CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Supreme Court, Truth to Power
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50th Anniversary Of The Attica Prison Uprising
September 9th marks the 50th anniversary of the Attica prison uprising and the subsequent massacre by New York State police and prison guards. The rebellion at Attica prison, a medieval looking place near Buffalo New York, began on September 9, 1971 and ended four days later with governor Nelson Rockefeller, and aspiring presidential candidate, ordering the massacre. It resulted in the most people ever killed in a civil setting in the history of the USA.
The rebellion was inspiring to many around the country and around the world in that it represented a growing movement fighting for prisoners and human rights.
Civil rights attorneys, many from the National Lawyers Guild, came from around the country to immediately respond to the massacre. They provided legal representation to inmates who were charged with crimes due to their involvement in the rebellion.
Many of the participants, particularly key organizers, were subject to abuse and torture by the prison guards after the rebellion was suppressed.
Guest – attorney Michael Deutsch from the Peoples Law Office in Chicago. He along with the late attorney Elizabeth Fink were the main lawyers for the Attica brothers. He represented several Attica brothers in criminal lawsuits and the brothers in a class action civil rights lawsuit which lasted over 20 years and settled in 1999 for $12 million.
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Cuban Uprising: Analysis
The Cuban revolution of 1959 was a blow to the American empire from which it has never recovered. The Cuban revolution was basically a nationalist one. Before the revolution most of the land was owned by American corporations and the country was run by an American puppet dictator. Cuba nationalized American owned property, which was their right under international law. Cuba offered to reimburse the American owners. They refused and responded by refusing to refine oil for Cuba to purchase. So the Cubans nationalized the American oil refinery. Then the American owned telephone company and the American owned nickel mines and so on. The Cubans took control of their own resources. This was the beginning of the Cuban revolution.
It has been the 61 year policy of USA to destroy and reverse the revolution by setting up a economic financial and commercial blockade of the island. The American policy was cruel and intentionally set out to cause suffering and misery. In this thing have succeeded.
The Cuban people are hungry. Covid19 is spreading on the island. The blockade,which was accelerated under Trump and continued under Biden, is preventing them from even getting adequate number of syringes to vaccinate the population.
Protests broke out on July 11. The protesters were Cuban workers fed up with their terrible conditions, intellectuals protesting restrictions, and American paid for counterrevolutionaries seeking to destabilize the government.
Guest – Arnold August is a Canadian journalist who has traveled often to Cuba and has written three books on the subject including his latest, Cuba – US relations: Obama and Beyond. In recognition of his unending efforts to publicize the realities in Cuba, Arnold August was awarded the Medal of Freedom by the Cuban Institute for Friendship. In March of 2019 August was banned from entering United States on account of his support for Venezuela.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Charges Dropped Against Pipeline Activists
The climate movement won a significant victory on July 13 when all charges were dropped against 16 pipeline protesters and a journalist. The local district attorney in Saint Martinsville, Louisiana rejected all criminal charges and vowed not to prosecute them for alleged violations of Louisiana’s anti-protest amendments to their critical infrastructure law.
The Bayou Bridge pipeline is the tail end of the infamous 1172 mile long Dakota access pipeline which brings dirty oil from North Dakota to the Gulf of Mexico. The end of the pipeline runs from Texas to Louisiana.
In 2018, in the midst of fierce opposition to the Bainbridge Pipeline and at the urging of an industry association to Louisiana legislator added pipelines to the definition of critical infrastructure to significantly raise the penalties for people protesting pipeline project. Those found guilty could be punished with five years in prison with or without hard labor.
This critical infrastructure law is part of a national effort to crack down an environmental activists across the US. The law in Louisiana was adopted from model legislation put forward by ALEC, the corporate funded politically conservative group. Similar legislation aimed at pipeline protesters has been introduced more than 23 times in 18 states since 2017 and is in effect in 15.
Karen Savage, an independent journalist who was arrested, said that “the first amendment guarantees water protectors the right to protest and protects my right as a journalist to report those protest without fear of retribution.“
Guest – Anne White Hat, one of the people arrested and charged under the law. Whitehat Botanicals
Guest – Attorney Pam Spees, one of the team of attorneys that handled the criminal defense case. She’s also representing Anne White Hat in a case challenging the constitutionality of the Louisiana law. Whitehat v. Landry
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Continued Erosion Of Voting Rights In The United States
We are in the middle of a second great disenfranchisement in America. The first was after the Civil War reconstruction ended and Black people were stripped of their right to vote and their ability to hold office. This disenfranchisement lasted almost 100 years until the modern civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Legislatures in Republican run states are imposing new voting restrictions particularly on non-white voters. The Brennan Center found that as of June 20th, 17 states enacted 28 new laws restricting the ability to vote since the start of the year.
