Author
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Topic: Speaking of Free Speech....
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Stargazer
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6061
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posted 16 August 2008 06:12 AM
Seems the US doesn't care a whole lot for it. Especially if it is coming from the left. At least they had the decency to post signs stating aggression would be used against protesters. quote: The full spectrum of police and military will also be on hand at the Democratic convention in Denver, many of these units coordinated by a “fusion center.” These centers are springing up around the country as an outgrowth of the post-9/11 national-security system. Erin Rosa of the online Colorado Independent recently published a report on the Denver fusion center, which will be sharing information with the U.S. Secret Service, the FBI and the U.S. Northern Command. The center is set up to gather and distribute “intelligence” about “suspicious activities,” which, Rosa points out, “can include taking pictures or taking notes. The definition is very broad.”Civil rights advocates fear the fusion center could enable unwarranted spying on protesters exercising their First Amendment rights at the convention. Documents obtained by I-Witness Video, a group that documents police abuses and demonstrations, revealed that the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency were receiving intelligence about the protests at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City. The growing problem is that legal, peaceful protesters are ending up on federal databases and watch lists with scant legal oversight. Former FBI agent Mike German is now a national-security-policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. He said, “It’s unclear who is actually in charge and whose rules apply to the information that’s being collected and shared and distributed through these fusion centers.” Maryland State Police were recently exposed infiltrating groups like the Baltimore Coalition Against the Death Penalty. German explains how police expand “beyond normal law-enforcement functions, and start becoming intelligence collectors against protest groups. The reports that we obtained … make clear that there was no indication of any sort of criminal activity. And yet, that investigation went on for 14 months, and these reports were uploaded into a federal database. … When all these agencies are authorized to go out and start collecting this information and putting it in areas where it’s accessible by the intelligence community, it’s a very dangerous proposition for our democracy.”
So about that democracy and about the "superior" free speech in the US....me thinks it is a farce. Source: Don't Cage Dissent After all, the Constitution is only a piece of paper.
From: Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist. | Registered: Jun 2004
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Robespierre
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15340
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posted 16 August 2008 07:33 AM
The problem with paper is that it'll accept anything put on it and can be used for all kinds of purposes if we let others interpret the meaning. The citizens of the United States are so not in control of their own country that every time I hear the phrase "free speech" it sounds like someone's talking in Klingon. That was a great article from CommonDreams, Stargazer. Thanks. [ 16 August 2008: Message edited by: Robespierre ]
From: Raccoons at my door! | Registered: Jul 2008
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