Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Supreme Court, Torture, Truth to Power
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Updates: Landmark Win: Guantánamo Detainees Have Constitutional Right to Habeas Corpus
Federal jury awards $6.2 million in Taser death lawsuit
Here on Law and Disorder we’ve talked with many guests on the dangers of Taser stun guns. Recently Taser International Inc., the largest stun-gun maker, lost a $6.2 million jury verdict over the death of a California man who died after police shot him multiple times with the weapon. A San Jose, California jury says that Taser failed to warn the police of Salinas, California that prolonged exposure to Tasr’s electric shock could cause a risk of heart attack. The 40 year old victim Robert Heston died February 20, 2005 after his father had called Salinas police because his son was “acting strangely,” and seemed to be on drugs, according to the lawsuit complaint.
This is the first defeat for Taser International in a product-liability claim. Though, a product liability claim, another issue of concern is how police abuse and torture people indiscriminately with tasers.
- Nearly 400 people in the United States have been killed in Taser-related deaths in the past 7 years.
- Stun guns are already widely abused on people who take too long to pull out ID, who are loud in public, elderly, disabled or in the wrong place at the wrong time.
- Medical examiners are afraid to rule Tasers as the primary or contributory cause of death out of fear of retribution. In meetings with coroners, Taser International has actually threatened to sue if stun guns are cited on death certificates.
- Taser International has formed questionable PR ties with law enforcement. It established and funded the Taser Foundation for Fallen Officers in 2004.
- Taser International Slogan: Saving Lives Everday
Guest: Civil rights attorney John Burton who litigated the case. Burton says there are 68 more Taser-related death cases to be litigated.
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The Cuban Five: 11th Circuit Court Upholds Convictions
We’ve been following the case of the Cuban Five for years. Last week, the 11th U.S. District Court of Appeals in Atlanta upheld the convictions of the Cuban Five who are serving long prison sentences charged with spying and conspiracy to commit murder. The Five were falsely accused by the U.S. government of committing espionage conspiracy against the United States, and other related charges.
The Five pointed out vigorously in their defense that they were involved in monitoring the actions of Miami-based terrorist groups, in order to prevent terrorist attacks on their country of Cuba. The Five’s actions were never directed at the U.S. government. They never harmed anyone nor ever possessed nor used any weapons while in the United States. The Cuban Five are five Cuban men who are in U.S. prison, serving four life sentences and 75 years collectively, after being wrongly convicted in U.S. federal court in Miami, on June 8, 2001.
Cuban Five: Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González.
Guest: Len Weinglass – U.S. Civil Rights Attorney and Activist
Censorship, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Military Tribunal, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction
It was April 13, 1873 in Louisiana when a small army of white ex-Confederate soldiers enraged by freedmen asserting their new rights killed more than 60 African Americans who had occupied a courthouse. Today we talk with author and journalist Charles Lane. His recent book is titled The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction. In the book, Lane uncovers a nearly forgotten historic post civil war massacre of African American men in Colfax, Louisiana and a white lawyer’s epic battle to bring the perpetrators to justice. Reviews call Lane’s book an electrifying piece of historical detective work that captures a gallery of characters from presidents to townspeople and re-creates the bloody days of Reconstruction. Lane discovered the Colfax Massacre case while covering the Supreme Court for The Washington Post.
Guest – Charles Lane, member of the editorial page staff, is the author of “The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of Reconstruction.”
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Ann Ginger : Meiklejohn Civil Liberties
Today we’re delighted to have Ann Ginger on the program, she’s a lawyer, teacher, writer, and political activist. She is the founder and the executive director of the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties, a think tank for human rights in Berkeley California. Here on Law and Disorder we’ve examine the practices and laws that have crippled civil and human rights in this country and now we take a look at ways law students and legal workers can bring them back.
