After its protests "forced Taco Bell to pay tomato pickers a penny more per pound," the Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) started "pressuring McDonald's for a similar agreement." Instead, McDonald's joined the "Socially Accountable Farm Employer (SAFE) voluntary certification program." Launched in November 2005, SAFE is run by board members of the industry group Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association and an association grantee, the Redlands Christian Migrant Association. SAFE is represented by CBR Public Relations, one of McDonald's PR firms, which specializes in "activist response management." Intertek, a firm that "already performs safety audits for McDonald's," will evaluate SAFE members' compliance. SAFE "does not include any input from workers," "does little to address low wages," and "does not guarantee workers overtime pay or the right to organize." A CIW organizer said McDonald's joined SAFE "to protect their public image in place of making a change in our lives."

"Clear Channel Communications Inc. radio stations in Madison, Wis., and Milwaukee" are naming their newsrooms after corporate sponsors. "Starting in January, the news on WIBA-AM in Madison will deliver its report from the Amcore Bank News Center. ... About two years ago, WISN-AM in Milwaukee introduced listeners to its newscast from the PyraMax Bank News Center." The sponsorships are not exclusive and "will not impose strictures on the broadcasts." But a journalism ethics expert at the Poynter Institute said such arrangements create "the perception that the newsroom is for sale to the highest bidder." The Social of Professional Journalists' president asked, "How can you not wonder if a story about Amcore is told as tenaciously as a story about another bank might be?" The banks' news sponsorships come a year after revelations that 280 financial institutions used subsidiaries in other states to avoid paying Wisconsin state taxes.

"The monitoring of pesticide use in Florida has become make-believe. It is Disney-esque," said Alex Simons, a former environmental specialist for Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Simons said decisions were "politicized" and decided by officials "in close contact with [pesticide] companies." Tom Greenhalgh, a former water contamination investigator for Florida's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), blamed state officials "who basically worked for DuPont and the other chemical companies." Greenhalgh added, "There is a lot of ground water in Florida contaminated by pesticides," but "studies never get published." Another former DEP employee, Theodore McDowell, testified under oath that there were "100 or so" times he was asked to "make statements that [he] believed to be false," in order to downplay "environmental damage ... caused by chemicals." When a meeting was held to address growing concerns in late 1995 or early 1996, a deputy sheriff told the specialists their meeting was illegal, ending it.

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"This administration has engaged every possible agency, from the Pentagon to the (National Security Agency) to the F.B.I., to engage in spying on Americans," said an American Civil Liberties Union legal director. The ACLU released more than 2,300 pages of heavily censored FBI documents, on agency "surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief." The documents mention surveillance of an Indianapolis "Vegan Community Project," describe Catholic Workers as having a "semi-communistic ideology," and seek information on llama fur protests by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. An FBI spokesperson said the agency "does not target individuals or organizations ... based on their political beliefs." Earl Ofari Hutchinson wonders "why anyone is shocked that President Bush eavesdropped on Americans." Since its founding, the NSA has monitored "Muslim extremists, Communists, peace activists, black radicals, civil rights leaders, and drug peddlers," he writes.