Law and Disorder May 21, 2012

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Updates:

  • Federal Appeals Court Revives Lawsuit Brought By Two Iraqi Detainees
  • Palestinian Prisoner Hunger Strike Update

—–

ACLU of Georgia to Release Report on Immigration Detention in Georgia

A report released by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Georgia exposes the privatized corporate  immigrant detention facilities in that state. The report contains interviews from more than 60 individuals detained inside four different detention centers.

Guest – Azadeh Shahshahani, the National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project Director with the Georgia ACLU.

—–

 

HIV Specific Criminal Laws

We talk today about HIV-specific criminal laws and sentence enhancement.  HIV criminal prosecution of occurs when an HIV-positive individual does not disclose their HIV status to a partner before engaging in sex.  The person charged may face decades in prison, life time registration as a sex offender and stigmatization.  While there have been hundreds of prosecutions for HIV crimes in the United States, disclosure and consent is a defense but is difficult to prove and actual transmission of HIV is unnecessary.

Sean Strub:

  • About 35 states and territories have HIV specific statutes that only apply to people with HIV that mandate disclosure of their HIV status prior to engaging in intimate contact with another person, independent of whether there is any risk present, independent of whether there is any harm incurred and independent of any intent.
  • The statutes have created a viral underclass that is pretty concerning. Right now there’s an explosion of laws based on people’s viral status.
  • The vast majority of the prosecutions do not involve the transmission of the virus.
  • There are also a number of HIV prosecutions that fall within the phenomenon we call HIV criminalization that aren’t about sex but are heightened charges for other behaviors.
  • Willie Campbell in Texas is serving 35 years for spitting on a cop because the court found his saliva to be a deadly weapon even though saliva doesn’t transmit HIV.
  • We’ve been alerting people to the fact that this horrific public health policy, that increasingly you hear, take the test, risk arrest.
  • The best defense (under the current laws) for not getting prosecuted for HIV criminalization is not getting tested.  Not knowing your status in the first place.
  • A man in Iowa just had a 50 year sentence upheld. These forms are driving the criminalization specifically as well as contributing to the stigmatization that makes people reluctant to get tested, reluctant to disclose.
  • These states that HIV specific statutes, they don’t have specific statutes for hepatitis or HPV. Four thousand women last died from cervical cancer, almost every single one of them got it from Human Papilla Virus.  HPV – genital warts.
  • But we’re not out prosecuting people for HPV.
  • The answer is obvious those sexually transmitted diseases aren’t associated with an outlaw sexuality.  They’re not associated with people of color or gay men, with anal intercourse or people who use drugs.
  • Poz Magazine The SERO Project

Guest – Sean Strub, writer and activist who founded several magazines and websites, including POZ magazine and POZ en Español, (for people impacted by HIV/AIDS), Mamm (for women impacted by breast cancer), He is the founder of the SERO project to help oppose the use of HIV specific criminal laws.

—–

 

Lawyers You’ll Like: Attorney Daniel Gross – Focus On the Food Chain Victory

Victories continue for Brandworkers,  a non-profit organization protecting and advancing the rights of retail and food employees. Last fall we talked with Attorney Daniel Gross, Executive Director of Brandworkers about the 470 thousand dollar settlement reached in a labor dispute with Pur Pac, a food distribution warehouse giant that illegally withheld wages from their workers. Today we discuss the latest victory in another settlement recovering nearly 600 thousand dollars in unpaid wages and compensation for workers at Flaum Appetizing. According to Daniel Gross, the Latino workers there were subjected to constant verbal harassment and forced to work at unsafe speeds.

Attorney Daniel Gross:

  • New York City economy has a burgeoning food processing and distributing sector.  There are 35 thousand workers, the vast majority are immigrant workers of color.
  • The vast majority depend on this sector for their livelihood.
  • The business model is simple. It’s exploiting recent immigrant workers of color through wage theft, through reckless disregard of health and safety and egregious discrimination of workers from Latin America, China, Haiti, Nepal.
  • Flaum Appetizing , regrettably but not surprisingly really fit the mold. Flaum is a hummus manufacturer and distributor of kosher food products based in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
  • It starts the sector of the food corridor of food manufacturing and sweatshops.
  • Flaum Appetizing  engaged in a tremendous amount of wage theft, a failure to pay overtime and in some cases, minimum wage.
  • Millions and millions of dollars of real wealth had been illegally withheld from workers.
  • There was offensive and insulting discrimination against Latino workers including Latino workers being called cockroaches and aliens.
  • The Flaum Appetizing workers approached me in 2010 with some hope and energy because they had seen the victories of our members at the Wild Edibles Seafood had won.
  • The workers through incredibly persistent grassroots energy persuaded over 120 of the best most prominent grocery stores in New York to stop selling Flaum products including their Sunny and Joe’s Hummus until workers’ rights were respected.
  • Our commitment with Brandworkers, if fight to win. When we engage with an adversary, they should know if we have to, we will chase them to the gates of hell and back.
  • Almost all of our members in the Flaum campaign are raising young children.
  • There were two components we were able to bring home which was really a hard fought struggle.
  • One was our members were proud to report they recovered 577 thousand dollars in wealth that will help them transform their families lives both here and in their home countries, Mexico and El Salvador.
  • They also one a binding code of conduct which will force  Flaum Appetizing into full compliance of workplace protections.
  • Our model is the labor movement of the late 19th century. Unions like Local 8, the great IWW on the Philadelphia docks that used worker direct action and everyday solidarity.
  • Unions and worker centers and community groups are going to converge at the New School on June 6, 2012.  Food Justice Movement  Food Chain Workers
  • I owe my politicization to a company that’s now bankrupt. That was Borders Books and Music.
  • I come out of working in retail and fast food and Starbucks as you mentioned.
  • My grandfather was a member of the teamsters union. He drove a liquor truck out of the Bronx. So I knew in the back of my mind he was able to live the last years of his life as amazing grandfather with dignity because he had his union pension.
  • Fighting Starbucks honed my skills because they are such a sophisticated and determined adversary.
  • The evil brilliance of the Starbucks union busting operation.
  • I had the unique pleasure which I will remember all my life to be represented by Leonard Weinglass.

Guest – Attorney Daniel Gross, Executive Director of Brandworkers, a non-profit organization protecting and advancing the rights of retail and food employees.

————————————————————

Law and Disorder May 12, 2012

CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Truth to Power

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Updates:

——

Scapegoat: The Chino Hills Murders and The Framing of Kevin Cooper

Scapegoat: The Chino Hills Murders and The Framing of Kevin Cooper is the title of Patrick O’Connor’s new book. This is an important document chronicling Kevin Cooper’s  controversial conviction and death sentence in 1985.  When O’Connor committed to writing the book, he poured over thousands of case documents from trial transcripts, grisly autopsy photos, appeals and judicial rulings. He then began interviewing those involved in the trial and appeals. The picture began to take shape, a familiar one. The prosecution and the police withheld and destroyed evidence that would have exonerated Kevin Cooper from the brutal murders of the Ryen Family and their guest.

J. Patrick O’Connor:

  • In 2008, the Mumia book that I wrote was coming out and I was in the San Francisco Bay area with (attorney) Jeff Mackler of the Mobilization to Free Mumia.
  • We had about 15 venues that we went to all over the bay area. Invariably, supporters of Kevin Cooper would come to these events and afterwards would take me aside and say you got to write a book about Kevin Cooper.
  • His case is a lot different than Mumia’s but there are a lot of similarities.
  • Once I started reading the transcripts of this trial, I could see there were a lot of things wrong with this case.
  • It took me about 2 and half years from the start to the publication of the book.
  • There was a terrible, in Chino Hills, this is Arabian horse country. This family named the Ryens, they live on a hilltop house with a very big spread, about 15 Arabians. San Bernadino-45 miles east of Los Angeles.
  • In this area, most of the people were either raising horses or grazing cattle. This family was a mom and dad and they were both chiropractors. 41 year old chiropractors, and they had a 10 year old daughter named Jessica and an 8 and a half year old son named Josh.
  • A friend of Josh’s 11 year old Christopher Hughs, spent the night.
  • Around midnight that night, the home was breached. The master bedroom. The family was assaulted with an axe, or a hatchet, I think 2 knives, and an ice pick.
  • It was an incredible fight, these people didn’t stand in line and say I’m next.
  • The father Doug was 6’1″ 190lbs, a former Marine, an MP in the Marines and could take care of himself. The mother 5’8″ very strong, she was the one that could train the horses, these enormous horses that she could control.
  • Both of them kept loaded weapons in the bedroom. The idea that one perpetrator could use 4 weapons to perpetrate this attack is kind of fecitious on its face.
  • What put Kevin Cooper in the crosshairs is 3 miles from Chino Hills is Chino which is home to the California Institute for Men, where every felon in Southern California is sent for classification.
  • Cooper was sent there for 2 burglaries in LA. Escapes and holes up in Chino Hills for the next 2 days, in a house located 125 yards from the Ryen’s house.
  • Josh who had survived, told the deputy sheriff through a hand squeeze method that it was 3 white men.  They put out APBs for 3 white guys.
  • When they discern Kevin Cooper’s prints are all over that hide out house, they discard that information and start planning evidence that would implicate Cooper and making big lies about stuff that would implicate him.
  • He would have been the only African-American in the community.
  • They contaminated the crime scene, there are 2 bathrooms in this house, the cops used one of the bathrooms that had blood in the sink.
  • They don’t type the blood properly, they put blood from all different parts of the room in the same bag.
  • So, there’s no way to track the motions of who died, what was the order of death?
  • They took the walls out, they carted out all the furniture, put it on the front yard. Then they moved it to a warehouse where the air conditioner broke. It went to 120 degrees, they lose all the blood evidence in the warehouse.
  • The night of the murders, Cooper left after 9pm to hitchhike to Mexico. Cooper sees his mugshot on TV, he goes on the lamb.  Cooper is got and convicted, he gets the gas chamber.
  • He came with 3 hours and 45 minutes of being executed because of a moratorium. Kevin Cooper is fifth in line, this moratorium will end in 2013.
  • They had to have the complicity of numerous people inside the sheriff’s department and a very willing DA’s office to perpetrate this fraud on Cooper.

