Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Listen to Law and Disorder live Monday November 9 at 9:00AM EST WBAI 99.5 FM: At 9:30 AM Michael Ratner Interviews Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman on her new book Breaking the Sound Barrier – Based on her columns for King Features Syndicate, this wide-ranging new collection of articles breaks through the corporate media’s lies, sound-bites, and silence. In place of the usual suspects— the “experts” who, in Goodman’s words, “know so little about so much, explain the world to us, and get it so wrong”
Updates:
Michael Ratner Update: Congress Should Not Reject Goldstone Report
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FBI Threaten Deportation To Muslim Man Refusing To Be Secret Informant
It was in 2004, that the FBI began to apply intense pressure on Foad Farahi to become a secret informant and spy on members of his mosque. Farahi, an Imam in Miami Florida refused. As many listeners may know, an imam is among the designated leaders in a community or mosque who leads prayers during gatherings and helps others understand the teachings of Islam. The FBI saw Farahi to be in a unique position to know local Muslim men. Farahi had met several South Floridians who allegedly had links to terrorism, including Jose Padilla.
Farahi refused to become a secret informant and the FBI knew he was in a vulnerable position. His student visa expired and he had applied for political asylum that could allow him to stay in the U.S. indefinitely. More than 2 years had past and in 2007, two agents showed up again asking Farahi to become an informant, he refused. In late 2007 Farahi was at a routine hearing for his political asylum case when he was told by his attorney that the ICE has a file with evidence that he is involved with a terrorist case. He was later presented with an ultimatum to drop the asylum case and leave the United States voluntarily, or be charged as a terrorist. Farahi agreed to voluntarily leave the US, but his passport expired, that gave him a little more time, and he later realized the government was bluffing and then hired attorney Ira Kurzban, a well-known advocate for immigrants’ rights.
(Law and Disorder archive Targeting Muslims Page 1 / Page 2)
Kurzban asked the Board of Immigration Appeals to throw out Farahi’s voluntary departure order, they refused. The legal battle has put Farahi’s immigration status in limbo. Kurzban told the Miami Times quote I think the real issue is, does the government have the right to pressure people… to make them informants?” —- “It’s clearly modus operandi of the FBI to recruit people who are going to be informants and to use whatever leverage they can.”
Ira Kurzban:
- Foad as an Imam, did not want to spy on others, but said to the FBI he would help them anyway he could.
- He was then put into removal (deportation) proceedings.
- The guilt by association method that the FBI has been using as an intimidation tactic is very reminiscent of the McCarthy period.
- The judge who originally denied Foad’s hearing was dismissed.
- We are now at the 11th Circuit of Appeals and an oral argument has been set.
- Immigrantslist.org – Political Action Committee
- This case represents a much broader pattern by the FBI and the government in trying to intimidate people into working as informants.
- They’re desperate to get informants but they’re using upstanding citizens to do bad things.
- The tragedy is that they’re turning people who are friendly to the United States into enemies.
Guest – Attorney Ira Kurzban, an adjunct faculty member in Immigration and Nationality Law at the University of Miami School of Law and Nova Southeastern University School of Law and has lectured and published extensively in the field of immigration law, including articles in the Harvard Law Review, San Diego Law Review and other publications.
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Michael Steven Smith – In Memory of Bob Boehm, Center for Constitutional Rights Vice President
On the recent eighth anniversary of the events of September 11th, our own Michael Steven Smith, draws a balance sheet on the state of democratic rights in America. He spoke to a captive audience on the long standing Five Towns Forum on Long Island in honor of recently deceased Center for Constitutional Rights Vice President Bob Boehm.
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Cuban Five Update: The Re-sentencing of Antonio Guerrero
Earlier this month, Federal Judge Joan A Lenardo replaced the life sentence for Antonio Guerrero, one of the Cuban Five. Mr. Guerrero, a United States citizen, was convicted of spying for Cuba while working at the Naval Air Station in Key West. His sentence was reduced to almost 22 years, which means he could be out of prison in nearly seven years. Mr Guerrero’s attorneys had asked for the sentence to be reduced to 240 months, but Judge Lenardo set it at 262 months.
Mr. Guerrero’s lawyer, Len Weinglass told the New York Times, it was an odd decision, he said “You have a man who was on a military base but who didn’t take a single classified document and no one testified that he injured U.S. national security, but the judge still rejects the prosecutors’ request to lighten the sentence.” Transcript of Hearing
Len Weinglass:
- Antonio Guerrero who I represent, was originally sentenced to life in prison.
