Liberties Groups Research Articles

Counter‐terrorism and the Regulation of Civil Society in the USA

ABSTRACTThis article examines the impact of counter‐terrorism measures on non‐profit regulation in the USA, where some of the most interventionist legal and policy responses took hold soon after the brutal attacks of September 2001. It highlights the sternness of these measures by comparing the US approach to counter‐terrorism and charity regulation with that of the UK. It suggests that the different institutional arrangements for charity regulation in the two countries account in part for different treatment and policy choices, with implications for civil society groups working domestically and overseas. The article particularly analyses the impact of legislation and policy on the American philanthropic sector, and the responses of civil society to measures enacted and undertaken in the USA. It argues that groups directly affected by the new legislation and hardened policy, especially Muslim charities and some civil liberties group, have openly resisted these measures, while mainstream non‐profit sector and philanthropic institutions have often acquiesced in the introduction of new policies, ‘guidelines’ and legislation, opposing them only when they felt directly threatened.

Cultural Contact and Linguistic Relativity among the Indians of Northwestern California by Sean O'Neill

policy to latereffortsto secureminority rights in Canada. While Bangarth contributes significantly to our understanding of thesemovements in a comparative context, her treatment of the ACLU issometimes puzzling. Based on archival research, Bangarth demonstrates sharp divi sions over the issue (not unlike Judy Kutulas's The American Civil Liberties Union and the Making of Modern Liberalism, University of North Carolina Press, 2006). This detailed discussion makes clear that theorganization s national board quickly backed away from opposition toExecutive Order (EO) 9066 and refused to sponsor severalof the testcases chal lengingwartime restrictions.Yet, her framing of theACLU as theprinciple group opposing the policy of removal and incarceration, and references to itsopposition "from the begin ning," imply a stronger, more consistent stance (p. 52).During her discussion of the responses of theAmerican peace churches, forexample, Bangarth claims that "they were relatively quiet" in thewake of EO 9066 because "the ACLU, as a long-established and well-known civil liberties group, was leading the charge in thepolitical sphere" (p. 86). The confusing message about theACLU's role also extends to Bangarth's discussion of the court cases. Early on, she notes that theACLU "national board did not participate (in the test cases) until 1944, inEx Parte Endo" (p. 59). Later, shewrites aHirabayashi, Korematsu, Endo, and Yasui became testcases,with theACLU participating only inHirabayashi and Korematsu (p. 138). Clearer, more consistent distinction between the foot-dragging national ACLU and its West Coast affiliates,whose leaders were far less conflicted,would be helpful. Given thefocus on Canada sCCJC, an orga nization formed specifically to respond to the removal order,one wonders why Bangarth did not focusmore on theCommittee onNational Security and Fair Play. Like theCCJC ? but unlike theACLU, an organization thathad a much broader focus and was quite conflicted on the removal and incarceration issue ? the California based Fair Play Committee dedicated itselfto theNikkei issue, testifying at Congressional hearings, orchestrating a public relations campaign, helping with resettlement issues, lobbying officials, and coordinating with allied groups.Despite itsleadership on the issueand theparallels between itand theCCJC, Bangarth mentions theFair Play Committee a scant threetimes. Amore detailed examination of theCommittee might also help illuminate the extent towhich the civil liberties language ofAmerican dissenterswas due to theACLU's influence. Despite these issues,Bangarth's study makes several important contributions. Her compara tivetreatmentofNorth American Nikkei poli cieswill be valuable to students of both Cana dian and American history. She is compelling inher argument that the differentdiscourses of rightsused by opponents ofNikkei policy in the two countrieswas significantand had a lasting impact on subsequent minority rights movements, especially in Canada. Ellen M. Eisenberg Salem, Oregon CULTURAL CONTACTAND LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY AMONG THE INDIANS OF NORTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA bySeanO'Neill University ofOklahoma Press, Norman, 2008. Illustrations, maps, notes, index. 356 pages. $50.00 cloth. Sean O'Neill's book stands as proof that the American School of Anthropology, as estab lishedat thebeginning of the twentiethcentury by Franz Boas, stillhasmuch to tellus about the traditional culturesofPacificNorthwest Native peoples. Some suggestive observations on the lowerKlamath River region by Edward Sapir, one ofBoas's most influentialstudents,provide O'Neill with his startingpoint.Here are speak 140 OHQ vol. no, no. i ers of three main languages ? Karuk, Yurok, and Hupa ? that almost could not be more different;yet all three ethno-linguistic groups sharea regional culture souniform as to make it "difficult to say what elements intheircombined culture belong in origin to this tribe or that, so much at one are they in communal action, feeling,and thought" (Edward Sapir,Language, Harcourt-Brace, 1921, p. 214). It is fair to ask why these threelanguageshave not become far more alike than they indeed are, considering their speakers' long history of close contact, inter marriage, andmultilingualism. Inpursuit of an answer to thisquestion, O'Neill reviews recent research on the social dimensions of linguistic variation. These languagesmay have remained so different precisely because theirspeakershad become otherwise so alike, language offering one potent means among others for asserting a sense of local identity. Much ofO'Neill's book isan extended explo rationof the threelanguages' respectivesystems forclassifyingand structuringexperience,with an emphasis on cultural referencesembedded in those systems.The perspective informing the study ? the so-called "linguistic relativ ityhypothesis,"which holds that language has...

Essay: The Limits of Conscience: Moral Clashes over Deeply Divisive Healthcare Procedures

Refusals by individual pharmacies and pharmacists to fill prescriptions for emergency contraceptives (“EC”) have dominated news headlines. The refusals reflect moral and religious concerns about facilitating an act that would cut-off a potential human life. Recently, conscience-based refusals have ballooned far beyond EC. Pharmacists are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control, and other ancillary care professionals are asserting their own conscience concerns. Not surprisingly, these refusals have drawn complaints from civil liberties groups, which have urged regulators to discipline professionals refusing to perform requested medical services. Although refusals to dispense have been treated as a monolithic whole, they encompass a range of conduct, some of which is already illegal under existing law. Worried about access issues, some state legislatures have responded with special legislation. Other states protected the conscientious refusals of both individual pharmacists and pharmacies, bringing them within the scope of traditional conscience clauses that date back to Roe v. Wade. Significantly more states mandated the provision of EC, either by statute, executive order, or pharmacy board regulation. Approximately twenty states are actively considering what action, if any, to take. This Essay does not address the constitutionality of duties to fill prescriptions for Plan B. Instead it asks whether states should provide conscience clause protections even if they are not constitutionally mandated. In other words, this Essay asks whether such protections are good public policy. It begins in Part I by mapping the ethical terrain of competing interests and by explaining why the recent decision by the United States Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) to make Plan B available behind the counter eases, but does not erase, the opportunities for conscientious refusals. Part II then reviews the rich history of conscience protections dating back to Roe v. Wade. This Part illustrates that conscience protections need not be all-or-nothing, winner-take-all accommodations. Instead, many traditional conscience clauses balance the patient’s need for access to a medical service with the need to respect a provider’s religious or moral convictions. Parts III and IV then examine how the policy trade-offs change when the policy focus is on pharmacies as opposed to individual pharmacists. Part V assesses the role that urgency should play when deciding how to proceed. It rejects as inadequate both regulatory directives to individual pharmacists to fill all valid prescriptions and laissez-faire, market-based approaches that impose no duties. Drawing on traditional conscience clauses, Part VI offers a live-and-let-live response to the collisions over EC and other divisive healthcare procedures. This approach addresses valid concerns about patient access while preserving an individual provider’s ability to step aside when the costs are minimal. This proposal rests on the core proposition that society should be more concerned with the autonomy of individual providers than the autonomy of pharmacies. Furthermore, placing duties on pharmacies is more likely to effectively address patient access issues than duties on individual pharmacists.

Religious Organizations and the “Relocation” of Persons of Japanese Ancestry in North America: Evaluating Advocacy

While both Canadian and American historians have offered a variety of explanations for the causes of the relocation of persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II, they show remarkable unity in the belief that few Americans or Canadians opposed the removal, or sought to protect the rights of Japanese-American and Japanese-Canadian citizens or non-citizens. This is not, however, entirely true. For example, the Cooperative Committee for Japanese Canadians (CCJC) was a Toronto-based umbrella group composed of representatives of Canadian missionaries, influential politicians, liberal-minded professionals, and other persons concerned with safeguarding the human rights and freedoms of Japanese Canadians during and after WWII. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an established civil liberties group with a widespread mandate, led the offensive in the U.S. through legal challenges in the Supreme Court. Additionally, in both Canada and the United States groups other than the CCJC and the ACLU agitated for the fair treatment of persons of Japanese ancestry. Many of these groups were religious organizations, especially from the denominations, in addition to the American Friends Society and, in both countries, the YMCA. In cooperation with the CCJC and the ACLU, the assaults by religious organizations on the relocation and (in Canada) on the deportation policies symbolized the growing interest in egalitarian rights which had already begun to emerge during WWII and which influenced human rights activism in Canada in subsequent years. This paper will assess the role of religious groups in advocating for the rights of persons of Japanese ancestry in North America. While the efforts of some who opposed removal and relocation was unquestionably inadequate and largely represented compromised positions, it is important to note that these activities should be understood within the difficult political context of their times. In addition to the representations made to government officials, the pamphleteering, the day-to-day ministering to the internees, the numerous petition campaigns and letters to the editor, for example, represented a creative and an eventually effective opposition to the rigid anti-Japanese racism of the day. Many of these individuals and organizations cooperated with the CCJC and the ACLU, and the nature of this cooperation will also be examined in this paper. More broadly, this study will demonstrate that attention to racial equality was fundamental for many church and religious activists. In spite of evidence which suggests the limitations of these individuals and groups, they were an integral component to the advocacy movement that eventually forced both the Canadian and American governments and peoples to reconsider the treatment of persons of Japanese ancestry in North America, and the issue of racial discrimination, in general. The role of the in North America in the relocation (and, in Canada, the deportation) debate has been largely ignored in many leading historical accounts of the relocation. (1) (For the purposes of this article, the term, Christian refers to the Protestant and Catholic denominations. It does not include the Peace churches. Hereafter, any reference to the has been shortened to churches for stylistic effect.) Other historians and commentators have accused these of supporting government policy on racial or other grounds. F.E. LaViolette, for example, argues that religious leaders and laity shared some of the anti-Asian stereotypes that long marked both British Columbian and Canadian society. (2) The focus on the churches' role in mobilizing opposition to governmental persecution of persons of Japanese ancestry in North America has been examined only recently in detail. Regarding the Canadian events, Ross Lambertson has noted the support by various. bodies for the work of the CCJC, while Michael Hemmings has outlined the response of the many religious denominations across Canada to both relocation and deportation. …

Stakeholder Perspectives on Police Complaints and Discipline: Towards a Civilian Control Model

This paper examines the case for independent investigation and adjudication of complaints against police, and the implications for restructuring of public sector institutions concerned with integrity. The need for external review of police in-house investigations is well established. However, there is now an accelerating trend for civilian agencies to go beyond review to engage directly in investigations and to have much greater input into disciplinary decisions.This paper reports on the experiences and principles behind this trend, focusing on the points of view of specific actors and stakeholders.These include commissions of inquiry, oversight agencies, complainants, police, the public, civil liberties groups, government review bodies and miscellaneous bodies. The perspectives of each of the groups were analysed to develop a distinctive “civilian control model” for maximising stakeholder confidence in police integrity.The model entails police management responsibility for primary misconduct prevention and informal resolution of complaints, with external agencies having control over the investigation and adjudication of complaints.The paper also argues for efficiency gains from integrating police oversight within a larger public sector integrity commission, especially in countries with large numbers of small police departments.

