Blog of Rights
Ben
Wizner

Ben Wizner is the Director of ACLU’s Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, which is dedicated to protecting and expanding the First Amendment freedoms of expression, association, and inquiry; expanding the right to privacy and increasing the control that individuals have over their personal information; and ensuring that civil liberties are enhanced rather than compromised by new advances in science and technology. He has litigated numerous cases involving post-9/11 civil liberties abuses, including challenges to airport security policies, government watchlists, extraordinary rendition, and torture. He has appeared regularly in the media, testified before Congress, and traveled several times to Guantánamo Bay to monitor military commission proceedings. Ben is a graduate of Harvard College and New York University School of Law and was a law clerk to the Hon. Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

06/13/2008
Guantánamo

Boumediene — Sadness and Celebration

By Ben Wizner, Director, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 7:16pm

It's been a riveting month at Guantánamo. First was the sad spectacle of the “arraignment” of alleged 9/11 conspirators — in a courtroom expressly designed to suppress their statements about brutal torture in CIA custody, and in a system expressly fashioned to permit their execution on the basis of evidence extracted through that torture. The embarrassing proceedings were rushed forward in a last-ditch Bush administration effort to turn Guantánamo to its political advantage, but, as usual, it was the administration that endured ridicule for the very public collapse of its “full and fair” military commission system.

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08/07/2007

When "Torture" Is the Only Way to Describe It

By Ben Wizner, Director, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 9:14am
Last month I participated in a Federalist Society-sponsored debate about the administration's torture and detention policies. After the event, one of several federal judges in attendance challenged me on my frequent use of the word "torture." "That word gets thrown around a lot," he said. "I don't think making so
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07/27/2007

Guantánamo: The Road to Closure, Part II

By Ben Wizner, Director, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 12:50pm
Part II: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Military Commissions Act, and Boumediene v. Bush

The Hamdan case, which reached the Supreme Court in 2006, involved two critical and distinct legal issues. Salim Ahmed Hamdan,
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07/26/2007

Guantánamo: The Road to Closure

By Ben Wizner, Director, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 12:48pm
Guantanamo has been in the news again: Several congressional bills would restore habeas corpus to detainees or close the prison camp altogether; the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a third Guantanamo-related case, reversing its own recent decision to delay
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03/31/2007

The Looking-Glass Sentence

By Ben Wizner, Director, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 3:24pm
It was a day of competing narratives. Who was the real David Hicks? In a jarringly strident sentencing argument in which he advocated the maximum sentence – by agreement, seven years – the military prosecutor intoned that the members of the Military Commission who had been flown in to decide Hicks's sentence were on the "front line in the Global War on Terrorism" and "were face
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03/29/2007

No Books, No Tours, No Hearings

By Ben Wizner, Director, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 3:23pm
We had expected to depart Guantanamo on Tuesday morning, but David Hicks's plea and upcoming sentencing hearing have thrown the schedule out the window, and no one seems to know when the proceedings will be completed. Reporters, human rights observers, and even military escorts have been trading rumors and speculation – but, for the time being, the only certainty is that today will be the th
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03/28/2007

Coming Soon: More Injustice at Gitmo

By Ben Wizner, Director, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 10:05am
Even as we await proceedings that will likely determine the particulars of David Hicks's return to Australia, we received the dismal news on Monday night that the United States had transferred a new detainee to Guantanamo. He is, the Pentagon maintains, a "dangerous terror suspect" named Abdul Malik who allegedly tried to shoot
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03/27/2007

A Tailor-Made Guilty Plea

By Ben Wizner, Director, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 9:38am
It was an extraordinary, though typically chaotic, day at the Guantánamo Military Commissions. David Hicks began the proceedings with three lawyers sitting beside him at counsel table. After a series of dubious rulings by the trial judge, he ended the day with only one. Hours later, Read More»
03/26/2007

Amid Public Pentagon Doubts, Gitmo Trials Resume

By Ben Wizner, Director, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 8:16am
Today the military tribunals at Guantánamo Bay -- which were halted last June by the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld -- will recommence under flawed new rules authorized by Congress in the disgraceful Military Commissions Act.

Monday's arraignment of Australian David Hicks may well mark the beginning,
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01/12/2007

America's Gulag, 1/11/02 - 1/11/07

By Ben Wizner, Director, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 10:41am
As this dismal anniversary passes with hardly any notice here in the United States, it's truly impossible to overestimate the damage that Guantánamo has done to our image and influence abroad, and the nightmare it has become for the men still imprisoned there.

Guantánamo may feel like yesterday's news -- the Supreme Court already ruled on this, right? -- but hundreds of men remain in indefinite detention a
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