- The appellate courts reduced the life sentence for the conspiracy to commit espionage against 3 of the Cuban Five
- The decision only remanded life sentences for ultimately 2 of the Cuban Five including Antonio Guerrero
- We returned to Miami for the re-sentencing on October 13. Prior to the re-sentencing, we negotiated with the government on the issue of re-sentencing alone, making it clear there was no admission of guilt on the underlying charge, which we are still contesting on a later collateral attack.
- We agreed that it should come down from a life sentence to a period of 20 years.
- In Miami, the judge took the very unusual step of setting the agreement aside, and set the term to 21 years and 10 months.
- You can’t give a life sentence ( in this case) on what they intended to get, you can only give a life sentence on top secret information they did get. So, the original life sentence was wrong.
- When we got into the re-sentencing hearing, she got back to her original position as if the appellate court hadn’t ruled.
- I got very upset, the courtroom was packed. Packed with the same old crowd. The crowd in Miami that backs these para-miltary forces, they put the widows up front.
- I got upset at what I sought to be a climate that was being generated in that hearing and so I reminded the judge very forcibly that she was sentencing an individual not a country.
- I had given the court government documents from the Bureau of Prisons, all of them saying that Antonio Guerrero who was serving a faulty life sentence, and sent to a maxium security prison, which he shouldn’t have been sent, because the sentence was wrong.
- But the warden, his counselor and the supervisor of the unit, all extolled his behavior and most significantly pointed out that he had helped save a number of inmates all of whom were doing life sentences, from an encouragable future, by training them in English and Math and overseeing them getting their GED.
- At that time, she was about to pronounce sentence, then she stopped, walked off the bench.
- When the judge came back, the first thing she did is recite a Supreme Court decision, all federal judges must sentence an individual according to his character.
- Antonio was 39 when he was arrested and he will be nearly 60 when he is released. That’s the heart of a lifetime.
- There was no acknowledgment of context here. That this was provoked by a pattern of violence by the US directed at Cuba. Where more than 3000 people have died in the past 40 years from violence coming from Southern Florida.
- The Cuban Five performed their task, nobody was harmed, no property damaged and they end up with life sentences for that operation.
- It came to light that the federal government was paying members of the press in Miami as part of their anti-Castro campaign to write articles about this case that were highly prejudicial. People who were reporters but were on the federal payroll.
- Can the government be responsible for creating a prejudicial atmosphere?
- He was at the most hard-nosed prison and after seven years the warden of that prison wrote the Regional Bureau of Prisons, asking that Antonio be released from that prison. He doesn’t belong, there, he is a lovely sensitive man.
Guest – Attorney Len Weinglass, who represented the Cuban Five, as William Kunstler’s younger partner, Len Weinglass was considered the work horse of the defense team. He’s worked on a number of political cases including the Pentagon Papers trial and the Angela Davis case. He’s a Yale Law School graduate and former U.S. Air Force Captain.
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Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, FBI Intrusion, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Updates:
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Historic Strike – Privatizing Puerto Rico; Bar Association Dismantled.
Public services grinded to a halt on October 15 in Puerto Rico as a massive one day general strike brought more than 100 thousand people to protest the lay off of about 17 thousand of Puerto Rico’s public employees. The demonstration shut down all state-owned enterprises including the island’s schools and colleges. The airport remained opened, while tens of thousands were reported to converge on San Juan’s Plaza Las Americas.
Main labor organizations, the General Workers Union and the All Puerto Rico for Puerto Rico Coaltion supported the general strike. In May of this year, the Puerto Rican government laid off nearly 8 thousand employees and then hired about 3 thousand temporary teachers and assistants. Union leaders claim that Governor Luis Fortuno is planning to privatize government services. Outrage to the proposed layoffs have rippled into New York City, amid second largest community of Puerto Rican people.
Attorney Judith Berkan:
- Public worker dismissals at almost 25 thousand.
- Any agencies who deal in service to the poor or working class in Puerto Rico
- Two days before the strike, the governor signed and passed a bill aimed at dismantling the Bar Association
- After the massive first strike there have been daily strikes
- They want to return us to the days of the Oligarchy, concentrating wealth into the hands of a few while the remainders pick up the crumbs
- Protesters: Students from every university, every sector of the labor movement, the religious sector, cultural organizations, 700 school principals.
