SCREAM OUT! 6/9/03

1) George W. Bush wasn't elected. George W. Bush didn't win the presidency. His brother Jeb, his cronies, and the Supreme Court stole this election from us. George W. Bush's presidency is built on the corruption of the most basic, American democratic principle: free and fair elections.

WE WANT A PRESIDENT ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE.

2) Bush exploits our nation's grief, sorrow and anger from 9/11 to destroy the separation of powers, a foundation of democracy. By Executive Order, Bush instigated a system of military tribunals. With military tribunals in place, Congress no longer has the power to decide what crimes will be tried. The justice system no longer has the power to decide who shall be tried. Bush took the power to appoint all the judges, prosecutors and even defense attorneys. The Bush administration sets all penalties and punishments including execution.

3) Attorney General John Ashcroft said that those who "scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty…. only aid terrorists." We say: There can be no democracy without the freedom to dissent. Protect our liberties from this government! Let us vow now -

4) Bush is actively subverting a pillar of American Democracy-the separation of church and state. In every branch of government, daily prayer meetings are now held. Religious organizations are being federally funded to take over educational and social programs that have always been the government's secular responsibility.

5) "Habeas Corpus"-the right of a prisoner to have a judge decide if she is being held legally or not-is another pillar of democracy. The Justice Department has arrested at least 762 immigrants and detained them secretly for months without filing charges, without hearings or access to legal assistance, without evidence of any crime. In the end of this creepy "war on terrorism" process, not a single person was charged. But Ashcroft isn't apologetic: he wants more power to detain people under investigation.

6) The Freedom of Information Act protected our democracy by allowing Americans access to government files. After September 11, Ashcroft declared that this law wasn't applicable during the "war on terrorism." This is not a security issue. By keeping their activities clandestine, the Bush Administration is protecting itself, not us.

WE HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW THE TRUTH.

7) Under the USA PATRIOT Act, the government can hold anyone indefinitely, without charges or access to a lawyer, on the pretense of "suspected terrorism." Those who are secretly detaining you are no longer obligated to say anything to loved ones, lawyers or the press about who is detained, where or why. They say that this is to protect your "privacy." This is totalitarian double-speak.

8) The Administration is telling federal judges that they don't have the authority to decide to hear the "terrorist" cases that come before them. In a democracy, the judges tell the government which cases should be heard and which dismissed. Under the PATRIOT Act, judges don't have the authority to review the actions of the president's "war on terrorism."

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION IS EAGERLY DESTROYING THE SEPARATION OF POWERS, THE FOUNDATION OF OUR DEMOCRACY.

9) The Bush Administration's HHS Secretary has classified the fetus as an "unborn child" and given health coverage to "an individual in the period between conception and birth." Health coverage for the woman carrying the fetus, of course, is not mandated. By defining a fetus as a "child" from the moment of conception, the regulation violates fundamental principles of constitutional law and undermines Roe v. Wade. It denies a woman the right to control her own healthcare and puts the health of pregnant women at risk.

10) George W has re-imposed the Reagan-era global gag rule. Over 400 organizations in 50 countries have been silenced on abortion. They have been forced to stop providing abortions-in fact, they can't even mention abortion if they want to get U.S. funding for health care or any other services.

11) You won't find the term "partial-birth abortion" in any medical textbook-try looking for it in a manual on ultra-right-wing rhetoric. Last week, Congress passed legislation to ban abortion after 20 weeks, which Bush is sure to sign. They are using emotionally laden language to manipulate the public and overturn Roe v. Wade.

12) A large percentage of the billions of AIDS dollars Bush is bragging about sending to Africa must be used for abstinence-only education. This money should be used for effective HIV prevention programs and for AIDS treatment.

13) The Bush Administration is censoring scientific and public health research. This year, the government began politically screening proposals for terms like "sex workers" or "needle exchange." Scientists were warned that if they used these phrases, their requests for funding would be rejected outright. These are the studies that focus on the communities most affected by the epidemic, by the researchers who know and understand them best. The Bush Administration is willing to let people die to promote its political agenda.

14) Bush created a brand new holiday called national "Sanctity of Human Life Day." He said, "On Sept 11, we saw clearly that evil exists in this world and that it doesn't value life. Now we are engaged in a fight against evil and tyranny to preserve and protect life." This reckless rhetoric blatantly links abortion to terrorism, and encourages anti-abortion extremists to increase their violence against women and clinics.

