by Laura Sullivan
October 28, 2010
Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.
Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch.
"The gentleman that's the main thrust of this thing has a huge turquoise ring on his finger," Nichols said. "He's a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman."
What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants.
"They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community," Nichols said, "the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate."
But Nichols wasn't buying. He asked them how would they possibly keep a prison full for years — decades even — with illegal immigrants?
"They talked like they didn't have any doubt they could fill it," Nichols said.
That's because prison companies like this one had a plan — a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. And the plan became Arizona's immigration law.
Behind-The-Scenes Effort To Draft, Pass The Law
The law is being challenged in the courts. But if it's upheld, it requires police to lock up anyone they stop who cannot show proof they entered the country legally.
When it was passed in April, it ignited a fire storm. Protesters chanted about racial profiling. Businesses threatened to boycott the state.
Supporters were equally passionate, calling it a bold positive step to curb illegal immigration.
But while the debate raged, few people were aware of how the law came about.
NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry.
Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce
Enlarge Joshua Lott/Getty Images
Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, pictured here at Tea Party rally on Oct. 22, was instrumental in drafting the state's immigration law. He also sits on a American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) task force, a group that helped shape the law.
Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce
Joshua Lott/Getty Images
Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, pictured here at Tea Party rally on Oct. 22, was instrumental in drafting the state's immigration law. He also sits on a American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) task force, a group that helped shape the law.
The law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison in a way never done before. And it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to private prison companies responsible for housing them.
Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce says the bill was his idea. He says it's not about prisons. It's about what's best for the country.
"Enough is enough," Pearce said in his office, sitting under a banner reading "Let Freedom Reign." "People need to focus on the cost of not enforcing our laws and securing our border. It is the Trojan horse destroying our country and a republic cannot survive as a lawless nation."
But instead of taking his idea to the Arizona statehouse floor, Pearce first took it to a hotel conference room.
It was last December at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. Inside, there was a meeting of a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Insiders call it ALEC.
It's a membership organization of state legislators and powerful corporations and associations, such as the tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., ExxonMobil and the National Rifle Association. Another member is the billion-dollar Corrections Corporation of America — the largest private prison company in the country.
It was there that Pearce's idea took shape.
"I did a presentation," Pearce said. "I went through the facts. I went through the impacts and they said, 'Yeah.'"
Drafting The Bill
The 50 or so people in the room included officials of the Corrections Corporation of America, according to two sources who were there.
Pearce and the Corrections Corporation of America have been coming to these meetings for years. Both have seats on one of several of ALEC's boards.
Source: NPR News Investigations
Credit: Stephanie D'Otreppe/NPR
And this bill was an important one for the company. According to Corrections Corporation of America reports reviewed by NPR, executives believe immigrant detention is their next big market. Last year, they wrote that they expect to bring in "a significant portion of our revenues" from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that detains illegal immigrants.
In the conference room, the group decided they would turn the immigration idea into a model bill. They discussed and debated language. Then, they voted on it.
"There were no 'no' votes," Pearce said. "I never had one person speak up in objection to this model legislation."
Four months later, that model legislation became, almost word for word, Arizona's immigration law.
They even named it. They called it the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act."
"ALEC is the conservative, free-market orientated, limited-government group," said Michael Hough, who was staff director of the meeting.
Hough works for ALEC, but he's also running for state delegate in Maryland, and if elected says he plans to support a similar bill to Arizona's law.
Asked if the private companies usually get to write model bills for the legislators, Hough said, "Yeah, that's the way it's set up. It's a public-private partnership. We believe both sides, businesses and lawmakers should be at the same table, together."
Nothing about this is illegal. Pearce's immigration plan became a prospective bill and Pearce took it home to Arizona.
Campaign Donations
Pearce said he is not concerned that it could appear private prison companies have an opportunity to lobby for legislation at the ALEC meetings.
"I don't go there to meet with them," he said. "I go there to meet with other legislators."
Pearce may go there to meet with other legislators, but 200 private companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to meet with legislators like him.
