Wednesday, February 12, 2003

Hillary Clinton suggests a national ID card for U.S. citizens [Politech] While that's not surprising in the slightest, what is surprising is her use of anti-immigrant rhetoric of the kind I usually here from conservative pundits. comment () trackback ()  8:32:05 PM     Peace protest organizers tolerate no dissent. [OpinionJournal] Imagine my surprise when I found out that I am banned from speaking at a peace rally here this Sunday. As editor of Tikkun, the largest-circulation liberal Jewish magazine in the world, I have been an outspoken critic of the proposed war in Iraq. I have also unequivocally condemned Saddam Hussein's brutality and called for the world community to bring him to justice for crimes against humanity. But we at Tikkun do not believe that this war--in which thousands of Iraqi civilians are likely to die--will bring democracy to the Middle East. Instead, it is bound to increase the threat of terrorism to American citizens and provoke more violence. It will also fuel American fantasies of world economic and political domination. So why was I being blackballed over the peace rally? My sin was publicly criticizing the way that A.N.S.W.E.R., one of the four groups sponsoring the San Francisco demonstration, has used the antiwar demonstrations to put forward anti-Israel propaganda. An A.N.S.W.E.R. spokesperson, speaking on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC, said that they didn't want a "pro-Israel" speaker at their rally. comment () trackback ()  10:19:55 AM     Alliance Defense Fund - Need for a search warrant trips social workers - an Ohio family sued social workers who entered their home, on threat of arrest, without a warrant and without their permission. They won. Far out! [geneice] In a forceful opinion, US District Judge James G. Carr wrote: "Despite the Defendants' exaggerated view of their powers, the Fourth Amendment applies to them, as it does to all other officers and agents of the state whose requests to enter, however benign or well-intentioned, are met by a closed door. There is...no social worker exception to the strictures of the Fourth Amendment. ...Any agency that expects to send its employees routinely into private homes has a fundamental obligation to ensure that those employees understand the constitutional limits on their authority." The court stated that because the Walshes refused consent, and because the anonymous complaint did not supply persuasive evidence of an emergency, the caseworkers had no option but to either "leave the [Walshes] alone and in peace" or seek a search warrant. The court further ruled that the police did not have probable cause to detain, frisk, and threaten to arrest Walsh, since he was not breaking any law but merely asserting his "fundamental right to be left alone." ... Anderson expects that as a result of the Walsh case, training policies will be revised for social workers not just in Erie County, but across the state of Ohio. "The caseworkers in the Walsh case admitted they had never been taught anything about the Fourth Amendment or search warrants. The feedback I'm getting is that agencies across the state have gotten a wake-up call on this issue." [End the War on Freedom] It's good the case turned out the way it did, but it's rather disgusting that the "caseworkers" would even need to be taught about the Fourth Amendment and search warrants. They should already know! comment () trackback ()  10:08:02 AM

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