By William Fisher
Wikileaks spectacular paper dump of U.S. diplomatic cables may not yet have produced any bonecrushers, but many of the restricted or secret documents released to the world on Sunday have served to peel back the scabs of serious injuries inflicted by the administration of George W. Bush.
For example, the documents reveal that American officials, including the U.S. ambassador, sharply warned Germany in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers involved in a bungled operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was mistakenly kidnapped and held for months in Afghanistan.
In one of the cables, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, William R. Timken Jr., reports on a meeting to caution German officials against trying to enforce an arrest warrant against CIA officers implicated in the kidnapping of a German citizen with the same name as a suspected terrorist.
A senior American diplomat tells a German official “that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S.”
Observers are characterizing that as the thinnest of veiled threats.
The German victim of mistaken identity is Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen. In a lawsuit brought by El-Masry, he alleged that he was kidnapped in 2004, “rendered” to Albania and then to Afghanistan , where he was falsely held by the CIA for several months (which the CIA acknowledges) and was beaten, drugged, and subjected to various other inhumane activity while in captivity.
He was ultimately released by the CIA on a deserted road in Macedonia in the dead of night with no charge ever being brought against him by the United States government or anyone else.
In 2005, the ACLU sued former CIA Director George Tenet and three U.S.-based aviation corporations that owned or operated the aircraft used by the CIA to render El-Masri to Afghanistan. The lawsuit charged Tenet and others with violating the U.S. Constitution and universal human rights laws.
In May 2006, El-Masri ‘s court case was dismissed based on invocation of the “state secrets privilege,” by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The U.S. District Court dismissed his case because, according to the court, the
simple fact of holding proceedings would jeopardize state secrets, as claimed by the CIA. On March 2, 2007, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the lower court’s decision.
On October 9, 2007, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the Fourth Circuit's decision, letting the doctrine of state secrets privilege stand.
Steven Aftergood, director of the Government Secrecy Project of the American Federal of Scientists, told IPS, "There are innocent individuals who have been swept up in U.S. Government counterterrorism operations, wrongly detained, 'rendered' surreptitiously to foreign countries, subjected to extreme physical and mental stress, or otherwise wronged."
He added, "In some cases, like those of persons such as Maher Arar and Khaled el-Masri, efforts to seek legal remedies have been blocked by the Government's invocation of the state secrets privilege. As a result, the alleged abuses committed in such cases remain unresolved, and there is no way for the affected individuals to be made whole."
Thwarted by U.S. Courts, El-Masri took his case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The IACHR accepted a petition filed by the ACLU. It asks the IACHR to declare that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s “extraordinary rendition” program violates the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, to find the U.S. responsible for violating El-Masri's rights under that declaration, and to recommend that the U.S. publicly acknowledge and apologize for its role in El-Masri's forcible disappearance, detention and torture.
At that time, Steven Watt, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program, told IPS, "This petition gives the U.S. yet another opportunity to account for one of the most heinous practices of the George W. Bush administration.”
“Our government kidnapped an innocent man; tortured him and then, adding insult to injury, denied him his day in court through bogus claims of harm to national security. President Obama has often stated that he wants to look forward, not backward. Engagement in this Commission process will be a means of putting those words into action and revealing the truth to El-Masri and the American people, he said."
He added, "The State Department should fully engage in this process and comprehensively address the gross violation of El-Masri's human rights, including his forcible disappearance and torture. To date, the United States hasn't so much as acknowledged its involvement in El-Masri's extraordinary rendition."
In March 2007, a federal appeals court dismissed the lawsuit because of the government's assertion of the "state secrets" privilege. The U.S. Supreme Court let that decision stand when it refused to hear the case in October 2007.
"The United States, which has historically been a leader in ensuring access to justice for human rights violations around the world, has effectively closed the courtroom door to all victims of the Bush administration's torture regime," said Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project.
The Wikileaks dump revealed a 2007 State Department document showing that the U.S. “warned” the German government against making any moves to secure the arrests of the CIA agents responsible for the kidnapping, saying any such move would have “repercussions” to the relationship between the two nations.
German officials, according to the document, conceded that they understood the possible diplomatic consequences but also warned hat given the outcry from the German media their options were limited. The US admonished them to consider the “political context” of the kidnapping of the innocent man.
Despite the warnings the German government did issue Interpol arrest warrants for CIA officials involved in the kidnapping, though they dropped them a few months later.
The Wiki cable shows a discussion between the U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission – one step below the Ambassador -- with German Deputy National Security Adviser Rolf Nikel. The cable says: “The DCM reiterated our strong concerns about the possible issuance of international arrest warrants in the al-Masri case.
The DCM noted that the reports in the German media of the discussion on the issue between the Secretary and [Foreign Minister] Steinmeier in Washington were not accurate, in that the media reports suggest the USG was not troubled by developments in the al-Masri case.”
The cable went on to say: “The DCM emphasized that this was not the case and that issuance of international arrest warrants would have a negative impact on our bilateral relationship. He reminded Nikel of the repercussions to U.S.-Italian bilateral relations in the wake of a similar move by Italian authorities last year.”
Politically speaking, said Nikel, “Germany would have to examine the implications for relations with the U.S. At the same time, he noted our political differences about how the global war on terrorism should be waged, for example on the appropriateness of the Guantanamo facility and the alleged use of renditions.”
Nikel also cited intense pressure from the Bundestag and the German media. The German federal Government must consider the "entire political context," said Nikel. He assured the DCM that the [Chancellor’s office] is well aware of the bilateral political implications of the case, but added that this case "will not be easy."
Monday, November 29, 2010
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Mobilizing to Beat The Dream Act
By William Fisher
Democratic lawmakers will attempt to summon up their waning power by using the so-called “lame duck” session of Congress to pass what will likely be the closest they will get to comprehensive immigration reform.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid will shepherd remaining members of their dwindling flock to pass The DREAM Act, which provides a six-year conditional path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. by their parents before they were 16 years of age. In order to qualify, an illegal immigrant has either to obtain a college degree or serve two years in the military.
Despite heavy support from immigration, civil rights, business and labor groups, some conservative Republican legislators – including some who were original co-sponsors of the legislation -- are continuing to brand the measure as “amnesty.”
Supporters of the bill say this is merely an attempt to scare the American public.
The measure’s critics contend that defeating the act must be, in the words of Iowa Republican U.S. Rep. Steve King, “ a top priority before it provides an uncontrollable citizenship path to thousands of illegal immigrants.”
The right-wing publication Newsmax writes, “On the surface, the act would provide a road to citizenship for students who are illegal immigrants.” But it quotes the conservative Rep. King as saying “it would allow students to sponsor their extended families on that path.”
“We calculated that a single individual could bring in 357 people on a family reunification plan before we ran out of room on our spreadsheet,” King says.
Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may be able to push the act through the lame-duck session of Congress, King told Newsmax. But Republicans should be able to use the filibuster to kill it in the Senate, he says.
“This is an out-of-control immigration path,” King says. “We need to fence that in and limit it to direct family members.”
King also intends to introduce a bill next year making clear that babies born to illegal mothers in the United States aren’t American citizens because they aren’t subject to U.S. jurisdiction.
A "lame duck" session of Congress in the U.S. occurs whenever one Congress meets after its successor is elected, but before the successor's term begins. The old Congress returned to work November 15 for a week, then recessed for the Thanksgiving holiday. They will return to work on Monday. Representatives and Senators elected or reelected in the mid-term elections just concluded will not take office until January 2011.
Meanwhile, efforts to shore up support for the legislation continue to strengthen.
The measure now has the support of the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, and a wide range of organizations and individuals concerned with the political, economic and social implications of immigration reform.
