June, 25 2009, 10:30am EDT
Italian "Extraordinary Rendition" Victim Still Held In Morocco Based On Tortured Confession
Rights Groups Ask U.N. Special Rapporteurs To Investigate And Take Action
WASHINGTON
Human
rights groups today asked two U.N. Special Rapporteurs to investigate
the case of Abou Elkassim Britel, an Italian citizen and victim of the
CIA's unlawful "extraordinary rendition" program who is currently held
in a Moroccan prison based on a confession coerced from him through
torture. The American Civil Liberties Union and Alkarama for Human
Rights requested that the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and the
U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights
while Countering Terrorism investigate the circumstances of Britel's
forced disappearance, rendition, detention and torture, and raise his
case with the governments of the United States, Morocco, Pakistan and
Italy.
"Victims of the 'extraordinary
rendition' program detained at Guantanamo and other prisons around the
world are being ignored by the U.S. government, whose unlawful program
landed them there in the first place," said Steven Watt, staff attorney
with the ACLU Human Rights Program. "The U.S. has failed to take
responsibility for its most egregious actions, leaving Mr. Britel and
countless other victims of the 'extraordinary rendition' program with
no choice but to turn to the international community for justice."
Britel, also a plaintiff in the
ACLU's lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen DataPlan for its role
in the rendition program, is one of the few victims of the program
whose identity is known, and who is still detained outside of
Guantanamo Bay.
Britel was initially apprehended and
detained in Pakistan by Pakistani authorities on alleged immigration
violations in February 2002. After a period of detention and
interrogation there, he was handed over to U.S. officials.
In May 2002, U.S. officials stripped
and beat Britel before dressing him in a diaper and overalls, shackling
and blindfolding him and flying him to Morocco for detention and
interrogation. Once in Morocco, U.S. officials handed him over to
Moroccan intelligence officials who detained him incommunicado at the
Temara detention center, where he was interrogated, beaten, deprived of
sleep and food and threatened with sexual torture.
"Given Mr. Britel's own account of
his treatment and the long documented history of torture and abuse in
detention facilities run by the Moroccan government, we have a firm
foundation for believing that Mr. Britel has been, and is currently
being, subjected to torture," said Rachid Mesli, Director of Alkarama's
Legal Department. "Mr. Britel and all other victims of "extraordinary
rendition" deserve their day in court and fair trials not tainted by
evidence obtained through torture. We hope the Special Rapporteurs will
immediately act on our request to bring swift and much-needed attention
to Mr. Britel's case, before the conditions under which he is held do
further damage to his physical and psychological health."
According to the request, after
being released from custody by Moroccan authorities in February 2003,
Britel was again arrested and detained in May 2003 as he attempted to
leave Morocco for his home in Italy. While detained incommunicado in
the same detention facility where he had been brutally tortured only
months earlier, Britel falsely confessed under torture to his
involvement in terrorism. Britel was later tried and convicted by a
Moroccan court on terrorism-related charges and is currently serving a
nine-year sentence in a Moroccan prison.
In 2006, an Italian investigating
judge dismissed a six-year long investigation into Britel's alleged
involvement in terrorism after the judge found a complete lack of
evidence linking him with any terrorist-related or criminal activity.
Today's filings with the Special Rapporteurs are available online at: www.aclu.org/intlhumanrights/nationalsecurity/relatedinformation_resources.html
More information about the ACLU's lawsuit against Jeppesen DataPlan is online at: www.aclu.org/jeppesen
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.
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Groups Sue to Stop Biden From Offering 73 Million Acres to Oil Drillers in Gulf of Mexico
"We should be moving away from fossil fuels, not enabling an astounding amount of drilling for more than a generation to come," said one advocate.
Mar 06, 2023
Seven groups on Monday filed a legal challenge to the U.S. Interior Department's Lease Sale 259, which would offer 73.3 million acres of public waters in the Gulf of Mexico to the highest-bidding oil and gas drillers.
Earthjustice, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, Healthy Gulf, Bayou City Waterkeeper, and Friends of the Earth filed the lawsuit in federal court in the District of Columbia. The complaint asks the court to "vacate or enjoin any leases issued or actions taken pursuant to the unlawful [sale] unless and until defendants comply with the law."
