Law and Disorder

June 17, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs

Defense for Children International ” Palestine v. Biden and A Century Of Repression: The Espionage Act And Freedom Of The Press

Defense for Children International " Palestine v. Biden
There are defendants in a lawsuit brought in the northern district of California called Defense for Children International" Palestine v. Biden. The plaintiffs are represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights and attorney Marc Vander Hout. We're going to talk about this lawsuit against President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Austin. The court denied the Center for Constitutional Rights preliminary injunction motion and granted the governments motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that it lacked jurisdiction over the administration of foreign relations. The CCR appealed the decision. The appeal was argued on June 10, 2024. Guest " Attorney Katherine Gallagher is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights . Her areas of legal expertise include matters of torture, war crimes and militarism.

A Century Of Repression: The Espionage Act And Freedom Of The Press
According to a recently-released report, more than half of the worlds population now lives in countries that are in a state of crisis regarding freedom of speech. The United States is only adding gasoline to a media-freedom fire by pursuing an ongoing prosecution and attempting to extradite WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange under a 100-year-old US law called the Espionage Act of 1917. This prosecution threatens to set a dangerous precedent for journalists everywhere during these perilous times. Guest " Carey Shenkman, is a constitutional lawyer and serves on a panel of experts at Columbia University's Global Freedom of Expression Program. He is co-author, along with Ralph Engelman, of A Century Of Repression: The Espionage Act And Freedom Of The Press.

June 10, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs

I Am Gitmo and 22 Years of Guantanamo Bay Detention Center

I Am Gitmo
Four months after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. And that was when we started seeing images of men and boys arriving there, bound and hooded, in orange jumpsuits, confined indefinitely without charges, legal process or trials. It was not long after that we began hearing reports that the US government was using torture, and even that prisoners were dying there ". In 2009, President Obama took steps to close Guantanamo but in 2018, Trump signed an executive order to keep it open. President Biden then came in, signaling hed close it, but the subject has been largely ignored ever since. Today, thirty prisoners remain. Guest - Philippe Diaz, a filmmaker who is shining a spotlight on the humanity of the men and boys who have lived " and some who have died " in Guantanamo. His latest film, the award-winning I Am Gitmo, is a story about a Muslim schoolteacher in Afghanistan who was accused of being involved in the September 11th attacks and imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay prison without charges or hope of being released.

22 Years of Guantanamo Bay Detention Center
The notorious detention center at Guantanamo Bay is high among the most shameful steps taken during George W. Bush's War on Terror. It remains a symbol of lawlessness and human rights abuses. In a recent letter, 17 US Senators, argued that the detention facility continues to harm U.S. national security by serving as a propaganda tool for Americas enemies and hinder counterterrorism efforts and cooperation with allies. None of the innocent detainees has ever been compensated for their wrongful detention. Sadly, Guantanamo is but one example of the forms of torture which the United States engages in and supports. Guest - Rev. Ron Stief, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, who is the Executive Director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), an interfaith organization of more than 325 religious organizations committed to ending U.S.-sponsored torture.

June 3, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs

Counter Protest Tactics Attempt To Plague University Anti-Genocide Encampments and NYU Encampment and Arrests

Counter Protest Tactics Attempt To Plague University Anti-Genocide Encampments
As the Israel-Gaza War rages on, protests have spread throughout American campuses as students oppose Israeli's military onslaught and the tragic humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Student have demanded a ceasefire, an end to US military support for Israel and that universities divest from Israel. In response, University officials have suspended and expelled students, banned pro-Palestinian student groups, called in the police and sent mixed messages on students' right to free speech. At UCLA, a group of counter protesters launched a violent attack on pro-Palestinian protesters. Guest - Salam Al-Marayati, president and co-founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, where he oversees MPACs groundbreaking civic engagement, public policy, and advocacy work.

NYU Encampment and Arrests
In early May, New York Police Department officers demolished pro-Palestinian encampments, and arrested 56 student protesters, at New York University and the New School. Officials at both universities enlisted the police to assistance in tearing down the tents. Supporting student protesters at several NYC campuses has been Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has called in to address them from Mahanoy state prison in Pennsylvania. Mumia has told students that they are on the right side of history by electing not to be silent and to speak out. Guest - Xavier Fitzsimmons-Cruz, Xavier recently earned his masters degree at NYU; this fall he will begin working toward his PhD in history at the City University of New York.

May 27, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs

Remembering Cultural Historian and Scholar Bruce Franklin – Crash Course : From the Good War to the Forever War

We remember cultural historian and scholar Bruce Franklin. H. Bruce Franklin, a regular guest here on Law and Disorder, passed away last week, on May 19, at the age of 90. He was one of the country's leading historians, and a scholar in American studies, science fiction, and other diverse fields. Bruce Franklin's memory lives on through his many books, and his hundreds of professional articles.

