Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Supreme Court, Torture
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Rewriting Geneva Conventions
Law and Disorder’s Michael Ratner Updates Related article – NY Times
Cuban Five – Eleventh Circuit Court Decision
Recently this month, the Eleventh Circuit decided the case of “US v. Campa” the case of the so-called “Cuban Five. This decision affirmed the trial court’s finding that the venue shouldn’t have been changed from its location in Miami and that new trial should not be ordered. This gives enormous power over to the government to bring politically motivated prosecutions and to select a favorable venue where community prejudice will favor the government, and as in this case, allow the government to obtain a conviction where evidence did not support a conviction. This decision is not the end of the case, however. If the lawyers in the case decide to, they can take it to the US Supreme Court by petitioning the court, by write of certiorari, to hear the case.
To remind listeners, this is the case where five Cuban men have been serving harsh prison sentences after they infiltrated anti-Cuban right wing (terrorist) groups in South Florida, were arrested by US authorities in 1998, and received a highly-politicized trial in Miami that was barely reported on in any US media. We’ve covered developments in this case on Law and Disorder on March 6th of this year and on our August 15th show in 2005.
Guest – Attorney Bruce Nestor, former president of the National Lawyers Guild.
Union organizing at Starbucks
Union member Daniel Gross was fired from his job at Starbucks last week after nearly three years of union organizing. Daniel was terminated when he backed a co-worker and fellow union member at a union picket line and asserted he shouldn’t be fired. Daniel is the fourth Industrial Workers of the World member to be fired by Starbucks in less than a year. Starbucks and other large corporations such as Walmart and Borders have been known to be hostile to the social movements of their workers. This is also a turning point for some card carrying IWW baristas at Starbucks who promise to keep the union organizing alive.
Guest – IWW member Daniel Gross
New York Cyclists’ Civil Liberties At Risk
The NYPD has proposed a rule that would dictate how many people could legally ride their bikes or walk down the sidewalk together without a permit. Since the taping of this interview, the NYPD has retracted their proposal dure to overwhelming response during the public comment period. The proposed rule would have actively discourage cycling and make it more difficult for cyclists to ride together for safety.
Guest – Gideon Oliver, an attorney for Critical Mass
Guest – activist/Law Student Mark Taylor
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Civil Liberties, Extraordinary Rendition, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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State Secrets Panel – Center forState Secrets Panel – Center for Constitutional Rights
We bring the voices of lawyers who are suing the government for keeping state secrets. What is a state secrets privilege and why should we be concerned? State secrets have been used by the Bush administration to dismiss public interest lawsuits, such as when in April of this year the Electronic Frontier Foundation challenged the legality of the NSA’s domestic spying program or the wrongfully-accused and tortured victim Maher Arar who sought to sue Attorney General John Ashcroft for his role in deporting him to Syria to face torture and extract false confessions.
Most recent, the Justice Department moved to preempt the Center for Constitutional Rights challenge to warrantless domestic surveillance by invoking the state secrets privilege. The Bush Administration is arguing that CCR’s case could reveal secrets regarding U.S. national security, and thus the presiding judge must dismiss it without reviewing the evidence. We go now and listen to a segment of the State Secrets panel.
We play excerpts from a speech by Bill Goodman, legal director with the Center for Constitutional Rights where he’s led a team of attorneys challenging the worst excesses of the Bush administration since 9/11 and representing Guantanamo detainees before the Supreme Court. Bill Goodman was one of the first to take on the Patriot act and having a portion of it ruled unconstitutional. He also sued against private military contractors at Abu Garaib.
We also hear from Center for Constitutional Rights staff attorney Shane Kadidal. He breaks down the history of the state secrets privilege and how the Bush administration is using it. Shane has worked on a number of cases since September 11th, including working on two cases of citizens detained as enemy combatants and a case on behalf of a class of hundreds of immigrants held in detention long after their final deportation. He’s also counsel on CCRs pending challenge to the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program in CCR versus Bush.
Amnesty International’s General Meeting – Audio Collage
During this year’s Amnesty International’s General Meeting in Portland, Oregon, Law and Disorder co-host Dalia Hashad and producer Geoff Brady collected audio from various interviews, panels and rallies being held at the 2006 General Meeting.
