CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Guantanamo, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Challenges Lawyers Face As Democratic Institutions Dismantled
What are the the challenges lawyers on the left face in this historic period? That is the concern of today’s show. Since 911 we have seen the consolidation of an authoritarian state. The radical right working over the last 30 years and funded by the Koch brothers and their billionaire allies, are strategic and have been very successful.
They now hold the reins of power in 33 states, the Senate, House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, and the presidency. Their ultimate goal is to “dismantle the administrative state“, which is their formulation for taking away every social benefit that we have earned since 1930s. To prevent us from fighting back they have restricted democracy with voter suppression and gerrymandering. The right wing Supreme Court has declared that corporations are people and have the right to unlimited amounts of corporate dark money. Our access to information has also been constricted. Five major corporations own all the major media. New algorithms by Google and Facebook restrict access to people looking for alternative media, like Law And Disorder Radio.
We are also seeing the dismantling of programs that benefit people and the hollowing out of the democratic rights necessary to defend them. Racism and dehumanization are employed to divide and conquer. But at the same time we have seen the growth of social movements with our movement attorneys right in there fighting as important auxiliaries. Since 911 and the passage of the Patriot Act government surveillance of our private lives and political affiliations has become pervasive.
Guest – Attorney Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan, President of the National Lawyers Guild.
Guest – Attorney Baher Azmy, the litigation director at the center for constitutional rights National Lawyers Guild – Chicago 1937 as an alternative to the all white American Bar Association. It’s gotten principle was announced: human rights over property rights. The center for constitutional rights was founded by civil rights attorneys who had been active in the south in 1966 including William Kunstler, the attorney for Martin Luther King.
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Julian Assange And Political Asylum In Danger
WikiLeaks founder the truth telling publisher Julian Assange is in certain and imminent danger of being sent from England to America where he would likely be tried for espionage, a crime that carries the death penalty.
Assange and WikiLeaks have revealed American war crimes in the middle east, CIA global machinations , and the work of Clinton Democrats in preventing the popular Bernie Sanders from heading up the party ticket.
Assange is presently holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he was granted political asylum six years ago by past leftist president Rafael Correa. But now, with the change of presidents in Ecuador, Assange has been cut off from the outside world. He has no phone, no computer, and no visitors.
The fresh offensive against him occurred the day after American General Joseph DiSalvo, the head of the US Southern Command, the Pentagon’s arm in Latin America, visited the new right wing Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno. Irene was told that if he did not cooperate he would not get an International Monetary Fund loan. Moreno has said that Assange is “an inherited problem” and is seeking s better relationship with the United States government, to whom he has already granted a military base.
Guest -Attorney Renata Avila has represented International human rights lawyer and digital rights advocate. In her practice, she represented indigenous victims of genocide and other human rights abuses, including the prominent indigenous leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchu Tum. She also represented awarded journalist Julian Assange and Wikileaks since 2009. Avila sits on the
Board of Creative Commons, is a trustee of the Courage Foundation, – an organisation set up to assist whistleblowers at risk – and is an advisory board member of Diem25, a movement to democratise Europe launched by Yanis Varoufakis. Her book Women, Whistleblowing Wikileaks” was published by OR Books. She is currently writing a book on Digital Colonialism and regularly writes for several international newspapers.
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Academic Freedom, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Gaza, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Torture, War Resister
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Mark Crispin Miller – Julian Assange, Voter Fraud and Fake News
WikiLeaks founder the truth telling publisher Julian Assange is in escalating danger of being sent from England to America where he would likely be tried for espionage, a crime that carries the death penalty.
Assange and WikiLeaks have revealed American war crimes in the middle east, CIA global machinations , and the work of Clinton Democrats in preventing the popular Bernie Sanders from heading up the party ticket.
Assange is presently holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he was granted political asylum six years ago by past leftist president Rafael Correa. But now, with the change of presidents in Ecuador, Assange has been cut off from the outside world. He has no phone, no computer, and no visitors.
The fresh offensive against him occurred the day after American General Joseph DiSalvo, the head of the US Southern Command, the Pentagon’s arm in Latin America, visited the new right wing Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno. Moreno has said that Assange is “an inherited problem” and is seeking s better relationship with the United States government, to whom he has already granted a military base.
