By William Fisher
Since 9/11, millions of words have been written about the ‘terrorists in our midst’. Most congratulated US law enforcement for finding and jailing them. Fewer questioned whether the principles of American human rights and civil liberties were being compromised by an over-zealous government gripped by fear.
But both sides of this controversy have usually overlooked something important in this delicate minuet of constitutional protections versus another terrorist attack: the human faces of ‘the other victims’ of 9/11.
In the days and weeks following 9/11, the FBI rounded up and imprisoned thousands of immigrants and visitors to the US. Now, in a new report, the American Civil Liberties Union documents what happened to thirteen of these ‘other victims’ and their families. “Worlds Apart” describes “How Deporting Immigrants After 9/11 Tore Families Apart and Shattered Communities.”
The story of how the US Government responded to 9/11 has been written about extensively, but remains relatively little known. The short version, from the ACLU report, is that the United States “incarcerated petitioners in degrading and inhumane conditions. Although the immigrants generally were detained on non-criminal immigration charges, many were kept in cells for 23 hours a day and were made to wear hand and leg shackles when leaving their cells. Some were kept in solitary confinement for extended periods with no explanation. Lights were left on 24 hours a day, immigrants were denied the use of blankets, and many were denied telephone calls and visits with family members.”
For many, says the ACLU, “the nightmare began with their arrest. FBI and immigration officials dragged some people out of their houses in the middle of the night in front of frightened wives and children. Others were picked up for being in the wrong place”, like the man “arrested by agents who had come looking for his roommate but took him instead. Still others were arrested after routine traffic stops. For many, it would be days before they could contact their families with their whereabouts and weeks before they could access legal help. The government refused to release the names of people it had detained. Behind bars, many suffered from harassment and even physical abuse.”
Conditions in US detention facilities – America’s most secretive prison system – have been chronicled by Mark Dow, a former employee of a detention facility, in his chilling book, “American Gulag”. These facilities were operated by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), now part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
None of the thousands of people detained by the INS were found guilty of any terrorism-related offense or connected in any way with the September 11 attacks, the ACLU says, adding, “Yet the Justice Department website still boasts that hundreds of immigrants ‘linked to the September 11 investigation’ have been deported.”
The report charges, “the government’s unlawful policies had profound effects not only on the people who were unlawfully imprisoned but also on their families and communities. Families were torn apart. Communities were shattered. And the stories told in this report are just a sample. For each of the stories told in this report, there are hundreds of similar stories that haven’t been told. Children separated from fathers, wives separated from husbands, parents separated from sons.”
The stories of the thirteen deportees, whose stories are chronicled in the new ACLU report, are based on interviews with deportees in Pakistan, arranged with the help of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission.
Their stories vary widely. Says the report: “Some men drove cabs, some delivered pizzas and still others pumped gas. Some spoke Urdu and others Arabic. Some came from tiny villages, others from major, cosmopolitan cities. Some had children who attended public schools, speaking perfect English and playing basketball with American friends. Others supported their families in Pakistan or Jordan, sending money for school fees, home repairs or life-saving medicines. Many had been here for years, others for only a few months.”
But, says the ACLU, “the stories of these men are similar in important ways. All came to the United States seeking a better life for themselves and their families. All were Muslim, from South Asia or the Middle East. After September 11, all were caught in a government dragnet that swept up hundreds of Muslims indiscriminately. And all were denied basic rights normally afforded to those detained in the United States and other democratic countries.”
Many, the report says, “have been deported to countries where they haven’t lived in years, and where unemployment rates are high and salaries are low. Many have been harassed because of their connections to the U.S. or taunted for being deported.”
For example, “Sadek Awaed’s friends in Jersey City, New Jersey stopped speaking to him after the FBI questioned them and suggested that he was involved with terrorists. Asylum-seeker Benamar Benatta, who is still behind bars in New York, worries that the charges will haunt him if he ends up being returned to Algeria. Anser Mehmood’s young sons were threatened and teased in their New Jersey school for having a “terrorist” for a father. Haneen is the 14-year-old U.S.-born daughter of Khaled Abu-Shabayek. Her family moved to Jordan in 2002 after her father was detained and deported. “I can’t take it anymore, and I’m very angry,” she said. “Everyone [in my family], they’re always angry, they’re not happy.” Anza is the nine-year-old daughter of Khurram Altaf. For the first time this year, she will not be able to attend the special school that accommodates her hearing disability — such schools don’t exist in Pakistan, where she moved after her father was deported. “
Their communities in the U.S. were negatively affected, too, the report says. “Neighborhoods that were vibrant and full are suddenly half-empty and quiet. Merchants are struggling; many have been forced out of business. And people are scared that they could be the next to be awakened in the middle of the night by immigration officials.”
