Previously:

Oh, so the government isn’t spying on you through your toaster… (June 8, 2013)

At the White House petition site:

We petition the Obama Administration to:

Repeal, in whole or in part, the U.S.A. Patriot Act, in order to stop secret, warrantless collection of data.

In order to recognize and preserve the 4th Amendment rights of the American People, to stop the warrantless and unjustifiable collection of personally identifiable information deemed to be private by the majority of Americans, and to put measures in place to prevent future abuses of power, we resolve to amend and/or repeal, in whole or in part, the U.S.A. Patriot Act of 2001, as amended.

Created: Jun 06, 2013

Issues: Civil Rights and Liberties, Government Reform, Regulatory Reform

Signatures needed by July 06, 2013 to reach goal of 100,000 99,329

Total signatures on this petition 671

[emphasis added]

There is another:

We petition the Obama Administration to:

Impeach federal judge Roger Vinson for authorizing warrantless NSA surveillance of millions of Americans’ phone records.

On April 25 2013, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson issued an order authorizing unchecked surveillance of millions of innocent Americans by the NSA. Several US senators have expressed outrage at this sweeping, overly broad interpretation of the PATRIOT act by the secretive FISA courts and Judge Vinson.

Rather than serving as a check on executive power, Judge Vinson conspired with the NSA to deprive Americans of their constitutional rights without due process, transparency, or oversight.

We the people demand a full congressional investigation into the NSA surveillance program, and the immediate initiation of impeachment proceedings against Judge Vinson for violating his oath to uphold the constitution and the high crime of conspiracy against the basic civil rights of the American people.

Created: Jun 06, 2013

Issues: Civil Rights and Liberties, Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement, Homeland Security and Disaster Relief

Signatures needed by July 06, 2013 to reach goal of 100,000 99,081

Total signatures on this petition 919

[emphasis added]

Such a groundswell of support. Apparently for the American people there’s now only one sacred amendment in the Bill of Rights.

From the incomparable Charles P. Pierce:

Jun 7,2013

Civil Liberties Are Not Something You Trade

By Charles P. Pierce

at 1:00PM

The blog doesn’t like to get all civics class on your ass that often, but there’s one trope zipping around out there at the moment in connection with the current storm over phone records and data mining that makes me a little bit crazy — and that is the discussion of whether or not the American people will “trade off” civil liberties for what is really merely a sense of security. (You know what, folks? Don’t tell me about all the terror plots you’ve foiled if you’re not going to give me details. There is no reason to believe you. Either don’t mention them at all, or convince me. There’s no third alternative.) The terms of the transaction are obviously incorrect. The American people are not being asked to “trade” their civil liberties. They are being asked to surrender them, for all practical purposes, permanently.

Civil liberties are not something you get to “trade,” not least because they don’t all belong to you. They belong to me, too, and to the woman at the next table here at the Commonwealth Avenue Starbucks — Oh, c’mon, you knew where I was anyway, NSA guys. — and to the four people who just walked down the street past the big plate-glass window. You give yours away, you’re giving mine away, too, whether I want you to do so or not. Therefore, we all surrender those civil liberties. We do not trade them because we don’t get anything back. And it’s not like we can cut another deal later to get them back….

[emphasis in original]

The silence from the teabagger darlings in Congress is deafening, don’t you think?

Over seven years ago:

Warrensburg, Missouri

The Daily Star Journal

Thursday, January 12, 2006

page 5 [no link, this paper is still in the 19th century]

Rule of law?

By Michael Bersin

Warrensburg

The recent revelation that our government, with the direct approval of George W. Bush, is illegally spying on American citizens in violation of the prohibition of warrantless searches in the 4th Amendment of our Constitution and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) should give us all pause. Among the provisions of FISA is a 72 hour “emergency clause”. Up to this point one FISA judge has resigned and the remainder of the court will be attempting to hold the administration accountable. It’s not as if the FISA Court has been reluctant to grant surveillance warrants – there have been thousands over the past few years with only a hand full of rejections.

The administration’s defense of their illegal activity appears to be that filling out the paperwork is too onerous. And we have ex cathedra assurances from Kansas Senator Pat Roberts and Missouri Senator Kit Bond that this is all somehow constitutional?

Our founders were perceptive as shown by a statement first published in 1759 and attributed to Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”

Rule of law is a recurring theme in civilization. In Bolt’s 1960 play A Man for All Seasons Sir Thomas More states: “…when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”

The courts here and abroad have a lot to say about the rule of law. In the Supreme Court case Ex parte Milligan (1866) Justice David Davis eloquently wrote: “…By the protection of the law human rights are secured; withdraw that protection, and they are at the mercy of wicked rulers, or the clamor of an excited people.

“The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism, but the theory of necessity on which it is based is false; for the government, within the Constitution, has all the powers granted to it, which are necessary to preserve its existence…”

In 1999 the Israeli Supreme Court ruled (which this administration’s White House Office of Legal Counsel cited for a legal memo on another issue): “….This decision opens with a description of the difficult reality in which Israel finds herself security wise. We shall conclude this judgment by re-addressing that harsh reality. We are aware that this decision does not ease dealing with that reality. This is the destiny of democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it, and not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it. Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand. Preserving the Rule of Law and recognition of an individual’s liberty constitutes an important component in its understanding of security. At the end of the day, they strengthen its spirit and its strength and allow it to overcome its difficulties….”

Billmon’s June 15, 2004 commentary on the Israeli court ruling finds where this administration misses the mark: “….what I find most striking are not the legal issues involved, but rather the enormous contrast in intellectual intent between what the Israeli high court and the Bush Justice Department have been trying to do. The Israeli justices, for all their hypocrisy, were attempting to extend the rule of law into areas that have traditionally been regarded as the exclusive domain of the national security state. The Bush legal team is boldly and arrogantly trying to do the opposite.

“It’s the difference between a legal system that has been trapped in a moral cesspool for almost 60 years, and desperately wants to get out, and a small clique of legal extremists who are determined to throw themselves, and their country, into the same stinking mire, regardless of the risks.”

All the trees are down and an ill wind is blowing. Just not from the direction we think.

We’re all chumps now.

A lead editorial written by Jack Miles, editor of the Daily Star Journal, which criticized the Missouri General Assembly on their handling of the campus conceal carry issue appeared in today’s Warrensburg paper:

4/30/2009 9:45:00 AM

Concealed-carry ignores public

Concealed guns should be banned anyplace where emotions run high, college campuses included.

…In Jefferson City – lawmakers who want concealed guns on college campuses – do not allow the public to carry concealed weapons in the Capitol halls. The prohibition, sensible but hypocritical, is an outrage, especially since Missouri voters said “no” at the polls to concealed carry anywhere in the state, but lawmakers ignored the vote.

Concealed-carry advocates in the General Assembly – now also ignoring constituents on college campuses, students and presidents who have said “no” – have students in their sites.

I hope their aim is as faulty as their moral compasses.

Go. Read the whole thing.

And Denny Hoskins (r – noun, verb, CPA), who represents a district with a university – what did he accomplish in the General Assembly for his constituents? Roseann Moring of the St. Louis Post Dispatch has a Twitter post:

Denny Hoskins wants to make those who have concealed carry on campus have a “secure locker with which to store the firearm when not in use” about 19 hours ago from web

Uh, does “not in use” mean someone isn’t pulling the trigger? Just asking.

Representative Michael Corcoran (D -77) tried yesterday to propose an amendment which would allow local control for campuses when it comes to conceal carry:

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release:

Contact:  Rep. Michael Corcoran

April 30, 2009…

CORCORAN FIGHTS FOR LOCAL CONTROL

House Leadership Gavels Down Discussion

JEFFERSON CITY – State Representative Michael Corcoran (D-77) tried to offer an amendment last night to allow Missouri Public Universities to require permits to carry concealed weapons on their campuses.  However, debate halted any discussion on the proposed amendment and took the issue to an immediate vote by moving the previous question.

“My amendment would simply allow Public University law enforcement officials to issue conceal and carry permits if they did choose to do so,” Corcoran continued.  “Parents, students, administrators and faculty deserve to make the decisions that directly affect their safety.”

Current Missouri statute requires a public conceal and carry permit and does not allow the carrying of concealed weapons at higher education institutions without “the consent of the governing body of the higher education institution”.  Legislation pending in the Missouri Legislature would eliminate that local control.

“The Majority Party consistently screams for local control,” said Corcoran.  “Yet when given the opportunity to give our Colleges and Universities control over their own safety, the majority refused.”

The University of Central Missouri Student Government Association (SGA) in Warrensburg, Missouri earlier this month voted to oppose the Missouri Legislature’s language to eliminate local control.  The SGA President said, “allowing people to carry concealed weapons on campus invites disaster”.

“Students want to feel safe, and students don’t think more guns on campus is the answer; why does the majority think they know better?” Corcoran finished.

Representative Michael Corcoran is serving in his fourth term in the Missouri House and has two sons.

###

[emphasis added]

Gee, imagine that, a state representative who listens. Too bad the 121st Legislative District, which includes the University of Central Missouri, doesn’t have one of those.

Ah yes, lazy media acting as a stenographer. So much work, so little time.

Yesterday’s Warrensburg Daily Star Journal published a lead editorial which perpetuates anti-labor myths:

4/1/2009 9:30:00 AM

Do not abandon secret ballot vote

Jack Miles

Editor

Unions and their friends in Congress are wrong to want to change the law so that union voting must be done publicly rather than by secret ballot…

…But, no, secret ballots are not the way to do so.

Democrats should abandon the idea of forced, public voting on union issues. The idea is unfair and repugnant to freedom-loving Americans.

Do you think the paper is hyperventilating some?

From the AFL-CIO:

The Employee Free Choice Act would allow workers, not corporations, to choose whether and how they want to form a union. It would give workers a fair chance to form unions to improve their lives by:

• Guaranteeing that if a majority of workers wants a union, they can have one, allowing them to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation;

• Providing mediation and arbitration for first contract disputes; and

• Establishing stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first contract negotiations.

[emphasis in original]

Do you wonder where the “destroy the secret ballot” meme comes from?

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce:

…Union Recognition – Secret Ballot Elections and Card Check Coercion

Organized labor is trying to deprive workers of the ability to choose whether or not to be recognized by a union through secret ballot elections.  Workers’ rights to make this important decision in private and free from coercion need to be strengthened, not weakened.  Read more about the Chamber’s efforts….

What’s organized labor’s view?

IBEW in 2004:

…Many unions prefer card-check to the NLRB process because it is usually faster. Also, during a representative election ampaign, one in four employers fire at least one worker for union activity and half of all companies threaten to close plants if workers choose union representation…

Labor Notes:

Card Check: Can It Organize the Unorganized?

Created Oct 23 2008 – 7:12pm

Kim Moody

Employers do everything in their power to make sure workers don’t get a chance to vote for a union. They flout labor law, making a joke of the familiar National Labor Relations Board procedures where the government’s job is to oversee a “fair fight” election between the union and the boss.

As a result, unions have embraced neutrality agreements and card check procedures as an alternative road to growth. Since the mid-1990s their use has accelerated.

Several studies say the win rate for card check is about 70 percent, compared with 55 to 60 percent for recent NLRB elections….

From The Newspaper Guild (CWA) (2004):

…Unions have criticized the board in the past for moving too slowly and for a management-oriented tilt. Scholars attribute much of the problem and delays to the Taft-Hartley and Landrum-Griffin Acts, pushed by the GOP in the 1940s and 1950s, and to the negligible penalties faced by companies that ignore the law. But this statement was more pointed, alleging that the Bush-appointed NLRB majority has compiled “a long list of offenses against workers’ rights.” Among them:

• The board’s June 15 party-line decision to consider the legality of immediate challenges to card-check certification of unions.  Unions now use card-check to get around the slow NLRB processes and management delays-and around provisions that restrict union, but not management, access to workers.

But the board, for 42 years, has said that once it certifies the union as the workers’ representative, the union has a year-after all appeals are exhausted-to bargain for a contract before the union’s legitimacy can be challenged. After that year, dissenters can push for a decertification election.  The Bush GOP majority, at the request of the anti-worker National Right to Work Committee, asked for briefs on killing that one-year grace period, called a “recognition bar,” the AFL-CIO said.

“The Republican majority on the Bush NLRB seems intent on undermining voluntary recognition (card-check) agreements and the important rights they protect,” the executive council added…

It would appear that card check already happens, it’s just a matter of at who’s discretion. Is the current discretion “democratic”? Just asking.

The bill amends 29 U.S.C. § 159.

Here’s what’s in the bill as proposed:

111th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 1409

…To amend the National Labor Relations Act to establish an efficient system to enable employees to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to provide for mandatory injunctions for unfair labor practices during organizing efforts, and for other purposes…

…SEC. 2. STREAMLINING UNION CERTIFICATION.

     (a) In General- Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act (29 U.S.C. 159(c)) is amended by adding at the end the following:

     `(6) Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, whenever a petition shall have been filed by an employee or group of employees or any individual or labor organization acting in their behalf alleging that a majority of employees in a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining wish to be represented by an individual or labor organization for such purposes, the Board shall investigate the petition. If the Board finds that a majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for bargaining has signed valid authorizations designating the individual or labor organization specified in the petition as their bargaining representative and that no other individual or labor organization is currently certified or recognized as the exclusive representative of any of the employees in the unit, the Board shall not direct an election but shall certify the individual or labor organization as the representative described in subsection (a)…

“…The idea is unfair and repugnant to freedom-loving Americans…”

Here’s something that should be repugnant to freedom loving Americans: harassment and intimidation.

Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions, United States House of Representatives

Hearing on “Strengthening America’s Middle Class Through the Employee Free Choice Act”

February 8, 2007

Statement by Teresa Joyce, Cingular worker and CWA union member

…At AT&T Wireless, we had absolutely no say on workplace conditions, including wages and benefits. Our raises were determined by favoritism and seldom a reflection of our work. Some years, we would receive as little as a two-cent increase. On top of this, workers had no real means for reporting unfair treatment by supervisors. When we approached upper management about unfair treatment and inadequate pay, our requests fell on def ears. Frust
rated with the companies’ neglect and indifference, my co-workers and I decided to come together to form a union with the Communication Workers of America (CWA) to bargain for fair raises, affordable health care benefits and respect at work.

Once word reached management that we were trying to organize, they did everything they could to stop us from exercising our right to form a union. Our supervisors constantly threatened that AT&T Wireless would leave our town and that we would lose our jobs. They also claimed that if we did succeed with our organizing efforts, our union dues would be so enormous we may actually need two jobs.

My co-workers and I would distribute union flyers in our break room and place posters on the walls with information about the union. Supervisors would immediately gather the information and dispose of it. Management wanted to deny other workers the opportunity to make an informed, educated decision on whether or not to join a union. They wanted to control the information workers received and instill fear through constant threats and lies about the union. At one point, one of the managers went so far as to park her car at the front entrance of a building where my co-workers and I were holding a union meeting. Deeper into our organizing campaign, management began to drive out our most outspoken union supporters for so-called “bad attitudes” and other flimsy charges.

Despite the company’s on-going intimidation tactics, we continued our organizing efforts. Having had past experience with unions and knowing what a difference they could make, I was especially active in the fight to unionize at AT&T Wireless.

Months into our organizing struggle, we heard that Cingular Wireless was going to purchase AT&T Wireless. At some point during the merger, several co-workers and I sat in on a conference call with Cingular Wireless executives to talk about what the merger would mean for former AT&T Wireless employees. When asked about our organizing efforts, Cingular CEO, Stan Sigmund, revealed he had a good relationship with CWA and assured us that each AT&T Wireless call center employee would be able to choose whether or not they wanted union representation, free of employer interference. I was overjoyed. It was a relief to know that we could finally speak openly about the union without the fear of employer retaliation.

Shortly afterwards, the harassment and intimidation stopped. We were free to distribute union literature to other workers during our break and were even allowed to set up a table in the break room with information on CWA. We made posters, put out flyers and made phone calls about the benefits of joining a union and having a say on wages and work conditions. In 2005, a majority of us voted for the union by signing authorization cards and on Sept 6th, 2005 we were officially recognized as CWA members. Management even helped us arrange a cookout at the call center to celebrate…

[emphasis added]

So card check is okay if the employer says so, but leaving the choice to the workers who want to organize is not?

Question: Isn’t it really “undemocratic” to keep the choice of how workers organize from workers and reserve it exclusively to employers? Just asking.

Oh, by the way, Ike Skelton (D) is a co-sponsor of the bill.

“…The idea is unfair and repugnant to freedom-loving Americans…”

From the Economic Policy Institute, Issue Brief #249, January 29, 2009 [pdf]:

…What would it be like if a political campaign were conducted under the same rules as NLRB elections?

NLRB election campaigns more closely resemble sham elections in totalitarian countries than elections for public office in the United States or any other democracy.

Imagine an election where an incumbent president, governor, or mayor can:

• Force voters to attend his campaign rallies.

• Threaten to fire his opponent’s supporters or deny them raises.

• Prevent his opponent from campaigning in the daytime.

• And, if an opponent wins the election anyway, delay that person from taking office.

Even if this campaign concluded with a secret ballot, few if any Americans would say that this was a free election…

[emphasis in original]

(Hat tip to David Kendrick, Secretary – Business Manager, Greater Kansas City Building and Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO)

As for the Warrensburg Daily Star Journal:

Meta: the Warrensburg Daily Star Journal and bloggers

3/18/2009 12:42:00 PM

Bloggers offer news, but scope too narrow

Jack Miles

Editor

…But bloggers, in general, are not journalists. Bloggers often offer one-sided opinions, not news…

Project much?