Law and Disorder May 9, 2011: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Osama Bin Laden Story Inconsistencies: Analysis
• CF Law (By analogy in law) Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch
• Authorization To Use Military Force, the Justification For Torture, Blowback
• Torture Architect John Yoo Writing in the National Review
• Dalia Hashad: Article In The Scoop: Bin Laden Gone Problems Remain

—-

Guantánamo Leaks Must Be Met By Release of Obama Task Force Assessments

The 759 Guantanamo files that were classified “secret” cover nearly every inmate since the camp opened in 2002. The documents obtained by the New York Times and the Guardian last month, reveal how children, the elderly and mentally ill were wrongfully held. The documents also reveal that many prisoners were sent to Guantanamo for nearly nothing or to be interrogated. What did these documents reveal?

Attorney Shane Kadidal:

• These stories started on Monday morning, because administration officials gave out a briefing saying that the nickname of Osama’s couriers was given out by one of the detainees.
• Assuming information taken from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
• We do know it took eight months from the time they identified this compound to the point they decided to strike at it.  I think its clear, they relied on a whole slew of information from a variety of sources.
• We already know the true name of the courier, which is more important than a nickname came from agents on the ground and electronic surveillance.
• 172 detainees, 90 cleared from release, 2/3 of those from Yemen have been indefinitely suspended for repatriation because of the “underwear bomber.”
• The problem is so much of (media) attention is focused on the ones that will never be released.
• WikiLeaks – 2400 pages of documents almost all risk assessments of about 740 detainees who’ve been to Guantanamo
• They represent the Defense Departments best case for detaining someone.
• You have these long analysis of very shady facts, not detailing where allegations are coming from.
• If you look at the documents as a whole, it shows that most of the detainees were held on flimsy, unreliable information.
• The documents show that people were interrogated in GTMO about nothing to do with terrorist attacks in the United States. You had Samuel Hodge interrogated about the inner workings of Al-Jazzera
• Everyone ended up with the categorization of high or medium risk
• When you see a leak of this magnitude, the only corrective is to release more information and that’s what we’ve called for at CCR.
• The government quickly emailed us – They said consistent with the security clearances you signed on for, you have to treat this information as classified (leaked documents) even though its been scattered to the winds on every newspaper on Earth.

Guest – Attorney Shane Kadidal, senior managing attorney of the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City. He is a graduate of the Yale Law School and a former law clerk to Judge Kermit Lipez of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. In his eight years at the Center, he has worked on a number of significant cases in the wake of 9/11, including the Center’s challenges to the detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay (among them torture victim Mohammed al Qahtani and former CIA ghost detainee Majid Khan), which have twice reached the Supreme Court, and several cases arising out of the post-9/11 domestic immigration sweeps.

——-

Green Is The New Red: An Insiders Account of A Social Movement Under Siege

We welcome Will Potter award-winning independent journalist and now the leading authority on “eco-terrorism.” He’s the author of the new book ,Green Is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege, and it reveals a complex environmental movement emerging amid police state pressure. As we’ve reported here on Law and Disorder, environmental activism have been labeled terrorism under certain interpretation of the Patriot Act, essentially criminalizing dissent and chilling free speech in this country at a critical time.  Our guest was an FBI target for merely leafleting against animal testing, and he was threatened to be put on the domestic terrorist watch list if didn’t comply with FBI demands. We talk more about that, the environmentalist movements and his new book.

Will Potter:

• My background is in mainstream newspapers. As I was working as a reporter at the Chicago Tribune, about 9 months after 9/11. I was covering breaking news, blood and guts.
• I decided to go out leafleting on a campaign I became aware of against a controversial animal testing company.
• Couple weeks later the FBI knocks on my door telling me I need to become a government informant and help infiltrate animal rights and environmental groups and if I didn’t they’d put me on the domestic terrorist list.
• It scared the tar out of me. I wish I could say it didn’t.
• Afterward it really lit a fire under me to figure out what was going on.
• One of the reasons I started the website was because of this new law being considered called the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.
• What I decided to do with the book is tell the personal stories of the people involved.
• I followed Daniel McGowan a few days before his sentence to how he ended up in this facility, his own journey as an activist. Daniel was convicted of serious crimes, two arsonists that didn’t harm anyone and he was labeled a terrorist.
• The book looks at the wide range of activity being labeled “eco-terrorism”
• The FBI has labeled the environmental and animal rights movement the number one domestic terrorism threat.
• These corporate campaigns were pushed for so long through the courts, politicians, and the press that over time they began to dovetail with government policy.
• The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act is so broad it can even wrap up non-violent civil disobedience as terrorism, only if its directed at what is called animal enterprises.
• The real power of this is fear.
• The activists who are really effective and pushing the boundary are the ones being labeled eco-terrorists.
• I recently wrote about 3 bills that are under consideration for the Huffington Post. What Is Big Ag Trying To Hide.

Guest – Will Potter,  award-winning independent journalist based in Washington, D.C., who focuses on “eco-terrorism,” the animal rights and environmental movements, and civil liberties post-9/11. Will’s work has appeared in publications including the Chicago Tribune, the Huffington Post, and the Vermont Law Review, and he has testified before the U.S. Congress about his reporting. He is the author of Green Is The New Red: An insider’s account of a social movement under siege forthcoming from City Lights Books.

 Law and Disorder March 21, 2011: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Bradley Manning Update
• State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley Resigned Over Controversial Comments
• CCR Lawsuit – Aref, et al. v. Holder, et al.

————-

In Memory:

The remarkable and heroic progressive lawyer Len Weinglass died on March 23.  Among his cases were the Chicago 8, the Ellsberg case and the Cuban 5.  Listen to the 4 interviews Law and Disorder did with him over the last 4 years.  He was our close comrade and will be missed by his friends and all those seeking a better world. – Michael Ratner.

• Len Weinglass November 9, 2009
• Len Weinglass June 29, 2009
• Len Weinglass June 16, 2008
• Len Weinglass September 24, 2007
  

————-

Death Penalty Abolished In Illinois

Last week, Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois signed into law SB3539, which repeals the death penalty in that state. This development is yet another in what appears to be signal a trend of moving away from capital punishment. Early last year we covered the American Law Institute’s declaration that the death penalty in this country has been a failure. Listeners may recall that the A.L.I. created the intellectual framework and justification for the current capital justice system. The movement away from this most final form of punishment seems to be due in large part to the public’s increased awareness about its inherent flaws such as great racial disparity on who gets executed and for what reason. Publicity around exonerations stemming from DNA evidence has also added to general awareness of procedural errors in the system.

