Amy Goodman's Blog, page 6

By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

The Internet, the electronic nervous system of the planet, has changed human society, profoundly altering the way we conduct our lives. It has been a great leveler, allowing people to connect, publish and share on a global scale. You can write, shop and bank online, or organize a demonstration that could overthrow a dictatorship. But the Internet also opens us to intense monitoring, exposing our most personal, private communications to the prying eyes of corporations and government spies, not to mention criminals. One way we can protect ourselves is with encryption, which provides security for our data, allowing us to send and store digital information safely, essentially scrambling the information. In order to unscramble it, you need a key, a password. The ability of regular people to access encryption tools has prompted the governments of both the United States and the United Kingdom to propose special access to all communications. They want a master key to everyone’s digital life.

FBI Director James Comey appeared before a Senate Committee on Wednesday, July 8, along with U.S Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates. As the meeting convened, the frailty of our networks was on display for the world: The New York Stock Exchange was shut down for half a day, supposedly due to a computer “glitch”; United Airlines grounded flights when it lost access to its computer systems; and The Wall Street Journal website was down due to “technical difficulties.” The Senate panel was called “Going Dark: Encryption, Technology, and the Balance Between Public Safety and Privacy.” “Going Dark” is a term used when people encrypt their communications. A joint statement from the duo, delivered by Yates, acknowledged “citizens have the right to communicate with one another in private without unauthorized government surveillance — not simply because the Constitution demands it, but because the free flow of information is vital to a thriving democracy.”

Despite the lofty pledge, Comey and others in the so-called intelligence community want unlimited access to all communications, all the time. They want what digital security experts call “extraordinary access mandates.” This means that any encryption tool would be required to have a “back door,” through which the FBI, the CIA or whomever possesses the requisite authority could access and read the communication, whether it is email, text, video chat or any other format. Why do they want this unlimited access? As Comey and Yates said, “When changes in technology hinder law enforcement’s ability to exercise investigative tools and follow critical leads, we may not be able to identify and stop terrorists who are using social media to recruit, plan and execute an attack in our country.”

A group of the world’s leading experts on computer and Internet security published a paper this week on just how deeply flawed Comey’s demand is. Fifteen authors contributed to the paper, published by MIT and titled “Keys Under Doormats: Mandating insecurity by requiring government access to all data and communications.”

Bruce Schneier, one of the paper’s authors, is a security technology guru and author of “Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World.” He said on the “Democracy Now!” news hour: “It’s extraordinary that free governments are demanding that security be weakened because the government might want to have access. This is the kind of thing that we see out of Russia and China and Syria. But to see it out of Western countries is extraordinary.”

Comey wants to mandate a back door, a built-in security weakness. Schneier continued: “What Comey wants is encryption that he can break with a court order. But as a technologist, I can’t design a computer that operates differently when a certain piece of paper is nearby. If I make a system that can be broken, it can be broken by anybody, not just the FBI. So his requirement for access gives criminals access, gives the Chinese government access.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has been one of the most vocal critics of government spying. In an online critique of a blog post by FBI Director Comey, Wyden wrote: “Trying to restrict the use of encryption would cast suspicion on those who legitimately seek protected communications, such as journalists, whistleblowers, attorneys, and human rights activists. ... It’s time to stop attacking the technology and start focusing on real solutions to the real threats facing our nation.”

Bruce Schneier summed up: “We’re concerned about the security of our data, and encryption is a valuable tool. To deliberately weaken that at the behest of the FBI or the U.K. government, I think, is a really crazy trade-off. It doesn’t make us safer; it makes us more at risk.” Ultimately, it is democracy that is at risk. The freedom to communicate without the government spying on us is essential to the functioning of a free and open society.

By Amy goodman and Denis Moynihan

“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?” asked Frederick Douglass of the crowd gathered at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, N.Y., on July 5, 1852. “I answer,” he continued, “a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which lie is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham.”

Douglass escaped slavery in 1838 and became one of the most powerful and eloquent orators of the abolitionist movement. His Independence Day talk was organized by the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Sewing Society. Douglass extolled the virtues of the Founding Fathers, those who signed the Declaration of Independence. Then he brought the focus to the present, to 1852. He said:

“I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today?”

