News

The District Sentinel, September 27, 2016, by Sam Sacks Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) sent a letter to the US Postmaster General on Wednesday requesting information about a domestic surveillance operation that logs information about letters in transit. The spy program, known as “mail covers,” allows postal workers to record the metadata on a letter–including “to” and “from” addresses–without a warrant, and turn the information over to state and federal agencies. A recent investigation by a Portland, Ore. news outlet, KGW, discovered that the government had submitted nearly 90,000 requests over the last decade to the US Postal Service to collect...

Watch online at: http://www.nwcn.com/news/investigations/kgw-investigates-secretive-mail-surveillance-program-targets-thousands-of-oregonians/318923186

The Buffalo News, August 29, 2016 Two activists from the turbulent 1960s will speak at 7 p.m. on Sept. 11 in Burning Books, 420 Connecticut St. Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Chicago educators who were leaders in Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground, will speak about the current political times and the need for social change at the bookstore, which seats less than 100 people. The talk is free, with donations accepted. Also, Daniel McGowan, a former jailed Earth Liberation Front leader portrayed in the Oscar-nominated film “If A Tree Falls,” will speak at 7 p.m. Sept....

by Nathaniel Sweetman, The Public http://www.dailypublic.com/events/04222016/lynne-stewart [LECTURE] Lynne Stewart, a former attorney, now advocate for justice, will be speaking at Burning Books this Thursday, April 28 at 7pm. Stewart, best known for her role in defending the “guilty” or “unpopular” people in cases, was convicted on charges of conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists in 2005. She served a 28 month sentence in October 2006, which later became a 10-year sentence in 2009. However, she was freed from prison in December of 2013 due to the terminal breast cancer. Stewart discusses how she was falsely accused of helping terrorists, and fights for the rights...

by Geoff Kelly, The Public, Apr. 6, 2016 http://www.dailypublic.com/articles/04052016/redux-pickering-vs-usa   On March 18, the Buffalo News ran a fine story by reporter Phil Fairbanks, the details of which readers of the region’s alternative press (both The Public and Artvoice) have known for some time. It’s the story of how the FBI spent two years and as yet unnumbered resources tracking the activities of the owners and habitués of Burning Books, a shop on Connecticut Street on Buffalo’s West Side that specializes in radical history, talks and films about radical movements, and workshops on such treacherous subjects as Freedom of Information...