The ACLU reports that in January 2004, lawyers filed a petition with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on behalf of the thirteen men who had been detained in the United States, and whose stories are told in the new report. All but one of the petitioners has now been deported.
The petitioners alleged that: “The United States detained petitioners as suspected terrorists even where there was no evidence – let alone credible evidence – that they had engaged in criminal activity of any sort; the United States imprisoned petitioners under a “hold until cleared” policy that effectively imposed a presumption of guilt (under the policy, detainees were held until the FBI decided that they were innocent; compounding the injury, some petitioners were detained even after the FBI had affirmatively cleared them of all charges);the United States’ arbitrary and haphazard arrest and detention policies were directed almost entirely against Muslim men of South Asian or Middle Eastern descent; the United States denied petitioners access to counsel, failed to inform them promptly of the charges against them or to bring them before a judge, and categorically denied them release on bond.”
The UN requested and has received a response to the complaint from the US State Department. It is currently awaiting the UN’s judgment.
The ACLU report concludes: “In the weeks and months after September 11, the people whose stories are told in this report did not count. The United States government arrested them without suspicion, imprisoned them without charge, and abused them without consequence. All of this took place in secret. To this day, the government still refuses to release the names of the people who were imprisoned.”
In a democratic society, the report says, “the government should not be permitted to sweep human beings under the rug, to pretend that they don’t count. The government should not be permitted to make people disappear.”
It adds: “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, like the United States Declaration of Independence, recognizes that every human being has rights, that every person counts. The United States government correctly condemns other countries when they violate the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration. We have to be equally vigilant, however, in making sure that those rights are not violated here at home.”
Friday, December 10, 2004
HOW DOES THIS MAKE US MORE SECURE?
By William Fisher
Since 9/11, millions of words have been written about the ‘terrorists in our midst’. Most congratulated US law enforcement for finding and jailing them. Fewer questioned whether the principles of American human rights and civil liberties were being compromised by an over-zealous government gripped by fear.
But both sides of this controversy have usually overlooked something important in this delicate minuet of constitutional protections versus another terrorist attack: the human faces of ‘the other victims’ of 9/11.
In the days and weeks following 9/11, the FBI rounded up and imprisoned thousands of immigrants and visitors to the US. Now, in a new report, the American Civil Liberties Union documents what happened to thirteen of these ‘other victims’ and their families. “Worlds Apart” describes “How Deporting Immigrants After 9/11 Tore Families Apart and Shattered Communities.”
The story of how the US Government responded to 9/11 has been written about extensively, but remains relatively little known. The short version, from the ACLU report, is that the United States “incarcerated petitioners in degrading and inhumane conditions. Although the immigrants generally were detained on non-criminal immigration charges, many were kept in cells for 23 hours a day and were made to wear hand and leg shackles when leaving their cells. Some were kept in solitary confinement for extended periods with no explanation. Lights were left on 24 hours a day, immigrants were denied the use of blankets, and many were denied telephone calls and visits with family members.”
For many, says the ACLU, “the nightmare began with their arrest. FBI and immigration officials dragged some people out of their houses in the middle of the night in front of frightened wives and children. Others were picked up for being in the wrong place”, like the man “arrested by agents who had come looking for his roommate but took him instead. Still others were arrested after routine traffic stops. For many, it would be days before they could contact their families with their whereabouts and weeks before they could access legal help. The government refused to release the names of people it had detained. Behind bars, many suffered from harassment and even physical abuse.”
Conditions in US detention facilities – America’s most secretive prison system – have been chronicled by Mark Dow, a former employee of a detention facility, in his chilling book, “American Gulag”. These facilities were operated by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), now part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
None of the thousands of people detained by the INS were found guilty of any terrorism-related offense or connected in any way with the September 11 attacks, the ACLU says, adding, “Yet the Justice Department website still boasts that hundreds of immigrants ‘linked to the September 11 investigation’ have been deported.”
