AIM Support Group of Ohio & N. KentuckyUpdates and Announcements
Thursday, November 21, 2002Dear Friends, We are trying to save the Circle and Octagon Mounds in Newark, OH from continued destruction and desecration. We need your prayers and letters. The Circle and Octagon Mounds are some of the last remnants of the civilization known by mainstream anthropologists as the Hopewell culture. It is clear to many elders and spiritual people that the site of the Circle and Octagon are sacred, and they are in close proximity to other important sacred sites such as Black Hand Gorge and Flint Ridge. The Ohio Historical Society (OHS) currently maintains the Circle and Octagon mounds. Although the administration of the Ohio Historical Society maintains that they are a "private, not-for-profit" organization, the majority of their funding comes from the state (and likely federal funds as well). The Circle and Octagon Mounds complex was purchased with public monies and stipulations in all available deeds and leases state that the property is to be open to the public and preserved as a public site. The following is an excerpt from the mission statement on their website: "The Ohio Historical Society is a nonprofit organization incorporated in 1885 "...to promote a knowledge of archaeology and history, especially in Ohio." The society exists to interpret, preserve, collect, and make available evidence of the past, and to provide leadership on furthering knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the prehistory and history of Ohio and of the broader cultural and natural environments of which Ohio is a part." Statements such as these are all worthwhile and something we should all strive for. However, the reality of the situation is much different than the lofty ideals espoused in their mission statement. Despite being acknowledged as a National Historic Landmark and an internationally significant site, the Ohio Historical Society leases the property to the Moundbuilders Country Club, which utilizes this sacred site as an 18-hole golf course for those privileged few who can afford the annual dues. In the process of transforming the mounds into a golf course, a great deal of needless damage was done to the site through the digging of sand traps into the sides of some, laying asphalt cart paths throughout the complex, and even removing a significant section of the Circle Mound entirely so that the golfers would have ready access to the first tee. In addition, the Moundbuilders Country Club, merely a tenant on public land, has been consistently limiting public and Native American access to the mounds. Native people visiting the site are routinely harassed—by club members and staff alike. Only through the pressure of a group comprised of educators, scholars, Native Americans, and other concerned citizens did we see some small improvement in the situation. The small progress was that the Ohio Historical Society required the country club to agree to have four golf-free days for public access. However, recent events have shown the insincerity of these superficial gestures. On June 26, 2002, Barbara Crandell was arrested for praying at the Mounds. She was charged with criminal trespassing, which is interesting given the fact that it is a public site. The judge in the case refused to allow any evidence regarding this fact to be admitted and she was recently convicted of the charge. While it is only a fourth degree misdemeanor, a dangerous precedent has been set and other Native people wishing to go there to pray or members of the public wishing to visit the site. If these mounds are important to you and if you believe that it is time for the country club to vacate this sacred and public site, we need your letters. If the mounds are important to your tribe (tribal heritage, history, etc.), please include this in your letter. We also ask for your permission to share your letters with the Ohio Historical Society and with the general public through the media and public presentations as we work to raise awareness of this issue. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely yours, Mark Welsh Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio 67 East Innis Avenue Columbus, OH 43207 614-443-6120 614-443-2651 FAX naicco@aol.com posted by Webmaster@ AIM Support 8:39 AM
Monday, November 18, 2002ALERT UPDATE: Homeland Security Act Swallows CSEA - Tell Your Rep to Cut It! Everyone really needs to check this out, and spread the word! You can send an email at this web site: http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=1723 ALERT UPDATE: Homeland Security Act Swallows CSEA - Tell Your Rep to Cut It! On November 13, the House rolled the Cyber Security Enhancement Act (H.R. 3482, CSEA) into the Homeland Security Act (H.R. 5710, HSA). HSA is an enormous piece of legislation that is supposed to shake up many federal agencies and increase domestic security, but it also promises major collateral damage to our privacy. By adopting the provisions of CSEA, the Homeland Security Act would allow any government entity (federal, state, or local) to request email and voicemail from your ISP or telephone provider without a warrant or probable cause. The result would force ISP's to take on the mantle of judge when it comes to privacy. Don't let your privacy rights get swept away by this omnibus legislation; tell your Representative to excise Section 225 of HSA today! Original Alert: On July 15, 2002, the House of Representatives passed the Cyber Security Enhancement Act (CSEA) in a landslide vote of 385-3. CSEA is a bill that, among other things, makes it trivial for any "Federal, State, or local governmental entity" to get your electronic communications without a warrant or probable cause. Make your voice heard and help stop CSEA! A Copy of the letter you can send, and edit, from the web site: November 18, 2002 Your U.S. representative Dear Representative, I am writing to express my opposition to Section 225 of the Homeland Security Act (H.R. 5710, HSA). Formerly known as the Cyber Security Enhancement Act (CSEA), which was passed by the House of Representatives on July 15, 2002, this legislation would unacceptably damage my privacy rights in electronic communication. In particular, I am concerned with the act's expansion of government surveillance