Censorship, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq War, NSA Spying, Political Prisoner, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power, Uncategorized, War Resister
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In Defense Of Julian Assange: Attorney Renata Avila
We continue our ongoing coverage of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who remains in confinement at London’s high-security Belmarsh prison. Julian is fighting extradition to the United States on 18 charges, including violating the Espionage Act and conspiring to hack government computers. As listeners will recall, the charges are in connection with Wikileaks’ release of thousands of secret cables in 2010.
Guest – Renata Avila, a member of the Julian Assange legal team. Renata is an international Human Rights lawyer from Guatemala, specializing in preserving human rights during the next wave of tech challenges. She is a Board member for Creative Commons, the Common Action Forum and is a Global Trustee of the Think Tank Digital Future Society. She is also a member of the WEF’s Global Future Council on Human Rights and Technology and a Steering Committee Member of the Information Society Advisory Council for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
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The Prosecution of Julian Assange – CUNY School of Law and UCLA
We listen to two presentations from a panel discussion among leading journalists, attorneys and human rights defenders as the extradition trial in London of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is set to begin.
The first speaker is lead attorney Barry Pollack representing Julian Assange speaking at The Prosecution of Julian Assange forum at UCLA.
We then hear from Glen Ford speaking at the CUNY School of Law, Glen is the Executive editor, Black Agenda Report. He’s a broadcast, print and web pioneer and founding member of the Washington chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Uncategorized, War Resister
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Gina Haspel, Rule of Law And Torture
Nazi generals and Nazi leaders were prosecuted at the end of World War II for war crimes and crimes against humanity and genocide. These crimes were incorporated into international law.
The chief prosecutor was Robert Jackson, a Supreme Court judge. The Nazis defended themselves by arguing that they were just following orders. This defense was deemed unavailing. In many cases, they were found guilty and sentenced to lengthy prison terms or hung. He said that the war crimes tribunal at Nirenberg was not merely victors’ justice. But that the principles it followed would be universal and applied in the future, to all countries including the USA. And indeed, the United States signed on to the Geneva Conventions and Convention Against Torture and incorporate both the crimes and the concept of universal jurisdiction into its law.
Gina Haspel has been nominated by President Donald Trump to head the CIA. She is a war criminal. She violated both international and national law by running a black site secret detention center in Thailand where men were tortured. Although there were several court orders that the evidence be preserved, Gina Haspel had the videotapes of torture destroyed.
John Brennan, Obama’s ex head of the CIA, who was involved in the torture program, recently came to her defense, stating that she was just following orders: The Nazi defense.
Trump supports torture. He believes that torture works. This is both immoral and untrue. He says he is for waterboarding and worse. He now has a subordinate with whom he is in agreement.
Obama refused to prosecute the lawbreakers. Instead he threw CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou in prison for two years for disclosing American torture. He said we must look forward, not backward. This greenlighted what is going on now with Haspel.
Michael Ratner warned us about this eventuality. The European Center for Human and Constitutional Rights may seek Haspel’s arrest if she goes to Germany.
Such is the irony of history that the German fascist government that perpetrated the greatest crimes against humanity has been superseded by an American government which condones and is perpetuating them as well.
Guest – John Kiriakou, a former CIA agent, he is the author of Doing Time Like a Spy: How the CIA Taught Me to Survive and Thrive in Prison. He spent 15 years working for the CIA including the period following September 11 2001. The next year he was invited to be certified in enhanced interrogation techniques and said no, rightly recognizing it as sanctioned torture. He was privy to all the details of the American torture program and personally knew Gina Haspel. In 2007 when ABC News asked him to rebut charges that he tortured and Al Qaeda prisoner he went on the air and disclose details about American torture policy. For this the CIA had him tried and convicted. He spent 23 months in prison.
Guest – Katherine Gallagher is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. She works on universal jurisdiction and international criminal law cases involving U.S. and foreign officials and torture and other war crimes, and cases involving private military corporations and torture at Abu Ghraib. Her major cases include Al Shimari v. CACI, the international U.S. torture accountability cases, andSurvivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) v. Vatican, seeking accountability for the crimes against humanity of sexual violence by clergy and cover-up.
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The National Immigration Project And Protecting Haitian Refugees
The National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild filed a lawsuit in Brooklyn on March 15 to block President Trump’s cancellation of temporary protected status which had been granted to more than 50,000 Haitian refugees because of the terrible conditions in that country since the hurricane in 2010. The National Immigration Project declared President Trump’s actions to be unlawful, racially motivated, and evidence of a complete lack of knowledge of immigration law.
