CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Basic Legal Rights For Animals: Activists and Advocates
Discussions over whether animals are sentient beings, capable of feeling pain, pleasure or suffering, date back as far as ancient thinkers such as Plutarch, Hippocrates and Pythagoras. They all advocated for the fair treatment of animals. The term animal rights stands for the proposition that non-human animals have the right to be treated, not as property, but rather as the individuals they are, with their own desires and needs.
Animal law is now widely taught in law schools across North America. There are 167 law schools in the U.S. and Canada, and 11 in Australia and New Zealand, teaching courses in animal law. Several legal scholars support extending basic legal rights and to personhood to non-human animals.
Critics of animal rights argue that nonhuman animals are unable to enter into a social contract, and thus cannot have rights. Another argument is that animals may be used as resources as long as they don’t undergo unnecessary suffering.
Certain forms of animal rights activism, such as the destruction of fur farms and animal labs by the ALF or Animal Liberation Front, have also attracted criticism, and prompted Congressional reaction by enacting of harsh laws allowing these activities to be prosecuted as terrorism. These laws include the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.
Guest – Attorney Tamara Bedic, chairperson of the National Lawyers Guild Animal Rights Project. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and a masters degree from Columbia University-NY University. Tamara practices employment law with a focus on women and harassment in the workplace.
Guest – Phillip Murphy, Philip Murphy is a writer and social justice activist based in the Greater New York City area. He is a co-founder of the Buddhist Action Coalition NYC, a pan-Buddhist social justice organization, and is also a co-founder of the New York chapter of UK-based Animal Rebellion, a global climate and animal justice movement. His recent article, Why Animal Justice is Crucial in Addressing the Climate Emergency was published at the independent global media platform openDemocracy.net. SHAC 7 Documentary
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Impeachment, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Impeachment Inquiry With Constitutional Law Professor Marjorie Cohn
Nearly 300 former U.S. national security and foreign policy officials signed an open letter on October 6, calling for an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.
The signatures were gathered by National Security Action, an organization that former Obama administration officials formed out of concern for Trump’s “reckless leadership.” The list includes many others who served as career officials in Republican and Democratic administrations.
The former national security professionals said they had largely avoided politics during their public service, but said allegations revealed in the recent whistleblower complaints warranted an additional investigation.
“The revelations of recent days, however, demand a response,” the statement says. “President Trump appears to have leveraged the authority and resources of the highest office in the land to invite additional foreign interference into our democratic processes.”
Guest – Attorney Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law where she taught for 25 years. The former president of the National Lawyers Guild and criminal defense attorney is a legal scholar and political analyst who writes books and articles, and lectures throughout the world about human rights, US foreign policy, and the contradiction between the two. She has testified before Congress and debated the legality of the war in Afghanistan at the prestigious Oxford Union. MarjorieCohn
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Trump Impeachment Inquiry
Like President Richard Nixon before him President Donald Trump made the mistake of using his power as president to go after the wrong target.
Nixon had his people burglarize the Democratic Party’s headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington DC. President Trump himself used his power to try to get the president of the Ukraine to investigate his, Trump’s, main Democratic Party rival, Joe Biden.
This transgression, not Trump’s caging of children, violating the separation of powers, or violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution, was viewed by the mainstream of the Democratic Party and their leader Nancy Pelosi as a “high crime and misdemeanor” violative of the constitution and worthy of an impeachment inquiry. Joe Biden is the preferred candidate of the Democratic establishment.
By impeaching Trump they want to preempt any possible attack on Biden, or on themselves, that could emerge from the Ukraine. It is to be remembered that the Obama Biden Clinton administration orchestrated and overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014, replacing it with the current government, which, for the first time since World War II has actual fascists in the Ukrainian government.
The impeachment process as it gains momentum could spread to other figures in the Trump administration. Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani seems likely to get indicted for violating election finance laws.
