Law and Disorder June 18, 2012

CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Torture, Truth to Power

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Updates:

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Quebec Students Protests: Largest Act of Civil Disobedience In Canadian History

Social unrest in Montreal continues unabated with nightly protests as thousands fill the streets in what is now the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history. Protests against tuition hikes and austerity are evolving into community assemblies,  and also into increasingly popular pots and pans protests. These larger protests against tuition hikes and austerity turn into community assemblies and also the loud pots and pans protests. In response, police randomly searching and detaining people wearing the red square in solidarity of the movement and try to break up each emerging protest.

Gabriel Nadeau – Dubois:

  • The strikes started in the beginning of February, and the debate about tuition hikes became a larger debate about privatization.  It started as a student strike and is now a popular movement.
  • The context in Quebec is the reason we were able to build a movement. There has been so much dissatisfaction toward the government in the last 10 years.
  • Many other workers saw an opportunity to go into the street because a lot of people were very angry.
  • Bill 78 is a special law. This bill has 3 major sections.
  • The first section suspends the Winter semester with the objective to stop the student strikes.
  • Now we’re in sort of a lock out these days.  The Winter semester will start in August.
  • The main objective of the bill is to break the mobilization.
  • We have seen thousands of illegal protests of civil disobedience.
  • Last week there were hundreds of police in the subway station, who were systematically and illegally searching the students and the citizens who were wearing the red square.
  • The bad thing about too many protests is the citizens get used to seeing police brutality.
  • We currently contesting the law in front of the court. We are trying to suspend the law and declare it unconstitutional.
  • We are planning 2 major protests this summer one on June 22, 2012 and one on July 22.
  • What we’re asking for is still very simple stop the increase of tuition fees in order to keep the universities accessible to everyone

Guest – Gabriel Nadeau – Dubois, the co- spokesperson of the Coalition off the Solidarity Trade Union Association for Student (aka CLASS), which is opposed, since the beginning of this year , with rising tuition fees in Quebec decreed by the Jean Charest government.

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Austerity and Second Round of Elections in Greece

The elections in Greece have just occurred. We talk with Greek-American National Lawyers Guild attorney Eric Poulos about the left, right and center parties in Greece. Eric explains party platforms and makes a few predictions on election outcomes.

Attorney Eric Poulos:

  • Greece has got money from the European Union, not to bail out Greece, it’s a misnomer in the press, it’s to bail out the banks.  It’s going to pay off debt service to banks.
  • There’s no stimulus to create jobs in Greece, jobs are being lost.
  • Unemployment is up 20-25 percent, among youth it’s 50 percent.
  • If they can, Greeks are leaving the country, taking their money out of the banks.
  • Pharmacies are not filling prescriptions, doctors are not getting reimbursed from the state.
  • Political party Syriza emerged from the last election. This is run off election from one that occurred in May where there was no clear victor.
  • Syriza’s a left wing party that emerged from almost obscurity. Syriza is made up of many forces. It’s a coalition.
  • Looks like the right wing party might be gaining votes. Syriza wants to cancel the memorandum which triggered the loan from the EU.
  • It wants a moratorium on the payment of the debt, and it has various measures to deal with corruption, it wants remove immunity.
  • The memorandum imposed austerity measures which Greece has tried to fulfill, and has resulted in devastation.
  • Even the mainstream parties that agreed with the memorandum say they want to renegotiate that agreement.
  • Greece has huge military contracts with German and French defense contractors, which they will not let Greece out of.  The far left says to cancel those contracts. 
  • There is an out and out fascist party that got almost 7 percent of the vote. Golden Dawn.
  • There’s a huge anti-immigrant sentiment that these far right parties have tapped into.
  • I think conservatives will gain. I think Syriza will gain

Guest – Attorney Eric Poulos, writer and National Lawyers Guild member.
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Cuban Five Case Update: Government Paid Media Helped Shape Public Perception

The Cuban Five were convicted 14 years ago this month on conspiracy to commit espionage at some time in the future.  Recently, prominent First Amendment attorney Martin Garbus joined the case of the five.  He’s concentrating his legal efforts on US government paid journalists in Miami who received hundreds and thousands of dollars of payments from the office of Cuba broadcasting. A fact unknown to the defense at the time of the trial.  The reporters covered the case in an almost hysterical and prejudicial fashion.

