Evolving Consciousness

I watched a DVD entitled from Atom to Cosmos last night, which is an explanation of Itzhak Bentov's works. First there was an interview with Mr. Bentov, where he described physical evolution. He drew a Bell Curve and at the beginning of the curve were those humans who are ape-like, gorillas and are those people who are, say, 3 feet tall -- and at the end were people who are 7 feet tall. In the middle were the average people somewhere around 5'6" to 5'8".

Then Bentov went on with the same bell curve and illustrated Evolution of Consciousness.... he demonstrated that the people on the left are the gorillas and the people in the middle were the average people, and then people on the far right of the Bell Curve were those who are more evolved consciousness-wise.
He asked the interviewer, where do you think you will find these people on the far right of the Bell Curve? Before reading the answer, think about it.....where would you find these people with highly evolved conciousness?

The interviewer responded, "in our universities, professors, scholars and the like."

Bentov just smiled and giggled a little under his breath. The interviewer said, "what? did I say something wrong?" Bentov said, "you know where I think you will find them?" The interviewer, puzzled, asked "no, where?"

Bentov said, "in the nuthouses. That's where we will find those with above average extremely highly evolved concsiousness."

Wow. That reminds me of a conversation I was having with my friend Pam, a transpersonal psychologist. She said the same thing.

So on we go, with Bentov's interview. And he said, eons from now....(i don't know if he literally meant eons)..... the average human will be here.... pointing to the right side of the Bell Curve... where today's highly evolved humans hanging out in nuthouses are. And that today's average man will be tomorrow's retarded person.

whoa.... deep

The rest of the video is an explanation of Bentov's theory....just exactly how our consciousness evolves... and BOY is it Kozmikerrific! the Kundalini Awakenings are just a bit of the evolutionary process. That's all i can say...



What in the WORLD is a Kundalini Awakening?

Evolving Concsiousness II-- The Banana Spin
Ok, so Bentov says that the humans walking the planet today with extremely highly evolved consciousness are in the nuthouses. Why?

Bentov explains that all of us have the God consciousness, because there are many different levels of consciousness -- some are predominantly on higher levels, yet the consciousness of all Humans exists on every level... some humans predominantly hang out on higher levels than others, yet we overlap all the way up to God Consciousness. Think of an upside down triangle with lines drawn across it so that there are 5 divisions. The top of the upside down triangle is God consciousness, and the lowest level being the lowest level of consciousness. Now think of different humans being on different levels.... yet overlapping.
Lowest level equals 1 (this is where the gorillas are, if you will); and Highest Level Equals 5.
Suzie hangs out mainly on level 3. Sometimes she goes up to 4, heck! She's been known to go all the way up to 5! but for the most part she's on 3.
Joe hangs ous predominantly on level 4. Sometimes he goes up to level 5, but for the most part he's on level 4.
Thus, there are some things that both Joe and Suzie perceive and share consciousness wise.

So what I believe is that those in the nuthouses the ones who are on higher levels for the most part.... are able to perceive the consciousness of those humans who are predominantly on the lower levels. They have better functioning antennae, if you will.... and they can perceive what you are perceiving, but because their conscious reality is so much greater than ours.... it can make them seem crazy to us...as they perceive what you perceive. Does this make sense?

Not only are they perceiving and trying to interpret their own reality, to which we can not relate, because we are not 'UP THERE' with them on that regular basis...they are trying to integrate their reality with yours... which is inconceivable to us...we just write them off as nutsos.


Maybe they're not even trying to do that, but instead choose to just hang out on their level. "Autistic" people are coming to my mind here.

For example. One time I was at an Indian Museum, which was an Indian Burial Site from 4000 years ago. In the 1960s and 1970s, scientists and archaeologists dug up the bones of the people that were buried there 4,000 years ago. I was meeting with some folks, including some Native Americans to perform a prayer ceremony....
I was the first one at the museum. As I was waiting in the lobby at the museum for the rest of the people to come for the prayer ceremony, a bus from the Mental Health Institute pulled up with a bunch of mentally ill patients... for "a trip to the Indian musuem!! Yay! Fun!"

One of the men that was a mental health patient walked into the museum, and he seemed quite normal to me. I couldn't tell how old he was. He could have been anywhere from 19 to 45, really. He was not tall. He was about 5'4" but what makes me remember this guy after 13 years is his reaction as the mental health people tried to get him to go further beyond the museum lobby.

On the way to the grounds, where the "village" exists... where the Choctaw Indians show you arts and crafts, and how to make blowguns and arrows and basketweaving, you have to go through a "tunnel." It's not really a claustrophobic tunnel... it's actually more like a hallway. Well this is where the people had been buried. This is where they were laying at rest for 4,000 years before being dug up.

There are no signs nor indications that this tunnel is where the ancient indigenous people had been buried. I don't know how I know that. But it is a fact that this is where the dig was conducted. No one told this Man that this was where the Indians were buried, nor is there any indication that the people on the bus even knew the history of this Indian site... that it was in fact, originally, an Indian Burial Site. It is simply known as Chucalissa Indian Village .

This "mentally ill" man did NOT want to go through that tunnel. He was screaming and begging for them to "please not make me go in there! PLEASE!!" He tugged and pulled away from the people. I swear it sounded like a torture chamber.

I couldn't help but stand there in awe of what I was witnessing. I knew what that man was feeling... not quite what he was seeing... but knew that it had to do with the fact that this was where the ancient people had been buried for 4.000 years and it was scaring him to be in that tunnel.

What else! does this man see, perceive... that we who are not as evolved as he, perceive? And why are we so quick to write this guy off as CRA-ZEE?

I can just see what the psychologist is writing down... "Joe has a phobia of Hallways." yea right. "Joe is afraid of ghosts." yea right. "Joe is afraid of going into an early grave." Closer......

Banana On Feminist Issues

Why don't I care about Feminist issues? I don't get it. I care about everything else that's "progressive" but I just don't get motivated when in this area. Maybe it's because I'm lazy.

I think there is a part of me that secretly wishes that women didn't have to work. Ha ha. I know. I should remember all the ladies who fought for my "liberation." I should remember that when My grandmom went to college she could only decide between 2 things for a major; (1) education; or (2) sociology. She picked Sociology. Then after graduation, instead of marrying some guy who turned out to be the D.A. somewhere in North Carolina, she ran away from him when he proposed and she joined the Air Force -- and subsequently met my most awesome grandfather and got married and settled down.

After having babies, she had a nervous breakdown. Kind of like the lady from the Ya Ya Sisterhood (I can't remember the character's name), the Mother of the main character in that book. Ashley Judd played her in the movie.

Well grandmom had one, too. Something tells me it was because she wanted to get out there and do things that men do. You know? Work in the same fields as the men. Instead she owned a fabric store, and was unsatisfied with her life.

Shouldn't my grandmom's story motivate me to want to be "all that I can be" as a liberated woman? Well, it doesn't. I never wanted to play football with the boys and I don't want to work with them either. I just want to be a stay-at-home mom. Or I think I do. Maybe if I really was one I wouldn't want to be one. Who knows? bla bla bla

Water

Please check out this site, and educate yourself about what is going on today in the World regarding water shortages, and wars over water.

Bolivia leads the way in fighting off corporations that are trying to take control of our most precious natural resource on the planet...water.

Read this book as soon as you can, and think twice before buying Evian, Naya, Dasani (Coca-Cola water), and Pepsi brand water.

Cheers!

Favorite Pyschic Scene In a Movie

The movie is "The Right Stuff." It is a movie about Chuck Yeager, the man who broke the sound barrier.

In the first half of the movie, this scene. Chuck had already broken the sound barrier, by reaching Mach 1.

But oh no! He got beat out by Scott Crossfield who reached Mach 2, and the press was all over it, like white on rice.

The news reporter wanted to turn this into a sensational competition, rivalry between Yeager and Crossfield, yet the brothers would have none of it.

Chuck gets up, goes to the bar to get a refill of beer in his glass.

As Chuck is standing there with his back toward Crossfield, the pilot tipped his beer bottle in a toast to Chuck. Without seeing him or looking at him, with his back still to him, Chuck raised his glass to Crossfield in return.

Indigo Children

Supposedly there is supposed to be this phenomenon involving more and more Indigo children coming to this earth. I don't remember where I first stumbled across this idea, that there are non-earthling souls entering the bodies of earthlings, who are supposed to come here to help the human beings ... to save them.

So I went to a website, and learned more about indigo children, and I thought wow! This website is describing me, other than the fact that I don't have blue eyes. But after reading it one can see that it applies to everyone.

Supposedly you have to have blue eyes to be an indigo.

Here are characteristics of an "Indigo Child" :
Characteristics

Carroll and Tober identify ten attributes that they believe describe Indigo children[1]:

1. They come into the world with a feeling of royalty (and often act like it).
2. They have a feeling of "deserving to be here," and are surprised when others do not share that.
3. Self-worth is not a big issue; they often tell the parents "who they are."
4. They have difficulty with absolute authority (authority without explanation or choice).
5. They simply will not do certain things; for example, waiting in line is difficult for them.
6. They get frustrated with systems that are ritually oriented and do not require creative thought.
7. They often see better ways of doing things, both at home and in school, which makes them seem like "system busters" (non-conforming to any system).
8. They seem antisocial unless they are with their own kind. If there are no others of like consciousness around them, they often turn inward, feeling like no other human understands them. School is often extremely difficult for them socially.
9. They will not respond to "guilt" discipline ("Wait till your father gets home and finds out what you did").
10. They are not shy in letting it be known what they need.

**************************************************************


Other than not having blue eyes, most of what is described of an indigo child is me. I am somewhat psychic, sometimes I wish I wasn't. I have a fine-tuned memory of things that happened to me before I was born, things that happened to me when I was a small baby. I also am very rebellious, and have pursued a career in law to use to turn against the evil that is wreaking havoc on us, disturbing the balance that is struck. Ever since I was a child I knew the answers to things. Adults never listened to me, and it frustrated the hell out of me.

But does this make me an indigo child? I Doubt it. I am special, but I am not any more special than the next person.

We all have our unique gifts.

As for the psychic thing, it really started to hit when I started smoking pot. One day as a teenager, while working at the dry cleaners, while wearing these tight purple pants, I dropped something. My ass was facing the man customer. When I bent down to pick up the thing I dropped on the floor, I felt this vibration, like I was being penetrated, and I heard the man's voice in my head. I turned around and looked at this man, and he had this horny look on his face. I was somewhat offended, yet flattered at the same time.

One day I was at Ted's house. The first time I met Ted, we both just looked at each other, feeling this fuzzy feeling swarming around us. We both had a look of curiosity on our faces, and then at the same time we said to each other, "I know you from somewhere before." But we had never met. Yet at this point of meeting each other, we spent a lot of time together. We had sex, it was not fantastic, because I was not into him that way, so then He got angry with me. And started messing with my head, scaring me, freaking me out. Because his voice was inside my head and he was laughing while doing this to me. Then he held up the palm of his hand and said, "what do you see?" I saw the Rolling Stones logo, the Mouth.

I can't stand the Rolling Stones. I told him what I saw and he said yep. So then he started messing with my head even more, to the point I started having crazy dreams. So I knew that I could go to my theater professor about this. I had never talked to her about any of this stuff, and one day after class I said, "Professor, I need to talk to you about something that is not related to class, but it is an emergency that I am having." Concerned, she said, "okay, let us go to my office."

She took out a shell and lit some sage and cedar and stuff, and burned it at the threshold of her office. I said, "you are going to think that I am crazy, but I have been having a guy who is messing with my head, and I had a dream about you, and you were able to help me so this is why I am here." I went on about how he was getting into my head, I could hear his voice echoing in my head, and then I told her about him showing freaky things with the palm of his hand. Little holograms of images. She said, "oh that is known as the black mirror." Then she helped me find my center, and I quit hanging around Ted.

So anyway, that is one example of hundreds of what I perceive on an almost daily basis.

But back to the Indigo Children phenomenon. I don't really know a whole lot about it, but what I believe, is this is not a new phenomenon. These are not souls of extraterrestrial life force, any more than the others, if there are others and whatever they may be, occupying the bodies of human beings. These are people who have been around since the beginning of time. Should we be giving them this special label? I don't know.

I wonder what my Chickasaw spirit people would say? HOw can I know because they are not in their place in space.... instead they have been taken apart and put on display for people to see.

I do not see this as 100% disastrous, I see it is a bringing of an awareness, of just how it important it is that the ancestral ways be recognized, honored, respected. Not treated as blasphemy, heresy, or whatever the words may be to justify killing anyone who practices these ways.

Snake Dance may ye live on in the people!

(wish i could say something in Chickasaw here, but since I can't I will just say

~~ Shundahai ~~

And as for there being only a certain class of "indigo children" I say bullocks. This could be some people some time, some people all the time, all people part of the time, and all people all of the time.

It really is a choice one makes. The whole psychic thing. Ted wanted to see if I was game, but I was not in that way.

Instead like many people I have come across, my way is more of focusing in on the nuclear thing.

Which brings me to the "Sister China" dream that I had. In the dream I was risen up over the West and looking to the East, and there she was, from around the horizon, risen up from the East, beyond the waters.

She looked at me as ugly American greedy asshole sons of bitches, because I represented America. She represented China, and I remember conveying to her, "let us not look at each other as something just because of from where we come. You and me, we are sisters. Please do not be angry at me."

But it was too late, because behind her was a bright light of an A-bomb explosion, as it exploded, like slow motion, she turned and caught a glimpse of the mushroom cloud, and then turned around back at me.

Sister China's facial expression changed... from anger at me, to being angry at the bomb. Her expression changed to fear not of me, an American, but of the A-bomb.

The next day I was at the bar for a NASA meeting, when what's his face who worked at the Earthquake Research Center told me that China conducted a nuclear test while we were sleeping and that it measured 3.4 on the Richter Scale.

Oh China.

1872 Mining Stuff

http://www.themountainmail.com/main.asp?SectionID=7&SubSectionID=7&ArticleID=11248

Mining companies digging our pockets
Guest Opinion

by Ryan Alexander

Thursday, June 21, 2007


When lawmakers make legislative mistakes, it can take a long time to fix the error. That's the nature of a deliberative body. Wednesday was the "birthday" of one piece of legislation that has taken longer to fix than any other we know of - the General Mining Act of 1872 (more commonly referred to as the 1872 mining law).

The "granddaddy" of federal subsidies is alive and going strong, but rest assured we won't be throwing it a party or buying it presents. No, the only ones getting presents today are the gold, copper and other mineral companies that are the beneficiaries of 135 years of subsidies and giveaways.

The 1872 mining law robs taxpayers by allowing companies to "patent" - take title of - public lands for the rock bottom price of $5 an acre (that's a measly 31 cents per acre when adjusted for inflation!), a giveaway signed by Ulysses S. Grant as a way to help populate the western United States.

Once they have purchased this practically free land, mining companies are allowed to extract metals and minerals - an estimated $245 billion worth over the years - without paying a dime in royalties.

To be clear, we are not talking about subsidies going to the old '49ers who set up camp during California's gold rush back in the 19th Century. Today, minerals are mined by big companies making even bigger profits.

Every year, billions of dollars of gold, silver, and copper are taken from public lands, and Uncle Sam is literally giving the stuff away.

In 2006, Australian-based Rio Tinto reported profits of $7.9 billion and Canadian-based Barrick Gold Corporation sold over $4.4 billion worth of gold. It total, these two companies alone hold 39,322 claims covering 785,490 public acres in the United States.

Unlike other extractive industries, hard rock mining companies can dig for gold, silver and other precious metals and minerals on taxpayer-owned lands for free. Coal, oil, and natural gas companies must pay a royalty back to the U.S. Treasury that runs as high as 16 percent of the value of the resource they extract.

It only makes sense that these companies pay a royalty. Taxpayers should not give away free commodities that private companies will turn around and sell. And it shouldn't be any different for mining companies.

According to a recent analysis of government mining records, just 10 mining interests, five of which are foreign-owned corporations, own more than one-sixth of all claims.

These 10 companies hold 86,396 claims, representing 1,720,380 acres of public lands. In 1993, the largest of these companies, Barrick Gold Corporation, patented claims in Nevada for a mere $10,000. The estimated mineral value of those claims was $10 billion.

Adding insult to injury is that taxpayers foot the bill for billions of dollars in cleanup costs when mines are stripped bare and abandoned. One estimate puts the total cleanup cost at between $32 billion and $72 billion.

Reform of the 1872 mining law is more urgent than ever. Taxpayers have already given away many billions of dollars worth of metals and minerals, and new energy trends indicate the pace of the giveaway could accelerate without congressional action.

With the nuclear power industry pushing to increase their market share, companies looking to mine uranium have staked hundreds of new claims on public lands in the West hoping to cash in. Speculation in recent years has already caused uranium prices to double, and with gold and silver prices riding high, the pressure is like never before to exploit the bygone 1872 mining law for private gain.

As that mining law grows another year older, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.V.) is leading an effort to modernize it. You can be sure that the deep pockets of the mining industry will fight like crazy to keep the subsidies flowing, so it's going to take a lot of hard work to ensure that substantial reforms are enacted and taxpayers are protected. Let's just hope we don't have to wait another 135 years for reform.

Ryan Alexander is president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a non-partisan federal budget watchdog. Column distributed by MinutemanMedia.org.


=== EARTHWORKS
Protecting Communities and the Environment ===

GEORGE BUSH VISITS A NUKE PLANT

George Bush visits Browns Ferry in North Alabama today. I am not surprised that this is the way that George would want to spend the Summer Solstice.



This nuke plant is the same one that was the subject of a security breach last August 2006. The Department of Homeland Security wants answers from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on just how this security breach happened. Unfortunately I haven't had time to fully research this issue, because I am struggling with learning the difference between comparative negligence, partial comparative negligence, specific intent crimes vs. general intent crimes, admissibility of evidence and whether it is past recollection recorded, or present sense impression recorded, and all aspects of judicial review... all of which comprises roughly 8% of the Bar Exam material that I will need to know to pass the Bar Exam so that I can better serve the anti-nuke fight.

This blog post is here to memorialize the fact that I need not forget about Browns Ferry and the security breach of August 2006 that was covered up until last month of 2007. To serve as a reminder that this is one of my first projects after taking the Bar Exam, on top of many other pressing issues. I have a cousin who works at this plant! Although a staunch Republican who is so lost from his indigenous roots that he doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground, thanks to the wonderful brainwashing techniques of Fundamentalist Bible thumping melded with the societal pressures of living in a small Southern town, it's okay, because cousin here has his back.

How DOES Energy Effect Us?

Seekers of light and those basking in it, talk Energy. Energy work, healing... the energy of color and sound.

Well there is a Dark Side to Energy too. And here is a story about it.

~~~ energy work ~~~

This is why i am opposed to digging up graves of the ancestors. specifically my american indian ancestors.

the other day my mom and i went to a museum in alabama, and found that they have human remains on display, in violation of NAGPRA.

what disturbed me even more was the fact that they had all the items of a medicine person, that the medicine person was buried with on display.

to many native peoples. this is a grave (pardon the pun) mistake.... to disturb the ancestors like this.

this medicine woman/man was buried with a big shell behind the right side of her head, a crystal at her left elbow, a clay water pitcher, and some other things at her knees and her hip bones.

all of this stuff should be put back with the bones of the ancestor.

Earth is a living organism, and is a part of the whole energy that makes up the cosmos. the ancient people had a far better understanding than what christianized, moslemized world society has today, of the workings of the energy, the universe and our place in it.

natives also believe that we come from Earth, that we are part of Earth... for what energy reasons?

to disturb the energy the way the archaeologists did, to me, might be one reason why things are screwed up.

yes, and i feel this way about Egyptology, and all other intelligent homo sapiens that have walked Earth and who have burial rites and reasons for being put to rest the way they were.

we should return all of these things to ther rightful place and with the right people with whom these objects were buried, and how. and we should have people knowledgeable of the rites and ceremonies -- or as close to it as possible, perform the repatriation ceremonies.

maybe then things might be better on this planet, energy-wise. maybe not 100% cured, but better.

where these people's graves were disturbed and violated by the ignorant archaeologist, now lays a nuclear power plant.

tell me, that isn't something?

Cherokee Nation v. Georgia -- Banana Commentary

The Supreme Court of the United States (hereafter called SCOTUS), held that the United States Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction to hear the matter of "The Cherokee Nation v. The State of Georgia," because the Cherokee Nation was neither a State nor was it a Foreign Nation.

Chief Justice John Marshall argued that the United States Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction to hear the case, because the Cherokee Nation is not a State, because there were Cherokee policies that were adverse to the United States' interests. Well that is a whole enchilada of an argument there, but even if the Cherokee Nation could is not a State, what would the Cherokee nation be? Wouldn't it be a foreign nation?

According to Chief Justice John Marshall, no. Justice Marshall reasoned that the Cherokee Nation is not a Foreign Nation, because they are not "foreign" to the United States. We could take the Scalia approach and break down the dictionary meaning of "foreign" to make it mean what we say it means in relation to the United States, but John Marshall did not even bother rationalizing his error, knowing clearly that he was in error in finding that SCOTUS did not have jurisdiction over the case.

But even if one lets Justice Marshall have his way, without reason, the meaning "foreign" as it refers to Indian Nations relations with the United States, the Supreme Court of the United States does indeed have jurisdiction to hear the case.

Article III, Section 8 of the United States Constitution: Congress has the Power to ‘regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.' This is a case where the Cherokee Nation was in dispute with the State of Georgia over "hunting lands." This is clearly within the scope of Congress' commerce powers. The State of Georgia did not have the Power to determine the hunting lands of the Cherokee Nation, for this land was under Cherokee control at the time of this dispute. And Congress, on the other hand, under Treaty, could work symbiotically with the Cherokee Nation, then its regulatory function in this case might not be unconstitutional itself.

So basically, this case is an example of how words can be manipulated to mean one thing when they really could mean something else, all depending on who is making the decision and whether he can do it without Prejudice, something John Marshall should have learned better in Law School.

American Mt Sinai in Danger of Ethnocentric Urban Sprawl

America's Mt. Sinai In Danger of Ethnocentric Urban Sprawl
Current mood: scared

On the Northeastern edge of the Black Hills, just a few miles from the small town of Sturgis, off Highway 34, lies one of the most sacred mountains to the Plains Indians from the United States and Canada.

Up to 60 different tribes traveled to Bear Butte to fast and pray. Separated by about 8 miles of prairie from the greater Black Hills, which are also considered sacred by these same nations of people, Bear Butte looks like a sleeping bear lying on its side with its head pointed toward the northeast.

Today, people from all over the world come to Bear Butte to pray, to meditate, to try to experience some of the spiritual connection that has been there from the beginning of time.

It is at Bear Butte that Native American tribes received spiritual messages and gifts. In the holy books of the Christians, Moslems, and Jews, it is stated that one of their spiritual leaders, Moses, did the same thing on Mount Sinai when he received the ten commandments.

More than 4,000 years ago, a Cheyenne man named Sweet Medicine received guidance and gifts for the Cheyenne people at Bear Butte. Today, the Cheyenne people continue to come to Bear Butte to fast and pray. Some of the Southern Cheyenne must travel hundreds of miles from Oklahoma where they were displaced by the United States cavalry in the late 1800s when the Cheyenne nation was under threat of extinction.

Geologists, on the other hand, call Bear Butte a lacolith, or a bubble of magma that did not become a complete volcano. They say this happened millions of years ago. Yet the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) people call this place, Groaning Bear. How did the Oglalas know that this mountain groaned?

Non Indian archeologists estimate that Native people have been present in the Black Hills for 11,000 years. The origin stories of the Lakota people tell of the time of the arrival of the Sioux people on the face of Mother Earth through another sacred place, now called Wind Cave. Lakota people also have stories of when dinosaurs, called giant lizards, roamed the earth, of when tiny horses were here, and cats with huge teeth stalked buffalo. These stories date back much farther than 11,000 years.

All the tribes of the Sioux people: Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota, came to Bear Butte to pray...and still do. The months of May, June, and July will see families camped at the base while a relative is standing on the side of the mountain fasting in deep meditation. Small colored pieces of cloth containing pinches of tobacco are wrapped around trees and bushes as prayer gifts to the Creator. Larger flags of red, white, black, or yellow, the sacred colors, also are tied to trees to carry the prayers to all the directions.

Bear Butte, the mountain proper, is currently a National Historic Landmark managed by the South Dakota Game Fish and Parks Department. Although a few parcels of adjacent land has been purchased by some Native American nations, the rest of the surrounding area is ranchland, or is being sold to developers. Two drag racing strips, a biker bar, a convenience store, campgrounds, and housing developments are all located within a few miles of this sacred place.

By Charmaine Whiteface

~~~~OrGAzMz For PeAcE ~~~~

Divine Strake has been canceled by the US Government. Divine Strake was a 700-ton bomb... and the government wanted to test this bomb in the desert occupied by the people of Nevada and Utah. This is where 50 years of nuclear tests were conducted, thus 50 years of nuclear dust would have been stirred up if the government went forward with Divine Strake.

Now the people of Nevada and Utah and the rest of us who live downwind, can rest easy... knowing that we will not suffer the fall-out of Divine Strake.

I love it when there's good news!

~~~~ ELECTROSHOCK KAMIKAZE ~~~~

KAMIKAZE

taking action…. dying… moaning… waxing the board…

oceans …. dead they go… losing thoughts each day

electroshock spills… crying… yelling…

wind in the clouds … come down…

take me to the dead… let me see… then lay me back down …

in her shelter...

THE CHEROKEE NATION v. THE STATE OF GEORGIA -- U.S. Supreme Court 1831

Supreme Court of the United States
THE CHEROKEE NATION
v.
THE STATE OF GEORGIA.
January Term, 1831
Mr Chief Justice MARSHALL delivered the opinion of the Court.
This bill is brought by the Cherokee nation, praying an injunction to restrain the state of Georgia from the execution of certain laws of that state, which, as is alleged, go directly to annihilate the Cherokees as a political society, and to seize, for the use of Georgia, the lands of the nation which have been assured to them by the United States in solemn treaties repeatedly made and still in force.
If courts were permitted to indulge their sympathies, a case better calculated to excite them can scarcely be imagined. A people once numerous, powerful, and truly independent, found by our ancestors in the quiet and uncontrolled possession of an ample domain, gradually sinking beneath our superior policy, our arts and our arms, have yielded their lands by successive treaties, each of which contains a solemn guarantee of the residue, until they retain no more of their formerly extensive territory than is deemed necessary to their comfortable subsistence. To preserve this remnant, the present application is made.
Before we can look into the merits of the case, a preliminary inquiry presents itself. Has this court jurisdiction of the cause?
The third article of the constitution describes the extent of the judicial power. The second section closes an enumeration of the cases to which it is extended, with ‘controversies' ‘between a state or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens, or subjects.’ A subsequent clause of the same section gives the supreme court original jurisdiction in all cases in which a state shall be a party. The party defendant may then unquestionably be sued in this court. May the plaintiff sue in it? Is the Cherokee nation a foreign state in the sense in which that term is used in the constitution?
The counsel for the plaintiffs have maintained the affirmative of this proposition with great earnestness and ability. So much of the argument as was intended to prove the character of the Cherokees as a state, as a distinct political society, separated from others, capable of managing its own affairs and governing itself, has, in the opinion of a majority of the judges, been completely successful. They have been uniformly treated as a state from the settlement of our country. The numerous treaties made with them by the United States recognize them as a people capable of maintaining the relations of peace and war, of being responsible in their political character for any violation of their engagements, or for any aggression committed on the citizens of the United States by any individual of their community. Laws have been enacted in the spirit of these treaties. The acts of our government plainly recognize the Cherokee nation as a state, and the courts are bound by those acts.
A question of much more difficulty remains. Do the Cherokees constitute a foreign state in the sense of the constitution?
The counsel have shown conclusively that they are not a state of the union, and have insisted that individually they are aliens, not owing allegiance to the United States. An aggregate of aliens composing a state must, they say, be a foreign state. Each individual being foreign, the whole must be foreign.
This argument is imposing, but we must examine it more closely before we yield to it. The condition of the Indians in relation to the United States is perhaps unlike that of any other two people in existence. In the general, nations not owing a common allegiance are foreign to each other. The term foreign nation is, with strict propriety, applicable by either to the other. But the relation of the Indians to the United States is marked by peculiar and cardinal distinctions which exist no where else.
* * *
Though the Indians are acknowledged to have an unquestionable, and, heretofore, unquestioned right to the lands they occupy, until that right shall be extinguished by a voluntary cession to our government; yet it may well be doubted whether those tribes which reside within the acknowledged boundaries of the United States can, with strict accuracy, be denominated foreign nations. They may, more correctly, perhaps, be denominated domestic dependent nations. They occupy a territory to which we assert a title independent of their will, which must take effect in point of possession when their right of possession ceases. Meanwhile they are in a state of pupilage. Their relation to the United States resembles that of a ward to his guardian.
They look to our government for protection; rely upon its kindness and its power; appeal to it for relief to their wants; and address the president as their great father. They and their country are considered by foreign nations, as well as by ourselves, as being so completely under the sovereignty and dominion of the United States, that any attempt to acquire their lands, or to form a political connexion with them, would be considered by all as an invasion of our territory, and an act of hostility.
These considerations go far to support the opinion, that the framers of our constitution had not the Indian tribes in view, when they opened the courts of the union to controversies between a state or the citizens thereof, and foreign states.
In considering this subject, the habits and usages of the Indians, in their intercourse with their white neighbours, ought not to be entirely disregarded. At the time the constitution was framed, the idea of appealing to an American court of justice for an assertion of right or a redress of wrong, had perhaps never entered the mind of an Indian or of his tribe. Their appeal was to the tomahawk, or to the government. This was well understood by the statesmen who framed the constitution of the United States, and might furnish some reason for omitting to enumerate them among the parties who might sue in the courts of the union. Be this as it may, the peculiar relations between the United States and the Indians occupying our territory are such, that we should feel much difficulty in considering them as designated by the term foreign state, were there no other part of the constitution which might shed light on the meaning of these words. But we think that in construing them, considerable aid is furnished by that clause in the eighth section of the third article; which empowers congress to ‘regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.'
In this clause they are as clearly contradistinguished by a name appropriate to themselves, from foreign nations, as from the several states composing the union.
* * *
The counsel for the plaintiffs contend that the words ‘Indian tribes' were introduced into the article, empowering congress to regulate commerce, for the purpose of removing those doubts in which the management of Indian affairs was involved by the language of the ninth article of the confederation. Intending to give the whole power of managing those affairs to the government about to be instituted, the convention conferred it explicitly; and omitted those qualifications which embarrassed the exercise of it as granted in the confederation. This may be admitted without weakening the construction which has been intimated. Had the Indian tribes been foreign nations, in the view of the convention; this exclusive power of regulating intercourse with them might have been, and most probably would have been, specifically given, in language indicating that idea, not in language contradistinguishing them from foreign nations. Congress might have been empowered ‘to regulate commerce with foreign nations, including the Indian tribes, and among the several states.’ This language would have suggested itself to statesmen who considered the Indian tribes as foreign nations, and were yet desirous of mentioning them particularly.
It has been also said, that the same words have not necessarily the same meaning attached to them when found in different parts of the same instrument: their meaning is controlled by the context. This is undoubtedly true. In common language the same word has various meanings, and the peculiar sense in which it is used in any sentence is to be determined by the context. This may not be equally true with respect to proper names. Foreign nations is a general term, the application of which to Indian tribes, when used in the American constitution, is at best extremely questionable. In one article in which a power is given to be exercised in regard to foreign nations generally, and to the Indian tribes particularly, they are mentioned as separate in terms clearly contra-
distinguishing them from each other. We perceive plainly that the constitution in this article does not comprehend Indian tribes in the general term ‘foreign nations;’ not we presume because a tribe may not be a nation, but because it is not foreign to the United States. When, afterwards, the term ‘foreign state’ is introduced, we cannot impute to the convention the intention to desert its former meaning, and to comprehend Indian tribes within it, unless the context force that construction on us. We find nothing in the context, and nothing in the subject of the article, which leads to it.
* * *
If it be true that the Cherokee nation have rights, this is not the tribunal in which those rights are to be asserted. If it be true that wrongs have been inflicted, and that still greater are to be apprehended, this is not the tribunal which can redress the past or prevent the future.
The motion for an injunction is denied.
Mr. Justice JOHNSON. [concurring]
* * *
I cannot but think that there are strong reasons for doubting the applicability of the epithet state, to a people so low in the grade of organized society as our Indian tribes most generally are. I would not here be understood as speaking of the Cherokees under their present form of government; which certainly must be classed among the most approved forms of civil government. Whether it can be yet said to have received the consistency which entitles that people to admission into the family of nations is, I conceive, yet to be determined by the executive of these states. Until then I must think that we cannot recognize it as an existing state, under any other character than that which it has maintained hitherto as one of the Indian tribes or nations.
* * *
In the very treaty of Hopewell, the language or evidence of which is appealed to as the leading proof of the existence of this supposed state, we find the commissioners of the United States expressing themselves in these terms. ‘The commissioners plenipotentiary of the United States give peace to all the Cherokees, and receive them into the favour and protection of the United States on the following conditions.’ This is certainly the language of sovereigns and conquerors, and not the address of equals to equals. And again, when designating the country they are to be confined to, comprising the very territory which is the subject of this bill, they say, ‘Art. 4. The boundary allotted to the Cherokees for their hunting grounds' shall be as therein described. Certainly this is the language of concession on our part, not theirs; and when the full bearing and effect of those words, ‘for their hunting grounds,’ is considered, it is difficult to think that they were then regarded as a state, or even intended to be so regarded. It is clear that it was intended to give them no other rights over the territory than what were needed by a race of hunters; and it is not easy to see how their advancement beyond that state of society could ever have been promoted, or, perhaps, permitted, consistently with the unquestioned rights of the states, or United States, over the territory within their limits. The pre-emptive right, and exclusive right of conquest in case of war, was never questioned to exist in the states, which circumscribed the whole or any part of the Indian grounds or territory. To have taken it from them by direct means would have been a palpable violation of their rights. But every advance, from the hunter state to a more fixed state of society, must have a tendency to impair that pre-emptive right, and ultimately to destroy it altogether, both by increasing the Indian population, and by attaching them firmly to the soil. The hunter state bore within itself the promise of vacating the territory, because when game ceased, the hunter would go elsewhere to seek it. But a more fixed state of society would amount to a permanent destruction of the hope, and, of consequence, of the beneficial character of the pre-emptive right.
But it is said, that we have extended to them the means and inducement to become agricultural and civilized. It is true: and the immediate object of that policy was so obvious as probably to have intercepted the view of ulterior consequences. Independently of the general influence of humanity, these people were restless, warlike, and signally cruel in their irruptions during the revolution. The policy, therefore, of enticing them to the arts of peace, and to those improvements which war might lay desolate, was obvious; and it was wise to prepare them for what was probably then contemplated, to wit, to incorporate them in time into our respective governments: a policy which their inveterate habits and deep seated enmity has altogether baffled. But the project of ultimately
organizing them into states, within the limits of those states which had not ceded or should not cede to the United States the jurisdiction over the Indian territory within their bounds, could not possibly have entered into the contemplation of our government. Nothing but express authority from the states could have justified such a policy, pursued with such a view.
* * *
Where is the rule to stop? Must every petty kraal of Indians, designating themselves a tribe or nation, and having a few hundred acres of land to hunt on exclusively, be recognized as a state?
* * *
* * * [A]t what time did this people acquine the character of a state?
Certainly not by the treaty of Hopewell; for every provision of that treaty operates to strip it of its sovereign attributes; and nothing subsequent adds any thing to that treaty, except using the word nation instead of Indians.
* * *
They have in Europe sovereign and demi-sovereign states and states of doubtful sovereignty. But this state, if it be a state, is still a grade below them all: for not to be able to alienate without permission of the remainder-man or lord, places them in a state of feudal dependence.
However, I will enlarge no more upon this point; because I believe, in one view and in one only, if at all, they are or may be deemed a state, though not a sovereign state, at least while they occupy a country within our limits. Their condition is something like that of the Israelites, when inhabiting the deserts. Though without land that they can call theirs in the sense of property, their right of personal self government has never been taken from them; and such a form of government may exist though the land occupied be in fact that of another. The right to expel them may exist in that other, but the alternative of departing and retaining the right of self government may exist in them. And such they certainly do possess; it has never been questioned, nor any attempt made at subjugating them as a people, or restraining their personal liberty except as to their land and trade.
* * *
The argument is that they were states; and if not states of the union, must be foreign states. But I think it very clear that the constitution neither speaks of them as states or foreign states, but as just what they were, Indian tribes; an anomaly unknown to the books that treat of states, and which the law of nations would regard as nothing more than wandering hordes, held together only by ties of blood and habit, and having neither laws or government, beyond what is required in a savage state. The distinction is clearly made in that section which vests in congress power to regulate commerce between the United States with foreign nations and the Indian tribes.
* * *
Mr Justice BALDWIN. [concurring]—
* * * I concur in the opinion of the court in dismissing the bill, but not for the reasons assigned.
* * *
* * * [T]he stipulations [of the Treaty of Hopewell] are wholly inconsistent with sovereignty; the Indians acknowledge their dependent character; hold the lands they occupy as an allotment of hunting grounds; give to congress the exclusive right of regulating their trade and managing all their affairs as they may think proper.
* * *
* * * There can be no dependence so antinational, or so utterly subversive of national existence as transferring to a foreign government the regulation of its trade, and the management of all their affairs at their pleasure. The nation or state, tribe or village, head men or warriors of the Cherokees, call them by what name we please, call the articles they have signed a definitive treaty or an indenture of servitude; they are not by its force or virtue a foreign state capable of calling into legitimate action the judicial power of this union, by the exercise of the original jurisdiction of this court against a sovereign state, a component part of this nation. Unless the constitution has imparted to the Cherokees a national character never recognized under the confederation; and which if they ever enjoyed was surrendered by the treaty of Hopewell; they cannot be deemed in this court plaintiffs in such a case as this.
* * *
Mr. Justice THOMPSON, dissenting.
* * *
That a state of this union may be sued by a foreign state, when a proper case exists and is presented, is too plainly and expressly declared in the constitution to admit of doubt; and the first inquiry is, whether the Cherokee nation is a foreign state within the sense and meaning of the constitution.
The terms state and nation are used in the law of nations, as well as in common parlance, as importing the same thing; and imply a body of men, united together, to procure their mutual safety and advantage by means of their union. Such a society has its affairs and interests to manage; it deliberates, and takes resolutions in common, and thus becomes a moral person, having an understanding and a will peculiar to itself, and is susceptible of obligations and laws. Vattel, 1. Nations being composed of men naturally free and independent, and who, before the establishment of civil societies, live together in the state of nature, nations or sovereign states; are to be considered as so many free persons, living together in a state of nature. Vattel 2, § 4. Every nation that governs itself, under what form soever, without any dependence on a foreign power, is a sovereign state. Its rights are naturally the same as those of any other state. Such are moral persons who live together in a natural society, under the law of nations. It is sufficient if it be really sovereign and independent: that is, it must govern itself by its own authority and laws. We ought, therefore, to reckon in the number of sovereigns those states that have bound themselves to another more powerful, although by an unequal alliance. The conditions of these unequal alliances may be infinitely varied; but whatever they are, provided the inferior ally reserves to itself the sovereignty or the right to govern its own body, it ought to be considered an independent state. Consequently, a weak state, that, in order to provide for its safety, places itself under the protection of a more powerful one, without stripping itself of the right of government and sovereignty, does not cease on this account to be placed among the sovereigns who acknowledge no other power. Tributary and feudatory states do not thereby cease to be sovereign and independent states, so long as self government, and sovereign and independent authority is left in the administration of the state. Vattel, c. 1, pp. 16, 17.
Testing the character and condition of the Cherokee Indians by these rules, it is not perceived how it is possible to escape the conclusion, that they form a sovereign state. * * *

ACLU - american civil liberties union

the ACLU drops the ball on Achmed. they stood by him in the Spring of 2004 when he protested against Abu Graib, but when he was arrested and charged with "going jihad" by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2004, where was the ACLU?

I was not in Nashville anymore. Perhaps we relied too strongly on the fact that the ACLU would be there for Ahmed. I mean they came to his aid once, by why not another time? On October 24, 2005Ahmed was sentencd to five years prison with a possibility of deportation. He chose to plead guilty instead of face the wrath of Americans plagued by FOX-news induced anti-Islamist sentiment at the time.

I'm not blaming the ACLU ... many other factors could have played a part in this, but why were the factors different?

Constitutional Adaptation to Techno-America

Some states give more protection than others. This paper covers the most progressive state constitutional rights to privacy in the country...of course, the California State Constitution. Perhaps we should consider doing this for the U.S. Constitution, too, what with all the private companies selling our personal information to third parties against our wishes; so that we can regain control of our personal information and private rights. Footnotes excluded.


THE CALIFORNIA PRIVACY AMENDMENT
On November 7, 1972, the people of California voted in favor of the “Privacy Initiative,” and became one of few states to amend their state constitutions to explicitly include “Privacy” as one of the enumerated individual rights to be protected. The amended California constitution now reads: “All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.” There is no legislative history, other than the Ballot Pamphlet to the Privacy Initiative that reflects the intent of the people at the time the California constitution was amended to explicitly include privacy rights, thus the California courts look to the Ballot Pamphlet literature when analyzing privacy interests under the California constitution. The Ballot Pamphlet identifies four principal mischiefs at which the Privacy Amendment is directed:
(1) government snooping and secret gathering of personal information; (2) the overbroad collection and retention of unnecessary personal information by government and business interests; (3) the improper use of information properly obtained for a specific purpose, for example, the use of it for another purpose or the disclosure of it to some third party; and (4) the lack of a reasonable check on the accuracy of existing records.

California is the only state to extend state constitutional privacy protections to intrusive acts by private, nongovernmental entities, in addition to state actors. California courts have found that repeated references in the ballot argument regarding dangers to individual privacy interests from the acts of government and business is indicative of the people’s intent that the California state constitution now protects the individual from intrusive practices by both state actors and private actors. The ballot argument in favor of the Privacy Amendment states:
At present there are no effective restraints on the information activities of government and business. The right of privacy … prevents government and business interests from collecting and stockpiling unnecessary information … [E]ven more dangerous is the loss of control over the accuracy of government and business records on individuals. … [F]ew government agencies or private businesses permit individuals to review their files and correct errors. … Each time we apply for a credit card or a life insurance policy, file a tax return, interview for a job, or get a drivers’ license, a dossier is opened and an informational profile is sketched.”

Another California court noted:

Common experience makes it only too evident that personal privacy is threatened by the information-gathering capabilities and activities not just of government, but of private business as well. If the right of privacy is to exist as more than a memory or a dream, the power of both pubic and private institutions to collect and preserve data about individual citizens must be subject to constitutional control. Any expectations of privacy would indeed be illusory if only the government’s collection and retention of data were restricted.