Attorney Charles Hoffman:

• In 2003, Governor Ryan cleared out death row, he granted to the 167 men and women on death row and pardoned four.
• that prompted the legislature to pass a modicum of reform. The governor afterward assembled a commission that recommended 85 reforms.
• The legislature passed five or six.  The legislature also created a death penalty reform study commission.
• One of the reforms was that all confessions in police custody had to be videotaped in murder cases.
• No matter what safeguards you implement, there’s no system that can prevent the conviction and condemning of an innocent person.
• Prosecutors around the state were asking for the death penalty in cases that weren’t death penalty prosecutions just so the state would bear the costs rather than the county.
• The legislature is cash-strapped and we were wasting millions and millions of dollars prosecuting capital cases when here in Illinois we have the very strict alternative of life without parole.
• Final Report: Death Penalty Legislative Study Committee. Illinois Death Penalty Reform Study Commission PDF
• After Governor Ryan cleared out death row in 2003, Illinois put 17 men on death row. 2 had committed suicide, which left 15 on death row when Governor Quinn signed the abolition bill and also granted sentence commutation to all 15. He commuted their death sentences to life without parole.
• As the problems with the death penalty have been exposed, the arbitrariness, the racism, as mistakes have gone into public consciousness, juries have been rejecting the death penalty.
• Illinois has become the 16th state to abolish the death penalty, following on the heels of New Mexico, New Jersey and New York. The federal government and the military do have it.
• The “deathbelt” in this country is in the South and Texas, and is just a legacy of slavery in this country.
• Most executions occur in former slave states. One obvious flaw of the death penalty, studies have shown the death penalty is most likely to be inflicted in a case when the victim is white and the odds go up even further if the defendant is black or Hispanic.
• Its very gratifying to get rid of this barbaric practice. I represented 35 men and women who were sentenced to death. I do the direct appeals. I’ve had one client executed, I’ve had one client go home.
• Some states have made illegal purchases of the drug. (lethal injection drug shortage)
• Some states are using just one drug, a massive overdose of a barbiturate.
• Life without parole is very draconian, it means there’s no prospect for rehabilitation.

Guest – Assistant Defender in the Supreme Court Unit at the Office of the State Appellate Defender, and member of the board of directors of the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

———

Communities Battle Against Gas Drilling To Protect Water, Way of Life

Environmental community groups from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania continue to band together and try to protect the Marcellus Shale watershed from natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing. The EPA has stated it will investigate how hydraulic fracturing impacts water supplies and water quality in New York State yet the drilling moratorium ends this June.  The shale is believed to hold some of the world’s largest deposits of natural gas, and those that want to mine this resource say it will reduce dependence on foreign oil and boost the economy.   However, many have shown this statement to be false as the natural gas from the United States is being sold to foreign countries such as Norway and France.

Ninety percent of the New York City’s drinking water comes from ground zero of where various oil companies want to drill into the Marcelle Shale for natural gas. Environmental and public health costs are enormous for each well. Every time a well is drilled, the companies use an estimate of 5 to 9 million gallons of water. Each time a well is fractured, it’s another 5-9 million gallons of water, a well can be fractured multiple times.  Up to 275 different toxic chemicals are used in the process and after the well is drilled, there are millions of gallons of industrial waste, it’s essentially radioactive water.  40-70 percent of this water stays underground. The hydro-fracturing process has no federal regulating body.  Some of the companies involved are Halliburton, Chesapeake Energy, Fortuna, and Talisman Hess.

Tracy Carluccio:

• My organization has been working on the issue for a few years to try to keep gas drilling from moving ahead.
• Right now there is a moratorium in place on the Delaware River Watershed. It took a year and a half to get that into place. Regulatory measures that are in place now for gas drilling are not doing their job.
• The bottom line is we’re facing an industry that wants to move ahead.
• The industry is very strong. There are international concerns.
• They’re backed by the government in many ways, they enjoy subsidies.
• This industry is going to move like heck to drill everyplace gas can be gotten.
• The Delaware River Watershed has its origins in the Catskill region of New York State.
• The east and west branches come together in Hancock, New York.
• 330 miles from Hancock to the Atlantic Ocean.
• The watershed is 13 thousand square miles and includes four states. It’s overseen by an agency that was born out of water wars.
• Back in the 1950s, all the states were suing each other about who would get water for development.
• In 1961, there was a Supreme Court decree and compact and President Kennedy signed a document that began the Delaware River Basin Commission. As a result of this compact, a large part of the Delaware River goes to New York City.
• There have been regulations federally (Represented by the Army Corp of Engineers) and regionally laid out by the Delaware River Basin Commission
• New York moratorium on gas drilling is tied to late June when there is supposed to be a new draft of the Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement on high volume hydraulic fracturing.
• In order to crack the rock to get at the gas is intrinsically polluting and there’s no way out of that.
• The question of how to stop it is tied to the scientific analysis free from bias.
• Without that bottom up movement, without that cry for government regulators, the industry would be moving ahead exactly as planned.

Guest – Tracy Carluccio, deputy director with Delaware Riverkeeper Network. Delaware Riverkeeper -  a watershed wide advocacy program, Delaware Riverkeeper Network takes a strong stance on regional and local issues that threaten water quality and the ecosystems of the Delaware River and its watershed. In fact, Delaware Riverkeeper Network is the only advocacy organization working throughout the entire Delaware River Watershed.

—–

Farmworkers, Consumers Protest Trader Joe’s Demanding Fair Labor Standards for Farmworkers

Late last month, a busload of farm workers from Florida joined members of the NYC Community Farm worker Alliance at Trader Joe’s Upper West Side store.  Men and women who pick tomatoes under very harsh conditions demand to be treated more humanely and with improved farm labor wages. Our own Michael Ratner was at the demonstration, we hear some of the interviews.

———————————————————————-

 Law and Disorder March 14, 2011: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• NLG Send Attorneys To Tunisia
• No Libyan Style “Humanitarian Intervention” While Hundreds Killed in the Ivory Coast
• 172 Detainees in Guantanamo. 89 Are Innocent Approved For Transfer
• Leaving 36 People Referred For Prosecution – Military Commissions Return
• Extremely Dangerous: Executive Order on 47 Detainees -  Preventive Detention

—

Wisconsin Labor Demonstrations Update

Organized labor is in the cross-hairs  to be taken apart by the American elite.  Last month, 10 thousand people continued a multi- day occupation of the Wisconsin State Capitol building while tens of thousands chanted outside. Meanwhile the country is gripped by the drama unfolding in Wisconsin and it has inspired unions in other states to move in solidarity. Among those states are Montana, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  Listeners may remember that Wisconsin trade unions have already conceded to wage and benefit cuts.  Now the state is voting to repeal Section 11170,  the Public Employee Bargaining Chapter.   Update: Wisconsin GOP Allows State To Fire Employees For Strikes, Walkouts

Attorney Lester Pines:

• Governor Walker is clearly a stocking horse for the far right wing of the Republican Party.
• I’m not surprised at his behavior, he behaved this way as a Milwaukee County executive.
• I told people he was going to try to repeal section 11170 which is the Public Employee Bargaining Chapter
• What’s at stake is an attempt by the governor and the legislature to strike at the heart of the Wisconsin tradition of organized labor.
• Public employee bargaining has been in Wisconsin for 50 years. This is an attempt to tear apart generations of how Wisconsin operated.
• On a federal level, this is an attempt to wipe away outside groups that democratic and progressive candidates.
• Wisconsin has a bi-annual budget. The legislation is part of budget repair bill. In that legislation is a bill to eliminate all collective bargaining for all municipal and school district employees as well as for state employees.
• There will be no bargaining if this bill passes. The only thing that can be bargained with is wages.
• The bill also imposes a cap on wages. These are designed to essentially make it impossible for public employee unions to function in any meaningful way.
• Scott Walker didn’t talk about what he would actually do.
• If we look at the mass demonstrations in Madison. These are the biggest demonstrations I’ve ever seen here.
• Impeachment is impossible because Republicans control the legislature and Senate, however he can be recalled.
• The Democrats can’t be arrested in a criminal sense,
• Governor Scott Walker has reignited the progressive movement in Wisconsin.
• Until you get these Republicans out of office they’re going to do a lot of damage. They’re nihilists. They care nothing for public services.  They care only for what their corporate puppeteers want them to do.
• It looks like this whole anti-public union movement was actually planned out amongst all these new governors.

Guest – Labor attorney Lester Pines, in practice since 1975, he leads the Litigation area, concentrating in civil trials, criminal defense, labor & employment, and business.  A Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers, Mr. Pines is a highly respected civil and criminal litigator who has appeared in courts throughout Wisconsin and litigated federal matters in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio and New York.

————————–

Human Rights Crisis Continues In Puerto Rico

More than a year ago nearly 100 thousand people took to the streets of San Juan, Puerto Rico to protest the lay off of about 17 thousand public employees. The demonstration shut down all state-owned enterprises including the island’s schools and colleges. Two days before that strike the governor passed a bill aimed at dismantling the Bar Association. Protesters were warned that if they stopped commerce, particularly the docks and airports, that action would be sanctionable to federal law. Now, as human rights violations continue, as students and faculty demonstrate against dismantling of progressive curriculum and tuition hikes.  ACLU of Puerto Rico, “Human Rights Crisis in Puerto Rico: First Amendment Under Siege.” Law and Disorder Interview with Judy Berkan October 2009

Attorney Judy Berkan:

• Wholesale attack on institutions of Puerto Rican society where any dissent could be lodged.
• The Puerto Rican Bar Association, a real forum for those without a voice.  Attacks have come to the Bar Association, elimination of mandatory Bar membership and imposed draconian restrictions upon the Bar Association. They took away a great deal of our funding.
• The president of the Puerto Rican Bar Association was jailed for speaking out against a lawsuit that could take away life insurance from poor lawyers.
• There’s a one month prohibition on leafleting and expression in the University of Puerto Rico.
• The closing of the legislative chambers.  Right now there is a US Department of Justice investigation and talk of a trusteeship of the police department here.
• The use of the tactical operations of the police to repress dissent has been intensified.
• All of our public spaces are being closed off to legitimate dissent, while people engaged in peaceful dissent are being attacked.
• Austerity: Part of the remedy of the economic crisis there was an increase in tuition of 800.00. But much more at stake.
• More than that there is question of the vision the University of Puerto Rico will take in the future.
• The emphasis appears to be on privatization as it is throughout the government. We been suffering these programs since 2009.
• We were the guinea pigs. There’s more violence here, if we occupied the state house here, we would’ve been met with pepper spray, gas and beatings as we were when we attempted to demonstrate outside the state house last June.
• The economic programs are really the model that’s being used by Republican governors in the US
• The University situation is really wallowing in the wind without a real solution.
• The Bar Association and their presence is very crucial to public debate in Puerto Rico.
• I think people are getting tired, we do have 2 more years left of this administration.
• The police department is still in the hands of a former FBI agent who has openly encouraged violence against protesters.  We have a raging crime rate.
• What’s distressing for all of us here who care about these matters is the media black out in the United States.
• Are we training people to be managers at McDonald’s or are we training people to think about the future of Puerto Rico?

Guest – Attorney Judith Berkan, is a partner in the San Juan law firm of Berkan/Mendez.  She specializes in government misconduct litigation and employment discrimination cases. Berkan worked as an attorney in New Haven, Connecticut before going to Puerto Rico as the staff attorney for the Puerto Rico Legal Project of the National Lawyers Guild, now the Puerto Rico Civil Rights Institute.  For twenty-seven years, she has been teaching, primarily in the Constitutional Law area, at the Inter American University Law School in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

A frequent speaker and author of many articles on civil rights issues, she was the President of the Human Rights Commission of the Puerto Rico Bar Association in the mid-1990?s and a member of the Commonwealth Supreme Court’s task force on gender discrimination.

————————–

Left Forum 2011

The 2011 Left Forum convenes this Spring, March the 18 to the 20th.  This is the largest annual conference of a broad spectrum of left and progressive intellectuals, activists, academics, organizations and the interested public. Conference participants come together to engage a wide range of critical perspectives on the world, to discuss differences, commonalities, and alternatives to current predicaments, and to share ideas for understanding and transforming the world.

Guest – Stanley Aronowitz Distinguished Professor of Sociology at CUNY Graduate Center, where he is Director of The Center for the Study of Culture, Technology and Work. He has taught at Staten Island Community College, University of California-Irvine, University of Paris, Columbia University, and University of Wisconsin.

——————————————————————————————–

 Law and Disorder November 22, 2010: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• “Know Your Rights” booklet from the National Lawyers Guild
  
• Michael Ratner Interview in the ISR: Obama’s National Security State
• British Settlement with Guantanamo Prisoners: Leveraged Against Disclosure of Court Ordered Documents
• Serious Criminal Investigations Ongoing In Europe
• TSA Back Scatter Scanner Machines and Groping
  
• Former Homeland Security Secretary:  Chertoff Group Ties To Full Body Scanners
• Trial begins in Austria for case of slain Chechen
• Manfred Novak – UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, “Is the World Completely Hopeless?”

——-

Brandworkers Defeats Anti-Speech Legal Action from the Flaum Appetizing Corp.

Workers of the Campaign for Justice at Flaum Appetizing Corporation stand up. Immigrants for Mexico and Ecuador challenged sweatshop conditions at a New York City processor and distributor of kosher foods. The workers used innovative legal advocacy and organizing tools to win justice at the company. The company Flaum Appetizing illegally withheld hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation owed to the workers and used anti-immigrant retailiation when workers stood up for their rights.

