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Today's
Stories
October 16
/ 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
October 15,
2004
Paul Craig
Roberts
Where
Did These "Conservatives" Come From?: The Brownshirting
of America
Laura Carlsen
Wal-Mart
vs. the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
Greg Bates
Empire of Insanity: Kerry's Iraq Troop Numbers
Michael Donnelly
News from a Swing State: Does Anyone Here Have a Spine?
Katherine Lahey
The Venezuelan "Threat": Why Do Kerry and Bush Fear
Hugo Chavez?
Robert Jensen
/ Pat Youngblood
Election Day Fears
Leah Caldwell
From
Supermax to Abu Ghraib: the Masterminds of Torture and Abuse
Website of
the Day
An Anti-Billionaire Policy? Why That Would Be Economic Racism
October 14,
2004
Darcy Richardson
The
Other Progressive Candidate: the Lonely Crusade of Walt Brown
Willliam A.
Cook
Turning
Myths into Truth
Laura Santina
Water, Women and War
Evelyn Pringle
Free Speech Banned by Big Pharma: What You Can't Say About Drug
Importation
Alan Farago
Lessons
from Nature
Rep. Maxine Waters
A Letter to Colin Powell on Haiti
Nicole Colson
Maimed
for Oil and Empire
October 13,
2004
Bishop Thomas
Gumbleton and Bill Quigley
Aftermath
of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti
Sharon Smith
Barak
O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran
Christopher Brauchli
God and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: a False Beacon?
Website of
the Day
Operation
Truth
October 12,
2004
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian
Country"
Greg Bates
The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters
in Swing States
Steven Conn
Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader
Jason Leopold
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from
UN Oil-for-Food Program
Security Scholars
for a Sensible Foreign Policy
Time for a Change of Course
Timothy J. Freeman
Dying for a Mistake
Pierre Tristam
Deconstructing Bush
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Israel as Sideshow
Website of the Day
John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters
October 11,
2004
Robert Fisk
Iraq:
Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises
Kevin Pina
The
Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti
Patrick Gavin
Rethinking
Columbus Day
Chris Floyd
Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan
Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most
Dangerous Nuclear Plant
Walter Brasch
The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and
40% of All Americans
Mike Whitney
The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink
Ari Shavit
"He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with
Sharon's Lawyer
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Debates and the Big Lie
Website of the Day
Dylan's Greatest Recording?
October 9 /
10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
"There
Are No Innocents"
Paul de Rooij
Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry
Adams
M. Shahid Alam
Making Sense of Our Times
Laura Carlsen
Protest and Populism in Latin America
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court
Col. Dan Smith
Bush's Credibility Gap
Paul Craig
Roberts
Faith-Based Economics
Greg Bates
What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?
Joshua Frank
Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left
Felice Pace
Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable
Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement
Walter A. Davis
Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium
William A.
Cook
The Agony of Colin Powell
Phyllis Pollack
Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later
Poets' Basement
Klipschutz, Albert, Ford
Website of the Weekend
Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes
October 8,
2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
The
Israeli Invasion of Gaza
Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities
David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition
to Iraq War
Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!
Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery
William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up
Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine
Jim Ingalls
and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan
October 7,
2004
Dave Lindorff
All
Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air
Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar
Christopher
Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?
Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida
Meredith Kolodner
Where
is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge
October 6,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
"Please,
Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah
Ron Jacobs
Going
Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives
Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?
Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates
Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood
Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs
John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia
Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"
Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target
Patrick Cockburn
Elections
Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq
Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?
October 5,
2004
Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert
Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"
Mark Clinton
and Tony Udell
The
Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran
Greg Bates
Trading
Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman
Dave Lindorff
What's
the Frequency, Karl?
Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers
Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children
Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government
Gary Leupp
What
Edwards Should Ask Cheney
Website of
the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate
October 4,
2004
Diane Christian
The
Gates of Hell
Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb
Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?
John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump
Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage
Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM
Sean Donahue
Outsourcing
Terror: Kerry and Special Forces
Website of
the Day
Mapping
Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks
October 2 /
3. 2004
Paul Wright
John
Kerry on Criminal Justice
Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris
Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill
Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia
Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"
Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia
Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock
William S.
Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces
Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC
Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate
Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway
Zoe Moskovitz
& Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti
Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned
Cuban Academics
Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades
Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?
Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years
Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries
Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert
October 1,
2004
Steve Breyman
Kerry's
Missed Opportunities
Rose Gentle
My
Son Died for a Lie
Lee Sustar
Iran
in the Crosshairs
Ralph Nader
What
We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?
Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever
Mike Whitney
Pandora's
Government
Mickey Z.
Debate
This
Saul Landau
The
Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
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Weekend Edition
October 16 / 17, 2004
Trying to Cross
Lake Champlain
Your
Papers Please! (And While You're at It Could You Open That Trunk?)
By
RON JACOBS
Every morning when I leave my house
in Burlington, Vermont I look to the left at the waters of Lake
Champlain. For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of
this region of the United States, Lake Champlain is a large lake
that brings together the states of New York and Vermont, and
the province of Quebec. In earlier times, when most freight
and passenger transportation went by way of rail and water, this
lake was an important part of the region's interstate commerce.
Since the advent of interstate trucking and air freight, however,
most of the traffic on the lake is recreational except for the
network of car and passenger ferries that take workers to and
from their worksites most days of the year. The primary provider
of this service is a private company known as Lake Champlain
Transportation Company. This company runs three routes between
New York and Vermont that carry around 200, 000 passengers a
year. Approximately two-thirds of the passengers are on their
way to and from work. The rest are tourists.
