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Today's
Stories
April
26, 2004
Grover
Furr
Protest, Rebellion, Commitment
April
24 / 25, 2004
William
A. Cook
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry
and Bush Melt into One
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank
Brandy
Baker
A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So
Robert
Fisk
A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free
Speech
Ben
Tripp
October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios
Nelson
Valdés
"Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Return to the Future
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Killed Pat Tillman
Mark
Scaramella
Does Anybody Know Anything?
Patrick
Cockburn
The Return of Saddam's Generals
Gary
Engler
Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas
Col.
Dan Smith
Whistling in the Dark: Israel, Palestine and Bush
Greg
Weiher
Iraq is Utterly Unlike Vietnam...
Elaine
Cassel
Life on the Outside: a Review
Vanessa
Jones
Letter from Australia: Why an Independent Won Sydney
Jim
French
Agriculture's Bullied Market
Hammond
Guthrie
Al Aronowitz, Bob Dylan and The Beatles
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Holt, Albert, LaMorticella
April 23, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
The Only Solution is Immediate Withdrawal
Dave
Lindorff
Imagination Deficit Disorder
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Contractors and Mercenaries: the Rising Corporate Military Monster
Norman
Solomon
Country Joe Band, 2004: "What Are We Fighting For?"
Cynthia
McKinney
All Things Are Not Equal: the Perils of Globalization
CounterPunch
Wire
A Bitch Called Wanda
Karyn
Strickler
Sierra Club, Inc.
Hammond
Guthrie
Yellow Caked in the Face
Paul
de Rooij
Graveyard of Justifications: Glossary
of the Iraqi Occupation
April 22, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
When Terror Came to Basra: "I
Saw a Minibus of Children on Fire"
Tanya
Reinhart
The Wall Behind Disengagement
Lance
Selfa
Why is Kucinich Still in the Race?
Josh
Frank
Street Fighting Man? Kucinich's Pulled Punches
Sen.
Robert Byrd
Bush Owes America Answers on Iraq
William
S. Lind
Why We Get It Wrong
Mickey
Z.
Undoing the Latches
Robert
Jensen
Why They Fast: Remembering the Victims of the World Bank
John
L. Hess
The New York Times from 30,000 Feet
April
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Yeats on Iraq
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia's Forgotten Prisoners
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's Taliban Drug Deal
William
A. Cook
George 1 to George 2
Jack
Random
Iraq and Vietnam
Jean-Guy
Allard
Alarcon Meets the Editors
Mike
Whitney
Charade in the Desert
Bill
Christison
Only Major Policies Changes Can
Help Washington Now
April 20, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Bush and Kerry Share a Problem
Stan
Cox
Wal-Mart's Magic Numbers
Bruce
Anderson
On Listening to Air America
Joseph
Kalvoda
Czech Mate for Condi
Greg
Moses
Yesterday's Intelligence
Stan
Goff
The Democrats and Iraq
Website
of the Day
Santorum Happens
April 19, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
The "Central Hand" of the
Resistance
Mike
Whitney
Bob Woodward's Imperial Trifles
Douglas
Valentine
52 Pick-Up and the 100-to-1
Rule
John
Chuckman
The Sharon Annex: Evil Does Often
Triumph
Doug
Giebel
Welcome to the Club
Rahul
Mahajan
Hospital Closings and War Crimes
April
16 / 18, 2004
Robert
Fisk
Bush Legitimizes Terror
Saul
Landau
Subverting Brazil and Cuba
Dave
Lindorff
Paying for War: $2,150 per Family
and Counting
Brandy
Baker
Fallujah's Collateral Damage
Mickey
Z.
