The indefinite detention clauses ( section 1021 and 1022) in the legislation are a direct attack upon the civil rights of all Americans and are in essence in breech of the US Constitution.  The detention closes represent yet another step taken towards an erosion of the freedoms which are the very foundation of American society. The detention sections of the NDAA give the Executive branch wide and unchecked powers to detain, via the US military, any person “who was part of/ or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.”

The law is ill defined and opened to interpretations. The provisions also target anyone who commits a belligerent act against the US or its coalition allies and aid enemy forces, under the “law of war without trial, until the end of the hostilities”. The text also authorizes trial by military tribunal, or transfer to the custody or control of the person’s country of origin, or the transfer to “any foreign country, or any other foreign entity.” The NDAA, if applied, would make legal the “rendition” program run in secret by the CIA during the Bush administration.

After signing the NDAA, President Obama made the clarification that his administration “will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens.” However, the only provision from which US citizens are exempted here is the “requirement” of military detention. For foreign nationals  accused of being members from al-Qaeda and other “terrorist” groups, military detention is mandatory. For US citizens it is optional. There is no exemption for US citizens from presidential power of detention, either by the military  or by civilian agencies such as the CIA, DHS or FBI, only from the requirement of military detention.

Civil rights organization such as the ACLU are vehemently opposed to the NDAA. In their view “The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this or future presidents to militarily detain people captured from any battlefield.” The call for action by this coalition of activists concerned by freedom and civil liberties is “No more left, no more right, time to unite. Stand and fight”.

Joseph Snook, from Wake Up America Southern Oregon is one of the organizers of Monday’s protest. He made the following statement:” A group of conservatives, Libertarians, and Tea Party activists by the name of Wake Up America Southern Oregon is proud to unite with the Southern Oregon Occupy Movement to take a bold stand against the NDAA. Further, it is time that “We the People”, all of us unite!”

Emery Way from Occupy Ashland stated: “Occupy Ashland is standing with libertarians, progressives, conservatives and the Tea Party alike to speak out against the attack against our civil rights which is the NDAA. In times such as these, when the injustices of a system and a government become too large to ignore, it is vital that we stand together not as members of a political party but as fellow citizens and human beings to defend our precious freedoms.”

Indeed bills like the NDAA,  in combination with the Patriot Act, are “legal” slippery slopes giving the executive branch the legal tools to potentially impose  martial law and  crack down on political dissent in a similar repressive fashion than the one used in fascist states. Let’s hope that this type of protest and action-uniting citizens across the political spectrum- to defend basic civil rights enshrined in the US Constitution become the rule and not the exception.

Editor’s Note: All photographs by Justin Norman.

BITAHR is a non-profit organization which ambitious goal is to eliminate commercial sexual exploitation. The event, Fighting Trafficking Through Film, organized in collaboration with The Suffolk University Law School, will be held at the Modern Theater at Suffolk University in Boston. The three days forum will showcase domestic and foreign films about sex trafficking. BITAHR has also invited speakers to the international event. More than 40 guests speakers will participate in the forum’s discussions to share their own experiences and perspectives, and to help define coherent strategies to fight human trafficking both domestically and globally. The speakers will include politicians, authors, survivors, and international activists against human trafficking. Among them will be Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, Kathryn Bolkovac, Representative Eugene O’ Flaherty, Rachel Lloyd (survivor and author), and  Siddharth Kara (UN adviser on human trafficking). BITAHR’s Executive Director, Rebecca Merrill, took the time to give News Junkie Post an exclusive interview.

Gilbert Mercier: What triggered originally your interest in fighting human trafficking?

Rebecca Merrill: I was driven by the impact that “The Day My God Died”, a film featuring Anuradha Koirala and Maiti Nepal, had on me both personally and professionally. After nearly a year of research, and the development of my own documentary during law school, I had the opportunity to sit with Anuradha and to discuss life’s passion and how it often drives one’s career. During that meeting, Anuradha admonished me to listen to my heart and to open my ears. Her voice was delicate but commanding as she asked me simply: “How can you not be passionate when you listen to the stories of these women and girls? How can you not do something about it?” Those words, the stories had a lasting impact on my academic studies and now professional life. Alas. I think it is a wonderful complement to pair the human voice and images with the research and theory.

GM: Sex trafficking is a multi-billion global business which is getting more and more controlled by large organized crime networks and no longer by small time local pimps. Do you think we need a global strategy to fight such sophisticated criminal organizations, and if so what would you recommend?

