Daily Archives: 2020-02-08

2020-02-08: News Headlines

Rick Sterling (2020-02-08). Three Extraordinary Australian Journalists: Burchett, Pilger, Assange. dissidentvoice.org Australia has produced extraordinary journalists across three generations: Wilfred Burchett (deceased in 1983), John Pilger (80 years old but still active) and Julian Assange (48 years old, currently in London's Belmarsh prison). Each of these journalists made unique contributions to our understanding of the world. Although Australia is part of the western world, each of …

Andrew Emett (2020-02-08). Former deputy jailer sentenced to prison after assaulting inmate. nationofchange.org "The FBI will not tolerate correctional officers who violate a person's civil rights."

WSWS (2020-02-08). Former UAW Region 5 Director Vance Pearson signs plea deal. wsws.org Pearson's testimony brings the federal corruption probe one step closer to a racketeering lawsuit and the possible federal takeover of the union.

Juan Lopez (2020-02-07). Civil Rights Movement memories: Marching from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. peoplesworld.org The flight to Atlanta was bumpy. I was already apprehensive. I had imagined being on the receiving end of a two-by-four swung wildly by a Southern gentleman of the White Citizens Council. And then, when the plane suddenly plunged downward in what felt like a nosedive, I feared I would soon meet my fate, denying …

Scarlet Kim (2020-02-07). CBP Lied About Iranian-American Detentions, Leaked Memo Suggests. globalresearch.ca Last month, U.S. Customs and Border Protection

teleSUR (2020-02-07). Appeals Court Rejects Democrats' Emoluments Suit Against Trump. telesurenglish.net Two days after the Senate acquitted the President of the United States in his impeachment, a federal appeals court dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Democratic Party, accusing Donald Trump of violating the anti-corruption provisions of the United States Constitution with his business. The decision ended a week of political victories by the Republican President. | RELATED: | Meanwhile, the disappointment of the Dem…

IMEMC News & Agencies (2020-02-07). Israeli Forces Storm Prison Cells In Ashkelon. imemc.org Israeli prison guards, on Thursday evening, stormed Palestinian prisoners' cells in the Ashkelon facility, wreaking havoc therein, according to Days of Palestine. The Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS)said that confrontations flared up between Palestinian detainees and Israeli prison guards, during the raid. No injuries were reported, but one Palestinian prisoner was …

IMEMC News (2020-02-07). Detainee Tareq Qa'dan, Who Held Extended Hunger Strike In 2019, Released. imemc.org The Palestinian Prisoners' Society has reported that Israeli soldiers released, Thursday, a Palestinian detainee, who held an extended hunger strike last year, before he was welcomed by hundreds of Palestinians in Jenin, in northern West Bank. The PPS stated that the detainee, Tareq Qa'dan, held an extended hunger strike, lasting …

JN Chien (2020-02-07). Discrimination Isn't Helping to Contain the Coronavirus. thenation.com Discrimination Isn't Helping to Contain the Coronavirus…

Jay Stanley (2020-02-06). The Government's Nightmare Vision for Face Recognition at Airports and Beyond. aclu.org The Department of Homeland Security has a

Ashley Gorski (2020-02-05). The Government is Using its Foreign Intelligence Spying Powers for Routine Domestic Investigations. aclu.org More than forty years ago, Congress | gave the executive branch a set of exceptional surveillance powers to pursue | foreign spies on U.S. soil. Now, the government is increasingly relying on those | powers to advance ordinary domestic criminal investigations. | In United States v. | Osseily, a fraud prosecution in California, the government appears to have used | this surveillance — which is conducted under the Foreign Intelligence | Surveillance Act (FISA) — to a longtime perm…

Andrea Woods (2020-02-05). Using Bail as Ransom Violates the Core Tenets of Pretrial Justice. aclu.org Rebecca Gill was out of | options. At 39 years old, she was arrested and though not convicted of a crime | and presumed innocent, confined to a jail cell. This happened because of a cash | bail requirement that she couldn't afford. Her friends didn't have extra money | to help, and she was unlikely to see a judge until she'd been in jail for two | full weeks. | Stuck in jail, she was in | jeopardy of losing her job and her driver's license. Losing her license would result | in myriad consequences, such as preventing her from getting to work and making | it more difficult to take care of her son and mother. | T…

