Law and Disorder May 14, 2012: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• In Memory: Karen Detamore, Former Executive Director Friends of Farmworkers, Inc.
• Yelp Hit With Class Action Lawsuit

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Scapegoat: The Chino Hills Murders and The Framing of Kevin Cooper

Scapegoat: The Chino Hills Murders and The Framing of Kevin Cooper is the title of Patrick O’Connor’s new book. This is an important document chronicling Kevin Cooper’s  controversial conviction and death sentence in 1985.  When O’Connor committed to writing the book, he poured over thousands of case documents from trial transcripts, grisly autopsy photos, appeals and judicial rulings. He then began interviewing those involved in the trial and appeals. The picture began to take shape, a familiar one. The prosecution and the police withheld and destroyed evidence that would have exonerated Kevin Cooper from the brutal murders of the Ryen Family and their guest.

J. Patrick O’Connor:

• In 2008, the Mumia book that I wrote was coming out and I was in the San Francisco Bay area with (attorney) Jeff Mackler of the Mobilization to Free Mumia.
• We had about 15 venues that we went to all over the bay area. Invariably, supporters of Kevin Cooper would come to these events and afterwards would take me aside and say you got to write a book about Kevin Cooper.
• His case is a lot different than Mumia’s but there are a lot of similarities.
• Once I started reading the transcripts of this trial, I could see there were a lot of things wrong with this case.
• It took me about 2 and half years from the start to the publication of the book.
• There was a terrible, in Chino Hills, this is Arabian horse country. This family named the Ryens, they live on a hilltop house with a very big spread, about 15 Arabians. San Bernadino-45 miles east of Los Angeles.
• In this area, most of the people were either raising horses or grazing cattle. This family was a mom and dad and they were both chiropractors. 41 year old chiropractors, and they had a 10 year old daughter named Jessica and an 8 and a half year old son named Josh.
• A friend of Josh’s 11 year old Christopher Hughs, spent the night.
• Around midnight that night, the home was breached. The master bedroom. The family was assaulted with an axe, or a hatchet, I think 2 knives, and an ice pick.
• It was an incredible fight, these people didn’t stand in line and say I’m next.
• The father Doug was 6’1″ 190lbs, a former Marine, an MP in the Marines and could take care of himself. The mother 5’8″ very strong, she was the one that could train the horses, these enormous horses that she could control.
• Both of them kept loaded weapons in the bedroom. The idea that one perpetrator could use 4 weapons to perpetrate this attack is kind of fecitious on its face.
• What put Kevin Cooper in the crosshairs is 3 miles from Chino Hills is Chino which is home to the California Institute for Men, where every felon in Southern California is sent for classification.
• Cooper was sent there for 2 burglaries in LA. Escapes and holes up in Chino Hills for the next 2 days, in a house located 125 yards from the Ryen’s house.
• Josh who had survived, told the deputy sheriff through a hand squeeze method that it was 3 white men.  They put out APBs for 3 white guys.
• When they discern Kevin Cooper’s prints are all over that hide out house, they discard that information and start planning evidence that would implicate Cooper and making big lies about stuff that would implicate him.
• He would have been the only African-American in the community.
• They contaminated the crime scene, there are 2 bathrooms in this house, the cops used one of the bathrooms that had blood in the sink.
• They don’t type the blood properly, they put blood from all different parts of the room in the same bag.
• So, there’s no way to track the motions of who died, what was the order of death?
• They took the walls out, they carted out all the furniture, put it on the front yard. Then they moved it to a warehouse where the air conditioner broke. It went to 120 degrees, they lose all the blood evidence in the warehouse.
• The night of the murders, Cooper left after 9pm to hitchhike to Mexico. Cooper sees his mugshot on TV, he goes on the lamb.  Cooper is got and convicted, he gets the gas chamber.
• He came with 3 hours and 45 minutes of being executed because of a moratorium. Kevin Cooper is fifth in line, this moratorium will end in 2013.
• They had to have the complicity of numerous people inside the sheriff’s department and a very willing DA’s office to perpetrate this fraud on Cooper.

Guest – J.Patrick O’Connor, editor of Crimemagazine.com and the author of The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal (2008). He has previously worked as a reporter for UPI, editor of Cincinnati Magazine, associate editor of TV Guide, and editor and publisher of the Kansas City New Times.

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Homeland Security Documents Show Massive Nationwide Monitoring of Occupy Movement

Last month we gave Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Carl Messinio of the Partnership for Civil Justice the Law and Disorder Tip Of The Hat Award for creative use of FOIA.  The documents obtained by the Department of Homeland Security show a massive nationwide monitoring, surveillance and information sharing between DHS and local authorities.  But its only the tip of the iceberg. The documents are heavily redacted and don’t show the full scale of coordination. “These documents show not only intense government monitoring and coordination in response to the Occupy Movement, but reveal a glimpse into the interior of a vast, tentacled, national intelligence and domestic spying network that the U.S. government operates against its own people,” says Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, she’s the Executive Director of the PCJF.

Attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard:

• We filed a series of FOIA requests and demands in November of last year when it was clear the Occupy movement was being subjected to a coordinated assault.
• We wanted to expose and uncover the role of the federal government working hand in hand with local police and municipalities to shut down this movement. A movement that is inspiring people all over the country and is a force for social change.
• What we have is the tip of a very carefully submerged iceberg.
• What we’ve seen is massive surveillance, coordination, monitoring of peaceful protesters all over the country by the federal government.
• There is monitoring that’s gone on from Washington DC, to Atlanta, to Detroit, to Dallas, that there is an intense focus going all the way up to high ranking members of the administration.
• We know that with the creation of the fusion centers and the suspicious reporting activity, the vertical integration of law enforcement and intelligence operatives in the US, that coming from a federal level, from the Department of Homeland Security, with billions of dollars. There is in place where all of the hundreds and thousands of law enforcement officers . . local is almost deputized, where they’re collecting information and feeding data.
• It’s critical that the people of the United States see this. The way for this to be stopped is to uncover it and expose it.  We see time and again the FBI creating its own terrorist plots, in many times as PR to justify their oppressive apparatus.
• One of the defining features of the Obama Administration is the fact that it took on this apparatus put in place by the Bush Administration and not only didn’t take it apart, they have deepened it.
• There is really a structure now in the United States that has the US government spying and collecting data on its own citizens.
• We have regulation that has been put into place under the Obama Administration where there is growing use of military support for domestic civilian authorities which is very concerning.
• We can see that the real spark for social change is people getting together for collective action.
• What we want to accomplish is to keep the streets, sidewalks and parkland open for grassroots democracy and social change and people need the ability to come out and come together and in order to do that without fear that they’re going to be beaten . . or mass arrested.
• National Special Security Events: The Secret Service and Federal Government becomes the lead coordinating arm and local police work under that umbrella. In Tampa and Charlotte you can see they’re enacting these very repressive ordinances that facially look unconstitutional.
• The ordinances are trying to stop people from doing things are permitted, that are lawful.
• There is growing effort to take public space out from under our feet and one way of doing that is to say that there’s going to be an effort to restore the grass, and we fought this battle back in 2004 at the RNC in New York when we came to challenge the effort of New York City to ban mass assembly on the Great Lawn of Central Park.
• A lot of this effort is to make people feel alone and suffer in silence.

