Civil Liberties, Human Rights, RFID, Supreme Court, Surveillance
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Lawyer’s You’ll Like: Rhonda Copelon
Attorney Rhonda Copelon is a professor at the Law School of the City University of New York and director of the school’s International Human Rights Law Clinic. Rhonda is also the Legal Advisor to the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice.
From Article on New International Criminal Court: “The breadth and specificity of gender crimes in the court’s enabling statutes are directly attributable to a global caucus of women that formed in 1997 in the face of apathy and active resistance to prosecuting gender-based crimes. “Women made a huge difference,” said Rhonda Copeland, a professor at the Law School of the City University of New York and director of the school’s International Human Rights Law Clinic.
“They made it impossible to ignore that women have been left out of justice and that we have to be in it,” Copelon said. “If there were nobody there saying ‘this is violence,’ I don’t know how it would have happened.”Rhonda shares with listeners, her history of fighting for the constitutionality of the abortion cases in New York City and its effect on poor women in a pre-Roe v Wade climate. She also discuss the Harlem 6 case. This is the first part of the interview with Rhonda Copelon.
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Bill Would Let Insurers Track Where, When, How You Drive
A bill proposed by the California legislature would allow insurance companies to install black boxes on vehicles that track milage but also measure more sensitive information such as how aggressive you drive. The bill is structured so that insurance companies can encourage people to drive less with lower insurance. Consumer watchdogs say drivers shouldn’t have to choose between fair insurance rates and protecting their privacy when there are less intrusive ways to collect data.
Under the proposed bill titled AB 2800, the “black box†would allow insurance companies to track how fast drivers accelerate, where motorists go and which neighborhoods they drive through. The device would also monitor whether they come to a full stop at a stop sign; and when they apply their brakes. Privacy protection groups are also watching as similar proposals are being introduced in other states.
Guest – Carmen Balber, Consumer Advocate with Consumerwatchdog.org
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Bush Proposes To Bypass Endangered Species Act Experts
Currently under the Endangered Species Act, federal agencies are required to consult with federal wildlife experts to make sure activities such as mining, logging and road construction do not threaten endangered species. Now, the Bush administration has proposed a new plan that will give federal agencies the decision of whether they want expert consultation to determine if activities will affect endangered species.
Thousands of these consultations happen each year and federal wildlife experts have finely tuned their knowledge of protecting endangered species in the last twenty years. Critics say the proposal is a disturbing reversal.
Guest – Joel Kupferman, executive director and head attorney of the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project
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Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Impeachment, Iran, Iraq War, Military Tribunal, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power
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The Prosecution of President Bush and Other Administration Officials for War Crimes
This month, Larry Velvel, dean and co-founder of Massachusetts School of Law at Andover will hold a conference to plan the prosecution of President Bush and other administration officials for war crimes. The conference will take on the issues of both domestic and international crimes committed by high level Bush officials, including Federal judges and members of Congress. A coordinating committee of legal groups will also be created, among the legal groups are the Center for Constitutional Rights, ACLU, National Lawyers Guild. Official Site
“This is not intended to be a mere discussion of violations of law that have occurred,” says convener Lawrence Velvel, dean and cofounder of the school. “It is, rather, intended to be a planning conference at which plans will be laid and necessary organizational structures set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, if need be, to the ends of the Earth.†related article
Velvel Interview Notes:
- Conference will be held in undisclosed location for the time being.
- Until people have the fear they will be brought to book if they violate the law in a very serious ways that cause tens of thousands of deaths, what will stop them from doing it in the future?
- Unless there is something to look back on, like the Germans and the Japanese apparently know, don’t do it again because people swung.
- Who’s to say it won’t happen 20 or 30 years in the future again.
Guest – Lawrence R. Velvel, Dean of Massachusetts School of Law and a professor of law. Mr. Velvel is a 1960 graduate of the University of Michigan and a 1963 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, where he served on the law review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He was a law professor from 1966-1978, first at the University of Kansas and then at Catholic University. He has been a partner in major law firms in Washington, D.C., and was the first chief counsel of an organization established to write United States Supreme Court briefs in support of state and local governments. read more.