RM: Absolutely. Second only to drug trafficking, human trafficking is the largest criminal industry in the world, and it is the fastest growing. We need a holistic and multifaceted international strategy just to keep up with the growth of the industry, never mind to eradicate it. There are numbers of non-profits, agencies and individuals doing great work around the world. That said, we really need national governments and law enforcement agencies to work together against trafficking. We need governments to recognize that victims of human trafficking are victims in need of social services, not criminals subject to detention and deportation. There are circumstances where return to countries of origin is appropriate, but agencies have the responsibility to ensure return isn’t directly into the hands of the victim’s traffickers. All too often, victims are simply deported to the countries from which they were recruited, most often subjecting them to the same vulnerable circumstances and a mixture of societal shamming, family rejection and condemnation, and an inability to rejoin the workforce. Moreover, the circumstances giving rise to vulnerability are not typically eliminated but rather exponentially and detrimentally worse. If  governments worked together to provide victims with social services after exploitation abroad and at home, re-exploitation would not be such a threat. In addition, while we are seeing an increase in transnational crimes of exploitation, the “independent contractors”, if you will, still operate and regularly increase in number. This can be linked in large part to economics. Where there is a profit, particularly of the margin available through CSE ( Commercial Sex Exploitation), entrepreneurial criminals will find a way.

GM: Some countries, such as Germany, have legalized prostitution. Do you think it is a valid approach to end sex trafficking?

RM: No. I cannot recognize the legalization of prostitution as a valid way to end the sex trade. Legalization would not end modern-day slavery; it would simply empower pimps to continue manipulation and exploitation with less likelihood of identification because the line between “legal” and “illegal” would be so fuzzy. The rationale for legalizing prostitution is relatively easy to understand. Legislators, often pushed by well meaning advocates, may believe or accept that prostitution will happen regardless of legalization and, if legal, the laws will at least document the industry and license the “workers”, making it theoretically easier to provide healthcare and other services to prostituted women. There is also the feminist argument that a woman should be “empowered” to do what she wishes with her body, including selling sex. These arguments are flawed. Legalizing prostitution does not reduce the enormously harmful physical and psychological effects that being sexually exploited inherently caused. Women and girls who engage in prostitution do not choose to do so. The idea that prostitution is a choice does not take into account that in order to choose something, one needs to have several options to choose from. The majority of those in the sex trade- admittedly not 100 percent- in countries where prostitution is legal and illegal alike, are vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation due to a complex set of circumstances often including economic desperation, unrest or instability in homes or even communities or countries, psychological manipulation and more, not because it is a viable choice.

GM: Traffickers make an extensive use of the Internet and even of social media site to lure, recruit and exploit victims. Should this type of activities be more closely monitored by law enforcement agencies with perhaps the help of anti-trafficking organizations, such as yours, acting as a network of whistle blowers?

RM: It is true. Traffickers may use social media sites to recruit underage girls into commercial sexual exploitation. Once recruited, sites like Backpage.com are used to advertise sex with the exploited individuals – children and adult alike. The illegal age of children is disguised using language like “youthful”, “fresh”, “barely legal”, “tight body”. The Internet provides anonymity for the exploiting pimps and endless “choice” and anonymous shopping and exploiting for johns who are purchasing sex. In some areas, ordering sex is easier and cheaper than ordering a pizza. Screen names and pseudonyms make it harder to identify and prosecute pimps. In addition the “handles” provide protection for johns from the negative stigma that buying sex should carry. In reality, companies that facilitate this type of exploitation like Backpage, for instance, are just as guilty as the pimps that exploit minors, because they too, are making hundreds of thousands of dollars off the sale of the bodies of very young girls. Not only should law enforcement agencies monitor this type of behavior, they should shut down websites. The problem is that regardless of our pointing out that commercial sexual exploitation is happening online, the criminal facilitation must be prosecuted and punished. In addition, advertisers must take some responsibility – if they voice their opinions by pulling ads and affecting the facilitators’ bottom line profitability.

GM: In a phone conversation we had sometime ago, you mentioned that we are living in a “hyper-sexual” world fueled by popular culture, online pornography etc, and that it could be one of the reasons why a substantial number of men seek commercial sex or indulge in “sex tourism”. Can you please elaborate on this?

RM: Of course. Over the past few decades we have seen a shift from the most risque magazines including one spread with a suggestively clad woman, to a society where pre-adolescent boys see literally hundreds of thousands of images of nudity before they even reach middle school. When sex education comes in the form of magazines, the Internet, song lyrics and popular culture instead of from teachers and parents, it can be a very confusing topic for young men and women alike. By hypersexualizing children at a disturbingly young ages, we have diminished the gap between buying the idea of sex in the form of a magazine subscription or a calendar to buying the act of sex in a massage parlor, in a hotel or car, or even in one’s own home. When we see so many sexual images of women in circumstances that suggest that they are happy naked, exposed, in sexually dominated manners, we are normalizing the notion that girls and women should be dominated, subordinated and subject to sexually violent and aggressive behavior. These progressive and persistent images make it harder to believe that exploited are victims. Moreover, products like “loungerie” or “lingerie for girls” for four to six year old girls feed into this idea of children as sex objects and “sexy” as ideal for children.

