Globalizing Torture Cia Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition
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The Use and Abuse of Domestic National Security Detention
THE USE AND ABUSE OF DOMESTIC NATIONAL SECURITY DETENTION Nicole Hallett* ABSTRACT Are people convicted of terrorism-related offenses so dangerous that we must bend the Constitution to keep the public safe? Or should we treat them like people who commit other crimes – by prosecuting, convicting, sentencing, and then releasing them after they have served their criminal sentences? Can we trust the government to use the power to detain people without criminal charge without abusing it? The case of Adham Amin Hassoun raises these questions. Prosecuted after 9/11 for providing support to Muslims abroad in the 1990s, and sentenced under the United States’ expansive material support laws, Hassoun avoided a life sentence only to find that the government never planned to release him after he served his sentence. He became the first person held under Section 412 of the USA PATRIOT ACT, which purports to give the government broad authority to detain non-citizens who the government certifies are national security risks. The government abused that authority in Hassoun’s case. But perhaps more importantly than what happened to Hassoun himself, his case illustrates the ease with which domestic national security detention can be abused by government actors with perverse political incentives. Above all, Hassoun’s case should cause us to reexamine the traditional deference given to the government in national security matters, particularly when the government’s targets are from disfavored groups such as Muslims or other religious and racial minorities. More than 20 years after 9/11, it is time to interrogate the national security apparatus that rose up in the aftermath of the attacks and which ensnared Hassoun in a legal battle that only ended after the government was forced to justify its actions, and failed. -
Open Society Justice Initiative | Globalizing Torture
GLOBALIZING TORTURE CIA SECRET DETENTION AND EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION ENDNOTES GLOBALIZING TORTURE CIA SECRET DETENTION AND EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION 2 Copyright © 2013 Open Society Foundations. This publication is available as a pdf on the Open Society Foundations website under a Creative Commons license that allows copying and distributing the publication, only in its entirety, as long as it is attributed to the Open Society Foundations and used for noncommercial educational or public policy purposes. Photographs may not be used separately from the publication. ISBN: 978-1-936133-75-8 PUBLISHED BY: Open Society Foundations 400 West 59th Street New York, New York 10019 USA www.opensocietyfoundations.org FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Amrit Singh Senior Legal Officer National Security and Counterterrorism [email protected] DESIGN AND LAYOUT BY: Ahlgrim Design Group PRINTED BY: GHP Media, Inc. PHOTOGRAPHY: Cover photo © Ron Haviv/VII 3 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND METHODOLOGY 4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 5 RECOMMENDATIONS 9 SECTION I: INTRODUCTION 11 SECTION II: THE EVOLUTION OF CIA SECRET DETENTION AND 13 EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION OPERATIONS Extraordinary Rendition 13 Secret Detention and “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” 15 Current Policies and Practices 19 SECTION III: INTERNATIONAL LEGAL STANDARDS APPLICABLE TO 22 CIA SECRET DETENTION AND EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment 23 Transfer to Torture or Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment 25 Arbitrary Detention and Enforced Disappearance 26 Participation in Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition Operations 27 SECTION IV: DETAINEES SUBJECTED TO POST-SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, 29 CIA SECRET DETENTION AND EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION SECTION V: FOREIGN GOVERNMENT PARTICIPATION IN 61 CIA SECRET DETENTION AND EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION SECTION VI: CONCLUSION 119 ENDNOTES 120 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This report was written by Amrit Singh, Senior Legal Officer for the Open Society Justice Initiative’s National Security and Counterterrorism program, and edited by David Berry. -
Homefront Confidential
September 2005 RCFP WHITE PAPER Homefront Confidential SIXTH EDITION How the War on Terrorism Affects Access to Information and the Public’s Right to Know Prepared by RCFP WHITE PAPER Homefront Confidential SIXTH EDITION How the War on Terrorism Affects Access to Information and the Public’s Right to Know Homefront Confidential: How the War on Terrorism Affects Access to Information and the Public’s Right to Know Sixth Edition September 2005 A project of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Editors: Lucy A. Dalglish Gregg P. Leslie Contributors: Rebecca Daugherty, Monica Dias, Ashley Gauthier, Kimberley Keyes, Jennifer LaFleur, Jeff Lemberg, Ryan Lozar, James McLaughlin, Mimi Moon, Kirsten Mitchell, Kirsten Murphy, Grant Penrod, Gil Shochat, Wendy Tannenbaum, Phillip Taylor, Sara Thacker Paula Canning, Kevin Capp, Kathleen Dunphy, Jane Elizabeth, Victor Gaberman, James Getz, Maria Gowen, Amanda Groover, Lolita Guevarra, Kristin Gunderson, Emily Harwood, Katrina Hull, Lois Lloyd, Jennifer Myers, Tejal Shah, Thomas Sullivan, April Thorn, Alba Lucero Villa, Corinna Zarek Major funding for previous editions of this report was provided by: The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Scripps Howard Foundation St. Petersburg Times Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation © 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. All rights reserved. No part of this booklet may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior, written permission of the publisher. Additional copies of this report may be obtained -
