Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Human Rights, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Vodak Settlement: Setting Precedence For Demonstrations
Attorneys with the National Lawyers Guild recently settled a class action lawsuit brought against the Chicago Police Department on behalf of protesters falsely arrested during a 2003 anti-war demonstration. On March 20 2003 nearly 10 thousand anti-Iraq War protesters marched through downtown Chicago before police surrounded a large group, trapping and arresting more than 700 people without ordering them to disperse. A Seventh Circuit ruling on the case (Vodak v. City of Chicago, 639 F.3d, 738 (2011)) held that police can’t arrest peaceful protesters without warning because the demonstration lacks a permit. This decision bears new weight in light of mass arrests within the Occupy movement. The National Lawyers Guild attorneys reached a 6.2 million dollar settlement in this case on the eve of a scheduled trial. The suit was litigated over the course of almost nine years by a team of NLG lawyers and legal workers including People’s Law Office attorneys Janine Hoft, Joey Mogul, Sarah Gelsomino, and John Stainthorp, as well as People’s Law Office paralegal Brad Thomson, and attorneys Melinda Power and Jim Fennerty.
Attorney Joey Mogul:
- We think it sends a significant message to Chicago and the Chicago Police Department that it must honor and respect people’s right to protest.
- It was the day that Bush had dropped bombs on Iraq. There was a massive out pouring of opposition, and people came down to the center of Chicago, to the Federal Plaza which is the heart of downtown. There were 10 thousand people and they marched on Lake Shore drive, and this was all permitted by the Chicago Police Department. This was a spontaneous demonstration, there was no written permit, but the CPD allowed it.
- Toward the end of the march, they decided that they wanted it to be over. They proceeded to surround everyone on Chicago avenue, and they prevented them from leaving, trapped them there for hours.
- They then proceeded to take over 500 people into police custody. 200 hundred were released, the rest were arrested with bogus phony charges of wreck-less conduct.
- They mass arrested everyone in that area including joggers and people shopping. It had an extremely chilling effect for people participating or near a demonstration.
- The message to the Chicago Police is that they cannot mass arrest people without giving orders to disperse.
- The new changes in the Chicago ordinances are very scary, it does allow for this increased surveillance of protesters and individuals seeking to protest.
- We’re very well aware of what the law is and we will seek to vindicate people’s constitutional rights.
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Brad Thompson:
- I’ve been working on this case since 2004, when I first started at the People’s Law Office.
- The work that I’ve done is a tremendous amount of discovery work in terms of going through the video work that was shot that night, by protesters, independent journalists, mainstream media and by the police.
- I did a lot in maintaining communication with class members. We had over 800 people that were taken into custody or held in the street for over 90 minutes.
- We did obtain over 250 affidavits by people who had their rights violated that night.
- The majority of protesters were from Chicago or the Greater Chicago area.
- I was one of the people taken into custody that night and released without being charged.
- I was witnessing the police aggressively arrest someone and I started to point and chant “shame” and then I became targeted. The police tackled me, and pulled me to my feet and struck me in the face which broke my nose and had a wound that required five stitches.
- I spent the night in jail bleeding all over myself.
Guest – Attorney Joey Mogul, partner at the People’s Law Office in Chicago and director of the Civil Rights Clinic at DePaul University’s College of Law. She focuses on civil rights cases involving police misconduct, criminal cases brought against individuals engaged in street demonstrations and other forms of First Amendment expression, and capital defense cases.
Guest – Brad Thompson, legal worker with the People’s Law Office in Chicago.
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Locking Away Children For Life Without Parole
The United States is the only country in the world that sentences children to life, without the possibility of parole. Last month, the US Supreme Court revisited the question of whether juveniles convicted of murder should be given mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole. The Supreme Court had once ruled against imposing death sentences on juveniles and imposing life sentences on youth who aren’t convicted of murder. Currently, 2500 kids in jail are serving life sentences without parole in the US. 371 of those individuals are in Michigan prisons. Our next guest has been working on a lawsuit on behalf of 9 Michigan individuals who were sentenced to life in prison for crimes committed when they were minors and who are being denied the possibility of parole.