Fight Back (2020-02-05). Free Bolivian political prisoner Facundo Molares! fightbacknews.org Bolivia suffered a vicious coup d'état on November 10, 2019 that was provoked by right-wing gangs rampaging in the street, traitorous police and military officers, the old guard political elite, and, of course, supported by the United States Embassy. As soon as Evo Morales was elected to a fourth term as president of Bolivia on October 20, with almost 47% of the vote, right-wing elements, centered in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, started a campaign to destabilize the progressive government headed by Evo. | Directly after the results announcing that Morales won in the first round of the presidential election, reactiona…

Tyler Durden (2020-02-04). Biden Threatens Lawsuit to Halt Release of Real Iowa Caucus Results. theantimedia.com American democracy—ain't it grand?>

Staff (2020-02-04). Headlines for February 4, 2020. democracynow.org Delay in Iowa Democratic Primary Results Causes Confusion, Mixed Messages, Final Arguments Made in Impeachment Trial of President Trump Ahead of SOTU, Hong Kong Medical Workers Demand Border Closure as Coronavirus Claims Life of Hong Kong Man, Leaked Audio Shows Iran Knew It Downed Ukraine Jet Despite Early Denials, Syrian and Turkish Forces Escalate Attacks as Turkey Suffers First Losses from Direct Combat, Massachusetts Prisoners Allege Violent Retaliatory Abuse by Guards, Trial Begins For Ex-CIA Software Engineer Accused of "Vault 7" Leak, Weinstein Rape Accuser Breaks Down During Harsh Questioning, Shooting a…

Staff (2020-02-03). ACLU: Trump Is Expanding His Racist Travel Ban, This Time Targeting Africans. democracynow.org The Trump administration has expanded its contested travel ban to six additional countries — most of which are African nations. Under the new restrictions, nationals of Nigeria, Eritrea, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan will no longer be able to obtain visas to live and work in the U.S., while Sudan and Tanzania will no longer be able to participate in the diversity visa lottery program. The ban, commonly referred to as the "Muslim ban," already affects citizens from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Venezuela and North Korea. The expansion is expected to affect more than 350 million people. Democrats say they will…

Leila Rafei (2020-02-03). Block the Vote: Voter Suppression in 2020. aclu.org Voting should be as easy and convenient as possible, and in many cases it is. But across the U.S., too many politicians are passing measures making it harder to cast a ballot. The goal is to manipulate political outcomes, and the result is a severely compromised democracy that doesn't reflect the will of the people. Our democracy works best when all eligible voters can participate and have their voices heard. | Suppression efforts range from the seemingly unobstructive, like voter ID laws and cuts to early voting, to mass purges of voter rolls and systemic disenfranchisement. And long before election cycles ev…

splcenter (2020-02-02). SPLC and the SPLC Action Fund Hire Internationally Renowned Human and Civil Rights Leader as New President and CEO. splcenter.org Margaret Huang brings 25 years of experience advocating against discrimination and oppression around the world.

Arianna Demas (2020-01-30). The Government Is Trying to Strip Student Workers of the Ability to Unionize. aclu.org The federal government recently

Amber Duke (2020-01-29). We're Back in Court this Week Defending Access to Safe Abortion in Kentucky. aclu.org The ACLU is back | in court today once again to stop Kentucky's attempt to block access to | abortion. We've been here before. Over the past three years, the Kentucky | General Assembly has passed bill after bill that limits — and even bans — a | person's ability to get an abortion. And time after time, we've gone to court to | protect people's rights to get the care they need. | At issue this | week is a law that makes it a crime for doctors at Kentucky's last remaining | abortion clinic to perform an abortion procedure that is the standard of care. | In reality, the law is nothing more than a…