Guest – J.Patrick O’Connor, editor of Crimemagazine.com and the author of The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal (2008). He has previously worked as a reporter for UPI, editor of Cincinnati Magazine, associate editor of TV Guide, and editor and publisher of the Kansas City New Times.

——–

 

Homeland Security Documents Show Massive Nationwide Monitoring of Occupy Movement

Last month we gave Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Carl Messinio of the Partnership for Civil Justice the Law and Disorder Tip Of The Hat Award for creative use of FOIA.  The documents obtained by the Department of Homeland Security show a massive nationwide monitoring, surveillance and information sharing between DHS and local authorities.  But its only the tip of the iceberg. The documents are heavily redacted and don’t show the full scale of coordination. “These documents show not only intense government monitoring and coordination in response to the Occupy Movement, but reveal a glimpse into the interior of a vast, tentacled, national intelligence and domestic spying network that the U.S. government operates against its own people,” says Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, she’s the Executive Director of the PCJF.

Attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard:

  • We filed a series of FOIA requests and demands in November of last year when it was clear the Occupy movement was being subjected to a coordinated assault.
  • We wanted to expose and uncover the role of the federal government working hand in hand with local police and municipalities to shut down this movement. A movement that is inspiring people all over the country and is a force for social change.
  • What we have is the tip of a very carefully submerged iceberg.
  • What we’ve seen is massive surveillance, coordination, monitoring of peaceful protesters all over the country by the federal government.
  • There is monitoring that’s gone on from Washington DC, to Atlanta, to Detroit, to Dallas, that there is an intense focus going all the way up to high ranking members of the administration.
  • We know that with the creation of the fusion centers and the suspicious reporting activity, the vertical integration of law enforcement and intelligence operatives in the US, that coming from a federal level, from the Department of Homeland Security, with billions of dollars. There is in place where all of the hundreds and thousands of law enforcement officers . . local is almost deputized, where they’re collecting information and feeding data.
  • It’s critical that the people of the United States see this. The way for this to be stopped is to uncover it and expose it.  We see time and again the FBI creating its own terrorist plots, in many times as PR to justify their oppressive apparatus.
  • One of the defining features of the Obama Administration is the fact that it took on this apparatus put in place by the Bush Administration and not only didn’t take it apart, they have deepened it.
  • There is really a structure now in the United States that has the US government spying and collecting data on its own citizens.
  • We have regulation that has been put into place under the Obama Administration where there is growing use of military support for domestic civilian authorities which is very concerning.
  • We can see that the real spark for social change is people getting together for collective action.
  • What we want to accomplish is to keep the streets, sidewalks and parkland open for grassroots democracy and social change and people need the ability to come out and come together and in order to do that without fear that they’re going to be beaten . . or mass arrested.
  • National Special Security Events: The Secret Service and Federal Government becomes the lead coordinating arm and local police work under that umbrella. In Tampa and Charlotte you can see they’re enacting these very repressive ordinances that facially look unconstitutional.
  • The ordinances are trying to stop people from doing things are permitted, that are lawful.
  • There is growing effort to take public space out from under our feet and one way of doing that is to say that there’s going to be an effort to restore the grass, and we fought this battle back in 2004 at the RNC in New York when we came to challenge the effort of New York City to ban mass assembly on the Great Lawn of Central Park.
  • A lot of this effort is to make people feel alone and suffer in silence.

Guest – Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, co-chair of the Guild’s national Mass Defense Committee. Co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund in Washington, DC, she recently secured $13.7 million for about 700 of the 2000 IMF/World Bank protesters in Becker, et al. v. District of Columbia, et al., while also winning pledges from the District to improve police training about First Amendment issues. She won $8.25 million for approximately 400 class members in Barham, et al. v. Ramsey, et al. (alleging false arrest at the 2002 IMF/World Bank protests). She served as lead counsel in Mills, et al v. District of Columbia (obtaining a ruling that D.C.’s seizure and interrogation police checkpoint program was unconstitutional); in Bolger, et al. v. District of Columbia (involving targeting of political activists and false arrest by law enforcement based on political affiliation); and in National Council of Arab Americans, et al. v. City of New York, et al. (successfully challenging the city’s efforts to discriminatorily restrict mass assembly in Central Park’s Great Lawn stemming from the 2004 RNC protests.)

———————————————————————

Law and Disorder May 7, 2012

CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, FBI Intrusion, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Updates:

  • Michael Smith and Heidi Boghosian Discuss May Day Events
  • Michael Smith Reads A May Day Letter From Lynne Stewart
  • Retired Chemistry Professor Tried For Jury Tampering Represents Self and Wins.
  • Federal Lawsuit Filed Against NYPD For Improper Use Of Barricades
  • Four City Council Members File Suit Against NYPD For Police Abuse

—–

 

Former Head of CIA Clandestine Service Justifies Torture On CBS 60 Minutes

In a recent interview on CBS news, former head of the CIA’s clandestine service Jose Rodriguez discussed the destruction of 92 tapes in which terrorism suspects were subjected to water boarding and other forms of torture. Rodriguez told CBS that he destroyed the tapes to protect the people who worked for him at various black sites. But critics say Rodriguez is afraid of criminal prosecution because those 92 tapes contained compelling evidence of criminality and are a threat to Rodriguez and those who approved the use of torture.  Rodriguez,  a thirty-year veteran of the CIA, and spent most of his entire career in Latin America, supports the idea that torture works to get information.

Attorney Scott Horton:

  • We know the government in response to FOIA requests, and litigation requests has released photographs and tapes repeatedly in the past, and always obliterates the faces involved, so of course the identities are not released.
  • Obama announced in his speech from Kabul, al-Qaeda’s been defeated. It’s a faint shadow of what it was before.
  • The tapes contained evidence of crimes, it showed water boarding and other torture techniques. It documented those techniques, and that presented a risk to Jose Rodriguez and to the the people up above Rodriguez who are responsible for putting through torture policy.
  • George Tenet was involved, Bybee, a judge in the Ninth Circuit in Las Vegas, John Yoo who is a professor at the University of California, Steven Bradbury who is now a partner in a law firm in Washington DC and then it went into the White House where it went into the National Security Council.
  • The trail consistently leads straight into the office of former Vice President Dick Cheney. He was the key mover for the introduction of torture policy.
  • Domestically, we have an anti-torture statute that includes for conspiracy to torture, both of those things were violated. They apply outside of the United States, so they would have applied to the conduct of a CIA agent operating in Poland or Thailand for instance.
  • Jose Rodriguez: He’s trying to make money, he’s selling a book, what you saw was a 36 minute advertisement for his book, published by an affiliate of CBS.
  • Beyond that I’d say he’s trying to build sympathy and beat back calls for his own prosecution.
  • I think this was an ill advised strategy and I think he confessed to criminal conduct in the course of this interview.
  • At one point they claimed that they were able to track down and pick up Jose Padilla through the use of water boarding, which is very very interesting because Padilla was arrested and in custody before the first case of water boarding was applied.
  • Mitt Romney has been out there punching away constantly on the advocacy of torture and the response from the Obama campaign has been silence. Silence.
  • The guy came across to me as something of a psychopath (Jose Rodriguez)

Guest –  New York attorney Scott Horton, Scott is known for his work in human rights law and the law of armed conflict. Scott is also the contributing editor to Harper’s Magazine.

—–

Common Cause Files IRS Whistleblower Complaint Against ALEC

The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, is a tax exempt charity that spends millions of dollars annually to lobby for hundreds of bills in state legislatures around the United States. It came to the attention of the public for having drafted and pressured passage of the so-called stand your ground legislation after the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in February. The watchdog group Common Cause has asked the IRS to review ALEC’s status claiming that ALEC is “a corporate lobby masquerading as a charity,” and that contributors should not be allowed to claim the gifts as charitable contributions.

Nick Surgey:

  • ALEC describes itself as nonpartisan although the majority are members of the Republican Party.
  • It’s concerning from a tax perspective, ALEC is operating as 501c non-profit, which means its a charity.
  • Therefore corporations who are members of ALEC are allowed to take a tax deduction, when they contribute up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
  • If Visa, Verizon or Amazon then those lobbying would not be tax deductible, they would be subject to tax, but they do the same lobbying through ALEC.
  • All of those contributions are subsidized by us – the tax payer. And that’s wrong.
  • We shouldn’t be subsidizing the activities of any corporation.
  • Until recently ALEC operated 9 Task Forces, they were forced to close one 2 weeks ago.
  • Stand Your Ground Bill / Drafted by the NRA, lobbied by them and presented to legislators in Florida 2005.
  • The NRA took it to ALEC, who they’re a member of, Walmart chaired the taskforce. Walmart the largest retailer of weapons in the United States.
  • The Stand Your Ground bill is now law in 20 states.
  • ALEC organizes around these 9 task forces. They have bills that really cover almost every policy area.
  • Other areas include rolling back environmental protection, they have a commerce task force, where a lot of anti-union bills, the right to work legislation, it comes from that task force.
  • Corporations will use the state essentially to lobby on their behalf.
  • Common Cause has a very good picture of what ALEC has been doing in the last 2 years and this formed the basis of this massive IRS submission.
  • One document are these scorecards which they send to their corporate members, where they celebrate the success that they have. Some of the early scorecards, they mapped out the complete picture of the United States and where all of their model bills have been introduced.
  • A source provided us with emails going between ALEC and state legislators. We were very greatful to be represented pro-bono by one of the country’s leading whistle-blower firms, Phillips and Cohen.
  • Voter ID has been increasingly connected to ALEC.
  • We believe the bigger fraud is disenfranchising millions of predominantly African American, elderly or young student voters.  In wasn’t until 2009 when ALEC took it up, that it really injected energy into it at the state level and its been introduced in 34 states. (Voter ID)
  • ALEC has an ability to take a law, not always a new law and sell it to their almost 2000 state legislator members.
  • ALEC has about a third of all state legislators in the entire country as members.
  • There was a fracking bill, and it was sponsored by Exxon Mobile.
  • ALECExposed.org

Guest –   Nick Surgey, Nick conducted the research helping to expose the American Legislative Exchange Council.  Nick joined Common Cause in March 2011 as a Legal Associate.  He formerly worked at the British Refugee Council in Leeds, England, where he advocated on behalf of asylum seekers. He previously worked at an immigration law firm, as an elected student union officer and as a paid campaigner. Nick holds an undergraduate degree in History and Politics and a post-graduate diploma in law.
—————————————–

Law and Disorder April 30, 2012

Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Iraq War, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Updates:

————


39 Ways To Limit Free Speech

39 Ways To Limit Free Speech is the title Law Professor David Cole’s recent article.  Earlier this month, a 29-year old citizen from Sudbury, Massachusetts named Tarek Mehanna was sentenced to seventeen and a half years in prison for translating a document. The text he translated from Arabic is “39 Ways to Serve and Participate in Jihad” and its all over the internet, you can read it says David Cole, but don’t try to translate it. One issue in the government’s prosecution of this case is the use of the decision from the Brandenburg v. Ohio case in which the Supreme Court established that standard in ruling that the First Amendment protected a Ku Klux Klansman who made a speech to a Klan gathering advocating “revengeance” against blacks and “Jews.”

Professor David Cole:

  • He was accused of providing material support to al-Qaeda by translating various documents and videos from Arabic into English. There’s no allegations that Mehanna ever met with or even talked to a member of al-Qaeda. There are no allegations that the translations were delivered to or provided to al-Qaeda which was the designated group.
  • The government argued that because he translated these documents and put them up on the web and hoped to encourage people to support jihad and support al-Qaeda, that’s enough to constitute material support.
  • Here’s an instant in which the government is prosecuting pure speech but no showing that the speech was connected to illegal conduct, no showing that it was intended to produce eminent lawless action, which the Supreme Court said is required to produce under Brandenburg.
  • It’s enough that he put it up on the web and wanted to support al-Qaeda.
  • If that’s a crime what about the New York Times when it does a report on one of the many messages Osama Bin Laden put after 9-11?
  • I represented the Humanitarian Law Project in the case that went to the Supreme Court in 2010, in which the HLP was in engaging in advocacy of human rights and peace, clearly non-violent, non-criminal conduct.
  • But because they wanted to do it to and with the Kurds in Turkey and particularly the political representatives of the Kurds in Turkey which is the Kurdistan Workers Party (designated as a terrorist organization) the government argued that it was a crime to teach the KWP to bring human rights claims in Geneva and work with them in peace overtures to the Turkish Government.
  • The Supreme Court upheld that, but doesn’t apply to independent advocacy. (until now)
  • Now if you wanted your speech to support terrorist organizations, even if you did it independently of that organization, even if you never met or talked to anyone in that organization, we can make it a crime.
  • Very much about declaring a “new front” in the war on terror and the front is going after internet propaganda.
  • To me it recalls the kind of aiding the enemy prosecutions we saw in World War 1.
  • We as citizens need to be active in monitoring and pushing back against this material support statute.

Guest – Professor David Cole teaches constitutional law, national security, and criminal justice at Georgetown University Law Center.  He is also a volunteer attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, the legal affairs correspondent for The Nation, a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, and a commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. He has been published widely in law journals and the popular press, including the Yale Law Journal, California Law Review, Stanford Law Review, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times.

——————-

FAA Releases Lists of Drone Certificates—Many Questions Left Unanswered
Earlier this year we discussed the partnership with Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The two institutions are working together to build a campus in New York City.  Technion is involved with developing robotic weapons systems, which include aerial drones, and unmanned combat vehicle technology.  There are many more universities involved with drone technology. Through a series of Freedom of Information requests by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the FAA has been forced to reveal approximately 63 active drone sites. These sites are located in 20 states and their owners include military and universities. Universities include Cornell, (which we just mentioned)  the University of Colorado, Georgia Tech, Eastern Gateway Community College and many more.