Guest – Mark Crispin Miller who is a professor of media studies at New York University. Professor Miller has frequently spoken about media propaganda, the engineering of consent for empire, fake news, and the destruction of the independent press. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for the humanities and is a vigorous defender of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.
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CCR Delegation To Israel
Like the USA, Israel is a colonial-settler state which, beginning in 1948, 70 years ago, expelled 750,000 native Palestinians, took their land, homes and businesses, and reduced those who remained to abused second class citizens, not unlike what was done to native Americans by white settlers in the USA. Their land was stolen, their tribes uprooted, and their culture practically destroyed.
In 1967 Israel expanded further, militarily occupying Palestinian territories to their north, east, and south, including East Jerusalem.
Last month Attorney and Columbia law professor Katherine Franke, the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the CCR, along with Attorney Vince Warren, the CCR’s Executive Director, headed up a 20 person delegation of American activists who traveled to Israel to report on the human rights situation there. Franke and Warren never made it past the airport in Tel Aviv. They were stopped, questioned , detained for 14 hours, and then deported back to the USA. Franke was told she could never return.
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 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. She is the author of Wedlocked: The Perils of Marriage Equality. Her next book will be coming out from Haymarket Press in the spring: Repair: Slavery’s Unfinished Business makes the case for racial reparations in the U.S.
Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Human Trafficking, Supreme Court, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Speaking In Turkish: Denying the Armenian Genocide
Around the world, April 24 marks the observance of the Armenian Genocide. On that day in 1915 the Interior Minister of the Ottoman Empire ordered the arrest and hangings of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. It was the beginning of a systematic and well-documented plan to eliminate the Armenians, who were Christian, and who had been under Ottoman rule and treated as second class citizens since the 15th century.
The unspeakable and gruesome nature of the killings—beheadings of groups of babies, dismemberments, mass burnings, mass drownings, use of toxic gas, lethal injections of morphine or injections with the blood of typhoid fever patients—render oral histories particularly difficult for survivors of the victims.
Why did this happen? Despite being deemed inferior to Turkish Muslims, the Armenian community had attained a prestigious position in the Ottoman Empire and the central authorities there grew apprehensive of their power and longing for a homeland. The concerted plan of deportation and extermination was effected, in large part, because World War I demanded the involvement and concern of potential allied countries. As the writer Grigoris Balakian wrote, the war provided the Turkish government “their sole opportunity, one unprecedented” to exploit the chaos of war in order to carry out their extermination plan.
As Armenians escaped to several countries, including the United States, a number came to New Britain, Connecticut in 1892 to work in the factories of what was then known as the hardware capital of the world. By 1940 nearly 3,000 Armenians lived there in a tight-knit community.
Pope Frances calls it a duty not to forget “the senseless slaughter” of an estimated one and a half million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks from 1915 to 1923. “Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it,” the Pope said just two weeks before the 100th anniversary of the systematic implementation of a plan to exterminate the Armenian race.
Special thanks to Jennie Garabedian, Arthur Sheverdian, Ruth Swisher, Harry Mazadoorian, and Roxie Maljanian. Produced and written by Heidi Boghosian and Geoff Brady.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Human Rights, Iraq War, NSA Spying, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Mass Support Needed For Julian Assange
Two weeks ago, WikiLeaks founder and internet publisher Julian Assange , who is holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, had his Internet access cut off due to pressure by the British and American governments on Ecuador. Ecuador had granted him political asylum in their embassy where he has been living in two small sunless rooms for five years. Ecuador gave him political asylum after he sought refuge in the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, which would have sent him to the US. Assange was under protracted investigation for a rape claim, made up by the Swedish police and Swedish prosecutor and denied by the purported women victim. Sweden finally dropped the case, but Assange remains subject to arrest in Britain jumping bail.
Assange and WikiLeaks had been steadily revealing the war crimes and illegalities of the American government since it first published the Iraq war logs eight years ago. The war logs included video footage of American soldiers assassinating Iraqi civilians and a Reuters journalist. Chelsea Manning, who was recently released after seven years in prison, furnished WikiLeaks with the war logs.
