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The N.Y.C. Corporation Counsel: 600 Lawyers in Service to Giuliani’s Corporate Police
State by Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists’ Response To Illegal State
Tactics)

Every day more and more New Yorkers recognize the serious threat Mayor Giuliani and
‘Giuliani-ism’ represents to freedom. Unfortunately, criticism of the Mayor focuses on
his personality, as if his repressive policies were simply the result of a psychological
trait. What few New Yorkers grasp is the key role an obscure City agency plays in
carrying out the Giuliani agenda. If not for the efforts of the more than 600 lawyers
working for the Corporation Counsel, Giuliani’s violations of our rights would be
impossible.

Giuliani commands an army of 38,000 heavily-armed police (the world’s largest police
force) but it is the Corporation Counsel’s 600 lawyers quietly working behind the
scenes that are his elite troops. What do Giuliani’s lawyers do to earn their tax-
funded salaries? They defend the Mayor against thousands of legitimate civil rights
lawsuits filed each year by victims of his ever-evolving police state.

Civil rights lawsuits filed against the Mayor are about much more than getting money.
If plaintiffs win these cases not only do they receive compensation for their damages
but the City can be forced to change its illegal policies. Keeping judges from stopping
Giuliani’s daily human rights violations of Federal, State and New York City law is
what the Corporation Counsel is all about.

When Giuliani orders the NYPD or other City agencies to prevent lawful
demonstrations, arrest innocent people, spy on political activists, close legitimate
businesses, target racial minorities, sell public property to corporations, privatize
parks, close public hospitals in minority areas, arrest homeless people, block access
to City Hall, cut essential social programs, confiscate property without due process,
put defendants through the system for non-criminal infractions of obscure laws or
force handicapped mothers into workfare it is the Corporation Counsel that faithfully
defends these highlights of Giuliani-ism in Federal and State Court.

To defend such unconstitutional policies the Corporation Counsel submits false

evidence to judges and obscures the facts in each case. The agency is set up to
frustrate any attempt to seek legal recourse when one is victimized by the Mayor or
his henchmen. If a plaintiff sues Giuliani and wins, the Corporation Counsel appeals to
the highest court possible, regardless of the merits of the case. This is done to
exhaust the plaintiffs who are usually poor and can neither economically nor
emotionally survive the process. Many lawsuits against the City disappear as plaintiffs
and attorneys give up when faced with years of meaningless appeals and legal
maneuvers the sole purpose of which is to wear them down.

It’s not unknown for the City to compromise, pressure or buy off a plaintiffs’ attorney
as an additional means of defeating lawsuits. Fighting Giuliani is a risky job for any
New York City attorney. The banks, multi-national corporations and real estate
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interests that paid to put Giuliani in office are the main employers of the City’s tens
of thousands of lawyers. Getting on their blacklist is as close to being unemployable
as a lawyer can get. It’s useful to examine a well-publicized and fully documented
case* as an illustration of exactly how the Corporation Counsel does its dirty work.
When Giuliani took office in 1994 the police began a massive campaign to arrest
street artists. This was done at the request of Manhattan’s five largest Business
Improvement Districts or B.I.D.s. These privatization interests see First Amendment
protected activities on public sidewalks as quality of life crimes interfering with the
absolute control of public and private space that is their goal. From 1994 to 1997
hundreds of artists were arrested. Their art was illegally confiscated or destroyed,
and the artists were charged with unlicensed vending. Unfortunately for the Mayor
there is a legal problem with this as there is with many of his actions. The Federal
and New York State Constitution’s guarantee of free speech which the U.S. Supreme
Court and N.Y.C. officials had already determined to cover art, meant artists, like
bookvendors, did not need a license to sell fine art on public property. Internal
memos from the Corporation Counsel and the Manhattan District Attorney’s offices
dated 1994 make it clear that the City knew these were illegal arrests and had
officially determined from the beginning of the policy to never prosecute them. As a
result, despite more than 700 artist arrests not one case has ever been brought to
trial. Nevertheless, the Corporation Counsel strenuously fought the First Amendment
Federal lawsuit artists brought in 1994 all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court before
Giuliani decisively lost in 1997.