Since the events of 9-11, the
subsequent passage of the repressive legislation known as the
PATRIOT ACT, and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS), the ferry company has instituted a system of random vehicle
and passenger searches. These searches include identification
checks and vehicle trunk searches by various employees of Lake
Champlain Ferries Co. According to the notification posted on
the boats and dockside, the fact of boarding constitutes the
passenger's consent to a search and/or identification check.
The searches are conducted under the auspices of the National
Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA), which was enacted
in 2002 and covers some 3.5 million square miles of ocean area
and 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline, along with all inland waterways.
Of course, the enforcement of this Act falls under the jurisdiction
of the DHS and its director, Tom Ridge, and is administered by
the U. S. Coast Guard.
Mike Cassidy is one of the
200,000 annual passengers of the ferry system. An attorney who
works at the Plattsburgh, NY office of Prisoners' Legal Services
of New York, he recently filed a suit with another attorney-William
Nelson-and Allen Gilbert, the executive director of ACLU-Vermont
-that seeks to halt the searches and identification checks.
The suit, which was filed in
the US District Court in Burlington, VT., calls for an injunction
to halt the searches. According to Nelson, the so-called "screenings"
are "searches, pure and simple" and "invade constitutionally
protected privacy interests." Furthermore, "they are
unreasonable and unconstitutional under settled Fourth Amendment
law." The judicial complaint that the three attorneys filed
emphasizes that, while there may be a need for enhanced security
on the ferry lines because of the threat of terror attacks, these
searches not only violate passengers' constitutional rights,
they provide no real protection from such attacks.
Like most other aspects of
the post-911 security blanket thrown over the residents of the
United States, although the directives are confidential. So,
even though the Coast Guard guidelines are public, the actual
directives remain unknown except to those who happen to possess
whatever security clearance the DHS has decided is necessary
to view them. It is these directives, known collectively as
the Maritime Security Directives, under which the ferry company
conducts these measures. The only thing known for certain about
the directives is that the measures taken by various private
transportation companies are up to their own discretion. In
other words, searches are not mandatory. The guidelines issued
by the Coast Guard contain the following instructions: "each
vessel security plan must include a "screening," defined
as "a reasonable examination of persons, cargo, vehicles,
or baggage for the protection of the vessel, its passengers and
crew and an identity check of boarding passengers." Indeed,
as the complaint notes, not all passenger ferries need to implement
these particular measures and some ferry systems (specifically
the system that operates in the Puget Sound) have substituted
alternative measures that do not involve searches or identity
checks, but utilize dogs trained to sniff out explosives.
The plaintiff, Mike Cassidy,
who besides his work defending indigent prisoners incarcerated
in New York, also defended protestors arrested during the National
Governor's Association meetings in Vermont in 1995. These protestors,
who blocked access to some meetings at the conference, were trying
to stop the then-imminent execution of Mumia Abu Jamal-an execution
order signed by then-Governor Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania. The
charges against the defendants were dropped after Cassidy got
the judge hearing the case to allow the use of the so-called
necessity defense. For those who are unfamiliar with this defense,
its essential argument is that people can break the law if the
reason for the illegal act represents a greater threat than the
lawbreaking. After the judge allowed this defense, the state
dropped the charges, not wishing to risk a trial that might challenge
the death penalty and perhaps even Mumia's incarceration. Nelson
practices law in the central Vermont town of Middlebury. The
reader might be wondering why Cassidy doesn't just use another
route. Like many other passengers, his only alternative to this
daily trip is a drive around the southern tip of the lake-a drive
which would take at least two hours each way on a good day.
Much like other so-called security
measures currently in place in the United States, these "screenings"
provide no real protection from potential terror attacks and
are mostly an inconvenience to the average traveler in the United
States. In addition, and more importantly, they are an infringement
on the very freedoms Washington's over-hyped war on terror is
supposedly being fought to protect. As for the identity checks,
they provide no real data and are of questionable legality, since
merely riding a passenger ferry is not reason enough to require
somebody to prove their identity or residency. One could argue,
as Cassidy does, that these searches are just another "part
of the wider and distasteful campaign of promoting fear and suspicion
in order to justify ever greater erosion of our civil liberties."
In an email to me, he also noted that "the rationale used
here for these search practices can just as easily be translated
and applied to any bridge, road, or shopping mall. In effect,
this could fundamentally alter the landscape of 4th Amendment
law and protections, which up to now have prohibited general
suspicionless roadblocks and checkpoints (beyond DUI checks and
immigration related matters). We're on a dangerous trajectory
here, and I'm hoping to nip it in the bud now, before it grows
more accepted and entrenched and harder to fight later."
Ron Jacobs is author of The
Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground,
which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill
Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's new collection on music,
art and sex, Serpents
in the Garden. He can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for September 18 / 19, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Forgeries,
Fingerprints and Forensic Fakery
Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Bush's Mask of Anarchy
Patrick Cockburn
Into the Abyss: the Week Iraq's Dream of Peace Fell Apart
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Financial Torture (Asset Forfeiture)
Joe Allen
The Comrades Kerry Abandoned: the Real Story of Vietnam Vets
Against the War
George Corsetti
Poletown Revisited: Finally, Some Vindication
Scott Handleman
The Knock-Knock of a Sledgehammer: Sequestered in Nablus
Richard Ward
Two Weeks in Beit Arabiya
Conn Hallinan
Ashcroft and Indonesia
Lori Smith
Health Care in America: And Then I Got Sick...
Dave Zirin
Hold the Booyah!: SportsCenter Out of the Middle East
John L. Hess
Rather Will Take the Heat, As Bush's War Deteriorates
Brian J. Foley
W is for Wimp: So Why do Manly Men Love Him?
Mickey Z.
Pat Tillman and Osama bin Laden: Odd Juxtapositions
Poets' Basement
Vest, Landau & Albert
Website of the Weekend
Eye on the NYTs
/
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