[Click the pic for a youtube, and click read more, below]

Homeless Advocate = Terrorist Threat?

A Fresno homeless advocate has been sent a letter from Homeland Security, informing him that his attempts to help the homeless have been “brought to the attention of the Police Department's Terrorism Liaison Officers.” The unwanted attention of the Homeland Security anti-terrorism group followed a City of Fresno “clean up” of a homeless encampment on the Mariposa Mall in downtown Fresno.

Several homeless advocates monitored the “clean up” and removal of homeless people’s property on the morning of April 22, 2009 by City Sanitation Workers. “Clean ups” at the Mariposa Mall site, just west of Fresno City Hall, are conducted about once a month. City Sanitation puts up signs announcing the date of the clean up, most of the homeless people move out shortly before they arrive, and move back later in the day. It is a meaningless game of cat and mouse that is not intended to help the homeless or make their life better in any way. As a result of this constant harassment, sometimes the homeless lose their property. This happens if they are gone for a few days visiting a friend or family member when the city “cleans up” this encampment.

Citizens Call For Renewed Scrutiny of Anti-Gang Practices in Yolo County

Written by David Greenwald Thursday, 11 June 2009 10:23

Opponents of the West Sacramento Gang injunction gathered this morning in front of the Yolo County Courthouse ahead of yet another hearing as defendants seek to overturn the gang injunction which was originally filed in 2005, thrown out by the courts, and then the District Attorney's office sought to have it reinstated last year.

Opponents of the gang injunction argue that while there is crime in West Sacramento and a small number of gang members, neither the level of violence nor the number of gang members justify an injunction.

Rebecca Sandoval, one of the organizers for the citizen's based effort against the gang injunction argued:

"There has been a message put out there that there is a Broderick Boys gang. What we are saying... is that there is no Broderick Boys gang. There is a certain amount of crime that exists in West Sacramento just like in any city but not anywhere to the point where it requires a gang injunction."

According to Phil Barros, a law enforcement officer for the department of corrections and certified gang expert in California and Nevada, the District Attorney had issued the injunction back in 2005 based on the argument that crime had increased in the Broderick and Bryte areas as the result of the increased Mexican population in these communities. But Mr. Barros argues that the actual crime statistics do not bear out those claims.

Hundreds in Woodland March Calling For Independent Investigation in Death of Gutierrez

Written by David Greenwald Sunday, 07 June 2009 04:32

Political Leaders from Woodland and the County Completely Absent From Event

In an event attended by hundreds of Woodland residents and many from across the county and the region, labor leader Al Rojas and religious leaders called for an independent investigation into the April 30 shooting death of 26-year-old farm worker Luis Gutierrez. Mr. Gutierrez was shot and killed by Yolo County Sheriff's Deputies as he walked home from the DMV on the Gum Avenue overpass in Woodland.

The march which was led by the family of Mr. Gutierrez followed the route that he took in the last moments of his life.

Individuals expressed anger and frustration at authorities and also the political leaders. They called for an independent investigation into his death.

This call was proceeded by an increasing chorus of people who believe that there must be an independent review of the events that led to the death of the young farm worker.

[...]

Pics and more at the links

http://davisvanguard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=28...

http://www.lclaasacramento.com/

http://lahoradelmigrante.blogspot.com/2009/06/hundreds-of-woodland-resid...

Civil liberties advocates protest city's plans to install surveillance system
by Kathleen Haley, published on May 26, 2009 at 11:09PM

Civil liberties lawyers and advocates are objecting to the city of Sacramento’s plans to install new security cameras and related surveillance equipment at several locations in the city.

Jim Updegraff, the chair of the Sacramento County Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told the City Council Tuesday that the planned surveillance system would be “an affront to the privacy and civil liberties of the citizens of the City of Sacramento.”

Mayor Kevin Johnson and Police Chief Rick Braziel last month publicized the city’s plan to use a pot of $615, 500 in Federal Homeland Security grant funds to fund a new surveillance system with 32 cameras, four mobile surveillance trailers and other related equipment. Johnson said the surveillance system was important because Sacramento has ranked second to Oakland in violent crime statistics over the past seven to eight years.

But Sacramento County’s ACLU chapter and ACLU attorneys in San Francisco are challenging Johnson and Braziel’s views.

[I myself have no idea what a woman has to go through when confronted by reasons to abort a pregnancy and I can't judge those who are confronted with that wrenching choice; on that note I've found some things which have given me more insight into that decision and maybe they will help you. The first link is from the ACLU Blog on Dr. Tiller and the next two are comments which have helped me understand the medical reasons]

Keep Abortion Providers Safe Now

On Sunday, May 31, Dr. George Tiller, a doctor in Wichita, Kansas, who for decades provided abortions for women even in the face of harassment and violence, was murdered at his place of worship. Sondra Goldschein and Allie Bohm attended events in New York City and Washington, D.C., honoring Dr. Tiller’s life.

