Prison Industry | Law and Disorder Radio

Law and Disorder June 9, 2014

CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq War, NSA Spying, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, War Resister

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Updates:

Michael Ratner: Guantanamo Bay Prisoner Exchange
Five Taliban In Exchange For A U.S. Prisoner Held In Afghanistan
149 Detainees Left In Guantanamo Prison – 88 Cleared For Release
Michael Smith Reports Back On Highlights At the 2014 Left Forum

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9/11 Memorial Museum Protests

There were many protests during the official opening of the 911 Memorial Museum. Muslim communities and other groups have voiced concern about the film in the musuem titled “The Rise of Al-Qaeda” and how it fails to adequately discern between Al-Qaeda and those of the Islamic faith. Meanwhile, the museum’s official response is that the film is objectively telling the story of what happened.

Donna Nevel:

We came together because of a concern about a video they were showing called The Rise of al-Qaeda. It’s a 7 minute documentary and the concern is about the problematic language that its using. It makes it seem as if the acts of 9-11 are equated with Islam.
Our feeling is that the film needs to be edited and could exacerbate an already anti-Muslim climate.
Quoting criticism – The film in its current state presented risks that visitors would assign collective responsibility for September 11th to Islam and all Muslims.
There’s a historian Todd Fine who says its an inconsistent array of terminology that gets carelessly thrown around with little concern for the harmful impact it can have on people.
The video didn’t do enough to separate al-Qaeda from Islam and from mainstream Islam. It’s reckless.
Despite the fact that the own museum’s own advisory board was instantly concerned when they saw the film and said it should be reviewed and edited – despite the fact that 400 scholars wrote letters saying it contains problematic and contested terminology that conflates terrorism with Islam – and despite the fact that leaders from so many different inter-faith communities have spoken out about this – that the museum continues to stand by its decision not to edit the video – is astonishing.
I was doing a little research on her (Debra Burlingame-on 911 Memorial Museum Board of Directors) and there’s a high number of racist quotes she’s said. “Islam’s a transnational threat.”
Millions and millions of people will be going to this museum and museums can have a big impact.
We have to remember that this is in the context not of a society that welcomes and embraces the Muslim community but one that’s surveilling the Muslim community.
It’s feeding into this notion that all Muslims are responsible for the acts of a few individuals.
This video also feeds into police surveillance because what do they say? After 911 we have to be more vigilant and that means surveilling an entire community.
Communities are coming together and speaking out, including about this video.
We have to change the structures that enable this to happen. The Islamophobes are really problematic and have connections to some of the institutions.
We have to make sure our institutions are fomenting Islamophobia.
Book – Islamophobia and Israel by Elly Bulkin and Donna Nevel
We wanted to analyze the intersection of Islamophobia and Israeli politics and to look at the way the “war on terror” impacts both. Also to raise an issue that’s basically taboo in the Jewish community as well as outside the Jewish community.
We have 4 different areas that we look at. Our lengthiest area is “follow the money” where you basically see how connected the Islamophobes are with right-wing Israel crowd, the settlement movement and others as well.
Jews Against Islamophobia / Jews Say No / Jewish Voices For Peace / Jews For Racial and Economic Justice
Contact Donna Nevel – denevel(at)gmail(dot).com

Guest – Donna Nevel, a community psychologist, educator, and writer whose work is rooted in Participatory Action Research (PAR) and popular education. Co-author with Elly Bulkin of Islamophobia and Israel. She has been involved with a wide range of organizing efforts to challenge segregation and inequality and further equity and racial justice in public education. She has also been a long-time organizer for Palestinian-Israeli peace and justice and works with groups to challenge Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism.

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Free Flow of Information Act (Journalist Shield Law)

Current shield laws for journalists in the United States have broad exceptions for national security. This means that a prosecutor can override the law by showing how the information sought would “materially assist” the government in “preventing” or “mitigating” an act of terrorism. Initially, the shield law is set up to provide a confidentiality privilege for journalists so a police officer or FBI agent can’t get that information even with a court order unless there is an unusually strong justification for it. The latest version of the shield law as of September 2013 has a clause telling judges that it only covers legitimate news gathering. This of course makes very easy to declare any kind of news gathering you don’t like as illegitimate, and therefore the sources are not protected. Last month, the House of Representatives voted to approve an amendment to an appropriations bill barring the Justice Department from compelling reporters to testify about confidential sources.

