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 May 17, 2010
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Updates:
- Watering Down Fundamental Rights:
- Miranda Rights Changing. Public Safety Exception
- Expanding the Exception to Defendant’s Rights.
- Presentment: Withing 24 hours of being detained, you must be brought before a judge.
- Obama Administration: Disaster on civil liberties.
- German Court Seeks Arrests of 13 CIA Agents
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Kagan “Loves” the Federalist Society
Hosts discuss Elena Kagan’s background with Francis Boyle, Professor of law at the University of Illinois. Boyle is author of “Tackling America’s Toughest Questions.” In his article titled – – Supreme Court Pick: Kagan “Loves” the Federalist Society, – – Boyle notes Kagan explicitly endorsed the Bush administration’s bogus category of ‘enemy combatant,’ whose implementation has been a war crime in its own right. He also writes that “Kagan has actually said ‘I love the Federalist Society.’ Almost all of the Bush administration lawyers responsible for its war and torture memos are members of the Federalist Society. Read – Dean Elena Kagan: Harvard’s Gitmo Kangaroo Law School — The School for Torturers
- She has fully defended the hideous Bush atrocities, civil rights, human rights, civil liberties.
- No retreat or abandonment of the Bush positions.
- She (Kagan) did write this tome in the Harvard Law Review, equivalent to the Federalist Society, unitary executive power theory of the presidency.
- She’d be a total disaster on the cases that really count for the future of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
- She’s a neo-conservative and has no qualifications to speak of.
- (She) hired Jack Goldsmith, author of torture memos and helped set up kangaroo court system in Guantanamo. We are still fighting Kagan supporting the Bush war on terrorism.
- Kagan stated on National Public Radio on December 22, 2009, “I Love The Federalist Society”
- Obama and his people know that Kagan will be the spear carrier for presidential powers on the Supreme Court
- This is a very dangerous time for the future of our republic and Constitution. The statement that she cares for the common people. . . she’s an elitist snob.
- There she is promoting globalization at Harvard Law School?? Hiring people to teach “globaloney” just to lick the boots of Larry Summers? While dean at Harvard Law School, she was moonlighting at Goldman Sachs payroll.
- This is all incredibly incestuous. Unlike Bush who wasn’t a lawyer, Obama taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School, he should know better.
Guest – Professor Francis Boyle, A scholar in the areas of international law and human rights, Professor Boyle received a J.D. degree magna cum laude and A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in political science from Harvard University. Prior to joining the faculty at the College of Law, he was a teaching fellow at Harvard and an associate at its Center for International Affairs. He also practiced tax and international tax with Bingham, Dana & Gould in Boston.
He has written and lectured extensively in the United States and abroad on the relationship between international law and politics. His eleventh book, Breaking All the Rules: Palestine, Iraq, Iran and the Case for Impeachment was recently published by Clarity Press. His Protesting Power: War, Resistance and Law has been used successfully in anti-war protest trials.
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In Memory of Attorney Rhonda Copelon
Hosts talk with Cathy Albisa, executive director of the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative. about the human rights legacy of Rhonda Copelon. Rhonda had a huge influence on changing international law for human rights. She founded the International Women’s Human Rights Law Clinic.
Lawyers You’ll Like series with Rhonda Copelon. Part 1 / Part 2.
- I worked with Rhonda at CUNY, we both co-counseled with CCR on a couple of cases.
- I met Rhonda on a car ride, a 25 hour car ride. We spent 25 hours talking about human rights in the United States. Rhonda had a huge influence on NESRI
- Rhonda never stopped lamenting Harris v McRae, she was still furious and outraged.
- The assumption embedded in that case is the court is saying, we’re not responsible as a society, the poverty of this woman. Copeland Fund For Gender Justice. Rhonda thought it was critical that a progressive gender perspective be embedded into some body of work that really looked at these gender issues in a cross cutting way, that understood the relevance of poverty, the relevance of race, the relevance of sexual minorities.
- Rhonda was not a wealthy woman, she was a law professor and saved her money. She gave 1 million dollars for this fund and that was everything. The case that she says always saved my life was Filártiga v. Peña-Irala.
- She founded the International Women’s Human Rights Law Clinic. What she did with that clinic is challenge the traditional model of human rights law coming out of the United States.
- She made no claims of being objective, she was on the side of victims, of people with similar politics to her own.
- This changed international law. Rhonda: Don’t disregard the banal, the ordinary things that actually represent deep violations.
- The way Rhonda went about things, she merged intellectual capital with a strategic ferocity and personal good will and relationship building.
- She thought it was very important that people understand they’re part of a broad social justice and human rights movement.Cathy Albisa joins us today to talk about her work with the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative and Rhonda’s work as legal adviser to the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice.
Guest- Cathy Albisa, is a constitutional and human rights lawyer with a background on the right to health. Ms. Albisa also has significant experience working in partnership with community organizers in the use of human rights standards to strengthen advocacy in the United States. She co-founded NESRI along with Sharda Sekaran and Liz Sullivan in order to build legitimacy for human rights in general, and economic and social rights in particular, in the United States.
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Law and Disorder May 10, 2010
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Updates:
- Accountability Project: Judge Garzon Update: Case Corrupted, Spanish War Crimes Now Highlighted
- Massive Protest in Madrid: 65 Thousand Rally for Judge Baltasar Garzon
- Times Square Bomber Allowed To Breach Fortress America?
- CCR Files Civil Rights Complaint On Behalf of Democracy Now Journalists
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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.
- 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.
- 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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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.
- 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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Updates:
- Fahad Hashmi Update
- National Lawyers Guild Urges U.S. Media to Cease Misrepresentation of Cuba’s Human Rights Record
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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.
- 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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