Crime

AR State Party Chairman Bill Gwatney Dead, Police Kill Suspected Gunman

Chip — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:04:05 -0400

Arkansas State Democratic Chairman, Bill Gwatney, died this afternoon at the hospital where he was taken after a gunman entered the Democratic Party Headquarters in Little Rock this morning and opened fire, then fled. According to police Lt. Terry Hastings, the gunman fired several shots, "He came in and went into this office and started shooting." The gunman, a white male in his 40s, lead police on a high speed chase which ended in a hail of bullets between the police and the suspect, who was injured. The suspected gunman died.

Gwatney was a state legislator for 10 years, and owned 3 GM car dealerships. He was a superdelegate to the Democratic Convention. ABCNews.com reported that workers at the Republican State Party office were sent home as a precautionary measure.

Bill Clinton, Arkansas' former governor and former first lady, Hillary, called Gwatney a strong state party chairman and "a cherished friend and confidante. We are deeply saddened by the news that Bill Gwatney has passed away," the former governor and first lady of Arkansas said in a joint statement. "His leadership and commitment to Arkansas and this country have always inspired us and those who had the opportunity to know him."

Bush/Cheney and special contracts with Big Oil in Iraq - ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!

seandiego — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:32:23 -0400

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE TODAY (7/2/08). THE AMERICAN PEOPLE MUST UNITE TO SHOW THE WORLD WE DID NOT SUPPORT OR APPROVE OF THE INJUSTICES OF THIS ADMINISTRATION AND THE CRIMES IT COMMITTED AGAINST IRAQ, THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD. TO REGAIN OUR STATURE IN THE WORLD, WE MUST CHARGE BUSH AND CHENEY WITH WAR CRIMES BEFORE THE REST OF THE WORLD DOES IT FOR US. CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSPERSONS TODAY!

Opening Iraq's oil fields to Big Oil

By Bob Herbert
THE NEW YORK TIMES

July 2, 2008

It's getting harder and harder to remain deluded. With each day comes new facts to drag our heads out of the sand.

Two weeks ago, The New York Times reported that four Western oil giants were on the verge of signing no-bid contracts that would return them to Iraq, the third-most bountiful petroleum playground on the planet. It was the kind of news that big oil lives for.

Giddy executives singing “Oh Happy Day” could be heard in the corporate offices of Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP, which had been shut out of Iraq for three and a half decades.

We also learned this week that a group of American advisers, led by a team from the State Department, played a key role in drawing up the contracts between the companies and the Iraqi government. Chevron and several smaller oil companies also got contracts.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney, both former oil company executives, have long tried to tell us this war was about terrorism, about weapons of mass destruction, about bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people, about anything but oil.

Said Bush: “We cannot wait for the final proof: the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

He didn't wait. It didn't matter that Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat to the United States. Or that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The troops were sent into battle in early 2003 and there is still, after more than five years and more than 4,000 American deaths, no end to the war in sight.

One of the starkest examples of U.S. priorities came during the eruption of looting that followed the fall of Baghdad. With violence and chaos all about, U.S. troops were ordered to protect one particularly treasured target – the Iraqi Oil Ministry. As David Rieff wrote in The New York Times Magazine in November 2003:

“This decision to protect only the Oil Ministry – not the National Museum, not the National Library, not the Health Ministry – probably did more than anything else to convince Iraqis uneasy with the occupation that the United States was in Iraq only for the oil.”

How convenient that the peculiar perspective of the oil-obsessed Bush administration can now be put to use advising the Iraqi government on its unusual no-bid contracts with big oil.

The contracts themselves are not huge. They are like the keys on a coveted ring that will begin opening the doors to Iraq's vast oil reserves. As the Times reported Monday, “At a time of spiraling oil prices, the no-bid contracts, in a country with some of the world's largest untapped fields and potential for vast profits, are a rare prize to the industry.”

A prize, yes. But at what cost?

In addition to the terrible toll of Americans and Iraqis killed and wounded, the war in Iraq has diverted attention and resources from critical problems here in the United States, where the housing market has been crippled, the stock market has tanked, gasoline has soared past $4 per gallon, unemployment is increasing and an extraordinary number of debt-ridden working families are staring into a financial abyss.