Attorney Daniel Gross:

• Brandworkers work on a joint campaign called Focus on the Food Chain.
• Much of the food that we consume at markets and restaurants is distributed by a corridor of sweatshops that line southern Queens and northern Brooklyn.
• Overtime is hardly ever paid, no retirement benefits, no health care, extreme discrimination, extremely heavy work without appropriate health and safety standards.
• The company owes them 260 thousand in this labor board case after a full trial.
• The employer had the chance to make their case,  call their witnesses, they lost. That order has been enforced, but Flaum is still resisting. They’re resisting for one reason. Immigration.
• We’ve had members there at Flaum, no question where they’re from, say no to abuse, say no to conditions where Latino workers are called cockroaches.
• It’s despicable, we need to put all our energy and all our heart into opposing this type of discrimination.
• Brandworkers: We’re very pleased to report we stared down their Taft-Hartley charges at the board.
• December 8th, 2010 at the Labor Board of Brooklyn / 2 Metro Tech Center / Brooklyn, NY /
• Focus On The Food Chain / Facebook

Guest – Daniel Gross, attorney, co-founder and executive director of Brandworkers International, a non-profit organization protecting and advancing the rights of retail and food employees.

—

Human Rights Groups File Legal Petition on Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Camps for Displaced in Haiti

It’s been almost a year since Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake took the lives of nearly 200 thousand people and left 1.5 million homeless. Now, women and girls living in the camps have lived in fear of the constant threat of rape and violence.

Groups of attorneys and advocates for displaced women in Haiti are calling for urgent action to confront an epidemic of sexual violence in the camps. On-the-ground investigations have revealed a shocking pattern of rape, beatings and threats against the lives of Haitan women and girls. A petition submitted by the groups to the the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights calls for the IACHR to require the Haitian government to take action such as installing lighting in the camps and provide housing.

Bill Quigley, Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said “The ultimate solution here is permanent, safe housing for Haitians. Unfortunately, the international community has reneged on its commitment to provide essential funds for rebuilding and the U.S., in particular, has not delivered even one cent of the reconstruction funding it pledged.  Women are being forced to live in extremely unsafe conditions for the foreseeable future and it is a deplorable failure on the part of those who made such a show about standing with the Haitian people in their greatest hour of need.”

Attorney Bill Quigley:

• I was in Haiti, and visited a  number of the camps with some grass roots womens’ organizations.
• I really was shocked by how terrible things were there. Still over a million people who are homeless. They’re really not camps. Every park, every school yard, every backyard, every churchyard has people living in it. Over 1300 hundred of these camps.
• None of these camps have running water or electricity or proper sanitation or food availability.
• Women and children are much more vulnerable when chaos hits.
• In one community, tens of thousands line up in the morning and afternoon just to get water.  If you go to the bathroom at night, you run a real risk of being assaulted or raped.
• The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.
• They don’t want the UN to be the security down there, by and large they’re considered occupiers by the people of Haiti.
• They’re preserving order but the order is that 90 percent of the people are disenfranchised.
• Somebody with a gun or machete is empowered when all you have for protection is a plastic sheet.
• A few people can terrorize thousands and thousands of folks. Every single day is a survival day.
• Only 2 percent of the rubble has been removed.
• You can’t depend only on volunteers. Volunteers can’t build hospitals.
• The legal action filed is asking to hold the United Nations and the international community in the way the aid is being spent that is not prioritizing the safety of women and girls.
• We included in that dozens of reports of kidnapping, starving and women having to sell themselves to survive.
• I’m not sure I could live that way for a month, less than a month. Toilet facilities used by thousands of people that’s far away to get to. Mario Joseph, Haitian human rights lawyer.
• Three sources of power in Haiti, the Haitian government, the US-UN and the NGO community.
• Five cents out of every dollar actually goes to the Haitian government. Bill Clinton has more power than anybody else in Haiti.

Guest - Bill Quigley, Legal Director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, a national legal and educational organization dedicated to advancing and defending the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Bill joined CCR on sabbatical from his position as law professor and Director of the Law Clinic and the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University New Orleans. He has been an active public interest lawyer since 1977.

———————————————————————————–

——

 Law and Disorder November 1, 2010: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Omar Khadr Plea Deal

——-

The Color of Law: Ernie Goodman, Detroit, and the Struggle for Labor and Civil Rights

The Color of Law recreates the compelling  story of Ernie Goodman, one of the nation’s preeminent defense attorneys for workers and the militant poor.  Author’s Steve Babson, Dave Riddle and David Elsila tell the story from the beginning, starting at Goodman’s early years as a corporate lawyer to his conversion to labor law during the Great Depression. From Detroit to Mississippi, Goodman saw police and other officials giving the “color of law” to actions that stifled freedom of speech and nullified the rights of workers and minorities. The Color of Law demonstrates that the abuse of power is non-partisan and that individuals who oppose injustice can change the course of events. Published by Wayne State University Press.

Bill Goodman:

• The book goes beyond my Dad as just an individual person who led a wonderful life and talks about the experience of going through the 20s, the 30s, the 40s, the 50s and 60s and even into the 70s.
• His awakening as a political person, came about out of the formation of the labor movement in the United States.
• He was one of the key people that provided legal counseling to the UAW.
• The sit down strike in Flint, Michigan:  Governor Frank Murphy refused to send in the National Guard troops.
• Literally taking power and grabbing these factories from huge corporations was enormously important and symbolic. Ernie Goodman and others ended up representing UAW during McCarthy period.
• George Crockett was one of the most courageous people I’ve ever known in my life. He would not bend.
• My Dad got one of those Attica grand jury cases.
• Colman Young was highlighted in this period. Our law firm took the lead in the National Lawyers Guild saying this has to be the priority of the guild to represent the civil rights movement.
• Ernie Goodman grew up in the Jewish ghetto in Detroit

———–
Steve Babson:

• When Ernie Goodman died in 1997, his wife Frieda wanted some way of chronicling his life. She contacted Dave Elsila and he contacted Dave Riddle, and began writing the book.  Dave Riddle became ill. We saw what a wonderful start he made to the book so, we picked it up and I became the lead writer in 2005 and 2006.
• Ernie was not unlike millions in the US that confronted the collapse of capitalism.
• They were collecting the cadavers off the streets every morning (in Detroit, during Depression)
• He was a repo-man, repossessing furniture, which brought him face to face with the unemployed councils and some of the early organizing in response to the Depression.
• He finally has a conversion crisis, where he finds his way to the other side of barricades, where he joins those contesting the outcomes of the Great Depression.  It’s the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the UAW and this upsurge of worker mobilization on the job on behalf of industrial unions to turnback the Great Depression that leads to the black and white unity in the workplace.
• The Civil Rights Federation was supported by these new unions. It was the Civil Rights Federation that not only questioned segregation in neighborhoods and on the job, but the role of these vigilante groups. (The Black Legion) that were trying to roll back the New Deal and the CIO.
• The Lawyers Guild represented a progressive alternative and on that basis quickly grew in the late 30s to about 5000 members.  90 percent of the Guild was driven from its ranks from this concerted and fabricated web of lies, typical of the McCarthy era.
• Ernie Goodman takes the Guild to the South, first Virginia, then Mississippi.

