THE EYES OF HORSLEY ARE UPON YOU

Of course everyone has heard about the Nuremberg Files web site. Featuring dripping blood on its pages, it lists the names of everyone having anything to do with abortions. It also lists the well known, and the politicians that SUPPORT woman’s reproductive rights as well as those who “straddled the fence” in the stem cell debate.

Well, it is really terrible, but we do have freedom of speech and it does qualify under the Constitution just as porn sites do. There have been many objections to it mainly because it encourages the fanatics on the political right to kill those whose names are listed. Whenever an abortion provider dies or is killed, a “victory” line is drawn through their name. While the site does not openly tell viewers to kill or commit other violence against abortion providers, there is no doubt that it approves and silently encourages.

Now with their friend, Ashcroft, in the Attorney General’s Office instead of our friend, Reno, they boldly feature pictures of women coming and going from women’s clinics as well as the people who provide service at the clinic. Right now they are on the web but their intent is to put these pictures on television to emulate America’s Most Wanted. Spy cam spam is coming to a TV set near you.

"Watch People Going in and out of Baby Butcher Shops in Your City or Town," an anti-abortion rights website urges. With a click of the mouse, users can view pictures and video of people entering or leaving abortion clinics including patients who undergo abortions and doctors who perform them. Abortion rights activists say it's an invasion of privacy that encourages violence against those captured on camera. "It is aimed at intimidating women and health-care professionals and is escalating tensions outside abortion clinics," says Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation…

But the creator of http://www.Abortioncams.com Neal Horsley, who founded The Christian Gallery News Service, an anti-abortion rights group based in Carrollton, Ga. says he is only exercising his constitutional rights as a "journalist."

What they are doing is similar to what law enforcement officials in many states are doing to catch criminals, car-jackers and those who do not obey traffic laws. Even so, there are many that oppose it and are speaking out.

“The technology (spy cams) has drawn the ire of political heavyweights across the spectrum -- from ultra-conservative Congressman Dick Armey (R-Texas) to the American Civil Liberties Union. The firestorm of protest, which has included demonstrators wearing Groucho Marx glasses parading before the cameras, underscores an increasingly important issue in the wired world: How much privacy can we expect in public places that are rapidly being transformed by technology? “

Of course, if surveillance of this sort has anything to do with the holy of holiest guy sports, you can bet there will be a fierce uproar.

JACKSONVILLE -- A City Council member is proposing legislation to prevent your privacy from being invaded. Law enforcement used facial recognition technology during this year's Super Bowl, causing some to call the big game the Snooper Bowl. The Ybor City District in Tampa uses the technology on a regular basis, to scan faces in the crowd against photographs in a computer database of 30,000 criminals and runaways. At least one man in Ybor City was questioned after the system misidentified him. Now, hundreds of protesters want the cameras there shut down. City Council member Dr. Gwen Chandler-Thompson wants to make sure that the controversial system doesn't turn its eye on Jacksonville.

http://www.news4jax.com/jax/news/stories/news-92779620010821-150801.html

But there is a paucity of official concern being voiced about the Horsley web site. The fact that this is allowed by our top-cop indicates that he considers that women’s clinics are illegal or he is uninterested in preventing this kind of harassment.

Laws are not being broken inside women’s clinics. Outside, there is little doubt that the taking and publishing of women’s pictures invades their privacy and is the height of harassment. There is also little doubt that we can hope for help from the governmental agency that should be stopping this.

Perhaps women patients and health care workers should wear masks when they are around a clinic, at least until public pressure can force the Attorney General to get off his butt. That may not happen soon and we will have to prepare and protect ourselves, both physically and emotionally.

While we’re at it we might as well prepare our daughters to withstand unwanted scrutiny since invasion of women’s rights apparently is of little concern to those in public office. This book is getting very high marks: 101 Ways to Help Your Daughter Love Her Body by Brenda Lane Richardson and Elane Rehr.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a generation of girls grow up interested in their world, their environment and their government? Wouldn’t it be a rush to see healthy girls engaged in sports of all kinds instead of being completely self-absorbed, trying to change their hated bodies to conform to a cultural edict?

twanda@gendergappers.org       

2001-035

Copyright 2001 Renee T. Louise and Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D. These articles may be republished for noncommercial use only, provided that they are copied intact, and that this copyright notice is attached. Address all queries to: twanda@gendergappers.org.

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