Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power
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Holder Calls Terrorism Sting Operations ‘Essential’
US Attorney General Eric Holder delivered a 20 minute speech last week at the annual dinner of Muslim Advocates a national legal advocacy and civil rights organization. While speaking to a room of nearly 300 Muslim community leaders, Holder defended the sting operation in the Oregon bombing case and called it a “successful undercover operation.” The room fell silent. Holder continued by saying if you think its entrapment, you simply don’t have the facts straight.
Farhana Khera president of Muslim Advocates and a previous guest on Law and Disorder, criticized Holder’s comments saying the FBI is getting people involved with terrorism who wouldn’t have otherwise and resources are being diverted that could be used for actual threats. Holder continued to justify the counter terrorism techniques including sending informers into mosques to find a would-be terrorists and creating elaborate sting operations.
We’ve looked into some of the “undercover operations” and in those cases informants were used, often immigrants offered large sums of money, or plea deals for whatever crime they committed if they agree to work with the FBI. Those cases include the Newburgh Four, the Fort Dix Five and Yassir Aref in Albany. The sting operations create fear among Muslim communities and help prop up the wars raging in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Iraq.
Dalia Hashad:
- There are 3 things that need to happen for someone to be entrapped by law enforcement.
- The idea of committing the crime had to come from government agents, not from the person accused of committing the crime. The government agent persuaded the person into committing the crime.
- The person wasn’t willing to commit the crime before the government agents spoke to them.
- These cases look the same because the FBI go after the same type of guy.
- I don’t like to get into the details of these cases because the narrative is controlled by the FBI.
- Eric Holder had no business being invited and headlining the event.
- Eric Holder Entraps at Muslim Advocates Dinner
- The FBI has more than 100 Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which includes more than 10 thousand FBI agents.
- They partner with other agents, even IRS agents.
- We basically have law enforcement agents out there spying on people who’ve done nothing wrong.
Zaher Billoo:
- I went to this dinner thinking, what are people going to be talking about, are people going to be afraid of hate crimes? People were more worried about the FBI’s tactics than anything.
- The concern is, instead of getting them the help that they need, and preventing an incident and hopefully bettering the community for that, what we’re seeing is the FBI converting them into operational terrorists
- One of the troubles of the war on terror is that we can’t prove whether its successful or not but we want to continue to spend money on it.
- This type of incident justifies that type of offense. The counterproductive measure here is that it puts the community on guard.
- Instead of building relationships with the community they’re trying to work with, they’re burning bridges. This conversation about informants, not knowing who you can trust or who you can candidly speak with, is reminiscent of some of the regimes that people were escaping.
- It’s nothing new. We continue to fall into these patterns.
- An important thing for us as activists and advocates for the community is to insure we’re making these parallels and building coalitions based on that.
- In this last year, people have started to say that it feels as though it’s as bad here as it was a year ago.
- The anti-Muslim sentiment is stronger now in 2010 than it was in 2001.
Guest – former Law and Disorder co-host, Dalia Hashad, attorney and independent consultant specializing in human rights and civil rights. She has run programs at Amnesty International and the ACLU, and she has served as a human rights legal adviser in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. At Amnesty International, Ms. Hashad was the Director of the USA Program, focusing on racial profiling, criminal justice and national security. She also served as AIUSA’s policy specialist in global identity discrimination, addressing issues of race, sexual orientation, religion and gender.
Guest- Attorney Zahra Billoo, executive director of CAIR San Francisco Bay Area CAIR ( the Council on American-Islamic Relations.) Zahra started as an intern for a local chapter of the California Faculty Association, a labor union for California State University (CSU) faculty members. Zahra has also worked as Field Organizer for the Service Employees International Union, and was awarded Peggy Browning Fund Fellowship to work with the National Employment Law Project. Zahra graduated Cum Laude from California State University, Long Beach with a B.S. in Human Resources Management and B.A. in Political Science. She completed her law degree at the University of California, Hastings College of Law.