- There were 2000 janitors in the schools, right now there are no janitors in the schools of Puerto Rico and that’s going to be privatized.
- Two thousand school janitors were fired in the middle of the swine flu scare. The government plans to put these jobs out to bid for private companies.
- The atitude is . . . we’re doing this and the rest of you be damned.
- Puerto Rican government: Marcus Rodriguez Ema brought in again whose forte has always been privatization. He said on a radio station that if there was any blockage of commerce that it could be brought under the Patriot Act. He said that they are terrorists and they’re trying to block commerce.
- The way they framed it, if you stop commerce, particularly, the docks and the airports, that would be sanctionable under federal law.
- There have been a number of very offensive comments by the people in charge. Calling community leaders leeches, lowlifes, openly.
- The legislation has cut off funding for the Bar Association in Puerto Rico.
- I think the militancy will continue, we have not seen the last of general strikes here.
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.
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Guantanamo Update: 223 people left in Guantanamo, 97 are Yemeni.
Alla Ali Bin Ahmed was among the 98 remaining Yemeni prisoners let go from Guantanamo Bay prison. In May of this year, a judge reviewed the government’s classified evidence again Ahmed, and ruled that his incarceration had never been justified. Never been justified? Yet, he remained like many Yemenis in Guantanamo Prison. Earlier this year, the Center for Constitutional Rights called for all Yemeni detainees to be released and repatriated. In a media statement, CCR attorney Pardiss Kabriaei, said ” More than one-third of the prisoners at Guantanamo right now are from Yemen. Most have been detained without any charge and in brutal conditions for over six years. It is unacceptable that the Yemeni and U.S. governments have not come to an agreement to bring these men home. There is absolutely nothing which should prevent their return to Yemen.” Law and Disorder March 2009 Interview with Pardiss
Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei:
- This is the part of Guantanamo that is about accountability.
- A case filed in 2008 on behalf of 2 men that died in Guantanamo on June 2006
- We brought this case against 20 officials, including Rumsfeld and Michael Leonard, Jeffrey Miller, people who were in charge of and approved torture techniques.
- U.S. Army General Bantz John Craddock who introduced a policy of force feeding in Guantanamo whereby detainees are literally strapped into chairs that are called restraint chairs, strapped in at five points, while a tube is forced up their nose and down their stomachs and formula is pumped into them for about an hour
- also named are physicans who knew by virtue of reports from the Red Cross.
- Center for Constitutional Rights – When Healers Harm – A focus on the accountability of medical personnel in Guantanamo who have a professional duty and oath to protect the health and well-being of men.
- It took 2 years for the military to conduct its investigation of these suicides.
- We filed Monday Oct 6, a motion to dismiss, they want to get rid of the case essentially, under the point that reporting claims of abuse are barred under the Military Commissions Act of 2006
- There is a provision in it Section 7, we’re challenging the constitutionality of that provision, the provision in the Military Commissions Act of 2006, that prevents detainees to bring lawsuits against the United States, the first time this MCA, has been asserted, now under the Obama Administration.
- Mohammed al Qahtani video tapes documents the torture he was experiencing, forced nudity, prolonged solitary confinement, using dogs and sexual abuse. Those are the methods that were approved by Donald Rumsfeld in 2002
- January deadline to close Guantanamo is not going to be met, according to US Attorney Gen. Holder
- 223 people left in Guantanamo, 97 are Yemeni.
- Federal judges have ruled on some 30 cases, that there is no lawful basis to hold them, yet of 30, 19 remain in Guantanamo. (Kuwaitis / Yemenis)
- Not the worst of the worst left in Guantanamo, it is nationality.
- There are innocent people who have been in prison for 8 years, it’s not a solution to sit back any longer.
- Guantanamo may stay open a few months past January and then transfer prisoners to the US.
Guest – Pardiss Kebriaei, Staff Attorney with the Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative, at the Center For Constitutional Rights.