The report charges, “the government’s unlawful policies had profound effects not only on the people who were unlawfully imprisoned but also on their families and communities. Families were torn apart. Communities were shattered. And the stories told in this report are just a sample. For each of the stories told in this report, there are hundreds of similar stories that haven’t been told. Children separated from fathers, wives separated from husbands, parents separated from sons.”
The stories of the thirteen deportees, whose stories are chronicled in the new ACLU report, are based on interviews with the deportees in Pakistan, arranged with the help of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission.
Their stories vary widely. Says the report: “Some men drove cabs, some delivered pizzas and still others pumped gas. Some spoke Urdu and others Arabic. Some came from tiny villages, others from major, cosmopolitan cities. Some had children who attended public schools, speaking perfect English and playing basketball with American friends. Others supported their families in Pakistan or Jordan, sending money for school fees, home repairs or life-saving medicines. Many had been here for years, others for only a few months.”
But, says the ACLU, “the stories of these men are similar in important ways. All came to the United States seeking a better life for themselves and their families. All were Muslim, from South Asia or the Middle East. After September 11, all were caught in a government dragnet that swept up hundreds of Muslims indiscriminately. And all were denied basic rights normally afforded to those detained in the United States and other democratic countries.”
Many, the report says, “have been deported to countries where they haven’t lived in years, and where unemployment rates are high and salaries are low. Many have been harassed because of their connections to the U.S. or taunted for being deported.”
For example, “Sadek Awaed’s friends in Jersey City, New Jersey stopped speaking to him after the FBI questioned them and suggested that he was involved with terrorists. Asylum-seeker Benamar Benatta, who is still behind bars in New York, worries that the charges will haunt him if he ends up being returned to Algeria. Anser Mehmood’s young sons were threatened and teased in their New Jersey school for having a “terrorist” for a father. Haneen is the 14-year-old U.S.-born daughter of Khaled Abu-Shabayek. Her family moved to Jordan in 2002 after her father was detained and deported. “I can’t take it anymore, and I’m very angry,” she said. “Everyone [in my family], they’re always angry, they’re not happy.” Anza is the nine-year-old daughter of Khurram Altaf. For the first time this year, she will not be able to attend the special school that accommodates her hearing disability — such schools don’t exist in Pakistan, where she moved after her father was deported. “
Their communities in the U.S. were negatively affected, too, the report says. “Neighborhoods that were vibrant and full are suddenly half-empty and quiet. Merchants are struggling; many have been forced out of business. And people are scared that they could be the next to be awakened in the middle of the night by immigration officials.”
The ACLU reports that in January 2004, lawyers filed a petition with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on behalf of the thirteen men who had been detained in the United States, and whose stories are told in the new report. All but one of the petitioners has now been deported.
The petitioners alleged that: “The United States detained petitioners as suspected terrorists even where there was no evidence – let alone credible evidence – that they had engaged in criminal activity of any sort; the United States imprisoned petitioners under a “hold until cleared” policy that effectively imposed a presumption of guilt (under the policy, detainees were held until the FBI decided that they were innocent; compounding the injury, some petitioners were detained even after the FBI had affirmatively cleared them of all charges);the United States’ arbitrary and haphazard arrest and detention policies were directed almost entirely against Muslim men of South Asian or Middle Eastern descent; the United States denied petitioners access to counsel, failed to inform them promptly of the charges against them or to bring them before a judge, and categorically denied them release on bond.”
The UN requested and has received a response to the complaint from the US State Department. It is currently awaiting the UN’s judgment.
The ACLU report concludes: “In the weeks and months after September 11, the people whose stories are told in this report did not count. The United States government arrested them without suspicion, imprisoned them without charge, and abused them without consequence. All of this took place in secret. To this day, the government still refuses to release the names of the people who were imprisoned.”
In a democratic society, the report says, “the government should not be permitted to sweep human beings under the rug, to pretend that they don’t count. The government should not be permitted to make people disappear.”
It adds: “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, like the United States Declaration of Independence, recognizes that every human being has rights, that every person counts. The United States government correctly condemns other countries when they violate the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration. We have to be equally vigilant, however, in making sure that those rights are not violated here at home.”
