By William Fisher
Acknowledging “ the majority of Tea Party supporters are sincere, principled people of good will,” the head of the National Association of Colored People (NAACP) and other civil rights leaders are calling on the populist political movement to purge itself of known racists lest they influence the direction of the movement.
In a conference call with journalists, NAACP President and CEO Benjamin T. Jealous applauded some Tea Party factions for taking the first steps to ensure that racists and bigots do not corrupt the movement’s credibility.
He said, “These are welcome first steps. They promote diversity and acknowledge the inherent perception problem that plagues the Tea Party: that while many of its leaders are motivated by common
conservative budget and governance concerns, for too long they have tolerated others who espouse racism and xenophobia and, in some instances, are formally associated with organizations like the
Council of Conservative Citizens -- the direct lineal descendant of the White Citizens Council.”
However, he said, this work is incomplete.
“These groups and individuals are out there, and we ignore them at our own peril. They are speaking at Tea Party events, recruiting at rallies and in some cases remain in the Tea Party leadership itself,” he said, adding:
“The danger is not that the majority of Tea Party members share their views, but that left unchecked, these extremists might indirectly influence the direction of the Tea Party and therefore the direction of our country: moving it backward and not forward.”
In a telephone news conference Wednesday, the NAACP endorsed a report by the Kansas-City-based Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, an independent civil rights advocacy organization. The report, “Tea Party Nationalism,” details various associations between Tea Party organizations and acknowledged hate groups in the United States.
“The Tea Party movement has unleashed a still inchoate political movement who are, in their numerical majority, angry middle-class white people who believe their country, their nation, has been taken from them,” the report says.
The Tea Party is a loose association of independent groups or chapters without a single leader or spokesperson. In general, it seeks smaller government, lower taxes, solutions to the problem of illegal immigration, and less government involvement in the lives of ordinary Americans. The groups that comprise the Tea Party have not put forward any policy proposals for achieving these goals. They tend to be Republicans and are overwhelmingly white.
While many Tea Partiers joined the movement out of genuine concern for the well-being of the country, there is a substantial body of evidence suggesting that professional lobbying firms, mostly in Washington, D.C., have provided many of the Tea Party’s organizing and publicity skills, and that wealthy individuals and corporations have made substantial money contributions to the movement.
NAACP President Benjamin Jealous said in the conference call that, in backing the report: "We're not attacking the tea party. We're not calling the tea party racist. We are asking them to repudiate the racists in their midst. We have challenged Democratic Party in the same way. We challenged Republicans when they embraced the old Dixiecrats."
But not everyone agrees. One who doesn’t is Bruce Fein, a well-known conservative lawyer who served as an associate deputy attorney general in the Department of Justice under President Ronald Reagan. He told IPS, "The British had their Papal Plots, Joe McCarthy had his Communists, and now the NAACP has its ostensible racists as scapegoats to distract attention from serious issues.”
He added, “The glorious civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s was chronically maligned by ad hominem attacks on its leadership and their associations based on flimsy or concocted evidence. It is disturbing to see the NAACP parrot the demagoguery that was employed against it."
But the report includes an addendum with details of local Tea Party leaders who the report’s authors say have “direct ties to white supremacist groups.”
The report says: “The TeaParty.org faction is led by the executive director of the Minuteman Project, a nativist organization that has in the past been associated with the murder of migrant Mexican workers as part of its vigilante ‘border operations.’ Roan Garcia-Quintana, ‘advisor and media spokesman’ for the 2010 Tax Day Tea Party and member of ResistNet, also serves on the National Board of Directors of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC), the lineal descendent of the Council of White Citizens. In Texas, Wood County Tea Party leader Karen Pack was once listed as an ‘official supporter’ of Thom Robb’s Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a modern-day white supremacist organization.”
The report examines the six national organizational networks the authors conclude are at the core of the Tea Party movement: FreedomWorks Tea Party, 1776 Tea Party, Tea Party Nation, Tea Party Patriots, ResistNet, and Tea Party Express.
It says that leaders of all but one -- FreedomWorks, a lobbying group in Washington headed by Dick Armey, a former Republican House majority leader -- have raised questions about President Obama’s birth certificate or have ties to white supremacist groups.
The national attention sparked by the NAACP call this summer for the Tea Party to repudiate racist elements within the group inspired the Tea Party leadership to purge some outspoken racist elements, including Tea Party Express chairman Mark Williams.
The report concludes that members of groups such as the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) – once known as the segregationist White Citizens Councils -- have infiltrated tea party chapters. The CCC is opposed to actions designed to "mix the races of mankind." It also notes that contributors to Stormfront.org,” a white nationalist Web site, have written of "infiltrating" Tea Party events.
For the report go to www.teapartynationalism.com
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Supremes to Hear Ashcroft Appeal
By William Fisher
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear former Attorney General John Ashcroft's appeal of a lower court decision, which ruled that he could be held responsible for the wrongful detention of an American citizen.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) brought the case against Ashcroft in 2005 on behalf of Abdullah al-Kidd, who they say was improperly arrested in 2003 as a material witness in the terrorism trial of Same Omar al-Hussein and detained for 16 days under prison-like conditions.
Al-Kidd was eventually released under restrictions that included confining his travel to four states, surrendering his passport and reporting to probation officers.
Al-Kidd was subjected to these conditions for more than a year and, despite having been arrested as a material witness, was never asked to testify, or charged with a crime.
A material witness in U.S. law is a person with information alleged to be material concerning a criminal proceeding. Prior to 9/11, the material witness law was used sparingly to ensure witnesses would be available to testify in criminal cases.
After 9/11, the ACLU charges that Ashcroft “retooled the law into an investigative detention statute, allowing the government to arrest and detain individuals for whom it lacked probable cause to charge with a crime.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in September 2009 that the federal material witness law couldn’t be used to detain or investigate people when there is no probable cause to bring criminal charges. The ruling also held that Ashcroft does not have immunity in the case and can be held personally liable for the wrongful detention of al-Kidd. Ashcroft appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, which today decided to review the case.
Jonathan Hafetz, a law professor at Seton Hall Law School, told IPS, “The Bush administration clearly misused the material witness statute as a pretext to detain people without charging them with a crime, rather as the law was intended -- as a necessary means to obtain witness testimony. This violated the Constitution’s prohibition on imprisonment without probable cause and helped lead to the prolonged detention of individuals who had no connection to terrorism or other criminal activity.”
He added, “Thus far, the Obama administration has sought to derail every attempt at accountability, arguing in one case after another against judicial involvement in cases of illegal detention, torture, and other mistreatment. The fact that the human rights abuses and constitutional violations did not occur on its watch does not excuse their effort to deny victims their day in court. Real justice must look both forward and backward.”
His view was echoed by Joanne Mariner, head of HRW’s Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program. She told IPS, “We’re very disappointed that the Obama administration urged the Supreme Court to hear Ashcroft’s appeal of the Al-Kidd decision. In our view, the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was absolutely correct. The ruling reaffirmed basic constitutional protections against detention without charge.”
The government has “attempted to get around bedrock requirements of the criminal justice system by relying on the material witness statute. Without any evidence that men like al-Kidd had committed a crime, the government held them in indefinite detention by claiming, pretextually, that they may have had information about other cases,” she said.
And Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guantánamo's military commissions, told IPS, "The material witness statute got used and abused by the Bush administration and their 'anything goes' approach to things that could be connected to national security by way of some fanciful argument."
Civil liberties advocates, including the ACLU, charge that the material witness law “has been twisted beyond recognition.”
They say that since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. has used the material witness statute to detain suspects without charge for indefinite periods of time, often under the rubric of securing grand-jury testimony.
At least seventy men living in the United States -- all Muslim but one – “have been thrust into a Kafkaesque world of indefinite detention without charges, secret evidence, and baseless accusations of terrorist links. They have found themselves not at Guantánamo Bay or Abu Ghraib but in America’s own federal prison system, victims of the misuse of the federal material witness law in the U.S. government’s fight against terrorism,” these groups charge.
