Showing posts with label ACLU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ACLU. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
ACLU Rates Obama Below Paul, Johnson
ACLU Rates Obama Below Ron Paul and Libertarian Gary Johnson
ACLU report card finds fault with Obama, rivals
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, January 2, 2012
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/01/MNND1MJ7UO.DTL
The American Civil Liberties Union has issued "Liberty Watch 2012," its report card for presidential candidates on issues like surveillance, torture, gay rights and immigration. No one gets an A, including President Obama.
Obama, the only Democrat among the 10 candidates rated, got a perfect score - four "torches" - on only one issue, allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, for his backing of the December 2010 law that repealed "don't ask, don't tell."
But he received lower marks on immigration, abortion rights and "closing Guantanamo Bay and indefinite detention," where his one-torch rating was attributed to backtracking on a promise to shut the prison for suspected terrorists and his support for holding their trials in military commissions.
'Surveillance state'
The ACLU gave Obama a zero rating in the category of "ending a surveillance state," citing his support for renewing the search and surveillance provisions of the Patriot Act.
The ACLU has praised Obama for banning torture and closing secret CIA prisons, but says he has refused to hold government wrongdoers accountable. The organization has gone to court on behalf of alleged victims of illegal wiretapping and CIA abductions during the Bush administration, lawsuits that Obama's Justice Department says threaten state secrets.
The nonprofit civil liberties group is officially nonpartisan and does not endorse political candidates. Its report focuses on issues of government power and minority rights that attract little attention in most presidential elections.
GOP candidates
The survey gave low ratings to most of the Republican hopefuls, marks they might want to trumpet in Tuesday's Iowa caucuses to appeal to conservatives who consider the ACLU a fighting word. Three candidates - Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann - received zero torches in all seven categories.
Romney, the ACLU noted, has endorsed Arizona's "show us your papers" immigration law, called for doubling the size of Guantanamo, backed waterboarding of terrorism suspects and supported a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Santorum wants criminal prosecution of doctors who perform abortions, the survey said, and Bachmann has proposed amending the Constitution to eliminate citizenship rights for U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.
Fellow Republicans Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry were given zeros on all issues but immigration, where both men's statements opposing wholesale deportations have angered hard-liners and have been seen as liabilities in the primary campaign.
Gingrich, the ACLU said, supports allowing youngsters brought to the United States by their parents to earn the right to citizenship by serving in the armed forces. The ACLU noted that Perry opposed a U.S.-Mexico border fence, said Arizona's immigration law "would not be the right direction for Texas," and signed a bill as governor in 2001 granting in-state tuition to illegal immigrants attending college.
Both candidates were given two torches on the issue, same as Obama. The president supports a path to citizenship for undocumented youths who enter the military or college, and he has challenged the Arizona law in court. But his administration increased deportations to record levels and expanded Secure Communities, which requires local authorities to forward arrestees' fingerprints to the federal government for immigration checks.
Highest ranking
The highest overall rating went to former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, a Republican-turned-Libertarian, who opposes the Patriot Act and - unlike Obama - supports the right of gays and lesbians to marry. Among the leading Republican candidates, libertarian-leaning Rep. Ron Paul also got a higher score than Obama despite low ratings in several categories.
The ACLU gave the Texas congressman high marks for opposing the Patriot Act and indefinite detention of suspected terrorists, condemning waterboarding and voting to repeal "don't ask, don't tell." But it criticized Paul's call for an end to "birthright citizenship" for children of illegal immigrants, his support of the law that denies federal marriage benefits to same-sex couples and his opposition to abortion.
Obama, endorsed by abortion-rights groups in 2008, was given three torches on "reproductive choice" by the ACLU, which cited his support for federal funding of Planned Parenthood and family-planning programs but also his bowing to Republican demands to ban funding for poor women's abortions in Washington, D.C., as part of legislation to prevent a government shutdown.
Obama also accepted restrictions on insurance coverage for abortion in the national health care law that passed in 2010.
Report card link
The survey can be viewed at www.aclulibertywatch.org/ALWCandidateReportCard.pdf.
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page A - 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Friday, December 23, 2011
Obama to sign indefinite detention bill into law
After spend months threatening a veto, the President decides instead to codify the first such bill since the 1950s Glenn Greenwald
Thursday, Dec 15, 2011
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/15/obama_to_sign_indefinite_detention_bill_into_law
In one of the least surprising developments imaginable, President Obama – after spending months threatening to veto the Levin/McCain detention bill – yesterday announced that he would instead sign it into law (this is the same individual, of course, who unequivocally vowed when seeking the Democratic nomination to support a filibuster of “any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecom[s],” only to turn around – once he had the nomination secure — and not only vote against such a filibuster, but to vote in favor of the underlying bill itself, so this is perfectly consistent with his past conduct). As a result, the final version of the Levin/McCain bill will be enshrined as law this week as part of the the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). I wrote about the primary provisions and implications of this bill last week, and won’t repeat those points here.
The ACLU said last night that the bill contains “harmful provisions that some legislators have said could authorize the U.S. military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians, including American citizens, anywhere in the world” and added: “if President Obama signs this bill, it will damage his legacy.” Human Rights Watch said that Obama’s decision “does enormous damage to the rule of law both in the US and abroad” and that “President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.”
Both groups pointed out that this is the first time indefinite detention has been enshrined in law since the McCarthy era of the 1950s, when — as the ACLU put it — “President Truman had the courage to veto” the Internal Security Act of 1950 on the ground that it “would make a mockery of our Bill of Rights” and then watched Congress override the veto. That Act authorized the imprisonment of Communists and other “subversives” without the necessity of full trials or due process (many of the most egregious provisions of that bill were repealed by the 1971 Non-Detention Act, and are now being rejuvenated by these War on Terror policies of indefinite detention). President Obama, needless to say, is not Harry Truman. He’s not even the Candidate Obama of 2008 who repeatedly insisted that due process and security were not mutually exclusive and who condemned indefinite detention as ”black hole” injustice.
There have been several persistent myths circulating about this bill and President Obama’s position on it that need to be clarified once and for all:
First, while the powers this bill enshrines are indeed radical and dangerous, most of them already exist. That’s because first the Bush administration and now the Obama administration have aggressively argued that the original 2001 AUMF already empowers them to imprison people without charges, use force against even U.S. citizens without due process (Anwar Awlaki), and target not only members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban (as the law states) but also anyone who “substantially supports” those groups and/or “associated forces” (whatever those terms mean). That’s why this bill states that it does not intend to change the 2001 AUMF (even as it codifies far broader language defining the scope of the war) or the detention powers of the President, and it’s why they purposely made the bill vague on whether it expressly authorizes military detention of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil: it’s because the bill’s proponents and the White House both believe that the President already possesses these broadened powers with or without this bill. With a couple of exceptions, this bill just “clarifies” — and codifies — the powers President Obama has already claimed, seized and exercised.
I’m embedding the video below of the segment I did last night on Cenk Uygur’s TV program where I elaborated on this point: this is not to mitigate how heinous this bill is, as there are real dangers to codifying these powers in law with bipartisan Congressional support as opposed to having the President unilaterally seize them and have some lower courts recognize them. Instead, it’s a reflection of how horrible the civil liberties status quo has become under the Bush and Obama administration. This is the reason why civil libertarians have been so harshly critical of this President. It’s the reason civil liberties groups have been saying things like this even when saying them was so unpopular: it’s because Obama has, for three years now, been defending and entrenching exactly the detention powers this law vests, but doing it through radical legal theories, warped interpretations of the 2001 AUMF, continuities with the Bush/Cheney template, and devotion to Endless War and the civil liberties assaults it entails. See the newspaper excerpts below for more proof of this.
Second, as I documented at length last week, Obama’s veto threat was never about substantive objections to the detention powers vested by this bill; put another way, he was never objecting to the bill on civil liberties grounds. Obama, as I documented last week and again below, is not an opponent of indefinite detention; he’s a vigorous proponent of it, as evidenced by his continuous, multi-faceted embrace of that policy.
Obama’s objections to this bill had nothing to do with civil liberties, due process or the Constitution. It had everything to do with Executive power. The White House’s complaint was that Congress had no business tying the hands of the President when deciding who should go into military detention, who should be denied a trial, which agencies should interrogate suspects (the FBI or the CIA). Such decisions, insisted the White House, are for the President, not Congress, to make. In other words, his veto threat was not grounded in the premise that indefinite military detention is wrong; it was grounded in the premise that it should be the President who decides who goes into military detention and why, not Congress.
Even the one substantive objection the White House expressed to the bill — mandatory military detention for accused American Terrorists captured on U.S. soil — was about Executive power, not due process or core liberties. The proof of that — the definitive, conclusive proof — is that Sen. Carl Levin has several times disclosed that it was the White House which demanded removal of a provision in his original draft that would have exempted U.S. citizens from military detention (see the clip of Levin explaining this in the video below). In other words, this was an example of the White House demanding greater detention powers in the bill by insisting on the removal of one of its few constraints (the prohibition on military detention for Americans captured on U.S. soil). That’s because the White House’s North Star on this bill — as they repeatedly made clear — was Presidential discretion: they were going to veto the bill if it contained any limits on the President’s detention powers, regardless of whether those limits forced him to put people in military prison or barred him from doing so.
Any doubt that this was the White House’s only concern with the bill is now dispelled by virtue of the President’s willingness to sign it after certain changes were made in Conference between the House and Senate. Those changes were almost entirely about removing the parts of the bill that constrained his power, and had nothing to do with improving the bill from a civil liberties perspective. Once the sole concern of the White House was addressed — eliminating limits on the President’s power — they were happy to sign the bill even though (rather: because) none of the civil liberties assaults were fixed. As Mother Jones‘ Adam Serwer explained:
This morning I wrote that by making the mandatory military detention provisions mandatory in name only, the Senate had offered the administration an opportunity to see how seriously it takes its own rhetoric on civil liberties. The administration had said that the military detention provisions of an earlier version of the NDAA were “inconsistent with the fundamental American principle that our military does not patrol our streets.”
The revised NDAA is still inconsistent with that fundamental American principle. But the administration has decided that fundamental American principles aren’t actually worth vetoing the bill over.
That’s because, as Serwer explained in a separate post, Congress — in response to the veto threat — made changes “addressing the security concerns, but not the ones related to civil liberties and the rule of law” (by “security concerns,” the White House means: don’t restrict what the President can do). That the White House cared only about the former (presidential discretion), and not at all about the letter (civil liberties), is proven by its willingness to sign the bill when only objections to the former have been addressed. For more proof on this point — and the perfect encapsulation of it — see this comment here.
Third, the most persistent and propagandistic set of myths about President Obama on detention issues is that he tried to end indefinite detention by closing Guantanamo, but was blocked by Congress from doing so. It is true that Congress blocked the closing of Guantanamo, and again in this bill, Congress is imposing virtually insurmountable restrictions on the transfer of detainees out of that camp, including for detainees who have long ago been cleared for release (restrictions that Obama is now going to sign into law). But — and this is not a hard point to understand — while Obama intended to close Guantanamo, he always planned — long before Congress acted — to preserve Guantanamo’s core injustice: indefinite detention.
I need to say that again: long before, and fully independent of, anything Congress did, President Obama made clear that he was going to preserve the indefinite detention system at Guantanamo even once he closed the camp. That’s what makes the apologias over Obama and GITMO so misleading: the controversy over Guantanamo was not that about its locale — that it was based in the Caribbean Sea — so that simply closing it and then re-locating it to a different venue would address the problem. The controversy over Guantanamo was that it was a prison camp where people were put in cages indefinitely, for decades or life, without being charged with any crime. And that policy is one that President Obama whole-heartedly embraced from the start.
Totally prior to and independent of anything Congress did, President Obama fully embraced indefinite detention as his own policy. He is a proponent — not an opponent — of indefinite detention. Just review the facts — the indisputable facts — if you have any doubt about that or if you know anyone who does.
This is why even some progressive Senators such as Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders ultimately voted to deny funding to the closing of Guantanamo: not because they favored GITMO, but because they wanted first to see Obama’s plan for what would replace it, because they did not want to allocate funds to a plan that would simply re-locate GITMO and its defining injustice — indefinite detention — onto U.S. soil.
Can any rational person review these events and try to claim that Obama is some sort of opponent of indefinite detention? He is one of American history’s most aggressive defenders of that power. As Human Rights Watch put it: “President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.” There is no partisan loyalty or leader-reverent propaganda strong enough to obscure that fact.
*
Here is the segment I did last night with Cenk Uygur on his new Current TV program; he started off the segment with quite a rant (understandably so), so our discussion begins at roughly the 7:00 mark, though the video of Sen. Levin explaining the White House’s demands for domestic detention power is at roughly the 2:30 mark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdVdjoPR3Vk
Thursday, Dec 15, 2011
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/15/obama_to_sign_indefinite_detention_bill_into_law
In one of the least surprising developments imaginable, President Obama – after spending months threatening to veto the Levin/McCain detention bill – yesterday announced that he would instead sign it into law (this is the same individual, of course, who unequivocally vowed when seeking the Democratic nomination to support a filibuster of “any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecom[s],” only to turn around – once he had the nomination secure — and not only vote against such a filibuster, but to vote in favor of the underlying bill itself, so this is perfectly consistent with his past conduct). As a result, the final version of the Levin/McCain bill will be enshrined as law this week as part of the the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). I wrote about the primary provisions and implications of this bill last week, and won’t repeat those points here.
The ACLU said last night that the bill contains “harmful provisions that some legislators have said could authorize the U.S. military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians, including American citizens, anywhere in the world” and added: “if President Obama signs this bill, it will damage his legacy.” Human Rights Watch said that Obama’s decision “does enormous damage to the rule of law both in the US and abroad” and that “President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.”
Both groups pointed out that this is the first time indefinite detention has been enshrined in law since the McCarthy era of the 1950s, when — as the ACLU put it — “President Truman had the courage to veto” the Internal Security Act of 1950 on the ground that it “would make a mockery of our Bill of Rights” and then watched Congress override the veto. That Act authorized the imprisonment of Communists and other “subversives” without the necessity of full trials or due process (many of the most egregious provisions of that bill were repealed by the 1971 Non-Detention Act, and are now being rejuvenated by these War on Terror policies of indefinite detention). President Obama, needless to say, is not Harry Truman. He’s not even the Candidate Obama of 2008 who repeatedly insisted that due process and security were not mutually exclusive and who condemned indefinite detention as ”black hole” injustice.
There have been several persistent myths circulating about this bill and President Obama’s position on it that need to be clarified once and for all:
First, while the powers this bill enshrines are indeed radical and dangerous, most of them already exist. That’s because first the Bush administration and now the Obama administration have aggressively argued that the original 2001 AUMF already empowers them to imprison people without charges, use force against even U.S. citizens without due process (Anwar Awlaki), and target not only members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban (as the law states) but also anyone who “substantially supports” those groups and/or “associated forces” (whatever those terms mean). That’s why this bill states that it does not intend to change the 2001 AUMF (even as it codifies far broader language defining the scope of the war) or the detention powers of the President, and it’s why they purposely made the bill vague on whether it expressly authorizes military detention of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil: it’s because the bill’s proponents and the White House both believe that the President already possesses these broadened powers with or without this bill. With a couple of exceptions, this bill just “clarifies” — and codifies — the powers President Obama has already claimed, seized and exercised.
I’m embedding the video below of the segment I did last night on Cenk Uygur’s TV program where I elaborated on this point: this is not to mitigate how heinous this bill is, as there are real dangers to codifying these powers in law with bipartisan Congressional support as opposed to having the President unilaterally seize them and have some lower courts recognize them. Instead, it’s a reflection of how horrible the civil liberties status quo has become under the Bush and Obama administration. This is the reason why civil libertarians have been so harshly critical of this President. It’s the reason civil liberties groups have been saying things like this even when saying them was so unpopular: it’s because Obama has, for three years now, been defending and entrenching exactly the detention powers this law vests, but doing it through radical legal theories, warped interpretations of the 2001 AUMF, continuities with the Bush/Cheney template, and devotion to Endless War and the civil liberties assaults it entails. See the newspaper excerpts below for more proof of this.
Second, as I documented at length last week, Obama’s veto threat was never about substantive objections to the detention powers vested by this bill; put another way, he was never objecting to the bill on civil liberties grounds. Obama, as I documented last week and again below, is not an opponent of indefinite detention; he’s a vigorous proponent of it, as evidenced by his continuous, multi-faceted embrace of that policy.
Obama’s objections to this bill had nothing to do with civil liberties, due process or the Constitution. It had everything to do with Executive power. The White House’s complaint was that Congress had no business tying the hands of the President when deciding who should go into military detention, who should be denied a trial, which agencies should interrogate suspects (the FBI or the CIA). Such decisions, insisted the White House, are for the President, not Congress, to make. In other words, his veto threat was not grounded in the premise that indefinite military detention is wrong; it was grounded in the premise that it should be the President who decides who goes into military detention and why, not Congress.
