In an article published by the Washington Post, former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff warns America of the need to install body-imaging screening machines at airports. He rails against critics of the devices, accusing them of being ideologues setting out to 'alarm the public.' At the foot of the piece, the fig leaf: Chertoff … [...]

JUSTICE Act: a bill to restore the Bill of Rights to America – Boing Boing
Today, Senators Russ Feingold and Dick Durbin — along with eight other Senators — have taken the Administration up on its offer by introducing the JUSTICE Act, which would rein in the worst excesses of PATRIOT and last years FISA Amendments [...]

Obama adminstration brings back the Freedom of Information Act and transparency in government – Boing Boing
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Marcia Hofmann has a report card on transparent government measures undertaken by the Obama administration on its first day in office. The news is pretty damned good: they’ve reversed Ashcroft’s restrictions on Freedom of Information Act [...]

Tell Congress to rein in DHS travel abuses – Boing Boing
The ACLU has set up a form that makes it easy to tell Congress to overhaul the broken terrorist watch list and to require reasonable suspicion for electronic searches at the border.
With no suspicion and no explanation, the U.S. government can [...]

The Raw Story | Kucinich presents Bush impeachment articles
An Ohio Democratic lawmaker and former presidential candidate has presented articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush to Congress.
Thirty-five articles were presented by Rep. Dennis Kucinich to the House of Representatives late Monday evening, airing live on C-SPAN.

Daily Kos: BREAKING ON C-SPAN: Kucinich introducing impeachment
Congressman Dennis Kucinich is on the floor of the House of Representatives right now introducing 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush.

US reportedly pulls out of UN Human Rights Council – Boing Boing
The Human Rights Tribune is reporting that the US has pulled out of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, “an international body within the United Nations System. Its stated purpose is to address human rights violations.”

This doesn’t sound good.

John McCain vows to continue Bush’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program – Boing Boing
John McCain has changed his position on illegal warrantless wiretapping: he used to think that the President had to uphold the nation’s laws. Now he says that the Constitution is subordinate to the all-powerful executive order.
My favorite line on this comes from the [...]

Shocking, I know.

Gonzales, Mueller admit FBI broke law – Yahoo! News And they promise not to do it again
Boing Boing: DoJ: FBI misused Patriot act in domestic spying activities
ALA | Statement from ALA President Leslie Burger on Justice Dept. Investigation into FBI, NSLs These findings confirm many of ALA’s most repeatedly stated concerns about [...]

Wired News: Judge Halts NSA Snooping

The Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping on Amercians’ telephone and internet communications is unconstitutional and must stop immediately, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
The ruling is the first court order barring the National Security Agency’s ambitious domestic surveillance activities, which have spurred a string of lawsuits against the government and telecommunications [...]

Wired News: Suits Seek End to Domestic Spying

The New York suit, filed on behalf of the center and individuals, names Bush, the head of the National Security Agency and the heads of the other major security agencies, challenging the NSA’s surveillance of persons within the United States without judicial approval or statutory authorization.
… It asked [...]

Boing Boing: DoJ search requests: Google said no; Yahoo, AOL, MSN yes.
It seems apparent that Google objected to the request not for privacy reasons, but on grounds that the request was too broad and burdensome.
… Justice is not requesting this data in the course of a criminal investigation, but in order to defend its argument [...]

Curmudgeony Librarian News Network: Congress Votes to Extend Patriot Act
Congress reauthorized several elements of the Patriot Act, which were due to expire in 2006. Fourteen of the sixteen sections with “sunset clauses” were made permanent, and the other two were extended for ten years.

Wired News: House Votes to Limit Patriot Act
…lawmakers voted Wednesday to block the Justice Department and the FBI from using the Patriot Act to peek at library records and bookstore sales slips.

A little progress but there’s still a lot left.

Am I the only one who finds the hardest part of customer outreach the actual writing? Either you have no time or writer’s block.
If I’m not, and you want to tell your community about Firefox, feel free to use the text below. Bend, break and mutilate as you see fit.
The final version of [...]

Attorney General John Ashcroft resigned today, claiming credit for an extraordinary era of justice in his resignation letter.
Boing Boing

Where?!

Yahoo! News – Court strikes down Patriot Act provision

Boing Boing: ACLU and EFF strike down part of PATRIOT Act

librarian.net : gag orders unconstitutional says federal court. duh, says jessamyn.

…Viet Dinh (G-town law prof, former AA General for Bush, author of the USA Patriot Act, and poster boy for conservative causes…). Viet made a comment at one point that I think you would like — he said what he had learned from the response to the Patriot Act was ‘Don’t mess with librarians.’”
librarian.net

hehe

9-11 Commission Final Report
The 9/11 Commission Report, Executive Summary (HTML)
The 9/11 Commission Report (Full Index)
Wired News: Techies Reshape 9/11 History

Wired News: Privacy Is in the House
…the Patriot Act shows that the Justice Department in particular needs a strong privacy officer, an idea that at least one committee member said he would be looking into.
Please!

Manhattan User’s Guide > Archives > Medical Privacy
According to yesterday’s front-page story in the Times, Justice Department attorney Sheila M. Gowan argued before Judge Richard Conway Casey (U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York) that “Individuals no longer possess a reasonable expectation that their histories will remain completely confidential.”
First librarians, now doctors. [...]

TechnoBiblio: Patriot Act Takes A Hit
Wooo hooo! A federal judge ruled unconstitutional the portion of the Patriot Act that forbids giving assistance or expert advice to organizations designated as “foreign terrorist organizations”. Now if we can just move on to the rest of the unconstitutional portions.
Amen

WorkingForChange-This Modern World: Reference Sources of Terror
Just because it’s funny.

Bush Grabs New Power for FBI | ReachCustomersOnline.com
The US Bill of Rights and the Constitution no longer apply when you buy insurance, travel, real estate, stocks, jewelry, cars, casinos, and even use the Post Office. You have no rights.

Feingold Introduces Legislation to Protect Personal Information
U.S. Senator Russ Feingold today introduced the Library, Bookseller, and Personal Records Privacy Act. This legislation is aimed at protecting the privacy of law-abiding Americans by limiting the ability of the FBI to obtain library, bookstore, medical, and financial records and other sensitive personal information under the USA [...]

American Civil Liberties Union : MCA, et al. v. Ashcroft and Mueller
The ACLU files the first legal challenge to the USA PATRIOT Act, taking aim at a section of the controversial law that vastly expands the power of FBI agents to secretly obtain records and personal belongings of innocent people in the United States, including [...]

HIGHTOWER: Shredding Ashcroft is a opinion column talking about librarians and the USA Patriot Act. It’s very encouraging that someone is listening.