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Entrapped, a documentary film exposing the FBI
We’ve discussed the many cases of FBI entrapment here on the show and we are delighted to have with us Big Noise film maker and producer for Democracy Now, Anjali Kamat. Anjali had recently finished the film titled, Entrapped, a documentary examing the role of the FBI and government agencies funding and entrapping people by infiltrating specific ethnic and religious communities. She had traveled through Muslim communities in New York and New Jersey interviewing families of those Muslim men arrested on terrorism charges. Recent cases such as the Fort Dix Five, the Newburgh Four and Yassin Aref in Albany are highlighted in the film.
Anjali Kamat:
- I did the film as a piece of investigating reporting for Democracy Now along with from Big Noise Films. It’s available at Big Noise Films and Democracy Now DVD
- We had a screening at a restaurant off of Coney Island Avenue, hosted by the Coney Island Avenue Project.
- When these cases come about, they’re often talked about as sting operations. The FBI has been doing undercover work and they discovered this terrorist plot.
- They’re on the evening news, talking about how much safer we all are now as a result of the FBI’s excellent work.
- When you dig a little deeper you realize it’s not really a sting, in most cases. It can be called entrapment.
- Informants: In the cases I looked at, there was a Pakistani immigrant and an Egyptian immigrant, they are offered large sums of money, offered at times a plea deal for whatever crime they committed if they agree to work for the FBI.
- There are 3 cases I looked at, 3 out of dozens of cases. The first case took place in Albany in 2004 that involves a Bangladeshi pizza owner and a Kurdish Imam. They were both convicted and their prison time was reduced from 30 years to 15 years, because the case was very thin and there was an outpouring of community support.
- The second case is the Ft Dix Case, which took place in Pennsylvania. All five of the men were convicted. They are serving life sentences. Four out of the five men were ethnic Albanians from Macedonia. They were construction workers, their father had a roofing business. The fourth was a Palestinian American. Informant encouraged Palestinian American to download more and more jihadi videos.
- These videos are key because they are what was shown at the trial to the jury. The third case, the sentencing hasn’t happened yet. The Newburgh four.
- On the domestic front it allows the government to show its being tough on terror at a time when there is no evidence of where Osama Bin Laden is. At a time when the democrats seem very weak on a number of fronts.
- Another use of this is to create fear among Muslim communities. Now there’s a great sense of doubt whenever someone new comes into the community. Could this person be a government informant?
- It helps justify the wars that are continuing abroad.
Guest – Anjali Kamat, independent radio and print journalist from south India. She has lived in Egypt and Jordan and reported on movements for justice across the Middle East and South Asia. Her work has appeared in Corpwatch, Left Turn, and Samar magazine, and national newspapers in India and Egypt (The Hindu, Frontline, Outlook, and Al-Ahram Weekly). In addition to producing Democracy Now!, she co-hosts and co-produces a weekly radio show on WBAI called Global Movements Urban Struggles.
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Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Torture, War Resister
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Afghanistan Invasion/Occupation To End Beyond 2014
Thousands took to the streets of London last week to protest against the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, as Nato leaders agreed a strategy to withdraw their troops from the country. US President Barack Obama was expected to announce an exit strategy from Afghanistan at the NATO summit in Lisbon, instead he postponed troop withdrawal beyond 2014. Vice President Joe Biden told one media source “Daddy is going to start to take the training wheels off in October — I mean in next July, so you’d better practice riding.”
Jerry Gordon:
- End date 2014, there’s nothing firm about it. “2014 is a goal not a guarantee.”
- Everything is tentative, nothing is concrete. They are pursuing what has been called an “endless war.”
- what is less known is the US Government supported the Taliban, because their priority was a stable government in Kabul, that would permit the construction of a pipeline.
- They needed a pipeline to transfer these giant hydro-carbon reserves, we’re talking about 206 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 60 to 200 billion gallons of oil reserves.
- This was all before 2001, it was planned. There’s plenty of evidence. There’s a long speech in the Congressional Record in 1998 about the critical importance of building a new pipeline in Afghanistan.
- This is all geo-political and economic, it’s empire building.
- It became converted into a war on terror, after 9/11.
- At the same time there’s no money to pay unemployment compensation and all the urgent social needs at home to put people back to work
- The anti-war movement needs to reiterate the origins of the war and the rationale.
- There’s no draft, only a small percent of the population has placed Afghanistan at the top of the priority list.
- Past anti-war movements: We had a mass base among the students. We need to tie the war to the economic crisis, bring the war dollars home.
