So, this article outlines what the nominee for director of #HomelandSecurity has planned for #SilencingDissent in the US...

From 2019: South Dakota Governor #KristiNoem Caves on Attempted Efforts to Silence #PipelineProtesters

ACLU, October 24, 2019

"South Dakota’s governor and attorney general today backed down from their unconstitutional attempts to silence pipeline protestors. In response to a lawsuit we filed alongside the ACLU of South Dakota and the Robins Kaplan law firm, the state has agreed to never enforce the unconstitutional provisions of several state laws that threatened activists who encourage or organize protests, particularly protests of the #KeystoneXL [#KXL] pipeline, with fines and criminal penalties of up to 25 years in prison.

"The settlement agreement reached today and now headed to the court for approval is an important victory for the right to protest. It comes soon after a federal court temporarily blocked enforcement of the pieces of the laws that infringed on First Amendment protected speech, and makes the court’s temporary block a permanent one.

"The laws include the #RiotBoostingAct, which gave the state the authority to sue individuals and #organizations for 'riot boosting,' a novel and confusing term. The court warned against the laws’ broad reach, noting that the laws could have prohibited:

- Sending a supporting email or a letter to the editor in support of a protest
- Giving a cup of coffee or thumbs up or $10 to protesters
- Holding up a sign in protest on a street corner
- Asking someone to protest

"Under the First Amendment, that is impermissible.

"The court rightly recognized the stakes of this case. And it put these #AntiProtest efforts in perspective, asking 'if these riot boosting statutes were applied to the protests that took place in Birmingham, Alabama, what might be the result?' The answer: 'Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference could have been liable under an identical riot boosting law[.]'

"Indeed, South Dakota’s unconstitutional anti-protest efforts echoed the suppression of past social movements. From the start, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem called on 'shut[ting] down' 'out-of-state people' who come into South Dakota to 'slow and stop construction' of the pipeline. Her harmful calls were reminiscent of government attempts throughout our history to delegitimize and minimize significant #SocialMovements as the work of 'outside agitators,' including Reverend #MartinLutherKingJr.

"South Dakota’s quick and costly retreat (they’ll have to compensate plaintiffs for attorney’s fees under the settlement agreement) should serve as a lesson for other legislatures considering similar efforts to silence dissent.

"In the last few years, we have witnessed a legislative trend of states seeking to criminalize protest, deter political participation, and curtail freedom of association. These bills appear to be a direct reaction from politicians and corporations to some of the most effective tactics of those speaking out today, including water protectors challenging pipeline construction, Black Lives Matter, and those calling for boycotts of Israel. These legislative moves are aimed at suppressing dissent and undercutting marginalized and over-policed groups voicing concerns that disrupt current power dynamics.

"But the First Amendment guarantees people the right to voice their opposition. This includes our clients — four organizations (the #SierraClub, #NDNCollective, #DakotaRuralAction, and the #IndigenousEnvironmentalNetwork - #IEN) and two individuals (#NickTilsen with NDN Collective and #DallasGoldtooth with Indigenous Environmental Network) — all of whom are protesting construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and encouraging others to do the same.

"Construction of the Keystone XL pipeline may be imminent. Pre-construction activities resumed this month, and a hearing on the new Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the pipeline, which will serve as the basis for approval of any future permits, is coming up next Monday.

"With the laws we challenged proclaimed unenforceable, protesters and protectors no longer have to worry about incarceration or fines as they protest against the construction. That is, at a minimum, how democracy should work."

https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/south-dakota-governor-caves-on-attempted-efforts-to-silence-pipeline-protesters

#WaterProtectors #CriminalizingDissent #BigOilAndGas #CorporateColonialism #Fascism #DefendTheSacred #IndigenousActivists #StandWithStandingRock #FirstAmendment

[Thread] Unfortunately, South Dakota #HB1258 was defeated [which would have put more restrictions on #LithiumMining]... And I knew Burgum would betray #NativeAmericans (even though he promised not to).

‘Unleashing American Energy’: Mining and Drilling Accelerated Under Trump Administration

By Angelica (Angie) Solloa • February 12, 2025

"You may have heard that #DebHaaland (Laguna Pueblo) transitioned out of her role as the US Secretary of the Department of Interior and announced her candidacy for Governor New Mexico. Her successor, former North Dakota Governor #DougBurgum, is steadfast in carrying out Trump’s Executive Order 14154 '#UnleashingAmericanEnergy' which aims to accelerate #mining and drilling on federal and #TribalLands.

