By William Fisher
Civil liberties advocates and Constitutional law scholars lost no time in condemning proposed legislation introduced in the Senate yesterday that would hand the government the power to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects without charge and to conduct trials through military commissions only.
Typical was the response from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which said the proposed legislation would “deal a swift blow to due process and the rule of law.”
And Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA (AI), said, “Military commissions were created to consider evidence too inadequate to submit to a valid court. The commissions do not conform to the due process standards established under international law and do not have legitimacy in the eyes of the global community."
The “Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act of 2010,” introduced by Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona and Independent Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, would also create a new system of interrogation, requiring intelligence officials to be consulted about how to handle terrorism suspects after their capture.
The bill was precipitated by the Senators’ objections to the Obama administration’s decision to charge accused Christmas Day attacker Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in the criminal court system. Abdulmutallab, while in FBI custody, was read his rights, including his right to remain silent and his right to an attorney. These Constitutional rights are enjoyed by all persons, whether they are citizens or not, who are arrested on U.S. territory.
U.S. officials insist Abdulmutallab provided valuable intelligence under civilian questioning despite being told he had the right to remain silent.
The McCain-Lieberman legislation would have a “high value detainee” team, made up of members of different intelligence agencies, interrogate and determine whether alleged terrorist suspects are “unprivileged enemy belligerents.” If so, and if the suspect is then charged, the legislation would mandate the use of the military commissions for trial.
President Barack Obama has already created such a team. Last summer, Obama announced a new interagency interrogation task force for extracting information from the most important terrorist suspects in its custody. Known as the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), the team draws on interrogators, intelligence analysts, linguists and cultural experts to interrogate detainees without torturing them. The unit is housed in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, said the bill was “a direct attack on the Constitution.”
Chip Pitts, President of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), told IPS, “This bill’s warped understanding of international law and its mistaken predicate still blur actual wars (such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq today) with the politically appealing yet misleading and overbroad chimera of an endless and geographically unlimited ‘global war on terror’.”
He added, “Particularly when seen along with the Obama administration’s rumored reversal of its prior decision to try 9/11 suspects in civilian courts as opposed to military commissions, it’s another leg in the terrible race to the bottom in which politicians compete to seem ‘tougher’ on terrorism while really diminishing national security.”
Constitutional law experts were equally critical.
Prof. Peter Shane of the Ohio State University law school told IPS, “There seems to be a fundamental philosophical difference between those who believe that the rule of law threatens our fight against terrorism and those who regard it as one of our most potent weapons. There is no evidence to believe that the executive branch is making decisions with regard to the interrogation or detention of suspected terrorists that is compromising either our capacity to obtain intelligence information or to protect the United States from terrorist attack.”
The Bush Administration, he added, “convicted over 300 terrorist suspects apprehended in the United States using our criminal justice system to prosecute terror-related crimes. We should continue to leave these decisions to the discretion of federal prosecutors and investigators.”
Another legal scholar, Prof. Frances Boyle of the University of Illinois law school, told IPS that the current controversy had its roots in the administration of President George W. Bush, who created a universe of “legal nihilism where human beings (including U.S. citizens) can be disappeared, detained incommunicado, denied access to attorneys and regular courts, tried by kangaroo courts, executed, tortured, assassinated and subjected to numerous other manifestations of State Terrorism.”
He said, “This category of ‘unlawful enemy combatants’ negates almost the entirety of the post-World War II regime for the International Protection of Human Rights established by the U.N. Charter in 1945 and most of the major international human rights treaties.”
In introducing the proposed legislation, Sen. McCain said it “seeks to ensure that the mistakes made during the apprehension of the Christmas Day bomber, such as reading him a Miranda warning, will never happen again and put Americans’ security at risk.”
The legislation, McCain declared, “would authorize detention of enemy belligerents without criminal charges for the duration of the hostilities consistent with standards under the law of war which have been recognized by the Supreme Court.”
He added, “What we saw with the Christmas Day bomber was a series of missteps and staggering failures in coordination among the most senior members of the Administration’s national security officials that have continued to be compounded by Administration apologists who still don’t seem to understand that repeating the same mistakes that were made in 2001 and 2002 is going to lead to the deaths of many more Americans.”
The proposed legislation was introduced at a time of fierce election-year acrimony over how the United States should handle alleged terrorists. In addition to attacking President Barack Obama over the treatment of the so-called Christmas Day bomber, Republicans have also denounced the Obama administration's call for trial in a civilian court of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Democrats have responded by pointing out that US civilian courts, under both the Bush and Obama Administrations, have tried and convicted more than 300 terrorists. They have said that favoring military trials hands terrorists a propaganda victory.
But the Washington Post is reporting that President Obama's advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, thus reversing Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City.
Monday, March 08, 2010
ACLU CHALLENGES MILITARY COMMISSIONS
By William Fisher
Civil libertarians hit back hard today (Sunday) at reports indicating that the Obama Administration is about to cave to pressure from Congress and local groups in New York City and is not only considering transferring the cases of suspected terrorists to another federal court, but even moving them to the military commission system.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) purchased a full-page advertisement in today’s New York Times, urging the president to stick to the Justice Department’s original plan to try “high-value” terror suspects in the civilian criminal justice system.
The ACLU said military commissions are “a second class system of justice which should be shut down for good. The Constitution is not optional, and the rule of law must be restored.”
The ad features a picture of President Obama morphing into a picture of former President Bush.
The ad asks: “What will it be Mr. President? Change or more of the Same?
“Candidate Barack Obama vowed to change the Bush-Cheney policies and restore America’s values of justice and due process. Many of us are shocked and concerned that right now, President Obama is considering reversing his attorney general’s decision to try the 9/11 defendants in criminal court. Our criminal justice system has successfully handled over 300 terrorism cases compared to only 3 in the military commissions. Our criminal justice system will resolve these cases more quickly and more credibly than the military commissions.
