Proceed with caution
The National ACLU has launched a new online tool that allows individuals to send Letters-to-the-Editor directly to your local newspapers. It's a handy, clickable system that lets you select your newspaper, write a letter online and email it quickly. National is encouraging folks to use this tool to write letters about domestic surveillance and abuse of power and provides talking points on two bills now before the Senate, S.2453, the "National Security Surveillance Act" and the S.2455 the so-called "Terrorist Surveillance Act."
So, go forth and write, but remember that "letters to the editor can be dangerous."
So says Bruce Schimmel, in this week's Philadelphia City Paper article "Letter Rip." Bruce tells the story of Laura Berg, "a nurse from Albuquerque" who wrote a letter to the editor "to denounce our government's belligerence abroad and its indifference at home."
Amy Laura in Philadelphia
Update- Sunday, 4:40pm: Here's more on this story:
Albuquerque Tribune: VA apologizes to nurse who wrote letter
The Albuquerque Tribune columnist Kate Nelson
AP via Free New Mexican: NM ACLU wants apology to employee investigated on 'sedition'
Democracy Now: VA nurse accused of sedition (audio, video, and transcript of interview with Berg available)
So, go forth and write, but remember that "letters to the editor can be dangerous."
So says Bruce Schimmel, in this week's Philadelphia City Paper article "Letter Rip." Bruce tells the story of Laura Berg, "a nurse from Albuquerque" who wrote a letter to the editor "to denounce our government's belligerence abroad and its indifference at home."
"Berg's letter... caught the eye of the FBI, who suspected her of sedition. The feds feared that the middle-aged nurse was beating the drums for violent revolution.So, go write your letters. And, if needs be, you can come back and file your FOIA...
Berg's computer was seized. Put on the watch list of the Patriot Act, she could be tailed and her phone tapped. Convicted of sedition-however unlikely-Berg could face time behind bars.
So when does the nurse get off the offical list of evildoers? Earlier this year, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information request on Berg's behalf, which may provide a hint. "
Amy Laura in Philadelphia
Update- Sunday, 4:40pm: Here's more on this story:
Albuquerque Tribune: VA apologizes to nurse who wrote letter
The Albuquerque Tribune columnist Kate Nelson
AP via Free New Mexican: NM ACLU wants apology to employee investigated on 'sedition'
Democracy Now: VA nurse accused of sedition (audio, video, and transcript of interview with Berg available)
posted by ACLU of Pennsylvania at 4/20/2006 11:34:00 AM
3 Comments:
I personally doubt the source, or the facts of the story.Please, if their is another source for this info, please post a reply with it.
ElfBob: Good to see you're still reading our site, even though you don't agree with the ACLU's point of view. That's what's great about freedom of thought. As for the source, though, check out the links to Albuquerque's establishment newspapers and to the AP story. I know the story is hard to believe, but it appears to be true. There are plenty of government officials out there who can't tell the difference between dissenting opinion and criminal "sedition." (Not that there's very much to our 19th-Century vintage sedition laws that could survive First Amendment scrutiny anyway.)
Rad: I agree with most of what you wrote, but advocating draft resistance is not "sedition." Sedition specifically means inciting or participating in "insurrection or rebellion," conspiring to overthrow or destroy the government of the US by force, or advocating and teaching the "duty, necessity, desirability or propriety" of overthrowing or destroying the government. 18 USC 2383-2385. The parts of these laws which date to the Espionage Act of 1918 are clearly the most problematic under the First Amendment, and in fact are directly related to the anti-immigrant and anti-radical hysteria of that period which led to the initial formation of the ACLU.
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