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Sub-Topics Data Mining Personal Security Torture and Brutality Also Try Civil Rights and Racism Countering Terrorism Homeland Security Lesson Plans Civil Liberties and September 11th (New York Times - Glasthal and Khan) "In this lesson, students evaluate the effectiveness and fairness of proposed military tribunals designed to fight terrorism. They will then compare American civil liberties, as stated in the U.S. Bill of Rights, with changes in these rights that may take place for some individuals living in the U.S., as a result of the U.S.A. Patriot Act." 2-02 History of Civil Rights - An Eyewitness Account (Mr. Donn) Provides an eyewitness account of the growth of civil rights in the United States, starting with 1935. Designed for grades 5 - 8, but can be adapted for other grades. 10-04 Liberties vs. Security Lesson (CNNfyi.com) Provides a lesson to help students balance the need for security with civil liberties rights. 11-01 Security Versus Privacy Lesson - Grades 9 - 12 (New York Times) "In this lesson, students evaluate the possible effects of the United States government's Fidnet plan, which would involve creating a computer monitoring system to protect the nation's crucial data networks...." 5-02 Lists Civil Liberties and National Security (PBS.org - Moyers) Provides resources on key events related to civil liberties and national security. 11-04 Support of Liberties While Pursuing Security (Electronic Privacy Information Center) Provides sources of information in support of civil liberties while pursuing national security. Quotes (Supreme Court) Justice William Brennan that encroachments on civil liberties in the name of military necessity should be viewed with skepticism. "The concept of military necessity is seductively broad, and has a dangerous plasticity. Because they invariably have the visage of overriding importance, there is always a temptation to invoke security 'necessities' to justify an encroachment upon civil liberties. For that reason, the military-security argument must be approached with a healthy skepticism." 3-02 Materials Military Tribunals for Terrorist Suspects - For and Against (PBS News) Provides an audio of a debate for and against the use of military tribunals for suspected terrorists. Requires RealPlayer software. 11-01 News -01-09-06 ACLU Opposes Alito Confirmation (ACLU.org) "The American Civil Liberties Union announced today that it will oppose the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the United States Supreme Court." " 'At a time when our president has claimed unprecedented authority to spy on Americans and jail terrorism suspects indefinitely, America needs a Supreme Court justice who will uphold our precious civil liberties,' said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. 'Unfortunately, Judge Alito's record shows a willingness to support government actions that abridge individual freedoms.' " "Throughout his career, Judge Alito has promoted an expansive view of executive authority and a limited view of the judicial role in curbing abuses of that authority. Two years ago, Justice O'Connor eloquently expressed what is at stake in these critical times when she wrote: 'A state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens.' " 01-06 -01-12-06 Administration Asks Supreme Court to Dismiss Terror Case (Blomberg.com) "The Bush administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to cancel a scheduled showdown over the use of military tribunals to try terrorism suspects, saying a new law stripped the court of power to consider the case." 01-06 -01-16-06 Gore: Bush Repeatedly and Persistently Broke the Law (MSNBC News) "Former Vice President Al Gore asserted Monday that President Bush “repeatedly and persistently” broke the law by eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant and called for a federal investigation of the practice." "Gore, also a former member of the Senate from Tennessee, proposed that a special counsel be appointed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to investigate whether there have been violations of the law." The full text of Gore's speech is available here. 01-06 -01-17-06 Groups Sue to Stop Bush Domestic Spying Without a Warrant (CBS News) "The lawsuits accusing Mr. Bush of exceeding his constitutional powers were filed in federal courts were filed in New York by the Center for Constitutional Rights and in Detroit by the American Civil Liberties Union." 01-06 -01-17-07 Attorney General: Judges Unfit to Rule on Terror Policies (MSNBC News) "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says federal judges are unqualified to make rulings affecting national security policy, ramping up his criticism of how they handle terrorism cases." 01-07 -01-17-07 Bush Administration Agrees to Panel Overseeing Spying Program (MSNBC News) "The Bush administration has agreed to let a secret but independent panel of federal judges oversee the government’s controversial domestic spying program, the Justice Department said Wednesday." 01-07 -01-20-06 President Bush Leads Defense of Domestic Spying Program (ABC News) "The Bush administration is opening a campaign to push back against criticism of its domestic spying program, ahead of congressional hearings into whether President Bush has the legal authority to eavesdrop on Americans." " 'The executive power of our country is not an imperial power,' Caroline Fredrickson, the director of the ACLU legislative office in Washington, told Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee." "The ACLU filed suit against the NSA [National Security Agency] on Jan. 17 on behalf of journalists, nonprofit groups, terrorism experts and community advocates. The suit alleges that the NSA program violates the First and Fourth amendments and the separation of power." 01-06 -01-20-06 Senator Wyden Comes Out Against Alito (Bend.com) " 'I met with Judge Alito on Wednesday and found him to be very amiable and of the highest intellect. We discussed a variety of issues, including the scope of executive power, the recent NSA wiretapping revelations, the role of legal precedent, end of life care, and the constitutionality of presidential signing statements. Since that meeting, my staff and I have reviewed his responses in the context of his ample record on the federal bench and in the Executive Branch. It is my conclusion that Judge Alito’s record portends a view on the power of the President that would undermine our proven and constitutionally-mandated system of checks and balances.' " 01-06 -01-26-06 Administration Using Anti-Terrorism Law for Political Purposes? (New York Times) "Mr. Ramadan, a Swiss citizen, has been denied a United States visa since July 2004, when he was on the verge of moving with his family to Indiana to take up a tenured professor's position at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame." "The author of some 20 books on Islamic theology and the place of Muslims in the Western world, Mr. Ramadan, 43, is an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's policies in the Middle East. He has also rejected Muslim terrorism, calling it 'anti-Islam.' Last August, he was invited by Prime Minister Tony Blair to participate in a task force to counter extremism after the London bombings in July." 01-06 -02-01-06 Google's Dilemma on Privacy (Christian Science Monitor) "It's an age-old business dilemma caught up in the new age of globalization: When governments demand something that compromises the interests of customers, what's a company to do?" 01-06 -02-08-06 Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Wants Full Review on Spying (CNN News) "Breaking with the White House, Rep. Heather Wilson, R-New Mexico, chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, says the time has come for a 'complete review' of President Bush's eavesdropping program, her spokesman said Wednesday." Editor's Note: The Senate Judiciary Committee is currently investigating the domestic spying program to determine if the Bush administration has violated federal laws. 02-06 -02-16-06 Senate Moves Toward Approval of Patriot Act (CBS News) "The terror-fighting USA Patriot Act moved a step toward renewal Thursday when the Senate overwhelmingly rejected an attempt by Sen. Russell Feingold to stop it until more civil liberties safeguards are added." 02-06 -02-16-06 VP Cheney Claims Authority to Declassify U.S. Secrets (CBS News) "Vice President Dick Cheney says he has the power to declassify government secrets, raising the possibility that he authorized his former chief of staff to pass along sensitive prewar data on Iraq to reporters." 02-06 -02-23-06 UN Proposes New Human Rights Council (BBC News) "The new council would replace the Human Rights Commission, which has been largely discredited for giving seats to nations with poor rights records." "A new compromise proposal by General Assembly president Jan Eliasson would create a council of 47 members who would be reviewed on their record." 02-06 -02-24-06 Judge Orders Pentagon to Release Guantanamo Names (MSNBC News) "A federal judge ordered the Pentagon on Thursday to release the identities of hundreds of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to The Associated Press, a move that would force the government to break its secrecy and reveal the most comprehensive list yet of those who have been imprisoned there." "Currently, OSHA regulations cap chromium levels at work to 52 micrograms per cubic meter. It supports restricting levels to 1 microgram per cubic meter, which is slightly lower than 'intermediate' exposure levels of 1.5 to 16.0, according to the paper." 02-06 -02-27-06 Coast Guard: Gaps in Port Security (Bloomberg.com) "The U.S. Coast Guard said questions about foreign influence, employees and operations made it impossible to assess the threat posed by a state-owned Dubai company's purchase of a firm that manages some terminal operations at six U.S. seaports." 02-06 -02-27-06 Coast Guard: Gaps in Port Security (MSNBC News) "Citing broad gaps in U.S. intelligence, the Coast Guard cautioned the Bush administration weeks ago that it could not determine whether a United Arab Emirates-based company seeking a stake in some U.S. port operations might support terrorist operations." 02-06 -03-13-08 Bush and Congress Clash Over Surveillance Program (PBS.org) "President Bush threatened Thursday to veto the House version of the terrorist-surveillance reauthorization bill. A measure to protect telecommunications companies from prosecution is at the heart of the dispute. Legal experts examine the privacy debate." 03-08 -03-15-06 Gitmo Transcripts "Shadowy" (ABC News) "Most of those whose names do appear [in recently released transcripts] are accused of relatively minor or vague offenses, such as working as a driver or cook for the Taliban or receiving military training. Many denied the accusations, saying they were farmers, merchants or charity workers simply caught up in the Afghan war." "Nor do the transcripts fully illuminate the quality of evidence that has kept detainees behind bars at Guantanamo Bay, some for more than four years. The transcripts describe only unclassified evidence, much of it ambiguous. If a man owned a rifle, that's considered evidence, even though many men in Afghanistan keep weapons for protection." 03-06 -03-25-06 Bush Quietly Warns He Will Not Follow the Law (ABC News) "When President Bush renewed the revised USA Patriot Act on March 9, Congress added oversight measures intended to keep the federal government from abusing the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize documents." "However, it was not known at the time that the White House added an addendum stating that the president didn't need to adhere to requirements that he inform members of Congress about how the FBI was using the Patriot Act's expanded police powers." "Bush's actions have provoked increased grumbling in Congress from both parties. Lawmakers have pointed out that the Constitution gave the legislative branch the power to write the laws and the executive branch the duty to 'faithfully execute' them." 03-06 -05-11-06 Congress Demands Answers About Bush Administration Spying on Americans (CBS News) "Congressional Republicans and Democrats demanded answers from the Bush administration Thursday about a government spy agency secretly collecting records of ordinary Americans' phone calls to build a database of every call made within the country." 05-06 -05-11-06 USA Today: NSA Collecting Phone Records of 200 Million Ordinary Americans (ABC News) "The newspaper says that the [NSA] spy agency has been collecting information on every phone call made in this country." "The data NSA gathers are so private that phone companies would normally face steep fines for divulging the information." "According to USA Today, one phone company, Qwest, has refused to turn over its records, citing legal concerns." "[President] Bush said any intelligence activities specifically target terrorists. 'Our intelligence activities strictly target al Qaeda and their known affiliates,' Bush said. 'We are not mining or trolling through the personal lives of innocent Americans.' " 05-06 -05-11-06 USA Today: NSA Collecting Phone Records of 200 Million Ordinary Americans (MSNBC News) "USA Today reported Thursday that the National Security Agency has been building up the database using records provided by three major phone companies — AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. — but that the program 'does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations.' " " 'It’s the largest database ever assembled in the world,' the paper quoted one source as saying. The agency’s goal is 'to create a database of every call ever made' within U.S. borders, it said the source added." 05-06 -05-12-06 Russert: We Need to Know Why the Government Is Spying on Us (MSNBC News - Russert) "Quest [Qwest phone company] wanted to know who authorized this [collection of domestic phone calls] program. America has very strict laws on collecting this data and sharing it." (Qwest refused to give the National Security Agency the information because it did not present the legal justification. Other phone companies gave them the information.) "You know there’s another piece of this. It’s not only telephone calls, but email traffic. And when you couple this with other data collection – when you go to a grocery store or drug store and you give them a little card for discount, they also record your purchase – put those lists together and you have a complete profile of 'Joe Smith on First Street.' These are the drugs he takes, these are the foods he buys, these are the calls he makes, these are the credit lines he has. Pretty soon both the government and private sector companies know everything about you." 05-06 -05-12-06 U.S. Seeks to Block Lawsuit Against CIA (MSNBC News - Russert) "The government urged a federal judge on Friday to block a lawsuit filed by a German national who says he was illegally held in a CIA-run prison in Afghanistan for four months and tortured." "Al-Masri said he was taken into custody after being mistaken for an associate of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers. He said Macedonian authorities arrested him when he crossed the border on New Year’s Eve 2003 and turned him over to the CIA after three weeks." "He said he was then flown to Afghanistan where he was 'dragged off the plane and thrown into the trunk of a car' and beaten by his captors." 05-06 -05-13-06 Newsweek Poll: Americans Wary of Domestic Spying (MSNBC News) "According to the Newsweek poll, 73 percent of Democrats and 26 percent of Republicans think the NSA’s program is overly intrusive. Details of the surveillance efforts were first reported on Wednesday by USA Today. The newspaper said the NSA has collected tens of millions of customer phone records from AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Bell-South Corp., in an effort to assemble a database of every call made within the United States. While the records include detailed information about when and where phone calls were made, the government isn’t listening in to the actual conversations, a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the program told the newspaper." 05-06 -05-30-06 Judge: Government Must Disclose Certain Eavesdropping (USA Today) "The judge said his order applied only to people involved in the lawsuit, which alleges that detainees were jailed on the basis of their race or religion and physically abused at a federal lockup in New York.""The lawsuit seeks restitution for the plaintiffs, who claim they were held for months without evidence linking them to terrorism, and an order saying the government can't resort to 'preventive detention.' " 05-06 -06-11-07 Bush Cannot Order Indefinite Military Detention (BBC News) "President George W Bush cannot order the indefinite military detention of a Qatari man accused of being an al-Qaeda agent, a US appeals court has ruled." " 'To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the president calls them "enemy combatants", would have disastrous consequences for the constitution - and the country,' the court opinion said." 06-07 -06-11-07 Questions and Answers on Military Tribunals (BBC News) "The Military Commissions Act 2006 sets up commissions or tribunals, held in Guantanamo Bay, to try terror suspects who are not United States citizens." "The new law followed a ruling by the US Supreme Court that an earlier plan for commissions ordered on the authority of the president alone were unconstitutional." 06-07 -06-15-06 High Court Backs "No Knock" Police Searches (ABC News) "The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that police armed with a warrant can barge into homes and seize evidence even if they don't knock, a huge government victory that was decided by President Bush's new justices." 06-06 -06-22-06 International Database Secretly Viewed by U.S. (New York Times) "Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials." "Nearly 20 current and former government officials and industry executives discussed aspects of the Swift operation with The New York Times on condition of anonymity because the program remains classified. Some of those officials expressed reservations about the program, saying that what they viewed as an urgent, temporary measure had become permanent nearly five years later without specific Congressional approval or formal authorization." 06-06 -06-22-07 Court Gives Email Privacy Protection (Time Magazine) "In a startling decision this week, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati ordered the feds to keep their mitts off e-mail stored with an Internet Service Provider (ISP) like Yahoo! unless they notify the sender first or show that he doesn't consider the e-mail private. The ruling was based on the conclusion that most people think e-mail, like letters or phone conversations, is private, and protected under the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable government searches and seizures." "That seems a pretty fair conclusion, but the amazing thing is that no court has ever reached it before. In other words, we've been living under a legal regime that essentially assumes we don't much care if, say, Alberto Gonzales sees our e-mails after they leave our outbox. So for a federal appeals court to upend that regime is a big deal, as experts like Professor Orin Kerr at George Washington University Law School will tell you." " 'If this case sticks around,' says Kerr, 'it's the most important decision involving the Fourth Amendment in a long time for new technologies.' " 06-07 -06-23-06 U.N. Rights Chief: Reports of Terror Prisons Are Cause for Grave Concern (USA Today) "European investigators and human rights groups have accused European nations of letting the CIA abduct and transport terror suspects to secret detention facilities in Europe and to locations elsewhere where they might have faced torture. Governments have largely denied the accusations." 06-06 -06-25-06 Supreme Court Ruling Could Halt Guantanamo Tribunals (USA Today) The defendant's "military-appointed attorney, Navy Lt. Cmdr Charles Swift, said the lawsuit is aimed at moving the case to the civilian court system or to a traditional military court-martial. Lawyers for several defendants contend the tribunals lack guidelines and favor the prosecution." " 'This is about a fair trial, not a free pass,' Swift said." 06-06 -06-26-06 Bush and Cheney Assail Media for Reporting on Search Programs (ABC News) "President George W. Bush on Monday denounced as 'disgraceful' the revelation by the media of a secret U.S. program that tracks international financial records in pursuit of terrorists." "Vice President Dick Cheney also singled out The New York Times for criticism of its reporting on both bank-records searches and a separate anti-terror program involving warrantless eavesdropping on phone calls." 06-06 -06-27-07 White House and Cheney Subpoenaed on Spying (CBS News) "The Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office Wednesday for documents relating to President Bush's controversial eavesdropping program that operated warrant-free for five years." Visitors sometimes misspell as supenaed or supoenaed. 06-07 -06-30-06 Newspaper Found Afghan Witnesses U.S. Said It Couldn't Find (Guardian Unlimited) "The US government said it could not find the men that Guantánamo detainee Abdullah Mujahid believes could help set him free. The Guardian found them in three days." "The case illustrates the egregious flaws that have discredited Guantánamo-style justice and which led the US supreme court [sic] to declare such trials illegal on Thursday in a major rebuke to the Bush administration." 06-06 -07-06-07 Court Dismisses Challenge to Domestic Spying (MSNBC News) "A federal appeals court ordered the dismissal Friday of a lawsuit challenging President Bush’s domestic spying program, saying the plaintiffs had no standing to sue." 07-07 -07-09-06 Intelligence Committee Chairman: Bush May Have Broken the Law (MSNBC News) " 'We can’t be briefed on every little thing that they are doing,' Hoekstra said. 'But in this case, there was at least one major — what I consider significant activity that we have not been briefed on. I want to set the standard there that it is not optional for this president or any president or people in the executive community not to keep the intelligence committees fully informed of what they are doing,' he said on 'Fox News Sunday.' " 07-06 -07-13-06 Former CIA Officer Sues Cheney Over Leak (ABC News) "The CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential adviser Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career." 07-06 -07-22-06 Arrested Bush Dissenters Approach Courts (New York Times) "In the months before the 2004 election, dozens of people across the nation were banished from or arrested at Bush political rallies, some for heckling the president, others simply for holding signs or wearing clothing that expressed opposition to the war and administration policies." "Similar things have happened at official, taxpayer-funded, presidential visits, before and after the election. Some targeted by security have been escorted from events, while others have been arrested and charged with misdemeanors that were later dropped by local prosecutors." "Now, in federal courthouses from Charleston, W.Va., to Denver, federal officials and state and local authorities are being forced to defend themselves against lawsuits challenging the arrests and security policies." 07-06 -08-01-07 Behind the Surveillance Debate (MSNBC News) "A federal judge's secret ruling restricting the intelligence community's surveillance powers helped spur a Capitol Hill bid to grant Bush new authority." 08-07 -08-03-07 Senate Votes to Expand Eavesdropping Power (MSNBC News) "The Senate, in a high-stakes showdown over national security, voted late Friday to temporarily give President Bush expanded authority to eavesdrop on suspected foreign terrorists without court warrants." "The House, meanwhile, rejected a Democratic version of the bill." 08-07 -08-07-07 Spy Chief's Role in Espionage Bill Questioned (LATimes.com) "The director of national intelligence is supposed to be non-political, but some lawmakers think the White House used McConnell for partisan purposes." 08-07 -08-16-07 American Padilla Found Guilty on Terrorism-Related Charges (CNN News) "The jury in the Jose Padilla terror trial has found the American guilty of conspiracy to support Islamic terrorism overseas." 08-07 -08-17-06 Judge Finds Bush's Warrantless Surveillance Program Unconstitutional (ABC News) "A federal judge on Thursday struck down President Bush's warrantless surveillance program, saying it violated the rights to free speech and privacy, as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution." 08-06 -08-17-07 Commentary on the Padila Conviction (PBS.org) "He was essentially convicted of presenting himself, volunteering to become an al-Qaida trainee at a camp in Afghanistan. The main piece of evidence against him was a form that he filled out back in 2000 to join the al-Farouq camp, which was one of the biggest and supposedly best in Afghanistan." 08-07 -08-21-07 Warrantless Wiretaping Law Extension May be Reviewed (Christian Science Monitor) "The administration's warrantless wiretapping program looks set to be the subject of renewed and bitter wrangling between Congress and the White House when lawmakers return to Washington in September." 08-07 -09-18-06 U.S. Military Imprisons Associated Press Photographer Without Charges (CBS News) "The U.S. military in Iraq has imprisoned an Associated Press photographer for five months, accusing him of being a security threat but never filing charges or permitting a public hearing." " 'We want the rule of law to prevail. He either needs to be charged or released. Indefinite detention is not acceptable,' said Tom Curley, AP's president and chief executive officer. 'We've come to the conclusion that this is unacceptable under Iraqi law, or Geneva Conventions, or any military procedure.' " "One of Hussein's photos was part of a package of 20 photographs that won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography last year. His contribution was an image of four insurgents in Fallujah firing a mortar and small arms during the U.S.-led offensive in the city in November 2004." 09-06 -09-19-06 Bush Administration Violates One of the Most Basic Common Law Rights, Habeas Corpus (MSNBC News) "Human rights groups count dozens of detainee deaths for which no one has been punished or that were never explained. The secret prisons — unknown in number and location — remain available for future detainees. The new manual banning torture doesn’t cover CIA interrogators. And thousands of people still languish in a limbo, deprived of one of common law’s oldest rights, habeas corpus, the right to know why you are imprisoned." 09-06 -10-09-07 Congress to Introduce Replacement Wiretap Bill (Time.com) "The Justice Department would have to reveal to Congress the details of all electronic surveillance conducted without court orders since Sept. 11, 2001, including the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program, if a new Democratic wiretapping bill is approved." 10-07 -10-16-06 We Are Losing Our Privacy: Do We Care? (MSNBC News) "Like it or not, increasingly we live in a world where you simply cannot keep a secret." "The key question is: Does that matter?" 10-06 -10-18-06 Our Rights Evaporate (MSNBC News) "First thing this morning, the president signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which does away with habeas corpus, the right of suspected terrorists or anybody else to know why they have been imprisoned, provided the president does not think it should apply to you and declares you an enemy combatant." "Does that not basically mean that if Mr. Bush or Mr. Rumsfeld say so, anybody in this country, citizen or not, innocent or not, can end up being an unlawful enemy combatant?" "JONATHAN TURLEY, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR: It certainly does. What the Congress did and what the president signed today essentially revokes over 200 years of American principles and values." 10-06 -11-03-06 Feds File to Dismiss Lawsuit by American Held Without Charges (ABC News) "The U.S. government filed a motion Friday seeking to dismiss a lawsuit filed by an aspiring American filmmaker who spent two months in an Iraqi prison without being charged." 10-06 -11-17-06 Students "Patrolling the Police" With Videocameras (MSNBC News) "Alleging racial profiling, a UCLA student intends to sue after a campus police officer shot him with a Taser stun gun. The incident was caught on a cell phone camera, the third time in a week that police behavior in the Los Angeles area was criticized after amateur video surfaced." 