Guest – Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, co-chair of the Guild’s national Mass Defense Committee. Co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund in Washington, DC, she recently secured $13.7 million for about 700 of the 2000 IMF/World Bank protesters in Becker, et al. v. District of Columbia, et al., while also winning pledges from the District to improve police training about First Amendment issues. She won $8.25 million for approximately 400 class members in Barham, et al. v. Ramsey, et al. (alleging false arrest at the 2002 IMF/World Bank protests). She served as lead counsel in Mills, et al v. District of Columbia (obtaining a ruling that D.C.’s seizure and interrogation police checkpoint program was unconstitutional); in Bolger, et al. v. District of Columbia (involving targeting of political activists and false arrest by law enforcement based on political affiliation); and in National Council of Arab Americans, et al. v. City of New York, et al. (successfully challenging the city’s efforts to discriminatorily restrict mass assembly in Central Park’s Great Lawn stemming from the 2004 RNC protests.)

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 Law and Disorder May 7, 2012: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Michael Smith and Heidi Boghosian Discuss May Day Events
• Michael Smith Reads A May Day Letter From Lynne Stewart
• Retired Chemistry Professor Tried For Jury Tampering Represents Self and Wins.
• Federal Lawsuit Filed Against NYPD For Improper Use Of Barricades
• Four City Council Members File Suit Against NYPD For Police Abuse

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Former Head of CIA Clandestine Service Justifies Torture On CBS 60 Minutes

In a recent interview on CBS news, former head of the CIA’s clandestine service Jose Rodriguez discussed the destruction of 92 tapes in which terrorism suspects were subjected to water boarding and other forms of torture. Rodriguez told CBS that he destroyed the tapes to protect the people who worked for him at various black sites. But critics say Rodriguez is afraid of criminal prosecution because those 92 tapes contained compelling evidence of criminality and are a threat to Rodriguez and those who approved the use of torture.  Rodriguez,  a thirty-year veteran of the CIA, and spent most of his entire career in Latin America, supports the idea that torture works to get information.

Attorney Scott Horton:

• We know the government in response to FOIA requests, and litigation requests has released photographs and tapes repeatedly in the past, and always obliterates the faces involved, so of course the identities are not released.
• Obama announced in his speech from Kabul, al-Qaeda’s been defeated. It’s a faint shadow of what it was before.
• The tapes contained evidence of crimes, it showed water boarding and other torture techniques. It documented those techniques, and that presented a risk to Jose Rodriguez and to the the people up above Rodriguez who are responsible for putting through torture policy.
• George Tenet was involved, Bybee, a judge in the Ninth Circuit in Las Vegas, John Yoo who is a professor at the University of California, Steven Bradbury who is now a partner in a law firm in Washington DC and then it went into the White House where it went into the National Security Council.
• The trail consistently leads straight into the office of former Vice President Dick Cheney. He was the key mover for the introduction of torture policy.
• Domestically, we have an anti-torture statute that includes for conspiracy to torture, both of those things were violated. They apply outside of the United States, so they would have applied to the conduct of a CIA agent operating in Poland or Thailand for instance.
• Jose Rodriguez: He’s trying to make money, he’s selling a book, what you saw was a 36 minute advertisement for his book, published by an affiliate of CBS.
• Beyond that I’d say he’s trying to build sympathy and beat back calls for his own prosecution.
• I think this was an ill advised strategy and I think he confessed to criminal conduct in the course of this interview.
• At one point they claimed that they were able to track down and pick up Jose Padilla through the use of water boarding, which is very very interesting because Padilla was arrested and in custody before the first case of water boarding was applied.
• Mitt Romney has been out there punching away constantly on the advocacy of torture and the response from the Obama campaign has been silence. Silence.
• The guy came across to me as something of a psychopath (Jose Rodriguez)

Guest -  New York attorney Scott Horton, Scott is known for his work in human rights law and the law of armed conflict. Scott is also the contributing editor to Harper’s Magazine.

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Common Cause Files IRS Whistleblower Complaint Against ALEC

The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, is a tax exempt charity that spends millions of dollars annually to lobby for hundreds of bills in state legislatures around the United States. It came to the attention of the public for having drafted and pressured passage of the so-called stand your ground legislation after the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in February. The watchdog group Common Cause has asked the IRS to review ALEC’s status claiming that ALEC is “a corporate lobby masquerading as a charity,” and that contributors should not be allowed to claim the gifts as charitable contributions.

Nick Surgey:

• ALEC describes itself as nonpartisan although the majority are members of the Republican Party.
• It’s concerning from a tax perspective, ALEC is operating as 501c non-profit, which means its a charity.
• Therefore corporations who are members of ALEC are allowed to take a tax deduction, when they contribute up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
• If Visa, Verizon or Amazon then those lobbying would not be tax deductible, they would be subject to tax, but they do the same lobbying through ALEC.
• All of those contributions are subsidized by us – the tax payer. And that’s wrong.
• We shouldn’t be subsidizing the activities of any corporation.
• Until recently ALEC operated 9 Task Forces, they were forced to close one 2 weeks ago.
• Stand Your Ground Bill / Drafted by the NRA, lobbied by them and presented to legislators in Florida 2005.
• The NRA took it to ALEC, who they’re a member of, Walmart chaired the taskforce. Walmart the largest retailer of weapons in the United States.
• The Stand Your Ground bill is now law in 20 states.
• ALEC organizes around these 9 task forces. They have bills that really cover almost every policy area.
• Other areas include rolling back environmental protection, they have a commerce task force, where a lot of anti-union bills, the right to work legislation, it comes from that task force.
• Corporations will use the state essentially to lobby on their behalf.
• Common Cause has a very good picture of what ALEC has been doing in the last 2 years and this formed the basis of this massive IRS submission.
• One document are these scorecards which they send to their corporate members, where they celebrate the success that they have. Some of the early scorecards, they mapped out the complete picture of the United States and where all of their model bills have been introduced.
• A source provided us with emails going between ALEC and state legislators. We were very greatful to be represented pro-bono by one of the country’s leading whistle-blower firms, Phillips and Cohen.
• Voter ID has been increasingly connected to ALEC.
• We believe the bigger fraud is disenfranchising millions of predominantly African American, elderly or young student voters.  In wasn’t until 2009 when ALEC took it up, that it really injected energy into it at the state level and its been introduced in 34 states. (Voter ID)
• ALEC has an ability to take a law, not always a new law and sell it to their almost 2000 state legislator members.
• ALEC has about a third of all state legislators in the entire country as members.
• There was a fracking bill, and it was sponsored by Exxon Mobile.
• ALECExposed.org

Guest -   Nick Surgey, Nick conducted the research helping to expose the American Legislative Exchange Council.  Nick joined Common Cause in March 2011 as a Legal Associate.  He formerly worked at the British Refugee Council in Leeds, England, where he advocated on behalf of asylum seekers. He previously worked at an immigration law firm, as an elected student union officer and as a paid campaigner. Nick holds an undergraduate degree in History and Politics and a post-graduate diploma in law.
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 Law and Disorder April 23, 2012: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Law and Disorder Tip Of The Hat Award: Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Carl Messinio For Creative Use of FOIA
• Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA)
• Forty years in solitary: Two Men Mark Somber Anniversary in Louisiana Prison
  
• Movie – Herman’s House
• Creative Protest At the Florida Atlantic University Campus

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Snitching: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice

The FBI now spends more than 3 billion dollars a year on counter-terrorism, the bureau maintains a team of 15 thousand spies in a nationwide network of informants. Criminal informants or snitches are part of a criminal system most people know little about. Many of these informants are tasked with infiltrating Muslims communities in the United States. We’ve discussed in the past, the expanded FBI guidelines plus the broad over reaching powers and underhanded tactics the FBI use when targeting Mosques and Muslim Americans.

