We all know that when it comes to restoring the rule of law, our current elected officials have been less than proactive. In fact, opening up the past and righting wrongs has been stopped by Obama’s administration on numerous occasions, most recently with the DOJ finding that torture authors should be disciplined, not tried because legalizing torture was simply “poor judgment.”

This leaves many of us wondering, isn’t this the presidential nominee who taught Constitutional Law?  Isn’t this the guy who made strong statements on the campaign trail regarding restoring our constitutional values and the accountability that comes with them? This is the administration that just two days after entering office signed an executive order to shutter Guantánamo, right?  So what has happened? Read the rest of this entry »

• 2/7, Andrew Sullivan, Times (UK), The three dead Guantanamo men crying for justice
• 2/7, Senator Russ Feingold and former Congressman Lee Hamilton, Wall Street Journal, The Intel Committees Need the Power of the Purse
• 2/6, Charlotte Dennett, AlterNet, Why We Can’t Afford to Let Obama Give Bush’s War Criminals a Free Pass
• 2/6, Jeff Kaye, The Seminal, Ghost Prisoners? Indefinite Detention? “Hitherto Acceptable Norms of Human Conduct Do Not Apply”
• 2/5, Glenn Greenwald, Salon, The lynch-mob mentality

On Thursday, John Yoo spoke at an event sponsored by the Federalist Society and the Libertarian Council in Los Angeles, reports Stephen Rohde in his Truthout article. In a 2005 statement John Yoo reasoned that if the president thought he needed to “torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child” then he could lawfully do so since no treaties or laws by Congress existed to stop him. During the event yesterday Yoo was asked to “more clearly define whether there were any limits to presidential power” in light of his 2005 statement.

His response did not abandon or disclaim his previous statement but instead affirmed its very foundation. Yoo stated that the presidential powers are limited to what he deems necessary and added, as Rohde reported,

“[T]errible things happen in war” such as the dropping of what he called the nuclear bombs on Japan in World War II, but such decisions are left to the president. In the end, Yoo, concluded, president always faces the possibility of impeachment.

Finally, something with some sense comes out of Yoo’s mouth—impeachment.

Naomi Wolf posted an article on Huffington Post yesterday revealing that her Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request into the autopsy report of Guantánamo detainee Mohamed al Hanashi was denied. Investigators ruled it a suicide after he was found dead in his cell.  However, as Wolf is quick to point out, there are many pieces that don’t fit with that explanation.

Mohamed al Hanashi had been held in Guantánamo for 7 years without being charged. Elected as the detainees’ representative, al Hanashi had just been assigned a lawyer and granted a meeting with the base’s commanding officers when he was discovered dead in his cell.  After years in the dark, al Hanashi was finally making progress in fighting his detention.  So why lose hope now?

Furthermore, if al Hanashi’s death was indeed self inflicted, if there is nothing out of the order in the coroner’s report, then why was Wolf’s FOIA request denied?  In her article, she examines the Department of Defense’s (DOD) explanation for the denial.  The DOD’s rationale for withholding this information should raise quite a few eyebrows. Essentially, the DOD told Wolf that releasing these details might compromise an ongoing investigation and the privacy of the investigators themselves. I echo Wolf’s conclusion that quite a few things don’t add up.

• 2/5, Stephen Rohde, TruthOut, John Yoo Renews Claim That President’s Authority to Torture Depends on What Is “Necessary”
• 2/5, Naomi Wolf, Huffington Post, Defense Department Turns Down My FOIA Request for Mohamed Al Hanashi’s Autopsy Report
• 2/5, Spencer Ackerman, Washington Independent, Civil Libertarians Reject Obama’s Guantanamo Closure Plan
• 2/5, Jacques Billeaud, Washington Post, Judge mulls sanctions against Ariz. sheriff office
• 2/5, Byron Acohido, USA Today, Google’s alleged tie-up with NSA raises concerns
• 2/5, Ruben Navarrette Jr, Statesman Journal (Salem, OR), A missed opportunity on racial profiling
• 2/5, Associated Press, Washington Post, Gov’t says court can dismiss Uighur detainee case
• 2/4, Melvin A Goodman, Consortium News, Why Obama Dodges CIA Reform
• 2/4, Glenn Greenwald, Salon, On the claimed “war exception” to the Constitution

Take a look at Julian Sanchez’s blog post from this past Monday on Cato@Liberty.

