| January 28, 2005 | -
Security measures included sealing the country's borders, banning travel between provinces, prohibiting private vehicle traffic, and imposing curfews in cities.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| January 21, 2005 | -
George W. Bush was sworn in again as president, and threatened to bring "the untamed fire of freedom" to the world. In his 20-minute speech the president used the words "free," "freedom," and "liberty" 49 times, but never said "war" or "Iraq."
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| October 29, 2004 | - In South Carolina a letter purporting to be from the NAACP claimed that voters will be arrested at the polls if they have outstanding parking tickets or child support payments and said that voters must provide a credit report, two forms of photo ID, a Social Security card, a voter registration card, and a handwriting sample.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| October 28, 2004 | - A new study found that Iraqis are 58 times more likely to die a violent death than before the American invasion; the study concluded that 100,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion, and that coalition air strikes, which mostly kill women and children, were the primary cause of civilian deaths.
| Source:
BBC
|
| October 28, 2004 | - U.S. forces were preparing for another large military assault on Falluja, and nearby Ramadi was said to be "slipping into chaos."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 28, 2004 | - A Sarasota man failed to run over Florida Republican representative Katherine Harris in his car. "I intimidated them with my car," he said. "I was exercising my political expression."
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| October 3, 2004 | - There was more rioting in Haiti.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| September 30, 2004 | - A new homeland security blimp was seen flying around in Washington, D.C., and the House of Representatives voted to overturn Washington's 27-year-old ban on handguns.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 23, 2004 | - After maintaining for three years that Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen captured in Afghanistan, was so grave a threat to the United States that merely permitting him to meet with his lawyer would fatally compromise national security, the Bush Administration (having been told by Justice Antonin Scalia that "the very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive") declined to defend its case against Hamdi in open court and announced that he will be stripped of his citizenship and released in Saudi Arabia.
| Source:
Boston Globe, Washington Post, ZNet
|
| July 30, 2004 | - it was revealed that the Census Bureau has been giving population statistics on Arab-Americans, broken down by zip code, to the Department of Homeland Security.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 7, 2004 | -
Iyad Allawi, the prime minister of Iraq's new puppet government, signed a law giving him the power to declare martial law and ban seditious groups. Allawi hinted recently that national elections, which are scheduled for January 2005, might be delayed.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 5, 2004 | - American soldiers allegedly put a harness on an elderly Iraqi woman and rode her like a donkey.
| Source:
Newsday
|
| April 17, 2004 | - Al Jazeera broadcast a videotape showing an American soldier who was captured west of Baghdad. "I came to Iraq to liberate it," said Pfc. Keith M. Maupin. "But I didn't want to come here because I wanted to be with my son."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| April 14, 2004 | -
Bush also said that "freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 7, 2004 | -
Iraqis were demanding to know the whereabouts and condition of more than 10,000 men and boys (ages 11 to 75) who are being detained by American forces.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 17, 2004 | -
L. Paul Bremer, the American proconsul of Iraq, said he was willing to compromise with the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani (who has declared that only direct elections will legitimize a new government) but said any changes would be very limited, and that direct elections would not be considered.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| December 7, 2003 | - U.S. forces were using Israeli-style tactics against troublesome Iraqis, surrounding some villages with razor wire and forcing residents to carry identification cards, demolishing homes and buildings associated with attacks on Americans, and imprisoning the relatives of suspected guerrillas.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| December 6, 2003 | - The National Rifle Association was looking to buy a TV or radio station so that it can say what it likes about political candidates without having to abide by campaign-finance laws.
| Source:
USA Today
|
| November 23, 2003 | - The Russian Orthodox Church denounced the Mormons for buying the names of dead Russians so they can baptize their dead souls. "Our ceremony is not rebaptism," said a spokesman for the Nizhni Novgorod Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, "it only gives the soul of the deceased person the freedom of choice to accept our belief or to reject it."
| Source:
Guardian
|
| November 21, 2003 | - President Bush was asked to comment on the contradiction between "all [his] talk of freedom, justice and tolerance" and the treatment of the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. "Justice is being done," he replied. "These are illegal noncombatants."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 8, 2003 | - Howard Dean decided to pull out of the public campaign-financing system to avoid spending limits.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| November 7, 2003 | - President George W. Bush gave a speech before the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C., and asked Iran, Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia to please try to be more democratic. The president alluded to the fact that the United States has for sixty years supported dictatorships in the Middle East but said that, "in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 20, 2003 | - Iraqis in Faluja were photographed dancing on a demolished U.S. Army truck after it was blown up and set on fire by local residents.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 11, 2003 | - Federal prosecutors indicted Greenpeace, under an obscure 1872 law designed to prevent "sailor mongers" from preying on returning seamen, for authorizing a protest in which two activists boarded a cargo ship and unfurled a banner. "Never before," said the director of Greenpeace USA, "has our government criminally prosecuted an entire organization for the free speech activities of its supporters."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 22, 2003 | - The Bush Administration announced a new counterterrorism center that will assemble a "watch list" of about 100,000 terrorism suspects.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 22, 2003 | - The International Monetary Fund accused Arafat of moving about $900 million into a bank account under his personal control.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 22, 2003 | - L.