"On February 3rd, Doug Burgum released this document which outlines all the revoked projects and programs intended to protect land and the people; giving a pathway for #MiningCompanies to hit the ground running across Turtle Island.

"In the #BlackHills, the #SacredLands of the #Lakota Peoples’, mining and drilling companies aren’t hesitating to cash out. Currently, South Dakota House Bill 1258 is under consideration by the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, where it will come to a vote this Thursday, February 13th. Community members and citizens of the area were given just six days’ notice.

WHAT IS HB 1258?

"The passage of South Dakota House Bill 1258 would hold lithium mining to the same standards and laws as silver and gold. Under the current law, lithium mining is treated like mining for sand and gravel, and there are not enough protections for human #health, #food systems, #water, #wildlife, and the #land.

"HB 1258 would offer more accountability and appropriate processes for mining companies that would better protect the land, the people, and the economy of the #Ȟesápa. #NDNCollective, alongside partner the #BlackHillsCleanWaterAlliance, collaborated to spread the word as fast as possible, calling on relatives to swiftly take action ahead of Thursday, February 13th."

Read more:
https://ndncollective.org/unleashing-american-energy-mining-and-drilling-accelerated-under-trump-administration/
#ProtectTheBlackHills #ProtectTheSacred #DefendTheSacred #NoMiningWithoutConsent #EnvironmentalRacism #DrillBabyDrill #WaterIsLife #LandIsLife #LeaveItInTheGround #CorporateColonialism #USPol #NoLithiumMining #DefendMotherEarth

#HaulNo! and #Dine activists deserve #BadassActivist awards! They faced possible #ICE harassment and #Uranium exposure today while protesting uranium transportation!!!

CALL TO ACTION:

"We want to encourage VISIBILITY!
This can be done through autonomous actions:
• Posting signs up
• Putting up banners (along side the haul route)
• Voicing your concerns with your council delegates & chapters

Please stay safe and practice safety measures to protect yourself.

SAFETY:

"We do not encourage standing along the haul route due to safety risks such as possible exposure to radiation and high traffic activity.

"We encourage wearing masks (such as KN95s, N95s) in all areas contaminated by uranium and places of possible exposure.

"For folks protesting, we encourage everyone to know your rights and read available 'Know Your Rights' information, such as by ACLU and other legal resources."

Source:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/02/radioactive-uranium-trucks-will-travel.html
#WhiteMesaUte #EnergyFuels #HaulNo #BuuNygren #IndigenousAction #IndigenousResistance #PinyonPlain #NuclearColonialism #ReaderSupportedNews #Dine #RestInPowerKleeBenally #NoUraniumTransport #DefendTheSacred #ProtectTheSacred #UraniumMine #NoNukes #NuclearFreeWorld #NoNuclear #NoWar #NuclearWaste #NoMoreTransportationOfUranium
#NoNuclearWeapons #NoNuclearPowerPlants #NoUraniumMining #UteNation #NoUraniumMining #Navajo #Havasupai #GrandCanyon #NuclearWeapons #InformedConsent
#EnvironmentalRacism #WaterIsLife

Shut Down #PinyonPlain #UraniumMine in #GrandCanyon: #AwarenessWalk

February 22, 2025

"Join residents who will be impacted by #EnergyFuels #uranium transport for a COMMUNITY WALK and gathering on February 22, 2025 in #TubaCityArizona. The event is organized and hosted by local Tuba City group #BiddyRoots with support from friends and family, #DinéCARE, #HaulNo!, #AntiUraniumMapping Project, and others. This walk is to provide information and discuss #UraniumTransport across #NavajoNation. We will walk together from the Junction of US-160 & Main Street to the Chapter House."

Follow our Facebook event page for UPDATES:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1127868852048943

More information is also available here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/eetso-ei-dooda-no-to-uranium-awareness-walk-tuba-city-aztickets-
1233002546809?aff=oddtdtcreator

Contact: awarenesswalk2025@gmail.com

Masks required. Masks will be provided.

