[Mb-hair] Democracy in Action?

[Michael Butler]

    Note: The entire hearing can be viewed at www.c-span.org.

    Democracy in Action?
    By Chip Pitts
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Sunday 12 June 2005

    Friday's Congressional hearing on the USA Patriot Act and civil
liberties was indeed an interesting experience.

    The hearing, called under a special rule by the Democratic minority
members, was one of the relatively rare recent opportunities that a diverse
selection of Patriot Act critics have had to voice their concerns to
Congress, and the only opportunity thus far to begin to highlight the links
between the depredations of rights at home and abroad.

    It was also unique in ending abruptly in what the New York Times
described as "an angry uproar," the Washington Post called "a cacophony of
protests," and other news outlets simply agreed was "chaos."

    At issue was the USA Patriot Act, portions of which sunset at the end of
this year. The President gave yet another major speech urging complete
renewal of those provisions last week, and the Senate Intelligence Committee
after closed door hearings agreed with him that the law should not only be
preserved, but expanded.

    As if it's not enough that law enforcement can now obtain your library
and bookstore records in secret and without probable cause, clandestinely
search your home without prior notice, and consider you a terrorist for
peaceful civil disobedience, the Senate Intelligence Committee wants to
expand FBI administrative subpoena authority to obtain all kinds of records
without even the semblance of judicial review, and even allow them to get
copies of your mail.

    Not only my organization, Amnesty International, but groups ranging from
the ACLU and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, to Bob Barr's
conservative coalition of gun owners and professional organizations
("Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances"), fault the administration's
unwillingness to acknowledge the invasions of constitutional rights
occasioned by the Patriot Act, and strongly oppose the unjustified
additional powers sought.

    As Fox News reported, "the hearing ended abruptly when committee
Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., abruptly gaveled the meeting to an end
and walked out, followed by other Republicans." Points of order raised by
the Democrats were ignored.

    Several Congressman at the hearing strongly criticized Amnesty
International, mischaracterizing our positions and even stating that we were
actually endangering American lives by documenting the administration's
tragic and counterproductive torture policy. I was prevented from
responding, until the barrage became so great that Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-
N.Y.) insisted, as a "point of decency," that I be allowed to do so.

    My response emphasized that it was not Amnesty International that
created the firestorm of outrage over the abuses at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib,
and elsewhere - but the administration officials themselves. They were the
ones who constructed Guantánamo and other secret detention centers around
the world as legal "black holes," denied access to Amnesty and the Red Cross
and others, and created both the rationale and the environments conducive to
torture, ill-treatment, "disappearances," arbitrary detention, military
trials, and extra-judicial executions.

    Then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Justice Department lawyers
drafted memos arguing that Guantánamo was beyond the law, that the
President's commander-in-chief authority allowed overriding rights in the
Constitution and international law, that customary international law doesn't
bind the President, and that "torture" could be narrowly redefined as
physical pain akin to that accompanying "death or organ failure" (so that
any physical abuse short of that would not be torture). The President
himself wrote that the Geneva Conventions would not be extended to those
deemed "al Qaeda" (without saying how membership in that organization would
be confirmed), and that those "legally entitled to humane treatment" would
be humanely treated (ignoring firm international law that everyone is
entitled to humane treatment). Defense Secretary Rumsfeld personally
authorized hiding "ghost detainees" from the Red Cross, as well as specific
torture techniques including forced nudity, the use of dogs, hooding,
sensory deprivation, and sleep deprivation.

    What subsequently happened to these officials? White House Counsel
Alberto Gonzales is the new US Attorney General. A chief author of the
Justice Department memos, Jay Bybee, is a new life-tenured federal judge.
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld continues his lively press conferences. And
President Bush was re-elected.

    Amnesty International's charges were repeatedly said at the hearing to
be "absurd," echoing the statements of the President and other top
administration officials to the same effect. What is truly absurd, even
Kafkaesque, is this administration's continued focus on language to distract
attention from the true issues and deny reality.

    The "Patriot" Act is the most un-Patriotic law since the short-lived
Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. It undermines most of the core freedoms in
the Bill of Rights, including freedom of speech, religion, assembly, press,
privacy, due process, and equal protection. These are not just domestic
constitutional rights. They are also international human rights, applying to
everyone just because they are human, as does the right to be protected from
cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment, and torture.

    The administration defenders' refrain was that the Patriot Act has
"nothing to do" with Guantánamo, indefinite detention, or the violations
we're seeing around the world. But the underlying principles are no
different. The same overbroad, preemptive, secretive, subjective,
discriminatory, unchecked instances of executive power found throughout the
Patriot Act are clearly evident in the violations Amnesty and others have
documented at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere. All violate human
autonomy and dignity. All counterproductively undermine security as well as
liberty.

    The Justice Department's own Inspector General in 2003 documented
post-9/11 violations at home that were different only in degree, not in
kind, from those seen at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. Muslims and Arabs and
those mistaken for them (Sikhs and people of color generally) were treated
as sub-human, beaten, spat upon, their religion insulted, their access to
family, health care, and legal counsel denied. Some, like Mohammed Rafiq
Butt, died in custody in jails right here in the US Yet abuses at Abu Ghraib
and other detention centers abroad included many of the same practices used
at the Metropolitan detention center in Brooklyn, or in Texas or other US
prisons. Several of those implicated in the incidents abroad were previously
US corrections officials with a history of prisoner abuse.

    It pains me to say it, but a government that tolerates abuses at home is
unlikely to be scrupulous when it comes to abuses abroad. Yet in a bizarre
contortion of logic, some Congressmen at Friday's hearing placed the blame
for the upsurge in global hatred for America - that at the extreme will
inevitably manifest itself in increased terrorism - on Amnesty
International. Kafkaesque.

    Unbeknownst to most Americans, the administration has actively promoted
Patriot Act type legislation around the world. Almost every nation in the
world now has new counter-terror legislation, often modeled on the Patriot
Act, and often invading similarly fundamental rights. The result? A global
decline in the rule of law, with new space opened up for the rule of force
favored by terrorists.

    Amnesty International reiterates its call for Congress to appoint a
truly independent commission, to ask the hard questions about who is
responsible for the torture and ill-treatment now so clearly documented. And
Amnesty urges appointment of a Special Counsel to hold those responsible
accountable for their actions.

    The 9/11 Commission was similarly resisted by the administration until
public demands grew irresistible. As Friday's hearing shows, there's not
much tolerance for allowing questions in this case. But one thing's for
sure: neither the questions nor the drive for accountability are going away.

    Chip Pitts is Board Chair of Amnesty International USA, and a Board
Member of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee.