Court upholds ban on medical marijuana | Health | Reuters

Court upholds ban on medical marijuana | Health | Reuters

By Adam Tanner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A California woman with an inoperable brain tumor may not smoke marijuana to ease her pain even though California voters have approved its medicinal use, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Wednesday.

In a much-watched test case, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found there is no fundamental right to marijuana for medical purposes. The ruling agreed with a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The split three-judge opinion from Judge Harry Pregerson expressed sympathy for some arguments by plaintiff Angel Raich, 41, an Oakland resident whose doctor testified she could die if she stopped smoking pot. But the ruling backed the 1970 federal Controlled Substances Act barring marijuana.

So even though the citizenry of this country are more tolerant of marijuana and want it legalized, the government refuses to listen. Some "consent of the governed".

Websites Shut Down by the Government

This page attempts to convey the chilling effect that responses to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have had on information availability on the Internet as well as some sense of the effect on people trying to provide this information.



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Dumbing-Down of America

Test scores for high school students have been falling now for 40 years. In 1984, the Reagan administration issued "A Nation at Risk," documenting the deterioration of American public education. More trillions of dollars were thrown at the problem. And if one judged by the asserted toughening up of courses and rising grades of seniors....



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New York may ban iPods while crossing street - Tech News & Reviews - MSNBC.com

New York may ban iPods while crossing street - Tech News & Reviews - MSNBC.com

NEW YORK - New Yorkers who blithely cross the street listening to an iPod or talking on a cell phone could soon face a $100 fine.

New York State Sen. Carl Kruger says three pedestrians in his Brooklyn district have been killed since September upon stepping into traffic while distracted by an electronic device. In one case bystanders screamed “watch out” to no avail.

Kruger says he will introduce legislation on Wednesday to ban the use of gadgets such as Blackberry devices and video games while crossing the street...

Honestly, don't these bureaucrats have anything better to do with their time?

wcbstv.com - High Schoolers Buzzing Over In-School Alcohol Test

wcbstv.com - High Schoolers Buzzing Over In-School Alcohol Test

PEQUANNOCK TOWNSHIP, N.J. Most high schoolers are used to taking all sorts of examinations in school, but a new test has parents and students alike buzzing about in controversy. School-administered alcohol tests have hit the hallways, but not everyone is trusting the results.

It's called the best test ever for finding "booze clues," and one of the first districts in the nation to get it is Pequannock Township in Morris County, New Jersey. High School Senior Chris Voulcz told CBS 2 he could be asked for a urine sample at any time.

"I have nothing to hide so I'd volunteer it for myself," Voulcz said.

Like the vast majority of his peers, Voulcz is automatically enrolled because he parks on campus and he's participates in a school activity, soccer. The test is the EtG urine test and scientists say it's more sensitive and telling than a Breathalyzer and other tests because it checks for ethyl glucuronide, which stays in your system for 80 hours.

"Anytime you have any sort of alcohol it's going to pick it up," Pequannock Schools Superintendent Dr. Larrie Reynolds said.

But not all students are as open to the test as Voulcz and believe it takes away from students' privacy.

"I don't think the school should be poking around into what you are doing on weekends and out of school," one student, who asked to remain anonymous, said.

The one who dares speak out against this invasion is so afraid of retribution by the school authorities, he dares not give his name.

What a sorry country we live in where those who truly believe in freedom and rights are scared silent.

As for the issue itself, this goes way over the line. What students do off campus is their own business, not the school's.

This is also a huge violation because a student's body and bodily fluids are their own property. No one has the right to walk up to someone else and demand that they submit urine samples and allow their car to be searched. I don't care if the students are parking on school property; their cars and bodies are still their own.

I really hope the ACLU sues over this.

McCain Bill Is Lethal Injection For Internet Freedom

McCain Bill Is Lethal Injection For Internet Freedom

McCain Bill Is Lethal Injection For Internet Freedom
Exploits fear of sexual predators and basic misunderstanding of Internet to attack blogs critical of the warmongering agenda he fronts for

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Friday, December 15, 2006

Republican Senator John McCain has introduced legislation that would fine blogs up to $300,000 for offensive statements, photos and videos posted by visitors on comment boards, effectively nixing the open exchange of ideas on the Internet, providing a lethal injection for unrestrained opinion, and acting as the latest attack tool to chill freedom of speech on the world wide web.