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Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, FBI Intrusion, Human Rights, Iraq War, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power, War Resister
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New Time: Law and Disorder Broadcasts at 9AM on WBAI Listen here
Updates:
- 9-11 Anniversary/ Patriot Act / AUMF / Preventive Detention /Surveillance
- North Carolina terrorists / Consequences of cooperating with FBI
- Spanish prosecution update / Change in universal jurisdiction law / Trying to narrow law at behest of Israelis and Chinese
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Rethinking Afghanistan
Last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates affirmed the US miltary commitment in Afghanistan, as thousands of additional troops are deployed. To give us a perspective we are joined by Norman Soloman, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. Solomon is also the author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” and has written several articles about his experiences in Afghanistan. Solomon has returned from a visit to Kabul in late August. His articles have detailed the war torn landscapes, stunning civilian casualties and the desperate living conditions of Afghani children. Previous Law and Disorder Shows on Afghanistan
Norman Solomon
- It’s worse than the mainline media would tell us.
- People who do go to Afghanistan, travel in a bubble, taken around by the Pentagon and learn very little, often not speaking to any Afghans who aren’t part of Karzai government.
- The intention of the Obama Administration is to wage war in Afghanistan, and humanitarian aid and assistance is an after thought.
- It’s in the foreground for PR, but the suffering is way beyond the number of people killed that’s being reported
- Afghans are outraged at the US killing civilians and outraged at the air war
- There are no Al-Qaeda in in Afghanistan, that’s been true for a while.
- This is a prescription for endless war, repetition compulsion.
- The agenda is less defensive and high blown, they have to do with geo-political positioning which is primary.
- Recommended Book: Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.
- Afghanistan War is a humanitarian disaster that continues to unfold.
- The solution has to do with humanitarian and military activity being inverted.
Guest – Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. Solomon is also the author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” and has written several articles about his experiences in Afghanistan. Solomon returned from a visit to Kabul in late August.
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T.Bishop – photo by: Eric Thompson
The Will To Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan
The majority of the United States has opposed the continued occupation of Iraq and as the Pentagon decides to send more US troops to Afghanistan, there is a growing public distrust surrounding this recent escalation of war. Is there also a growing resistance among the ranks of US soldiers? The mainstream media has failed to report on the increasing number of soldiers taking a public stand and finding ingenious ways to express defiance. Author Dahr Jamail has compiled a report of dissent within the military in his recent book The Will To Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Watch Winter Soldier Coverage
Dahr Jamail:
- In the last decade, 50 thousand troops have gone AWOL. In 2007, a 42 percent increase of troops going AWOL in the US Army. Nearly 8 thousand troops each year going AWOL.
- Increase in troops contacting groups such as Courage To Resist and IVAW
- Soldiers resisting are often quickly processed through to shut them up
- Massive escalation in Afghanistan – more than 60 thousand troops. 131 thousand troops still in Iraq.
- McCrystal was advised that after the surge is done, add 45 thousand more troops.
- Lack of quality treatment for PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury are not lost on the military, they know and understand.
- The Will To Resist focuses on active duty troops and veterans, the lead chapter is about resistance on the ground in Iraq.
- Search and avoid missions, IED lottery, we would find an open field, park there and call in every hour, saying yes we’re still looking for weapons caches.
- We often see a demoralized unit being sent in to an extremely bad situation, when it gets time to gear up, the troops are sitting there and the commander sees them and rather than risk media exposure, he’ll cancel the mission.
- A lot of people still in Canada.
- Soldiers are not informed that they can refuse an unlawful order and that they can apply for conscientious objector status. Two resisters from Fort Hood, SP4 Victor Augusto and Sgt Travis Bishop.
Guest- Dahr Jamail, he currently writes for the Inter Press Service, Le Monde Diplomatique, and many other outlets. His stories have also been published with The Nation, The Sunday Herald in Scotland, Al-Jazeera, the Guardian, Foreign Policy in Focus, and the Independent.
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Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq War, Military Tribunal, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Updates:
- States increase opposition to money making traffic cameras: lawsuits.
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Alfred McCoy: CIA OIG Report PDF
Last month, marked the release of the CIA’s Office of Inspector General report investigating the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” against detainees. The nearly fifty percent redacted report focused on incidents which exceeded the torture guidelines written in the Office of Legal Counsel torture memos. In the report, waterboarding a detainee 183 times was noted with only a concern, and highlighted abuses include faking the execution of a detainee by (quote) “contractors” without training and pointing an unloaded gun to a prisoners head. This report was not released with John Yoo’s torture memos. A move which could’ve helped prosecute torture architects such as Yoo and other Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who violated their professional ethical duties when they wrote memos claiming the administration’s proposed torture techniques were legal. Hear Al McCoy speak at Left Forum
Al McCoy:
- The chronology is important, the report is an investigation into excesses.
