Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, NSA Spying, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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Update:
- Hosts Discuss Civil Liberties Amid Pandemic
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United States Executive Authority Declares Emergency Powers
The last point President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen made when he testified last year before Congress was that Trump would never leave office voluntarily. With the pandemic of Covid-19 virus upon us, Trump has the perfect excuse. Last week he declared a state of national emergency. This gives him more than 100 additional powers. He can shut down the Internet, he has already banned gatherings of more than 10 people, and he can send in troops anywhere in the country.
What is the current state of our civil rights and civil liberties?
Guest – Stephen Rohde is a constitutional scholar, lecturer, writer, political activist and retired civil rights lawyer. He is a former President of the ACLU of Southern California and Chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California. Mr Rohde has served on the Board of Directors of Death Penalty Focus and was a founder and Chair of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace. He is a past chair of Bend the Arc: a Jewish Partnership for Justice. Mr. Rohde is the author of two books American Words of Freedom: The Words That Define Our Nation and Freedom of Assembly, and co-author of Foundations of Freedom: A Living History of Our Bill of Rights. He has written for American Prospect, Truth Out, Huffington Post, and the LA Times and is a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books
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United States Executive Authority in Declaring Emergency Powers
U.S. presidents have the discretion to declare a “national emergency.” As soon as he does, he can sidestep many existing limits to presidential authority. In fact, 100 or more special provisions become available to him. Some provide reasonable responses to real emergencies, while others seem to bolster the power of a so-called unitary executive who wants to amassing or retain power. The president can activate laws allowing him to, for example, shut down many kinds of electronic communications inside the U.S. or to freeze Americans’ bank accounts. Other powers are available without a declaration of emergency, including laws that allow the president to deploy troops inside the country to subdue domestic unrest.
The rationale for having emergency powers is simple: The government’s ordinary powers may not be enough in times of crisis, and amending the laws to provide greater ones would take too long. Emergency powers are intended to give a temporary boost until the emergency passes or there is time to change the law through the regular legislative process. The problem comes when presidents don’t have the best interest of the country in mind.
Guest – Andrew Boyd, Counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. Andrew spent 7 years prosecuting senior Khmer Rouge leaders on behalf of the UN for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. He also worked on cases resulting from the 1994 Rwandan genocide at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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When at Times the Mob Is Swayed, A Citizen’s Guide to Defending Our Republic
Trump was elected by about 25% of the eligible voters. Half of the voters who could have, didn’t vote. He lost the popular election by 3 million votes. Since then, this appalling man has proceeded to aggrandize his power. Backed by large corporations to whom he gave huge tax breaks and for whom he cut regulations, the military to which he just gave a $750 billion budget, a Republican Supreme Court and the right wing media such as Sinclair Broadcasting and Fox News he has maintained a steady base of support in the population.
Increasing a sense of dread has spread across our country, it appears possible that Trump may get reelected. Democracy and the rule of law are increasingly threatened.
Guest – Constitutional Lawyer, Burt Neuborne is the former legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union and has argued many cases before the US Supreme Court. Attorney Neuborne’s book “When at Times the Mob is Swayed” has been recently published by the New Press. He is currently the Norman Dorsen Professor of Civil Liberties at NYU School of Law.
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Amazon Ring Of Surveillance
When it comes to e-commerce, the multinational tech company Amazon.com has laid claim to a huge corner on the market. Now, it’s venturing into the business of surveillance.
Amazon is aggressively pursuing law enforcement partnerships. More than 400 police departments across the nation have already joined forces with the tech giant’s so-called smart doorbell program, called Ring. Part of Amazon’s outreach strategy in gaining new police partners is to play on fears of increasing property crime.
Ring doesn’t just show you who is at your door. It films and records any interaction or movement at owners’ doors, then alerts users’ phones. With partnerships between mega corporations and law enforcement to use new surveillance systems in the public–leaving out community input–come a host of civil liberties concerns, including racial profiling.
Guest – Matthew Guariglia of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Matthew is a policy analyst working on issues of surveillance and privacy at the local, state, and federal level. He is a frequent contributor to the Freedom of Information-centered outlet Muckrock and his bylines have appeared in the Washington Post and Motherboard.
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Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Human Trafficking
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Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents
America was settled and set up as a slave owning country. When it broke free of England it was finally able to expand westward, across the Appalachian mountains, committing genocide against the native Indian population. This is the sordid and hidden root history that truth telling historians have revealed to us.
In her new book Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents, author Margaret Kimberley explores America’s relationship with race through the lens of the presidents who have been chosen to represent all the people.
Ten of the 12 initial presidents of the USA were slave owners. Andrew Jackson, whose picture graces our twenty dollar bill, was an Indian killer. Lincoln was never an abolitionist. He wanted America for white people only and had a plan to send the formerly enslaved out of the country. One such plan briefly came to fruition in Haiti.
What about Presidents Roosevelt, Johnson, Clinton and Obama? Were they more sympathetic to the interest of black Americans?
Guest – Margaret Kimberley, a New York-based writer and activist. She has been an editor and senior columnist for Black Agenda Report since it’s inception in 2006. She is a contributor to the anthology In Defense of Julian Assange.
