By William Fisher
Because mainstream media covers fewer and fewer civil liberties stories by the day, I do what I can to report on this critical subject. Given what the Bush Administration did to trash our Constitution over the past eight years, most of what I write is depressing. And my friends are constantly asking me: Can’t you find something cheerful to write about?
So once or twice a year, I search for enough positive information to write a “good news” column.
This is my first of 2009.
Every once in a while, I go to the web to read stories from the newspaper that, in 1950, suspended its good judgment and hired me as a cub reporter. Later, the Daytona Beach (Florida) News-Journal sent me to the county seat, a little town called DeLand, to run their bureau there.
Now, DeLand was familiar territory to me. I did my undergraduate work at Stetson University in that town.
The Stetson I knew was populated by a combination of Southern Baptist fundamentalists and uninformed and uninterested sons and daughters of the rich -- Bubbas and wannabe Southern Belles. How fundamentalist? Well, when I got to be editor of the college weekly newspaper, I was summoned to the office of the Dean of Students and told that I couldn’t print the word “dance,” because dancing led to pregnancy (we compromised on “frolic”).
When I arrived in DeLand to begin my studies, I was “rushed” by most of the many fraternities on campus – until they found out I was Jewish. Suddenly, the attention dried up. It was like turning off a light-switch!
So for four years, I remained the only Jew in the school (there were also three Catholics, out of total enrollment of some 1,500 students). Many of the students had never seen a Jew before I appeared, and I believe they were expecting a menacing creature with horns.
The DeLand I knew was, like most Southern towns of that era, thoroughly Jim Crow -- a combination of Babbitt and Elmer Gantry. The civil rights movement hadn’t caught anyone’s attention yet, and that was still the case when I came back to this central Florida redneck town to cover the cops and the courts.
My most vivid memories of that time were watching the local sheriff and his deputies carrying out their Saturday night raids into “colored town.” Their mission was to arrest anything moving that was black. The sheriff and his merry men had a great incentive: They were on the so-called “fee system” in which their paychecks were determined mostly by the cash bonds posted by the people they arrested. The more folks arrested, the more bonds got posted, and the more money they got. The ones who couldn’t post bonds were sent to jail.
I got into a heap of trouble writing about these “Saturday Night Raids” for the News-Journal (like get-out-of-town-or-else threats). But my old paper had the courage to publish them, often on page one.
I give you all this ancient background so that you might be able to understand my total disbelief when I read this headline in News-Journal Online:
“Stetson Students Re-create Freedom Rides.”
Here are the salient parts of the story I read, written by staff writer John Bozzo.
Following in the path of the 1961 civil rights Freedom Rides was an eye-opening experience for Stetson University student Rebecca Hallum.
"It really changes your perspective," said the 21-year-old political science-psychology major, one of 19 students from Stetson and its College of Law who re-created the bus ride last July.
"For me, it's hard to ever understand being treated with any sort of inequality because I'm a white middle-class female," Hallum said. "To see what these people had to go through simply to ride a bus was inspiring."
During the weeklong civil rights seminar, students followed the road traveled by the 1961 Freedom Riders, who rode buses in the South challenging segregation on interstate transportation.
Students met with civil rights activists including Allen Cason, a native of Orlando who participated in the Freedom Ride 48 years ago.
"He had an incredible story," Hallum said. "He was actually imprisoned after the ride. He was in solitary confinement for about a month and lived basically on bread and water."
The students also visited important sites, such as the National Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Ala.
Many of the original Freedom Riders made out their wills before their rides. Riders were attacked in Birmingham and Montgomery bus stations.
Hallum saw a small marker outside Anniston, Ala., where a mob burned one of the first Freedom Ride buses. More should be done to commemorate the site, she said.
"It was overwhelming," said Hallum, who is looking forward to seeing the documentary. "It's hard to think that we take these small things for granted. To think they had to go through this incredible effort and go through so much violence."
Hallum said she was impressed how the former Freedom Riders were humble about their experiences.
"None of them were bitter," she said. "They knew they were doing the right thing."
When I was working in DeLand, it would be another decade before Earl Warren’s 1960 Supreme Court would ban segregation in interstate travel facilities – at bus stations and restaurants as well as on buses. A year later, the first Freedom Riders set off on journeys that would change our history.
And at the Stetson I knew, students being even the slightest bit interested in the situation of their black brothers and sisters would have been unthinkable. Their fellow students would have been outraged. Ostracism – even death threats – would surely have followed.
But here were kids from my alma mater re-creating one of the truly transformative events in American history.
True, only 19 students participated. But half a century ago, there wouldn’t have been one – and the notion of a weeklong civil rights seminar would have been considered delusional.
Today, Stetson has not only changed and adapted, it has actually enrolled minority students – 105 non-resident aliens, 336 Hispanics, 72 Asians, and 190 African-Americans – out of a total enrollment of just over 3,000.
That’s 190 African-Americans!
So my first “good news” of 2009 is that positive change is still alive and well – even in redneck central Florida.
I wonder how the Stetson kids feel about our new President?
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
OBAMA’S OTHER MIGRAINE
By William Fisher
Human rights lawyers are proving to be a major headache for the new administration of President Barack Obama by stepping up their court challenges on issues of prisoner abuse to test the reality of the president’s pledge to create a “an unprecedented level of openness” in government.
A series of current court challenges illustrates the point.
Five years ago, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request that the Department of Defense release photos showing prisoner abuse by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan that the public had never seen. The government refused.
Five years later, in September 2008, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the George W. Bush administration to release the photos. But, as of today, the government has not complied with the court’s order. The only record the government has released to date is a set of media talking points used by the State Department.
In early March, the DOD asked for a hearing by the full appeals court. That request was denied. The government then asked for a 30-day stay of the court’s mandate.
That prompted ACLU lawyers to write to the Defense Department, asking the government to reconsider its position and release the photos in light of President Barack Obama’s executive order. The Defense Department has not yet replied.
Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, told us, "The Obama administration's commitment to transparency is commendable. "We want to make sure that this rhetoric becomes reality."
ACLU attorney Amrit Singh, who argued the case in court, added, "The American public has the right to view these images to know what was
done in its name.”
“Release of the photos would send a powerful message that the new administration truly intends to break from the unaccountability of the Bush years," she said.
The government refusal to disclose these images is based on its attempt to radically expand the exemptions allowed under the FOIA for withholding records. The government also claimed that the public disclosure of such evidence would generate outrage and would violate U.S. obligations towards detainees under the Geneva Conventions.
However, the appeals court panel rejected the government's attempt to use exemptions to the FOIA as "an all-purpose damper on global controversy" and recognized the "significant public interest in the disclosure of these photographs" in light of government misconduct. The court also recognized that releasing the photographs is likely to prevent "further abuse of prisoners."
Much of what the public knows about U.S. treatment of prisoners has been learned from the more than 100,000 pages of government documents obtained in response to the ACLU's FOIA lawsuit.
Attorney General Eric Holder recently issued comprehensive new FOIA guidelines that direct all executive branch departments and agencies to apply a presumption of openness when administering the FOIA.
In another case, in 2003, lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights, the ACLU, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense, and Veterans for Peace, filed a FOIA request to the Departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, and Justice, as well as the CIA, to immediately process and release all records relating to treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody.
When the government failed to respond, the organizations filed a lawsuit charging that these government agencies illegally withheld records concerning the abuse of detainees in American military custody.
Their complaint noted, "Photographs and videos leaked to the press have established beyond any doubt that detainees held in Iraq have been subjected to humiliating and degrading treatment. The government has conceded that numerous detainees have died in custody; at least sixteen of these deaths have been classified as homicides. There is growing evidence that the abuse of detainees was not aberrational but systemic, that in some cases the abuse amounted to torture and resulted in death, and that senior officials either approved of the abuse or were deliberately indifferent to it."
In 2005, a federal district court judge ordered the government to release 74 photos and three videos. The DOD and the Army appealed the district court’s decision. A year later, the Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s decision, dismissing the government’s appeal. But the government still has not released the photos and videos.
In other cases, human rights lawyers have filed two court challenges against the Obama administration's treatment of Guantanamo detainees and its future plans for the men, most of whom have been held for years without trial.
