President Obama signs Executive Orders restoring the US Constitution and rule of law in the treatment of terrorism prisoners

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From: Center for Constitutional Rights

CCR Praises Obama Orders, Cautions Against Escape Hatch for Torture

CONTACT: press@ccrjustice.org

January 22, 2009, New York – In response to President Obama’s signing of new executive orders today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) issued the following statement:

We welcome the beginning of the end of lawlessness. Under the previous administration, executive orders became synonymous with secrecy, torture and attempts to override the Constitution. It is genuinely uplifting to see them now used to set things right. President Obama’s orders today are an important first step in restoring the rule of law; let us take the next steps with great care not to open the way for a return to the darkness of these last years.

The order to close Guantánamo, though it provides little detail and allows perhaps too much time to get it done given the pressing issues at stake, is a good start. We believe the president will be able to close Guantánamo in less than a year: the priority must be to repatriate the many men who can go home and find safe havens for the approximately 60 who would face torture or persecution.

The government has to charge the rest of the detainees in federal criminal court. There can be no third way, no new schemes for indefinite or preventive detention or alternative national security courts. Any move in that direction would discredit all of the new administration’s efforts in the eyes of the world.

The order to close the CIA black sites where people were held in secret for the purpose of torture is to be applauded. There is no place for such black holes in a democracy. Their intended purpose is to circumvent the Geneva conventions and our own laws. If the order leaves the option of reviving those sites, it is more symbolic than a true reversal.

The order to make all agencies abide by the Army Field Manual’s acceptable interrogation tactics is perhaps the most important gesture toward restoring our moral authority as a nation. The Center for Constitutional Rights represents so many men who were brutally tortured by our government that this hits home for us in a way that it may not for those with no faces and lives to attach to the story.

Again, we caution that the order may leave an escape hatch if the CIA should want more tactics, i.e. torture, available in its arsenal. The Geneva conventions should be the only arbiter of what is possible for governments to do to human beings.

Today’s orders are filled with promise. In addition, to ensure no future administration will take us back to these dark times, there needs to be individual accountability for the torture program, and other crimes committed. Prosecution is the only way to deter future lawbreakers. These orders are the right start, let us make sure this does not happen again.

To read the text of the executive orders, click here or download the attachments below.

CCR has led the legal battle over Guantanamo for the last six years – sending the first ever habeas attorney to the base and sending the first attorney to meet with a former CIA “ghost detainee.” CCR has been responsible for organizing and coordinating more than 500 pro bono lawyers across the country in order to represent the men at Guantanamo, ensuring that nearly all have the option of legal representation. CCR represented the detainees with co-counsel in the most recent argument before the Supreme Court on December 5, 2007.

Attached Files

• White House Executive Order: Closing Guantanamo Bay
• White House Executive Order: Ensuring Lawful Interrogations
• White House Executive Order: Review of Detention Policy
• White House Memorandum: Review of the Detention of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.

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Voters' Rights Protection Project is for election day voting troubles

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From: Campaign Legal Center

Election Day Voter Protection Initiative Launched
Aug 13, 2008

The Campaign Legal Center today launched the Voters' Rights Protection Project, to provide generic drafts of potential court filings to individuals, organizations, and political parties who must resort to the courts to protect the fundamental rights of citizens to vote. In a letter today to both major parties and copies to the respective presidential campaigns, the Legal Center announced the project and said it would make the legal templates publicly available. Information announcing the project is also being sent to national, state, and local party committees, as well as third party organizations and numerous community and grassroots organizations from coast to coast.

"The legal documents being drafted by the Legal Center will facilitate and expedite the process of securing court orders against those state or local election officials or others who take actions harmful to the electorate," said J. Gerald Hebert, Executive Director and Director of Litigation for the Campaign Legal Center

The use of such legal templates, will allow individuals, as well as advocacy groups, political parties, and candidates to obtain pre-election or Election Day relief for a host of problems, including extension of polling hours, insufficient ballots, and prevention of voter harassment or intimidation.

[...] The legal template documents will be accessible on the Legal Center's website next month, and they will also be distributed via email to persons and groups across the country upon request. The Legal Center's work on this project is a direct result of the generous financial assistance from the JEHT Foundation.

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Open up our democracy for more voter choices during election day

This is Bloggers Unite for Human Rights Day. Of course, human rights is a fundamental issue for people around the world every single day. It's a privilege to share with you All Things Reform's concerns in this particular day and age.

Democracy is very important in a nation's electoral process. Here, in the United States, the political system is dominated by only two parties: the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. We must open up our democracy to allow more voices for citizen consideration during the primaries and on general election day.

Presently, for example, the presidential race is basically only between our two major political parties. In a couple of the latest several general elections, third party candidacies have influenced voting outcomes: Independent Ross Perot in 1992 and Green Party nominee Ralph Nader in 2000. The two-party-dominated electoral politics rendered these powerful candidacies weak, yet even they influenced the winner-take-all electoral system's results.