- The report also looks at the period ranging from 12 to 18 months when the alternative methods were authorized by President Bush – “enhanced interrogation techniques”
- For the first time in the history of the CIA, they were authorized to operate their own prisons, the so-called 8 black sites that operated from Thailand to Lithuania
- (Inspector General investigators) They opened up these secret sites and started collecting these detainees before they had clear guidelines and supervision
- Torture is seductive, erotic to the human mind, a process of which we know very little.
- Under US law section 23.40 of the Federal Code, psychological torture is legalized, there are only 4 things you can’t do under US law. One of them is death threats and death threats against a third party
- One of those hapless field agents that went over the top will take the fall. Yet, we know former Defense secretary authorized extraordinary techniques and his directions went down through the chain of command, it got all the way down to Abu Ghraib (prison photos link), where those soldiers were actually complying with those directives.
- The directives were illegal. You should be prosecuting the person who gave those orders at the top of the chain of command.
- In this case instead of having bad apples in military parlance, we’re going to have “rogue agents.”
- The stages of a country ruling with impunity – we’re not talking about a change of regime and then a tribunal, this is assuming continuity of government. (Clinton/Bush/Obama)
- It was necessary for our security: Dick Cheney’s latest argument – “so what, it made us safe.”
- We may have done these crimes but we now need to pull together and develop ourselves as a nation.
- The CIA had two distinguished cognitive scientists at Cornell University medical center in New York City, Doctors Henkel and Wolf. Ultimately they found the most devasting mode of torture is forced standing.
- Stand for hours motionless, sometimes days at a time, fluids flow to the legs, kidneys shut down, hallucinations begin, it’s incredibly painful.
- What they found back in the 1950s is you can make people do forced confessions, but its not very good in extracting objective information.
- Colin Powell’s former military aid, charged that Cheney in particular ordered this torture and extracted the false information – specifically with Ibn al-Shaykh al–Libi a prisoner whose false confession was used to link Saddam Hussein and Al-Queda.
- The best we can hope for is a Congressional Review, perhaps a Senate inquiry into the Bush years, that would look at the origin of the policy, the full nature of the policy, and whether or not it worked, not only gains but the costs. A serious, sober politically objective honest inquiry, apart from the prosecutions that may come from the Special prosecutor. Check out Progress Report’s – Accountability
- Within the American Psychological Association, these are not medical practicioners, they don’t take the Hippocratic Oath. It’s one branch of the medical community, the psychologists.
Guest – Professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Author of “A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror” and also “The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade.
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Labor Law Reform: Employee Free Choice Act
The Employee Free Choice Act is a proposed legislative bill that would speed up the process for employees to form a union. Under current labor law, workers can select union representation either through an election or something called card check, – a majority sign up. The US National Labor Relations Board will only certify a union as the exclusive representative of employees only if it is selected by a secret ballot NLRB election or if the employer agrees to a card check process. The catch is, that companies can refuse to bargain with a union chosen by a card check process even if 100 percent of employees want the union. Right now, the choice to use an election process or majority sign up is controlled by the companies.
The Employee Free Choice Act would change this process and take away employers’ ability to decide whether to use only the card check process or secret ballot election. This would make it much quicker process for employees who needed to form a union. This labor reform law has not been proposed without a fight, nearly 200 million is funding a misinformation campaign back by groups such as the Chamber of Commerce. Read Abby’s Public Eye article here.
Abby Scher:
- In the fifties, unions represented a third of the labor force, now they represent 12 percent.
- Employers have a lot of time to beat back the union. The Center for Responsive Politics found that the Chamber of Commerce spent 400 thousand dollars a day in opposition.
- The chamber of commerce is the largest lobby group in the country
- You can hear the rhetoric in their misinformation campaign. ..“EFCA is unAmerican, it takes away the secret ballot, unionists are thugs that will coerce workers into giving up their individual rights.”
- It’s harsh rhetoric from what you would consider a main stream group
- The national right to work committee since the fifties has flipped the script.
