Gay couples take a step farther up the US aisle
The Massachusetts Supreme Court said Nov. 18 there was no constitutional justification for gays and lesbians not to marry, paving the way for the state to become the first in America to grant full civil marriage rights to homosexual couples.
In 2000, Vermont passed a law allowing gay couples to enter into civil unions, a status offering all the rights of wedlock although it is not termed a marriage.
The four-to-three ruling “[declared] that barring an individual from the protections, benefits and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex violates the Massachusetts constitution [which] forbids the creation of second-class citizens”. Political reaction was swift. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a Democrat presidential candidate, said he was opposed to full marriage rights for gays and lesbians. But he added that the state should respond at least by granting homosexual couples the same social rights and protections afforded to heterosexual married couples.
Gay activists were jubilant. Michael Adams, of Lambda Legal Defense, a gay advocacy group, said: “This is an enormous step forward. The pendulum of history is swinging in favor of gay rights.”
On Nov. 22, Republican governors ended their annual meeting with a pledge to support an amendment to the Constitution to block same-sex marriage.
The governors, meeting in Boca Raton, FL, said they feared that in the light of the Supreme Court ruling on sodomy that gays are guaranteed equal treatment under the law they have to move now to safeguard the “sanctity of marriage.’’ (Independent (UK), 365gay.com)

FBI scrutinizing activists
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has collected extensive information on the tactics, training, and organization of antiwar demonstrators and has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counter-terrorism squads, according to interviews and a confidential bureau memorandum.
The memorandum, which the bureau sent to local law enforcement agencies last month in advance of antiwar demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco, detailed how protesters have sometimes used “training camps” to rehearse for demonstrations, the Internet to raise money, and gas masks to defend against tear gas. The memorandum analyzed lawful activities like recruiting demonstrators, as well as illegal activities like using fake documentation to get into a secured site.
FBI officials said in interviews that the intelligence-gathering effort was aimed at identifying anarchists and “extremist elements” plotting violence, not at monitoring the political speech of law-abiding protesters.
The initiative has won the support of some local police, who view it as a critical way to maintain order at large-scale demonstrations.
But some civil rights advocates and legal scholars said the monitoring program could signal a return to the abuses of the 1960’s and 1970’s, when J. Edgar Hoover was the FBI director and agents routinely spied on political protesters like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“The FBI. is dangerously targeting Americans who are engaged in nothing more than lawful protest and dissent,” said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “The line between terrorism and legitimate civil disobedience is blurred, and I have a serious concern about whether we’re going back to the days of Hoover.”
Civil rights advocates have complained for months that federal officials have surreptitiously sought to suppress the First Amendment rights of antiwar demonstrators.
The FBI memorandum, however, appears to offer the first corroboration of a coordinated, nationwide effort to collect intelligence regarding demonstrations.
“What the FBI regards as potential terrorism,” Romero said, “strikes me as civil disobedience.” (Washington Post)

FBI may collect juveniles’ DNA
DNA profiles from hundreds of thousands of juvenile offenders and adults arrested but not convicted of crimes could be added to the FBI’s national DNA crime-fighting program under a proposed law moving through Congress.
The law, if enacted, would be the greatest single expansion of the federal government’s power to collect and use DNA since the FBI’s national database was created in 1992. The FBI says its national DNA database holds genetic profiles from about 1.4 million adults convicted of state and federal crimes.
The changes, in a little-noticed section of a bill that would authorize $755 million for DNA testing, were approved by the House of Representatives on Nov. 5. Backers say the Senate is likely to approve a similar version by early next year.
Proponents, including the Bush administration, claimthat expanding the number of profiles in the database would greatly increase the number of crimes solved. Keeping DNA profiles on file to solve future crimes, they argue, differs little from maintaining a database of fingerprints, which the FBI also does.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) counters that DNA is different because it contains genetic information that should be kept private. Taking a person’s DNA before he is even convicted, said ACLU Washington lobbyist Jesselyn McCurdy, “removes the presumption of innocence.”
Advocates for juveniles say that giving teenagers what amounts to a “permanent criminal genetic record” defeats the purpose of the juvenile justice system by treating the youths as adults. (USA Today)
Gen. Franks doubts Constitution will survive WMD attack
Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government.
Franks, who led the initial US military invasion of Iraq, expressed his worries in an extensive interview he gave to the men’s lifestyle magazine Cigar Aficionado.
If such an attack were to occur, Franks said, “... the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we’ve seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy.”
Franks then offered “in a practical sense” what he thinks would happen in the aftermath of such an attack.
“It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world — it may be in the United States of America — that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important.”Already, critics of the US PATRIOT Act, rushed through Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, have argued that the law aims to curtail civil liberties and sets a dangerous precedent.
But Franks’ scenario goes much further. He is the first high-ranking official to openly speculate that the Constitution could be scrapped in favor of a military form of government.
The usually camera-shy Franks retired from US Central Command in August 2003, after serving nearly four decades in the Army. (NewsMax.com)

