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) 370-5971
April 12, 2004 Vol. VI / No. 2 attorney@apxbothwell.com
www.apxbothwell.com
[ 1 ] NEW STEPS NEEDED TO KEEP
NUKES FROM AL QAEDA
Al Qaeda could buy or steal enriched uranium, build
a Hiroshima bomb and bring it here in a suitcase, Robert Gallucci,
dean of Georgetown School of Foreign Service and former United Nations
senior arms inspector, told a UC Berkeley class on Apr. 8.
Danger that terrorists
might get a nuclear weapon has grown steadily because of inadequate
U.S. nonproliferation policies. "There's no excuse for delay
of serious counterproliferation steps," says Atty. Tony Bothwell,
a former U.S. Army area intelligence officer, nuclear industry consultant
and weapons lab executive. In recent N.Y. Times reports: The White
House cut back on measures that would prevent Russian nuclear arms
and knowhow from falling into the wrong hands. DOE hasn't seriously
tried to get back highly enriched uranium that the U.S. loaned long
ago to Pakistan, Iran and 41 other countries. That uranium was for
peaceful purposes but able to be diverted to weapons programs.
News that Pakistan aided
Iranian, Libyan and North Korean nuclear arms programs adds to worry
that al Qaeda also might have received nuclear assets from the Pakistanis.
As long ago as 1988, the Reagan administration's aid to Pakistan was
critiqued by Bothwell in a KCBS talk show featuring the U.S. ambassador
to Islamabad. The critique was based on experts' suspicions then that
Pakistan was developing a bomb and helping others do the same.
The day after Israeli
jets destroyed Iraq's Osirik reactor in 1981, a retired Argonne National
Laboratory scientist confided, to lunch companions at the American
Nuclear Society annual meeting in Miami, that he had been part of
an Eisenhower administration nuclear team that "gave the bomb
to Israel."
At the 1980 International
Energy Technology Conference in Washington, Bothwell called for a
global agency to control all nuclear materials, along lines once proposed
by the Truman administration.
[ 2
] SWAT TEAM MEMBER EXPOSES N-LAB SECURITY LAPSE
Mat Zipoli, SWAT team member and vice president of the police union
at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who blew the whistle on
counterterror deficiencies at the nuclear weapons lab, was featured
on CBS' 60 Minutes. Zipoli, who is represented by the Washington-based
Government Accountability Project (www.whistleblower.org)
and San Francisco Atty. Tony Bothwell, told the national TV audience
Feb. 12 that lab security is "all window-dressing…no substance."
Zipoli sued the University
of California, a Dept. of Energy (DOE) contractor, after he was fired
for reporting safety and security violations. Later he won his job
back. Settlement talks have been under way in his suit for retaliation
and wrongful termination.
DOE refused to take measures
needed to safeguard the plutonium facility against terrorist assault
– even though Osama bin Laden identified it as a potential target.
Bothwell was a consultant
to Oakland's Gwilliam Ivary law firm on the case of Michelle Doggett,
a resource manager who last year won a monetary settlement after she
was fired for complaining about financial irregularities in the weapons
lab. Bothwell and cocounsel previously won settlements for Dave Lappa,
a senior nuclear engineer fired for refusing to cover up violations
of plutonium safety regulations at Livermore.
[ 3
] PILOT EXPERIENCE COUNTS IN AIR EMERGENCIES
Commercial airline pilots should be allowed to fly past age 59 "to
serve the public interest in air safety, enhance aviation economics,
stop unreasonable discrimination, and ensure that the most competent
pilots are in command in the event of an air emergency," according
to a new brief filed in federal court. The Federal Aviation Administration's
age 60 retirement rule is based on studies that fail to meet standards
mandated under the Information Quality Act, the brief said. The age
rule doesn't even apply to FAA's own pilots flying passenger jets,
or military pilots including those on Air Force One, or NASA astronauts.
The brief was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia Circuit on Mar. 10 by attorneys Tony Bothwell of San Francisco
and Jim Klimaski of Washington, for the Professional Pilots Federation
(www.ppf.org).
[ 4
] COMPETENT GOVERNMENT COULD HAVE PREVENTED 9/11
"An informed source says that, on Sept. 10, 2001, Boston police
knew terrorist suspects in a local hotel had tickets bound for California
from Logan airport the next day," Atty. Tony Bothwell told the
Livermore Valley Rotary Club last week. "The source says the
FBI told the police, 'We know about them. It's alright. Leave them
alone,'" he added. "After the attacks, the FAA grounded
airliners, but made an exception for planes that carried Osama bin
Laden's relatives out of the U.S.," Bothwell told the Apr. 6
meeting.
"The Bush administration
has invented the term enemy combatant to justify its claim that disfavored
U.S. citizens have no rights. It has invented the term illegal combatant
to rationalize its claim that disfavored noncitizens have no rights,"
Bothwell told the Apr. 6 meeting. He concluded, "Denying civil
liberties doesn't make us safer. Competent enforcement of the laws
that existed before 9/11, and competent use of available intelligence
data, can make us safer – and could have prevented 9/11."
