It was April 13, 1873 in Louisiana when a small army of white ex-Confederate soldiers enraged by freedmen asserting their new rights killed more than 60 African Americans who had occupied a courthouse. Today we talk with author and journalist Charles Lane. His recent book is titled The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction. In the book, Lane uncovers a nearly forgotten historic post civil war massacre of African American men in Colfax, Louisiana and a white lawyer’s epic battle to bring the perpetrators to justice. Reviews call Lane’s book an electrifying piece of historical detective work that captures a gallery of characters from presidents to townspeople and re-creates the bloody days of Reconstruction. Lane discovered the Colfax Massacre case while covering the Supreme Court for The Washington Post.
Today we’re delighted to have Ann Ginger on the program, she’s a lawyer, teacher, writer, and political activist. She is the founder and the executive director of the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties, a think tank for human rights in Berkeley California. Here on Law and Disorder we’ve examine the practices and laws that have crippled civil and human rights in this country and now we take a look at ways law students and legal workers can bring them back.
Guest – Ann Ginger. Ann is Executive Director of Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, a center for peace law and human rights, with archives of historic cases. Founded in 1965, the Institute answers queries of clients and lawyers and trains interns to prepare reports on U.S. compliance with human rights treaties for submission to U.N. committees.
Ann learned early to use the law and history to work for peace and human rights, coming from an Irish Catholic, English Quaker, Russian Jewish, Midwestern newspaper family. As a lawyer, she won a civil liberties case in the U.S. Supreme Court. After her testimony as an expert witness on international law that applies in the U.S., a jury acquitted nuclear weapons protesters in Utah. She is now teaching Peace Law and Human Rights at San Francisco State University and long served on the Peace and Justice Commission that administers the Nuclear Free Zone Ordinance in Berkeley.
Here on Law and Disorder we’ve discussed how since December 2005, environmental activists in the United States have been targeted and handed unusually harsh prison sentences. It’s called Green Scare and more than a year ago the National Lawyer’s Guild sponsored an event titled Green Scare – How the Government Is Targeting Eco-Activists. Listen to it here.
We bring this up in context of the case involving Briana Waters. Acting as a lookout, she was accused of conspiring to set fire to the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture in 2001. This, despite evidence presented by the defense that she was 60 miles away at the time of the arson. Others claimed responsibility for the fire, but Ms. Waters, a 32 year old mother and violin teacher may face a mandatory minimum of 35 years in prison.
Federal “conspiracy law†is used often to prosecute drug dealers and is being used by prosecutors to take down individual environmental protesters. Once the judge accepts the charge of conspiracy, here-say is admissible making conspiracy very easy to prove in court.
Today we hear excerpts from the third part of the event An Innocent Man In Guantanamo: Five Years of My Life. That’s the title of the memoirs recently released by Murat Kurnaz who was detained at Guantanamo for five years. Kurnaz is a Turkish citizen and legal resident of Germany, he traveled to Pakistan to learn more about his Muslim faith and was later arrested at a checkpoint, handed to the United States and eventually taken to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Former US Army Muslim Chaplain of Guantanamo Bay, James Yee voices his concern about other secret prisons in Afghanistan and systematic abuse to prisoners involving IRF teams.
The event presented by Friends of the Library, brought together a panel of lawyers from the U.S. and Germany who fought for Murat’s release and a Guantanamo chaplain who was accused of espionage and imprisoned. The panel was moderated by our own Michael Ratner. Speakers include:
Baher Azmy – Professor at Seton Hall Law School, where he directs a civil rights clinic and teaches constitutional law. His litigation work on national security and human rights cases emerging from the “war on terror†include lawfulness of extraordinary rendition, torture and indefinite executive detention. In July 2004, Azmy began representation of Murat Kurnaz imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay until his release in August 2006.
Bernhard Docke – a lawyer since 1983, specializes in criminal law, since 1989 partner of the law firm “Dr. Heinrich Hannover und Partner†in Bremen, Germany. He has been a lawyer for Mr. Kurnaz since 2002.
Wallace Shawn – an Obie-winning playwright and a stage and screen actor. His plays include The Designated Mourner, Marie and Bruce, The Fever, and Aunt Dan and Lemon. He co-wrote and starred in the art-house classic My Dinner with Andre and he also performed in numerous Woody Allen films including Manhattan and Radio Days. Our Late Night and a Thought in Three Parts: Two Plays will be published in Spring 2008.
