Suffolk County police Emergency Services Unit officers responded to the building on Waverly Avenue shortly after the suspicious substance was found 1 p.m., a police spokeswoman said.

The powder was found in a plastic bag in the loading dock and was found to be non-toxic, according to a spokeswoman for the Internal Revenue Service.

Investigators are analyzing the powder, police said.

The incident came two weeks after a Mississippi allegedly mailed letters containing Ricin, a lethal biological warfare agent, to President Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and a Mississippi judge.

The declaration makes Suffolk eligible for assistance from Federal Emergency Management Agency. The county and the state will also be eligible for federal assistance with the cost of snow removal on eastern Long Island.

“Suffolk County bore the worst of the storm’s impact on New York,” said U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who co-wrote a request to the president with U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer. “Residents throughout Suffolk County and New York should not be left shouldering all of these costs alone.”

The Feb. 8 snowstorm forced scores of drivers to abandon their vehicles on roadways including the Long Island Expressway, which was closed for days while hundreds of snowplows were brought in from upstate to clear the way.

Countless other roads were also forced closed by the powerful nor’easter, dubbed Winter Storm Nemo, which brought the highest accumulations in the Town of Brookhaven, where residents were most critical of the municipalities response.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was arrested Friday night and is suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon. (Photo: FBI)

Federal authorities have charged the Boston Marathon bombing suspect with using a weapon of mass destruction, which is punishable by death, but didn’t deem him an enemy combatant as some had urged.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is expected to be arraigned Monday in his room at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where authorities have said he is listed in serious condition.

“Today’s charges bring a successful end to a tragic week for the city of Boston and for our country,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “We’ve once again shown that those who target innocent Americans and attempt to terrorize our cities will not escape from justice.”

The 19-year-old Cambridge man was captured Friday night following a five-day manhunt that ended when the teen was found hiding in a boat in Watertown, Mass.

His 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, was killed in a shootout with police after the duo allegedly gunned down an MIT police officer and carjacked a driver Thursday night.

The bombings last Monday at the Boylston Street finish line left three dead and more than 200 wounded. Investigators have said the suspects made the bombs out of pressure cookers filled with nails, ball bearings and other projectiles.

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) joined fellow Republicans in calling on President Barack Obama to have the surviving Tsarnaev as an enemy combatant, meaning he would be tried in military tribunal instead of civilian court.

“The accused perpetrators of these acts were not common criminals attempting to profit from a criminal enterprise, but terrorists trying to injure, maim, and kill innocent Americans,” King said in a joint statement. “The suspect, based upon his actions, clearly is a good candidate for enemy combatant status.”

Tsarnaev, a native of the Chechnya region in southern Russia, was granted U.S. citizenship in September. Massachusetts has outlawed the death penalty, but it is still allowed under federal law. He could also be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Carmen Ortiz, U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, said she could not disclose what the teen may have said to investigators except to say that they always “seek to elicit all the actionable intelligence and information we can from terrorist suspects.”

Rich Sturges, a 41-year-old Boston school teacher originally from Malverne, was about five blocks from the scene during his second running of the nation’s oldest marathon when the bombs went off second apart.

“It was very stunning,” he told the Press. “It’s not going to be back to normal for a while.”

President Barack Obama gave his first State of the Union address of his second term Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013.

Federal authorities are investigating letters sent to President Barack Obama and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) that contained a suspicious substance that preliminarily tested positive for ricin, a lethal biological warfare agent.

The U.S. Secret Service immediately quarantined the letter to Obama that was received at a mail screening facility offsite from the White House, the front of which was cordoned off by yellow tape Tuesday, officials said. Lab test results will take 24-48 hours to confirm if the substance is Ricin.

“The investigation into these letters remains ongoing, and more letters may still be received,” the FBI said in a statement that did not indicate if there was a written message in the envelope. “There is no indication of a connection to the attack in Boston.”

The mail case broke a day after the Boston Marathon bombings that left three dead and nearly 200 wounded. The FBI has said at least one of the two bombs was built out of a pressure cooker filled with projectiles.

The apparent Ricin mailings are similar to letters containing Anthrax that were mailed to two U.S. Senators and several New York City-based news outlets for weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Five people died and 17 were hospitalized for exposure and the FBI’s suspect killed himself.

U.S. Capitol Police, which responded with its HAZMAT crew, described the powder in the latest case as a “white granular substance.”

Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, referred most questions about the case to the FBI and said Obama is scheduled to travel Thursday to Boston, where he will speak at an interfaith service.

“Any time a suspicious powder is located in a mail facility, it is tested,” Carney told reporters Wednesday.

Operations at the White House and the Capitol Complex have not been affected as a result of the investigation, authorities said, but other cases of suspicious packages have been reported Wednesday.

“On the House side, at least, it’s business as usual,” Samantha Slater, spokeswoman for Rep. Steve Israel (D-Dix Hills), told the Press. “What they’ve found so far is on the Senate side.”

She added that she noticed the garbage cans were dismantled Wednesday outside the U.S. Capitol Building.

First responders treat victims of the Boston Marathon bombing Monday, April 15, 2013 (Aaron Tang)

The Boston Marathon bombing casualty count rose to nearly 200 a day after the smoke cleared and the investigation got into full swing Tuesday, although more questions than answers remain so far.

Authorities said 176 survivors are being treated for various injuries—many partial leg amputations—with 17 in critical condition and three dead, including an 8-year-old boy. But, aside from asking for the public’s patience, continuing to refute false rumors and asking for more tips, investigators shared few new details of the probe.

“This will be a worldwide investigation,” Rick DesLauriers, FBI Special Agent in Charge of the Boston field office, told reporters. “We will go to where the evidence or the leads take us. We will go to the ends of the Earth to identify the subject or subjects responsible for this despicable crime and we will do everything we can to bring them to justice.”

