By William Fisher
A delegation of human rights experts is preparing to visit Haiti to assess the human rights and aid situation in the earthquake-crippled nation and to urge the international community to follow a series of guidelines they have prepared to help donors’ to “overcome the mistakes of the past.”
The team will be conducting its assessments through interviews and onsite visits both inside and outside of Port-au-Prince, focusing on towns that have received a high volume of internally displaced persons since the earthquake.
The trip, scheduled for March 9th-12th, comes in advance of the March 23 hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, where members of the delegation will provide testimony aimed at encouraging the Commission to formally investigate the human rights impacts of post-earthquake aid on behalf of the Organization of American States.
It also precedes the much-anticipated March 31st Haiti Donors’ Conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York, where future aid to Haiti will be discussed. The groups recently issued a list of recommendations outlining a rights-based approach to aid delivery in advance of that conference, and have a long history of working on aid and human rights issues in Haiti.
The delegation will consist of representatives from prominent human rights organizations -- the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at NYU School of Law and the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights (RFK Center) – and Haitian experts from Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) and Zanmi Lasante/Partners In Health.
The groups plan to conduct what they describe as the first of a series of assessments that will span the coming year.
One member of the delegation, Monika Kalra Varma, executive director of the RFK Center, told IPS, “We are encouraged by the new tone evident in the rhetoric coming from Secretary of State (Hillary) Clinton and others. But rhetoric and goodwill go only so far. Forging a real partnership with the Haitian people will require a total change in the culture of delivering aid to Haiti. Yet if that kind of partnership is not achieved, we will have more of the failures we have seen for decades.”
Noting that this is a requirement not only for country donors but also for the large number of international NGOs operating in Haiti, she said the Haitian people “must have an active voice” in what is being planned for their country.
She added, “This is not simply a Port au Prince problem. A million people have fled the capital for safer locations elsewhere, usually with family members. Those people too must be included in the new partnership.”
The groups’ are recommending that, “As the international community reaffirms its commitment to Haiti, it must overcome the mistakes of the past. Accountability, transparency, empowerment, and capacity building should guide all rebuilding efforts.”
“Donor states should use a rights-based approach, targeting aid to build the capacity of the Haitian government to ensure the rights of its people. Donor states should act with full transparency and accountability, making information about their plans and programs available to all, and should work with the Haitian government to set up public monitoring and reporting mechanisms,” the groups say, adding:
“Donor states should coordinate their actions by setting up a Multi-Donor Fund that includes Haitian civil society and community-based organizations as voting members.”
High on the groups’ list of recommendations is building the capacity of the Haitian government to manage its own aid programs.
Donors should “Conduct assistance with the goal of ensuring the government of Haiti has the capacity to guarantee the human rights of all Haitians, including economic, social and cultural rights, as well as civil and political rights.”
“This requires donors to work directly with the Government of Haiti to identify needs and to develop, implement, and monitor programs to provide basic public services, including education and public health, water, and sanitation services,” the groups declare.
The capacity of the Haitian government to budget, disburse funds, and implement projects in a transparent way should be a high priority, the groups say.
They also call for officials of the Haitian Government and representatives of Haitian civil society and community-based organizations to be included as voting members on the governing committee of a Multi-Donor Fund, the groups say.
They are also recommending the creation of a “public web-based database to report and track donor pledges, disbursed funds, recipients, sector areas, and expected outcomes under the aegis of the Multi-Donor Fund.”
Donors must “Ensure that assistance projects are Haitian-led and community-based at every stage, recognizing the importance of including internally displaced persons who may not be integrated into the community.”
They must “Prioritize programs benefiting vulnerable groups, including women and children, the disabled, the elderly, and internally displaced persons.”
Accountability plays a major role in the series of recommendations. The groups propose the establishment and funding of a mechanism “to measure and monitor the outcomes of assistance projects at the community level. All findings should be made public. This mechanism should be administered by the Government of Haiti in partnership with civil society and community-based groups and should include a mechanism for Haitians to register complaints about problems with implementation of projects.”
International aid to Haiti has been problematic for decades before the magnitude 7.5 earthquake flattened the country’s capital city, Port au Prince, on January 12, leaving a million homeless and killing an estimated 200,000.
Aid to Haiti has been marked by frequent interruptions, particularly in assistance from the U.S., for political and ideological reasons. Within Haiti, massive and continuing government and private corruption has siphoned off large chunks of funding and misdirected money to people who didn’t need help.
Development experts say aid to Haiti has been aid to the light-skinned elites of Haiti.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Those Vanishing Emails!
By William Fisher
The Justice Department investigation into whether the authors of the Bush-era “torture memos” were guilty of professional misconduct did not have full access to the emails used by those lawyers and by other key figures in the investigation, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and former counsel to the Vice President David Addington.
The missing emails came to light during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee TODAY (Friday). Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, described the vanishing emails as “suspicious.”
He urged the sole witness before the committee, Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary G. Grindler, to investigate further to determine who deleted the emails and whether they could be recovered.
The email issue recalled the 2007 investigation into the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys during the administration of President George W. Bush, and whether the White House pressured the Justice Department to cover up the details of the firings. Administration officials insisted that millions of emails from senior Bush figures including political advisor Karl Rove were irretrievably missing. The emails were later recovered. The disclosures were important factors in the resignation of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The Justice Department’s investigation into the torture memos, conducted by the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), was highly critical of its authors but concluded that they were guilty of poor judgment but not professional misconduct meriting referral to state legal organizations for possible disbarment.
The authors of the memos were Jay Bybee, who was Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and his assistant, John Yoo. Bybee is now a federal judge and Yoo is a law professor.
Bybee and Yoo worked in the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). OLC is one of the most important offices within the Department of Justice. It is to this office that the president directs questions about the legality of actions his administration plans to take or policies it intends to adopt.
Human Rights First, a legal advocacy group that has closely followed this issue, is urging members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to address questions that remain unanswered following the release of Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report.
HRF called the conduct of Bybee and Yoo “unethical and unprofessional.”
The organization noted that the Judiciary Committee hearing “should lay the groundwork for further investigation and address the need to empanel a non-partisan commission to conduct a comprehensive review of these policies.”
Daphne Eviatar, a Human Rights First attorney who monitored the Senate hearing, told IPS she was "disappointed" that "there was no indication that DOJ has any intention of following up on the evidence revealed in the report indicating that the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) was pressured by the White House to create legal justifications for illegal techniques that the administration had already decided to use. And if that's true, then we're talking about a criminal conspiracy, which the department is obligated to investigate further."
She added, “I was disappointed to hear that the Justice Department's attitude towards the matter was that it's now over.”
Leahy’s call for a further investigation drew strong objections from the Committee’s ranking Republican member, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama and another Republican member, Senator John Cornyn of Texas. Both strongly defended the actions taken by the Bush Administration following the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 as being necessary to protect U.S. national security.
HRF said the OPR report “highlights the lack of independent judgment and perverse legal reasoning that shaped the ‘torture memos’ and underscores the need for an independent review of how torture and other abuse of prisoners were authorized after 9/11. It provides the clearest picture to date of a flawed process by which the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), which is supposed to render independent legal advice, was instead subverted to provide conclusions justifying detainee abuse that principals within the Bush administration wanted to hear.”
The organization said the report also highlights in detail the flawed legal analysis by the three principal authors of the legal memoranda who gave a green light to the use of torture techniques documented in the CIA Inspector General’s report made public in August.
It sharply criticized the quality of the legal work in the memoranda, concluding that “of the lawyers who wrote these memos, Yoo committed intentional professional misconduct and Bybee acted in reckless disregard of his obligation to provide thorough, objective and candid legal advice.”
“Although the Associate Deputy Attorney General declined to adopt this opinion, choosing instead to characterize the lawyers’ work as an exercise of ‘poor judgment’, the fact remains that the individuals who investigated and analyzed the evidence found that Yoo’s misconduct was ‘intentional’ and that Bybee’s was ‘reckless.’ That calls into question the good faith of both of these lawyers, and demands further investigation,” HRF charged.
Following his earlier review of the OPR report, as well as the May 2004 CIA Inspector General’s report that detailed appalling abuses committed against prisoners in the CIA’s interrogation program, Attorney General Eric Holder announced in August 2009 the appointment of a prosecutor to conduct a preliminary review into only those prisoner abuses that exceeded the bounds of what was deemed permissible in the flawed OLC “torture memos.”
“The United States, to its credit, has a strong record of criticizing arbitrary detention and detainee abuse in other countries. In order to restore its credibility and leadership on human rights, the United States must engage in a full accounting of how policies of cruelty were authorized. A thorough and public examination of the past is vital in order to guard against future authorization of abuse in the name of national security,” Massimino concluded.
