CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, NSA Spying, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Update:
- Remembering Julian Bond, Social Activist, Civil Rights Leader, Politician, Professor and Author.
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Heidi Boghosian: Prevent Police Killings Before They Happen
America has awakened in the past year to the epidemic of police killings of unarmed civilians, many of whom are African-American. The list of names grows longer by the week — Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Rekia Boyd, John Crawford and Sandra Bland to name several recently. Each time one of these criminal acts is committed, a cry goes up to prosecute the police officer responsible and bring justice to the victim. Read More.
Attorney Heidi Boghosian is the executive director of the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute, a nonprofit charitable foundation providing support to the nonviolent movement for social change. Before that she was executive director of the National Lawyers Guild. She is author of the book “Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance” (City Lights, 2013).
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Ellen Ray: Co-Publisher of Covert Action Information Bulletin
Last week family and friends gathered at St Marks In The Bowery Church to remember documentary filmmaker, publisher, journalist and activist Ellen Ray. Ellen Ray was co-publisher of the magazine Covert Action Information Bulletin, which exposed CIA covert actions around the world, publishing the names of hundreds of CIA agents. As a result, the law changed (The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982) making it illegal. As head of Sheridan Square Press, Ellen Ray published the memoir of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, which became the basis of Oliver Stone’s film, “JFK.” Ray is survived by her husband, attorney Bill Schaap, she was 75. Text of the speech by Michael Smith. Here is the video produced Joe Friendly.
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Different Ways to Skin a Cat: From the US Assassination of Che to Obama’s Recognition of Cuba
We hear a speech delivered by our own Michael Smith at Socialism Conference in Chicago titled Different Ways to Skin a Cat: From the US Assassination of Che to Obama’s Recognition of Cuba. The highpoint of U.S. counter-revolutionary policy towards Latin America came with its murder of Che Guevara, in Bolivia and the overthrow of governments including Allende’s in Chile, thus isolating Cuba throughout Latin America. Now the U.S. is isolated and the American government has had to change its tactics. The strategy of overthrowing the gains of the Cuban revolution and capitalist restoration remain.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Iraq War, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Coalition of Immokalee Workers: A Big Victory For Farm Workers
Co-host attorney Michael Ratner discusses the landmark development for the Fair Food Program plus the work of Jake Ratner and Elena Stein. Ahold USA and the Coalition for Immokalee Workers announced that Ahold has agreed to join the award-winning social responsibility program, bringing worker-certified Fair Food tomatoes to over 50 million new customers a month in nearly 780 new stores in 14 states.
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100th Anniversary of the United States Occupation of Haiti
Co-host attorney Michael Ratner describes key politically historic events in the colonizing of Haiti as July 28, 2015 marks the 100th anniversary of the commencement of the U.S. occupation of Haiti. Suggested reading – The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution
Law and Disorder Co-host Attorney Michael Ratner, President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a non-profit human rights litigation organization based in New York City and president of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) based in Berlin. Ratner and CCR are currently the attorneys in the United States for publishers Julian Assange and Wikileaks. He was co-counsel in representing the Guantanamo Bay detainees in the United States Supreme Court, where, in June 2004, the court decided his clients have the right to test the legality of their detentions in court. Ratner is also a past president of the National Lawyers Guild and the author of numerous books and articles, including the books Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away With Murder, The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book, Against War with Iraq and Guantanamo: What the World Should Know, as well as a textbook on international human rights.
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Against All Odds: Voices of Popular Struggle In Iraq
Long before the US imposed sanctions in Iraq, and long before the brutal and unlawful invasion, our government supported a dictatorship and attendant torture and extermination. Individuals engaging in acts of resistance in Iraq faced mass rapes, enslavement and massacres. Missing from our country’s media coverage and political narrative surrounding Iraq are the courageous stories of progressive Iraqi voices.
Activist Ali Issa’s recent book Against All Odds: Voices of Popular Struggle In Iraq goes a long way toward filling this void. An organizer with the War Resisters League, he has assembled a rich account of Iraqi organizers and revolutionaries–their analysis, their political works, their visions, their challenges. This important compendium provides much-needed insight to the committed and just-minded individuals who worked to rebuild society and social institutions amidst disappearances and assassinations.