We talk today with Professor of Law and author Alexandra Natapoff, about her book Snitching: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice.  Her book catalogues the downside in the use of snitches on social structure and democracy and suggests ways to make the use of informants acceptable within the criminal justice system.

Professor Alexandra Natapoff:

• Snitching is such a massive part of our criminal justice system even though the public rarely gets a good look at it.
• It’s an under the radar aspect of the way our criminal justice system handles investigations, the way it handles cases, the way it shapes our case law.
• It’s such a powerful deal, a deal that exerts a huge amount of influence and plea bargaining.
• The reality is that this is a deeply under-regulated arena. The handler is the law enforcement official who creates and uses an informant.
• It could be a police officer talking to a street corner addict cutting a deal right then and there.
• It could be an FBI agent who has an established documented supervised relationship with a long term criminal informant.
• Somebody may be suspected of a crime or even just of interest to the government. People who have mild brushes with the criminal system can end up through this mechanism of criminal informing entering into a world in which really anything can happen to them.
• Argument: Either you let us use informants in an unaccountable, invisible, secretive, undocumented way or we can’t run the criminal system at all.
• We permit the barter of crime under the radar, in a way that is unfair to other defendants and other suspects. We produce unreliable information through the use of informants without regulation.
• My contention is that we shouldn’t ban this practice, but run it as any other public policy with transparency and accountability and some rules.
• My favorite criminal informant of recent is Jack Abramoff.
• Usually we don’t learn when informants have been mistreated because often they have very little power.
• The courts have said, informants proceed at their own risk.
• This is a deal that they can enter if they want to risk their life.
• The law does not owe criminal informants much protection.  Our criminal system is built on the principle that the defendant should not have to face the government unaided by council.
• That’s a principle that should be extended to criminal informants.
• The state of Florida passed a ground breaking law, called Rachel’s Law.
• What sort of deal should we permit the government to cut with informants?
• The use of criminal informants is a massive source of error in capitol cases.
• States across the country are starting to impose greater restrictions on the use of criminal informants, in particular jailhouse snitches as a way to improving reliability of the information.
• Confidential Informant Accountability Act – Federal Legislative Proposal
• One of the things the government doesn’t keep track of is how many crimes are committed by criminal informants in the pursuit of investigating new cases.

Guest – Alexandra Napatoff, professor of Law at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, and a member of the American Law Institute. I have also been a federal public defender, a community organizer, and the recipient of an Open Society Institute Community Fellowship.

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It Started in Wisconsin: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Labor Protest

Remember the multi-day occupation of the Wisconsin State Capitol by tens of thousands of people. Massive demonstrations erupted when the Republican controlled state government proposed to dismantle public employee bargaining rights as Wisconsin trade unions already conceded to wage and benefit cuts. These protests became the largest labor demonstrations in modern American history. Protesters from the Middle East sent pizzas and solidarity as thousands occupied Madison’s Capitol building.

We’re joined today by Paul Buhle, historian, and editor of the book It Started in Wisconsin: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Labor Protest. A powerful collecton of eyewitness reports and essays by striking teachers, students, and many others. This book exposes the corporate agenda that imposed anti-union legislation across the country and highlights the power of the people coming together in protest.

Paul Buhle:

• Brecht Forum, Friday night – April 27,2012
• The “it” is very large, perhaps vaporous and very promising.  We were thinking of occupy in the sense that Madisonians, labor supporters from as far away as California, occupied the State Capitol, the rotunda in February of last year and remained there for some weeks.
• The “it” may mean occupy or the emergence of a new kind of movement.
• We should have seen it coming but we were deluded or Walker, when running for election never mentioned these promises or threats at all and made some statements about getting along with unions when he was a county executive.
• The response was just as stunning as the shock. A mass outpouring that really began with students in Stoten, an old Norwegian community about half an hour south of Madison – working up their own protests with facebook to support their teachers.
• And then, the following weeks, a massive outpouring of people around the Capitol and then occupying the Capitol.
• Things went on and on until there were crowds of 150 thousand in a town of Madison that has normally only 250 thousand residents.
• Pacifica has been in the business from the late 1940s in the Bay area, in providing the documentation that other commercial radio stations rarely provide.
• I would say these protests in Wisconsin are probably the most recorded mass movement of the Left in recent history.
• Among the most important developments, relative to the stories in the history of labor, the unions of public workers are substantially, if not overwhelmingly women.
• So, the shape of the movement, perhaps its cultural character, perhaps the infernal degree of politeness that outsiders frequently complained about, the chant – let us in, let us in please.
• What it demonstrated was that women in the labor movement were ferociously militant.
• My assessment was that the labor movement was in no way prepared to stage a general strike.
• Nor that a massive walk out of public workers mean that the wheels of industry would stop what few wheels are left.
• The sense that public workers wish to put pressure on the political system.
• Contrary to our expectations of the Democratic Party in general, assorted leaders, were quite wonderful in their constituencies and the things that they did, and how they related to the movements.
• As an editor and producer of radical comics, I’m always interested in new developments in the field, and its exciting there are young comic artists who are working in and around “occupy.”

Guest -  Paul Buhle, senior lecturer at Brown University, a historian of American radicalism., a former member of Students for a Democratic Society and author of many books including images of American Radicalism. Also, Che, A Graphic Biography, and Isodore Duncan, a graphic biography by Sabrina Jones.

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May Day: Workers’ Rights and Immigrant Communities

In the past year, public employees around the country have rallied to hold on to their collective bargaining, workers rights and pensions. May Day protests this year will emphasize these issues and will be especially significant for immigrant rights in California that directly effect certain communities. On May Day in 2006, hundreds of thousands took to the streets of San Jose marking one of the largest demonstrations in California history.

Guest -  Celina Benitez, director of the Committee In Solidarity With the People of El Salvador, Celina is also with the Southern California Immigration Coalition and produces radio for Suplemento Comunitario on sister station KPFK in Los Angeles.

