A quick overview

Updated Just a rundown on a handful of incidents in the land of the free.

-- On May 26 in Boston, a young man named Joe Previtera staged a bit of guerrilla theater: He stood on a plastic milk crate outside a military recruiting office dressed in a long black shawl, coming about to his knees, and a black hood. He had stereo wires dangling from his outstretched arms - re-enacting the famous photo of the prisoner in Abu Ghraib. He said nothing, just stood silently.

He was arrested.

The charges were a misdemeanor of disturbing the peace and two felonies: making a false bomb threat and using a hoax device. The "threat" and "device" consisted of the wires and the milk crate. He was held overnight before being released on his own recognizance.

"The police woke me in the middle of the night and showed me pictures of U.S. soldiers with smiling Iraqi children," says Previtera. "The officers told me these were pictures that I'd never see in the media, and that the Boston Globe and The New York Times were communist papers."

On June 8, the District Attorney's office, which initially had seemed rather embarrassed by the charges, dropped them.

(Sidebar: A similar protest on June 5 at the same site was allowed to come off without police interference.)

-- A group of activists on their way to a conference of grassroots activists in Los Angeles on May 15 were stopped by police, surrounded by six police cars, with a helicopter circling. They were arrested and handcuffed. The charge? Seatbelt violations.

I'm serious.

Another group headed for the conference was pulled over for a broken tail light and detained when one among them couldn't provide identification - which, I shouldn't find it necessary to remind you, there is no law requiring you to carry.

Still another was stopped by police with drawn guns because his car "matched a description" - of what seems to remain unclear.

-- A Buffalo, NY artist named Steven Kurtz who addresses technological issues has been arrested and an indictment is now being sought to charge him with "bioterrorism." His crime? Possession of

three bacteria commonly used as educational tools in schools and university biological departments.

He had obtained them legally and they are all harmless.

Despite that, the US Attorney in Buffalo wants him prosecuted under a provision of the TRAITOR Act that makes it illegal to possess "any biological agent, toxin or delivery system ... not reasonably justified by a prophylactic, protective, bona fide research or other peaceful purpose." Apparently education and art are not bona fide peaceful purposes in the government's mind.

His lawyer, Paul Cambria, suggests there might be a political motive behind the prosecution.

Cambria said Kurtz objects to spending money on bioterrorism defense at the expense of the public health agenda of conquering natural killer diseases, and he opposes genetically modified crops that give the companies who create them a monopoly on selling them.

-- The Department of the Security of the Fatherland has begun enforcing an obscure, mostly-forgotten, and rarely-enforced provision of immigration law that requires journalists from countries eligible for the Visa Waiver Program to obtain special visas to enter the country, even when others from the same country do not.

Last year, at least 13 foreign journalists were detained and deported at U.S. airports - most in Los Angeles - according to the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders. At least one more journalist was similarly turned away this year after being detained, interrogated and strip-searched.

I actually posted someone on this back on December 24, but it certainly bears repeating.

-- On June 7, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from Sabri Samirah, a longtime Muslim leader in Chicago. A Jordanian citizen who had been living in the US for 15 years with his wife and three children (the children are US citizens), he went back to Jordan in 2002 to visit his ailing mother.

When he returned from the trip in January 2003, he was labeled a security risk and barred from re-entering the United States. Federal officials have cited no reason for that judgment, not even in court filings, and have argued - apparently successfully - that because he is charged with violation of immigration laws he can't challenge his treatment in federal court. Which means not only haven't they given a reason, they're saying they don't have to, apparently with the approval of the Injustices of the Supreme Court.

That "land of the free, home of the brave" stuff is getting harder to swallow all the time.

Updated to include the Samirah case.