons of beer and poker, I did convince two Communists to leave the party.

I find this ruling offensive.  I have no problem with the material support provisions, as long as the individual making a donation, knows that the destination of the funds are a terrorist group or that the funds will be used to support terrorism.  Outlawing financial support does not violate the First Amendment.  Money is NOT speech.  I also have no problem with outlawing association for the purpose furthering terrorist acts.  Such conversations are conspiracy, and rightly illegal. However, outlawing conversations that do nothing to support the commission of terrorist acts, and in some cases even try to prevent them, SCOTUS has ruled falsely, because of First Amendment guarantees.  By making a conversation equal to a donation, SCOTUS is equating money and speech.  Money is NOT speech.

Ironically, the first violator may be the US government.

The Pentagon’s system of outsourcing to private companies the task of moving supplies in Afghanistan, and leaving it up to them to provide their own security, frees U.S. troops to focus on counterinsurgency.

But its unintended consequences undermine U.S. efforts to curtail corruption and build an effective Afghan government, according to the report to be reviewed at a congressional hearing on Tuesday.

"This arrangement has fueled a vast protection racket run by a shadowy network of warlords, strongmen, commanders, corrupt Afghan officials, and perhaps others," Representative John Tierney, chairman of a House of Representatives national security subcommittee, said in a statement.

Tierney, a Democrat, said the system "runs afoul" of the Defense Department’s own rules and may be undermining the U.S. strategic effort in Afghanistan.

The report by the subcommittee’s Democratic staff called protection payments "a significant potential source of funding for the Taliban," citing numerous documents, incidents reports and emails that refer to attempts at Taliban extortion along the road… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Reuters>

Now that US has declared the Taliban to be a terrorist group, and the US is providing material support to that terrorist group.  Who should be criminally charged?

I have been conducting a one-person boycott against Wal-Fart since 2001, because I objected to the way they were treating friends of mine who worked for them, and because they have contributed more the the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs than any other US company.  But their treatment of this employee follows the best tradition of GOP hatred.

A Las Vegas man who held a temporary job at Walmart says he was stripped of all his responsibilities and made to wear a yellow vest after telling his manager that he’s gay.

Fernando Gallardo has filed a complaint with the Nevada Equal Rights Commission claiming that his boss at a Vegas-area Walmart confronted him about his sexuality, and then began treating him rudely and alienated him from co-workers after learning Gallardo was gay, reports The Advocate.

"I was completely ignored and shunned," he wrote in a complaint to the rights commission. "I had nothing to do all day but wander around the store wearing a yellow vest no one else had to wear, much like Jews had to wear a yellow star of David in Hitler’s Germany."

The Advocate reports that within two months of Gallardo’s forced admission, "his supervisor and two other managers stopped talking to him completely."

Gallardo, who no longer works at the Walmart location, also claims the store management attempted to "bribe" some of the other temporary workers at the location with permanent jobs in exchange for claiming that Gallardo had offered up the information about his sexual orientation voluntarily… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Alternet>

For this company to persecute an employee over his sexual identity is obscene.

I’ve noticed considerable confusion over why South American countries seem to be more anti-US than they used to be.  The answer lies in former US efforts to suppress democracy, encourage terror, and even teach torture in those nations.

“The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect.” – Dan Mitrione,United States government security advisor for the CIA in Latin America, and instructor in the art of torture teaching techniques in Uruguay during the nation’s 1973-1985 military dictatorship.

US intervention continues to haunt Latin America, a region overrun with brutal military dictatorships during the 1970’s and 80’s. Dictatorships coordinated torture, assassinations and disappearances under a US-backed program in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. The program, called Plan Condor, was a shared strategy in Latin America’s Southern Region during the 1970s and 80s and had Washington involvement.

Human rights groups claim that tens of thousands were killed during South America’s darkest period during the 1970’s and 1980’s under the military dictatorships. Military governments came to power via well planned coups in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. In Argentina alone, an estimated 30,000 people were forcefully disappeared.

Now nearly 30 years later, long standing impunity has overshadowed efforts for regional integration and return to democratic rule. Throughout the region, the road to justice has been slow. Argentina has taken the lead in trying former military and police after amnesty laws protecting military have been overturned in 2005. However, Uruguay and Brazil still uphold amnesty laws preventing human rights trials from taking place. While in Chile justice is possible, the nation grapples with dictator supporters in government who continue to hold up legal proceedings…

…The slogan “Never Again” was adopted with the hope that Argentina and other countries in the region, including Brazil, Chile and Uruguay, ruled by violent military dictatorships would never repeat that dark chapter in history.  Decades have passed since the end to the dictatorships in the region and much heralded “return to democracy.” But many of the old systems of repression remain. In Argentina a key human rights witness, Julio Lopez remains missing after his 2006 disappearance. Survivors in the region continue to face threats and security issues on the brink of their testimonies in trials.  Much of the files and top-secret information has yet to be released about the crimes the military coups committed.

Plan Condor united the nations in a plan to wipe out dissidents regionally through state imposed terror. Now, governments in the Southern Cone have the opportunity to work together to revisit the past and investigate the crimes which continue to be a social stigma scarring the respective countries. Without justice and with outstanding impunity, history is likely to repeat itself… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Toward Freedom>

Between the ellipses, the author updates the progress in each of these nations.  If you click through, it’s worth the read.

During the Nixon and Reagan years, the US engaged in state sponsored terrorism in which the body count far and away exceeded the number of people killed in Al Qaeda sponsored Terrorism.  September 11 is just as famous in South America as it is in the US.  On September 11, 1973, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger and the GOP helped orchestrate the coup in which elected President Salvador Allende was murdered and replaced by the infamous Agosto Pinochet.  Thousands were fatally disappeared in its wake, including a US reporter.  His story is accurately portrayed in the movie Missing. Kissenger feared that Allende might nationalize Chile’s copper mining and smelting to benefit Chile’s people, pushing out US corporations in the process. This is the case about which we have the most evidence of GOP involvement.  However Henry Kissinger was indicted in several countries in the region.  Reagan and GHW Bush were more involved repressing Central American nations for their resources, while GW ChickenHawk had plans to conquer eight nations in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa.  Only GOP incompetence in conducting our two current wars saved the other six.

So why is this important now?  We need to understand that wars of aggression and state sponsored terrorism are nothing new.  It’s how the GOP does business.  They must be kept out of power.

Furthermore, Obama may be continuing the war in Afghanistan to placate Republicans.  The Bush/GOP puppet Karzai is no better than Pinochet.  Following the GOP example is the wrong way to proceed.