10-08-10 ACLU Scorecard: Obama Is Embracing Abusive Bush Policies // Scorecard ACLU: Obama está adoptando políticas abusivas de Bush

ACLU Scorecard: Obama Is Embracing Abusive Bush Policies

Tuesday 10 August 2010

by: Deb Weinstein, t r u t h o u t | Report

http://www.truth-out.org/aclu-scorecard-obama-is-embracing-abusive-bush-policies62153

For disillusioned Obama supporters, the ACLU's July report

"Establishing the New Normal" is not a heartening read.

After being voted into office on promises that included undoing abuses

carried out under the Bush administration - promises to protect

privacy, to end government-sanctioned torture and rendition programs

and to end the use of military commissions for non-enemy combatants -

President Obama's administration is proving it is far easier to tow

the line than buck a trend.

According to a report by the ACLU, the current White House has not

just failed to meaningfully follow through on its promises, but has

also taken abusive policies, and, as shown in the case of targeted and

interminable detentions, eroded civil rights to unprecedented levels.

Although the ACLU applauds the administration's condemnation of the

torture and rendition programs instituted under Bush, it says these

positive steps are overwhelmed by what remains uncorrected and

unaddressed. Using the CIA's destruction of 92 interrogation tapes as

an example, the ACLU says that an investigation into the incident -

which was approved by a CIA official and is purported to have erased

torturous interrogations carried about by Americans - has dragged on

for three years with no resolution in sight The length of time is a

minor issue compared with what the ACLU says such foot dragging

signifies: "Sanctioning impunity for government officials who

authorized torture."

Fear of an unchecked, unaccountable government permeates the ACLU's

report, particularly in the section about targeted killings. In this

instance, it is not just that the Obama administration has continued a

policy of targeting alleged terrorists, but that it has a new wrinkle:

American citizens, such as Anwar al-Awlaki, are also being rounded up

in the "O.K.-to-kill" list. The shortfalls of this approach are many,

and the ACLU says that the inaccuracy of less life-and-death

approaches should make such an approach intolerable. "Over the last

eight years, we have seen the government over and over again detain

men as 'terrorists,' only to discover later that the evidence was

weak, wrong, or non-existent," the report says.

When the accused do have legal recourse, the ACLU says the

administration is also failing, and the two-tier court system

available to detainees - federal courts and military commissions -

does little to showcase the United States' legal system as fair and

just. Instead, the ACLU says the biased military commission system,

which has a lower evidence standard and allows anonymous, third-party

testimony, is also inhumane because abuse during detention or abuse

during interrogations do not disqualify testimony. The ACLU says even

the federal court system is tainted because it is used at the

government's discretion, and even then, only when the defense thinks

losing its case is impossible.

The report also takes aim at detention itself. According to both the

ACLU and the Department of Justice's January 2010 Guantanamo Review

Task Force report, there are Yemenis, who in the parlance of the

Department of Justice, are eligible for "conditional detainment," and

in the language of the ACLU, "have been cleared for release after

years of harsh detention." These Yemenis can only be released under

the following conditions: if there is an appropriate rehabilitation

program for the detainees when and if they return home; if they cannot

be repatriated to Yemen, that the third-party country has sufficient

security. But first, the US has to revoke the moratorium on their

release. The ACLU says, however, that this problem is not confined to

Yemenis at Guantanamo, nor does blame rest solely with the president.

The ACLU says Congress has also helped keep individuals, specifically

Chinese Uighers, from being released.

The ACLU also asserts that the current administration has allowed the

rules of detention to morph beyond reasonable limits such as geography

to the point that individuals can be picked up in areas that are not

war zones, transported to detention centers that are in war zones, and

then, based on the location of their detention, treated as though they

were captured in battle areas. Such power, the ACLU says, makes

everyone a combatant. The ACLU indicates the domestic impact of this

logic could erase civil rights, particularly if a Thompson, Illinois,

prison becomes a holding place for Guantanamo detainees. "We fear that

if precedent is established that terrorism suspects can be held

without trial in the United States, this administration and future

administrations will be tempted to bypass routinely the constitutional

restraints of the criminal justice system," the report says.