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21.12.2011 14:48

By syndicated columnist Amy Alkon

Note: This piece was submitted to numerous mainstream news outlets in America, all of which refused to publish it.

This country’s Founding Fathers were a bunch of obnoxious jerks — and I mean that in the most reverent way. These were men who were fiercely opposed to blind obedience to authority, and who laid their lives on the line to flip it the bird. Oh, how disappointingly — and dangerously — far we’ve fallen. Our Constitutional rights are increasingly being eroded — at TSA checkpoints, at police stops where citizens are arrested for videotaping, and elsewhere — and so many Americans are just sitting there blinking like livestock.

At the airport this past March, I wasn’t one of those people, and that sometimes comes with a price. In my case, $500,000. That’s what a TSA agent’s lawyer is demanding from me for “defaming” her client by saying she sexually violated me during the pat-down, and then for “libeling” her when I blogged about it. Marc J. Randazza, the First Amendment lawyer defending me, called her case “meritless,” but this woman’s notion that I should fund her existence for the rest of her life because I stood up for my Constitutional rights is beyond disgusting.

On March 31, 2011, I was flying out of LAX to attend a psychology conference in New York. When I reached the TSA checkpoint in the United terminal, I found that I had no choice but to get the pat-down. Tears welled up in my eyes — for how we’ve allowed the Constitution to be ripped up at the airport door and because I was powerless to stop a total stranger from running her hands over the most private parts of my body as a condition of normal, ordinary business travel.

I can hold back the tears…hang tough…but as I was made to “assume the position” on a rubber mat like a common criminal, I thought fast. I decided that these TSA “officers” earning a living violating our Fourth Amendment rights, and searching us without probable cause, do not deserve my quiet compliance. I let the tears come. In fact, I sobbed my guts out as the agent groped me. And then it happened: She stuck the side of her latex-gloved hand into my vulva. Four times. Twice from the front and twice from the back, with the only barrier being the fabric of my pants. I was shocked — utterly unprepared for how she got the side of her hand up there. It was government-administered sexual assault — an action that, in the workplace, would be considered sexual harassment, and elsewhere would be considered a serious crime.

Powerless to stop her, but not to vigorously protest what she did to me, as I left the checkpoint, I yelled, “YOU RAPED ME.” I later blogged about it, naming her name, and urging others to post the names of TSA agents who search them (even when done according to TSA procedure), explaining, “It’s got to become very uncomfortable to be one of those who earns a living by ‘just following orders.’”

Some believe I’m wrong to suggest such things — particularly those who believe the TSA is keeping us safer. Unfortunately, it is not. Security expert Bruce Schneier calls the TSA’s efforts “security theater,” noting all the dangerous items they miss, and observing that during the agency’s multi-billion-dollar history, they have yet to thwart a single attempted terrorist attack.

If the TSA’s actual mission were its stated one — protecting the Nation’s transportation’s systems… — checkpoints wouldn’t be staffed by low-wage, unskilled workers, they wouldn’t be searching everyone, and they certainly wouldn’t be waiting until terrorists get to the airport to try to root them out. Meaningful measures to thwart terrorist acts require highly trained law enforcement officers using targeted intelligence to identify suspects long before they launch their plot.

The TSA’s main accomplishment seems to be obedience training for the American public — priming us to be docile (and even polite) when ordered to give up our civil liberties. Not only does the TSA violate our Fourth Amendment rights, they’ve posted signs that effectively eradicate our First Amendment right to speak out about it. One such sign, in Denver International Airport, offers the vague warning that “verbal abuse” of agents will “not be tolerated.” Travelers are left to wonder whether it’s “verbal abuse” to inform the TSA agent with his latex-gloved hands on their testicles that this isn’t making us safer, or are they only in trouble if they pepper their statement with obscenities? Not surprisingly, few seem willing to speak out and risk arrest.

I believe I’ve found a less risky and more impactful way to protest, and it’s through sobbing. I’m calling on American women to do as I did at the TSA checkpoint: Opt for the pat-down and sob their guts out.

