Green Party candidate Jill Stein defends First Amendment

In spite of efforts by police across the nation to silence the media during their coordinated assault on protesters, videos made by ordinary citizens and posted on YouTube have gone viral and provided all the evidence that is needed to show the excessive brutality exercised by The Police State against American citizens last night: Pepper spray used on an octagenarian who was moving too slowly, thousands of books destroyed, protesters roused and rounded up at night, press passes confiscated, individuals with official court restraining orders punched in the face by uniformed officers, a NY city Councilor beaten...and the list goes on.

The Republicans continue to dismiss the people with total disdain, while Obama's Department of Homeland Security coordinates with City Police forces to storm the protests.

In the midst of this, the Green Party alone has had the courage to stand up and oppose these gestapo-like tactics. I reprint, in its entirety, the official statement released by Jill Stein, Green Party candidate for President:

"The aggressive, needless police actions across the country against Occupy Wall Street (OWS) are an assault on civil liberties and an effort to suppress a much needed movement for economic justice and democracy. The courageous protesters who have stood up to intimidation by lethal force are standing up for us all.

The use of police in full riot gear with helicopters buzzing overhead to arrest peaceful and largely sleeping protesters is frightening commentary on the militarization of state and municipal security. Unprovoked police violence against citizens practicing peaceful civil disobedience - clearly documented on videos gone viral on the internet - is deeply alarming: young women being corralled and pepper sprayed on Wall Street, students at University of California Berkeley being attacked with nightsticks, Iraq veteran Scott Olsen who served two tours of duty supposedly defending freedom, yet whose own freedom was assaulted in a police attack at Occupy Oakland that fractured his skull and rendered him unable to speak.

In conducting these raids, public officials are suppressing rights of free speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press. Routinely, reporters were physically prevented from observing the raids. Many of those who managed to get in to the sites were reportedly intimidated or arrested. If access to public ways and public health and safety concerns were significant, other non-military solutions were available to deal with them. The lack of such efforts belies the excuse that these concerns justified police raids.

As the OWS protesters have said, the defenders of the 1% can evict the protesters, but they can't evict an idea. The protest is here to stay. I call upon the mayors of the occupied cities to follow the example of Green Party Mayor Gayle McLaughlin of Richmond, California, who welcomed the local occupation, and to allow the Occupy gatherings to continue.

Throughout American history public assemblies by the people have been essential to the advance of our civil liberties and to the defense of our freedoms.

Coxey's Army in 1894 marched from Ohio to DC, demanding public jobs for the unemployed in the midst of a recession. In 1932, the Bonus Army of 17,000 World War I veterans and their families, in the third year of the Great Depression camped in DC demanding the immediate cash-payment redemption of their World War I bonuses that were scheduled to be paid in 1945. In 1968, the Poor People's Campaign, a legacy of recently assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King, set up a shantytown in DC known as "Resurrection City" in support of an Economic Bill of Rights, seeking full employment, a guaranteed annual income, and affordable low-income housing. In 1985-86, students erected and camped in anti-apartheid shantytowns on college campuses to protest investments in corporations in apartheid South Africa.

Some of the OWS protesters are homeless. Many more are young and jobless, often carrying unconscionable college-loan debt burdens. They are the tip of the iceberg of insecurity that is increasingly intolerable for growing numbers of the American public, with the upper 1 percent of Americans now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year and controlling 40 percent of the nation's wealth. Income disparity in the US now exceeds that before the Great Depression. Thus, the anguish that compels protesters to sleep on the cold hard ground is not going away.

The political parties of the 1% are showing signs of neither understanding the protest, nor acting to address the root economic causes. I challenge President Obama to forbid all Federal involvement in these disturbing violations of civil liberties, and to urge all elected officials to respect the right of citizens to peacefully assemble to petition their government for redress of the economic grievances caused by rule by the 1%."