Even as oil companies are enjoying staggering profits, many Americans – in July! – are already worried sick about the potentially ruinous cost of heating their homes next winter.

And then there's the so-called war on terror.

The latest news is that al-Qaeda, the terror network that actually did attack the United States, has successfully regrouped in the tribal areas of Pakistan and has reconstituted its ability to institute terror attacks from the region.

For an administration joined at the hip to the oil industry, the lure of Iraq's enormous reserves was stronger even than the impulse to conquer an enemy that murdered more than 2,700 civilians on Sept. 11, a toll greater than the number of Americans killed by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor.

Referring to al-Qaeda members who regrouped in Pakistan, the Times reported on Monday:

“Current and former military and intelligence officials said that the war in Iraq consistently diverted resources and high-level attention from the tribal areas. When American military and intelligence officials requested additional Predator drones to survey the tribal areas, they were told no drones were available because they had been sent to Iraq.”

Who knows how long it will be before the United States disengages in any significant way from Iraq. What you can take to the bank is that this country will not make any major advances in energy policy, in health coverage, in rebuilding its infrastructure, in improving its public schools or in curtailing runaway public and private debt until our open-ended commitment to this catastrophic multitrillion-dollar war comes to an end.

How long will it take before that finally sinks in?

American and Israeli War Crimes: Same Atrocities, Different Responses

dlindorff — Thu, 01 May 2008 12:59:05 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

In the last few days, both the Israeli military and the US military have fired missiles into homes, in an effort to target what they said were terrorists, in the process killing many innocent civilians.

But what a contrast we see in both the reporting on these events, and in the response within the two countries!

In the Israeli case, the IDF fired a missile into a family home in Gaza, killing a mother and her four young children, who were eating breakfast at the time. The children were aged 6 years through 15 months. While the IDF and the Israeli government blamed the tragedy on Hamas, saying it operates in proximity of civilians and is thus responsible for their deaths, an Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, has caqlled for a criminal investigation into the killings, saying that Israel and the IDF have violated internation law by firing the missile in a densely populated area where civilian casualties would be likely. A spokesman for the group, Sarit Michaeli, says that Israeli claims that it is not responsible for such deaths are incorrect, and adds that under international law, “Even if you attack a legitimate military target, the anticipated damage has to be in proportion to the anticipated gain.”

How does such a moral calculus apply to American military policy? The most recent example of US military tactics in this regard came yesterday, when American forces, in clear violation of international law regarding national sovereignty, fired a missile into a house in Somalia (a nation that the US is not at war with), reportedly killing an alleged leader of the Al Qaeda organization in Somalia, Aden Hashi Ayro, but also another 30 people—all unidentified. Reports suggest that many of those killed and others who were wounded, were innocent civilians who happened to be sleeping in the house in question.

To date, no American human rights group has protested this action as a criminal violation or a violation of international law. No member of Congress has decried the attack.

The AP story reporting the incident didn’t even mention the possibility that the action could be a violation of law.

Nor is this an isolated incident. In Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Pakistan, in Somalia and elsewhere, the US regularly launches missiles, often from remote controlled drone aircraft, and drops large bombs on houses and even larger compounds, sometimes destroying whole villages at a time, in order to hit individual alleged terrorists. Often, it turns out on investigation that the target individuals weren’t even present at the scene of these bloody massacres of civilians.

So commonplace are these wanton acts of violence by US forces that the US-installed leader of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has publicly called for a halt to them, because of the number of innocent Afghan citizens being killed. Iraqis too, are enraged at the number of innocent victims of US bombings in places like Sadr City, where the killing of innocent children by US bombs has become a deadly routine.

No one—not one person—in the US military, the Pentagon or the Bush administration has been prosecuted for war crimes or criminal violations for these atrocities.

It becomes clearer and clearer with the passing of time that Bush’s and Cheney’s so-called War on Terror is actually a War of Terror, being waged against the people of such places as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia.

