Civil Liberties, Death Penalty, Guantanamo, Torture, Truth to Power, Uncategorized
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Eric Schlosser on the United States Prison System
We’ve covered in depth on Law and Disorder the US run prison industry abroad, from Guantanamo Bay prison, Cuba, Bagram prison in Afghanistan and Abu Ghraib in Iraq. These are the exports of one of the most highly profitable businesses in the United States. The prison industrial complex in this country has reached record breaking occupancy. Nearly 2.1 million Americans are behind bars, the majority of them nonviolent offenders, they’re usually poor, many have substance abuse problems and many have are mentally ill. This according to exhaustive research by Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser who spoke at Bluestockings Bookstore in New York about his compendium on the American Prison system.
Law and Disorder caught up with Eric during this talk and we listen to the second part of his one hour speech. In his talk he warns our society of the perils of a profit driven penal system and backs his research with well-documented facts and staggering statistics.
Muhammad Salah Case – Update
Hosts talk with Salah’s attorney Michael Deutsch on the latest in the case involving a Palestinian businessman accused of funding Hamas in 1993. His defense argues he was tortured and his confessions coerced.
The government also called to the witness stand former New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Law and Disorder hosts fill in the background of this reporter who was fired from the NY Times for writing numerous stories backing the Bush administration’s war campaign chant, “weapons of mass destruction.” Miller was allowed to witness Israeli agents interviewing Salah in 1993. She testified a month ago that Salah seemed comfortable and that he boasted about Hamas operations.
Guest – Michael Deutsch, Muhammad Salah’s attorney with the People’s Law Office in Chicago.
The Mishandled Lethal Injection of Florida death row inmate Angel Nieves Diaz
Angel Diaz was executed by lethal injection for killing a Miami topless bar manager 27 years ago. He was given a rare second does of deadly chemicals as he took more than twice the usual time to succumb. Needles that were supposed to inject drugs in the 55 year old man’s veins were instead pushed through the blood vessels and into the surrounding soft tissue.
The error in Diaz’s execution led Florida Governor Jeb Bush to suspend all executions. Bush still defends the death penalty itself and rejects calls for its abolition. In a separate case, a federal judge extended a moratorium on executions in California, declaring that its method of legal injection violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Those are just the latest challenges to lethal injection, which is the preferred method in 37 states. Missouri’s injection method, similar to California’s was declared unconstitutional last month by a federal judge.
Guest – Kristin Houle with the Amnesty International Program to Abolish the Death Penalty
Lynch Mobs and the Killing State
Lynchings. That word alone is at the root of racism in the United States. Those who may regard lynching as a shameful part of the past need only read the book “From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State” edited by Austin Sarat and Charles Ogletree to realize that state-sanctioned executions are sanitized forms of lynching justified by society.
Professors Charles Ogletree and Austin Sarat have assembled a lucid and intelligent work in which essays from sociologists, historians, criminologists and lawyers weave toegether a social history that starkly reveals how this country’s death penalty is rooted in lynchings.
Racism informs both kinds of killings. The 985 lives lost to official lynchings in the United States since the practice resumed in 1976 symbolize according to one of the book’s contributors, a much broader and enduring culture of American apartheid.
Guest – Austin Sarat, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College. His books include Mercy on Trial: What it Means to Stop an Execution.
Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Supreme Court, Torture, Truth to Power
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Co-hosts Dalia Hashad and Michael Ratner discuss the Hamden Case, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and Habeas Corpus.
Download/Listen to this segment [15 MB]
Lt. Ehren Watada, the First Commissioned Officer Refuses Iraq Deployment Orders
Lieutenant Ehren Watada is the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse to deploy to what many believe a historic illegal war in Iraq. He is a First Lieutenant in the United States Army, a member of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division Stryker Brigade Combat Team, who in June 2006 publicly refused to deploy to Iraq, saying that he believed the war to be illegal and that it would make him party to war crimes.
Watada is charged with one count of missing troop movement and two counts of speaking contemptuously of the president. The contempt charges were dropped in November.
Recently, a US military prosecutor is seeking testimony from Truthout reporters to prove that Watada engaged in conduct unbecoming an officer, directly related to disparaging statements the Army claims Watada made about the legality of the Iraq War during interviews with Truthout. Ehren Watada faces six years in prison.
Today we speak with Carolyn Ho, the mother of Lt. Ehren Watada, the first officer to publicly refuse to serve in Iraq. Ho is on a tour throughout the country bringing awareness and garnering support for her son’s case.
We also play Lieutenant Watada’s entire speech delivered in August 2006 at the Veterans for Peace National Convention. Just as Watada took the stage and began to speak, more than 50 members of Iraq Veterans Against the War filed in behind him. Watada, surprised by the support, draws a deep breath and begins his speech.
Communities Reeling From Police Shooting “Massacre”
Tens of thousands of protesters silently marched down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue Saturday as seasonal shoppers looked on. Many held banners and called for the resignation of New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. All of this protesting the fatal police shooting of 23-year-old Sean Bell last month on his wedding day. Bell’s friend and fellow shooting victim Trent Benefield led the march in a wheelchair pushed by the Rev. Al Sharpton.
The death of unarmed Sean Bell, killed by undercover police in a hail of 50 bullets in Queens, New York outraged communities and sent shockwaves through the country. As the investigations into the case proceed, the fallout from the shooting raise new questions about racial profiling and stirred distrust among police and minority communities.
Guest – Roger Wareham attorney and political activist for nearly three decades. He’s a member of the December 12th Movement, organizing in the Black and Latino community around human rights violations, particularly police brutality.
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) – This Convention against Racial Discrimination commits States parties to change national laws and policies that create or perpetuate racial discrimination and aims, among other things, to promote racial equality, which allows the various ethnic groups to enjoy the same social development. The Convention against Racial Discrimination defines racial discrimination as: “any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.”
Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Hosts Michael Ratner and Heidi Boghosian list some positive developments in detentions and the US government’s racial profiling of Muslims. Guantanamo Bay detainees are nearing a fifth year of being kept in cages despite the Center for Constitutional Rights winning two Supreme Court cases. By January 11th, 2007, most of the 460 men in Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, Cuba will have been detained five years as the Bush administration insists in holding them without trial. Among the detainees held for five years – David Hicks – an Australian citizen.
From the Washington Post – “It is often said that ‘justice delayed is justice denied.’ Nothing could be closer to the truth with reference to the Guantanamo Bay cases,” U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler of Washington D.C. wrote in a ruling Friday, spurning the Pentagon’s attempt to deny Bisher Al Rawi, another Afghan man held at Guantanamo, from representing his friend Al Razak. Read story here.
Gladys Kessler – “The Petitioner . . . identifies the legal, cultural, and psychological isolation in which the detainee exists which demonstrate his inability to challenge the legality of his detention. They are as follows: He is a resident of Afghanistan. He has had virtually no contact with the news media or any word from outside the closed Guantanamo prison system for over 3 years. He has had no contact with his friends or family members outside Guantanamo. He is unfamiliar with the United States Court System. He does not speak English.He likely does not know what the term Habeas Corpus means. He has no criminal charges against him.”
Brandon Mayfield update – wrongly arrested by FBI agents after the 2004 Madrid terrorist bombings, has settled his lawsuit against the U.S. government for $2 million. Read story here.
Eric Schlosser on the United States Prison System
We’ve covered in depth on Law and Disorder the US run prison industry abroad, from Guantanamo Bay prison, Cuba, Bagram prison in Afghanistan and Abu Ghraib in Iraq. These are the exports of one of the most highly profitable businesses in the United States. The prison industrial complex in this country has reached record breaking occupancy. Nearly 2.1 million Americans are behind bars, the majority of them nonviolent offenders, they’re usually poor, many have substance abuse problems and many have are mentally ill. This according to exhaustive research by Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser who spoke at Bluestockings Bookstore in New York about his compendium on the American Prison system.
Law and Disorder caught up with Eric during this talk and we listen to an excerpt of his one hour speech. In his talk he warns our society of the perils of a profit driven penal system and backs his research with well-documented facts and staggering statistics.
Radio Frequency Identification – Spychips
Here on Law and Disorder we’ve brought you stories about Radio Frequency Identification, a technology that uses tiny computer chips smaller than a grain of sand to track items at a distance. RFID “spy chips” have been hidden in the packaging of Gillette razor products and in other products you might buy at a local Wal-Mart, or Target – and they are already being used to spy on people. Some of the world’s largest product manufacturers have been working behind closed doors since 1999 to develop this technology. They plan to use these remote-readable chips to replace the bar code.
Each tiny chip is hooked up to an antenna that picks up electromagnetic energy beamed at it from a reader device. When it picks up the energy, the chip sends back its unique identification number to the reader device, (which can be located anywhere!) allowing the item to be remotely identified. Spy chips can beam back information anywhere from a couple of inches to up to 20 or 30 feet away.
