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Meet Carlos Miller, a photojournalist in Miami, Florida. Carlos was recently arrested for disobeying an unlawful order to stop taking photos on a city street.

Protecting reader privacy and confidentiality has long been an integral part of the mission of ALA and its members. Should it continue to be a priority? In an age when people increasingly use social networking to expose intimate life details, does privacy still matter to information seekers? Does anyone care if their library records and online searches are being tracked? If they don't, why should they? Privacy Rights Clearinghouse director Beth Givens discusses the importance of privacy and what's at stake if the persistent erosion of privacy continues unchecked. Part of a panel presented by the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom at the 2008 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA.

Protecting reader privacy and confidentiality has long been an integral part of the mission of ALA and its members. Should it continue to be a priority? In an age when people increasingly use social networking to expose intimate life details, does privacy still matter to information seekers? Does anyone care if their library records and online searches are being tracked? If they don't, why should they? Wired Magazine Senior Writer Dan Roth discusses the importance of privacy and what's at stake if the persistent erosion of privacy continues unchecked. Part of a panel presented at the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom at ALA's 2008 Annual Conference in Anaheim, California.

Protecting reader privacy and confidentiality has long been an integral part of the mission of ALA and its members. Should it continue to be a priority? In an age when people increasingly use social networking to expose intimate life details, does privacy still matter to information seekers? Does anyone care if their library records and online searches are being tracked? If they don't, why should they? Author Cory Doctorow discusses the importance of privacy and what's at stake if the persistent erosion of privacy continues unchecked. Part of a panel presented at the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom at ALA's 2008 Annual Conference in Anaheim, California.

It's hard to call someone younger than 18 years old a "legend," but Ava Lowery is just that in progressive circles. She created a website at fourteen where she made videos railing against the war. Today, her site, peacetakescourage.com, gets nearly two million hits per month. And she doesn't live in a liberal hotbed like San Francisco or New York, rather in a small town in Alabama. Anthony Romero is the son of a proud Puerto Rican who worked hard to support his family while waiting tables. Anthony grew up to not only be the first in his family to go to college, but to become the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, and someone we thought Ava should have on her cell phone speed dial. Just in case. Together they discuss the legal quagmire the country has become since 9/11, among other quagmires created by George W. Bush and his Administration.

