5 ex-captives seek to revive torture-flights suit

5 ex-captives seek to revive torture-flights suit
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (12-08) 17:27 PST WASHINGTON -- Five former U.S. captives who say they were tortured in overseas Prisons have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive their Lawsuit accusing a Bay Area flight-planning company of arranging their transportation for the CIA. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ordered the suit dismissed in September, agreeing with the Obama Administration that the case could threaten National Security. On Tuesday, the American Civi...

Court rejects el-Masri suit against German gov't
BERLIN - A German court rejected a Lawsuit filed by Khaled el-Masri seeking to force Berlin into prosecuting suspected CIA agents he alleges illegally detained him nearly eight years ago as part of the U.S. rendition program. The Cologne Administrative Court, in a ruling on Dec. 7, supported Berlin's decision not to seek the Americans' Extradition after Washington told the Germans in 2007 it would reject any attempts to prosecute its agents, citing National Security concerns. The ruling wa...

State torture of citizens endemic worldwide: report
Stumble This! Paris — From the "Jesus Christ" Crucifixion technique in Eritrea to the Uzbek practice of chilli pepper enemas, Torture is a routine practice for authorities across the globe, a report said. "One can reasonably estimate that more than half of the Member States of the United Nations resort to torture," said the 370-page report by the Paris-based Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT). While the Torture of Journalists, union Activists or rights campaigner ten...

The Legacy of an Illegitimate Presidency: The Supreme Court, George W. Bush and the Decline of America
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 12/09/2010 - 4:33pm. It's been 10 years since the Supreme Court usurped the power of the People and instead appointed George W. Bush as president. At that time America had a surplus. We are on tract to completely pay off the National Debt in 10 years, which would be today. Instead we got 9/11, two wars, a collapsing economy, and about 14 Trillion dollars in national Debt. America invades other countries without provocation. Wall Street steals trillions and we rewa...

This week at the Court In Plain English
This post discusses three big David and Goliath-type cases the Court addressed this week: the cert. grant in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, the oral argument in Thompson v. North American Stainless, and the oral argument in Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting. Chamber of Com. v. Whiting Thompson v. N. Am. Stainless However cold it might have been this week in Washington, D.C. (and if you’re not on the East Coast, let me tell you - it is cold), action at the Court was hot.  Yes, now that we are a...

Court rejects el-Masri suit against German gov't
A German court has rejected a Lawsuit filed by Khaled el-Masri seeking to force Berlin to prosecute CIA agents he alleges illegally detained him nearly eight years ago as part of the U.S. rendition program. In a ruling published Friday, the Cologne Administrative supported Berlin's decision not to seek the Americans' Extradition after Washington told Berlin it would reject any attempts to prosecute its agents, citing National Security concerns. El-Masri, a German of Lebanese descent, says he was...

Bikes on Bridges: A How-To Guide for Advocates
The country’s crisis of crumbling infrastructure could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to expand bicycle access. Even historic bridges like this one can be retrofitted to accommodate cyclists and Pedestrians. Image: www.pedbikeimages.org / Dan Burden With one out of every four U.S. bridges deemed deficient, obsolete, or inadequate, a spate of bridge reconstruction is already overdue. And as planners start engineering the improvements, pedestrians and cyclists have to make sure they’re pa...

Federal judges urged to quit private group's board
WASHINGTON — Three prominent federal appellate judges are on the board of an anti-regulation group that provides free seminars and trips to judges, although an ethics opinion says such service violates judicial rules designed to avoid favoritism. One of the judges is Edith Brown Clement of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, who was on President George W. Bush's short list for a Supreme Court nomination in 2005. The others are the current and prior chief judges for the ...

Iowa Justices Shaken, But Not Bowed by Retention Vote Outcome
The results of the judicial Elections held here in Iowa last month were, simply put, disappointing. Our Supreme Court (pictured), and our state, lost three extremely talented, highly dedicated public servants -- Justices who have served Iowans very, very well for a number of years. Iowa, like many states, has adopted a version of the Missouri Plan of merit-based judicial selection, and, as part of the plan, the Justices of the Supreme Court appear periodically on the statewide ballot for a reten...

ACLU: WikiLeaks News and Background
The American Civil Liberties Union writes that prosecuting Wikileaks could raise serious Constitutional concerns. Whistleblowers, it says, are necessary to reveal information the government wrongly classifies. The Wikileaks phenomenon — the existence of an organization devoted to obtaining and publicly releasing large troves of information the U.S. government would prefer to keep secret — illustrates just how broken our secrecy classification system is. While the Obama Administration has made s..

North California ACLU Examines Disparities in Justice System
As 2011 approaches, the Northern California ACLU reports that major metropolitan area courts, like those found in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, “suffer from systemic underrepresentation of African-American and Latinos in its jury pools.” According to Racial Justice Policy Director Diana Tate Vermiere, “these disparities undermine the strength and the integrity of the entire justice system.” While African Americans represent approximately 18 percent of the eligible jury po...

Federal Judge to Anwar al-Awlaki: If You Dont Want Us To Kill You, Voluntarily Come to a U.S. Court
A Federal Judge on Tuesday threw out a Lawsuit aimed at preventing the United States from targeting U.S.-born anti-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki for death. U.S. District Judge John Bates said in a written opinion that al-Awlaki’s father does not have the authority to sue to stop the United States from killing his son. But Bates also said the “unique and extraordinary case” raises serious issues about whether the United States can plan to kill one of its own citizens without j...

The Obama Admin's Targeted Killing Trump Card
We write to ask that your administration provide greater clarity about its legal rationale for targeted killings, including the use of Unmanned Combat Aircraft Systems (drones), and the procedural safeguards it is taking to minimize harm to civilians. You should read the whole thing, but basically the key takeaway here is that even (long-anticipated) legal defeats on Civil Liberties issues, like the dismissal of the ACLU/CCR targeted killing case on Tuesday, don't preclude continued pressure on ...

Sen. Graham's Rhetoric On Guantánamo Swings To The Right
With Tea Party Activists eager to force the GOP further to the right, and willing to take scalps in Republican primaries even at the cost of Democratic victories in November, it's little wonder that sometime-moderates like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are talking a much more partisan line. Today on Fox News, Graham said that "there's a lot of legal changes need to be made to our laws to make us safe and live within our values," and then backpedaled when the incredulous interviewer asked, "Do you t...

The Supreme Court hears opening arguments in controversial Arizona immigration law
  The United States Supreme Court heard the opening arguments in a case against Arizona’s Controversial Immigration law. No, not that Controversial Immigration law, but rather an Immigration law that was signed by then Governor Janet Napolitano. While Governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano signed an Immigration Reform law that would Crack Down on businesses which knowingly hire Illegal Immigrants. This law would also require businesses in Arizona to use the...

Assange Headed for US Gulag
A friend in the know predicts that Julian Assange of Wikileaks will be extradited by that US poodle, the UK, to once-neutral Sweden, where he will be found Guilty and forced to pay a fine of c.$700. At that point, the US secret indictment will be revealed, and he will be renditioned to the empire. As what Joe Evilman (an enemy non-combatant) calls an Enemy Combatant, Assange is subhuman to the US government, sort of like a Taxpayer. He will never see freedom again, but will be caged in filth i...

The Irony of Lieberman's Devotion to Prosecuting WikiLeaks
They think Waterboarding, which has traditionally been defined as Torture, an act considered to be a war crime, is permissible in some situations. They think warrantless Wiretapping is acceptable if there is information to be gained that could be of use (and don't believe they should be required to prove in the aftermath that what they gained was useful). They find little problem with a CIA, which kidnaps Terror Suspects and uses extraordinary rendition to send them off to countries that are k...

Valedictorian Of Islamic Saudi Academy Complains His Prison Sentence "Too Harsh" For Conspiring With Al-Queda To Assassinate Bus
You remember him? The 1999 valedictorian of Alexandria VA's Islamic Saudi Academy who was convicted for a 2005 plot with al-Queda to assassinate President George W. Bush (Washington ComPost, via Weasel Zippers). The life Prison term given to a U.S. man who joined al-Quaida and plotted to assassinate then-President George W. Bush was unreasonably harsh when compared to sentences in comparable Terrorism cases, the man’s lawyer told a federal appeals court Thursday. A government attorney cou...

Holder Pushes Back Against News Reports on Prosecutorial Misconduct
Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday defended the work of Justice Department lawyers after a stinging USA Today investigation into prosecutorial misconduct. Holder said an “overwhelming majority” of DOJ lawyers handle themselves appropriately. The newspaper reported that the DOJ frequently categorizes misconduct that brought overturned convictions as mistakes. The newspaper’s investigation found that the DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility probed 756 misconduct compla...

'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' repeal will not be stopped in long run (Rep. Mike Honda)
In blocking the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” Repeal, Senate Republicans continue to hide behind disingenuous National Security claims. In the long run, Senate Republicans, who are keen to turn this into a political charade, can't stop reform. When the top Military brass, such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, favor a repeal of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell”, noting that a "solid majority" of service members say the rep

AG Holder To Kiss The Behinds of Address Bay Area Muslims Over FBI Surveillance Distrust.
“This has been a year, for American Muslims, of living dangerously,”… You’re kidding me, right? (Mercury News.com) — Bay Area Muslims caught between a national concern that they cooperate with the government to root out Terrorists and their own concerns about Privacy and loss of freedom will hear from the nation’s top law enforcer Friday evening. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will talk at an annual dinner banquet hosted by Muslim Advocates*, a San Franci...

Terrorist to appeals court: life term is too harsh
RICHMOND, Va. -- The life Prison term given to a U.S. man who joined al-Quaida and plotted to assassinate then-President George W. Bush was unreasonably harsh when compared to sentences in comparable Terrorism cases, the man's lawyer told a federal appeals court Thursday. A government attorney countered that U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee properly concluded that Ahmed Abu Ali's case was unique and that his lack of remorse demonstrated that he would be a danger to others if ever released...

Joe Lieberman: When People Commit Crimes, They Must Be Prosecuted. Unless They Work for the Government
Kevin Gozstola plays a litlte gotcha with Joe Lieberman. Here's Lieberman advocating for a DOJ investigation and possible prosecution of the New York Times and other media outlets for publishing portions of the Wikileaks cables: "And, again, why do you prosecute crimes? Because if you don't--Well, first you do because that's what our system of justice requires. Second, if you don't prosecute people who commit crimes, others are going to do it soon and again." And here's Joe Lieberman in 2009, e...

Looking for financial-crisis criminal prosecutions
Jonathan Weil and Jesse Eisinger wrote very similar columns yesterday, about the way in which the latest batch of white-collar-crime prosecutions is seemingly an attempt to occlude the fact that none of the main culprits in the Financial Crisis have been prosecuted of anything. Meanwhile, Janet Tavakoli has come out with a presentation listing just some of the people who might be liable for prosecution here: Much as I love the idea that Christopher Cox could be prosecuted as an accessory and ac...

Holder Warns Congress Against Bill Banning Transfer of Gitmo Detainees to U.S.
(Credit: CBS/AP) Attorney General Eric Holder today sent a letter to leaders in the Senate warning them against Legislation that would prohibit the transfer of Guantanamo Bay Prison Detainees to the United States for any purpose -- including to stand trial. The House approved the measure on Wednesday. Holder told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that the proposal goes far beyond existing law and would hamper the Obama Administration's attempts to prosecute...