On May 11th, 2006, it was reported that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been secretly collecting the phone records of tens of millions of Americans since September 11, 2001. The data has been provided by telecommunications giants AT&T;, Verizon and BellSouth. The companies are the nation's three biggest telecommunications companies; they provide local and wireless phone service to more than 200 million customers. A fourth company, Qwest, reportedly refused to provide the data willingly provided by the others without subpoenas. According to the report, this particular program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations, but last year, Bush admitted that he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication is in the USA. The full extent of that warrantless wiretapping has yet to be publicly determined. In this new revelation, the NSA claims the phone record data is being used in its fight against terrorism, although the millions of Americans whose telephone behavior is being tracked are not suspected of any crime. Telephone company customers' names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of the NSA's program, the sources for the report said. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information. Addressing the report shortly after its release, Bush strangely defended the program by saying, "Our intelligence activities strictly target al-Qaida and their known affiliates" and that American citizen's privacy is being "fiercely protected." He also said some members of Congress previously had been informed of the existence of the massive database program. While some Cogresspeople defended the program, others demanded answers from the Bush administration Thursday about the spy agency secretly collecting records of ordinary Americans' phone calls to build a "database of every call ever made" within US borders. Congressional Republicans and Democrats demanded answers from the Bush administration about a government spy agency secretly collecting records of ordinary Americans' phone calls to build a database of every call made within the country. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said he would call the phone companies to appear before the panel "to find out exactly what is going on."

Related Reports: 1 | 2

Claude Marks & Kelah Bott, in Fault Lines #16, write:
Recent crackdowns on the animal rights and environmental justice movements have left many activists feeling that their communities are under siege. From the prosecution of the SHAC 7 to the arrests of thirteen individuals for arsons committed over a ten-year span, a war is being waged against these movements by the U.S. government. While all of this may seem terrifying in its unfamiliarity to younger activists, the tactics being employed by the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force are anything but new. Whisperings of ‘COINTELPRO’ have appeared in various articles about the backlash against eco-activism, but what does this generation really know about the Counter-Intelligence Program aimed at groups such as the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the American Indian Movement (AIM)? Today’s activists are heirs to a history of social and political battles from wars that are not yet over. Without seeing today’s struggles for animal rights and environmental justice in a broader historical and social context, we run the risk not only of repeating painful lessons of the past, but of isolating ourselves and weakening our movements.

Read More in the April-May 2006 issue of Fault Lines

Recent Indybay Coverage of Grand Juries, Arrests, and Other Anti-Activist Actions: SF Grand Jury Targets G8 Protest | SHAC7 Convicted | Government's "Case" Against Rod Coronado | 11 Indicted in Latest Round of FBI Environmental Witch Hunt | Three Arrested in Auburn, Accused of Planning ELF Actions | Animal Activists Subpoenaed to Appear in San Francisco | Grand Jury in San Diego

In what is being called the largest-ever raid on undocumented workers, 1,187 people were taken from their workplaces and arrested on April 20th by the Department of Homeland Security and local police. While the story is still unfolding, it appears that 275 workers have already been deported to Mexico, while the rest are being processed. The raids occurred in 26 states, including California, where workers in both Riverside and Fresno were rounded up. All the workers are said to be employed by IFCO Systems North America - an international corporation that builds wood pallets for shipping. 7 company managers are also facing immigration-related charges.

In Chicago, workers’ families and their supporters held a protest last night at one of the many detention centers where the workers are currently locked up (read more from Chicago IMC). They called for a moritorium on all deportations until Congress makes a final decision on immigration reform.

Activists insist that this latest assault on immigrants is an attempt to intimidate and repress the growing movement that has seen millions in the streets of communities across the country. Meanwhile, families remain concerned about the status of their loved ones, many of which have lived and worked in the United States for decades, own homes, and have little children.

Democracy Now Coverage || WSWS: 1,200 Undocumented Workers Detained Across U.S.