“I supported the DREAM Act when I was governor. I support it now…It seems to me that that DREAM Act is a good piece of legislation and a good idea,” Napolitano told Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin in congressional testimony.
Travis Packer, a Policy Research Assistant with the American Immigration Council, says the “tired effort to pit immigrants against native born is not only destructive, but has no basis in fact. It also ignores the economic benefits that come from legalizing a group of talented, hard working individuals who want nothing more than to contribute to America and repay the country for the opportunities they’ve been given.”
“It’s hard to imagine, given the economic data and bipartisan support, how these hardliners can justify twisting the DREAM Act into a rhetorical ball of fear,” he says, adding:
“The people who qualify for the amnesty are those who did not choose to be illegal immigrants. In essence, as illegal immigrants these are people without a country. All their lifelong friends are from the U.S., and they know nobody - and perhaps don't even speak the language - of their motherland. In addition, by adding people with degrees to the country, it will help us advance.”
Packer has assembled a litany of what he terms the myths that have become associated with the DREAM Act. He says, “The most egregious of them is the allegation that the DREAM Act “rewards” undocumented youth—who, by the way, had no choice in coming to the United States.”
He says other myths include:
The DREAM Act’s passage would somehow cheat native-born students out of opportunities. It will spur more illegal immigration because it rewards undocumented youth. It uses taxpayer dollars for scholarships and grants to undocumented students. It legalizes criminals and gang members and lets people who have already been ordered deported avoid the law.
Packer says, “Clearly, these myths are being spun in an effort to scare Americans into opposing this piece of humanitarian legislation as well as a larger immigration overhaul in the future. The truth is that the DREAM Act has long been supported by both Republicans and Democrats alike—not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes good economic sense for all Americans.”
The Act has won the support of Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). She says, “I supported the Dream Act when I was governor. I support it now…It seems to me that the Dream Act is a good piece of legislation and a good idea.”
Alejandro J. Beutel, Government Liaison for the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), told IPS, “Passing the DREAM Act is in our nation's best moral and economic interests. Doing so will ensure America remains the world's shining beacon of individual liberty and prosperity."
And, according to the Economist newspaper, “The DREAM Act sends the message that although American immigration law in effect tries to make water run uphill, we are not monsters. It says that we will not hobble the prospects of young people raised and schooled in America just because we were so perverse to demand that their parents wait in a line before a door that never opens.”
The Act “signals that we were once a nation of immigrants, and even if we have become too fearful and small to properly honor that noble legacy, America in some small way remains a land of opportunity,” the magazine wrote.
In a related development, the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled last week that students who attend at least three years of high school in California and graduate are eligible for in-state tuition rates at California public colleges and universities, regardless of their immigration status. The court found that federal law did not bar California from offering tuition equality to students. California is one of 10 states with similar laws on the books.
DREAM Act supporters say the legislation would clarify what the California Supreme Court recognized: that federal law does not bar states from making the policy choice to afford students equal access to education.
Democratic lawmakers will attempt to summon up their waning power by using the so-called “lame duck” session of Congress to pass what will likely be the closest they will get to comprehensive immigration reform.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid will shepherd remaining members of their dwindling flock to pass The DREAM Act, which provides a six-year conditional path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. by their parents before they were 16 years of age. In order to qualify, an illegal immigrant has either to obtain a college degree or serve two years in the military.
Despite heavy support from immigration, civil rights, business and labor groups, some conservative Republican legislators – including some who were original co-sponsors of the legislation -- are continuing to brand the measure as “amnesty.”
Supporters of the bill say this is merely an attempt to scare the American public.
The measure’s critics contend that defeating the act must be, in the words of Iowa Republican U.S. Rep. Steve King, “ a top priority before it provides an uncontrollable citizenship path to thousands of illegal immigrants.”
The right-wing publication Newsmax writes, “On the surface, the act would provide a road to citizenship for students who are illegal immigrants.” But it quotes the conservative Rep. King as saying “it would allow students to sponsor their extended families on that path.”
“We calculated that a single individual could bring in 357 people on a family reunification plan before we ran out of room on our spreadsheet,” King says.
Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may be able to push the act through the lame-duck session of Congress, King told Newsmax. But Republicans should be able to use the filibuster to kill it in the Senate, he says.
“This is an out-of-control immigration path,” King says. “We need to fence that in and limit it to direct family members.”
King also intends to introduce a bill next year making clear that babies born to illegal mothers in the United States aren’t American citizens because they aren’t subject to U.S. jurisdiction.
A "lame duck" session of Congress in the U.S. occurs whenever one Congress meets after its successor is elected, but before the successor's term begins. The old Congress returned to work November 15 for a week, then recessed for the Thanksgiving holiday. They will return to work on Monday. Representatives and Senators elected or reelected in the mid-term elections just concluded will not take office until January 2011.
Meanwhile, efforts to shore up support for the legislation continue to strengthen.
The measure now has the support of the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, and a wide range of organizations and individuals concerned with the political, economic and social implications of immigration reform.
“I supported the DREAM Act when I was governor. I support it now…It seems to me that that DREAM Act is a good piece of legislation and a good idea,” Napolitano told Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin in congressional testimony.
Travis Packer, a Policy Research Assistant with the American Immigration Council, says the “tired effort to pit immigrants against native born is not only destructive, but has no basis in fact. It also ignores the economic benefits that come from legalizing a group of talented, hard working individuals who want nothing more than to contribute to America and repay the country for the opportunities they’ve been given.”
“It’s hard to imagine, given the economic data and bipartisan support, how these hardliners can justify twisting the DREAM Act into a rhetorical ball of fear,” he says, adding:
“The people who qualify for the amnesty are those who did not choose to be illegal immigrants. In essence, as illegal immigrants these are people without a country. All their lifelong friends are from the U.S., and they know nobody - and perhaps don't even speak the language - of their motherland. In addition, by adding people with degrees to the country, it will help us advance.”
Packer has assembled a litany of what he terms the myths that have become associated with the DREAM Act. He says, “The most egregious of them is the allegation that the DREAM Act “rewards” undocumented youth—who, by the way, had no choice in coming to the United States.”
He says other myths include:
The DREAM Act’s passage would somehow cheat native-born students out of opportunities. It will spur more illegal immigration because it rewards undocumented youth. It uses taxpayer dollars for scholarships and grants to undocumented students. It legalizes criminals and gang members and lets people who have already been ordered deported avoid the law.
Packer says, “Clearly, these myths are being spun in an effort to scare Americans into opposing this piece of humanitarian legislation as well as a larger immigration overhaul in the future. The truth is that the DREAM Act has long been supported by both Republicans and Democrats alike—not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes good economic sense for all Americans.”
The Act has won the support of Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). She says, “I supported the Dream Act when I was governor. I support it now…It seems to me that the Dream Act is a good piece of legislation and a good idea.”
Alejandro J. Beutel, Government Liaison for the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), told IPS, “Passing the DREAM Act is in our nation's best moral and economic interests. Doing so will ensure America remains the world's shining beacon of individual liberty and prosperity."
And, according to the Economist newspaper, “The DREAM Act sends the message that although American immigration law in effect tries to make water run uphill, we are not monsters. It says that we will not hobble the prospects of young people raised and schooled in America just because we were so perverse to demand that their parents wait in a line before a door that never opens.”
The Act “signals that we were once a nation of immigrants, and even if we have become too fearful and small to properly honor that noble legacy, America in some small way remains a land of opportunity,” the magazine wrote.
In a related development, the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled last week that students who attend at least three years of high school in California and graduate are eligible for in-state tuition rates at California public colleges and universities, regardless of their immigration status. The court found that federal law did not bar California from offering tuition equality to students. California is one of 10 states with similar laws on the books.
