Barriers on the Border

The US Department of Homeland Security has been rushing to complete 670 miles of border barriers by the end of 2008. DHS plans to install nearly 110 miles of 18 foot high concrete and steel structures along the Texas/Mexico border, but something has put construction behind schedule: local opposition. In this exclusive FSRN documentary, we travel with Shannon Young to the Texas-Mexico border to hear from locals about their take on the physical barrier slated to divide the region's sister cities.

Listen to it here.

F/U on Micheal Vick's Dogs...

Quite possibly the only time you'll see me link to a Sports Illustrated article in a good way...

THE DOG approaches the outstretched hand. Her name is Sweet Jasmine, and she is 35 pounds of twitchy curiosity with a coat the color of fried chicken, a pink nose and brown eyes. She had spent a full 20 seconds studying this five-fingered offering before advancing. Now, as she moves forward, her tail points straight down, her butt is hunched toward the ground, her head is bowed, her ears pinned back. She stands at maybe three quarters of her height.

She gets within a foot of the hand and stops. She licks her snout, a sign of nervousness, and looks up at the stranger, seeking assurance. She looks back to the hand, licks her snout again and begins to extend her neck. Her nose is six inches away from the hand, one inch, half an inch. She sniffs once. She sniffs again. At this point almost any other dog in the world would offer up a gentle lick, a sweet hello, an invitation to be scratched or petted. She's come so far. She's so close.

But Jasmine pulls away.

Read the rest here.

Feeding The Hungry Without Exploiting Animals

A friend was looking for vegan food charity, and after checking a few promising groups, we seem to have found one!

Check it out and donate!

Veg Fam Charity (yeah, they need to work on that name).

No Olympics for Chicago!

Condoms Behind the Counter - But Only in Black Neighborhoods

The NAACP and partner organizations are taking on drugstore chain CVS for consistently providing less service and quality to customers in African American neighborhoods. Among the ways CVS discriminates against its African American customers? Keeping condoms locked up in predominantly black neighborhoods, but not predominantly white neighborhoods.

Keeping condoms behind the counter or otherwise locked up creates a barrier to access and unnecessarily draws attention to the person purchasing condoms - which may inhibit them from making the purchase. In cities across the United States African Americans continue to become infected with HIV at rates vastly higher than those among white people. Our country cannot afford for CVS's policies to keep anyone from getting the condoms they need.

Check out the Cure CVS Now website for information and how you can take action.

"More Queer People Murdered. Lesbian and Gay Organizations Seem to Care Less"

By Beau Vyne of BB! News/ BB! Chicago
Bash Back Blog

New Orleans Police discovered the bodies of three young, Black, Queer people in a 7th ward house Saturday. The three people, one of whom was gender variant, were all shot to death in the house sometime around 3 or 4am Thursday. Mainstream media and the Police are as of now ignoring the fact that the three people were queer and possibly trans. However, Facebook groups devoted to the three and comments on news sites, are raising interesting questions by Queer people of color as to why large Lesbian and Gay organizations are ignoring this. Many people have wondered as to whether there would be an LGBT organizational black out on such violence had the three been wealthy and white Gay businessmen.

The Lesbian and Gay movement is currently so focused on begging the state for a marriage license that they seem to have forgotten everyone who is not well off and white. On Wednesday Morning Jennifer Gale, a homeless TransWoman, froze to death because no shelters would take her in. On Thursday 3 Queer People in New Orleans were shot and killed. And on Friday, Join The Impact held silent candlelight vigils for their “Right” to Marry.

Needless to say that in this latest “struggle” for gay marriage, white people have consistently demonized communities of color for their role in passing Prop 8. To many in the marriage movement, Queer People of Color and Trans people do not even exist. It is typical for White people in the marriage movement to claim that Trans people should wait until Gays and Lesbians get their rights. When violence is perpetuated against Queers of Color, HRC and other marriage oriented organizations are typically silent.

(See Duanna Johnson, The New Jersey Four, The 4 people just killed in New Orleans, Jennifer Gale and virtually every other trans person or queer/trans person or color.)

If we put all of the energy and money that is being wasted on the marriage movement into other projects, think of what we could do. We could easily open queer/trans friendly spaces for the homeless throughout the country. We could successfully demand, or better yet, provide free and quality healthcare to all people. Instead of collecting food and giving it to institutions that are notoriously corrupt, and yes, homophobic; we could collect food and distribute it ourselves. We could actively confront classism, racism, sexism, and transphobia amongst LGBTQ people. All the while militantly raising hell in the streets and disrupting business as usual, as every generation of Queers has since 1968. If we did all of these things and more, we would see more change than Barrack Obama has ever offered us.