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/02/tuba-city-community-forum-and-walk-shut.html
#IndigenousAction #IndigenousResistance #NuclearColonialism #ReaderSupportedNews #Dine #RestInPowerKleeBenally #NoUraniumTransport #DefendTheSacred #ProtectTheSacred #UraniumMine #NoNukes #NuclearFreeWorld #NoNuclear #NoWar #NuclearWaste #NoMoreMining
#NoMoreTransportationOfUranium
#NoNuclearWeapons
#NoNuclearPowerPlants #NoMining #NoUraniumMining #UteNation #Navajo #Havasupai #GrandCanyon #NuclearWeapons #InformedConsent #NuclearColonialism
#EnvironmentalRacism #WaterIsLife

[Thread] From Chapter 8 of #KleeBenally's book, #NoSpiritualSurrender - #IndgenousAnarchy, #InDefenseOfTheSacred:

The AIM Song of Anguish

"Though my family was skeptical of, and kept AIM at a distance, I grew up singing the AIM song. I've sung it at actions throughout the world, my grandma Roberta would always want to sing it, her barely audible voice at the drum belying her fierce power, I've sung it with both #RussellMeans (confronting the racist #ColumbusDay parade in Denver) and with #DennisBanks (too many times to recall) and faceless and nameless warriors on many frontlines. Though its provenance is not known, the story I recall that it was spiritual gift to rally AIM warrior during the liberation of #WoundedKnee.

"In analyzing #IndigenousPower and #DirectAction, it's vital to examine the context of strategies, tactics, and State repression that comprises the ongoing legality of #IndigenousResistance, particularly with the historically vital force of the American Indian Movement (AIM).

"Though there are many examples, #LeonardPeltier's false imprisonment for the alleged murder of two #FBI agents in 1975 and the clouded assassination of #AnnaMaePictouAquash are important markers.

"Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash, a strong #Mikmaq warrior with AIM, was found murderd in 1974 in Wanblee on the #PineRidge reservation in 'South Dakota'. Pictou-Aquash is also a symbol of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women [#MMIW], Girls, Trans, and #TwoSpirit movement today.

"Accusations of her murder first pointed to the FBI and later, as AIM members revealed how paranoia of infiltrators had gripped the leadership intensely, rumors surfaced that AIM had her killed. This was a time when bad-jacking (making someone look like a snitch or informant even though they aren't) tactics by feds as part of #COINTELPRO was proving to be an effective tactic against revelutionary groups."

Pages 179-180, #KleeBenally, #NoSpiritualSurrender

#IndigenousAnarchy
#Ecosystem
#DefendTheSacred
#CorporateColonialism #FreeLeonardPeltier #AnnaMaePictouAquash #AnnaMaeAquash #ACAB

[Thread] Random excerpts from #KleeBenally 's book, #NoSpiritualSurrender

The Enemy of #MotherEarth

"From Mother Earth to our bodies, in a #capitalist system everything that can be reduced to a commodity will be. As long as it can be sold, bought, or otherwise exploited, nothing is sacred. So long as the lands (and by extension our bodies) are viewed this way we will have conflict, as #capitalism is the enemy of Mother Earth and all that we hold to be #sacred.

"In its base definition, capitalism is an economic and political system based on an unregulated or 'free' market, private property, competition, and limited government intervention. But the definition obscures the reality that capitalism is based upon extreme social #exploitation and dispossession, #EcologicalDestruction, #hyperindividualism and #materialism, and its history is rooted in #WhiteSupremacy, #cishetereopatriarchy, #genocide, and #slavery.

"To be anti-capitalist is not enough, anti-capitalist propositions rooted in #industrialism and #extractivism are just as invested in #ecocidal (therefore anti-Indigenous) economies. Killing the Earth is killing Indigenous existence, #Colonizers must religiously convince themselves and others that the world is already dead to justify their ongoing violence against the Earth and existence. In the face of global ecological ruin, some attempt to further convince themselves that killing the Earth just a little bit less is an appropriate response."

Pages 136-137

#IndigenousAnarchy #Ecosystem #DefendTheSacred #CorporateColonialism

[Film] The #ApacheStronghold defending #sacred #OakFlat land from a #CopperMine

The Real News Network
May 21, 2024

"In the heart of the #Arizona high desert lies a battle for the soul of the land. The ancient, sacred grounds of #Apache #Native territory are under threat from a looming giant — a massive copper mine that promises riches for the locals, and a pathway to the so-called green transition. But, as is often the case, it comes at a cost.

"The #SanCarlosApache tribe calls it Chi’chil Bildagoteel; English speakers call it Oak Flat. It sits on a mountainous plateau within a 17.3-kilometer oasis in the #TontoNationalForest. #RioTinto and #BHP, two of the world’s biggest mining companies, have staked their claim here through a joint venture called #ResolutionCopper. For over 10 years they’ve been lobbying governments for the right to build a colossal mine that would cover roughly 7,000 acres of surface area, and extend more than a mile into the ground.

"The only thing that stands in their way is the #resistance of the Apache Stronghold, a nonprofit community organization of #Natives and non-Natives uniting to counter ongoing #colonization, defend holy sites and protect freedom of religion, which was created to protect Chi’chil Bildagoteel.

