Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims
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Washington DC Check Points Not Legal: Mara Verheyden-Hilliard
Last summer, D.C. police set up checkpoints around the city’s Trinidad neighborhood and denied access to drivers who refused to disclose their destination. The purpose of the checkpoints, according to the Metropolitan Police Department, was to deter violence after a string of drive-by shootings in 2008. Recently, a federal appeals court ruled that these checkpoints are unconstitutional. In the opinion, Chief Judge David Sentelle of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that “citizens have a right to drive upon the public streets of the District of Columbia or any other city absent a constitutionally sound reason for limiting their access.” The Partnership for Civil Justice
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard:
- We do think if we had not succeeded with this case, it would have been a model in implementation in urban environments throughout the U.S.
- In the District of Columbia, last summer the mayor and the attorney general deployed an extraordinary checkpoint program. It was really a blockade or barricade program.
- It was the sealing off of an entire neighborhood, police setting up check points and not letting anyone through without being interrogated. It’s an interrogation and seizure program.
- The police would question you, as to where you were going, who you were visiting, demand that you provide identity information, information on your associates, information on what you were doing, who you knew.
- You could not continue to drive on this public roadway unless you proved to the satisfaction of the police, a legitimate reason to travel further. When we challenged them, they stayed in court, they defended the program, saying it was absolutely constitutional.
- Plaintiffs included a 50 year old resident, a retired DC school teacher. He would have to be stopped at the checkpoint to get to his own home. Visitors were reluctant to come over, to avoid getting tangled with the police. Racial profiling, police misconduct, abuse of power.
- It’s not nearly that your stopped by the police and you can explain your way in. The police set up 6 defined categories of legitmate reasons for entering. Visiting a friend is not a legitimate reason.
- If crime became the prevention for fundamental fourth amendment rights, then there wouldn’t be any fourth amendment rights to speak of.
- The issue is you have the right to travel down a public roadway without being seized by the police without any allegation of criminal activity or suspicion of criminal wrong doing.
- The Trinidad neighborhood is on the cusp of gentrification. We’re seeing a lot of these programs happening in areas that are moving toward gentrification.
- The community wants geniune responses to crime in their neighborhoods, this program was not only unconstitutional but ineffective.
- We believe they were collecting information at the checkpoints and collecting a criminal database.
- We demanded that they cease that activity and expunge the information collected in the database.
- They were sending in tag readers, they’re mounting cameras on government vehicles, they do a mass scan on license tags and suck up information on where you are.
Guest – Mara Verheyden-Hilliard is an attorney and co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice, which represented three drivers challenging the checkpoints.
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Jewish Fast For Gaza
A group of American Rabbis have launched a water-only fast, aimed at breaking the Jewish Community’s silence over Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinians. The initiative, called Jewish Fast For Gaza includes Reform, Reconstructionist, Orthodox and Conservative rabbis who call for lifting the blockade on Gaza. They plan to fast the third Thursday of each month, lasting from sunrise to sunset.
Rabbi Brian Walt:
- This idea of a fast in a time of trouble is an ancient tradition. We were stunned by the silence among the Rabbis.
- So we decided to gather together as a Minyan, to break the silence in our community.
- It’s not a Jewish-only initiative, it’s a Jewish initiated event to draw people of all faiths.
- The state that is the state of the Jewish people is preventing food from reaching children whose growth is stunted by these actions. To be silent in the face of that as a Rabbi, is inconceivable to me.
- Can’t one separate out, an opinion about a government and collective punishment of a whole people?
- Four goals: Lifting Israeli blockade, bring in food, make peace with your enemies.
- Does Israel recognize the Palestinian people?
- Why is Israel asking two things of it’s partner that its not prepared to do?
- It’s a pretext because Israel doesn’t want to negotiate. If Israel doesn’t want to negotiate, they’ll say the other side doesn’t want to, it’s a trick that Israel has done for decades.
- Anyone can join the fast, nearly 600 have joined. 70 Rabbis so far.
- The most vile and violent responses we get come from Israel.
- I grew up under apartheid in South Africa in a very Zionist family with deep connections in Israel.