Ashoka Mukpo (2020-01-28). Asylum-Seekers Are Being Abandoned in Guatemala in a New Policy Officials Call a "Total Disaster" aclu.org In late November, U.S. immigration authorities began | deporting some Central American asylum-seekers to Guatemala under a new | policy that makes it nearly impossible for them to seek asylum in the U.S. | But Guatemalan human rights workers say that their country's | asylum system isn't capable of handling even the relatively small numbers that | have been sent there so far, and that asylum seekers' precarious status in the | country has already pushed many to leave. | "They're preferring to move on…

Jay Stanley (2020-01-28). What You Need to Know About the Coronavirus Outbreak: A Civil Liberties Perspective. aclu.org The world is watching anxiously to see what happens with the | coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China. As scientists and public health | officials in the United States learn more about the virus, and as we all see | how bad the outbreak turns out to be, it is important that public policymaking | remain firmly centered around science. | Unfortunately, our history of reactions to infectious | disease outbreaks suggests that if this outbreak becomes severe, we're likely | to see strong pressure to the contrary. In particular, we can expect three | things: | We can expect some to | panic.: | Unfortu…

Luiz ignacio lula Da silva (2019-12-28). Prison gave me a greater will to fight. zcomm.org Interview on the reality that Brazil is experiencing and the social protests that have occurred in several Latin American countries…

2020-02-08: Social Media Postees

Please be social by posting these 'POSTEES' on social media!

Three Extraordinary Australian Journalists: Burchett, Pilger, Assange
Rick Sterling | dissidentvoice.org | 2020-02-08
Australia has produced extraordinary journalists across three generations: Wilfred Burchett (deceased in 1983), John Pilger (80 years old but still active) and Julian Assange (48 years old, currently in London's Belmarsh prison). Each of these journalists made unique contributions to our understanding of the world. Although Australia is part of the western world, each of …
dissidentvoice.org/2020/02/three-extraordinary-australian-journalists-burchett-pilger-assange/

Former deputy jailer sentenced to prison after assaulting inmate
Andrew Emett | nationofchange.org | 2020-02-08
"The FBI will not tolerate correctional officers who violate a person's civil rights."
nationofchange.org/2020/02/08/former-deputy-jailer-sentenced-to-prison-after-assaulting-inmate/

Former UAW Region 5 Director Vance Pearson signs plea deal
wsws.org | 2020-02-08
Pearson's testimony brings the federal corruption probe one step closer to a racketeering lawsuit and the possible federal takeover of the union.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/02/08/corr-f08.html

Civil Rights Movement memories: Marching from Selma to Montgomery in 1965
Juan Lopez | peoplesworld.org | 2020-02-07
The flight to Atlanta was bumpy. I was already apprehensive. I had imagined being on the receiving end of a two-by-four swung wildly by a Southern gentleman of the White Citizens Council. And then, when the plane suddenly plunged downward in what felt like a nosedive, I feared I would soon meet my fate, denying …
peoplesworld.org/article/civil-rights-movement-memories-marching-from-selma-to-montgomery-in-1965/

CBP Lied About Iranian-American Detentions, Leaked Memo Suggests
Scarlet Kim | globalresearch.ca | 2020-02-07
Last month, U.S. Customs and Border Protection adamantly denied that it was detaining U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents of Iranian descent and interrogating them about their religion and political views. The agency also assured the public that it had …
globalresearch.ca/cbp-lied-about-iranian-american-detentions-leaked-memo-suggests/5703043

How Advocates Are Fighting Voter Suppression
Linda Kramer Jenning | commondreams.org | 2020-02-07
Often the newer restrictions focus on bureaucratic details, but their intent and impact target the same populations that historically faced violence and harassment when seeking to exercise the right to vote. (Photo: AFGE/flickr/cc) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/votingrights_1.jpeg
commondreams.org/views/2020/02/07/how-advocates-are-fighting-voter-suppression?cd-origin=rss

Appeals Court Rejects Democrats' Emoluments Suit Against Trump
telesurenglish.net | 2020-02-07
Two days after the Senate acquitted the President of the United States in his impeachment, a federal appeals court dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Democratic Party, accusing Donald Trump of violating the anti-corruption provisions of the United States Constitution with his business. The decision ended a week of political victories by the Republican President. | RELATED: | Guaido, Soleimani and the Middle East: Trump State of the Union | Meanwhile, the disappointment of the Dem…
telesurenglish.net/news/appeals-court-rejects-democrats-emoluments-suit-against-trump-20200207-0008.html

