CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Torture, War Resister
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Updates:
- Abu Anas al-Libi Kidapping Update
- Glenn Greenwald Leaves The Guardian
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The Coalition of Immokalee Workers March On Union Square For Wendy’s Fair Food Campaign
We hear the voices of marchers involved in supporting the Coalition of Immokalee workers to urge Wendy’s to join its four fast food competitors in the award-winning social responsibility program that’s putting an end to decades of abuse in the fields. Burger King, Taco Bell, McDonald’s and others have come to the table to dialogue with farm workers to improve wages and working conditions in their supply chains. This demonstration was held on the eve of the CIW winning the Roosevelt Institute’s Freedom from Want Medal.
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Handschu Hearing on NYPD Muslim Surveillance
Earlier this month, the federal district court in Manhattan required the New York City Police Department to defend its Muslim spying program. The hearing lasted several hours and revealed what many listeners to this show may already know, and that is how the NYPD Muslim spying program has been found by the Associated Press to target innocent Muslims based on nothing more than their faith. The fallout from these spying programs are revealed in the stories related by today’s guest .
Fahd Ahmed:
- DRUM stands for Desis Rising Up and Moving. It’s a community organization of low income South Asians, organizing for worker rights, immigrant rights, racial justice.
- We’re a membership based organization of about 2000 low income South Asians. So they’re directly effected by these issues.
- About 2 years ago the Associated Press started releasing a series of articles that essentially confirmed what people in our communities had been feeling for years.
- That the NYPD has an extensive spying network on the New York City Muslim community.
- From their houses of worship to their work sites, to their social networks. The way that they accomplish this is through the use of under cover officers.
- Through the use of informants, many of whom are paid money for their services, and also through the use of surveillance equipment.
- We have members in our organization that have been directly targeted by the NYPD over the last 8-9 years.
- Even if you’re not doing anything wrong, this program is very bad for you.
- On the day the first AP report came out, we had launched a survey project to collect data.
- An Arab cab driver who cooperated with the police, he was eye witness to the person who conducted the robbery.
- He testified in court, the person was convicted. The NYPD then approached him several months later and said we’d like to talk with you about that case.
- They tell him we want you to become an informant for us. When he declines, for the next two weeks he ends up being followed in dark unmarked cars.
- We do believe its about a few 100 hundred in the police department in terms of intelligence.
Guest – Fahd Ahmed, Fahd came to the United States as an undocumented immigrant from Pakistan in 1991, and went on to attend Vanderbilt University, and CUNY School of Law. Fahd joined DRUM in 2000 when he had family members facing deportations. Within DRUM, Fahd led the work with Muslim, Arab, and South Asian immigrant detainees before, and immediately after 9/11, by coordinating the detainee visitation program. Fahd was a recipient of the Haywood Burns Fellowship from the National Lawyers Guild, served as an Ella Baker intern at the Center for Constitutional Rights, as a legal consultant with the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, and as a lecturer and researcher on Islamophobia, National Security, and social movements at the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative at the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University
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Two And A Half Party System Debt Ceiling Crisis
Today we’ll examine in depth how the United States reached the recent crisis with regard to debt ceiling. If you think its just the Tea Party that wants to cut current government benefits such as Social Security and Medicare you’d be wrong. It’s also the Obama Administration
Professor Jack Rasmus:
- The Republicans strategic focus since 2011 has been to cut the deficit at the expense of discretionary spending and in particular to target social security and medicare and medicaid.
- In the fiscal cliff deal of last year, they succeeded in pushing through most of the Bush tax cuts. 4 trillion in tax cuts.
- The Republicans in the last 2 years have cut 2.2 trillion dollars in government spending.
- They’re going to use the debt ceiling in order to extract more spending cuts, this time, social security and medicare, and probably more tax cuts.
- Obama has already called for 630 billion dollars in social security and medicare cuts. That’s a starting point, a beginning of negotiating.
- What’s happened is that the tea party have injected themselves into this thing. We’ve got 2 and a half parties in Congress now. The Tea Party is a faction of the Republican Party and its terrorizing the Republican Party even though its a minority in the House.
- The Tea Partiers are grandstanding for elections. This is all about mid-term elections next year.
- As far as the shutdown is concerned, that is a Tea Party problem.
- They have Republicans terrorized that they’re going to lose primaries.
- There’s another group within the Tea Party that are opportunists, they’re riding the crest.
- The people behind the Tea Party, out there in the grassroots, you know, the billionaires are funding it and the Heritage Action Groups. I think there are opportunists and confused ideologues.
- What you’re going to see is Obama blocking with corporate pressure on the leadership of the Republicans, and all 3 of them then giving the Tea Party a choice.
- Last year, unions lost 500 thousand members, even as a million and a half new jobs were created.
- Something real dangerous is going on with the labor movement.
- There is a nation wide formation called the Emergency Labor Network.
- Obama has been in favor of cutting Social Security for quite some time. He’s also been in favor of cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 to 28 percent. That doesn’t sound like the Democratic Party of years past.