Ann Ginger at Meiklejohn Civil Liberties has published Four Little Orange Books. The first is titled: Landmark Cases left Out of your Textbooks, the second is The Living Constitution, the third, Undoing The Bush/Cheney Legacy – Restoring Lost Liberties: A Tool Kit For Congress and fourth, Making the Universal Declaration the Supreme Law of the Land. Ann writes – the roles of successful lawyers and legal workers in the future will not be the same as the roles of successful lawyers before the Bush-Cheney “war on terrorism. “
Guest – Ann Ginger. Ann is Executive Director of Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, a center for peace law and human rights, with archives of historic cases. Founded in 1965, the Institute answers queries of clients and lawyers and trains interns to prepare reports on U.S. compliance with human rights treaties for submission to U.N. committees.
Ann learned early to use the law and history to work for peace and human rights, coming from an Irish Catholic, English Quaker, Russian Jewish, Midwestern newspaper family. As a lawyer, she won a civil liberties case in the U.S. Supreme Court. After her testimony as an expert witness on international law that applies in the U.S., a jury acquitted nuclear weapons protesters in Utah. She is now teaching Peace Law and Human Rights at San Francisco State University and long served on the Peace and Justice Commission that administers the Nuclear Free Zone Ordinance in Berkeley.
Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Iraq War, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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War Inc.
A radical new satire on U.S war profiteering in Iraq debuted last month. The movie is called War Inc., written by John Cusack and Jeremy Pikser. War Inc. is described as bringing to the screen what Naomi Klein has done in print. In Jeremy Scahill’s review, he writes quote “With 630 corporations like Blackwater and Halliburton on the US government payroll in Iraq getting 40 percent of the more than $2 billion Washington spends every week on the occupation, Cusack’s “futuristic†film is not far from the way things really are. The film stars John Cusack as Brand Hauser, a hit man for hire who is deployed to Turaqistan to a kill a Middle Eastern oil baron.
Guest – Jeremy Pikser, co-writer of the film War Inc., he’s also the co-writer of Bulworth and just finished a screenplay about the CIA coup that overthrew the government of Guatemala in 1954.
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National Lawyers Guild Urges Israel To Permit Richard Falk To Enter Israel
Professor Richard Falk is the recently appointed Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights who has been barred entry to Israel. He’s Professor of International Law at Princeton, will be the Council’s special investigator of Israeli behavior in the territories and this has incited furious objections from Yitzhak Levanon, the Israeli ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva.Falk replaced South African John Dugard, a veteran anti-apartheid activist. Falk is also a member of the Editorial Boards of The Nation and The Progressive. He’s the author of many books including Crimes of War: Iraq
Guest – Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His books include Religion and Humane Global Governance; Human Rights Horizons; On Humane Governance: Toward a New Global Politics; Explorations at the Edge of Time; Revolutionaries and Functionaries; The Promise of World Order; Indefensible Weapons; Human Rights and State Sovereignty; A Study of Future Worlds; This Endangered Planet; coeditor of Crimes of War.
Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Extraordinary Rendition, Green Scare, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq War, Military Tribunal, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Ending The War In Iraq: Tom Hayden
Long time political and social activist Tom Hayden joins Law and Disorder hosts for a lively interview and discussion on specific ways to end the illegal war in Iraq. Tom Hayden is a former California state senator, a passionate anti-war activist and has published an anthology titled “Writings For A Democratic Society” , in it he chronicles key civil rights movements and potent sixties activism. The book is a collection of essays, pamphlets, op-ed pieces from the Port Huron Statement – a manifesto for sixties radicals, to reports on the riots at Chicago’s 1968 Democratic National Convention.
Guest – Tom Hayden, political and social activist, author of Ending The War In Iraq. Tom Hayden’s Blog
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Green Scare: The Case of Briana Waters
Here on Law and Disorder we’ve discussed how since December 2005, environmental activists in the United States have been targeted and handed unusually harsh prison sentences. It’s called Green Scare and more than a year ago the National Lawyer’s Guild sponsored an event titled Green Scare – How the Government Is Targeting Eco-Activists. Listen to it here.