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 Law and Disorder April 16, 2012: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Cuban Five Rally in Washington DC
• Coalition For Immokalee Workers Rally Tour
• Mumia Abu-Jamal – Occupy The Justice Department
• European Court of Human Rights Allows Extradition: Imprisonment In Supermax Prison Doesn’t Constitute Torture

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Truth and Consequences: The U.S. vs. Bradley Manning

In the past year, we’ve covered Wikileaks and specifically the Bradley Manning case in our updates.  We talk today with Greg Mitchell co-author of the new published book, Truth and Consequences: The U.S. vs. Bradley Manning.  In the first part of the book titled Solitary Man, Greg Mitchell gives readers a detailed look into the character of Bradley Manning. The second part of the book details the Bradley Manning trials written by co-author Kevin Gosztola.  Hard journalism let the voices of friends and family document the important details in Manning’s life leading up to Wikileaks and then the book dives into the complexities of the trial. In the preface Greg writes “Ultimate truths, in this case, may lead to ultimate consequences for one who would not be silent.

Greg Mitchell:

• The second half of the book is really the only thing out there that covers in depth what has happened to him in the last few months.
• Namely his court martial proceedings after he was imprisoned for a year and a half. His first hearing was last December.  He is awaiting what is expected to come out as a formal court martial in August. If it does start in August, it will be well over 2 years since he was arrested.
• A lot of the charges are related to passing along to Wikileaks, this classified secret information. Course the most dynamite charge is that he gave aid to the enemy.
• Who is the enemy? The government was forced to say that it was Al-Qaeda. That charge potentially carries the death sentence.
• They’re interested in punishing Manning, the big fish they’re after is Julian Assange.
• Last year there was global outrage when he was kept in solitary confinement, being forced to sleep naked, and stand at attention naked.
• All the top media outlets had a falling out with Wikileaks, and I think there’s a spill over from that.
• There hasn’t been any media coverage that really probes into what’s going on here.
• Over and over he (Bradley Manning) cited his outrage at what he was seeing in those cables and in Iraq, and things he was asked to participate in.
• The court martial will be extremely embarrassing to the military because they gave him access to these documents.
• He was a kid who grew up in Oklahoma, his parents eventually got divorced. He was a computer nerd, growing up. He realized in his teens, he was gay.
• He wasn’t a longtime peacenik or things like that, he always had some social conscience, and when he got to Iraq, he saw things that upset him.
• It may have never come out, that he would be arrested, except that he had these online chats with Adrien Lamo, who is a convicted hacker. Lamo decided Manning was talking too much about what he did and went to the authorities.
• The Manning case shows this incredible legacy of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have gone on for a decade, its never ending and yet the American public has never been brought face to face with what the US has done in those countries, civilian casualties.

Guest – Greg Mitchell writes daily for The Nation magazine’s web site.  He is the author of more than a dozen books, including The Campaign of the Century (winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize), So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits and the President Failed on Iraq,  Why Obama Won, Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady, The Age of WikiLeaks, and with Robert Jay Lifton, Hiroshima in America and Who Owns Death?   His most recent books are Atomic Cover-up and Journeys With Beethoven.   He was the editor of Editor & Publisher from 2002 to 2009.  He also served as longtime editor of Nuclear Times magazine, and before that was senior editor at the legendary Crawdaddy.  Hundreds of his articles have appeared in leading publications and he has served as chief adviser for two award-winning documentaries.

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Lawyers You’ll Like – Attorney Natsu Saito

For our Lawyers You’ll Like series, we welcome back attorney and professor Natsu Saito. In our last interview, Professor Saito mentioned how the current system of international law evolved from the a broader agreement between the European colonial powers based on how they were not going to destroy each other in the process of taking over the rest of the world. It is this duality that Natsu writes about in her book Meeting the Enemy: American Exceptionalism and International Law.  Professor Saito joined the College of Law faculty in 1994 and teaches international law, human rights, race and the law, immigration, criminal procedure, and professional responsibility. Her scholarship focuses on the legal history of race in the United States, the plenary power doctrine as applied to immigrants, American Indians, and U.S. territorial possessions, and the human rights implications of U.S. governmental policies, particularly with regard to the suppression of political dissent.

Professor Natsu Saito:

• The duality that the US does exempt itself (from international law) very consistently and very frequently and yet promotes international law very strongly and relies upon it.
• It has relied upon certain premises that are fundamental to the whole outlook and paradigm of colonialism – which is that there is a higher good, a more civilized approach the US embodies.
• The law doesn’t apply because we have a higher aim of civilization and that justifies not playing by the rules.
• The United States making others comply with human rights standards while exempting itself
• Moving humanity toward this higher goal is so critical because if you strip that away and you look at the realities on the ground, you see what has been termed Western civilization has been incredibly barbaric.
• In order to get around that analysis, you have to say it was for a higher good.
• I think the “left” tends to accept the general framework, and to make particular criticisms of policies and practices that are obviously problematic. The US government engaging in torture for example, but each instant is accepted as anomalous instead of the larger picture.
• It is too frightening even for the people on the left to deal with the reality that this is a country that sits on occupied land, illegally occupied by its own rules. People on the left want to make it a kinder, gentler colonialism.
• I started out thinking I was writing a book about the failure of the United States failure to comply with international law, as I got into it, the more interesting questions were the push / pull dynamics between reliance on international law
• The current system of international law evolved from the international law which was the agreement between the European colonial powers of how they were not going to destroy each other in the process of taking over the rest of the world.

Guest - Professor Natsu Saito, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of Colorado. Co-Sponsors: UCI Department of Asian American Studies; UCI Department of Planning, Policy, and Design; UCI Department of Criminology, Law and Society; The Center for Unconventional Security Affairs; The Center for Research on Latinos in a Global Society. Legal scholar Dr. Natsu Saito delivered a lecture on homeland security. Her lecture examined the implications of the USA Patriot Act on Civil liberties for immigrant groups and for the rest of the population

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 Law and Disorder April 2, 2012: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Park Slope Food Co-op Vote
• Mamilla Cemetary Update

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Vodak Settlement:  Setting Precedence For Demonstrations

Attorneys with the National Lawyers Guild recently settled a class action lawsuit brought against the Chicago Police Department on behalf of protesters falsely arrested during a 2003 anti-war demonstration. On March 20 2003 nearly 10 thousand anti-Iraq War protesters marched through downtown Chicago before police surrounded a large group, trapping and arresting more than 700 people without ordering them to disperse. A Seventh Circuit ruling on the case (Vodak v. City of Chicago, 639 F.3d, 738 (2011)) held that police can’t arrest peaceful protesters without warning because the demonstration lacks a permit. This decision bears new weight in light of mass arrests within the Occupy movement. The National Lawyers Guild attorneys reached a 6.2 million dollar settlement in this case on the eve of a scheduled trial. The suit was litigated over the course of almost nine years by a team of NLG lawyers and legal workers including People’s Law Office attorneys Janine Hoft, Joey Mogul, Sarah Gelsomino, and John Stainthorp, as well as People’s Law Office paralegal Brad Thomson, and attorneys Melinda Power and Jim Fennerty.