Jill Stein for President Campaign


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Open Letter to the US: Wikileaks & Free Speech

Open Letter to U.S. Government Officials Regarding Free Expression in the Wake of the Wikileaks Controversy

December 22, 2010

Dear Public Officials:

Last week, the House Judiciary Committee heard testimony from legal and free speech
experts about the possible application of the Espionage Act to the recent publication of secret documents by the whistle-blower website Wikileaks, as well as to traditional media outlets, Internet companies, and others who have also distributed and reported on that information. All seven witnesses cautioned against attempts to suppress free speech and criticized the overwhelming secrecy that permeates the United States government. We write to echo these concerns and applaud those who have spoken out against attempts to censor the Internet. We urge caution against any legislation that could weaken the principles of free expression vital to a democratic society or hamper online freedoms.

Unfortunately, some government officials have already attacked newspapers’ rights to
report on the releases by Wikileaks. Other government actors have made official and
unofficial statements casting doubt on the right of government employees and others to download, read, or even discuss documents published by Wikileaks or news reporting
based on those documents. Others have rashly proposed legislation that could limit the free speech of legitimate news reporting agencies well beyond Wikileaks.

These actions have created an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty among the general
public, leading them to question their rights with regard to the documents posted by
Wikileaks. As you continue to discuss these critically important issues, we urge you
to do so in a way that respects the constitutional rights of publishers and the public that have been recognized by the Supreme Court.

Specifically:

• Publishers have a First Amendment right to print truthful political information
free of prior restraint, as established in New York Times v. United States.

• Publishers are strongly protected by the First Amendment against liability for
publishing truthful political information that is lawfully obtained, even if the
original disclosure of that information to the publisher was unlawful, under
Bartnicki v. Vopper.

• Internet users have a First Amendment right to receive information, as repeatedly
endorsed by a series of Supreme Court cases, including Stanley v. Georgia.

• The public has a First Amendment right to voice opinions about government
activities. This is core political speech, which receives the highest protection
under the Constitution.

It will be especially critical for members of Congress to keep these rights in mind as they consider any future legislation that may impact freedom of expression. In a free country, the government cannot and does not have unlimited power to determine
what publishers can publish and what the public can read. As the robust public
debate about Wikileaks continues, please make sure that it includes the rights of all
involved.

Sincerely,

American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression
American Civil Liberties Union
American Library Association
Arizona First Amendment Coalition
Association of Research Libraries
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Bob Barr, Former Congressman and Chairman, Liberty Guard, Inc.
Center for Constitutional Rights
Center for Democracy and Technology
Center for Digital Democracy
Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights
Communication Is Your Right!
Courage to Resist
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Feminists for Free Expression
First Amendment Coalition
Government Accountability Project
Liberty Coalition
Muslimah Writers Alliance
National Coalition Against Censorship
New America Foundation
New Media Rights
OpenTheGovernment.org
Privacy Activism
Privacy International
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
Privacy Times
Progressive Librarians Guild
Sunlight Foundation
Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University

NYC Islamic Center: Mayor Bloomberg is right and Peter King is Wrong.

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg has shown leadership and statesmanship on the subject of the planned Islamic Community Center in lower Manhattan. By contrast, Rep. Peter King is being disingenuous as he engages in hate-mongering and patently anti-American rhetoric. It is yet another confirmation of why I am no longer a Republican. President Obama, who began to take a strong stand, has immediately backtracked after criticism, and has proved to be a disappointment.

As a native New Yorker, I understand that every community on Long Island lost loved ones and neighbors in the 9/11 attacks. The entire ordeal still pushes my emotional buttons, and probably will until I die. But I am just as outraged by the barely-hidden, discriminatory, Constitution-shredding opposition to the Islamic Center's plans.

The issue before NYC was NOT whether a mosque should be allowed ‘near’ ground zero. In fact, a mosque has existed in that neighborhood since 1970. The issue was whether the specific building idenitifed for the Center should be preserved under historic commission guidelines and regulations.

Now, very often in government processes, "polite" objections are used to justify personal agendas. At many public hearings, issues such as traffic, noise, light, endangered species, and native american graves are all raised when residents want to oppose something in their back yard - whether or not those are legitimate issues. Much to the NYC Historic Commission's credit, they voted *unanimously* that there was no historic value to this building which was the ruse being used to obstruct the project.

If the question then, is “can a mosque be built?,” then clearly the answer is a resounding YES.

This nation has enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution the right of all people to practice their religion…PERIOD. We do not ignore Constitutional Rights because we don’t like “those people.” Once we do that, the terrorists have indeed won, and the American way of life has gone the way of every other tinhorn dictatorship.

We are NOT a nation with a National Religion. We are a nation that ascribes to Freedom of Religion, and a Prohibition on the Establishment of one religion over others.

Representative Peter King - who for 20 years openly met with and supported the IRA, a terrorist organization - suddenly developed a soft spot in his heart for the victims of terrorism. He called President Obama "wrong" and and issued the following statement:

"It is insensitive and uncaring for the Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero...While the Muslim community has the right to build the mosque, they are abusing that right by needlessly offending so many people who have suffered so much...The right and moral thing for President Obama to have done was to urge Muslim leaders to respect the families of those who died and move their mosque away from ground zero. Unfortunately, the president caved into political correctness..."

This is entirely disingenuous. King knows that opponents of the Islamic Center have no legal leg to stand on under the U. S. Constitution. Rather than taking the high road and promoting healing and the rule of law, he is giving official voice to the "I-don't-care-what-the-Constitution-says, we-don't-want-them-here, those-people-are-being-mean" mentality, and couching it in warm fuzzy terms, like some Big Brother Social Worker.

What is truly an affront affront to every New Yorker (like me), every NY Firefighter’s Family (like me), and everyone who lost people they knew in the WTC attacks (like me) are people like King who PRESUME to believe that we are delicate flowers who can’t handle Constitutional Rights and diversity, who believe that the proper response to the 9/11 attacks is to rip up the First Amendment.

That speech that is most odious is precisely that speech that must be protected.

That press that is most critical of the government is that press that must be protected.

That criminal who has committed the most heinous acts is precisely the criminal most in need of the Constitutional Rights afforded the accused.

That gun owner who is most despised by his pacifist neighbors is the person most in need ot the protection of the Second Amendment.

And that religous Faith that is most antithetical to the majority is the very faith that must be protected and granted equal standing before the law.

It is by granting freedom for Muslims to worship in that spot that we show how great America is. There IS no other option for Constitutionally-minded, patriotic Americans.

The President has not caved into "political correctness" as King asserts... if anything, he is caving into his own political cowardice. Obama and King could both learn something from Bloomberg.

There is an old bit of prose about how the Nazis came for the Jews, the Gypsies, gays, the handicapped, etc., and when they finally came for 'me,' there was no left to help me.

I have been vigilant in this blog about pointing out the eradication of free speech and civil liberties in this country. Earlier this year, 400 children were kidnapped by the government in Texas, and the 'outcry' was little more than ho-hum. After all, they were polygamists, so "it doesnt affect me."

Well, right now, in Minnesota, hours before the Republican convention, there is a wholesale trashing of the Constitution taking place. Will anyone care? Or does it not concern people because the victims are young, protesting, liberal college students?

The full, breaking, and constantly-updated story (with video) can be found at http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

But the crux of the matter is this: 25-30 officers, in riot gears, stormed houses, forced residents to the floor, confiscated computers, and handcuffed and detained people for 'fire code violations,' all because they had planned to protest the Republican National Convention. Using an obscure, never-used law against conspiracy to start a riot, the government has found an effective law that basically preempts any protest or speech it doesnt want to hear.

Is this Beijing? Tiannamen Square? Does anyone remember the Chicago Police Riots of the 1969 Democratic Convention? The Kent State debacle? Have we learned nothing?

I call on McCain, as the Republican candidate, to forcefully condemn what is happening in Minnesota.

NOW, Today. And I call on my fellow citizens to stop yawning, since it isn't 'them' being carried away.