CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails To Save Us From Pandemics or Itself
COVID-19 did not cause the current economic devastation to billions of people around the world. It triggered the crisis. It illuminated the inherent instability in the capitalist system itself. Capitalism exacerbates unemployment, inequality, racism, and patriarchy and threatens the health and safety of workers and our communities.
We are in the worst economic crisis since the great depression of 90 years ago. Half of the American population is poor or near poor. Twenty million people are unemployed. It is estimated that 400,000 Americans will die from COVID-19 by the end of the year. Most of these people will be Black, Latino, the poor and the elderly.
The large corporations have bought out both the Republican and Democratic parties. Neither one of these parties has put forward an effective plan on what to do to get us out of this catastrophic situation.
Guest – Professor Richard Wolff, author of The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails To Save Us From Pandemics or Itself. Richard D. Wolff is 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 of International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. His previous books are Understanding Socialism and Understanding Marxism.
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Julian Assange Extradition Case Update
The decline of democracy and the rule of law, already advanced under Obama , has accelerated under Trump. By his own admission it is widely known that President Trump will not consent to leaving office if he loses the election. What is not so widely known is the case that he caused to be prosecuted against journalist and whistleblower Julian Assange.
Assange is being railroaded in the Old Bailey courthouse in London in an effort by US government, in collaboration with its British ally, to extradite Assange and send him to the federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia to be tried under the 1917 Espionage Act.
Assange told the truth about American war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan back in 2010. He is 49 years old and in terrible mental and physical health. If he loses and is sent to the Eastern District of Virginia for trial and successfully prosecuted, which is a given, it will be the death of free journalism and a blow to the first amendment which is a keystone of our democracy because it involves the right to learn.
Assange Defense
@defenseassange – Nathan Fuller twitter
Defend.wikileaks.org
Guest – Attorney Nathan Fuller who has been attending Julian Assange’s extradition hearing in London. He leads the London-based Courage Foundation and the director of the newly formed Committee to Defend Julian Assange and Civil Liberties.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Update:
$600M to Settle Flint Water Crisis Litigation
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Julian Assange Update August 2020
President Obama prosecuted and imprisoned more whistleblowers than any other president. But President Trump did one thing that Obama did not do. He indicted Julian Assange for conspiracy under the Espionage Act charging that in 2010 Assange and his publishing organization WikiLeaks released truthful information about American war crimes.
Obama held off making such a charge because the US government has never before gone after a publisher; not even the New York Times for publishing the Pentagon papers.
Assange sits in solitary confinement in the notorious Belmarsh prison in London. He awaits the outcome of the USA’s extradition request.
His partner, Stella Moris, the mother of their two young children said: “Julian is being targeted by the United States for the crime of journalism. He helped expose the war crimes and human rights abuses which the US would have preferred to keep hidden from public view. He revealed the killing of unarmed civilians and the torture of innocent people. No one has been held responsible for the serious crimes Julian has exposed. This extradition aims to entomb and silence him forever.”
He is in bad shape mentally and physically. Nels Melzer, The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture visited Julian and reported that he was being tortured by the months on end of solitary confinement. He hasn’t seen his lawyer in five months nor his companion and their two children. He can’t prepare his defense. He was finally given a computer but the keys were glued down. When he last appear in court he could barely pronounce his name. Defend.wikileaks.org
What is at stake is the future of free journalism. Journalists have a right to publish and we, their audience, have a right to learn. This is what the US government is attempting to take away.
Guest – Nathan Fuller, the American head of the London-based Courage Foundation and the director of the newly formed Committee to Defend Julian Assange and Civil Liberties.
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Open Letter To The Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League pretends to be a civil rights organization, but the ADL is not an ally. It has a legacy of supporting racist policing, surveillance, colonialism and the silencing of social justice activism. It has branded itself as a civil rights organization in ways that conceal and legitimatize is right wing activities, undermined the rights of Black, immigrant, queer, Muslim, and Arabs.
In August 2020, 100 organizations signed an open letter exposing the ADL. Among the signatory organizations whose work Law And Disorder has covered on this radio program include the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild and Palestine Legal.
These 100 organizations signed an open letter announcing the publication of a pamphlet written by a working group with contributions from the American Friends Service Committee, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Palestine Legal.