capabilities and the elimination of safe harbors for first-time interceptors of cellular phone traffic. Section 225(d) is an alarming expansion of the "emergency exception" to judicial review requirements for obtaining voicemail and email. In particular, the act's "good faith" requirement for service providers seems ripe for abuse. By relaxing the standard from a "reasonable belief" to "a good faith belief," the act seems to encourage the use of scare tactics and alarmism, rather than evidence and facts, to uncover information. Under the provision, a provider has no incentive to protect a customers' privacy or obligation to report inquiries. Further, an emergency is no longer required to be "imminent" for disclosure to be made. In other words, an indeterminate threat that may take place at some unknown point in the future is enough to reveal personal information. This standard is unacceptably weak. Also, Section 225 of HSA allows disclosure to "a Federal, State, or local government entity," not just law enforcement agents. As it is written, the act seems to allow public high school principals and tax collectors to request information from service providers. I disagree with the provisions outlined in Sec. 225(j) as well. I support cellular phone privacy, but I don't believe that a harsher penalty for radio hobbyists is the way to achieve it. Cellular phone traffic does not become more secure by charging first-time offenders with felonies and putting them in jail for five years. Security comes from robust cryptography and an industry commitment to improving the technology. Security is an important goal, as are your constituents' civil liberties. What we need is balance, not the rampant expansion of law enforcement power. Please remove Section 225 of the Homeland Security Act. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Your signature will be added from the information you provide. posted by Webmaster@ AIM Support 10:22 PM
Sunday, November 17, 2002Subj: NYTimes.com Article: You Are a Suspect Date: 11/16/02 7:32:54 PM Eastern Standard Time This article from NYTimes.com You Are a Suspect November 14, 2002 By WILLIAM SAFIRE WASHINGTON - If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you: Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend - all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database." To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you - passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the F.B.I., your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance - and you have the supersnoop's dream: a "Total Information Awareness" about every U.S. citizen. This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario. It is what will happen to your personal freedom in the next few weeks if John Poindexter gets the unprecedented power he seeks. Remember Poindexter? Brilliant man, first in his class at the Naval Academy, later earned a doctorate in physics, rose to national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan. He had this brilliant idea of secretly selling missiles to Iran to pay ransom for hostages, and with the illicit proceeds to illegally support contras in Nicaragua. A jury convicted Poindexter in 1990 on five felony counts of misleading Congress and making false statements, but an appeals court overturned the verdict because Congress had given him immunity for his testimony. He famously asserted, "The buck stops here," arguing that the White House staff, and not the president, was responsible for fateful decisions that might prove embarrassing. This ring-knocking master of deceit is back again with a plan even more scandalous than Iran-contra. He heads the "Information Awareness Office" in the otherwise excellent Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which spawned the Internet and stealth aircraft technology. Poindexter is now realizing his 20-year dream: getting the "data-mining" power to snoop on every public and private act of every American. Even the hastily passed U.S.A. Patriot Act, which widened the scope of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and weakened 15 privacy laws, raised requirements for the government to report secret eavesdropping to Congress and the courts. But Poindexter's assault on individual privacy rides roughshod over such oversight. He is determined to break down the wall between commercial snooping and secret government intrusion. The disgraced admiral dismisses such necessary differentiation as bureaucratic "stovepiping." And he has been given a $200 million budget to create computer dossiers on 300 million Americans. When George W. Bush was running for president, he stood foursquare in defense of each person's medical, financial and communications privacy. But Poindexter, whose contempt for the restraints of oversight drew the Reagan administration into its most serious blunder, is still operating on the presumption that on such a sweeping theft of privacy rights, the buck ends with him and not with the president. This time, however, he has been seizing power in the open. In the past week John Markoff of The Times, followed by Robert O'Harrow of The Washington Post, have revealed the extent of Poindexter's operation, but editorialists have not grasped its undermining of the Freedom of Information Act. Political awareness can overcome "Total Information Awareness," the combined force of commercial and government snooping. In a similar overreach, Attorney General Ashcroft tried his Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS), but public outrage at the use of gossips and postal workers as snoops caused the House to shoot it down. The Senate should now do the same to this other exploitation of fear. The Latin motto over Poindexter"s new Pentagon office reads "Scientia Est Potentia" - "knowledge is power." Exactly: the government's infinite knowledge about you is its power over you. "We're just as concerned as the next person with protecting privacy," this brilliant mind blandly assured The Post. A jury found he spoke falsely before. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/opinion/14SAFI.html?ex=1038492792&ei=1&en=ee021dcd83c0f3a5 Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
posted by Webmaster@ AIM Support 9:13 AM Last updated:
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