President Barack Obama officially termed the twin bombings an act of terrorism, calling it heinous, cowardly and evil. The Associated Press reported that the bombs were made of pressure cookers filled with ball bearings.

Long Island on High Alert after Boston Marathon Bombing

The crime scene was reduced to a 12-block area surrounding Copley Square from a 15-block area and will shrink as evidence is processed. But street closures around the Bolyston Street finish line where the explosions occurred 50 yards apart 3 p.m. Monday are expected to continue for several days.

“We are in the process of securing and processing the most complex crime scene that we’ve dealt with in the history of the department,” Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said. “We are working very closely with all of our partners.”

Investigators said there were no undetonated explosive devices found as they tried to address rumors that up to seven bombs were found aside from the two that went off. They also reiterated that they have no suspect in custody, despite widespread reports saying otherwise.

Davis added that investigators are sifting through the scores of video and still camera images from the scene while prioritizing those taken shortly before and after the blasts.

“This is probably one of the most well-photographed areas in the country yesterday,” Davis said, noting the logistical issues of sorting photos from a larger-than-usual amount of cameras aimed at the crime scene during the nation’s longest-running marathon.

DesLauriers said there were no known specific threats against the marathon before the explosions and he knew of no threats after the fact, either. Beyond that, all anyone could do was offer speculation.

“Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians it is an act of terror,” Obama said in a brief national address Tuesday. “What we don’t yet know, however, is who carried out this attack, or why; whether it was planned and executed by a terrorist organization, foreign or domestic, or was the act of a malevolent individual.”

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call 1-800-CALL-FBI.

First responders on the scene at The Boston Marathon finish line following a pair of explosions Monday, April 15, 2013 (Courtesy of CBS).

Long Island is on high alert after twin bombings Monday at the Boston Marathon left at least three dead—reportedly including an 8-year-old boy—and more than 100 wounded.

New York State, city, Nassau and Suffolk county authorities said they are taking extra precautions while federal investigators work with Boston police on the investigation, which is still in its early stages. A number of Long Islanders were among the runners and spectators swept up in the ensuing chaos.

“We will be holding a security meeting this Wednesday with subsequent security briefings in the weeks leading up to our Long Island Marathon,” Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano said of the May 3-5 races—just two weeks away. He said Nassau police “is in constant contact with the FBI and the [NYPD].”

Suffolk County Police Deputy Chief Kevin Fallon, that department’s chief spokesman, said officers are focusing on Long Island Rail Road stations, malls and sports arenas with backup from bomb-sniffing dogs.

“Patrols will include having officers exiting their vehicles and walking through the transportation facilities,” he said. “Police have no reason to believe that a similar incident will occur in Suffolk…but the department is taking precautionary measures.”

The two closely timed bombs went off about 50 yards from each other at the Boylston Street finish line shortly before 3 p.m. Police said they later found at least one undetonated explosive devise nearby and that a report of a third explosion at nearby JFK Library preliminarily appears to be an unrelated fire. The FBI has taken over the probe.

Rick DesLauriers, FBI Special Agent in Charge of the Boston field office, said authorities are treating the case as a “potential terrorist investigation.” Boston police said that despite widespread news reports to the contrary, there is no suspect in custody.

Sal Nastasi, a 33-year-old Massapequa Park man who finished the 26.2-mile race in two hours and 35 minutes, was cheering on a friend at the 24-mile mark when he got word he narrowly avoided the carnage himself.

“The course cleared out and people were trying to figure out just what was going on,” Nastasi told CBS Sports Radio. “People were pretty frantic.”

Anthony Abbruscato, a 22-year-old North Babylon man who was also cheering on friends who were running the race when the bombs went off, said he was stunned by the attacks.

“There was a moment where time seemed to stand still as all of us tried to digest what was happening,” he said. “After the gravity of the situation set in, everyone began to panic and flee from the area. Phone lines were either down or busy, and everyone just felt helpless as they tried to contact friends and loved ones at the event.”

The case is a reminder that the public and law enforcement needs to remain vigilant, according to Vincent Henry, director of the Homeland Security Management Institute at Long Island University.

“From what we’ve seen it appears to have been an anti-personnel device,” he said. “Something that was designed to harm people and not buildings.”

Jeffrey Grossmann, a St. John’s University criminal justice professor in the Homeland and Corporate Security Program, said that the fact that countless cameras were aimed at the finish line could help solve the case.

“Anyone with recordings and videotapes of surveillance videos of anything that happened should contact authorities,” he said. “It may play a key role in finding out what happened.”

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterintelligence & Terrorism, said the attackers will be brought to justice.

“Americans will not be deterred by terrorism,” he said. “We will hunt down and bring to justice the cowards responsible for today’s attack.”

Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis echoed the sentiment.

“This cowardly act will not be taken in stride,” he told reporters in a Tuesday night news conference. “We will turn every rock over to find the person responsible.”

President Barack Obama addressed the nation in a brief televised statement.

“We still do not know who did this or why,” he said. “And people shouldn’t jump to conclusions before we have all the facts.  But make no mistake—we will get to the bottom of this. And we will find out who did this; we’ll find out why they did this. Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups will feel the full weight of justice.”

Henok Fente

In 2008, CNN broadcast a photo of President-elect Barack Obama with his arm outstretched to the public, and asked viewers to write its caption. I remember the winning submission almost verbatim because it spoke to my heart.

“Even after winning the presidency, President-elect Barack Obama could not get a cab in Washington, D.C.,” it read. The truth is, even now in the beginning of his second term, the president will still struggle to hail a cab in the nation’s capital past 10 p.m.

If you are a black male, or Latino, you know what I am talking about. Some D.C. cabbies immediately profile you as robbers and criminals. So they either deny you service or boss you around once you are in their cab.