- Two phone calls have gotten attention, Bank of America and Citigroup . . .the center for Union Facts, – Rick Berman and Bernie Marcus talking about how EFCA would destroy capitalism and tried to motivate people on the call to give to Republican candidates
- Chamber of Commerce front group – Alliance to Save Main Street Jobs. In the misinformation campaign, the chamber of commerce is saying that EFCA will hurt small businesses, because everyone loves small businesses.
- They retained this woman to do a study about how EFCA would destroy 600 thousand jobs. This woman’s specialty is intellectual property, this is not her background, she is a gun for hire.
- It (her research) was easily debunked but you still hear people citing that study.
- Surprisingly, unions are growing. Big businesses are the threat against small businesses, not unions.
- I encourage everyone to subscribe to the AFL-CIO blog
- Unions help workers bargain for better wages, people have money to spend, buying power, quality of life.
Guest – Abby Scher, Editorial Director of the Public Eye. Check out Abby Scher on Making Contact’s Radio Feature
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Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Green Scare, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Blood and Oil in Central Asia
Is the Afghanistan War less over terrorism than it is over energy? It’s a high stakes chess board writes Conn Hallidan, a foreign policy analyst, and if the US controls the sources of energy of its rivals, Europe, Japan and China, and other nations, they win. Hallinan, says strategic energy alliances are forming between Russia and China. China is planning a 4 thousand mile pipeline from the Caspian Basin to the Guangdong Province while Russia is locking up natural resources such as natural gas in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Conn Hallinan:
- It’s about the United States attempting to control energy sources at a time when world oil reserves are beginning to drop.
- In fact there’s going to be a sharp drop in world oil reserves while Brazil India and China are growing fast. There’s a growing sharp competition for controlling those energy resources.
- The United States pretty much has its thumb on the Middle East oil reserves and has been maneuvering to control natural gas and oil coming out of Caspian Basin.
- Follow the roadways for Pipelanistan, looking at energy resources as looking at a map.
- This is a battle for control of energy resources. Whoever holds the high ground in the next half century will have their hand on jugular vein of their competitors.
- Tremendous expansion of NATO into former Soviet areas and into Central Asia creates the counter-response. Shanghai Cooperation Organizations
- The SCO is on a roll. China loaned Turkmenistan 3 billion dollars.
- Long term goals for current administration not very different from past administration.
- I want to go the White House and sit down with Obama and say, “ok, look just read Kipling, read Kim, the poem, Arithmetic on the Frontier.”
- The situation is a complete disaster, we’re destabilizing India and Pakistan, the most single dangerous flash-point in the world right now.
Guest – Conn Hallinan , a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus and a lecturer in journalism at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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Animal Rights Annual Conference 2009 Speeches
We hear four speeches from the Animal Rights Annual Conference this year. The speakers are our own co-host Heidi Boghosian, Attorney Matthew Strugar, Social Justice Attorney Bob Bloom, and Will Potter. Full list of speakers.
Heidi Boghosian:
Bob Bloom:
- One of the defense attorneys for the Animal Terrorism Enterprise Act 4.
- What I learned defending the Black Panther Party, in the criminal justice system, is that there is a particular mechanism to control people who want to make things better, who want to change things. Courts are not for justice, they’re for repression.
- Under the animal enterprise act, you can have a business enterprise that uses and tortures animals. It just doesn’t seem right.
- Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals and the answer is quote – because the animals are like us.
- Ask the experimenters why its morally ok to experiment on animals and the answer is quote because the animals are not like us.
Will Potter:
- GreenIsTheNewRed
- Communication enhancement facilities are political prisons for those who have been widely connected with others. When you have secretive facilities and special legislation or so-called second tier terrorism inmates, you’ll soon have secretive facilities and special legislation or so-called third tier terrorism inmates and secretive facilities and fourth tier terrorism inmates, until brick by brick, the barriers of what is being labeled a protester and an activist and a dissident and a terrorist have completely crumbled.
Matt Streuger:
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The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) is a United States federal law It was signed by the President of the United States November 27, 2006. Earlier versions of the bill were known as S. 1926 and H.R. 4239. The bill is described by the author as being intended to “provide the Department of Justice the necessary authority to apprehend, prosecute, and convict individuals committing animal enterprise terror.”
