June, 15 2010, 09:10pm EDT
On President Obama's Oval Office Speech
Friends of the Earth's president, Erich Pica, had
the following response to President Obama's speech from the Oval Office
this evening:
"President Obama said some of the right things tonight when he
promised to hold BP accountable, to reform the agency that regulates
offshore drilling, and to move our nation away from the oil dependence
that led to this spill.
WASHINGTON
Friends of the Earth's president, Erich Pica, had
the following response to President Obama's speech from the Oval Office
this evening:
"President Obama said some of the right things tonight when he
promised to hold BP accountable, to reform the agency that regulates
offshore drilling, and to move our nation away from the oil dependence
that led to this spill.
"However, the President failed to use this speech to call on
Americans to meet their individual responsibility to help solve this
problem. Each of us has a moral duty to reduce our consumption of oil,
and a responsibility that comes with citizenship to make elected
officials do the right thing.
"We appreciate the President's call tonight for policies that will
generate more clean energy, but it is important to note that much of
the energy legislation now being considered in Congress has been unduly
influenced by polluting industries and will not get us to this goal.
"The President can and should go further in fighting the polluter
lobbyists whose influence is at the root of our energy problems.
Reforming the Minerals Management Service is a necessary, but not
sufficient, step. Lobbyists from all dirty energy industries, not just
oil, must be shown the door, and regulatory agencies that oversee coal
mining, nuclear reactors and corporate agribusiness must also be
reformed.
Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.
(202) 783-7400LATEST NEWS
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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."
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Since 2011, the U.N. Security Council has rejected the Palestinian Authority's request for full member status. On April 2, the Palestinian Observer Mission to the U.N. requested that the council once again take up consideration of its membership application. According to the first State Department cable, U.N. meetings since the beginning of April suggest that Algeria, China, Guyana, Mozambique, Russia, Slovenia, Sierra Leone, and Malta support granting Palestine full membership to the U.N. It also says that France, Japan, and Korea are undecided, while the United Kingdom will likely abstain from a vote.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who has also claimed to support a so-called "two-state solution"—has alternately boasted about thwarting Palestinian statehood.
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PI calls it an "illicit network undermining democracy around the world."
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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.
"The twin insurrections at the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and Brasília's Three Powers Plaza in 2023 left no doubt about the international coordination of reactionary forces," PI argued. "Yet far too little is known about the entities of this network, their sources of financing, and their institutional allies operating inside our political systems."
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