Recently in bill of rights/constitution Category

For those of you who don't know, there has been some major movement around healthcare reform to further limit abortion rights. 

Before I start, a quick history lesson:
Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, in which the Supreme Court held that a woman may abort her pregnancy for any reason, up until the "point at which the fetus becomes 'viable.'"  This case remains one of the most controversial cases to date.  Since Roe v. Wade the Court's reasoning has been severely warped and limited with further cases such as Gonzales v. Carhart in 2007 (upholding the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Act, an Act that was not grounded in scientific reasoning and opposed by the vast majority of medical and scientific organizations). 

In 1977, Congress passed the Hyde Amendment which prohibited the use of federal funds to pay for a woman's abortion.  This Amendment unfairly punished those women who were recipients of welfare. Women's rights activists and poverty/welfare activists were furious. 

Despite the Hyde Amendment, a few states expanded their state Medicare coverage to cover the cost of an abortion.  Out of these states, some will fund any elective abortion, while others will only pay for an abortion if pregnancy resulted from rape or if the pregnancy endangers the life of the woman.   

In addition, many private health insurance companies provide coverage for abortions and abortion-related healthcare, including post-operation medications and examinations.  Kaiser-Permanente is one of the largest health insurance companies to provide comprehensive health insurance coverage for women-- they are also one of the largest powerhouses to lobby federal government to prevent setbacks for women's rights.  Yes, it might be driven by profit for them, but I'm excited to see that the pro-choice movement has at least one huge insurance company to fund these campaigns.

 

Now onto current events:
The heatlhcare reform debate in the House and Senate is being undermined by stupid Democrats.  First, there was the Stupak Amendment that passed the House.  The Stupak Amendment barred any insurance plan purchased with government subsidies from covering abortions.  Essentially, this would prohibit any woman from getting her abortion covered by insurance.  This takes the Hyde Amendment to a whole new level! 

Not only is Representative Stupak a Democrat, but Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker of the House, caved in and voted in support of the amendment to save the healthcare reform bill.  That rings a 10 on my what-the-fuck scale. 

But that's not the end.  Senator Nelson (D-Nebraska) has now proposed a Senate Amendment that is identical to the Stupak Amendment.  And guess who he partnered with to create such a gem of a legislation-- our old friend, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the same Republican Senator who used the Senate Finance Committee in early November to pass a bill that would effectively restore $50 million for abstinence-only education.

That's it-- I've had it with the Democrats in office.  I know I say this often, but I really don't see any difference now between the Republicans and Democrats in office.   The only reason I have caved and voted Democrat in presidential elections is to protect a woman's right to choose.  But now I can't even rely on that.  Fuck, even our President spoke about healthcare in such ambiguous terms so as to not make any public statement for or against abortion rights.  I just can't deal with this. 

Next election, I refuse to vote Democrat.  As someone who has always campaigned for presidential candidates (and yes, I phone banked for Kerry and then for Hillary and then for Obama), I refuse, REFUSE, to help elect another Democrat to office.  The only issue I will fight for is no longer on their radar.

I urge you to take action to stop the Nelson-Hatch Amendment.  Let's not undermine women's healthcare more than we already have!  Click here to sign a petition and contact your Senators! The vote is TOMORROW, Tuesday, December 8, 2009, so act quickly!

P.S. I would have put a link to a NY Times article about the Nelson-Hatch Amendment, but for some reason they haven't published a story on it yet.  Add tag for media bias.    
 

And Probably Yours Too


None of us are taking this seriously enough. 

I was talking to a friend of mine online about a month ago.  She is very a very competent law student that does a good job keeping up with current affairs.  We were talking about the warrantless wiretapping.  I was explaining to her what is at issue here, that they didn't just hand over "suspected terrorists" (whatever those are) but the random correspondence of American citizens. 

Her response was, "it is a good thing we are having this conversation online."

Uh, not quite.  It is a terrible thing we are having this conversation online.  Because AT&T, the very company that is accused of handing this information over to the government, provides the internet where I work, where I was having this conversation.  In fact where I am typing this right now. 

But she still didn't seem to get what I was saying---that this is not a safe conversation.  And since she is one of the smartest, has-her-shit-together of my friends I think it is likely that many people aren't getting this.  So I am going to lay it out as simply as possible.

First:  The EFF is suing AT&T, this much everyone has heard.  What exactly do they mean by "warrantless wiretapping"?  It is very simple.  It means that AT&T couldn't be bothered to keep track of those people who the feds had warrants to search and those who they didn't. 