15) Bush is stacking the courts with activist judges who will systematically impose the extreme right's anti-abortion agenda. Their eye is on the Supreme Court. They are taking away the reproductive rights for which women fought so hard, denying us control over our bodies, our sexuality and our pregnancies for literally decades to come.

16) Torture is still illegal in America, so the Bush Administration sends detainees to other countries for brutal interrogations, including torture and threats to the lives of family members. Since September 11, dozens of prisoners have been kidnapped by our government to be tortured elsewhere. One American official said, "We don't kick the shit out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the shit out of them."

17) U.S. officials are directly participating in torture. Captives from Afghanistan are brutally "softened up" by the U.S. military personnel. The detainees are blindfolded and thrown into walls, bound in agonizing positions for long periods, subjected to loud noises, and kept forcibly awake for days on end. These actions are forms of torture; they violate U.S. criminal laws and are punishable by death or life in prison. In Guantanamo, the horrific treatment of detainees has already caused at least 27 suicide attempts.

18) For the first time since the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II, special laws have been enacted targeting one ethnic group. All non-citizen Muslim men are now required to register and subject themselves to interrogation. From among these, tens of thousands of productive civilians with no ties to terrorism will be deported.

19) The Bush Administration is gutting laws prohibiting the military from enforcing domestic laws. The military's new "U.S. Northern Command" was created to usurp the role of the police. National Guard are now everywhere in our city-from inside Grand Central Terminal to outside Arab-owned bodegas in BedStuy. They aren't here to protect us from Al-Qaeda: they are here to protect the government from we, the people.

20) The Bush Administration is refusing to release the report of the commission that investigated the September 11 tragedy. The former Chair of the Senate Intelligence Subcommittee said that he is frustrated by the administration's unwillingness to release important information that the public should have about 9/11. The Bush administration isn't protecting legitimate issues of national security, but concealing information that could be a political embarrassment.

21) For the first time in its history, the U.S. has asserted the right to non-defensive pre-emptive strikes. Bush believes he has the right to bomb and invade any country that annoys him. He scorns the legal requirement to gain UN Security Council approval, and he sneers at the horror this policy evokes at home and abroad.

22) The Bush administration claimed that Saddam Hussein had an arsenal of "weapons of mass destruction" that he was ready to use against the U.S. But no evidence of these weapons of mass destruction has been found. Bush lied to get approval for this war. Lying has brought down several presidents: Johnson's distortions about Vietnam forced him to drop his reelection bid. Nixon's lies about Watergate forced his resignation. Clinton's lies about his affair got him impeached. Even Paul Wolfowitz, Bush's Deputy Defense Secretary, dismissed claims about weapons of mass destruction as a "bureaucratic" excuse for a war for oil.

23) Now the Administration says that we'll rebuild Iraq. Bush made the same promise to Afghanistan and did nothing. Baghdad is now in ruins, with virtually no water, electricity, sewage system, health care, or security. Hunger and disease are rampant, and violent thugs rule the streets and terrorize the people who have not yet fled. Is this the Bush Administration's idea of liberation?

24) The Bush Administration pushed hard to get Congress to approve its massive tax cut for the wealthiest Americans and corporations. Millions of poor and middle-income people will get no benefits from the new tax cuts, but if you buy a Hummer you'll get a $100,000 tax deduction. Mind-boggling military spending and these deep tax cuts have squandered the huge national surplus Bush inherited: now the U.S. has a $4 trillion deficit. All of us are now burdened with staggering national debt. This is a great excuse for the radical Right to cut back even more social services, health care, education and benefits that most Americans depend on.

25) The Bush Administration is proud that it ignores all voices of dissent and refuses to engage honestly and openly with Americans. When millions took to the streets to protest the war in American cities on February 15, Bush sneeringly dismissed us as a "focus group." The police keep demonstrators penned in "free speech zones" far from the events they are protesting and prevent Americans from exercising our Constitutional rights to free assembly and free speech.

26) This week, the Federal Communications Commission, with the Bush Administration behind it, narrowly voted to lift media ownership limits. Now, the giant media conglomerates like Fox and ClearChannel can buy out even more affiliate stations and own all the newspapers and broadcast stations in a city. Instead of protecting freedom of speech and the public interest, the Administration is playing monopoly. The airwaves belong to the people.

