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.

05/21/2008

Chris Anders: The Watchdog Bites at the Torture Administration

By Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:17pm
At last. A report from the Justice Department that is on the correct side of the torture issue. Yesterday morning, the Inspector General of the Justice Department posted a long-awaited report on the FBI's role in interrogations (PDF)—and how the rest of the Bush administration swept aside the concerns of FBI agents who complained about the CIA and Defense Department using torture.
Torture and America
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02/01/2008

Senators Press, Mukasey Equivocates

By Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:32pm
On Wednesday, Attorney General Mukasey went before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his first oversight hearing since heading up the Department of Justice. In the days leading up to the hearing, the AG finally responded to the Committee's request for follow-up regarding his views towards the harsh interrogations that Read More»
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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10/17/2008
Guantánamo

MCA, Still Crazy After All These Years

By Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:23pm

Two years ago today, President Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), stripping away the time-honored right of habeas corpus, and thus allowing the federal government to detain anyone it so chooses indefinitely - no charges pressed, no lawyer provided, no contact with family granted.

That day, thousands of ACLU members converged in Washington, D.C. for our biannual Membership Conference. We took out this ad in the Washington Post to bolster our efforts lobbying Congress, calling the MCA "one of the most radical rollbacks of civil liberties in American history." The Supreme Court has since backed us up on this, ruling the stripping of habeas corpus to be unconstitutional.

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01/03/2008

Mukasey Must Appoint a Special Prosecutor

By Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:11pm
Yesterday, Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced that the Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the CIA's destruction of videotapes depicting the "harsh" interrogation of detainees in its custody.

It's good that Mukasey is feeling enough heat that he's forced to do some
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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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11/19/2008
Guantánamo

Time Running Out At Guantanamo?

By Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:53am

Almost precisely 36 hours after President-elect Obama declared on 60 Minutes that he will shut the Guantánamo Bay prison and end the sham military commission trials, our Air Force cargo prop plane lumbered down the very same runway at Andrews Air Force Base that the new president will use sometimes daily aboard Air Force One. But the "cargo" and destination of our plane today might be a surprise for anyone who voted for change, is reading about the transition, and watched 60 Minutes. The destination was Guantánamo, and the cargo was lawyers, interpreters, and everyone else needed to keep the military commission show going just a little longer.

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12/19/2007

White House Heavily Involved in CIA Tape Destruction

By Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 7:44pm
The CIA is on a roll lately with news that it destroyed taped “harsh” interrogations of detainees. The Justice Department recently warned a federal judge to back off of an inquiry as to whether the tapes’ destruction violated a court order. The department also asked congressional committees to back off of their independent investigations – as if Congress does not have
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01/18/2007

Gitmo, Habeas Corpus and the Long Haul to Fix the MCA

By Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 9:11am
There’s a fight brewing in Congress that goes to the core of the Bush Administration’s entire Guantánamo policy. With Guantánamo, top officials in the White House and Justice Department thought they had found “the legal equivalent of a black hole.” They wanted to put nearly a thousand men seized aroun
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