CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, NSA Spying, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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Police Unions Are Racist Power Brokers in Opposition to Movement for Black Lives
When they commit violence against civilians, abusive police in the United States are protected in various ways. The power elite, whose property police protect, have given them almost complete legal immunity from successful lawsuits for damages under the doctrine of qualified immunity. When a cop has illegally hurt someone he or she can count on what’s known as – the blue wall of silence – knowing that a fellow officer will not contradict their defense.
What is the role of police unions regarding the protection of police who have abused and even murdered citizens? Police unions act as power brokers in opposition to the rights of victimized citizens. They provide legal defense funds, public relations, and political pressure in defense of abusive cops. And they are a very powerful force in these respects.
The US Congressman from Chicago Bobby Rush has recently said that the Chicago police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, is “the number one cause that prevents police accountability, that protects police corruption, that protects police lawlessness. They are the organized guardians of continuous police lawlessness, police murder, and police brutality. They are the most rabid, racist body of criminal lawlessness in the land and stand shoulder to shoulder with the KKK then and the KKK now.”
Guest – Attorney G. Flint Taylor is a founding partner of the People Law Office in Chicago starting out over 50 years ago representing the family of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, Who was assassinated by the Chicago Police Department with the help of the FBI. He has represented numerous police torture survivors during the past 33 years. Taylor was one of the lawyers involved in the struggle for reparations and has chronicled the decade long fight against Chicago police torture in his award-winning book “The Torture Machine : Racism and Violence in Chicago.
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First Amendment Auditor: Big Nick South Florida Accountability
Most of the populace, some police officers and federal employees may not realize that its every photographers right to take photos and video of federal buildings on public property. The easing of restrictions began when the New York Civil Liberties Union had looked into several cases of people who were wrongly harassed, detained and arrested by federal agents while photographing or shooting video of federal buildings from public plazas and sidewalks.
In 2010, the NYCLU brought a suit against the US Department of Homeland Security in federal court to end this practice. In October of 2010, a judge actually signed a settlement where the US government agreed that no federal statures or regulations bar people from photographing the exterior of federal buildings.
The US government agreed to issue a directive to members of the Federal Protective Service on photographer’s rights. A decade later, the rights attained in this decision are recently being put to the test in what’s known as First Amendment audits.
Guest – Nick Freeman – First Amendment Auditor with millions in view counts joins us to talk about his work in Fort Lauderdale being part of a long emerging trend to educate local law enforcement about the right to photography and subsequent issues such as police accountability.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Torture
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Cobalt Mining Case Update
Tech titans Apple, Google, Microsoft, Tesla and Dell aided and abetted in the death and serious injury of child laborers working in African cobalt mines. That’s the claim put forth in a class action lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C. by International Rights Advocates.
Cobalt is used in the lithium-ion batteries that run smartphones, laptop computers, and electric cars. For the past several years, production has increased three-fold. The Democratic Republic of Congo produces over 60% of the world’s cobalt. It’s a nation that has been torn apart by civil war and is one of the poorest countries on the planet. Young children there are forced to work full time in highly dangerous mining jobs for less than $1 a day, often because their parents were killed or incapacitated by cobalt mining. These minors are regularly maimed and killed by tunnel collapses and other known hazards common to cobalt mining.
Guest – Attorney Terry Collingsworth, on behalf of Burmese victims of forced labor, Terry initiated the landmark case under the Alien Tort Statute, seeking to hold Unocal liable for human rights violations occurring during the construction of its gas pipeline in Burma. He filed similar cases against Coca-Cola, for allowing the murder and torture of trade union leaders at its bottling plants in Colombia; Exxon Mobil, for human rights violations of its military security forces in Indonesia; Drummond Company, for collaborating with paramilitary groups in Colombia which murdered of hundreds of innocent civilians living in the areas around Drummond’s operations and executing Drummond’s union leaders; and Del Monte, for using paramilitary thugs to torture leaders of the banana workers union in Guatemala. Terry was also instrumental in establishing the RUGMARK program, a unique system of certifying that hand-knotted carpets are not made with child labor that also sponsors education programs for former child workers.
