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POPSRights Group Suing AT&T for Spying Will Sue Government Too "Cohn admits the government has many sovereign immunity defenses that can protect it from lawsuits, but says they aren't insurmountable and that the program clearly violates the Fourth Amendment. As for the unexpectedly long-lived suit against AT&T, the government and the EFF are discussing when and how the government will attempt to have the case dismissed using the amnesty provision. The EFF wants to challenge the legality of the amnesty before it is actually applied, while the government prefers to have the case dismissed first -- then have the EFF fight the dismissal. Lawyers for both sides will meet with the judge in the case in early September, setting a likely date for the next court appearance in December."
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POPSMost Ethical Destinations? Worried about your travel footprint? Want to support tourism in a developing country but don't want to support bad environmental practices or human rights abuses? Check out this list of "most ethical destinations" compiled by ethicaltraveler.org.
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POPSChina Using Olympics As ‘Pretext’ For Crackdown: Amnesty
“Authorities have used the Olympic Games as a pretext to continue and in some respects, intensify existing policies and practices that have led to serious and widespread violations of human rights,” the report added. It listed a series of recommendations urging China to: * release all prisoners of conscience; * stop police arbitrarily detaining activists and dissenters; * impose a moratorium on the death penalty; * allow complete media freedom; and * account for those killed or detained in Tibet. “It is very disturbing that Chinese authorities have indulged in such a big crackdown on the activists,” Mark Allison, China researcher for Amnesty, told AFP. “These are people who represent many many more people in China.” Officials were also extending the use of punitive administrative detention, notably of activists and petitioners as well as beggars and peddlers, Amnesty said. In January, Beijing police launched a campaign against “illegal activ
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POPSSay No to Olympic Coverage.... I don't have many friends here at Clipmarks anymore, but I do still have an opinion. China is like Wal-Mart. Too big to give a damn about other people. They have not improved their human rights or pollution policies. Empty Promises to all of us and their behavior is making the spirit of the Olympics into one BIG sham
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POPSFalun Gong Targeted Ahead Of Beijing Olympics authorities have instead been using the Olympics as a pretext to escalate persecutions of religious and political dissidents. Chinese authorities fear that Falun Gong, along with Tibetans, Uighurs, and other dissidents, may use the international media presence during the games to draw attention to their causes. "It is now imperative that the international community leverage real pressure and stop these deplorable actions, lest the legacy of the 2008 Olympics be hundreds of Beijing residents languishing in labor camps," Zhang said. The apparent animosity towards Falun Gong on the part of the Beijing Olympics organizer is hardly new. In 2004, the head of the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee, Liu Qi, was found liable in a U.S. federal court for his role in the torture of Falun Gong practitioners while he was serving as mayor of Beijing.
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POPSLwalessness In USA- Red Cross and Others... Lawlessness as the American way. No accountability, only protection of those who break the laws with a spineless democratic leadership paving the way. There is no turning back now. We are hopelessly sunk in the swamp of right wing garbage. They have tried for 100 years and finally succeeded. We have no more justice.
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POPSCrazy Indonesian man kills 42, but a human rights agency tries to save him from the death penalty.
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POPSChild Detainees Battle System Alone
Eight immigrant youths suing the Abraxas Hector Garza Treatment Center in San Antonio describe being beaten repeatedly, so severely that several required hospitalization. The abuse continued even after it was reported to their caretakers' supervisors. In Nixon, Texas, ten detained young people filing a Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid lawsuit allege repeated assault and retaliation upon reporting the abuse. Of course, most abused detainees do not have access to pro bono lawyers and cannot hope to sue; much more often than not, their stories go untold. For the most part, however, the facilities' violations are kept from the public eye - and the eye of the federal government doesn't see much of them either, according to a recent OIG report noting that "interviews with Department of Unaccompanied Children's Services central office officials indicate that little oversight of facilities occurs." Federal officials aren't required to meet with children when they visit the facilities.
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POPSGuantánamo future in doubt; Bush cannot go to Congress this time Lawyers for the prisoners yesterday hailed the ruling as a vindication of their battle to have Guantánamo, in Cuba, closed. It is the third time that the supreme court has ruled against Bush on Guantánamo. On the previous two occasions, the administration and the Republican-controlled Congress changed the law to strip the detainees of their right to habeas corpus. Bush cannot go to Congress this time because it is now controlled by the Democrats, who favour closing the camp.
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POPS 'US Sets Standards, Fails to Meet Them' But while being critical of the position with the U.S. on specific counts, the thrust of the AI position was controversially that the U.S. carries the responsibility of setting an example to the rest of the world.
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POPSCluster Bomb Olympics With White House Backdrop (No, not the Onion)
Why: To generate public awareness of cluster bombs just two days prior to the negotiation of a global cluster bomb ban treaty in Dublin, Ireland on May 19. More than half the world’s nations will attend, but the U.S. government has refused to participate. Who: Organized by the US Campaign to Ban Landmines and co-sponsored by Amnesty International, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, CIVIC, Democracy in Action, Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers), Jewish Voice for Peace, Network of Spiritual Progressives, and Veterans for Peace. The event is open to participation by all ages. Those in attendance can sign a petition urging the Pentagon to stop using cluster bombs, which cause unacceptable harm to civilians. The U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines (USCBL) is a coalition of approximately 500 U.S.-based human rights, humanitarian, faith-based, children's, peace, disability, veterans', medical, development, academic, and environmental organizations dedicated to a