After at least a year of joint research, the ACLU and Human Rights Watch (HRW) report that the Ashcroft Justice Department “claimed each of the post-September 11 material witnesses had information relevant to grand jury terrorism investigations or to the trials of defendants alleged to support terrorist organizations. Yet at least thirty witnesses we know about were never brought before a grand jury or court to testify.”
Only seven were ever arrested on terrorism-related charges.
The material witness law has been twisted beyond recognition. Procedures designed for the temporary detention of witnesses who might otherwise skip town have been misused to hold men who were in fact criminal suspects. Holding as “witnesses” people who are in fact suspects sets a disturbing precedent for future use of this extraordinary government power to deprive citizens and others of their liberty. The rule of law itself suffers when a law is used as a pretext to sidestep longstanding checks on the arbitrary exercise of executive power.
Many of the seventy material witnesses identified by the ACLU and HRW suffered imprisonment because federal investigators and attorneys relied on false, flimsy, or irrelevant information and jumped to the wrong conclusions. “Their judgment about evidence also appears to have been colored by ignorance about and perhaps even prejudice. Not only were almost all the witnesses Muslim, sixty-four of the seventy were of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent,” their report says.
Consistent with the Justice Department’s suspicions that the witnesses were dangerous men linked to terrorists, the witnesses were often arrested at gunpoint in front of families and neighbors and transported to jail in handcuffs. They typically were held around-the-clock in solitary confinement and subjected to the harsh and degrading high-security conditions typically reserved for prisoners accused or convicted of the most dangerous crimes. They were taken to court in shackles and chains. In at least one case, a material witness was made to testify in shackles.
In some cases, the harsh treatment of material witnesses included verbal and even physical abuse by prison staff. The Department of Justice’s Inspector General issued a report detailing the abuse of material witnesses as well as other detainees in federal detention facilities.
Abdullah al-Kidd, born in Kansas and once a star running back at the University of Idaho, spent 16 days in federal detention in three states in 2003, sometimes naked and sometimes shackled hand and foot, but was never charged with a crime.
Once known as Lavoni T. Kidd, in 1995 when he led the University of Idaho football team, the Vandals, in rushing, Kidd was on his way to Saudi Arabia to work on a doctorate in Islamic studies in March 2003 when he was arrested and handcuffed at Dulles Airport in Washington.
Kidd, who described himself in a 2004 interview as “anti-bin Laden, anti-Taliban, anti-suicide bombing, anti-terrorism,” was never called to testify as a witness.
Justice Elena Kagan will recuse herself from this case because, as Obama’s Solicitor General, she took a position on it. Should her absence result in a 4-4- tie among the other Justices, the opinion of the Appeals Court would prevail.
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear former Attorney General John Ashcroft's appeal of a lower court decision, which ruled that he could be held responsible for the wrongful detention of an American citizen.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) brought the case against Ashcroft in 2005 on behalf of Abdullah al-Kidd, who they say was improperly arrested in 2003 as a material witness in the terrorism trial of Same Omar al-Hussein and detained for 16 days under prison-like conditions.
Al-Kidd was eventually released under restrictions that included confining his travel to four states, surrendering his passport and reporting to probation officers.
Al-Kidd was subjected to these conditions for more than a year and, despite having been arrested as a material witness, was never asked to testify, or charged with a crime.
A material witness in U.S. law is a person with information alleged to be material concerning a criminal proceeding. Prior to 9/11, the material witness law was used sparingly to ensure witnesses would be available to testify in criminal cases.
After 9/11, the ACLU charges that Ashcroft “retooled the law into an investigative detention statute, allowing the government to arrest and detain individuals for whom it lacked probable cause to charge with a crime.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in September 2009 that the federal material witness law couldn’t be used to detain or investigate people when there is no probable cause to bring criminal charges. The ruling also held that Ashcroft does not have immunity in the case and can be held personally liable for the wrongful detention of al-Kidd. Ashcroft appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, which today decided to review the case.
Jonathan Hafetz, a law professor at Seton Hall Law School, told IPS, “The Bush administration clearly misused the material witness statute as a pretext to detain people without charging them with a crime, rather as the law was intended -- as a necessary means to obtain witness testimony. This violated the Constitution’s prohibition on imprisonment without probable cause and helped lead to the prolonged detention of individuals who had no connection to terrorism or other criminal activity.”
He added, “Thus far, the Obama administration has sought to derail every attempt at accountability, arguing in one case after another against judicial involvement in cases of illegal detention, torture, and other mistreatment. The fact that the human rights abuses and constitutional violations did not occur on its watch does not excuse their effort to deny victims their day in court. Real justice must look both forward and backward.”
His view was echoed by Joanne Mariner, head of HRW’s Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program. She told IPS, “We’re very disappointed that the Obama administration urged the Supreme Court to hear Ashcroft’s appeal of the Al-Kidd decision. In our view, the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was absolutely correct. The ruling reaffirmed basic constitutional protections against detention without charge.”
The government has “attempted to get around bedrock requirements of the criminal justice system by relying on the material witness statute. Without any evidence that men like al-Kidd had committed a crime, the government held them in indefinite detention by claiming, pretextually, that they may have had information about other cases,” she said.
And Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guantánamo's military commissions, told IPS, "The material witness statute got used and abused by the Bush administration and their 'anything goes' approach to things that could be connected to national security by way of some fanciful argument."
Civil liberties advocates, including the ACLU, charge that the material witness law “has been twisted beyond recognition.”
They say that since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. has used the material witness statute to detain suspects without charge for indefinite periods of time, often under the rubric of securing grand-jury testimony.
At least seventy men living in the United States -- all Muslim but one – “have been thrust into a Kafkaesque world of indefinite detention without charges, secret evidence, and baseless accusations of terrorist links. They have found themselves not at Guantánamo Bay or Abu Ghraib but in America’s own federal prison system, victims of the misuse of the federal material witness law in the U.S. government’s fight against terrorism,” these groups charge.
After at least a year of joint research, the ACLU and Human Rights Watch (HRW) report that the Ashcroft Justice Department “claimed each of the post-September 11 material witnesses had information relevant to grand jury terrorism investigations or to the trials of defendants alleged to support terrorist organizations. Yet at least thirty witnesses we know about were never brought before a grand jury or court to testify.”
Only seven were ever arrested on terrorism-related charges.
The material witness law has been twisted beyond recognition. Procedures designed for the temporary detention of witnesses who might otherwise skip town have been misused to hold men who were in fact criminal suspects. Holding as “witnesses” people who are in fact suspects sets a disturbing precedent for future use of this extraordinary government power to deprive citizens and others of their liberty. The rule of law itself suffers when a law is used as a pretext to sidestep longstanding checks on the arbitrary exercise of executive power.
Many of the seventy material witnesses identified by the ACLU and HRW suffered imprisonment because federal investigators and attorneys relied on false, flimsy, or irrelevant information and jumped to the wrong conclusions. “Their judgment about evidence also appears to have been colored by ignorance about and perhaps even prejudice. Not only were almost all the witnesses Muslim, sixty-four of the seventy were of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent,” their report says.
Consistent with the Justice Department’s suspicions that the witnesses were dangerous men linked to terrorists, the witnesses were often arrested at gunpoint in front of families and neighbors and transported to jail in handcuffs. They typically were held around-the-clock in solitary confinement and subjected to the harsh and degrading high-security conditions typically reserved for prisoners accused or convicted of the most dangerous crimes. They were taken to court in shackles and chains. In at least one case, a material witness was made to testify in shackles.
In some cases, the harsh treatment of material witnesses included verbal and even physical abuse by prison staff. The Department of Justice’s Inspector General issued a report detailing the abuse of material witnesses as well as other detainees in federal detention facilities.
Abdullah al-Kidd, born in Kansas and once a star running back at the University of Idaho, spent 16 days in federal detention in three states in 2003, sometimes naked and sometimes shackled hand and foot, but was never charged with a crime.
Once known as Lavoni T. Kidd, in 1995 when he led the University of Idaho football team, the Vandals, in rushing, Kidd was on his way to Saudi Arabia to work on a doctorate in Islamic studies in March 2003 when he was arrested and handcuffed at Dulles Airport in Washington.
Kidd, who described himself in a 2004 interview as “anti-bin Laden, anti-Taliban, anti-suicide bombing, anti-terrorism,” was never called to testify as a witness.
