Updated November 18: Upon hearing that Missouri's governor Jay Nixon has today called upon the National Guard, declaring a state of emergency for Ferguson and St. Louis, even before the grand jury issues its findings on whether or not to indict officer Darren Wilson for shooting Michael Brown, do you think to yourself:

“The Drug War was indeed the New Jim Crow”

This is a transcript of Dennis Loo’s prepared remarks at a Cal Poly Pomona Symposium on Stop Mass Incarceration, Police Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation on the evening of October 21, 2014.

Eighteen-year-old Michael Brown was shot at least six times, all of which he could have survived, including the terrible bullet to his eye, save for the likely final fatal wound, a shot through his skull originating from the top of his head penetrating down to his chin. This final kill shot is consistent with witnesses’ accounts that Brown was trying to surrender when he was murdered in cold blood.

The following are accepted rules of practice and do not constitute legal advice.

When demonstrators are in the streets of NYC they are confronted by one of the largest armies in the world – the NYPD. The goal of the NYPD is to contain and control the presence of demonstrators in the name of public safety and order. Our ability to express our views is our knowledge that we have rights, under the First Amendment of the Constitution, to gather, be seen and be heard.

Recently, the Center for Constitutional Rights held a press conference, hosting lawyers Steve Downs and Kathy Manley of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms. Based in Albany, NCPCF's mission is to educate the public about ongoing civil and political freedoms eroding, while police commit abuses both in society and to prisoners in jails. 

Nearly ninety-five percent of individuals on a Justice Department list of “terrorism and terrorism-related convictions” from 2001-2010 included some elements of preemptive prosecution, according to a study by attorneys which they say is the first to “directly examine and critique preemptive prosecution and its abuses.”

Students Against Surveillance has begun a nationwide campaign against Internet spying by the National Security Agency (NSA). The campaign began on June 5, the one-year anniversary of the day the newspaper Guardian UK first published articles based on files released by Edward Snowden, a former NSA analyst, exposing massive NSA spying.

Moazaam Begg was captured in 2002 in the western imperialist “war on terror”. The British citizen of Pakistani descent was held for a time at Bagram Airforce Base in Afghanistan and then transferred to Guantanamo Bay Detention Center where he was detained without charge or trial for three years before he was released and repatriated to the U.K.

Find a February 11th Event Near You

We in the US have a government that relies on terror and repression to maintain its rule, here and around the world. We live in a country whose government assassinates thousands with drones. Our government, driven by the relentless pursuit of profit, is plundering the earth, exploiting humanity, and imperiling our planet's very viability. This government tortures people while holding them indefinitely without trial and uses warrantless surveillance over all of us to try to identify those who might pose a threat to their agenda.

On Saturday February 1, about 20 people braved a snow storm to gather at a church in Evanston, Illinois, to hear Kevin Gosztola talk about the NATO 3 trial that he has been covering on Firedoglake.com. Sponsored by World Can’t Wait Chicago, 8th Day Center for Justice, Neighbors for Peace, and Occupy Evanston, the afternoon succeeded in raising funds and discussing some of issues posed by this important trial.

The central piece of "reform" that President Barack Obama proposed in his January 14 speech relates to NSA's telephone metadata program—under which the NSA carries out a bulk collection of information about each and every telephone call in the U.S., such as what number was called and how long the call lasted.