Schwarzenegger puts rules on hold, raises fears
An executive order signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could delay the implementation of dozens of environmental and consumer protection measures and give Schwarzenegger’s political appointees unprecedented powers to rewrite regulations.
On his first day in office, Schwarzenegger ordered a six-month halt to the creation of new rules affecting hundreds of issues so he can review how they will affect California’s business climate. The order could affect everything from the state’s efforts to develop an unprecedented computer recycling program to a new law requiring hospitals to have a minimum level of nurses on duty.
Critics charged that the new governor is already doling out favors to business contributors and trying to overturn legitimate laws passed by the Legislature and signed by former Gov. Gray Davis.
They also argued that Schwarzenegger, who campaigned on an open-government and pro-environment platform, is reneging on promises made before the recall election. “This is a page right out of George Bush’s playbook,’’ said Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco.
Schwarzenegger’s order will affect hundreds of regulations that state agencies are writing to reflect legislation or new standards. Most of the regulations are details stemming from recently enacted legislation. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Patriotic songs drown out SOA protest
Demonstrators gathered outside Fort Benning, GA to protest a military school were hit with a sonic barrage Nov. 22.: patriotic music Army officials had blaring from the main gate.
A crowd estimated by Columbus police at 8,000 gathered to protest the school once known as the School of the Americas, which they blame for Latin American human rights abuses. It appeared to be the largest first-day gathering in the 14-year history of the protest.
The Army’s loudspeakers, playing “The Army Song” and “God Bless the USA,” were 50 yards away from where protesters were speaking to the crowd.
Leaders of School of Americas Watch (SOAW), which has protested at Fort Benning every year since the early 1990s, said they planned to sue over the noise tactic and accused the Army of a “psychological operation.”
“There’s a lot of ill will being caused that’s not necessary,” said the Rev. Ray Bourgeois, SOAW founder. “The closer we get to closing that school down, the meaner they get.”
SOAW holds the demonstrations every November to mark the killings of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter in El Salvador on Nov. 19, 1989, among other atrocities committed by soldiers trained at the school.
The school, which moved to Fort Benning from Panama in 1984 is now under the jurisdiction of the Defense Department as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.
Four protesters were stopped by the post’s security for attempting to enter. They were arrested for trespassing and taken by US Marshals to the Muscogee County Jail. (AP)

Kansas protesters feel Big Brother watching
On Sept. 4, in Kansas City, Brad Grabs arrived early for a protest that day near where President Bush was to speak. A government security official dressed in a dark suit and tie approached Grabs.
“He said, ‘Brad, I’d like to ask you to move your demonstration up a block,’ ” said Grabs, chairman of the Kansas City Iraq Task Force, which has organized area peace rallies. What astounded Grabs was he had never seen the man before, yet that security official knew Grabs’ name.
“I was caught off guard by that,” said Grabs, who declined to move the protest. “It was sort of eerie.”
Bill Douglas is another example. He had a sign that said, “What is Bush hiding about 9-11? Stop the 9-11 cover-up.” A police officer stopped him as he walked to a protest rally during first lady Laura Bush’s visit in September.
The officer arrested Douglas on a municipal disorderly conduct charge. For his trial, he said he got a copy of the police dispatch tape in which the arresting officer was told, “Keep him out of sight until she [Laura Bush] goes by,” Douglas said.
Douglas was handcuffed, put in a police wagon and taken to the police station, where he was booked, fingerprinted, photographed and questioned about whether he was subversive. Authorities even took mug shots of his protest sign. They held Douglas about two hours before letting him go. (Kansas City Star)