Guest – Liz McIntyre, co-author of Spychips:How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID
Photo from double RFID implantee Amal Graastra.
Recent Legislation – SENATE BANKING COMMITTEE MEMBER DENOUNCES “NO-SWIPE” CREDIT CARDS
A member of the Senate Banking Committee denounced RFID “no-swipe”credit cards at a press conference Sunday. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) said contracts for the cards should have warning boxes disclosing “the known weaknesses of the technology.” He cautioned cardholders about their vulnerability to identity thieves, commenting you “may as well put your credit card information on a big sign on your back.”
“No-swipe” or “contactless” credit cards contain RFID microchips that communicate account information silently and invisibly by radio waves. These microchips have earned the nickname “spychips” because the information they contain can be read without an individual’s knowledge or consent.
While Congress is just waking up to the dangers of RFID technology, privacy and civil liberties organizations have been sounding the alarm for years.
Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Torture, Truth to Power
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Henri Alleg, Author of the The Question
Hosts Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith interview Henri Alleg for the first half hour. Alleg, a French journalist living in Paris, supported Algerian independence during the French Algerian War (1954-1962). He was arrested by French paratroppers during the Battle of Algiers in June 1957 and interrogated.
Henri Alleg describes to Law and Disorder hosts in this exclusive interview how he was questioned hung from his feet and tortured with a similar brutality and sadism often described by prisoners in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Alleg talks about his republished book The Question. It’s a moving account of that month of interrogation and his triump over his torturers. Jean-Paul Sartre has written the preface that remains a relevant commentary on the moral and poltical effects of torture on the both the victim and perpetrator. A very moving story.
Incoming National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn
Law and Disorder welcomes back professor of law and NLG president Marjorie Cohn. Hosts discuss with Marjorie Cohn the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the subsequent loss of Habeas Corpus for non-citizens and permanent aliens in the the United States. Marjorie also comments on the construction of detention centers in the United States contracted by Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) a subsidiary of Hallibuton. – (Corpwatch – Halliburton)
A quote from KBR press release referenced by NLG president Marjorie Cohn – “The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing Immigration and Custom Enforcement Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs. The contingency support contract provides for planning and, if required, initiation of specific engineering, construction and logistics support tasks to establish, operate and maintain one or more expansion facilities. The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other U.S. Government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster. In the event of a natural disaster, the contractor could be tasked with providing housing for ICE personnel performing law enforcement functions in support of relief efforts.”
Where are the demonstrators?
Law and Disorder hosts talk with Jim Lafferty, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Lawyer’s Guild and host of the Guild Radio Show on Pacifica’s sister affiliate KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles. Hosts talk with Jim Lafferty about fighting the legal battle of protesting in the streets on the west coast and the victories. A serious yet, uplifting interview on the state of the peace movement in the United States.
Law and Disorder – Laying the Foundation Of A Police State – Four Part Series – Click Here to Listen/Download
Civil Liberties, Death Penalty, Extraordinary Rendition, Guantanamo, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Laying the Foundation for a Police State – Part 1 – Building Blocks
Since July of 2004, Law and Disorder has brought Pacifica listeners the voices of activists, authors and attorneys from the front lines.
In the weeks to come, Law and Disorder hosts will examine in a four part series, the foundation for what many see as a police state in the United States. In this series they will talk with guests about the post 9/11 blueprint of this dictatorship/ police state and how the nefarious turn to war, the use of torture and the domestic propagation of fear unfolded.
Law and Disorder hosts have covered at length topics such as torture, domestic surveillance, criminalizing dissent, racial profiling, indefinite detentions and the destruction of constitutional rights as vital information to bring an understanding to listeners as to how it happened and where we go from here.
In this first series, the hosts begin with a look back at where they were on the day of September 11th, and how the Patriot Act was pushed through the Legislature immediately after the attacks on that day. They look at the racial profiling and roundup of Muslims and the rush to invade Afghanistan and Iraq using the Authorization for Use of Military Force.
Later in the second, third and fourth parts of the series – a discussion on the recent signing of the military commission act of 2006 and the abolishment of habeas corpus. This, as well the Insurrection Act and the buildup of detention prisons in the United States. The plans for a police state and martial law are slowly locking into place. Law and Disorder will bring attention to this emergence by bringing you the voices of strength and opposition from activists, authors and attorneys who are well informed, not silent and standing up against the strangling of democracy.