Guest – Rabbi Brian Walt, co-coordinator of Jewish Fast For Gaza. Rabbi Walt is also the founding executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America and Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Mishkan Shalom, a synagogue in Philadelphia, PA. He is dedicated to the integration of spiritual life and social justice. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, he was active in the struggle against Apartheid. He is a member of the board of the National Religious Campaign against Torture.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Supreme Court, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power
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French Company, Veolia Abandons Light Rail Project Linking Illegal Jewish Settlements
A French multinational company, Veolia Transport, contracted to build a light rail tramway system linking west Jerusalem to illegal Jewish settlements has abandoned the project. The rail system would have grouped more Jewish settlements into the State of Israel and help annex the Palestinian territory of east Jerusalem. The victory came about from years of coordination by the French, Dutch and British groups, as well as the Palestinian BDS National Committee.
Omar Barghouti:
- Israel has not found an effective weapon to counter the civil non-violent weapon of the Palestinians.
- BDS is a movement based on Palestinian rights, to live without occupation, without colonization, without apartheid and the system of discrimination.
- A colony is a base for settlers who have are aggressive / military and confiscate more Palestinian land. Stealing more land, stealing water, cutting Palestinian trees, doing very nasty colonial acts.
- Boycott Divest and Sanction / BDS movement – Motorola / Israeli fruit and vegetables in Europe
- Divest, is when you pressure a university like Hampshire College to divest from companies profiting from the occupation. Also churches and unions can be pressured and levied. Sanction is a boycott by state. A decision by sovereign governments to isolate another government. Sanctions take a long time to get going.
- Veolia is part of a consortium that is contracted to build a light rail to connect illegal Israeli colonies with Jerusalem.
- International support for the Derail Veolia campaign came from Australia, Sweden, Britain, France and Tehran.
- Veolia lost 8 billion in contracts mainly due to the boycott movement.
- Veolia has not withdrawn yet, its a very technical process requiring Israeli approval. But Veolia has said it can’t sustain the losses and has considered withdrawing.
- This victory told us that you can’t censor yourself. Veolia says it will sell its 5 percent share in the consortium light rail.
- The project is illegal, that’s why people didn’t have to think twice to stop it. Israel’s reaction to Veolia withdrawal and BDS movement, very hush hush, which was intentional.
- The boycott campaign is impacting Israeli produce. Israeli barcodes begin with “729.” The BDS movement is growing in Indonesia, Brazil, Venezuela.
Guest – Omar Barghouti, founding committee member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Omar is a Palestinian political analyst and doctoral student of philosophy (ethics) at Tel Aviv University. His articles have appeared in the Al-Ahram Weekly, Z-Magazine, and Counterpunch.
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Ricci v. DeStefano
Last month, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Ricci v. DeStefano that a group of white firefighters and one Hispanic had been discriminated against when the city threw out a 2003 lieutenants’ promotion exam after African-American firefighters scored lower than required. The higher scoring firefighters say the decision is unfair and compared it to (quote) reverse discrimination. The high court declared that white firefighters in Connecticut were unfairly denied promotion because of their race, ruling against minorities and overturning Supreme Court nominee Judge Sotomayor’s earlier ruling. Title VII
Attorney Richard Levy:
- The question: When can an employer set aside a hiring test or procedure because it has adverse impacts on a minority group?
- In the Connecticut firefighters case, whites passed the exam at levels twice that of blacks and hispanics.
- The city decided to take a look at the test, considering the adverse impact on minority officers in the fire department.
- The city held a number of hearings that determined that the test should not be certified. As a result a group of white firefighters backed by their unions, sued the city.
- They said, wait, now you’re discriminating against whites because we studied and passed, and black and latinos did not, doesn’t mean that the test is bad.
- The test had a 60 percent written component and 40 percent oral component. (Test questions were not reviewed by anyone in the New Haven fire department)
- The test was created in a way that purportedly measured firefighter skills. However, oral skills in the field are much more important than written.
- Title VII says that you have to look at exams that are neutral on their face, but not neutral on their outcome.
- The Supreme Court says you can’t just throw out a test because blacks didn’t do well, suppose it’s a test that is fair and necessary for job performance? You are then discriminating against those who took the test and did well to perform the job.
- Supreme Court: What should the standard be. A new standard. Must have a strong basis in evidence that the test is not valid.
- Five of the nine justices changed the standard. It raises the standard for a city to do what its supposed to do.
- The Supreme Court did not allow the case go back to the city where they could show “strong basis in evidence”
- A result oriented outcome, an activist right wing bench changing the law, and the parties are not allowed to present evidence in light of the new law.
- Forty percent black in Connecticut. Their fire department has 30 percent black incumbency.
- NYC is 28 percent black, the fire department is 3 percent black incumbency. Levy Ratner is challenging the NYC test. (entirely written some physical, no oral component) CCR Firefighters Case in NY. Vulcan society brought the case several years ago.
Guest – Richard A. Levy (Cornell, B.A., 1964, NYU School of Law, J.D., 1968) is a senior partner at LR. He has practiced labor, employment, employee benefits and civil rights law since 1971. During law school he was associate editor of the Annual Survey of American Law. A member of the United States Supreme Court Bar, Levy has lectured at conferences for the NLRB, AFL -CIO, Practicing Law Institute and has published articles on labor law and civil rights litigation. He has served on the Lawyers Advisory Panel of the AFL -CIO.
Richard Levy has litigated a number of important employment discrimination class actions. These include Grant v. Bethlehem Steel, 635 F.2d 1007 (2d Cir. 1980) (finding prima facie case of disparate treatment and disparate impact in failure to promote black ironworkers into supervisory jobs); Latino Officers Association v. City of New York, 209 F.R.D. 79 (S.D.N.Y. 2002) (class action challenge to disparate discipline in the New York Police Department, with settlement for up to $20 million in damages and injunctive relief) and most recently, United States v. City of New York, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39514 (E.D.N.Y. 2009) (representing class of African-American applicants for entry-level firefighter jobs with City of New York ).
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Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Impeachment, Military Tribunal, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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A Look Into the Memorial Day Weekend Terror Plot
A few weeks ago we spoke with Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California about how the FBI infiltrated Southern California mosques and intrusively monitored members of the Muslim community as if they were criminals. Similar news broke the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, prosecutors called it the latest in a string of homegrown terrorism plots hatched after Sept. 11.
Onta Williams, James Cromitie, David Williams, and Laguerre Payen were ex cons and drug addicts who were probably entrapped by an all too familiar FBI informant sting that lured them into plotting to commit political violence.
Columnist for the Nation, Robert Dreyfuss writes in his article titled, Yet Another Bogus ‘Terror’ Plot since 9/11 not a single American has even been punched in the nose by an angry Muslim, as far as I can tell. Plot after plot the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge! bombing the New York Subways! taking down the Sears Tower! bombing the Prudential building in Newark! proved to be utter nonsense.
Mike German:
- Typically what I do is completely ignore the news stories and go straight to the indictment.
- There were a couple things in the indictment that were shocking. One, the indictment made clear that the informant was convicted in a fraud scheme. The FBI sent this criminal into a mosque. Sending a criminal into a house of worship seems like a misguided approach.
- These hapless unemployed guys were not going to get their hands on heavy weaponry any time soon, the fact that FBI brought in the SAM (Surface To Air) missle is a problem. It makes these people more dangerous than they ever would have been.
- Reading through the indictment, these guys weren’t able to find a gun in New York City, let alone a Stinger missile.
- It was also the informant who introduced the terrorist organization into the discussion.
- Bottomline is you don’t want the government inventing a crime than enticing innocent people into that crime.
- The argument against that is that the people were pre-disposed to commit the crime and the government presented the opportunity. In this case the informant seemed to bringing all the important facts into the game.
- Fits into pattern – you can turn to the Liberty 7 Case, The Ft. Dix Case, the California Lodi Case that involve informants.
- I worked as an undercover agent and it surprises me why these aren’t long term projects with undercover agents. (instead using ex-con informants)
- For the most part the undercover agents’ motives are pure, they’re better trained on how not to commit entrapment and document the planning of the crime instead of using enticements.
- The indictment says that the informant was offering money in an impoverished community. 10 – 15 thousand dollars to join the team. If you’re out of work, it’s kind of hard to turn that down.
- The facts will have to come out in the case as far as documented history of whether these people are involved.
- They could have wrapped this up without making it seem like they’re saving New York City from this terrible destruction.
Guest – ACLU attorney and former FBI agent, Mike German, German develops policy positions and proactive strategies on pending legislation and executive branch actions concerning domestic surveillance, data mining, freedom to travel, medical and financial privacy, national ID cards, whistleblower protection, military commissions and law enforcement conduct. German currently serves as an adjunct professor for Law Enforcement and Terrorism at the National Defense University and is a Senior Fellow with GlobalSecurity.org. German graduated from the Northwestern University Law School , and graduated cum laude from Wake Forest University with a B.A. in Philosophy. A sixteen-year veteran of federal law enforcement, German served as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he specialized in domestic terrorism and covert operations. As an undercover agent, German twice infiltrated extremist groups using constitutionally sound law enforcement techniques. These operations successfully prevented terrorist attacks by winning criminal convictions against terrorists.
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A Revolution Books Town Hall Meeting: TORTURE AND THE NEED FOR JUSTICE
We hear from Sister Dianna Ortiz, who was abducted in 1989 by right-wing forces in Guatemala and brutally tortured. She wrote about her experiences and recovery in the book The Blindfold’s Eyes. My Journey From Torture to Truth. Ortiz is the founder and director of Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC). We listen also to Jeremy Scahill, investigative reporter and author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Jeremy is also a frequent contributor to the Nation. Lastly we hear an excerpt from Michael Ratner’s speech. Co-host Michael Ratner, is the president, Center for Constitutional Rights, and an international human rights lawyer who in 2006 filed a criminal complaint in the courts of Germany requesting the criminal prosecution of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Speakers :
Organized by Revolution Books / Libros Revolucion
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Obama’s Animal Farm: Bigger, Bloodier Wars Equal Peace and Justice
Here on Law and Disorder we recently talked with several guests on the escalation of war in Afghanistan under the Obama Administration. Last week Obama appointed General Stanley McChrystal to head the US and NATO military command in Afghanistan, – another decision revealing how Obama has restored the most notorious Bush era policies according to James Petra, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. In his article titled Obama’s Animal Farm: Bigger, Bloodier Wars, Petra outlines how McChrystal’s past brutal leadership is marked by systematic torture, bombing of civilian communities and extrajudicial assassinations. Between September 2003 and August 2008, Petra writes – McChrystal directed the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command which operates special teams in overseas assassinations. Petra also mentions that McChrystal is one reason why Obama is fighting to prevent the release of graphic photos that document torture by US soldiers and interrogators. Related: Mysterious Chip-CIA’s Latest Weapon Against Taliban.
Jim Petras:
- It’s very clear that Obama wants a bigger and more ferocious counterinsurgency program.
- Obama is also concerned because the entire Pakistan and Afghanistan borders are supporting resistance. Indigenous, anti-colonial forces have taken over.
- He’s going all out now, he’s pressured the puppet president of Pakistan to launch this humanitarian crime against the Pakistani people, creating 2 million Pakistani refugees, destruction and civil war.
- The overall picture that we get is a tremendous boost in militarization. In the last couple of months it’s one attack after another on the Pakistan military.
- McCrystal is gung-ho, he’s a greater asset to destroy the social networks among the resistance. Similar to Vietnam, to go into villages and assassinate local leaders.
- General McCrystal is a proponent of direct action strictly involved in US terrrorist operations. Slitting throats and strangling anyone remotely connected with the armed resistance.
- There was effort to distinguish between civilians and armed resistors. McCrystals approach is to empty the pond to catch the fish. There going in to drive out millions of people in Pakistan to catch a few thousand resistance fighters.
- This is a monstrous humanitarian disaster compared to Rwanda.
- Torture Photos: You can’t publicize the worst activities of the person you appoint to be the head honcho in this phase of the war.
- Navy Seals, Delta Force, Special Operations Command. I was at Ft. Bragg, in a debate with military officers regarding death squads in Central America. These are killing operations, no surrender. The people that go into it are psycopaths.
- That Obama appointed McCrystal to this position builds bridges back to the worst part of the Bush Administration. Obama has accepted the general paradigm of the past presidents, he has a vision of military empire building, rather than realizing that much more power is achieved in economic expansion and investment.
- The US thought they could do both, economic and military empire building, but with the loss of manufacturing and rise of financial businesses there was no counterweight to the military side of empire. American power can only be realized through a massive military commitment.
- This is a war against a people, it’s going to be a long dirty war. It’s already shaping up. It’s a cost for big oil and manufacturing, rather than a benefit.
