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.

Listen To Our Latest Show

Law and Disorder November 24, 2008

, , , , , , , ,

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Host Updates:

Watch: Michael Ratner – Should High Gov’t Officials Be Investigated and Prosecuted? – Quicktime

Related New:

—

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard penns-ave-checkpoint.jpg riot police

Mara Verheyden Hilliard: Inauguration 2009 and the Partnership For Civil Justice

Hosts talk with Mara about criminalizing dissent, surveillance, data mining, fusion centers and the ability to exercise first amendment rights. A recent example were the violations of free speech during the mass arrests of protesters at the 2008 Republican National Convention. The demonizing of protesters and their message in the media will usually allow for the use of military force by police. That combined with intelligence gathering and targeting of lead organizers squelched the voice of dissent in all age groups.

Mara Verheyden Hilliard:

  • A lot of our work is at the intersection of first and fourth amendment rights.
  • PCJ has a class action suit pending from the world bank IMF protest – 8 year drag out tactic.
  • “What they want to do is stage-manage democracy.”
  • Victory: After years of litigation the government has to lift regulations on number of people at the Great Lawn
  • Is it important to say that we don’t want to go back to Jan 19, 2001 just the day before Bush took office- or is there more that we have to do?
  • We think there has to be an audit of every agency’s databases to determine exactly what the databases are.
  • Identify what has been collected, where it has been put, who has access to that information,
  • Then to tell people in the United States individually, what has been collected on them and then to expunge it.
  • For people in their United States, their government collecting information, maintaining information, in these massive database files, that can be used by law enforcement, pulled up in a moment’s notice is really a very dangerous practice.
  • What they’ve done is misuse existing databases and data tools.

Guest – Attorney Mara Verheyden Hilliard co-founder of The Partnership for Civil Justice Legal Defense & Education Fund.

—-

Labor Law for the Rank and Filer: Building Solidarity While Staying Clear of the Law http://michaelstevensmith.com/ Heidi Boghosian Daniel Gross - Labor Law for the Rank and Filer: Building Solidarity While Staying Clear of the Law

Labor Law for the Rank and Filer: Building Solidarity While Staying Clear of the Law

Law and Disorder hosts welcome back attorney, author and union activist Daniel Gross who has co-written with author, lawyer and historian Staughton Lynd the recently published, Labor Law for the Rank and Filer: Building Solidarity While Staying Clear of the Law.

Daniel Gross:

  • Led movement to unionize baristas at Starbucks
  • Subtitle of the book –“building solidarity while staying clear of the law”
  • We try to show in the book how the law represses and co-ops solidarity amongst rank and file workers.
  • It is the rank and file that transform both work and society.
  • A union is a group of workers standing together to take direct action.
  • We shouldn’t let the government or employer define whether we are a labor union or not.
  • Book chapter – No One Is Illegal – practicing solidarity unionism.
  • The risks are so high for immigrants to come to this country, often you’ll see a tremendous willingness to fight back.
  • In the current economic crisis, I think there’s a lot of opportunity for rank and file upsurges.
  • We will also see repression at this time to avoid a fundamental transformation of society
  • Organize for transformational demands – demands that spark more collective activity and also question the fundamental role of corporations in our lives.
  • In the union solidarity model, workers themselves operate and control there own campaigns.
  • A handful of shop workers on the floor who are challenging the boss, speaking out publically and a resource that other co-workers can go to. That’s a real power on the shop floor.

Guest – Daniel Gross, attorney, author and union activist. Daniel works with Brandworkers International, a New York-based not-for-profit organization powered by a global network of committed individuals, advocates, lawyers, and organizers who believe in holding corporations accountable to workers and communities.

——————————————————————–

Law and Disorder November 17, 2008

, , , ,

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Host Updates

Related News Stories

Pittsburgh police used tasers on protestors at a counter-recruting protest. Pittsburgh Tasering 2

Pittsburgh Taser Case: Two Women Bring Lawsuit

Here on Law and Disorder we’ve given periodic updates on key situations regarding tasers. We’ve covered cases in California and Florida, and on Amnesty International’s position. We bring another case where Mike Healey an attorney in Pittsburgh is cooperating with the Center For Constitutional Rights. Taser Shockwave: Taser’s Latest in Taming Dissent – Posted By Dalia Hashad

The case was brought by two people who were tasered multiple times even after they were arrested and put in police custody. Watch Video: Unneccessary Taser Use At Anti-War Demo Warning: Strong language/ Note also, use of canine intimidation.

Past Law and Disorder Taser Segments

Guest – Mike Healey, Pittsburgh attorney cooperating with the Center For Constitutional Rights.