On February 27, the day President Obama inaugurated the statue of Rosa Parks, I was out with my friends at a bar called 18th Street Lounge, ESL for short. Not to be mistaken for English as a Second Language—though in many ways true, since the majority of the clients are foreign nationals, the expats of D.C., if you will.

Wednesday is reggae night. Meet my friends: Cher the tall Senegalese; Kata from Serbia; Sean the American, who always looks high but does not smoke. Who else? Jakewon from Sri Lanka, who we tease is from Bangladesh and joke that his real name is Wikum with a W; his new girlfriend, half-Finnish half-African American…you get the picture. And I am Ethiopian.

We are bound by love and mutual respect. We always learn from each other, help one another and accept each other’s differences while recognizing our unity and celebrating life together. We laugh, giggle, drink a bit, chase after the opposite sex or the same sex, whatever makes us happy. That is our little family of serious and passionate individuals having a goofy time together. This bar, we the “regulars” tell new guests, with no facts checked of course, used to be the home of FDR. Now it has become our home.

I finished two bottles of Belgian beer that I shared with friends, left ESL around 12:40 a.m., hailed a cab, told the cabbie to take me to “4th & G, SW.” The cabbie started his meter, made a U-turn on Connecticut, and stopped at a traffic light a block away.

The middle-aged driver of Pakistani or Indian origin, judging from his accent, turned his head and asked me to move to the opposite side of the backseat. I was sitting behind the driver. He was not polite in his request. I told him calmly that I was comfortable where I was.

The cabbie insisted, saying he would like to talk to me and watch me through his rearview mirror while I am in his cab. I told him I have no intention of having a conversation with him and all I ask is to be taken home, assuring him that as long as I am in the cab and I have the money to pay for his services, I have every right to sit where I feel comfortable.

At this point the cab driver stopped his vehicle and asked me to get out. I refused and asked him to take me home.

The easiest thing to do under these circumstances would have been to agree to switch seats, accept his racial and age bias and go home, or leave the cab. I did not choose the above two options because, firstly, they are against the principles of humanity that all people deserve equal treatment, and secondly, the law requires him to do so as a commercial vehicle operator. Again, I asked the cab driver to please drive me home.

Let me be clear here: The problem I have with racial profiling is a fallacy of hasty generalization, so I will not conclude or in anyway generalize that D.C. cab drivers are racist. I have family and friends who drive cabs for a living; they are hard-working, honest people. Shout out to my cabbie Moody, who is always 15 minutes away from my rescue, Berhe, the Accountant Cabbie, who does my taxes in his free time. This piece is for those who discriminate against their clients; those who look down on their own race and profile complete strangers as criminals, Hispanic and black alike.

I spotted a police car nearby and told the cab driver to call the police and ask them to take my address and check my ID if it makes him feel more comfortable.

Officer W. Belton inquired about the situation from his police car. I told him what I described above. The cab driver told him his version, that he wants me to sit on the other side. I repeated my refusal, reiterating that I have every right to sit anywhere in the cab. The officer initially concurred that the driver cannot tell me where to sit.

Officer W. Belton of the 2nd Metropolitan Police Department couldn’t decide what to do. The officer, a middle-aged white male with a mustache, kept repeating the same questions to the two of us. I repeatedly told him, I will compensate the cab driver for his services, I can show the police my driver’s license to make the cabbie feel comfortable, but I will sit where I like and be taken home, as is required by the law.

Officer W. Belton did not seem to like the fact I knew my rights. No big deal, it is just text printed on a single piece of paper, right? It seemed, and later became evident, that Officer W. Belton thought it was a big deal and very smart to know a few D.C. Taxicab Commission passenger rights.

As I was looking for the number to call the D.C. Taxicab Commission to report the cabbie, Officer W. Belton asked me to pay the fare, step out of the cab and take another vehicle. I told him he can not ask me to do that. I have the right to be taken home by this cab driver.

At 1:05 a.m. I called 202-645-6018, the D.C. Taxicab Commission. As I was trying to get the cab driver’s ID number while listening to the machine operator, Officer W. Belton loudly blasted, “It is over!” Suddenly he was grabbing me by the neck and dragging me out of the cab, head-first, legs following as I staggered to find my balance and avoid falling face-first on the asphalt.

I was rushed to the back of the cab, keeping my phone in hand, which I dropped on top of its trunk where there was a cup of coffee in a golden cup.

“Bend over!” demanded an officer whose face I could not see. “Spread them! Step away from the cab!” shouted the officer after I was cuffed.

These were short and humiliating orders given to me for refusing to move over to another seat in the back of a cab. Several other police cars converged on the scene. Their flashing lights were blinding.

After I was cuffed, Officer W. Belton got in my face.

“You think you are smart?” he asked. “You are ignorant.”

I was ordered to further step away from the back of the cab by another officer, whose face I also did not see, while they searched me.

“And your ignorance got you arrested,” said Officer W. Belton.

He humiliated me, knowing I could not respond to him. I didn’t want to give him the excuse of charging me for resisting arrest, so I kept quiet.

I am a journalist and I speak my mind. I refrained from telling Officer W. Belton that, yes, I actually think I am smart, and that his job is not arresting “ignorant people” if he can identify one by looking at their face or color.

At the time, his power seemed so boundless and abusive, I chose to keep silent. Instead of telling me my rights, he insulted and humiliated me.

The police did not cause me physical harm. But I have suffered psychologically. I could not sleep, eat or drink. Flashbacks of the trauma of my arrest still go through my head just like the flash of the police lights.

I was taken to the 2nd MPD, where my arresting officers could not even convince their colleagues why they arrested me. I spent two hours and 10 minutes in a cell.

At the time of my booking, I told the officers my only crime was choosing to sit where I wished and fitting into a profile. It is ironic and extremely disheartening that this happened to me after doing a story earlier in the day on the historic inauguration of Rosa Park’s statue.

