Law and Disorder Aug 23, 2010: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Rights Groups Release Documents From (ICE) Agency FOIA Lawsuit
  Groups Call “Secure Communities” Program a Racial Profiling Dragnet That Undermines Community Policing and Public Safety
• Descendents Appeal to UN Over Latest Mamilla Cemetery Demolitions

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In the Land of the Free, a film by Vadim Jean

Director Vadim George joins us to discuss his recent documentary film “In the Land of the Free.” As many listeners may know, the Angola 3 are Robert King, Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace. Each had arrived to the Louisiana State Penitentiary in the late 1960s.  While in prison, and in contact with Black Panthers, the men helped build a prison chapter of the Black Panthers.  They organized inmates to end systematic rape and violence and worked as jailhouse lawyers.  The men have spent a combined century in solitary confinement in the Angola prison. Vadim’s powerful documentary explores the issues of accountability and examines the biases against the sentencing of African Americans compared to Whites and Latinos.  The film is narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, and it’s noted toward the end, that there is a pending civil suit  ‘Wilkerson, Wallace and  Woodfox’ vs the State of Louisiana, ruled by the US Supreme Court and to go to trial based that their 30+ years in solitary confinement is “inhumane and unconstitutional”. This case could stop long-term solitary confinement in US prisons.
Vadim Jean:

• I was friends with Anita Roddick, she knew Robert King, and when she passed away in 2007, Robert King was one of the speakers at her memorial.  They wouldn’t let me film in the prison.
• The Angola 3 came together in the New Orleans parrish prison in the 1970s.
• The criminals were put in with the Black Panthers and the Black Panthers educated the criminals.
• In the 1970s Angola was the bloodiest prison in America.
• Robert King was told why he was kept in solitary confinement after 25 years in CCR (solitary confinement)
• Because he was being investigated for the murder of Brent Miller, which happened when he wasn’t even in the prison.  They’re incredible human beings. They’re strong men. They’re self educated, in prison.
• I think they have their side, the fact that they know they’re innocent, and that makes you strong, that’s made them incredibly strong.  They refused to be beaten.
• Robert is free. His conviction was overturned in 2001. People have reacted strongly to the film.
• I’ve tended to make drama comedies. I made a completely mad film called Jiminy Glick in Lalawood with Martin Short.
• I made this film for Anita. (Anita Roddick)  The Roddick Foundation.

Guest – Vadim Jean, began his career directing commercials for products such as Blockbuster Video, Woolworths, The Observer and Mercury 121 Mobile Phones. He then moved on to music videos for Elton John and Oasis before co-directing his first feature film, Leon the Pig Farmer (1992). For his work he won an Evening Standard British Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer, a Chaplin Award for Best First Feature at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

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Law and Disorder Barack Obama Series – CCR Staff Attorney Shane Kadidal

We’re joined by Center for Constitutional Rights staff attorney Shane Kadidal to give us an overview on several critical topics we’ve been following over the years here on Law and Disorder. We look at what is happening in Guantanamo right now, the Obama policy of preventive detentions and the state of Habeas Corpus in the United States.  In January of 2009 Barack Obama issued orders to close Guantanamo Bay prison. There was talk of transferring prisoners to a supermax prison in the United States.  Military tribunals move forward for Guantanamo prisoners.

Shane Kadidal:

