It’s way better than the old plan our founding fathers set us up with. (You know, the one where warrantless spying wasn’t permitted.)
The FISA Retroactive Immunity Package gives you a sleek new phone, all the free minutes you need and the flexibility the government needs to get around your Fourth Amendment rights. Best of all—NO ROAMING CHARGES, even if you are sent to Gitmo!
The legislative battle over gutting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will resume in the Senate in Washington on July 8.
Without a dramatic turnaround, it appears we will lose this important fight in the Senate over the gutting of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Amendments, including the one likely offered by Senators Dodd and Feingold to strip immunity from the bill are a valiant attempt to improve the bill. However such amendments are not likely to stem the tide of what looks to be certain passage of an unconstitutional bill. Nor are they likely to stop a final bill that immunizes the telecommunications companies that broke the law.
While we greatly appreciate the valiant efforts of senators like Feingold and Dodd to improve the legislation – these efforts should not and will not provide political cover for any senator that says ‘yes’ to any bill with warrantless wiretapping or immunity for telecommunications companies that broke the law.
The pivotal vote is the one at the end, on July 8. On that day, Senators will make a crucial decision: whether or not to eviscerate American’s treasured right to privacy in our own homes and codify a Nixonian view on executive power that, “if a president does it, it is not illegal.”
Although we will urge senators to vote for amendments to improve the bill, the bottom line for the ACLU is that no president should have the power to monitor the phones and emails of Americans without a warrant, and telecommunications companies should not be let off the hook. No president should have the power to pardon companies that broke the law.
The ACLU calls on the next president to conduct an immediate investigation of warrantless wiretapping and calls on him to release documents relating to the legality of the NSA’s monitoring of American’s calls and email without warrants.
We urge senators to talk to their constituents about what the Fourth of July means to them. Think about liberty and abuse of power under the Bush administration.
We encourage members of the ACLU to contact their senators and explain that they want the government to get a warrant before monitoring their phone calls or their emails.
When the Senate returns from recess, we exhort senators to rely on the tried and true FISA, which has worked well for 30 years. If technical adjustments need to be made then let’s have a narrowly tailored bill not drafted by the telephone companies.
A panel of experts, including 10 law enforcement officers and prosecutors, unanimously agrees that California’s death penalty is utterly broken. To fix it, we’ll need to spend over $200 million per year. The current failed system already costs over $137 million more each year than our alternative of permanent imprisonment. Today’s report forces all Californians to ask: how much we are willing to pay for our death penalty when we have an alternative that punishes criminals and protects our communities without making us bankrupt?
If you get an error message while attempting to view this clip, please reload the page or press F5.
Please note that by playing this clip You Tube will place a long-term cookie on your computer. Please see You Tube’s privacy statement on their website to learn more. To view the ACLU’s privacy statement, click here.
First, if we decide that we simply can’t part with a system that we now know drains critical resources from public safety budgets, puts innocent lives at risk, harms murder victim family members, and is applied unfairly, then we need to commit to spending over $200 million in tax dollars every year to make the system operational on the most basic levels.
The Commission estimates that in order to make the system function, we would have to spend nearly $100 million more each year to pay for more prosecution and defense lawyers, and more court staff to handle the enormous volume of death penalty cases and appeals. When you add that to the money we already spend, it totals $217 million a year. On top of that, the State Auditor recently concluded that it will cost almost $400 million to build a new death row housing facility at San Quentin, on ground that is literally sinking into the sea.
Considering California’s fiscal crisis, spending all of this money is not only unlikely, it’s impossible.
And none of these proposed reforms would adequately address one of the most troubling flaws in California’s death penalty, the racial and geographic disparities that call the very fairness and justice of the system into question. Despite evidence and testimony from several researchers indicating that race and place play a significant role in determining who lives and who dies, proposed reforms to address these issues are noticeably lacking from the Commission’s report. Reforms that would begin to address those flaws would certainly cost more.
Our second option, according to the Commission, is to acknowledge that we have the most extreme death penalty statute in the country, resulting in an insupportably large death row population, and that we can’t afford a system this big and bloated.
We all agree that we want a criminal justice system that delivers justice fairly. The overwhelming demands of our current death penalty system, however, overburden courts, lawyers and public safety officials at every level, jeopardizing the foundations of our justice system. The Commission suggests that we could limit the number of crimes eligible for the death penalty in order to ease some of the burden. This would still cost more than $100 million a year, depending on how much smaller we make the “smaller death penalty.”
While both of these options provide a healthy dose of reality about how large and unmanageable our death penalty is, the Commission report also highlights the fact that we already pay many millions of dollars on the current failed death penalty, and that a cheaper, more effective system is not only feasible, it’s already in place.
Few people realize that condemning someone to permanent imprisonment costs California taxpayers millions of dollars less than sentencing him or her to death. We have had the option of permanent imprisonment for as long as we have had the death penalty, and it’s proven itself to be a more functional system that serves as a severe, but cost effective, punishment.
Which brings us to our third option, according to the Commission: replace the death penalty with permanent imprisonment until death, and save millions of dollars for public safety programs that actually work to punish criminals, protect the public and help victims. This would cost us less than $12 million, a savings of more than $200 million a year over option one.
The Commission does not come out and officially endorse this or any other option. In some sense, that’s a cop out. On the other hand, the Commission puts the decision right where it should be: in the hand of the voters. It’s time for those of us who are writing the checks to fund the system if to ask if it’s really worth the price.
The 700 or so women each year who have an abortion in South Dakota go to the only abortion clinic in the state, where one doctor performs abortions once a week (three different doctors rotate that shift). After last Friday’s 8th Circuit Court decision in Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota v. Rounds (PDF), those three doctors are now forced, by law, to tell each of these women that “An abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.” This restriction is just one more tactic that anti-choice forces have used to chip away at the constitutional right to abortion in what is already one of the most restricted states.
The ACLU believes that a woman needs medically accurate information to make the best choices for herself and her circumstances, without undue pressure. She should be able to trust that the advice she receives from her physician reflects what her physician believes is in her best interest, not something that her physician has been forced to say by the government.
Clearly those in the South Dakota legislature who voted to pass the law,and the 8th Circuit judges who voted to uphold it, disagree.
The law also forces a doctor to tell his or her patient that she “has an existing relationship with that unborn human being” and if she has an abortion, “her existing relationship and her existing constitutional rights with regards to that relationship will be terminated.”
The court’s decision comes in the midst of a challenge to the law the South Dakota legislature passed in 2005 that requires a physician performing an abortion (those three rotating doctors at that one clinic that performs abortions one day per week) to recite to their patients all of those opinions masquerading as fact. The court determined that the law could go into effect while Planned Parenthood continues its challenge, and the court specifically said that it is unlikely that Planned Parenthood will succeed on its claim that the law violates doctors’ First Amendment rights by forcing them to deliver an ideologically-driven message with which they disagree.
If the law’s language sounds like anti-choice rhetoric, it’s because it was written by an anti-choice activist — the lawyer Harold J. Cassidy. He tried a similar tactic in New Jersey a few years ago by bringing a medical malpractice lawsuit against a physician who performed an abortion and who didn’t tell his patients what those three rotating doctors in South Dakota are now forced to tell theirs: that abortion terminates the life of a separate, unique human being.
Last September the New Jersey Supreme Court — in a unanimous decision — threw out the case, noting:
We know of no common law duty requiring a physician to instruct the woman that the embryo is an ‘existing human being,’ and suggesting that an abortion is tantamount to murder.There is not even remotely a consensus among New Jersey’s medical community or citizenry that plaintiff’s assertions are medical facts, as opposed to firmly held, moral philosophical and religious beliefs.
A similar case is pending in Chicago.
Women’s heath is best promoted when a woman has the information and access to make healthy life decisions based on her own values and her own unique circumstances. Ensuring this principle means stopping anti-choice activists like Cassidy and South Dakota’s lawmakers from playing politics with our lives.
Yesterday in a speech addressing a conference sponsored by the Bush administration’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, the President said that the faith-based office and its activities are, “bigger that politics.” This statement is Orwellian given all of the evidence that has clearly illustrated just how polarizing and politicized this office has been.
The President’s Faith-Based office has been all about politics. We need look no further than the voices of those who have worked for the president and have run this office over the Bush years. They have spoken of their frustrations with how politicized the office had become. They saw first-hand that the effort was, and is, more about politics and courting churches.
Unfortunately, the creation of the faith-based office as part of the Bush administration was never about creating a way to better advocate for, and better fund, successful partnerships with all federally funded social service programs; nor has it been about ensuring that programming, and the tax-payer dollars that are allocated for such programming, finds its way to those most in need of services and to those organizations that are most qualified to deliver such services. This is something that has disturbed many who have worked in the faith-based office over the years. David Kuo’s book on his experiences working for the president in the faith-based office tells the tale in great detail.