Justice Elena Kagan will recuse herself from this case because, as Obama’s Solicitor General, she took a position on it. Should her absence result in a 4-4- tie among the other Justices, the opinion of the Appeals Court would prevail.
Friday, October 15, 2010
ACLU Sues Over Deportation of Mentally Ill U.S. Citizen
By William Fisher
An American citizen of Puerto Rican descent with mental disabilities is suing the U.S. government for wrongfully deporting him to Mexico and forcing him to endure over four months of living on the streets and in the shelters and prisons of Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala.
The suits were filed last week on behalf of U.S. citizen Mark Lyttle by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Georgia and the ACLU of North Carolina, in federal courts in those states.
Azadeh Shahshahani, director of the National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project of the ACLU of Georgia, told IPS, “Mark’s case is a tragedy that serves to underscore the deep systemic injustices that continue to plague our government’s system of detention and deportation.”
“Mark is just one of thousands of people in this country who have been victimized by a single-minded focus on detention and deportation without the kind of individualized determinations that are the essence of due process.”
According to the ACLU, Mark Lyttle’s story is not unique. A recent report by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch (HRW) claims that people with mental disabilities, including US citizens, face an even greater risk of erroneous deportation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) because courts do not ensure fair hearings for those not able to represent themselves.
"Few areas of US law are as complicated as deportation, and yet every day people with mental disabilities must go to court without lawyers or any safeguards that make the hearings fair," said Sarah Mehta, Aryeh Neier fellow at HRW and the ACLU. "Some have disabilities so severe that they don't know their own names or what a judge is."
The groups urged Congress to pass legislation requiring the appointment of lawyers for all people with mental disabilities in immigration courts.
Their 98-page report, "Deportation by Default: Mental Disability, Unfair Hearings, and Indefinite Detention in the US Immigration System," says that immigrants with mental disabilities are often unjustifiably detained for years on end, sometimes with no legal limits.
The report documents numerous cases in which people with mental disabilities were prevented from making claims against deportation -- including claims of U.S. citizenship -- because they were unable to represent themselves. Some of the people interviewed for the report did not know their own names, were delusional, could not tell time, or did not know that deportation meant removal from the United States.
Of the 57,000 detained immigrants facing deportation in 2008, 15 percent had mental disabilities. Under current immigration law and practice, immigration detainees have no right to court-appointed lawyers or to other safeguards, such as evaluations of their ability to receive a fair hearing, when they go through deportation hearings, HRW and the ACLU said.
Their report also shows that people with mental disabilities not only face arrest and deportation without safeguards, but are also routinely detained by ICE during the course of their hearings.
The ACLU says Mark Lyttle's entanglement with immigration authorities began when he was about to be released from a North Carolina jail where he was serving a short sentence for inappropriately touching a worker's backside in a halfway house that serves individuals with mental disorders.
“Despite having ample evidence that Lyttle was a U.S. citizen – including his social security number, the names of his parents, his sworn statements that he was born in the United States and criminal record checks – officials from the North Carolina Department of Correction referred him to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as an undocumented immigrant whose country of birth was Mexico,” the civil liberties group said.
Lyttle had never been to Mexico, shared no Mexican heritage, spoke no Spanish and did not claim to be from Mexico.
The state of North Carolina has an agreement with ICE requiring state officials to report all incarcerated individuals who they believe were born in other countries. ICE began investigating Lyttle and sent him to the Stewart Detention Facility, an immigration detention center in Lumpkin, Ga. where he spent six weeks.
Although ICE knew of Lyttle's long and documented history of mental illness and noted that he did not comprehend the investigation of his status, he was not offered legal assistance and was deported to Mexico.
The ACLU contends that Lyttle was left alone and penniless in Mexico and unable to communicate in Spanish. Mexican authorities sent him to Honduras, where he was imprisoned and faced with guards who threatened to shoot him. Honduran officials sent him to Guatemala and, eventually, he made his way to the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City.
Within a day, the ACLU says, embassy officials contacted one of Lyttle's three brothers at the military base where he was serving, leading to Lyttle being issued a U.S. passport. His brother wired him money and Lyttle was soon on a flight to Atlanta. Upon Lyttle's arrival, border officials, seeing his history of ICE investigations, held and questioned him for several hours before letting him go.
During this four-month ordeal, Lyttle was unable to take his medications to treat his mental illnesses and was subject to cycles of manic activity and depression. He is now living in Griffin, Ga., where he is recovering and receiving medication for his mental health problems.
The lawsuits seek damages and injunctive relief for violations of Lyttle's constitutional rights to due process and equal protection.
The Obama administration recently announced that in the past year it deported more than 392,000 unauthorized immigrants -- a record.
An American citizen of Puerto Rican descent with mental disabilities is suing the U.S. government for wrongfully deporting him to Mexico and forcing him to endure over four months of living on the streets and in the shelters and prisons of Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala.
The suits were filed last week on behalf of U.S. citizen Mark Lyttle by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Georgia and the ACLU of North Carolina, in federal courts in those states.
Azadeh Shahshahani, director of the National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project of the ACLU of Georgia, told IPS, “Mark’s case is a tragedy that serves to underscore the deep systemic injustices that continue to plague our government’s system of detention and deportation.”
“Mark is just one of thousands of people in this country who have been victimized by a single-minded focus on detention and deportation without the kind of individualized determinations that are the essence of due process.”
According to the ACLU, Mark Lyttle’s story is not unique. A recent report by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch (HRW) claims that people with mental disabilities, including US citizens, face an even greater risk of erroneous deportation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) because courts do not ensure fair hearings for those not able to represent themselves.
"Few areas of US law are as complicated as deportation, and yet every day people with mental disabilities must go to court without lawyers or any safeguards that make the hearings fair," said Sarah Mehta, Aryeh Neier fellow at HRW and the ACLU. "Some have disabilities so severe that they don't know their own names or what a judge is."
The groups urged Congress to pass legislation requiring the appointment of lawyers for all people with mental disabilities in immigration courts.
Their 98-page report, "Deportation by Default: Mental Disability, Unfair Hearings, and Indefinite Detention in the US Immigration System," says that immigrants with mental disabilities are often unjustifiably detained for years on end, sometimes with no legal limits.
The report documents numerous cases in which people with mental disabilities were prevented from making claims against deportation -- including claims of U.S. citizenship -- because they were unable to represent themselves. Some of the people interviewed for the report did not know their own names, were delusional, could not tell time, or did not know that deportation meant removal from the United States.
Of the 57,000 detained immigrants facing deportation in 2008, 15 percent had mental disabilities. Under current immigration law and practice, immigration detainees have no right to court-appointed lawyers or to other safeguards, such as evaluations of their ability to receive a fair hearing, when they go through deportation hearings, HRW and the ACLU said.
Their report also shows that people with mental disabilities not only face arrest and deportation without safeguards, but are also routinely detained by ICE during the course of their hearings.
The ACLU says Mark Lyttle's entanglement with immigration authorities began when he was about to be released from a North Carolina jail where he was serving a short sentence for inappropriately touching a worker's backside in a halfway house that serves individuals with mental disorders.
“Despite having ample evidence that Lyttle was a U.S. citizen – including his social security number, the names of his parents, his sworn statements that he was born in the United States and criminal record checks – officials from the North Carolina Department of Correction referred him to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as an undocumented immigrant whose country of birth was Mexico,” the civil liberties group said.
Lyttle had never been to Mexico, shared no Mexican heritage, spoke no Spanish and did not claim to be from Mexico.
The state of North Carolina has an agreement with ICE requiring state officials to report all incarcerated individuals who they believe were born in other countries. ICE began investigating Lyttle and sent him to the Stewart Detention Facility, an immigration detention center in Lumpkin, Ga. where he spent six weeks.
Although ICE knew of Lyttle's long and documented history of mental illness and noted that he did not comprehend the investigation of his status, he was not offered legal assistance and was deported to Mexico.
The ACLU contends that Lyttle was left alone and penniless in Mexico and unable to communicate in Spanish. Mexican authorities sent him to Honduras, where he was imprisoned and faced with guards who threatened to shoot him. Honduran officials sent him to Guatemala and, eventually, he made his way to the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City.