James Yee – the former US Army Muslim Chaplain of Guantanamo Bay. His book, For God And Country, Faith and Patriotism Under Fire, tells the story about being wrongly accused of espionage and imprisoned by the U.S. military. In 2004, the government dropped all charges against him and he received an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army.
Phillipe Sands – an international lawyer and a professor of law at University College London. He is the author of Lawless World and is frequently a commentator on news and current affairs programs including CNN, MSNBC and BBC World Service. Sands has been involved in many international cases, including the World Court trial of Slobodan Milosevic and the treatment of British detainees at Guantanamo Bay. His article in Vanity Fair “The Green Light,†looks at how high level members of the Bush administration pressured underlings to use torture tactics at Guantanamo. He is also the author of Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values.
Taking Back The Right To Dissent: The Case of the Bangor Six
Recently, jurors in the Case of the ‘Bangor Six’ brought back a decisive verdict of ‘not guilty.’ The six veterans for peace, anti war protesters were arrested in March of last year after refusing to leave the federal building where their senator, Republican Susan Collins has her office. The six activists were among 12 that say they were protesting Bush’s proposal to increase troops in Iraq to support a military strategy known s the surge and also urged Collins to vote against continued funding for the war. Collins did not vote against funding for the war and did not meet with activists. Six of the activists were later arrested. (Collins Watch)
Now, during this trial, the jury was allowed by the judge to decide whether the defendants believed that they were not guilty in making a conscious choice to break Maine law because they thought international law was being violated. The jurors decided unanimously that the protesters did believe they had the ‘license and privilege’ to act as they did, in rendering the ‘not guilty’ verdict.
Guest – Bar Harbor attorney Lynne Williams, also with Maine Lawyers for Democracy a group of 65 Maine lawyers, calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
List of Bangor Six – Jonathan Kreps, 57, of Appleton, Henry Braun, 77, of Wells, James Freeman, 59, of Verona, Dudley F. Hendrick, 66, of Deer Isle, Douglas Rawlings, 61, of Chesterville, and Robert Shetterly, 61, of Brooksville,
chose to go to trial. The other six pleaded guilty and paid fines.
We go now to hear two speeches from this year’s Left Forum Opening Plenary from author/ professor Adam Hochschild and writer/ filmmaker Naomi Klein author of The Shock Doctrine. The Left Forum was titled Cracks In The Edifice. The many panels at the 2008 Left Forum addressed and challenged the current economic and political catastrophes in the United States and discussed possibilities for social movements to build better world in its place.
In her speech, Naomi Klein discusses how the lack of response in the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are intentional strategies she calls “disaster capitalism.†At the 2008 Left Forum Naomi suggests that many in the United States have woken up to roughshod profiteering of disaster capitalism.
Guest: Jurgen Altmann. He’s studied physics at the University of Hamburg, Germany. Less-lethal weapons and acoustic weapons have been his primary focus lately. Altmann also examines the interactions between civilian and military technologies in aviation research and development. In recent years, he has studied military uses of, first, microsystems technologies and then nanotechnology, with a view towards preventive arms control. He is a co- founder of the German Research Association Science, Disarmament and International Security FONAS, and currently is a deputy speaker of the Committee Physics and Disarmament of the German Physical Society.
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Colorado ACLU: Early Legal Preparation For August Democratic National Convention, Submits FOIA Request On Denver DNC Budget.
We’ve talked with Jurgen Altman about the types of less lethal weaponry that could be used against protestors. We look now at the context in which these weapons could be deployed. In this election year, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Denver, Colorado will be hosting the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention respectively. In New York during the 2004 Republican National Convention, police violated the rights of thousands of protestors. The violations include roundups of demonstrators spying on non-violent political activists, the use of agent provacateurs and the faking of police video evidence. Sonic weapons were also present in the streets of New York City. For this election year of 2008, lawyers in both cities are working to prevent similar tactics.
Civil liberties and privacy concerns are raised as Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff announced the activation of a new domestic satellite surveillance program. Though the department says the program will not intercept communications, these powerful, high resolution satellites can now be used to view and track individuals, homes and vehicles domestically.
Critics cite that Chertoff’s statements mark a determination to coordinate military assets with domestic law enforcement, turning new or undeveloped technologies against Americans without public debate or consent.
Guest: Melissa Ngo, Senior Counsel and Director of EPIC’s Identification and Surveillance Project. EPIC is the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Melissa has focused on federal and state surveillance programs and their costs to civil liberties. She is also the author of a chapter entitled You Are Being Watched But Not Protected: The Myth of Security Under Camera Surveillance in the book “Intersection: Sidewalks & Public Space”
Former Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson was paroled March 17 after serving six years in prison related to the attempted bombings of LA police cars in the 1970s and the shooting of a customer during a bank robbery. The 61 year old Olsen was rearrested at LA International Airport shortly after her release after discovering that they had miscalculated her sentence by a year.