Guest – James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50_year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co_author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). His latest books are The Power of Israel in the United States (Clarity Press, 2006); Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire: Bankers, Zionists, Militants (Clarity Press, 2007) and Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power (Clarity Press 2008)
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Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Jeremy Scahill – “Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama”
Author and independent journalist Jeremy Scahill delivers a rare report on the actions of the Immediate Reaction Force’s torture tactics with disturbing detail. While the Obama administration prevents the release of thousands of photos, Scahill describes the graphic imagery of the ongoing torture of prisoners in Guantanamo and in prisons abroad. Teams of men in padded gear enter the cell of a Guantanamo prisoner and are basically assigned body parts to restrain. Rarely heard about in the media, Scahill writes about the multiple accounts of severe beatings delivered by IRF teams that include sustained injuries such as broken noses, blindness and brain damage. In one incident a US soldier was IRF’d during a training exercise, he now suffers seizures up to 10 episodes a day.
Jeremy Scahill:
- The US has a one party system and Obama is showing that very clearly.
- On January 22, Obama said that Guantanamo would be closed in a year.
- Obama is continuing the use of a notorious military police unit at Guantanamo, known as the Immediate Reaction Force.
- They come into a cell, five men deep, they douse the prisoner with chemicals, each thug sent in is assigned a different body part and their job is to subdue restless or combative prisoners.
- This is not about stopping a riot in prison, or keep a prisoner from stabbing a guard. What’s going on is if a prisoner has an extra styro-foam cup in their cell, they are IRF’d.
- They have smeared feces of another prisoner onto the face of a prisoner.
- In one case that CCR has taken, a prisoner was doused with chemicals, beaten and the IRF team members urinate on his head.
- Scott Horton says this force was authorized at the highest levels of the Bush Administration.
- When you don’t prosecute those who set the tone for this torture, you encourage it, not allow it, you encourage it to continue.
- The Democratic Party is a shill for powerful corporations. Harry Reid implied that Guantanamo prisoners should not be moved to the US because they would be a threat to US security.
- The real danger here is to the US Constitution and the reality is that the torture program was bi-partisan.
- Nancy Pelosi’s participation in authorizing the torture program is not a partisan issue, it’s a law enforcement issue with grave implication to the United States and the world.
- Michael Ratner: Looking forward to a future without torture is guaranteed by prosecution, not impunity.
- I actually have people standing up and walking out on speeches, when I was criticizing Obama, a group of students at an American University walked out.
- Name the countries of the world where people walk around with the president’s face on their T-shirts.
- The facade is starting to crack. People are realizing now we are at a critical moment in history to reflect on the one party system that we have.
- Obama has sucked the air out of the social movements that were co-opted by the Democratic Party or willingly folded themselves into the Obama campaign mechanism.
Jeremy Scahill, an independent journalist who reports frequently for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now, has spent extensive time reporting from Iraq and Yugoslavia. He is currently a Puffin Writing fellow at The Nation Institute. Scahill is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. His writing and reporting is available at Rebel Reports.
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Chris Hedges – Buying Brand Obama
We’ve been duped. The global celebrity status of President Obama has been molded into a brand writes Chris Hedges, former Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times. Obama’s campaign was a marketer’s dream and won the vote of top marketer in Advertising Age magazine. Chris Hedges article, Buying Brand Obama takes a scathing look at how clever marketing diverts public attention away from critical issues such as the expansion of war, Obama’s rejection of single payer healthcare, his refusing to prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes and allowing Bush era surveillance and secrecy laws to remain intact.
Chris Hedges:
- There’s a wild disconnect between what Obama does and what he says that can only be cleverly bridged with illusion. That’s what his PR people do. That 600 million dollars of campaign funding had to go somewhere.
- Listen to the professionals: Obama Wins Ad.Age Marketer of the Year!
- He does one thing and he like any “brand” gets you to believe another.
- This started a while ago, if you remember Benetton ads, they used risque images and progressive politics to give themselves an edge. It is intended to make the passive consumer mistake a brand for an idea or experience.
- He (Obama) didn’t make many promises, it was sloganeering and the confusion of propaganda.
- It’s what Benjamin DeMott calls Junk Politics, in his book Junk Politics. Junk politics is not about demanding justice. It moralizes issues, it doesn’t clarify them. The result: Nothing Changes.
- Obama is a classic example of how re-branding allows for the disintegration of American democracy.
