CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Death Penalty, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power
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Drone Based Targeted Killings of U.S. citizens. Anwar Al-Aulaqi
Can the Obama Administration or any future administration use lethal force against US citizens who the executive office unilaterally determines as a threat to the nation? Not yet, but in recent government arguments, in the Anwar Al-Aulaqi case, the executive branch would have unreviewable authority to carry out targeted killings of Americans deemed to be enemies of the state. The ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on August 30, and the government filed its reply brief on September 25.
The ACLU and CCR were retained by Nasser Al-Aulaqi to bring a lawsuit in connection with the government’s decision to authorize the targeted killing of his son, U.S. citizen Anwar Al-Aulaqi, whom the CIA and Defense Department have targeted for death.
Pardiss Kebriaei:
- This will be our first chance to defend our motion for a preliminary injunction and respond to the government’s arguments. The sum and substance of the government’s arguments is that there should be no rule for the court at all in the question we presented. Whether the government has authority to execute one of its citizens without any kind of due process.
- There should be absolutely no judicial review at all. They have not got into the merits of why they believe they should have this authority. They assert the US is involved in a global war against Al-Qaeda, by virtue of the war the US has the ability to target any suspect of Al-Qaeda.
- Outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, the question of whether armed conflict exists, is a factual objective question. It’s not a matter of which the president declares and that the level of hostilities and the organization of groups in Yemen are just not such that they to the level of war.
- Anwar Al-Alwaqi is not Al-Qaeda, he is associated with Al-Qaeda.
- The US is not only claiming broad authority geographically but global authority in terms of any and all groups they deem somehow linked to Al-Qaeda.
- They’re claiming AUMF but they’re also claiming a very vague principle of self defense which is tricky. They are claiming self defense under article 51 of the UN charter.
- They’re going around criminal law and claiming un-reviewable authority to carry out global assassination. This is an escalation of what we saw under the Bush Administration with global detention authority, this is global killing authority.
- The authority could reach any citizen they deem a threat to national security. It could reach someone in the United States, the full contours of the government’s arguments would be that the decision to kill is for the executive to determine and that should be an un-reviewable decision.
- The mechanized disconnected nature of the killing is alarming, both by an accountability point of view and a moral point of view.
- The drone project is operated by the CIA and by a covert unit in the Department of Defense called the Joint Special Operations Command.
- Documenting them is incredibly hard, but yet you have the expansion of the war and killings, in this shadow war way. You have this parallel secret war being conducted by the CIA and JSOC largely through the use of unmanned drones. What we have here is the pre-determination of the ability to kill.
- There’s been a steady increase of rhetoric about Yemen and an escalation in the language of war.
Guest – Pardiss Kebriaei, she joined the Center Constitutional Rights in July 2007. Since then, her work has focused on representing men detained at Guantánamo Bay in their habeas corpus challenges, before international human rights tribunals, in diplomatic advocacy with foreign governments to secure resettlement for men who cannot return home, and in post-release reintegration efforts. Her clients have included men from Yemen, Syria, Algeria, and Afghanistan. Her work includes seeking accountability for torture and arbitrary detention at Guantánamo.
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Justice On Trial: Documentary on Mumia Abu-Jamal
We’re pleased to have with us today the director Kouross Esmaeli of the new documentary Justice On Trial. The film focuses on the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, one of the most scrutinized and contested legal cases in American history. Justice on Trial examines the facts of the case, the judicial bias, racial discrimination in jury selection, prosecutorial misconduct and tampering with evidence to obtain a conviction. The injustices and problems in Mumia’s case as many listeners know, are common within the criminal justice system in the United States.
Kouross Esmaeli:
- I tried to get an interview with the wife of the police officer who was killed on the night of December 9, 1981
- I thought it was important to show what drives that side I came to realize that Tigre Hill was making a film (about Mumia, titled Barrel of A Gun) that was propaganda for the other side.