McCain's proposal, called the "Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act," encourages informants to shop website owners to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who then pass the information on to the relevant police authorities.

Comment boards for specific articles are extremely popular and also notoriously hard to moderate. Popular articles often receive comments that run into the thousands over the course of time. In many cases, individuals hostile to the writer's argument deliberately leave obscene comments and images simply to sully the reputation of the website owners. Therefore under the terms of this bill, right-wing extremists from a website like Free Republic could effectively terminate a liberal leaning website like Raw Story by the act of posting a single photograph of a naked child. This precedent could be the kiss of death for blogs as we know them and its reverberations would negatively impact the entire Internet.

Under the banner of saving the children from sexual predators, McCain is obviously on a mission to stamp out the influence of the burgeoning blogosphere and its increasing hostility to the warmongering agenda that he fronts for.

"This constitutionally dubious proposal is being made apparently mostly based on fear or political considerations rather than on the facts," warns Kevin Bankston, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.

McCain has publicly expressed his distaste for blogs in the past and this is why any protestation that he is simply aiming to "protect the children" with this legislation falls on deaf ears.

In a May 2006 speech at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, McCain attacked the blogosphere as a refuge of those only infatuated with self-expression. He was trying to minimize the importance of the last true outpost of freedom of speech, the Internet, and portray it as nothing more than a swap shop for egos and hyperbole.

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So if the blogosphere is nothing more than a bulletin board for self-important know it alls, what possible threat could that be to young children? Where is the evidence that kids are being victimized by people who post comments on blogs?

There is no evidence but that doesn't really matter when you consider that a sizable portion of Congress critters who will be voting on this legislation if it comes to pass, don't even know what the Internet itself is (it's not a big truck), never mind how it's used. And then a sizable majority of the remaining House members probably hate the blogosphere as much as McCain, because it has replaced the lapdog mainstream media in acting as the 4th estate in muckraker reporting, anti-war protest, and holding public officials to task.

In reality, sexual predators have always confined their grooming to live chat rooms, or in the case of Republican pervert Mark Foley, instant messaging and PDA's. Pedophiles are never going to leave a record of their sordid advances on message boards because in most cases, their IP address and location can be obtained immediately from the server log. And as reported by C Net, "Studies by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children show the online sexual solicitation of minors has dropped in the past five years, despite the growth of social-networking services."

McCain's proposed bill is just another step in greasing the skids for Internet 2, a tightly controlled, regulated and privileged world wide web where government approval will be required just to run a blog.

In recent months, a chorus of propaganda intended to demonize the Internet and lead it down this path has spewed forth from numerous establishment organs.

- The White House's own recently de-classified strategy for "winning the war on terror" targets Internet conspiracy theories as a recruiting ground for terrorists and threatens to "diminish" their influence.

- The Pentagon recently announced its effort to infiltrate the Internet and propagandize for the war on terror.

- In a speech last month, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff identified the web as a "terror training camp," through which "disaffected people living in the United States" are developing "radical ideologies and potentially violent skills." Chertoff pledged to dispatch Homeland Security agents to local police departments in order to aid in the apprehension of domestic terrorists who use the Internet as a political tool.

- In an interview with Fox News last month, Bush senior slammed Internet bloggers for creating an "adversarial and ugly climate."

- A landmark legal case on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America and other global trade organizations seeks to criminalize all Internet file sharing of any kind as copyright infringement, effectively shutting down the world wide web - and their argument is supported by the U.S. government.

- The European Union, led by former Stalinist and potential future British Prime Minister John Reid, has also vowed to shut down "terrorists" who use the Internet to spread propaganda.

Guess who won't be getting my vote in 08. Honestly, don't these asshats have anything better to do than try and control every little thing people say and do. And of course it's "for the chyyyyyyyylllldrrrruuuuuuunnnnnnn!!!!!11111!!!".

Sorry, but when it comes down to it, if I have to choose between protecting my rights and protecting children, I'll choose my own rights every time.