Attorney Martin Garbus:

  • We’re trying to get all the facts nailed down on the paid journalists issue.
  • The motion is to get discovery of those facts and then to proceed to the hearings to reverse the convictions.
  • What we’ve been trying to do for the last 15 years is trying to get these facts and we’ve failed to do it.
  • What you have is a cauldron, when this is in the public debate. It’s not the just the question of the media being influenced, not just the question of the jury pool being saturated,
  • its not just the question of the jurors themselves being saturated.
  • We understand that the government was paying people who were on major newspapers, major media, substantial sums of money to write stories to get indictments, as well as convictions, and to influence the whole question of how you charge people.
  • In a normal world, these defendants would not have been charged.
  • It’s not just the question of the media effecting the jury pool, it goes long before that.
  • Given the circumstances, one would expect the prosecutors to try and get the highest charges that they could.
  • It’s government legal influence at every single part of the legal process.
  • You had both governments trying to de-fang very bad situations.
  • Instead of stopping the planes, they chose instead 18-17 months later, they chose to arrest these five people whose names they knew because it was part of the cooperation pact.
  • There were many people in Miami who didn’t like the idea of the Cuban government and the American government through government representatives, trying to cut back the Miami terrorists.
  • A lot of them became rogue agents and trying to ruin whatever cooperation there was.
  • Its seems apparent that it was purely a political prosecution.
  • There’s a reason why the government has been withholding documents.
  • I don’t know of any other case where you’re going to get an accumulation of facts in a situation that’s as explosive as this, given the traditional historic politics as what was going on at that time.
  • You had two judges saying this was a fire storm.

Guest – Attorney Martin Garbus, one of the country’s leading trial lawyers. He has appeared before the United States Supreme Court and the highest state and federal courts in the nation. Time Magazine has named him “legendary . . . one of the best trial lawyers in the country.” He’s also known as the most prominent First Amendment lawyer.

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Law and Disorder May 12, 2012

CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Truth to Power

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Updates:

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

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

J. Patrick O’Connor:

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

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

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Homeland Security Documents Show Massive Nationwide Monitoring of Occupy Movement

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

Attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard:

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

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

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Law and Disorder May 7, 2012

CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, FBI Intrusion, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister

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Updates:

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

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

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

Attorney Scott Horton:

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

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

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Common Cause Files IRS Whistleblower Complaint Against ALEC

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

Nick Surgey:

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

Guest –   Nick Surgey, Nick conducted the research helping to expose the American Legislative Exchange Council.  Nick joined Common Cause in March 2011 as a Legal Associate.  He formerly worked at the British Refugee Council in Leeds, England, where he advocated on behalf of asylum seekers. He previously worked at an immigration law firm, as an elected student union officer and as a paid campaigner. Nick holds an undergraduate degree in History and Politics and a post-graduate diploma in law.
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Law and Disorder December 5, 2011

CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Truth to Power

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Updates:

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

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Occupy Albany: Undisturbed By City Officials

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

Attorney Mark Mishler:

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

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

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

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

Attorney Carol Sobel:

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

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

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Collusion in the Defense of the 1% is No Vice

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

Geov Parrish:

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

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

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Law and Disorder November 14, 2011

CIA Sponsored Terror, Criminalizing Dissent, Gaza, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power

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Updates:

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US Boat To Gaza Violence November 2011

