terrorism

Joshua Casteel will be the keynote speaker at Pax Christi NJ’s upcoming spring assembly to be held on March 28, 2009 at Felician College in Lodi, NJ. Joshua will also be making himself available for other speaking engagements at the end of March. For more information or to book Joshua contact
Kathy O’Leary 908-273-0751 kathy-wargo@comcast.net

About Joshua Casteel
Joshua is a former interrogator at Abu Ghraib turned conscientious objector and a recent convert to Catholicism. He gave witness at Winter Soldier and traveled to Rome in March of 2007 with the Catholic Peace Fellowship to meet with Pope Benedict XVI and members of the Vatican to advance the issue of conscientious objection. He is featured along with Camilo Mejia and six other CO’s in the documentary Soldiers of Conscience which will air on PBS’s P.O.V. on October 16th.

His book Letters from Abu Ghraib is available on Amazon.com and Small Press Distribution.

Videos of Joshua Casteel

One of the foundational principles that allows democracy to function ethically is transparency. The current administration has already done far too much to compromise this principle in the name of national security. Now we are witnessing a pitched battle over legislation in Congress that would seem to have more to do with protecting monied special interests than the individual citizen. The Senate and the House of Representatives have each passed a bill to renew authorization for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but they differ on one critical point; immunity for possible illegalities on the part of telecommunication corporations. The Senate bill includes immunity that House rejects. FISA is good legislation that pre-dates 9/11 and establishes a rapid response judicial system for the government to get warrants for surveillance. But apparently the actions of the telecoms have violated the provision of FISA. Whistle blower Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician has testified before Congress that he participated in providing access to Internet transmissions traveling over AT&T's network, that was, in his words, “a huge, massive domestic dragnet on everybody in the United States."

Often times when confronted with the cesspool that is modern politics, I am reminded of a line from one of the Star Wars movies. "So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause." It isn't quite thunderous applause that bothers me as I write this, but rather a 68-29 Senate vote. The Senate has passed President Bush's FISA Bill, complete with Mr. Bush's protection for his precious telecoms. Once again, our spineless Senate has given the Sith Lords in the White House exactly what they have asked for. Once again, politicians who were elected on the premise of standing up to Bush are doing his bidding. But there is, to continue the Star Wars metaphor, a new hope, and that is the House of Representatives. And Mr. Bush doesn't like the threat these Jedi pose.

"People are wondering why companies need liability protection. Well, if you cooperate with the government and then get sued for billions of dollars because of the cooperation, you're less likely to cooperate." President Bush said.

And, of course, businesses cooperating with our government can be a very good thing. But what about when it isn't? What if our government was asking these companies to break laws? What if this was just another overstepping of the powers allotted to Mr. Bush? And why would these corporations have to worry about being sued "for billions of dollars" if they hadn't broken the laws?