The Bothwell Letter

News from the Law Offices of Anthony P. X. Bothwell
350 Bay Street, Suite 100 PMB314, San Francisco, CA 94133-1966 Tel. (415) 370-9571
April 28, 2003 Vol. V / No. 2 contact@apxbothwell.com

SALZBURG MEETING LOOKS AT TERROR IMPACTS
If someone had wanted to cause the American public to support expansion of police powers at home and a more assertive military stance in the world, no more effective catalyst could have been devised than to allow 9/11 to happen. So says Atty. Tony Bothwell of San Francisco in remarks prepared for delivery to a terrorism law conference May 5 in Salzburg, Austria. “Competent analysis of intelligence data and enforcement of existing laws would have proven more effective than incursions on civil liberties,” he tells the meeting sponsored by the Center for International Legal Studies. “One way to kill the prince is simply to let down the palace guard,” he says metaphorically to the session at Salzburg’s historic Leopoldskron Palace. His presentation focuses on terrorism’s psychological impacts on judges and legislators.

SECURITY HARMED BY BUREAUCRATIC ‘MALAISE’
“A legal scholar and expert on fighting terrorism spoke to the Napa Kiwanis Club last week about the need to enforce our nation's security laws,” said an editorial in The Napa News. “His speech was shocking because he made the point that America is still asleep when it comes to the enforcement of security measures and the prosecution of those who fail to enforce them,” the Mar. 12 editorial said. "‘There is a malaise…throughout the federal establishment,’ said Anthony Bothwell. ‘People have a fear of accountability….’ Bothwell, a San Francisco attorney who represents whistleblowers reporting holes in government security, says the federal bureaucracy conditions security workers to care more about not rocking the boat than actually reporting security flaws. Quoting Thomas Schelling's forward in Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision, by Roberta Wohlstetter, he said the problem ‘includes the unalert watchman, but also the one who knows he'll be chewed out by his superior if he gets higher authority out of bed.’”

LIVERMORE WHISTLEBLOWER GETS HIS JOB BACK
Matthew Zipoli, an antiterror specialist and security guard at the Livermore nuclear weapons lab, won his job back after being fired for blowing the whistle on security shortfalls. A page one story in The Oakland Tribune reported Feb. 1: "‘The sad truth is the Lawrence Livermore national lab has fundamentally the same problem as Los Alamos lab has,’ said former Livermore lab public affairs director Anthony Bothwell, one of Zipoli's attorneys. ‘It's a problem of a management mentality which takes the view that it's better to cover up wrongdoing and deficiencies and security problems and not let the public find out about it,’ Bothwell said. ‘Better to do that than to prosecute and disclose it. Because the predominant mentality of the management of these laboratories is protecting against political embarrassment or press embarrassment. That becomes the highest value, and that shouldn't be the highest value. The highest value should be the public interest.’” Bothwell has been working with the Government Accountability Project on the Zipoli case. He also has met with Bruce Darling, senior vice president of the University of California, which runs the lab, and on Apr. 14 filed a complaint with the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Energy regarding dangerous lab security shortcomings.

CONGRESS TAKES INTEREST IN PILOTS’ CAUSE
Moves on Capitol Hill to undo mandatory age 60 retirement of airline pilots have followed national publicity about the Professional Pilots Federation petition to the Federal Aviation Administration. The lead story in the federation’s March newsletter quotes Atty. Tony Bothwell as saying, "I believe our petition is so powerful that it has shaken the powers that be and altered the politics of the issue." If the FAA follows bureaucratic custom and rejects the petition, Bothwell plans to argue the case before the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in his hometown, Washington, DC. “We think the court will be interested in internal FAA documents showing that the agency misrepresented pilot age-safety data,” he said.

CHINA’S COURTS OPEN TO W.T.O. CLAIMS
Firms claiming that China has violated World Trade Organization fair-trade obligations now can sue in Chinese courts, according to a forthcoming study, “Judicial Review of International Trade Administration: People’s Court Takes the First Drive to Honor China’s WTO Commitments,”
co-authored by Hong-liu Gong, advisor, Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China, and Atty. Tony Bothwell of San Francisco.

CLIENTS AND OTHER LAW FIRMS ASSISTED
Law Offices of Anthony P. X. Bothwell have helped clients win remedies ranging from a $3,000 claim against a bed manufacturer to $300,000 damages in a government whistleblower case. “We’ve stood up to the City of San Francisco, the U.S. departments of Interior, Energy, Treasury and Justice, and multibillion-dollar corporate interests. And we’ve been counseling other law firms on political and media aspects of litigation.” Bothwell’s pro bono work supports rights of Native American Indians.

L.S.A.T. STUDY NOTED IN TEXAS AND CALIFORNIA
“The Law School Admission Test Scandal: Problems of Bias and Conflicts of Interest,” a study published in the latest issue of Thurgood Marshall Law Review in Houston, was spotlighted in page-one stories in The Oakland Post and the National Lawyers Guild Bay Area chapter newsletter. The study by Atty. Tony Bothwell reveals racial bias in the LSAT and apparent conflicts of interest afflicting the Law School Admission Council, which administers the test.

‘LAW OF WAR’ COURSE ADDED AT KENNEDY U.
Course offerings by Prof. Tony Bothwell at John F. Kennedy University: School of Management, spring – Negotiation Methods; Legal Issues; E-Commerce Law & Public Policy. School of Law, summer 2003 – Perspectives in Law: The Law of War.

Anthony P. X. (Tony) Bothwell, Esquire
Member: The State Bar of California, Bar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Bar of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; National Lawyers Guild, American Bar Assn., International Bar Assn.; U.S. Holocaust Museum, Chinese for Affirmative Action, Southern Poverty Law Center. Georgetown Univ. School of Foreign Service, B.S.F.S.; Boston Univ. School of Public Communication, M.S.; John F. Kennedy Univ. School of Law, J.D.; Golden Gate Univ. School of Law, LL.M. summa cum laude. Professor of Law, John F. Kennedy Univ. School of Law. Current listings include: Who’s Who in the Law, Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World. Descendant of John P. Dreibelbis, Captain, Continental Army, commanded by Gen. George Washington.