Of course, the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Sewing Society had no intention of mocking him. Proceeds from their events were devoted primarily to supporting Douglass’ newspaper. They championed Douglass, and saw the need to take action, whatever action they could muster. The United States was, at the time of the speech, less than a decade away from a brutal civil war. The war would formally start with the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter, just off the coast of Charleston, S.C.

Independence Day is a fitting time to reflect on the role that grass-roots organizing for social change has played in building this nation. The horrific massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston, S.C., also compels us to question just how far we have progressed toward the ideals enshrined in that document signed on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence.

It was in Charleston that a man named Denmark Vesey, a former slave who had won his freedom, had planned an expansive slave rebellion, slated to take place in 1822. The plot was exposed, and Vesey, along with 34 alleged co-conspirators, was hanged. Vesey was one of the founders of Charleston’s AME church in 1818, which became Emanuel AME Church, where Dylann Roof is alleged to have murdered nine people this past June 17, among them the church’s pastor, who was also a state senator, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney. The storied church, called “Mother Emanuel,” has been central to the lives of African-Americans in Charleston and beyond for close to two centuries.

So, when evidence pointing to Roof’s racist motivation surfaced, including an Internet-posted manifesto along with numerous photos of him with the Confederate flag, pressure mounted to remove that flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state Capitol in Columbia, S.C. The movement was swift, with companies like Wal-Mart and Amazon pulling Confederate memorabilia from their shelves. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley immediately ordered all Confederate flags be removed from Alabama Statehouse grounds. But as the U.S. and South Carolina flags on the Capitol Dome flew at half-mast after the massacre, the Battle Flag of the Confederacy, at a Confederate war memorial on the Statehouse grounds, continued to fly at full mast.

On Friday, June 26, more than 5,000 mourners crowded into an arena in Charleston for the funeral of the Rev. Pinckney. President Barack Obama gave a moving eulogy, ending by singing “Amazing Grace” as the congregation joined in. The next day, at dawn, Bree Newsome, a 30-year-old African-American woman, scaled that 30-foot flagpole in Columbia with helmet and climbing gear, and took down the Confederate flag. James Tyson, a fellow activist who is white, spotted for her from the base of the pole.

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By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

The massacre of nine African-American worshippers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., has sent shock waves through the nation and could well blow the roof off the Confederacy. Dylann Storm Roof is accused of methodically killing the congregants, reloading his Glock pistol at least twice. He let one victim live, according to a person who spoke with the survivor, so she could tell the world what happened. This brutal mass killing was blatantly racist, an overt act of terrorism.

Those murdered included the minister of the historic church, 41-year-old Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who also was an elected state senator in South Carolina and who was leading a Wednesday night Bible-study group. Roof actually sat in on the group for an hour before the massacre.

What little we know of Roof’s motivation for his alleged crime comes from a website he is believed to have created. A manifesto posted on the site says: “I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.” A survivor of the shooting said that Roof told a victim begging for him to stop the killing: “I have to do it. You’re raping our women and taking over the country. You have to go.”

The website includes photos of Roof brandishing a gun, the .45-caliber Glock that is likely the murder weapon, and the Confederate flag, leading to renewed efforts to remove this symbol of racism and hate from flying on public property. For decades, the Confederate flag flew above the South Carolina Statehouse, along with the U.S. flag and the state flag of South Carolina. After the NAACP began a boycott of the state in the year 2000, a compromise was reached. The Confederate flag was removed from the state Capitol dome and placed on statehouse grounds, alongside a Confederate war memorial.

Among those who first stood up last week in favor of removing the flag was a white Republican serving in the South Carolina legislature, Doug Brannon. He told us on “Democracy Now!”: “I woke up Thursday morning to the news of the death of these nine wonderful people. I knew something had to be done then. ... Clementa Pinckney deserves this. Those nine people deserve this. Our state Capitol needs to be free of the flag.” When we asked him if he would consider a memorial to the victims of the Emanuel AME massacre, he said it was “a wonderful idea.”