Guest – Professor Jack Rasmus, Ph.D Political Economy, teaches economics and politics at St. Mary’s College in California. He is the author and producer of the various nonfiction and fictional workers, including the books ‘Obama’s Economy: Recovery for the Few‘, Pluto Press, 2012, ‘Epic Recession: Prelude to Global Depression‘, Pluto Press, 2010, and ‘The War at Home: The Corporate Offensive from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush‘, Kyklosproductions, 2006
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Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, War Resister
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Updates:
- Lynne Stewart Turns 74
- Phone Campaign For Lynne Stewart To Be Let Out Of Prison Under Compassionate Release
- Director of Federal Bureau of Prisons – 202-307-3250
- U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder – 202-353-1555
- U.S. President Barack Obama – 202-456-1111
- Che Guevara Anniversary
- Shocking Statistics On Americans Under 30
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The United States Military Kidnapping In Libya And Failed Kill or?Capture In Somalia
The United States military had gone into 2 parts of Africa. In one case they went into Libya and brazenly seized a man who they claim to be a leader of Al-Qaeda, his name is Abu Anas al-Libi. He was seized out of Tripoli, Libya. The U.S. also went into Somalia and attacked a house or a compound in apparently an effort to grab or kill an alleged senior leader of the Somali group al-Shabab. Michael Ratner reports in this update.
Attorney Michael Ratner:
- It was shocking news to see that the United States think it can go into sovereign countries and kidnap, kill whoever they want. Did the US have the right to go into Libya at all?
- Article 24 of the UN Charter says that the territorial integrity of the a country is complete, except of the case of self-defense or authorized by the UN.
- There was no authority by the UN or international law to go into Libya.
- Then the question came up – Did Libya consent to it?
- He’s on some U.S. ship. It’s called the San Antonio.
- They’re keeping him floating on this ship while they’re going to interrogate him.
- Its true, Obama when he took office 5 years ago, he banned torture and he said all interrogations had to be done according to the Army Field Manual.
- Annex M allows 3 kinds of techniques that I think constitute cruel and inhuman, degrading treatment and taken together would constitute torture.
Law and Disorder Co-host Attorney Michael Ratner, President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a non-profit human rights litigation organization based in New York City and president of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) based in Berlin. Ratner and CCR are currently the attorneys in the United States for publishers Julian Assange and Wikileaks. He was co-counsel in representing the Guantanamo Bay detainees in the United States Supreme Court, where, in June 2004, the court decided his clients have the right to test the legality of their detentions in court. Ratner is also a past president of the National Lawyers Guild and the author of numerous books and articles, including the books The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book, Against War with Iraq and Guantanamo: What the World Should Know, as well as a textbook on international human rights.
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The United States, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and Israel Part 2
October 7th of 2013 marked the 12th anniversary since the United States invaded Afghanistan as the war drags into its 13th year. The Afghanistan war and the Iraq war have been estimated to cost tax payers up to 6 trillion dollars. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War – an illegal war launched despite the global protest in the streets.
Phyllis Bennis:
- On the one hand it was a huge victory for the U.S. and the anti-war mobilization effort, that we managed to prevent what was a very imminent US strike. The British also had their missiles ready to go. They were very close.
- In combination with the British Parliament decision to say no, led to a huge shift in what the Obama Administration was prepared to do.
- It turns out they were prepared to go to war without UN permission. They were ready to do without the UN, without NATO, without the Arab League, but not without the Brits.
- This was a political decision, this wasn’t rooted in concerns about international law or any kind of strategic or military necessity.
- When it was turned over to Congress, a lot of organizations mobilized and said you know what, we’re not going to let this happen.
- Members of Congress were reporting that their emails were running 500 to 1, 800 to 1, 1000 to 1 against US military intervention.
- What we found is that people were not willing to sign on to another war after so many failed wars in the region.
- You can call it war fatigue but it’s really about learning a lesson, that war is not an answer to these problems.
- Given that there have been 100 thousand victims in this war (Syria) about a third of them civilians, about 43 percent regime soldiers and militia, about 18 percent rebel soldiers. The rest were civilians.
- To claim this was all about the humanitarian consequences, simply, that’s not the case.
- The voices that have been marginalized the most are the original political opposition in Syria, who were incredibly brave and courageous, still out there fighting.
- The regime in Syria was forced to sign on to the chemical weapons treaty. That’s huge, there are only 7 countries in the world that had not signed that treaty.
- Israel of course being another one.
- The number of people killed with chemical weapons in Syria is tiny compared to the number of people killed with conventional weapons.
- The five wars in Syria, the regional power struggle, the sectarian war, the US-Russian war, the US-Israel vs. Iran war, those are still underway in Syria.
- President Rouhani, the new president of Iran, was on a major charm offensive.
- Rouhani has said ” I have the backing of the Supreme Leader in a new approach to our nuclear negotiations.”
- There are enormous pressures in the U.S from the arms industry, from AIPAC, from hawks in Congress of all sorts.
- The Palestinians are the ones that will pay the price if there is an agreement between the US and Iran because the US will be determined to give Israel something.
- Iraq has become as violent as it was in the height of the sectarian wars of 2006 and 2007.
- Hundreds of people are being killed on a daily basis. It’s a disaster. Much of that is the result of the exploding war in Syria. Syria and Iraq share a long border. It’s a very porous border.
- The division of Libya into 2 or 3 regions is a very likely possibility.
- Saul Landau was a giant in our movement, he made one of the first films about Fidel. It was called Fidel it was made in 1960 a year after the revolution.
- He died about a month ago after a 2 year battle with a very virulent cancer.
- Saul had been at IPS almost at the beginning. He wrote the book Assassination on Embassy Row that documented with such precision on how Operation Condor had gone forward.
Guest – Phyllis Bennis, directs the New Internationalism Project at IPS. She is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. She has been a writer, analyst, and activist on Middle East and UN issues for many years. In 2001 she helped found and remains on the steering committee of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. She works closely with the United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalition, co-chairs the UN-based International Coordinating Network on Palestine, and since 2002 has played an active role in the growing global peace movement. She continues to serve as an adviser to several top UN officials on Middle East and UN democratization issues.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, War Resister
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Updates:
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The United States, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and Israel
President Barack Obama addressed the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly last week, near the end of September. His speech reflected some of the shift in global politics in the Middle East, especially in Syria. He also spoke about Iran, and mentioned the usual, “we are determined to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.” Obama said “we are not seeking regime change we respect the right of the Iranian people to access peaceful nuclear energy.” However Iran has signed on to the Non-Proliferation Treaty which recognizes the right to develop, research, produce and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination.
William Blum:
- One must accept the basic premise that the United States wants to dominate the world.
- In that context it becomes clear that the main problem we have with other countries is one of disobedience.
- Our closest ally in the Arab world is Saudi Arabia, if that’s not the most oppressive government in the world then damn close to it.
- We’ve overthrown the 3 leading secular governments of the Middle East. First Iraq, and then Libya, and now we’re in the process to attempt to overthrow the Syrian government.
- In ’79, the Shah of Iran was overthrown by various forces, but the ones that came to power were the Islamics.
- It’s a myth that the U.S. was totally opposed to Islam coming to power in Iran then.
- What Washington feared is the Left coming to power in Iran.
- The Left, all over the world, are the least likely to be obedient to Washington, to become a client state.
- So the Left is the first target of U.S foreign policy.
- Israel fears Iran, in the same way it fears Iraq and Libya. Any country in the Middle East that had some military power and not falling in line as an obedient friend or follower of Israel, that was a target of Israel, which means target of the U.S.
- The 3 main targets have all been attacked by Washington and that’s where we are today.
- Cuba then and now has represented what Washington fears greatly, a good alternative to capitalist system.
- They have inspired people and countries all over the world, especially in Latin America.
- It’s not very well known that throughout the 70s and into the 80s, Afghanistan had a fairly progressive government. Women had full rights. I’ve seen photos of that time, of women walking around in mini-skirts.
- What happened to that society and government? Our dear government overthrew it.
- It’s amazing when we hear people say we have to stay in Afghanistan to help the women there.
- Saddam Hussein, as much of a dictator as he was, he still ran a welfare state.
- The people in their daily life were much better off than they are today and there was peace and order
- Syria is not going to make a good client state to the United States and Israel. Syria is a bit too friendly with Russia.
- It’s amazing how sensitive we are to those who will not embrace the American empire.
- Almost all the leading people in Israel except for Netanyahu, they know Iran is not a threat. It’s all hype.
- Netanyahu needs this hype and the U.S. needs it.
- There’s a very growing trend now to be turned off by all of this war. The vote in Congress which if it were held would have been against invading Syria.
- The American public is very tired of these wars.
- Sign up for the monthly Anti-Empire Report.
Guest – William Blum, has been a freelance journalist in the United States, Europe and South America. His stay in Chile in 1972-3, writing about the Allende government’s “socialist experiment” and its tragic overthrow in a CIA-designed coup, instilled in him a personal involvement and an even more heightened interest in what his government was doing in various parts of the world. In the mid-1970’s, he worked in London with former CIA officer Philip Agee and his associates on their project of exposing CIA personnel and their misdeeds. His book on U.S. foreign policy, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, first published in 1995 and updated since, has received international acclaim.
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EFF Fights Back Against NSA Spying
A few shows ago we asked Attorney Carl Messineo with the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund what legal steps are they taking to stem the pervasive breach of civil liberties from the National Security Agency’s massive surveillance program. Our own Heidi Boghosian, author of the book Spying On Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power and Public Resistance has discussed in detail the public fight back from a legal standpoint. David Greene, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation brings us up to date about ongoing litigation, lawsuits and FOIA requests to continue the fight back against government and corporate spying.
Attorney David Greene:
- There’s a lot we still don’t know about how much they know about us.
- We do know that they have several programs to collect communications, data. They have a program called UPSTREAM that collects all internet communications.