Attorney Deborah LaBelle:
- The concept that we’ve been talking about that these are children both under international law and US law for civil matters, children are different from adults.
- The Supreme Court seemed to readily grasp that, they weren’t speaking about juveniles or teenagers or young adults, they spoke continuously on what to do about children who are involved in homicide crime.
- The court had two cases in front of them, both involving 14 year olds, one in which the 14 did not commit a homicide, but convicted of either felony murder or aiding and abetting.
- That juvenile got mandatory life without possibility of parole, because the child was sentenced as an adult, the other case, the 14 year old actually committed the homicide.
- There is a handful of states, Michigan and I think 8 others who treat 17 year olds always as adults for all purposes in the criminal justice system.
- Under the 38 states, there’s a whole range, some you can only get life without parole, if you’re 16 and up, some allow it for 15, some states allow it for a child of any age, Michigan is one of them.
- One of the justices talked about that. Is there an age in which we would all share a collective cringe. What about a 5 year old, what about a 10 year old.
- The frontal lobe area of the brain that really addresses impulse control and long term consequences, and control issues of risk management, is developing through adolescence.
- People draw the age at different points, some say not til 19, some not til 23 as you say.
- There’s a bright line in civil law that’s been drawn in civil law that youth have a maturity that they can vote, when they can decide to leave school, when they can drink in some places, when they can drive.
- There are these bright lines.
- Every other country who has signed on to the conventions of the rights of the child which prohibits putting children in prison for life without possibility of parole explicitly has recognized that this practice is banned.
- The only other country that hasn’t signed on is Somalia and they don’t quite have a government right now to do that.
- We stand alone in not adhering to that convention on the rights of the child as well as we stand alone on approving this sentence.
- We have over 2500 youth who are serving of life without any possibility of parole. About 70 percent are children of color. A third of them, did not commit homicides.
- No one is arguing that there might not be circumstances, that a state couldn’t decide upon review that child couldn’t be released. What the argument is, you can’t keep them in there without any hope. You have to give them an opportunity to demonstrate upon maturation that they have been rehabilitated and they aren’t a threat to public safety.
- We should think of putting children in places where we can nurture, council and believe in their rehabilitation and give them a second chance.
- I read transcript after transcript of judges saying, – listen I don’t want to do this to this 14 or 16 year old, but I don’t have any choice. What is the value of putting a child away with no hope. It’s certainly not a public safety issue, because that can be addressed by the state by having parole or review hearings.
Guest – Attorney Deborah LaBelle, an attorney with the ACLU of Michigan’s Juvenile Life Without Parole Initiative.
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Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Military Tribunal, Political Prisoner, Surveillance, Torture, War Resister
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Updates:
- Bradley Manning Update: Michael Ratner – We Have A Secret Trial Going On Right Now
- Park Slope Food Co-op Vote
- Len Weinglass Remembrance
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Leonard Weinglass TV Interview: Cuba 2004
We hear excerpts of an interview with attorney Leonard Weinglass and Miguel Alvarez, adviser on international and political affairs to Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba’s National Assembly. In this interview Len Weinglass discusses his early career representing the first African-American mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Paper, plus crucial turning points that shaped his life story as a people’s lawyer.
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Occupying Wall Street: The Inside Story Of An Action That Changed America – Writers For The 99%
A collective of writers for the 99 percent have created a very interesting new book for OR Books, distributed by Haymarket Books. They’ve employed a unique writing method to chronicle the many details within the movement of Occupying Wall Street. A team of nearly 60 writers with rotating membership, collaborated on the describing the intricate structures and daily life of the movement such as running the general assembly, how the security and medical center operate and then the stories of the activists involved.
Colin Robinson:
- We were supportive of what was going on down in Zuccotti and I thought we should do a book about this too.
- Beginning of October I went down to the trash cans outside my apartment and pulled an old Budweiser carton out of the trash and cut it into the shape of a book cover and wrote on it with a Sharpie, “Occupying Wall Street, By Writers With the 99%.
- I photographed it with my iPhone at home, and sent it out with a press release, and New York Magazine picked it up saying Occupy Wall Street has a book and it then went everywhere.
- The journalists were calling me up saying, who are the writers for the 99 percent?
- So then I had to get some volunteers. We went down to Zuccotti and talked to some of the facilitators down there. They said you should just come to a General Assembly and we’ll put it on the agenda.
- Tell the GA about the book, get some volunteers and you’ll be fine.
- So we went down on a Wednesday night, in early October. I was not feeling comfortable about this.
- I was a little nervous about speaking at the GA to try and get permission to publish the book.
- They suggested to go to and Education and Empowerment Meeting Committee at 60 Wall Street and take it up there and ask for volunteers there.
- The following week we went the meeting and the response at that point was not very encouraging.
- People were suspicious of who we were. Whether this book was going to be seen as the official book of Occupy Wall Street, which we were saying it wasn’t but they thought it would be. And that it was going to develop an analysis that they didn’t agree with.
- No, we were saying its going to be descriptive, it’s not analytical. A lot of the twinkling was out flat, some of it was down. In the end, some guy stood up in the back and said I don’t think we should support this.
- We got blocked, he crossed his arms in front of chest. If this goes through, I’m walking out. We felt really wounded by it.
- But afterward some people from the committee came up and said we feel badly about the way you were treated, we’ll volunteer to help. We started meeting weekly at 60 Wall Street and the meetings got bigger and bigger.
- We came up with a structure, chapter by chapter. There were 2 themes in the book, one was a chronological account of the action. The day the occupation started on September 17.
- The drilling down of the daily detail for what life is like in the square. We’ve got sections in the book of how the kitchen worked, how the library worked, how the general assembly worked.
- I thought at first, what I would do would be to interview the people who are volunteering to write, pick the ones who could write well, and as kindly as possible tell the ones who couldn’t write they couldn’t be part of it.
- I soon realized that was not is the spirit of Occupy Wall Street.
- We were trying to reproduce the book in a way that reflected the values of Occupy Wall Street that meant it was produced in a very democratic, horizontal fashion. Anyone who wanted to participate could.
- We came up with a chapter structure, we sent people out into the square and we did about 200 interviews in the square. We allocated the interviews to each chapter and we tried to find 3 or 4 people to write each chapter.
- The whole book was written by 60 people in 2 weeks. This book absorbed the ethos of Occupy Wall Street.
- If you repress a little bit of it, its going to spring up somewhere else.
Guest – Colin Robinson, former Publisher, Verso Press and The New Press, and Scribner senior editor; John Oakes, former Grove Press Editor and founder of 4 Walls, 8 Windows and ORBooks. He’s written for magazines and newspapers including the New York Times and the London Guardian.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Filed Over Boycott of Israeli Goods
Last month, a judge in Olympia, Washington dismissed a lawsuit tailored to force the Olympia Food Co-op to rescind its boycott of Israeli goods. The judge ruled that the lawsuit brought by opponents of the boycott violated a Washington State law designed to prevent abusive lawsuits which are aimed at suppressing lawful public participation. Interestingly, an investigation by ElectronicIntifada had unearthed that the lawsuit against individuals with the Olympia Food Co-op Board was also planned in collusion with a national anti-Palestinian organization called StandWithUs that was working with the Israeli government. Lawyers with the Center for Constitutional Rights argued that the lawsuit qualified as a SLAPP, that stands for – – Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation. SLAPPs are lawsuits that target the constitutional rights of free speech and petition in connection with an issue of public concern.
Attorney Maria LaHood:
- The Olympia Food Co-op is a non-profit in Olympia Washington, that not only makes good food accessible to people, but also encourages economic and social justice in other ways.
- So it has a long history of doing social justice work, including adopting boycotts.
- The board decided to boycott Israeli goods in 2010 by consensus. A few months after that there was a co-op election. Three of the five plaintiffs who ended up bringing the lawsuit, members of the co-op, the co-op has about 22 thousand members. They ran for the election opposing the boycott and they lost.
- They ran for the board on an anti-boycott agenda and not voted in by the members.
- The board decided to boycott Israeli goods and divest from any Israel investment.
- One Israeli product: Gluten free ice cream cones,
- Obviously it had symbolic significance so that the five plaintiffs decided to send a letter to the board promising litigation that would be complicated, burdensome and expensive if the board didn’t end the boycott.
- CCR got involved and CCR cooperating council to represent the board members and decided to file an anti-SLAP motion as well as a motion to dismiss.
- Plaintiffs were also seeking discovery which of course they had promised. They started out serving 200 pages of discovery on all 16 defendants and trying to depose all 16 defendants. After we file the anti-SLAPP motion which actually stays discovery, they sought to depose three of the defendants as well as additional document requests.
- We challenged that discovery request.
- Olympia, Washington, is where Evergreen College and that’s also where Rachel Corrie is from.
- Stand With Us is basically an anti-BDS organization.
- The lawsuit against the co-op board members was actually identified by Stand With Us as one of its projects months before the case was even filed.
- Stand With Us also produced and posted online an anti-BDS video with four of the five plaintiffs in the case.
- They described themselves as an international organization ensuring Israel’s side of the story is told.
- They also have apparently connections as well to the Israeli government.
- The hearing was last Thursday, there was a great turn out, they had to move us to a bigger court room.
- The judge ruled that this lawsuit did challenge public participation so it did fall under the anti-SLAPP statute.
- Boycotts are constitutionally protected under the first amendment.
- This kind of suit is exactly what this statute was meant to address.
- We argued that the board under the bylaws has the authority to adopt any policy essentially it wants, that promotes the co-opts mission.
- He (the judge) did say that it was a nationally recognized movement.
- The victory here sends a message that you cannot sue to chill free speech issues.
Guest – Senior staff attorney Maria LaHood, who specializes in international human rights litigation, seeking to hold government officials and corporations accountable for torture, extrajudicial killings, and war crimes abroad. Her cases have included Arar v. Ashcroft, against U.S. officials for sending Canadian citizen Maher Arar to Syria where he was tortured and detained for a year; Al-Aulaqi v. Obama, to prevent the “targeted killing” of a U.S. citizen in violation of constitutional and international law; Matar v. Dichter, against an Israeli official responsible for a “targeted killing” that killed 15 Palestinians; Belhas v. Ya’alon, against a former Israeli official responsible for the 1996 shelling of a United Nations compound in Qana, Lebanon, that killed over 100 civilians; Corrie v. Caterpillar, on behalf of Palestinians killed and injured in home demolitions, and Rachel Corrie, a U.S. human rights defender who was killed trying to protect a home from being demolished; and Wiwa v. Royal Dutch/Shell, for the torture, detention and execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and other human rights activists and protestors in Nigeria. After graduating from the University of Michigan Law School in 1995, Maria advocated on behalf of affordable housing and civil rights in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Greece, the EU, the United States and Fight Back
The huge and sustained fight back against massive austerity cuts continues in Greece, in that small southern European country of 11 million people, half of whom live in Athens, there’s been a wave of general strikes going back to August of last year. Not only are the economic powers that be particularly in Germany forcing terrible cut backs on the standard of living of the Greek people, there also hollowing out democracy in that country. The country, after all, the birth place of democracy. Despite their efforts, the Left in Greece has grown enormously and now rivals in size the combination of the right wing parties. What happens in Greece is going to have a ripple effect in other European countries particularly, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Ireland and Hungary.
Professor Rick Wolff:
- In Europe, we see the rich countries working really hard to punish the debtors.
- Not to ask what the conditions were that got them into debt, not to admit that for the years these people were in debt, they paid off handsomely to the creditors in high interest rates.
- Nor is there any examination of the conditions under which this happened so that there’s nothing being done to change those conditions.