Think about it. What better way to draw attention to the inappropriateness of government-sanctioned groping than hearing mothers, wives and daughters react viscerally to having their private parts touched by strangers — in each and every airport across America each and every day.

As the 18th century economist Adam Smith noted, sympathy for others is a powerful human motivator. Because a bureaucracy’s first duty is protecting itself, perhaps our only chance of revoking the pointless daily rights grab that is the TSA is to evoke wide-scale sympathy. Helpfully, there’s plausible deniability for a sobbing woman. We can suspect she’s manufacturing her tears, but we can’t prove it.

Some find it an absurd contradiction that I write books on bringing back manners, and yet I’m encouraging people to sob at these checkpoints. The truth is, good manners don’t always involve going quietly. Sometimes, like when our civil liberties are violated, the most civil thing a person can do is be as loud and uncivil as possible. Still, I’m a realist. I know that most people will not follow my lead. But, maybe, every day, at every TSA checkpoint, a few will bust out in tears. And maybe, just maybe, through the spectacle of this, we can claw back some of the rights we’ve so docilely given up.

The notion that we can ever have complete physical safety is a ludicrous one. We cannot insure that — not even by throwing away all of our civil liberties. What’s alarming is how people are mewling about protecting our physical selves without considering how dangerous it is to give up our rights and stand there cow-eyed waiting to be told what to do next. Every time we go all “We The Sheeple…”, every time we allow one more Constitutional right to be taken from us, it makes it that much easier to take the next and the next…until we wake up one day wondering how we ended up living in a police state. I think it’s far better that we do our sobbing now than then.

Amy Alkon

Nationally syndicated columnist via Creators (column in about 100 papers across the US and Canada)

author, “I See Rude People” (McGraw-Hill, 2009)

blogging daily at www.advicegoddess.com

Republished from: http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/21-12-2011/120035-civil_liberties-0/#

During the 11 years that I was a cook I have worked with a lot of people from many different countries. Latins, Malaysians, Europeans, and more. They all were good people just trying to feed their families and make it in the world. I don’t know what their immigration status was, and I really don’t and didn’t care. From my American history classes I remember studying about people who came to the US from all over coming here because it was the land of opportunity, it was the land of the free. If you worked hard you could live the American dream. It seams that over time we have forgotten about this and a lot of people don’t want people from other countries to come here. The government has made it harder for people to come here, and people are afraid that immigrants “will take their jobs” even though most of the people who come here work jobs that most U.S. citizens will not do their selves or are not qualified or educated enough to do. It is pretty sickening. It reminds me of the movie “A Day Without a Mexican” where people woke up one day and all the latin workers disappeared. It caused chaos and put things to a halt. Yes, I understand the need to lock our borders down. However I think part of ensuring national security is opening the borders to allow more people to move here, to at least work here and work on becoming citizens if that is what they want to do. They can pay taxes and as long as they have been veted with a background check then they can be here. There are good people coming here to provide for their families who are good people. Let them come. Lets make it so the people who come here illegally are the kind of people who the police would want to stop. The criminals, the terrorists. That is how it should work. We are wasting too many resources criminalizing people who just want a piece of the American dream. Oh, we need to stop the war on drugs too. We need to make them tax revenues, not tax burdens. But that is a different debate all together.

It’s Election Day 2008. We Democrats are giving America a wake-up call. Wake up, America. In 2001, the oil companies, the war contractors and the neo-con artists seized the economy and have added 4 trillion dollars of unproductive spending to the national debt. We now pay four times more for defense, three times more for gasoline and home heating oil and twice what we paid for health care.

Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, their homes, their health care, their pensions. Trillions of dollars for an unnecessary war paid with borrowed money. Tens of billions of dollars in cash and weapons disappeared into thin air, at the cost of the lives of our troops and innocent Iraqis, while all the president’s oilmen are maneuvering to grab Iraq’s oil.

Borrowed money to bomb bridges in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. No money to rebuild bridges in America. Money to start a hot war with Iran. Now we have another cold war with Russia, while the American economy has become a game of Russian roulette.