The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II is the president of the North Carolina NAACP. He heard about the slaughter on Wednesday night while in jail. “About 10 of us had been arrested in the state House in North Carolina for challenging extremist politicians who have passed the worst voter-suppression law in the country,” he said. Barber has led the “Moral Mondays” movement, with hundreds to thousands of people protesting weekly against the agenda being passed by North Carolina’s Republican-controlled state government. He favors removal of the Confederate flag, which he calls “vulgar,” but suggested that passing policy would be a more potent memorial to Clementa Pinckney and the other victims.

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By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

It has been more than 15 years since tear gas filled the streets of Seattle and tens of thousands of people protested the meeting of the World Trade Organization, or WTO. That week of protests in late 1999 became known as “The Battle of Seattle,” as the grass-roots organizers successfully blocked world leaders, government trade ministers and corporate executives from meeting to sign a global trade deal that many called deeply undemocratic, harming workers’ rights, the environment and indigenous people globally.

A new Battle of Seattle has been raging in recent weeks, pitting a broad coalition of people against a multinational corporate behemoth, Shell Oil. Citizens and elected officials alike, concerned about Shell’s plans to drill for oil in the Arctic, swarmed the waters around Seattle, trying to block the massive oil-drilling platform, Polar Pioneer, from leaving on its journey to the Arctic. As fossil-fuel corporations intensify their exploitation of the world’s oil, protesters, as well as the pope, are weighing in as never before about the catastrophic effects of climate change.

The Polar Pioneer arrived in Puget Sound in mid-May in preparation for its trip to the Chukchi Sea in the Arctic Ocean. Royal Dutch Shell has the vessel under contract from Transocean, the same company whose Deepwater Horizon oil rig caused the blowout and oil-spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico five years ago. As the platform was tugged into the Port of Seattle’s Terminal 5, the first wave of the “Mosquito Fleet” paddled out to block it. The protest flotilla is made up of “kayaktivists,” people in small kayaks that establish a blockade, much like the protesters in 1999 linked arms on the rainy streets of Seattle to block the delegates attempting to attend the WTO Ministerial Conference.

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By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

Twelve days after his 22nd birthday, Kalief Browder wrapped an air-conditioner power cord around his neck and hanged himself. In 2010, at the age of 16, he was arrested after being accused of stealing a backpack. He would spend three years in New York City’s Rikers Island prison, more than two of those years in solitary confinement. He was beaten by prison guards and inmates alike. He was not serving a sentence; he was in pretrial detention. He declined all plea bargains. He wanted his day in court, to prove his innocence. A judge finally dismissed the case against him. After his release, Kalief Browder tried to reclaim his life. In the end, the nightmare he lived through overwhelmed him. Two years after his release, he committed suicide.

Albert Woodfox also knows the torment of solitary confinement. Woodfox has the distinction of being the prisoner in the United States who has spent the most time in solitary confinement, now well over 42 years. For most of that time, he was locked up in the notorious maximum-security Louisiana State Penitentiary known as “Angola,” built on the site of a former plantation worked by slaves from the African country of Angola.

Woodfox is one of the “Angola Three,” three prisoners who served more than a century—that’s right, more than 100 years—of solitary confinement between them. They believe the isolation was retaliation for forming the first prison chapter of the Black Panthers in 1971. They were targeted for organizing against segregation, inhumane working conditions and the systemic rape and sexual slavery inflicted on many imprisoned at Angola.

Woodfox and another of the Angola 3, the late Herman Wallace, were convicted for the 1972 murder of prison guard Brent Miller. The case against them had significant flaws, and their convictions were later overturned. On Oct. 1, 2013, Herman Wallace was freed, but only after a federal judge threatened to arrest the warden if he did not release him. Wallace was suffering from advanced liver cancer, and died, surrounded by family and friends, several days later.

A federal judge has just issued a similarly urgent order for Albert Woodfox’s release, but the state of Louisiana has appealed to a federal appeals court. Woodfox’s conviction has been overturned not once but twice. Even the murdered guard’s widow, Teenie Verret, has said she doesn’t believe the men killed her husband. Nevertheless, Louisiana’s Attorney General “Buddy” Caldwell would like to subject Woodfox, who is now 68, to a third trial for the same crime. Federal Judge James Brady is determined to set Woodfox free, once and for all.

Continue reading the rest of this column at Truthdig.org.