Earlier this month, two civilian boats destined for the Gaza Strip and carrying medical cargo set sail from Fethiye, Turkey.  As many listeners may know, the boats, one Canadian (“Tahrir”) and one Irish (“Saoirse”), carried 27 people–including journalists and crew—from nine different countries were met with a violent take over by Israeli military.  The crew of both boats were attacked by high pressure hoses, there was heavy damage. The crew of the Canadian boat were beaten and tasered. Passengers remain in the Givon detention center. President Obama says the passengers are defying Israeli and American law.  Past Law and Disorder shows last year’s flotilla. June 7, 2010 / June 21, 2010 / October 2010  /  June 13, 2011

Felice Gelman:

  • Some are still in prison, the process of getting people out is very opaque. The Israeli courts told them if they wouldn’t sign a false confession, to confess they had entered Israel illegally that they could be held for 2 months in jail.  There were 18 people still left in Israeli jail.
  • I would like to point out that this is exactly what happens to Palestinians every day.
  • There are more than 6 thousand Palestinian political prisoners who go through this same opaque legal process, tortured. 90 percent of the people who have been arrested by the Israelis, Palestinians, have been tortured.
  • Forty percent of the male population at one time has been held by the Palestinians for more than a week. We’re talking about a little over 3 million people.
  • It’s endemic process its happening to foreigners at this point. The little kids are hit and shouted at and hooded. I think the Israelis taught the Americans.
  • The Israelis are regarded as experts in with what they call terrorists.
  • These boats were eagerly anticipated in Gaza. Thousands of people came down to the Gaza harbor and hundreds went out on boats hoping to greet the boats.
  • Since 2006 Gaza has been under complete siege and blockade, everything that is allowed in is under Israeli control, almost nothing is allowed out.
  • There is no economy, without exports, you really can’t have much of an economy. You’ve got 40 percent unemployment. 90 percent of the population is drinking polluted water because the crucial parts of the water treatment plants have not been allowed in by Israel.
  • There’s only one reason Israel has been able to maintain this occupation, and that is because the United States abets it.
  • There are no consequences for expanding settlements (from the Obama Administration)
  • Right now the Israeli government is trying to get the US to attack Iran.
  • Instead of Israel being regarded as an out of control, militarized bully is regarded as a close US ally who should determine our foreign policy.
  • Endtheoccupation

Guest – Felice Gelman is with the Steering Committee that organized The Gaza Freedom March and has traveled to Gaza twice since the Israeli invasion.

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Who Killed Che? How The CIA Got Away With Murder

Co-hosts Michael Smith and Michael Ratner discuss their upcoming book Who Killed Che? A groundbreaking examination based on documents obtained from a Freedom of Information Act requests filed in 1995.  This new information helps dispel the stories that the US was not involved with the murder of Che Guevara.  Morning Star Review

“Ratner and Smith cut through the lies and distortions to provide a riveting and thoroughly documented history of the murder of Che Guevara. In an era when ‘targeted assassinations’ and ‘capture and kill operations’ have become routine, and are routinely glorified by the mainstream U.S. press, their examination of the U.S. role in Che Guevara’s death could not be more timely.” —Amy Goodman, host and executive producer, Democracy Now.

Michael Ratner / Michael Smith:

  • One day when I was a baby I filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all the documents the FBI and the CIA had about Che Guevara.
  • You and I had received the first documents 15 years ago and we wrote the first book Che Guevara and the FBI
  • Ten or twelve years later I get another document drop from the CIA and these are the documents that are the most important in my view, relating to Che’s killing in Bolivia.
  • The government had changed in Bolivia since 1819, 189 times.
  • The book tells his story in Bolivia, and what the US did starting the counter intelligence process against him and supported the Bolivian government.
  • Michael and I enjoyed working on it because we got to really know Che in a way we haven’t before.
  • This book had its origin first in a document drop that was about Che’s murder and Che’s time in Bolivia. There are maps we put in the book of the last battles, where he was captured.
  • The idea of the book really came from Michael Smith.
  • A lot of people bought the story that was put out by the CIA agent on the ground.
  • We demonstrate that the US was deeply involved in his murder.
  • Ricardo Alarcon who is the president of the Cuban National Assembly, wrote the introduction to our book.
  • During the Cuban Revolution, it was the Bastista troops that killed tens of thousand of revolutionaries.
  • The book follows Che when he’s in Africa and various places, but then we have him going to Bolivia on November 5, 1966.
  • There was a split between Che and Fidel. Fidel was worried about Che every single day.
  • The first half of the book is a 25 thousand word essay by Michael Smith and Michael Ratner. It links together what happened with Che once he left Cuba.
  • It’s also a biography of the US counterinsurgency program and the characters in that program that tried to make sure they would stop the Cuban revolution from spreading to other countries.
  • We dedicated this book to our friend, the great movement attorney Len Weinglass. Len was the attorney for the Cuban Five.
  • The Cuban Five are an important part of this story, 44 years after Che’s death.
  • The US has attempted to completely destroy Cuba, and squeeze it so it could not carry out the social and economic reforms that really would’ve made it a shining example for the world.