Download | Play Download | Play Keith Olbermann presented Barack Obama with a few options on how to handle the pending FISA legislation in a Special Comment on Monday s Countdown. Senator Obama had once said he was against giving immunity to telecom companies who assisted the Bush administration in illegally spying on American citizens, but more recently has said he would, in fact, vote for the FISA legislation, immunity included. As Keith points out, Obama has taken political hits from the right and the left and the right is going to attack him no matter how he votes, so he might as well do the right thing and demand telecom immunity be stripped from the bill. You ve already taken the political hit from the Right, for saying you d seek to strip out, or rescind immunity. You ve already taken the political hit from the Left, for saying you d vote for the FISA bill even with the immunity. You ve paid the political price in advance. Now buy yourself and those who have most ardently supported you something worth more than just class action suits against Verizon. Explain that you are standing aside on civil immunity, not just for political expediency, but for a greater and more tangible good the holding to account, of the most-corrupt, the most dangerous, and the most anti-democracy presidential administration in our long history. Of course, if you disagree with this interpretation if you think the FISA bill doesn t have the giant loophole, or if you don t think you, as president, would be ready to support criminal prosecution of well, criminals then your duty is clear. Vote against the FISA bill, if it still carries that immunity. Full transcripts below the fold: Finally, as promised, a Special Comment on FISA and the Junior Senator from Illinois. The Democratic leadership in the Senate, Republican knuckle-dragging in the same chamber, and the mediocre skills of whoever wrote the final version of the FISA bill, have combined to give Senator Barack Obama a second chance to make a first impression. And he damned well better take it. The Senate vote on this tortured and reckless piece of legislation has now been postponed until after the 4th of July break. The Democrats, completing their FISA experience (a collective impression of Homer Simpson falling off a cliff and hitting every bramble on the way down), didn t exactly plan this fortuitous delay. Last week, the vote on their cave-in was imminent. But, while arguing over a piece of housing legislation, about how many mortgage lenders can dance on the head of a pin, Republicans dithered so long about protecting their constituents the banks that the Senate calendar got backed up. This, in turn, gave Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid some time to think. There was one among his group, chosen to run for President, who had loudly assailed the idea of handing a get-out-of-jail-free card to corporations who had approached definitional fascism by breaking the law in concert with the Bush Administration. But this Senator had suddenly realized, that to the large group of voters who operate with an information base that would make Cliffs Notes look like the encyclopedia, if, in the final vote, he stood against FISA, he would hand them a rock with which they could hit him over the head, a rock wrapped up in a piece of paper reading: Obama voted uh-uh thing terror stop. Thus, Senator Obama, was born your first second chance. Senator Reid was kind enough to help you out by composing an amendment that would keep FISA which you rightly endorse but strips out the telecom immunity, which you rightly oppose. It s a protest a decidedly lame one but in our daily world of political transactions, voting for the amendment when it has no chance of passing and has been in essence constructed as pure Obama CYA that is a petty crime. Whether it will do more to harm your premise of new politics than to your credibility as an immunity-opponent, is for you, Senator, to assess. And live with. It would be sweet to have a pure, politics-free president, but the last of those retired from office in 1797. And while we ve all quoted the farewell address of The Father Of Our Nation for 211 years now, nobody seems to want to remember that its point was to urge his children that: whatever you do, for God s sake, don t form political parties some day they will kill you. Anyway, Senator, your problem here isn t the backlash about telecom immunity, and it isn t really about your political fluidity on the FISA bill. Your problem is what happens even if this plays out according to plan next week: 1) You vote for the anti-immunity amendment. 2) The anti-immunity amendment fails. 3) You vote for the FISA legislation. And 4) The FISA legislation passes. Oh, and, 5) Senator: The Republicans still run against you with the elections-for-dummies message: Obama voted uh-uh thing terror-stop. Because, inside the obscenity that was Charlie Black s comment about how a terrorist attack in this country would be good good for his boy McCain s chances for election Inside the inhuman calculation that Benazhir Bhutto did not die in vain she helped McCain in the New Hampshire primary There is a sad and cynical reality. The Republicans can scare some of the people all of the time, and they can scare all of the people some of the time. This is all they are right now. Nobody ever said it better than did Aaron Sorkin in his script for the movie The American President : Whatever your particular problem is, friend, I promise you, Bob Rumson (and for Bob Rumson, read John McCain ) is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: Making you afraid of it, and telling you who s to blame for it. Republicans, with almost no exceptions, have no true credibility on counter-terrorism, no track record of prevention or amelioration, and their president can t even remember the name of the skyscraper he claims to have saved in Los Angeles. And yet, somehow, the Republicans have managed to convince the public that it doesn t matter that Mr. Bush had already completed 22 percent of his first term, when he, his administration, and his party, failed so catastrophically on 9/11. The President and party who were at fault, were magically transformed into the President and party who would never let it happen again. An unjust repellant nefarious, trick. But, politically, rather a neat trick. Senator, the Republicans are going to paint you as soft on terror no matter how you vote on FISA. Or how you vote on the Telecom Immunity Amendment. Or on the next farm bill. Last week it was Grover Norquist calling you John Kerry with a tan. By November 1st, it ll be Dick Cheney calling you Osama Bin Laden with a tan. When you announced your support of this latest FISA bill (with or without the telecom immunity), the Republicans actually raced to get out a press release accusing you of flip-flopping. You shared the exact same position, on which they are