GM: A cynical view of commercial sex, and a stereotypical rationalization of it, would be to say that prostitution will never be eradicated because it is “the oldest profession in the world”. Do you think, one day, men and women will be able to free themselves from the sick correlation between sex and money?

RM: It is true that commercial sex has existed in various forms over centuries throughout most if not all countries. It is also true that women have historically been subjected to oppression, domination and silencing. I am not sure that as a society we will ever be able to eradicate the correlation between sex and money. It is my hope, however, that as this topic becomes a priority for the feminist movement and society at large- and as women everywhere continue to fight for equal opportunities- that one day women and girls will have sufficient opportunities that they will not be so vulnerable to coercion and forced to prostitution. Females need sufficient opportunity to utilize their skills and abilities in a productive way that positively contributes to society. It is also our organization’s goal to spread awareness- in collaboration with a global coalition- such that it minimizes demand by educating purchasers on the harmful, long-term repercussions their exploitative conduct has on children, families, and the community.

GM: In countries of origins for victims of traffickers, socio-economic factors play a huge role. Does your organization reach out to local organizations in human trafficking hubs such as Cambodia, Nepal, the Dominican Republic, Lithuania, Estonia, Nigeria and Ghana?

RM: We are cognizant of trafficking atrocities around the world and do our best to spread awareness about it in each and among all countries. We are mindful, however, that to utilize our resources effectively we cannot work in every country or every issue in the complex effort to combat trafficking. We focus most intensely on domestic trafficking, that which happens within the borders of the United States. We are also working in conjunction with a Congolese-US NGO, Promote Congo, on a program that will focus on aid for girls and boys being trafficked for labor or sexual exploitation in the artisanal mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

GM: Do you think, realistically, that human trafficking can be one day abolished and how?

RM: At present human trafficking is extremely profitable for exploiters. If we apply a standard cost benefit analysis, we can see that the economic benefits of human trafficking far outweigh the miniscule risk(cost) of being prosecuted and the repercussions that might follow. As long as human trafficking is extremely profitable, criminals will continue to take the calculated risks. To reduce the occurrence of sex trafficking we must continue to raise the cost associated with prosecution, so that the risk of being caught and punished is no longer worth the economic benefits of trafficking while simultaneously reducing the revenue. To achieve this, we must change the way society looks at trafficking. We must realize that the victims of this exploitation are just that-victims. Instead of thinking of labor trafficking as poor individuals deserving of unfair labor standards or girls that “wear too much make-up” or “parade around in provocative clothing” as criminal prostitutes, we must identify these exploited people as victims and publish the traffickers. Without this identification, victims will continue to be plagued with negative stigmas, fear and vulnerability-some of the factors that very likely led to the exploitation at the onset.

GM: It is your organization’s first film forum. Do you have other events in preparation?

RM: BITAHR 2012 Film Forum: “Fighting Trafficking Through Film” is the second annual forum. Our first forum in December 2010 engaged audiences in compelling discussions. We also host periodic benefit concerts called (human) Traffic Jams, where we use music to bring together a community of young adults to raise awareness for the cause and begin a conversation that we hope continues throughout circles of friends, students, colleagues, neighbors, families, and more. This ongoing dialogue shines a light in what is currently hidden in plain sight-the commercial sexual exploitation of people. We also screen individual films throughout the year followed with gripping panels of experts in the field, again to generate a critical conversation and a reverberating call to action to end human trafficking. This March, we will host a conference on International Women’s Day entitled “Ending Impunity for Sexual Violence”. In addition, we will host a three part film series on organ trafficking in collaboration with a local university.

Editor’s Note: Photographs one and two (from top down) by Gilbert Mercier, other photographs and illustrations courtesy of BITAHR.

 

Muckrakers are important. They are good for society. They open our eyes to the underbelly of our lives. They often take us places where the average person either refuses to go or has no inclination to explore. More often than not, muckrakers lack style and art. Style suffers because what they want us to know is often more important than how they present it. Their interest is to expose injustice or evil, usually by revealing everything about the iniquity they are uncovering.

Muckrakers are usually investigative journalists who are interested in reform. They are watchdogs fierce in their approach to what is right, what is wrong. Lincoln Steffens, Upton Sinclair, Jacob Riis and Ida Tarbell were seminal muckrakers, who, because of their tenacity and strong ethical principles, were able to effect change where none seemed possible before they became involved in a cause that moved them to action.

