CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Criminalizing Dissent, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister, Whistleblowers
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Lawyers You’ll Like – Attorney Mel Wulf
Mel Wulf died at age 95 on July 1, 2023. He was one of the great constitutional litigators of his time. He served as Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union for 15 years. Today we bring you a re-broadcast of an interview that attorney Michael Ratner, and I, Michael Smith, did with Mel 10 years ago for a segment we called Lawyers You’ll Like. It is a scintillating fast paced discussion with a relevance to our situation now
We’re joined today by Attorney Mel Wulf, former legal director with the American Civil Liberties Union for 15 years. He was a law partner with former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark during the Kennedy Administration and much more. Wulf was part of some of the greatest contributions to the civil rights movement. He’s now retired after practicing law for 54 years. As part of our Lawyers You’ll Like series, we talk with Wulf about his work with the ACLU during the early 60s, and also about the forming of the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee.
Attorney Mel Wulf:
- Phil Agee was a dissident CIA agent who spent decades working against the CIA, published a couple of books.
- He lost his passport because when the dissidents took over the embassy in Tehran in 1979, the New York Post carried a story accusing Phil of helping the students who’d invaded the embassy to put together all of that written material that had been shredded.
- It was another New York Post bald faced lie.
- The State Department, based upon that story revoked his passport.
- I had represented Phil Agee, I was his principle lawyer for 30 years.
- Agee was very widely disliked in Washington because he was well known to be a CIA dissident who disclosed the names of many CIA agents.
- If Snowden went the same route today, he would do even worse in this Supreme Court than I did. That’s why Snowden won’t get his passport, thanks to me.
- I was for the workers and not for the bosses and I’ve always been for the workers and not for the bosses, which I think is the distinguishing political factor in our world. Which side are you on?
- I got my Bachelors Degree in ’52 and I had a Navy Commission which I had gotten from the New York State Maritime Academy earlier on.
- The draft board sent me a 1A notice, I applied to Columbia and when I finished Columbia they sent me another 1A notice because the draft was still on. I spent 2 years in the Navy as a Liuetenant Junior Grade Officer in Southern California.
- I went to work at the ACLU in 1958 as the assistant legal director, in 1962 I was given the job of the legal director of the ACLU.
- I had actually been going down to Mississippi from 1961 to 1962, working with then one of the two black lawyers who were practicing in Mississippi.
- We tried a couple of capitol cases in Mississippi. I continued to argue the systematic exclusion of blacks from the jury.
- I finally got a case up to the Supreme Court on that issue.
- Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee: We had several hundred lawyers who went down to Mississippi for periods of a week or two. They were representing people being arrested during the Mississippi summer.
- Most of the judges allowed these lawyers to make some sort of presentation.
Guest – Attorney Mel Wulf, former legal director with the American Civil Liberties Union for 15 years. He was a law partner with former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark during the Kennedy Administration and much more. Wulf was part of some of the greatest contributions to the civil rights movement. He’s now retired after practicing law for 54 years.
—-
Lawyers You’ll Like: Attorney Bill Schaap
Attorney Bill Schaap, who died in 2016, was a friend and colleague of Mel Wulf’s. Bill and his wife, Ellen Ray published the historic whistleblowing magazine “Covert Action Quarterly“ that exposed to CIA. Then they started Sheridan Square Press. They published a number of memoirs of former CIA agents who revealed the truth about the activities of the CIA. Ex-CIA agent Phil Agee was one of Sheridan Square Press authors. He wrote Inside The Company which exposed the names of some 200 CIA agents involved in nefarious activities in South America. Mel Wulf represented Agee for 30 years and unsuccessfully tried to get his passport back when the government had it taken away.
Attorney William Schaap graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1964 and has been a practicing lawyer since. Bill specialized in military law and practiced in Asia and Europe. He later became the editor in chief of the Military Law Reporter in Washington for a number of years. In the 70’s and 80’s he was a staff counsel of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City. In the late 80s, he was an adjunct professor at John J. College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York where he taught courses on propaganda and disinformation.
Attorney William Schaap:
- One of first cases at this big Wall Street firm, they had some outside counsel working on it, one of whom was David Lubel, and Dave Lubel who had I think been a recruiter for the Communist Party in his youth, was always good at spotting somebody who was always worth recruiting and he started to tell me there was this convention of this lawyers group.
- It was this 1967 Lawyers Guild Convention in New York. He dragged me to one event, I met Bill Kunstler, I met Arthur Kinoy, I met Victor Rabbinowitz. I’d been on Wall Street for a year or two, I said I didn’t know there were lawyers like this.
- I joined the same day and met Bernadine Dorhn and a few weeks she called me and said we need your help.
- She said you gotta defend a bunch of Columbia students. The next thing I knew the riot started at Columbia and she said you have to go down there and defend them.
- I signed up to be staff counsel on the National Lawyers Guild Military Law Project in Okinawa, Japan.
- When you work overseas in that kind of a climate with the military you learn a lot fast about American imperialism.
- Once you learn that, you learn about the CIA.
- That led us to originally working on Counter Spy magazine and then on Covert Action Magazine.
- The original purpose was to expose the CIA. We worked with Lou Wolf who is an expert in uncovering CIA agents in US embassies, not through any classified documents but because if you knew how to read the paperwork and State Department things, you could tell who are the “ringers.”
- We were so successful that Congress passed a law against us.
- Our goal was to make these people ineffective because the only way most CIA could work, particularly the ones that were assigned to an embassy was to have to pretend to be something else.
- They were all third assistant political secretaries and those were all phony things. Their job was to finagle their way into various community organizations in whatever foreign capital they were posted to recruit people to turn against their own countries and become traitors to their own countries, to become spies for the U.S.
- We thought if we identified these people, it might make their job a little bit harder, which it did.
- Of course, the problem with that is the government said we were trying to get them killed which we weren’t trying to do and nobody we did expose ever did get killed.
- He (Philip Agee) had been an adviser to Counter Spy. Counter Spy folded when Welch got killed, cause the pressure was too much and started Covert Action Quarterly.
- He was not the person discovering who the under cover people were, Lou Wolf was doing that.
- Phil wrote articles for us in every issue and we worked very closely with him.
- Once you start exposing these things, they really don’t have any defense.
- They tried to catch us in something phony. We would get tips that would turn out to be CIA trying to get us to print some story that wasn’t true so they could then discredit us.
- We had more interference from the government when we were doing military law work, before Covert Action Quarterly.
- They would plant bugs in our attic in Okinawa, things like that.
- The Intelligence Identity Protection Act has 2 parts. One makes it a crime for someone in the government who has classified information to reveal someone’s identity. The second part makes it a crime to reveal the identity of someone you did not learn from classified information or you position. (But if you were in the business of exposing these people . . .)
- Regarding his newsletter The Lies of Our Times – It was in the 90s, from 1990 to 1995 I think. To a certain extent, the abuses we were crying about got a little bit less over time because that’s sometimes the helpful result of that kind of exposure.
- We were just tired of people thinking that if it was in the New York Times it must be true.
- The fact is that those people lie all the time.
- I think we’ve gotten to a point where people recognize that the government lies to them and that there’s an awful lot that goes on that they don’t know.
Guest – Attorney William Schaap graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1964 and has been a practicing lawyer since. Bill specialized in military law and practiced in Asia and Europe. He later became the editor in chief of the Military Law Reporter in Washington for a number of years. In the 70’s and 80’s he was a staff counsel of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City. In the late 80s, he was an adjunct professor at John J. College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York where he taught courses on propaganda and disinformation.
In addition to being a practicing lawyer, Bill was a journalist, publisher and a writer specializing in intelligence as it relates to media. He was the co-publisher of a magazine called the Covert Action Quarterly for more than 20 years. He also published a magazine on propaganda and disinformation titled Lies Of Our Times. Attorney Bill Schapp has written numerous articles and edited many books on the topic of media and intelligence.
Hosted by attorneys Michael Ratner, Michael Smith and Heidi Boghosian
————————————–
Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Violations of U.S. and International Law
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast
In 2012, journalist Michael Scott Moore went to Somalia to research a book on piracy. He was abducted by a gang of Somali pirates, who demanded $20 million from the US government. After protracted negotiations, and a payment of $1.6 million dollars, Moore was released—two and a half years later. His international bestseller, The Desert and the Sea, chronicles his 977 days in captivity.
More than a decade later, this past February, two men were convicted in federal court for helping to carry out his kidnapping.
On April 1, Michael sailed with a German rescue ship The Humanity I to write about migration across the central Mediterranean. In a recent piece published in Foreign Policy, Michael makes the connection between human trafficking and migration/asylum-seeking and pirating.
Guest – Michael Scott Moore, in addition to The Desert and the Sea, he has written the highly acclaimed book, Sweetness and Blood, about the history of surfing. He serves on the board of Hostage US, an organization that supports American hostages and their families.
—
Nobody’s Victim: Fighting Psychos, Stalkers, Pervs and Trolls.
In January 2019 New York State passed a bill to outlaw “revenge porn,” joining 41 other states that have passed similar laws. Revenge Porn is the term for the non-consensual sharing on the Internet of sexually explicit photographs or videos. Victims say it can be as damaging as any other form of abuse, but without the legal protections.
Private images can follow victims for years, turning up when employers or romantic partners search for their names on the Internet.
But in New York, victims have experienced years of helplessness in the courts. Prosecutors could not charge offenders for a practice that was not illegal, and judges turned down appeals for help on the grounds of free speech, even while other states were enacting protections. Under New York’s new law, offenders can be punished by up to one year in jail.
The law also allows victims to sue the person who shared the revenge porn, which about a dozen other states also allow. And it would be the first in the nation to allow judges to order websites or social media platforms — in addition to the original poster — to take down the photos or videos.
Most have heard about high-profile instances of sexual images as blackmail or revenge have involving the rich and famous, such as singer Rihanna and actor Jennifer Lawrence. But it affects millions of people, from middle school students to Marines. As many as 10 million Americans have been victims of revenge porn.
Guest – New York Attorney Carrie Goldberg started a law firm to focus on defending victims of the practices. She has just come out with her first book titled Nobody’s Victim: Fighting Psychos, Stalkers, Pervs and Trolls.
—————————-
Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of its Military Machine
From Afghanistan to Iraq and Syria and on to little known deployments in a range of countries worldwide, the United States has been at perpetual war for at least the past two decades. Yet many of these foreign wars remain off the radar of average Americans.
We speak today with author and political analyst Norman Solomon about his new book War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of its Military Machine.
Solomon writes that since the attacks on 9/11, more than 20 years ago, first in the war in Afghanistan, and then Iraq, a hugely consequential shift in (United States) American foreign-policy was set in motion: a perpetual state of war that is almost entirely invisible to the public. Solomon exposes how this happened and what the consequences are, for military and civilian casualties, and the draining of resources at home.
Compliant journalist add to the smokescreen by providing narrow coverage of military engagements, and by repeating the military’s talking points. Meanwhile, the increased use of high technology, air power, and remote drones has put distance between soldiers and the civilians killed in action. Back home, Solomon shows, the cloak of invisibility masks massive Pentagon budgets and receive bi-partisan support even as housing, medical care, education, and infrastructure goes abegging.
Guest – Norman Solomon is cofounder of RootsAction.org executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He’s written many books, but “ War Made Invisible“, is his first one in 15 years. Solomon founded the Institute for Public Accuracy in 1997 and is its executive director. Immersed in anti-war, social justice and environmental movements since the late 1960s, he is the author of a dozen books including “War Made Easy” and “Made Love, Got War.”
—-
Israel Attacks West Bank City of Jenin
On fourth of July, as we in the US heard fireworks, people in the Palestinian city of Jenin heard real gunfire and fled from real explosions. On July 3, a thousand Israeli Defense Force soldiers descended on the city, with helicopters, drones and bulldozers, to execute a two day bombardment that leveled the city, reduced its buildings to rubble, damaged hospitals, knocked out utilities, and left at least 13 people dead: 12 Palestinians and 1 Israeli soldier. At least 100 were wounded, and now thousands – about 80% of those living in the camp – are without shelter, water or electricity.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres immediately condemned Israel for using excessive force and harming civilians. He’s refused to retract his statement even under enormous pressure from Israel’s UN Ambassador, who called Mr. Guterres’ criticism, “shameful, far-fetched and completely detached from reality.”
A handful of Arab countries and a European Union envoy have also criticized Israel. But others… like the US? Well…. its silence speaks volumes.
Guest – Sandra Tamari is a Palestinian organizer and the Executive Director of Adalah Justice Project, a Palestinian advocacy organization that builds toward collective liberation through labor, cultural, and legislative campaigns. She holds a Master’s degree in Arab Studies from Georgetown University. In May 2012, she was jailed and denied entry into Palestine by Israel because of her work to encourage U.S. churches to divest from the occupation.
Hosted by attorneys Michael Smith and Maria Hall
———————-
Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Peace Plan? Biden Administration Continues Full Support Of Escalation In Ukraine War
Sixteen months ago, Russia launched an illegal invasion of Ukraine, albeit in the context of a history of threats to its security by NATO countries. It is estimated that as of February, Russia has suffered 189,500 to 223,000 casualties and Ukraine has suffered 124,500 to 131,000 casualties.
Meanwhile, the United States and its allies continue to provide Ukraine with all the weapons it requests and impose increasingly harsh sanctions on Russia. But there appears to be little appetite in the U.S. for a ceasefire and negotiations to end the bloodshed.
Guest – Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, where she is the director of the New Internationalism Project and works on anti-war, US foreign policy and Palestinian rights issues. She has worked as an informal adviser to several key UN officials on Palestinian issues. Her books including Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today’s UN, and Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.
—-
Peace In Ukraine: Peace Groups Convene In Vienna Austria To End Ukraine War
For the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, peace groups from around the world convened — on June 10 and 11 in Vienna, Austria. Their mission was to discuss creative solutions and to promote negotiations to the Russia-Ukraine war. Groups included the International Peace Bureau, CODEPINK, Europe for Peace, International Fellowship of Reconciliation, Peace in Ukraine Coalition, Campaign for Peace Disarmament and Common Security, and several Austrian peace groups. Conference attendees grappled with controversial issues related to Russia’s aggressive invasion of Ukraine.
Representatives discussed the devastating consequences of this war on their countries. The conference concluded with an urgent global appeal, the “Vienna Declaration for Peace,” calling on all sides to work toward a ceasefire and negotiations. Retired U.S. Army Colonel Ann Wright noted, “For those of us in the U.S., it is important to remind our elected leaders that we want peace in our world, not war, and for them to get moving on peace talks.” The former U.S. diplomat added, “The U.S. is a belligerent in this war, just like Russia and Ukraine, and our taxes are funding the deaths of Ukrainians and Russians.”
Guest – Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the international antiwar organization CODEPINK. She is the author of several books, including, with Nicholas J.S. Davies, War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict. She has been an advocate for social justice for more than 40 years. Described as “one of America’s most committed — and most effective — fighters for human rights” by New York Newsday, and “one of the high profile leaders of the peace movement” by the Los Angeles Times, she was one of 1,000 exemplary women from 140 countries nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the millions of women who do the essential work of peace worldwide.
Hosted by Attorneys Heidi Boghosian and Marjorie Cohn
————————-
Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
American Crusade: How the Supreme Court is Weaponizing Religious Freedom
America was not founded as a Christian nation. Church and state were separated. The founding fathers were mostly deists, not Christians. They did not believe in a personal all powerful God that knew everything and intervened in human affairs
They separated church and state because they understood from European history that bad and bloody results resulted when the government acted in the name of God.
All this is changing in America now under the thumb of a right wing activist politicized majority on our Supreme Court. They were put there by an extremely well funded well organized conglomeration of ultra right wing figures and organizations. They have an agenda and they are carrying it out.
The newest Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett had a message for new lawyers. She said being a lawyer “is but it means to an end. … and the end is building the kingdom of God.“ This ascendant ultra-right wing can best be described as white Christian nationalists. These white Christian nationalists have won significant victories and are on roll. Taking away a woman’s right to control their own bodies in the recent overturn of Roe versus Wade is just the latest example. They have stacked the federal courts and particularly the Supreme Court where they have a 6 to 3 majority.
Guest – Andrew Seidel, author of American Crusade: How the Supreme Court is Weaponizing Religious Freedom. He is a constitutional attorney with more than a decade of experience arguing about religion and law as a vice president at Americans United for Separation of Church and State and a director at the Freedom From Religion Foundation He is the author of “The Founding Myth” the definitive book which demonstrates that America’s not founded by Christians as a Christian country.
