Posted on Categories Podcast Info, Politics

Shahid Buttar: Fix Patriot Act; Dahr Jamail: Unembedded on the BP Gulf

Shahid Buttar speaks for 46 organizations calling for reform of the Patriot Act, just renewed with little debate. Journalist Dahr Jamail on the toxic and chaotic cleanup of the BP oil calamity.
Buttar is a civil rights lawyer and executive director of Bill of Rights Committee, and along with 45 other organizations, they have sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary committee linking FBI’s present violations of civil liberties to COINTELPRO in the 1960’s. Buttar is smart and passionate about the Constitution; he’s also a poet and musician with a cool site here. And he’s too polite–he waited till after the interview to correct my mispronunciation of his last name (it’s boot-tar, not butter). Dahr Jamail has filed many reports with us on Iraq, but lately he has been covering the carnage caused by the BP oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. In this segment, which starts about 46:30, he takes on Ken Feinberg, who is handing out BP’s money, talks about the strong and immediate health reactions from exposure to crude oil and the toxic dispersants they are using, the problems encountered by cleanup workers, and the waves of crab coming ashore to escape poisoning. Find Jamail’s reports at Truthout and his personal site.