11-06 -12-14-05 NBC: Military Spying on U.S. Citizens - Unjustifiably (CNN News) "The public was outraged [from a report on the military spying on citizens in 1970] and a lengthy congressional investigation followed that revealed that the military had conducted investigations on at least 100,000 American citizens. Pyle got more than 100 military agents to testify that they had been ordered to spy on U.S. citizens — many of them anti-war protestors and civil rights advocates. In the wake of the investigations, Pyle helped Congress write a law placing new limits on military spying inside the U.S." "But Pyle, now a professor at Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts, says some of the information in the [current military] database suggests the military may be dangerously close to repeating its past mistakes." " 'The documents tell me that military intelligence is back conducting investigations and maintaining records on civilian political activity. The military made promises that it would not do this again,' he says." 12-05 -12-16-05 Report: Americans Spied On (CBS News) "The National Security Agency has eavesdropped, without warrants, on as many 500 people inside the United States at any given time since 2002, The New York Times reported Friday." "The Times said reporters interviewed nearly a dozen current and former administration officials about the program and granted them anonymity because of the classified nature of the program." " 'We're finding out that the president has possibly authorized the breaking of the law so that our government can eavesdrop on American citizens?' Caroline Fredrickson, director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union, told CBS Radio News. 'We're still trying to process it, but it's truly amazing.' " 12-05 -12-16-05 Report: Americans Spied On - Rice Denies Illegality (Bloomberg.com) "The New York Times reported that Bush in 2002 secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without the court-approved warrants that are required for domestic spying." "[Secretary of State Condoleeza] Rice, interviewed on NBC's 'Today' show, said 'the president has been very clear that he would not order people to do things that are illegal.' She declined to comment directly on the New York Times report." "The paper said it interviewed nearly a dozen current and former administration officials about the program and granted them anonymity because the information was classified. The officials said the administration is confident that existing safeguards protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, the Times said." 12-05 -12-16-05 Senate Refuses to Authorize Controversial Parts of Patriot Act (CNN News) "The Senate on Friday refused to reauthorize major portions of the USA Patriot Act after critics complained they infringed too much on Americans' privacy and liberty, dealing a huge defeat to the Bush administration and Republican leaders." 12-05 -12-17-05 Bush Acknowledges Eavesdropping (New York Times) "President Bush said Saturday he has no intention of stopping his personal authorizations of a post-Sept. 11 secret eavesdropping program in the U.S., lashing out at those involved in revealing it while defending it as crucial to preventing future attacks." "[Senator Russell] Feingold said it was 'absurd' that Bush said he relied on his inherent power as president to authorize the wiretaps." " 'If that's true, he doesn't need the Patriot Act because he can just make it up as he goes along. I tell you, he's President George Bush, not King George Bush. This is not the system of government we have and that we fought for,' Feingold told The Associated Press in a telephone interview." 12-05 -12-17-05 Law Established to End Secret President-Approved Spying (Los Angeles Times) "In 1978, Congress thought it had closed a loophole in the law when it passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [FISA]. The loophole concerned secret spying authorized by the president on grounds of national security." "On Friday, many in Washington were surprised to learn that despite the 1978 law, President Bush and his advisors had claimed the power to authorize secret spying within the United States." " 'FISA was the sole authority for wiretapping' on national security grounds, said Jerry Berman, who worked on the 1978 law as a counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union. 'The statute would be a futile exercise if the president retained the authority to conduct these wiretaps on his own.' " 12-05 -12-18-05 Bush Acknowledges Eavesdropping (CNN News) "In acknowledging the message was true, President Bush took aim at the messenger Saturday, saying that a newspaper jeopardized national security by revealing that he authorized wiretaps on U.S. citizens after September 11." "Senators contemplating a vote Friday on whether to renew some controversial portions of the Patriot Act used The New York Times' report as evidence that the government could not be trusted with the broad powers laid out in the act." ""In particular, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, said such behavior by the executive branch 'can't be condoned,' and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, said the report swayed his decision on the Patriot Act proposal." Editor's Note: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act prevents presidents from deciding on their own--without court approval--whether someone in the United States can be spyed upon. In particular, a president cannot skirt the courts based on a claim that he is protecting national security. Court warrants can be issued within hours and should not slow down approval of justified spying; further, spying can begin immediately in emergencies, as long as the justification is court approved within 3 days of starting. The law was designed to prevent abuse of power by the president and ensure protection of civil liberties. 12-05 -12-18-05 Testing Wartime Limits (MSNBC News) "In his four-year campaign against al Qaeda, President Bush has turned the U.S. national security apparatus inward to secretly collect information on American citizens on a scale unmatched since the intelligence reforms of the 1970s." "The Post reported that the FBI has issued tens of thousands of national security letters, extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans. Most of the U.S. residents and citizens whose records were screened, the FBI acknowledged, were not suspected of wrongdoing." "The burgeoning use of national security letters coincided with an unannounced decision to deposit all the information they yield into government data banks -- and to share those private records widely, in the federal government and beyond. In late 2003, the Bush administration reversed a long-standing policy requiring agents to destroy their files on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when investigations closed." 12-05 -12-29-05 Gitmo Hunger Strike Continues (CNN News) "The number of detainees on hunger strike at the U.S. military detention facility in Guantanamo Bay has more than doubled in the last week to 84, an official said Thursday." "Many of the detainees at Guantanamo have been held more than 3 1/2 years without charge or access to lawyers. Most were captured in Afghanistan and are suspected of ties to al Qaeda or the ousted Taliban regime that sheltered the terrorist network." 12-05 -Editorial on the Padila Conviction (New York Times) "On the way to this verdict, the government repeatedly trampled on the Constitution, and its prosecution of Mr. Padilla was so cynical and inept that the crime he was convicted of — conspiracy to commit terrorism overseas — bears no relation to the ambitious plot to wreak mass destruction inside the United States, which the Justice Department first loudly proclaimed. Even with the guilty verdict, this conviction remains a shining example of how not to prosecute terrorism cases." 08-07 -Editorial: Why Terrorists Aren't Soldiers (NYTimes.com) "Treating terrorists as combatants is a mistake for two reasons. First, it dignifies criminality by according terrorist killers the status of soldiers. Under the law of war, military service members receive several privileges. They are permitted to kill the enemy and are immune from prosecution for doing so. They must, however, carefully distinguish between combatant and civilian and ensure that harm to civilians is limited." Further, terrorists are "merely criminals, albeit criminals of an especially heinous type, and that label suggests the appropriate venue for dealing with the threats they pose." "We train our soldiers to respect the line between combatant and civilian. Our political leaders must also respect this distinction, lest we unwittingly endanger the values for which we are fighting, and further compromise our efforts to strengthen our security." 08-07 -Editorial: Are Checks and Balances on the President Gone? (Newsweek) "What if we faced a constitutional crisis and hardly anyone noticed? As he quietly mastered the tiresome cat-and-mouse game inside the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Judge Samuel Alito gave few hints of where he stood on a matter that goes to the heart of what it means to live in a republic. With a few exceptions, the media coverage didn't help." "I wasn't expecting Alito to say whether he thought that President Bush broke the law when he admitted authorizing warrantless wiretaps on American citizens, which is a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)." "The 'momentous' issue (Alito's words) is whether this president, or any other, has the right to tell Congress to shove it. And even if one concedes that wartime offers the president extra powers to limit liberty, what happens if the terrorist threat looks permanent? We may be scrapping our checks and balances not just for a few years (as during the Civil War), but for good." 01-06 -Editorial: Checks and Balances on the President - Questions for Alito (The Nation) Provides questions for the Senate Judiciary Committee to put to Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. 