In the early months after the 9/11 terror attacks, America’s visceral reaction was to gird for a relentless, whatever-it-takes quest to punish those responsible and prevent any recurrences.
To a striking extent, those goals have been achieved. Yet over the years, Americans have also learned about trade-offs, about decisions and practices that placed national security on a higher plane than civil liberties and, in the view of some, above the rule of law.
* * * * *It’s by no means the first time in U.S. history that security concerns spawned tactics that, when brought to light, troubled Americans. But the past decade has been notable, even in historical context, for the scope and durability of boundary-pushing practices.
Abroad, there were secret prisons and renditions of terror suspects, the use of waterboarding and other interrogation techniques that critics denounced as torture, and the egregious abuse of detainees by U.S. military personnel at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere.
At home, there has been widespread warrantless wiretapping authorized by the National Security Agency and the issuance of more than 200,000 national security letters ordering an array of Americans — including business owners and librarians — to turn over confidential records.
SpyTown.com cites research reporting an increase of 30 million security cameras installed in post 9/11 America, with the cameras populating both public and private areas.
Security cameras, once reserved for airports, Fortune 500 corporations, and retail stores, are now speckled throughout all areas of life – from public parks to elementary schools and the sidewalks our kids play on. SpyTown.com, home security cameraexperts, cites data from IMS Research that 30 million security cameras have been sold in just the last decade following the footprint of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“SpyTown is based in Long Island, so we saw front and center the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. It made us all aware of how vulnerable we are, and security cameras help give us some peace of mind. They may not be able to fight terror, but they are a tool in preventing it,” reflects Howard Geschwind, SpyTown.com Sales Director.
As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, many Americans have unfortunately had a casual disregard for infringements on our civil liberties that have occured since that fateful day.
The most glaring examples of government abuses include the TSA, warrantless wiretaps and searches, and the violations of financial and personal privacy by the PATRIOT Act.
But there are also smaller and creeping threats to civil liberties that have not surfaced, but threaten to radically change basic constitutional protections in America. The Department of Justice recently arrested and indicted Jubair Ahmad, a 24-year-old Pakistani legal resident living in Virginia, for the dangerously vague crime of “providing material support” to a designated terrorist organization. Ahmad uploaded a YouTube video showing Abu Ghraib photos, U.S. Iraqi war footage, and Islamic prayers. For this, he faces more than twenty years in prison.
Other headlines will read “Obama ends Miranda rights for American terrorists”, but I will not let such naive and ignorant headlines headline at this blog. – Brian
The Obama administration has created a new policy that allows investigators to waive Miranda warnings for domestic-terror suspects, even when there is not an “immediate threat,” a report said Thursday.
The rule was revealed by an FBI memorandum obtained by The Wall Street Journal. It says that in “exceptional cases,” investigators can hold suspects without informing them of their rights.
The policy applies where investigators “conclude that continued unwarned interrogation is necessary to collect valuable and timely intelligence not related to any immediate threat.”
And particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of ground zero, where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation, for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable.”
Only weeks ago the media distractions towards the mosque were at an all time high. Many of those against the building of the mosque had this to say:
Sarah Palin: “Build a mosque….but somewhere else that’s less offensive and less provoking.”"
Donald Trump: “I think it is very insensitive to build it there. I think it is not appropriate. I think it’s insensitive and it shouldn’t be built there.”
Newt Gingrich: “I’m quite happy if they’d come in and said, ‘We want to build a community center near Central Park, we’d like to build a community center near Columbia University.’ But they didn’t. They said right at the edge (of Ground Zero)…”
Glenn Beck: “I’m opposed to it. I think it’s crazy.”
Dem. Governor of Illinois Pat Quinn: “I do believe that there are special places on Earth that should have a zone of solemnity around them. I would strongly urge those who are thinking of putting a mosque within that zone to rethink their position.“
The web is filled with references to the mosque being too close to Ground Zero, made by people like I have pointed out above.
Obama has aligned his positions with Beck, Palin, Gingrich and many others in limiting and restricting the most basic freedoms around the site of the World Trade Center.
It is time to see through the smoke and mirrors; 9/11 is being used by both parties as an excuse to limit civil liberties and curtail freedoms worldwide while continuing the occupations of aggression in the Middle East.