Since 9/11, millions of words have been written about the ‘terrorists in our midst’. Most congratulated US law enforcement for finding and jailing them. Fewer questioned whether the principles of American human rights and civil liberties were being compromised by an over-zealous government gripped by fear.
But both sides of this controversy have usually overlooked something important in this delicate minuet of constitutional protections versus another terrorist attack: the human faces of ‘the other victims’ of 9/11.
In the days and weeks following 9/11, the FBI rounded up and imprisoned thousands of immigrants and visitors to the US. Now, in a new report, the American Civil Liberties Union documents what happened to thirteen of these ‘other victims’ and their families. “Worlds Apart” describes “How Deporting Immigrants After 9/11 Tore Families Apart and Shattered Communities.”
The story of how the US Government responded to 9/11 has been written about extensively, but remains relatively little known. The short version, from the ACLU report, is that the United States “incarcerated petitioners in degrading and inhumane conditions. Although the immigrants generally were detained on non-criminal immigration charges, many were kept in cells for 23 hours a day and were made to wear hand and leg shackles when leaving their cells. Some were kept in solitary confinement for extended periods with no explanation. Lights were left on 24 hours a day, immigrants were denied the use of blankets, and many were denied telephone calls and visits with family members.”
For many, says the ACLU, “the nightmare began with their arrest. FBI and immigration officials dragged some people out of their houses in the middle of the night in front of frightened wives and children. Others were picked up for being in the wrong place”, like the man “arrested by agents who had come looking for his roommate but took him instead. Still others were arrested after routine traffic stops. For many, it would be days before they could contact their families with their whereabouts and weeks before they could access legal help. The government refused to release the names of people it had detained. Behind bars, many suffered from harassment and even physical abuse.”
Conditions in US detention facilities – America’s most secretive prison system – have been chronicled by Mark Dow, a former employee of a detention facility, in his chilling book, “American Gulag”. These facilities were operated by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), now part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
None of the thousands of people detained by the INS were found guilty of any terrorism-related offense or connected in any way with the September 11 attacks, the ACLU says, adding, “Yet the Justice Department website still boasts that hundreds of immigrants ‘linked to the September 11 investigation’ have been deported.”
The report charges, “the government’s unlawful policies had profound effects not only on the people who were unlawfully imprisoned but also on their families and communities. Families were torn apart. Communities were shattered. And the stories told in this report are just a sample. For each of the stories told in this report, there are hundreds of similar stories that haven’t been told. Children separated from fathers, wives separated from husbands, parents separated from sons.”
The stories of the thirteen deportees, whose stories are chronicled in the new ACLU report, are based on interviews with the deportees in Pakistan, arranged with the help of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission.
Their stories vary widely. Says the report: “Some men drove cabs, some delivered pizzas and still others pumped gas. Some spoke Urdu and others Arabic. Some came from tiny villages, others from major, cosmopolitan cities. Some had children who attended public schools, speaking perfect English and playing basketball with American friends. Others supported their families in Pakistan or Jordan, sending money for school fees, home repairs or life-saving medicines. Many had been here for years, others for only a few months.”
But, says the ACLU, “the stories of these men are similar in important ways. All came to the United States seeking a better life for themselves and their families. All were Muslim, from South Asia or the Middle East. After September 11, all were caught in a government dragnet that swept up hundreds of Muslims indiscriminately. And all were denied basic rights normally afforded to those detained in the United States and other democratic countries.”
Many, the report says, “have been deported to countries where they haven’t lived in years, and where unemployment rates are high and salaries are low. Many have been harassed because of their connections to the U.S. or taunted for being deported.”