Bothwell has addressed groups on terror law issues throughout California
and in Europe.
[ 5 ] CASES TO BE REVIEWED IN USA PATRIOT
ACT CLASS
A new law school course will examine drafting, enactment, content,
execution, interpretation, impact, testing, reconsideration, and historical
significance of the 342-page USA PATRIOT Act. Provisions for warrantless
seizure, secret arrest, domestic political spying, e-mail/voicemail
surveillance, mandatory DNA samples, and limits on habeas corpus and
judicial review, will be studied. The 10-week summer course at John
F. Kennedy University School of Law will review cases including U.S.
v. Reid ("the shoebomber case"), Padilla ex rel. Newman
v. Bush ("the dirty bomb case"), Hamdi v. Rumsfeld ("the
naval brig case"), U.S. v. Lindh ("the American Taliban
case"), and U.S. v. Moussaoui ("the 20th hijacker case").
The course created by adjunct Prof. Tony Bothwell starts June 7 at
the university's new Pleasant Hill campus. See www.jfku.edu.
[ 6
] SCIENTISTS 1, SIOUX 1, IN BATTLES OVER SKELETONS
Scientists can conduct tests on Kennewick Man because judges in San
Francisco decided Indians' folk narratives, linking the Colville,
Umatilla, Nez Perce and Yakima nations to the 9,000-year-old skeleton,
found near Kennewick, Wash., were more myth than fact. Fulbright fellows
and American Society of International Law scholars heard a Mar. 12
lecture by Atty. Tony Bothwell at Golden Gate University School of
Law (www.ggu.edu)
on the Ninth Circuit's Feb. 4 Kennewick decision.
A member of the Indians'
Kennewick legal team joined Bothwell in persuading the National Park
Service to stop excavations disturbing Oglala Sioux burial grounds
at Pine Ridge Reservation, S.D. The successful outcome at Pine Ridge
followed arguments in 2002 that the excavations violated the Civil
Rights Act, the Native American Graves Protection Act, the Race Discrimination
Convention, the Convention on Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property,
and customary norms of international law.
[ 7
] WTO VIOLATIONS CAN BE CHALLENGED IN CHINA'S COURTS
Companies harmed by Chinese government decisions that may violate
World Trade Organization rules can get claims heard in China's courts,
says an article in the current issue of International Business Lawyer,
published by the London-based International Bar Association (www.iba.net.org).
The article, "Judicial Review of International Trade Association:
People's Court Takes the First Steps Towards Honouring China's WTO
Commitments," is coauthored by Hong-liu Gong, former advisor
to the Supreme People's Court in Beijing, and San Francisco's Atty.
Tony Bothwell.
[ 8
] CALIFORNIA JAILERS PRACTICE 3RD-WORLD STYLE TORTURE
Sheriff's deputies stripped a San Francisco woman, ripped off her
surgical bandages and threw her in a torture cell just days after
her mastectomy, according to a new claim against the City. Papers
filed at City Hall on Mar. 1 charge false arrest without a warrant,
false imprisonment, state and federal civil rights violations, intentional
infliction of emotional distress, assault, battery, and torture. The
woman is represented by local attorneys Rey Hassan and Tony Bothwell.
[ 9
] ON WALL IN BIRMINGHAM, WHARF IN SAN FRANCISCO
A member of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Leadership Council,
Atty. Tony Bothwell was notified that his name will be included in
the Wall of Tolerance at the center's headquarters in Birmingham.
The center's activities include suing perpetrators of hate crimes
and giving diversity education materials to schools. Please see www.splcenter.org
and www.tolerance.org.
The Rotary Club of Fisherman's
Wharf - San Francisco on Apr. 2 inducted Bothwell into membership
in the classification Civil Law. Rotary clubs around the world support
local and international charitable causes. See www.rotary5150.org.
ANTHONY P. X. (TONY)
BOTHWELL, Esq. – 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 (chair, Native American Indian Affairs Committee),
American Bar Assn. (delegate to the International Court of Justice,
The Hague), International Bar Assn.; U.S. Holocaust Museum, Chinese
for Affirmative Action, Southern Poverty Law Center (Leadership Council).
Degrees: 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.
Listings include: Who’s Who in the Law, Who’s Who in America,
Who’s Who in the World. Descendant of Capt. John P. Dreibelbis,
Continental Army, commanded by Gen. George Washington.
CONTACT:
Anthony P. X. Bothwell, Esq.
Law Offices of Anthony P. X. Bothwell
350 Bay Street – Suite 100 PMB314
San Francisco, CA 94133-1966 USA
Telephone (415) 370-9571
Facsimile (415) 362-5469
attorney@apxbothwell.com
www.apxbothwell.com