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American Spring: Unfolding Crisis
The Chinese word for crisis consists of two characters. One means danger, the other means opportunity. We currently are in an historically unprecedented situation fraught with both danger and possibilities. Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin once remarked that sometimes nothing happens in decades and other times decades happen in a few weeks. This is our situation now. We see an American spring unfolding.
The public lynching of George Floyd has triggered massive outpourings in several thousands of American cities, both large and small. Black Lives Matter is supported by a majority of Americans including a majority of whites. This kind of broad solidarity was absent during the time of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The demonstrations are in large part led by people of color, mostly young people. Elected officials and traditional civil rights leaders are not leading the current uprising. As the L.A. Progressive has written, “The gross underlying inequality, racially and more broadly economically, affects every aspect of life in the US. and is the root cause of the volcanic anger irruption against the veneer of obsolete institutions.“
Guest – Glen Ford, editor of the Black Agenda Report. Ford founded the Black Agenda Report and has edited it since 2006. He was a founding member of the Washington chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists and he has delivered presentations at many colleges and universities.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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Update: U.S. Judge Sides With Chevron, Blocks $9.5 Billion Judgement
What the Chevron oil company is doing to environmental and human rights attorney Steven Donziger is a cautionary tale. Donziger has been under house arrest in New York City wearing an ankle bracelet for the last 10 months. He’s charged with contempt of court for refusing to turn over confidential material on his computer to Chevron’s lawyers. He. goes to trial in September where he is likely to be convicted by a hostile judge.
Donzinger bravely and skillfully succeeded in obtaining a 9 1/2 billion dollar judgment against Chevron. This oil giant company is the epitome of a ruling class institution with its origins in the Rockefeller family. Chevron bought Texaco, which had polluted an area the size of Rhode Island in the Ecuadorian Amazon region. The indigenous people there are plagued with cancer. Five tribes are affected. It’ll cost at least 9 billion to clean up the area. Chevron refuses to pay it and instead has spent over $2 billion in resisting the lawsuit and victimizing Donziger.
Top Federal Judge Louis A. Kaplan of New York‘s Southern District has presided over the case in America where Donziger is seeking to enforce the judgment.
Judge Kaplan has shown pronounced favoritism towards Chevron throughout the progress of the case. Kaplan made public comments about Chevron’s importance to the global economy, expressed skepticism about the Ecuadorian judgment due to what he called the “socialist government” of Raphael Correa, and held investments in multiple funds with Chevron holdings at the time of his rulings.
The Chevron case is the most important environmental and corporate responsibility case of our time.
DonzigerDefense.com
ChevronToxico.com
ChevronInEcuador.com
Guest – Attorney Martin Garbus, one of three pro bono lawyers representing Donziger in an attempt to get his law license restored. Garbus has a long and distinguished career as a civil rights and first amendment litigator.
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The Cooperating Witness: Attorney Michael Avery
As summer begins in the time of COVID-19, many people are returning to or discovering the age-old pleasure of reading. With that in mind, Law & Disorder is delighted to recommend our first thriller read. One of our longtime legal expert guests, civil rights attorney Mike Avery, has written The Cooperating Witness. While Mike has been writing for decades, this is his first nonfiction book. As prestigious as are his other titles—one on the Federalist Society, others on legal topics such as the laws of evidence in Massachusetts—The Cooperating Witness is sure to have far greater appeal to our listeners.
The book starts by introducing readers to Susan Sorella, a law student at Suffolk Law School where Mike used to teach. From the start we learn that Susan is no ordinary student. As she waits on tables at her father’s restaurant in Boston’s North End, the head of the local mob pays her a surprise visit. He is just one of several shady characters Susan will encounter on her quest to help a jaded defense attorney save an innocent man charged with killing the mob’s accountant.