Other human rights and civil liberties groups took similar positions. “Laura W. Murphy, Director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said, “It is critical today that senators make clear that, given the information in the OPR report and the wealth of other evidence in the public domain, the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the torture program must be broad enough to include those who authorized and legally sanctioned these shameful acts.”
The Justice Department investigation into whether the authors of the Bush-era “torture memos” were guilty of professional misconduct did not have full access to the emails used by those lawyers and by other key figures in the investigation, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and former counsel to the Vice President David Addington.
The missing emails came to light during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee TODAY (Friday). Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, described the vanishing emails as “suspicious.”
He urged the sole witness before the committee, Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary G. Grindler, to investigate further to determine who deleted the emails and whether they could be recovered.
The email issue recalled the 2007 investigation into the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys during the administration of President George W. Bush, and whether the White House pressured the Justice Department to cover up the details of the firings. Administration officials insisted that millions of emails from senior Bush figures including political advisor Karl Rove were irretrievably missing. The emails were later recovered. The disclosures were important factors in the resignation of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The Justice Department’s investigation into the torture memos, conducted by the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), was highly critical of its authors but concluded that they were guilty of poor judgment but not professional misconduct meriting referral to state legal organizations for possible disbarment.
The authors of the memos were Jay Bybee, who was Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and his assistant, John Yoo. Bybee is now a federal judge and Yoo is a law professor.
Bybee and Yoo worked in the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). OLC is one of the most important offices within the Department of Justice. It is to this office that the president directs questions about the legality of actions his administration plans to take or policies it intends to adopt.
Human Rights First, a legal advocacy group that has closely followed this issue, is urging members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to address questions that remain unanswered following the release of Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report.
HRF called the conduct of Bybee and Yoo “unethical and unprofessional.”
The organization noted that the Judiciary Committee hearing “should lay the groundwork for further investigation and address the need to empanel a non-partisan commission to conduct a comprehensive review of these policies.”
Daphne Eviatar, a Human Rights First attorney who monitored the Senate hearing, told IPS she was "disappointed" that "there was no indication that DOJ has any intention of following up on the evidence revealed in the report indicating that the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) was pressured by the White House to create legal justifications for illegal techniques that the administration had already decided to use. And if that's true, then we're talking about a criminal conspiracy, which the department is obligated to investigate further."
She added, “I was disappointed to hear that the Justice Department's attitude towards the matter was that it's now over.”
Leahy’s call for a further investigation drew strong objections from the Committee’s ranking Republican member, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama and another Republican member, Senator John Cornyn of Texas. Both strongly defended the actions taken by the Bush Administration following the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 as being necessary to protect U.S. national security.
HRF said the OPR report “highlights the lack of independent judgment and perverse legal reasoning that shaped the ‘torture memos’ and underscores the need for an independent review of how torture and other abuse of prisoners were authorized after 9/11. It provides the clearest picture to date of a flawed process by which the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), which is supposed to render independent legal advice, was instead subverted to provide conclusions justifying detainee abuse that principals within the Bush administration wanted to hear.”
The organization said the report also highlights in detail the flawed legal analysis by the three principal authors of the legal memoranda who gave a green light to the use of torture techniques documented in the CIA Inspector General’s report made public in August.
It sharply criticized the quality of the legal work in the memoranda, concluding that “of the lawyers who wrote these memos, Yoo committed intentional professional misconduct and Bybee acted in reckless disregard of his obligation to provide thorough, objective and candid legal advice.”
“Although the Associate Deputy Attorney General declined to adopt this opinion, choosing instead to characterize the lawyers’ work as an exercise of ‘poor judgment’, the fact remains that the individuals who investigated and analyzed the evidence found that Yoo’s misconduct was ‘intentional’ and that Bybee’s was ‘reckless.’ That calls into question the good faith of both of these lawyers, and demands further investigation,” HRF charged.
Following his earlier review of the OPR report, as well as the May 2004 CIA Inspector General’s report that detailed appalling abuses committed against prisoners in the CIA’s interrogation program, Attorney General Eric Holder announced in August 2009 the appointment of a prosecutor to conduct a preliminary review into only those prisoner abuses that exceeded the bounds of what was deemed permissible in the flawed OLC “torture memos.”
“The United States, to its credit, has a strong record of criticizing arbitrary detention and detainee abuse in other countries. In order to restore its credibility and leadership on human rights, the United States must engage in a full accounting of how policies of cruelty were authorized. A thorough and public examination of the past is vital in order to guard against future authorization of abuse in the name of national security,” Massimino concluded.
Other human rights and civil liberties groups took similar positions. “Laura W. Murphy, Director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said, “It is critical today that senators make clear that, given the information in the OPR report and the wealth of other evidence in the public domain, the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the torture program must be broad enough to include those who authorized and legally sanctioned these shameful acts.”
Blackwater’s Migraines Multiply
By William Fisher
Legal headaches are growing exponentially for the security firm formerly known as Blackwater – once the darling of the military-industrial community.
In separate developments, two former employees of the company previously charged that the security firm committed "systematic fraud" under their contracts with the U.S. State Department in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Iraqi government announced it would seize heavy weapons from foreign security firms and expel ex-Blackwater contractors still in the country, and a US Senate hearing learned that Blackwater employees stole more than 500 assault rifles intended for the Afghan police force.
The accusations of fraud came from two former employees who filed a false claims lawsuit that allows the employees, acting as whistleblowers, to win a portion of any public money the government recovers as a result of the information.
The Washington Post reports that the former Blackwater (now known as Xe Services) employees, Brad and Melan Davis, accused the firm of over-billing for travel, charging for liquor and spa trips and for a having a fire pit built for Blackwater staff parties, and charging for the services of a Filipino prostitute who was kept on "staff" in Afghanistan as part of the company's "Morale Welfare Recreation. "
Brad Davis was a former Marine and served as a team leader and security guard, including in a posting in Iraq. Melan Davis, his wife, worked as a finance and payroll employee. Melan Davis has accused the company of terminating her in 2008 because she questioned billing practices. Her husband resigned shortly afterward.
Blackwater changed its name to Ze -- pronounced "zee" – early last year in an effort to shed the negative baggage acquired because of its frequent run-ins with Iraqi, Afghan, U.S. and NATO forces. Blackwater Lodge & Training Center — the subsidiary that conducts much of the company's overseas operations and domestic training — has been renamed U.S. Training Center Inc.
In a related development, the Iraqi government announced that it would seize weapons from foreign security firms and expel ex-Blackwater contractors still in the country within days, according to Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani.
The decision was triggered by the Iraqi government’s outrage over the dismissal by a U.S. court of charges against Blackwater Worldwide guards who were accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007. The guards said they shot in self-defense.
The judge said there was evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. The U.S. government is appealing the dismissal of the court case. The Iraqi government, which has prohibited Blackwater from operating in Iraq, has hired U.S. lawyers to prepare a lawsuit against the company.
For many Iraqis, the killing of the 14 civilians became emblematic of the impunity from prosecution in Iraq enjoyed by foreign security contractors after the 2003 U.S. invasion. That immunity ended last year under a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement transferring sovereignty back to Iraq.
Parliamentary elections scheduled for March 7 are also fuelling Iraqi anger at Blackwater. Minister Bolani, who is running as the head of his own coalition against a slate headed by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, told Reuters news service that he had "ordered that the heavy weapons used by some of the foreign security firms be collected."
And in yet another development, it emerged at a hearing of the Senate armed services committee that Blackwater employees took more than 500 assault rifles intended for the Afghan police force and routinely carried weapons without permission.
It also emerged that to burnish its negative image to win contracting business in Afghanistan, Blackwater created what one senator called a shell company. Senators said that company, Paravant, deceived U.S. officials. It claimed Blackwater was not involved but used Blackwater's past performance to establish its credentials.
"They made representations here that are wildly false," said Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat. "Everyone knew in the field it was Blackwater trying to get rid of a negative name."
Levin warned that Afghan civilians did not distinguish between troops and contractors, and that when contractors misbehaved it turned the population against US forces and encouraged them to side with the Taliban.
The Senate hearing focused in part on a December 2008 accident in which a Blackwater employee was shot in the head during what the company described as a vehicle training exercise but Levin called horseplay.
According to committee investigators, a Blackwater trainer jumped on top of a moving vehicle while carrying a loaded AK47. The vehicle hit a bump and the rifle discharged, striking another trainer in the head. At the hearing today former Blackwater officials insisted the Americans were engaged in vehicle training. Levin accused Blackwater of covering up misconduct by describing the shooting as an accident during "routine" training.
In May two Afghan civilians were killed in a shooting involving Paravant employees. Investigators later determined that the Americans had "violated alcohol policies", were not authorized to have weapons and had violated other policies. The US department of justice said the shooting had a detrimental effect on US national security.