running their entire campaign and they criticized you anyway! So, Senator, from their point of view, they think they ve got you boxed in. Vote for FISA and you ve contradicted yourself. Vote against FISA and it s Obama voted uh-uh thing terror-stop. Vote for FISA and against immunity, and it s political expediency, and Democrats soft on terror, and Obama voted uh-uh thing terror-stop. This is a problem, Senator. Because, flatly, of all the measures that can be taken to aid our damaged nation, and our de-valued Constitution, the first, if not the foremost, is not blocking telecom immunity, but making sure no Republican is in the White House past noon next January 20th. Of all the remedial efforts against the Bush administration s high crimes and misdemeanors, and of all the prophylactic steps against further inroads against the freedoms of the citizens of this nation and the rights of everyone else, the primary step must still come to us through the prism of politics. Would that it were otherwise. But it ain t. Frankly, Senator, this political tight-rope act you ve tried on FISA the last two weeks, which from the outside seems to have been intended to increase the chances of your election, probably hasn t helped that chance in the slightest. There is, fortunately, a possible a most unexpected solution. Your second second chance. Since the final version of the FISA bill was passed down from on high, John Dean has been reading it, and re-reading it, and cross-referencing it with other relevant law, and thinking. Something bothered him about it. Or, more correctly, something didn t bother him about it. Turns out lawyers at the ACLU have been doing the same thing for the last ten days. John compared notes with them, and will be devoting his column at Find Law this week, to this unlikely conclusion: The Republicans who wrote most of this bill at Mr. Bush s urging, managed to immunize the telecoms from civil suits. But not from criminal prosecution. Senator, here is John Dean s summary of his findings, which he sent me this morning. It is clear not only from the language of the bill (which must be read in the context of other, related statutes to be clearly understood), but also from the legislative history, that there is absolutely no criminal immunity for anyone in these FISA amendments. Moreover, Senator, it seems as if a lot of people have known this, for a long time. During the January 24th, 2008 debate in the Senate, Senator Brownback noted, The immunity provisions would not apply to the Government or Government officials. Cases against the Government regarding the alleged programs would continue. And the provisions would apply only to civil and not criminal cases. In fact, Senator, just last week, Attorney General Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence McConnell sent a letter, for the record, to House Speaker Pelosi emphasizing that the liability protection, quote, does not immunize any criminal conduct. And if you ask, Senator, about the President responding to all this by belching out a series of pardons or a blanket pardon to those who broke the law on his behalf, Dean has you covered here, too It would require acceptance by them of the fact that they had broken the law, and thus be an admission of guilt. And a blanket pardon would be an admission by Bush that his war on terror has been a lawless undertaking, operating beyond the bounds of the Constitution and statutes that check the powers of the president and the executive branch. It would be an admission by Bush, too, of his own criminal culpability (which is why Nixon refused to grant his aides a pardon.) Senator sometimes it is better to be lucky, than good. Keep your eye on the wording of the legislation to make sure the Republicans don t realize its flaws. Then vote for the amendment to strip telecom immunity out of the FISA bill. Then after that fails, vote for the FISA bill, if that s your final answer. Then the minute the president has signed the FISA bill, you announce that you voted for it because it renews FISA and because it permits a bigger prize than just civil suits; that it allows for criminal prosecution of past illegal eavesdropping. Say, loudly, that your understanding of this bill is such, that if you are elected, your Attorney General will begin a full-scale criminal investigation of the telecom companies who collaborated with President Bush in eavesdropping on Americans. And mention oh by the way that your Attorney General will subpoena such records, notes, e-mail, data, and testimony, from any and all Bush Administration officials, FBI or CIA personnel, or any members of the Executive Branch, who may have as much as breathed in the general direction of these nefarious acts of domestic spying at Mr. Bush s behest. Wait you say there s a political hit waiting for you there too? Another Obama voted uh-uh thing terror-stop. ? Actually, Senator, you ve already gone down this road, when you spoke to my colleague, Will Bunch, of the Philadelphia Daily News, on April 14th of this year. He asked about the possibility of criminal investigations of the 43rd President and his henchmen. What I would want to do, you told him, is have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that s already there and to find out, are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can t prejudge that, because we don t have access to all the material right now. You re also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we ve got too many problems we ve got to solve. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in cover-ups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is: nobody above the law. And I think that s roughly how I would look at it. Make this clear, Senator. You ve already taken the political hit from the Right, for saying you d seek to strip out, or rescind immunity. You ve already taken the political hit from the Left, for saying you d vote for the FISA bill even with the immunity. You ve paid the political price in advance. Now buy yourself and those who have most ardently supported you something worth more than just class action suits against Verizon. Explain that you are standing aside on civil immunity, not just for political expediency, but for a greater and more tangible good the holding to account, of the most-corrupt, the most dangerous, and the most anti-democracy presidential administration in our long history. Of course, if you disagree with this interpretation if you think the FISA bill doesn t have the giant loophole, or if you don t think you, as president, would be ready to support criminal prosecution of well, criminals then your duty is clear. Vote against the FISA bill, if it still carries that immunity. The Republicans are going to call you the names any which way, Senator. They re going to cry regardless, Senator. And as the old line goes: give them something to cry about. Good night, and good luck.

