Too Important to Pass Up...

-

Journalists are being arrested and peaceful, lawful protests are being prevented up in St. Paul, MN as the RNC gets into full swing. Here are some links:

St. Paul Mayor and Media Mum on Journalism Crackdown - Timothy Karr - Huggington Post

Two J-Students and Adviser Still Jailed In RNC Protests - Associated Press

And this is a video:

"Amy Goodman, the host of "Democracy Now!," a nationally syndicated public radio and television program, says she was arrested Monday despite clearly identifying herself as a journalist.

Goodman says she had just heard two of her producers had been arrested and she ran up to a police line to inquire about her colleagues. She says the seemingly simple act got her arrested, too."

- Amy Goodman's arrest: When journalists are the story

These are scary times, people.

Of course, there is no doubt that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists. If we lived in a country that allowed the police to search your home at any time for any reason; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to open your mail, eavesdrop on your phone conversations, or intercept your email communications; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to hold people in jail indefinitely based on what they write or think, or based on mere suspicion that they are up to no good, then the government would no doubt discover and arrest more terrorists. But that probably would not be a country in which we would want to live. And that would not be a country for which we could, in good conscience, ask our young people to fight and die. In short, that would not be America.

- Russ Feingold - The only senator to vote against the Patriot Act - quoted here in a statement in the US Senate on the USA-PATRIOT Act