If this does not scare the crap out of you and prove we have lost our freedoms whenever "they" decide we have, I don't know what will.

The price of fear over freedom. We get the government we deserve.

Security, liberties clash in 'Strange Culture'

An artist's plight in the face of the War on Terror sounds the alarm for Americans to ponder the curtailment of freedom of expression.

By Carina Chocano Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

November 9, 2007

The conflict between policies that support national security and those that protect civil liberties are embodied in the bizarre, terrifying story of Steve Kurtz, an artist, activist and State University of New York at Buffalo professor for whom a personal tragedy led to a Kafkaesque nightmare courtesy of the War on Terror.

On May 11, 2004, Kurtz was days away from shipping his latest installation to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art when his wife and collaborator, Hope, died in her sleep of heart failure at age 45. A distraught Kurtz called 911, but when police found petri dishes of bacteria in his apartment, they alerted the FBI, which had a field day with the tin foil on the windows (to block out the light for daytime sleeping) and an invitation to an art show that contained "Arabic writing."

Kurtz was removed from his home, his cat was locked in the attic for days without food or water, and agents in hazmat suits trashed the place like fraternity brothers on a bender. His wife's body was flown around the country and subjected to several autopsies, and although it was found that she died of natural causes unrelated to the harmless bacteria Kurtz had purchased on the Internet, Kurtz was labeled a "bio-terrorist" as the government strained to come up with criminal charges.

Eventually, Kurtz and his collaborator, Robert Ferrell, a genetics professor at the University of Pittsburgh, were charged with federal mail and wire fraud, civil charges that the government was able to pursue as criminal under the Justice Department's expanded powers over American citizens.

Lynn Hershman-Leeson made and released "Strange Culture" before Kurtz's case went to trial, and the film is as much a rally for attention to Kurtz's plight as it is a sounded alarm for Americans to ponder the severe curtailment of freedom of expression and information by the government in the name of security. Among the dangers the film warns us about are the ways in which the umbrella of national security can be used to promote other agendas, particularly corporate and government interests that are sometimes challenged by artists, activists and other citizens.

Kurtz, a founding member of a collective called the Critical Art Ensemble, had for years worked on exhibits aimed at educating Americans on the political, scientific and economic realities of the genetic modification of foods -- something that affects all Americans but that few of them know very much about -- and attempts by corporations to patent and control life forms. What's chilling about the case is that government officials persevered in the face of no evidence of criminal behavior because his work was inconvenient.

Because Kurtz's case has not yet gone to trial and he is forbidden to discuss the facts of the case, the part of Kurtz is played by an actor, Thomas Jay Ryan. Tilda Swinton plays Hope, Josh Kornbluth plays a colleague of Kurtz's who is denied tenure because of his political views and Peter Coyote speaks for Ferrell, who in the course of the case suffered a stroke. Swinton and Coyote also discuss their views, as themselves, regarding how the expansion of the Justice Department's powers under the Patriot Act threatens to gag American freedom of expression. In one chilling scene, Kurtz's students refuse to sign a petition supporting him for fear that they'll end up on a government list and see their careers thwarted. As sad as it is to realize that youth activism in this country is dead, it's sadder still to find yourself agreeing that they have a point. Just look at what happened to Kurtz.

carina.chocano@latimes.com

"Strange Culture." MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes. In limited release.

The original review/article is here:http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-et-strange9nov09,0,1989258.story

How to get involved: ARTIST FACES 20-YEAR CHARGES IN POLITICALLY MOTIVATED CASE
Critical Art Ensemble Defense Fund ...... http://www.caedefensefund.org/

And: Where oh where the fuck is the obnoxious, lazy, asshole mainstream media (especially broadcast) on this one? Those corporate ass-kissing, lazy, faux-journalist, dollar-fuckers. If you still aren't convinced, we are on the fascist speed boat to hell. It's our turn to rot there the same way we have condemned millions of others before us in our shameful history: (bye bye democracy in Iran, Burma, Pakistan, Russia, Chile ...) what a bunch of hypocrites we, the-police-states-of-america remain.

Technorati Tags:
film, cinema, LA Times, participatory democracy, voter responsibility, Strange Culture, Critical Art Ensemble, Steve Kurtz, War on Terror, War on Free Speech, War on Free Expression, Police-states-of-america

Boycott Dubai: Justice for Alex (and other children)

This must be the model for the legal system and executive powers that Darth Cheney aspires to. No wonder they moved Halliburton's corporate headquarters there. But if you're foreign born -- you better not expect justice. Wow. Strikingly similar to the Police States of America.