As soon as Pearce's bill hit the Arizona statehouse floor in January, there were signs of ALEC's influence. Thirty-six co-sponsors jumped on, a number almost unheard of in the capitol. According to records obtained by NPR, two-thirds of them either went to that December meeting or are ALEC members.
That same week, the Corrections Corporation of America hired a powerful new lobbyist to work the capitol.
The prison company declined requests for an interview. In a statement, a spokesman said the Corrections Corporation of America, "unequivocally has not at any time lobbied — nor have we had any outside consultants lobby – on immigration law."
At the state Capitol, campaign donations started to appear.
Thirty of the 36 co-sponsors received donations over the next six months, from prison lobbyists or prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America, Management and Training Corporation and The Geo Group.
By April, the bill was on Gov. Jan Brewer's desk.
Brewer has her own connections to private prison companies. State lobbying records show two of her top advisers — her spokesman Paul Senseman and her campaign manager Chuck Coughlin — are former lobbyists for private prison companies. Brewer signed the bill — with the name of the legislation Pearce, the Corrections Corporation of America and the others in the Hyatt conference room came up with — in four days.
Brewer and her spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.
In May, The Geo Group had a conference call with investors. When asked about the bill, company executives made light of it, asking, "Did they have some legislation on immigration?"
After company officials laughed, the company's president, Wayne Calabrese, cut in.
"This is Wayne," he said. "I can only believe the opportunities at the federal level are going to continue apace as a result of what's happening. Those people coming across the border and getting caught are going to have to be detained and that for me, at least I think, there's going to be enhanced opportunities for what we do."
Opportunities that prison companies helped create.
Produced by NPR's Anne Hawke.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Top Corporations Aid U.S. Chamber of Commerce Campaign
By ERIC LIPTON, MIKE McINTIRE and DON VAN NATTA Jr.
Prudential Financial sent in a $2 million donation last year as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce kicked off a national advertising campaign to weaken the historic rewrite of the nation’s financial regulations.
Dow Chemical delivered $1.7 million to the chamber last year as the group took a leading role in aggressively fighting proposed rules that would impose tighter security requirements on chemical facilities.
And Goldman Sachs, Chevron Texaco, and Aegon, a multinational insurance company based in the Netherlands, donated more than $8 million in recent years to a chamber foundation that has been critical of growing federal regulation and spending. These large donations — none of which were publicly disclosed by the chamber, a tax-exempt group that keeps its donors secret, as it is allowed by law — offer a glimpse of the chamber’s money-raising efforts, which it has ramped up recently in an orchestrated campaign to become one of the most well-financed critics of the Obama administration and an influential player in this fall’s Congressional elections.
They suggest that the recent allegations from President Obama and others that foreign money has ended up in the chamber’s coffers miss a larger point: The chamber has had little trouble finding American companies eager to enlist it, anonymously, to fight their political battles and pay handsomely for its help.
And these contributions, some of which can be pieced together through tax filings of corporate foundations and other public records, also show how the chamber has increasingly relied on a relatively small collection of big corporate donors to finance much of its legislative and political agenda. The chamber makes no apologies for its policy of not identifying its donors. It has vigorously opposed legislation in Congress that would require groups like it to identify their biggest contributors when they spend money on campaign ads.
Proponents of that measure pointed to reports that health insurance providers funneled at least $10 million to the chamber last year, all of it anonymously, to oppose President Obama’s health care legislation.
“The major supporters of us in health care last year were confronted with protests at their corporate headquarters, protests and harassment at the C.E.O.’s homes,” said R. Bruce Josten, the chief lobbyist at the chamber, whose office looks out on the White House. “You are wondering why companies want some protection. It is pretty clear.”
The chamber’s increasingly aggressive role — including record spending in the midterm elections that supports Republicans more than 90 percent of the time — has made it a target of critics, including a few local chamber affiliates who fear it has become too partisan and hard-nosed in its fund-raising.