What’s more important: a marriage certificate or housing for people who are freezing on the street? A slip of paper or the guarantee that when multiple people in our community are shot at point blank range we stand up and bash the fuck back?! Why are we not focusing on the plague that is HIV/AIDS? Shouldn’t we be making a big fucking deal seeing that in the last week alone 4 queer/trans people that we know of have been murdered?

It is long passed the time that queer and trans people got their shit together. We have been fighting since birth, by now you’d think we would now how to do it in an inclusive and effective manner.

Merry Christmas!

New Jersey 7

From Free Speech Radio News.

What happens when our country's preoccupations with race, gender, and sexuality combine in one legal case? This holiday, we bring you an in-depth look at the New Jersey Seven, a group of women who went out for a night on the town, and wound up spending months in jail.

On August 18, 2006, seven young, Black, queer women went to the Christopher Street pier, a place known for being queer-friendly. That may be why 20-year-old Patreese Johnson didn't blink when a male stranger asked her, "Can I get some of that?"

Patreese handed him her coffee cup. Then she realized he was pointing at her crotch.

The man, Dwayne Buckle, shouted homophobic remarks. He made violent threats. And then he followed the women as they walked away.

Then there was a scuffle.

The women say that Buckle punched three of them in the face, threw a lit cigarette, and yanked out one woman's hair extension. During the fray, Buckle also got stabbed.

Initially, Buckle claimed that he was stabbed by two men – onlookers who got involved in the fight. But Patreece Johnson had a small steak knife on her, and police didn't investigate Buckle's claim.

The media reports that followed said "savage lesbian gangs" were "attacking men" on the street. Buckle himself was never charged with any crime, but Patreece Johnson is serving an 8-year prison sentence, and her companions have all spent at least six months in jail. Today, Puck Lo brings us the story of the New Jersey 7.

Listen to the audio by clicking this link.

Lesbian's brutal gang rape investigated in Calif.

From Yahoo News.

SAN FRANCISCO – A woman in the San Francisco Bay area was jumped by four men, taunted for being a lesbian, repeatedly raped and left naked outside an abandoned apartment building, authorities said Monday.

Detectives say the 28-year-old victim was attacked Dec. 13 after she got out of her car, which bore a rainbow gay pride sticker. The men, who ranged from their late teens to their 30s, made comments indicating they knew her sexual orientation, said Richmond police Lt. Mark Gagan.

"It just pushes it beyond fathomable," he said. "The level of trauma — physical and emotional — this victim has suffered is extreme."

Authorities are characterizing the attack as a hate crime but declined to reveal why they think the woman was singled out because of her sexual orientation. Gagan would say only that the victim lived openly with a female partner and had a rainbow flag sticker on her car.

The 45-minute attack began when one of the men approached the woman as she crossed the street, struck her with a blunt object, ordered her to disrobe and sexually assaulted her with the help of the other men.

When the group saw another person approaching, they forced the victim back into her car and took her to a burned-out apartment building, where she was raped again inside and outside the vehicle. The assailants took her wallet and drove off in her car. Officers found the car abandoned two days later.

The woman sought help from a nearby resident, and she was examined at a hospital. Although the victim said she did not know her attackers, detectives hope someone in the community knows them. One of the men went by the nickname "Blue" and another was called "Pato," according to authorities.

Richmond police are offering a $10,000 award for information leading to the arrest of the attackers.

Gay rights advocates note that hate crimes based on sexual orientation have increased nationwide as of late. There were 1,415 such crimes in 2006 and 1,460 in 2007, both times making up about 16 percent of the total, according to the FBI.

Avy Skolnik, a coordinator with the New York-based National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, noted that gay, lesbian and transgender crime victims may be more reluctant than heterosexual victims to contact police.

"Assailants target LGBT people of all gender identities with sexual assault," he said. "Such targeting is one of the most cruel, dehumanizing and violent forms of hate violence that our communities experience."

Skolnik said the group plans to analyze hate crime data to see whether fluctuations may be related to the gay marriage bans that appeared on ballots this year in California, Arizona and Florida.

"Anytime there is an anti-LGBT initiative, we tend to see spikes both in the numbers and the severity of attacks," he said. "People feel this extra entitlement to act out their prejudice."

Take Back The Land!

Democracy Now! interviewing Max Rameau, author of the book, Take Back The Land, and organizer of the group by the same name, which rehouses homeless people in foreclosed houses.



TBtL's website.

Happy Solstice!