DREAM Act supporters say the legislation would clarify what the California Supreme Court recognized: that federal law does not bar states from making the policy choice to afford students equal access to education.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Egypt’s Flawed Election
By William Fisher
Egypt’s authoritarian government ramped up its crackdown on journalists and opposition politicians ahead of the November 28 parliamentary elections and rebuffed a U.S. call for international observers to monitor “free and fair” balloting.
At the same time, the U.S. and its principal Middle East ally appeared to be headed for a rhetorical brawl over Egypt’s alleged religious discrimination.
“Egypt is capable of monitoring the upcoming polls to prove to the entire world we are able to manage completely impartial elections,” Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif told journalists.
He dismissed as interference, calls to allow foreign observers to monitor the country's parliamentary elections next week, an official said.
According to press reports, “It is as if the United States has turned into a caretaker of how Egyptian society should conduct its own politics.”
“The National Democratic Party (NDP) and legal opposition groups reject any such interference," said Sawfat al-Sharif, the secretary-general of the NDP.
Some 250 candidates from the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) party have been arrested and many detained. The MB, whose candidates must run as “independents” because the MB is not recognized as a political party, h controls about 20 per cent of the seats in Parliament. It claims that some political parties have done deals with the NDP to exclude Brotherhood candidates from the elections.
The program of Mubarak's ruling party includes such objectives as combating poverty and corruption, raising the standard of living, working towards social justice and strengthening national security. Critics charge that the 82-year-old president has announced similar goals each time there is an election, but claim that it is difficult to see any major changes taking place.
The NDP is expected to maintain majority control in the 518-seat People's Assembly for the new, five-year term. Mubarak is expected to run again for the presidency next year.
The U.S. has been seen by some observers as slow to speak out forcefully regarding the election. But last week State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters, "The United States remains committed to supporting free and impartial elections in Egypt," holding the Egyptian government to its own commitment to "fair and transparent elections."
Crowley called on Egypt to ensure peaceful political gatherings, unhindered voter education and participation campaigns, as well as balanced media coverage for all candidates.
But in Egypt, some election observers found it significant that these announcements came from relatively mid-level personnel rather than U.S. President Barack Obama.
Michele Dunne, a former State Department Middle East specialist and analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the elections pose major challenges.
"The signs are not very positive for having free elections. There have been a lot of steps that the Egyptian government has taken recently to cut down the size of opposition, to diminish the number of opposition candidates who can run, to encumber their freedom to campaign, to control media coverage of the elections and prevent the opposition from using technological means like text messages and so forth to mobilize for the elections," she said.
Meanwhile, government security apparatus continued its political persecution of journalists and Egypt and the U.S. appeared headed for a confrontation regarding religious discrimination.
An Egyptian criminal court began the trial of an opposition journalist accused of libeling Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit. The minister had filed a complaint alleging that he was insulted in an article in the independent daily Shorouk last May.
In other journalism-related developments:
An Egyptian citizen, Usama Mishref, was detained in Saudi Arabia. Mishref is the coordinator of the Saudi branch of an Egyptian group, the National Assembly for Change, which supports a presidential run for Mohamed El Baradei, retired chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Mishref was on his way from Riyadh to Mecca to launch the campaign "You Are The Only Way Out" in support of democratic reform in Egypt. He had posted a video on YouTube urging Egyptians not to be afraid of the security police and to support demands for change and democratic reform in Egypt.
Reporters Without Borders condemned blogger Ahmed Hassan Basiouny’s trial by court martial, and called for the immediate withdrawal of the charges against him. He is the second blogger to face a court martial in Egypt.
Basiouny is being prosecuted for creating a Facebook page in 2009 that offered advice and information to young people thinking of enlisting in the Egyptian army. He is charged with disseminating defense secrets online and “disclosing information about the Egyptian armed forces.”
And Amnesty International issued a new report, 'Shouting slogans into the wind': Human rights concerns ahead of the parliamentary elections’. It said, “The rise in the number of voices calling for reform has been met with increasing repression by the authorities, using the very emergency powers that many Egyptians have been urging them to abolish. Many such critics, in fact, have faced arrest, detention, prosecution on trumped-up criminal charges and unfair trials.”
In developments relating to alleged religious discrimination in Egypt, the State Department released its annual report on religious freedom in the world and outlined several problematic areas in Egypt. The report described ways in which religious minorities like Coptic Christians, Shia, and Baha'i face unfair institutional and legal difficulties in addition to individual discrimination.
"The status of respect for religious freedom by the government remained poor, unchanged from the previous year," the 2010 report said.
Meanwhile, 10 houses owned by Copts in the village of Al-Nawahid in Qena province, some 465 kilometers south of Cairo, were burned down when rumors circulated that a Coptic resident was having an affair with a Muslim woman.
Last year in Qena, a Coptic man was accused of kidnapping and raping a 12-year-old Muslim girl. The alleged assault led to widespread protests by the Muslim community and increased tensions between the two religious groups, which culminated in the murder of six Copts and one Muslim security guard at a church on Jan. 6.
Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt's population of 80 million. Copts and Muslims generally live in peace, though tension and violence occasionally flare.
Human rights groups say attacks on Copts are on the rise, underscoring the government's failure to address chronic sectarian strains in a society where religious radicalism is gaining ground.
On Saturday, the government dismissed the complaints from the United States. It said Washington has no right to hand down judgments.
"The report is rejected on principle because it has been issued by a party which has no right to make such an evaluation," the foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement in reaction to the State Department’s report. The government insists Christians enjoy the same rights as Muslims.
Egypt’s authoritarian government ramped up its crackdown on journalists and opposition politicians ahead of the November 28 parliamentary elections and rebuffed a U.S. call for international observers to monitor “free and fair” balloting.
At the same time, the U.S. and its principal Middle East ally appeared to be headed for a rhetorical brawl over Egypt’s alleged religious discrimination.
“Egypt is capable of monitoring the upcoming polls to prove to the entire world we are able to manage completely impartial elections,” Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif told journalists.
He dismissed as interference, calls to allow foreign observers to monitor the country's parliamentary elections next week, an official said.
According to press reports, “It is as if the United States has turned into a caretaker of how Egyptian society should conduct its own politics.”
“The National Democratic Party (NDP) and legal opposition groups reject any such interference," said Sawfat al-Sharif, the secretary-general of the NDP.
Some 250 candidates from the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) party have been arrested and many detained. The MB, whose candidates must run as “independents” because the MB is not recognized as a political party, h controls about 20 per cent of the seats in Parliament. It claims that some political parties have done deals with the NDP to exclude Brotherhood candidates from the elections.
The program of Mubarak's ruling party includes such objectives as combating poverty and corruption, raising the standard of living, working towards social justice and strengthening national security. Critics charge that the 82-year-old president has announced similar goals each time there is an election, but claim that it is difficult to see any major changes taking place.
The NDP is expected to maintain majority control in the 518-seat People's Assembly for the new, five-year term. Mubarak is expected to run again for the presidency next year.
The U.S. has been seen by some observers as slow to speak out forcefully regarding the election. But last week State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters, "The United States remains committed to supporting free and impartial elections in Egypt," holding the Egyptian government to its own commitment to "fair and transparent elections."
Crowley called on Egypt to ensure peaceful political gatherings, unhindered voter education and participation campaigns, as well as balanced media coverage for all candidates.
But in Egypt, some election observers found it significant that these announcements came from relatively mid-level personnel rather than U.S. President Barack Obama.