The chamber is spending big in political races from California to New Hampshire, including nearly $1.5 million on television advertisements in New Hampshire attacking Representative Paul W. Hodes, a Democrat running for the United States Senate, accusing him of riding Nancy Pelosi’s “liberal express” down the road to financial ruin.
“When you become a mouthpiece for a specific agenda item for one business or group of businesses, you better be damn careful you are not being manipulated,” said James C. Tyree, a former chairman of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, who has backed Republicans and Democrats, including Mr. Obama. “And they are getting close to that, if not over that edge.”
But others praise its leading role against Democrat-backed initiatives, like health care, financial regulation and climate change, which they argue will hurt American businesses. The Obama administration’s “antibusiness rhetoric” has infuriated executives, making them open to the chamber’s efforts, said John Motley, a former lobbyist for the National Federation of Independent Business, a rival.
“They’ve raised it to a science, and an art form,” he said of the chamber’s pitches to corporate leaders that large contributions will help “change the game” in Washington.
As a nonprofit organization, the chamber need not disclose its donors in its public tax filings, and because it says no donations are earmarked for specific ads aimed at a candidate, it does not invoke federal elections rules requiring disclosure.
The annual tax returns that the chamber releases include a list of all donations over $5,000, including 21 in 2008 that each exceed $1 million, one of them for $15 million. However, the chamber omits the donors’ names.
But intriguing hints can be found in obscure places, like the corporate governance reports that some big companies have taken to posting on their Web sites, which show their donations to trade associations. Also, the tax filings of corporate foundations must publicly list their donations to other foundations, including one run by the chamber.
These records show that while the chamber boasts of representing more than three million businesses, and having approximately 300,000 members, nearly half of its $140 million in contributions in 2008 came from just 45 donors. Many of those large donations coincided with lobbying or political campaigns that potentially affected the donors.
Dow Chemical, for example, sent $1.7 million to the chamber in the past year to cover not only its annual membership dues, but also to support lobbying and legal campaigns. Those included one against legislation requiring stronger measures to protect chemical plants from attack.
A Dow spokesman would not discuss the reasons for the large donation, other than to say it supports the chamber’s work.
Prudential Financial’s $2 million donation last year coincided with a chamber lobbying effort against elements of the financial regulation bill in Congress. A spokesman for Prudential, which opposed certain proposed restrictions on the use of financial instruments known as derivatives, said the donation was not earmarked for a specific issue.
But he acknowledged that most of the money was used by the chamber to lobby Congress.
“I am not suggesting it is a coincidence,” said the spokesman, Bob DeFillippo.
More recently, the News Corporation gave $1 million to support the chamber’s political efforts this fall; Chairman Rupert Murdoch said it was in best interests of his company and the country “that there be a fair amount of change in Washington.”
Business interests also give to the chamber’s foundation. Its tax filings show that seven donors gave the foundation at least $17 million between 2004 and 2008, about two-thirds of the total raised.
These donors include Goldman Sachs, Edward Jones, Alpha Technologies, Chevron Texaco and Aegon, which has American subsidiaries and whose former chief executive, Donald J. Shepard, served for a time as chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s board.
Another large foundation donor is a charity run by Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chairman of the insurance giant A.I.G. The charity has made loans and grants totaling $18 million since 2003. U.S. Chamber Watch, a union-backed group, filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service last month asserting that the chamber foundation violated tax laws by funneling the money into a chamber “tort reform” campaign favored by A.I.G. and Mr. Greenberg. The chamber denied any wrongdoing.
The complaint, which the chamber calls entirely unfounded, raises the question of how the chamber picks its campaigns, and whether it accepts donations that are intended to be spent on specific issues or political races.
The chamber says that it consults with members on lobbying targets, but that it does not make those decisions based on the size of a donation or accept money earmarked to support a specific political candidate.
Endorsement decisions, chamber officials said, are based on candidates’ votes on a series of business-related bills, and through consultations with the chamber’s regional directors, state affiliates and members.
To avoid conflicts of interest, individual businesses do not play a role in deciding on which races to spend the chamber’s political advertising dollars. The choices instead are made by the chamber’s political staff, based on where it sees the greatest chance of getting pro-business candidates elected, chamber executives said.