Katrina's Hidden Race War, part 2

Katrina's Hidden Race War, part 1

F/U about Republic Windows

A friend sent this out on a mailing list, noting:

This adds another layer to the Republic story that supporters of the strike would be wise to consider. It fleshes out a broader local power structure that needs to be understood.

From the Reader

Out the Window
Republic Windows & Doors will make good on what it owes workers. Now what about our $10 million?

By Ben Joravsky

December 18, 2008

When their six-day sit-in at Republic Windows & Doors ended last week, a crowd of jubilant workers and union activists cheered in triumph.

Yes, they had lost their jobs when Republic closed its north-side factory on December 5, but at least they had forced Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase to lend the company $1.75 million so it could make good on its obligation to cover their vacation and severance pay.

But there was some unfinished business lost in the workers' celebration—the little matter of nearly $10 million in public money Republic received from the city in 1996 and 2000 in exchange for promising to keep 610 workers on the payroll through 2019.

In recent years it's become commonplace for cities across the country to offer tax breaks or subsidies to private, for-profit businesses that agree to set up shop in town. But it's not always apparent whether they get a return on their investment—or even whether they try to hold these firms to their end of the bargain. As the nation prepares to shell out hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts, it might be a good idea to make sure that someone—anyone—is checking the fine print.

Based on what city officials tell me, it's very unlikely the city of Chicago will ever recoup any of its money from Republic because under its contract the company has been exempt from potential penalties since June 2006. "I'm not sure there's much that we can do," says Pete Scales, spokesman for the city's Department of Planning.

But alderman Manny Flores, whose First Ward borders Goose Island, told me at press time Tuesday that he was planning to introduce an order to the City Council on Wednesday that would require the city to look into whether it can recover any of the money given to Republic. (See our blog Clout City for an update after the meeting.) "I'm not necessarily convinced we can't go after some of that money," Flores says. "I also believe that this may result in further analysis and review of how we undertake to use TIF money as incentives, and making sure we have mechanisms in place to see that it's used appropriately. These subsidies are not meant to be freebies—they're meant to keep jobs in the city of Chicago."

Yes, the Republic subsidy, like most such handouts in Chicago, came out of a tax increment financing account. As you may already know, TIF districts take property tax dollars that would have gone to the schools, parks, county, and other taxing bodies and set them aside, theoretically to fund development in communities too blighted to attract it on their own.

Goose Island, where Republic was located, actually fits this profile—unlike many areas that are part of TIF districts in the Loop or on the near south and west sides. For years the island, in the Chicago River from about Chicago to North avenues, was dominated by heavy industry, but by the late 1980s it was largely a wasteland drawing almost no interest from manufacturers, who were moving to the suburbs, the south, or overseas when they weren't closing shop. The future of the island became a subject of intense debate. Some developers argued that the city should try to extend River North and Lincoln Park and turn the island into a residential area. There was even talk of a casino.

None of that came to pass, partly due to the efforts of the Local Economic and Employment Development Council, a Chicago nonprofit whose mission is to create and preserve industrial development. Working with the city—even while acting as something of a watchdog over it—LEED helped bring in an impressive infusion of state, local, and federal monies to tear down a stretch of Ogden Avenue, rebuild the Division Street Bridge, and fortify the Chicago River seawall, among other projects. And that all took place even before TIF money really started flowing anywhere in the mid 1990s.

"There is a lot of capital investment that needs to happen," says Mike Holzer, director of economic development for the LEED Council. "I'm totally with you on the abuse of TIFs. But I think in industrial areas, where you're dealing with complicated sites, dealing with old bridges, crappy streets, viaducts that are so low they prevent trucks from going under them, TIF is an important tool."

The Goose Island TIF was created in 1996, and since then funding from it has been used to help develop facilities for about a dozen different industrial operations on Goose Island—including Republic. In 1996 the City Council, at Mayor Daley's urging, approved $6,525,000 in TIF money to help Republic build a $20 million factory on the island. Four years later Republic returned to the council asking it to increase the subsidy by more than $3 million.

"Among other things, the developer [Republic] constructed a larger manufacturing facility than originally planned," according to the TIF agreement approved by the council in 2000. Also, the actual cost of public infrastructure rose from $1.5 million to $3.070 million. In other words—big surprise—there were cost overruns on the project, which eventually totaled about $39 million, nearly double the initial estimate.

Republic got the extra public money it asked for. As it does with most TIF-funded deals, the city paid for the subsidy to Republic by borrowing the money, then repaying the loan with the property taxes collected in the TIF account. The city is still making payments on the Republic loan today. Including interest, the city has spent $10.4 million on the deal to date, according to Scales.