01-06 -Editorial: Checks and Balances on the President Have Been Lost (Al Gore) "We have a duty as Americans to defend our citizens' right not only to life but also to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is therefore vital in our current circumstances that immediate steps be taken to safeguard our Constitution against the present danger posed by the intrusive overreaching on the part of the Executive Branch and the President's apparent belief that he need not live under the rule of law." "I endorse the words of Bob Barr, when he said, 'The President has dared the American people to do something about it. For the sake of the Constitution, I hope they will.' " 01-06 -Study: Checks and Balances on the President (Congressional Research Service) Provides a technical review of Presidential authority in surveillance as it applies to the current controversy of the President violating current law regarding his authority. "From the foregoing analysis, it appears unlikely that a court would hold that Congress has expressly or impliedly authorized the NSA electronic surveillance operations here under discussion, and it would likewise appear that, to the extent that those surveillances fall within the definition of 'electronic surveillance' within the meaning of FISA or any activity regulated under Title III, Congress intended to cover the entire field with these statutes." 01-06 01-16-07 American Airlines Sued for Racial Discrimination (ABC News) "A federal jury has awarded $400,000 to a Miami man who sued American Airlines Inc. claiming racial discrimination after he was removed from a flight before it departed Logan International Airport." 01-07 01-30-07 A Test of the Legal Rights of U.S. Residents (Christian Science Monitor) "The open-ended detention of an Arab student suspected of being an Al Qaeda sleeper agent is setting the stage for the next major showdown over the scope of President Bush's authority to fight terrorism on American soil." 01-07 Constitutional Rights News (Center for Constitutional Rights) Provides news related to constitutional and civil rights. 11-05 Editorial: Power Bush Cannot Just Take (Washington Post) "There can be no freedom without some measure of risk. We guarantee freedom of the press, which means that newspapers sometimes print things the government doesn't want printed. We guarantee that defendants cannot be forced to incriminate themselves, which means that sometimes bad guys go free. We accept these risks as the price of liberty." "The president would probably respond that in an era of loose-knit terrorist groups and suitcase nukes, the risks are exponentially greater than those his predecessors faced. Even if you agree, the answer is not to act unilaterally but to go to Congress and the courts and ask them to redraw that line between state power and individual freedom." 12-05 Editorial: Yoo as Architect for Presidential Abuse of Power (Washington Post) "Civil liberties advocates were appalled by a memo he [John Yoo] helped draft on torture. The State Department's chief legal adviser at the time called his analysis of the Geneva Conventions 'seriously flawed.' Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote, in a critique of administration views espoused by Yoo, 'a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens.' " "Soon, Yoo found his audience in the highest echelons of the White House, where the president and vice president already tended to see the courts, Congress and international conventions as constraints on the conduct of foreign affairs and national security." "In a series of opinions, Yoo argued that the Constitution grants the president virtually unhindered discretion in wartime." "The majority view among constitutional scholars holds that the Framers purposely imposed checks on the executive branch, even in wartime, not least in reaction to the rule of Britain's King George III." 12-05 Report on Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution and Cover-ups by the Bush Administration (AfterDowningStreet.org) This Minority Report summary was produced at the direction of Representative John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee and " 'concerns “The Downing Street Minutes and Deception Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Cover-ups in the Iraq War;' and Part II, released in June 2006, concerns 'Unlawful Domestic Surveillance and Related Civil Liberties Abuses under the Administration of George W. Bush. ' (At the conclusion, we include an Addendum including additional matters which have come to light since Part I of the Report was issued in December, 2005 and Part II was written in May, 2006)." 04-08 Spying and Intelligence News (Yahoo News) Provides comprehensive news on U.S. espionage and intelligence gathering news. 12-05 Terrorism Case Against American Jose Padilla (CNN News) "Jose Padilla was convicted with two co-defendants charged with supporting al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremist groups." 08-07 Papers -01-05-06 Report: Whistle-Blower to Testify Against Bush Administration (ABC News) "A former official at the supersecret National Security Agency is reportedly prepared to tell Congress what really went on in the domestic-spying program that was revealed last month." "The Washington Times reported today that Russ Tice, who was fired from the NSA last year, has written and told House and Senate intelligence committees that he knows the government undertook electronic surveillance without obtaining permission from a special secret court." 01-06 -12-17-04 Poll: "Religious" for Restricting Muslims (ABC News) "Nearly half of all Americans believe the U.S. government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans, according to a nationwide poll." The survey conducted by Cornell University also found that Republicans and people who described themselves as highly religious were more apt to support curtailing Muslims' civil liberties than Democrats or people who are less religious." "While researchers said they were not surprised by the overall level of support for curtailing civil liberties, they were startled by the correlation with religion and exposure to television news." 12-04 1-8-03 Court Upholds Government's Right to Hold U.S. Citizens (MSNBC) "A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the government could hold U.S. citizens as enemy combatants during wartime without the constitutional protections afforded Americans in criminal prosecutions." 1-03 Americans Fear Loss of Civil Liberties (CBS News) "It is nearly two years since the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, and while most Americans still believe another attack in the U.S. is likely in the near future, this feeling is the lowest it has been since before the war with Iraq." "But another worry is on the rise: most Americans are at least somewhat concerned that the anti-terrorism measures enacted by the Bush Administration will cost them some of their civil liberties." 9-03 Amnesty International Asserts U.S. Violates International Law (CBS News) "The effects of the U.S.-led war on terror have been far-reaching, Amnesty said in a statement." " 'Far from making the world a safer place, [the war] has made it more dangerous by curtailing human rights, undermining the rule of international law and shielding governments from scrutiny. It has deepened divisions among people of different faiths and origins, sowing the seeds for more conflict,' the statement said." "In a separate press conference Wednesday, William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said U.S.-led events of 2003 generated deleterious effects." "The war on Iraq provided an excuse for other countries 'in the name of anti-terrorism or in the name of national security' to crack down on opponents of their regimes, he said." "Schulz said the Iraqi war was a 'distraction of the world's attention from horrific human rights abuses elsewhere,' and gave ammunition to countries that circumvent the United Nations and 'use the excuse the United States itself does not respect international law.' " 5-03 Attorney-Client Confidentiality Suspended by Ashcroft (Miami Herald - Lardner) Describes new rule by Attorney General John Ashcroft that allows eavesdropping on conversations between attorneys and clients if Ashcroft believes that terrorism may be involved. 11-01 British View of Liberties vs. Security (Guardian Unlimited - Mano and Wilcox) Provides short responses from specialists in the issue of reconciling civil liberties and security. 11-01 CIA Charged With Criminal Abductions (International Herald Tribune) "The extraordinary decision by an Italian judge to order the arrest of 13 people linked to the CIA on charges of kidnapping a terrorism suspect here dramatizes a growing rift between American counterterrorism officials and their counterparts in Europe." Milan's deputy chief prosecutor said "I feel the international community must struggle against terrorism and international terrorist groups in accordance with international laws and the rights of the defendant." "Otherwise, we are giving victory to the terrorists." "Besides their objections to the American rendition policy, European counterterrorism officials also partly blame a lack of access to terrorism suspects and information held by the United States for their failure to convict a number of their own high-profile terrorism suspects." " 'The American system is of little use to us,' a senior Italian counterterrorism investigator said. 