US Government kept tabs on journalists, ‘instigators’

By — Associated Press

Mar 7, 2019

SAN DIEGO — The U.S. government kept a database on journalists, activists, organizers and “instigators” during an investigation into last year’s migrant caravan from Mexico, infuriating civil liberties and media groups.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection kept the information that contained passport photos, date of birth, suspected role in the caravan and whether they had been arrested, the San Diego TV station KNSD reported Wednesday.

Some of the people listed in the Homeland Security documents provided to the station included 10 journalists, seven U.S. citizens, a U.S. attorney and 47 people from Central America. Some of the people on the list were denied entry into Mexico and had their passports flagged.

The intelligence-gathering efforts were done under the umbrella of “Operation Secure Line,” which was designed to monitor the caravan of thousands of people who began making their way north from Central America late last year to seek asylum in the United States.

The government compiled the database at a time when the caravan was attracting considerable attention in the White House around the time of the midterms, with President Trump repeatedly tweeting about the group.

READ, SHARE, DISCUSS, LEARN here – https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/government-kept-tabs-on-journalists-instigators

THIS DAY IN HISTORY March 7, 1965: Bloody Sunday

#tdih 1965 Bloody Sunday.
Although many people are aware of the violent attacks during Bloody Sunday, white repression in Selma was systematic and long-standing. Selma was home to Sheriff Jim Clark, a violent racist, and one of Alabama’s strongest white Citizens’ Councils—made up of the community’s white elite and dedicated to preserving white supremacy.

Howard Zinn visited Selma in the fall of 1963 as a SNCC advisor, offers a glimpse of the repression, noting that white officials had fired teachers for trying to register and regularly arrested SNCC workers, sometimes beating them in jail.

Read more on the link below.

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/bloody-sunday/

New School Finance Report Confirms Funding Shortages Striking Teachers Have Been Showing Us

janresseger

For nearly two decades the preferred spin of policymakers at federal and state levels has been that financial investments (inputs) are far less important than evidence of academic achievement (outcomes as measured by standardized tests). And the outcomes were supposed to be achieved by pressuring teachers to work harder and smarter. Somehow teachers have been expected to deliver a miracle at the same time classes got bigger; nurses, counselors and librarians were cut; and teacher turnover increased as salaries lagged.

Statements of justice in public education have always been a little vague about the most direct path to get there.  One of my favorite definitions of public education’s purpose is from Benjamin Barber’s 1992 book, An Aristocracy of Everyone: “(T)he object of public schools is not to credential the educated but to educate the uncredentialed; that is, to change and transform pupils, not merely to exploit their strengths. The…

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