By Brenda Norrell
My friends and I drove out to one of the new spy towers that isn't working along the U.S./Mexico border.
All along the border, people are outraged that their right to privacy has been violated, as new spy towers are up, with cameras ready to capture their every move.
Border residents are scrambling to look for a draft environmental impact statement, if one exists, and information on how the microwaves will damage their health. They want to know how the radar will harm bats and other creatures that pollinate the delicate ecosystem of the desert.
The Secure Border Initiative, Project 28, is turning into one of the U.S. government's grandest fiasco's. And there's lots of competition there.
Suddenly, without Arizona land owners having an opportunity to comment, these spy cameras are ready to view everyone in the privacy of their backyards and backseats.
The U.S. contractor, Boeing, was able to keep one fact a secret along the border. The firm that is working with Boeing on this spy fence, Israeli-owned Elbit Systems, is the same one building the Apartheid Fence in occupied Palestine.
In a separate case, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen for torture flights to secret prisons.
At the same time on the Arizona border, the ancestors of Tohono O'odham were dug up and removed from tribal land for the border vehicle barrier on tribal land. Ofelia Rivas, O'odham Voice Against the Wall, says it was a violation of federal law and O'odham want their ancestors returned and reburied.
Needless, to say, everyone is looking for attorneys to file lawsuits.
Back at the spy tower, my friends and I had a little picnic of chocolates and grapes, in the shadow of the defunct spy tower, just as the final light of day disappeared in the desert mountains.
I should mention, that these friends are probably the only two people in the world that would do such a thing, calmly. We sat, as dark fell, having a picnic beneath a non-functioning border spy tower -- a tower that violates everything Americans have celebrated: human rights, respect, rights to privacy and the rights in the Constitution.
In the shadow of the spy tower, with its red light blinking in the desert night, the only thing we observed was a very nervous young guard sitting in his white truck at the spy tower.
Across the vast rolling hills, thunder clouds threatened.
We'll keep you posted.
--Brenda Norrell
Here's one document on the Secure Border Initiative that few people can find. We're still searching for that draft environmental impact statement, if one exists:
http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS80699
Here's another US document:
http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS80669
June 28, 2007
June 27, 2007
Waiting for the rains
By Brenda Norrellhttp://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
TUCSON -- This is the worst time of year, the heat is insufferable. After 15 minutes of walking in this 107 degrees baking-oven, I run into an ice-cold cafe for an ice-cold green tea.
What makes it worse this year, is most people can't afford to run their air conditioners at home, or own a car with air conditioning.
This is the hardest time of year here, when there is no relief from the sun, the time before the monsoon rains.
Then, I remember all those people headed north from Mexico, Guatemala and the south. Their families are hungry or a wife or child is sick and there is no medicine. They walk in this torturous heat and risk dieing in the baking desert.
Many do not make it. Their bodies are found out there, beneath mesquite trees or on the dry-baked earth. Many have died of heat exposure or dehydration. Some have been shot, others have been raped and shot.
The heat, and those images, are difficult to convey in words.
Photographer Michael Hyatt has captured images to tell this story. Hyatt's photos are of the mementos that migrants leave behind. He has just released a book of photos, Migrant Artifacts: Magic and Loss in the Sonoran Desert (Great Circle Books, $30).
At the book's opening show in Tucson Saturday night, one photo told the sad story of one life. A pair of leather sands, worn sandals like the kind that Indigenous wear in Chiapas, Oaxaca and most other places in the south, were left in the sand. They were left there, as if the person walking had si
mply stepped out of them during a slow and purposeful stride, stepped out of them and gone onto the next world.More than 4,000 people have died crossing this desert along the border, each mourned by a mother, father, brother, sister, daughter or son.
Still, there are those volunteers out there each day trying to save lives. The volunteers from No More Deaths and the Samaritans look for those dieing in the desert. Humane Borders volunteers leave water in gallon jugs and small tanks for those dieing of thirst. Tohono O'odham Mike Wilson is one of those. The water, and the volunteers, are not enough to cover the vastness of the desert.
Derechos Humanos Coalition is struggling to protect migrant rights, including those shot and raped by border agents. The Indigenous Alliance Without Borders is fighting for the right for safe passage for Indigenous at the border.
The O'odham Voice Against the Wall is struggling to protect the ceremonial routes from the intrusion of the border wall and the return of their ancestors, following the recently vandalized graves by U.S. border construction.
Everyone is struggling, everyone is waiting for it to rain.
--Brenda Norrell
Photos by Michael Hyatt from his new book: "Migrant Artifacts: Magic and Loss in the Sonoran Desert"
"Our Lady of Guadalupe on the Migrant Trail," 2003.
"Anne Frank in Migrant Camp," 2004.
