The petition

END UNEQUAL RELATIONS BETWEEN THE PHILIPPINES AND THE U.S.!

TERMINATE THE VISITING FORCES AGREEMENT!

SURRENDER SMITH TO PHILIPPINE AUTHORITIES!

To: President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator John Kerry (Chair, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee), Representative Howard Berman (Chair, U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs), Representative Barbara Lee (U.S. House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Foreign Operations):

Last February 11, the Philippine Supreme Court declared illegal the U.S. embassy detention of convicted rapist Lance Corporal Daniel Smith, a member of the United States Marines. Smith was convicted by a Philippine court for raping a Filipina in 2006, yet despite his conviction he is serving his sentence inside an American facility instead of a Philippine jail. Such a situation has been viewed as gross disrespect for the sovereignty of the Philippines and the integrity of its courts. To justify the embassy detention, the U.S. government has invoked a provision in the so-called R.P.-U.S. Visiting Forces Agreement allowing the U.S. custody of erring American soldiers.

Had a Filipino committed a similar crime in the U.S., he would not be serving his sentence in the Philippine embassy. Smith’s current detention therefore underscores a fundamental inequality in the provisions of the VFA.

Nobody Wins with the VFA

This observation of one-sidedness is reinforced by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says treaties entered into by the U.S. are not enforceable in the U.S. unless there is an implementing law or if the treaty is self-executing. The VFA, which was not even ratified as a treaty by the U.S. Senate, has neither an implementing law nor is self-executing. It is inequality, and an affront to sovereignty, when the VFA becomes enforceable in the Philippines but not in the U.S.

The Smith incident is just one of the many problems that have arisen from the VFA, a military pact that governs the entry and presence of American troops in Philippine territory. The VFA provides for, among others, the deployment and stationing of U.S. troops and the holding of joint military operations in the Philippines. Unknown to many, U.S. troops have been stationed in the Philippines since 2002 up to the present. The extent of U.S. deployment in the Philippines increased during George Bush’s discredited “war on terror.”

Combat and Rape Under the Guise of “Training”

The destructive and costly continuance of the joint military exercises between U.S. and Philippine troops under the VFA has resulted in the displacement of thousands of innocent Filipino men, women, and children. Preparations for Balikatan 2009, a joint activity that permits U.S. troops to train Filipino soldiers under Philippine territory, have put in peril the welfare of young children. During the “clearing operations” of the Philippine Military's 901st Brigade in the Bicol region, a one-year-old child was senselessly killed, while six more children were injured.

The stated intent of the annual Balikatan exercises is to provide training to the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Yet such training becomes questionable given the fact the Philippine military has been consistently implicated by UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston in thousands of human rights violations since 2001, including torture, abductions, and extrajudicial killings.

Furthermore, eyewitness accounts suggest that U.S. military activity is not limited to “exercises,” but has included actual combat operations that are banned by the Philippine Constitution. These interventions are compounded by U.S. military personnel committing crimes during their “rest and recreation” time, including the gang rape of the Filipina woman “Nicole,” for which Smith was convicted in 2006.

Funding Human Rights Violations Instead of Saving Jobs and Homes in the U.S.

The holding of U.S. military exercises is tied with providing military aid to the Philippines, with an annual $30 million allotted by the U.S. Congress and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in other assistance. The accumulated U.S. military funding for the Philippines from 2001 to the present may have already reached $1 billion.

Such a practice, however, becomes unconscionable when U.S. funding is used by a regime that - to borrow words from President Barack Obama- “clings to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent.” A recent U.S. State Department report on the Philippines said that “arbitrary, unlawful, and extrajudicial killings by elements of the security services… continued to be major problems.”

The VFA, despite the military exercises and aid, provides absolutely no short-term nor long-term benefits to the people of either the U.S. or the Philippines. Filipino citizens have staged an escalating number of protests to voice their opposition to the Agreement and its violation of Philippine sovereignty. Several Philippine senators have also filed a resolution calling for its abrogation.

The Obama administration has vowed a departure from the Bush foreign policies. Terminating the VFA and removing U.S. troops from the Philippines would be a step in that direction.

We demand:
• That in the interest of justice, the U.S. government surrender custody of convicted rapist Daniel Smith to Philippine authorities

• That the U.S. government terminate the R.P.-U.S. Visiting Forces Agreement for being an unequal pact saddled with legal problems

• That the U.S. government recall the U.S. troops stationed in the Philippines and cease any further deployment under any pretext

• That the U.S. Congress terminate military aid to the Philippines and exclude the Philippines from any allocation of military aid in future years.