- This actually happens at the fiber level. – where the switching facilities are at the splitter, split the transmissions to where the communications company wants it to go and one that actually goes toward the government.
- We at EFF have known about that and had a lawsuit pending for 7 years now.
- Our lawsuit was originally against AT&T and then Congress granted telecoms immunity, so.
- One of the other things we’ve learned about is a program that also collects internet records called PRISM. PRISM seems to be focused on collecting email correspondence between foreign targets and the United States.
- They’re basically collecting the call data of every telephone call made in the United States. Right now they’re saying they’re not collecting the content of the calls but only the metadata.
- They’re also collecting social media data as well and doing things such as social mapping.
- There are several provisions of the Fourth Amendment and some of the issues here is the prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures.
- Basically people’s information is being searched, being seized without a probable cause. A probable cause to believe these people actually did anything wrong.
- The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an organization that fights for civil liberties in the digital world.
- Whenever you go up against the government, you’re going to be out resourced.
- There are many parts about being a free person that requires a person to operate with some degree of privacy from there government.
Guest – Attorney David Greene, Senior Staff Attorney, has significant experience litigating First Amendment issues in state and federal trial and appellate courts and is one of the country’s leading advocates for and commentators on freedom of expression in the arts. David was a founding member, with David Sobel and Shari Steele, of the Internet Free Expression Alliance, and currently serves on the Northern California Society for Professional Journalists Freedom of Information Committee, the steering committee of the Free Expression Network, the governing committee of the ABA Forum on Communications Law, and on advisory boards for several arts and free speech organizations across the country.
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Left Forum 2013: Dr. Harriet Fraad Part 2
We hear part 2 of a presentation from Harriet Fraad, a hypnotherapist & psychotherapist in Manhattan. She writes regularly for Truthout, Tikkun and The Journal of Psychohistory. Her blog with Richard D. Wolff, Economy and Psychology appears at HarrietFraad.com and RDWolff.com. Her latest book is Bringing It All Back Home ed. Graham Cussano. Her article on Emotional and Sexual Life in a Socialist America written with Tess Fraad Wolff will appear in the book Imagine A Socialist America- (Harper Collins 2013). This panel explores what Socialism could look like in the United States.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Death Penalty, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Corrections Association Program Releasing Aged Prisoners
Here on Law and Disorder we’ve reported about the Compassionate Release Program regarding Lynne Stewart’s condition. The CRP is designed to reduce the number of elderly and sick in prison, if they have a terminal health condition or a significant and permanent non-terminal health condition, disease or syndrome. This program is part of a larger effort to release aging prisoners in the United States. Nationally, the number of prisoners over age 55 nearly quadrupled from 1995 to 2010, eight times the pace of growth for the total prison population, according to a recent Human Rights Watch report. Because of long sentences handed out in the 70’s and 80’s, American prisons now serve as quasi-nursing homes, albeit lacking the long-term care we associate with geriatric facilities. We talk today about a major new initiative called the Corrections Association Program Releasing Aged Prisoners that’s working to make prison parole boards correctly assess elderly prisoner risk and get them out.
Laura Whitehorn:
- In New York State, there are about 9200 at the moment above the age of 50.
- By 2030, its estimated that about a third of the entire incarcerated will be over the age of 40. There will be at least 400 thousand.
- For the last 20 years this country has been drunk on the concept of lock em up and throw away the key.
- You lock em up and throw away the key. . .they’re gonna get old.
- Our project is called Releasing Aging People In Prison.
- These people have done a lot of time and the lowest rate of recidivism is in this group. They’re over the age of 50, have done 15-20 years in prison and have committed murder.
- This group is ready to be released without a threat to public safety.
- You’ve advocated for Lynne Stewart on this show for compassionate release. She’s in the Federal System.
- The Feds are very stingy with compassionate release, so is the state of New York. In 2011, I think it was, they let out 8 people on compassionate release, in a year when 200 people died in the system.
- I’m now 68, but I feel about 78 on some days.
- We don’t really need a new law to release the people we’re talking about.
- What we need is the parole board to follow the law. What we need is the state to follow the law for compassionate release for those who are ill.
- One thing we’re doing is we’re trying to join with other people in the state who’ve had enough of the way that parole board denies people over and over again and say use actual risk assessments that do exist.
- If the risk is low let them go.
- RAPP – Release Aging People In Prison – Harlem, NY – 2090 Adam Clayton Blvd, NY – 212-254-5700
- Email – mfarid@correctionalassociation.org
- www.nationinside.org/campaign/release-of-aging-people-in-prison
Mujahid Farid:
- The issue of mass incarceration has many facets. The impact on some communities is from the cradle to the grave.
- The prison population has somewhat stabilized. It’s still at a rate that beats out every other country. Although that rate has stabilized it hasn’t done so with the elderly.
- In New York State, the prison population has gone down 24 percent in the last 10 years.
- During that same 10 years the population of the elderly (in prison) increased by 64 percent.
- The zeitgeist in this country is about punishment and never giving up on punishing a person, especially those committed for serious crimes.
