2010-2011 GSA Chair - UC Davis GSA The 2010-2011 GSA Chair is Brian Riley. You can contact him at brian.riley AT yahoo DOT com See also 2009-2010 GSA Chair for information about the previous Chair CLICK HERE to read Brian's opinion columns in the California Aggie, the UC Davis student newspaper. NDAA FY2012 Explained The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is a federal law specifying the budget and expenditures of the United States Department of Defense (DOD). Each year's act also includes other provisions, some related to civil liberties. The FY14 NDAA includes language that will make it easier to transfer detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, home or to third countries that agree to accept them. The language, however, prohibits the transfer of any detainee onto U.S. soil for any reason. The bill also does not include funds for building new, or upgrading old, facilities at Guantanamo—an acknowledgement that the facilities are temporary.
Secret Bill To Be Voted On Today Would Allow The Military To Sweep Up US Citizens At Home Or Abroad Either Monday or Tuesday the Senate will vote on a bill that allows the US military to imprison civilians with no formal charges and hold them with no trial. The ACLU reports even US citizens wouldn't be immune as the legislation aims to declare national territory part of the "battlefield" in the War on Terror. Termed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and drafted behind closed doors by Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) the NDAA would: 1) Explicitly authorize the federal government to indefinitely imprison without charge or trial American citizens and others picked up inside and outside the United States; (2) Mandate military detention of some civilians who would otherwise be outside of military control, including civilians picked up within the United States itself; and (3) Transfer to the Department of Defense core prosecutorial, investigative, law enforcement, penal, and custodial authority and responsibility now held by the Department of Justice.
Reporters For Right-Wing Publication Daily Caller Beaten By NYPD, Helped By Protesters By Zaid Jilani on November 17, 2011 at 1:20 pm "Reporters For Right-Wing Publication Daily Caller Beaten By NYPD, Helped By Protesters" The Daily Caller's Michelle Fields faced abuse from the NYPD and help from protesters. The right-wing Daily Caller website has been anything but kind to Occupy Wall Street, even going so far as to condemn the protest movement as generating riots, murder, and arson. But when a couple of Daily Caller employees were at Occupy Wall Street this morning, it was the very protesters they had been demonizing who ended up helping them out. Daily Caller reporter Michelle Fields — who faced off with actor Matt Damon earlier this year over education policy — and videographer Direna Cousins both claim they were attacked by the New York Police Department (NYPD) while covering the raucous protests in the Financial District today.
Kalle Lasn on OWS, the Israel lobby & the New York Times Kalle Lasn in front of the Adbuster’s corporate flag of America. (Photo: Globus) When the Occupy Wall Street protests began to attract attention in the fall, everyone wanted to know where the idea to set up a permanent protest at the heart of Manhattan’s financial district came from. Internment/Resettlement Specialist (31E) Position Overview: Internment/Resettlement (I/R) Specialists in the Army are primarily responsible for day-to-day operations in a military confinement/correctional facility or detention/internment facility. I/R Specialists provide rehabilitative, health, welfare, and security to U.S. military prisoners within a confinement or correctional facility; conduct inspections; prepare written reports; and coordinate activities of prisoners/internees and staff personnel. Duties performed by Soldiers in this MOS include: Assists with supervision and management of military prisoners, and provides external security to confinement/corrections facility.
New NDAA's Loopholes Make Its Military Detention Provisions Almost Pointless The version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that emerged from a House-Senate conference meeting Tuesday morning contains many of the same provisions that administration officials and national security experts have warned would harm national security. But while earlier incarnations of the detention provisions were confusing and harmful, now they're confusing and largely symbolic. "Those who were big supporters of this provision, well, this doesn't accomplish what they wanted. Their enthusiasm is misplaced," said Robert Chesney, a national security law expert who teaches at the University of Texas School of Law. "Those who are decrying this as the militarization of domestic law enforcement, it doesn't have to be that either." The new bill still mandates military detention without trial for any non-citizen terrorism suspect apprehended in the US who is determined to be a member of al Qaeda or an "affiliated group."
Occupy Atlanta encamps on lawn of house under foreclosure threat An Atlanta police officer sent an email to Occupy Atlanta protesters asking for help with his house, which is under threat of foreclosure (when the family tried to refinance their mortgage, the bank responded with a foreclosure notice). Dozens of Atlanta occupiers shifted their camp to the house's lawn, erecting "This home is occupied" signs and promising to put their bodies between the house and the sheriff's deputies when the eviction comes. The neighbors are highly supportive. Last week, Tawanna Rorey’s husband, a police officer based in Gwinnett County, e-mailed Occupy Atlanta to explain that his home was going to be foreclosed on and his family was in danger of being evicted on Monday. So within a few hours Occupy Atlanta developed an action plan to move to Snellville, Georgia on Monday to stop the foreclosure.
Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks Undisclosed $13B The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing. The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue. Saved by the bailout, bankers lobbied against government regulations, a job made easier by the Fed, which never disclosed the details of the rescue to lawmakers even as Congress doled out more money and debated new rules aimed at preventing the next collapse.
URGENT BREAKING NEWS: US Army Base Ft. Leonard Wood Confirms Internment Manual Is Legitimate This story first broke last week on the Alex Jones Radio show. Gaspee thought it would be prudent to independently verify the authenticity of the manual. The cover page lists the U.S. Behind Closed Doors: Congress Trying to Force Indefinite Detention Bill on Americans Maybe you spent the last weekend shopping for gifts, writing out holiday cards or studying for final exams. For most of America, the end of the year is a busy time. In Congress, this is a season usually spent trying to jam through bad bills while they hope no one is looking. The Senate voted last Thursday to pass S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which would authorize the president to send the military literally anywhere in the world to imprison civilians without charge or trial. Prison based on suspicion alone.
Their Own Worst Enemies by Dominic Holden - Seattle News N o sooner had six panelists finished opening remarks last Saturday evening than a woman scampered onstage and yelled, "Mic check!" It was an orchestrated effort by several dozen Occupy Seattle activists to use the "People's Mic" to interrupt a forum at Town Hall—a forum in favor of Occupy Wall Street, featuring three wonks and three activists from Occupy Seattle. Their stunt replaced what was supposed to be an informed discussion with an uninformative shoutathon about process that consumed most of the evening. They booed opinions they disagreed with and drove supporters out of the building. "I walked in supportive and left unsupportive," said 69-year-old Mary Ann, who declined to provide her last name.
Occupy Denver: Police track down protesters' identities using YouTube (VIDEOS) It's not a new tactic, but for some, it might be a surprising one: One of the ways the Denver Police Department has checked the identities of those faced with warrants for Occupy Denver is through online archival footage, including the average YouTube search. Previously anonymous protesters can be -- and have been -- easily identified through crowd and news coverage of weekend events. Depending on what they're wearing, not even Guy Fawkes masks can keep them anonymous.