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Many activist groups intend to travel from the Bay Area in the coming week to protest the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado. Indybay will be featuring reports by activists who will be at the DNC, protesting the Democrats. We encourage all people who are going to the DNC to publish photos, videos, and reports from the streets.
On July 10th, Bush signed into law the FISA Amendment Act. The law allows the government to spy on emails, phone calls, web surfing, and other communications without warrants. The law also guarantees immunity to telecommunication companies who participated in the secret and illegal spying conducted by the Bush Administration. Many have stated that the bill excuses President Bush's lawless behavior, is an assault on the first and fourth Amendment, and is a further justification to spy on activists.
In response to international pressure, US officials returned to members of Pastors for Peace 32 computers bound for Cuba. Federal agents seized the computers from the humanitarian group as they attempted to cross the Pharr International Bridge early on July 3 at the US-Mexico border. The confiscated computers were officially released by US authorities early this week and are now en route to Cuba.
In a July 14th, New York Times Op Ed, Barack Obama says, "As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces."
A federal court earlier this month ordered Google's YouTube to hand over usernames, IP addresses, and viewing histories to Viacom sparking a controversy over Internet privacy.
This week Viacom and the other litigants backed off their demand for YouTube user viewing histories and an agreement was reached with Google to anonymize the data. While some YouTube users say Viacom is now "off the hook" for intruding on people's online privacy, others question why Google was allowed to amass and use all this private data in the first place.
On July 1st, Starbucks announced that it will be closing 600 stores. Starbucks has been expanding for the past two decades and in many cases bought out other chains resulting in stores located within blocks or even on the same block as each other.
Consumers in San Francico and New York have been vocal about the urban blight created by a Starbucks on every corner.
The IWW Starbucks Workers Union responded to the closures saying they are deeply troubled that management's numerous missteps are resulting in more serious hardships for baristas, bussers, and shift supervisors. Starbucks has a history of anti-union activity and the IWW held a global day of action against Starbucks on July 5th.
On June 6, responding to an ACLU report on recruiter abuses, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child issued a report urging the U.S. to make sweeping policy changes regarding domestic military recruitment practices. Although the U.S. signed the UN's Optional Protocol on the involvement of Children in Armed Conflict in 2002, military recruiters still target children under 18 years of age for enlistment with techniques that include false promises and coercion.
In August 2006, seven African American lesbians were walking down the street in the West Village, when a male bystander assaulted them with sexist and homophobic comments. The women tried to defend themselves, and a fight broke out. The women were arrested and three of them accepted plea offers while the other four received sentences of up to 11 years in prison.
On Monday, June 23, 2008, Terrain Dandridge’s case was overturned, all her charges were dropped and her record was cleared.
Terrain Dandridge and her mother meet with Angela Davis at the San Francisco Women’s Building for a public event Tuesday, June 24th to discuss the experiences of violence faced by queer people of color.
Indymedia Newsreal, a monthly television series, brings progressive grassroots organizing, going on in your backyard, to a national television audience. Newsreal is a longstanding collaboration between the Independent Media Center and Free Speech TV. It is shown on Free Speech TV every first Thursday at 5pm PST and sent on disc to community screening groups who show it during public screenings or include it on public access shows.
Skidmark Bob of Free Radio Santa Cruz interviewed media analyst John Anderson about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) to be discussed at the G8 summit in Japan and H.R. 4279, the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO IP) Act of 2007. Although ACTA's title might suggest that the agreement deals only with counterfeit physical goods (such as medicines), what little information has been made available publicly by negotiating governments about the content of the treaty makes it clear that it will have a far broader scope, and in particular, will deal with tools targeting "Internet distribution and information technology." The PRO IP Act proposes to make substantial changes to federal copyright law, including the appointment of a copyright Czar.
"Jonah" Larrama, a traveler who spends most of his time in SF and NY, is being held at the Northwest ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] Detention Center in Tacoma, WA. He is known locally from Food Not Bombs, Homes Not Jails, and various tenants' rights, homeless rights, bike rights and animal rights activities among other things. He was arrested at the end of May for trespassing to watch the sunset from a roof of a building in Seattle and spent some time in county jail. An ICE raid took place at the jail and he was transported to the Northwest Detention Center because his citizenship status is in question.
The community of Felton prevailed in its six-year fight to acquire its water system from California-American Water (Cal-Am), a subsidiary of the German multinational corporation RWE. Cal-Am and the San Lorenzo Valley Water District (SLVWD) announced a purchase agreement on May 30th, less than a week before the planned start of an eminent domain trial where a jury would have set the value of the water system. “This win, combined with the failure of RWE to efficiently and affordably deliver water to the residents of Felton is yet another example of why water utilities should be managed by the public," said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch.
Andrew Flood spent the last several months traveling around the USA on a 45 city speaking tour about anarchism in Ireland. Andrew recorded interviews with anarchists, edited audio on bus rides, and posted articles to indymedia ireland once he accessed a wi-fi signal. Together, all those interviewed give an impression of 'the other America.'