- In my own case, I had a sentence of 15 years to life, you would assume if I did the minimum sentence, if there were indications I had rehabilitated myself and shown that I was a changed person that I would’ve been released. But that didn’t happen. I served 18 years above and beyond that 15 year sentence.
- The sentencing structure that allows what we’re talking about is called an indeterminate sentencing structure. That means you’re given a minimum and a maximum.
- Some people get 10 to 20, some people get 10 to 15, and other with the most serious crimes get a number and on the end they get letters.
- In that indeterminate sentencing structure, there’s an indication that the prisoner should be released if they’re reformed or rehabilitated at that minimum posed term.
- In my case, I received a 15-life on attempted murder of a police officer. He didn’t get a scratch.
- That was the least amount imposed on me, I couldn’t get any less.
- So a person who is serving a sentence such as that would have an expectation of 15 years or whatever they have to be released if they change.
- To not give them a reason for the denial, saying its the nature of the crime, takes away hope from a person.
- I was arrested in 1978, I went upstate within 6 months. Before that 6 months came I had earned my GED. I did that while facing trial.
- I went upstate with no expectation of serving 15 years. I actually thought that because of the facts I was convicted for that I would eventually win on appeal.
- Within a few years, I had earned an Associates Degree in Business. I went on and got a Bachelor’s Degree in Liberal Arts.
- Shortly after that, I earned a Master’s Degree in Sociology and then I earned another Master’s Degree in Ministry.
- All of that happened before that 15 year period.
- None of that was considered by the parole board when I entered that 15 year mark.
- They simply denied me and didn’t give me any guidance of what I could do to better myself to earn release.
Guest – Laura WhiteHorn is an ex-political prisoner and native New Yorker, who was active in supporting groups such as the Black Panther Party, the Black Liberation Movement and was active with Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground. Laura also worked to expose the FBI’s Counter Intelligence.
Guest – Mujahid Farid is investigating potential mechanisms for increasing release rates for incarcerated aging people at the Correctional Association in New York. He’s spent more than three decades incarcerated in New York and co-founded the Prisoners AIDS Counseling & Education program and helped design prison-based sociology and theology courses that allowed others to earn college-credited in prison. He also earned four college degrees and other certifications while in prison, including his paralegal certificate, New York State Department of Labor Certificate in Human Development Counseling, and New York City Department of Health Certificate in HIV/AIDS Counseling.
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Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Circumvented For Non Violent Drug Offenders
When Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department would begin reassess the harsh mandatory minimum sentences on non-violent drug offenders that unfairly target young African Americans and Hispanics, some drug reform advocates said it was a breakthrough. However, our guest Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, says there was no mention of clemency or pardons for those imprisoned with disproportionately long sentences. Attorney General Holder did mentioned that the United States represents about 5 percent of the world’s total population and it incarcerates nearly 25 percent of the world’s prison population. The Drug Policy Alliance has made great strides in criminal justice reforms and to help decriminalize marijuana in states such as Colorado and Washington.
Ethan Nadelmann:
- Early on in the first term, President Obama and Attorney General Holder working with Drug Policy Alliance and a whole range of allied groups did actually change the penalties, the mandatory minimum for crack cocaine.
- Then they dropped the ball. They did nothing in the following years.
- The substance of the speech (recent by Holder) was important. By saying he was going to issue explicit directives to US attorneys around the country that would effect the way they charge people especially low level players in drug trafficking organizations. They’re really pushing this through in a bipartisan way.
- I think he (Holder) does regard this as a legacy issue.
- Obama has recently mentioned incarceration and the need to reduce it in the context of memorializing Martin Luther King Jr.
- We’ve seen the drug law violators from 65 percent of the total of federal prisoners to 48 percent of the total even as the absolute numbers have gone up.
- I think we’re going to see low level drug violators charged in different ways. One thing about mandatory minimums is they shift the discretion from judges to prosecutors.
- Mandatory minimums empower prosecutors at the hand of judges.
- I think what we’ll see is a downshifting in how much prosecutors are looking for. We’ll see fewer people going to prison on federal drug charges.
- Legislators are notoriously resistant to having sentencing reforms be retroactive. They’re willing to say going forward we’ll reduce the sentence but we’re not going to touch the issue of the people who are locked up under the old laws.
- I bet we would see some movement on behalf of the people who are behind bars as well.
- Non violent drug law offenders, sitting there for 10 or 20 years. Statewide 20 percent of all inmates are in for drugs and in the federal prisons its 50 percent.
- Half of all drug arrests in America are for marijuana. Overwhelmingly for marijuana in small amounts.
- When states move forward with the ballot initiative process to legalize marijuana either for medical purposes, which 20 states have now done, or more broadly for all adults which Washington and Colorado have done, that presents a basic issue for the federal government.
- What the US attorney general’s office can do is offer guidelines saying to US attorneys around the country, here are our priorities, here’s how we think you should handle this.
- The feds are basically saying, we get it. That legally regulating marijuana may accomplish the objectives of federal drug control, more effectively than continuing an ineffective prohibitionist policy.
