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Rights and Liberties This Week: Taking It On the Chin
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
Poverty, Income, and Health Insurance: What to Expect and Why It Really Matters
Jared Bernstein
Democracy and Elections:
Troops Abroad Donate 6:1 to Obama Over McCain
Luke Rosiak
DrugReporter:
Unlocking the Power of Art to Counter Injustice
Anthony Papa
Election 2008:
I Spent Years as a POW with John McCain, and His Finger Should Not Be Near the Red Button
Phillip Butler
Environment:
Why T. Boone Pickens' 'Clean Energy' Plan Is a Ponzi Scheme
Scott Thill
ForeignPolicy:
Russia and Georgia: All About Oil
Michael T. Klare
Health and Wellness:
Medical Tourism Is Great -- for Those Who Can Afford It
Niko Karvounis
Hurricane Katrina:
From the Bayou to Baghdad: Mission Not Accomplished
Amy Goodman
Immigration:
American Legion Immigration Report Replete With Falsehoods
Sonia Scherr
Media and Technology:
Communication Breakdown: How Cell Phones Hurt Communities
Benjamin Dangl
Movie Mix:
Protest over Use of the Word 'Retard' in Stiller's 'Tropic Thunder' Misses the Target
Annabelle Gurwitch
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Why Obama Should Pick Hillary
Lanny Davis
Rights and Liberties:
Who Will Crash the Democratic and Republican Conventions?
Michael Gould-Wartofsky
Sex and Relationships:
The Things Women Go Through to Attract Men ...
Cheryl Saban
War on Iraq:
Robin Long, War Resister Deported from Canada, Faces Trial This Week
Sarah Lazare
Water:
Water for All: The Leaders of a New Revolution
Jay Walljasper
Monday November 18th was a tough one for fans of civil liberties. Just days after the house voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Homeland Security Department (which would create a goliath 170,000-employee agency with almost unlimited snooping powers), the act is now being discussed, with good chances of fast-track approval, by the Senate. And just in case that doesnt frighten you, the ultra top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review court ruled Monday that the U.S. government has the right to use expanded powers to spy on U.S. citizens under the USA Patriot Act.
Civil liberties leaders, including the ACLU, say the expanded powers, which allow greater leeway in conducting electronic surveillance and in using information obtained from the wiretaps and searches, jeopardize constitutional rights.
In the No One is Safe Department: Monday also revealed that the FBI had conducted a rather humorless investigation of chess champion Bobby Fischer. Apparently, Fishers mother was suspected of being a Soviet spy.
If all this snooping and spying isnt enough to cure your nostalgia for the Cold War, the Washington Post reported this week that U.S. top national security advisers are thinking about creating a new, domestic spy agency, perhaps modeled on Britain's MI5. This new agency would take over responsibility for counterterrorism spying and analysis from the FBI, who, apparently, are not quite up coming up to snuff when it comes to rooting out potential terrorists.
In better news, United States was soundly defeated Thursday, November 14 in a fresh bid to cripple a draft of an anti-torture treaty that has been a decade in the making. The UN General Assembly's Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee overrode U.S. opposition and approved the draft treaty by a 104-8 vote. The treaty goes next month to the full 191-nation General Assembly, where it is expected to win approval. To take effect, the pact must then be signed and ratified by at least 20 governments. The treaty would set up an international system of inspections of any prison sites.
Only on a Monday like this, would this be considered even a glimmer of hope.
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Who Will Crash the Democratic and Republican Conventions? Democracy and Elections: As a new generation of activists gears up to take to the streets in Denver and the Twin Cities, can they create democracy from outside? By Michael Gould-Wartofsky, The Nation. August 21, 2008. |
Russia and Georgia: All About Oil ForeignPolicy: This struggle started when the former Soviet republics began seeking Western customers for their oil and natural gas. By Michael T. Klare, Foreign Policy in Focus. August 21, 2008. |
Poverty, Income, and Health Insurance: What to Expect and Why It Really Matters Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: Going back to the 1940s, we've never completed an economic expansion where the middle-class family income failed to regain its prior peak. By Jared Bernstein, Huffington Post. August 21, 2008. |