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Ex-Klansman Killen Gets Maximum 60-Yr Sentence for Manslaughter
Charge in 1964 Mississippi Killings
Pentagon Developing Massive Database on Millions of U.S.
Students
Indian Leaders Offer to Settle Largest Class Action Lawsuit
Against Federal Government in U.S. History
House Restores $100M to Public Broadcasting As CPB Taps Fmr.
RNC Chair Pat Harrison For President
Ex-Klansman Killen Gets Maximum 60-Yr Sentence for
Manslaughter Charge in 1964 Mississippi Killings
Former Ku Klux Klans leader Edgar Ray Killen was sentenced
Thursday to 60 years in prison for the killing of three civil
rights workers in 1964. The judge down the maximum sentence
- 20 years for each killing - for the lesser charge of manslaughter.
We speak with the brother of Michael Schwerner. [includes
rush
transcript]
Former Ku Klux Klans leader Edgar Ray Killen was sentenced
Thursday to 60 years in prison for the killing of three civil
rights workers in 1964.
Killen had been found guilty of felony manslaughter two days
earlier in the killings of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and
Michael Schwerner 41 years ago. The verdict was less severe
than the more serious charge of murder that prosecutors had
initially sought.
Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon handed down the maximum sentence
yesterday - 20 years for each killing. Judge Gordon said,
"Each life has value. There were three lives involved
in this case and the three lives should absolutely be respected
and treated equally." The sentence will likely keep the
80 year-old Killen locked up for the rest of his life.
Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney were helping African Americans
register to vote in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer
civil rights campaign when they were killed on June 21, 1964.
Prosecutors charged that Killen organized a posse to kidnap,
beat and shoot the three civil rights workers and then bulldoze
their bodies under an earthen dam.
Last week we spoke with Carolyn Goodman, the mother of Andrew
Goodman as well as Ben Chaney, brother of James Chaney. Today
we speak with another relative of one of the victims, Steven
Schwerner - brother of Michael Schwerner.
- Steven Schwerner, a retired dean and faculty member at
Antioch College. His brother Michael Schwerner was murdered
in 1964 in Mississippi along with James Chaney and Andrew
Goodman.
Pentagon Developing Massive Database on Millions
of U.S. Students
The Pentagon is working with a private company to create
information dossiers on millions of young Americans to help
identify college and high school students as young as 16 to
target for military recruiting. We speak with the executive
director of the Electronic Privacy Center and Rep. Mike Honda
(D-CA). [includes rush
transcript]
The Pentagon is working with a private company to create
information dossiers on millions of young Americans to help
identify college and high school students as young as 16 to
target for military recruiting.
The massive database includes an array of personal information
including birth dates, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses,
grade point averages, ethnicity and what subjects the students
are studying. The Pentagon has hired the Massachusetts-based
company BeNow to run the database apparently in an effort
to circumvent laws that restrict the government's right to
collect or hold citizen information by turning to private
firms to do the work.
The new database is being created at a time when the Armed
Forces is struggling to meet its recruiting goals. The Army
has missed its monthly recruiting goals every month so far
this year.
The Pentagon's Joint Advertising, Market Research and Studies
Group has overseen the data since 2003, when it took over
several recruiting databases managed separately by the military.
Privacy advocates learned of the database only recently after
the military - as required by law - put a notice in the government
publication "The Federal Register," that it keeps
such information.
Some data on high school students is already given to military
recruiters in a separate program under provisions of the 2002
No Child Left Behind Act.
Under the new system, additional data will be collected from
commercial data brokers, state drivers' license records and
other sources.
- Mike Honda (D-CA), he is sponsoring a bill that would
make it easier for parents to block military recruiters
from gaining access to their high school-aged children.
NOTE: We called BeNow to get comment, they referred us to
Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke. When we contacted
her at the Pentagon, she did not answer our request for an
interview.