I was later released without being charged. Officer W. Belton’s bogus “Theft of Services/ Unlawful Entry” arrest charges did not convince his supervisors, who came and spoke to me later in the jail cell.

I asked them: “Have you ever heard of illegal entry into a public transportation?”

The lieutenant, a female veteran, responded: “It is like walking into a grocery store.”

Then she signed my release papers as she promised.

After I was freed, the person listed as my arresting officer, R. Tran, a young Asian officer who was being trained, said to me: “I am sorry this happened to you. I could not do anything because I am a rookie and he (referring to W. Belton) is my senior.”

Officer Belton never apologized. Not that it mattered, after what he did to me.

I had no criminal record. I knew my rights. I did not break the law. So I am walking free. But what about those who made mistakes at some point in their lives and are trying to do the right thing? Those who would not have walked out of the 2nd District Police Station free?

That is why I am speaking out and taking action.

I am suing D.C. police for police misconduct and racial profiling and collaborating with a cab driver who broke the law. Wish me luck. I’ll need it, because for some of the D.C. lawyers, this case is a lot of work for too little money. They ask me if I sustained any physical injury, when I say no, they do not want to touch it. I am sure I will find a lawyer in this town who believes there is a bigger bonus in taking up civil rights for all, someone who believes black, white, green, yellow—whatever color, age, gender—we all matter and that we are all equal.

President Obama, please speak up. Take action about this. Or you may have trouble hailing a cab in D.C. after 2016.

Henok Fente is an international affairs reporter. A 2007 graduate of Columbia University School of Journalism, he has won numerous accolades including the New York Press Association’s scholarship award. Fente hosts a news magazine show and reports on politics, business, human rights and social life in Africa for a radio show with 6 million weekly listeners. He currently resides in Washington, D.C.

—Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, who with six other world-renowned journalists and activists, filed a federal lawsuit against the Obama Administration challenging the constitutionality of Sec. 1021 of the NDAA.

Imagine the American political spectrum as a steel rod.

On the far left are stalwarts of the progressive liberal movement forged in academia and protest movements from the 1960s and ’70s. The furthest point to the right is a blend of neoliberal free-market ideologues and libertarians fused together to form the extreme core of the modern conservative movement. Most Americans lie somewhere between these two extremes—two camps that for the better part of the past half century have drifted further and further apart.

Now imagine a single issue that is so heavy, it bends our ideological steel rod into a perfect circle that unites both sides. Conservatives and liberals perfectly aligned; dogs and cats living together.

Such is the weight of Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, a provision so potentially destructive to our democracy that it has galvanized both liberal and conservative activists alike. Known as the indefinite detention provision, it deals with the circumstances under which the government has authority to detain persons deemed to be supportive of terrorism. According to the U.S. government, the section was adopted as part of the NDAA—a bill that is passed at the end of every fiscal year to organize military funds and clarify, but not alter, existing legislation granting certain powers to the president to fight terrorism—and does nothing to broaden the scope of existing authority.

Opponents of the law, including Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and world renowned linguist and political theorist Noam Chomsky, among others, contend Sec. 1021 allows the president of the United States to militarily detain U.S. citizens without due process, thus violating the First, Fifth and Fourteenth amendments of the Constitution, powers not seen in the United States since the controversial internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

They and four other respected journalists and activists—Tangerine Bolen, Icelandic Parliament member Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Alexa O’Brien and Kai Wargalla, collectively dubbed “The Magnificent Seven”—argue as much in a federal lawsuit against the Democratic president.

“The deterioration of civil liberties under the Obama Administration has complete continuity with the attack on civil liberties under the Bush Administration,” Hedges told hundreds of supporters outside the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse Second Circuit Court of Appeals Feb. 6, following oral arguments from both sides of the issue. “In fact, under the Obama Administration it has been worse. The radical interpretation of the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force Act [AUMF] has given the U.S. government, in particular the executive branch, the right to assassinate American citizens.”

SOUNDING OFF: Former New York Times foreign correspondent Chris Hedges galvanizing opponents of the Obama Administration’s NDAA indefinite detention provision outside the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan following oral arguments on the government’s challenge to a federal district judge’s ruling that the law is unconstitutional Feb. 6, 2013. (All Photos by Christopher Twarowski)

“This case is one of the most important cases in decades,” added Ellsberg, continuing that the provision “overturn[s] 200 years of domestic law to allow the military onto our streets” and hold those suspected “indefinitely.”

Notwithstanding assurances from President Obama nor the Department of Justice, a federal judge— U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Forrest, who the president himself appointed to the bench—ruled 1021’s language unconstitutional, issuing a permanent injunction on its implementation of indefinite detention in September 2012. The Obama Administration appealed the following day, and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issuing a stay on the injunction pending the outcome of the government’s appeal. Thus, the Feb. 6 hearing.

CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF NDAA PLAINTIFFS AND PROTESTERS

Despite the significance of the act and the prominence of those who oppose it, chances are you haven’t even heard of it. There has essentially been a mainstream media blackout surrounding the NDAA, save for some intrepid reporting and editorials in The New York Times and a handful of alternative media outlets. Yet it has ignited a firestorm in the blogosphere and, depending upon the outcome of the court case already in federal appeals court, it may eventually, hopefully, reach public consciousness.

The language of the provision, authored in secret by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Carl Levin (D-MI), was troublesome from the beginning, enough so that several of their colleagues recoiled immediately upon reading the text for the first time. Senators Udall (D-CO) and Feinstein (D-CA) even attempted to pass legislation to effectively unwind or, at a minimum, diminish its scope.

1021’s language is also vague, using such ambiguous terms as “associated forces,” “directly supported” “substantially supported”—and for the first time, introducing the “Law of War”—without precise definitions.