Last year the NLG established a hotline 1-888-NLG-ECOL for activists who had been targeted by the FBI for environmental activism.
We bring this up in context of the case involving Briana Waters. Acting as a lookout, she was accused of conspiring to set fire to the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture in 2001. This, despite evidence presented by the defense that she was 60 miles away at the time of the arson. Others claimed responsibility for the fire, but Ms. Waters, a 32 year old mother and violin teacher may face a mandatory minimum of 35 years in prison.
Federal “conspiracy law†is used often to prosecute drug dealers and is being used by prosecutors to take down individual environmental protesters. Once the judge accepts the charge of conspiracy, here-say is admissible making conspiracy very easy to prove in court.
Guest: California civil rights attorney Ben Rosenfeld
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An Innocent Man In Guantanamo: Five Years of My Life, Part III
Today we hear excerpts from the third part of the event An Innocent Man In Guantanamo: Five Years of My Life. That’s the title of the memoirs recently released by Murat Kurnaz who was detained at Guantanamo for five years. Kurnaz is a Turkish citizen and legal resident of Germany, he traveled to Pakistan to learn more about his Muslim faith and was later arrested at a checkpoint, handed to the United States and eventually taken to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Former US Army Muslim Chaplain of Guantanamo Bay, James Yee voices his concern about other secret prisons in Afghanistan and systematic abuse to prisoners involving IRF teams.
The event presented by Friends of the Library, brought together a panel of lawyers from the U.S. and Germany who fought for Murat’s release and a Guantanamo chaplain who was accused of espionage and imprisoned. The panel was moderated by our own Michael Ratner. Speakers include:
- Baher Azmy – Professor at Seton Hall Law School, where he directs a civil rights clinic and teaches constitutional law. His litigation work on national security and human rights cases emerging from the “war on terror†include lawfulness of extraordinary rendition, torture and indefinite executive detention. In July 2004, Azmy began representation of Murat Kurnaz imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay until his release in August 2006.
- Bernhard Docke – a lawyer since 1983, specializes in criminal law, since 1989 partner of the law firm “Dr. Heinrich Hannover und Partner†in Bremen, Germany. He has been a lawyer for Mr. Kurnaz since 2002.
- Wallace Shawn – an Obie-winning playwright and a stage and screen actor. His plays include The Designated Mourner, Marie and Bruce, The Fever, and Aunt Dan and Lemon. He co-wrote and starred in the art-house classic My Dinner with Andre and he also performed in numerous Woody Allen films including Manhattan and Radio Days. Our Late Night and a Thought in Three Parts: Two Plays will be published in Spring 2008.
- James Yee – the former US Army Muslim Chaplain of Guantanamo Bay. His book, For God And Country, Faith and Patriotism Under Fire, tells the story about being wrongly accused of espionage and imprisoned by the U.S. military. In 2004, the government dropped all charges against him and he received an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army.
- Phillipe Sands – an international lawyer and a professor of law at University College London. He is the author of Lawless World and is frequently a commentator on news and current affairs programs including CNN, MSNBC and BBC World Service. Sands has been involved in many international cases, including the World Court trial of Slobodan Milosevic and the treatment of British detainees at Guantanamo Bay. His article in Vanity Fair “The Green Light,†looks at how high level members of the Bush administration pressured underlings to use torture tactics at Guantanamo. He is also the author of Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values.
Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Taking Back The Right To Dissent: The Case of the Bangor Six
Recently, jurors in the Case of the ‘Bangor Six’ brought back a decisive verdict of ‘not guilty.’ The six veterans for peace, anti war protesters were arrested in March of last year after refusing to leave the federal building where their senator, Republican Susan Collins has her office. The six activists were among 12 that say they were protesting Bush’s proposal to increase troops in Iraq to support a military strategy known s the surge and also urged Collins to vote against continued funding for the war. Collins did not vote against funding for the war and did not meet with activists. Six of the activists were later arrested. (Collins Watch)
Now, during this trial, the jury was allowed by the judge to decide whether the defendants believed that they were not guilty in making a conscious choice to break Maine law because they thought international law was being violated. The jurors decided unanimously that the protesters did believe they had the ‘license and privilege’ to act as they did, in rendering the ‘not guilty’ verdict.