Has it been worth the money? Absolutely, says LEED's Mike Holzer. "I want to hammer this point. To develop a groundswell of change in this area, you have to take extraordinary steps. People say industrial will never come back—industrial is dead. People said Goose Island will be the next River North—put a casino there. Instead it has become a valuable industrial site. Republic was an important part of that. It's an example of what TIFs can be doing. It's not a misuse."

But it didn't work exactly the way it was supposed to, either. The city handed over the TIF money so Republic could build a factory that would actually employ somebody. In fact, the TIF deal between the city and Republic is quite specific on this point: "The developer [Republic] shall use commercially reasonable best efforts to insure that not less than . . . a total of 610 full-time equivalent, permanent jobs to be retained by the developer [Republic] at the Facility through the Term of the Agreement." And that term, documents show, ends July 10, 2019.

Ah, but what a TIF deal gives in one paragraph it can take away in another. In this case, the contract goes on to specify that Republic will have to pay a penalty only if it falls below its job commitment before or on June 5, 2006. In other words, the clause that protects Republic's interests takes precedence over the clause intended to protect the workers and the taxpayers.

According to Leah Fried of the United Electrical Workers Local 1100, which organized the sit-in, Republic employed 500 people when the union first started organizing there in 2004. When the plant closed earlier this month, it employed fewer than 300. So clearly no one at the city was holding Republic accountable for meeting its job obligations, even though the agreement guarantees that "the number of jobs at the facility will be certified to the city on an annual basis."

But it's all moot anyway, according to the city. The company president at the time of the agreement left Republic in 2006. The company doesn't even own the factory building anymore—also in 2006, it was sold for $31 million to the William Wrigley Jr. Company, which also owns another large factory on Goose Island. Meanwhile Republic's owners have purchased a window and door factory in Red Oak, Iowa, which, according to a recent article in the New York Times, employed 102 nonunionized workers.

Well, at least the factory was built, Holzer says, even if it doesn't employ anyone at the moment. He figures it eventually will again. "It's a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility," he says. "I think it has reuse potential. Whether it will be expanded for Wrigley or a new company, I don't know. But I don't think it will sit vacant."

Whoever moves there, you can bet they'll leverage some more TIF money out of the deal.

Today in International Day To End Violence Against Sex Workers

Video recap of International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

Why an International Day To End Violence Towards Sex Workers? (12/17)

WHY AN INTERNATIONAL DAY TO END VIOLENCE TOWARDS SEX WORKERS?
By Annie Sprinkle

In 2003, “Green River Killer” Gary Ridgeway confessed to having strangled ninety women to death and having “sex” with their dead bodies. He stated, “I picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed. I knew they would not be reported missing right away and might never be reported missing. I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.”

Sadly some Seattle area prostitutes, their boyfriends or pimps, knew the Green River Killer was Gary Ridgeway for years. But they were either afraid to come forward for fear of being arrested themselves, or when they did come forward the police didn’t believe them over the “upstanding family man” Gary Ridgeway. It seemed as though the police weren’t working very hard to find the Green River Killer. If the victims had been teachers, nurses or secretaries or other women, I suspect--as Ridgeway did-- that the killer would have been caught much sooner. Ridgeway remained at large for twenty years.

From working as a prostitute myself for two decades I know that violent crimes against sex workers often go unreported, unaddressed and unpunished. Also there are people who really don’t care when prostitutes are victims of hate crimes, beaten, raped and murdered. They will say: “They got what they deserved.” “They were trash.” “They asked for it” “What do they expect?” “The world is better off without those whores.”

No matter how people feel about sex workers and the politics surrounding them, sex workers are a part of our neighborhoods, communities and our families and always will be. Sex workers are women, trans people and men of all shapes, sizes, colors, ages, classes and backgrounds who are working in the sex industry for a wide range of reasons.
When Ridgeway got a plea bargain in 2003, he received a life sentence in exchange for revealing where his victim’s bodies were thrown or buried. As the names of the (mostly seventeen to nineteen year old) victims were disclosed, I felt a need to remember and honor them. I cared, and I knew other people cared, too.

So I contacted Robyn Few, the founder of the Sex Worker Outreach Project based in San Francisco and we made December 17th as the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. We invited people everywhere to create and attend memorials and vigils in their countries and cities. Robyn co-produced an open mic vigil on the lawn of San Francisco’s City Hall. Since then (2003) each year hundreds of people in dozens of cities around the world have participated in this day to end violence-- from Montreal (they marched with red umbrellas), to Hong Kong (protested police brutality), to Vancouver (they did a candlelight vigil) to Sydney (held a memorial ritual), to East Godavery, India (a dance was organized to overcome pain and trauma.) More events are planned for this, the sixth year.

