Psyche, Science, and Society

Iceland Sets New Path Toward Press Freedom

[This is an expanded version of my earlier post, now distributed as an article to CounterPunch and elsewhere.]

If all goes well, Iceland may be about to make history. No, I don’t mean the refusal of the populace to get saddled with Iceland’s $5 billion bad “Icesave” bank debt. Rather, I’m referring to the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative [IMMI], which combines the world’s best legislation to protect press and information freedom into one path-breaking information freedom bill for Iceland.

IMMI attempts to tip the world balance toward press freedom by setting up Iceland as a Mecca of press and information freedom. Key provisions of the IMMI include: whistleblower protections; strong protections for anonymous sources and the journalists and media organizations who deal with them; a strengthening of protections against prior restraint by governments or through use of the courts; and protection for Internet Service Providers [ISPs], preventing them from being held responsible for information passing through their networks.

IMMI also includes provisions against the use of lawsuits to suppress information. Thus, under IMMI, Iceland would not enforce foreign judgments against ISPs and media organizations based in Iceland. Further, Icelandic-based organizations would have the right to file counter-suits in Iceland against attempts to suppress their free speech in other countries.

Additionally contained in IMMI are protections against misuses of court processes to suppress speech, allowing judges to decide that an issue before the court involves freedom of speech and thus trigger protections before those being sued are coerced into settling cases or submitting to abusive subpoenas due to inadequate resources to defend themselves.

If IMMI passes, Iceland’s actions could affect press freedoms elsewhere. Iceland’s internet servers would become available to reporters and bloggers around the world. These servers could hold documents and reports that governments or corporations are attempting to suppress and would come under Icelandic protections. The right to countersue against attempts at suppressing free speech elsewhere will provide some protection for journalists and media organizations in other countries used Icelandic servers.. While there is no guarantee that the right to countersue will deter all abuses, in many cases the threat of litigation, or even criminal penalties, in Iceland will constrain those who might otherwise move to suppress information.

In other cases, attempts to suppress free expression, such as a subpoena seeking the identity of a confidential source in other countries would be in violation of Icelandic laws, providing reporters and other information providers with leverage in their own countries. Thus, a reporter under pressure to reveal a source could argue that these demands would place that reporter afoul of Icelandic law. Some courts may respect this claim, since they would be unable to guarantee immunity for the reporter.

The IMMI arose out of last summer’s outrage  at efforts by a Icelandic bank to suppress television reporting on a document leaked to Wikileaks — the internet haven for leaked documents — regarding the bank’s questionable financial dealings. Icelanders were outraged that their television station was enjoined from reporting on a document that was freely available on the web.

Wikileaks editors Julian Assange and Daniel Schmitt originally spearheaded the creation of IMMI and have moved to Iceland to help secure its passage. Wikileaks is well aware of the dangers of censorship as banks and several countries, including Australia and South Africa, have attempted to censor materials posted on Wikileaks. If IMMI passes, Iceland would become the perfect environment for Wikileaks to base its servers. Other media and information providers will likely follow suit and base their servers in Iceland to take advantage of its new protections.

IMMI thus could be a boon to Iceland’s economy, making it a center of the new information economy. But IMMI, because of its strong assist to transparency efforts like Wikileaks, also is seen by many Icelanders as a critical tool in preventing the next economic collapse through shedding light on murky questionable financial and other corporate dealings. As parliamentarian Birgitta Jónsdóttir stated:

“The collapse woke up the nation and by rallying together we pushed through historical changes. The government was forced to resign, the central bank manager was forced to resign, the head of the financial supervisory authority was forced to resign. The people of Iceland realized that by joining forces real change could and would take place.

“People woke up to the fact that the infrastructure they had put their trust in, had failed. Our academics, the government, the parliament, the central bank, and the media had all failed. It made us understand that the media was weak, that there was a lack of transparency and that in order to live in a healthy society, we had take part in shaping it.

“We have come to understand that fundamental changes need to take place to strengthen our democracy and that a new legislative package is needed to that promotes transparency and political accountability.

“Because the world is connected by financial and information flows, suppression of the truth is not only our problem, but everyone’s problem. The right of the people to understand what is happening to their societies needs to be strengthened. I believe in supporting the world’s most courageous journalists and writers with the best legislation possible. That is why I am proud to be a part of the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative”

IMMI was introduced into parliament February 17 by 19 parliamentary representatives from all parties in parliament, almost a third of the 63 MPs. It will be voted on in April or May of this year. Passage will constitute one of the most important blows for democracy and transparency anywhere in years. It will also be a rare rebuke to the growing power of corporations and governments to restrict information flow world-wide.