Our electoral system must allow more eligible candidacies from outside the Democratic and Republican parties a prominent place during election season. Effective solutions include general election ballot access in the states, Instant Runoff Voting, voluntary public financing of elections and Proportional Representation.

When the voter during election season contemplates the candidates in the various races, they must not be pressured into considering only the two philosophies of the major parties. More choice is good for the democratic process, for the people and for a vibrant republic.

For further information on electoral reform, please visit FairVote, at http://www.fairvote.org/.

Reflections on World Water Day 2008

The theme for World Water Day 2008 is "Sanitation Matters." This year's theme highlights the fact that "adequate sanitation to protect health is considered a fundamental human right." Unfortunately, for roughly half the developing world, safe and reliable water is not accessible. The result is the daily tragedy of waterborne disease, which claims thousands of lives each day.

"Safe water and sanitation are vital to human health and are critical for the stability of nations around the globe," said AWWA Executive Director Gary Zimmerman. "In North America, clean water is often taken for granted, but World Water Day creates an opportunity to think about the extraordinary value of our precious water supplies and advance water treatment and delivery systems.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are around 2.2 million per year worldwide who die from diarrheal diseases caused by poor sanitation and lack of clean drinking water. Now that's a REAL water problem.

According to a British government minister, the world faces a future of "water wars", unless action is taken to prevent international water shortages and sanitation issues escalating into conflicts.

The warning came as a coalition of 27 international charities marked World Water Day by writing to British prime minister Gordon Brown demanding action to give fresh water to 1.1 billion people with poor supplies.

"If we do not act, the reality is that water supplies may become the subject of international conflict in the years ahead," said International Development minister Gareth Thomas. "We need to invest now to prevent us having to pay that price in the future."

A lack of political will remains the greatest obstacle to efforts to drastically reduce the number of people without access to basic sanitation and clean, running water, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, calling on the international community to take firmer and faster steps to tackle the problem.

“If we take up the challenge, the positive impact will reverberate far beyond better access to clean water,” Mr. Ban said in a message to mark World Water Day, which is celebrated today. This year's Day also coincides with the International Year of Sanitation.

“Every dollar invested in water and sanitation yields an estimate seven dollars worth of productive activity. And that comes on top of the immeasurable gains in cutting poverty, improving health and raising living standards.”

And of course, here in America, there are communities that struggle with water infrastructure issues (for instance, the colonias in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas). The issue of water in the western US is growing every year as population grows and the climate warms. Make this day one of reflection on the life-giving gift of water, and how much it is needed by our neighbors in this country and around the world.

Almost all Americans believe their government should pay attention to their views between elections

World Public Opinion has released results of a poll, revealing that 94% of Americans believe their leaders should pay attention to the views of the people as they're making their decisions. This overwhelmingly asserts our view that "the will of the people should be the basis of the authority of government," the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

More results of the poll are here. Clearly, twice as many Americans (79.9%) believe that America should be governed by the will of the people than believe it is actually occurring (40%). This is reflected by the fact that 81% say when making "an important decision" government leaders "should pay attention to public opinion polls because this will help them get a sense of the public's views."

All Things Reform supports these assertions, and encourages citizens to stay informed of today's news stories from reputable sources and follow up with own opinions on major bills and other issues currently being debated in the legislatures.

Help restore habeas corpus today

Public Citizen is running a grassroots email campaign in order to restore habeas corpus. I can't think of too many more important reforms about we, the people, than this! Here is their message:

You know the saying, "If at first you don't succeed..."?
We have another opportunity to restore the right to habeas corpus now. The Senate is debating the defense authorization bill again this week, and Senators Leahy and Dodd have re-introduced the bill to restore habeas corpus as an amendment. Meanwhile, many continue to languish without due process to review the lawfulness of their detainment, and still more of us remain vulnerable.
Your help is urgently needed again. Please call your senators now.
As the Founders understood, in denying someone else's freedom, we ultimately surrender our own.
Thank you for all you've done and for not backing down. Take a few moments today to restore habeas corpus!
Sincerely,
Daniel De Bonis, Online Organizer, Public Citizen's Congress Watch Division action@citizen.org

The U.S. ranks 96th out of 121 countries around the world in peace

According to the first Global Peace Index, the United States is ranked 96th out of 121 countries in its peacefulness, and in the drivers that create and sustain that peace. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the country intelligence division of The Economist Group that publishes The Economist newspaper, compiled the Index. They measured countries' peacefulness based on a wide range of indicators - 24 in all - including ease of access to "weapons of minor destruction" (guns, small explosives), military expenditure, local corruption, and the level of respect for human rights.

I'm surprised it took this long to rank countries based on such an important topic. The only other powerful indicators of world peace might be the Nobel Peace Prize and Amnesty International; also, the Carter Center, headed by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalyn Carter reports its own findings, from its "waging peace" around the world.

The troubled U.S. government openness and transparency conditions contributed significantly to its low ranking. A high level of trust between public officials and the general public only exists when our candidates, who run for office, are both honest and accountable; this would be especially attainable in a national electoral system that is fair and equitable among its political parties.