- We had to make sure that film doesn’t become the voice of the nation.
- (Film includes photos 12 minutes after shooting occurred)
- The photos were discovered by an activist and scholar in Germany. He found them online, Michael met the photographer in the US, and realized there were 22 photographs from that night.
- They were offered to the prosecution, they refused.
- What the photographs show is incredible, they show a roving police hat.
- Officer Faulkner’s hat is placed in different spots on the crime scene.
- They show police handling the gun that was supposedly used in this crime. Handling it without gloves.
- There’s this push to kill Mumia and silence him physically. I’m interested to know what drives these people.
- For a screening in your area contact – – Kouross by email – – Kouross@bignoisefilms.org
Guest – Kouross Esmaeli, independent filmmaker and journalist.
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Final Verdict : What Really Happened in the Rosenberg Case.
In 1965, Walter and Miriam Schneir published Invitation to an Inquest, it was among the first critical accounts of the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg case. They were executed in 1953 for passing atom bomb secrets to Soviet Russia. In that book the Schneirs presented exhaustive evidence that key witnesses in the trial had changed their story after prompting from prosecutors. Their conclusion was, the Rosenbergs were innocent. Now after 30 years, Walter Schneir returned to the case with new evidence. Schneir had found that Julius Rosenber was marginally involved in the atom bomb spy ring and Ethel wasn’t involved at all. However they both lied about not knowing about espionage because of their earlier activities in World War II. All of this unravels in the Final Verdict : What Really Happened in the Rosenberg Case.
Miriam Schneir:
- The case began in 1950, 60 years ago. American cities were vulnerable to nuclear attacks. In that climate the Rosenbergs were arrested. The legal charge was conspiracy to commit espionage. During the trial, they were charged with stealing the secrets of the atomic bomb.
- The principle witnesses were Ethel Rosenberg’s brother, David Greenglass and his wife Ruth.
- David was in the Army and serendipitously was sent to Los Alamos, where the atomic bomb was being constructed.
- Julius was a spy during the wartime years. Ethel did nothing, she was not a spy.
- In a report by the Atomic Energy Commission, Greenglass was ranked as the least effective atomic spies back then. There was a lot of effort on the part of the Department of Justice to convict these people.
- This case is relevant today in a larger frame work.
- We can see that the Rosenberg case is like the Dreyfus case or the Sacco and Vanzetti case.
- It’s essential that leftists of each generation should keep that history alive.
- Now it’s Islam fundamentalism. That’s not to say there was no danger.
- You see the government use the courts to advance policies.
- On a personal level, Walter and I learned from the Freedom of Information documents we recieved, on the basis of the Meeropol suit, that while we were researching an Invitation to an Inquest, the FBI had been track our activities.
- We were just two writers who were trying to research a book, they were tapping our phones, and finally they placed us as well as thousands of others on an index of people who would be detained in the event of a national emergency.
- After the book was published, an FBI memo, directed that the book should be smothered and forced out of the public eye.
Guest – Miriam Schneir, editor of Feminism in Our Time: The Essential Writings, World War II to the Present and Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings. In addition to Invitation to an Inquest, she is also the co-author of “Remember the Ladies”: Women in America, 1750–1815.
Walter Schneir, a freelance writer on law, politics, and science. He is the co-author, with his wife Miriam Schneir, of Invitation to an Inquest, long considered the definitive book on the Rosenberg case. He is also the editor of Telling it Like it was: The Chicago Riots, an early account of the 1968 Democratic Convention. He died in April 2009 soon after completing this work.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Gaza, Green Scare, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Truth to Power, Uncategorized
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Lawyers You’ll Like Series: Mara Verheyden Hilliard Part II
Today we’re joined by attorney Mara Verheyden Hilliard co-founder of The Partnership for Civil Justice Legal Defense & Education Fund in the second part of our Lawyers You’ll Like series. Mara and her partner Carl Messineo have worked to defend and advance fundamental civil, constitutional and human rights secured by the U.S. Constitution and under law. We talk about her work, and criminalizing dissent, surveillance, data mining, and FBI harassment. A lot of Mara’s work is at the intersection of first and fourth amendment rights, such as the assault on free speech, assembly and misuse of datamining tools. The Partnership for Civil Justice has many victories, and recently a settlement was reached in a class action lawsuit about the illegality of the arrests of approximately 700 protesters and other persons on Saturday, April 15, 2000 in Washington, D.C.
Attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard:
- I co-founded the Partnership for Civil Justice in 1994 with Carl Messenio. We decided we wanted to do this work specifically, Constitutional rights, civic justice, public interest litigation.
- We began this work right after we left law school. We undertook some of the longest running protest cases that we had, in particular, the recently settled class action from the April 2000 mass arrests.
- I grew up in Washington DC and I spent my childhood going to civil rights demonstrations, anti-war demonstrations, having our house filled demonstrators. Both of my parents are deeply political people who care very much about civil rights, liberation struggles and womens’ rights.
- The core of the work we do we recognize as the underlying social justice movement.
- The municipalities, the governments, they want these cases to go on as long as possible, they want to fight a war of attrition, because they want plaintiffs to feel they have to take toothless settlements.
- The fact is the law has changed in DC, we’ve changed the way police operate. They can’t use these tactics, these tactics we took apart piece by piece have been removed from the arsenal of the police department in DC.
- The DC police can’t use the trap and detain tactic, they can’t hold people, they have to release them within 4 hours now. They can’t use the wrist to ankle handcuff mechanism against people anymore.
- Police need to have their badges plainly available and visible, they can’t come out in riot gear to first amendment assemblies. Now we’re seeing this effort (FBI) against solidarity activists with the raids and subpoenas. I think it is outrageous, and baseless for the government to be coming in and targeting people for solidarity work.
- It’s also reflective of the huge security apparatus that was put in place under Bush and is being accelerated under Obama. Those beliefs, that hope, that thought, that you can change the direction of the country that you live in, is absolutely true.
- All you gotta do is look at the past history of the United States, all 150 years.
- Recognize that it’s no fault to hope and to think that an elected official is going to do it, but historically the elected official has never been the one to do it.
Guest – Constitutional Rights Attorney Mara Verheyden Hilliard co-founder of The Partnership for Civil Justice Legal Defense & Education Fund. Mara Verheyden-Hilliard is an activist, Constitutional Rights attorney, and the cofounder of the Partnership for Civil Justice. She is also co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee.
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United States Plays Down UN Report on the Gaza Flotilla Attack
A United Nations fact finding mission into the May 31, 2010 Israeli lethal attacks of ships traveling to Gaza, has reported that Israeli forces violated international law, “including international humanitarian and human rights law.” Eight Turkish activists and one Turkish-American were killed in the raid on board the ships attempting to break the Gaza blockade. The UN Human Rights Council’s investigation judged Israel’s naval blockade of the Palestinian territory to be “unlawful” because there was a humanitarian crisis in Gaza at the time. However, the United States criticized what it termed as the report’s “unbalanced language, tone and conclusions.”
The Center for Constitutional Rights, the Free Gaza Movement and the National Lawyers Guild responded to the report and the comments made by the United States at the Council
“Unfortunately, the United States used the opportunity of the Human Right Council’s discussion on the flotilla fact-finding mission’s report to promote its political agenda instead of engaging on the issue of legal accountability for Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza and the unlawful attack on the Gaza flotilla,” said CCR attorney Katherine Gallagher. “The U.S. must recognize that there can be no peace without justice, and that until it supports accountability for violations of international law–even when violations committed by Israel – instead of a culture of impunity, it lacks the legitimacy necessary to serve as a broker of peace.”
