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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.

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Law and Disorder May 10, 2010

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Update on BP Oil Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico

There are reports that nearly 200 thousand gallons of crude oil is spilling into the Gulf of Mexico each day as engineers work to cap the well head. Meanwhile an oil dispersant is deployed on the water surface to break up the oil slick before it reaches sensitive estuaries and shoreline.  On the edge of what human engineering can accomplish, BP says it would use a giant, 100-ton dome-like device placed over the wellhead that might collect oil gushing out of the well.

Jackie Savitz:

  • 200 thousand gallons per day, possibly 10 times more than that. It’s been gushing for almost 2 weeks.
  • May take another week to stop, not guaranteed. Back up plan could take months.
  • Gulf of Mexico: rich area biologically, a lot of our shellfish come from there. Many of the species that make their home in the Gulf are endangered, such as sea turtles, North Atlantic Right Whale, Bluefin Tuna, Snapper, Grouper
  • In many cases, these animals are using the Gulf as a nursery. We may never fully know the impacts on populations of these animals. Fishing ban.
  • Why do they let companies like BP drill in these dangerous circumstances that can pose these types of impacts without a plan?  The public was convinced on offshore drilling by 3 myths. 1. Lower the price of gas at pump. 2 Energy Independence. 3. Drilling was safe.
  • Why would we let these companies gamble with our lifestyle with no actual return.
  • We’re looking at a potential reset moment. Politicians respond to public sentiment.
  • We’re working toward a ban on exploratory drilling. This was an exploratory well.

Guest – Jackie Savitz,  Senior Campaign Director for Oceana’s Pollution Campaigns. Savitz has shaped and led campaigns and projects dealing with global warming pollution from ships, mercury contamination of fish, and cruise ship pollution among other issues.  Savitz has a background in marine biology and environmental toxicology combined with more than fifteen years of policy analysis experience through which she has developed expertise on a variety of pollution issues involving toxic contamination, water pollution and air pollution

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ICE Media Spin / Immigration Law Movement

Center for Constitutional Rights staff attorney, Sunita Patel joins us today to give an update on the recent six-page internal memo from United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that was leaked to the press. The memo was a response to civil rights groups Uncovering the Truth on ICE and Police Collaboration, but specifically aiming at their campaign of week long rallies in 14 cities. The week of advocacy was launched on Tuesday in conjunction with a FOIA lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the Center for Constitutional Rights  and the Immigration Justice Clinic of Benjamin Cardozo School of Law to demand records relating to the Secure Communities program.

Sunita Patel:

  • ICE launches media offensive against community organizations. Exposed:  DHS plans to publish Op Eds by the head of ICE.
  • DHS interface with local law enforcement – incentives to racial profile to determine status that could lead to:  Non citizens to stay in jail even if there is police misconduct or unlawful arrest
  • We want more information so communities can make reasonable decisions.
  • FOIA lawsuit requests information on “Secure Communities” Program, a finger printing system operating inside jails. To be deployed to all jails in US by 2013.
  • We want to stop these collaborations with local law enforcements, they make the community less safe and less secure.

Guest – Sunita Patel, Center for Constitutional Rights  Staff Attorney, she is involved with racial profiling, immigrant rights and other human rights litigation. Prior to her position at CCR, she held a Soros Justice Fellowship at The Legal Aid Society, Immigration Law Unit in New York where she represented immigrant detainees in removal proceedings and worked with criminal justice and human rights groups to create independent community oversight for detention operations through public accountability boards

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Omaha Two / Black Panthers

We talk today with Claus Walischewski, a representative of Amnesty International in Germany. Claus has been working with Amnesty International following and investigating the case of 2 former Black Panthers Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (David Rice). The case is known as the Omaha 2. Amnesty International has found that the two men were unjustly convicted of murder and have been in prison since the 1970s. Amnesty has called for a retrial or release for these men.