President Joe Biden's administration "previously canceled this and other sales, citing delays and 'conflicting court rulings,'" the groups explained in a joint statement. But then right-wing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia—the top congressional recipient of fossil fuel industry cash during the 2022 election cycle and a long-time coal profiteer—made his support for Biden's landmark climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), contingent on the inclusion of oil and gas leasing provisions.
Congressional Democrats, with zero votes to spare in the Senate amid unified Republican opposition, passed a Manchin-approved version of the IRA last August. Lease Sale 259, one of the largest offshore auctions in U.S. history, is now scheduled for March 28, less than a month before the 13th anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon BP disaster.
The groups acknowledged that the IRA directs the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to hold the lease sale. However, they stressed, "it does not require such a vast area to be auctioned to industry, nor does it exempt the sale from any existing laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act."
"Holding this offshore oil lease sale without careful environmental review is both unlawful and morally reprehensible."
"Lease Sale 259 would offer up all unleased areas in the western and central Gulf of Mexico, which could lock in a massive drilling operation to extract more than 1 billion barrels of oil and 4.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas over the next 50 years," the groups warned.
Such a move would fly in the face of the Biden administration's purported commitment to slashing planet-heating pollution and speeding up the adoption of renewables, critics argued.
"This administration has pledged to oversee a historic transition to clean energy, but actions speak louder than words," said Earthjustice attorney George Torgun. "We don't need a billion new barrels of crude oil threatening people and ecosystems in the Gulf."
Hallie Templeton, legal director of Friends of the Earth, said, "Yet again we find ourselves in the courtroom with the Biden administration over another unlawful and disastrous oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico."
Last year, a federal judge blocked Lease Sale 257, the nation's largest-ever offshore lease sale wherein more than 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico were put on the auction block.
“With each carbon bomb he drops, the president's pledge to end oil and gas drilling feels long forgotten," said Templeton. "BOEM should be proceeding with the utmost caution and ensuring that its oil and gas decisions comply with federal laws, not adding to our climate crisis."
\u201cToday we & our Gulf partners filed a federal court legal challenge to the Department of the Interior\u2019s lease sale 259 that would offer 73.3 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas leasing. https://t.co/7XuIJnDgDj\u201d— Bayou City Waterkeeper (@Bayou City Waterkeeper) 1678125892
According to the complaint, BOEM's approval of Lease Sale 259 "was based on insufficient and arbitrary environmental analyses" in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.
The agency's final supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) "failed to take the required 'hard look' at the significant impacts of this massive lease sale," the suit alleges.
Specifically, the complaint says, BOEM "did not rationally evaluate the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions, relying instead on problematic modeling and assumptions to conclude that this massive lease sale will result in only 'slightly higher domestic emissions' than not leasing at all, and further failed to consider the impacts of such fossil fuel development on climate goals and commitments."
In addition, BOEM "arbitrarily dismissed the impacts of onshore oil and gas infrastructure—refineries, petrochemical plants, and other industrial sources that process fossil fuels and related products from Lease Sale 259—on Gulf communities," according to the suit. The groups also accuse the agency of ignoring "the latest air quality data" and presenting "an incomplete and misleading picture of oil spill impacts and risks based on flawed modeling that failed to properly consider reasonably foreseeable accidents."
Moreover, the complaint continues, BOEM "failed to properly disclose and consider the significant harm from ship strikes, pollution, and oil spills on endangered species such as the Rice's whale" and five of the world's seven species of sea turtles. The agency claimed that such impacts would be "negligible," even as experts fear the Rice's whale population has dropped below 50.
Finally, the suit accuses BOEM of failing "to consider reasonable scaled-back alternatives to its proposed action," and refusing "to adequately respond to plaintiffs' comments on the draft SEIS, offering only boilerplate responses and failing to grapple with and respond to substantive technical and legal critiques."
"The Biden administration needs to end new extraction, phase out drilling, and start taking its commitment to climate action seriously."
Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program, said that "selling off more of our lands and waters to the fossil fuel industry is the last thing we should do at a time when we need to be rapidly transitioning away from oil and gas to meet our nation's climate goals and create a livable planet for all."
"Offshore drilling devastates millions of acres of nature, contributes to an increasing number of climate disasters, and creates a quarter of our greenhouse gas emissions," said Manuel. "While the IRA represents a historic step forward in achieving our nation's climate goals, we cannot let the bad provisions of the bill, including oil and gas leasing, undercut what we stand to gain."
Kristen Schlemmer, legal director for Bayou City Waterkeeper, echoed Manuel, noting that vulnerable residents of the Gulf Coast are already reeling from petrochemical pollution, sea-level rise, coastal erosion, and intensified storms.
"We're at a point where we should be moving away from fossil fuels, not enabling an astounding amount of drilling for more than a generation to come," said Schlemmer. "For communities along the Houston Ship Channel, which are predominantly Black, brown, and lower-income, Lease Sale 259 creates an especially toxic combination of risks."
"More drilling means more facilities in their backyards," she added. "This will compound already elevated rates of cancer and heart and lung diseases, while also increasing risks during major storms."
In the words of Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at CBD, "Holding this offshore oil lease sale without careful environmental review is both unlawful and morally reprehensible."
"More oil drilling in the Gulf is too big a risk for the communities and wildlife living there, and too harmful to the climate," said Monsell. "The Biden administration needs to end new extraction, phase out drilling, and start taking its commitment to climate action seriously."
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Analysis Shows Major US Oil Companies Raked in $290 Billion in Profits Last Year
"With $290 billion in profits, Big Oil made enough money in 2022 to end world hunger, pay off U.S. medical debt, and build 10 Disney Worlds, but instead used their record profits to shower $163 billion on shareholders."
Mar 06, 2023
An analysis published Monday by the watchdog Accountable.US revealed that the biggest oil companies operating in the United States raked in a collective $290 billion in profits last year while they "consistently prioritized shareholder returns over alleviating the pressure of high energy prices."
According to the report—which analyzed 26 oil companies doing business in the U.S.—the $290 billion in collective 2022 Big Oil profits marked a 126% increase from the previous year. Fossil Fuel giants including BP, Shell, and Chevron more than doubled their net income in 2022, while smaller players like Murphy Oil And Southwestern Energy saw respective increases of 1,410% and 7,496%.
"With $290 billion in profits, Big Oil made enough money in 2022 to end world hunger, pay off U.S. medical debt, and build 10 Disney Worlds, but instead used their record profits to shower $163 billion on shareholders with plans to give even more in 2023," Accountable.US said.
\u201cIn 2022, Big Oil giants like @Shell, @BP_America and @ExxonMobil doubled their profits and added billions to their shareholders' pockets by gouging American consumers.\n\nLearn how their profiteering kept prices high at the pump: https://t.co/njDbQo9E9c\u201d— Accountable.US (@Accountable.US) 1678133351
According to a summary of the analysis:
The industry's historic margins were largely achieved through unabated price gouging of American consumers. As families across the country experienced financial strain due to the artificially high prices at the pump, the industry spent over $163 billion on stock buybacks and dividends, further enriching their wealthy shareholders. Even as Big Oil executives complain about supposedly lower-than-desired margins in 2023, oil and gas companies have already publicly announced plans to buy at least $160 billion in stock backs starting this year.
"Modern-day oil barons like Shell, BP, and Chevron forced American consumers into financial strain and ruthlessly extracted every last dime out of working and middle-class people,"said Accountable.US director of energy and environment Jordan Schreiber.
Fossil fuel and other corporations have used the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and inflation as pretexts to price gouge consumers.
"Despite the industry's bald-faced lies, Big Oil's never-ending greed was the central force driving the industry's obscene price gouging," Schreiber continued. "Now, executives have already announced plans to spend $160 billion on stock buybacks to enrich their wealthy shareholders further."
"Meanwhile," she added, "the MAGA majority in the House continues to shield Big Oil from accountability as their constituents pay the price."
