CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq War, Political Prisoner, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Misuse of Grand Juries And The Prosecution Of Chelsea Manning
The Trump administration wants to prosecute the news organization Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange. In order to do so they have recently jailed whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who has been in solitary confinement since March 8th, 2019 in hopes to squeeze her to get testimony that could be used against Assange. Prolonged solitary confinement is a form of torture.
Chelsea Manning has refused to answer questions of the Government Prosecutor in front of a grand jury. In 2010 Chelsea Manning, then in the Army, released documents to WikiLeaks known as the Iraq War Logs. One of them was a video showing a U.S. Apache attack helicopter killing 12 people, including two Reuters journalists, two children and a passerby who stopped his van to rescue the wounded. She maintains that there’s nothing new to be learned and that she’s already given full testimony.
Chelsea Manning was convicted and served 7 years of a 35 year sentence before her sentence was commuted by Barack Obama. The prosecution of WikiLeaks for accepting leaked secret documents is a threat to press freedom and would criminalize journalism. The government is trying to frame Assange charging him with actively colluding with Manning, not just being a passive recipient of the leak. Historically grand juries have been misused in order to suppress political dissent.
Write to Chelsea Manning in solitary confinement:
Chelsea Manning
Ao181426
William G. Truesdale Adult Detention Center
2001 Mill Rd.
Alexandria, VA 22314
Guest – Attorney Michael Deutsch, an expert on the misuse of grand juries. He is a partner in the Chicago law firm The People’s Law Office and a former director of litigation at the Center for Constitutional Rights. He has represented political activists and victims of government repression. Among his clients have been the Attica prisoners in the 1971 uprising, Puerto Rican independence fighters, members of the black liberation movement, grand jury resistors, and Palestinians falsely accused of terrorism.
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The Brooklyn Folk Festival April 2019
In the political radicalizations and social upheaval’s within the United States of America in the 30s and again in the 60s, we saw an increased interest in folk music. This phenomenon is repeating itself today. We speak today with Eli Smith, the producer of the Brooklyn Folk Festival. He is a banjo player, a folklorist, and a member of the string band The Downhill Strugglers. The Brooklyn Folk Festival is the largest of its type in the country and is now in its 11th year. It takes place in Brooklyn Heights at the historic Saint Ann’s Church this April.
Guest – Eli Smith, a musician, producer and activist from Brooklyn, who has helped organize the event. Eli Smith is also a folklorist and music producer who organizes the annual “Brooklyn Folk Festival.”
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U.S. Appeals Court Opens Abu Ghraib Prison Abuse Case
In 2016, the United States appeals court re-instituted the Abu Ghraib prison abuse case against a private military contractor CACI. Since that time, the plaintiffs have had multiple victories.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is representing the abused prisoners. CCR‘s legal director Baher Azmy said “There is no question that torture is unlawful under domestic, military, and international law. The only issue in this case is whether CACI Will be held accountable – or treated with impunity – for its role in torture at Abu Ghraib. Now, the case is set for trial in Alexandria, Virginia on April 23.
Guest – Attorney Katherine Gallagher filed the case nearly 11 years ago and she is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Katherine works on universal jurisdiction and international criminal law cases involving U.S. and foreign officials and torture and other war crimes, and cases involving private military corporations and torture at Abu Ghraib. Her major cases include Al Shimari v. CACI, the international U.S. torture accountability cases, and Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) v. Vatican, seeking accountability for the crimes against humanity of sexual violence by clergy and cover-up.
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Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Guantanamo, Human Rights, Iraq War, Political Prisoner, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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U.S. Peace Council Returns From Venezuela
The Trump administration is attempting to illegally overthrow the democratically elected government of Venezuela and its president Nicolas Maduro.
The effort is being led by Trump’s recently appointed envoy Elliot Abrams, the notorious convicted perjurer who was complicit during the Reagan Administration in the massacre and cover up of the mass slaughter of indigenous people in central America.
John Bolton is working alongside Abrams. He recently showed the American government’s intent by flashing a hand written sign on a yellow pad stating “5000 troops to Venezuela.“ Showing his contempt for international law, he famously said that if the top part of the United Nations building was lopped off it would not make any difference.