Claus Walischewski:

  • We don’t call them political prisoners because in the US you can have a fair trial.
  • They were both Black Panthers in Omaha in the 1970s.
  • The police answered a 9/11 call and went to a vacant building, there was a bomb in a suitcase, the police picked it up, it detonated, and the policeman was killed.  The police thought it was the Black Panthers.
  • Information that the FBI were working COINTELPRO in Omaha during this time.
  • An individual named Dwayne Peak was arrested for the crime, and named the two Black Panthers.
  • When he saw the 2 men and was asked if they were involved, he said “no.”
  • The 9/11 call was not Dwayne Peak’s voice, it’s the voice of a much older man, not a 15 year old.
  • Analysis has shown it’s not the same voice, still no re-trial. Caught and arrested in 1970, Poindexter 62, Mondo 67.  I’ve visted them 10 years ago, they’re both very educated, no threat to anybody.

Guest – Claus Walischewski, a representative of Amnesty International

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Law and Disorder May 3, 2010

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SB-1070 v. Human Rights

Today we get a perspective from the Arizona border on how the state’s new immigrant law will impact human rights. Many have expressed outrage at the state law that would force police to determine the immigration status of someone suspected of being an undocumented immigrant.  Jennifer Allen, Executive Director of Border Action Network joins co-host Heidi Boghosian.  Border Action Network was formed in 1999 and members work with immigrants and border communities in Southern Arizona to ensure human rights are respected, and human dignity upheld.

Jennifer Allen – Border Action Network:

  • SB 1070 is a broad stroke, back door approach of enforcement of federal immigration laws.
  • Other components of the legislation, include criminalizing day laborers and those who seek to hire them.
  • Other provisions in the bill would require local cities, towns, agencies to save information about people’s immigration / citizenship status and then share that information with other agencies.
  • Law enforcement being required, with lawsuits threatened against them, to ask people about their immigration status, based on their appearance.  Indeed we do need a sensible immigration policy. We need borders that are safe, secure, orderly.
  • If SB 1070 is not stopped in Arizona, it will surely spread throughout the country.
  • SB 1070 fiscal analysis for 1 county in Arizona: would cost 10s of millions of dollars for trying to implement law.
  • We’ve been calling on the Obama Administration to oppose this legislation.
  • This law is a combination of six or seven pieces of legislation that the bill’s sponsor, Senator Russel Pierce has been trying to get through the Arizona legislature, the last 5 years.
  • Targets of attrition, wearing people out so they leave Arizona.
  • It’s not motivated by public safety and increasing security, it’s much more about pushing families out of the state of Arizona.
  • A strong presence of white nationalists groups in Arizona.  Minutemen style, state sponsored vigilante group – Border Security Commission Bill.

Guest – Jennifer Allen – Executive Director of Border Action Network

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William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe on DVD

We are excited to welcome back Sarah Kunstler, daughter of the late radical civil rights lawyer William Kunstler, and co-director of a biographical documentary about her father, titled  William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe. The movie is now available on DVD, with extras.  In our last interview, Emily told us that it was frightening for us to share the film with the world. She says the first 10 times watching with the audience, she clenched fists, couldn’t even look. The movie is the work of 4 years, but really 30 years says Sarah. Since they were children, she and her sister have been collecting footage and material for the film.

The movie has been described as a sensitive, truthful and insightful film about a man who stood at the center of a confrontational movement and became the public spokesperson for communities standing up to injustice. The story of this radical attorney is told by his daughters in an intimate narrative, from the Chicago 7 to the Attica trials, then the American Indian Movement’s occupation of Wounded Knee.

Sarah Kunstler:

  • We had a theatrical run in about 25 cities.
  • Chicago 8, DVD Extra: What you hear is someone unafraid of being held in contempt, someone outraged by the treatment of his clients the court room is an intimidating place.  He didn’t let the austere surroundings get to him.
  • What I’ve learned since making the film, is my relationship with my father continues.
  • When Emily and I started making this film, we thought it would be something we would be getting over.
  • This film was written in pieces, it was a struggle, I didn’t know how to write around something or Emily and I would fight in how to say something.
  • He seems that he was painfully aware that he was being followed from state to state. The FBI had been listening to his speeches and trying to indict him with trying to incite a riot.
  • He makes a differentiation between picayune violence and real demonstration.

