CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Crony Capitalism, Human Rights, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Amazon Ring Of Surveillance
When it comes to e-commerce, the multinational tech company Amazon.com has laid claim to a huge corner on the market. Now, it’s venturing into the business of surveillance.
Amazon is aggressively pursuing law enforcement partnerships. More than 400 police departments across the nation have already joined forces with the tech giant’s so-called smart doorbell program, called Ring. Part of Amazon’s outreach strategy in gaining new police partners is to play on fears of increasing property crime.
Ring doesn’t just show you who is at your door. It films and records any interaction or movement at owners’ doors, then alerts users’ phones. With partnerships between mega corporations and law enforcement to use new surveillance systems in the public–leaving out community input–come a host of civil liberties concerns, including racial profiling.
Guest – Matthew Guariglia of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Matthew is a policy analyst working on issues of surveillance and privacy at the local, state, and federal level. He is a frequent contributor to the Freedom of Information-centered outlet Muckrock and his bylines have appeared in the Washington Post and Motherboard.
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North of Havana: The Untold Story of Dirty Politics, Secret Diplomacy, and the Trial of the Cuban Five
North of Havana: The Untold Story of Dirty Politics, Secret Diplomacy, and the Trial of the Cuban Five is the recent publication by our guest attorney Martin Garbus.
This case was one of the most significant ones in recent times. Attorney Len Weinglass had originally taken the case to appeal the matter for already convicted Cuban Five. The appeal was ultimately lost. Weinglass died and his dear friend our guest Martin Garbus stepped in to what looked like a lost cause. Four of the five men were in prison serving long sentences.
Cuba had been an American colony up until 1959 when the widely popular Cuban revolution succeeded in gaining the country’s independence from the USA.
To reverse this has been American policy ever since. The Helms-Burton Act was a counter- revolution as an American government policy written into American law.
Martin Garbus started representing Cuban Five member Gerardo Hernandez who at the time had then been found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage against United States sometime in the future as well as murder.
Hernandez and his four comrades had been sent from Cuba to Miami by the government of Cuba to spy, not on the United States, but on the counter-revolutionary Cubans in Miami who were launching terrorist activities from Florida directed at persons and property in Cuba, attempting to sabotage the Cuban tourist economy which was in bad shape when a new Russian government cut them off.
The Cubans gathered information on the Miami-based terrorists, compiling a lengthy dossier on their murders activities, and turned it over to the FBI. They asked the US government to stop the terrorists, who were targeting the Cuban tourist industry by planting bombs at the Havana Airport, on buses, and in a hotel, killing an Italian vacationer. But instead of stopping the terrorists the US government used the dossier to figure out the identities of the Cuban five. They were arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced long prison terms.
While the Cubans were in Miami, a group of counter-revolutionary Cubans calling themselves “Brothers to the Rescue” were provocatively flying small planes over Havana dropping anti-Castro leaflets. They were warned by the Cuban government that if they persisted the planes will be shot down. They persisted. The planes were shot down. Hernandez was convicted of murder although he had no prior knowledge about the shoot down.
Guest – Martin Garbus is one of our great trial lawyers. He has appeared before the United States Supreme Court on leading First Amendment and constitutional law cases.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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Trump in the White House: Tragedy and Farce
The great issues of our times are the return of fascism to the United States and Europe, climate change, and the stagnation of the world capitalist economy. These great issues are pressing and interconnected.
We used to think that the experience of World War II guaranteed that no politician would ever advocate the ideas of fascism.
But the election of Donald Trump a year ago has caused a serious reconsideration of fascism and it’s relationship to capitalism and to democracy.
The neoliberals paved the way for Trump. Now he and the forces aligned with him have put our democratic institutions under attack in order to protect the rule of the wealthy. The attacks include the right to vote, labor unions, public education, an independent news media, independent public universities, the privatization of much of traditional governmental functions and making it almost impossible to launch a new political party.
The election of Trump is a political development that for concrete sociological reasons allows us to see it for what it is, as a type of neo-fascism. Only by identifying the phenomena correctly can we effectively fight it.
