"The FBI has issued an order to hosting provider Rackspace in the US, ordering it to turn over two of the servers hosting the Independent Media Centre's websites in the UK, a statement from the group says. Rackspace has offices in the US and the UK. Independent Media Center, which is better known as Indymedia, was set up in 1999 to provide grassroots coverage of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) protests in Seattle. Rackspace complied with the FBI order, without first notifying Indymedia, and turned over Indymedia's server in the UK. This affects over 20 Indymedia sites worldwide, the group said. Indymedia said it did not know why the order had been issued as it was issued to Rackspace. Rackspace told some of the group's volunteers 'they cannot provide Indymedia with any information regarding the order.' ISPs have received gag orders in similar situations which prevent them from updating the parties involved on what is happening." Stay tuned for more details...

"A clash between David O. Russell and Warner Bros. over the DVD re-release of his Gulf War film 'Three Kings' intensified Thursday as studio executives informed the filmmaker the video could not be released before the November election. The news came days after the movie studio's decision to drop his 35-minute antiwar documentary, 'Soldiers Pay,' as a DVD bonus feature because of its POLITICAL CONTENT. In the documentary, the director revisits some of the Iraqi extras and advisors from the 1999 film 'Three Kings' and the result is not favorable to the current administration. 'I am contemplating having a press conference with a 1st Amendment lawyer -- to say that this is censorship and an infringement of the 1st Amendment based on political opinions.' Russell has been outspoken about having his film and the documentary influence the political debate in the manner of Michael Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11.' He is looking for alternative distribution for 'Soldiers Pay,' which cost $180,000."

"Some of the audience in District Justice Rita Arnold's courtroom on Wednesday looked like they had gotten lost on their way to protest the Republican National Convention. But they were in the right place. The had come to support Easttown resident Lani Frank, the woman arrested on June 28 for disorderly conduct outside an East Caln movie theater after watching the film 'Fahrenheit 9/11.' To their dismay and Frank's, the judge found the defendant guilty of the charge. Frank, who did not testify on her own behalf, vowed to file an appeal. 'I'm in shock,' Frank said. 'It seems like (Arnold) totally disregarded all the information she received.' Nor was she apparently swayed by a middle-aged man in the audience who had a pink strip of paper with 'America?' written on it taped over his mouth and about eight other Frank supporters. Arnold declared Frank guilty, levied a $230 fine against her, and immediately left the bench without further comment." Add YOUR comments about this outrage!!!

NPR: "A blogger with the pen name CBFTW, stationed near Mosul with the First Battallion, 23rd Regiment, says he began his My War Web log to help combat boredom. "I'm just writing about my experiences," the soldier says. "I'm pretty much putting my diary on the Internet -- that's all it is."CBFTW says he has avoided describing sensitive information, such as U.S. weapons capabilities, weaknesses and scheduling. But earlier this month, CBFTW was lectured by commanders about violating operational security. Two other popular blogs run by soldiers have been shut down recently. Some critics worry that military officials are trying to muffle dissent from troops in the field. "I really think it has much less to do with operational security and classified secrets and more to do with American politics and how the war is seen by a public that is getting increasingly shaky about the overall venture," says Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington."

When Ashcroft ordered the nation's librarians to destroy public documents that told citizens how to retrieve property confiscated during an investigation, they knew they had to fight back. If they complied this time, what would be next? The systematic weeding out of public materials deemed "inconvenient" to the Bush administration? Thanks to their courageous stand, on Aug. 2, the order to destroy was rescinded. Americans everywhere should thank their local librarian for standing up for truth and freedom of speech. Hypatia - the astoundingly brave and brilliant woman -- who died at the hands of a rightwing mob while defending the Great Library at Alexandria in 415 AD - would be proud.

This story about Bushie fascism also reflects the woeful inadequacy of the media - note the headline says "two men," when the couple in question was a man and wife! Lexington Herald-Leader: "The [West. VA] Charleston City Council yesterday approved a resolution to apologize to two protesters arrested for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts to a Bush rally in West VA Capitol. Nicole and Jeff Rank of Corpus Christi, TX, were removed in restraints after revealing T-shirts with Bush's name crossed out on the front and the words "Love America, Hate Bush" on the back." Mayor Danny Jones, a Republican, didn't REALLY apologize: " 'I don't condemn our police officers, we support our police department. But we regret this happened, and quite frankly we want to put this behind us.'" Jones had claimed that the police were acting on orders from the Secret Service, but a spokesman for the Secret Service says this is not true.

After an RNC operative apparently crashed a private Democratic fundraiser and then reported back to HQ about Whoopi Goldberg's bawdy Bush joke, Bush's media minions were used to try to blow the incident into international proportions (to make the public forget Cheney's more despicable and far more public obscenity). Although that strategy having failed, somebody no doubt called in "corporate favors" and got Goldberg kicked from her contract with SlimFast. "I've done material on every president in the past 20 years, from Reagan to Carter, from Clinton to Bush," says Whoopi Goldberg. "It seems now that people from the other side are using this to further their own agenda." The ad withdrawal is just another intimidation strategy: speak out about Bush - even at a private event, and you will pay for it.

First Amendment Center: "Americans' support for their First Amendment freedoms - deeply shaken by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 - continues to rebound and is back at pre-9/11 levels, according to the annual State of the First Amendment survey, conducted by the First Amendment Center in collaboration with American Journalism Review magazine. 'The 2004 survey found that just 30 percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement, 'The First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees,' with 65 percent disagreeing. The nation was split evenly, 49 percent to 49 percent, on that same question two years ago, in the survey following the 9/11 attacks,' said Gene Policinski, acting director of the First Amendment Center."

The rightwing media is describing the Supreme Court ruling against the "Child On-line Protection Act" as a wanton "blow against the safety of American children." But, as written, the Act was so vague and open to abuse that images of, for ex., Boticelli's Venus or Michelangelo's David could be called porn and anyone posting the images arrested on federal charges. (Afterall, Ashcroft demanded that the bare breasts of classic statues be covered!). The First Amendment center says, ""Harmful to minors" was defined as anything that is either obscene or by community standards appeals to prurient interests, depicts sex acts or genitals, or lacks artistic merit, among other definitions. Before it took effect, the law was found unconstitutional at both the district court and appeals court levels and was enjoined from being enforced." That it made it to the Supreme Court at all is a testament to the determination of the religious right, led by Ashcroft, to legislate morality.

"A Chester County Democratic committee woman was arrested Saturday night for allegedly causing a disturbance while handing out voter registration cards at a local showing of the movie Fahrenheit 9/11. Lani Frank, 49, of Berwyn, was handing out the cards about 10:15 p.m., as moviegoers at the Downingtown Regal Cinema Stadium 16 poured out of the documentary that slams Bush and his decision to go to war in Iraq. State police said they got a call reporting a disturbance. When troopers showed up at the cinema, Frank had moved from the theater lobby to the [PUBLIC] parking lot. 'She continuously refused to leave the area and continued to cause a disturbance [BUSH*T!] and left the troopers no choice but to arrest her,' Cpl. Lawrence Wallick said. Police charged Frank with disorderly conduct, a summary violation akin to a traffic citation. Last night, Frank said she would fight the citation." You Go, Lani - take it to the Supreme Court!

"Michael Moore may be prevented from advertising his controversial new movie, 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' on television or radio after July 30 if the FEC today accepts the legal advice of its general counsel... that political documentary filmmakers may not air television or radio ads referring to federal candidates within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election... The FEC ruling may also affect promotion of a slew of other upcoming political documentaries and films, such as 'Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War,' which opens in August, 'The Corporation,' about democratic institutions being subsumed by the corporate agenda, or 'Silver City,' a recently finished film by John Sayles that criticizes the Bush administration [and] 'The Hunting of the President,' which investigates whether Bill Clinton was the victim of a vast conspiracy." Meanwhile, corporate pimps Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity can use public airwaves to attack Democrats 24x7x365.

Howard Stern reports: "Sen Brownback has made an amendment to the indecency bill that would increase the ceiling on the fines for each violation from 500,000 to 3 MILLION! He snuck in the amendment to the pending indecency bill as part of a larger military spending bill. This military bill is described on the congress website as: "An original bill to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2005 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe personnel strengths for such fiscal year for the Armed Services, and for other purposes." It is is absolutely amazing that this guy is using the military bill (at a time of war) to push through his indecency crusade." We are shocked that Dems would support this abuse of both free speech AND the military. CALL YOUR SENATOR and tell them to WAKE UP!!

Unbelievable! After voting DOWN FCC rules that would allow corporations to control America's airwaves, the Senate then proceeded to blow it big time. Caving into pressure from a phony, highly organized "massive letter writing" campaign by the religious right (which uses such campaigns to make a few thousand people seem like "the majority of Americans"), the Senate voted to impose huge fines for "indecency" on radio and TV. This plays right into the Bushies' hands - esp. as the Senate left the question of who defines indecency and by what criteria totally open to abuse and manipulation. (Note how Limbaugh wasn't cited for his obscene comments on the Abu Ghraib photos). These ridiculous fines - up to $3 million amount to censorship - and possibly the beginning of the end of free speech. Even the most outrageous polluters, whose offenses KILL people don't get these kinds of fines.

AP: " Bob Barr cannot bring a $30 million defamation suit against former President Clinton, Democratic political adviser James Carville and publisher Larry Flynt, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said Barr failed to make his conspiracy claim against Clinton and Carville within the three years permitted by law. As to Flynt, the panel ruled that Barr's claim is barred by the First Amendment because he failed to show that the information printed in a one-time issue called 'The Flynt Report' was false or was published with knowledge that it was false. Flynt's article included allegations by Barr's former wife that the congressman had an affair in the mid-1980s. It also said that in contrast to his public opposition to abortion, he drove his wife to a clinic to have an abortion performed."