Carey Shenkman:

We are going to get a shield law but its going to be one that doesn’t protect any journalists or sources.
It’s a lot easier for the FBI and the DOJ to just skip the investigation and go straight to the reporters. Why do they have to any work when they have the journalist getting all the sources for them.
They subpoenaed records from the Associated Press last summer, they subpoenaed the source for James Risen who wrote a book and that actually appeared before the 4th Circuit of Appeals and was turned down by the Supreme Court for review.
There’s been a push to try and pass a shield law before but Obama back in 2009 said he wouldn’t let any shield law pass that didn’t have a big national security exemption.
What happened back in September is that there was a massive compromise with 2 Senators, Diane Feinstein from California and Dick Durbin from Illinois. They wouldn’t let this law go through unless it contained a big national security exception. Meaning any reporter covering national security would have to disclose their sources, and second it had a big exclusion for wikileaks and other organizations that published leaks.
There’s actually a balancing test as part of this law that tells judges to consider if a journalist is engaged in legitimate news gathering. This is problematic because anyone can be a journalist, this has been the case since the founding of this country.
They’re trying to put into law the fact that some journalists are legitimate and some are illegitimate.
The internet has brought this country back to the time of its founding in terms of journalism because when the “press clause” in the First Amendment were passed, anyone could be a journalist.
The “press clause” was defined as the right to publish.
I believe we do need shield laws, but not this shield law.
I think there is a big push by the institutional media to keep journalism as a profession, but that’s not what journalism is. Now with the internet, anyone can publish. As long as anyone as the intention to disseminate information, they should be protected as a journalist.
When it helps the government the definition of the media is very broad.
It’s going to be political suicide if Holder or anyone from the Obama administration pushes to send James Risen to jail.
The DOJ argued in an affidavit that James Rosen was aiding and abetting his source.
More and more, we’re seeing this administration trying to frame the news gatherer and the source, not as a journalist and a source but as criminals in a conspiracy.
I was a radio journalist for 3 years. I used to work at the Center for Constitutional Rights where I met Michael Ratner and was involved with Chelsea Manning’s trial.

Guest – Carey Shenkman, has worked with several legal teams including Chelsea Manning’s defense, and legal research defining the protection of new media under the Bill of Rights and The U.S. Constitution.

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Law and Disorder June 2, 2014

Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Gaza, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, NSA Spying, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, War Resister

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Updates:

Wikileaks Reveals The Other Country NSA Surveilled All Content: Media Blackout
U.S. Government Can Destroy People: Informant Sabu (Hector Xavier Monsegur) And Jeremy Hammond
Remembering League of Revolutionary Black Workers Founder General Gordon Baker Jr.
Read General’s Letter To The Detroit Draft Board
Michael Ratner Resigns From Brandeis University
International Advisory BoardMichael Ratner’s Open Letter To Brandeis University President Published In Forward Thinking
Coalition of Imokalee Workers Demonstrations In Columbus, Ohio
Glenn Greenwald Nowhere To Hide Book Tour -Ticket Give Away – Listen To Answer Question
We Have 5 Tickets In Each City To Give Away
Dates                       City
June 17, 2014    Seattle, WA
June 18, 2014    San Francisco, CA
June 19, 2014    Los Angeles, CA
June 21, 2014    San Diego, CA
June 23, 2014    New York, NY
June 26, 2014    Rosemont, IL

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Remembering Dr. Vincent Harding

Last month pioneering historian, theologian and civil rights activist Dr. Vincent Harding had died at the age of 82. Harding was a close adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and wrote King’s famous antiwar speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence.” King delivered the address at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967.

After King was assassinated, Harding became the first director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center and of the Institute of the Black World. He later became Professor of Religion and Social Transformation at Iliff School of Theology in Denver. After serving in the Army for several years Harding became a pacifist and later served as co-chairperson of the social unity group the Veterans of Hope Project. He’s the author numerous books including There Is A River and Wade in the Water: The Wisdom of the Spirituals.

Dr. George Tinker:

Vincent was sometimes called by black activists across the continent, the gentle giant.
Giant, not because of his physical size but because of intellectual stature.
Last summer we did a conference together speaking to a national conference of Quakers.
He was an incredibly soft-spoken and gentle person, yet could be so absolutely incisive in his quiet comments.
He was so persuasive that everyone had to pay attention to him.
On campus he was either in the midst of a student group trying to quietly cajole them into activism themselves or once the students became activists, he was one of the few faculty that was right there with students walking them through that activism.
Every thing in that speech (Beyond Vietnam) is a part of what Vincent lived every day.
He was in the Army during the Korean War and became a convert to Gandhi and non-violence theory.
His participation to bringing me to Iliff was a clear signal that he was one of those civil rights warriors who was not satisfied with interpreting the civil rights struggle as a black and white issue.
When we engaged in protest on the streets of Denver, beginning around 1989, getting ready for the 1992 Columbian Quinscentenary, we had Iliff students who would come out with the American Indian Movement of Colorado to help us protest what we always framed as state supported hate speech.
We were never against Italians celebrating their heritage but its the fact that Columbus Day is a federal holiday. It’s a federal celebration then, of the genocide of Indian people.
About a year and a half ago he joined Jewish activists and African American activists on a trip to Palestine, the West Bank. He came back deeply affected.
He immediately began to see the deep deep connection between the Palestinian struggle for freedom and American Indians on this continent.
We’re seeing it still today, US foreign policy is characterized by violence and the threat of violence and if not military violence, economic violence.
Vincent and Dr. King were men of conscience who once they understood the truth in Vietnam could not help but speak to it.
18 year old kids don’t have the clear reading of history to fall back on their decision making. (military)
His passing is a passing of an era marked by the passing of Maya Angelou. It deeply deeply saddened me because I was hoping this next month to have lunch with him.