Jack London wrote a century ago in his famous book The Iron Heel that “There is a shadow of something colossal and menacing that even now is beginning to fall across the land. Call it the shadow of an oligarchy, if you will; it is the nearest I dare approximate it. What is nature may be I refuse to imagine. But what I want to say was this: You are in a perilous position.”
Guest – John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He has written widely on political economy and has established a reputation as a major environmental sociologist. He is the author of Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature (2000), The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences (with Fred Magdoff, 2009), The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth (with Brett Clark and Richard York, 2010), and The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxian Political Economy (New Edition, 2014), among many others.
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Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
The spectacle of President Donald Trump and the palace intrigue in the White House has served daily to distract people from the political strategy and accomplishments of the radical right, which is taking over the Republican Party.
Over time, the GOP has been transformed into operation conducting a concerted effort to curb democratic rule in favor of capitalist interests in every branch of government, whatever the consequences. It is marching ever closer to the ultimate goal of reshaping the Constitution to protect monied interests. This gradual take over of a major political party happened steadily, over several decades, and often in plain sight.
Duke University Professor Nancy MacLean exposes the architecture of this change and it’s ultimate aim. She has written that “both my research and my observations as a citizen lead me to believe American democracy is in peril”.
Guest – Professor Nancy MacLean, whose new book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, has been described by Publishers Weekly as “a thoroughly researched and gripping narrative… [and] a feat of American intellectual and political history.” Booklist called it “perhaps the best explanation to date of the roots of the political divide that threatens to irrevocably alter American government.” The author of four other books, including Freedom is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace (2006) called by the Chicago Tribune “contemporary history at its best,” and Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan,named a New York Times “noteworthy” book of 1994, MacLean is the William H. Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy.
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Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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Data Collection Experiment: Google’s SideWalk Labs In Toronto
Last year Law and Disorder featured a segment on Sidewalk Labs, a data-oriented smart city in Toronto. Sidewalk Labs is a firm owned by Google parent company Alphabet. We covered critics’ concerned about residents’ privacy and how data would be used.
Last week, Sidewalk labs has released a 1,500-page development proposal for its planned “smart” neighborhood. They claim it will integrate physical, digital, and policy innovations to take on affordability, sustainability, quality of life and generate economic opportunity. Critics assert, this is an experimental model for a surveillance state and covert data collection.
Sidewalk Lab’s plan is a radical departure from the principles that have guided city planning in Canada since citizen participation and accountability came to the fore in the era of renowned Canadian-American urban planner Jane Jacobs.
Mariana’s recent article.
Guest – Mariana Valverde, Professor at the Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto. She’s an urban studies scholar whose research interests include public-private partnerships, governance and infrastructure.
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Impeachment Analysis Of President Donald Trump
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s May statement on his investigation and report revived calls to impeach President Donald Trump. Such calls rest on solid legal ground. There is already more than adequate evidence supporting at least seven articles of impeachment – four more than President Richard M. Nixon would have faced had he not resigned in 1974.
Trump obstructed the administration of justice by attempting to fire Mueller, to curtail his investigation; he ordered White House counsel Donald McGahn to falsify the record to conceal these attempts. He fired FBI Director James B. Comey because of “Comey’s unwillingness to publicly state that Trump was not personally under investigation. He also sought to protect himself from an investigation into his campaign,” because he knew it would uncover facts about the campaign and the President personally that Trump could have understood to be crimes or that would give rise to personal and political concerns.”
He tried to dissuade Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Roger Stone, and other witnesses from cooperating with the government. The non-cooperation of Manafort and Stone made it impossible to establish the exact nature of the relationship between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
All of those are violations of Article I of the Constitution, and Trump has violated Articles II through VII, as well.
So the internal debates are not about the legal grounds. They pertain to strategy. And these debates are fracturing alliances among liberals and the left.
Guest – Attorney Abi Hassen is a criminal defense attorney, technologist and co-founder of the Black Movement-Law Project. He was formerly the Mass Defense Coordinator at the National Lawyers Guild and a union and community organizer. His podcast is Against the Law. Against The Law Podcast Link
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Updates:
- Two MOVE9 Members Released From Prison
- Julian Assange Update
- Never Get Rid Of Newspapers…The Headlines Alone Make Them Worth Keeping
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Suicide Increase In The United States
Suicide ranks among the top ten leading causes of death in the United States. As rates have generally fallen in other developed nations, the number of suicides per 100,000 rose over 30 percent between 1999 and 2015.