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Unchained At Last: Unarrange A Marriage; Rearrange A Life
Worldwide, increasing numbers of women and men are putting off marriage until they are older. Many are forgoing it altogether. In Denmark, for example, among women in their late 30s or early 40s, 29 percent are unmarried. That’s true for 18 percent in Italy, 22 percent in Lebanon; and 32 percent in Libya.
That’s why the following statistic is so shocking: Each year, before they reach the age of 18, 12 million girls will marry. It happens in every country, and cuts across religions, ethnic, and cultural divides. Over 650 million women alive today were married as girls.
Child marriage is a human rights violation. It places girls’ well-being and personal development at risk. Child brides are often isolated and feel disempowered. They are deprived of their fundamental rights to health, education and safety. Children aren’t physically or emotionally ready to become wives and mothers.
They have heightened health risks, from life-threatening complications in pregnancy and childbirth, to being victims of domestic violence or of contracting HIV/AIDS. They have limited access to education and economic opportunities, and a higher chance of living in poverty.
Guest – Fraidy Reiss, the founder and executive director of Unchained at Last. The nonprofit helps girls and women plan escapes from forced marriages and then rebuild their lives.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American
The men who wrote United States Constitution and the first Ten Amendments to it known as the Bill of Rights were mostly not Christians. America was not created as a Christian country. That is a myth. Nor was it founded on Judeo Christian principles. This is another myth. The founding fathers were deists. They were products of the enlightenment. They did not believe in a god that played any role in human affairs. They understood from European history the terrible consequences of not separating church and state.
Today’s Christian nationalists, evangelicals who are in truth white nationalists, are relentless in their attempts to tear down the wall of separation between church and state guaranteed by the first amendment. They want a theocracy where their fundamentalist religion rule us. These people have substantial political power. They are much of Trump’s base.
Guest – Attorney Andrew Seidel, a Constitutional litigator with the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the author of the just published book The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American.
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United States Supreme Court Cases Roundup
The Supreme Court is poised to hear several highly charged disputes as the justices return to the bench in 2020. It promises to be one of the most politically volatile terms in recent memory.
Since October, when the term opened, the court has heard high-profile disputes over LGBT rights in the workplace, the scope of the Second Amendment, and the deportation status of nearly 700,000 young undocumented immigrants.
The remaining cases on the court’s docket are equally explosive. The justices will confront novel separation of powers questions, including whether to release to investigators the financial records of Donald Trump. The Court will be asked to draw new lines between church and state. And for the first time since Trump’s two nominees joined the court, the justices will hear a case on abortion. profvwolfe.com
Guest – Attorney Zachary Wolfe teaches writing at George Washington University in Washington D.C., before which he worked at the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. Zak is the editor of Farnsworth on Contracts and author of Hate Crimes Law.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iran, Supreme Court, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Human Rights Attorney Michael Tigar
As we enter into the new decade we look back at where we have been, legally speaking, and where we are headed.
2020 began with President Donald Trump illegally and recklessly ordering the assassination of top Iranian general Qassem Suleimani who was on a peace mission in Iraq at the time he was killed by a US drone.
Although assassination has been secretly used by the US government since the formation of the CIA in 1947, Barack Obama, Trump’s predecessor, began the illegal extra-judicial open assassination of people in what was called “targeted killings.“ This included American citizens.
With regard to deportations, the Obama administration set a record by deporting more than 3 million people. Trump has continued massive deportations but also has illegally frustrated and prevented people fleeing political repression from seeking asylum in America, separating children from families and caging them in a process that continues.
The Authorization for the Use of Military Force was voted on shortly after 9/11 to justify the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan. The AUMF has been used illegally to justify the presence of American troops in the Middle East since then. It was recently renewed.
The Patriot Act has also been renewed, allowing for massive US government surveillance of American citizens in the illegal derogation of their Fourth Amendment right to privacy democratic rights and the rule of law are in obvious, unprecedented, serious jeopardy.
Truth telling whistle blowing Australian journalist Julian Assange, in the most important first amendment civil liberty case, is about to be extradited from London to Virginia where he faces espionage charges. The issue is his right to be a journalist and our right to know. If convicted he will go to prison for life destroying investigative journalism in areas the government deems “national security.“
The peoples’ constitutional right to impeach a president is also in jeopardy. The Democratic party’s attempt to remove Donald Trump from office is sure to fail because of Trump and the Republicans’ refusal to honor the constitution and allow for a fair trial in the Senate.
Trump has appointed hundreds of reactionary judges to the federal trial and appellate benches. A woman’s right to control her own body, decided in the famous case of “Roe vs Wade”, will be decided by the Supreme Court whose ranks have been bolstered by two additional reactionary judges, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.
The separation of church and state and the separation of powers are also in jeopardy.
Guest – Human rights attorney Michael Tigar, a veteran of 1960s activism. He’s appeared many times before the Supreme Court, taught law at three schools and has written numerous books including the now classic, Law and the Rise of Capitalism and most recently Mythologies of State and Monopoly Power.
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