On the March 22 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews discussed President Bush's recent public relations campaign to rally support for the war in Iraq with Republican strategist Ed Rogers and Democratic strategist Steve McMahon. McMahon asserted that "[p]eople don't believe this president, they don't trust this president, and it's moved over into character issues," to which Matthews replied: "How can you not trust a man who says, 'I won't be able to win this war in my presidency; I'm leaving it up to other presidents in the future'?"

Matthews was referring to a response Bush gave during his March 21 White House press conference after a reporter asked Bush if he could "assure [the American people] that there will come a day when there will be no more American forces in Iraq." Bush answered, "[T]hat, of course, is an objective, and that will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq." He then added, "You mean a complete withdrawal? That's a timetable. I can only tell you that I will make decisions on force levels based upon what the commanders on the ground say."

From the March 22 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

McMAHON: His approval ratings have dropped to a level you haven't seen since Richard Nixon. People don't believe this president, they don't trust this president, and it's moved over in to character issues.

>MATTHEWS: How can you not trust a man who says "I won't be able to win this war in my presidency; I'm leaving it up to other presidents in the future"? You're basically taking a real -- what do they call it? Not an umbrella defense. A prevent defense. You're saying basically, "OK, I'm not going to win this war."

ROGERS: He's moved the goal post.

MATTHEWS: He's moved the goal post. He said, "I'm not going to win this in the next three years, boys and girls. You're gonna have to live with this." This is a long term -- I think [Secretary of State] Condi Rice was the first to use a "generational struggle" [to describe the Iraq war] .

While suggesting that his viewers should trust the president because of Bush's acknowledgement that the U.S. is not going to prevail in Iraq during his own presidency, Matthews failed to address whether previous claims about Iraq by the Bush adminstration -- "Mission Accomplished," the insurgency in Iraq is in "the last throes," and the U.S. is winning in Iraq -- also should have earned him the public's trust.

Aleem apparently refused Judge Katherine Delgado's order to remove the shirt, citing his First Amendment rights.

Williams was a former gang member convicted of homicide in California who was executed in December despite pleas from supporters who said he had reformed.

"There are limits to the judge's powers concerning free speech," Aleem's attorney, Mark Burton, said. He promised an appeal and said Aleem planned a hunger strike while in jail.

Mark Silverstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, said he doesn't believe Aleem's shirt rises to the level of contempt.

"It sounds like an abuse of power to order someone to jail for 45 days because he doesn't respect the integrity of the court," Silverstein said. "He probably has grounds for an appeal."

Delgado didn't return a phone call Wednesday.

Aleem was arrested Feb. 3, 2005, during a University of Colorado Board of Regents meeting about professor Ward Churchill. Police say Aleem became combative at the meeting, then ripped off an officer's badge and grabbed an officer by the throat.

Aleem pleaded not guilty to second-degree assault of a peace officer, which carries a 16-year prison term.

The trial ended in a hung jury. Prosecutors are set to retry the case May 8.

On Wednesday, Burton sought a dismissal of the contempt citation. But Delgado sent Aleem to jail, where he is being held without bail.

According to Burton's motion, Aleem removed a T-shirt on Feb. 28 that prosecutors found offensive. That shirt had the words "U.S. History 101" and included a picture in which a white overseer whipped a black slave.

The next day Aleem refused to remove the shirt depicting Williams after prosecutors objected.

According to the motion, "He was exercising his free speech and religious rights to wear this shirt, and the shirt did not detract or interfere with the judicial process."

Prosecutors on Wednesday would not say why they objected to the shirts.

Miles Madorin, staff attorney for Colorado District Attorney's Council, wouldn't comment on Aleem's case but said judges need contempt power.

"The courts operate on the fact that people willingly go along with decorum of the court," he said. "Contempt enforcement helps the courts to continue to function."

However, Burton's motion said jurors were allowed to wear T-shirts portraying musician Bob Marley, "a political figure ... closely associated with black nationalism."

Is that concern paranoia? Or is it skepticism in this post-9/11 era of increased surveillance?

Political activists from New York to Colorado to California report that they believe police and FBI surveillance of their activities has increased markedly since the terror attacks 4-1/2 years ago since Congress approved the USA Patriot Act loosening some of the strictures on law enforcement. They include environmental groups like Time's UP!, peace activists in Pittsburgh, and even a police union protesting for higher wages in New York City.

To try to find out if law officers are spying on them, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed Freedom of Information requests for more than 150 groups and individuals in more than 20 states who believe their first amendment rights are being violated.

Time's UP! is one of the groups that says the alleged surveillance is aimed at intimidating them. They acknowledge public events can be watched by anyone but they're concerned police have crossed the line into inappropriate spying to discourage people's from publicly criticizing government policies.