• What we won is the right to get into court and challenge the legality of your detention. CCR won that in 2008
• Obama gets into office and says he’s going to close Guantanamo Bay Prison in a year.
• Obama to set up expert agency to decide what to do with people in Guantanamo prison
• About 50 cases have gone forward and we (CCR) won 72 percent of the cases
• About 180 left in Guantanamo.  Obama has improved physical conditions for detainees in Guantanamo, but they’re still stuck there. Nothing much has changed, we see stasis, there isn’t much political movement.
• About a month into the administration, the Obama Department of Justice says our position is the same as the Bush administrations on Bagram AFB prison
• We’re taking the same legal position about executive power as the previous administration – state’s secrets about rendition
• Six hundred people in Bagram right now. Bagram is an active war zone, can’t have courts interferring
• About 30 of the remaining 180 in Guantanamo will be charged. Most of the people brought there were innocent. The victim of profiling policies.
• General Stone says 400 of the 600 hundred in Bagram Prison have done nothing and should be released immediately.  Task Force report on Guantanamo prisoners. 10 percent leaders of Al-Qaeda, 20 percent had a logistics role, others are low level soldiers. This is false.
• There are innocent people in Guantanamo, who have been there for 8 years.
• We still have a military commissions, an indefinite detention system. Lieberman proposing to strip citizenship from terrorism suspects so they can be interrogated without Miranda warnings.
• Moving Guantanamo Prison to Thomson Prison in Illinois.
• Obama as committed to removing checks on executive power

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.

Past shows with Shane Kadidal

 

 Law and Disorder August 9, 2010: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Longtime activist Marilyn Jean Buck passes.
• Puerto Rican Activist Lolita Lebron Remembered
• Attorney and radio host Jim Lafferty Anti-War Conference Debrief

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Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Released Today After 30 Years

Last week Puerto Rican community activist Carlos Alberto Torres was released from a federal prison in Pekin, Ill after serving 30 years as a political prisoner. Torres was convicted of seditious conspiracy – conspiring to use force against the lawful authority of the United States over Puerto Rico. Torres was punished for being a member of an armed clandestine organization called the FALN – Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (English: “Armed Forces of National Liberation) which had claimed responsibility for bombings in Chicago that resulted in no deaths. He wasn’t accused of the bombings only of being a member of FALN.

In 1898 Puerto Rico was ceded to the US by Spain as war bounty in the treaty that ended the Spanish-American War. Still, the US has occupied it since. Torres was sentenced to 78 years in prison but used international law in his defense. Torres argued that the courts of the colonizing country may not criminalize captured anti-colonial combatants, but must turn them over to an impartial international tributnal to have their status adjudicated.

There was an outpouring of support to free Carlos. His attorney, National Lawyers Guild member Jan Susler of Chicago, notes, “Carlos is being released from prison due to the unflagging support of the Puerto Rican independence movement and others who work for human rights. The more than 10,000 letters of support from the U.S., Puerto Rico, Mexico and other countries sent a strong message to the Parole Commission.”

Jan Susler:

• Carlos got a disproportionate sentence, a punishment for who he was politically. He did 30 years, standing tall and maintaining his political integrity.
• People stop him on the street, and embrace him.
• The bombing in which he was accused of was only property damage.  If he had killed or injured someone and convicted as a social prisoner, he would gotten a less sentence and served far less time.
• He was always treated more harshly than the other prisoners.
• Right after 9/11, the US rounded up political prisoners and put them in the hole for months.
• You’re always watched, you’re always monitored. Every prisoner has access to email, Carlos did not.

Carlos Torres:

• The reception that I’ve had here in Puerto Rico, has been, . . there’s no way to describe it.
• I never imagined that it would be so loving, so fantastic, so supportive.
• The only cloud is that we still have 2 Puerto Rican prisoners in jail, Oscar Lopez Rivera and Avelino González Claudio
• We landed in Puerto Rico and we were met by a mob of friends and family.
• I was paroled by the US parole commission. I was given conditions and I accepted those conditions.
• Lolita Lebron, we don’t have enough time to describe in words what that woman demonstrated and gave as an example throughout her whole life to us.
• During the wake and funeral, a lot of people referred to Lolita Lebron as “the Mother of our Homeland”
• I helped carry her coffin.
• My immediate plans are to develop a pottery studio

Guest – Attorney Jan Susler joined People’s Law Office in 1982 after a six year stint as Clinical Law Professor at Prison Legal Aid, the legal clinic at Southern Illinois University’s School of Law. Her long history of work on behalf of political prisoners and prisoners’ rights includes litigation, advocacy and educational work around USP Marion and the Women’s High Security Unit at Lexington, KY. Her practice at PLO focuses on police misconduct civil rights litigation, which has lately included wrongful conviction litigation on behalf of people exonerated after serving many years in prison, innocent. Her work with the Puerto Rican Independence Movement and with progressive movements challenging U.S. foreign and domestic policies has been a constant throughout her 30 years as a lawyer.