- New York was one of 11 states that decriminalized the possession of marijuana of less than ounce, back in the 70s. Which means you could have less than ounce in your pocket or home and its like a traffic ticket.
- But if its in public view, than you can be arrested. It’s a misdemeanor offense.
- New York is the only state in the Northeast that hasn’t legalized medical marijuana.
- Every 2 years we organize the leading gathering in the world of people who are against the drug war. (reformconference.org) Denver, CO – Oct 4, 5, 6
Guest – Ethan Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, the leading organization in the United States promoting alternatives to the war on drugs.
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William Kunstler’s Performance at Caroline’ Comedy Club
We hear a part of William Kunstler’s presentation at Caroline’s Comedy Club. This was his last public appearance. He shares a great story about a particular dialogue with a judge and an envelope of marijuana.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, War Resister
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Updates:
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Lynne Stewart: Compassionate Release Decision
Last week Federal District Court Judge Koetl in New York stated he couldn’t consider Lynne Stewart’s request for compassionate release because by law the request needs to come from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Judge Koetl also pointed out that the Bureau of Prisons didn’t properly consider Lynne’s medical evidence by saying her condition was improving. Meanwhile, Lynne’s doctors have given her a prognosis of 24 to 18 months to live.
Attorney Jill Shellow Levine:
- One of the things his opinion makes clear (Judge Koetl) is that the Bureau of Prisons under the statute makes a motion, he will swiftly and compassionately view the motion.
- Our application would have required him to think outside the box. I think he’s reluctant to do that at least now.
- You can continue your letter writing campaign to the director of the Bureau of Prisons in Washington DC. You can contact your Congress people both on the Senate side and the House side and urge them to get involved and to make known to the director that this is important to them.
- Those are probably the things that count the most.
- Please call to push for Lynne’s release from prison.
- U.S. Bureau of Prisons Director Charles E. Samuels – 202-307-3198 Ext. 3
- U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder – 202-514-2001
- President Barack Obama – 202-456-1111
- Please Write to: Charles E Samuels Jr. / Federal Bureau of Prisons / 320 1st Street Northwest / Washington DC 20534
Guest – Attorney Jill Shellow-Levine, Lynne’s attorney and National Lawyers Guild member.
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One Nation Under Surveillance Campaign: Partnership For Civil Justice Fund
In the wake of leaks about the National Security Agency’s massive surveillance program, many ask what legal steps to stem the pervasive breach of civil liberties. We’ll talk with attorney Carl Messineo from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund about their campaign One Nation Under Surveillance. Years before 9/11 the Partnership was engaged in litigation and advocacy about the ways in which the government and corporations spy on individuals.
The FOIA request reads in part: “The people of the United States have an urgent need for disclosure of the requested information regarding what appears to be the largest covert surveillance program directed against them in U.S. history. The U.S. government and its agencies that are carrying out these unprecedented surveillance programs are not entitled to hide these programs from the public.”
Attorney Carl Messineo:
- One Nation Under Surveillance campaign is a composite of multiple programs that the PCJF has undertaken to challenge and to fight against the surveillance state.
- The program includes public records demands, FOIA requests, lawsuits, litigation as well as campaign and advocacy.
- We’ve been looking at the issue of anti-terror authorities and surveillance authorities being misused to target law abiding people in the United States and in particular those engaged in political activity, well before even 9/11.
- These anti-terror and surveillance authorities, while they were pumped up dramatically after 9/11 were actually being utilized to disrupt, to monitor, surveil, peaceful, political activists even before that catastrophic event occurred.
- The monitoring is done at the behest of private corporations and that’s revealed most clearly in the public records disclosure that we have secured as related to the Occupy Movement.
- Those documents reveal corporations working hand in glove with law enforcement to surveil, to counter, to disrupt the political messaging that this grassroots peaceful movement had.
- This is a movement that came about because of tremendous economic insecurity. People are one pay check away from not being able to meet their basic needs.
- The Wall Street corporations sit in the command centers of law enforcement, so that they have free access to the same flow of information.
- What Manning and Snowden have revealed to us is really a clarion call to action.
- What the NSA does intercept comprehensively, gmail communications, telephone logs of all of our communications.
- Who is that targeting? It’s targeting the law abiding person in the United States. Think about it for a second. What competent terrorist is going to be relying on gmail or google in order to conspire or plan?
- The “undernet” is not being captured. The virtual private networks.
- It completely eliminates the concept of privacy. The privacy implications are staggering. It’s all been done secretly, with secret courts in the United States.
- Senators who had knowledge of this information, and critical of the programs did not possess the First Amendment right to bring or focus attention to these details by citing specifics because they were under gag orders.
- We certainly know the surveillance complex is massive. Edward Snowden didn’t access the top secret documents that he did by working at the NSA. He had to work as a private contractor at Booz Allen.There’s a huge profit incentive. The use of permanent war. There must be a declaration of war in order for emergency powers that are ancillary to those powers to come into effect.
- There needs to be public debate before there is war. But a new concept was developed under the Bush Administration and is perpetuated under the current.
