Human Rights & Civil Liberties

US Guilty of Genocide in Guatemala Should be Real Headline

Fri, 05/17/2013 - 20:50 — Dave Culver

Now that former Guatemalan president Efrain Rios Montt has been convicted of genocide, it’s time for the “hegemonic puppeteer,” the United States, to be put on trial.
“If Efrain Rios Montt, and by extension the Guatemalan military, are guilty of the crime of genocide, the U.S. government and its officials are just as guilty.”
Federal Judge Orders Release Of Names Of SOA/ WHINSEC Graduates
Guatemala's Ríos Montt Genocide Conviction

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Now that former Guatemalan president Efrain Rios Montt has been convicted of genocide, it’s time for the “hegemonic puppeteer,” the United States, to be put on trial. “U.S. officials were fully aware of the pogrom against the Ixil people in the mountains of Guatemala at the very moment that the U.S. government was involved in training and arming the Guatemalan military.”

May 16, 2013 | Last week news coverage around the world heralded the conviction of Efrain Rios Montt on the charges of genocide against the Mayan people during his 17 month tenure as Guatemala’s head of government and military strongman. The three-judge panel led by Jazmin Barrios determined that evidence presented to the court established that there was a clear and systematic plan to exterminate the Ixil people as a race and that the plan developed and executed by the Montt government satisfied the definition of genocide. With this conviction, the 86 year-old ex-dictator was sentenced to 80 years in prison.

Full story…

Omen For US Presidents And Their Hired Assassins
US Guilty of Genocide in Guatemala Should be Real Headline

Federal Judge Orders Release Of Names Of SOA/ WHINSEC Graduates, Hendrik Voss, SOA Watch

SOA Watch scored a major victory this week when we won our court case against the Pentagon! The judge ruled that the Pentagon has no grounds for its refusal to disclose the names of graduates and instructors of the SOA/WHINSEC.

Section(s):

Foreign Affairs

Human Rights & Civil Liberties

Adam Zyglis | Nixon in the White House / media.cagle.com

Thu, 05/16/2013 - 17:58 — Dave Culver

Section(s):

Human Rights & Civil Liberties

Chris Hedges | Monitoring AP Phones a "Terrifying" Step

Thu, 05/16/2013 - 17:48 — Dave Culver

"I mean, you’ve got to hand it to the Obama administration. They’re far more clever than their predecessors in the Bush administration, but they’re carrying out exactly the same policy of snuffing out our most basic civil liberties and our most important press freedoms."
Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real.

Chris Hedges, Democracy Now!

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Wednesday, May 15, 2013 | The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges joins us to discuss what could mark the most significant government intrusion on freedom of the press in decades. The Justice Department has acknowledged seizing the work, home and cellphone records used by almost 100 reporters and editors at the Associated Press. The phones targeted included the general AP office numbers in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Hartford, Connecticut, and the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery. The action likely came as part of a probe into the leaks behind an AP story on the U.S. intelligence operation that stopped a Yemen-based al-Qaeda bombing plot on a U.S.-bound airplane. Hedges, a senior fellow at The Nation Institute and former New York Times reporter, calls the monitoring "one more assault in a long series of assault against freedom of information and freedom of the press." Highlighting the Obama administration’s targeting of government whistleblowers, Hedges adds: "Talk to any investigative journalist who must investigate the government, and they will tell you that there is a deep freeze. People are terrified of speaking, because they’re terrified of going to jail."

Full story (includes rush transcript)…

A former FBI counterterrorism agent acknowledged this week on CNN that every telephone conversation that takes place on American soil “is being captured as we speak.”
Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

Section(s):

Home Page

Human Rights & Civil Liberties

Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real

Mon, 05/06/2013 - 19:36 — Dave Culver

A former FBI counterterrorism agent acknowledged this week on CNN that every telephone conversation that takes place on American soil “is being captured as we speak.”
Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

TruthDig

Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Lydia Howell

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May 4, 2013 | Tim Clemente’s spontaneous admission was made on the CNN show “Erin Burnett OutFront” on Wednesday in a discussion about phone calls between Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his 24-year-old wife, Katherine Russell. Those conversations have become a focus of the government’s investigation into the attack. The revelation came when Burnett asked whether investigators could gain access to the calls in the event Russell refuses to talk about them.

Here is the exchange between Clemente and Burnett:

BURNETT: Tim, is there any way, obviously, there is a voice mail they can try to get the phone companies to give that up at this point. It’s not a voice mail. It’s just a conversation. There’s no way they actually can find out what happened, right, unless she tells them?

CLEMENTE: “No, there is a way. We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation. It’s not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her. We certainly can find that out.

BURNETT: “So they can actually get that? People are saying, look, that is incredible.

CLEMENTE: “No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not."

Full story...

Related:

Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?, Glenn Greenwald, Guardian (UK)

A former FBI counterterrorism agent claims on CNN that this is the case.

Section(s):

Government & Politics

Human Rights & Civil Liberties

May Day activists cheer state immigration laws

Fri, 05/03/2013 - 20:03 — Dave Culver

"I have a message for Congress and the president," said Jeff Stone, representing Oregon's nursery industry at a rally of about 2,000 in Salem. "Stop talking, and start acting," he said.

Lauren Gambino, Associated Press / Minneapolis (MN) Star Tribune

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May 02, 2013 | As Congress debates the first national immigration overhaul in decades, a state-level push advancing rights for people in the U.S. illegally has picked up momentum across the country.

Among the patchwork changes to state law taking effect from Maryland to Oregon are provisions that lower tuition rates, advance employment opportunities and repeal hard-line regulations approved within the last decade.

Full story…

Section(s):

Activism & Organizing

Human Rights & Civil Liberties