For example, “Sadek Awaed’s friends in Jersey City, New Jersey stopped speaking to him after the FBI questioned them and suggested that he was involved with terrorists. Asylum-seeker Benamar Benatta, who is still behind bars in New York, worries that the charges will haunt him if he ends up being returned to Algeria. Anser Mehmood’s young sons were threatened and teased in their New Jersey school for having a “terrorist” for a father. Haneen is the 14-year-old U.S.-born daughter of Khaled Abu-Shabayek. Her family moved to Jordan in 2002 after her father was detained and deported. “I can’t take it anymore, and I’m very angry,” she said. “Everyone [in my family], they’re always angry, they’re not happy.” Anza is the nine-year-old daughter of Khurram Altaf. For the first time this year, she will not be able to attend the special school that accommodates her hearing disability — such schools don’t exist in Pakistan, where she moved after her father was deported. “
Their communities in the U.S. were negatively affected, too, the report says. “Neighborhoods that were vibrant and full are suddenly half-empty and quiet. Merchants are struggling; many have been forced out of business. And people are scared that they could be the next to be awakened in the middle of the night by immigration officials.”
The ACLU reports that in January 2004, lawyers filed a petition with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on behalf of the thirteen men who had been detained in the United States, and whose stories are told in the new report. All but one of the petitioners has now been deported.
The petitioners alleged that: “The United States detained petitioners as suspected terrorists even where there was no evidence – let alone credible evidence – that they had engaged in criminal activity of any sort; the United States imprisoned petitioners under a “hold until cleared” policy that effectively imposed a presumption of guilt (under the policy, detainees were held until the FBI decided that they were innocent; compounding the injury, some petitioners were detained even after the FBI had affirmatively cleared them of all charges);the United States’ arbitrary and haphazard arrest and detention policies were directed almost entirely against Muslim men of South Asian or Middle Eastern descent; the United States denied petitioners access to counsel, failed to inform them promptly of the charges against them or to bring them before a judge, and categorically denied them release on bond.”
The UN requested and has received a response to the complaint from the US State Department. It is currently awaiting the UN’s judgment.
The ACLU report concludes: “In the weeks and months after September 11, the people whose stories are told in this report did not count. The United States government arrested them without suspicion, imprisoned them without charge, and abused them without consequence. All of this took place in secret. To this day, the government still refuses to release the names of the people who were imprisoned.”
In a democratic society, the report says, “the government should not be permitted to sweep human beings under the rug, to pretend that they don’t count. The government should not be permitted to make people disappear.”
It adds: “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, like the United States Declaration of Independence, recognizes that every human being has rights, that every person counts. The United States government correctly condemns other countries when they violate the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration. We have to be equally vigilant, however, in making sure that those rights are not violated here at home.”
CIVIL RIGHTS AND INTELLIGENCE REFORM
By William Fisher
Many of the more draconian provisions adversely affecting privacy, secrecy and the rights of asylum-seekers, originally included in the “Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004”, were omitted in the final version of the law. But the compromise agreed to by the US House of Representatives and Senate continues to contain language that troubles human and civil rights organizations.
For example, the House version of the bill would have allowed non-citizens -- including those likely to face torture if returned to their home countries -- to be deported without an immigration court hearing, made it much more difficult for genuine refugees to prove their asylum cases, and deprived judicial review to victims of torture and other forms of persecution.
This and similar provisions were removed under pressure from the White House, leaders of both political parties, the families of the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks, and members of the 9/11 Commission, on whose recommendations the intelligence overhaul is based.
“These provisions would have put the lives of refugees at real risk,” said a statement from Human Rights First, an advocacy group. “The fact that they were dropped is a victory for America’s commitment to protecting the persecuted”, the organization said.
Under US law, both House and Senate must pass legislation separately. If the two versions contain disagreements, they are reconciled in a House-Senate Conference Committee. The 9/11 Commission did not recommend changes in US immigration law, and most observers found the Senate version much closer to the Commission’s recommendations. Removal of the House’s immigration language, as well as other provisions, allowed both legislative bodies to pass a compromise bill for the president’s signature.
While the harshest refugee and immigration proposals were dropped from the final version, the bill now passed by both houses of congress includes a requirement that the General Accounting Office (GAO), Congress’ investigative arm, conduct a study and report, “to evaluate the extent to which weaknesses in the United States asylum system and withholding of removal system have been or could be exploited by aliens connected to, charged in connection with, or tied to terrorist activity.”
Under the new measure, people indicted on terror charges will find it much more difficult to gain their freedom on bail. A legal presumption would be established denying bail for anyone indicted by a grand jury on terrorism charges. Although the suspect could appeal to a judge, the burden of proof would be on the defendant rather than on the government.
