Feel free to assemble? To associate with whatever activist group supports a cause near and dear to your heart? To sound off in your blog about corporate greed, evil oil cartels, and genetically modified food? Prepare to be boarded! Ex-CIA agents may steal the subscription lists of your favorite magazines, get your name and address and go through your trash. Is the U.S. Government blatantly breaking the law by invading our privacy yet again? No, this time it’s Corporate America hiring the government’s discarded spooks to trample our rights as citizens.

James Ridgeway at Mother Jones broke the story. A corporate spying outfit staffed by ex-Secret Service, ex-CIA, and ex-police personnel — Beckett Brown International, a/k/a S2i (”BBI”) — has been utilized by corporations like Halliburton, Wal-Mart, even the Carlyle Group (what a boon to conspiracy theorists!) to spy on their worst enemy: activist America. So far, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have been targeted; who knows which progressive organizations will be next? Air America? The Huffington Post? The Interfaith Alliance? After all, if Halliburton and Wal-mart can hire BBI to go after Greenpeace, what’s to stop Pat Robertson or John Hagee from hiring such a firm to go through the trash at the Interfaith Alliance or steal the membership lists of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, so they can start harrassing you or me?

“The company paid private spies to collect phone records and other private information on prominent activists, to root through dumpsters and infiltrate the staffs of environmental organizations,” says the FreePress. Mother Jones noted that “[R]ecords include[d] internal and confidential financial reports of a local bank that had been the subject of a takeover.” One of the firms BBI targeted suffered a break-in that included the theft of laptops and file boxes.

The unethical, immoral propietors of BBI bascially killed the company while snapping at each other, but they have since been snapped up by other security firms and are presumbably still doing essentially the same illegal things. And let us not be fooled by the fact that corporate espionage is pervasive, even expected — it is still illegal. Did BBI have limits, ops that were too black even for them? “On the advice of Cannistraro and Bresett, BBI turned down a $1 million job with the Church of Scientology, according to Dodd.” So I guess even they have their limits. Thank Xenu for small favors.

So if you’re ever daring enough to have an independent thought for yourself and <shudder> actually share it with another human being, congratulations — apparently you have just invited corporate America to go dumpster-diving in your organization’s parking lot, or to go on a panty raid in your daughter’s dorm. Meet the love of your life at your local ACLU meeting? Watch out — he may be an ex-spook assigned to infiltrate. Start campaining for net neutrality? Comcast has got your number, baby! Your credit card number, your pin number, your social security number…. Invested in that paper shredder for your mail yet?

 BB,

Vivienne

Tags: Current Events, Morals, Vivienne D'Avalon by Vivienne D'Avalon
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From ACLU [aclu@aclu.org]:  “We all know how much damage the Bush administration has done to the Constitution and the rule of law. But, just how long we allow their lawlessness and affronts to the Constitution to live on is up to us. Will we accept the damage that has been done and live with the consequences? Or will we act with energy and conviction to restore our constitutional rights?Acting with energy and conviction is what the ACLU 2008 Membership Conference  is all about.That’s why I’d like to invite you to this year’s conference to get inspired, energized and organized to fight for our Constitution.It is up to us to restore our civil liberties and the ACLU 2008 Membership Conference  is a chance for all of us who care about liberty, equality and justice in America today to come together as concerned activists. At the conference you’ll meet scholars, writers, judges, and elected officials; learn about the most pressing civil liberties issues of the day and join other members like yourself to lobby Congress and defend our most fundamental freedoms.If you are ready to stand up for the kind of America you want to live in, the ACLU 2008 Membership Conference is the place for you.“I came here because I needed to be among a group of people who care about the things about which I care and to get re-energized to protect our democracy from the abuse of our own government.” –Carol Mehlman, 2006 ACLU Membership Conference participant from Tampa, Florida.As in past conferences, you can expect to hear from a wide variety of respected experts on civil liberties, as well as from ACLU clients who will tell their stories. We have just confirmed some inspiring new speakers, including former South African Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson, “literary grandmaster” Ariel Dorfman, Retired U.S. Navy Admiral John Hutson, and U.S. Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter.The ACLU Membership Conference is for everyone who is ready to bring an end to our government’s abuse of power and restore our Constitutional values and heritage. Mark your calendar for June 8 - 10, 2008 to be in Washington, D.C. to make your voice heard — and make a difference.I hope to see you there! Learn more and register now.”

