Free Amy Goodman UPDATE: Goodman released, still faces charges
While everyone (including yours truly) was busy arguing the political and ethical implications of a pregnant 17 year old, the bloody fucking fascists of the St Paul Police Department arrested Amy Goodman while she was covering today’s RNC protests.
Yeah, that Amy Goodman:
Glenn Greenwald reports that Goodman has been charged with “conspiracy to riot”:
I just attended a Press Conference with St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and Police Chief John M. Harrington and — after they boasted of how “restrained” their police actions were — asked about the journalists and lawyers who had been detained and/or arrested both today and over the weekend. They said they wouldn’t give any information about journalists who had been arrested today, though they said they believed that “one journalist” had been, and that she “was sima participant in the riots, not simply a non-participant.”
Lots more RNC protest footage at The Uptake; news conference footage here; more on Goodman’s arrest from Cliff Schecter (note: FDL is currently down).
h/t pale @ ACR and Sylvia (via Twitter)
Update: lots more links at Sylvia’s place. The Uptake’s RNC protest blog reports that Goodman has been released. Will update once this has been confirmed.
Update 2: Via Mike in comemnts, Democracy Now! press release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
www.democracynow.orgSeptember 1, 2008
Contact:
Dennis Moynihan
Mike BurkeST. PAUL, MN—Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time. Police violently manhandled Goodman, yanking her arm, as they arrested her. Video of her arrest can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ
Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfuly detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman’s crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.
Ramsey County Sherrif Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were being arrested on suspicion of rioting. They are currently being held at the Ramsey County jail in St. Paul.
Democracy Now! is calling on all journalists and concerned citizens to call the office of Mayor Chris Coleman and the Ramsey County Jail and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar. These calls can be directed to: Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman’s office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0).
Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this action by Twin Cities law enforcement as a clear violation of the freedom of the press and the First Amenmdent rights of these journalists.
During the demonstration in which they were arrested law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force. Several dozen others were also arrested during this action.
Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists in the United States. She has received journalism’s top honors for her reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar is a transparent attempt to intimidate journalists from the nation’s leading independent news outlet.
Democracy Now! is a nationally-syndicated public TV and radio program that airs on over 700 radio and TV stations across the US and the globe.
Update 3: Democracy Now! producer Mike Burke just confirmed via email that Goodman has been released, but still faces charges; Kouddous and Salazar both remain in custody, so please call the office of Mayor Chris Coleman and the Ramsey County Jail and demand the immediate release of Kouddous and Salazar. As previously mentioned, calls can be directed to: Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman’s office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0).
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Hamdan Guilty of ‘Material Support’, Acquitted of More Serious Conspiracy Charges
Hey, it only took seven years, but justice has finally been perverted served:
Salim Hamdan was found guilty of providing material support for terrorism at a Guantanamo military commission today, but acquitted of the more serious charge of conspiracy to commit terrorist attacks and murder American soldiers. So let me get this straight: After seven years and numerous court challenges including two Supreme Court rulings, the Bush administration finally stumbled its way to its first conviction in a military commission for a crime that is routinely handled in federal courts. Is this is the best they can do?
Hamdan was Osama bin Laden’s driver, not Osama bin Laden. He never denied that he was bin Laden’s driver. It would have been an open and shut case of material support for terrorism in federal court. Hamdan could have been securely locked away years ago, but the Bush administration chose to pursue the risky path of an untested military commissions system.
Now, come on. I was under the impression Hamdan was a bloodthirsty terrorist (the worst of the worst!!1one) hell-bent on destroying the pillars of Western civilization. His conviction means the world is now a safer place, right?
The worst aspect of this whole episode is that the Bush administration has completely devalued the concept of a war criminal. War crimes should be reserved for the most serious offenses and war crimes trials are extraordinary. Charles Taylor is a war criminal. Radovan Karazdic is a war criminal. Salim Hamdan is a chauffer. He is clearly guilty of the crime of material support for terrorism. But now he has been elevated to the status of warrior, legitimizing al Qaeda terrorists’ belief that they are waging a holy war against the United States and our allies.
Well. I’m comfortable declaring this little long term experiment in post-9/11 homeland insecurity an unqualified success. Heck of a motherfucking job.
“Accountability…is not, in every case, a virtue”
Mike Allen of The Politico quotes from Ron Suskind’s new book, The Way of the World:
“After the searing experience of being in the Nixon White House, Cheney developed a view that the failure of Watergate was not the break-in, or even the cover-up, but the way the president had, in essence, been over-briefed. There were certain things a president shouldn’t know – things that could be illegal, disruptive to key foreign relationships, or humiliating to the executive.