If there was an Olympics for misleading, mismanaging and misappropriating, this administration would take the gold. World records for violations of national and international laws. They want another four-year term to continue to alienate our allies, spend our children’s inheritance and hollow out our economy.

We can’t afford another Republican administration. Wake up, America. The insurance companies took over health care. Wake up, America. The pharmaceutical companies took over drug pricing.

Wake up, America. The speculators took over Wall Street. Wake up, America. They want to take your Social Security. Wake up, America. Multinational corporations took over our trade policies, factories are closing, good paying jobs lost.

Wake up, America. We went into Iraq for oil. The oil companies want more. War against Iran will mean $10-a-gallon gasoline. The oil administration wants to drill more, into your wallet. Wake up, America. Weapons contractors want more. An Iran war will cost 5 to 10 trillion dollars.

This administration can tap our phones. They can’t tap our creative spirit. They can open our mail. They can’t open economic opportunities. They can track our every move. They lost track of the economy while the cost of food, gasoline and electricity skyrockets. They skillfully played our post-9/11 fears and allowed the few to profit at the expense of the many. Every day we get the color orange, while the oil companies, the insurance companies, the speculators, the war contractors get the color green.

Wake up, America. This is not a call for you to take a new direction from right to left. This is call for you to go from down to up. Up with the rights of workers. Up with wages. Up with fair trade. Up with creating millions of good paying jobs, rebuilding our bridges, ports and water systems. Up with creating millions of sustainable energy jobs to lower the cost of energy, lower carbon emissions and protect the environment.

Up with health care for all. Up with education for all. Up with home ownership. Up with guaranteed retirement benefits. Up with peace. Up with prosperity. Up with the Democratic Party. Up with Obama-Biden.

Wake up, America. Wake up, America. Wake up, America.

Last week I sent an e-mail to Senator Bill Nelson, Senator Mel Martinez, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senator Hillary Clinton, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, and Congressman Bill Young. I did hear back from Mel Martinez, but he is a loyalist who served under his administration and Senator Nelson. This is my coorespondence with Senator Nelson:

I’m writing to you to ask you to please get on board with Rep. Dennis Kucinich who has introduced a resolution to impeach President Bush.

I take this very seriously because we have to set very high standards for our leaders. The new Iraq Intelligence Report has backed up what the Downing Street Memo told us years ago: That the president and vice president did in fact LIE in order to start a war.

In post-Lewinski America, if the most multiply-impeachable president in our time is able to walk away from this and other high crimes, then what are future presidents at liberty to get away with? And if he is not held accountable, what is your job as a representative and my job as a citizen worth?

In the name of the over 4000 soldiers killed in Iraq, I implore you to encourage your colleagues to join Rep. Kucinich and the American people, the majority of whom support impeachment, in defending this nation and the Office of President against such wanton abuse.

Today He replied:

Thank you for informing me of your views. Many Americans would agree that certain actions taken by this Administration warrant impeachment.

While I’m also frustrated by the failures of the White House in both foreign and domestic policy, such action would be impractical. The president’s and vice president’s terms conclude next year. In the months immediately ahead, I believe the officials in Washington need to focus on working across the aisle to get results on the major challenges facing our country–not only on Iraq, but also on health care coverage and retirement security for all Americans.

I appreciate hearing your thoughts. Please do not hesitate to contact me again.

I replied back to him:

The Honorable Bill Nelson

United States Senate

Washington, D.C. 20510

“I, (Bill Nelson), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

Senator Nelson,

I humbly ask you to read your oath of office again because your main duty to your office is to defend the Constitution of the United States. I understand that the senate is very busy with the high cost of oil and Iraq and the other issues that our country has, but right now the laws of this country including the constitution are being violated by members of the executive branch. Right now there is flooding in the Midwest and President Bush is in Europe on his farewell tour instead of being at home being a leader of this country or at least putting on a dog and pony show that he cares about the country he leads. He did the same thing during Hurricane Katrina. Your colleague presented 35 different examples of President Bush destroying the very constitution you swore to protect. There is no provisions in this oath as to if you get around to it or if it is close to when the president is no longer in office. I believe that if President Bush didn’t lie to you and the people you represent then things like oil prices and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may have not happened at all.

