October, 23 2008, 04:48pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Rachel Myers, (212) 549-2689 or 2666; media@aclu.org
James Freedland, (212) 519-7829
Former US AG, Senior Justice Officials and Top Military Officers Urge Supreme Court to Review Indefinite Detention Case
Respected Leaders Join ACLU Case Challenging Sweeping Presidential Authority That Deprives US Residents of Basic Constitutional Rights
WASHINGTON
Former
United States Attorney General Janet Reno, Former FBI Director William
Sessions, Major General Antonio M. Taguba and other former government
and military officials today are joining the American Civil Liberties
Union in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review the president's
authority to indefinitely imprison a legal resident of the U.S. without
charge or trial. Several former top government and military leaders are
signing on to friend-of-the-court briefs in the ACLU case of Ali Saleh
Kahlah al-Marri, who has been detained in solitary confinement at a
Navy brig in South Carolina since June 2003.
"This unprecedented expansion of
executive authority within the borders of the United States is not only
at odds with more than 200 years of history, but it is wholly
unnecessary," argue several former federal judges and former senior
Justice Department officials in their brief. "The federal government is
eminently capable of both protecting our nation's security and
safeguarding our proud tradition of civil liberties."
Retired military officials also express concern about the heightened role of the military in detaining Americans on U.S. soil.
"The unlawful military detention of
civilians undermines the necessary combination of trust and distance
between military personnel and civilians," say several retired U.S.
generals and admirals in their brief. "The quality and character of the
United States military would be undermined by a more extensive
involvement in domestic law enforcement."
Al-Marri was first arrested in
December 2001 at his home in Peoria, Illinois, where he was living with
his wife and children. His case was scheduled to go to trial in July
2003, but was halted on the eve of trial when President Bush took the
extraordinary step of designating al-Marri an "enemy combatant" and
transferring him to a military brig in South Carolina. At the brig,
al-Marri was detained incommunicado for 16 months and subjected to
torture and other abuse. The government continues to hold al-Marri
indefinitely as an "enemy combatant" based upon uncorroborated
allegations that he has ties to al-Qaeda, although no evidence has been
presented to sustain these allegations. He is the only remaining person
detained as an "enemy combatant" in the United States.
In 2007, a three-judge panel of the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that the government
cannot hold individuals arrested in this country in military detention
without charge. However, in July 2008, the full appeals court
overturned that ruling in a narrowly divided decision.
"The ACLU is asking the Court to
reverse the lower court decision that gave the president sweeping power
to deprive individuals in the United States of their most basic
constitutional rights," said Jonathan Hafetz, staff attorney with the
ACLU National Security Project and lead attorney for al-Marri. "In
America, no one - not even the president - is above the law and the
government cannot simply lock people up forever without charge."
Five friend-of-the-court briefs in
support of the ACLU are being filed today by former U.S. attorney Janet
Reno, former FBI director William Sessions and other former federal
judges and top Justice Department officials; retired military officers
Major General Antonio M. Taguba, Brigadier General David M. Brahms,
Rear Admiral Donald J. Guter and Rear Admiral John D. Hutson; The
Constitution Project and Rutherford Institute; several professors of
legislation; and several professors of federal courts and
constitutional law.
The briefs and more information about the case will be available later today at: www.aclu.org/almarri
The ACLU's certiorari petition for Supreme Court review is available online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/detention/36861lgl20080919.html
Attorneys on the case are Hafetz,
Steven R. Shapiro and Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU; Aziz Huq and Emily
Berman of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law; Andrew
J. Savage, III of the law firm Savage & Savage, P.A.; John J.
Gibbons and Lawrence S. Lustberg of the law firm Gibbons, P.C.; and
Sidney S. Rosdeitcher of the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton
& Garrison, LLP.
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
'Horrifying' Footage Shows IDF Killing Two Gazans, Burying Their Bodies With a Bulldozer
"When the Israeli army can do these things and get away with it, it can only then do more of it knowing that it will not meet any punishment," said one analyst.
Mar 28, 2024
Video footage broadcast Wednesday by Al Jazeera shows Israeli soldiers gunning down two Palestinians on the coast of northern Gaza, even as one of them waves what appears to be a piece of white fabric.
The footage shows one of the men walking in the direction of an Israeli military vehicle with both hands raised. Despite the absence of any clear evidence that the man posed a threat, Israeli forces shot him from a short distance away. Another man is seen on the ground not far behind.
Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum said the killings took place near where World Central Kitchen recently dropped off food aid.
The video then shows Israeli soldiers burying the bodies with a bulldozer.
"Probably certain words should be invented for this sort of thing," Marwan Bishara, AI Jazeera's chief political analyst, said in response to the footage. "I am not sure we have the sufficient vocabulary to describe this sort of twilight zone of Israel's fantasy of being the world's most moral army."
"It's a fantasy that meets the reality of a genocide," Bishara added. "An attempt to kill or destroy much of Palestine and Palestinians and hide the evidence and lie about it. When the Israeli army can do these things and get away with it, it can only then do more of it knowing that it will not meet any punishment."
Watch:
مشاهد حصرية للجزيرة لإعدام جنود إسرائيليين مدنيين فلسطينيين أثناء محاولتهم العودة لشمال قطاع غزة#الأخبار #حرب_غزة pic.twitter.com/QER98mv2n6
— قناة الجزيرة (@AJArabic) March 27, 2024
Richard Falk, former United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, toldAl Jazeera that the footage provides "vivid confirmation of continuing Israeli atrocities" and spotlights the "unambiguous character of Israeli atrocities that are being carried out on a daily basis."
"The eyes and ears of the world have been assaulted in real-time by this form of genocidal behavior," said Falk. "It is a shocking reality that there has been no adverse reaction from the liberal democracies in the West. It is a shameful moment."
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, whose board Falk chairs, has documented numerous examples of Israeli soldiers conducting close-range field executions in Gaza since October 7, when Israel launched its latest assault following a Hamas-led attack.
In less than six months, Israeli forces have killed more than 32,500 people in Gaza and sparked one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in modern history.
The video footage emerged just days after the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. The U.S., Israel's leading arms supplier, abstained from the vote and falsely claimed the measure was "nonbinding."
The Israeli government, for its part, immediately signaled that it would disregard the resolution, just as it has ignored orders from the International Court of Justice.
Sophie McNeill, a human rights campaigner, called the footage released Wednesday "horrifying" and demanded that the International Criminal Court "urgently prioritize investigating and charging all those carrying out war crimes in Gaza."
"There just so happened to be a camera here in this moment. What are we not seeing?" McNeill asked. "This impunity must end."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Joe Lieberman, Iraq War Cheerleader and Killer of Public Option, Dead at 82
"Joe Lieberman's legacy will live on as your medical debt."
Mar 27, 2024
While current and former officials across the U.S. political spectrum shared praise for and fond memories of former Sen. Joe Lieberman in response to news of his death on Wednesday, critics highlighted how some of his key positions led to the deaths of many others.
Lieberman's family said the 82-year-old died at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital after a fall at his home in the Bronx. He served in the Connecticut Senate, as the state's attorney general, and in the U.S. Senate—initially as a Democrat and eventually as an Independent. He was also Democratic former Vice President Al Gore's running mate in the 2000 presidential election.
"Up until the very end, Joe Lieberman enjoyed the high-quality, government-financed healthcare that he worked diligently to deny the rest of us. That's his legacy," said Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, which advocates for universal, single-payer healthcare.
As Warren Gunnels, majority staff director for Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.),
explained, "Joe Lieberman led the effort to ensure the Affordable Care Act did not include a public option or a reduction in the Medicare eligibility age to 55."
Noting that Lieberman also lied about the presence of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq—which was used to justify the 2003 U.S. invasion—Gunnels asked, "How many people unnecessarily died as a result?"
He was far from alone in highlighting the two defining positions.
The Lever's David Sirota declared, "RIP Joe Lieberman, Iraq War cheerleader who led the fight to make sure Medicare was not extended to millions of Americans who desperately needed the kind of healthcare coverage he enjoyed in the Senate."