Guest – Lesley Williams, member of the coordinating committee for Jewish Voice for Peace in Chicago, the advisory board of speakers bureau for Jews Against Anti-Muslim Racism, and a founding member of the Tzedek Chicago, a non-Zionist pro social justice synagogue in Chicago. She is the author of “The Anti-Defamation League Kills the Black Jewish Alliance” and “We Can’t Fight Anti-Semitism and anti-Black Racism in Isolaton“. She works with a local coalition of teachers and activists to bring Palestinian history into school curricula.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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Hosts Updates
- Chronic Underlying Conditions: Vunerability To Covid-19
- 10,239 Elderly Prisoners in New York State – Governor Cuomo’s Office – 518-474-8390
- FOIA Suspended
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Abuse Of Emergency Powers, The U.S. Constitution And Habeas Corpus
The Department of Justice is now seeking to exploit the coronavirus calamity to get Congress to give it permission to pick up and detain people indefinitely.
At this point the American people have a constitutional right, if arrested, to be brought before a judge and informed of the charges against them so that they may defend themselves. This is known as the right of habeas corpus. It is a right that has its origins in the Magna Carta, the great charter, a British law that goes back to the 13th century. The right of habeas corpus is written into the American Constitution and can only be suspended by Congress.
Historically both the American and the German fascist government led by Adolf Hitler have used crises and the fear that crises generate in the population to expand their powers.
Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. FDR put 110,000 American citizens of Japanese origin into concentration camps during World War II.
In Germany, Adolph Hitler, who was legally appointed chancellor, used the shock of the Reichstag fire, which had burned down the German parliament, to get his Enabling Law passed. This enabled Hitler, with the support of German big business, to make laws on his own, bypassing the legislature.
What dangers do we face with Donald Trump as president? What does it mean to suspend the right of habeas corpus for the American citizens who oppose Trump and his big business backers.
Defend.Wikileaks.org
Guest – Attorney Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law where she taught for 25 years. The former president of the National Lawyers Guild and criminal defense attorney is a legal scholar and political analyst who writes books and articles, and lectures throughout the world about human rights, US foreign policy, and the contradiction between the two. She writes weekly articles for Truth out in the series Human Rights and Global Wrongs. She is currently taking a leading role in the defense of Julian Assange. She has testified before Congress and debated the legality of the war in Afghanistan at the prestigious Oxford Union. MarjorieCohn
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The Religious South, and Religious Exemptions to Public Health Directives
Last week sheriffs arrested Rodney Howard-Browne, the head of the River at Tampa Bay church in Florida for ignoring local orders against mass gatherings due to the COVID-19 pandemic and for showing “reckless disregard for human life.”
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said he had no choice but to take action against the pastor. “His reckless disregard for human life put hundreds of people from his congregation at risk and thousands of residents who may interact with them this week.” The Sheriff said his office had direct contact with the church, telling it not to pack its pews. Instead he said, the Pastor was encouraging his large congregation to meet at his church.”
Howard-Browne said his church has an absolute, constitutional right to gather for worship. He told his congregation that the church is an essential service.
But religious exemptions during the pandemic will only worsen it and claim more lives. Yet that’s precisely what government officials are doing—ignoring public health warnings and refusing to call on houses of worship to close. Establishing religious exemptions—in this case, by freeing houses of worship from public health order compliance—will only result in more cases of COVID-19 and greater numbers of death cases.
Guest – Attorney David Gespass is a former president of the National Lawyers Guild. He practices law in Birmingham, Alabama.
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Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, NSA Spying, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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Update:
- Hosts Discuss Civil Liberties Amid Pandemic
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United States Executive Authority Declares Emergency Powers
The last point President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen made when he testified last year before Congress was that Trump would never leave office voluntarily. With the pandemic of Covid-19 virus upon us, Trump has the perfect excuse. Last week he declared a state of national emergency. This gives him more than 100 additional powers. He can shut down the Internet, he has already banned gatherings of more than 10 people, and he can send in troops anywhere in the country.
What is the current state of our civil rights and civil liberties?
