Lawyers for Gitmo detainees endorse Obama
By Charlie Savage
More than 80 volunteer lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees today endorsed Illinois Senator Barack Obama's presidential bid.
The attorneys said in a joint statement that they believed Obama was the best choice to roll back the Bush-Cheney administration's detention policies in the war on terrorism and thereby to "restore the rule of law, demonstrate our commitment to human rights, and repair our reputation in the world community." The attorneys are representing the detainees in habeas corpus lawsuits, which are efforts to get individual hearings before federal judges in order to challenge the basis for their indefinite imprisonment without trial.
The attorneys praised Obama for being a leader in an unsuccessful fight in the fall of 2006 to block Congress from enacting a law stripping courts of jurisdiction to hear Guantanamo detainee lawsuits. The constitutionality of that law, which was part of the Military Commissions Act, is now being challenged before the Supreme Court in one of the most closely-watched cases this term.
"When we were walking the halls of the Capitol trying to win over enough Senators to beat back the Administration's bill, Senator Obama made his key staffers and even his offices available to help us," they wrote. "Senator Obama worked with us to count the votes, and he personally lobbied colleagues who worried about the political ramifications of voting to preserve habeas corpus for the men held at Guantanamo. He has understood that our strength as a nation stems from our commitment to our core values, and that we are strong enough to protect both our security and those values. Senator Obama demonstrated real leadership then and since, continuing to raise Guantanamo and habeas corpus in his speeches and in the debates."
The attorneys did not say why they sided with Obama over his chief rival, New York Senator Hillary Clinton. Like Obama, Clinton too opposed the Military Commissions Act, arguing during the Senate debate that a major flaw of the bill was its provision stripping habeas corpus rights for non-citizens named by the president as "enemy combatants."
"This bill would not only deny detainees habeas corpus rights – a process that would allow them to challenge the very validity of their confinement – it would also deny these rights to lawful immigrants living in the United States," Clinton said in September 2006. "If enacted, this law would give license to this Administration to pick people up off the streets of the United States and hold them indefinitely without charges and without legal recourse."
The Gitmo attorneys contrasted Obama's record during the fight over the Military Commissions Act with that of "some politicians," whom they did not name but accused of being "all talk and no action" and who, they said, "stood back" while Obama took a more active role amid the controversy. Chicago lawyer Gary Isaac, who helped draft the statement, said that this wording was intended not to be a jab at Clinton. Rather, he said, it is "really intended to respond to the contention that Senator Obama is all talk and no action. We wanted to share our experience where he was a leader on an issue of great importance to us."
Several Boston lawyers were among the signatories to the endorsement statement, including P. Sabin Willett, Stephen H. Oleskey, Jason Pinney, and Neil McGaraghan. Other names on the list included Washington lawyer Thomas Wilner, retired federal appeals court judge John Gibbons, Center for Constitutional Rights president Michael Ratner, and retired Rear Admiral Donald Guter, who was the Navy's top JAG officer from 2000 to 2002 and who is now the dean of the Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh.
Yes! And lawyers, though I know you are presently busy, pay attention: the majority (by far) of the population don't know the biggest reason not to invite the Clinton's back to the White House. I know that they have attacked the 4th Amendment (The Amendment guards against unreasonable searches and seizures) in a way that makes the current struggle involving the FISA renewal look silly. In 1994, Bill Clinton authorized the governments covert use of thought reading technology on it's own citizens (plus ways to let some of us know they are reading our thoughts). I don't want to go thru four years of Hillary hoping somethings leaks, when it should be the government's duty to come clean with the people about it's activities. With Obama (would love Edwards as Attorney General) I can have hope for this country again. And maybe find a good civil suit lawyer...
Gee, does that mean that Canada might be able to put the US BACK onto the Torturing Nation list?
garsh.
it would be nice for my country to stand up for some principles.
At least we're no longer letting the US-led NATO forces pressure Canadian forces into handing Afghans into US-trained Afghan torturer custody.
~~~
Spread Love...
BlueBerry Pick'n
can be found @
ThisCanadian.com
~~~
"We, two, form a Multitude" ~ Ovid.
~~~
"Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"
Dont know how many others are as incensed as I am about these chain emails being sent to religious groups and others that question Sen. Barack Obamas patriotism and religious beliefs. (See press link to last weeks open letter from Jewish groups being bombarded with these emails: http://www.adl.org/internet/Letter_obama.asp)
The use of the Internet to spread false information about a political candidate--- and thus to affect the outcome of an election--- is particularly abhorrent to me.
We cannot regress to old-style dirty tricks. In the public interest, we need to get behind these emails---and identify who originated them.
If you have received such an email, please forward it to me.
negemail53@gmail.com
Shorter Kathy: Elect Hillary Clinton and Bill will read your mind!!
Is this a real group? About as welcome an endorsement as the Log Cabin Republicans would be for Romney.
