Thursday, June 12 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

Center for Constitutional Research
June 12, 2008

Today is a historic victory for the rule of law. We won! For the third time, the Supreme Court has upheld the fundamental rights of Guantanamo detainees. In its historic decision in CCR's case, Boumediene v. Bush, the Court affirmed detainees' right to habeas corpus. One of the oldest and most basic legal protections, habeas corpus affords the incarcerated the right to challenge the legality of their detention before a judge and keeps the king and president from arbitrarily locking people up and throwing away the key.

We're asking you to take action in two important ways: please make a contribution to CCR today so we can continue this important work, and please write to the presidential candidates to demand that they uphold the Supreme Court's decision.

The Administration has delayed, ignored and sought to evade two prior Supreme Court decisions, Rasul v. Bush in 2004 and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld in 2006, both of which upheld the rights of Guantanamo detainees.

 

Wednesday, June 11 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

by Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton
Posted at Lewrockwell.com
June 7, 2008

... Polls show that 36 percent of the American public and more than half of New Yorkers lack confidence in the 9/11 Commission Report. Despite a significant percentage of the public’s disbelief in the explanation of the event that took America to war in the Middle East, Congress and the media continue to tolerate the Bush administration’s aggressive rhetoric, which seeks to widen the “war on terror” from Afghanistan and Iraq to Iran, Syria, and Lebanon. The diligence with which Vice President Cheney and the neoconservatives press for an attack on Iran, and the extreme position that the Bush administration has taken on executive power, raise the question whether the Bush administration has an agenda that takes precedence over America’s constitutional democracy.

Never in its history have the American people faced such danger to their constitutional protections as they face today from those in the government who hold the reins of power and from elements of the legal profession and the federal judiciary that support “energy in the executive.” An assertive executive backed by an aggressive U.S. Department of Justice and unobstructed by a supine Congress and an intimidated corporate media has demonstrated an ability to ignore statutory law and public opinion. The precedents that have been set during the opening years of the twenty-first century bode ill for the future of American liberty.

 

Wednesday, June 4 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

Many of us learned for the first time this week that only one relative of a 9/11 victim was invited to attend the proceedings at Guantánamo Bay. The Defense Department’s belated disclosure that Debra Burlingame, a staunch supporter of this administration and the military commission system, was secretly invited to attend the arraignment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is but the latest example of a covert, politicized military commission system that has little hope of bringing any legitimate outcome. As people who lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks of 9/11, we want nothing more than to see that justice is served in the prosecution of suspects. However, we know that no justice will come out of a system that has been compromised by politics and stripped of the rule of law. Unfortunately, the government insists on trying those accused of participating in the 9/11 attacks in military commissions that operate largely outside the realm of public scrutiny and rely on confessions derived by torture, secret evidence that a defendant cannot rebut, and hearsay.  

Tuesday, June 3 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

Special Report: A Phila. law firm wages an epic legal battle to win billions from Saudi Arabia

By Chris Mondics, Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer
May 31, 2008

First of two parts.

Less than a mile from the mournful place in Lower Manhattan where the World Trade Center came crashing to the ground, in a hushed federal courthouse, a small band of Philadelphia lawyers is prying loose secrets of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

It is here that the Cozen O'Connor law firm has filed an 812-page lawsuit on behalf of U.S. and global insurance companies alleging that Saudi Arabia and Saudi-backed Islamist charities nurtured and financed al-Qaeda, the author of those deadly attacks.

 

Tuesday, June 3 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

On Tuesday, June 3, join the Center for Constitutional Rights for an exciting live webcast of the event "True Crimes: The Untold Story Behind the Devastation of Iraq." The event, which will take place at New York City's Town Hall, features bestselling author JEREMY SCAHILL, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer CHRIS HEDGES, journalist LAILA AL-ARIAN, and The New Yorker's SEYMOUR HERSH, as they go behind the headlines to tell the untold story of the occupation of Iraq, the daily plight of Iraqi civilians, and the ongoing role of private mercenaries in America's so-called "war on terror."

