Tarek Mehanna, a U.S. citizen, was sentenced Thursday in Worcester, Mass., to 17½ years in prison. It was another of the tawdry show trials held against Muslim activists since 9/11 as a result of the government’s criminalization of what people say and believe. These trials, where secrecy rules permit federal lawyers to prosecute people on “evidence” the defendants are not allowed to examine, are the harbinger of a corporate totalitarian state in which any form of dissent can be declared illegal.

What the government did to Mehanna, and what it has done to hundreds of other innocent Muslims in this country over the last decade, it will eventually do to the rest of us.

by Glen Ford

Humiliation is the law of the land. When you fall into the clutches of the police, for any reason, or no good reason at all, you can be compelled to bare your private parts before being placed in the general jail population.

Five of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices ruled that Constitutional prohibitions against unreasonable searches end at the jailhouse door, even if there is no reason to suspect that the person under arrest is in possession of anything that could be called contraband.

by Kevin Gosztola 

As widely reported yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-to-4 decision that officials could strip-search individuals being admitted to jail, even if they had committed minor offenses.  Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the decision that he was not willing to “second-guess the judgments of correction officials.”

Those concerned about Americans’ rights to privacy unanimously opposed the decision that further legitimized a practice the American Bar Association argues violates international human rights treaties.

From dropthecharges.net:

The Illinois Appellate Court just denied Gregory Koger’s appeal to reverse his conviction. It is time to speak out against this outrageous and dangerous ruling!

As you may recall, Gregory was arrested because he used an iPhone to peacefully take pictures of Sunsara Taylor prior to a public event at the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago (EHSC) on Sunday. Nov. 1, 2009. This happened despite the following clearly established facts: (read more)

Dr. Antonio Martinez wrote this letter of support for Gregory:

From The Sparrow Project:

[NEW YORK, NY]  The first rounds of statements from seven high-profile plaintiffs suing President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, House Speakers and DOD Representatives for injunctive relief barring the implementation of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)‘s “Homeland Battlefield” provisions of indefinite detention and suspension of Habeus Corpus will be heard in federal court today, March 29, 2012.

by Kevin Gosztola

A battle over the city of Chicago’s new ordinances passed in the run-up to planned NATO/G8 summits is brewing. Activists that have been organizing protests for the upcoming NATO summit had their march permit denied this week. Just yesterday, they appealed the decision which means organizers will be going before a city commission to argue for the city to grant a permit for a march route proposed for the NATO summit.

The G8 summit is no longer coming to Chicago on May 19. It was moved to Camp David by President Barack Obama earlier this month. But that same weekend NATO is still holding their meeting in Chicago. Thousands of people are still expected to attend and protest.

by Carl Dix

Trayvon Martin, a Black youth walking home with a bag of skittles and a can of iced tea, is gunned down, and the cops see no reason to arrest the killer! Why not? The killer, George Zimmerman, is a member of a neighborhood watch group, and he tells the cops he shot Trayvon. Yet Zimmerman has yet to be even treated like a suspect in a homicide. Why not? Witnesses have come forward who have disputed Zimmerman's claim of self-defense, and still he walks free. Why?

In 1857, in the case of Dred Scott, a Black man who had escaped slavery, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Black man has "no rights which the white man was bound to respect." The vigilante murder of Trayvon Martin and the countless other ways the criminal injustice system in this country abuses Black people and other oppressed people show that this white supremacist logic is still in effect.

by Dennis Loo

Trayvon Martin is the 17-year-old black teen carrying the suspicious and threatening weapons of a bag of Skittles and iced tea and walking while black in a gated, white community in Sanford, Florida in February.

No doubt in mortal fear for his life, neighborhood watch cum vigilante George Zimmerman coped with his fears of being Skittled and iced tea’d to death by Trayvon by chasing after Trayvon. Any black male walking around in a gated community, for god's sake, is just asking for trouble! I mean, don't they know where they belong?

This is what you do when you feel afraid for your life – you chase the person you’re afraid of.

from The Stop Mass Incarceration Network:

Organizing Meeting for a National Day of Resistance
SAY NO TO MASS INCARCERATION

Saturday, March 24, 2012, 1PM to 5PM
Hunter College, Room 506 Hunter North, 68th and Lexington Ave.
NYC

This country imprisons more people than any other country on the planet. On Thursday, April 19th, everyone who is concerned about injustice must join in saying – NO TO MASS INCARCERATION - in a loud voice. There must be rallies and demonstrations in cities across the country. College and high school students must hold teach in's and other actions on their campuses. There need be cultural events held on that day. The architects and enforcers of mass incarceration must be challenged over the inhumanity of the policies they are inflicting on society.

From the Ad Hoc Committee for Reason:

Now, we’re all vulnerable to arrest and prosecution for TAKING PICTURES
...unless Gregory Koger Prevails

The Illinois Appellate Court just denied Gregory Koger’s appeal to reverse his conviction.  It is time to speak out against this outrageous and dangerous ruling!

As you may recall, Gregory was arrested because he used an iPhone to peacefully take pictures of Sunsara Taylor prior to a public event at the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago (EHSC) on Sunday. Nov. 1, 2009.  This happened despite the following clearly established facts:

by Stephan Salisbury

At the height of the Occupy Wall Street evictions, it seemed as though some diminutive version of “shock and awe” had stumbled from Baghdad, Iraq, to Oakland, California. American police forces had been “militarized,” many commentators worried, as though the firepower and callous tactics on display were anomalies, surprises bursting upon us from nowhere.

There should have been no surprise. Those flash grenades exploding in Oakland and the sound cannons on New York’s streets simply opened small windows onto a national policing landscape long in the process of militarization -- a bleak domestic no man’s land marked by tanks and drones, robot bomb detectors, grenade launchers, tasers, and most of all, interlinked video surveillance cameras and information databases growing quietly on unobtrusive server farms everywhere.

The ubiquitous fantasy of “homeland security,” pushed hard by the federal government in the wake of 9/11, has been widely embraced by the public. It has also excited intense weapons- and techno-envy among police departments and municipalities vying for the latest in armor and spy equipment.