Within a day, the ACLU says, embassy officials contacted one of Lyttle's three brothers at the military base where he was serving, leading to Lyttle being issued a U.S. passport. His brother wired him money and Lyttle was soon on a flight to Atlanta. Upon Lyttle's arrival, border officials, seeing his history of ICE investigations, held and questioned him for several hours before letting him go.
During this four-month ordeal, Lyttle was unable to take his medications to treat his mental illnesses and was subject to cycles of manic activity and depression. He is now living in Griffin, Ga., where he is recovering and receiving medication for his mental health problems.
The lawsuits seek damages and injunctive relief for violations of Lyttle's constitutional rights to due process and equal protection.
The Obama administration recently announced that in the past year it deported more than 392,000 unauthorized immigrants -- a record.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Afghan Security Contractors: Make You Feel More Secure?
By William Fisher
Failures in vetting, training, and supervising Defense Department private security contractors are putting U.S. and coalition troops as well as Afghan civilians at risk and unwittingly aiding Afghan militants by hiring security contractors provided by the Taliban and by warlords.
That is the bottom line of a new report released last week by the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee. The report -- “Inquiry into the Role and Oversight of Private Security Contractors in Afghanistan” -- resulted from an in-depth year-long process. The Committee said the report “provides a detailed critical assessment of the role of private security contractors in Afghanistan” and “reveals the threat that security contractors operating without adequate U.S. government supervision can pose to the mission in Afghanistan.”
The report charges that there are significant gaps in U.S. government oversight of private security contractors in Afghanistan. The Defense Department (DOD) “has failed to enforce its policies meant to hold private security contractors’ accountable and to address serious private security contractor deficiencies.”
The United States increasingly relies on private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan to perform a range of services, from filing paperwork to using deadly force. Private military contractors still outnumber U.S. troops there. As of May 2010, there were over 23,000 armed private security contractors in Afghanistan, and as the Committee’s inquiry found, operating with inadequate government oversight.
The mission of Afghan subcontractors usually includes guarding U.S. military bases, civilian installations, construction projects and truck convoys of supplies.
The response from good government and human rights groups was largely positive.
POGO, the Project on Government Oversight, called for stronger contract oversight and “a serious reevaluation of whether security should be outsourced in war zones.”
Nick Schwellenbach, POGO’s Director of Investigations, told IPS, “The new findings further make the case for stronger oversight of contractors -- but they also lead us to ask if security functions should be outsourced at all.”
"More money means more problems if there isn't sufficient oversight of security contractors. The most important question to ask, though, is if we should be using contractors at all where there is no rule of law," said Danielle Brian, POGO's executive director. "Several government reports say we're funding people who are undermining our efforts in Afghanistan."
Laura W. Murphy, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Washington Legislative Office, said, “The massive use of private contractors in our intelligence community further exacerbates the lack of control, oversight and accountability that already plagues our intelligence apparatus.”
She added, “The excessive use of contractors puts more distance between the government and those carrying out intelligence work and infuses the profit motive into a calculation that should be focused on effectiveness and adhering to the rule of law.”
Another influential group, Human Rights First (HRF), referenced its own recent report on contractor oversight, which concluded that inadequate oversight of private contractors in conflict zones and a failure to hold the contractors legally accountable threatens to compromise U.S. national security and undermine the nation's ongoing military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
HRF urged Congress to enact the Civilian Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (CEJA) of 2010 to expand criminal jurisdiction over and increase investigative resources for serious crimes committed by U.S. contractors.
Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said the poor vetting of the 26,000 security contractors jeopardized the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan.
"We need to shut off the spigot of U.S. dollars flowing into the pockets of warlords and power brokers who act contrary to our interests and contribute to the corruption that weakens the support of the Afghan people for their government," Levin said in a statement.
Investigators for the Senate Armed Services Committee found "systemic failures" in the way 125 Defense Department contracts were granted between 2007 and 2009.
For example, those responsible for conducting background checks on potential hires as security guards were insufficient to discover possible associates of Afghan warlords in a timely fashion. Some security guards were thought to be agents trained by Iran.
The Senate investigation prompted Afghanistan's Interior Minister to announce this week that his government would shut down any private security firms that are unlicensed and do not properly check the backgrounds of employees.
The Senate report was based on 30 interviews with Defense Department contractors and military personnel and written responses from others.
The report said that investigators found "squandered resources and dangerous failures in contractor performance, including untrained guards, insufficient and unserviceable weapons, unmanned posts and other shortcomings that directly affect the safety of U.S. military personnel."
Nevertheless, the report concludes that 90 percent of the security personnel work under U.S. government contracts.
"Money is ammunition; don't put it in the wrong hands," Gen. David Petraeus warned in an August memo that gave counterinsurgency (COIN) guidance.
The Senate report said, its "inquiry uncovered evidence of private
security contractors funneling U.S. taxpayers dollars to Afghan warlords and
strongmen linked to murder, kidnapping, bribery as well as Taliban and other anti-Coalition activities."
The numerous problems covered in the report range from untrained guards to insufficient weaponry to unmanned posts.
The report confirmed suspicions that were raised in congressional testimony last December, when Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said they had suspicions the U.S. government was indirectly funding Afghan warlords and the Taliban.
However, U.S. military personnel have said the warlords sometimes force out anyone else from the security jobs with threats of violence.
The U.S. military hires contractors for the security jobs to free up its own soldiers for duties more directly related to combat. Now, military leaders say they are reconsidering the policy.
It was recently revealed that the company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide – which has been banned from contracting in Iraq – created a new subsidiary whose name is not related to Blackwater, or Xe Services, as it is now known, and used that subsidiary in its successful bid for security work in Afghanistan. The parent company has also won additional security work in Iraq.
Contracting officers said they had no knowledge of any relationship between Xe Services and the new Afghan company, but other government officials suggested that the name-change was merely a way to conceal the company’s true identity.
Failures in vetting, training, and supervising Defense Department private security contractors are putting U.S. and coalition troops as well as Afghan civilians at risk and unwittingly aiding Afghan militants by hiring security contractors provided by the Taliban and by warlords.
That is the bottom line of a new report released last week by the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee. The report -- “Inquiry into the Role and Oversight of Private Security Contractors in Afghanistan” -- resulted from an in-depth year-long process. The Committee said the report “provides a detailed critical assessment of the role of private security contractors in Afghanistan” and “reveals the threat that security contractors operating without adequate U.S. government supervision can pose to the mission in Afghanistan.”
The report charges that there are significant gaps in U.S. government oversight of private security contractors in Afghanistan. The Defense Department (DOD) “has failed to enforce its policies meant to hold private security contractors’ accountable and to address serious private security contractor deficiencies.”
The United States increasingly relies on private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan to perform a range of services, from filing paperwork to using deadly force. Private military contractors still outnumber U.S. troops there. As of May 2010, there were over 23,000 armed private security contractors in Afghanistan, and as the Committee’s inquiry found, operating with inadequate government oversight.
The mission of Afghan subcontractors usually includes guarding U.S. military bases, civilian installations, construction projects and truck convoys of supplies.
The response from good government and human rights groups was largely positive.
POGO, the Project on Government Oversight, called for stronger contract oversight and “a serious reevaluation of whether security should be outsourced in war zones.”
Nick Schwellenbach, POGO’s Director of Investigations, told IPS, “The new findings further make the case for stronger oversight of contractors -- but they also lead us to ask if security functions should be outsourced at all.”
"More money means more problems if there isn't sufficient oversight of security contractors. The most important question to ask, though, is if we should be using contractors at all where there is no rule of law," said Danielle Brian, POGO's executive director. "Several government reports say we're funding people who are undermining our efforts in Afghanistan."
Laura W. Murphy, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Washington Legislative Office, said, “The massive use of private contractors in our intelligence community further exacerbates the lack of control, oversight and accountability that already plagues our intelligence apparatus.”
She added, “The excessive use of contractors puts more distance between the government and those carrying out intelligence work and infuses the profit motive into a calculation that should be focused on effectiveness and adhering to the rule of law.”