The Left Attacks from the Right
Bruce
Jackson
The Bush Press Conference: Gott Mit
Uns
Norman
Solomon
How the "NewsHour" Changed
History
Alexander
Cockburn
Bush, Kerry and Empire
April
15, 2004
Greg
Moses
Follow the Families, Not the Script
Virginia
Tilley
The Carnage According to Gen. Kimmitt:
Just Change the Channel
Ron
Jacobs
They Coulda Been Champions of the
World: Hurricane Carter and Ron Kovic
Michael
Neumann
A Happy Compromise: Hate Crimes
Reporting in the Toronto Globe and Mail
April
14, 2004
Tom
Reeves
Return to Haiti: an American Learning
Zone
Reza
Fiyouzat
Japan and Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
What Bush Really Said
Diane
Christian
The Real Passion
April 10 /
12, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Greatest Radical Journalist of His Age
Patrick Cockburn
Ambush, Kidnap, Murder: Another Day in "Post War" Iraq
Ellen Cantarow
Health Under Siege on the West Bank
Tariq Ali
Iraqi
Resistance: a New Phase
Werther
Pseudoconservatism Revisited: When God is Pro War & Other
Delicacies
Robert Fisk
Bush's War Lords to Their Critics: "Just Shut Up"
Gary Leupp
Indian Wars, Vietnam and Orientalist Fantasy
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Cont.
Jorge Mariscal
Perils of the Bootstrap
Phil Gasper
Defying Stereotypes About Death Row
Dave Zirin
Bringing the Black Freedom Struggle Into Sports: an Interview
with Lee Evans
Brandy Baker
The Revolution is Playing at a Theater Near You
Mickey Z.
Underground Music is Free Media: an Interview with Twiin
Ali Tonak
Get Ready for the Million Worker March
Harry Browne
Asking the Wrong Question About Richard Clarke & 9/11
Gideon Samet
The Sharonizing of America
Conn Hallinan
Remote Control Warriors
Website of
the Weekend
Taboo
Tunes
April 9, 2004
Robert Fisk
This
War's Simple Truth: Iraqis Do Not Want Us
John L. Hess
The
Non-Confessions of a Warrior Princess: Condi on the Stand
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Condoleezza's Condescensions
Christopher Brauchli
Holes in the Sky: Bush's Crazed Missile Defense Plan
Don Santina
Forget the Alamo!: Glorifying the Fight for Slavery in Texas
William S. Lind
The 4G Warfare Seminar, Cont.
Bill Christison
9/11
Commission is Bush's New Lapdog
Website of the Day
What We've Done to Fallujah
April 8,
2004
Wayne Madsen
Rice
(and the Record) Proves It: Bush Knew, But Failed to Act
Kurt Nimmo
Will
Bush Flatten Fallajuh?
Patrick Cockburn
Guided
Missile; Misguided War
Laura Flanders
Steamed
Rice
Larry Everest
What Condi Rice is Hiding
Adam Federman
Sacred Capitalism Hits Russia
M. Junaid Alam
The Iraqi Intifada Begins
Norman Solomon
The Quest for a Monopoly on Violence
Douglas Valentine
Echoes
of Vietnam: Phoenix, Assassination and Blowback in Iraq
Website of the Day
Xispas: Chicano Art, Culture and Politics
April 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Those
Pulitzers!
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Deeper
into the Mouth of Hell: We Must Find the Exit from Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Tet
in Iraq: Closer to the Cosmic Disaster?
Patrick Cockburn
Battles
Across Iraq: US Death Toll Mounts
Kathy Kelly
Pacification: Worth the Price?
Sonali Kolhatkar
What Are You Doing About Afghanistan?
Rahul Mahajan
Report from Baghdad: Opening the Gates of Hell
Robert Fisk
US Airlifts Saddam to Qatar
Mike Whitney
America Out of Iraq, Now!
Sam Hamod
Bush, Pandora's Box and the Tiger
April 6,
2004
C.G. Estabrook
Mercenaries
and Occupiers
William Blum
The
Anti-Empire Report: the Israel Lobby
Col. Dan Smith
The
Language of Disbelief: 1.3 Billion Still Live in War Zones
Dr. Bulent Gokay
The Coming Islamic Republic of Iraq?
Lynn Landes
Faking Democracy: Americans Don't Vote; Machines Do
Sheila Samples
What Would Royko Write?
Jason Leopold
Condi's Blind Spot: Rice Never Mentioned al-Qaeda
Mickey Z.
A Reality Show with No End in Sight
Robert Fisk
Iraq on the Brink of Anarchy
April 5, 2004
John Farrell
Lessons
from El Salvador and Iraq
Robert Fisk
Bloodbath
a Bad Omen for Bush
Gary Leupp
Shiites Say No: Another "Nightmare
Scenario"
April 3 / 4, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Anti-Depressants
a Problem? We're Shocked
Jeffrey St. Clair
How Neil Bush Succeeded in Business
Without Really Trying
Gary Leupp
On Jefferson, Diderot and the Political Uses of God
Lawrence Davidson
Orwell and Kafka in Israel / Palestine
Frederick B.