The Administration can spew what appears on the surface to be impressive numbers, but it rings no more true than the “Mission Accomplished” sign in Iraq. Sadly, the faith-based office added little value, less accountability and a whole lot of government-funded discrimination. Yes, of course, one of our chief complaints about this president’s faith-based office is that it does not ensure that ALL organizations receiving government dollars be required to protect the constitutional and civil rights of those receiving services and all employees working in these programs.
The Bush administration has eviscerated most of the safeguards that had successfully protected the independence of churches, while also protecting the rights that all Americans have to expect equal treatment when they apply for a government-funded job or when they participate in a government-funded service. This office and this administration have actually promoted discrimination. No one should have to face government-sanctioned and government-funded religious discrimination when applying for a job or when receiving services funded by the government. Should a social worker who is not the “right” religion be excluded or fired from a government funded job because he or she is not of the right religion or has violated a tenet of their religion? Of course not. Discrimination based on religion goes against a core American value.
It is not just the discriminatory behavior of the office. It is the lack of fiscal accountability that disturbs me. It is hard to believe that any taxpayer would find it acceptable that the faith-based office is not holding all grantees accountable for where our dollars are going and how they are being used. It has become clear to those who have spent years trying to figure out the specific details of where the money has gone, how it has been spent program-by-program and how successful these programs have been is impossible to track—because in many cases that information does not currently exist. For example, I don’t think I need to bother running through all of the documented examples of the misuse, lack of accountability and sheer thievery that occurred following the dumping of funds into random programs following Katrina. Just as we know of the rampant government-funded discrimination that has occurred over the years.
At the end of the day, the real issue is not whether or not an office that helps coordinate and advocate for more and better resources for those in need is necessary, many will continue to debate and discuss its value. However, one thing is clear no matter what is decided; this office should not function as a political tool that panders to and attempts to buy off support from religious communities.
Have you noticed that rarely does anyone—including the Bush Administration ever add the words “…and ‘community initiatives’” when they speak of this office? This is more than telling. As they say…the devil is always in the details…and that is definitely the problem with the current administration’s misuse of its faith-based office.
Trumbo, a documentary film released today, tells the story of blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo’s courage in resolutely refusing to name names before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the darkest days of the anti-Communist witch hunts of the 1940s and 50s. The film has great relevance for today’s troubled times, and serves as a powerful reminder of why principles matter and how the failure to abide by them can result in lasting damage.
Dalton Trumbo was one of the most celebrated screenwriters of his day. As one of the “Hollywood 10,” he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947. For this, he was sentenced to prison and along with hundreds of other less famous workers in his industry was banned from employment in Hollywood for more than a decade.
The film is directed by Peter Askin and written by Trumbo’s son, Christopher Trumbo. Askin cast a set of leading film stars (Joan Allen, Michael Douglas, David Strathairn, Nathan Lane, Donald Sutherland and more) — to read from dozens of Trumbo’s remarkable private letters. He uses wonderful archival film clips and recent interviews to weave together a powerful tale and an important lesson from the McCarthy period.
The ACLU is grateful to be chosen as a beneficiary of a percentage of the proceeds of the film. It is a very generous gift on the part of the filmmakers, but I could only think that the award is being bestowed to a group whose record is “most improved.”
For in those troubled times, the ACLU was often much too timid, and at worst, conflicted and counterproductive. The debate within the ACLU in many ways mirrored the treacherous debate in Hollywood. Leading forces within the organization insisted that the protection of “national security” would provide the greatest protection for civil liberties. Although the ACLU helped to defend the Hollywood 10, the organization was still anxious to eschew any label as a “communist front” and even established an internal “loyalty oath,” a tool that some ACLU leaders believed would bolster the organization’s credibility and therefore allow it to be an even more effective defender of civil liberties.
It was a Faustian bargain. In hindsight, we know that it weakened our defense of the First Amendment at that critical time, and diminished the organization’s early legitimacy. It also created great dissent among some of the fledgling new ACLU affiliates. Fortunately, it did serve as a bitter lesson that helped forge the organization’s future role as an unrelenting advocate of civil liberties.
