Rosenbergs' son warns free speech threatened

[kskiska]

Robert Meeropol says aspects of Bush administration policies are unpleasantly reminiscent of the McCarthy era, the period of anti-Communist fervor that profoundly changed his life at the age of 6 when his parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, were executed as spies for the Soviet Union.

"When we joined the great demonstration in New York City against the invasion of Iraq in February 2003, we were corralled and told that demonstrating could take place only in what they called Free Speech Zones," said Meeropol, who spoke to hundreds gathered at the Central Queens YMHA in Forest Hills Tuesday. "In school, I was taught that all of the United States was a free speech zone."

(snip)

Meeropol, now 57 and a Boston lawyer, expressed particular alarm at the U.S.A. Patriot Act, which he said gives the federal government unprecedented powers to investigate the lives of ordinary citizens in the name of preventing terrorism.

"In my parents' case, tried during the Korean War, prosecutors linked the thing the public feared most - the atomic bomb - with the people the public feared most - Communists - to justify the death penalty," Meeropol said. "Now we are at war again and the government is linking the thing the public fears most - terrorism - with the people the public fears most - Islamic fundamentalists - to obtain a similar outcome for those caught up in the anti-terrorist dragnet."

more…
http://www.timesledger.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14301945&BRD=2676&PAG=461&dept_id=542415&rfi=6

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[enough]

2. Which has nothing to do with the truth of what he is saying here:

"In school, I was taught that all of the United States was a free speech zone."

[Charlie Brown]

3. Was Ethel guilty?

I've heard much of Julius' ties to espionage, but never his wife. Documents indicate they only prosecuted her to "put the squeeze" on Julius to confess.

[kskiska]

4. They had nothing on Ethel.

Even the substance of Julius' espionage, supplied by Ethel's brother, David Greenglass and passed on to the Russians by David's wife Ruth, didn't amount to a hill of beans – just crude drawings David made while working at Los Alamos. There was no bomb "secret."

There's an excellent book, "The Brother," about how Ethel's brother betrayed her to protect his wife from prosecution.

[NNN0LHI]

5. Where have you seen all those Soviet/Russian files you speak of?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Ethel+and+Julius+Rosenberg+proved+guilty+when+Soviet+opened+up+its+files&btnG=Search

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ned=tus&q=Ethel+and+Julius+Rosenberg+proved+guilty+when+Russia+opened+up+its+files&btnmeta%3Dsearch%3Dsearch=Search+the+Web

I can't seem to find anything to back up your suggestion. Thanks in advance

Don

History will record that we were victims of the most monstrous frame-up of our country.
--Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, June 1953.

My parents were executed because they resisted. We choose to celebrate and honor that resistance at a time when resistance has never been more important.
--Robert Meeropol (n襠Rosenberg), June 2003.

On June 19, 1953, despite international outcry and urgent pleas for an 11th-hour reprieve, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were put to death by means of electrocution in New York's Sing Sing prison.

The Rosenbergs left behind two young children, Michael and Robert, who were respectively 10 and 6 years of age when their parents were executed.

http://www.alternet.org/story/16110