Co-host Dalia Hashad describes her experiences as an attorney formerly with the ACLU right after September 11th as thousands of Muslim-Americans were rounded up or corralled because of their ethnicity or political affiliation.
Tracked in America – Samina Sundas
Samina Sundas with American Muslim Voice helped her fellow Muslims and Pakistani-Americans integrate into mainstream American society, and her role intensified after 9/11. When the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS, also known as the Special Registration program) was instituted in September 2002, Muslims all over the United States contacted her confused and worried about how it would affect them. She couldn’t get clear answers from federal immigration officials despite several meetings. After that, she set up an ad hoc hotline that has since become part of an organization called American Muslim Voice.
Framework of Police State laws since 9/11
Co-host Michael Ratner leads the way through the timeline from setting up the legal basis for a global war on terror to justifying a secret system of prisons and interrogation techniques that evade historic safeguards in the Geneva Convention.
Guest – Scott Horton, Chair of International Law Committee at the New York City Bar Association and adjunct Professor of Law at Columbia University. He is also the author of over 200 articles and monographs on legal developments in nations in transition.
Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Law and Disorder hosts welcome back co-host Dalia Hashad. Dalia describes experiences while on a “Taser Tour” through the UK with Amnesty International, an effort to bring awareness among Scottish law enforcement about the use and physical hazards of Taser weapons.
Law and Disorder Taser series – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Tracked In America
Here on Law and Disorder we will be showcasing the voices from a documentary project called Tracked in America. The project introduces the stories of 25 individuals who have been targeted by the US government. The stories span from World War I to the post-9/11 reality. This week, Law and Disorder hosts talk with Eric Shaw.
As covered extensively on Law and Disorder, the post-9/11 period has seen a dramatic expansion of government surveillance. Law enforcement has received extensive funding for this purpose. With little regulation and poor understanding of constitutional protections, the authorities have overstepped their bounds, especially in monitoring political activity. Eric Shaw is one of those citizens monitored by the US government.
Eric Shaw joined the U. S. Marines to foster those ideals at home and abroad and when he returned to civilian life years later, he lost respect for the U.S. government during the buildup to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
In this interview Eric describes how he organized anti-war demonstrations and the intimidating surveillance tactics. He was stunned when riot police shot at him and other peaceful protesters at a very well known demonstration in Oakland, California but Shaw refuses to be silenced.
Boston subway search policy – No Probable Cause?
The Massachusetts MBTA recently enacted a search policy whereby transit police can search any passenger on the public transit system for any kind of device or substance that could be used as a weapon. They can use canine units to sniff through your belongings, electronic scanners and perhaps most frightening, they can do so without probable cause.
In response to this new search policy, volunteers have formed the Safe-T Coalition to education commuter at selected subway stations about how this recent policy severely infringes our civil liberties. The “T” is what Bostonians call their transit system. The coalition is handing out informational fliers and buttons that read “I Do Not Consent to a Search.”
Guest – Jeff Feuer, co-chair of the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.
A Question of Torture – Al McCoy – Station Affiliates
We hear an excerpt from the nearly one hour interview Law and Disorder co-hosts Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith conducted with author Al McCoy.A Question of Torture is a revelatory account of the CIA’s secret, fifty-year effort to develop new forms of torture, historian Alfred W. McCoy uncovers the deep, disturbing roots of recent scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guant?namo. Far from aberrations, as the White House has claimed, A Question of Torture shows that these abuses are the product of a long-standing covert program of interrogation.
Developed at the cost of billions of dollars, the CIA’s method combined “sensory deprivation” and “self-inflicted pain” to create a revolutionary psychological approach—the first innovation in torture in centuries. The simple techniques—involving isolation, hooding, hours of standing, extremes of hot and cold, and manipulation of time—constitute an all-out assault on the victim’s senses, destroying the basis of personal identity.
Lynn Stewart Sentencing – WBAI listeners
An afternoon in front of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse awaiting Lynne Stewart’s sentencing
Law and Disorder brings you the voices, attorneys and Lynne Stewart’s first statements following her sentencing from the steps of the courthouse near Foley Square in downtown Manhattan, New York City. Hundreds of Lynne Stewart supporters were corralled into a pen on the sidewalk and you’ll hear police shouting at supporters. We begin with comments from demonstrator Irene Sadek, Lynne Stewart supporter – Law and Disorder co-hosts Michael Smith and Michael Ratner, excerpts from the Lynne Stewart press conference and conclude with amazing details from inside the courtroom in an exclusive Law and Disorder debriefing of attorney Jeff Mackler.