Add comment March 12th, 2010

Iceland set to become beacon of press freedom

If all goes well, Iceland may be about to make history. No, I don’t mean the refusal of the populace to get saddled with Icesave bank’s $5 billion debt. Rather, I’m referring to the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative [IMMI], which combines the world’s best legislation to protect press and information freedom into one press freedom bill for Iceland.

IMMI attempts to tip the world balance toward press freedom by setting up Iceland as a Mecca of press and information freedom. Further, Iceland’s actions would affect press freedoms elsewhere. If the IMMI passes, Iceland’s internet servers would become available to reporters and bloggers around the world. These servers could hold documents and reports that governments or corporations are attempting to suppress.

Attempts to suppress free expression in other countries would then be afoul of Icelandic laws, providing reporters and other information providers with leverage in their own countries. They could argue that specific efforts to suppress information, such as demands for revealing confidential sources, would place the reporter afoul of Icelandic law. Some courts may respect this argument. In other cases, one could get those trying to suppress information to back off by threatening to sue them in Iceland, thus making suppression very expensive.

It was a bank’s effort last summer to suppress Icelandic television reporting on a document leaked to Wikileaks — the internet haven for leaked documents — regarding the financial dealings of the bank that sparked the IMMI. Icelanders were outraged that their television station was enjoined from reporting on the document that was freely available on the web.

IMMI was introduced by 19 parliamentary representatives from all parties in parliament. It will be voted on in April or May, 2010. Passage will constitute one of the most important blows for freedom anywhere in years. It will also be a rare rebuke to the growing power of corporations and governments to restrict information flow world-wide.

Aljazeera reports on this magnificent effort. It includes an interview with Julien Assange, editor of Wikileaks:

[BTW, please go contribute to keep Wikileaks alive.]

Add comment March 8th, 2010

Student punished for refusing to recite the Pledge

When I was in 5th grade I caused a bit of a ruckus when I refused to say the school prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. I objected to the phrase “with liberty and justice for all” because, as it seemed to me, Sacco and Vanzetti had gotten neither liberty nor justice.  further, the word “indivisible” made no sense to me as the Civil War showed that it could, indeed, be divided, though hundreds of thousands of dead prevented it that time.

I could not understand why I should recite something that was obviously false. The school called my parents. when they supported me, the school agreed that, if I were to stand silently during the Pledge, it would be OK. That was in the 1960’s.

I thought those days were long gone. But a Maryland teacher recently yelled at, and called the police on, a middle school student who refused to say the Pledge. Fortunately, the ACLU was there and the school was forced to back down and follow its own rules.

However, the trauma to the student, who will be forever tormented by fellow students for being different, will continue. Raw Story has this account:

Police escort student out of class after refusal to recite Pledge of Allegiance

By Daniel Tencer

A middle school teacher in Montgomery County, Maryland, will have to apologize to a 13-year-old student after yelling at her and having her escorted out of class by school police when the student refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.According to the ACLU of Maryland, a 13-year-old female student at Roberto Clemente Middle School in Germantown refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance on Jan. 27. The teacher reportedly ordered the girl out into the hallway, where he threatened the girl with detention and then sent her to the school counselor’s office.

The next day, when the student again refused to stand for the pledge, the teacher called school officers to remove her from the classroom and take her to the counselor’s office once again.

“When the student’s mother reached out to an assistant principal for help in dealing with the teacher’s abusive and improper actions, the official said her daughter should instead apologize for her ‘defiance.’ The student did apologize, twice,” the ACLU states.

The right to sit silently during the Pledge of Allegiance has been held up by the US Supreme Court, and is enshrined in Maryland state law and Mongtomery County Public Schools’ own policies, reports the Washington Post.

“No one will be permitted to intentionally embarrass you if you choose not to participate,” says the school district’s handbook, according to TheGazette.net in Maryland.

The ACLU and the girl’s mother declined to identify the girl. They say the student, now 14, has been “traumatized” by the experience, including taunting from fellow students, and has not returned to the school since the incident.

Neither the ACLU nor the school district would identify the teacher involved.

The girl’s mother says the way the teacher “bellowed” at her daughter was inappropriate and the school should take disciplinary action against the teacher, reports TheGazette.net.

“It’s an even bigger problem because he did it to a child in front of a group of other children,” the mother said. “On top of that, the school didn’t protect her. I thought they would protect her, and that’s why I let her go to that school. I was disappointed.”

The turning point evidently came when the ACLU of Maryland sent a letter (PDF) to the school district asking for an apology.

“Expression of patriotism in unsettling times certainly is a worthy and understandable emotion,” the letter stated. “But, as the Supreme Court recognizes, that expression is best honored by venerating the civil liberties and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution and not by losing patience with those whose views or actions do not conform to those of the majority.”