Fast forward through the next 50 years, and no one would suggest that the ACLU has been too timid or compromising. Especially during the past seven years as we have witnessed perhaps the greatest assault ever on civil liberties, the ACLU has responded with great clarity to White House threats and actions to limit civil liberties in the name of national security. The ACLU has not only risen to the challenge, but we have boldly fought back on every front during this similar period.
Perhaps no action has been clearer than the recent establishment of the John Adams Project, which provides direct representation to detainees facing prosecution at Guantánamo because of our grave concern that the military commissions process is an affront to justice. The ACLU believes that the military commission’s authorization of the use of coerced evidence possibly derived from torture, secret evidence, and hearsay is unconstitutional and counter to our constitutional traditions. This abuse of power requires our extraordinary leadership and effort. Clearly we have cast off the misgivings of the 1950s that kept less popular clients at bay.
Dalton Trumbo paid a very high price for adhering to his principles. The new film portrays well the havoc that was wreaked upon him, his friends and his family. It also shows how few were willing to stand with him during this perilous time and the bitter legacy when liberty is lost.
The film also underscores the vital role that the arts play in providing the narrative that brings these important principles to life. It is quite a moving experience to see some of today’s most celebrated actors read the stirring commentary of one of our most accomplished and persecuted writers.
In recognition of the importance of this platform, the ACLU has launched a new program, “Rights/Camera/Action,” which uses the arts and popular culture as a forum for civil liberties discussion with artists and entertainers to encourage deeper conversations that tap into our core civil liberties values.
Today as the ACLU marks its 88th year, it is a much wiser and stronger organization. We are proud and also deeply humbled — to be recognized by the makers of the movie Trumbo with their support of our essential work.
Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s world-famous political prisoner who became his nation’s first democratically elected president, turns 90 years old this summer.
Fourteen years ago, under a full Autumn moon, about two poignant minutes apart before midnight and after — I witnessed a white soldier lower South Africa’s old flag for the last time and a black soldier raise his nation’s new colors.
The people of South Africa — including, for the first time, the majority black population — had gone to the polls in a jubilant, chaotic and epochal election and altered the course of their nation’s bitter history. A liberation election finally put the beast of apartheid in the grave and Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela into power as president of South Africa.
“I will concentrate on those things which give hope to all South Africans,” Mandela, who was the symbol and instrument of the anti-apartheid struggle, said on being elected.
The original white Dutch settlers arranged things so that whites would hold the power and wealth of the nation. Hendrik Verwoerd and his cohort in 1948 codified those policies into apartheid — the system of racist laws and policies by which South Africa’s 5.6 million whites oppressed 24 million blacks and others of mixed race for half a century. Verwoerd never expected blacks to vote. By the 1980’s, however, South Africa, the last colonial outpost on the African continent, had become a pariah nation, apartheid reviled, its economy tottering on the edge of collapsing from the strain of sanctions and the unrelenting violence of the liberation struggle.
Then-president F.W. de Klerk told the Times of London the reason apartheid had to end:
“A more conservative government might possibly keep the lid on the pot for another five years. But, after that, the pot will explode and blow us and our future into the air.”
He found an essential partner in Nelson Mandela. Mandela, born July 18, 1918, was a lawyer, then an activist and, finally, an opponent of apartheid. South Africa’s white government put Mandela on trial for treason in 1963. At his sentencing, Mandela proclaimed his ideals:
During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and achieve. But, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
Mandela was imprisoned and held on the harsh Robben Island for 27 years, during which his legend grew almost too great for any one man to bear.
“I am not prepared to sell the birthright of the people to be free,” he once proclaimed to his jailers on being offered freedom in exchange for giving up the fight against apartheid. He had received numerous such offers since 1963. De Klerk, six months after assuming the presidency, lifted the ban on political activity by Mandela’s group, the African National Congress, and gave Mandela his unconditional release from prison.
De Klerk and the old liberation fighter then hammered out a new Constitution for South Africa.
When Mandela won the presidency, following the 1994 election, it was a remarkable transition to which I was a witness: for perhaps the first time in human history, a tyrannical leadership voluntarily gave up power to the very people it had long oppressed. Mandela, at his moment of triumph, spoke from his heart and danced like a boy. It was a victorious day for all South Africans, he proclaimed. “The people have won.”
But no one knew better than de Klerk how bitter the struggle ahead could be.