Members of Congress weren’t the only ones to take notice. Bruce Afran and Carl Mayer, New Jersey-based civil rights attorneys, sounded the alarm almost immediately and determined to bring suit against the government. The key, according to Mayer, was to find a plaintiff who could provide “standing” in the lawsuit, which is to say, someone whose profession or routine expression of speech clearly placed him or her at risk of detention under Sec. 1021. Enter Hedges, an old friend who happens to be one of the most fearless and celebrated journalists of our time. A former foreign correspondent for The New York Times, he understood the gravity of the provision and took on the role of lead plaintiff for the case.

Hedges boils the government’s motives down to a primary objective, telling the Press: “They want to empower the military to be able to maintain order. That’s it. Otherwise, they wouldn’t do it.”

Yet before examining the allegations against the government it’s important to stress that this is not a lawsuit against President Obama that is secretly funded by a right-wing organization. Every one of the plaintiffs can be considered on the far left of the spectrum, banded together in a case against a Democratic president over what they feel is perhaps the greatest threat to free speech in modern U.S. history. And each has demonstrated legal standing in this case.

Forrest’s ruling was not only a resounding victory in favor of the plaintiffs; her opinion was a blistering rebuke of the government’s case.

—Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, the lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Obama Administration’s NDAA indefinite detention provision.

“The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides for greater protection: it prohibits Congress from passing any law abridging speech and associational rights,” she wrote. “To the extent that § 1021(b)(2) purports to encompass protected First Amendment activities, it is unconstitutionally overbroad.

“A key question throughout these proceedings has been, however, precisely what the statute means—what and whose activities it is meant to cover,” continued Forrest. “That is no small question bandied about amongst lawyers and a judge steeped in arcane questions of constitutional law; it is a question of defining an individual’s core liberties.

“The due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment require that an individual understand what conduct might subject him or her to criminal or civil penalties,” she added. “Here, the stakes get no higher: indefinite military detention—potential detention during a war on terrorism that is not expected to end in the foreseeable future, if ever. The Constitution requires specificity—and that specificity is absent from § 1021(b)(2).”

Shockingly, it’s also Forrest’s opinion that the provision may in actuality be a codification of liberties the government has already taken—a way to legalize unconstitutional detentions that have and are already taking place, such as those at the United State’s detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“Section 1021 appears to be a legislative attempt at an ex post facto ‘fix’: to provide the President (in 2012) with broader detention authority than was provided in the AUMF in 2001 and to try to ratify past detentions which may have occurred under an overly-broad interpretation of the AUMF.”

The Second Circuit Appellate judges reserved their decision on the government’s challenge to Forrest’s ruling Feb. 6, suggesting to Afran and Mayer that they would defer it until after the resolution of another case—Clapper v. Amnesty International, which challenged a 2008 amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which broadened the government’s authority to eavesdrop on international emails and phone calls.

The Supreme Court turned back that challenge Feb. 27, likely meaning its justices will never rule on its constitutionality. What this decision means for the NDAA battle remains anyone’s guess.

That the NDAA case now before the Court of Appeals will also eventually be appealed to the highest court in the land, no matter what side wins, is inevitable. What its justices may rule, if they even decide to hear the case, is also anyone’s guess.

Regardless, the battle sparked by Mayer and Afran’s handful of journalists and activists will determine the course of our entire democracy far into the foreseeable future, and the plaintiffs would argue, is the last hope to save it.

Chris Hedges vs Obama Complaint

THE WAR ON TERROR

For centuries, wars were affairs of nations. Governments waged war on one another in the name of nationalism, religion or unrestrained imperialism. Borders were established and re-established. Conflicts and enmity could last centuries, but every war had a beginning and an end. And there were rules.

The industrial age witnessed the dawning of the most significant war power in human history: the United States of America. For the better part of the 20th century, America was the world’s hammer; at times deterring or settling conflict abroad, at other times exporting warfare with hawkish enthusiasm. In every battle, the case was made for the defense of the homeland and democracy and our fury was unleashed on discernible foes.

In September of 2001, America’s understanding of war was forever changed. Our foe was now amorphous. We targeted a figurehead named Osama bin Laden, but he had no army, no country, no borders to protect and no assets to be taken. There were no sanctions to levy, or threats that mattered.

This was Jihad. America was at war with an idea. America was being terrorized.

In the days immediately following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon Congress gave the Bush Administration unprecedented authority to wage full-scale war on terror. On September 14 of 2001 Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) allowing the executive branch to leverage all available military assets to bring to justice combatants deemed responsible or materially supportive of forces associated with the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

It was under this authority that the United States government declared war first in Afghanistan and then Iraq shortly thereafter. It is under this authority as well that the executive branch has carried out everything from covert assassinations to drone strikes in countries such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. The plaintiffs in the Hedges suit allege that the language in Sec. 1021 is a significant departure from the scope and intent of the AUMF and that it granted new, sweeping military authority to the executive branch of, including the power to militarily detain U.S. citizens.

Put simply, the plaintiffs have argued that Sec. 1021 grants the president of the United States exclusive authority to detain citizens without due process and “until the end of hostilities.”

Because the War on Terror is indeed an open-ended battle against an amorphous enemy, it is fair to state that we will be at war for an indeterminable period of time. In fact, the government has effectively argued as such.

It’s hard to imagine the U.S. government ever declaring an end to the War on Terror and Hedges’ attorney, Carl Mayer, is keeping score. Standing in his lower Manhattan office shortly after oral arguments before the appellate court Feb. 6 he tells the Press, “We’ve been at war now for 4,163 days by my count… the longest war in American history by far. Twice as long as World War I and longer than World War I and World War II combined.” The idea of perpetual war is important to establishing the plaintiff’s fear of detention, he explains, because “during that time the government keeps expanding the definition of who a terrorist is and everything has become terrorism.”