So far the United States has been unable to topple all the Venezuelan government. Unable to win over the Venezuelan military the United States is now embargoing Venezuela, which is a form of a medieval siege, aimed at depriving Venezuelans of food and medicine. The U.S. government and its ally Great Britain have frozen Venezuelan assets held abroad and prevented trade with the country, whose economy has shrunk dramatically.
The United States has secured support for it’s coup attempt from the right wing governments in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile as well as the countries of the European Union.
Guest – Ajamu Baraka has recently returned from Venezuela. He is on the steering committee of the US Peace Council, which organized the trip. Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace, writes for the Black Agenda Report, and was the 2016 Green party candidate for vice president.
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Reprieve: UK Human Rights Group
A year after the death penalty was abolished in the United Kingdom, in 1999, human rights attorney Clive Stafford Smith founded the nonprofit organization Reprieve. Smith has represented over 300 prisoners facing the death penalty in the southern United States and has helped secure the release of 65 Guantanamo Bay prisoners, and others internationally who claim that the United States government has tortured them.
Reprieve currently works to represent 15 prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, as well as an evolving caseload of death row clients around the world. It investigates international complicity in extraordinary renditions, and has recently started working in Pakistan with the Foundation for Fundamental Rights to begin discussions on the use of drones there.
Guest – Katie Taylor, a Deputy Director at Reprieve who coordinates the Life After Guantanamo Project. Katie has worked at WarChild UK and in Palestine on human and childrens’ rights issues for several local and international agencies.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Death Penalty, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq War, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Updates:
- Hosts Discuss the Recent Film – Vice
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Philadelphia Judge Rules Mumia Abu-Jamal Can Reargue Case
We are pleased to begin the new year with a major development that might pave the way to freedom for former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, the award-winning journalist convicted in the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.
In late December, a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge ruled that Mumia can reargue his appeal in the case before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The decision hinges on a recent Supreme Court Decision with similar facts. Then presiding Chief Justice Ronald Castille failed to excuse himself due to his prior role as Philadelphia district attorney in Mumia’s earlier appeal. Mumia’s attorneys argued that Castille made statements related to persons accused of killing police officers that indicated he should have recused himself. His campaign speeches and letters urged capital punishment in police-killing cases.
As we’ve long reported, Mumia spent nearly three decades on death row before his sentence was thrown out over flawed jury instructions. In 2001, prosecutors agreed to a sentence of life without parole.
Judge Leon Tucker’s decision this past December was split; he denied Mumia’s claim that Castille had, “personal significant involvement” in the case while in the DA’s Office.
Guest – Professor Johanna Fernandez, is a native New Yorker. She received a PhD in History from Columbia University and a BA in Literature and American Civilization from Brown University. Professor Fernández teaches 20th Century U.S. History, the history of social movements, the political economy of American cities, and African-American history. She has previously taught at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg, PA and Trinity College in Hartford, CT and is, most recently, the recipient of a Fulbright Scholars grant to the Middle East and North Africa that will take her to Jordan in spring 2011, where she will teach graduate courses in American History. She is with the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home.
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Anti-War Movement Gains Traction Amid Perpetual War
American wars undertaken in the Middle East have been raging for an historically unprecedented 17 years, ever since the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
President George W. Bush understood that being at war president would boost his sagging popularity. First, he ordered the attack on Afghanistan on the pretext that it harbored Osama bin Laden and would not give him up.
Then, in 2003, with designs on Iraq’s oil, the United States of America unleashed an illegal war on that country. It was falsely claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties with Al Qaeda. The war involved the bombing of cities and was supposed to be of short duration. Americans were advised that the Iraqi people would welcome the American intervention. Their president Saddam Hussein was captured and executed. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands we’re made refugees.
The entire Middle East was destabilized as the wars spread under the Obama administration. His secretary of state Hillary Clinton planned the aggression against Libya, where its leader Mohamar Qudaffi was captured and bayoneted to death. The country was destroyed. Clinton said at the time “we came, we saw, he died.“
The war was extended Syria, which the United States had coveted since World War II. The United States and Israel failed to kill its leader Bashar Assad but reduced much of the country to ruins and created thousands of refugees Then the United States militarily backed and supplied its Allie Saudi Arabia in its war in Yemen where 85,000 children have died of starvation.
