Civil Liberties, Supreme Court, Torture, Truth to Power
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Supreme Court Limits Protections For Government Whistleblowers.
Whistleblowers lose rights. The recent Supreme Court decision (Garcetti v. Ceballos) has removed key pieces from the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1986. The decision effectively limits First Amendment protection for government whistleblowers since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protections do not extend to government employees for comments made while performing their official duties, even when the employee is acting to expose alleged government wrongdoing.
Guest – Stephen Kohn – Chairman of National Whistleblower Center
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Chicago Torture Case Update – Chicago’s Guantanamo
A United Nations anti-torture panel has urged the United States to punish law enforcement officials who mistreated suspects in Chicago. The 10-member UN Committee Against Torture reported that the multimillion-dollar investigation into the alleged torture of 200 Black men in interrogation rooms during the 1970s and 1980s has not resulted in any prosecutions. According to a press release, nearly 200 African Americans were tortured by former Commander Jon Burge and detectives under his command at the Chicago Police Department. Among the torture techniques were electrically shocking genitals with cattle prods, suffocations with plastic bags and pistols jammed in mouths in a mock execution. Listen to Law and Disorder’s previous interview on this case.
Guest – Flint Taylor – attorney with The People’s Law Office
Tasers – Part 1
This is the first part of a three part series examining the use of Tasers by law enforcement. Lawsuit cases regarding the misuse of Tasers are numerous. Pages of these stories can be found in one Google news search using the search-term “Tasers.” Hosts Dalia Hashad and Michael Ratner interview Taser researcher and expert Ed Jackson formerly with Amnesty International. Jackson points out a critical lack of training among police officers using Tasers.
Guest – Ed Jackson – Former spokesman for Amnesty International.
Music – Sharon Jones – This Land Is Your Land / Phil Ochs – I Kill Therefore I Am / Jimmy Cliff – The Harder They Come
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Civil Liberties, Extraordinary Rendition, Guantanamo, Truth to Power
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Reverse Rendition Update
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was originally charged with plotting with Middle East terrorists to assassinate President Bush. An American student who studied abroad in Saudi Arabia, was kidnapped and tortured by Saudis and brought back to the United States. (Read New York Times article here)
Abu Ali is a Houston-born American citizen and the valedictorian of his high school class in suburban Virginia. Back in the U.S. Abu Ali faced trial based on alleged tortured confessions in Saudi Arabia. Abu Ali’s description of Saudi torture tactics are consistent with known Saudi torture interrogation techniques. The evidence of torture was not admitted into the courtroom and Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.
In this Law and Disorder exclusive interview, the hosts speak with Tasneem Abu Ali, the sister of Ahmed. She is now trying to get her brother out of prison.
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Uiger Muslims Transferred From Guantanamo To Albania
Recently, the Uiger Muslims were quietly sent to the economically depressed country of Albania, they do not know the language and are being held in a large compound. It was explained to Law and Disorder that in Albania, the Uigers can move about freely within the compound and cannot leave. Listen to the Jan. 2 show with Uiger segment – Guest – attorney Sabin Willet.
Guest – Neil McGaraghan – an attorney with Bingham McCutchen, representing the Uigers.
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Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal
How it is possible to end the Iraq occupation? Hosts look at the intentionality of stirring up an unnatural conflict among the Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites and later pull back to discuss the larger picture of the Iraq occupation.
Anthony Arnove, author of Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal, He his also the editor, with Howard Zinn, of Voices of a People’s History of the United States (Seven Stories), the long-awaited primary-source companion to A People’s History of the United States. Read more about Anthony Arnove here.
Civil Liberties, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Civil Liberties, Truth to Power
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May Day Roundtable Discussion – Law and Disorder hosts talk with Annette Rubenstein, literary historian and author, Haymarket playwright Zayd Dorn, and Julie Ruben with the Brecht Forum. The discussion winds through historic labor movements in the last century, as Annette Rubenstein recollects the seldom heard stories of protests and labor demonstrations during the 1930s in New York City.