When Afran and Mayer discussed the case with Hedges in order to determine whether or not Hedges could credibly claim standing in the suit, it was instantly apparent to the trio that he did. In fact, in the course of his tenure as a foreign correspondent, Hedges had intimate contact with 17 organizations on the government’s terrorism watch list including Hezbollah, Hamas, al Qaeda and the Taliban, to name a few. Their argument was that Sec. 1021 was so vague with respect to what constituted a U.S. citizen’s involvement with a terrorist organization that Hedges had a reasonable fear of being militarily detained. So far, the courts have agreed with this contention.

Perhaps that’s because the secretive detention of U.S. citizens is already taking place, in pseudo-black-ops prisons right here on American soil.

Long Islander Andrew Stepanian knows this all too well. He’s one of the few who’ve seen the inside of these facilities and made it out to tell the world. Actually, he was the first.

SPREADING THE WORD: The Sparrow Project co-founder Andrew Stepanian, amid the Occupy Wall Street anniversary protests in New York City September 2012. His grassroots activism PR agency has helped get the messages out about the Occupy Movement and the importance of a federal lawsuit challenging the Obama Administration’s NDAA indefinite detention provision.

LIVING PROOF

Stepanian, an animal rights activist and co-founder of grassroots activism publicity agency The Sparrow Project, was convicted of conspiracy to violate the Animal Enterprise Protection Act in 2006 and served the last six months of his three-year sentence at one of these prisons, known as Communication Management Units (CMUs)—also referred to as “Little Gitmos” by their guards, he says, and “Guantanamo North” by critics.

There are two known CMUs in the United States: tucked inside the U.S. Penitentiary in Marion, Ill., where Stepanian was transferred, and within the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Ind.

He describes the Marion CMU as “a prison within a prison,” with much stricter surveillance of all forms of communication among inmates—whether telephone, mail or visits—than those incarcerated within the rest of the federal prison system.

“It’s actually isolated from the rest of the larger prison populous, and it’s also isolated from the staff of the prison,” says Stepanian, whose firm has done PR work for the Hedges suit as well as the Occupy Wall Street Movement. “The people that essentially police the communications management unit are instructed not to communicate with the prisoners that are there.”

Federal lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the units offer more details.

All phone calls and visitations are subject to recording and monitoring, with “no-contact” visits and “English-only” telephone conversations and visits, unless previously scheduled and conducted through “simultaneous translation monitoring,” state documents in a 2010 complaint on behalf of CMU prisoners, including inmates who are American citizens that had been serving sentences for non-terrorist-related crimes.

The suit alleges First, Fifth and Eighth Amendment violations as well as violations of the Administrative Procedures Act, a federal law dictating how government agencies, in this case the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, propose and implement regulations. Additionally, it charges the plaintiffs’ very assignments to the isolated units were discriminatory and retaliatory, since “All Plaintiffs have been classified by the BOP as low or medium security, and were designated to the CMU at the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Indiana or the U.S. Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois despite having a relatively, and in some cases, perfectly, clean disciplinary history.”

All this flies in the face of what the U.S. Bureau of Prisons’ official explanation of what dictates transfer to CMUs.

“The purpose of CMUs is to provide an inmate housing unit environment that enables staff to more effectively monitor communication between CMU inmates and persons in the community,” a spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) tells the Press in an emailed statement for this story. “Examples, although not an all inclusive list, of the types of inmates who may be housed in a CMU, include: Inmates who have been convicted of, or associated with, international or domestic terrorism; Inmates who repeatedly attempt to contact victims or witnesses, including those who threaten, harass and intimidate victims or witnesses; Inmates with a personal history of, or prior offense conduct or conviction for, soliciting minors for sexual activity; Inmates with court ordered communication restrictions; Inmates who attempt to coordinate illegal activities via approved communication methods while incarcerated; and Inmates who have extensive disciplinary histories for the continued misuse/abuse of approved communication methods.”

Another explanation could be another tidbit from the lawsuit—the fact that the vast majority of inmates incarcerated at the CMUs —“upwards of two-thirds,” the suit states—are Muslim.

—The Sparrow Project co-founder Andrew Stepanian, referring to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons’ Communication Management Units, or CMUs, in Illinois and Indiana.

Stepanian supposes that’s why he ended up there—adding that for the majority of his incarceration prior to his transfer, he was housed in a medium-security prison and had been participating in programs and activities, and staying out of fights and disruptions, things that would lower his security classification, not raise it.

“My time spent there was only to create balance,” he says. “Because the unit was over 70 percent Muslim. And what they were trying to do, in my eyes, was offset that majority balance with individuals that at least fit some sort of criterion of people that could be designated to this unit, when originally I believe that the units were created to house Muslims in this kind of post-9/11 vacuum, and they need to make sure that it’s not an ethnic discrimination lawsuit powder keg waiting to explode.”

Stepanian says he was told as much.

“One of the guards in there referred to me as a balancer,” he says. “I was doing my laundry by myself. A guard came up to me and was just like, ‘Hey, kid, keep your head up, you’ll be out of here soon enough. You’re just here for balance, man, just relax, okay.’ I said, ‘Just here for balance?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, man, this thing’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.’”

The BOP says there are presently 40 inmates assigned to Terre Haute’s CMU and 41 at Marion. The agency was unable to provide a breakdown of these inmates by ethnicity, religion and citizenship by press time.

Stepanian’s not denying that some of his fellow inmates were suspected terrorists—through his conviction for involvement with the international animal rights campaign Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty [SHAC, whose cause was to close animal-testing laboratory Huntingdon Life Sciences], he’s branded a “terrorist” too, something some right-wing groups will not let him live down—but impressing that the government can’t simply circumvent civil liberties in the name of national security.