Guest – Dr. George Tinker, a colleague of Dr. Vincent Harding at the IIliff School of Theology. Dr. Tinker. He teaches courses in American Indian cultures, history, and religious traditions; cross-cultural and Third-World theologies; and justice and peace studies and is a frequent speaker on these topics both in the U.S. and internationally. teaches courses in American Indian cultures, history, and religious traditions; cross-cultural and Third-World theologies; and justice and peace studies and is a frequent speaker on these topics both in the U.S. and internationally. His publications include American Indian Liberation: A Theology of Sovereignty (2008); Spirit and Resistance: Political Theology and American Indian Liberation (2004); and Missionary Conquest: The Gospel and Native American Genocide (1993). He co-authored A Native American Theology (2001); and he is co-editor of Native Voices: American Indian Identity and Resistance (2003), and Fortress Press’ Peoples’ Bible (2008).

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Please help support Law and Disorder, the show is now a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Law and Disorder must be made payable to Fractured Atlas only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Law and Disorder May 26, 2014

Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, NSA Spying, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, War Resister

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Updates:

NSA Collecting MetaData And Content On Five Countries
Julian Assange-Glenn Greenwald Twitter Storm
Host Discussion On NSA Ubiquitous Data Collecting

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The United States vs. Private Chelsea Manning

Last year our own Michael Ratner made many trips to Fort Meade to attend the very secretive Private Chelsea Manning trials. Michael had also explained in past shows about how he heard Chelsea testify as to why he released each set of documents such as the Iraq war logs, the Afghanistan war logs, State Department cables and more. She said her decision to release the documents were done as an act of conscience. Our guest Wikileaks activist and artist Clark Stoeckley was also at this historic trial. His recent graphic novel titled The United States vs. Private Chelsea Manning is a collection of his vivid sketches from inside the court room. He joins us to talk about his work as an activist and his experiences producing the book. Welcome to Law and Disorder.

Clark Stoeckley:

As I understand the transcripts are still under seal.
Those sketches took a little bit longer, ones that where full court room where I drew a lot of people.
I would work in pencil and draw as quickly as I could everything that I saw in the court room and then I would come back and fill it in with color and hard outlines.
What she was doing was offering up 20 years of her life, accepting full responsibility and that takes a lot of courage and bravery to do that – being the smallest person in the court room and being noble about it.
Unfortunately the media wasn’t there to catch the pre-trial. They only showed up on the first day and then the sentencing and the verdict.
I remember how the court room fell to a complete silence when that video came on and the tears, and the blank stares on the prosecutions’ faces.
I’m looking through the book right now, I see you, you’re in the picture there Michael Ratner, in the background sitting behind Chelsea.
35 years was the sentence and that’s going to be appealed. As I understand the appeal will start as early as December.
They didn’t like that we’re holding vigils every week and holding large protests there. They shut down the road and they had to re-route traffic. It was the largest protest Ft. Meade had every seen.
Just a heads up to anyone who wants to correspond with Chelsea, you know have to use the name Chelsea when addressing envelopes. http://www.chelseamanning.org/
I just started putting them in libraries today.
CHELSEA E. MANNING 89289 / 1300 NORTH WAREHOUSE ROAD / FORT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS 66027-2304

Guest – Clark Stoeckley, is an artist and author of the book The United States v. Private Chelsea Manning. He’s also the owner of truck with the WikiLeaks logo emblazoned on it. Stoeckley’s vivid sketches from inside the court and beyond, together with carefully selected transcripts of the proceedings, trace the arguments as they move back and forth between the defense and the prosecution.

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Net Neutrality – The Time Warner/Comcast Merger and New Rules Proposed By The FCC

In our last interview with attorney Matt Wood, policy director at Free Press, we talked about the 45 billion dollar Comcast -Time Warner merger and its implications to net neutrality. This proposed merger would unite the nation’s largest cable TV and internet service provider with the second largest cable company. If combined, these companies would offer service to two thirds of U.S. households. We get an update on the merger and we also discuss the new rules proposed by the FCC about net neutrality. Net neutrality essentially means preventing unreasonable discrimination against content on the internet. The Free Press maintains that the new FCC rules would kill rather than protect net neutrality and allow rampant discrimination online.