Attorney Jennifer Lynch:

  • We filed a FOIA request with the FAA last April asking for copies of all the certificates of authorization and the special air-worthiness certificates that the FAA issues to anybody to wants to fly a drone in the US.
  • We asked for these lists which are called COAs, or Certificates of Authorization. The COAs apply to public entities like state and local law enforcement, universities, the federal government.
  • We got two lists from the FAA and the FAA says these cover all of the entities that applied for an authorization to fly a drone in United States.
  • They’re very interesting, the COA list includes some unsurprising entities like DARPA, DHS, Customs and Border Protection, the FBI, various branches of the military. We already knew those entities were flying drones.
  • What was more surprising was the number of universities and colleges on the list.
  • Universities that have an aerospace engineering program they may be seeking authorization so the students can learn about and design drones.
  • The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a civil liberties non-profit, we focus on civil liberties and new technology, and we’re concerned about surveillance equipment used by the government.
  • Drones are a duel use technology, they can be used for good or for bad.
  • They can see inside buildings, survey an area at night with heat sensors, they also have the ability to carry communications intercept tools. You could swap out various payloads on a drone.
  • Then of course these drones can carry weapons.
  • You can build your own drone, DIYDrones.
  • We don’t know too much about what’s going on now. The reason the EFF file the FOIA request in the first place is that we just don’t know how agencies are using these drones.
  • What we found is that a lot of the police forces that have drones are required to fly them under 600 feet. If its something that flying under 600 feet you’re going to be able to see that.
  • Congress was getting a lot of pressure, and the FAA was getting a lot of pressure from state and local law enforcement, the military and the federal government to authorize more drones to be used in the United States.
  • We’ve heard from the Congressional Research Service that 1 in 3 warplanes right now is a drone.
  • The wars are going to end and the military is going to want to something with these drones.

Guest – Jennifer Lynch, staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and works on open government, transparency and privacy issues as part of EFF’s FOIA Litigation for Accountable Government (FLAG) Project. In addition to government transparency, Jennifer has written and spoken frequently on government surveillance programs, intelligence community misconduct, and biometrics collection. Prior to joining EFF, Jennifer was the Clinical Teaching Fellow with the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law. At the Samuelson Clinic, Jennifer specialized in privacy and intellectual property issues, including investigations on social media, privacy and the smart electrical grid, digital books, and open source regimes for biotech. Before the Clinic, Jennifer practiced with Bingham McCutchen in San Francisco and clerked for Judge A. Howard Matz in the Central District of California. She earned both her undergraduate and law degrees from UC Berkeley.

—————————–

Law and Disorder April 2, 2012

Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Human Rights, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power, War Resister

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Updates:

—

 

Vodak Settlement:  Setting Precedence For Demonstrations

Attorneys with the National Lawyers Guild recently settled a class action lawsuit brought against the Chicago Police Department on behalf of protesters falsely arrested during a 2003 anti-war demonstration. On March 20 2003 nearly 10 thousand anti-Iraq War protesters marched through downtown Chicago before police surrounded a large group, trapping and arresting more than 700 people without ordering them to disperse. A Seventh Circuit ruling on the case (Vodak v. City of Chicago, 639 F.3d, 738 (2011)) held that police can’t arrest peaceful protesters without warning because the demonstration lacks a permit. This decision bears new weight in light of mass arrests within the Occupy movement. The National Lawyers Guild attorneys reached a 6.2 million dollar settlement in this case on the eve of a scheduled trial. The suit was litigated over the course of almost nine years by a team of NLG lawyers and legal workers including People’s Law Office attorneys Janine Hoft, Joey Mogul, Sarah Gelsomino, and John Stainthorp, as well as People’s Law Office paralegal Brad Thomson, and attorneys Melinda Power and Jim Fennerty.

Attorney Joey Mogul:

  • We think it sends a significant message to Chicago and the Chicago Police Department that it must honor and respect people’s right to protest.
  • It was the day that Bush had dropped bombs on Iraq. There was a massive out pouring of opposition, and people came down to the center of Chicago, to the Federal Plaza which is the heart of downtown. There were 10 thousand people and they marched on Lake Shore drive, and this was all permitted by the Chicago Police Department. This was a spontaneous demonstration, there was no written permit, but the CPD allowed it.
  • Toward the end of the march, they decided that they wanted it to be over. They proceeded to surround everyone on Chicago avenue, and they prevented them from leaving, trapped them there for hours.
  • They then proceeded to take over 500 people into police custody. 200 hundred were released, the rest were arrested with bogus phony charges of wreck-less conduct.
  • They mass arrested everyone in that area including joggers and people shopping. It had an extremely chilling effect for people participating or near a demonstration.
  • The message to the Chicago Police is that they cannot mass arrest people without giving orders to disperse.
  • The new changes in the Chicago ordinances are very scary, it does allow for this increased surveillance of protesters and individuals seeking to protest.
  • We’re very well aware of what the law is and we will seek to vindicate people’s constitutional rights.

—–

Brad Thompson:

  • I’ve been working on this case since 2004, when I first started at the People’s Law Office.
  • The work that I’ve done is a tremendous amount of discovery work in terms of going through the video work that was shot that night, by protesters, independent journalists, mainstream media and by the police.
  • I did a lot in maintaining communication with class members. We had over 800 people that were taken into custody or held in the street for over 90 minutes.
  • We did obtain over 250 affidavits by people who had their rights violated that night.
  • The majority of protesters were from Chicago or the Greater Chicago area.
  • I was one of the people taken into custody that night and released without being charged.
  • I was witnessing the police aggressively arrest someone and I started to point and chant “shame” and then I became targeted.  The police tackled me, and pulled me to my feet and struck me in the face which broke my nose and had a wound that required five stitches.
  • I spent the night in jail bleeding all over myself.

Guest – Attorney Joey Mogul, partner at the People’s Law Office in Chicago and director of the Civil Rights Clinic at DePaul University’s College of Law. She focuses on civil rights cases involving police misconduct, criminal cases brought against individuals engaged in street demonstrations and other forms of First Amendment expression, and capital defense cases.

Guest – Brad Thompson, legal worker with the People’s Law Office in Chicago.

———–

 

Locking Away Children For Life Without Parole

The United States is the only country in the world that sentences children to life, without the possibility of parole. Last month, the US Supreme Court revisited the question of whether juveniles convicted of murder should be given mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole. The Supreme Court had once ruled against imposing death sentences on juveniles and imposing life sentences on youth who aren’t convicted of murder. Currently, 2500 kids in jail are serving life sentences without parole in the US.  371 of those individuals are in Michigan prisons. Our next guest has been working on a lawsuit on behalf of 9 Michigan individuals who were sentenced to life in prison for crimes committed when they were minors and who are being denied the possibility of parole.

Attorney Deborah LaBelle:

  • The concept that we’ve been talking about that these are children both under international law and US law for civil matters, children are different from adults.
  • The Supreme Court seemed to readily grasp that, they weren’t speaking about juveniles or teenagers or young adults, they spoke continuously on what to do about children who are involved in homicide crime.
  • The court had two cases in front of them, both involving 14 year olds, one in which the 14 did not commit a homicide, but convicted of either felony murder or aiding and abetting.
  • That juvenile got mandatory life without possibility of parole, because the child was sentenced as an adult, the other case, the 14 year old actually committed the homicide.
  • There is a handful of states, Michigan and I think 8 others who treat 17 year olds always as adults for all purposes in the criminal justice system.
  • Under the 38 states, there’s a whole range, some you can only get life without parole, if you’re 16 and up, some allow it for 15, some states allow it for a child of any age, Michigan is one of them.
  • One of the justices talked about that. Is there an age in which we would all share a collective cringe. What about a 5 year old, what about a 10 year old.
  • The frontal lobe area of the brain that really addresses impulse control and long term consequences, and control issues of risk management, is developing through adolescence.
  • People draw the age at different points, some say not til 19, some not til 23 as you say.
  • There’s a bright line in civil law that’s been drawn in civil law that youth have a maturity that they can vote, when they can decide to leave school, when they can drink in some places, when they can drive.
  • There are these bright lines.
  • Every other country who has signed on to the conventions of the rights of the child which prohibits putting children in prison for life without possibility of parole explicitly has recognized that this practice is banned.
  • The only other country that hasn’t signed on is Somalia and they don’t quite have a government right now to do that.
  • We stand alone in not adhering to that convention on the rights of the child as well as we stand alone on approving this sentence.
  • We have over 2500 youth who are serving of life without any possibility of parole. About 70 percent are children of color. A third of them, did not commit homicides.
  • No one is arguing that there might not be circumstances, that a state couldn’t decide upon review that child couldn’t be released.  What the argument is, you can’t keep them in there without any hope. You have to give them an opportunity to demonstrate upon maturation that they have been rehabilitated and they aren’t a threat to public safety.
  • We should think of putting children in places where we can nurture, council and believe in their rehabilitation and give them a second chance.
  • I read transcript after transcript of judges saying, – listen I don’t want to do this to this 14 or 16 year old, but I don’t have any choice.  What is the value of putting a child away with no hope. It’s certainly not a public safety issue, because that can be addressed by the state by having parole or review hearings.

 Guest – Attorney Deborah LaBelle, an attorney with the ACLU of Michigan’s Juvenile Life Without Parole Initiative.