The California Supreme Court found that there are differences between state action and private action in the context of privacy rights, warranting greater protection for state action than private action.
Government power is more pervasive than private power in basic areas of human life, posing greater dangers to the freedom of the citizenry. The government not only has the ability to affect more than a limited sector of the populace through its actions, it has both economic power, in the form of taxes, grants, and control over social welfare programs, and physical power, through law enforcement agencies, which are capable of coercion far beyond that of the most powerful private actors.

The California Supreme Court also reasoned that private conduct, particularly the activities of voluntary associations of persons, “carries its own mantle of constitutional protection in the form of freedom of association, which was recognized by the drafters of the Privacy Initiative.” Thus, private actors, unlike state actors, also have privacy rights guaranteed by the Privacy Amendment to the California constitution. Private actors have the freedom to choose with whom to associate, freedom to choose whom to hire or with whom to do business, which means that private actors can reasonably intrude into the private lives of individuals in some areas where state actors are forbidden. In terms of relaxing constitutional scrutiny for private actors, the California Supreme Court stated, "Judicial assessment of the relative strength and importance of privacy norms and countervailing interests may differ in cases of private, as opposed to government, action. Private entities pursue private ends and interests, not those of government. If every private organization had to establish a ‘compelling public interest’ or ‘compelling state interest’ to justify any activity that had an impact on individual privacy, it would fail to do so in most, if not all, conceivable cases.”

The California Supreme Court established two different types of private actors, one which might subject the private actor to a heightened constitutional scrutiny similar to that of a state actor, and the other with a more relaxed constitutional scrutiny. First, if a private actor functions more like a monopoly, or if it “controls access to a vitally necessary item, it may have a correspondingly greater impact on privacy rights of those with whom it deals.” Second, if the individual is “able to choose freely among competing public or private entities in obtaining access to some opportunity, commodity, or service, his or her privacy interest [may] weigh less in the balance.
The Privacy Amendment Test
The California Supreme Court established a three-pronged test for determining whether there has been a violation of the state constitutional right to privacy. First, the plaintiff must satisfy the three elements to establish a prima facie cause of action for invasion of privacy which include: “(1) a specific, legally protected privacy interest; (2) a reasonable expectation of privacy in the circumstances; and (3) conduct by the defendant constituting a serious invasion of privacy.” Second, after the plaintiff establishes her prima facie case, the burden shifts to the defendant to either disprove any one of the three elements of the Plaintiff’s prima facie case, or establish that its invasive conduct is justified because it substantially furthers one or more countervailing interests, and that countervailing interest is greater than the plaintiff’s privacy interest. Third, once the defendant proves that the invasion is justified, the plaintiff may establish that there are less intrusive alternatives to furthering the defendant’s countervailing interests.
Although the Ballot Pamphlet states that a compelling interest is required before the intrusive acts of a state or private entity are constitutionally permissible, California courts have declined to require that the defendant establish a compelling interest in every situation. In some situations, the intruding act may be permissible if the state or private entity merely has a “legitimate interest” that outweighs the individual privacy interests. The California Supreme Court in Hill v. NCAA found that not every assertion of a privacy interest under article I, §1 of the California constitution must be overcome by a compelling interest, because “neither the language nor the history of the Privacy Initiative unambiguously supports such a requirement, [and] in view of the far-reaching and multifaceted character of the right to privacy, [a compelling interest standard] imports an impermissible inflexibility into the process of constitutional adjudication.” When determining whether a compelling interest is required, the California Supreme Court in Hill v. NCAA found that [t]he particular context, i.e., the specific kind of privacy interest involved and the nature and seriousness of the invasion and countervailing interests, remains the critical factor in the analysis [of whether a compelling interest must be established by the defendant]. Where the case involves an obvious invasion of an interest to personal autonomy, e.g. freedom from involuntary sterilization or the freedom to pursue consensual familial relationships, a ‘compelling interest’ must be present to overcome the privacy interest. If, in contrast, the privacy interest is less central, or in bona fide dispute, general balancing tests are employed.”

Informational Privacy and Autonomy Privacy
The Ballot Pamphlet addresses both informational privacy interests and autonomy privacy interests. Personal information is defined to include “any information that is maintained by an agency that identifies or describes an individual, including, but not limited to, his or her name, social security number, physical description, home address, home telephone number, education, financial matters, and medical or employment history … [and also] includes statements made by, or attributed to, the individual.” The California Supreme Court noted that the ballot argument addressed how “[c]omputerization of records makes it possible to create cradle-to-grave profiles of every American. At present there are no effective restraints on the information activities of government and business. This amendment creates a legal and enforceable right of privacy for every Californian. Informational privacy also protects the individual from misuse of sensitive and confidential information, and the drafters of the Ballot Pamphlet addressed the individual’s ability to control the accuracy of the information collected about them:
Often we do not know that these records even exist and we are certainly unable to determine who has access to them. Even more dangerous is the loss of control over the accuracy of government and business records of individuals. Obviously if the person is unaware of the record, he or she cannot review the file and correct inevitable mistakes … [T]he average citizen … does not have control over what information is collected about him.

The Privacy Amendment explicitly guaranteeing privacy rights for the individual creates a way for individuals to regain some control over how their personal information is collected and used, the accuracy of that information, and who has access to that personal information.
In Perkey v. Department of Motor Vehicles the California Supreme Court found that a statute requiring all individuals to submit their fingerprints to the DMV, as a condition of the issuance of drivers’ licenses, violated the state constitutional right to privacy. Fingerprints and fingerprint files are “personal information” within the meaning of the Privacy Amendment of the California Constitution, because fingerprints fall within “the category of information that identifies or describes an individual.” Furthermore, there was evidence of unrestricted use of the DMV’s fingerprint files by numerous entities who did not have a “right to know,” such as government agencies and private parties who were acquiring information on anti-nuclear activists, to identify individuals without their knowledge or consent. Thus the California Supreme Court found that the collection and retention of fingerprints for such “unspecified and widespread usage flagrantly disregards the purpose of protecting confidential information,” that the individual privacy interests outweighed the State’s interests in road and traffic safety, and that any other interpretation of the statute, which would permit the DMV to freely disseminate its fingerprint files to all interested parties “would raise serious concerns under the state constitutional right of privacy.”
In White v. Davis, the California Supreme Court applied the Privacy Amendment to ongoing police surveillance of students and professors in a university community. Police officers, posing as students, enrolled at UCLA and engaged in covert recording of class discussions, compiling police dossiers, and filing “intelligence” reports, so that the police would have “records” on the professors and students. The undercover agents also joined university-recognized organizations, attended public and private meetings of the organizations and made reports on discussions at the meetings. The police reports “pertained to no illegal activity or acts.” The California Supreme Court found that although the Privacy Amendment “does not purport to invalidate all such information gathering, it does require that the government establish a compelling justification for such conduct.” This practice of police surveillance violated the California constitutional guarantees of privacy, because it constituted “government snooping to the extreme.”
The California courts have found that language in the ballot argument also addresses autonomy privacy. Autonomy privacy includes “interests in making intimate personal decisions or conducting activities without observation, intrusion or interference.” The Ballot Pamphlet in favor of the Privacy Amendment states, "The right to privacy is the right to be left alone. It “protects our homes, our families, our thoughts, our emotions, our expressions, our personalities, our freedom of communion, and our freedom to associate with people we choose … and control over circulation of our personal information “is essential to social relationships and personal freedom.”

Two California Court of Appeal cases addressed the issue of state constitutional autonomy privacy rights in the context of the media invading the private premises of the individual for the purpose of newsgathering. In Miller v. NBC the media entered the plaintiff’s and decedent’s home, without their consent, to document the life-saving techniques administered by the paramedics who were called to the scene when the decedent suffered a heart attack. The plaintiff was flipping through the channels one night when the broadcast of the paramedics trying to save her husband’s life appeared on the televeision, and she found herself reliving the incident all over again. The Court of Appeal found that the “plaintiff’s physical solitude and home [were] wrongfully invaded by her viewing … [the] telecasts, and [she] received numerous telephone calls about the telecast, all of which … resulted in the disruption [of her] life and the peace and tranquility of her mind.”
The Court of Appeal found that public education about life-saving techniques is within the purview of First Amendment, however, that right extends only to documenting public information as part of the “public’s right to know.” This prohibition from the media’s unauthorized entry into the private premises of individuals would not have a “chilling effect” on news gathering, and that the plaintiff’s right to be left alone was greater than the media’s First Amendment rights in this context.
In Shulman v. Group W Productions, the plaintiff claimed that her state constitutional privacy rights had been violated when the defendant recorded and broadcasted the rescue efforts of the plaintiff at the accident scene and while riding to the hospital in a rescue helicopter, after she had been involved in an automobile accident. The Court of Appeal found that the plaintiff did not have a state constitutional privacy claim as to the filming at the accident scene, because this was a public place; however, the plaintiff had a reasonable expectation of privacy inside the helicopter. Following Miller v. NBC, the Court of Appeal found that the helicopter was like the home or any other private place, and that “it is neither custom nor habit of our society that any member or the public at large or its media representatives may hitch a ride in an ambulance and ogle as paramedics care for an injured stranger.”