- Rethink Afghanistan: Destroys Failed Logic of War by Jeremy Scahill
- When they kill leaders, they get replaced, and it generates recruiting among the insurgents.
- US Law Labor Against the War was able to get the AFL-CIO to take a position of rapid withdrawal from Iraq.
- Our biggest problem in terms of constituencies, we do not have a mass base. It’s the students the labor movement and the religious community. Everything is imploding in this country.
- Contact Jerry Gordon – natassembly(at)aol.com
Guest – Jerry Gordon, the main organizer of the well attended anti-war conference in Albany last summer. He was the leader in the anti-Vietnam movement and recently retired from the SEIU.
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CAIR Files Suit Against Oklahoma Vote Opposing Sharia Law
In November, 70 percent of Oklahoma approved ballot initiative “Question 755? — or the “Save Our State” constitutional amendment — which bans Sharia from being considered in Oklahoma courts. The ballot states that Oklahoma courts must “rely on federal and state law when deciding cases” and forbids them from “considering or using international law” and “from considering or using Sharia Law.”
Recently, Muneer Awad, executive director of CAIR-OKC filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of State Question 755, and an Oklahoma City judge extended a temporary ban on implementation of a constitutional amendment. U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange said she will rule after weighing the issues. Muneer Awad, who is Muslim says the amendment demonizes his faith.
Muneer Awad:
- Labeling Islam as a unique threat to Oklahoma courts. It was a clear message that Islam is a threat to Oklahoma.
- I think what happened is a handful of politicians realized that Islamophobia is politically popular.
- I can count on one hand how many politicians didn’t vote to put this on the ballot.
- Those politicians were attacked during the campaign as being people that wanted to bring Sharia to Oklahoma so terrorists can use Islamic law in our courts
- If we don’t act now our state will be in peril. There are politicians that deliberately misinform people, that deliberately lie to people in order to gain political popularity in the polls.
- There are a number of non-Muslim Oklahomans that are concerned by State Question 755 and the perception and effect it has on Oklahoma.
- We’re trying to remind people that this isn’t a reasonable conclusion people made after a lot of thought and reasonable research. These were people that were misled by politicians that have lied to us.
Guest – Muneer Awad, executive director of CAIR-OKC
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The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism.
In a scathing attack from the left, former editor in chief of Harper’s magazine, Roger Hodge offers a powerful critique of President Barack Obama in his new book, The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism. Hodge articulates what many of listeners may already know. President Obama has served the corporate masters. Hodge draws a list of examples, such as cheerleading globalization, designing a health care plan where insurance companies make a killing, extrajudicial assassination of American citizens, boundless state secrecy, and unlimited corporate bailouts, to name a few.
In explaining the book, Hodge told Harper’s magazine in an interview, he used 18th century reflections to James Madison, whose philosophy aligned with republicans such as Machiavelli and James Harrington in the argument that a moderate balance of wealth must be maintained, that too great a distinction between the rich and poor would naturally lead to the decay of republican governance.
Roger Hodge:
- Obama’s most enthusiastic supporters have really been lying to themselves.
- Part of the book is an argument against this tendency for people to deny what’s going on right in front of them.
- We ran a piece in Harper’s by Ken Silverstein, a great investigative reporter who argued, this guy is a conventional machine Democrat.
- He set up shop. Come to me corporate America with your problems and I will try to solve them.
- You listen to this inspiring rhetoric, if you look at it on paper, there wasn’t a lot of content there.
- When it comes to an Obama / McCain-Palin – there’s an arguement to be made constitutionally we might be better off with the Republicans.
- Corporate backers: FIRE sector. Finance/Insurance/Real Estate.
- The number one corporate backer was Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs collectively gave Obama, almost 1 million dollars but invested only 230 thousand dollars for McCain.
- Obama’s backers also included, Morgan Stanley, Citi-Group is up there with 750 thousand, JP Morgan Chase . . they don’t do this out of the goodness of their hearts.
- They expect to get something, and as we saw in the rolling bailouts, the financial sector got tremendous return on investments.
- Democratic think tanks set the stage for the financial crisis that we’re still living through, by deregulating finance, by breaking down the New Deal protection, repealing the Glass-Steagal Act, and deregulating derivatives with the Commodities Futures Modernization Act.