By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

Evan Young was the valedictorian of this year’s graduating class at Twin Peaks Charter Academy High School, in Longmont, Colo. On May 16, at his graduation ceremony, Evan planned to give his valedictory address. Earlier in the week, he submitted the text of his speech to the principal, as required. Just before the ceremony, Principal B.J. Buchmann told Evan he was not allowed to give his speech. Evan was shocked. He had been practicing for days. He had planned to come out as gay in the speech for the first time, to his own family, to his classmates and to the whole school community.

But Principal B.J. Buchmann would never give him the chance. He called Evan’s father after reading the draft and told him that Evan was gay. Evan told me on the “Democracy Now!” news hour: “If there’s anything that upset me the most about this whole situation, it was probably that. And I guess what it showed is that the principal had very little respect or understanding for someone who is in my position.” A statement released by the charter school’s board of directors read in part: “The draft speech ... included references to personal matters of a sexual nature. None of these topics are ever appropriate for a speech at a graduation ceremony.”

Evan eventually got to give his speech — two weeks later. A local LGBT advocacy organization, Out Boulder, had gotten involved and tried — and failed — to convince the school to allow Evan to give the speech at another venue. So Out Boulder hosted a garden party in a backyard of a home in Boulder, where 250 people packed in to hear Evan finally give his address. Among those present was Boulder/Longmont’s member of Congress, Rep. Jared Polis, who is himself gay, and was the first out gay parent in the U.S. Congress. Evan Young told me the following morning: “It was amazing. I was very nervous, actually ... but when I gave my speech, it seemed like everyone liked the whole thing, and it was just awesome.” He received a standing ovation. Polis presented Evan with special congressional recognition for outstanding and invaluable service to the community.

What were those words that the principal deemed necessary to censor, and which so inspired the crowd at the Out Boulder event? His speech showed a mature sense of humor, peppered throughout with jokes, but was a deeper, and deeply personal, call for tolerance and understanding.

“On a more serious note, there is something I would like to reveal to you. You may have already suspected this, but I hope this does not change your opinion of me: I am gay,” Evan said in his speech. “I’ve been attracted to men for as long as I can remember, and I’ve never had a girlfriend because I prefer members of my own sex.”

Evan continued: “And that’s my biggest secret of all: I’m gay. I understand this might be offensive to some people, but it’s who I am. And whether you’ve always suspected this, or this is a total shock to you, now you know. When I was writing this speech, I was endlessly debating with myself whether I should reveal this, on account of how divisive an issue this is and how gay people tend to be stereotyped, and I thought that, if I did, I should repeatedly apologize and beg you guys not to think any differently of me. But then I realized: I don’t have to. I shouldn’t have to. If there’s one thing I learned at this school, it’s that we can still be friends even if we profoundly disagree with each other.”

Congressman Jared Polis has written both the school board and the St. Vrain Valley School District (SVVSD), calling for an investigation into Evan’s silencing. Debbie Lammers, secretary of the SVVSD Board of Education, went to hear Evan at the Out Boulder event. She told me: “I am disappointed with what occurred, but I am glad that I had the opportunity to meet his parents and see Evan deliver his speech. It is unfortunate that this charter school has taken this step. It has put the family in a spotlight that they did not seek.”

Twin Peaks Charter Academy is just 75 miles, as the crow flies, from the site of the beating and torture of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man who was kidnapped in Laramie, Wyo., on Oct. 6, 1998. Shepard died of his injuries six days later, in a hospital in Fort Collins, Colo., even closer to Longmont. The murder of Matthew Shepard became a global news story, showing just how cruel and violent homophobia can be. His murder happened when Evan Young was just 2 years old. Evan’s message of tolerance is the only antidote to that kind of hatred. His classmates needed to hear it, his family needed to hear it, and now thanks to the outcry over his silencing, millions more have heard it as well.

By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

Tucked away on a side street in one of London’s toniest neighborhoods, just across the street from the sprawling department store Harrods, sits a brick, Victorian-era apartment building that houses the Ecuadorean Embassy. Julian Assange, the founder and editor of the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks, walked into this embassy on June 19, 2012, and hasn’t stepped foot outside since.