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1968

Filipino Artists Commemorate an Era of Rebellion

December 2008 thru January 2009
Reception: Thursday, January 8th, 6 pm

Asian Resource Gallery
310 Eighth Street @ Harrison St.
Oakland Chinatown
Open M-F 9 am – 6 pm

Featuring work by: artivista | elaine villasper | ka parts | jessica antonio | nomi | pele | people's artists | sergio robledo maderazo | malaquias montoyo | and others

For more info, contact Greg: 510.532.9692
Sponsored by East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation
Asian American Community Training, Asian American Movement Building, International League of People's Struggle – Bay Area

Supported by City of Oakland Arts, County of Alameda Arts, East Bay Community Foundation


In 1968, the world was aflame with movements for national and social liberation. Wars raged from Angola to Vietnam, Bolivia to Guinea Bissau as the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America fought to free themselves from colonial rule, neocolonial dictatorships, and imperial conquest. Politicized by the imperialist repression of both their countries abroad and their neighborhoods at home, Third World peoples living within the borders of the U.S. transformed their anger into militant national movements and organizations like the Red Guard, Young Lords, and Brown Beret, as the Black Panthers had done a few years earlier. Resistance erupted in massive demonstrations against the Vietnam war, white supremacy and segregation, police brutality, and the shanty-town conditions of urban housing projects.



In 1968, the Philippine national liberation struggle originally started by the Katipunan in 1896 was also reborn: on December 26, 1968 the Communist Party of the Philippines was re-established, charting the course for a new national democratic revolution—one seeking power of the proletariat and freedom from imperialist exploitation. The longest-running national liberation struggle in Asia, the Philippine revolution continues today, fighting against the smothering poverty, state-sponsored killings, militarization, joblessness and hunger that enslave the country.



"1968: Filipino Artists Commemorate an Era of Rebellion" celebrates 40 years of the Filipino people's history of resistance and relentless fight for self-determination.



Featuring new work from local artists, and winning entries to the CPP's international digital poster-making contest.



For more information about the Asian Resource Gallery:

[link]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 19, 2008

Reference: Michael Luat, Vice Chair, League of Filipino Students- San Francisco State University (LFS-SFSU)/San Francisco, California
Email: LFS.SFSU@gmail.com

Filipino-American Youth Demand More Money For Education
Not Occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Philippines on 5th Anniversary of War

San Francisco, CA – On March 19th, 2008 after a long day of work, business people downtown who will be heading home to relax and unwind, will be met by Filipino American Youth/Students and their allies expressing their resentment of the U.S.-funded Arroyo regime in the Philippines, and demanding the withdrawal of military occupation and aid in the Philippines, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

With the ever-rising cost of tuition, we, as Youth/Students who are trying to obtain an affordable education, resent that our hard earned tax dollars are being used to fund and arm a military that commits genocide on the innocent civilian populations of the Philippines, Iraq, and Afghanistan. These billions of dollars could be spent on education or provide scholarships and services. The recently proposed California budget cuts in education will reduce the number of classes, cut our professors, and inevitably delay graduation times. The cost of education goes up while the quality does not.

Those Filipinos that cannot afford the high cost of a college education are duped into joining the military with the belief that the GI Bill will take care of their tuition expenses. The truth is they are the very ones fighting on the frontlines. Many have come back wounded or dead. Why are we forced to bleed for the basic human right of education?

In parallel, Youth/Students in the Philippines rise up against similar issues. But they face political repression for criticizing the regime of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who receives monetary aid from the U.S. that is applied directly to the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Money that should be sent to help build infrastructure in the country is being used to silence the people’s voice that call for her ouster.

The League of Filipino Students marches on the streets on the 5th Anniversary of the Iraqi war. We march in solidarity with the people of Iraq, and we call for the OUSTER of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her corrupt regime.
###

MORE MONEY FOR EDUCATION NOT OCCUPATION!!!
END THE U.S. PRESENCE IN THE PHILIPPINES!!!
END THE OCCUPATION IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN!!!
BRING OUR TROOPS HOME!!!