Indian Leaders Offer to Settle Largest Class Action
Lawsuit Against Federal Government in U.S. History
Prominent Native American leaders united this week in a
historic effort to resolve a struggle dating back more than
100 years, offering to settle the largest class action lawsuit
against the federal government in U.S. history. We speak with
the lead plaintiff in the case, Elouise Cobell. [includes
rush
transcript]
Indian leaders have offered to settle the largest class action
lawsuit against the federal government in US history. Several
prominent Native American leaders united this week in a historic
effort to resolve a struggle dating back more than 100 years.
The issue is the federal government's care of trust funds
belonging to Native Americans. The result is a set of 50 principles
adopted by a national tribal task force to change how the
Department of Interior does business with Indian country.
Trust funds were set up for Native Americans in 1887 under
the General Allotment Act. The policy aimed to absorb Indians
into American society by breaking up tribally owned lands.
Congress divided 90 million acres of reservation land into
individualized parcels called allotments. Congress awarded
allotments to each tribal member, but viewed Native Americans
as incompetent to manage their own affairs or resources. The
federal government took complete charge of the Indians' lands
and leased the allotments to oil, gas, timber, grazing and
mining interests. The money was supposed to be passed along
to the Indians, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs often failed
to do so. Lease payments weren't collected and when they were,
the money went elsewhere. Native Americans have never received
all the money due, despite constant complaints and numerous
investigations. Some $300 million a year flows into the trust
accounts.
In 1996, the largest class-action lawsuit ever launched against
the government was filed on behalf of 300,000 trust-fund beneficiaries.
Cobell vs. Norton challenges the federal government to account
for the billions of dollars held in trust since the late 19th
century. The case has dragged on for 9 years. A federal judge
hearing the case in 1999 said the accounts were so botched
that it was impossible to know what was owed to whom. The
court was placed in charge of overseeing the process of fixing
the trust funds.
This week, leaders of the Osage, Blackfeet, Navajo, and Mandan,
Hidatsa and Arikara nations converged in Washington to announce
a set of guiding plans for reform. This comes after urgings
from Senate and House members. Sens John McCain of Arizona
and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota are now expected to introduce
legislation for a settlement in the Cobell case and trust
reform. The inter-tribal coalition presented a settlement
amount of $27.5 billion as part of the map for reform.
- Elouise Cobell, Lead plaintiff in the landmark Cobell
v. Norton case. She was part of the national working group
that drafted the Principles roadmap for trust reform. She
served as Treasurer of the Blackfeet nation in Montana before
launching the case.
NOTE: We called the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the Department
of the Interior. Spokesperson Dan DuBray declined to be on
the show
House Restores $100M to Public Broadcasting As CPB
Taps Fmr. RNC Chair Pat Harrison For President
As the House of Representatives votes to restore $100 million
in proposed budget cuts to public television and radio, the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting names former Republican
party co-chair, Patricia Harrison, as its president. [includes
rush
transcript]
The House of Representatives voted Thursday to restore $100
million in proposed budget cuts to public television and radio.
Lawmakers were reportedly flooded with letters and phone
calls after the Republican-controlled House Appropriations
Committee cut $100 million from the $400 million budget of
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The committee also
eliminated subsidies for educational programs and technological
upgrades.
The House voted 284 to 140 to restore money to the budget.
More than 80 Republicans broke rank to support the amendment.
Public broadcasters will face much smaller cuts if the amended
government appropriations bill is adopted by the House today
and the Senate later this summer. If approved, the current
budget reduction would amount to a 25 percent cut for public
broadcasting - far less than the 46 percent originally proposed.
While Thursday vote came as a victory to public television
and radio officials, concerns over the politicization of the
CPB continue. Yesterday, the CPB board announced they had
tapped former Republican party co-chair, Patricia Harrison,
to lead the organization.
Harrison is currently a high-ranking official at the State
Department. She was co-chair of the RNC from 1997 until January
2001, helping to raise money for Republican candidates, including
George W. Bush.
In her State Department role, Harrison has praised the work
of the department's Office of Broadcasting Services, which
in early 2002 began producing feature reports -- some coordinated
by the White House - that promoted the administration's arguments
for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The reports were
distributed free to domestic and international TV stations.
In testimony before Congress last year, Harrison said the
Bush administration regarded these "good news" segments
as "powerful strategic tools" for swaying public
opinion.
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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