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 July 15, 2019
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The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire
If a modern day Gibbons were to write about the decline and fall of the American empire she would surely feature Trump’s bringing road crushing Abrams tanks and F15 fighter planes into Washington DC. Gibbons wrote about Julius Caesar who brought his imperialistic troops into Rome. To do so they had to cross the Rubicon river. This ended the Roman Republic. Today, July 4, 2019 symbolically marks the American crossing of the Rubicon. You can’t have democracy at home and imperialism abroad. That was the lesson of Gibbons’ three volume history. But that won’t be discussed“ on Fox and Friends” so Trump will remain ignorant. The rest of us should be scared.
If there is a shattering event in our country those tanks and planes will be aimed at us.
Michael Steven Smith – July 4, 2019
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Autonomous Weapons Systems And Laws of War
The Pentagon is developing for future deployment a variety of autonomous weapons systems. They are known as “killer robots“.
They will be active in the air, on the land, and on the sea. Killer robot deployment potentially conflicts with the laws of war. The Navy, the Air Force, and the Army will all have them. The robots will use algorithms and artificial intelligence. Once deployed they can operate for months on their own, monitoring, selecting, and destroying targets, including people. CampaignToStopKillerRobots.org / Armscontrol.org
Guest – Professor Michael Klare, Five College professor emeritus of peace and world security studies, and director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies (PAWSS), holds a B.A. and M.A. from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of the Union Institute. He has written widely on U.S. military policy, international peace and security affairs, the global arms trade, and global resource politics. His books include American Arms Supermarket (1984), Low-Intensity Warfare (1988), Peace and World Security Studies: A Curriculum Guide (Fifth Edition, 1989; Sixth Edition, 1994), World Security: Challenges for a New Century (First Edition, 1991; Second Edition, 1994; Third Edition, 1998), Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws (1995), Light Weapons and Civil Conflict (1999), Resource Wars (2001),Blood and Oil (2004), and The Race for What’s Left (2012). His articles have appeared in many journals, including Arms Control Today, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Current History, Foreign Affairs, Harper’s, The Nation, Scientific American, and Technology Review.
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Supreme Court On Partisan Gerrymandering And The Census Question
The underlying premise of our radio program Law and Disorder is in the words of our founder attorney Michael Ratner that democracy and the rule of law are increasingly becoming incompatible with capitalism and imperialism. A terrible example of this is the recent Supreme Court decision on partisan gerrymandering. The majority decision, written by chief justice John Roberts, was joined by his fellow four right wing pro-corporate authoritarian judges Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.
In its unprecedented decision in Rucho v. Common Cause and Camon v. Bemusement Roberts wrote that supreme court would not get involved in election rigging matters, although majority rule is a foundation of American democracy.
In addition to gerrymandering, another anti-democratic strategy practiced historically in the US has been voter suppression. Most infamously, the Democrats did this during the Jim Crow era to prevent recently freed slaves from voting.
Currently the Republican Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross attempted to suppress votes by including a citizenship question on the census, which occurs every 10 years, and which determines money allocations among other things. In this instance the Supreme Court recently ruled that the question cannot be asked.
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 has testified before Congress and debated the legality of the war in Afghanistan at the prestigious Oxford Union. Her columns appear on Truthout, HuffPost, JURIST, Truthdig, Portside, Alternet, CommonDreams and Consortium News, and she has provided commentary for CBS News, BBC, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, NPR and Pacifica Radio. Her website is http://marjoriecohn.com/
Law and Disorder July 8, 2019
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Data Collection Experiment: Google’s SideWalk Labs In Toronto
Last year Law and Disorder featured a segment on Sidewalk Labs, a data-oriented smart city in Toronto. Sidewalk Labs is a firm owned by Google parent company Alphabet. We covered critics’ concerned about residents’ privacy and how data would be used.
Last week, Sidewalk labs has released a 1,500-page development proposal for its planned “smart” neighborhood. They claim it will integrate physical, digital, and policy innovations to take on affordability, sustainability, quality of life and generate economic opportunity. Critics assert, this is an experimental model for a surveillance state and covert data collection.
Sidewalk Lab’s plan is a radical departure from the principles that have guided city planning in Canada since citizen participation and accountability came to the fore in the era of renowned Canadian-American urban planner Jane Jacobs.
Guest – Mariana Valverde, Professor at the Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto. She’s an urban studies scholar whose research interests include public-private partnerships, governance and infrastructure.
