Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, NSA Spying, Surveillance, Violations of U.S. and International Law, Whistleblowers
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Biden Hypocritically Slams Arrest of US Journalist in Russia But Pursues Assange
May 3rd marks the 30th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day, established by the UN to remind governments about the necessity to respect their commitment to freedom of the press.
The Biden administration touts press freedom but continues the Trump administration’s efforts to extradite Julian Assange from the UK to the United States for trial on Espionage Act charges that could lead to 175 years in prison. Assange is being prosecuted for obtaining and publishing classified military and diplomatic documents evidencing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the first publisher to be charged under the Espionage Act for revealing state secrets.
The Biden administration hypocritically criticizes Russia for arresting Evan Gershkovich, a US journalist, for espionage while trying to extradite and try Assange, who is an Australian citizen. Both men are journalists detained in a foreign country on espionage charges for doing what journalists do.
Julian Assange Fact Sheet: Why Julian Must Be Freed
Guest – Marjorie Cohn is a member of the national advisory board of Assange Defense. She is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former president of the National Lawyers Guild. Her new article about Assange and Gershkovich was just published by Truthout.
—-
Citizen Spies: The Long Rise of America’s Surveillance Society
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s program “If You See Something, Say Something,” launched in 2010, urges citizens to be aware of and to report, potential threats. Examples of suspicious activity include unattended packages or baggage; circumstances that appear out of the ordinary, like an open door that is usually closed; a person asking for detailed information about a building’s layout or purpose, and changes in security protocol or shifts. Also of concern is any person seen loitering around a building, writing notes, sketches, and taking photographs or measurements.
The DHS website is careful to note that, “Factors such as race, ethnicity, and/or religious affiliation are not suspicious.” Yet as listeners know, incidents of ethnic profiling are many, including one in which a Southwest Airlines passenger was taken off a flight for speaking Arabic.
The history of citizen spying and reporting on others is not new in this country. And the “See Something” campaign isn’t the only civilian spying program around. Many jurisdictions have Neighborhood Watch programs. The U.S. Department of Justice’s National Neighborhood Watch initiative enlists community members to assist crime prevention and to prepare neighborhoods for disasters and emergency response.
Guest – Joshua Reeves author of Citizen Spies, The Long Rise of America’s Surveillance Society . He is associate professor of New Media Communications and Speech Communication at Oregon State University, where he’s also a fellow in their Center for the Humanities. An associate editor of the journal Surveillance and Society, he’s also written the just-released book, Killer Apps: War, Media, Machine.
Hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Marjorie Cohn and Julie Hurwitz
—————————–
Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister, Whistleblowers
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Can A Lawsuit Against The CIA Affect U.S. Extradition Attempt of Julian Assange?
In August 2022, a group of U.S. citizen attorneys and journalists sued the CIA and its former director Mike Pompeo. They alleged that the CIA, during Pompeo’s tenure, spied on them during meetings with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. The WikiLeaks founder sheltered there for 7 years in an effort to avoid extradition to the United States.. Assange is charged with 17 counts under the Espionage Act for revealing evidence of U.S. war crimes. If convicted, he faces 175 years in prison.
The lawsuit says that the CIA violated the privacy rights of those journalists and lawyers. Plaintiffs include journalists Charles Glass and John Goetz, and New York City attorneys Margaret Kunstler and Deborah Hrbek, who have represented Assange. The suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages for the plaintiffs for the violations of their rights. It also seeks the removal of any information held by the CIA which was collected from them during their visits to see Assange and prevention of the release of any this information to a third party.
The CIA, as listeners may know, is prohibited from collecting intelligence on U.S. citizens, although several lawmakers have alleged that the agency maintains a secret repository of Americans’ communications data. Richard Roth, the lead attorney in this case, had this to say: “The United States Constitution shields American citizens from U.S. government overreach even when the activities take place in a foreign embassy in a foreign country.”
Journalists and lawyers visiting Assange were required to surrender their electronic devices to Undercover Global before each visit. U.C. Global is a private security company which was providing security to the embassy. The lawsuit alleged that the company copied that information and handed it over to the CIA.
In early November, Deborah Hrbek and our own Marjorie Cohn discussed the lawsuit and the case against Assange, in a program sponsored by the First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee. For our show today, we’re delighted to bring you their remarks and answers to several audience questions. Deborah Hrbek starts off the event. In addition to being a member of the Assange defense team, her law practice focuses on entertainment and small business law. Marjorie is a member of the national advisory board of Assange Defense.
Hosted by Attorney Heidi Boghosian
—————————————–
Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Right To Dissent, Surveillance
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Israel Authorizes Military to Kill Palestinians With Drones
In October, the Israeli government announced that commanders of the Israeli Occupying Forces have been authorized to use armed drones to kill Palestinians in several parts of the occupied West Bank, with the approval of Chief of Staff-Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi.
Since 2008, the Israeli Air Force has been killing Palestinians in Gaza with drones, especially during protests against the Annexation Wall and colonies. Drones have also been used to fire gas bombs and live rounds at residents in cities, towns, and refugee camps of occupied Jerusalem. Drones are employed for surveillance, but this is the first time that weaponized drones will be used in the occupied West Bank. Drones make up 80% of the total flight hours in the Israeli Air Force.
Here to discuss this disturbing development is our own Marjorie Cohn, who recently published an article in Truthout titled Israel Authorizes Military to Kill Palestinians With Drones in the West Bank.
Guest – Attorney Marjorie Cohn is a legal and political analyst who provides commentary on local, national and international media. She is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, a member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is “Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues.”
—-
State Of The Free Press: The News That Didn’t Make the News And Why 2023
The United States has a disinformation problem so endemic that the government says it threatens our national security. Effective solutions have proven elusive. When the Department of Homeland Security created a disinformation board in April, critics from all sides denounced it as a potential tool of censorship. That’s no surprise given that censorship is on the minds of many. During the past school year, more than 1,600 books were banned, according to a PEN America report. And the “cancel culture” movement teeters between a tool of accountability and outright shaming, often with little regard for the truth.
Since 1976, one group has been working to raise awareness about censorship in our society, and the urgent need for media literacy. Founded as a media research program, Project Censored focused on student media literacy and critical thinking skills as applied to the US news media. In 1993, the Project began publishing an annual book with a list of what it considered the most significant but most under-reported news stories of the year.
Dr. Andy Lee Roth is associate director of Project Censored. Along with Mickey Huff, he co-edits the State of the Free Press Yearbook series. He also helps coordinate the Project’s Campus Affiliates Program, which links students at faculty at several dozen US college and university campuses in the collective effort to identify and vet important but under reported news stories.
Guest – Andy Lee Roth joins us to talk about the 2023 edition of State Of The Free Press: The News That Didn’t Make the News and Why, that will hit bookstores in December. In addition, the Censored Press and Triangle Square Books for Young Readers recently published The Media and Me. It contains critical thinking skills, practical tools and real-life perspectives, intended to help young adult readers become independent media users.
Hosted by Attorneys Heidi Boghosian and Marjorie Cohn
—-
Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, NSA Spying, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Uncategorized, Violations of U.S. and International Law
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change
Today we speak with University of Wisconsin history professor Alfred McCoy about his new book “To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change.” The United States of America has been governing the globe now for 80 years, since World War II. This is about to end. By 2030, China will have the world’s largest economy and hold more riches than the U.S., which is deeply in debt.
The America we know will change drastically as a world power just as the previous world powers, the British, and before them the Dutch, and before them the Spanish and the Portuguese, all saw their empires end.
Climate change will upend the world. It has already started. The effects of climate change on the population of the world, especially China, will be catastrophic. The great coastal city of Shanghai, where 18 million people reside, will sink, uprooting millions of the 400 million Chinese people in the North China Plain.
What can we learn from the demise of the great world powers in the past? Where is the United States headed and how soon? What might be done to ameliorate this dire future? Only a prodigious historian could undertake to answer these questions.
Guest – Alfred W McCoy holds the Fred Harvey Harrington chair of history at the University of Wisconsin. He has written 20 books, including “The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia,” for which he became well-known, and recently, “In the Shadows of the American Century.”
—–
The Federalist Society, Charles Koch, The Bradley Foundation and The U.S. Supreme Court
The nation is still reeling from the Trump administration’s assaults to the rule of law, and their ripple effects on democratic institutions. But these attacks were the result of strategic planning over decades, and the handiwork of networks of well-funded think tanks and lobbyists. Some of the country’s richest and most conservative individuals are, with so-called Dark Money, anonymously supporting these efforts.
Chief among these forces is the Federalist Society. Not well known until recently, the Society has worked quietly since the Reagan administration to overhaul the Supreme Court into a bastion of conservatism. Enriched with Dark Money, it’s had an outsized impact on the composition of the federal and the Supreme Court. Recently, we’ve witnessed how hard-fought social gains of the 20th century have been taken away from Americans, and landmark Supreme Court decisions have been overruled such as Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to reproductive freedom, and Lemon v. Kurtzman, guaranteeing the separation of church and state.
Guest – Attorney Lisa Graves, is the founder, director, and editor-in-chief of True North Research. Her analysis of such research has been cited by every major newspaper in the country. She has served as a senior advisor in all three branches of government. Lisa served as chief counsel for the US Senate Judiciary Committee for Senator Patrick Leahy. She was also a career deputy assistant attorney general the US Department of Justice. Lisa has spent the past 12 years examining the impact of dark money on judicial selection.
Hosted by Attorneys Michael Smith, Marjorie Cohn and Heidi Boghosian
—————————————————-
CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Surveillance, Violations of U.S. and International Law, Whistleblowers
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Project Blueprint: Haiti
Haiti is a nation in crisis, spiraling out of control since last year’s assassination of its president, Jovenet Moise. The government has cratered, and 200 violent gangs have seized control. There’s no fuel, and food and water are hard to come by. Businesses and schools are shuttered and hospitals, banks, and grocery stores teeter on the brink of closure. Clean water is scarce, and Haiti faces another cholera outbreak. An estimated one million people are starving in the middle of Haiti’s biggest city. Kidnappings, human trafficking, homicides and sexual and gender-based violence are rampant.
Last week, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution demanding an immediate end to violence and criminal activity in Haiti. It calls for sanctions on groups and individuals threatening peace and stability in the impoverished nation. The sanctions resolution implicated Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, whose gang has blockaded a central fuel terminal. Cherizier is a former police officer leading a group of gangs known as the G9 Family and Allies. He now faces asset freeze, an arms embargo and a travel ban.
Institute For Justice and Democracy In Haiti
Guest – Human rights attorney Brian Concannon, Executive Director of Project Blueprint, and the founder and former Executive Director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. Brian has been qualified as an expert witness on conditions in the country of Haiti in more than 40 cases in courts both in the United States and Canada.
—-
A Century of Repression: The Espionage Act and Freedom of the Press
For more than a century, the 1917 Espionage Act has been used by the United States government to target critics of its foreign and military policy. From suppressing criticism of U.S. participation in World War I to present-day attempts to silence whistleblowers, political dissidents and journalists who expose our nation’s war crimes, the Espionage Act is a dangerous weapon in the federal government’s legal arsenal. It has been employed to limit freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of information.
In their new book, A Century of Repression: The Espionage Act and Freedom of the Press, Ralph Engelman and Carey Shenkman trace the use of the Espionage Act against Eugene Debs, Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange, among others. During World Wars I and II, the Act was primarily directed at political opposition to government policies. During the Cold War, it was used to criminalize leaks, manipulate the flow of information, and mold public opinion. And during the “War on Terror,” the Act has been used as a means to combat digital disclosure and journalism.
Journalist Julian Assange, founder and publisher of WikiLeaks, is currently locked up in a maximum security prison in London while the Biden administration attempts to have him extradited to the United States to stand trial on Espionage Act charges that could result in 175 years in prison. The basis for the indictment against him is WikiLeaks’ revelation of U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Guest – Carey Shenkman is a constitutional lawyer and litigator focusing on freedom of expression, transparency and technology. He serves on the panel of experts at Columbia University’s Global Freedom of Expression Program, and consults on media rights issues before the United Nations and around the world.
