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Center For Constitutional Rights 
Thu Mar 17, 2011 at 06:14:57 AM MST
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We all know how the U.S. justice system works. You're arrested, then tried, found guilty for a crime, then the court looks around for a different crime they are going to sentence you for. What? That is not how you think it is done? Well if you are a Guantanamo Bay detainee like Al Bahlul that is exactly what is going on today.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is highlighting this small bit of continuing legal (extra-legal?) chicanery going on in our Military Commissions Review in Cuba today.
Mr. Bahlul was part of the original prisoners brought to Guantanamo Bay nearly a decade ago. After serving several years without charge or conviction, he finally got a trial. He was charged and convicted on conspiracy, solicitation and providing material support for terrorism.
In the process of his appeals there has been a new administration, a Supreme Court decision, a reshuffling of the Court of Military Commissions Review (the appeals court in the Military Commissions system) and a decision that the appeal be held en banc (meaning that the whole appellate court heard the appeal). At this point the government has all but agreed that the charges that they originally convicted him on were not established at law-of-war offenses either under international law or U.S. law at the time they were committed.
This is an important fact as the U.S. Constitution bars ex post facto convictions Article One, Section 9 prevents the Congress from passing ex post facto laws. What this means is that you can not be held accountable as a matter of law for a crime that was not as crime at the time you committed it.
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Fri Feb 04, 2011 at 18:52:44 PM MST
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You think that just because President Obama is afraid of the consequences of investigating the criminal Bush administrations State Sponsored Torture program that the former President and his henchmen are off the hook? Well think again. And this is not just on theoretically either. I'll have a lot more detail on this on Monday, but here is what I got from a friend of mine at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)
President Bush was supposed to be in Geneva on Monday. He was going to address a group at the Hotel President Wilson. It was to be one of those big dollar events where the Ex-President speaks to a rah-rah crowd for a big passel of cash. That is now canceled, and just canceled this evening. Why is that?
Well you see the CCR and its allies in Europe had been preparing a bit of a surprise for the 43 President of the United States and unindicted torturer. They had been working for months to bring two complaints against George W. Bush under the International Conventions Against Torture. One in the name of Al Jazeera reporter Sami el-Hajj and a current CIA detainee Majid Khan, who is to this day held at Guantanamo Bay without charge.
CCR and the European Center of Constitutional and Human Rights have put together a 2.500 page case against the criminal President Bush and had intended to file it Monday when Bush was in Geneva. They had been keeping the a pretty tight lid on this, talking to reporters under a news embargo and preparing a press conference. Some how it seems that it has leaked and lo and behold, W suddenly can't attend and the event is being canceled.
Of course this swill be spun by the organizers and the handlers for the former President, but I agree with Jen Nessel of the CCR when she says:
Whatever Bush or his hosts say, we have no doubt he cancelled his trip to avoid our case.
You may be able to play the law in one country. Your allies might be able to make the cost of following the rule of law so high that the administration following you finds their hands tied, but that does not make you safe from international law. It really doesn't make you safe from domestic law, it just might buy you enough time to age and die without being indicted for your war crimes.
It has been said before and it bears saying again, if you are a torturer you had better not make any plans to travel outside the United States. You might think you can brag about ordering torture and swagger around. Keep thinking that, because the wheels of justice grind slow but they grind exceedingly fine!
I can't tell you how happy it makes me to be able to talk about the real possibility of the members of Bush Administration facing a court for their war crimes. The only thing that would have made it better is if it was a U.S. Court. But justice is justice and I'll take any step towards it that I can get.
What's on your minds tonight Firedogs? The floor is yours.
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Tue Aug 31, 2010 at 06:04:46 AM MST
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In the movie Witness, there is a scene where a little Amish boy, who has witnessed a murder, takes the gun of the detective who is there to protect him from a chest of drawers. He is caught by his grandfather who sits him down for a talk. The grandfather asks if the boy would use this gun to kill. The boy says that he would only kill a bad man. The grandfather asks "How will you know who is the bad man?" This is the central point of our system of justice, we don't just assume that someone is a bad man before punishing them, we have an elaborate process designed to require proof of actions before we punish.
Unfortunately our trauma with terrorism has eroded this system. Today, as you read this, there is a list of people around the world who are targeted for death. They are suspected of being involved with terror plots, and some of them are your fellow citizens. If they are found anywhere in the world by our forces they will be killed. Not captured and brought to trial, not attempted to be captured, but killed out right.
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Tue Jun 22, 2010 at 06:18:21 AM MST
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Yesterday was a bad day for the First Amendment. The Roberts Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that the material support law was, under the strict scrutiny test, constitutional. At issue was whether human rights groups can provide educational services to groups designated as terrorist without being in legal danger themselves. The High Court found that there was sufficient State interest in this area to limit free speech protections and limit them severely.
The Center For Constitutional Rights (CCR) were part of the legal team that brought the suit. They argued that the definitions of "material support" were overly broad and vague. Some of the words at issue were "expert advice", "training", "service" and personnel". These words can cover a lot of situations that have nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with bringing terrorist groups into the political process and ending their terrorist activities.
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Tue Jun 15, 2010 at 05:38:35 AM MST
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There is nothing about torture that is good or positive. The act itself is one of the most brutal and heinous that humans have ever committed. The affect on a society that condones torture is one of rising fear and brutality. The information (if it can be called that) gained under torture is so suspect as to be worthless. Perhaps the worst aspect is that torture, once accepted is used not only on enemies or bad people, but innocent victims as well.
On Monday the United States Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of one such innocent victim of torture, Mr. Maher Arar, a Syrian born Canadian citizen. In 2002 he was returning to Canada from a trip abroad. At a stop over at JFK Airport he was detained by the US Government and held in solitary confinement for two weeks without access to an attorney. Mr. Arar was then deported, not to his nation of citizenship, Canada but, to Syria and put in the hands of the Syrian intelligence services, who are well known for their torture activities.
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Thu Apr 29, 2010 at 11:21:10 AM MST
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There are a lot of reasons to be frothing at the mouth angry at the criminal Bush administration. One of the biggest is the way that they not only managed to overturn a half century of certainty about what torture is and the use of it, in doing so they have also extended the immunity of those committing torture in the name of national security. The use of the State Secrets privilege to quash cases brought by torture victims was the standard operating procedure in the Bush administration.
It has sadly continued in the Obama administration. Without letting our current Executive Branch off the hook at all, it is easy to understand how that happens. How many of us have ever been willing to give up privileges we have, even if we are fairly sure it is not a good idea for anyone to have them? Since no one, not even the former V.P. Dick Cheney is the villain in the movie of their life, everyone thinks they will use these powers only for good.
This is why we need groups like the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights to fight against the expansion of governmental power and accountability for any illegal acts the government might commit.
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Wed Mar 31, 2010 at 06:49:38 AM MST
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It is nearly impossible to calculate the level of damage that the criminal Bush Administration did to our concepts of civil liberties and protections. The main reason for this is the furtive nature in which they made decisions and implemented them. An excellent example of this is a prison program you have never heard of.
In to Federal prisons, one in Terra Haute, Indiana and other in Marion Illinois an experimental program was started in 2006. This program is called the Communications Management Units (CMU) . These special units are pretty damned Orwellian. Unlike other prisoners, people in the CMU's have all their calls and mail monitored (with the exception of contact with their attorneys) . That might be acceptable if it were all that went on, the CMU's also require that all face to face conversations be conducted in English, so they can also be monitored. To add insult to injury there is no touching of visitors, even spouses and minor children.
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