Even the one substantive objection the White House expressed to the bill — mandatory military detention for accused American Terrorists captured on U.S. soil — was about Executive power, not due process or core liberties. The proof of that — the definitive, conclusive proof — is that Sen. Carl Levin has several times disclosed that it was the White House which demanded removal of a provision in his original draft that would have exempted U.S. citizens from military detention (see the clip of Levin explaining this in the video below). In other words, this was an example of the White House demanding greater detention powers in the bill by insisting on the removal of one of its few constraints (the prohibition on military detention for Americans captured on U.S. soil). That’s because the White House’s North Star on this bill — as they repeatedly made clear — was Presidential discretion: they were going to veto the bill if it contained any limits on the President’s detention powers, regardless of whether those limits forced him to put people in military prison or barred him from doing so.
Any doubt that this was the White House’s only concern with the bill is now dispelled by virtue of the President’s willingness to sign it after certain changes were made in Conference between the House and Senate. Those changes were almost entirely about removing the parts of the bill that constrained his power, and had nothing to do with improving the bill from a civil liberties perspective. Once the sole concern of the White House was addressed — eliminating limits on the President’s power — they were happy to sign the bill even though (rather: because) none of the civil liberties assaults were fixed. As Mother Jones‘ Adam Serwer explained:
This morning I wrote that by making the mandatory military detention provisions mandatory in name only, the Senate had offered the administration an opportunity to see how seriously it takes its own rhetoric on civil liberties. The administration had said that the military detention provisions of an earlier version of the NDAA were “inconsistent with the fundamental American principle that our military does not patrol our streets.”
The revised NDAA is still inconsistent with that fundamental American principle. But the administration has decided that fundamental American principles aren’t actually worth vetoing the bill over.
That’s because, as Serwer explained in a separate post, Congress — in response to the veto threat — made changes “addressing the security concerns, but not the ones related to civil liberties and the rule of law” (by “security concerns,” the White House means: don’t restrict what the President can do). That the White House cared only about the former (presidential discretion), and not at all about the letter (civil liberties), is proven by its willingness to sign the bill when only objections to the former have been addressed. For more proof on this point — and the perfect encapsulation of it — see this comment here.
Third, the most persistent and propagandistic set of myths about President Obama on detention issues is that he tried to end indefinite detention by closing Guantanamo, but was blocked by Congress from doing so. It is true that Congress blocked the closing of Guantanamo, and again in this bill, Congress is imposing virtually insurmountable restrictions on the transfer of detainees out of that camp, including for detainees who have long ago been cleared for release (restrictions that Obama is now going to sign into law). But — and this is not a hard point to understand — while Obama intended to close Guantanamo, he always planned — long before Congress acted — to preserve Guantanamo’s core injustice: indefinite detention.
I need to say that again: long before, and fully independent of, anything Congress did, President Obama made clear that he was going to preserve the indefinite detention system at Guantanamo even once he closed the camp. That’s what makes the apologias over Obama and GITMO so misleading: the controversy over Guantanamo was not that about its locale — that it was based in the Caribbean Sea — so that simply closing it and then re-locating it to a different venue would address the problem. The controversy over Guantanamo was that it was a prison camp where people were put in cages indefinitely, for decades or life, without being charged with any crime. And that policy is one that President Obama whole-heartedly embraced from the start.
Totally prior to and independent of anything Congress did, President Obama fully embraced indefinite detention as his own policy. He is a proponent — not an opponent — of indefinite detention. Just review the facts — the indisputable facts — if you have any doubt about that or if you know anyone who does.
This is why even some progressive Senators such as Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders ultimately voted to deny funding to the closing of Guantanamo: not because they favored GITMO, but because they wanted first to see Obama’s plan for what would replace it, because they did not want to allocate funds to a plan that would simply re-locate GITMO and its defining injustice — indefinite detention — onto U.S. soil.
Can any rational person review these events and try to claim that Obama is some sort of opponent of indefinite detention? He is one of American history’s most aggressive defenders of that power. As Human Rights Watch put it: “President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.” There is no partisan loyalty or leader-reverent propaganda strong enough to obscure that fact.
*
Here is the segment I did last night with Cenk Uygur on his new Current TV program; he started off the segment with quite a rant (understandably so), so our discussion begins at roughly the 7:00 mark, though the video of Sen. Levin explaining the White House’s demands for domestic detention power is at roughly the 2:30 mark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdVdjoPR3Vk
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Troy Davis Execution Set — Take Action Today!
Sep 9th, 2011
Rachel Myers, ACLU
http://www.aclu.org/blog/capital-punishment/troy-davis-execution-set-take-action-today
The State of Georgia plans to execute Troy Davis at midnight on September 21, even though he is very likely innocent.
Davis has been scheduled for execution three times before, and three times his execution has been stayed amid doubts and new evidence against other suspects. Davis was sentenced on the basis of witness testimony, but seven of nine original witnesses have since recanted or changed their testimony.
We can't afford to execute people who might be innocent – let alone people who probably are.
The last chance for remedy of this egregious injustice is an appeal for clemency to the Georgia Pardons and Parole Board. Clemency in Davis' case does not mean setting him free but instead converting his death sentence to life in prison without parole – that way, if his verdict is ever reversed at least he will be alive to see it.
Rachel Myers, ACLU
http://www.aclu.org/blog/capital-punishment/troy-davis-execution-set-take-action-today
The State of Georgia plans to execute Troy Davis at midnight on September 21, even though he is very likely innocent.
Davis has been scheduled for execution three times before, and three times his execution has been stayed amid doubts and new evidence against other suspects. Davis was sentenced on the basis of witness testimony, but seven of nine original witnesses have since recanted or changed their testimony.
We can't afford to execute people who might be innocent – let alone people who probably are.
The last chance for remedy of this egregious injustice is an appeal for clemency to the Georgia Pardons and Parole Board. Clemency in Davis' case does not mean setting him free but instead converting his death sentence to life in prison without parole – that way, if his verdict is ever reversed at least he will be alive to see it.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
There’s a Secret Patriot Act, Senator Says
Spencer Ackerman
May 25, 2011
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/secret-patriot-act/
You may think you understand how the Patriot Act allows the government to spy on its citizens. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) says it’s worse than you’ve heard.
Congress is set to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the surveillance law as early as Thursday. But Wyden says that what Congress will renew is a mere fig leaf for a far broader legal interpretation of the Patriot Act that the government keeps to itself — entirely in secret. Worse, there are hints that the government uses this secret interpretation to gather what one Patriot-watcher calls a “dragnet” for massive amounts of information on private citizens; the government portrays its data-collection efforts much differently.
“We’re getting to a gap between what the public thinks the law says and what the American government secretly thinks the law says,” Wyden tells Danger Room in an interview in his Senate office. “When you’ve got that kind of a gap, you’re going to have a problem on your hands.”
What exactly does Wyden mean by that? As a member of the intelligence committee, he laments that he can’t precisely explain without disclosing classified information. But one component of the Patriot Act in particular gives him immense pause: the so-called “business-records provision,” which empowers the FBI to get businesses, medical offices, banks and other organizations to turn over any “tangible things” it deems relevant to a security investigation.
“It is fair to say that the business-records provision is a part of the Patriot Act that I am extremely interested in reforming,” Wyden says. “I know a fair amount about how it’s interpreted, and I am going to keep pushing, as I have, to get more information about how the Patriot Act is being interpreted declassified. I think the public has a right to public debate about it.”
That’s why Wyden and his colleague Sen. Mark Udall offered an amendment on Tuesday to the Patriot Act reauthorization.
The amendment, first reported by Marcy Wheeler, blasts the administration for “secretly reinterpret[ing] public laws and statutes.” It would compel the Attorney General to “publicly disclose the United States Government’s official interpretation of the USA Patriot Act.” And, intriguingly, it refers to “intelligence-collection authorities” embedded in the Patriot Act that the administration briefed the Senate about in February.
Wyden says he “can’t answer” any specific questions about how the government thinks it can use the Patriot Act. That would risk revealing classified information — something Wyden considers an abuse of government secrecy. He believes the techniques themselves should stay secret, but the rationale for using their legal use under Patriot ought to be disclosed.
“I draw a sharp line between the secret interpretation of the law, which I believe is a growing problem, and protecting operations and methods in the intelligence area, which have to be protected,” he says.
Surveillance under the business-records provisions has recently spiked. The Justice Department’s official disclosure on its use of the Patriot Act, delivered to Congress in April, reported that the government asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for approval to collect business records 96 times in 2010 — up from just 21 requests the year before. The court didn’t reject a single request. But it “modified” those requests 43 times, indicating to some Patriot-watchers that a broadening of the provision is underway.
“The FISA Court is a pretty permissive body, so that suggests something novel or particularly aggressive, not just in volume, but in the nature of the request,” says Michelle Richardson, the ACLU’s resident Patriot Act lobbyist. “No one has tipped their hand on this in the slightest. But we’ve come to the conclusion that this is some kind of bulk collection. It wouldn’t be surprising to me if it’s some kind of internet or communication-records dragnet.” (Full disclosure: My fiancée works for the ACLU.)
The FBI deferred comment on any secret interpretation of the Patriot Act to the Justice Department. The Justice Department said it wouldn’t have any comment beyond a bit of March congressional testimony from its top national security official, Todd Hinnen, who presented the type of material collected as far more individualized and specific: “driver’s license records, hotel records, car-rental records, apartment-leasing records, credit card records, and the like.”
But that’s not what Udall sees. He warned in a Tuesday statement about the government’s “unfettered” access to bulk citizen data, like “a cellphone company’s phone records.” In a Senate floor speech on Tuesday, Udall urged Congress to restrict the Patriot Act’s business-records seizures to “terrorism investigations” — something the ostensible counterterrorism measure has never required in its nearly 10-year existence.
Indeed, Hinnen allowed himself an out in his March testimony, saying that the business-record provision “also” enabled “important and highly sensitive intelligence-collection operations” to take place. Wheeler speculates those operations include “using geolocation data from cellphones to collect information on the whereabouts of Americans” — something our sister blog Threat Level has reported on extensively.
It’s worth noting that Wyden is pushing a bill providing greater privacy protections for geolocation info.
For now, Wyden’s considering his options ahead of the Patriot Act vote on Thursday. He wants to compel as much disclosure as he can on the secret interpretation, arguing that a shadow broadening of the Patriot Act sets a dangerous precedent.
“I’m talking about instances where the government is relying on secret interpretations of what the law says without telling the public what those interpretations are,” Wyden says, “and the reliance on secret interpretations of the law is growing.”
May 25, 2011
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/secret-patriot-act/
You may think you understand how the Patriot Act allows the government to spy on its citizens. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) says it’s worse than you’ve heard.
Congress is set to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the surveillance law as early as Thursday. But Wyden says that what Congress will renew is a mere fig leaf for a far broader legal interpretation of the Patriot Act that the government keeps to itself — entirely in secret. Worse, there are hints that the government uses this secret interpretation to gather what one Patriot-watcher calls a “dragnet” for massive amounts of information on private citizens; the government portrays its data-collection efforts much differently.
“We’re getting to a gap between what the public thinks the law says and what the American government secretly thinks the law says,” Wyden tells Danger Room in an interview in his Senate office. “When you’ve got that kind of a gap, you’re going to have a problem on your hands.”
What exactly does Wyden mean by that? As a member of the intelligence committee, he laments that he can’t precisely explain without disclosing classified information. But one component of the Patriot Act in particular gives him immense pause: the so-called “business-records provision,” which empowers the FBI to get businesses, medical offices, banks and other organizations to turn over any “tangible things” it deems relevant to a security investigation.
“It is fair to say that the business-records provision is a part of the Patriot Act that I am extremely interested in reforming,” Wyden says. “I know a fair amount about how it’s interpreted, and I am going to keep pushing, as I have, to get more information about how the Patriot Act is being interpreted declassified. I think the public has a right to public debate about it.”
That’s why Wyden and his colleague Sen. Mark Udall offered an amendment on Tuesday to the Patriot Act reauthorization.
The amendment, first reported by Marcy Wheeler, blasts the administration for “secretly reinterpret[ing] public laws and statutes.” It would compel the Attorney General to “publicly disclose the United States Government’s official interpretation of the USA Patriot Act.” And, intriguingly, it refers to “intelligence-collection authorities” embedded in the Patriot Act that the administration briefed the Senate about in February.
Wyden says he “can’t answer” any specific questions about how the government thinks it can use the Patriot Act. That would risk revealing classified information — something Wyden considers an abuse of government secrecy. He believes the techniques themselves should stay secret, but the rationale for using their legal use under Patriot ought to be disclosed.
“I draw a sharp line between the secret interpretation of the law, which I believe is a growing problem, and protecting operations and methods in the intelligence area, which have to be protected,” he says.
Surveillance under the business-records provisions has recently spiked. The Justice Department’s official disclosure on its use of the Patriot Act, delivered to Congress in April, reported that the government asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for approval to collect business records 96 times in 2010 — up from just 21 requests the year before. The court didn’t reject a single request. But it “modified” those requests 43 times, indicating to some Patriot-watchers that a broadening of the provision is underway.
“The FISA Court is a pretty permissive body, so that suggests something novel or particularly aggressive, not just in volume, but in the nature of the request,” says Michelle Richardson, the ACLU’s resident Patriot Act lobbyist. “No one has tipped their hand on this in the slightest. But we’ve come to the conclusion that this is some kind of bulk collection. It wouldn’t be surprising to me if it’s some kind of internet or communication-records dragnet.” (Full disclosure: My fiancée works for the ACLU.)
The FBI deferred comment on any secret interpretation of the Patriot Act to the Justice Department. The Justice Department said it wouldn’t have any comment beyond a bit of March congressional testimony from its top national security official, Todd Hinnen, who presented the type of material collected as far more individualized and specific: “driver’s license records, hotel records, car-rental records, apartment-leasing records, credit card records, and the like.”
But that’s not what Udall sees. He warned in a Tuesday statement about the government’s “unfettered” access to bulk citizen data, like “a cellphone company’s phone records.” In a Senate floor speech on Tuesday, Udall urged Congress to restrict the Patriot Act’s business-records seizures to “terrorism investigations” — something the ostensible counterterrorism measure has never required in its nearly 10-year existence.
Indeed, Hinnen allowed himself an out in his March testimony, saying that the business-record provision “also” enabled “important and highly sensitive intelligence-collection operations” to take place. Wheeler speculates those operations include “using geolocation data from cellphones to collect information on the whereabouts of Americans” — something our sister blog Threat Level has reported on extensively.
It’s worth noting that Wyden is pushing a bill providing greater privacy protections for geolocation info.
For now, Wyden’s considering his options ahead of the Patriot Act vote on Thursday. He wants to compel as much disclosure as he can on the secret interpretation, arguing that a shadow broadening of the Patriot Act sets a dangerous precedent.
“I’m talking about instances where the government is relying on secret interpretations of what the law says without telling the public what those interpretations are,” Wyden says, “and the reliance on secret interpretations of the law is growing.”
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Obama's CIA Assassination Squad
From RawStory.com:
Disclosure of government secrets often has little to do with the public's right to know and has everything to do an official's need to tell, according to ACLU deputy director Jameel Jaffer.
And that's especially true when it comes to assassinations, which have not traditionally been an openly admitted component of U.S. foreign policy -- but the American Civil Liberities Union is cautioning that the Obama administration is changing all of that.
In an exclusive interview with Raw Story, Jaffer, a key attorney with the rights group, even warned that the Democrat in office has taken a position on unilateral murder so extreme as to be "profoundly troubling" in its legal reach and potential for future use.
"U.S. officials hurt our democracy by withholding information from the courts but then disclosing it to the public whenever it suits their needs," Jaffer wrote in a Wednesday Los Angeles Times op-ed.
For example, the CIA's "targeted killing" program has been shrouded in secrecy for years, but a recent Newsweek interview with former CIA lawyer John Rizzo shed light on the policy.
The "kill list," which Rizzo said he signed off on during his time at the agency, contains about 30 civilians or "unlawful combatants" to be targeted and killed.
In 2010, the ACLU sued the Obama administration after it was leaked that Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen, was on the government's "kill list."
"The Predator [drone] is the weapon of choice, but it could also be someone putting a bullet in your head," Rizzo told the magazine.
"It's a radical departure that the administration has taken from historical practice," Jaffer told Raw Story. "The administration has taken the position that it has the authority -- not just in traditional war zones like Afghanistan, but far away from traditional war zones in places like Somalia or Yemen -- to use lethal force against anyone whom the administration concludes is an enemy of the United States."
"To us, that's a profoundly troubling assertion. The reality is that many Americans trust the Obama administration with this power. Even if it's justifiable to trust this administration with that power -- and I'm not sure that it is -- but even if it is justifiable, you have to consider what the next administration will do with this power. It doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to come up with a scenario where a power like this could be abused," he said...
Exclusive: Obama has taken a ‘profoundly troubling’ position on assassinations, ACLU tells Raw
David Edwards
Thursday, April 7th, 2011
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/07/exclusive-obama-has-taken-a-profoundly-troubling-position-on-assassinations-aclu-tells-raw/
Disclosure of government secrets often has little to do with the public's right to know and has everything to do an official's need to tell, according to ACLU deputy director Jameel Jaffer.