Ecuador granted him political asylum, but the United Kingdom refuses to grant him safe passage to leave the country. Instead, the U.K. wants to extradite him to Sweden to answer questions about allegations of sexual misconduct, although charges have never been filed. For close to three years, he has remained a prisoner in the embassy, denied even the hour of sunlight daily that most prisoners are guaranteed. For two years before that, he was either jailed or under strict house arrest in England, all without charge. When I went to London to interview him in the embassy this week, Assange asserted his belief that this pretrial phase is serving as both punishment and deterrent, and that Sweden is acting as a surrogate for the United States, which wants him jailed to stop the work of WikiLeaks.

Nevertheless, WikiLeaks continues, releasing groundbreaking information about potentially catastrophic conditions in Britain’s nuclear-weapons submarines, full chapters of the secret and intensely controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade treaty, and more. It was from within the embassy that Assange helped National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden escape Hong Kong after releasing millions of documents detailing U.S. government surveillance programs. En route to political asylum in Latin America, Snowden became stranded in the Moscow airport only after the United States canceled his passport. Russia then granted him temporary political asylum.

When the sexual-misconduct allegations surfaced in late 2010, Assange waited in Stockholm for the prosecutor to question him, then the charges were dropped. He had government permission to leave the country. It was only after he traveled to the United Kingdom that the charges were resuscitated by a second prosecutor. This second prosecutor, Marianne Ny, has had years to question Assange, either in person in London or via video link. Instead, she insisted that Assange be forcibly extradited, until a Swedish court ruled that she could interview him in London. She has indicated that she will, but so far has not said when.

Assange, his lawyers and his supporters are concerned that, if he were extradited, Sweden would hand him over to the United States, where all signs point to a secret grand-jury investigation of him and WikiLeaks. “Julian would have gone to Sweden a long time ago had he gotten a guarantee from Sweden that they will not forward him to the United States for standing trial on the espionage charges,” said Assange attorney Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Ratner explained: “Sweden has never been willing to give that guarantee. And Sweden has a very bad reputation of complying with U.S. demands, whether it was sending some people from Sweden to Egypt for torture or whether it’s guaranteeing people who are asylees in Sweden that they won’t be deported.”

Vice President Joe Biden called Assange a “high-tech terrorist,” and elected officials and pundits from both major parties have said publicly that he should be assassinated. Assange told me: “The U.S. case against WikiLeaks is widely believed to be the largest-ever investigation into a publisher. It is extraterritorial. It’s setting new precedents about the ability of the U.S. government to reach out to any media publisher in Europe or the rest of the world, and try and achieve a prosecution. They say the offenses are conspiracy, conspiracy to commit espionage, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, computer hacking, conversion, stealing government documents.” The espionage charges, if they materialize, could come with the death penalty. Sweden, like most European nations, cannot extradite a person who might thereafter be put to death.

The statute of limitations will expire in August on all but one of the potential Swedish offenses for which Assange is wanted for questioning. The Swedish Supreme Court declined to quash the arrest warrant lodged against him in late 2010, in a 4-1 vote. Justice Svante Johansson, dissenting, wrote that Assange’s de facto detention was “in violation of the principle of proportionality.” Sitting across from me in the conference room of the small embassy that has for three years served as his home, his refuge and his jail, Assange told me, “We have no rights as a defendant because the formal trial hasn’t started yet. No charges, no trial, no ability to defend yourself ... don’t even have the right to documents, because you’re not even a defendant.” His skin is pale from years without sunlight, matching his prematurely white hair. But his resolve is unbroken, and the leaks he originally sought to publish when he founded WikiLeaks almost 10 years ago are still reaching the light of day.

By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan

There is a vast military complex deep in the hills of eastern Tennessee called “Y-12.” This is where all of the highly enriched uranium is produced and stored for the production of the U.S. nuclear-warhead arsenal. It is in Oak Ridge, the city that was created practically overnight during World War II, that produced the uranium for the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. Today, the facility, dubbed “The Fort Knox of Uranium,” holds enough of the radioactive element to make 10,000 nuclear bombs.