Stakeholder Perspectives on Police Complaints and Discipline: Towards a Civilian Control Model

This paper examines the case for independent investigation and adjudication of complaints against police, and the implications for restructuring of public sector institutions concerned with integrity. The need for external review of police in-house investigations is well established. However, there is now an accelerating trend for civilian agencies to go beyond review to engage directly in investigations and to have much greater input into disciplinary decisions.This paper reports on the experiences and principles behind this trend, focusing on the points of view of specific actors and stakeholders.These include commissions of inquiry, oversight agencies, complainants, police, the public, civil liberties groups, government review bodies and miscellaneous bodies. The perspectives of each of the groups were analysed to develop a distinctive “civilian control model” for maximising stakeholder confidence in police integrity.The model entails police management responsibility for primary misconduct prevention and informal resolution of complaints, with external agencies having control over the investigation and adjudication of complaints.The paper also argues for efficiency gains from integrating police oversight within a larger public sector integrity commission, especially in countries with large numbers of small police departments.

Closed Circuits of Interaction?

Are CCTV images of such evidential strength that they speak for themselves? If not, then for whom do they speak? CCTV cameras form a growing presence in Britain's high streets. There are estimated to be 2.5 million cameras in operation in Britain, there is an increase in legislation relating to cameras and there is increasing concern amongst civil liberties groups about cameras' effects. Claims are frequently made such as 'if you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about' and 'CCTV evidence is clear to see.' These claims depend upon acceptance of the proposal that CCTV images are simply left to speak for themselves and that CCTV staff do little interpretative work. However, to investigate these claims, we need to ask: How do CCTV systems actually operate in practice. How are identities for CCTV images made 'clear', accounted for and mobilized? What work is done to promote the notion that we have nothing to worry about with CCTV? How do issues such as 'surveillance', 'privacy' and 'public' become implicated within these identity production processes? This article seeks to tackle these questions through the interrogation of a single story involving a high-street CCTV system, local police, local residents, a national television company and civil liberties group. This analysis of interactivity (based on a broadly ethno-methodological remit) augments current sociological accounts of CCTV. Instead of accepting panoptic metaphors as a means of understanding CCTV, the article will open up the closed circuit of CCTV through an analysis of the pantopticon in practice.

Prostitutes' Clients, Ken Livingstone and a New Trojan Horse

Abstract: Recent legislation has taken a tough line with the clients of prostitutes. This is interesting given that such approaches have been resisted in the past by, amongst others, civil liberties groups and Members of Parliament. In this article we take a look at the legal and social history of prostitutes' clients. We examine the shifting socio‐legal definitions of men who purchase sex from women, in order to make apparent the influences that underpin the recent legislation. Our discussion concludes with comment on the state of contemporary debate following the Home Office Review, Setting the Boundaries, as we look to the Sexual Offences Bill 2003, and with it the possibility of the creation of a new Trojan horse.

Hollywood ups ante in copy protection fight

The little analog-to-digital converters found everywhere in computing and consumer electronics might, if the entertainment industry gets its way, become the new front line against illicit copying of movies and music. Not surprisingly, the industry's proposal to hardwire copy protection into all these converters has provoked a storm of indignation among consumer electronics producers and civil liberties groups. Concerned that movies might be redigitized, with no copy protection. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) wants analog-to-digital converters to recognize a copyrighted video or audio signal and prevent it from being copied. However the MPAA's plan will be hard for others to accept. Royal Philips Electronics, joined by Microsoft and other dissenting consumer electronics companies, has already voiced dissatisfaction with the report. More manufacturers and the companies that incorporate the converters in their products are expected to follow suit and fight the MPAA proposal. Privacy advocates also are up in arms.