Crash Course : From the Good War to the Forever War
US Army Ranger turned conscientious objector Rory Fanning recently wrote in this in The Guardian newspaper: Last week Sunday ,November 11, we celebrated Veterans Day. It used to be called Armistice Day and was a celebration of peace after the slaughter of World War One. Now it is called Veterans Day. The United States has 668 military bases around the globe. The United States has conducted military operations in 2/3 of the worlds countries since September 11, 2001. It has spent 3/4 of $1 trillion each year on its military " more than the next 13 countries combined. The US has taken hundreds of thousands of lives around the world these past 14 years and shows no signs of slowing down. Guest " H. Bruce Franklin, is one of Americas leading cultural historians, H. Bruce Franklin is the author or editor of nineteen books and more than 300 articles on culture and history.

May 20, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs

The More Effective Of Two Evils and Early Detection: Catching Cancer When Its Curable

The More Effective Of Two Evils
The necessity for independent political action, independent of both the Republican and the Democratic parties, is the lesson many social activists are drawing. The journalist, Glen Ford, of the Black Agenda Report , coined the phrase the more effective of two evils in describing the Democratic Party. The Democrats are trying to beat people into their camp by haranguing about how horrible Trump is. That's true. But look at how effective Biden has been in supporting the Israeli genocide. It has only been the independent action of the courageous students that may succeed in tempering the onslaught. It has already had some effect. Activist are now focusing on the fact that it was the Democratic Party on a national and local scale that coordinated attacks on the Palestine solidarity encampments. Just as they did under Obama in closing down Occupy. The Democrats prevented Bernie Sanders from getting the nomination. Had he not supported the Democrats and became an independent our movement would've been much more effective than his lobbing Biden. He has been reduced to the edge of relevance. Significant social change comes from organizing people independently. The rise of the CIO, the civil rights movement and the movement to end the war in Vietnam are illustrations of this truth. Guest - Chris Hedges, the journalist and author about the collapsing media landscape.

Early Detection: Catching Cancer When Its Curable
The war on cancer declared by President Richard Nixon over 50 years ago has been a failure. Mortality rates for victims of cancer have not decreased, except for the successful campaign against smoking. Most money spent on fighting cancer by big pharmaceutical companies goes into researching and developing medicines for late-stage cancers. These medicines have proven to only prolong life for several months. So, what is the answer to truly combating cancer? Early detection. And it must be quite early on. Funds currently misdirected could be used in this effort. Prostate, breast, colorectal, and lung cancers can be detected early. But too often they are not. Even when they are, many people dont follow up with treatment. A blood test has been developed to identify 50 different cancers. But what's missing is a massive program of education and organization to catch cancer in its early stages. Guest - Bruce Ratner studied science at Harvard, graduated from Columbia law school. He has initiated the Michael D. Ratner Center for Early Detection of Cancer.

May 13, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs

Free Speech: Protest Testing The Limits Of Protection

Free Speech: Protest Testing The Limits Of Protection
As controversy rages over protests, encampments, and arrests at hundreds of college campuses around the country, in reaction to the war in the Middle East, free speech is once again at the forefront of national debate. Time and again in American history, the nation has been gripped by the complex question of whether certain speech is or is not protected by the First Amendment. Recently, college presidents have been under fire for failing to protect free speech or for going too far in tolerating free speech. Some have been forced to resign and others have called in the police. Students have been attacked; others have been suspended; student political organizations have been banned. What's going on and where does the First Amendment fit into all this? Guest - Nadine Strossen, a leading expert on constitutional law and the First Amendment. Nadine Strossen is Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law School and served as President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 until 2008.

May 6, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs

Police, Politics And Violent Repression Against Pro-Palestine Student Protest and Legacy of Protest At Columbia University

Police, Politics And Violent Repression Against Pro-Palestine Student Protest
College administrators are calling local armed police "some in riot gear" to arrest and in many instances brutalize hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters in actions and encampments sweeping the nation. More than 1,000 protesters have been arrested over the last two weeks on campuses in states including Texas, Utah, Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico, Connecticut, Louisiana, California and New Jersey. At UCLA, last week, after pro-Israel supporters carrying symbols of radical Jewish groups, not of student age, allegedly threw fireworks into a solidarity encampment, students defending the camp were attacked with stones and sticks. Yet, after an hour of violence, police standing nearby failed to intervene.
Guest - attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and the Center for Protest Law and Litigation in Washington, DC.