“They are not anywhere near a room when we are making a decision like that,” Mr. Josten said, of the companies that finance these ads. The chamber’s extraordinary money push began long before this election season. An organization that in 2003 had an overall budget of about $130 million, it is spending $200 million this year, and the chamber and its affiliates allocated $144 million last year just for lobbying, making it the biggest lobbyist in the United States.
In January, the chamber’s president, Thomas J. Donohue, a former trucking lobbyist, announced that his group intended “to carry out the largest, most aggressive voter education and issue advocacy effort in our nearly 100-year history.”
The words were carefully chosen, as the chamber asserts in filings with the Federal Election Commission that it is simply running issue ads during this election season. But a review of the nearly 70 chamber-produced ads found that 93 percent of those that have run nationwide that focus on the midterm elections either support Republican candidates or criticize their opponents.
And the pace of spending has been relentless. In just a single week this month, the chamber spent $10 million on Senate races in nine states and two dozen House races, a fraction of the $50 million to $75 million it said it intends to spend over all this season. In the 2008 election cycle, it spent $33.5 million.
To support the effort, the chamber has adopted an all-hands-on-deck approach to fund-raising. Mr. Josten said he makes many of the fund-raising calls to corporations nationwide, as does Mr. Donohue. (Both men are well compensated for their work: Mr. Donohue was paid $3.7 million in 2008, and has access to a corporate jet and a chauffeur, while Mr. Josten was paid $1.1 million, tax records show.)
But those aggressive pitches have turned off some business executives. “There was an arrogance to it like they were the 800-pound gorilla and I was either with them with this big number or I just did not matter,” said Mr. Tyree, of Chicago.
Another corporate executive, who asked not to be named, said the chamber risks alienating its members.
“Unless you spend $250,000 to $500,000 a year, that is what they want for you to be one of their pooh-bahs, otherwise, they don’t pay any attention to you at all,” the executive said, asking that the company not be identified.
Chamber officials acknowledge the tough fund-raising, but they say it has been necessary in support of their goal of remaking Congress on Election Day to make it friendlier to business.
“It’s been a long and ugly campaign season, filled with partisan attacks and political squabbling,” William C. Miller Jr., the chamber’s national political director, said in a message sent to chamber members this week. “We are all tired — no doubt about it. But we are so close to bringing about historic change on Capitol Hill.”
Eric Lipton reported from Washington, and Mike McIntire and Don Van Natta Jr. from New York. Kitty Bennett and Griffin Palmer contributed research.
Prudential Financial sent in a $2 million donation last year as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce kicked off a national advertising campaign to weaken the historic rewrite of the nation’s financial regulations.
Dow Chemical delivered $1.7 million to the chamber last year as the group took a leading role in aggressively fighting proposed rules that would impose tighter security requirements on chemical facilities.
And Goldman Sachs, Chevron Texaco, and Aegon, a multinational insurance company based in the Netherlands, donated more than $8 million in recent years to a chamber foundation that has been critical of growing federal regulation and spending. These large donations — none of which were publicly disclosed by the chamber, a tax-exempt group that keeps its donors secret, as it is allowed by law — offer a glimpse of the chamber’s money-raising efforts, which it has ramped up recently in an orchestrated campaign to become one of the most well-financed critics of the Obama administration and an influential player in this fall’s Congressional elections.
They suggest that the recent allegations from President Obama and others that foreign money has ended up in the chamber’s coffers miss a larger point: The chamber has had little trouble finding American companies eager to enlist it, anonymously, to fight their political battles and pay handsomely for its help.
And these contributions, some of which can be pieced together through tax filings of corporate foundations and other public records, also show how the chamber has increasingly relied on a relatively small collection of big corporate donors to finance much of its legislative and political agenda. The chamber makes no apologies for its policy of not identifying its donors. It has vigorously opposed legislation in Congress that would require groups like it to identify their biggest contributors when they spend money on campaign ads.