And that's especially true when it comes to assassinations, which have not traditionally been an openly admitted component of U.S. foreign policy -- but the American Civil Liberities Union is cautioning that the Obama administration is changing all of that.
In an exclusive interview with Raw Story, Jaffer, a key attorney with the rights group, even warned that the Democrat in office has taken a position on unilateral murder so extreme as to be "profoundly troubling" in its legal reach and potential for future use.
"U.S. officials hurt our democracy by withholding information from the courts but then disclosing it to the public whenever it suits their needs," Jaffer wrote in a Wednesday Los Angeles Times op-ed.
For example, the CIA's "targeted killing" program has been shrouded in secrecy for years, but a recent Newsweek interview with former CIA lawyer John Rizzo shed light on the policy.
The "kill list," which Rizzo said he signed off on during his time at the agency, contains about 30 civilians or "unlawful combatants" to be targeted and killed.
In 2010, the ACLU sued the Obama administration after it was leaked that Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen, was on the government's "kill list."
"The Predator [drone] is the weapon of choice, but it could also be someone putting a bullet in your head," Rizzo told the magazine.
"It's a radical departure that the administration has taken from historical practice," Jaffer told Raw Story. "The administration has taken the position that it has the authority -- not just in traditional war zones like Afghanistan, but far away from traditional war zones in places like Somalia or Yemen -- to use lethal force against anyone whom the administration concludes is an enemy of the United States."
"To us, that's a profoundly troubling assertion. The reality is that many Americans trust the Obama administration with this power. Even if it's justifiable to trust this administration with that power -- and I'm not sure that it is -- but even if it is justifiable, you have to consider what the next administration will do with this power. It doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to come up with a scenario where a power like this could be abused," he said...
Exclusive: Obama has taken a ‘profoundly troubling’ position on assassinations, ACLU tells Raw
David Edwards
Thursday, April 7th, 2011
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/07/exclusive-obama-has-taken-a-profoundly-troubling-position-on-assassinations-aclu-tells-raw/
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut
From PaulKrassner.com, Website of THE Paul Krassner:
Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut:
Misadventures in the Counterculture
by Paul Krassner — New Expanded Edition
– for $22 (plus $3 S&H)
“Krassner has the uncanny ability to alter your perceptions permanently.”
— Los Angeles Times
“Wickedly funny... Chillingly funny... A convincing look at a man who knows how to wield absurdity.”
— San Francisco Chronicle
“Krassner is one of the best minds of his generation to be destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked — but mainly hysterical. His true wacky, wackily true autobiography is the definitive book on the sixties.”
— Art Spiegelman
“Paul¹s own writing, in particular, seemed daring and adventurous to me; it took big chances and made important arguments in relentlessly funny ways. I felt, down deep, that maybe I had some of that in me, too; that maybe I could be using my skills to better express my beliefs. The Realist was the inspiration that kept pushing me to the next level; there was no way I could continue reading it and remain the same.”
— George Carlin
“He is an expert at ferreting out hypocrisy and absurdism from the more solemn crannies of American culture.”
— New York Times
“Krassner lives in a world where Truth and Satire are swingers, changing partners so often you never know who belongs with whom.”
— Playboy
From Amazon:
Kindle Price: $9.99 includes free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004K1EY0W/thekonformist
In December 2010, the writers’ organization PEN presented Paul Krassner with their Lifetime Achievement Award. This expanded edition of his autobiography — Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counterculture — provides the reasons for that honor.
He published a groundbreaking satirical magazine, The Realist, from 1958 to 1974, and reincarnated it as a newsletter in 1985. “The taboos may have changed,” he wrote, “but irreverence is still our only sacred cow.” When People magazine called Krassner “Father of the underground press,” he immediately demanded a paternity test. The final issue was published in Spring 2001. All the issues are online at The Realist Archive Project.
His style of personal journalism constantly blurred the line between observer and participant. He interviewed a doctor who performed abortions when it was illegal; Krassner then ran an underground abortion referral service. He covered the antiwar movement; then co-founded the Yippies with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin (writing a few animated re-enactment scenes for the documentary Chicago 10 four decades later). He published material on the psychedelic revolution; then took LSD with Tim Leary, Ram Dass and Ken Kesey, later accompanying Groucho Marx on his first and only acid trip.
In Confessions, you’ll read about his friendship with controversial comic Lenny Bruce, his association with Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, and his investigation of Scientology and Charles Manson. There’s an entire chapter, “The Parts Left Out of the Kennedy Book,” about his most notorious article.
Tom Robbins: “Thanks to Paul Krassner for continuing to be the lobster claw in the tuna casserole of modern America.”
Arianna Huffington: “Paul Krassner–confidant of Lenny Bruce, co-founder of the Yippies, defiler of Disney characters, publisher of The Realist, investigative satirist extraordinaire--as soon as we decided to create the Huffington Post, I knew I wanted Paul involved. His irreverence was just what the blog doctor ordered.”
Kurt Vonnegut: “I told Krassner one time that his writings made me hopeful. He found this an odd compliment to offer a satirist. I explained that he made supposedly serious matters seem ridiculous, and that this inspired many of his readers to decide for themselves what was ridiculous and what was not. Knowing that there were people doing that, better late than never, made me optimistic.”
Lewis Black: “I have been a fan of his since I was a snot-nosed kid, and his words have been a driving force and influence on my life. If you have read his work before, you know the joys that you are in for. If you haven’t, start reading, and consider this your lucky day. For Paul Krassner is an activist, a philosopher, a lunatic and a saint, but most of all he is funny.”
On the other hand, a couple of FBI agents went to one of his stand-up performances and stated in their report, “He purported to be humorous about government policies.” His FBI files indicate that after Life magazine published a favorable profile of him, the FBI sent a poison-pen letter to the editor, complaining: “To classify Krassner as a social rebel is far too cute. He’s a nut, a raving, unconfined nut.”
In May 2004, he received an ACLU Uppie (Upton Sinclair) Award for dedication to freedom of expression. At the 14th annual Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, Paul Krassner was inducted into the Counterculture Hall of Fame -- “my ambition,” he claims, “since I was three years old.”
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 599 KB
Publisher: Paul Krassner (January 18, 2011)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B004K1EY0W
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Net Neutrality Advocates Decry FCC 'False' Solution
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/21-9
Published on Tuesday, December 21, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
Net Neutrality Advocates Decry FCC 'False' Solution and 'Squandered Opportunity'
Statements by Free Press and ACLU
WASHINGTON - The media advocacy group Free Press released the following statement in response to actions by the FCC today:
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. The rule passed by the FCC today does not reclassify wireless broadband service as a telecommunications service, which the ACLU and other proponents of network neutrality have long urged. Treating broadband access as similar to phone service would have allowed the FCC to rely on its broader regulatory authority. By a 3-2 vote Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission approved new rules intended to prevent Internet providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon from acting as gatekeepers on the Web. The rules, however, heavily favor the industry they are intended to regulate, and leave consumers with minimal protections. Democratic Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps voted with Chairman Julius Genachowski, while Republican Commissioners Robert McDowell and Meredith Attwell Baker voted against.
Free Press Managing Director Craig Aaron made the following statement:
“We are deeply disappointed that the chairman chose to ignore the overwhelming public support for real Net Neutrality, instead moving forward with industry-written rules that will for the first time in Internet history allow discrimination online. This proceeding was a squandered opportunity to enact clear, meaningful rules to safeguard the Internet’s level playing field and protect consumers.
“The new rules are riddled with loopholes, evidence that the chairman sought approval from AT&T instead of listening to the millions of Americans who asked for real Net Neutrality. These rules don't do enough to stop the phone and cable companies from dividing the Internet into fast and slow lanes, and they fail to protect wireless users from discrimination. No longer can you get to the same Internet via your mobile device as you can via your laptop. The rules pave the way for AT&T to block your access to third-party applications and to require you to use its own preferred applications.
“Chairman Genachowski ignored President Obama's promise to the American people to take a 'back seat to no one' on Net Neutrality. He ignored the 2 million voices who petitioned for real Net Neutrality and the hundreds who came to public hearings across the country to ask him to protect the open Internet. And he ignored policymakers who urged him to protect consumers and maintain the Internet as a platform for innovation. It’s unfortunate that the only voices he chose to listen to were those coming from the very industry he’s charged with overseeing."
The American Civil Liberties Union released this statement:
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today passed a new rule clarifying the legal authority of the FCC to enforce network neutrality principles. Network neutrality principles protect free speech online by prohibiting the owner of a network from prioritizing some content on the Internet while slowing other content.
The rule approved today by the FCC includes full network neutrality protections for the wired Internet, which includes cable and DSL service to homes and businesses, but provides lesser protections for wireless broadband service and may allow wireless broadband providers to block certain applications and services that compete with their own applications and services. The American Civil Liberties Union has called for network neutrality protections on both the wired and wireless Internet as important safeguards for free speech.
"Network neutrality principles are essential to protecting the First Amendment rights of Americans who rely on the Internet as a forum for free speech. While the new FCC rule creates stronger network neutrality protections for Americans who use the wired Internet, it fails to provide adequate protections for Americans who rely on wireless broadband service," said Chris Calabrese, ACLU Legislative Counsel. "By creating two sets of regulations – one for the wired Internet and one for wireless broadband – and failing to ground them in the strongest legal protections available, the FCC has failed to protect free speech and Internet openness for all users. The ACLU will continue to fight for full network neutrality protections. Internet openness is key to protecting our First Amendment rights."
The rule passed by the FCC today does not reclassify wireless broadband service as a telecommunications service, which the ACLU and other proponents of network neutrality have long urged. Treating broadband access as similar to phone service would have allowed the FCC to rely on its broader regulatory authority under Title II of the Communications Act to enforce network neutrality principles.
Published on Tuesday, December 21, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
Net Neutrality Advocates Decry FCC 'False' Solution and 'Squandered Opportunity'
Statements by Free Press and ACLU
WASHINGTON - The media advocacy group Free Press released the following statement in response to actions by the FCC today:
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. The rule passed by the FCC today does not reclassify wireless broadband service as a telecommunications service, which the ACLU and other proponents of network neutrality have long urged. Treating broadband access as similar to phone service would have allowed the FCC to rely on its broader regulatory authority. By a 3-2 vote Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission approved new rules intended to prevent Internet providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon from acting as gatekeepers on the Web. The rules, however, heavily favor the industry they are intended to regulate, and leave consumers with minimal protections. Democratic Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps voted with Chairman Julius Genachowski, while Republican Commissioners Robert McDowell and Meredith Attwell Baker voted against.
Free Press Managing Director Craig Aaron made the following statement:
“We are deeply disappointed that the chairman chose to ignore the overwhelming public support for real Net Neutrality, instead moving forward with industry-written rules that will for the first time in Internet history allow discrimination online. This proceeding was a squandered opportunity to enact clear, meaningful rules to safeguard the Internet’s level playing field and protect consumers.
“The new rules are riddled with loopholes, evidence that the chairman sought approval from AT&T instead of listening to the millions of Americans who asked for real Net Neutrality. These rules don't do enough to stop the phone and cable companies from dividing the Internet into fast and slow lanes, and they fail to protect wireless users from discrimination. No longer can you get to the same Internet via your mobile device as you can via your laptop. The rules pave the way for AT&T to block your access to third-party applications and to require you to use its own preferred applications.
“Chairman Genachowski ignored President Obama's promise to the American people to take a 'back seat to no one' on Net Neutrality. He ignored the 2 million voices who petitioned for real Net Neutrality and the hundreds who came to public hearings across the country to ask him to protect the open Internet. And he ignored policymakers who urged him to protect consumers and maintain the Internet as a platform for innovation. It’s unfortunate that the only voices he chose to listen to were those coming from the very industry he’s charged with overseeing."
The American Civil Liberties Union released this statement:
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today passed a new rule clarifying the legal authority of the FCC to enforce network neutrality principles. Network neutrality principles protect free speech online by prohibiting the owner of a network from prioritizing some content on the Internet while slowing other content.
The rule approved today by the FCC includes full network neutrality protections for the wired Internet, which includes cable and DSL service to homes and businesses, but provides lesser protections for wireless broadband service and may allow wireless broadband providers to block certain applications and services that compete with their own applications and services. The American Civil Liberties Union has called for network neutrality protections on both the wired and wireless Internet as important safeguards for free speech.
"Network neutrality principles are essential to protecting the First Amendment rights of Americans who rely on the Internet as a forum for free speech. While the new FCC rule creates stronger network neutrality protections for Americans who use the wired Internet, it fails to provide adequate protections for Americans who rely on wireless broadband service," said Chris Calabrese, ACLU Legislative Counsel. "By creating two sets of regulations – one for the wired Internet and one for wireless broadband – and failing to ground them in the strongest legal protections available, the FCC has failed to protect free speech and Internet openness for all users. The ACLU will continue to fight for full network neutrality protections. Internet openness is key to protecting our First Amendment rights."
The rule passed by the FCC today does not reclassify wireless broadband service as a telecommunications service, which the ACLU and other proponents of network neutrality have long urged. Treating broadband access as similar to phone service would have allowed the FCC to rely on its broader regulatory authority under Title II of the Communications Act to enforce network neutrality principles.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Group probes TSA’s ‘manipulation’ of opt-out protests
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/bob-barr-probe-manipulation-tsa-opt-protest/
Group probes TSA’s ‘manipulation’ of opt-out protests
Eric W. Dolan
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010
The public interest group Liberty Guard filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Transportation Security Administration Monday to determine why many airport imaging scanners were reportedly shut down and roped off on November 24th, the day of a planned "opt out protest."
"We'd like to think that the TSA has been listening to citizens concerned about being given a choice between naked imaging or pat down searches of people’s private parts," former Congressman Bob Barr, the Chairman of Liberty Guard, said. "If this is the indeed the case, we’d like to commend the TSA for applying a bit of common sense to the controversial situation. However, it's far more likely the reason was political and we think the public should be made aware of the motivations of our country's security chiefs."
In a nationwide protest dubbed the "National Opt-Out Day," those upset with invasive new security procedures asked others to join their plan to opt-out of full body scans and undergo a physical pat-down in public view, in hopes of creating delays and endless complications for security agents. The protest was scheduled for November 24th, one of the busiest travel days of the year.
Numerous news reports declared the protest against the new screening procedures a bust, noting short wait times at airport security checkpoints.
"What some protesters threatened as an opt out day has turned into a TSA appreciation day," the agency boasted on its blog.
But reports from travelers and local news sources suggest that at some of the busiest airports in the US the TSA backed down and resorted to using the old screening procedures, such as metal detectors and less-intrusive pat-downs.
"We'd like to know if we can expect a policy shift from the TSA or if they were merely attempting to shut down the public outcry regarding their search procedures," Joe Seehussen, President of Liberty Guard said.
The Freedom of Information Act request also seeks any government documents that contain the following terms: national opt-out day, Bob Barr, Opt Out Alliance, Liberty Guard, John Tyner, domestic extremists, drudgereport.com, Matt Drudge, prisonplanet.com, Alex Jones, and "any other term or proper name germane to the aforementioned terms and matter."
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says it has received over 900 complaints from travelers over the last month who've been subjected to the new screening procedures.
"The TSA agent used her hands to feel under and between my breasts," one woman said. "She then rammed her hand up into my crotch until it jammed into my pubic bone."
About 70 airports have put into use over 400 backscatter x-ray machines that can see beneath passengers' clothing. If the ticket-holder refuses the scan due to health or privacy concerns, they're subjected to an invasive physical pat-down. The new body scanners and pat down procedure have both received intense scrutiny amid reports of travelers feeling humiliated and traumatized.
Liberty Guard says the new security procedures are a violation of the 4th Amendment, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizure.
Group probes TSA’s ‘manipulation’ of opt-out protests
Eric W. Dolan
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010
The public interest group Liberty Guard filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Transportation Security Administration Monday to determine why many airport imaging scanners were reportedly shut down and roped off on November 24th, the day of a planned "opt out protest."
"We'd like to think that the TSA has been listening to citizens concerned about being given a choice between naked imaging or pat down searches of people’s private parts," former Congressman Bob Barr, the Chairman of Liberty Guard, said. "If this is the indeed the case, we’d like to commend the TSA for applying a bit of common sense to the controversial situation. However, it's far more likely the reason was political and we think the public should be made aware of the motivations of our country's security chiefs."
In a nationwide protest dubbed the "National Opt-Out Day," those upset with invasive new security procedures asked others to join their plan to opt-out of full body scans and undergo a physical pat-down in public view, in hopes of creating delays and endless complications for security agents. The protest was scheduled for November 24th, one of the busiest travel days of the year.
Numerous news reports declared the protest against the new screening procedures a bust, noting short wait times at airport security checkpoints.
"What some protesters threatened as an opt out day has turned into a TSA appreciation day," the agency boasted on its blog.
But reports from travelers and local news sources suggest that at some of the busiest airports in the US the TSA backed down and resorted to using the old screening procedures, such as metal detectors and less-intrusive pat-downs.
