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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 January 23, 2012
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Updates:
- Heidi Boghosian: Mumia Abu-Jamal Update
- Support Mumia Here
- Michael Smith: Occupy Chicago Tribune Lawsuit Is On
- Michael Ratner: Tenth Anniversary of Guantanamo Prison: Cage Prisoners
- Movie: Death In Camp Delta
- Iranian Scientist Murdered: Mossad, CIA, ISI
- Covert War Against Iran
- Michael Ratner Speaks At Occupy London About Bradley Manning Case
- Julian Assange Extradition
- Judge Goes Forward With Investigation Of Guantanamo Torture Cases
- UK Transferring People To Qaddafi To Be Tortured
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Newly Launched Whistle Blower Site – Honest Appalachia
Activists in Virginia have launched a website appealing to whistleblowers wanting to reveal evidence of corporate and government wrongdoing. The site is called honestappalachia.org, it uses a security technology to protect citizens who upload documents and it keeps their identity hidden if there’s legal action. Inspired by Wikileaks, honestapplachia is a low cost model that can be adapted by others worldwide.
- The site is meant to be a resource for whistle blowers, that allows them to anonymously upload documents to our site. We will take those documents and vet them, and distribute them to journalists.
- SOPA is definitely a risk to transparency and whistle blower resources on the web.
- You go on our site, and you read our submission guide which is a step by step.
- The guide will tell you to download TOR. A simple piece of software which routes your activity through servers across the world, which essentially makes your activity anonymous.
- Your IP address basically gets lost in the crowd. We will never know who you are uploading to our site.
- We also encrypt the documents we receive.
- We have information on our site where others can take our open source software and use 80 percent of it.
- Our project is focusing outreach in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, also includes Georgia and South Carolina.
- We’re really hoping to receive documents about wrongdoing at the state and local level of government, from corporations in the region.
- Appalachia is a very industrialized region but its also very rural.
- We were funded with a grant from the Sunlight Foundation.
- Generally there’s a lot of cozy relationships in the states, between industry and government.
- We’re focusing on a broad array whether they’re coal or gas companies, banks, zoning boards, state and local governments, anything that could engage in corruption at the expense of the public.
Guest – Jim Tobias, activist and direct action protester.
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Law and Disorder January 16, 2012
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Update:
- Michael Smith: Newt Gingrich Attacks Capitalism
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Occupy Wall Street Parody Papers Spark Legal Action From Big Newspapers
Occupy Wall Street Newspapers such as The Occupied Wall Street Journal or The Occupied Chicago Tribune have prompted lawyers to take Occupy protesters to court. In Chicago, a law firm is attempting to prevent the OWS movement from using The Occupied Chicago Tribune. We’re joined today by attorney Michael Deutsch with the People’s Law Office who has been involved with this issue in Chicago.
- The Chicago Tribune contacted some of the OWS people and threatened to shut down their website and facebook page and to go into federal court and sue them for trademark infringement.
- They said the word “Chicago Tribune” is a trademark that belongs solely to the Chicago Tribune and no one else can use it for any purpose or any way.
- Even if they do sue them I think the publicity not be good for the tribune and good for the occupy people.
- There is the Lanham Trademark Act that protects them from people appropriating them.
- There’s also this Dilution Act which prevents people from using or diluting their trademark by using it some unnecessary or dismissive way.
- When the people of Occupy were first contacted they were fearful of being sued by the Chicago Tribune.
- They offered to change it to the Occupy Chicago Times but they turned it down and said you can’t use any name that references a newspaper.
- With Peter Weiss’s help we realized this is a classic parody case, that’s basic First Amendment rights.
- The law isn’t that clear but the courts usually balance whether there will confusion of the name against First Amendment rights.
- In their masthead they’re now saying they’re not affiliated with the Chicago Tribune Corporation.
- Their website is still up, facebook is still up, they haven’t gone to court, so maybe they realize for us its a win / win situation.
- If we go to court we’re going to win on the legal grounds, plus we’re going to get a lot of publicity.