The impeachment inquiry could also expose the reality of the democratic party itself which under Obama, Biden, and Hillary Clinton organized the overthrow in 2014 of the democratically elected government of Ukraine and opened the door to American investment in the country, especially in natural gas. Hunter Biden, Joe’s son, as is now widely known, got a seat on the board of Berksems, the largest natural gas company in the Ukraine. This evident sinecure netted him $50,000 a month for a period of several years.
Guest – Ron Jacobs, author of Daydream Sunset: Sixties Counterculture in the Seventies published by CounterPunch Books. His latest offering is a pamphlet titled Capitalism: Is the Problem.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Crony Capitalism, Human Rights, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Amazon Ring Of Surveillance
When it comes to e-commerce, the multinational tech company Amazon.com has laid claim to a huge corner on the market. Now, it’s venturing into the business of surveillance.
Amazon is aggressively pursuing law enforcement partnerships. More than 400 police departments across the nation have already joined forces with the tech giant’s so-called smart doorbell program, called Ring. Part of Amazon’s outreach strategy in gaining new police partners is to play on fears of increasing property crime.
Ring doesn’t just show you who is at your door. It films and records any interaction or movement at owners’ doors, then alerts users’ phones. With partnerships between mega corporations and law enforcement to use new surveillance systems in the public–leaving out community input–come a host of civil liberties concerns, including racial profiling.
Guest – Matthew Guariglia of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Matthew is a policy analyst working on issues of surveillance and privacy at the local, state, and federal level. He is a frequent contributor to the Freedom of Information-centered outlet Muckrock and his bylines have appeared in the Washington Post and Motherboard.
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North of Havana: The Untold Story of Dirty Politics, Secret Diplomacy, and the Trial of the Cuban Five
North of Havana: The Untold Story of Dirty Politics, Secret Diplomacy, and the Trial of the Cuban Five is the recent publication by our guest attorney Martin Garbus.
This case was one of the most significant ones in recent times. Attorney Len Weinglass had originally taken the case to appeal the matter for already convicted Cuban Five. The appeal was ultimately lost. Weinglass died and his dear friend our guest Martin Garbus stepped in to what looked like a lost cause. Four of the five men were in prison serving long sentences.
Cuba had been an American colony up until 1959 when the widely popular Cuban revolution succeeded in gaining the country’s independence from the USA.
To reverse this has been American policy ever since. The Helms-Burton Act was a counter- revolution as an American government policy written into American law.
Martin Garbus started representing Cuban Five member Gerardo Hernandez who at the time had then been found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage against United States sometime in the future as well as murder.
Hernandez and his four comrades had been sent from Cuba to Miami by the government of Cuba to spy, not on the United States, but on the counter-revolutionary Cubans in Miami who were launching terrorist activities from Florida directed at persons and property in Cuba, attempting to sabotage the Cuban tourist economy which was in bad shape when a new Russian government cut them off.
The Cubans gathered information on the Miami-based terrorists, compiling a lengthy dossier on their murders activities, and turned it over to the FBI. They asked the US government to stop the terrorists, who were targeting the Cuban tourist industry by planting bombs at the Havana Airport, on buses, and in a hotel, killing an Italian vacationer. But instead of stopping the terrorists the US government used the dossier to figure out the identities of the Cuban five. They were arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced long prison terms.
While the Cubans were in Miami, a group of counter-revolutionary Cubans calling themselves “Brothers to the Rescue” were provocatively flying small planes over Havana dropping anti-Castro leaflets. They were warned by the Cuban government that if they persisted the planes will be shot down. They persisted. The planes were shot down. Hernandez was convicted of murder although he had no prior knowledge about the shoot down.
Guest – Martin Garbus is one of our great trial lawyers. He has appeared before the United States Supreme Court on leading First Amendment and constitutional law cases.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Human Trafficking, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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- Updates: Host Reunion: Epstein Update
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CCR Update With Legal Director Baher Azmy
Three years ago Donald Trump ran on a racist nativist platform scapegoating Muslims and Mexicans. He lost the popular vote but won the election through the electoral college and began implementing his scapegoating. First he banned Muslims because the Supreme Court ignored his campaign statements and ruling that he had a right to do it under national security.
The Trump policy has been deliberately cruel, separating children from families, caging immigrants in cold cement floored cells, rightly called concentration camps, and now attempting to deny non-citizens who are here illegally, medical care and other benefits.
Guest – Attorney Baher Azmy legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. The CCR is involved in a number of cases seeking to protect immigrants. We will also speak with Attorney Azmy about the current status of the offshore prison island in Guantánamo Bay Cuba and the men who are trapped there in limbo, who have yet to receive trials. Last, we will speak with him about the Al Shamari v. CACI case where the US government farmed out torture to a private corporation.
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Update: Venezuela Under Economic Embargo
In the midst of escalating U.S. aggression toward Venezuela, antiwar activist Gloria LaRiva recently spent a month in that country to observe firsthand the impact on its people.
Gloria joins us today to discuss the crucial issues facing Venezuelans: the U.S. economic sanctions, the U.S. media blockade, and the people’s organizing efforts to overcome the aggression. She’ll talk about the Bolivarian revolution, and how Venezuela is holding up under an economic embargo. https://www.answercoalition.org/
Guest – Gloria LaRiva is an American socialist activist with the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the Peace and Freedom Party. She ran for president in 2008 and again in 2016 with Eugene Puryear and Dennis Banks as her running mates. She has been a driving force in the campaign to Free the Cuban Five and a longtime friend of Law and Disorder. Liberationnews.org
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Censorship, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Human Trafficking, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Torture, Truth to Power
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Victory In New York City Wikileaks Case
Truth telling journalist and publisher Julian Assange and his organization Wiki-leaks won a significant First Amendment victory in federal court in New York City on July 29.
As reported by Oscar Grendel in the World Socialists Website, “The decision by Judge John Koeltl of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected that Assange colluded with Russia. It upheld his status as a journalist and publisher and dismissed claims that WikiLeaks 2016 publication of the leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee was illegal.
We speak today with WikiLeaks lawyer Josh Dratel, who represented WikiLeaks, about this victory for civil liberties and freedom of the press and the right of people to know.
Assange is in terrible and declining health in Belmarsh prison in London waiting extradition to the United States to be tried on 17 counts of espionage for publishing in 2010 troves of information leaked to him by Chelsea Manning demonstrating United States committed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The July 29 victory came about when the Democratic National Committee of the Democratic Party attempted to sue Assange and WikiLeaks for publishing DNC Emails on the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign. They showed that the DNC rigged the primary election against Sanders. Clinton was exposed for taking a $675,000 speakers fee, which some described as a bribe, from the investment banking house of Goldman Sachs to whom she pledged loyalty.
The case the DNC brought against The Russian federation, WikiLeaks and Assange, among others, in 2016 was thrown out of court, with prejudice, by federal judge John Koeltl, a Clinton appointee. Attorney Joshua Dratel defended WikiLeaks.
Please write Julian Assange at this address:
Mr Julian Assange
DOB: 3/07/1971
HMP Belmarsh
Western Way
London SE28 0EB, UK
(Follow These Details In Preparing Letter)
Guest – Attorney Josh Dratel heads a renowned New York City law firm and has a national reputation as a trial and appellate lawyer. He graduated Harvard law school in 1981. Dratel is the past president of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. His many honors include the Frederick Douglass award and the Clarence Darrow award from the ACLU of Idaho. He is the co-editor of the book The Torture Papers: the Legal Road to Abu Graib.
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The Case Of Espionage And Billionaire Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein
When he was alive, the major news media characteristically covered the story of Jeffrey Epstein’s huge pedophile sex ring for a brief news cycle. He was in a federal jail in Manhattan awaiting trial and was dropped out of public view. The salacious aspects of his story were covered briefly. Then he died under mysterious circumstances. The story was briefly revived but diverted to conditions in the jail. But there is much more to it.