"We'd like to know if we can expect a policy shift from the TSA or if they were merely attempting to shut down the public outcry regarding their search procedures," Joe Seehussen, President of Liberty Guard said.
The Freedom of Information Act request also seeks any government documents that contain the following terms: national opt-out day, Bob Barr, Opt Out Alliance, Liberty Guard, John Tyner, domestic extremists, drudgereport.com, Matt Drudge, prisonplanet.com, Alex Jones, and "any other term or proper name germane to the aforementioned terms and matter."
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says it has received over 900 complaints from travelers over the last month who've been subjected to the new screening procedures.
"The TSA agent used her hands to feel under and between my breasts," one woman said. "She then rammed her hand up into my crotch until it jammed into my pubic bone."
About 70 airports have put into use over 400 backscatter x-ray machines that can see beneath passengers' clothing. If the ticket-holder refuses the scan due to health or privacy concerns, they're subjected to an invasive physical pat-down. The new body scanners and pat down procedure have both received intense scrutiny amid reports of travelers feeling humiliated and traumatized.
Liberty Guard says the new security procedures are a violation of the 4th Amendment, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizure.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Debtors' prisons on the rise in the US
http://wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/debt-o27.shtml
Debtors' prisons on the rise in the US
David Brown
27 October 2010
Both the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Brennan Center for Justice released reports in early October on a disturbing trend in the American justice system: the abuse of jail sentences and probation to collect more money in fines for cash-strapped courts.
The ACLU report, “In For a Penny: The Rise of America’s New Debtor’s Prisons,” focuses on interviews and personal stories in the five states they predicted to be the worst offenders (Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, and Washington). The Brennan Center report, “Criminal Justice Debt: A Barrier to Reentry,” covers ten states in addition to the five in the ACLU report (California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Arizona, North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama and Missouri) and provides more detailed statistics on a wider array of abuses.
In each of the 15 states examined (covering 60 percent of all state criminal filings), courts placed special “user fees” on defendants to generate revenue.
These fees differ from other legal financial obligations because their sole, express purpose is to put money into the state’s budget instead of punishing the criminal or giving the victim restitution. As many states face budget cuts, they are turning increasingly to these types of fees to fund their court systems. In one example, the district court of Orleans Parish in Louisiana, the ACLU estimated that these fees totaled almost two thirds of the court’s general fund.
This method of funding the courts is thoroughly regressive, fully placing the burden on the poor who constitute the vast majority of defendants. The National Center for State Courts estimates that 80 to 90 percent of all criminal defendants qualify for indigent defense programs due to their financial inability to afford legal counsel. The regressive nature of these fees is compounded by widespread failure to enforce longstanding constitutional protections of the poor.
The United States inherited a tradition of incarceration for private debts from colonial times. By the 1830s, it had reached such absurd proportions that in some states there were three to five times as many people imprisoned for debt as for actual crimes. Imprisonment for debt was abolished under federal law in 1833, but many states continued the practice.
In particular, Southern states would imprison debtors and lease prisoners out to plantation owners as a means of effectively perpetuating slavery after the Civil War. More recently, however, the US Supreme Court has ruled that prison can only be used as a means to collect debts “when a person has the ability to make payments but refuses to do so,” according to the Brennan Center.
In one such ruling, Bearden v. Georgia (1983), the Supreme Court ruled that courts cannot revoke a defendant’s probation for failure to pay a fine that the defendant made a bona fide effort to pay. Like many of the other rulings of the high court on this matter, it is routinely ignored in an effort to squeeze more revenue from defendants.
According to Supreme Court rulings, the only legal way to imprison someone for debt is to demonstrate that a defendant had the means to pay and willfully did not. Yet it has become common for courts to arrest and jail a debtor and only check their ability to pay on appeal.
The Brennan Center noted that in all 15 states its report examined, individuals have been arrested for missing a court-ordered debt payment or failing to appear at a debt-related proceeding. Only after a few days in jail was a hearing granted to determine whether the individual willfully missed his or her obligations. This practice is particularly disturbing because every state except Ohio assessed mandatory fees without taking into consideration ability to pay.
Jailing someone before determining that person’s ability to pay is not only inhumane and contrary to legal standards, but frequently disrupts the debtor’s ability to earn money. In one perverse example in Michigan described by the ACLU, Louis Kalman fell behind on his child support payments of $75 a week, despite paying what he could. At the time he was brought to trial, he was responsible for his elderly and sick father while earning $200 a week, $100 of which went to rent.
Despite documentary evidence that Mr. Kalman had been trying to increase his hours at work to full-time employment and a plea from the mother of his children that the court “not put Mr. Kalman in prison because simply as a practical matter it means she gets no money,” the court sentenced him to a prison term of two to four years. The court further ordered that the child support payments continue to accrue while he was in prison.
In addition to jail time, many states have started charging fees for being in prison, being on probation and parole, and even using a public defender. All but one of the states examined in the reports assessed some form of penalty on anyone incapable of paying their fees immediately. These penalties can include anything from a flat $300 civil assessment for falling behind in payments to a fee for simply entering into a payment plan.
Other states assess excessive collection fees totaling a certain percent of the amount due. Florida authorizes a collection fee of 40 percent of the total debt, while Alabama only allows 30 percent. Telling in the case of Alabama is that state usury laws prohibit interest rates over 8 percent for private debts.
These fees can create a situation of runaway debt, where no matter how hard someone tries to pay it down, the debt keeps growing. The story of a woman referred to as Lisa, interviewed by the ACLU, provides a perfect example of this phenomenon.
A former drug addict in King County, Washington, she was convicted on four felony counts nine years ago. Although she has not committed any new crimes in the past nine years, her inability to make sufficient payments combined with the mandatory 12 percent interest rate on all unpaid legal financial obligations in Washington has caused her debt to balloon to $60,000.
In addition to this excessive financial burden, Lisa has been imprisoned three different times in the past nine years, for a total of 40 days, solely for nonpayment of her legal debts. She understandably feels overwhelmed by the situation and told the ACLU about her debt, “It’s just like a nightmare, you know? Like is this ever going to go away? And the only thing, I keep hearing the judge say ‘if you have to pay $20 for the rest of your life, that is what you are going to be doing.’ ”
At the root of this systematic exploitation is an attempt to pad state coffers. Both the ACLU and the Brennan Center acknowledge state budget cuts, under the impact of the financial crisis, as the driving force for these efforts to raise funds through the courts. However, refunding court and public defender systems is the last thing on the minds of Republican and Democratic politicians who continue their calls for austerity.
Debtors' prisons on the rise in the US
David Brown
27 October 2010
Both the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Brennan Center for Justice released reports in early October on a disturbing trend in the American justice system: the abuse of jail sentences and probation to collect more money in fines for cash-strapped courts.
The ACLU report, “In For a Penny: The Rise of America’s New Debtor’s Prisons,” focuses on interviews and personal stories in the five states they predicted to be the worst offenders (Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, and Washington). The Brennan Center report, “Criminal Justice Debt: A Barrier to Reentry,” covers ten states in addition to the five in the ACLU report (California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Arizona, North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama and Missouri) and provides more detailed statistics on a wider array of abuses.
In each of the 15 states examined (covering 60 percent of all state criminal filings), courts placed special “user fees” on defendants to generate revenue.
These fees differ from other legal financial obligations because their sole, express purpose is to put money into the state’s budget instead of punishing the criminal or giving the victim restitution. As many states face budget cuts, they are turning increasingly to these types of fees to fund their court systems. In one example, the district court of Orleans Parish in Louisiana, the ACLU estimated that these fees totaled almost two thirds of the court’s general fund.
This method of funding the courts is thoroughly regressive, fully placing the burden on the poor who constitute the vast majority of defendants. The National Center for State Courts estimates that 80 to 90 percent of all criminal defendants qualify for indigent defense programs due to their financial inability to afford legal counsel. The regressive nature of these fees is compounded by widespread failure to enforce longstanding constitutional protections of the poor.
The United States inherited a tradition of incarceration for private debts from colonial times. By the 1830s, it had reached such absurd proportions that in some states there were three to five times as many people imprisoned for debt as for actual crimes. Imprisonment for debt was abolished under federal law in 1833, but many states continued the practice.
In particular, Southern states would imprison debtors and lease prisoners out to plantation owners as a means of effectively perpetuating slavery after the Civil War. More recently, however, the US Supreme Court has ruled that prison can only be used as a means to collect debts “when a person has the ability to make payments but refuses to do so,” according to the Brennan Center.
In one such ruling, Bearden v. Georgia (1983), the Supreme Court ruled that courts cannot revoke a defendant’s probation for failure to pay a fine that the defendant made a bona fide effort to pay. Like many of the other rulings of the high court on this matter, it is routinely ignored in an effort to squeeze more revenue from defendants.
According to Supreme Court rulings, the only legal way to imprison someone for debt is to demonstrate that a defendant had the means to pay and willfully did not. Yet it has become common for courts to arrest and jail a debtor and only check their ability to pay on appeal.
The Brennan Center noted that in all 15 states its report examined, individuals have been arrested for missing a court-ordered debt payment or failing to appear at a debt-related proceeding. Only after a few days in jail was a hearing granted to determine whether the individual willfully missed his or her obligations. This practice is particularly disturbing because every state except Ohio assessed mandatory fees without taking into consideration ability to pay.
Jailing someone before determining that person’s ability to pay is not only inhumane and contrary to legal standards, but frequently disrupts the debtor’s ability to earn money. In one perverse example in Michigan described by the ACLU, Louis Kalman fell behind on his child support payments of $75 a week, despite paying what he could. At the time he was brought to trial, he was responsible for his elderly and sick father while earning $200 a week, $100 of which went to rent.
Despite documentary evidence that Mr. Kalman had been trying to increase his hours at work to full-time employment and a plea from the mother of his children that the court “not put Mr. Kalman in prison because simply as a practical matter it means she gets no money,” the court sentenced him to a prison term of two to four years. The court further ordered that the child support payments continue to accrue while he was in prison.
In addition to jail time, many states have started charging fees for being in prison, being on probation and parole, and even using a public defender. All but one of the states examined in the reports assessed some form of penalty on anyone incapable of paying their fees immediately. These penalties can include anything from a flat $300 civil assessment for falling behind in payments to a fee for simply entering into a payment plan.
Other states assess excessive collection fees totaling a certain percent of the amount due. Florida authorizes a collection fee of 40 percent of the total debt, while Alabama only allows 30 percent. Telling in the case of Alabama is that state usury laws prohibit interest rates over 8 percent for private debts.
These fees can create a situation of runaway debt, where no matter how hard someone tries to pay it down, the debt keeps growing. The story of a woman referred to as Lisa, interviewed by the ACLU, provides a perfect example of this phenomenon.
A former drug addict in King County, Washington, she was convicted on four felony counts nine years ago. Although she has not committed any new crimes in the past nine years, her inability to make sufficient payments combined with the mandatory 12 percent interest rate on all unpaid legal financial obligations in Washington has caused her debt to balloon to $60,000.
In addition to this excessive financial burden, Lisa has been imprisoned three different times in the past nine years, for a total of 40 days, solely for nonpayment of her legal debts. She understandably feels overwhelmed by the situation and told the ACLU about her debt, “It’s just like a nightmare, you know? Like is this ever going to go away? And the only thing, I keep hearing the judge say ‘if you have to pay $20 for the rest of your life, that is what you are going to be doing.’ ”
At the root of this systematic exploitation is an attempt to pad state coffers. Both the ACLU and the Brennan Center acknowledge state budget cuts, under the impact of the financial crisis, as the driving force for these efforts to raise funds through the courts. However, refunding court and public defender systems is the last thing on the minds of Republican and Democratic politicians who continue their calls for austerity.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Cash-Strapped States Resurrect "Debtors' Prisons"
http://www.truth-out.org/punishing-poor-being-poor63949
Cash-Strapped States Resurrect "Debtors' Prisons"
Wednesday 06 October 2010
Nadia Prupis, t r u t h o u t
Two reports published by NYU's Brennan Center for Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reveal a rising trend of patently unconstitutional practices in cash-strapped states, where a growing number of impoverished people are jailed for being unable to pay their legal fees - including charges for use of public defenders, a guaranteed right in the United States. The resurgence of these draconian "debtors' prisons" has been documented in at least 13 of the 15 states with the largest prison populations in the country, including California, Arizona, Michigan and Alabama.
"Incarcerating people simply because they cannot afford to pay their legal debts is not only unconstitutional but also has a devastating impact upon men and women whose only crime is that they are poor," said ACLU senior staff attorney Eric Balaban.
Many states view the fees as a method for helping to alleviate budget deficits. In New Orleans, Louisiana, legal fines comprise almost two-thirds of criminal courts' operating budgets. But the ACLU found in its report, "In for a Penny: The Rise of America's New Debtors' Prisons," that jailing individuals for failing to pay legal fees actually places the financial burden on the state, wasting taxpayer money and resources to keep those individuals in jail or on public welfare as they struggle to pay their overwhelming debts.
Moreover, these and other penalties creates obstacles for those re-entering society after completing their criminal sentence; the Brennan Center report, "Criminal Justice Debt: A Barrier to Reentry," notes that eight of the 15 states studied suspend driving privileges of individuals who miss debt payments, while seven states require them to complete their full payments before regaining eligibility to vote. Such unnecessary setbacks often pave the way for those on probation to return to jail through no fault of their own.
"We are undermining the integrity of our criminal justice system and creating a two-tiered system of justice in which the poorest among us are punished more harshly than those with means, at a great cost to taxpayers," said ACLU deputy legal director Vanita Gupta.
Imprisoning probationers for failing to pay court debts was found unconstitutional in 1980, when Georgia resident Danny Bearden was sent to prison for two years when he could not pay $550 in legal fees, despite his efforts. In Bearden v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that such practices violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment - but states throughout the country have begun openly disregarding these principles in their efforts to balance their budgets.
The ACLU report highlights a few exemplary cases. Gregory White, a homeless man in Louisiana, was arrested for stealing $39 worth of food from a grocery store and assigned $339 in legal fees; when he was jailed for being unable to pay, White spent 198 days in jail at a cost of $3,5000 to the city.
Georgia resident Ora Lee Hurley owed $705 in fines from a 1990 drug possession conviction and remained in jail for eight months for failing to pay.
Kawana Young, a 25-year-old single mother in Michigan, was told after the fact that her community service hours would not satisfy her debts because she had volunteered with a nonprofit organization. Young has since been jailed five times for being unable to pay her fees.
And Percy Dear, a New Orleans resident who suffers from epilepsy, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, was arrested for begging in 2007. After pleading guilty, Dear was sentenced with either paying an immediate fine of $200 or spending 20 days in jail. Dear was unable to pay his fine at once and was incarcerated. These particular "fine or time" sentences are a glaring example of methods that plainly punish indigent cases while allowing wealthy individuals to go free on the same charges.
Judge Calvin Johnson, who served for 17 years in the Criminal District Court or Orleans Parish, said that regularly sentencing defendants in a "fine or time" method could have cost the city more than it collected. "30 days or $100 - that was something I heard every day," said Johnson in the ACLU report. "Now, how can you describe a system where the city pays $23 a day to the Sheriff to house someone in jail for 30 days to collect $100 as anything other than crazy?"
"People are emerging from the criminal justice process with significant debts that they cannot hope to repay," said Brennan Center Deputy Director Rebekah Diller. "As a result, these fees are creating new paths back to prison for those unable to pay."
Former Montgomery County, Ohio, public defender Glen H. Dewar is profiled in the ACLU report for his efforts in eliminating the state's debtors' prisons. Dewar stated in the report, "My estimate is that 20 to 25 percent of all local incarcerations statewide are for fines and costs, while about 50 percent of arrests are for fines and costs ... [until 2000], none of the persons arrested for nonpayment of fines and costs appeared on any court docket. Nor were they ever scheduled to appear at any particular time before any particular judge or magistrate." Before county jail records were computerized, Dewar said, "the scope of the problem, in terms of both numbers of arrests and days in jail, remained hidden ... the county also expanded jail space at a cost of millions, unaware of the fact that it was not for criminals but debtors."
As noted in the Brennan Center report, several states have also started to utilize practices that violate the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees defendants a right to counsel. Florida, North Carolina and Virginia have all implemented mandatory defender fees and provide no opportunity to waive them for indigent cases.
According to the report, "defender fees often discourage individuals from exercising their constitutional right to an attorney - leading to wrongful convictions, over-incarceration and significant burdens on the operation of courts. In Michigan, for example, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association found that the threat of paying the full cost of assigned counsel resulted in misdemeanor defendants systematically waiving their right to counsel - at a rate of 95 percent in one county." In Virginia, defendants often face up to $1,235 per count for some felonies.
The Brennan Center recommends that states eliminate public defender fees and offer community service programs that build job skills, among other state and local policy reforms; the ACLU similarly recommends that a judicial assessment of a convicted defendant's ability to pay fines must be comprehensive.
