Civil Liberties, Death Penalty, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq War, Torture, Truth to Power
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Law and Disorder Update
Co-hosts Michael Ratner and Heidi Boghosian discuss recent key votes in Congress on the Iraq war, warrant-less electronic surveillance and lethal injection.
Enemy Combatant Doctrine
In a recent essay A System of Wholesale Denial of Rights published in the Monthly Review, Research Professor of Law, Michael Tigar describes how the term enemy combatant was created through the rulings in the anti-terrorist case Padilla v. Rumsfeld and the implications for civil liberties and human rights in the United States. Implications that support a system whereby the president can lock up anyone he chooses and never have to explain why to a court.
The Bush Administration has taken the language from those in favor of slavery and oppression of Native Americans. Instead of prisoner, instead defendant, instead of person they create a category of enemy combatant. (Non-People – Invoking the characterization of someone not entitled to claim justice.) Tigar says this is a tactic of repressive governments. Tigar says, the term enemy combatant doesn’t exist in the Constitution or within International Law, therefore enemy combatants have no rights, are denied access to courts and fall under military regime.
Michael Tigar in his article points out the historic parallels such as the Dred Scott case, Japanese internment and the Cherokee Nation. Frederick Douglas and several anti-slavery people thought that it would be possible to make an argument that slavery so violated the norms of the constitution that it had to be illegal everywhere. The Cherokee Nation, says Tigar was classified as “subject people.” Subject People is not found in Article 3 in the Constitution. Therefore, “subject people” are not entitled to sue in federal courts.
Michael Tigar is a Research Professor of Law at Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, D.C., where he teaches Federal Courts, International Human Rights, and Criminal Law. Tigar argued seven cases in front of the US Supreme court, he’s represented many controversial clients since then such as Angela Davis, Terry Nichols, Lynne Stewart and members of the Chicago Seven. He is the author of the recent book, Thinking About Terrorism: The Threat To Civil Liberties in a Time Of National Emergency.
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40th Anniversary of Ernesto Guevara de la Serna Murder
We mark the 40th anniversary of Che Guevara’s murder. He was captured in Bolivia during a military operation supported by the CIA and the U.S. Army Special Forces. Guevara was summarily executed by the Bolivian Army in the town of La Higuera near Vallegrande on October 9, 1967.
Guest – author and professor John Tito Gerassi, about Che Guevara’s influence. Gerassi describes how he was poisoned by the CIA while dining with Fidel Castro and about his guerilla training with Che.
Gerassi currently teaches at Queens College of the City University of New York. Gerassi, born in France in 1931, is the author many books including the Great Fear in Latin America and The Premature Antifascists, the only authorized biography of Jean Paul Sarte.
Che photos by redredpei – flickr
Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Truth to Power
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Jena 6 Update
Today on Law and Disorder co-host Heidi Boghosian debriefs Eugene Puryear, Howard University student and key national political organizer for the Jena 6. They discuss the denying of a request to release Mychal Bell whose arrest in the beating of a white classmate sparked last week’s civil rights protest in Louisiana.
Defense lawyers also have complained that Judge J.P. Mauffray Jr. set a high bail for Bell — $90,000 — prior to his conviction in the Barker beating. Mauffray had cited Bell’s criminal record, which included juvenile arrests for battery and damage to property, in setting the bail.
Nearly 60 thousand protestors demonstrated in Jena, Louisiana, a town with the population of 3000. It was called the largest civil rights rallies in the South since the 1960’s. The protest was scheduled around the sentencing of Mychal Bell who was convicted by an all white jury.
The incidents began when three black high school students decided to sit under a shade tree in the school yard where usually white students sat. The next day three nooses were found hanging from the tree. Though the culprits who hung the nooses were discovered and recommended for expulsion by the principal, the school board chose to reduce their expulsions to a three-day, in-school suspension. After the entire black student body protested peacefully by sitting under the tree, Jena District Attorney Reed Walters informed the school in an assembly that he could take away the lives of the black students with a stroke of his pen.
In the following months several incidents occurred, including threats and acts of violence against black students to which DA Walters did not respond. However, after a white student was beaten up by black students in December, Walters charged six black students with second-degree attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder. The white student was treated at the hospital, released that same day, and was seen at a social function that very night. Mychal Bell, originally charged with attempted murder for allegedly beating up a white student, was later charged with and convicted of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery. The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals recently vacated Bell’s conviction, stating that Bell should never have been tried in an adult court because the alleged offense occurred when Bell was a minor. The Jena prosecutor has reportedly vowed to appeal the 3rd Circuit’s ruling.
