The ACLU of Georgia released copies of government files on Wednesday that illustrate the extent to which the FBI, the DeKalb County Division of Homeland Security and other government agencies have gone to compile information on Georgians suspected of being threats simply for expressing controversial opinions.
Two documents relating to anti-war and anti-government protests, and a vegan rally, prove the agencies have been "spying" on Georgia residents unconstitutionally, the ACLU said. (Related: ACLU Complaint -- PDF file)
For example, more than two dozen government surveillance photographs show 22-year-old Caitlin Childs of Atlanta, a strict vegetarian, and other vegans picketing against meat eating, in December 2003. They staged their protest outside a HoneyBaked Ham store on Buford Highway in DeKalb County.
An undercover DeKalb County Homeland Security detective was assigned to conduct surveillance of the protest and the protestors, and take the photographs. The detective arrested Childs and another protester after he saw Childs approach him and write down, on a piece of paper, the license plate number of his unmarked government car.
"They told me if I didn't give over the piece of paper I would go to jail and I refused and I went to jail, and the piece of paper was taken away from me at the jail and the officer who transferred me said that was why I was arrested," Childs said on Wednesday.
Havana, Jan 26 (Prensa Latina) Cuba forewarned Thursday of the danger that United States release infamous Cuban-born terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and send him to a third country, ignoring the Venezuelan extradition request to be tried there.
The US Immigration and Customs Office informed Wednesday of the possibility of sending Posada Carriles to a third country, but Cuban TV reporter Reynaldo Taladrid said the United States has not yet found a country that wants to receive the criminal.
He is documented as being responsible for the explosion in mid-air of a Cuban airplane off the coast of Barbados in October 1976 that killed 73 people.
Posada Carriles’ lawyers, stated Taladrid, are carrying out actions for his imminent release and have already sent the necessary documents and information, like monetary support, place of residence and future employment.
However, as Cuba has said, the case has become a hot potato for the US government, beneficiary in the past of misdeeds by the confessed mass murderer and from other Cuban-born terrorists who it needs to keep in silence.
The 77-year-old former CIA agent was detained in Miami, Florida on May 17, after having illegally sneaked into the country with false passport from Mexico.
During a farcical hearing at the Immigration Service Processing Center of El Paso, Texas, an immigration judge refused to extradite him to Cuba or Venezuela, arguing that these countries could torture him.
Posada was a torturer at the DISIP (Venezuelan secret police) and the mastermind behind a series of bomb attacks on Havana hotels in 1997, which killed an Italian tourist and wounded 10 people.
Here comes the Bush boom in all its glory...
I am still hopeful, though it is increasingly clear that many Americans just don't understand what their government's about these days.
There is nothing one can do other than what one can do...
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