Analysis of The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act
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Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims
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Host Updates:
Segments This Week:
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Washington DC Check Points Not Legal: Mara Verheyden-Hilliard
Last summer, D.C. police set up checkpoints around the city’s Trinidad neighborhood and denied access to drivers who refused to disclose their destination. The purpose of the checkpoints, according to the Metropolitan Police Department, was to deter violence after a string of drive-by shootings in 2008. Recently, a federal appeals court ruled that these checkpoints are unconstitutional. In the opinion, Chief Judge David Sentelle of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that “citizens have a right to drive upon the public streets of the District of Columbia or any other city absent a constitutionally sound reason for limiting their access.” The Partnership for Civil Justice
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard:
- We do think if we had not succeeded with this case, it would have been a model in implementation in urban environments throughout the U.S.
- In the District of Columbia, last summer the mayor and the attorney general deployed an extraordinary checkpoint program. It was really a blockade or barricade program.
- It was the sealing off of an entire neighborhood, police setting up check points and not letting anyone through without being interrogated. It’s an interrogation and seizure program.
- The police would question you, as to where you were going, who you were visiting, demand that you provide identity information, information on your associates, information on what you were doing, who you knew.
- You could not continue to drive on this public roadway unless you proved to the satisfaction of the police, a legitimate reason to travel further. When we challenged them, they stayed in court, they defended the program, saying it was absolutely constitutional.
- Plaintiffs included a 50 year old resident, a retired DC school teacher. He would have to be stopped at the checkpoint to get to his own home. Visitors were reluctant to come over, to avoid getting tangled with the police. Racial profiling, police misconduct, abuse of power.
- It’s not nearly that your stopped by the police and you can explain your way in. The police set up 6 defined categories of legitmate reasons for entering. Visiting a friend is not a legitimate reason.
- If crime became the prevention for fundamental fourth amendment rights, then there wouldn’t be any fourth amendment rights to speak of.
- The issue is you have the right to travel down a public roadway without being seized by the police without any allegation of criminal activity or suspicion of criminal wrong doing.
- The Trinidad neighborhood is on the cusp of gentrification. We’re seeing a lot of these programs happening in areas that are moving toward gentrification.
- The community wants geniune responses to crime in their neighborhoods, this program was not only unconstitutional but ineffective.
- We believe they were collecting information at the checkpoints and collecting a criminal database.
- We demanded that they cease that activity and expunge the information collected in the database.
- They were sending in tag readers, they’re mounting cameras on government vehicles, they do a mass scan on license tags and suck up information on where you are.
Guest – Mara Verheyden-Hilliard is an attorney and co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice, which represented three drivers challenging the checkpoints.
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Jewish Fast For Gaza
A group of American Rabbis have launched a water-only fast, aimed at breaking the Jewish Community’s silence over Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinians. The initiative, called Jewish Fast For Gaza includes Reform, Reconstructionist, Orthodox and Conservative rabbis who call for lifting the blockade on Gaza. They plan to fast the third Thursday of each month, lasting from sunrise to sunset.
Rabbi Brian Walt:
- This idea of a fast in a time of trouble is an ancient tradition. We were stunned by the silence among the Rabbis.
- So we decided to gather together as a Minyan, to break the silence in our community.
- It’s not a Jewish-only initiative, it’s a Jewish initiated event to draw people of all faiths.
- The state that is the state of the Jewish people is preventing food from reaching children whose growth is stunted by these actions. To be silent in the face of that as a Rabbi, is inconceivable to me.
- Can’t one separate out, an opinion about a government and collective punishment of a whole people?
- Four goals: Lifting Israeli blockade, bring in food, make peace with your enemies.
- Does Israel recognize the Palestinian people?
- Why is Israel asking two things of it’s partner that its not prepared to do?
- It’s a pretext because Israel doesn’t want to negotiate. If Israel doesn’t want to negotiate, they’ll say the other side doesn’t want to, it’s a trick that Israel has done for decades.
- Anyone can join the fast, nearly 600 have joined. 70 Rabbis so far.
- The most vile and violent responses we get come from Israel.
- I grew up under apartheid in South Africa in a very Zionist family with deep connections in Israel.
Guest – Rabbi Brian Walt, co-coordinator of Jewish Fast For Gaza. Rabbi Walt is also the founding executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America and Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Mishkan Shalom, a synagogue in Philadelphia, PA. He is dedicated to the integration of spiritual life and social justice. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, he was active in the struggle against Apartheid. He is a member of the board of the National Religious Campaign against Torture.
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