A high school teacher in a heavily Republican school district in Shenandoah, NY is now being investigated for refusing to honor a silent tribute to the late 40th president during Monday morning's homeroom period. The teacher was "turned in" by a student snitch (Ashcroft would be proud). Did the teacher make "death threats?" Did she use obscene language? Did she push her political views on students? Nope, she simply "refused to participate," saying that even if Reagan was dead she didn't think he was the hero that everyone else thought he was. I.e., you will now be considered anti-American and suspect by the authorities if you refuse to worship Ronald Reagan!

Wanna know why NYC, LA and Miami still don't have secure ports? Or why US nuclear reactors couldn't withstand even the smallest terrorist attack? Or why the anthrax killer still roams free? Maybe its because Bush is taking on the REALLY serious threats -- such as avant garde artists. Bush's Joint Terrorism Task Force is planning to prosecute three University professors for creating an artistic display that contained lab equipment used to test for contaminated food. Seems that the JTTF mistook the art project for a biological weapons laboratory. Says Beatriz da Costa, one of the persecuted artists, "It was shocking that this investigation was ever launched. That it is continuing is positively frightening, and shows how vulnerable the PATRIOT Act has made freedom of speech in this country." Not to mention the obscene waste of taxpayer resources when real threats go unaddressed."

"Secret Service agents questioned a [Washington state] high school student about anti-war drawings he did for an art class, one of which depicted President Bush's head on a stick. Another... portrayed Bush as a devil launching a missile, with a caption reading 'End the war--on terrorism.' The 15-year-old boy's art teacher at Prosser High School turned the drawings over to school administrators, who notified police, who called the Secret Service... The drawing that drew the most notice showed a man in what appeared to be Middle Eastern-style clothing, holding a rifle. He was also holding a stick with an oversize head of the president on it. The student said the head was enlarged because it was intended to be an effigy... A message left by [AP] with... the Secret Service in Washington, DC, was not returned... [Ken Cravins, a friend of the boy's family] said, 'If this 15-year-old kid in Prosser is perceived as a threat to the president, then we are living in '1984'."

AP: "During Scalia's speech Wednesday in Hattiesburg about the Constitution, a woman who identified herself as Deputy Marshal Melanie Rube demanded that a reporter for The Associated Press erase a digital recording of the justice's comments. The reporter, Denise Grones, initially resisted, but later showed the deputy how to erase the recording after the officer took the device from her. Rube also made a Hattiesburg American reporter erase her tape. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said Thursday that the deputy violated the law and 'the fundamental tenets of press freedom'... The AP and three other organizations also sent a letter protesting the marshal's conduct. The letter demanded an immediate explanation, potential sanctions and details of what steps that would be taken to ensure 'that no such improper actions are carried out by U.S. marshals in the future.'"

The Bush FEC wants free speech to be "owned" exclusively by Bush - that is obvious to all, and few put it as well as Punkvoter's Fat Mike: "It is not surprising at all that the Republicans are pushing these new rules, hand in hand with a small elite group of phony so-called 'reformers.' We all know what this exercise is about. It is not about campaign finance 'reform.' It has nothing to do with getting big money out of politics. It is about using the awesome power of the government to silence criticism of the government This effort goes right along with all the efforts of the Bush Administration to silence their critics through harassment and intimidation ... whether it is sliming Richard Clarke with lies, or threatening to refer to the Justice Department groups running ads critical of Bush." Go, Fat Mike, Go!

When a political figure comes to a college campus, they should expect to be treated to the liveliest demonstrations of free speech going! But when two students had the audacity to actually shout out a question at Lynne Cheney, and (allegedly) an obscenity at one of her answers, the Bush gestapo immediately wanted the students "investigated." That's the McCarthy-like response to anyone and anything speaking out against the Reich: investigate - all at taxpayer expense, of course! But the UMD refuses to pursue disciplinary action against the students because they did not violate the campus Code of Student Conduct.

Howard Stern wasn't yanked from the airwaves because of sudden "vulgarity." His show had not changed, except for one thing - he had been increasingly critical of Bush and his bosses at Clear Channel, who are buddy-buddy with Bush. Clear Channel Vice Chairman Thomas Hicks is especially tight with Bush as clearly shown in this article detailing the incestuous ties between Bush, Hicks, UTIMCO and the Carlyle Group.

The Guardian reports: "According to organisations connected with film, theatre, music, opera and dance, new American immigration and visa policies are making it extremely difficult, sometimes impossible, for foreign artists of all sorts to come to the US to perform and show their work. No one, it seems, is exempt. Last week, at the Grammy awards, the Cuban guitarist Ibrahim Ferrer was supposed to have received an award - but he couldn't get into the country. The 76-year-old was cited as a security risk." As JFK observed, artists are the very people who reawaken the spirit, draw awareness to what is wrong, and inspire people to act from a higher moral standard. So it comes as no surprise that they scare the hell out of Bush & Co.

AP: "Five peace activists arrested last year en route to a demonstration outside Bush's ranch were convicted yesterday of violating the city's protest ordinance... 'It's an overall picture of the complacency of our nation and how the president has this sort of no-protest zone around him at all times,' Amanda Jack, one of the defendants, said in a story in today's Waco Tribune-Herald. 'It's completely absurd that you can't even get near the peoples' president,' the 23-year-old Austin resident said. 'You can't even petition your own government representative.' The Crawford ordinance required protesters to give 15 days' notice and pay $25 before the chief of police could issue a permit to protest within the city. The rule has since changed to allow for a seven-day notice. The five activists, who were given fines ranging from $200 to $500, say they plan to appeal the verdict to McLennan County Court."

A very scary quote from an article on Bush Administration Paranoia. "Then just a couple of days ago, I received a message dealing with certain federal funds granted to some universities. The gist of the matter boils down to the fact that some professors are accused of teaching subject matters inimical of America's foreign policy. Some government officials consider this criticism to be a highly undemocratic activity. To eliminate the unpatriotic scum, it is proposed to establish a federal board that would control what may or may not be taught. The proposed legislation is H.R. 3077. The board would consist of members from Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and the National Security Agency."

"A longtime political activist was fined $500 yesterday after a judge found him guilty of entering a restricted area during a presidential visit. U.S. Magistrate Bristow Marchant did not give Brett Bursey, 55, any jail time, saying he considered the fact that Bursey had been protesting peacefully and was not engaged in any 'wantonly criminal' act. But Marchant defended the government's view of the importance of restricted areas for the president's safety. Bursey said he would appeal Marchant's verdict, hoping to force courts to recognize basic American principles such as the right of free speech... 'In this age of suicide bombers -- the Secret Service's concern with allowing unscreened persons to stand in such close proximity to a slow-moving vehicle carrying the President of the United States is not just understandable, but manifestly reasonable,' Marchant wrote in his ruling." So NO protests are allowed on any street where Bush's car passes? Impeach Bush Now!

"A judge fined longtime Columbia political dissenter Brett Bursey $500 Tuesday, ruling that Bursey broke a federal law designed to shield the president from harm... U.S. Magistrate Bristow Marchant acknowledged Bursey was not a threat to Bush during the president's Oct. 24, 2002, visit to Columbia. But the judge dismissed Bursey's free speech defense and ruled the protester had no right to be as close to Bush as Bursey wanted in his efforts to show that some South Carolinians opposed his plan to attack Iraq... Bursey argued that the federal government sought to muzzle his opposition by insulating Bush from political opposition while allowing his supporters closer access. A sign Bursey carried proclaimed, 'No more war for oil.' Signs for Republican candidates were allowed in the restricted area, Bursey and his witnesses said... Secret Service agents and local police testified they told Bursey and other protesters to move to a 'demonstration zone' about a half-mile from the hangar."

United for Peace and Justice writes, "To Senate and House Judiciary Committees: I am outraged that the FBI has been conducting coordinated, nationwide surveillance operations on the US antiwar movement under the cover of fighting 'terrorism.' I support the efforts of the antiwar movement to end the Bush administration's policies of illegal war and occupation. I support our right to engage in nonviolent dissent free of government surveillance and interference. I call on you to take immediate action to stop the FBI and local police from spying on the anti-war movement and to begin an investigation into these spying activities... I will not be intimidated or silenced by the FBI and the Bush administration. I am proud to participate in nonviolent political dissent, like the Global Day of Action Against War and Occupation on March 20, and I will continue to work for peace and justice."

"Comedian Lenny Bruce was granted a posthumous pardon by Gov. George Pataki on Tuesday for a nearly 40-year-old obscenity conviction prompted by a foul-mouthed political commentary. Pataki, a third-term Republican, called his decision to issue the first posthumous pardon in New York state history 'a declaration of New York's commitment to upholding the First Amendment.' The campaign to win a pardon for the groundbreaking 1960s comedian was supported by his ex-wife and daughter, more than two dozen First Amendment lawyers and entertainers including Robin Williams, the Smothers Brothers and Penn and Teller. Floyd Abrams, a leading First Amendment lawyer....said Pataki's decision 'is really a major step forward in recognizing the mistreatment of Lenny Bruce personally and of the First Amendment that Bruce defended'... While Bruce was considered a pariah by some in the '60s, he's generally viewed now as a performer who totally changed the stand-up comedy business."

"Several groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the AFL-CIO and the National Lawyers Guild, are preparing multiple federal lawsuits accusing [Miami] law enforcement officials of a host of civil rights violations during last month's free trade summit, from curbing free speech to using excessive force... For the groups preparing civil rights complaints in Miami, seeking financial damages from the city is not necessarily their ultimate goal. They say their real intent is to try to prevent what they termed a 'preemptive' police strike against demonstrators from happening again, and to ensure that other cities do not use Miami's policing strategy to crack down on future mass demonstrations. 'What you'll see is an emerging picture of a police state [in Miami],' said Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, president of the ACLU's Miami chapter. 'That picture is going to move people to ask, 'Do we want to live in this kind of society?"'