The Debt Collective said on social media that "Joe Lieberman killed so many people when he killed the public option. Not to mention all the people he killed by cheerleading every war and every lie that led to war. A truly horrible person with a shameful legacy."
Journalist Jon Schwarz pointed out that Lieberman continued to lie about the WMDs long after the claims were debunked.
FormerMSNBC host Mehdi Hasan noted that Lieberman declined an opportunity to apologize for the disastrous war, sharing a clip from his on-camera interview with the ex-senator in 2021.
And please don\u2019t give me this \u2018don\u2019t speak ill of the dead\u2019 stuff - 1) I\u2019m not speaking ill, I\u2019m stating facts, and 2) public figures are public figures, and their obits reflect their legacies and so we should be honest in our accounts of their legacies. Not offensive but honest— (@)
"We lost a giant today. I often disagreed with Joe Lieberman but he was always honorable in the way he called for American troops to murder people abroad so he could get his jollies," said Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project in a series of sarcastic social media posts.
"Joe Lieberman balanced his love of other people fighting in immoral wars with a commitment to preventing Americans from getting healthcare," Stoller added. "Even after his Senate career, he showed his strong democratic values by lobbying for Chinese telecom firms. We will miss this man."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Enough Is Enough': Ireland Joins ICJ Genocide Case Against Israel
"What we saw on October 7 in Israel, and what we are seeing in Gaza now, represents the blatant violation of international humanitarian law on a mass scale," said one top Irish official.
Mar 27, 2024
Citing Israel's "blatant" human rights violations in Gaza, Ireland's second-highest-ranking official said Wednesday that the country will join the South Africa-led genocide case before the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Irish Tánaiste Micheál Martin—the equivalent of a deputy prime minister in other parliamentary nations—said that Ireland decided to intervene in the case after analyzing the "legal and policy issues" pertaining to the case under review by the United Nations' top court.
"It is for the court to determine whether genocide is being committed," Martin—who also serves as Ireland's foreign and defense minister—said in a statement. "But I want to be clear in reiterating what I have said many times in the last few months; what we saw on October 7 in Israel, and what we are seeing in Gaza now, represents the blatant violation of international humanitarian law on a mass scale."
Martin continued:
The taking of hostages. The purposeful withholding of humanitarian assistance to civilians. The targeting of civilians and of civilian infrastructure. The indiscriminate use of explosive weapons in populated areas. The use of civilian objects for military purposes. The collective punishment of an entire population.
The list goes on. It has to stop. The view of the international community is clear. Enough is enough. The U.N. Security Council has demanded an immediate cease-fire, the unconditional release of hostages, and the lifting of all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale. The European Council has echoed this call.
South Africa's case—which is supported by over 30 countries, the Arab League, African Union, and others—incisively details Israel's conduct in the war, including the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children; the wounding of tens of thousands more; the forcible displacement of 90% of the besieged enclave's 2.3 million people; and the inflicting of conditions leading to widespread starvation and disease. The filing also cited numerous genocidal statements by Israeli officials.
On January 26, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza and ordered its government and military to prevent genocidal acts. Palestinian and international human rights defenders say Israel has ignored the order.
A draft report
released this week by the U.N.'s Human Rights Council found "reasonable grounds to believe" that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a move that came on the same day as the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in the ongoing war.
"The situation could not be more stark; half the population of Gaza face imminent famine and 100% of the population face acute food insecurity," said Martin. "As the U.N. secretary-general said as he inspected long lines of blocked relief trucks waiting to enter Gaza during his visit to Rafah at the weekend: 'It is time to truly flood Gaza with lifesaving aid. The choice is clear: surge or starvation.' I echo his words today."
In a St. Partick's Day White House meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden—a staunch supporter of Israel—Irish Toaiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar, who announced earlier this month that he would soon step down, said that "the Irish people are deeply troubled about the catastrophe that's unfolding before our eyes in Gaza."
"And when I travel the world, leaders often ask me why the Irish have such empathy for the Palestinian people," he added. "And the answer is simple: We see our history in their eyes—a story of displacement, of dispossession and national identity questioned and denied, forced emigration, discrimination, and now hunger."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular