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 October 23, 2017
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Updates:
- Co-host Attorney Heidi Boghosian Discusses Robert “
Sugar Bear” Lark Case - Government Targeting Black Resistance Groups
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Victory In Al Shimari v CACI
President Trump told us during the campaign that he was in favor of torture because “it works.“ The Center for Constitutional Rights recently won a significant round in a case against a private military contractor, CACI who had tortured three of its clients at the infamous Abu Graib prison in Iraq in 2003 and 2004.
When he was president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Michael Ratner maintained that if the torturers were not prosecuted, the practice of torture would be repeated. In fact none of the architects were held accountable in court. That is why the this recent procedural victory by CCR, in the case of Al Shimari is so important.
Guest – Attorney Katherine Gallagher is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. She works on universal jurisdiction and international criminal law cases involving U.S. and foreign officials and torture and other war crimes, and cases involving private military corporations and torture at Abu Ghraib. Her major cases include Al Shimari v. CACI, the international U.S. torture accountability cases, and Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) v. Vatican, seeking accountability for the crimes against humanity of sexual violence by clergy and cover-up.
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International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms: North Korea
Not since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, 55 years ago, has the prospect of nuclear war seemed so frightening. President Donald Trump, who alone can commence a nuclear attack, has threatened North Korea with “fire and fury.“ North Korea has a population of 25 million people.
Gabriel Sherman writing recently in the magazine Vanity Fair said that the situation with Trump has gotten so out of control that Trump’s Chief of Staff, General John Kelly, and his Secretary of Defense, General Jim Mattis, have discussed ways to stop Trump should he order a nuclear attack.
Obviously, the solution to winding down the escalating confrontation needs to be one of diplomacy. But when Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, the chief diplomat in America, attempted to do just that President Trump said publicly that “you are wasting your time.“
Guest – Peter Weiss, distinguished international lawyer and President Emeritus of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms and its US affiliate, the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy. He helped draft their October 10th, 2017 statement North Korea: Solution or Disaster. Peter Weiss was a founder of the Center for Constitutional Rights and its former Vice President.
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Law and Disorder October 16, 2017
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Free Speech on College Campuses
Last week an invited lawmaker was shut down form addressing Texas Southern University after protesters stormed the room calling him a racist. House Representative Briscoe Cain was asked to speak to the Thurgood Marshall School of Law by the Federalist Society about the recent legislative special session. But as he uttered a few words, he was shut down by students and then the University’s President claimed it was an unapproved event. It’s ironic that the school is named for the Supreme Court justice known for his exemplary record of protecting First Amendment rights.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions also recently spoke–uninterrupted–at Georgetown University about free speech on American college campuses. He said, “The right of free speech does not exist only to protect the ideas upon which most of us agree at a given moment in time,” and encouraged students to: “make your voices heard, [and] to defend the rights of others to do the same.” Sessions joins a bipartisan chorus of public officials expressing support for free speech in academic institutions.
This summer, Senators Bernie Sanders and Mitch McConnell condemned efforts to shut down different viewpoints at schools. And in 2015, Barack Obama more than once defended the importance of free speech on campus. “I don’t agree that you, when you become students at colleges, have to be coddled and protected from different points of view,” he said at a September 2015 town hall.
The recent Sessions talk comes amid an uptick (1) in efforts to dis-invite controversial speakers of all ideological persuasions, (2) use of bias response teams to monitor unpopular speech, and (3) in unprecedented violence aimed at silencing off-campus speakers.
These are some of the findings from a recent study produced by The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. The comprehensive survey on students’ attitudes about free speech measured responses to questions about hate speech, guest speakers on campus, self-expression and reactions to expression of other students.
Guest –Will Creeley, Senior Vice President of Legal and Public Advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. FIRE is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending liberty, freedom of speech, due process, academic freedom, legal equality, and freedom of conscience on America’s college campuses.
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Tech Freedom on USA Liberty Act of 2017
Americans whose data is inadvertently swept up while the government monitors foreign intelligence, risk having their information used for non-national-security related purposes.