Sondra Goldschein writes:

When I heard about the murder of Dr. Tiller on Sunday evening, I went from shock to tears to fear to loss. I could feel those emotions but I couldn’t put into words what a tragedy his death is. ...

[...]

As many of us have now heard, Dr. Tiller was shot in both arms in 1993. What we haven’t heard as much is that he came back to work the very next day. Why? When he needed medical attention, he had received it. His patients needed his care and he was going to be there. “There was never any question in my mind that I was going back to work the next day.”

Dr. George Tiller truly understood that a woman facing an unintended pregnancy should have the opportunity to make the best decision for herself and her family, whether her decision is raising a child, adoption, or abortion. He respected women and their decisions, and with his wonderful staff, was there to help women from all over the country

Beyond 'gay marriage'

The cultural battle over same-sex relationships has been relegated to court cases, chanting crowds and heated confrontations. At its heart, though, it’s often just about two people trying to get the world — indeed, even their families — to recognize and understand their love.

By Joel P. Engardio

On my 28th birthday, my boyfriend, Mark, took me to see his parents and childhood home. We flew from San Francisco to Chicago, and Mark's younger brother drove us to a subdivision of ranch houses. Mark's mom was in the driveway, waving. Mark's dad was in the front yard, tending to the low wall he had been building next to the shrubs. He greeted us with the idea that he might want to raise the wall by one stone's level. He stood by as Mark hugged his mother and she began to cry.

Mark thought all that summer of 2000 about telling his parents he was gay. We had broken up once over it. I wanted to date someone who was out to everyone, not just to his friends and co-workers as Mark was.

Nonetheless, I understood how Mark's mom, a fundamentalist Baptist, would panic that the rapture would leave her son behind. My own mom, one of Jehovah's Witnesses, believed she wouldn't get to see me in paradise. She had been in mourning since I came out. Still, I felt dealing with disapproving parents was a less empty and isolating experience than trying to connect with family from the closet.

Even back then it was impossible to escape the political realities of being gay in America. On the plane to Chicago, we read about civil unions in Vermont and wondered how California, our adopted home state, could have passed an anti-gay initiative that spring — a precursor to today's gay marriage quagmire.

[Related: Sixth Amendment In Crisis: Right To Competent Counsel At Risk and False confessions: Even judges are biased by camera perspective]

Justices Ease Rules on Questioning

By DAVID STOUT
Published: May 26, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it easier for the police and prosecutors to question suspects, lifting some restrictions on when defendants can be interrogated without their lawyers present.

In a 5-to-4 ruling, the court overturned its 1986 opinion in a Michigan case, which forbade the police from interrogating a defendant once he invoked his right to counsel at an arraignment or a similar proceeding.

That 1986 ruling has not only proved “unworkable,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority, but its “marginal benefits are dwarfed by its substantial costs” in that some guilty defendants go free. Justice Scalia was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

In an angry dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the 1986 decision, said that contrary to the majority’s assertion, that decision protected “a fundamental right that the court now dishonors.”

Click the pics to watch two short videos

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Keep that in mind - stacking, cracking, and packing

According to the NYTimes Justice Kennedy seemed to be most skeptical and had difficulty differentiating between the institutional, cultural, and parochial differences in this country.

“No one questions the validity, the urgency, the essentiality of the Voting Rights Act,” he said. “The question is whether or not it should be continued with this differentiation between the states. And that is for Congress to show.”

Maybe I'm not smart enough to understand, but, I don't what one has to do with the other. They know that discrimination has, and is, taking place even now, and if anything he's arguing that all election procedures need to be looked at. And I would not argue that point when taking into account what happened in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004.

Here John Payton is president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund answers those questions and points out why Sec. 5 is still needed in the regions covered

... In 2006 Congress reauthorized Section 5 by overwhelming margins after holding 21 hearings, taking testimony from some 200 witnesses and experts and compiling a record of more than 17,000 pages. That record revealed that some 2,400 discriminatory changes in voting practices and procedures had been caught by the Section 5 process since it was last reauthorized in 1982 to 2006.

The point? If Section 5 had not existed, those 2,400 discriminatory changes would have gone into effect ...

Just to repeat, 21 hearings; 200 witnesses; a record more than 17,000 pages long; and 2,400 discriminatory changes prevented by Sec 5.