All in all the United States made war on seven middle eastern countries simultaneously. Then, recently, fulfilling a campaign promise, President Donald Trump, the commander-in-chief, ordered the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Syria. He has been opposed in this by the entire establishment, the military, the media, the intelligence agencies, and both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Guest – Ajamu Baraka, an initiator and leader of the Black Alliance for Peace, an organization which is part of the coalition. He has also just returned from a meeting of international leaders because the USA’s involvement of a possible overthrow of the government of Venezuela. Ajamu Baraka helped organize a conference in Baltimore Last month concerning USA’s 800 bases abroad particularly the new ones in Africa.
CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Guantanamo, Military Tribunal, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Targeting Muslims, Torture
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Mumia Abu-Jamal Update October 2018
Last week, attorneys for Mumia Abu Jamal argued in court that conflicts of interest led to unfair rulings against him in his longstanding case. As many know, Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death for the 1981 killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. The case was riddled with constitutional violations, and his sentence was later commuted to life in prison without parole.
Recently, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Williams v. Pennsylvania, Mumia’s attorneys argued that his rights were violated after former district attorney Ron Castille failed to recuse himself in an appeals decision. At the time Castille was a state Supreme Court judge.
Judge Leon Tucker had asked the Philadelphia district attorney’s office to produce an internal memo that might show Castille— back when he was city district attorney — had direct involvement in pursuing Abu-Jamal’s death sentence. If he did, his later denial as Supreme Court justice of Abu-Jamal’s appeal, could be deemed biased.
Defense attorney Judy Ritter said: “Justice Castille has shown himself to be involved in this case, to be biased against a certain class of cases that our client falls into.” The Commonwealth argued that as district attorney, Castille was simply doing his job.
“It’s nothing remarkable that a DA would send a letter to the governor asking him to sign death warrants which the governor was required to do,” said attorney Tracey Kavanaugh. Emotions ran high, both inside and outside of the courtroom. Maureen Faulkner, the widow of Daniel Faulkner, stood up and cried in the middle of court proceedings when the judge announced that both sides would need to wait until December for any possible closure in the case. Presiding Judge Leon Tucker has indicated that he will make a ruling in the case some time after December 3, 2018.
Guest – Professor Johanna Fernandez, is a native New Yorker. She received a PhD in History from Columbia University and a BA in Literature and American Civilization from Brown University. Professor Fernández teaches 20th Century U.S. History, the history of social movements, the political economy of American cities, and African-American history. She has previously taught at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg, PA and Trinity College in Hartford, CT and is, most recently, the recipient of a Fulbright Scholars grant to the Middle East and North Africa that will take her to Jordan in spring 2011, where she will teach graduate courses in American History. She is with the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home.
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In Response to Pittsburgh, We Must Come Together as One
Last week, acts of hatred claimed the lives of 13 innocent persons in the United States. A white supremacist killed two African American persons in Kentucky. An anti-semite killed 11 Jewish persons in a synagogue in Pittsburgh where even more were wounded, including first responders and police officers.
Not surprisingly, the slaughter of the 11 Jews brought forth calls of the need for a strong Israel; the same response that followed anti-Semitic killings in France and Brussels.
It also inflamed political and theological differences between Israelis and American Jews. Israel’s Ashkenazi chief rabbi avoided saying “synagogue” because it is not Orthodox, but Conservative, a liberal branch of Judaism — because it is not Orthodox, but Conservative, one of the liberal branches of Judaism rejected by religious authorities who define the state’s Jewishness.
The attacker’s anti-refugee, anti-Muslim rants prompted some on the Israeli left — like many American Jewish liberals — compare the views of nationalistic leaders who influence their governments.
In Israel, longstanding animosity between left and right has escalated. Orthodox parties are hoping to increase their influence and Jewish law on day to day life; disputes about who cdan serve in the military and what stores can open on the Sabbath are rampant.
Guest – Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, where she works on anti-war, US foreign policy and Palestinian rights issues. She has worked as an informal adviser to several key UN officials on Palestinian issues. Her books including Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today’s UN, and Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.