They took all the content that was traversing their fibre optic cables, every email and text message and phone call, THE WHOLE EFFING PIPE and they split it.  Thus all communication from AT&T is also going to a secret room accessible only to the NSA.

Please note the use of the present tense.  Because this is still happening.  There has been no freeze on what appears to be a very clear violation of the fourth amendment.  You don't have to have AT&T for this to apply.  Can you say for sure that no one you are emailing or calling has AT&T?  Of course not.  It is more likely that they do.  Ask around.  Know anyone with an Iphone?  Maybe it is time to ask them politely not to call you anymore.  Certainly don't email me, I have just confessed as an AT&T user.  But even this is ridiculous.  Just because AT&T got caught doesn't mean the other companies aren't doing the exact same thing. 
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Of course none of this has been proven in a court of law, it is only a court case at this point and everyone gets the benefit of being innocent until proven guilty.  But don't take my word for it.  The engineer that hooked up the data stream put it this way:

"My job was to connect circuits into the splitter device which was hard-wired to the secret room, and effectively, the splitter copied the entire data stream of those internet cables into the secret room--and we're talking about phone conversations, email web browsing, everything that goes across the internet."  [This short video is worth watching.]

In my mind, this is bigger than Clinton's lie under oath, possibly bigger than Water Gate.  You upset about an administration that is lying to the American public?  Try lying to the American public and spying on them too.  It is very important that this case be allowed to continue so that the people understand what is at stake and those responsible are brought to justice. 

And there is no reason it shouldn't continue.  It's not like the House and Senate will get together and pass a bill giving them a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card. The Congress wouldn't do that, they don't get involved in legislative affairs!  That's unheard of!..Oh, wait, that's exactly what they're doing. The Senate is passing a bill today that will give retroactive immunity to AT&T.  It already passed in the House.  "Retroactive immunity" is a fancy phrase that took me a while to wrap my head around.  It means that even if they broke the law, it's okay, we forgive them.  And it will kill the lawsuit.  Nothing to sue for. 

Why on Earth would they do this?  Everyone is shaking hands, saying what a great compromise this is.  Really, I listened to all two hours of it on C-span.  Those opposed were of the tone "This bill scares me to death..."  Those in favor spent their debate time with congratulatory messages, "I'd like to thank Representatives Bob and Jane for making this possible..." I'm not joking, that was really the gist of it.  There was no real argument for why the bill is a great compromise. It is more capitulation than compromise, here's a great fact sheet from Senator Russ Feingold for the scary details.  But in my mind, as long as retroactive immunity is on the table, this bill is totally unacceptable, unthinkable. 

The argument in favor says that they were only following orders so AT&T shouldn't be held responsible.  Give me a break.  No one pointed a gun at their heads.  They broke the law and now the Democratic Congress that we elected is giving them a free ride, and probably the administration too. You can be sure this is going to impact Kucinich's Impeachment bill.  How convenient that the court case that will undoubtably bring attention to the Bush Administration's trampling of the Constitution will be swept under the rug, along with the Fourth Amendment.  Wait a second, if the Democrats are rushing to the aid of the Republicans than who is supposed to be representing the people that want the Republicans out of office? 

On that note, the latest turn in this sickening display of blantant cronyism is the about-face from Senator Obama.  When he was trying to get the support of lefties he said he would fillibuster the FISA bill.  Today he announced he is backing it.  I thought I would have a few months of bliss before the luster wore off the man who gleams like a trophy on the podium.  I take little consolation in seeing those who support Mr. Obama to the point of worship change their position over night, simply because he has.

What we are looking right now is the death nell of privacy in the United States.  You may think that what you are writing is not interesting to the NSA but please don't think for a second it is not being read by the NSA.  No digital love note, no treasonist utterance, no meeting agenda, no late-night web-surfing, is safe.  Sure, they still need a warrant to knock on your door and rifle through your file cabinet and your underwear drawer.  But these days most of us keep our tax forms and our lingerie digitally; when this bill passes it will be like passing the keys to every house in America over to the NSA.  Because Big Brother is not only watching, he is recording it all for later.  And thanks to Congress, there's not a damn thing we can do about it.

You know what bothers me?  You never hear about truly liberal political think tanks.  All you ever hear about are these big Republican think tanks that are creating language and foreign policy that allows the media and government to dupe everyone into war. 