Hudson
Condi Rice: the Family Retainer
Phillip Cryan
The Magic of Coca-Cola: Colombian Workers, Civil Rights and Advertising
Dave Zirin
Lester Speaks: an Interview with Lester "Red" Rodney
Ben Tripp
Talking Dirty: Obscene But Not Heard
Bruce Anderson
Phony Liberals and Fake Concern for the Homeless
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Justice and Legitimacy in Haiti
Mark Scaramella
Do You Have What It Takes to Be Sec. of Defense? Take the Rumsfeld
Quiz
Sharon Smith
Do Most Iraqis Really Want the US to Stay?
Rick Giombetti
Melissa Ann Rowland: a Witch for Our Time
Nader/Kerry
Quandary
Stephen Gowans
Communists
for Capitalism?
Frank Bardacke / Doug Lummis
Support Nader; Dump Bush: an Election Manifesto
Mickey Z
Turn ON
Saul Landau
Kerry: a Less Dangerous Imperialist?
Richard Oxman
Nader and/or Death?
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Davies, Albert and Tripp
Website of the Weekend
Missing
April 2, 2004
Dave Lindorff
Barbaric
Relativism: the Press and Fallujah
Kurt Nimmo
Wherever
Bush Goes, Osama is Bound to Follow
Emma Miller
The
Role of the West in the Rwandan Genocide
Dr. Susan Block
Same
Sex Marriages: Just Say "No" to Prohibition
Norman Solomon
Media Strategy Memo for George & Dick
Sacha Guney
The Meaning of the Elections in Turkey
Christopher
Brauchli
The
Disturbing Case of Cpt. Yee
Website of the Day
Mercenaries, Inc.
April 1, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Dying in Vain in Iraq
Harry Browne
No Smoke, Plenty of Fire: Ireland's Pubs Go Smokefree
Chris Floyd
Towel Boy: Bush Hits Workers with Chemical Weapons
Nicole Colson
Inside America's Concentration Camp: Tortured at Guantanamo
Charles Arthur
Haiti's Army Cracks Down on Workers
Laura Flanders
Elaine
Chao: a First Daughter for the First Son
March 31, 2004
M. Junaid Alam
Israel:
Suicide Nation?
John L. Hess
Condi
Under Oath: But What About the NYTs Reporters?
Fernando Suarez
del Solar
A
Year Since My Son's Death in Iraq
Sofia Perez
Spain's
U-Turn on Iraq is Real Democracy in Action
David Vest
Stick 'Em Up: Put Cheney and Bush Under Oath
Tanya Reinhart
As in Tiannamen Square: Justice and the Yassin Assassination
Mike Whitney
Time to Dump the Pledge
Donald Kaul
Martha Stewart's Lesson: Never Talk to the FBI
Milt Bearden
Mired in the Tracks of Alexander the Great
Marjorie Cohn
The
Illegal Coup in Haiti: How the Kidnapping of Aristide Violated
US and International Law
Website of the Day
New Pentagon Papers Dropped at DC Starbucks
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
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April
26, 2004
Prevarications
About the Patriot Act
Lies, Lies and
More Lies
By ELAINE CASSEL
Keeping up with the lies of the Bush
Administration (something that Steve Perry has been doing at
Bush Wars)
would be a full-time job. In order to maintain my sanity, I focus
only on lies about civil liberties. Until recently, Attorney
General John Ashcroft has been the Fraudmeister. But fueled by
the 9-11 Commission hearings (the panel Bush did not want to
begin with) and the steady stream of Administration talking heads
who tout the Patriot Act as the compilation of laws that will
save us from "terrorism," Bush's handlers have come
to the recognition that touting the Patriot Act is a mighty fine
reelection campaign tool. After all, it is aptly named so that
if you are not for it, you are un-"Patriot"-ic.
Last week, Bush made two speeches
about the Patriot Act, one in New York City, one in Buffalo.