 ”Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory,” the documentary film by Joel Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky about three men accused of murder, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, known as the West Memphis Three, is a muckraker’s delight. It recently had its world premiere on HBO in January 2012.

The filmmakers have been following this story for HBO since 1996 when they produced “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills,” followed by “Paradise Lost 2: Revelation in 2000.”  This is the third, and possibly the last of their documentaries on the subject, but the way this story keeps changing shape, and because the story still has life, you never know what will come next.

In 2011, after 18 years in prison, and the start of a new trial because of newly discovered DNA evidence, the state and the defense got together and created a plea deal for the accused men. They were allowed to plead guilty but to maintain their innocence. Once done, they were set free. But they have not been exonerated of the murders. Lawyers and support groups are working to properly clear their names of all guilt and a new trial is still possible.

 Though powerful in its heart, as art, the film has many problems. Terribly edited and poorly shot for the most part, it relies too much on local TV coverage of events surrounding the three then young men accused of killing three 8 year olds those many years ago. The film makes me think of an express train running out of control as it courses down what feels like an endless track. There is no voice-over narration and as such, the narrative comes from interviews and TV news reports. Though this technique is limiting, I can live with that.

 The filmmakers are so enamored with the idea that their cause is right, they seem unable to decide what information to leave in, what to leave out, and how to edit the interviews to allow the audience a better understanding of events. I doubt whether the filmmakers purposefully created a film where passion is the operating dynamic at the expense of quality and coherence. Because I cannot get inside the heads of the filmmakers, it is impossible for me to know if that was the case. But, I feel they rushed to put the film together. It is as if they felt they had to get it done before things change again, something they kept running into over the years. That is the reason why there have been three new versions of the story since 1996.

 I am sure than Berlinger and Sinofsky would say that my criticism is wrong. In making the film, or any film, there has to be a time when the audience can take a breath, when passion pauses and reason rises. It is as if the filmmakers are so anxious to convince us of the moral values of their cause, they forget that judicious editing would have helped the audience understand the information and process it better. In the film, sound bites are sound books. Mostly the local TV news spots move the narrative along with occasional headlines and the odd cutaway, but, in some cases, unless you know the story very well, you will not understand what the cutaway image means.

In most cases in a film, cutaways allow us to seamlessly move inside a sound edit. Here they fail either because the cutaway shot has nothing to do with the sound edit or it is so obtuse that only the editor who made the cut understands what he or she did. There is also a prurient strain to the film because most of the participants are what we would prejudicially call “rednecks,” not well-educated men and women, the poor of the poor. A strong film about underdogs gives people in the establishment an opportunity to appear sacred by exposing them to the profane, a place where they rarely go or spend much time.

 Nominated for an Oscar as one of five in the class of 2011, if heart and soul are all that matters, this film has a good chance of winning. Joel Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky are muckrakers. But in his film, they are not very good artisans. The passion that rules the story and the care for the victims is what makes people admire the film and makes the film worth seeing. As far as filmmaking goes, I think the producers, as experienced as they are, need a course in Filmmaking 101.

That devastating news will fuel Deborah’s undoing and ultimately prove her salvation. “Even Tough Girls Wear Tutus” chronicles her emotional downward spiral from angry adolescent to volatile drug addicted young criminal, and her triumphant recovery and reinvention as an advocate, speaker and writer.

During a chat last week, Deborah discussed the arduous, but cathartic writing process as well as her future hopes for her Non Profit, The UnPrison Project, that sends her all over the country speaking at women’s prisons and conferences.

Ironically, Deborah first fictionalized her story and shopped it as a novel. Remember this was some years back when all those phony memoirs fell off the shelves in the wake of the big James Frey fake memoir Oprah betrayal brouhaha. “Once they ( editors and agents) heard it was a true story, they kept saying it should be a memoir, but I didn’t want any part of that.”

So she put it away for a while. But our stories have a way of nagging at us, until they just spill out, no matter the anguish. ” It’s not like my story is ever far behind. I can relive the whole thing in a minute. But I wrote through a lot of wet pages,” she concedes. “I had to peel the real story out of the novel.”

And the real story is one of the most raw and riveting books I’ve read in recent memory. As a writer and a teacher and creativity coach who works with writers, I am blown away by Stein’s authentic voice; there’s nothing sentimental or apologetic about it. Here, give a listen to an excerpt from one of her presentations, and you’ll hear what I’m talking about.

