Welcome to Law and Disorder Radio
Law and Disorder is a weekly independent civil liberties radio program airing on more than 100 stations across the United States and podcasting on the web. 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 November 6, 2023
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We’re now in week four of Israel’s massive military assault against the people of Gaza and the West Bank, which began in response to Hamas’s brutal attacks in Southern Israel on Oct. 7th, which killed 1,400 people and resulted in more than 200 people being taken hostage.
Israel contends the military bombardments are justified as self-defense. But others, such as Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres, insist that although the attacks by Hamas on Oct. 7 were “appalling,” Israel’s “collective punishment” of civilians cannot be justified under humanitarian laws.
Worse, according to the global charity Save the Children, in the past three weeks, more children have been killed in Gaza than in all of the world’s conflicts combined in each of the past three years. Defense for Children International-Palestine reported that 40% of the Palestinians killed in Gaza are children, and that as of October 30, Israeli forces have killed at least 3,450 kids, and over 1,000 more are missing.
On October 18, 2023, the Center for Constitutional Rights (also known as CCR) published an emergency legal briefing called, Israel’s Unfolding Crime of Genocide of the Palestinian People & U.S. Failure to Prevent and Complicity in Genocide. The 44-page document provides a sobering legal and historical analysis of the current situation in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.
We are so grateful to have with us two members of CCR’s legal team working on the legal analysis of genocide.
Guest – Astha Sharma Pokharel, CCR staff attorney who specializes in international humans rights and in challenging racial and environmental injustice, and has represented individuals targeted for their Palestine solidarity advocacy.
Guest – Sadaf Doost, an attorney and Bertha Justice Fellow at CCR. Sadaf focuses on human rights in the context of Afghanistan and Palestine, and challenges unlawful detentions at Guantánamo Bay and environmental racism in Cancer Alley.
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Class Action Anti-Trust Case Against Metropolitan Museum of Art
George Grosz was a German artist whose work very effectively satirized the new Nazi regime in Germany for the thugs and buffoons that they were. As a consequence, he was forced to flee to New York City, where he taught for many years at the prestigious Art Student League. Our guest today, Bob Cenedella, was his student and later a teacher at the league. Like his mentor, Bob Cenedella is a political person and a fine artist. His work has not been acquired by any museum. Nor does he have representation by a gallery.
Five years ago Cenedella brought a class action anti-trust lawsuit against the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art and others in New York City. The basis of his lawsuit brought on behalf of himself and others, was that the museums, along with the galleries and auction houses control the art market and made it almost impossible for artists who expressed political sensibilities to be recognized or adequately compensated.
In his lawsuit, Cenedella says that “ I, firmly believe it has become my duty and responsibility to expose, what I believe to be, the corporate museum cartel for the role they play in the manipulation of the overall art market. The system today – put in place by galleries, auction houses, and art critics– has nothing to do with talent, development of skill, or maturation of the art world. I am taking extreme, legal measures – suing the museums – not just for myself, but for the innumerable other deserving artist as well.” Contemporary art has become a “Con”and “temporary .“
Guest – Robert Cenedella has been a member of the New York City contemporary art scene for more than four decades. He studied with George Grosz at the Art Students League of New York where he taught for many years. Cenedella‘s art work, as M.K. Flavell writes in her biography of Georg Grosz. “Chronicles the every day life and the change in rituals and mythologies of sex, sports, art, politics, money, making in contemporary America, with a combination of imaginative, vitality, precision, and humor.“ His lawsuit was dismissed by a federal court in New York City. Contact : artmutt (at) aol (dot) com
Hosted by attorneys Michael Smith and Maria Hall
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Law and Disorder October 30, 2023
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Trilateral Security Alliance Meet to Request Assange Extradition
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was in Washington last week meeting with Joe Biden. They discussed AUKUS, the trilateral “security” alliance between the U.S., UK and Australia, which is a bulwark against the perceived threat from China. AUKUS seeks to transfer U.S. and British nuclear submarine technology to Australia. But Australia’s support for a potential U.S. war against China over Taiwan, which China considers part of China, is not a foregone conclusion.
Also reportedly on the agenda for the high-level meeting was the U.S. request for extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is an Australian citizen. Assange has been held for four years in a high-security London prison. He is facing 175 years in prison if extradited, tried and convicted in the U.S. for charges under the Espionage Act for revealing evidence of U.S. war crimes.
Albanese and a multi-party coalition of the Australian parliament, as well as 90% of the Australian population, want the prosecution of Assange dropped. Assange’s freedom is “widely seen as a test of Australia’s leverage with the Biden administration,” according to the Associated Press.
Guest – Stephen Rohde, is an author and social justice advocate who practiced civil rights and constitutional law for more than 45 years, including representing two men on California’s death row. He is a founder and current chair of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, former chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and former national chair of Bend the Arc, a Jewish Partnership for Justice. He is also a board member of Death Penalty Focus and is active in the Los Angeles branch of Assange Defense. Steve is the author of an article published last week by LA Progressive titled, “Is Biden Willing to Damage Relations With a Staunch Ally Like Australia in His Headlong Prosecution of Julian Assange?”
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State Laws Governing Deep Fake Videos
Artificial intelligence-generated fake videos, known as “deepfakes,” have become increasingly prevalent and sophisticated. This technology manipulates both audio and visual elements to fabricate fictitious events. In 2019, Deeptrace, an AI firm, identified a total of 15,000 deepfake videos online. Shockingly, 96% of these were of a pornographic nature, with 99% involving the superimposition of female celebrities’ faces onto pornographic content, also known as “face-swapped pornography,” all done without the celebrities’ consent. However, it’s important to note that non-celebrities are also frequent targets of deepfake abuse. Particularly concerning is the fact that women are often singled out, with AI tools and apps readily available that enable users to digitally remove clothing from their photos or insert their faces into explicit videos. These tools are easily accessible and require no specialized technical skills. Equally troubling is the fact that most of the time the women who are deepfake targets are neither aware of nor consent to their images being used in this way.
Social media platforms have become fertile ground for deepfake scams. Deepfakes are employed for various malicious purposes, including gaining a political advantage, spreading fake news, and disseminating “revenge porn.” In the case of pornographic videos, offenders may use deepfakes to groom, harass, or extort their victims. Additionally, deepfakes can be utilized to bully individuals or steal their identities. It’s worth noting that, although AI-generated deepfakes can appear highly realistic, most of them exhibit certain inconsistencies. These may manifest as peculiar facial features, awkward placements, or unnatural postures and movements. Creating deepfakes is a time-consuming and labor-intensive process, which results in most of them being relatively short in duration.
The prevalence of deepfakes has grown significantly, more than doubling between 2022 and the first quarter of 2023. In response to this trend, the FBI issued a warning in 2023 about “sextortion schemes” in which criminals collect photos and videos from social media platforms to produce “sexually themed” deepfakes, which they then use to extort money from their victims.
Guest – Criminal defense attorney Nicholas Toufexis joins us to talk about the impact off deepfake pornography on victims and the current state of the law governing these videos. Nick is a partner in the Texas law firm Saputo Toufexis Criminal Defense.
Hosted by Attorneys Heidi Boghosian and Marjorie Cohn
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Law and Disorder October 21, 2023
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American Jews Redefining Judaism
Israeli war planes are bombing the northern half of the Gaza Strip, reducing everything – hospitals, mosques, schools, homes – to rubble. Those who survive the march south may be driven into the Sinai desert. More than 1 million Palestinians had lived there. They have been ordered to vacate their homes and walk south on pain of death. Food, water, electricity, and medical supplies have been cut off to these people, half of whom are children. This is being facilitated by American military, financial, diplomatic, and media support.
Guest – Rabbi Brant Rosen is the leader of the congregation Tzedek Chicago whose members are not Zionists and who oppose the historic Zionist project of dispossessing the native Palestinians forcing them out of their homeland. The attention of the world today is focused on the tiny northern half of the Gaza Strip. Tsedek Chicago’s website states that “during the course of his rabbinate, Rabbi Brant Rosen became an increasingly vocal activist for justice and human rights, particularly in Israel/Palestine. After publicly wrestling with his relationship with Israel and openly questioning his lifelong Zionism, he eventually became a prominent Jewish presence in the Palestine solidarity movement cofounding the Jewish Voice for Peace rabbinical council .“
Rabbi Brant’s writings have appeared in many journals and publications, including Newsweek, the Chicago Tribune, the Jewish Forward, Tikkun, and Truthout. Tikkun, magazine editor Rabbi Michael Lerner wrote that Rabbi Brant Rosen is “at once a courageous rabbi and the voice of a new generation of American Jews who are refusing to allow the right wing voice of the Jewish world to define Judaism.“
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Christian Fascism Poised To Reshape The United States
Our guest today claims that we are far down the road that leads to fascism in the United States, and he places the blame at the feet of the liberal class to halt the corporate assault on working people that has spawned an ascendant Christian fascism that is poised to seize power and radically reshape America. As he says in his article of October 8th, “the parting gift, I expect, of the bankrupt liberalism of the Democratic Party will be a Christianized fascist state.
The Liberal class, a creature of corporate power, captive to the war industry and the security state, unable or unwilling to ameliorate the prolonged economic security and misery of the working class, blinded by a self-righteous woke ideology that reeks of hypocrisy and disingenuousness and bereft of any political vision, is the bedrock on which the Christian fascists, who have coalesced in cult-like mobs around Donald Trump, have built their terrifying movement.”
Guest – Chris Hedges, award-winning journalist and political writer reported for The New York Times from 1990 to 2005 and served as the Times’ Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief during the wars in the former Yugoslavia. In 2001 Hedges was one of the Times’ writers on an entry that received the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. Prior to his work for the Times, he worked as a freelance war correspondent in Central America for The Christian Science Monitor, NPR, and the Dallas Morning News. His books include Death of the Liberal Class, War on America, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, and his book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.
Hosted by attorneys Michael Smith and Jim Lafferty
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