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New Guidelines Would Give F.B.I. Broader Powers
A Justice Department proposal which could be made public in a month, has given the government even broader license to open terrorism investigations, without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on racial or ethnic profiling. Currently, FBI agents need specific reasons, such as evidence or allegations that a law probably has been violated, to investigate US citizens and legal residents. Last month, The Council on American Islamic Relations decried the forthcoming plan as “unconstitutional and un-American.â€
This proposal is among other aggressive plans the Bush administration has put in place such as new wiretapping regulations and authorizing greater sharing of intelligence information with the local police. The Director of National Intelligence has set up – Information Sharing Environment – where certain police authorities will have access to information produced by the FBI, by the intelligence community and also by police departments around the country.
It is “one stop shopping” for all these different police agencies and even private companies to have access to this highly speculative, accusatory, fragmented and often erroneous information.
Intelligence Fusion Centers – which I think is a real problem, particularly since there’s very little oversight of these centers
there’s no way to correct these watch files, – a main problem with the closed system, where no one has an opportunity to go in and say you got this piece wrong.
Related Article : Colorado ‘fusion center’ to step up intelligence gathering during DNC
Mike German Quotes:
- Giving the FBI more authority to collect more information isn’t helping the FBI be more effective.
- Gathering information about innocent people won’t help find guilty people.
- There is no terrorism profile, people are drawn to terrorism for all sorts of reasons.
- Terrorism watch list : 1 million individual records – clearly nobody believes there’s a million terrorists out there.
- The FBI don’t know to this day, how many national security letters they’ve issued.
Guest – Mike German, attorney with the ACLU and former FBI agent. Mike German is a recognized expert in terrorist group behavior, counter-terrorist operations, and right-wing extremism. He has appeared on Dateline NBC, Paula Zahn Now, CNN, and MSNBC and his commentary has been published in the National Law Journal and the Washington Post. Mike served for sixteen years as a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is one of the few agents credited with actually having prevented acts of terrorism before it became the FBI’s number one priority.
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Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Military Tribunal, Supreme Court, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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CCR Campaign: The First 100 Days
Vincent Warren, Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights talks with hosts about the CCR campaign titled the First 100 Days. Warren says there is a clear opportunity for the next president to steer things in a new direction, to repudiate the executive orders that have been put in place by George W. Bush, and by the sidestepping of the Justice Department. A lot of the reversal can be done without Congress because they are executive orders. The First 100 Days campaign will put this information(PDF) in the hands of the people to make the next administration accountable. Law and Disorder will have more programming on the First 100 Days.
Guest – Vincent Warren, Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights
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20 Years Later: Dozens of Black Men Remain Behind Bars In Chicago After Being Tortured
According to the People’s Law Office in Chicago, at least 24 African American men are still serving sentences for crimes they say they confessed to after being tortured by Chicago Police officers. The happened when the Chicago police precinct was under Commander Jon Burge in the early 70’s to the 1992. Jon Burge is a Vietnam Vet who is said to have brought back torture to Chicago. People’s Law Office Attorney Flint Taylor says Burge shot through the ranks all the way to commander, primarily by leading a band of torturers. They used methods such as electric shock, dry submarino, (suffocating with bags)
Flint Taylor on the Daryl Cannon Torture Case:
- Flint Taylor represents torture victim Daryl Cannon who the city has admitted they tortured and settled for 3 thousand dollars twenty years ago before any evidence of the systemic torture came out.
- Under Seventh Circuit law if there’s a conspiracy to cover up the evidence in a civil case to show fraud then you can bring the case again. The PLO brought the case in 2005 and the city of Chicago still refuses to settle the case and they’re pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars in that case.
- They’re over the 10 million dollar mark and pumping more in to the defense of Commander Jon Burge. We’ve calculated the pensions that have been paid to Burge and the 25 other implicated torturers; its over 25 million because statute of limitations have no remedy.
The Peoples Law Office attorneys are also battling to get the remaining men off of death row and to get them hearings. They’re also battling to get the states attorney and DA to Richard Daily former Chicago mayor and Richard Devine to the carpet because they had evidence to prosecute Burge criminally, thus allowing torture ring to continue.
The Committee of Torture in the United Nations has connected the torture brought back to the U.S. in Chicago with torture in Guantanamo and other black sites around the world.
Guest – G. Flint Taylor, attorney at the Peoples Law Office.Taylor, a graduate of Brown University and Northwestern University School of Law and a founding partner of the People’s Law Office.
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Beyond Guantanamo Speech: Pardiss Kebriaei
We hear from Pardiss Kebriaei, Staff Attorney, Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative, at the Center For Constitutional Rights who spoke at the event titled, Beyond Guantanamo.
