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Shahid Buttar of BORDC on the struggle to maintain our Constitutional rights in the face of our emerging police state, co-hosted with Sibel Edmonds.
This is Part I of our interview series on the Makings of a Police State.
Shahid Buttar joins us to discuss the continuous erosion of our civil liberties from illegal domestic surveillance to Guantanamo, NDAA and its discretionary detention provision authorizing the President to detain Americans accused by the government of supporting terrorism. Buttar talks about the many abuses committed by the unchecked Federal Bureau of Investigation, the extension of FBI Director Robert Mueller’s Term quietly and readily by Congress, its significance and troubling implications, the capacity of the FBI to be used for political purposes established since the Hoover days, the US media’s silence on this significant issue, and more!
Shahid Buttar is the executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and the People’s Campaign for the Constitution (PCC). He received his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 2003, where he served as executive editor of the Stanford Environmental Law Journal and as Professor Lawrence Lessig’s teaching assistant for Constitutional Law. In addition to his work leading BORDC, Shahid serves on the advisory bodies of the Rights Working Group, the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms, and the National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights. He also supports populist constitutionalism as a civil rights lawyer, independent columnist, community organizer, and hip-hop and electronica MC. In his creative capacities as a poet and musician, Buttar has performed around the world, co-founded several grassroots art and culture groups around the country, facilitated workshops for young people and emerging artists. His personal website is here.