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NCPCF News Digest - Issue No. 134 – December 4, 2012
‘Civil Freedoms for All’
“It is my conviction that if we are neutral in situations of injustice, we have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu
In this issue
Upcoming Events
NCPCF-MLFA Sponsored Events: Civil Rights in Jeopardy
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Tariq Ramadan
Thursday, Detroit, MI – December 13, 2012 @ 6:30 p.m.
The Muslim Unity Center - 1830 West Square Lake Rd, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48302
Friday, Los Angeles, CA, December 14, 2012 @ 7:30 PM
1 Al-Rahman Plaza, Garden Grove, CA 92844
Saturday, Chicago, IL – December 15, 2012 @ 8:30 PM
480 Potter Rd, Des Plaines, IL 60016
Sunday, Washington DC – December 16, 2012 @ 5:00 PM
Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center, 3159 Row St., Falls Church, VA 22044
An Injury to One is An Injury to All: A Conference in Defense of Civil Liberties and to End Indefinite Detention
Saturday December 8, 2012
Semesters Hall, Student Center - Central Connecticut State University - New Britain, CT
Selected Speakers:
Glen Greenwald – Author, Constitutional Lawyer, and Guardian Columnist
Sahar F. Aziz - Civil Rights Legal Scholar
Shahid Buttar - Executive Director, Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Steve Downs - Executive Director, National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms
Nancy Murray - Director of Education, ACLU of Massachusetts
Fahd Ahmed– Legal and policy director of Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM)
Tracy Molm—Committee to Stop FBI Repression
For more information: Click Here or Here
MLFA’s free legal clinics!
Action Items
NCPCF Action Item: 5,000 signatures in 12 Days of Action
NCPCF 2012 Legislative Agenda During Congressional Recess
Poll of the Week
What Should the Government Do with Guantanamo Bay Prisoners?
Website of the Week
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News Digest
Pre-Crime Reports/Pre-emptive Prosecutions/Thought Crimes/Entrapment/Material Support
A. Reuters (11/28): UK student escapes U.S. extradition in copyright case
A British university student who launched a website linking to TV shows and films online for free has reached an agreement to avoid extradition to the US and possible jail over copyright infringement allegations, the High Court heard on Wednesday.
B. Wired (11/29): Judge Gives Bradley Manning Permission to Plead Guilty for WikiLeaks Dumps
A military judge in Maryland has accepted the terms under which alleged WikiLeaks leaker Bradley Manning has proposed to plead guilty. The terms would allow Manning to plead guilty to 7 of the 22 charges he’s currently facing for allegedly leaking hundreds of thousands of classified government documents to the secret-spilling site in 2009 and 2010.
C. Associated Press (11/30): Judge sentences 4th defendant in failed Ohio bridge bombing plot to 6 years in prison
The first man to plead guilty in a failed plot to bomb a highway bridge in Ohio was sentenced Friday to six years in prison, the lightest sentence of the four handed out so far. Anthony Hayne, 36, of Cleveland, apologized before being sentenced in U.S. District Court. His guilty plea and offer to testify for prosecutors quickly led three of his co-defendants to plead guilty.
D. Associated Press (12/1): Family defends 2 Florida brothers charged in terror plot, say it’s a misunderstanding
Two Florida brothers charged with plotting to support terrorists are caring family men who enjoyed living in the U.S. and would never hurt anyone, their family said Saturday.
Islamophobia & Civil Rights
A. CBS New York (11/30): NYPD: Suspects Savagely Attacked Elderly Man In Queens After Asking If He Was Muslim
A brutal beating left a beloved grandfather in the hospital Friday night and police want to know if it was an act of hate. Ali Akmal laid in his hospital bed in critical condition with wounds and bruises covering most of his body. The 72-year-old was savagely beaten after he went out for his early morning walk on 46 Avenue in Corona last Saturday.
B. Wired (11/30): US media helped anti-Muslim bodies gain influence, distort Islam
A study published by a sociologist has revealed that fear-mongering non-governmental anti-Muslim organisations have been heavily influencing US media since 9/11, their messages seeping into news articles and television reporting and drawing their ethos from the fringes, straight into the mainstream.
Community Action/Building Our Coalition
TimesUnion.com (11/29): Deputy won’t take action against TSA pat down opponents at Albany airport
A pair of activists came out on top in a free-speech debate with officials at Albany International Airport, captured on an edited video that as of midday Wednesday had garnered more than 38,000 views.
Civil Freedoms Under Threat
A. TimesUnion.com (11/29): Deputy won’t take action against TSA pat down opponents at Albany airport
A pair of activists came out on top in a free-speech debate with officials at Albany International Airport, captured on an edited video that as of midday Wednesday had garnered more than 38,000 views.
B. Washington Times (12/2): Drone plans mired in ‘privacy issues’
Frustrated commercial drone companies say the Obama administration is falling further and further behind in meeting congressional demands to clear the path for full integration into American airspace by 2015. Billions of dollars of investments as well as commercial applications for drones could be caught up in the delay, they warn.
Government Policies Under Scrutiny
A. The Hill (11/28): Issa looks to ban Internet regulations
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is seeking input on a bill that would impose a two-year ban on new laws or regulations that affect the Internet. Issa released a draft of his Internet American Moratorium Act on Monday night and said that he would answer questions about the legislation on Reddit, a social news and discussion site, on Wednesday morning. The one-page draft bill would prohibit Congress and all regulatory agencies from enacting rules that affect the Internet for two years, with an exception for national security emergencies.
B. New York Times (11/30): Senate Votes to Curb Indefinite Detention
The Senate voted late on Thursday to prohibit the government from imprisoning American citizens and green card holders apprehended in the United States in indefinite detention without trial. While the move appeared to bolster protections for domestic civil liberties, it was opposed by an array of rights groups who claimed it implied that other types of people inside the United States could be placed in military detention, opening the door to using the military to perform police functions.
C. Tenth Amendment Center (11/30): The Feinstein Fumble: Indefinite Detention Remains
The proposed language in the 2013 NDAA and the recent Feinstein Amendment do not fix the multiple Constitutional infirmities in section 1021 of the 2012 NDAA. Unfortunately, Congress is now poised to reaffirm the President’s ability to prosecute persons within the USA though military tribunals, potentially allow continued indefinite detention without charge or trial, and do nothing to limit the practice of extraordinary rendition.
D. Los Angeles Times (11/30): Senate panel OKs update to communications privacy law
The Senate Judiciary Committee sends to the House a bill that would require the government to obtain a search warrant before secretly gaining access to all email and other electronic communications.
E. Truth-Out (12/1): GAO Report on Guantanamo Doesn’t Touch Indefinite Detention, Civil Liberties Offenses
The infamous Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba opened in January 2002. Now, ten years later, a report from the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds it would be possible to close the military facility and move the 166 detainees to the United States.
Editorials/Opinions
A. Nick Bilton in the New York Times (12/2): Disruptions: Silencing the Voices of Militants on Twitter
Along with six other Republican lawmakers, Representative Ted Poe, a judge turned Texas Congressman, sent a letter to the F.B.I., demanding that Twitter ban two militant groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, that are on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. For civil libertarians, any move to remove Hamas and Hezbollah from Twitter raises concerns.
B. John W. Whitehead in the Rutherford Institute (12/3): The Fight Against the Total Surveillance State in Our Schools
The battle playing out in San Antonio, Texas, over one student’s refusal to comply with a public school campaign to microchip students has nothing to do with security concerns and even less to do with academic priorities. What is driving this particular program, which requires students to carry “smart” identification cards embedded with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tracking devices, is money, pure and simple—or to put it more bluntly, this program is yet another example of the nefarious collusion between government bureaucracy and corporate America, a way for government officials to dance to the tune of the corporate state, while unhesitatingly selling students to the highest bidder.
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NCPCF Mission
Established in October 2010, the NCPCF is a coalition of national and local organizations as well as prominent individuals, whose mission is: To educate the public about the erosion of civil and political freedoms in the society, and the abuses of prisoners within the U.S. criminal justice system especially after 9/11, and to advocate for the preservation of those freedoms and to defend those rights according to the U.S. Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its related UN Conventions, and the Geneva Conventions.
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Member Organizations
American Muslim Alliance (AMA) – Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC) – Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) – Committee to Stop FBI Repression (CSFR) – Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR) – Defending Dissent Foundation (DDF) – Desis, Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) – Friends of Human Rights (FHR) – International Action Center (IAC) – Islamic Circle of North America Council for Social Justice (ICNA-CSJ) – Muslim American Society Freedom (MAS-F) -Muslim Civil Liberties Union (MCLU) – Muslim Justice Initiative (MJI) – Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA) – National Lawyers Guild (NLG) – National Liberty Fund (NLF) – The Peace Thru Justice Foundation (PTJF) – Project Support and Legal Advocacy for Muslims (Project SALAM) – Universal Justice Foundation (UJF).
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