Psyche, Science, and Society

Will Guantanamo survive Guantanamo?

The New York Times asks if Obama will support a new law authorizing detention without trial:

Post-Guantánamo: A New Detention Law?

By William Glaberson

As a presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama sketched the broad outlines of a plan to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba: try detainees in American courts and reject the Bush administration’s military commission system.

Now, as Mr. Obama moves closer to assuming responsibility for Guantánamo, his pledge to close the detention center is bringing to the fore thorny questions under consideration by his advisers. They include where Guantánamo’s detainees could be held in this country, how many might be sent home and a matter that people with ties to the Obama transition team say is worrying them most: What if some detainees are acquitted or cannot be prosecuted at all?

That concern is at the center of a debate among national security, human rights and legal experts that has intensified since the election. Even some liberals are arguing that to deal realistically with terrorism, the new administration should seek Congressional authority for preventive detention of terrorism suspects deemed too dangerous to release even if they cannot be successfully prosecuted.

“You can’t be a purist and say there’s never any circumstance in which a democratic society can preventively detain someone,” said one civil liberties lawyer, David D. Cole, a Georgetown law professor who has been a critic of the Bush administration.

Although the nation has long had limited legal procedures for detaining dangerous people who have not been convicted of a crime, the issue has become particularly controversial in the context of Guantánamo, where some detainees have been held for almost seven years without being charged.

Whether the Obama administration should push for a preventive detention law has inspired “a very hot and serious debate,” said Ken Gude, a national security scholar at the liberal Center for American Progress, adding, “I’ve had conversations with progressives who think it is a good idea and conservatives who think it’s a terrible idea.”

The president-elect’s transition office would not comment on whether that idea was even under discussion. But human rights groups have been mounting arguments to counter pressure that they say is building on Mr. Obama to show toughness, perhaps by echoing the Bush administration’s insistence that some detainees may need to be held indefinitely.

The international law of warfare provides authority for governments to hold captured enemy fighters until the completion of a conflict. Tens of thousands of German and Italian prisoners of war were held inside the United States during World War II.

But particularly inasmuch as the Bush administration invoked that authority as a basis for its much-criticized detention policies, a move by Mr. Obama to seek explicit authorization for indefinite detention without trial would be seen by some of his supporters as a betrayal.

Opponents of a preventive detention law say that continuing to treat captives as detainees instead of defendants in court would support terrorists’ self-image as warriors rather than criminals. And though the Guantánamo center might be closed, they say, the new law would effectively import Guantánamo and its image into the United States.

“Not only do you not need a system of preventive detention, but it would perpetuate the problem of Guantánamo and put us right back in the same dead end we are in now,” said Elisa Massimino, executive director of Human Rights First.

On the other hand, some proponents of such a law say it would clarify questions left murky by the Bush administration’s years of legal battles over Guantánamo. Benjamin Wittes, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, argued in a book published in June that Americans needed to cross a “psychological Rubicon” and accept the idea that preventive detention was a necessary tool for fighting terrorism.

“I’m afraid of people getting released in the name of human rights and doing terrible things,” Mr. Wittes said in an interview.

He said debates over Guantánamo had created a mythology that American law permitted detention only upon conviction of a crime. Locking up mentally ill people who are deemed dangerous, he noted, is an accepted American legal practice.

At the heart of the debate about whether a preventive detention law is necessary is uncertainty about the risks of criminal trials. Some lawyers warn that given the nature of evidence against some Guantánamo detainees, prosecutors may not be able to convict them.

“We have lots of information that is reliable, that tells us someone is a threat and that cannot be proved in court,” said Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal terrorism prosecutor who is now director of the Center for Law and Counterterrorism.

Putting detainees on trial in American courts could be difficult in part because suspects captured in war do not receive protections, like warnings against self-incrimination, that are standard police practice. And much evidence against the detainees is classified; intelligence officials say it cannot be disclosed.

Further, some interrogation practices, including the simulated-drowning technique of waterboarding, might leave crucial government evidence unacceptable to American judges.

Jack L. Goldsmith, a former Justice Department official in the Bush administration who has written a book critical of some of the administration’s legal strategies, is among those calling for a preventive detention law.

Professor Goldsmith, who teaches at Harvard Law School, said in an interview that he believed the administration had correctly asserted a right to detain the men held at Guantánamo. But, he said, Congressional approval would “ensure that we can legitimate holding people for a long term.”

In the absence of such a law, any plan to move even some of the remaining 250 Guantánamo prisoners to the United States would require a careful analysis of the authority to hold the detainees, several of whom have said they would relish an opportunity to kill Americans.

In the end, the Obama administration may conclude that it is simply not feasible to seek a new preventive detention measure. Doing so could portray the new administration as following in the footsteps of President Bush, surely an unlikely goal as Mr. Obama sorts through his options.

Add comment November 17th, 2008

Accountability: Are torture trials out?

Obama advisers are telling the AP that it is unlikely that there will be torture prosecutions:

Obama advisers: No charges likely vs interrogators

Obama advisers say no charges likely against workers who authorized harsh interrogation methods

By Lara Jakes Jordan

Barack Obama’s incoming administration is unlikely to bring criminal charges against government officials who authorized or engaged in harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists during the George W. Bush presidency. Obama, who has criticized the use of torture, is being urged by some constitutional scholars and human rights groups to investigate possible war crimes by the Bush administration.

Two Obama advisers said there’s little — if any — chance that the incoming president’s Justice Department will go after anyone involved in authorizing or carrying out interrogations that provoked worldwide outrage.

The advisers spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans are still tentative. A spokesman for Obama’s transition team did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

Additionally, the question of whether to prosecute may never become an issue if Bush issues pre-emptive pardons to protect those involved.

Obama has committed to reviewing interrogations on al-Qaida and other terror suspects. After he takes office in January, Obama is expected to create a panel modeled after the 9/11 Commission to study interrogations, including those using waterboarding and other tactics that critics call torture. The panel’s findings would be used to ensure that future interrogations are undisputedly legal.

“I have said repeatedly that America doesn’t torture, and I’m going to make sure that we don’t torture,” Obama said Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes.” “Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America’s moral stature in the world.”

Obama’s most ardent supporters are split on whether he should prosecute Bush officials.

Asked this weekend during a Vermont Public Radio interview if Bush administration officials would face war crimes, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy flatly said, “In the United States, no.”

“These things are not going to happen,” said Leahy, D-Vt.

Robert Litt, a former top Clinton administration Justice Department prosecutor, said Obama should focus on moving forward with anti-torture policy instead of looking back.

