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News Release Archive | civil liberties | Accuracy.Org

Assange’s Asylum

June 20, 2012

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers (top-secret government documents that showed a pattern of governmental deceit about the Vietnam War), today signed a petition calling on Ecuador to grant political asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Ellsberg stated: “Political asylum was made for cases like this. Freedom for Julian in Ecuador would serve the cause of freedom of speech and of the press worldwide. It would be good for us all; and it would be cause to honor, respect and thank Ecuador.”

COLEEN ROWLEY, rowleyclan at earthlink.net
Rowley, a former FBI Special Agent and Division Counsel whose May 2002 memo described some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures, was named one of Time Magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002. She said today: “An unbelievably cruel irony exists in witnessing powerful western political figures threaten Julian Assange, someone with a unique track record of supporting whistleblowers without any viable outlet for disclosing their superiors’ illegal orders and activities. WikiLeaks’ efforts combating undue secrecy, exposing illegal cover-ups and championing transparency in government has already benefited the world. And I’m convinced, more than ever, that if that type of anti-secrecy publication had existed and enabled the proper information sharing in early 2001, it could have not only prevented the 9/11 attacks but it could have exposed the fabricating of intelligence and deceptive propaganda which enabled the Bush Administration to unjustifiably launch war on Iraq.”

RAY McGOVERN, rrmcgovern at gmail.com
McGovern, who was a U.S. army officer and CIA analyst for 30 years, now works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He just wrote the piece “Julian Assange’s Artful Dodge,” which states: “Not only is Julian Assange within his rights to seek asylum, he is also in his right mind. Consider this: he was about to be sent to faux-neutral Sweden, which has a recent history of bowing to U.S. demands in dealing with those that Washington says are some kind of threat to U.S. security. Glenn Greenwald on Tuesday provided an example:

“‘In December 2001, Sweden handed over two asylum seekers to the CIA, which then rendered them to be tortured in Egypt. A ruling from the U.N. Human Rights Committee found Sweden in violation of the global ban on torture for its role in that rendition (the two individuals later received a substantial settlement from the Swedish government).’

“For those of you thinking, Oh, but that was under the Bush administration and that kind of thing is over, think again. In 2010 and 2011, the hysteria surrounding WikiLeaks’ disclosures of U.S. misconduct and crimes around the world brought cries from prominent American political figures seeking Assange’s designation as a terrorist, his prosecution as a spy and even his assassination.

“Rep. Peter King, R-New York, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has called for WikiLeaks to be declared a terrorist organization and Assange to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917, a position shared by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed:

“‘The release of these documents damages our national interests and puts innocent lives at risk. He should be vigorously prosecuted for espionage.’

“Others have gone even further, demanding that Assange be put to death, either by judicial or extrajudicial means. …

“Four weeks before Assange sought asylum, he interviewed Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa for Episode 6 of The World Tomorrow (Assange’s program Tuesdays on RT [formerly Russia Today]). Assange asked Correa why he has advocated that WikiLeaks release all its cables. Correa responded:

“‘First, you don’t owe anything, have nothing to fear. We have nothing to hide. Your WikiLeaks have made us stronger’ with the damaging revelations showing the attitude of the U.S. embassy toward the sovereignty of the Ecuadorian government.’

“Correa continued: ‘On the other hand, WikiLeaks wrote a lot about the goals that the national media pursue, about the power groups who seek help and report to foreign embassies. … Let them publish everything they have about the Ecuadorian government. You will see how many things about those who oppose the civil revolution in Ecuador will come to light. Things to do with opportunism, betrayal, and being self serving.’

“Correa made the point that when WikiLeaks cables became available to the national media in Ecuador, they chose not to publish them — partly because the documents aired so much ‘dirty linen’ about the media themselves. He added that when he took office in January 2007, five out of seven privately owned TV channels in Ecuador were run by bankers. The bankers were using the guise of journalism to interfere in politics and to destabilize governments, for fear of losing power.”

See the Assange-Correa interview.

