Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink, and Ann Wright, a retired Army colonel, have been arrested in the U.S. while protesting the Iraq war which placed their names in an FBI-run database, the National Crime Information Center (NCIC). Canada relies on the database to screen visitors and when the two women visited the country in August, they were told they would have to apply for "criminal rehabilitation" and pay $200 if they wanted to visit again.

In August the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Louisiana asked that payments to churches totaling $120,000, approved by the legislature as part of a general appropriations bill were stopped. In response, on Oct. 5, a federal judge in Louisiana issued an order stating that "non-neutral, direct money grants of taxpayer funds to favored houses of worship are clearly unconstitutional." The ACLU argued that the legislative earmarks violated the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.

In response to the Protect America Act (PAA) signed into law in August which temporarily reformed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Democrats are now working on a new, hopefully more conscious piece of legislation to revise FISA. The House Select Intelligence Committee is scheduled to mark up a bill next Wednesday and according to CQ ($$), Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has postponed plans to brief reporters on the bill, originally planned for today (Oct.5).

In July we reported that the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) is working on a project to attempt to solve a problem facing Members and their staff, excessive amounts of e-mail that often causes their systems to crash. Congressional staffers are frustrated with the amount of email while advocates are upset and worried that the correspondence they send to Members might not be getting any attention. Participants in online action campaigns often rely on organizations to research the issues, track legislation, and write correspondence, making participating quick and easy.