Detainee Tareq Qa'dan, Who Held Extended Hunger Strike In 2019, Released
IMEMC News | imemc.org | 2020-02-07
The Palestinian Prisoners' Society has reported that Israeli soldiers released, Thursday, a Palestinian detainee, who held an extended hunger strike last year, before he was welcomed by hundreds of Palestinians in Jenin, in northern West Bank. The PPS stated that the detainee, Tareq Qa'dan, held an extended hunger strike, lasting …
imemc.org/article/detainee-tareq-qadan-who-held-extended-hunger-strike-in-2019-released/

Israeli Forces Storm Prison Cells In Ashkelon
IMEMC News & Agencies | imemc.org | 2020-02-07
Israeli prison guards, on Thursday evening, stormed Palestinian prisoners' cells in the Ashkelon facility, wreaking havoc therein, according to Days of Palestine. The Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS)said that confrontations flared up between Palestinian detainees and Israeli prison guards, during the raid. No injuries were reported, but one Palestinian prisoner was …
imemc.org/article/israeli-forces-storm-prison-cells-in-ashkelon/

Discrimination Isn't Helping to Contain the Coronavirus
JN Chien | thenation.com | 2020-02-07
Discrimination Isn't Helping to Contain the Coronavirus…
thenation.com/article/world/coronavirus-xenophobia-hong-kong/

The Government's Nightmare Vision for Face Recognition at Airports and Beyond
Jay Stanley | aclu.org | 2020-02-06
The Department of Homeland Security has a scary vision for expanding face recognition surveillance into our everyday lives, threatening a dystopian future in which the technology is used throughout our public spaces to scrutinize our identity, check us against watchlists, record our movements, and more. Work on building the infrastructure for this pervasive monitoring has already started, with U.
aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/the-governments-nightmare-vision-for-face-recognition-at-airports-and-beyond

The Government is Using its Foreign Intelligence Spying Powers for Routine Domestic Investigations
Ashley Gorski | aclu.org | 2020-02-05
More than forty years ago, Congress | gave the executive branch a set of exceptional surveillance powers to pursue | foreign spies on U.S. soil. Now, the government is increasingly relying on those | powers to advance ordinary domestic criminal investigations. | In United States v. | Osseily, a fraud prosecution in California, the government appears to have used | this surveillance

Using Bail as Ransom Violates the Core Tenets of Pretrial Justice
Andrea Woods | aclu.org | 2020-02-05
Rebecca Gill was out of | options. At 39 years old, she was arrested and though not convicted of a crime | and presumed innocent, confined to a jail cell. This happened because of a cash | bail requirement that she couldn't afford. Her friends didn't have extra money | to help, and she was unlikely to see a judge until she'd been in jail for two | full weeks. | Stuck in jail, she was in | jeopardy of losing her job and her driver's license. Losing her license would result | in myriad consequences, such as preventing her from getting to work and making | it more difficult to take care of her son and mother. | T…
aclu.org/news/smart-justice/using-bail-as-ransom-violates-the-core-tenets-of-pretrial-justice

Free Bolivian political prisoner Facundo Molares!
Fight Back | fightbacknews.org | 2020-02-05
Bolivia suffered a vicious coup d'état on November 10, 2019 that was provoked by right-wing gangs rampaging in the street, traitorous police and military officers, the old guard political elite, and, of course, supported by the United States Embassy. As soon as Evo Morales was elected to a fourth term as president of Bolivia on October 20, with almost 47% of the vote, right-wing elements, centered in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, started a campaign to destabilize the progressive government headed by Evo. | Directly after the results announcing that Morales won in the first round of the presidential election, reactiona…
fightbacknews.org/2020/2/5/free-bolivian-political-prisoner-facundo-molares