Steve Kurtz , member of the Critical Art Ensemble and SUNY at Buffalo art professor, joins us this week as we discuss the surreal events of these past four years of his life. On May 11, 2004, Steve Kurtz called 911 from his Buffalo, NY home when he found that his wife had died in her sleep. While attending to the call the police became suspicious and called the FBI after they saw parts of Steve's art project that included standard laboratory equipment. The case exemplifies both the bizarre and dangerous effects of the Bush War on Terrorism, and how the FBI and new laws such as the Patriot Act have been used to target important work of regular citizens that is critical of the corporate state. Now that a judge has dismissed all the government charges against Kurtz, he is free to discuss the details of the case. Currently, the Critical Art Ensemble and the Institute for Applied Autonomy is showing SEIZED, an art show the centers around the materials taken from Kurtz's House by FBI 4 years. The show runs through July 18, 2008 at Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center in Buffalo, NY.

In this segment from This Brave Nation, Executive Director of the ACLU Anthony Romero talks about preserving liberty with peace activist Ava Lowery.

Seventeen year old peace activist and filmmaker Ava Lowery talks to Executive Director of the ACLU Anthony Romero about fear and optimism in this segment from This Brave Nation.

Download | Play Download | Play The California Supreme Court has overturned the state s controversial ban on same-sex marriage (decision .pdf). As NBC s Pete Williams states, there are already groups in California trying to put anti- same-sex marriage amendment initiative on the November ballot. This makes California the second state in the union to allow same-sex couples to marry along with Massachusetts. More from the San Francisco Chronicle: The justices 4-3 decision Thursday says domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage. Chief Justice Ron George wrote the opinion. The city of San Francisco, two dozen gay and lesbian couples and gay rights groups sued in March 2004 after the court halted San Francisco s monthlong same-sex wedding march. The case before the court involved a series of lawsuits seeking to overturn a voter-approved law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Read on

Download | Play Download | Play (h/t Heather) We ve come a long way from Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free and not in a good way. On 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley looked at the horrific conditions faced by immigrants to this country both legal and illegal in detention centers including almost criminal medical negligence. In 2004, United Nations troops were fighting militant gangs in the streets of Haiti. Eighty-one-year-old Reverend Joseph Dantica, a Baptist minister, saw his church ransacked during the unrest, so he fled to the United States and asked for political asylum. His niece, Edwidge Danticat (her last name is spelled differently than her uncle s) says he was taken straight to a U.S. immigration detention center. He was essentially arrested? Pelley asks. Yes. I consider it an arrest, Danticat says. Because he had to ask for special relief for him not to be handcuffed. And they did allow him that, but told him that if he ran, they would shoot him. [..] Records show that two days later, during an asylum hearing, he became violently ill and collapsed. A detention center physician s assistant failed to recognize that Dantica was in serious trouble. Help me understand from the records that you ve seen precisely what the medic said about your uncle and his condition, Pelley asks. It appears that he said, I think he s faking, or something to that effect, Danticat says. It took four hours to get Rev. Dantica to an outside hospital. His family wasn t allowed to see him. In a day and a half, Rev. Dantica was dead. The medical examiner said it was pancreatitis.[..] Yeah. And after being treated like an animal, Danticat says. Someone who was just trying to escape horrible things, who was so old and sick. Just had to die that way. But in one sense, Rev. Dantica was not alone: he s among hundreds of sick or dying detainees inside 22 detention centers, plus some 350 state and local jails. The federal lock-ups range from a former warehouse in New Jersey that houses 325 people, to a desert facility near the Mexican border. The centers are run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known by its initials ICE. Inside the detention centers, medical care is provided by another federal agency, the Division of Immigration Health Services, or DIHS. Reporters Dana Priest and Amy Goldstein of The Washington Post have been investigating DIHS.

