On March 5th, the Rights Working Group released the second video in its series Faces of Racial Profiling. This video captures the testimony of Julio Martinez, whose mentally impaired son Alex, a U.S. citizen, was killed by Customs & Border Protection (CBP) officers in Washington state.

Martinez states that in February of 2011, he called 911 to request that his son be taken to a hospital. However, because Julio was speaking Spanish, it was CBP agents who responded to the call. When Alex tripped, holding a flashlight, and fell on an agent, he was shot dead.

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First time visiting the People’s Blog for the Constitution? Long-time reader looking to see what we’ve been up to? Take a minute to view the latest video from BORDC for an inside look at some of our recent work and learn about the mission of the organization.

Please take a moment today to share this video with your family and friends. In addition to celebrating the end of BORDC’s 10th anniversary with us this holiday season, please also remember to invest in the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and our efforts standing for liberty when our government won’t. Every contribution—whether $10 or $10,000—is tax-deductible and helps build the movement, especially with a generous matching grant adding 50% to your contribution.

2012 has been a monumental anniversary year for the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC). It was a decade ago that a small group of committed activists gathered in Northampton, MA, to organize resistance to the USA PATRIOT Act. They secured a resolution in their city council upholding the Bill of Rights, and founded BORDC.

Since 2001, BORDC has grown into a national grassroots network working across the country to protect the rule of law and restore civil liberties. We’ve worked with grassroots networks in hundreds of cities to mobilize support for civil rights and civil liberties.

Every day, concerned grassroots organizers engage their local communities with our toolkits, read updates from our blog and newsletter, and build local coalitions with our advice, to make sure that your voice is heard on issues like torture, surveillance, and racial profiling,

And you’ve been a big part of our success. Your support means the world to us — and to our nation’s future. Thank you for supporting the Bill of Rights and BORDC’s efforts to defend it over our first decade.

Happy Thanksgiving from everyone at BORDC!

During a recent two-part interview with the Daily Show, President Barack Obama reflected upon his first presidential term, and articulated certain goals that he hopes to accomplish in his potential second term. In facilitating the discussion, Jon Stewart posed several questions in Part 2 of the interview concerning the Obama administration’s previous positions towards national security, as well as the concerns over the increasing trade-off between governmental security and American values.

In addressing this issue, President Obama asserted that he does not believe such a trade-off should be fundamentally necessary, and deplored the collapse of certain policies that were directed towards mitigating this trade-off. In addressing such national security issues, President Obama stresses that:

“There’s some things that we haven’t gotten done. I still want to close Guantanamo. We haven’t been able to get that through Congress.”

Moreover, Stewart pressed President Obama on his positions towards the Bush-era wiretaps, which have been the subject of substantial controversy, as many commentators have argued that such warrantless wiretaps constitute unconstitutional abridgments of fourth amendment rights. Stewart indicated that President Obama has done little in restraining actions such as intrusive wiretapping, despite public expectation that he would do so. In addressing whether such measures have been limited by his administration, President Obama defended his position, and stated that:

“… the truth is actually, we have modified them, and built a legal structure, and safeguards in place that weren’t there before.”

Watch Part 1 of the interview online.

Video footage of  Chester, PA,  resident Aida Guzman, a Puerto Rican female, being brutality assault by a male police officer is difficult to watch; you can clearly see Guzman being approached in a threatening manner by the officer, then punched at least twice, as bystanders are obviously shocked and fearful to come to her defense. Thankfully, it was all captured by a cell phone camera. The attack took place at Philadelphia’s annual Puerto Rican Day Parade, a day of celebration for the whole city and an event Guzman has not missed in nearly two decades. However, the attack may keep her from attending in the future.

All it took was a misunderstanding about some liquid being flung at the officer for such a violent overreaction. Since the unwarranted attack, the officer, Lieutenant Jonathan D. Josey II, was placed on administrative suspension and has been fired by Commissioner Charles Ramsey. According to the Philadelphia Daily News, Ramsey referred to the incident as “troubling.”