The Corporation Counsel’s office lied to all of the judges in the case about basic facts
concerning artist arrests. They wasted millions of tax dollars on a policy they knew
was illegal and would be ruled unconstitutional in Federal Court. The Corporation
Counsel’s office has unceasingly continued its efforts to eliminate street artists’ since
Giuliani lost the case. From 1997 to the present they have illegally helped the B.I.D.s
write a new vending ordinance in order to get around the legal “obstacle” of First
Amendment rights. They’ve advised the Parks Department to violate the Federal
Court’s ruling that requiring a permit or license for artists was unconstitutional by
creating a permit for artists in City Parks. Almost two years after they lost the street
artist case the Corporation Counsel has not compensated artists for the thousands of
works of fine art illegally confiscated and destroyed or for the false arrests. Under the
legal guidance of the Corporation Counsel street artists continue to be arrested. False
arrests of the most outspoken artist/plaintiffs have dramatically increased since they
won the lawsuit.

In March 1998* artists filed a second lawsuit focusing on the blatant 14th Amendment
Equal Protection violations inherent in creating a Parks’ artist permit while allowing
books and newspapers to be sold without a Parks’ permit. Again the Corporation
Counsel lied to a Federal judge claiming that the City did not allow book vendors to
sell within 350 feet of any City park and that police arrested book vendors who did
not have a permit. Book and newspaper vendors sell near N.Y.C. parks in hundreds of
locations without police interference. There is no book or newspaper vendor permit
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nor could there legally be. Since 1982 bookvendors have been exempted by N.Y.C.
City law from needing any license or permit.

Without the efforts of the Corporation Counsel these artist arrests would have been
impossible. Multiply this one example a thousand times and you’ll understand how
crucial the Corporation Counsel is to fulfilling the repressive social goals of Giuliani-
ism.

Every time a racist cop brutalizes a minority teenager and gets away with it you are
seeing the result of the efforts of the N.Y.C. Corporation Counsel. When understaffed
City hospitals cause someone’s death due to Giuliani’s budget cuts you are seeing the
efforts of the Corporation Counsel. When law abiding demonstrators are arrested to
censor their anti-Giuliani speech you are seeing the efforts of the Corporation
Counsel. When innocent people are strip-searched, brutalized, held for days in the
Tombs and then dragged through months of meaningless court appearances, you are
seeing the efforts of the Corporation Counsel.

It was the Corporation Counsel that wasted millions suing New York Magazine in an
absurd attempt to censor a mildly satirical bus ad that annoyed the Mayor. It was the
Corporation Counsel that spent millions of tax dollars evicting adult businesses from
Midtown Manhattan so that Giuliani-connected real estate developers could seize
their buildings to make way for the Disnification of Times Square. It’s the Corporation
Counsel that protects the Giuliani Administration when it violates open meeting laws
at CUNY or before the Taxi and Limousine Commission, cuts funding to Legal Aid,
creates an illegal Charter Revision Committee or bulldozes community gardens and
evicts low-income tenants to hasten gentrification. Just as the Mafia has a phalanx of
highly skilled lawyers protecting it from the law, the Corporation Counsel keeps
Giuliani from being held accountable for his many crimes.

Federal and State judges presiding in New York City courts are fully aware of the
routine contempt for law exhibited by the Corporation Counsel. Under Giuliani the
discovery process, in which the City is legally required to turn over every piece of
evidence applicable to a lawsuit, has become a cruel farce. Recently, 2nd circuit
Federal Judge John S. Martin ruled that the City had shown "utter disregard and
apparent disdain" for his orders in a civil rights suit and ordered the city to pay
$19,800 in sanctions. The judge wrote that he had seen a pattern in such cases in
which City officials treated court orders with contempt [NYTIMES 9/30/98 “Judge
Fines City $19,800 for Ignoring Orders”]. Getting any documents from the City takes
years of hearings, subpoenas and expense, calculated to bankrupt all but the best-
funded plaintiffs and frustrate their lawsuits. Most incriminating documents are never
turned over by the City at all.