Bush's initiative could help groups that promote faith healing

Civil liberties groups, secular pressure groups, and some doctors have expressed concern at President George Bush's decision to set up a federal bureau for faith based social services. Religious groups will be able to apply for government funding. The American Civil Liberties Union, the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and the Anti-Defamation League, have all objected to the plan. Some paediatricians are also worried that groups forbidding parents to take their children to doctors, encouraging the use of faith healers alone, will receive funding. A research study published in 1998 showed that …

Outpatient commitment: what, why, and for whom.

The authors describe studies showing the effectiveness of involuntary outpatient commitment in improving treatment compliance, reducing hospital readmission, and reducing episodes of violence among persons with severe psychiatric illnesses. They point out that because of its role in enhancing compliance with treatment, outpatient commitment can be regarded as a form of assisted treatment, such as assertive case management, representative payeeship, and mental health courts. The authors argue that such assisted treatment is necessary for persons with severe psychiatric illnesses who are noncompliant with their medication regimens because many lack awareness of their illnesses because of biologically based cognitive deficits. They recommend outpatient commitment for any individual with a severe psychiatric disorder who has impaired awareness of his or her illness and is at risk of becoming homeless, incarcerated, or violent or of committing suicide, and they provide case examples. The authors conclude by addressing eight of the most common objections to outpatient commitment by mental health professionals and civil liberties groups that oppose outpatient commitment.

NEWS AND COMMENT ON RECENT DEVELOPMENTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD : Civil liberties groups outline opposition to Council of Europe computer crime convention

NEWS AND COMMENT ON RECENT DEVELOPMENTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD : Civil liberties groups outline opposition to Council of Europe computer crime convention

Re-hearing “Fighting Words”: Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire in Retrospect

Re-hearing “Fighting Words”: Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire in Retrospect SHAWN FRANCIS PETERS Introduction For several grim years in the early and mid-1940s, vigilantes in nearly every state of the union brutalizedJehovah’s Witnesses. Targeted largelybecause theyrefused to salute theAmerican flag (such ceremonies were idolatrous, they felt), Witnesses throughout the United States were pummeled in everything from riots involving hundreds ofpeople to scuffles among a handful of men. Amazed at both the scope and the savageness ofthis persecution, the faith’s most promi­ nent attorney remarked in dismay that hundreds ofhis co-religionists were “beaten, kidnapped, tarred and feathered, throttled on castor oil, tied together and chased through the streets, cas­ trated, maimed, hanged, shot, and otherwise consigned to mayhem.”1 Witnesses were so widely and viciously abused during the war years that some observers outside the faith—most ofwhom were careful to distance themselves from the victims’ controversial beliefs—compared their plight to the persecution ofreligious minorities in Nazi Germany. “Nothing parallel to this exten­ sive mob violence has taken place in the United States since the days ofthe Ku Klux Kian in the 1920’s,” the American Civil Liberties Union reported in 1941. “No religious organization has suffered such persecution since the days of the Mormons.”2 The Supreme Court of the United States’ notorious ruling in Minersville SchoolDistrict v. Gobitis, handed down in June of 1940, helped to ignite some of the worst anti-Witness violence ofthe period. In an opinion writ­ ten by Justice Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court dismissed a claim that the enforcement of a public school district’s compulsory flagsalute regulation violated the Witnesses’ right to free exercise ofreligion.3 Frankfurter’s ma­ jority opinion in Gobitis dealt the Witnesses a heavy blow, in part because its timing was so “FIGHTING WORDS” 283 unfortunate. A number of European countries, including France, were in the process ofbeing overrun by Germany in the spring of 1940, and many Americansbelieved that a secret network ofNazi spies and saboteurs—a “Fifth Column,” it was called—was at work in the United States. In many small communities, the Witnesses, who not only spumed the flag salute but also deni­ grated “patriotic” groups like the American Legion, were accused ofdistributingun-Ameri­ can propaganda and thus attempting to lay the groundwork for a German invasion. Frankfurter’s opinion in the Gobitis case did not directly impugn the Witnesses’ loyalty, but in many small towns it was misinterpreted as official confirmation oftheir disloyalty. Thanks to the incendiary combination of the Fifth Column scare and the Gobitis opin­ ion, the spring and summer of 1940 proved to be especially grueling for the Jehovah’s Wit­ nesses. Civil liberties groups in all but four states reported anti-Witness rioting in that pe­ riod. “What stands out as indisputable fact,” The Christian Century asserted, “is that in many widely separated parts of the country mob ac­ tion has been stirred up against these people and scenes of disgraceful violence have oc­ curred.”4 In June of 1940, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Section was swamped with reports ofhundreds ofanti-Witness disturbances, many ofthem led or encour­ aged by police officers. Just days after the re­ lease of the Supreme Court’s opinion in the Gobitis flag-salute case, vigilantes ransacked and then burned a Witness Kingdom Hall in Kennebunk, Maine, sparking several days of rioting in the area. In subsequent weeks, large and violent anti-Witness demonstrations also erupted in Litchfield, Illinois; Rockville, Mary­ land; Jackson, Mississippi; and Richwood, West Virginia. With accounts of mobbings of Wit­ nesses crossing his desk almost daily, a bewil­ dered Solicitor General Francis Biddle reported that “self-constituted bands ofmob patrioteers are roaming about the country, setting upon these people, beating them, driving them out oftheir homes.”5 Mobbings and other forms of vigilantismbecame less frequent as WorldWar II progressed (in part because fears ofthe Nazi Fifth Column ebbed), but the American Civil Liberties Union and the Justice Department continued to field reports of anti-Witness in­ cidents long after V-J Day. The best estimates suggest that a total of between 800 and 2,000 attacks on Jehovah’s Witnesses were reported in the United...