Hosts – Michael Steven Smith is the author, editor, and co-editor of six books, mostly recently “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. Michael Smith also organizes and chairs the Left Forum. Check out Michael’s blog here.

Host- Michael Ratner  NewYork civil-rights lawyer Michael Ratner was in the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday,flanked by the mother of one of the Guantánamo detainees he has represented for the past two years, unsure what to expect. After an hour, he was pleasantly surprised. First, Sandra Day O’Connor, and then Justices Souter, Breyer, Kennedy and even Scalia, indicated through their questions that they were skeptical of the government’s argument that the men Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld calls “the worst of the worst” have no legal right to file habeas corpus petitions in U.S. courts.

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Law and Disorder September 19, 2011

Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Green Scare, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power

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 Updates:

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Medical Professionals Complicit In US Torture Policy

As many listeners know, health professionals were front and center and complicit in the US policy of torture. The torturers relied heavily on medical opinion. Medical professionals provided sanitizing and rationalization for the infamous torture memos. During water boarding procedures, a doctor would be present.  Psychologists were directly involved in the supervision, design and execution of torture at US military and intelligence facilities. This is a violation of state laws and professional ethics. These “health professionals” that were involved with torture still hold their professional licenses to practice.  Meanwhile a legal battle continues against the Louisiana Psychology Board for refusing to investigate professional misconduct allegations against Dr. Larry James.  He’s a retired US Army Colonel and high ranking adviser on interrogations for the US military in Guantanamo Bay.

We talk more about this case and the breach of ethics in the medical profession since 9/11 with Dr. Stephen Soldz, former president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility. Stephen is a psychologist, psychoanalyst and public health researcher in Boston, he is also co-author of PHR’s report in Experiments in Torture.

Stephen Soldz :

  • Psychologists played a central role, there were 2 professions, one was lawyers, the other less well known was psychologists.  It turns out that it was psychologists that designed and implemented, the enhanced interrogation torture program, who monitored it, who trained others in it and who researched it and provided all the legal protection.
  • It’s believed that it was psychologist James Mitchell who was present there, who was in charge.
  • There’s the CIA program that was for so called high value detainees in CIA custody in various secret prisons called black sites.  This is where the psychologists were central, they designed the whole thing.
  • There was a black site at Guantanamo where a few people were held at various points.
  • Guantanamo was technically under the military control, not CIA control.
  • The CIA: like I said the psychologists designed this stuff, it was quite brutal. Forcing people to stand, shackling them up, with their arms out, naked in cold air. For 7 days at a time.
  • Being forced to stand day after day is extraordinarily painful. Think about having to do that without using the toilet, with liquid food being forced into you. They at times used small boxes where a person could neither stand or sit.
  • The boxes were banged on at times, they would throw people against walls, with special devices around their neck supposedly to protect them from permanent damage.  There were various slaps that were authorized.
  • The American Psychology Association has an ethics code and its binding on all members.  Not all psychologists are members, but all the states base their own ethics code for licensed psychologists upon that of the APA, some mandate it exactly some adopt their own.
  • The CIA and military insist that the psychologists that do this stuff be licensed by the state.
  • Many of them are APA, so the APA ethics are intimately involved here.
  • The APA equivocated and formed a task force. They said that psychologists had an obligation to keep interrogations, safe legal and effective. This language it turns out was taken from the Bush torture memos at the Justice Department. The task force was dominated by the military.
  • They claim to be resolutely against torture, they make statement after statement. Psychologists shouldn’t be safety officers.
  • In all 3 states, lawyers have joined my colleagues to force the APA board to do their job. The board doesn’t have the leeway to dismiss claims of torture without clearly investigating them.
  • Larry James was a Biscuit 1 and later served at Abu Ghraib after the scandals there, he claims to have been the person who cleaned it up.
  • He admits that he observed abuse by other people and didn’t report it to the commanders.
  • He’s now out of the military and the Dean of the School of Psychology at Wright State University in Ohio.
  • It’s rather sad, instead investigating what did or did not happen, they attack those who raise issues about Colonel James.
  •  Physicians For Human Rights / When Healers Harm

