The Texas CISPA bill, approved unanimously by the House last week, may be passed by the Legislature within 24 hours. It has been scheduled for a vote on Monday.

The bill, now slightly altered SB 1052 in the Senate, does the following:

• Requires any Internet provider that serves Texans to hand over private communication and files.
• Sets no standard for warrants for such seizures, enabling arbitrary violations of Texans’ privacy.
• Forces Internet providers to respond within 15-30 days (and sometimes 4-30), giving them almost no time to protect information not targeted.
• Makes it a crime for an officer, director or owner of a company to not comply with the request within the 15-30 day window.
• Opens the door to politically-motivated seizures of online communication.

Massive oil spill in Gulf of Mexico in 2010 caused one of world’s worst environmental catastrophes.

ust off the coast of the US state of Texas, the Deepwater Horizon oil platform blew up exactly three years ago.

Vast amounts of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, causing one of the biggest-ever environmental catastrophes.

Video has now emerged that energy giant BP never wanted shown, and there have been accusations of a cover-up.

Al Jazeera’s John Terret reports from New Orleans.

A Texas district attorney and his wife were shot to death in their home in Kaufman County last night, the latest instance in a recent spate of suspicious shootings of law enforcement officials. The deaths of Mike and Cynthia McLelland follow the shooting of a Kaufman County assistant district attorney in January, which stoked suspicions of a conspiracy to target law enforcement officials by a white supremacist group.

The assistant district attorney, Mark Hasse, was killed on the same day the Justice Department released a statement noting the Kaufman County district attorney’s involvement in a racketeering case against the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist group based in Texas. The FBI had also begun investigating links between Hasse’s slaying and last week’s shooting of Colorado prison chief Tom Clemons by a member of another white supremacist group.

A school district in Texas came under fire earlier this year when it announced that it would require students to wear microchip-embedded ID cards at all times. Now, students who refuse to be monitored say they are feeling the repercussions.

Since October 1, students at John Jay High School and Anson Jones Middle School in San Antonio, Texas, have been asked to attend class with photo ID cards equipped with radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips to track every pupil’s location. Educators insist that the endeavor is being rolled out in Texas to stem the rampant truancy devastating the school’s funding. If the program is judged successful, the RFID chips could soon come to 112 schools in all and affect nearly 100,000 students.

Students who refuse to walk the school halls with the card in their pocket or around their neck claim they are being tormented by instructors, and are barred from participating in certain school functions. Some also said they were turned away from common areas like cafeterias and libraries.

Andrea Hernandez, a sophomore at John Jay, said educators have ignored her pleas to respect her privacy and told her she cannot participate in school elections if she refuses to comply with the tracking program.

Hernandez said in an interview with Salon that subjecting herself to constant monitoring through an RFID chip is like being branded with the “mark of the beast” – a reference to the Bible’s apocalyptic Book of Revelations. When she reached out to WND with the school’s response, though, she said that she was threatened with not being allowed to vote for her school’s homecoming king and queen for disobeying the student ID rule.

“I had a teacher tell me I would not be allowed to vote because I did not have the proper voter ID,” Hernandez told WND. “I had my old student ID card which they originally told us would be good for the entire four years we were in school. He said I needed the new ID with the chip in order to vote.”

After Hernandez refused to wear an RFID chip, WND reported that Deputy Superintendent Ray Galindo issued a statement to the girl’s parents: “We are simply asking your daughter to wear an ID badge as every other student and adult on the Jay campus is asked to do.” If she is allowed to forego the tracking now, the repercussions will be harsher than just revoking voting rights for homecoming contests once the school makes location-monitoring mandatory, he argued.

I’m currently part of a team of awesome friends roving through the woods of east Texas as part of the Tar Sands Blockade (TSB). This is an epic fight to defend Texans’ homes and land against the clearcutting and pollution caused by the building of the massive Keystone XL pipeline.

thinksquad:

LAPORTE, TX — A stay-home mom was arrested for letting her children ride their scooters in a cul-du-sac in front of their home. Police say Tammy Cooper was endangering the children because her lawn chair wasn’t close enough to where they were playing. She was handcuffed, put in an orange jumpsuit, and thrown in jail for 18 hours. She has already spent $7,000 trying to defend her case. The children were taken to Child Protective Services and interrogated.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/Mom-sues-local-police-over-arrest/-/1735978/16528610/-/tsvmg6/-/index.html

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/09/07/50051.htm

As Occupy Wall Street prepares to mark its first anniversary, members of Occupy Austin have discovered that their arrests on felony charges after a protest last December are directly linked to equipment provided by a police detective who infiltrated their group. The activists locked arms inside tubes made of PVC pipe that the police had designed, constructed and dropped off for the protest. We’re joined from Austin by Ronnie Garza, one of the members of Occupy Austin facing felony charges stemming from the December protest, and from Houston by Greg Gladden, National Lawyers Guild member and past president of the Texas American Civil Liberties Union

Texas Democrats believe that marijuana should be decriminalized — so strongly, in fact, that decriminalization made it onto their party platform this year.

Texas Democrats affirmed their commitment to sound drug policy while simultaneously denouncing the erroneously titled “War on Drugs,” which has led to high incarceration rates but very little in the way of reducing drug use. “Since the war on drugs began, 85% of the arrests for marijuana have been for possession only,” the platform says:

Marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. Recent polls show over 50% of Americans believe marijuana should be decriminalized. While arrests for marijuana since 1965 have been over 20 million citizens, marijuana is more prevalent than ever before.

There is no evidence that marijuana is a “gateway” drug leading to the use of more lethal drugs. 75% of citizens arrested for marijuana are under 30. Minorities account for a majority of those arrested for marijuana. Criminal conviction permanently scars a young citizen for life.

Colbert eviscerates text book trashing creationist.

occupyallstreets:

BREAKING: Occupy Congress: Bump in the Road Occupiers Kicked off Greyhound in Texas

Yesterday, a group of Occupiers from Occupy Greyhound were removed from a bus from simply being protesters.

Donald Ainsworth, the bus driver, began yelling at the passengers when he realized they were with Occupy. He began making personal and rude comments towards members when boarding with tickets but no one responded. 

Once the bus was boarded he began shouting “Sit down and shut up! Anyone standing is getting kicked off the bus.” Several passengers, not just Occupants, began addressing the driver’s conduct.

He left the bus, and locked all passengers within for over an hour.

Witnesses say he was on the phone for a while then police showed up. 

The officer came on the bus and spoke with the passengers, stating he knew Don’s attitude was poor but he had the right to remove them. After everyone agreed to be quiet, the officer re-approached Don and had a calm argument with him.

Following that, Don and the officer entered the bus and the officer announced he wanted 13 people off the bus. Don began to walk down the aisle and asked every passenger “are you with Occupy?” To the 13 of us who responded yes, the police ordered them to exit the bus. Then Don said “Anyone else support Occupy? You can get off too!”

The group of protesters are currently at in Amarillo at the Greyhound station. They are stream video live on Ustream. You can watch it here.

Contact Greyhound Lines and demand the Occupiers receive a charter directly to DC:

Greyhound Lines, Inc.
600 Vine St., Ste. 1400
Cincinnati, OH 45202
OH  Tel. 513-241-2200
Fax 513-419-3394

Greyhound department for complaints: 214-849-8966 (available till Monday)

Driver: Donald Ainsworth

Bus Number: 6252 en route to Memphis, TN