The other five teens, Robert Bailey, Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis and an unidentified juvenile, face charges ranging from aggravated second-degree battery to attempted second-degree murder. Most of the boys spent months in jail before being able to raise tens of thousands of dollars for bail. Bell was never able to raise the money to make bail, and remains in jail even after the overturning of his conviction. Related – Racism in Louisiana – BBC / FBI Probes Anti-Jena 6 Web Page
Guest – Eugene Puryear, Howard University student and key national political organizer for the Jena 6
Call for National Action Tuesday October 2, at 5pm/Justice Dept in Washington DC.
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Cuban Five Oral Arguments Update
A three-judge panel at the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta heard oral arguments earlier this month relating to the case of the Cuban Five. This is the third time in two years the Eleventh Circuit has heard appeals in the case of Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez, and Rene Gonzalez, who are serving a collective four life sentences and 75 years in prison.
Law and Disorder co-host Heidi Boghosian spoke at the rally and was at the hearing. “The court was filled with international observers jammed the court to observe both US government and defense attorneys deliver their arguments. Observers came from many countries including Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, England, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Ukraine.”
We an excerpt from an interview on KPFK’s The Lawyer’s Guild Radio Show hosted by Jim Lafferty. In this interview Jim Lafferty talks with Len Weinglass, civil rights lawyer and defense attorney for Antonio Guerrero.
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You Have No Rights; Stories of America in an Age of Repression
In his recently published book, You Have No Rights; Stories of America in an Age of Repression, author Matthew Rothschild, cites dozens of personal stories that outline the big picture of repression in the United States. Hired goon squads of young republicans shout down protesters with chants of USA – USA – USA!! Remember the lawyer who was arrested at a local mall for wearing a “Give Peace A Chance†t-shirt? As Rothschild points out in his new book, the first, fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth amendments are under siege and very little is being done to protect them.
Guest – Matthew Rothschild author of You Have No Rights and editor of the Progressive Magazine since 1993. Previously the editor of Multinational Monitor, a magazine founded by Ralph Nader, he is the host of Progressive Radio.
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Michael Ratner’s Update on the nomination of Michael Mukasey for Attorney General.
It is shocking to see those who should know better supporting and in some cases practically fawning over the nomination of Michael Mukasey for Attorney General. There is simply no excuse for anyone who cares about fundamental rights and civil liberties to support Mukasey’s nomination. Read More
Censorship, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power
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Lawyer’s Committee on Nuclear Policy
After the 2001 attacks on the United States, attention has been drawn to marginalize nuclear weapons and increase global cooperation on the control and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear material. As of 2006, there are estimated to be at least 25,000 nuclear weapons held by at least eight countries, 96 percent of them in the possession of the United States and Russia
Rather than intensifying such efforts, the U.S. has adopted a policy of elevating the role of nuclear weapons in its overall military strategy. John Burroughs, Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy, claims that this will reduce U.S. and global security, not increase it.
Guest – Dr. John Burroughs, adjunct professor of law at Rutgers Law School and serves as Executive Director for the Lawyer’s Committee on Nuclear Policy. The LCNP was instrumental in bringing the landmark case before the International Court of Justice in 1995 that resulted in the advisory opinion of 1996, which stated that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is illegal.
He is co-editor of Rule of Power or Rule of Law? An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding Security-Related Treaties, Apex Press, 2003. He has published articles in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the World Policy Journal, most recently co-authoring “Arms Control Abandoned: The Case of Biological Weapons.”
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University of Michigan Press Halts Distribution of Joel Kovel’s book: Overcoming Zionism, Then Later Resumes Distribution.
Co-hosts Michael Smith and Michael Ratner talk with Joel Kovel about the efforts of the University of Michigan Press to halt and then resume distribution of his book. Read article here: Michigan Resumes Distribution of Anti-Israel Book.
Excerpt from: A Book On Hold
Late last month, the blog, Dissident Veteran for Peace — printed what it says is an e-mail from Pochoda, the press director, to Kovel, explaining why distribution was halted. Pochoda declined to comment on the e-mail, but Kovel said it was accurate. The e-mail reads: “Because it is a distributed title for Pluto Press, no one at UMP had read Overcoming Zionism prior to the Stand/With/Us diatribe. I and others read it after that assault, and had fully expected to gear up for, at least, a free speech defense. Though I had no trouble with the one-state solution your book proposes nor with a Zionist critique, per se … I (and faculty members I asked to read the book, as well) were apalled [sic] by your reckless, viscious [sic], and unmodulated attack on Zionism and all Zionists.”
Related reading – Campus Watch
Excerpt from Michael Smith’s review of Overcoming Zionism.
How did Kovel, a Jew from Brooklyn, the oldest son of Ukrainian immigrants who did well – moving with Joel to “the purgatory of Baldwin, Long Island†– come to this radical critique and equally radical solution? Joel graduated from Yale and became a successful psychiatrist. He taught at medical school before switching careers and taking a social science professorship at Bard, where for a time he held the Alger Hiss chair. He is still there, the only Marxist on the faculty. This book is not going to further his career.