"The actions of the Miami Police Department this week have violated the fundamental due process and First Amendment rights of thousands of peaceful protesters gathering to voice their opposition to the FTAA summit... [We] demand a full-scale, independent investigation into the police officers' alarming behavior, with the results to be made public... Indiscriminate, excessive force against hundreds of nonviolent protesters with weapons including pepper spray, tear gas and concussion grenades, and rubber bullets; Singling out of NLG Legal Observers wearing highly visible neon green caps. We have confirmed reports that five Legal Observers were arrested, and four of those assaulted by police officers; Police stopping and snatching protesters, seemingly at random, into unmarked vehicles; Police shooting protestors with rubber bullets and trapping them by police lines, resulting in major injuries. Police repeatedly refused to allow Medics into these areas to treat the injured."

The FBI "has collected extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators and has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism squads, according to interviews and a confidential bureau memorandum... Civil rights advocates and legal scholars said the monitoring program could signal a return to the abuses of the 1960's and 1970's, when J. Edgar Hoover was the F.B.I. director and agents routinely spied on political protesters like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr... [Advocates] have complained for months that federal officials have surreptitiously sought to suppress the First Amendment rights of antiwar demonstrators... The F.B.I. memorandum, however, appears to offer the first corroboration of a coordinated, nationwide effort to collect intelligence regarding demonstrations." Impeach Bush Now!

Steve Payne reports: "...the police came into the lines a-swingin', spraying pepper spray, and apparently shooting rubber bullets (I was told that later, I didn't realize it was happening at the time, but I'd seen the snipers up in their cranes). We were all falling back. We all began yelling to hold the lines and we linked arms. Then the police were suddenly on my line and they sprayed me directly in the eyes with pepper spray... I can't emphasize enough how brutal it was. They were randomly attacking people. People were being hit and shot in the head, sprayed directly in the face with pepper spray. Tear gas was being used,... What did I learn from all this? That the system that is being created is completely unsustainable. If they didn't have guns to back up their ideas no one would go along with them. We were all peaceful protestors, no one provoked the cops. They began beating people and shooting them and spraying them with chemical weapons..."

Jim DeFede writes, "A small group of people were walking through downtown Miami, doing nothing illegal, when they saw a bunch of Miami officers surround a man across the street. Three of them stopped to watch. More police arrived, and a few, recognizing the trio as would-be FTAA protesters, wandered across the street. It's easy to pick the FTAA folks out of a crowd. At this moment, however, they weren't protesting anything. They were just bystanders. The cops say they told the three to move along. The three say they were never given the chance. Either way, why was it necessary for the police to confront these individuals? ''They are profiling and targeting people for their political views,'' argues Marc Alain Steier, an attorney with MAD. The cops deny that and claim the three were blocking the sidewalk. Who are they kidding? Three scrawny young people standing on a corner is not an obstruction."

The Florida Times-Union reports: "A group of 30 military veterans critical of the war in Iraq hoped to use Tuesday's Veterans Day parade to call attention to the increasingly deadly conflict but instead found themselves fighting for something much more fundamental. Members of Veterans For Peace and Vietnam Veterans Against the War were yanked off a downtown Tallahassee street, directly in front of the Old Capitol, while marching in the holiday parade they had legitimately registered in. As organizers allowed the parade to roll on -- including veterans from various wars, several high school marching bands and even a group of young women from the local Hooters restaurant -- the anti-war veterans were ordered onto sidewalks where they passed out leaflets and displayed a banner reading, 'Honor the Warrior, Not the War.'" Hey, it's called the First Amendment! Our veterans fought for our Constitution -- but in Jeb's Florida that doesn't count for anything! Nor do votes!

Here is another example of creeping Fascism in America. At a protest against Cheney in Florida, the Lee County Sheriff's Dept. threatened the peaceful demonstrators with arrest, just for trying to exercise their right to Freedom of Speech. In the video you will see an ex-Naval Commander by the name of Chuck Tyson, being temporarily arrested by the Lee County Sheriff's Dept. You can complain to Lee County Sheriff's - Rod Shoap, at: 14750 Six Mile Cypress Pwy, SE, Fort Myers, FL 33912, Tel. #: 941-477-1200. Sheriff Rod Shoap's biography site: http://www.flsheriffs.org/sheriffs/lee.htm

When retired Pittsburgh steelworker Bill Neel learned that Bush was coming to town last year, he decided he would be on hand to protest the resident's economic policies. Neel and his sister made a hand-lettered sign: "The Bush family must surely love the poor! They have made so many of us!" But he never got to display his sign for Bush. As he stood among groups of Bush supporters, he was approached by local police and told that he and his sister had to move to a "free-speech area" for protesters, on orders of the U.S. Secret Service. "He pointed out a relatively remote baseball diamond that was enclosed in a chain-link fence," Neel recalls. It looked more like a concentration camp than a free-speech area to me, so I said, 'I'm not going in there. I thought the whole country was a free-speech area.'" After refusing to go to the area, he was handcuffed and arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct. This is America under Bush.

Jonathan Turley writes, "In a Miami federal court, [Ashcroft] charged the environmental group Greenpeace under an obscure 1872 law originally intended to end the practice of 'sailor-mongering,' or the luring of sailors with liquor and prostitutes from their ships. Ashcroft plucked the law from obscurity to punish Greenpeace for boarding a vessel near port in Miami. Not only is the law being used to prosecute one of the administration's most vocal critics in an unprecedented attack on the 1st Amendment, but it appears to be part of a broader campaign by Ashcroft to protect the nation against free speech, a campaign that has converted environmentalists into 'sailor-mongers' and nuns into terrorists... Greenpeace now could lose its tax-exempt status [and] force Greenpeace to regularly report its actions to the government."

AP: "A federal judge has ordered five reporters, including one from The Associated Press, to reveal their sources for stories that portrayed Wen Ho Lee, a former nuclear weapons scientist, as a chief suspect in a Chinese espionage investigation. U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered the reporters to answer questions about their sources and to provide Lee's attorneys with notes and other documents from their reporting... Lee is suing the Energy Department and Justice Department alleging government officials provided private information about him to reporters and suggested he was a suspect in an investigation into the possible theft of nuclear secrets from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico... The judge apologized to him, saying the government's handling of the case 'embarrassed our entire nation and each of us who is a citizen of it.'" Will Bob Novak one day be ordered by a judge to reveal his White House source in Treasongate?

"North Carolina teacher Elizabeth Ito has appealed her firing from Forsyth Technical Community College, which came after she made remarks critical of the conduct of the war in Iraq. Her firing, which has been widely criticized by local anti-war activists and free speech advocates, is seen as part of a larger crack-down on dissent and academic freedom. 'It is clear that Elizabeth didn't lose her job because she expressed a personal opinion in the classroom,' said Liz Seymour, a member of the Ito Defense Coalition. 'She lost her job because of the opinion she expressed.' On Friday, March 28, 2003 Elizabeth spent ten minutes at the beginning of her business writing class voicing concerns about the war in Iraq... the previous night's news had reported that 30,000 more troops were being called up, a figure that by the next morning had risen to 120,000. Elizabeth asked the students what they would do if the government had to start drafting."

"'The main problem has been selective prosecution,' said Harold Hongju Koh, a law professor at Yale and a State Department official in the Clinton administration. 'Presumably others went to Iraq who did not disapprove of the war, and that gets into tricky constitutional ground'... Mr. Clancy said the main point was a simple one. 'I'm being prosecuted for dissenting and for going to meet the people we were supposedly going to liberate,' he said. In July, the government sued Voices in the Wilderness, a Chicago group that has delivered medicine to Iraq since 1996 in violation of the regulations, which allow humanitarian aid but only by those granted a license... The government seeks to collect $20,000 in fines... 'The timing of it is very questionable,' said the group's lawyer, William P. Quigley, a law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans. 'If it's not just bureaucratic, it's a very serious effort by the government to punish people for following their convictions.'"

"Three protesters who were arrested at a 2002 rally attended by resident Bush for refusing to picket inside specified areas sued the Secret Service Wednesday, arguing that their First Amendment rights were violated... Joe Redner, Adam Elend and Jeff Marks said they attended the rally specifically to protest the Secret Service's designated 'free speech zones.' Redner said his sign read 'Don't let these crooks fool you' on one side and had a quote from a Supreme Court free speech decision on the other. Officials at the public university's arena ordered the men to move to a designated zone about a half-mile away, and deputies arrested them when they refused, Elend said. 'There were a couple hundred people there (at the protest zone), but you couldn't see it from where the event was happening,' Elend said. Neither the Secret Service nor the sheriff's office returned phone calls Wednesday."

When Baltimore singer-songwriter Julia Rose, a fitness advocate, dared to remark in a Fredericksburg, VA Borders store that she thought Bush has chicken legs, the store barred her from ever performing again at the store - even though the audience laughed and no one complained (to her face, anyway).

Stalinist Russia? No, Bush's America. Reading an article in public that criticizes Bush, the war or corporations and you could get a visit from the FBI -- thanks to an anonymous tipster. Check out this chilling first person account.