Two weeks ago draft legislation was introduced to address this, but a broad coalition of civil liberties organizations say it doesn’t go far enough. They are calling on the House to close the so-called “back-door search” loophole by requiring a warrant based on probable cause for any search of information about U.S. citizens and residents.
Similar to the USA Freedom Act of 2015, which ended the practice of bulk surveillance of American citizens under Section 215 of the 2001 PATRIOT Act, the current USA Liberty Act of 2017 would overhaul surveillance that is supposed to be limited to targets outside the U.S. but actually affects Americans. Section 702 expires at the end of December, which is why Congress is reassessing the program.
Currently, FISA surveillance is conducted under a warrant issued annually by the FISA court for a list of foreign intelligence targets. But law enforcement can access, and can use, Americans’ communications swept up in FISA surveillance with no warrant at all. This is even though U.S. persons’ communications require constitutional protections not afforded to foreigners.
The USA Liberty Act adds a warrant-like ‘probable cause’ requirement before law enforcement can search the database, but also includes a sweeping, vague exception for “foreign intelligence information” and does not stop law enforcement from using that information for criminal prosecutions. This is a glaring violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Guest – Austin Carson, Executive Director of TechFreedom joins us to talk about this legislation, and the state of surveillance generally. Tech Freedom is a non-profit, non-partisan technology think tank launched in 2011 that focuses on issues of Internet freedom and technological progress.
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Law and Disorder October 9, 2017
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The Rape Of Recy Taylor: A Film By Nancy Buirski
The number of women raped in the Jim Crow south we’re staggering. Because of the danger to their lives and the futility of getting justice most women didn’t report the crimes and their stories when unknown.
Recy Taylor’s story was not part of this hidden history. As a 24 year old she was gang raped by six white man in 1944 in a small rural Alabama town. Mrs. Taylor spoke up and bravely identified her rapists.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP, sent Rosa Parks, later of the 1955 Montgomery Alabama bus boycott fame, down to investigate and build a movement to shine a public spotlight on the crime.
She rallied support and triggered an unprecedented outcry for justice. It ultimately was a failed effort. Despite widespread publicity in the black press including newspapers in New York City, Detroit, and Philadelphia plus a massive letter writing campaign which put pressure on the Alabama Governor, two grand juries failed to indict the rapists and an Alabama assistant attorney general issued a report exonerating the criminals.
This is the focal point of a new film titled The Rape of Recy Taylor, written, directed and produced by Nancy Buirski. It recently had its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival.
Guest – Nancy Buirski joins us in the studio. The film won an award at the 74th Venice International Film Festival. Nancy has directed, written, and produced a number of award-winning films and is a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. First look at Nancy Buirski’s documentary. Nancy’s Facebook page. Here is the Facebook documentary link
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Puerto Rico Hurricane Aftermath – Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan
Puerto Rico is the only remaining U S. colony in the western hemisphere. 3.5 million people live on the island. They lack representatives in Congress and the population is barred from voting in the US presidential elections. Although it is $73 billion in debt to American banks,by law it is unable to declare bankruptcy and restructure its debt. President Donald Trump said that the impact of Maria was partly the fault of Puerto Rico falling into a giant amount of debt that it has not repaid. With an already stressed out infrastructure the island in the past three weeks was hit by two extremely powerful hurricanes. Electricity and cell service are down, people are drinking water out of creeks, they have little fuel, little food, and the mayor of San Juan Carmen Yulin Cruz is sleeping on a cot. The mounting death toll is presently at 34.
President Trump accused the San Juan mayor of “poor leadership“ after she criticize the American government for not helping Puerto Rico enough after Hurricane Maria. He said she was “a politically motivated ingrate.” Then he barred her from participating in a group phone call to talk about relief, telling her she could listen but not speak. He accused the Puerto Rican people of being lazy, saying that “they want everything done for them.”
Guest – Attorney Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan, Puerto Rican President of the National Lawyers Guild. She has recently returned from Cuba, which also suffered severely from hurricane Maria, but responded in a much more effective way. Support Puerto Rico to drive donations to the Hurricane Maria Relief and Recovery Fund at www.mariafund.org, set up by Puerto Rican attorney, Xiomara Caro.
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