Attorney Matt Wood:

What the court said was that you can’t treat broadband providers as common carriers – not as some insurmountable conclusion but simply based on the way the FCC has decided to treat them up to this point.
So the FCC up to this point has tried to deregulate and yet tried to maintain some of the protections we all need from our communications.
Though its in the FCC’s discretion according to the majority and according to the DC circuit, what the courts have said, the FCC has made this decision in the past. They still haven’t reversed it, they still want to say that broadband is not a common carrier service and therefore the FCC can’t adopt common carrier or common carrier like obligations for broadband.
There’s obviously a grave concern to government secrecy and censorship especially when it comes to whistle-blowers and the kind of information that Edward Snowden brought to all of us.
If you used the phone to commit a crime whether that is wire fraud or you’re talking to your co-conspirators about how to conduct the crime. It is not the telephone company’s place and either say you can or can’t make that call.
Net neutrality is a way of insuring that the carrier of our speech (that’s typically a private company) doesn’t have a role or not in deciding whether that speech goes through.
If and when the government steps in and says hey we want to tap that line because we’re actually conducting an investigation or if and when there’s a punishment for the activity that you used the phone to plan that’s obviously a very important legal debate.
Net neutrality is not a way for the government to control our speech. It is a way to insure that our cable and phone companies do not control our speech.
The FCC in its current mode is basically saying well even if we’re required to allow these two tiers or multiple tiers of service, we can still step in and protect you and provide a basic level of service.
This isn’t just about big internet companies on one side and big telephone and cable companies on the other side, its about that we all use the internet especially in a cloud based system. We’re using it not just to watch movies which is an important cultural activity but to back up our files, to send educational videos.
What the cable and telephone companies want to do is charge you extra to reach their customers and they want to charge in both directions.
If you want to reach them at all Netflix or Google, Law and Disorder, you also have to pay us now.
Its no secret that FCC Chairman Wheeler headed not just one but two telecommunication lobbies.
The FCC has this proceeding that it will be running over the summer. What Chairman Wheeler has proposed we think is not good enough but its not a done deal either so the FCC will take comments not only from companies and groups like ours but members of the public.

Guest – Attorney Matt Wood helps shape the policy team’s efforts to protect the open Internet, prevent media concentration, promote affordable broadband deployment and prioritize a revitalized public media. Before joining Free Press, he worked at the public interest law firm Media Access Project and in the communications practice groups of two private law firms in Washington, D.C. Before that, he served as editor-in-chief for the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, worked for PBS, and spent time at several professional and college radio and television stations. Matt earned his B.A. in film studies from Columbia University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.
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Law and Disorder May 5, 2014

CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Hydraulic Fracturing, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power

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Updates:

John Kerry Middle East Peace Talks And NY Times Propaganda
There is no ‘Palestine Exception’ to free speech rights’: Northeastern overturns Students for Justice in Palestine suspension
CCR: Palestine Solidarity Legal Support Project
Host Attorney Micheal Smith Retraction On Abe Foxman Update

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Torturous For-Profit Medical Care in Prisons

The medical care in private prisons is often provided by a sub contracted for profit entity. Today we look at a specific case involving Corizon, a prison health management corporation serving 530 prisons in 28 states. Corizon has been sued for malpractice 660 times in the past five years. We talk today about “Bradley’s” case. He’s 67, and was out on parole after serving 34 years in California’s state prisons. Bradley was on 100mg of morphine 3 times a day for surgical complications from knee injury. While on parole, THC was detected in his system, and officers brought him back to prison. However, under the care of Corizon, he was not given his medication and forced to painfully withdraw from the morphine.

Dr. Robin Andersen:

My brother who we call Brad is at Santa Rita jail who Corizon is under contract with.
He went in on April 17, and after a week of being in there, my lawyer and my sister said he was on death’s door.
The reason was he was being forced to withdraw from medications. His medications are morphine and high blood pressure medication.
He was given no medications for pain, and he basically did cold turkey inside that jail and is still being mistreated there.
This is a parole violation where its alleged he might have smoked some pot.
He was in San Quentin and some other California prisons. He served 34 years. When he was finally paroled one of the parole board members said – well we assess that the crime that you did to be about 11 years.
Just the thought of him in that jail without medication for that time, it was agony.
What the jail has told me is they don’t give out controlled substances.
What my lawyer said is their policy to save money, they don’t have proper medication.
They’re putting him through a forced cold turkey withdrawal and laughing at him.
They keep using the word protocol, and it rings in my ear. Oh, he’s on a withdrawal protocol. One wonders what that protocol might be.
I’ve been asking people to call the jail. It’s very interesting, they thrive in secrecy and brutality within these places.
Call the Santa Rita County Jail – 925-551-6500. Lawrence (Bradley) Benetto – Prisoner # BKB172

Guest – Dr. Robin Andersen, is the brother of “Bradley” and Professor of Communication and Media Studies and Director of the M.A. Program in Public Communication. She is also Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at Fordham University.

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Lawsuits Against Prison Health Management Corporations

Class action lawsuits against prison health management corporations are becoming very common. There are many cases and stories of mistreatment and negligence which critics say stem from profit making and cost cutting protocols. We take a deeper look at the recent litigation involving lawsuits against private, for profit prison health care companies.