Subject: MUST READ: Customs Electronic Searches (Cell & Computers) [link]
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Clarity Sought on Electronics Searches
U.S. Agents Seize Travelers' Devices

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 7, 2008; A01

Nabila Mango, a therapist and a U.S. citizen who has lived in the country since 1965, had just flown in from Jordan last December when, she said, she was detained at customs and her cellphone was taken from her purse. Her daughter, waiting outside San Francisco International Airport, tried repeatedly to call her during the hour and a half she was questioned. But after her phone was returned, Mango saw that records of her daughter's calls had been erased.

A few months earlier in the same airport, a tech engineer returning from a business trip to London objected when a federal agent asked him to type his password into his laptop computer. "This laptop doesn't belong to me," he remembers protesting. "It belongs to my company." Eventually, he agreed to log on and stood by as the officer copied the Web sites he had visited, said the engineer, a U.S. citizen who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of calling attention to himself.

Maria Udy, a marketing executive with a global travel management firm in Bethesda, said her company laptop was seized by a federal agent as she was flying from Dulles International Airport to London in December 2006. Udy, a British citizen, said the agent told her he had "a security concern" with her. "I was basically given the option of handing over my laptop or not getting on that flight," she said.

The seizure of electronics at U.S. borders has prompted protests from travelers who say they now weigh the risk of traveling with sensitive or personal information on their laptops, cameras or cellphones. In some cases, companies have altered their policies to require employees to safeguard corporate secrets by clearing laptop hard drives before international travel.

Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus, two civil liberties groups in San Francisco, plan to file a lawsuit to force the government to disclose its policies on border searches, including which rules govern the seizing and copying of the contents of electronic devices. They also want to know the boundaries for asking travelers about their political views, religious practices and other activities potentially protected by the First Amendment. The question of whether border agents have a right to search electronic devices at all without suspicion of a crime is already under review in the federal courts.

The lawsuit was inspired by two dozen cases, 15 of which involved searches of cellphones, laptops, MP3 players and other electronics. Almost all involved travelers of Muslim, Middle Eastern or South Asian background, many of whom, including Mango and the tech engineer, said they are concerned they were singled out because of racial or religious profiling.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman, Lynn Hollinger, said officers do not engage in racial profiling "in any way, shape or form." She said that "it is not CBP's intent to subject travelers to unwarranted scrutiny" and that a laptop may be seized if it contains information possibly tied to terrorism, narcotics smuggling, child pornography or other criminal activity.

The reason for a search is not always made clear. The Association of Corporate Travel Executives, which represents 2,500 business executives in the United States and abroad, said it has tracked complaints from several members, including Udy, whose laptops have been seized and their contents copied before usually being returned days later, said Susan Gurley, executive director of ACTE. Gurley said none of the travelers who have complained to the ACTE raised concerns about racial or ethnic profiling. Gurley said none of the travelers were charged with a crime.

"I was assured that my laptop would be given back to me in 10 or 15 days," said Udy, who continues to fly into and out of the United States. She said the federal agent copied her log-on and password, and asked her to show him a recent document and how she gains access to Microsoft Word. She was asked to pull up her e-mail but could not because of lack of Internet access. With ACTE's help, she pressed for relief. More than a year later, Udy has received neither her laptop nor an explanation.

ACTE last year filed a Freedom of Information Act request to press the government for information on what happens to data seized from laptops and other electronic devices. "Is it destroyed right then and there if the person is in fact just a regular business traveler?" Gurley asked. "People are quite concerned. They don't want proprietary business information floating, not knowing where it has landed or where it is going. It increases the anxiety level."

Udy has changed all her work passwords and no longer banks online. Her company, Radius, has tightened its data policies so that traveling employees must access company information remotely via an encrypted channel, and their laptops must contain no company information.

At least two major global corporations, one American and one Dutch, have told their executives not to carry confidential business material on laptops on overseas trips, Gurley said. In Canada, one law firm has instructed its lawyers to travel to the United States with "blank laptops" whose hard drives contain no data. "We just access our information through the Internet," said Lou Brzezinski, a partner at Blaney McMurtry, a major Toronto law firm. That approach also holds risks, but "those are hacking risks as opposed to search risks," he said.

The U.S. government has argued in a pending court case that its authority to protect the country's border extends to looking at information stored in electronic devices such as laptops without any suspicion of a crime. In border searches, it regards a laptop the same as a suitcase.

"It should not matter . . . whether documents and pictures are kept in 'hard copy' form in an executive's briefcase or stored digitally in a computer. The authority of customs officials to search the former should extend equally to searches of the latter," the government argued in the child pornography case being heard by a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco.