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VICTORY: How Pennsylvania Beat Gerrymandering and How Other States Can Do the Same
An important victory against gerrymandering was recently won in the State of Pennsylvania in the case of League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
The first paragraph of the complaint lays it out. “This case is about one of the greatest threats to American democracy today: partisan gerrymandering. A partisan gerrymandering occurs when the political party in control of redistricting redraws congressional or state legislative districts to entrench that party in power and prevent voters affiliated with the minority party from electing candidates of their choice. The result is that general election outcomes are rigged – they are predetermined by partisan actors sitting behind a computer, and not by the voters.“
In Pennsylvania although the Democrats have more supporters than the Republicans Republicans had 13 seats in the US Congress and the Democrats had only five.
The U. S. Supreme Court has not been willing to rule on gerrymandering taking the position that there is no clear way to determine if there has been gerrymandering and therefore it is a non-judicable issue.
To get around this in 2018 Pennsylvania activists engineered a brilliant legal effort in the the state courts of Pennsylvania to attack the lopsided redistricting, and won after fighting pitched battles all the way up to the state Supreme Court. Now activists around the country can do the same. The next congressional redistricting occurs after the 2020 census: progressive need to be ready well before then.
We speak today with constitutional litigator James R. Lieber who has provided a real time report on effective trial lawyers, working to facilitate the will of the people. He explains the strategies of counsel and the evidence presented and has provided a roadmap to social justice litigants for pursuing constitutionally protected claims in state court based on the state constitution and avoiding federal review.
Guest – Attorney James B. Lieber is the author of 3 previous books, and a lawyer who focuses on constitutional, civil rights, and discrimination cases. He has won two cases before the U. S. Supreme Court and is widely published in magazines of national stature.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Guantanamo, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Challenges Lawyers Face As Democratic Institutions Dismantled
What are the the challenges lawyers on the left face in this historic period? That is the concern of today’s show. Since 911 we have seen the consolidation of an authoritarian state. The radical right working over the last 30 years and funded by the Koch brothers and their billionaire allies, are strategic and have been very successful.
They now hold the reins of power in 33 states, the Senate, House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, and the presidency. Their ultimate goal is to “dismantle the administrative state“, which is their formulation for taking away every social benefit that we have earned since 1930s. To prevent us from fighting back they have restricted democracy with voter suppression and gerrymandering. The right wing Supreme Court has declared that corporations are people and have the right to unlimited amounts of corporate dark money. Our access to information has also been constricted. Five major corporations own all the major media. New algorithms by Google and Facebook restrict access to people looking for alternative media, like Law And Disorder Radio.
We are also seeing the dismantling of programs that benefit people and the hollowing out of the democratic rights necessary to defend them. Racism and dehumanization are employed to divide and conquer. But at the same time we have seen the growth of social movements with our movement attorneys right in there fighting as important auxiliaries. Since 911 and the passage of the Patriot Act government surveillance of our private lives and political affiliations has become pervasive.
Guest – Attorney Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan, President of the National Lawyers Guild.
Guest – Attorney Baher Azmy, the litigation director at the center for constitutional rights National Lawyers Guild – Chicago 1937 as an alternative to the all white American Bar Association. It’s gotten principle was announced: human rights over property rights. The center for constitutional rights was founded by civil rights attorneys who had been active in the south in 1966 including William Kunstler, the attorney for Martin Luther King.
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Julian Assange And Political Asylum In Danger
WikiLeaks founder the truth telling publisher Julian Assange is in certain and imminent danger of being sent from England to America where he would likely be tried for espionage, a crime that carries the death penalty.
Assange and WikiLeaks have revealed American war crimes in the middle east, CIA global machinations , and the work of Clinton Democrats in preventing the popular Bernie Sanders from heading up the party ticket.
Assange is presently holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he was granted political asylum six years ago by past leftist president Rafael Correa. But now, with the change of presidents in Ecuador, Assange has been cut off from the outside world. He has no phone, no computer, and no visitors.
The fresh offensive against him occurred the day after American General Joseph DiSalvo, the head of the US Southern Command, the Pentagon’s arm in Latin America, visited the new right wing Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno. Irene was told that if he did not cooperate he would not get an International Monetary Fund loan. Moreno has said that Assange is “an inherited problem” and is seeking s better relationship with the United States government, to whom he has already granted a military base.
