Civil Rights

By David Swanson

Sunshine Week, according to its website, is “a national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and others interested in the public’s right to know.”

The University of Virginia here in Charlottesville is doing its part by hosting book tour stops for the chief author of the worst secret laws ever established. read more

By David Swanson

David Cole of Georgetown University and formerly of the Center for Constitutional Rights has been doing some good writing, not only on our failure to enforce laws against powerful people, but also on our out-of-control epidemic of incarceration which has struck those too unimportant to gain immunity.

Cole argues persuasively that we lock up a dramatically higher percentage of our people than any other nation because it is mostly poor African-American communities that get hit. He read more

Ongoing here.

Listen here.

Kucinich Right, Greenwald Wrong
By David Swanson

On Democracy Now! on Tuesday, Congressman Dennis Kucinich said he was working on a Constitutional Amendment to address both “Citizen’s United” and “Buckley v. Valejo,” meaning the Supreme Court decisions giving corporations outrageous and destructive powers of “free speech” and defining the spending of money as “speech.”

Glenn Greenwald replied to the Congressman that the First Amendment forbids read more

Listen here.

Congresswoman Donna Edwards has just introduced a Constitutional amendment, together with Congressman John Conyers.

More below!

PUBLIC INTEREST GROUPS APPLAUD REP. DONNA EDWARDS FOR FILING CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT BILL TO OVERTURN US SUPREME COURT RULING ON CORPORATE MONEY IN ELECTIONS

HOUSE JUDICIARY CHAIR JOHN CONYERS, JR JOINS FILING

"Free Speech Rights Are read more

By David Swanson

Wow, I was gone less than a week to the Conch Republic, and now return to a nation in which I would heartily recommend to any city, county, or state that it follow the example of the Florida Keys and secede from the so-called union.

We now have an official presidential list of Americans to be assassinated — by America’s government. A pollster says Fox News is the read more

By David Swanson

Jamin Raskin, professor of constitutional law and the First Amendment at American University, has spoken out powerfully on behalf of a new campaign at FreeSpeechForPeople.org that aims to undo the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to remove limitations on corporations’ election spending.

Here’s a short video made together with Congresswoman Donna Edwards.

Here’s Raskin on Democracy Now!

And here’s Raskin debating a corporatist chump on C-Span.

Interestingly, read more

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today on Citizens United vs. FEC.

Live blog: http://www.scotusblog.com

Decision: PDF.

PUBLIC INTEREST GROUPS CONDEMN SUPREME COURT’S RULING ON CORPORATE MONEY IN ELECTIONS, CALL FOR CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO OVERTURN COURT DECISION

"Free Speech Rights Are For People, Not Corporations"

WASHINGTON, DC – A coalition of public interest organizations strongly condemned today’s read more

John Yoo at UVA
By David Swanson

Noted war criminal and torture lawyer John Yoo is scheduled to speak at UVA law school on March 19, 2010.

The day we go into year eight in the illegal occupation of Iraq that Yoo and Jay Bybee provided “legal” justification for, this “legalizer” of torture and other war crimes will be speaking at a law school, our law school, in our town.

John Yoo is a Professor of Law at Boalt Hall School of Law in Berkeley, California. I’ve joined read more

November 22, 2009, Bay Area, CA

* 10-11 a.m. protest at John Yoo’s (Torture Professor) house, 1241 Grizzly Peak Blvd., Berkeley, CA

Followed by events on David Swanson’s book tour: “Daybreak, Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union”

* 12:00 p.m. in downtown Walnut Creek
Community Center
1375 Civic Drive (in Civic Park)
Walnut Creek 94596
925-933-7850
http://www.mtdpc.org

* 3 p.m. at DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland
5433 College Ave., Oakland, CA read more

By David Swanson

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the corporate “mainstream” media make quite a pair. We’re hearing a very “balanced” debate over whether KSM should be tried in New York City, and whether the most insane objections to that proposal are really insane or not. But what are we not hearing?

We’re not hearing that trying criminals for the crime of 9-11 ought to have been what we did years ago, rather than waging wars in response to a crime. We’re read more

Here’s a letter I just sent to my local newspaper:

Letter to the Editor:

As an organizer of the protest of former President Bush at Monticello last July, I was sorry to miss Sunday’s panel on free speech and rudeness at PVCC but appreciated your Monday report. I also appreciated the panelists’ comments you reported to the effect that TV pundits and producers encourage rudeness. If many people’s views were not shut out of major communications outlets, they’d probably read more

By David Swanson

The United States of America owes much of the hope it has right now of remaining what John Adams called “a nation of laws, not men” to Italian law enforcement. Were it not for the fact that Italian prosecutors, unlike their American counterparts, answer to the law rather than a president, the enforcement of laws against a massive crime spree by U.S. officials (and their Italian accomplices) would not have begun.

In 2003, the CIA and the United States military kidnapped read more