Attorney Sarah Grady:

Corizon, they’re a multi-billion dollar company. They’ve operated under many names throughout the years.
They’re whole model is to provide as little health care as possible in order to continue to drive a profit. They take into account in their profit, how often they’re going to be sued.
They gamble in effect on how much money they’re going to lose in lawsuits and whether that can keep them profitable by continuing to deny care to prisoners.
When Corizon contracted with Arizona to provide care (in prisons) in the first 8 months there were 50 deaths in Arizona Department of Corrections in their custody, that’s in a single state.
There are multiple stories of substandard care being provided by nurses and doctors who have not been trained, who have been trained at a suboptimal level.
The states, county or municipality cannot contract away the 8th Amendment.
The individual doctors get bonuses based on their ability to stay under budget.

Guest – Attorney Sarah Grady leads Loevy & Loevy’s Prisoners’ Rights Project. Ms. Grady graduated cum laude from Northwestern University School of Law in 2012. At Northwestern, she worked on civil rights cases with the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center in the Bluhm Legal Clinic.

Sarah Grady joined Loevy & Loevy in 2013. She leads Loevy & Loevy’s Prisoners’ Rights Project.

Ms. Grady graduated cum laude from Northwestern University School of Law in 2012. At Northwestern, she worked on civil rights cases with the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center in the Bluhm Legal Clinic, served on the board of the Public Interest Law Group and the American Constitution Society, and received Northwestern’s annual Public Service Award for her commitment to serving the public interest in her legal work.

– See more at: http://www.loevy.com/attorneys/sarah-grady/#sthash.M7ruq9uH.dpuf

Sarah Grady joined Loevy & Loevy in 2013. She leads Loevy & Loevy’s Prisoners’ Rights Project.

– See more at: http://www.loevy.com/attorneys/sarah-grady/#sthash.M7ruq9uH.dpuf

Sarah Grady joined Loevy & Loevy in 2013. She leads Loevy & Loevy’s Prisoners’ Rights Project.

– See more at: http://www.loevy.com/attorneys/sarah-grady/#sthash.M7ruq9uH.dpuf

Sarah Grady joined Loevy & Loevy in 2013. She leads Loevy & Loevy’s Prisoners’ Rights Project.

– See more at: http://www.loevy.com/attorneys/sarah-grady/#sthash.M7ruq9uH.dpuf

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Attorney Anand Swaminathan:

We a broad spectrum of issues both in terms of types of facilities where these things are occurring and the actual kinds of medical problems that are not being dealt with or ignored.
There are states, counties and municipalities all engaged in this form of privatization which are outsourcing medical care to these private companies.
It includes, large prisons people who are convicted of crimes, it includes people who are being held in custody, that includes county jails which are a hybrid facility that holding people long term and people in short term custody.
It’s everything down to the local police station.
We’re seeing a lack of adequate medical care across that entire spectrum.
There’s a complete failure to treat chronic conditions, some of the chronic conditions that are so prevalent in our society now.
These people (prisoners) are not consumers and cannot choose and say I find your product subpar, I’m not interested, I’m going to choose the other guys’ product.
We’re starting to see a push back. Courts are starting to attack specific protections that companies are invoking.
Here you have courts identifying market forces as a reason to deny the protections that some of these companies are trying to invoke.

Guest – Attorney Anand Swaminathan, has worked on a broad range of constitutional and civil rights cases, and has worked extensively on False Claims Act litigation, where he has represented whistleblowers alleging defense military and other government contractor fraud, bid-rigging, Medicare and Medicaid fraud, construction/contractor (MBE/DBE) fraud, and tax fraud.

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Rubin “Hurricane” Carter 1937-2014

In April of this year, celebrated boxer and prisoner-rights activist Rubin “Hurricane” Carter died at the age of 76. He had become an international symbol of racial injustice after his wrongful murder conviction forced him to spend 19 years in prison. Carter was arrested for a triple murder in his hometown of Paterson, New Jersey. He said he was innocent, was convicted by an all white jury, and sentenced to three consecutive life sentences. In 1976, the New Jersey State Supreme Court overturned his conviction on grounds the authorities withheld material evidence from the defense. But Carter was convicted again in a second trial in 1976. In 1985, that conviction was overturned by a U.S. district court judge, who concluded the state made an unconstitutional appeal to racial prejudice. In 1988, the Passaic, New Jersey, Prosecutor’s Office dropped all charges against Carter.