Please closely consider your decision not to peruse your duties as a member of the U.S. Senate; it is what the architects of the constitution would have wanted. They built the checks and balances into the system for our worst of times, and this is one of them. This to me makes lying about a stain on a blue dress seem like childs play, that was not an impeachable offence. What President Bush has done will set future precedence to the powers of the executive branch, and will eventually give unlimited unanswered power to one person, which will be the president. It is your sworn duty to keep this from happening and starting the impeachment process is what these men would have wanted you to do:

***Insert the names of the signatories of the U.S. Constitution***

If I get any more response I will let you know.

* Headlines for June 13, 2008
* Citing Iraq War, Renowned Attorney Vincent Bugliosi Seeks “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder”

* Despite Opposition from His Own Party, Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich Vows to Continue Impeachment Effort Against Bush
* Rebuking Bush Admin, Justices Rule Gitmo Prisoners Can Challenge Imprisonment in US Court

Keith Olbermann and Jonathan Turley discuss the Articles of Impeachment introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich in the House of Representatives.

Mr. KUCINICH. Madam Speaker, pursuant to clause 2 of rule IX, I rise to give notice of my intent to raise a question of the privileges of the House.

The form of the resolution is as follows:

Resolved, That President George W. Bush be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:

Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against President George W. Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors.

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has committed the following abuses of power.

ARTICLE I.–CREATING A SECRET PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN TO MANUFACTURE A FALSE CASE FOR WAR AGAINST IRAQ

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed”, has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President, illegally spent public dollars on a secret propaganda program to manufacture a false cause for war against Iraq.
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From The Chicago Tribune:

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a former Democratic presidential contender, said Monday he wants the House to consider a resolution to impeach President Bush. Speaker Nancy Pelosi consistently has said impeachment was “off the table.”

Kucinich, D-Ohio, read his proposed impeachment language in a floor speech. He contended Bush deceived the nation and violated his oath of office in leading the country into the Iraq war.

Kucinich introduced a resolution last year to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. That resolution was killed, but only after Republicans initially voted in favor of taking up the measure to force a debate.

Kucinich was on the House floor for over 4 hours citing 35 articles of impeachment and giving documented examples backing up his articles. If anything this will go on Bush’s historical record showing that he is the worst president in US history.

You can find out more details on Kucinich’s site here:

http://kucinich.house.gov/Issues/Issue/?IssueID=3750

I urge you to write your Senators and Congressmen and ask them to support Dennis! You can write them here:

http://www.democrats.com/35-articles-of-impeachment

Members of the Japanese Parliament is looking into investigating the events that happened on 9/11. He presented a couple of slides that showed evidence that certain events were staged like the damage that happened at the Pentagon and the towers falling.

This is very interesting news. Something that the US media has not picked up upon. Please read this website and pass the videos and the site on to every one you know. The world is watching and they are not going to blindly accept what Bush says as the truth anymore. I hope that they investigate and find out the real truth behind what happened that day.

Below is a good video as to what happened at the parliament. It is in Japanese. The rough translation as well as more information and videos can be found by clicking this link.

Another interesting related item of interest is Bill Maher’s Overtime on Jan 11 2008. He prods at Tony Snow what happened that morning when Bush was reading to children with his deer in the headlights look when he was told that his country was under attack. Very presidential indeed.

Hello,

I just read an article where students are being harrasseed for promoting peace by wearing shirts and putting on posters. The link can be found here:

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/21/5375/

The faculity has done very little about this even though students are putting swasticas on their posters and have been wearing confederate flag shirts to counter the student’s promotoin of peace. The students have also tried to create an official peace club however the administration are stopping that as well.

Please politely contact the administration and let them know that it is not Anti-Americian to support peace and that these students have the right to wear these shirts without being harrassed and they need a club to support peace as well.

The following link will take you to the Cocoa Beach schools contact page:

http://www.cbhs.brevard.k12.fl.us/admin.php

Thank you!