Are the Expectations for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act Being Realized?

When President Clinton signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act1 (RFRA) on 16 November 1993, there was jubilation among the dozens of civil liberties groups that worked on this legisla tion—a measure unique in the entire history of U.S. church-state rela tions. At the same time, many observers who participated in the evolution of RFRA and saw the overwhelming margins by which it passed the House and the Senate had to wonder whether a law related to such a complex and contested area could have much bite if it was adopted with virtual unanimity. Three years later that problem remains. Questions continue to rise and multiply. Was the law oversold? Did it get watered down on the way to passage? Did the framers and the promoters of the law have clear and precise objectives? Could they have framed a measure that is too vague to be really meaningful? RFRA was the product of the anger that exploded when the Supreme Court decided Employment Division v. Smith;2 that still dreaded opinion held 5 to 4 that the courts could not invalidate a law of general applicability even if the law made the observance of the reli gious freedom of an individual or a group more difficult or impossible.3 Over fifty law professors including this author submitted a brief asking the Supreme Court to review its ruling; the request was denied.

Do Courts Respond to the Political Clout of Groups or to Their Superior Litigation Resources/“Repeat Player” Status?

This is the first attempt to classify factors that are raised in the scientific literature concerning factors related to litigation success by organizations. It develops a three-part typology, suggesting that litigation success has been linked to the litigation resources of litigants (including the fact that they are “repeat players”), the political clout of litigants, and more general organizational resources.It then proceeds to test the relative weight of these three factors by studying abortion cases decided by federal district courts from January 22, 1973, the date of Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), to 1990. Specifically, the 126 organizational litigants involved in these cases completed surveys, which gathered information on all three factors. A general picture is that the federal courts were not responsive in post-Roe v. Wade abortion cases to the litigation-related resources of groups and even their repeat player status. Instead, court outcomes in abortion cases were linked to political factors, with civil liberties and Planned Parenthood groups receiving preferential decisions from the federal courts.In entering decisions that generally favored Planned Parenthood and civil liberties groups, the courts may have been responding to the well-established reputations of these litigants as guardians of individual rights or may have been reluctant to rule against these politically powerful groups.