One motion was filed on behalf of Chinese Uighur, Huzaifat Parhat. He was among 17 Uighurs ordered released by a U.S. court last June, seven years after their arrest, but who remain in detention at Guantanamo Bay.
Lawyers filed a motion of contempt against Secretary of Defense Robert Gates denouncing his "continued refusal to comply with a final order" by the appeals court to release Parhat, the document said.
The lawyers also demanded that a new court ruling should include "a threat of sanctions" in order to ensure Gates complies with the order to release Parhat.
Yet another lawsuit filed by about 15 Guantanamo inmates took issue with new rules laid down by the administration of President Obama earlier this month justifying the state's right to hold terror suspects.
On March 13, the Justice Department said it was dropping the "enemy combatant" designation for terror suspects and vowed to apply international law to its detention policies. It said only those who "substantially supported" the Al-Qaeda network, Taliban Islamic militants or "associated forces" would be held under such laws.
But the detainees' lawyers minimized the new policy as only a "partial retreat" from the positions held under the previous administration of former president Bush.
"The conceptual approach they now advance has not greatly changed," they argued in the court filing.
They also lashed out at the government for justifying detaining suspects without charge or trial solely on the basis of a congressional decision authorizing the U.S.-led "war on terror" after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The political decision to hold suspects indefinitely without charge because they are deemed too dangerous to be free is a policy choice that under the US Constitution "must be resolved by Congress, not by the executive branch," they wrote.
In a fourth case, lawyers for 30 Guantanamo detainees filed a motion accusing the Obama administration of violating the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of the estimated 240 prisoners remaining at the controversial prison camp.
Obama has vowed to close the camp within the next 12 months, and has ordered individual reviews of the cases against each of the remaining prisoners.
Civil libertarians are perplexed by some of the early actions the Obama administration has taken in court. In two recent cases, lawyers for the Obama Justice Department have invoked the same “state secrets” defense used by President Bush’s administration.
They are also disappointed by the lack of media interest in issues of prisoner detention and treatment. Based on questions asked of President Obama during many interviews and during his two recent press conferences, the mainstream press appears to have little interest in these issues. So these questions are likely to be resolved in the courtroom.
Since the terrorist attacks of 9/111, the judicial branch has rebuffed many of the policies and practices of the Bush Administration. But with a large proportion of Bush appointees now sitting as federal judges, how their future decisions will impact the Obama Administration remains unclear.
Human rights lawyers are proving to be a major headache for the new administration of President Barack Obama by stepping up their court challenges on issues of prisoner abuse to test the reality of the president’s pledge to create a “an unprecedented level of openness” in government.
A series of current court challenges illustrates the point.
Five years ago, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request that the Department of Defense release photos showing prisoner abuse by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan that the public had never seen. The government refused.
Five years later, in September 2008, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the George W. Bush administration to release the photos. But, as of today, the government has not complied with the court’s order. The only record the government has released to date is a set of media talking points used by the State Department.
In early March, the DOD asked for a hearing by the full appeals court. That request was denied. The government then asked for a 30-day stay of the court’s mandate.
That prompted ACLU lawyers to write to the Defense Department, asking the government to reconsider its position and release the photos in light of President Barack Obama’s executive order. The Defense Department has not yet replied.
Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, told us, "The Obama administration's commitment to transparency is commendable. "We want to make sure that this rhetoric becomes reality."
ACLU attorney Amrit Singh, who argued the case in court, added, "The American public has the right to view these images to know what was
done in its name.”
“Release of the photos would send a powerful message that the new administration truly intends to break from the unaccountability of the Bush years," she said.
The government refusal to disclose these images is based on its attempt to radically expand the exemptions allowed under the FOIA for withholding records. The government also claimed that the public disclosure of such evidence would generate outrage and would violate U.S. obligations towards detainees under the Geneva Conventions.
However, the appeals court panel rejected the government's attempt to use exemptions to the FOIA as "an all-purpose damper on global controversy" and recognized the "significant public interest in the disclosure of these photographs" in light of government misconduct. The court also recognized that releasing the photographs is likely to prevent "further abuse of prisoners."
Much of what the public knows about U.S. treatment of prisoners has been learned from the more than 100,000 pages of government documents obtained in response to the ACLU's FOIA lawsuit.
Attorney General Eric Holder recently issued comprehensive new FOIA guidelines that direct all executive branch departments and agencies to apply a presumption of openness when administering the FOIA.
In another case, in 2003, lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights, the ACLU, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense, and Veterans for Peace, filed a FOIA request to the Departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, and Justice, as well as the CIA, to immediately process and release all records relating to treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody.
When the government failed to respond, the organizations filed a lawsuit charging that these government agencies illegally withheld records concerning the abuse of detainees in American military custody.
Their complaint noted, "Photographs and videos leaked to the press have established beyond any doubt that detainees held in Iraq have been subjected to humiliating and degrading treatment. The government has conceded that numerous detainees have died in custody; at least sixteen of these deaths have been classified as homicides. There is growing evidence that the abuse of detainees was not aberrational but systemic, that in some cases the abuse amounted to torture and resulted in death, and that senior officials either approved of the abuse or were deliberately indifferent to it."
In 2005, a federal district court judge ordered the government to release 74 photos and three videos. The DOD and the Army appealed the district court’s decision. A year later, the Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s decision, dismissing the government’s appeal. But the government still has not released the photos and videos.
In other cases, human rights lawyers have filed two court challenges against the Obama administration's treatment of Guantanamo detainees and its future plans for the men, most of whom have been held for years without trial.
One motion was filed on behalf of Chinese Uighur, Huzaifat Parhat. He was among 17 Uighurs ordered released by a U.S. court last June, seven years after their arrest, but who remain in detention at Guantanamo Bay.
Lawyers filed a motion of contempt against Secretary of Defense Robert Gates denouncing his "continued refusal to comply with a final order" by the appeals court to release Parhat, the document said.
The lawyers also demanded that a new court ruling should include "a threat of sanctions" in order to ensure Gates complies with the order to release Parhat.
Yet another lawsuit filed by about 15 Guantanamo inmates took issue with new rules laid down by the administration of President Obama earlier this month justifying the state's right to hold terror suspects.
On March 13, the Justice Department said it was dropping the "enemy combatant" designation for terror suspects and vowed to apply international law to its detention policies. It said only those who "substantially supported" the Al-Qaeda network, Taliban Islamic militants or "associated forces" would be held under such laws.
But the detainees' lawyers minimized the new policy as only a "partial retreat" from the positions held under the previous administration of former president Bush.
"The conceptual approach they now advance has not greatly changed," they argued in the court filing.
They also lashed out at the government for justifying detaining suspects without charge or trial solely on the basis of a congressional decision authorizing the U.S.-led "war on terror" after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The political decision to hold suspects indefinitely without charge because they are deemed too dangerous to be free is a policy choice that under the US Constitution "must be resolved by Congress, not by the executive branch," they wrote.
In a fourth case, lawyers for 30 Guantanamo detainees filed a motion accusing the Obama administration of violating the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of the estimated 240 prisoners remaining at the controversial prison camp.
Obama has vowed to close the camp within the next 12 months, and has ordered individual reviews of the cases against each of the remaining prisoners.
Civil libertarians are perplexed by some of the early actions the Obama administration has taken in court. In two recent cases, lawyers for the Obama Justice Department have invoked the same “state secrets” defense used by President Bush’s administration.
They are also disappointed by the lack of media interest in issues of prisoner detention and treatment. Based on questions asked of President Obama during many interviews and during his two recent press conferences, the mainstream press appears to have little interest in these issues. So these questions are likely to be resolved in the courtroom.
Since the terrorist attacks of 9/111, the judicial branch has rebuffed many of the policies and practices of the Bush Administration. But with a large proportion of Bush appointees now sitting as federal judges, how their future decisions will impact the Obama Administration remains unclear.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
ACLU CHARGES “IDEOLOGICAL DISCRIMINATION”
By William Fisher
A leading legal rights group charged today that the Obama Justice Department is using immigration law to censor debate by selectively barring U.S. entry to foreign scholars.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) appeared in a federal appeals court in New York City today to argue that a Swiss professor and leading Muslim scholar was denied entry to the U.S. based on his political views.
The ACLU argued that the government’s exclusion of Professor Tariq Ramadan is illegal and was motivated not by anything he did but by his vocal criticism of U.S. foreign policy.
Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU, the lead lawyer in the case, told us, "It is disappointing to see the lawyers from the Obama Justice Department taking exactly the same positions as their predecessors during the Bush era. "
He added, "Our position is that the government should not be using immigration law to limit free speech within the U.S. By denying visas to prominent foreign scholars and writers simply because they were critical of United States foreign policy, the Bush administration used immigration laws to skew and stifle political debate inside the U.S.”
“The Bush administration was wrong to revive this Cold War practice, and the Obama administration should not defend it," he said.
The Department of Justice declined to comment on the case.
The position of the government during the George W. Bush presidency was that the courts have no jurisdiction over immigration matters. Obama lawyers reiterated that position in court today.
Ramadan was invited to teach at the University of Notre Dame in 2004. The U.S. government first granted but then suddenly revoked his visa, citing a statute that applies to those who have “endorsed or espoused” terrorism. After the ACLU filed suit, the government abandoned its claim that Ramadan had endorsed terrorism, but it continued to exclude him because he made small donations to a Swiss charity that the government alleges had given money to Hamas.
In January 2006, the ACLU and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit challenging Professor Ramadan's exclusion from the U.S. on behalf of the American Academy of Religion, the American Association of University Professors and the PEN American Center. A federal judge upheld Ramadan’s exclusion in December 2007. Today’s court action was an appeal of that ruling.
The lawsuit was originally brought against then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. It is now called Academy of Religion v. Napolitano. Janet Napolitano is Obama’s new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The ACLU noted that, during the Cold War, the U.S. “used ideological exclusion to bar artists who were vocal critics of U.S. policy,” including Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and British novelist Doris Lessing.
“Over the last eight years, the Bush administration revived the practice, barring dozens of prominent intellectuals from assuming teaching posts at U.S. universities, fulfilling speaking engagements with U.S. audiences and attending academic conferences,” the ACLU said.
“Ideological exclusion is ineffective as a matter of security policy and inconsistent with the ideals that make this country worth defending,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “The U.S. should evaluate applicants for admission to the United States on the basis of their actions rather than their political beliefs and associations.”
The ACLU and other human rights groups are urging the courts to revisit several specific cases of ideological exclusion, including those of Haluk Gerger, a Turkish journalist; Dora Maria Tellez, a Nicaraguan human rights activist; Adam Habib, a South African political commentator; in addition to Prof. Ramadan. Ramadan is a Swiss Islamic scholar who now teaches at Oxford University in the U.K.
The ACLU and other U.S. organizations have also brought lawsuits to challenge the exclusion of Professor Habib. The challenge to his exclusion is currently pending before a federal district court in Boston.
Last week, dozens of the nation’s leading academic, free speech and civil rights organizations sent a letter to high-level U.S. officials today urging them to end the practice of refusing visas to foreign scholars, writers, artists and activists on the basis of their political views and associations.
In the letter, groups including the ACLU, the National Education Association, and the Rutherford Institute, called on Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, to put an end to the Cold War-era practice of “ideological exclusion.”
The ACLU’s Jaffer said, “Ideological exclusion impoverishes academic and political debate inside the United States, and it sends the message to the world that the United States is more interested in silencing its critics than engaging them. Ideological exclusion is a petty and misguided practice that the Obama administration should retire immediately.”
The government’s assertion that the criminal justice system lacks jurisdiction in immigration cases has recently been the centerpiece of two other cases. Several months ago, a federal district judge ordered 17 Uighurs released from imprisonment at the Guantanamo Bay detention center and permitted to enter the U.S. A federal appeals court ruled that the judge could order the prisoners released, but could not order them to be admitted to the U.S., since that was a matter of immigration law.
Earlier, another court ruled that it had no jurisdiction to adjudicate the case of Maher Arar, who was detained by U.S. authorities at JKF International Airport enroute to his home in Canada from a vacation in North Africa. He was held by the U.S. for two weeks, then flown to Jordan and later to his country of birth, Syria. In Syrian custody, Arar says he was held incommunicado, without charges or access to a lawyer, and tortured. The Syrians released him after ten months, without charges. He later received an apology and $10 million from the Canadian Government. The U.S. never acknowledged any wrongdoing in his case.
A leading legal rights group charged today that the Obama Justice Department is using immigration law to censor debate by selectively barring U.S. entry to foreign scholars.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) appeared in a federal appeals court in New York City today to argue that a Swiss professor and leading Muslim scholar was denied entry to the U.S. based on his political views.
The ACLU argued that the government’s exclusion of Professor Tariq Ramadan is illegal and was motivated not by anything he did but by his vocal criticism of U.S. foreign policy.
Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU, the lead lawyer in the case, told us, "It is disappointing to see the lawyers from the Obama Justice Department taking exactly the same positions as their predecessors during the Bush era. "
He added, "Our position is that the government should not be using immigration law to limit free speech within the U.S. By denying visas to prominent foreign scholars and writers simply because they were critical of United States foreign policy, the Bush administration used immigration laws to skew and stifle political debate inside the U.S.”
“The Bush administration was wrong to revive this Cold War practice, and the Obama administration should not defend it," he said.
The Department of Justice declined to comment on the case.
The position of the government during the George W. Bush presidency was that the courts have no jurisdiction over immigration matters. Obama lawyers reiterated that position in court today.
Ramadan was invited to teach at the University of Notre Dame in 2004. The U.S. government first granted but then suddenly revoked his visa, citing a statute that applies to those who have “endorsed or espoused” terrorism. After the ACLU filed suit, the government abandoned its claim that Ramadan had endorsed terrorism, but it continued to exclude him because he made small donations to a Swiss charity that the government alleges had given money to Hamas.
In January 2006, the ACLU and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit challenging Professor Ramadan's exclusion from the U.S. on behalf of the American Academy of Religion, the American Association of University Professors and the PEN American Center. A federal judge upheld Ramadan’s exclusion in December 2007. Today’s court action was an appeal of that ruling.
The lawsuit was originally brought against then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. It is now called Academy of Religion v. Napolitano. Janet Napolitano is Obama’s new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The ACLU noted that, during the Cold War, the U.S. “used ideological exclusion to bar artists who were vocal critics of U.S. policy,” including Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and British novelist Doris Lessing.
“Over the last eight years, the Bush administration revived the practice, barring dozens of prominent intellectuals from assuming teaching posts at U.S. universities, fulfilling speaking engagements with U.S. audiences and attending academic conferences,” the ACLU said.
“Ideological exclusion is ineffective as a matter of security policy and inconsistent with the ideals that make this country worth defending,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “The U.S. should evaluate applicants for admission to the United States on the basis of their actions rather than their political beliefs and associations.”
The ACLU and other human rights groups are urging the courts to revisit several specific cases of ideological exclusion, including those of Haluk Gerger, a Turkish journalist; Dora Maria Tellez, a Nicaraguan human rights activist; Adam Habib, a South African political commentator; in addition to Prof. Ramadan. Ramadan is a Swiss Islamic scholar who now teaches at Oxford University in the U.K.
The ACLU and other U.S. organizations have also brought lawsuits to challenge the exclusion of Professor Habib. The challenge to his exclusion is currently pending before a federal district court in Boston.
Last week, dozens of the nation’s leading academic, free speech and civil rights organizations sent a letter to high-level U.S. officials today urging them to end the practice of refusing visas to foreign scholars, writers, artists and activists on the basis of their political views and associations.
In the letter, groups including the ACLU, the National Education Association, and the Rutherford Institute, called on Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, to put an end to the Cold War-era practice of “ideological exclusion.”
The ACLU’s Jaffer said, “Ideological exclusion impoverishes academic and political debate inside the United States, and it sends the message to the world that the United States is more interested in silencing its critics than engaging them. Ideological exclusion is a petty and misguided practice that the Obama administration should retire immediately.”
The government’s assertion that the criminal justice system lacks jurisdiction in immigration cases has recently been the centerpiece of two other cases. Several months ago, a federal district judge ordered 17 Uighurs released from imprisonment at the Guantanamo Bay detention center and permitted to enter the U.S. A federal appeals court ruled that the judge could order the prisoners released, but could not order them to be admitted to the U.S., since that was a matter of immigration law.
