The NYPD wants to watch you

Nation's Largest Law Enforcement Agency Vies for Total Spying Power

The police department insists it needs broader authority to hunt terrorists, who may masquerade as regular law-abiding folks until the moment they strike. But if police win this bid, the followers of "extremist Muslim fundamentalism" they have mentioned won't be the only ones in their sights. Everyone becomes fair game.

As the nation's largest law enforcement agency—nearly twice the size of the Federal Bureau of Investigation—the New York City Police Department could be the biggest Big Brother of all. Yet it faces quite a stumbling block. A long-standing federal order, imposed after a landmark lawsuit revealed rampant surveillance abuses of political activists, prevents the NYPD from spying on whomever it wants.

Now the NYPD is fighting to gut the order and get its old powers back, reports the Village Voice.

Police currently cannot investigate people who are exercising their constitutional rights, no matter how unpopular the cause, unless there is some indication of a crime. Street protesters are the most obvious beneficiaries. But also covered are those who pray, attend community meetings, write editorials, or express their views in almost any other way.

Lott: Forget about it

Lott's statements on BET yesterday fell of my deaf ears. I was blinded by the Senator's record which I believe speaks louder than any words of apology he could ever convey.

According to liberal watchdog group People for the American Way, Lotts' record proves that over the years he has basically stuck his foot up black people's asses. Lott has consistently voted to the racist right of the purportedly "reconstructed" Thurmond on a number of major civil rights bills:

In 2001, Lott cast the only vote against the confirmation of Judge Roger Gregory, the first African American judge ever seated on the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals. Thurmond voted for Gregory.

In 1983, Lott voted against creating a federal holiday for civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Thurmond voted for the holiday.

In 1982, Lott voted against the Voting Rights Act extension. Thurmond supported it.

In 1978, Lott voted against the 1978 District of Columbia Voting Rights Constitutional Amendment. Thurmond voted with the two-thirds majorities in both houses that passed the amendment, which eventually failed to win approval in enough states to be ratified.

And, there's more.

Many African Americans sense that the Republican Party is riddled with bigots. Few myths exert as powerful an influence over blacks of all education levels. That's one reason why we resist pulling the lever for Republicans on election day, Now Lott comes along and digs a deeper hole for himself and his party.

I'm not being melodramatic, but I wonder how high my concerns would be on Lott's list of priorities. And, this sentiment resonates even more now that the balance of power in our government is tipped in the Republicans' favor; a party whose Senate majority leader will be one of our nation's half-dozen most influential people in the lawmaking process.

Lott has become a burden to America and he must go.

BET: What Next?

Ed Gordon of BET certainly did a good job of addressing Lott's recent controversial remarks. But just a few days earlier, BET made news of another kind. The Washington-based cable network announced it was eliminating most of its news division, including a nightly public-affairs program hosted by Gordon.

Artist or Prankster

Both The Daily News and The New York Postare reporting that the 38 black boxes bearing the word "FEAR" left under benches and stuck on walls in the subway station in NYC last week were all part of an art project. Several people had speculated this, but it wasn’t confirmed until yesterday when 25-year-old art student Clinton Boisvert turned himself in.

Publicity stunts like this don't go over well with edgy New Yorkers, especially post 9/11. There's a fine line that seperates Prank and art, at least in this case.

Lott On BET

Here is a transcript of the much anticipated BET interview with Trent Lott, in case you missed it.

Bloggers: Leading the pack on Lott story

"The papers did not make note of his [Lott's] comments until days after he made them," Time reported . "But the stillness was broken by the hum of Internet 'bloggers' who were posting their outrage and compiling rap sheets of Lott's earlier comments." Paul Krugman of The New York Times gave credit to blogger Joshua Marshall , whom he said, "more than anyone else, is responsible for making Trent Lott's offensive remarks the issue they deserve to be." Joe Conason's Journal said initially Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish was angrier than The New York Times, the Washington Post and National Public Radio.

John Podhoretz, of the New York Post, said bloggers' role in the development of this news story is exciting evidence of a new medium maturing.

Sean Penn: Smart Move

When Sean Penn visited Iraq last week, he seemed determined not to say or do anything that might incriminate him or perhaps cast him as the new Hanoi Jane.

The NY Times has the full story

Instead, Mr. Penn chose the diplomat's path, sparing both Mr. Bush and Mr. Hussein the full power of the "conclusions" he said he had reached in the momentum toward war. "Can I think of more extreme things to say?" the actor said, referring to Mr. Hussein's rule, during an interview in a suite in the government-owned Al Rashid Hotel that offered a twinkling nighttime panorama of Baghdad's palaces, party buildings and mosques Mr. Hussein has built in the bulldozed heart of old Baghdad. "You bet I can."

He added, "You come here on a Friday, you leave on a Sunday, and you start throwing out flamboyant and inflammatory messages — that doesn't seem to be of advantage to anyone." Where Iraq is concerned, he said: "I can read something one day, and the next day I read something else, and I think, `Oh God, I didn't even think about that,' and that's humbling. So I'm afraid of saying something that might hurt somebody, and then find out I was wrong in the first place."

An about face it seems, considering that Penn "paid for a $56,000 advertisement in the Washington Post in October accusing President Bush of stifling the debate on Iraq.

Google vs Evil

The world's biggest, best-loved search engine owes its success to supreme technology and a simple rule: Don't be evil. Now the geek icon is finding that moral compromise is just the cost of doing big business.

FedEX Workers File Racial Discrimination Lawsuit

FedEx Corp. faces accusations of rampant racial discrimination in a lawsuit filed last Thursday by 26 current and former California employees who say they are on a crusade for the company's entire minority work force.

Lead attorney Waukeen Q. McCoy, holds up a copy of a class action suit against delivery company Federal Express as a number of plaintiffs in the suit look on, during a news conference in San Francisco, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2002. The 189-page complaint filed Thursday, seeks damages for race discrimination, wrongful termination of violation of public policy, retaliation, racial harassment, gender based discrimination, intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud, violation of the California Equal Pay Act and injunctive relief.

And to think that last time I looked at the calendar, it said December, 2002.

As the Trent Lott saga continues...

Rand Simberg has an interesting revelation about Trent Lott

Excerpt:

"As you all know, Bill Clinton was the first black president. Well, I'm the first black Senate Majority Leader. It's truly a proud day for the Republican Party and the African-American community."

"I know that many of you will be surprised to learn that I was 'passing' all of these years. It was a deep, dark family secret."

"My great-great grandmother was a house nigra on a plantation outside of Biloxi. My great-grandfather was a mullatto, my grandmother was a quadroon, and my mother was an octaroon, which makes me a hexidecaroon. As all of you from hereabouts know, just a touch of one hair of the tarbrush means that I can never be truly white."