State Legislators Come Up With Own Resolutions

  It would seem that some states are getting fed up with the Senate and the Congress over their inability to come up with and to pass a war resolution denouncing Bush and his escalation so the states are acting on their own under pressure from their constituents and advocacy groups.

                  More below

   Resolutions have passed in chambers of three legislatures, in California, Iowa and Vermont. The Maryland General Assembly sent a letter to its Congressional delegation, signed by a majority of the State Senate and close to a majority of the House, urging opposition to the increase in troops in Iraq.

Letters or resolutions are being drafted in at least 19 other states. The goal is to embarrass Congress into passing its own resolution and to provide cover for Democrats and Republicans looking for concrete evidence back home that anti-Iraq resolutions enjoy popular support.

“The end of this war has to start sometime and somewhere,” the president of the Iowa Senate, John P. Kibbie, a Democrat, said Thursday. “And stopping the expansion of these troops needs to happen now.”

The activity was spurred in a conference call last month that included state legislators; Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts; and advocacy groups like the Progressive States Network and MoveOn.org.    NYTimes

 

Technorati tags: State Legislators, Iraq, Congress, Resolutions

Judge Charles S. Haight Jr Scales Back NYC Police Taping

In a rebuke of a surveillance practice greatly expanded by the New York Police Department after the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal judge ruled yesterday that the police must stop the routine videotaping of people at public gatherings unless there is an indication that unlawful activity may occur.    

The restrictions on videotaping do not apply to bridges, tunnels, airports, subways or street traffic, Judge Haight noted, but are meant to control police surveillance at events where people gather to exercise their rights under the First Amendment.   

“This was a major push by the corporation counsel to say that the guidelines are nice but they’re yesterday’s news, and that the security establishment’s view of what is important trumps civil liberties,” Mr. Eisenstein said. “Judge Haight is saying that’s just not the way we’re doing things in New York City.”   NYTimes

   Maybe we can start with NYC and move around to the rest of the country right up to the White House and wanna-be dictator George Bush and his side-kick Dick Cheney.

 

Technorati tags: Judge Haight, NYC, Video, 9/11