Attorney Myron Beldock:

He was a defendant in a criminal case in New Jersey involved the triple shooting and three murders of 3 people in the Lafayette bar in Patterson, New Jersey.
He and his co-defendant John Artis were represented at the first trial and they lost, (convicted) and Rubin started his campaign to get out of jail and wrote his book the 16th Round.
He was charismatic and powerful, a great thinker, very very intellectually strong person as well as being spiritually strong.
Almost a typical case, high profile case, where you get people who are vulnerable and easily manipulated because of their need for their own benefits to falsely testify.
We set aside the convictions when we learned about the benefits that were given to the witnesses.
We went again to trial in 1975. At that time the atmosphere had changed. There was a new prosecutor, they came up with a theory that it was actually a racial revenge killing.
Earlier that night, a white former bar owner had shot and killed the black purchaser of the bar from him.
That was always known and there was no motives attributed to the killings in the first trial but the second trial really based on speculation and bias, they argued persuasively to the jury that this was a racial revenge killing.
Mr. Bellow who was the supposed eye witness who testified, there were two of them in the first trial, was being questioned by me on the stand as to why he recanted his recantation. The prosecutor persuaded him to again tell the story he told at the first trial, identifying Rubin and John and I was trying to establish that they had falsely manipulated him when I was pulled into the chambers along with my co-counsel Louis Steele who represented John Artis and told that if I question him further, the jury would learn that he passed the lie detector test, supporting what he said at the first trial. Supporting his identification (of Rubin Carter)
We did have that test. It seemed like that was the result because that’s the way it was written. In fact that was a fraud.
The polygraph results were completely opposite of what they were purported to be.
The prosecutors in that case, two of them became judges, rewarded for what they did.
Rubin was not a popular person, he had been an outspoken civil rights person. It was a cesspool of rumors without any evidentiary basis.
The entire community there almost in Passaic New Jersey treated us like we were the devil.
It was the coldest community reception I ever encountered in any place.
Rubin would call every year (from Canada) on the anniversary of his release. He got a group of Canadian do-gooders and free thinkers to join him in fighting to set aside convictions for people who were wrongly convicted in Canada.
He would vet the briefs that we sent. He was a very unusual client.
Rubin refused to act as a prisoner because he wasn’t anyone who was guilty he said.
So, he didn’t eat prison food, he didn’t take prisoner assignments, he didn’t wear prison clothes and somehow or other he was able to pull that off.
People think of it as being another time, I’ve been practicing law long enough and I don’t think anything changes.
The same kind of bias runs deep throughout the community its just masked somewhat differently.
You make your luck in these cases, you have to forge ahead.
His insistence on being an innocent person and will not compromise with the system is the kind of inspiration that pushes us on as lawyers.

Guest – Attorney Myron Beldock, graduated from Erasmus Hall High School in 1946, Hamilton College in 1950 and Harvard Law School in 1958. He served in the U.S. Army from 1951 to 1954 and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of New York from 1958 to 1960. After several years as an associate with a small New York City firm and as a single practitioner, he brought together two friends and former Assistant U.S. Attorneys, Elliot Hoffman and Larry Levine, to form Beldock Levine & Hoffman in 1964. He is best described, by his own definition, as an old-time general practitioner. He concentrates on trial and appellate litigation, in state and federal courts, in defense of criminal charges and in pursuing plaintiffs’ civil rights actions based on police and prosecutorial misconduct and employer and governmental discrimination. He regularly consults and defends charges of professional discipline. He represents plaintiffs and defendants in a wide variety of personal and business related matters, working with others in the firm’s various practice areas.

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Law and Disorder April 14, 2014

CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Extraordinary Rendition, Guantanamo, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Updates:

Court Dismisses Lawsuit Challenging U.S. Drone Killings of Three Americans
Al Jazeera: Revealed: Senate Report Contains New Details On CIA Black Sites

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The Dallas 6: Abuse In Solitary Confinement

In April of 2010, a group of inmates locked in solitary confinement at SCI Dallas prison in Pennsylvania were suffering so much abuse and brutal treatment by prison guards they had placed their bedding over the window of their cell doors to attract attention of the prison administrators. Instead of receiving assistance, the inmates were brought up on riot charges. Last December the inmates known as the Dallas 6 defended themselves and presented testimony describing the details of their abuse in solitary confinement.

Shandre Delaney:

This case, the Dallas 6, began in April 2010. These men were all in the RHU at SCI Dallas, in Dallas PA.
The RHU is the restrictive housing unit, its an acronym for solitary confinement.
All of these men had been victims of abuse and torture during their stay in solitary confinement.
The Dallas 6 are Andre Jacobs, Anthony Kelly, Anthony Locke, Dwayne Peters, Derek Stanley and my son Carrington Keys.
Most of these guys went into solitary for minor infractions, maybe to stay 60-90 days. My son stayed in there for 10 years, and I think all of the other guys about the same.
These guys were jailhouse lawyers. These guys were people who spoke up and sent word to the outside about what was going on in solitary confinement.
Once you do that – they call it misconduct, which are write ups, they’ll give you false write ups, and all types of things just to keep you in there longer.
The cells are 6X9. In solitary, they might have a window to the outside. There is a bunk that they sleep on. There is only a slot for food to come in and out.
You’re supposed to come out of your cell for one hour a day. They may get a shower 2 or 3 times a week.
They lied to me for years and told me he wasn’t allowed visits. I later found out that they’re allowed one visit per month.
The group that I work for Human Rights Coalition, some of the information that was sent from SCI Dallas, a 93 page report was written called Resistance and Retaliation.
They sent a copy back in (to SCI Dallas) they didn’t mark out the guys’ names, so once the guards got a hold of this, and saw the guy’s names, they started one by one beating guys.
They took one guy and put him in a restraint chair. You’re only supposed to be in the restraint chair for 2 hours, they kept there over night.
They (the guards) told the guys (Dallas 6) we’re comin for you. In order to bring attention from a lieutenant or a superior officer, you have to cover your cell window.
They covered their cell windows. The guards put on riot gear and one by one they beat these guys very bad.
It’s all on video tape. They tasered a lot of the guys on their genitals.
They have you like a hog or something, I saw it on the video.
They cut their clothes off and left them for hours in cages.
May 5, 2014 is supposed to be the official trial date. The official trial date has been going on for 2 years.
I was praying every night hoping the phone didn’t ring and they tell me they killed him.
They took out to shower and threw him down the steps and broke his nose, they busted his teeth out with a stick before.
They put glass in his food.
HRCoalition.org
Dallas 6 Blog
Petition to Indict Luzerne County Officials
Summary in Support of Petition to Indict

Guest – Shandre Delaney, a powerful activist with HRCoalition and the mother of Carrington Keys, one of the Dallas 6.

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Rutgers University Plans to Give Condoleezza Rice Honorary Degree

Students and faculty at Rutgers University have rejected the idea to invite former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to speak at this year’s commencement ceremony and receive an honorary degree. The Board of Governors in February of this year unanimously voted to award Rice the invite for a fee of 35 thousand dollars. They also voted to give the national security adviser under former President George W. Bush an honorary degree. Resolutions signed by the university faculty and staff calls for Rice to be disinvited.

Professor Deepa Kumar:

Historically our process at Rutgers University has involved having 20 some faculties, students, involved in the process of selecting the commencement speaker, typically by canvasing students and canvasing faculty and then making a recommendation to the president as to who to invite.
When president Barchi came to your university in 2012 he completely violated this open and democratic process, formed a committee of 6 people including himself. Then they decided to go ahead an invite Condoleezza Rice.
We believe that this was actually politically motivated. What suspect is that Chris Cristi who was riding high at that time in 2012, before bridge-gate, very likely wanted to have Condoleezza Rice as Vice Presidential candidate when he runs.
So far we have taken out a petition drive, the students have their own petition drive, hundreds of people have signed up. We’ve also talked about holding a protest outside should our efforts fail.
The last time Dr. Rice was invited to be a commencement speaker was at 2006 at Boston College, when everybody turned their back to her when she started to speak.
Condoleezza Rice was very much a part of the systematic lying to the American public and quite frankly we at Rutgers teach our students to ethical to be responsible citizens.
At Rutgers we have a 44 percent minority student enrollment. It’s a very diverse school and I welcome African American women as commencement speakers but I think there are better people like Anita Hill or Angela Davis.
In 2002 we know from a Senate Committee Intelligence Report of 2009 that when Rice was chair of the National Security Council she gave a verbal approval to then CIA director George Tenet to go ahead and use enhanced interrogation techniques.
She’s been quite steadfast in defending the use of torture. She gave a speech at Stanford University where she argued that if torture is authorized by the president then it doesn’t violate the Geneva Convention against torture.
Commencement at Rutgers – May 18, 2014.
Senator Feinstein called the use of torture a dark chapter in the history of this country.
Clearly torture is a violation of international law and the Geneva Convention and I think to confer a Doctor of Law degree to someone who has been intimately connected with this “dark chapter” in our history I think is a serious embarrassment for Rutgers University.
I’m really proud to be among the hundreds of faculty members and students who are actually standing up against this to disinvite her.
Dick Cheney comes out and defends the torture program even now.
If I Was Allowed To Speak

Guest – Deepa Kumar, an Associate Professor of Media and Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University. Her latest book is Islamophobia and The Politics of Empire by Haymarket Books and is in response to the events of 9/11, the Bush administration launched a “war on terror,” ushering in an era of anti-Muslim racism, or Islamophobia. Her first book, Outside the Box: Corporate Media, Globalization and the UPS Strike (University of Illinois Press, 2007), is about the power of collective struggle in effectively challenging the priorities of neoliberalism.

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Law and Disorder March 24, 2014

CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Torture

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Updates:

Immokalee Workers Demonstrations In Florida
Michael Ratner: Ukraine Crisis Analysis Update
Hosts Discuss CCR NYC Firefighter Racial Discrimination Case
Law and Disorder Contest – The NSA Collected All Outgoing and Incoming Phone Calls Of What Country? (Use Site Contact Form)
Brooklyn Folk Festival April 18 2014
Hosts Remember Melba Hernandez, Heroine of Cuban Revolution

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FBI Meeting With TransCanada Industry Partners On the Keystone XL Pipeline

Here on Law and Disorder we’ve reported in depth on the targeting of environmental activists by federal agents that categorizing their exercise of free speech as terrorism. In a recent FOIA request obtained by the Earth Island Journal, the FBI held a daylong strategy meeting with TransCanada Corporation, the company building the 2100 mile Keystone XL pipeline in April of 2012. In March of 2012 President Obama made a speech in Cushing Oklahoma confirming the approval of the southern portion of the pipeline toward the Gulf of Mexico. The FBI meeting suggests that the highest levels of law enforcement are involved to monitor opposition to the pipeline.