Hosted by Attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Marjorie Cohn and Julie Hurwitz
————————————–
Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Violations of U.S. and International Law, Whistleblowers
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Lawsuit Against CIA Filed By Journalists and Lawyers For Alleged Spying During Assange Visits
Journalist Julian Assange, co-founder of WikiLeaks, is in a London prison fighting extradition to the United States. Donald Trump’s CIA director Mike Pompeo was angered by the 2017 WikiLeaks revelation of the CIA’s “Vault 7” program (whereby the CIA was able to tap into people’s cell phones and smart TVs, turning them into listening devices). The Trump administration filed an indictment against Assange which takes aim at him and WikiLeaks for their 2010 exposure of U.S. war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
The Biden administration is pursuing Assange’s extradition and prosecution. If he is extradited, tried and convicted, Assange could receive 175 years in prison.
When Assange was living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London under a grant of asylum, the CIA hired UC Global, a private security company, to spy on Assange and his visitors and turn over images from the cellphones and laptops of lawyers, journalists and doctors to the CIA.
On August 15, some of the lawyers and journalists who visited Assange sued the CIA and Pompeo in US District Court for violation of their Fourth Amendment rights. They are requesting money damages, an injunction to prevent the CIA from revealing their private communications, and the purging of CIA files of this information.
The lawsuit against the CIA was filed by The Roth Law Firm in New York City.
Guest Attorney Richard Roth, the lead lawyer who represents the plaintiffs. Highly regarded for his successful and creative representation, Roth’s clients include celebrities, nationally recognized artists, singers, actors, songwriters and Hall of Fame and all-star athletes, directors, producers and professional sports organizations. Roth worked in the U.S. Attorney’s office and interned for a judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeal. The recipient of numerous awards, Roth is a frequent media commentator .
—-
Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia, and the Failure of America’s War on Terror
September 11 will mark the 21st anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by 19 hijackers. They provided a pretext for the US’s 20-year war in Afghanistan and its subsequent invasion of Iraq, an illegal US war of aggression which was based on a lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. That war killed more than 1 million people.
Today we rebroadcast the Law And Disorder interview we did with retired Florida Senator, the courageous Bob Graham. Graham did more than anyone to expose the connection between the horrific criminal attacks and the complicity of the Saudi government.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been a US ally in the Middle East for decades. Twenty-one years ago, Saudi officials gave financial, logistical, and other support to the 9/11 hijackers. Fifteen of the 19 men were Saudis.
This explosive history was documented in 2002 in the 28-page final section of the report of The Joint Commission of Inquiry of the Senate and the House, which Senator Graham chaired. These 28 pages were hidden and not declassified and released until July 15, 2016. They were released because of the efforts of Senator Graham and the families of the 9/11 victims. By blocking the release of these pages, Senator Graham states, the US government sent a message to the Saudi government that “they can do anything.”
Graham’s prediction was borne out by the 2018 assassination of the journalist and Saudi citizen Jamal Khashoggi who was murdered and dismembered in the Saudi Arabian embassy in Turkey, by order of Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Nevertheless, last month, President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia to meet with Mohammed bin Salman and greeted him not with a customary handshake but with a collegial fist bump. This occurred despite Biden’s earlier declaration that “Khashoggi was in fact murdered and dismembered and I believe at the order of this crown prince.” Oil and arm sales are the reasons why the United States continues to embrace Saudi Arabia as a close ally. Saudi Arabia has the second largest supply of reserve oil in the world. The US needs it now because of Russia’s war in Ukraine. According to the US State Department statement of May 11, 2022, “Saudi Arabia is the United States‘ largest foreign military sales (FMS) customer with more than $100 billion in FMS cases.”
Law and Disorder co-hosts Heidi Boghosian and Michael Smith interviewed Senator Bob Graham before the missing 28 pages of the 9/11 report were finally released. These pages confirmed Senator Graham‘s belief that the hijackers could not have pulled off the operation alone. It reveals that the hijackers were part of a support network involving the Saudi monarchy and government which helped plan, pay for, and execute the complicated 9/11 plot.
Senator Graham has written the book “Intelligence Matters: the CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia, and the Failure of America’s war on Terror.” It provides a candid insight into US and Saudi relations.
Guest – Senator Bob Graham is the former two-term governor of Florida and served for 18 years in the US Senate in addition to 12 years in the Florida Legislature for a total of 38 years of public service. As governor and senator, Graham was a centrist, committed to bringing his colleagues together behind programs that serve the broader public interest. He was recognized by the people of Florida when he received an 83% approval rating as he concluded eight years as governor. Bob Graham retired from public service in January 2005.
—————————————-