Attorney Joey Mogul:

• We think it sends a significant message to Chicago and the Chicago Police Department that it must honor and respect people’s right to protest.
• It was the day that Bush had dropped bombs on Iraq. There was a massive out pouring of opposition, and people came down to the center of Chicago, to the Federal Plaza which is the heart of downtown. There were 10 thousand people and they marched on Lake Shore drive, and this was all permitted by the Chicago Police Department. This was a spontaneous demonstration, there was no written permit, but the CPD allowed it.
• Toward the end of the march, they decided that they wanted it to be over. They proceeded to surround everyone on Chicago avenue, and they prevented them from leaving, trapped them there for hours.
• They then proceeded to take over 500 people into police custody. 200 hundred were released, the rest were arrested with bogus phony charges of wreck-less conduct.
• They mass arrested everyone in that area including joggers and people shopping. It had an extremely chilling effect for people participating or near a demonstration.
• The message to the Chicago Police is that they cannot mass arrest people without giving orders to disperse.
• The new changes in the Chicago ordinances are very scary, it does allow for this increased surveillance of protesters and individuals seeking to protest.
• We’re very well aware of what the law is and we will seek to vindicate people’s constitutional rights.

—–

Brad Thompson:

• I’ve been working on this case since 2004, when I first started at the People’s Law Office.
• The work that I’ve done is a tremendous amount of discovery work in terms of going through the video work that was shot that night, by protesters, independent journalists, mainstream media and by the police.
• I did a lot in maintaining communication with class members. We had over 800 people that were taken into custody or held in the street for over 90 minutes.
• We did obtain over 250 affidavits by people who had their rights violated that night.
• The majority of protesters were from Chicago or the Greater Chicago area.
• I was one of the people taken into custody that night and released without being charged.
• I was witnessing the police aggressively arrest someone and I started to point and chant “shame” and then I became targeted.  The police tackled me, and pulled me to my feet and struck me in the face which broke my nose and had a wound that required five stitches.
• I spent the night in jail bleeding all over myself.

Guest – Attorney Joey Mogul, partner at the People’s Law Office in Chicago and director of the Civil Rights Clinic at DePaul University’s College of Law. She focuses on civil rights cases involving police misconduct, criminal cases brought against individuals engaged in street demonstrations and other forms of First Amendment expression, and capital defense cases.

Guest – Brad Thompson, legal worker with the People’s Law Office in Chicago.

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Locking Away Children For Life Without Parole

The United States is the only country in the world that sentences children to life, without the possibility of parole. Last month, the US Supreme Court revisited the question of whether juveniles convicted of murder should be given mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole. The Supreme Court had once ruled against imposing death sentences on juveniles and imposing life sentences on youth who aren’t convicted of murder. Currently, 2500 kids in jail are serving life sentences without parole in the US.  371 of those individuals are in Michigan prisons. Our next guest has been working on a lawsuit on behalf of 9 Michigan individuals who were sentenced to life in prison for crimes committed when they were minors and who are being denied the possibility of parole.

Attorney Deborah LaBelle:

• The concept that we’ve been talking about that these are children both under international law and US law for civil matters, children are different from adults.
• The Supreme Court seemed to readily grasp that, they weren’t speaking about juveniles or teenagers or young adults, they spoke continuously on what to do about children who are involved in homicide crime.
• The court had two cases in front of them, both involving 14 year olds, one in which the 14 did not commit a homicide, but convicted of either felony murder or aiding and abetting.
• That juvenile got mandatory life without possibility of parole, because the child was sentenced as an adult, the other case, the 14 year old actually committed the homicide.
• There is a handful of states, Michigan and I think 8 others who treat 17 year olds always as adults for all purposes in the criminal justice system.
• Under the 38 states, there’s a whole range, some you can only get life without parole, if you’re 16 and up, some allow it for 15, some states allow it for a child of any age, Michigan is one of them.
• One of the justices talked about that. Is there an age in which we would all share a collective cringe. What about a 5 year old, what about a 10 year old.
• The frontal lobe area of the brain that really addresses impulse control and long term consequences, and control issues of risk management, is developing through adolescence.
• People draw the age at different points, some say not til 19, some not til 23 as you say.
• There’s a bright line in civil law that’s been drawn in civil law that youth have a maturity that they can vote, when they can decide to leave school, when they can drink in some places, when they can drive.
• There are these bright lines.
• Every other country who has signed on to the conventions of the rights of the child which prohibits putting children in prison for life without possibility of parole explicitly has recognized that this practice is banned.
• The only other country that hasn’t signed on is Somalia and they don’t quite have a government right now to do that.
• We stand alone in not adhering to that convention on the rights of the child as well as we stand alone on approving this sentence.
• We have over 2500 youth who are serving of life without any possibility of parole. About 70 percent are children of color. A third of them, did not commit homicides.
• No one is arguing that there might not be circumstances, that a state couldn’t decide upon review that child couldn’t be released.  What the argument is, you can’t keep them in there without any hope. You have to give them an opportunity to demonstrate upon maturation that they have been rehabilitated and they aren’t a threat to public safety.
• We should think of putting children in places where we can nurture, council and believe in their rehabilitation and give them a second chance.
• I read transcript after transcript of judges saying, – listen I don’t want to do this to this 14 or 16 year old, but I don’t have any choice.  What is the value of putting a child away with no hope. It’s certainly not a public safety issue, because that can be addressed by the state by having parole or review hearings.

 Guest – Attorney Deborah LaBelle, an attorney with the ACLU of Michigan’s Juvenile Life Without Parole Initiative.

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 Law and Disorder February 13, 2012: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Heidi Boghosian Updates on Mumia’s Visit

Iran: Sanctions and Syria

Israel and the United States continue to assert that Iran is enriching uranium to make nuclear weapons. As we’ve recently reported, the main stream media has followed lock step with this assertion by printing false claims and half truths about Iran’s nuclear facilities. Hinged on these false assertions, and baseless assumptions, sanctions are now being imposed by the EU and the United States against Iran.

Phyllis Bennis:

• The escalation of rhetoric, having nothing to do with reality, is boxing in a incredibly dangerous situation, in which political leaders are boxing themselves into situations they can’t walk back from.
• It’s a little bit different than the weapons of mass destruction, when you had leading neocons in those positions, in the pentagon, in the CIA, saying there is no question, there are WMDs.
• They were all lying.  The difference here is that the key people in these positions are saying directly we don’t even know whether Iran has even decided in this case to build a nuclear weapon.
• At the same time, they’re allowing this unquestioned ratcheting up of the rhetoric for purely political motivations.
• We’re seeing the same situation in Israel.
• The main factor right now is Israel. The US Congress, the US press, are responding to these false claims from Israel that Iran represents an existential threat.
• The role of the Israeli lobbies is an old story.
• Republicans are saying Obama is soft on Iran. In that context an election year there’s no way that President Obama is going to be willing to walk back from this escalating rhetoric that we heard right before the superbowl on Sunday night.
• I’m always astonished when I hear it from anybody, that after the war in Iraq, after the war in Afghanistan people somehow still have the idea that you can just go in with a few air strikes and that’ll be all it takes.
• There are inspectors on the ground, they’re watching 24/7 video from inside the enrichment centers.
• If Iran wanted to the divert the enriched uranium for weapons purpose, they would have to kick out the inspectors, or slash the locks that the inspectors put in, either way the world would know about it within hours.
• War with Iran, should be off the table.
• I don’t think its inevitable. I think its 70/30 right now. Meanwhile, nobody’s going to think about pressuring Israel on the issue of Palestine.
• There ha’ve been 5 high profile assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.
• Syria: On the one hand you have an incredibly repressive regime, responding to a domestic uprising with amazing horrifying levels of force.  And parts of the resistance taking up arms in response.
• Syria is a strategic ally of Russia. For Russia that is the most important thing.