The ad urges readers to “Tell President Obama not to back down on his commitment to our justice system, and to try the 9/11 defendants in criminal court. Remind the world that America stands for due process, justice, and the rule of law.”
Anthony D. Romero, the ACLU’s Executive Director, said the organization
placed the ad because “it’s critical that Americans know what is at stake here: nothing less than America’s commitment to the Constitution and the rule of law.”
Other legal authorities have been blunt in their criticism of the Obama Administration. Prof. David J. R. Frakt, Director of the Criminal Law Practice Center at Western State University College of Law, told IPS, “Many of the crimes alleged to have been committed by detainees at Guantanamo are not crimes under the law of war and do not belong in military commissions. If military commissions are the only option, this may preclude some detainees from being tried at all.”
Frakt, a Lt. Col. in the Air Force Reserve, was appointed to defend Guantanamo detainee Mohammed Jawad, an alleged combatant facing charges for events that took place when he was a minor. In 2008, he challenged the role of the legal advisor to the convening authority -- the number two in the Office of Military Commissions -- Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, in choosing his client for trial. Frakt argued that Hartmann had "...exercised unlawful command influence." Hartmann was widely quoted as saying the Prosecution should choose to charge captives based on whether their trials would: "...capture the imagination of the American people.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell joined dozens of retired military officers in encouraging the administration to use the civilian criminal justice system. In a television interview, he said, “I don't know where the [Republican] claim comes that we are less safe…In eight years the military commissions have put three people on trial. Two of them served relatively short sentences and are free. One guy is in jail.”
Meanwhile, he said, “The federal courts, our Article III, regular legal court system, has put dozens of terrorists in jail and they're fully capable of doing it. So the suggestion that somehow a military commission is the way to go isn't…borne out by the history of the military commissions.”
As recently as two weeks ago, the Justice Department appeared to be steadfast in its commitment to civilian courts. “There is no precedent in the history of our Nation in which Congress has intervened in such a manner to prohibit the prosecution of particular persons or crimes," said the U.S. Department of Justice.
The administration appeared to be on board. The president has made his preference for civilian courts widely known. And John Brennan, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, said last week, “Cries to try terrorists only in military courts lack foundation. There have been three convictions of terrorists in the military tribunal system since 9/11, and hundreds in the criminal justice system—including high-profile terrorists such as (the shoe-bomber, Richard) Reid and 9/11 plotter Zacarious Moussaoui.”
But the political backlash was already growing. Most Congressional Republicans believe that military commissions are the correct vehicles for trying suspected terrorists. They also believe that those who cannot be tried in either civilian court or military commissions should be held indefinitely, without trial or charge. Some of these Congresspersons grudgingly acknowledge the Supreme Court’s ruling that all detainees must have the right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts – the habeas corpus right.
But others would deny this right, absent a Supreme Court ruling.
At the same time, some Democrats – looking toward the 2010 elections – are fearful that they will be called out as being “soft on terrorism” and are therefore either remaining silent or adopting the Republican line.
Congress threw an early monkey wrench into Administration plans to bring Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. for trials and to house those convicted in an Illinois prison the government was set to purchase. “Not in my backyard,” was the frightened cry that went up from Congress – which barred the President from moving any prisoner to the U.S. without their consent.
The wrath of right-wing politicians, activists and commentators reached a new level last week when Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, launched an attack on seven lawyers in the Justice Department. She tagged the lawyers as “Al Qaeda sympathizers” because the law firms they worked for before joining the government defended Guantanamo prisoners, often on a pro bono basis. Cheney called them “The Al-Qaeda Seven.”
“Keep America Safe,” the organization she heads along with William Kristol, a prominent conservative publisher, has launched an internet ad demanding that the identities of the seven lawyers be revealed.
Condemnation of the Cheney ad came from scores of lawyers, law professors, Ted Olsen, who served as George W. Bush’s solicitor general, and the American Bar Association.
Carolyn Lamm, president of the American Bar Association, called the Cheney ad “a divisive and diversionary tactic to impugn the character of lawyers who have sought to protect the fundamental rights of unpopular clients.” She said said that lawyers have an ethical obligation to "provide representation to people who otherwise would stand alone against the power and resources of the government--even to those accused of heinous crimes against this nation in the name of causes that evoke our contempt."
Civil libertarians hit back hard today (Sunday) at reports indicating that the Obama Administration is about to cave to pressure from Congress and local groups in New York City and is not only considering transferring the cases of suspected terrorists to another federal court, but even moving them to the military commission system.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) purchased a full-page advertisement in today’s New York Times, urging the president to stick to the Justice Department’s original plan to try “high-value” terror suspects in the civilian criminal justice system.
The ACLU said military commissions are “a second class system of justice which should be shut down for good. The Constitution is not optional, and the rule of law must be restored.”
The ad features a picture of President Obama morphing into a picture of former President Bush.
The ad asks: “What will it be Mr. President? Change or more of the Same?
“Candidate Barack Obama vowed to change the Bush-Cheney policies and restore America’s values of justice and due process. Many of us are shocked and concerned that right now, President Obama is considering reversing his attorney general’s decision to try the 9/11 defendants in criminal court. Our criminal justice system has successfully handled over 300 terrorism cases compared to only 3 in the military commissions. Our criminal justice system will resolve these cases more quickly and more credibly than the military commissions.
The ad urges readers to “Tell President Obama not to back down on his commitment to our justice system, and to try the 9/11 defendants in criminal court. Remind the world that America stands for due process, justice, and the rule of law.”
Anthony D. Romero, the ACLU’s Executive Director, said the organization
placed the ad because “it’s critical that Americans know what is at stake here: nothing less than America’s commitment to the Constitution and the rule of law.”
Other legal authorities have been blunt in their criticism of the Obama Administration. Prof. David J. R. Frakt, Director of the Criminal Law Practice Center at Western State University College of Law, told IPS, “Many of the crimes alleged to have been committed by detainees at Guantanamo are not crimes under the law of war and do not belong in military commissions. If military commissions are the only option, this may preclude some detainees from being tried at all.”