Former Paravant official Brian McCracken acknowledged the company's trainers were carrying weapons without authorization but said they often operated in dangerous environments among armed Afghans, without US army protection.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. in September 2001, Blackwater was awarded contracts worth billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company provided security for U.S. embassy personnel and important visitors in those locations. Erik Prince, Blackwater’s founder and former CEO, was a substantial contributor to the Republican Party and had close ties to senior officials in the administration of George W. Bush.
Legal headaches are growing exponentially for the security firm formerly known as Blackwater – once the darling of the military-industrial community.
In separate developments, two former employees of the company previously charged that the security firm committed "systematic fraud" under their contracts with the U.S. State Department in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Iraqi government announced it would seize heavy weapons from foreign security firms and expel ex-Blackwater contractors still in the country, and a US Senate hearing learned that Blackwater employees stole more than 500 assault rifles intended for the Afghan police force.
The accusations of fraud came from two former employees who filed a false claims lawsuit that allows the employees, acting as whistleblowers, to win a portion of any public money the government recovers as a result of the information.
The Washington Post reports that the former Blackwater (now known as Xe Services) employees, Brad and Melan Davis, accused the firm of over-billing for travel, charging for liquor and spa trips and for a having a fire pit built for Blackwater staff parties, and charging for the services of a Filipino prostitute who was kept on "staff" in Afghanistan as part of the company's "Morale Welfare Recreation. "
Brad Davis was a former Marine and served as a team leader and security guard, including in a posting in Iraq. Melan Davis, his wife, worked as a finance and payroll employee. Melan Davis has accused the company of terminating her in 2008 because she questioned billing practices. Her husband resigned shortly afterward.
Blackwater changed its name to Ze -- pronounced "zee" – early last year in an effort to shed the negative baggage acquired because of its frequent run-ins with Iraqi, Afghan, U.S. and NATO forces. Blackwater Lodge & Training Center — the subsidiary that conducts much of the company's overseas operations and domestic training — has been renamed U.S. Training Center Inc.
In a related development, the Iraqi government announced that it would seize weapons from foreign security firms and expel ex-Blackwater contractors still in the country within days, according to Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani.
The decision was triggered by the Iraqi government’s outrage over the dismissal by a U.S. court of charges against Blackwater Worldwide guards who were accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007. The guards said they shot in self-defense.
The judge said there was evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. The U.S. government is appealing the dismissal of the court case. The Iraqi government, which has prohibited Blackwater from operating in Iraq, has hired U.S. lawyers to prepare a lawsuit against the company.
For many Iraqis, the killing of the 14 civilians became emblematic of the impunity from prosecution in Iraq enjoyed by foreign security contractors after the 2003 U.S. invasion. That immunity ended last year under a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement transferring sovereignty back to Iraq.
Parliamentary elections scheduled for March 7 are also fuelling Iraqi anger at Blackwater. Minister Bolani, who is running as the head of his own coalition against a slate headed by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, told Reuters news service that he had "ordered that the heavy weapons used by some of the foreign security firms be collected."
And in yet another development, it emerged at a hearing of the Senate armed services committee that Blackwater employees took more than 500 assault rifles intended for the Afghan police force and routinely carried weapons without permission.
It also emerged that to burnish its negative image to win contracting business in Afghanistan, Blackwater created what one senator called a shell company. Senators said that company, Paravant, deceived U.S. officials. It claimed Blackwater was not involved but used Blackwater's past performance to establish its credentials.
"They made representations here that are wildly false," said Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat. "Everyone knew in the field it was Blackwater trying to get rid of a negative name."
Levin warned that Afghan civilians did not distinguish between troops and contractors, and that when contractors misbehaved it turned the population against US forces and encouraged them to side with the Taliban.
The Senate hearing focused in part on a December 2008 accident in which a Blackwater employee was shot in the head during what the company described as a vehicle training exercise but Levin called horseplay.
According to committee investigators, a Blackwater trainer jumped on top of a moving vehicle while carrying a loaded AK47. The vehicle hit a bump and the rifle discharged, striking another trainer in the head. At the hearing today former Blackwater officials insisted the Americans were engaged in vehicle training. Levin accused Blackwater of covering up misconduct by describing the shooting as an accident during "routine" training.
In May two Afghan civilians were killed in a shooting involving Paravant employees. Investigators later determined that the Americans had "violated alcohol policies", were not authorized to have weapons and had violated other policies. The US department of justice said the shooting had a detrimental effect on US national security.
Former Paravant official Brian McCracken acknowledged the company's trainers were carrying weapons without authorization but said they often operated in dangerous environments among armed Afghans, without US army protection.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. in September 2001, Blackwater was awarded contracts worth billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company provided security for U.S. embassy personnel and important visitors in those locations. Erik Prince, Blackwater’s founder and former CEO, was a substantial contributor to the Republican Party and had close ties to senior officials in the administration of George W. Bush.
Habeas Challenges for Bagram Prisoners
By William Fisher
Four men who have been imprisoned for over a year – some for almost two years – are going to U.S. federal court to challenge their detention at the notorious Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
The men, who their lawyers say have never engaged in hostilities against the U.S. and are not members of groups that have engaged in hostilities against the U.S., have never been told why they are being detained, permitted to speak with a lawyer or given a meaningful opportunity to challenge their detention before a court or impartial administrative board.
The habeas corpus petitions were filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The petitions ask that the four men to be given access to lawyers and be allowed to challenge the legality of their detention in court.
Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told IPS, “These habeas petitions seek the basic right for an individual imprisoned indefinitely by the executive to challenge his detention in a court of law. For far too long, the U.S. has been seizing people in Afghanistan, including from their homes, and jailing them for years, without charge or a fair hearing. This serves neither out values nor our security."
He added, "A court must have a chance to decide whether it's lawful to continue imprisoning these men without charge. The U.S. practice of indefinitely detaining hundreds of people at Bagram without access to lawyers, judicial review or a fair process is a stain on our reputation in the world."
One of the petitions filed today is on behalf of Afghan brothers Sibghatullah Jalatzai, who was a translator for the U.S. military for four years before his detention nearly 20 months ago, and Samiullah Jalatzai, who was arrested without explanation at his workplace nearly 23 months ago. The second petition is on behalf of Afghan government employee Haji Abdul Wahid and his nephew Zia-ur-Rahman, who were taken from their homes by the U.S. military during a massive neighborhood sweep more than one year ago.
The petitions charge that the military does not have the authority to detain these men and that the lack of access to a court or fair process to challenge their detention violates the U.S. Constitution and international law. Attorneys on the case include ACLU lawyers and Tina Foster of the International Justice Network, which coordinates Bagram habeas litigation.
The United States is the only nation among the NATO countries participating in the conflict in Afghanistan that subjects individuals it captures to indefinite military detention. Other NATO nations reportedly detain individuals for a maximum of 96 hours and then either release them or transfer them to Afghan custody.
The ACLU said, “There is growing concern that Bagram has become the new Guantánamo, except with hundreds more prisoners held indefinitely, in harsher conditions and with less due process.”
In response to an ACLU Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking the disclosure of documents related to the detention and treatment of prisoners at Bagram, the Defense Department recently released for the first time a list containing the names of 645 prisoners who were detained at Bagram as of September 2009, when the lawsuit was filed. Other vital information, including their citizenship, how long they had been held, in what country they were captured and the circumstances of their capture, was redacted.
In April 2009, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records relating to the detention and treatment of prisoners held at the Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. The ACLU is asking the Obama administration to make public records pertaining to the number of people currently detained at Bagram, their names, citizenship, place of capture and length of detention, as well as records pertaining to the process afforded those prisoners to challenge their detention and designation as "enemy combatants."
The Defense Department (DOD) partially complied with the ACLU request last month when it turned over the names of its prisoners at Bagram.
But human rights advocates have a decidedly mixed record in their attempts to persuade the courts to grant customary due process rights to Bagram detainees. In one of the few earlier cases, involving four Bagram prisoners, Judge John D. Bates ruled that three of them -- two Yemenis and one Tunisian –had the right to petition U.S. courts for their release.
But he also ruled that because the fourth prisoner, Haji Wazir, was a citizen of Afghanistan, rather than a Yemeni or a Tunisian, granting him legal rights might upset the relationship between the U.S. and Afghanistan. Judge Bates dismissed Wazir’s petition.
Wazir, an Afghan civilian who has been held at Bagram without charge for more than six years, was captured in Pakistan in 2002. He is notable because he is one of the very few captives in Bagram who has had a writ of habeas corpus filed on his behalf.
The U.S. government's Bagram detention facility has been the focus of widespread media attention and public concern for many years, but very little information is publically available about the secrecy-shrouded facility or the prisoners held there.