Proponents of that measure pointed to reports that health insurance providers funneled at least $10 million to the chamber last year, all of it anonymously, to oppose President Obama’s health care legislation.
“The major supporters of us in health care last year were confronted with protests at their corporate headquarters, protests and harassment at the C.E.O.’s homes,” said R. Bruce Josten, the chief lobbyist at the chamber, whose office looks out on the White House. “You are wondering why companies want some protection. It is pretty clear.”
The chamber’s increasingly aggressive role — including record spending in the midterm elections that supports Republicans more than 90 percent of the time — has made it a target of critics, including a few local chamber affiliates who fear it has become too partisan and hard-nosed in its fund-raising.
The chamber is spending big in political races from California to New Hampshire, including nearly $1.5 million on television advertisements in New Hampshire attacking Representative Paul W. Hodes, a Democrat running for the United States Senate, accusing him of riding Nancy Pelosi’s “liberal express” down the road to financial ruin.
“When you become a mouthpiece for a specific agenda item for one business or group of businesses, you better be damn careful you are not being manipulated,” said James C. Tyree, a former chairman of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, who has backed Republicans and Democrats, including Mr. Obama. “And they are getting close to that, if not over that edge.”
But others praise its leading role against Democrat-backed initiatives, like health care, financial regulation and climate change, which they argue will hurt American businesses. The Obama administration’s “antibusiness rhetoric” has infuriated executives, making them open to the chamber’s efforts, said John Motley, a former lobbyist for the National Federation of Independent Business, a rival.
“They’ve raised it to a science, and an art form,” he said of the chamber’s pitches to corporate leaders that large contributions will help “change the game” in Washington.
As a nonprofit organization, the chamber need not disclose its donors in its public tax filings, and because it says no donations are earmarked for specific ads aimed at a candidate, it does not invoke federal elections rules requiring disclosure.
The annual tax returns that the chamber releases include a list of all donations over $5,000, including 21 in 2008 that each exceed $1 million, one of them for $15 million. However, the chamber omits the donors’ names.
But intriguing hints can be found in obscure places, like the corporate governance reports that some big companies have taken to posting on their Web sites, which show their donations to trade associations. Also, the tax filings of corporate foundations must publicly list their donations to other foundations, including one run by the chamber.
These records show that while the chamber boasts of representing more than three million businesses, and having approximately 300,000 members, nearly half of its $140 million in contributions in 2008 came from just 45 donors. Many of those large donations coincided with lobbying or political campaigns that potentially affected the donors.
Dow Chemical, for example, sent $1.7 million to the chamber in the past year to cover not only its annual membership dues, but also to support lobbying and legal campaigns. Those included one against legislation requiring stronger measures to protect chemical plants from attack.
A Dow spokesman would not discuss the reasons for the large donation, other than to say it supports the chamber’s work.
Prudential Financial’s $2 million donation last year coincided with a chamber lobbying effort against elements of the financial regulation bill in Congress. A spokesman for Prudential, which opposed certain proposed restrictions on the use of financial instruments known as derivatives, said the donation was not earmarked for a specific issue.
But he acknowledged that most of the money was used by the chamber to lobby Congress.
“I am not suggesting it is a coincidence,” said the spokesman, Bob DeFillippo.
More recently, the News Corporation gave $1 million to support the chamber’s political efforts this fall; Chairman Rupert Murdoch said it was in best interests of his company and the country “that there be a fair amount of change in Washington.”
Business interests also give to the chamber’s foundation. Its tax filings show that seven donors gave the foundation at least $17 million between 2004 and 2008, about two-thirds of the total raised.
These donors include Goldman Sachs, Edward Jones, Alpha Technologies, Chevron Texaco and Aegon, which has American subsidiaries and whose former chief executive, Donald J. Shepard, served for a time as chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s board.
Another large foundation donor is a charity run by Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chairman of the insurance giant A.I.G. The charity has made loans and grants totaling $18 million since 2003. U.S. Chamber Watch, a union-backed group, filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service last month asserting that the chamber foundation violated tax laws by funneling the money into a chamber “tort reform” campaign favored by A.I.G. and Mr. Greenberg. The chamber denied any wrongdoing.