- The notion that there is a permanent state of undeclared war.
- Anti-crime and anti-terror authorities have been used by the government as tools.
- This is a predominant threat of having these tools of social and political control out there and systematically deployed so that the government and the corporations with who they work hand and hand, can anticipate, can know and can suppress and disrupt, democratic action. The lifeblood of a democracy.
- The government governs only by consent and that’s part of the violation here of all of this secrecy.
- A new debate is starting across this county of how do we seize control over these technologies.
- What we’re doing at the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund is a combination of activism and litigation.
- The government has operated in secret because it fears the public’s reaction.
- We have filed public records demands with the NSA, the FBI, the CIA, with other defense and military entities because that’s who is doing this. It’s coming out of the military.
- Our requests demand disclosure to the public, what are the record keeping systems, what are the safeguards, what are the rules, what are the authorities?
Guest – Attorney Carl Messineo, legal director and co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund.
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The Struggle Continues: Seeking Compensation for Vietnamese Agent Orange Victims, 52 Years On
The long term damage left by Agent Orange upon millions of Vietnamese, and the many thousands of U.S. soldiers has yet to be properly accounted and compensated for. Agent Orange’s long term damage set upon the ecosystems of Vietnam 52 years later include long term poisoning of soil and ground water, and near permanent destruction of mangrove forests. Chemical companies such as Monsanto and Dow have profited from defoliant chemical and has paid very little to settle veteran’s lawsuits for Agent Orange related illnesses. Meanwhile, second and third generation of Vietnamese civilians are seriously effected by Agent Orange exposure.
Attorney Marjorie Cohn:
- Studies show that between 2 million 4 hundred thousand and 4 million 8 hundred thousand Vietnamese and tens of thousands of Americans were exposed to Agent Orange during the spraying of Vietnam from 1961 to 1971.
- The Department of Veterans Affairs recognizes certain illnesses and diseases as being associated with the use of Agent Orange. Lists diseases. . .
- During the Nixon Administration there was a promise, in 1973 as part of the Peace Accords that were signed in Paris. The Nixon Administration promised to contribute 3 billion dollars toward reconstruction and healing the wounds of war and that money has not been forthcoming.
- The chemical companies, Dow and Monsanto paid a pittance to settle a lawsuit to compensate unintended victims for Agent Orange related illnesses.
- The intended victims, the Vietnamese sued the chemical companies in U.S. Federal Court and were unsuccessful. But the lawsuit spawned to hold the United States accountable for using these dangerous chemicals.
- HR 2519, The Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act of 2013. It would provide medical and rehabilitative compensation to Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange and medical services for children of U.S. Vietnam veterans and Vietnamese Americans who have been born with these same diseases and birth defects.
- It would also remediate or clean up hot spots which have been contaminated by dioxin.
- Dioxin is the culprit in Agent Orange. Dioxin the most toxic chemical known to science.
- The US government and the chemical companies did know about it (harmful effects) and they covered up a report and it wasn’t until the late sixties that they stopped spraying Agent Orange because of the negative publicity.
- Now it falls to the Peace Accords in 1973.
- Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign. I would urge everyone to make sure your Congress person is a co-sponsor of HR 2519. The Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act of 2013.
- Obama who was 14 at the time of the Vietnam War, has come out with a campaign to which looks to rewrite the history of the Vietnam War in a way that actually lies about what the U.S. did in Vietnam.
Guest – Attorney Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and on the board of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign. Her latest article The Struggle Continues: Seeking Compensation for Vietnamese Agent Orange Victims, 52 Years On, details a strategy for compensating victims of the Agent Orange chemical.
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Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iran, Iraq Veterans, Iraq War, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Michael Ratner: Bradley Manning Verdict Update
- I’ve been doing a lot of media on this lately, doing a lot of debates. I take a firm position. He should never have been tried in the first place.
- He’s a hero, he’s a whistle-blower. He publicly exposed the truths about the nature of this country particularly its human rights violations, its criminality and its corruption.
- That constitutes whistle-blowing and whistle-blowing is a legal defense to whatever kinds of crimes the United States wanted to try him. He shouldn’t have prosecuted at all.
- First we’ve all seen the collateral murder video. The killing of 2 Reuters journalists and I believe 10 civilians shot with a gung-ho blood lust.
- Those crimes were never really investigated, no one was prosecuted for them and yet it was cold-blooded murder taking place from an Apache helicopter on the streets of Baghdad.
- Think about what the Iraq war logs revealed. 20 thousand more civilians killed in Iraq then the U.S. said were killed.
- That fact alone caused the government of Iraq to not sign another Status of Forces agreement with the United States, because it would have given immunity to U.S. troops. Because there was no immunity for U.S. troops, the U.S. said we’re not staying in Iraq. Think about how important that is.
- Then there was a story last year taken from Wikileaks and Iraq war logs of torture centers run in Iraq in 2003-2004.
- The only reason we knew about that was because of Bradley Manning.
- That is a little example of what Bradley Manning has revealed to all of us of the criminality of our own country and information we ought to know and debate.