Guest – Mike Avery is a civil rights lawyer. He’s has defended victims of police abuse and racial and sexual discrimination in the last four decades. He has served as the President of the National Lawyers Guild, and the National Police Accountability Project. He co-authored The Federalist Society: How Conservatives Took the Law Back from Liberals, which we have covered on Law and Disorder.
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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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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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Now Is The Time To Fundamentally Transform America
Doug Henwood wrote in a Jacobin magazine article last week that “. . . things could get very ugly, but it is also an opportunity to emerge from this crisis a better country.“
In his article Henwood articulates a vision, “a vision of solidarity and mutual care.“ He believes that millions of lives depend on that. LBO-News.com
Guest – Doug Henwood, his fields of expertise are politics, economics, and finance. He is the publisher of “The Left Business Observer.” Henwood has written four books. His articles have appeared in “The Nation”. the “Los Angeles Times, and “the Guardian“. He hosts the radio show Behind the News each week on the Pacifica station KPFA in Berkeley.
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Aging Prisoners And Prisoner Release During Pandemic
Last week, New York City jails were among the country’s most infected by the virus so far, with at least 38 people testing positive at Rikers Island. Another inmate, became the first in the country to test positive in a federal jail.
In a letter to New York’s criminal justice leaders, Board of Correction interim chairperson Jacqueline Sherman described a jail system in crisis. She said that 12 Department of Correction employees, 5 Correctional Health Services employees, and 21 people in custody at Rikers and city jails had tested positive for the coronavirus.
And at least another 58 were being monitored in the prison’s contagious disease and quarantine units, she said. Across the nation, several large county and municipal jurisdictions have freed thousands of low-risk inmates from jails, including seniors and those in poor health.
New Jersey plans to release as many as a thousand people from county jails, including inmates jailed for probation violations and those sentenced for low-level offenses. Mayor Bill de Blasio said last week that New York City may release more than 200 inmates. Los Angeles County and Ohio’s Cuyahoga County also have released prisoners.
Prisoner advocacy groups in more than a half-dozen states, including Texas, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Michigan, continue to urge governors to release state prisoners, especially elderly inmates, through compassionate release or medical furlough.
Guest – Victor Pate, the New York statewide organizer for the Halt Solitary campaign. That stands for humane alternative to long-term isolated confinement.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Basic Legal Rights For Animals: Activists and Advocates
Discussions over whether animals are sentient beings, capable of feeling pain, pleasure or suffering, date back as far as ancient thinkers such as Plutarch, Hippocrates and Pythagoras. They all advocated for the fair treatment of animals. The term animal rights stands for the proposition that non-human animals have the right to be treated, not as property, but rather as the individuals they are, with their own desires and needs.
Animal law is now widely taught in law schools across North America. There are 167 law schools in the U.S. and Canada, and 11 in Australia and New Zealand, teaching courses in animal law. Several legal scholars support extending basic legal rights and to personhood to non-human animals.
Critics of animal rights argue that nonhuman animals are unable to enter into a social contract, and thus cannot have rights. Another argument is that animals may be used as resources as long as they don’t undergo unnecessary suffering.
Certain forms of animal rights activism, such as the destruction of fur farms and animal labs by the ALF or Animal Liberation Front, have also attracted criticism, and prompted Congressional reaction by enacting of harsh laws allowing these activities to be prosecuted as terrorism. These laws include the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.
Guest – Attorney Tamara Bedic, chairperson of the National Lawyers Guild Animal Rights Project. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and a masters degree from Columbia University-NY University. Tamara practices employment law with a focus on women and harassment in the workplace.
Guest – Phillip Murphy, Philip Murphy is a writer and social justice activist based in the Greater New York City area. He is a co-founder of the Buddhist Action Coalition NYC, a pan-Buddhist social justice organization, and is also a co-founder of the New York chapter of UK-based Animal Rebellion, a global climate and animal justice movement. His recent article, Why Animal Justice is Crucial in Addressing the Climate Emergency was published at the independent global media platform openDemocracy.net. SHAC 7 Documentary
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