June 26, 2007
Authentic journalism, beyond money and even glory
By Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
There are a handful of heroes writing authentic journalism with courage and boldness, including Al Giordano at Narco News. Narco News exposes the fraudulent "war on drugs," while covering the Americas, including extensive coverage of the Zapatistas.
Giordano recently turned down an award from Project Censored, pointing out that the book publishing company would be making big bucks off the story. Giordano's work is a labor of love and passion. Like most authentic journalists, he works for little pay.
Other journalists, like myself, came kicking and screaming to the use of blogs to write authentic journalism. It was only after getting fired twice by a leading national Indian newspaper, where I served as a staff writer, that I realized that the only way to do it, is to do it myself. (I have no sponsors and receive no pay for this blog.)
When I saw an article I wrote today on the website of Indian Country Today -- the newspaper that fired me twice and forced me into bankruptcy -- it was troubling.
The link is to the story of a murdered Lakota woman, Lillian "Sunshine" Wright, a homeless woman on the streets of Tucson who brought out the best in people, in her life and death.
It is interesting that while I was writing that article, after Sunshine's memorial last week, I kept thinking of how the managing editor of Indian Country Today in 2005 had repeatedly demanded that I stop writing about grassroots people.
Would Indian Country Today have printed an article about Sunshine while she was alive and living on the streets? It is doubtful. I was told to write about politicians.
There's still a lot of "Sunshines" out there.
It also seems a good time, with Indian Country Today traffic headed this way, to point out some of the stories that remain censored at the newspaper. Just to name a few censored issues, there's the ongoing federal probe of some reporters' sweetheart, Congressman Rick Renzi, R-Ariz.; any issue referring to Leonard Peltier and finally, the Zapatistas' Other Campaign at the Mexican border.
In closing, here's Giordano's comments to Project Censored.
"The same indignant passions provoked in me when an unelected group of bean counters stole the votes from the Mexican people – that led me to investigate and publish that series of reports – are recurrent today when I read the heavy-handed manner in which your project seeks to sell or give my work to a commercial publisher of dubious ethics and motives without my permission."
By the way, Project Censored contacted me as well. They wanted to talk. I'm still waiting for that phone call. But like Giordano, I'm not holding my breath in hopes that anything good will come out of it.
--Brenda Norrell
Read more:
Narco News
http://www.narconews.com/
"Remembering Sunshine, murdered Lakota woman, special spirit"
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2007/06/remembering-sunshine-murdered-lakota.html
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
There are a handful of heroes writing authentic journalism with courage and boldness, including Al Giordano at Narco News. Narco News exposes the fraudulent "war on drugs," while covering the Americas, including extensive coverage of the Zapatistas.
Giordano recently turned down an award from Project Censored, pointing out that the book publishing company would be making big bucks off the story. Giordano's work is a labor of love and passion. Like most authentic journalists, he works for little pay.
Other journalists, like myself, came kicking and screaming to the use of blogs to write authentic journalism. It was only after getting fired twice by a leading national Indian newspaper, where I served as a staff writer, that I realized that the only way to do it, is to do it myself. (I have no sponsors and receive no pay for this blog.)
When I saw an article I wrote today on the website of Indian Country Today -- the newspaper that fired me twice and forced me into bankruptcy -- it was troubling.
The link is to the story of a murdered Lakota woman, Lillian "Sunshine" Wright, a homeless woman on the streets of Tucson who brought out the best in people, in her life and death.
It is interesting that while I was writing that article, after Sunshine's memorial last week, I kept thinking of how the managing editor of Indian Country Today in 2005 had repeatedly demanded that I stop writing about grassroots people.
Would Indian Country Today have printed an article about Sunshine while she was alive and living on the streets? It is doubtful. I was told to write about politicians.
There's still a lot of "Sunshines" out there.
It also seems a good time, with Indian Country Today traffic headed this way, to point out some of the stories that remain censored at the newspaper. Just to name a few censored issues, there's the ongoing federal probe of some reporters' sweetheart, Congressman Rick Renzi, R-Ariz.; any issue referring to Leonard Peltier and finally, the Zapatistas' Other Campaign at the Mexican border.
In closing, here's Giordano's comments to Project Censored.
"The same indignant passions provoked in me when an unelected group of bean counters stole the votes from the Mexican people – that led me to investigate and publish that series of reports – are recurrent today when I read the heavy-handed manner in which your project seeks to sell or give my work to a commercial publisher of dubious ethics and motives without my permission."
By the way, Project Censored contacted me as well. They wanted to talk. I'm still waiting for that phone call. But like Giordano, I'm not holding my breath in hopes that anything good will come out of it.