The United States government is seeking to capture Assange and bring him back to the United States to stand trial for espionage, a crime which carries the death penalty.
Guest – John Pilger, an Australian-British journalist based in London. John has worked in many facets of journalism, including a correspondent in the Vietnam War, the Middle East Desk for Reuters in London, a documentary film maker, and a producer for the Independent Television Network in London. Pilger is known for his conscience, bravery and acute historical insight. His articles appear worldwide in newspapers such as the Guardian, the Independent, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times.
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You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice: Intellectual Property
Laws protecting artwork and intellectual property are increasingly being put to the test amid claims from rising artists marketing their work online whose work is being copied by others.
Art piracy can include music posters, clothing design, book cover art, signage, record sleeve art, and typography. Under copyright law, one artist using another artist’s idea is generally legal, while one artist using another’s expression of that idea is generally illegal. Only a fact-intensive analysis can provide a bit of clarity, and even that is subject to a judge’s or jury’s review.
Sometimes copyright cases expand into major litigation. A New York judge recently ruled that graffiti, or aerosol artists, were entitled to a $6.7 million verdict after New York developer Gerald Wolkoff destroyed their well-known public work. The claim in the so-called FivePointz case arose under the Visual Artists’ Rights Act, or VARA. It’s the kind of case that attorney Scott Burroughs says rarely goes to trial. Several artists created aerosol art pieces on the walls of an abandoned development in the once downtrodden and now gentrified neighborhood of Long Island City, Queens. Wolkoff destroyed their art as part of a development plan. Read Scott’s Column Above The Law.
Guest – Attorney Scott Burroughs, an advocate for artists’ rights who curates the art law blog You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice and has a weekly copyright law column on legal website Above the Law.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Torture, Truth to Power
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Herman Bell Granted Parole After Serving 45 Years In Prison
A respected elder, Herman Bell, was granted parole having met all the criteria for release according to his sentence. The parole commissioners recognized his progress after serving nearly 45 years in prison and granted his parole application. He is looking forward to being reunited with his family and friends. Today we talk about some of the opposition, from politicians and the police union, to this decision. Support Herman Bell
Herman Bell – Twitter – #BringHermanHome
Guest – Laura Whitehorn , a former political prisoner who served 14 years for the distruction of government property in connection with a 1983 bombing at the US Capitol where no one was injured. She was released in 1999. Laura Whitehorn is a leader in the Release Aging People in Prison Organization and has been active in challenging the New York state parole board’s intransigence.
Check the RAPP Events Page
Guest – Jose Saldana, joins hosts and Laura Whitehorn to talk about Herman Bell. Jose was recently released from prison after serving 38 years. He’s worked with parole reform organizations and RAPP.
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10th Annual Brooklyn Folk Festival
The Brooklyn Folk Festival is coming up April 6-8 at historic St. Anne’s church in downtown Brooklyn.
The Brooklyn Folk Festival celebrates and presents the best in American and world folk music with more than performances, workshops, film screenings, jam sessions, vocal and instrumental workshops, a square dance, and their famous banjo toss contest. The festival was started nine years ago by Eli Smith, the Jalopy Theatre and School of Music. Its a substantial and unique community event.
Folk or old time music runs counter to the commercial establishment music scene. It is truly a people’s music. It is non-commercial, non-corporate, and not a generator of huge profits. As a result this music, which should be central to American culture, has been down played and sidelined.
We know of some of its famous proponents – Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan . . but there are many great unknown folk musicians whose art is perpetuated and expanded on at the Brooklyn Folk Festival.
Guest – Eli Smith, the founder and main organizer along with the Jalopy Theatre and School Music, of the Brooklyn Folk Festival. Eli Smith is a banjo player and folk musician. He plays with the band called the Downhill Strugglers. He is a Folkways recording artist and has played around the country including the Library of Congress and the Kennedy Center.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Uncategorized, War Resister
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Gina Haspel, Rule of Law And Torture
Nazi generals and Nazi leaders were prosecuted at the end of World War II for war crimes and crimes against humanity and genocide. These crimes were incorporated into international law.