“Both for policy and political reasons, it would not be beneficial to spend a lot of time hauling people up before Congress or before grand juries and going over what went on,” Litt said at a Brookings Institution discussion about Obama’s legal policy. “To as great of an extent we can say, the last eight years are over, now we can move forward — that would be beneficial both to the country and the president, politically.”

But Michael Ratner, a professor at Columbia Law School and president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said prosecuting Bush officials is necessary to set future anti-torture policy.

“The only way to prevent this from happening again is to make sure that those who were responsible for the torture program pay the price for it,” Ratner said. “I don’t see how we regain our moral stature by allowing those who were intimately involved in the torture programs to simply walk off the stage and lead lives where they are not held accountable.”

In the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the White House authorized U.S. interrogators to use harsh tactics on captured al-Qaida and Taliban suspects. Bush officials relied on a 2002 Justice Department legal memo to assert that its interrogations did not amount to torture — and therefore did not violate U.S. or international laws. That memo has since been rescinded.

At least three top al-Qaida operatives — including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed — were waterboarded in 2002 and 2003 because of intelligence officials’ belief that more attacks were imminent. Waterboarding creates the sensation of drowning, and has been traced back hundreds of years and is condemned by nations worldwide.

Bush could take the issue of criminal charges off the table with one stroke of his pardons pen.

Whether Bush will protect his top aides and interrogators with a pre-emptive pardon — before they are ever charged — has become a hot topic of discussion in legal and political circles in the administration’s waning days. White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto declined to comment on the issue.

Under the Constitution, the president’s power to issue pardons is absolute and cannot be overruled.

Pre-emptive pardons would be highly controversial, but former White House counsel Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr. said it would protect those who were following orders or otherwise trying to protect the nation.

“I know of no one who acted in reckless disregard of U.S. law or international law,” said Culvahouse, who served under President Ronald Reagan. “It’s just not good for the intelligence community and the defense community to have people in the field, under exigent circumstances, being told these are the rules, to be exposed months and years after the fact to criminal prosecution.”

The Federalist Papers discourage presidents from pardoning themselves. It took former President Gerald Ford to clear former President Richard Nixon of wrongdoing in the 1972 Watergate break-in.

Add comment November 17th, 2008

Accountability: Benjamin on Truuth Commission and Obama

Mark Benjamin, in Salon, writes what he is hearing of Obama’s plans for a truth Commission, with possible, though not that likely, future prosecutions. Hanging over the latter is the threat of a blanket Bush pardon for those involved in the torture program:

Obama’s plans for probing Bush torture

President Bush could pardon officials involved in brutal interrogations — but he may also face a sweeping investigation under the new president.

By Mark Benjamin

WASHINGTON — With growing talk in Washington that President Bush may be considering an unprecedented “blanket pardon” for people involved in his administration’s brutal interrogation policies, advisors to Barack Obama are pressing ahead with plans for a nonpartisan commission to investigate alleged abuses under Bush.

The Obama plan, first revealed by Salon in August, would emphasize fact-finding investigation over prosecution. It is gaining currency in Washington as Obama advisors begin to coordinate with Democrats in Congress on the proposal. The plan would not rule out future prosecutions, but would delay a decision on that matter until all essential facts can be unearthed. Between the time necessary for the investigative process and the daunting array of policy problems Obama will face upon taking office, any decision on prosecutions probably would not come until a second Obama presidential term, should there be one.

The proposed commission — similar in thrust to a Democratic investigation proposal first uncovered by Salon in July — would examine a broad scope of activities, including detention, torture and extraordinary rendition, the practice of snatching suspected terrorists off the street and whisking them off to a third country for abusive interrogations. The commission might also pry into the claims by the White House — widely rejected by experienced interrogators — that abusive interrogations are an effective and necessary intelligence tool.

A common view among those involved with the talks is that any early effort to prosecute Bush administration officials would likely devolve quickly into ugly and fruitless partisan warfare. Second is that even if Obama decided he had the appetite for it, prosecutions in this arena are problematic at best: A series of memos from the Bush Justice Department approved the harsh tactics, and Congress changed the War Crimes Act in 2006, making prosecutions of individuals involved in interrogations more difficult.

Instead, a commission empowered by Congress would have the authority to compel witnesses to testify and even to grant immunity in exchange for information. Should a particularly ugly picture emerge, the option of prosecutions would still theoretically be on the table later, however unlikely.

In Obama’s camp, there is a sense among some that such a commission would essentially mean letting Bush get away with crimes. “People have called for criminal investigations,” one person familiar with the talks told me this summer as plans got under way. On Wednesday, a person participating in the talks confirmed that some people involved in the planning felt strongly that the commission would amount to “bullshit” and that Bush officials should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

But few think prosecutions are realistic, given the formidable legal hurdles and the huge policy problems competing for Obama’s attention. Among them is the complicated task of closing down the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, which Obama advisors say is a priority. Some observers outside the Obama camp are also questioning how much Democrats really want exposed with regard to interrogation, since top Democrats in Congress were briefed in secret on some of the harshest tactics used by the CIA and appear to have done little, or perhaps nothing, to stop them.

Further complicating the Obama team’s planning is uncertainty about what President Bush might do. On the one hand, a blanket pardon for anyone involved in the interrogations could be viewed by the public as a tacit admission of colossal wrongdoing — after years of public denial — which would do nothing to help Bush’s tarnished legacy. Yet, if the administration fears an investigation will follow Bush out the door in January, they may not want to leave officials exposed to potentially revealing criminal proceedings. Bush might seek to frame a blanket pardon as a preemptive strike against wrongheaded, partisan retribution.

Constitutional scholars say a pardon of this kind would be an unprecedented move — the prospective pardon of not just individuals but entire categories of people, perhaps numbering in the thousands, for carrying out the president’s orders , which the White House has argued all along were legal.

Those scholars agree, however, that Article II of the Constitution gives Bush much latitude: There is no authority that can stop the president from doing so if he wishes, and there is no outside check or balance to revisit such a decision, however controversial it may be. “The president can do with pardoning power whatever he wants,” explained University of Wisconsin Law School professor Stanley Kutler. “It is complete and plenary unto itself.”

A blanket pardon from Bush could cover, for example, anyone who participated in, had knowledge of, or received information about Bush’s interrogation program during the so-called war on terror. Not only are there potentially too many people to name without risking missing somebody, but some of the names are presumably classified.

“The classic pardon is an identifiable individual; here you are talking about potentially thousands of people involved in illegal activities,” explained Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington Law School. A blanket pardon of this variety, Turley said, “would allow a president to engage in massive illegality and generally pardon the world for any involvement in unlawful activity.”