The teacher’s actions were “a violation of our regulations, and we’re in the process of rectifying the situation,” Montgomery Public Schools spokesperson Dana Tofig told TheGazette.net. Tofig said the teacher would apologize to the student, but would not say if any disciplinary action would be taken against the teacher.

The president of the county’s teachers’ union, Doug Prouty, told the Washington Examiner that he supports the move to have the teacher apologize.

“My initial thought is yes, but we would need to know all of the details,” Prouty said.

School officials say several conflicts involving the Pledge of Allegiance arise every year in Maryland, but most are resolved quietly.

1 comment February 25th, 2010

UCLA students protest fee hikes

UCLA students have been protesting huge 32% fee hikes this week that will the cost of an education (not counting books and living costs)  above $10,000 for the first time. Students are concerned that these increases will increase the inaccessibility of higher education to poorer students. As has happened so often at campuses around the country, the university called in police in riot gear to suppress protests. Fourteen students were arrested and others injured. Protest, including a sit-in, are continuing on Thursday. [A statement from the students sitting in can be heard here.]:

November 19th, 2009

Horton: Protest in the Islamic Republic of Minneapolis

Scott Horton discusses the tendency of our growing National Security State to suppress dissent, including the invention of a new charge of:

Twittering in the First Degree

By Scott Horton

International summitry has attracted over the past few years an array of protesters. Some are peaceful, out to make a point about the lack of accountability of the international system in its adherence to free-trade norms. Others are not. I’m sympathetic to the use of aggressive tactics by the police to keep the latter in check, and to the dilemma that police face in sorting out the innocent protesters from those who are up to mischief. But I also believe that the right of citizens to protest peacefully should not be upended in the process of controlling the miscreants. Catching footage of the police efforts to control crowds at the recent G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, I kept asking myself: where’s the adult supervision?

Radley Balko has a very thoughtful discussion of these issues up at Reason, in the course of which he makes some compelling points.

Unfortunately, the projection of overwhelming force at such events is becoming more common. At last year’s Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, police conducted peremptory raids on the homes of protesters before the convention. Journalists who inquired about the legitimacy of the raids and arrests made during the convention were also arrested. In all, 672 people were arrested, including at least 39 journalists. The arrest of Amy Goodman of Democracy Now was captured on a widely-viewed video. She was charged with “conspiracy to riot.” Those charges were dropped. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported in February that 442 of the 672 who were arrested had their charges either dropped or dismissed.

These are precisely the kinds of events where free speech and the freedom to protest is in most need of protection. Instead, the more high-profile the event, the more influential the players, and the more high-stakes the decision being made, the more determined police and political officials seem to be in making sure dissent is kept as far away from the decision makers as possible. Or silenced entirely.

The fundamental problem is that the priorities of the police are being perverted. They should ensure the safety and security of the meetings they are deployed to protect. But they also have a duty to protect the free speech rights of ordinary citizens and to separate them from the troublemakers. This is the duty that is being abdicated.

Indeed, in Pittsburgh, the police consistently appeared to overreact. They did not respect peaceful protest and seemed to mistake every demonstrator for a violent anarchist. Their heavy-handed tactics included some bizarre moves, including the arrest and charging of a New Yorker named Elliot Madison for a brand-new crime: twittering confidential information about police movements to the protesters. The Pittsburgh police has charged its prisoner with “hindering apprehension, criminal use of communication facility and possessing instruments of crime.” The “instruments of crime” apparently included scanners and computer equipment. The prisoner had been twittering information about police movements to the public. That’s a crime? Evidently in the minds of the police (and the Madison case appears so far to involve the Pittsburgh police, the Pennsylvania state police and the FBI). That’s news to me. So far I haven’t been able to locate in any statute book a basis for the police claims to secrecy about information that they transmit in publicly accessible radio bands, and the police haven’t yet bothered to explain themselves. On the other hand, the prisoner’s right to do what he was doing is pretty clearly staked out: it is in the first amendment.

But there’s another parallel here that can only serve to heighten the concerns of those who see evidence of a creeping National Security State. Mr. Madison was doing precisely what the protesters in Tehran did throughout the Green Revolution—as Western leaders, including many of those assembled at the G-20 in Pittsburgh, saluted their heroism. The police’s efforts to criminalize tweeting looks downright creepy and rests on the constitutionally suspicious assumption that police’s movements, like military maneuvers in wartime, are entitled to some sort of national security protection. That’s just the sort of reasoning we would expect of Ahmadinejad and his thugs. But an American police force? I for one hope these charges aren’t dropped. It’s time for these police tactics to be tested against the Constitution, by a judge who is sworn to uphold it.