- The old idea, that unfortunately is still with us, that the democrats are the liberal party, the party of the common man who are fighting the big business bad guys in the Republican party is really a myth, and it’s a pernicious myth.
- Health Care was a bailout for the insurance companies, Obama and his team always saw that as a bargaining chip, they never really planned on pushing that through. Having health insurance does not guarantee health care.
- Rahm Emanuel, this is a guy without principles, he’s all about winning and raising money.
- You can say, at least he’s tough, but he didn’t fight for anything worth fighting for.
- A president surrounds himself with people who are ill-liberal, who are completely compromised by their connections with Wall Street.
- We have to gain some leverage over our representatives. It’s a real double bind. People don’t want to reckon with the sheer awfulness of the our political culture.
Guest – Roger Hodge, former editor of Harper’s Magazine from March 2006 through January 2010. Hodge attended the University of the South, where he majored in comparative literature. He began graduate work at the New School for Social Research and completed a master’s degree in philosophy, but joined Harper’s before finishing his dissertation. Hodge first came to Harper’s as an intern in 1996 and was subsequently hired as a fact checker. Hodge edited the Harper’s Reading section from 1999 until 2003.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights
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Brandworkers Defeats Anti-Speech Legal Action from the Flaum Appetizing Corp.
Workers of the Campaign for Justice at Flaum Appetizing Corporation stand up. Immigrants for Mexico and Ecuador challenged sweatshop conditions at a New York City processor and distributor of kosher foods. The workers used innovative legal advocacy and organizing tools to win justice at the company. The company Flaum Appetizing illegally withheld hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation owed to the workers and used anti-immigrant retailiation when workers stood up for their rights.
Attorney Daniel Gross:
- Brandworkers work on a joint campaign called Focus on the Food Chain.
- Much of the food that we consume at markets and restaurants is distributed by a corridor of sweatshops that line southern Queens and northern Brooklyn.
- Overtime is hardly ever paid, no retirement benefits, no health care, extreme discrimination, extremely heavy work without appropriate health and safety standards.
- The company owes them 260 thousand in this labor board case after a full trial.
- The employer had the chance to make their case, call their witnesses, they lost. That order has been enforced, but Flaum is still resisting. They’re resisting for one reason. Immigration.
- We’ve had members there at Flaum, no question where they’re from, say no to abuse, say no to conditions where Latino workers are called cockroaches.
- It’s despicable, we need to put all our energy and all our heart into opposing this type of discrimination.
- Brandworkers: We’re very pleased to report we stared down their Taft-Hartley charges at the board.
- December 8th, 2010 at the Labor Board of Brooklyn / 2 Metro Tech Center / Brooklyn, NY /
- Focus On The Food Chain / Facebook
Guest – Daniel Gross, attorney, co-founder and executive director of Brandworkers International, a non-profit organization protecting and advancing the rights of retail and food employees.
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Human Rights Groups File Legal Petition on Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Camps for Displaced in Haiti
It’s been almost a year since Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake took the lives of nearly 200 thousand people and left 1.5 million homeless. Now, women and girls living in the camps have lived in fear of the constant threat of rape and violence.
Groups of attorneys and advocates for displaced women in Haiti are calling for urgent action to confront an epidemic of sexual violence in the camps. On-the-ground investigations have revealed a shocking pattern of rape, beatings and threats against the lives of Haitan women and girls. A petition submitted by the groups to the the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights calls for the IACHR to require the Haitian government to take action such as installing lighting in the camps and provide housing.
Bill Quigley, Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said “The ultimate solution here is permanent, safe housing for Haitians. Unfortunately, the international community has reneged on its commitment to provide essential funds for rebuilding and the U.S., in particular, has not delivered even one cent of the reconstruction funding it pledged. Women are being forced to live in extremely unsafe conditions for the foreseeable future and it is a deplorable failure on the part of those who made such a show about standing with the Haitian people in their greatest hour of need.”
Attorney Bill Quigley:
- I was in Haiti, and visited a number of the camps with some grass roots womens’ organizations.
- I really was shocked by how terrible things were there. Still over a million people who are homeless. They’re really not camps. Every park, every school yard, every backyard, every churchyard has people living in it. Over 1300 hundred of these camps.
- None of these camps have running water or electricity or proper sanitation or food availability.
- Women and children are much more vulnerable when chaos hits.
- In one community, tens of thousands line up in the morning and afternoon just to get water. If you go to the bathroom at night, you run a real risk of being assaulted or raped.
- The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.
- They don’t want the UN to be the security down there, by and large they’re considered occupiers by the people of Haiti.
- They’re preserving order but the order is that 90 percent of the people are disenfranchised.
- Somebody with a gun or machete is empowered when all you have for protection is a plastic sheet.
- A few people can terrorize thousands and thousands of folks. Every single day is a survival day.
- Only 2 percent of the rubble has been removed.
- You can’t depend only on volunteers. Volunteers can’t build hospitals.
- The legal action filed is asking to hold the United Nations and the international community in the way the aid is being spent that is not prioritizing the safety of women and girls.
- We included in that dozens of reports of kidnapping, starving and women having to sell themselves to survive.
- I’m not sure I could live that way for a month, less than a month. Toilet facilities used by thousands of people that’s far away to get to. Mario Joseph, Haitian human rights lawyer.
- Three sources of power in Haiti, the Haitian government, the US-UN and the NGO community.
- Five cents out of every dollar actually goes to the Haitian government. Bill Clinton has more power than anybody else in Haiti.
Guest – Bill Quigley, Legal Director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, a national legal and educational organization dedicated to advancing and defending the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Bill joined CCR on sabbatical from his position as law professor and Director of the Law Clinic and the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University New Orleans. He has been an active public interest lawyer since 1977.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Human Rights, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power
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Oklahoma:Voters Approve Sharia Law Ban
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French Labor Activism, US Labor Passivism
In the United States, unemployment rose from its level in 2008 (5.8 %) to its level in the second quarter of 2010 (9.7 %). These are numbers never seen before. However, by comparison, French unemployment rose from 7.4 % in 2008 to 9.2 % in the second quarter of 2010. This data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show unemployment had risen further and faster in the US than in France across in the last 3 years. This is found in Economics Professor Rick Wolff’s article French Labor Activism, US Labor Passivism.
Yet French workers are in the streets by the millions demonstration against anti-worker “austerity policies.” Government policies that could cut workers payroll or the services that are provided to the public. Meanwhile US workers are taking it sitting down, there’s no resistance. In California, there’s now a 22 percent unemployment and it takes the average unemployed American about 35 weeks to find a job. US states and towns cut payrolls and public services and as President Obama’s special commission gets ready to reduce social security benefits to the American people. Consider that in September 2010, according to the BLS, while the total US private sector added 64,000 jobs, state and local governments fired 77,000 people.
Rick Wolff:
- This is a tsunami of a political movement. All the six different organizations of trade unions have unified in organizing and moving these demonstrations. They haven’t unified on anything for a long time. They’ve drawn in students.
- Sarkozy almost in a way provoked the students to join the demonstrations in huge numbers.
- The students quickly understood that if the older workers stayed in their jobs an extra 2 years, those are jobs they’re not going to get. 70 percent of the French people support demonstrations. What we see now is a minority government, isolated, entrenched.
- If you want to see a movement that is doing something, mobilizing mass opinion, you got it.
- If you read what the French are saying, it’s this. We’ve already paid for the crisis, with unemployment, lost homes, insecure jobs.
- We’ve done our part, we’ve accepted that. We’ve drawn our line in the sand. We’re not gonna pay for fixing this mess from which have suffered. Why is this relevant? It is exactly like the United States.
- The atrophy of left here is much more palpable, then what happened there. We’ve had a much worse decline of our trade union movement then they did.
- We have to create anew the organizations that could bring people together into an effective coalition. The last thing we need is 800 single issued groups, cultivating its own garden and not talking to the other.
Guest-Richard D. Wolff, Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. He also teaches classes regularly at the Brecht Forum in Manhattan.
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Entrapment and Conviction of the Newburgh Four
Last week, the four men accused of planting bombs outside synagogues in the Bronx and plotting to fire missiles at military planes were convicted in a case that was the test of the entrapment defense. The jury of the Newburgh 4 trial convicted James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen of plotting to bomb synagogues and shoot military planes. Cromitie and David Williams were also convicted of conspiring to kill officers and employees of the government. Sentencing is scheduled for March. The four face life sentences.
It wasn’t difficult for Shahed Hussain, a government agent provocateur who was facing incarceration, to offer food, money, marijuana, cars and vacations to the four men and ultimately coercing them to collaborate on so-called “terror plots.”
According to a press release by Project Salam (Support And Legal Advocacy for Muslims) The defendants had absolutely no intention to commit any terrorist crimes until the FBI agent provocateur, Shahed Hussain, promised them each $5,000––and in one case $250,000––if they did his bidding. He posed as a rich man who could give the defendants everything they’d ever wanted. He chose the targets, he told them how it would all work, and the FBI paid for everything. The four defendants were petty criminals, none of whom had a car or even a driver’s license. When the so-called leader, James Cromitie, decided to back away from Hussain’s scheme and refused to answer his calls for about a month, Hussain said, “Brother, I told you you could have $250,000, but you don’t want it.” Cromitie’s response: “OK, I’m in.”
Attorney Steve Downs:
- We were really surprised, we thought the edge had been reached here. They (Newburgh Four) were convicted of participating in this plot that had been cooked up, manufactured by the FBI
- These are four individuals who had no way to undertake any kind of terrorist plot. They had no automobile, no driver’s license, no money, no training, they had nothing. The FBI simply provided everything, including driving them to a spot where all they had to do is deliver a package, outside of building to complete this crime which the FBI concocted. There’s no other way to look at it.
- There is the pre-disposition idea and that comes from the ready-response argument. That has simply been misused.
- Example: Would like a loan of 5 thousand dollars, or a gift of 5 thousand dollars? Then only afterward you find out this “gift” has to do with money laundering.
- In the meantime, the person is being asked to make a ready-response. In the Newburgh case, Shahed Hussien, the informant, suggested an illegal plot. The main person he was working on James Crominic, essentially backed out of it.
- There’s a six week period that James didn’t correspond with the government at all. Then finally, Shahed called and said look you’ve got 250 thousand dollars here if you go through with this.
- These people had been somewhat exposed to Islam in prison, but didn’t know much about the religion.
- One of them had a crack-cocaine problem, another had mental problems, very serious mental problems.
- You could’ve gone to any place in upstate New York and found somebody who would grab at a deal like this.
- It was a lot of money for potentially very little activity.
- The building that was going to blow up would be unoccupied, the plane was on the ground without people in it.
- They were paid to make a political statement and not to kill anybody.
- These things are very very cleverly crafted by the FBI.
- Because people don’t know much about Islam, the government is free to play upon stereotypes and fears that people have.
Guest – Attorney Steve Downs, retired chief attorney with the New York Commission on Judicial Conduct, is a founder of Project SALAM (Support and Legal Advocacy for Muslims).
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Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Rachel Corrie Lawsuit In Israel
Rachel Corrie, an American student activist and human rights defender from Olympia, Washington, was crushed to death on March 16, 2003, by a Caterpillar D9R bulldozer while nonviolently protesting Palestinian home demolitions with fellow members of the International Solidarity Movement.
The first phase of the trail began in March 2010, when the Corrie family presented its witnesses, including several of Rachel’s colleagues from ISM who witnessed her killing. During the second phase of the trial, which began last month, the government presented several witnesses, including the Israeli military police investigator who headed the investigation into Rachel’s death, and the bulldozer operators who struck and killed her.
The lawsuit charges that Rachel’s killing was intentional. It also charges that the Israeli government was negligent for allowing Israeli soldiers and military commanders to act recklessly using an armored military bulldozer without regard to the presence of unarmed, nonviolent civilians in Rafah, Gaza Strip. Lastly the lawsuit alleges that the Israeli military failed to take appropriate and necessary measures to protect Rachel’s life, in violation of obligations under Israeli and international law.
Katherine Gallagher:
- Rachel had been serving as a peace activist with the Palestinian International Solidarity Movement.
- The case is unfortunately taking quite a while, it was filed back in 2005, then the evidentiary phase opened in 2010. At that point the Corrie’s were able to call their own witnesses. They also called an expert who could speak about how to conduct a proper investigation.
- The investigator testimony revealed huge errors in the way the investigation was carried out.