In the confusion, not only was Guzman struck by a uniformed officer, she was arrested for disorderly conduct; charges against the victim have since been dropped.  It was the last straw for a community that has long bore the brunt of police misconduct, often in the form of mistreatment. To add insult to injury, the Fraternal Order of Police has planned a party in honor of the dismissed officer; it is scheduled for October 28th.

The Sordid Past of the Philadelphia Police Department

Philadelphia has a disturbing history of police violence and violations of civil rights. In 1985, as a response to alleged complaints by neighbors about peaceful but radical group called MOVE occupying a row house in Cobbs Creek, the police department bombed the dwelling on Osage Aveune in the West Philadelphia neighborhood. According to CNN, “The fire destroyed 61 row houses, including MOVE’s, and left 250 people homeless. Of the 11 people killed in the fire, five were children.” Just four years prior, Mumia Abu-Jamal (a radio journalist who had reported on MOVE’s prior legal troubles and given the group positive media exposure) became involved in an altercation with an officer who had his younger brother pulled over for an assumed traffic violation, resulting in his being shot and the officer’s contentious death at the scene; Abu-Jamal was later sentenced to death for this (though he is now serving life without parole), in what is still believed by many to be court assisted police corruption. The police department has maintained notoriety for its rather consistent and pervasive mistreatment of Philadelphians, especially minorities, including Puerto Ricans.

Decorated documentarian Laura Poitras, renown for films such as “My Country, My County” and “The Oath”, recently profiled National Security Administration (NSA) whistleblower William Brinney.  In this segment from an upcoming Op-Doc titled “The Program”, Binney details a post-9/11 NSA program he helped design, and explains how the federal government turned these tools against the American people.

Although law mandates that the NSA restrict intelligence collection to foreign communications, post-9/11 national security policies grant tacit authority to dishonor Americans’ right to privacy.  Recalling his work on a program called Stellar Wind, Binney tells of a “separate” NSA operation established specifically for domestic spying.  Binney states, “it was simply a different input; instead of foreign, it was domestic”.  This description suggests that the NSA may perform domestic surveillance, despite legislative proscription, to the same extent it executes its express duties.  In effect, Stellar Wind signifies a program created to circumvent constitutional protections.

While jeopardizing the right to privacy and chilling the freedoms of speech and association, the NSA’s Stellar Wind program also violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”).  FISA governs matters of global communication regarding foreign intelligence.  Though subsequent legislation such as the PATRIOT Act and the FISA Amendment Act of 2008 (“FAA”) aggrandize domestic surveillance authority, no law may disturb the rights guaranteed by our Constitution.  By violating Americans’ fundamental freedoms, the NSA creates insecurity in the nation it purports to protect.

Acquiescence to government misconduct enables further infringement upon civil rights.  Engagement and organization are effective means of combating the erosion of our liberties.  The House has already voted to extend the FAA for another five years, but the Senate does not vote on this matter until December. If the FAA fails to pass the Senate, this noxious law will expire.  Contact or visit your state Senator’s office and demand that they represent your community’s opposition to secret civilian surveillance.

Visit  BORDC’s Resources page for information on initiating civic activism.

On September 24, 2012, activists from across the nation gathered outside FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, to protest the bureau’s expansive surveillance, infiltration and entrapment activities criminalizing dissent.

The rally was organized by the Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition  to commemorate the second anniversary of FBI’s raid and seizure of computers, personal items, and books, belonging to 23 activists from the Midwest. On September 24, 2010, the FBI committed an act of unwarranted surveillance and attacked the activist community. The activists were subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury, but refused to do so.  Moreover, no charges were filed against any of the activists whose personal property was seized.

At the rally, the activists and their supporters demanded the end of this investigation and the unwarranted surveillance that targets dissenting voices.

Watch Shahid Buttar, BORDC’s executive director, perform a political rap piece at the rally:

BORDC Executive Director Shahid Buttar recently gave an interview at Uprising Radio to discuss precarious trends  in national security policy between the George W. Bush and Obama administrations.  Criticizing the Obama administration’s failure to overturn Bush-era assaults on liberty, and observing an expansion of those noxious policies and practices, Buttar suggests that, in the realm of national security, both Republicans and Democrats carry on an agenda that further infringes upon privacy and freedom.