————————————————————

Law and Disorder March 19, 2012

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Updates:

——

 

Church Puts Legal Pressure on Abuse Victims’ Group

Earlier last year, we reported on the Vatican revising its laws making it easier to discipline sex abuser priests.  This month, lawyers for the Roman Catholic Church and priests accused of sexual abuse and pedophilia have used the courts to force the group SNAP Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests to disclose more than two decades of e-mails that could include correspondence with victims, lawyers, whistle-blowers, witnesses, the police, prosecutors and journalists.  A Kansas City judge decided SNAP must comply with lawyers because it had relevant information regarding 2 cases in Missouri.

Attorney Barbara Blaine:

  • As you know we are a not for profit, self help support group run by and for people who have been victims of clergy sexual abuse.  We have been providing support information to each other since 1988.
  • The church officials have taken an unprecedented move and they have subpoenaed records from our SNAP leaders.
  • We are an international group, we have groups forming in other countries as well.
  • Here in the United States, we have support groups meeting in about 70 cities. In these support groups people share their feelings and tidbits of information on how to cope with the repercussions of sexual violence.
  • There are subpoenas from 2 different cities, 2 different cases, both from the state of Missouri.
  • In Kansas City, what’s happen in the past year, is a lot of sex abuse by priests has been uncovered, exposed and brought to light. In the process, the Bishop himself was indicted for failure to protect children.
  • In one particular civil case, the church attorneys have subpoenaed the records of our national director and they are looking for very extreme information.
  • These subpoenas are not tailored to be helpful to get information for the case, SNAP is not a party to either of these cases. They ask for records with no date, from the very beginning of SNAP, from 1988.
  • They’re asking for all the information in our emails, in our files, and they’re looking for any information that names any priest from the diocese of Kansas City, St Joseph.
  • We do believe that the victims who have spoken out in Kansas City, have had an impact. I think its empowered other victims to come forward. I think they’re trying to shut down SNAP in Kansas City.
  • The biggest concern we have now is the fear that this is spreading. In many ways, the intended effect has already taken place.
  • I started SNAP, I did so, after I was raped and sexually violated by a priest in my parish growing up.
  • Stop The Legal Bullying Petition.

Guest – Attorney Barbara Blaine, founder of SNAP  the nation’s oldest and largest self-help organization for victims of clergy sexual abuse 10 thousand survivors.

——–

 

Court Rules FDNY Liable for Up to $128 Million in Back Pay to Black and Latino Applicants

Last week, a US District judge awarded plaintiffs back pay in a class action lawsuit that found the New York Fire Department to have racially discriminatory hiring practices.  US District Judge Nicholas Garaufis also ruled that the City of New York is liable for nearly 129 million in lost wages.  This amount will be distributed to Black and Latino applicants,  82 and 42 million dollars respectively.   The judge also ordered the FDNY to hire 186 Black firefighters and 107 Latino firefighters.

Attorney Darius Charney:

  • The Vulcan Society which is the Black fraternal organization for New York City brought a lawsuit in the early 1970s challenging the hiring practices of the department as violative of the equal protection clause of the Constitution, saying that they racially discriminated.
  • Blacks and Latinos, its over half of the city’s population today. If you look at the fire department today, its roughly if you combine Blacks and Latinos about 10 percent.
  • A federal judge in New York found that the hiring practices were discriminatory and violated the 14th amendment, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision and the Fire Dept was ordered to make some changes in 1970s.
  • As of 2002 when we actually formerly brought this case, the department was 3 percent Black, 5 percent Latino, which is not much different than it was in 1970.  The city was asked to work out a settlement, the city refused for 2 years.
  • So, the EEOC referred the case to the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. This was during the Bush Administration and as you know the Civil Rights Division didn’t do much.
  • We’ve proven discrimination about 3 times over now to the judge. Last year we had a big federal trial in Brooklyn on what relief the court should order because of the discrimination that was found.
  • If you try to obstruct a federal court order, that could lead to some serious penalties.
  • Our clients, the Vulcans first met with Mayor Bloomberg when first came to office in 2002 about this problem.
  • We felt it was a purposeful and intentional effort by the city to exclude people of color.
  • There have been incidence, we think retaliatory incidence we think against Vulcan members for there efforts in this case.
  • The FDNY has really dropped the ball in responding to these acts of discrimination.
  • The court has to oversee a lot of different aspects to this case. There’s a new test being developed, they’re going to start administering this week. There’s now the piece about the compensation for the plaintiffs.
  • Federal judges can’t closely supervise the case so they appoint these monitors to simply act in the role of the judge and oversee each of these aspects of the case.
  • We hope that the city will at some point stop fighting because all the things the judge has ordered for changing, I think benefits the fire department.
  • A group of women sued in the early 1980s alleging sex discrimination and again they pointed to the test and other aspects of the hiring process.
  • They were victorious and the court ordered them to hire 50 women, which they did do.

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

—————————-