May 2003:                       suggested links Political Profiling A Picture/Poem collection of links to reliable information and contemporary voices protest

From Amnesty International
http://www.amnestyusa.org/

Political Profiling:
Police Spy on Peaceful Activists

"Under cover of the "war on terrorism," police are collecting information on activists.
In Denver, intelligence files link Amnesty members to "criminal extremism."
by CHIP BERLET and ABBY SCHER

"Most members of Amnesty International don't consider themselves part of a criminal
extremist network. But that's how a Denver Police Department's intelligence database
tracked AIUSA members Stephen and Vicki Nash and Mark and Barbara Lee Cohen.
The couples fear that Denver police and other agencies that share the files will paint
peaceful activists as potential terrorists and "criminalize protest activity,"
says Stephen Nash. [...]

"The Denver case has raised red flags for civil liberties and human rights advocates
who have been fighting the Bush administration's rollback of civil liberties. They say
that national and local law enforcement agencies across the country have been hacking
away at hard-won protections of the right to peaceful protest. The American Civil
Liberties Union of Colorado agrees and has filed a lawsuit charging the police with
violating the First Amendment rights of activists. Three Chicano activists, whose files
reflect surveillance as far back ..." [...]

from The New York Times [one-time registration required]

Smithsonian Is No Safe Haven for
Exhibit on Arctic Wildlife Refuge
by TIMOTHY EGAN

"SEATTLE, May 1 — Things had been going along pretty well in the improbable
life of Subhankar Banerjee, a native of Calcutta, India, who has become perhaps
the leading photographer of one of the coldest and most uninhabited places on earth,
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

A physicist by training who learned photography from fellow shutterbugs in the off
hours at Boeing, Mr. Banerjee found a publisher for a book of his wildlife photos
and was granted an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum
of Natural History.

Then, in a March 18 floor debate about oil drilling in the refuge, a senator urged
every member to read Mr. Banerjee's book before calling the refuge a frozen
wasteland. Suddenly Mr. Banerjee's work was being promoted on C-Span —
one of the highest honors of his life, he said.

But it has been nothing but trouble ever since. The Smithsonian exhibit will still
open on Friday, though in a much different version than what had been scheduled.
Mr. Banerjee and the book's publisher say members of the Smithsonian told them
that the museum had been pressured to cancel or sharply revise the exhibit of birds,
caribou, musk oxen and other images he had photographed." [...]


Dixie Chicks bare souls, bodies
by DAVID SEGAL [The Washington Post]

"Fighting to win fans back after criticizing President Bush and the war in Iraq,
country superstars the Dixie Chicks have taken off the gloves -- and the shirts,
the pants, the belts, the boots and the undies.

The trio appears on the cover of the latest edition of Entertainment Weekly magazine
wearing nothing but stenciled graffiti. Among the words and phrases inked on their
birthday suits: ''traitor,'' ''Saddam's angels,'' ''big mouth'' and ``opinionated.'' [...]