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VA Nurse Investigated for “Sedition” for Criticizing Bush

SimonWaldram	Date: April 7, 2006 @ 3:36 PM From The Progressive: http://progressive.org/mag_mc020806 By Matthew Rothschild February 8, 2006 Laura Berg is a clinical nurse specialist at the VA Medical Center in Albuquerque, where she has worked for 15 years. Shortly after Katrina, she wrote a letter to the editor of the weekly paper the Alibi criticizing the Bush Administration. After the paper published the letter in its September 15-21 issue, VA administrators seized her computer, alleged that she had written the letter on that computer, and accused her of “sedition.” Here’s what her letter said. “I am furious with the tragically misplaced priorities and criminal negligence of this government,” it began. “The Katrina tragedy in the U.S. shows that the emperor has no clothes!” She mentioned that she was “a VA nurse” working with returning vets. “The public has no sense of the additional devastating human and financial costs of post-traumatic stress disorder,” she wrote, and she worried about the hundreds of thousands of additional cases that might result from Katrina and the Iraq War. “Bush, Cheney, Chertoff, Brown, and Rice should be tried for criminal negligence,” she wrote. “This country needs to get out of Iraq now and return to our original vision and priorities of caring for land and people and resources rather than killing for oil. . . . We need to wake up and get real here, and act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit. Otherwise, many more of us will be facing living hell in these times.” After her computer was seized, Berg wrote a memo to her bosses seeking information and an explanation. Mel Hooker, chief of the human resources management service at the Albuquerque VA, wrote Berg back on November 9 and acknowledged that “your personal computer files did not contain the editorial letter written to the editor of the weekly Alibi.” But rather than apologize, he leveled the sedition charge: “The Agency is bound by law to investigate and pursue any act which potentially represents sedition,” he said. “In your letter . . . you declared yourself ‘as a VA nurse’ and publicly declared the Government which employs you to have ‘tragically misplaced priorities and criminal negligence’ and advocated, ‘act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit.’ ” Berg, who is not talking to the press, is “scared for her job” and “pretty emotionally distressed,” says Peter Simonson, executive director of the ACLU of New Mexico. “We were shocked to see the word ‘sedition’ used,” Simonson tells The Progressive. “Sedition? That’s like something out of the history books.” In a press release, Simonson also said: “Is this government so jealous of its power, so fearful of dissent, that it needs to threaten people who openly oppose its policies with charges of ‘sedition’?” The ACLU of New Mexico is working in Berg’s behalf. It has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents relating to this incident. And it is asking “at the very least” that Berg “receive a public apology from Mr. Hooker to remedy the unconstitutional chilling effect on the speech of VA employees that has resulted from these intimidating tactics,” according to a letter from the New Mexico ACLU to the VA’s Office of Regional Counsel. Hooker refused to return a phone call, and the VA’s Office of Regional Counsel refused to comment but referred questions to public affairs. "While VA does not prohibit employees from exercising their freedom of speech, we do ask that such activity occurs outside government premises and not during their official tour of duty,” says Bill Armstrong, a public affairs specialist for New Mexico’s VA Health Care System. “When we have reason to believe that this policy is not being adhered to, we have the obligation to review an individual's computer activity." The VA in Washington also refused to comment on the sedition charge. “We don’t discuss internal personnel issues,” says Phil Budahn, a VA spokesman in Washington, D.C. Berg has an additional concern: that the VA may have got the FBI on her case. A union employee “shared with me that Mel Hooker conveyed to him that my letter had been reported ‘up through VA channels’ to the FBI in Washington, and that this had been discussed and confirmed” with union officials at the national office, Berg wrote in her November 2 complaint. (The union she belongs to is the American Federation of Government Employees.) Hooker denied that the VA had contacted the FBI. “The Agency has no knowledge of any report alleged to have been made to the FBI regarding you or your letter,” he said in his November 9 memo. Meanwhile, Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, has taken up the Berg case. “I am writing to express my deep concern regarding news reports that Ms. Laura Berg . . . was investigated for sedition after writing a letter that was critical of the current Administration,” Senator Bingaman wrote to R. James Nicholson, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, on February 7. “In a democracy, expressing disagreement with the government’s actions does not amount to sedition or insurrection—it is, and must remain, protected speech.”
shadowself	Date: April 7, 2006 @ 3:46 PM Typical.
zedsalt	Date: April 8, 2006 @ 10:28 AM Well, it hardly comes as a surprise, does it? I mean, if being a member of a womens' rights group or an environmental organization was enough to make one the subject of surveillance during the Reagan administration, this sort of outrageous behavior is to be expected from an administration that seems to be universally considered as much, much worse. It has been a long time since the Constitution has been anything other than a nice little piece of fiction they keep under glass in D.C.
K3VIN	Date: April 8, 2006 @ 10:30 AM KNow what i hated the whole phone lnie incident.