While Giuliani’s repressive policies deceptively masquerading as a “quality of life”

quest may seem relatively benign if compared to a police state like Nazi Germany
there are instructive parallels between the early reign of Hitler and Giuliani’s agenda.
When Hitler was elected German Chancellor in 1933 he ordered repressive new laws
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aimed at eliminating “undesirables” and “protecting public safety”. “Restrictions on

personal liberty, on the right of free expression including freedom of the press; on the
rights of assembly and association; warrants for house searches, orders for
confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal
limits otherwise prescribed” [from Hitler’s, Decree For The Protection of the People
and the State, 1933]. Hitler’s 1937 Civil Service Law, called for the dismissal of all
officials, including judges, for political unreliability. “The law and the will of the
Fuhrer are one”. Corporate interests fully supported Hitler’s actions and actually
sponsored many of them. Initially, many Germans were as delighted with the results
as some New Yorkers are with Giuliani’s “accomplishments”. Eventually, the
contempt for law, human rights and freedom that were characteristic of Hitler’s laws,
made the Holocaust possible.

People think of jack-booted SS men, concentration camps and marching armies when
considering the horrors of Nazi Germany. Few recall the significant role German
judges and lawyers played in transforming Germany from a democracy where citizens
enjoyed the same rights we take for granted in the U.S., into a fully- fledged police
state where rights, even for blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryans, were non-existent.
German judges and lawyers that dared to criticize Hitler or rule against him in
lawsuits were among the first people sent to concentration camps. It’s certain that
the attorneys and bureaucrats in the Corporation Counsel will respond to this leaflet
by saying they are decent people just doing their job. Isn’t that exactly what the
lawyers, judges and executioners that worked for Hitler said in their own defense
during the Nuremberg trials?

During 1998 President Clinton has been publicly humiliated for lying under oath about
a private sexual relationship and now faces impeachment. During that same time
Mayor Giuliani and his lawyers in the Corporation Counsel lied to the media, to
Federal, State and New York City judges, to the City Council, to Criminal and Civil
juries and to the people of New York City on thousands of occasions involving the
most important issues of public policy and law. Perhaps that’s why despite criss-
crossing the country to campaign for right-wing Republicans, Giuliani, a man not
known for verbal restraint, has been loath to accuse the President or even to mention
lying, adultery or impeachment.

Among the opportunistic career moves Giuliani is now positioning himself for are U.S.
President, or U.S. Attorney General. Imagine the damage to the Bill of Rights that
could be done were he to have the power to appoint Supreme Court judges, interpret
U.S. law or command our armed forces. If we sincerely want to eliminate crime and
improve the quality of life for every New Yorker two things above all others must be
done. Investigate the Corporation Counsel and Impeach Rudolph Giuliani.

Comments? Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists’ Response To Illegal

State Tactics) (718) 369-2111 e mail ARTISTpres@aol.com
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*[Bery et al v. City of New York; Lederman et al v. City of New York; Lederman et al v

Giuliani] For extensive material on this issue:
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html

N.Y.C. Corporation Counsel, Michael D. Hess (212) 788-0303 Mayor Giuliani’s press
office (212) 788-2958 [fax 788-2975]

THE THOUGHTS OF HERR RUDOLF GHOULIANI

"Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human
being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do and
how you do it." -Mayor Giuliani, New York Newsday pg A3 4/20/98

“State authority must provide for peace and order, and peace and order in turn must
conversely make possible the existence of state authority. Within these two poles all
life must now revolve...Ideas of 'freedom,' mostly of a misunderstood nature, inject
themselves into the state conceptions of these circles”. -Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf
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The man of that moment

Rudy Giuliani's leadership at Ground Zero revived his

souring career. Caroline Overington talks to him before
his Melbourne visit.

Rudolph Giuliani was at a breakfast meeting at the

Peninsula Hotel in New York on the morning of September
11, 2001, when a security officer came over and said:
"There's a fire at the World Trade Centre." Picture: AFP
Rudolph Giuliani
Giuliani, who was the New York mayor, decided to go to

the site to see if he could help. He got into a van and directed the driver. From the
back seat, he could see the top of the north tower. "There were flames coming from
the upper floors," he writes in his book, Leadership. "At a distance, it looked bad but
not unmanageable."

Then the second plane hit.

Within minutes, Giuliani found himself at the centre of a catastrophe. His van had
arrived at the scene and people were running towards him. He could see people
jumping from the buildings. Dust and smoke were pouring from the sky. He could have
panicked and run for safety. Instead, he began marching through the rubble,
organising the rescue effort and speaking to the media. For hours, he was the lone
voice of leadership in the US because President George Bush was being flown around
the country, and Vice-President Dick Cheney had been taken to a secure location. It
was Giuliani who told New Yorkers to stay calm. He was the first to say: "American
democracy is stronger than this. New York will survive."

Giuliani's leadership that day made him a hero. Time magazine put him on its cover as
Person of the Year. The United Nations invited him to address the General Assembly.
The Queen gave him an honorary knighthood, and French President Jacques Chirac
dubbed him Rudy the Rock.

Even talkshow host David Letterman put away the wisecracks. He showed footage of
Giuliani wading through twisted wreckage around Ground Zero and told his audience
of 23 million people: "Look what this guy said. Look what this guy did. If you didn't
know how to behave, all you had to do was look at the mayor."

Fast forward two years and Giuliani is sitting in an armchair in his office at 5 Times
Square, reflecting on those days. This month, he is coming to Australia to share his
ideas with Australian business leaders.
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His office is filled with objects of affection. There is a model of a New York taxi, a
little patrol car, a baseball signed by the Yankees, a picture of the Twin Towers, and
a portrait of his stunning wife, Judith. The man himself is dressed in a blue suit with
brown shoes. He has straight, white teeth and a warm, firm handshake. Over the
course of the conversation, he comes across just as people describe him: strong,
thoughtful, friendly and happily conservative.

Giuliani is the first to acknowledge the change in his fortunes wrought by September
11. He used to be on the nose in New York. This was despite having transformed the
city. People who have seen the movie Taxi Driver will remember what it was like, full
of crooks and crack dealers, prostitutes, pan-handlers and porno shops. On average
five people were murdered every week.

Two years after Giuliani was elected, the rate for all serious crimes - murder, rape,
robbery - was down to the lowest level in 25 years. He did it by using his police force
like an army, sweeping through New York's troubled neighbourhoods, chasing out the
felons and the junkies, closing down the crack houses and putting prostitutes and drug
users in jail. Times Square and Central Park, once the lairs of muggers and other
malcontents, were returned to the people.

Without question, it was a stunning urban transformation. But did New Yorkers love
Giuliani for it? No. In fact, after almost nine years of Giuliani's management, people
had forgotten what a slum the city had been. They started complaining about his
failings: why, for example, had he not fixed the schools?

Also, Giuliani was acting strangely. His second marriage, to Donna Hanover, had
broken up (his first, to a college sweetheart, was annulled by the Catholic Church).
But Hanover would not leave the mayoral residence, Gracie Mansion, so the mayor
had to go and stay in the spare room at a friend's place. There were whispers of an
affair with Judith Nathan, now his wife.

Besides that, Giuliani seemed to have run out of things to say. At the end of 2000, his
popularity rating was 30 per cent. Then came September 11. In the two years since
the attacks, Giuliani has ceased being mayor of New York city, but he remains one of
America's most respected leaders. His book on the topic is a bestseller, and he has
made a small fortune on the speakers' circuit.

We start by talking about Giuliani's view of the world, which he divides into people
who are either good or evil. "There are some people who should be completely
avoided," he says. "It is counter-productive to deal with them, and they will just drag
you down."

As an example, he suggests Yasser Arafat. Before Giuliani ran for mayor, he was a
New York lawyer (he was born to Italian immigrant parents who had a bar and grill).
One day, he was assigned to investigate the 1985 PLO hijacking of the Italian cruise
ship, the Achille Lauro. He remembered how a disabled American man was dragged
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out of his wheelchair and thrown into the sea. Ever since, Giuliani has had a "special
contempt" for Arafat and so, when the UN celebrated its 50th birthday in New York
during Giuliani's reign, he refused to invite him to the mayoral party. But Arafat
turned up anyway. When Giuliani saw him there, he told his beefiest security guard to
throw him out.

"That was profoundly satisfying," Giuliani says, relishing the memory of Arafat trying
to argue with the guard before storming out.

"Some of my aides said: 'You can't do it, because it will cause an international
incident'. But I believe there is a certain level of civilisation that a person has to
reach in order to be treated the same way other people are treated. You may have to
deal with these people, but you don't have to put them on the same level as decent
people."

Likewise, Giuliani does not tolerate people who say the US somehow deserved the
September 11 terrorist attacks because of its foreign policy.

"American policies are not always correct, and in our history, we have made terrible
mistakes," he says. "But there is nothing that America ever did to anyone that justifies
taking two aeroplanes and driving them into two buildings and killing thousands of
people."

When a Saudi prince visited New York shortly after the attacks and gave Giuliani a
cheque for $US10 million for the families of the victims, Giuliani gave it back. The
reason, he says, was because when the prince handed over the cheque, he said: "We
must address some of the issues that led to the attack. The US should re-examine its
policies in the Middle East and the Palestinian cause." Giuliani's first reaction was to
crumple the cheque then and there but his aides said: "How do you know the families
don't need it?" So he asked the families and they said: "Give it back."

Giuliani's other passion is conservatism. It was not ever thus: he was raised a
Democrat, and writes in his book that it was difficult to "come out" as a Republican
because he thought Republicanism "was only for rich people. How could I be one of
them?"

Now he thinks conservatism makes everybody richer - including him. "What we roughly
describe as conservative ideas - hard work, education, a free economy - is the only
way out of poverty for large numbers of people," he says.

"Some people think the fastest way to help people is to hand them money. I believe
you can cure the underlying problem, which takes a little more work. You want a
maximum number of people who can take care of themselves. This is still very much
challenged. People on the left say people on the right are mean, they hate poor
people, they are racist. But they are wrong. One of the things that my administration
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proved is that free-market conservative ideas improve neighbourhoods and give

people the tools they need to get out of poverty."

Another thing that Giuliani thinks politicians should do is get out of people's private
lives. For example, he was not impressed when his successor, the billionaire Michael
Bloomberg, banned smoking in every restaurant, bar and club in New York.

"I would have liked a compromise!" he says, eyeing one of his humidors. "I think
smoking is dangerous but I do smoke cigars. As few as I can. Too many, on the golf
course. I enjoy them very much. But I think it's better for people not to smoke, but
you have to let them make that choice."

Health is important to Giuliani because, just before September 11, he was diagnosed
with prostate cancer, the disease that killed his father. That, and his collapsing
marriage, meant he had to withdraw from the Senate race against Hillary Clinton.
Many people think he could have won, but he says: "I don't know about that. I was
disappointed that I wasn't able to run. But I would have had to leave the mayoralty to
do it, and there was part of me that thought I will never love a job like I loved that
one."

It is no secret that Giuliani still covets public office. In fact, he says: "It is
inconceivable to me that I wouldn't seek public office again. But I don't know which
one and I don't know when." Some say he wants to return to the mayor's office, which
he can do, after Bloomberg's first term expires, or perhaps aim higher, for the
presidency.

He will not be drawn on which of these options appeals to him most, except to say:
"My personality is to look for other challenges. And I was already mayor."

The Lion Nathan Foundation will host an Evening with Rudy Giuliani at Flemington
Racecourse on August 22. Proceeds will go towards the Alfred Hospital and Mission
Australia. Tickets are $700 a person. Bookings: 02 9320 1581.

Caroline Overington is The Age New York correspondent.

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Surround
Surround
Yourself
Yourself with
with
Great
Great People
People

Reflect,
Reflect, Then
Then
Decide
Decide

Underpromise
Underpromise
and
and
Overdeliver
Overdeliver

Develop
Develop and
and
Communicate
Communicate
Strong
Strong Beliefs
Beliefs