Attorney Katherine Gallagher:
- There were 6 civilian ships and their goal was to both bring humanitarian aid to Gaza which has been under a Naval blockade by Israel for the last 4 years as well as to challenge the legality.
- The United Nations back in June 2010 set up a fact finding mission. The 3 commissioners traveled to London, to Geneva, Istanbul and Jordan to interview passengers. They met with legal experts and others to analyze the evidence they heard.
- The UN fact finding report was submitted last week, 56 detailed pages of what precisely happened that night on those ships on the night of May 31. It was concluded that the blockade is illegal under international law. It found that the 6 ships traveling to Gaza to break the blockade presented no imminent threat to the Israelis.
- The 3 commissioners have experience in international law matters. One had been a judge on the international criminal court. Their conclusions are grounded in law and not political conclusions. They were peaceful protesters preparing for an attack on the ship.
- It’s hard to see what they find as unbalanced. I think the report is carefully written, it’s cautiously written beginning with an analysis of its own mandate. Turkey very much welcomed the report.
- The bulk of the passengers were detained in Israel, at detention sites that had already been established.
- Confiscated property consists of cameras, computer chips, video equipment. It contains electronic equipment that provides first hand evidence of the flotilla passengers activities and then the attack on the ship.
- In the past 4 months Israel has been in possession of that material.
Guest – Katherine Gallagher, Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where she focuses on holding individuals, including US and foreign government officials, and corporations, including private military contractors, accountable for serious human rights violations. Among the cases she is working on are Arar v. Ashcroft, Matar v. Dichter, Saleh v. Titan and Estate of Atban v. Blackwater.
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Post Coup Honduran Human Rights Crisis
A human rights crisis continues to get worse in Honduras, more than a year after the June 28, 2009 military coup. People on the front lines that oppose the regime installed after the coup are beaten and illegally detained by the state. Nectali Rodezno, Co-Coordinator of National Front of Lawyers in Resistance Against the Coup in Honduras is among the lawyers dircectly involved in defending those are being abused and whose lives are on the line everyday. To inform people about the ongoing crisis in Honduras, there will be a speaking tour this fall called JUSTICE IN HONDURAS: Witness for Peace Mid-Atlantic Fall Speakers Tour will be November 1 – 22.
Attorney Pam Spees:
- From that moment on you began to see alot of repressive tactics immediately after the coup.
- Immediately, leaders of that resistance were being targeted. There were several key people who were killed in aftermath of the coup. Walter Trochez was a key LGBT activist who was targeted and killed in a very brutal way. You also saw the targeting of labor leaders. The killing continue even in this new de facto administration.
- In March you saw the targeting of journalists. In that month alone, 8 journalists were killed.
- The Honduran judiciary were taking certain steps before the coup to help undermine Zelaya and what he was doing. We’re still learning about how much of this was driven by official US policy.
- Before the coup we had the financial crisis in the US that was effecting food security which was making it difficult everywhere. Zelaya was trying to buffer the Hondurans against this. One of the things he did was raise the minimum wage. He raised it and tied it to the food index.
- The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America
- On June 28, the Honduran resistance has set up its own truth commission, The Alternative Truth Commission. The International Criminal Court is an actor and could investigate and potentially prosecute some of these acts.
- In the US we have the Alien Tort Statute. It’s a very old law that allows non-citizens to bring suit in US courts for violations of international law.
- The courage show by all sectors of this resistance is just incredible. www.resistenciahonduras.net
Guest – Pam Spees, senior staff attorney in the international human rights program at the Center for Constitutional Rights. She has a background in international criminal and human rights law with a gender focus, as well as criminal trial practice.
