Peter B. Collins Presents Prof. Rebecca Gordon
In 2002, Rebecca Gordon and her partner were checking for a flight at San Francisco airport, and learned that their names were on the government’s secret “No Fly” list. Gordon explains that her long history of activism and nonviolent protest had somehow led to this unexpected honor. ACLU lawyers filed suit, and won release of 300 redacted pages, leading federal judge Charles Breyer to order prosecutors to show him every page and explain the redactions—but the victims never got to see the redacted information. And they have never gotten formal notification that they’ve been cleared. Gordon comments on other cases, including men who were put on the list after refusing to become FBI informants. Gordon has written widely about US torture policies, and we also discuss those issues.
*Rebecca Gordon teaches in the Philosophy department at the University of San Francisco. She is the author of Mainstreaming Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States and the forthcoming American Nuremberg: The Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post 9/11 War Crimes(Hot Books, 2016). Her recent article for TomDispatch is here and her website is here.
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