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Empire Notes
GUEST: Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade

We’d like to open today’s program with our weekly commentary Empire Notes by Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade. Today’s commentary sets the stage for our next interview – it’s about Bush’s wiretapping program.

Empire Notes is online at www.empirenotes.org.

Bush Domestic Spying Program Revealed
GUESTS: Sherman Austin, political activist targeted by the government, Nancy Talanian, Director of the Bill of Rights Defence Committee

The New York Times reported last Friday on a government program of spying on US residents. It had known the story for over a year, before the last Presidential election. The report has created a furor in the capital, with politicians in both parties saying that President Bush was wrong to authorize surveillance by the National Security Agency without permission from a special court. It was revealed that the NSA was used to spy on political, environmental and antiwar groups such as Greenpeace, and Catholic Worker. In response, Bush and other administration officials went on the offensive this week, angrily defending the program as essential to national security, and criticizing the New York Times for it’s reporting. Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of the 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, has resigned in protest of Bush’s secret authorization.

President Bush in a news conference earlier in the week, followed by Condoleeza Rice speaking to “Fox News Sunday”, Alberto Gonzalez speaking to NBC’s Today Show.

The spying program includes eavesdropping on international telephone calls and emails made by Americans.

For more information visit www.bordc.org, and freesherman.org.

Commentary on history of Government Surveillance
GUEST: Mumia Abu Jamal, political prisoner and award winning journalist and writer

Mumia Abu Jamal is a political prisoner on death row who himself was under intense surveillance by the FBI during his work with the Black Panther Party. He filed this commentary.

For more information visit www.prisonradio.org.

Impact of Disasters on Women
GUEST: Kavita Ramdas, President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women

On December 26th 2004, a year ago that a terrifying Tsunami killed over 200,000 people in 12 countries in Asia and Africa. Since then, Hurricane Katrina in the US displaced over a million and killed over a thousand, Hurricane Stan hit Central America, killing hundreds and wiping out crops, and an earthquake in Pakistan killed more than 70,000. Despite the geographic and ethnic diversity of the disaster victims, one common factor has been found to tie them all together. According to the Global Fund for Women, it’s always the women who are disproportionately affected by natural disaster – for example, in the wake of natural disasters, more than 75% of displaced people are women and children. Kavita Ramdas is the President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women and co-author of a new report entitled “Caught in the Storm: The Impact of Natural Disasters on Women.”

For more information visit www.globalfundforwomen.org . Download the entire report [PDF].

The Black Commentator is an online political magazine bringing you commentary, analysis and investigation from a black perspective. Today’s commentary is about Bush’s plan for Iraq.

The Black Commentator is online at www.blackcommentator.com.

An update on Intelligent Design
GUEST: Jeff Berman, Western Regional Director of People for the American Way

On December 20th a court in Dover, Pennsylvania ruled against the town’s public school board policy of including the so-called theory of Intelligent Design in their 9th grade biology curriculum. In the issued opinion, Judge Jones said, “Our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach Intelligent Design as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.” Apparently the court found Intelligent Design to be simply “creationism in disguise” and hence its inclusion in the Biology curriculum breached the policy of separation of Church and State. Opponents of Intelligent Design hailed the ruling as a victory for the Constitution, students, and science education. Advocates of Intelligent Design, vow to continue in spite of last Tuesday’s ruling. Televangelist Pat Robertson, even went so far as to suggest that the Dover ruling would incur the wrath of God.

For more information, visit www.pfaw.org.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day:

“If we are going to teach creation science as an alternative to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as an alternative to biological reproduction.” Writer, Judith Hayes