Legacy of Protest At Columbia University
One of the great events of the 60s is the Columbia student takeover of several key buildings on their campus in protest of the university's complicity in the war against the Vietnamese people. The takeover was also a protest to building a gym in a public park in Harlem adjacent to Columbia University, considered to be a racist act. The student actions at Columbia brought down a terrific repression. Hundreds of students were arrested and beaten. Our own Michael Ratner, a cofounder of Law and Disorder, and a law student at Columbia, was also beaten by the police. Guest - anti-Vietnam war activist Eleanor Stein, like Michael, she was a student at the law school. Eleanor Stein went on to become an attorney, she is a climate change, environmental justice and human rights activist and advocate.

April 29, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs

Nationwide Peaceful Protests Against Genocide In Palestine and Julian Assange Extradition Case Update

Nationwide Peaceful Protests Against Genocide In Palestine
Around the nation, peaceful campus protests against the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza are spreading. And they're meeting with a rash of arrests by local police departments, dozens of school suspensions, and evictions from student dormitories. Many of those evicted have been students of colors, students with disabilities, and first-generation students. All this because they took part at the large protest. In an April 23 letter to the New York Times, nearly 60 parents of students at Columbia and Barnard, from a variety of religious faiths ad social backgrounds wrote that they find the actions taken by the administration deeply troubling and contrary to the principles of liberty, justice and academic freedom that are fundamental to the mission of higher education. Guest - Brian Becker is the director of the Answer Coalition, a founder of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and host of The Socialist Program.

Julian Assange Extradition Case Update
Regarded by many as the greatest journalist of our generation for exposing American war crimes Julian Assange is about to be extradited at America's request to a federal criminal court in Virginia to be tried for his journalistic activities which exposed extensive murderous American crimes and embarrassed the US government particularly the CIA. WikiLeaks exposed American torture in Afghanistan. They published a video of an American gunship helicopter murdering Iraqi civilians, even children, and two Reuters journalists on the streets of Baghdad. Now the United States has succeeded in getting a compliant British court to extradite Julian , despite the law, preventing extradition of political prisoners, especially to a country that has the death penalty, and no guarantee of free speech for foreigners. Guest - Vincent De Stefano is the National Organizing Director of the U.S. Julian Assange Defense Committee. Mr. De Stefano is on the Southern California ACLU board of directors and executive committee and he has worked with Amnesty International for more than four decades.

April 22, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs

It Was Genocide: Armenian Survivor Stories

It Was Genocide: Armenian Survivor Stories
Around the world, April 24 marks the observance of the Armenian Genocide. On that day in 1915 the Interior Minister of the Ottoman Empire ordered the arrest and hangings of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. It was the beginning of a systematic and well-documented plan to eliminate the Armenians, who were Christian, and who had been under Ottoman rule and treated as second class citizens since the 15th century. Why did this happen? Despite being deemed inferior to Turkish Muslims, the Armenian community had attained a prestigious position in the Ottoman Empire and the central authorities there grew apprehensive of their power and longing for a homeland. The concerted plan of deportation and extermination was effected, in large part, because World War I demanded the involvement and concern of potential allied countries. Pope Frances calls it a duty not to forget the senseless slaughter of an estimated one and a half million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks from 1915 to 1923. Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it, Special thanks to Jennie Garabedian, Arthur Sheverdian, Ruth Swisher, Harry Mazadoorian, and Roxie Maljanian. Produced and written by Heidi Boghosian and Geoff Brady.

April 15, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs

Deluge: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm and Pro-Palestine Protestors Target of Covert Israel Campaign

Deluge: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm
In the last six months of the war by Israel against the Palestinian population of Gaza, a truth has become quite clear: The war is not one of self-defense. And moreover, the October 7 attack by Hamas in southern Israel is being used by the Netanyahu government as a pretext for ethnically cleansing the 2.2 million Palestinians who live there, and get them out of the Gaza Strip. Israel, like America, is a colonial settlers state. It was built on top of an indigenous population whose removal was necessary to establish the new state of Israel. The Palestinians, who were the majority, never got their own state. Three quarters of 1 million of them were driven out, many ended up as refugees in the Gaza Strip. Israel and the United States have crippled the United Nations and undermined international law. The International Court of Justice , the highest court in the world,ruled that Israel was plausibly committing a genocide. This ruling has been ignored by Israel and the United States. Guest - OR Books associate editor Jamie Stern Weiner author of the recently published book Deluge: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm.

Pro-Palestine Protestors Target of Covert Israel Campaign
Well, the cat is now definitely out of the bag. What many of us have long suspected, our guest today has now documented. It is that the Israeli government created a task force to plan and carry out a covert campaign to disrupt and punish pro-Palestinian protesters on the college and university campuses of the United States. And the plan is in full operation. It was first reported in the Israeli website Ynetnews, one of the largest and greatly respected media outlets in Israel. Guest - Professor William Robinson is the Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Global and International Studies, and Latin American and Iberian Studies. He is also a member of the Affiliated Faculty, Chicana and Chicano Studies, all at the University of California, at Santa Barbara.