The concept for the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers is simple. Anyone can choose a place and time to gather, invite others to gather and share their stories, writings, thoughts, poems, and memories of victims, related news and performances. Read lists of names of those who have been murdered. Or people can do something personal alone at home, such as lighting a candle or taking a ritual memorial bath. We encourage discussions among friends, by email, on blogs.

People are encouraged to list their events at the SWOP web site http://www.swopusa. org/dec17/http://www.aim- med.org/. so people that want to can attend them, and to share the power of their actions. People can also participate by making a donation to a group that helps sex workers by teaching them about dangers and how to best survive. Two such non-profits are St. James Infirmary and AIM Healthcare.

This December 17, 2008 many sex workers will converge in Washington, D.C. on for a National March for Sex Worker Rights where marchers “will take a stand for justice, and the freedom to do sex work safely. We are calling for an end to unjust laws, policing, the shaming and stigma that oppress our communities and make us targets for violence.” People are encouraged to join SWOP and other activists in Washington and to endorse this March. Email dec17@swopusa. org to support or attend this event.

Every year when I create or attend a gathering on December 17, it is a deeply moving experience. I take some moments to feel grateful that I worked as a prostitute for so many years and came out alive. I remember those who didn’t survive and I fear for those who won't unless real changes are made—namely safer working conditions and the same police protection other citizens get without recrimination.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
ANNIE M. SPRINKLE, Ph.D.
Artist • Sexologist • Author • Teacher • Student
Post Porn Modernist • Faculty Wife • Feminist
Pioneering Film Director/Producer/ Performer
Utopian Entrepreneur • Thespian • College Lecturer
Former Porn Star/Stripper/ Pin-Up/Prostitut e/Dom
Performance Artist • Photographer • Tantrica
annie@anniesprinkle .org
http://anniesprinkl e.org
http://loveartlab. org

FBI Taps Cell Phone Mic As Eavesdropping Tool

By Declan McCullagh and Anne Broache
Staff Writers, CNET News
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029_3-6140191.html

The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

Nextel cell phones owned by two alleged mobsters, John Ardito and his attorney Peter Peluso, were used by the FBI to listen in on nearby conversations. The FBI views Ardito as one of the most powerful men in the Genovese family, a major part of the national Mafia.

The surveillance technique came to light in an opinion published this week by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He ruled that the "roving bug" was legal because federal wiretapping law is broad enough to permit eavesdropping even of conversations that take place near a suspect's cell phone.

Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.

While the Genovese crime family prosecution appears to be the first time a remote-eavesdropping mechanism has been used in a criminal case, the technique has been discussed in security circles for years.

The U.S. Commerce Department's security office warns that "a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone." An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call."

Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies. "They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time," he said. "You can do that without having physical access to the phone."

Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI and activate the microphone--all without the owner knowing it happened. (The FBI declined to comment on Friday.)

"If a phone has in fact been modified to act as a bug, the only way to counteract that is to either have a bugsweeper follow you around 24-7, which is not practical, or to peel the battery off the phone," Atkinson said. Security-conscious corporate executives routinely remove the batteries from their cell phones, he added.

FBI's physical bugs discovered The FBI's Joint Organized Crime Task Force, which includes members of the New York police department, had little luck with conventional surveillance of the Genovese family. They did have a confidential source who reported
the suspects met at restaurants including Brunello Trattoria in New Rochelle, N.Y., which the FBI then bugged.

But in July 2003, Ardito and his crew discovered bugs in three restaurants, and the FBI quietly removed the rest. Conversations recounted in FBI affidavits show the men were also highly suspicious of being tailed by police and avoided conversations on cell phones whenever possible.

That led the FBI to resort to "roving bugs," first of Ardito's Nextel handset and then of Peluso's. U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones approved them in a series of orders in 2003 and 2004, and said she expected to "be advised of the locations" of the suspects when their conversations were recorded.

Details of how the Nextel bugs worked are sketchy. Court documents, including an affidavit (p1) and (p2) prepared by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Kolodner in September 2003, refer to them as a "listening device placed in the cellular telephone." That phrase could refer to software or hardware.

One private investigator interviewed by CNET News.com, Skipp Porteous of Sherlock Investigations in New York, said he believed the FBI planted a physical bug somewhere in the Nextel handset and did not remotely activate the microphone.

"They had to have physical possession of the phone to do it," Porteous said. "There are several ways that they could have gotten physical possession. Then they monitored the bug from fairly near by."

