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Get information and updates! ACLU Speaking Points on HJM40 The Big Picture: Key Reasons Not to Destroy Our Constitutional Freedoms -Global Dialog Project What HJM40 Does -Global Dialog Project "The rights of all men are diminished if the rights of any man are denied." -John F. Kennedy Join our discussion list Join the events-announcement list |
SJM30: AFFIRMING CIVIL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES; DECLARING OPPOSITION TO FEDERAL MEASURES THAT INFRINGE ON CIVIL LIBERTIES. Constitutional scholars and public watchdog groups on both left and right claim that federal legislation, presidential Executive Orders, and FBI edicts since 9-11 violate many of the amendments to the Constitution contained in the Bill of Rights. For instance, 1. The USA PATRIOT Act · authorizes secret searches and seizures without notification; · grants federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies broad access to personal, medical, financial, library and educational records; · allows wiretapping and internet monitoring without customary judicial oversight. 2.Presidential Executive Orders since 9-11 have established military tribunals, along with secret detainments, secret evidence, and secret trials. 3. Changes in FBI policy by AG Ashcroft allow the FBI to conduct surveillance of religious services, internet chat rooms, political demonstrations and public meetings of any kind- actions previously prevented due to FBI and intelligence agencies abuses like COINTELPRO 4. Further proposals by the Bush administration have included · plans for organized spying by mailmen, cable installers, and service people (the TIPS program); · creation of a dossier on every American with complete personal, medical, financial, communications and other data (TIA, the Total Information Awareness program); and · reconfiguration of the internet for ease of surveillance, allowing direct monitoring of all internet and email communications without the need for a warrant. · Plans to extend the USA PATRIOT Act in the “Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003” -the new Act would remove judicial oversight on phone taps and search warrants, allow police spying on American citizens and groups, and in some cases strip Americans of their citizenship and rights SJM30, Affirming Civil Rights and Liberties, guards New Mexicans against these unconstitutional federal actions. SJM30: 1. IS PATRIOTIC: -defending the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and preserving the fundamental freedoms of our nation, is the highest form of patriotism. - to destroy our freedoms in the name of security is to fulfill the aim of the terrorists - we must protect against this. 2. IS SUPPORTIVE OF EFFECTIVE ANTI-TERRORISM EFFORTS -infringements and violations of our constitutional freedoms do NOT further the War on Terror : they merely squander resources needed to defend against terrorism, on massive domestic spying efforts easily avoided by terrorists. -in terms of not enforcing federal immigration law: it prevents the waste of precious law enforcement effort on misdemeanor immigration effort; criminal immigration law enforcement would continue as usual – provision C(1). - our lawful and constitutional system works :the last time the country was faced with a major terrorist attack – Timothy McVeigh, he was successfully arrested, charged, and tried under full constitutional protections. THE SYSTEM WORKS, it just has to be used. 3. PROTECTS THE FIDUCIARY INTERESTS OF THE PEOPLE AND THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO -engaging in unconstitutional actions opens the State of New Mexico to costly lawsuits when these actions are challenged in the courts. Our best defense against these is to not incur them by engaging in unconstitutional actions. 4. PROTECTS NEW MEXICANS AGAINST INTRUSIVE BIG -GOVERNMENT AND POLICE-STATE SPYING- it Protects the rights of New Mexicans to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and access to information necessary or desirable to exercise their rights as constituents --through protecting the rights of political, religious, and social groups offering education and information, that might otherwise be surveiled, investigated, and infiltrated by law enforcement under provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act - provisions C(3), C(4), and C(5) --by requiring notice of ‘sneak-and-peak’ and other searches, and refraining from participation in unconstitutional sneak-and-peak searches – provision C(6) --by alerting New Mexicans to surveillance of libraries, bookstores, and educational records – provision C(3), C(5), D, E --by requiring NM law enforcement to refrain from participation in unconstitutional domestic spying programs like TIPS – provision C(7) -by requiring ongoing reports to the NM legislature from federal authorities, through the NM homeland security department, concerning the impact of anti-terrorism efforts on New Mexico residents – provision F 5. PROTECTS THE PRIVACY AND 4th AMENDMENT RIGHTS OF NEW MEXICANS BY -preventing unjustified profiling by race or religion – provision C(4) -preventing stoppages of motorists without cause – provision C(8) -refusing to assist in unconstitutional sneak-and-peak searches - provision C(6) 6. PROTECTS CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS TO DUE PROCESS BY -by seeking to assure that New Mexicans will not be subject to military or secret detention or secret immigration procedures without access to counsel - provision C(2) requiring the names, circumstances, and counsels of all those detained – provision F(1) IN SUMMARY: SJM30 PROTECTS THE CONSTITUTIONALLY- GUARANTEED RIGHTS OF ALL NEW MEXICANS against unconstitutional federal actions. It does not prevent lawful anti-terrorism actions, but upholds the rule of law in seeking to prevent unconstitutional actions by New Mexico government and law enforcement. In its request to law enforcement to not engage in unconstitutional actions, it is asking them to honor their sworn oath to uphold the United States Constitution and all LAWFUL (i.e. constitutional) orders and laws.