'It's a one-way street. We give them what we have, but we are given no useful information that can help us prosecute people.' " 6-05 CIA Charged With Criminal Abductions (Observer International News) "The abduction is alleged to be part of America's 'rendition programme', in which terrorist suspects are forcibly removed to their home countries or to a third nation, where they can be interrogated without legal protection." "Earlier last week, an Italian judge issued arrest warrants for 13 people said to be CIA operatives involved in Omar's abduction. Another six people - all Americans - are also under investigation. It is the first time a foreign government has filed criminal charges against US citizens involved in counter-terrorism work abroad." "Other nations have also begun to oppose Washington's forcible removal of terror suspects. Canada is holding hearings into the deportation of a Canadian to Syria for questioning about alleged ties to al-Qaeda. German prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into the suspected kidnapping of a German man who was flown to Afghanistan. In Stockholm, a parliamentary investigator has already concluded that CIA agents violated Swedish law by subjecting two Egyptian nationals to 'degrading and inhuman treatment' during a rendition in 2001." 6-05 CIA's License to Kill (CBS News) "American citizens working for al Qaeda overseas can legally be targeted and killed by the CIA under President Bush's rules for the war on terrorism, U.S. officials say." Human rights groups are divided on the legality of the policy. 12-02 Checks and Balances Protection (ChecksBalances.org) The chairman of this effort to restore checks and balances on the President is conservative Republican and former Senator Bob Barr. 01-06 Civil Liberties Advocacy (ACLU) Describes issues that the ACLU considers violations of civil liberties, especially in the pursuit of security after the terrorist attacks. 11-01 Civil Liberties and Open Debate in a Time of Crisis (Cato Institute - Pilon) "But we must fight that evil [terrorism] in a manner consistent with our principles so that when this war is over those principles will still be standing, to nourish us and the world thereafter." 7-02 Civil Liberties and War - Timeline for the USA (PBS.org - NOW) Provides a history of legislation in the USA that affects civil liberties during a time of war. 2-03 Civil Liberties in a Time of Crisis (American Bar Association - Dempsey) "The debate over terrorism is often framed as a trade-off between liberty and security. This is a flawed calculus, in several respects. First, many civil liberties, far from being at odds with security, actually enhance the ability of the government to defend the common good. We guarantee the right to confront one’s accusers, for example, not only as an element of human dignity but also because cross-examination exposes lies and forces the government to continue looking until the truly guilty party is found." 7-02 Court: President Cannot Detain U.S. Citizen as Enemy Combatant (CNN News) "The government never levied criminal charges against Padilla before President Bush declared in June 2002 that he represented a 'grave danger to the national security' of the nation, reclassifying him as an enemy combatant, and transferring him to military custody, where he has remained incommunicado." " 'As this court sits only a short distance from where the World Trade Center stood, we are as keenly aware as anyone of the threat al Qaeda poses to our country and of the responsibilities the president and law enforcement officials bear for protecting the nation,' the court said in its majority opinion." " 'But presidential authority does not exist in a vacuum, and this case involves not whether those responsibilities should be aggressively pursued, but whether the president is obligated, in the circumstances presented here, to share them with Congress,' it added." 12-03 Courts Struggle to Strike a Balance on Personal Liberties (MSNBC - Lane) "Thus, the skeptics argue, it [terrorism] can be fought largely with the conventional tools of civilian law enforcement, wielded by an executive branch overseen and constrained by the courts and Congress — especially since the indefinite duration of the war could mean restrictions on liberty, once in place, could be perpetuated forever." '" 'The sacrifice of checks and balances has to be weighed not as a temporary expedient,' said Laurence H. Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard University, “ 'but assessed as a proposed permanent change.' ” 8-02 Database to Color-Code Air Passengers for Intensive Screening (CBS News) "Precautions in the name of air security are about to taken to a level unimaginable in the United States only a few years ago." "The Washington Post reports the Bush administration is expected to order as soon as next month the first step in setting up databases on all air passengers, to be used to color-code each air traveler according to his or her potential threat level." 1-04 Debate on the Treatment of Detainees in Cuba (BBC News) Provides two opposing views on whether those detained by the United States from the conflict in Afghanistan should be treated as prisoners of war. As prisoners of war, the detainess are entitled to rights that USA government officials say do not apply. 2-02 Detainees Protest Lack of Trials or Charges (BBC News) "Inmates' lawyers say some 200 men have taken part in the fast which began in August. About 20 are being force-fed." "Amnesty International disputes US figures and says that 210 detainees are currently refusing food, protesting against their detention without trial or charges." "Many of the detainees have been held at the camp since it was set up in 2002, after the US-led offensive against the Taleban regime in Afghanistan." 9-05 Detainees Winning Court Battles on Secrecy on Immigrant Detainees (Bloomberg.com) Summarizes court cases involving the government's position that information on immigrant detainees, including who they are or what they are alleged to have done, is secret information. 5-02 Editorial - Civil Rights and Dirty Bombs (International Herald Tribune) Argues that terrorism should be fought without suspending the civil rights of Americans. 6-02 Editorial - Loss of Civil Liberties and the Patriot Act (PublicInterestPictures.org) " 'We created Unconstitutional to show Americans the extent to which our civil liberties and our freedoms have been trampled upon by our government since 9-11,' said Robert Greenwald, the film's executive producer." 9-04 Editorial - Patriotism and Freedom (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) Discusses the difficulty of balancing security and freedom. 12-01 Editorial - U.S. Detainees Need to be Tried (Guardian Unlimited) Argues that the USA should follow international law in dealing with detainees captured during the conflict in Afghanistan. (The Guardian is a British newspaper.) 2-02 Editorial: Bill Threatens "Unwritten Constitution" (FindLaw) "Last week, the Senate unanimously approved a defense authorization bill which, if approved by the House, will dramatically curtail the ability of prisoners held at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to challenge their detention in federal court." "The Amendment's key provision would strip the federal courts of jurisdiction to entertain habeas corpus petitions from Guantanamo Bay detainees--except in two circumstances." Editor's Note: The purpose of the writ of habeas corpus is to release a person from unlawful imprisonment. The writ addresses whether lawful procedures were used to imprison the person, not whether the person is guilty of a crime. 12-05 Editorial: Stop Amendment That Strips Fundamental Rights (Center for Constitutional Rights) "Last year the Supreme Court rejected the government's position that it can maintain a law-free zone at the Guantánamo Naval Base. The habeas corpus petitions on behalf of the men imprisoned in Guantánamo seek the most basic relief: a fair hearing with due process in federal court to challenge the factual and legal basis of their detention. Our system of justice is founded upon the notion that the Executive may not detain any individual without these fundamental protections. We are asking you to write your representatives to demand that they not to undo the work of the Supreme Court and that they uphold the rule of law and reject the Graham-Levin Amendment to the Military Authorization Bill." Editor's Note: The purpose of the writ of habeas corpus is to release a person from unlawful imprisonment. The writ addresses whether lawful procedures were used to imprison the person, not whether the person is guilty of a crime. 12-05 FBI Illegally Used the Patriot Act (CBS News) The FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about people in the United States, a Justice Department audit concluded Friday." "At issue are the security letters, a power outlined in the Patriot Act that the Bush administration pushed through Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The letters, or administrative subpoenas, are used in suspected terrorism and espionage cases. They allow the FBI to require telephone companies, Internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus and other businesses to produce highly personal records about their customers or subscribers — without a judge's approval." Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights ) States how prisoners of war must be treated and includes 143 articles. For example, "Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria." 1-02 Gore: Bush May Have Committed an Impeachable Offense (ABC News) "Asked by ABC News following his speech whether President Bush's domestic spying program constituted an impeachable offense, Gore said it might be and pointed to one of the three Articles of Impeachment that the House Judiciary Committee approved against President Nixon on July 27, 1974." " 'That's a legal determination for the Congress to make,' Gore told ABC News. 'But Article II of the impeachment charges against President Nixon was warrantless wiretapping that the President said was "necessary" for national security.' "" " 'It can be' an impeachable offense, he added.' " 01-06 Human Rights and the War on Terrorism - An Interview With Saad Eddin Ibrahim (World Press Review - El Amrani) Provides the views of an Egyptian human rights activist. 2-02 Judge: Charge Him or Release Him (CBS News) "Lawyers for 'dirty bomb' suspect Jose Padilla want the Supreme Court to step in and rule on the U.S. citizen's indefinite military detention, arguing that the judiciary needs to rein in the Bush administration's conduct in the war on terror." " 'Neither the president nor the Congress can be sure of their respective powers and duties in shaping the nation's response to terrorism, an uncertainty that does profound disservice to the American people and the democratic political process,' Padilla's lawyers wrote." "A federal judge ruled in favor of Padilla, saying that a ruling in favor of indefinite detention as the government wants 'would not only offend the rule of law and violate this country's constitutional tradition,' it would be a 'betrayal of this nation's commitment to the separation of powers that safeguards our democratic values and individual liberties.' " “ 'The court finds that the president has no power, neither express nor implied, neither constitutional nor statutory, to hold petitioner as an enemy combatant,' Floyd wrote in a 23-page opinion that was a stern rebuke to the government. He gave the administration 45 days to take action." 3-05 Judge: Justice Can Be Served Within the U.S. Constitution (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) "U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour said the successful prosecution of Ahmed Ressam should serve not only as a warning to terrorists, but as a statement to the Bush administration about its terrorism-fighting tactics." " 'We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant or deny the defendant the right to counsel,' he said Wednesday. 'The message to the world from today's sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart.' " 7-05 Liberties vs. Security Debate (ACLU) Provides a review of the new USA Patriot Act to combat terrrorism in terms of losses of civil rights. 11-01 Liberties vs. Security Debate (Washington Post - Pianin and Edsall) Provides a discussion of the debate in Congress on reductions of civil liberties to improve security against terrorism. 11-01 Limits on Gun Records Proposed (CBS News) Describes a proposal by Attorney General John Ashcroft to limit the amount of time that quick check records can be kept to determine if a person is eligible to purchase a gun. The proposal would implement an action that Ashcroft proposed as a Senator to amend the Brady bill. (His amendment was defeated in the Senate.) Ashcroft also proposed procedures to make the instant background checks more complete. Provides statistics on the effects of the Brady bill. 6-01. Military Collecting Data on High School Students (ABC News) "Working with the private marketing firm BeNow, Inc. of Wakefield, Mass., the Pentagon has created a huge database of millions of high school students, aged 16 to 18." "But privacy advocates say it violates a federal law that restricts the government's ability to gather personal information. They say they understand the military's need to recruit but this type of information-gathering goes too far." "A growing number of parents were already upset about the military's recruiting techniques. A little-known provision in the 2002 'No Child Left Behind' education law requires every public school to provide the military with the names, addresses and phone numbers of students." "Last month, Louise Wannier went to her daughter's high school to submit an opt-out letter, which prohibits recruiters from accessing personal information." "She learned today about the new database, which may have much more information on her daughter than she'd ever imagined." 6-05 Military Tribunals for Terrorist Suspects (CNN - Wallace) President Bush signed a rule allowing the government to provide a military trial for terrorist suspects instead of a civilian trial. 11-01. Military Tribunals for Terrorist Suspects - Against (Time.com) Discusses concerns by conservatives and liberals that President Bush will compromise American values in the USA and abroad if he uses military tribunals to try suspects of terrorism. "The proceedings, whose exact rules will be set on a case-by-case basis by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, can be secret. They may take place in the U.S. or abroad. Hearsay can be used as evidence. The defendant has neither the absolute right to challenge the evidence against him nor the right to hear it. He may not have access to the lawyer of his choice. Guilt need not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The verdict need not be unanimous. Executions are allowed. There may not be provision for appeal. Legally, at least, the terrorists have their wish." 11-01 Military Tribunals for Terrorist Suspects - Against (Wall Street Journal - Levy) Argues against the use of President Bush's type of military tribunals in the current situation. "Astonishingly, the only rule that Mr. Bush's executive order lays out with specificity is that the accused can be convicted and sentenced--to life in prison or death--if two-thirds of the panel agree. Even military courts, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, require unanimity in capital cases and provide for several stages of appellate review." 11-01 Military Tribunals for Terrorist Suspects - For (FindLaw - Dean) Argues for the use of military tribunals for persons accused of harboring terrorists or involvement with a terrorist organization. Also argues that the procedure should be revised so that the death penalty can only be used with unanimous decisions. 9-01 Military Tribunals for Terrorist Suspects - For (USAToday.com - Ingraham) Defends the secrecy of military tribunals as a way of protecting American securitiy. "Much of the anti-military-tribunal howl centers on the fact that the proceedings are held in secret. However, it is eminently reasonable to think that as we pursue our war against terror, the public prosecution of individuals who are part of a worldwide conspiracy to murder as many Americans as possible would be harmful to a wide variety of U.S. interests. Classified information whose secrecy is critical to future U.S. investigations could be compromised -- such as the identity of double agents, specifics of other terrorist plots and the details of the covert techniques used by our government to prevent them." "Whatever damage military tribunals do to our international reputation, we risk far greater damage to our national psyche if non-citizen terrorists are allowed to exploit our system and our national pain in prolonged and costly courtroom dramas." 11-01 Military Tribunals for Terrorist Suspects - For (Washington Post - Allen) Provides President Bush's arguments for the use of military tribunals for trying suspected terrorists or those who harbor them. 'It's our national interests, it's our national security interests that we have a military tribunal available. It is in the interests of the safety of potential jurors that we have a military tribunal.' 'As the president, he [Bush] can take into account all the considerations -- from diplomatic to military to law enforcement to intelligence -- about whether this is the proper method of adjudicating justice.' 11-01 New Video Spying Technology for the Military (CBS News - Sniffen) "DARPA described a hypothetical terrorist shooting at a bus stop and a hypothetical bombing at a disco one month apart in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, a city with slightly more residents than Miami." CTS should be able to track the day's movements for every vehicle that passed each scene in the hour before the attack, DARPA said. Even if there were 2,000 such vehicles and none showed up twice, the software should automatically compare their routes and find vehicles with common starting and stopping points."  "Joseph Onek of the Open Society Institute, a human rights group, said current law that permits the use of cameras in public areas may have to be revised to address the privacy implications of these new technologies." " 'It's one thing to say that if someone is in the street he knows that at any single moment someone can see him,' Onek said. 'It's another thing to record a whole life so you can see anywhere someone has been in public for 10 years.' " 7-03 No Longer a Suspect, Still a Detainee (Washington Post - Goldstein) Provides the story of Tony Oulai from the Ivory Coast. 5-02 Patriot Act of 2003 and Civil Rights (PBS - Moyers and Lewis) "The Patriot Act was passed six weeks after 9/11. We know now that it greatly changed the balance between liberty and security in this nation's framework. What do you think — what's the significance of this new document, called the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003?" 2-04 Pentagon Concerned About Interrogation Techniques (ABC News) "The interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center in 2002 triggered concerns among senior Pentagon officials that they could face criminal prosecution under U.S. anti-torture laws, ABC News has learned." "Notes from a series of meetings at the Pentagon in early 2003 — obtained by ABC News — show that Alberto Mora, General Counsel of the Navy, warned his superiors that they might be breaking the law." 6-05 Poll - Americans Not Worried About Restrictions of Rights (WashingtonPost.com - Morin and Deane) Reports the results of a study to determine reactions to new policies designed to combat terrorism, but which also restrict rights. The study found that most Americans approve of the new Bush administration policies. 