The TPS program exempts from deportation people from countries in turmoil due to war, natural disasters, and other extraordinary conditions.
The suit alleges that the federal government was arbitrary and capricious in his decision to end the program and was motivated by Donald Trump’s “racial and national origin animus towards patients.” The suit cites Trump’s demeaning remarks towards Haitians and Haiti. He has said that Haitians have AIDS and Haiti is a “s&*t hole” country. The Trump administration‘s position is that protecting Haitians is no longer necessary because conditions in Haiti have improved.
Guest – National Lawyers Guild Attorney Sejal Zota is the Legal Director of the National Immigration Project of the Guild. Sejal works on issues of removal defense, post-conviction, enforcement, and immigration consequences of crimes through litigation, education, and technical assistance. Previously, Sejal taught and wrote about the impacts of immigration on state and local government at University of North Carolina’s School of Government. She also regularly trained and advised defense attorneys throughout North Carolina on the immigration consequences of crime, and is the lead author of Immigration Consequences of a Criminal Conviction in North Carolina.
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Brooklyn Folk Festival 2018
Co-host Michael Smith reminds listeners of this year’s Brooklyn Folk Festival.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Guantanamo, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Uncategorized, War Resister
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Nuclear Posture Review
Not since 1953 when the United States and the Soviet Union exploded thermonuclear bombs has the world been such a powder keg. Last week the Pentagon released its Nuclear Posture Review. It seeks to make use of nuclear weapons more acceptable and plausible. It recommends the spending of $1 trillion to upgrade America’s nuclear arsenal and it appears to end the United State’s commitment to pursue nuclear disarmament.
Last November Senator Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, convened a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the limits of presidential authority to use nuclear weapons. President Trump had been making incendiary comments about North Korea, threatening to totally destroy the country and to unleash fire and fury like the world has never seen.
There are no reliable limits on the president‘s power to order use of nuclear weapons. The International Court of Justice declared in 1996 ruled that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is illegal under international law. The United States is not legally bound by the ICJ opinion. Moreover, the United Nations last summer adopted a Treaty On the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It states that the use of nuclear weapons would be against the principles of humanity in the dictates of public conscience. The United States is not legally bound by the new UN treaty either. The United States under President Obama and now Trump has vowed to increase the size of America’s nuclear arsenal. The United States will not agree to simply declare that it is against the first use nuclear weapons.
Guest – Attorney John Burroughs, Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee for Nuclear Policy. John Burroughs represents LCNP and IALANA in Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review proceedings, the United Nations, and other international forums. Dr. Burroughs is contributor, Unspeakable suffering – the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons (2013) (available here); contributor, Assuring Destruction Forever: Nuclear Weapon Modernization Around the World (2012) (available here); co-editor and contributor, Nuclear Disorder or Cooperative Security? U.S. Weapons of Terror, the Global Proliferation Crisis, and Paths to Peace (2007) (available here); co-editor and contributor, Rule of Power or Rule of Law? An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding Security-Related Treaties (2003); and author of The Legality of Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons: A Guide to the Historic Opinion of the International Court of Justice (1998). He has additionally published articles and op-eds in journals and newspapers including the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the World Policy Journal, and Newsday. Dr. Burroughs has taught international law as an adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School, Newark. He has a J.D. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. from Harvard University.
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Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Five Foundation
In July 2004 federal agents raided the homes of five Palestinian-American families, arresting the five dads. The first trial of the Holy Land Foundation Five ended in a hung jury. The second, marked by highly questionable procedures, resulted in very lengthy sentences for supporting terrorism by donating to charities with whom the US government itself and several respected international agencies work.
Capitalizing on post 911 Islamaphobic hysteria, the US government used secret evidence and conflated charity with terrorism to convict the five men of providing material support for terrorism.
The destruction of the Holy Land Foundation, the largest Muslim charity in the United States, constitutes one of the great judicial injustices in the so called war on terror
of which there have been many. The US government, relying on the testimony of anonymous Israeli security experts, convicted the five men of the crime of providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians suffering under an illegal and punishing occupation.
This case is one of several repressive post 911 US prosecutions that have been brought with the assistance of Israeli security police, targeting US-based Palestinian Muslim activists.