Victims of Preemptive Prosecution, Which I Wrote in 2010 (Revised March 2011)
VICTIMS OF AMERICA’S DIRTY WARS Tactics and Reasons from COINTELPRO to the War on Terror By Stephen Downs, Esq. 1 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 5 INTRODUCTION 6 PROFILING OF PEOPLE OF COLOR: RACIAL PROSECUTION 7 Historical Framework . 7 The Assassinations of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark . 9 The Framing of Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt . 9 The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the MOVE Defendants . 9 The Destruction of Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin and the Assassination of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah . 10 PROFILING OF PEACE ACTIVISTS: IDEOLOGICAL PROSECUTION 11 The Investigation of CISPES . 12 2010: Peace Groups Accused of Material Support for Terrorism . 13 PROFILING OF MUSLIMS: PREEMPTIVE PROSECUTION 13 1. Charity Financing Cases . 15 The Al-Haramain Case (Pete Seda, Soliman Al-Buthe) . 16 The Holy Land Foundation Case (Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu-Baker, El-Mazain, Mufid Abdulqader, Abdulrahman Odeh) . 18 Akram Musa Abdullah (Holy Land Subcase) . 19 Dr. Rafil Dhafir, Priscilla Dhafir . 19 Enaam Arnaout . 21 2. Material Support Charges and Guilt By Association . 21 Sami Al-Arian (Hatem Fariz, Sameeh Hammoudeh, Ghassan Ballut) 22 Syed Fahad Hashmi . 24 Ehsanul Islam “Shifa” Sadequee and Syed Haris Ahmed . 25 3. Agent Provocateur Cases . 27 Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain . 28 The Newburgh 4 (Onta Williams, James Cromitie, David Williams, Laguerre Payen) . 28 The Fort Dix 5 (Eljvir Duka, Dritan Duka, Shain Duka, Mohammed Shnewer, Serdar Tatar) . 30 The Miami 6 (Liberty City) Case . 31 Hamid and Umer Hayat . 32 The Tarik Shah Martial Arts Case (Tarik Shah, Mahmud Faruq Brent, Dr. Rafiq Sabir, Abdulrahman Farhane) . 32 The Detroit Ummah Case (Luqman Ameen Abdullah and eleven others) 33 The Herald Square Plot (Shahawar Matin Siraj, James Elshafay) . -
Immigration and Terrorism: Moving Beyond the 9/11 Staff Report on Terrorist Travel Janice L
Immigration and Terrorism: Moving Beyond the 9/11 Staff Report on Terrorist Travel Janice L. Kephart ∗ OH GOD, you who open all doors, please open all doors for me, open all venues for me, open all avenues for me. – Mohammed Atta Introduction In August 2004, on the last day the 9/11 Commission was statutorily permitted to exist, a 240-page staff report describing the 9/11 Commission border team’s fifteen months of work in the area of immigration, visas, and border control was published on the 1 web. Our report, 9/11 and Terrorist Travel, focused on answering the question of how the hijackers of September 11 managed to enter and stay in the United States.2 To do so, we looked closely at the immigration records of the individual hijackers, along with larger policy questions of how and why our border security agencies failed us. The goal of this essay is to build on that report in two areas: • To provide additional facts about the immigration tactics of indicted and con- victed operatives of Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups from the 1990s through the end of 2004. • To enlarge the policy discussion regarding the relationship between national security and immigration control. This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the 9/11 Commission or its staff. ∗ Janice Kephart is former counsel to the September 11 Commission. She has testified before the U.S. Congress, and has made numerous appearances in print and broadcast media. Re- search used in preparing portions of this report was conducted with the assistance of (former) select staff of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, Josh Lefkowitz, Jacob Wallace, and Jeremiah Baronberg. -
Terrorism Financing & U.S. Financial Institutions
Testimony of Steven Emerson Before the House Committee on Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations "Progress Since 9/11: The Effectiveness of U.S. Anti-Terrorist Financing Efforts” Terrorism Financing & U.S. Financial Institutions March 11, 2003 Steven Emerson Executive Director The Investigative Project 5505 Conn. Ave. NW, Suite 341 Washington, DC 20015 Phone 202.363.8602 Fax 202.966.5191 Email: [email protected] STEVEN EMERSON A Biographical Sketch [email protected] Steven Emerson is an internationally recognized expert on terrorism and national security, a correspondent, and an author who also serves as the Executive Director of The Investigative Project, the nation's largest archival data and intelligence on Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorist groups. He is most recently the author of the national best seller, “American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us” (Free Press). Mr. Emerson is widely recognized as one of the foremost experts in the world on militant Islamic terrorism. He now serves as NBC's terrorism analyst. Since September 11, 2001, Mr. Emerson has appeared frequently on network television and has been quoted or cited hundreds of times in the nation's top newspapers. Mr. Emerson and his institute have also given numerous briefings to Congress, the White House, the Justice Department and other federal agencies. Mr. Emerson started The Investigative Project in late 1995, following the broadcast of his documentary film, "Jihad in America," on Public Television. The film exposed video of clandestine operations of militant Islamic terrorist groups on American soil. For the film, Mr. Emerson received numerous awards including the George Polk Award for best television documentary, one of the most prestigious awards in journalism.