Now that key rulings issued by the Supreme Court affirm the constitutional rights of Guantánamo detainees to challenge their detention in the federal courts, what does the future hold for Guantanamo detainees and the rule of law? In the cases of Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States, the June 2008 Supreme Court ruling has undone the attempts of the Bush administration and Congress to suspend the fundamental right of habeas corpus. Closing Guantanamo is on top of the list of actions in the First 100 Days for the next U.S. President’s Administration.
Among the speakers:
- Vincent Warren, Executive Director, CCR,
- Stephen Abraham, Guantánamo whistleblower, attorney, and U.S. Army reserve officer who served on a military “combatant status review tribunal”
- Baher Azmy, Professor of Law, Seton Hall University and habeas counsel to Guantánamo detainees
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq War, Supreme Court, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Update: Canadian Rendition Victim Maher Arar
Last month, in the Maher Arar case, the Federal Court of Appeals ruled a 2-1 majority refusing to hold US authorities accountable for complicity in torture abroad. As Law and Disorder listeners may remember, Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, traveling back to Canada, was picked up at JFK airport in 2002, detained in solitary confinement for 2 weeks by the US government then deported to Syria where he was interrogated and tortured. Cases involving diplomatic assurances in North America.
Last year, a Canadian commission of inquiry cleared Arar of any links to terrorism and he was given a 10.5 million dollar settlement. Since then, the United States refused to clear his name and now this majority decision rules that his constitutional claims can not be heard in federal court for two reasons. The first reason was based on national security, the second because Mr. Arar, a dual citizen of Canada and Syria, does not have constitutional, due process rights.
Guest – Maria LaHood, Attorney with the Center For Constitutional Rights.
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Deepening Economic Crisis: How Deep, Where Is It Headed, Who is Accountable?
To many, the recent economic downturn could be a rough patch to a full collapse as a financial crisis hits the nation’s markets; add in that the United States is nine months into a significant acceleration in expected energy and food price increases. The distressful interaction is known as a “scissors crisis” among economists. We’ll also discuss the economic sub-genres, such as Military Keynesianism, GWOT spending, and housing markets. This, while Californians made a run on IndymacBank, the biggest bank crisis since 1984. Indymac was started by three former high level people from Countrywide.
Quote: “Even though Iraq is a bad idea, the value of the US military to this country is rising not falling.”
Guests – Rick Wolff, Professor of Economics at University of Massachusetts at Amherst Rick teaches at the Brecht Forum and the New School in New York City. (Read Rick’s article, Economic Blues in the Monthly Review)
Max Fraad Wolff , freelance researcher, strategist, and writer in the areas of international finance and macroeconomics. Max’s work can be seen at the Huffington Post, The AsiaTimes, Prudent Bear, SeekingAlpha and many other outlets.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq Veterans, Iraq War, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Abu Ghraib Torture Lawsuits Target Military Contractors in US Courts.
Four former Abu Ghraib detainees are suing two U.S. military contractor corporations and three individual contractors. The four were wrongly imprisoned, tortured and later released without charge. According to the complaints, the defendants abused detainees physically and mentally and then destroyed documents, videos and photographs; prevented the reporting of the torture and abuse to the International Committee of the Red Cross. They actually hid detainees and other prisoners from the Red Cross; and misled non-conspiring military and government officials about the state of affairs at the Iraq prisons.
The defendants are CACI International Inc. and CACI Premier Technology, Inc., of Arlington, Va.; L-3 Services Inc., an Alexandria, Va.-based division of L-3 Communications Corp. and three individual contractors, Adel Nakhla, of Maryland, Timothy Dugan, of Ohio, and Daniel Johnson, of Seattle.
Guest – Attorney Susan Burke with Burke O’Neil LLC.
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ACLU To Prevent Deportation Of Egyptian To Torture
The American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Pennsylvania challenged the government’s efforts to deport an Egyptian torture victim of Sameh Khouzam. The government claims to be relying on unreviewable “diplomatic assurances” from Egypt that it will not torture him upon his return. Last January, in the first decision of its kind, a federal district court sided with the ACLU and ordered the government to stop the deportation of Sameh Khouzam based on such secret and unreliable promises and release him under conditions of supervision.
