Donald Rumsfeld often quotes a line from Al Capone: "You will get more with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone."
But should the guiding philosophy of the world’s leading democracy really be the tough talk of a Chicago mobster?

The Arrogant Empire by Fareed Zakaria

"Last time around, the attorney general announced that he was sending up a bill and that he expected Congress to enact it within three days," the ACLU's Timothy Edgar said of Ashcroft's post-9/11 push for the first PATRIOT Act in an interview with Salon. "They ended up taking six weeks, but they still didn't have a single hearing, and members were unable to obtain a complete text of the legislation even after they voted on it."

To hear that the gun lobbyists and the ACLU both agree on something should strike a chord with everyone. If the reports are true about what Ashcroft wants to push through with Patriot Act II, it's no wonder that everyone can see the problems with this. Write to your representatives in Congress and let them know that you want to keep your rights.

The drumbeat began just days after Sept. 11, when George W. Bush told the nations of the world: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." It grew louder -- and closer to home -- when Ari Fleischer warned that "all Americans" should "watch what they say," and then again when Attorney General Ashcroft said that those who complained of lost liberties during the war on terror "aid terrorists" by giving "ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends."

Not only are we losing our civil liberties in a legal sense, we are being intimidated for voicing our opinions.

"I'm a little too young to remember McCarthyism, but I've got the feeling that it might be happening again," Saviano told Salon. "I wonder where it came from, this idea that anybody who wants to question this administration or debate things publicly is labeled unpatriotic?"

What are the big bad problems looming in Patriot Act II?

Cancel judicial consent decrees that prevent local police departments from spying on civil rights groups and other organizations that might once have been deemed subversive.

Would that include hacker conventions?

Allow the attorney general to revoke the U.S. citizenship of anyone who provides assistance to any group the government considers to be a "terrorist" organization. Once the individual's citizenship is revoked, the attorney general would then be free to deport him -- or to hold him indefinitely in government custody.

I was born in America. Where would I be deported to if the Attorney General decided that I was supporting terrorism by calling him a big doody head?

"The real danger to our liberty comes from politicians wanting to look like they are doing something in a time of crisis," said the ACLU's Edgar. "Unfortunately, it's inevitable that there will be politicians, including politicians in the Justice Department, who aren't really looking to make us safer but to take advantage of the situation."

'Shut Your Mouth'

] The following is a copy of Mary (Ann) Wright’s letter
] of resignation to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
] Wright was most recently the deputy chief of mission
] at the U.S. embassy in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. She
] helped open the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan,
] in January 2002.

More background on Wright:

] I have been a diplomat for fifteen years and the Deputy
] Chief of Mission in our Embassies in Sierra Leone,
] Micronesia, Afghanistan (briefly) and Mongolia. I have
] also had assignments in Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan,
] Grenada and Nicaragua. I received the State Department's
] Award for Heroism as Charge d’Affaires during the
] evacuation of Sierra Leone in 1997. I was 26 years in
] the US Army/Army Reserves and participated in civil
] reconstruction projects after military operations in
] Grenada, Panama and Somalia. I attained the rank of
] Colonel during my military service.

Key Points:

] I disagree with the Administration’s policies on Iraq

] I disagree with the Administration’s lack of effort in
] resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

] I disagree with the Administration’s lack of policy
] on North Korea

] I disagree with the Administration’s policies on
] Unnecessary Curtailment of Rights in America

More high level resignations...

More than a dozen students from Hamburg's Sachsenweg School were to depart this Tuesday until their hosts suggested they stay home rather than bring "anti-American feeling," said Sachsenweg English teacher Jutta Kuehn. The German agency that coordinates educational exchanges said other programs also have been called off.

The 'boro makes Salon.com, but not in the best way.

U.S.-German rift reaches schoolyard level

After a couple months of this, Bershadsky had had enough; she wanted to do something about the jobs she was seeing. So she went to a domain-name registration service and bought a URL for a new site she thought would, if not exactly make a difference in the world, at least make her feel better. The URL Bershadsky registered was fuckthatjob.com. "It was exactly what I was feeling," she says. "It felt right. I couldn't think of anything else to call it."

Funny, yet not so funny story.