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Impeachment Analysis Of President Donald Trump
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s May statement on his investigation and report revived calls to impeach President Donald Trump. Such calls rest on solid legal ground. There is already more than adequate evidence supporting at least seven articles of impeachment – four more than President Richard M. Nixon would have faced had he not resigned in 1974.
Trump obstructed the administration of justice by attempting to fire Mueller, to curtail his investigation; he ordered White House counsel Donald McGahn to falsify the record to conceal these attempts. He fired FBI Director James B. Comey because of “Comey’s unwillingness to publicly state that Trump was not personally under investigation. He also sought to protect himself from an investigation into his campaign,” because he knew it would uncover facts about the campaign and the President personally that Trump could have understood to be crimes or that would give rise to personal and political concerns.”
He tried to dissuade Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Roger Stone, and other witnesses from cooperating with the government. The non-cooperation of Manafort and Stone made it impossible to establish the exact nature of the relationship between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
All of those are violations of Article I of the Constitution, and Trump has violated Articles II through VII, as well.
So the internal debates are not about the legal grounds. They pertain to strategy. And these debates are fracturing alliances among liberals and the left.
Guest – Attorney Abi Hassen is a criminal defense attorney, technologist and co-founder of the Black Movement-Law Project. He was formerly the Mass Defense Coordinator at the National Lawyers Guild and a union and community organizer. His podcast is Against the Law. Against The Law Podcast Link
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Law and Disorder July 1, 2019
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Lawyers You’ll Like: Attorney Nancy Hollander
Occasionally Law And Disorder has featured interviews with significant attorneys. We call this segment of the show Lawyers You’ll Like. One such attorney is today’s guest, Nancy Hollander. She has been practicing criminal defense lawyer in Albuquerque, New Mexico and has been a partner since 1980 in the law firm of Freedman, Boyd, Hollander, Goldman, Urias, and Ward.
Nancy Hollander‘s practice has largely been devoted to representing individuals and organizations accused of crimes, including those involving national security issues.
She was one of the attorneys in the landmark Holy Land Five case. She won whistle blower Chelsea Manning’s release in 2017 when President Obama commuted her sentence from 35 years to seven years. Although not currently representing Manning she has met with her recently. Manning has been jailed for two months for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury in Virginia which is investigating Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. Manning released the famous Iraqi war log video showing American war crimes in Iraq to Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. He is in prison in London awaiting extradition and trial in Virginia where he faces 175 years in prison if convicted of Espionage Act violations. She represented Mohamedou Ould Slahi, whose release she obtained after he served 15 years in Guantanamo without ever being charged.
Write to Chelsea Manning:
Chelsea Manning – AO181426
William D. Truesdale Adult Detention Center
2001 Mill Road
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
Guest – Attorney Nancy Hollander has been a member of the firm Freedman Boyd Hollander Goldberg Ives & Duncan, P.A. since 1980 and a partner since 1983. Her practice is largely devoted to criminal cases, including those involving national security issues. She has also been counsel in numerous civil cases, forfeitures and administrative hearings, and has argued and won a case involving religious freedom in the United States Supreme Court. Ms. Hollander also served as a consultant to the defense in a high profile terrorism case in Ireland, has assisted counsel in other international cases and represents two prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. Nancy is co-author of WestGroup’s Everytrial Criminal Defense Resource Book, Wharton’s Criminal Evidence, 15th Edition, and Wharton’s Criminal Procedure, 14th Edition. She has appeared on national television programs as PBS Now, Burden of Proof, the Today Show, Oprah Winfrey, CourtTV, and the MacNeill/Lehrer News Hour.
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Supreme Court: Cable Companies Can Limit Public Access
Last month United States Supreme Court in a 5 to 4 decision written by Brett Kavanaugh decided that TV cable companies can, in the words of our guest, losing plaintive DeeDee Halleck, “censor whatever, whoever, and whenever they want.”
Cable companies like Manhattan Neighborhood Network can now limit public access that carry TV shows to be available in hundreds of cities and towns.
The Supreme Court held that Manhattan Neighborhood Network is not subject to First Amendment constraints, that the free-speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits only governmental, not private abridgment of speech and that MNN is a private company.
Judges Cavanagh, Robert, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch is found against the free-speech argument of Halleck and her co-plaintiff Jesus Melendez. Judge Sotomayor wrote the dissent which was joined in on by Ginsberg, Breyer and Kagan.
Guest – Deedee Halleck one of the plaintiffs in this case and among the top media activists. She’s co-founder of Paper Tiger Television and also the Deep Dish Satellite Network, the first grass roots community television network. She is Professor Emerita in the Department of Communication at the University of California at San Diego.
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