The U.S. government has been detaining an unknown number of prisoners at the Bagram detention facility since 2002, and recent news reports indicate that the more than 600 individuals are currently detained there – some of whom have been held for as long as six years without access to counsel or a meaningful opportunity to challenge their imprisonment. The conditions of confinement at Bagram are reportedly primitive, with allegations of mistreatment and abuse continuing to surface; in fact, at least two prisoners have died there. There is public concern in the U.S. and around the world that Bagram has become, in effect, the new Guantánamo.
The ACLU says, “Although the nation is embroiled in an intense public debate about U.S. policy pertaining to the detention and treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody, most Americans remain in the dark about the basic facts about Bagram. When prisoners are in U.S. custody and under U.S. control – no matter the location – our values and commitment to the rule of law are at stake. Now that President Obama has taken the positive step of ordering Guantánamo shut down, it is critical that we don't permit 'other Gitmos' to continue elsewhere.”
A recent investigation by journalist Anand Gopal revealed the existence of another prison on Bagram Air Base – one so secret that even the Red Cross does not have access to. It is dubbed the ‘Black Jail’ and is reportedly run by US Special Forces.
Four men who have been imprisoned for over a year – some for almost two years – are going to U.S. federal court to challenge their detention at the notorious Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
The men, who their lawyers say have never engaged in hostilities against the U.S. and are not members of groups that have engaged in hostilities against the U.S., have never been told why they are being detained, permitted to speak with a lawyer or given a meaningful opportunity to challenge their detention before a court or impartial administrative board.
The habeas corpus petitions were filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The petitions ask that the four men to be given access to lawyers and be allowed to challenge the legality of their detention in court.
Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told IPS, “These habeas petitions seek the basic right for an individual imprisoned indefinitely by the executive to challenge his detention in a court of law. For far too long, the U.S. has been seizing people in Afghanistan, including from their homes, and jailing them for years, without charge or a fair hearing. This serves neither out values nor our security."
He added, "A court must have a chance to decide whether it's lawful to continue imprisoning these men without charge. The U.S. practice of indefinitely detaining hundreds of people at Bagram without access to lawyers, judicial review or a fair process is a stain on our reputation in the world."
One of the petitions filed today is on behalf of Afghan brothers Sibghatullah Jalatzai, who was a translator for the U.S. military for four years before his detention nearly 20 months ago, and Samiullah Jalatzai, who was arrested without explanation at his workplace nearly 23 months ago. The second petition is on behalf of Afghan government employee Haji Abdul Wahid and his nephew Zia-ur-Rahman, who were taken from their homes by the U.S. military during a massive neighborhood sweep more than one year ago.
The petitions charge that the military does not have the authority to detain these men and that the lack of access to a court or fair process to challenge their detention violates the U.S. Constitution and international law. Attorneys on the case include ACLU lawyers and Tina Foster of the International Justice Network, which coordinates Bagram habeas litigation.
The United States is the only nation among the NATO countries participating in the conflict in Afghanistan that subjects individuals it captures to indefinite military detention. Other NATO nations reportedly detain individuals for a maximum of 96 hours and then either release them or transfer them to Afghan custody.
The ACLU said, “There is growing concern that Bagram has become the new Guantánamo, except with hundreds more prisoners held indefinitely, in harsher conditions and with less due process.”
In response to an ACLU Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking the disclosure of documents related to the detention and treatment of prisoners at Bagram, the Defense Department recently released for the first time a list containing the names of 645 prisoners who were detained at Bagram as of September 2009, when the lawsuit was filed. Other vital information, including their citizenship, how long they had been held, in what country they were captured and the circumstances of their capture, was redacted.
In April 2009, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records relating to the detention and treatment of prisoners held at the Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. The ACLU is asking the Obama administration to make public records pertaining to the number of people currently detained at Bagram, their names, citizenship, place of capture and length of detention, as well as records pertaining to the process afforded those prisoners to challenge their detention and designation as "enemy combatants."
The Defense Department (DOD) partially complied with the ACLU request last month when it turned over the names of its prisoners at Bagram.
But human rights advocates have a decidedly mixed record in their attempts to persuade the courts to grant customary due process rights to Bagram detainees. In one of the few earlier cases, involving four Bagram prisoners, Judge John D. Bates ruled that three of them -- two Yemenis and one Tunisian –had the right to petition U.S. courts for their release.
But he also ruled that because the fourth prisoner, Haji Wazir, was a citizen of Afghanistan, rather than a Yemeni or a Tunisian, granting him legal rights might upset the relationship between the U.S. and Afghanistan. Judge Bates dismissed Wazir’s petition.
Wazir, an Afghan civilian who has been held at Bagram without charge for more than six years, was captured in Pakistan in 2002. He is notable because he is one of the very few captives in Bagram who has had a writ of habeas corpus filed on his behalf.
The U.S. government's Bagram detention facility has been the focus of widespread media attention and public concern for many years, but very little information is publically available about the secrecy-shrouded facility or the prisoners held there.
The U.S. government has been detaining an unknown number of prisoners at the Bagram detention facility since 2002, and recent news reports indicate that the more than 600 individuals are currently detained there – some of whom have been held for as long as six years without access to counsel or a meaningful opportunity to challenge their imprisonment. The conditions of confinement at Bagram are reportedly primitive, with allegations of mistreatment and abuse continuing to surface; in fact, at least two prisoners have died there. There is public concern in the U.S. and around the world that Bagram has become, in effect, the new Guantánamo.
The ACLU says, “Although the nation is embroiled in an intense public debate about U.S. policy pertaining to the detention and treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody, most Americans remain in the dark about the basic facts about Bagram. When prisoners are in U.S. custody and under U.S. control – no matter the location – our values and commitment to the rule of law are at stake. Now that President Obama has taken the positive step of ordering Guantánamo shut down, it is critical that we don't permit 'other Gitmos' to continue elsewhere.”
A recent investigation by journalist Anand Gopal revealed the existence of another prison on Bagram Air Base – one so secret that even the Red Cross does not have access to. It is dubbed the ‘Black Jail’ and is reportedly run by US Special Forces.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Blackwater’s Migraines Multiply
By William Fisher
Legal headaches are growing exponentially for the security firm formerly known as Blackwater – once the darling of the military-industrial community.
In separate developments, two former employees of the company previously charged that the security firm committed "systematic fraud" under their contracts with the U.S. State Department in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Iraqi government announced it would seize heavy weapons from foreign security firms and expel ex-Blackwater contractors still in the country, and a US Senate hearing learned that Blackwater employees stole more than 500 assault rifles intended for the Afghan police force.
The accusations of fraud came from two former employees who filed a false claims lawsuit that allows the employees, acting as whistleblowers, to win a portion of any public money the government recovers as a result of the information.
The Washington Post reports that the former Blackwater (now known as Xe Services) employees, Brad and Melan Davis, accused the firm of over-billing for travel, charging for liquor and spa trips and for a having a fire pit built for Blackwater staff parties, and charging for the services of a Filipino prostitute who was kept on "staff" in Afghanistan as part of the company's "Morale Welfare Recreation. "
Brad Davis was a former Marine and served as a team leader and security guard, including in a posting in Iraq. Melan Davis, his wife, worked as a finance and payroll employee. Melan Davis has accused the company of terminating her in 2008 because she questioned billing practices. Her husband resigned shortly afterward.
Blackwater changed its name to Ze -- pronounced "zee" – early last year in an effort to shed the negative baggage acquired because of its frequent run-ins with Iraqi, Afghan, U.S. and NATO forces. Blackwater Lodge & Training Center — the subsidiary that conducts much of the company's overseas operations and domestic training — has been renamed U.S. Training Center Inc.
In a related development, the Iraqi government announced that it would seize weapons from foreign security firms and expel ex-Blackwater contractors still in the country within days, according to Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani.
The decision was triggered by the Iraqi government’s outrage over the dismissal by a U.S. court of charges against Blackwater Worldwide guards who were accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007. The guards said they shot in self-defense.
The judge said there was evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. The U.S. government is appealing the dismissal of the court case. The Iraqi government, which has prohibited Blackwater from operating in Iraq, has hired U.S. lawyers to prepare a lawsuit against the company.
For many Iraqis, the killing of the 14 civilians became emblematic of the impunity from prosecution in Iraq enjoyed by foreign security contractors after the 2003 U.S. invasion. That immunity ended last year under a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement transferring sovereignty back to Iraq.
Parliamentary elections scheduled for March 7 are also fuelling Iraqi anger at Blackwater. Minister Bolani, who is running as the head of his own coalition against a slate headed by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, told Reuters news service that he had "ordered that the heavy weapons used by some of the foreign security firms be collected."
And in yet another development, it emerged at a hearing of the Senate armed services committee that Blackwater employees took more than 500 assault rifles intended for the Afghan police force and routinely carried weapons without permission.
