Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Wildlife Preservation And The Trump Administration
The protection of endangered species and wildlife trafficking have not traditionally been big ticket campaign issues for presidential candidates. However, national security, the economy, trade and the environment are all impacted by wildlife preservation. Illegal wildlife trade–animal smuggling–is a multibillion-dollar business that is fueled on corruption and terrorism and that destabilizes developing countries.
Trafficking of rhinoceros horn, elephant ivory and other products is increasingly becoming organized crime. Despite recent headlines of animals being added to the endangers list, the Trump administration may change how the United States seeks to protect wildlife domestically and internationally. Animals protected by the U.S. Endangered Species Act, which could be weakened by the new president and a Republican-controlled Congress, may be increasingly imperiled.
Guest – Erika Mansourian, Executive Director of Elephant Family-USA, the American arm of the UK-based Elephant Family. Elephant Family’s mission is to save the Asian elephant—massive habitat loss has caused their numbers to plummet, and 90% of wild Asian elephants have been wiped out in the last century. Erika is also on the board of Veterinarians International and Tanzania’s PAMs Foundation, as well as the advisory board of the Humane Society of New York. She’s worked with Animal Defenders International and the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.
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Lawyers Committee for Nuclear Policy and the Trump Administration
What are the prospects for nuclear arms control with the Trump administration? The United States is the only country to have used nuclear bombs. It dropped them on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and several days later on Nagasaki in 1945, in order to intimidate the Russians at the end of World War II. Presently, the United States has 4500 nuclear warheads, 400 of them situated in intercontinental ballistic missiles and placed on a hair trigger alert. The U.S. also has weapons placed on submarines and on aircraft. Obama has started a process by which one trillion dollars will be spent in the next decade on modernizing Americas nuclear capacity.
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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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, NSA Spying, Political Prisoner, Surveillance
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Trumpocalypse
Donald Trump will be sworn into office on January 20 as the 45th President of United States. He will begin his term with a Republican Congress. What can he do? What powers does he possess that would victimize immigrants, women, minorities, the infirmed, political activists, and journalists? We speak today with journalist Max Rivlin- Nadler. He’s the author of the recent article which appeared in The Gothamist called Trumpocalypse Now: What’s The Worst That Could Happen In NYC?
Guest – Max Rivlin-Nadler is an independent journalist based in New York City focused on urban affairs and criminal justice issues. He’s reported on the abuse of civil forfeiture laws by the NYPD, financial mismanagement and environmental neglect by the Port Authority, and the 2016 presidential election. His reporting has appeared in the New York Times, Gothamist, and the Village Voice.
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DAPL Aerial Chemical Attack Report: Oceti Sakowin Encampment
Water Protectors numbering in the thousands including members of more than 100 Native American tribes at Standing Rock, North Dakota have been brutally and continually attacked since they began their encampment months ago. They’re stationed in the freezing North Dakota weather and have succeeded in halting the construction of a 1200 mile oil pipeline that is scheduled to go through sacred Indian lands and beneath the Missouri River and then through South Dakota, Iowa, and into Illinois. Pipelines frequently break and if and when this one does it will contaminate the water supply of some 15 million people. Water from the river was sprayed on the protesters in 26° weather causing many of them to get life threatening hypothermia. Recently there have been reports of low flying aircraft releasing poison on the tents where the people are encamped. There have also been reports of snipers training their rifles on the people in the camp. President Obama has temporarily stopped the construction of the pipeline. Its a 3.8 billion-dollar project owned by the Energy Transfer Partners, an outfit in which Donald Trump has a large investment.
DONATE TO WATER PROTECTORS
Guest – Angela Bibens, an attorney from Denver, Colorado, Angela practices criminal, juvenile and family law with a specialty in the Indian Child Welfare Act. She earned her law degree from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law in 2006. She is a wife and mother of three. Angela has been the ground coordinator for the Water Protector Legal Collective at Oceti Sakowin Camp near the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe for the past three months.