Guest – Carlos Alberto Torres member of Puerto Rico’s independence movement and the longest-serving Puerto Rican political prisoner. He was convicted and sentenced to 78 years in a U.S. federal prison for seditious conspiracy – conspiring to use force against the lawful authority of the United States over Puerto Rico.  He served 30 years, being released on July 26, 2010.

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CCR and ACLU Sue Obama Over Limits On Lawyers Seeking To Represent Suspect on Administration “Kill List”

The Center for Constutional Rights and the ACLU have filed a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s authority to use the military and the CIA to kill the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. He’s an American citizen, accused of terrorism but hasn’t recieved a trial. He is believed to be hiding in Yemen. Because it would be against the law to challenge the government’s attempt to kill al-Awlaki, the lawsuit was filed against the Treasury department, that challenged a regulation that would require the Center and the ACLU to obtain its permission in order to provide uncompensated legal services for Mr al-Awlaki.

Vince Warren, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, argued that international law did not permit a government to kill people far from combat zones, and in the case of a US citizen, Vince said that  such a policy also violates the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment — and is a dangerous precedent.

CCR Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei:

• The case that we filed last week was a challenge to a regulatory scheme under the Department of Treasury and OFAC which prohibits transactions with anyone designated as a terrorist by the government. That includes pro-bono legal services.
• Al-Awlaki is the subject of an assassination order by the president, ordering and authorizing the CIA and Special Forces to target and kill him.
• OFAC powers go back to the 1970s IEEPA, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
• All we have against this guy are allegations.
• The CIA, which is one of the agencies that carries out these killings has primarily used drones. We think that drones would be the primary way that this killing would be carried out.

Guest -  CCR staff attorney Pardiss Kebriaei joined the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in July 2007. She provides direct representation to several of CCR’s clients at Guantánamo and helps coordinate CCR’s network of hundreds of pro bono counsel representing other prisoners. She also focuses on using international human rights mechanisms to bring international pressure to bear on the U.S. government and hold other governments accountable for their role in the violations at Guantánamo.
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CCR Attorney Legal Observer Arrested in Arizona Immigration Protests

Legal observers from the National Lawyers Guild and the Center for Constitutional Rights were arrested last week during mass demonstrations of protesters who opposed Federal law 287G, Arizona law SB 1070. What happened?  CCR Legal Director Bill Quigley told the media, Arizona is starting to act like Mississippi in the civil rights days. Among those arrested were National Lawyers Guild officer Roxana Orrell and CCR staff attorney Sunita Patel.

Sunita Patel:

• It was my first time in Maricopa County. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is known for branding the most horrible incarnation of 287G and ICE police collaboration.
• 287G is the statute by which this program is authorized by Congress. He also has what’s called a secure communities program which allows for the identification of anyone who is a non-citizen through a finger printing system.  287G allows for local agencies to implement immigration law through a memorandum of understanding with the federal government.
• At the same time he implements what’s called “crime suppression sweeps” Where he takes his units and regular citizens to sweep through neighborhoods.
• I spent the night in jail, I hadn’t planned on it. It was really an honor to be in solidarity with the rest of the protesters. I was charged with obstruction of a highway and public thoroughfare and failure to obey a police officer.  People in Arizona call it a war zone when it comes to immigration enforcement.
• Arizona has also become the site for a spark of incredible activism and the growth of an incredible human rights movement.

Guest – CCR Staff Attorney Sunita Patel with racial profiling, immigrant rights and other human rights litigation. Prior to her position at CCR, she held a Soros Justice Fellowship at The Legal Aid Society, Immigration Law Unit in New York where she represented immigrant detainees in removal proceedings and worked with criminal justice and human rights groups to create independent community oversight for detention operations through public accountability boards.  Sunita is a former law clerk for the Honorable Judge Ivan L. R. Lemelle in the Eastern District of Louisiana.
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 Law and Disorder August 2, 2010: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Holy Land Foundation Case Update

Hosts talk with Noor Elashi, Noor is the daughter of Holy Land Foundation prisoner Ghassan Elashi. Ghassan is currently being held in the Communications Management Unit in Marion, Illinois and has now had his visitations canceled. Noor says visitations have been cruelly obstructed by a Texas prison guard while at the prison in Seagoville Texas in October 2009.  Noor’s brother Omar is 9 and has Down’s syndrome, during a visitation, Omar ran up to his father to give him a hug and the guard says “What Mr. Elashi, you think you’re an exception?”  After the visit, the guard filed a complaint against Ghassan for not following instructions.   The same prison guard during Thanksgiving that year, prevented his sons from entering the room during a visit. Ghassan called the guard evil and compared him to a guard at Abu Ghraib. The guard filed another complaint. After an internal investigation, Ghassan’s visitations were banned for 6 months.  The visitation doesn’t usually apply when an inmate transfers to another prison, but when Ghassan was transferred to the CMU in Marion, the visitation ban was upheld. www.Freedomtogive.com

As many listeners may know, Holy Land Foundation was the largest Muslim charity in the United States,  the Bush administration shut it down after the September 11th attacks, and arrested five people from the charity. During the trial, the prosecution used unrelated video of suicide bombers to emotionally sway the jury.

Noor Elashi:

• Book in progress: Eyes Like My Father, A Daughters Narrative of Displacement
• Father was 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.
• These are the very same Zakat committees that USAID, the Red Cross and UN NGOs were giving money to.
• The Holy Land Foundation, co-founded by Ghassan Elashi, was the largest charity in the US until the Bush Administration with an executive order shut it down 3 months after 9/11.
• The material support law is a very flawed law and singles out Muslim charities and with the recent upholding of the material support law by the Supreme Court, I feel that Americans are at risk.
• There were 2 trials (for Ghassan Elashi) the first in 2007 which looked at the Zakat committees. Jury deadlocked on most counts against the HLF. The prosecution showed the jury scenes of terrorism, buses being blown up expecting the jury to be prejudiced by seeing this and convict Ghassan Elashi, and they didn’t.
• In the second trial, the prosecutors were more aggressive, the defense attorneys, families and civil libertarians around the world were flabbergasted, when the jury delivered all guilty verdicts after 9 days of deliberation.
• Trials took place in Dallas, Texas. Ghassan Elashi, Noor’s father and the CEO of the Holy Land Foundation recieved a 65 year sentence. Other fund raiser reps were sentenced between 15 and 20 years.
• Ghassan Elashi currently in a CMU – Communications Management Unit in Marion, Ilinois – termed “little Guantanamos.”
• As far as visitations go, those in and of themselves are cruel and unusual punishment because you travel all that way and you can’t touch, there is a plexi-glass between you and its monitored live in Washington DC.
• Four of the defendants are being held in CMUs, 2 in Marion, Illinois and 2 in Terra Haute, Indiana.
• My father is hopeful and optimistic, he does yoga and pilates, reads the Quran.
• It was New York Senator Chuck Schumer who co-authored the anti-terrorism law in 1996 that strengthened the material support provision.
• I’m the eldest of 3 boys and 3 girls. It’s a double tragedy, these convictions that were made possible by “fear” in the courtroom and the 65 year sentence.  Appeal: they have until August 3 to file briefs.
• Humanitarian Law Project Supreme Court Case upheld the material support provision.
• During both trials, the prosecutors brought in an anonymous Israeli intelligence officer who testified under a fake name. He said could smell Hamas.
• During the testimony, the court benches were cleared except for the family.
• Michael Ratner: After 9/11 they made it extremely dangerous to give money to Muslims anywhere in the world.
• Everybody is at risk at this point, even Jimmy Carter