Cash-Strapped States Resurrect "Debtors' Prisons"
Wednesday 06 October 2010
Nadia Prupis, t r u t h o u t
Two reports published by NYU's Brennan Center for Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reveal a rising trend of patently unconstitutional practices in cash-strapped states, where a growing number of impoverished people are jailed for being unable to pay their legal fees - including charges for use of public defenders, a guaranteed right in the United States. The resurgence of these draconian "debtors' prisons" has been documented in at least 13 of the 15 states with the largest prison populations in the country, including California, Arizona, Michigan and Alabama.
"Incarcerating people simply because they cannot afford to pay their legal debts is not only unconstitutional but also has a devastating impact upon men and women whose only crime is that they are poor," said ACLU senior staff attorney Eric Balaban.
Many states view the fees as a method for helping to alleviate budget deficits. In New Orleans, Louisiana, legal fines comprise almost two-thirds of criminal courts' operating budgets. But the ACLU found in its report, "In for a Penny: The Rise of America's New Debtors' Prisons," that jailing individuals for failing to pay legal fees actually places the financial burden on the state, wasting taxpayer money and resources to keep those individuals in jail or on public welfare as they struggle to pay their overwhelming debts.
Moreover, these and other penalties creates obstacles for those re-entering society after completing their criminal sentence; the Brennan Center report, "Criminal Justice Debt: A Barrier to Reentry," notes that eight of the 15 states studied suspend driving privileges of individuals who miss debt payments, while seven states require them to complete their full payments before regaining eligibility to vote. Such unnecessary setbacks often pave the way for those on probation to return to jail through no fault of their own.
"We are undermining the integrity of our criminal justice system and creating a two-tiered system of justice in which the poorest among us are punished more harshly than those with means, at a great cost to taxpayers," said ACLU deputy legal director Vanita Gupta.
Imprisoning probationers for failing to pay court debts was found unconstitutional in 1980, when Georgia resident Danny Bearden was sent to prison for two years when he could not pay $550 in legal fees, despite his efforts. In Bearden v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that such practices violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment - but states throughout the country have begun openly disregarding these principles in their efforts to balance their budgets.
The ACLU report highlights a few exemplary cases. Gregory White, a homeless man in Louisiana, was arrested for stealing $39 worth of food from a grocery store and assigned $339 in legal fees; when he was jailed for being unable to pay, White spent 198 days in jail at a cost of $3,5000 to the city.
Georgia resident Ora Lee Hurley owed $705 in fines from a 1990 drug possession conviction and remained in jail for eight months for failing to pay.
Kawana Young, a 25-year-old single mother in Michigan, was told after the fact that her community service hours would not satisfy her debts because she had volunteered with a nonprofit organization. Young has since been jailed five times for being unable to pay her fees.
And Percy Dear, a New Orleans resident who suffers from epilepsy, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, was arrested for begging in 2007. After pleading guilty, Dear was sentenced with either paying an immediate fine of $200 or spending 20 days in jail. Dear was unable to pay his fine at once and was incarcerated. These particular "fine or time" sentences are a glaring example of methods that plainly punish indigent cases while allowing wealthy individuals to go free on the same charges.
Judge Calvin Johnson, who served for 17 years in the Criminal District Court or Orleans Parish, said that regularly sentencing defendants in a "fine or time" method could have cost the city more than it collected. "30 days or $100 - that was something I heard every day," said Johnson in the ACLU report. "Now, how can you describe a system where the city pays $23 a day to the Sheriff to house someone in jail for 30 days to collect $100 as anything other than crazy?"
"People are emerging from the criminal justice process with significant debts that they cannot hope to repay," said Brennan Center Deputy Director Rebekah Diller. "As a result, these fees are creating new paths back to prison for those unable to pay."
Former Montgomery County, Ohio, public defender Glen H. Dewar is profiled in the ACLU report for his efforts in eliminating the state's debtors' prisons. Dewar stated in the report, "My estimate is that 20 to 25 percent of all local incarcerations statewide are for fines and costs, while about 50 percent of arrests are for fines and costs ... [until 2000], none of the persons arrested for nonpayment of fines and costs appeared on any court docket. Nor were they ever scheduled to appear at any particular time before any particular judge or magistrate." Before county jail records were computerized, Dewar said, "the scope of the problem, in terms of both numbers of arrests and days in jail, remained hidden ... the county also expanded jail space at a cost of millions, unaware of the fact that it was not for criminals but debtors."
As noted in the Brennan Center report, several states have also started to utilize practices that violate the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees defendants a right to counsel. Florida, North Carolina and Virginia have all implemented mandatory defender fees and provide no opportunity to waive them for indigent cases.
According to the report, "defender fees often discourage individuals from exercising their constitutional right to an attorney - leading to wrongful convictions, over-incarceration and significant burdens on the operation of courts. In Michigan, for example, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association found that the threat of paying the full cost of assigned counsel resulted in misdemeanor defendants systematically waiving their right to counsel - at a rate of 95 percent in one county." In Virginia, defendants often face up to $1,235 per count for some felonies.
The Brennan Center recommends that states eliminate public defender fees and offer community service programs that build job skills, among other state and local policy reforms; the ACLU similarly recommends that a judicial assessment of a convicted defendant's ability to pay fines must be comprehensive.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Why liberals should love the Second Amendment
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/7/4/881431/-Why-liberals-should-love-the-Second-Amendment
Why liberals should love the Second Amendment
by Kaili Joy Gray aka Angry Mouse
Sun Jul 04, 2010
Liberals love the Constitution.
Ask anyone on the street. They'll tell you the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a liberal organization. During the dark days of the Bush Administration, membership doubled because so many Americans feared increasing restrictions on their civil liberties. If you were to ask liberals to list their top five complaints about the Bush Administration, and they would invariably say the words "shredding" and "Constitution" in the same sentence. They might also add "Fourth Amendment" and "due process." It's possible they'll talk about "free speech zones" and "habeus corpus."
There's a good chance they will mention, probably in combination with several FCC-prohibited adjectives, former Attorney Generals John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales.
And while liberals certainly do not argue for lawlessness, and will acknowledge the necessity of certain restrictions, it is generally understood that liberals fight to broadly interpret and expand our rights and to question the necessity and wisdom of any restrictions of them.
Liberals can quote legal precedent, news reports, and exhaustive studies. They can talk about the intentions of the Founders. They can argue at length against the tyranny of the government. And they will, almost without exception, conclude the necessity of respecting, and not restricting, civil liberties.
Except for one: the right to keep and bear arms.
When it comes to discussing the Second Amendment, liberals check rational thought at the door. They dismiss approximately 40% of American households that own one or more guns, and those who fight to protect the Second Amendment, as "gun nuts." They argue for greater restrictions. And they pursue these policies at the risk of alienating voters who might otherwise vote for Democrats.
And they do so in a way that is wholly inconsistent with their approach to all of our other civil liberties.
Those who fight against Second Amendment rights cite statistics about gun violence, as if such numbers are evidence enough that our rights should be restricted. But Chicago and Washington DC, the two cities from which came the most recent Supreme Court decisions on Second Amendment rights, had some of the most restrictive laws in the nation, and also some of the highest rates of violent crime. Clearly, such restrictions do not correlate with preventing crime.
So rather than continuing to fight for greater restrictions on Second Amendment rights, it is time for liberals to defend Second Amendment rights as vigorously as they fight to protect all of our other rights. Because it is by fighting to protect each right that we protect all rights.
And this is why:
(Reasons below the fold)
::
No. 1: The Bill of Rights protects individual rights.
If you've read the Bill of Rights -- and who among us hasn't? -- you will notice a phrase that appears in nearly all of them: "the people."
First Amendment:
...the right of the people peaceably to assemble
Second Amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects...
Ninth Amendment:
...shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people
Tenth Amendment:
...are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Certainly, no good liberal would argue that any of these rights are collective rights, and not individual rights. We believe that the First Amendment is an individual right to criticize our government.
We would not condone a state-regulated news organization. We certainly would not condone state regulation of religion. We talk about "separation of church and state," although there is no mention of "separation of church and state" in the First Amendment.
But we know what they meant. The anti-Federalists refused to ratify the Constitution without a Bill of Rights; they intended for our rights to be interpreted expansively.
We believe the Founders intended for us to be able to say damn near anything we want, protest damn near anything we want, print damn near anything we want, and believe damn near anything we want. Individually, without the interference or regulation of government.
And yet, despite the recent Heller and McDonald decisions, liberals stumble at the idea of the Second Amendment as an individual right. They take the position that the Founders intended an entirely different meaning by the phrase "the right of the people" in the Second Amendment, even though they are so positively clear about what that phrase means in the First Amendment.
If we can agree that the First Amendment protects not only powerful organizations such as the New York Times or MSNBC, but also the individual commenter on the internet, the individual at the anti-war rally, the individual driving the car with the "Fuck Bush" bumper sticker, can we not also agree that the Second Amendment's use of "the people" has the same meaning?
But it's different! The Second Amendment is talking about the militia! If you want to "bear arms," join the National Guard!
Right?
Wrong.
The United States Militia Code:
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
Aside from the fact that the National Guard did not exist in the 1700s, the term "militia" does not mean "National Guard," even today. The code clearly states that two classes comprise the militia: the National Guard and Naval Militia, and everyone else.
Everyone else. Individuals. The People.
The Founders well understood that the militia is the people, for it was not only the right but the obligation of all citizens to protect and preserve their liberty and to defend themselves from the tyranny of the government.
And fighting against the tyranny of the government is certainly a liberal value.
No. 2: We oppose restrictions to our civil liberties.
All of our rights, even the ones enumerated in the Bill of Rights, are restricted. You can't shout "Fire!" in a crowd. You can't threaten to kill the president. You can't publish someone else's words as your own. We have copyright laws and libel laws and slander laws. We have the FCC to regulate our radio and television content. We have plenty of restrictions on our First Amendment rights.
But we don't like them. We fight them. Any card-carrying member of the ACLU will tell you that while we might agree that certain restrictions are reasonable, we keep a close eye whenever anyone in government gets an itch to pass a new law that restricts our First Amendment rights. Or our Fourth. Or our Fifth, Sixth, or Eighth.
We complain about free speech zones. The whole country is supposed to be a free speech zone, after all. It says so right in the First Amendment.
But when it comes further restrictions on the manufacture, sale, or possession of firearms, liberals are not even silent; they are vociferously in favor of such restrictions.
Suddenly, overly broad restrictions are "reasonable." The Chicago and Washington D.C. bans on handguns -- all handguns -- is reasonable, even though the Supreme Court has now said otherwise.
Would we tolerate such a sweeping regulation of, say, the Thirteenth Amendment?
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
What if a member of Congress -- say, a Republican from a red state in the south -- were to introduce a bill that permits enslaving black women? Would we consider that reasonable? It's not like the law would enslave all people, or even all black people. Just the women. There's no mention of enslaving women in the Thirteenth Amendment. Clearly, when Lincoln wanted to free the slaves, he didn't intend to free all the slaves. And we restrict all the other Amendments, so obviously the Thirteenth Amendment is not supposed to be absolute. What's the big deal?
Except that such an argument is ridiculous, of course. Liberals would take to the streets, send angry letters to their representatives in Washington, organize marches, call progressive radio programs to quote, verbatim, the Thirteenth Amendment. Quite bluntly, although not literally, liberals would be up in arms.
And yet...A ban on all handguns seems reasonable to many liberals. Never mind that of 192 million firearms in America, 65 million -- about one third -- are handguns.
Such a narrow interpretation of this particular right is inconsistent with the otherwise broad interpretation of the Bill of Rights. And just as conservatives weaken their own arguments about protecting the Second Amendment when they will not fight as vigilantly for protecting all the others, so too do liberals weaken their arguments for civil liberties, when they pick and choose which civil liberties they deem worthy of defense.
No. 3: It doesn't matter that it's not 1776 anymore.
When the Founders drafted the Bill of Rights, they could not have imagined machine guns. Or armor-piercing bullets (which are not available to the public anyway, and are actually less lethal than conventional ammunition). Or handguns that hold 18 rounds. A drive-by shooting, back in 1776, would have been a guy on a horse with a musket.
Of course, they couldn't have imagined the internet, either. Or 24-hour cable news networks. Or talk radio. When they drafted the First Amendment, did they really mean to protect the rights of Bill O'Reilly to make incredibly stupid, and frequently inaccurate, statements for an entire hour, five nights a week?
Actually, yes. They did. Bill O'Reilly bilious ravings, and Keith Olbermann's Special Comments, and the insipid chatter of the entire cast of the Today show are, and were intended to be, protected by the First Amendment.
Liberals are supposed to understand that just because we don't agree with something doesn't mean it is not protected. At least when it comes to the First Amendment. And one's personal dislike of guns should be no better a reason for fighting against the Second Amendment than should one's personal dislike of Bill O'Reilly justify fighting against the First Amendment.
And yet, when discussing the Second Amendment, liberals become obtuse in their literalism. The Second Amendment does not protect the right to own all guns. Or all ammunition. It doesn't protect the right of the people as individuals.
Liberals will defend the right of Cindy Sheehan to wear an anti-war T-shirt, even though the First Amendment says nothing about T-shirts.
They will defend the rights of alleged terrorists to a public trial, even though the Founders certainly could not have imagined a world in which terrorists would plot to blow up building with airplanes.
But we do not quibble about the methods by which we practice our First Amendment rights because methodology is not the point. Red herring arguments about types of ammunition or magazine capacity or handguns versus rifles are just that -- red herrings. They distract us from the underlying purpose of that right -- to ensure a free society that can hold its government accountable. The Second Amendment is no more about guns than the First Amendment is about quill pens.
No. 4: It doesn't matter if you can use it.
Fine, you say. Have your big, scary guns. It's not like you actually stand a chance in fighting against the United States government. The Army has bigger, badder weapons than any private citizen. Your most deadly gun is no match for their tanks, their helicopters, their atom bombs. Maybe two hundred years ago, citizens stood a chance in a fight against government, but not today. The Second Amendment is obsolete.
Tell that to the Iraqi "insurgents" who are putting up a pretty good fight against our military might with fairly primitive weapons.
The Second Amendment is obsolete?
What other rights might be considered obsolete in today's day and age?
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
When was the last time a soldier showed up at your door and said, "I'll be staying with you for the indefinite future"?
It's probably been a while. But of course, were it to happen, you'd dust off your Third Amendment and say, "I don't think so, pal."
And you'd be right.
What about the Twenty-Sixth Amendment? How much use does that get?
The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
We all know the youth vote is typically pretty abysmal. Those lazy kids can barely get out of bed before noon, let alone get themselves to the voting booth. If they're not going to use their Twenty-Sixth Amendment rights, shouldn't we just delete the damn thing altogether?
Hell no. And this is why liberals work so hard to get out and rock the vote -- to encourage citizens to exercise their rights. That is our obligation as citizens, to protect against the government infringing upon our rights by making full use of them.
And yet, when it comes to the Second Amendment, liberals do not fight to protect that right. Instead them demand more laws. Regulate, regulate, regulate -- until the Second Amendment is nearly regulated out of existence because no one needs to have a gun anyway.
And that, sadly, is the biggest mistake of all.
No. 5: The Second Amendment is about revolution.
In no other country, at no other time, has such a right existed. It is not the right to hunt. It is not the right to shoot at soda cans in an empty field. It is not even the right to shoot at a home invader in the middle of the night.
It is the right of revolution.
Let me say that again: It is the right of revolution.
Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.
To alter or abolish the government. These are not mild words; they are powerful. They are revolutionary.
The Founders might never have imagined automatic weapons. But they probably also never imagined a total ban on handguns either.
We talk about the First Amendment as a unique and revolutionary concept -- that we have the right to criticize our government. Does it matter whether we do so while standing on a soapbox on the corner of the street or on a blog? No. Because the concept, not the methodology, is what matters.
And the Second Amendment is no different. It is not about how much ammunition is "excessive" or what types of guns are and are not permissible. Liberals cling to such minutia at the expense of understanding and appreciating the larger concept that underlies this right.
So.
What is the point? Is this a rallying cry for liberals to rush right out and purchase a gun? Absolutely not. Guns are dangerous when used by people who are not trained to use them, just as cars are dangerous when driven by people who have not been taught how to drive.
No, this is a rallying cry for the Bill of Rights -- for all of our rights.
This is an appeal to every liberal who says, "I just don't like guns."
This is an appeal to every liberal who says, "No one needs that much ammunition."
This is an appeal to every liberal who says, "That's not what the Founders meant."
This is an appeal to every liberal who supports the ACLU.
This is an appeal to every liberal who has complained about the Bush Administration's trading of our civil liberties for the illusion of greater security. (I believe I’ve seen a T-shirt or two about Benjamin Franklin’s thoughts on that.)
This is an appeal to every liberal who believes in fighting against the abuses of government, against the infringement of our civil liberties, and for the greater expansion of our rights.
This is an appeal to every liberal who never wants to lose another election to Republicans because they have successfully persuaded the voters that Democrats will not protect their Second Amendment rights.
This is an appeal to liberals, not merely to tolerate the Second Amendment, but to embrace it. To love it and defend it and guard it as carefully as you do all the others.
Because we are liberals. And fighting for our rights -- for all of our rights, for all people -- is what we do.
Because we are revolutionaries.
Why liberals should love the Second Amendment
by Kaili Joy Gray aka Angry Mouse
Sun Jul 04, 2010
Liberals love the Constitution.
Ask anyone on the street. They'll tell you the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a liberal organization. During the dark days of the Bush Administration, membership doubled because so many Americans feared increasing restrictions on their civil liberties. If you were to ask liberals to list their top five complaints about the Bush Administration, and they would invariably say the words "shredding" and "Constitution" in the same sentence. They might also add "Fourth Amendment" and "due process." It's possible they'll talk about "free speech zones" and "habeus corpus."
There's a good chance they will mention, probably in combination with several FCC-prohibited adjectives, former Attorney Generals John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales.
And while liberals certainly do not argue for lawlessness, and will acknowledge the necessity of certain restrictions, it is generally understood that liberals fight to broadly interpret and expand our rights and to question the necessity and wisdom of any restrictions of them.
Liberals can quote legal precedent, news reports, and exhaustive studies. They can talk about the intentions of the Founders. They can argue at length against the tyranny of the government. And they will, almost without exception, conclude the necessity of respecting, and not restricting, civil liberties.
Except for one: the right to keep and bear arms.
When it comes to discussing the Second Amendment, liberals check rational thought at the door. They dismiss approximately 40% of American households that own one or more guns, and those who fight to protect the Second Amendment, as "gun nuts." They argue for greater restrictions. And they pursue these policies at the risk of alienating voters who might otherwise vote for Democrats.
And they do so in a way that is wholly inconsistent with their approach to all of our other civil liberties.
Those who fight against Second Amendment rights cite statistics about gun violence, as if such numbers are evidence enough that our rights should be restricted. But Chicago and Washington DC, the two cities from which came the most recent Supreme Court decisions on Second Amendment rights, had some of the most restrictive laws in the nation, and also some of the highest rates of violent crime. Clearly, such restrictions do not correlate with preventing crime.
So rather than continuing to fight for greater restrictions on Second Amendment rights, it is time for liberals to defend Second Amendment rights as vigorously as they fight to protect all of our other rights. Because it is by fighting to protect each right that we protect all rights.
And this is why:
(Reasons below the fold)
::
No. 1: The Bill of Rights protects individual rights.
If you've read the Bill of Rights -- and who among us hasn't? -- you will notice a phrase that appears in nearly all of them: "the people."
First Amendment:
...the right of the people peaceably to assemble
Second Amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects...
Ninth Amendment:
...shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people
Tenth Amendment:
...are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Certainly, no good liberal would argue that any of these rights are collective rights, and not individual rights. We believe that the First Amendment is an individual right to criticize our government.
We would not condone a state-regulated news organization. We certainly would not condone state regulation of religion. We talk about "separation of church and state," although there is no mention of "separation of church and state" in the First Amendment.
But we know what they meant. The anti-Federalists refused to ratify the Constitution without a Bill of Rights; they intended for our rights to be interpreted expansively.
We believe the Founders intended for us to be able to say damn near anything we want, protest damn near anything we want, print damn near anything we want, and believe damn near anything we want. Individually, without the interference or regulation of government.
And yet, despite the recent Heller and McDonald decisions, liberals stumble at the idea of the Second Amendment as an individual right. They take the position that the Founders intended an entirely different meaning by the phrase "the right of the people" in the Second Amendment, even though they are so positively clear about what that phrase means in the First Amendment.
If we can agree that the First Amendment protects not only powerful organizations such as the New York Times or MSNBC, but also the individual commenter on the internet, the individual at the anti-war rally, the individual driving the car with the "Fuck Bush" bumper sticker, can we not also agree that the Second Amendment's use of "the people" has the same meaning?
But it's different! The Second Amendment is talking about the militia! If you want to "bear arms," join the National Guard!
Right?
Wrong.
The United States Militia Code:
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
Aside from the fact that the National Guard did not exist in the 1700s, the term "militia" does not mean "National Guard," even today. The code clearly states that two classes comprise the militia: the National Guard and Naval Militia, and everyone else.
Everyone else. Individuals. The People.
The Founders well understood that the militia is the people, for it was not only the right but the obligation of all citizens to protect and preserve their liberty and to defend themselves from the tyranny of the government.
And fighting against the tyranny of the government is certainly a liberal value.
No. 2: We oppose restrictions to our civil liberties.
All of our rights, even the ones enumerated in the Bill of Rights, are restricted. You can't shout "Fire!" in a crowd. You can't threaten to kill the president. You can't publish someone else's words as your own. We have copyright laws and libel laws and slander laws. We have the FCC to regulate our radio and television content. We have plenty of restrictions on our First Amendment rights.
But we don't like them. We fight them. Any card-carrying member of the ACLU will tell you that while we might agree that certain restrictions are reasonable, we keep a close eye whenever anyone in government gets an itch to pass a new law that restricts our First Amendment rights. Or our Fourth. Or our Fifth, Sixth, or Eighth.
We complain about free speech zones. The whole country is supposed to be a free speech zone, after all. It says so right in the First Amendment.
But when it comes further restrictions on the manufacture, sale, or possession of firearms, liberals are not even silent; they are vociferously in favor of such restrictions.
Suddenly, overly broad restrictions are "reasonable." The Chicago and Washington D.C. bans on handguns -- all handguns -- is reasonable, even though the Supreme Court has now said otherwise.
Would we tolerate such a sweeping regulation of, say, the Thirteenth Amendment?
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
What if a member of Congress -- say, a Republican from a red state in the south -- were to introduce a bill that permits enslaving black women? Would we consider that reasonable? It's not like the law would enslave all people, or even all black people. Just the women. There's no mention of enslaving women in the Thirteenth Amendment. Clearly, when Lincoln wanted to free the slaves, he didn't intend to free all the slaves. And we restrict all the other Amendments, so obviously the Thirteenth Amendment is not supposed to be absolute. What's the big deal?
Except that such an argument is ridiculous, of course. Liberals would take to the streets, send angry letters to their representatives in Washington, organize marches, call progressive radio programs to quote, verbatim, the Thirteenth Amendment. Quite bluntly, although not literally, liberals would be up in arms.
And yet...A ban on all handguns seems reasonable to many liberals. Never mind that of 192 million firearms in America, 65 million -- about one third -- are handguns.
Such a narrow interpretation of this particular right is inconsistent with the otherwise broad interpretation of the Bill of Rights. And just as conservatives weaken their own arguments about protecting the Second Amendment when they will not fight as vigilantly for protecting all the others, so too do liberals weaken their arguments for civil liberties, when they pick and choose which civil liberties they deem worthy of defense.
No. 3: It doesn't matter that it's not 1776 anymore.
When the Founders drafted the Bill of Rights, they could not have imagined machine guns. Or armor-piercing bullets (which are not available to the public anyway, and are actually less lethal than conventional ammunition). Or handguns that hold 18 rounds. A drive-by shooting, back in 1776, would have been a guy on a horse with a musket.
Of course, they couldn't have imagined the internet, either. Or 24-hour cable news networks. Or talk radio. When they drafted the First Amendment, did they really mean to protect the rights of Bill O'Reilly to make incredibly stupid, and frequently inaccurate, statements for an entire hour, five nights a week?
Actually, yes. They did. Bill O'Reilly bilious ravings, and Keith Olbermann's Special Comments, and the insipid chatter of the entire cast of the Today show are, and were intended to be, protected by the First Amendment.
Liberals are supposed to understand that just because we don't agree with something doesn't mean it is not protected. At least when it comes to the First Amendment. And one's personal dislike of guns should be no better a reason for fighting against the Second Amendment than should one's personal dislike of Bill O'Reilly justify fighting against the First Amendment.
And yet, when discussing the Second Amendment, liberals become obtuse in their literalism. The Second Amendment does not protect the right to own all guns. Or all ammunition. It doesn't protect the right of the people as individuals.
Liberals will defend the right of Cindy Sheehan to wear an anti-war T-shirt, even though the First Amendment says nothing about T-shirts.
They will defend the rights of alleged terrorists to a public trial, even though the Founders certainly could not have imagined a world in which terrorists would plot to blow up building with airplanes.
But we do not quibble about the methods by which we practice our First Amendment rights because methodology is not the point. Red herring arguments about types of ammunition or magazine capacity or handguns versus rifles are just that -- red herrings. They distract us from the underlying purpose of that right -- to ensure a free society that can hold its government accountable. The Second Amendment is no more about guns than the First Amendment is about quill pens.
No. 4: It doesn't matter if you can use it.
Fine, you say. Have your big, scary guns. It's not like you actually stand a chance in fighting against the United States government. The Army has bigger, badder weapons than any private citizen. Your most deadly gun is no match for their tanks, their helicopters, their atom bombs. Maybe two hundred years ago, citizens stood a chance in a fight against government, but not today. The Second Amendment is obsolete.
Tell that to the Iraqi "insurgents" who are putting up a pretty good fight against our military might with fairly primitive weapons.
The Second Amendment is obsolete?
What other rights might be considered obsolete in today's day and age?
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
When was the last time a soldier showed up at your door and said, "I'll be staying with you for the indefinite future"?
It's probably been a while. But of course, were it to happen, you'd dust off your Third Amendment and say, "I don't think so, pal."
And you'd be right.
What about the Twenty-Sixth Amendment? How much use does that get?
The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
We all know the youth vote is typically pretty abysmal. Those lazy kids can barely get out of bed before noon, let alone get themselves to the voting booth. If they're not going to use their Twenty-Sixth Amendment rights, shouldn't we just delete the damn thing altogether?
Hell no. And this is why liberals work so hard to get out and rock the vote -- to encourage citizens to exercise their rights. That is our obligation as citizens, to protect against the government infringing upon our rights by making full use of them.
And yet, when it comes to the Second Amendment, liberals do not fight to protect that right. Instead them demand more laws. Regulate, regulate, regulate -- until the Second Amendment is nearly regulated out of existence because no one needs to have a gun anyway.
And that, sadly, is the biggest mistake of all.
No. 5: The Second Amendment is about revolution.
In no other country, at no other time, has such a right existed. It is not the right to hunt. It is not the right to shoot at soda cans in an empty field. It is not even the right to shoot at a home invader in the middle of the night.
It is the right of revolution.
Let me say that again: It is the right of revolution.
Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.
To alter or abolish the government. These are not mild words; they are powerful. They are revolutionary.
The Founders might never have imagined automatic weapons. But they probably also never imagined a total ban on handguns either.
We talk about the First Amendment as a unique and revolutionary concept -- that we have the right to criticize our government. Does it matter whether we do so while standing on a soapbox on the corner of the street or on a blog? No. Because the concept, not the methodology, is what matters.
And the Second Amendment is no different. It is not about how much ammunition is "excessive" or what types of guns are and are not permissible. Liberals cling to such minutia at the expense of understanding and appreciating the larger concept that underlies this right.
So.
What is the point? Is this a rallying cry for liberals to rush right out and purchase a gun? Absolutely not. Guns are dangerous when used by people who are not trained to use them, just as cars are dangerous when driven by people who have not been taught how to drive.
No, this is a rallying cry for the Bill of Rights -- for all of our rights.
This is an appeal to every liberal who says, "I just don't like guns."
This is an appeal to every liberal who says, "No one needs that much ammunition."
This is an appeal to every liberal who says, "That's not what the Founders meant."
This is an appeal to every liberal who supports the ACLU.
This is an appeal to every liberal who has complained about the Bush Administration's trading of our civil liberties for the illusion of greater security. (I believe I’ve seen a T-shirt or two about Benjamin Franklin’s thoughts on that.)
This is an appeal to every liberal who believes in fighting against the abuses of government, against the infringement of our civil liberties, and for the greater expansion of our rights.
This is an appeal to every liberal who never wants to lose another election to Republicans because they have successfully persuaded the voters that Democrats will not protect their Second Amendment rights.
This is an appeal to liberals, not merely to tolerate the Second Amendment, but to embrace it. To love it and defend it and guard it as carefully as you do all the others.
Because we are liberals. And fighting for our rights -- for all of our rights, for all people -- is what we do.
Because we are revolutionaries.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The warped platitude of DC "centrism"
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/13/centrism/index.html
Saturday, Mar 13, 2010
The warped platitude of DC "centrism"
Glenn Greenwald
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank dresses up in idiotic costumes, and the overriding attribute of his commentary is adolescent, above-it-all snideness, and he's thus deemed a wild, unpredictable, creative "contrarian" in Beltway media circles. In reality, he's one of the most cliché-ridden purveyors of conventional Washington widsom one can find, as he demonstrates yet again in his column today, where he venerates Lindsey Graham and his quest to statutorily implement a system of military commissions and indefinite detention:
But Graham's latest offer should still be taken seriously by Obama's White House, which needs a way to recover from its self-inflicted wounds over Gitmo. Obama goofed twice, missing his deadline for closing the prison and then making the ruinous choice to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a criminal trial in New York.
This took an eight-year-old dispute to a new level of rage. On one side, there's now Liz Cheney's absurd accusation that Justice Department lawyers are al-Qaeda sympathizers. On the other side is the ACLU, which, in demanding civilian trials for 9/11 conspirators, ran an ad morphing Obama's face into George W. Bush's. . . . [T]the ideological purists on both sides need to compromise.
Liz Cheney advocates torture and indefinite detention with no charges, and just launched a repulsive McCarthyite smear campaign equating all detainee lawyers with Al Qaeda. The ACLU has steadfastly opposed Bush's torture policies as early as anyone, advocates due process for all, and ran a newspaper advertisement pointing out the indisputable fact that military commissions and indefinite detention were the crux of the Bush/Cheney Terrorism template and urging Obama not to embrace it. But they're on opposite sides of these issues and thus are equivalent: they're the extremists and purists who need to be rejected by those in the Glorious Middle (embodied by Lindsey Graham). As long both of them are against what you're doing, it means you're right. Could a false equivalency be any more trite or vapid than that?
Far worse is the specific, Graham-endorsed policy which Milbank endorses -- not by making any substantive arguments in its favor, but simply by declaring it to be in between Liz Cheney and the ACLU, at the center of the two "purist" extremes (which, in Washington, means, by definition, that it's superior regardless of content):
Graham has provided Obama a way out of this standoff: Send KSM to a military tribunal in exchange for Congress abandoning legislation that would deny funding to close Gitmo. Next, the administration would work with Congress to create a "national security court," which would govern how other current and future terrorism suspects can be held in preventive detention.
This is the so-called "centrist compromise" -- the one Graham (along with the Brookings Institution) is pushing, Milbank is endorsing, and the administration may be heading towards adopting. But just think about what it actually is. According to its advocates, there is and will continue to be a group of people whom we deem Too Dangerous to allow to be free, yet who have committed no crime and/or against whom there is no evidence of actual wrongdoing. Therefore, we want to imprison them even though we can't prove they did anything wrong. Thus, we're going to create new, special courts -- and christen them with the Orwellian title "National Security Courts" -- and empower them to approve the President's decision to imprison human beings in cages even though they've committed no crime (not even the extremely broad criminal offense of "providing material support to Terrorist organizations," of which anyone who even gets near an actual Terrorist group is easily convicted).
This new judicial system will be devoted to imprisoning people "preventively" -- for being Dangerous. In other words, we're dispensing with the idea that the Government can only imprison those who we can prove have committed crimes, and are instead creating by statute a new category of human beings -- people who have committed no crimes but belong in prison anyway -- along with courts to keep them imprisoned (this idea was unveiled in Barack Obama's "civil liberties" speech last May when he described the so-called "fifth category" of people, and I wrote about everything wrong with that proposal here). But why stop with accused Terrorists? Why not dispense with this "due process" annoyance entirely, and imprison all people who we know deep down are guilty of something really bad, or at least will be in the future -- such as those we know murdered someone or raped children but can't find the evidence to prove it (or those we believe likely will in the future)? What decent person would possibly allow such monsters to go free just because we can't convict them in court?
That's the "centrist compromise" which Graham and Milbank advocate, and which the ACLU -- by virtue of its opposition -- is deemed by Milbank guilty of being the "purist" equivalent of Liz Cheney. Aside from how radical such a proposal is on its face, it's actually a more extreme version of what George Bush and Dick Cheney did. As a result of the Supreme Court's Boumediene ruling, detainees imprisoned by Bush/Cheney with no charges are now are entitled to habeas review by federal courts, and the vast majority have won their cases and been ordered released on the ground of insufficient evidence. Notably, it was the "centrist" Graham, to his eternal disgrace, who led the way in trying to deny those innocent detainees the right of habeas review -- and thus tried to keep innocent people imprisoned indefinitely with no judicial review -- by sponsoring the habeas-denying section of the Military Commissions Act which the Boumediene Court invalidated as unconstitutional.