- We are instead engaged in a vicious punishment of a small country, 11 million people. It’s attempt to terrorize the rest of Europe into thinking of not resisting.
- Those that are closest to Greece that are in trouble are the following: Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Hungary.
- How did it come that the Germans are doing so well and the Greeks so badly?
- The Europeans as a people had gone through 2 of the worst wars human beings had ever experienced, fought overwhelmingly on European soil.
- So they embarked on a unity starting in 1945 and came about in the 1990s. Took them a long time.
- In order for a unified Europe to be, a source of peace and prosperity, it’d have to balance out the rich and the poor.
- Who were the poor ones coming into the European Union. Greece and Portugal and Spain, and later eastern Europe.
- None of that was done under the unified Europe the equalizing process. The Germans the French and the Dutch were terrified of unity, they wanted the big market, but they were afraid that businessmen would move production from the high wage parts of Europe, Germany, Scandinavia, etc. to the poorer places where wages were lower.
- The extreme example is Greece. They lost out, they had to pay high European prices, they are stuck with the currency of Europe, they’re buying more German products, as their own industries disintegrate.
- German wealthy people took the profits they earned and lent them to the Greeks and the other southern Europeans. To blame the borrower and exonerate yourself as the lender is to not see the entire disaster.
- This is capitalism delivering a disaster to the majority of people.
- Greece is also a population coming out of shock and its very very angry.
- A socialist party that imposed austerity on the mass of the people has now got the people’s response, 8 percent support you.
- It’s hard to imagine that you’re not moving toward a fundamental civil conflict.
- Workers taking over the enterprises is number one. Number two there ought to be a nationalization of wealth in this society, so that its redistributed in a way that makes society fair and equitable.
- Socialism has its problems too, but we have a capitalism that is becoming intolerable for tens of millions of people.
- We have to recognize that not making a dramatic break is plunging people into an even greater degree of risk.
- The Iowa Farmer’s Militia issued a decree. The next judge that authorizes a foreclosure, we’re going to kill him.
- Roosevelt had to mobilize the Army and the National Guard to protect the judges.
- This is a re-run of an old movie and it never ends well.
Guest – Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. He also teaches classes regularly at the Brecht Forum in Manhattan.
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Why I’m Suing Barack Obama: Chris Hedges
In March of this year, the latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Barack Obama on Dec 31, 2011 will take effect. As many listeners know, this act authorizes the military for the first time in more than 200 years to begin domestic policing. That means the military can indefinitely detain without trial any US citizen deemed to be a terrorist or an accessory to terrorism. You could then be shipped to a black site or offshore prison. We’ve discussed in past shows the vague premise of materially aiding terrorism or in this bill the terms “substantially supported,” “directly supported” or “associated forces.” We’re joined today by returning guest Chris Hedges to talk about his recent article Why I’m Suing Barack Obama which examines why the National Defense Authorization Act was passed.
Chris Hedges:
- It turns over almost 200 years of legal precedence so that the military is allowed to engage in domestic policing.
- Diane Feinstein had proposed that US citizens be exempt from this piece of legislation both the Obama Whitehouse and the Democratic Party rejected that.
- Obama issued a signing statement saying this will not be used against American citizens.
- That fact is that it can be legally used against American citizens.
- There was an opportunity to protect American citizens and due process, the chose not to do that.
- It expands this endless war on terror.
- There are all sorts of nebulous terms such as associated forces, substantially supported.
- When you look at the criteria by which Americans can be investigated by our security and surveillance state, its amorphous and frightening.
- People who have lost fingers on a hand, people who hoard more than 7 days of food in their house, water proof ammunition. I come from rural parts of Maine, that’s probably most of my family.
- Its a very short step to adding the obstructionist tactics to the Occupy Movement.
- The very agencies that are being pulled into domestic policing, especially the Pentagon, didn’t push for the bill.
- They approached me and said they needed a credible plaintiff, because I had been the Middle East Bureau Chief for the New York Times.
- I spent considerable time with both individuals and organizations that are considered by the US State Department to be either terrorists or terrorist groups.
- I’m trying to be proactive, I’m trying to fight it while we can still fight it. The reason we filed in the Southern District Court is because they have a fairly good record of at least being open to issues of civil liberties.
Guest – Chris Hedges, American journalist, author, and war correspondent, specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and societies. His most recent book is ‘Death of the Liberal Class (2010). Hedges is also known as the best-selling author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.
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Immokalee Workers: Trader Joe’s Victory, Campaign Turns To Publix Supermarkets
Earlier this month, Trader Joe’s and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) announced they have signed an agreement that will formalize the ways in which Trader Joe’s will work with the CIW and Florida tomato growers to support the CIW’s Fair Food Program. The efforts to push the farm worker living standards above slave labor is gathering momentum in Florida. Now efforts turn to Publix supermarkets. The 28 billion dollar supermarket giant has refused to pay a single penny more to help end farm worker poverty. The Fair Food Program campaign has shifted its focus onto Publix and we get an update from Jake Ratner and CIW member Elbin Perez.
Elbin Perez:
- We finally won with Trader Joe’s and its extremely important for us.
- One of the main tactics we use is protest. We were planning an enormous protest the day Trader Joe’s opened their first Florida store about 30 miles from Immokalee in Naples.
- With that pressure, the day before they opened the store, they signed an agreement with us.
- Historically some received some poverty wages there are no rights in the fields and workers have had no voice in the work place. What are rights without enforcement.
- Workers are now seeing an increase in their paychecks in the form of a bonus that they are receiving from companies like Trader Joe’s.
- Currently we’re also asking Publix to do the same thing and to sign on to the Fair Food Agreement.
- What we’re calling for is a fast. A fast to begin outside of the Publix headquarters which is located in Lakeland Florida. There refusal to participate in these agreements will result in more hunger from more workers.
Guest – Elbin Perez, Coalition of Immokalee Workers member.
Translator: Jake Ratner -son of co-host Michael Ratner. Jake graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. He’s traveled and studied in Cuba and Bolivia, South America. He now works with the Coalition of the Immokalee Workers.
Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, War Resister
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Weapons of Mass Destruction Part 2: Iran
Similar to accusing the Iraqi government for stockpiling weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for a military invasion, Israeli and US intelligence assert that Iran is bent on becoming a nuclear weapons state by enriching uranium. This narrative as many listeners know has been going for many years In the New York Times article titled Confronting Iran In A Year of Elections, New York Time’s chief Washington correspondent David Sanger platforms his article on the assumption there is evidence Iran is making nuclear weapons. We talk today with Professor Bill Beeman author of The “Great Satan” vs. the “Mad Mullahs”: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other. Beeman has criticized the New York Times and other media for falsely claiming there is evidence Iran is developing nuclear weapons. He also points out that Iran has a right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes and that their facilities are monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Professor William Beeman:
- First of all its very important to understand there is no evidence anywhere that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Every report from the IAEA has reaffirmed that Iran has not diverted any nuclear material for military purposes, including the last report in November 2011.
- The news media, especially the New York Times, I must tell you has distorted the IAEA report in order to make it seem as if Iran is building nuclear weapons.
- We have no evidence to the contrary.
- The New York Times article written by an Israeli journalist not only has actually attracted hundreds and hundreds of objections. Because of its war mongering tone and because it contains a lot of inaccuracies.
- Clapper claims Iran is most likely to attack the United States based on the incident that took place a few months ago.
- There are some countries like Japan that have said outright that they intend to develop the capacity to construct nuclear weapons. Iran has said it doesn’t intend to do this.
- The United States is not coming after Japan. . or Brazil which has issued a similar statement or any of the 20 countries that don’t have weapons but are now enriching uranium.
- When Colin Powell went before the United Nations saying Iraq had weapons of mass destruction I wrote a column saying its simply not true.
- That got me on the Bill O’Reilly show where I had a big arguement with him about this.
- I said simply show us the actual proof.
- My feeling at the time was that Colin Powell had been badly misused by the Bush administration in order to sell a false picture of what was actually going on in Iraq.