Michele Dunne, a former State Department Middle East specialist and analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the elections pose major challenges.
"The signs are not very positive for having free elections. There have been a lot of steps that the Egyptian government has taken recently to cut down the size of opposition, to diminish the number of opposition candidates who can run, to encumber their freedom to campaign, to control media coverage of the elections and prevent the opposition from using technological means like text messages and so forth to mobilize for the elections," she said.
Meanwhile, government security apparatus continued its political persecution of journalists and Egypt and the U.S. appeared headed for a confrontation regarding religious discrimination.
An Egyptian criminal court began the trial of an opposition journalist accused of libeling Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit. The minister had filed a complaint alleging that he was insulted in an article in the independent daily Shorouk last May.
In other journalism-related developments:
An Egyptian citizen, Usama Mishref, was detained in Saudi Arabia. Mishref is the coordinator of the Saudi branch of an Egyptian group, the National Assembly for Change, which supports a presidential run for Mohamed El Baradei, retired chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Mishref was on his way from Riyadh to Mecca to launch the campaign "You Are The Only Way Out" in support of democratic reform in Egypt. He had posted a video on YouTube urging Egyptians not to be afraid of the security police and to support demands for change and democratic reform in Egypt.
Reporters Without Borders condemned blogger Ahmed Hassan Basiouny’s trial by court martial, and called for the immediate withdrawal of the charges against him. He is the second blogger to face a court martial in Egypt.
Basiouny is being prosecuted for creating a Facebook page in 2009 that offered advice and information to young people thinking of enlisting in the Egyptian army. He is charged with disseminating defense secrets online and “disclosing information about the Egyptian armed forces.”
And Amnesty International issued a new report, 'Shouting slogans into the wind': Human rights concerns ahead of the parliamentary elections’. It said, “The rise in the number of voices calling for reform has been met with increasing repression by the authorities, using the very emergency powers that many Egyptians have been urging them to abolish. Many such critics, in fact, have faced arrest, detention, prosecution on trumped-up criminal charges and unfair trials.”
In developments relating to alleged religious discrimination in Egypt, the State Department released its annual report on religious freedom in the world and outlined several problematic areas in Egypt. The report described ways in which religious minorities like Coptic Christians, Shia, and Baha'i face unfair institutional and legal difficulties in addition to individual discrimination.
"The status of respect for religious freedom by the government remained poor, unchanged from the previous year," the 2010 report said.
Meanwhile, 10 houses owned by Copts in the village of Al-Nawahid in Qena province, some 465 kilometers south of Cairo, were burned down when rumors circulated that a Coptic resident was having an affair with a Muslim woman.
Last year in Qena, a Coptic man was accused of kidnapping and raping a 12-year-old Muslim girl. The alleged assault led to widespread protests by the Muslim community and increased tensions between the two religious groups, which culminated in the murder of six Copts and one Muslim security guard at a church on Jan. 6.
Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt's population of 80 million. Copts and Muslims generally live in peace, though tension and violence occasionally flare.
Human rights groups say attacks on Copts are on the rise, underscoring the government's failure to address chronic sectarian strains in a society where religious radicalism is gaining ground.
On Saturday, the government dismissed the complaints from the United States. It said Washington has no right to hand down judgments.
"The report is rejected on principle because it has been issued by a party which has no right to make such an evaluation," the foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement in reaction to the State Department’s report. The government insists Christians enjoy the same rights as Muslims.
ICE Deporting the Wrong People
By William Fisher
While U.S. immigration authorities are “understandably eager to trumpet the overall number” of people they deport, close to one in three deportations recommended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is being rejected by Immigration Courts, according to an analysis of case-by-case government data.
During the last three months of FY 2010, the rejection rate of ICE requests for deportation was nearly one out of three or 31 percent. This turndown rate is up from what it was — one out of every four — 12 months earlier.
For all of FY 2010, some courts turned down ICE removal requests more than half of the time. Among them were the Immigration Courts in New York City (70% turned down), Oregon (63% turned down), Los Angeles (63% turned down), Miami (59% turned down) and Philadelphia (55% turned down). In criminal prosecutions, the typical conviction rate in recent years for immigration cases is 96 percent.
These findings are based on analysis of recent information obtained by the Transactional Clearing House at Syracuse University (TRAC) under the Freedom of Information Act.
The TRAC analysis says that the poor targeting of government removal efforts documented by the Immigration Court data shows that “scarce resources such as the investigative time of ICE agents are being wasted and that the ability of the government to deport those who should be removed from the country therefore has been reduced.”
Attorney Alison Parker, who directs the U.S. domestic civil rights program for Human Rights Watch, told IPS, “ICE is under huge pressure to show that it is deporting the undocumented. As a result it is casting its net far too wide. Secondly, the current law allows ICE to go after everyone – from turnstile-jumpers to serial killers. There are far too many turnstile-jumpers being deported. ICE should concentrate its resources on people who have committed serious crimes.”
The analysis shows that in the fiscal year 2006-2010 period, unsuccessful ICE filings affected almost a quarter of a million individuals (246,721) who were not subject to deportation because they were entitled to reside in the United States. The count is even higher (313,244), however, if all other reasons given by the judges for not granting ICE removals and deportation are counted.
Lena Graber of the National Immigration Forum agrees that the TRAC analysis shows that “ICE casts a very wide net and pursues targets indiscriminately, despite their claims about enforcement priorities.”
She told IPS, “The growth in cases dismissed for having ‘no grounds for removal’ -- from under 5% a few years ago to nearly 12% in 2010 -- demonstrates that ICE is pursuing removal against people who should not be forced to go through proceedings at all.”
She also expressed concern about the distribution of these dismissal rates. She pointed out that most of them occur in urban areas with large immigrant populations. There, she said, “the proportion of cases dismissed or granted relief is noticeably higher than average. This is likely because the vast majority of people in removal proceedings are not represented by an attorney, but those in urban areas with large immigrant populations are the most likely to have access to immigration attorneys and particularly immigrant defense organizations and pro bono networks.”
She added, “This underscores the injustice of having most of our immigration detention centers in remote rural areas in the south, far from access to legal representation.”
The documents analyzed track what happens to ICE cases where the law requires the agency to obtain the concurrence of an immigration judge before an individual is deported from the United States. ICE has refused to release more detailed data to better explain the growing rejection rates and the possible reasons behind these important shifts.
TRAC says the questions the public has “might be answered with the more extensive data that the agency has sought to withhold from the public.”
One question involves the effectiveness of the agency: is it targeting the individuals for removal who in fact should be deported? The second concerns the fairness of the process: What is the impact on those individuals the agency has wrongly sought to remove who were entitled to remain in the United States?
TRAC suggests that one reason may be the “growing pressures to increase the volume of illegal immigrants the agency catches and removes from the country.” The administration of U.S. president Barack Obama has announced new priorities targeting aliens with particularly serious criminal records.
But other studies have shown that a large proportion of those deported to not have such criminal records, and in fact have been arrested for petty crimes and traffic violations. ICE has also focused increasing resources on new initiatives such as Secure Communities while de-emphasizing large scale raids on businesses.
According to HRW’s Alison Parker, ICE’s new priorities “have yet to be transformed into action.” She suggested that reform at ICE “requires a cultural change” from ICE’s predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
TRAC says that “because ICE is withholding data that would track cases from their origins to disposition we are prevented from determining which particular initiatives may account for the sharp increase in ICE's turndown rate.”
TRAC adds that “It seems unlikely that these changes can be attributed to changes in the Immigration Courts.” During this past year there has been little change in the makeup of judges serving on the court.
TRAC’s findings are based upon a detailed analysis of 3.4 million records covering each proceeding filed in the Immigration Courts for fiscal years 1998 — 2010.