Tagged With: civil liberties, Coleen Rowley, Julian Assange, Ray McGovern, WikiLeaks,

* Syria * Supreme Court and “Gutted Habeas Corpus”

June 12, 2012

ELAINE HAGOPIAN, echagop at verizon.net
Hagopian is a Syrian-American sociologist, a professor emeritus of sociology at Simmons College in Boston and political interviewer for Arabic Hour TV. She said today: “The situation in Syria has intensified. The regime is determined to defeat the militarized opposition and the fractured and incoherent militarized opposition, which is trying to develop a united strategy, is determined to bring down the regime. Both parties refuse to accept a cease fire as part of the Annan plan, blaming each other for its failure. Each blames the other for the series of massacres that have taken place. But there are conflicting reports on these, and the UN monitors have confirmed the massacres, but have not stated who committed them. They did identify artillery shells that were fired in the area by the regime, but did not connect the up close murders of civilians to the regime. A leading German daily, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), reports that the rebels did the killing, and the victims were Alawites. Mainstream media report that the Shabiha (civilian Alawite mafia) did it on behalf of the regime. Who to believe? Two things are clear, both the regime and the militarized opposition lie, and both commit atrocities. In the meantime, the original, non-violent reform movement, now calling for Assad to step down as well, has been overshadowed by the violent exchanges going on between the regime and the militarized opposition. As Syria deteriorates and feels the pressures of the economic sanctions, the violence escalates. Russia and the U.S. suggest different ‘solutions,’ but have not found common ground to move toward halting the violence…”

ANDY WORTHINGTON, andy at andyworthington.co.uk
The New York Times reports: “The Supreme Court on Monday, June 11, refused to hear appeals from seven men contesting their imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, passing up an opportunity to clarify its last Guantanamo decision, in 2008.”

Worthington is author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison. He is co-director of the film “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantanamo.”

He said today: “The Supreme Court’s refusal to rebuke the right-wing judges of the D.C. Circuit Court, who have gutted habeas corpus of all meaning, has led to a situation in which, although 87 of the remaining 169 prisoners at Guantanamo have been cleared for release — some as long ago as 2004 — it is probable that none of them will ever be released, as they have been failed by every branch of the U.S. government.” Worthington was on Democracy Now this morning.

Filed Under: Tagged With: Andy Worthington, Arab Spring, civil liberties, Elaine Hagopian, Guantánamo, Middle East, Syria,

Assange and the “War on Whistleblowers”

May 30, 2012

COLEEN ROWLEY, rowleyclan at earthlink.net
Rowley, a former FBI Special Agent and Division Counsel whose May 2002 memo described some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures, was named one of Time Magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002. She was featured on an IPA news release yesterday titled “Obama’s Priestly Assassinations” about the administration’s “secret kill list.” She said today: “The war on whistleblowers (which Obama has likened to traitors and espionage), is connected to yesterday’s New York Times story about the ‘secret kill list’ since it is secrecy that is being protected and which fuels and empowers the entire illegal, immoral wrongdoing by a ‘l’etat c’est moi’ ['I am the state'] war presidency setting itself up as investigator, judge, jury and executioner. The only thing that will prevent a return to the dark ages is light.”

DAVID MacMICHAEL, dmacmi at centurylink.net
MacMichael is a former CIA analyst. He said today: “There is a strong possibility that if Assange is extradited to Sweden that the U.S. will have him extradited here. It’s widely thought that there is already a U.S. government secret indictment against Assange in the Alexandria, Virginia, federal court. This would be part of a pattern of the Obama administration’s unprecedented attacks on whistleblowers, using the 1917 Espionage Act to pursue them. So are we going to see an extraordinary prosecution of Assange from this? This is a strong possibility, I believe.

“The U.S. government, like any other, seeks to avoid transparency in the conduct of its foreign policy. The Obama administration is no different in this than its predecessors. Yesterday the New York Times published a piece on the way Obama personally approves the so-called ‘kill lists.’ of individuals being targeted in the Middle East and elsewhere. During the Vietnam war, it was widely accepted: ‘If he’s dead, he must be Viet Cong,’ hence the notorious body counts of that conflict — and that’s essentially what the Obama administration is doing: If a foreign male who is of broadly-considered military age is killed as a result of U.S. operations — drone strikes, helicopter strafings, etc., he must have been a ‘militant’ (interesting definition, that) and not a civilian. Because, of course, we (our military and intelligence forces) don’t kill civilians. That would be wrong.”

