Surveillance

I Don’t Know About Barney Fife, But Andy Griffith Would Probably Oppose the Green Scare

Who knew Andy Griffith was such a civil libertarian? Check out this clip from the “Andy Griffith Show.” My favorite line, when he scolds Opie for trying to help him by spying: “Opie, the law can’t use this kind of help.”

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Project Censored: Halliburton Subsidiary to Build Detention Camps in U.S.

From Project Censored’s “Top 25 Censored Stories” for last year: Halliburton’s subsidiary KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown and Root) announced on January 24, 2006 that it had been awarded a $385 million contingency contract by the Department of Homeland Security to build detention camps in the United States. According to a press release posted on the […]

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FBI Says Internet Providers Should Make Tapping Easier

Federal agents must have it pretty rough these days. It seems they don’t have time for pesky warrants, so the Bush administration has approved the illegal spying program of the National Security Agency. Now over-burdened FBI agents want to force Internet service providers to create backdoors for easier government surveillance.

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DNA Databases Part of the Green Scare?

The Portland Press Herald reported yesterday that state police approached about a dozen environmental activists in Maine for DNA samples, as part of an “ongoing investigation.” Jim Freeman, a member of Earth First!, said a forensic specialist asked him for DNA samples because cops were investigating vandalism around Plum Creek. Environmentalists have opposed development around […]

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Cop Says He Was Demoted For Opposing Green Scare Tactics

From the Associated Press today: LOS ANGELES – A high-ranking California law enforcement official said in a personnel complaint that he was demoted after questioning the legality of federal and state intelligence-gathering methods, but authorities dispute the claims. Edward Manavian was chief of criminal intelligence for the California Department of Justice, and chairman of the […]

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DHS Helps Corporations Fight Terrorism Like… “Flyer Distribution”?

The Department of Homeland Security distributed a bulletin on Thursday to help corporations fight “eco-terrorism” like “flyer distribution,” “graffiti,” and “tying up company phone lines.” Go ahead and laugh, but it gets worse.

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AT&T Gives Feds Access to Network

AT&T let the National Security Agency set up secret rooms in company offices to monitor public calls and sift through massive amounts of data, according to evidence filed in a lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. A whistle-blower who worked for the company for 22 years said a device was installed with the “ability to […]

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Know Your Rights

Singing along to “London Calling” by The Clash got a passenger yanked from an airplane in northern England and interrogated by anti-terrorism detectives today. A cabbie called the police because Harraj Mann, 24, was singing along to “Now war is declared — and battle come down.” Suspicious lyrics? Maybe. But Mann had plugged his MP3 […]

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Domestic Spying: an opportunity for animal activists

I just posted a column I wrote for the next issue of No Compromise about President Bush admitting that he authorized spying on ordinary Americans, with no judicial review. An excerpt: For activists in the trenches, this may not seem like cause for celebration. The true breadth and depth of government surveillance and harassment hasn’t […]

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