The group says that, over the past five years court records indicate there were a total of 94,949 cases that the judges said they had terminated because there were no grounds for removal. In addition, there were 151,682 cases where the judges granted relief.
In some areas of the country the court turns down ICE's removal request over half of the time. These include courts in New York, Oregon (which also covers Idaho, Montana and Alaska), Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia.
TRAC found that larger Immigration Courts regardless of the region of the country were seeing an increase in the rejection rates on ICE removal actions. The three courts that disposed of the largest number of cases during FY 2010 were courts in Los Angeles, New York City and Miami.
TRAC concludes that “poor targeting that weakens the government is inefficient. In addition, however, poor targeting imposes real personal and financial burdens on the individuals who have been wrongfully selected for removal. It is unfair.”
While U.S. immigration authorities are “understandably eager to trumpet the overall number” of people they deport, close to one in three deportations recommended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is being rejected by Immigration Courts, according to an analysis of case-by-case government data.
During the last three months of FY 2010, the rejection rate of ICE requests for deportation was nearly one out of three or 31 percent. This turndown rate is up from what it was — one out of every four — 12 months earlier.
For all of FY 2010, some courts turned down ICE removal requests more than half of the time. Among them were the Immigration Courts in New York City (70% turned down), Oregon (63% turned down), Los Angeles (63% turned down), Miami (59% turned down) and Philadelphia (55% turned down). In criminal prosecutions, the typical conviction rate in recent years for immigration cases is 96 percent.
These findings are based on analysis of recent information obtained by the Transactional Clearing House at Syracuse University (TRAC) under the Freedom of Information Act.
The TRAC analysis says that the poor targeting of government removal efforts documented by the Immigration Court data shows that “scarce resources such as the investigative time of ICE agents are being wasted and that the ability of the government to deport those who should be removed from the country therefore has been reduced.”
Attorney Alison Parker, who directs the U.S. domestic civil rights program for Human Rights Watch, told IPS, “ICE is under huge pressure to show that it is deporting the undocumented. As a result it is casting its net far too wide. Secondly, the current law allows ICE to go after everyone – from turnstile-jumpers to serial killers. There are far too many turnstile-jumpers being deported. ICE should concentrate its resources on people who have committed serious crimes.”
The analysis shows that in the fiscal year 2006-2010 period, unsuccessful ICE filings affected almost a quarter of a million individuals (246,721) who were not subject to deportation because they were entitled to reside in the United States. The count is even higher (313,244), however, if all other reasons given by the judges for not granting ICE removals and deportation are counted.
Lena Graber of the National Immigration Forum agrees that the TRAC analysis shows that “ICE casts a very wide net and pursues targets indiscriminately, despite their claims about enforcement priorities.”
She told IPS, “The growth in cases dismissed for having ‘no grounds for removal’ -- from under 5% a few years ago to nearly 12% in 2010 -- demonstrates that ICE is pursuing removal against people who should not be forced to go through proceedings at all.”
She also expressed concern about the distribution of these dismissal rates. She pointed out that most of them occur in urban areas with large immigrant populations. There, she said, “the proportion of cases dismissed or granted relief is noticeably higher than average. This is likely because the vast majority of people in removal proceedings are not represented by an attorney, but those in urban areas with large immigrant populations are the most likely to have access to immigration attorneys and particularly immigrant defense organizations and pro bono networks.”
She added, “This underscores the injustice of having most of our immigration detention centers in remote rural areas in the south, far from access to legal representation.”
The documents analyzed track what happens to ICE cases where the law requires the agency to obtain the concurrence of an immigration judge before an individual is deported from the United States. ICE has refused to release more detailed data to better explain the growing rejection rates and the possible reasons behind these important shifts.
TRAC says the questions the public has “might be answered with the more extensive data that the agency has sought to withhold from the public.”
One question involves the effectiveness of the agency: is it targeting the individuals for removal who in fact should be deported? The second concerns the fairness of the process: What is the impact on those individuals the agency has wrongly sought to remove who were entitled to remain in the United States?
TRAC suggests that one reason may be the “growing pressures to increase the volume of illegal immigrants the agency catches and removes from the country.” The administration of U.S. president Barack Obama has announced new priorities targeting aliens with particularly serious criminal records.
But other studies have shown that a large proportion of those deported to not have such criminal records, and in fact have been arrested for petty crimes and traffic violations. ICE has also focused increasing resources on new initiatives such as Secure Communities while de-emphasizing large scale raids on businesses.
According to HRW’s Alison Parker, ICE’s new priorities “have yet to be transformed into action.” She suggested that reform at ICE “requires a cultural change” from ICE’s predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
TRAC says that “because ICE is withholding data that would track cases from their origins to disposition we are prevented from determining which particular initiatives may account for the sharp increase in ICE's turndown rate.”
TRAC adds that “It seems unlikely that these changes can be attributed to changes in the Immigration Courts.” During this past year there has been little change in the makeup of judges serving on the court.
TRAC’s findings are based upon a detailed analysis of 3.4 million records covering each proceeding filed in the Immigration Courts for fiscal years 1998 — 2010.
The group says that, over the past five years court records indicate there were a total of 94,949 cases that the judges said they had terminated because there were no grounds for removal. In addition, there were 151,682 cases where the judges granted relief.
In some areas of the country the court turns down ICE's removal request over half of the time. These include courts in New York, Oregon (which also covers Idaho, Montana and Alaska), Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia.
TRAC found that larger Immigration Courts regardless of the region of the country were seeing an increase in the rejection rates on ICE removal actions. The three courts that disposed of the largest number of cases during FY 2010 were courts in Los Angeles, New York City and Miami.
TRAC concludes that “poor targeting that weakens the government is inefficient. In addition, however, poor targeting imposes real personal and financial burdens on the individuals who have been wrongfully selected for removal. It is unfair.”
Thursday, November 18, 2010
DEATH PENALTY SURVEY
By William Fisher
A clear majority of U.S. voters-- 61 per cent -- would choose a punishment other than death for murder if given a choice, the Death Penalty Information Center said today as it released the results of “one of the most comprehensive studies ever conducted” of Americans’ views on the death penalty.
In a national poll of 1,500 registered voters conducted by Lake Research Partners, alternative punishments to execution included life with no possibility of parole and with restitution to the victim’s family (39 per cent), life with no possibility of parole (13 per cent), or life with the possibility of parole (9 per cent).
The researchers said the survey “shows growing support for alternatives to the death penalty compared with previous polls.”
The research shows that in states with the death penalty, a plurality of voters said it would make no difference in their vote if a representative supported repeal of the death penalty; and a majority (62 per cent) said either it would make no difference (38 per cent) or they would be more likely to vote for such a representative (24 per cent).
“For decades, politicians have equated being tough on crime with support for the death penalty, but this research suggests voters want their elected officials to be smart on crime, use tax dollars wisely, and fund the services they care about the most. Capital punishment is not a high priority for voters and is not the ‘third rail’ of politics,” Richard Dieter, Executive Director of Death Penalty Information Center told IPS during a telephone news conference.
“We see a real openness to considering life with no possibility for parole as a punishment for murder and a real awareness among Americans of the many problems with the death penalty. It is likely we will see Americans moving away from support for the death penalty as states and local governments grapple with tight budgets and as today’s younger voters and Latinos move into the core of the electorate,” said pollster Celinda Lake.
Since the start of 2009, many states, such as Maryland, Colorado, Connecticut, Montana, Kansas, and New Mexico considered legislation to repeal the death penalty, and it is expected that trend will continue in 2011.
