American Civil Liberties Union

I’m in Guantánamo today, expecting to argue the ACLU’s constitutional challenge to the censorship of torture in the military commissions this afternoon or tomorrow. 

The Guantánamo military commissions were created in part to hide the government’s illegal torture program while permitting the use of information obtained through torture. Because of improvements in 2009 in the law governing the commissions, it’s harder (though not impossible) for coerced evidence to be used in the proceedings. But the government still wants to hide from the public what it did to prisoners in CIA and military custody.

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.

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.

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,