Category Archives: Accountability and Representation

When the media does us wrong and community accountability

Accountability and Representation, Press Room

Year End Special – Puerto Rican Hurricane Relief

 

Radio Vieques, Artists for Media Diversity, Latino Public Radio Consortium and Media Alliance announce the reissue of Artists for Vieques – a 20 song compilation featuring Willie Nelson, Los Lonely Boys, Calle 13, Zoraida Santiago, Rei Ortiz, Los Bandidos Cósmicos and many more musical artists, to raise funds to rebuild the public radio station in hurricane-battered Vieques, Puerto Rico.

Radio Vieques (WVQR) provides essential communication and community organizing services for Puerto Rico’s two island municipalities — Culebra and Vieques — as well as the eastern half of the main island. Hurricane Maria damaged the station’s facilities and Radio Vieques has not returned to full broadcasting.  Continue reading Year End Special – Puerto Rican Hurricane Relief →

Accountability and Representation, Press Room, Surveillance

Sanctuary Journalism: ICE’s Data Broker Thomson Reuters

 

Originally published at Huffington Post

by Tracy Rosenberg

U.S. media outlets have done a fairly good job outlining the injustices and cruelties of the broken immigration system and the rogue federal agency that enforces it: ICE. Abuses ranging from the blatantly illegal to the simply inhumane have been highlighted including the detention and attempted deportation of US citizens, removing brain tumor patients from the hospital, paying Motel 6 hotel desk clerks to turn in hotel guests, arresting parents while their infant children are undergoing emergency surgery, chasing domestic violence victims into court houses and trying to destroy records of in-custody deaths and rapes at detention centers.

Continue reading Sanctuary Journalism: ICE’s Data Broker Thomson Reuters →

Accountability and Representation

238 Groups Urge Recision Of Third Muslim Ban

238 national and state immigration and  human rights organizations, (including Media Alliance) law offices, educational institutions, elected officials, and faith based groups demanded that the White House rescind the  latest iteration of the unconstitutional and discriminatory “Muslim ban” executive travel order. Continue reading 238 Groups Urge Recision Of Third Muslim Ban →

Accountability and Representation

Stopping STOPS: Urban Shield Vendor Vetoed Due To Racist Stereotyping

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On August 1, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, which has been under fire for several years over the police militarization expo Urban Shield, took its first action to enforce 12 reform principles the Board embraced in January of 2017, four months after two dozen people were arrested at the 2016 expo.

After being notified only hours before the meeting by MA executive director Tracy Rosenberg and American Friends Service Committee Wage Peace Coordinator John Lindsay-Poland of extreme racial stereotyping on the website of Urban Shield vendor Strategic Operations of San Diego, the board of supervisors refused to authorize the use of the vendor. Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern’s request to contract with Strategic Operations for $45,000 in “hyper-realistic training” for the 2017 Urban Shield event failed for lack of a motion, with none of the five supervisors willing to support the request. Supervisor Keith Carson removed the item from the board’s consent calender. Supervisor Richard Valle indicated he would not vote for it and Board President Wilma Chan also spoke in opposition.  Continue reading Stopping STOPS: Urban Shield Vendor Vetoed Due To Racist Stereotyping →

Accountability and Representation, Surveillance

Deporting ICE

 

On July 18, Oakland’s City Council voted unanimously to terminate the Oakland Police Department’s federal law enforcement agreement with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), formerly known as ICE. The unanimous vote on CM Rebecca Kaplan’s resolution followed previous unanimous votes at the City’s Privacy Advisory Commission (OPAC) and the Council’s Public Safety Committee.

Continue reading Deporting ICE →

Accountability and Representation

Private Prison Information Act of 2017

 

(From Human Rights Defense Center)

45 civil rights and criminal justice groups joined together to demand greater transparency from private prisons that contract with the federal government. H.R. 1980, the Private Prison Information Act, reintroduced by U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) earlier this year  would require private prisons to comply with the same FOIA requirements as their government-operated counterparts.

Almost one out of every five prisoners held by the federal government, and two out of every three immigrant detainees, are housed in for-profit prisons that contract with federal agencies. Unlike government-operated facilities that are required to comply with federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, private prisons operate under a veil of secrecy.

Continue reading Private Prison Information Act of 2017 →

Accountability and Representation

Oakland Police – It Isn’t Getting Better

 

13 years into a federal consent decree after the Oakland Police Department’s “Riders Divison” planted drugs on scores of West Oakland residents, nothing has gotten better.

Court-appointed independent investigators Edward Swanson and Audrey Barron issued a scathing report on the OPD sex scandal involving a dispatcher’s daughter doing sex work as a minor and getting entangled with multiple Oakland officers.  Continue reading Oakland Police – It Isn’t Getting Better →

Accountability and Representation

DC Court of Appeals Kills Prison Phone Justice

 

On June 13, 2017, the DC Court of Appeals dealt a big blow to years of organizing to wipe predatory commissions and reduce prices on phone calls in and out jails, prisons and detention centers.

The services are riven with monstrous commissions that raise prices sky-high and force inmate families to choose between food, rent and staying in touch with loved ones who are incarcerated.  Continue reading DC Court of Appeals Kills Prison Phone Justice →