Guest – Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute For Policy Studies.  She is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam.  Phyllis has been a writer, analyst, and activist on Middle East and UN issues for many years. In 2001 she helped found and remains on the steering committee of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. Phyllis is also the author of many books including Understanding the US-Iran Crisis: A Primer (2009).

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3 Year Evaluation of the Obama Administration

The Obama Administration has expanded wars abroad from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Libya. It’s continued and expanded detention policies for Guantanamo Bay prisoners and US citizens.  Wall Street and big banks have been bailed out and the Healthcare bill was used a bargaining chip for insurance companies. The cautious optimism that progressives and the African American community initially had for the Obama Administration is long gone. However, there were some that were never taken in or mesmerized by the possibility of hope. Our guest today, Nellie Hester Bailey calls this administration a browner hue of imperialism and asks how long can people be herded like sheep into this nightmare of compromise. We welcome her back to the show, she’s a long time human rights activist from early organizing with the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, to tenant rights and anti-war demonstrations, to advocacy on behalf of women,  Bailey has been at the forefront of social justice and social change organizing. We look back at the last 3 years of the Obama Administration and take a look ahead.
Nellie Hester Bailey:

• President Barack Obama, he is a gatekeeper for imperialism.
• They chose him to be their standard bearer for this new era of redefined politics down to this humanitarian intervention I think has proven to be the worst of any forboding that in fact in goes beyond the right wing politics of President Bush.
• Sidetracking OWS: This new movement Occupy the Dream making it an extension of the Democratic Party. This cooptation process is in full throttle.
• One would hope that this Occupy Wall Street above all would retain its independency.
• 2008 Presidential Election: Extremely promising because it gave the appearance of the attempt of the government to face head on the entrenched and historic racism in this country.
• A very powerful symbol of the a black family in the Whitehouse and what that would mean in the public consciousness on race here in America.
• Once Barack Obama was elected president to the US, it did give rise to a paralysis of the movement.
• What we saw with the advent of the Occupy movement was the stimulation of white America to fight back against the anti-working class measures coming down.
• The Occupy movement was our own Arab Spring, if you will by the communities coming under increasing assault.
• There is a direct action working group within the Occupy Wall Street movement that recently announced it was laying out a six month plan of action.
• One would hope that would be independent of the Democratic Party.
• The conditions on the ground have began to organize people and effect their consciousness.
• I do not believe that capitalism can be reformed.
• We need a new political paradigm that is founded on principles of humanity, on principle of respect to the environment, an anti-war principle, the respect of sovereign nations.
• Radio Show: Inside Housing on WHCR 90.3 FM. Mondays 6-7PM – The Voice of Harlem.

Guest - Nellie Hester Bailey, is a human rights activist who has worked in peace and justice movements for over forty years. From her early organizing with the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, to tenant rights and anti-war struggles, to advocacy on behalf of women Bailey has been at the forefront of social justice and social change organizing. Bailey co-founded the Harlem Tenants Council (HTC) in 1994. She currently serves as Director of the tenant led grassroots organization based on the self-determination tradition of radical activism that provides anti-displacement organizing for poor and working class families primarily in Central Harlem.

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 Law and Disorder December 19, 2011: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Police To Test Laser That Blinds Rioters
• Police Employ Predator Drone On the Home Front

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Appeal Denied In Holy Land Foundation Case

Last week, the Fifth Circuit dismissed the appeal for the Holy Land Foundation case. This decision affirmed the conviction of Ghassan Elashi, the co-founder of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. As many listeners may know, the Holy Land Foundation was considered the largest Muslim charity in the United States before the Bush administration shut it down after the September 11 attacks. In May 2009, a federal judge in Dallas handed down sentences ranging from 15 to 65 years in prison to five of the charity’s founders and former fundraisers. Over a year before, a federal jury returned guilty verdicts on all 108 counts against the Foundation and the five former officers on charges of providing material support to Hamas after the U.S. government designated it a foreign terrorist organization in 1995. During that trial, the prosecution used unrelated video of suicide bombers to emotionally sway the jury.

Ghassan Elashi was then sentenced to 65 years in prison for giving material support in the form of humanitarian aid to Zakat committees – Palestinian charities in the West Bank and Gaza, that prosecutors were alleging were fronts for Hamas. Ghassan is being held in the Communications Management Unit in Marion, Illinois.

Noor Elashi:

• One of the arguments the defense lawyers made is that USAID, which is a government agency sent money to the same exact Zakat Committees which are these distribution centers in Palestine that the Holy Land Foundation sent charity to.
• That was their main charge, they were charged with giving material support in the form of humanitarian aid to Zakat Committees which the prosecutors were claiming were fronts for Hamas.
• In their appeal, one of their main arguments is that these Zakat Committees received money from many NGOs including an American agency.
• Another argument in the appeal was for the first time in US history, an expert witness who was an Israeli intelligence officer who testified under a fake name was allowed to testify under a pseudonym.
• My father recently had a phone call ban, because he put his name on a yoga mat, and it was considered destruction of government property.
• Our defense attorneys are not going to quit. They will ask the entire panel of appellate judges to re-hear the case, if that is denied, they’ll take the case to the Supreme Court.
• The foreign policy and politics of this country have been very favorable to Israel.
• FreedomToGive.com

Guest – Noor Elashi – the daughter of Holy Land Foundation prisoner Ghassan Elashi. She is a writer based in Dallas, Texas. After receiving a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of North Texas, she worked for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. In July 2008, she won the 3rd place Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Award for her manuscript titled “Displaced,” which she plans to expand into a memoir about the displacement of three generations of Palestinians: her grandmother, father, and herself. She can be reached at noorelashi@gmail.com.

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 Law and Disorder December 5, 2011: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Chilean Judge Indicts US Military Official in 1973 Killings – CCR Case
• Newt Gingrich: “Water Boarding Is By Every Technical Rule, Not Torture.”
• Michael Ratner: S.1867 — National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012

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Occupy Albany: Undisturbed By City Officials

The collusion among mayors and police departments around the country to raid and take down Occupy Wall Street movements by force has revealed a particular hierarchy of control.  However, as listeners may know there is a unique situation with the Occupy Wall St solidarity movement in Albany, New York. Despite the request of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Albany mayor to shut the encampment down at Academy Park, the police refused, then the State Troopers refused.  In a memo obtained by the The Times Union, Albany Police Deputy Chief Steven Krofoff stated “At this time I have no intention of assigning officers to monitor, watch, videotape or influence any behavior that is conducted by our citizens peacefully demonstrating in Academy Park.

