By Devon Chaffee, Legislative Policy Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:18pm
Last night former CIA chief Jose Rodriguez appeared on 60 Minutes to promote his new book defending his role in the CIA's torture program and his decision to order that tapes of the torture sessions be destroyed. While Rodriguez regurgitated his anticipated justification, 60 Minutes correspondent Leslie Stahl dogged him with evidence that torture hurt U.S. intelligence gathering and questioned whether the use of torture threatened to undermine fundamental American values.
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 Ben Wizner, Director, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 10:58am
Today the Supreme Court was asked if federal officials responsible for the torture of an American citizen on American soil may be sued for damages under the Constitution.
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.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other prisoners accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks will soon be tried at a military tribunal at Guantánamo Bay, despite the Obama administration's earlier stated intention to try the men in federal court.
On Sunday, a New York Times editorial lamented that despite improvements in the military commission system made by the Obama administration, "even the best-managed trial will not be able to change the fact that this country has in the last decade accepted too many damaging and unnecessary changes to its fundamental principles of justice and human rights."
Today, the cases of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other prisoners accused of participating in the 9/11 attacks were officially referred for trial by military commission at Guantánamo Bay. Prosecutors have 30 days to hold an arraignment, which American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony D. Romero plans to attend. In April 2011, the Obama administration reversed a 2009 decision to try the men in federal court and decided instead to try them at Guantánamo using military commissions that have been broadly criticized.
By Avinash Samarth, ACLU National Security Project at 1:09pm
European nations are making slow but steady progress towards holding their own officials accountable for their complicity in the CIA's secret rendition, detention, and interrogation programs. This past Tuesday, members of the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament heard illuminating evidence on U.S.-run secret detention sites in Europe and on the complicity of some European government officials in the extrajudicial practices of the CIA in Europe during the Bush years.
By Anna Estevao, National Security Project at 1:21pm
A Polish investigation into CIA black sites has made a meaningful step towards accountability for torture. Zbigniew Siematkowski, former chief of Polish intelligence services, has reportedly been charged with "unlawful deprivation of liberty" and "corporal punishment" against prisoners of war for facilitating the CIA's torture of terror suspects in Poland. Jameel Jaffer, ACLU Deputy Legal Director, had this reaction:
By Devon Chaffee, Legislative Policy Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:46pm
Today, the ACLU laid out concrete steps the Obama administration should take to live up to the human rights promises it made to the U.N. just over one year ago. The release of our new briefing paper coincides with the administration's announcement today of a newly created interagency process for implementing those commitments. The new process is a step in the right direction, and will establish working groups in areas such as criminal justice, immigration, and national security.
By Steven Watt, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Human Rights Program at 2:09pm
After being shut out of U.S. courts, yesterday we filed a case with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on behalf of three Afghans and three Iraqis who were tortured while held by the American military at detention centers in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Pictured above are Sherzad Kamal Khalid, left, and Thahe Mohammed Sabbar, in front of the White House during a visit to the U.S. in November 2005.)