It also emerged that to burnish its negative image to win contracting business in Afghanistan, Blackwater created what one senator called a shell company. Senators said that company, Paravant, deceived U.S. officials. It claimed Blackwater was not involved but used Blackwater's past performance to establish its credentials.
"They made representations here that are wildly false," said Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat. "Everyone knew in the field it was Blackwater trying to get rid of a negative name."
Levin warned that Afghan civilians did not distinguish between troops and contractors, and that when contractors misbehaved it turned the population against US forces and encouraged them to side with the Taliban.
The Senate hearing focused in part on a December 2008 accident in which a Blackwater employee was shot in the head during what the company described as a vehicle training exercise but Levin called horseplay.
According to committee investigators, a Blackwater trainer jumped on top of a moving vehicle while carrying a loaded AK47. The vehicle hit a bump and the rifle discharged, striking another trainer in the head. At the hearing today former Blackwater officials insisted the Americans were engaged in vehicle training. Levin accused Blackwater of covering up misconduct by describing the shooting as an accident during "routine" training.
In May two Afghan civilians were killed in a shooting involving Paravant employees. Investigators later determined that the Americans had "violated alcohol policies", were not authorized to have weapons and had violated other policies. The US department of justice said the shooting had a detrimental effect on US national security.
Former Paravant official Brian McCracken acknowledged the company's trainers were carrying weapons without authorization but said they often operated in dangerous environments among armed Afghans, without US army protection.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. in September 2001, Blackwater was awarded contracts worth billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company provided security for U.S. embassy personnel and important visitors in those locations. Erik Prince, Blackwater’s founder and former CEO, was a substantial contributor to the Republican Party and had close ties to senior officials in the administration of George W. Bush.
Legal headaches are growing exponentially for the security firm formerly known as Blackwater – once the darling of the military-industrial community.
In separate developments, two former employees of the company previously charged that the security firm committed "systematic fraud" under their contracts with the U.S. State Department in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Iraqi government announced it would seize heavy weapons from foreign security firms and expel ex-Blackwater contractors still in the country, and a US Senate hearing learned that Blackwater employees stole more than 500 assault rifles intended for the Afghan police force.
The accusations of fraud came from two former employees who filed a false claims lawsuit that allows the employees, acting as whistleblowers, to win a portion of any public money the government recovers as a result of the information.
The Washington Post reports that the former Blackwater (now known as Xe Services) employees, Brad and Melan Davis, accused the firm of over-billing for travel, charging for liquor and spa trips and for a having a fire pit built for Blackwater staff parties, and charging for the services of a Filipino prostitute who was kept on "staff" in Afghanistan as part of the company's "Morale Welfare Recreation. "
Brad Davis was a former Marine and served as a team leader and security guard, including in a posting in Iraq. Melan Davis, his wife, worked as a finance and payroll employee. Melan Davis has accused the company of terminating her in 2008 because she questioned billing practices. Her husband resigned shortly afterward.
Blackwater changed its name to Ze -- pronounced "zee" – early last year in an effort to shed the negative baggage acquired because of its frequent run-ins with Iraqi, Afghan, U.S. and NATO forces. Blackwater Lodge & Training Center — the subsidiary that conducts much of the company's overseas operations and domestic training — has been renamed U.S. Training Center Inc.
In a related development, the Iraqi government announced that it would seize weapons from foreign security firms and expel ex-Blackwater contractors still in the country within days, according to Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani.
The decision was triggered by the Iraqi government’s outrage over the dismissal by a U.S. court of charges against Blackwater Worldwide guards who were accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007. The guards said they shot in self-defense.
The judge said there was evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. The U.S. government is appealing the dismissal of the court case. The Iraqi government, which has prohibited Blackwater from operating in Iraq, has hired U.S. lawyers to prepare a lawsuit against the company.
For many Iraqis, the killing of the 14 civilians became emblematic of the impunity from prosecution in Iraq enjoyed by foreign security contractors after the 2003 U.S. invasion. That immunity ended last year under a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement transferring sovereignty back to Iraq.
Parliamentary elections scheduled for March 7 are also fuelling Iraqi anger at Blackwater. Minister Bolani, who is running as the head of his own coalition against a slate headed by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, told Reuters news service that he had "ordered that the heavy weapons used by some of the foreign security firms be collected."
And in yet another development, it emerged at a hearing of the Senate armed services committee that Blackwater employees took more than 500 assault rifles intended for the Afghan police force and routinely carried weapons without permission.
It also emerged that to burnish its negative image to win contracting business in Afghanistan, Blackwater created what one senator called a shell company. Senators said that company, Paravant, deceived U.S. officials. It claimed Blackwater was not involved but used Blackwater's past performance to establish its credentials.
"They made representations here that are wildly false," said Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat. "Everyone knew in the field it was Blackwater trying to get rid of a negative name."
Levin warned that Afghan civilians did not distinguish between troops and contractors, and that when contractors misbehaved it turned the population against US forces and encouraged them to side with the Taliban.
The Senate hearing focused in part on a December 2008 accident in which a Blackwater employee was shot in the head during what the company described as a vehicle training exercise but Levin called horseplay.
According to committee investigators, a Blackwater trainer jumped on top of a moving vehicle while carrying a loaded AK47. The vehicle hit a bump and the rifle discharged, striking another trainer in the head. At the hearing today former Blackwater officials insisted the Americans were engaged in vehicle training. Levin accused Blackwater of covering up misconduct by describing the shooting as an accident during "routine" training.
In May two Afghan civilians were killed in a shooting involving Paravant employees. Investigators later determined that the Americans had "violated alcohol policies", were not authorized to have weapons and had violated other policies. The US department of justice said the shooting had a detrimental effect on US national security.
Former Paravant official Brian McCracken acknowledged the company's trainers were carrying weapons without authorization but said they often operated in dangerous environments among armed Afghans, without US army protection.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. in September 2001, Blackwater was awarded contracts worth billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company provided security for U.S. embassy personnel and important visitors in those locations. Erik Prince, Blackwater’s founder and former CEO, was a substantial contributor to the Republican Party and had close ties to senior officials in the administration of George W. Bush.
Missing Emails? Sound Familiar?
By William Fisher
The Justice Department investigation into whether the authors of the Bush-era “torture memos” were guilty of professional misconduct did not have full access to the emails used by those lawyers and by other key figures in the investigation, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and former counsel to the Vice President David Addington.
The missing emails came to light during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee TODAY (Friday). Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, described the vanishing emails as “suspicious.”
He urged the sole witness before the committee, Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary G. Grindler, to investigate further to determine who deleted the emails and whether they could be recovered.
The email issue recalled the 2007 investigation into the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys during the administration of President George W. Bush, and whether the White House pressured the Justice Department to cover up the details of the firings. Administration officials insisted that millions of emails from senior Bush figures including political advisor Karl Rove were irretrievably missing. The emails were later recovered. The disclosures were important factors in the resignation of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The Justice Department’s investigation into the torture memos, conducted by the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), was highly critical of its authors but concluded that they were guilty of poor judgment but not professional misconduct meriting referral to state legal organizations for possible disbarment.
The authors of the memos were Jay Bybee, who was Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and his assistant, John Yoo. Both worked in the Office of Professional Responsibility. Bybee is now a federal judge and Yoo is a law professor.
OPR is one of the most important offices within the Department of Justice. It is to this office that the president directs questions about the legality of actions his administration plans to take or policies it intends to adopt.
Human Rights First, a legal advocacy group that has closely followed this issue, is urging members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to address questions that remain unanswered following the release of Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report.
HRF called the conduct of Bybee and Yoo “unethical and unprofessional.”
The organization noted that the Judiciary Committee hearing “should lay the groundwork for further investigation and address the need to empanel a non-partisan commission to conduct a comprehensive review of these policies.”
Daphne Eviatar, a Human Rights First attorney who monitored the Senate hearing, told IPS she was "disappointed" that "there was no indication that DOJ has any intention of following up on the evidence revealed in the report indicating that the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) was pressured by the White House to create legal justifications for illegal techniques that the administration had already decided to use. And if that's true, then we're talking about a criminal conspiracy, which the department is obligated to investigate further."
She added, “I was disappointed to hear that the Justice Department's attitude towards the matter was that it's now over.”
Leahy’s call for a further investigation drew strong objections from the Committee’s ranking Republican member, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama and another Republican member, Senator John Cornyn of Texas. Both strongly defended the actions taken by the Bush Administration following the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 as being necessary to protect U.S. national security.
HRF said the OPR report “highlights the lack of independent judgment and perverse legal reasoning that shaped the ‘torture memos’ and underscores the need for an independent review of how torture and other abuse of prisoners were authorized after 9/11. It provides the clearest picture to date of a flawed process by which the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), which is supposed to render independent legal advice, was instead subverted to provide conclusions justifying detainee abuse that principals within the Bush administration wanted to hear.”