Guest – Miko Peled is an Israeli writer and activist living in the US. He was born and raised in Jerusalem. His father was the late Israeli General Matti Peled. Driven by a personal family tragedy to explore Palestine, its people and their narrative. He has written a book about his journey from the sphere of the privileged Israeli to that of the oppressed Palestinians. Peled speaks nationally and internationally on the issue of Palestine. He supports the creation of a single democratic state in all of Palestine, and a firm supporter of BDS. Author of Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Five Foundation and The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine.
Uncategorized
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CCR Attorneys Discuss 16 Years Of Guantánamo Prison
Guantánamo is America’s offshore prison island located on the eastern end of Cuba. It has been used for 16 years to detain Muslim men and boys. The prison was used by the Bush-Cheney regime to torture them after 911.
Despite President Obama‘s campaign pledge to close the prison it remains open. 41 prisoners are there now. President Trump has announced that he will not close the prison and, in his words, will “load it up.“ Trump has said that he believes that “torture works.“
Of the 41 remaining prisoners, 5 have been cleared for release. Others are being held under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force law until the end of the war on terror. This war, which has gone on for 16 years, has been called “the forever war“ because it is a war, not against a country, but against a tactic.
Two weeks ago the Center for Constitution Rights and other attorneys filed a motion in federal court in DC challenging the imprisonment without trial of a group of remaining Muslim prisoners.
Guest – Pardiss Kebriaei is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where she works on challenging U.S. government abuses in the national security context. She was lead counsel for CCR in Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta, which challenged the killings of three American citizens in U.S. drone strikes in Yemen, and Al-Aulaqi v. Obama, which challenged the authorization for the targeting of an American citizen added to secret government “kill lists.” She represents current and former Guantanamo detainees, including Ghaleb Al-Bihani, a Yemeni man cleared for release through the government’s Periodic Review Board process after having been designated as a “forever” detainee, but who remains detained without charge, and another Yememi client who, in 2009, was in the last group of detainees to be repatriated to Yemen.
Guest – Aliya Hana Hussain is an Advocacy Program Manager at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where she manages CCR’s advocacy and campaigns on indefinite detention at Guantanamo, the profiling and targeting of Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities, and accountability for torture and other war crimes. Aliya travels to Guantanamo regularly to meet with CCR’s clients.
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Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment
Former Law and Disorder guest Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz was in New York City and January 9, 2018 and spoke at the CUNY Graduate Center about her new book Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment. She did this in a dialogue on white supremacy with Ramona Africa. In a Law Disorder radio exclusive we bring you excerpts from her presentation. Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz is the author of An Indigenous People’s History of the United States and other works on the history of indigenous peoples.
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Uncategorized
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Judge Thomas Griesa : Socialist Workers Party v Attorney General
Retired federal Judge Thomas Griesa died two weeks ago in New York City at age 87. He presided over the historic case Socialist Workers party vs Attorney General. Leonard Boudin, the great leftist constitutional lawyer of his time, was chief counsel for the SWP in the 15 year litigation which ended in an historic victory in 1986 and which is extremely relevant for today.
Leonard wrote that “This lawsuit represented the first wholesale attack upon the entire hierarchy of so-called intelligence agencies that had attempted to infiltrate and destroy a lawful political party.” Further, “for the first time, a court has thoroughly examined the FBI’s intrusions into the political system of our nation and, in unmistakable language, has condemned the FBI activity as patently unconstitutional and without statutory or regulatory authority. The decision stands as a vindication of the first and fourth amendment rights that only of the Socialist Workers Party but of all political organizations in activists in this country to be free of government spying and and harassment.”
The Nation magazine appreciated the significance of the litigation and wrote that “ for the first time the FBI’s disruptions, surreptitious entries and use of informers have been found unconstitutional. All in all, it amounted to a domestic contra operation against a lawful and peaceful political organization, for no reason other than it’s ideological orientation.“
Guest – Jeff Mackler, a longtime socialist activist in California and the West Coast head of The Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. Jeff Mackler was a plaintiff in the successful 15-year-old battle. Jeff is also the director of The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal in Northern California and also the National Secretary of Socialist Action and its candidate for the U.S., presidency in 2016.
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Awad, et al. v. Fordham University
Israel’s enablers in the United States ramped up their efforts to shut down the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement known as BDS. Many states including New York have passed laws against businesses who would boycott Israel as a way of protesting Israel’s colonization of the Palestinian people. An anti-boycott bill is currently before the United States Congress.
