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Updated Sep 6 2004 PLEASE NOTE: We are currently upgrading and redesigning this site! Please check back shortly for more topics, more humor, more political insight, and more input and commentary from you! For more information please call us at 505-982-6796! Your writing, graphics, music, design, research and editorials are all welcome! CONTACT US Sign up for spam-free UPDATES on the Memorial Sign up your organization or business to the Coalition Supporting the Memorial See the Memorial Everything You Want to Know About the Memorial What YOU can do to support the Memorial One Page Overview of The Memorial - Global Dialog Project The Bill of Rights 9-11's Endangerment of Civil Liberties -Legislation related to the attack of September 11,2001 Democracy Links PLEASE NOTE
| PROTECT YOUR FREEDOMS! Ask the Presidential candidates how they will uphold the Bill of Rights Your LEGAL RIGHTS to basic American freedoms are being eroded, infringed, and violated. What are *you* going to do about it? In the midst of the presidential election, we still have not heard enough from the candidates about something of fundamental importance to us all: our basic freedoms as Americans. Those freedoms, supposedly inalienable, are guaranteed by the Bill of Rights but have been endangered by federal policies since 9/11. Yet it is the core American rights and freedoms - freedom of speech, of assembly, and of the press, and rights to privacy and a fair trial, that allow us to be advocates for the environment, for peace and justice, for business or healthcare or children, nuclear safety or sustainable energy, right, left, or independent. These rights and freedoms are the political ground we walk on: they provide the stability for us to speak without fear and to act from our conscience on matters we care about. As the War on Terror erodes these freedoms, our ability to access government information, to speak on behalf of our causes, and to organize without fear, are being undermined. If we wish to maintain our freedoms, we must elect candidates that will uphold the Bill of Rights and assert that freedom is at least as important as security. Yet most the presidential candidates have not made promises about exactly HOW they will protect our rights while maintaining our security. Many of them have gone from voting for the Patriot Act to assailing it; few have said whether they would repeal or rescind unconstitutional parts of the Patriot Act, of Presidential Executive Orders, or of FBI edicts. What is important is that we know for certain which candidates will best safeguard the freedoms and rights we hold dear, and that we obtain specific guarantees from the candidates as to what actions they are willing to take. Without these, we run the risk of a new President who allows the loss of our freedoms and the stripping of the Bill of Rights. So, please, if you care at all about the freedom you have been blessed by as an American, protect those rights for yourself and your children by demanding answers from the candidates about how *they* will protect them if elected. For us to be assured that our basic freedoms will NOT be compromised, we need explicit promises on how these candidates will uphold the Bill of Rights, and how they will maintain the freedoms that define America. Therefore we call on you, TODAY, to immediately contact the campaign headquarters of one or more candidates and ask for specifics of how they will protect our freedoms. Ask them if they will repeal the unconstitutional parts of the Patriot Act. Ask them if they will rescind FBI edicts which allow domestic spying on American citizens without a warrant. Ask them if they will put a stop to the parts of Patriot Act II that are already passing Congress. Ask them what they will do to make good on the sacred oath they swear to uphold the Constitution. We all deserve to know their answers. WHAT YOU CAN DO: contact both local and national campaigns of one or more of the presidential candidates; find contact information at http://www.global-dialog.org/democracy/candidates.html You can use some or all of our suggested questions for the candidates at http://www.global-dialog.org/democracy/questions.html Sample letter to presidential candidates: 3. Contact the media and demand they report on this issue - see our sample letter to the media : http://www.global-dialog.org/democracy/Letter.media.html Media contact list: http://www.global-dialog.org/democracy/mediacontacts.html 4. Forward this message to all of your friends and connections NOW! New Mexico State Legislative Session 2004 Senate & House Joint Memorial: Upholding the Bill of Rights and the United States Constitution How to support your constitutional freedoms This is it. This is the year that we, as citizens and as a nation, decide whether we will uphold the Bill of Rights - or not. This is the year we will decide whether we will affirm our constitutional rights as American citizens - or not. The year we will claim freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and rights to bear arms, to privacy, and to fair trial - or the year we allow these freedoms to be infringed, degraded, and violated. It is up to us to decide if we truly