Earlier, another court ruled that it had no jurisdiction to adjudicate the case of Maher Arar, who was detained by U.S. authorities at JKF International Airport enroute to his home in Canada from a vacation in North Africa. He was held by the U.S. for two weeks, then flown to Jordan and later to his country of birth, Syria. In Syrian custody, Arar says he was held incommunicado, without charges or access to a lawyer, and tortured. The Syrians released him after ten months, without charges. He later received an apology and $10 million from the Canadian Government. The U.S. never acknowledged any wrongdoing in his case.
GITMO PLEA DEAL REVEALED
By William Fisher
A British court ruled yesterday that U.S. authorities asked a Guantanamo Bay detainee to drop allegations of torture in exchange for his freedom.
A ruling by two British High Court judges said the U.S. offered Binyam Mohamed a plea bargain deal in October. Mohamed refused the deal and the U.S. dropped all charges against him later last year.
Mohamed is an Ethiopian who moved to Britain when he was a teenager. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and claims he was tortured both there and in Morocco. He was transferred to Guantanamo in 2004. He was finally returned to the U.K. in late February 2009, with no charges against him.
He is suing the British Government, charging that its intelligence services were complicit with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in facilitating his “extraordinary rendition” and torture while in custody.
The court said the plea bargain also asked Mohamed to plead guilty to two charges and agree not to speak publicly about his ordeal.
Zachary Katznelson, Legal Director of Reprieve, a legal action charity that has represented Mohamed for four years, told us, “In Binyam Mohamed’s case, the United States clearly prized secrecy over justice. It simply did not want the truth to get out.”
He added, “That has nothing to do with national security, but everything to do with the potential for national embarrassment. If we are to truly combat terrorism, we must use the tools of democracy – openness, fairness, justice – not abandon them, then desperately try to cover up our wrongs.”
In their ruling yesterday, the British judges revealed how the U.S. government tried to get Mohamed to sign an agreement stating that he had never been tortured, to promise not to speak with the media upon his release, and to plead guilty as a condition of his release back to Britain – all without his lawyers being allowed access to evidence that would help prove his innocence.
This annex of the British ruling was previously kept confidential by the British court because of the American military commission rules, which forbade making the materials public.
The British judges said the U.S. military also wanted Mohamed to assign any rights he might have to compensation to the U.S. government. They insisted that he accept a minimum sentence of ten years – despite the fact that the U.S. military had not told him what the charges were to be.
Mohamed was also required to waive any claim he might have to seeing any exculpatory evidence identified by the British judges. “If Mr. Mohamed was to ask to see this exculpatory evidence, the ‘deal’ would be off,” a Reprieve spokesperson said.
“The facts revealed reflect the way the US government has consistently tried to cover up the truth of Binyam Mohamed’s torture,” said Reprieve Director Clive Stafford Smith. “He was being told he would never leave Guantánamo Bay unless he promised never to discuss his torture, and never sue either the Americans or the British to force disclosure of his mistreatment.”
During his time in Guantánamo Bay, the U.S. military tried to prosecute him through the military commissions, which were characterized by the British former Lord Justice Steyn as “kangaroo courts.”
Reprieve said, “This proposal discussed by the British courts was made by the U.S. military at a time when he was not charged with anything. It also came after a long history of efforts to make Mohamed plead guilty to crimes he insisted that he did not commit. He had always been willing to enter a plea of “no contest,” -- which essentially means you deny your guilt, but enter a plea because you recognize it is the only way to resolve the case -- on the condition that he would be sentenced to time served, and immediately released back to Britain.”
By early 2009, Reprieve charges, “The U.S. military was still trying to get Mohamed to plead guilty to something – anything – in order to save face. The final ‘offer’ was that this man, originally alleged to be a most dangerous terrorist, should plead guilty and receive a sentence of only ten days in prison, less than one might expect for many driving offences. Mohamed rejected this offer, as he continued to insist that he was not guilty.”
"Offering a man who is protesting his innocence freedom on the condition that he pleads guilty to something and serves a 10-day sentence is face-saving on an horrific scale,” said Reprieve Executive Director Clare Algar.
The case has also caused a furor in the U.K. and a problem for the U.S. State Department. Britain’s High Court refused to release seven paragraphs that the court had redacted in an earlier opinion, saying that the redacted material lent credence to the torture allegations by Mohamed. The court said it reached its decision because of what it called a threat from the U.S. to reconsider sharing intelligence with the U.K.
But, in a highly unusual criticism, the High Court expressed dismay that a democracy “governed by the rule of law” would seek to suppress evidence
“relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,
politically embarrassing though it might be.”
The court said the Bush administration had made the threat in a letter to the
Foreign Office last September. It called on the Obama administration to reverse that position. The British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, denied that there was any threat from the U.S.
After Mohamed was captured, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft said that he had been complicit with Jose Padilla in a plan to detonate a “dirty bomb” in the United States. Padilla was never charged with this plot, but was convicted on other terrorism-related charges by a federal court in 2007. Last year, the Justice Department said it was dropping the dirty-bomb charges against Mohamed, and last October all charges against him were dropped.
Mohamed is currently appealing a separate U.S. case, on behalf of himself and four other terror suspects. In that case, government lawyers from the Obama Administration sought a decision not to reinstate a case that was thrown out by a lower court last year because government lawyers argued successfully that allowing the case to go forward would jeopardize U.S. national security.
In opposing reinstatement of the case, Obama’s lawyers used the same “state secrets” privilege used by Bush lawyers in the original case. The appeals court has not yet ruled in the case, which charges that a subsidiary of the Boeing Company, Jeppesen Dataplan, knowingly provided aircraft and logistical services to facilitate the Central Intelligence Agency’s rendition of Mohamed to overseas prisons.
A British court ruled yesterday that U.S. authorities asked a Guantanamo Bay detainee to drop allegations of torture in exchange for his freedom.
A ruling by two British High Court judges said the U.S. offered Binyam Mohamed a plea bargain deal in October. Mohamed refused the deal and the U.S. dropped all charges against him later last year.
Mohamed is an Ethiopian who moved to Britain when he was a teenager. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and claims he was tortured both there and in Morocco. He was transferred to Guantanamo in 2004. He was finally returned to the U.K. in late February 2009, with no charges against him.
He is suing the British Government, charging that its intelligence services were complicit with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in facilitating his “extraordinary rendition” and torture while in custody.
The court said the plea bargain also asked Mohamed to plead guilty to two charges and agree not to speak publicly about his ordeal.
Zachary Katznelson, Legal Director of Reprieve, a legal action charity that has represented Mohamed for four years, told us, “In Binyam Mohamed’s case, the United States clearly prized secrecy over justice. It simply did not want the truth to get out.”
He added, “That has nothing to do with national security, but everything to do with the potential for national embarrassment. If we are to truly combat terrorism, we must use the tools of democracy – openness, fairness, justice – not abandon them, then desperately try to cover up our wrongs.”
In their ruling yesterday, the British judges revealed how the U.S. government tried to get Mohamed to sign an agreement stating that he had never been tortured, to promise not to speak with the media upon his release, and to plead guilty as a condition of his release back to Britain – all without his lawyers being allowed access to evidence that would help prove his innocence.
This annex of the British ruling was previously kept confidential by the British court because of the American military commission rules, which forbade making the materials public.
The British judges said the U.S. military also wanted Mohamed to assign any rights he might have to compensation to the U.S. government. They insisted that he accept a minimum sentence of ten years – despite the fact that the U.S. military had not told him what the charges were to be.
Mohamed was also required to waive any claim he might have to seeing any exculpatory evidence identified by the British judges. “If Mr. Mohamed was to ask to see this exculpatory evidence, the ‘deal’ would be off,” a Reprieve spokesperson said.
“The facts revealed reflect the way the US government has consistently tried to cover up the truth of Binyam Mohamed’s torture,” said Reprieve Director Clive Stafford Smith. “He was being told he would never leave Guantánamo Bay unless he promised never to discuss his torture, and never sue either the Americans or the British to force disclosure of his mistreatment.”
