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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 November 27, 2022
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Can A Lawsuit Against The CIA Affect U.S. Extradition Attempt of Julian Assange?
In August 2022, a group of U.S. citizen attorneys and journalists sued the CIA and its former director Mike Pompeo. They alleged that the CIA, during Pompeo’s tenure, spied on them during meetings with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. The WikiLeaks founder sheltered there for 7 years in an effort to avoid extradition to the United States.. Assange is charged with 17 counts under the Espionage Act for revealing evidence of U.S. war crimes. If convicted, he faces 175 years in prison.
The lawsuit says that the CIA violated the privacy rights of those journalists and lawyers. Plaintiffs include journalists Charles Glass and John Goetz, and New York City attorneys Margaret Kunstler and Deborah Hrbek, who have represented Assange. The suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages for the plaintiffs for the violations of their rights. It also seeks the removal of any information held by the CIA which was collected from them during their visits to see Assange and prevention of the release of any this information to a third party.
The CIA, as listeners may know, is prohibited from collecting intelligence on U.S. citizens, although several lawmakers have alleged that the agency maintains a secret repository of Americans’ communications data. Richard Roth, the lead attorney in this case, had this to say: “The United States Constitution shields American citizens from U.S. government overreach even when the activities take place in a foreign embassy in a foreign country.”
Journalists and lawyers visiting Assange were required to surrender their electronic devices to Undercover Global before each visit. U.C. Global is a private security company which was providing security to the embassy. The lawsuit alleged that the company copied that information and handed it over to the CIA.
In early November, Deborah Hrbek and our own Marjorie Cohn discussed the lawsuit and the case against Assange, in a program sponsored by the First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee. For our show today, we’re delighted to bring you their remarks and answers to several audience questions. Deborah Hrbek starts off the event. In addition to being a member of the Assange defense team, her law practice focuses on entertainment and small business law. Marjorie is a member of the national advisory board of Assange Defense.
Hosted by Attorney Heidi Boghosian
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Law and Disorder November 21, 2022
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To Catch a Dictator: The Pursuit and Trial of Hissene Habre
Human rights attorney Reed Brody’s page turning book To Catch a Dictator: The Pursuit and Trial of Hissene Habre is being released in November 2022. Habre was the dictator of Chad, a landlocked country in central Africa from 1982 to 1990. He was deposed by a coup and exiled to nearby Senegal.
Attorney Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch led a coalition of human rights activists, lawyers, and victims which brought Habre to justice. The lead trial lawyer for the victims was African attorney Jacqueline Moudeina.
Habre was found guilty in a courtroom in Dakar, Senegal in May 2016 of rape, sexual slavery, torture, and the killing of over 40,000 citizens of Chad. He was the first former head of state to be convicted of crimes against humanity in the courts of another country.
We speak today with Reed Brody who worked for 18 years with Human Rights Watch alongside Hissene Habre’s victims.
Guest – Reed Brody has helped pursue dictators Augusto Pinochet of Chile, Jean Claude “baby doc” Duvalier of Haiti, and Yahya Jamaeh of Ghana. He also uncovered atrocities of US backed contras in Nicaragua, led UN missions in El Salvador, in the Congo, and exposed Bush – administration torture.
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Fairness and Accuracy In Election Coverage
Virtually everyone agrees that the mainstream corporate media in the United States plays a major role in who wins elections. But on the right, a great many are convinced that what they characterize as the “liberal media” is not to be believed, thanks to Trump and his cries of “the lying media”, while on the left, most argue that since the mainstream media is corporate, it operates for the benefit of those candidates most likely to advance the interests of corporate America.
So today we examine the role played by the mainstream media in our elections. How truthful is its election reporting? What role does “social media” play in the electoral process? If, indeed, the mainstream media plays a role in our elections, is it, in fact, a decisive role? And if it is, how does it do that? Well, if you stay tuned, I truly believe you will be surprised by some of what you learn today. I say that because today we’ve got the perfect guest to help us examine this topic in all of its permutations. He is Norman Solomon, certainly one of America’s true champions of a free and honest press.
Guest – Norman Solomon is a longtime associate of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (“F.A.I.R.”), which has proved to be a powerful watchdog of the American media. Norman Solomon is the co-founder of the online activist organization RootsAction.org, and he is also the Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is, of course, the author of too many articles to recite here, as well as a number of books, including “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death;” also, the book “Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America’s Warfare State.”
A Poem by Raymond Nat Turner About L.A. City Council
Hosted by Attorneys Michael Smith and Jim Lafferty
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Law and Disorder November 14, 2022
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Israel Authorizes Military to Kill Palestinians With Drones
In October, the Israeli government announced that commanders of the Israeli Occupying Forces have been authorized to use armed drones to kill Palestinians in several parts of the occupied West Bank, with the approval of Chief of Staff-Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi.
Since 2008, the Israeli Air Force has been killing Palestinians in Gaza with drones, especially during protests against the Annexation Wall and colonies. Drones have also been used to fire gas bombs and live rounds at residents in cities, towns, and refugee camps of occupied Jerusalem. Drones are employed for surveillance, but this is the first time that weaponized drones will be used in the occupied West Bank. Drones make up 80% of the total flight hours in the Israeli Air Force.
Here to discuss this disturbing development is our own Marjorie Cohn, who recently published an article in Truthout titled Israel Authorizes Military to Kill Palestinians With Drones in the West Bank.
Guest – Attorney Marjorie Cohn is a legal and political analyst who provides commentary on local, national and international media. She is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, a member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is “Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues.”
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State Of The Free Press: The News That Didn’t Make the News And Why 2023
The United States has a disinformation problem so endemic that the government says it threatens our national security. Effective solutions have proven elusive. When the Department of Homeland Security created a disinformation board in April, critics from all sides denounced it as a potential tool of censorship. That’s no surprise given that censorship is on the minds of many. During the past school year, more than 1,600 books were banned, according to a PEN America report. And the “cancel culture” movement teeters between a tool of accountability and outright shaming, often with little regard for the truth.
Since 1976, one group has been working to raise awareness about censorship in our society, and the urgent need for media literacy. Founded as a media research program, Project Censored focused on student media literacy and critical thinking skills as applied to the US news media. In 1993, the Project began publishing an annual book with a list of what it considered the most significant but most under-reported news stories of the year.
Dr. Andy Lee Roth is associate director of Project Censored. Along with Mickey Huff, he co-edits the State of the Free Press Yearbook series. He also helps coordinate the Project’s Campus Affiliates Program, which links students at faculty at several dozen US college and university campuses in the collective effort to identify and vet important but under reported news stories.
Guest – Andy Lee Roth joins us to talk about the 2023 edition of State Of The Free Press: The News That Didn’t Make the News and Why, that will hit bookstores in December. In addition, the Censored Press and Triangle Square Books for Young Readers recently published The Media and Me. It contains critical thinking skills, practical tools and real-life perspectives, intended to help young adult readers become independent media users.
Hosted by Attorneys Heidi Boghosian and Marjorie Cohn
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