JanTosh	Date: April 8, 2006 @ 5:26 PM Ridiculous.
hate9wicket	Date: April 8, 2006 @ 5:36 PM Here is a short interview with Ms. Berg http://www.alternet.org/rights/33027/
mudshadow	Date: April 8, 2006 @ 5:49 PM sad days for a shameful nation
Alecs	Date: April 9, 2006 @ 3:39 PM Every day I see more similarities to Hitler and Mussilini's rises to power.
aflunky	Date: April 9, 2006 @ 4:27 PM This is why I'm waiting to get out of the Navy before expressing my political views. I will state this: This never would have happened with the Clinton Administration.
sinai	Date: April 9, 2006 @ 6:08 PM no, clinton would have shot them in the head and crashed their airplane
billhudson	Date: May 11, 2006 @ 10:53 AM Here is a report I wrote a while back... REPORT FROM NYC AUG. 29, 2004 When I was giging up north I had to stick around and take my place among all the other demonstrators. Here is my report…. When I got to the city I figured if I found St. Marks church (In the village) I would find where the march would be and where it would start. I was along with a friend Bill who does sound for a lot of acts that come to the city. So we went to the church and all outside on the gates were signs and info for all to read. We heard singing inside the church, so we went inside. So, we went inside and heard them singing, “Study war no more”. We got the tail end of it and after it was over, we went our own ways. Bill going to work, me looking for the march against the RNC. I start to ask folks where the march was going to start. One guy pulled out his cell phone and looked at his phone and said something like, “Well, right now they are at 7 Ave and 28th street”. So I head that way past Washington Sq. and head to 7 Ave. I pass folks just having another day in the city, some playing chess, lying in the park getting sun, people walking their dogs. Calm in a way, so if one goes outside the march area it is very calm and strange in a way. I see a helicopter in the sky staying very still. I figure if I can find the helicopter that is where the march might be. I see all kinds of folks with signs all heading just one way, all looking for the march. Right now I am at 7 Ave and 14th street with about 5,000 people. We are on 14th street waiting to join the main march on 7th Ave. The march is supposed to start at 1PM but they never seem to start on time. But that’s ok and no one seems to be bothered by it. A lot of folks just talking to each other and asking where everyone is from. There is a guy that looks like Uncle Sam and he is in a barrel with not a thing on, funny as hell. The helicopter now is above us and gets lower. I see what it might be trying to do, that is drown out any singing or chants. But all still sing out and chant. Here are some of the signs that I am reading, City to Bush, drop dead, another regime change begins at home, Stop mindless war, Dumb&Dumer ,Bush lies, who dies?, Fire the liar, Dump Bush, Give Bush the axe. Now the drums are beating and people are chanting, “RNC go home”. The young people that are drumming have sheetrock buckets upside down with a rope around the ends of the bucket and handing from their necks. There are about 15 of them drumming all in a beat, much energy! We very slowing join the main march. Folks all smiling and waving us on in, another sign says, “We won’t get fooled again” I move in with some vets that are marching, some from Nam, some from the Gulf, some from WW2. We all are moving very slow up 7th Ave. We all are looking up at the building as we pass them by. Folks are waving us on as we pass their building. Some have very big signs that are hanging from the buildings. One says, “Dump Bush, no war for oil”. As we pass the building we all give a very loud cheer and they give us the thumbs up back. As I move through the march I hear some cheer leaders. I go closer and I see about 20 women all in formation doing their thing. And after each cheer they all slap their ass and say, “And Bush can kiss my ass”. As we pass another building there is a sign that must be about 40’x 80’ that says, “911 happed here and we say no to Bush!” As I move through the crowd I see an old lady in a wheel chair her sign says, “97 years old and still outraged”. There is something very different about this march I noticed. I have been to another ones but this one is the most polite one I have been to. If some bump’s into you they say, “oh sorry”. I turn to one vet and ask him if he does not think folks are being very polite. He just smiles and says, “Yea, it seems so.” The police on the other hand just seemed bored like that have nothing to do. One thing I did not know is the police have been working since 911 without a contract; it came close of them striking on this day because they want a contact, and it does make one wonder. As we get close up to the convention center where all the republicans are the singing gets louder and the drummers keep the beat. The chants keep on going and get louder. Around the convention center is what looks like a lot of police in riot gear and some very fat nicely dress republicans just standing there with their arms folded. It seems like they are gloating in a way and smiling. A few fly them the bird and then the rest of us join in. A sea of middle fingers all keeping a beat all singing, “Na, Na, Na, hey, hey, goodbye” On one of the building is a very large TV screen with the Fox news on. A very loud chant starts, “Fox sucks, fox sucks, fox sucks all the while keeping our middle finger up and keeping the beat. As we pass another building a very big sign that is hanging from it says, My Bush smells like shit. As the march turns south I head to go to Grand Central Station to get back to NY State where I am staying. I have to go through the police line and just walk through them. They still look bored and in a way I feel sorry for them. They look like they just want to be at home on this Sunday. I pass the library on my way and see a young man talking to a crowd and I cross the street to hear what he has to say. As I get closer there must be a few hundred listening. It’s then the policed moved in and said if we don’t move we will get arrested . I then move away and sit down with this another guy who calls someone on his cell telling them what is going on here. There seems to be a cool network of people on cells reporting back and forth to each other. I then make it to Grand Central Station and find my train to go up north. Still Pickin’ Bill Hudson

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