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Zachary Sklar: Snowden
National Security Director James Clapper was questioned by Congress. The media was there. He looked at the camera, right in our eyes. The question was: Does the NSA spy on Americans? He Answered “not wittingly”. This was a lie. The NSA was spying on every computer keystroke and telephone conversation made by every American. Edward Snowden blew the whistle on this totalitarian practice that turned democracy upside down. Instead of the government serving the people the government was spying on the people it should serve. He has been indicted under the 1917 Espionage Act and is presently living in Russia, stripped of his passport, unable to come home where he faces decades in prison or worse. Oscar-winning film director Oliver Stone’s just released movie tells Edward Snowden’s story.
Guest – Zachary Sklar is a screenwriter, journalist, author, and editor. He is best known as co-writer (with Oliver Stone) of the Academy Award-nominated screenplay for the film JFK. Sklar has edited numerous non-fiction books about U.S. intelligence, including the number-one-bestselling On the Trail of the Assassins by Jim Garrison, from which the film JFK was adapted; Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network by former Israeli intelligence operative Ari Ben-Menashe; and Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA by former CIA case officer Ralph McGehee.
Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Truth to Power
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Eleanor Roosevelt: The War Years and After, 1939 to 1962
Eleanor Roosevelt was a modest self deprecating forceful and effective advocate for human rights. She was married to the four term Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who was in office throughout the Great Depression and World War II. During this time Eleanor Roosevelt grew into her own as an influential world figure. She helped in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the founding the United Nations. She fought for racially quality, economic security and world peace.
Guest – Blanche Wiesen Cook who is a distinguished Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Professor Cook has just published the third volume of her monumental biography of Eleanor Roosevelt titled, Eleanor Roosevelt: The War Years and After, 1939 to 1962. She has worked with the Center for Constitutional Rights and Michael Ratner in getting public access to government documents through freedom of information act requests. Cook is also a contributor to the book “Imagine: Living In A Socialist USA.”
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One People’s Project: Daryle Lamont Jenkins
This past summer an ambitious volunteer-run organization has taken on clandestine Klan rallies, wives of prominent neo-Nazis running for judgeships, and rock bands with neo-Nazi connections. The One People’s Project has been called a “scrappier version of the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
Its timely mission is to research and report on right/far right/racist individuals and organizations in an effort to eradicate hate. Its members do not shy away from outing individuals associated with white supremacist groups, especially if that person holds a position of responsibility or prominence in a community. They are the first to admit that they are not polite in their pursuit. The Project’s website features a “Rogues Gallery,” an alphabetical list—with photos—of persons they claim to know to be white nationalists.
Guest – Daryl Lamont Jenkins, activist, founder and spokesman for One People’s Project.
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Law and Disorder Hosts Acknowledge List of Affiliate Stations
A big thank you to all of the affiliate radio and internet stations broadcasting Law and Disorder each week. Thank you again for support and feedback.
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Censorship, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Crony Capitalism, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, War Resister
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US Intelligence Vets Dispute Russia Hacking Claims
The major media has been filled daily with stories about how Russia and its Chief of State Vladimir Putin sought to and did influence the American election in favor of Donald Trump. It is alleged by the CIA and other American intelligence agencies, the Russians hacked into the computer systems of the Democratic National Committee and of Hillary Rodham Clinton. This conclusion, it is reported, is based on “overwhelming circumstantial evidence.” American public opinion is been shaped to support aggression against Russia. Despite a promise made to Russia that they would not do it, the promise was broken and NATO now has troops and weapons on the Russian border where military exercises have been carried out. Tensions have been a ratcheted up to an extreme level not known since the heights of the Cold War.
Guest – Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst who briefed President George Bush daily. He broke with the government under George W. Bush over the cooked intelligence used to rationalize America’s illegal war of aggression against Iraq and helped form the organization Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. Last week his group issued a memorandum to President Obama which demonstrated that the Russians did not hack into the computers of the Democratic Party or Hillary Clinton and did not therefore influence the American election. They asserted that information that came out about the corruption of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party was leaked by an insider, not hacked.
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Civil Justice And The Trump Administration
Donald Trump has been critical of the U.S. intelligence community, both as a presidential candidate and as president-elect. He recently said he does not need to receive the presidential intelligence briefing every day, suggesting that such briefings are repetitive and that he is content to rely on those around him on matters of intelligence and national security. Trump’s infrequent briefings to-date are a departure from every modern president except Richard Nixon, who was so skeptical of intelligence agencies that he refused to accept briefings offered by President Johnson, even returning unopened envelopes containing classified material to the CIA.
