DhafirTrial

by Bob Egelko San Francisco Chronicle 1/19/09

President-elect Barack Obama dismayed civil liberties groups last summer when he voted to authorize President Bush’s clandestine wiretapping program after publicly denouncing it. (more…)

by Dean Baker Huffington Post 1/19/09

For some reason most of the discussion in Washington and the media of the bank bailouts is overlooking their central feature: taxpayer dollars are being used to sustain the income of incredibly rich bankers. The public should be furious over this upward redistribution of income. (more…)

A Time to Break Silence

By Rev. Martin Luther King Information Clearing House

By 1967, King had become the country’s most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. (more…)

William Fisher Huffington Post 1/19/09

Human rights advocates and religious leaders are calling on President-elect Barack Obama to use his first hundred days in office to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and repudiate the policies of President George W. Bush on an array of issues ranging from detainee torture and rendition to warrantless wiretapping and signing statements. (more…)

MAGDA BAYOUMI SPEAKING: Why Do They Hate Us?

SUNDAY: January 25th, 10:30 am, May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society,
3800 E. Genesee St., Syracuse.

Magda Bayoumi, a Syracuse area civil liberties activist will speak at the 10:30 a.m. service. Bayoumi is a leading Muslim voice defending the rights of Muslims and all people. She was one of the 150 Central New York Muslims intrusively interrogated by the FBI when Dr. Rafil Dhafir was arrested a few years ago. (more…)

Mr Ban said it would not be up to him to launch a war crimes tribunal. It was pathetic

Robert Fisk Independent, U.K. 1/19/09

It’s a wrap, a doddle, an Israeli ceasefire just in time for Barack Obama to have a squeaky-clean inauguration with all the world looking at the streets of Washington rather than the rubble of Gaza. Condi and Ms Livni thought their new arms-monitoring agreement — reached without a single Arab being involved — would work. (more…)

Bob Egelko San Francisco Chronicle 1/17/09

President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for attorney general has endorsed an extension of the law that allows federal agents to demand Americans’ library and bookstore records as part of terrorism probes, dismaying a national group of independent booksellers. (more…)

Glenn Greenwald Salon 1/18/09

It seems fairly easy — even for those overtly hostile to the basic rules of logic and law — to see what conclusions are compelled by these clear premises: (more…)