Guest – Stephen Rohde is a constitutional scholar, lecturer, writer, political activist and retired civil rights lawyer. He is a former President of the ACLU of Southern California and Chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California. Mr Rohde has served on the Board of Directors of Death Penalty Focus and was a founder and Chair of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace. He is a past chair of Bend the Arc: a Jewish Partnership for Justice. Mr. Rohde is the author of two books American Words of Freedom: The Words That Define Our Nation and Freedom of Assembly, and co-author of Foundations of Freedom: A Living History of Our Bill of Rights. He has written for American Prospect, Truth Out, Huffington Post, and the LA Times and is a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books
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United States Executive Authority in Declaring Emergency Powers
U.S. presidents have the discretion to declare a “national emergency.” As soon as he does, he can sidestep many existing limits to presidential authority. In fact, 100 or more special provisions become available to him. Some provide reasonable responses to real emergencies, while others seem to bolster the power of a so-called unitary executive who wants to amassing or retain power. The president can activate laws allowing him to, for example, shut down many kinds of electronic communications inside the U.S. or to freeze Americans’ bank accounts. Other powers are available without a declaration of emergency, including laws that allow the president to deploy troops inside the country to subdue domestic unrest.
The rationale for having emergency powers is simple: The government’s ordinary powers may not be enough in times of crisis, and amending the laws to provide greater ones would take too long. Emergency powers are intended to give a temporary boost until the emergency passes or there is time to change the law through the regular legislative process. The problem comes when presidents don’t have the best interest of the country in mind.
Guest – Andrew Boyd, Counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. Andrew spent 7 years prosecuting senior Khmer Rouge leaders on behalf of the UN for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. He also worked on cases resulting from the 1994 Rwandan genocide at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
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Censorship, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq War, NSA Spying, Political Prisoner, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power, Uncategorized, War Resister
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In Defense Of Julian Assange: Attorney Renata Avila
We continue our ongoing coverage of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who remains in confinement at London’s high-security Belmarsh prison. Julian is fighting extradition to the United States on 18 charges, including violating the Espionage Act and conspiring to hack government computers. As listeners will recall, the charges are in connection with Wikileaks’ release of thousands of secret cables in 2010.
Guest – Renata Avila, a member of the Julian Assange legal team. Renata is an international Human Rights lawyer from Guatemala, specializing in preserving human rights during the next wave of tech challenges. She is a Board member for Creative Commons, the Common Action Forum and is a Global Trustee of the Think Tank Digital Future Society. She is also a member of the WEF’s Global Future Council on Human Rights and Technology and a Steering Committee Member of the Information Society Advisory Council for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
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The Prosecution of Julian Assange – CUNY School of Law and UCLA
We listen to two presentations from a panel discussion among leading journalists, attorneys and human rights defenders as the extradition trial in London of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is set to begin.
The first speaker is lead attorney Barry Pollack representing Julian Assange speaking at The Prosecution of Julian Assange forum at UCLA.
We then hear from Glen Ford speaking at the CUNY School of Law, Glen is the Executive editor, Black Agenda Report. He’s a broadcast, print and web pioneer and founding member of the Washington chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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When at Times the Mob Is Swayed, A Citizen’s Guide to Defending Our Republic
Trump was elected by about 25% of the eligible voters. Half of the voters who could have, didn’t vote. He lost the popular election by 3 million votes. Since then, this appalling man has proceeded to aggrandize his power. Backed by large corporations to whom he gave huge tax breaks and for whom he cut regulations, the military to which he just gave a $750 billion budget, a Republican Supreme Court and the right wing media such as Sinclair Broadcasting and Fox News he has maintained a steady base of support in the population.
Increasing a sense of dread has spread across our country, it appears possible that Trump may get reelected. Democracy and the rule of law are increasingly threatened.
Guest – Constitutional Lawyer, Burt Neuborne is the former legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union and has argued many cases before the US Supreme Court. Attorney Neuborne’s book “When at Times the Mob is Swayed” has been recently published by the New Press. He is currently the Norman Dorsen Professor of Civil Liberties at NYU School of Law.
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Amazon Ring Of Surveillance
When it comes to e-commerce, the multinational tech company Amazon.com has laid claim to a huge corner on the market. Now, it’s venturing into the business of surveillance.
Amazon is aggressively pursuing law enforcement partnerships. More than 400 police departments across the nation have already joined forces with the tech giant’s so-called smart doorbell program, called Ring. Part of Amazon’s outreach strategy in gaining new police partners is to play on fears of increasing property crime.
Ring doesn’t just show you who is at your door. It films and records any interaction or movement at owners’ doors, then alerts users’ phones. With partnerships between mega corporations and law enforcement to use new surveillance systems in the public–leaving out community input–come a host of civil liberties concerns, including racial profiling.
Guest – Matthew Guariglia of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Matthew is a policy analyst working on issues of surveillance and privacy at the local, state, and federal level. He is a frequent contributor to the Freedom of Information-centered outlet Muckrock and his bylines have appeared in the Washington Post and Motherboard.
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