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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 July 13, 2009

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Cynthia McKinney and 20 Peace Activists Return From Israeli Prison

While hoping to deliver humanitarian supplies, a Free Gaza Delegation boat was stopped in International waters by the Israeli Navy earlier this month. Among the nearly 100 U.S. peace activists was former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and Irish peace activist and Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire. McKinney and others had been in custody since Tuesday of last week, but could have been released earlier if they signed a document admitting they violated Israel’s blockade. McKinney – “It’s quite unusual for anyone to get a glimpse inside an Israeli prison.”

Cynthia McKinney:

  • There were 21 of us on the Free Gaza Boat, they were also bringing boats for Palestinian fisherman in Gaza.
  • We embarked on our journey on the Spirit of Humanity boat. You can tell the folks put a lot of love in re-furbishing the boat, with the paint and making it a livable place for a 30 hour journey.
  • That boat was destroyed by the Israeli military. They took some kind of huge magnetic item that held the boat suspended and shook it violently.
  • It was an unusually calm day, it was absolutely beautiful. But it was 37 hours on the boat including the Israeli Navy intercept. It was nighttime, we were still in International waters and the Israelis threatened us.
  • Remember I was on the Dignity when the Israelis rammed it.
  • This time, they disabled the GPS, they tried to provide an escort to push us into Israeli waters.
  • That tactic didn’t work. They also utilized, something I haven’t seen before, a “wave making machine,” because they shook us up and down.
  • The GPS was turned off, communications were disrupted ( small EMP weapon?) I think they were trying to get us into Israeli waters, to make it look like we were off course.
  • That did not happen, and they regrouped, and waited for us to enter Gaza territorial waters. That’s when these four speed boats came very quickly. Eight soldiers dressed like ninjas with the ski-mask, they commandeered the boat. Ejected the captain, and took over the steering.
  • They put into one room on the boat, told us to sit down and shut up. We were forced to leave the boat with our hands in the air, some were handcuffed.
  • The Israeli soldiers were rough with Maguier, she saw them take down one of the women, and she protested, and the soldiers roughed her up with bad language, it was a scene, and the men came to her rescue and those men got handcuffed.
  • We got a full body search, we were held by the military for several hours, they transferred us to a detention facility, then to a full prison.Romley Prison. We were mixed in with the prison population. It was amazing, where we were there were young women of African and Asian descent.
  • The Israelis actively blocked our effort to meet with our attorneys. We were deported from a country we didn’t intend to enter. The Free Gaza Movement has no intention of stopping.

Guest – former United States Representative and was the 2008 Green Party nominee for President of the United States. McKinney has served as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993–2003 and 2005–2007, first representing Georgia’s 11th Congressional District and then Georgia’s 4th Congressional District. She is the first African-American woman to have represented Georgia in the House.
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Private Contractors in Afghanistan / Pakistan

Since President Obama announced the strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan in late March of this year, news of troop deployment, drone attacks, and the killing of innocent Afghani and Pakistani civilians is heard nearly every week. Private contractors, mercenaries and the war profiteers in the region rarely make headlines however. One study has concluded that private contractors and mercenaries outnumber US soldiers. Check out – Outsourcing Intelligence in Iraq by Amnesty International and Pratap Chatterjee.

Pratap Chatterjee:

  • President Obama has inherited long term contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, 5-10 year contracts.
  • If canceled (contracts) the system will shutdown. For every soldier in Iraq there is a contractor, for every soldier in Afghanistan, there are 2 contractors
  • A lot of these people are cooks, janitors, builders, mostly from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Phillipines, Egypt, Bosnia. They do the dull and dirty work nobody else wants to do.
  • There’s no draft, so in a volunteer army, the US employs Indians/Bangladeshis for 300 dollars a month, cooking, cleaning. You have contract interrogator types who are making 250 thousand a year.
  • There are now 15 thousand prisoners in each country, Iraq, Afghanistan.
  • When US goes to interrogate these prisoners, they need translators.
  • L3 which is based in New York City, bought up Titan. Titan. under L3 subcontracts interrogators.
  • Titan is gone now (by name, same people involved) , but there’s a new company set up by Spider Marx, the guy in charge of intelligence during the invasion of Iraq. Global Linguist Solutions with Dyncorp.
  • Contracts are designed to maximize profits. Company such as L3 is paid for 7000 translators, but penalized for having only 6000. 1000 unqualified translators are brought in to war zones.
  • Interagency Roundtable Standards

Guest – Pratap Chatterjee, he’s recently returned from Afghanistan. Pratap is a journalist and former executive director of Corpwatch, an Oakland based corporate accountability organization.