October 7th, 2009

The Return of McCarthyism

UPDATE: THIS VIDEO WAS REMOVED FROM YOUTUBE. I HAVE OBTAINED ANOTHER LINK FROM A DIFFERENT SOURCE:

A must-watch to give insight into today’s politics:

Find more videos like this on DramaTube

2 comments September 20th, 2009

Calling for a Boycott of Israel for its Treatment of Palestinians is not Anti-Semitic say Progressive Jews

Recently I posted an open letter: Progressive Jews say calling for Israeli boycott not antisemitic. The organizers of the letter have issued the following press release along with the following information for those Jews still wishing to sign:

The site is www.gopetition.com/petitions/dierkes-letter.html It’s just been set up so there are very few names at the moment, but please feel free to pass on this link.

The press release:

For immediate release

Contacts:
Stephen R. Shalom, stephenrshalom@gmail.com
Racheli Gai, racheli@sonoracohousing.com

Jewish Peace Activists Defend German Critic of Israel
Calling for a Boycott of Israel for its Treatment of Palestinians is not Anti-Semitic

Montclair, NJ, April 8, 2009 — More than 370 Jewish peace activists from around the world signed a statement defending German politician Hermann Dierkes against charges of anti-Semitism.

Dierkes, a left-wing politician with a distinguished record of fighting for social justice, called for a boycott of Israeli goods as a means of putting pressure on the Israeli government to end its oppression of Palestinians. For this he has been subjected to vicious denunciations for anti-Semitism.

The signers of the statement — from Israel, Germany, the United States, and several other countries — expressed their objection to those “who use charges of anti-Semitism to attempt to squelch legitimate dissent.”

The signers have differing views on the wisdom and efficacy of a general boycott, some favoring it, some preferring a more selective boycott focused on the occupation, but all agree that a call for a boycott of Israel has nothing in common with the Nazi policy of “Don’t buy from Jews.”

“It is no more anti-Semitic to boycott Israel to end the occupation,” the statement declared, “than it was anti-white to boycott South Africa to end apartheid.”

Among the U.S. signatories are Phyllis BENNIS; Stephen Eric BRONNER; Leslie CAGAN; Noam CHOMSKY; Daniel ELLSBERG, Melanie KAYE/KANTROWITZ; Joanne LANDY; Zachary LOCKMAN; Frances Fox PIVEN; Adrienne RICH, Matthew ROTHSCHILD; Sami SHALOM CHETRIT; Jerome SLATER; and Howard ZINN.

Among the foreign signers are Tikva HONIG-PARNASS, Adam KELLER, Lea TSEMEL, and Michel WARSCHAWSKI (Israel); Daniel BENSAÏD and Michaël LÖWY (France); Naomi KLEIN (Canada); Felicia LANGER (Germany); and Moshe MACHOVER and Eyal WEIZMAN (UK).

“We gathered these names in just a week,” said Stephen R. Shalom, a professor of political science at William Paterson University, one of several individuals who initiated the letter in response to their outrage at the accusation of anti-Semitism levelled at Dierkes. “We’ve been getting a constant stream of additional names of people who want to add their names to the statement.” They can do so at.

Racheli Gai, an Israeli-American peace activist, noted that ” “There is real anti-Semitism in the world, and — like all forms of racism — it must be vigorously denounced.  But frivolously making charges of anti-Semitism makes fighting the real thing harder, because it cheapens its meaning, and renders the motivations of even those who are making the charge legitimately suspect.” As the statement concluded, “The Holocaust was one of the most horrific events in modern history. It is a dishonor to its victims to use its memory as a bludgeon to silence principled critics of Israel’s unconscionable treatment of Palestinians.”

Hermann Dierkes, a former city counsellor in the German city of Duisberg representing the Left Party, said the accusations of anti-Semitism hit him very hard. “Because I am well aware of the German inextinguishable heritage of fascism and the genocide of the European Jews, I feel especially obliged to fight against racist prejudices and oppression. Human rights are indivisible for all individuals and peoples of the world. The right of self-determination has to be guaranteed for the Palestinian people too. This is a precondition to gain peace for the whole region.”

Among the many messages of solidarity he has received thus far, said Dierkes, “what moved me most was the open letter, signed by more than 370 Jewish peace activists from so many countries, including Israel.”

The full text of the open letter can be seen here, along with the full list of initial signatories. The developing list of additional signers can be seen at www.gopetition.com/petitions/dierkes-letter/signatures.html.

1 comment April 8th, 2009

Brooks: OLC memos and the big lie

LA Times columnist Rosa Brooks discusses the Bush administration’s use of the Office of Legal Counsel memos relased on Monday:

Bush’s big lies
Behind the sordid memos that purported to give legal justification for the war on terror

By Rosa Brooks

How did they ever get away with it?