--Brenda Norrell
Read more:
Narco News
http://www.narconews.com/
"Remembering Sunshine, murdered Lakota woman, special spirit"
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2007/06/remembering-sunshine-murdered-lakota.html
June 24, 2007
Boeing/Israeli spy towers aren't working at Arizona border
Israel's 'Apartheid Wall' model for Arizona/Mexico spy wall
By Brenda Norrell
U.N. OBSERVER & International Report
ARIVACA, Ariz. – The Israeli's "Apartheid Wall" is the model for the new spy towers at the U.S. Mexico border, which are not working. The U.S. border hysteria is resulting in billion-dollar contracts for Bush-friendly corporations violating human rights at the border.
The new spy towers built by Boeing and the Israeli’s Elbit System are now being called “Arizona’s Apartheid Spy Fence.” The startup of the spy network was delayed in June, because of radar problems.
Boeing is already the subject of an ACLU lawsuit for the torture flights to secret prisons of its subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan. Now, Boeing is under scrutiny for joining the Israel company Elbit to build a border spy network here. Elbit is building the Apartheid Wall in occupied Palestine.
Southern Arizona residents are wondering if the new virtual spy fence’s radar problems are related to the bat population here. Tens of thousands of bats fly out of the caves of Ruby, Arizona, near the new spy towers.
The new spy towers, composed of 98-foot surveillance towers, use infrared and radar to track human movement. The question that residents have posed is whether this radar would interfere with the bats' navigation abilities and their ability to pollinate.
The bats' pollination is essential to the saguaro, yucca and other desert plants in the fragile ecosystem of the Sonoran Desert.
Bats rely on a keen echolocation (or sonar) system to navigate and capture insects in the dark. Bats emit high-frequency sounds that are inaudible to human ears. By listening to echoes, bats can discern objects in their path, even in the night.
The big question -- with this $2 billion spy fiasco -- is whether the environmental impact statement took into consideration that this is a major bat habitat.
Further, the good folks that live around Arivaca don't want their every move spied on by the US/Israeli team. They are organizing in opposition to the spy towers, Project 28, under the Secure Border Initiative.
Meanwhile, few newspapers have reported that O’odham graves were dug up and the remains removed on May 17, in violation of federal law, for construction of the border barrier wall, on the Arizona border. Homeland Security has built two detention centers for migrants on Tohono O’odham tribal land, where many migrants die each year for lack of water.
Human rights activists point out that the border/migrant hysteria is turning into a billion dollar cash cow for Bush-friendly corporations. The migrant/border hysteria has been pumped up by U.S. television news and fueled by hate groups.
The bottom line is that the border hype is really about Bush and friends’ corporate welfare system. Halliburton didn't just get rich in Iraq. Halliburton was funded to build migrant prisons. The Frankenstein Wackenhut is also back, contracted to transport detained migrants.
Billion-dollar contracts for spy equipment and border walls are the latest deceptions to enrich Bush-friendly corporations, aided by an impotent U.S. Congress.
Related:
Apartheid Wall in Palestine becomes international model:
“The “Apartheid Wall”—as Palestinians call it—is scheduled to snake across 400 miles of the territory, encircling or cordoning off whole Palestinian communities to isolate them from expanding Israeli settlements that have moved into the region. The walls, which will come to incarcerate whole populations of Palestinians in their native lands, has become an international model.”
http://www.bordervoz.org/featuredarticle13.html/
Video of Arivaca residents reacting to spy fence:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2007/05/25/VI2007052501089.html?referrer=emaillink
Arivaca residents don’t like Big Brother watching:
http://www.tucsoncitizen.info/ss/breakingnews/53598.php/
From the St. Louis Post Dispatch:”Boeing's big border fence project is off to a bit of a bumpy start. The 28-mile first stage of the Secure Border Initiative, or SBInet, missed its scheduled start-up date last week, and officials at Boeing and the Department of Homeland Security can't say for sure when it will be operational. http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/stories.nsf/0/6FCCE73AFD562DE086257302000C57D7?OpenDocument
”The DHS awarded the SBI contract for the border security project to prime contractor Boeing over Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. In addition to Boeing and Elbit, the other members of the $2 billion program are telecommunication heavy-weights Lucent, L3 Communications, Perot Systems and Unisys Global Public Sector”
http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Articles%5El1450&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=TechnologyFrom
WW4 Report:
”How ironic. We noted in August that ex-Israeli security chief Uza Dayan was warning the US against emulating Israeli strategies in securing the Mexican border. Now it appears that Elbit Systems, an Israeli firm which is building the ‘Apartheid Wall’ in occupied Palestine, has been awarded a contract, along with Boeing, to build the wall on the Mexican border.”Elbit press release: http://www.elbitsystems.com/data/ESLT_Kollsman_Boeing_SBI_Project.pdf
O’odham remains unlawfully excavated at border:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2007/06/oodham-ancestors-remains-unlawfully.html/
Jeppesen sued over 70 torture flights:
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_6023854/
By Brenda Norrell
U.N. OBSERVER & International Report
ARIVACA, Ariz. – The Israeli's "Apartheid Wall" is the model for the new spy towers at the U.S. Mexico border, which are not working. The U.S. border hysteria is resulting in billion-dollar contracts for Bush-friendly corporations violating human rights at the border.