It’s that unconditional love of her parents, as well as the education and opportunity to develop her creativity that save her. In case you were wondering, this is where the tutus in the title come in. As a young girl, Deborah is introduced to dance and loves it, but thinks a girl born in prison is unworthy of the elegant art. That’s one of the many heartbreaking revelations. Another is when, as an adult, she finally returns to tour Alderson and is ushered into the very cell where she spent her first year of life. Her visceral reaction stirs an emotional tsunami that took me by surprise in the middle of Starbucks ( that’s okay; it gave me a chance to share the book’s potency with a few fellow patrons). There’s also a beautiful reconciliation scene with her mother, so long in the coming, it will likely pull at your heart.

“Most of the women–whether they have any real education or not–are thirsty for change. They know they need it. They want to believe it’s possible,” Deborah says. “And I know having an education helped me change. It gave me a way to get out of my head, a new way to look at the world. I know it can do the same for so many others.”

And there are certainly many to help. The facts about women in prison are staggering. Women are the fastest growing population in U.S. prisons, with over 1 million serving time; that’s 1 % of the female population. 75% of these women are mothers, most with kids under 18. 2.3 million minor children, most under 10, have a parent behind bars. Between 4 and 7 % of women entering prison are pregnant. The majority of incarcerated women are sentenced for nonviolent drug offenses and over 85% are in drug and alcohol abuse programs.

I’m not passing out Get Out of Jail Free cards; so the hardliners who usually toss cyber tomatoes at me about now, can hold their fire. But there’s got to be a better way, folks. So many people languish in prison for excruciatingly long sentences, often for crimes largely against themselves. As a society we have to change this,. Somehow, some way. Even some red meat Republicans are starting to see the wisdom of sentencing and prison reform, even if that change of heart is propelled by the fiscal bottom line, it’s a start.

Speaking of starts, as part of the UnPrison Project, Deborah Jiang Stein would like to fund college scholarships for the daughters of prisoners at Alderson and eventually other prisons. “I want to give them and their children a way of reframing their world. the way I’ve reframed mine.”

Of course, you don’t have to have a prison story to be affected by this book. I think everyone can relate to the powerful grasp secrets can have on a person, the emotional lockdown they can slam on a vulnerable psyche. It’s the sharing of those secrets, whether to the world or just yourself, that is so liberating and transformative. That’s why writing can be therapeutic. And reading a book that gushes rage and regret in equal measure with reconciliation and hope can illuminate the strength and grace of the human spirit. “Even Tough Girls Wear Tutus” is one of those books.

Please follow Amy Beth Arkawy on Twitter.

In case you did not know it, SOPA in everyday English is Stop Online Piracy Act. Its main supporters are in Hollywood, TV, big music, and other major entertainment. Its opponents are the largest Web companies and the legions of naïve people who believe the passage of such an act would impede their right to freedom on the Internet.

For the moment, SOPA is in the official wastebasket where Washington bills go to die when so much of the public rises up to shout it down. Now our esteemed lawmakers believe SOPA, though necessary, needs clarity and better direction. It is hard to argue with the failure of the original bill. It is not worth the effort to try to pass that bill and to have big entertainment, big Internet and everyone else against it for different reasons important to each.

Do not be deceived by the millions who signed online petitions to scrap SOPA. The so-called little guy, Mr. and Mrs. grassroots, is simply a pawn in the hands of the big Internet boys who control the WEB. Do not be deceived by the black banner atop Google in protest of the bill. Just because you signed an online petition, keep in mind that the battle is still between the bigs: Hollywood and TV versus the Internet giants. It is not so much that one is against the other as much as it is how does each side best get what it wants, absolute freedom on the Internet versus controlled use for big entertainment and how it presents online what it believes it owns.

I am against piracy of intellectual property, even if the property is weak or poorly conceived. You may ask, who is not. I am against the theft of who I am when cookies ingest everything about me when I spend time on the Web. Everyone else should also feel this way, but people do not. Thus, companies such as Amazon and others are hypocrites because all they are doing is protecting their own turf. I am against hypocrisy but who is not, you say. Many who are on both sides of the argument are hypocrites because they try to hide the reality of Web commerce under the guise of freedom.

I do not believe what anyone on either side of the debate says. Both sides are using the average person, however good or bad his or her creation is, to advance its concept of freedom and ownership. They are working hard to hide one’s history on the Web and how it affects sales of products and sales of ideas.

We should all be for creativity. Many people I know agree that creativity is a gift and one of life’s joys. The Internet is the greatest platform for creativity ever. It opens enormous possibilities for anyone to post what he or she believes is their contribution to humankind. I am not arrogant when I say that most of what is on YouTube, other file sharing sites and found in millions of blogs is not very good. It is usually drivel and laughable in that we laugh at the effort, not at its humor or sense of fun. Most of what is in cyberspace is not worth my time. Attack me if you want. Please. But realize first, that just as not everyone can be a professional athlete, not everyone is capable of creating something that has lasting value. Just because you can post anything you want on the Internet for which you usually receive no pay, the act of posting does not give the work value.