Drug Testing and the Privacy Amendment
The first landmark California Supreme Court case applying the Privacy Amendment to private entities was in the context of drug testing by direct, monitored observation of urinalysis of college athletes by the NCAA. The NCAA drug testing program implicated both categories of privacy interests; autonomy privacy and informational privacy. The drug testing program provided the NCAA with “information about the internal medical state of an athlete’s body that is regarded as personal and confidential, and the athletes also provide information about the medications they are currently taking.” The testing intruded upon a student’s autonomy privacy interests where it required the athletes to provide a urine sample in a monitored setting, because “this is a function that is recognized by law and social custom as a private bodily function that is generally performed without observers, which embarrasses the individual.”
Although the drug testing program constituted a serous invasion into the athlete’s reasonable expectation of privacy, the athlete’s expectations were diminished. The athlete had a diminished expectation of privacy over her personal information.
Athletes exchange information about their physical condition and medical treatment with coaches, trainers, and others who have a ‘need to know, …. [and] are subject to required physical examinations (including urinalysis), and special regulation of sleep habits, diet, fitness, and other activities that intrude significantly on privacy interests [which are] routine aspects of a college athlete’s life not shared by the rest of the student body.

The Hill Court found that the athlete’s autonomy privacy interests were diminished because “private urination must be viewed within the context of intercollegiate athletic activity and the normal conditions under which it is undertaken, …[including] elements of communal undress, sharing locker rooms, and the central role of physical examinations in athletic training and evaluation.”
The NCAA did not need to establish a compelling interest in justifying the serious invasion into the privacy rights of the athletes because the athletes had a diminished expectation of privacy, and because the NCAA was a private entity rather than a governmental entity. Instead, the NCAA only needed to establish a legitimate, countervailing interest. The NCAA’s highly intrusive drug testing program was constitutionally valid based on the NCAA’s two legitimate interests, (1) safeguarding the integrity of intercollegiate athletic competition; and (2) protecting the health and safety of student athletes. The California Supreme Court found that “direct monitoring was necessary to accomplish accurate testing,” because the students could alter or substitute their urine samples in order to avoid a positive test under unsupervised drug testing conditions.
In light of the student athlete’s diminished expectations of privacy, the NCAA’s countervailing interests were legitimately furthered by the drug testing program. In validating the NCAA’s drug testing program the California Supreme Court expressly stated that it did not decide the issue of the constitutionality of random drug testing in the employment context.
Drug Testing in the Employment Context
The California Privacy Amendment protects existing employees from random, monitored drug testing in both the private and public employment context, so long as there is no sufficient nexus between the employee’s job duties and safety. The Privacy Amendment does not give much protection to job applicants who are required to submit to a drug test as a condition of their employment, in conjunction with a preemployment medical examination. California courts have not addressed the issue of whether drug testing of job applicants as a condition of employment is constitutional under the Privacy Amendment if the drug test is not implemented in conjunction with preemployment medical screening.
In Loder v.City of Glendale the California Supreme Court found that the city’s random drug testing under monitored conditions in the employment context as applied to job applicants did not violate the Privacy Amendment of the state constitution. The Loder Court did not need to address the issue of whether the random drug testing of existing employees seeking promotion violated the state constitution, because it found the city’s random drug testing program of existing employees violated the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
The California Supreme Court looked to United States Supreme Court precedent on the issue of the constitutionality of random drug tests, because the employer was a state actor. The Loder Court found that “urinalysis testing constitutes a ‘search’ for Fourth Amendment purposes, thus, the city’s drug testing program is constitutionally permissible only if the program satisfies the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment as established by the United States Supreme Court. Federal court precedent established that “it is not constitutionally ‘reasonable’ under the Fourth Amendment for a governmental employer to conduct suspicionless urinalysis drug testing of all current public employees seeking promotion, regardless of the nature or duties of the position at issue.”
The California Supreme Court found that “in the preemployment context, unlike the prepromotional context, [random] drug testing is reasonable, and hence constitutionally permissible under the Fourth Amendment.” Unlike existing employees, “when deciding whether to hire a job applicant, … an employer has not had a[n] … opportunity to observe the applicant over a period of time, … and an employer [might reasonably] lack total confidence in the reliability of information supplied by a former employer or other references.” The job applicant had a diminished expectation of privacy because the monitored drug testing was conducted as part of a preemployment medical examination, which involves a lesser intrusion on reasonable expectations of privacy than does testing conducted independently of such [preemployment medical] examination. Thus, the applicant’s diminished privacy expectations were outweighed by the employer’s countervailing interests, and although a search, the random preemployment drug testing as a condition of employment was constitutionally reasonable under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
The drug testing of job applicants next had to pass state constitutional scrutiny. The California Supreme Court agreed with Hill and found that:
[T]he city’s drug testing program … implicates privacy interests protected by the state constitution … because it requires individuals to provide urine samples under monitored conditions, it authorizes the administering entity to test the sample in order to acquire information concerning the internal state of the individual’s body, and it requires an individual to disclose medications that she is currently taking, … [thus it] clearly intrudes upon both autonomy privacy interests and informational privacy interests that are protected by the state constitution.

The Loder Court found that because the drug testing was part of a required preemployment medical examination which typically includes urinalysis for medical conditions or diseases, “the testing does not impose the usual intrusion on privacy that results when an individual is required to provide a separate urine sample on demand.” Thus, a compelling interest was not required; the employer need only establish that it had a legitimate interest in conducting the preemployment drug testing, and that the drug testing reasonably furthered that interest.
The Loder Court found that the employer had a legitimate interest in employee absenteeism, safety concerns, tardiness, reduced productivity, and increased risk of turnover, which is “typically posed by an employee who abuses drugs or alcohol.” The Loder Court found that the city’s drug testing program furthered the public employer’s legitimate interests and those interests outweighed the job applicant’s diminished privacy expectations, thus the drug testing program as applied to job applicants did not violate the Privacy Amendment of the state constitution.
In Wilkinson v. Times Mirror Corporation the California Court of Appeal found that the state constitution “is not violated when a private employer asks private job applicants to consent to urinalysis drug tests as a condition of employment if: (1) notice is provided to prospective employees, (2) there is limited intrusion in the collection process, and (3) the procedural safeguards restricting access to the test results are met.” Private actors, unlike state actors, are not subject to Fourth Amendment prohibitions, but analysis of the Fourth Amendment of the United States constitution provides the foundation for determining whether an individual’s privacy rights have been violated in the private employment context.
The Wilkinson court found that the private employer is not required to establish a compelling interest and the private employer’s conduct need only be reasonable if “the challenged conduct has some impact on the right of privacy, as long as that right is not substantially burdened or affected.” In this case, the private employer’s mandatory drug testing program did not “substantially burden” the plaintiffs’ right of privacy because the plaintiffs were merely applicants for employment, they were asked to voluntarily disclose their personal information which might be revealed by drug testing as a condition of their employment and because the drug testing was part of a preemployment medical examination. The Court of Appeal found that these job applicants “have a choice; they may consent to the drug test or they may decline the test and the conditional offer of employment and seek employment elsewhere.” Like public employers, private employers have a legitimate interest in a drug and alcohol free workplace.
The private employer satisfied the notice requirement in this case, because “successful applicants who receive a conditional offer of employment are informed that their employment is contingent upon taking and passing a drug test.” There was limited intrusion into the collection process in this case because “all job applicants were subject to a preemployment physical examination conducted by medical personnel under conditions designed to minimize the intrusiveness of the procedure and restrict access to the test results.” The California Court of Appeal found that several factors minimized the intrusiveness of the drug screening program:
There was no direct monitoring of the employee, and the testing was done in a medical environment rather than by employer personnel. [N]o pregnancy tests are conducted, medical history and other information provided by the applicants and the results of the urinalysis are confidential, and none of the information provided by the applicant’s medical history is revealed to the private employer; instead [the employer] is informed only of the applicant’s numerical rating on a scale of one to five, with five meaning that the applicant is not recommended for employment. A rating of five does not mean that the applicant had a positive drug test, and any applicant who receives a rating of five is entitled to know which portion of the test she failed and to challenge the results if she feels that the rating is erroneous.

In Luck v. Southern Pacific Transportation Company, the plaintiff, a computer programmer was fired by Southern Pacific Transportation Company, a private employer, when she refused to submit a urine sample as part of an unannounced, random drug test by her employer, even though company officials told the plaintiff that they had no reason to believe she was impaired in her job performance when they asked her to submit to the drug test. Unlike Wilkinson, a compelling interest was required in this case, rather than a reasonableness test, because the plaintiff was an existing employee and the plaintiff was terminated from employment for refusing to submit to the drug test. Furthermore, the existing employee’s choices are more limited than a job applicant’s. This case can also be distinguished from Wilkinson, because the Luck employee was not given notice that she would be subject to random drug tests.