A Few Hard Cases? Sport, Sadomasochism and Public Policy in the English Courts

The decision of the House of Lords in R. v. Brown has been well documented as one which has serious repercussions for the civil liberties of homosexuals within the United Kingdom, its most notorious ramification being that one cannot consent to the infliction of injury upon oneself in the course of homosexual sadomasochistic activities. The case continues to arouse strong passions in the gay press and amongst civil liberties groups, and the recent announcement that the European Court of Human Rights is to hear the appeal of the men involved has confirmed that this particular “hard case” will continue to exercise the minds of legal practitioners, academics and others for some years to come.In addition to its implications for sadomasochistic activities, Brown indirectly raises a myriad of other issues. One of these is the question of to what extent the courts should intervene in the case of injuries inflicted during the course of sporting activities. Although the Crown Courts (where the most serious criminal cases of England and Wales are heard) have recently shown an increased willingness to intervene in cases where the injuries inflicted are particularly severe, my preliminary research suggests that the prosecuting authorities are reluctant to bring such cases to court, although they almost certainly would do so if an incident which gave rise to similar injuries had occurred in a nonsporting context.

Major Chemical Producers Toughen Stance on Drug Abuse

Most major chemical companies have instituted mandatory drug abuse testing of new hires over the past year and have either laid the foundation for or tightened operational procedures for coping with employee abuse of illegal drugs. Of 22 major chemical producers that responded to C&EN's request for information, virtually every one has instituted drug testing procedures for new hires, many just since January of this year. An additional company, ICI Americas, is framing a corporate policy it plans to announce to employees in the next few months. Most if not all of the companies have looked into the legality of testing employees for use of illicit drugs and are grappling with their responsibilities to employees even as some union representatives and representatives of civil liberties groups voice concern over employees' rights to privacy. Regardless of whether they subject employees to periodic, random, or for-cause testing for drug abuse, almost every company C&EN surveyed said it ...

New Evidence of FBI “Disruption” Program

'J NCE again, striking proof of the U.S. rulers' hatred and deep fear of even minimal gains in the black freedom struggle has come to light. The new information is contained in previously-secret FBI disruption documents released in March of this year as part of a farreaching civil liberties suit. Filed in 1973 by the Socialist Workers party (SWP) and the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA), the suit seeks an end to all illegal government spying, harassment, and disruption. It is being handled by the Political Rights Defense Fund, a civil liberties group. The 3,100 pages of secret memos outline the FBI Cointelpro (Counterintelligence program) operation against the socialists that began in 1961. At that time FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, in motivating Cointelpro against the socialists, wrote in a memo that the SWP has, over the past several years, been openly espousing its line on a local and national basis through running candidates for public office and strongly directing and/or supporting such causes as Castro's Cuba and integration problems arising in the South. The new memos present only the outlines of the FBI's operation against the socialists because many of the pages, like in other documents forced loose from the FBI, are

Chile After Allende: A Tale of Two Coups

As the policies of Chile's military rulers unfold, differences have already appeared among the anti-Allende forces in the United States as well as in Chile. The differences are not insignificant insofar as they reflect not only changes in personnel (civilian vs. military), but different positions regarding forms of political rule, the role of the military, and socio-economic policy. What appeared as a united effort between political parties and military officers to prevent the "communization of Chile" is no longer visible. The stronger party to the coup, the military, has discarded its political associates, the Frei-led Christian Democrats (PDC), and feels free to impose its own policies through direct representation in the government. In this the military has the support of the smaller upper-class-based National Party and the terrorist ultra-right Fatherland and Liberty group (together representing about 20 percent of the electorate).This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The First International and the Russian Obshchina

Russian revolutionists in the 1870s had a long history of opposition to build on—from the massive Pugachev peasant rebellion during the reign of Catherine the Great to an aristocratic conspiracy (Decembrist Revolt) at the end of the reign of Alexander II. They also drew on a rich indigenous fund of social criticism and programs, the latest and most important of which were the writings of Alexander Herzen and Nikolai Ogarev, the proclamations of the Land and Liberty group, and the radical economic articles of Chernyshevsky.