Olsen’s attorneys say she should be freed from prison immediately because California corrections officials had no authority to re-arrest her after she was paroled last week, her attorneys argued in a court motion filed today.The motion filed in Sacramento County Superior Court claims that Olson’s due process rights were violated when she was returned to prison Saturday to serve at least another year behind bars. According to the lawyers filing: Once an inmate is released on parole, the board can only suspend or revoke her parole. It has no legal authority to arrest her and re-incarcerate her.
“After being released from prison for five days, Olson was literally snatched by the board in the dark of night and imprisoned without notice, without a hearing and without an explanation,” her lawyers say in their motion. “Such an experience is certainly horrific and may have caused lasting psychological damage.”
Prosecutors and family members of the woman who was gunned down in the Carmichael bank robbery objected to Olson’s release from prison, prompting the corrections department to review her sentence and ultimately determine that she had been released too soon. The state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation began an internal affairs investigation Monday into what officials said was a clerical error that led to Olson’s release.
Officials said Olson was supposed to serve two years for the Sacramento County murder in addition to the 12 years she was to serve for the Los Angeles County crimes. Instead, her records showed that she was to serve the sentences at the same time. The SLA, an urban guerrilla group started in 1973, was best known for kidnapping Patty Hearst, heir to the media chain. The group also carried out bombings and bank robberies, and six of its members died during a shootout with Los Angeles police in 1974.
Guest: Susan B. Jordan, criminal defense lawyer and civil litigator. Susan is well known for her work in defending women charged with violent crimes and is credited with the creation of the battered spouse defense. Susan represented Sara Jane Olson (Kathleen Soliah), Los Angeles Superior Court, 1999-2002. This case involved the defense of Sara Jane Olson, captured after 23 years, alleged to be a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), charged with conspiracy to bomb police officers. Defendant entered pleas of guilty. Check out Susan’s noted cases here.
“However narrow and restricitive American bourgeois democracy was before 9/11, it’s jridical and institutional underpinnings have been transformed by the Bush Administration (with the complicity of the Democratic Party) intor what can now most accurately be described as a police state.”
We hear from our own Michael Steven Smith he was one of the speakers on the panel. We will hear from the other speakers in later programs, they include C. Clark Kissenger and Lynne Stewart.
Law and Disorder hosts were live in the studio with Naomi Wolf. Naomi Wolf is a feminist, social critic and political activist. The New York Times called her book, The Beauty Myth, one of the most important books of the 20th century. Wolf is the co-founder of The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, teaching young women to become leaders and agents of change. Naomi Wolf blog in the Huffington Post
Her latest book The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot is a call to return to the beliefs of our founding fathers. Wolf’s new book illustrates ten steps historically taken by leaders who are attempting to dismantle a democracy. Wolf jokingly called it the The Greatest Hits of Facism.
In The End of America, Wolf gives voice to the cause of every American patriot: the preservation of the Constitution and the liberties it embodies and protects.
“Recent history has profound lessons for us in the U.S. today about how fascist, totalitarian, and other repressive leaders seize and maintain power, especially in what were once democracies. The secret is that these leaders all tend to take very similar, parallel steps. The Founders of this nation were so deeply familiar with tyranny and the habits and practices of tyrants that they set up our checks and balances precisely out of fear of what is unfolding today. We are seeing these same kinds of tactics now closing down freedoms in America, turning our nation into something that in the near future could be quite other than the open society in which we grew up and learned to love liberty,†stated Wolf.
“Freedom and democracy†are two words we’ve been hearing from the right wing in this country for 25 years. In their quest to shore up support for the politics of wealth and privilege, the Right has organized patiently and consistently by focusing on a core ideology to amass a formidable base. The Right’s commentary on world affairs, morality, the state, and the economy, though, has had an overarching focus, namely to eliminate social equality as a legitimate public policy goal. Its success has resulted in one of the most dramatic, undemocratic, and insidious transfers of wealth and power in recent American history.
Guest – John Ehrenberg, author of the book “Servants of Wealth: The Right’s Assault on Economic Justice.†A professor of political science at Long Island University, in this, his third book, critically analyzes the rise of an ideologically coherent Right. He dissects their themes of military weakness, moral decay, racial anxiety, and hostility to social welfare to reveal their central organizing objective of protecting wealth and assaulting equality.
  
