Compiled by the El Reporero staff

Maria Marroquin, Caryl Hughan, and Connie Spearing

Bay Area immigrant workers and their supporters will be engaging in a fast against the firings to draw attention to the unjust firing of hundreds of immigrants.

Even though the full Senate has begun deliberations on the Immigration Reform Bill S. 744, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency of the federal Department of Homeland Security is requiring local employers to fire hundreds of workers, saying they have no immigration papers. The administration calls its reform proposal “commonsense immigration reform,” but the fasters say there is no common sense in firing workers while Congress debates it.

These firings are often called “silent raids,” and the fasters seek to make them visible, and to express their moral outrage against the Federal government. Rev. Dr. Phil Lawson, Pastor Emeritus of Easter Hill United Methodist Church and leader of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, one of the fasters, says, “These families have done nothing wrong. They’re being punished for working, which is what people in our community are supposed to do. We will not allow these workers to be treated as though they are invisible. Being terminated because of immigration status is a violation of their human and civil rights.”

As the firings are taking place throughout the Bay Area – the fast will move each day to different symbolic locations.

From noon on Tuesday, June 11 to noon on Friday, June 14 at César Chávez Park, S. Market St., San Jose.

Wednesday, June 12, at Mi Pueblo Market, 1630 High St., Oakland.

And Thursday, June 13, at the Oakland Federal Bldg. 1301 Clay St., Oakland.

For more information call Eriberto Fernández at 650-219-5598.

Reading program at Berkeley Public Library

Studies have shown that children who continue to read over the summer maintain or improve their reading skills, avoiding the “summer slide”. Summer Reading Programs are an important and fun way to keep children reading over the summer months.

Children entering grades 1-8 earn prizes by reading of their choice books and visiting the library three times. In keeping with this year’s theme, we will be offering a variety of food related events and other deliciously fun activities. Berkeley Public Library is participating in the California State Library’s Reading is So Delicious Food Drive – everyone is invited to bring non-perishable food items to their local branch during the Summer Reading Program.

Just a sampling of our events includes: a cooking class; movies about food and other (somewhat) edible things; a Children’s Tea with Annie Barrows, author of Ivy and Bean; bilingual music from award-winning educator, author and musician Jose-Luis Orozco; Kenn Adams’ interactive Adventure Theater program and; in conjunction with the Berkeley Comic Arts Festival, a visit from the author of Babymouse!

The Berkeley Public Library’s Summer Reading Program, “Reading is So Delicious”, runs from June 14 – Aug. 17.

Please be aware that some events require pre-registration. Call 981-6223 or check http://berkeleypubliclibrary.libguides.com/summer for information and additional events.

by Marvin Ramirez

Marvin Ramirez

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: As we read the little information that mainstream media has published in their controlled media about the recent scandals that have surfaced within the Barack Obama’s presidency, we wonder how much more there is in there, and what has been happening in the president’s administration that we never expected. I ran into this very detailed article by Shaid Buttar, Obama’s legacy, which give us a lot more light of what and how much this president has done to destruction and deterioration of the same Bill of Rights and the Constitution he swore to defend and obey. Due to the length of the article, it will be published in two parts. THIS IS THE FIRST PART.

Obama’s legacy: A tyrannical dictatorship?

by Shahid Buttar
firedoglake.com

President Obama’s speech, presenting his vision of a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy, included welcome rhetoric about the importance of constitutional principles, including Due Process and rights to dissent. It may represent the high watermark for civil liberties since his inauguration five years ago.

It is disappointing, given his thoughtful words, that he ignored so many inconvenient truths. From extrajudicial assassination to free speech and freedom of the press, from the need to address root causes of terrorism to partnership with American Muslims, the president promoted important principles but papered over reality.

The reaction by Republican senators was even worse. Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) foolishly suggested that “The president’s speech today will be viewed by terrorists as a victory,” and suggested doubling down on many of the same failed Bush-era policies from which President Obama finally signaled long overdue independence yesterday.

Due Process: Gitmo

The president forcefully spoke about the need to close Guantánamo Bay, and also lifted his moratorium on releasing Yemeni detainees whom the government has cleared for release, despite the clamor among conservative lawmakers who prefer to indefinitely detain anyone accused of terror without trial.

Yet the president’s words reflected important principles that his own administration has routinely violated. Col. Morris D. Davis, the former chief military prosecutor at Guantánamo who resigned his position to challenge torture (and serves on the BORDC advisory board), agreed that “It’s great rhetoric. But now is the reality going to live up to the rhetoric?”

The president criticized restrictions on resettling detainees cleared for release imposed by Congress early in his administration. But he has the authority to resettle those detainees through a separate process, if he were willing to certify the release of particular individuals—which he has avoided in order to avoid the political risk.

