It's been tough week for the city of Detroit. The city has a $327 million deficit and owes $14 billion, says the Detroit Free Press. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said in March that he would appoint a emergency manager to oversee city finances. Detroit's City Council had 10 days to file an appeal, which they did, says The Detroit News. Then Thursday, the governor announced that Kevyn Orr, a Washington, D.C., attorney who handled Chrysler's bankruptcy, would take charge. Emergency management is a touchy subject in the Motor City; the appointment caused some local residents to protest a controller who will take over the city reins from elected officials.

To express frustration and draw attention to state-appointed emergency management, the otherwise peaceful protesters planned traffic jams that were organized in the city this week, says WWJ CBS Detroit. WWJ's Chopper 950, flying over the city on Monday, noted three cars on major highways crawling along (driving under 5 miles per hour). This caused traffic to back up. Slowdowns were staged on I-75, I-94, and the Lodge Freeway. One participant dubbed it a "freedom flash mob."

Meantime, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, is continuing to offer support to an emergency financial manager, whoever that may be.

The mayor posted on Twitter Monday morning, “An emergency manager can’t come in here and run this city without the help and support of teammates, I’ll be a teammate. My executive staff will be a teammate. What we need to figure out is not fighting the person but how do we get along to make wins for the citizens in the city of Detroit.”

Other demonstrations occurred at Detroit's City Hall and at the attorney general's office downtown in connection with the governor's EM announcement. Protesters have vowed to continue their efforts, and have a federal lawsuit prepared.

Further fueling protesters concerns, a report on Saturday evening revealed that the newly appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr has tax liens placed on his $4 million Maryland home. Full details here.

Anonymous has announced a joint action between the hacktivist group and the Occupy movement, "OUR POLLS," which seeks to Occupy the Vote 2012 with the aim of holding our elected officials accountable to the people.

The message:

Elected officials serve one purpose -- to represent their constituents, the people who voted them into office.
Last year, many of our elected officials let us down by giving in to deep-pocketed lobbyists and passing laws meant to boost corporate profits at the expense of individual liberty.
Our Senators and Representatives showed how little they cared about personal freedoms when they voted overwhelmingly to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The NDAA allows for the indefinite detention of individuals based merely on a suspicion or allegation of sympathizing with questionable groups or causes.

This act is a prominent threat to the inalienable due process rights of every US citizen as laid out in the Constitution. It allows the military to engage in civilian law enforcement, and to suspend due process, habeas corpus or other constitutional guarantees when desired.
Our congressmen passed one of the greatest threats to civil liberties in the history of the United States.

Will we hold them accountable on election day? Will we hold our elected officials accountable for supporting rigid Internet censorship laws such as SOPA, PIPA, HR 1981 and the ACTA treaty? The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) aimed to crack down on copyright infringement by restricting user access to websites that hosted or helped facilitate pirated content. SOPA and PIPA's ambiguous, broad wording would have cast a wide censorship net around most of the Internet, thus creating questions of due process, burden of proof, and privacy violations.

The proposed laws were lobbied and paid for by Hollywood, RIAA, MPAA and other massive media companies and would safeguard entertainment industry profits at the expense of essential freedoms, the Internet and constitutional civil liberties . Even if the goal was to merely regulate pirated content, the ambiguous wording demonstrates that the authors and supporters of SOPA and PIPA have little-to-no understanding of the Internet's architecture or the frightening implications of the legislation.

What can you do?
You are one person. You have one vote.
Use that vote on November 6 to hold your elected official accountable for supporting bills such as NDAA, SOPA and PIPA. We are calling on voters, activists and keyboard warriors under all banners to unite as a single force to unseat the elected representatives who threaten our essential freedoms and who were so quick to minimize our individual constitutional rights for a quick corporate profit.

Anonymous also lists all U.S. Senators up for re-election in 2012 who voted to support the NDAA and who still support PIPA, all U.S. Representatives up for re-election in 2012 who voted to support the NDAA and who still support SOPA, and notes that all 435 seats in the US House of Representatives are up for re-election in November 2012.

Occupation of the United States Capitol on January 17, 2012 will Highlight Corruption in America’s
Political System

Harnessing the considerable power of the Occupy Wall Street movement, protestors from all over the country are being called to participate in "Occupy Congress" next week. It is the next stage in the widespread public protest that began last September in New York.

On January 17th, an Occupy "Call to Action" urges protestors to convene beginning at 9 a.m. EST on the West Front Lawn at Capitol Hill in an effort to bring the movement's message to the doorstep of Congressional lawmakers.

Rallying against corporate greed and corruption, the "99 percent" will arrive on Martin Luther King's birthday weekend to participate in a day of organized protests. According to the Occupy Congress website, the day's activities will include Teach-ins, an Open Mic, a Multi-Occupation General Assembly, Idea Sharing Sessions, and a DC Voting Rights Vigil. The day will end with an "OCCUParty."

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