Published: July 2, 2009
Lawyers for the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be transferred to US soil for a civilian trial, set for September 2010, asked on Thursday to see the secret CIA prisons where he was allegedly tortured.
The Associated Press reports, "A prosecutor agreed Thursday that the government will not dismantle overseas locations where a former Guantanamo detainee claims he was interrogated by the CIA before he was brought to the United States for trial on terrorism charges."
Natl Press Club DC - June 29, 2009 
Dear Friend,
Even in the age of Obama, the lingering attacks on civil liberties by the Bush administration are still being revealed. With newly released evidence of state-sanctioned torture practices by the CIA, warrantless wiretaps of innocent Americans, and unconstitutional expansions of executive power, we can't sweep the abuses of the last eight years under the rug. Accountability for torture is a legal, political, and moral imperative. And the ACLU is committed to restoring the rule of law.
On July 15, we will hear from ACLU-NC staff attorney Ann Brick, counsel in our case that alleged that Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. knowingly provided flight services that enabled the CIA to transport people to secret overseas locations where they were tortured. Brick has also been at the center of the ACLU's lawsuit against telecommunications giants AT&T and Verizon to stop them from providing the government with the personal phone records of millions of Californians. Also joining us by phone will be Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel for the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, who will give us the latest update on what the ACLU is doing to ensure our civil liberties are protected at the federal level.
Transparency & Accountability
A briefing by the ACLU featuring Ann Brick and Michelle Richardson
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
6:00 - 8:00 p.m., dinner provided
ACLU-NC offices
39 Drumm St. San Francisco
Click to RSVP
Can't join us in person? Teleconference services will be available for those wishing to participate remotely. Please RSVP for more information.
As Thomas Jefferson famously said: an informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will. We hope you will engage with us in being the informed, empowered citizenry that is needed to get our country moving in the right direction again.
Sincerely,
Abdi Soltani
Executive Director
ACLU of Northern California free of discrimination are fundamental goals of the ACLU.
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department is again delaying the release of an internal CIA report on the agency's secret detention and interrogation program during the Bush administration.
The report had been expected to be made public two weeks ago but was held back over debates about how much of it should be censored. The government published a version of the report in 2008, but its contents were almost entirely blacked out.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Wednesday that the report, expected to be made public in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, may not be released this week.
The report was written in 2004 by the CIA's inspector general.
The review questioned the effectiveness of harsh interrogation methods employed by CIA interrogators, such as waterboarding. That's according to references to the report contained in Bush-era Justice Department memos that were declassified this spring.
Luke Mitchell is a senior editor of Harper's Magazine.
We face the temptation to believe that an election can "change everything"--that the stark contrast between Barack Obama and George W. Bush recapitulates an equally stark contrast between the present and the past. But political events move within a continuum, and they are driven by many forces other than democratic action, including the considerable power of their own momentum. Such is the case with the ongoing American experiment with torture.
Published: June 29, 2009 RAW STORY
A grassroots coalition will file complaints today with the Washington, D.C. bar against two Central Intelligence Agency lawyers for their involvement in authorizing the use of controversial interrogation techniques against detainees in US custody.
Velvet Revolution, a coalition of over 150 grassroots groups, will register complaints against CIA lawyers Jonathan M. Fredman and John A. Rizzo. Fredmen, who is currently counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, served as the Associate General counsel for the CIA from 2001-2004. Rizzo is the current Acting General Counsel for the CIA but is retiring this month. His nomination to become full General Counsel has been held up for years over his alleged role in enabling the CIA's controversial interrogation program.
DC lawyer and activist Kevin Zeese, along with a former Reagan administration Associate Attorney General Bruce Fein, held a press conference this morning at the National Press Club in which they discussed the complaints they will be filing later today.
The complaints to be filed against Fredmen and Rizzo describe the role both men played in authorizing the CIA to use techniques generally considered torture against detainees in US custody, captured during the Bush administration.
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Abu Ghraib scandal haunts W.Va. reservist KEYSER, W.Va. (AP) -- More than two years since leaving her prison cell, the woman who became the grinning face of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal spends most of her days confined to the four walls of her home. Former Army reservist Lynndie England hasn't landed a job in numerous tries: When one restaurant manager considered hiring her, other employees threatened to quit. She doesn't like to travel: Strangers point and whisper, "That's her!" In fact, she doesn't leave the house much at all, limiting her outings mostly to grocery runs. "I don't have a social life," she says. " ... I sit at home all day." She's tried dyeing her dark brown hair, wearing sunglasses and ball caps. She even thought about changing her name. But "it's my face that's always recognized," she says, "and I can't really change that." England hopes a biography released this month and a book tour starting in July will help rehabilitate an image indelibly associated with the plight of the mistreated prisoners. | |||
Marcy Wheeler made a great point on Friday that's worth following up on. President Obama's declaration to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the United Nations Convention Against Torture tosses the responsibility for developing "effective policies and programs for stopping torture" to the State Department, asking it to "solicit information from all of our diplomatic missions around the world ..."
But the President's speech seemed primarily aimed at stopping torture abroad, which is presumably why he's called on the State Department to get involved. But what about torture committed by our own government?
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