Voters ranked the death penalty the lowest on a list of budget priorities and expressed strong support for replacing the death penalty with life without parole, if the money saved was used to fund crime prevention programs.
In states with the death penalty, a plurality of voters said it would make no difference in their vote if a representative supported repeal of the death penalty; and a majority said either it would make no difference or they would be more likely to vote for such a representative. In 2011, about five states are expected to consider repeal legislation.
The poll dug deeply into Americans’ thinking about the death penalty and the problems they see in this punishment. For decades, elected officials have equated being tough on crime with support for the death penalty, but this research shows that capital punishment may no longer be a “third rail” of politics.
Additional key findings from the polling research include:
Cost emerged as an important concern for a strong majority of Americans. Sixty-eight percent said cost was a very or somewhat convincing argument against the death penalty. Voters ranked emergency services, creating jobs, police and crime prevention, schools and libraries, public health care services, and roads and transportation as more important budget priorities than the death penalty.
A strong majority of respondents (65 per cent) would favor replacing the death penalty with life with no possibility of parole if the money saved were used to fund crime prevention programs.
Hispanic voters were among those most willing to replace the death penalty with an alternative punishment. They responded most strongly to moral objections to the death penalty rooted in faith, as well as the argument that the death penalty is particularly unfair along racial lines.
The poll explored the information that the public uses to make up its mind about the death penalty and the problems they see with this punishment.
Some of the public’s top concerns about the death penalty were that it is applied unevenly and unfairly; it subjects victims’ families to lengthy trials and years of appeals that interfere with the healing process; and it risks executing the innocent.
Spending millions of dollars on the death penalty, at a time when states are cutting back on services such as police forces, schools, and public health, and when life in prison would cost less, was also of concern to voters.
Moral and religious objections to the death penalty were strong among Latino and Catholic voters.
The nationwide poll was conducted in May 2010 with a margin of error of +/- 2.5%
Death Penalty Information Center, founded in 1990, is a non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment.
A clear majority of U.S. voters-- 61 per cent -- would choose a punishment other than death for murder if given a choice, the Death Penalty Information Center said today as it released the results of “one of the most comprehensive studies ever conducted” of Americans’ views on the death penalty.
In a national poll of 1,500 registered voters conducted by Lake Research Partners, alternative punishments to execution included life with no possibility of parole and with restitution to the victim’s family (39 per cent), life with no possibility of parole (13 per cent), or life with the possibility of parole (9 per cent).
The researchers said the survey “shows growing support for alternatives to the death penalty compared with previous polls.”
The research shows that in states with the death penalty, a plurality of voters said it would make no difference in their vote if a representative supported repeal of the death penalty; and a majority (62 per cent) said either it would make no difference (38 per cent) or they would be more likely to vote for such a representative (24 per cent).
“For decades, politicians have equated being tough on crime with support for the death penalty, but this research suggests voters want their elected officials to be smart on crime, use tax dollars wisely, and fund the services they care about the most. Capital punishment is not a high priority for voters and is not the ‘third rail’ of politics,” Richard Dieter, Executive Director of Death Penalty Information Center told IPS during a telephone news conference.
“We see a real openness to considering life with no possibility for parole as a punishment for murder and a real awareness among Americans of the many problems with the death penalty. It is likely we will see Americans moving away from support for the death penalty as states and local governments grapple with tight budgets and as today’s younger voters and Latinos move into the core of the electorate,” said pollster Celinda Lake.
Since the start of 2009, many states, such as Maryland, Colorado, Connecticut, Montana, Kansas, and New Mexico considered legislation to repeal the death penalty, and it is expected that trend will continue in 2011.
Voters ranked the death penalty the lowest on a list of budget priorities and expressed strong support for replacing the death penalty with life without parole, if the money saved was used to fund crime prevention programs.
In states with the death penalty, a plurality of voters said it would make no difference in their vote if a representative supported repeal of the death penalty; and a majority said either it would make no difference or they would be more likely to vote for such a representative. In 2011, about five states are expected to consider repeal legislation.
The poll dug deeply into Americans’ thinking about the death penalty and the problems they see in this punishment. For decades, elected officials have equated being tough on crime with support for the death penalty, but this research shows that capital punishment may no longer be a “third rail” of politics.
Additional key findings from the polling research include:
Cost emerged as an important concern for a strong majority of Americans. Sixty-eight percent said cost was a very or somewhat convincing argument against the death penalty. Voters ranked emergency services, creating jobs, police and crime prevention, schools and libraries, public health care services, and roads and transportation as more important budget priorities than the death penalty.
A strong majority of respondents (65 per cent) would favor replacing the death penalty with life with no possibility of parole if the money saved were used to fund crime prevention programs.
Hispanic voters were among those most willing to replace the death penalty with an alternative punishment. They responded most strongly to moral objections to the death penalty rooted in faith, as well as the argument that the death penalty is particularly unfair along racial lines.
The poll explored the information that the public uses to make up its mind about the death penalty and the problems they see with this punishment.
Some of the public’s top concerns about the death penalty were that it is applied unevenly and unfairly; it subjects victims’ families to lengthy trials and years of appeals that interfere with the healing process; and it risks executing the innocent.
Spending millions of dollars on the death penalty, at a time when states are cutting back on services such as police forces, schools, and public health, and when life in prison would cost less, was also of concern to voters.
Moral and religious objections to the death penalty were strong among Latino and Catholic voters.
The nationwide poll was conducted in May 2010 with a margin of error of +/- 2.5%
Death Penalty Information Center, founded in 1990, is a non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment.
UK GITMO PAYOLA
By William Fisher
The government of the United Kingdom will reportedly pay millions in compensation to seven British nationals who were unlawfully “rendered” to U.S.-run prisons and tortured with the cooperation of British intelligence.
The British press is reporting that Ministers and the security services appear to have decided that exposure of thousands of documents in open court was a risk they could not take. The documents presumably would confirm British complicity with the U.S. in the so-called “extraordinary rendition” of terrorist suspects.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) represents two of those slated to receive reparations in a lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen DataPlan for its role in the U.S. extraordinary rendition program.
The organization said in a statement it was “deeply troubling that while the U.K. and many other countries are now acknowledging and addressing their official complicity in the Bush administration’s human rights abuses, here in the United States the Obama administration continues to shield the architects of the torture program from civil liability while Bush-era officials, including former President Bush and former Vice President Cheney, boast of their crimes on national television.”
The group added, “To date, not a single victim of the Bush administration's torture program has had his day in a U.S. court. The U.S. can no longer stand silently by as other nations reckon with their own agents' complicity in the torture program. Reckoning with the legacy of torture would restore our standing in the world, reassert the rule of law and strengthen our democracy.
“If other democracies can compensate survivors and hold officials accountable for their endorsement of torture, surely we can do the same,” the group said.
Last week, during television interviews to promote his new memoir, “Decision Points,” former U.S. president George W. Bush claimed that techniques such as waterboarding were legal and had protected the U.K. from terrorist attacks.
The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, disagreed with Bush. In fact, it was Cameron’s agreement that lawyers for the former prisoners should begin negotiations with the government that led to the settlement expected to be announced imminently.
The detainees understood to be in line for settlements include Binyam Mohamed, Bisher al-Rawi, Jamil el-Banna, Richard Belmar, Omar Deghayes, Moazzam Begg and Martin Mubanga. Mohamed and Al Rawi, plaintiffs in the Jeppesen case, claim they were kidnapped, forcibly rendered to U.S.-run prisons overseas, and tortured.
The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama invoked the so-called state secrets privilege to have the Jeppesen case thrown out, and a federal appeals court dismissed the case in September. The ACLU has asked the Supreme Court to review that decision.