Gary Kamiya writes for Salon.com: "America is in the midst of a controversial, undeclared war in a distant land against a cunning and resourceful enemy. The nation is bitterly divided. Opponents of the war say that our leaders manufactured a bogus threat to justify an unnecessary and unwinnable war that is inflaming the world against us... Despite overwhelming American military superiority, the war drags on and on. Flag-waving supporters of the administration clash with dissenters, calling them traitors. High-ranking government officials say that those who criticize the war are giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Obsessed with secrecy and convinced of the rightness of his cause, the tough-talking Republican president vows to stay the course. 2003, George W. Bush, and the war on Iraq? No: 1971, Richard M. Nixon, and the war in Vietnam. But if the similarities between the two periods are striking, what happened next has no parallel today. At least not yet."

From Reuters: "The U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday approved a proposed constitutional amendment backed by the White House that would empower Congress to ban the burning or other desecration of the American flag. Proponents and opponents acknowledged, however, it will be an uphill struggle to get the Senate to provide its needed concurrence. While the proposal would enable Congress to enact legislation to protect the flag, foes complain it would infringe on First Amendment guarantees of freedom of expression. The measure sailed through the House for the fifth time since 1995. The joint resolution is designed to overturn a 1989 Supreme Court decision that struck down state laws against flag desecration... While opposition Tuesday came largely from liberal and moderate lawmakers, some conservatives are also lined up against the measure, including Senate Republican Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. He has argued it would be a mistake to tamper with the First Amendment."

"Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) announced that eleven Members of the House of Representatives, including many leaders on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft today, urging him to drop the Federal criminal prosecution of a South Carolina man who attended a Bush speech at an airport and refused to give up his sign reading, 'No more war for oil'... In the letter to Ashcroft released today, the Members of Congress called the prosecution of Mr. Bursey for carrying his sign outside the designated free speech zone 'a threat to the freedom of expression we should all be defending': 'As we read the First Amendment to the Constitution, the United States is a 'free speech zone'. In the United States, free speech is the rule, not the exception... This prosecution smacks of the use of the Sedition Acts two hundred years ago to protect the President from political discomfort.'"

"The Dixie Chicks have taken a big hit lately for exercising their basic right to express themselves. To me, they're terrific American artists expressing American values by using their American right to free speech. For them to be banished wholesale from radio stations, and even entire radio networks, for speaking out is un-American. The pressure coming from the government and big business to enforce conformity of thought concerning the war and politics goes against everything that this country is about - namely freedom. Right now, we are supposedly fighting to create freedom in Iraq, at the same time that some are trying to intimidate and punish people for using that same freedom here at home. I don't know what happens next, but I do want to add my voice to those who think that the Dixie Chicks are getting a raw deal, and an un-American one to boot. I send them my support." -- Bruce Springsteen.

"When a group of film stars spoke out against the war and, in fact, became the main opposition group, I invited several of them, including Susan Sarandon, to state their reasons on Face the Nation, because that's what we try to do here -- present all sides of public issues...A nation that got through two world wars and Vietnam will probably survive a bad review from two actors. But here is what does bother me: There seems to be a notion going around lately that any criticism of government policy is somehow dangerous, even unpatriotic. I doubt that too, because, to me, here is what is un-American: the idea that Americans will ever agree completely on anything, or that we would want to. Knowing we can criticize the government is what makes us strong, not weak. And you know who never figured that out? Saddam Hussein, to name one. Let's hope we don't make the mistake he did." Thank YOU Bob! ftn@cbsnews.com

Reuters reports, "An Oregon anti-terrorism bill would jail street-blocking protesters for at least 25 years in a thinly veiled effort to discourage anti-war demonstrations, critics say... The bill has met strong opposition but lawmakers still expect a debate on the definition of terrorism and the value of free speech before a vote by the state senate judiciary committee, whose Chairman, Republican Senator John Minnis, wrote the proposed legislation. Dubbed Senate Bill 742, it identifies a terrorist as a person who 'plans or participates in an act that is intended, by at least one of its participants, to disrupt' business, transportation, schools, government, or free assembly... The bill contains automatic sentences of 25 years to life for the crime of terrorism. Critics of the bill say its language is so vague it erodes basic freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism under an extremely broad definition."

Republican warmongers can't stand dissent - not even from former Generals. "I think they should follow the tradition of presidents, the commander in chiefs," Senator John Warner (R-VA) said. "You do not see former presidents criticizing a sitting president [sic] during war." What a bunch of crap! Republicans want the TV networks to broadcast ex-generals 24 hours a day, but all they are permitted to do is to be cheerleaders for the Commander-in-Thief. What ever happened to free speech and democracy? Defeat ALL Republicans!

Thomas Ball writes: "Red Alert! A new wave of terrorism is flooding across our great nation. Tearing and trashing our American freedoms, crushing the American spirit and firing upon our Constitution... They claim no particular religious fervor, nor do they seem focused on any given cause except currying favor with their ideological master. They are anti-American to a degree not seen before. They are not al Qaeda, Hamas, the IRA or the Islamic Jihad. These terrorists pose a much greater danger to the American way. These are the 'Free Speech' terrorists... McCarthy is their God, they know no other. They say if you don't support GWB, then leave the country, 'If you don't like it, you can leave it'... Mantra of the 'Free Speech' terrorist. They become outraged when the news shows the true results of war. 'How dare they offer a free propaganda outlet to the enemy,' they say. They believe there is only one side to the story. Such is the mindset of the 'Free Speech' terrorist."

Mike Hersh writes, "In a story almost too strange to believe, right wing injustice 'Benito' Scalia banned the media from covering a 'Free Speech' award! According to the Associated Press, 'Supreme Court Justice [sic] Antonin Scalia banned broadcast media from an appearance Wednesday where he will receive an award for supporting free speech.' This is typical 1984 Orwellian lunacy. Honoring someone who is calling for severe limits on free expression as a champion of free speech! The same article reports that the man who unconstitutionally ordered a halt to the fair, full vote count in Florida says we have too many freedoms and denies the Constitution prevents government from cracking down on dissent. As Bush drags us into war, Scalia seems overly eager to finish off what's left of our Constitutional rights."

If you find the cancellation of the Martin Sheen Visa Check Card commercial because of his anti-war stance revolting, why not give Visa a piece of your mind? Even though they don't endorse freedom of speech and expression, we can show them how much we do! You can reach them online at the following URL.

One of the most clever Visa ads ever used which included Martin Sheen and his son, Charlie Sheen, was cancelled. Although Visa claims it is not because of Sheen's anti-war politics, republican net users have been celebrating for the past several days that their campaign had been effective and Sheen was gone. Will Sheen become the poster child of the New McCarthy era of blacklisting or will he share the honors with the Dixie Chicks? Since the selection of the current resident, the rights guaranteed by the Constitution have been slowly eroded. Stand up and speak out to your Visa provider that we are, "Mad as hell, and we aren't going to take it anymore!" Republicans don't corner the market on shopping or using charges. Let them know that Democrats spend too and we can always use Master Card, American Express or Discover.

"An airline passenger has complained to U.S. authorities that a government baggage screener left a note in his suitcase criticizing his lack of patriotism after finding a 'No Iraq War' sign inside his bag. Seth Goldberg, a 41-year-old New Jersey man, said on Thursday he believes a screener with the Transportation Security Administration slipped a note into his suitcase before a March 2 flight out of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. 'Don't appreciate your anti-American attitude!' was neatly hand written on the standard notice TSA places inside all the bags that screeners open... Goldberg said he thought the note was an abuse of government authority and a violation of his privacy and free-speech rights. In a letter to the TSA, he said he had thought about the incident 'every day since' his flight from Seattle to San Diego."

"Our soldiers are not out there right now safeguarding me, or you, from some sort of total, '50s-era Red Scare dictatorial overthrow of our nation; nor is the military guaranteeing the right to write this column any more than it is protecting your right to read it, or to protest the war, speak freely, smoke imported French cigarettes, watch porn, and drive really fast. Not anymore... Not this time. More than ever before in recent history, the otherwise worthy U.S. military is right now in service not of the people, not of the national security, but of the current regime and its corporate interests. Has it always been this way? Of course. But this time, with our smirky Enron resident and cash-hungry CEO administration, it's never been so flagrant, or insulting, or invidious. Our soldiers are not protecting our freedoms. They are not preventing more terrorism. They are not guaranteeing continued free speech. Because the only true threat to such freedoms is coming from within..."

Reuters reports that Stephen Downs, "A lawyer was arrested late Monday and charged with trespassing at a public mall in the state of New York after refusing to take off a T-shirt advocating peace that he had just purchased at the mall [saying] 'Give Peace A Chance'... 'I was in the food court with my son when I was confronted by two security guards and ordered to either take off the T-shirt or leave the mall,' said Downs. When Downs refused the security officers' orders, police from the town of Guilderland [near Albany NY] were called and he was arrested and taken away in handcuffs, charged with trespassing 'in that he knowingly enter(ed) or remain(ed) unlawfully upon premises,' the complaint read... Downs is the director of the Albany Office of the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, which investigates complaints of misconduct against judges and can admonish, censure or remove judges found to have engaged in misconduct." Ooops! These cops picked on the wrong guy...

"NYC Indymedia continues to learn how harsh it was for many other attendees- especially those who found themselves penned in by police in the 50s and 60s between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. The NYPD's strategy seems to have been to divide and corral protesters west of 1st Ave, maintaining a buffer zone between a large portion of the crowd and the UN-rally point area... Deanna Zandt notes: 'Had the city granted the march permit, none of what happened would have happened. There would have been one march that fed into the rally that the police could have easily managed and controlled the flow of. Instead, they dealt with hundreds of points of flare-ups and confrontations, and took away our right to protest peacefully.' Mainstream media sources have reported minor injuries to eight policemen and two horses. Rally participants, however, have documented getting pepper-sprayed, use of excessive force and NYPD horse units charging and trampling the crowds."