Another influential group, Human Rights First (HRF), referenced its own recent report on contractor oversight, which concluded that inadequate oversight of private contractors in conflict zones and a failure to hold the contractors legally accountable threatens to compromise U.S. national security and undermine the nation's ongoing military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
HRF urged Congress to enact the Civilian Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (CEJA) of 2010 to expand criminal jurisdiction over and increase investigative resources for serious crimes committed by U.S. contractors.
Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said the poor vetting of the 26,000 security contractors jeopardized the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan.
"We need to shut off the spigot of U.S. dollars flowing into the pockets of warlords and power brokers who act contrary to our interests and contribute to the corruption that weakens the support of the Afghan people for their government," Levin said in a statement.
Investigators for the Senate Armed Services Committee found "systemic failures" in the way 125 Defense Department contracts were granted between 2007 and 2009.
For example, those responsible for conducting background checks on potential hires as security guards were insufficient to discover possible associates of Afghan warlords in a timely fashion. Some security guards were thought to be agents trained by Iran.
The Senate investigation prompted Afghanistan's Interior Minister to announce this week that his government would shut down any private security firms that are unlicensed and do not properly check the backgrounds of employees.
The Senate report was based on 30 interviews with Defense Department contractors and military personnel and written responses from others.
The report said that investigators found "squandered resources and dangerous failures in contractor performance, including untrained guards, insufficient and unserviceable weapons, unmanned posts and other shortcomings that directly affect the safety of U.S. military personnel."
Nevertheless, the report concludes that 90 percent of the security personnel work under U.S. government contracts.
"Money is ammunition; don't put it in the wrong hands," Gen. David Petraeus warned in an August memo that gave counterinsurgency (COIN) guidance.
The Senate report said, its "inquiry uncovered evidence of private
security contractors funneling U.S. taxpayers dollars to Afghan warlords and
strongmen linked to murder, kidnapping, bribery as well as Taliban and other anti-Coalition activities."
The numerous problems covered in the report range from untrained guards to insufficient weaponry to unmanned posts.
The report confirmed suspicions that were raised in congressional testimony last December, when Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said they had suspicions the U.S. government was indirectly funding Afghan warlords and the Taliban.
However, U.S. military personnel have said the warlords sometimes force out anyone else from the security jobs with threats of violence.
The U.S. military hires contractors for the security jobs to free up its own soldiers for duties more directly related to combat. Now, military leaders say they are reconsidering the policy.
It was recently revealed that the company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide – which has been banned from contracting in Iraq – created a new subsidiary whose name is not related to Blackwater, or Xe Services, as it is now known, and used that subsidiary in its successful bid for security work in Afghanistan. The parent company has also won additional security work in Iraq.
Contracting officers said they had no knowledge of any relationship between Xe Services and the new Afghan company, but other government officials suggested that the name-change was merely a way to conceal the company’s true identity.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Shotgun Marriage: ICE and Cops
By William Fisher
As two Democratic senators introduced yet another version of immigration reform legislation – and two Republican senators immediately condemned it – more than 500 not-for-profit organizations called on President Barack Obama to end what they called “the merger of immigration enforcement with criminal justice.”
Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and committee member Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey last week filed the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2010. Republican Senators Orrin Hatch of Utah and Jon Kyl of Arizona blasted the legislation as a “cynical ploy for votes” and called the push for immigration reform “for effect rather than reality.”
At the same time, 578 groups from across the country delivered a letter to President Obama expressing concerns that the Obama administration’s increased reliance on local law enforcement to arrest, detain, and deport immigrants has exacerbated existing problems in the criminal justice system. The letter demanded that the government “end the merger of immigration enforcement with criminal justice.” It cited systemic problems within both the immigration and criminal justice systems.
The groups represent a wide range of fields, including religion, law, labor, immigration, civil and human rights, education and law enforcement.
Their letter declares, “The merger of immigration enforcement and local criminal justice agencies is not only bad public policy, it also sabotages local law enforcement agencies’ core mission of protecting public safety by undermining the trust of the communities they serve. It discourages people from turning to the police when they need to, even to report crimes. It undermines public safety by diverting scarce resources away from local policing and focuses them on false threats from people who look or sound foreign.”
Secure Communities, 287(g), and the Criminal Alien Program – the Obama administration’s signature immigration enforcement programs – all rely on heavy involvement from and cooperation with local law enforcement to siphon immigrants into the immigration enforcement and detention system and, ultimately, through deportation proceedings.
The 287(g) program authorizes the Federal Government to enter into agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies, permitting designated officers to perform immigration law enforcement functions.
The Criminal Alien program (CAP) is responsible for identifying, processing and removing criminal aliens incarcerated in federal, state and local prisons and jails throughout the United States and preventing their release into the general public.
Secure Communities is a newer and rapidly expanding program that also relies heavily on the cooperation of local law enforcement. It is currently active in more than 650 jurisdictions in 32 states and is expected to be active in every state by 2011 and in all 3,100 state and local jails by 2013.
All three programs are implemented by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) service, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
“The Obama administration’s over-reliance on local law enforcement agencies to arrest, detain and deport immigrants legitimizes the racial discrimination that persists in the criminal justice system,” said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center.
“For all our communities, this marriage of convenience between the immigration system and the criminal justice system will only serve to further deter immigrants from cooperating with the police, and sever the already tenuous ties between law enforcement and vulnerable community members,” she said.
The letter to Obama maintains that abuses within the criminal justice system have been well documented, and that racial profiling continues to plague cities across the country.
The Menendez-Leahy immigration bill establishes a path to legalization, but also outlines a set of border enforcement “triggers” that must be met before any unauthorized immigrants can apply for permanent residency. Once those benchmarks are reached, undocumented immigrants will have the opportunity to register with the government, undergo a background check, learn English, and pay fines and taxes on their way to becoming American citizens.
The legislation also includes two existing pieces of proposed legislation that have been blocked from Senate passage by the minority -- the DREAM Act which would allow undocumented youth to regularize their status by going to college or serving in the military; and AgJOBS, which would establish an earned legalization program for undocumented farm workers and revise the existing H-2A temporary foreign agricultural worker program to provide farmers with a steady flow of labor they need is additionally attached to the bill.
Sen. Menendez acknowledges that the upcoming Congressional election will make it difficult to get any significant amount of floor time for an immigration debate this fall. However, his supporters say his bill “shows Latino voters what has been the reality all year long: Democrats have been more than ready to introduce and vote yes on immigration reform while Republicans have stalled and obstructed the issue.”
This remarkably candid admission raises questions about whether the introduction of the Menendez legislation was selected primarily to please an important part of the Democrats’ political constituency.
Conservative Sen. Hatch responded by introducing an immigration bill of his own. According to the Deseret News, Hatch’s bill, “Strengthening Our Commitment to Legal Immigration and America’s Security Act,” would “require participation in key law enforcement programs, clamp down on identify theft, streamline the visa system, track the amount of welfare benefits being diverted to illegal immigrant households, curb serious abuses of immigration laws and help prevent Mexican cartels from using national parks and federal lands to grow marijuana.”
However, the newspaper reports that the Hatch bill does not address the status of the 11-12 million undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. and the lack of visas available to migrants who want to work in the U.S.
The Menendez-Leahy legislation contains a provision not seen in several other immigration reform bills. It would create a new independent federal agency: the Standing Commission on Immigration, Labor Markets, and the National Interest. Its task would be to evaluate the U.S. labor market and economic conditions, and annually recommend to Congress the levels of permanent and temporary immigrant labor that would allow the U.S. economy to continue expanding while avoiding an oversupply of labor and the downward pressure on wages that could result.
Ross Eisenbrey of the Economic Policy Institute told IPS that the White House has not reacted as yet to the Commission proposal. But, he added, “I have no doubt that if the Commission is in a bill that makes it through Congress, the Administration will be enthusiastic.”
As two Democratic senators introduced yet another version of immigration reform legislation – and two Republican senators immediately condemned it – more than 500 not-for-profit organizations called on President Barack Obama to end what they called “the merger of immigration enforcement with criminal justice.”
Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and committee member Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey last week filed the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2010. Republican Senators Orrin Hatch of Utah and Jon Kyl of Arizona blasted the legislation as a “cynical ploy for votes” and called the push for immigration reform “for effect rather than reality.”