11-01 Possible Free Speech Violations by the Bush Administration (Christian Science Monitor) "Concern is mounting that the US government is using antiterror laws - namely, the Patriot Act - to revive a now-discredited practice common during the cold war: the prevention of foreign intellectuals who are critical of administration policies from entering the country and sharing their views with Americans." "The practice, called ideological exclusion, became illegal in 1990. But a recent lawsuit - brought by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the PEN American Center under the Freedom of Information Act - is asking the Bush administration to explain its decisions to revoke or deny visas to several foreign scholars, and why they don't violate free-speech protections." 11-05 Proclamation in Support of Liberties While Pursuing Security (In Defense of Freedom) Provides 10 statements of support for maintaining civil liberties while the U.S. government pursues national security. 3-02 Profiling - Nations Object to Profiling (Guardian Unlimited) Describes the complaints of 17 countries regarding discrimination against Arabians and others at security points at airports. 2-02 Recommendations to Improve Homeland Security (Brookings Institute - Project on Homeland Security) "To broaden and reorient the homeland security agenda, we propose a four-tier strategic framework. The four tiers are (1) perimeter defense of the country's borders, (2) preventive activities within the country, (3) protection of domestic sites, and (4) consequence management after attacks." "The Bush administration's 2003 budget contains initiatives that are broadly similar to our first and final categories, but proposes a somewhat scattershot collection of individual programs and efforts within the second category of domestic prevention and the third category of domestic protection. We attempt to develop a more systematic and comprehensive agenda in those areas." 5-02 Records Reveal Shallow Justice for Detainees (ABC News) "Little information about those held at Guantanamo has been released through official government channels. But stories of 60 or more are spelled out in detail in thousands of pages of transcripts filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, where lawsuits challenging their detentions have been filed." "The previously anonymous detainees provide accounts of their imprisonment and impressions of U.S. justice. Some express defiance, others stoic acceptance of their fate." "The detainees appeared last year before military tribunals which, after quick reviews, confirmed their status as 'enemy combatants' who could be held indefinitely." "Omar Rajab Amin, a Kuwaiti who graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1992, wanted to see the evidence. The 'tribunal president,' the de facto judge for the proceeding, replied that he could review only unclassified evidence." "Some of the exchanges grew heated." " 'You are not the master of the Earth, Sir,' Saifullah Paracha, a Pakistani businessman, told a tribunal president." 4-05 Report: U.S. Secretly Held Two Prisoners (ABC News) "Two Yemeni men say they were held in solitary confinement in secret, underground U.S. detention facilities in an unknown country and interrogated by masked men for more than 18 months without being charged or allowed any contact with the outside world, Amnesty International charged Wednesday." "But U.S. officials have previously denied allegations of secret detention facilities, saying they hold terror suspects only at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Iraq and Afghanistan." 7-05 Rights - Human Rights and Constitutional Law (Columbia Law School - McKeever and Rosenbaum) Provides information on efforts to protect human rights by country, nationality, region, program, and other criteria. Rights of U.S. Prisoners Upheld (Washington Times) "A federal judge in Washington ruled yesterday that some suspected terrorists detained as 'enemy combatants' at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have constitutionally guaranteed rights to challenge their confinement in U.S. courts." 1-05 Secret Arrests - Hady Omar (CBS News - 60 Minutes) "The government was able to hold Omar and hundreds of other Muslim detainees by charging them not as criminals but as visa violators. The law says criminals, even murderers, must be charged with a crime quickly – usually within 48 hours – or released." Immigration laws used to work the same way, but after 9/11, the justice department rewrote the rules so that suspected visa violators could be held in jail as long as the government wants – without any charges filed against them." "The government may believe that extraordinary circumstances equals extraordinary treatment. But Rubin believes this certainly doesn’t justify denying Omar access to legal counsel and his wife and child, who are both U.S. citizens." “ 'Any concern that the United States may have had about Omar being a security risk, a terrorist threat, could have been easily resolved in a number of hours, if not days, of humanized treatment -- not the kind of dehumanizing conditions that he was subject to,' says Rubin." "With the help of Rubin, and a legal team from the firm of Morrison and Foerster, Omar has filed a lawsuit against the government, claiming that his civil rights were violated and that his treatment could be characterized as torture." 4-03 Secret Arrests - Mike Wahash (FreeMikeWahash.org) "Mike Hawash is a U.S. citizen, and is being held without being charged with any crime." 4-03 Secret Federal Court Rejects Justice Department's Request (MSNBC News) "The secretive federal court that approves spying on terror suspects in the United States has refused to give the Justice Department broad new powers, saying the government had misused the law and misled the court dozens of times, according to an extraordinary legal ruling...." 8-02 Secret Intelligence Courts Can Now Be Used (CBS News) "The FBI has implemented new ground rules that 'fundamentally alter the way investigators handle counterterrorism cases, allowing criminal and intelligence agents to work side by side and giving both broad access to the tools of intelligence gathering for the first time in decades,' The Washington Post says in its Saturday editions." "The result is that the FBI, unhindered by the restrictions of the past, 'will conduct many more searches and wiretaps that are subject to oversight by a secret intelligence court rather than regular criminal courts,' officials told the Post." 12-03 Supreme Court: No "Blank Check" for Bush on U.S. Prisoners (Bloomberg.com) "The U.S. Supreme Court, denying the Bush administration a 'blank check' to fight terrorism, ruled that American citizens held as enemy combatants are entitled to assert their innocence before a neutral tribunal." " 'A state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens,' Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for four of the court's members." 6-04 Terror Laws Used Against Common Crimes (CBS News) "In the two years since law enforcement agencies gained fresh powers to help them track down and punish terrorists, police and prosecutors have increasingly turned the force of the new laws not on al Qaeda cells but on people charged with common crimes." "A North Carolina county prosecutor charged a man accused of running a methamphetamine lab with breaking a new state law barring the manufacture of chemical weapons. If convicted, Martin Dwayne Miller could get 12 years to life in prison for a crime that usually brings about six months." "Civil liberties and legal defense groups are bothered by the string of cases, and say the government soon will be routinely using harsh anti-terrorism laws against run-of-the-mill lawbreakers." "The law, passed two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, erased many restrictions that had barred the government from spying on its citizens, granting agents new powers to use wiretaps, conduct electronic and computer eavesdropping and access private financial data." "More than 150 local governments have passed resolutions opposing the law as an overly broad threat to constitutional rights." 9-03 Total Information Awareness - Essay (Washington Post Editorial) "Anyone who deliberately set out to invent a government program with the specific aim of terrifying the Orwell-reading public could hardly have improved on the Information Awareness Office." "Adm. Poindexter's presence on this project, the lack of clear public information about it and the absence of any real oversight already indicate a serious lapse of judgment." 12-02 U.S. Court Finds Government Case Against Detainee Unconvincing (Washington Post - Jackman) "Line by line, a federal judge today dissected the government's reasoning for holding Yaser Esam Hamdi incommunicado in a Navy brig here and indicated that he didn't think prosecutors provided enough facts for him to decide whether Hamdi should have access to a lawyer." 4-02 U.S. Supreme Court Rules for Guantanamo Detainees (BBC News) "The United States Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay can take their case that they are unlawfully imprisoned to the American courts." 8-04 U.S. Supreme Court: Names of Detainees Can be Kept Secret (Bloomberg.com) "The Bush administration can continue withholding the names of more than 750 people arrested following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal by civil liberties groups." "The American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations said the `unprecedented secrecy' harmed efforts to learn whether the arrests were justified or the detainees were mistreated. A federal appeals court upheld the government's argument that releasing the names would interfere with the terrorism investigation." 1-04

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