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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Austerity: Why and for Whom? – Rick Wolff

We are very pleased to have with us Professor Rick Wolff to update us on where we’re in this ongoing global capitalist crisis.  Austerity has appeared in the titles of many recent articles on the global capitalist crisis. What is it? Rick Wolff writes in his article titled Austerity: Why and for Whom? the efforts to broaden the recovery beyond one year have failed and that failure has cost Washington trillions in borrowed funds from lenders. Those lenders now demand guarantees that those loans will be repaid to them with interest. The guaranteed demanded by lenders is “austerity.“  To collect this austerity, the banks (lenders) want governments to raise taxes or cut government spending or both.  Economic Recovery for the Very Few by Rick Wolff. An extreme burden imposed on the global economy. Rick asks, Why not collect austerity from tax exempt multinational corporations, churches and private institutions?

Professor Rick Wolff:

• Governments around the world borrowed enormous amounts of money, never seen before surge of borrowing.  The urgency of the second impending crisis of capitalism, the second major collapse of capitalism in 75 years was so intense, the terror in the ranks of business was so complete, that nobody stopped to worry, just lend us lots of money, take toxic assets off our books and so on.
• Suddenly, the creditors who are lending to the governments are beginning to get nervous. They’ve been going to the governments and saying we don’t want to be stuck with a debt that your people might not pay back.
• Lenders:  You either have to raise taxes on your people, save it and put it into a special account which will only be used to pay us interest on the principle or you cut your programs, your public services and put that into the same account.
• The name of the government’s response to the demand of its creditors is “austerity.”  Imposing on society a severe regimen of rising taxes, or cut government spending to please and satisfy creditors.
• Yale, a multi-billion dollar corporation with billions of annual income, pays no taxes. Rather than increase the taxes of individual persons, why don’t we do what should have done long ago.
• Take a look at California, they’re laying thousands and thousands of state employees.
• No Economic Crisis: Annual world wealth report, the income of the top wealthiest people 2009 rose 17 percent.
• Banks are the buyers of government debt. The bankers produce a crisis, the government bails them out. The government borrows from the banks to bail them out.   The bankers know there is popular opposition.
• French action against austerity: trade unions organizing general strike which will close everything in September in France.  Will the pressure rise within US politicians to re-negotiate this debt?
• The state of Oregon, the democratic party controls both houses of legislature. To pay for the 700 million dollar gap over a 2 year period they raised taxes on business and wealthy people.

Guest – Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. He also teaches classes regularly at the Brecht Forum in Manhattan.

 

 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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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 Law and Disorder July 19, 2010: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• The Sentencing of Lynne Stewart – Michael Steven Smith

Natsu Saito,   Meeting the Enemy: American Exceptionalism and International Law

Meeting the Enemy: American Exceptionalism and International Law is the title of Natsu Saito’s recent book, Natsu is an attorney and professor of Law at Georgia State University’s College of Law in Atlanta. The book boldly points out how the United States violated international law since its declaration of independence. As often discussed here on Law and Disorder, international courts and institutions have been at the forefront of holding the torture conspirators accountable.  Meeting the Enemy gives disturbing insight into the origins of American exceptionalism.

Natsu Saito:

• The duality is 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 - Natsu Taylor Saito teaches international law and human rights, race and the law, immigration, criminal procedure, and professional responsibility, and is an advisor to the Asian American Law Student Association and the Hispanic Student Bar Association. Professor Saito’s 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. Read more.

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Elena Kagan and the Supremes - Brecht Forum

We hear excerpts from a discussion on the confirmation hearings of Elena Kagan, and how her position may influence the direction of the Supreme Court.

