Democracy Now! March 10, 2003

9:01-9:06 Headlines: 9:06-9:07 One-Minute Music Break 9:07-9:30: Renowned writers Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, and Maxine Hong Kinston, author of The Woman Warrior, and over 20 other women were arrested in Washington, D.C. on Saturday. The women were among thousands of women who marched on Washington on International Women s Day, protesting the Bush administration s plans to invade Iraq. The protest was organized by a new group called Code Pink, a play on the Bush administration s color-coded system of terror alerts. Also arrested were magazine publisher Nina Utne, authors Terry Tempest Williams and Susan Griffin, CodePink Co-founder Medea Benjamin, Rev. Patricia Ackerman and musician Rachel Bagby. Gloria Johnson, Coalition of Labor Union Women Nancy Lessin, co-founder of Military Families Speak Out, her stepson is a 25-year-old Marine who is currently stationed in the Gulf region and being prepared for the battle. Links: Coalition of Labor Union Women: http://www.cluw.org/Military Families Speak Out: http://www.mfso.org/9:21-9:22 One-Minute Music Break ON MINI DV??? Hafsat Abiola, Nigerian human rights advocate. Her mother, Kudirat Abiola, was assassinated by the military regime in June 1996. Hafsat's father, President-elect Moshood Abiola, was imprisoned in 1993. Just prior to release from prison in 1998 he died of a heart attack. 9:33-9:45: A 28-year-old woman working at the top-secret British Government Communications Headquarters has been arrested on charges of contravening the Official Secrets Act. The GCHQ is the electronic surveillance arm of the British intelligence service. The arrest comes just a few days after the Observer published a top-secret National Security Agency document. The memo revealed US agents had been ordered to bug the telephone and email communications of U.N. Security Council delegations from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea. The surveillance operation was designed to help the US win votes for the war resolution on Iraq. The Observer reports the NSA document was leaked to the paper by British security sources who objected to being asked to aid the US surveillance operation. Meanwhile, the United Nations has launched a top-level investigation into the US is spying operation. Guest: Martin Bright, journalist with the London Observer. He is co-author of the article US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war Links: http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,905936,00.html for a transcript of the leaked document, see: http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,905954,00.html Guest: Wayne Madsen, senior fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center and a former National Security Agency intelligence officer. Link: Electronic Privacy Information Center: http://www.epic.org/9:40-9:41 One-Minute Music Break 9:44-9:58: On Saturday, cable station MSNBC went ahead with the launch of the controversial new program by arch-conservative talk-radio star Michael Savage. This came despite protests from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and other advocacy groups. Savage heads the Paul Revere Society, an organization which advocates closing borders, deporting illegal immigrants, mandating health tests for immigrants, eliminating entitlement programs and making tax cuts permanent. Savage s debut comes less than two weeks after MSNBC fired Phil Donahue at a time when his show was the network s top rated program. A leaked internal NBC study indicates Donahue was fired because of his anti-war views. Media analyst Rick Ellis obtained a copy of the study and outlined portions on his website, AllYourTV.com. The study found Donahue presented a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war......He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." The report goes on to outline a possible nightmare scenario where the show becomes "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity." Donahue has not spoken publicly about his dismissal but issued a statement that indicated MSNBC was trying to silence anti-war voices in favor of new conservative hosts. He wrote, The hiring of Mike Savage, Dick Armey and Joe Scarborough suggest a strategy to out-Fox FOX. Studio Guest: Steve Rendall, senior analyst at FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting Contact: http://www.fair.org 9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie Karran, and Ana Nogiera. Mike Di Filippo is our engineer and webmaster.