Those in midlife had the largest uptick in suicide. Researchers find that two social factors have contributed to this trend: the weakening of the social safety net and increasing income inequality.
One study of suicide in the U.S. found that the rising rates were closely linked with reductions in social welfare spending between 1960 and 1995. Such expenditures include Medicaid, a medical assistance program for low income persons; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children; the Supplemental Security Income program for the blind, disabled and elderly; children’s services including adoption, foster care and day care; shelters; and funding of public hospitals for medical assistance other than Medicaid.
While their suicide rates are on the decline, three European nations still have rates higher than the U.S. They are Belgium, Finland and France.
Guest – Stephen Platt, Emeritus Professor of Health Policy Research at the University of Edinburgh, UK. His research focuses on the social, epidemiological and cultural aspects of suicide, self-harm and mental health. He is an adviser on suicide prevention research and policy to NHS Health Scotland and the Scottish Government, the Irish National Office for Suicide Prevention and Samaritans.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Cuba, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Venezuelan Embassy Protected Against Staged Attacks In DC
Democracy and the rule of law are being rapidly unraveled in our country by President Trump, his advisers, especially convicted war criminal Elliot Abrams, who was put in charge of policy in Venezuela, and John Bolton, who said that if the top 10 floors of United Nations building were lopped off it wouldn’t make any difference, and with the support of the rightist insurgent Republican Party.
The latest example is the American government’s failed attempt military coup in Venezuela and its support of the ongoing attack on the Venezuelan embassy here in Washington DC.
On April 30th, the United States tried and failed to overthrow the democratically elected Venezuelan president Nikolai Maduro. They fail to supplant him with Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed a president who’s only real power is outside of Venezuela and comes mostly from the Trump administration.
Back home in Washington DC right wing counterrevolutionaries in support of Juan Guaidó have so far failed in their attempt to take over the Venezuelan embassy. Under centuries of international law the embassy is considered the property of Venezuela itself.
Last week the Washington DC utility company, undoubtedly at the request of the US government, turned off the building’s water electricity supply. Washington DC police and the Secret Service are preventing people from bringing food and water into the embassy. A number of American citizens, acting in support of democracy in Venezuela, entered the building to protect it against an invasion by coup supporters. They are also demonstrating outside of the building. The embassy protectors are being represented by attorney Mara VerhaydenHilliard of the Washington DC Partnership For Civil Justice.
Popular Resistance, Answer Coalition, Code Pink
Guest – Attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard has in the past successfully sued both the Washington DC police department and the New York City Police Department for their abuse demonstrators. She is co-chair of the Guild’s National Mass Defense Committee. co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund in Washington, DC, she secured $13.7 million for about 700 of the 2000 IMF/World Bank protesters in Becker, et al. v. District of Columbia, et al., while also winning pledges from the District to improve police training about First Amendment issues. She won $8.25 million for approximately 400 class members in Barham, et al. v. Ramsey, et al. (alleging false arrest at the 2002 IMF/World Bank protests). She served as lead counsel in Mills, et al v. District of Columbia (obtaining a ruling that D.C.’s seizure and interrogation police checkpoint program was unconstitutional); in Bolger, et al. v. District of Columbia.
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Lawyers For The Left: In The Courts, In the Streets And On The Air
Lawyers For The Left: In The Courts, In the Streets And On The Air is the title of the just published book by our own Michael Steven Smith. It profiles the some of the nation’s most effective agents of social change. Michael discusses how he came to write this book and previews several of the lawyers profiled therein.
As Chris Hedges quotes “The lawyers in this book valiantly fought the erosion of justice and assault on the court system.”