The complaint, which the chamber calls entirely unfounded, raises the question of how the chamber picks its campaigns, and whether it accepts donations that are intended to be spent on specific issues or political races.
The chamber says that it consults with members on lobbying targets, but that it does not make those decisions based on the size of a donation or accept money earmarked to support a specific political candidate.
Endorsement decisions, chamber officials said, are based on candidates’ votes on a series of business-related bills, and through consultations with the chamber’s regional directors, state affiliates and members.
To avoid conflicts of interest, individual businesses do not play a role in deciding on which races to spend the chamber’s political advertising dollars. The choices instead are made by the chamber’s political staff, based on where it sees the greatest chance of getting pro-business candidates elected, chamber executives said.
“They are not anywhere near a room when we are making a decision like that,” Mr. Josten said, of the companies that finance these ads. The chamber’s extraordinary money push began long before this election season. An organization that in 2003 had an overall budget of about $130 million, it is spending $200 million this year, and the chamber and its affiliates allocated $144 million last year just for lobbying, making it the biggest lobbyist in the United States.
In January, the chamber’s president, Thomas J. Donohue, a former trucking lobbyist, announced that his group intended “to carry out the largest, most aggressive voter education and issue advocacy effort in our nearly 100-year history.”
The words were carefully chosen, as the chamber asserts in filings with the Federal Election Commission that it is simply running issue ads during this election season. But a review of the nearly 70 chamber-produced ads found that 93 percent of those that have run nationwide that focus on the midterm elections either support Republican candidates or criticize their opponents.
And the pace of spending has been relentless. In just a single week this month, the chamber spent $10 million on Senate races in nine states and two dozen House races, a fraction of the $50 million to $75 million it said it intends to spend over all this season. In the 2008 election cycle, it spent $33.5 million.
To support the effort, the chamber has adopted an all-hands-on-deck approach to fund-raising. Mr. Josten said he makes many of the fund-raising calls to corporations nationwide, as does Mr. Donohue. (Both men are well compensated for their work: Mr. Donohue was paid $3.7 million in 2008, and has access to a corporate jet and a chauffeur, while Mr. Josten was paid $1.1 million, tax records show.)
But those aggressive pitches have turned off some business executives. “There was an arrogance to it like they were the 800-pound gorilla and I was either with them with this big number or I just did not matter,” said Mr. Tyree, of Chicago.
Another corporate executive, who asked not to be named, said the chamber risks alienating its members.
“Unless you spend $250,000 to $500,000 a year, that is what they want for you to be one of their pooh-bahs, otherwise, they don’t pay any attention to you at all,” the executive said, asking that the company not be identified.
Chamber officials acknowledge the tough fund-raising, but they say it has been necessary in support of their goal of remaking Congress on Election Day to make it friendlier to business.
“It’s been a long and ugly campaign season, filled with partisan attacks and political squabbling,” William C. Miller Jr., the chamber’s national political director, said in a message sent to chamber members this week. “We are all tired — no doubt about it. But we are so close to bringing about historic change on Capitol Hill.”
Eric Lipton reported from Washington, and Mike McIntire and Don Van Natta Jr. from New York. Kitty Bennett and Griffin Palmer contributed research.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Supreme Court to review “war on terror” claim against Ashcroft
By John Burton
20 October 2010
On Monday, the United States Supreme Court accepted review in its first “war on terror” case of the 2010 term, a suit brought against former Attorney General John Ashcroft by an American-born convert to Islam who was jailed as a “material witness” in 2003. Plaintiff Abdullah al-Kidd was held in inhumane conditions for more than 2 weeks and then confined under virtual house arrest for the next 15 months.
Obama administration lawyers filed a petition for certiorari on Ashcroft’s behalf to set aside a ruling by two judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which cleared the way for a trial seeking money damages from the Bush administration official for these civil-rights violations. The White House is working to protect Ashcroft and defend the anti-democratic policies established under President George W. Bush.