On Tuesday, the Justice Department released a batch of memos drafted in 2001 and 2002 by lawyers in the Bush administration’s Office of Legal Counsel. Written mainly by John Yoo, then a deputy director in the office, they laid out the purported legal justifications for a theory of presidential power amounting to virtual dictatorship.

Collectively, they declare that if the U.S. military were deployed against suspected terrorists inside the United States, even U.S. citizens wouldn’t be protected by the 4th Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure. They also conclude that citizens and noncitizens could be designated “unlawful enemy combatants” by the president on the basis of secret evidence. And once that happens, they could be locked up indefinitely and tortured, without charge, access to counsel or any procedure through which to challenge the detention or treatment.

I know: All this is old hat. With so many leaks over the years, who doesn’t know by now that the Bush administration sought virtually unlimited executive power to monitor, detain and use force against individuals anywhere around the globe in the name of the “war on terror”?

But even today, it’s still shocking to see it laid out in black and white.

In a way, what’s most shocking is just how outrageously bad the office’s legal arguments were. The 2001-2002 memos mischaracterize previous Supreme Court decisions, ignore crucial legal precedents and contain gaping holes in logic. To accept the theories the Office of Legal Counsel came up with, you need to assume that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had it all wrong when they rebelled against Britain’s King George III in 1776. You need to believe, more or less, that the 225 years of American jurisprudence between 1776 and 2001 amounted to one giant mistake.

The memos are so embarrassingly foolish that the Office of Legal Counsel itself was ultimately forced to repudiate them. In October 2008, the office advised that “caution should be exercised before relying in any respect” on its own previous advice about domestic surveillance or the domestic use of the military. A week before President Obama’s inauguration, the office issued another “never mind” memo, stating that “certain propositions stated in several memos respecting … matters of war and national security do not reflect the current views of this office.”

Better late than never, I guess.

But all this raises the question: How did such dangerously bad legal memos ever get taken seriously in the first place?

One answer is suggested by the so-called Big Lie theory of political propaganda, articulated most infamously by Adolf Hitler. Ordinary people “more readily fall victim to the big lie than the small lie,” wrote Hitler, “since they themselves often tell small lies … but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”

In other words: Paradoxically, the more outrageous the claim, the more apt we are to assume there must be some truth to it. Just as some banks and insurance companies are apparently “too big to fail,” some claims from those with political power seem to strike us as “too big to disbelieve.” “That seems so outrageous it must be right,” we tell ourselves. “The important people keep saying it — they must know something I don’t know.”

That’s the only explanation I can come up with for why the 2001-2002 memos stood as Bush administration doctrine for as long as they did. (The Big Lie theory also helps explain why other manifestly false Bush administration claims prevailed in the face of the evidence: Recall, for instance, how we were assured that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that the war would be a cakewalk?)

Big lies prevail because we can’t bring ourselves to believe that our leaders could be so dishonest or deluded. And big lies can do terrible damage, of course. The Bush administration’s big legal lies paved the way for some of the most shameful episodes in our history, including the official authorization of torture.

In the end, thankfully, all big lies collapse under their own weight. We’re in a new era: The early memos produced by the office have been repudiated, and the Bush administration was sent packing with rock-bottom public approval ratings.

But don’t think we’re out of the woods. As Hitler demonstrated, some small part of the most “impudent lies” will always remain and stick. Big lies leave little lies in their wake, changing the political discourse in enduring, difficult-to-detect ways.

And that’s the challenge we now face: tracing the barely visible effects of the Bush administration’s now-repudiated big lies — through our legal system, our constitutional system, our foreign policy — and undoing all the damage.

It will take a generation

March 5th, 2009

Leopold on newly-released Bush Office of Legal Counsel memos

I’ve been busy today and not had more than a moment to peek at the Office of Legal Counsel memos released today that I posted about earlier. Jason Leopold has looked them over and tells us what he found. Obviously they were kept hidden because it would embarass the Bush administration to have us know that they had received legal opinions that essentially lifted the Constitution for the duration of the “War on Terror,” a war that was framed in such a way that it might never end:

Yoo Memo Said Bush Could Limit Freedom of Speech During Wartime

By Jason Leopold

Two days before a Senate committee launches hearings to determine how best to investigate Bush-era terror policies, the Department of Justice publicly released nine previously secret and highly controversial legal opinions written by former agency attorney John Yoo that gave unfettered and unchecked powers to George W. Bush in the aftermath of 9/11.

The most controversial of the batch is arguably an Oct. 23, 2001 memorandum entitled “Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States,” that concluded, “that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations.”

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”

The existence of the memo was first revealed last year when the American Civil Liberties Union obtained yet another secret memo drafted by Yoo about interrogation techniques in which he footnoted the Oct. 23, 2001 opinion.