Even the liberal think tanks aren't all that liberal.  That's the problem with the media.  They've got people thinking that CNN is "liberal" and that the Democratic party is "liberal".  NO! The media is not liberal.  It's extremely centrist.  Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are not liberal.  They are centrists. 

 
The two-party system is an illusion.  It's an illusion of polarity, and an illusion of choice.  In America, it's not left vs. right or liberal vs. conservative.  It's some moderately centrist folks against some less moderately centrist folks.  There is no choice, and only an illusion of opposition.

This is where I fall:

I want a leftist, libertarian think tank.

I want a political system that isn't a hotbed for people who claim to be "liberal" or "conservative" who are really just centrists all day long.  The American people deserve true choices.  True choices among a slew of political candidates.

Here's Ireland's political landscape. 

Wow.  Amazing.  More than two major parties.

I'm moving to Ireland and building my think tank there.

Images courtesy of politicalcompass.org.

We in the United States believe that nothing is more important than democracy. We don't understand how a country like Iraq could get so lost.  What are the steps to wind up in a state of tyranny, we wonder?  Because, proudly, though our nation isn't perfect it has always been a democracy, moving towards more freedom for greater numbers of voters.  We wonder: how did the German people allow the atrocities of WWII?  Its an excellent question, one that sociologists and psychologist spent much of the 1950s trying to answer.  Because, while their were plenty of Nazis, most German citizens didn't have a stake in Hitler's agenda.  Most were ordinary citizens just going about their day to day business.  And you look back at those people and you wonder, why didn't they do something?  Why didn't they tear down the walls?  Why didn't they march out of their jobs and onto the streets and say, "We're not putting any more money into this economy as long as it represents injustice and murder?"  And I'm not trying to make a comparison between this administration and that one.  No, I am simply putting forth the question---how does a nation of people know when the line has been crossed?  Because history proves that people don't always act on their conscience.  History proves that all manner of tyranny can soil us before we will wake up and sweep clean injustice.  I only bring up the question of WWII to point out: it has happened.  It can happen again. 

So these are the questions we must ask ourself:

Do you believe that "President" George W. Bush won the election fair and square in Florida?  Because I was in Tallahassee in 2000.  I spoke to people who were turned away from the polls, whole neighborhoods with barricades, preventing them from voting.  And then we get the same stories coming out of Ohio in the election after.  And if you believe that the last two elections were stolen, then do we still live in a democracy?  How many rigged elections will it take before you are ready to dump all your tea into the Bay?  Doesn't have to be two.  That's not what I'm saying.  I'm asking this question seriously so that you can set a standard. So that you will know when it is time to stand up for what you believe in.  So that, three, four rigged elections down the line you don't forget the promises our Constitution have made.

I have another question.  Let's set the election aside.  Let's talk about what it means to trust the government.  Our constitution was founded on the principle that the government you can trust today could turn on you tomorrow.  That's why we have the Bill of Rights.  That's why we have the fourth Amendment, the one that protects us from unlawful search and seizure.  A lot of people think its about privacy.  It's not.  Thomas Jefferson didn't care about your right to privacy.  The fourth amendment is about revolution.  Here's why:  if you live in a country where the government can keep tabs on everyone, get into their business, then you can't have a revolution.  If you live in a place where the government is taking notes about who goes where and who knows whom, then they can lock up anyone who doesn't like the way things are going down.  Or you can put them all in a line and put a bullet in their heads.  So when the government has all that information they can do whatever they want.  And we have seen it happen.  It happened in Iran.  It happened in Italy.  Yes, it happened in WWII in Germany.  And it has happened in this country.  It happened when the government went after the Black Panthers in the seventies.  It happened in the eighteen hundreds when private militias shot Union workers speaking their mind, as I am now.  But not to the extent that it took place in these other regimes.  Most of us still feel safe speaking our minds.  So again, I want you to ask yourself a very simple question:  Where is the line?  How many people does a country have to spy on before you, personally, will take to the streets?  Right now many of us are comfortable but we are also a people that believes in liberty.  And we believe that, at some point, free people will prove they are free by disposing of bad government. If you believe in the Constitution, you must believe that.  So where is the line?  What will it take for you to question how safe it is for you to write a letter or make a phone call?  What is your limit? 

This is a question I want you to seriously ponder. One hundred?  One thousand?  One million?  Is it only one?  Here's something else to ponder.  Something we haven't pondered enough.  Have you really pondered this whole business with AT&T?  I've been thinking about it a lot lately.  Can anyone even remember what happened there?  It is hard to pick apart the news from the celebrity gossip these days.  I'll remind you because it has been plaguing my conscience. 