The new spy towers built by Boeing and the Israeli’s Elbit System are now being called “Arizona’s Apartheid Spy Fence.” The startup of the spy network was delayed in June, because of radar problems.
Boeing is already the subject of an ACLU lawsuit for the torture flights to secret prisons of its subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan. Now, Boeing is under scrutiny for joining the Israel company Elbit to build a border spy network here. Elbit is building the Apartheid Wall in occupied Palestine.
Southern Arizona residents are wondering if the new virtual spy fence’s radar problems are related to the bat population here. Tens of thousands of bats fly out of the caves of Ruby, Arizona, near the new spy towers.
The new spy towers, composed of 98-foot surveillance towers, use infrared and radar to track human movement. The question that residents have posed is whether this radar would interfere with the bats' navigation abilities and their ability to pollinate.
The bats' pollination is essential to the saguaro, yucca and other desert plants in the fragile ecosystem of the Sonoran Desert.
Bats rely on a keen echolocation (or sonar) system to navigate and capture insects in the dark. Bats emit high-frequency sounds that are inaudible to human ears. By listening to echoes, bats can discern objects in their path, even in the night.
The big question -- with this $2 billion spy fiasco -- is whether the environmental impact statement took into consideration that this is a major bat habitat.
Further, the good folks that live around Arivaca don't want their every move spied on by the US/Israeli team. They are organizing in opposition to the spy towers, Project 28, under the Secure Border Initiative.
Meanwhile, few newspapers have reported that O’odham graves were dug up and the remains removed on May 17, in violation of federal law, for construction of the border barrier wall, on the Arizona border. Homeland Security has built two detention centers for migrants on Tohono O’odham tribal land, where many migrants die each year for lack of water.
Human rights activists point out that the border/migrant hysteria is turning into a billion dollar cash cow for Bush-friendly corporations. The migrant/border hysteria has been pumped up by U.S. television news and fueled by hate groups.
The bottom line is that the border hype is really about Bush and friends’ corporate welfare system. Halliburton didn't just get rich in Iraq. Halliburton was funded to build migrant prisons. The Frankenstein Wackenhut is also back, contracted to transport detained migrants.
Billion-dollar contracts for spy equipment and border walls are the latest deceptions to enrich Bush-friendly corporations, aided by an impotent U.S. Congress.
Related:
Apartheid Wall in Palestine becomes international model:
“The “Apartheid Wall”—as Palestinians call it—is scheduled to snake across 400 miles of the territory, encircling or cordoning off whole Palestinian communities to isolate them from expanding Israeli settlements that have moved into the region. The walls, which will come to incarcerate whole populations of Palestinians in their native lands, has become an international model.”
http://www.bordervoz.org/featuredarticle13.html/
Video of Arivaca residents reacting to spy fence:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2007/05/25/VI2007052501089.html?referrer=emaillink
Arivaca residents don’t like Big Brother watching:
http://www.tucsoncitizen.info/ss/breakingnews/53598.php/
From the St. Louis Post Dispatch:”Boeing's big border fence project is off to a bit of a bumpy start. The 28-mile first stage of the Secure Border Initiative, or SBInet, missed its scheduled start-up date last week, and officials at Boeing and the Department of Homeland Security can't say for sure when it will be operational. http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/stories.nsf/0/6FCCE73AFD562DE086257302000C57D7?OpenDocument
”The DHS awarded the SBI contract for the border security project to prime contractor Boeing over Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. In addition to Boeing and Elbit, the other members of the $2 billion program are telecommunication heavy-weights Lucent, L3 Communications, Perot Systems and Unisys Global Public Sector”
http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Articles%5El1450&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=TechnologyFrom
WW4 Report:
”How ironic. We noted in August that ex-Israeli security chief Uza Dayan was warning the US against emulating Israeli strategies in securing the Mexican border. Now it appears that Elbit Systems, an Israeli firm which is building the ‘Apartheid Wall’ in occupied Palestine, has been awarded a contract, along with Boeing, to build the wall on the Mexican border.”Elbit press release: http://www.elbitsystems.com/data/ESLT_Kollsman_Boeing_SBI_Project.pdf
O’odham remains unlawfully excavated at border:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2007/06/oodham-ancestors-remains-unlawfully.html/
Jeppesen sued over 70 torture flights:
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_6023854/
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