Human Rights Law

Obama?s Guantánamo Appeasement Plan

Posted on May 25, 2009
Two days after his inauguration, President Obama pledged to close Guantánamo within one year. The Republicans, led by Senators John McCain, Mitch McConnell and Pat Roberts, immediately launched a concerted campaign to assail the new president. They claimed his plan would release dangerous terrorists into U...

Stanford Anti-War Alumni, Students Call for Condi War Crimes Probe

Posted on May 06, 2009
During the Vietnam War, Stanford students succeeded in banning secret military research from campus. Last weekend, 150 activist alumni and present Stanford students targeted Condoleezza Rice for authorizing torture and misleading Americans into the illegal Iraq War...

Condi Channels Nixon: If the President Says So, It?s Not Illegal

Posted on April 30, 2009
On April 27, Condoleezza Rice had a brief Q & A with some Stanford students:Condi was extremely uncomfortable, defensive and nervous. She was rude to the first student, interrupted him and yelled at him. When asked by another student about a recent report that she authorized waterboarding, Condi said, ?I didn't authorize anything...

Torture Used to Link Saddam with 9/11

Posted on April 23, 2009
When I testified last year before the House Judiciary Committee?s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties about Bush interrogation policies, Congressman Trent Franks (R-Ariz) stated that former CIA Director Michael Hayden had confirmed that the Bush administration only waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zabaydah, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashirit for one minute each...

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Torture Used to Try to Link Saddam with 9/11

Posted on April 23, 2009
When I testified last year before the House Judiciary Committee?s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties about Bush interrogation policies, Congressman Trent Franks (R-Ariz) stated that former CIA Director Michael Hayden had confirmed that the Bush administration only waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashirit for one minute each...

Bush Memos Reveal Policy of Cruelty; Obama Refuses to Enforce the Law

Posted on April 22, 2009
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU, President Obama released four Bush-era memos that describe unimaginably brutal techniques and provide ?legal? justification for clearly illegal acts of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment...

Spain Investigates What America Should

Posted on April 06, 2009
A Spanish court has initiated criminal proceedings against six former officials of the Bush administration. John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, William Haynes and Douglas Feith may face charges in Spain for authorizing torture at Guantánamo Bay...

Memos Provide Blueprint for Police State

Posted on March 04, 2009

Memos Provide Blueprint for Police State

Posted on March 04, 2009
Seven newly released memos from the Bush Justice Department reveal a concerted strategy to cloak the President with power to override the Constitution. The memos provide ?legal? rationales for the President to suspend freedom of speech and press; order warrantless searches and seizures, including wiretaps of U...

War Criminals, Including Their Lawyers, Must Be Prosecuted

Posted on February 19, 2009
Since he took office, President Obama has instituted many changes that break with the policies of the Bush administration. The new president has ordered that no government agency will be allowed to torture, that the U.S. prison at Guantánamo will be shuttered, and that the CIA?s secret black sites will be closed down...

War Criminals, Including Their Lawyers, Must Be Prosecuted

Posted on February 19, 2009
Since he took office, President Obama has instituted many changes that break with the policies of the Bush administration. The new president has ordered that no government agency will be allowed to torture, that the U.S. prison at Guantánamo will be shuttered, and that the CIA?s secret black sites will be closed down...

A Call to End All Renditions

Posted on February 10, 2009
Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian residing in Britain, said he was tortured after being sent to Morocco and Afghanistan in 2002 by the U.S. government. Mohamed was transferred to Guantánamo in 2004 and all terrorism charges against him were dismissed last year...

A Call to End All Renditions

Posted on February 10, 2009
Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian residing in Britain, said he was tortured after being sent to Morocco and Afghanistan in 2002 by the U.S. government. Mohamed was transferred to Guantánamo in 2004 and all terrorism charges against him were dismissed last year...

Israel?s Collective Punishment of Gaza

Posted on January 06, 2009
Since Israel began its war on Gaza 11 days ago, more than 560 Palestinians ? about a quarter of them civilians ? have been killed. Some two thousand Gazans, including hundreds of children, have been wounded. Israel?s ?Operation Cast Lead? marks an escalation of Israel?s two-year blockade of the Gaza Strip which has deprived 1...

Israel?s Collective Punishment of Gaza

Posted on January 06, 2009
Since Israel began its war on Gaza 11 days ago, more than 560 Palestinians ? about a quarter of them civilians ? have been killed. Some two thousand Gazans, including hundreds of children, have been wounded. Israel?s ?Operation Cast Lead? marks an escalation of Israel?s two-year blockade of the Gaza Strip which has deprived 1...