GLENN GREENWALD, ggreenwald at salon.com, @ggreenwald
Available for limited number of interviews, Greenwald’s latest book is With Liberty and Justice for Some. He has written extensively about WikiLeaks and said today: “Remember, Julian Assange is one of the most hated people by Western governments because of the transparency that he brought. … Typically, and unfortunately, judicial branches in the United States and in the United Kingdom do the opposite of what they’re intending to do, which is protecting the institutional power, and help to punish and deprive those who are most scorned. So I would have been shocked had the court ruled in favor of Assange, even though, as the two opposing judges on the high court pointed out, the argument for Sweden and those who argued extradition is directly antithetical to what the statute said. No one thinks that a prosecutor is a judicial authority. He hasn’t been charged with a crime, and therefore, there is no courtroom judge seeking his extradition. … But the law in these cases is not what typically governs. What governs is political consideration and views of the party. …

“[Sweden has] a very oppressive, I would even say borderline barbaric, system of pretrial detention.” Greenwald noted that Assange, since he is not a Swedish citizen, will be “automatically consigned to prison, and not released on bail. … The pre-trial hearings in Sweden are private. … And given how sensitive this case is, the idea that judicial decision in Sweden will be made privately and secretly is very alarming. …The concern is that Sweden will hand him over [to the U.S] without much of a fight and that he will face life imprisonment under espionage statute when he is doing nothing more than what newspapers do everyday.”

RAY McGOVERN, rrmcgovern at gmail.com
McGovern, who was a U.S. army officer and CIA analyst for 30 years, now works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was also featured on the “Obama’s Priestly Assassinations” news release and has closely followed WikiLeaks.

Tagged With: civil liberties, Coleen Rowley, David MacMichael, Glenn Greenwald, Julian Assange, Ray McGovern, WikiLeaks,

“Occupy the Justice Department”

April 24, 2012

DANNY GLOVER, FRANCES FOX PIVEN, NORMAN FINKELSTEIN, TALIB KWELI, via April R. Silver, pr at akilaworksongs.com
Actor Danny Glover, activists and authors Frances Fox Piven and Norman Finkelstein and rapper Talib Kweli are among those participating in “Occupy the Justice Department” protests today. The protests demand an end to “systemic police corruption and civil rights violations in Mumia Abu-Jamal’s case and in the cases of hundreds of others across the nation.” They also demand that the government “Release Abu-Jamal; End mass incarceration and the criminalization of Black and Latino Youth; Create jobs, education, and health care, not jails; End solitary confinement and stop torture; End the racist death penalty; Hands off immigrants; Free all political prisoners.”

NOELLE HANRAHAN, globalaudiopi at gmail.com
Hanrahan is the director of Prison Radio. She edited Mumia Abu-Jamal’s book “All Things Censored” and for years has produced his recordings from death row and now from prison (Abu-Jamal was recently released from death row). She said today: “Prison Radio brings the voices of prisoners into the debate on crime and punishment. We have a new recording by Mumia and by other political prisoners. Mumia’s case and voice is emblematic, it represents much of what is wrong in our society. There are 7 million people under correctional control, 2 million actually in prison. About 1 in 46 people will do time in their lifetime. We spend more on prisons than we do on education. It does not lead to public safety, it leads to the public sector not being able to provide what it needs to for a healthy society. What you do to people in prison directly impacts us on the outside — you have HIV and TB spreading in prisons. And it’s devastating to particular communities: 1 in 3 black men will do prison time.”

JOHN CARLOS FREY, via Ben Wyskida, ben at berlinrosen.com
John Carlos Frey is a documentary filmmaker and investigative journalist at the Nation Institute. His exposé on the death of Anastasio Hernández-Rojas aired on Friday on “Need to Know.”

This morning on Democracy Now he said: “Anastasio Hernández-Rojas was caught trying to cross back into the United States. He was detained by Border Patrol agents, went through the detention process. And in the process of being deported, this is when the story really begins. The Border Patrol agents, via their own press release and documents, say that he was combative, Hernández-Rojas was combative. They removed his handcuffs — this is actually in the document — they removed his handcuffs and applied the use of a taser. He fell to the ground, suffered a heart attack and subsequently died. That is what is actually in the police report.

“But the new video and eyewitness testimony proves otherwise. He was handcuffed. He was hogtied. He was not combative. The taser was applied at least five times. He was kicked. He was beaten. He suffered five broken ribs, bruises and cuts all over his body, misaligned teeth. None of that is in the official report. … The Justice Department has not asked any of the eyewitnesses for this information. … So, from our knowledge, it looks like the Justice Department has done absolutely nothing in investigating this case.”

[Note: A previous version of this news release incorrectly identified Talib Kweli as being affiliated with the group Public Enemy.]

Tagged With: Abu-Jamal, civil liberties, civil rights, Danny Glover, Frances Fox Piven, John Carlos Frey, Noelle Hanrahan, Norman Finkelstein, Talib Kweli, torture,

Ron Paul: The U.S. Is Slipping Toward Fascism

February 22, 2012

This weekend, the AP reported: “Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul warned the U.S. is ‘slipping into a fascist system’ dominated by government and businesses as he held a fiery rally Saturday night upstaging established Republican Party banquets a short distance away.”

A Republican debate is scheduled on CNN for Wednesday evening.

HERBERT BIX, hbix at binghamton.edu
Available for a limited number of interviews, Bix won the Pulitzer prize for his book Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. He is a professor at Birmingham University in both the history and sociology departments. While he is best known for his work on Japan, he is a scholar of international and U.S. affairs.

He said today: “Ron Paul is a libertarian and he has racist baggage, but I would never label him with the epithet of isolationist — we should we should thank him for highlighting U.S. interventionism and where it has been leading us. He’s the sole exception on the national stage, and certainly among the major presidential candidates, to advocate a peaceful foreign policy and speak out against our slipping into what I would call a militarized police state. We can easily cite legislation — under both Bush and Obama — that have been constantly building and creating extensions for this militarized police state:

“The FISA statute was passed after the Watergate scandal to deal with Richard Nixon’s illegal actions. It required judicial warrants for wire tapping on Americans. Bush not only violated this and other laws, he tore down the wall between government and big business by granting immunity to the telecom giants who facilitated this law-breaking.

“The Patriot Act spawned numerous invasions of privacy, for example, the National Security Letters, which the FBI abused to forbid anyone — including librarians — who received them from disclosing that they were disclosing information about individuals. And on ten separate occasions Congress renewed without any meaningful revision, all the powers this act transferred to the executive branch.

“The Department of Homeland Security was established and that has operated to reduce civil liberties, especially of immigrants.

“In 2006, the Military Commissions Act gave the president unconstitutional powers to detain any individual he says is an enemy combatant anywhere in the world. How different was this Congressional vote from that to grant Hitler powers and do away with the Weimar Constitution? That seems like an extreme question, but in fact there has been a century of seizure of powers by presidents.

“And just this year, you had the National Defense Authorization Act, which expanded the scope of the Military Commissions Act, so the president could indefinitely detain people who had not been covered — both U.S. citizens and non-citizens — based solely on allegation or rumor. Now we have a new operational phase of the War on Terror: assassination of U.S. citizens — last year Anwar al-Awlaki and journalist Samir Khan were assassinated. This was a milestone event, a violation of the U.S. Constitution and international law.

“Additionally, you have Obama’s administration developing the tactics of torture and drone assassination. Pentagon and CIA war crimes, such as torture and the outsourcing of torture, contribute greatly to the moral degradation of American society.

“Obama has also gone further that Bush in the silencing of whistle blowers. And the courts have actually abetted the executive branch’s subversion of the Constitution because they have refused to question the executive’s claim of ‘national security’ to justify it all.

“As the power of the executive branch grows, it demands obedience through unconstitutional laws and extensions, and the whole ensemble of policies, laws and their extensions threaten freedom, constitutionalism and international law. Only Ron Paul has had the guts to put it on the national agenda.”

