Your 5 Minute Activist Links for April 28, 2008

** Free Press Action **
Recently, the New York Times exposed a secret Pentagon campaign to infiltrate the media with pro-war propaganda.

The scheme reaches all the way to the Bush White House, where top officials recruited dozens of "military analysts" to spread favorable views of the war via every major news channel -- without revealing they were working from Pentagon scripts and often lobbying for major military contractors.

Spreading "covert propaganda" is illegal under federal law. Congress must investigate these military pundits and their ties to the Bush administration, defense contractors and our national news media.

Tell Congress: Investigate the Propaganda Pundits.

** Public Citizen **
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's cousin and closest political advisor has just been arrested for connections with murderous right-wing paramilitaries! This development can sink Bush's proposed Colombia NAFTA expansion. Write your representative today and urge him or her to oppose the outrageous Colombia FTA.

** Amnesty International **
In April 2004, the Chinese journalist Shi Tao used his Yahoo! email account to send a message to a U.S.-based pro-democracy website. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities." Disturbingly, Yahoo! provided information to the government for his prosecution.

Enough is enough. Companies like Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft have sacrificed international human rights standards, and their own corporate missions, in pursuit of new and lucrative markets. Act now to end the censorship of the internet, ask your Representative to support H.R. 275, the Global Online Freedom Act.

** BioGems **
If the Bush administration and a Denver-based natural gas company get their way, Utah's remarkable Nine Mile Canyon may soon be transformed into a massive industrial zone.

We need your immediate action to halt this destructive scheme in its tracks. The deadline for submitting comments on the plan is May 1!

Please go to http://www.savebiogems.org/redrock/takeaction
right away and tell the Bureau of Land Management to reject this disastrous proposal, which would put more than 800 new natural gas wells in the Greater Nine Mile Canyon area -- home to the greatest concentration of rock art sites in America.