The chief prosecutor was Robert Jackson, a Supreme Court judge. The Nazis defended themselves by arguing that they were just following orders. This defense was deemed unavailing. In many cases, they were found guilty and sentenced to lengthy prison terms or hung. He said that the war crimes tribunal at Nirenberg was not merely victors’ justice. But that the principles it followed would be universal and applied in the future, to all countries including the USA. And indeed, the United States signed on to the Geneva Conventions and Convention Against Torture and incorporate both the crimes and the concept of universal jurisdiction into its law.
Gina Haspel has been nominated by President Donald Trump to head the CIA. She is a war criminal. She violated both international and national law by running a black site secret detention center in Thailand where men were tortured. Although there were several court orders that the evidence be preserved, Gina Haspel had the videotapes of torture destroyed.
John Brennan, Obama’s ex head of the CIA, who was involved in the torture program, recently came to her defense, stating that she was just following orders: The Nazi defense.
Trump supports torture. He believes that torture works. This is both immoral and untrue. He says he is for waterboarding and worse. He now has a subordinate with whom he is in agreement.
Obama refused to prosecute the lawbreakers. Instead he threw CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou in prison for two years for disclosing American torture. He said we must look forward, not backward. This greenlighted what is going on now with Haspel.
Michael Ratner warned us about this eventuality. The European Center for Human and Constitutional Rights may seek Haspel’s arrest if she goes to Germany.
Such is the irony of history that the German fascist government that perpetrated the greatest crimes against humanity has been superseded by an American government which condones and is perpetuating them as well.
Guest – John Kiriakou, a former CIA agent, he is the author of Doing Time Like a Spy: How the CIA Taught Me to Survive and Thrive in Prison. He spent 15 years working for the CIA including the period following September 11 2001. The next year he was invited to be certified in enhanced interrogation techniques and said no, rightly recognizing it as sanctioned torture. He was privy to all the details of the American torture program and personally knew Gina Haspel. In 2007 when ABC News asked him to rebut charges that he tortured and Al Qaeda prisoner he went on the air and disclose details about American torture policy. For this the CIA had him tried and convicted. He spent 23 months in prison.
Guest – Katherine Gallagher is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. She works on universal jurisdiction and international criminal law cases involving U.S. and foreign officials and torture and other war crimes, and cases involving private military corporations and torture at Abu Ghraib. Her major cases include Al Shimari v. CACI, the international U.S. torture accountability cases, andSurvivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) v. Vatican, seeking accountability for the crimes against humanity of sexual violence by clergy and cover-up.
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The National Immigration Project And Protecting Haitian Refugees
The National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild filed a lawsuit in Brooklyn on March 15 to block President Trump’s cancellation of temporary protected status which had been granted to more than 50,000 Haitian refugees because of the terrible conditions in that country since the hurricane in 2010. The National Immigration Project declared President Trump’s actions to be unlawful, racially motivated, and evidence of a complete lack of knowledge of immigration law.
The TPS program exempts from deportation people from countries in turmoil due to war, natural disasters, and other extraordinary conditions.
The suit alleges that the federal government was arbitrary and capricious in his decision to end the program and was motivated by Donald Trump’s “racial and national origin animus towards patients.” The suit cites Trump’s demeaning remarks towards Haitians and Haiti. He has said that Haitians have AIDS and Haiti is a “s&*t hole” country. The Trump administration‘s position is that protecting Haitians is no longer necessary because conditions in Haiti have improved.
Guest – National Lawyers Guild Attorney Sejal Zota is the Legal Director of the National Immigration Project of the Guild. Sejal works on issues of removal defense, post-conviction, enforcement, and immigration consequences of crimes through litigation, education, and technical assistance. Previously, Sejal taught and wrote about the impacts of immigration on state and local government at University of North Carolina’s School of Government. She also regularly trained and advised defense attorneys throughout North Carolina on the immigration consequences of crime, and is the lead author of Immigration Consequences of a Criminal Conviction in North Carolina.
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Brooklyn Folk Festival 2018
Co-host Michael Smith reminds listeners of this year’s Brooklyn Folk Festival.
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