KFAI's Indian Uprising for March 16, 2008 from 7:00 - 8:00 p.m. DST #257

Leonard Peltier vs. FBI, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Case No. 07-1745MN, University of St. Thomas School of Law Frey Moot Courtroom, Minneapolis, March 11, 2008.

Peltier was convicted of killing two FBI agents during a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. But his supporters, including some human rights groups, believe that he is innocent and that he was targeted because of his political activism.

About 3,500 pages were turned over for Peltier's original trial in 1977. But his attorneys have discovered over the years that the actual number of documents the FBI has on Peltier is 142,579, said attorney Michael Kuzma.

Peltier has tried for nearly seven years to use the federal Freedom of Information Act to get the tens of thousands of pages still being withheld. "I just think this thing stinks to high heaven," Kuzma said after the hearing. He told the court, "We still don't know the truth about what happened back then."

Judge Lavenski R. Smith asked Kuzma what the remedy would be for Peltier. Kuzma said the court should conduct "a full in-camera review of the documents." When Smith expressed some disbelief at that idea, Kuzma added that, if that were too burdensome, the court could focus on the documents from 1977, of which Peltier has received none.

Tom Byron, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., argued that "there's no support" for an in-camera inspection of the records. - St. Paul Pioneer Press excerpt, click here.
Court recording: click here.

Tonight our Guests are:
Michael Kuzma, Arguing attorney for Leonard Peltier; Sr. Legislative Assistant to City Council President, Buffalo, New York

and

keith rabin producer/co play write of the Stage Production
"My Life Is My Sun Dance" www.mylifeismysundance.com

To help sponsor or support or for additional information
contact keith @ keith@mylifeismysundance.com

* * * *
Indian Uprising a one-hour radio Public & Cultural Affairs program relevant to Native Indigenous people, broadcast each Sunday at 7:00 p.m. CST over KFAI 90.3 FM Minneapolis and 106.7 FM St. Paul. Producer and host is volunteer Chris Spotted Eagle. To receive or stop getting announcements: radio@spottedeagle.org.

For internet listening, visit www.kfai.org, click Play under ON AIR NOW or for listening later via their archives, click PROGRAMS & SCHEDULE > Indian Uprising > STREAM. Programs are archived only for two weeks.

The Clinton Presidential Library released 2,830 pages of documents this week on pardons and grants of clemency President Bill Clinton considered during his last months in office. But the library withheld another 1,114 pages that archivists said would disclose *confidential* discussion of advice the former president received during that time.

Call To Action

Americans have the right to know the facts about awards of clemency the former president made in January 2001, as well as those he denied or petitions he failed to address, i.e., such as the petition filed by Leonard Peltier. Please contact the Office of the Inspector General at the National Archives and Records Administration (which manages the Clinton Presidential Library) to file a complaint of mismanagement with regard to the NARA's selective release of documents. Tell them that a full release of these historically significant documents is in the public interest.

By telephone -- Call 301-837-3500 (Washington, DC, Metro area) or
800-786-2551 (toll-free and outside the Washington, DC, Metro area).

By postal mail -- Office of the Inspector General, NARA,
P.O. Box 1821, Hyattsville, MD 20788-0821.