The organization said the report also highlights in detail the flawed legal analysis by the three principal authors of the legal memoranda who gave a green light to the use of torture techniques documented in the CIA Inspector General’s report made public in August.
It sharply criticized the quality of the legal work in the memoranda, concluding that “of the lawyers who wrote these memos, Yoo committed intentional professional misconduct and Bybee acted in reckless disregard of his obligation to provide thorough, objective and candid legal advice.”
“Although the Associate Deputy Attorney General declined to adopt this opinion, choosing instead to characterize the lawyers’ work as an exercise of ‘poor judgment’, the fact remains that the individuals who investigated and analyzed the evidence found that Yoo’s misconduct was ‘intentional’ and that Bybee’s was ‘reckless.’ That calls into question the good faith of both of these lawyers, and demands further investigation,” HRF charged.
Following his earlier review of the OPR report, as well as the May 2004 CIA Inspector General’s report that detailed appalling abuses committed against prisoners in the CIA’s interrogation program, Attorney General Eric Holder announced in August 2009 the appointment of a prosecutor to conduct a preliminary review into only those prisoner abuses that exceeded the bounds of what was deemed permissible in the flawed OLC “torture memos.”
“The United States, to its credit, has a strong record of criticizing arbitrary detention and detainee abuse in other countries. In order to restore its credibility and leadership on human rights, the United States must engage in a full accounting of how policies of cruelty were authorized. A thorough and public examination of the past is vital in order to guard against future authorization of abuse in the name of national security,” Massimino concluded.
Other human rights and civil liberties groups took similar positions. “Laura W. Murphy, Director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said, “It is critical today that senators make clear that, given the information in the OPR report and the wealth of other evidence in the public domain, the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the torture program must be broad enough to include those who authorized and legally sanctioned these shameful acts.”
The Justice Department investigation into whether the authors of the Bush-era “torture memos” were guilty of professional misconduct did not have full access to the emails used by those lawyers and by other key figures in the investigation, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and former counsel to the Vice President David Addington.
The missing emails came to light during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee TODAY (Friday). Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, described the vanishing emails as “suspicious.”
He urged the sole witness before the committee, Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary G. Grindler, to investigate further to determine who deleted the emails and whether they could be recovered.
The email issue recalled the 2007 investigation into the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys during the administration of President George W. Bush, and whether the White House pressured the Justice Department to cover up the details of the firings. Administration officials insisted that millions of emails from senior Bush figures including political advisor Karl Rove were irretrievably missing. The emails were later recovered. The disclosures were important factors in the resignation of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The Justice Department’s investigation into the torture memos, conducted by the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), was highly critical of its authors but concluded that they were guilty of poor judgment but not professional misconduct meriting referral to state legal organizations for possible disbarment.
The authors of the memos were Jay Bybee, who was Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and his assistant, John Yoo. Both worked in the Office of Professional Responsibility. Bybee is now a federal judge and Yoo is a law professor.
OPR is one of the most important offices within the Department of Justice. It is to this office that the president directs questions about the legality of actions his administration plans to take or policies it intends to adopt.
Human Rights First, a legal advocacy group that has closely followed this issue, is urging members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to address questions that remain unanswered following the release of Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report.
HRF called the conduct of Bybee and Yoo “unethical and unprofessional.”
The organization noted that the Judiciary Committee hearing “should lay the groundwork for further investigation and address the need to empanel a non-partisan commission to conduct a comprehensive review of these policies.”
Daphne Eviatar, a Human Rights First attorney who monitored the Senate hearing, told IPS she was "disappointed" that "there was no indication that DOJ has any intention of following up on the evidence revealed in the report indicating that the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) was pressured by the White House to create legal justifications for illegal techniques that the administration had already decided to use. And if that's true, then we're talking about a criminal conspiracy, which the department is obligated to investigate further."
She added, “I was disappointed to hear that the Justice Department's attitude towards the matter was that it's now over.”
Leahy’s call for a further investigation drew strong objections from the Committee’s ranking Republican member, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama and another Republican member, Senator John Cornyn of Texas. Both strongly defended the actions taken by the Bush Administration following the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 as being necessary to protect U.S. national security.
HRF said the OPR report “highlights the lack of independent judgment and perverse legal reasoning that shaped the ‘torture memos’ and underscores the need for an independent review of how torture and other abuse of prisoners were authorized after 9/11. It provides the clearest picture to date of a flawed process by which the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), which is supposed to render independent legal advice, was instead subverted to provide conclusions justifying detainee abuse that principals within the Bush administration wanted to hear.”
The organization said the report also highlights in detail the flawed legal analysis by the three principal authors of the legal memoranda who gave a green light to the use of torture techniques documented in the CIA Inspector General’s report made public in August.
It sharply criticized the quality of the legal work in the memoranda, concluding that “of the lawyers who wrote these memos, Yoo committed intentional professional misconduct and Bybee acted in reckless disregard of his obligation to provide thorough, objective and candid legal advice.”
“Although the Associate Deputy Attorney General declined to adopt this opinion, choosing instead to characterize the lawyers’ work as an exercise of ‘poor judgment’, the fact remains that the individuals who investigated and analyzed the evidence found that Yoo’s misconduct was ‘intentional’ and that Bybee’s was ‘reckless.’ That calls into question the good faith of both of these lawyers, and demands further investigation,” HRF charged.
Following his earlier review of the OPR report, as well as the May 2004 CIA Inspector General’s report that detailed appalling abuses committed against prisoners in the CIA’s interrogation program, Attorney General Eric Holder announced in August 2009 the appointment of a prosecutor to conduct a preliminary review into only those prisoner abuses that exceeded the bounds of what was deemed permissible in the flawed OLC “torture memos.”
“The United States, to its credit, has a strong record of criticizing arbitrary detention and detainee abuse in other countries. In order to restore its credibility and leadership on human rights, the United States must engage in a full accounting of how policies of cruelty were authorized. A thorough and public examination of the past is vital in order to guard against future authorization of abuse in the name of national security,” Massimino concluded.
Other human rights and civil liberties groups took similar positions. “Laura W. Murphy, Director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said, “It is critical today that senators make clear that, given the information in the OPR report and the wealth of other evidence in the public domain, the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the torture program must be broad enough to include those who authorized and legally sanctioned these shameful acts.”
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Secure Communities -- Does Its Job?
By William Fisher
A little-known program run by the Department of Homeland Security is using inaccurate databases and functioning “as little more than a dragnet to funnel even more people into the already overburdened” detention and deportation system of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
This is the assertion being made by three civil rights organizations that have filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) asking for information on a program known as “Secure Communities.”
The program, which ICE claims targets “dangerous criminal aliens,” further involves local and state law enforcement agencies in federal immigration enforcement. The three groups say that since the inception of the program, there has been a marked increase in racial profiling, excessive costs to state and local government and due process violations.
The groups are the National Day Laborer Organization Network (NDLON), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
Sunita Patel, a CCR staff attorney, told Truthout, “Our principal concern is that this is a very secretive program about which there is little public information. It is being implemented in communities, but the lack of transparency makes it impossible for community groups to determine whether abuses are being committed. We hope our FOIA suit will shed some light on the issue.”
“This program is designed to fail because it relies on information from infamously inaccurate databases. We’ve already seen an increase in racial profiling, pre-textual arrests and mistaken identity of U.S. citizens,” she said, adding, “Combined with the lack of regulation and publicly available information on Secure Communities, ICE will be essentially immune to accountability or transparency. With a budget reaching the billions, taxpayers should be very concerned.”
The Secure Communities program has been implemented in at least 95 jurisdictions with plans to expand nationwide by 2013. The opposition groups says it includes a biometrics component that requires an individual’s fingerprints to be run through multiple databases upon arrest for any reason, even if no charges are brought.
Advocates and attorneys say that in addition to concerns presented by relying on potentially inaccurate and erroneous information in those databases, the program functions as little more than a dragnet to funnel even more people into the already overburdened ICE detention and removal system.
The FOIA request covers materials necessary to provide the public with comprehensive information on the Secure Communities Program, including policies, procedures and objectives; fiscal impact; data and statistical information; individual records; communications; and assessment records.
ICE, part of the huge Department of Homeland Security, has come under continuous attack, mostly from the left of the Democratic Party base, including immigration, labor and human rights advocates. Formed by the merger of several agencies when DHS was created following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, ICE has been seen as unnecessarily rough on suspected illegal immigrants, many of whom are detained in prison-like conditions without proper medical care or access to family members or attorneys.
Nina Bernstein of The New York Times recently exposed ICE’s efforts to cover up the unreported deaths of several people who were held in its detention facilities.
Immigration and labor advocates have lost no time in pushing back at what they consider to be serious shortcomings in the Secure Communities program.
Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network told Truthout, "The Secure Communities program is 287(g) with lipstick. These programs increase racial profiling and civil rights abuses, erode community policing, and lack oversight and accountability. They are failed programs. The way to solve the nation's immigration problems is not by criminalizing and deporting hard working families. We expect real solutions from the Obama Administration not a civil rights and human rights crisis in the making."
Section 287(g) of the national immigration law allows DHS to deputize local law enforcement officers to become “immigration police.” The program, while still expanding, has been severely criticized by many, including law enforcement officials. The principal objections are that local police and sheriffs do not understand immigration law and that enforcing immigration laws draws officers’ attention away from local law enforcement issues.
Some of the most vocal criticism of 287(g) has been triggered by the activities of “America’s Toughest Sheriff”, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County (Phoenix) Arizona. Currently under investigation by the Justice Department for civil rights violations, Arpaio has outraged civil rights and immigration leaders by conducting unlawful raids on homes, offices and factories, practicing racial and ethnic profiling in making arrests, and operating a jail with substandard conditions.
As the New Yorker magazine reported, “Prisoners have filed thousands of legal claims of abuse against Arpaio and his deputies – and by families of those who’ve died under his watch. A federal investigation found Arpaio’s deputies used “stun guns” on inmates strapped into restraint chairs; some have died in those chairs. One lawsuit brought by a dead prisoners’ family ended in an $8 million settlement after a surveillance video that showed fourteen guards beating, shocking, and suffocating the prisoners, and after the sheriff’s office was accused of discarding evidence, including the crushed larynx of the deceased.”
But DHS Secretary Napolitano staunchly defends both the 287(g) program and the Secure Communities initiative.
Secure Communities, she says, “was designed to facilitate access to timely and accurate information about state and local arrests to better identify criminal aliens and to prioritize those who are the most dangerous for removal from the United States. As Starr County and 94 other jurisdictions across the country have learned first hand, it does its job.”
During a press conference at ICE Headquarters in Washington, D.C., Napolitano noted that “Secure Communities provides our local partners with an effective tool to identify and remove dangerous criminal aliens who pose a threat to public safety.” The program has significantly enhanced ICE’s ability to identify criminal aliens. In one year, the initiative enabled ICE to identify more than 111,000 criminal aliens when they were arrested and booked by state or local law enforcement, she said.
The DHS website proclaims that both the concept and the initiative of Secure Communities “is made possible through partnerships among DHS components, the Department of Justice, and state and local law enforcement. Over the last year, these partnerships have enabled Secure Communities to enhance biometric information-sharing technology supporting the criminal booking processes across 11 states. This technology enables biometrics—fingerprints—collected during the booking process to be checked against FBI criminal history records and DHS immigration records. When ICE officials receive notification of an immigration record match, they can promptly determine if enforcement action is required and take appropriate action.”
But Bridget Kessler, Clinical Teaching Fellow at Cardozo law school in New York City, told Truthout that because of the widespread known inaccuracies in the DHS immigration database and the FBI’s criminal database, “there is a huge risk that innocent people will be misidentified.”
She added, “Few people in that position have the resources to contest their inclusion in these databases. And once you’re in one of these databases, it’s virtually impossible to get out.”
“By 2013, the plan is to install the Secure Communities program in every single jail in the country,” she said. “Given that scope and reach, the complexity of the program, and its ability to seriously impact communities all over the country, it’s inconceivable that DHS would not want to release more information than is currently available.”
But the DHS is equally vehement in its defense of the program. It does not think it is being secretive. It says, “Secure Communities was designed to facilitate access to timely and accurate information about state and local arrests to better identify criminal aliens and to prioritize those who are the most dangerous for removal from the United States.”
Secure Communities, says DHS, “does its job.”
DHS Secretary Napolitano says that “Secure Communities provides our local partners with an effective tool to identify and remove dangerous criminal aliens who pose a threat to public safety.”
She says the program has significantly enhanced ICE’s ability to identify criminal aliens. In one year, the initiative enabled ICE to identify more than 111,000 criminal aliens when they were arrested and booked by state or local law enforcement.
“Secure Communities, both the concept and the initiative, is made possible through partnerships among DHS components, the Department of Justice, and state and local law enforcement. Over the last year, these partnerships have enabled Secure Communities to enhance biometric information-sharing technology supporting the criminal booking processes across 11 states. This technology enables biometrics—fingerprints—collected during the booking process to be checked against FBI criminal history records and DHS immigration records. When ICE officials receive notification of an immigration record match, they can promptly determine if enforcement action is required and take appropriate action,” says the DHS web site.
In a related development, the New York Times has revealed that immigration authorities allegedly colluded with Signal International, L.L.C., a Mississippi oilrig company, to punish and deport legal immigrant workers who chose to exercise their labor rights.
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice, presenting evidence obtained as part of a lawsuit against the agency, revealed that ICE “advised and instructed the company on how to undermine labor laws, skirt DHS regulations related to proper termination of worker visas, ‘privately’ deport legal workers and craft a communications and public relations strategy for Signal as media outlets began to report on the situation.”
The organizations said the exposure of misconduct by ICE agents towards the workers in this case is “yet another chapter in a larger saga of questionable behavior by ICE employees.”
“The Signal case is a clear example of how workplace abuses are flourishing in the absence of a working immigration system. While these immigrant workers were vital to the reconstruction of New Orleans, they were helpless to assert their rights,” said Ali Noorani, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum.
He told Truthout, “This is another reason why Congress needs to act now to fix our broken immigration system through comprehensive immigration reform. When we protect the rights of immigrant workers, we strengthen and safeguard the rights of all workers in America.”
The Times reported that immigration authorities worked closely with a marine oil rig company in Mississippi to discourage protests by temporary guest workers from India over their job conditions, including advising managers to send some workers back to India, according to new testimony in a federal lawsuit against the company, Signal International.
It said cooperation between the company and federal immigration agents was recounted in sworn depositions by Signal managers who were involved when tensions in its shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., erupted into a public clash in March 2007.
“Since then, hundreds of the Indian workers have brought a civil rights lawsuit against the company, claiming they were victims of human trafficking and labor abuse. Signal International is fighting the suit and has sued American and Indian recruiters who contracted with the workers in India. The company claims the recruiters misled it — and the workers — about the terms of the work visas that brought them to this country,” The Times reported.
Saket Soni, director of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice,
which represents some workers in the lawsuit, said the managers’ testimony
showed that immigration enforcement agents had “advised the corporation on how to retaliate against workers who were organizing,” The Times reported.
The controversy over Secure Communities comes at time of record immigration prosecutions of non-violent border crossers.
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, and the Warren Institute at the University of California at Berkeley, recently released reports highlighting the dramatic increase in federal immigration prosecutions and the link to Operation Streamline, a DHS program which mandates federal criminal prosecution of all persons caught crossing the border unlawfully.
The Warren Institute report highlights the impact of Operation Streamline on immigration enforcement. The TRAC report shows that federal immigration prosecutions rose to record levels during fiscal year 2009 and how a shift in priorities has created the largest number of federal immigration prosecutions of non-violent border crossers ever.
Immigration advocates say the trade-off is that while the federal government spends billions of dollars prosecuting non-violent immigration violators, more serious criminals involved in drugs, weapons, and organized crime face a lower probability of prosecution.
President Obama has said comprehensive immigration reform is high on his agenda of priority issues. But with both House and Senate deeply polarized by partisan loyalties, it is unclear how the president and lawmakers will steer this highly controversial subject through the legislative process.
This article was originally published in Truthout.org (www.truthout.org).
A little-known program run by the Department of Homeland Security is using inaccurate databases and functioning “as little more than a dragnet to funnel even more people into the already overburdened” detention and deportation system of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
This is the assertion being made by three civil rights organizations that have filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) asking for information on a program known as “Secure Communities.”
The program, which ICE claims targets “dangerous criminal aliens,” further involves local and state law enforcement agencies in federal immigration enforcement. The three groups say that since the inception of the program, there has been a marked increase in racial profiling, excessive costs to state and local government and due process violations.
The groups are the National Day Laborer Organization Network (NDLON), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
Sunita Patel, a CCR staff attorney, told Truthout, “Our principal concern is that this is a very secretive program about which there is little public information. It is being implemented in communities, but the lack of transparency makes it impossible for community groups to determine whether abuses are being committed. We hope our FOIA suit will shed some light on the issue.”
“This program is designed to fail because it relies on information from infamously inaccurate databases. We’ve already seen an increase in racial profiling, pre-textual arrests and mistaken identity of U.S. citizens,” she said, adding, “Combined with the lack of regulation and publicly available information on Secure Communities, ICE will be essentially immune to accountability or transparency. With a budget reaching the billions, taxpayers should be very concerned.”