During his time in Guantánamo Bay, the U.S. military tried to prosecute him through the military commissions, which were characterized by the British former Lord Justice Steyn as “kangaroo courts.”
Reprieve said, “This proposal discussed by the British courts was made by the U.S. military at a time when he was not charged with anything. It also came after a long history of efforts to make Mohamed plead guilty to crimes he insisted that he did not commit. He had always been willing to enter a plea of “no contest,” -- which essentially means you deny your guilt, but enter a plea because you recognize it is the only way to resolve the case -- on the condition that he would be sentenced to time served, and immediately released back to Britain.”
By early 2009, Reprieve charges, “The U.S. military was still trying to get Mohamed to plead guilty to something – anything – in order to save face. The final ‘offer’ was that this man, originally alleged to be a most dangerous terrorist, should plead guilty and receive a sentence of only ten days in prison, less than one might expect for many driving offences. Mohamed rejected this offer, as he continued to insist that he was not guilty.”
"Offering a man who is protesting his innocence freedom on the condition that he pleads guilty to something and serves a 10-day sentence is face-saving on an horrific scale,” said Reprieve Executive Director Clare Algar.
The case has also caused a furor in the U.K. and a problem for the U.S. State Department. Britain’s High Court refused to release seven paragraphs that the court had redacted in an earlier opinion, saying that the redacted material lent credence to the torture allegations by Mohamed. The court said it reached its decision because of what it called a threat from the U.S. to reconsider sharing intelligence with the U.K.
But, in a highly unusual criticism, the High Court expressed dismay that a democracy “governed by the rule of law” would seek to suppress evidence
“relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,
politically embarrassing though it might be.”
The court said the Bush administration had made the threat in a letter to the
Foreign Office last September. It called on the Obama administration to reverse that position. The British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, denied that there was any threat from the U.S.
After Mohamed was captured, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft said that he had been complicit with Jose Padilla in a plan to detonate a “dirty bomb” in the United States. Padilla was never charged with this plot, but was convicted on other terrorism-related charges by a federal court in 2007. Last year, the Justice Department said it was dropping the dirty-bomb charges against Mohamed, and last October all charges against him were dropped.
Mohamed is currently appealing a separate U.S. case, on behalf of himself and four other terror suspects. In that case, government lawyers from the Obama Administration sought a decision not to reinstate a case that was thrown out by a lower court last year because government lawyers argued successfully that allowing the case to go forward would jeopardize U.S. national security.
In opposing reinstatement of the case, Obama’s lawyers used the same “state secrets” privilege used by Bush lawyers in the original case. The appeals court has not yet ruled in the case, which charges that a subsidiary of the Boeing Company, Jeppesen Dataplan, knowingly provided aircraft and logistical services to facilitate the Central Intelligence Agency’s rendition of Mohamed to overseas prisons.
Monday, March 23, 2009
A New Era of Openness Coming?
By William Fisher
As President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice issued sweeping new guidelines to reverse the secrecy policies of former president George W. Bush, Congress weighed in with proposed new legislation to liberalize the Freedom of Information Act, and a federal judge ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to produce unedited summaries of some 3,000 documents related to its admitted destruction of 92 videotapes of prisoners being subjected to extremely harsh interrogation techniques.
Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder issued comprehensive new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) guidelines that direct all executive branch departments and agencies to apply a presumption of openness when administering the FOIA.
The new guidelines, announced in a memo to heads of executive departments and agencies, build on the principles announced by President Obama on his first full day in office when he issued a presidential memorandum on the FOIA that called on agencies to "usher in a new era of open government."
One of the first tests of the Obama Administration’s new approach came in
Federal Court, where the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) asked a federal judge to order the CIA to produce full and unedited copies of the 3,000 summaries, transcripts, reconstructions and memoranda relating to the interrogation videotapes they destroyed.
When the CIA refused to publicly disclose the list -- and the names of witnesses who may have viewed the videotapes – Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered an independent but non-public review of that material next week to determine whether it should be publicly disclosed.
“The government is still needlessly withholding information about these tapes from the public, despite the fact that the CIA's use of torture is well known,” said Amrit Singh, staff attorney with the ACLU. “Full disclosure of the CIA's illegal interrogation methods is long overdue and the agency must be held accountable for flouting the rule of law.”
Meanwhile, Congress is taking action to end the Bush Administration’s government-wide efforts to increase the classification of documents to thwart citizens’ requests for information under the FOIA.
The House of Representatives approved a measure to end what its sponsor calls pseudoclassification – creation of many new and ambiguous classification terms. According to the bill’s sponsor, Representative Steve Driehaus, a Democrat from Ohio, the bill would not only be a boon for the public, but an attempt to promote “a common language within government.”
In an editorial, The New York Times noted that “Official use only” has been “slapped wholesale on documents, even though there’s no common standard for what that means. The House measure would correct that by having the national archivist prescribe how and what to classify, with particular emphasis on cutting back categories and ending the pro forma withholding of nonsensitive information requested by the public.”
Rep. Driehaus says there were 362,000 FOIA requests last year, and almost a third of them still remain to be processed because of overclassification. The bill requires classifiers to be trained for the task and to put their names on what they deem out of bounds, subject to review by the Inspectors General of the various departments.
And in the Senate, lawmakers also signaled their intention to improve government transparency. Senators Patrick Leahy, a liberal Vermont Democrat and conservative Texas Republican John Cornyn – frequently legislative adversaries -- introduced the “Open FOIA” Act, mandating that government agencies comply swiftly and thoroughly with FOIA requests.
The New York Times editorial charged that “By last count, the federal government employs 107 different categories of restricted information — one off-limits category zanily pronounces, ‘sensitive but unclassified’. This muddle of mislabeling seems designed not to protect legitimate secrets but to empower bureaucrats. The end result has been to greatly blunt the Freedom of Information Act’s mandate to let the public in on the business of government, plain and simple.”
The new FOIA guidelines issued by Attorney General Holder rescind the guidelines issued in 2001 by President Bush’s first attorney general, John Ashcroft.
"By restoring the presumption of disclosure that is at the heart of the Freedom of Information Act, we are making a critical change that will restore the public’s ability to access information in a timely manner," Holder said. "The American people have the right to information about their government’s activities, and these new guidelines will ensure they are able to obtain that information under principles of openness and transparency."
The new FOIA guidelines address both application of the presumption of
disclosure and the effective administration of the FOIA across the government.
As to the presumption of disclosure, the Attorney General directs agencies not to withhold records simply because they can technically do so. In his memo, the Attorney General encourages agencies to make discretionary disclosures of records and to release records in part whenever they cannot be released in full.
The Attorney General also establishes a new standard for the defense of agency decisions to withhold records in response to a FOIA request. Now, the Department will defend a denial only if the agency reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm an interest protected by one of the statutory exemptions, or disclosure is prohibited by law.
The Freedom of Information Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the U.S. Government.
In December 2007, the ACLU filed a motion to hold the CIA in contempt for its destruction of the tapes in violation of a court order requiring the agency to produce or identify all records requested by the ACLU. That motion is still pending.
The agency's latest submission came in response to an August 20, 2008 court order issued in the context of the contempt motion. That order required the agency to produce "a list of any summaries, transcripts, or memoranda regarding the [destroyed tapes] and of any reconstruction of the records' contents" as well as a list of witnesses who may have viewed the videotapes or retained custody of the videotapes before their destruction. The CIA will provide these lists to the court for in camera review on March 26, 2009.
Earlier this month, the CIA acknowledged it destroyed 92 tapes of interrogations. The tapes, some of which show CIA operatives subjecting suspects to extremely harsh interrogation methods, should have been identified and processed for the ACLU in response to its Freedom of Information Act request demanding information on the treatment and interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody.
The tapes were also withheld from the 9/11 Commission, appointed by former President Bush and Congress, which had formally requested that the CIA hand over transcripts and recordings documenting the interrogation of CIA prisoners.
As President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice issued sweeping new guidelines to reverse the secrecy policies of former president George W. Bush, Congress weighed in with proposed new legislation to liberalize the Freedom of Information Act, and a federal judge ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to produce unedited summaries of some 3,000 documents related to its admitted destruction of 92 videotapes of prisoners being subjected to extremely harsh interrogation techniques.
Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder issued comprehensive new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) guidelines that direct all executive branch departments and agencies to apply a presumption of openness when administering the FOIA.
The new guidelines, announced in a memo to heads of executive departments and agencies, build on the principles announced by President Obama on his first full day in office when he issued a presidential memorandum on the FOIA that called on agencies to "usher in a new era of open government."
One of the first tests of the Obama Administration’s new approach came in
Federal Court, where the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) asked a federal judge to order the CIA to produce full and unedited copies of the 3,000 summaries, transcripts, reconstructions and memoranda relating to the interrogation videotapes they destroyed.
When the CIA refused to publicly disclose the list -- and the names of witnesses who may have viewed the videotapes – Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered an independent but non-public review of that material next week to determine whether it should be publicly disclosed.
“The government is still needlessly withholding information about these tapes from the public, despite the fact that the CIA's use of torture is well known,” said Amrit Singh, staff attorney with the ACLU. “Full disclosure of the CIA's illegal interrogation methods is long overdue and the agency must be held accountable for flouting the rule of law.”
Meanwhile, Congress is taking action to end the Bush Administration’s government-wide efforts to increase the classification of documents to thwart citizens’ requests for information under the FOIA.
The House of Representatives approved a measure to end what its sponsor calls pseudoclassification – creation of many new and ambiguous classification terms. According to the bill’s sponsor, Representative Steve Driehaus, a Democrat from Ohio, the bill would not only be a boon for the public, but an attempt to promote “a common language within government.”
In an editorial, The New York Times noted that “Official use only” has been “slapped wholesale on documents, even though there’s no common standard for what that means. The House measure would correct that by having the national archivist prescribe how and what to classify, with particular emphasis on cutting back categories and ending the pro forma withholding of nonsensitive information requested by the public.”
Rep. Driehaus says there were 362,000 FOIA requests last year, and almost a third of them still remain to be processed because of overclassification. The bill requires classifiers to be trained for the task and to put their names on what they deem out of bounds, subject to review by the Inspectors General of the various departments.
And in the Senate, lawmakers also signaled their intention to improve government transparency. Senators Patrick Leahy, a liberal Vermont Democrat and conservative Texas Republican John Cornyn – frequently legislative adversaries -- introduced the “Open FOIA” Act, mandating that government agencies comply swiftly and thoroughly with FOIA requests.
The New York Times editorial charged that “By last count, the federal government employs 107 different categories of restricted information — one off-limits category zanily pronounces, ‘sensitive but unclassified’. This muddle of mislabeling seems designed not to protect legitimate secrets but to empower bureaucrats. The end result has been to greatly blunt the Freedom of Information Act’s mandate to let the public in on the business of government, plain and simple.”
The new FOIA guidelines issued by Attorney General Holder rescind the guidelines issued in 2001 by President Bush’s first attorney general, John Ashcroft.
"By restoring the presumption of disclosure that is at the heart of the Freedom of Information Act, we are making a critical change that will restore the public’s ability to access information in a timely manner," Holder said. "The American people have the right to information about their government’s activities, and these new guidelines will ensure they are able to obtain that information under principles of openness and transparency."
The new FOIA guidelines address both application of the presumption of
disclosure and the effective administration of the FOIA across the government.
As to the presumption of disclosure, the Attorney General directs agencies not to withhold records simply because they can technically do so. In his memo, the Attorney General encourages agencies to make discretionary disclosures of records and to release records in part whenever they cannot be released in full.
The Attorney General also establishes a new standard for the defense of agency decisions to withhold records in response to a FOIA request. Now, the Department will defend a denial only if the agency reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm an interest protected by one of the statutory exemptions, or disclosure is prohibited by law.
The Freedom of Information Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the U.S. Government.
In December 2007, the ACLU filed a motion to hold the CIA in contempt for its destruction of the tapes in violation of a court order requiring the agency to produce or identify all records requested by the ACLU. That motion is still pending.
The agency's latest submission came in response to an August 20, 2008 court order issued in the context of the contempt motion. That order required the agency to produce "a list of any summaries, transcripts, or memoranda regarding the [destroyed tapes] and of any reconstruction of the records' contents" as well as a list of witnesses who may have viewed the videotapes or retained custody of the videotapes before their destruction. The CIA will provide these lists to the court for in camera review on March 26, 2009.
Earlier this month, the CIA acknowledged it destroyed 92 tapes of interrogations. The tapes, some of which show CIA operatives subjecting suspects to extremely harsh interrogation methods, should have been identified and processed for the ACLU in response to its Freedom of Information Act request demanding information on the treatment and interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody.
The tapes were also withheld from the 9/11 Commission, appointed by former President Bush and Congress, which had formally requested that the CIA hand over transcripts and recordings documenting the interrogation of CIA prisoners.
The Spirit of America: What Were They Thinking?
By William Fisher
What with the financial meltdown, two wars, and a myriad of other problems, even news-junkies can be forgiven for missing this story. So let me help you catch up.
Earlier this month, the great state of Mississippi celebrated “The Spirit of America Day” to commemorate the achievements of its outstanding male high school athletes.
“The Spirit of America Day” was blessed – as it has been for more than a generation -- by a resolution from the Mississippi state legislature (on a voice vote).
Seven teenagers were selected on the basis of their athleticism, leadership and citizenship.
“The endeavors of these individual students to be productive and contributing members of society provide the model example for other students to pattern themselves after, in efforts of becoming notable and model citizens for future generations to come,” said the resolution adopted by the House.
Well, why not? These kids probably worked their butts off to win. They’re role models, no? Why not recognize their achievement? Sounds like a good cause, right?
Wrong. No, there’s nothing wrong with the kids. They deserved to be honored. So what’s the problem?
Here’s the back-story:
“The Spirit of America Day” events are hosted by one Richard Barrett, a lawyer in Learned, Miss. Mr. Barrett is chairman of the board of America’s Foundation, a Mississippi sports organization that sponsors “The Spirit of America Day.”
He’s also the head of the Nationalist Movement, a white supremacist organization that advocates striking down civil rights laws and organizes white power events nationwide.
Hatewatch, the authoritative publication of the Southern Poverty Law Center, reports that Barrett, 65, has long denigrated minorities. In his 1982 autobiography, “The Commission,” he called for resettling non-white Americans to “Puerto Rico, Mexico, Israel, the Orient and Africa,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. He also argued that “the Negro race … possess[es] no creativity of its own [and] pulls the vitality away from civilization.” And he favored sterilization and abortions of those deemed “unfit.”
There’s more. Barrett marched on Martin Luther King Day last year in Jena, La., to deride King and the six black teenagers subjected to unusually harsh prosecutions for an attack on a white student. Nationalist Movement members and supporters chanted slogans such as, “If it ain’t white, it ain’t right.”
Last fall, he planned a Louisville rally in support of James Forde Seale, who was convicted of facilitating the Klan murder of two black teenagers. (The conviction was later overturned on a technicality by a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.)
Barrett has also campaigned on behalf of other 1960s-era racist killers. After Byron de la Beckwith was convicted in 1994 of assassinating civil rights leader Medgar Evers, Barrett circulated a petition and led a march seeking a pardon from the Mississippi governor.
Although Barrett told the AP that he doesn’t share his racist views at “Spirit of America” events, the Anti Defamation League tells us that the “Spirit of America” isn’t Barrett’s only youth outreach effort. In 1988, he invited skinheads to his home for a weekend of paramilitary training. The few teenagers who attended tried to hit a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. during target practice, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported.
Barrett currently runs an online forum for skinheads, where he recently referred to President Obama as “Chimpanzee-in-Chief.” Hatewatch says his racist message is a hit with the young men who post there. ”No matter how many laws you pass a white woman will always be the ultimate prize and target of black men,” reads one recent post. “Long live you my brave brothers and thank God for this forum and the wise words of Richard Barrett.”
Now, exactly how does this kind of stuff happen in a state that now has the second highest number of elected black legislators in the South (after Georgia)? In the Mississippi House, African-Americans occupy 35 of the 122 seats; in the Senate, 11 of 52.
Where, you might ask, were these 46 lawmakers when this resolution passed on a voice vote?
Mostly A.W.O.L., it seems.
But not altogether. According to Hatewatch, Democratic Rep. Robert Johnson, one of the African-American legislators, told his fellow representatives that Barrett was “an avowed racist,” according to the Associated Press. “He’s not ashamed of it; he doesn’t apologize for it,” Johnson said.
Some lawmakers seemed to feel that the resolution was acceptable because it honored the students rather than Barrett. “I’m not concerned about this individual,” veteran Democratic Rep. Joe Warren told the AP. “I’m concerned about these young people being honored by this.”
Nonetheless, the resolution passed. And in an interview with the AP, Barrett sounded pleased about that. “I think that’s a good lesson of how patriotism and Americanism depend on majority rule,” he said. “It’s a great lesson in democracy that we’re learning.”
Right on. A great lesson indeed.
Remember when incoming U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott told the audience at Strom Thurmond’s farewell birthday party that the United States would have avoided "all these problems" if the racist Thurmond had been elected president in 1948?
Lott was forced from office. But not by the State of Mississippi.
Dixie willing, Barrett will be around to sponsor the “Spirit of America” next year.
What with the financial meltdown, two wars, and a myriad of other problems, even news-junkies can be forgiven for missing this story. So let me help you catch up.
Earlier this month, the great state of Mississippi celebrated “The Spirit of America Day” to commemorate the achievements of its outstanding male high school athletes.
“The Spirit of America Day” was blessed – as it has been for more than a generation -- by a resolution from the Mississippi state legislature (on a voice vote).
Seven teenagers were selected on the basis of their athleticism, leadership and citizenship.
“The endeavors of these individual students to be productive and contributing members of society provide the model example for other students to pattern themselves after, in efforts of becoming notable and model citizens for future generations to come,” said the resolution adopted by the House.
Well, why not? These kids probably worked their butts off to win. They’re role models, no? Why not recognize their achievement? Sounds like a good cause, right?
Wrong. No, there’s nothing wrong with the kids. They deserved to be honored. So what’s the problem?
Here’s the back-story:
“The Spirit of America Day” events are hosted by one Richard Barrett, a lawyer in Learned, Miss. Mr. Barrett is chairman of the board of America’s Foundation, a Mississippi sports organization that sponsors “The Spirit of America Day.”
He’s also the head of the Nationalist Movement, a white supremacist organization that advocates striking down civil rights laws and organizes white power events nationwide.
Hatewatch, the authoritative publication of the Southern Poverty Law Center, reports that Barrett, 65, has long denigrated minorities. In his 1982 autobiography, “The Commission,” he called for resettling non-white Americans to “Puerto Rico, Mexico, Israel, the Orient and Africa,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. He also argued that “the Negro race … possess[es] no creativity of its own [and] pulls the vitality away from civilization.” And he favored sterilization and abortions of those deemed “unfit.”
There’s more. Barrett marched on Martin Luther King Day last year in Jena, La., to deride King and the six black teenagers subjected to unusually harsh prosecutions for an attack on a white student. Nationalist Movement members and supporters chanted slogans such as, “If it ain’t white, it ain’t right.”
Last fall, he planned a Louisville rally in support of James Forde Seale, who was convicted of facilitating the Klan murder of two black teenagers. (The conviction was later overturned on a technicality by a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.)
Barrett has also campaigned on behalf of other 1960s-era racist killers. After Byron de la Beckwith was convicted in 1994 of assassinating civil rights leader Medgar Evers, Barrett circulated a petition and led a march seeking a pardon from the Mississippi governor.
Although Barrett told the AP that he doesn’t share his racist views at “Spirit of America” events, the Anti Defamation League tells us that the “Spirit of America” isn’t Barrett’s only youth outreach effort. In 1988, he invited skinheads to his home for a weekend of paramilitary training. The few teenagers who attended tried to hit a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. during target practice, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported.
Barrett currently runs an online forum for skinheads, where he recently referred to President Obama as “Chimpanzee-in-Chief.” Hatewatch says his racist message is a hit with the young men who post there. ”No matter how many laws you pass a white woman will always be the ultimate prize and target of black men,” reads one recent post. “Long live you my brave brothers and thank God for this forum and the wise words of Richard Barrett.”
Now, exactly how does this kind of stuff happen in a state that now has the second highest number of elected black legislators in the South (after Georgia)? In the Mississippi House, African-Americans occupy 35 of the 122 seats; in the Senate, 11 of 52.
Where, you might ask, were these 46 lawmakers when this resolution passed on a voice vote?
Mostly A.W.O.L., it seems.
But not altogether. According to Hatewatch, Democratic Rep. Robert Johnson, one of the African-American legislators, told his fellow representatives that Barrett was “an avowed racist,” according to the Associated Press. “He’s not ashamed of it; he doesn’t apologize for it,” Johnson said.
Some lawmakers seemed to feel that the resolution was acceptable because it honored the students rather than Barrett. “I’m not concerned about this individual,” veteran Democratic Rep. Joe Warren told the AP. “I’m concerned about these young people being honored by this.”
Nonetheless, the resolution passed. And in an interview with the AP, Barrett sounded pleased about that. “I think that’s a good lesson of how patriotism and Americanism depend on majority rule,” he said. “It’s a great lesson in democracy that we’re learning.”
Right on. A great lesson indeed.
Remember when incoming U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott told the audience at Strom Thurmond’s farewell birthday party that the United States would have avoided "all these problems" if the racist Thurmond had been elected president in 1948?
Lott was forced from office. But not by the State of Mississippi.
Dixie willing, Barrett will be around to sponsor the “Spirit of America” next year.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Religious Leaders Support Commission of Inquiry
By William Fisher
A leaked Red Cross report, detailing chilling accounts of prisoner torture in “black sites” run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency have underlined the need for an independent commission of inquiry into possible war crimes committed by senior officials during the presidency of George W. Bush, according to a statement by 25 prominent clergymen and women.
Linda Gustitus, president of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), said, "The release of the report from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the treatment of US-held detainees in CIA secret prisons makes the need for a Commission of Inquiry into US detention and interrogation practices even more compelling.”
“Our country cannot turn a blind eye to these findings; we must determine and make public all the facts with respect to this conduct, and we must hold the leaders who ordered these acts accountable," she said.
Rev. Rich Kilmer, NRCAT executive director, told IPS, “We need to understand fully what happened so that we can effectively develop those safeguards. Investigating the past will help produce a future where the U.S. no longer engages in torture.”
Kilmer said, “Such a Commission would not preclude a simultaneous investigation by the Department of Justice or by a special prosecutor. Where sufficient evidence exists that laws may have been broken, justice dictates that no one is above the law and prosecutions should be launched.”
He added that the Commission of Inquiry could be appointed by the President or by Congress.
Details of the leaked report were first published on the Web site of the New York Review of Books in an extensive article by Mark Danner, a journalism professor. The report, compiled from interviews with numerous U.S. detainees, describes acts of brutalization and sensory deprivation employed by American agents. The report concluded: “The allegations of ill-treatment of the detainees indicate that, in many cases, the ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture. In addition, many other elements of the ill-treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”
Danner writes that all the torture techniques "had to have the approval of the CIA’s deputy director for operations." He wrote that CIA officers "briefed high-level officials" in the National Security Council's Principals Committee,' including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Attorney General John Ashcroft, 'who then signed off on the interrogation plan.'" The briefings about these techniques were so "detailed and frequent that some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed."
The CIA’s secret "global internment system" was set up at the direction of President George W. Bush less than a week after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Danner asserts.
But during a press conference in August 2007, a reporter asked President Bush if he "had read" another highly confidential report alleging CIA prisoner mistreatment. "Haven't seen it; we don't torture," Bush answered, quickly moving on to another question.
After the Washington Post later uncovered and published details of the CIA’s global network of “black site” – secret – prisons, President Bush acknowledged that he had authorized interrogations using an "alternative set of procedures." These procedures included extended "sleep deprivation," prolonged forced nudity, bombarding detainees with noise and light, repeated immersion in cold water, prolonged standing, sometimes for many days, beatings of various kinds, and "waterboarding" -- or, as the report's authors phrase it, "suffocation by water."
According to the ICRC report, "in many cases, the ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program...constituted torture."
Its report continues: "In addition, many other elements of the ill-treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment."
Both torture and "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" are forbidden by many treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory, including the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions.
The accounts of the detainees themselves, including the most prominent captured in the “War on Terror”, describe their detention from the time they were secretly brought to the “black sites" -- secret prisons around the world, including in Thailand, Afghanistan, and Poland, through the interrogations using "waterboarding." beatings, and other techniques.
The ICRC interviewed 14 "high-value detainees" over many days for the report, including Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Shaik Mohammed, and Walid bin Attash. These 14 remain imprisoned in Guantánamo.
The ICRC is the appointed legal guardian of the Geneva Conventions and the body appointed to supervise the treatment of prisoners of war. Its reports are delivered to signatory governments on a highly confidential basis. The ICRC expressed dismay at the leaking of one of its reports.
Accounts of the report were subsequently published in most of America’s major newspapers, including The New York Times and the Washington Post. So compelling were its details that it gained endorsement from some commentators whose political views customarily lean to the right. For example, Anne Applebaum, a columnist for the Washington Post, wrote:
“That crimes were committed is no longer in doubt…The horror of the CIA interrogation tactics in these places lies not in their scale but in the doggedness with which they defied American and international law...These 14 men were not tortured as part of an ordinary and accepted routine, in other words, but according to special rules and procedures, set up at the highest level of government, by people who surely knew that they were illegal; otherwise, they would not have limited them so carefully.”
NRCAT has joined many legal advocacy and human rights organizations in calling for an impartial, nonpartisan, and independent “Commission of Inquiry” to investigate U.S.-sponsored torture and to ascertain the extent to which Bush administration interrogation practices constituted "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."
NRCAT’S statement was signed by more than two dozen prominent religious leaders, representing denominations from a wide range of religions, including Protestant and Catholic Christians, Muslims, orthodox and reformed Jews, Sikhs and Hindus.
Their statement says, “The United States must never again engage in torture. Torture is immoral, illegal and counterproductive. It causes profound and lasting harm, especially to its victims but also to its perpetrators. It contradicts our nation’s deepest values and corrupts the moral fabric of our society.”
“As people of faith, we know that brokenness can be healed – both in individual lives and in the life of the nation. All religions believe that redemption is possible. Learning the truth can set us on a path toward national healing and renewal,” the statement says.
Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is exploring the possibility of establishing a “Truth” Commission. In the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. John Conyers, Democrat of Michigan, is proposing a similar body. Others in and outside Congress are supporting the appointment of an independent prosecutor appointed by the Department of Justice. All would carry out comprehensive investigations into the approval of and use of torture by the U.S. government.
Thus far, President Barack Obama has appeared cool to the idea of a special commission of inquiry. At a recent press conference, he said his inclination was to look forward, not backward. However, he added, “ no one is above the law.”
A leaked Red Cross report, detailing chilling accounts of prisoner torture in “black sites” run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency have underlined the need for an independent commission of inquiry into possible war crimes committed by senior officials during the presidency of George W. Bush, according to a statement by 25 prominent clergymen and women.
Linda Gustitus, president of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), said, "The release of the report from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the treatment of US-held detainees in CIA secret prisons makes the need for a Commission of Inquiry into US detention and interrogation practices even more compelling.”
“Our country cannot turn a blind eye to these findings; we must determine and make public all the facts with respect to this conduct, and we must hold the leaders who ordered these acts accountable," she said.
Rev. Rich Kilmer, NRCAT executive director, told IPS, “We need to understand fully what happened so that we can effectively develop those safeguards. Investigating the past will help produce a future where the U.S. no longer engages in torture.”
Kilmer said, “Such a Commission would not preclude a simultaneous investigation by the Department of Justice or by a special prosecutor. Where sufficient evidence exists that laws may have been broken, justice dictates that no one is above the law and prosecutions should be launched.”
He added that the Commission of Inquiry could be appointed by the President or by Congress.
Details of the leaked report were first published on the Web site of the New York Review of Books in an extensive article by Mark Danner, a journalism professor. The report, compiled from interviews with numerous U.S. detainees, describes acts of brutalization and sensory deprivation employed by American agents. The report concluded: “The allegations of ill-treatment of the detainees indicate that, in many cases, the ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture. In addition, many other elements of the ill-treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”
Danner writes that all the torture techniques "had to have the approval of the CIA’s deputy director for operations." He wrote that CIA officers "briefed high-level officials" in the National Security Council's Principals Committee,' including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Attorney General John Ashcroft, 'who then signed off on the interrogation plan.'" The briefings about these techniques were so "detailed and frequent that some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed."
The CIA’s secret "global internment system" was set up at the direction of President George W. Bush less than a week after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Danner asserts.
But during a press conference in August 2007, a reporter asked President Bush if he "had read" another highly confidential report alleging CIA prisoner mistreatment. "Haven't seen it; we don't torture," Bush answered, quickly moving on to another question.
After the Washington Post later uncovered and published details of the CIA’s global network of “black site” – secret – prisons, President Bush acknowledged that he had authorized interrogations using an "alternative set of procedures." These procedures included extended "sleep deprivation," prolonged forced nudity, bombarding detainees with noise and light, repeated immersion in cold water, prolonged standing, sometimes for many days, beatings of various kinds, and "waterboarding" -- or, as the report's authors phrase it, "suffocation by water."
According to the ICRC report, "in many cases, the ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program...constituted torture."
Its report continues: "In addition, many other elements of the ill-treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment."
Both torture and "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" are forbidden by many treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory, including the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions.
The accounts of the detainees themselves, including the most prominent captured in the “War on Terror”, describe their detention from the time they were secretly brought to the “black sites" -- secret prisons around the world, including in Thailand, Afghanistan, and Poland, through the interrogations using "waterboarding." beatings, and other techniques.
The ICRC interviewed 14 "high-value detainees" over many days for the report, including Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Shaik Mohammed, and Walid bin Attash. These 14 remain imprisoned in Guantánamo.
The ICRC is the appointed legal guardian of the Geneva Conventions and the body appointed to supervise the treatment of prisoners of war. Its reports are delivered to signatory governments on a highly confidential basis. The ICRC expressed dismay at the leaking of one of its reports.
Accounts of the report were subsequently published in most of America’s major newspapers, including The New York Times and the Washington Post. So compelling were its details that it gained endorsement from some commentators whose political views customarily lean to the right. For example, Anne Applebaum, a columnist for the Washington Post, wrote:
“That crimes were committed is no longer in doubt…The horror of the CIA interrogation tactics in these places lies not in their scale but in the doggedness with which they defied American and international law...These 14 men were not tortured as part of an ordinary and accepted routine, in other words, but according to special rules and procedures, set up at the highest level of government, by people who surely knew that they were illegal; otherwise, they would not have limited them so carefully.”
NRCAT has joined many legal advocacy and human rights organizations in calling for an impartial, nonpartisan, and independent “Commission of Inquiry” to investigate U.S.-sponsored torture and to ascertain the extent to which Bush administration interrogation practices constituted "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."
NRCAT’S statement was signed by more than two dozen prominent religious leaders, representing denominations from a wide range of religions, including Protestant and Catholic Christians, Muslims, orthodox and reformed Jews, Sikhs and Hindus.
Their statement says, “The United States must never again engage in torture. Torture is immoral, illegal and counterproductive. It causes profound and lasting harm, especially to its victims but also to its perpetrators. It contradicts our nation’s deepest values and corrupts the moral fabric of our society.”
“As people of faith, we know that brokenness can be healed – both in individual lives and in the life of the nation. All religions believe that redemption is possible. Learning the truth can set us on a path toward national healing and renewal,” the statement says.
Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is exploring the possibility of establishing a “Truth” Commission. In the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. John Conyers, Democrat of Michigan, is proposing a similar body. Others in and outside Congress are supporting the appointment of an independent prosecutor appointed by the Department of Justice. All would carry out comprehensive investigations into the approval of and use of torture by the U.S. government.
Thus far, President Barack Obama has appeared cool to the idea of a special commission of inquiry. At a recent press conference, he said his inclination was to look forward, not backward. However, he added, “ no one is above the law.”
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