Many of us are now familiar with how the FBI bypassed statutory mandated checks and oversights to illegally obtain thousands of phone records using exigent letters and informal requests. Sanchez believes that there is further cause for concern. He suggests that the FBI may have covered its bases and retroactively legitimized its activities through creative legal maneuverings. The Inspector General’s report reveals that the Office of Legal Counsel sanctioned part of the FBI’s rationale for this activity; however, the details of this rationale were redacted in the report.

Regardless of what loophole the FBI is trying to exploit or how carefully constructed their argument might be, the fact remains that laws were broken. If the Department of Justice has signed off on a “get out of jail free card” for the FBI, then the damage inflicted on civil liberties and privacy rights will be far greater then we originally believed.

This past Friday, two months after the promised release date of the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report on memos written by former Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) lawyers, Newsweek broke the story that none of the offending lawyers would be charged with “professional misconduct.” Instead, each would be reproached for “poor judgment,” a finding that does not force bar associations to consider disciplinary action.

The decision to change the wording, which, according to the article, was made by OPR prosecutor David Margolis, extracted all teeth from the investigation.  For some reason, Newsweek columnists Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball seem to have found solace in the fact that the report will remain “sharply critical” of legalized torture. It is true that torturers should get their comeuppance, but their relief misses a bigger problem: Margolis—by changing one phrase in the conclusion—arrives at punishable crimes, but makes them unpunishable.  Why conduct investigations if one can be found guilty on the one hand, but get off scot-free on the other?

It gets worse.  After former Attorney General Michael Mukasey rejected the first draft of the memo, all three lawyers—Jay Bybee, John Yoo, and then-head of OLC Steven Bradbury—were given the chance to respond to the report’s conclusions.  It is unclear how binding their revisions were to be, but a hostile reception is unlikely when final authority to deviate from the original report rests with a fellow political appointee.  One person shouldn’t have this much power. If only there were a group of elected officials who could conduct ethics investigations! Congress, you say? Then stay tuned for my posts next Thursday!

• 2/4, William Fisher, Inter Press Service, U.S.: Immigration Enforcement Prone to Abuses
• 2/4, Andy Worthington, TruthOut, Bagram: Graveyard of the Geneva Conventions
• 2/4, Democracy Now!, Ignoring Torture Claims and Questionable Evidence, New York Jury Convicts Pakistani Scientist Aafia Siddiqui
• 2/3, Bob Geary, Independent Weekly (NC), Obama’s torture scorecard
• 2/3, Steve Palmer, Tenth Amendment Center, Writs of Assistance and National Security Letters
• 2/3, Susan Crabtree, The Hill, Holder defends decision to try Christmas Day terror suspect in civilian court

We’re promoting two ideas in Change.org’s Ideas for Change in America contest.  Vote now!

ICE ACCESS (Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agreements of Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security) is the program through which local law enforcement agencies pair with federal officers to enforce immigration laws.  Although the law that enables this program, Section 287(g) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), was passed in 1995, none of the current memoranda of agreements (MOAs) with state or local beats were passed before July 2002.

Even though the law ostensibly aims at enhancing public safety, it would be interesting to know how many actual safety threats were detained and deported under these agreements instead of brown men and women just trying to make a living to support their families here or back in their home country.  Was 9/11 just a very convenient excuse to start to trumpet public safety and vilify minorities?

Most of the MOAs passed in Mexican border states were struck within the last three years and none of them were struck before 2005.  Seems like we can expect more coming our way in the near future.

For more information on the program, visit the ICE website.