Previously, that stipulation applied to suspects in violent and drug crimes, but not to alleged terrorists. Skeptics say the provision has the potential to be abused, possibly resulting in long detentions for people ultimately found innocent.
According to the Associated Press (AP), Sen. Russell Feingold, a democrat from the state of Wisconsin, claims the current Justice Department “has a record of abusing its detention powers post-9/11 and of making terrorism allegations that turn out to have no merit."
The new legislation also expands the FBI's ability to obtain eavesdropping warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Under current law, these secret warrants are reserved for non-U.S. citizens who the government can show are affiliated with a foreign power or international terrorist group, such as al-Qaida. But the Department of Justice (DOJ), to which the FBI reports, has made it known that they would favor a “USA Patriot Act II” to expand their powers even further. Both Republican and Democratic civil libertarians have opposed such expansion.
The current USA Patriot Act, hurriedly passed by Congress weeks after the 9/11 attacks, gave the government broad powers to conduct secret searches, wiretaps, and other forms of surveillance. Sections of it are scheduled to expire in 2005, and there has been heated debate about whether they should be extended.
The new intelligence legislation also broadens prohibitions against providing material support to terror groups, makes it a crime to visit a terror camp that provides military-style training and allows the FBI to obtain secret surveillance warrants against "lone wolf" extremists not known to be tied to a specific terrorist group. It also makes terrorism hoaxes a federal crime and toughens penalties against people who possess weapons of mass destruction.
"Overall, it's another threat to civil liberties in this country," a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union told the AP. "It's just a continuation of what the administration's been doing."
The final bill also presents problems relating to government secrecy policy. For example, the Senate version of the bill authorizes disclosure of the gross amount of the nation’s intelligence budget – reportedly now about $40 billion annually. However, this disclosure was rejected by House negotiators, despite the unanimous recommendation of the 9/11 Commission and the endorsement of the full Senate.
According to the Government Secrecy Project of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), this “is a setback that tends to reinforce the arbitrary and excessive secrecy that the 9/11Commission found in the intelligence bureaucracy.”
FAS adds: “Perhaps the most important secrecy-related feature of the
Intelligence Reform Act is what is not in it: the authority to create an entirely autonomous new classification system for intelligence.” It notes that the Act ”revivifies the dormant Public Interest Declassification Board, formally established four years ago but never convened, and assigns it the additional task of ‘reviewing’ congressional requests for declassification of particular records.”
During the Bush Administration, the numbers of documents designated as ‘classified’ have increased dramatically, triggering a corresponding increase in the numbers of requests for information under the government’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The FOIA was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968, and was designed to increase public access to government documents.
FAS notes that the final bill “does not expand authority under which information is classified…but rather directs the (new) National Intelligence Director (NID) to establish and implement guidelines for the intelligence community for the purpose of such classification of information."
Human rights advocates are also concerned about what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a Washington-based advocacy group, calls the “fundamental tension between intelligence gathering and civil liberties”.
Said a statement from the ACLU: “Where government is focused on gathering intelligence information not connected to specific criminal activity, there is a substantial risk of chilling lawful dissent. Such inquiries plainly have a chilling effect on constitutional rights.” It called for “specific safeguards for domestic collection of intelligence information that preserve the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) while ensuring against the use of spy tactics against Americans through strengthened guidelines and other checks and balances to bar political spying.”
Civil liberties advocacy groups have been sharply critical of the FBI
and immigration officials in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for detaining thousands of visitors to the US for immigration violations without access to legal counsel or appeal. The DHS is in charge of America’s immigration prison system, from which many have of these detainees have been deported. Since the 9/11 attacks, the FBI has rounded up and detained several thousand US citizens and visitors – most of them Arabs or Muslims. However, no one has yet been convicted of a terror-related charge.
Human rights organizations are also troubled by the mechanism the new law sets up to protect civil rights. While it establishes a Privacy and Civil Liberties Board to review federal policies and practices, it gives the president the authority to appoint its members and denies it subpoena power. The FAS says that while the Board will have little independent authority, it “may turn out to serve as a useful forum for adjudicating classification disputes.”
The final version of the legislation stripped out a provision creating an Inspector General position in the office of the National Intelligence Director. Inspectors-General typically conduct independent investigations of abuses within government departments. They are present in virtually all major departments, including the DOJ, the DHS, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Other provisions of the new law criminalize giving material support to suspected terrorists and provide new investigative authority to pursue "lone wolf" terror suspects not affiliated with other known groups or foreign powers; require extensive sharing of intelligence and law enforcement information among federal, state, local and private entities; directs the DHS to develop a national strategy for transportation security, and adds at least 2,000 Border Patrol agents and 800 customs agents each year for five years and 8,000 beds a year to house immigration detainees and people suspected of terrorism.
Supporters of stricter laws governing US immigration reform and border protection have promised a comprehensive debate in the new Congress, which convenes in January. The border protection and immigration issues have been championed by Representative James A. Sensenbrenner, a Republican from the state of Wisconsin, who is the powerful chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee. Rep. Sensenbrenner is responsible much of the anti-refugee language in the House version of the bill.
For this reason, few government-watchers expect the controversy over intelligence reform to end with the passage of the new law. As noted by Howard Fineman in Newsweek magazine, “The intraparty battle between the Bush White House and recalcitrant House Republicans over intelligence reform is just the overture to the opera, a discordant melody we're going to hear over and over again during the next two years.”
Many of the more draconian provisions adversely affecting privacy, secrecy and the rights of asylum-seekers, originally included in the “Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004”, were omitted in the final version of the law. But the compromise agreed to by the US House of Representatives and Senate continues to contain language that troubles human and civil rights organizations.
For example, the House version of the bill would have allowed non-citizens -- including those likely to face torture if returned to their home countries -- to be deported without an immigration court hearing, made it much more difficult for genuine refugees to prove their asylum cases, and deprived judicial review to victims of torture and other forms of persecution.
This and similar provisions were removed under pressure from the White House, leaders of both political parties, the families of the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks, and members of the 9/11 Commission, on whose recommendations the intelligence overhaul is based.
“These provisions would have put the lives of refugees at real risk,” said a statement from Human Rights First, an advocacy group. “The fact that they were dropped is a victory for America’s commitment to protecting the persecuted”, the organization said.
Under US law, both House and Senate must pass legislation separately. If the two versions contain disagreements, they are reconciled in a House-Senate Conference Committee. The 9/11 Commission did not recommend changes in US immigration law, and most observers found the Senate version much closer to the Commission’s recommendations. Removal of the House’s immigration language, as well as other provisions, allowed both legislative bodies to pass a compromise bill for the president’s signature.
While the harshest refugee and immigration proposals were dropped from the final version, the bill now passed by both houses of congress includes a requirement that the General Accounting Office (GAO), Congress’ investigative arm, conduct a study and report, “to evaluate the extent to which weaknesses in the United States asylum system and withholding of removal system have been or could be exploited by aliens connected to, charged in connection with, or tied to terrorist activity.”
Under the new measure, people indicted on terror charges will find it much more difficult to gain their freedom on bail. A legal presumption would be established denying bail for anyone indicted by a grand jury on terrorism charges. Although the suspect could appeal to a judge, the burden of proof would be on the defendant rather than on the government.
Previously, that stipulation applied to suspects in violent and drug crimes, but not to alleged terrorists. Skeptics say the provision has the potential to be abused, possibly resulting in long detentions for people ultimately found innocent.
According to the Associated Press (AP), Sen. Russell Feingold, a democrat from the state of Wisconsin, claims the current Justice Department “has a record of abusing its detention powers post-9/11 and of making terrorism allegations that turn out to have no merit."
The new legislation also expands the FBI's ability to obtain eavesdropping warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Under current law, these secret warrants are reserved for non-U.S. citizens who the government can show are affiliated with a foreign power or international terrorist group, such as al-Qaida. But the Department of Justice (DOJ), to which the FBI reports, has made it known that they would favor a “USA Patriot Act II” to expand their powers even further. Both Republican and Democratic civil libertarians have opposed such expansion.
The current USA Patriot Act, hurriedly passed by Congress weeks after the 9/11 attacks, gave the government broad powers to conduct secret searches, wiretaps, and other forms of surveillance. Sections of it are scheduled to expire in 2005, and there has been heated debate about whether they should be extended.