Attorney Mark Mishler:

• The Governor a few days before the occupation started met with the city of Albany office and as best as we can figure out at that meeting sort of all agreed that this wasn’t going to be permitted.
• It seemed to be permitted that people would not be able to stay past the 11PM curfew at the park.
• We have two very independent minded folks in law enforcement here.
• They took a different view. We have a District Attorney David Soares, who was independently elected as an opponent to the Albany County machine and with a lot of grassroots support.
• David Soares say he wasn’t interested in using his office to prosecute peaceful protesters.
• In correlation with that our police chief in the city of Albany, who also came into office as result from a grassroots movement for improved police / community relations. He also said he didn’t want to use the resources of his department to arrest peaceful protesters.
• The mayor who we believe really wanted to carry out the governor’s direction was really boxed into a corner and couldn’t do that.
• The park is really 2 parks, half of the park is city owned, the other half is state owned.
• We’re now in the sixth week, there are now about 50 tents.
• Essentially completely undisturbed by city officials.

Guest -  Mark Mishler, attorney and National Lawyers Guild member.
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Occupy Los Angeles Legal Action

Occupy Los Angeles and Occupy Philadelphia were among the encampments forcibly removed last week. Occupy LA demonstrators had expected to be evicted after the mayor announced that the park would be closed at 12:01 a.m. on Monday last week. Late the following night, police in riot gear stormed the encampment and dozens were arrested as protesters chanted and stood defiant through the raid. The more than 500 tents have been taken down. The encampment at Philadelphia’s Occupy Wall Street movement was also raided after demonstrators marched to protest their eviction. Up to 40 protesters were arrested.

Hours after the Occupy Los Angeles eviction deadline protesters filed for a federal injunction that would prevent the police from dismantling the occupation in Oakland Park. The city, mayor and chief of police are named in the lawsuit as defendants. The complaint also says the city engaged in “arbitrary and capricious action in violation of the 1st and 14 Amendments by first approving the Occupy presence for 56 days before suddenly revoking permission through the unilateral action of defendants.

Attorney Carol Sobel:

• We filed papers, we argued that the mayor’s actions were unlawful because the City Council of Los Angeles passed a resolution saying that they could stay there.
• The Council, only the Council has the authority to do that.
• Once that Council acts, he could veto it, he chose not to at the time, back in October, or he could get it rescinded. He chose not to.
• Our position is, the Mayor can’t make up the rules as he goes along.
• This is a public forum, we’ve had anti-war marches here, marches to protest the Pope when he came.
• The mayor used to be friend. The Mayor went to the same Guild law school that I did.
• I think that the Mayor is bought and paid for by the developers in Los Angeles. Somebody said to me last night, he’s lost his soul.
• He’s not progressive by any definition of that term. He is the head of the US Conference of Mayors.
• It looks bad for him I guess to have the largest Occupy in the country, in his city, at his doorstep.
• They (LAPD) have agreed that they will not come out with a show of force, unless and until it’s needed.
• If you can’t close the park after the fact, then these arrests were all unlawful.

Guest – Civil rights attorney Carol Sobel, a legal advisor for Occupy protests across the country. Carol Sobel is listed as the attorney on the new complaint.

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Collusion in the Defense of the 1% is No Vice

As mayors of cities across the country colluded to crackdown on the OWS encampments, an international non-governmental organization had coordinated with police chiefs and mayors behind the scenes. The group is called the Police Executive Research Forum, it is an influential private membership based organization that is marketed to heads of major metropolitan areas as specialists with mass demonstrations.  The group has ties to the US Department of Homeland Security and their general membership in the group is exclusive to former executives leading a state or county funded agency that provided police services.

Geov Parrish:

• The Occupy Seattle movement is community college property.
• The community college let them stay there but at first it was a public square and it was a cat and mouse game with the police.
• From November 4-10, there were conference calls. Much of the local media coverage was very coordinated.
• This smacks of the operations of some of the high ranking people the PERF has been associated with.
• The PERF actually does research on less then lethal weaponry, such as the pepper spray that has been used in lots of different cities.
• Charles Ramsey, Philadelphia Police Commissioner and the chair of PERF’s board of directors is also on the Homeland Security Advisory Council as are a couple of other board members from PERF.
• There’s an entire industry that has sprung up around the militarization of the police forces. The routine use of SWAT teams now for even non threatening situations.

Guest -  Geov Parrish, a Seattle-based columnist and reporter. He writes the Straight Shot column for WorkingForChange.  Parrish also wrote the article Collusion in the Defense of the 1% is No Vice.

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• b/w_occupyLAphoto-bymikeywally
• occupyAlbanyphoto – byDylanBoyce

 Law and Disorder November 28, 2011: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• New York Historical Society Recognizes Henry Kissinger, Co-host Michael Smith Resigns.
• Wikileaks Cable: Assistant Secretary Posner Discusses Operation Cast Lead With IDF
• Who Killed Che? How The CIA Got Away With Murder - Book Tour Continues
• OWS Precursor: Resurrection City – Michael Ratner On Jesse Jackson’s Radio Show
• Occupy Dartmouth: Heidi Boghosian

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Occupy Hudson Valley and Bard College Student Movement

Activist and senior at Bard College, Ana Ratner joins the discussion on Occupy Colleges student movement in the Hudson Valley. Ana,  Michael Ratner’s daughter, discusses the mistreatment of workers at the college, specifically employment contractors.

Ana Ratner:

• I think people on their own (at Bard College) had been concerned about the Occupy movement. It was around that time when people found each other and wanted to do something, weekly teach ins, general assemblies.
• At Bard we have a sub-contractor called Aramark .They treat their workers very badly.
• Through the Occupy movement more kids on campus are becoming concerned about worker’s rights and financial transparency and where our money is going, how it effects and who it effects.
• Occupy Poughkeepsie, a local movement, trying to connect the regions in the Hudson Valley. OccupyHudsonValley. They have tents and a kitchen.
• At Bard College: until the Occupy movement, no one really came together. I’m learning about the whole community at Bard.
• For the most part the workers are mostly invisible, they clean your dorm and campus. There’s a group called the Student Labor Dialogue.
• Aramark was kicked off at Bard College, now they want to hire another contractor.

Guest – Ana Ratner, activist and senior at Bard College. Ana has been active with the Occupy Colleges student movement and Occupy Wall Street.
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Occupy Colleges Los Angeles and Beyond

Last week, hundreds of students walk out of class and assembled in Union Square Park to demonstrate continued support with the Occupy Wall Street movement. The protests in New York City was part of a full week of student organized action that culminated in a march to Baruch College.  This was where the CUNY Board of Trustees had met to vote on a possible tuition increase. Police and students clashed in the lobby in massive brawls, 15 people were arrested.