We live in a society where sharing is free, especially in the world of social media. On social network sites free is the operating value system. It is the new normal, what people expect because the Internet is there for all to use as they wish, they think. Only one’s time is at stake. It strikes me that for the current generation, sharing and ignoring personal ownership is often more important than personal achievement. Many pundits believe that owning the copyright to a personally created work is a sin. If they could, they would eliminate copyright. They want to limit its length based on the idea that everyone should benefit from a copyrighted work even if they do not compensate its owner. Everyone, that is except the person who created the work.

Creating anything – art of any kind, a widget, an app, you name it — is hard work. If I create something on my own using my own time and money, or, better yet, with someone else’s money why should I not profit from or share in the profits from my enterprise without fear that someone will steal what I created. I do not subscribe to the idea that better creation will result based on earlier work. Why do the users and distributors of everything on the Web believe they should have a free ride of the back of my creative endeavor? Using another person’s work is fraudulent.

I come from a culture, or a time not too distant from the one we are living in, that believes you should own all or most of what you make with your mind or your hands. That is not the norm today. A certain amount of pleasurable, yet evil anarchy exists on the Web. There is a shoot first and ask questions later attitude toward what people own. If someone sees something they like, they post it for all to see, to possibly enjoy it without regard to its copyright. Then, if there is a complaint, they apologize, they take down the video, the photo, the written work, and everyone seems satisfied except the person or group who created the entity in the first place. The damage done, the violator gets an insignificant punishment or none at all, and goes out for another latte. Such is life.

Let me be clear. I am against piracy of intellectual property, even if and when – most of the time, by the way – it has almost no value to most people. Whether it is well conceived or poorly done, I have to admit it has value to its creator. I am against the unbridled, underhanded use of my personal information and creativity without my permission by either big entertainment or big Internet.

The voice of the creative community must make itself heard. Despite being unorganized, the creative community cannot allow those who use the Internet for gain of any kind to dominate ownership. Whatever replaces SOPA must be worth the journey or else anyone who thinks the Internet is free, however anyone uses it, had better think again.

Also SOPA’s justification is to block mainly foreign websites providing illegal content, the vaguely defined provisions of the bill would allow the removal of  content including political and other speech from the Internet, which are, in principle, protected by the US constitution as freedom of speech. SOPA would allow the Attorney General to create a blacklist to censor sites even if no court has found any infringement of copyright or any other law.

“If we let that happen, that would mean they would be barring access to content that is protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution. And who knows how far the censorship would go after that. We can’t let that stand. This is a matter of protecting everyone’s constitutional right to freedom of speech. The bill as it stands now infringes on our constitutional rights,” said ACLU’s Executive Director Anthony Romero. The ACLU is adamantly opposed to the SOPA bill, and on November 16, 2011 the organization submitted a detailed statement to Congress.

If you don’t want to be left in the dark, and live in a neo-fascist Orwellian society which curtails civil liberties, free speech and the freedom of the press take ACTION NOW to stop SOPA or it might be too late.

Sex slavery is not limited to brothels is Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines or the Dominican Republic. In countries where prostitution is legal, like Germany, traffickers, pimps and dangerous organized crime organizations such as the Russian mafia or ethnic Albanians are controlling most sex workers, even the ones who claim to be “independent”. According to recent estimates, there are currently around 200,000 children between the age of 12 to 15 who are sold for sex by pimps/traffickers every year in the United States. The problem is  epidemic, and it often hides in plain sight.

The Obama administration- under the impulse of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton- has declared January 2012 the “human trafficking prevention month”. Even so it marks a desire from the US government to focus on the issue, the problem is so vast and global that this action is unlikely to make a dent. It is likely that the only positive impact will be to raise public awareness on the issue. By issuing its Trafficking in Person Report 2011, the State Department has been active in tracking human trafficking worldwide, country by country, and unlike previous reports the current report had the honesty to identify the United States as one of the hubs for modern day slavery.

Sex Trafficking, Globalization and the Internet

Until the communication revolution of the Internet, sex trafficking was mainly confined to brothels and street corners. But since then, the information super-highway has given criminal organizations the tool to turn sex trafficking into a multi-billions a year enterprise. It is more profitable than drug and weapon trafficking for a very simple reason: once a 100 kilos shipment of cocaine or heroin has been sold in the streets, it is gone. On the other hand, the “investment” made by human traffickers on the buying end- in women or children- will keep turning a profit over a fairly long period of time. Often large criminal organizations work together to control the recruitment of the victims, the transit and the enslavement at the destination point. The Russian mafia and Albanian gangs have the upper hand in Europe, and often work in association with recruiters/pimps in the Middle-East-where the biggest hub/distribution point is Beirut, Lebanon- to provide Estonian, Ukrainian or Lithuanian women, which are in “high demand”,for the rich “buyers” of the Gulf.