At the same time, 578 groups from across the country delivered a letter to President Obama expressing concerns that the Obama administration’s increased reliance on local law enforcement to arrest, detain, and deport immigrants has exacerbated existing problems in the criminal justice system. The letter demanded that the government “end the merger of immigration enforcement with criminal justice.” It cited systemic problems within both the immigration and criminal justice systems.
The groups represent a wide range of fields, including religion, law, labor, immigration, civil and human rights, education and law enforcement.
Their letter declares, “The merger of immigration enforcement and local criminal justice agencies is not only bad public policy, it also sabotages local law enforcement agencies’ core mission of protecting public safety by undermining the trust of the communities they serve. It discourages people from turning to the police when they need to, even to report crimes. It undermines public safety by diverting scarce resources away from local policing and focuses them on false threats from people who look or sound foreign.”
Secure Communities, 287(g), and the Criminal Alien Program – the Obama administration’s signature immigration enforcement programs – all rely on heavy involvement from and cooperation with local law enforcement to siphon immigrants into the immigration enforcement and detention system and, ultimately, through deportation proceedings.
The 287(g) program authorizes the Federal Government to enter into agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies, permitting designated officers to perform immigration law enforcement functions.
The Criminal Alien program (CAP) is responsible for identifying, processing and removing criminal aliens incarcerated in federal, state and local prisons and jails throughout the United States and preventing their release into the general public.
Secure Communities is a newer and rapidly expanding program that also relies heavily on the cooperation of local law enforcement. It is currently active in more than 650 jurisdictions in 32 states and is expected to be active in every state by 2011 and in all 3,100 state and local jails by 2013.
All three programs are implemented by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) service, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
“The Obama administration’s over-reliance on local law enforcement agencies to arrest, detain and deport immigrants legitimizes the racial discrimination that persists in the criminal justice system,” said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center.
“For all our communities, this marriage of convenience between the immigration system and the criminal justice system will only serve to further deter immigrants from cooperating with the police, and sever the already tenuous ties between law enforcement and vulnerable community members,” she said.
The letter to Obama maintains that abuses within the criminal justice system have been well documented, and that racial profiling continues to plague cities across the country.
The Menendez-Leahy immigration bill establishes a path to legalization, but also outlines a set of border enforcement “triggers” that must be met before any unauthorized immigrants can apply for permanent residency. Once those benchmarks are reached, undocumented immigrants will have the opportunity to register with the government, undergo a background check, learn English, and pay fines and taxes on their way to becoming American citizens.
The legislation also includes two existing pieces of proposed legislation that have been blocked from Senate passage by the minority -- the DREAM Act which would allow undocumented youth to regularize their status by going to college or serving in the military; and AgJOBS, which would establish an earned legalization program for undocumented farm workers and revise the existing H-2A temporary foreign agricultural worker program to provide farmers with a steady flow of labor they need is additionally attached to the bill.
Sen. Menendez acknowledges that the upcoming Congressional election will make it difficult to get any significant amount of floor time for an immigration debate this fall. However, his supporters say his bill “shows Latino voters what has been the reality all year long: Democrats have been more than ready to introduce and vote yes on immigration reform while Republicans have stalled and obstructed the issue.”
This remarkably candid admission raises questions about whether the introduction of the Menendez legislation was selected primarily to please an important part of the Democrats’ political constituency.
Conservative Sen. Hatch responded by introducing an immigration bill of his own. According to the Deseret News, Hatch’s bill, “Strengthening Our Commitment to Legal Immigration and America’s Security Act,” would “require participation in key law enforcement programs, clamp down on identify theft, streamline the visa system, track the amount of welfare benefits being diverted to illegal immigrant households, curb serious abuses of immigration laws and help prevent Mexican cartels from using national parks and federal lands to grow marijuana.”
However, the newspaper reports that the Hatch bill does not address the status of the 11-12 million undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. and the lack of visas available to migrants who want to work in the U.S.
The Menendez-Leahy legislation contains a provision not seen in several other immigration reform bills. It would create a new independent federal agency: the Standing Commission on Immigration, Labor Markets, and the National Interest. Its task would be to evaluate the U.S. labor market and economic conditions, and annually recommend to Congress the levels of permanent and temporary immigrant labor that would allow the U.S. economy to continue expanding while avoiding an oversupply of labor and the downward pressure on wages that could result.
Ross Eisenbrey of the Economic Policy Institute told IPS that the White House has not reacted as yet to the Commission proposal. But, he added, “I have no doubt that if the Commission is in a bill that makes it through Congress, the Administration will be enthusiastic.”
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
The Fall and Rise of a Lovely Day
By William Fisher
So there I was, sitting in my living room, laptop perched on knees, I-Pod across the room belting out tunes from my collection of jazz, blues and gospel. It was September 28, 2010, the sun was trying to peek out, and I was looking forward to a lovely day.
And just to seal that deal, my I-Pod was playing an old favorite of mine:
America, America, God Shed His Grace on Thee,
And Crowned Thy Good With Brotherhood
From Sea to Shining Sea…
…wailed Ray Charles.
For the first time in a long time, I actually heard the words: And crowned thy good with brotherhood…
Must have been a portent because my next mouse click brought up a story by IPS, the news service I work for. The headline read Iran's "Blogfather" Gets 20-Year Prison Sentence.” The story ran:
SAN FRANCISCO, California, Sep 28, 2010 (IPS) - A week after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told heads of state gathered for the U.N. General Assembly in New York that his government does not jail its citizens for expressing their opinions, Iran's Revolutionary Court sentenced Hossein Derakhshan, an internationally known Iranian-Canadian blogger, to 19 and a half years in prison.
Bummer!
For a lovely day, that’s a killer. What to do? I assess my situation:
Here I am, blessed with that rare breed of editor, who figures I know better than she knows what’s going down in my particular area of interest today. So she rarely assigns me anything to write; apparently used to living on the edge, each day she lets me write what I want to write. Then she edits it to keep me from looking like a fool.
Most of what I write is critical of the President, his Cabinet, or other government officials. The policy doesn’t make sense. Or the policy’s OK, but some particular agency doesn’t have the resources to execute the policy. A member of the Administration is behaving in a way that discredits his team. Members of Congress who’d rather retain campaign talking points by letting critical issues fester rather than by fixing them. A judicial decision I may find particularly shameful because it ruins someone’s career based on the decision of a judge who thinks furthering his ideological agenda is more precious than using the rule of law to further the Republic. The litany is endless. And angry-making.
Yet, I like to think my comments are constructively critical. “What’s gone wrong, why, and does anyone know how to make it better?” are the questions I ask myself as I sit down to write.
But today was to be different. I am not generally a flag-waving hand-on-heart type of guy; my patriotism is quieter, just about silent and always most undemonstrative. Maybe it was my mother, who admonished me: No Public Displays of Affection. Or it’s a British thing I learned during 20 summers in London; the Brits are understated in this way (and just about every other way) except when they find themselves at a football match.
But my hesitancy came before I read the words of Mr. Ahmadinejad, tried to digest his world-class hypocrisy and tried to comprehend how the impact of any blog could be so cataclysmic as to justify taking away 20 years of a young man’s life.
And that’s when the light went on. Sure, the NSA could be monitoring my blog but they can’t just throw me in jail and forget the key. And we do –- collectively. Those who really believe in our Constitution regularly go to court to demonstrate that our Bill of Rights may be suffering from some acute maladies, but reports of its demise are vastly exaggerated.
It is ironic, but the people who insisted that the Constitution contain a Bill of Rights were not afraid of journalists (or Tea Parties) ranting about Big Government encroaching on their freedoms. They were afraid of Big Government grabbing more and more power so as to seriously erode those freedoms.
And it still is. Not much has changed. But one of the things that has are the objectives of the anti-government protesters. These days its examples of “Government Grabbing Too Much Power” are such initiatives as health care, financial re-regulation, and gun control. Half of our country thinks these are the crowning achievements of our First Black President; the other half thinks such accrual of power is putting our country on the slippery slope to Socialism.
But whichever half they inhabit, the rule of law seems to be so deeply embedded in our political DNA that, no matter how bad things get, lawyers will always make a living.
