January, 13 2010, 03:16pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
Haiti Earthquake
WASHINGTON
BRIAN CONCANNON
Director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy
in Haiti, Concannon lived in Haiti for eight years. He said today: "In
the short term the Haitian people need the international community to
respond to this tragedy with massive amounts of disaster relief. But in
the long term, the Haitian people need the international community to
stop imposing policies that make them more vulnerable to natural
disasters. These policies include trade and aid policies that force
rural Haitians into the cities where there is no safe housing for them,
and political policies that undermine or overthrow
democratically-elected governments that do try to provide safe housing
and services in rural areas."
AMY WILENTZ, https://amywilentz.com
Author of "The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier," Wilentz is now a
professor at the University of California at Irvine. One of the issues
she can address is practices of environmental degradation that are
often pursued in Haiti because of economic conditions, thus leaving the
country more vulnerable to disasters. She can also discuss Haiti's
politics, history, medicine and U.S. aid. She is available for a
limited number of interviews on Wednesday, becoming more available
beginning Thursday.
BILL FLETCHER
Fletcher is executive editor of The Black Commentator and former president of TransAfrica Forum.
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
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While applauding the U.S. House of Representatives' bipartisan passage of a bill to ensure that "law enforcement and intelligence agencies can't do an end-run around the Constitution by buying information from data brokers" on Wednesday, privacy advocates highlighted that Congress is trying to extend and expand a long-abused government spying program.
The House voted 219-199 for Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act (FANFSA), which won support from 96 Democrats and 123 Republicans, including the lead sponsor, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). Named for the constitutional amendment that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, H.R. 4639 would close what campaigners call the data broker loophole.
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Wednesday's vote followed the House sending the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act to the Senate. H.R. 7888 would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless spying on noncitizens abroad but also sweeps up Americans' data.
The House notably included an amendment forcing a wide range of individuals and businesses to cooperate with government spying operations but rejected an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the bill, which the Senate could vote on as soon as Thursday.
Noting those decisions on the FISA reauthorization legislation, Ruddock stressed that "today's vote is a victory but follows a recent loss and ongoing threat as that Section 702 bill moves to the Senate this week too."
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Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Project on Surveillance Oversight, also praised the House's FANFSA passage on Wednesday.
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Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU, similarly said Wednesday that "the bipartisan passage of this bill is a flashing warning sign to the government that if it wants our data, it must get a warrant."
Hamadanchy added that "we hope this vote puts a fire under the Senate to protect their constituents and rein in the government's warrantless surveillance of Americans, once and for all."
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"After a year of preparation, we finally open the doors to our new research consortium, exposing the global network of reactionary forces that corrode our democracies, destroy our planet, and drive us closer to world war," the group added.
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