By Mitra Ebadolahi, Legal Fellow, ACLU National Security Project at 10:55am
In April 2011, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking a narrow yet critically important set of government documents: internal CIA reports detailing the use of unauthorized interrogation techniques at its secret overseas prisons, also known as “black sites” (you can read the request here). Investigative news coverage and earlier FOIA requests had alerted us to the potential existence of many such reports. Most notably, in August 2009 – in connection with a separate ACLU FOIA request – the government had released a partially-redacted version of one report, the Special Review: Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities (September 2001–October 2003).
By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 6:43pm
Yesterday, Governor Jerry Brown signed California’s Senate Bill 9, the Fair Sentencing for Youth Act, giving California youth sentenced to die in prison a second chance at life. There are 309 child offenders serving life-without-parole sentences in California for murders committed when they were younger than 18. The bill, known as SB 9, gives these individuals the chance to earn parole after serving at least 25 years in prison. It allows juvenile offenders sentenced to life without parole to petition the sentencing court to review their cases after 15 years and reduce their sentence to 25 years-to-life if they show remorse and are taking steps toward rehabilitation.
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:59am
Back in the waning years of the Clinton administration, Congress quietly enacted an important internet privacy bill (the passage of which was overshadowed by other, more salacious developments). The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) requires any website “target[ing]” children under the age of 13 to notify a child’s parent and receive verifiable consent before collecting personal information from that child. A lot of COPPA is about controlling online marketing activities involving young children, who may not appreciate the dangers in disclosing sensitive personal information to commercial entities.
By Brandon Buskey, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 10:16am
Prominent conservative leaders Newt Gingrich and Pat Nolan penned a forceful editorial last week in the San Diego Union-Tribune advocating that states such as California abandon the draconian practice of sentencing children to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. While professing their continued commitment to conservative values, Gingrich and Nolan assail criminal laws that fail to recognize the inherent differences between children and adults and thus destroy all hope for youth who may one day deserve the opportunity to rejoin society. Sentencing children to spend the rest of their lives in prison, they assert, represents “an overuse of incarceration.”
By Devon Chaffee, Legislative Policy Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:56pm
Today, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that will give better protections to vulnerable workers employed by government contractors. The order, announced on the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, lays out new requirements for U.S. government contractors and their subcontractors operating overseas to prevent human trafficking and forced labor. In a powerful speech this morning announcing the order, President Obama recognized that U.S. tax payer dollars should never be used to support human trafficking, a form of modern day slavery.
The U.S. government may have closed without any prosecutions its inquiries into and investigations of CIA involvement in torture, homicide and other gross human rights violations, and convinced courts to dismiss civil accountability suits for such abuses – but across the pond, courts are holding U.S. officials criminally responsible for these very same acts. Yesterday, Italy’s highest court affirmed the convictions of 23 Americans involved in the abduction and rendition to torture of a Muslim cleric, Abu Omar, as part of the U.S. government’s notorious “extraordinary rendition” program. This case marks the first time any court anywhere in the world has held CIA officials responsible for torture and other abuses arising out of the program, which was greatly expanded under President George W. Bush and continues to be endorsed, albeit with assurances that international legal obligations will be respected, under the Obama administration.
By her thirteenth birthday, Barbara Hernandez had lived with an abusive, alcoholic father and been molested by her mother’s second husband. At fifteen, Barbara dropped out of school and moved in with her boyfriend James, who beat her and coerced her into prostitution. Barbara’s life with James had taught her that she had two choices: obey him or face physical abuse. So when James instructed her to buy him a knife and lure a man into their home, Barbara obeyed. While she was in another room, James stabbed the man to death. Despite Barbara’s youth, troubled background, and the fact that she did not physically commit the crime, Barbara was tried as if she were an adult and received the harshest sentence possible in the State of Michigan, life without the possibility of parole. She was just sixteen, and about to spend the rest of her life in prison. In Barbara’s words, she was sentenced to a “long slow death.”
By Zachary Katznelson, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 5:33pm
Yesterday, a dark chapter in American history got that much more disgraceful. Attorney General Holder announced the closure of the last two open criminal inquiries into abusive interrogations by CIA officials. The pronouncement means that not a single CIA official will be prosecuted in federal courts for any of the abuse, torture or even death that took place at the hands of CIA officers and contractors.
The Justice Department has finished sweeping the crimes of the Bush administration under the rug. Senior officials developed and implemented an interrogation program that subjected prisoners to abuse that clearly violated the law by any measure. But today, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department will close its investigation into the CIA’s torture and abuse of detainees without bringing charges.
This past week, I traveled to Guantánamo Bay to observe military commission hearings, continuing the ACLU’s long-standing commitment to be present at each and every hearing of these deeply flawed tribunals.
