CREDO helps you tell your Congressfolk to reject that nefarious "free" trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific "Partnership." Virtually no one outside of Congress and corporate boardrooms wants this thing to pass, but apparently that's all the "bipartisan" "consensus" you need to get things done in America, although actual bipartisan sentiment opposes "free" trade "deals" because they outsource our jobs and nullify our laws. CREDO's latest action alert concerns the effect the TPP will have on our environment, and that's no less persuasive than any of the other arguments -- the TPP will give unprecedented power to corporations to sue governments in "investor-state tribunals" for the money they "lost" when those governments made them curb their pollution on their citizens' behalf, and then extract a bailout from taxpayers when they win (as they likely will). Still-unpersuaded right-wingers might want to consider how free anyone can be without clean air and clean water. Of course, they also want to consider whether 35-plus years of "free" marketeering has really made anyone rich but the already very-rich, but that's an ongoing project.
Meanwhile, the family of Louise Talley, who was raped and murdered in Philadelphia in 1991, has started a petition on Change.org helping you tell Philadelphia's District Attorney to work to release Anthony Wright, who was convicted of her rape and murder. If that sounds odd to you, consider that DNA evidence exonerated Mr. Wright nearly two years ago (the DNA from the rape kit belonged to a different man who's now dead), and Mr. Wright now awaits retrial in a county prison, when he really ought to be a free man. And, naturally, more than 20 years prior to his exoneration, police forcibly removed Mr. Wright from his home and coerced him into confessing to Ms. Talley's rape and murder, perhaps figuring he had a few priors anyway and they could close a relatively high-profile case quickly. But taking shortcuts to justice only creates more injustice. (Kudos, by the way, to Ms. Talley's family for pursuing the truth; I don't know that many folks would bother helping the man convicted of killing someone in their family. Hell, I don't know if I would.)
Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell the Senate to pass H.R. 699, the Email Privacy Act, without all kinds of exceptions for various law enforcement entities, then the Electronic Frontier Foundation still helps you do that. Really, what more persuasion does your Senator need than that the Email Privacy Act got passed unanimously by the House? And this House rarely moves legislation that actually helps Americans, let alone move it unanimously! But word on the street is that every law enforcement agency wants some exemption or other from the Email Privacy Act, which would make for a very weak bill indeed. Did I not just get done saying that taking shortcuts to justice only creates more injustice? And before you join the if-you've-done-nothing-wrong-you've-got-nothing-to-fear crowd, please consider that any law enforcement agency that gets to snoop in your email without a warrant will be under enormous pressure to produce results that justify their exemption, which means innocent people are going to jail. And "innocent people" could include you.
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