Some of my Republican friends are deeply troubled about the lawyers. They would dearly like to enact legislation resulting in what they call “tort reform ” – which one way or another would limit who lawyers can sue and how much money they can collect if they win.
I think that’s a terrible idea, because the number of court cases lawyers bring each year has become for me something like a barometer of political strength. Yes, there are far too many ridiculous - - frivolous, they’re called -- lawsuits filed. Yes, there is prosecutorial misconduct we’ll probably never hear about. Yes, there is a deeply unjust set of sentencing rules that puts a hugely disproportionate number of African-Americans behind bars. And, yes, there are rallies in many streets by faux Colonials, whose participants are inspired by the know-nothings of the world, the Glenn Becks and the Sarah Palins – and nourished by the big money of giant corporations, the newest ventriloquists for “small business.”
What? You’d prefer riots in the streets? I don’t think so. Or agents of the “security services” swooping down on you and your wife and kids as they sleep and carting your whole family off to neverland, which means you will never be heard from again.
We’ve already seen – and we keep seeing – evidence that such outrages are in fact happening now, that they began to happen with some regularity after 9/11. That they are not happening on a far more toxic scale is attributable to one of the great and unique attributes of the United States of America.
The rule of law.
It is that glorious attribute that most conspicuously distinguishes America from Iran – and from all those countries to which we sell arms but who care not a jot about the people of their own country.
Try working this into a riff about Mr. Ahmadinejad :
Iran, Iran, God Shed His Grace on Thee,
And Crowned Thy Good With Brotherhood
From Sea to Shining Sea…
So there I was, sitting in my living room, laptop perched on knees, I-Pod across the room belting out tunes from my collection of jazz, blues and gospel. It was September 28, 2010, the sun was trying to peek out, and I was looking forward to a lovely day.
And just to seal that deal, my I-Pod was playing an old favorite of mine:
America, America, God Shed His Grace on Thee,
And Crowned Thy Good With Brotherhood
From Sea to Shining Sea…
…wailed Ray Charles.
For the first time in a long time, I actually heard the words: And crowned thy good with brotherhood…
Must have been a portent because my next mouse click brought up a story by IPS, the news service I work for. The headline read Iran's "Blogfather" Gets 20-Year Prison Sentence.” The story ran:
SAN FRANCISCO, California, Sep 28, 2010 (IPS) - A week after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told heads of state gathered for the U.N. General Assembly in New York that his government does not jail its citizens for expressing their opinions, Iran's Revolutionary Court sentenced Hossein Derakhshan, an internationally known Iranian-Canadian blogger, to 19 and a half years in prison.
Bummer!
For a lovely day, that’s a killer. What to do? I assess my situation:
Here I am, blessed with that rare breed of editor, who figures I know better than she knows what’s going down in my particular area of interest today. So she rarely assigns me anything to write; apparently used to living on the edge, each day she lets me write what I want to write. Then she edits it to keep me from looking like a fool.
Most of what I write is critical of the President, his Cabinet, or other government officials. The policy doesn’t make sense. Or the policy’s OK, but some particular agency doesn’t have the resources to execute the policy. A member of the Administration is behaving in a way that discredits his team. Members of Congress who’d rather retain campaign talking points by letting critical issues fester rather than by fixing them. A judicial decision I may find particularly shameful because it ruins someone’s career based on the decision of a judge who thinks furthering his ideological agenda is more precious than using the rule of law to further the Republic. The litany is endless. And angry-making.
Yet, I like to think my comments are constructively critical. “What’s gone wrong, why, and does anyone know how to make it better?” are the questions I ask myself as I sit down to write.
But today was to be different. I am not generally a flag-waving hand-on-heart type of guy; my patriotism is quieter, just about silent and always most undemonstrative. Maybe it was my mother, who admonished me: No Public Displays of Affection. Or it’s a British thing I learned during 20 summers in London; the Brits are understated in this way (and just about every other way) except when they find themselves at a football match.
But my hesitancy came before I read the words of Mr. Ahmadinejad, tried to digest his world-class hypocrisy and tried to comprehend how the impact of any blog could be so cataclysmic as to justify taking away 20 years of a young man’s life.
And that’s when the light went on. Sure, the NSA could be monitoring my blog but they can’t just throw me in jail and forget the key. And we do –- collectively. Those who really believe in our Constitution regularly go to court to demonstrate that our Bill of Rights may be suffering from some acute maladies, but reports of its demise are vastly exaggerated.
It is ironic, but the people who insisted that the Constitution contain a Bill of Rights were not afraid of journalists (or Tea Parties) ranting about Big Government encroaching on their freedoms. They were afraid of Big Government grabbing more and more power so as to seriously erode those freedoms.
And it still is. Not much has changed. But one of the things that has are the objectives of the anti-government protesters. These days its examples of “Government Grabbing Too Much Power” are such initiatives as health care, financial re-regulation, and gun control. Half of our country thinks these are the crowning achievements of our First Black President; the other half thinks such accrual of power is putting our country on the slippery slope to Socialism.
But whichever half they inhabit, the rule of law seems to be so deeply embedded in our political DNA that, no matter how bad things get, lawyers will always make a living.
Some of my Republican friends are deeply troubled about the lawyers. They would dearly like to enact legislation resulting in what they call “tort reform ” – which one way or another would limit who lawyers can sue and how much money they can collect if they win.
I think that’s a terrible idea, because the number of court cases lawyers bring each year has become for me something like a barometer of political strength. Yes, there are far too many ridiculous - - frivolous, they’re called -- lawsuits filed. Yes, there is prosecutorial misconduct we’ll probably never hear about. Yes, there is a deeply unjust set of sentencing rules that puts a hugely disproportionate number of African-Americans behind bars. And, yes, there are rallies in many streets by faux Colonials, whose participants are inspired by the know-nothings of the world, the Glenn Becks and the Sarah Palins – and nourished by the big money of giant corporations, the newest ventriloquists for “small business.”
What? You’d prefer riots in the streets? I don’t think so. Or agents of the “security services” swooping down on you and your wife and kids as they sleep and carting your whole family off to neverland, which means you will never be heard from again.
We’ve already seen – and we keep seeing – evidence that such outrages are in fact happening now, that they began to happen with some regularity after 9/11. That they are not happening on a far more toxic scale is attributable to one of the great and unique attributes of the United States of America.
The rule of law.
It is that glorious attribute that most conspicuously distinguishes America from Iran – and from all those countries to which we sell arms but who care not a jot about the people of their own country.
Try working this into a riff about Mr. Ahmadinejad :
Iran, Iran, God Shed His Grace on Thee,
And Crowned Thy Good With Brotherhood
From Sea to Shining Sea…
Is This How We Say Thank You?
By William Fisher
Election-year interparty political wrangling is threatening to again sabotage congressional efforts to provide medical help for tens of thousands of firefighters and other first responders whose health was damaged by the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Center.
As of June 2010, 836 of those who worked at Ground Zero have died and an estimated 70 per cent of the more than 70,000 first responders have declared illnesses they say are related to the dust and other toxins present at the World Trade Center site during and after the attacks.
This week, both the House of Representatives and the Senate are poised to introduce virtually identical versions of the “James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act” that would provide long-term and health care and monitoring for people whose health has been compromised.
But in both Houses, Republicans are threatening to filibuster the measure because they say it adds billions of dollars to the federal deficit without any attempt at cost-cutting elsewhere. The GOP successfully blocked the measure last year on the same grounds, charging that it would create a new entitlement program and waste taxpayer dollars. Republicans also objected to the inclusion of undocumented workers who helped respond to the disaster and clean up 9/11 sites.
In addition, in the Senate, Democrats have included the legislation in a bill containing an amendment that would end the "don't ask, don't tell” policy regarding homosexuals in the military. Another amendment would give children of illegal immigrants a pathway to U.S. citizenship if they serve in the armed services or attend college. Republicans in Congress are overwhelmingly opposed to both these policy choices.
But some Democratic sources say that if the Senate can muster the three-fifths vote –60 senators – to break the filibuster, a majority would vote for the bill.