- Obama once again has followed the lead of the Bush Administration. It has spent, lent or guaranteed at this point 12 trillion dollars of tax payer dollars. Handed out to Wall St. and firms like AIG. It’s a bizarre effort to re-inflate a bubble through massive loans.
- This has forestalled catastrophe, but when that catastrophe comes, we’re going to be broke. . . that time will come at a profound crisis.
- The problem is not Obama, the problem is the American Left which forgot it’s place. Politics is a game of pressure and we don’t do that. Look at Moveon.org, it’s become an arm of the Obama campaign.
- I’m re-reading Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky, what happens to a bankrupt liberalism which took hold of Russia in the latter part of the 19th century, moral nihilism.
- Allowing Americans to remain in this self delusional belief that everything is going to go back to the way it was and we are always going to be powerful and rich. . . . you’re essentially maintaining a population in a state of childishness. They never grow up because they never face reality.
- Book: Empire of Illusion – Post literate society, unable to discern lies from truth.
Guest – Chris Hedges, author of many books specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and society. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He was also the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. Chris Hedges’ new book, “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle,” will be out in July and can be preordered at your local bookstore.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Impeachment, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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[Law and Disorder Radio: Encore Interviews on Prosecution]
The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book – Michael Ratner
We are very pleased to talk with our own Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights about his recent book The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book. Michael’s book exposes how hundreds of individuals were victims of gruesome crimes inside the secret prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba while under International and American law. Michael Ratner not only levels the charge against former US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld but lists others to be guilty of the US War Crimes Act of 1996 such as David Addington, George Tenet, Alberto Gonzales, and John Yoo.
The case is presented in shocking detail, it’s a blueprint for prosecuting war criminals and a powerful reference tool for holding the Bush administration’s rogue leadership accountable. One review states that it quote represents a case that a prosecutor could bring against Donald Rumsfeld were he not shielded by dubious immunity doctrines crafted by the Bush administration and the judges it has appointed.
Guest – Michael Ratner – president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and author of many books including, Guantanamo: What the World Should Know. Michael has worked for decades, as a crusader for human rights both at home and abroad litigating many cases against international human rights violators resulting in millions of dollars in judgments for abuse victims and expanding the possibilities of international law. He acted as a principal counsel in the successful suit to close the camp for HIV-positive Haitian refugees on Guantanamo Base, Cuba. Over the years, he has litigated a dozen cases challenging a President’s authority to go to war, without congressional approval. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the Center has focused its efforts on the constitutionality of indefinite detention and the restrictions on civil liberties as defined by the unfolding terms of a permanent war. Among his many honors are: Trial Lawyer of the Year from the Trial lawyers for Public Justice, The Columbia Law School Public Interest Law Foundation Award, and the North Star Community Frederick Douglass Award.
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David Swanson: Why We’re Planning to Prosecute Cheney and Bush
In an article published on the website – AfterDowningStreet, author David Swanson lays out another powerful case as to why it is critical to hold leadership accountable for war crimes. He explains that if much needed change is made in the United States such as a transparent electoral process, eliminating secret government and constitutional amendments, it would still not be enough to “chain the dogs of war.” Hosts discuss with David Swanson about why it’s critical to hold a conference to plan the prosecution of Bush and Cheney.
War Crimes Conference Archive
Guest – David Swanson, creator of many media-based websites including MeetWithCindy.org and KatrinaMarch.org, he has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including press secretary for Dennis Kucinich’s 2004 presidential and three years as communications coordinator for ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now)
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Legislation To Stop Preemptive Pardons
So far George W Bush has issued nearly 170 pardons, they include a Missouri farmer who unintentionally poisoned three bald eagles. Pardons give the recipients greater leeway to find jobs, live in public housing and vote. Many expect that President Bush will pardon himself and other high officials as a shelter from criminal charges and that’s what New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler is trying to prevent. Nadler is the Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, and he’s recently introduced House Resolution 1531 demanding that Bush refrain from issuing pre_emptive pardons of senior officials in his Administration during the final 90 days of office.
New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler:
- No pre-emptive pardons, the president should not do it, it’s a dangerous abuse of pardon power.
- HR 1531 also says that we believe an attorney general should appoint an independent counsel to investigate alleged various crimes, such as warrantless wiretapping, torture, renditions and so forth committed during the Bush administration.