But other experts thought microphone activation is the more likely scenario, mostly because the battery in a tiny bug would not have lasted a year and because court documents say the bug works anywhere "within the United States"--in other words, outside the range of a nearby FBI agent armed with a radio receiver.

In addition, a paranoid Mafioso likely would be suspicious of any ploy to get him to hand over a cell phone so a bug could be planted. And Kolodner's affidavit seeking a court order lists Ardito's phone number, his 15-digit International Mobile Subscriber Identifier, and lists Nextel Communications as the service provider, all of which would be unnecessary if a physical bug were being planted.

A BBC article from 2004 reported that intelligence agencies routinely employ the remote-activiation method. "A mobile sitting on the desk of a politician or businessman can act as a powerful, undetectable bug," the article said, "enabling them to be activated at a later date to pick up sounds even when the receiver is down."

For its part, Nextel said through spokesman Travis Sowders: "We're not aware of this investigation, and we weren't asked to participate."

Other mobile providers were reluctant to talk about this kind of surveillance. Verizon Wireless said only that it "works closely with law enforcement and public safety officials. When presented with legally authorized orders, we assist law enforcement in every way possible."

A Motorola representative said that "your best source in this case would be the FBI itself." Cingular, T-Mobile, and the CTIA trade association did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mobsters: The surveillance vanguard

This isn't the first time the federal government has pushed at the limits of electronic surveillance when investigating reputed mobsters.

In one case involving Nicodemo S. Scarfo, the alleged mastermind of a loan shark operation in New Jersey, the FBI found itself thwarted when Scarfo used Pretty Good Privacy software (PGP) to encode confidential business data.

So with a judge's approval, FBI agents repeatedly snuck into Scarfo's business to plant a keystroke logger and monitor its output.

Like Ardito's lawyers, Scarfo's defense attorneys argued that the then-novel technique was not legal and that the information gleaned through it could not be used. Also like Ardito, Scarfo's lawyers lost when a judge ruled in January 2002 that the evidence was admissible.

This week, Judge Kaplan in the southern district of New York concluded that the "roving bugs" were legally permitted to capture hundreds of hours of conversations because the FBI had obtained a court order and alternatives probably wouldn't work.

The FBI's "applications made a sufficient case for electronic surveillance," Kaplan wrote. "They indicated that alternative methods of investigation either had failed or were unlikely to produce results, in part because the subjects deliberately avoided government surveillance."

Bill Stollhans, president of the Private Investigators Association of Virginia, said such a technique would be legally reserved for police armed with court orders, not private investigators.

There is "no law that would allow me as a private investigator to use that type of technique," he said. "That is exclusively for law enforcement. It is not allowable or not legal in the private sector. No client of mine can ask me to overhear telephone or strictly oral conversations."

Surreptitious activation of built-in microphones by the FBI has been done before. A 2003 lawsuit revealed that the FBI was able to surreptitiously turn on the built-in microphones in automotive systems like General Motors' OnStar to snoop on passengers' conversations.

When FBI agents remotely activated the system and were listening in,passengers in the vehicle could not tell that their conversations were being monitored.

Malicious hackers have followed suit. A report last year said Spanish authorities had detained a man who write a Trojan horse that secretly activated a computer's video camera and forwarded him the recordings.

Girl rescues tortured puppy

By the time Calli Vanderaa discovered the seven-week-old puppies in the garbage dumpster stationed behind her house, the fourth grader had spent two years soaking up ample evidence of society’s dark underbelly. She’d already seen more than most people witness in a lifetime.

The little girl was tossing away grass clippings with her dad last summer when they turned to walk away. She stopped in her tracks, ears instinctively tuned to the pleading cries coming from the big brown bin. The sounds were faint but unmistakably alive.

“I asked him, ‘Did you hear that?’”

“No,” he said.

“Well, come here.”

Her father Corey found a stool to boost himself up into the tall steel structure. Thankfully Calli stayed behind.

“He said I didn’t want to see what was inside there,” she told me.

The incident of cruelty made an impression on Calli. Last month, she wrote a letter to her local newspaper, the Winnipeg Free Press, detailing what had happened. A poem she had composed was also enclosed.

Dear Sir
My name is Calli Vanderaa.
I’m 9 years old and I live with my daddy.
One day we found a little puppy in the BFI bin in our lane. Somebody had put 3 puppies in there and set them on fire.
Two of the puppies died but daddy and I saved one that was sitting in the corner crying.
We took her home and named her Jessie. She is happy and growing bigger every day.