Guest – former President of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Stephen Soldz is a psychologist, psychoanalyst, and public health researcher in Boston, and was a co-author of PHR’s report Experiments in Torture. He is the Director of the Center for Research, Evaluation, and Program Development at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He was Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology (Psychiatry) at Harvard Medical School, and has taught at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston College, and Boston University.

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Guantanamo Bay and Offshore Prisons

The Obama Administration has allowed the Bush policy to continue allowing for the practice of torture, rendition and secret prisons to continue.  We talk about the ongoing practice of torture, secret sites and Guantanamo Bay. There are 3 groups at Guantanamo, the first is 2 dozen that are genuinely Al Qaeda. The second group shouldn’t have been there in first place, around 200 of them will be sent home. The third group are refugees who are from countries with horrible human rights records.

Attorney Vince Warren:

  • What role do the people play in order to stop this? (wars) We are at war to make war is what the public has bought into. By using the war paradigm, the president seized power that belonged to Congress, seized power that belonged to the Courts and seized power that belonged to the people.
  • You can’t be at war with the “concept” of terror.
  • Prior to 9-11 when terrorism would happen. There was an investigation, an indictment, prosecution and if there was a case, they were to be convicted.
  • As of 2011, more people in Guantanamo have died than have been referred for criminal charges.
  • We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that this was a genuine reaction to a tragic event.
  • This aggressive war(s) that are based on lies, without any legitimate security threat, is a crime.
  • The other piece since 9-11 is the interesting double speak.  Torture and aggressive war become justifications since 9-11.
  • The Bush Justice Department said that the law simply does not just apply to the President, when he’s acting as Commander In Chief.  It doesn’t matter if Congress passed a law that we expect the President to be bound, the Justice Department said he could ignore it if it didn’t fit in to what he wanted to do.
  • That led to the Bush lawyers counseling him that he could ignore a law that said torture was illegal or could ignore a law that says the government can’t wiretap without a warrant.
  • President Obama talked very big about ending torture and about ending these policies.
  • What is happening now in the United States is that local police forces, immigration forces, private contractors are colluding and conspiring to infiltrate political movements and largely peaceful political movements.
  • – in order to “uproot the terrorist.”
  • Course there are no terrorists there, what there are are people who have a very vibrant and credible claim.
  • Myself and a number of other human rights people went to a meeting with President Obama in May 2009.  I was shocked at how President Obama completely understood the legal issues we were raising.
  • The very next day he essentially came out with a preventive detention scheme. An indefinite detention scheme in Guantanamo.
  • What really troubled me is that he knows. He knows precisely what the right thing to do is.
  • This thing is not going to fix itself. CCR Facebook – Twitter @theCCR

Guest – Attorney Vince Warren, Executive Director of 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. Vince oversees CCR’s groundbreaking litigation and advocacy work which includes using international and domestic law to hold corporations and government officials accountable for human rights abuses; challenging racial, gender and LGBT injustice; and combating the illegal expansion of U.S. presidential power and policies such as illegal detention at Guantanamo, rendition and torture.

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