“You can’t sidestep due process, you can’t sidestep the Constitution when it comes to detaining someone,” he says. “And that’s not [the plaintiffs] saying that people that are involved with criminal activity or involved with terrorist organizations shouldn’t be detained. They should completely be detained. You should just abide by the law when you do so. You can’t just ship them off someplace, with no rights, no access to trial and no due process, nothing, to some black site.”

Hedges views the NDAA as the final sinister step in what has been a long deterioration of Americans’ civil liberties in the name of government-sponsored corporate personhood, whereby the financial well-being of Big Business takes precedence over individuals’ Constitutional rights.

“We’ve undergone a corporate coup d’ etat,” he blasted outside the courthouse Feb. 6 to NDAA opponents, many carrying signs. “There is no impediment left now to corporate power, and the corporate state understands that as the economy continues to deteriorate as the effects of climate change—and we just bore the brunt of that with Hurricane Sandy over $70 billion worth of damage kicks in—there will be an inevitable blowback on a betrayed population. And what’s happening in this court now is the last thin line of defense between protecting what is left of our anemic democracy and the imposition of a military state.”

“It’s all connected,” he said later that evening at a panel discussion organized by The Sparrow Project, which included Mayer and Afran; co-plaintiffs Tangerine Bolen, Daniel Ellsberg and Alexa O’Brien; Government Accountability Project National Security and Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack; National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Thomas Drake; and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. “It’s all a part of this very rapid descent into a frightening form of corporate totalitarianism…and as we go down, and they know we’re going down, these forces are cannibalistic.

“Forty percent of the summer arctic sea ice melts and here we’re literally watching death throes of the planet and these corporations like Shell look at it like a business opportunity,” he continued. “They know only one word, and that’s ‘More.’ They have commodified everything, human beings are commodities, disposable commodities, the ecosystem is a disposable commodity and now with no impediments they will push and push and push, it makes Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, which I’m just re-reading, the most pressing study of the American character.

“They’re not going to stop themselves, the formal mechanisms of power are not going to stop them,” Hedges added. “It’s up to us.”

FOR THE PEOPLE: Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore (l) and Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times foreign correspondent Chris Hedges discussing the importance of defeating the Obama Administration’s indefinite detention provision to the NDAA and its ramifications on American’s civil liberties at a panel discussion organized by The Sparrow Project Feb. 6, 2013 in Manhattan.

“TIPPING POINT”

The legal stage for the next chapter of the NDAA battle has been set.

Whether the three appellate judges weighing the Feb. 6 oral arguments will side with Forrest, Hedges and the rest of “The Magnificent Seven,” or the Obama Administration, whoever loses will appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

If the high court’s justices elect not to hear the case, as was their Feb. 27 ruling against Clapper, then whatever the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decides will forever be law. Though the Clapper decision may indicate to some the justices inclination to find in the favor of the Obama Administration, Afran, believes that’s not the case.

“It’s different,” he tells the Press, “because here [Hedges v. Obama], the journalists are in fact directly within the scope of the law. But in the Clapper case the journalists were not the subject of the wiretaps but they happened to interview people who were. And so, they were not directly harmed by the statute. But here [in Hedges v. Obama], the journalists are harmed or brought within the statute.”

If the Supreme Court does hear the NDAA case, the publicity over the decision, regardless of what it is, will undoubtedly make it to the ears of the unsuspecting public—but by then, say opponents, it will be too late.

Just what’s at stake was most concisely outlined at an evening panel discussion organized by The Sparrow Project following the Feb. 6 Court of Appeals hearing in Manhattan.

Topics ranged the gamut, from the lack of transparency plaguing the case of Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified materials to Wikileaks and Obama’s use of drones, to Occupy Wall Street and major corporations’ power and influence on elected officials and the legislative process.

Each panelist weighed in on the importance of defeating 1021.

—Revolution Truth Executive Director Tangerine Bolen, one of “The Magnificent Seven” plaintiffs in the federal court case Hedges v. Obama.

“It’s a retroactive attempt to legislatively fix the fact that they didn’t have these powers all these years and they were probably using them,” said Tangerine Bolen, executive director of Revolution Truth, who’s responsible for compelling several of the plaintiffs to join Hedges in the suit. “This case is the latch on Pandora’s Box, and it needs to be addressed, because what they would like to see is have it be swept under the rug and disappear, because we’re a threat to the fact that they haven’t been behaving well for quite a long time, and that’s quite obvious. 
“This has been a long road for all of us,” she told the packed theatre. “I think I can safely say that some of us have sacrificed greatly to engage in this lawsuit and we do so because we have every reason to fear the United States government and what it has become since 9/11.”

Alexa O’Brien, a journalist and founder of the U.S. Day of Rage, talked about an alleged plot to link her group to Islamist fundamentalist movements, a plan exposed on Wikileaks and by confidential sources who apprised O’Brien of this effort. Fear of detention under 1021, she said, has already had a chilling effect on her.

“I don’t have a capacity of a large bank account and a team of lawyers to protect me from the U.S. Government and prosecution,” explained O’Brien. “So I’ve held back on two articles related to the War on Terror because of the NDAA.”

NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake told attendees about the Obama Administration’s attempts to convict him under the Espionage Act and its proclivity to target whistleblowers.

“The Constitution for them is just a piece of paper, it’s an inconvenient truth, it’s not a grand experiment,” said Drake. “We don’t really have constitutional governance anymore. It is a figment of our imagination. It is hollowed-out Constitution. So the NDAA takes it to the next level.”

Moore stressed the importance of enlisting the American public in defeating the law through awareness and direct action, asking panelists: “What’s going to be the tipping point?” that sparks such outrage.

Hedges explained that a major obstacle to awakening the general populous was that the “corporate coup” has seized the people’s avenues of communication, but that the Occupy Wall Street Movement is a critical piece of the answer.

“That struck terror in the heart of the corporate state,” he said.