Frakt, a Lt. Col. in the Air Force Reserve, was appointed to defend Guantanamo detainee Mohammed Jawad, an alleged combatant facing charges for events that took place when he was a minor. In 2008, he challenged the role of the legal advisor to the convening authority -- the number two in the Office of Military Commissions -- Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, in choosing his client for trial. Frakt argued that Hartmann had "...exercised unlawful command influence." Hartmann was widely quoted as saying the Prosecution should choose to charge captives based on whether their trials would: "...capture the imagination of the American people.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell joined dozens of retired military officers in encouraging the administration to use the civilian criminal justice system. In a television interview, he said, “I don't know where the [Republican] claim comes that we are less safe…In eight years the military commissions have put three people on trial. Two of them served relatively short sentences and are free. One guy is in jail.”
Meanwhile, he said, “The federal courts, our Article III, regular legal court system, has put dozens of terrorists in jail and they're fully capable of doing it. So the suggestion that somehow a military commission is the way to go isn't…borne out by the history of the military commissions.”
As recently as two weeks ago, the Justice Department appeared to be steadfast in its commitment to civilian courts. “There is no precedent in the history of our Nation in which Congress has intervened in such a manner to prohibit the prosecution of particular persons or crimes," said the U.S. Department of Justice.
The administration appeared to be on board. The president has made his preference for civilian courts widely known. And John Brennan, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, said last week, “Cries to try terrorists only in military courts lack foundation. There have been three convictions of terrorists in the military tribunal system since 9/11, and hundreds in the criminal justice system—including high-profile terrorists such as (the shoe-bomber, Richard) Reid and 9/11 plotter Zacarious Moussaoui.”
But the political backlash was already growing. Most Congressional Republicans believe that military commissions are the correct vehicles for trying suspected terrorists. They also believe that those who cannot be tried in either civilian court or military commissions should be held indefinitely, without trial or charge. Some of these Congresspersons grudgingly acknowledge the Supreme Court’s ruling that all detainees must have the right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts – the habeas corpus right.
But others would deny this right, absent a Supreme Court ruling.
At the same time, some Democrats – looking toward the 2010 elections – are fearful that they will be called out as being “soft on terrorism” and are therefore either remaining silent or adopting the Republican line.
Congress threw an early monkey wrench into Administration plans to bring Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. for trials and to house those convicted in an Illinois prison the government was set to purchase. “Not in my backyard,” was the frightened cry that went up from Congress – which barred the President from moving any prisoner to the U.S. without their consent.
The wrath of right-wing politicians, activists and commentators reached a new level last week when Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, launched an attack on seven lawyers in the Justice Department. She tagged the lawyers as “Al Qaeda sympathizers” because the law firms they worked for before joining the government defended Guantanamo prisoners, often on a pro bono basis. Cheney called them “The Al-Qaeda Seven.”
“Keep America Safe,” the organization she heads along with William Kristol, a prominent conservative publisher, has launched an internet ad demanding that the identities of the seven lawyers be revealed.
Condemnation of the Cheney ad came from scores of lawyers, law professors, Ted Olsen, who served as George W. Bush’s solicitor general, and the American Bar Association.
Carolyn Lamm, president of the American Bar Association, called the Cheney ad “a divisive and diversionary tactic to impugn the character of lawyers who have sought to protect the fundamental rights of unpopular clients.” She said said that lawyers have an ethical obligation to "provide representation to people who otherwise would stand alone against the power and resources of the government--even to those accused of heinous crimes against this nation in the name of causes that evoke our contempt."
Friday, March 05, 2010
McCain and Lieberman: The Odd Couple Even Odder
By William Fisher
Civil liberties advocates and Constitutional law scholars lost no time in condemning proposed legislation introduced in the Senate yesterday that would hand the government the power to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects without charge and to conduct trials through military commissions only.
Typical was the response from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which said the proposed legislation would “deal a swift blow to due process and the rule of law.”
And Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA (AI), said, “Military commissions were created to consider evidence too inadequate to submit to a valid court. The commissions do not conform to the due process standards established under international law and do not have legitimacy in the eyes of the global community."
The “Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act of 2010,” introduced by Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona and Independent Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, would also create a new system of interrogation, requiring intelligence officials to be consulted about how to handle terrorism suspects after their capture.
The bill was precipitated by the Senators’ objections to the Obama administration’s decision to charge accused Christmas Day attacker Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in the criminal court system. Abdulmutallab, while in FBI custody, was read his rights, including his right to remain silent and his right to an attorney. These Constitutional rights are enjoyed by all persons, whether they are citizens or not, who are arrested on U.S. territory.
U.S. officials insist Abdulmutallab provided valuable intelligence under civilian questioning despite being told he had the right to remain silent.
The McCain-Lieberman legislation would have a “high value detainee” team, made up of members of different intelligence agencies, interrogate and determine whether alleged terrorist suspects are “unprivileged enemy belligerents.” If so, and if the suspect is then charged, the legislation would mandate the use of the military commissions for trial.
President Barack Obama has already created such a team. Last summer, Obama announced a new interagency interrogation task force for extracting information from the most important terrorist suspects in its custody. Known as the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), the team draws on interrogators, intelligence analysts, linguists and cultural experts to interrogate detainees without torturing them. The unit is housed in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, said the bill was “a direct attack on the Constitution.”
Chip Pitts, President of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), told IPS, “This bill’s warped understanding of international law and its mistaken predicate still blur actual wars (such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq today) with the politically appealing yet misleading and overbroad chimera of an endless and geographically unlimited ‘global war on terror’.”
He added, “Particularly when seen along with the Obama administration’s rumored reversal of its prior decision to try 9/11 suspects in civilian courts as opposed to military commissions, it’s another leg in the terrible race to the bottom in which politicians compete to seem ‘tougher’ on terrorism while really diminishing national security.”
Constitutional law experts were equally critical.
