amerikanischen Arbeiterjugend?

Does this bother anyone else?

Wilmington, Delaware is going to be home to The Academy for Public Safety and Security (APSS), which plans to open its doors by 2010. It will be dedicated to preparing (primarily inner-city) young men and women for front line careers in Homeland Security. Isn't that nice? Equal opportunity for the female youth to serve "The Homeland".

"... we decided to start a new school culture from scratch, one built on the premise that many children would rather be part of the solution than the problem of violence. And, given an education to prepare them academically, socially and vocationally, they will become the best-of-the-best first responders in the homeland security job sector, rather than succumb to apathy or crime."

"The tone of the first responder high school will be that of a military or police academy, complete with uniforms and daily physical training during and after school."

"Student cadets will study careers in SWAT, prison guarding, water rescue, paramedics, firefighting, professional demolition careers, in addition to the usual school subjects. They will learn Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Spanish — any language of use in homeland security."

Read more about it in the Newcastle Community News or the Delaware Business Ledger. Students will be called cadets, wear uniforms, and will follow courses of study in special weapons and tactics, prison guarding, professional demolition and other skills needed in an authoritarian police state. Will future generations read about the Liga der amerikanischen Arbeiterjugend (APSS) Cadets like we read about the Bund deutscher Arbeiterjugend today?



Another meaningless coincidence: The first national HJ rally was held in 1928 with 600 boys present. The new school expects to take as many as 600 students. Coincidence or not, it still gives me the shivers.

Am I making too much of all of this?

Billboard Liberation Front

This is a real billboard (after "advertising improvements") in SanFrancisco.

The Billboard Liberation Front, on the 28th of February, announced a new advertising improvement campaign executed on behalf of clients AT&T and the National Security Agency.

The BLF spokesperson, Blank DeCoverly, said:

"This campaign is an extraordinary rendition of a public-private partnership. These two titans of telecom have a long and intimate relationship, dating back to the age of the telegraph. In these dark days of Terrorism, that should be a comfort to every law-abiding citizen with nothing to hide."

Do you know how your rep is going to vote on FISA? Does your rep think that search warrants are important? Is your rep going to say it's OK to throw away the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? The FISA vote is right around the corner!

Find and contact your representative here.

FISA is Outdated?

George Bush held a press conference to reassure us all that our rights have been protected and will continue to be. Then he demanded that we give retroactive immunity to telecom companies and not hold them responsible for violating the rights that he says are being protected. He basically said that allowing Americans recourse to having their Constitutional rights violated would be "patently unfair".

So...did anyone else know that one can take classes in how to speak Orwell at Yale?

I found the Olbermann video after I had started this entry. If you only have time for one video, I'd watch his.



Apparently, Keith Olbermann feels like I do.

"It was legal, but it was the kind of legal for which you still need immunity just like it wasn't legal."

FISA is out of date?

Dodd Threatens to Filibuster Fisa Bill

Senator Chris Dodd is attempting to place a hold the Senate FISA renewal bill because it grants retroactive immunity to telephone companies their role in the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping program. I can't believe more of our representatives haven't spoken out more quickly.

Oh yes...I guess I can.



Take a peak at Dodd’s FISA petition. My favorite line is his opener:

"The Military Commissions Act. Warrantless wiretapping. Shredding of Habeas Corpus. Torture. Extraordinary Rendition. Secret Prisons. No more."

"If the bill that ultimately reaches the Senate floor includes immunity and does not adequately protect the privacy of Americans, I will fight it vigorously with every tool at my disposal.”

Finally!!! Let's hope that Representative Stark & Senator Dodd's recent outspokenness is an indicator that more will be walking in and singing a bar of "Alice's Restaurant."

If the reference above escapes you, you can click here to hear Arlo sing "Alice's Restaurant".

Spying Prior to 9/11 and Forcible Injections

Keith Olbermann addresses allegations made by Quest's former CEO that illegal domestic spying was going on prior to 9/11 and an immigration official's testimony to congress that at least 48 immigrant detainees have been forcibly injected with dangerous drugs.

(Reported in the Washington Post via C&L):

Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio, convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading, said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to court documents unsealed in Denver this week. Read more…

A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company thought might be illegal.

White House Misses Subpoena Deadline

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) publicly announced that the White House had missed its deadline to turn over subpoenaed documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the National Security Agency’s illegal eavesdropping program. The committee had already agreed to delay the original July 18th deadline.

Leahy pointed out that these subpoenas were passed by broad bipartisan votes and that there were no close votes. Senator Arlen Specter, who had chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 109th Congress, previously attempted to question the legality of the program. Vice President Cheney personally barred him from issuing subpoenas:

In fact, we were about to issue subpoenas then and one of the senators came to our meeting and said that the vice president had met with the Republican senators and told them they were not allowed to issue subpoenas.

Not quite sure that’s my understanding of the separation of powers, but it seemed to work at that time.

Leahy responds to the claims that the Office of the Vice President is not part of the Executive Office of the President by saying,

"Well, that’s wrong. … [O]h, incidentally, at least this morning, as I left Vermont, I checked the White House Web site. And even their own Web site, this morning, at least, says that the Executive Office — that the vice president is part of the Executive Office of the President.”

Seems funny (not ha ha) that they would even try to claim such things.