"In an outrageous attack on our civil liberties, Federal Judge Barbara Jones ruled on Feb. 10 that the City of NY can deny United for Peace and Justice a permit to march on Feb. 15. Citing 'heightened security concerns,' she ruled that we may only hold a stationary rally. In his deposition before the court, Asst Chief Michael Esposito admitted that the NYPD has adopted a blanket policy since fall 2002 of banning all protest marches in Manhattan south of 59th Street. This fight is about far more than one protest march; it's about how much political space for dissent there will be in this country... We are appalled by this attack on our basic First Amendment rights, and we will continue to fight for the right to march. Our attorneys from the NY Civil Liberties Union have filed an appeal of Judge Jones' decision. But this is a political fight as well as a legal one. We need all of our supporters to make a huge ruckus about the NYPD's attempt to keep us from marching on Feb. 15."

Jimmy Breslin writes, "The city says the march can't be held because of security reasons since Sept. 11. The reasons they gave Friday made no sense at all, unless you suspect that the march is being opposed because Mayor Bloomberg is trying to help Republicans by stopping a public outcry here against the beautiful war that the administration wants against Iraq. Ray Kelly, the police commissioner, is blocking the march on behalf of Bloomberg. I know neither one of them is unbalanced, but their work this time has been an act of madness and can do nothing but hurt their reputations with this attempted fascism, which is going to be talked about for a long time. Free speech comes from Madison and Jefferson and Paine and people went to jail over it and were shot in wars to protect it. You can see how precious, how fragile such a blessing is by the way in which it is embroiled and disputed and can be threatened by the most modest of opponents."

Lately, Australia has been doing an awfully good imitation of rightwing America, threatening their neighbors in Malaysia and elsewhere in the South Pacific with preemptive strikes, with its leader attempting to politically capitalize on the Bali bombing tragedy. Now the Canberra high courts are aping the U.S. fed courts by trying to push for a test case that could have far-reaching implications for free speech on the Internet. When mining baron Joe Gutnick was criticized in a U.S.-based website as a petty criminal (hmm....we could name a few mining barons ourselves that fit that bill), he sued - but wanted to keep the case in Australia, where free speech rights are still in a more primitive stage. The courts did what Gutnick wanted and now, should he win, the international impunity of free speech will be seriously threatened.

The Progressive reports: "Richard Abdoo is the CEO of Wisconsin Energy Corp., based in Milwaukee. Earlier this fall, Abdoo sent a $250 check to the peace group Not in Our Name. As a result, his name was listed as one of the 30,000 endorsers of the group's 'Statement of Conscience Against War and Repression.' And he was identified as 'Chairman of the Board, president and CEO, Wisconsin Energy Corp.' Abdoo said the donation was strictly a personal one. Early in the workweek of November 11-15, rightwing talk radio hosts in Milwaukee got wind of Abdoo's endorsement and pilloried him for it....At first, Abdoo stood his ground. 'I think every American has the freedom to state their views,' he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 'I'd still send the $250....On November 14, Abdoo backed down. In an e-mail to his employees, 'Subject: Please accept my apology.' As Associate Justice Potter Stewart once remarked: "Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself."

"Under legal pressure [from a rightwing group posing like civil liberty advocates], West Virginia University has dropped a policy that restricted student protesters to designated 'free speech zones' on campus. The Rutherford Institute of Charlottesville, Virginia, claimed victory after the Board of Governors rescinded the policy on Friday. The organization had sued the university in June, contending the free speech zones were an infringement on freedom of speech. 'We will continue to monitor the situation on campus for positive signs that the school intends to follow through with the revised policy,' Rutherford Institute president John W. Whitehead said. A policy creating the free speech zones first appeared in a student handbook in 1995. But the zones were rarely enforced. The university adopted as many seven zones constituting less than 5 percent of the campus at the 23,000-student university. Many outdoor areas long considered appropriate for public expression were off-limits."

It's become such a commonplace event: Bush or Cheney descend upon a community, and people show up to protest. And the protestors are herded into the ironically named "First Amendment Zones" so their protests won't be heard. "By denying those rights, Cheney and his cronies are directly attacking one of few tools left to protect democracy; they are attacking the Constitution itself." Jan Provost, president of the Northland [Duluth MN] Chapter of Grandmothers for Peace, warns us, "The Northland and the nation are blessed with many who still hear the call of conscience. They speak for peace and social justice. These voices must not be suppressed and marginalized. Whether you agree or disagree with the message is irrelevant. It is a profound responsibility to protect the right of each of us to speak our truth. Your truth may be next." The Constitution makes the whole country a "First Amendment Zone"!

"I was accosted by three officers—one a plain-clothed Secret Service agent, flanked by two state troopers at either arm. He began screaming at me, saying 'You know where the protest area is. You know where you're supposed to be. Now you are REALLY pushing it. He was 'in my face,' pointing violently at me as if he was about to rip my head off. I said, 'all I am doing is standing here with a sign'...I said, 'My sign says only 'Citizens for Legitimate Government.' The only way this sign can be construed as negative is if our government ISN'T legitimate.' He then said that I was 'this close' to crossing the line, and that I would be arrested on felony charges for violating a federal protection order, or something very near to that effect. He definitely said I was bordering on being arrested on felony charges. He proceeded to say that he was putting two armed state troopers on me, and that if I so much as opened my mouth, I was going down on a felony charge."

"Holding a just-released 18-page file that had been secretly compiled about her by police, activist Barbara Cohen smiled and shrugged her shoulders. 'Don't I look like a dangerous criminal?' the barely 5-foot tall, 53-year-old gray-haired legal secretary asked. About 200 people crowded the lobby of Police Dept headquarters Tuesday after officials opened 3,200 "spy files" on local activists and organizations. City officials have conceded police went too far when they began documenting individuals and groups some three years ago. Mayor Wellington Webb, himself the subject of police surveillance when he was a young activist, has condemned the practice. He said it violated city policy. Many who waited for up to an hour to see their file received papers that still smelled of black marker where police had deleted the names of people linked to them. Some of these files, which were categorized by groups, individuals and incidents, contained inaccurate information..." Whose heads will roll???

Richard Lowry writes, "When Mr. Mowbray reported in the July 1 National Review on the 'Visa Express' program designed to give Saudi nationals easy access to the US, the dept's response was to attack Mr. Mowbray personally as a liar... After an acrimonious exchange... Mr. Mowbray attempted to leave the briefing and the building. He was stopped by a State Dept official with 4 armed security guards, who began to ask him for his source for the document. Mr. Mowbray appropriately refused to identify the whistle-blower... When Mowbray began to get the feeling that he couldn't leave even if he wanted to, he asked, 'Am I being detained?' When a diplomatic security official told him 'no,' Mowbray announced that he was leaving. At which point, the guard stepped in front of Mowbray and said, 'Now, you're being detained.' He was physically kept from leaving the building, and repeatedly pushed to reveal his source, until, for whatever reason, he was allowed to go."

Ashcroft's FBI is looking more and more like cross-dressing paranoid J. Edgar Hoover's version of the bureau, with alleged terrorists replacing "Commie pinkos" as the targeted bogeyman of the day. In the latest assault on the Constitution, the FBI has been ransacking library records, thanks to the powers given them by the unpatriotic USA Patriot Act to "demand from bookstores and libraries the names of books bought or borrowed by anyone suspected of involvement in 'international terrorism' or 'clandestine activities'." (Better think twice before you go checking out the Koran from your local library.) What's even worse than this misguided, privacy-violating, useless method of routing out terrorists is that a gag order forbids librarians from even discussing the FBI's Gestapo tactics.

"Leading American political cartoonists say they are under intense pressure to conform to a patriotic stereotype and not criticise the actions of Mr Bush and his 'war on terror'. Those who refuse to bend to such pressure face having their work rejected, being fired or even publicly humiliated by the President's [sic] press secretary... Many 'progressive' cartoonists are having their work dropped. Some, especially those who work for smaller newspapers or who are freelance, are engaging in self-censorship to ensure their work gets used. 'There is immense pressure [from] readers and advertisers to toe the patriotic line as they define it,' said Steve Benson... who draws for The Arizona Republic and who syndicates his work. 'I have had editors who have pulled my syndicated cartoons because readers have marched to their offices and demanded retractions. I have had death threats, efforts to silence me, people who have compared me to traitors.'"

Suppression of First and Fourth Amendment rights is a disease passed from Bush Sr. to Bush Jr. On 6-11-02, "The jury in the Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney federal civil rights lawsuit against four FBI agents and three Oakland Police officers awarded plaintiffs $4.4 million for violation of the activists' constitutional rights and returned a verdict largely in favor of Earth First! activists Cherney and the late Judi Bari. In a legal victory of historic proportions against the FBI, the jury found that six of the seven defendants violated the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution by arresting the activists, conducting searches of their homes, and carrying out a smear campaign in the press, calling Earth First! a terrorist organization and calling the activists bombers, in the aftermath of the explosion of a bomb that was planted in Judi Bari's car in 1990. This verdict finds unlawful the actions of those in charge of the bombing investigation, and vindicates Bari and Cherney."

Sometimes the good guys do win - which is a nice thing to know in these darkening times. Air Force Lt. Col. Steve Butler faced firing from his job as an instructor and court martial by Bush Reich elements in the military for speaking out about Bush's possibly sinister role in 9/11. When she heard about the case, Cheryl Seal wrote a story exposing the facts behind Article 88 and past slander cases against Clinton by officers that were all but ignored. Within 24 hours of the story's appearance at Democrats.com, it was announced that the "investigation" of Butler was over and he would not face a court martial after all. We admire Lt. Col. Butler's courage and are proud to have helped.