Paul Bremer, the American overseer of Iraq, said that Iraqis were not quite ready for self-rule.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| September 18, 2003 | - JetBlue Airways admitted that last year it shared 5 million passenger itineraries with a defense contractor that was testing a passenger-screening system for the Transportation Security Administration.
| Source:
Wired News
|
| September 17, 2003 | - The Senate passed a resolution of disapproval condemning the Federal Communication Commission's new rules giving more freedom to media monopolies.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 12, 2003 | - Missouri granted its citizens the right to carry concealed guns.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| September 11, 2003 | -
President Bush took advantage of the September 11 anniversary to call for more surveillance and detention powers.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 9, 2003 | - It was reported that the federal government is planning to introduce a new airline security system in which all passengers will be assigned a color-coded rating based on their terror-risk quotient.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| September 4, 2003 | - A federal appeals court blocked the FCC's new rules expanding the freedom of media monopolies.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 20, 2003 | - The International Red Cross demanded information on the status of three dozen Iraqi scientists detained in unknown locations.
| Source:
Observer
|
| July 17, 2003 | - Two FBI agents interrogated a bookstore employee who was observed reading an article entitled "Weapons of Mass Stupidity."
| Source:
Creative Loafing
|
| June 3, 2003 | - A federal appeals court ruled that video games are protected by the First Amendment.
| Source:
CNN
|
| February 5, 2002 | - CNN aired a video of Osama bin Laden in which he gloated that “freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people and the West in general into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”
| |
| December 11, 2001 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which had summoned him to explain his dubious anti-terrorism tactics. “To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty,” he said, “my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists.” He also accused his critics of giving “ammunition to America's enemies.” The attorney general went on to defend his refusal to compromise the right of potential terrorists to keep and bear arms.
| |
| November 27, 2001 | - Three students in New Bedford, Massachusetts, were charged with plotting a massacre at their high school; they wanted it to be “bigger than Columbine.” An Illinois man ran amok in a mall: he set himself on fire, shouted “Freedom and liberty for all!” and started throwing flaming objects at shoppers.
| |
| November 13, 2001 | - At last count, 1,182 people had been detained; the Justice Department has refused to say who is being held, under what charges, or how many have been released.
| |
| October 2, 2001 | -
Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor told a New York audience that “we're likely to experience more restrictions on our personal freedom than has ever been the case in our country.” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer denounced television personality Bill Maher for saying that firing cruise missiles at targets 2,000 miles away was perhaps more cowardly that flying a plane into a tall building: “There are reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never is.” “Watch what they say,” which was captured on tape, was omitted from the official White House transcript.
| |
| September 18, 2001 | - Congressional leaders declared that spy agencies must be given more freedom to fight terrorism: the freedom to conduct unfettered electronic surveillance, the freedom to hire foreign criminals, the freedom to assassinate the enemy. Ordinary Americans, however, would probably have to give up some of their freedom.
| |
| August 28, 2001 | - A California appeals board ruled that a law prohibiting topless dancers from touching, caressing, and fondling their own bodies is an infringement of the constitutional right to freedom of expression.
| |
| July 31, 2001 | - The playwright Harold Pinter joined the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic, saying the former Yugoslav leader's detention at The Hague is illegal.
| |
| July 10, 2001 | - Thirty-nine percent of Americans believe that the First Amendment goes too far in guaranteeing rights, according to a new poll; 41 percent said the media has too much freedom.
| |
| April 10, 2001 | - In Philadelphia, a crazed drifter cried, “God lives on,” and struck the Liberty Bell with a hammer, damaging it slightly.
| |
| March 20, 2001 | -
Iranian president Mohammad Khatami called for more democracy and freedom; within hours, Iranian security forces arrested forty pro-democracy activists.
| |
| January 2, 2001 | - An unofficial recount of Florida's ballots was being undertaken by journalists under the state's freedom of information act; Gore was ahead by 140 votes, and a statistical projection showed him winning Florida by 23,000 votes.
| |
| January 2, 2001 | -
Russian women were not getting married and having children because too many Russian men were not earning enough money; the
New York Times considered this to be yet another example of “freedom's toll.” A woman succeeded in introducing DNA evidence of infidelity into a divorce proceeding, a first.
| |
| December 5, 2000 | -
Russians were busy paying “Freedom's Toll,” wrote the New York Times, drinking hard and dying young.
| |
| December 5, 2000 | -
France decided, after being pressured by the European Court of Justice, to allow women to work at night, which the government banned in the 19th century to promote good morality.
| |
| November 7, 2000 | -
Black city council members in Chicago were blocking a proposal to require the council to recite the pledge of allegiance at meetings because the phrase “liberty and justice for all” was factually inaccurate.
| |
| October 31, 2000 | - A mob in Sri Lanka stormed a detention center and murdered twenty-four inmates, most of whom were Tamil Tiger rebels who had surrendered under a government-sponsored rehabilitation program.
| |
| September 12, 2000 | - Three Israeli border police officers were detained after they beat three Palestinians and photographed one another standing on top of them.
| |
| September 5, 2000 | -
Singapore established limited freedom of speech, including the right to criticize the government, in a corner of Hong Lim Park, between 7 AM and 7 PM, daily; speakers must register in advance with police, who post their names on a wall, and avoid subjects such as race, language, or religion.
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