In 2007 Florida federal prosecutor Alex Acosta went along with a plea deal which allowed Epstein to plead guilty to a Florida state charge involving prostitution with children and was given an extraordinary light sentence. Acosta dropped federal charges were dropped.
When questioned about this Acosta told a Senate committee inquiring about his credentials to become the secretary of labor in the Trump administration that he, Acosta , was told to back off because Epstein was part of the “intelligence community.“
Was he part of an espionage and blackmail operation? For whom did he work?
Guest – Phillip Giraldi, former CIA agent and counterterrorism specialist and military intelligence officer with the CIA. He is currently executive director of the Council for the National Interest. Geraldi has a masters degree and a PhD.
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Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Iraq Veterans, Iraq War, Military Tribunal, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Lawyers You’ll Like: Attorney Nancy Hollander
Occasionally Law And Disorder has featured interviews with significant attorneys. We call this segment of the show Lawyers You’ll Like. One such attorney is today’s guest, Nancy Hollander. She has been practicing criminal defense lawyer in Albuquerque, New Mexico and has been a partner since 1980 in the law firm of Freedman, Boyd, Hollander, Goldman, Urias, and Ward.
Nancy Hollander‘s practice has largely been devoted to representing individuals and organizations accused of crimes, including those involving national security issues.
She was one of the attorneys in the landmark Holy Land Five case. She won whistle blower Chelsea Manning’s release in 2017 when President Obama commuted her sentence from 35 years to seven years. Although not currently representing Manning she has met with her recently. Manning has been jailed for two months for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury in Virginia which is investigating Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. Manning released the famous Iraqi war log video showing American war crimes in Iraq to Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. He is in prison in London awaiting extradition and trial in Virginia where he faces 175 years in prison if convicted of Espionage Act violations. She represented Mohamedou Ould Slahi, whose release she obtained after he served 15 years in Guantanamo without ever being charged.
Write to Chelsea Manning:
Chelsea Manning – AO181426
William D. Truesdale Adult Detention Center
2001 Mill Road
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
Guest – Attorney Nancy Hollander has been a member of the firm Freedman Boyd Hollander Goldberg Ives & Duncan, P.A. since 1980 and a partner since 1983. Her practice is largely devoted to criminal cases, including those involving national security issues. She has also been counsel in numerous civil cases, forfeitures and administrative hearings, and has argued and won a case involving religious freedom in the United States Supreme Court. Ms. Hollander also served as a consultant to the defense in a high profile terrorism case in Ireland, has assisted counsel in other international cases and represents two prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. Nancy is co-author of WestGroup’s Everytrial Criminal Defense Resource Book, Wharton’s Criminal Evidence, 15th Edition, and Wharton’s Criminal Procedure, 14th Edition. She has appeared on national television programs as PBS Now, Burden of Proof, the Today Show, Oprah Winfrey, CourtTV, and the MacNeill/Lehrer News Hour.
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Supreme Court: Cable Companies Can Limit Public Access
Last month United States Supreme Court in a 5 to 4 decision written by Brett Kavanaugh decided that TV cable companies can, in the words of our guest, losing plaintive DeeDee Halleck, “censor whatever, whoever, and whenever they want.”
Cable companies like Manhattan Neighborhood Network can now limit public access that carry TV shows to be available in hundreds of cities and towns.
The Supreme Court held that Manhattan Neighborhood Network is not subject to First Amendment constraints, that the free-speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits only governmental, not private abridgment of speech and that MNN is a private company.
Judges Cavanagh, Robert, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch is found against the free-speech argument of Halleck and her co-plaintiff Jesus Melendez. Judge Sotomayor wrote the dissent which was joined in on by Ginsberg, Breyer and Kagan.
Guest – Deedee Halleck one of the plaintiffs in this case and among the top media activists. She’s co-founder of Paper Tiger Television and also the Deep Dish Satellite Network, the first grass roots community television network. She is Professor Emerita in the Department of Communication at the University of California at San Diego.
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