The question lately seems to be not "who IS endorsing Obama" but "who ISN'T endorsing Obama." And the web blog I belong to is seeing a HUGE wave of people switching from Hillary to Barack, and even from Edwards..........
Bill Clinton single-handedly deflated the Hillary balloon with a couple of ill-advised statements. Her campaign needs to reign him in, if it isn't already too late.
Obama getting the Kennedys must have been a bitter pill for Hillary to swallow. Hope she doesn't choke on it.
I am struck by the fact that there are to many lawyers involved in everything going on in this country!! Does that mean that lawyers a/k/a "used cars" and "snake oil" "salesmen" think the rest of us are stupid? Their should be two term limits for all elective offices (one term for lawyers) as there is for President! Enough of this already!!!
"za" writes that "The question lately seems to be not who IS endorsing Obama but who ISN'T. I beg to differ. We should ask "who" and, more importantly, "why"?
With the Kennedy endorsements, it is clear that the king-makers and power-brokers of the Democratic Party have finally made up their minds and have anointed Senator Obama as their standard bearer. This should not be confused with the democratic will of the people -- after all, we haven't even gotten to Super Tuesday (but that's the point). The question is, as I asked in a message to Senator Kennedy's office Sunday evening, why now? Given that, at least in the senior senator's view as expressed in an interview yesterday on PBS' Tavis Smiley Show, the party has, give or take, three equally qualified liberal candidates whose white papers on the issues are pretty much from the authorized playbook, why Obama now?
The short answer is "race." Despite Senator Kennedy's parroting of the Obama campaign's spin that the junior senator from Illinois is a "uniter" who brings people together, Obama showed in South Carolina that he can really bring home the bacon as it were by mobilizing the black vote in the South.
Forget the fact that it was Obama's pique about Clinton's bringing President Johnson into the King celebrations that unlocked once and for all the elephant that had been in the room, race -- and dare I even say began the race baiting? The power brokers know the power of numbers when they see it, and Obama's successful targeting of, to quote him, "his people," with his 80% margin among Afro-Americans stunned the old guard into realizing that here was their solution to cracking the juggernaut of the "Southern strategy" that has put Republicans in power for the last 40 years.
As the appartchiks of the media made clear from the beginning, the race was always between the two celebrity candiddates Clinton and Obama, but it was never about the "content of a person's character" but was always a question about gonads and skin color, about whether gender or race would trump the other. The good 'ole boys of the party got their answer in South Carolina. The first black president is dead, long live the first black president.
While it's easy to take potshots at lawyers, they as a group have been the ones who have kept the Guantanamo prisoners from vanishing completely, winning first the right to visit the prisoners, then managing to dismiss the false military commissions. Anyone interested might check out Clive Smith's excellent book on his experiences working for prisoners, Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice at Guantanamo.
Time to release the prisoners held at the illegal Guantanamo torture center and recompense them for the crimes committed against them there.
George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the Alberto Gonzalez should be prosecuted for the many war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated under their guidance and leadership at Guantanamo.
Are these guys joking? How can Obama be the best candidate for civil liberties when he voted to continue to fund the Iraq war, which has led to a huge number of civilian casualties (isn't the right to life a fundamental civil liberty?) and rapes and murders by American soldiers?
Ron Paul is the only presidential candidate who voted against the PATRIOT Act, against the Iraq war and against funding the Iraq war.
In reference to the comment about John Edwards would be a good Attorney General..I think Hillary Clinton would be a good choice for the Supreme Court.
There will be an opening and would be a good spot to fill since Sandra Day
O'Connor has retired. Hillary would not have to worry about running for election
again, and she would be set for life. Oh yes...then she could show her spouse,
Bill, that she was above the Presidency. (Problem solved for Obama backers).
I'm writting for you with hope. My name is Mamurjon,I'm 24, I
live in Tajikistan.I would like to spend
three month or more in USA,working as volunteer with adults.My
purpose are; getting more experience,practice the language and meet a
different cultural environment,being helpful at the same time.If
you could give me help or useful information,please contact me at this
address padrokh@rambler.ru Thank you very much to everyone.
With best wishs Mamurjon.
Hillary would be a good choice for the Supreme Court?
**********************
Great idea, but don't think she would like that.
Hillary loves being the center of attention. She loves the camera's focused on her and her alone. Don't think she would be willing to share the spot light with 9 other Justice's.
negemail53@gmail.com wrote "
"The use of the Internet to spread false information about a political candidate--- and thus to affect the outcome of an election--- is particularly abhorrent to me.
-------------------------------
Did you find it appaliing when Dan Rather used forged documenst om a national TV show? I doubt it, well heres an Obama quote thats not fake.
"In fact, whites are so heartless and devious that we can no longer expect anything from them."
Obama---- Dreams from my Father
HOW CAN I GET A LIST OF THE ATTORNEYS WHO ARE DEFENDING THE GITMO DETAINEES?
This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it.
Send your comments to masspolitics@globe.com
browse this blog
by categoryINside Boston.com