The new intelligence legislation also broadens prohibitions against providing material support to terror groups, makes it a crime to visit a terror camp that provides military-style training and allows the FBI to obtain secret surveillance warrants against "lone wolf" extremists not known to be tied to a specific terrorist group. It also makes terrorism hoaxes a federal crime and toughens penalties against people who possess weapons of mass destruction.
"Overall, it's another threat to civil liberties in this country," a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union told the AP. "It's just a continuation of what the administration's been doing."
The final bill also presents problems relating to government secrecy policy. For example, the Senate version of the bill authorizes disclosure of the gross amount of the nation’s intelligence budget – reportedly now about $40 billion annually. However, this disclosure was rejected by House negotiators, despite the unanimous recommendation of the 9/11 Commission and the endorsement of the full Senate.
According to the Government Secrecy Project of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), this “is a setback that tends to reinforce the arbitrary and excessive secrecy that the 9/11Commission found in the intelligence bureaucracy.”
FAS adds: “Perhaps the most important secrecy-related feature of the
Intelligence Reform Act is what is not in it: the authority to create an entirely autonomous new classification system for intelligence.” It notes that the Act ”revivifies the dormant Public Interest Declassification Board, formally established four years ago but never convened, and assigns it the additional task of ‘reviewing’ congressional requests for declassification of particular records.”
During the Bush Administration, the numbers of documents designated as ‘classified’ have increased dramatically, triggering a corresponding increase in the numbers of requests for information under the government’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The FOIA was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968, and was designed to increase public access to government documents.
FAS notes that the final bill “does not expand authority under which information is classified…but rather directs the (new) National Intelligence Director (NID) to establish and implement guidelines for the intelligence community for the purpose of such classification of information."
Human rights advocates are also concerned about what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a Washington-based advocacy group, calls the “fundamental tension between intelligence gathering and civil liberties”.
Said a statement from the ACLU: “Where government is focused on gathering intelligence information not connected to specific criminal activity, there is a substantial risk of chilling lawful dissent. Such inquiries plainly have a chilling effect on constitutional rights.” It called for “specific safeguards for domestic collection of intelligence information that preserve the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) while ensuring against the use of spy tactics against Americans through strengthened guidelines and other checks and balances to bar political spying.”
Civil liberties advocacy groups have been sharply critical of the FBI
and immigration officials in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for detaining thousands of visitors to the US for immigration violations without access to legal counsel or appeal. The DHS is in charge of America’s immigration prison system, from which many have of these detainees have been deported. Since the 9/11 attacks, the FBI has rounded up and detained several thousand US citizens and visitors – most of them Arabs or Muslims. However, no one has yet been convicted of a terror-related charge.
Human rights organizations are also troubled by the mechanism the new law sets up to protect civil rights. While it establishes a Privacy and Civil Liberties Board to review federal policies and practices, it gives the president the authority to appoint its members and denies it subpoena power. The FAS says that while the Board will have little independent authority, it “may turn out to serve as a useful forum for adjudicating classification disputes.”
The final version of the legislation stripped out a provision creating an Inspector General position in the office of the National Intelligence Director. Inspectors-General typically conduct independent investigations of abuses within government departments. They are present in virtually all major departments, including the DOJ, the DHS, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Other provisions of the new law criminalize giving material support to suspected terrorists and provide new investigative authority to pursue "lone wolf" terror suspects not affiliated with other known groups or foreign powers; require extensive sharing of intelligence and law enforcement information among federal, state, local and private entities; directs the DHS to develop a national strategy for transportation security, and adds at least 2,000 Border Patrol agents and 800 customs agents each year for five years and 8,000 beds a year to house immigration detainees and people suspected of terrorism.
Supporters of stricter laws governing US immigration reform and border protection have promised a comprehensive debate in the new Congress, which convenes in January. The border protection and immigration issues have been championed by Representative James A. Sensenbrenner, a Republican from the state of Wisconsin, who is the powerful chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee. Rep. Sensenbrenner is responsible much of the anti-refugee language in the House version of the bill.
For this reason, few government-watchers expect the controversy over intelligence reform to end with the passage of the new law. As noted by Howard Fineman in Newsweek magazine, “The intraparty battle between the Bush White House and recalcitrant House Republicans over intelligence reform is just the overture to the opera, a discordant melody we're going to hear over and over again during the next two years.”
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