Referring to federal precedent to determine whether an employer has a compelling interest in safety warranting drug testing of existing employees, the Luck court found that this plaintiff’s work did not involve the same kinds of safety issues satisfying the compelling interest requirement as illustrated by federal court precedent. The Luck court found that before random drug testing of existing employees is justified, federal court precedent requires “a clear, direct nexus between employee duties and the nature of the feared harm, and a compelling reason to expect drug use will result in misplaced sympathies for responsibilities.” The defendant’s interest in railroad safety did not justify the invasion into plaintiff’s privacy, because the plaintiff’s job was not safety-related; she was not a railroad operating employee nor did she work on or around rail rolling stock. The Luck court also found that federal courts have also “refused to find safety as a compelling interest justifying urinalysis drug testing of criminal prosecutors and Justice Department employees with access to grand jury proceedings,” and federal courts have “questioned the propriety of random drug testing of secretaries, engineering technicians, research biologists, and animal caretakers who work in chemical and nuclear safety facilities.”
Although the defendant may have a compelling interest in the safety of its railroad operations there was “no sufficient nexus between random drug testing of employees like the plaintiff in furthering that interest.” The defendant suggested only “indirect, potential safety ramifications that might result from an imprudent decision that an employee working as the plaintiff in this case might make if her judgment was impaired by drugs.” The defendant also asserted nonsafety interests such as “deterrence, efficiency, competence, a drug-free work environment, enforcing rules against drug use, and ensuring public confidence in the integrity of the railroad industry,” but the California Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s determination that none of the defendant’s nonsafety interests were compelling. The Luck Court found that the defendant’s interests could not withstand state constitutional scrutiny because the defendant could not even satisfy the Fourth Amendment ‘reasonableness’ test.”
In Semore v. Pool the California Court of Appeal held that the trial court erred in dismissing the plaintiff’s case in favor of the defendant, Kerr-McGee, a private employer, where the defendant terminated the plaintiff after he refused to submit to a pupillary eye reaction test to determine whether the plaintiff was under the influence of drugs, and where the test was conducted on a random, suspicionless basis. Although the pupillary reaction test is not as intrusive as urinalysis drug testing, the California Court of Appeal found that the plaintiff’s reasonable expectations of privacy are equivalent to those of urinalysis drug testing.
The defendants argued that the purpose of the test was to provide “individualized suspicion of drug use that would justify more intrusive drug testing such as urinalysis,” but the Court of Appeal found that this issue could not be decided on demurrer, because facts such as “the nature of the test, the equipment used, the manner of administration, its reliability, the handling of test results, and similar concerns,” are issues of fact that need to be decided at trial, as part of balancing the plaintiff’s reasonable privacy expectations against Kerr McGee’s need to regulate the conduct of its employees at work. Furthermore, issues of whether Kerr-McGee’s interest in the safe operation of its chemical plant outweigh the plaintiff’s privacy interests can not be decided on demurrer, because the court needs to determine “whether the plaintiff is within a class of employees of which random testing is justified.”
Mental Privacy and the Employment Context
In Long Beach City Employees Association v. City of Long Beach the California Supreme Court found that a public employer requiring city employees to submit to polygraph examinations as a condition of their employment “intruded upon the employees’ constitutionally protected zone of mental privacy.” The California Supreme Court found:
The polygraph was specifically designed to overcome mental privacy by compelling involuntary communication of thoughts, sentiments, and emotions which the examinee may have chosen not to reveal. The circumstances of the test were coercive, as employees were forced to divulge private information or risk losing their jobs…thus the challenged conduct in Long Beach not only substantially burdened the employee’s right of mental privacy; it effectively annulled those rights.

The government in this case has a compelling interest in preventing theft of public funds, but the California Supreme Court found that the polygraph testing was “greater than necessary … [in protecting that interest, thus] …the state must establish the unavailability of less offensive alternatives and demonstrate that the … intrusion on the cherished right of privacy is drawn with narrow specificity.”
In Privacy Amendment cases, the defendants are not required to prove that they implemented the least-intrusive alternative means of serving their countervailing interests, where [the plaintiff’s interests] … “involve (1) broad-based assertions of autonomy privacy interests (i.e. freedom of action as opposed to freedom of expression and association), [or] (2) in circumstances [where the plaintiff has a] diminished expectation of privacy.”
[L]ike the “compelling interest” standard, the argument that such a “least restrictive alternative” burden must invariably be imposed on the defendants in privacy cases derives from decisions that: (1) involve clear invasions of central, autonomy-based privacy rights, particularly in the areas of free expression and association, procreation, or government-provided benefits in areas of basic human need, or (2) are directed against the invasive conduct of government agencies rather than private, voluntary organizations.

However, “if sensitive information is gathered and feasible safeguards are slipshod or nonexistent, or if the defendant’s legitimate objectives can be readily accomplished by alternate means having little or no impact on privacy interests, the prospect of actionable invasion of privacy is enhanced.” Thus, the California Supreme Court found that less intrusive alternatives must be implemented if it better serves the purpose of preventing disclosure of personal information to those who do not have a “legitimate need to know.”
In City of Long Beach, both “alternative means factors” were present: (1) the compulsory, suspicionless polygraph testing of the city employees involved clear invasions of central, autonomy-based privacy rights (intrusion into the mental processes of the individual); and (2) the invasive conduct involved a government agency, rather than a private, voluntary organization. The California Supreme Court found that there were “alternative and less intrusive means” to furthering that compelling interest. An employer is only constitutionally permitted to ask employees questions that are “related directly and narrowly to the performance of their official duties … [and] the pretest questions asked here clearly exceed [this] limited exception.”
A similar issue was addressed when Target Stores, a private actor, required all applicants for the security officer position to undergo a psychological exam as a condition of employment. The psychological test was used to screen out emotionally unfit applicants, and included questions regarding the job applicants’ religious beliefs and sexual orientation. The tests were conducted by a consulting psychologist who rates the applicant’s results based on five traits: emotional stability, interpersonal style, addiction potential, dependability and reliability, and socialization – i.e. a tendency to follow established rules.
Plaintiffs were job applicants who argued that the test asked invasive questions that were not job-related, and violated their state constitutional rights to privacy. Expert testimony established that the tests had a 61% rate of false positives and Target officials testified that they did not believe there was a problem with the security officer employees before the psychological testing of job applicants was implemented as a hiring policy.
Target argued that the intrusion was limited and that the court should apply a reasonableness standard rather than the compelling interest test because Target was a private employer, not a public employer, and the state constitution has been interpreted to apply greater protections when a state actor is involved as opposed to a private actor. The plaintiff job applicants and the ACLU by amicus brief argued that job applicants are entitled to the compelling interest test just as existing employees are. The California Court of Appeal found that appellate court decisions predating Wilkinson applied the compelling interest test to job applicants as well as to existing employees. Thus, Target was required to justify the psychological test with a compelling interest, keeping in mind that one of the “principal mischiefs” to which the Privacy Amendment was aimed was the “overbroad collection of unnecessary information.”
Although Target does not have access to the psychological tests, the test was an “unjustifiable violation” of the individual’s state constitutional rights to privacy, because Target did not establish that its interests in employing emotionally stable persons as security officers were “compelling,” nor did these questions pose a significant nexus to Target’s asserted interest. As a result, the California Court of Appeal found that the issue of whether there was a “less-intrusive alternative means” did not need to be addressed. The California Court of Appeal then granted the plaintiff’s injunction, reasoning “absent injunctive relief, plaintiffs will be left with the choice of giving up supposedly inalienable privacy rights or foregoing the possibility of employment at Target.”
The Privacy Amendment to the California constitution is not just a mere symbolic gesture. It grants greater protections to Californians than most other state constitutions. By including privacy protections to individuals from intrusive acts by private actors, the Privacy Amendment to the California constitution can be viewed as an evolutionary adaptation to the modern technological environment. The people of California recognized that technological advancements have made it easier for people to intrude into their autonomy privacy interests, with the advent of drug and DNA testing, for example. Modern technology, such as computers and digital recording devices have also created problems for the individual who wants to keep his information from being disseminated to entities that do not have a “right to know.”
Although many states address these issues by using common law tort or by enacting statutes, California has decided to add this protection to its constitution. The people of California were motivated by the fact that they wanted to regain the right to control their personal lives, and by explicitly including “privacy” in their state constitution, no state legislation can take that right away.

BLACK OUT

Below are two images that I "print-screened" and saved as .gif files to Paint. One can click the images for an enlarged view, where one will find in the bottom right corner of the 2 images the time when I took the two "snapshots." One is the Save The Internet website and the other is Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" website. One will find that Save the Internet was shut down while at the same time "the Daily Show" was not. Another website that was shut down at the same time was Free Press (dot) net. Another website that was accessible (not shut down) was CNN. I thought that was fishy enough that I wanted to document it. Both Save the Internt and Free Press websites were down for at least 30 minutes.

books to read ASAP

Pema Chadron
Charlotte Ioko Beck
Ken wilber - No Boundaries
Thick Nhat Hanh - Being Peace, Peace is Every Step
Sharon Salzburg - Loving Kindness Meditation

Lucy

time goes so fast. must do this must do that. must learn to do this while doing that. it rises and falls and then rises higher again and again, and the 'board is waxed.