Just back from being under fire in Sadr City this week, award-winning journalist Leila Fadel, Baghdad Bureau Chief for McClatchy, gives viewers on-the-ground analysis of the latest events and close-up look at the state of the war. And, Bill Moyers talks with Marth Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at University of Chicago, about church and state, and her newest book, LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE: IN DEFENSE OF AMERICA'S TRADITION OF RELIGIOUS EQUALITY.

Just back from being under fire in Sadr City this week, award-winning journalist Leila Fadel, Baghdad Bureau Chief for McClatchy, gives viewers on-the-ground analysis of the latest events and close-up look at the state of the war. And, Bill Moyers talks with Marth Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at University of Chicago, about church and state, and her newest book, LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE: IN DEFENSE OF AMERICA'S TRADITION OF RELIGIOUS EQUALITY.

Download | Play Download | Play President Bush has been doing his best to remind the American people that he s still around, and what better way to do that than to throw a few hissy fits? As Keith Olbermann says on today s Countdown, from the tone of Bush s voice, it sounds like he s just given up. The president is once again chiding House Democrats for drafting new FISA legislation that does not include amnesty for telecommunications companies who illegally spied on Americans, calling those companies - patriotic. Right. Rachel Maddow joined Keith and as always, her analysis is spot on. She points out that President Bush was willing to veto the safety of the American people all in the name of protecting corporations and and himself from prosecution. They also touch on the resignation of Admiral Fallon and how it was obviously a shot across the bow of anyone in the Pentagon who wants to be a real patriot and save the country from launching another unprovoked war against a sovereign nation. Maddow: The other part of this strategy is that they re using a biplane to fly a picture of Eric Shinseki around the Pentagon to remind everybody what happens when people don t toe the line and do something that s right instead of what the President wants.

President Bush tried his very best to scare the American people and distort the debate about illegal wiretapping at today s press conference by spewing falsehood after falsehood. It s genuinely hard to follow this man sometimes. First he starts off by saying that telecoms won t cooperate if they fear getting sued, but in the next breath says that the program is legal. So the telecoms should have nothing to fear, right? Furthermore, the telecoms are obligated to comply with legal surveillance requests. Download | Play Download | Play Arguably his most deceitful ploy was playing the trial lawyer card, despite the fact that these lawsuits are being brought by groups like the EFF who are the the exact opposite of the bogeyman, ambulance-chasing, gravy train trial lawyers. Does this man actually believe what he says or does he just has no problem lying to get what he wants? Or could it be something entirely different?

This podcast covers: (1) Poll craziness - Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney; (2) Romney s speech on faith; (3) Obama ratcheting up pressure on Clinton; (4) Consequences in Florida for DNC; (5) Chris Dodd on Meet The Press; (6) Tom Tancredo is not running for re-election; (7) Kucinich, Richardson and UFOs; (8) Edwards brings the hammer on UNC student reporter; (9) Mike Bloomberg buying Google AdWords; (10) and more Download audio file (2008PresidentialElectionPodcast_10_29_07.mp3) Feel free to email us questions/suggestions for next week s podcast (you can also email an audio file of your question and we ll include it in the podcast). Subscribe to 2008Central.net s Presidential Election Podcast Sphere: Related Content