Guest – Sarah Kunstler, co-producer and attorney. Sarah Kunstler graduated from Yale University with a BA in Photography in 1998 and from Columbia Law School with a JD in 2004. She is currently a criminal defense attorney practicing in the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York. Emily, her sister is a film major and former video producer for Democracy Now. They recently won the L’Oreal Women of Worth Vision Award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and the Special Jury Prize for Best New Filmmakers at the Traverse City Film Festival.
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Law and Disorder April 26, 2010

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goldman1 geithner-bernanke Neel-kashkari

Jobless Recovery and the Federal Reserve Holdout

Today we welcome back Rick Wolff, Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts and his son Max Wolff freelance researcher, strategist, and writer in the areas of international finance and macroeconomics  to discuss the current economic recovery, is it recovering without job growth? Rick is also the author of the book, Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It, where he takes the reader back to 2005 and step by step reveals how policies, economic structures and wage-to-profit systems led to a global economic collapse.

We get a critical update from both Rich and Max. Will there be another leg down as predicted. Another leg down meaning, will the economy continue to drop? This was mentioned because of the way people were investing, investing in a way that expected the market to drop.

Rick Wolff / Max Wolff :

  • There’s a recovery in some parts and not others. The missing piece of the economic puzzle is job growth.
  • Housing assets are 35 percent off their 2006 peaks. 15.5 million people unemployed.  1 out of 6 in the labor force in a dire economic situation.  Misery index, looks at long term unemployed – 27 weeks or more.
  • 41 percent of our unemployed have been out of work for 27 weeks.
  • Average unemployment benefits cap out at 2000.00 a month
  • “Phony ‘Economic Recovery’, Real Alternatives” – article by Rick Wolff
  • You have to wonder that we live in a time of massive unemployment, the recovery didn’t deal with that problem, and yet we don’t have a national discussion of “direct employment.”  We did need a banking bailout, we chose to bail out some elements of society and not others.
  • A couple of hundred billion dollars for say kids to continue to got to school on the subway, or community colleges can stay open, or job training programs, or the state of California can stay open, we decided was a waste of money?
  • The average person in the US has a 30 day life expectancy without International finance.
  • 61 thousand UAW workers laid off.
  • US Cash for Clunkers program, borrowed European model but replaced old used cars with new SUVs, and increased price of used car parts.
  • Oregon Example: Last summer, the state legislature controlled completely by the Democratic party passed a bill to face their 700 hundred million dollar shortfall, not by cutting social programs, but by taxing the corporations and the rich.  Unions, liberal folks, and the democratic party (left of where it is in the rest of the country)
  • We need 110 – 120 thousand new jobs a month to keep up with population growth. Jobless growth recovery from 2002 to 2007 was from explosive consumer debt.
  • People buying more things without getting jobs (credit) The last 18 months we witnessed the largest re-distribution of wealth in US history. The bottom 80 percent stood still and the top 20 percent lead by the top 5 percent shot up.
  • 7.8 million homes in the foreclosure pipeline

Guest – Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. He also teaches classes regularly at the Brecht Forum in Manhattan.

Guest – Max Fraad Wolff , freelance researcher, strategist, and writer in the areas of international finance and macroeconomics. Max’s work can be seen at the Huffington Post, The AsiaTimes, Prudent Bear, SeekingAlpha and many other outlets.

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Radio Documentary – It Was Genocide: Armenian Survivor Stories

April 24, 2010 marks the beginning of the systematic implementation of a plan to exterminate the Armenian race 95 years ago. Carried out by the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire, over half of the Armenians living in the Empire were killed. To commemorate this, the first genocide of the 20th century, Law and Disorder co-host Heidi Boghosian and producer Geoff Brady present a 90-minute program titled, It Was Genocide: Armenian Survivor Stories.

We wish to thank WBAI for their commitment to recognizing the Armenian genocide, and are grateful to the individuals we interviewed for opening their hearts and sharing the difficult memories of the past.

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