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Honduran Coup Tries to Halt Advance of Latin American Left

Two weeks after the Honduran Coup ousted President Manuel Zelaya was prevented from returning to the country. Today we look deeper into the life of Manuel Zelaya, his background among the land_owning class, and his shift as a reform minded leader increasing wages for workers and teachers. Half way through his term Zelaya was inspired by changes in Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba. He soon had the support of labor unions and social organizations that put him at odds with the corrupt social elite and drug mobsters. Today we talk with author Roger Burbach, about how Zelaya enraged the Honduran elite which led to up to the military coup.

Roger Burbach:

  • The news in the main stream press about the coup was to stop Zelaya from re-election.
  • Zelaya was not seeking re-election but a constituent assembly on the ballot to draft a new constitution for the country. Similar to Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador.
  • Either way, Zelaya could not run for re-election as the media and Honduran elites are portraying.
  • The existing Honduran constitution was drafted in 1982, a very repressive constitution, back when John Negroponte was working with the death squads.
  • US Sec of State, Hilliary Clinton doesn’t like Zelaya, she didn’t like him when she met him in early June.
  • ALBA, an alternative free trade agreement that believes in solidarity measures and economic measures, led by Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.
  • The US has the strongest military presence in Honduras, than any other Central American country. I would suggest that the US military intelligence knew about the impending coup and did nothing to stop it.
  • Why does the US care about Honduras? Strategic military point in Central America, amid three radical governments now rising.
  • New radical left leaders such as Chavez, Morales, Correia in Ecuador, Reformist governments of Brazil, Uraguay, maybe El Salvador. The US wants to drive a wedge in there, as with the coup Zelaya was aligned with the radical countries.
  • The World Bank and the IMF have all suspended economic support except for the United States.

Guest – Roger Burbach, author of the Pinochet Affair and Director of the Center for the Study of the Americas based in Berkeley, California. Read more articles from Roger Burbach.

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Law and Disorder July 6, 2009

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CODEPINK Returns From Delegations To Gaza/Palestine/Israel

Another delegation from Code Pink Women For Peace and other organizations brought humanitarian and emotional support to women and children in Gaza. According to human rights groups, the children of Gaza are suffering physically and psychologically for the continuing siege and the 22 day Israeli military attack last December and January. That attack killed more than 1440 Palestinians and injured nearly 5000. We talk with Code Pink organizer Helen Schiff and legal activist Dennis James about their experiences in Israel, Gaza and Palestine.

Dennis got into Israel through Egypt and delivered playground equipment. As we’ll hear in this interview the 1.5 million people of Gaza are deprived of basic needs and humanitarian aid that stopped from getting into Gaza. Supplies are warehoused and food is left to rot at the hands of the IDF.

For the first time, Americans are partnering with Jewish and Arab Israelis to demand that the Israeli government end the siege. Earlier this year, we talked with Code Pink organizers about how the Israelis wear down the fighting spirit of the people in Gaza by forbidding pasta, jam, candy and any building materials. Desalinization plants were bombed, and children have kidney disease because Israelis have siphoned off the good water and there’s too much salt seeping into the wells.

So far Code Pink has coordinated five delegations into Gaza in the past two months bringing nearly 200 activists from around the world to witness the destruction of the Palestinian people. Meanwhile, an aid ship heading to Gaza was intercepted by Israeli forces. Twenty one human rights workers were abducted including former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. (photo credit ActiveStills)   Check out Mondoweiss (Philip Weiss’s blog)

Dennis James and Helen Schiff:

  • Dennis James: On May 29-June 4, I was on a Code Pink Delegation to Gaza. 66 persons 2 buses and truck load of playground equipment and we gained entry through the Raifa crossing into Gaza Strip.
  • The Southern end of Gaza; Israel often bombs the area. They estimate 1000 tunnels in the area.
  • Helen Schiff: We did not get into Gaza through Erez crossing, we thought it was important to get publicity on that. We brought playground equipment.
  • It’s important for them (Palestinians) to know that people are supporting them. Jimmy Carter was in Israel at the time and he had known about our attempt. Time magazine quoted Carter mentioning the delegation being refused entry.
  • They don’t have to give you a reason for not entering.
  • There’s a sinister twist when critically sick Palestinians are allowed to leave Gaza for medical treatment. They have to collaborate with authorities as a condition to get medical help. Anyone who gets surgery is suspect by the people they live in having had to collaborate with them. They ask people to rat on their neighbors basically.
  • Everything looked as it did when on January 22. They (IDF) had a tank encampment 20 meters away that was doing target practice on the hospitals
  • Fishermen, if they go beyond 2 kilometer, arbitrarily designated line by the Israeli defense force, are fired upon.
  • No exports, only essential medicine and food is allowed in. It’s clear that Israel is trying to crush their identity as a people and try to reject any form of soverignty they may excercise over their own fate.
  • They’re (Palestinians) not having it. They’re determined to govern and provide for themselves. They have a literacy of 95-98 percent. 44 Percent between 18-24 attend university.
  • Our trip was run also by Israeli Women’s Coalition for Peace. I wanted to see Israel, and the best way to describe it is there’s always a catch 22, no matter what. Israel says, we don’t withhold anything from Gaza, we deliver everything. They drop it off and then the Israeli Defense Force decides to send it to Gaza. The stuff rots in the warehouse. About1/4 of supplies are let in to Gaza.
  • Dove Weinglass, an Israel official says we’re going to put those people on a diet.
  • The vindictiveness of the IDF was to bomb and kill as many animals as they could, so there’s no protein sources in the country.
  • Jaffa now is being gentrified into a Williamsburg Brooklyn area for Israeli artists.
  • I believe this is a time where there is a crack in the wall where ordinary Americans are beginning to listen. The Gazans want public attention, more than they even want the supplies, reconstruction material or money.
  • Book: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Guests – Code Pink member Helen Schiff and legal activist Dennis James, both had boots on the ground in Gaza and give their first hand accounts of the devastating aftermath.