Republican run states hastened to restrict voting by mail and in person, voting hours and locations, and the implementation of voter registration and voter ID requirements.
Georgia banned giving food or water to voters waiting in long lines, lines that were caused by reduced access to ballot casting locations in Black precincts. They get away with this by raising the imaginary problem of voter fraud.
The Supreme Court has six reactionary judges and three liberals. Three of the reactionaries were added to the court by Donald Trump. The reactionaries recent decision in Brnovich v Democratic National Committee delivered a huge hit to American democracy, such as it is. The decision makes the Court look like an obvious political institution where justices are simply partisan politicians with robes.
In the recent Brnovich decision, the court eviscerated the strongest remaining sections of the Voting Rights Act rights of 1965 which held that election laws and voting rules that actually had a racially discriminatory impact could be blocked.
The first major blow to the voting rights act was in 2013 when the court held in Shelby versus Holder that federal authorities could no longer block regressive new election laws or voting rules in jurisdictions with histories of discrimination.
“Effectively, most of the Voting Rights Act is now dead,” declared Hamlin University scholar David Schultz who specializes in elections.
Guest – Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law where she taught from 1991-2016, and a former president of the National Lawyers Guild. She lectures, writes, and provides commentary for local, regional, national and international media outlets. Professor Cohn has served as a news consultant for CBS News and a legal analyst for Court TV, and a legal and political commentator on the BBC, CNN, NPR, and other major stations.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Crony Capitalism, Gaza, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, NSA Spying, Political Prisoner, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim by Professor Richard Falk
If we are ever to have a world not threatened by catastrophic climate change and devastating nuclear war we will need a world governed by respect for the rule of law, democracy, and the democratic right of peoples to self- determination. After the World War II, the United Nations was established in 1945 in an effort to prevent future wars. In this it has failed. The United States of America has been at war almost every year since its beginning and almost every year since the 50’s starting with Korea, then Vietnam, then Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya.
Today the United States has 800 bases abroad in 80 countries. It spends $753 billion a year on the military, which is 53 cents out of every tax dollar.
Michael Ratner, a founder of Law And Disorder Radio and who practiced human rights law internationally, used to say that you cannot have imperialism abroad and democracy at home. He said it was a truth established by the decline of both the Greek and Roman empires thousands of years ago.
Guest – International Law Professor Richard Falk who is still teaching and going strong at age 90. He has recently had published his magnificent memoir titled Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim. Professor Falk is a leading international law professor, prominent activist, public author, and a pioneer thinker dedicated to peace and justice. He taught at Princeton University for 40 years and was active in seeking an end to the Vietnam war, a better understanding of Iran, a just solution for Israel/Palestine, and improved democracy everywhere. He also served as the UN Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine. He has written 50 books. Since 2009 he has been nominated annually for the Nobel Peace Prize.
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In Defense of Whistleblowers: Attorney Sarah Alexander
James Glenn was working for NetDesign, a Cisco Systems reseller in Denmark when he came across a vulnerability in software made for a line of Cisco’s video surveillance cameras. The flaw made it easy for would-be hackers to access the systems running the devices and to penetrate the systems on a deeper level after gaining entry. Glenn made the discovery after taking part in his company’s “own medicine” initiative, where staffers test equipment and software for security holes. In 2008 he reported the issue to his employer and to Cisco, assuming that he’d be praised for finding the problem. Instead, he was fired.
Cisco Systems is one of the world’s leading information technology and networking companies. With a market cap of close to $195 billion, Cisco dominates the networking and communications devices industry. Glenn notes that he learned the cameras and software were still being used by the Los Angeles International Airport, and in 2010 he spoke with law enforcement personnel about his concerns regarding LAX. According to court filings cited by Glenn’s attorneys, Cisco failed to fix the vulnerability until an updated version of the software was released in 2012. It then took the company 3 more years to release a security advisory to companies using the previous, flawed version of the software.
Stories like this are all too common. Whistleblowers frequently lose their jobs and suffer significant personal hardships as a result of coming forward on behalf of the public’s interest.
Guest – Attorney Sarah Poppy Alexander of the law firm Constantine, Cannon. Poppy represents whistleblowers and government entities in so called “qui tam” lawsuits in both federal and state court, as well as under the IRS and Securities and Exchange Commission’s whistleblower programs. Poppy has been selected to the Northern California Super Lawyers Rising Stars list every year since 2016. Before joining Constantine Cannon, Poppy was an associate attorney at Rosen, Bien, Galvan & Grunfeld LLP, where she worked to ensure prisoners received appropriate medical and mental health care and adequate accommodations for disabilities in jails and prisons. Poppy graduated from Harvard Law School and holds an M.A. in Political Theory from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. from Yale College.