Overview:

Alex says he was rushing to meet his father for dinner when he bumped into an acquaintance, a 17-year-old native-born student at the American school, who said he and his cousin could drop Alex off at home.

There were, in fact, three Emirati men in the car, including a pair of former convicts ages 35 and 18, according to Alex. He says they drove him past his house and into a dark patch of desert, between a row of new villas and a power plant, took away his cellphone, threatened him with a knife and a club, and told him they would kill his family if he ever reported them.

Then they stripped off his pants and one by one sodomized him in the back seat of the car. They dumped Alex across from one of Dubai’s luxury hotel towers.

Alex and his family were about to learn that despite Dubai’s status as the Arab world’s paragon of modernity and wealth, and its well-earned reputation for protecting foreign investors, its criminal legal system remains a perilous gantlet when it comes to homosexuality and protection of foreigners.

The authorities not only discouraged Alex from pressing charges, he, his family and French diplomats say; they raised the possibility of charging him with criminal homosexual activity, and neglected for weeks to inform him or his parents that one of his attackers had tested H.I.V. positive while in prison four years earlier.

“They tried to smother this story,” Alex said by phone from Switzerland, where he fled a month into his 10th-grade school year, fearing a jail term in Dubai if charged with homosexual activity. “Dubai, they say we build the highest towers, they have the best hotels. But all the news, they hide it. They don’t want the world to know that Dubai still lives in the Middle Ages.”

Alex and his parents say they chose to go public with his case in the hope that it would press the authorities to prosecute the men.

United Arab Emirates law does not recognize rape of males, only a crime called “forced homosexuality.” The two adult men charged with sexually assaulting Alex have pleaded not guilty, although sperm from all three were found in Alex. The two adults appeared in court on Wednesday and were appointed a lawyer. They face trial before a three-judge panel on Nov. 7. The third, a minor, will be tried in juvenile court. Legal experts here say that men convicted of sexually assaulting other men usually serve sentences ranging from a few months to two years.

BoycottDubai.com

Full story at NYT

Technorati Tags: Dubai, Boycott Dubai, BoycottDubai.com, Justice for Alex, child rape, male rape

Man Arrested for Declining to Show His Driver's License

One more example of the small ways our liberties have been eroded and which continue the trend toward a de-facto police state.

"Michael Righi was arrested in Ohio over the weekend after refusing to show his receipt when leaving Circuit City. When the manger and 'loss prevention' employee physically prevented the vehicle he was a passenger in from leaving the parking lot, he called the police, who arrived, searched his bag and found he hadn't stolen anything. The officer then asked for Michael's driver's license, which he declined to provide since he wasn't operating a motor vehicle. The officer then arrested him, and upon finding out Michael was legally right about not having to provide a license, went ahead and charged him with 'obstructing official business' anyways."

A state of ignorance of the law, the constitution, bill of rights (and the civil liberties granted by these documents) combined with overwhelming consumerist capitalism and apathy about our rights as citizens leads to loss of those liberties as much as the illegal domestic spying activities of the US government. Bless those Slashdot geeks, nerds and code-heads who really get it.

The Slashdot post on the story here: http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/09/03/1449200.shtml

Technorati Tags:
civil liberties, Ohio, 4th amendment, illegal search and seizure, Bill of Rights, Constitution, liberty, freedom, loss of freedom

Amerika The Fascist Police State: How I learned to stop resenting the Patriot Act and started learning to love kissing the ass of the fascist in chief

First, the prophecy of Ben Franklin (paraphrased):

Those who trade freedom for security deserve neither.

After reading the anonymous editorial/column below, a streaming of consciousness emerged starting with a famous, controversial (naive) Beatles song, but the similarities end there:

Back in the USSR — Amerika.
Big Brother is here and
His names are George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, Robert Mueller, Tom Delay, the FBI, law enforcement, credit card companies, corporate america, republican wingnuts, dittoheads, moral majority, evangelical christian, theocratic fervor, the health care system, insurance companies ....
and you Amerikkkan Lemmings stand by
sucking your thumbs and
Voting for your Amerikkkan Idols and
Praying to your imaginary fairy tale fathers
with flowing beards sitting on clouds.
If this does not scare the bejesus out of you and
tell you
how far down the fascist rabbit hole we have fallen ... then
you do not deserve democracy Amerika the lemmingful.
America that used to care about ideals and democracy and justice --
now Amerika the pathetic joke rapidly becoming a third world dictatorship.