Guest – Attorney Michael Deutsch, partner with the Peoples Law Office.
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Inside the CIA Black Site in Bucharest
Reporters for German network ARD’s Panorama news magazine and the Associated Press have pieced together key details surrounding the CIA’s operation of a black site in Bucharest, Romania. AP’s Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo write:
In northern Bucharest, in a busy residential neighborhood minutes from the center of Romania’s capital city, is a secret that the Romanian government has tried for years to protect. For years, the CIA used a government building — codenamed Bright Light — as a makeshift prison for its most valuable detainees. There, it held Al-Qaida operatives Khalid Sheik Mohammad, the mastermind of 9/11, and others in a basement prison until 2006, the year some were sent to Guantánamo Bay, according to former U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the location and inner workings of the prison.
John Goetz:
- We’ve had a description of the CIA site, which is where one of the secret prisons were located.
- We had a description from some that worked there.
- The prison we’re talking about was used by the CIA in 2004 / 2005.
- The CIA secret prison was held in a Romanian government organization which gets called either ORNSS or NSA.
- It’s an organization that is used to get Romania up to speed on NATO classification rules.
- It’s a building that has a big NATO flag on top of it.
- In the back section of the building is where the secret prison was located.
- What I understand is that in Poland, when Bush came over, right after the beginning of the Iraq War.
- When they didn’t find weapons of mass destruction, he was there in May and early June 2003.
- We know that Al-Nashiri in his various times in CIA prisons, that his family members, I believe his mother was threatened with rape. He was water boarded, a drill was used on him.
- There was a mock execution, things like that. We’re not exactly sure what happened in Poland and Bucharest.
- There’s a little known site in Bosnia, that was used in days and weeks, right after 9-11.
- In Bagram, there’s a military prison there and there’s a CIA prison.
- I do know that in Africa there are prisons that run under a new model, where the state runs the prison and is quarterbacked, is the expression that’s used by the CIA who asks questions through others.
- It makes it easier to deny. Many people think . . .oh, the secret prison story is over.
- The facts are that outside of flight logs and some locations of prisons, no one really knows what happens inside these places.
- No one knows how they were run, no one knows perimeter security, how food was brought in, it remains a real black box in American history.
Guest – John Goetz, reporter with the German network ARD’s Panorama news magazine.
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70th Anniversary of the First Smith Act Prosecution: Proto-Thought Crime Legislation
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the first Smith Act trial of revolutionaries accused of wanting to overthrow the government. The law was intended to destroy the 100,000-strong American Communist Party however, the Smith Act was first used against the much smaller, revolutionary rival to the Communist Party, the Socialist Workers Party. Our returning guest, author and activist Joe Allen writes about this 70th anniversary. The Alien Registration Act of 1940 is also known as the Smith Act after its sponsor Rep. Howard Smith of Virginia, a Democrat and leader of the anti-labor bloc in the House of Representatives. The Smith Act became the legal weapon against critics of the government and stipulates that:
Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof–
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
Joe Allen:
- For many people in the United States, the defense of civil liberties, has always been an important and constant feature of our history and most of that time the defense of civil liberties has not been primarily against vigilantism, or rogue elements of the government or corrupt public officials. While that’s an important part of that, it has always been dealing with the actual laws that have been attempting to undermine civil liberties most of the time they’ve been federal laws.
- You can go back to the Alien Sedition Act of the Adams Administration, the Espionage Act of WWI. They were always used against opponents of the government and not spies as they were sold to people.
- James Canon was one of the most important figures in American Socialist history, his life traverse the history of the American far left.
- He began in the IWW. The radical militant trade union that organized the most oppressed sector of American workers.
- He was a founding member and later a national chair of the American Communist Party. Like many Wobblies and members of the Communist Party he was very concerned of the civil liberties of radicals and trade union organizers and was the head organizer of International Labor Defense in the 1920s.
- Canon developing a criticism of and his descent within the American Communist Party as the ILD moved away from its original mission and Canon himself to begin along with a number of significant figures of the American Communist Party and other people who sided with Trotsky in the dispute with Stalin over not only the Soviet Union also the International Communist Movement. He was the founder of early American Trotskyism in the 1920s and 1930s.
- It was the broad layer of people who were ultimately indicted under the Smith Act in 1941 primarily for advocating the overthrow of the United States government.
- Smith Act – Proto-Thought Crime Legislation
- It’s also in a sense a response to a dispute inside the labor movement.
- The first that a prosecutor tries to do is get a jury that is predisposed of the prosecution and not the defense.
- That’s one of the great travesties of the Smith Act, not only can you be indicted by the things you do but by the things you say.
- In that sense it really is a thought-control crime.
- The most important part of the Smith Act in this country is it effectively destroyed the left in this country during the late 1940s and the early 1950s.
Guest – Joe Allen, a frequent contributor to the International Socialist Review and a long-standing activist, based in Chicago.
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Law and Disorder January 9, 2012
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Ten Year Anniversary of Guantanamo Bay Prison
Co-host Michael Ratner and president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights gives listeners an overview of the habeas corpus legal battles to close Guantanamo Bay prison and an in depth look at the corrosive effect the offshore prison has had on civil rights, and the U.S. Constitution. Despite the fact that the U.S. government has itself cleared more than half of these men for release, and despite President Obama’s promise on his second day in office to close Guantánamo within a year, it has been almost twelve months since anyone has been released.
This is the longest period of time that has elapsed since the prison’s opening without a single person being set free.The Obama administration has also extended some of the worst aspects of the Guantánamo system by continuing indefinite detentions without charge or trial, employing illegitimate military commissions to try some suspects, and blocking accountability for torture.
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International People’s Tribunal on “War Crimes and Other Violations of International Law
International People’s Tribunal on “War Crimes and Other Violations of International Law” to be held on January 14, 2012 at 12 pm at Columbia Law School. The event will provide an excellent opportunity for students interested in gaining an understanding the theory and the practical application of international law in the real world.
- The genesis of the tribunal began during the intervention in Libya.
- Back in May the December 12th movement always has a celebration of Malcolm X’s birthday, May 19.
- This is part an ongoing campaign to re-colonize the African continent.
- Libya was important to that for a number reasons. Libya has some of the best crude oil in the world that requires the least amount of production in terms of transforming it into gasoline.
- Col. Gaddafi stood for the proposition that there would be a United States of Africa.
- Libya had the highest standard of living on the African continent.
- What we hope to come out of this is fashion a petition to take before the International Criminal Court.
- The plan is we’ll going to take at least a 400 people strong delegation to the Hague in June to present a petition to the prosecutor, requesting they prosecute the heads of NATO, Britain, Canada, Italy, for war crimes.
- Saturday January 14, 2012 / Columbia University Law School / 435 West 116th Street / 718-398-1766 / iptribunal2012@gmail.com
Guest – Roger Wareham, lawyer and political activist of over four decades. He is a member of the December 12th Movement, an organization of African people which organizes in the Black and Latino community around human rights violations, particularly police terror. Wareham is also the International Secretary-General of the International Association Against Torture (AICT), a non-governmental organization that has consultative status before the United Nations.
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Cornell and The Technion of Israel To Build Campus On Governor’s Island
As many listeners may know, Cornell University is joining with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in a plan to build a campus in New York City. Critics however, point out Technion’s involvement with the Israeli Defense Force in the development of repressive technology that would further perpetuate crimes against Palestinians. Through cooperative research with Israeli defense companies such as Elbit, Rafael, McGill and Concordia, Technion is involved in asymmetrical robotic warfare with faceless human targets who can be killed by remote control.
To talk more about this, we’re joined today by David Klein, a professor at California State University in Northridge and a member of the Organizing Committee of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
- It is a collaboration between Cornell University and Technion which is like Israel’s MIT.