Guest - Steve Babson, one of the 3 authors, Steve is a labor educator and union activist living in Detroit for the last 32 years with his wife, Nancy Brigham. He received his doctorate in U.S. History in 1989 from Wayne State University, where he also worked as an instructor in the Labor Studies Center from 1985 to 2006.  Steve has published six books, including Working Detroit: The Making of a Union Town and Lean Work: Empowerment and Exploitation in the Global Auto Industry.

Guest – Bill Goodman, former legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights has been an extraordinary public interest lawyer for over 30 years, and has served as counsel on issues including post-Katrina social justice, public housing, voting rights, the death penalty, living wage, civil liberties, educational reform, constitutional rights, human rights work in Haiti, and civil disobedience.

——–

Foreclosure Scandal: Last Stage of Mortgage Scams

Big banks have resumed the foreclosure process in 23 judicial states after a temporary suspension. Judicial states require a judge and court hearing for foreclosure proceedings, not so, for the remaining 27 non judicial states. Faulty databases that track mortgage foreclosures electronically have made big mistakes amid the high volume of mortgage defaults. Meanwhile, Bank of America started to file new paperwork for 102,000 foreclosures. Consumer advocates and lawyers for homeowners doubt Bank of America completed an accurate review of the paperwork. Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, expressed his skepticism to one media source, “These are lawyers. These are banks going to court and committing fraud,” he said. “For them to say this is a minor technical problem is mind-boggling.”

This is part 2 of the mortgage crisis. The same banks the public bailed out stand to make hundreds of billions more on these foreclosures of homes.

Ira Rheingold:

• We have a broken mortgage system. The same system that created all those terrible mortgages, that led people into default and losing their homes also created a mortgaging servicing that’s completely broken.
• Anything that would stop them from moving quickly they avoided, they figured they weren’t going to get caught.
• You have GMAC, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup.
• As a lawyer I’m offended by the law firms who are involved and really are knowingly committing fraud.
• These affidavits that they were putting before the court, the person signing them, said I have knowledge we are proper owner of the mortgage. I have knowledge this is the amount that’s owed.
• That person that was signing that affidavit was signing 500 that same day. They’re not going to suddenly have a staff to track down the original documents saying they have proper ownership.
• We’ve seen time and again those industries, those banks add fees they’re not allowed to charge, mis-ordering payments like we’ve seen in the credit card industry.
• The bottom line is what does this demonstrate? It demonstrates the banks can’t be trusted.
• What the foreclosure crisis has done is devastate communities across this country.
• The way we rebuild our economy is allowing homeowners to actually capable of affording thier house and stay in their homes.  We’re talking about 3 million foreclosures across the country.
• FHA is a mortgage that the federal government insures.
• http://www.foreclosurelegalassistance.org. You need to clean this mess up.

Guest – Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates. (NACA), an organization dedicated to protecting consumers from unfair and deceptive business practices.  At NACA, Mr. Rheingold has testified before both Houses of Congress on various mortgage lending and consumer finance issues, offered commentary before federal agencies charged with regulating financial service industries and protecting consumers, and helped draft amicus briefs on issues of great concern to consumers before the nation’s highest courts

———————————

 Law and Disorder July 26, 2010: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Groups Sue Virginia Prisons for Unconstitutional Banning of Jailhouse Lawyer’s Handbook
• Omar Khadr 23 years old / 8 Years in GTMO / Khadr Boycotts Trial

———-

Lynne Stewart Heard A Death Sentence Today

As many listeners know Judge John G Koeltl sentenced defendant, Lynne Stewart: 120 months incarceration in the Danbury Federal Correctional Institution Connecticut on five counts to be served concurrently.  Lynne Stewart is 70 years old, she’s a breast cancer survivor with other pending health issues.  We’re joined by Vinie Burrows today, she is the UN representative for the Women’s International Democratic Federation and the founding member of the Granny Peace Bridgade. Vinie Burrows made powerful statements in her article titled Lynne Stewart Heard A Death Sentence Today that calls terrorism by its real name under the draconian Patriot Act.

Vinie writes,  “over and over again in his remarks leading up to the sentencing, Judge Koeltl used the term “terrorist enhancement.” Those warning words bring up the specter of  some of the nastiest aspects of the Cold War and its present re-incarnation in the Patriot Act which by expanding law enforcement’s surveillance and investigative powers  represents a significant threat to civil liberties. Read the official text… “Uniting and Strengthening America by providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.  The Sentencing of Lynne Stewart by Michael Steven Smith.

Vinie Burrows:

• Being at Lynne Stewart’s court hearing was useful to see the judge, to see the players, the 2 prosecuting lawyers and to see Lynne Stewart who made a marvelous opening statement.  It was one of the great speeches before the bar
• I felt as he was reading, Judge  Koeltl was responding to each dictate of the appellate court.
• We have to define terror. We can’t go by what the legislative, judicial and now executive define as terror. We’re looking in the wrong places for terror.  A single mother with 3 children living in a shelter, she knows terror. When she doesn’t know where her next meal is coming from, that’s terror.
• When her home is foreclosed on, that’s terror, and of course our banks are the biggest terror of all.
• We can’t even think of Lynne Stewart when we talk of terror, she is a human rights defender. She’s been deprived of the ability to defend human rights.
• I think we have to go to “who are the terrorists?” who are the victims of terror?
• We have to talk about the state, the state usually the perpetrator of human rights violations.
• The state must recognize that poverty is a weapon of mass destruction.
• I think we need to talk about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a legal basis to mount some sort of appeal.
• Michael Ratner: This is the Time of the Toad (A Study of Inquisition In America)
• Lynne Stewart has another appeal against this severe sentence.

Guest – Vinie Burrows is an award-winning Broadway actress. She has been active at the United Nations Economic and Social Council on the issues of the status of women and Southern Africa. Burrows won the Paul Robeson Award in 1986.  She was to appear in a show titled Sister! Sister! at the University of Delaware in Newark in November 1991. She was to be a panelist in the 2000-2001 African Diaspora lecture series at the Center for Ideas and Society in Riverside, California.

——–

Mountain Top Removal Activists Arrested For Direct Action In Virginia (Updated)

Last week 4 activists with Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice were arrested for using direct action to shut down a coal mining mountaintop removal effort in Virginia. Two of the 4 activists locked themselves to heavy machinery in the coal mining pit and were later arrested. The activists say they are drawing public attention to the dangers associated with the Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment, which contain up to 8 billion gallons of toxic coal waste. The area is unstable, Brushy Fork’s foundation is built on a honeycomb of abandoned underground mines. If the foundation were to collapse, as others have, the toxic slurry could engulf communities nearly 14 miles away, according to Marfork Coal Co.’s emergency warning plan. Meanwhile, one of the activists, Jimmy Tobias was still in jail during this interview and is now released.