Previous coverage: Local Man Returns from ICE Detention and Tells of Horrors He Witnessed || Expecting Couple is Split Up by US Immigration Officers || Pakistani Man Charged With Making False Claim on Loan Application || Haitian Priest Dies in US Custody || Farouk Abdel-Muhti, recently freed Palestinian activist, dies of heart attack || Bay Area Defends Local Family Facing Deportation || Demonstrations Continue Outside INS Offices || San Francisco INS Protest || Hundreds of Muslim Immigrants Rounded Up in California || First National Day of Solidarity with Muslim, Arab, and South Asian Immigrants

On April 9th and 10th 2006, immigrants and their allies gathered in cities across the US to oppose the harsh and unworkable House Resolution 4437, and call for the full enfranchisement of all immigrant workers. These protest built on several weeks of mass protest on this issue in what amounts to the largest display of decentralized, coordinated protest in US history. On Thursday, proposed compromise legislation stalled in the Senate. Protesters say they seek real immigration reform that is comprehensive, respects civil rights, reunites families, protects workers, and offers a path to citizenship for the current undocumented and future immigrants to the US.

Highlights: 500,000 in Dallas! | San Diego's Largest March since Vietnam War | Bay Area Roundup | Video from Philadelphia | Video from San Francisco | Democracy Now Report

More Indymedia Reports: Austin | Boston | Colorado | Connecticut | Dallas: 1, 2 | Flagstaff, AZ | Fresno | Houston | Los Angeles | Madison, WI | Miami | Minneapolis/St. Paul | New York City | North Carolina | Oakland | Ohio | Oklahoma City | Pittsburgh | Philadelphia | Portland, OR: 1, 2 | Rochester, NY | Salem, OR: 1, 2 | San Diego | San Francisco: 1, 2 | San Jose, CA | San Rafael, CA | Seattle | St. Louis | Stanford, CA Tennessee | Tuscon, AZ | Urbana Champaign | Washington, DC

Related: Madison IMC: Local paper edits AP story to represent rally turnout as in the hundreds instead of the thousands initially reported. | LA IMC: Threatened by Principal, Student Walkout Organizer Commits Suicide

See US Indymedia's April 10th Page for an archive of related Indymedia coverage and background links.

On Friday, March 10, 2006 Chicago’s downtown was paralyzed by an immigrant rights march estimated at more than 100,000 people. The march, organized by a citywide coalition of community, labor and immigrant rights groups, was called to protest the punitive enforcement provisions of the anti-immigrant Sensenbrenner Bill.

Protesters carried hand-lettered signs saying "No Human Being is Illegal", "We are America," "My Mexican immigrant son died in Iraq," "Don't deport my parents,""I'm a dishwasher - not a criminal," and "Si, se puede!" - "Yes We Can!" The crowd stretched two and half miles, from Union Park on the West Side to their rally destination in Federal Plaza.

The march was one of the largest street protests Chicago has ever seen — exceeding the historic May 1, 1886 march down Michigan Ave. by 80,000 largely immigrant workers demanding an eight-hour workday. Read more | Democracy Now! coverage

Indymedia reports: [ 1 | 2 | 3 ] Photos: [ 1 ]
Other resources: Pueblo Sin Fronteras | Centro Romero | Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

On Tuesday Feb 14th immigrants across Philadelphia and regionally staged a walkout to protest bill HR 4437 as part of A Day Without An Immigrant. The bill threatens to criminalize those assisting undocumented immigrants as "alien smugglers" and to turn undocumented status from a civil violation to a federal aggravated felony.o

For more information on pending immigration legislation, see The National Immigration Law Forum | American Immgration Lawyers Association | American Immigration Law Foundation | National Immigration Project |Immigrant Legal Resource Center

For information on border activism in general, see deletetheborder.org| No Border Network | O.R.G.A.N.I.C. Collective | No More Deaths | Immigrant Solidarity Network

On March 3rd, Wal-Mart announced that it will stock emergency contraception (EC) in all of its pharmacies, starting on March 20th. This is seen as a concession to pressure from national women's rights organizations and their supporters. The company has stated that it will maintain its "conscientious objection" policy, which, it reports, is consistent with the tenets of the American Pharmaceutical Association. This policy, except where prohibited by law, "allows any Wal-Mart or SAM'S CLUB pharmacy associate who does not feel comfortable dispensing a prescription to refer customers to another pharmacist or pharmacy."

NARAL Pro-Choice America is encouraging people to write to Wal-Mart to encourage the company to change its pharmacy refusal policy.

Read more on Indybay's Women's News Page

On February 28th, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that could add to the increasing difficulty women face in obtaining reproductive health services. NOW says that if the Court's 8-0 decision in Scheidler, et al., v. National Organization for Women (NOW), et al. and Operation Rescue v. NOW, et al. ushers in a return to clinic violence in the United States, the organization is ready to fight in every jurisdiction.

For two decades, NOW has pursued every legal strategy, including three Supreme Court cases, to stave off the violent attacks that gripped this country from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. This case was brought under the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, and had been one of the organization's most successful long-term strategies. A federal jury had found unanimously that these defendants had engaged in a nationwide criminal enterprise to close women's health clinics through extortion, violence and threats of violence, and specified over a hundred acts in furtherance of their efforts. The filing of the Scheidler case and the resulting injunction, which protected clinics nationwide, contributed to the dramatic reduction in clinic violence that we have witnessed in recent years. Without strong protections against clinic assaults, the legal right to abortion could become meaningless.

Read more on Indybay's Women's News Page

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and its allies are gearing up for the McDonald's Truth Tour 2006, which will be from March 26th to April 4th. They will caravan from Immokalee, Florida to Chicago, which is the home of McDonald's. On April 1st, the fifth anniversary of the launch of the successful Taco Bell Boycott, the caravan will be joined by supporters from the area for a rally in Chicago, where they will call on the fast-food giant to work with the CIW and help establish real labor rights for the workers who pick tomatoes for McDonald’s suppliers. The workers and their allies will be calling for fair wages, the right for farmworkers to participate in decisions that affect their lives, and the right to a code of conduct based on modern labor standards. Since the CIW's Taco Bell boycott victory last year. McDonald’s has taken a path that threatens to undercut the wage gains won by farmworkers in the Taco Bell Boycott and to push workers back away from the table where decisions are made that affect their lives. Read more

More of this story on Indybay's Labor News Page | Student Farmworker Alliance | Coalition of Immokalee Workers

March 6th Update: South Dakota's governor today signed into law a ban on abortion in that state. The governor said that he expects that the law will be disputed in court and would not be allowed to take effect in July, as had been planned.
Both houses of the South Dakota legislature passed HB 1215 on February 22nd, agreeing to ban abortion in that state. The law does not make exceptions for women who seek abortions due to rape, incest, or threats to their health. The Senate decided after debate that the only abortions that would be allowed in South Dakota would be those that are needed to save a woman's life. Also rejected was an effort to allow South Dakotans to decide the question in a referendum, and an effort to prevent state tax dollars from financing what is certain to be a long and expensive court battle. The bill now goes to anti-choice Governor Mike Rounds, who will have 15 days to make his decision about signing.

Tennessee faces similar legislation this week: Tennessee IMC coverage

Read more on Indybay's Women's News Page

MoveOn members from Tennessee to Maryland to Seattle organized Constitution Vigils to speak out about government spying. Last week, the Justice Department announced that it will be opening an internal review. This was seen as a major admission that laws may have been broken by the US government. MoveOn said, "it's time for Congress to do its job, defend the Constitution, and fully investigate the president's illegal program. In order for them to do that, they need to hear from us." With reports of wider abuses in the National Security Agency and growing concern from leading conservatives MoveOn said that it's "obvious that Congress needs to do its job, enforce the law and fully investigate the president's dangerous power grab." MoveOn called for Constitution Vigils to be held on Wednesday, February 22nd, to send a message to Congress that "we're watching and we expect them to do their job and hold the president accountable." Read more about the vigils

In San Francisco, people gathered at 5:30pm at Justin Herman Plaza for a "Stop Illegal Wiretapping Now!" vigil. Photos: 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 In Oakland, three dozen people gathered at Grand and Lake Park Avenues Photos There was also a lively demonstration in Fresno. Video 100 people gathered at the Town Clock in Santa Cruz. Audio

The ACLU is also concerned about warrantless surveillance. The organization is challenging this unconstitutional program in the courts, and reaching out to leaders and regular citizens through a campaign of grassroots action and public education. The ACLU is encouraging people to call on Congress to end its illegal spying and fully investigate the Bush Administration’s illegal spying programs.

MoveOn.org | ACLU | ACLU of Northern California | People for the American Way

Betty Friedan, who helped launch the contemporary women's movement, died of congestive heart failure on Saturday, February 4th at the age of 85. When she was young, she was active in Marxist and Jewish radical circles. She attended Smith College. In 1963, she wrote the groundbreaking book The Feminine Mystique. In 1966, she and 27 other women and men founded NOW, the National Organization for Women. During her time as president of NOW (from 1966 to 1970), the organization lobbied the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce laws against sex discrimination in employment, and to ban ads that were segregated by sex. In 1968, NOW became the first national organization to endorse the legalization of abortion.

Ms Magazine's Statement from the Feminist Daily News Wire | Statement from NOW | Wikipedia's Betty Friedan page

Stew Albert, a prominent member of the "Youth International Party" (Yippie!) an unindicted co-conspirator in the infamous Chicago 1968 "Conspiracy Trial," an instigator of People's Park and so much more died in his sleep on January 30th. Albert had incurable and inoperable liver cancer. Funeral services will be held Wednesday, February 1st at 1:00 at the Havurah Shalom at 825 NW 18th Ave in Portland, Oregon. Albert kept a weblog- "a personal log by an American radical activist who knew he was dying of cancer, but stoically continued to rant against empire." Read more

Stew Albert's Yippie Reading Room website | Stew Albert's Blog | Read more about the Yippies

On Friday, January 20th, the Justice Department announced that 11 individuals were being charged in a 65 count indictment handed down by a Eugene, Oregon grand jury. The indictment charged the individuals with a series of arsons, sabotage and vandalism that were claimed by the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front, between 1996 and 2001. The FBI has called these actions terrorism. The indictment includes further charges against some recent arrestees, including Daniel McGowan. On January 25th, McGowan was released into the custody of his sister. He will be required to live with his sister, wear an electronic monitor, and report weekly to pretrial supervisors in New York.

The indictments were announced the week that a tape from Osama Bin Laden was released. Bin Laden promised a continued campaign of violence against the United States. The close proximity of the announcement regarding the indictments caused many to wonder if this was a diversionary tactic meant to draw attention away from the FBI’s failure in the international terrorism arena and to distract the public from the current debate regarding illegal wire taps being perpetrated by the government. Read more

Read more on Indybay's Police and Prisons News Page

On Wednesday, January 18th, the US Supreme Court announced its decision in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, et al. The court recognized its precedent that abortion laws must protect women's health and safety. The case began as a challenge to a New Hampshire law that prevents doctors from performing an abortion for a teenager under the age of 18 until 48 hours after a parent has been notified. Contrary to 30 years of Supreme Court precedent, the law contained no medical emergency exception to protect a pregnant teenager's health. The lower courts had struck down the law because of this omission. The Supreme Court asked the lower court to consider whether the New Hampshire legislature would have wanted this law with a medical emergency exception. If not, the Court said the law should be struck down in its entirety.

"Today's decision tells politicians that they cannot jeopardize women's health when they pass abortion laws," said Jennifer Dalven, Deputy Director of the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, and the attorney who argued Ayotte before the Court. "We are relieved that the Supreme Court left in place protections for women's health and safety in abortion laws," said PPFA Interim President Karen Pearl. "We continue to believe that the law should be struck down by the lower court." "The New Hampshire legislature intentionally omitted a medical emergency exception when it passed this law," Dalven added. "We continue to believe that the lower court will recognize this and strike down the law in its entirety." Statement from Planned Parenthood and the ACLU

Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood website | More Women's Health Stories on Indybay's Womyn News Page