GovTrack: H.R. 5295: Text of Legislation

GovTrack: H.R. 5295: Text of Legislation

AN ACT
To protect students and teachers.
1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
1 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 2
2 This Act may be cited as the ``Student and Teacher
3 Safety Act of 2006''.
4 SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
5 Congress finds the following:
6 (1) The United States Department of Edu-
7 cation's National Center for Education Statistics re-
8 ported in the 2005 Indicators of School Crime and
9 Safety that in 2003 seventeen percent of students in
10 grades 9-12 reported they carried a weapon. Six per-
11 cent reported having carried a weapon on school
12 grounds.
13 (2) The same survey reported that 29 percent
14 of all students in grades 9-12 reported that someone
15 offered, sold, or gave them an illegal drug on school
16 property within the last 12 months.
17 (3) The United States Constitution's Fourth
18 Amendment guarantees ``the right of the people to
19 be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and ef-
20 fects, against unreasonable searches and seizures''.
21 (4) That while the Supreme Court affirmed the
22 Fourth Amendment's application to students in pub-
23 lic schools in New Jersey vs. TLO (1985), the Court
24 held that searches of students by school officials do
25 not require warrants issued by judges showing prob-


HR 5295 EH 3
1 able cause. The Court will ordinarily hold that such
2 a search is permissible if--
3 (A) there are reasonable grounds for sus-
4 pecting the search will reveal evidence that the
5 student violated the law or school rules; and
6 (B) the measures used to conduct the
7 search are reasonably related to the search's ob-
8 jectives, without being excessively intrusive in
9 light of the student's age, sex, and nature of
10 the offense.
11 (5) The Supreme Court held in Board of Edu-
12 cation of Independent Sch. Dist. 92 of Pottawatomie
13 County vs. Earls (2002) that random drug testing
14 of students who were participating in extracurricular
15 activities was reasonable and did not violate the
16 Fourth Amendment. The Court stated that such
17 search policies effectively serve the School Districts
18 interest in protecting its students' health and safety.
19 SEC. 3. SEARCHES BASED ON REASONABLE SUSPICION.

20 (a) IN GENERAL.--Each local educational agency
21 shall have in effect throughout the jurisdiction of the
22 agency policies that ensure that a search described in sub-
23 section (b) is deemed reasonable and permissible.
24 (b) SEARCHES COVERED.--A search referred to in
25 subsection (a) is a search by a full-time teacher or school


HR 5295 EH 4
1 official, acting on any reasonable suspicion based on pro-
2 fessional experience and judgment, of any minor student
3 on the grounds of any public school, if the search is con-
4 ducted to ensure that classrooms, school buildings, school
5 property and students remain free from the threat of all
6 weapons, dangerous materials, or illegal narcotics. The
7 measures used to conduct any search must be reasonably
8 related to the search's objectives, without being excessively
9 intrusive in light of the student's age, sex, and the nature
10 of the offense.
11 SEC. 4. ENCOURAGEMENT TO PROTECT STUDENTS AND
12 TEACHERS.
13 (a) IN GENERAL.--A local educational agency that
14 fails to comply with section 3 shall not, during the period
15 of noncompliance, receive any Safe and Drug Free School
16 funds after fiscal year 2008.
17 (b) DEFINITION.--In this section, the term ``Safe and
18 Drug Free School funds'' includes any funds under Part
19 A of Title IV of the Elementary and Secondary Education
20 Act of 1965.
Passed the House of Representatives September 19,
2006.
Attest:




Clerk.
HR 5295 EH
109TH CONGRESS H. R. 5295
2D SESSION AN ACT
To protect students and teachers.

Beware of legislation designed to protect! That word is used to justify so many tyrannical rules. It "protects" children, it "protects" safety, etc. This has nothing to do with protecting students and teachers and everything to do with stripping high school students of their few remaining rights and liberties.

Parents, if you love or respect your children at all, get in contact with your representatives and express your outrage at this bill. If that fails, take your kids out of school.

Senate approves electronic ID card bill | Tech News on ZDNet

Senate approves electronic ID card bill | Tech News on ZDNet

Last-minute attempts by online activists to halt an electronic ID card failed Tuesday when the U.S. Senate unanimously voted to impose a sweeping set of identification requirements on Americans.

The so-called Real ID Act now heads to President Bush, who is expected to sign the bill into law this month. Its backers, including the Bush administration, say it's needed to stop illegal immigrants from obtaining drivers' licenses.

If the act's mandates take effect in May 2008, as expected, Americans will be required to obtain federally approved ID cards with "machine readable technology" that abides by Department of Homeland Security specifications. Anyone without such an ID card will be effectively prohibited from traveling by air or Amtrak, opening a bank account, or entering federal buildings.

Sounds like the Mark of the Beast to me.