There are, in fact, some constitutional scholars who believe a pardon might actually facilitate more complete participation in a fact-finding commission, by removing the threat of looming liability. “Holding people accountable is certainly nice, but in terms of healing the country and moving forward, so is actually getting a clear picture of what happened and letting the public make an informed decision,” said Kermit Roosevelt at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. “If we had a pardon followed by something like a truth and reconciliation commission, that might not be such a bad outcome.” (Roosevelt represents a detainee held at Guantánamo.)

The politics of it would be fraught with danger, however, and could so blemish Bush’s legacy that some doubt he would go so far. “A pardon is an admission of guilt,” noted Donald Kettl, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Bush has argued for years that his interrogation program was perfectly legal. With a pardon, Kettl said, Bush is essentially saying, “Gee, maybe we did not do the right thing.”

It is not entirely unprecedented for a president to grant a pardon based on a category of behavior, rather than pardoning an individual by name. The day after his inauguration, President Carter pardoned all those who avoided the Vietnam draft by failing to register or by fleeing to Canada. George Washington pardoned participants in the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion. Andrew Johnson pardoned Confederate soldiers in 1865.

But these were pardons designed to foster reconciliation, handed out to categories of individuals who acted on their own conscience, rather than the president’s own allegedly illegal orders. “This would be a different deal completely,” explained Kettl. “It would be anticipating that people thought the official policy of the administration was wrong.”

Add comment November 14th, 2008

APA President Kazdin replies to Arrigo-Wessells letter

APA President Kazdin has replied to the Arrigo-Wessells letter cautioning of repeating the PENS task force problems with the new implementation committee:

Dear Drs. Arrigo and Wessells,

Thank you for your letter regarding the formation of the APA Presidential Advisory Group on the Implementation of the Petition Resolution. I, too, am optimistic that the work of this group will help to unite the organization and enable us to move forward to implement this new policy, which was approved by a vote of our membership.

Over the past few weeks, we have received several recommendations regarding the group process - all that it ought to and ought not to include. In response to your words of caution, I can assure you that the process has been, and will continue to be, open and transparent. While I appreciate your suggestion of an independent monitor, I have invited all three original sponsors of the petition for the very purpose of ensuring that the views and interests of those bringing the petition forward are well represented in the group’s discussions.
I would be grateful if you would forward this response to those you copied on your email.

Thank you.

Best wishes,

Alan

Alan E. Kazdin, Ph.D., ABPP
President, American Psychological Association
John M. Musser Professor of Psychology and Child Psychiatry
Department of Psychology
Yale University
PO Box 208205
New Haven, CT 06520-8205

Add comment November 13th, 2008

Accountability: Prominent talk show host calls for Hague trial for Cheney

As the Bush regime slowly ends, the discussion about how to deal with its multitude of human rights violations has commenced in earnest. From human rights blog Never In Our Names comes word that Gene Burn, prominent West-Coast talk show figure, has changed his mind and now believes that an international tribunal to try Vice President Cheney for torture is justified:

Influential Talk-Show Host Shifts Position: Cheney To The Hague

By blueness

For 30 straight years KGO has been the most listened-to AM radio station in the San Francisco Bay Area. From dusk till dawn, it can also be heard throughout the entirety of the west coast, from Canada to Mexico. KGO pioneered the talk-radio format, long before it was seized and exploited by the rightwing noise machine. The station employs local, non-syndicated hosts, all of whom consistently rank first in their time slots. Hosts run the left-coast political gamut, from the vacuous, muddle-headed centrist Ronn Owens, to the fiery renegade Ray Taliaferro, who contends that a close reading of scripture discloses that Jesus was gay, and most commonly refers to George II as “that idiot out of Texas.”

Occupying the 7-10 p.m. time slot is Gene Burns, who has been in radio for more than 40 years, the past 14 at KGO. Burns is a recently lapsed Libertarian; he sought the party’s presidential nomination in 1984, but, after supporting John Kerry in 2004, this year he made the great leap, and registered as a Democrat. He is a pedant, and something of a blowhard, but is extremely influential with more moderate listeners put off by the station’s fire-breathing lefties. Burns has consistently opposed impeachment proceedings against George II and Darth Cheney as frivolous and unwarranted: these men have not, to his mind, committed impeachable offenses. Challenged by callers contending that these men approved the torture of fellow human beings, Burns has maintained that the United States has not tortured; even waterboarding, to him, does not constitute torture.

Wednesday night, all this changed. After viewing on his local PBS affiliate the documentary Torturing Democracy, Burns told his listeners, he realized he had been wrong. The United States has tortured. It has also engaged in extraordinary renditions, for the purpose of torture. While Burns still believes impeachment to be a non-starter, he has concluded that, in the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and in other sites overseas, Dick Cheney is guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and should be brought to trial before an international tribunal at The Hague. With the expectation that, in the course of Cheney mounting his defense, he may implicate George II as equally culpable in the commission of the same crimes.

Burns urged his listeners to view Torturing Democracy, which is available, in full, here. Burns can be an obstinate cuss, not often inclined to admit error: this documentary, which I have not seen, must indeed be powerful. For Burns was heretofore no member of our choir: prior to viewing Torturing Democracy, he was adamant that no such crimes had been committed “in our names.”

I’m not here to scoff at him; I’m here to praise him. Admitting to error is very hard: I struggle with it, all the time, myself. Our outgoing president, of course, famously could not admit to a single mistake made in his first term. Burns is a better man than that. He was eloquent, tonight, in the explanation of his evolution; below is a transcript of some of what he said, taken from the station’s archived audio (which will be available here, if you’d like to listen yourself, until 10 p.m. PST on Thursday).

I now believe that some international human rights organization ought to open an investigation of the Bush administration, I think focused on Vice President Dick Cheney, and attempt to bring charges against Cheney in the international court of justice at The Hague, for war crimes. Based on the manner in which we have treated prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and the manner in which we have engaged in illegal rendition, that is, surreptitiously kidnapping prisoners and flying them to foreign countries where they could be tortured by foreign agents who do not follow the same civilized standards to which we subscribe.

I’ve always said that I’ve thought that even at Guantanamo Bay the United States was careful to stay on this side of torture. In fact, you may recall that on a couple of occasions we got into a spirited debate on this program about waterboarding, and whether waterboarding was torture. And I took the position that it was not torture, that it was simulated drowning, and that if that produced information which preserved our national security, I thought it was permissible.

And then I saw Torturing Democracy.