"A short film by #BrandiMorin and #GeordieDay for #RicochetMedia. Support for this journalism provided by #CulturalSurvival."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCIGlv0xu_U

#ChichilBildagoteel #RioTinto #CopperMine #SanCarlosApache #Arizona #ProtectOakFlat #protectthesacred #DefendTheSacred #IndigenousActivism #SCOTUS #SaveOakFlat
#WaterIsLife #SacredSite #CopperMining #RecycleCopper #MiningWithoutConsent
#ProtectTheSacred #CulturalGenocide #Ecocide #NativeAmericanNews
#IndigenousNews
#Greenwashing #NoMiningWithoutConsent #CorporateColonialism

[Watch] #NationalDayOfMourning 2024

#PlymouthMassachusetts, November 28, 2024

https://www.youtube.com/live/pdpBNKI31TA

#FreePalestine #FreeLeonardPeltier
#FreeGaza #WestBank #ClimateJustice
#DayOfMourning #NoDAPL
#LandBack #DefendTheSacred
#IndigenousClimateActivists #MMIWG
#TwoSpirits #NoPipelines
#LeaveItInTheGround
#ExtractiveMining
#NoMiningWithoutConsent
#WaterIsLife #HumanRightsAreNeverWrong
#LoveYourMotherEarth #ResistWhiteSupremacy
#CorporateColonialism #Capitalism

[Thread] Reciprocity: #Indigenous #Storytellers #FilmSeries, Watch Now

November 21, 2024, via #CensoredNews

"This Reciprocity Project is a short film series made in partnership with Indigenous storytellers and their communities that invites learning from time honored and current Indigenous ways of being.

"In recent years, the Reciprocity Project has been heavily featured in DCEFF's shorts programming. Led by Indigenous filmmakers, the first season of this initiative featured stories about land defenders, traditional knowledge, and sustainability. Those films are now free to stream online."

Watch series now:
https://www.reciprocity.org/films/season-one

Source:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/11/reciprocity-indigenous-storytellers.html

#ReaderSupportedNews #DCEFF #IndigenousStorytellers #IndigenousFilms #LandDefenders #LandDefenders #DefendTheSacred #WaterIsLife #ReciprocityProject #Reciprocity #IndigenousFilmMakers #IndigenousWisdom

I knew Klee's grandmother, #RobertaBlackgoat -- and supported her with #MutualAid and telling her side of the story in the early days of the web. Rest in Power, Klee!
💔

#KleeBenally 'Carry On'

By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, April 9, 2024

"Klee, discussing resource extraction, and how the #NavajoTribalCouncil was created to sign #oil and #gas leases, quotes our friend, the gentle, soft-spoken farmer from Shiprock, who received his doctorate degree before passing, Larry Emerson.

"'There is no point in trying to #decolonize the Navajo government -- it was not right for us from the start. Its structure and process is a replica of the American system, and the American system appears to be edging toward the possibility of failure like the great #RomanEmpire.'

"Writing on these monsters, oil and gas extraction, and coal mining, Klee quotes #LouiseBenally of #BigMountain, his aunt, whose family spent their lives resisting coal mining, #ForcedRelocation, and the machinery of the tribal government.

"Louise said, 'The natural laws and the Indigenous Peoples were already here in a good relationship before the coming of the #colonial society who draws laws and boundaries. However, we #IndigenousPeoples will always have ties with these lands, we will continue to live that way with #nature and we will carry on.'

"Klee shares the words of his grandmother, Roberta Blackgoat, who never gave up the fight. 'The Coal they strip mine is the Earth's liver."
Although many have passed, and too many have died from broken hearts, there are those who live on, carry on.

"Klee writes, 'The remaining resisters to forced relocation have outlived the monster that was consuming our lands, stealing our water, and polluting our lungs.'

"Before passing, Klee described the monsters, the rage against the machine, and the ways of restoring balance and harmony. Klee Benally's book, 'No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in the Defense of the Sacred,' can be ordered at: https://detritusbooks.com/products/no-spiritual-surrender-indigenous-anarchy-in-defense-of-the-sacred
at April 09, 2024

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/04/klee-benally-carry-on.html

#PeabodyCoal #BigMountainResistance #LandBack #LandBackNow #IndigenousPeoples #Dineh #NoUraniumMining #DefendTheSacred #EnvironmentalRacism #CulturalGenocide #Colonialism #CorporateColonialism #BigOilAndGas #RageAgainstTheMachine #IndigenousAnarchy #EarthDefenders #WaterIsLife