In New York City, Fordham University is attempting to prevent Students for Justice in Palestine, a group that supports the boycott, from forming a campus group. The students brought a lawsuit seeking an injunction against the university to enable them to establish a SJP chapter there. Keith Eldridge, the Dean at Fordham University took the position that a SJP group would create polarization on campus and run contrary to the mission and values embraced at the university located in the Bronx.
The students got help from the Center for Constitutional Rights and Palestine Legal. A suit was brought on their behalf in April of last year. Two weeks ago a hearing was held in Civil Court in New York where the students demanded an injunction against Fordham University to permit them to form a chapter.
Guest – Maria LaHood, one of the student’s attorneys and Deputy Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights with expertise in constitutional rights and international human rights. She works to defend the constitutional rights of Palestinian human rights advocates in the United States in cases such as Davis v. Cox, defending Olympia Food Co-op board members for boycotting Israeli goods; Salaita v. Kennedy,representing Steven Salaita, who was terminated from a tenured position for tweets critical of Israel; and CCR v. DOD, seeking U.S. government records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regarding Israel’s 2010 attack on the flotilla to Gaza. She works closely with Palestine Legal to support students and others whose speech is being suppressed for their Palestine advocacy around the country. She also works on the Right to Heal initiative with Iraqi civil society and Iraq Veterans seeking accountability for the lasting health effects of the Iraq war.
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Censorship, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power, Uncategorized, War Resister
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DAPL Pipeline Dispatch # 9
The Standing Rock Sioux Indian tribe of North Dakota and their many allies won a tremendous victory on December 4 2016. They got the oil pipeline stopped, at least for now. It was being built by the Energy Transfer Partners through their sacred lands, without their consultation, in violation of the Treaty of Fort Laramie, and it was planned to be constructed beneath the Missouri River. A Department of the Army announcement stated that it would seek an alternative route for the 1100 mile $3.7 billion project. A break in the pipeline would’ve polluted the drinking water for up to 15 million people. What accounted for this historic victory? What social forces were involved? What is the legal and financial status of the project?
Water Protectors Legal Collective – NLG
Guest – National Lawyers Guild Attorney Jeff Haas, recently returned from living at the North Dakota encampment with thousands of Native Americans and climate change activists who gathered in solidarity with the Standing Rock Indian tribe in North Dakota to protest the pipeline construction. Jeff Haas was a founding partner of the Peoples Law Office in Chicago. He victoriously represented the family of Fred Hampton, the chairman of the Chicago Black Panther Party and proved that Hampton was assassinated by the FBI and Chicago Police Department. He’s also author of the book The Assassination of Fred Hampton.
Sacred Stone Camp Legal Defense – Lawyers wanting to support the Sacred Stone Camp, contact Attorney Robin Martinez – robin.martinez@martinezlaw.net
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Professor WatchList
In the weeks following the presidential election we’ve heard rumblings in the news about a variety of watch lists. Recently a student organization called Turning Point launched a website called Professor Watchlist. It publishes the names, locations and alleged offenses of liberal academics, with the mission to “expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students, promote anti-American values and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” Offenses may include: using swear words or asserting that racism exists. Members of the public are invited to submit tips.
Guest – Rebecca Schuman, a columnist for Slate and author of Schadenfreude, A Love Story and Kafka and Wittgenstein. Her recent article in Slate, Oh Good, A Professor Watch List, outlines a number of concerns about this development.
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Poet Raymond Nat Turner Black Listed
We welcome back to Law and Disorder political poet . Turner is the poet in residence of the internet site and radio show Black Agenda Report. He and others have come under attack by an outfit called PropOrNot, a shabby group that created a blacklist that include more than “200 outlets, from the right-wing Drudge Report and Russian government-funded Russia Today, to Wikileaks and an array of marginal conspiracy and far-right sites. The blacklist also includes some of the flagship publications of the progressive left, including Truthdig, Counterpunch, Truthout, Naked Capitalism, and the Black Agenda Report, a leftist African-American opinion hub that is critical of the liberal black political establishment.”
Guest – Raymond Nat Turner, currently Poet-in-Residence at Black Agenda Report, Turner has been the opening act for such people as James Baldwin, Cynthia McKinney, radical sportswriter Dave Zirin and Congresswoman Barbara Lee after her lone vote against attacking Afghanistan.