Now, Graham (echoing Obama's May speech) wants to statutorily institutionalize this power of indefinite detention -- making it a permanent fixture of our political system and solidifying it as the bipartisan policy of all three branches. As demonstrated by the truly dangerous, extremist bill just introduced by John McCain and Joe Lieberman (the "Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010") -- which, among other atrocities, would allow the President to indefinitely imprison even American citizens arrested on U.S. soil -- it's almost certain that having this fear-mongering Congress write an indefinite detention bill would result in a much broader and farther-reaching detention scheme than even what we've had under Bush/Cheney and now Obama. But hey: Liz Cheney and the ACLU (with whom I consult) are both against it (Cheney's opposition is due only to the fact that the "compromise" would lead to the re-location of Guantanamo to Illinois) -- and one can find some Democrats and some Republicans who favor it -- and, therefore, it is, by definition, the sensible "centrist" solution which all non-purist-extremists favor. That's the warped, childish, substance-free definition of "centrism" which Washington media drones like Dana Milbank constantly embrace, and nothing has led to more damaging policies than that.
* * * * *
The Washington Post Op-Ed page deserves some credit for publishing this excellent Op-Ed yesterday by Georgetown Professor Gary Solis, who points out that, under international law, CIA agents who operate lethal drone attacks are every bit as much "unlawful combatants" as the Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters we have imprisoned, rendered, tortured and killed, because "they are fighters without uniforms or insignia, directly participating in hostilities, employing armed force contrary to the laws and customs of war." He also points out that CIA officials involved in such activities are legitimate military targets of the enemy. The same is true, of course, for the vast number of private mercenaries the U.S. uses to engage in war-fighting and related activities. By the warped reasoning that has prevailed in our country, it would be perfectly legal and proper for these unlawful American combatants to be imprisoned indefinitely with no charges and even tortured. If you advocate and practice lawlessness, it's only a matter of time before you're subjected to your own deranged standards.
Saturday, Mar 13, 2010
The warped platitude of DC "centrism"
Glenn Greenwald
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank dresses up in idiotic costumes, and the overriding attribute of his commentary is adolescent, above-it-all snideness, and he's thus deemed a wild, unpredictable, creative "contrarian" in Beltway media circles. In reality, he's one of the most cliché-ridden purveyors of conventional Washington widsom one can find, as he demonstrates yet again in his column today, where he venerates Lindsey Graham and his quest to statutorily implement a system of military commissions and indefinite detention:
But Graham's latest offer should still be taken seriously by Obama's White House, which needs a way to recover from its self-inflicted wounds over Gitmo. Obama goofed twice, missing his deadline for closing the prison and then making the ruinous choice to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a criminal trial in New York.
This took an eight-year-old dispute to a new level of rage. On one side, there's now Liz Cheney's absurd accusation that Justice Department lawyers are al-Qaeda sympathizers. On the other side is the ACLU, which, in demanding civilian trials for 9/11 conspirators, ran an ad morphing Obama's face into George W. Bush's. . . . [T]the ideological purists on both sides need to compromise.
Liz Cheney advocates torture and indefinite detention with no charges, and just launched a repulsive McCarthyite smear campaign equating all detainee lawyers with Al Qaeda. The ACLU has steadfastly opposed Bush's torture policies as early as anyone, advocates due process for all, and ran a newspaper advertisement pointing out the indisputable fact that military commissions and indefinite detention were the crux of the Bush/Cheney Terrorism template and urging Obama not to embrace it. But they're on opposite sides of these issues and thus are equivalent: they're the extremists and purists who need to be rejected by those in the Glorious Middle (embodied by Lindsey Graham). As long both of them are against what you're doing, it means you're right. Could a false equivalency be any more trite or vapid than that?
Far worse is the specific, Graham-endorsed policy which Milbank endorses -- not by making any substantive arguments in its favor, but simply by declaring it to be in between Liz Cheney and the ACLU, at the center of the two "purist" extremes (which, in Washington, means, by definition, that it's superior regardless of content):
Graham has provided Obama a way out of this standoff: Send KSM to a military tribunal in exchange for Congress abandoning legislation that would deny funding to close Gitmo. Next, the administration would work with Congress to create a "national security court," which would govern how other current and future terrorism suspects can be held in preventive detention.
This is the so-called "centrist compromise" -- the one Graham (along with the Brookings Institution) is pushing, Milbank is endorsing, and the administration may be heading towards adopting. But just think about what it actually is. According to its advocates, there is and will continue to be a group of people whom we deem Too Dangerous to allow to be free, yet who have committed no crime and/or against whom there is no evidence of actual wrongdoing. Therefore, we want to imprison them even though we can't prove they did anything wrong. Thus, we're going to create new, special courts -- and christen them with the Orwellian title "National Security Courts" -- and empower them to approve the President's decision to imprison human beings in cages even though they've committed no crime (not even the extremely broad criminal offense of "providing material support to Terrorist organizations," of which anyone who even gets near an actual Terrorist group is easily convicted).
This new judicial system will be devoted to imprisoning people "preventively" -- for being Dangerous. In other words, we're dispensing with the idea that the Government can only imprison those who we can prove have committed crimes, and are instead creating by statute a new category of human beings -- people who have committed no crimes but belong in prison anyway -- along with courts to keep them imprisoned (this idea was unveiled in Barack Obama's "civil liberties" speech last May when he described the so-called "fifth category" of people, and I wrote about everything wrong with that proposal here). But why stop with accused Terrorists? Why not dispense with this "due process" annoyance entirely, and imprison all people who we know deep down are guilty of something really bad, or at least will be in the future -- such as those we know murdered someone or raped children but can't find the evidence to prove it (or those we believe likely will in the future)? What decent person would possibly allow such monsters to go free just because we can't convict them in court?
That's the "centrist compromise" which Graham and Milbank advocate, and which the ACLU -- by virtue of its opposition -- is deemed by Milbank guilty of being the "purist" equivalent of Liz Cheney. Aside from how radical such a proposal is on its face, it's actually a more extreme version of what George Bush and Dick Cheney did. As a result of the Supreme Court's Boumediene ruling, detainees imprisoned by Bush/Cheney with no charges are now are entitled to habeas review by federal courts, and the vast majority have won their cases and been ordered released on the ground of insufficient evidence. Notably, it was the "centrist" Graham, to his eternal disgrace, who led the way in trying to deny those innocent detainees the right of habeas review -- and thus tried to keep innocent people imprisoned indefinitely with no judicial review -- by sponsoring the habeas-denying section of the Military Commissions Act which the Boumediene Court invalidated as unconstitutional.
Now, Graham (echoing Obama's May speech) wants to statutorily institutionalize this power of indefinite detention -- making it a permanent fixture of our political system and solidifying it as the bipartisan policy of all three branches. As demonstrated by the truly dangerous, extremist bill just introduced by John McCain and Joe Lieberman (the "Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010") -- which, among other atrocities, would allow the President to indefinitely imprison even American citizens arrested on U.S. soil -- it's almost certain that having this fear-mongering Congress write an indefinite detention bill would result in a much broader and farther-reaching detention scheme than even what we've had under Bush/Cheney and now Obama. But hey: Liz Cheney and the ACLU (with whom I consult) are both against it (Cheney's opposition is due only to the fact that the "compromise" would lead to the re-location of Guantanamo to Illinois) -- and one can find some Democrats and some Republicans who favor it -- and, therefore, it is, by definition, the sensible "centrist" solution which all non-purist-extremists favor. That's the warped, childish, substance-free definition of "centrism" which Washington media drones like Dana Milbank constantly embrace, and nothing has led to more damaging policies than that.
* * * * *
The Washington Post Op-Ed page deserves some credit for publishing this excellent Op-Ed yesterday by Georgetown Professor Gary Solis, who points out that, under international law, CIA agents who operate lethal drone attacks are every bit as much "unlawful combatants" as the Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters we have imprisoned, rendered, tortured and killed, because "they are fighters without uniforms or insignia, directly participating in hostilities, employing armed force contrary to the laws and customs of war." He also points out that CIA officials involved in such activities are legitimate military targets of the enemy. The same is true, of course, for the vast number of private mercenaries the U.S. uses to engage in war-fighting and related activities. By the warped reasoning that has prevailed in our country, it would be perfectly legal and proper for these unlawful American combatants to be imprisoned indefinitely with no charges and even tortured. If you advocate and practice lawlessness, it's only a matter of time before you're subjected to your own deranged standards.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Obama will seek to delay photos release
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30725189/
Obama will seek to delay photos release
Pictures reportedly depict the abuse of prisoners by U.S. military in Iraq
5-13-9
WASHINGTON - In a reversal, the White House says President Barack Obama is fighting the release of photos showing abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan because he believes their release poses a national security threat.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Wednesday that the argument had not been made before in the courts. He also said that the president believes the release could discourage the investigation of any abuses.
Obama's decision to challenge the court-ordered release came after the top military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan told the president they feared the release of the photos could endanger their troops.
Defense and military officials tell NBC News that President Obama will seek to delay the release of hundreds of photos that reportedly depict the abuse of prisoners by U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is expected to announce Obama's decision.
The Pentagon has said it will release the pictures this month.
Obama decided he "did not feel comfortable" with the release and last week instructed his legal team to fight it in court, said an official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the president's decision had not yet been made public.
Obama has instructed administration lawyers to make the case that "the national security implications of such a release have not been fully presented to the court," the official said.
"The president strongly believes that the release of these photos, particularly at this time, would only serve the purpose of inflaming the theaters of war, jeopardizing U.S. forces, and making our job more difficult in places like Iraq and Afghanistan," the official said.
The official said that Obama believes the actions depicted in the photos should not be excused and fully supports the investigations, prison sentences, discharges and other punitive measures that have resulted from them. But, the official said, the president does not believe that publicizing the actions in such a graphic way would be helpful.
Military agreement
Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq met with Obama at the White House Tuesday to ask the administration not to release the photos. Defense officials say Odierno is "vehemently opposed" to the release because he fears it could create a widespread "backlash" against military forces in both war zones.
According to one official, "It would put a bull's-eye on the backs of our forces."
Gen. David Petraeus, senior commander for both wars, had also weighed in, as had Gen. David McKiernan, the top general in Afghanistan. Gates fired McKiernan on Monday for unrelated reasons.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said military "commanders are concerned about the impact the release of these photos would have for the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq," and Defense Secretary Robert Gates shares their concerns.
In Afghanistan, release of the pictures this month would coincide with the spring thaw, which usually heralds the year's toughest fighting. Morrell also noted the release as scheduled would come as thousands of new U.S. troops flow into Afghanistan's volatile south.
According to military officials many of the photos are similar to the infamous prisoner abuse photos out of Abu Ghraib prison, but some of these photos reportedly include mug shots of prisoners who appear to have been badly beaten during their capture or interrogation.
Freedom of information
The photos were gathered in the course of dozens of military investigations of prisoner abuse between 2001 and 2006. Pentagon officials say 400 individual servicemembers have faced disciplinary action, either criminal convictions or non-judicial punishment as a result of the investigations.
The American Civil Liberties Union has sought the release of the photos and won a lawsuit against the U.S. government before the federal appeals court in New York. The only legal option left to the government was to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. Instead the Obama administration had earlier made the decision to end the appeals and release the photos.
Through an arrangement with the court, the Pentagon was preparing to release, by May 28, two batches of photos, one of 21 images and another 23. The government also had told the judge it was "processing for release a substantial number of other images."
The ACLU criticized the decision.
"The decision to suppress the photos is profoundly inconsistent with the promise of transparency that President Obama has made time after time," ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer said.
NBC's John Yang and Jim Miklaszewski contributed to this story.
Obama will seek to delay photos release
Pictures reportedly depict the abuse of prisoners by U.S. military in Iraq
5-13-9
WASHINGTON - In a reversal, the White House says President Barack Obama is fighting the release of photos showing abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan because he believes their release poses a national security threat.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Wednesday that the argument had not been made before in the courts. He also said that the president believes the release could discourage the investigation of any abuses.
Obama's decision to challenge the court-ordered release came after the top military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan told the president they feared the release of the photos could endanger their troops.
Defense and military officials tell NBC News that President Obama will seek to delay the release of hundreds of photos that reportedly depict the abuse of prisoners by U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is expected to announce Obama's decision.
The Pentagon has said it will release the pictures this month.
Obama decided he "did not feel comfortable" with the release and last week instructed his legal team to fight it in court, said an official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the president's decision had not yet been made public.
Obama has instructed administration lawyers to make the case that "the national security implications of such a release have not been fully presented to the court," the official said.
"The president strongly believes that the release of these photos, particularly at this time, would only serve the purpose of inflaming the theaters of war, jeopardizing U.S. forces, and making our job more difficult in places like Iraq and Afghanistan," the official said.
The official said that Obama believes the actions depicted in the photos should not be excused and fully supports the investigations, prison sentences, discharges and other punitive measures that have resulted from them. But, the official said, the president does not believe that publicizing the actions in such a graphic way would be helpful.
Military agreement
Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq met with Obama at the White House Tuesday to ask the administration not to release the photos. Defense officials say Odierno is "vehemently opposed" to the release because he fears it could create a widespread "backlash" against military forces in both war zones.
According to one official, "It would put a bull's-eye on the backs of our forces."
Gen. David Petraeus, senior commander for both wars, had also weighed in, as had Gen. David McKiernan, the top general in Afghanistan. Gates fired McKiernan on Monday for unrelated reasons.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said military "commanders are concerned about the impact the release of these photos would have for the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq," and Defense Secretary Robert Gates shares their concerns.
In Afghanistan, release of the pictures this month would coincide with the spring thaw, which usually heralds the year's toughest fighting. Morrell also noted the release as scheduled would come as thousands of new U.S. troops flow into Afghanistan's volatile south.
According to military officials many of the photos are similar to the infamous prisoner abuse photos out of Abu Ghraib prison, but some of these photos reportedly include mug shots of prisoners who appear to have been badly beaten during their capture or interrogation.
Freedom of information
The photos were gathered in the course of dozens of military investigations of prisoner abuse between 2001 and 2006. Pentagon officials say 400 individual servicemembers have faced disciplinary action, either criminal convictions or non-judicial punishment as a result of the investigations.
The American Civil Liberties Union has sought the release of the photos and won a lawsuit against the U.S. government before the federal appeals court in New York. The only legal option left to the government was to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. Instead the Obama administration had earlier made the decision to end the appeals and release the photos.
Through an arrangement with the court, the Pentagon was preparing to release, by May 28, two batches of photos, one of 21 images and another 23. The government also had told the judge it was "processing for release a substantial number of other images."
The ACLU criticized the decision.
"The decision to suppress the photos is profoundly inconsistent with the promise of transparency that President Obama has made time after time," ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer said.
NBC's John Yang and Jim Miklaszewski contributed to this story.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Obama praises torture ruling
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/ACLU_Hope_flickering_on_torture_after_0204.html
After Obama praises torture ruling, civil liberties group appalled
John Byrne
Wednesday February 4, 2009
'Hope is flickering,' ACLU declares
The American Civil Liberties Union, which has generally been harshly critical of President George W. Bush and praiseworthy of President Barack Obama, has fired a torpedo across the Obama bow.
After the British High Court ruled that evidence of a British resident's rendition and harsh interrogation at the Pentagon's Guantanamo Bay prison must remain secret because of threats made by the Bush administration to halt intelligence sharing, the Obama Administration offered a terse statement seemingly expressing support to the BBC.
"The United States thanks the UK government for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information and preserve the long-standing intelligence sharing relationship that enables both countries to protect their citizens," a spokesman said.
In response, the ACLU's executive director, Anthony Romero, shot off a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking the Obama Administration to clarify their position. Romero also issued a sharply-worded three sentence statement to the press, saying Obama has now offered "more of the same."
"Hope is flickering," Romero said in a statement. "The Obama administration's position is not change.. It is more of the same. This represents a complete turn-around and undermining of the restoration of the rule of law. The new American administration shouldn't be complicit in hiding the abuses of its predecessors."
The ACLU called on Clinton to "reject the Bush administration's policy of using false claims of national security to avoid judicial review of controversial programs."
Romero's letter to Clinton follows.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
February 4, 2009
The Honorable Hillary Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20520
Re: Clarification Requested on Position of the United States on Blocking Disclosure by a British Court of Its Report on Allegations of Torture
Dear Secretary Clinton:
The American Civil Liberties Union strongly urges you to clarify the position of the United States on the publication of the full judgment in a lawsuit brought by a Guantanamo detainee, Binyam Mohamed, in a British court. Earlier today, the High Court in Great Britain published a judgment denying publication of its report detailing allegations of torture. The High Court stated that the United States had threatened that full publication of the court's judgment would jeopardize intelligence cooperation between the two countries. Remarkably, the court reported that the British government claimed the U.S. position had not changed, despite the inauguration of President Barack Obama. We urgently request that you clarify the position of the United States in this matter.
Two of the British justices severely criticized the position of the United States in working to block publication of the judgment in the torture case. Lord Justice Thomas and Justice Lloyd Jones stated today that: Indeed, we did not consider that a democracy [the United States] governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials ... relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be. We had no reason ... to anticipate there would be made a threat of the gravity of the kind made by the United States Government that it would reconsider its intelligence-sharing relationship, when all the considerations in relation to open justice pointed to us providing a limited but important summary of the reports.
The court's opinion specifically stated that attorneys for British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told the court that the United States' threat on the effect of publication on intelligence cooperation was continued by the United States, despite the inauguration of President Obama.