Guest – Ali Issa is the National Field Organizer for the War Resisters League. He is author of the forthcoming book Against All Odds: Voices of Popular Struggle in Iraq. It’s published by Tadween Publishing and the War Resisters league.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights
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Updates:
- Proposal To Add Women To Central Park Statues. Yes! But How About Black Women? Such As Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman.
- Yes, Victory For Iran, But At Its Heart Still Imperialism, Just Softer And With Israel’s 200 Nukes?
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The Ongoing Racial Crisis In The United States
In his recent article No ‘Je Suis Charleston’?: The De-politicization of Black Oppression veteran grassroots activist Ajamu Baraka asks where is the international solidarity with African Americans and world leaders? He joins us to discuss the ongoing racial crisis in the United States and its connection with the capitalist model.
Guest – Ajamu Baraka, Longtime activist, veteran of Black Liberation Movement, Human Rights defender, Former founding director of US Human Rights Network, currently Public Intervenon for Human Rights with Green Shadow Cabinet, member of Coordinating Committee of Black Left Unity Network and Associate Fellow at IPS. He is a human rights defender whose experience spans three decades of domestic and international education and activism, Ajamu Baraka is a veteran grassroots organizer whose roots are in the Black Liberation Movement and anti-apartheid and Central American solidarity struggles.
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Legal Framework To Litigate Climate Change Gains Traction
In a recent development, courts are requiring governments to take adequate actions to limit greenhouse gas emissions. This past June in the Netherlands, the news spread as judges ordered governments under the Kyoto Protocol to step up their game to protect their citizens from the dangerous impacts of climate change. Urgenda OurChildrenTrust.org
Guest – Eleanor Stein, a judge and an energy and environmental lawyer specializing in climate change. She teaches law of climate change: domestic & international at Albany Law School and the State University of New York. She is on the board of Eco-Viva, a US group in solidarity with rural sustainability and climate adaptation organizers in El Salvador and she is currently completing an LLM degree in international climate change law at Strathclyde University in Glasgow.
Guest – Alex Geert Castermans is Professor of Private Law at Leiden University. He is interested in the interaction between European Law and Dutch private law. His human rights writings include exploration of the legal liability of Dutch parent companies for subsidiaries’ involvement in violations of fundamental, internationally recognized rights, including environmental rights. He is currently writing on issues of poverty and climate change.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Gaza, Human Rights, NSA Spying, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Targeting Muslims, Torture
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Updates:
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UN Human Rights Report Finds Israel Committed War Crimes and Unprecedented Devastation in 2014 Gaza War
Recently the United Nations issued a report on Israel’s attack on Gaza in the summer of 2014. The results were devastating again for Israel. The report also covered illegal Israeli settlements as well as house demolitions. Another section dealt with rockets that came from Gaza and went into Israel. What can we expect the result of this report to be? Will it be like the other ones, simply good reading or bad reading and shelved again? Will the UN act to do something with it? Will it go to the International Criminal Court? Again, we don’t know.
Guest – Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian lawyer and a former spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization. Best known for her work as a legal adviser and a participant in peace negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian organizations, she has since been associated with Stanford University, Harvard University, and the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU).
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ICE Detention Center Standards Improve, Being Released is Now More Difficult
When women and children from Central America seek asylum and are captured at the US border, some are arrested and sent to a detention center in Artesia, New Mexico. Run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, there are no legal services providers in the state funded to represent persons in detention. The Obama administration has made clear that immigrants’ cases must be processed as quickly as possible, and that most should be deported, increasing the likelihood that detainees are deprived the chance to exercise their rights.
To help ensure that women in detention get legal help in navigating a complex and difficult-to-understand process, a small group of volunteer attorneys organized by the American Immigration Lawyers Association works at the center 12 hours a day. The court process in Artesia has been described as a “s#%*show” where judges refuse to let lawyers speak during hearings, detainees clearly worthy of asylum are denied, and no one will articulate the legal basis for judges and asylum officers’ decisions. Most women in detention do not understand that they can ask for time to locate an attorney or that they cannot be deported without having an opportunity to present their case.
Guest – Attorney Laura Lichter, former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. (“AILA”), the premier bar association of immigration lawyers and law professors in the U.S. She has been an elected member of AILA’s national leadership for over a decade and has served as the association’s top liaison to the key immigration enforcement bureaus of the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is responsible for immigration investigations, prosecution, detention and removal operations, and the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), which oversees the nation’s immigration court system. Ms. Lichter is AILA’s liaison to the American Bar Association’s Commission on Immigration and serves on the Federal Bar Association’s Immigration Law Section Advisory Board. Ms. Lichter recently served on the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) Task Force on ICE’s Secure Communities program, reporting to findings on the ICE enforcement initiative to DHS Secretary Napolitano. Based in Denver, she is the former Chair of AILA’s Colorado Chapter. Ms. Lichter’s practice focuses on the representation of foreign nationals in removal proceedings, contested family and naturalization applications, administrative appeals, and related federal district and appellate court litigation.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Targeting Muslims, War Resister
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Updates:
- Michael Smith: Supreme Court Justice Scalia Calls Justice Ginsberg, “Goldberg”
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Law and Disorder Hosts Remember Ellen Ray, Co-Publisher of Covert Action Information Bulletin
Law and Disorder hosts remember Ellen Ray. She was a documentary filmmaker, publisher, journalist and activist. Ellen Ray was co-publisher of the magazine Covert Action Information Bulletin, which exposed CIA covert actions around the world, publishing the names of hundreds of CIA agents. As a result, the law changed (The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982) making it illegal. As head of Sheridan Square Press, Ellen Ray published the memoir of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, which became the basis of Oliver Stone’s film, “JFK.” Ray is survived by her husband, attorney Bill Schaap, she was 75.
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Magna Carta and Charter of the Forest 800 Year Anniversary
Law and Disorder Co-host Michael Ratner describes the meaning behind “Freedom Under Law” inscribed on a plinth that’s erected at the site commemorating the Magna Carta in England. Michael references past guest Peter Linebaugh and his books including The London Hanged when discussing the sister document The Charter of the Forest. The Charter of the Forest formed the protection of subsistence rights for people to the woodlands. The woods was the form that hydrocarbon energy took. There’s a parallel with the protection of woodlands for all, back then, and our own oil economy. Common Rights for oil, share in the wealth of commons.
Law and Disorder Co-host Attorney Michael Ratner, President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a non-profit human rights litigation organization based in New York City and president of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) based in Berlin. Ratner and CCR are currently the attorneys in the United States for publishers Julian Assange and Wikileaks. He was co-counsel in representing the Guantanamo Bay detainees in the United States Supreme Court, where, in June 2004, the court decided his clients have the right to test the legality of their detentions in court. Ratner is also a past president of the National Lawyers Guild and the author of numerous books and articles, including the books Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away With Murder, The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book, Against War with Iraq and Guantanamo: What the World Should Know, as well as a textbook on international human rights.
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Academic Freedom Case Update: Professor Steven Salaita
Today we want to bring you important updates on the case of Professor Steven Salaita. Steven Salaita was about to take his tenured job at the University of Illinois-Urbana when he got fired. He got fired because of his impassioned defense of Palestinians and his criticism of the massive Gaza war that was killing thousands of Palestinians. He brought a lawsuit and is represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights and a firm in Chicago Loevy and Loevy. As part of the whole process of fighting back against the University of Illinois, lawyers filed a FOIA request for all the letters sent to the University of Illinois regarding Steven Salaita. A lot of these most likely came from donors who were objecting to the hiring of Steven Salaita. We don’t know yet but last the court gave an order that 9000 emails to Steven Salaita and his lawyers. We’ll talk about that victory. In addition there was a meeting last week of the AAUP, the American Association of University Professors and they censured the University of Illinois Urbana for firing Steven Salaita.
Guest – Maria LaHood, Deputy Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights with expertise in constitutional rights and international human rights. She works to defend the constitutional rights of Palestinian human rights advocates in the United States in cases such as Davis v. Cox, defending Olympia Food Co-op board members for boycotting Israeli goods; Salaita v. Kennedy,representing Steven Salaita, who was terminated from a tenured position for tweets critical of Israel; and CCR v. DOD, seeking U.S. government records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regarding Israel’s 2010 attack on the flotilla to Gaza. She works closely with Palestine Legal to support students and others whose speech is being suppressed for their Palestine advocacy around the country. She also works on the Right to Heal initiative with Iraqi civil society and Iraq Veterans seeking accountability for the lasting health effects of the Iraq war.
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