Cheney Throws Down Gauntlet, Defies Prosecution for War Crimes

Posted on December 18, 2008
Dick Cheney has publicly confessed to ordering war crimes. Asked about waterboarding in an ABC News interview, Cheney replied, ?I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared.? He also said he still believes waterboarding was an appropriate method to use on terrorism suspects...

Cheney Throws Down Gauntlet, Defies Prosecution for War Crimes

Posted on December 18, 2008
Dick Cheney has publicly confessed to ordering war crimes. Asked about waterboarding in an ABC News interview, Cheney replied, ?I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared.? He also said he still believes waterboarding was an appropriate method to use on terrorism suspects...

Obama: Ratify the Women?s Convention Soon

Posted on December 05, 2008
Nearly 30 years after President Jimmy Carter signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the United States remains the only democracy that refuses to ratify the most significant treaty guaranteeing gender equality...

Obama: Ratify the Women?s Convention Soon

Posted on December 05, 2008
Nearly 30 years after President Jimmy Carter signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the United States remains the only democracy that refuses to ratify the most significant treaty guaranteeing gender equality...

Guantánamo Justice Delayed Seven Years

Posted on November 24, 2008
Since the Bush administration began transporting men and boys to Guantánamo Bay in January 2002, it has tried to prevent them from presenting their cases before a neutral federal judge. Indeed, the naval base was turned into a prison camp precisely to keep the detainees away from impartial courts...

NLG Calls on President-elect Obama to Close Guantanamo, Opposes Establishment of National Security Courts

Posted on November 12, 2008
After September 11, 2001, George W. Bush established the Guantánamo Bay prison to enable the United States to imprison non-Americans indefinitely outside the reach and protection of both U.S. and international law. The military commissions and their trial procedures, created under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, have been universally condemned by jurists, scholars and human rights specialists as violating minimum fair trial standards and of being a sham intended to secure convictions...

Obama Spells New Hope for Human Rights

Posted on November 09, 2008
Celebrations of Barack Obama?s election as President of the United States erupted in countries around the world. From Europe to Africa to the Middle East, people were jubilant. After suffering though eight years of an administration that violated more human rights than any other in U...

What About Constitutional Powers?

Posted on October 29, 2008
Institute for Public Accuracy915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org___________________________________________________Wednesday, October 29, 2008What About Constitutional Powers? Two ViewsMARJORIE COHN, Libertad48@san...

A Palin Theocracy

Posted on September 11, 2008
John McCain?s selection of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate has invigorated a lackluster campaign. The media can?t stop talking about her. Given McCain?s age and state of health (his medical file was nearly 1,200 pages long), Palin would indeed be a heartbeat away from becoming President...

Preemptive Strikes Against Protest at RNC

Posted on September 02, 2008
In the months leading up to the Republican National Convention, the FBI-led Minneapolis Joint Terrorist Task Force actively recruited people to infiltrate vegan groups and other leftist organizations and report back about their activities. On May 21, the Minneapolis City Pages ran a recruiting story called "Moles Wanted...

End the Occupation of Iraq - and Afghanistan

Posted on July 28, 2008
So far, Bush's plan to maintain a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq has been stymied by resistance from the Iraqi government. Barack Obama's timetable for withdrawal of American troops has evidently been joined by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Bush has mentioned a "time horizon," and John McCain has waffled...

End the Occupation of Iraq - and Afghanistan

Posted on July 28, 2008
So far, Bush's plan to maintain a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq has been stymied by resistance from the Iraqi government. Barack Obama's timetable for withdrawal of American troops has evidently been joined by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Bush has mentioned a "time horizon," and John McCain has waffled...

John Yoo, David Addington Stonewall Congress

Posted on June 26, 2008
JOHN YOO, DAVID ADDINGTON STONEWALL CONGRESS; NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD URGES SPECIAL PROSECUTOR, CONGRESSIONAL WAR CRIMES COMMISSIONToday the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties continued its investigation into the role played by key administration lawyers in the development of aggressive interrogation techniques...

Scalia Cites False Information in Boumediene Dissent

Posted on June 20, 2008
To bolster his argument that the Guantánamo detainees should be denied the right to prove their innocence in federal courts, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissent in Boumediene v. Bush: "At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantánamo have returned to the battlefield...

Supreme Court Checks and Balances in Boumediene

Posted on June 16, 2008
After the Supreme Court handed down its long-awaited opinion, upholding habeas corpus rights for the Guantánamo detainees, I was invited to appear on The O'Reilly Factor with guest host Laura Ingraham. Although she is a lawyer and former law clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas, Ingraham has no use for our judicial branch of government, noting that the justices are "unelected...

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