Buttar cites the continued operation of Guantanamo Bay to illustrate the depreciation of civil liberties from 2008 to 2012.

Instead of military detention at Guantanamo Bay we now have a statute signed by President Obama that authorizes military detention for anyone within the US, including journalists, activists, potentially any ethnic or religious minority. So the detention regime has gotten worse. The 2012 platform to its credit makes the point about how because of supposed respect for civil liberties that’s why the Obama administration stops torture. Except that it doesn’t explain that the Obama Administrations position on torture may actually be worse than the Bush Administrations…

Heightened authority for indefinite detention under the Obama Administration, which campaigned in no small part on a civil liberties platform, signifies a failed promise to the American people. Furthermore, Democrats perpetuating the violations of liberty committed by a much-maligned Republican regime suggests that our major political institutions share an interest in jeopardizing freedom for the purported purpose of increasing security.

The ramifications of increased surveillance diminished privacy affect not only alleged members or supporters of international terrorist organizations, but also domestic activists, journalists, and even ordinary Americans.  Without legal policies to check and counter the government’s growing security enforcement capabilities, we risk allowing our nation to become the sort of suppressive police state we once stood against.  No false sense of security is worth losing the right to rally against misguided wars or social and political inequality. Noting the convergence of national security policies across political lines, Buttar states:

[T]he warrantless wiretapping scheme by the NSA that continues, the regime of torture with impunity, massive and unchecked profiling, all of these things will continue regardless of who is in office. And I do think the real danger there, and this is the most disturbing point of all is that America is becoming at least for purposes for national security and civil rights, a one party state with all of the terrifying things that that implies.

One of the most “terrifying things” implied by such a state would be an American people left without a national organization to support its essential liberties.

Buttar’s analysis predicts a forlorn future for individual and collective liberties if the trend to aggrandize national security law and power continues.  However, if our government and political institutions will not honor guaranteed liberties, the people must assume responsibility to preserve them.  BORDC emphatically encourages community activism and grassroots organization for the unification of a national voice against oppression.  Visit the BORDC website for critical resources on how to engage civil liberties issues and become involved in your community.

Read the transcript of Shaid Buttar’s interview with Uprising Radio here.

JustNewsProductions recently released “The Obama I Used to Know”, a video parody of singer-songwriter Goyte’s signature single, “Somebody I Used to Know”.   The video depicts two disappointed Obama voters being painted into Shepard Fairey’s iconic 2008 “Hope” poster, lightheartedly expressing frustration with the president’s compromises on the “Change” he so compellingly championed during his 2008 presidential campaign.

The song addresses various instances where the Obama administration could have catalyzed critical shifts in US politics and conduct abroad.  Its criticism of private firms’ influence in public affairs coincides  with the Department of Justice’s recent termination of criminal investigations against Goldman-Sacchs for possible arbitrage.  The song also alludes to the Obama administrations’ continued use of Predator drones and maintenance of infamous detention centers, Guantanamo Bay and Bagram Air Base.

While JustNewProductions  may have simply created a humorous commentary on President Obama’s unambitious first term, it also provokes a sincere question of US national leadership: will “Change” come fierce and just in 2013, or will it again crumble beneath monetary influence and military aggression?

For more information about JustNewProductions, visit here.

This Monday, between speaking at grassroots forums on the NDAA and national security state in San Francisco (on Sunday, July 29) and Oakland (on Tuesday, July 31), I had the pleasure of sharing an hour with radio host Rose Aguilar and legendary whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg on KALW 91.7FM.

Daniel, subject of the Academy award-nominated documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America, is an adviser to BORDC and shared his unique perspective on the threat posed to dissent by the looming specter of domestic military detention without trial.

Rose’s program, Your Call, explored a series of interconnected issues including the NDAA, its implications for democracy, opportunities for We the People to mount resistance, and the deafening silence in the presidential campaign on these issues.

After the radio show, Rose also recorded a short video extending the discussion: