THE PROGRESS REPORT
by Christy Harvey, Judd Legum and Jonathan Baskin
with Nico Pitney and Mipe Okunseinde
February 1, 2005
CIVIL LIBERTIES
CIVIL LIBERTIES
Failing to Comply
Legal theories advanced by Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales – still awaiting confirmation by Congress – were refuted by a federal judge on Monday, in a ruling that said the Bush administration had "failed to comply" with a Supreme Court decision giving Guantanamo Bay prisoners the right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts. According to Judge Joyce Hens Green, the system of military tribunals the Pentagon set up as an alternative after the high court's ruling are prejudicial and illegal, denying prisoners access to evidence against them and adequate legal assistance. In addition, Green's ruling was the first to question "whether some of the information used against the detainees had been obtained by torture and was thus unreliable."
AGAINST GONZALES: Green's 75-page opinion "specifically rejects legal theories advanced by Alberto Gonzales," the White House counsel who President Bush has nominated for attorney general. In 2002, concerned about "possible future prosecution for war crimes," it was Gonzales who urged the president to declare the war in Afghanistan, including the detention of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, exempt from the provisions of the Geneva Convention. Green rejected that advice, noting that "nothing ... authorizes the president of the United States to rule by fiat that an entire group of fighters…falls outside" the treaty's definitions of "prisoners-of-war." Another federal judge, James Robertson, reached a similar conclusion in November, when he struck down a system of military commissions the administration had established to prosecute some Guantanamo prisoners for war crimes.
AGAINST TORTURE: Green's ruling is the first to begin tracing the consequences of another legal decision influenced by Gonzales: the attempted legalization of abusive interrogation methods such as "waterboarding." One reason the military tribunals were illegal, Green said, was that they "improperly relied 'on statements possibly obtained through torture or other coercion,' which itself violated due process." Gonzales has publicly denounced torture, "but last month in written responses to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he suggested it may be permissible to use cruel, inhuman or degrading interrogation methods on noncitizens held by the U.S. outside its borders." Green's ruling bears out some of the complaints of FBI agents who visited Guantanamo in 2003: in one memo, an agent warned abusive interrogating methods would destroy the government's ability to prosecute Guantanamo detainees in the future.
AGAINST TRIBUNALS: The possible abuse of detainees was just one factor which invalidated the military tribunals set up by the Pentagon as an alternative to hearings in U.S. courts. Green admitted some captives at Guantanamo "may indeed be Taliban or al Qaeda fighters, as the U.S. military argues. But, she said, the reviews designed to determine that are so stacked against them that their findings cannot be trusted." Green said the government's "illogically broad definition of 'enemy combatant'" had allowed it "to hold Muslim men from dozens of countries for as long as three years." In many cases people were detained "simply for being alleged members of groups that do not like Americans," and had trouble "proving a negative" in a legal process that was prejudiced against them. (Get more info on Alberto Gonzales.)
Under the Radar
HALLIBURTON – FLEECING THE PENTAGON: Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), the massive subsidiary of Vice President Cheney's former firm Halliburton, is estimating that costs for the basic services it provides in Iraq for U.S. troops "could exceed $10 billion." But even if it seems that President Bush is willing to hand over a blank check when it comes to the war in Iraq, the Army initially only budgeted $3.6 billion for these same services. Labeling the difference "an 'unaffordable' budget gap," Army officials have had to slash various troop services from their list, but the disparity still stands at about $4 billion, and the Army is not sure how much more can be cut "without causing significant disruptions." There was seemingly no discussion as to whether the notoriously wasteful KBR, which has yet to be fully investigated by Pentagon auditors, was just up to its old overcharging tricks once again. Whatever the compromise, hopefully this time the Army will get all that it pays for.
CIVIL LIBERTIES – PAY TO PLAY: Freedom may not be free, but this is ridiculous. The U.S. Justice Department says a civil liberties group seeking official documents about the wave of post-Sept. 11 detentions must pony up a whopping $373,000 to conduct the search, and even then there is no guarantee that the documents found will be released. The People for the American Way Foundation, which filed the requests under the Freedom of Information Act, "accused the Justice Department of making the cost exceedingly high to deter its request." Journalism organizations and other public interest groups confirmed the accusation, telling the Associated Press the fee was "unusually high." Said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press: "If that's what it takes to track down secrecy in our court system, things are worse than I thought."
HEALTH – ABSTINENCE-ONLY FLUNKS: Reuters reports that abstinence-only "education" programs have had zero impact on teenagers' sexual behavior in President Bush's home state of Texas. In fact, researchers from Texas A&M University say that teens from 29 Texas high schools actually increased their sexual activity despite taking the abstinence programs, which included lessons to "bolster students' self-esteem, based on the theory that self-confident teenagers would not have sex." In one case, 24 percent of boys in the tenth grade, about 14 to 15 years old, reported having sex before receiving abstinence education; after taking the course, the number who said they were sexually active jumped to 39 percent. President Bush, apparently more concerned about promoting right-wing ideology than accuracy or effectiveness, has pushed for significant funding increases for such programs, requesting $270 million for 2005.
ADMINISTRATION – A DIFFERENT KIND OF NUCLEAR OPTION: According to an article in today's Washington Post, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is pushing for funding "to resume study of building an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon" and asked former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to include the item in next year's budget. Aversion to the research project has come from both sides of the aisles and for various reasons. Members of Congress have been wary of nuclear weapons research because they understand that such moves stand to undermine our nonproliferation efforts in other countries. Additionally, the National Nuclear Security Administration, the manager of the nuclear program arm of the Energy Department, last year released a five-year budget projection revealing that the weapon's production costs stand to bloat to $500 million. Though critics have asserted that the same functions of the weapon could be accomplished with non-nuclear weapons, Rumsfeld seems adamant on this proposal to not only complete this particular study but also "to revitalize the nuclear weapons infrastructure."
ENVIRO – OUT WITH THE OLD GROWTH: A timber company will soon begin leveling large swaths of an vast old growth forest that was partially burned after Oregon's Illinois Valley fires in 2002, the Associated Press reports. The U.S. Forest Service had originally ordered the logging firm, Silver Creek Timber Co., to harvest only in areas designated for logging under the Northwest Forest Plan, which was designed to protect the northern spotted owl and other local fish and wildlife habitat. "Under pressure from the timber industry," however, the Forest Service has expanded its original plans to include roughly 20,000 acres of forest, much of which "comes from roadless areas, which the Bush administration hopes to open to timber harvest after changing a Clinton administration policy that had barred logging there." In addition to being visual marvels, old growth forests typically serve as reservoirs for rare species that cannot thrive or easily regenerate in younger forests
with Nico Pitney and Mipe Okunseinde
February 1, 2005
CIVIL LIBERTIES
CIVIL LIBERTIES
Failing to Comply
Legal theories advanced by Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales – still awaiting confirmation by Congress – were refuted by a federal judge on Monday, in a ruling that said the Bush administration had "failed to comply" with a Supreme Court decision giving Guantanamo Bay prisoners the right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts. According to Judge Joyce Hens Green, the system of military tribunals the Pentagon set up as an alternative after the high court's ruling are prejudicial and illegal, denying prisoners access to evidence against them and adequate legal assistance. In addition, Green's ruling was the first to question "whether some of the information used against the detainees had been obtained by torture and was thus unreliable."
AGAINST GONZALES: Green's 75-page opinion "specifically rejects legal theories advanced by Alberto Gonzales," the White House counsel who President Bush has nominated for attorney general. In 2002, concerned about "possible future prosecution for war crimes," it was Gonzales who urged the president to declare the war in Afghanistan, including the detention of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, exempt from the provisions of the Geneva Convention. Green rejected that advice, noting that "nothing ... authorizes the president of the United States to rule by fiat that an entire group of fighters…falls outside" the treaty's definitions of "prisoners-of-war." Another federal judge, James Robertson, reached a similar conclusion in November, when he struck down a system of military commissions the administration had established to prosecute some Guantanamo prisoners for war crimes.
AGAINST TORTURE: Green's ruling is the first to begin tracing the consequences of another legal decision influenced by Gonzales: the attempted legalization of abusive interrogation methods such as "waterboarding." One reason the military tribunals were illegal, Green said, was that they "improperly relied 'on statements possibly obtained through torture or other coercion,' which itself violated due process." Gonzales has publicly denounced torture, "but last month in written responses to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he suggested it may be permissible to use cruel, inhuman or degrading interrogation methods on noncitizens held by the U.S. outside its borders." Green's ruling bears out some of the complaints of FBI agents who visited Guantanamo in 2003: in one memo, an agent warned abusive interrogating methods would destroy the government's ability to prosecute Guantanamo detainees in the future.
AGAINST TRIBUNALS: The possible abuse of detainees was just one factor which invalidated the military tribunals set up by the Pentagon as an alternative to hearings in U.S. courts. Green admitted some captives at Guantanamo "may indeed be Taliban or al Qaeda fighters, as the U.S. military argues. But, she said, the reviews designed to determine that are so stacked against them that their findings cannot be trusted." Green said the government's "illogically broad definition of 'enemy combatant'" had allowed it "to hold Muslim men from dozens of countries for as long as three years." In many cases people were detained "simply for being alleged members of groups that do not like Americans," and had trouble "proving a negative" in a legal process that was prejudiced against them. (Get more info on Alberto Gonzales.)
Under the Radar
HALLIBURTON – FLEECING THE PENTAGON: Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), the massive subsidiary of Vice President Cheney's former firm Halliburton, is estimating that costs for the basic services it provides in Iraq for U.S. troops "could exceed $10 billion." But even if it seems that President Bush is willing to hand over a blank check when it comes to the war in Iraq, the Army initially only budgeted $3.6 billion for these same services. Labeling the difference "an 'unaffordable' budget gap," Army officials have had to slash various troop services from their list, but the disparity still stands at about $4 billion, and the Army is not sure how much more can be cut "without causing significant disruptions." There was seemingly no discussion as to whether the notoriously wasteful KBR, which has yet to be fully investigated by Pentagon auditors, was just up to its old overcharging tricks once again. Whatever the compromise, hopefully this time the Army will get all that it pays for.
CIVIL LIBERTIES – PAY TO PLAY: Freedom may not be free, but this is ridiculous. The U.S. Justice Department says a civil liberties group seeking official documents about the wave of post-Sept. 11 detentions must pony up a whopping $373,000 to conduct the search, and even then there is no guarantee that the documents found will be released. The People for the American Way Foundation, which filed the requests under the Freedom of Information Act, "accused the Justice Department of making the cost exceedingly high to deter its request." Journalism organizations and other public interest groups confirmed the accusation, telling the Associated Press the fee was "unusually high." Said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press: "If that's what it takes to track down secrecy in our court system, things are worse than I thought."
HEALTH – ABSTINENCE-ONLY FLUNKS: Reuters reports that abstinence-only "education" programs have had zero impact on teenagers' sexual behavior in President Bush's home state of Texas. In fact, researchers from Texas A&M University say that teens from 29 Texas high schools actually increased their sexual activity despite taking the abstinence programs, which included lessons to "bolster students' self-esteem, based on the theory that self-confident teenagers would not have sex." In one case, 24 percent of boys in the tenth grade, about 14 to 15 years old, reported having sex before receiving abstinence education; after taking the course, the number who said they were sexually active jumped to 39 percent. President Bush, apparently more concerned about promoting right-wing ideology than accuracy or effectiveness, has pushed for significant funding increases for such programs, requesting $270 million for 2005.
ADMINISTRATION – A DIFFERENT KIND OF NUCLEAR OPTION: According to an article in today's Washington Post, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is pushing for funding "to resume study of building an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon" and asked former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to include the item in next year's budget. Aversion to the research project has come from both sides of the aisles and for various reasons. Members of Congress have been wary of nuclear weapons research because they understand that such moves stand to undermine our nonproliferation efforts in other countries. Additionally, the National Nuclear Security Administration, the manager of the nuclear program arm of the Energy Department, last year released a five-year budget projection revealing that the weapon's production costs stand to bloat to $500 million. Though critics have asserted that the same functions of the weapon could be accomplished with non-nuclear weapons, Rumsfeld seems adamant on this proposal to not only complete this particular study but also "to revitalize the nuclear weapons infrastructure."
ENVIRO – OUT WITH THE OLD GROWTH: A timber company will soon begin leveling large swaths of an vast old growth forest that was partially burned after Oregon's Illinois Valley fires in 2002, the Associated Press reports. The U.S. Forest Service had originally ordered the logging firm, Silver Creek Timber Co., to harvest only in areas designated for logging under the Northwest Forest Plan, which was designed to protect the northern spotted owl and other local fish and wildlife habitat. "Under pressure from the timber industry," however, the Forest Service has expanded its original plans to include roughly 20,000 acres of forest, much of which "comes from roadless areas, which the Bush administration hopes to open to timber harvest after changing a Clinton administration policy that had barred logging there." In addition to being visual marvels, old growth forests typically serve as reservoirs for rare species that cannot thrive or easily regenerate in younger forests
posted by T. Scott Brineman at 8:03 AM
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