Due Process: Drone strikes

President Obama also pledged more congressional oversight of drone strikes, responding to sustained controversy and reiterating a promise from his State of the Union address in January that he has yet to fill.

Noting the 2014 drawdown of US troops in Afghanistan, he also suggested the diminishing need for force protection. That, in turn, could lead to a reduction in “signature strikes,” untethered attacks in which the CIA essentially kills at random based on nothing more than suspicious activity and inflames anti-US sentiment. If nothing else, the president explained a preference to shift drone strikes from the unaccountable and secret CIA to the (also secret, though at least somewhat accountable) Pentagon.

Most importantly, the president acknowledged for the first time in public that civilian casualties—which he predictably downplayed—run the risk of creating new enemies.

On the one hand, he claimed that drone strikes are less lethal, and less prone to civilian casualties, than conventional warfare.

On the other hand, according to an independent study, only 5% of deaths from drone strikes were actually senior terror leaders, suggesting that what the press conveniently calls “targeted killings” are in fact essentially random.

Signature strikes, in particular, reveal the rose tint in the president glasses: these are the antithesis of targeted killings, but rather knee-jerk assassinations based on mere suspicion.

The CIA often doesn’t even know who it kills, let alone whether they are actually involved in terrorism.

Perhaps most revealing were the president’s comments about assassinating US citizens without trial. This particular subject sparked widespread controversy earlier this year, when Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) mounted a filibuster specifically to force the administration to resign the authority to kill Americans at home using drones.

Now, as then, the response is rhetorically welcome but substantively empty. Just as Attorney General Eric Holder’s letter to Sen. Paul made promises that ultimately appear implausible in light of the actual facts, President Obama’s assurances that drone strikes are closely targeted belies the competing fact that four US citizens have died in drone strikes, while only one was reportedly targeted. If the CIA has killed four times the number of US citizens than it has intended, how can we maintain the pretense that drone strikes avoid collateral casualties?

At root is a surprising willingness to redefine Due Process to exclude a right to judicial review. A canard— that the executive branch can provide Due Process without judicial review— pervades the drone program.

But that view makes a mockery of over 800 years of legal precedent establishing the need for judges to check and balance executive detention orders. For a constitutional law professor to advance so revolutionary claim should disturb any observer, regardless of political perspective.

by J. D. Heyes

There is a time when national security literally depends on secrecy. Regardless of the prevailing mindset among many in the press and in the general public, the American people do not have an inherent “right” to know everything about everything the government is doing when it is legitimately operating on behalf of securing the nation and protecting the homeland, because such functions necessarily require secrecy. Imagine, for example, if someone “in the know” had leaked plans and details of the D-Day invasion to a newspaper; what would the implications of that have been?

But by far, most of the time news organizations have a legitimate role to play in bringing details of government operations to the public at large, for the media’s primary purpose in our country, as envisioned by our founding fathers, is to serve as a watchdog on government. And that’s what makes the Department of Justice’s decision to tap 20 phones belonging to Associated Press reporters so chilling: the audacity of government heavy-handedness and the ruthlessness with which this administration deals with its enemies, real or perceived.

As bad as it is to know DoJ targeted the AP, the administration’s pattern of constitutionally questionable behavior regarding the press is much worse than thought, because it apparently involves more than just that one news outlet. Per The Washington Post:

The case of Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, the government adviser, and James Rosen, the chief Washington correspondent for Fox News, bears striking similarities to a sweeping leaks investigation disclosed last week in which federal investigators obtained records over two months of more than 20 telephone lines assigned to the Associated Press.

According to details surrounding the Justice Department’s probe of Kim and Rosen, the former – a higher-ranking State Department official at the time – stands accused of passing to the later classified information regarding North Korea.

More from the Post: Court documents in the Kim case reveal how deeply investigators explored the private communications of a working journalist – and raise the question of how often journalists have been investigated as closely as Rosen was in 2010. The case also raises new concerns among critics of government secrecy about the possible stifling effect of these investigations on a critical element of press freedom: the exchange of information between reporters and their sources.

While there is a difference between reporters reporting government waste, fraud, abuse and corruption, there is clearly a difference between cultivating classified sources and then reporting information they provide. If you have to hide, that generally means you’re divulging information you shouldn’t be. An exception here would be if you are a whistleblower and you are exposing government abuse.

That doesn’t appear to be the case with the reporter from Fox News – at least on the surface – but it’s hard to tell at this point given the Obama administration’s unprecedented pursuit of cases it believes involved the leak of classified information (more than any other administration combined) – even if it wasn’t classified (just uncomfortable for the president). That fact alone makes it appear as though Obama – Mr. Constitutional Professor who pledged openness and transparency – likes to use the power of government to silence critics or punish those he believes have gone against him.

Either way, what his administration is doing is damaging the Bill of Rights.

