[font size=3]10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free[/font]

[font size=2]By Jonathan Turley, Friday, January 13, 5:34 PM[/font]

< . . . >

The list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company.

< . . . >
President Obama has claimed, as President George W. Bush did before him, the right to order the killing of any citizen considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism. Last year, he approved the killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaqi and another citizen under this claimed inherent authority. Last month, administration officials affirmed that power, stating that the president can order the assassination of any citizen whom he considers allied with terrorists. (Nations such as Nigeria, Iran and Syria have been routinely criticized for extrajudicial killings of enemies of the state.)
< . . . >
Under the law signed last month, terrorism suspects are to be held by the military; the president also has the authority to indefinitely detain citizens accused of terrorism. While the administration claims that this provision only codified existing law, experts widely contest this view, and the administration has opposed efforts to challenge such authority in federal courts. The government continues to claim the right to strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion. (China recently codified a more limited detention law for its citizens, while countries such as Cambodia have been singled out by the United States for “prolonged detention.”)
< . . . >
The government now routinely uses secret evidence to detain individuals and employs secret evidence in federal and military courts. It also forces the dismissal of cases against the United States by simply filing declarations that the cases would make the government reveal classified information that would harm national security — a claim made in a variety of privacy lawsuits and largely accepted by federal judges without question. Even legal opinions, cited as the basis for the government’s actions under the Bush and Obama administrations, have been classified. This allows the government to claim secret legal arguments to support secret proceedings using secret evidence. In addition, some cases never make it to court at all. The federal courts routinely deny constitutional challenges to policies and programs under a narrow definition of standing to bring a case.
< . . . >

[font size=4]iPhone Ringtone Brings New York Philharmonic To A Dead Stop[/font][/h2]



Don't forget to turn off your phone when you go to the New York Philharmonic...because if it starts ringing they will stop the show. No, really! At last night's performance of Mahler's Ninth, a not-so-gentleman's iPhone (using the "marimba" ringtone) went off multiple times during the piece's final movement. Finally—just 13 bars before the end of the score—Music Director Alan Gilbert lost it and cut the orchestra:

"Mr. Gilbert was visibly annoyed by the persistent ring-tone, so much that he quietly cut the orchestra," the concert-goer reports. She related how the orchestra's music director turned on the podium towards the offender. The pause lasted a good "three or four minutes. It might have been two. It seemed long."

Mr. Gilbert asked the man, sitting in front of the concert-master: "Are you finished?" The man didn't respond.

"Fine, we'll wait," Mr. Gilbert said.

[h2]Photos: What America looked like before the EPA[/h2]

In 1972, the year-old EPA had photographers traverse the country to document the (often dire) state of the environment. This project, Documerica, was "the visual echo of the mission of the EPA," according to one photographer. Now, 40 years later, archive specialist Jerry Simmons has unearthed the photos and put them online at the National Archives website and on Flickr. It's a time capsule of life before the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.

Some of the photos show positive action -- a "city farmer" in Boston, for instance, or a guy riding his bike to sidestep fuel shortages. Some record daily life, and some of them show that even without federal protection, a lot of America is still pretty beautiful. And the rest ... look like this. (Click the photos for more information.)