care about freedom, about truth, and about the rights that have defined being 'American'. It is up to us to decide if we will hold our elected officials accountable to protect those rights, as they have sworn to do. It is up to us to take action to safeguard these freedoms and to raise our voices in their support - for voices in federal and state government have been cowed, silenced, or deluded into believing that we must give up our rights. Those that shuold be leading us in the tradition of Jeffersno and Madison, to a nation under the rule and protection of law, of and by and for the people, are now actively destroyhing the rights we take for granted. The Bill of Rights was written as a statement of rights NEVER to be diminished in any way - these rights were the bottom line for the formation of our union, and the contract that holds us together as a people and a culture of freedom. Now those rights are threatened - by illegal searches made legal, by removal of judicial checks and balances, by wholesale invasions of privacy of every person, business, and organization in this country. They are threatened when our right to dissent is targeted by the FBI, when our email and phones can be tapped at will, when our financial, medical, educational, and all other records can be accessed by merely a letter from the FBI demanding that information, with no justification or proof of wrongdoing. (This last power was granted the FBI when President Bush signed the Intelligence Authorization Act on the day Saddam Hussein was captured). It is up to US. Joint memorials in the New Mexico House and Senate are set to challenge federal actions that violate or infringe on constitutionally guaranteed liberties. A memorial entitled "Upholding the Bill of Rights and the United States Constitution" will be presented to the New Mexico Senate on Tuesday, January 20. It is time then, for US to spring into action - to demand of our legislators how they can vote against support for the Constitution they swore to uphold, to demand WHY they are not defending our basic freedoms. To ask why they are playing politics with OUR FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS - which are not *theirs* to take away. This is exactly the same Memorial that made it through the House in the past two sessions - but with a more accurate name, one that reveals the urgency with which we should regard federal actions that damage our freedoms. Senator Linda Lopez, chair of the Rules committee, has said it will make it to Rules early next week, Jan 26 or 27. The Bill of Rights needs YOUR support> So please plan to attend hearings next week, please alert your friends, your children, your schools and businesses and colleagues, your churches and the organizations you belong to. Call your legislators, especially your NM Senator, and demand tthat they uphold the Bill of Rights - demand that they uphold YOUR rights. If you do not, no one will. To support these memorials, please do the following: contact your state representatives and ask them to say 'yes' to Memorials in the Senate and House UPHOLDING THE BILL OF RIGHTS AND THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. Contact your radio and TV stations and newspapers, and ask them why there is so little news on the destruction of our Constitutional fabric, or to the very serious threats to our fundamental freedoms as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights; ask them to REPORT ON THE MEMORIAL. Join our email announcement list for updates and info Contact us with your ideas or support! 505-982-6796 or democracy@global-dialog.org Submit Links Report Site Problems WEB HELP NEEDED! | ACTION ALERT! Ask the Presidential candidates what they will do to protect *your* rights and freedoms! Sample letter to presidential candidates Candidate Contact List Demand the media report on this issue! Sample Letter to the Media Media Contact List EDUCATE YOURSELF! Compilation on Civil Liberties by the Global Dialog Project Cities Claim Constitutional Freedoms Cities around the country and across New Mexico are passing Resolutions supporting the Bill of Rights! 233 (as of Jan 19,2004) U.S. cities have passed resolutions; hundreds of other communities cities have them in process. New Mexico is one of the states with the highest numbers of cities and communities expressing their support for the Bill of Rights; the following NM communities have passed resolutions supporting *our basic freedoms*: Albuquerque Aztec Bayard Farmington Grant County Las Vegas Los Alamos County Rio Arriba County Santa Fe Silver City Socorro Taos For a full list of all communities in the U.S.across 37 states that have passed resolutions, please clicke here or see the Bill of Rights Defense Committee website Citizens throughout the state, whether Democrat or Republican, have successfully passed resolutions that uphold our fundamental, and constitutionally guaranteed, freedoms. Won't you join us? Read these pages, or email democracy@global-dialog.org to find out how you can participate. ISSUES Cities Defend the Bill of Rights --PATRIOT ACT --HOMELAND SECURITY --DOMESTIC SPYING -- Corporate threats to democracy Coming soon: --CYBER ISSUES --CORPORATIONS --TERRORISM --U.S. POLICIES --WAR ON DRUGS