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FBI Defends Use of Informants To Spy On Mosques

Recently FBI Director Robert Mueller defended the practice of using informants to monitor mosques in the United States, despite being heavily criticized by attorneys, and Muslim American leaders. Last month a judge ordered the FBI to submit 100 documents detailing the bureau’s surveillance of Muslim leaders in California, which revealed the FBI paid informants to be provocateurs. These cases fit into patterns where paid informants (often a former felon) entice innocent people into a crime, not unlike the Liberty 7 case, the Fort Dix case and the recent Memorial Day weekend terror plot in upstate New York. In the New York case, Mike German, a former FBI agent of 16 years and now an attorney with the ACLU told Law and Disorder, they “could have wrapped up without making it seem like they’re saving New York City from this terrible destruction.” The media then reports the story which will often prop up the ongoing “War on Terror.”

Shakeel Syed:

  • Council of Islamic Organizations sent a letter to Attny Gen. Eric Holder complaining about the FBI infiltration and harassment
  • We are baffled at this time, there is a great deal of surplus of rhetoric by the current administration and a deficit at the policy level.
  • When Mueller says the FBI will escalate surveillance of mosques and the Obama Administration is silent, that disturbs me.
  • This is legal religious bigotry, Mueller is lying in regard to they’re not surveilling the mosques but only the suspected individuals.
  • I have stopped using the word provocateur, I shuffle between using the word provocateur and predator.
  • Those targeted have pending immigration and naturalization files or converting from H1 visa to resident visa.
  • When our community was doing outreach with public officers, I was in the FBI offices during 2003-2005, and I realized then I was being tailgated.
  • My phone was tapped on. A few times the phone automatically dialed the local police.
  • My hope as a Muslim American is that good American people will stand up in these challenging times.

Guest – Shakeel Syed, Executive Director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California.

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Law and Disorder June 29, 2009

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Charges Dismissed Against March of the Dead Activists: Laurie Arbeiter

On January 6, 2009, artist and activist Laurie Arbeiter joined seventy others from around the country for the March of the Dead. Participants assembled in Washington and began to read the names of those killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine before the Capitol Police interrupted the event and arrested seventeen people. Four of them, including Laurie, appeared in court last week on charges of unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct, where the judge nullified their case. Robbie Diesu, Michelle Grise, and Pete Perry also appeared in court with Laurie.  In the event that Laurie and others would be convicted, she prepared a statement to read outside of the courthouse. Click here to read that statement.

Laurie is a member of The Critical Voice, which started the We Will Not Be Silent T-shirt campaign.

Laurie Arbeiter:

  • Four of us were put on trial for an action that we did Jan 6, 2009. The first day of 111th Congress.
  • People came from all over the country to circle the Capitol in death masks carrying the names of the dead from Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza.
  • On that day, 17 of us were arrested and some of us were brought all the way to trial.
  • Last week, we went into court for disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly.
  • We didn’t get to mount our case because of the gross misconduct of the government, including tampering with evidence, they destroyed evidence.
  • We were followed by police both on bicycles and motorcycles, throughout the day. But then we decided to go into the Senate Hart Building, in the atrium. We continued with the March of the Dead. Another group hung billboard sized banners.
  • When we did the solemn procession before we got to the Capitol, the police on bikes were waiting for us. I was in the lead, wearing a death mask and police officers started taunting me, pointing at me saying, “we know who you are.” It makes me feel more defiant.
  • As Barack Obama said, “those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history.”
  • I am one of many that stand proud in solidarity with all the other people that came from around the country.
  • During the court case, the police officer kept saying how loud we were, but we are all quiet, and read the names of the dead reverently.
  • The police asked the court to see a youtube video, edited, sound enhanced, the judge allowed it. They had problems projecting the video in court.
  • So, they used the judge’s laptop. My lawyer cross-examined the police officer, where are your notes, the log of the event. The cop answered they went away. At that point the case was dismissed.
  • This case was about what is allowed of a free people who feel an urgency because war crimes are being committed in their time. What are we as a free people allowed to do? Where do we go to seek justice?
  • I would have asked the court – if crimes are being committed why wouldn’t decent people speak up so their voices could be heard? Why is that a crime? While the people who committed the most heinous acts against human beings are set free. Why are we being prosecuted?