Panelists:

Martin Garbus – one of the country’s leading trial lawyers. Mr. Garbus aggressively represents his clients in the courts and in the media. He has appeared before the United States Supreme Court as well as the highest state and federal courts in the nation. His devotion to ethics, justice and the law has earned him respect among the legal community and beyond as well as prominent awards. Time Magazine has named him “legendary . . . one of the best trial lawyers in the country,” while Newsweek , the National Law Journal and other media agree that Mr. Garbus is America’s “most prominent First Amendment lawyer,” with an “extraordinarily diverse practice.” The National Law Journal named him one of the country’s top ten litigators.

Margaret Ratner Kunstler – former Educational Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights. She’s an attorney and leads the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and heads the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice.

Anand Swaminathan - an associate at Vladeck, Waldman, Elias & Engelhard, P.C.  He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 2001 and the Harvard Law School in 2006.  Prior to joining Vladeck he was a law clerk for the Honorable Theodore H. Katz of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Michael Steven Smith – Law and Disorder co-host, author and New York attorney.  Michael Steven Smith is the author, editor, and co-editor of six books, including “The Emerging Police State,” by William M. Kunstler.  He has testified before committees of the United States Congress and the United Nations on human rights issues. Mr. Smith lives and practices law in New York City with his wife Debby, where on behalf of seriously injured persons he sues insurance companies and occasionally the New York City Police Department.

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

Updates:

• Peter Erlinder Returns Home: Almost Disappeared.

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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.

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“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.

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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.
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 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

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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

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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.

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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

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 Law and Disorder May 31, 2010: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

No End In Sight, Number One In War

What will you remember on Memorial Day?   US law officially proclaims Memorial Day “as a day of prayer for permanent peace.” – However, the US is much closer to permanent war than permanent peace – writes Bill  Quigley,  legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights in his recent article titled No End In Sight, Number One In War. The  article outlines, the rising costs of war, the damage to country and who reaping massive profits. At what point do we begin to transition to permanent peace?

Bill Quigley:

• Yes, politicians are making hay from the permanent war, but there’s also a lot of people who are making an awful lot of money from the US military.
• We discount the role they’re playing, in keeping the US constantly fearful and preparing for and perpetrating war in every place across the globe.
• This is something that people are afraid to talk about.
• The “Axis of Evil” spends less than one percent of what the US spends. This coming year the US will spend 708 billion dollars on war and another $125 billion for Veterans Affairs.
• Al-Qaeda spends less than one percent of one percent of what the US spends.
• You have to ask yourself “why?” Why are people in the United States more afraid than anybody in the whole world? Fanning the flames of fear. Behind the scenes are huge corporations that are making billions of dollars.
• We talk about Blackwater, but there are a couple corporations that dwarf Blackwater.
• Lockheed Martin, a huge corporation that runs almost entirely on tax payer money. 140 thousand employees.
• A corporation totally reliant on the United States Congress. You spend 125 thousand lobbying Congress and Congress doesn’t get some benefit from that.
• The US is spending 10 times more on the military than China.  Who is calling for accountability on this spending?

Guest – Bill Quigley. Bill is the 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.

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End The Korean War

Hosts get an update on the uneasy tensions between North and South Korea. A multinational investigation concluded last week that a North Korean submarine had torpedoed the 1200 ton warship called the Cheonan back in March killing 45 people. North Korea denies involvement in the sinking, South Korean defense ministry denies that any of its ships had crossed “Northern Limit Line.”  Meanwhile, the threat of sanctions against the already oppressed North Korean population escalate. South Korea and the Obama administration have agreed to initiate joint anti-submarine military exercises near North Korean border.  Right now, there are almost 29,000 U.S. troops in South Korea.