The U.K. is one of several nations that have taken responsibility for their role in the illegal torture program run by the Bush administration by initiating investigations or public inquiries.
A forthcoming British inquiry will investigate the role U.K. officials played in the program. It was British Prime Minister David Cameron’s agreement that the government should negotiate with the former prisoners that opened the way for a broad inquiry into what British intelligence officials knew about the American rendition and torture programs, and what they did about it. The inquiry is scheduled to report by the end 2011.
The British high court had ruled that confidential documents would have to be released during court hearings. This would take inordinate amounts of time and the documents would likely be highly embarrassing to U.K. officials.
When Guantanamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed sued the British government last year for being complicit in his imprisonment and torture, it caused a major furor in the U.K. foreign office establishment. The former foreign secretary, David Miliband, fought in the high court to have the suit dismissed, on grounds that the Americans had threatened to stop exchanging intelligence with their British allies if the case went ahead. The high court ruled in favor of Mohamed.
The ruling said that Mohamed was subjected to "cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment" by U.S. authorities and ordered the release of a previously secret seven-paragraph summary of CIA documents on his treatment.
Paying reparations to Mohamed will inevitably further diminish Miliband’s reputation.
It appears that the payment to former Guantanamo prisoners would represent the first time a group of former prisoners has successfully sought financial restitution.
The only other known instance of a prisoner receiving a money award is the case of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen. He was stopped by U.S. authorities at Kennedy Airport in New York while enroute from North Africa to his home in Canada, shipped off first to Jordan, and finally to Syria, where he was imprisoned, held incommunicado without charge, and tortured for almost a year. The Syrian authorities then released him without charge.
The U.S. had acted on information supplied by the Canadian Government. After a two-year investigation of the incident, Canada made a formal apology to Arar and awarded him close to ten million dollars.
However, he remains on a U.S. “no fly” list and cannot enter the U.S.
The government of the United Kingdom will reportedly pay millions in compensation to seven British nationals who were unlawfully “rendered” to U.S.-run prisons and tortured with the cooperation of British intelligence.
The British press is reporting that Ministers and the security services appear to have decided that exposure of thousands of documents in open court was a risk they could not take. The documents presumably would confirm British complicity with the U.S. in the so-called “extraordinary rendition” of terrorist suspects.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) represents two of those slated to receive reparations in a lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen DataPlan for its role in the U.S. extraordinary rendition program.
The organization said in a statement it was “deeply troubling that while the U.K. and many other countries are now acknowledging and addressing their official complicity in the Bush administration’s human rights abuses, here in the United States the Obama administration continues to shield the architects of the torture program from civil liability while Bush-era officials, including former President Bush and former Vice President Cheney, boast of their crimes on national television.”
The group added, “To date, not a single victim of the Bush administration's torture program has had his day in a U.S. court. The U.S. can no longer stand silently by as other nations reckon with their own agents' complicity in the torture program. Reckoning with the legacy of torture would restore our standing in the world, reassert the rule of law and strengthen our democracy.
“If other democracies can compensate survivors and hold officials accountable for their endorsement of torture, surely we can do the same,” the group said.
Last week, during television interviews to promote his new memoir, “Decision Points,” former U.S. president George W. Bush claimed that techniques such as waterboarding were legal and had protected the U.K. from terrorist attacks.
The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, disagreed with Bush. In fact, it was Cameron’s agreement that lawyers for the former prisoners should begin negotiations with the government that led to the settlement expected to be announced imminently.
The detainees understood to be in line for settlements include Binyam Mohamed, Bisher al-Rawi, Jamil el-Banna, Richard Belmar, Omar Deghayes, Moazzam Begg and Martin Mubanga. Mohamed and Al Rawi, plaintiffs in the Jeppesen case, claim they were kidnapped, forcibly rendered to U.S.-run prisons overseas, and tortured.
The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama invoked the so-called state secrets privilege to have the Jeppesen case thrown out, and a federal appeals court dismissed the case in September. The ACLU has asked the Supreme Court to review that decision.
The U.K. is one of several nations that have taken responsibility for their role in the illegal torture program run by the Bush administration by initiating investigations or public inquiries.
A forthcoming British inquiry will investigate the role U.K. officials played in the program. It was British Prime Minister David Cameron’s agreement that the government should negotiate with the former prisoners that opened the way for a broad inquiry into what British intelligence officials knew about the American rendition and torture programs, and what they did about it. The inquiry is scheduled to report by the end 2011.
The British high court had ruled that confidential documents would have to be released during court hearings. This would take inordinate amounts of time and the documents would likely be highly embarrassing to U.K. officials.
When Guantanamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed sued the British government last year for being complicit in his imprisonment and torture, it caused a major furor in the U.K. foreign office establishment. The former foreign secretary, David Miliband, fought in the high court to have the suit dismissed, on grounds that the Americans had threatened to stop exchanging intelligence with their British allies if the case went ahead. The high court ruled in favor of Mohamed.
The ruling said that Mohamed was subjected to "cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment" by U.S. authorities and ordered the release of a previously secret seven-paragraph summary of CIA documents on his treatment.
Paying reparations to Mohamed will inevitably further diminish Miliband’s reputation.
It appears that the payment to former Guantanamo prisoners would represent the first time a group of former prisoners has successfully sought financial restitution.
The only other known instance of a prisoner receiving a money award is the case of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen. He was stopped by U.S. authorities at Kennedy Airport in New York while enroute from North Africa to his home in Canada, shipped off first to Jordan, and finally to Syria, where he was imprisoned, held incommunicado without charge, and tortured for almost a year. The Syrian authorities then released him without charge.
The U.S. had acted on information supplied by the Canadian Government. After a two-year investigation of the incident, Canada made a formal apology to Arar and awarded him close to ten million dollars.
However, he remains on a U.S. “no fly” list and cannot enter the U.S.
Revenge of the Body Scanners
By William Fisher
Privacy advocates today called on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to end its controversial new initiative of whole-body scans and enhanced pat-downs of airline passengers, calling the program “dangerous to health, ineffective and unconstitutional.”
Led by consumer advocate Ralph Nader, a group of organizations held a telephonic news conference to insist that the “strip-search” program be suspended and turned over the Congress to investigate.
Nader said, “the machines are ineffective, the pat-downs are too invasive, and the use of radioactive technology poses health risks.” Congress should look into these issues, he said.
Nader cited testimony from a number of physicians who agreed that radioactivity “could cause skin problems” and might pose a public health threat to passengers.
Nader said there is also the issue of how protective these TSA initiatives are. He pointed out that “passengers and crew of 17,000 business jets are not screened at all.”
He added: “The TSA has no strategy. This new program is a commercially driven, knee jerk reaction to the shoe bomber and the underpants bomber. The program should be ended and turned over to Congress.”
Additionally, he said, “What concerns us is the TSA’s secrecy – their obscurantist approach to government...not responding to members of congress, the press or the public.”
In San Diego yesterday, an airline ticket-holder declined to use the electronic body scanner and opted for a pat-down instead. The TSA inspector then explained the intimate anatomic details of the pat-down, at which point the would0-be passenger threatened to sue of the TSA official touched his private parts. He was denied access to the aircraft and threatened with arrest and a civil fine.
Another conference participant, Chip Pitts, a lecturer in law at Stanford University law school, talked about the ineffectiveness of the body scanning technology.
“Despite the secret, corrupt, and deceptive claims under which these machines have been sold by DHS, TSA, and their contract manufacturers, the body scanners don’t detect the sorts of plastic explosives that were their main justification. They’re easily evaded by real terrorists even as they render everyone else a suspect, increasingly relegating the innocent to an unacceptable choice of a radiation scan, or a groping pat-down, or not flying at all.”