Natalie Abrams:

• OccupyColleges.org is all of the facilitators, it helps inform college students about the occupy movement.
• Ongoing occupy colleges action such as walk outs, teach ins, strikes, demonstrations
• Monday November 28th – In solidarity with UC Davis , UC Berkeley, CUNY Schools and all students who are defending their right to protest against rising tuition cost and out of control student debt. We ask you to STRIKE! No work, no school.
• We’re also circulating a pledge of non violence both for students and the UC Davis Presidents of all the eleven schools to commit to non-violence against students for a peaceful demonstration.
• Its gets harder to enforce non violence as they continue to hurt us.
• Non violence is our weapon.
• We’ve noticed that its all different types of schools, its private schools, its public schools, its community colleges, state colleges, the higher university levels, we really see the whole gamut of students that are joining us.
• Its horizontal, like the regular Occupy Wall St movement runs.
• We’re fighting the rising cost of tuition, the student loan fiasco and the fact that we have a lack of opportunities after graduation.
• Michael Ratner:  Hunter College had no tuition from 1874 to 1975. One hundred years without tuition, so we see the shift that’s going on.
• It’s 3 times higher than it was in 1980.
• One of my first points of action is that these administrators need to take pay cuts.
• A lot of us got together from Occupy L.A. and from some past activist groups and we saw that New York schools were calling for a city wide walk out on October 5th and we noticed there wasn’t a national presence.
• We called for a national walk out and had 100 schools participate, almost 8000 students walk out. The interest from all of the students compelled us to continue with this movement. We give ideas to schools on how to set up their occupation. We want to have a very large teach in in the early Spring.
• When somebody else gets tired, somebody else is there to take their place.
• There are always new school calling us and signing up.
• I was called by the student tea party, who were horrified by the violence. The student tea party condemned the violence that happened at UC Davis.
• When we’re a non-violent movement the only way we can lose is by giving up. – Gene Sharpe

Guest - Natalia Abrams, one of the full time facilitators with the OccupyColleges.org website.

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University Faculty, Staff and Students Disgusted At Direction Of California State University

Each year, the state of California makes cuts to the California State University system budget and each year students have responded with angry protests.  This year however the protests were much bigger partly because of the Occupy Wall Street movement and the ongoing police brutality against students and protesters.  The numbers are staggering, tuition has doubled in the last few years and the California State University Board of Trustees recently approved a 9 percent tuition increase in addition to cuts in courses and student services.  Next year, the California legislature is set to impose another 200 million in higher education cuts.  Meanwhile, college students from all over the nation have organized four nationwide acts of support with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Lillian Taiz:

• We have about 430 thousand students in the California State University system.
• The number one struggle we’re having (faculty) is the defunding, the starvation of public higher education. That creates one set of problems.
• Piled on top of that is what we consider, misplaced priorities. At a time when resources aren’t that available, you really have to be careful and targeted in how you use the resources you have.
• The students, staff and faculty are disgusted on how the leadership has a focus on their one percent.
• There’s an enormous resonance with the Occupy movement because these are good middle class jobs that are being destroyed.
• Our students are watching their parents get shoved out of the middle class and hoping their education is a pathway into a decent life.
• People have finally emerged from the shock of what’s been happening, and getting angrier and angrier and getting less tolerant of adjusting to it.
• Demand: that the resources that are available be directed at the core mission of the university.
• We’re all over the state and our faculty have been part of Occupy Oakland and everwhere.
• We’ve got to take back more power and authority over our own destiny.
• Student loans are crushing our students, the leadership of the CSU and the UC seems to think the answer to their problems is privatizing the university by shifting economic responsibility to students, faculty and staff.
• They’re using us like ATM machines. We’re all being exploited and asked to be unwilling donors to the university.
• Occupy Wall Street has opened up a door to a conversation that is so long overdue.

Guest - Lillian Taiz, President of the California Faculty Association, the union that represents the 23,000 faculty members of the California State University system and to clarify, this is (not the University of California system where the pepper spray incident took place).

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 Law and Disorder October 17, 2011: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Jose Couso Murdered By US Military In Iraq:
• Sami al-Hajj – Former Guantanamo Prisoner, Now Al-Jazeera Correspondent
• 44th Anniversary of Che Guevara’s Murder
• Who Killed Che? How The CIA Got Away With Murder
• Groups Follow Former U.S. President George W. Bush’s Path to Canada
• UK Protects Israeli War Criminal
• Anwar al-Awlaki’s Extrajudicial Murder – Michael Ratner
• Richard Falk – Afghanistan War

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Occupy Wall Street: Attorney Margaret Ratner-Kunstler

There is a North America-wide strategy to take away the right to mass protest. We’ve talked about the book Hell No: Your Right To Dissent in 21 Century America, but today we have both authors of this book in the studio, attorney Magaret Ratner Kunstler and our own co-host Michael Ratner.

In Hell No, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the country’s leading public interest law organization, offers a timely report on government attacks on dissent and protest in the United States, along with a readable and essential guide for activists, teachers, grandmothers, and anyone else who wants to oppose government policies and actions. Hell No explores the current situation of attacks upon and criminalization of dissent and protest, from the surveillance of activists to the disruption of demonstrations, from the labeling of protestors as “terrorists,” to the jailing of those the government claims are giving “material support” to its perceived enemies. Offering detailed, hands-on advice on everything from “Sneak and Peak” searches to “Can the Government Monitor My Text Messages?” and what to do “If an Agent Knocks,” Hell No lays out several key responses that every person should know in order to protect themselves from government surveillance and interference with their rights.
Attorney Margaret Ratner-Kunslter:

• This is a time that we don’t know the return dates are because they weren’t put throught the system, they were given desk appearance tickets or summons, people arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge and elsewhere.
• Politically what do you make of the fact that they let these people stay in the park? Perhaps Michael they had an opportunity to do something about it if they did something quickly.
• In Boston, they closed it down much more quickly. Each Lawyers Guild office has a hotline.
• They (the NYPD) actually led people down to the bridge walkway. There’s a law in New York that says you can’t block roadways, but you can march on sidewalks.
• They led people down to the roadway, then announced with a bull horn that not everybody could hear of the more than 800 people on the bridge – - you’re now doing something illegally and we’re going to disperse immediately or we’re going to arrest you. Most people were chanting, nobody could hear that announcement.
• Why do this? There was no place to put these 800 people. To get their names, to get their pedigree information, to do intelligence work.
• Early on with the RNC arrests, they had a sheet of paper asking what political affiliations they had. We stopped that quickly. The police department in New York City has a tremendous intelligence division.
• Some people we have no idea why they were arrested.
• Yesterday morning a young woman was chalking on the sidewalk, “good morning NYPD.” Not only was she arrested, but the people photographing her arrest, were arrested.
• Much of the planning on how to stop demonstrators, happened after Seattle 1999. At that point there was this training program that began with all of these local police forces across the country and the FBI.  It wasn’t til 9/11 that they were fully funded.
• When Michael Ratner and I wrote this, we were totally depressed because we thought that demonstrations were over. There were so many ways of preventing demonstrations and people were penned.
• You can film the police in NYC. The law may be on your side, but the police don’t follow the law.
• If you’re recording audio, and only one party knows you’re recording, that’s ok in New York.
• The cop doesn’t have to give you his name, or badge number. If you ask a cop his badge number, he’ll give you the wrong number.
• I’d like to last through winter, I’m worried about these children.  The demand for justice and equality is the demand basically all over the world.
• How can we say this is too abstract for us, isn’t this what we all want?

Guest – Magaret Ratner-Kunstler, an attorney in private practice. As education director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, she originated the Movement Support Network and authored “If an Agent Knocks.” Margaret is the President of the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice, a foundation established in 1995 in the memory of her late husband to combat racism in the criminal justice system.

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