As more and more people travel with laptops, BlackBerrys and cellphones, the government's laptop-equals-suitcase position is raising red flags.

"It's one thing to say it's reasonable for government agents to open your luggage," said David D. Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University. "It's another thing to say it's reasonable for them to read your mind and everything you have thought over the last year. What a laptop records is as personal as a diary but much more extensive. It records every Web site you have searched. Every e-mail you have sent. It's as if you're crossing the border with your home in your suitcase."

If the government's position on searches of electronic files is upheld, new risks will confront anyone who crosses the border with a laptop or other device, said Mark Rasch, a technology security expert with FTI Consulting and a former federal prosecutor. "Your kid can be arrested because they can't prove the songs they downloaded to their iPod were legally downloaded," he said. "Lawyers run the risk of exposing sensitive information about their client. Trade secrets can be exposed to customs agents with no limit on what they can do with it. Journalists can expose sources, all because they have the audacity to cross an invisible line."

Hollinger said customs officers "are trained to protect confidential information."

Shirin Sinnar, a staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, said that by scrutinizing the Web sites people search and the phone numbers they've stored on their cellphones, "the government is going well beyond its traditional role of looking for contraband and really is looking into the content of people's thoughts and ideas and their lawful political activities."

If conducted inside the country, such searches would require a warrant and probable cause, legal experts said.

Customs sometimes singles out passengers for extensive questioning and searches based on "information from various systems and specific techniques for selecting passengers," including the Interagency Border Inspection System, according to a statement on the CBP Web site. "CBP officers may, unfortunately, inconvenience law-abiding citizens in order to detect those involved in illicit activities," the statement said. But the factors agents use to single out passengers are not transparent, and travelers generally have little access to the data to see whether there are errors.

Although Customs said it does not profile by race or ethnicity, an officers' training guide states that "it is permissible and indeed advisable to consider an individual's connections to countries that are associated with significant terrorist activity."

"What's the difference between that and targeting people because they are Arab or Muslim?" Cole said, noting that the countries the government focuses on are generally predominantly Arab or Muslim.

It is the lack of clarity about the rules that has confounded travelers and raised concerns from groups such as the Asian Law Caucus, which said that as a result, their lawyers cannot fully advise people how they may exercise their rights during a border search. The lawsuit says a Freedom of Information Act request was filed with Customs last fall but that no information has been received.

Kamran Habib, a software engineer with Cisco Systems, has had his laptop and cellphone searched three times in the past year. Once, in San Francisco, an officer "went through every number and text message on my cellphone and took out my SIM card in the back," said Habib, a permanent U.S. resident. "So now, every time I travel, I basically clean out my phone. It's better for me to keep my colleagues and friends safe than to get them on the list as well."

Udy's company, Radius, organizes business trips for 100,000 travelers a day, from companies around the world. She says her firm supports strong security measures. "Where we get angry is when we don't know what they're for."

Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON - The White House says President Bush will veto legislation
on Saturday that would have barred the CIA from using waterboarding ?
a technique that simulates drowning ? and other harsh interrogation
methods on terror suspects.

Bush has said the bill would harm the government's ability to prevent
future attacks. Supporters of the legislation argue that it preserves
the United States' right to collect critical intelligence while
boosting the country's moral standing abroad.

"The bill would take away one of the most valuable tools on the war on
terror, the CIA program to detain and question key terrorist leaders
and operatives," deputy White House press secretary Tony Fratto said
Friday.

The bill would restrict the CIA to using only the 19 interrogation
techniques listed in the Army field manual.

The legislation would bar the CIA from using waterboarding, sensory
deprivation or other coercive methods to break a prisoner who refuses
to answer questions. Those practices were banned by the military in
2006, but the president wants the harsh interrogation methods to be a
part of the CIA's toolbox.

Backers of the legislation, which cleared the House in December and
won Senate approval last month, say the interrogation methods used by
the military are sufficient.

"President Bush's veto will be one of the most shameful acts of his
presidency," Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said in a statement Friday.
"Unless Congress overrides the veto, it will go down in history as a
flagrant insult to the rule of law and a serious stain on the good
name of America in the eyes of the world."

He noted that the Army field manual contends that harsh interrogation
is a "poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage
subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what
he thinks the (interrogator) wants to hear."