Adam Federman:

I spoke with a former FBI agent Mike German who is now at the Brennan Center and he was very surprised to see the juxtaposition of the FBI and TransCanada at the top of that letterhead which makes them look like partners.
I also uncovered correspondence between TransCanada corporate security adviser and an FBI agent in South Dakota who he had invited to this meeting in Nebraska. They seem to be on very good terms.
Clearly the company is using all levers of power to get this thing, not only approved but push opposition out of the way and potentially criminalize dissent.
Tar sands oil which is primarily being mined up in Alberta is considered the dirtiest form of oil on the planet.
The timing is quite interesting. Obama was in Cushing, at the TransCanada pipeyard at speech he gave that was not open to the public. That was on March 22, 2012 and he essentially approved the southern portion of the pipeline.
About a week before that the FBI had met with TransCanada to start planning this strategy meeting.
I’m in the middle of requesting additional documents looking more closely at both the Homeland Security and the FBI’s collaboration with the oil and gas industry beyond TransCanada.

Guest – Adam Federman, a contributing editor to Earth Island Journal. His writing has appeared in the Nation magazine, Salon, Columbia Journalism Review, Utne Reader, Gastronomica, CounterPunch, Adirondack Life, Adirondack Explorer and other publications. He is the recipient of a Polk Grant for Investigative Reporting, a Middlebury Fellowship in Environmental Journalism, and a Russia Fulbright Fellowship.

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CIA Caught Spying On The Congressional Committee That Oversees It

We continue to discuss the bitter dispute between the CIA and the U.S. Senate committee that oversees it. Last week, the contention erupted when the committee chairwoman accused the CIA of spying on Congress. Senator Dianne Feinstein announced publicly the CIA had searched computers used by committee staffers examining CIA documents when they research the agency’s counter-terrorism operations and harsh interrogation methods or torture. She charged that the search violated the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and an executive order that prohibits the CIA from conduction domestic searches. CIA Director John Brennan denied any charge of computer hacking.

Attorney Scott Horton:

I say we go back to December 2012 when the Senate Select Committee finished work on a massive 6000 page review of torture practices including the operation of black sites by the CIA.
This is something was researched over a period of several years. This was sent for CIA review and comment, and a war broke out almost immediately between the CIA and the Senate Select Committee.
The CIA was making it clear that there were factual inaccuracies.
The Senate Select Committee said – Now wait a minute, the CIA’s own notes about this show that their claims are not correct. That exchange is what triggered the latest war.
In this case we come down to a set of particulars about how information was transmitted from the CIA to the Senate Select Committee.
The CIA would not simply turn over documents to the Senate to be used in Senate offices and reviewed.
What’s now become clear is that certain materials were turned over the Senate Select Committee and the CIA realized after the fact it wasn’t such a good idea, because it showed that the CIA was lying about aspects of its program.
So they went in and deleted the files that they already turned over to the committee. I’d say that’s right at the crux.
The CIA’s General Counsel, a fellow named Robert Eatinger then filed a criminal reference with the U.S. Department of Justice saying there had been a violation of security protocols by the Senate and the Senate staffers and demanding that the FBI and the Department of Justice investigate the Senate and the conduct of the Senate’s investigation.
Then I think Dianne Feinstein went to the well of the Senate and delivered a remarkable speech – in which she talked about this in crisis of the Republic terms.
It was really a dramatic speech, a very rare speech.
This is the sort of thing that will get printed up and reproduced in text books.
They really had to do something awfully bad to get her riled up this way and they did.
There is no such thing is security classifications that block a Senate inquiry or block access of Senate staff who have security clearance.
We know there that the lawyer at the Counter-terrorism center who was providing information to the Department of Justice to solicit those memos consistently made false or incorrect statements to the DOJ to get the memos, and that would be Robert Eatinger.
Congress should have its own oversight of its own operations. It’s not up to the Executive to provide oversight.
You cannot have the executive providing oversight of Congress’ oversight of the executive. It’s theoretically impossible.
The National Security Division was established to be a law firm for the CIA.
So they work for the CIA and the National Security Division has in the past been aggressively involved in cover ups for the benefit of the CIA.

Guest – Scott Horton, human rights lawyer and contributing editor to Harper’s Magazine. Scott’s column – No Comment. He graduated Texas Law School in Austin with a JD and was a partner in a large New York law firm, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler.

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