- Iran was given uranium many years ago during the time of the Shah to use in a medical reactor to develop isotopes for the treatment of cancer.
- Every scrap of uranium that they’ve been working with is under inspection.
- The IAEA is watching the process as it goes on every day.
- They say if Iran wants to wipe Israel off the map they’re probably going to use nuclear weapons.
- The joke is of course we knew Iran was enriching uranium, because we started the enriching program 40 years ago.
- The idea that it was carried out in secret, quite frankly revealed the extraordinary ignorance of the Bush Administration.
- They have a continual drum beat to attack Iran. The aim is not to stop Iran’s nuclear program because Iran’s nuclear program is anemic. The aim is regime change.
Guest – Professor William O. Beeman, Professor and Chair of Anthropology and specialist in Middle East Studies at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis-St. Paul Minnesota, formerly of Brown University. It includes current publications on Middle Eastern affairs, especially Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf region; anthropology; linguistics; performance; opera; things Japanese and Central Asian.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Gaza, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Ten Year Anniversary of Guantanamo Bay Prison
Co-host Michael Ratner and president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights gives listeners an overview of the habeas corpus legal battles to close Guantanamo Bay prison and an in depth look at the corrosive effect the offshore prison has had on civil rights, and the U.S. Constitution. Despite the fact that the U.S. government has itself cleared more than half of these men for release, and despite President Obama’s promise on his second day in office to close Guantánamo within a year, it has been almost twelve months since anyone has been released.
This is the longest period of time that has elapsed since the prison’s opening without a single person being set free.The Obama administration has also extended some of the worst aspects of the Guantánamo system by continuing indefinite detentions without charge or trial, employing illegitimate military commissions to try some suspects, and blocking accountability for torture.
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International People’s Tribunal on “War Crimes and Other Violations of International Law
International People’s Tribunal on “War Crimes and Other Violations of International Law” to be held on January 14, 2012 at 12 pm at Columbia Law School. The event will provide an excellent opportunity for students interested in gaining an understanding the theory and the practical application of international law in the real world.
Attorney Roger Wareham:
- The genesis of the tribunal began during the intervention in Libya.
- Back in May the December 12th movement always has a celebration of Malcolm X’s birthday, May 19.
- This is part an ongoing campaign to re-colonize the African continent.
- Libya was important to that for a number reasons. Libya has some of the best crude oil in the world that requires the least amount of production in terms of transforming it into gasoline.
- Col. Gaddafi stood for the proposition that there would be a United States of Africa.
- Libya had the highest standard of living on the African continent.
- What we hope to come out of this is fashion a petition to take before the International Criminal Court.
- The plan is we’ll going to take at least a 400 people strong delegation to the Hague in June to present a petition to the prosecutor, requesting they prosecute the heads of NATO, Britain, Canada, Italy, for war crimes.
- Saturday January 14, 2012 / Columbia University Law School / 435 West 116th Street / 718-398-1766 / iptribunal2012@gmail.com
Guest – Roger Wareham, lawyer and political activist of over four decades. He is a member of the December 12th Movement, an organization of African people which organizes in the Black and Latino community around human rights violations, particularly police terror. Wareham is also the International Secretary-General of the International Association Against Torture (AICT), a non-governmental organization that has consultative status before the United Nations.
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Cornell and The Technion of Israel To Build Campus On Governor’s Island
As many listeners may know, Cornell University is joining with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in a plan to build a campus in New York City. Critics however, point out Technion’s involvement with the Israeli Defense Force in the development of repressive technology that would further perpetuate crimes against Palestinians. Through cooperative research with Israeli defense companies such as Elbit, Rafael, McGill and Concordia, Technion is involved in asymmetrical robotic warfare with faceless human targets who can be killed by remote control.
To talk more about this, we’re joined today by David Klein, a professor at California State University in Northridge and a member of the Organizing Committee of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
Professor David Klein:
- It is a collaboration between Cornell University and Technion which is like Israel’s MIT.