Local police and the FBI insist that none of their activities is aimed at chilling political speech. All investigations are conducted under strict guidelines put in place after abuses were documented during the Civil Rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Before any investigation of a political group proceeds, law officers require reasonable suspicion or information that an individual or a group is involved in criminal or terrorist-related activities.

"Our only interest is in preventing, disrupting, and defeating terrorist-related operations or criminal activity - and that's through appropriate investigations that are conducted in accordance with attorney general guidelines," says Bill Carter, an FBI spokesman.

Throughout American history, and particularly during times of conflict, the balance between civil rights and national security has shifted toward the latter and later come under scrutiny. From World War II through the cold war to the sociopolitical upheaval of the 1960s, repeated civil rights violations occurred in the name of national security - from people being imprisoned and denied jobs for their political statements to the infiltration of political groups.

"We're nowhere near there now. Throughout the 20th century, we ... built better protections against intrusions on constitutional rights," says Alasdair Roberts, professor at the Maxwell School in Syracuse University in New York and author of "Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age. "Nevertheless we can't take these gains for granted, and we have to take these issues of surveillance seriously."

The FBI says peace and environmental activists are confusing legitimate investigation of potential terrorist or criminal activity with free-speech violations. Peace activists say law enforcement is misusing the fear of terrorism to impede legitimate speech.

One recent case involves the Thomas Merton Center for Peace and Justice in Pittsburgh. It says FBI documents it obtained prove that they were being watched in an investigation of antiwar activities. A heavily redacted memo states that the center holds "daily leaflet distribution activities" and is "a left-wing organization advocating, among many political causes, pacifism."

"The memo may say it's an international terrorism matter at the top, but when you read the text and the subject it's clearly an investigation of antiwar activity," says Jim Kleissler, of the Merton Center. "They clearly tried to link terrorism to public dissent."

Mr. Carter says that the investigation was not of the organization, but of an individual. Once it was determined that individual was not involved with the Merton Center it ended, he says.

The number of Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF), cooperative teams of local, state, and federal officers, jumped from fewer than 30 prior to the 2001 terrorist attack to more than 80 today. The Merton Center says it was investigated under a JTTF jurisdiction. Professor Roberts says these JTTFs have the greatest potential for constitutional violations because much of their activity is classified offering little opportunity for public accountability.

"It's difficult to appraise whether the activities are reasonable or not unless there's a certain amount of transparency," he says. "Sometimes you can't reveal law enforcement activity, but it's generally possible to get a general broad outline of what it is."

In New York, the activists at Time's Up! say the police are using surveillance to intimidate them. Their members are part of a monthly pro-environment bike ride around the city, where sometimes hundreds of people show up. The police want the group to get a parade permit. Time's UP! argues that it's a spontaneous gathering that takes place in 400 cities around the world. The courts have so far sided with the protesters. The police say they're simply trying to maintain order and that plainclothes police are vital to that goal.

Antiwar and anticorporate protesters have also filed suit against the NYPD, charging that plainclothes police behavior during the Republican National Convention in 2004 and at the World Economic Forum in 2002 was aggressive, intimidating, and designed to agitate the crowd. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne disagrees, saying the officers were there to maintain order.

"We don't want the chaos of an arrest spilling into the rest of the march," says Deputy Commissioner Browne, explaining that plainclothes officers mingle with the crowd. The goal is to allow them to identify and separate anarchists and others who may want the protest to turn violent from the lawful protesters.

The NYPD is also fending off a lawsuit from its own police officer's union. The Patrol Benevolent Association (PBA) says the NYPD sent Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB) investigators to take pictures of protesting officers during contract negotiations with the city.

"The concern is that they're trying to intimidate our members, the implication being that you could be disciplined for asserting your first amendment rights," says Michael Murray, a lawyer with the PBA.

The NYPD denies that and says the IAB officers were there to maintain order.

"If you're a cop and you're confronted with your union leader saying, 'Hey, step aside, we're the police,' that could put a cop in a difficult position," says Browne. "The IAB are there to ensure there's no misconduct by the police, they're the police that police the police."

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is racing to meet a June 1 deadline -- the formal start to the hurricane season -- to have the 350 mile levee system protecting New Orleans and the surrounding area back to pre-Katrina condition or better.

Nagin and presidents of two nearby Louisiana parishes said after a tour of levee and floodwall repair projects with Maj. Gen. Don Riley, the Corps' director of civil works, they were pleased with the progress, which is now 49 percent complete.

"Based upon their scope of work, the number of contractors that they have, the progress thus far, it looks as though June 1's a good date and we should be just about ready," Nagin said at a construction site where massive temporary gates for his city's 17th Street Canal are being built.

About 169 miles of levees were damaged in the August 29 hurricane. Levee failures led to flooding of 80 percent of New Orleans and wholesale destruction in parishes like St. Bernard and Plaquemines. More than 1,300 people were killed on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Nagin and Riley said they could not be 100 percent sure that neighborhoods among the worst hit after Katrina, the Lower Ninth Ward and parts of New Orleans East, will be safe should another big hurricane slam the region this summer.

Both areas were submerged when a levee holding back the Industrial Canal breached, and both still lie mostly in ruins.

Nagin this week warned anxious residents who want to rebuild in those areas that risks will be high for about two years, until long-term flood-control improvements can begin.

"It's less risk with these repairs, but there still is risk and even if we go into September 2007 and complete all the authorized projects, there will still be risk," Riley said.

When this round of repairs and reinforcement is done, the system should be stronger than before, so the danger would be from the levees being topped, he said.

Various engineering groups have blamed breaches on a range of factors, from soil erosion and settling along floodwalls to poor design and maintenance by the Corps and its contractors.

Nagin said he is now comfortable with Corps officials' claims about the quality of the repair work on the levee system protecting New Orleans, most of which was built in the 1960s.

"It's a different time and space. The world is watching and monitoring it a lot closer, paying attention ... and I've also talked to some independent engineers, and they seem to be on track. It looks much better," he said.

Some residents remain wary.

"I don't know -- I hope it holds. We've been through too much down here now," said retired longshoreman Earl Green, 79. He lives in a rented apartment after evacuating to Arkansas and Michigan and has opted not to rebuild his flooded home.

The 70-ton gates set for the mouth of the 17th Street Canal, where a breach caused flooding in the Lakeview area, are aimed at protecting against a surge from Lake Pontchartrain.

U.S. President George W. Bush has asked Congress to appropriate an additional $1.46 billion for long-term levee and pumping-station improvements. It has yet to be approved.

He listed as examples of abuses of power, warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens, the misstatement of facts preceding the invasion of Iraq, and the scandal surrounding the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide in connection with the leak of the identity of a covert CIA operative.

"Everyone understands President Bush is not going to be impeached," Wertheim said. "But these abuses of power and corruption in the administration are deeply serious matters and there should be more talk about this abuse of power."

The one-sentence amendment, added from the floor to the platform's section on political and election reform, reads: "Resolved, that the Democratic Party of New Mexico supports the impeachment of President George Bush and his lawful removal from office."

Marta Kramer, executive director for the Republican Party of New Mexico, said Tuesday the Democrats "foolishly" voted to "to impeach and punish our president for aggressively waging the war on al-Qaida and terrorist organizations."

"How will dragging the country into impeachment hearings protect Americans?" she asked. "How will censuring the president protect Americans?"

The amendment, suggested by Bernalillo County convention delegate Robb Chavez, was accepted on a show of hands by about 80 percent of the nearly 1,400 registered convention delegates, Wertheim said. It required support by at least two-thirds of the delegates.

Kramer said the action proved the only plan the Democrats have "is to attack our president, undermine American resolve and demoralize our troops."

Wertheim said Democrats perceive a double standard between President Bush and former President Clinton. Concerns raised about Bush's actions are "much more serious than anything that was said about President Clinton," he said.

The Democrats met to nominate candidates for the June 6 primary election and to pass a party platform.

The delegates also approved a resolution concerning religious freedom in light of a lawsuit against the Air Force by an Air Force Academy graduate from Albuquerque.

The resolution states: "We believe no member of the armed services should be coerced, forced, manipulated or evangelized to any particular religion nor to any religious beliefs at all."

Mikey Weinstein, who is Jewish, sued last October, alleging the academy was unconstitutionally imposing evangelical Christianity on cadets. The lawsuit, joined by active-duty officers, asked the court bar illegal proselytizing throughout the Air Force. The group's lawyers recently asked to amend the lawsuit to also seek a declaration that the service's new guidelines on religion are unconstitutional.

They oppose a bill passed last year by representatives that would make it a felony to be in the US illegally.

The rally came as President Bush urged Congress to tone down the rhetoric on immigration, which is likely to be a key issue in November's mid-term poll.

Senators are due to debate the issue, with many Republicans opposing Mr Bush's calls for a guest-worker plan.

He is proposing to allow foreigners to remain in the US for a set period of time to carry out specific jobs.

Rallies planned

It is estimated that 11.5 million people are living in the US illegally. Many of them work in the agricultural sector and the construction and service industries.

Mr Bush said on Thursday that the message should be: "If you are doing a job that Americans won't do, you're welcome here for a period of time to do that job."

However, his proposals face opposition from some members of his own party - among them Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist - who advocate a tougher line on immigration, including stringent border controls.

Senator Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, has said proposals to criminalise undocumented workers and their support networks "would literally criminalise the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself".

The Senate debate, which is scheduled to begin next week, is expected to last two weeks.

Meanwhile, protests for and against tougher immigration controls are set to continue.

Milwaukee's "Day Without Latinos" protest will be followed by a rally on Saturday in Los Angeles, California, where organisers are hoping to attract 500,000 protesters.

And on Monday, supporters of tighter border controls are planning to take to the streets of Washington and Boston.