Witness to a Farce – Watching impeachment through the lens of the New York Times
Dorothee Benz | fair.org | 2020-02-04
Watching the actions of the Trump administration through the lens of the New York Times' coverage has been by turns dumbfounding, disheartening and infuriating. While the white nationalists running our government have rolled out one attack after another on civil rights, civil liberties, the independence of the judiciary, procedural democracy, human rights laws and planetary survival, the "paper of record" has offered a soothing translation of these threats into the familiar language of…
fair.org/home/witness-to-a-farce/

Biden Threatens Lawsuit to Halt Release of Real Iowa Caucus Results
Tyler Durden | theantimedia.com | 2020-02-04
American democracy–ain't it grand?>…
theantimedia.com/biden-threatens-lawsuit-to-halt-release-of-real-iowa-caucus-results/

Block the Vote: Voter Suppression in 2020
Leila Rafei | aclu.org | 2020-02-03
Voting should be as easy and convenient as possible, and in many cases it is. But across the U.S., too many politicians are passing measures making it harder to cast a ballot. The goal is to manipulate political outcomes, and the result is a severely compromised democracy that doesn't reflect the will of the people. Our democracy works best when all eligible voters can participate and have their voices heard. | Suppression efforts range from the seemingly unobstructive, like voter ID laws and cuts to early voting, to mass purges of voter rolls and systemic disenfranchisement. And long before election cycles ev…
aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/block-the-vote-voter-suppression-in-2020

ACLU: Trump Is Expanding His Racist Travel Ban, This Time Targeting Africans
Staff | democracynow.org | 2020-02-03
The Trump administration has expanded its contested travel ban to six additional countries

SPLC and the SPLC Action Fund Hire Internationally Renowned Human and Civil Rights Leader as New President and CEO
splcenter.org | 2020-02-02
Margaret Huang brings 25 years of experience advocating against discrimination and oppression around the world.
splcenter.org/news/2020/02/03/splc-and-splc-action-fund-hire-internationally-renowned-human-and-civil-rights-leader-new

The Government Is Trying to Strip Student Workers of the Ability to Unionize
Arianna Demas | aclu.org | 2020-01-30
The federal government recently proposed a rule that would strip graduate student workers of their ability to organize under the National Labor Relations Act, the law that grants most private sector employees the right to engage in collective bargaining. In justifying its proposed rule, the National Labor Relations Board, a government agency, asserted that allowing graduate student a…
aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/the-government-is-trying-to-strip-student-workers-of-the-ability-to-unionize

We're Back in Court this Week Defending Access to Safe Abortion in Kentucky
Amber Duke | aclu.org | 2020-01-29
The ACLU is back | in court today once again to stop Kentucky's attempt to block access to | abortion. We've been here before. Over the past three years, the Kentucky | General Assembly has passed bill after bill that limits

Asylum-Seekers Are Being Abandoned in Guatemala in a New Policy Officials Call a "Total Disaster"
Ashoka Mukpo | aclu.org | 2020-01-28
In late November, U.S. immigration authorities began | deporting some Central American asylum-seekers to Guatemala under a new | policy that makes it nearly impossible for them to seek asylum in the U.S. | But Guatemalan human rights workers say that their country's | asylum system isn't capable of handling even the relatively small numbers that | have been sent there so far, and that asylum seekers' precarious status in the | country has already pushed many to leave. | "They're preferring to move on…
aclu.org/news/human-rights/asylum-seekers-are-being-abandoned-in-guatemala-in-a-new-policy-officials-call-a-total-disaster

What You Need to Know About the Coronavirus Outbreak: A Civil Liberties Perspective
Jay Stanley | aclu.org | 2020-01-28
The world is watching anxiously to see what happens with the | coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China. As scientists and public health | officials in the United States learn more about the virus, and as we all see | how bad the outbreak turns out to be, it is important that public policymaking | remain firmly centered around science. | Unfortunately, our history of reactions to infectious | disease outbreaks suggests that if this outbreak becomes severe, we're likely | to see strong pressure to the contrary. In particular, we can expect three | things: | We can expect some to | panic.: | Unfortu…
aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-coronavirus-outbreak-a-civil-liberties-perspective