- There’s a 350 million dollar grant from a philanthropist, which has been supplemented with 100 million dollars in public money.
- I’m a member of the Organizing Committee of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
- The demands that we have are ending the occupation and colonization all Arab lands and dismantling the apartheid wall.
- Recognizing the fundamental rights of Arab / Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality.
- Respecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and property as stipulated in UN resolution 194.
- Technion is deeply complicit with Israel’s military and provides the military with technology to carry out ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
- Participants in a joint military and university program for science students, who will later be integrated into the Army’s research and development units, wear uniforms throughout their years of study.
- It’s particularly strong in developing robotic weapons systems, which include aerial drones, and unmanned combat vehicle technology.
- I think Bloomberg is supportive of the apartheid system in Israel. He wouldn’t view this as a problem like much of the rest of the world does.
- The crime of apartheid is an international crime against humanity.
- In addition to aerial drones, Technion makes the Black D9 Bulldozer, it makes the Stealth UVA Drone, which is a drone that can fly almost 3000km without refueling.
- It’s making something called the Dragonfly UVA mini-drone, which is a tiny drone with a 9 inch wingspan. It can fly into people’s bedroom windows and kill em.
- Technion is involved in asymmetrical robotic warfare with faceless human targets who can be killed by remote control.
- Israel is arguably the most racist country at this time, due to the apartheid system that it has.
Guest – David Klein, member of the Organizing Committee of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (www.usacbi.org), and is a professor of mathematics at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). He received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Cornell University. His professional interests include mathematical physics, climate science, and mathematics education in the public schools. He is the faculty advisor for the campus student groups, Students for Justice in Palestine and the CSUN Green Party. David Klein’s website
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CCR Lawsuit: Stop and Frisk NYC
Last year, a federal judge rejected a move by the City of New York to stop a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights challenging the New York City Police Department’s Stop and Frisk policy. Judge Shir Scheindlin pointed out the seriousness of numerous claims that the NYPD disproportionately and illegally targeting communities of color. In 2009 New York City, a record 576,394 people were stopped, 84 percent of whom were Black and Latino residents — although they comprise only about 26 percent and 27 percent of New York City’s total population respectively. The year 2009 was not an anomaly. Ten years of raw data obtained by court order from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) show that stop-and-frisks result in a minimal yield of weapons and contraband.
Attorney Darius Charney:
- Stop and Frisk is a city wide epidemic. We’ve gone from 90 thousand in 2002 to 700 thousand this year. They’re stopping 2000 people a day, primarily young males of color but also females of color.
- There are really know criteria as far as we can tell. There are guidelines that have been laid out by the courts in the last forty years. The police don’t follow those guidelines. They’re suppose to reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.
- They’re stopping people for what’s called “furtive movements” whatever that means.
- The other one is “high crime neighborhood.” The court had ruled that this is unconstitional, you can’t use the basis of a high crime neighborhood to stop and search them.
- Yet again, the police are doing that hundreds of thousands of times a year.
- The two allegations we made is that the NYPD has a widespread policy and practice of stopping and frisking New Yorkers without reasonable suspicion which violates the fourth Amendment of the Constitution and then on the basis of race which violates the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
- The blacker or browner that neighborhood is, the more stops that are going to be done in that neighborhood.
- The other part is the weapon recovery rate, the police department justifies this program by saying, we’re trying to get guns off the street.
- Last year in 2010, they stopped over 600 thousand people. The number of guns recovered in those 600 thousand stops was 1200 guns.
- Relief sought in class action suit: Outside independent oversight of the police department.
Guest – Darius Charney, senior staff attorney in the Racial Justice/Government Misconduct Docket. He is currently lead counsel on Floyd v. City of New York, a federal civil rights class action lawsuit challenging the New York Police Department’s unconstitutional and racially discriminatory stop-and-frisk practices, and Vulcan Society Inc. v. the City of New York, a Title VII class action lawsuit on behalf of African-American applicants to the New York City Fire Department which challenges the racially discriminatory hiring practices of the FDNY.
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