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Stanley Aronowitz joins in afterward to discuss the climate of the current labor movement and beyond. Aronowitz, professor of sociology, cultural studies, and urban education at the CUNY Graduate Center is also a veteran political activist and cultural critic and a passionate champion of organized labor.
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Catastrophic Climate Change Forum
We listen to a short segment from Dr. James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies speaking at the Catastrophic Climate Change Forum at Albany Law School, New York. This 9 minute segment from Hansen’s one hour presentation builds the case that global climate change is at a tipping point and emissions from power plants and vehicles are mainly to blame. Law and Disorder will air more from this forum in the programs to come.
Civil Liberties, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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Big surveillance plans in New York City
Wireless cameras over Brooklyn and a virtual “Ring of Steel” for Lower Manhattan – More than 500 surveillance cameras are planned to be installed in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Hundreds of cameras will follow if New York City secures an $81.5 million federal grant from Homeland Security. The grant would fund a London-style “Ring of Steel” around Manhattan’s financial district that includes metal walls, military style guard posts and another wave of hi-tech surveillance equipment. NYC subways will also be set up with more cameras.
Co-Host Heidi Boghosian caught up with Surveillance Camera Tour Guide Bill Brown in downtown Manhattan. They discuss the implications of Homeland Security funding a massive influx of hi-tech security surveillance systems in New York City. Brown points out how most media have not been informed of details surrounding this build up of cameras.
Jack Anderson Files
FBI desperately tries to obtain more than 180 boxes of notes and files from the late muckraking journalist Jack Anderson. Anderson who died last December from complications with Parkinson’s Disease, spent the last fifty years unearthing government misdeeds such as J.Edgar Hoover’s apparent ties to Mafia, the Savings and Loans scandal and the search for fugitive ex-Nazi officials in South America. Now, the Anderson family is in the process of transferring ownerships of the files to the George Washington University Library. The FBI would like to see them first however, the library and the Anderson family refuse.
The columnist’s son Kevin Anderson says the FBI expressed interest in documents that would aid the government’s case against two former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, who have been charged with disclosing classified information. The FBI also told the family “they planned to remove from the columnist’s archive, which has yet to be catalogued, any document they come across that is stamped “secret” or “confidential.”
Guest – George Washington University Librarian – Jack Siggins. Siggins also tells Law and Disorder hosts Heidi Boghosian and Michael Ratner that the FBI had asked to obtain library records and emails from faculty, staff and students of George Washington Library. Hosts suspect this type of inquiry has occurred at libraries across the country.
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Blackwater USA Law Suit
The private security firm Blackwater USA, a North Carolina-based private security company is being sued by four families of the private American security contractors who were ambushed by Sunni resistance in Falluja on March of 2004. Law and Disorder hosts speak with independent journalist Jeremy Scahill and attorney Marc Miles about the lawsuit. Read Jeremy Scahill’s investigative report in the Nation here.
From Jeremy Scahill’s article – “This is a precedent-setting case,” says Marc Miles, an attorney for the families. “Just like with tobacco litigation or gun litigation, once they lose that first case, they’d be fearful there would be other lawsuits to follow.”
Guest – Jeremy Scahill – Independent journalist who reports frequently for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!, has spent extensive time reporting from Iraq and Yugoslavia. He is currently at The Nation Institute on fellowship. He can be reached at jeremy@democracynow.org
Guest – Marc Miles – attorney for the families.
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We listen to a short segment of senior attorney Donald Goldberg with the Center for Environmental Justice describe how 40 percent of the Arctic Polar ice cap has melted in the last few years and subsequent warming has destroyed Inuit habitat. Human rights litigation is underway to protect the Inuit. Other speakers included Dr. James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Hansen makes the case that global climate change is at the tipping point and emissions from power plants and vehicles are mainly to blame. Law and Disorder will air more from this forum in the programs to come.
