May 21st, 2009
Posted by Suzanne Ito, ACLU at 5:07pm	Torture

Obama Lays Out Few Details for Closing Gitmo and Military Commissions

We, along with other Americans concerned with the direction of President Obama's approach to national security, watched with bated breath as he gave his much-anticipated speech this morning addressing national security issues including the closure of Guantánamo and the revival of the military commissions. Yesterday, human rights groups including the ACLU met with the president and members of his cabinet and expressed concerns about the president's reported plans for indefinite detention for some terrorism suspects. While today's speech was refreshing in its efforts to acknowledge the importance of the Constitution and the rule of law, we remain concerned about those issues.

Responding to the speech, Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel for the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office stated:

Interestingly, President Obama gave his speech while standing within a few feet of the Constitution. He and Congress should keep that cherished document in mind when considering today's proposals. You can't square upholding the Constitution with pushing for a new military commission scheme that would allow people to be convicted based on coerced evidence and asking Congress to pass the nation's first-ever law permitting the federal government to declare someone dangerous and imprison the person indefinitely without any criminal charges. Congress should reject that proposal.

Denny LeBoeuf, Director of the ACLU's John Adams Project, assisting in the representation of capitally-charged detainees, said of the president's plan to restart the military commissions:

The proposed changes to the military commissions are merely cosmetic and do not erase the spectacle of the Department of Defense presiding over trials where coerced statements and accusations by unnamed accusers are permitted, and where detainees are not permitted to speak about their torture at the hands of the CIA or the military. Military commissions unfairly deprive detainees of meaningful defense resources. This "due process light" is particularly indefensible in death penalty cases.

However, we can certainly agree with the president when he said:

We will not be safe if we see national security as a wedge that divides America — it can and must be a cause that unites us as one people, as one nation.

That wedge, which politicians — including former Vice President Dick Cheney — have been using to scare American into opposing President Obama's plan to close Guantánamo, is dangerous. As we wrote before, it's a slap in the face to our federal judiciary, not to mention those who staff and operate this nation's maximum security prisons, to say that suspected terrorists cannot be incarcerated safely in America.

As the president pointed out, hundreds of convicted terrorists already reside in American jails, and no one has ever escaped from one of our federal maximum security prisons. Closing Guantánamo is key to restoring America's standing in the world, as a beacon of justice and due process.

We were also encouraged when the president said:

I believe that our existing democratic institutions are strong enough to deliver accountability…Congress can review abuses of our values…[t]he Department of Justice and our courts can work through and punish any violations of our laws.

You can support the ACLU's call for accountability: sign a petition to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding an independent prosecutor to investigate Bush-era criminal activity.

Permalink |	Torture

Tags: Close Guantanamo, indefinite detention

1. Maggie Says:
   May 21st, 2009 at 4:57pm

   May 20, 2009 - Almost attack! I will not sign your petition.

2. Ronald Needleman Says:
   May 21st, 2009 at 5:40pm

   I would like to know if any ACLU attorneys would be willing to accept Guantanamo detainees in their home town.

3. Curious Says:
   May 22nd, 2009 at 12:07am

   How many members of the ACLU have ever taken a bullet for thier country! How many of members of the ACLU would take up arms in defense of thier country?

4. Concerned ! Says:
   May 22nd, 2009 at 10:40am

   Why is the ACLU worried about the Guantanamo Detainees? Your group has no idea what kind of harm you are doing to America. People should not support any efforts that you are putting in your lawsuits against anyone!

   The ACLU should be checking to make sure Obama can be president. www.theobamafile.com

   This is what scares my family.

   Obama is not even a natural born US Citizen and or cannot even prove he is. People must ask themselves why does this president and or other parties are paying money to lawyers to keep is LIVE Birth Certificate from the public?

5. Layla Says:
   May 22nd, 2009 at 11:33am

   Since the ACLU is in such support of closing GITMO let's just move them into ACLU supporters homes. Or better yet let's move the ALCU and GITMO detainees to a tiny secluded island and leave them there. Maybe they could all live in harmony

6. Layla Says:
   May 22nd, 2009 at 11:36am

   If we bring these detainees to American soil it will only create a recruitment invironment ideal for these terrorists. We need to leave GITMO open and revamp the image it has. It's a fine working facility that is perfect to house enemy combatants in.

7. Lynn Longwill Says:
   May 22nd, 2009 at 11:47am

   You ought to be ashamed of yourself, especially on Memorial Day weekend. Why do you insist on protecting these terrorists that, if you gave a gun to, would shoot you in the face along with your children. How quickly you forget 9/11. Thousands of Americans were killed at the hands of these animals. You don't get it! Personally, I don't really give a damn about what the rest of the world thinks of us. God Bless America and the Constitution. Quit playing Big Brother. We don't need you or the oppression of this administration.

8. Paen Says:
   May 22nd, 2009 at 1:46pm

   I find it disgraceful that Obama could be so gutless that he would pander to fanatics by continuing the use of kangaroo courts.I thought that he swore to uphold the constitution.
   I think that both Ben Laden and the wing nuts will celebrate when America becomes a complete police state.

9. wild Says:
   May 22nd, 2009 at 5:01pm

   This is one voice of the free & the brave..........and I say to you:
   I'll take your huddled masses, your poor, and your defenseless...........so yeah I'll pay to support ACLU, and I don't have to take a bullet to fight for whats right~~I'm smarter than that!! Oh and btw...when those INNOCENTS need a place to stay, hell yeah they can camp with me, anytime! I don't know what to expect from a 'detainee' at my house~~~but for some of the vipers that live in MY COUNTRY, I'm wayyyyyyyy ahead of you...and I knowwww what you have called for....and its not Grace, not justice, nor charitable! hahaha the ACLU strictly remains nonreligious and yet they stand for always GRACE, JUSTICE, CHARITY~~~ haven't you heard?

   wild;)

10. makaainana Says:
    May 22nd, 2009 at 10:15pm

    How can you have details of Kangaroo Court rev. 2?

    As seems to be the pattern we announce the goal before we have a plan.

    Why oh why do we have to create a new justice system to get justice for a few special defendants?

    And where of where does the description of the Presidency in the Constitution say that he can imprison someone permanently without rights, a lawyer, a bail hearing, a trial etc.?

11. Layla Says:
    May 23rd, 2009 at 11:08am

    God Bless America and our troops and all the government entities that are working hard to protect us and our children.

12. Joanne Says:
    May 24th, 2009 at 2:37am

    I can't believe what I've just read. On the ACLU blog "our existing justice system is perfectly well equipped to handle terrorism cases". When was our system ever used in the same breath as 'perfect'? How many innocents are executed in the U.S. every year? Worse yet, how many terrorists would be set free to kill perhaps thousands of Americans because a prosecuter can't kidnap a witness in a foreign country and force them to testify...or because the terrorist wasn't read their Miranda rights? In these cases you can't just spew liberal ideology and call it justice. Unusual circumstances require unusual rules. Military justice should be employed before setting terrorists loose. You want one of these guys living next to you?

13. Rob Says:
    May 26th, 2009 at 4:16pm

    Paen, I dont think you have any friends. I think your only friends are the terriost in gitmo. Truth be told they would rape and kill you if they had the chance.

14. Tiger2Lover Says:
    May 26th, 2009 at 10:13pm

    Republicans of America:
    you are out of power thank GOD!
    Your insanity and criminal ways have caught up to you. It is time to prosecute the crimes of the last 8 years!

15. Fed up Says:
    Jun 1st, 2009 at 5:25pm

    ACLU- I thought that that meant AMERICAN
    CIVIL Liberties!!!!!

    The detainees should be being brought up in front of a military court- just as in any other war criminal, nowhere else! Sentences should be handed out accordingly. If there are any "supposed" Americans involved then they should be tried for treason and sentenced as such!

    Once again, American citizens are being
    pushed aside so that Washington can play BIG BROTHER to foreigners.

    There has to be something left out there
    for American citizens-

    I am truly in favor of boycotting
    paying any more IRS taxes to a country that does not use it for the purpose of sustaining Americans!

    We have homeless, unemployed, and hungary actual American's..........
    What is the ACLU doing about the injustice of taxpayers going hungary and losing homes.........

    KEEP YOUR NOSES WHERE THEY BELONG!
    America for Americans!