- Premptive Pardons: President Ford pardoned Nixon, for any crimes that he might have committed.
- President H W Bush pardoned Casper Weinberger and various other people for any crimes they might have made. President Carter pardoned anyone who violated the draft laws in evading the draft during the Vietnam War.
- My feeling is the reason for pardons or give the pardon power in the first place is you want to temper justice with mercy.
- It would be an abuse of power before they get convicted of a crime. If he pardoned all the people well, then how do you develop a case.
- I think there should be a commission with supoena power, that can get at the facts, that can have people testify, that can develop more information for prosecutors to use.
- Right now the narrative will be: Nobody did anything wrong, we protected the American people from terrorism.
- We need to educate the American people about why these prosecutions must be done.
- It’s very important for the people in a democratic country to know what was done in their name.
- One of the problems we have in this country today is that everything is secret.
- The resolution will not be passed in this Congress. If Bush exercises pardons, then there’s very little we can do about those pardons. I’m going to introduce a constitutional amendment to restrict the pardon power in the future.
Guest – Congressman Jerrold Nadler – He represents New York’s Eighth Congressional district. The Eighth, one of the most diverse districts in the nation, includes Manhattan’s West Side below 89th Street, Lower Manhattan, and areas of Brooklyn including Borough Park, Coney Island, Brighton Beach, Sea Gate, Bay Ridge, and Bensonhurst.
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Harpers Magazine Panel: Justice After Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration
We hear from our own Michael Ratner President, Center for Constitutional Rights. The event discussed methods available to a democracy to prosecute high officials in the Bush Administration and responded to Scott Horton’s Harper’s Magazine cover story called “Justice After Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration.”
- Elizabeth Holtzman, Author, The Impeachment of George W. Bush
- Scott Horton, Contributing Editor, Harper’s Magazine
- Jerrold Nadler, Chairman, House Subcommittee on the Constitution
- Antonio Taguba, Major General (U.S. Army Ret.)
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Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Torture, Truth to Power
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Host Updates:
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Men, Mobs and Law by Rebecca Hill
Men Mobs and Law is the title of Rebecca Hill’s new book that explores the complexities of protest movements, race, class and gender. Hill draws comparisons in two types of left protest campaigns, those that defend labor organizers from prosecution and the anti-lynching groups that seek to memorialize lynching victims. Hill says, both groups have influenced each other throughout history and she specifically connects the narratives and stories of the NAACP’s anti lynching work to the IWW’s labor defense campaigns.
Rebecca Hill’s treatment of these dramatic stories has been called “fresh, lively, richly detailed, and impassioned.”
Rebecca Hill:
- When I first started the book it was about martyrdom and the American Left and heroic politics. I’ll take these particular cases, John Brown, Haymarket etc.
- In the research I found that this other problem that there is no law enforcement and the source of terror that black activists were dealing with was extra-legal. . . . and their anti-lynching activism that started in the 60s – and I then went back to Ida B Wells, Dubois – 1887-1890s
- Ida B Wells talking about how dangerous passion is. This is a problem in leftest activism in general. It goes to the big questions of political theory and rationale, the role of emotions, questions of what is the meaning of popular action,
- I didn’t want to condemn either side, the anti lynching movement strategy or and the socialist left defense organizing, because they both came out of experiences that informed their politics.
- If you’re facing terroristic mobs, you’re going to respond with a strategy. The anarchists and socialists movement response spoke to the lynching and their response was in inadequate – “rise up in self defense.”
- If you lived in the post reconstructive South, rising up in self defense was not realistic without legal protection.
- What came out of the Haymarket movement in the 1880s was the idea that the key element of solidarity in a labor movement is when somebody is arrested, or victimized as a result of organizing, its the membership that can save them. Not the law. The law is a tool, it’s not enough perhaps.
- The courts are structured by the ruling class, they’re stacked against the worker who is in court. They didn’t want the court room take away from the radicalism of the movement.
