By Farbod Faraji, National Security Project at 5:45pm
Earlier this month at Harvard Law School, ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer and Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith, who in 2003 and 2004 led the Bush administration’s Office of Legal Counsel, debated the legitimacy of controversial national security policies relating to targeted killing, indefinite detention and military commissions. The debate, which was sponsored by the South Asian Law Students Association, was introduced by law student Al-Amyn Sumar and moderated by Professor Dan Meltzer, who served as Principal Deputy Counsel to President Obama in 2009 and 2010.
By Farbod Faraji, National Security Project at 6:09pm
Today the ACLU and PEN American Center asked the State Department to speed the issuance of a visa to Ghassan Zaqtan, a widely-published and internationally respected poet and writer who had intended to begin a two-week book tour for his new collection, Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, yesterday.
Mr. Zaqtan applied for a visa on March 7, 2012 at the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem and was told at the time that he would receive his visa within two weeks. Four weeks later, Mr. Zaqtan has yet to receive a response. Without a visa, Mr. Zaqtan cannot visit the United States, and the American readers who have invited him to the United States cannot meet with him and hear him speak.