Until now, the memo has remained a closely held secret that the Bush administration kept even from the House Judiciary Committee which requested the document on numerous occasions last year.

The memo said Bush had the legal authority to order searches and seizures without warrants against individuals believed to be terrorists.

“We do not think a military commander carrying out a raid on a terrorist cell would be required to demonstrate probable cause or to obtain a warrant,” says the Oct. 23, 2001 memo prepared by Yoo for then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Defense Department attorney William Haynes. “We think that the better view is that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to domestic military operations designed to deter and prevent future terrorist attacks.”

The memo also said Bush could put restrictions on freedom of the press and freedom of speech in his war against terrorism.

“First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully,” Yoo wrote. “The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.”

Yet three months before Bush exited the White House, one of his Justice Department appointees drafted a “memorandum for the files” that eviscerated Yoo’s Oct. 23, 2001 legal opinion, calling his former colleagues views on suspending first amendment protections “unnecessary” and “overbroad and general and not sufficiently grounded in the particular circumstance of a concrete scenario.”

The author of the Oct. 6, 2008 memo, Stephen Bradbury, was formerly the head of the Office of Legal Counsel. His legal work, along with Yoo’s, was the subject of an investigation by a Justice Department watchdog. It’s unclear what prompted Bradbury to draft the memo. He wrote last year that Yoo’s Oct. 23, 2001 legal opinion “states several specific propositions that are either incorrect or highly questionable.”

Bradbury attempts to justify or forgive Yoo’s controversial opinion by explaining that it was “the product of an extraordinary period in the history of the Nation: the immediate aftermath of the attacks of 9/11.”

The Oct. 23, 2001 “memorandum represents a departure, although perhaps for understandable reasons, from the preferred practice of OLC to render formal opinions only with respect to specific and concrete policy proposals and not to undertake a general survey of a broad area of the law or to address general or amorphous hypothetical scenarios that implicate difficult questions of law,” Bradbury wrote.

Yet that is precisely what Yoo did.

Bradbury identifies five controversial points contained in Yoo’s Oct. 23, 2001 memo and wrote “appropriate caution should be exercised before relying in any respect on the memorandum as a precedent of OLC, and that the particular propositions identified should not be treated as authoritative.”In releasing the memos, Holder said “Americans deserve a government that operates with transparency and openness. It is my goal to make OLC opinions available when possible while still protecting national security information and ensuring robust internal executive branch debate and decision-making.”

Hours before his agency released the secret memos, Attorney General Eric Holder, in a speech before the Jewish Council of Public Affairs in Washington, D.C., said, “Too often over the past decade, the fight against terrorism has been viewed as a zero-sum battle with our civil liberties. Not only is that school of thought misguided, I fear that in actuality it does more harm than good.”

Indeed. A memo Yoo wrote two weeks after 9/11 discussed ways the administration could spy on U.S. citizens without obtaining warrants from a secret court.

A March 13, 2002 memo written by Jay Bybee, the former assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, said Bush had the authority to transfer suspected terrorists to other countries without concern for whether they would be tortured. Bybee’s memo was written one month after Bush suspended Geneva Conventions protections for al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners.

“Although such transfers might violate our treaty obligations if extradition is to a country where torture is likely…To fully shield our personnel from criminal liability, it is important that the United States not enter in an agreement with a foreign country, explicitly or implicitly, to transfer a detainee to that country for the purpose of having the individual tortured,” Bybee wrote. “So long as the United States does not intend for a detainee to be tortured post-transfer, however, no criminal liability will attach to a transfer even if the foreign country receiving the detainee does torture him.”

Bybee’s memo said a 1998 law that prohibited the U.S. from handing over prisoners to countries that engaged in torture was not valid because it interfered with the president’s constitutional powers. Bybee is now a federal judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. His legal advice to the White House while working at the Department of Justice was scrutinized by DOJ watchdog in a still classified report completed last year.

In an April 8, 2002 memo, the OLC said Bush did not need approval from congress to hold military commissions to prosecute alleged terrorists. However, the Supreme Court shot down that theory and declared military commissions illegal because Congress did not explicitly approve them. Congress did pass the Military Commissions Act in 2006 to prosecute detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.

Jameel Jaffer, the the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, said the memos released Monday show “essentially argue that the president has a blank check to disregard the Constitution during wartime, not only on foreign battlefields, but also inside the United States.”

“We hope today’s release is a first step, because dozens of other OLC memos, including memos that provided the basis for the Bush administration’s torture and warrantless wiretapping policies, are still being withheld,” said Jaffer, whose organization has tried to obtain the memos under the Freedom of Information Act. “In order to truly turn the page on a lawless era, these memos should be released immediately.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, who will convene a hearing Wednesday to discuss the formation of a “truth commission” to probe the Bush administration’s policies, said the newly released legal opinions “regarding national security remain of great concern.”