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Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Iraq Veterans, Iraq War, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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The United States and Yemen: Destroying Lives in the Name of National Security
We hear the voices of leading Yemeni activists and a Center For Constitutional Rights attorney speak on state violence, targeted killings, and human rights abuses enabled by the so-called “War on Terror” from the Brecht Forum event titled The United States and Yemen: Destroying Lives in the Name of National Security. The event was co-sponsored by the International Federation for Human Rights and the Brecht Forum. We hear first from Pardiss Kebriaei staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Pardiss is working on a lawsuit to challenge a U.S. government kill-list and the targeting of a U.S. citizen now in Yemen and far from any armed conflict with the United States.
We hear from Tawakkol Karman chairwoman of the Yemeni non-government organization Women Journalists Without Chains, which campaigns for freedom of the press in Yemen and against human rights violations. She is a very prominent young activist, and Reporters Without Borders chose her in 2009 as one of the top seven women who have led change in the world. Karman is among the activists who in 2007 launched the “Phase of Protests and Sit-ins” in Yemen, holding regular sit-ins in the capital’s Freedom Square to demand democratic reforms and an end to human rights violations—including the harassment and imprisonment of journalists and dissidents, closure of critical newspapers, and censorship of news articles. A special thanks to Leili Kashani Education and Outreach Associate for the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Also on the panel, to be heard soon, Ezz-Adeen Al-Asbahi, president of Human Rights Information & Training Center (HRITC), a non-governmental organization which seeks to enhance human rights in Yemen and the Arab World, focusing on the Gulf States in particular. HRITC has consultative status with the United Nations, offers training courses and forums on human rights, publishes a quarterly human rights magazine called Our Rights, and has published 30 books on law and human rights. Al-Asbahi is also the coordinator of a large regional network of human rights activists in the Gulf States and the Peninsula, and the president of a Yemeni network of human rights organizations which includes six Yemeni NGOs. A journalist and researcher, he has published eight books on literature and human rights. He is also the head of the civil society sector of the Supreme National Authority to Combat Corruption.
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Troops out of Iraq, Permanent Bases and Privatizing the Occupation.
While many reports claim most US troops are leaving Iraq, there will still be 50 thousand troops remaining, 4 thousand will be replaced by 7 thousand security contractors. These are armed private contractors, former military with specialized skills in weaponry, radar and explosives. They will have less accountability in war zones. Meanwhile, massive permanent US bases remain including the world’s largest US Embassy in Bagdhad, Iraq. As the occupation in Iraq is privatized, veterans return back to the US. We’re joined today by conscientious objecter and Executive Director of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Jose Vasquez. Jose joined IVAW in June 2005 and co-founded the NYC chapter serving as the president. He also served on the interim board of directors and was elected to the first official board in 2006. He helped organize numerous actions and events including the Veterans’ and Survivors’ March to New Orleans, Operation First Casualty in NYC, and Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan.
Jose Vasquez:
- IVAW is a membership based organization, we are all folks who’ve served since September 11th.
- We call for the immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces from Iraq. We also have the same resolution for Afghanistan. We also want reparations for the Iraqis and full benefits for returning service members.
- I signed up right out of high school, graduated in ’92. I went straight in to active duty, I served 4 years as a Calvary Scout. Got out went to school and the Army Reserves as a medic.
- I had been in the military for a while before September 11th. I had a pretty good understanding of what our relationship was to Iraq. It was confusing to me, I was facing deployment. I stumbled across Democracy Now and I just started listening to that show religiously.
- By 2004, I was so upset about the Iraq War, I didn’t care what happened, I was not going to this.
- I started researching conscientious objection, six months later I filed for CO status. It took 27 months to get an answer.
- The Obama Administration has a finger on the pulse in terms of marketing hope. What they’re skimming over is how contractors are on the ground (in Iraq)
- From the perspective of an Iraqi, Americans running around with guns has not diminished that much.
- I think we owe the people of Iraq a lot. This mostly has to do with the US positioning itself to access the resources that they have.
- Stop the deployment of PTSD troops
Guest – Jose Vasquez, Jose was born in Bronx, NY and grew up in Southern California from the age of nine. After graduating high school in 1992, he enlisted in the U.S. Army serving over four years of active duty as a cavalry scout assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, 24th Infantry Division at Fort Benning, GA, and the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks, HI. He was honorably discharged in December 1996 at the rank of specialist (E-4).
CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Released Today After 30 Years
Last week Puerto Rican community activist Carlos Alberto Torres was released from a federal prison in Pekin, Ill after serving 30 years as a political prisoner. Torres was convicted of seditious conspiracy – conspiring to use force against the lawful authority of the United States over Puerto Rico. Torres was punished for being a member of an armed clandestine organization called the FALN – Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (English: “Armed Forces of National Liberation) which had claimed responsibility for bombings in Chicago that resulted in no deaths. He wasn’t accused of the bombings only of being a member of FALN.
In 1898 Puerto Rico was ceded to the US by Spain as war bounty in the treaty that ended the Spanish-American War. Still, the US has occupied it since. Torres was sentenced to 78 years in prison but used international law in his defense. Torres argued that the courts of the colonizing country may not criminalize captured anti-colonial combatants, but must turn them over to an impartial international tributnal to have their status adjudicated.
There was an outpouring of support to free Carlos. His attorney, National Lawyers Guild member Jan Susler of Chicago, notes, “Carlos is being released from prison due to the unflagging support of the Puerto Rican independence movement and others who work for human rights. The more than 10,000 letters of support from the U.S., Puerto Rico, Mexico and other countries sent a strong message to the Parole Commission.”
Jan Susler:
- Carlos got a disproportionate sentence, a punishment for who he was politically. He did 30 years, standing tall and maintaining his political integrity.
- People stop him on the street, and embrace him.
- The bombing in which he was accused of was only property damage. If he had killed or injured someone and convicted as a social prisoner, he would gotten a less sentence and served far less time.
- He was always treated more harshly than the other prisoners.
- Right after 9/11, the US rounded up political prisoners and put them in the hole for months.
- You’re always watched, you’re always monitored. Every prisoner has access to email, Carlos did not.
Carlos Torres:
Guest – Attorney Jan Susler joined People’s Law Office in 1982 after a six year stint as Clinical Law Professor at Prison Legal Aid, the legal clinic at Southern Illinois University’s School of Law. Her long history of work on behalf of political prisoners and prisoners’ rights includes litigation, advocacy and educational work around USP Marion and the Women’s High Security Unit at Lexington, KY. Her practice at PLO focuses on police misconduct civil rights litigation, which has lately included wrongful conviction litigation on behalf of people exonerated after serving many years in prison, innocent. Her work with the Puerto Rican Independence Movement and with progressive movements challenging U.S. foreign and domestic policies has been a constant throughout her 30 years as a lawyer.
Guest – Carlos Alberto Torres member of Puerto Rico’s independence movement and the longest-serving Puerto Rican political prisoner. He was convicted and sentenced to 78 years in a U.S. federal prison for seditious conspiracy – conspiring to use force against the lawful authority of the United States over Puerto Rico. He served 30 years, being released on July 26, 2010.
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CCR and ACLU Sue Obama Over Limits On Lawyers Seeking To Represent Suspect on Administration “Kill List”
The Center for Constutional Rights and the ACLU have filed a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s authority to use the military and the CIA to kill the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. He’s an American citizen, accused of terrorism but hasn’t recieved a trial. He is believed to be hiding in Yemen. Because it would be against the law to challenge the government’s attempt to kill al-Awlaki, the lawsuit was filed against the Treasury department, that challenged a regulation that would require the Center and the ACLU to obtain its permission in order to provide uncompensated legal services for Mr al-Awlaki.
Vince Warren, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, argued that international law did not permit a government to kill people far from combat zones, and in the case of a US citizen, Vince said that such a policy also violates the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment — and is a dangerous precedent.