“They key was a signaling system, where the president made his wishes broadly known to a sufficiently powerful deputy who could take it from there. If an investigation ensued, or a foreign leader cried foul, the president could shrug. This was never something he’d authorized. The whole point of Cheney’s model is to make a president less accountable for his action. Cheney’s view is that accountability – a bedrock feature of representative democracy – is not, in every case, a virtue.”
Just remember, kids: impeachment is off the table.
Update: Suskind on NBC News:
Torture and Warrantless Surveillance Are the Same Issue
Via Glenn, the Washington Post has a write-up on Jane Mayer’s new book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on America’s Ideals. Here is what Mayer reveals in that book, which is due out this week:
FISA and Journalists
Chris Hedges — one of my favorite writers — has an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times about the chilling effect the new FISA law will have on journalists and their sources:
Profiles in Courage
Blue America has come up with a way, going beyond words, to thank the people who opposed compromising the Constitution with the rewritten FISA that became law this week.
Lawbreaking Is Now the Law
The Senate earlier this afternoon passed the so-called “compromise” FISA bill, 69-28. Obama voted yes; Hillary Clinton voted no. Obama and Clinton also voted yes and no, respectively, on the vote to invoke cloture (which ended debate on the legislation and allowed the Senate to vote on the bill itself). Three separate amendments concerning the telecom immunity provision failed. The first, and strongest, amendment, would have stripped immunity from the bill. The second one would have delayed immunity to allow the Supreme Court to determine whether the NSA spy program is constitutional. The third (and weakest) amendment called for the immunity provision to take effect only upon completion of an audit of the NSA program by the Inspector General.
Obama voted for all three amendments (as did Clinton), but Obama’s yes votes were merely for show. They became meaningless the moment he voted for cloture, and then joined Senate Republicans in approving the underlying legislation.
Glenn Greenwald has two massive posts on the shameful proceedings (the second is linked from the first). There really is no need to go elsewhere, because his pieces have all the details, all the authoritative commentary, and all the links to additional information that you might need.
It is minimally comforting to know that my senator, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, voted for all the amendments, and against the final bill. One source of anger and outrage that I am spared from having to feel.
I also want to say here that Glenn deserves all of our thanks and appreciation for his unending, consistent, and truly fierce efforts to keep this issue front and center, not to mention the work he has done to prevent this disastrous legislation from passing. He, and the folks at Firedoglake — in particular, Jane Hamsher and Christy Hardin Smith — have labored tirelessly to inform and advocate on FISA and warrantless surveillance. The fight to hold the betrayers of the Constitution accountable continues; for more on that, you can start here.
21st Century Law Enforcement at its Finest
Because the presumption of innocence is, like, so September 10th, dude:
The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial and ethnic groups.Law enforcement officials say the proposed policy would help them do exactly what Congress demanded after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: Root out terrorists before they strike.
Yes, we all know just how successful the doctrine of prevention has worked out so far–hey, how is that crusade to forcefully spread democracy across the Middle East going?
Currently, FBI agents need specific reasons — like evidence or allegations that a law probably has been violated — to investigate U.S. citizens and legal residents. The new policy, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press, would let agents open preliminary terrorism investigations after mining public records and intelligence to build a profile of traits that, taken together, were deemed suspicious.Among the factors that could make someone subject of an investigation is travel to regions of the world known for terrorist activity, access to weapons or military training, along with the person’s race or ethnicity.[...]
Critics say the presumption of innocence is lost in the proposal. The FBI will be allowed to begin investigations simply “by assuming that everyone’s a suspect, and then you weed out the innocent,” said Caroline Fredrickson of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Oh, come on. Who needs actual, y’know, specific ‘evidence‘ that illegal activity is occurring, when everybody knows that those swarthy Arabmuslimdarkies (especially the ones who dare to rack up frequent flyer mileage) have pure, undistilled terror flowing through their steely veins 24/7? (What? ‘IRA’ stands for ‘Indo-Republican Army’. Srsly.)
Also see I Need To Calm Down, Threat Level, and, representing the silly side of Blogtopia’s *cough* main street, Tammy “everybody knows” Bruce and Allahpundit, who wonders if we should “[b]e on the lookout for English-speaking caucasians with light-colored eyes“.
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