This podcast covers the MSNBC Democratic debate in Pennsylvania. Specifically, we discuss (1) Hillary Clinton and immigration, (2) the styles of Obama and John Edwards, (3) how the campaign has progressed since the debate, (4) Biden and his quips and more [Note: audio problems have been corrected in this podcast many thanks for your patience] Download audio file (2008PresidentialElectionPodcast_11_05_07.mp3) Feel free to email us questions/suggestions for next week s podcast (you can also email an audio file of your question and we ll include it in the podcast). Subscribe to 2008Central.net s Presidential Election Podcast Sphere: Related Content

Download | Play Download | Play (h/t Heather) President Bush and the Republicans have been doing their best to scare the pants off the American people by lying through their teeth about the current FISA legislation and the fact-challenged pundits on Fox News Sunday did their best to perpetuate those lies this morning. The perception they re trying to give is that if the FISA legislation isn t passed, our intelligence community will have to shut down operations and will no longer be able to conduct surveillance on suspected terrorists which is absurd. William Kristol is dumbfounded as to why the Democrats don t believe the president and his appointees (who cares that they have been lying to us for years?), when they say we ll all die if this legislation isn t passed. Luckily, Juan Williams steps in with the reality the GOP isn t telling the public - the U.S. government can STILL do surveillance on suspected terrorists without telecom immunity.

Download | Play Download | Play Democratic Senator and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jack Reed, appeared on Late Edition and did a great job of debunking the lies and spin being floated by President Bush and the GOP on FISA. As Juan Williams did earlier on Fox News Sunday, Reed makes it clear that allowing the flawed FISA legislation passed last August to lapse does not mean the U.S. can t do surveillance on suspected terrorists. Host Wolf Blitzer floated out the exact same argument William Kristol did on Fox, which is this notion that Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, is some sort of apolitical figure and somehow that makes him more believable. Reed shot that down, reminding Blitzer that the previous FISA laws are still in place and that U.S. intelligence can still go after suspects for several days before requesting a warrant.

Does this sound like a good thing or a bad thing, Winston? Download | Play Download | Play Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives. And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk, to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law. (read on)

One of America's most prominent conservative evangelicals, Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, gives his perspective on the role faith is playing in this campaign season and his take on what's happening with the evangelical vote in the primaries. Rodriguez, who has voiced his support for a moral, biblical response to the issue of immigration, is president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. And, thousands have weighed in on The Moyers Blog to suggest one book the next President should take to the White House. Bill Moyers reviews the submissions for essential presidential reading. Also on the program, one of the nation's leading experts on media and politics Kathleen Hall Jamieson separates the fact from the spin in the Super Tuesday results.

The Golfer from hysum on Vimeo. One of the first movies I ever made. It's short and sweet. It stars hannah and friends. Cast: hysum

Rock Band Night 1 from Charles Zimmerman on Vimeo. Colgate, Brad, Black Sean, and myself jamming to Rock Band, PStriple style. Obviously before hand, you see myself and Black Sean taking a few bumps, and then Brad shows back up and we rock out without our...yeah, you get the idea. Cast: Charles Zimmerman

Tahoe Trip from hysum on Vimeo. Charlotte learning to walk at the Ridge Tahoe Resort. A quick overnight trip to the beautiful Heavenly Mountain Cast: hysum

minha casa, parte I from hackelz on Vimeo. tive que dividir esse vídeo para que coubesse aqui no vimeo. ps: fiz esse vídeo para os meus pais verem onde eu moro, portanto não reparem se por vezes os cito, ok? e não reparem se eu tecer comentários ácidos sobre a minha roomate... ela é uma bruxa! Cast: hackelz

Empires Mod - Streets of Fire Elevator from Jephir on Vimeo. Jeeps + Elevator = Ban Cast: Jephir

test same as before from Aurele Theriault on Vimeo. test Cast: Aurele Theriault

Addie in basket from Alexander Jack on Vimeo. Cast: Alexander Jack