The legal opinions are:

• Memorandum Regarding Status of Certain OLC Opinions Issued in the Aftermath of the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 (01-15-2009)
• Memorandum Regarding Constitutionality of Amending Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to Change the “Purpose” Standard for Searches (09-25-2001)
• Memorandum Regarding Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities within the United States (10-23-2001)
• Memorandum Regarding Authority of the President to Suspend Certain Provisions of the ABM Treaty (11-15-2001)
• Memorandum Regarding the President’s Power as Commander in Chief to Transfer Captured Terrorists to the Control and Custody of Foreign Nations (03-13-2002)
• Memorandum Regarding Swift Justice Authorization Act (04-08-2002)
• Memorandum Regarding Determination of Enemy Belligerency and Military Detention (06-08-2002)
• Memorandum Regarding Applicability of 18 U.S.C. § 4001(a) to Military Detention of United States Citizens (06-27-2002)
• Memorandum Regarding October 23, 2001 OLC Opinion Addressing the Domestic Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities (10-06-2008)

March 2nd, 2009

Open Letter from American peace activists supporting Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian 2003 Nobel Peace Laureate

The Campaign for Peace and Democracy has initiated this letter, which I heartily endorse:

Dear Friend,

We are writing to invite you to sign the open letter below from American peace activists in defense of Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian 2003 Nobel Peace Laureate and defender of women’s rights and human rights for all. Your support can make a difference.

We believe that peace and democratic rights are deeply intertwined, and we defend freedom of expression whether or not we agree with the views being expressed. As peace activists, however, we are particularly concerned about the persecution of Shirin Ebadi, who has on many occasions repeated her opposition to the use of or threat to use U.S. military force against Iran. For example, on February 4, 2009 Ebadi was interviewed by Amy Goodman on her Democracy Now! television program. Goodman asked, “If the United States were to attack Iran, and when you look at the repression that you and others have suffered, would that help the democratic movement in Iran?” Ebadi replied firmly, [translated] “A military attack on Iran or even a threat of a military attack on Iran will deteriorate the situation of human rights and women’s rights, because it gives an excuse to the government to repress them more and more often.”

If Shirin Ebadi has no security inside Iran, then all peaceful civil society activists are at great risk. Indeed, the recent attacks on Ebadi take place against a background of stepped-up government repression. Trade union leaders, including Mansour Osanloo and Ebrahim Maddadi, are currently in prison; two women labor activists, Sussan Razani and Shiva Kheirabadi, were flogged on February 18, 2009 because of their participation in a May Day celebration. Women’s rights defenders, including those involved in the “One Million Signatures Campaign” have been unfairly prosecuted and sentenced. Privacy and personal dignity are under siege. People who defy patriarchal codes prescribing how men and women should behave, and people who are suspected of homosexual conduct, have been routinely victimized, often violently. Students, including most recently students from Amir Kabir University in Tehran, have been persecuted and brutally attacked. Mothers for Peace protesting the war in Gaza were attacked by plain clothes security agents on January 11 of this year.

These developments strengthen warmongering voices on both sides and thus threaten to set back the peace movement opposing military action against Iran.

Initial signers include Ervand Abrahamian, Janet Afary, Medea Benjamin, Noam Chomsky, Ariel Dorfman, Martin Duberman, Carolyn Eisenberg, Daniel Ellsberg, John Feffer, Arun Gupta, Adam Hochschild, Doug Ireland, Kathy Kelly, Assaf Kfoury, Naomi Klein, Jesse Lemisch, Kevin Martin, Scott McLemee, David McReynolds, Charlotte Phillips MD, Katha Pollitt, Danny Postel, Matthew Rothschild, Stephen Shalom, Alice Slater, David Swanson, and Chris Toensing. (a more complete list of initial signers is at the end of the letter.)

If you would like to add your name or make a tax-deductible donation to publicize the following statement, please go to our website www.cpdweb.org – if for any reason you have difficulty at the website, just send us an email at cpd@igc.org. And please circulate the statement to your colleagues and friends.

Sincerely,

Joanne Landy Tom Harrison
Co-Directors, Campaign for Peace and Democracy

HERE IS THE LETTER:

IRANIAN HUMAN RIGHTS LEADER SHIRIN EBADI IN DANGER
Peace Activists Call on Teheran to Ensure Her Safety

To:

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Ayatollah Shahrudi, Head of the Judiciary
Mohammad Khazaee, Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations
Islamic Republic of Iran

We are writing to protest in the strongest terms the threats that have been mounted against Shirin Ebadi, co-founder of the Defenders of Human Rights Center and the Organization for the Defense of Mine Victims. Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Laureate, has spoken out vigorously and repeatedly for women’s rights and human rights for all in her own country. She has also been a vocal and effective advocate for peace and against military attacks on Iran in international forums.