In Washington DC, the public interest organization the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund has a new message on its website. It reads, in part: “At the PCJF, we stand with all those who are taking those steps forward – steps together – to face down what is coming, to protect those who are most vulnerable, and to make it clear that the people themselves are the force to be reckoned with.”
The PCJF has litigated First Amendment and other cases of constitutional import that have helped preserve and even expand the protections afforded individuals in different jurisdictions.
Guest – Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, co-chair of the Guild’s National Mass Defense Committee. co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund in Washington, DC, she secured $13.7 million for about 700 of the 2000 IMF/World Bank protesters in Becker, et al. v. District of Columbia, et al., while also winning pledges from the District to improve police training about First Amendment issues. She won $8.25 million for approximately 400 class members in Barham, et al. v. Ramsey, et al. (alleging false arrest at the 2002 IMF/World Bank protests). She served as lead counsel in Mills, et al v. District of Columbia (obtaining a ruling that D.C.’s seizure and interrogation police checkpoint program was unconstitutional); in Bolger, et al. v. District of Columbia (involving targeting of political activists and false arrest by law enforcement based on political affiliation); and in National Council of Arab Americans, et al. v. City of New York, et al. (successfully challenging the city’s efforts to discriminatorily restrict mass assembly in Central Park’s Great Lawn stemming from the 2004 RNC protests.)
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2016 Political Prisoner Pardons
President of United States under the constitution has the authority to pardon or grant clemency to people after their conviction or even before. This does not include people convicted in state courts, only federal court. Although the United States denies it, it holds many people as political prisoners.
1. Leonard Peltier – We urge President Obama to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier on humanitarian grounds and in the interest of justice. Peltier was a leader of the American Indian movement in the 1970s. At a confrontation at wounded knee South Dakota between AIM and the FBI two FBI agents were killed. The FBI had worked with a corrupt tribal leadership to suppress the American Indian movement. At his trial, the prosecution withheld evidence including potential key ballistic evidence. Leonard has served 40 years in prison and is not eligible for hid parole hearing until 2024. His son recently died and he was not allowed to go to the funeral. He is in very poor shape and his health is deteriorating. Please sign a petition to President Obama at this site.
2. Ethel Rosenberg was electrocuted at Sing Sing prison in 1953 after being convicted of being an atomic bomb spy and part of a ring that gave the secret of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. At that time the government knew she was not a spy. She left two boys ages six and 10. There was no secret to the atomic bomb, it was a matter of industrial capacity. The famous Rosenberg case was used to stir up the stereo against Russia. A huge body of evidence demonstrates that Ethel Rosenberg was innocent. Donald Trumps mentor, friend, and attorney Roy Cohn was one of the prosecutors who ruthlessly attacked Ethel and colluded with the judge to have her executed. Listeners can call the Whitehouse at 202-456-1111 or visit this website – Exonerate Ethel, Our Mother
3. Army Sergeant Chelsea Manning has been in Fort Leavenworth prison for six years now, a record for whistleblowers. He was convicted of leaking what has become known as the Iraqi war logs to WikiLeaks, which published them showing the truth about US war crimes in Iraq. Chelsea is a transgendered person whose confinement in an all male prison at Fort Leavenworth has been unusually harsh. This included 11 months of solitary confinement. She has twice attempted suicide. Her sentence is 35 years, the longest ever given to a whistleblower. She has already served more time in prison that any individual in US history who has disclosed information in the public interest. Write or call the Whitehouse.
4. Oscar Lopez, a Puerto Rican political prisoner has served 30 years in prison, convicted of seditious conspiracy – a thought crime involving no actual act – because of his commitment to the independence of Puerto Rico. He was not accused or convicted of causing harm or taking a life. He was sentenced to 70 years and is one of the longest held political prisoners in the world. Oscar served in Vietnam, Was a wooded a bronze star, and came home to Chicago where he became a talented community organizer. He served 12 years in isolation in a Supermax prison. He comes up for parole when he will be 83 years old. A petition asking President Obama to commute Oscar’s sentence can be found at: Oscar’s Story Here boricuahumanrights.org
5. Edward Snowden blew the whistle about the USA’s illegal global master valence system. This scandalized the American government and caused it to partially rein in its surveillance for the first time in four decades. This would not have happened but for Snowdens courageous act, a public service as former Attorney General Eric Holder has admitted. Snowden is facing charges under the espionage act, a world war one law that put another great American hero Eugene Debs in prison for making a speech in opposition to the war. Snowden should be honored for his action, not forced into exile in Russia. The entire establishment favors prosecuting him. President Obama has wrongly stated that he can’t do anything to help Snowden until he has returned to this country and gone on trial. A petition urging the president to pardon Snowden can be found here: pardonsnowden.org
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Censorship, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power, Uncategorized, War Resister
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DAPL Pipeline Dispatch # 9
The Standing Rock Sioux Indian tribe of North Dakota and their many allies won a tremendous victory on December 4 2016. They got the oil pipeline stopped, at least for now. It was being built by the Energy Transfer Partners through their sacred lands, without their consultation, in violation of the Treaty of Fort Laramie, and it was planned to be constructed beneath the Missouri River. A Department of the Army announcement stated that it would seek an alternative route for the 1100 mile $3.7 billion project. A break in the pipeline would’ve polluted the drinking water for up to 15 million people. What accounted for this historic victory? What social forces were involved? What is the legal and financial status of the project?
Water Protectors Legal Collective – NLG
Guest – National Lawyers Guild Attorney Jeff Haas, recently returned from living at the North Dakota encampment with thousands of Native Americans and climate change activists who gathered in solidarity with the Standing Rock Indian tribe in North Dakota to protest the pipeline construction. Jeff Haas was a founding partner of the Peoples Law Office in Chicago. He victoriously represented the family of Fred Hampton, the chairman of the Chicago Black Panther Party and proved that Hampton was assassinated by the FBI and Chicago Police Department. He’s also author of the book The Assassination of Fred Hampton.
Sacred Stone Camp Legal Defense – Lawyers wanting to support the Sacred Stone Camp, contact Attorney Robin Martinez – robin.martinez@martinezlaw.net
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Professor WatchList
In the weeks following the presidential election we’ve heard rumblings in the news about a variety of watch lists. Recently a student organization called Turning Point launched a website called Professor Watchlist. It publishes the names, locations and alleged offenses of liberal academics, with the mission to “expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students, promote anti-American values and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” Offenses may include: using swear words or asserting that racism exists. Members of the public are invited to submit tips.
Guest – Rebecca Schuman, a columnist for Slate and author of Schadenfreude, A Love Story and Kafka and Wittgenstein. Her recent article in Slate, Oh Good, A Professor Watch List, outlines a number of concerns about this development.
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Poet Raymond Nat Turner Black Listed
We welcome back to Law and Disorder political poet . Turner is the poet in residence of the internet site and radio show Black Agenda Report. He and others have come under attack by an outfit called PropOrNot, a shabby group that created a blacklist that include more than “200 outlets, from the right-wing Drudge Report and Russian government-funded Russia Today, to Wikileaks and an array of marginal conspiracy and far-right sites. The blacklist also includes some of the flagship publications of the progressive left, including Truthdig, Counterpunch, Truthout, Naked Capitalism, and the Black Agenda Report, a leftist African-American opinion hub that is critical of the liberal black political establishment.”
Guest – Raymond Nat Turner, currently Poet-in-Residence at Black Agenda Report, Turner has been the opening act for such people as James Baldwin, Cynthia McKinney, radical sportswriter Dave Zirin and Congresswoman Barbara Lee after her lone vote against attacking Afghanistan.
CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Climate Change, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Update:
- Hosts Remember Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro
Remembering Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz
When the American supported military dictator of Cuba Fulgencio Batista fled Cuba in January 1959 and the revolutionary government led by Fidel Castro marched into Havana they passed three laws. The first lowered the age so that Fidel could be prime minister. He was 33 years old. The second made Che Guevara a citizen of Cuba, he was Argentinian. And the third was the great agrarian reform law. It took land from the large plantations, owned mostly by American corporations, and distributed it to the people who worked it. The Cuban government had a right to do this under international law. They offered compensation.
The Cuban government said they would reimburse the mostly American corporate land owners the amount that they listed as the value of the land for tax purposes. The corporations would not agree. Instead the American owned oil refinery refused to refine oil. This would have shut down the Cuban economy. The Cubans responded by nationalizing the oil refinery. Then they nationalized the telephone company, the nickel mines, the automobile assembly plant and so on. The Cuban state took control of their own economy. This became what is known as the historic Cuban socialist revolution. United States policy from that day till now has been to overthrow this revolution and reinstall capitalism. For 47 years Fidel Castro led the Cuban government in its resistance to American counterrevolutionary activity.
Guest – James Cockcroft, a retired professor and lifelong supporter of the Cuban revolution. A bilingual award-winning author of more than 50 books on Latin America, US hidden history, culture, migration, and human rights, including most recently “Cuba In My Blood. ” He has traveled to Cuba many times, has been active in Cuba solidarity work, and has called Fidel Castro a personal friend. A bilingual poet, three-time Fulbright Scholar, and Honorary Editor of Latin American Perspectives, he serves on the Coordinadora Internacional de Redes en Defensa de la Humanidad, the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five, and civil society’s Benito Juárez Tribunal (vice-president, 2005) that judged U.S. terrorism against Cuba and International Tribunal of Trade Union Freedom (2009-10) that judged Mexico for its violations of labor and human rights. A Canadian immigrant, he is a member of the UNESCO-sponsored World Council of the José Martí World Solidarity Project, la Table de Concertation de Solidarité Québec-Cuba, la Société Bolivarienne du Québec, la Base de Paix Montréal, le Comité Fabio Di Celmo pour les 5, and the Canada-Cuba Literary Alliance.
Guest – Ike Nahem – A longtime anti-war, socialist, and labor activist Ike Nahem is the coordinator of Cuba Solidarity New York and a founder of the July 26 Coalition. Nahem is an Amtrak Locomotive Engineer and member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, a division of the Teamsters Union. He participated in a panel on Latin American politics at the 2011 Left Forum.
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Dakota Access Pipeline: Dispatch #8: UPDATE-Army Will Not Grant Easement For DAPL Crossing
At the time of our weekly dispatch from Standing Rock North Dakota, at least two major developments were unfolding: (1) Governor Jack Dalrymple had recently enacted an emergency evacuation order, citing public safety due to the frigid weather and (2) as many as 2,000 veterans are planning to gather there next week to serve as “human shields” for protesters who have for months clashed with the police over the pipeline construction.
The evacuation order was issued to the hundreds of Dakota Access Pipeline protesters camping on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ land near the Missouri River. It was given as a winter storm left least a half foot of snow throughout the central part of the state. It followed an order by the corps that the land will be closed to the public earlier this week. Law enforcement officials have said they would begin blocking supplies, including food, from entering the main protest camp.
The order means that emergency services will not be made available to people at the camp except on a case-by-case basis. The order will remain until he rescinds it.
Standing Rock Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II called the order “a menacing action meant to cause fear and is a blatant attempt by the state and local officials to usurp and circumvent federal authority.” The Veterans effort is planned as a nonviolent intervention to defend demonstrators from what the group calls “assault and intimidation at the hands of the militarized police force.”
Water Protectors Legal Collective – NLG
Guest – National Lawyers Guild Attorney Jeff Haas, recently returned from living at the North Dakota encampment with thousands of Native Americans and climate change activists who gathered in solidarity with the Standing Rock Indian tribe in North Dakota to protest the pipeline construction. Jeff Haas was a founding partner of the Peoples Law Office in Chicago. He victoriously represented the family of Fred Hampton, the chairman of the Chicago Black Panther Party and proved that Hampton was assassinated by the FBI and Chicago Police Department. He’s also author of the book The Assassination of Fred Hampton.
Sacred Stone Camp Legal Defense – Lawyers wanting to support the Sacred Stone Camp, contact Attorney Robin Martinez – robin.martinez@martinezlaw.net
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