Tagged With: civil liberties, Herbert Bix, militarism, Ron Paul,

“Unconstitutional” Espionage Act May Target WikiLeaks

January 5, 2011

ConstitutionROBERT MEEROPOL, via Amber Black
In response to reports that the House will be reading aloud the Constitution on Thursday, attorney Meeropol — founder and executive director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children — said today: “I hope that if that happens, Congress will take special note of Article III, Section 3, that defines treason, since rumors have been swirling that the United States is preparing to indict WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange for conspiring to violate the Espionage Act of 1917 — a law that I believe violates the Constitution.

“The modern version of the Espionage Act states among other things that: ‘Whoever, for the purpose of obtaining information respecting the national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States’ causes the disclosure or publication of this material, could be subject to massive criminal penalties (18 U.S. Code, Chapter 37, Section 793.)

“I view the Espionage Act of 1917 as a lifelong nemesis. My parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, were charged, tried and ultimately executed after being indicted for Conspiracy to Commit Espionage under that Act. And their case was just the highest profile use of the Act which has a notorious history. It originally served to squelch opposition to World War I. It criminalized criticism of the war effort, and sent hundreds of dissenters to jail just for voicing their opinions. It transformed dissent into treason. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Tagged With: civil liberties, constitution, WikiLeaks,

Reading the Constitution: How Is It Being Violated?

January 5, 2011

American Empire: Before the FallAP reports that incoming House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) “will arrange to have the U.S. Constitution read on the floor Thursday.”

BRUCE FEIN
Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General and General Counsel to the Federal Communications Commission under President Reagan and is author of the new book “American Empire: Before the Fall.” He recently wrote a piece titled “Ten Congressional Commandments,” which states: “The Constitution exclusively empowers Congress to authorize the initiation of war under Article I, Section 8. The Founding Fathers constitutionally precluded the president from deciding on war or peace because of the executive branch’s incentive to exaggerate danger. War crowns the president with fame, secrecy, spending, and arbitrary powers over the citizenry. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Tagged With: assasination, civil liberties, Congress, constitution, executive power, signing statements, war powers,

Indefinite Detention and Assassination: “Clock Back to Pre-Magna Carta Times”

December 22, 2010

ProPublica reports: “The White House is preparing an Executive Order on indefinite detention that will provide periodic reviews of evidence against dozens of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, according to several administration officials.”

In an ABC interview, Attorney General Eric Holder has publicly said the United States wants to “neutralize” the Yemen-based Muslim cleric Anwar al-AwlakiAmerican Empire: Before the Fall, who is said to be the first U.S. citizen added to a CIA list of targets for killing. See Democracy Now report

BRUCE FEIN
Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General and General Counsel to the Federal Communications Commission under President Reagan and is author of the new book American Empire: Before the Fall. He said today: “The AmericaThe United States and Torturen Empire has pushed the due process clock back to pre-Magna Carta times. The new national slogan is, ‘Anything and everything for professed safety, but nothing for liberty or freedom.’”

MARJORIE COHN
Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and author of the new book The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration and Abuse. She said today: “Indefinite detention violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [Read more...]

Tagged With: assassination, civil liberties, civil rights, constitution, indefinite detention,

Attacks on WikiLeaks Violating the Law?

December 13, 2010

CHRISTOPHER SIMPSON
Simpson is a professor who teaches about media, propaganda and media law at the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C. He said today: “The ongoing information war campaign against WikiLeaks conducted by U.S. security agencies, politicians and crackpots is illegal under U.S. law as well as under international treaties. In addition to the usual propaganda attacks, the companies that provide commercial website services to WikiLeaks websites have been the focus of hundreds of thousands of denial of service attacks and other forms of online sabotage during the past two weeks. In the case of the DNS.org service, these attacks threatened to shut down WikiLeaks and some 500,000 other websites. DNS.org and others succumbed to the pressure. But so far, the FBI and similar U.S. agencies have ignored these clear violations of the U.S.’s own cyber security laws, which usually classify cyber attacks on this scale as terrorism.
[Read more...]

Tagged With: civil liberties, internet, WikiLeaks,