Hey, Ackerman, Don't Feel All Alone

After reading Spencer Ackerman's short piece today entitled "No More Voices Behind My Back" a few things came to mind that I would like to discuss. Emails and phone calls with people in Middle Eastern or Southern Asian nations could cause the government to secretly and negatively focus attention on innocent parties. Ackerman writes, makes and receives such emails and phone calls because of his work in journalism. The scrutiny of his communications would undoubtedly take place at a higher level, and from more directions, than the scrutiny of domestic communications. Having said that, and keeping in mind that I still consider all such spying illegal under the Constitution of the United States, political and rights activists here in the United States have plenty of reasons to worry about Bush's Big Brother policies.

During abortion protests in April, 1992, 600 people were arrested in Buffalo, New York. The group Operation Rescue organized those protests, and a similar protest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in July of that year. The protest in Baton Rouge failed to attract as much attention, primarily because the protesters were kept behind a police erected fence. That should have been the end of the story, but it wasn't.

In 1992 Patrick Mahoney still worked in the field with Operation Rescue, which I discovered he hasn't done since 1994. Mahoney attended the Baton Rouge protests. Things got ugly when myself and several other people, all present to counter protest, began countering his bluster and yells with return fire about his sister, who murdered her baby not long before that. Mahoney never attacked people, as far as I know, and he didn't physically attack us. The protest was fairly peaceful; it was held in South Louisiana in July (truly a testament to the poor planning that went into it). I'm getting to the details...

After Delta Women's Clinic closed protesters and counter protesters all packed it in to head out. I was followed by the police. I found out later that my friends, who also countered Mahoney by bringing up his murdered nephew, were followed by the police as well. It made me very angry, because the law was supposed to be on the side of women's rights. We hadn't done anything outrageous. We went as Pro-Choice demonstrators to help deflect the venom Operation Rescue spat at anyone and everyone who went in and out of the clinic. Incidentally, the police followed all of us home every day after we left the clinic.

The event changed the way I thought about our society. After that summer I reasoned that my beliefs had already caused me to be targeted by the police. I saw no reason not to go for broke. You have just heard the story of one way a hardcore activist can be born.

Legitimate international communications were supposedly the primary focus of the FISA legislation this summer. I feel for people like Spencer Ackerman, who may get caught up in the dragnet of data mining. I feel for his sources, who could even lose their lives for communicating with him in some instances. I can tell you from personal experience, however, domestic communications have not been kept the least bit sacrosanct either.

Take it from someone who traveled to Seattle, Washington with a group of people in November, 1999, the government now watches the citizens of our nation more than ever before in our history. That was the first time I ever got pepper sprayed. The next time our group did a road trip like that it was to Portland, Oregon in November, 2004. After a brief stay there, strange things began happening with the phone and emails. In February, 2005, the FBI showed up to speak to a close friend of mine because of an email he sent me. That's when I knew just how deep the sickness in our government had become.

I no longer send emails about sensitive subjects, such as protests and activism. It's simply too dangerous. Nor do I use a cell phone or a home line to discuss group planning. I can tell the world, I will be in St. Paul in September. I proudly announce: I will never stop actively protesting to bring back the nation I love. I refuse, however, to make it easy for an outside party or agency to figure out what we're up to. That would make me an irresponsible activist.

The people who know what I am talking about won't think this story has anything to do with paranoia, or liberal madness. We're looking at a growing police state, and it's not getting better. The people who think this is all madness, or lies, or whatever, well, they deserve to suffer their own ignorance. Maybe they can elect John McCain, so our nation will continue on this path to greatness.

Brutality in New Orleans: Intro

The time available to your author has grown short today. This story deserves an enormous amount of time and attention. Therefore, this introduction serves notice of a multi-part series of articles. Only a small portion of the story will be presented each day. The subject matter is too vast for one piece, and too disturbing for this writer to delve into overly deeply in one sitting.

Activists protesting the forced permanent displacement of the poor residents of New Orleans have faced insanely overblown criminal charges and police brutality rising from their passionate defense of public housing. Bill Weinberg brought the story to my attention today, and it's a story I am not soon to forget or let die. Mr. Weinberg has presented the details in a highly professional and educated fashion. I will not seek to imitate his piece or steal from it. Instead I will elucidate some forms of police brutality and corruption which were a staple of New Orleans law enforcement for years, and which have only gotten worse since Hurricane Katrina.

While the floodwaters of Katrina rose, the prisoners in the Orleans Parish Prison were abandoned by the Sheriff's Department and left locked in their cells. The were left without lights, fresh air, food or water. The flood waters rose to chest level on the first floor. Even the inmates who managed to escape from their cells could not get out of the building. They broke windows to breathe fresh air, and hung burning fabric out the window in an attempt to be rescued. As Human Rights Watch reported:

“The water started rising, it was getting to here,” said Earrand Kelly, an inmate from Templeman III, as he pointed at his neck. “We was calling down to the guys in the cells under us, talking to them every couple of minutes. They were crying, they were scared. The one that I was cool with, he was saying ‘I'm scared. I feel like I'm about to drown.' He was crying.”

The poor residents of New Orleans, and South Louisiana as a whole, have always been treated as sub-human by the established power structure, both at the state and federal level. The story needs to be told again and again, so that nobody forgets, ever.

End of Intro