Dea Goblirsch:

• Mountain top removal is a destruction form of coal mining that uses explosives, that blow up the tops of mountains to get to the coal seams beneath.  It’s cheaper and more efficient than underground mining, it also employs fewer miners.
• So far there have more than 800 miles of peaks flattened. They also take the rubble from the tops of mountains and dump it into nearby valleys.  They are called valley fills. The creation of the valley fills cover up the headwater streams.
• A lot of these valleys feed into water systems that supply water to the Eastern United States.
• Brushy Fork is the largest earthen dam in the Western Hemisphere.
• Coal River Mountain was the highest elevation in the area that hadn’t been mountaintop removal mined.
• You can’t always see mountain top mining from the roadside, they tend to keep a veil of trees.
• The work we’re doing is primarily civil disobedience and direct action.  Tree sits within the blast range. Bails and sentencing are widely uneven.
• Community groups to start sustainable energy initiatives in Appalachia, we see this happening in Kentucky, and Virginia and other parts of the coal mining region.
• A woman publicly slapped Judy Bonds, the director of Coal River Mountain Watch.
• A strip miner threatened to slit the throat of a child

—–
Katie Huscsza:

• We attached ourselves to the high wall miner (equipment) for 4 hours.
• Me and Colin were charged with trespassing, conspiracy and obstruction.
• There are around 30 people this summer actively working to stop mountain top removal.
• We I first learned about it (MTR) I almost didn’t believe that something so awful and destructive could be taking place

—–

Guest – Dea Goblirsch with Climate Ground Zero and Katie Huscsza, also with CGZ had locked herself to highwall coal mining machines, arrested and released on bail.

Music interludes in this segment by Canton Becker

——————————————————————————–

 Law and Disorder July 12, 2010: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• G20: Canadian Police do not have special powers under their public works act
• New UK government publishes major reports on Bloody Sunday and to settle damages for Guantanamo torture.

—–

C0-host Michael Smith talks with attorney Jim Lafferty about the upcoming anti-war conference in Albany, New York, July 23-25. Noam Chomsky, internationally renowned political activist, author, and critic of U.S. foreign and domestic policies; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Professor Emeritus of Linguistics is the keynote speaker. Click here for flyer (PDF) Groups sponsoring the event:   After Downing Street,  Arab American Union Members Council, Bail Out the People Movement, Black Agenda Report, Campus Antiwar Network, Campaign for Peace and Democracy, Citizen Soldier,  Code Pink, Grandmothers Against the War, Granny Peace Brigade, International Action Center, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, May 1^st Workers and Immigrant Rights Coalition, National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, National Lawyers Guild, Office of the Americas, Peace Action, Peace of the Action, Progressive Democrats of America, Project Salam, September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, The Fellowship of Reconciliation, U.S. Labor Against the War, Veterans for Peace, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Voters for Peace,Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, The World Can’t Wait.

—

Iraq War Veteran, Conscientious Objector and Musician Clifton Hicks

Clifton Hicks is an activist with the Iraqi Veterans Against the War. Hicks is disabled and enrolled as an Anthropology student at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.  Appalachian State is a center for old-time music, and Hicks is also an accomplished musician and banjo player.  Cliff Hicks is psychologically disabled and got out of the Army as a conscientious objector several years ago. In the Spring issue of The Veteran, published by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, there’s printed the following chant, that is repeated by soldiers in training to go to Iraq.  “I went down to the market where all the people shop, I pulled out my machete, and I began to chop,  I went down to the park where all the children play, I took out my machine gun and I began to spray.” This is the kind of psychological brutalization that our young men are forced to endure that turn them into creatures they never thought they’d become.

Clifton Hicks:

• I was in 9th grade when 9/11 happened.  I called the recruiter when I was 16, to try and get in.
• I saw Muslim and Arabic people and thought they were all out to get us.
• I listened to a lot of daytime AM right-wing radio. I had the ole cliche patriotic notions going.
• I wanted to go combat arms from the start, I figured if I was going into the Army, I wanted to fight.
• My feet were on the ground in Iraq in October 2003. The guys I was with that had already been there for a while had gotten pretty nasty. Guys get nasty, because their friends get killed and you realized you can’t trust anybody.
• We were the first division in combat to be out there for more than 13 months.
• They would literally give us candy and toys to give out to Iraqi kids at schools, the next day you’re ridin’ around and you see a b unch of kids get shot.
• I became an anti-war activist while I was still in the Army.  We started an IVAW chapter in Gainesville Florida

Guest – Clifton Hicks, Branch of service: United States Army (USA) / Unit: C Troop, 1st Squadron, 1st U.S. Cavalry Regiment / Rank: PFC / Home: North Carolina / Served in: Ft. Knox, OIF 1, Germany. Hicks a musician and is currently a student at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.

——————————————————————–

 Law and Disorder June 28, 2010: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Peter Erlinder Returns Home: Almost Disappeared.

—

Pittsburgh’s Citizen Police Review Board Demands G20 Police Records, Faces Dismantling

Pittsburgh’s city council is worried that if the city’s Citizen Police Review Board are allowed to scrutinize secret records of officer conduct during the G-20 economic summit, more protesters will sue and possibly jeopardize a $20 million liability insurance policy the city bought before the International Summit last year.  We could lose our homes over this,” said City Councilwoman Theresa Smith, chairwoman of the public safety committee.. “If we don’t have insurance, then it falls to us.”  The Seeds of Peace Collective and Three Rivers Climate Convergence have filed a joint federal lawsuit against the city charging that police violated their First and 14th Amendment rights at two events. Meanwhile, city hall has started the nomination process to remove most of the members of the Pittsburgh Citizen Police Review Board.

Elizabeth Pittinger:

• The Pittsburgh Citizen Police Review Board does have subpoena power and when they initiated their inquiry last October, a general request of a number of documents to be turned over so we could begin the inquiry. The city resisted providing that information.
• In December the chair of the Citizen Police Review Board issued a subpoena demanding that police reports specified by number be turned over in addition to operational material and documents.
• On March 18, the courts issued an order directing the city to provide the documents. They finally gave us a stack of more than 300 pages of police reports that were so heavily redacted they were substantively illegible.
• We went back to court seeking that they would have to provide the information in an un-redacted form and that has led to this controversy with city council.
• The Pittsburgh City Council is coming forward with a document called “the will of council” urging the police review board to slow down its inquiry.
• What has happened now is that the request of these G20 documents is really the vehicle that the city has now created to challenge the board’s right of access to any document.
• Protesters hit with OC Vapor – Invisible Vaporized Pepper Spray

• Law and Disorder Interview from Pittsburgh G20, Oct 2009
• Law and Disorder Interview – Jules Lobel – Pittsburgh G20, Sept 2009

Guest – Elizabeth Pittinger, the Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Citizen Police Review Board.