Full article here, with pictures

Starbucks Union: Texts and Calls Needed!!

First, we would like to extend thanks to all of you that have been calling and texting store manager Gwen Krueger this past week and demanding she pay Anna what is owed.

Yesterday, Anna was called into a meeting with Krueger and her District Manager, Mark Ormsbee. Krueger used this meeting as an opportunity to lie about the facts in order to cover her hide. Ormsbee, expectantly, sided with Krueger and made the mistake of refusing to pay Anna her money.

We need to let Mark Ormsbee to know that this is not over until Anna receives every penny that Starbucks owes her so she can care for her family in the holiday season.

Call and/or Text District Manager, Mark Ormsbee, at 1-917-841-4198 and continue to call and text Store Manager, Gwen Krueger, at 1-551-497-0127. This action for justice will take place from December 11th - December 19th.


BACKGROUND
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Anna's Story:

Anna Hurst is a New York City barista, Starbucks Union member, and a single mother of two.

In August, Anna went home ill from work. In retaliation, her Store Manager - abruptly and without notice - completely removed her from the schedule for two weeks.

Starbucks wrongfully denied Anna work for two weeks. Anna needs the money she's owed to put food on the table, pay her bills, and provide Christmas presents for her children.

Thank you for your solidarity.

The IWW Starbucks Workers Union is a grassroots organization of over 200 current and former employees at the world's largest coffee chain united for secure work hours and a living wage. The union has members throughout the United States fighting for systemic change at the company and remedying individual grievances with management. http://www.StarbucksUnion.org

Noam Chomsky on Anarchism (interview quote)

Sonali Kolhatkar, host and producer of Uprising Radio, interviewing Noam Chomsky.

SK: Professor Chomsky, you have identified with anarchist politics throughout your political career. How have your views on anarchism evolved over the years- do you see it as a viable worldview on a mass scale in terms of achieving social justice to solve the problems of the type we were just discussing [nuclear war and environmental destruction, specifically- ed.]?

NC: Well I’ve, since childhood, when I was haunting anarchist bookstores and anarchist offices in New York since- from then until today. I’ve essentially understood anarchism to be not a specific recipe for how the world should work, although it has principles. But rather, as a kind of tendency in human affairs towards trying to identify structures of hierarchy, oppression, domination- where ever they may be from the family, to international affairs. Identifying them, insisting they justify themselves- they are not self-justifying- and if they can’t make that burden of justification, moving to dismantle them. Hence, move towards a more free world. Exactly where it’ll lead, I don’t know. I’m certainly not smart enough to say and I don’t think anyone is. Political activism, I think, is a little bit like mountain climbing. You work hard, you climb a peak and you discover to your surprise that there’s another peak, back there, that’s even higher that you hadn’t even known about and you start to work on that one. Well, yeah, that’s what things are like. There’s lots of peaks around there that have not entered into our consciousness and I hope we get to them, but there’s a lot of work to get to until we do. As this proceeds, we get closer to a kind of anarchist vision.

Behind Nebraska’s Abandoned Kids, A National Shortage of Mental Health Care

by Lynda Waddington, for RH Reality Check

The state of Nebraska has faced a situation most parents can't comprehend.

At last count 36 children, ranging in age from 20 months to 17 years, were left at Nebraska hospitals under the auspices of a vaguely written and short-lived "Safe Haven" law.

The Nebraska law, which was signed in February and became effective in July, was to be the last, given that all other states had already enacted similar legislation. During debate, however, Nebraska lawmakers took a unique slant.Instead of attaching an age to the law - ages that some lawmakers deemed "arbitrary" - the legislators opted to write the law so that any "child" could be handed over to the state at designated drop-off points, such as hospitals, without any legal recourse against the child's guardian.

As a result, parents drove several hundred miles - from as far away as Miami-Dade County in Florida and Pima County in Arizona - in order to leave their children with state officials in Nebraska. Although Nebraska lawmakers have since re-written the law so that only infants 30-days-old or less are covered, the legislative gaff has potentially shined a light on a national crisis.

According to statistical information on 34 of the children released by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, the children left in Nebraska come from various socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds. Twenty-two are considered white, 11 are considered black and one is Native American. Twenty of the 34 children are between the ages of 13 and 17.

They have three things in common.

1) Thirty-two of the children resided in or near an urban area.

2) Thirty of the children were living in a single-parent home.

3) Thirty of the children had previously received mental health services,
with 11 of those receiving treatment above an outpatient level.

This last statistic does not surprise George Estle, executive director of Tanager Place, a private nonprofit organization in Cedar Rapids that provides services to children and families experiencing social and psychological needs.