Prof. Peter Shane of the Ohio State University law school told IPS, “There seems to be a fundamental philosophical difference between those who believe that the rule of law threatens our fight against terrorism and those who regard it as one of our most potent weapons. There is no evidence to believe that the executive branch is making decisions with regard to the interrogation or detention of suspected terrorists that is compromising either our capacity to obtain intelligence information or to protect the United States from terrorist attack.”
The Bush Administration, he added, “convicted over 300 terrorist suspects apprehended in the United States using our criminal justice system to prosecute terror-related crimes. We should continue to leave these decisions to the discretion of federal prosecutors and investigators.”
Another legal scholar, Prof. Frances Boyle of the University of Illinois law school, told IPS that the current controversy had its roots in the administration of President George W. Bush, who created a universe of “legal nihilism where human beings (including U.S. citizens) can be disappeared, detained incommunicado, denied access to attorneys and regular courts, tried by kangaroo courts, executed, tortured, assassinated and subjected to numerous other manifestations of State Terrorism.”
He said, “This category of ‘unlawful enemy combatants’ negates almost the entirety of the post-World War II regime for the International Protection of Human Rights established by the U.N. Charter in 1945 and most of the major international human rights treaties.”
In introducing the proposed legislation, Sen. McCain said it “seeks to ensure that the mistakes made during the apprehension of the Christmas Day bomber, such as reading him a Miranda warning, will never happen again and put Americans’ security at risk.”
The legislation, McCain declared, “would authorize detention of enemy belligerents without criminal charges for the duration of the hostilities consistent with standards under the law of war which have been recognized by the Supreme Court.”
He added, “What we saw with the Christmas Day bomber was a series of missteps and staggering failures in coordination among the most senior members of the Administration’s national security officials that have continued to be compounded by Administration apologists who still don’t seem to understand that repeating the same mistakes that were made in 2001 and 2002 is going to lead to the deaths of many more Americans.”
The proposed legislation was introduced at a time of fierce election-year acrimony over how the United States should handle alleged terrorists. In addition to attacking President Barack Obama over the treatment of the so-called Christmas Day bomber, Republicans have also denounced the Obama administration's call for trial in a civilian court of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Democrats have responded by pointing out that US civilian courts, under both the Bush and Obama Administrations, have tried and convicted more than 300 terrorists. They have said that favoring military trials hands terrorists a propaganda victory.
But the Washington Post is reporting that President Obama's advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, thus reversing Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City.
Civil liberties advocates and Constitutional law scholars lost no time in condemning proposed legislation introduced in the Senate yesterday that would hand the government the power to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects without charge and to conduct trials through military commissions only.
Typical was the response from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which said the proposed legislation would “deal a swift blow to due process and the rule of law.”
And Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA (AI), said, “Military commissions were created to consider evidence too inadequate to submit to a valid court. The commissions do not conform to the due process standards established under international law and do not have legitimacy in the eyes of the global community."
The “Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act of 2010,” introduced by Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona and Independent Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, would also create a new system of interrogation, requiring intelligence officials to be consulted about how to handle terrorism suspects after their capture.
The bill was precipitated by the Senators’ objections to the Obama administration’s decision to charge accused Christmas Day attacker Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in the criminal court system. Abdulmutallab, while in FBI custody, was read his rights, including his right to remain silent and his right to an attorney. These Constitutional rights are enjoyed by all persons, whether they are citizens or not, who are arrested on U.S. territory.
U.S. officials insist Abdulmutallab provided valuable intelligence under civilian questioning despite being told he had the right to remain silent.
The McCain-Lieberman legislation would have a “high value detainee” team, made up of members of different intelligence agencies, interrogate and determine whether alleged terrorist suspects are “unprivileged enemy belligerents.” If so, and if the suspect is then charged, the legislation would mandate the use of the military commissions for trial.
President Barack Obama has already created such a team. Last summer, Obama announced a new interagency interrogation task force for extracting information from the most important terrorist suspects in its custody. Known as the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), the team draws on interrogators, intelligence analysts, linguists and cultural experts to interrogate detainees without torturing them. The unit is housed in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, said the bill was “a direct attack on the Constitution.”
Chip Pitts, President of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), told IPS, “This bill’s warped understanding of international law and its mistaken predicate still blur actual wars (such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq today) with the politically appealing yet misleading and overbroad chimera of an endless and geographically unlimited ‘global war on terror’.”
He added, “Particularly when seen along with the Obama administration’s rumored reversal of its prior decision to try 9/11 suspects in civilian courts as opposed to military commissions, it’s another leg in the terrible race to the bottom in which politicians compete to seem ‘tougher’ on terrorism while really diminishing national security.”
Constitutional law experts were equally critical.
Prof. Peter Shane of the Ohio State University law school told IPS, “There seems to be a fundamental philosophical difference between those who believe that the rule of law threatens our fight against terrorism and those who regard it as one of our most potent weapons. There is no evidence to believe that the executive branch is making decisions with regard to the interrogation or detention of suspected terrorists that is compromising either our capacity to obtain intelligence information or to protect the United States from terrorist attack.”
The Bush Administration, he added, “convicted over 300 terrorist suspects apprehended in the United States using our criminal justice system to prosecute terror-related crimes. We should continue to leave these decisions to the discretion of federal prosecutors and investigators.”
Another legal scholar, Prof. Frances Boyle of the University of Illinois law school, told IPS that the current controversy had its roots in the administration of President George W. Bush, who created a universe of “legal nihilism where human beings (including U.S. citizens) can be disappeared, detained incommunicado, denied access to attorneys and regular courts, tried by kangaroo courts, executed, tortured, assassinated and subjected to numerous other manifestations of State Terrorism.”
He said, “This category of ‘unlawful enemy combatants’ negates almost the entirety of the post-World War II regime for the International Protection of Human Rights established by the U.N. Charter in 1945 and most of the major international human rights treaties.”
In introducing the proposed legislation, Sen. McCain said it “seeks to ensure that the mistakes made during the apprehension of the Christmas Day bomber, such as reading him a Miranda warning, will never happen again and put Americans’ security at risk.”
