Law and Disorder January 16, 2012

Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Update:

  • Michael Smith: Newt Gingrich Attacks Capitalism

—

Occupy Wall Street Parody Papers Spark Legal Action From Big Newspapers

Occupy Wall Street Newspapers such as The Occupied Wall Street Journal or The Occupied Chicago Tribune have prompted lawyers to take Occupy protesters to court. In Chicago, a law firm is attempting to prevent the OWS movement from using The Occupied Chicago Tribune.  We’re joined today by attorney Michael Deutsch with the People’s Law Office who has been involved with this issue in Chicago.

Attorney Michael Deutsch:

  • The Chicago Tribune contacted some of the OWS people and threatened to shut down their website and facebook page and to go into federal court and sue them for trademark infringement.
  • They said the word “Chicago Tribune” is a trademark that belongs solely to the Chicago Tribune and no one else can use it for any purpose or any way.
  • Even if they do sue them I think the publicity not be good for the tribune and good for the occupy people.
  • There is the Lanham Trademark Act that protects them from people appropriating them.
  • There’s also this Dilution Act which prevents people from using or diluting their trademark by using it some unnecessary or dismissive way.
  • When the people of Occupy were first contacted they were fearful of being sued by the Chicago Tribune.
  • They offered to change it to the Occupy Chicago Times but they turned it down and said you can’t use any name that references a newspaper.
  • With Peter Weiss’s help we realized this is a classic parody case, that’s basic First Amendment rights.
  • The law isn’t that clear but the courts usually balance whether there will confusion of the name against First Amendment rights.
  • In their masthead they’re now saying they’re not affiliated with the Chicago Tribune Corporation.
  • Their website is still up, facebook is still up, they haven’t gone to court, so maybe they realize for us its a win / win situation.
  • If we go to court we’re going to win on the legal grounds, plus we’re going to get a lot of publicity.

Guest – Attorney Michael Deutsch, partner with the Peoples Law Office.

—–

Inside the CIA Black Site in Bucharest

Reporters for German network ARD’s Panorama news magazine and the Associated Press have pieced together key details surrounding the CIA’s operation of a black site in Bucharest, Romania. AP’s Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo write:
In northern Bucharest, in a busy residential neighborhood minutes from the center of Romania’s capital city, is a secret that the Romanian government has tried for years to protect. For years, the CIA used a government building — codenamed Bright Light — as a makeshift prison for its most valuable detainees. There, it held Al-Qaida operatives Khalid Sheik Mohammad, the mastermind of 9/11, and others in a basement prison until 2006, the year some were sent to Guantánamo Bay, according to former U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the location and inner workings of the prison.

John Goetz:

  • We’ve had a description of the CIA site, which is where one of the secret prisons were located.
  • We had a description from some that worked there.
  • The prison we’re talking about was used by the CIA in 2004 / 2005.
  • The CIA secret prison was held in a Romanian government organization which gets called either ORNSS or NSA.
  • It’s an organization that is used to get Romania up to speed on NATO classification rules.
  • It’s a building that has a big NATO flag on top of it.
  • In the back section of the building is where the secret prison was located.
  • What I understand is that in Poland, when Bush came over, right after  the beginning of the Iraq War.
  • When they didn’t find weapons of mass destruction, he was there in May and early June 2003.
  • We know that Al-Nashiri in his various times in CIA prisons, that his family members, I believe his mother was threatened with rape. He was water boarded, a drill was used on him.
  • There was a mock execution, things like that. We’re not exactly sure what happened in Poland and Bucharest.
  • There’s a little known site in Bosnia, that was used in days and weeks, right after 9-11.
  • In Bagram, there’s a military prison there and there’s a CIA prison.
  • I do know that in Africa there are prisons that run under a new model, where the state runs the prison and is quarterbacked, is the expression that’s used by the CIA who asks questions through others.
  • It makes it easier to deny.  Many people think . . .oh, the secret prison story is over.
  • The facts are that outside of flight logs and some locations of prisons, no one really knows what happens inside these places.
  • No one knows how they were run, no one knows perimeter security, how food was brought in, it remains a real black box in American history.

Guest – John Goetz, reporter with the German network ARD’s Panorama news magazine.

—–

70th Anniversary of the First Smith Act Prosecution: Proto-Thought Crime Legislation

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the first Smith Act trial of revolutionaries accused of wanting to overthrow the government. The law was intended to destroy the 100,000-strong American Communist Party however, the Smith Act was first used against the much smaller, revolutionary rival to the Communist Party, the Socialist Workers Party.  Our returning guest, author and activist Joe Allen writes about this 70th anniversary.  The Alien Registration Act of 1940 is also known as the Smith Act after its sponsor Rep. Howard Smith of Virginia, a Democrat and leader of the anti-labor bloc in the House of Representatives. The Smith Act became the legal weapon against critics of the government and stipulates that:

Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof–

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

Joe Allen:

  • For many people in the United States, the defense of civil liberties, has always been an important and constant feature of our history and most of that time the defense of civil liberties has not been primarily against vigilantism, or rogue elements of the government or corrupt public officials. While that’s an important part of that, it has always been dealing with the actual laws that have been attempting to undermine civil liberties most of the time they’ve been federal laws.
  • You can go back to the Alien Sedition Act of the Adams Administration, the Espionage Act of WWI. They were always used against opponents of the government and not spies as they were sold to people.
  • James Canon was one of the most important figures in American Socialist history, his life traverse the history of the American far left.
  • He began in the IWW. The radical militant trade union that organized the most oppressed sector of American workers.
  • He was a founding member and later a national chair of the American Communist Party.  Like many Wobblies and members of the Communist Party he was very concerned of the civil liberties of radicals and trade union organizers and was the head organizer of International Labor Defense in the 1920s.
  • Canon developing a criticism of and his descent within the American Communist Party as the ILD moved away from its original mission and Canon himself to begin along with a number of significant figures of the American Communist Party and other people who sided with Trotsky in the dispute with Stalin over not only the Soviet Union also the International Communist Movement. He was the founder of early American Trotskyism in the 1920s and 1930s.
  • It was the broad layer of people who were ultimately indicted under the Smith Act in 1941 primarily for advocating the overthrow of the United States government.
  • Smith Act – Proto-Thought Crime Legislation
  • It’s also in a sense a response to a dispute inside the labor movement.
  • The first that a prosecutor tries to do is get a jury that is predisposed of the prosecution and not the defense.
  • That’s one of the great travesties of the Smith Act, not only can you be indicted by the things you do but by the things you say.
  • In that sense it really is a thought-control crime.
  • The most important part of the Smith Act in this country is it effectively destroyed the left in this country during the late 1940s and the early 1950s.

Guest – Joe Allen, a frequent contributor to the International Socialist Review and a long-standing activist, based in Chicago.

——————————————

Law and Disorder January 9, 2012

Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Gaza, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Ten Year Anniversary of Guantanamo Bay Prison

Co-host Michael Ratner and president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights gives listeners an overview of the habeas corpus legal battles to close Guantanamo Bay prison and an in depth look at the corrosive effect the offshore prison has had on civil rights, and the U.S. Constitution. Despite the fact that the U.S. government has itself cleared more than half of these men for release, and despite President Obama’s promise on his second day in office to close Guantánamo within a year, it has been almost twelve months since anyone has been released.

This is the longest period of time that has elapsed since the prison’s opening without a single person being set free.The Obama administration has also extended some of the worst aspects of the Guantánamo system by continuing indefinite detentions without charge or trial, employing illegitimate military commissions to try some suspects, and blocking accountability for torture.

—-

International People’s Tribunal on “War Crimes and Other Violations of International Law

International People’s Tribunal on “War Crimes and Other Violations of International Law” to be held on January 14, 2012 at 12 pm at Columbia Law School.  The event will provide an excellent opportunity for students interested in  gaining an understanding the theory and the practical application of international law in the real world.

Attorney Roger Wareham:

  • The genesis of the tribunal began during the intervention in Libya.
  • Back in May the December 12th movement always has a celebration of Malcolm X’s birthday, May 19.
  • This is part an ongoing campaign to re-colonize the African continent.
  • Libya was important to that for a number reasons. Libya has some of the best crude oil in the world that requires the least amount of production in terms of transforming it into gasoline.
  • Col. Gaddafi stood for the proposition that there would be a United States of Africa.
  • Libya had the highest standard of living on the African continent.
  • What we hope to come out of this is fashion a petition to take before the International Criminal Court.
  • The plan is we’ll going to take at least a 400 people strong delegation to the Hague in June to present a petition to the prosecutor, requesting they prosecute the heads of NATO, Britain, Canada, Italy, for war crimes.
  • Saturday January 14, 2012 / Columbia University Law School / 435 West 116th Street / 718-398-1766 / iptribunal2012@gmail.com

Guest – Roger Wareham, lawyer and political activist of over four decades. He is a member of the December 12th Movement, an organization of African people which organizes in the Black and Latino community around human rights violations, particularly police terror. Wareham is also the International Secretary-General of the International Association Against Torture (AICT), a non-governmental organization that has consultative status before the United Nations.

—-

 

Cornell and The Technion of Israel To Build Campus On Governor’s Island

As many listeners may know, Cornell University is joining with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in a plan to build a campus in New York City.  Critics however, point out Technion’s involvement with the Israeli Defense Force in the development of repressive technology that would further perpetuate crimes against Palestinians. Through cooperative research with Israeli defense companies such as Elbit, Rafael, McGill and Concordia, Technion is involved in asymmetrical robotic warfare with faceless human targets who can be killed by remote control.

To talk more about this, we’re joined today by David Klein,  a professor at California State University in Northridge and a member of the Organizing Committee of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

Professor David Klein:

  • It is a collaboration between Cornell University and Technion which is like Israel’s MIT.
  • There’s a 350 million dollar grant from a philanthropist, which has been supplemented with 100 million dollars in public money.
  • I’m a member of the Organizing Committee of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. 
  • The demands that we have are ending the occupation and colonization all Arab lands and dismantling the apartheid wall.
  • Recognizing the fundamental rights of Arab / Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality.
  • Respecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and property as stipulated in UN resolution 194.
  • Technion is deeply complicit with Israel’s military and provides the military with technology to carry out ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
  • Participants in a joint military and university program for science students, who will later be integrated into the Army’s research and development units, wear uniforms throughout their years of study.
  • It’s particularly strong in developing robotic weapons systems, which include aerial drones, and unmanned combat vehicle technology.
  • I think Bloomberg is supportive of the apartheid system in Israel. He wouldn’t view this as a problem like much of the rest of the world does.
  • The crime of apartheid is an international crime against humanity.
  • In addition to aerial drones, Technion makes the Black D9 Bulldozer, it makes the Stealth UVA Drone, which is a drone that can fly almost 3000km without refueling.
  • It’s making something called the Dragonfly UVA mini-drone, which is a tiny drone with a 9 inch wingspan. It can fly into people’s bedroom windows and kill em.
  • Technion is involved in asymmetrical robotic warfare with faceless human targets who can be killed by remote control.
  • Israel is arguably the most racist country at this time, due to the apartheid system that it has.

Guest – David Klein, member of the Organizing Committee of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (www.usacbi.org), and is a professor of mathematics at California State University, Northridge (CSUN).  He received  his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Cornell University. His professional interests include mathematical physics, climate science, and mathematics education in the public schools.  He is the faculty advisor for the campus student groups, Students for Justice in Palestine and the CSUN Green Party.  David Klein’s website

——

CCR Lawsuit: Stop and Frisk NYC

Last year, a federal judge rejected a move by the City of New York to stop a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights challenging the New York City Police Department’s Stop and Frisk policy. Judge Shir Scheindlin pointed out the seriousness of numerous claims that the NYPD disproportionately and illegally targeting communities of color.   In 2009 New York City, a record 576,394 people were stopped, 84 percent of whom were Black and Latino residents — although they comprise only about 26 percent and 27 percent of New York City’s total population respectively. The year 2009 was not an anomaly. Ten years of raw data obtained by court order from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) show that stop-and-frisks result in a minimal yield of weapons and contraband.

Attorney Darius Charney:

  • Stop and Frisk is a city wide epidemic.  We’ve gone from 90 thousand in 2002 to 700 thousand this year. They’re stopping 2000 people a day, primarily young males of color but also females of color.
  • There are really know criteria as far as we can tell. There are guidelines that have been laid out by the courts in the last forty years. The police don’t follow those guidelines. They’re suppose to reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.
  • They’re stopping people for what’s called “furtive movements” whatever that means.
  • The other one is “high crime neighborhood.” The court had ruled that this is unconstitional, you can’t use the basis of a high crime neighborhood to stop and search them.
  • Yet again, the police are doing that hundreds of thousands of times a year.
  • The two allegations we made is that the NYPD has a widespread policy and practice of stopping and frisking New Yorkers without reasonable suspicion which violates the fourth Amendment of the Constitution and then on the basis of race which violates the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
  • The blacker or browner that neighborhood is, the more stops that are going to be done in that neighborhood.
  • The other part is the weapon recovery rate, the police department justifies this program by saying, we’re trying to get guns off the street.
  • Last year in 2010, they stopped over 600 thousand people. The number of guns recovered in those 600 thousand stops was 1200 guns.
  • Relief sought in class action suit: Outside independent oversight of the police department.

Guest –  Darius Charney,  senior staff attorney in the Racial Justice/Government Misconduct Docket.  He is currently lead counsel on Floyd v. City of New York, a federal civil rights class action lawsuit challenging the New York Police Department’s unconstitutional and racially discriminatory stop-and-frisk practices, and Vulcan Society Inc. v. the City of New York, a Title VII class action lawsuit on behalf of African-American applicants to the New York City Fire Department which challenges the racially discriminatory hiring practices of the FDNY.

——————————————-

Law and Disorder December 26, 2011

Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Updates:

—-

National Defense Authorization Act Update

Co-host Michael Ratner expounds on National Defense Authorization Act.  The Act has passed both houses, despite Obama threatening to veto the Act. Obama thought that various provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act concerning detentions, might impinge on his authority as the executive.  Obama was more concerned about Congress telling the President how to treat those captured or kidnapped in “war on terror.”

—-

UPDATE: Political Prisoner Lynne Stewart

Political prisoner and good friend, Lynne Stewart continues to uplift people around her while serving a 10 year sentence at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth Texas.  Lynne, as many listeners know, was prosecuted for representing her client the blind Egyptian Sheik,  Omar Abdel Rahman. In trying to negotiate a return to Egypt out of solitary confinement, she made a press release public.  She was tried and found guilty for materially aiding “terrorism.”  She received a 2 and half year sentence, instead of 30 years that the government wanted. Then, the Second Circuit Court sent the case back to the Judge.  Judge John G Koeltl sentenced defendant, Lynne Stewart: 120 months incarceration on five counts to be served concurrently.  Lynne Stewart is now 72 years old, she’s a breast cancer survivor with other pending health issues.  She’s called them the usual brush fires of aging, yet many are concerned.  SAVE THE DATE FEBRUARY 28-29

Ralph Poynter:

  • She is looking forward to her attorney Herald Price Fahringer to presenting to the court once again testing the law.  We are planning a Occupy the Court Room and the park, the night before on February 28 through to the 29.
  • The lawyer will be talking about the laws used to extend Lynne’s sentence. He said any lawyer that wouldn’t want this case, doesn’t understand law. He looked forward to doing it.  He went for a one hour visit with Lynne at MCC and stayed all day.
  • No matter what happens, Lynne will continue to fight for her license.
  • She’s is Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. Big airbase there. It’s an enormous prison, but she’s in the hospital ward.
  • Even though I’d been on the list visiting her (in New York prison) I was not on the list (Texas prison)
  • I just went down there, and she said, you’re not on the list but I’m going to go to floor supervisor and she says, you just come.
  • That Saturday morning I was in front of the prison and they told me I was not eligible to go in. They said it was like an airbase, so I walked outside the gate and stood there. The guard came over and said what are doing here? I said, I’m waiting.
  • Around 10:30 an official car came down and said you’re denied admission.
  • I said, I understand, but I’m going to wait.
  • Around Noon, the woman came back and she says, fill out an application.
  • She said I knew if you fought from the outside I was going to fight from the inside and it only took 4 hours.
  • You can’t imagine after sleeping on a 2 inch exercise mat on a steel platform for a year, and they showed me the hospital bed.
  • She is Miss S, in the prison. Everybody brings her their papers.
  • She heard noise outside her room at 5 o’clock in the morning, they were lined up some with papers stacked 3 feet high.
  • There is an oxymoron – prison health care. There is no such thing.
  • She’s lost about 45 pounds.
  • She’s very sick, she can’t sit down. In the visiting room she has to sit sideways.
  • Thanks again for all of the people sending bucks for me to go see Lynne.
  • Write her a letter. The letters pick her up.
  • They gave her medicine and she couldn’t get out of bed. We have a system now when they give her medicine she calls me up. I call my daughter the doctor and she tells me whether Lynne should take it or not take it.

 

Guest – Ralph Poynter, Lynne’s husband, father, activist. Please write to Lynne Stewart – LYNNE STEWART / 53504-054 FMC CARSWELL / FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTER / P.O. BOX 27137 / FORT WORTH, TX 76127

—–
Photo by flickr user G20Voice

Law and Disorder December 19, 2011

Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Updates:

—-

Appeal Denied In Holy Land Foundation Case

Last week, the Fifth Circuit dismissed the appeal for the Holy Land Foundation case. This decision affirmed the conviction of Ghassan Elashi, the co-founder of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. As many listeners may know, the Holy Land Foundation was considered the largest Muslim charity in the United States before the Bush administration shut it down after the September 11 attacks. In May 2009, a federal judge in Dallas handed down sentences ranging from 15 to 65 years in prison to five of the charity’s founders and former fundraisers. Over a year before, a federal jury returned guilty verdicts on all 108 counts against the Foundation and the five former officers on charges of providing material support to Hamas after the U.S. government designated it a foreign terrorist organization in 1995. During that trial, the prosecution used unrelated video of suicide bombers to emotionally sway the jury.

Ghassan Elashi was then sentenced to 65 years in prison for giving material support in the form of humanitarian aid to Zakat committees – Palestinian charities in the West Bank and Gaza, that prosecutors were alleging were fronts for Hamas. Ghassan is being held in the Communications Management Unit in Marion, Illinois.

Noor Elashi:

  • One of the arguments the defense lawyers made is that USAID, which is a government agency sent money to the same exact Zakat Committees which are these distribution centers in Palestine that the Holy Land Foundation sent charity to.
  • That was their main charge, they were charged with giving material support in the form of humanitarian aid to Zakat Committees which the prosecutors were claiming were fronts for Hamas.
  • In their appeal, one of their main arguments is that these Zakat Committees received money from many NGOs including an American agency.
  • Another argument in the appeal was for the first time in US history, an expert witness who was an Israeli intelligence officer who testified under a fake name was allowed to testify under a pseudonym.
  • My father recently had a phone call ban, because he put his name on a yoga mat, and it was considered destruction of government property.
  • Our defense attorneys are not going to quit. They will ask the entire panel of appellate judges to re-hear the case, if that is denied, they’ll take the case to the Supreme Court.
  • The foreign policy and politics of this country have been very favorable to Israel.
  • FreedomToGive.com

Guest – Noor Elashi – the daughter of Holy Land Foundation prisoner Ghassan Elashi. She is a writer based in Dallas, Texas. After receiving a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of North Texas, she worked for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. In July 2008, she won the 3rd place Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Award for her manuscript titled “Displaced,” which she plans to expand into a memoir about the displacement of three generations of Palestinians: her grandmother, father, and herself. She can be reached at noorelashi@gmail.com.

—–

Event In Philadelphia Marks 30 Years of  Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Incarceration

On December 7, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office announced that it will not seek another death sentence for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Under Pennsylvania law, Mr. Abu-Jamal will now be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas.   The National Lawyers Guild commented that while there is overwhelming doubt about what the state claims to be the facts in this case, even those allegations never supported a capital charge. That it has taken three decades to remove death from the table is astonishing.

The Guild has long maintained that Mr. Abu-Jamal is entitled to a new and fair trial. Procedural irregularities plagued his case from the outset, including blatant constitutional violations, from the judge allowing the prosecution to admit evidence of his affiliation with the Black Panther Party, in violation of the Supreme Court case Dawson v. Delaware, to the use of a faulty sentencing form that misled jurors during the penalty phase, in violation of the Supreme Court case Mills v. Maryland.

A great deal of relevant evidence has never been reviewed by any court, much less presented to a jury. This evidence includes several photographs of the crime scene which impeach the testimony of a police officer who was a key eyewitness and proof that another individual was present, and fled, the scene of the shooting.

Mr. Abu-Jamal was charged at a time when, it was later revealed, there was extensive corruption within the Philadelphia Police Department. In 1995, then-District Attorney Lynne Abraham promised the city that she would dismiss any case in which there was evidence of police perjury or purposeful misreporting of facts. Given the history of police misconduct in Philadelphia when Abu-Jamal was arrested, and the specific instances of police perjury in his case, the National Lawyers Guild has urged current District Attorney Seth Williams to act on his predecessor’s unfulfilled pledge.

Two days after the DA’s announcement, and commemorating International Human Rights Day, a free forum was held at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia to mark the 30th anniversary of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s incarceration, justice.  Twelve-hundred Mumia supporters met to reinvigorate the movement for justice for Abu-Jamal and to say no to life in prison for the political prisoner. “Because for 30 years Abu-Jamal has been unconstitutionally imprisoned in death row torture, justice for Mumia will not be served by life imprisonment, but by freedom,” said Dr. Johanna Fernandez, professor of history at Baruch College of the City University of New York and a co-producer of the forum. Fernandez wrote and produced a documentary, which debuted at the Constitution Center in 2010 on Abu-Jamal’s case. “Justice on Trial: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal,” examines evidence pointing to Abu-Jamal’s innocence and exposes the inequities of the American justice system.

Speakers: 

The December 9 forum was co-sponsored by Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal, the National Lawyers Guild and International Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

———————————

Law and Disorder November 21, 2011

Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Truth to Power

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Updates:

  • What Does OWS Mean? – Michael Steven Smith
  • Liberty Square Symbolic, At The Foot Of Capitalism
  • Redistribution of Money and Power
  • Nationally Coordinated Bust: Oakland Mayor Says She Was On Conference Call With 18 Mayors
  • Michael Smith’s Story Of Liberty Square Police Raid
  • NYTimes Candid With Spoils Of Libya Invasion
  • Who Killed Che? How The CIA Got Away With Murder

—


Legal Fallout From OWS Raid In New York City

Very early last Tuesday morning, teams of New York City Police in full riot gear descended upon the 2 acre park known by protesters as Liberty Square, home of Occupy Wall Street.  Hundreds were arrested as police and bulldozers dismantled and tore down tents, confiscated gear, computers and clothes.  Plain clothes construction workers assisted in filling large dump trucks with personal belongings and equipment from the encampment.  The massive eviction is one of many reported across the country in past weeks.

Attorney Danny Alterman:

  • There’s been a core group of 20 or 30 people working on issues that effect the occupiers down on Wall Street.
  • We talked strategy, we created a document that would decide and get us into court in the morning.
  • We are arranged to meet Judge Billings at 6AM
  • We wanted to judge to issue a temporary restraining order which means that the police could not continue to evict people and order them back into the park with their belongings.
  • We got a signed order from the judge to let our clients back in.
  • We served Brookfield Properties which is the owner of the park, the city of New York through the corporation council, and the police department by fax with a copy of the order.
  • What this reminded me of is was what had happened precisely in 1971 when the Attica Massacre happened. When we got a court order to go in because people were dying and getting shot, inside and the prison authorities refused to open up for medics and lawyers, causing the death of other people.
  • Finally I said to one guy who was getting on me and getting on another lawyer that was there. I said listen, this reminds me of Attica, he said I’ve never been to Attica, I said we can make those arrangements.
  • I said, you realize you’re violating a court order, and in contempt of court.
  • Mayor Bloomberg in the course of us getting an order and finding out about it, had decided to close the park, which was the complete opposite of what the court said which was to re-open the park.
  • Homeland Security was definitely there, you can tell by the crew cuts and the shoes.
  • There was a temporary restraining order issued at 6:30 AM. We didn’t think Judge Billings would stay on the case. She didn’t. We went back at 11:30AM, and once a judge was assigned had about a 2 hour argument.
  • We received papers as we walked into court from the city which contained a affidavit which is a legal document swearing to issues of public safety, health issues, other kinds of issues, that was clearly prepared before they evicted the protesters 10 hours before.
  • What this means is that the city knew in preparing these papers that there was going to be a legal challenge.
  • Brookfield Properties a descendant from US Steel. This is direct descendant from US Steel.
  • We may be looking at 21st century speech assembling petitioning.
  • Its a privilege and an honor to represent these people and I think the people have the pulse of the country and its happening.

Guest – Civil rights attorney Danny Alterman, Danny is part of the  Liberty Park Legal Working Group.

———–

Global Capitalist Crisis and Long Term US Unemployment

Thousands around the country continue to stand in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement. The movement claims to defend the 99 percent of Americans against the wealthiest 1 percent who control 50 percent of the wealth in the United States.  Meanwhile, long term US unemployment is taking a heavy toll socially. The social costs are high, the stress, tension and anxiety within families, the costs of counseling, and much more. We discuss these topics with returning guest, economics professor Rick Wolff  who says, enormous wealth could be produced right now with the unused tools and raw materials put together with the nation’s unemployed people, we could rebuild our cities and infrastructure.

Professor Rick Wolff:

  • Debt is always a sign of something else. You go into debt because you see a need or opportunity for which you don’t have the money and so you either forego the need or opportunity or borrow.
  • If you see off the chart increases of debt like you do in the case of individuals in the last 30 years, or corporations and in the case of governments at a slow rate over the last 30 years, then you have to ask the question why?
  • The 1970s come along and that period of 150 years of rising wages is over. It’s over because the computer replaces large numbers of people they don’t need to be hired. Production is moving out of the United States.
  • Immigrants are flowing into the United States because the uneven development of the world economy, makes them poorer and the United States look more attractive.
  • Suddenly employers have the greatest of all possibilities, they don’t have to raise wages anymore.
  • Employers: If you’re not happy here, there’s a lot of other people that will be.
  • Meanwhile you’re drumming into the American people, you should live better, everybody should have more. . .
  • You put the American people into an impossible situation.  You might have been able to handle it by having a real political leadership in America. We didn’t have that conversation, no politician wanted to be the bearer of that bad news.
  • What can the American people do?  They did more work. You borrow money. Whenever there’s a debt, there’s a lender and a borrower. This is a strange game to blame the borrower.
  • Greece, now you have a situation that invites all kinds of corporations to make a decision.
  • When the Greek Drachma, their old currency disappears to be replaced by the Euro, all kinds of business decisions became different.
  • There was no border, you couldn’t have a tariff as you could before. Once you have a uniform currency you can’t do that. It’s like Tennessee erecting a tariff against products from Kentucky.
  • Who lent to the Greek government? Above all, the French and German banks.
  • It’s the banks that are making money because of the concentration of production in their country, with which they came to the poor countries and said hey, we got a lot of money you got a lot of need.
  • A lot of money has been made off of Greek debt. It’s not some gift to the folks in Greece.
  • As usual its a partnership and deciding that its all the fault of the Greeks as if the French and German banks didn’t make a fortune off of this.
  • Italy is now where Greece was approximately six to eight months ago.
  • The debt of Italy is four to five times the debt of Greece. Italy is the eight largest economy on this planet. They have over 2 trillion dollars of debt outstanding.  We sell a very important part of our output to the Europeans.
  • I would demand now, an immediate government employment program. A commitment by the United States government.

Guest –  Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. He also teaches classes regularly at the Brecht Forum in Manhattan.
————————

Law and Disorder November 7, 2011

Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Surveillance, Truth to Power

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Updates:

—-

 


Brooklyn Fair Food Festival Urges Trader Joe’s To Support Fair Labor Standards For Farm Workers.

Brooklyn, community members joined the Coalition of Immokalee Workers an organization of farm workers in Southern Florida to call on Trader Joe’s to live up to its public image as an ethical corporation by participating in the Campaign For Fair Food.  The Campaign seeks to improve wages and working conditions for Florida tomato pickers by calling on major buyers of tomatoes to pay a premium of one penny more per pound for their tomatoes, ensure that this penny is passed down directly to farmworkers, and work together with the CIW to establish and implement a code of conduct in their supply chains.  Sound gathered and interviews by Michael Ratner.

—

Wall Street Firms Spy On Protesters In Tax Funded Center

It was six years in the planning according to recently uncovered documents that show 150 million taxpayer dollars funding a round the clock surveillance security center in Lower Manhattan where Wall Street firms sit along side the NYPD. That’s right, high wage Wall Street firm workers will sit next to MTA, NYPD and Port Authority employees and monitor the near 3000 spy cameras installed in the area. Any individual can be tracked by the color of their clothes or face recognition with live feed cameras that also read license plates.  In her article Wall Street Firms Spy on Protesters in Tax-Funded Center, investigative journalist Pam Martens also focused on the corrupt alliance of indicted corporate firms merging with police to spy on law abiding citizens funded by tax payer money. Her latest article in Counterpunch titled Financial Giants Put New York City Cops On Their Payroll exposes how private Wall Street corporations are allowed to order a paid detail of New York City Police at an average of 37.00 an hour. The taxpayer again picks up the tab for training, uniforms and any law suit brought from “following illegal instructions from its corporate master.”

Pam Martens:

  • I had the benefit of managing my own client base, so Wall Street did not have the same type of leverage over me that it has over so many of its other workers.
  • About 10 years into my tenure, I started reading about the private justice system Wall Street had set up where both customers and employees had to waive their rights to the nation’s courts.
  • I started complaining and advocating against that. They were self policing, that was totally corrupt.
  • Then I started protesting in the streets, filed a large federal rights action, and testified at several venues, the SEC and the Federal Reserve.
  • The story is much more insidious than I first realized.  I came across a 60 Minutes expose on the counter-terrorism unit of the NYPD. At the very end of the piece there is a tour of the facility, the one that I’m talking about.
  • The Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center, which is jointly operated by Wall Street’s potential felons and the largest law enforcement police force in the country. It’s actually at 55 Broadway.
  • Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, sitting next to public sector employees.
  • It consists of 3 rows of computer terminals. 2 of those rows are dominated by Wall Street firms, the NYSE, the Federal Reserve and only one row has uniformed officers.
  • I called up the producer at 60 Minutes, and said you had to have seen all these people in civilian clothes.
  • The NYPD has used tax payer money to have one massive computer to look at all the individual feeds. That massive computer has artificial intelligence.
  • There is absolutely no explanation for why Wall Street firms get to sit there and have access confidential databases that belong to the NYPD.  I have 2 FOIA requests with the NYPD. Every detail of us is under surveillance.
  • There are some reports, they can zero in and read text messages on your cell phone.
  • These Wall Street firms that have committed crime after crime, after crime, they’re currently under 51 separate state and federal investigations for securities fraud and essentially looting the public.  They’re the partners, the potential felons, are the partners with the law enforcement.
  • Credit Suisse v. Billing, 551 U.S. 264 (2007), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which held that Congress’ creation of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) implicitly exempted the regulated securities industry from antitrust lawsuits under other existing laws. Justice Thomas dissented, arguing that the laws creating the SEC explicitly mention that securities regulations are in addition to, not instead of, existing law.

Guest – Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years. She spent the last decade of her career advocating against Wall Street’s private justice system, which keeps its crimes shielded from public courtrooms.  She has been writing on public interest issues for CounterPunch since retiring in 2006.   She has no security position, long or short, in any company mentioned in this article.

—————————————————————————————————-