- There’s a 350 million dollar grant from a philanthropist, which has been supplemented with 100 million dollars in public money.
- I’m a member of the Organizing Committee of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
- The demands that we have are ending the occupation and colonization all Arab lands and dismantling the apartheid wall.
- Recognizing the fundamental rights of Arab / Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality.
- Respecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and property as stipulated in UN resolution 194.
- Technion is deeply complicit with Israel’s military and provides the military with technology to carry out ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
- Participants in a joint military and university program for science students, who will later be integrated into the Army’s research and development units, wear uniforms throughout their years of study.
- It’s particularly strong in developing robotic weapons systems, which include aerial drones, and unmanned combat vehicle technology.
- I think Bloomberg is supportive of the apartheid system in Israel. He wouldn’t view this as a problem like much of the rest of the world does.
- The crime of apartheid is an international crime against humanity.
- In addition to aerial drones, Technion makes the Black D9 Bulldozer, it makes the Stealth UVA Drone, which is a drone that can fly almost 3000km without refueling.
- It’s making something called the Dragonfly UVA mini-drone, which is a tiny drone with a 9 inch wingspan. It can fly into people’s bedroom windows and kill em.
- Technion is involved in asymmetrical robotic warfare with faceless human targets who can be killed by remote control.
- Israel is arguably the most racist country at this time, due to the apartheid system that it has.
Guest – David Klein, member of the Organizing Committee of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (www.usacbi.org), and is a professor of mathematics at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). He received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Cornell University. His professional interests include mathematical physics, climate science, and mathematics education in the public schools. He is the faculty advisor for the campus student groups, Students for Justice in Palestine and the CSUN Green Party. David Klein’s website
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CCR Lawsuit: Stop and Frisk NYC
Last year, a federal judge rejected a move by the City of New York to stop a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights challenging the New York City Police Department’s Stop and Frisk policy. Judge Shir Scheindlin pointed out the seriousness of numerous claims that the NYPD disproportionately and illegally targeting communities of color. In 2009 New York City, a record 576,394 people were stopped, 84 percent of whom were Black and Latino residents — although they comprise only about 26 percent and 27 percent of New York City’s total population respectively. The year 2009 was not an anomaly. Ten years of raw data obtained by court order from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) show that stop-and-frisks result in a minimal yield of weapons and contraband.
- Stop and Frisk is a city wide epidemic. We’ve gone from 90 thousand in 2002 to 700 thousand this year. They’re stopping 2000 people a day, primarily young males of color but also females of color.
- There are really know criteria as far as we can tell. There are guidelines that have been laid out by the courts in the last forty years. The police don’t follow those guidelines. They’re suppose to reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.
- They’re stopping people for what’s called “furtive movements” whatever that means.
- The other one is “high crime neighborhood.” The court had ruled that this is unconstitional, you can’t use the basis of a high crime neighborhood to stop and search them.
- Yet again, the police are doing that hundreds of thousands of times a year.
- The two allegations we made is that the NYPD has a widespread policy and practice of stopping and frisking New Yorkers without reasonable suspicion which violates the fourth Amendment of the Constitution and then on the basis of race which violates the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
- The blacker or browner that neighborhood is, the more stops that are going to be done in that neighborhood.
- The other part is the weapon recovery rate, the police department justifies this program by saying, we’re trying to get guns off the street.
- Last year in 2010, they stopped over 600 thousand people. The number of guns recovered in those 600 thousand stops was 1200 guns.
- Relief sought in class action suit: Outside independent oversight of the police department.
Guest – Darius Charney, senior staff attorney in the Racial Justice/Government Misconduct Docket. He is currently lead counsel on Floyd v. City of New York, a federal civil rights class action lawsuit challenging the New York Police Department’s unconstitutional and racially discriminatory stop-and-frisk practices, and Vulcan Society Inc. v. the City of New York, a Title VII class action lawsuit on behalf of African-American applicants to the New York City Fire Department which challenges the racially discriminatory hiring practices of the FDNY.
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