Eric Sirotkin:

• When you look into the history of the conflict, and we are still technically at war, as an armistice doesn’t technically end a war only stops the shooting.
• These kind of incidences occur because you don’t have a peace regimen to fall back on.
• There is a very conservative South Korean government. Very hawkish toward the North
• The intitial report of them torpedoing the boat, there are a lot of questions, there are people who are writing about Tonkin Bay, and thinking about.
• You have a choice to march toward war or go toward peace.
• The United States at this point is ramping up the rhetoric.
• Before this situation with the South and the North, we had a lot more exchanges and things were going in a positive direction.  If you think there’s no exit strategy after Iraq, look at Korea, sixty years later.
• We’re working with a campaign to end the Korean War.

Guest – Attorney Eric Sirotkin, is a member of the National Lawyers Guild and helped found Korean Peace Project. Eric Sirotkin, the founder and Director of Ubuntuworks,  LLC mixes his experience as a human rights lawyer, film producer, author and peacemaker. Over the years his peacemaking activities have taken him around the world, including India, Peru, Cuba, South Africa, Japan, North and South Korea, France,  Netherlands, Canada and China.  He contributed to dialogue on the new Constitution in South Africa, was a UN sponsored election observer at President Mandela’s election and coordinated an international monitoring Project of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

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Omar Khadr, First Military Commission Trial Under Obama

Last week the first military tribunal opened under the Obama administration. It is the case of Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen, military prosecutors say that Omar Kadr threw a grenade that killed a US Special Forces medic in Afghanistan and helped build roadside bombs to use against American soldiers. We look at why the Obama Administration is putting a detainee on trial who was 15 when he was captured and whether the self – incriminating statements he has made can be used as evidence.  Unless the Prime Minister acts to request repatriation, Khadr could face conviction by a jury of U.S. military officers based on evidence extracted by torture.

Attorney Jonathan Hafetz:

• International law is very clear on how you treat child soldiers. In 2001, military commissions were struck down by the Supreme Court, in 2006 in the Hamdan Case, Congress created them again.
• The hope was that Obama was going to close this chapter and end military commissions.
• Obama suspended military commissions for 4 months and brought it back.
• You have huge issues in Khadr’s case. He was a child soldier. He was accused of killing an American soldier in a fire fight. Number one, the US doesn’t seem to have any credible evidence not derived from torture or other abuse that Khadr actually killed the serviceman.
• Even if they had evidence that Khadr was responsible for the death of this serviceman, it’s not a war crime. It’s part of war but not a war crime.  The US government’s theory of war is totally distorted.
• On the day of the first war crimes trial of a juvenile in US history, the day its starts and new rules are handed out, I don’t think they had enough copies to give to all the council.

Guest – Jonathan Hafetz, attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project.

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 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

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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.

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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.

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 Law and Disorder May 17, 2010: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Watering Down Fundamental Rights:
• Miranda Rights Changing. Public Safety Exception
• Expanding the Exception to Defendant’s Rights.
• Presentment: Withing 24 hours of being detained, you must be brought before a judge.
• Obama Administration: Disaster on civil liberties.
• German Court Seeks Arrests of 13  CIA Agents

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Kagan “Loves” the Federalist Society

Hosts discuss Elena Kagan’s background with Francis Boyle, Professor of law at the University of Illinois. Boyle is author of “Tackling America’s Toughest Questions.” In his article titled  – - Supreme Court Pick: Kagan “Loves” the Federalist Society, – - Boyle notes Kagan explicitly endorsed the Bush administration’s bogus category of ‘enemy combatant,’ whose implementation has been a war crime in its own right. He also writes that “Kagan has actually said ‘I love the Federalist Society.’  Almost all of the Bush administration lawyers responsible for its war and torture memos are members of the Federalist Society.  Read - Dean Elena Kagan: Harvard’s Gitmo Kangaroo Law School — The School for Torturers

Law Professor, Francis Boyle:

