Unauthorized Disclosure

This week on “Unauthorized Disclosure,” Patrick Strickland, who is an independent journalist and contributor to The Electronic Intifada and Al Jazeera English, talks to us from Beirut, Lebanon. He discusses his reporting on the Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria, a Palestinian refugee camp which has been under siege. He talks to us about the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon. Strickland also describes how ISIS and Jabhat al Nusra are taking over some of these camps with Palestinian refugees.

In the second half, during the discussion part of the show, hosts Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola highlight the refugee crisis in Europe and, separately, how President Barack Obama’s administration has fought to continue detaining refugee mothers and children from Central America. We also talk about North Dakota becoming the first state, where drones can be weaponized with tear gas or tasers, the FBI setting up a cell phone surveillance system in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and the latest appalling aspects of the Obama administration’s effort to keep a gravely ill Guantanamo prisoner detained indefinitely.

Direct download: S2E27.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:22am EDT

Imraan Siddiqi, a blogger and the chairman of the Arizona chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), joins the show to talk about anti-Muslim hysteria and racism in the United States. We talk about the threat against American Muslims from right-wing groups, including calls from people like former Marine Jon Ritzheimer to hold armed protests outside a mosque in Phoenix (which is where Siddiqi is based). We discuss a released May bulletin from the FBI warning militia extremists are increasingly targeting Muslims. We highlight how rhetoric promoting fear against Muslims spreads in this country.

In the second half, we continue our interview with Siddiqi by talking about white men attempting to frame American Muslims for terrorist plots by faking the plots themselves. We highlight a case in New York involving a KKK man, who wanted to build a death-ray machine to kill Muslims and essentially was entrapped by the FBI. And then, we spend the rest of the episode talking about mosques in the United States and what it is like for American Muslims to have agents and informants working for the FBI infiltrating their communities.

 

 

 

 

Direct download: S2E26.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:48am EDT

The guest this week is Page May, a Chicago-based organizer with the local group, We Charge Genocide. She describes organizing against stop and frisks by Chicago police and how the ACLU of Illinois essentially snubbed activists they had claimed to be working with when the ACLU negotiated a settlement. May reacts to the contents of the settlement and talks about an ordinance for addressing stop and frisks, which activists planned to introduce in the city council until the ACLU and City of Chicago forced the activists to delay introduction. 

During the show's discussion, the hosts talk about Israel's skunk weapon, various updates on news from Israel, the gravely ill Guantanamo prisoner, Tariq Ba Odah, who the Obama administration opposes releasing from the military prison, and we follow-up on last week's episode where we talked about Bernie Sanders and Black Lives Matter activists. 

Direct download: S2E25.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:57am EDT

Douglas Williams, a writer at TheSouthLawn.org and a doctoral student at Wayne State University in Detroit, is our guest this week. We talk to him about Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, and the critique of Bernie Sanders not talking about race enough. He discusses how Democratic presidential candidates are using the "Black Lives Matter" mantra to make their campaigns relevant. We highlight Bernie Sanders' record in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which played a key role in the civil rights movement. We also talk about the problems the movement has with solidarity organizing and the role of white "allies" in organizing against institutional racism. 


 

 

Direct download: S2E24edit.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:04pm EDT

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