At least in Israel, some citizens are willing to call such behavior criminal, and to demand a halt to it.
_______________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

How "Conservatives" Pick Your Pocket

davidswanson — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:00:42 -0400

By David Swanson

"Jacked: How 'Conservatives' Are Picking Your Pocket (Whether You Voted for Them or Not)" is a short book by Nomi Prins that makes an excellent education for those remaining Americans who still do not understand that right-wing politicians take from those who work and give to those who live in luxury off the sweat of others.

At the end of World War II, corporations paid half the cost of the federal government. They now pay 7 percent, and many of them pay 0 percent. Unless you are very wealthy, you pick up the tab, and the tab has grown. The federal government now spends more than what it spends on everything else on the military alone, and that cost keeps rising.

So does the price of oil and gas, which is great for oil corporations, and maybe even for the chance our species has of surviving on earth, but not for your wallet. Americans are going more heavily into debt than ever, which is great for the credit card companies, banks, and blowhard politicians, but the most reckless debtor of all is the federal government, which makes things even worse for us.

Pensions are vanishing along with unions and jobs. Student loans are shrinking and college costs rising. Health care costs, too, are rising, while health insurance slips out of reach. Washington is still working hard to trash (or "privatize") Social Security and Medicare.

New Orleans still lies in ruins. Home insurance companies have still not paid up. Washington has still not stepped up. And Bush has neither apologized nor ceased making jokes about people's suffering.

Bush, on one of his Katrina-damage tours, remarked:

"An old lady walked up to me... and I said, 'How are you doing?' And she looked at me and she said, 'Not worth a darn.' And I said, 'Well, I don't blame you.' She said, 'I've been paying all my life for my insurance. Every time that bill came, I paid it... And, all of a sudden the storm hit, Mr. President, and it came time to collect, and they told me, no.' And she was plenty unhappy and she was looking for anybody she could be unhappy with, and I just happened to be the target."

Prins comments:

"No, Mr. President, you actually WERE someone she thought might be able to help her, a subtle difference that may have gone above your head."

The trouble is that it may have gone above some of his listeners' heads too. There are people who take it for granted that Bush can choose to destroy entire nations, but who accept at face value his claim that he has no power whatsoever to see that the victims of a hurricane are cared for. And it goes over even more heads that the two things are intimately related. We are killing and dying for the fossil fuels that lead to the destruction of global warming, and the financial cost of the killing and dying produces massive destruction in our economy. Meanwhile, we've allowed our government to empower loan sharks and insurance agents of all varieties to defraud us and defenestrate us from our homes.

Prins' advice is to write hand-written letters to your congress member's district office. Mine is to get this book read by any non-millionaires you know who believe "conservatism" to be something other than a cover for robbing the poor to enrich the wealthy. If enough people understood what we were doing, perhaps we could go to Washington with the message: "We've come to collect, and you don't just happen to be our target, and we won't take No for an answer."

Bush/Cheney Administration Thinks We're Idiots

dlindorff — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 12:30:48 -0500

By Dave Lindorff

Anybody who thinks that the government is telling the truth about the plan to shoot down a dead spy satellite--that it's all about protecting us, and not about testing an anti-satellite weapon--has to be really stupid.

And stupid is what the Bush administration and the Pentagon apparently think we are.

They're claiming they need to shoot this thing down because it's got a tank with 1000 pounds of hydrazine, a fuel used for maneuvering satellites while in orbit which is said to be as toxic as chlorine if breathed.

Well, the odds of a tank of hydrazine surviving an 18,000 mph plunge into the atmosphere intact and making it to the ground is basically zero. That sucker will heat up to a fine redhot glow and blow up before it even makes it to the stratosphere.

If you want to know how likely it is that such a tank would make it to ground, check out the pieces of the space shuttle Columbia that made it back to earth when it came down in pieces. That shuttle, a damned sight bigger than this spy satellite, included some heavy pieces of equipment like landing gear that had to carry the full weight of the vehicle on the tarmac, and even that stuff got toasted. (The shuttle also contained tanks of hydrazine, by the way, which didn't make it to earth).

No, the risk of this spy satellite toxifying anyone is nil. The risk of pieces of it, which might make it to earth, hitting anything of consequence is next to nil, especially as the government will be able to give pretty precise warning to the impact area well in advance of its final descent.

So what this is really all about is the government getting an excuse to violate the international treaty against weapons in space, to test a missile it has that it hopes can "take out" a satellite. The Chinese did this last year to one of their own satellites, to widespread condemnation from other space-faring nations, including the US.

The only difference between the US and China here is that the Chinese at least have the integrity to violate international law frontally. The US has to do it dishonestly, pretending it is a public service.

Let's at least not be willing stooges here.

We have had eight years of government by lying. It's not that lies and deception weren't practiced by governments before the advent of the Cheney/Bush regime, but this administration more than any other before it clearly believes that democracy and integrity are simply obstacles to power, and has worked assiduously to try to eliminate them entirely from Washington.

It's past time to bring a little integrity and openness back.
_____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback edition). His work can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Neo-Cons Demand Mukasey's Criminal Complicity

Chip — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 04:09:25 -0500

Harper's Scott Horton just dropped da turd in da tank. Seems as though a few "movement conservatives" got some "private time" with the "independently minded" Judge Mukasey. They made two offers he couldn't refuse. First, don't appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the US Attorneys scandal - that's essential to protect the Bush toadies Rove and Miers. Secondly, they wanted Mukasey's assurance that he would continue the protection of the authors of the waterboarding torture program.

Welcome, folks, to the world of Alice in Wonderland, as we peer down into the rabbit's hole, reading Senator Schumer's (ir)rationalization for endorsing Mukasey:

"...the job will not be finished until we get a strong and independent attorney general. I believe Judge Mukasey is that type of person. Should we reject him, it is almost certain that an acting, caretaker attorney general will take office without the advice and consent of the Senate. Inevitably, that would enable those in this administration, who do not believe in the rule of law, and have done things that caused even former Attorney General Ashcroft to threaten resignation, to have the complete upper hand.

Only a strong and independent attorney general can return the Justice Department to what it once was and should always be. Under this administration, that nominee will certainly never share our views on issues like torture and wiretapping.

Wake up, you're not going to get a strong and independent attorney general. You're going to get another puppet whose primary function will be to hold the damn mess together for another year, until the corporate fascists can bail out to their K Street golden parachutes. If Mukasey has an ounce of integrity and a lick of sense, he'll bolt for the door.

But the really startling admission in Schumer's statement is his defeatist handwringing: "When an administration, so political, so out of touch with the realities of governing and so contemptuous of the rule of law is in charge, we are never left with an ideal choice..." Schumer must be tone deaf to his own words to be so accepting of the administration's lawlessness.

But, sadly, it gets worse. Mukasey either is waffling (hardly the stuff needed to manage the in-disarray DOJ) or he's scamming someone. Which is it? Or, Who is it? Schumer or the neo-cons? Here's what Schumer says Mukasey promised:

The judge made clear to me that were Congress to pass a law banning certain interrogation techniques, we would clearly be acting within our constitutional authority. And he flatly told me that the president would have absolutely no legal authority to ignore such a law, not even under some theory of inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution. He also pledged to enforce such a law and repeated his willingness to leave office rather than participate in a violation of law.

But according to Scott Horton, Mukasey also shined on the neo-cons. "Mukasey, I am told, gave vague reassurances on both points, 'without completely giving away the shop.'”

Strong and independent? Or vague and waffling? And isn't conspiring to cover up crimes - even at the highest level - also a crime? Maybe not, down in Wonderland's rabbit's hole.

GAO Report: Bush Admin Broke Law on 'Signing Statements'

Tom Ball — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:02:20 -0400

"Too often, the Bush administration does what it wants, no matter the law. It says what it wants, no matter the facts,"

-- Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.

It's not enough that the Bush Administration can't consider a piece of legislation lest it be slathered with myriad "signing statements" -- i.e. presidential admissions of contempt for the rule of law. Now, it seems, they can't even work within the canyon-fitted leeway afforded by Bush's law-skirting actions. At least that's what the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in their report (though they worded it a bit differently;)

The Bush administration sometimes fails to follow all provisions of laws after President George W. Bush attaches "signing statements" meant to interpret or restrict the legislation, congressional examiners say...

The limited GAO study examined signing statements concerning 19 provisions in fiscal year 2006 spending bills. It found that in six of those cases the provisions weren't executed as written. [FYI: That's 6/19= 31.6%]

In one case the Pentagon didn't include separate budget justification documents explaining how the Iraq War funding was to be spent in its 2007 budget request. In another, the Federal Emergency Management Agency didn't submit a proposal and spending plan for housing, as Congress directed.

Bush argues that "the president has a right to control executive branch employees and officers, that he has authority to withhold from Congress information sometimes considered privileged or that Congress shouldn't interfere with his constitutional role as commander in chief." And that Bush has "the prerogative to address matters of national security and express reservations about the constitutionality of legislation."

Constitutionality? What the Hell does the Bush Administration know about that 'Goddamn piece of paper'? I'll tell you what they know. They know that you can cloud any Constitutional argument with an opaque veil of 'national security' -- a simple term morphed into a Rovian catch-all, revved up to address every issue from military spending to healthcare to Grandma Betty's apple biscuits.

Just slap that 'national security' label on legislation of your choice, and BOOM! Now you can 'withhold information from Congress' and insist that 'Congress not interfere'. Blah, blah, blah.

Don't even get me started on 'Bush's role as Commander-and-Chief'! What a joke!

And in case you think this is the end of Bush-era 'signing statements' -- yes, the ones that the administration can't seem to follow -- White House jabber-jaw Tony Fratto assures us, "We expect to continue to use statements where appropriate, on a bill-by-bill basis,"

I expect they will also continue to illegally ignore the statements as it suits their needs. Well hey! If you let the children get away with Hell, you better believe that is exactly what they'll do.

...imagine if Gore had taken his rightful place in 2000.

Imagine.

Notes:

Bush has issued 149 signing statements. 127 of those raised objection, according to Senator Byrd and Congressman Conyers. "They said the statements often raise multiple objections, resulting in more than 700 challenges to distinct provisions of law."
"The GAO said signing statements accompanied 11 of the 12 spending bills in 2006, singling out 160 specific provisions in those bills."
The American Bar Association (ABA), "approved a resolution condemning use of signing statements, saying presidents shouldn't resort to diluting or changing laws passed by Congress rather than using their veto powers."

Charges Sought Against Rumsfeld Over Prison Abuse!

Frank Ranelli — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 02:37:20 -0500

As being reported by Time Magazine:

"A lawsuit in Germany will seek a criminal prosecution of the outgoing Defense Secretary and other U.S. officials for their alleged role in abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo."

Just days after his resignation, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is about to face more repercussions for his involvement in the troubled wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. New legal documents, to be filed next week with Germany's top prosecutor, will seek a criminal investigation and prosecution of Rumsfeld, along with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet and other senior U.S. civilian and military officers, for their alleged roles in abuses committed at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The plaintiffs in the case include 11 Iraqis who were prisoners at Abu Ghraib, as well as Mohammad al-Qahtani, a Saudi held at Guantanamo, whom the U.S. has identified as the so-called "20th hijacker" and a would-be participant in the 9/11 hijackings. As TIME first reported in June 2005, Qahtani underwent a "special interrogation plan," personally approved by Rumsfeld, which the U.S. says produced valuable intelligence. But to obtain it, according to the log of his interrogation and government reports, Qahtani was subjected to forced nudity, sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, prolonged stress positions, sleep deprivation and other controversial interrogation techniques.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs say that one of the witnesses who will testify on their behalf is former Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the one-time commander of all U.S. military prisons in Iraq. Karpinski — who the lawyers say will be in Germany next week to publicly address her accusations in the case — has issued a written statement to accompany the legal filing, which says, in part: "It was clear the knowledge and responsibility [for what happened at Abu Ghraib] goes all the way to the top of the chain of command to the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ."

More at Time.com:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1557842,00.html

Could Google Maps Reduce DC's Murder Rate?