It was there, in the pre-dawn hours of July 28, 2012, that three “Plowshares” peace activists, including an 82-year-old nun, penetrated the facility’s myriad security systems and got to the heart of the complex, the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, or HEUMF. They spray-painted messages of peace on the wall, poured blood, hammered on the concrete and were arrested. Earlier this month, a federal appeals court overturned their convictions for sabotage, setting them free after two years in prison. This was the first time convictions for sabotage for Plowshares activists have been reversed, a historic moment for nuclear disarmament.

Plowshares is a movement that derives its name from the biblical verse Isaiah 2:4, which instructs “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” Inspired by faith and committed to action, Plowshares activists for the past 35 years have repeatedly engaged in nonviolent direct action. They access secure military facilities, hammer on weapons of war, be they warplanes or missile silos — or, in this most recent case, the facility that enriches and stores uranium for bombs. Among the first Plowshares activists were the Berrigan brothers, Father Daniel and the late Philip, who had gained national attention by burning draft records to protest the Vietnam War. In 1980, the Berrigans and others entered a General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pa., where nuclear missiles were made, and hammered on nose cones, making them unusable. They went to prison for that and many subsequent actions. Scores of similar Plowshares disarmament protests have occurred around the globe since then.

The protesters who gained entry into the ultrasecure Y-12 complex were an unlikely trio: Sister Megan Rice, a Catholic nun; Michael Walli, a Vietnam veteran turned Catholic peace activist; and Greg Boertje-Obed, a former U.S. Army officer, now a house painter and peace activist. After cutting through four separate fences and traversing patrolled grounds to get to the HEUMF, they painted slogans that read “The Fruit of Justice Is Peace” and “Plowshares Please Isaiah.” Like the previous actions, this group coined a name for themselves, “Transform Now Plowshares.” I asked Sister Megan what that meant. “Why have we spent $10 trillion in 70 years, when that could have been used to transform not just the United States, but the world, into life-enhancing alternatives?” she told me. “Instead, we make something that can never be used, should never be used, probably will never be used, unless we want to destroy the planet.”

The security breach sent shock waves through the national-security establishment, especially at the Department of Energy, which runs Y-12. While the three Transform Now Plowshares activists faced federal sabotage charges and up to 30 years in prison, they were still out on bail and free to attend the congressional hearings prompted by their act of civil disobedience, which The New York Times labeled “the biggest security breach in the history of the nation’s atomic complex.’ Texas Republican Congressman Joe Barton praised Sister Megan Rice: “We want to thank you for pointing out some of the problems in our security. While I don’t totally agree with your platform that you were espousing, I do thank you for bringing out the inadequacies of our security system ... that young lady there brought a Holy Bible. If she had been a terrorist, the Lord only knows what could have happened.”

Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Ed Markey, now a senator, addressed her as well, adding, “Thank you for your willingness to focus attention on this nuclear-weapons buildup that still exists in our world and how much we need to do something to reduce it.”

Sister Megan Rice is now 85 years old. She and her two co-defendants await a lower court’s decision on whether or not they should continue serving time for the lesser charges of destruction of government property, for cutting fences, painting slogans and pouring blood on Y-12. But freedom from prison is clearly not her first concern. “As long as there’s one nuclear weapon existing,” she told me, “nobody is free.”

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By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan

“Pacifica Station Bombed Off Air,” read the Houston Chronicle’s banner headline on May 13, 1970. KPFT, Houston’s fledgling community radio station, had been on the air for just two months when its transmitter was blown to smithereens. “An explosion which demolished the transmitter of Houston station KPFT-FM (Pacifica Radio) was no accident and apparently the work of experts, authorities said today,” George Rosenblatt of the Chronicle wrote. “The blast occurred at 11 p.m. Tuesday. The station was playing ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ and at the precise moment of the explosion, Arlo Guthrie was singing, ‘Kill, kill, kill’ as he spoofed the draft.”

The attack on KPFT was no spoof. Someone had placed dynamite and destroyed the transmitter. The KPFT staff and volunteers rebuilt the transmitter, and got the station back on the air — this time with a concrete-reinforced transmitter shack. But by October, this time with 15 sticks of dynamite instead of just one, the anonymous attackers again destroyed the transmitter. KPFT remains, to this day, thankfully, the only radio station in U.S. history to have been blown up.