Al-Kidd, born Lavoni T. Kidd in Kansas, converted to Islam while attending the University of Idaho, where he was a highly regarded football player. On March 16, 2003, federal agents arrested him at Dulles International Airport as he was leaving for Saudi Arabia to attend a well-known university on a scholarship.
Federal agents interrogated al-Kidd and confined him in high security cells lit 24 hours a day—first in Virginia, then Oklahoma, and finally Idaho. He was frequently handcuffed, shackled and strip-searched. After 16 days, he was released on the conditions that he live with his wife and in-laws in Nevada, limit his travel to three other states, surrender his travel documents, report to a probation officer, and consent to home searches.
During the ensuing months, al-Kidd lost his job as an employee of a government contractor, because he was denied a security clearance, and separated from his wife. He also lost the opportunity to study abroad on the scholarship.
The only purported basis for al-Kidd’s arrest and detention was a warrant deeming him a “material witness” in a case brought against a University of Idaho doctoral student, Sami Omar al-Hussayen, who had been indicted for violating a provision of the recently enacted Patriot Act. Al-Hussayen had been setting up web sites on behalf of the Islamic Association of North America (IANA), which publishes and distributes Islamic religious books in various languages.
The IANA had not been designated a terrorist organization. According to the indictment, however, its web sites sometimes posted links to other sites that sought to recruit and raise funds for Chechen and Palestinian groups.
The al-Kidd warrant was issued on an FBI agent’s affidavit describing his contacts with al-Hussayen and the IANA. It also stated that al-Kidd was “scheduled to take a one-way, first-class flight (costing approximately $5,000) to Saudi Arabia.” In fact, al-Kidd had a round-trip, coach-class ticket, costing $1,700. The affidavit omitted the facts that al-Kidd was a US resident and citizen, that his parents, wife, and two children were likewise residents and citizens, and that he had cooperated with the FBI on several occasions over the past year.
The Patriot Act case against al-Hussayen went to trial in the United District Court for Idaho 15 months after al-Kidd’s arrest. On June 10, 2004, the jury returned not guilty verdicts on all the terrorism-related charges, after hearing six weeks of testimony and deliberating for another week (See: US jury acquits Idaho webmaster of terrorism charges).
Because he was also accused of violating immigration laws by working while in the country on a student visa, al-Hussayen accepted deportation to his native Saudi Arabia following his acquittal on the terrorism charges.
Although held under virtual house arrest for 15 months, al-Kidd was never asked to testify in the al-Hussayen case. In fact, he was not called by the government as a witness in any proceeding, and was never alleged to have been involved in any illegal conduct. He described himself in a 2004 interview as “anti-bin Laden, anti-Taliban, anti-suicide bombing, anti-terrorism,” according to the New York Times.
Al-Kidd filed his civil rights lawsuit in Idaho federal district court against Ashcroft and a number of other federal officials, alleging that the Bush administration misused the material witness statute as a pretext for his illegal preventative detention. He charged that the conditions of his confinement were not appropriate for someone not accused of a crime, and that the warrant for his detention was procured by fraud.
Al-Kidd used the Attorney General’s own statement to the media “announcing several steps that we are taking to enhance our ability to protect the United States from the threat of terrorist aliens” as a basis for his claim against Ashcroft. Making clear his intention to use pretexts, Ashcroft proclaimed his “strategy to prevent terrorist attacks by taking suspected terrorists off the street” through “aggressive detention of lawbreakers and material witnesses,” “vital to preventing, disrupting or delaying new attacks.”
Al-Kidd also cited testimony by former FBI director Robert Mueller that identified his arrest “en route to Saudi Arabia” as one of five “major successes” in the
FBI’s efforts toward “identifying and dismantling terrorist networks.”
After the district judge denied Ashcroft immunity for authorizing the misuse of the material witness statute, the Attorney General appealed to the Ninth Circuit. Over the opposition of Obama administration attorneys, the panel affirmed that ruling by a vote of 2-1. The decision drew on democratic principles from the foundation of Anglo-American jurisprudence.