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Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s License To Practice Law Suspended
Two weeks ago former president Donald Trump‘s attorney Rudy Giuliani’s license to practice law was suspended. The disciplinary committee of the New York City appellate division court where Giuliani had been licensed to practice law ruled that “he communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers, and the public at large in his capacity as a lawyer for Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020. In addition, on January 6, the committee took notice of Giuliani‘s urging the crowd in Washington DC make law by “engaging in combat.”
The disciplinary committee found that Giuliani’s conduct “immediately threatened the public interest in warranted interim suspension for the practice of law.” Giuliani became the first attorney to experience professional consequences for perpetuating lies about fraud in the 2020 election.
He had been the main prosecutor in the Southern District of New York before becoming mayor. After 911 he was widely viewed as a hero and denominated “Americas mayor“. He went on to practice law representing a number of corporations and becoming rich before becoming Trump’s attorney.
Guest – Professor and attorney Ellen Yaroshefsky, is one of the signatories to one of the complaints against Giuliani. Professor Yaroshefsky is the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development, Howard Lichtenstein Distinguished Professor of Legal Ethics, and Executive Director of the Monroe H. Freedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics.
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The Capital Riot Aftermath Evaluation: Attorney Margaret Ratner-Kunstler
At the same time we have a radicalization of the left we also have one on the right. The one on the right has been building for 40 years. A right wing racist nationalist demagogue, Donald Trump, got 74 million votes in the last election. People and organizations supporting Trump and egged on by him ransacked the Capital on January 6.
“The military was an active participant by refusing cars to intervene to stop the invasion of the building, “Barry Shepard wrote in Green Left Weekly. “They stood by for some four hours. Eventually it was the Washington DC police who finally ended it.“
Caroline Or, writing in Byline Times wrote that “the Capital riot was not a spontaneous outburst of violence, but rather a carefully orchestrated, well-funded attempt to violently overthrow the election and bring an end to democracy in America.“ Further, she wrote that “there is a close alliance between violent extremist and mainstream factions of the Republican Party, including wealthy donors and elected officials.“
The Republicans in Congress succeeded in blocking a proposal to convene a bipartisan committee to investigate the interaction. For his part, Biden has avoided talking about it in an evident attempt to assure his allies overseas that America is still a democracy.
Who did it, what did they hope to accomplish, love and what has been done by way of an investigation and criminal prosecution?
Guest – human rights attorney Margaret Ratner Kunstler who has worked at the Center for Constitutional Rights and is the editor of the recent book In Defense of Julian Assange.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Iraq War, Supreme Court, Truth to Power
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Attorney Flint Taylor Update On The Marcus Smith Case In Greensboro, NC
Police in America kill more than 1500 citizens a year. That’s more than three a day and they’re disproportionately Black. Police killed more than 1500 people the year before the murder of George Floyd and in the year since his murder they’ve killed another 1500.
The latest outrageous case has come to the national fore in Greensboro, North Carolina where eight white cops killed Marcus Smith two years ago by hogtying him causing him to suffocate to death . Now they are being sued and they’re trying to cover it up and trying to silence the Smith family’s attorney Flint Taylor, drive him out of the state, and sanction him with heavy financial penalties.
So instead of banning hogtying, settling the case with the Smith family and issuing an apology, they are trying to silence the messenger.
Hogtying can be lethal. It’s done by handcuffing the victim behind his back, shackling his feet, and then tying the handcuffs to the feet bending him over backwards, chest first, in the street. Marcus Smith’s died of asphyxiation within a minute.
On September 8, 2018 Marcus Smith was suffering from a mental health crisis. He was brutally hogtied by the Greensboro North Carolina police officers. The family’s civil rights case is being litigated by Chicago Peoples Law Office attorneys Flint Taylor and Ben Elson, and by Greensboro lawyer Graham Holt. It is worthy of national attention.
The cops’ lawyers have been paid more than $1 million of taxpayer money to date to defend the case. They have escalated their attacks on the Smith family and are seeking to suppress all the damaging evidence that has come to light during the pretrial discovery in the case.
Guest – Flint Taylor of the Peoples Law Office. Taylor is a nationally recognized civil rights attorney. He represented the family of Fred Hampton demonstrating that the Chicago Police Department and the FBI were responsible for the assassination of the young Black Panther leader. He’s written the book “The Killing Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago”. He is one of the editors of the “Police Misconduct Law Reporter.
His recent publication The Torture Machine: Racism And Police Violence In Chicago.