CCR Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei:
- The case that we filed last week was a challenge to a regulatory scheme under the Department of Treasury and OFAC which prohibits transactions with anyone designated as a terrorist by the government. That includes pro-bono legal services.
- Al-Awlaki is the subject of an assassination order by the president, ordering and authorizing the CIA and Special Forces to target and kill him.
- OFAC powers go back to the 1970s IEEPA, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
- All we have against this guy are allegations.
- The CIA, which is one of the agencies that carries out these killings has primarily used drones. We think that drones would be the primary way that this killing would be carried out.
Guest – CCR staff attorney Pardiss Kebriaei joined the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in July 2007. She provides direct representation to several of CCR’s clients at Guantánamo and helps coordinate CCR’s network of hundreds of pro bono counsel representing other prisoners. She also focuses on using international human rights mechanisms to bring international pressure to bear on the U.S. government and hold other governments accountable for their role in the violations at Guantánamo.
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CCR Attorney Legal Observer Arrested in Arizona Immigration Protests
Legal observers from the National Lawyers Guild and the Center for Constitutional Rights were arrested last week during mass demonstrations of protesters who opposed Federal law 287G, Arizona law SB 1070. What happened? CCR Legal Director Bill Quigley told the media, Arizona is starting to act like Mississippi in the civil rights days. Among those arrested were National Lawyers Guild officer Roxana Orrell and CCR staff attorney Sunita Patel.
Sunita Patel:
- It was my first time in Maricopa County. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is known for branding the most horrible incarnation of 287G and ICE police collaboration.
- 287G is the statute by which this program is authorized by Congress. He also has what’s called a secure communities program which allows for the identification of anyone who is a non-citizen through a finger printing system. 287G allows for local agencies to implement immigration law through a memorandum of understanding with the federal government.
- At the same time he implements what’s called “crime suppression sweeps” Where he takes his units and regular citizens to sweep through neighborhoods.
- I spent the night in jail, I hadn’t planned on it. It was really an honor to be in solidarity with the rest of the protesters. I was charged with obstruction of a highway and public thoroughfare and failure to obey a police officer. People in Arizona call it a war zone when it comes to immigration enforcement.
- Arizona has also become the site for a spark of incredible activism and the growth of an incredible human rights movement.
Guest – CCR Staff Attorney Sunita Patel with racial profiling, immigrant rights and other human rights litigation. Prior to her position at CCR, she held a Soros Justice Fellowship at The Legal Aid Society, Immigration Law Unit in New York where she represented immigrant detainees in removal proceedings and worked with criminal justice and human rights groups to create independent community oversight for detention operations through public accountability boards. Sunita is a former law clerk for the Honorable Judge Ivan L. R. Lemelle in the Eastern District of Louisiana.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Lynne Stewart Heard A Death Sentence Today
As many listeners know Judge John G Koeltl sentenced defendant, Lynne Stewart: 120 months incarceration in the Danbury Federal Correctional Institution Connecticut on five counts to be served concurrently. Lynne Stewart is 70 years old, she’s a breast cancer survivor with other pending health issues. We’re joined by Vinie Burrows today, she is the UN representative for the Women’s International Democratic Federation and the founding member of the Granny Peace Bridgade. Vinie Burrows made powerful statements in her article titled Lynne Stewart Heard A Death Sentence Today that calls terrorism by its real name under the draconian Patriot Act.
Vinie writes, “over and over again in his remarks leading up to the sentencing, Judge Koeltl used the term “terrorist enhancement.” Those warning words bring up the specter of some of the nastiest aspects of the Cold War and its present re-incarnation in the Patriot Act which by expanding law enforcement’s surveillance and investigative powers represents a significant threat to civil liberties. Read the official text… “Uniting and Strengthening America by providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. The Sentencing of Lynne Stewart by Michael Steven Smith.