Guest – Bar Harbor attorney Lynne Williams, also with Maine Lawyers for Democracy a group of 65 Maine lawyers, calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
List of Bangor Six – Jonathan Kreps, 57, of Appleton, Henry Braun, 77, of Wells, James Freeman, 59, of Verona, Dudley F. Hendrick, 66, of Deer Isle, Douglas Rawlings, 61, of Chesterville, and Robert Shetterly, 61, of Brooksville,
chose to go to trial. The other six pleaded guilty and paid fines.
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2008 Left Forum Opening Plenary: Adam Hochschild and Naomi Klein
We go now to hear two speeches from this year’s Left Forum Opening Plenary from author/ professor Adam Hochschild and writer/ filmmaker Naomi Klein author of The Shock Doctrine. The Left Forum was titled Cracks In The Edifice. The many panels at the 2008 Left Forum addressed and challenged the current economic and political catastrophes in the United States and discussed possibilities for social movements to build better world in its place.
We’ve interviewed Adam previously on Law and Disorder about his books, King Leopold’s Ghost and Bury The Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves. He’s the co-founder of Mother Jones magazine and teaches at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California Berkeley. In his speech Hochschild uses the ideas of early activism to abolish slavery as models for the current civil rights movement.
In her speech, Naomi Klein discusses how the lack of response in the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are intentional strategies she calls “disaster capitalism.†At the 2008 Left Forum Naomi suggests that many in the United States have woken up to roughshod profiteering of disaster capitalism.
A special thank you to Lisa Rudman with Making Contact for recording the Left Forum Opening Plenary
Civil Liberties, Extraordinary Rendition, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq War, Supreme Court, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Operation Torch:Â Heavily Armed Subway Patrols Making New York City Safer?
A couple weeks ago our own co-host Heidi Boghosian described how under cover policemen and a K9 unit were intimidating a subway rider on the platform with the dog barking viciously near his face. We’ll follow up on that story and also talk about the teams of police armed with MP5 submachine guns, body armor and bomb sniffing dogs now patrolling the subway systems of New York City. They’re called Torch Teams. Torch, an acronym for Transit Operational Response With Canine and Heavy Weapons. The teams are funded to patrol in 12 hour shifts everyday, Penn Station, Herald Square, Columbus Circle, Rockefeller Center Times Square and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.
Co-host Michael Smith also commented on the use of police car convoys (photo above) that rally at ground zero and run up the FDR with lights blazing. Moore says it’s a federally funded event that acts as “window dressing” but he says, when you see police state displays such as Operation Torch and the police car convoys, know that it is only the tip of the iceberg. We’ll be investigating more on the depth of the police state in weeks to come.
Guest: Jonathan Moore, attorney with the National Police Accountability Project
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Torture and Democracy
Here on Law and Disorder we’ve taken an in depth look at torture with various authors and guests including authors Al McCoy, Marnia Lazreg and Henri Alleg. Today we speak with Reed College professor Darius Rejali, author of the book Torture and Democracy. In this book, Rejali tracks behaviors, trends and traditions that have brought torture to where we see it has emerged today. Rejali, a leading expert on government interrogation techniques, argues that torture is an ancient craft and technique passed on from teacher to apprentice.
Rejali says knowledge of the torture craft often flows both ways between colonial powers and occupied peoples. This is a powerful book filled with information on techniques. One review writes, this book lays the groundwork, torturers and their keepers may find it useful, not as an academic study but as a field manual.
Guest – Professor Darius Rejali