"If we would have had this same law in Iowa, the same thing would have happened here," Estle said. "I suspect that if we really look at the kids
who are being dropped off in Nebraska - particularly the adolescents - many of those will be young people who have serious emotional problems. My hunch is that parents are utterly frustrated at not being able to access services. So, they are using that law as an act of desperation because they can't get services."

Such was definitely the case for former Iowa resident Carrisa Gatley, a single parent who has an 11-year-old son with severe mental disabilities. She hasn't left her kid in Nebraska but she admits she could imagine it.

"Shortly after [our son] turned 3, my husband left," Gatley said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "I didn't blame him. I actually envied him - that he could escape the hell that came with trying to deal with everything."

Gatley said it wasn't just her son's violent episodes, which have become increasingly dangerous as he's grown older, but the constant and often depressing task of fighting with the insurance company, medication changes, food restrictions and trying to locate service providers.
"We left Iowa about six years ago because there were no doctors available in our area," she said. "Now we live in an urban area where services aren't plentiful, but adequate. At least I know that when there is a really bad day, I'll have someone to turn to - someone who helps us through the rough spots. Without that support, I might very well have also made the drive into Nebraska."

Estle, who does not know the Gatley family, said he can understand the frustrations of parents who live with children afflicted with mental illness. He said he sees parents every day who are frustrated and desperate to find help for their children.

And that frustration doesn't end with parents. Care providers - the few that remain - have difficulty placing the children who graduate from acute-care facilities, such as the handful available in hospital psychiatric wards or in the Tanager Place long-term care program.

"Years ago, when the state of Iowa decided to carve out the mental health care portion of Medicaid, they gave it to a for-profit-based care company," Estle explained. "What happened immediately after that was the reduction of the number of acute-care beds available. So, what you saw was a very rapid decline in the hospital-based beds for kids in the state."

Estle said that while such changes have resulted in fewer psychiatric beds for patients of all ages, the cuts in the number of psychiatric beds for children has been most severe.

"Those [programs] that are left struggle," he said. "For example, St. Luke's Hospital in Cedar Rapids has inpatient beds for children, but they often struggle with kids they can't move to another level of care because those needed services don't exist."

When that happens, the children often leave the hospital in their parents'care - whether or not the parents are in a position or have the resources to continue the child's treatment.

"It's the same problem we have with our long-term psychiatric medical institution," Estle said. "We can treat kids, but then we need to be able to move them to lesser levels of care. Those lesser levels of care really just aren't available. Because of this the whole system gets kind of jammed up, if you will."

Parents who hope their children will have access to outpatient services once they've left an acute-care facility may find that such services are limited, if available at all.

"For those who live in Cedar Rapids, we have a full-time child psychiatrist on staff here at Tanager Place to do outpatient care," said Estle. "I think one of the private psychiatric groups has a couple as well. But that's it.
If you want a child psychiatrist, those are the only ones available. Across the entire state, there are only a handful of child psychiatrists available. It's just a real problem of shortage of services and shortages of professionals."

Iowa isn't the only state that is coming up short when dealing with mental health issues for children, according to Estle.

"I really do think that what has happened in Nebraska is symptomatic of a bigger problem," he says. "It's a problem that we have in Iowa and a problem that is in many other areas of the country. If you look at what is available to those suffering with mental illness in our state, it basically comes down to some traditional outpatient care that varies sporadically across the state. There are a few inpatient and acute-care beds left, but not many.

There are far fewer than there used to be. There are some programs like Tanager across the state, but that's about it. There's nothing else out there."

The situation is especially dire in the Midwest, where the population is less dense and there are fewer opportunities both for care and for training.

"In the state of Iowa you have one residency program available at the University of Iowa. That's it. One program with limited slots," Estle said.
"And then, quite frankly, the reimbursement in Iowa for those professionals is really low. So there is really no incentive for those folks to stay here or come here."

Although the state Legislature has acknowledged Iowa has a crisis in relation to the availability of psychiatrists and psychologists, Estle isn't seeing much movement at a state level to correct the system's deficiencies. The reimbursement given to the Tanager Place psychiatric medical institution for children - a total of $167 a day - is the lowest in the nation. Estle does believe the mental health system in Iowa can be fixed, but it will take actions by a state Legislature that has previously been unwilling to act and now has the added pressures of flood recovery and budget shortfalls.

"We've not done much in the state to develop a good system of care for kids with mental illness," he said. "I think that's what we have to do first. We have to design and fund a good system of care in Iowa, and we've got to figure out a way to attract professionals to staff it."