“Mr. Mandela has walked a long road and stands at the top of the hill,” de Klerk said. “A traveler would sit down and admire the view, but a man of destiny knows that behind this hill lies another hill, and another. The journey is never complete.”
To win South Africa’s presidency, though a great leap forward, was a poisoned chalice: A lifeboat with too many people on one side, Mandela must steer the country through dangerous waters: ethnic rivalry, black anger and white anxiety. For whites, would they flee the country or cower in their homes awaiting the black horde to come and take away the wealth they spent a lifetime accruing? And for the long oppressed majority black population, how could anyone, even their beloved Mandela, counsel patience at this moment of their triumph?
The problems facing Mandela and his new government were staggering: 40 percent unemployment, 50 percent illiteracy, widespread crime and political violence that had killed more than 11,000 people since 1990, ethnic polarization and the impatience of tens of millions of blacks demanding a better life now that apartheid is over.
Those very early years after the historic election were perhaps the most dangerous for the new nation of South Africa. A less sure hand and the country would quickly slide into chaos. Mandela led by example. He served one term in the presidency and yielded power to a successor, an exceptional transition on the continent of Africa, where liberators soon turn to despots.
But no one should have expected anything different from the courageous Mandela; he is fond of saying “If you are in harmony with yourself, you may meet a lion without fear.”
Although the actual date is not until July 18, many around the world have already begun saying “Happy 90th birthday, Madiba!” with more than 20 events around the world through the year, including a kick-off birthday concert today in London’s Hyde Park.
So while we have a short reprieve, it’s not over yet. Now’s the time to contact your Senators’ office and tell them to vote "no" on the FISA bill. In fact, while they’re home in their districts, why not do it in person? Get out there — go to those Fourth of July picnics and parades. Tell them to celebrate the Fourth of July by remembering what those who founded this country believed in. Tell them you care about your Fourth Amendment rights, and blanket immunity for the lawbreaking telecom companies is unacceptable. Tell them to let the courts do their job as the Framers intended and to allow checks and balances. Tell them to pass the apple pie—not the FISA Amendments Act of 2008.
We did it back in March when the Protect America Act expired, and we can do it again. It’s time to mobilize once more. Call your Senators. F’real. No joke. Tell your mom, dad, brother, sister, neighbor, coworker and cousins to call.
Stand up for your rights. Don’t let the Senate give this lame duck a parting gift. Let the door hit him and his telecom cronies on the arse on the way out.
Today the House Education and Labor Committee’s Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions held a hearing on discrimination against transgender employees. Retired U.S. Army Colonel Diane Schroer, a highly-decorated veteran who transitioned from male to female after 25 years of distinguished service in the Army, testified before the committee. Diane interviewed for a job as a terrorism research analyst at the Library of Congress and accepted the position, but the job offer was rescinded when she told her future supervisor that she was in the process of gender transition. The ACLU is now representing her in a Title VII sex discrimination lawsuit against the Library of Congress. This is her testimony.
My name is Diane Schroer, Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired, and I am a transgender woman. I grew up in Chicago as David Schroer with two older brothers in the most normal of loving families. I entered the U.S. Army through ROTC as a 2nd Lieutenant immediately following graduation from Northern Illinois University. I completed Ranger and Airborne School and served four years on the East-West German Border, completing three company command tours along the way. In 1987, I was an honor graduate of the U.S. Army Special Forces Qualification Course.
I served 16 years in Special Forces including tours as a detachment commander, company commander, and battalion commander, accumulating 450 parachute jumps. I participated in combat operations in Panama and Haiti as well as missions in the Middle East, Central America, Africa, and Europe. Additionally, I initiated humanitarian demining operations in Namibia, Rwanda, Mozambique, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
As the Senior Assessment Director, I orchestrated the Program Objective Memorandum or “POM” for US Special Operations Command, reviewing 5,000 programs covering all aspects of Special Operations for four years. I knew every unit, piece of equipment, operation, exercise, development program, and construction project; I knew where every dollar was supposed to go and how it was spent.
Following the attacks on 9/11, I was selected to organize and direct a classified 120-person interagency organization responsible for all Department of Defense operations against the country’s most significant terrorist threats and all long-term planning for the Global War on Terrorism. After almost two years of successful operations, with 25 years in the U.S. Army, I retired in January 2004.