One of the scariest editorials I have ever read. The implications are enormous.
Can you say AMERIKA the FASCIST POLICE STATE?

My National Security Letter Gag Order
I resent being conscripted as a secret informer for the government.

Friday, March 23, 2007

By Anonymous

The Justice Department's inspector general revealed on March 9 that the FBI has been systematically abusing one of the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act: the expanded power to issue "national security letters." It no doubt surprised most Americans to learn that between 2003 and 2005 the FBI issued more than 140,000 specific demands under this provision -- demands issued without a showing of probable cause or prior judicial approval -- to obtain potentially sensitive information about U.S. citizens and residents. It did not, however, come as any surprise to me.

Three years ago, I received a national security letter (NSL) in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access and consulting business. The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that the FBI was seeking this information. Based on the context of the demand -- a context that the FBI still won't let me discuss publicly -- I suspected that the FBI was abusing its power and that the letter sought information to which the FBI was not entitled.

Rather than turn over the information, I contacted lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union, and in April 2004 I filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the NSL power. I never released the information the FBI sought, and last November the FBI decided that it no longer needs the information anyway. But the FBI still hasn't abandoned the gag order that prevents me from disclosing my experience and concerns with the law or the national security letter that was served on my company. In fact, the government will return to court in the next few weeks to defend the gag orders that are imposed on recipients of these letters.

Living under the gag order has been stressful and surreal. Under the threat of criminal prosecution, I must hide all aspects of my involvement in the case -- including the mere fact that I received an NSL -- from my colleagues, my family and my friends. When I meet with my attorneys I cannot tell my girlfriend where I am going or where I have been. I hide any papers related to the case in a place where she will not look. When clients and friends ask me whether I am the one challenging the constitutionality of the NSL statute, I have no choice but to look them in the eye and lie.

I resent being conscripted as a secret informer for the government and being made to mislead those who are close to me, especially because I have doubts about the legitimacy of the underlying investigation.

The inspector general's report makes clear that NSL gag orders have had even more pernicious effects. Without the gag orders issued on recipients of the letters, it is doubtful that the FBI would have been able to abuse the NSL power the way that it did. Some recipients would have spoken out about perceived abuses, and the FBI's actions would have been subject to some degree of public scrutiny. To be sure, not all recipients would have spoken out; the inspector general's report suggests that large telecom companies have been all too willing to share sensitive data with the agency -- in at least one case, a telecom company gave the FBI even more information than it asked for. But some recipients would have called attention to abuses, and some abuse would have been deterred.

I found it particularly difficult to be silent about my concerns while Congress was debating the reauthorization of the Patriot Act in 2005 and early 2006. If I hadn't been under a gag order, I would have contacted members of Congress to discuss my experiences and to advocate changes in the law. The inspector general's report confirms that Congress lacked a complete picture of the problem during a critical time: Even though the NSL statute requires the director of the FBI to fully inform members of the House and Senate about all requests issued under the statute, the FBI significantly underrepresented the number of NSL requests in 2003, 2004 and 2005, according to the report.

I recognize that there may sometimes be a need for secrecy in certain national security investigations. But I've now been under a broad gag order for three years, and other NSL recipients have been silenced for even longer. At some point -- a point we passed long ago -- the secrecy itself becomes a threat to our democracy. In the wake of the recent revelations, I believe more strongly than ever that the secrecy surrounding the government's use of the national security letters power is unwarranted and dangerous. I hope that Congress will at last recognize the same thing.

Footnote by the WP:
It is the policy of The Washington Post not to publish anonymous pieces. In this case, an exception has been made because the author -- who would have preferred to be named -- is legally prohibited from disclosing his or her identity in connection with receipt of a national security letter. The Post confirmed the legitimacy of this submission by verifying it with the author's attorney and by reviewing publicly available court documents.

From the WashingtonPost.com

PS: Doesn't the guy on the left side of the movie poster eerily remind you of someone who currently occupies an ENORMOUSLY influential position in the white house -- in fact, maybe it looks like two of them, one elected, one not. Both dangerous.