Guest -Attorney Renata Avila has represented International human rights lawyer and digital rights advocate. In her practice, she represented indigenous victims of genocide and other human rights abuses, including the prominent indigenous leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchu Tum. She also represented awarded journalist Julian Assange and Wikileaks since 2009. Avila sits on the
Board of Creative Commons, is a trustee of the Courage Foundation, – an organisation set up to assist whistleblowers at risk – and is an advisory board member of Diem25, a movement to democratise Europe launched by Yanis Varoufakis. Her book Women, Whistleblowing Wikileaks” was published by OR Books. She is currently writing a book on Digital Colonialism and regularly writes for several international newspapers.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Guantanamo, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Uncategorized, War Resister
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Nuclear Posture Review
Not since 1953 when the United States and the Soviet Union exploded thermonuclear bombs has the world been such a powder keg. Last week the Pentagon released its Nuclear Posture Review. It seeks to make use of nuclear weapons more acceptable and plausible. It recommends the spending of $1 trillion to upgrade America’s nuclear arsenal and it appears to end the United State’s commitment to pursue nuclear disarmament.
Last November Senator Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, convened a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the limits of presidential authority to use nuclear weapons. President Trump had been making incendiary comments about North Korea, threatening to totally destroy the country and to unleash fire and fury like the world has never seen.
There are no reliable limits on the president‘s power to order use of nuclear weapons. The International Court of Justice declared in 1996 ruled that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is illegal under international law. The United States is not legally bound by the ICJ opinion. Moreover, the United Nations last summer adopted a Treaty On the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It states that the use of nuclear weapons would be against the principles of humanity in the dictates of public conscience. The United States is not legally bound by the new UN treaty either. The United States under President Obama and now Trump has vowed to increase the size of America’s nuclear arsenal. The United States will not agree to simply declare that it is against the first use nuclear weapons.
Guest – Attorney John Burroughs, Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee for Nuclear Policy. John Burroughs represents LCNP and IALANA in Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review proceedings, the United Nations, and other international forums. Dr. Burroughs is contributor, Unspeakable suffering – the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons (2013) (available here); contributor, Assuring Destruction Forever: Nuclear Weapon Modernization Around the World (2012) (available here); co-editor and contributor, Nuclear Disorder or Cooperative Security? U.S. Weapons of Terror, the Global Proliferation Crisis, and Paths to Peace (2007) (available here); co-editor and contributor, Rule of Power or Rule of Law? An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding Security-Related Treaties (2003); and author of The Legality of Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons: A Guide to the Historic Opinion of the International Court of Justice (1998). He has additionally published articles and op-eds in journals and newspapers including the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the World Policy Journal, and Newsday. Dr. Burroughs has taught international law as an adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School, Newark. He has a J.D. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. from Harvard University.
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Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Five Foundation
In July 2004 federal agents raided the homes of five Palestinian-American families, arresting the five dads. The first trial of the Holy Land Foundation Five ended in a hung jury. The second, marked by highly questionable procedures, resulted in very lengthy sentences for supporting terrorism by donating to charities with whom the US government itself and several respected international agencies work.
Capitalizing on post 911 Islamaphobic hysteria, the US government used secret evidence and conflated charity with terrorism to convict the five men of providing material support for terrorism.
The destruction of the Holy Land Foundation, the largest Muslim charity in the United States, constitutes one of the great judicial injustices in the so called war on terror
of which there have been many. The US government, relying on the testimony of anonymous Israeli security experts, convicted the five men of the crime of providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians suffering under an illegal and punishing occupation.
This case is one of several repressive post 911 US prosecutions that have been brought with the assistance of Israeli security police, targeting US-based Palestinian Muslim activists.
Guest – Miko Peled is an Israeli writer and activist living in the US. He was born and raised in Jerusalem. His father was the late Israeli General Matti Peled. Driven by a personal family tragedy to explore Palestine, its people and their narrative. He has written a book about his journey from the sphere of the privileged Israeli to that of the oppressed Palestinians. Peled speaks nationally and internationally on the issue of Palestine. He supports the creation of a single democratic state in all of Palestine, and a firm supporter of BDS. Author of Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Five Foundation and The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine.