- Elizabeth Gurley Flynn – defense expert in IWW trials and Sacco Vanzetti case. Anarchists connected to Sacho and Vanzetti case didn’t want structure and organizing
- I was very active in the Mumia Abu Jamal campaign, you see the greater successes in the popular defense organizing it’s not based on the legal strategy, its when is the movement stronger. You see more victories in the thirties because the labor movement was big and the consensus was moving to the left during the New Deal
- John Brown’s defense is close to the fugitive slave rescues which were anti-court . John Brown’s notion that the courts are wrong and should answer to a higher power, not the current law of slavery. John Brown attempted to make available weapons for slaves to take up arms. See the book John Brown Mysteries
- I don’t really think of John Brown as a religious zealot, I think he really believed in popular organizing and popular activism.
Guest – Rebecca Hill, author of Men Mobs and Law.
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Wiwa et al v. Royal Dutch Petroleum et al Royal Dutch Shell Case – CCR
Europe’s largest oil company Royal Dutch Shell faces a lawsuit in a case originally filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights in November 1996. US District Judge Kimba Wood refused to throw out the case late last month, and the Shell Oil Company faces trial brought by relatives of human rights and environmental activists killed in Nigeria. The activists were protesting oil production pollution such as water contamination and agricultural destruction. The lawsuits are brought against the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and Shell Transport and Trading Company (Royal Dutch/Shell); the head of its Nigerian operation, Brian Anderson; and the Nigerian subsidiary itself, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC).
The defendants are charged with complicity in human rights abuses against the Ogoni people in Nigeria. Charges include summary execution, crimes against humanity, torture, inhumane treatment, arbitrary arrest, wrongful death, assault and battery, and infliction of emotional distress. The trial begins May 26 of this year.
Jennie Green, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents the plaintiffs, said in a statement. (quote) “Now, the public will have the opportunity to see how Shell’s complicity with a murderous military regime was its standard operating procedure for doing business in Nigeria.”
Attorney Jennie Green:
- The case is about the concerted attacks on people organizing in the Niger Delta against the environmental devastation and human rights violations committed by the partnership of the Nigerian military and Royal Dutch Shell.
- The Shell Corporation based in the Hague and England.
- We sued them for human rights violations against the leadership of the movement for the survival of the Ogoni people.
- There was a campaign against Ken Saro-Wiwa and other leaders who were charging Shell publicly, coordinating a very effective movement against Shell.
- 300 thousand people peacefully demonstrating against Shell
- They were calling attention to the fact that Shell’s practices in Nigeria involve constant flaring, the flaring of gas products, lasting up to 24 hours a day. Some of kids in the region have never known dark.
- It’s an area based on fishing and farming – polluted water supply and land has devasted their way of life.
- Ken Saro-Wiwa developed a very effective campaign, building international alliances, Shell and the Nigerian military went after them, using torture, imprisonment etc.
- Ken Saro-Wiwa was a very effective writer, producer, poet and environmentalist.
- This started in the 1990’s when the Ogoni people declared in a campaign that Shell (in the area since 1958) could no longer go on exploiting the natural resources of the Delta without some accountability to the Ogoni people.
- As the peaceful campaign escalated, so did the pattern of repression.
- Ken Saro-Wiwa was falsely accused of murdering 4 Orgoni leaders. A military tribunal was created that did not meet any due process standards. In 1995 the Orgoni 9 were executed, hung, including Ken Saro-Wiwa.
- A month later Shell installed a 4 billion dollar liquified natural gas project.
- What we’ve charged Shell with is, complicity with these acts. They subdued protests, they bribed witnesses at the trial,
- Shell claims to be environmentally conscious but this is a classic double standard, their practices in the west are very different from Nigeria.
- The judge rejected Shell’s push to dismiss the international law claims, charging Shell with crimes against humanity and extrajudicial killings. Ken Saro-Wiwa did not start out thinking Shell was the enemy, they wanted better business practices could develop and benefit the Ogoni people.
- Shell has approached this in a way to evade all accountability and maximize impunity. They spent 4 years fighting us over whether can be tried here in New York. Where we are is . . . that they need a judge and jury to tell them that they are accountable for human rights violations.
Guest – Jennifer Green, lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents the plaintiffs. Jennifer Green specializes in international human rights legal actions in U.S. courts and international bodies. She has represented plaintiffs in successful lawsuits against the Unocal corporation for forced labor in Burma, and against Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, former Guatemalan Minister of Defense Hector Gramajo, Indonesian military official Sintong Panjaitan, Ethiopian police official Kelbessa Negewo, and former Haitian dictator Prosper Avril for rape and other acts of genocide and war crimes.
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