Participant Comments follow below Thoughts on President's Day 2003 I've been wondering, lately, if the Public is operating under a subliminal, post-hypnotic curse by which we subconsciously associate Republicans with Rightness, and Democrats with Wrongness because a natural free-association opposite of "right" is "wrong," not necessarily "left." By unthinking reaction, Republican is right, and Democrat is wrong ... uh, excuse me, that should read left. How many never make that second-thought leap? Just imagine how this constant usage of "The Republic Right" by the media has been programming our slumbering public mind for decades ... sorta like Big Brother whispering propaganda in your ear while you sleep. What if we co-opt the word, "right," and associate it with all manner of humanitarian hopes and dreams, causes and crusades ... and call them what they are ... RIGHT, as in Correct. Especially when we recognize the fundamental unconsciousness of most Americans, it is not hard to imagine that they have been conditioned to feel good about the political right because it's called The Right (and because it's led to riches, the glamour that replaced integrity by a similar media-fed corrosion ... another story). The power of words is not to be underestimated. Ask any dark-skinned person how they feel about the use of "dark" and "light" as references for "evil" and "good." (Hint: this notion almost always surprises whites.) "Right to Lifer" is a deliberately chosen term because it sounds better than "Anti-Abortionist." Both terms mean the same thing, but they leave completely different feelings behind. It is no accident of political correctness that the one term supplanted the other; it was calculated for known, predictable effect. I remember what we learned in PoliSci 101: in a democracy you have to rule by mind control, not military control (at least until civil liberties are dismantled.) We still have enough of a democracy left to wage a civil uprising and turn the tide, but we have to get smart. Democrats (like me) want to believe that doing the right thing and playing fair is the only way to win a just battle for the mind of the electorate. That's a bit like expecting the bull not to attack you because you're a vegetarian. We have to get smart about the word games and image branding tricks that politicians have been playing for years. Elephants are lucky; donkeys are stupid. Which pin would you rather wear in public? Find The Right and Support It Do you remember that old hippie slogan -- find the good, and praise it -- well, it just keeps coming back to me these days, but with a twist. If someone as Orange County as Arianna Huffington can get political religion, and publish a book entitled "Pigs At The Trough" that exposes corporate greed in America and the administration's efforts to whitewash Enron with backdoor escape clauses at the SEC, then I have hope. Why don't we reclaim the Right! Let's call our most enlightened businesses, humanitarian programs and ecological solutions The Righteous Way, or something better, that exposes the Orwellian doublespeak under which we live. The enlightened ideas for human and planetary betterment aren't coming from Republicans; they should not get righteousness credit for them. Some Democrats are giving us good ideas and being associated with leftness (at best) and wrongness (at worst) for it. If we are serious about winning the mind of the people, this practice has got to stop. I've heard a lot of Pacifica broadcasts that decry editorial news slanting by the mass media, but few are saying that corporate-controlled media have been waging a symbolist and jingoistic propaganda war on the American mind for at least two decades. Someone needs to come right out and say it. Amy Goodman and Noam Chomsky are the most venerable voices to make this declaration, and we owe it to them to provide a worldwide platform worthy of their principled intelligence. War Of The World's Mind This insidious game cannot be won by telling unthinking Americans that they've been duped while asleep. We have to reach farther into the imagination than that, or we'll lose their attention. The common European knows more about what the US is up to than the common American, but anti-war demonstrations this weekend tell us that the American people are still capable of waking up. Question is, how ... and how soon? That awakening can swing radically to the other extreme--as we saw during the weeks following 9/11--with a crafty spin. But while this small crack in the American consciousness is wedged open, we need to fill the space with smart truth bombs ... facts they have been denied by Tom Brokaw and Ted Koppel. It may be our only chance ... the single string we can pull that will unravel the whole delusion. We are, knowingly or not, engaged in a battle for the unthinking mind of the electorate, and it's the last battle we will fight as a free nation. After this one is decided, the unthinking will have determined the course of history -- not just for America, but for all sentient beings on earth. Washington counted on mass media to sway the electorate toward its war with Iraq. The polls and marches from coast to coast in February this year tell us that they miscalculated. The ante will now be raised. Look for a whole new anti-Saddam campaign on radio and TV ... the reports are being written and taped now, bet on it. To Err is Human, to Air the Error is a Sin Just so, the ads need