A friend emailed me this article
today (thanks Stephanie) From here I found myself reading the blog post of Alder Rebecca Kemble District 18 of Madison Wisconsin. It is a personal account of being
arrested with water
protectors at
#StandingRock while delivering
Madison's resolution "Expressing
Solidarity with Indigenous Resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline"
to the Standing Rock Tribal Chairman, David Archambault II. This
resolution was passed unanimousy by the Common Council and signed by
the Mayor on September 20, 2016."
Another article I came across was a
recent article written October 12, 2016 by the Civil Liberties Defense Center who are considered the leading
resource for preparing legal observers.
Given the rise in technology and the
increased question of who is Watching theWatchers
many issues have not been legally defined yet leading to much
confusion as to who is right and wrong and where our powers and
responsibilities as citizens lie. It might seem cliche but the
observations of
Orwell on Big Brother
have even more than in the past been taken from the arena of science
fiction into the arena of science fact. Many have found that to them this sort of idea was just so much conspiracy theory. But with the
arrival of Edward Snowden
into our national consciousness many more now are having an awakening
to the surveillance society
we live in as regards to our governments and our fellow citizens. This too is spurring a new
look at the legal boundaries associated with
whistleblowers and others.
But that is another issue for another blog post.
I would hope to believe that in this
day and age few are not aware of the gathering of the tribes
and supporters at Standing Rock in protest of the North Dakota Access
Pipeline and the increasing arrests there. And among them is the arrests
of journalists observers and legal observers. The issue of protecting the water should be a cause we all would support but surprisingly it is not by
many. They have their reasons I suppose but I will not go into that
today.
Other issues are the issues of the unenforced mandates of the
treaties we have signed with the Indians
of our country and the destruction of Sacred Sites and the
Recognition of Native American sacred sites in the United States
and their protection of them as outlined in the United Nation's Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
for them as well as others.. The issue of desecration of sacred sites
should alarm us all, whether it is from a spiritual standpoint or a secular one. The
racism against the Indians are just as profound if not even more so than
the racism toward the black citizens of our country. And understanding
how the history of the police and racism
are so relevant. Hopefully this awareness is being expanded greatly.
This post may go on and become larger
with edits to come. But for now here are a few links of interest to
these issues. I wrote an email to the National Lawyers Guild as I
found a link on many pages to their "Legal Observer Training Manual"
but all links are broken. Hopefully they can fix it and when/if they
do I will update the link to it here.
Copwatch was first started in Berkeley,
California in 1990
Inverse Surveillance
is a subgroup of
Sousveillance
Of great interest to me is the whole area of journalism. Searching my website's pages
Engage, Peace Resources and
Activists Resources
you can find more on the above issues and much related to journalism with emphasis on the importance of independent media.
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