“What kind of Jew am I?†he asks, and answers “a very bad one.†More accurately, he defines himself as what Isaac Deutscher called “a non-Jewish Jew.†Not that he is not spiritual; he writes of reaching for the infinite. But he is not religious. Being part of a sect is too narrowing and confining. He identifies with the Jewish heretics who transcended Jewry, but who are nonetheless part of the Jewish tradition – he lists Spinoza, Marx, Freud, Proust, Einstein, Kafka, Wittgenstein, and Luxemburg – and for whom “the true glory†of being Jewish is to live “on the margin and across boundaries.â€
Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq War, Military Tribunal, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, Uncategorized
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(CCR) attorneys and co-counsel submitted a ground-breaking brief to the Supreme Court in the case that will determine whether detainees at Guantánamo possess the fundamental constitutional rights to due process and habeas corpus.
“These men have been held unlawfully in abusive conditions while the courts and Congress debate whether they should have any rights,” said CCR President Michael Ratner. ” Read more.
Co-hosts Michael Ratner and Michael Smith
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Guantanamo Bay Detainees Transfers and Abuse
The US Supreme Court said it would not prevent Ahmed Bel Bacha, an Algerian army veteran detained at Guantanamo Bay from being transferred to his home country. Bel Bacha, who has been held at Guantanamo for five years, had argued he would be tortured if turned over to Algerian officials. He is one of nearly 20 Guantanamo detainees who say they will face abuse if sent back to their country. Human Rights Watch article.
Recently, Isa Al Murbati was returned home after six months in Guantanamo Bay’s Camp Six. He was kept under the most cruel conditions of the prison, they include communication lock downs and sleep deprivation.
Guest – Emi Maclean, staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights.
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Flying While Muslim
Lyra Porras Garzon is a documentary filmmaker and creator of the recent film Flying While Muslim. This film explores the personal stories and debates surrounding racial profiling post 9/11 in the United States. As Lyra researched the many personal stories, she unearthed countless reports of racial profiling from detainment in airports to illegal detention of Muslims, Arabs and even South Asians. This, along with the imprisonment of those individuals without access to lawyers or the right to habeas corpus.
Guest – Lyra Porras Garzon
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Watch trailor for Flying While Muslim below:
Civil Liberties, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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Dear listeners, we hear a re-broadcast from Law and Disorder’s Police State Series.
Laying the Foundation of a Police State – Part III Surveillance and Criminalizing Dissent
Since the summer of 2004, Law and Disorder has brought Pacifica listeners the voices of activists, authors and attorneys from the front lines.
Last week, and in the next three weeks, we examine in a four part series, the foundation for what many view as a police state in the United States. In this series we will talk with guests about the post 9/11 blueprint of this dictatorship/ police state and how the nefarious turn to war, the use of torture and the domestic propagation of fear unfolded.
We have examined at length topics such as torture, domestic surveillance, criminalizing dissent, racial profiling, indefinite detentions and the destruction of constitutional rights as vital information to bring an understanding to listeners as to how it happened and where we go from here.
In this third part of the series we look at several key issues in the crackdown of dissent in this country including how the government has set up a terrorist database to categorize and target domestic activists. As attorneys on the front lines we bring exclusive cases of domestic surveillance of protestors. In previous shows, Law and Disorder has covered the lawsuits involving NSA wiretapping of phone calls and emails by the Center for Constitutional Rights, EFF and the ACLU. We talk with the ACLU’s Michigan Legal Director about their NSA lawsuit and recent victory
Here on Law and Disorder we’ve covered, directly and indirectly, the resurgence of domestic surveillance since the events of September 11. We’ve seen how the government has loosened restrictions on spying on political activists, both locally and nationally. We’ve seen how this administration has exploited the term “terrorism” to justify a host of insidious and often unlawful practices, from engaging in mass arrests of peaceful protesters in order to collect information about their political affiliations, to categorizing and labeling individuals based on their ideologies, to assembling all this information into a comprehensive terrorism watch list called the Terrorist Screening database.
Co-host Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights recently returned from Berlin after filing a 380 page complaint in German against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush Administration officials with war crimes. Read the CCR complaint – documents.
List of International Stories on Google News
NSA’s massive wiretapping program.
Hosts discuss recent Michigan ACLU lawsuit victory against NSA spying.
In the first federal challenge ever argued against the Bush administration’s NSA spying program, U.S. District Court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor rules that the program to monitor the phone calls and e-mails of millions of Americans without warrants is unconstitutional. Calling for a halt to this abuse of presidential power, Judge Taylor states that “there are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution,” so all the president’s “inherent powers” must derive from the Constitution.