- Errors include: The bulldozer was removed from the scene of the killing. There were investigators in the case who never went to the scene of the crime.
- On October 7, right before testimony, it was permitted that soldiers involved in the incident be allowed to testify behind a screen.
- This is an extraordinary step, the family if unable to see those soldiers who are able to provide some answers even through their body language as they testify.
- For the Corries who have waited 7 and a half years for some answers, that they won’t be able to assess the credibility by his body language is a significant blow.
- When you say the name Rachel Corrie in Israel, people know who she is.
- CCR Lawsuit: Caterpillar had aided and abetted war crimes and other serious violations of international law.
- It struck how Jerusalem has changed. There’s been a massive amount of construction in the old city and particularly around East Jerusalem.
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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You Can’t Be President: The Outrageous Barriers to Democracy in America
John Rick MacArthur is the president and publisher of Harper’s Magazine. He’s an award winning journalist and author. We want to talk with Rick about his third book titled You Can’t Be President: The Outrageous Barriers to Democracy in America and explore the topic of who finances the Republican and Democratic parties. A recent book review states, that it (quote) advances a familiar argument: that moneyed and privileged interests, rather than the needs and opinions of ordinary citizens, dominate contemporary American politics. MacArthur, begins by lamenting the lack of basic comprehension of the Constitution and American government on the part of the political and media elite. The book also criticizes Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Rick MacArthur:
- There are two balance sheets, there’s one with regard to the people of the United States and the other which I talk about in You Can’t Be President is the internal party structure.
- The balance sheet for the people is bad, we are now enmeshed even more in a self destructive war if possible than Iraq was. Afghanistan is a disaster and you don’t have to ask a peacenik.
- You have a fake health care reform which really reinforced the power of the insurance companies.
- You have a very feeble reform of Wall Street. You have a continuation of anti-labor,orthodox “free trade” policies. You have the continued corruption of the lobby system in Washington.
- Coming from Chicago, if Obama attacked the lobby system it would be like committing political suicide.
- Obama broke every record in corporate fund raising, PAC fund raising. He raised money from Jack Abramoff’s old law firm.
- In sum, he’s (Obama) has been an anti-reformer, anti-progressive.
- On civil liberties, if you criticize Bush it’s great, if you criticize Obama, you can hear a pin drop.
- I met someone who did a tour of the new prison in Baghram, Afghanistan. He said it was terrifying.
- You have to understand that the Chicago machine, is the most powerful local machine in the country.
- Almost every important job in the county is held by a Democrat. The mayor of Chicago is very much like the dictator of Chicago. Obama came out of the most intolerant, the most monopolistic, one sided political machine in the country.
- Murdoch’s bundled campaign contributions were 50/50 between Clinton and Obama.
- I don’t see why we can’t organize around an opposition candidate, raise some money.
- I think what you’re seeing is disillusionment among the party leadership with Obama, because he hasn’t delivered the goods.
- They wanted Obama to deliver the 2016 Olympics to Chicago.
- Obama is a tremendously prudent and cautious politician, there’s no audacity at all.
Guest – John Rick MacArthur, an American journalist and author of books about US politics. He is the president of Harper’s Magazine. MacArthur has been a reporter for The Wall Street Journal (1977), the Washington Star (1978), The Bergen Record (1978–1979), Chicago Sun-Times (1979–1982), and an assistant foreign editor at United Press International (1982).
Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Extraordinary Rendition, FBI Intrusion, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Military Tribunal, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture
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Updates:
- Anwar Al-Aulaqi Case – Drones Targeting US Citizens – Obama Wants To Dismiss CCR/ACLU Case
- CCR Guantanamo So Called Suicide Cases
- Supreme Court Will Not Review Case On Feds Wiretapping Guantanamo Lawyers
- Bombing of the USS Cole – Could Prosecutors Use The Fruit From the Poisonous Tree?
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NYC NLG Street Law and Racial Profiling Program
Today we’re joined by Paula Segal and Gabriela Lopez with the New York City Lawyers Guild Street Law Clinic Program. The project sends groups of attorneys to conduct “Street Law” workshops with a range of students in high school. We’re also joined by students from the Aarturo A. Schomburg Satellite Academy High School who were part of the street law classes.
Street Law Students:
- In my neighborhood it’s really common for the Police to bother you for no reason. I don’t think they had the right to go into my pockets unless they had reasonable suspicion. This happens at least 3 times a week.
- One time they took me into the precinct, took my picture, ran my fingerprints.
- I was getting off the train and these two big police men were getting off the train and they stopped me. They said we have her on the walkie-talkie. This women said take off your sneakers. She kept asking, where is it? Where is it? That’s when she started to get physical and she lifted up my shirt. “If you don’t f-in’ tell me where it’s at, I’m going to strip search you. It happened on Elder Avenue, next to the 6 train.
- They say no, we’re not going to touch you, then he throws me on the car.
- You guys are unfolding my socks right now, and I don’t like this. There’s a certain way that I fold my socks.
- After they find nothing, they say you should change your attitude. I said, you should change your attitude.
- A lot of cops judge character, when I see cops, you have to give them an expression. Hey look I’m out here, I’m not tryin to get in that car.
- I’m thinking about the cops catching the real villans. If you’re really guilty you’re going to get hassled, if you’re not guilty,then you can be free. The advice I get from the street law project is not consenting to the search.
- From my knowledge, the cops need a certain amount of arrests at the end of the month, so they’ll pick on anybody. They curse a lot. Undercover cops, they’ll probably have on a hoodie, try to fit in with everybody else, it just don’t work.
- Law Student Paula Segal: We focus on giving people tools to walk away, to avoid arrest.
- Law Student, Street Law Coordinator Gabriella Lopez: Last year we went to more than sixty different sites. Sixty to Seventy different trainings that occured last year.
- Email the Street Law Team – streetlawteam@gmail.com
Guests – Paula Segal and Gabriela Lopez with the New York City Lawyers Guild Street Law Clinic Program. Aarturo A. Schomburg Satellite Academy High School Students: Charisma Whaley / Joseph Campbell / Kiara Avila / Stephanie Colon / Jonathan Jeffries.
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Grand Juries Historically and the Minneapolis / Chicago FBI Raids
A total of 12 people were served with subpoenas during last months FBI raids in Minneapolis and Chicago. The FBI targeted anti-war peace activists and key organizers of demonstrations and marches who have been asked to appear before a grand jury. What is a grand jury? Historically, a grand jury was supposed to be citizens coming together to determine if charges should be filed criminally against someone. Today, it’s very different. It’s mostly a rubber stamp for what the prosecutors want. If you refuse to testify at a grand jury, you can be taken to a judge to answer questions. If you refuse to answer those questions you could be put in jail.
Margaret Ratner-Kunstler:
- If you were subpoenaed before a grand jury in 1968 and you asserted your grand jury right, then that really was the end of your participation in the grand jury.
- You asserted immunity and if you we’re given immunity, you couldn’t be indicted.
- Immunity: Nothing you say could be used against you, but anything you testified about could not be the subject of a criminal indictment against you. Your words could not be held against you, or the fruits of those words. But it’s so easy to get around that, by a prosecutor saying, this didn’t come from this.
- If you then refused to testify given this minor immunity, you could be subject to imprisonment.
- If you refuse to testify you’re brought back before the judge and the judge then holds you in “civil contempt.”
- The grand jury is usually about 18 months. The grand jury in Chicago is a special grand jury which means it’s twice as long.
- That’s important because if you’re held in civil contempt, the keys to the jail are in your pocket. You’re in jail for as long as you refuse to testify.
- If you say something you could wave your fifth amendment right by already saying something.
- The recent FBI raids represents the tremendous see-change we have in terms of the ability for people to actively oppose this government’s policy.
- In 1983, there were many groups in this country who were joining forces with progressive groups in Central America. You had the Committee in Solidarity With the People Of El Salvador.
- Each of the 11 individual persons subpeoned wrote letters to the Attorney General saying that they would assert their fifth amendment right and that they would not testify.
- If they can’t get you on a federal charge it’s often that they’re looking for a mistake you made in conversation, even an informal conversation with a federal official.
Guest – Magaret Ratner-Kunstler, an attorney in private practice. As education director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, she originated the Movement Support Network and authored “If an Agent Knocks.” Kunstler is the President of the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice, a foundation established in 1995 in the memory of her late husband to combat racism in the criminal justice system.
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