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.

The Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union have filed suit challenging the legality of this policy. There is an Islamic cleric named Anwar Al-Aulaqi who has been implicated in both the Fort Hood shootings and the Fruit of the Boom bomber plots. He has made many anti-American statements including the active encouragement of terrorism.

In an editorial posted by the New York Times on Saturday afternoon, the editorial board condemned the Obama administration’s involuntary deportation of a Guantanamo prisoner to Algeria. The prisoner, 35-year-old Abdul Aziz Naji, was cleared of any charges in a wide-ranging review of Guantanamo prisoner status last year. Naji begged not to be sent back to Algeria, a country he fled after being attacked himself at age 17 or 18 by extremists. Naji feared the Algerian government could not protect him against the Islamic fundamentalist rebels that have been fighting the somewhat more moderate Islamic government for some twenty years now. Now he has disappeared, and the Algerian ambassador says the government cannot protect him against extremists.

Even though 35 year-old Abdul Aziz Naji said he’d rather stay at Guantanamo than be deported to his home country of Algeria, the Obama administration forcibly deported him anyway, despite Mr. Naji’s fears that “he would be targeted by violent groups who would kill him if he refused to join their battle against the country’s government.” The U.S. Supreme Court refused to block the deportation in a ruling last week. Now Naji takes on the notoriety and the tragic fate to be the first involuntary transfer from Guantanamo.

In a June 24 editorial, the New York Times called for the passage of a New York State law that would bar health professionals from licensure it they had participated in torture. Meanwhile, the ACLU announces a “flash mob” event, Noon, June 25, Union Square, NYC.

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.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"

There is nothing about torture that is good or positive. The act itself is on 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.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"

In a summary of recent news in the fight against torture, a D.C. judge has dismissed all charges against demonstrators arrested in an anti-Guantanamo demonstration last January. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has announced it will not review the District Court’s decision refusing to review Canadian citizen Maher Arar case against U.S. officials for their role in rendering him to Syria to be tortured. At the same time, the Canadian RCMP is revealed to be investigating both Syrian and U.S. officials for this crime.

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.

The CCR is filing for certiorari with the Supreme Court in the case of Saleh et al v. Titan et al. This case is a civil suit brought by 250 Iraqis and their widows against two U.S. contractors. The case revolves around the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in the early days of the occupation. The Iraqis are brought suit claiming that they were tortured by employees of Titan Corporation (which is now called L-3 Services, ever notice the worst offenders keep changing their names?) and a company called CACI International.

These two companies were hired by the U.S. Military to provide interpretation and interrogation services. The Iraqis claim all manner of abuse at the hands of the defendants including rape, beatings which resulted in the death of the detainees and having to watch family members suspended from a ceiling and beaten. The man who was hung from the ceiling and beaten died from this treatment.

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. [...]

Things move slowly in the courts, but the government this week has had to admit to the existence of torture tapes of a Guantanamo Bay prisoner and has been ordered to hand them over.