And I’m afraid, now that I have seen what I have seen, that I was wrong about that. It looks to me, based on this documentary, as if in fact we have engaged in behavior and practices at Guantanamo Bay, and in these illegal renditions, that are violations of the international human rights code.

And I believe that Dick Cheney is responsible. I believe that he was the agent of the United States government charged with developing the methodology used at Guantanamo Bay, supervising it for the administration, and indulging in practices which are in fact violations of human rights.

Why not George Bush? I think that it would be easier to nail Cheney. And there’s a certain method to this madness: that if you go after Cheney–seriously, I’m talking now about a serious investigation by an international tribunal, and charges brought against him in the international court, so that he would be subject to arrest, and trial, just as Milosevic and some of the people involved in these behaviors in the Balkans were–that that would force Cheney, in his defense, to disclose the degree to which the president, George W. Bush, was culpable in any of this, if culpable at all.

I really found this documentary, Torturing Democracy, very, very disturbing. And I guess the reason that heretofore I have not been such an easy mark on the matter of this kind of charge is that I don’t think I ever saw an organized, systematized review of what we did, and how we did it, as well presented as it was in this documentary.

And it grieves me to say, as an American citizen, that I believe the leadership of our country is responsible for crimes against humanity. But, you know, we can’t be trumpeting about the behavior of others, like Milosevic, and others, if we do not expect ourselves to be held to a similar high standard.

And no matter our desire to preserve and protect our national security, which is uppermost in the minds of all of us, and something which our leaders are sworn to do by oath, if to do that we have to engage in torture, we should not do it.

And as this documentary points out, there is no indication that any significant, credible evidence that made us safer was ever developed or deduced or adduced during these sessions. And in my view, some of these sessions went over the line.

And I’d like to see a panel of international court judges review the evidence. They might not agree. They might find Vice President Cheney not guilty–who knows? But I’d certainly like to see a trial of Dick Cheney as the responsible party in the United States government for developing tortures that were violations of our obligations under international concordants and treaties involving human rights violations.

If you keep listening, you will hear what we–and now he–are up against. The very first caller, an aging veteran, announced that Burns had “disgraced” himself; that “war is hell” and thus such things happen; that to sound such views but two days after Veterans Day constituted an offense against the United States. The caller concluded by saying that it was his belief that Burns should be jailed. Burns, who has a temper, invited the caller to go out and purchase some handcuffs, and then come down to the station to see whether he might succeed in locking them around Burns’ wrists.

A little later came the opposite end of the spectrum: a caller who sneered at Burns for coming too late to the issue, and demanded that Cheney be “publicly executed.”

Somewhere between these extremes must steer the serious people.

Can Dick Cheney be made to stand before The Hague? Maybe. Maybe not. The concept of international criminal tribunals is so fresh, and Darth Cheney is an awfully fat fish. But it is certain that every step taken towards such a day, even if that day is in the end never reached, helps insure that future Cheneys will be less likely to engage in similar behavior. And it is equally true that every sober, serious voice that states that Cheney deserves to be brought before The Hague, helps to push that position farther from fringoid fantasy, and closer to common wisdom.

So welcome to our world, Mr. Burns. And thank you.

Add comment November 13th, 2008

Cautionary letter to APA President Kazdin

UPDATED 11-13-2008. Jean Maria Arrigo and Mike Wessells, two members of the American Psychological Association’s infamous PENS task force (Psychological Ethics and National Security), have written to letter to APA President Kazdin warning of the dangers of repeating PENS flaws in the process of the Implementation Committee for the recently passed APA referendum banning psychologists working in detention centers operating outside of or in violation of international law or the Constitution. [Daily Kos blogger and psychologist Valtin has provided his take on the Implementation Committee in a new post.]:

Dear President Kazdin:

We, Jean Maria Arrigo and Mike Wessells, are writing in response to news of your formation of the Presidential Advisory Group on the Implementation of the Petition Resolution. With this committee, the APA has a new opportunity to unite the organization by effectively implementing the policies widely adopted by vote of the membership.

Yet we also see that setting up the organizational structure, charge, and guidelines for communication and transparency warrants caution. As members of the 2005 Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics in National Security (PENS), we wish to warn of certain procedural irregularities in the PENS process that are potential pitfalls for successful implementation of the referendum. These irregularities led to a fraudulent process that undermined the ostensible purpose of PENS:  to develop ethical guidelines for psychologists in national security interrogations.

It appears to us that the fraudulent PENS process was the root cause of many of the APA’s difficulties in the past three years because it prevented true deliberation. As much as anything else, it deprived thoughtful, honest advocates for psychologists’ involvement in interrogations of the opportunity to present a credible case for their position.

Many of the stakeholders to the PENS process are involved in the Implementation process, directly or indirectly. It is therefore crucial that the actual Implementation process — as opposed to the public face of the process — be transparent, fair, and deliberative. To illustrate both the subtlety and the gravity of violations in the PENS procedures, and the potential for violations in the Implementation process, we offer four examples from among a dozen that equally de-legitimized the PENS effort. All of these can be substantiated. Not one has been publicly acknowledged by APA authorities. There were other— in some ways more dramatic and egregious—violations of independent, democratic process, but the following examples particularly signal risks to the work of the new Advisory Committee.

1. As psychologists we are aware that majority influence plays a great role in group decision-making. The undisclosed “observers” to the PENS task force meeting included: the Assistant Director of Social, Behavioral, and Educational Sciences for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; the Executive Director for APA Science Policy; a second APA Science Policy staff member; a former National Security Agency psychologist and former director of the Navy Internship Program; and the Director of the APA Practice Directorate. At least the first four of these five had been closely involved in securing defense-related funding for APA programs. And all received the PENS listserv communications. Their presence and involvement was inconsistent with what anyone would understand by the “public face” of the PENS task force.

2. An APA Board liaison to the PENS task force was the first to suggest that the Director of the APA Practice Directorate attend the PENS meeting as an “observer,” because, as he wrote on the pre-meeting PENS listserv, “this TF has direct implications for practice.” In the morning of the first day of the June 26-29, 2005 task force meeting, it was this same Board liaison who proposed confidentiality of the task force proceedings, although no sensitive issues had yet arisen. This subtle intrusion by the APA Board exceeds the official role of Board liaison.

3. The Director of the APA Practice Directorate indeed attended, but not as mere observer. This Director articulated the task force mission as “putting out the fires” of controversy at APA, rather than resolving complex questions in psychological ethics. With cooperation from the task force chair (who was simultaneously vice-chair of the APA Ethics Committee), the Director steered the task force toward policy to be made in extreme haste, secrecy, with only an appearance of unanimity, and with no concrete examples to substantiate the policy.

Further the Director of the Practice Directorate was married to a BSCT psychologist who had served at Guantánamo, one of the theaters of concern to the task force. His spouse was closely involved with Army Surgeon General Kiley and, along with two other task force members, was part of the almost immediate military review of the PENS report with General Kiley. Other task force members employed by the military and intelligence agencies and APA task force organizers were surely aware of these profound conflicts of interest, although the Director disclosed no such influential relationships at the meeting.

4. As is now publicly known, one military member of the task force had been involved in the so-called “reverse engineering” of the Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) training program to produce abusive techniques for terror suspects and prisoners of war. At least one of his colleagues on the task force was certainly aware of his severe conflict of interest. Further, four of the task force members served in the chains of command that had been accused of abuses.

The PENS process generated cadres of fierce critics of APA policy, whose researches eventually exposed many of the specific instances and mechanisms of fraud. These same cadres of APA members, international psychologists, human rights scholars, and journalists have their eyes on the Implementation process.

To fulfill the promise of your Presidential Advisory Group on the Implementation of the Petition Resolution, and because the PENS process so deeply damaged trust in APA institutional process, we think three things are needed: (a) a fair and transparent process, (b) committee participants who are free from overt conflicts of interest (whether disclosed or undisclosed), and (c) a reputable, independent monitor. We do not at all question your sincerity. This is not the point. Nevertheless, however far down the path you feel you are to a fair and transparent process, we urge you to arrange for a reputable, independent monitor. Such a practice will finally help put out the fires of controversy at APA over psychological ethics in interrogations.

Thank you very much for your time in considering our letter.

Sincerely,

Jean Maria Arrigo, PhD

Michael Wessells, PhD

UPDATE

APA President Kazdin has replied to the Arrigo-Wessells letter:

Dear Drs. Arrigo and Wessells,

Thank you for your letter regarding the formation of the APA Presidential Advisory Group on the Implementation of the Petition Resolution. I, too, am optimistic that the work of this group will help to unite the organization and enable us to move forward to implement this new policy, which was approved by a vote of our membership.

Over the past few weeks, we have received several recommendations regarding the group process - all that it ought to and ought not to include. In response to your words of caution, I can assure you that the process has been, and will continue to be, open and transparent. While I appreciate your suggestion of an independent monitor, I have invited all three original sponsors of the petition for the very purpose of ensuring that the views and interests of those bringing the petition forward are well represented in the group’s discussions.
I would be grateful if you would forward this response to those you copied on your email.

Thank you.

Best wishes,

Alan

Alan E. Kazdin, Ph.D., ABPP
President, American Psychological Association
John M. Musser Professor of Psychology and Child Psychiatry
Department of Psychology
Yale University
PO Box 208205
New Haven, CT 06520-8205

Add comment November 12th, 2008

Human rights groups to Europe: Accept Guantanamo detainees

One of the major problems in closing Guantanamo is that no one will take many of the detainees who the U.S. admits are not a danger but who are in danger if they are sent back home. A coalition of human rights groups has asked European countries to take and care for these individuals:

Human Rights Groups Call on European Governments to Offer Humanitarian Protection to Guantanamo Detainees

(Berlin, November 10, 2008) — Five leading human rights groups today call on European governments to provide humanitarian protection to Guantánamo detainees who will not be charged with any crime but cannot be returned to their countries of origin for fear of torture or other serious human rights violations. European governments should agree to accept them into their countries and ensure they are provided with adequate support.

Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, Reprieve and the International Federation for Human Rights urge governments to work with the new US administration to take this important step in order to facilitate the closure of the detention facility at Guantánamo.

“We must find a solution to the 50 men imprisoned at Guantánamo simply because they have nowhere to go,” said Emi MacLean, Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “The US government has twice previously tried to send our client, Abdul Ra’ouf Al Qassim to Libya even though it is undisputed that he would likely be tortured, or disappeared into Libyan jails, if returned. His survival depends on the simple humanitarian gesture of another country opening their doors to him.”

“Everyone appears to rightly agree that Guantánamo must be closed, and President-elect Obama has said that he will close it,” said Daniel Gorevan, Counter Terror with Justice Campaign Manager at Amnesty International. “Clearly, other governments can help make this happen by offering protection to individuals who cannot be released to their own countries. This would have a double effect: helping to end the ordeal of an individual unlawfully held in violation of his human rights, and helping end the international human rights scandal that is Guantánamo.”

“This is a key opportunity for both sides of the Atlantic to move beyond the misguided acts of the ‘war on terror’: rendition, secret detention, and torture,” said Cori Crider, Staff Attorney at Reprieve.  “President-elect Obama says he will close Guantánamo — the question is when and how. One of Reprieve’s clients was sent back to Tunisia, drugged, hit, and threatened with the rape of his wife and daughter. Another is fighting, even now, to stay in Guantánamo because Tunisia threatened him with ‘water torture in the barrel.’ The US still asserts total authority to send him back. Europe can send a powerful message by reaching out to Obama and providing a safe alternative for these few people.”

“President-elect Obama has committed to closing Guantánamo, but he is going to need Europe’s help,” said Joanne Mariner, Terrorism and Counterterrorism Director at Human Rights Watch. “European governments could provide much-needed assistance by agreeing to take in some of the detainees who cannot be sent back home.”

“FIDH and CCR mobilised 77 members of the European Parliament who issued a joint call to EU member States to offer relocation for Guantanamo detainees. As an important strategic partner of the US, the EU should help the Administration relocate these men,” said Souhayr Belhassen, FIDH President.

Background

It is the primary responsibility of the United States to find solutions for all those held at Guantánamo, as it was the USA that brought them to the detention facility and is holding them there unlawfully. If the USA is not planning to charge and try them in ordinary US courts, and cannot release them to their own countries safely, it should immediately offer them an opportunity to be released into the USA.

It is also clear, however, that governments in Europe and elsewhere can and should play a vital role in providing such individuals with humanitarian protection in the form of a safe place to get on with their lives after years of suffering. The involvement of European governments will be instrumental in reaching a solution to this problem — a solution that is critical to the international aim of closing Guantánamo.

Around 50 of the detainees currently held in Guantánamo cannot lawfully be sent back to their countries of origin because they would face a real risk of human rights violations such as torture or other ill-treatment. They come from countries including China, Libya, Russia, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan.

The human rights groups made their call after a two-day closed strategic workshop in Berlin, convened by the NGOs with other international actors active on the issue of humanitarian protection.