——–

“Cyber War” Creates Need For Internet “Kill Switch”

Senator Lieberman and Senator Susan Collins have the attention of civil liberties and privacy experts as they craft a bill that would allow the take over of the civilian internet network during an emergency.  After initial outcry, Senator Lieberman told the media,  the Internet Kill Switch bill is a matter of national security, and a kill switch is needed to disconnect immediately from a foreign nation in case of an attack. He continues,  “Right now, China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in a case of war. We need to have that here too,” Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010 is the name of the bill, and supporters argue that it is not a kill switch, but a way to divert traffic away from another country. It is added that the President already has broad powers to shut off any and all regulated telecommunications in the 1934 Telecommunications Act.

Tracy Rosenberg:

• I think its clear by the way the bill is currently written, the president could target political groups, but that’s not the intent of the bill.  It doesn’t mean it couldn’t be used in that fashion. The information sharing is quite similar to what happened after 9/11. It potentially creates a situation where corporate providers basically rat out parties at the instructions of the government. That could certainly be directed at political viewpoints.
• Internet sites could potentially be shut down. Information about who is posting to them, who is reading them and who owns them will become the property of the federal government.
• Another motivation behind the bill – Litigation and liability protection for internet companies.
• Internet use in China is considerably compromised

Guest – Tracy Rosenberg, Executive Director of Media Alliance since 2007.  She has organized and advocated for a free, accountable and accessible media system,focusing on the protection and sustainability of alternative media outlets from Pacifica Radio to low-power FM, public access and Indymedia, monitored the mainstream media for accuracy and fair representation and facilitated the training of numerous nonprofit organizations and citizen’s groups in effective communications.

—–

A Dark Day For Human Rights

The Supreme Court’s decision to preserve a vague prohibition on aiding and associating with terrorist groups severely reduced the First Amendment rights of American citizens. The decision could have serious impact on lawyers, journalists and academics who represent or study terrorist groups. The new decision came from a case by the Humanitarian Law Project that challenged the law of prohibiting “material support” to terror groups. The law projected wanted to provide advice to two terrorist groups on how to peacefully resolve their disputes with the United Nations and International Law. The Supreme Court ruled that the peaceful assistance is aiding terrorism.

Shane Kadidal:

• A number of Justices were skeptical about the ways this law may be applied to journalists, to lawyers representing unpopular clients.  “Speech discouraging violence can be banned under the First Amendment.”
• Solicitor General Kagan was asked if a lawyer is entitled to represent someone on the FTO list.
• Foreign Terrorist Organization List.
• Kagan says if you have some Constitutional right to be in court then the statutes should be interpreted in a way to allow the lawyer to represent someone in those circumstances.
• If you think about it, it took the Guantanamo lawyers 7 years to establish if there was a Constitutional right to challenge your detention if you’re a non-citizen.
• Kagan is saying that lawyers were taking their chances to represent Guantanamo lawyers in the first place.
• Lynn Cheney’s group : Keep America Safe.
• You couldn’t send books on Federalism to the Tigers of Tamil Eelam who are on the FTO list.
• The law defines material support to be more than tangible things like guns, and money but also things like personal services, expert advice and assistance. Those terms are so broad.
• (Treating a wounded person with your medical skills) Humanitarian aid during crisis at risk.
• That’s one of the fundamental problems with vague statutes. They give too much discretion to law enforcement, if everything is prohibited than law enforcement is going to be selective on who they choose to prosecute.  The government likes that. Greenpeace would easily qualify.
• President Clinton was the first to use this law directed at whole nations such as Nazi Germany or Cuba and instead direct them at political organizations.
• The government has used this law 150 times since 9/11.  Statute of limitations of 8 years.

Guest – Shane Kadidal senior managing attorney of the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City. He is a graduate of the Yale Law School and a former law clerk to Judge Kermit Lipez of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
————————————————————————

 Law and Disorder June 21, 2010: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Disturbing the Universe – On Point of View PBS June 22, 2010
• Cuban Five Update – Government Paid Reporters To Influence Jury
• Canadian RCMP Investigating U.S. and Syria Regarding Mahar Arar Rendition To Torture
• Newburgh Four – Clear Case of Entrapment (Past shows on Newburgh 4 -  June 2009 /April 2010)
• US Should Not Condone Israeli Attack – By Michael Ratner

—

Mavi Marmara Survivors Have A Right To Be Heard

Last week, two eyewitnesses who were aboard the Turkish ship that was stormed by Israeli Naval Commandos told their stories at the Brooklyn’s historic House of the Lord Church. As many listeners know 9 unarmed passengers were murdered, the oldest, Ibrahim Bilgen, was 61, the youngest was 19,  a U.S. citizen born in Troy , N.Y.  This speaking event almost didn’t happen.  Last Monday,  June 14, City Council speaker Christine Quinn, Reps. Jerry Nadler, Anthony Weiner, Carolyn Mahoney, Charles Rangel and others, gathered in Times Square to demand the State Department investigate the invited speakers for “ties to terrorism.” They want to prevent or delay their entry the United States.  Video

Bill Doares:

• U.S. filmmaker Iara Lee and British political organizer Kevin Ovenden, and Ahmet Unsal, a former Member of Turkey’s Parliament
• Their hands in my opinion are dripping with blood. Anthony Weiner actually called those on the ships “terrorists.” IHH Turkish Charity
• Every bullet fired by Israel is paid for by the United States.

Guest – Bill Doars with New York Labor Against the War / Al-AWDA New York

——–

24 Anti-Torture Activists Acquitted

Last week, 24 anti-torture activists were acquitted in trial for protesting at the US Capitol, calling for Guantanamo’s closure and an investigation of deaths at the prisoner detention camp. The activists were aquitted of charges of (quote) unlawful entry with disorderly conduct which stemmed from demonstrations in January 21 of this year. The date President Obama promised to close Guantanamo prison. “With his decision, the judge validated the effort of the demonstrators to condemn the ongoing crime of indefinite detention at Guantanamo,” says Bill Quigley, legal adviser to the defendants and the Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. FDL story

Bill Quigley:

• There was a big protest on the day that Guantanamo Bay prison was supposed to be closed by Witness Against Torture.
• Witness Against Torture started in 2005 by going to Cuba and marching to the gates of Guantanamo asking that the people there be released.
• In January this year they had a number of people who did a water-only fast for 11 days, it ended on January 21, 2010. They put 20 something people on the steps of the Capitol who were in orange jump suits and black hoods, unfurled a banner with rose petals in the rotunda.
• About 35 people were arrested that day. They were charged with unlawful assembly with intent to breach the peace. The trial was last week, and they were given the option of paying a 50.00 fine. Most wanted to go to court and put Guantanamo on trial in the superior court.
• I prepared and argued for a necessity defense, an international law defense and the importance of the first amendment to what they were doing.  I analagized their conduct to the people who resisted in Germany, the illegal crimes of Hitler and the like, the responsibility of citizens to challenge the crimes of their government.
• I think the judge didn’t want to get involved with this (activist work globally to shut down Guantanamo)
• Maybe a sign for a chance to turn the tide.