Take this tech job and shove it

Norman Lear, the Emmy-winning producer of ‘‘All in the Family," said Wednesday he will collaborate on several episodes of the Comedy Central satire ‘‘South Park."

sweet!

Norman Lear to co-write South Park episodes

The legal house of prostitution 15 miles east of Reno has been closed ever since the IRS seized the place in 1999 following the conviction of the bordello's manager and its parent companies in a fraud and racketeering case. The women who worked there were evicted and the brothel was padlocked.

Let us all pause for a moment of silence.

Feds to Demolish Infamous Nevada Brothel

Texas is planning on firing up the BBQ grill again in a couple of weeks as the next contestant on "Texas Death Row" steps up to the chair.

My question, though, is whether or not the fact that his appeal of "ineffective council" is reiterated by the fact that his lawyer didn't file the paperwork on time?

Move Over 'Simpsons' because 'Texas Death Row' Plans 300th Episode

I read this book several years ago and enjoyed it, but with the current political situation and the "threat of terror" that we are reminded of on a daily basis, I thought I'd recommend this to others. It's fiction, of course, but close enough to reality to make us all think twice about it. Here's a snippet from the review.

This particular jaunt into "mainstream, commercial, technothriller-type fiction" takes us back to the days leading up to the Gulf War, when Saddam was our friend basically because he wasn't Iranian. And the plot revolves around -- don't worry, I'm not giving away anything you won't get from the marketing text on the dust jacket -- Iraqi scientists using student visa's to get access to leading American educational institutions, where they can work on biological weapons which they then plan to use on us and our allies. Nasty. But then again, that is why we went to war with them.

The main characters are Clyde Banks, a small town deputy sheriff who's campaigning to replace his boss in an upcoming election (and who has a pregnant wife in the National Guard destined to go guess where), and dowdy CIA analyst Betsy Vandeventer. The small town the sheriff lives in also happens to be home to Eastern Iowa University which, sitting square in the American heartland as it does, specializes in agricultural science, a veritable magnet for Iraqi biological weapons specialists.

The SF Site Featured Review: The Cobweb by Stephen Bury

Things that make you go "hmmmm":

Its provisions allow for secret arrests of persons in certain terrorist-related cases until indictments have been handed down and there is no time limitation for this process. America has never permitted secret arrests for indefinite time periods. In addition, Patriot II provides that these terrorist arrests may be under "no bail" conditions and that any federal employee who discloses the identity of someone who has been secretly detained may be imprisoned for up to five years.

The bill mandates that government authorities are entitled to have ex parte (one- on-one, without defense counsel or a public record) and in camera (private) - meetings with judges without opposing counsel or defendants even being notified to secure rulings on search warrants, admissibility of evidence and investigative procedures. In certain cases where naturalized American citizens are found to be working with foreign governments, or making donations to foreign based charities later found to be supporting terrorist causes, the Attorney General will have the right to revoke U.S. citizenship and extradite those charged to any country in the world, whether there is an extradition treaty in place or not.

There has been some debate, encouraged by inaccurate and extremely irresponsible reporting by some "alternative" journalists and radio talk show hosts indicating that the bill provides the government with the ability to strip native-born U.S. citizens of their citizenship for seemingly trivial offenses. This is patently untrue. The actual truth is bad enough.

Section 501 of Patriot II amends section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1481) pertaining to the citizenship status of those who have acquired U.S. citizenship. It states that those who have entered into the armed forces of a foreign government (when such forces are engaged in hostilities against the US), or have joined or provided material support "to a terrorist organization... if the organization is engaged in hostilities against the United States, its people, or its national security interests" will be deemed to have made a prima facie (apparent on its face) statement that they intend to relinquish their citizenship.

Lewis and Moyers were correct in their interpretation of this section in that a naturalized American who makes a donation to an Islamic charity later alleged to have been giving money to a terrorist organization could be stripped of their citizenship and deported anywhere without it ever having been established that he or she even knew how the charity was distributing its money.

The act broadens the scope of activities that qualify for the loose-to-non-existent guidelines for eavesdropping and surveillance under Patriot I and allows law enforcement personnel to obtain "national" search warrants for domestic and foreign terrorism investigations. As discussed in previous FTW stories, under Patriot I the definition... [ Read More (0.4k in body) ]

Patriot II