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Featuring Essays by: Edward Said, Robert Fisk, Michael Neumann, Shahid Alam, Alexander Cockburn, Uri Avnery, Bill and Kathy Christison and More

Recent Stories

August 6, 2003

David Krieger
Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Stan Goff
Military Equipment and Pneumonia

August 5, 2003

Uri Avnery
The Prisoner of Ramallah: Arafat at 74

Forrest Hylton
Terrorism and Political Trials: the View from Bolivia

Ray McGovern
"We Cook Estimates to Go"

David Morse
Poindexter's Gambit

Edward Said
Orientallism: 25 Years Later

George W. Bush
My Resumé So Far

Hammond Guthrie
It's Incremental, Watson!

Website of the Day
National Prayer Day


August 4, 2003

Bruce K. Gagnon
Another Peace Activist Detained by Airport Cops: My Story

David Lindorff
Fear-Mongering About Social Security

Mark Zepezauer
George F. Will: Descent into Self-Parody

James Plummer
Tracking You Through the Mail

Mickey Z.
Marriage Insecurity from Sharon to Bush

Bruce Jackson
News that Isn't News: How the NYT's Pimps for the White House

August 2 / 3, 2003

Tamara R. Piety
Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down

Francis Boyle
My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool

David Vest
Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side

Neve Gordon
Nightlife in Jerusalem

Uri Avnery
Their Master's Voice:
Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus

Robert Fisk
Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq

Jerry Kroth
Israel, Yellowcake and the Media

Noah Leavitt
What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to Intervene?

Saul Landau
The Film Industry: Business and Ideology

Ron Jacobs
One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson

Thomas Croft
In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta

Amadi Ajamu
Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader?

Poets' Basement
Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming

 

August 1, 2003

Joanne Mariner
Stopping Prison Rape

Alex Coolman
Who Moved My Soap: Trivializing Prison Rape

Steve J.B.
Prison Bitch

Stan Goff
Injury and Decorum: The Missing Wounded in Iraq

Wayne Madsen
Europe Unplugs from the Matrix

Robert Fisk
Wolfowitz the Censor

Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft Loses Big in Puerto Rico

Website of the Day
Stop Prisoner Rape

 

 

July 31, 2003

Ray McGovern
The Prostitution of Intelligence

Brian Cloughley
Wolfowitz's Operative Statement

Sheldon Hull
The RIAA's Jihad:
The Devil's Music (Industry)

Elaine Cassel
The Next Time You Crack a Lawyer Joke, Think of These Attorneys

Sheldon Rampton
and John Stauber
True Lies: Propaganda and Bush's Wars

Hammond Guthrie
Speculation Blues

Website of the Day
Army of One?

 

July 30, 2003

David Lindorff
Poindexter the Terror Bookie

Marjorie Cohn
Why Iraq and Afghanistan? It's About the Oil

Elaine Cassel
How Ashcroft Coerces Guilty Pleas in Terror Cases

Zvi Bar'el
The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War

Lisa Walsh Thomas
Killing Mustafa Hussein: Death of a Child, Birth of a Legend?

Sean Carter
Pat Robertson's Prayer Jihad: God, Sodomy and the Supremes

ND Jayaprakash
India and Ariel Sharon

Steve Perry
Bush's Top 40 Lies

Standard Schaefer
Correction about Bloomberg and Outscourcing

Website of the Day
Bring Them Home Now!

Congratulations to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD

July 29, 2003

Jeffrey St. Clair
"Journalist Spotted! Journalist Dead!" Guatemala Bleeds; US Press Yawns

Thomas J. Nagy
The Belligerent Dr. Pipes

Kurt Nimmo
Tom Delay Goes to Jerusalem

Chris Floyd
Dead Reckoning: Bush Warriors Sign Off on War Crimes

Robert Fisk
Another Botched Raid; Another Massacre

Jason Leopold
Did Chalabi Help Write Bush's State of the Union Address?

Conn Hallinan
Food Bully: Bush's Biotech Shock and Awe Campaign

Dan Bacher
Sacramento's War on Free Speech

Ray McGovern
Cheney Chicanery

Website of the Day
Julie Hilden Caught on Tape


July 26 / 27, 2003

Alexander Cockburn
NYT's Screws Up Again; Uday and Qusay Deaths Bad for Bush; Gen. Hitchens at the Front

Gary Leupp
Faith-Based Intelligence

Saul Landau
A Report from Syria

Stan Goff
Bring 'Em On Home, Now!