Statements of Support from International Actors

“We are at a critical juncture. It is now possible to anticipate the closing of Guantanamo, the end to the US practice of executive detention, and the re-affirmation of fundamental human rights principles, including the prohibition of torture in all circumstances. But European engagement and support will be essential to get there. One step that European governments should take is to accept into their borders the small number of men at Guantanamo who cannot be repatriated safely. Guantanamo cannot be closed until these men have a country which will accept them, and where their lives and liberty are not in jeopardy.”
Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture

“I urge European governments to open their doors to a small number of men who fear persecution or torture if transferred to their home countries. Such assistance is both the right thing to do, and of critical importance in our attempts to push for the immediate closure of Guantanamo Bay.”
Thomas Hammerberg, Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe

“The efforts must be renewed now with European governments and the U.S. government working to close Guantanamo and offer protection to those unable to be returned safely to their own countries.  The efforts of human rights NGOs are coming at the best moment, in order to use the next months in the most positive way.”
Anne-Marie Lizin, Special Representative on Guantanamo for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE.

Add comment November 11th, 2008

Change or continuity in intelligence policy?

The Wall Street Journal has a depressing story. Among the thoughts in here:

The new president could take a similar approach to revising the rules for CIA interrogations, said one current government official familiar with the transition. Upon review, Mr. Obama may decide he wants to keep the road open in certain cases for the CIA to use techniques not approved by the military, but with much greater oversight.

Let’s hope they’re totally wrong:

Intelligence Policy to Stay Largely Intact

By Siobhan Gorman

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama is unlikely to radically overhaul controversial Bush administration intelligence policies, advisers say, an approach that is almost certain to create tension within the Democratic Party.

Civil-liberties groups were among those outraged that the White House sanctioned the use of harsh intelligence techniques — which some consider torture — by the Central Intelligence Agency, and expanded domestic spy powers. These groups are demanding quick action to reverse these policies.

Mr. Obama is being advised largely by a group of intelligence professionals, including some who have supported Republicans, and centrist former officials in the Clinton administration. They say he is likely to fill key intelligence posts with pragmatists.

“He’s going to take a very centrist approach to these issues,” said Roger Cressey, a former counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations. “Whenever an administration swings too far on the spectrum left or right, we end up getting ourselves in big trouble.”

On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama criticized many of President George W. Bush’s counterterrorism policies. He condemned Mr. Bush for promoting “excessive secrecy, indefinite detention, warrantless wiretapping and ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ like simulated drowning that qualify as torture through any careful measure of the law or appeal to human decency.”

As a candidate, Mr. Obama said the CIA’s interrogation program should adhere to the same rules that apply to the military, which would prohibit the use of techniques such as waterboarding. He has also said the program should be investigated.

Yet he more recently voted for a White House-backed law to expand eavesdropping powers for the National Security Agency. Mr. Obama said he opposed providing legal immunity to telecommunications companies that aided warrantless surveillance, but ultimately voted for the bill, which included an immunity provision.

The new president could take a similar approach to revising the rules for CIA interrogations, said one current government official familiar with the transition. Upon review, Mr. Obama may decide he wants to keep the road open in certain cases for the CIA to use techniques not approved by the military, but with much greater oversight.

The intelligence-transition team is led by former National Counterterrorism Center chief John Brennan and former CIA intelligence-analysis director Jami Miscik, say officials close to the matter. Mr. Brennan is viewed as a potential candidate for a top intelligence post. Ms. Miscik left amid a slew of departures from the CIA under then-Director Porter Goss.

Advisers caution that few decisions will be made until the team gets a better picture of how the Bush administration actually goes about gathering intelligence, including covert programs, and there could be a greater shift after a full review.

The Obama team plans to review secret and public executive orders and recent Justice Department guidelines that eased restrictions on domestic intelligence collection. “They’ll be looking at existing executive orders, then making sure from Jan. 20 on there’s going to be appropriate executive-branch oversight of intelligence functions,” Mr. Brennan said in an interview shortly before Election Day.

The early transition effort is winning praise from moderate Democrats. “He’s surrounded himself with excellent people — an excellent bipartisan group,” said Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat who is chairwoman of the House homeland-security subcommittee on intelligence.

Civil-liberties and human-rights advocates, who helped Mr. Obama win election, are seeking both a reversal of Bush administration policies and expanded investigations into possible illegal actions when the administration sought to track down terrorists after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“We need to understand what happened,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington office.

Most of those being discussed as candidates for director of national intelligence and director of the CIA have staked out a middle ground between safeguarding civil liberties and aggressively pursuing nontraditional adversaries.

Mr. Brennan is a leading contender for one of the two jobs, say some advisers. He declined to comment on personnel matters. Gen. James L. Jones, a former North Atlantic Treaty Organization commander; Thomas Fingar, the chief of analysis for the intelligence director; Joan A. Dempsey, who served in top intelligence and Pentagon posts; former Rep. Tim Roemer of Indiana, who served on the 9/11 Commission; and Ms. Harman have also been mentioned. Ms. Harman has also been cited as a potential secretary of homeland security.

“I’m very flattered that some folks somewhere think I would be qualified for a number of positions,” she said. “But I’m also looking forward to an eighth term in Congress working on many of these issues.”

None of the others could be reached for comment.

Another option for Mr. Obama would be to retain current intelligence Director Mike McConnell, who has said he would stay on for a reasonable time until a successor is named. CIA Director Michael V. Hayden also is open to considering an extension of his time in office, according to a senior intelligence official.

However, Mr. Obama voted against Mr. Hayden’s nomination as CIA director to signal his frustration with the administration’s warrantless-surveillance program, which Mr. Hayden helped launch as National Security Agency director.

Add comment November 11th, 2008

Closing Guantanamo, plus…

Meteor Blades at Daily Kos says:

Closing Guantanamo Would Be a Good Start, But …

By Meteor Blades

It’s dead certain that Barack Obama will not close Guantánamo Bay on “Day One” as the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are pressing him to do. Unless the effort to shut down the detention center there began right now with the Cheney-Bush administration’s assistance, it would be logistically impossible. Who would be released, and where to? Who would be tried, and in what venue, under what rules? It does appears from news reports, however, that a freshly inaugurated President Obama may well give the order to close the center on his first day in office. That would be one more reason to cheer on January 20.

But Gitmo is only the most high-profile of the prisons set up to hold suspected terrorists after the 2001 attacks. And while it is essential that the restoration of the rule of law include emptying the cells on that portion of permanently leased Cuban soil, there is, as I argued Sunday in Dear President-Elect Obama, far more to do than merely close Gitmo. Other prisons, including the one in Bagram, Afghanistan, which is considered by many observers to be worse than Guantánamo, should be on the table, too. Plus the secret prisons in Thailand, Morocco, and possibly Diego Garcia. Are they empty, as claimed? And what about rendition, that euphemism for political kidnapping, behavior that would have Americans demanding a declaration of war if any government sent its agents to do it in the United States? What will be done with that?

For the moment, however, Guantánamo appears to be all that’s on the table. The Associated Press reports that the President-Elect’s team is moving quickly to set up a means of dealing with the estimated 250 detainees at the detention center:

Under the plan being drawn up by Obama’s advisers, some detainees would be released and others would be charged in U.S. courts, where they would receive constitutional rights and open trials. But, underscoring the difficult decisions Obama must make to fulfill his pledge of shutting down Guantanamo, the plan could require creation of a new legal system to handle the classified information inherent in some of the most sensitive cases. …

Advisers participating directly in the planning spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans are not final.

“The plan could require creation of a new legal system…” Require? It should come as no surprise that this might be the approach of the Obama administration. As Senator, Obama voted against the obscene Military Commissions Act two years ago, and noted in a putdown of the proposed law:

I’ve heard, for example, the argument that it should be military courts, and not federal judges, who should make decisions on these detainees. I actually agree with that. The problem is that the structure of the military proceedings has been poorly thought through. Indeed, the regulations that are supposed to be governing administrative hearings for these detainees, which should have been issued months ago, still haven’t been issued. Instead, we have rushed through a bill that stands a good chance of being challenged once again in the Supreme Court.

Sure enough, the Court ruled last summer in Boumediene v. Bush that the MCA unconstitutionally suspended habeas corpus for the detainees. That marked the fourth case in which the Supreme Court made mincemeat of the Cheney-Bush administration’s efforts to make the detainees unpersons in a supposedly jurisdictionless bit of real estate fully operated but not owned by the United States.

Some critics, include me among them, see no reason to establish a new legal system to deal with the detainees.

“I think that creating a new alternative court system in response to the abject failure of Guantánamo would be a profound mistake,” Jonathan Hafetz, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who represents detainees, said Monday. “We do not need a new court system. The last eight years are a testament to the problems of trying to create new systems.”

Glenn Greenwald interviewed ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero today. Much of the interview was about Guantánamo and trials of the detainees. It’s worth clicking through to read the whole interview. Here’s an excerpt:

Now, let me ask you specifically about closing Guantanamo, because that I do think is probably most conducive to being done through unilateral presidential action, since it was done in the first place…

AR: Shut it down, and shut down the military commissions, because it won’t be good enough if you shut down Guantanamo, and then transfer the detainees and charge them under these trials, and use the same screwed-up rules of the military commission at Fort Bragg or Fort Myers or anywhere else. You’ve got to shut down the existing military commissions as well.

GG: Let me ask you about a couple criticisms that are going to be raised quite loudly in the event that he doesn’t come to do that. One of which I think is easily dispensed with that I’m interested in your response, which is, that we simply transfer several hundred highly complex cases to the federal judiciary, that it’s going to overwhelm administratively the courts which are already overburdened and crowd out the ability of other defendants and certainly civil litigants to be heard in the federal court. What’s your response to that?

AR: Well, I think we have very smart administrators in the federal system who can find a way to deal with them and divide them up among the different circuits, making sure that those who have comparable facts and arguments can be dispensed with as a group. And look, the legal system shouldn’t be quick or easy. We’re talking about people’s most fundamental liberties, and the fact is court and judges and trials take time. And that’s because the stakes are so high. I don’t want a quick dirty system that dispenses with people’s rights in a too expedient and a too quick a manner.

The fact is, the government is going to have to bear the burden of proof. Can you try these individuals in a criminal court, or a military commission under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and come forward with the proof that will stand up in courts of law that are governed by the Constitution, and if it can’t, you’ve got to release them. That’s our system. The burden of proof is on the government if you’re going to take away someone’s most fundamental right of freedom and liberty, to show the proof and to demonstrate it to a neutral and an objective judge, and possibly a jury, if it’s a criminal case, a jury of one’s peers, beyond a reasonable doubt. That is the law.

What the Military Commissions Act did was to rewrite the rules of that law. And so, I think frankly the burden is on the government, and it’s had eight years to collect the information on these guys, and if they don’t have it now, they probably ain’t going to have it in the next two or three years. So you’ve got to bite the bullet and if you don’t have the evidence to prosecute them in good American courts of law governed by the Constitution, then the solution is to let them go.

Whatever the differences we progressives may have over resolving this matter, what a joy finally to be discussing the proper way to correct this grotesque violation of human and civil rights carried out in our names.

Add comment November 11th, 2008

ACLU launches Close Guantanamo campaign

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is launching a new campaign to close Guantanamo immediately. As part of this campaign they, along with Brave New Foundation are launching a new series of videos:

Go to www.closegitmo.com/ and sign this letter to President-Elect Obama:

Dear President-elect Obama,

Nothing would make me prouder than to see you act on your first day in office to restore America’s moral leadership in the world.

With one stroke of your pen, you can close Guantánamo Bay prison, shut down military commissions, and ban torture.

The Bush administration created a prison camp at Guantánamo - a place where they claimed the law didn’t apply. They detained hundreds of men without charge or trial, authorized torture, and prosecuted some prisoners in military commissions that violate our Constitution and international law.

We can’t let the system of injustice George W. Bush put in place stand - not for a single day.

I want you to know that I will support your leadership on this vitally important issue in every possible way. Please act on Day One to make clear that the government you lead will be faithful to the Constitution.

The restoration of American freedom is in your hands. Give us back the America we believe in.

Signed,

Here is a blog posting by ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero describing the campaign:

Obama: Close Gitmo On Day One. You Can Do It. We’ve Got Your Back

By Anthony D. Romero

It’s already a time-worn cliché when we say that the election of Barack Obama is historic. I still like saying it. Let me share some of my personal reflections on why this election seems historic and hopeful for a sometimes jaded Executive Director.

Like many of you on Tuesday night, I was celebrating the end of the Bush era and the beginning of a historic one. My partner and I went to four festive and fun election parties that night. And then while lying in bed that night, excitedly talking about the world, we reflected on what that night’s election meant for us.

My partner remarked that he was born in 1954, and that the year he was born, African-American little boys like him were still legally put in “separate but equal” schools. Then Brown vs. Board of Education changed all that. And today, an African-American ascends to the highest office of the greatest nation. I remarked that when I was a little boy in the Bronx public housing projects, I never thought I could be president of ANYTHING when I grew up. I only believed I could go to college when I was a high school sophomore after receiving a letter telling me I was offered early admission at a community college. That was the first day I realized I would not have to be a waiter like my father who came from Puerto Rico and worked at the Warwick Hotel for 39 years. I told my partner that my Mom still proudly tells me that I was always smart, ambitious, and focused on school. But I never aspired for anything more than a job like my dad’s because I never thought it was possible. My dad was the only great role model I knew and I wanted to be just like him.

On Tuesday, all the African-American, Latino, poor of all races, and disenfranchised of all countries got the best of role models. Everyone knows who the U.S. president is, and now literally billions of little boys and girls who may have otherwise set their sights too low will invariably set them higher. If nothing more happens (and our collective job is to make sure a lot more happens), change will indeed happen by having a President Barack Obama inspire new generations of little boys and girls to write, “I want to be President when I grow up.” No one will dare ridicule them because of the color of their skin, their ethnicity, their sexual orientation, or convince them that the odds are insurmountable. Tuesday inspired many, but the best of those we inspired we won’t know for generations to come.

For our generation, however, we have to help realize the greatness that President Obama represents. It’s not all on him. He needs us. He has two raging wars, a failing economy where good folks are losing their homes and can’t drive their cars because they don’t have the cash to go the pump, and where they avoid going to the doctor because they can’t afford the bills that will come in the mail. Those are not ACLU priorities, but they are American priorities that President Obama confronts. Solutions to these problems won’t be easy, as he will have to contend with well-moneyed lobbyists from pharmaceuticals, oil companies and military contractors opposing him at every turn. Solutions to those issues will require partisan horse trading with Republicans and Democrats alike — and I worry that he will have to water down what he wants and ultimately give up the Progressive Caucus to get the Blue Dogs and Conservative/Moderate Wing of Republican party, as well as the “Independent” likes of Joe Lieberman (smile).

But our issues and our top agenda are easy by comparison. He doesn’t have to contend with lobbyists in client-bought Ferragamos. Our issues won’t require partisan horse-trading, congressional action, faux hearings and bipartisan committees that deliberate but never deliver.

Our top issue — closing down Gitmo and shutting down the military commissions — can be done as soon as he lifts his left hand, picks up the new presidential pen and signs an executive order closing Gitmo and ending the military commissions once and for all. Call me naive, but I honestly believe he wants to do it. He promised us that on the campaign trail, and I believe it was more than an empty promise. I believe he knows what he needs to do to restore the America we believe in, to get us on back on track, to give us back our America, an America we never stopped believing in but have sorely missed for the past eight years.

With a stroke of his pen on Day One, a good, courageous president can do that — as long as he listens to himself and to our pleas. As long as he doesn’t listen to the centrist and DLC types who tell him, “It’s too complicated.” “It’s tougher than it looks.” “Take your time.” “We need message discipline — you don’t want to do what Clinton did with gays in the military. The nation wasn’t ready.”

But what these so-called experts might forget is that America IS ready. The world is ready. And we need a courageous, optimistic president ready to say back to them, “I don’t want America to live with the stain of President Bush’s Guantánamo prison camp and his flawed commissions for one day longer. I’m closing them today. You tell me how we are going to accomplish that and begin cleaning up the mess we inherited.”

They’re not likely to give him a solution — just their view of the realpolitik. They may play for time, and “get back to him” as he turns his attention elsewhere. But the solution to the stain on America’s pride is in fact really easy: criminally charge all the Guantánamo detainees for whom the government has good evidence. Those we can’t charge, you have to release. For those being tried in kangaroo military commissions, transfer them to federal criminal courts or to courts governed by the U.S. Code of Military Justice. Those are the best systems of justice in the world where the Constitution still stands for something. Let’s use them.

President Obama needs us. Even for the most extraordinary of men like him, his head must be spinning from the “expert” advice he’s getting on a range of issues. Other pressing issues will take time, compromise and horse-trading. Our top issue — closing Gitmo and shutting down the military commissions — just requires us to remind him that that’s what we want; that we have his back when the critics come after him for doing so. We can tell him that we understand that the best of presidents who want to do the right thing are better able to do so when the public, fans and supporters respectfully demand action. Like Dr. King forcing the hand of JFK. Both their legacies benefited from that pressure. And the nation remembers them fondly, even if there were tensions between them. We understand that. I have to believe President Obama understands that.

So let’s get to work to help Mr. Obama be the best president ever. A courageous commander-in-chief, who tells West Wing advisors sipping lattes in Italian calfskin loafers what they have to do, rather than ask the George Bush question, “What should we do?”

In today’s New York Times, we’re running a full-page ad urging President-Elect Obama to close Guantánamo Bay and shut down the military commissions on his first day in the White House. Take a look at the ad.

Today, we’re also launching the first in a powerful series of short videos produced by filmmaker Robert Greenwald, the award-winning director and producer of documentaries including “Outfoxed” and “Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties.” Check out the first video now. You can find Robert’s video on closegitmo.com.

We’re hosting an open Town Hall Meeting on Thursday, November 13, when concerned citizens from all across the nation will gather via teleconference to brainstorm how we help Barack Obama take the steps we all want towards freedom on Day One. We can help him do the right thing, we can give him cover and we can respond to his advisors that it not as hard to close Gitmo and shut down Bush’s military commissions as we’re being told. We can’t wait. The world can’t wait. Our America can’t wait. We want it back and need him to get us back on track.

You are invited to this strategy session to help the president do the right thing that’s in his gut. Go to www.aclu.org/townhall for more information and to sign up.

For eight years, patriotic Americans have led the battle against the most un-American policies in recent history. The Bush administration created a prison camp at Guantánamo — a place where they claimed the law didn’t apply. They have detained hundreds of men without charge or trial, prosecuted others in unconstitutional military commissions and authorized torture.

Now, you can help us and our new president seize a dramatic opportunity for progress. You can help this historic president make history on Day One — not a day too soon. Before the weeds and vines of politics-as-usual creep over our hope and smother its light, let’s come together and demand a new beginning and a new day — on the first day. We can and will close Gitmo, and we can shut down the un-American military commissions. It takes a president, but he needs his people. Not his advisors.

Help us reach him. Help President-elect Obama. Help America.

Get involved: Watch our first “Close Gitmo” video, check out our New York Times ad and sign up for our Town Hall Meeting.

If not for us, do it for those legions of little boys and girls who now have a role model they believe in. Let’s not lose their hope in him, in us, and let’s not let their incipient hope in themselves dissipate. Hope is too hard won. And too easily lost.

Add comment November 10th, 2008