The Buffalo speech focused on how the Lackawanna Six, young American
citizens of Yemeni descent who never engaged in one act of terrorism
but made the dumb mistake of going to Afghanistan (and returning)
to study Islam before September 11, are serving long prison terms
because of the Patriot Act and the prosecutors who used it to
nab the bad guys before they could hurt us. Nothing could be
further from the truth. The Patriot Act itself cannot be tied
to any terrorism "convictions" (mostly guilty pleas)
other than the fact that it defines "terrorism" so
broadly that my writing this article equals a terrorist act.
Ergo, traveling to a "terrorist" country before September
11 makes you a terrorist.
The ACLU has saved me the trouble
of cataloguing and contradicting Bush's lies about the Patriot
Act:
The President:
"By the way, the reason
I bring up the Patriot Act, it's set to expire next year. I'm
starting a campaign to make it clear to members of Congress that
it shouldn't expire. It shouldn't expire for the security of
our country."
The Truth:
Less that 10 percent of the
Patriot Act expires; most of the law is permanent and those portions
that do sunset will not do so until December 31, 2005.
The President:
"And that changed, the
law changed on- roving wiretaps were available for chasing down
drug lords. They weren't available for chasing down terrorists,
see?"
The Truth:
Roving wiretaps were available
prior to 9/11 against drug lords and terrorists. Prior to the
law, the FBI could get a roving wiretap against both when it
had probable cause of crime for a wiretap eligible offense. What
the Patriot Act did is make roving wiretaps available in intelligence
investigations supervised by the secret intelligence court without
the judicial safeguards of the criminal wiretap statute.
The President:
"... see, I'm not a lawyer,
so it's kind of hard for me to kind of get bogged down in the
law. (Applause). I'm not going to play like one, either. (Laughter.)
The way I viewed it, if I can just put it in simple terms, is
that one part of the FBI couldn't tell the other part of the
FBI vital information because of the law. And the CIA and the
FBI couldn't talk."
The Truth:
The CIA and the FBI could talk
and did. As Janet Reno wrote in prepared testimony before the
9/11 commission, "There are simply no walls or restrictions
on sharing the vast majority of counterterrorism information.
There are no legal restrictions at all on the ability of the
members of the intelligence community to share intelligence information
with each other.
"With respect to sharing
between intelligence investigators and criminal investigators,
information learned as a result of a physical surveillance or
from a confidential informant can be legally shared without restriction.
"While there were restrictions
placed on information gathered by criminal investigators as a
result of grand jury investigations or Title III wire taps, in
practice they did not prove to be a serious impediment since
there was very little significant information that could not
be shared."
The President:
"Thirdly, to give you
an example of what we're talking about, there's something called
delayed-notification search warrants. ... We couldn't use these
against terrorists [before the Patriot Act], but we could use
against gangs."
The Truth:
Delayed-notification - or so-called
sneak-and-peek search warrants - were never limited to gangs.
The circuit courts that had authorized them in limited circumstances
prior to the Patriot Act did not limit the warrants to the investigation
of gangs. In fact, terrorism or espionage investigators did not
necessarily have to go through the criminal courts for a covert
search - they could do so with even fewer safeguards against
abuse by going to a top secret foreign intelligence court in
Washington.
For criminal sneak-and-peek
warrants, the Patriot Act added a catch-all argument for prosecutors
- if notice would delay prosecution or jeopardize an investigation
- which makes these secret search warrants much easier to obtain.
The president's sneak-and-peek
misstatement clearly demonstrates that the Patriot Act is not
limited to terrorism. In fact, many of the law's expanded authorities
can clearly be used outside the war on terrorism.
The President:
"Judges need greater authority
to deny bail to terrorists."
The Truth:
The new presumptive detention
that the president is proposing takes judicial authority away
from the bail process. The presumption would take away the prosecution's
burden of showing that the accused is a danger or flight risk
and instead puts it on the accused.
Pending Legislation to "Enhance"
the Patriot Act
President Bush is setting the
stage for a fight that will ensue next year, as several controversial
provisions of the Patriot Act that impinge most on American's
civil liberties are set to expire. He wants to convince the public
that spying on citizens is the way to stop terrorism. If Congress
does what it did in 2001, it will once again sell our liberties
down the river--this time for good.
In addition, new legislation
is pending to create more crimes of "terror," many
of them carrying the death penalty.
Following on the heels of President
Bush's road trip to promote the controversial Patriot Act at
events in Pennsylvania and New York, on April 21, 2004 a key
House subcommittee considered a proposal to expand the Patriot
Act's controversial definition of "terrorism" to provide
a death penalty for any federal crime punishable by more than
one year in prison if the crime was intended to influence government
policy and results in death.
"The Patriot Act remains
one of the most controversial measures ever passed by Congress,"
said Timothy Edgar, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "Attempts
to expand it, such as the now-defunct draft Patriot Act 2 that
floated around Congress last year, have been highly contentious.
Now we're seeing attempts to pass provisions of Patriot Act 2
piece-by-piece."
Federal law already provides
20 separate death penalties for serious terrorism crimes, including
bombings, hijackings, assassinations and hostage taking.
Testifying at the April 21
hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism
and Homeland Security, Edgar reminded committee members that
the Justice Department has not been forthcoming in its disclosures
regarding how the Patriot Act has been used so far, saying Congress
should review existing powers before adding to them.
"This proposal will rightly
be seen as another federal infringement on civil liberties that
will not make America safer," Edgar added. "It will
result in increasing mistrust, both at home and abroad, even
of legitimate anti-terrorism efforts and further isolate America
in the world. It should be rejected."
The proposed legislation would
do two things. First, it would make 23 crimes eligible for the
death penalty. Second, it would create an unprecedented "catch-all"
death penalty for any other federal crime punishable by more
than a year in prison if it meets the PATRIOT Act's overbroad
definition of terrorism and results in death. The ACLU said that
protestors and activists from groups including Greenpeace and
Operation Rescue could risk being sentenced to death for participating
in certain civil disobedience events if they involved a federal
crime punishable by more than a year in prison and resulted in
a death of one of the participants or someone else.
Laws such as the Freedom of
Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and the federal gun control
regime at 18 <U.S.C>. sec 922, among many other crimes,
could carry death sentences if the bill passed, Edgar said.
The ACLU also noted that the
proposal could actually hurt the anti-terror efforts. Many nations
that have abolished the death penalty are unwilling to extradite
or provide evidence in federal terrorism cases if the death penalty
might result from their cooperation. Suicidal, politically motivated
terrorists such as members of Al Qaeda would be unaffected as
often they are seeking to create martyrs for their causes and
to generate publicity.
Read the ACLU's testimony on
HR 2934, the "Terrorist Penalties Enhancement Act of 2003."
Don't be caught sleeping (let
Congress do that). Visit the ACLU website often and send email
and faxes (crimes of terror, of course, since designed to influence
politics and too many faxes and emails might jam your congressman's
critical infrastructure--and I am only half-kidding) to your
elected representatives. Not that they will listen, but at least
you can tell your children that stood up for liberty.
Elaine Cassel practices law in Virginia and the
District of Columbia, teachers law and psychology, and follows
the Bush regime's dismantling of the Constitution at Civil
Liberties Watch. Her book, The War on Civil Liberties: How
Bush and Ashcroft Have Dismantled the Bill of Rights, will be
published by Lawrence Hill this summer. She can be reached at:
ecassel1@cox.net
Weekend
Edition Features for April 24 / 25, 2004
William
A. Cook
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry
and Bush Melt into One
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank
Brandy
Baker
A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So
Robert
Fisk
A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free
Speech
Ben
Tripp
October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios
Nelson
Valdés
"Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Return to the Future
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Killed Pat Tillman
Mark
Scaramella
Does Anybody Know Anything?
Patrick
Cockburn
The Return of Saddam's Generals
Gary
Engler
Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas
Col.
Dan Smith
Whistling in the Dark: Israel, Palestine and Bush
Greg
Weiher
Iraq is Utterly Unlike Vietnam...
Elaine
Cassel
Life on the Outside: a Review
Vanessa
Jones
Letter from Australia: Why an Independent Won Sydney
Jim
French
Agriculture's Bullied Market
Hammond
Guthrie
Al Aronowitz, Bob Dylan and The Beatles
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Holt, Albert, LaMorticella
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