However, the Bush administration appealed this ruling, claiming that the executive branch has unfettered authority to deport Khouzam and to detain him indefinitely pending his legal proceedings. Khouzam, a Christian who came to the United States in 1998 fleeing religious persecution in Egypt and a charge of murder, was granted protection from deportation under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) in 2004. This after a federal appeals court found that he would likely be tortured if sent back to Egypt.
Guest – Lee Gelernt, senior staff attorney with ACLU who is working on Sameh’s case.
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Last week, Courage to Resist, Veterans for Peace, and Project Safe Haven took to the streets of major US cities in a national day of action. Recently, the Canadian Federal Court sided for the first time with a US war resister, disagreeing with the Immigration and Refugee Board decision and ordering a re-hearing for military deserter Joshua Key, his wife Brandi, and their four children.
Josh Key moved to Canada during a 2 week leave from the Army. On July 4th, 2008, Joshua Key won a Federal Court appeal thus forcing the Refugee board to re-examine his asylum claim of conscientious objector and Iraq war veteran. The court ruled that Key had been forced to systematically violate the Geneva Conventions as part of his military service in Iraq and that such misconduct amounts to a legitimate refugee claim.
In another case, former National Guard soldier Corey Glass of Fairmount Indiana is facing deportation from Canada. He was recently told that his application to stay in Canada for “humanitarian and compassionate†reasons has been rejected. This, as Pentagon officials suggest he has been discharged and the U.S. Army is not seeking to persecute Glass. But Glass’ lawyer, Alyssa Manning of Parkdale Legal Community Services, says the reports are untrue. Manning says quote “He would be a felon, he’d be criminally inadmissible to Canada; he’d potentially be imprisoned as well as subjected to non-traditional punishment such as ‘hazing’ (within the military)
Canada: Abide by resolution – Let U.S. war resisters stay!
Guest – Matthis Chiroux with Iraq Veterans Against the War.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Supreme Court, Torture, Truth to Power
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Updates: Landmark Win: Guantánamo Detainees Have Constitutional Right to Habeas Corpus
Federal jury awards $6.2 million in Taser death lawsuit
Here on Law and Disorder we’ve talked with many guests on the dangers of Taser stun guns. Recently Taser International Inc., the largest stun-gun maker, lost a $6.2 million jury verdict over the death of a California man who died after police shot him multiple times with the weapon. A San Jose, California jury says that Taser failed to warn the police of Salinas, California that prolonged exposure to Tasr’s electric shock could cause a risk of heart attack. The 40 year old victim Robert Heston died February 20, 2005 after his father had called Salinas police because his son was “acting strangely,” and seemed to be on drugs, according to the lawsuit complaint.
This is the first defeat for Taser International in a product-liability claim. Though, a product liability claim, another issue of concern is how police abuse and torture people indiscriminately with tasers.
- Nearly 400 people in the United States have been killed in Taser-related deaths in the past 7 years.
- Stun guns are already widely abused on people who take too long to pull out ID, who are loud in public, elderly, disabled or in the wrong place at the wrong time.
- Medical examiners are afraid to rule Tasers as the primary or contributory cause of death out of fear of retribution. In meetings with coroners, Taser International has actually threatened to sue if stun guns are cited on death certificates.
- Taser International has formed questionable PR ties with law enforcement. It established and funded the Taser Foundation for Fallen Officers in 2004.
- Taser International Slogan: Saving Lives Everday
Guest: Civil rights attorney John Burton who litigated the case. Burton says there are 68 more Taser-related death cases to be litigated.
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The Cuban Five: 11th Circuit Court Upholds Convictions
We’ve been following the case of the Cuban Five for years. Last week, the 11th U.S. District Court of Appeals in Atlanta upheld the convictions of the Cuban Five who are serving long prison sentences charged with spying and conspiracy to commit murder. The Five were falsely accused by the U.S. government of committing espionage conspiracy against the United States, and other related charges.
The Five pointed out vigorously in their defense that they were involved in monitoring the actions of Miami-based terrorist groups, in order to prevent terrorist attacks on their country of Cuba. The Five’s actions were never directed at the U.S. government. They never harmed anyone nor ever possessed nor used any weapons while in the United States. The Cuban Five are five Cuban men who are in U.S. prison, serving four life sentences and 75 years collectively, after being wrongly convicted in U.S. federal court in Miami, on June 8, 2001.
Cuban Five: Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González.
Guest: Len Weinglass – U.S. Civil Rights Attorney and Activist