In Africa, the two biggest sources for human trafficking are currently Nigeria and Ghana. In a scheme that is more or less universal, women are recruited locally- often by other women- under the pretense of job opportunities aboard. But once they have reached their destination, either Italy, Greece, Belgium or Germany, their passports are taken away by pimps, they do not have legal immigration status, and they are forced to prostitute themselves-usually after being severely beaten and raped- to pay off the debt of their transit to Europe. According to a recent report from the British police, 75 percent of the sex trade in the UK is controlled by brutal Albanian gangs. In Germany, 75 percent of sex workers come from former Eastern block countries.

In the West, the Internet has become the number one platform for buying women and children for sex. Victims, from various countries of origin, are trafficked through pseudo-independent, but in reality pimp controlled escort services, chat rooms, and even “dating” web sites freely advertizing on the internet with ads such as “Meet Russian women online”. In the United States, there are countless brothels disguised as “massage parlors”, and in the burgeoning strip club business industry, “exotic dancers” are in fact turning tricks in VIP rooms. In Texas, migrant women from central America- either from Guatemala or El Salvador- are lured into crossing the US border by Coyotes working with local pimps, Mexican gangs and Salvadorian/US gang MS13, and will likely end up being sex slaves in Cantinas or massage parlors.

Human Trafficking: A Tragic Symptom of a Broken World

The cynics will say that prostitution is the “oldest profession in the world”. However, very few women enter this line of work willingly. In all cases they are forced into it by adverse socio-economic circumstances. The fall of the Soviet Union, and the rapid rise of Russian organize crime in its aftermath has flooded Western Europe and the Middle-East with an unprecedented influx of former Eastern block women seeking the dream of a better life and hoping to support their families back home. It is the same for poor women and children in rural areas of Thailand, Cambodia or the Philippines who are bought by local recruiters- for sometime as little as $150.00- and then shipped to Japan where they will become sex slaves in brothels controlled by Yakuzas.

Sophisticated criminal organizations are exploiting a situation of despair created by a global system where human beings are not much more than a resource and a commodity. Mega international corporations have outsourced countless jobs to seek a labor pool which can be paid slave wages, just like global organized crime has found a gold mine in human trafficking. And fundamentally, Albanian gangs, the Russian mafia, MS13 or the Mexican drug cartels are applying the same brutal rule of “free market” capitalism-which is to provide a product for a demand-with 30 millions enslaved human beings.

On the tenth anniversary of the arrival of the first illegal detainees at Guantanamo Bay, hundreds of protesters tolerated DC’s winter rain to express their disappointment, and anger, at President Obama and the most despised and ineffective congress that Americans have ever had to tolerate.

A ninety minute rally that educated the large crowd that gathered on the subject of America’s human rights and international law violations was followed by a march past the White House to the Capitol building.  Protesters dressed as detainees, complete with the all too familiar black hood, were paraded past in a line that continued for almost a quarter mile.

While some ‘detainees’ showed markings that emulated the documented abuses carried out by American military service personnel stationed at GITMO, such as cigarette burns and human feces, others were locked in cages, like animals.

Hundreds of detainees have been the victims of the human rights violations perpetrated by the American military at Guantanamo Bay prison.  The United Nations, Amnesty International, and a growing number of Americans, have all condemned this illegal and immoral practice.

The illegal invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, combined with the illegal detention of those country’s citizens, should result in the prosecution of, at least, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld.  Additional charges should be pursued against anyone on their staff, or in their cabinet, that participated in, or facilitated, the execution of these illegal acts of international belligerence, the war crimes that ensued – including illegal imprisonment, torture, and murder – as well as the personal profiteering from these crimes for which they are all guilty.

President Obama, the 111th congress, and the current 112th, now have the onerous distinction of joining the Bush gang as conspirators after the fact.  And, the American people are not innocent in these charges.  Too much time has passed without taking responsibility for the actions of their representatives. This government is designed to be of, by, and for the people.  With that great honor comes great responsibility.

America is already gearing up for yet another war, this one against Iran.  Will the cells at Guantanamo once again fill up?  Will more people be caged like animals, without due process?  Will more people be mistreated, abused, tortured, and murdered?  Will America’s elected leaders once again tempt reprisals from those who would visit on America’s citizens the terror that the American government visits on them?