- The only reason we consider anything to be positive in this verdict is because Bradley Manning was so overcharged to begin with a ridiculous charge of aiding the enemy that was sustained by a judge with a motion to dismiss and let go til the end until she finally acquitted him of it – that we’re relieved that he wasn’t convicted of it.
- He was convicted of 20 charges. Six of them were espionage charges each of them carrying 10 years.
- Six of them were theft of government documents, each of them carrying 10 years.
- This is the first ever conviction of anyone in the United States who is a whistle-blower, who is a quote leaker for espionage. There is great fear being sown by Obama, Holder and others both in regard to whistle-blowers and to journalists.
Law and Disorder Co-host Attorney Michael Ratner, President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a non-profit human rights litigation organization based in New York City and president of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) based in Berlin. Ratner and CCR are currently the attorneys in the United States for publishers Julian Assange and Wikileaks. He was co-counsel in representing the Guantanamo Bay detainees in the United States Supreme Court, where, in June 2004, the court decided his clients have the right to test the legality of their detentions in court. Ratner is also a past president of the National Lawyers Guild and the author of numerous books and articles, including the books The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book, Against War with Iraq and Guantanamo: What the World Should Know, as well as a textbook on international human rights.
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Pelican Bay Prison Hunger Strike
Last month, prisoners at Pelican Bay Prison went on another hunger strike to protest solitary confinement and security unit conditions. What does solitary confinement mean at Pelican Bay Prison? Well, prisoners spend 22 to 24 hours a day in a cramped, concrete windowless cell. The food is often rotten. Temperatures are extremely hot or cold. Within 15 days, these conditions can cause psychological damage.
Jules Lobel, who represents the prisoners at Pelican Bay in a lawsuit challenging long-term solitary confinement in California prisons says prisoners land in solitary confinement not for crimes they were convicted of, not for any rule violation or violent act while in prison, but based on the slimmest pretext of “affiliation” with a gang.
Attorney Jules Lobel:
- At any one time around the country there are about 80 thousand people that are in some form of solitary confinement.
- In California alone there are 4000. What makes California somewhat unusual is there are a large number of prisoners who’ve been in solitary confinement for over a decade and many over 20 years.
- In Pelican Bay Prison there are over 400 hundred who have been in solitary confinement for over ten years and about 80 for two decades.
- The conditions they’re place under are draconian.
- The cells my clients are in, there are no windows. People spend 20 years without seeing trees, birds, the grass.
- That’s unusual to have a whole prison without any windows.
- They put in thousands of people in solitary simply for gang affiliation. You don’t have to have committed any crime (disclipinary infraction) in prison.
- You get a birthday card from a member of a gang.
- There are things society will look back on, and say how could this have been done in a civilized society. We look back at slavery and segregation now and say that.
- They say that they will force feed only when the prisoner loses consciousness.
- These folks are on a no solid food hunger strike and they’ve been willing to take salt tablets, vitamins.
- We looked at the situation in California as I described and we also knew that 2 years ago hundreds of thousands of prisoners went on hunger strikes in California protesting this and were promised reforms that were never delivered.
- We decided that the time was right for a class action lawsuit.
- We brought the lawsuit in May 2012.
- We claim 2 things. To keep people in these conditions for over a decade is cruel and unusual punishment. It’s a violation of the Eighth Amendment.
- To keep someone in these conditions because they think they’re gang affiliated is disproportionate.
- The case only deals with one, and that’s the most notorious, and that’s Pelican Bay Prison.
- There are a thousand prisoners in solitary confinement at Pelican Bay.
- They deliberately place this prison where its 7 hours from any nearest major metropolitan area by car.
- It’s like a gulag there in that they don’t want any media exposure or attention being placed on them.
- It’s way more costly to put someone in solitary confinement. It’s a waste of tax payer resources.
Guest – Attorney Jules Lobel, has litigated important issues regarding the application of international law in the U.S. courts. In the late 1980’s, he advised the Nicaraguan government on the development of its first democratic constitution, and has also advised the Burundi government on constitutional law issues. Professor Lobel is editor of a text on civil rights litigation and of a collection of essays on the U.S. Constitution, A Less Than Perfect Union (Monthly Review Press, 1988). He is author of numerous articles on international law, foreign affairs, and the U.S. Constitution in publications including Yale Law Journal, Harvard International Law Journal, Cornell Law Review, and Virginia Law Review. He is a member of the American Society of International Law
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Who Will Bell The Cat? . . . Working People : Michael Zweig
2013 Left Forum Presentation by Michael Zweig is Professor of Economics at Stony Brook University and director of the Center for Study of Working Class Life. His most recent books are What’s Class Got to Do with It: American Society in the Twenty-first Century (Cornell University Press, 2004), and The Working Class Majority: America’s Best Kept Secret (Cornell University Press, 2000 – 2nd edition due December, 2011). In 2005-2006, he served as executive producer of Meeting Face to Face: the Iraq – U.S. Labor Solidarity Tour. He wrote, produced, and directed the DVD Why Are We in Afghanistan? in 2009.
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