Guest – Michael J. Steinberg has served as the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan since 1997 where he has worked on numerous high-profile impact cases on a wide range of civil liberties and civil rights issues. He has served as co-counsel on several post-9/11 cases including: the successful Detroit lawsuit challenging the National Security Agency’s warrantless domestic wiretapping; the challenge to Section 215 of the Patriot Act; and the successful challenge to John Ashcroft’s order closing certain immigration proceedings to the press and the public.
Brandon Mayfield Case
In May of 2004, the FBI arrested Mayfield as a material witness in connection with the Madrid bombing attacks and held him for over two weeks before releasing him. Mayfield was never charged, and an FBI internal review later acknowledged serious errors in their investigation.
Guest – Steven Wax, Federal Public Defender for Oregon. FBI apologizes to Oregon Lawyer
Tracked in America – Konstanty Hordynski
UC Santa Cruz Students Against War have turned up on a Pentagon database of protest groups, while a conference of Arab-American scholars at Stanford University was targeted by an FBI Task Force. Konstanty Hordynski, a member of the UC Santa Cruz group that was deemed a “credible threat” by the Pentagon remarked, “When I learned our constitutionally protected advocacy was included on a Pentagon list of monitored events, I was taken aback. I was saddened that the Constitution could be so easily ignored.”
Criminalizing Dissent – Law and Disorder Exclusive
National Lawyers Guild Attorney and Students Investigate Extensive Protestor Database
Today we’d like to connect some of the dots by talking about a companion database, the FBI’s Violent Gang and Terrorist Organization File, or VGTOF. The VGTOF is the Watchlist’s main source of domestic terrorist information. Among other information, the VGTOF includes names of individuals with no criminal history who are being investigated as being politically active or connected with politically active organizations. In 2002 the FBI memo stated that it will include “Anarchists, Animal Rights Extremists, Environmental Extremists, and domestic extremists. Official never have to justify the decision to place someone on the list, a list that can be accessed by virtually every law enforcement official with whom the person comes into contact.
Guests – Attorney Gideon Oliver and law students Grainne O’Neill and Mark Taylor.
Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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Lawyers You’ll Like: James Lafferty Executive Dir. of the National Lawyers Guild in Los Angeles
James Lafferty is currently the Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild in Los Angeles and host of The Lawyers Guild Show, a weekly public affairs program on Pacifica radio station KPFK, 90.7 FM.
He has served as a chief officer of, and spokesperson for, various national anti-war coalitions, including the National Peace Action Coalition, the anti-Vietnam War coalition that organized the largest protests during that war; the National Coalition for Peace in the Middle East; and, the National Campaign to End U.S. Intervention in the Philippines. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, his law firm, Lafferty, Reosti, Jabara, Papakian & Smith, represented virtually all of the left political movements in and around Detroit, Michigan, during which time he became one of this nation’s leading experts on Selective Service law and military law.
In the early ‘80’s, Mr. Lafferty founded and chaired the largest A.C.L.U. Chapter in the State of Michigan. In New York City, in the late 80’s and early ‘90s, he traveled the world organizing on behalf of the labor rights of merchant seafarers. During this time he also taught a course at the New School for Social Research, entitled, Vietnam: The War at Home and Abroad. More recently, he was the Coordinator of the L.A. Coalition to Stop the Execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, as well as a member of the national steering committee of the Campaign to Stop the Execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
He currently serves on the Board of the L.A.-based Office of the Americas and on the steering committee of the anti-war coalition, International ANSWER/L.A. Mr. Lafferty has recently been elected as a Fellow of the L.A. Institute for the Humanities, at the University of Southern California.
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Government Aims to Block Accountability for Illegal Spying on Americans
In the wake of Congress approving a dramatic expansion of U.S. warrant-less wiretapping powers, the Center for Constitutional Rights has argued that the NSA’s program is unconstitutional and should be struck down. The argument in CCR v. Bush comes after Congress and the Bush administration passed the Protect America Act of 2007 which broadly expands the government’s power to spy on Americans without getting court approval.
The law effectively removes oversight for spying from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court or FISA court and leaves it up to the Executive Branch to monitor itself, with Attorney General Gonzales having the primary responsibility for oversight. The arguments are being heard at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco
Guest – Shayana Kadidal attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Check out Shane’s Blog – “Something remarkable and disturbing is happening in this case and in others across the country” challenging the NSA’s warrantless spying on Americans, wrote the lawyers in the case in Oregon challenging NSA surveillance of domestic attorney-client phone calls. “The executive branch of our federal government, disregarding the admonition that ‘[d]emocracies die behind closed doors,’ is attempting to draw a veil of secrecy over judicial proceedings to determine whether the warrantless eavesdropping program, itself kept secret for years, is unlawful.”