—-

chinatown entrance detention center tents ice.jpg

Mass Transfer Of Detainees From New York City To Texas

Today we’re joined by National Lawyers Guild attorney Maunica Sthanki to discuss the transfer of thousands of prisoners from detention centers in New York City to South Texas. Maunica works in a detention center in South Texas and says that unlike criminal cases, in detention cases there is no right to free court appointed counsel. The detainees are faced with navigating through a complex unfamiliar system. Detainees with mental illness were not always represented by a lawyer.

Maunica is working at Probar, a Texas based legal aid group. She explains the differences of between immigration law and criminal law to detainees. “When New Yorkers (detainees) come down to Texas, they’re used to the legal aid and Santuary for Families and all these non-profit service providers and then they find out I’m the only one to help out.”

Guest – Immigration attorney, Maunica Sthanki, she also describes the severity of the problems that detainess with mental health problems face while in detention centers.

————————————————————————–

Law and Disorder November 10, 2008

, , , ,

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Host Updates:

Related News Stories:

—

courtesy of Illinoisphoto.com courtesy of Illinoisphoto.com

Stephen Kinzer: The Reality of War in Afghanistan

In his recent article The Reality of War in Afghanistan, author and veteran New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer describes how the current war strategy in Afghanistan is not really based in reality. Kinzer points to how history has shown that victory over the Taliban is near impossible and adds that peace through skillful negotiation among Taliban clan leaders could be the best approach instead of deploying more soldiers. He adds that Afghanistan civilians are collateral damage amid US bombings, helping to recruit new Taliban soldiers.

Stephen Kinzer:

“There is still an overwhelming feeling in the U.S. that we still need to take revenge for the crimes on September 11 and who are we going to take revenge against? Well, its the Taliban and Al-Quaeda is the answer that the people in Washington would give you. The Taliban and Al-Quaeda are very different forces. To negotiate with Al-Quada is morally repugnant but the Taliban is something different. They have a broad base inside Afghanistan.”

  • Its not a surrender, its a cold calculated way to achieve an end outside of the military means.
  • We need to put aside our emotions and look at this real politique.
  • The war in Afghanistan is antiseptic – to compromise with a force that was our enemy is unpopular.
  • The poppy crop in Afghanistan is almost the source of all the world’s heroin.
  • To wipe out the poppy crop is not achievable.
  • You can’t continue to spray and burn the crop and hope that’s going to end the problem.

“The yearly value of the Afghan poppy crop is about 4 billion dollars.” Kinzer’s idea is to not wipe it all out and impoverish Afghanistan communities. Instead, he says that NATO should purchase crop. “Because when people buy heroin on the street that money goes right to the coffers of terrorists to buy weapons. Kinzer says cut them all off, turn a portion into morphine and destroy the rest.”

Guest – Stephen Kinzer, a veteran New York Times correspondent who has reported from more than fifty countries on five continents. He was the New York Times bureau chief in Istanbul. Stephen currently teaches journalism and United States foreign policy at Northwestern University.

——

Crossing Hitler: The Man Who Put the Nazis on the Witness Stand  Michael Ratner Benjamin Hett

Crossing Hitler: The Man Who Put the Nazis on the Witness Stand

Author Benjamin Hett outlines the fascinating and tragic story of a young lawyer Hans Litten in his recent book Crossing Hitler: The Man Who Put the Nazis on the Witness Stand. Before the Nazis rose to power in the early 1930s, they incited calculated violence among the working class in German taverns. Four Nazi stormtroopers were charged with firing randomly into a dance hall where a communist hiking club were holding a party. Three young men were wounded. Hans Litton was the advocate for the 3 men.

Hans Litten called Hitler to the witness stand to show that the Nazi party was a violent party, and by cross examining Hitler he tried to prove that. Litten forced Hitler to contradict himself, reducing him to humiliating rage that revealed his true intention. At that time, Hitler wanted to be a legal party in Germany and of course you couldn’t be a party that was extra-constitutional and legal but at the same time he didn’t want to disappoint the base of his party which was this violent working class aspect. Two years later, the Nazi Party rose to power.

What came after the Reichstag Fire was the arrest of about 5 thousand people across Germany who the Nazis have identified as opponents or potential opponents. Hans Litten was among them and sent to a concentration camp. Author Benjamin Hett describes a powerful narrative of Hans facing torture yet still telling stories and teaching art to other prisoners.

Hans Litten was born in 1903 in Halle in Central Germany, his father was a law professor and Jewish but converted to German evangelical (Lutheran).

Guest – Benjamin Hett, author of Crossing Hitler: The Man Who Put the Nazis on the Witness Stand. He’s a former trial lawyer, and now Associate Professor of History at Hunter College.

——————————————————————————————–

Show Archives

Articles