Ebadi today is in considerable danger. On December 21, 2008, officials prevented a planned celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and forced the closure of the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC), which Ebadi helped found. The Center provides legal defense for victims of human rights abuses in Iran. The group had invited nearly 300 human rights defenders and supporters to the private celebration. A few hours before the start of the program, members of state security forces, and plainclothes agents entered the DHRC building. They filmed the premises, made an inventory, and forced the center’s members to leave before putting locks on all entrances.

On December 29 officials identifying themselves as tax inspectors arrived at Ebadi’s private law office in Tehran and removed documents and computers, despite her protests that the materials contained protected lawyer-client information.

Ebadi’s former secretary has been arrested, and on January 1, 2009 a mob of 150 people gathered outside her home, chanting slogans against her. They tore down the sign to her law office, which is in the same building, and marked the building with graffiti. The police, who have been quick to close down unauthorized peaceful demonstrations, did nothing to stop the vandalism.

In similar cases, Iranian authorities frequently have followed office raids and other harassment with arbitrary arrests and detention, often leading to prosecutions on dubious charges

As peace activists, we have a special concern for Shirin Ebadi. Ebadi has spoken out, as we have, against any U.S. military attack on Iran. In 2005, Ebadi wrote, “American policy toward the Middle East, and Iran in particular, is often couched in the language of promoting human rights. No one would deny the importance of that goal. But for human rights defenders in Iran, the possibility of a foreign military attack on their country represents an utter disaster for their cause.” (“The Human Rights Case Against Attacking Iran” by Shirin Ebadi and Hadi Ghaemi, The New York Times, Feb 8, 2005).

We oppose any military attack on Iran by the United States or any other nation. We reject too the hypocrisy of the U.S. government when it protests repression in Iran while turning a blind eye to or actively abetting comparable or worse repression in countries with which it is allied like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Israel in the Occupied Territories. And we condemn as well Washington’s double standard in criticizing Iranian repression while itself engaging in torture and undermining civil liberties at home. But that in no way deters us from protesting in the strongest terms the denial of basic democratic rights to the people of Iran. We protest because we believe in these rights, and also because we see social justice activists in Iran and all countries as our natural allies in building a peaceful, democratic world.

We call on you to cease and desist from the threats to Shirin Ebadi, to move immediately to prevent any further harassment, and to ensure Shirin Ebadi’s safety and security.

SIGNED

INITIAL SIGNERS

Ervand Abrahamian, Janet Afary, Michael Albert, Kevin B. Anderson, Bettina Aptheker, David Barsamian, Rosalyn Baxandall, Medea Benjamin, Michael Bérubé, Norman Birnbaum, Eileen Boris, Roane Carey, Joshua Cohen, Noam Chomsky, Gail Daneker, Manuela Dobos, Ariel Dorfman, Martin Duberman, Carolyn Eisenberg, Jethro Eisenstein, Zillah Eisenstein, Daniel Ellsberg, Jodie Evans, Gertrude Ezorsky, Samuel Farber, John Feffer, Barry Finger, Joseph Gerson, Jill Godmilow, Arun Gupta, Thomas Harrison, Nader Hashemi, Adam Hochschild, Nancy Holmstrom, Doug Ireland, Melissa Jameson, Jan Kavan, Nikki Keddie, Leslie Kielson, Ian Keith, Kathy Kelly, Assaf Kfoury, Naomi Klein, Dan La Botz, Joanne Landy, Jesse Lemisch, Sue Leonard, Mohammed Mamdani, Betty Mandell, Marvin Mandell, Kevin Martin, Scott McLemee, David McReynolds, Ali Moazzami, Claire G. Moses, Molly Nolan, David Oakford, Bertell Ollman, Christopher Phelps, Charlotte Phillips MD, Katha Pollitt, Danny Postel, Dennis Redmond, Sonia Jaffe Robbins, Matthew Rothschild, Jason Schulman, Stephen Shalom, Adam Shatz, Alice Slater, Stephen Soldz, Stephen Steinberg, David Swanson, Chris Toensing, David Vine, Lois Weiner, Naomi Weisstein, Reginald Wilson, Kent Worcester, Stephen Zunes

* * * * * * * *

Please go to the CPD website at www.cpdweb.org to add your name, donate, or see the evolving full list of signers.

THE CAMPAIGN FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY (CPD) advocates a new, progressive and non-militaristic U.S. foreign policy — one that encourages democratization, justice and social change.

February 25th, 2009