February, 12 2009, 03:11pm EDT
Two-Thirds of Americans Want to See Bush Investigations for Torture and Wiretapping; 40 Percent Want Prosecutions
Statement from CCR President Michael Ratner, Author of The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld
NEW YORK
In a USA Today Gallup poll released today, two-thirds of Americans
say they want investigations into the role of Bush administration
officials in torture and warrantless wiretapping, and 40 percent want
to see prosecutions. CCR President Michael Ratner issued the following statement in response:
Americans want to see justice done. If crimes have
been committed - and there is ample evidence that they have - then the
people who committed those crimes should be prosecuted. You don't
decide it's better or more politically expedient to look forward than
to go back and prosecute someone who commits any other kind of crime.
Why should this be different? More to the point, prosecutions do look
forward-they look forward to deterring torture in the future.War crimes, terrible crimes of torture and abuse, were knowingly
committed by senior members of our government, and the only way to
ensure it doesn't happen again, and to show the world that we are
sincere in our desire to keep it from happening again, is to prosecute
the people responsible. If every administration knows it has carte
blanche to break the law because the next administration will always
let them off the hook, I shudder to think what new crimes will be
committed in the future.As of this moment, the Obama administration is in violation of U.S.
law. Dick Cheney admitted his role in the waterboarding of suspects and
said he would do it again; the attorney general, Eric Holder, said that
waterboarding is torture; and the Convention Against Torture, which is
U.S. law, requires the criminal investigation of torture. There is zero
doubt that the law has been broken.The country seems to be ahead of President Obama on this question. I hope he will listen.
Michael Ratner is the author of The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld (The New
Press 2008) and president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He
and the Center filed war crimes cases against Donald Rumsfeld and other
high-level officials including Alberto Gonzales in Germany and France
under their universal jurisdiction laws. CCR has cases representing the
torture victims at Abu Ghraib, former Guantanamo detainees who were
tortured and abused, and current Guantanamo detainees who continue to
be held indefinitely, without charge, in dire conditions.
CCR has led the legal battle over Guantanamo for the last six years -
sending the first ever habeas attorney to the base and sending the
first attorney to meet with a former CIA "ghost detainee." CCR has been
responsible for organizing and coordinating more than 500 pro bono
lawyers across the country in order to represent the men at Guantanamo,
ensuring that nearly all have the option of legal representation.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. CCR is committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.
(212) 614-6464LATEST NEWS
Amid Spying Fight, House Passes Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act
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While applauding the U.S. House of Representatives' bipartisan passage of a bill to ensure that "law enforcement and intelligence agencies can't do an end-run around the Constitution by buying information from data brokers" on Wednesday, privacy advocates highlighted that Congress is trying to extend and expand a long-abused government spying program.
The House voted 219-199 for Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act (FANFSA), which won support from 96 Democrats and 123 Republicans, including the lead sponsor, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). Named for the constitutional amendment that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, H.R. 4639 would close what campaigners call the data broker loophole.
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Wednesday's vote followed the House sending the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act to the Senate. H.R. 7888 would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless spying on noncitizens abroad but also sweeps up Americans' data.
The House notably included an amendment forcing a wide range of individuals and businesses to cooperate with government spying operations but rejected an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the bill, which the Senate could vote on as soon as Thursday.
Noting those decisions on the FISA reauthorization legislation, Ruddock stressed that "today's vote is a victory but follows a recent loss and ongoing threat as that Section 702 bill moves to the Senate this week too."
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Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Project on Surveillance Oversight, also praised the House's FANFSA passage on Wednesday.
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Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU, similarly said Wednesday that "the bipartisan passage of this bill is a flashing warning sign to the government that if it wants our data, it must get a warrant."
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As The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw noted:
Since 2011, the U.N. Security Council has rejected the Palestinian Authority's request for full member status. On April 2, the Palestinian Observer Mission to the U.N. requested that the council once again take up consideration of its membership application. According to the first State Department cable, U.N. meetings since the beginning of April suggest that Algeria, China, Guyana, Mozambique, Russia, Slovenia, Sierra Leone, and Malta support granting Palestine full membership to the U.N. It also says that France, Japan, and Korea are undecided, while the United Kingdom will likely abstain from a vote.
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"After a year of preparation, we finally open the doors to our new research consortium, exposing the global network of reactionary forces that corrode our democracies, destroy our planet, and drive us closer to world war," the group added.
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