Guest - Bill Quigley, Legal Director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, a national legal and educational organization dedicated to advancing and defending the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Bill joined CCR on sabbatical from his position as law professor and Director of the Law Clinic and the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University New Orleans. He has been an active public interest lawyer since 1977.

——-

Seize British Petroleum Assets

As the blood red crude oil continues to gush from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, many industries and communities are being hit hard economically and environmentally. Meanwhile British Petroleum, Haliburton and Trans-ocean sidestep compensation and trade blame. Organizers of the Seize BP campaign say their demand is straightforward, “Seize assets of BP sufficient to compensate the people they harm.” There are several paths to compensation says Carl Messineo, attorney with the Partnership for Civil Justice and organizer of the Seize BP group. First,  the BP claims process whereby BP determines what to cover and how much to pay. On this road all power rests with BP. Second, through the courts, where people can file litigation and lawsuits against BP. Both BP and the Obama administration want to push everyone seeking compensation down these two paths, but these two paths lead nowhere.

Third, the seizure of BP’s assets in an amount commensurate with estimated damages and the delivery of immediate and ongoing compensation to all those who have suffered and will suffer lost jobs, wages and business for years to come.

Attorney Carl Messineo:

• Seize BP is a campaign that was started of course a few weeks ago, around a single, simple demand, which is the US government needs to seize assets of BP. Place them in trust and make them immediately available for people in the Gulf coast who are in severe desperation at this time.
• People can’t pay the mortgage with rhetoric, they can’t eat rhetoric.  The Obama administration can choose to take action. They can seize assets of BP.
• The president of the United States needs to request that Tony Hayward to please set aside some money? The president has legal authority, the Congress has legal authority. They can compel action.
• That’s their responsibility. Obama has acted like the calm captain of corporate interest within his presidency.
• He funneled health care through the corporations. Instead of serving the people, he’s really been subservient to corporate interest.  This is a defining moment for his presidency.
• BP was the responsible party, this was avoidable, why do we turn to BP and ask them “please?”
• Right now, we know that BP can put aside 20 billion dollars. This is the same corporation that chose not to put the 500 thousand dollar safety valve.
• The US government has decided over the years to be willingly incompetent. This is something that they admit. They are incompetent technologically and using government resources.
• Obama can’t say that this is inertia from the bad policy of George Bush.  He made personal decisions to expand offshore oil drilling. His administration is no worse than the others. There’s no change.
• Accidents happen, that’s why there needs to be independent redundant systems to respond to catastrophes.
• BP is a profit maximizer. It’s goal is to make as much money as possible, to limit its expenditures in order to maximize its profits.
• These handful of individuals hold in their hand, the safety and the ecology of clearly between  5 and 10 coastal states. It can’t be left to the profit making decisions.
• The largest share and holder of BP is the Chase Bank.

Guest – Attorney Carl Messineo with the Partnership for Civil Justice and organizer of SeizeBP

————————————-

 Law and Disorder May 24, 2010: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act – Sex Offenders May Be Kept In Jail After Serving Sentence (Preventive Detention Scheme)
• Glacial: Juveniles Will Not Get Life Without Parole Unless It’s Homicide
• Noam Chomsky Barred From Israel, Israel Backpeddles.
• Judge Baltazar Garzon Suspended – Update

—

Labor Relations at the American Red Cross and It’s Impact on Employee and Donor Safety (PDF)

Hosts look at a suprising report detailing the cost cutting efforts within America’s premier disaster relief and blood donor organization, the American Red Cross. Award winning Washington based reporter Philip Dine has put together an investigative summary titled – (PDF)Labor Relations at the American Red Cross and It’s Impact on Employee and Donor Safety that enumerates the effects of cut backs that have led to bad labor relations, bungled disaster relief, mishandled blood supplies and federal fines. The investigation examines a far less publicized issue that involves the treatment of Red Cross employees and the impact this has on the organization’s work, with high turnover, younger employees and lower wages.

Philip Dine:

• Over the years, the Feds saw that the Red Cross was not living up to its promises.
• Red Cross labor relations: For years the Red Cross has been intent on degrading the training and expertise of the employees.
• At one point you needed doctors on site for blood drives, then it became registered nurses, then it became nurses on call, and then non-medically trained supervisors.
• It seems that the Red Cross wants to have more management control and lower pay and that basically means a disposable work force.
• Management mess: 10 Executive directors in 12 years.
• High turnover at the top, a budget deficit, despite the main money maker – the blood supply which they get for free. It accounts for 2/3 of revenue.  Calling for an audit
• Workers increasingly hired from fast food outlets with no experience, workers see co-workers improperly inserting needles into people. More articles
• I’ve been covering labor for 25 years/ Please contact Philip Dine directly at – philipmdine@aol.com

Guest – Philip Dine author of “State of the Unions: How Labor Can Strengthen the Middle Class, Improve Our Economy, and Regain Political Influence.”  Philip Dine is teaching a labor-management course at the George Washington University School of Business this fall.  State of the Unions has won honorable mention for best book about labor or work of the past five years from the United Association for Labor Education.

———–

Medical Students Advocate Against Health Professional Participation in Torture

Last year it was confirmed that doctors and psychologists were directly involved in the supervision, design and execution of torture at U.S. military and intelligence facilities. This is a violation of state laws and professional ethics. These “health professionals” that were involved in the torture still hold their professional licenses to practice. Legislation introduced in New York by Assemblyman Richard Gottfried and Senator Tom Duane would reinforce existing ethical and legal responsibilities by prohibiting state-licensed doctors and other health professionals from participating in such practices. The law would also call for legal protection to resist and report any involvement in acts of torture and abuse. Last week, medical students and health professionals descended on Albany to meet with law makers to advocate the passage of this historic legislation. Physicians For Human Rights / When Healers Harm

Dr.Allen Keller:

• If you’re a health professional that participated in torture, you can lose your license.
• Health professionals were front and center and complicit in this policy of torture.
• Medical professionals provided sanitizing and rationalization for those infamous torture memos.
• During water-boarding there would be a doctor there. This is clearly a breach of medical and professional ethics.
• Licenses issued by the state.  Torturers relied heavily on medical opinion.
• The state chapter of the New York Psychological Association has endorsed this bill.
• What I believe is that the interrogator looks at the health professional and says, well, if it gets out of hand, the medical professional will stop me.
• Suvivorsoftorture.org – The Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture provides comprehensive medical and mental health care, as well as social and legal services to survivors of torture and war traumas and their family members. In the past year alone we provided these multidisciplinary services to more than 600 people from 70 countries.

Guest - Dr. Allen Keller, founder and director of the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture. In addition to serving as a primary care physician for many patients in the Program (Dr. Keller speaks French and Spanish). Dr. Keller oversees and coordinates the provision of medical services for Program patients, working with other primary care physicians and medical specialists affiliated with the program.

———————————————–