Blog of Rights
Chris
Anders

Christopher Anders is senior legislative counsel in the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington Legislative Office, where he represents the ACLU before Congress and the Executive Branch. Since joining the ACLU legislative team in 1997, Anders has represented the ACLU on a wide range of civil liberties and civil rights issues. For the past eight years, Anders has led the ACLU’s Washington, D.C. advocacy on torture, detention, war authority, and Guantanamo issues. Since 2006, he has led a national coalition of human rights, civil liberties, and religious groups working on detention and Guantanamo issues. He also has served as a human rights observer at military commission proceedings held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Prior to joining the ACLU’s Washington office, Anders spent eleven years with Washington law and lobbying firms.

09/08/2011
Detention

Tenth Anniversary of Worldwide War; A Time to Reassess Who We Are

By Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:39pm

While the country focuses on the upcoming tenth anniversary of 9/11, there is another tenth anniversary that is coming up next week that triggered sweeping changes around the world.

Just a few days after 9/11, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) — a single sentence that became the legal foundation for 10 years of war and of 10 years of claims of military power to imprison or kill civilian suspects far from any battlefield. Particularly with Osama bin Laden dead, al Qaeda incapacitated, tremendous levels of casualties for American service members, horrific harms caused by war to innocent people around the world, and with a country emotionally exhausted and financially depleted from 10 years of war, it is time for all Americans to decide whether it is time to turn the page on worldwide war, and decide for ourselves whether and where our country should actually be at war.

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09/08/2011
Detention

Tenth Anniversary of Worldwide War; A Time to Reassess Who We Are

By Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:39pm

While the country focuses on the upcoming tenth anniversary of 9/11, there is another tenth anniversary that is coming up next week that triggered sweeping changes around the world.

Just a few days after 9/11, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) — a single sentence that became the legal foundation for 10 years of war and of 10 years of claims of military power to imprison or kill civilian suspects far from any battlefield. Particularly with Osama bin Laden dead, al Qaeda incapacitated, tremendous levels of casualties for American service members, horrific harms caused by war to innocent people around the world, and with a country emotionally exhausted and financially depleted from 10 years of war, it is time for all Americans to decide whether it is time to turn the page on worldwide war, and decide for ourselves whether and where our country should actually be at war.

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05/24/2011

Obama White House Threatens a Veto Over Worldwide War and Detention Provisions

By Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 9:03pm

Wow! Late this afternoon, the Obama White House threatened to VETO the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) bill that the House of Representatives is debating and voting on this week, if it includes a new law for worldwide war without end, or any of the bad Guantánamo detention and limitation of prosecution provisions that Chairman Buck McKeon of the House Armed Services Committee slipped into the bill. 

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05/24/2011

Obama White House Threatens a Veto Over Worldwide War and Detention Provisions

By Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 9:03pm

Wow! Late this afternoon, the Obama White House threatened to VETO the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) bill that the House of Representatives is debating and voting on this week, if it includes a new law for worldwide war without end, or any of the bad Guantánamo detention and limitation of prosecution provisions that Chairman Buck McKeon of the House Armed Services Committee slipped into the bill. 

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04/30/2009

Obama Lauds Free Speech Protections in House Hate Crimes Bill

By Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:32am

What a difference an evening has made for hate crimes!

Late the night of April 28, 2009, the White House released a statement by President Barack Obama in support of a House bill to strengthen protections against hate crimes. The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act would authorize the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute violence against a person based on race, color, religion and national origin as well as expand protections to victims who are targeted because of their gender, sexual orientation, gender identify or disability.

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06/23/2008
LGBT Discrimination in the Workplace

Congress to Hold Historic Hearing on Gender Identity in the Workplace

By Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:49pm

This Thursday, June 26, the House Education and Labor Committee's Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions will hold a hearing on discrimination against transgender employees. Congressman Robert Andrews (D-NJ) will chair this historic hearing, the first Congressional hearing on transgender issues and gender identity discrimination in the workplace.

Diane Schroer, an ACLU client, will be one of the witnesses. Schroer was an Airborne Ranger qualified Special Forces officer who completed over 450 parachute jumps, received numerous decorations including the Defense Superior Service Medal, and was hand-picked to head up a classified national security operation. She began taking steps to transition from male to female shortly after retiring as a Colonel after 25 years of distinguished service in the Army. When she interviewed for a job as a terrorism research analyst at the Library of Congress, she thought she'd found the perfect fit, given her background and 16,000-volume home library collection on military history, the art of war, international relations and political philosophy. Schroer accepted the position, but when she told her future supervisor that she was in the process of gender transition, they rescinded the job offer. The ACLU is now representing her in a Title VII sex discrimination lawsuit against the Library of Congress.

Click here to learn more about Diane's case. Her story was also highlighted in the recent ACLU report, "Working in the Shadows: Ending Employment Discrimination For LGBT Americans."

Shannon Minter, the legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (who successfully argued the recent marriage case before the California Supreme Court), will discuss some of the legal issues affecting the transgender community. The committee will also hear testimony from a transgender employee working in a Massachusetts HIV/AIDS service organization and a representative from a Fortune 500 company that protects its employees against gender identity discrimination.

The hearing will be broadcast live on the web at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 26. Click here for a link to the webcast.

If your Congressperson serves on the Subcommittee, please call their office and ask that they attend the hearing. Call 202-225-3121 and ask for your representative's office.

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02/28/2012
NDAA

Will Congress Finally Start to Clean Up the Mess It Made With the NDAA?

By Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:16pm

Tell Congress that Americans reject indefinite military detention without charge or trial, and we expect Congress to fix the mess it's made.

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05/25/2011

House Will Debate Worldwide War Amendment Tonight

By Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:54pm

On Wednesday evening, the House debated Amendment 50 of the National Defense Authorization Act, which would strike the "sleeper provision" that authorizes a worldwide war without end.

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05/25/2011

House Will Debate Worldwide War Amendment Tonight

By Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:54pm

On Wednesday evening, the House debated Amendment 50 of the National Defense Authorization Act, which would strike the "sleeper provision" that authorizes a worldwide war without end.

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05/19/2009
Guantánamo

Military Commissions, Obama-Style

By Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:53pm

It’s official: Bush-era military commissions are back.

And the Obama administration has even put its stamp of approval on them. They have made a few changes, but the idea is still the same.

If hearsay is admissible, there is no protection against evidence that was beaten out of a witness (who is not present in court) from being used to convict someone. Given how pervasive the use of torture and abuse was in interrogations, there is a very significant danger that detainees may be convicted based on evidence obtained by torture or abuse.

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