Freedom of Speech and Assembly

Manning and Snowden Show Way To A Better United States

July 28, 2013 Yochai Benkler, www.guardian.co.uk Educate! Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, NSA, Surveillance

America is not the land of the general warrant and pervasive state surveillance. Only a traumatized America would stand for what Snowden's leaks exposed. But that is not all we need to fix. Rejection of indefinite detention without trial was the very foundation of Anglo-American constitutionalism in the Magna Carta. And yet, Guantánamo persists even for scores of prisoners cleared for release. America is not the land of torture, and yet, the administration asserts state secrets privilege to prevent known innocent victims of American torture from seeking redress in our courts; refuses to formally abandon the practice of "extraordinary rendition"; and has granted immunity to the torturers, while fighting to keep secret the Senate's findings that the torture program never added an ounce of security.

Madison Arrests: How The Media Distorts For Scott Walker

July 28, 2013 ByPuddytat, www.dailykos.com Educate! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Media

No matter where you look it's all the same: present the Walker administration talking points (we're the good guys) and frame the singers and observers as the law breaking bad guys. Walker officials get quoted right at the top and maybe, just maybe, an observer or participant in the protest near the end. There's no mention of the obvious selection of the most vulnerable participants as those arrested (are the police THAT afraid?), that the draconian "rules" being violated were put in place by the Walker administration without input or discussion in direct violation of our State Constitution in order to stifle dissent, or that the use of zip ties or handcuffs or even pushing people downstairs to a "holding area" is completely unnecessary to issue a ticket.

Madison Solidarity Singers Assert Rights Again Despite Arrests

July 27, 2013 Occupy Milwaukee, www.facebook.com Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Freedom of Speech and Assembly

The Madison chapter of the National Lawyers Guild writes that the state is distorting the court's ruling in order to justify arrests. In their press release, they say, "All the singers and others present arrested Wednesday were charged with violating an administrative code provision that describes what kind of activity would justify a declaration of an “unlawful event” by Capitol Police. Yet no access was blocked to any part of the building, and no violence, threats of violence or any interference with the operations of state government during the lunch hour singing was observed during the event, which has continued for over two years every weekday in or outside the Capitol. The tickets merely listed “No Permit” as the basis for getting a citation, and when citizens asked why they were being arrested, Capitol police, state troopers and DNR wardens told them they would “find out downstairs,” but no further explanation was offered.

Solidarity Singers Arrested In Madison Capitol, Challenge Judge’s Decision

July 26, 2013 Matthew Defour, www.host.madison.com Resist! Freedom of Speech and Assembly

Wednesday’s arrests continued throughout the noon hour as the group, which in recent weeks has regularly numbered more than 60, continued to sing in defiance of the DOA permitting policy. The number of participants Wednesday was around 50, but it was difficult to tell as many tourists and media hovered around the event. Individuals who began to sing or shout at police were approached by police, asked to leave and arrested if they refused. At one point, a group of senior citizens linked hands and sang “we shall not be moved” before each was arrested. Joan Kemble, 80, said she and her 85-year-old husband were taken to the cafeteria in the basement and “put through all the rigamarole.” When she refused to provide identification, she was told she would be taken to jail and fingerprinted.

Airline Passenger’s Stripping Protest Lands Officers In First-Amendment School

July 24, 2013 Mint Press News Desk, www.mintpressnews.com Resist! Freedom of Speech and Assembly

For failing to understand and respect the civil liberties of U.S. citizens, law enforcement officers at the Richmond International Airport will now be required to take a two-hour class on the First and Fourth amendments. The new class is part of the settlement of a lawsuit brought by a man who was unlawfully detained for removing his clothing in protest against the airport’s full-body scanners. In 2010, 21-year-old Aaron Tobey, a student at the University of Cincinnati, stripped to his underwear in the screening area at Richmond International Airport, revealing a handwrittenmessage on his chest that said, “Amendment 4: The right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.”

FBI Investigating Anti-Tar Sands Activists In Seattle

July 23, 2013 Staff, www.targsandsblockade.org Strategize! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Surveillance, Tar Sands

This type of repression is no unusual event, considering the FBI routinely prioritizes environmental and animal rights activists as “terrorists”, to be disrupted, discredited or otherwise “neutralized” in the struggle for liberation. It’s important to recognize that this policy of combating dissent has historically culminated in the widespread disruption of black, feminist, anti-war and American Indian groups, campaigning non-violently for justice in their respective communities, with the agency deploying tactics including the monitoring of phone calls, arbitrary arrest and detention, and even assassination (as observed in the murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark).

March on Washington, August 24, 2013 Demand Jobs and Freedom for All

July 20, 2013 Labor Fight Back, www.laborfightback.org Organize! Democracy, Finance and the Economy, Freedom of Speech and Assembly

Fifty years ago, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. led a great March for JOBS and FREEDOM on Washington that demanded: "A massive federal program to train and place all unemployed workers—Negro and white—on meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages. "A national minimum wage act that will give all Americans a decent standard of living. (Government surveys show that anything less than $2.00 [$15.23 at May 2013 prices] an hour fails to do this.)" Shockingly, most working people are worse off today than in the 1960s.

The Power Structure Fears The People: Embrace Our Power

July 19, 2013 Paul Jay, www.therealnews.com Strategize! Finance and the Economy, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Solidarity

he question is: how do you make the power elite frightened of you? Who was the last liberal president we had? It was Richard Nixon--not because he was a liberal, but because he was frightened of movements. And there's a scene--I think it's in Kissinger's memoirs, 1971, huge antiwar demonstration surrounding the White House, and Nixon has put empty buses, city buses end-to-end as a kind of barricade, and he's standing at the window wringing his hands, going, Henry, they're going to break through the barricades and get us. And that's just where you want power, people in power to be. And that's why Sarkozy, who was a cretin, was unable to do too much damage to France, because if you got up in France and told French university students that they were going to pay $50,000 a year to go to college, they'd shut the damn country down.

Court of Appeals Rules Against Hedges et al. in NDAA Case

July 17, 2013 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Wars and Militarism

Hedges response: "This is quite distressing. It means there is no recourse now either within the Executive, Legislative or Judicial branches of government to halt the steady assault on our civil liberties and most basic Constitutional rights. It means that the state can use the military, overturning over two centuries of domestic law, to use troops on the streets to seize U.S. citizens, strip them of due process and hold them indefinitely in military detention centers. States that accrue to themselves this kind of power, history has shown, will use it. We will appeal, but the Supreme Court is not required to hear our appeal. It is a black day for those who care about liberty."

The Subversive Summit

July 16, 2013 Randy Malmud, www.inthesetimes.org Educate! Finance and the Economy, Freedom of Speech and Assembly

For two weeks every year, Zagreb’s civic festival welcomes hordes of progressive lecturers and audiences to a program of films, debates, roundtable discussions and protest-planning sessions. Running past midnight in the city’s elegant 1920-vintage movie house Kino Europa, standing-room-only keynote speeches attract staunch partisans for advancing the interests of the public sphere against the authoritarian mediocracy that now prevails. The cataclysm of human and social devastation in Europe is this generation’s defining moment. But calling it a debt crisis, as Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis explains, is like going to the hospital with advanced inoperable cancer and having the doctor diagnose your suffering as a pain crisis. Yes there is pain, but the pain is symptomatic of bigger problems.

Locking Out the Voices of Dissent

July 15, 2013 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com Strategize! Freedom of Speech and Assembly

The trial was a tiny window into how rattled the state was by Occupy, unfortunately now in disarray. The security organs know that as conditions worsen for the majority of Americans, as austerity cuts and chronic unemployment and underemployment drive tens of millions of families into desperation, as climate change continues to produce extreme and dangerous weather, there remains the threat of another popular backlash. The problem lies not, of course, with the Occupy movement, but with the reconfiguration of the government into a handmaiden of corporations that seek to squeeze profits out of the dying carcass of empire. The corporate state’s quest to control all power includes using the military to carry out domestic policing, which is why I sued the president over Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act.

The Lion Sleeps No More, Anonymous Calls for Global Protest, #NOV5TH

July 14, 2013 Anonymous, www.PopularResistance.org Organize! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Solidarity, Video

Anonymous calls for national day of action on November 5th -- #NOV5TH -- says to governments all over the world "take this message as your last will and testament, the game is officially over." The "Global Day of Civil Disobedience" will target all government facilities across the globe. Anonymous urges that it is time "to relight the flame of protest until our demands are met." They urge solidarity, that we stand united in the face or ecological and economic crisis.

Continue The Struggle!

July 14, 2013 Tarak Kauff, www.PopularResistance.org Organize! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Wars and Militarism

The effort to protect the Right to Assemble is continuing - with your support. Veterans and others who just finished a 5 day trial where the judge, after finding them guilty, dismissed the charges in the interest of justice are planning filing a federal civil suit. Their lawyers, who are from the National Lawyers Guild, are willing to handle the case pro bono but there will be out-of-pocket costs and filing fees that need to be paid for. Read about the case and their plans - and give them some support if you can.

Veterans, Allies ‘Guilty,’ Then Charges Dismissed

July 14, 2013 Elllen Davidson, www.stopthesewars.org Resist! Freedom of Speech and Assembly

Many of the defendants were unwilling to do community service or pay a fine that would acknowledge any guilt on their part, preferring to serve time in jail if necessary. Sidestepping the dilemma of possibly having to sentence veterans to jail time for a ceremony honoring their fallen comrades Judge Mandelbaum followed his guilty verdict by granting Stolar’s motion for dismissal in the interests of justice. While stressing that he in no way accepted the defendants’ interpretation of their First Amendment rights, he noted that most were veterans who had served their country, that they had been orderly and respectful, and that they ranged in age from 50 to 86. Justice would not be served, he said, by creating a criminal record for this aging group.

Daniel Ellsberg’s Determined Lifelong Resistance

July 13, 2013 Ken Butigan, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Chelsea Manning, Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, NSA, Solidarity, Wars and Militarism

Releasing the Pentagon Papers in 1971 was an historic act. Since then Ellsberg has relentlessly built on and expanded upon this particular nonviolent action in innumerable ways. Retirement doesn’t seem to apply to the job of making the world a better place, as Ellsberg proves almost daily. The ongoing threats to our democracy persist, and Ellsberg continues to sound the alarm with his words and with his body. For example, on August 6, he will be a keynote speaker at the annual protest at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, marking the 68th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, where he will likely cross the line with others. Like Edward Snowden, Daniel Ellsberg persists with peaceful but determined resistance. He reminds us that at any point in our lives — Ellsberg recently turned 82 — there’s work to be done.

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