"A federal judge has slapped down yet another Bush administration attempt to assert broad, unchecked powers of secrecy. [Danny Stillman's] proposed book is not about his 28 years at Los Alamos but about his trips to China in a private capacity to visit a nuclear lab and test site... What's at issue here is not what Stillman wrote, but his right to go to court. The Bush administration insists he has none. Astonishingly, the administration insists that the federal courts have no standing to review its decisions about classifying information. And if those decisions violate someone's constitutional rights, that's just too bad. The Bush administration is no friend of open government, but, even so, this sweeping assertion is, as U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said, 'stunning.' He ruled - and hurray for him - that, 'This court will not allow the government to cloak its violations of plaintiff's First Amendment rights in a blanket of national security.'" So writes the Rocky Mountain News.

AP reports: "Immediately before class members filed into the giant football stadium, an announcer instructed the crowd that all the university's speakers deserve to be treated with respect and that anyone demonstrating or heckling would be subject to expulsion and arrest. The announcer urged that Bush be greeted with a 'thunderous' ovation." Now here's a report from DemocraticUnderground: Before Bush "even got to the stage, we did our about-face... I saw one of Columbus' Finest heading our way... We were being led out of Ohio Stadium... I asked him if I was under arrest, and he did not answer me. When we reached the exit, I asked the SS man why we had been ejected, and he told me we were being charged with disturbing the peace. If we chose to leave, the charges would be dropped immediately... On this day, June 14th, 2002, I came to the realization that we no longer live in a free society. This is rapidly heading in the same way Nazi Germany headed." Tin Soldiers and Bush is coming.

Lt. Col. Steve Butler was suspended when he "exercised his constitutional freedom of speech by writing a letter critical of President [sic] Bush... 'Of course Bush knew about the impending attack on America... He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism... His presidency was going nowhere.... What is sleazy and contemptible is the president of the United States not telling the American people what he knows for political gain'... As a former military officer, I recall taking the oath to defend America and support the president when I was commissioned as an Army officer over 35 years ago. Like Butler, I too became critical of our nation's military leaders and voiced criticisms. But the difference not only between then and now, but also between the Bush administration and other recent presidencies, is that the current commander in chief... simply cannot take any criticism. That's a dangerous thing." So writes Shepherd Bliss in TomPaine.com.

"Instead of being a 'traitor,' Lt. Col. Butler is a patriot in the truest sense of the word. As Thomas Jefferson said, 'What country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance?' Butler is also upholding international military code, which calls for officers to resist when their commanders are engaged in activities that violate the principles spelled out in the Nuremberg trials. In fact, by speaking out, Butler is upholding our own Declaration of Independence, which states our inalienable rights, then adds, 'To secure these rights... whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.'" So writes Cheryl Seal.

"In Chicago, some 3,000 journalists possess press credentials issued by the police department… But when the current laminated badges expire at the end of May, lots of reporters and photographers plan to let the deadline slide. For the first time, the police will require members of local media to be fingerprinted and undergo criminal background checks to obtain a pass... Many local journalists believe the measures are unacceptable invasions of privacy, as well as a First Amendment violation. They don't like the police, in effect, deciding who can and cannot be a journalist. 'I think editors and news directors should make that decision,' says James Anderson, news director of the Illinois Radio Network. Credentials will be denied to applicants found to be registered sex offenders or who have an outstanding arrest warrant, the police say." Where is the outrage?

A former college student, Thomas Markovich, stood up and cursed at Texas Gov. George Bush in 1998 after Bush said something outrageous about Nicaragua. Markovich was arrested and charged with "disrupting a meeting." The highest court in Texas - dominated by Bush appointees - upheld the law, which criminalizes speech that is CLEARLY protected by the First Amendment. Markovich has not decided whether to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court or prepare for trial, which could involve the former president testifying. Hey Thomas - take it to the Supremes! We're behind you all the way!!

The White House is still holding a grudge over NY Times columnist Paul Krugman's alleged refusal to applaud Bu$h, Cheney, and other administration officials at the annual Gridiron Club dinner back in March. "This is the thought police," said Krugman about the White House's ridiculous, childish furor over his failure to goose step in line with the slavish Bu$h boot-kissers. "Next, they'll say there was something wrong with the expression on my face. This is ridiculous." Krugman has vehemently criticized many of Bu$h's criminal policies in his columns. Either the White House is using this incident in a pathetic attempt to make Krugman look bad, or Shrub needs to read the First Amendment!

"We need defense, but we shouldn't have to be defended from the very people who swore to uphold our laws and our Constitutional rights. They should be its most shining example of Democracy in action, but instead, on that day, the Denver Police behaved like the tight lipped overbearing Nazi brown shirts and red neck strutting Bull Connor wannabes we see caricatured in the movies. This is wrong. It is so fundamentally wrong that when I try to give voice to it, I become tongue-tied with furious outrage. The founders of this country and the authors of its most sacred governing documents are rolling in their graves. I am so ashamed for us--ashamed that we seem unable to maintain the freedoms for which so many have fought and died, and are fighting and dying right now. To limit my freedom and yours dishonors all those patriots who have passed." So writes Kim Sayers

"Laura Hershey of Denver, Colorado, went to her local OfficeMax to do some copying on March 9, and she was astonished to see a 'Notice to Our Customers' that read: 'During this time of heightened security awareness, we will report suspicious or questionable requests for printing or document reproduction to law enforcement authorities.' 'This policy does not make anyone more secure,' Hershey wrote. 'On the contrary, it is likely to intimidate people who may hold controversial political or religious opinions, and suppress their right to disseminate those opinions through flyers, newsletters, etc... Hershey said, the policy invades people's privacy and 'suppresses their right to free expression.' [According to OfficeMax, the policy] 'is a direct result of the events of Sept. 11. We are cooperating with the authorities in every way we can.' Baisden says the company has already turned in a few customers to the authorities." So reports Matthew Rothschild in The Progressive.

In San Diego, Michael Moore's book signing was interrupted by police. "'We have been told to remove you. You were supposed to be out of here at 11:00pm.' We had apparently violated our curfew. 'C'mon guys, you can't be serious,' I said. 'Are you saying that you are going to arrest me for signing people's books, and arrest the people who are here because they want to read this book?' 'I don't care what you are doing -- this is your last warning. I am ready to arrest you and everyone else.' 'Who is your superior?' I ask. 'I'm it. Only the Chief is above me at night, and I am not going to wake him up... This has already gone through many people in the last half-hour, people in authority, and the decision has been made to clear you out of here or arrest you.' I have never been arrested, strange as that may seem. I could not believe that, of all I have done, all I have stood for over the years, that it has come down to this -- and I was about to be hauled away for autographing books!"

"Denver police have been keeping secret 'spy files' on local activists and protest groups, the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday, prompting Mayor Wellington Webb to call for a review of department procedure. The ACLU of Colorado produced copies of two police records documenting protesters at recent demonstrations held by groups such as Amnesty International and the Justice for Mena Committee. Keeping such records could have a chilling effect on peaceful protests, said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the local chapter. The group called on the city to end the practice and open the files to public scrutiny. The ACLU may file a lawsuit if the surveillance continues, he said." So reports the Denver Post.

Massachusetts community cable producer Patricia Demarest won a major battle in federal court, when U.S. District Judge Michael Ponsor ruled that the cable owner could not restrict her coverage of public officials. This is also a potential victory for all amateur journalists, including Vanessa Leggett, who served 168 days in jail for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury and turn over her research materials. Leggett was released on January 4, and has appealed to the Extreme Court. In this age of corporate media corruption, honest amateur journalists need to have their First Amendment rights recognized under the law.

"Tonight I was arrested for nothing more than exercising my rights as a citizen in what I thought was a free country. Dick Cheney came to my town to stump for one of the Environmental Dirty Dozen, Indiana 8th District Congressman John Hostettler. I had made up a sign which stated, 'CHENEY-19th Century Energy Man.' ... The main cop informed me that if I did not go more than a block away to the area he apparently had just arbitrarily decided was to be used by protesters, that I would be arrested. I complied and started to walk away. When I turned to ask if it was OK to go to the parking lot where hundreds of people were, either leaving work or arriving to attend the event, he instructed his uniformed men to arrest me." So writes John Blair of Evansville, IN. We demand an investigation of the suppression of the First Amendment by the Bush-Cheney administration!

According to Kuro5hin.org, "Prominent LA-based website RaiseTheFist.com was raided and shutdown by the local Joint Terrorism Task Force on Jan. 24, as reported by LA and SF Indymedia. The FBI, Secret Service, and LAPD served the search warrant Thursday afternoon based on charges of "computer fraud and abuse" as well as "distribution of information related to explosives, destructive devices, and/or weapons of mass destruction." LA FBI spokesperson Cheryl Mimura declined to release the name of the individual(s) under investigation, since no one has yet been arrested. Concerned Los Angeles activists are mobilizing support for RaiseTheFist.com." RaiseTheFist was a left-leaning discussion site run by a kid on his own server, with no other sites hosted there. This appears to be a stark act of suppression of Free Speech on the Internet - which must be exposed and condemned!

"I have a theory, and it's not based on the idle speculation that has driven much of the media coverage thus far. I wrote a long article about [Robert] Angleton for Texas Monthly in November 1997 ('The Bookmaker's Wife'), and since then, I've talked to Leggett dozens of times about her reporting. I'm the only person, outside of her family, her attorneys, and a literary agent, who has read the six chapters she has written. Based on what I've seen and heard, I'm confident that she hasn't found some previously unknown smoking gun that could help prosecutors win a criminal conviction...I'm not even sure she has anything of value that prosecutors would want to introduce as evidence. So why are Clark and the feds obsessed with what Leggett is going to write? Do they really think she knows something about Angleton that they don't already know? Or, as I suspect, are they more worried about what she might write about them?" So writes Skip Hollandsworth.

"The revised [1995 Texas] law said members of the State Board of Education could reject books only for factual errors. Unfortunately, some board members continue to have difficulty with that concept and cling to a harmful agenda of turning down texts on the basis of narrow political agendas. One quibble had to do with a discussion in an environmental sciences book about American settlers' negative impact on the environment. The book also included information about other groups' harmful effect on nature as part of a lesson on humans' influence on the natural world. Apparently, some school board members believe no Texas student should be exposed to the idea that the activities of any American might have been bad for the environment." The leading advocates for textbook censorship in Texas are Mel and Norma Gabler, with funding by the far right Coors family foundation. These nuts have even claimed that Calculus and Trigonometry turn kids to crime and drugs!

Ashcroft is supposed to be finding terrorists, but instead he sent FBI and Secret Service agents to Houston's tiny Art Car Museum. " FBI spokesman Bob Doguim says the visit was no witch-hunt but rather a response to AG John Ashcroft's request that Americans be especially vigilant of suspicious behavior. The museum complaint was among thousands of calls received by the Houston office since 9-11. Doguim says the Secret Service agent went along because the complaining caller said the Empty Trellis work had a 'threatening message to our president.' The FBI is committed to checking out any reports of things deemed 'un-American or a concern or a threat,' Doguim says. 'We will leave no stone unturned.' He explains the museum inspection by saying that what is not disturbing to one person can terrify another. 'Where do you draw the line? I don't want to be the one to draw the line, I can tell you that'." Can't the FBI distinguish terrorism from art?

"But a parallel to this administration’s obsession with secrecy and hostility to open government can only be found by looking back much further. The description that seems increasingly and disturbingly apt is Nixonian. Last week Mr. Bush signed a sweeping executive order that, in the name of national security, blatantly seeks to revoke the Presidential Records Act of 1978...In fact, the pattern has already been established in this administration. Attorney General John Ashcroft recently instructed federal agencies to apply the most restrictive interpretation of the Freedom of Information Act, again supposedly for national-security reasons. That specious justification was not even broached when Vice President Dick Cheney withheld the most basic information from Congress about his Energy Task Force, a violation of fundamental democratic principles for which he has escaped accountability." So writes Joe Conason.

"The Pentagon has spent millions of dollars to prevent western media from seeing highly accurate civilian satellite pictures of the effects of bombing in Afghanistan…The images, which are taken from Ikonos, an advanced civilian satellite launched in 1999, are better than the spy satellite pictures available to the military during most of the cold war...The decision to shut down access to satellite images was taken last Thursday, after reports of heavy civilian casualties from the overnight bombing of training camps near Darunta, north-west of Jalalabad. Instead of invoking its legal powers, the Pentagon bought exclusive rights to all Ikonos satellite pictures of Afghanistan off Space Imaging, the company which runs the satellite. The agreement was made retrospectively to the start of the bombing raids." By using commercial rather than legal means, the Pentagon can't be sued by the Media for breaching First Amendment rights. Tricky, huh?

First Bush and Ashcoft proposed severe limits to our freedom, that Congress has rubber stamped. Now they want to put limits on the Freedom of Information Act. "Obtaining government records might become more difficult under a Bush administration policy change made a month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft directed agency leaders to be cautious in releasing records to journalists and others. He said agencies must 'carefully consider' issues such as threats to national security and the effectiveness of law enforcement. Ashcroft also said agencies that legitimately turn down requests made under the Freedom of Information Act will have the backing of the Justice Department...Ashcroft said the Bush administration is committed to complying with the FOIA so Americans 'can be assured neither fraud nor government waste is concealed.'" Yeah...right...sure...

"The White House has decided to relax a directive limiting top-security classified briefings to eight senior members of Congress as long as lawmakers honor their responsibility not to leak the information to reporters, administration officials told NBC News on Tuesday night. The concession came after senior lawmakers in both parties sharply criticized President Bush's order, saying they had a 'right to know' about the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan."

George Washington must be rolling in his grave. Washington dedicated his life to fighting for freedom against an unaccountable imperial power. In our time, the British Empire has been replaced by the IMF and the World Bank. And the university named after Washington is being closed to keep students from protesting. This outrageous act of suppression never even happened during the Vietnam War protests! This is just one more outrageous attack on our First Amendment rights. Impeach Bush!

According to the International Action Center, "The police in Washington, D.C. are attempting to suppress the free speech rights of the September demonstrations. The Washington, D.C. police have announced that they will erect two miles of nine-foot-high fencing all around the White House and IMF/World Bank area, precisely the area where the International Action Center has permits for its demonstration. Thus, we have filed a groundbreaking lawsuit: the International Action Center, et al. v. Washington, D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, et al. This legal action seeks to enjoin the police from doing something that has never been done before. The Washington, D.C. police are attempting to revoke the people’s right to have a mass assembly of progressive demonstrators to redress grievances right in front of the White House." Fill out and sign the online affidavit and join the lawsuit today!

Until recently, we were ready to write the AP off as little more than a bloated PR office for Bush and Co. But then one of their reporters, John Solomon, was treated to some Ashcroft-style justice. These Bush thugs went after Solomon's private home phone records to gain info. on a law enforcement official who told the AP about a wiretap intercept of Sen. Robt. Torricelli (D-NJ). Solomon's records were seized and held for three whole months before Ashcroft even gave him the required notice. Now AP President Louis D. Boccardi is outraged. He has demanded a complete public accounting by Ashcroft for the incident, calling it "an extraordinary strike against the press." Maybe now the AP will leave the writing of inane "puff pieces" for Bush administration members to the members' mothers.

In the face of stinging newspaper editorials, Bush decided to delay the introduction of his "Official Secrets Act," which would make it a crime for newspapers to publish bogus "classified" information like the Pentagon Papers - and would also expand the government's ability to bogusly classify information. As we know, nearly all "classified" information is scandalous government activity that would put top officials - like former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger or former VP George H.W. Bush - in jail if the truth was known. But just because Bush is delaying this horrendous bill, doesn't mean he will drop it. We must keep the pressure up and tell Bush and Congress - no Official Secrets Act!

In the latest attack on free-thought and free-speech, even the Librarians of America are being demonized by the "RADICALS" supporting the Justice Department's case against Dmitry Sklyarov! According to Judith Platt of the Association of American Publishers, "They've got their radical factions, like the Ruby Ridge or Waco types, who want to share all content for free" - referring to Libraries and Librarians that are in America. Yes, folks, it has come! Will it be tomorrow, or maybe next week that the far-right burns down the libraries with the excuse that they are "bastions of socialist thought"? For more information on the persecution of Dmitry, visit http://gnu-darwin.sourceforge.net/news.html

We didn't write this headline - the Houston Chronicle did! The Chronicle is outraged by John Ashcroft's attacks on journalists Vanessa Leggett and John Solomon. "The Justice Department must immediately stop its attempts at threatening and intimidating journalists and writers," says Ray Marcano, president of the Society of Professional Journalists and managing editor of the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News. "Someone at Justice needs to be held accountable for these outrageous acts." The Chronicle continues: "What's going on here? Why the reluctance on the part of the government to at least explain itself? Targeting journalists for simply doing their jobs. These secret police tactics are more appropriate for some Third World, fascist regime." Guess what folks - that's the kind of government BushDaddy's CIA created abroad - and is now replicating at home.

Federal Judge Irving R. Kaufman once wrote: "Events that occur in small towns sometimes have a way of raising large constitutional questions." Such was the case in the tiny town of Sutherland, Neb., where occurred one of the greatest victories for the press in the history of First Amendment jurisprudence. The trial judge, fearing the impact of publicity on the case, imposed a gag order on the press. Later, the right of the judiciary to impose such a gag was challenged before the Supreme Court. Thankfully for the nation, the court was then made up of truly great judges, who ruled unanimously that the gag order was unconstitutional. Now the First Amendment - the very basis of our democracy - is under attack by the Bush Reich. First, there was the jailing of the Texas journalist by Ashcroft et al. Then Shelby (R-AL) proposed the outrageous law that will make it a FEDERAL CRIME for a journalist to expose government secrets. It eerily echoes Hitler's Enabling Acts, a move made early in his regime aimed solely at consolidating absolute power.

The all-powerful bureaucrats in the national security agencies are about to realize their fondest wish: a British-style Official Secrets Act that makes it a crime for anyone to disclose classified information to a journalist. This will mean the end of all whistleblowing and exposes of government scandals. The effort in the Senate is led by Richard Shelby (R-AL), who is confident that Shrub will sign the law - after all, Shrub declared in 2000 that "there ought to be limits to freedom." Will all the "freedom-loving" conservatives on the airwaves (Limbaugh? Hannity? O'Reilly? etc.) and the Internet (Freepers? Newsmax? etc.) stand up to this massive expansion of government power by THEIR resident and THEIR Senators? Will they rally gun owners and other "patriots" to defend this fundamental American freedom? Don't hold your breath.

"A trade association of corporate antidiscrimination officers, whose members depend on Labor Department approval to win federal contracts, bowed to pressure from the Bush administration and canceled a conference speaker who planned to attack conservative organizations as enemies of affirmative action." The speaker, Al Ross of the outstanding Institute for Democracy Studies (http://institutefordemocracy.org), planned to criticize the powerful Heritage Foundation as one of the groups "engaged in a battle to turn back the clocks on the civil rights gains of the last four decades." But this viewpoint was anathema to the Bushies, whose top officials - like Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and Office of Personnel Management head Kay James – came from the HF. Kay James' husband Charles put the screws to the conference organizers, threatening to cancel their contracts if Ross was permitted to speak. Call Elaine Chao at (202)693-6000 and tell her to stop censoring anti-conservative critics!