Guest – Laurie Arbeiter, artist, prominent activist, and designer of “We Will Not Be Silent” T-shirt series. To order T-shirts, email Laurie at – Arrestbush(at)gmail.com. Her website (currently being built) is wewillnotbesilent.net.

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Supreme Court Denies Certiorari In the Cuban Five Case

As listeners may already know, the Supreme Court recently declined to hear the case of the Cuban Five. The request for review, which included a record-setting 12 amicus briefs and received widespread international attention, was the Cuban Five’s last chance for a new trial.

The Five’s defense attorneys argued it was impossible for the men to get fair trials in Miami, where anti -Castro sentiment runs high, and that the convictions should be overturned.

Last year, the 11th U.S. District Court of Appeals in Atlanta upheld the convictions of the Cuban Five who are serving long prison sentences charged with spying and conspiracy to commit murder. Joining us again to discuss the case is noted criminal defense attorney Leonard Weinglass, who represented the Cuban Five. Len, welcome back to the show. Demonstration video link

Len Weinglass:

  • 98 Percent of all petitions for Cert are denied. We were optimistic because our position was so strongly stated and unprecedently joined by 11 briefs and friends of the court including 10 Nobel Prize winners.
  • Then June 15, the news came down. The court rejected out of hand without a single dissenting opinion.
  • We were hoping against experience that teaches otherwise, that the Obama Administration would lighten up on this case and acknowledge some of the undisputed facts.
  • Timing: June 5, 2009 Kendall and Gwendolyn Meyers arrested for passing classified information to Cuban handlers.
  • Batson Case – The government permitted several minorities on the jury who were elderly and less well educated as a shield against challenges of racial bias. The record shows the government removed seven younger well educated minority jurors. We brought this to the court’s attention, because this is happening throughout the country (Mumia Abu Jamal case – instruction film to purge minority jurors)
  • Community prejudice issue: Trying the Cuban Five case in Miami.
  • This is the first “conspiracy to commit espionage” case in which there was not a single classified document.
  • The options have become narrower, three of the five are up for re-sentencing. I’m hopeful my client Antonio Guerrero will not get a life sentence but will get a set term of years.The Cuban Five have served 10 years.
  • Analagous cases – Ben-Ami Kadish – recently (Dec 2008) received a suspended sentence and 50 thousand dollar fine ( which he responded, no problem judge.) for taking classified documents to his handler’s home in Riverdale, Bronx several times (including information about nuclear weapons, a modified F-15 fighter, and the Patriot missiles) and let an unnamed Israeli government worker take photographs of them.
  • Posada Carriles, has a long standing association with the CIA, which his attorney acknowledged in court papers. Carriles was charged with the murder of 73 people, he escaped prison, (with help of unknown persons) He was then hired by the CIA, paid by the US tax payer to help in the war against the elected government of Nicarargua.
  • Carriles was involved in bringing down the first commercial plane in mid-flight. Cubana airline, the bomb exploded (C4) that was placed in a toothpaste tube left in the mens room. The tail assembly was damaged, then pilots lost control and plane plummeted into ocean. Carriles was named by the person who he paid them to do it. That person is a cab driver in Caracas, Venezuela and is available to the media.
  • Going forward with the Cuban Five cases, there are legal options, specifically 18 US C2255 – Federal Habeas. We could raise constitutional issues that haven’t previous been raised and litigated, we have one year in which to file. We’re not completely out of court, but what’s called the “direct appeals” are over. We now have collateral appeals.
  • It’s up to the Obama Administration to recognize the reality here of what happened and begin the process of returning the Five home.

Guest – criminal defense attorney Leonard Weinglass, who represented the Cuban Five, as William Kunstler’s younger partner, Len Weinglass was considered the work horse of the defense team. He’s worked on a number of political cases including the Pentagon Papers trial and the Angela Davis case. He’s a Yale Law School graduate and former U.S. Air Force Captain.

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