The interviews are a fragment of a picture, a selection of the hundred plus people Andrew had conversations with, the ones where there was enough time and quiet to allow him to flip open a five year old laptop and hit record. He couldn't always do that, so there are many fascinating conversations that are missing, including a visit to one of the more than 100 political prisoners still incarcerated in the US.  Read More and Listen to Audio
Speaking tour details |  Andrew's audio and photos on indymedia.ie: Tales from the NE Anarchist Movement | Tales from the South, Midwest and West Coast
June 2008 marks the 8th anniversary of the imprisonment of Jeffrey Free Luers. Each June for the past 8 years, a Day of Solidarity has been held to garner support for Jeff and other eco-prisoners. June 14, 2008 will mark the kickoff to a campaign to raise money to help Jeff with his education and living expenses upon his release, as well as call attention to the many eco-prisoners still facing time behind bars and repression by the state.
Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) and a small bi-partisan coalition of Members of Congress introduced H.R. 5842, the Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act in April. The legislation will help protect individuals who use or provide medical cannabis in accordance with their state law.
In San José and all across the United States, marches for immigrant and workers' rights are reviving the long-dormant American tradition of May Day. While legislation for comprehensive immigration reform has stalled in Congress, demonstrators are poised to take the struggle to the next level. From coast to coast, over a hundred thousand marched on May 1, 2008 to demand respect and recognition as workers who contribute so much to building the United States.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is helping put together the largest Iraq war spending bill yet.
The aim appears to be to fund the war for nearly six months into the next president's term to prevent a new Democratic President from having to vote for the war without risking the war actually ending.
On April 28th, Code Pink started a peace vigil on the front porch of Pelosi's house in San Francisco to urge her to not give the President another blank check for the occupation of Iraq
On Thursday May 1st, Al-Jazeera reporter Sami al-Haj was released after six and a half years at Guantanamo. Upon his arrival in Sudan early on Friday, Al-Hajj was carried off a US air force jet on a stretcher and immediately taken to a hospital. Al-Hajj told reporters at the hospital that "rats are treated with more humanity" than the inmates at Guantanamo, whose "human dignity [is] violated". Ten journalists have been held for extended periods by the U.S. military and then released without charge. The U.S. military continues to hold Jawed Ahmad, a journalist for Canada's CTV, at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
On May 1, all 29 ports on the U.S. West Coast were shut down by the ILWU in protest against the U.S. war on Afghanistan and Iraq. The Bay Area ILWU local was the first American union to condemn the war. In April 2003, as invading U.S. troops reached Baghdad, six longshoremen were injured and a union official was arrested as police fired on hundreds of antiwar protesters in the port of Oakland. Supporters of the ILWU meet in San Francisco at Mason and Beach at 10:30 am on May Day. There was then a march to a 12 noon rally in Justin Herman Plaza.
The Federal Communications Commisision will hold a hearing about the future of the Internet on Thursday, April 17th on the campus of Stanford University. The 12pm hearing will be preceded by entertainment from the Raging Grannies. In 2007, several organizations confirmed that Comcast, which is a giant cable company, had been secretly blocking and degrading particular applications over several months, while denying its actions publicly. "Talk Back to the FCC" speaker practice sessions are planned for cities around the Bay Area this week: Monday at 6pm in Berkeley, Tuesday at 4:30 in San Francisco, and Wednesday at 6:30 in East Palo Alto.
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal. The court has called for a sentencing hearing that would result in either an execution or life in prison without parole; the hearing will be scheduled within 180 days. A San Francisco demonstration and press conference was held at 5:00 pm at the federal courthouse at 7th and Mission on Friday, March 28th. In Oakland, protesters gathered at 14th and Broadway from 4:30-6:30 pm on Friday. National protests are being planned for April in San Francisco and in Philadelphia.
The Army recruitment site GoArmy.com is one of the most heavily advertised web sites on the planet. It's a slick marketing effort to make enlisting look like the perfect job opportunity: a stable, safe way to make money and serve America. Of course, there's a lot about the Army that isn't mentioned on GoArmy.com. From the Iraq War to human rights abuses to the stop-loss policy, the official recruitment website is strangely silent.
On March 19th, NoArmy.com was launched to clear up confusion about the Army and commemorate the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. It's an unauthorized remixed version of the recruitment site which presents the facts missing in the Army sales pitch, and shows potential recruits what they can really expect if they enlist.
In 1971, Vietnam veterans held a conference that they called the Winter Soldier Investigation, to speak out about what was really going on in the Vietnam War. 37 years later, Iraq War vets held their own Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan, at which US veterans testified about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. The conference took place from March 13th through 16th in Washington, D.C. A group of Vietnam vets from Portland stopped in Fresno on the way to Winter Soldier. KPFA radio suspended its regular programming over several days in order to broadcast the proceedings.
On March 4th, Skidmark Bob of Free Radio Santa Cruz 101fm interviewed Lyn Gerry, host and producer of Unwelcome Guests radio program and collective member of A-Infos Radio Project. The project's goal is to support and expand the movement for democratic communications worldwide by offering an alternative to corporate media.
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