The legislation, McCain declared, “would authorize detention of enemy belligerents without criminal charges for the duration of the hostilities consistent with standards under the law of war which have been recognized by the Supreme Court.”
He added, “What we saw with the Christmas Day bomber was a series of missteps and staggering failures in coordination among the most senior members of the Administration’s national security officials that have continued to be compounded by Administration apologists who still don’t seem to understand that repeating the same mistakes that were made in 2001 and 2002 is going to lead to the deaths of many more Americans.”
The proposed legislation was introduced at a time of fierce election-year acrimony over how the United States should handle alleged terrorists. In addition to attacking President Barack Obama over the treatment of the so-called Christmas Day bomber, Republicans have also denounced the Obama administration's call for trial in a civilian court of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Democrats have responded by pointing out that US civilian courts, under both the Bush and Obama Administrations, have tried and convicted more than 300 terrorists. They have said that favoring military trials hands terrorists a propaganda victory.
But the Washington Post is reporting that President Obama's advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, thus reversing Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
DOD Releases Records of Illegal Surveillance
By William Fisher
Defense Department agencies improperly collected and disseminated intelligence on Planned Parenthood and a white supremacist group called the National Alliance, an Air Force briefing improperly included intelligence on an anti-war group called Alaskans for Peace and Justice, and Army Signals Intelligence in Louisiana unlawfully intercepted civilian cell phone conversations.
These are among the disclosures made this week in the release of more than 800 heavily-redacted pages of intelligence oversight reports, detailing activities that the Defense Department’s (DOD) Inspector General has “reason to believe are unlawful.”
The reports are the latest in an ongoing document release by more than a half-dozen intelligence agencies in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
The reports, submitted to the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) by the Inspectors General of the various Department of Defense components, cover the period from 2001 through 2008. The IOB’s role within the Executive Office of the President is to ensure that each component of the intelligence community works within the Constitution and all applicable laws.
The Inspector General of each intelligence agency is required to submit periodic reports to the IOB, which in turn is required to forward to the Attorney General any report identifying an intelligence activity that violates the law. Intelligence oversight reporting is rarely disclosed to the public.
This new release comes from various DOD components, including the Army and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Much of the improper activity consisted of intelligence gathering on so-called “U.S. Persons,” including citizens, permanent residents and U.S.-based organizations.
While DOD agencies are generally prohibited from collecting such
information (except as part of foreign intelligence or counter-intelligence
activity), EFF says “it is apparent from the unredacted reports released to EFF that some DOD components have had chronic difficulty complying with that prohibition.”
Specific disclosures include:
· A report that the Joint Forces Command, working with the FBI, improperly collected and disseminated intelligence on Planned Parenthood and a white supremacist group called the National Alliance, as part of preparations for the 2002 Olympics.
· A North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)
briefing improperly included intelligence on an anti-war group called Alaskans for Peace and Justice in 2005.
· A 2006 report that NORAD had procedural problems relating to collecting information on U.S. Persons.
· A report from 2003 of a closed investigation into prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and other sites in Iraq.
· A report from 2006 of improper intelligence (in the TALON program) on an anti-recruiting group. The TALON (Threat and Local Observation Notice) program grew out of the Air Force neighborhood watch program known as Eagle Eyes. It was designed to record potential terrorist pre-attack activity.
· A report from 2007 of an Army Reserve officer routinely collecting data on U.S. Persons exercising their free speech rights.
· A 2008 report that Army Signals Intelligence in Louisiana intercepted civilian cell phone conversations.
· A 2008 report that Army Cyber Counterintelligence officers attended the Black Hat hacker conference without disclosing their Army affiliation and without prior authorization to do so.
· A report that the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) set up a “honey pot” computer system to identify foreign threats in May 2006. In October 2007, AFOSI realized that the honey pot system might have been in violation of a sealed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) order that required a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant for such activity. AFOSI was not privy to the FISC order and only knew of it from public media reporting. The operation was suspended. When the Air Force asked the Justice Department to see the FISC order at issue, DOJ’s National Security Division denied the Air Force’s request.
Asked by Truthout to comment on the significance of the document release, Nate Cardozo, a Legal Fellow at EFF, said, “To get any response at all from the DOD is noteworthy. At DOD the unlawful gathering of intelligence is a widespread practice that we consider problematic.”
He added that the disclosures are also important because they test the efficiency of the intelligence oversight mechanism – and “we find it seems to be working fairly well.”
Finally, he said, “We are interested in how many of these violations of law are referred to the Attorney General for possible criminal prosecution. Our experience is that that number is miniscule.”
EFF’s original FOIA request, dating back to February 2008, went unanswered, as did another request in June of 2009. As a result, in July 2009, EFF filed suit against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a half-dozen other federal agencies involved in intelligence gathering, demanding the immediate release of reports about potential misconduct. EFF’s suit was filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), requesting records of intelligence agencies' reporting of activities since 2001 that might have been unlawful or contrary to presidential order.
"By executive order, federal intelligence agencies must submit concerns about potentially illegal activity to the Intelligence Oversight Board and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence," EFF’s Cardozo said.
"Intelligence agencies are given a wide berth for national security reasons, but at a minimum they're required to act within the limits of the law. These records hold important details about how well the Executive Branch's internal checks operate," he said.
Members of the Intelligence Oversight Board are appointed by the president to advise on intelligence matters.
A storm of media coverage followed the previous disclosure that the CIA chose to keep Congress in the dark about a plan to train anti-terrorist assassin teams. That disclosure focused public attention on the lack of transparency in intelligence reporting. Lawmakers accused the CIA of deliberately misleading Congress and called for an investigation into officials' conduct.
EFF says the reports the agencies have provided to the Intelligence Oversight Board “undoubtedly contain information that will shed some light on incidents such as this -- information that is necessary in order to provide appropriate oversight.”