Jeffrey St. Clair
Book Cooking at Boeing

Andrew Cockburn
The Sons Are Dead; Now the Blood Feud Begins

Jason Leopold
CIA Points the Finger at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans

Robert Fisk
The Power of Death

Joanne Mariner
Monsieur Moussaoui

Standard Schaefer
Joblessness and the Invisible Hand

M. Shahid Alam
The Global Economy Since 1800: a Short History

Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: the Other Faltering Peace Process

Fidel Castro
Moncada, 50 Years Later

Lula
Democracy Requires Social Justice

Edward S. Herman
Refuting Brad DeLong's Smear Job on Noam Chomsky

Ron Jacobs
Guided by a Great Feeling of Love: a Review of Gordon's The Company You Keep

Julie Hilden
A Photographer, an Offer and Cameron Diaz's Topless Photos

Adam Engel
Man Talk

Poets' Basement
Keeney, Witherup, Short, Nimba, Guthrie and Albert

 

Hot Stories

Steve J.B.
Prison Bitch

Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda in the Iraq War

Wendell Berry
Small Destructions Add Up

CounterPunch Wire
WMD: Who Said What When

Cindy Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From

Elaine Cassel
Civil Liberties Watch

Michel Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians"

Uzma Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War: What America Says Does Not Go

Paul de Rooij
Arrogant Propaganda

Gore Vidal
The Erosion of the American Dream

Francis Boyle
Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution

Click Here for More Stories.

 

 

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August 5, 2003

Lists Upon Lists Upon Lists

Strip-Search Airlines

By ELAINE CASSEL

You have heard about the Transportation Security Administration's "no-fly" list? That is the black list of persons who are supposed threats to airline safety. If you name is like anyone the government has ever had on a terrorist-watch list, you are on the list. No, you cannot get your name off the list. Don't even ask. In fact, it will neither be confirmed or denied that you name is even on the list. It will be obvious to you, because you will be turned away at the gate. But the government won't say you are on the list.

Now, there is another list. Actually, I found out about it recently when talking to a friend who works for a contractor who works for TSA. I get searched every time I fly. Pulled out of the line and ordered to a chair on the sidelines or to a room, my bags are emptied. I am "wanded" over and over. My shoes are searched. I am sent on my way.

My friend said there was a code embedded in my boarding pass that alerted security to pull me out of line. She said, "It's your writing. It's got to be."

Lo and behold, CounterPunch writer David Lindorff broke the story in an article for Salon on the TSA list for politically incorrect people, containing thousands of names.

Kept secret until its disclosure last week by the TSA after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by San Francisco anti-war activists, it is supposedly entirely separate from the relatively well-publicized "no-fly" list, which covers about 1,000 people believed to have criminal or terrorist ties that could endanger the safety of airline passengers.

It is impossible to know for sure who might be on the list, or why. The ACLU says a list kept by security personnel at Oakland airport ran to 88 pages. More than 300 people have been subject to special questioning at San Francisco airport, and another 24 at Oakland, according to police records. In no case does it appear that a wanted criminal was apprehended.

It is not just left-wingers who feel unfairly targeted. Right-wing civil libertarians have spoken out against the secret list, and at least one conservative organization, the Eagle Forum, says its members have been interrogated by security staff.

There is something true conservatives and civil libertarians can agree on. The Fourth Amendment that is supposed to protect us against unreasonable searches and seizures has been abandoned for madness in the name of airline safety. The government is getting its revenge on citizens who criticize the Bush regime. It might get lucky and find a nail file or two that will allow them to arrest a "dissident" and charge them with a federal crime.

Though it is not yet a federal crime to criticize the government (unless you are an Arab or a Muslim), Bush plans to shut you up one way or the other. My libertarian friends have been telling me that I should rejoice when the government does "stupider and stupider" things. It means a "change is gonna come." Americans won't stand idly by for ever, they promise. Meantime, the ACLU is suing the government to try to learn more about the list that targets political activists who challenge the government in entirely legal ways.

As for the list, I hope it grows to hundreds of thousands of names. If you're not on it, you ought to be.

Elaine Cassel practices law in Virginia and the District of Columbia, teachers law and psychology, and follows the Bush regime's dismantling of the Constitution at Civil Liberties Watch. She can be reached at: ecassel1@cox.net

Weekend Edition Features for August 2/3, 2003

Tamara R. Piety
Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down

Francis Boyle
My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool

David Vest
Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side

Neve Gordon
Nightlife in Jerusalem

Uri Avnery
Their Master's Voice:
Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus

Robert Fisk
Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq

Jerry Kroth
Israel, Yellowcake and the Media

Noah Leavitt
What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to Intervene?

Saul Landau
The Film Industry: Business and Ideology

Ron Jacobs
One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson

Thomas Croft
In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta

Amadi Ajamu
Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader?

Poets' Basement
Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming

 

 

 

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