Vinie Burrows:
- Being at Lynne Stewart’s court hearing was useful to see the judge, to see the players, the 2 prosecuting lawyers and to see Lynne Stewart who made a marvelous opening statement. It was one of the great speeches before the bar
- I felt as he was reading, Judge Koeltl was responding to each dictate of the appellate court.
- We have to define terror. We can’t go by what the legislative, judicial and now executive define as terror. We’re looking in the wrong places for terror. A single mother with 3 children living in a shelter, she knows terror. When she doesn’t know where her next meal is coming from, that’s terror.
- When her home is foreclosed on, that’s terror, and of course our banks are the biggest terror of all.
- We can’t even think of Lynne Stewart when we talk of terror, she is a human rights defender. She’s been deprived of the ability to defend human rights.
- I think we have to go to “who are the terrorists?” who are the victims of terror?
- We have to talk about the state, the state usually the perpetrator of human rights violations.
- The state must recognize that poverty is a weapon of mass destruction.
- I think we need to talk about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a legal basis to mount some sort of appeal.
- Michael Ratner: This is the Time of the Toad (A Study of Inquisition In America)
- Lynne Stewart has another appeal against this severe sentence.
Guest – Vinie Burrows is an award-winning Broadway actress. She has been active at the United Nations Economic and Social Council on the issues of the status of women and Southern Africa. Burrows won the Paul Robeson Award in 1986. She was to appear in a show titled Sister! Sister! at the University of Delaware in Newark in November 1991. She was to be a panelist in the 2000-2001 African Diaspora lecture series at the Center for Ideas and Society in Riverside, California.
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Mountain Top Removal Activists Arrested For Direct Action In Virginia (Updated)
Last week 4 activists with Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice were arrested for using direct action to shut down a coal mining mountaintop removal effort in Virginia. Two of the 4 activists locked themselves to heavy machinery in the coal mining pit and were later arrested. The activists say they are drawing public attention to the dangers associated with the Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment, which contain up to 8 billion gallons of toxic coal waste. The area is unstable, Brushy Fork’s foundation is built on a honeycomb of abandoned underground mines. If the foundation were to collapse, as others have, the toxic slurry could engulf communities nearly 14 miles away, according to Marfork Coal Co.’s emergency warning plan. Meanwhile, one of the activists, Jimmy Tobias was still in jail during this interview and is now released.
Dea Goblirsch:
- Mountain top removal is a destruction form of coal mining that uses explosives, that blow up the tops of mountains to get to the coal seams beneath. It’s cheaper and more efficient than underground mining, it also employs fewer miners.
- So far there have more than 800 miles of peaks flattened. They also take the rubble from the tops of mountains and dump it into nearby valleys. They are called valley fills. The creation of the valley fills cover up the headwater streams.
- A lot of these valleys feed into water systems that supply water to the Eastern United States.
- Brushy Fork is the largest earthen dam in the Western Hemisphere.
- Coal River Mountain was the highest elevation in the area that hadn’t been mountaintop removal mined.
- You can’t always see mountain top mining from the roadside, they tend to keep a veil of trees.
- The work we’re doing is primarily civil disobedience and direct action. Tree sits within the blast range. Bails and sentencing are widely uneven.
- Community groups to start sustainable energy initiatives in Appalachia, we see this happening in Kentucky, and Virginia and other parts of the coal mining region.
- A woman publicly slapped Judy Bonds, the director of Coal River Mountain Watch.
- A strip miner threatened to slit the throat of a child
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Katie Huscsza:
- We attached ourselves to the high wall miner (equipment) for 4 hours.
- Me and Colin were charged with trespassing, conspiracy and obstruction.
- There are around 30 people this summer actively working to stop mountain top removal.
- We I first learned about it (MTR) I almost didn’t believe that something so awful and destructive could be taking place
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Guest – Dea Goblirsch with Climate Ground Zero and Katie Huscsza, also with CGZ had locked herself to highwall coal mining machines, arrested and released on bail.
Music interludes in this segment by Canton Becker
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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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