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Phyllis Bennis: The Influence Of Think Tanks And IPS
With the growth of globalization on the heels of the Cold War, entities called Think Tanks grew rapidly during the late 1980s. Now, there are nearly 2,000 think tanks in the United States alone. Not surprisingly, more than 400 are located in the nation’s capital, with ready access to key policymakers. These entities play an outsized role in shaping the world we live in.
From national defense and technology, to social policy and economics, think tanks perform in-depth research on a range of topics. Some think tanks advocate for change by using this research and analytical reports to influence public opinion and help decision makers create policy agendas. It follows that many think tanks align along party lines. Funding for think tanks usually comes from endowments, government contracts, private donations, and sales of their reports.
While many think tanks are nonprofit organizations, some especially high-profile ideological ones advocate solutions that benefit their corporate donors. Often they are criticized for crossing the line between research and lobbying. Think tanks are classified according to their sources of funding and intended customers. Some think tanks, such as the Rand Corporation, receive direct government assistance; most others are funded by private individuals or corporate donors.
Guest – Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, where she is she is the director of the New Internationalism Project and works on anti-war, US foreign policy and Palestinian rights issues. She has worked as an informal adviser to several key UN officials on Palestinian issues. Her books including Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today’s UN, and Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.
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Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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Steven Donziger Trial: Continued Coverage
As we continue our coverage of human rights lawyer Steve Donziger’s criminal contempt trial, we look back to the origins of case he brought against Chevron Oil. They go back to the late 1960s when Texaco first discovered oil in part of an Amazon rainforest in northeastern Ecuador. The US oil company went on to lord over decades of environmental destruction on a monolithic scale, dumping two or three Exxon Valdez’s worth of oil and toxic byproducts and despoiling an area the size of Rhode Island. Since then, the indigenous tribes in the area have been victims of by cancer and other illnesses caused by the pollution, they say. In 1993, two years after graduating from Harvard Law School, Donziger joined a lawsuit seeking to force Texaco to clean up the mess. In 2000 Chevron purchased Texaco. They spent upward of $1 billion in legal fees defending this case.
Donziger has broad support from celebrities, including Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon; dozens of Nobel laureates; and thousands of lawyers and law students globally. A handful of sympathetic Democratic lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have written a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, asking him to look into the case. More than 200 attorneys with the International Association of Democratic Lawyers have filed a judicial complaint asking for Judge Kaplan to be taken off the bench.
Conversely, Chevron claims Donziger’s supporters are being duped by a con man. A few conservative outlets have reiterated that narrative. One National Review headline criticized the “Lefty Media” for championing the cause of “History’s Champion Scammer.”
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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Above The Law: How Qualified Immunity Protects Violent Police
The 1967 judicially created doctrine of qualified immunity has been so broadly interpreted that it acts as a shield for policeman in all but the rarest of circumstances. Only when the exact same abusive behavior of a cop has already been deemed unconstitutional by a court in the exact same jurisdiction can a victim succeed in a civil lawsuit against an abusive police officer. A plantiff must show that government officials violated clearly established law to receive damages for harm.
The plaintiff wins only if a prior court found an official liable under a nearly identical fact pattern. This standard is virtually impossible to meet and the protections promised under section 1983 civil rights act are therefore largely symbolic.
Guest – Ben Cohen – cofounder and former CEO of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. He is the founder of a variety of advocacy organizations and the author of several books including his latest titled Above The Law: How Qualified Immunity Protects Violent Police. Ben and his partner Jerry Greenfield are currently helping to lead the campaign to end qualified immunity.
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USPS Announces Closing Of 19 Mail Processing Plants
The US Postal Service advertises the official standard of delivering first-class mail — a typical letter with a 55-cent stamp—within “1-3 business days.” The News Department at WGBH Radio in Boston conducted its own test to see if this still holds true. News reporters and producers sent nearly 100 letters from different places in the metro area at various hours on the same day to their pick of correspondents in 38 states, creating a random sample. The letters were addressed to residents of large cities, suburbs and small towns. The Postal Service flunked the test. A little more than half of the letters arrived within the three-day window.
Slower delivery is just the tip of the Post Office’s problems. Things are going from bad to worse. The Postal Service issued a report titled Delivering for America calling for a reorganization that highlights something called shared sacrifice.
Many consider it an austerity plan to cover for de facto privatization. Critics say the plan will slow the mail, raise prices, and cut services. Since the report was published, the Postal Service announced the closing of 18 mail processing plants that will take place before November. Based on recent history, closing these plants will slow the mail and guarantee there will be problems with mail delivery during the peak season.
Guest – Chuck Zlatkin, legislative director of the New York Metro Area Postal Union.
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