In addition to the CIA, EFF's lawsuit named the Department of Homeland Security, the National Security Agency, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice (including the FBI), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Energy, and the Department of State -- all of which failed to comply with FOIA requests seeking records and reports of concerns about intelligence activity that might have stepped over the bounds of the law.
"The CIA is not the only agency that has faced questions about the legality of its intelligence programs," said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. "Electronic surveillance and other intelligence activities have come under increasing scrutiny during the past several years. We're seeking information that will shed light on incidents of intelligence misconduct, how often they happen, and how effective oversight is for controversial programs. The agencies must follow the law and release these records to the public."
The first results of the EFF suit were delivered in December 2009. They included:
· The Department of Homeland Security improperly investigated the U.S.-based religious organization the Nation of Islam.
· High-level Pentagon officials gave false information to Congress about al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks.
· The Department of Homeland Security improperly collected intelligence about a non-violent Muslim conference in Georgia, including details about conference speakers who were Americans.
· The National Security Agency admitted that, as of late 2007, it lacked processes and procedures for timely reporting of intelligence oversight violations.
Steven Aftergood, director of the Government Secrecy Project at the Federation of American Scientists, thinks the latest document release is significant but inconclusive. He told Truthout, “The latest release leaves a lot of questions unanswered. For example, what was the specific nature of the reported activities? And what was the official response?”
As to the importance of the released documents, Aftergood said, “It's really hard to say. But still, thanks to EFF and the Freedom of Information Act, we at least have a better idea of how much we don't know.”
He added, “It's also somewhat encouraging that the DOD is complying with the requirement to report potentially unlawful activities. At least there is some kind of paper trail, even if much of remains classified for the time being.”
This article originally appeared in Truthout.org
Defense Department agencies improperly collected and disseminated intelligence on Planned Parenthood and a white supremacist group called the National Alliance, an Air Force briefing improperly included intelligence on an anti-war group called Alaskans for Peace and Justice, and Army Signals Intelligence in Louisiana unlawfully intercepted civilian cell phone conversations.
These are among the disclosures made this week in the release of more than 800 heavily-redacted pages of intelligence oversight reports, detailing activities that the Defense Department’s (DOD) Inspector General has “reason to believe are unlawful.”
The reports are the latest in an ongoing document release by more than a half-dozen intelligence agencies in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
The reports, submitted to the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) by the Inspectors General of the various Department of Defense components, cover the period from 2001 through 2008. The IOB’s role within the Executive Office of the President is to ensure that each component of the intelligence community works within the Constitution and all applicable laws.
The Inspector General of each intelligence agency is required to submit periodic reports to the IOB, which in turn is required to forward to the Attorney General any report identifying an intelligence activity that violates the law. Intelligence oversight reporting is rarely disclosed to the public.
This new release comes from various DOD components, including the Army and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Much of the improper activity consisted of intelligence gathering on so-called “U.S. Persons,” including citizens, permanent residents and U.S.-based organizations.
While DOD agencies are generally prohibited from collecting such
information (except as part of foreign intelligence or counter-intelligence
activity), EFF says “it is apparent from the unredacted reports released to EFF that some DOD components have had chronic difficulty complying with that prohibition.”
Specific disclosures include:
· A report that the Joint Forces Command, working with the FBI, improperly collected and disseminated intelligence on Planned Parenthood and a white supremacist group called the National Alliance, as part of preparations for the 2002 Olympics.
· A North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)
briefing improperly included intelligence on an anti-war group called Alaskans for Peace and Justice in 2005.
· A 2006 report that NORAD had procedural problems relating to collecting information on U.S. Persons.
· A report from 2003 of a closed investigation into prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and other sites in Iraq.
· A report from 2006 of improper intelligence (in the TALON program) on an anti-recruiting group. The TALON (Threat and Local Observation Notice) program grew out of the Air Force neighborhood watch program known as Eagle Eyes. It was designed to record potential terrorist pre-attack activity.
· A report from 2007 of an Army Reserve officer routinely collecting data on U.S. Persons exercising their free speech rights.
· A 2008 report that Army Signals Intelligence in Louisiana intercepted civilian cell phone conversations.
· A 2008 report that Army Cyber Counterintelligence officers attended the Black Hat hacker conference without disclosing their Army affiliation and without prior authorization to do so.
· A report that the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) set up a “honey pot” computer system to identify foreign threats in May 2006. In October 2007, AFOSI realized that the honey pot system might have been in violation of a sealed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) order that required a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant for such activity. AFOSI was not privy to the FISC order and only knew of it from public media reporting. The operation was suspended. When the Air Force asked the Justice Department to see the FISC order at issue, DOJ’s National Security Division denied the Air Force’s request.
Asked by Truthout to comment on the significance of the document release, Nate Cardozo, a Legal Fellow at EFF, said, “To get any response at all from the DOD is noteworthy. At DOD the unlawful gathering of intelligence is a widespread practice that we consider problematic.”
He added that the disclosures are also important because they test the efficiency of the intelligence oversight mechanism – and “we find it seems to be working fairly well.”
Finally, he said, “We are interested in how many of these violations of law are referred to the Attorney General for possible criminal prosecution. Our experience is that that number is miniscule.”
EFF’s original FOIA request, dating back to February 2008, went unanswered, as did another request in June of 2009. As a result, in July 2009, EFF filed suit against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a half-dozen other federal agencies involved in intelligence gathering, demanding the immediate release of reports about potential misconduct. EFF’s suit was filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), requesting records of intelligence agencies' reporting of activities since 2001 that might have been unlawful or contrary to presidential order.
"By executive order, federal intelligence agencies must submit concerns about potentially illegal activity to the Intelligence Oversight Board and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence," EFF’s Cardozo said.
"Intelligence agencies are given a wide berth for national security reasons, but at a minimum they're required to act within the limits of the law. These records hold important details about how well the Executive Branch's internal checks operate," he said.
Members of the Intelligence Oversight Board are appointed by the president to advise on intelligence matters.
A storm of media coverage followed the previous disclosure that the CIA chose to keep Congress in the dark about a plan to train anti-terrorist assassin teams. That disclosure focused public attention on the lack of transparency in intelligence reporting. Lawmakers accused the CIA of deliberately misleading Congress and called for an investigation into officials' conduct.
EFF says the reports the agencies have provided to the Intelligence Oversight Board “undoubtedly contain information that will shed some light on incidents such as this -- information that is necessary in order to provide appropriate oversight.”
In addition to the CIA, EFF's lawsuit named the Department of Homeland Security, the National Security Agency, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice (including the FBI), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Energy, and the Department of State -- all of which failed to comply with FOIA requests seeking records and reports of concerns about intelligence activity that might have stepped over the bounds of the law.
"The CIA is not the only agency that has faced questions about the legality of its intelligence programs," said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. "Electronic surveillance and other intelligence activities have come under increasing scrutiny during the past several years. We're seeking information that will shed light on incidents of intelligence misconduct, how often they happen, and how effective oversight is for controversial programs. The agencies must follow the law and release these records to the public."
The first results of the EFF suit were delivered in December 2009. They included:
· The Department of Homeland Security improperly investigated the U.S.-based religious organization the Nation of Islam.
· High-level Pentagon officials gave false information to Congress about al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks.
· The Department of Homeland Security improperly collected intelligence about a non-violent Muslim conference in Georgia, including details about conference speakers who were Americans.
· The National Security Agency admitted that, as of late 2007, it lacked processes and procedures for timely reporting of intelligence oversight violations.
Steven Aftergood, director of the Government Secrecy Project at the Federation of American Scientists, thinks the latest document release is significant but inconclusive. He told Truthout, “The latest release leaves a lot of questions unanswered. For example, what was the specific nature of the reported activities? And what was the official response?”
As to the importance of the released documents, Aftergood said, “It's really hard to say. But still, thanks to EFF and the Freedom of Information Act, we at least have a better idea of how much we don't know.”
He added, “It's also somewhat encouraging that the DOD is complying with the requirement to report potentially unlawful activities. At least there is some kind of paper trail, even if much of remains classified for the time being.”
This article originally appeared in Truthout.org
Non-Profits Stimulate Communities
By William Fisher
While “community organizing” has become a punch line for late-night comedians since the election of Barack Obama as US president, the activity “delivers enormous benefits to communities,” according to a new study conducted by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP).
The report, based on research into nearly 70 nonprofits from New Mexico, North Carolina, Minnesota and Los Angeles County over a five year period, concludes that “Americans receive extraordinary benefits from the policy advocacy and community organizing efforts by nonprofit organizations in their area, funded by foundations and other donors.”
It reports that these groups combined “generated nearly $14 billion worth of benefits for their diverse communities, and many other non-monetary gains. The return for every dollar invested in these groups ranged from $89 to a staggering $157.”
The report’s co-author, NCRP Senior Research Associate Lisa Ranghelli, told IPS, “Despite what some high profile commentators may decry as ‘community organizing,' this report clearly demonstrates that such activity delivers enormous benefits to communities.”
She said that most Americans are unaware of the substantial benefits generated by philanthropic funding of local organizations. Students of philanthropy acknowledge that many cultures have centuries-old traditions of charitable giving, and in a few countries wealthy benefactors have created foundations or trusts to organize their giving. But the United States is probably unique in the scope of its community voluntarism. The volunteer phenomenon has traveled only to a handful of other countries.
Community organizing has achieved a high level of notoriety since the Obama election, since the president was involved in this kind of work in Chicago as a young man. The field came under additional scrutiny centered around the organization known as ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). Critics, largely politicians and TV “talking heads” from the far right-wing of the Republican Party, have charged that ACORN was involved in widespread voter fraud. These charges have never been substantiated.
ACORN was one of the Los Angeles groups studied in the NCRP research.
The latest stage in that research involved 15 Los Angeles County nonprofit organizations, and found that from 2004 to 2008, area groups generated nearly $7 billion in benefits for local citizens, including $2.6 billion in higher wages, $2.2 billion in health care savings and more than $2 billion from increased use of public transit, construction of new schools and expanded affordable housing. These benefits were the direct result of community involvement in public policy.
“On every issue of concern to residents of Los Angeles County, from clean air to immigration, from equality to education, foundation support for community-based activist organizations yields positive results," said Aaron Dorfman, executive director of NCRP. "Foundation support turns indifference into democracy and the benefits of a thriving democracy are indeed substantial."
Los Angeles County is NCRP's fourth site in a series of reports. It documents how 13 nonprofit organizations and their allies leveraged foundation grants to secure nearly $91 of benefit for every dollar spent for Los Angeles citizens.
The report says there is a “dramatic, substantial return on investments” in policy engagement. “For every dollar foundations and other donors provided to community organizations engaged in advocacy and organizing, the funded groups realized $91 in benefits to the communities they serve.”
The report also tracks such non-monetized benefits as protection of voting rights, improved working conditions and expanded, more responsive service delivery to such marginalized groups as lesbians and gays and residents with limited English proficiency.
"The report demonstrates that foundations best serve their own objectives and generate the greatest impact on communities when we support advocacy and organizing at the grassroots level,” its authors say.
“There is no doubt that the impact could expand even more if we work in concert and focus resources through strategic grantmaking," said Kafi Blumenfield, CEO and executive director of the Liberty Hill Foundation, a Los Angeles-based foundation that provided seed money and supported a majority of the organizations featured in the report.
The report, entitled “Strengthening Democracy, Increasing Opportunities: Impacts of Advocacy, Organizing and Civic Engagement, ” was written by NCRP Senior Research Associate Lisa Ranghelli and Research Associate Julia Craig.
The Los Angeles report found that policy advocacy and community organizing also has non-monetary impacts on thousands of underserved Angelenos. Examples include cleaner air, better working conditions, more balanced immigration enforcement, greater student access to college-prep classes and more responsive services.
It recommends that foundations increase grant funding for advocacy and organizing, help educate donors about the benefits of advocacy funding, support effective collaboration among community organizations, collaborate with other grant makers to leverage resources and invest in the infrastructure and organizational capacity of grassroots organizations over sustained periods of time.
"Los Angeles is richer, stronger, healthier and infinitely more democratic because foundations have learned that advocacy, organizing and civic engagement really do make a difference in the lives of everyone," says Stewart Kwoh, executive director of L.A.'s Asian Pacific American Legal Center, one of the 15 organizations surveyed in the study. "When foundations support strategic grassroots initiatives, every resident of Los Angeles benefits."
The Los Angeles research involved a wide range of non-profits engaged in legal advocacy, immigrant rights, substance abuse, better environment, gender discrimination, public transportation, and many others.
Research is currently underway for further reports on areas in the Pacific Northwest and Pennsylvania.
The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy in Washington, D.C. is a national watchdog, research and advocacy organization that promotes philanthropy that serves the public good, is responsive to people and communities with the least wealth and opportunity, and is held accountable to the highest standards of integrity and openness.
While “community organizing” has become a punch line for late-night comedians since the election of Barack Obama as US president, the activity “delivers enormous benefits to communities,” according to a new study conducted by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP).
The report, based on research into nearly 70 nonprofits from New Mexico, North Carolina, Minnesota and Los Angeles County over a five year period, concludes that “Americans receive extraordinary benefits from the policy advocacy and community organizing efforts by nonprofit organizations in their area, funded by foundations and other donors.”
It reports that these groups combined “generated nearly $14 billion worth of benefits for their diverse communities, and many other non-monetary gains. The return for every dollar invested in these groups ranged from $89 to a staggering $157.”
The report’s co-author, NCRP Senior Research Associate Lisa Ranghelli, told IPS, “Despite what some high profile commentators may decry as ‘community organizing,' this report clearly demonstrates that such activity delivers enormous benefits to communities.”
She said that most Americans are unaware of the substantial benefits generated by philanthropic funding of local organizations. Students of philanthropy acknowledge that many cultures have centuries-old traditions of charitable giving, and in a few countries wealthy benefactors have created foundations or trusts to organize their giving. But the United States is probably unique in the scope of its community voluntarism. The volunteer phenomenon has traveled only to a handful of other countries.
Community organizing has achieved a high level of notoriety since the Obama election, since the president was involved in this kind of work in Chicago as a young man. The field came under additional scrutiny centered around the organization known as ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). Critics, largely politicians and TV “talking heads” from the far right-wing of the Republican Party, have charged that ACORN was involved in widespread voter fraud. These charges have never been substantiated.
ACORN was one of the Los Angeles groups studied in the NCRP research.
The latest stage in that research involved 15 Los Angeles County nonprofit organizations, and found that from 2004 to 2008, area groups generated nearly $7 billion in benefits for local citizens, including $2.6 billion in higher wages, $2.2 billion in health care savings and more than $2 billion from increased use of public transit, construction of new schools and expanded affordable housing. These benefits were the direct result of community involvement in public policy.
“On every issue of concern to residents of Los Angeles County, from clean air to immigration, from equality to education, foundation support for community-based activist organizations yields positive results," said Aaron Dorfman, executive director of NCRP. "Foundation support turns indifference into democracy and the benefits of a thriving democracy are indeed substantial."
Los Angeles County is NCRP's fourth site in a series of reports. It documents how 13 nonprofit organizations and their allies leveraged foundation grants to secure nearly $91 of benefit for every dollar spent for Los Angeles citizens.
The report says there is a “dramatic, substantial return on investments” in policy engagement. “For every dollar foundations and other donors provided to community organizations engaged in advocacy and organizing, the funded groups realized $91 in benefits to the communities they serve.”
The report also tracks such non-monetized benefits as protection of voting rights, improved working conditions and expanded, more responsive service delivery to such marginalized groups as lesbians and gays and residents with limited English proficiency.
"The report demonstrates that foundations best serve their own objectives and generate the greatest impact on communities when we support advocacy and organizing at the grassroots level,” its authors say.
“There is no doubt that the impact could expand even more if we work in concert and focus resources through strategic grantmaking," said Kafi Blumenfield, CEO and executive director of the Liberty Hill Foundation, a Los Angeles-based foundation that provided seed money and supported a majority of the organizations featured in the report.
The report, entitled “Strengthening Democracy, Increasing Opportunities: Impacts of Advocacy, Organizing and Civic Engagement, ” was written by NCRP Senior Research Associate Lisa Ranghelli and Research Associate Julia Craig.
The Los Angeles report found that policy advocacy and community organizing also has non-monetary impacts on thousands of underserved Angelenos. Examples include cleaner air, better working conditions, more balanced immigration enforcement, greater student access to college-prep classes and more responsive services.
It recommends that foundations increase grant funding for advocacy and organizing, help educate donors about the benefits of advocacy funding, support effective collaboration among community organizations, collaborate with other grant makers to leverage resources and invest in the infrastructure and organizational capacity of grassroots organizations over sustained periods of time.
"Los Angeles is richer, stronger, healthier and infinitely more democratic because foundations have learned that advocacy, organizing and civic engagement really do make a difference in the lives of everyone," says Stewart Kwoh, executive director of L.A.'s Asian Pacific American Legal Center, one of the 15 organizations surveyed in the study. "When foundations support strategic grassroots initiatives, every resident of Los Angeles benefits."
The Los Angeles research involved a wide range of non-profits engaged in legal advocacy, immigrant rights, substance abuse, better environment, gender discrimination, public transportation, and many others.
Research is currently underway for further reports on areas in the Pacific Northwest and Pennsylvania.
The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy in Washington, D.C. is a national watchdog, research and advocacy organization that promotes philanthropy that serves the public good, is responsive to people and communities with the least wealth and opportunity, and is held accountable to the highest standards of integrity and openness.
Big Job Awaits Haiti Delegation
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.
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.
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.”
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