Bob Fertik — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 22:53:06 -0400

John Aravosis posted a disturbing blog about how Washington DC is becoming "A Clockwork Orange":

If you never saw the movie "A Clockwork Orange," it's about... well... I don't even remember what it's about, I saw it so long ago. All I remember from the movie was an incredibly graphic and violent scene of some thugs breaking into a woman's home. The rest was so violent and nasty, it still sticks in my head some 30+ years later.

That is what Washington, DC is now becoming, a city of gratuitous and graphic violence. I'm serious, the city is dangerous folks. Visit or live here at your own peril.

And despite the city's economic growth, there is no apparent solution in sight:

Washington, DC, for all of its economic improvement over the past several years, is still a terribly dangerous city, and increasingly so over the past few years. The Chief of Police has no clue what to do about the problem, and honestly, he's loathe to admit there even is a problem, or even tell the truth when he does "admit" it. He prefer to talks about the level of poverty and all the "LA gangs" that have infiltrated DC - as if DC is the first city in America to suffer from gangs and poverty. Our Mayor has no interest in anything other than baseball. And our city council talks a good talk, but when push comes to shove, they do nothing to ameliorate the problem. They're afraid of the chief of police, and seemingly of their own power.

It's a conspiracy of incompetence, or at best, indifference.

I believe the best hopes of solving our deep urban problems (including poverty and race) through enlightened government policy were murdered with Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King in 1968. Since then, we've had 40 years of pretty much unrelenting rightwing war on the poor and on our cities - and on enlightened government itself.

But in recent years, an amazingly powerful new force for change has emerged - the Internet. And as the Internet has evolved, creative people have found ways to use the latest Internet tools to confront problems that seemed otherwise impossible.

So can the Internet be used to make a serious dent in DC's violent crime rate?

Aravosis identifies two important levers - visitors and prospective residents.

That is what Washington, DC is now becoming, a city of gratuitous and graphic violence. I'm serious, the city is dangerous folks. Visit or live here at your own peril.

How could these two constituencies be mobilized in a way that would overcome the conspiracy of incompetence and indifference?

On the theory that a picture is worth a thousand words, the first idea that comes to mind is using Google Maps. By now we've all seen maps with pins representing noteworthy locations.

What if DC residents created a Google Map with pins for all of the (a) murders (b) attempted murders (c) rapes, and (d) aggravated assaults - going back 3 years or so?

Obviously this would take some work, but "many hands makes light work."

Once created, this map could be used as a powerful tool for change:

Getting DC bloggers to link to it
Getting the DC media to cover it
Printing it out and handing it to everyone at City Council meetings, the Mayor's Office, and Police HQ
Printing it out and handing it to everyone at major Metro stops

These actions would definitely help mobilize DC residents. They could also be used to mobilize DC's business community:

Handing it out in front of upscale DC real estate offices
Handing it out in front of the DC Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Association
Buying Google Adwords like "DC tourism" and "DC real estate" with attention-getting ads like "Don't Get Murdered in Washington DC" that link directly to the map

And why stop there? In DC, it's easy to reach the whole nation - even the world.

Handing it to everyone at Union Station, where people arrive from nearby states
Handing it to everyone at National Airport, where people arrive from around the country
Handing it to everyone at Congress, the White House, and the major monuments, where people arrive from around the world

So that's an idea off the top of my head. If we pool all the great minds on the Internet, I'm sure we can come up with ideas that would really work!

Update 1: It occurs to me that the DC police already have a crime database with precise location coordinates - every major city has one. Of course they don't publicize it, but the taxpayers paid for it and have every right to get a copy. So there's no need for a small army of activists to retype the data - just write a letter to the Chief of Police and cc: the Mayor, the City Council, and the media. Of course there's no need to request personal information like the names of the victims or the alleged perpetrators, so the City won't be able to use privacy as an excuse. And I can't see any legitimate security concern, since the relevant information is published in the newspaper crime blotters already. But if the Chief says no anyway, then file a FOIA and a lawsuit. If no one has established a legal precedent that taxpayers are entitled to government databases that do not infringe on privacy (or security), now's the time!