Indefinite Detention

01/08/2012

Detention

Injustice at Guantánamo: Past and Present

By Zachary Katznelson, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 10:38am

Wednesday marks 10 years since the prison at Guantánamo Bay opened. Former detainee Lakhdar Boumediene tells the harrowing tale of the 7 1/2 years he spent imprisoned there.

12/18/2012

U.S. Torture

Shedding Light on the Dark Side – A Call to Congress to Release the SSCI Report

By Amshula Jayaram, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:07am

Last week, nearly four years after President Obama closed the CIA’s Detention, Interrogation and Rendition Program, the American public is one step closer to learning the truth about a program that sanctioned the torture of terrorism suspects. To date, it has remained shrouded in secrecy, tarnishing our international reputation and severely damaging our nation’s security. Under the leadership of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has voted to adopt a 6000-plus page report, based on an analysis of more than six million pages of CIA records, detailing the findings of the committee’s three-year investigation into the program. We urge the committee to publicly release the document with as few redactions as possible.

12/13/2012

Guantánamo

Demanding Answers for Three Deaths at Guantánamo

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.

08/02/2012

Military Commissions

Guantánamo Military Judge Grants ACLU’s Request to Argue Against Censorship of 9/11 Defendants’ Testimony

By Hina Shamsi, Director, ACLU National Security Project at 6:18pm

In an order made public today, a military commissions judge at Guantánamo Bay announced that he will hear oral argument on the ACLU’s challenge to censorship of torture at the trial of the 9/11 defendants.

In May, we filed a motion asking the military commission to deny the government’s request to suppress statements by the defendants about their treatment while in U.S. custody, including torture and other abuse. As we said in our motion,

05/14/2012

On the Agenda

On the Agenda: Week of May 14–18, 2012

By Suzanne Ito, ACLU at 12:39pm

This week the House will debate the NDAA for fiscal year 2013. We'll be monitoring the debate and pulling for an amendment that fixes the terrible detention provisions in last year's bill.

04/27/2012

NDAA

One Thing Maine, Virginia and Arizona Have in Common: Opposition to the NDAA

By Allie Bohm, Advocacy & Policy Strategist, ACLU at 10:46am

This week, the House Armed Services Committee has turned its attention back to the National Defense Authorization Act and began working on this year's bill. You remember last year's perversion that, for the first time in American history, codified indefinite military detention without charge or trial far from any battlefield? State legislators and activists and concerned citizens on the right and the left — and everyone in between — haven't forgotten.

04/24/2012

Targeted Killings

Targeted Killing, Indefinite Detention, and Military Commissions: A Debate About Checks and Balances

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.

04/16/2012

On the Agenda

On the Agenda: Week of April 16 – 20, 2012

By Suzanne Ito, ACLU at 11:29am

Congress is back in session, so we've got a busy week ahead.

Today, the ACLU, along with several other groups, is launching a weeklong campaign called "Stop Cyber Spying Week" to draw attention to the massive civil liberties problems in H.R. 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011, better known as CISPA. CISPA is scheduled to be voted on by the House of Representatives next week. Tomorrow ACLU Legislative Counsel Michelle Richardson will speak at a House Hill Briefing called "The False Choice: Cybersecurity vs. Civil Liberties."

04/12/2012

Military Commissions

Reporting from Guantánamo: Leaving the Constitution on the Mainland

By Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 4:15pm

This week I am in Guantánamo Bay observing a hearing in the case of Abd al-Rahim Hussayn Muhammad al-Nashiri (pronounced al-NAH-shiri), the first death penalty case to be tried by military commission. Mr. al-Nashiri faces charges for his alleged participation in the attack on the destroyer USS Cole over 11 years ago. Apprehended in 2002, he was held by the CIA for four years in secret before his transfer to military custody. U.S. officials brutally tortured Mr. al-Nashiri: he was waterboarded, and threatened with a power drill and handgun next to his head. Sadly, this week's pretrial hearing in his case continues to erode the commission's purported commitment to fairness, transparency, and justice and instead affirms a commitment to Guantánamo's shameful legacy of injustice.

10/18/2011

Detention

Reid Detains Defense Bill over Problematic Detention Language

By Sam Milgrom, Washington Legislative Office at 2:57pm

Earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made it clear that significant changes to the detention provisions in the Defense Authorization bill are in order. In a letter to Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ), Reid told the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee to fix the detention provisions in "S.1253" – the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA), a must-pass piece of legislation. Reid's letter states that he does not intend to bring the bill to the Senate floor until sections 1031, 1032, and 1033 are changed.

American Civil Liberties Union