The legislation has drawn strong support from a wide range of individual and organizations, including human rights advocates.
Sharon Singh, Media Relations Director for Amnesty International USA, told IPS, "Amnesty International urges Congress to pass H.R. 847 as it would be a strong step to fulfilling the right of victims of crimes to reparations. This includes medical care and compensation.”
“The U.S. government needs to remember the people who put their lives in jeopardy and are involved in rescue, recovery and clean up endeavors. Nine years later, it is time to move beyond the rhetoric of being in 'solidarity' with victims and act. The U.S. government needs to actually pass the laws and adequately fund the programs that victims need," she said.
Detective James Zadroga, for whom the bill is named, was identified in 2006 as the first rescuer to die from inhaling dust at ground zero. However, the city’s medical examiner concluded that his death was not directly related to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Nevertheless, his name remains on the legislation.
One of the most vocal among groups supporting the legislation is an organization known as “9/11 Health Now.” In a statement, the group said,
“ On September 11, 2001, tens of thousands of Americans converged on New York City’s World Trade Center site in the most impassioned rescue and recovery effort in the history of the country.”
“Unbeknownst to these American patriots, the conditions at Ground Zero --in spite of Federal and State warnings to the contrary -- were exceedingly toxic: hundreds of contaminants, including asbestos, lead, mercury and benzene--to name a few—were present in unprecedentedly high levels, both within the billowing dust cloud that settled over Lower Manhattan and the surrounding areas, and in the emissions from the Pile that smoldered for months afterward during the nine-month recovery and cleanup operation,” the group declared.
It characterized as “mind-boggling” what it called “the lack of protection offered to First Responders, volunteers and recovery personnel at the site: the majority were issued a paper dust mask, or -- more commonly -- no protection at all.”
At the time, former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, then administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), announced that at Ground Zero “the air is safe to breathe and the water is safe to drink."
Now, the group says, “more than nine years after the disaster, huge numbers of first responders, plus their fellow exposed New Yorkers are grievously ill. Afflictions range from chronic bronchial disease to asbestosis, leukemia and cancers, plus a host of other diseases including systemic organ failure.”
It adds that “The combined poisons of the dust and emissions are now widely considered to be one of the most toxic combinations in the history of US disaster relief, affecting not only First Responders, but hundreds of thousands of residents, workers and students of Lower Manhattan and the surrounding areas who returned to homes, jobsites and schools which--shockingly--received little or no government-mandated cleanup.”
The World Trade Center Health Registry estimates that 410,000 people have been ‘heavily exposed’ to WTC toxins (includes Responders), and may become seriously ill in the future.”
The legislation is supported by members of the New York and New Jersey Congressional delegations, including some Republicans, and by the Uniformed Fire Officers Association.
The legislation would ensure:
That every 9/11 responder exposed to the toxins of Ground Zero and related
sites has a right to be medically monitored.
That every 9/11 responder who is sick as a result of exposure has a right to
treatment.
That care is expanded to the exposed community, including residents, area
workers, students, and the thousands of people who came from across the country in response to the 9/11 attacks.
That the 9/11 Victim’s Compensation Fund would be reopened to provide
compensation for economic loss and damages.
The legislation would continue funding and support of the ‘Centers of Excellence’ in New York and New Jersey (the New York City Fire Department, and a number of major hospitals and universities), which currently provide monitoring, support and care to First Responders.
It would also establish a Research and Support program by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for the diagnosis and treatment of WTC-related conditions and diseases.
Election-year interparty political wrangling is threatening to again sabotage congressional efforts to provide medical help for tens of thousands of firefighters and other first responders whose health was damaged by the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Center.
As of June 2010, 836 of those who worked at Ground Zero have died and an estimated 70 per cent of the more than 70,000 first responders have declared illnesses they say are related to the dust and other toxins present at the World Trade Center site during and after the attacks.
This week, both the House of Representatives and the Senate are poised to introduce virtually identical versions of the “James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act” that would provide long-term and health care and monitoring for people whose health has been compromised.
But in both Houses, Republicans are threatening to filibuster the measure because they say it adds billions of dollars to the federal deficit without any attempt at cost-cutting elsewhere. The GOP successfully blocked the measure last year on the same grounds, charging that it would create a new entitlement program and waste taxpayer dollars. Republicans also objected to the inclusion of undocumented workers who helped respond to the disaster and clean up 9/11 sites.
In addition, in the Senate, Democrats have included the legislation in a bill containing an amendment that would end the "don't ask, don't tell” policy regarding homosexuals in the military. Another amendment would give children of illegal immigrants a pathway to U.S. citizenship if they serve in the armed services or attend college. Republicans in Congress are overwhelmingly opposed to both these policy choices.
But some Democratic sources say that if the Senate can muster the three-fifths vote –60 senators – to break the filibuster, a majority would vote for the bill.
The legislation has drawn strong support from a wide range of individual and organizations, including human rights advocates.
Sharon Singh, Media Relations Director for Amnesty International USA, told IPS, "Amnesty International urges Congress to pass H.R. 847 as it would be a strong step to fulfilling the right of victims of crimes to reparations. This includes medical care and compensation.”
“The U.S. government needs to remember the people who put their lives in jeopardy and are involved in rescue, recovery and clean up endeavors. Nine years later, it is time to move beyond the rhetoric of being in 'solidarity' with victims and act. The U.S. government needs to actually pass the laws and adequately fund the programs that victims need," she said.
Detective James Zadroga, for whom the bill is named, was identified in 2006 as the first rescuer to die from inhaling dust at ground zero. However, the city’s medical examiner concluded that his death was not directly related to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Nevertheless, his name remains on the legislation.
One of the most vocal among groups supporting the legislation is an organization known as “9/11 Health Now.” In a statement, the group said,
“ On September 11, 2001, tens of thousands of Americans converged on New York City’s World Trade Center site in the most impassioned rescue and recovery effort in the history of the country.”
“Unbeknownst to these American patriots, the conditions at Ground Zero --in spite of Federal and State warnings to the contrary -- were exceedingly toxic: hundreds of contaminants, including asbestos, lead, mercury and benzene--to name a few—were present in unprecedentedly high levels, both within the billowing dust cloud that settled over Lower Manhattan and the surrounding areas, and in the emissions from the Pile that smoldered for months afterward during the nine-month recovery and cleanup operation,” the group declared.
It characterized as “mind-boggling” what it called “the lack of protection offered to First Responders, volunteers and recovery personnel at the site: the majority were issued a paper dust mask, or -- more commonly -- no protection at all.”
At the time, former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, then administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), announced that at Ground Zero “the air is safe to breathe and the water is safe to drink."
Now, the group says, “more than nine years after the disaster, huge numbers of first responders, plus their fellow exposed New Yorkers are grievously ill. Afflictions range from chronic bronchial disease to asbestosis, leukemia and cancers, plus a host of other diseases including systemic organ failure.”
It adds that “The combined poisons of the dust and emissions are now widely considered to be one of the most toxic combinations in the history of US disaster relief, affecting not only First Responders, but hundreds of thousands of residents, workers and students of Lower Manhattan and the surrounding areas who returned to homes, jobsites and schools which--shockingly--received little or no government-mandated cleanup.”
The World Trade Center Health Registry estimates that 410,000 people have been ‘heavily exposed’ to WTC toxins (includes Responders), and may become seriously ill in the future.”
The legislation is supported by members of the New York and New Jersey Congressional delegations, including some Republicans, and by the Uniformed Fire Officers Association.
The legislation would ensure:
That every 9/11 responder exposed to the toxins of Ground Zero and related
sites has a right to be medically monitored.
That every 9/11 responder who is sick as a result of exposure has a right to
treatment.
That care is expanded to the exposed community, including residents, area
workers, students, and the thousands of people who came from across the country in response to the 9/11 attacks.
That the 9/11 Victim’s Compensation Fund would be reopened to provide
compensation for economic loss and damages.
The legislation would continue funding and support of the ‘Centers of Excellence’ in New York and New Jersey (the New York City Fire Department, and a number of major hospitals and universities), which currently provide monitoring, support and care to First Responders.
It would also establish a Research and Support program by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for the diagnosis and treatment of WTC-related conditions and diseases.
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