“Adopted with utter disregard for a host of laws including the Administrative Procedure Act, the Privacy Act, and other specific statutes, these machines not only reverse the presumption of innocence, but violate the Fourth Amendment and other core provisions of the Bill of Rights, including by placing discriminatory burdens and risks on vulnerable groups and individuals such as religious minorities, children, pregnant women, airport crews, and frequent travelers,” he added.
“They’re thus of a piece with other discredited post-9/11 programs like ‘Total Information Awareness’, ‘Secure Flight,’ and the massive warrantless surveillance and ongoing data mining programs, representing a misplaced techno-utopianism that’s utterly ineffective in achieving the promised objectives -- but quite effective in crushing our deepest values and true security, “ he said.
Other groups participating in the conference included the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Flyers' Rights. Org, We Won’t Fly. org., and the Libertarian Party.
Kate Hanni of Flyers' Rights.org., which claims to have 30,000 members, asked, “Are we getting ahead of terrorists or merely reacting to recent events?”.
Mark Hinkle of the Libertarian Party, said “Everyone who cares about civil liberties should be outraged. The Obama administration shows no respect for the constitution. It believes there is no limit on government power.”
We won't fly.org is promoting a national opt-out day, Nov. 24, to encourage people to protest the TSA program by not flying. Nov. 24 comes at the start of busiest travel season of the year.
EPIC has filed a lawsuit to suspend the body scanner program, calling it "unlawful, invasive, and ineffective." Opposition to the program is growing. The Libertarian Party, the American Pilots Association, Airline CEOs, flyers rights organizations, religious groups, and others are calling for an end to invasive searches at airports. A National Opt-Out Day is scheduled for November 24.
Libertarian Party Chair Mark Hinkle said today, "The TSA should end the strip-search machine program immediately. We've reached a point where our government has no qualms about humiliating us." Hinkle expressed support for the EPIC lawsuit aimed at suspending the body scanner program. Hinkle further said, "We encourage Americans to call their newly-elected members of Congress and tell them that they don't want this expensive, worthless, intrusive, unconstitutional program."
The EPIC lawsuit challenges the unilateral decision of the TSA to make body scanners the primary screening technique in U.S. airports. Three frequent air travelers are joining EPIC in the lawsuit: security expert Bruce Schneier, human rights activist Chip Pitts, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations legal counsel Nadhira Al-Khalili.
The Petitioners have brought claims under the Administrative Procedure Act, the Privacy Act, the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Fourth Amendment. The Petitioners are seeking the suspension of the body scanner program.
In its brief, EPIC argues that the Department of Homeland Security "has initiated the most sweeping, the most invasive, and the most unaccountable suspicionless search of American travelers in history." EPIC further argues that the Transportation Security Administration "must comply with relevant law, and it must not be permitted to engage in such a fundamental change in agency practice without providing the public the opportunity to express its views."
Privacy advocates today called on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to end its controversial new initiative of whole-body scans and enhanced pat-downs of airline passengers, calling the program “dangerous to health, ineffective and unconstitutional.”
Led by consumer advocate Ralph Nader, a group of organizations held a telephonic news conference to insist that the “strip-search” program be suspended and turned over the Congress to investigate.
Nader said, “the machines are ineffective, the pat-downs are too invasive, and the use of radioactive technology poses health risks.” Congress should look into these issues, he said.
Nader cited testimony from a number of physicians who agreed that radioactivity “could cause skin problems” and might pose a public health threat to passengers.
Nader said there is also the issue of how protective these TSA initiatives are. He pointed out that “passengers and crew of 17,000 business jets are not screened at all.”
He added: “The TSA has no strategy. This new program is a commercially driven, knee jerk reaction to the shoe bomber and the underpants bomber. The program should be ended and turned over to Congress.”
Additionally, he said, “What concerns us is the TSA’s secrecy – their obscurantist approach to government...not responding to members of congress, the press or the public.”
In San Diego yesterday, an airline ticket-holder declined to use the electronic body scanner and opted for a pat-down instead. The TSA inspector then explained the intimate anatomic details of the pat-down, at which point the would0-be passenger threatened to sue of the TSA official touched his private parts. He was denied access to the aircraft and threatened with arrest and a civil fine.
Another conference participant, Chip Pitts, a lecturer in law at Stanford University law school, talked about the ineffectiveness of the body scanning technology.
“Despite the secret, corrupt, and deceptive claims under which these machines have been sold by DHS, TSA, and their contract manufacturers, the body scanners don’t detect the sorts of plastic explosives that were their main justification. They’re easily evaded by real terrorists even as they render everyone else a suspect, increasingly relegating the innocent to an unacceptable choice of a radiation scan, or a groping pat-down, or not flying at all.”
“Adopted with utter disregard for a host of laws including the Administrative Procedure Act, the Privacy Act, and other specific statutes, these machines not only reverse the presumption of innocence, but violate the Fourth Amendment and other core provisions of the Bill of Rights, including by placing discriminatory burdens and risks on vulnerable groups and individuals such as religious minorities, children, pregnant women, airport crews, and frequent travelers,” he added.
“They’re thus of a piece with other discredited post-9/11 programs like ‘Total Information Awareness’, ‘Secure Flight,’ and the massive warrantless surveillance and ongoing data mining programs, representing a misplaced techno-utopianism that’s utterly ineffective in achieving the promised objectives -- but quite effective in crushing our deepest values and true security, “ he said.
Other groups participating in the conference included the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Flyers' Rights. Org, We Won’t Fly. org., and the Libertarian Party.
Kate Hanni of Flyers' Rights.org., which claims to have 30,000 members, asked, “Are we getting ahead of terrorists or merely reacting to recent events?”.
Mark Hinkle of the Libertarian Party, said “Everyone who cares about civil liberties should be outraged. The Obama administration shows no respect for the constitution. It believes there is no limit on government power.”
We won't fly.org is promoting a national opt-out day, Nov. 24, to encourage people to protest the TSA program by not flying. Nov. 24 comes at the start of busiest travel season of the year.
EPIC has filed a lawsuit to suspend the body scanner program, calling it "unlawful, invasive, and ineffective." Opposition to the program is growing. The Libertarian Party, the American Pilots Association, Airline CEOs, flyers rights organizations, religious groups, and others are calling for an end to invasive searches at airports. A National Opt-Out Day is scheduled for November 24.
Libertarian Party Chair Mark Hinkle said today, "The TSA should end the strip-search machine program immediately. We've reached a point where our government has no qualms about humiliating us." Hinkle expressed support for the EPIC lawsuit aimed at suspending the body scanner program. Hinkle further said, "We encourage Americans to call their newly-elected members of Congress and tell them that they don't want this expensive, worthless, intrusive, unconstitutional program."
The EPIC lawsuit challenges the unilateral decision of the TSA to make body scanners the primary screening technique in U.S. airports. Three frequent air travelers are joining EPIC in the lawsuit: security expert Bruce Schneier, human rights activist Chip Pitts, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations legal counsel Nadhira Al-Khalili.
The Petitioners have brought claims under the Administrative Procedure Act, the Privacy Act, the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Fourth Amendment. The Petitioners are seeking the suspension of the body scanner program.
In its brief, EPIC argues that the Department of Homeland Security "has initiated the most sweeping, the most invasive, and the most unaccountable suspicionless search of American travelers in history." EPIC further argues that the Transportation Security Administration "must comply with relevant law, and it must not be permitted to engage in such a fundamental change in agency practice without providing the public the opportunity to express its views."
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