The Secure Communities program has been implemented in at least 95 jurisdictions with plans to expand nationwide by 2013. The opposition groups says it includes a biometrics component that requires an individual’s fingerprints to be run through multiple databases upon arrest for any reason, even if no charges are brought.
Advocates and attorneys say that in addition to concerns presented by relying on potentially inaccurate and erroneous information in those databases, the program functions as little more than a dragnet to funnel even more people into the already overburdened ICE detention and removal system.
The FOIA request covers materials necessary to provide the public with comprehensive information on the Secure Communities Program, including policies, procedures and objectives; fiscal impact; data and statistical information; individual records; communications; and assessment records.
ICE, part of the huge Department of Homeland Security, has come under continuous attack, mostly from the left of the Democratic Party base, including immigration, labor and human rights advocates. Formed by the merger of several agencies when DHS was created following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, ICE has been seen as unnecessarily rough on suspected illegal immigrants, many of whom are detained in prison-like conditions without proper medical care or access to family members or attorneys.
Nina Bernstein of The New York Times recently exposed ICE’s efforts to cover up the unreported deaths of several people who were held in its detention facilities.
Immigration and labor advocates have lost no time in pushing back at what they consider to be serious shortcomings in the Secure Communities program.
Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network told Truthout, "The Secure Communities program is 287(g) with lipstick. These programs increase racial profiling and civil rights abuses, erode community policing, and lack oversight and accountability. They are failed programs. The way to solve the nation's immigration problems is not by criminalizing and deporting hard working families. We expect real solutions from the Obama Administration not a civil rights and human rights crisis in the making."
Section 287(g) of the national immigration law allows DHS to deputize local law enforcement officers to become “immigration police.” The program, while still expanding, has been severely criticized by many, including law enforcement officials. The principal objections are that local police and sheriffs do not understand immigration law and that enforcing immigration laws draws officers’ attention away from local law enforcement issues.
Some of the most vocal criticism of 287(g) has been triggered by the activities of “America’s Toughest Sheriff”, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County (Phoenix) Arizona. Currently under investigation by the Justice Department for civil rights violations, Arpaio has outraged civil rights and immigration leaders by conducting unlawful raids on homes, offices and factories, practicing racial and ethnic profiling in making arrests, and operating a jail with substandard conditions.
As the New Yorker magazine reported, “Prisoners have filed thousands of legal claims of abuse against Arpaio and his deputies – and by families of those who’ve died under his watch. A federal investigation found Arpaio’s deputies used “stun guns” on inmates strapped into restraint chairs; some have died in those chairs. One lawsuit brought by a dead prisoners’ family ended in an $8 million settlement after a surveillance video that showed fourteen guards beating, shocking, and suffocating the prisoners, and after the sheriff’s office was accused of discarding evidence, including the crushed larynx of the deceased.”
But DHS Secretary Napolitano staunchly defends both the 287(g) program and the Secure Communities initiative.
Secure Communities, she says, “was designed to facilitate access to timely and accurate information about state and local arrests to better identify criminal aliens and to prioritize those who are the most dangerous for removal from the United States. As Starr County and 94 other jurisdictions across the country have learned first hand, it does its job.”
During a press conference at ICE Headquarters in Washington, D.C., Napolitano noted that “Secure Communities provides our local partners with an effective tool to identify and remove dangerous criminal aliens who pose a threat to public safety.” The program has significantly enhanced ICE’s ability to identify criminal aliens. In one year, the initiative enabled ICE to identify more than 111,000 criminal aliens when they were arrested and booked by state or local law enforcement, she said.
The DHS website proclaims that both the concept and the initiative of Secure Communities “is made possible through partnerships among DHS components, the Department of Justice, and state and local law enforcement. Over the last year, these partnerships have enabled Secure Communities to enhance biometric information-sharing technology supporting the criminal booking processes across 11 states. This technology enables biometrics—fingerprints—collected during the booking process to be checked against FBI criminal history records and DHS immigration records. When ICE officials receive notification of an immigration record match, they can promptly determine if enforcement action is required and take appropriate action.”
But Bridget Kessler, Clinical Teaching Fellow at Cardozo law school in New York City, told Truthout that because of the widespread known inaccuracies in the DHS immigration database and the FBI’s criminal database, “there is a huge risk that innocent people will be misidentified.”
She added, “Few people in that position have the resources to contest their inclusion in these databases. And once you’re in one of these databases, it’s virtually impossible to get out.”
“By 2013, the plan is to install the Secure Communities program in every single jail in the country,” she said. “Given that scope and reach, the complexity of the program, and its ability to seriously impact communities all over the country, it’s inconceivable that DHS would not want to release more information than is currently available.”
But the DHS is equally vehement in its defense of the program. It does not think it is being secretive. It says, “Secure Communities was designed to facilitate access to timely and accurate information about state and local arrests to better identify criminal aliens and to prioritize those who are the most dangerous for removal from the United States.”
Secure Communities, says DHS, “does its job.”
DHS Secretary Napolitano says that “Secure Communities provides our local partners with an effective tool to identify and remove dangerous criminal aliens who pose a threat to public safety.”
She says the program has significantly enhanced ICE’s ability to identify criminal aliens. In one year, the initiative enabled ICE to identify more than 111,000 criminal aliens when they were arrested and booked by state or local law enforcement.
“Secure Communities, both the concept and the initiative, is made possible through partnerships among DHS components, the Department of Justice, and state and local law enforcement. Over the last year, these partnerships have enabled Secure Communities to enhance biometric information-sharing technology supporting the criminal booking processes across 11 states. This technology enables biometrics—fingerprints—collected during the booking process to be checked against FBI criminal history records and DHS immigration records. When ICE officials receive notification of an immigration record match, they can promptly determine if enforcement action is required and take appropriate action,” says the DHS web site.
In a related development, the New York Times has revealed that immigration authorities allegedly colluded with Signal International, L.L.C., a Mississippi oilrig company, to punish and deport legal immigrant workers who chose to exercise their labor rights.
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice, presenting evidence obtained as part of a lawsuit against the agency, revealed that ICE “advised and instructed the company on how to undermine labor laws, skirt DHS regulations related to proper termination of worker visas, ‘privately’ deport legal workers and craft a communications and public relations strategy for Signal as media outlets began to report on the situation.”
The organizations said the exposure of misconduct by ICE agents towards the workers in this case is “yet another chapter in a larger saga of questionable behavior by ICE employees.”
“The Signal case is a clear example of how workplace abuses are flourishing in the absence of a working immigration system. While these immigrant workers were vital to the reconstruction of New Orleans, they were helpless to assert their rights,” said Ali Noorani, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum.
He told Truthout, “This is another reason why Congress needs to act now to fix our broken immigration system through comprehensive immigration reform. When we protect the rights of immigrant workers, we strengthen and safeguard the rights of all workers in America.”
The Times reported that immigration authorities worked closely with a marine oil rig company in Mississippi to discourage protests by temporary guest workers from India over their job conditions, including advising managers to send some workers back to India, according to new testimony in a federal lawsuit against the company, Signal International.
It said cooperation between the company and federal immigration agents was recounted in sworn depositions by Signal managers who were involved when tensions in its shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., erupted into a public clash in March 2007.
“Since then, hundreds of the Indian workers have brought a civil rights lawsuit against the company, claiming they were victims of human trafficking and labor abuse. Signal International is fighting the suit and has sued American and Indian recruiters who contracted with the workers in India. The company claims the recruiters misled it — and the workers — about the terms of the work visas that brought them to this country,” The Times reported.
Saket Soni, director of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice,
which represents some workers in the lawsuit, said the managers’ testimony
showed that immigration enforcement agents had “advised the corporation on how to retaliate against workers who were organizing,” The Times reported.
The controversy over Secure Communities comes at time of record immigration prosecutions of non-violent border crossers.
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, and the Warren Institute at the University of California at Berkeley, recently released reports highlighting the dramatic increase in federal immigration prosecutions and the link to Operation Streamline, a DHS program which mandates federal criminal prosecution of all persons caught crossing the border unlawfully.
The Warren Institute report highlights the impact of Operation Streamline on immigration enforcement. The TRAC report shows that federal immigration prosecutions rose to record levels during fiscal year 2009 and how a shift in priorities has created the largest number of federal immigration prosecutions of non-violent border crossers ever.
Immigration advocates say the trade-off is that while the federal government spends billions of dollars prosecuting non-violent immigration violators, more serious criminals involved in drugs, weapons, and organized crime face a lower probability of prosecution.
President Obama has said comprehensive immigration reform is high on his agenda of priority issues. But with both House and Senate deeply polarized by partisan loyalties, it is unclear how the president and lawmakers will steer this highly controversial subject through the legislative process.
This article was originally published in Truthout.org (www.truthout.org).
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