In this recording many Amnesty International staff members and activists gathered to speak out, listen and share their stories. This is an audio compilation from the anti-torture rally in Portland’s historic Pioneer Square mixed and produced by Geoff Brady
Attorney Paul L. Mills on Tasers – Part III
In our last interview from the Law and Disorder Taser series, co-host Dalia Hashad talked with Paul L. Mills, attorney and co-director with L.A. Police Watch about how police misuse the Taser weapon, the case of a 33 year old man who while being handcuffed was stunned by police with a Taser and later died and the future of Taser include wireless implants into human beings.
Lynne Stewart – Part 2
Law and Disorder recently sat down with convicted civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart to talk about her health, her approaching sentencing this September and the details leading up to her indictment and conviction. We play the second part of that interview.
Civil Liberties, Extraordinary Rendition, Guantanamo, Supreme Court, Torture, Truth to Power
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Updates:
- Supreme Court Update – Hamden v. Rumsfeld.
- Signing Statements
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Israel’s Massive Assault Targeting Lebanese Civilians
Israel has warned hundreds of thousands of Lebanese to leave Southern Lebanon as they continue to target Lebanon’s infrastructure and bomb civilian neighborhoods. Meanwhile, a ground invasion begins, and more than 340 Lebanese have been killed most of have been civilians. We talk with author Phyllis Bennis, a Middle East analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus. She is also a senior analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies and a member of the Iraq Speakers Bureau. Among the issues discussed in this interview are the US origins of Israel’s weaponry and fuel, the language of propaganda from Israel and the Geneva convention law in the context of “an occupying power.” Links – http://www.electronicintifada.net/lebanon/
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During the Law and Disorder panel, Ten Minutes To Midnight, at the Left Forum in New York, our hosts covered a range of issues, among them presidential signing statements. While many people may not have heard of signing statements, they represent a signifcant threat to the separation of powers. The President, literally attaches a statement when he signs newly enacted legislation. These statements lay out his interpretation of the law, which may unfairly influence how the judiciary perceive these laws in the future.
In a report to be released today, an American Bar Association task force will recommend that Congress pass legislation providing for some sort of judicial review of presidential signing statements. Some task force members want to give Congress the right to sue over the signing statements; other task force members will not characterize what sort of judicial review might ultimately emerge.
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Lynne Stewart – Part 1
Law and Disorder recently sat down with convicted civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart to talk about her health, her approaching sentencing this September and the details leading up to her indictment and conviction.
Civil Liberties, Supreme Court, Truth to Power
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NYCLU Demands Investigation Into NSA Spying
Verizon, AT&T and other large phone companies are suspected of providing the NSA with the personal emails and phone calling details of millions of customers. Aside from the lawsuits filed by the EFF, the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, the NYCLU is demanding from the top three New York protection agencies, thd Attorney General’s Office, the Public Services Commission, and the Consumer Protection Board to investigate this very serious invasion of our privacy and order the telephone companies to end this practice.
Guest – Cory Stoughton, NYCLU Staff attorney.
Turkmen V. Ashcroft Case Update
A recent decision by a federal judge in Brooklyn, New York has essentially ruled that immigrants can be indefinitely detained on the basis of religion, race or national origin. This decision paves the way for internment camp style prisons similar to those after World War II as long as the internment is limited to foreign nationals charged with visa violations (a group that at last count numbered about 11 million people).
Guests – Attorney Rachel Meeropol with the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Green Scare Panel – What is the Green Scare? – How the Government is Targeting Eco-Activists.
Here on Law and Disorder we’ve discussed at length about how police and FBI have spied and infiltrated activist groups. On December 26 of last year, Law and Disorder brought Eileen Clancy from Eye Witness video on to the program to talk about how her video coverage had exposed the NYPD covertly joining in with vigils and rallies of activists. We now take a deeper look at how the “conspiracy law” is being used to take down individuals within environmental protest groups in the United States and given harsh prison sentences. The National Lawyers Guild recently sponsored the event “What is the Green Scare” – How the Government is Targeting Eco-Activists. Listen to the entire panel here.