Portside Review by Bill Ayers:
Now open Michael Steven Smith’s smart and compelling Lawyers for the Left, and you’ll find yourself plunged into the contradictions and swirling through the vortex where that question—what is the law?—is on everyone’s mind all the time. It takes on a unique urgency and a fresh vitality as it’s debated case by case and issue by issue by these committed advocates battling against a system they see as deeply and unfairly stacked against their clients—Black freedom fighters, Puerto Rican independistas, Indigenous and immigrant rights activists, women warriors, anti-war militants, water defenders, dissidents and radicals. None of the lawyers you’ll meet here holds fast to the traditional view that the law is simply a civilized mechanism for resolving disputes in an intelligent and reasoned way. They agree, rather, that any honest analysis of the law begins elsewhere, noting that in all times and in all places, the law is constructed in the service of whatever social/economic system created it. In other words, the law is a mechanism of control that works to protect and perpetuate existing social relations.
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Censorship, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Human Trafficking, Iraq War, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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Attorney James Goodale On Julian Assange Arrest
Last week, at the behest of the U.S. government, police entered the Ecuadorian Embassy and arrested Julian Assange on charges of espionage. This case promises to threaten the First Amendment rights of all journalists. We’re honored to have one of the nation’s foremost authorities on First Amendment law, Attorney James Goodale. In the April edition of the Atlantic, he wrote an article titled, Why Julian Assange deserves First Amendment Protection.
Listeners may recall that last fall, a court filing inadvertently suggested that the Justice Department had indicted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and other outlets reported soon after that Assange had likely been secretly indicted for conspiring with his sources to publish classified government material and hacked documents belonging to the Democratic National Committee, among other things.
Assange started WikiLeaks in 2006 to provide a place for newsworthy information to be confidentially released. The site came gained prominence when Assange obtained thousands of classified documents relating to the Iraq War from US Army soldier Chelsea (born Bradley) Manning.
Guest – Attorney James C. Goodale has represented The New York Times in four of its cases to go to the Supreme Court: the Pentagon Papers case (The New York Times Co. v. The U.S.), The New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (libel), Branzburg v. Hayes (see below) and The New York Times Co. v. Tasini, (digital rights). He developed the argument that the Espionage Act does not apply to publishers or the press.
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled the U.S. Government could not stop the Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers, holding that prior restraints were barred by the First Amendment unless the publication “will surely result in direct, immediate, and irreparable damage to our Nation or its people.” He became known as the “father of the reporter’s privilege.” A prolific writer, he has written two books on the First Amendment, The New York Times v. The U.S. and All About Cable, and approximately 200 articles, particularly on the role of the press in the Information Revolution.
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Al Otro Lado and the Border Crisis
United States President Donald Trump said that we have a “crisis” on the border. He called it an “infestation” and said that “These aren’t people. These are animals.” Last week he fired Kirstjen Nielsen who as the head of the Department for Homeland Security pursued the most aggressive enforcement strategy of any secretary in the history of the organization. Nielsen and the Trump administration has separated children from their parents and instituted an illegal turn back policy using tactics to restrict the numbers of asylum-seekers who want to access the asylum process at points of entry like Tijuana and El Paso.
Tactics used by the administration include lies, intimidating coercion, verbal abuse, physical force, out right denial of access, unreasonable delay, threats, and family separation. The Center for Constitution Rights is currently representing Al Otro Lado, a legal and human rights organization that helps migrants at the border. They are challenging the U S. Customs and Border Patrol on its turnaround policy in a pending lawsuit.
Last month CCR’s chairwoman of the board and Columbia Law Professor Katherine Franke met six students in Tijuana Mexico, across the border from San Diego, California, to advise migrants on what they will face in the hands of US legal authorities.
- Al Otro Lado provides essential legal support to migrants to prepare them for the asylum process in the U.S. You can support here.
- Santa Fe Dreamers also provides free legal support to immigrants, with a particular focus on transgender immigrants.
- Please visit this site if you are interested in contributing to the parole/bail fund for detainees.
- If you are interested in serving as a sponsor for an asylum seeker.
- This video offers a very good portrait of the situation at Chaparral where La Lista is maintained and asylum seekers wait for their number to be called.
Guest – Attorney Katherine Franke, is the Sulzbacher Professor of Law, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Columbia University, where she also directs the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law and is the faculty director of the Law, Rights, and Religion Project (Formerly the Public Rights/Private Conscience Project). She is a member of the Executive Committee for the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality, and the Center for Palestine Studies. She is among the nation’s leading scholars writing on law, religion and rights, drawing from feminist, queer, and critical race theory.
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