Former Bush administration attorney John Bellinger, ACLU Center for Democracy Director Jameel Jaffer and WSJ Pentagon correspondent Julian Barnes appeared on NPR's On Point program to discuss the legality of the Obama administration's seemingly ever-expanding drone war.
By Sam Walker, University of Nebraska at Omaha at 12:52pm
Happy birthday, FOIA!
July 4 marks the 46th birthday of the Freedom of Information Act. President Lyndon Johnson signed the historic law on July 4, 1966, at his ranch in Texas. FOIA has become a cornerstone of American democracy, making it possible for Americans to find out what their government is doing and to hold it accountable for its actions.
By Nathan Freed Wessler, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 6:21pm
Today Andrew Rosenthal of The New York Timespublished a thoughtful column discussing the untenable position taken by the government in response to the ACLU's two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits seeking information about the CIA's targeted killing drone strike program, including its targeting of U.S. citizens. As Rosenthal explains, "the government is blocking any consideration of these petitions with one of the oldest, and most pathetic, dodges in the secrecy game. It says it cannot confirm or deny the existence of any drone strike policy or program."
By Avinash Samarth, ACLU National Security Project at 5:00pm
On November 28, the ACLU filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act seeking the U.S. military’s autopsy reports of the three men who died most recently while detained at Guantánamo Bay. The men—Adnan Latif, Awal Gul, and Hajji Nassim (also known as “Inayatullah”)—had been held at the prison camp indefinitely and without charge. They died on September 8, 2012, February 2, 2012, and May 18, 2011, respectively. You can read our request here.
By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:32am
(Update below)
Today, the nominees to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board (PCLOB) were voted from the Senate Judiciary Committee for full consideration in the Senate. It looks like the Senate is finally going to act to nominate five people to fill this vital oversight board. While this is an important step, it’s also something of a good government scandal and certainly a cautionary tale about the limits of oversight.
By Nusrat Choudhury, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 10:04am
Today in Portland, Ore., I will be in a federal appeals court asking a three-judge panel to reinstate the ACLU's lawsuit challenging the government's secretive No-Fly List. We represent 15 U.S. citizens and permanent residents, including four military veterans, who are banned from flying to or from the U.S. or over American airspace. They have never been told why they are on the list or given a reasonable opportunity to get off it.
By Alexander Abdo, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 4:03pm
On Monday, the latest installment in the defense of torture — Hard Measures, by Jose Rodriguez — will hit bookshelves. Rodriguez, the former head of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center and its former Deputy Director of Operations, will also appear on 60 Minutes on Sunday night. Like many of torture's outspoken proponents, Rodriguez has a personal stake in defending torture: he was intimately involved in the CIA's brutal "enhanced interrogation" regime. According to an internal CIA report, for example, Rodriguez's office proposed the use of "coercive physical techniques" in the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah. In other words, the CIA's path to torture went directly through Rodriguez.
By Brett Kaufman, Legal Fellow, ACLU National Security Project at 7:41am
This morning the ACLU will appear before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking records about the CIA’s use of drone aircraft to carry out targeted killings around the world. We will argue that the court should put an end to the government’s double game of selectively disclosing information about the program in public while obstinately refusing to confirm or deny the very existence of the program in federal court.
Earlier this week, ProPublica published an article discussing the government’s attempts to censor the statements of the defendants in the 9/11 Guantanamo military commission trials. The article’s well worth reading because it discusses in detail the government’s arguments for censorship, as well as legal challenges brought by the ACLU, media organizations, and one of the 9/11 defendants’ lawyers.
We just marked the 40th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, when five burglars associated with the White House were caught in the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, DC. The burglary unleashed a series of revelations of misdeeds that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon on August 9, 1974.
