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 August 11, 2025
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The Trump Administration and ACLU Legal Counteraction Strategy
The very day President Donald Trump returned to the White House on January 20, 2025, the American Civil Liberties Union celebrated the beginning of its 106th year. Based on its long experience combating repressive governments, the ACLU had been carefully planning for the possibility of Trump’s reelection. That day it announced that it was fully prepared for the threat Trump posed to our constitutional democracy.
The ACLU recalled that “Since first leaving office in 2020, Trump has threatened to enact policies that would endanger immigrant families, further restrict reproductive health, and weaponize the federal government against protesters and political opponents. Now that he has returned to the White House and will be buoyed by many allies in his cabinet and in Congress, these threats could become real.” And they certainly have.
During the first Trump’s administration, the ACLU took legal action more than 430 times. In the last six months, they have followed a clear playbook to fight back – and win – challenging a wide range of Trump’s policies that are aimed at destroying our civil rights and civil liberties.
Guest – Ben Wizner, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU, and Director of the ACLU’s Center for Democracy, which encompasses the organization’s work on free speech, privacy, immigrants’ rights, voting rights, human rights, and national security. For more than two decades at the ACLU, Ben has litigated cases involving the right to protest, freedom of expression online, government surveillance practices, airport security policies, targeted killing, and torture. Since July of 2013, he has been the principal legal advisor to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and advised Julian Assange. I’ve known Ben since he started at the ACLU of Southern California over 20 years ago. I witnessed how he devotes his keen legal mind and deep compassion to defending the people he represents who are struggle to vindicate their constitutional rights.
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The Mexican Reintegration Project
Immigration news continues to dominate headlines: from the approval of the bill that provides another $170 billion for immigration enforcement to the images of masked men in unmarked vehicles roaming around cities like Houston, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago… and arresting people from their homes, workplaces, or even just off the street.
Now, these controversial strong-arm tactics haven’t been a total success: court battles, community opposition, and even ICE officer burnout are throwing a wrench into the administration’s deportation goals. Yet still, for millions of noncitizens living in the US, it is impossible not to wonder: what happens if I — or my loved one – is taken from our family and home here without notice…. And transplanted to a country where we no longer have roots? Or community? Or safety?
Our guests today, Professors Luz Herrera and Nancy Plankey-Videla, are among a team of researchers who studied what happens when people are deported or otherwise return to Mexico after they’ve made their home in the US. Were they able to find work? Reunite with family? Find support?
Guest – Luz Herrera is an attorney and Law Professor at Texas A&M University Law School. Her roots are in Los Angeles: In 2005, she co-founded Community Lawyers, Inc. in Compton which – 20 years later – continues to provide access to justice and legal help to under-served communities.
Guest – Dr. Nancy Plankey-Videla is associate professor of sociology at Texas A&M University and currently coordinates the Latino/a and Mexican American Studies Program. She’s also the Director of Graduate Studies in the Sociology Dept. and has a joint appointment in the School of Law. Her research and teaching is informed by a global perspective on inequality and agency.
Law and Disorder August 4, 2025
The Dual State: A Contribution to Theory of Dictatorship.
The German Jewish lawyer Ernst Fraenkel escaped from fascist Germany and settled in the United States. In 1941 he wrote an extremely important book which we’re going to discuss today. The book is titled The Dual State: A Contribution to Theory of Dictatorship.
The book explains how Hitler availed himself of two systems of law. The first Fraenkel called the normative state. This is your traditional law that regulates things like contracts and property. It was practiced in Nazi Germany and kept things stable. The second Fraenkel called the prerogative state. These are the arbitrary violence and unlawful actions taken by Hitler and the Nazis. These two systems of law existed side-by-side in Germany. This is what we see developing now in the United States of America.
Guest – Bill Mullen is professor emeritus of American studies at Purdue University and the co-founder of The Campus Anti-fascist Network. He’s also co-author of The Black Antifascist Tradition and We Charge Genocide: American Ashes and the Rule of Law. He’s a contributor to the just published Law And Disorder book From the Flag to the Cross: Fascism American Style.
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There are so many horrendous consequences from Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza: the tens of thousands of lost lives, with who knows how many thousands still buried under the rubble of war, the intentional starvation of the Palestinian people, the vast destruction of their schools and hospitals and homes and places of business. And then there is the targeting of journalists in Gaza trying to report the news of the war. To date, more of them have already been killed by the Israeli military than were killed in the Civil War, First and Second World wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the war on Afghanistan combined!
So today we cover the story of Israel’s attempt to keep complete and accurate news coverage of the war from the rest of the world, and the costly results of its attempt to do so: the hundreds of lost lives of those brave journalists who are determined to report news of the war no matter what the personal risks and costs may be.
There is now a documentary film that tells the story of what is at stake for the journalists covering the news of the war in Gaza. It is called Gaza: Journalists Under Fire.
Guest – Director and producer Robert Greenwald is the founder of Brave New Films, a nonprofit social justice media organization, and the director of numerous long and short form documentaries including Uncovered: The War on Iraq, Unmanned: Americas Drone Wars, Rethink Afghanistan, and more.
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Law and Disorder July 28, 2025
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AI Generated Police Reports
Police departments across the U.S. are beginning to use artificial intelligence tools like Axon’s “Draft One” to automate the writing of police reports based on body-worn camera audio. While the goal is to save time and reduce paperwork, digital rights advocates are raising serious concerns. The Electronic Frontier Foundation warns that Draft One lacks transparency, making it hard to tell whether errors or biases in reports come from the AI or the officer. They argue this could compromise accountability and justice. The ACLU has also flagged risks tied to AI’s potential for inaccuracy and bias.
Some agencies are moving forward with these tools, but others—like the King County prosecutor’s office in Washington—are banning them outright. As this technology spreads, it’s prompting critical questions: Should AI be trusted to shape official police narratives? And what safeguards are in place to protect the public?
Guest – Beryl Lipton is a Senior Investigative Researcher for the Electronic Frontier Foundation specializing in government transparency and surveillance technology. She leads large-scale public records campaigns and contributes to projects like the Atlas of Surveillance, a searchable database and map that documents the use of surveillance technologies by law enforcement agencies across the United States. Before joining EFF, Beryl worked at MuckRock focusing on prison privatization and public-private partnerships. She serves on the board of Spare Change News and contributes to Gannett New York, where she has helped expose police misconduct records across the state.
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Documentary: The Last Class
We’re pleased to be joined by Heather Kinlaw Lofthouse, the Executive Director of Inequality Media Civic Action. She is the producer of the new documentary, The Last Class, a personal portrait of Robert Reich as he reflects on a period of immense transformation, personally and globally. Reich is of course the well-known political economist, professor, and author, who has worked for four presidents, including as Secretary of Labor for Bill Clinton. He is also the co-founder of Inequality Media Civic Action.
For 40 years, Reich has taught more than 40,000 students and has now retired. Drawing on his lifetime in politics, he has used his class, Wealth and Poverty to offer a deeper look at why inequalities of income and wealth have widened significantly since the late 1970s, and why this poses dangerous risks to our society and democracy itself.
Guest – Heather Kinlaw Lofthouse is the Executive Director of both Inequality Media and Inequality Media Civic Action, nonprofits founded by Robert Reich to make compelling digital content about inequality and threats to American democracy. She serves as Robert Reich’s co-host on the weekly Coffee Klatch podcast, and she produced The Last Class film as part of her new endeavor, CoffeeKlatch Productions.
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