Updates:

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noaa

Update on BP Oil Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico

There are reports that nearly 200 thousand gallons of crude oil is spilling into the Gulf of Mexico each day as engineers work to cap the well head. Meanwhile an oil dispersant is deployed on the water surface to break up the oil slick before it reaches sensitive estuaries and shoreline.  On the edge of what human engineering can accomplish, BP says it would use a giant, 100-ton dome-like device placed over the wellhead that might collect oil gushing out of the well.

Jackie Savitz:

  • 200 thousand gallons per day, possibly 10 times more than that. It’s been gushing for almost 2 weeks.
  • May take another week to stop, not guaranteed. Back up plan could take months.
  • Gulf of Mexico: rich area biologically, a lot of our shellfish come from there. Many of the species that make their home in the Gulf are endangered, such as sea turtles, North Atlantic Right Whale, Bluefin Tuna, Snapper, Grouper
  • In many cases, these animals are using the Gulf as a nursery. We may never fully know the impacts on populations of these animals. Fishing ban.
  • Why do they let companies like BP drill in these dangerous circumstances that can pose these types of impacts without a plan?  The public was convinced on offshore drilling by 3 myths. 1. Lower the price of gas at pump. 2 Energy Independence. 3. Drilling was safe.
  • Why would we let these companies gamble with our lifestyle with no actual return.
  • We’re looking at a potential reset moment. Politicians respond to public sentiment.
  • We’re working toward a ban on exploratory drilling. This was an exploratory well.

Guest – Jackie Savitz,  Senior Campaign Director for Oceana’s Pollution Campaigns. Savitz has shaped and led campaigns and projects dealing with global warming pollution from ships, mercury contamination of fish, and cruise ship pollution among other issues.  Savitz has a background in marine biology and environmental toxicology combined with more than fifteen years of policy analysis experience through which she has developed expertise on a variety of pollution issues involving toxic contamination, water pollution and air pollution

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fingerprint ice

ICE Media Spin / Immigration Law Movement

Center for Constitutional Rights staff attorney, Sunita Patel joins us today to give an update on the recent six-page internal memo from United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that was leaked to the press. The memo was a response to civil rights groups Uncovering the Truth on ICE and Police Collaboration, but specifically aiming at their campaign of week long rallies in 14 cities. The week of advocacy was launched on Tuesday in conjunction with a FOIA lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the Center for Constitutional Rights  and the Immigration Justice Clinic of Benjamin Cardozo School of Law to demand records relating to the Secure Communities program.

Sunita Patel:

  • ICE launches media offensive against community organizations. Exposed:  DHS plans to publish Op Eds by the head of ICE.
  • DHS interface with local law enforcement – incentives to racial profile to determine status that could lead to:  Non citizens to stay in jail even if there is police misconduct or unlawful arrest
  • We want more information so communities can make reasonable decisions.
  • FOIA lawsuit requests information on “Secure Communities” Program, a finger printing system operating inside jails. To be deployed to all jails in US by 2013.
  • We want to stop these collaborations with local law enforcements, they make the community less safe and less secure.

Guest – Sunita Patel, Center for Constitutional Rights  Staff Attorney, she is involved with racial profiling, immigrant rights and other human rights litigation. Prior to her position at CCR, she held a Soros Justice Fellowship at The Legal Aid Society, Immigration Law Unit in New York where she represented immigrant detainees in removal proceedings and worked with criminal justice and human rights groups to create independent community oversight for detention operations through public accountability boards

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mondo and ed2 JFKfelt2

Omaha Two / Black Panthers

We talk today with Claus Walischewski, a representative of Amnesty International in Germany. Claus has been working with Amnesty International following and investigating the case of 2 former Black Panthers Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (David Rice). The case is known as the Omaha 2. Amnesty International has found that the two men were unjustly convicted of murder and have been in prison since the 1970s. Amnesty has called for a retrial or release for these men.

Claus Walischewski:

  • We don’t call them political prisoners because in the US you can have a fair trial.
  • They were both Black Panthers in Omaha in the 1970s.
  • The police answered a 9/11 call and went to a vacant building, there was a bomb in a suitcase, the police picked it up, it detonated, and the policeman was killed.  The police thought it was the Black Panthers.
  • Information that the FBI were working COINTELPRO in Omaha during this time.
  • An individual named Dwayne Peak was arrested for the crime, and named the two Black Panthers.
  • When he saw the 2 men and was asked if they were involved, he said “no.”
  • The 9/11 call was not Dwayne Peak’s voice, it’s the voice of a much older man, not a 15 year old.
  • Analysis has shown it’s not the same voice, still no re-trial. Caught and arrested in 1970, Poindexter 62, Mondo 67.  I’ve visted them 10 years ago, they’re both very educated, no threat to anybody.

Guest – Claus Walischewski, a representative of Amnesty International

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