to be written and taped now that give The Right back to the enlightened, and rip it from the hands of wrong-wingers who've had a free ride on tricky nomenclature for too long. The Ad Council should be put in full gear, and groups like People For The American Way should launch a fundraising campaign to bring the corporate-controlled media juggernaut to light with full-page ads and TV spots that show whose hands really hold the microphones of ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and CNN ... and sell those ads to local independent newspapers and the spots to local independent TV stations. A blitz of truth is in order. If PBS and NPR ever hoped to make a difference with non-commercial public interest broadcasting, now is the time to drum up support from enlightened businesses (there are some) because this campaign is for the future of the earth, not just another grant ... and if that means severing ties with Mobil and Exxon, so be it. Bill Moyers would be the perfect spokesperson to announce the Network Crisis of Conscience that led to their move, and what's left of the middle class, just now waking up and turning to public broadcasting for the real news, would sacrifice their latte grandes to keep them on the air. On the internet and in everyday discussions, we need to stop referring to the right and left of the political spectrum in our messages. Hell, we've boycotted Nestle, Shell, green grapes and GE with less organized awareness ... we can stop giving wrong-wing politics an undeserved sanctity in our speech! Choosing Our Battles Wisely This is not a battle for the minds of devout wrong-wingers, but for the drowsy and disinterested who have not voted in 12 years. Those who are aligned staunchly with Republican goals (I will not call them values) are going to stay there ... we should give them up. Let them go! We need only address the ones who are marching, for the first time ever in their lives, in New York and San Francisco and all across the nation. They are legion, and they are angry. They have been misled, not persuaded; they have been manipulated, not turned into willing agents of a military-industrial empire. All they need is some straight facts and unvarnished truth to march on ... and on ... and on. There is no zealot like a born-again anything. The brainwashed of America have just revealed that there's life in those brains after all ... saturated with lies and consumerism though they be! There's something alive in there, and it's not biting the war bait that Washington's been dangling. Here's our chance! A Hill To Die On I have a friend who likes to ask her marriage counseling clients, in the heat of an argument, "Is this a hill to die on? Because if it's not, be aware that you're giving it that much importance -- that you'd die for your position." Well, I think we need to ask ourselves if the effort to gently awaken our brethren and sistern is a hill to die on. If I didn't believe that it is, I would not have spent this day in front of a computer, examining the state of our collective mind and how it got there. I should have picked up the phone and called you ... but here's what happened instead! If those who still cherish truth and justice enter this breach, it must be with the knowledge that word games and image tricks will be planned and executed by the power elite with more strategic planning than went into Hiroshima, and for a much higher calculated impact. They know that the next round will be for keeps. Four more years would enable a foothold for tyranny in this land that has not been seen since 1774. Bunker was a Hill worth dying on. Is Capitol Hill? Thus is the original flaw in Democracy revealed: its success today depends on the craft of manipulation, not the arts of leadership. On such a battlefield, the righteous man or woman is likely to lose. An unconscious or semi-conscious electorate is easily manipulated by ways and means our founding fathers could not have imagined. Voting machines rigged. Thieves in--and of--high office. News agencies delivering the public trust on a platter to the highest bidder. The worst nightmares that Washington, Franklin, Jefferson and Paine never dreamed are coming true. Where, now, are the patriots who can rescue this dream of 18th Century visionaries from the treasonous horror it has become in the hands of 21st Century thugs? And is Democracy fixable, or should we just pick up the pieces of what it once was, and refashion a solution for today's tyrants ... one that will hold them at bay, with any luck, for another century? Alas, such questions keep me awake at night and plague my drive-time to and from work. I feel that something's going to go pop! in my soul from looking at the stakes ... at the game plan ... at the falseness of the consumer machine ... at the resources both human and natural being devoured by cruel predators ... at the crosshairs lining up on the heart of the mother earth ... and at the constant, relentless, shameless distortion of news in service to it all ... In the end, on this President's Day, I find my eyes wet and my throat dry, my butt sore and my fingers aching, but in the distance, I see the tiniest speck of something moving on the horizon. It has a sound ... the sound of marching feet. It has a color ... the color of freedom. It has a smell ... the smell of evolution. It has a name ... Dawn. We have our work cut out for us. Jeannine Seymour flickerville@msn.com 03/02/03 01:36:48 GMT