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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 July 7, 2008
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Updates:
- Indicted, Sami Al-Arian Faces Possible Life Imprisonment
- Rhode Island School District To Begin Microchipping Students
- Preparing The Battlefield
Green Scare: The Case of Briana Waters Update
Briana Waters, 32 was sentenced to six years in federal prison and ordered to pay $6 million in restitution by U.S. District Court Judge Franklin Burgess, who also declined her lawyer’s request that Waters be released on her own recognizance pending appeal. Here on Law and Disorder we’ve discussed how (since December 2005) environmental activists in the United States have been targeted and handed unusually harsh prison sentences. It’s been called Green Scare.
Briana was accused of acting as a lookout in the conspiracy to set fire to the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture in 2001. This, despite evidence presented by the defense that she was 60 miles away at the time of the arson. Others claimed responsibility for the fire. How the Government Targets Eco-Activists. Listen to NLG event.
Federal “conspiracy law†is often used by prosecutors to take down drug dealers, the same legal approach is used to charge environmental protesters. Once the judge accepts the charge of conspiracy, here-say is admissible making conspiracy and very easy to prove in court.
Last year the NLG established a hotline 1-888-NLG-ECOL for activists who had been targeted by the FBI for environmental activism.
Guest: Ben Rosenfeld, California Civil Rights attorney
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Taking Back The Right To Dissent: The Case of the Bangor Six
Recently, jurors in the Case of the ‘Bangor Six’ brought back a decisive verdict of ‘not guilty.’ The six veterans for peace, anti war protesters were arrested in March of last year after refusing to leave the federal building where their senator, Republican Susan Collins has her office. The six activists were among 12 that say they were protesting Bush’s proposal to increase troops in Iraq to support a military strategy known s the surge and also urged Collins to vote against continued funding for the war. Collins did not vote against funding for the war and did not meet with activists. Six of the activists were later arrested. (Collins Watch)
During this trial, the jury was allowed by the judge to decide whether the defendants believed that they were not guilty in making a conscious choice to break Maine law because they thought international law was being violated. The jurors decided unanimously that the protesters did believe they had the ‘license and privilege’ to act as they did, in rendering the ‘not guilty’ verdict.
Guest – Bar Harbor attorney Lynne Williams, also with Maine Lawyers for Democracy a group of 65 Maine lawyers, calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
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Amnesty International USA: Guantanamo Cell Replica
This past week, Amnesty International USA hauled a life size Guantanamo cell replica to the National mall in Washington DC. Activists and tourists gathered to experience the bleakness of being held in such confinement without hope. The cell replica visited the nation’s capital as a U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee heard testimony on harsh interrogation techniques from Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff David Addington and former U.S. Justice Department lawyer John Yoo.
We listen to voices of tourists, activists and James Yee, former US Army chaplain, who ministered to Muslim detainees held at Guantánamo Bay Naval base. Yee as listeners may know, was the subject to an intense investigation by the United States. A special thank you to Karen Miller for gathering the audio for this segment.
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Law and Disorder June 30, 2008
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Updates:
- House Approves Unconstitutional Surveillance Legislation
- The Late George Carlin and WBAI
- John Yoo, David Addington Stonewall Congress
- CCR Attorneys File First New Habeas Petitions
- UK: Surveillance Onslaught is Creepy
The Framing of Mumia Abu Jamal by J.Patrick O’Connor
J.Patrick O’Connor delivers a powerful interview for the full program. O’Connor lays out the case based on his in-depth research that Mumia Abu Jamal was framed. O’Connor argues that the former black panther journalist did not shoot Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. The real shooter says O’Connor, was Kenneth Freeman a business partner of Mumia’s brother. Freeman, was found dead in 1985, bound and cuffed in a Philadelphia parking lot after a massive police raid on the counter-culture group MOVE.
One review writes: “In this account of the trial of controversial death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, O’Connor, editor and publisher of crimemagazine.com, clearly lays out his case that Abu-Jamal should receive at least a new trial, if not complete exoneration. O’Connor asserts that Abu-Jamal was framed for the 1981 murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner because of a vendetta by Philadelphia mayor Frank Rizzo and the police due to Abu-Jamal’s defense, as a journalist, of the group MOVE.
Review excerpt by Linn Washington Jr : Carefully citing trial proceedings, O’Connor book lists odious instances of wrongdoing by police prosecutors – accomplished with judicial complicity.
“From the beginning of this case, it was corrupt. It was a railroad job,” O’Connor said recently during a reading/book signing at a small venue on Baltimore Ave in West Philadelphia sponsored by the organization, Journalists for Abu-Jamal. “I wrote the book to show not only that Mumia did not kill Officer Faulkner but to show how and why they framed Mumia,” said O’Connor who lived in the Philadelphia area at the time of the brutal December 1981 crime at the heart of this controversial case.
Guest – J. Patrick O’Connor, editor and publisher of Crime Magazine. He has worked as a reporter for UPI, editor of Cincinnati Magazine, associate editor of TV Guide, and editor and publisher of the Kansas City New Times.
Can the Media Continue to Ignore “The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal”?
Law and Disorder June 23, 2008
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Updates:
- House Approves Unconstitutional Surveillance Legislation
- “Yes” To Swedish Surveillance Law
- CCR Files Damages Claims on Behalf of Families of Men Who Died at Guantanamo
- Shooting of Reuters Journalist in Iraq Justified, Says Pentagon
Brecht Forum – Citizen Soldier and Anti War GI’s
We hear excerpts from speeches at the Brecht Forum by our own Michael Smith and Citizen Soldier’s Tod Ensign. The anti-war soldier panel started with Michael Smith describing his work defending anti-war GI’s at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina and the formation of the GI Civil Liberties Defense Committee.
Anti-war GI’s were pivotal to the movement’s success. The growing protests from within the U.S. military today echo the Vietnam War soldiers experience. The panel discusses the role of anti-war GI organizing in the anti-war movements from 1917 to 1968 and to the present.
Tod Ensign is also the co-coordinator of the Different Drummer Café at Fort Drum. A meeting place for soldiers who get immediately deployed to battle after training at Fort Drum. The cafe promotes the free and uncensored exchange of ideas and information among active duty and reserve military personnel and civilians. This includes, issues of war and peace, foreign policy, the military mission of our soldiers both at home and abroad, and the proper balance between the rights of citizen soldiers and military authority in a democratic society.
World Day in Support of Victims of Torture: Left Forum 2008 – Torture and the Decline of the American Empire. Professor Alfred McCoy Part I
There are several significant events surrounding the US policy on torture taking place this week. Already last week, the US Senate Committee on Armed Services held hearings on the origins of aggressive interrogation techniques. Among the events this week is the fifth session of the United Nations Committee against Torture, Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in Geneva.
Amnesty International releases a report on torture and unfair trials in Tunisia’s war on terror, Amnesty International’s Guantanamo prison cell replica opens to the public in Washington, DC, through Sunday, June 29 and there is also the World Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
Professor Al McCoy, author of A Question of Torture, delivers a powerful speech on the history of torture in the United States. This is from this year’s Left Forum on a panel titled, Torture and the Decline of the American Empire. Moderated by our own Michael Steven Smith.