Last March, Rep. Ro Khanna(D-Calif.) introduced a bill that would tax excess oil company profits and pay American households a quarterly refund. That same month, Sen. Bernie Sanders(I-Vt.) introduced the Ending Corporate Greed Act, a proposed 95% windfall profits tax on major oil companies.
While President Joe Biden has threatened to support a windfall profits tax on oil companies if they don't increase production, he has not yet done so.
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Majority of US Voters Want the Fed to Stop Raising Rates Before It Tanks the Economy: Poll
"People understand that pushing millions of workers out of a job is a terrible way to address inflation," said one economist.
Mar 06, 2023
Survey data released Monday shows that a majority of U.S. voters want the Federal Reserve to stop raising interest rates before it plunges the economy into recession, a position that aligns with the view of many economists and lawmakers who fear the central bank is on the verge of needlessly throwing millions out of work.
Conducted by Lake Research Partners and published by the Groundwork Collaborative, the new poll found that 56% of U.S. voters believe the Fed should bring its rate hikes to a halt as top central bankers indicate that more increases are coming in the near future—even though rates are already at their highest level in 15 years.
"Our new poll makes it clear that people across the country want the Federal Reserve to stop raising interest rates before it pushes us toward a devastating and completely avoidable recession," said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative.
"People understand that pushing millions of workers out of a job is a terrible way to address inflation and will do nothing to address root causes of inflation like supply-chain interruptions, the war in Ukraine, and big corporations manipulating the market to increase profits," Mabud added. "And they want a Federal Reserve that prioritizes workers and families, not Wall Street and Big Business."
The survey, which reached 1,240 registered voters nationwide, found that just 14% believe the Fed is on the side of "average Americans." Nearly 40% said they feel the central bank serves the interests of big businesses or banks.
"Voters believe overwhelmingly that the Federal Reserve is on the side of Big Business, banks, and Wall Street," Celinda Lake, the president and founder of Lake Research Partners, said during a press call Monday.
\u201c\ud83d\udea8 NEW POLL: Voters believe the @federalreserve is on the side of big business (38%), banks (38%), and Wall Street (30%). \n\nLess than 1 in 5 across partisan lines think the Fed is on the side of average Americans.\n\nFull memo here: https://t.co/65jSnYGFuU\u201d— Groundwork Collaborative (@Groundwork Collaborative) 1678117489
The findings were released a day ahead of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's scheduled appearance before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, where he will likely face sharp questioning from central bank policy critics such as Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Elizabeth Warren(D-Mass.).
On Wednesday, Powell is set to testify before the House Financial Services Committee.
The Fed is widely expected to raise interest rates again during its policy meeting later this month, even with inflation easing and despite mounting calls for a pause as previous increases—which are taking a toll on wage growth and the housing market—work their way through the economy.
Powell and other central bankers have repeatedly claimed that the U.S. labor market—which has thus far remained strong in the face of the Fed's rate increases—is running too hot and must be weakened in order to curtail inflation, sparking accusations that the Fed is prioritizing just one side of its dual mandate and "trying to engineer a recession."
The latest U.S. job figures are set to be released on Friday.
Critics have said the Fed's chosen policy approach—aggressive attempts to curb demand—is misguided and will do little to tackle the primary drivers of inflation, including corporate concentration and profit-seeking price increases.
During Monday's press call, economist J.W. Mason argued that "it's absolutely possible for inflation to drop without much job destruction."
"Over the past few months, we've seen a substantial fall in inflation without significant job destruction," said Mason. "You can have disinflation without falling wages and without unemployment. The question is: Are higher interest rates really a tool that can deliver that? I think the answer is no."
The new polling shows that an overwhelming majority of U.S. voters—77%—believe that "we should be focusing on the legislative tools Congress can use to fight inflation instead of simply relying on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates."
While the survey doesn't mention specific legislative fixes, campaigners and experts have floated a range of proposals over the past year, from a crackdown on Big Oil profiteering to targeted price controls.
Pointing to the public earnings calls of major corporations, Mabud noted Monday that "you don't actually have to look too hard to hear the CEOs being pretty crystal clear that they're jacking up their profit margins by raising prices on consumers."
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