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Raisethefist.com Raided
mfb and others wrote in about a raid on the operator of raisethefist.com last week. It was first reported on Indymedia.org here and here, followed by an LA Weekly article. By far the best news piece so far is this one from Newsbytes.
There are better ways to affect change if you don't like the way things are going, and they're built into the Constitution!
Like the second ammendment. The NRA has it all wrong; the second ammentment is meant to back up these ways. Remember; in the days of the Revolution, there were hand arms and cannons. That was it. The people were allowed to own guns, and the towns -in addition to the government- had cannons. The second ammendment, coupled with this equality in technology, made it possible for citizens to violently overthrow the government if necessary. Jefferson and Washington would have wanted you and me to have F18's and M-1A Abrams tanks, not just pistols and antique rifles.
Now, I do not agree with this guy's opinons one bit, but that is what makes the system great, and a shame that he got shut down.
I think I need a new sig here.
The Geneva Convention
The Nuremburg Charter.
Before you think anything about Sept. 11th being something entirely new and especially evil, requiring less due process than in the past, read the Nuremburg Charter. If presumption of innocence is ok for Nazis, it's hard to see when it shouldn't apply.
Also, keep in mind that all this "anti-terrorism" talk uses Bin Laden as their reason for enacting the laws, but the laws are not confined to the acts of Sept 11th, or even confined to "violent" terrorism. There has been much effort to make sure that illegal political acts that don't involve violence fall under the category of "terrorism". Even before Sept 11th, anti-terrorism laws were used to infiltrate and disrupt non-violent activist groups and labor unions.
If a farm owner accuses non-citizen farm workers of illegal acts during a union organizing drive or strike, what is to stop these "anti-terrorism" laws and military tribunals from being used? Again, even before Sept 11th, many newspapers have referred to both violent and non-violent protestors in the U.S. as "terrorists", in many cases equating civil-disobedience (illegal acts intended to achieve a political agenda) with assassinations and mass murder.
And this is nothing new. Dissidents are often called terrorists by repressive governments. Never mind the fundamental differences between the people that destroyed the WTC and people like Martin Luther King.