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|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
CONTACT: ACLU Rachel Myers, National ACLU, (212) 549-2689 or 2666; media@aclu.org |
ACLU Condemns Former CIA Directors' Attempt To Derail Justice Department Investigation Into Torture
Investigation Should Proceed Without Interference
NEW YORK - September 18 - Former
CIA directors, including some of the architects of the Bush
administration's interrogation policies, today sent a letter to
President Obama encouraging him to reverse Attorney General Eric
Holder's decision to investigate whether crimes were committed in
connection with the interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody
overseas.
The American Civil Liberties Union has called on the Justice Department to conduct a comprehensive criminal investigation into the Bush administration's rendition, interrogation and detention program.
The following can be attributed to Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project:
"Attorney General Holder initiated a criminal investigation because the available evidence shows that prisoners were abused and tortured in CIA custody. The suggestion that President Obama should order Attorney General Holder to abort the investigation betrays a misunderstanding of the role of the attorney general as well as the relationship between the attorney general and the president. Where there is evidence of criminal conduct, the attorney general has not just the authority but the duty to investigate. The attorney general is the people's lawyer, not the president's lawyer, and it would be profoundly inappropriate for President Obama to interfere with his work.
"The attorney general's investigation should be allowed to proceed without interference, and it certainly should not be derailed by the self-serving protests of former CIA officials who oversaw the very crimes that are being investigated. If there is a problem with the unfolding criminal investigation, it is that its focus is too narrow. There is abundant evidence that torture was authorized at the highest levels of the Bush administration, and the Justice Department's investigation should be broad enough to encompass Bush administration lawyers and senior officials – including the CIA officials – who authorized torture."
The American Civil Liberties Union has called on the Justice Department to conduct a comprehensive criminal investigation into the Bush administration's rendition, interrogation and detention program.
The following can be attributed to Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project:
"Attorney General Holder initiated a criminal investigation because the available evidence shows that prisoners were abused and tortured in CIA custody. The suggestion that President Obama should order Attorney General Holder to abort the investigation betrays a misunderstanding of the role of the attorney general as well as the relationship between the attorney general and the president. Where there is evidence of criminal conduct, the attorney general has not just the authority but the duty to investigate. The attorney general is the people's lawyer, not the president's lawyer, and it would be profoundly inappropriate for President Obama to interfere with his work.
"The attorney general's investigation should be allowed to proceed without interference, and it certainly should not be derailed by the self-serving protests of former CIA officials who oversaw the very crimes that are being investigated. If there is a problem with the unfolding criminal investigation, it is that its focus is too narrow. There is abundant evidence that torture was authorized at the highest levels of the Bush administration, and the Justice Department's investigation should be broad enough to encompass Bush administration lawyers and senior officials – including the CIA officials – who authorized torture."
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4 Comments so far
Show Allmakes you wonder what these fools are crying about exactly. no one at the top or them is ever going to jail it will be some
flunky at the bottom of the pile to do time for this.
holder has already put up the heat shield for the architects
of the evil done in the years in iraq!
I wonder if they are afraid that investigations of the CIA criminality will back up to former director George H.W. Bush and Sons.
Next in line for torture investigations should be all the fusion centers. They are using gang stalking tactics for 24/7 surviellance on innocent Americans, for the sole purpose of growing thier spy networks.
Using fear and slander, they choose an extremely mobile American, one that might be in a service related industry that has access to many business's due to the nature of his work, like a computer technician.
The fusion center operatives follow this target around, go into all the adjacent offices with NSL gag letters, decribe the surviellance, then approach the owners for indoctrination into infragard. The FBI program that recruits business into a survillance wing.
I have watched them work , while they trashed my name , gang stalked me from county to county , and recruited like Hitlers Stazi police.
They have been allowed to operate with immunity, and no over sight, because Bush and company were giving all the money on private bids to there good old boy republican cronies. One of the biggest reasons for desperatly trying to get Mccain elected using every dirty trick they could was to keep the gravey train going and the further build up of the private republican spy network.
The Jusice Act introduced by the honorable Senator Fiengold will end this dark secret of injustice, remove immunity and put a heavy leash on this unconstitutional rougue group of un-American law enforement.
Its call oversight and legal review.
Dot your i's and cross your t's boys, Johnny law is coming back to the US constitution.
You wont be able to hide your unconstitutional behaviour behind the call of " Patriot Act", you will have to show probable cause and get a signed warrant, like it should be .
BornFreeMen ,
Victim of 24/7 gang stalking surveillance conducted by fusion centers, firefighters , ems workers using local business's and community watch groups.
Jaffer's comment is succinct and correct. For a less succinct criticism of the letter, including quotation of it, see my comment at
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/09/18-8#comment-1299754.
It's shocking to me that these men would demonstrate utter ignorance of the law and misunderstanding of the disastrous consequences of Bush's "enhanced interrogation techniques" program.
I believe, however, that there's no reasonable expectation that Holder's investigation will get to the bottom of the matter. Please, someone, explain to me why, in a nation with thousands of federal and state prosecutors, grand juries, and law enforcement agencies, we have to depend on Holder, alone, to enforce the vital national and international laws against torture that the Bush administration deliberately violated.