Welcome to Law and Disorder Radio
Law and Disorder is a weekly independent civil liberties radio program airing on more than 150 stations and on Apple podcast. Law and Disorder provides timely legal perspectives on issues concerning civil liberties, privacy, right to dissent and practices of torture exercised by the US government and private corporations.
Law and Disorder April 6, 2020
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Hosts Updates
- Chronic Underlying Conditions: Vunerability To Covid-19
- 10,239 Elderly Prisoners in New York State – Governor Cuomo’s Office – 518-474-8390
- FOIA Suspended
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Abuse Of Emergency Powers, The U.S. Constitution And Habeas Corpus
The Department of Justice is now seeking to exploit the coronavirus calamity to get Congress to give it permission to pick up and detain people indefinitely.
At this point the American people have a constitutional right, if arrested, to be brought before a judge and informed of the charges against them so that they may defend themselves. This is known as the right of habeas corpus. It is a right that has its origins in the Magna Carta, the great charter, a British law that goes back to the 13th century. The right of habeas corpus is written into the American Constitution and can only be suspended by Congress.
Historically both the American and the German fascist government led by Adolf Hitler have used crises and the fear that crises generate in the population to expand their powers.
Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. FDR put 110,000 American citizens of Japanese origin into concentration camps during World War II.
In Germany, Adolph Hitler, who was legally appointed chancellor, used the shock of the Reichstag fire, which had burned down the German parliament, to get his Enabling Law passed. This enabled Hitler, with the support of German big business, to make laws on his own, bypassing the legislature.
What dangers do we face with Donald Trump as president? What does it mean to suspend the right of habeas corpus for the American citizens who oppose Trump and his big business backers.
Guest – Attorney Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law where she taught for 25 years. The former president of the National Lawyers Guild and criminal defense attorney is a legal scholar and political analyst who writes books and articles, and lectures throughout the world about human rights, US foreign policy, and the contradiction between the two. She writes weekly articles for Truth out in the series Human Rights and Global Wrongs. She is currently taking a leading role in the defense of Julian Assange. She has testified before Congress and debated the legality of the war in Afghanistan at the prestigious Oxford Union. MarjorieCohn
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The Religious South, and Religious Exemptions to Public Health Directives
Last week sheriffs arrested Rodney Howard-Browne, the head of the River at Tampa Bay church in Florida for ignoring local orders against mass gatherings due to the COVID-19 pandemic and for showing “reckless disregard for human life.”
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said he had no choice but to take action against the pastor. “His reckless disregard for human life put hundreds of people from his congregation at risk and thousands of residents who may interact with them this week.” The Sheriff said his office had direct contact with the church, telling it not to pack its pews. Instead he said, the Pastor was encouraging his large congregation to meet at his church.”
Howard-Browne said his church has an absolute, constitutional right to gather for worship. He told his congregation that the church is an essential service.
But religious exemptions during the pandemic will only worsen it and claim more lives. Yet that’s precisely what government officials are doing—ignoring public health warnings and refusing to call on houses of worship to close. Establishing religious exemptions—in this case, by freeing houses of worship from public health order compliance—will only result in more cases of COVID-19 and greater numbers of death cases.
Guest – Attorney David Gespass is a former president of the National Lawyers Guild. He practices law in Birmingham, Alabama.
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Law and Disorder March 30, 2020
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- Hosts Update
Now Is The Time To Fundamentally Transform America
Doug Henwood wrote in a Jacobin magazine article last week that “. . . things could get very ugly, but it is also an opportunity to emerge from this crisis a better country.“
In his article Henwood articulates a vision, “a vision of solidarity and mutual care.“ He believes that millions of lives depend on that. LBO-News.com
Guest – Doug Henwood, his fields of expertise are politics, economics, and finance. He is the publisher of “The Left Business Observer.” Henwood has written four books. His articles have appeared in “The Nation”. the “Los Angeles Times, and “the Guardian“. He hosts the radio show Behind the News each week on the Pacifica station KPFA in Berkeley.
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Aging Prisoners And Prisoner Release During Pandemic
Last week, New York City jails were among the country’s most infected by the virus so far, with at least 38 people testing positive at Rikers Island. Another inmate, became the first in the country to test positive in a federal jail.
In a letter to New York’s criminal justice leaders, Board of Correction interim chairperson Jacqueline Sherman described a jail system in crisis. She said that 12 Department of Correction employees, 5 Correctional Health Services employees, and 21 people in custody at Rikers and city jails had tested positive for the coronavirus.
And at least another 58 were being monitored in the prison’s contagious disease and quarantine units, she said. Across the nation, several large county and municipal jurisdictions have freed thousands of low-risk inmates from jails, including seniors and those in poor health.
New Jersey plans to release as many as a thousand people from county jails, including inmates jailed for probation violations and those sentenced for low-level offenses. Mayor Bill de Blasio said last week that New York City may release more than 200 inmates. Los Angeles County and Ohio’s Cuyahoga County also have released prisoners.
Prisoner advocacy groups in more than a half-dozen states, including Texas, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Michigan, continue to urge governors to release state prisoners, especially elderly inmates, through compassionate release or medical furlough.
Guest – Victor Pate, the New York statewide organizer for the Halt Solitary campaign. That stands for humane alternative to long-term isolated confinement.
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Law and Disorder March 23, 2020
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Update:
- Hosts Discuss Civil Liberties Amid Pandemic
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United States Executive Authority Declares Emergency Powers
The last point President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen made when he testified last year before Congress was that Trump would never leave office voluntarily. With the pandemic of Covid-19 virus upon us, Trump has the perfect excuse. Last week he declared a state of national emergency. This gives him more than 100 additional powers. He can shut down the Internet, he has already banned gatherings of more than 10 people, and he can send in troops anywhere in the country.
What is the current state of our civil rights and civil liberties?
Guest – Stephen Rohde is a constitutional scholar, lecturer, writer, political activist and retired civil rights lawyer. He is a former President of the ACLU of Southern California and Chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California. Mr Rohde has served on the Board of Directors of Death Penalty Focus and was a founder and Chair of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace. He is a past chair of Bend the Arc: a Jewish Partnership for Justice. Mr. Rohde is the author of two books American Words of Freedom: The Words That Define Our Nation and Freedom of Assembly, and co-author of Foundations of Freedom: A Living History of Our Bill of Rights. He has written for American Prospect, Truth Out, Huffington Post, and the LA Times and is a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books
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United States Executive Authority in Declaring Emergency Powers
U.S. presidents have the discretion to declare a “national emergency.” As soon as he does, he can sidestep many existing limits to presidential authority. In fact, 100 or more special provisions become available to him. Some provide reasonable responses to real emergencies, while others seem to bolster the power of a so-called unitary executive who wants to amassing or retain power. The president can activate laws allowing him to, for example, shut down many kinds of electronic communications inside the U.S. or to freeze Americans’ bank accounts. Other powers are available without a declaration of emergency, including laws that allow the president to deploy troops inside the country to subdue domestic unrest.
The rationale for having emergency powers is simple: The government’s ordinary powers may not be enough in times of crisis, and amending the laws to provide greater ones would take too long. Emergency powers are intended to give a temporary boost until the emergency passes or there is time to change the law through the regular legislative process. The problem comes when presidents don’t have the best interest of the country in mind.
Guest – Andrew Boyd, Counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. Andrew spent 7 years prosecuting senior Khmer Rouge leaders on behalf of the UN for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. He also worked on cases resulting from the 1994 Rwandan genocide at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
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