Tags: Uncategorized by Vivienne D'Avalon
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Tags: Current Events, Politics, Religion, Vivienne D'Avalon by Vivienne D'Avalon
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This morning (Wednesday, March 12, 2008) NPR aired a story that salvia divinorum may soon be made illegal. For those of you who don’t know what salvia is, it’s a form of sage that has some psychoactive effects. Salvia is currently an uncontrolled substance, because its chemical makeup and effects are too dissimilar to drugs that are already banned — the law says that a drug has to be similar to a drug already on a particular schedule or class of illicit substances, in order to be included in that list. However, a substance can be added to this list based on analysis of 8 factors: 

• Actual and potential for abuse
• Pharmacology
• Other current scientific knowledge
• History and current pattern of abuse
• Scope, duration, and significance of abuse
• Public health risk
• Psychic or physiological dependence liability
• If an immediate precursor of a controlled substance

….  Based on the results of the analysis, the DEA may recommend that Salvia divinorum be scheduled as a controlled substance.

Salvia has been used by shamans and other spiritual seekers for “out of body” experiences and similar meditative practices. It does not have a market as a social drug, because the mental states it creates in the user are not conducive to social interaction, but rather, introspection. Just as with alcohol or tobacco, the user must act responsibly, and know enough not drive or operate heavy machinery while under the influence of any mind altering substance. However, NPR is reporting suicides that have supposedly been linked to salvia, thus causing a renewed push for criminalization.

Salvia divinorum is currently illegal in several states in America and in many countries around the world, and more states are jumping on the banning bandwagon every day. The DEA considers it “a drug of concern.” “The majority of the pending legislation would add the plant ‘Salvia divinorum’ to the states’ lists of controlled substances.”

In G. Pagan’s March 12, 2007 bill analysis of California AB259, he quotes information that

The effects produced by Salvia divinorum are not comparable to any other effects produced by the other psychoactive substances (i.e., peyote, psilocybin, LSD, etc.). This also includes variables of the user, such as body weight, sensitivity, strength, and dose taken and method used. The effects can range from subtle to extremely strong, causing an individual to have out-of-body experiences and create a real potential for physical danger to oneself and others.

Pagan’s analysis also discusses the fact that prisons are already overflowing because so many people are being incarcerated on drug charges because of substances that are already banned.

Salvia’s reputation suffers from “the current lack of laboratory and clinical research into its potential therapeutic properties.” So of course, rather than do responsible research, fear mongers are instead gunning to criminalize it so they can seize yet more control over their “subjects” — otherwise known as American citizens. Never mind that there are freedom of religion issues, that salvia “was used for both medicinal and religious purposes by the Mazatec Indians in Oaxaca well before the arrival of European colonial powers” and that it is currently in use by modern day shamans pursuing that freedom of religion. Never mind that we are supposed to have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in this country; if the pharmaceutical companies can’t charge an arm and a leg to sell us chemical happiness, Whhhhyyyy, it’s a danger to society! Ban it! Burn it! Throw the witches in prison! Never mind that the prisons are already stuffed to the gills, that just means more money for the companies that build prisons and hire out guards and supply weapons!

“Salvia divinorum is a valuable medicinal herb that is rarely abused…. It is not habit-forming, not addictive, and does not present a significant risk to public health or safety. Because it is a powerful consciousness-altering herb, some regulation of sales is sensible and appropriate, but criminalizing possession certainly is not.”

So why can’t we use common sense, people? Why is that so frikkin hard????

Tags: Current Events, Government, Morals, Paganism, Science and Technology by Vivienne D'Avalon
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