Specifically, the justices stated that, "it was submitted to us by Mr. David Rose that the situation had changed significantly following the election of President Obama who was avowedly determined to eschew torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and to close Guantanamo Bay. We have, however, been informed by counsel for the Foreign Secretary that the position has not changed."
The claims made by the British justices that the United States continues to oppose publication of the judgment in the Binyam Mohamed case--to the point of threatening the future of U.S.-British intelligence cooperation--seems completely at odds with both the anti-torture and transparency executive orders signed by the President. We strongly urge you to clarify the position of the United States and remove any threat related to the publication of the court's full judgment.
Please let us know if you have any questions regarding this matter.
Sincerely,
Anthony D. Romero
Executive Director
Caroline Fredrickson
Director, Washington Legislative Office
cc: Joan Donoghue, Acting Legal Adviser
After Obama praises torture ruling, civil liberties group appalled
John Byrne
Wednesday February 4, 2009
'Hope is flickering,' ACLU declares
The American Civil Liberties Union, which has generally been harshly critical of President George W. Bush and praiseworthy of President Barack Obama, has fired a torpedo across the Obama bow.
After the British High Court ruled that evidence of a British resident's rendition and harsh interrogation at the Pentagon's Guantanamo Bay prison must remain secret because of threats made by the Bush administration to halt intelligence sharing, the Obama Administration offered a terse statement seemingly expressing support to the BBC.
"The United States thanks the UK government for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information and preserve the long-standing intelligence sharing relationship that enables both countries to protect their citizens," a spokesman said.
In response, the ACLU's executive director, Anthony Romero, shot off a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking the Obama Administration to clarify their position. Romero also issued a sharply-worded three sentence statement to the press, saying Obama has now offered "more of the same."
"Hope is flickering," Romero said in a statement. "The Obama administration's position is not change.. It is more of the same. This represents a complete turn-around and undermining of the restoration of the rule of law. The new American administration shouldn't be complicit in hiding the abuses of its predecessors."
The ACLU called on Clinton to "reject the Bush administration's policy of using false claims of national security to avoid judicial review of controversial programs."
Romero's letter to Clinton follows.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
February 4, 2009
The Honorable Hillary Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20520
Re: Clarification Requested on Position of the United States on Blocking Disclosure by a British Court of Its Report on Allegations of Torture
Dear Secretary Clinton:
The American Civil Liberties Union strongly urges you to clarify the position of the United States on the publication of the full judgment in a lawsuit brought by a Guantanamo detainee, Binyam Mohamed, in a British court. Earlier today, the High Court in Great Britain published a judgment denying publication of its report detailing allegations of torture. The High Court stated that the United States had threatened that full publication of the court's judgment would jeopardize intelligence cooperation between the two countries. Remarkably, the court reported that the British government claimed the U.S. position had not changed, despite the inauguration of President Barack Obama. We urgently request that you clarify the position of the United States in this matter.
Two of the British justices severely criticized the position of the United States in working to block publication of the judgment in the torture case. Lord Justice Thomas and Justice Lloyd Jones stated today that: Indeed, we did not consider that a democracy [the United States] governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials ... relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be. We had no reason ... to anticipate there would be made a threat of the gravity of the kind made by the United States Government that it would reconsider its intelligence-sharing relationship, when all the considerations in relation to open justice pointed to us providing a limited but important summary of the reports.
The court's opinion specifically stated that attorneys for British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told the court that the United States' threat on the effect of publication on intelligence cooperation was continued by the United States, despite the inauguration of President Obama.
Specifically, the justices stated that, "it was submitted to us by Mr. David Rose that the situation had changed significantly following the election of President Obama who was avowedly determined to eschew torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and to close Guantanamo Bay. We have, however, been informed by counsel for the Foreign Secretary that the position has not changed."
The claims made by the British justices that the United States continues to oppose publication of the judgment in the Binyam Mohamed case--to the point of threatening the future of U.S.-British intelligence cooperation--seems completely at odds with both the anti-torture and transparency executive orders signed by the President. We strongly urge you to clarify the position of the United States and remove any threat related to the publication of the court's full judgment.
Please let us know if you have any questions regarding this matter.
Sincerely,
Anthony D. Romero
Executive Director
Caroline Fredrickson
Director, Washington Legislative Office
cc: Joan Donoghue, Acting Legal Adviser
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Is the lame duck daffy?
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2917.shtml
Is the lame duck daffy?
By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Associate Editor
Feb 5, 2008
Of all the Looney Tunes we’ve lived through in two terms of Bush, the lame duck’s daffiness has reached a new level of strange. Now we have Bush Order Expands Network Monitoring. According to the lame duck directive, in addition to spying on other countries, the NSA (National Security, read Spy, Agency) will now focus on US government agencies. As cartoonist Signe Wilkinson wrote and drew, now we are One Nation, Under Surveillance.
The run-amok duck carried off this spy hunt, quacking at an increase in cyber attacks directed against the US, possibly from foreign countries. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI, if not Odious) will lead the hunt to get at the source of these attacks. Our trusty Department of Homeland Insecurity and Pentagon will be looking at retaliation. Would that sort of be like Cheney mistakenly shotgunning his friend at a duck hunt?
The above Washington Post story broke the news of the Bush-led joint directive, which is, of course, classified. And, of course, it will cost billions of dollars. As if our cup isn’t empty enough, Daffy is now slurping at the 2009 budget when he will be gone but certainly not forgotten.
As it is, US citizens are presently under a historically potent spying machine. It raised its sights not just on suspected criminals, but allowed for wiretapping the phone calls of Mr., Mrs., Miss, and Junior’s America, and warrant-free. The government is also pouring more money into specialized computers from the likes of Cray, The Supercomputer Company. They can search through enormous databases at lightening speed. Welcome to the future!
Of course, our not-so-lame, daffy duck-in-chief cites cyber attacks against the various departments of State, Commerce, Defense and Homeland Security as the rationale to expand NSA’S spyware even more. The Post reports that “US officials and cyber-security experts have said Chinese Web sites were involved in several of the biggest attacks back in 2005, including some of the country’s nuclear-energy labs and large defense contractors.” Naturally, our protectors at the Pentagon and Home Security will be operating with the power to counter-strike attackers.
But whether the actual culprits are rogue attackers or real nations would be very difficult to prove. And the possibility for a disastrous mistake is reasonably high. Also, the rest of the world hasn’t formed any agreed upon rules of cyber war, though that hasn’t stopped Ducks Are Us from throwing away the Geneva Conventions at Guantanamo or the Constitution for the USAPATRIOT Act. But that’s not all, folks!
Daffy asked Congress to help Verizon and AT&T better spy on us
In his last (thank god) State of the Union Address (a sure cure for insomnia), Daffy asked for broader protection for telecom carriers to dig into our phone calls and emails, expanding warrantless surveillance programs to communications beyond our borders with the help of AT&T and Verizon. This is part of the Protect America Act and bears the same relation to protecting us as the Clean Air Act did to keeping our air clean or the No Child Left Behind Act did in leaving most kids behind for lack of adequate funding.
The name of a Bush act always has an opposite purpose. In this case, the Protect America Act gives the NSA more clout to violate our privacy for the purported cause of nailing suspected “terrorists” without getting a court warrant first. And who knows who could be suspected and/or for what reason. Hey, it’s secret stuff and secret is secret.
But rest assured. Our lame duck said, “To protect America, we need to know who the terrorists are talking to, what they are saying, and what they are planning.” And “last year, Congress passed legislation [Protect America Act] to help us do that. Unfortunately, Congress set the legislation to expire on Feb 1. This means that if you do not act by Friday, our ability to track terrorists’ threats would be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger. Congress must ensure the flow of vital intelligence is not disrupted.” Well, those “terrists” sure seem to have us by the short hairs.
In fact, Congress had three ways to go after its first try that failed to reach a 60-vote majority to stop debate and force a vote on two wiretapping-related proposals, one Republican-favored the other Democrat-desired, the last the right way to go.
Congress’ three ways to go
One: Renew last August’s law, the Protect America Act, for 30 days. This would seemingly have given both sides more wiggle room, though sooner or later they’d have to live with some version of it. Dems favored this, but Daffy threatened a veto on a temporary extension. Yet, on Jan. 31, he signed a 15-day extension passed by Congress.
Two: Renew a reworked version of the PAA for good and protect telecom companies from legal consequences of any illegal acts they committed. Daffy loved this, and he had a minority of Dems ready to bow to him. If Decider Duck had his wish, the retroactive protection would have a bunch of pending lawsuits against telecom companies, i.e. Verizon and AT&T, especially the latter’s case before the 9th circuit court of appeals, thrown out.
Three: Let the PAA, known too as the pro-privacy option (backed by the ACLU and others), expire. This group reasons: “The Patriot Act dramatically expanded police eavesdropping powers in 2001, and there’s no pressing need to go further. The Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA) has worked for decades, and has long included emergency no-court-order-required wiretaps as long as proper procedures are followed.” Three cheers for that!
Senate Majority Leader Henry Reid and most Dems favored option one, figures. The Repugs wanted two, and put the heat on to get it through, especially Senate Leader Mitch McConnell. He wanted the Intelligence Committee version that went beyond immunizing telecom companies. It would have also retroactively protected (if you can believe it) email providers, search engines, Internet service providers and instant-messaging service.
Meanwhile, the house changed the bill to make it a 15-day extension instead of 30-day one, and the bill passed by voice vote. It moved quickly and was flipped to the Senate.
Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) took to the floor last Tuesday and urged others to vote against any extension to the Protect America Act. His reasoning: 1) the administration’s bill was bad law in the first place and brought home the lesson to never pass legislation under ‘duress brought on by propaganda, misinformation, and fear mongering,’ 2) surveillance authorized under the PAA would continue even if the law lapsed, and 3) it wouldn’t improve the Dems’ negotiating position.” Now there’s a smart guy for you!
Nevertheless, the Protect America act may not be a dead duck yet. Of course, Bush insists that he won’t sign new FISA legislation unless it grants the telecom companies immunity for aiding and abetting his illegal spying ops and turning over millions of people’s individual records to the government.
Yet the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has relentlessly battled Bush and his various duck spying blinds, advises “fix the Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA) not make it worse. We must preserve the protections and the checks and balances in the Constitution against government abuses of power that violate our rights and values.”
The ACLU 2008 Yearly Plan also includes stopping USAPATRIOT Act abuses, protecting the freedom of expression and the right to protest, resisting the use of torture and rendition, restoring the right of habeas corpus, preserving religious liberty, reproductive freedom and LGBT rights, maintaining free elections, and fighting for racial justice and opposing discrimination. If you can, after you write a check to Online Journal, send one to the ACLU via http://www.aclu.org/. Both groups are in your corner every day. “That’s All Folks” for now.
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer living in New York. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.
Is the lame duck daffy?
By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Associate Editor
Feb 5, 2008
Of all the Looney Tunes we’ve lived through in two terms of Bush, the lame duck’s daffiness has reached a new level of strange. Now we have Bush Order Expands Network Monitoring. According to the lame duck directive, in addition to spying on other countries, the NSA (National Security, read Spy, Agency) will now focus on US government agencies. As cartoonist Signe Wilkinson wrote and drew, now we are One Nation, Under Surveillance.
The run-amok duck carried off this spy hunt, quacking at an increase in cyber attacks directed against the US, possibly from foreign countries. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI, if not Odious) will lead the hunt to get at the source of these attacks. Our trusty Department of Homeland Insecurity and Pentagon will be looking at retaliation. Would that sort of be like Cheney mistakenly shotgunning his friend at a duck hunt?
The above Washington Post story broke the news of the Bush-led joint directive, which is, of course, classified. And, of course, it will cost billions of dollars. As if our cup isn’t empty enough, Daffy is now slurping at the 2009 budget when he will be gone but certainly not forgotten.
As it is, US citizens are presently under a historically potent spying machine. It raised its sights not just on suspected criminals, but allowed for wiretapping the phone calls of Mr., Mrs., Miss, and Junior’s America, and warrant-free. The government is also pouring more money into specialized computers from the likes of Cray, The Supercomputer Company. They can search through enormous databases at lightening speed. Welcome to the future!
Of course, our not-so-lame, daffy duck-in-chief cites cyber attacks against the various departments of State, Commerce, Defense and Homeland Security as the rationale to expand NSA’S spyware even more. The Post reports that “US officials and cyber-security experts have said Chinese Web sites were involved in several of the biggest attacks back in 2005, including some of the country’s nuclear-energy labs and large defense contractors.” Naturally, our protectors at the Pentagon and Home Security will be operating with the power to counter-strike attackers.
But whether the actual culprits are rogue attackers or real nations would be very difficult to prove. And the possibility for a disastrous mistake is reasonably high. Also, the rest of the world hasn’t formed any agreed upon rules of cyber war, though that hasn’t stopped Ducks Are Us from throwing away the Geneva Conventions at Guantanamo or the Constitution for the USAPATRIOT Act. But that’s not all, folks!
Daffy asked Congress to help Verizon and AT&T better spy on us
In his last (thank god) State of the Union Address (a sure cure for insomnia), Daffy asked for broader protection for telecom carriers to dig into our phone calls and emails, expanding warrantless surveillance programs to communications beyond our borders with the help of AT&T and Verizon. This is part of the Protect America Act and bears the same relation to protecting us as the Clean Air Act did to keeping our air clean or the No Child Left Behind Act did in leaving most kids behind for lack of adequate funding.
The name of a Bush act always has an opposite purpose. In this case, the Protect America Act gives the NSA more clout to violate our privacy for the purported cause of nailing suspected “terrorists” without getting a court warrant first. And who knows who could be suspected and/or for what reason. Hey, it’s secret stuff and secret is secret.
But rest assured. Our lame duck said, “To protect America, we need to know who the terrorists are talking to, what they are saying, and what they are planning.” And “last year, Congress passed legislation [Protect America Act] to help us do that. Unfortunately, Congress set the legislation to expire on Feb 1. This means that if you do not act by Friday, our ability to track terrorists’ threats would be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger. Congress must ensure the flow of vital intelligence is not disrupted.” Well, those “terrists” sure seem to have us by the short hairs.
In fact, Congress had three ways to go after its first try that failed to reach a 60-vote majority to stop debate and force a vote on two wiretapping-related proposals, one Republican-favored the other Democrat-desired, the last the right way to go.
Congress’ three ways to go
One: Renew last August’s law, the Protect America Act, for 30 days. This would seemingly have given both sides more wiggle room, though sooner or later they’d have to live with some version of it. Dems favored this, but Daffy threatened a veto on a temporary extension. Yet, on Jan. 31, he signed a 15-day extension passed by Congress.
Two: Renew a reworked version of the PAA for good and protect telecom companies from legal consequences of any illegal acts they committed. Daffy loved this, and he had a minority of Dems ready to bow to him. If Decider Duck had his wish, the retroactive protection would have a bunch of pending lawsuits against telecom companies, i.e. Verizon and AT&T, especially the latter’s case before the 9th circuit court of appeals, thrown out.
Three: Let the PAA, known too as the pro-privacy option (backed by the ACLU and others), expire. This group reasons: “The Patriot Act dramatically expanded police eavesdropping powers in 2001, and there’s no pressing need to go further. The Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA) has worked for decades, and has long included emergency no-court-order-required wiretaps as long as proper procedures are followed.” Three cheers for that!
Senate Majority Leader Henry Reid and most Dems favored option one, figures. The Repugs wanted two, and put the heat on to get it through, especially Senate Leader Mitch McConnell. He wanted the Intelligence Committee version that went beyond immunizing telecom companies. It would have also retroactively protected (if you can believe it) email providers, search engines, Internet service providers and instant-messaging service.
Meanwhile, the house changed the bill to make it a 15-day extension instead of 30-day one, and the bill passed by voice vote. It moved quickly and was flipped to the Senate.
Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) took to the floor last Tuesday and urged others to vote against any extension to the Protect America Act. His reasoning: 1) the administration’s bill was bad law in the first place and brought home the lesson to never pass legislation under ‘duress brought on by propaganda, misinformation, and fear mongering,’ 2) surveillance authorized under the PAA would continue even if the law lapsed, and 3) it wouldn’t improve the Dems’ negotiating position.” Now there’s a smart guy for you!
Nevertheless, the Protect America act may not be a dead duck yet. Of course, Bush insists that he won’t sign new FISA legislation unless it grants the telecom companies immunity for aiding and abetting his illegal spying ops and turning over millions of people’s individual records to the government.
Yet the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has relentlessly battled Bush and his various duck spying blinds, advises “fix the Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA) not make it worse. We must preserve the protections and the checks and balances in the Constitution against government abuses of power that violate our rights and values.”
The ACLU 2008 Yearly Plan also includes stopping USAPATRIOT Act abuses, protecting the freedom of expression and the right to protest, resisting the use of torture and rendition, restoring the right of habeas corpus, preserving religious liberty, reproductive freedom and LGBT rights, maintaining free elections, and fighting for racial justice and opposing discrimination. If you can, after you write a check to Online Journal, send one to the ACLU via http://www.aclu.org/. Both groups are in your corner every day. “That’s All Folks” for now.
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer living in New York. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.
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