Since Bush and his henchmen seized the White House, folks of like mind (i.e., fanatics, despots, greedy corporate power mongers, and weak-kneed leaders) are aping this corrupt administration. Look at the new Bushish hardlines being taken in Israel, Iran, and even Britain (where the chameleonish Tony Blair wants to curtail various legal rights). Now coal lobbyists in West Virginia are taking a page from Dick "I'll Never Tell" Cheney and refusing to reveal any details of their wheelings and dealings with state legislators - even though these activities deeply and often permanently impact the residents of the state. But the WVA Highlands Conservancy has challeneged this scam. Conservancy lawyer, Alice Neff Lucan says in two decades of specializing in first amendment issues, she has never heard of any case where "back room deals" are covered as "free speech." But left unchecked, Bush will brutalize the 1st A. in such a way that its only beneficiaries will be Bush and his cronies.

Vanessa Leggett, a freelance journalist, spent four years researching a Texas murder for a book. The suspect in the crime, Roger Angleton, later committed suicide. Leggett earlier cooperated with prosecutors in the case, supplying them with copies of tapes of her conversations with Angleton. Later, while investigating Angleton's brother, Robert, the state again demanded that Leggett hand over the tapes. She refused and was jailed for contempt by Ashcroft's Justice Dept. Ashcroft has refused to free Leggett, has also made sure no news media groups can testify on her behalf, and has closed her hearing to the public. No journalist has been jailed for refusal to divulge information (which is protected under the First Amendment), since 1991. Robert Angleton's attorney Mike Ramsey said "I don't think [the case against Leggett] is aimed at her conversations with Roger. There is another agenda here." Many journalists suspect Ashcroft wants to force a precedent to undermine press freedoms.

When Bush declared "there ought to be limits to freedom," he sure meant it. While visiting Colorado to "listen to the people," his Secret Service goons forced environmental protesters into "First Amendment Zones" a mile or more from Bush so he wouldn't have to hear what the people are actually saying. "If he wanted to listen to the public, he'd listen to the 28,000 Coloradans who said they want roadless areas protected," said Ted Zuchoski of the Land and Water Fund of the Rockies. Hey George: every square inch of AMERICA is a "First Amendment Zone" - read the Constitution that you swore to uphold. Like they used to say in the 60's - love it or leave it!

"In a case with implications for investigative journalism in the Internet age, a Canadian mining company has successfully used British libel law to shut down part of a U.S.-based Web site. The case, which pits Barrick Gold, Barrick Goldstrike Mines and their chairman, Peter Munk, against Guardian Newspapers Ltd., was settled Tuesday with Barrick and Munk winning [translation: coercion with its vast wealth] an apology and monetary damages from the Guardian -- as well as the deletion of a story from a U.S.-based Web site." In England, truth is NOT a defense against libel. But our friends at OnlineJournal.com refuse to knuckle under. "Unless it will cost Greg [Palast] his livelihood, you may assume the article will stay," said editor/publisher Bev Conover. "As tattered as it has become, this is still America and we still do have First Amendment rights. Someone has to stand up to the bullies." You go, Bev!

A global environmentalist group called Both Ends has written an excellent letter to Peter Munk, Chairman of Barrick Gold Corp. It begins: "When investigative journalist Greg Palast reported in the Observer of London on the alleged involvement of a Barrick Gold Corporation subsidiary in the killing of 50 mine workers to clear their mining concession, your company choose to sue the Guardian newspapers, which own the Observer, for libel and to prepare action against Mr Palast and Tanzanian human rights lawyer Mr Tundu Lissu." To sign the letter, send your name to info@bothends.org - for the full text, click on the words "action alert" at the top of the red column.

Aryan Nations, a particularly nasty neo-Nazi group, holds an annual parade through Coeur d'Alene, Idaho where it's apparently a bit too easy to be a hate monger. During the 1998 parade, when Gary Edwards scrawled an anti-Nazi sentiment on a manila file folder, then taped the folder to two paint sticks (as handles), he thought he was merely exercising his free speech right. But the city, apparently eager to make life as sweet and gentle for its hate mongers as possible, had banned any signs on plastic or wooden sticks anywhere near the parade. So Edwards was arrested. Now he has challenged the case all the way to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (upon which Bush wants to inflict the bigoted, misogynistic Carolyn B., Kuhl, one of his loathed judicial nominations). The oral arguments were heard and a ruling expected in several weeks - are they stalling until Kuhl can be foisted off on the court?

Welcome to the Fourth Reich of G.W. Bush. Any attempt at free speech will be met by storm troopers, who will convey all activists to concentration camps. All due process will be bypassed. A month ago, US authorities under the new Reich threw the book at two nuns for daring to protest a US-run school for torture and terrorism (School of the Americas). These two elderly ladies are still in jail. Now a group of 30 activists from all over the world protesting his Star Wars tests have been herded into a tiny cell with one toilet and held without an option for bail for days.

Barrick Gold Mining of Canada, a huge multinational which hired George H. W. Bush after he left the White House, is using its vast resources to bury the truth - on and off the Internet. On November 26 2000, Greg Palast reported in the Observer that Barrick bought a Tanzanian gold mine from a company that allegedly buried as many as 52 miners alive with bulldozers, according to independent newspapers in Tanzania. Barrick is suing the Observer, which cannot afford to defend itself under Britain's horrendous libel laws, where truth is no defense. Even worse, Barrick is demanding that Palast remove the article from his own US-based web site. Our First Amendment rights are in peril due to the power of huge multinational corporations.

When Democrats try to stage protests of legislation they think unfair, the police are always there to meet them in force. But then, Dems are always up front about their protests by openly publicizing their intent. But that's not how the GOP does business, though. Last Thursday, GOP state senator Marsha Blackburn secretly - and viciously - floated a false rumor to two rightwing talk show hosts that state legislators were about to pass a tax hike. After the rumor was broadcast, hundreds of angry protestors converged on the state legislative grounds. One even threw a rock through the governor's office window. Yet nowhere in sight were there police with tear gas, clubs, or paddy wagons. Why? The same reason there were no blocks to the vicious mob that intimidated vote counters in FLA - they were Republicans. What the Nashville incident shows clearly is that free speech is now reserved solely for rightwingers, while Dems are blocked from even protesting Bush and his illegitimate policies.

"In San Diego, like Quebec and other recent globalization flashpoints, exercising your right to free speech now automatically comes with a sort of packaged counterintelligence response. This includes surveillance, tailing, nuisance ticketing and vehicle hassles, interfering with employers and landlords, videotaping, permit rigging, kidnapping, undercover police Black Blocs (too bad it’s not funny, because it sorta is) — and, above all, militaristic overkill, including water cannons, armored vehicles and (as we recently saw in peace-loving Sweden) live ammo." So observes Dean Kuipers of the LA Weekly in the wake of a recent anti-biotech protest in San Diego.

Greg Palast writes From London: "In retaliation for the investigative story about the finances of the George W. Bush campaign, Barrick Gold Mining of Canada has sued my paper, the Observer of London, for libel. The company, which hired the elder Bush after his leaving the White House, is charging the newspaper with libel for quoting an Amnesty International report, which alleged that 50 miners might have been buried alive in Tanzania by a company now owned by Barrick. The attack...also aims to gag my reporting on [Barrick Chairman] Peter Munk's purchase of rights to a gold mine in Nevada containing $10 BILLION IN GOLD for a payment of under $10,000 to the U.S. Treasury." Using a Canadian Co. and British laws to their advantage, the Bush wolves are also going after the Tanzanian human rights activists who tried to expose the miner's deaths. What a precedent! Who would dare speak up for wrongs if the Bushies succeed? Let's rally round Greg! Don't let the Bush Cartel get away with this!

On the surface, the "Media Marketing Accountability Act of 2001 (S.792)" seems reasonable enough - gives the FTC control over how adult rated movies, music and video games are marketed, and the right to levy fines against any co. marketing R or X material to children. However, the Creative Coalition, represented by 50 major artists, including William Baldwin, Chevy Chase, Ron Reagan (that's right!) and Jane Alexander (none of them exactly porno stars!) points out that the bill opens the door to what could become massive first amendment infringements. The bill is akin to the scary power the Supreme Court recently granted law officers to arrest citizens and haul them off for ANY traffic infraction (Hitler made a similar move, called the "Enabling acts"). Under the current Republicanazi regime, we can only imagine how S. 792 would be twisted to the rightwing's advantage. Call your rep and urge reconsideration!

When school officials found out that Gary He, a student at Manhattan's Stuyvesant High School had a web site where his fellow school mates could anonymously offer feedback on their teachers' performance, they were enraged. Even though comments were nonabusive (ex:"Tests count alot. If only he would stop smoking those Camels!") teachers threated to refuse to write college recommendations for anyone in the junior class unless the site stopped. At first, He complied. But then he went back on line, vowing "The vox populi must be heard!" Math teacher Bruce Winokur has now threated to slap He - who has a 92 average, by the way - with a lawsuit. Meanwhile, teachers plan to withhold the young activist's college recommendations. So this is how we treat freedom of speech and our best and brightest in the "new America" under the Repbulicanazi regime! We say thank God there ARE Gary He's in the upcoming crop of American leaders! To complain, email the principal, Stanley Teitel at teitels@stuy.edu

"[New York Mayor Rudy] Giuliani announced on his weekly radio talk-show that he will appoint the members of a cultural decency panel in the next week or two. In anticipation of legal arguments that such a panel might be unlawful, Giuliani cited an admittedly obscure clause of the city's charter that allows the creation of a 'cultural affairs advisory committee' to 'perform such...functions...as deemed appropriate by the mayor.'" Giuliani’s announcement is but the latest step in his battle against free expression. His most famous attacks have been against the Brooklyn Museum of Art.