—-
John Pilger: The Coming War With China
Is China a threat to (the United States)? Is the fear being stirred up about China legitimate? We speak with 83-year-old renowned journalist, author, and documentary filmmaker John Pilger from his home in Australia about his most recent article The Coming War With China.
China has the second largest economy in the world. It will soon be the first. In response to China’s commercial threat the United States of America has responded militarily by surrounding the Chinese industrial heartland with 400 bases in what has been called “a noose“. The USA has some 1100 bases around the world, China has six.
President Obama initiated a multi trillion dollar vast nuclear buildup. This was coordinated with what he termed “a pivot towards Asia.” Most of the U.S. Navy now patrols the waters off of China. Tensions have been exacerbated with respect to who governs Taiwan.
The US Government has shored up it’s military alliances with the surrounding countries around China of South Korea, Japan the Philippines, and Australia, The USA is selling billions of dollars worth of nuclear submarines to Australia.
We live in a country whose government has been in a perpetual war the last 3/4 of a century, except with a brief interlude after its 20 year old war Vietnam ended in defeat. 3 million Vietnamese died in the American war.
Guest – John Pilger covered that war as a young reporter and understood that it was based on the lie that Lyndon Johnson told falsely stating that the North Vietnamese had attacked an American ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. Another 1 million people died in the Iraq war That war was based on the now well known lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that he was going to use against us and that he was responsible for 911. A similar campaign of fear mongering is going on now about China. The major news media parrot the government’s fact free line that China is our enemy. In his article “The Coming War With China” John Pilger wrote “a US war against China beckons and we have a responsibility to speak out. We know what is coming. Silence must be broken.”
Hosted by attorneys Michael Smith and Maria Hall
————————–
Academic Freedom, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Violations of U.S. and International Law, Whistleblowers
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Guilty of Journalism
The pending criminal case against journalist Julian Assange is the most significant far reaching First Amendment matter in our lifetime. It will have, in fact it already has had, an impact on publishing and journalism. This is so because it constricts our freedom to know as well as journalists and publishers freedom to publish.
Our government functions as the executive committee of the ruling rich. It intends to keep it this way, in the words of the great civil rights attorney William Kunstler, “by any means necessary and for as long as possible.”
If as is likely the imprisoned journalist Julian Assange is extradited at America’s request from his solitary prison cell in London’s Belmarsh prison where he has been kept for four years and sent to Virginia to be tried for espionage he will be certainly be convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
His victimization is being accomplished under the 1917 Espionage Act, a law originally put into place during World War I to imprison spies. It is now used to get truth tellers like Julian Assange silenced.
Julian Assange Fact Sheet: Why Julian Must Be Freed
Guest – Kevin Gosztola who more than anyone has covered the whistleblower situation since he attended the court martial trial of Sergeant Chelsea Manning. Manning was convicted of giving government secrets to Julian Assange. Kevin Gosztola‘s book “Guilty of Journalism “was published by Seven Stories Press and Censored Press last month.
—-
Attorney Stephen Rohde: A Set Of Ideas Under Threat
American history has been marked by ongoing conflicts between those who are seeking an open, equal and inclusive society and those who cling to the racist origins of the United States and seek to literally whitewash that history and perpetuate white privilege.
We find ourselves in the midst of one of those conflicts today. The right of Black people to learn their own history is being denied them. The same is true of anyone who is not heterosexual.
The teaching of critical race theory is increasingly disallowed. The study of human sexuality in schools is being obliterated. Books are being banned in record numbers, and curricula is being rewritten to conform to a sanitized version of American history. Seven states, including Florida, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Utah, have already passed laws limiting materials in libraries…and at least 113 bills are pending across the country that would negatively impact libraries or curtail peoples’ freedom to read.
As Jonathan Friedman, the Director of free expression and education at PEN America, a free speech organization said, “People need to understand that it’s not a single book being removed in a single school district, it’s a set of ideas that are under threat just about everywhere.”
Guest – Stephen Rohde is a noted constitutional scholar and activist. He is the past Chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California; the founder and current Chair of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace; the author of American Words of Freedom, and of Freedom of Assembly. Steve Rohde is a regular contributor to TruthDig as well as the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Hosted by attorneys Michael Smith and Jim Lafferty
————————-
