D) My new “updated” Scam block states things like “This web page could be a scam. Proceed with extreme caution” while I am looking up things like….former FBI translator Sybill Edmonds’s testimony on Bradblog and the ACLU website….things on Opednews…etc!

E) Since “upgrading” my computer it has slowed down about 500%, making it frustrating at best to do web searches. And the web page, “coincidentally”, won’t completely download.

Now come on, I don’t want anybody to pipe in and give me all kinds of technological advice. Such was the reaction to a letter to the editor I wrote and which was printed, in which I disclosed (without using my real name, FYI) that certain email addresses had mysteriously disappeared from my computer: ACTIVISTS! EVERY ONE OF THEM! A group in my address book titled “ACLU” (because I used to serve as volunteer Board member of my local ACLU Chapter) was gone in a “pouf”. Other activists with whom I was corresponding: Vanished. Gone!

How could any virus or Trojan horse be this selective? Who would know exactly who these activists were, individually and by name, since most of them were not on my ACLU group button? Who would be interested to target them as activists, specifically, and “Disappear” them from my computer? Even if it was a Trojan horse of something of the kind ,who would be interested to hurl me such a knowledgeable and selective bug in the first place? And why did my previous computer break down after this happened?

I wrote all of these questions in the letter to the editor, yet some unthinking person actually responded in print: “An unwarranted concern. The addresses probably all migrated to another part of your computer”. Those particular activist people, so selectively? Come on. We Americans aren’t even thinking!

Then there was an activist in Rhode Island I spoke with, with whom I served on an election reform think tank. She wrote me off-line to say that the police were querying her in her own private home, wanting to know why she was against the Iraq War. She was ready to move just to protect her granddaughter.

And then, an ACLU volunteer Board member was arrested from her own home without warrant, probable cause or connection to terrorist activity. She was charged with grand theft of her own money, which she had deposited to her own account and which was said to belong to another person who had her same name, coincidentally who also happened to have her same social security number, her same date of birth and who even lived at her same address. Imagine that! No, this was not an identity theft case: It was internal fraud. Because again when we were talking on the phone, and she told me what was going on (this was months before the arrest happened) our phone connection suddenly was disconnected, just when she used the words “Internal fraud”. Click! Buzzz…and then we called back and talked about it a second time. "Internal fraud job". Click, buzz......

Folks, what is our country turning into? No longer do we live in America, the Land of the Free.

I am very grateful to an ACLU attorney who pointed out to me that we still have a mechanism of the original Constitution in place. And another attorney friend told me that bad laws can be toppled based on the fact that the original Constitution is still there. That’s just what we have got to work for. And that remains our hope.

To be strategic in our work, we need to get grassroots entities involved in collecting signatures. To write to grassroots organizations is strategically smart. As is writing letters to the editor, which influences public opinion. (And you are welcome to quote the facts in this message, but I ask that my name not be used, please! Just say "a blogger on opednews reports...")

And what about boycotting? Hey, the purse packs the most powerful punch of all, when all else fails. Let’s use it to our advantage. Once again folks: To get out of the understandable discouragement which we all feel, we must be strategic.

So how do we boycott the wiretapping and censorship program?

Qwest (internet and phone provider) and Credo (long distance/wireless phone company) have both pledged, in writing, not to wiretap without court warrant. Google is not censoring us to the same extent that the other Internet companies are. Get on board with them if only to undercut the nasty violators, and you will be part of the solution! And spread word, to offer hope and “the solution” to your other concerned friends!

Thank you.

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