Here's another European tourist detained indefinitely, confirmed by UK officials:

https://bsky.app/profile/jenniferlcroft.bsky.social/post/3ljxjdhfv4s22

Becky Burke was on a 4-month holiday in Mexico, the US and Canada.  She stayed with a host family in Portland, then travelled to the Vancouver border for a stay with another family in Canada.  The Canadians refused entry, claiming doing chores for the host family constituted illegally working.  When they returned her to the US side, ICE arrested her and shipped her to Tacoma, where she's been detained ever since the end of February.

US law specifies that no-one may be detained more than 48 hours in the normal course of events, and are guaranteed legal representation.  Once again, where's the ACLU?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c80y3yx1jdyo for the BBC take on this.  Immigration says they first offer the arrestee the option of returning to their home country; Ms Burke wanted to return to her home country; what's going on?

At this point, do not come to the US unless you have a US passport. You may be detained for any reason, and detention may be indefinite.

Heard this morning about the legal resident Palestinian picked up and imprisoned by ICE for his pro-Palestine work during the protests at Columbia University last year.  The pretext is working with a known terrorist organization, Hamas, which is on its face bogus; the protest was against the Israeli response, not for the Hamas atrocities preceding it.  Where is free speech, where is having to prove a case of collusion or support?  We understand: the administration is determined to use state violence against regular people, to promote fear and reinforce the instinct to stay in line, while they execute on their corrupt agenda. That should mean we make a loud and public case against it when we see it.

This has got to be right in the ACLU wheelhouse, but as I noted before, no way to contact them electronically, no news on their site showing they are aware of the situation (same for the previous case I mentioned, btw).  Columbia admin should be all over this, too, with the cooperation of the ACLU and most significantly with Senator and Leader of the Loyal Opposition Chuck Schumer, within whose district this action was carried out and who, by virtue of his being Jewish, can legitimately make the free speech point without being accused of partisanship.  Hold a hearing in Congress, or on the steps outside! Invoke habeas corpus! Make the thugs prove their case!

I discovered this in a Cory Doctorow blog post the other day, and went and investigated further.  And today, it showed up again when my wife came home from work early and told me about her day.

https://theknowledge.io/chestertons-fence-explained/

As the article notes,

"The next time you encounter an apparently outdated tradition, pause and compassionately ask why it first arose before demanding its demolition."  Good advice, for prospective Muck-o-vites.

I read about a situation involving a German tourist and a privately-held ICE facility, where she's being held indefinitely.  I wanted to contact the ACLU and make sure they had this on their radar and were doing something about it; I've been donating to them monthly since the Patriot Act was introduced with Bush Junior, and I want to know that they're listening.

Their website is atrocious.  Lots of opportunities to buy things, including swag (!) with their logo on it, up my donation (popups galore), propagandistic images of patriotic looking young people with flags and banners.  But no email address.

A link to subsidiaries by state, so I found the one for SoCal.  Attempting to email them through the address info@aclusocal.org results in an "undeliverable" returned message in my own Inbox.  I finally found a usable (I think) address for the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, and sent my message.

I hope this incompetence isn't representative of their actual function.  If I ever need them, I'm going to want more than photos, slogans, swag and opportunities to donate even more money.

https://quadrant.org.au/news-opinions/america/trumps-war-on-constitutional-democracy/

Nice, clear exposition of the heart of the issue.  There's a followup diagnosing the changes to the international situation, too.  Cuts through the noise from an overseas perspective.

I read that the federal government is intending to exclude its own expenditure from official GDP numbers, to make them look better.  Media might treat this as a call to henceforth treat all our federal information sources as propaganda as they would from suspect foreign government official sources.  If they don’t already, given the sorry history preceding the invasion of Iraq after 9/11.  Unfortunately, this includes formerly trustworthy sources such as NOAA hurricane warnings, now subject to manipulation to avoid recognition of climate change effects.

Hmm. Time to resurrect occupy?  Sit-ins in Tesla showrooms?  In Trump hotels?  In Amazon facilities?  In federal buildings, like national park service offices?