• She has fully defended the hideous Bush atrocities, civil rights, human rights, civil liberties.
• No retreat or abandonment of the Bush positions.
• She (Kagan) did write this tome in the Harvard Law Review, equivalent to the Federalist Society, unitary executive power theory of the presidency.
• She’d be a total disaster on the cases that really count for the future of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
• She’s a neo-conservative and has no qualifications to speak of.
• (She) hired Jack Goldsmith, author of torture memos and helped set up kangaroo court system in Guantanamo. We are still fighting Kagan supporting the Bush war on terrorism.
• Kagan stated on National Public Radio on December 22, 2009, “I Love The Federalist Society”
• Obama and his people know that Kagan will be the spear carrier for presidential powers on the Supreme Court
• This is a very dangerous time for the future of our republic and Constitution.  The statement that she cares for the common people. . . she’s an elitist snob.
• There she is promoting globalization at Harvard Law School?? Hiring people to teach “globaloney” just to lick the boots of Larry Summers?  While dean at Harvard Law School, she was moonlighting at Goldman Sachs payroll.
• This is all incredibly incestuous. Unlike Bush who wasn’t a lawyer, Obama taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School, he should know better.

Guest – Professor Francis Boyle, A scholar in the areas of international law and human rights, Professor Boyle received a J.D. degree magna cum laude and A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in political science from Harvard University. Prior to joining the faculty at the College of Law, he was a teaching fellow at Harvard and an associate at its Center for International Affairs. He also practiced tax and international tax with Bingham, Dana & Gould in Boston.

He has written and lectured extensively in the United States and abroad on the relationship between international law and politics. His eleventh  book, Breaking All the Rules: Palestine, Iraq, Iran and the Case for Impeachment was recently published by Clarity Press. His Protesting Power: War, Resistance and Law has been used successfully in  anti-war protest trials.

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In Memory of Attorney Rhonda Copelon

Hosts talk with Cathy Albisa, executive director of the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative. about the human rights legacy of Rhonda Copelon.  Rhonda had a huge influence on changing international law for human rights.  She founded the International Women’s Human Rights Law Clinic.  

Lawyers You’ll Like series with Rhonda Copelon. Part 1 /  Part 2.

Attorney Cathy Albisa:

• I worked with Rhonda at CUNY,  we both co-counseled with CCR on a couple of cases.
• I met Rhonda on a car ride, a 25 hour car ride. We spent 25 hours talking about human rights in the United States.  Rhonda had a huge influence on NESRI
• Rhonda never stopped lamenting Harris v McRae, she was still furious and outraged.
• The assumption embedded in that case is the court is saying, we’re not responsible as a society, the poverty of this woman.  Copeland Fund For Gender Justice.  Rhonda thought it was critical that a progressive gender perspective be embedded into some body of work that really looked at these gender issues in a cross cutting way, that understood the relevance of poverty, the relevance of race, the relevance of sexual minorities.
• Rhonda was not a wealthy woman, she was a law professor and saved her money. She gave 1 million dollars for this fund and that was everything. The case that she says always saved my life was Filártiga v. Peña-Irala.
• She founded the International Women’s Human Rights Law Clinic. What she did with that clinic is challenge the traditional model of human rights law coming out of the United States.
• She made no claims of being objective, she was on the side of victims, of people with similar politics to her own.
• This changed international law. Rhonda: Don’t disregard the banal, the ordinary things that actually represent deep violations.
• The way Rhonda went about things, she merged intellectual capital with a strategic ferocity and personal good will and relationship building.
• She thought it was very important that people understand they’re part of a broad social justice and human rights movement.Cathy Albisa joins us today to talk about her work with the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative and Rhonda’s work as legal adviser to the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice.

Guest- Cathy Albisa, is a constitutional and human rights lawyer with a background on the right to health. Ms. Albisa also has significant experience working in partnership with community organizers in the use of human rights standards to strengthen advocacy in the United States. She co-founded NESRI along with Sharda Sekaran and Liz Sullivan in order to build legitimacy for human rights in general, and economic and social rights in particular, in the United States.

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