After studying how once-democratic nations slide into fascism, writer Naomi Wolf came to a horrifying conclusion: in the last five years, the United States has taken all of the steps that have historically led to the end of republican government. Wolf issued a call to patriotic dissent in her 2007 book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to A Young Patriot. A sample chapter is available here (.pdf).

Last week, the US House of Representatives passed a "compromise" version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that gives the President additional authority to conduct surveillance on American citizens while providing immunity to telecommunications companies that have cooperated with previous Bush administration warrantless surveillance efforts. The bill goes to the Senate for a vote this week. Sen.

A recent article in The Progressive magazine has civil liberties activists charging that the US is being turned in a "surveillance society." The story describes InfraGard, an FBI initiative that, according to its critics, "deputizes" business leaders and other private citizens not only to share information about possible security threats but also to "shoot to kill" in the event that martial law is declared in the US. Defenders of the program accuse The Progressive of spreading "misinformation" and "hysteria."

Editors at the Montclarion, the student newspaper of New Jersey's Montclair State University, returned from winter break to find that the funds for printing their newspaper had been frozen. The College's student government (SGA) cut the Montclarion's funding because the newspaper consulted an outside attorney for a probe into possible SGA violations of New Jersey's open meeting laws.

This week, Congress will debate whether a temporary law that enhanced the Bush administration's power to conduct warrantless surveillance should be made permanent. What's especially controversial is that the new law would immunize cooperating telecommunications companies from prosecution.

UPDATE: The bill failed in the Senate today by a cloture vote of 56-43. More details are here. Details on how each Senator voted are here. Supporters of the attempt to restore habeas corpus are still asking citizens to contact their Senators. Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), have introduced an amendment to the Department of Defense Authorization bill that would restore habeas corpus -- the right of people detained by the US to appear before a judge and demand proof that they have been lawfully arrested. That right, enshrined in the US Constitution, was vacated by passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Dodd and Leahy are asking voters to support the bill now, to stop an expected Republican filibuster. Bloggers are doing what they can to whip up support. You can sign up to be a "citizen co-sponsor" through the website the Senators have created: Restore Habeas.

It was a gray Tuesday today in central New Jersey,with intermittent rains falling steadily as fresh tears. There was little overt acknowledgment of the 9/11 anniversary, just over an hour away from Manhattan. No need -- the shadows of memory are palpable. That day in 2001, sitting in a computer lab that my students and I used to launch our local coverage, I wrote: "On the morning of September 11, 2001, individual Americans and people around the world siezed upon the Internet, as well as television, radio and telephones as a way of making sense of madness. What we saw and heard seemed scripted by some B-grade Hollywood hack: first the news that a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, then live images of a second plane, and the towers imploding, and then the word about the Pentagon and the rumors of elsewhere, and there were no words to be said, and no sense to be made, but we kept searching...." Six years later, we are still searching: for a way out of the morass in Iraq, for clues to the enigma of Osama bin Laden and his confederates, for clues about how we to make our differences a source of strength, instead of fear.

Last week, the news broke that presidential adviser Karl Rove will leave the White House at the end of August, and since then the man known as "Bush's brain" has been on a valedictory press tour.