Recovery from the second, more serious blast took longer. When the station went back on the air in January 1971, Arlo Guthrie was there in Houston, picking up where he left off, finishing his famous song “Alice’s Restaurant” in person. KPFT had been blown up twice, but the bombers did something for KPFT that, with no marketing budget, it couldn’t have done on its own: The station was blasted into the consciousness of the potential listening audience in Houston.

An investigation after the bombings led to the conviction of Jimmy Dale Hutto, the Grand Dragon of the local Ku Klux Klan. Hutto said blowing up KPFT was his proudest act. When you consider the Pacifica Radio network and its rich history, it is no surprise that a hate group like the KKK would target it. Pacifica Radio provides a forum for people to speak for themselves, breaking down stereotypes and caricatures that fuel hate.

Pacifica Radio was founded by Lew Hill, a pacifist who refused to fight in World War II. When he came out of a detention camp after the war, he said the United States needed a media outlet that wasn’t run by corporations that profit from war, but instead run by journalists and artists — or as the late George Gerbner, former dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, said, not run by “corporations with nothing to tell and everything to sell that are raising our children today.”

KPFA, the first Pacifica station, began in Berkeley, Calif., on April 15, 1949. Pacifica Radio tried something no one thought would work: building a network based on the voluntary financial support of individual listeners, a model later adopted by all of public radio and television. The Pacifica network grew to five stations: KPFA in Berkeley, KPFK in Los Angeles, WBAI in New York, WPFW in Washington and KPFT in Houston.

The Pacifica network broke important stories and never shied away from controversy, especially when covering social movements. Luminaries from the civil rights movement, like Paul Robeson and Harry Belafonte, were regularly heard on the airwaves. African-American writer James Baldwin was broadcast debating Malcolm X on the value of nonviolent sit-ins. WBAI in New York City sent reporter Chris Koch to North Vietnam in 1965 as the first U.S.-based reporter to cover the war from the North. Musicians like Bob Dylan and Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead got their first over-the-air broadcasts on Pacifica stations.

Forty-five years after the bombings, KPFT continues to broadcast in Houston, serving the public as a beacon of alternative perspectives and a hub of local news and culture. Some say the bombings weren’t aggressively investigated because of the close relationship between the local KKK and the Houston police. Today, we are facing a crisis of racial profiling and police targeting communities of color with seeming impunity. While there has been a significant spike in hate-group activity since Barack Obama was elected president, more significant and enduring change has taken root over the decades.

Five years before the first bombing of KPFT, on Feb. 26, 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the Temple Israel of Hollywood in California, saying, “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” He went on, “We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right: ‘Truth crushed to earth will rise again.’” KPFT, Pacifica’s radio station in Houston, was crushed to earth, twice in 1970. But it rose again and again, and has been using the public airwaves to help bend that arc of the moral universe toward justice, for 45 years.

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By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan

“What do you hope to accomplish with this protest,” I asked a 13-year-old girl marching in Staten Island, N.Y., last August, protesting the police killing of Eric Garner.

“To live until I’m 18,” the young teen, named Aniya, replied.

Could that possibly be the American dream today?

Aniya went on: “You want to get older. You want to experience life. You don’t want to die in a matter of seconds because of cops.” It’s that sentiment that has fueled the Black Lives Matter movement across the country.

Most recently, a week of protest in Baltimore was largely quelled when a remarkable prosecutor announced that six police officers would be charged in the death of Freddie Gray. Marilyn Mosby, the 35-year-old state’s attorney for the city of Baltimore, is the youngest lead prosecutor in any major U.S. city. Just 100 days into office, she made national headlines on Friday, May 1, with the stunning announcement that the officers would face various charges, from assault to second-degree murder.

According to police reports, Baltimore Police Lt. Brian Rice was on bicycle patrol on the morning of April 12 when he made eye contact with Freddie Gray, who then ran. Rice pursued Gray, joined by officers Garrett Miller and Edward Nero. A bystander videotaped Gray screaming in pain as he was dragged into a patrol wagon. Though he asked for medical help repeatedly, none was given. He soon became unresponsive. Other police involved in his arrest and transport did nothing either. His family reported that his spinal cord was 80 percent severed, and his voice box crushed. After a week in a coma, he died.

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