Thirty Years

30 YEARS: May 19, 1978 to May 19, 2008

Stupid, Venal, or Illegal Stuff Government Officials Do In the Post 9/11 "Keeping You Safe" Era

And these links are just from a few minutes of today's Internet news browsing. . .

"Italian's Detention Illustrates Dangers Foreign Visitors Face" This article from The New York Times recounts the experience of an Italian man who had traveled to the United States to visit his American girlfriend. No threat to us United States citizens, this man ended up in jail for ten days.

"Official Urged Fewer Diagnoses of PTSD" The Washington Post reports on psychologist for Veterans Affairs Norma Perez, who sent an e-mail to mental-health specialists and social workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs' Olin E. Teague Veterans' Center in Temple, Texas, urging these medical professionals who treat our returning soldiers to avoid giving an "outright" diagnosis of PTSD. She suggested that the specialists diagnose "Adjustment Disorder" instead of PTSD, claiming that VA staff did not have time to do the extensive testing to determine PTSD with the increased diagnoses. Unlike soldiers who are diagnosed with PTSD, those diagnosed with the lesser disease, Adjustment Disorder, do not receive monetary disability compensation.

"Famed War Reporter Calls Pentagon /Media Propoganda Program Illegal" Joe Galloway, war reporter and author of We Were Soldiers Once...and Young, speaks out against Donald Rumsfeld's secret program to use "friendly to the administration" military analysts to spread government propaganda about the Iraq war.

Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers' Guild and Professor of Law at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, testifies before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the House Judiciary Committee. She calls for an "an immediate and thorough investigation of the circumstances under which torture was authorized and rationalized" by our top leaders. You can hear Scott Bateman's recording of some of her testimony here: Bateman's video