It’s time to end the madness.  The 10th anniversary of GITMO is no less disgusting than the 10th anniversary of 9/11.  Unless we wish to add to these sad memorials, and testaments to our brutality, we need to take responsibility for our actions, and our reactions.

Editor’s Note: All photographs by Liam Fox

Naturally, this world order of corporations has been made at the expense of the 99 percent. Companies take their manufacturing operations where ever labor is cheap and preferably not organized. The countries with strong unions end up losing countless good paying jobs while the work opportunities migrate to parts of the world where products can be manufactured for a small fraction of the cost. Anti-globalization activists have been aware of this for a long time, but until now, they have fought a losing battle. Some anti-globalization activists see national market protectionism as a solution. But it is unrealistic and shortsighted. In fact, it would make matters even more difficult for 99 percent of the world population. We are dealing with a global problem, and only a global strategy to fight the corporatist world order has a chance to succeed and, down the line, offer a worldwide solution.

Chronologically, credit has to be given to Julian Assange’s Wikileaks for exposing the lies of countless governments and corporate entities. Wikileaks and their Anonymous allies, by shinning the bright light of truth on secrets and misinformation, lifted the veil on how a majority of  people have been deceived by the powerful for decades. Without this global catharsis, made possible by the global information revolution, it is unlikely that the Arab revolution would have begun a year ago in Tunisia. But Wikileaks and Anonymous’ virtual cyber war on behalf of the truth and against our current world order of corporate imperialism had zero chance to succeed without a massive involvement of people in the real world.

Wikileaks seeded the revolutionary process on line, but the Arab Spring provided the guts and blood to make it grow by challenging dictatorial rulers and their military and police apparatus. While Egypt’s revolution is still a work in progress, it is undeniable that its global geopolitical impact has not only changed the complete Middle-East, but is also echoing everywhere else, including in the United States. Egyptian activists gave their support and spoke to the Occupy movement in the US when it started three months ago. Egyptian revolutionaries are fully aware that they have, by example, inspired the Occupy movement.

Now it is still a matter for the various branches-either local, regional or national- of the Occupy movement to connect the dots and coordinate specific actions. It is also an issue of defining a global platform of what could be a sustainable world governance by the 99 percent for the 99 percent. But Occupy and Anonymous activists should keep in mind that time is “of the essence” in this epic global fight ahead. The world order of corporate imperialism has military and police on its payroll, either private or public, and they will do whatever it takes to maintain the status quo. In the United States some new “legal” tools of repression in the form of the NDAA and SOPA are about to be implemented which would make America a de facto police state. This type of coercive legislation is likely to be copied elsewhere. This assault on civil liberties, basic human rights, and personal freedom which such legislation represents must be fought quickly, smartly and globally by the Occupy movement and their allies of Anonymous. The global 99 percent have the critical advantage of number, but they are outgunned by the mercenaries of the 0.01 percent.

In one of his typical flip-flops, President Obama originally said he would veto the Levin/McCain bill, but instead he announced two days ago that he would sign the controversial NDAA into law. Human rights and civil rights organizations worldwide are up in arms against the bill. The ACLU, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have all condemned the NDAA in the strongest terms.

According to the ACLU, the NDAA will authorize all future US presidents to order the military to imprison people indefinitely without charging them of any wrong doings or putting them on trial. The NDAA will aslo give unlimited war authority to the US executive branch of government. The ACLU also says that the provisions of the NDAA are inconsistent with fundamental American values embodied in the US Constitution, and that the bill is an”unacceptable attack on fundamental freedoms”. The far reaching detainee provisions in the NDAA, codify indefinite detention without trial into US law for the first time since the McCarthy era. In 1950, the US Congress overrode the veto of president Truman to pass the Internal Security Act.

“By signing this defense bill, President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial into US law. It is a sad moment when a president who has prided himself on his knowledge of and belief in constitutional principles succumbs to the politics of the moment to sign a bill that poses so great of a threat to basic constitutional rights,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. Roth added that president Obama cannot “justify this serious threat to basic rights on the basis of security”. Roth further argued that the signing of the  NDAA will provoke a “global outrage that will delight recruiters of terrorists”.

Amnesty International is also vehemently criticizing the NDAA. “The NDAA enshrines the war paradigm that has eroded the United States human rights record and served it so poorly over the past decade as the country’s primary counter-terrorism tool. In doing so, the NDAA provides a frame work for ‘normalizing’ indefinite detention and making Guantanamo a permanent feature of American life. This legislation establishes a two track system of justice by distinguishing between US persons- citizens and resident aliens- and foreign nationals. It is a betrayal of the most fundamental principles of justice and equality before the law,” said Amnesty International’s Tom Parker.