A major legal challenge to one of the Obama administration’s most radical assertions of executive power began this morning in a federal courthouse in Washington, DC. Early last month, the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights were retained by Nasser al-Awlaki, the father of Obama assassination target (and U.S. citizen) Anwar al-Awlaki, to seek a federal court order restraining the Obama administration from killing his son without due process of law. But then, a significant and extraordinary problem arose: regulations promulgated several years ago by the Treasury Department prohibit U.S. persons from engaging in any transactions with individuals labeled by the Government as a ”Specially Designated Global Terrorist,” and those regulations specifically bar lawyers from providing legal services to such individuals without a special “license” from the Treasury Department specifically allowing such representation.
With all the news on Hellerstein standing up for the 9/11 first responders - I thought he might be a good guy….well, I learned something that others may already know real fast tonight .
A federal judge on Thursday refused to force the public release of CIA methods relating to Sept. 11 detainees who were interrogated harshly, saying the judiciary’s authority is limited when national security is at stake.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected arguments by the American Civil Liberties Union that it should be able to force the CIA to release names and documents related to the detainees if the methods used by the agency were illegal.
He said to do so would “confer an unwarranted competence to the district court to evaluate national intelligence decisions.”
The judge said releasing the documents requested by the ACLU would provide operational details about the application of various interrogation techniques in various circumstances for a particular detainee.
“The difference between the information officially released and the CIA operational records here is different in quality, degree, and kind,” Hellerstein said.
He cited an earlier court case that he said was consistent with his findings. In that case, the Supreme Court let the government withhold identifying information of scientists who worked on a covert CIA program researching the use of chemical, biological and radiological materials to control human behavior. The program led to the death of some human test subjects.
A group is calling for signers to its petition that would have the 9/11 Conspirators trial held in New York. This is from their website:
More than 2,600 people were murdered in New York City on 9/11. The five men accused of planning the 9/11 attacks have been in US custody for several years but have still not been brought to justice. Why? Because the Bush administration held the men for years in secret prisons, and then insisted on trying the men in an untested military commission.
Now the Obama administration is considering holding the trial in a commission, too . These military commissions are not only lacking in fundamental due process guarantees, they are extremely inefficient. Since 9/11, military commissions have tried only three terrorism suspects. US federal courts, by contrast, have successfully completed more than 400 terrorism cases in that time.
A US appeals court has refused to give prisoners at an American military base in Afghanistan the same legal right to challenge their imprisonment as detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.
The three-judge panel on Friday sided with the Obama administration, ruling that US courts do not have jurisdiction over the legal petitions by the prisoners at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and ordered that their cases be dismissed.
The administration of Barack Obama, the US president, took the same legal position as the administration of his predecessor, George Bush, arguing that detainees at Bagram have no right to have their cases heard in federal court in Washington.
During an interview Sunday on ABC television’s current affairs talk show This Week, Attorney General Eric Holder suggested creating an exception to so-called Miranda rights established in a 1966 Supreme Court ruling that forbids prosecutors from using statements made by suspects before they have been warned that they have a right to remain silent.
“We’re now dealing with international terrorists,” the attorney general told NBC television. “And I think that we have to think about perhaps modifying the rules that interrogators have and somehow coming up with something that is flexible and is more consistent with the threat that we now face.”
Monday morning, an anti-war organization for survivors of the September 11, 2001 attacks along with friends and family members of the victims, blasted the proposal.
This is NOT a new paper; it was penned in 2003 and uploaded recently (to the best I can tell). However I was pleased with the analysis (besides not questioning 9/11 itself) and the emphasis for maintaing civil liberties through the courts in the least. 2003 was a much harder year to be “against the grain” than 2010 as it was only a year or so after the 9/11 attacks. I doubt the author of the paper would is pleased at the current state of affairs.
After September lIth. governments around the world have taken swift action to address what is now perceived as a world-wide threat of terrorism. The measures adopted are powerful and far-reaching. They also have the very real potential seriously to restrict civil rights and freedoms: the very rights and freedoms in the name of which the new anti-terrorism initiatives have been taken. While Courts have the power to ensure that these initiatives do not improperly infringe on individual rights and liberties. in recent judicial pronouncements. it appears that several high courts – specifically including the Supreme Court of Canada – are suggesting more, not less, judicial deference to government initiatives taken at this troubled time.
It seems like just yesterday that I was talking about Andy Worthington’s “Guantánamo Habeas Week.” Well, as of today he can update his Guantánamo Habeas Scorecard, because the same judge who denied the habeas petition for Yasin Ismail last week, Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. of the U.S. District Court, Washington, DC, approved the petition for a different prisoner, Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman, primarily because the evidence against him had been produced by torture. (See quote from the decision below.) The two tortured “witnesses” against Uthman were presumed al-Qaida members, also held at Guantanamo, Sharqwi Abdu Ali Al-Hajj and Sanad Yislam Ali Al Kazimi.
This brings the scorecard to 35 of 48 habeas cases from Guantanamo decided against the government. I don’t know how many of them were due to tortured evidence. One would be too many, but it is far, far more than one. The U.S. released a cascade of evil when it decided it would torture whomever they could get their hands on, all to create a false narrative of fear, of a “homeland” under increasing attack by waves and waves of jihadists, armed with fictional “dirty bombs” and visions of heavenly virgins.
I found this the other day browsing around but unfortunately I cannot open or download the file. I am hoping someone out there has an account with this group Palgrave Connect. All the chapter contents seem to be very interesting. I somehow get the feeling the issue will say basically that the means will justify the end. See comments below.
The Impact of 9-11: The New Legal Landscape is the third volume of the six-volume series The Day that Changed Everything? edited by Matthew J. Morgan. The series brings together from a broad spectrum of disciplines the leading thinkers of our time to reflect on one of the most significant events of our time. With a foreword by the former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Senator Bob Graham, the volume’s contributors include Alan Dershowitz, Aziz Huq, William Weaver, and other leading scholars.
List of Contents:
Acknowledgments * About the Contributors * Foreword – Bob Graham * Introduction – Matthew J. Morgan * The Preventative State: Uncharted Waters after 9/11 – Alan M. Dershowitz * Section I: The Impact on American Civil Liberties * The Logic of Suspending Civil Liberties – Dewi Williams * The Use of “Speech Zones” to Control Public Discourse in 21st Century America - Paul Haridakis and Amber Ferris * Challenges to Academic Freedom since 9/11 - Peter N. Kirstein * The Right to Bear Arms and Gun Control after 9/11 - David B. Kopel, Paul Gallant, and Joanne Eisen * National Security Letters and Diminishing Privacy Rights – Christopher P. Banks *
Back in 2005-06, I wrote a book, The Case for Impeachment, in which I made the argument that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as other key figures in the Bush/Cheney administration–Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales–should be impeached for war crimes, as well as crimes against the Constitution of the United States.
These days, when I mention the book’s title, people sometimes ask, half in jest, whether I’m referring to the current president, Barack Obama.
Sadly, it is time to say, just 14 months into the current term of this new president, that yes, this president, and some of his subordinates, are also guilty of impeachable crimes–including many of the same ones committed by Bush and Cheney.
Let’s start with the war in Afghanistan, which Obama has taken full ownership of with an escalation that will bring the number of US troops in that country (not counting mercenaries hired by the Pentagon and CIA) to 100,000 by this August.
Posted by Brian 
Obama,Gingrich, Palin & Beck Agree: Ground Zero too Close for Civil Liberties to Exist
September 26, 2010by Brian Romanoff Nor Cal Truth Sep 26, 2010
In rebuttal to Ahmadinejad’s recent comments at the United Nations General Assembly, President Obama made some eerily similar comments as those who were protesting an Islamic Cultural Center near Ground Zero. Obama had this to say:
Only weeks ago the media distractions towards the mosque were at an all time high. Many of those against the building of the mosque had this to say:
The web is filled with references to the mosque being too close to Ground Zero, made by people like I have pointed out above.
Obama has aligned his positions with Beck, Palin, Gingrich and many others in limiting and restricting the most basic freedoms around the site of the World Trade Center.
It is time to see through the smoke and mirrors; 9/11 is being used by both parties as an excuse to limit civil liberties and curtail freedoms worldwide while continuing the occupations of aggression in the Middle East.