“Search warrants like these have a severe chilling effect on the free flow of important information to the public. That’s a very dangerous road to go down,” says First Amendment attorney Charles Tobin, in an interview with the Post.

Adds attorney Abbe Lowell, who is defending Kim: “The latest events show an expansion of this law enforcement technique. Individual reporters or small time periods have turned into 20 [telephone] lines and months of records with no obvious attempt to be targeted or narrow.”

The feds obviously see it a different way, but is it the correct way?

“FBI agent Reginald Reyes wrote in an affidavit that Rosen had broken the law ‘at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.’ But that statement may well conflict with First Amendment rights,” reported Breitbart News.

Says AP CEO Gary Pruitt of the targeting of his reporters by DoJ: “I really don’t know what their motive was, I know what the message they are sending was – if you talk to the press we are going to go after you.”

Sources: http://www.breitbart.com, http://www.washingtonpost.com, http://www.politico.com.

“Here a scandal, there a scandal, everywhere a scandal”

Steve Watson
Infowars.com

Senator Rand Paul hit out last week at the White House and the president himself regarding his handling of the triple whammy of scandals his administration has become embroiled in.

“We have sort of an ‘Old MacDonald Farm’ of scandals—here a scandal, there a scandal, everywhere a scandal,” Paul said during a Fox News appearance.

“We’re not sure which scandal to even talk about,” Paul noted, referring to the fallout from the Benghazi consulate attack, the targeting of journalists and DOJ seizure of media phone records, and the potentially illegal targeting of patriot groups and Tea Party organizations by the IRS.

Responding to Obama’s national security address from the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, Paul described it as “a misdirection campaign,” noting that it amounted to a failed attempt to downplay the severity of the mire that the administration is in.

“I don’t think this will work because he is putting off really the ultimate reckoning,” Paul said.

“He’s saying in 30 days we’ll do this and 90 days we’ll do this. The IRS scandal has been going on for over a year. The report is out there. I think they know who is responsible but he is not getting anybody,” he continued.

“Nobody is willing to be fired or removed from office from this. So I think it’s a bit of misdirection here. There are still some important questions about citizens overseas. Even that issue he sort of obscures. He says that of course that they should get due process but his idea of due process is flash cards and power point presentation. So even that he doesn’t really come clean with.” The Senator urged.

Before making his televised comments, Paul released a statement in response to the president’s speech, during which Obama addressed drone policy and specifically the targeted assassination of Americans overseas.

“For the record, I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen – with a drone, or a shotgun – without due process,” Obama said during the speech. “Nor should any president deploy armed drones over U.S. soil.”

“I’m glad the President finally acknowledged that American citizens deserve some form of due process,” Paul responded in his statement. “But I still have concerns over whether flash cards and PowerPoint presentations represent due process; my preference would be to try accused U.S. citizens for treason in a court of law.”

This week Paul also introduced legislation designed to limit government surveillance of Americans, including the ‘Preserving Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act’, which would outlaw the use of drone technology in US skies.

“The use of drone surveillance may work on the battlefields overseas, but it isn’t well-suited for unrestrained use on the streets in the United States,” Paul said in a further statement yesterday. “Congress must be vigilant in providing oversight to the use of this technology and protection for rights of the American people. I will continue the fight to protect and uphold our Fourth Amendment.”

Back in March, Paul launched a 13-hour filibuster on the use of drone attacks in an effort to raise awareness on the issue, and to challenge drone attack architect John Brennan’s nomination for head of the CIA.

“I wanted to sound an alarm bell from coast to coast. I wanted everybody to know that our Constitution is precious and that no American should be killed by a drone without first being charged with a crime.” Paul stated at the time.

“As Americans, we have fought long and hard for the Bill of Rights. The idea that no person shall be held without due process, and that no person shall be held for a capital offense without being indicted, is a founding American principle and a basic right.” the Senator asserted.

The Kentucky senator also explained in his statement yesterday that his new legislation prevents police and intelligence agencies from monitoring Americans’ electronic communications without a warrant.

“Congress has passed a variety of laws that decimate our Fourth Amendment protections.” The Senator noted. “In effect, it means that Americans can only count on Fourth Amendment protections if they don’t use e-mail, cell phones, the Internet, credit cards, libraries, banks, or other forms of modern finance and communications,” “Basic constitutional rights should not be invalidated by carrying out basic, day-to-day functions in a technologically advanced world and this bill will provide much needed clarity and reassert Fourth Amendment protections for records held by third parties.” Paul said in his statement Thursday.

The Senator expanded on his televised comments in a further radio appearance last night, discussing Guantanamo Bay, the IRS scandal, the looming debt ceiling fight, immigration reform, Congress’ treatment of Apple, corporate taxes and a potential presidential run in 2016.

Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.