We’ll hear from three attorneys, first Daniel Meyers, a New York City criminal defense attorney, practicing since 1967, Secondly, attorney Andrew Erba who specializes in State and Federal criminal defense and civil rights actions and lastly Lauren Regan, a public interest attorney specializing in environmental law, civil rights and criminal defense. Daniel Meyers describes how political activists are targeted through the use of federal conspiracy statutes. He explains that once a charge of conspiracy is accepted by the judge, here-say is admissible, making conspiracy “the easiest charge to prove in court.”
Andrew Erba, lead counsel for the SHAC 7 – The Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty Seven deepened the analysis with a discussion of the plight of defendants facing federal conspiracy charges such as accused drug dealers.
Lastly we hear an excerpt from Oregon attorney Lauren Regan, Regan is a public interest attorney specializing in environmental law, civil rights and criminal defense. During her talk, Regan illustrated the arbitrary nature of criminalizing dissent by listing numerous civil disobedience cases that were dismissed by judges as honorable actions.
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Civil Liberties, Supreme Court, Torture, Truth to Power
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Supreme Court Limits Protections For Government Whistleblowers.
Whistleblowers lose rights. The recent Supreme Court decision (Garcetti v. Ceballos) has removed key pieces from the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1986. The decision effectively limits First Amendment protection for government whistleblowers since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protections do not extend to government employees for comments made while performing their official duties, even when the employee is acting to expose alleged government wrongdoing.
Guest – Stephen Kohn – Chairman of National Whistleblower Center
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Chicago Torture Case Update – Chicago’s Guantanamo
A United Nations anti-torture panel has urged the United States to punish law enforcement officials who mistreated suspects in Chicago. The 10-member UN Committee Against Torture reported that the multimillion-dollar investigation into the alleged torture of 200 Black men in interrogation rooms during the 1970s and 1980s has not resulted in any prosecutions. According to a press release, nearly 200 African Americans were tortured by former Commander Jon Burge and detectives under his command at the Chicago Police Department. Among the torture techniques were electrically shocking genitals with cattle prods, suffocations with plastic bags and pistols jammed in mouths in a mock execution. Listen to Law and Disorder’s previous interview on this case.
Guest – Flint Taylor – attorney with The People’s Law Office
Tasers – Part 1
This is the first part of a three part series examining the use of Tasers by law enforcement. Lawsuit cases regarding the misuse of Tasers are numerous. Pages of these stories can be found in one Google news search using the search-term “Tasers.” Hosts Dalia Hashad and Michael Ratner interview Taser researcher and expert Ed Jackson formerly with Amnesty International. Jackson points out a critical lack of training among police officers using Tasers.
Guest – Ed Jackson – Former spokesman for Amnesty International.
Music – Sharon Jones – This Land Is Your Land / Phil Ochs – I Kill Therefore I Am / Jimmy Cliff – The Harder They Come
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Civil Liberties, Supreme Court
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Updates:
- Supreme Court arguments regarding the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan. Hamdan, a Yemeni who was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001, is charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, murder and terrorism. He claims he is an innocent father of two young daughters and worked as a driver for bin Laden in Afghanistan only to provide for his family. Co-host Michael Ratner also references Justice Antonin Scalia’s speech regarding war criminals and detainees. Scalia was recently asked to stay out of the case involving international detainees because of remarks such as this one
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Suspicious Robbery at the Brecht Forum.
Two inexpensive database computers were stolen from the offices at the Brecht. Hosts Michael Smith and Michael Ratner say it has all the ear marks of an intelligence gathering black-bag job. Hosts talk with the Executive Director of the Brecht Forum, Liz Mestres and also attorney Margaret Ratner-Kunstler about this robbery and suspicious robberies of progressive law offices in the past.
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Massive Demonstrations
Tens of thousands of students across the country staged walk outs last week protesting recent immigration reform proposals in the House that introduce sweeping changes for undocumented immigrants. More than 8000 students walked out of their LA county schools and thousands more in Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Texas. In Washington DC, activists and religious leaders also protested measures in House Bill 4437 that would make it a crime for religious and charitable groups to aid undocumented workers.
Guest – Jim Lafferty – Executive Director of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Lawyer’s Guild and host of the Guild Radio Show on Pacifica’s KPFK.
Guest – Cynthia Anderson Barker – Los Angeles attorney
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