The government was asking AT&T for a whole lot of information about its customers.  Potential terrorists, supposedly.  And AT&T thought it was pretty inconvenient.  Do we really need a warrant for every last one of these people?  That's a lot of work. So they decided to just let Uncle Sam put his ear up to the wall and have access to every single email and  phone call made on AT&T's service.  Apparently, if you are a customer of AT&T the fourth Amendment doesn't apply to you.  I can't believe that company is still in business!  Why isn't there an international boycott against this AT&T?  Where is the outrage?  And what makes you think that if the government was reading our email and listening in on our phone calls in 2000, that they aren't doing it now?  If we don't make it crystal clear that it won't be tolerated, why shouldn't they continue to take away our rights, one by one?  So again, I ask you: What is your limit?  Know it.  Know when it has been crossed.  Be ready to act.  Because if we wait until they are recording every email and phone call we make, it will be too late.  I pray it isn't too late now. 

But I know what some of you are thinking.  You're thinking: Sure, that happened in other places, in little tropical countries where the heat drives people mad.  Long ago, in Europe before the spread of almighty capitalism.  That can't happen here.  We are still safe.  And I guarantee that's what they thought in Iran, too, before their government put everyone who doesn't think like them in front of a firing squad.  But that was Iran.  Not here. 

 I see only two reasons one might argue that that can't happen here.  Either we can trust the government or we can trust the people of democracy to revolt against tyranny.  Well, can we trust this government?  Sure, they might be spying on us, but they wouldn't hurt us.  They wouldn't lock us up in internment camps, we learned our lesson after we locked up all those innocent Japanese-Americans in WWII.  It is a totally different thing to lock people up in Guantanamo Bay.  Those people are "unlawful combatants." 

That's a funny phrase, isn't it?  We have all the leaders of all these nations sit down together and draft a document on what is and isn't ethical to do in a time of war.  That every single human being, regardless of who's side they're on, has these rights.  And to go against this document is, therefore, a war crime.  You know I'm talking about the Geneva Convention.  Its not a controversial thing.  The U.S. has been backing it since 1842. 

So basically this administration is arguing that "unlawful combatants" aren't human.  Because they don't get human rights.  Don't tell me that they're all guilty, because they haven't been to trial.  "Innocent until proven guilty."  Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.  Not six guys in a room with a baseball bat.  That is not justice.  But it is easiest to believe that they are all bad people.  So we go on believing that.  Because we trust the government.  We trust that a government that steals two elections, spies on its citizens and locks people up and tortures them. 

Of course we don't.  We're not fools.  I don't need to tell you this.  You know all this.  You know you can think of a hundred other wrongs.  Lying about weapons of mass destruction.  Turning against members of their own CIA for telling the truth.  Shabby investigation into 9-11.  Of course we don't trust this government. 

So that leaves only one possibility.  There's only one other possible way we can be sure that the atrocities of tyranny don't happen here:  we can trust that the  people of a democracy will revolt against tyranny, as they did when they founded this nation.  That's why I'm asking you these questions today.  That's why I want you to think about  what it would take for you to rise up.  What would it take for you to become a revolutionary?  What would it take for you to stand on a soapbox?  What would it take for you to organize meetings?  What would it take for your water cooler conversation to turn seditious?  Because you cannot wait for the firing squads.  You cannot wait until ordinary citizens are afraid of being rounded up and taken away.  Then it will be too late. 

I hear a lot of folks talking about change.  They're talking about the democratic primary.  They have a lot of hope for turning this country around. And that's a beautiful thing.  But that's not enough.  Because no matter how great the next president is, that doesn't mean the one following it can't pick up where this administration has left off.  The American people are setting a precedent.  We are telling those that would deny us our freedoms that it is an easy thing to do.  We are telling them that we can be placated.  We can be distracted. 

Please, tell me it isn't true.  Tell me that we are a people that will defend the freedoms it took so long to establish.  Tell me you will go home tonight and think about where that line is, your personal line in the sand.  What you are willing to do to defend your freedom.  And I'm not talking about going to some other country and killing people because you believe their government is a threat to you.  Hypothetically, what rights does this government have to take away before it no longer represents you?  And what are you willing to do about it?  Until each and every one of you is sure of the answer to that question we aren't really free.  This Constitution is just a piece of paper.  It takes a nation full of conviction to give it meaning.