The webcast will stream live on CCR's website on Tuesday, June 3, 7 p.m. EST. Go here for more details.

 

Friday, May 23 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

Scholar Urges Candidates Debate Role of President's Usurpation of Power

By Jeff Demers and Sherwood Ross

Global Research, May 22, 2008

President Bush’s usurpation of power since 9/11 was termed “rapacious,” “predatory,” and “extra-Constitutional,” by presidential scholar Michael Genovese, director of the Institute for Leadership Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Genovese said the “Unitary Theory” of the executive espoused by the Bush White House “is a very strange and ahistorical notion that says, ‘In a crisis all power gravitates to the president. No one, not the courts, not the Congress can interfere with the president and in effect, the president is the state.”

 

Friday, May 23 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

Tue May 20, 2008 5:08pm EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2032733320080520

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iceland is the world's most peaceful nation while the United States is ranked among the bottom third, according to a study released on Tuesday.

The "Global Peace Index," compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, ranked the United States 97th out of 140 countries according to how peaceful they were domestically and how they interacted with the outside world.

The United States slipped from 96th last year, but was still ahead of foe Iran which ranked 105th. It, however, lagged Belarus, Cuba, South Korea, Chile, Libya and others which were listed as more peaceful.

 

Thursday, May 15 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

Under a new plan, the government could take your DNA and keep it on file permanently if you are arrested at a demonstration on federal property. Take action today to stop the government from giving itself sweeping new powers to create DNA databases.

Please read this alert for background on the plan and immediately go here and click on the yellow "Add Comments" balloon to file public comments with the government to oppose the plan. The government is only accepting comments until this Monday, May 19, so take action today!

At the end of 2005, a little-noticed provision was slipped into the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization bill that provided the federal government with the power to collect and permanently keep DNA samples from anyone arrested for any crime whether or not they are convicted, any non-U.S. citizen merely detained by federal authorities for any reason, and everyone in federal prison. Now the government is trying to put the DNA Fingerprint Act into practice.

Federal agencies would be required to take DNA samples from:

* Individuals arrested for the most minor of crimes, such as peaceful protestors who are demonstrating on federal property.
* Countless numbers of visitors from other countries who are pulled aside in airports by the Transportation Security Administration.
* Lawful immigrants seeking admission to this country, whether at the land border or in passport control at the airport.

 

Thursday, May 15 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

By Jordan Lite
Daily News Staff Writer
Thursday, May 8th 2008

More than 360 workers who dealt with the aftermath of the World Trade Center disaster have died, state health officials said Wednesday.

Officials have determined the cause of death of 154 of the responders and volunteers who toiled at Ground Zero, the blocks nearby and at the Fresh Kills landfill, where debris from the site was taken.

Of those, 80 died of cancer.

"It's the tip of the iceberg," said David Worby, who is representing 10,000 workers - 600 with cancer - who say they got sick after working on rescue and recovery efforts.

"These statistics bear out how toxic that site was," Worby said.

 

Friday, May 2 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

GeorgeWashington.blogspot.com
April 30, 2008

A variety of current and former high-level officials have recently warned that the Bush administration is attempting to instill a dictatorship in America, and will itself carry out a fake terrorist attack in order to obtain one.

Background

FBI agents, Time Magazine, Keith Olbermann and The Washington Post and Rolling Stone have all stated that the administration has issued terror alerts based on scant intelligence in order to rally people around the flag when the administration was suffering in the polls. This implies — as an initial matter only — that the administration will play fast and loose with the facts in order to instill fear for political purposes

 

Thursday, May 1 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

ACLU Blog
Thursday, May 1, 2008

"It's Not About Revenge, This Is About Justice" Lorie van Auken, one of the September 11 Advocates, speaks in this video about why it's important that true justice is served to the detainees at Guantánamo. Watch the video here: ACLU Blog.

Van Auken is supporting the ACLU's John Adams Project, the ACLU's effort to assist in the legal representation of Guantánamo detainees. You can learn more about the project, and read the September 11 Advocates' statement in support of it, at www.aclu.org/johnadams.