Since my retirement, I have been intimately involved in Homeland Security, Critical Infrastructure Protection, and Maritime High-Risk Counterterrorism Operations. I currently run a small, independent consulting company that has done work for the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Coast Guard, the National Guard, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to name a few. I possess a current Top Secret, Special Compartmented Information capable security clearance, which was updated in a Periodic Review completed without issue in July 2007.
I am here today because, in Fall 2004, I applied and interviewed for the position of Specialist in Terrorism and International Crime with the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress. In December 2004, I was told I had been selected for the position and after some rapid salary negotiations, I accepted the job.
I knew that I was well-qualified for the position. The U.S. Government had spent 30 years and several million of dollars educating me and perfecting my experience in the fields of Insurgency and Counterterrorism. As an aside, I also have a personal library collection of approximately 18,000 volumes covering predominantly those subjects.
At the time I applied for the position, I was in the process of my gender transition from Dave to Diane. However, I was still legally David — meaning that all my documentation was still under the name David — and therefore, applied for the position as David. When I was offered the job by CRS in December 2004, I felt that it would cause less confusion all around if I simply started work as Diane, rather than starting as David and then transitioning to Diane. So, I invited my future supervisor at CRS to lunch so I could tell her about my plans, and help her ensure everything went smoothly.
On the day of our lunch meeting, I met my future supervisor at her office. She introduced me to several new “colleagues” as she put it, on our way out of the building. At lunch she spoke at length about my new responsibilities, which would involve preparing, publishing and informing Members about the critical issues surrounding terrorism and homeland security. During a break in her description of my new duties, I mentioned that I had a personal item I wanted to discuss with her. I asked her if she knew what it meant to be transgender, and explained that I had a female gender identity, and would be transitioning to living as a female on a full-time basis. My intent was to do this when I commenced work at CRS.
I knew that whether I was David, or Diane, I would provide excellent research support to the Congress. I had truly thought that my future supervisor at CRS would feel the same way. Yet, as we parted company following our lunch conversation, she said that “I had given her a lot to think about.” And then, the following day, she called and said that “After a long and sleepless night, she decided I was not a good fit for the Library.” I told her I was very disappointed to hear her say that. In 24 hours, I had gone from a welcome addition to the staff to someone who was “not a good fit” because I was a woman. Hero to zero in 24 hours.
I enlisted the assistance of the ACLU and, in June 2005, they filed suit in Federal Court on my behalf against the Library of Congress.
In its legal papers, the Library has claimed that it did not hire me because it was concerned that I would lose my colleagues in the Special Operations community as a result of my gender transition. The ironic thing is that these are precisely the people who have been only second to my family as my staunchest supporters in this fight.
The Library has claimed that it could not hire me because it was concerned I might lose my clearance, yet I hold a current TS/SCI capable clearance and continue to work on several highly classified initiatives.
The Library has claimed that it could not hire me because I would have no credibility with Members, given that a woman could not possibly know the things I know. And yet I testify in front of this committee here today.
In summary, as a Master Parachutist, honor graduate of Army Ranger School, the Special Forces Qualification Course, Command and General Staff College, and the National War College, with two Masters Degrees, having been awarded the Defense Superior Service Award, four Meritorious Service Medals, five foreign parachute qualifications, and two Expeditionary Medals for combat operations, I hope every day for the call to come from the Library saying, “We’ve made a tremendous mistake.”
I am ready and able to serve this country once again, and look forward to the day when I am given the opportunity to do so.
On June 26, 1987, the Convention Against Torture (CAT) was entered into force by the United Nations. The CAT forbids governments from deliberately inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering upon those under their control, prohibits the use of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and bars the transfer or the rendition of persons to countries where they could be at risk of being tortured.
On June 29, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the military commission system, which allow the admission of evidence possibly obtained through torture and were developed to try prisoners in U.S. custody lacked "the power to proceed because its structures and procedures violate both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949."
And on June 24, 2008, 15 veteran interrogators retired from the U.S. military, FBI and CIA released a statement declaring torture and other abusive tactics "ineffective and counterproductive."
All of these June milestones, along with the fact that today is the U.N. International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, make this month, and especially this day, a good time to reflect on the fact that we have yet to hold a single highly-level U.S. official responsible for the torture and abusive techniques that they authorized. Join us in calling on Attorney General Mukasey to appoint an independent prosecutor to ensure that any criminal acts are investigated and prosecuted without partisan interference, and on Congress to investigate how high in the administration crimes of torture and abuse were ordered or authorized. Recent hearings in the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, including one today, were a good start.