27) Bush recently signed the "RAVE" Act. This legislation threatens free speech and musical expression by making anyone who sponsors a musical event or owns a club responsible for any alleged drug violations of those who attend-even if the owner or promoter tried to keep the event drug-free. This chilling law applies to any type of public gathering, including plays, rock concerts, DJ nights at local bars, and potentially even political rallies. It gives heightened powers and discretion to prosecutors, who can use it to target events they personally don't like-such as Hip-Hop events and gay and lesbian fundraisers.

28) Once again, Congress is considering an amendment to ban flag burning. The heart of American democracy is free expression, however offensive certain political speech or symbolic actions may be to some. To ban any political expression is to destroy all of the freedoms that the flag represents.

29) The Bush Administration is pushing a law through Congress that will allow the "drug czar" to use our tax dollars to defeat candidates and ballot initiatives around the country that favor legalization of medical marijuana. Instead of going to necessary services, health care and education, our money will be spent by the president to elect the candidates he supports and defeat those he opposes.

30) The Justice department and the Immigration Service won't monitor, deport or prosecute foreign torturers, death squad leaders and human rights criminals that have taken refuge in the U.S. These include Ethiopian military officers who committed hideous atrocities against women, Haitian generals responsible for untold deaths, and even old Nazi war criminals. Instead, these agencies devote themselves to tracking and persecuting Middle Easterners innocent of everything but minor violations of immigration law.

31) In the USA PATRIOT Act, pushed through in the wake of 9/11, the Bush Administration created a very broad new crime called "domestic terrorism," which includes civil disobedience and other nonviolent forms of expression. Under the PATRIOT Act, if you are suspected of terrorist activity you can be picked up and held indefinitely, without charges and without access to a lawyer. And under the new bill, PATRIOT Act II, your citizenship would be revoked for this.

32) Under PATRIOT Act II, the government may secretly invade your home and search it without just cause. They may copy all your computer files. They may search your personal papers. They may go through all of your belongings, and they never even have to tell you that they were there. Our Constitutional right to privacy has been declared obsolete.

33) The USA PATRIOT Act will expire in 2004 unless Congress extends it. PATRIOT Act II, if it passes, will never expire, and it removes the expiration date on PATRIOT I. The PATRIOT Acts suspend the rights and freedoms of Americans and impose a virtual state of emergency.

34) The PATRIOT Act allows the FBI to search library and bookstore records with virtually no court supervision. If the librarian or bookseller tells you that the government came to snoop in your personal records, they could be imprisoned. The freedom to read and hear other's ideas is as essential to democracy as the freedom to speak and write.

35) The Fourth Amendment requires search warrants to specifically describe the place to be searched. The PATRIOT Act permits "roving wiretap" authority, which is the interception of any communications, from anywhere, without a judge's approval.

36) When you send email, you are also sending postcards to the FBI through Carnivore, an electronic surveillance system that monitors all of our communications. Earthlink tried to challenge the installation of Carnivore, but a Court Order forced them to comply in 2000. This is the only known court decision addressing the "legal" use of Carnivore.

OUR RIGHT TO PRIVACY HAS BEEN SUBVERTED BY THIS CARNIVEROUS ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM.

37) We are all being spied on. ECHELON is a massive electronic satellite-based global surveillance system developed by the U.S. and four other English-speaking nations. It is the most powerful intelligence gathering organization in the world and operates in deep secrecy with little oversight. There is no way of knowing if ECHELON is being used illegally to spy on private citizens. But vast quantities of voice and data communications are processed through sophisticated filtering technologies. This global electronic communications surveillance system presents an extreme threat to the privacy of people all over the world.

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION WANTS TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT WHAT WE DO.
IT WANTS US TO KNOW NOTHING ABOUT WHAT IT DOES.

38) The Total Information Awareness project has been renamed Terrorist Information Awareness because the old name supposedly "gave the wrong impression" that it was about spying on ordinary Americans. No matter what it is called, it goes against our very character as a nation. TIA violates our privacy. It makes us all suspects, subjects of secret investigation, with no guarantee that it will catch the bad guys.

39) The Federal Aviation Authority has a new profiling program, called CAPPS, which profiles all air travelers using their credit history, criminal records, travel patterns and other information. Over a thousand ordinary, law-abiding Americans have been on "no-fly" lists for such benign activities as being elected to public office through the Green Party. This has been done with no due process, no criminal charges, and no prior notification

40) Under PATRIOT Act II, you may be deported and your citizenship revoked if you simply attend a protest sponsored by an organization the government has decided "terrorist," even if you don't know it's been deemed "terrorist" and you are merely exercising your right to free speech.