As for a “tipping point,” Hedges surmised that if what he’s witnessed in other countries during his more than 20 years as a foreign correspondent is any indication, the threshold is “usually something utterly benign.”

Ironic, since the alternative is something so utterly and catastrophically monumental.

“What we’re talking about today is the capacity of the U.S. government to make you disappear,” he said, bluntly.

Chris Hedges vs Obama Opinion and Order

President Barack Obama gave his first State of the Union address of his second term Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013.

President Barack Obama laid out more than a dozen new initiatives Tuesday in the first State of the Union address of his second term, packing an array of issues into the hour-long speech, including four—climate change, immigration, veterans and gun control—of particular importantance to Long Islanders, a few of whom were in the audience.

Obama started off flat while discussing his budget and tax reform proposals, but he worked his way up to an emotional plea for Congress to enact new restrictions on firearms sales to reduce the number of gun deaths nationwide. He sounded encouraged by current immigration reform talks among lawmakers, but the president oscilated between urging the Republican leaders in the House of Representatives to negotiate a compromise on the upcoming deficit reduction plan known as sequestration, and threatening to use executive orders if Congress doesn’t act on global warming.

“We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen, were all just a freak coincidence,” Obama said, referring in part to the Oct. 29 hurricane-nor’easter hybrid that ravaged LI and the Northeast. ”Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science—and act before it’s too late.”

The president remained vague on most of his proposals, choosing to paint a broad picture of the goals he’s setting for the year to come, but did get into some specifics while discussing immigration and, to a lesser degree, gun control.

“Senators of both parties are working together on tough new laws to prevent anyone from buying guns for resale to criminals,” the president said, before rallying for a vote on the bill. ”Police chiefs are asking our help to get weapons of war and massive ammunition magazines off our streets, because these police chiefs, they’re tired of seeing their guys and gals being outgunned.”

Among those top cops was John Aresta, the Malverne village police chief, whose uncle was among six murdered in the 1993 Long Island Rail Road massacre. He was invited to attend by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-Mineola), whose husband was killed and son injured in the same shooting spree that launched her to the national stage to advocate for gun control.

“I personally don’t see a reason why anybody would need a 30-round clip or a 10-round clip for an assault rifle,” Aresta had told Fox Business News  last month shortly after New York State passed sweeping new gun control laws in the wake of the Newtown elementary school massacre in December.

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), the lone Republican among LI’s five-member Congressional delegation, wrote on Twitter that he was disapointed in Obama’s lack of focus on unemployment and deficit reduction, but co-authored an op-ed in Politico expressing support for ensuring background checks for all  gun purchases, with the exception of gifts between family members or temporary transfers for hunters. He noted national estimates that only four in 10 gun buyers are subject to such checks.

New York City got two mentions. Obama first touted the heroic nurses who evacuated newborn babies from the NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan during Sandy, signaling Menchu Sanchez by name. She was seated next to First Lady Michelle Obama. He later extolled the benefits of P-Tech in Brooklyn, a collaboration between New York Public Schools, the City University of New York and IBM, where students graduate with a high school diploma and an associate’s degree in computers or engineering—a model he wants emulated nationwide.

The emphasis on improving education to better the economy dovetailed with his reasons for supporting immigration, a hotly debated issue on LI, where undocumented Hispanic immigrant day laborers have repeatedly been victims of Suffolk County hate crimes in recent years.

“Our economy is stronger when we harness the talents and ingenuity of striving, hopeful immigrants,” Obama said, emphasizing that reform must include stronger border security, cutting waiting periods, attracting highly skilled engineers and ”establishing a responsible pathway to earned citizenship—a path that includes passing a background check, paying taxes and … learning English.”

But some immigration issues are easier to solve than others. Rep. Steve Israel (D-Dix Hills) invited as his guests Dania and Nick Marvos, a Little Neck couple who were in the process of adopting a 1-year-old boy named Ari from Russia until two months ago when Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning American adoptions of Russian children. The move was widely seen as retaliation for a recently passed U.S. law punishing Russian human rights violators.

“Waiting for news to see if we will be allowed to bring our baby home has been one of the most trying times in our lives,” Dania Mavros said in a statement released by Israel’s office. ”Devastating does not capture the emotional roller coaster that we are enduring every day.”

Congressman Israel said he is negotiating to help the couple complete the adoption process despite the new Russian law in an attempt to save their son-to-be from growing up in an orphanage. Thousands of other cases are also in jeopardy.

Rep. Tim Bishop (D-Southampton) invited Dina McKenna of Lindenhurst, whose husband, Sgt. William McKenna, died in 2010 of cancer caused by his exposure to toxic fumes from burn pits the military used for disposing of hazardous waste in Iraq. Bishop had laws passed to curtail the use of burn pits and require the Department of Veterans Affairs to improve its treatment of soldiers exposed to them.

“All veterans whose health may have been affected by toxic burn pits must be accounted for and given the health care and support they have earned,” Bishop said in a statement.

Obama’s nod to veterans came as he promised to better defend against cyber attacks, end the more than decade-long war in Afghanistan “by the end of next year,” prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons and isolate North Korea for its provocations in testing nuclear weapons potentially capable of being fitted on inter-continental ballistic missles. He reiterated plans to strengthen U.S. missle defense to block such an attack.

The commander-in-chief also made clear that while the military will not be sending large numbers of troops abroad for Iraq-style occupations, he vaguely referred to special operations forces that will continue to hunt al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan and wherever else they may be hiding. He made veiled reference to the continued deployment of predator drones despite recently renewed controversy over their use to kill American citizens working with terrorists, such as Westbury-native Samir Khan, the al-Qaeda propagandist killed in U.S. airstrikes alongside militant cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen in 2011.

“Where necessary, through a range of capabilities, we will continue to take direct action against those terrorists who pose the gravest threat to Americans,” he said.