“Almost two and a half centuries ago, William Blackstone, considered by many to be the preeminent pre-Revolutionary War authority on the common law, wrote:
To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole kingdom. But confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to gaol, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten; is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.
“The Fourth Amendment was written and ratified, in part, to deny the government of our then-new nation such an engine of potential tyranny. And yet, if the facts alleged in al-Kidd’s complaint are actually true, the government has recently exercised such a ‘dangerous engine of arbitrary government’ against a significant number of its citizens, and given good reason for disfavored minorities (whoever they may be from time to time) to fear the application of such arbitrary power to them.
“We are confident that, in light of the experience of the American colonists with the abuses of the British Crown, the Framers of our Constitution would have disapproved of the arrest, detention, and harsh confinement of a United States citizen as a ‘material witness’ under the circumstances, and for the immediate purpose alleged, in al-Kidd’s complaint. Sadly, however, even now, more than 217 years after the ratification of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, some confidently assert that the government has the power to arrest and detain or restrict American citizens for months on end, in sometimes primitive conditions, not because there is evidence that they have committed a crime, but merely because the government wishes to investigate them for possible wrongdoing, or to prevent them from having contact with others in the outside world. We find this to be repugnant to the Constitution, and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.”
The Obama administration asked the Supreme Court to accept the case in order to block suits against Ashcroft and all other government figures implicated in the crimes of the Bush administration. In doing so, the White House asserts the very right that the Ninth Circuit court ruled unconstitutional—“that the government has the power to arrest and detain or restrict American citizens for months on end…to prevent them from having contact with others.” It does so because it fully intends to exercise these powers in its own persecution of the population.
In a recent sign of this, on September 24, FBI agents raided the homes of members and supporters of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization on trumped-up terrorism charges, in a blatant effort to intimidate all those critical of the government.
The author also recommends:
FBI raids on antiwar activists: A frontal assault on democratic rights
27 September 2010
US Supreme Court opens 2010 term with pro-corporate agenda
5 October 2010
US Supreme Court refuses to hear Arar case
18 June 2010
20 October 2010
On Monday, the United States Supreme Court accepted review in its first “war on terror” case of the 2010 term, a suit brought against former Attorney General John Ashcroft by an American-born convert to Islam who was jailed as a “material witness” in 2003. Plaintiff Abdullah al-Kidd was held in inhumane conditions for more than 2 weeks and then confined under virtual house arrest for the next 15 months.
Obama administration lawyers filed a petition for certiorari on Ashcroft’s behalf to set aside a ruling by two judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which cleared the way for a trial seeking money damages from the Bush administration official for these civil-rights violations. The White House is working to protect Ashcroft and defend the anti-democratic policies established under President George W. Bush.
Al-Kidd, born Lavoni T. Kidd in Kansas, converted to Islam while attending the University of Idaho, where he was a highly regarded football player. On March 16, 2003, federal agents arrested him at Dulles International Airport as he was leaving for Saudi Arabia to attend a well-known university on a scholarship.
Federal agents interrogated al-Kidd and confined him in high security cells lit 24 hours a day—first in Virginia, then Oklahoma, and finally Idaho. He was frequently handcuffed, shackled and strip-searched. After 16 days, he was released on the conditions that he live with his wife and in-laws in Nevada, limit his travel to three other states, surrender his travel documents, report to a probation officer, and consent to home searches.
During the ensuing months, al-Kidd lost his job as an employee of a government contractor, because he was denied a security clearance, and separated from his wife. He also lost the opportunity to study abroad on the scholarship.
The only purported basis for al-Kidd’s arrest and detention was a warrant deeming him a “material witness” in a case brought against a University of Idaho doctoral student, Sami Omar al-Hussayen, who had been indicted for violating a provision of the recently enacted Patriot Act. Al-Hussayen had been setting up web sites on behalf of the Islamic Association of North America (IANA), which publishes and distributes Islamic religious books in various languages.
The IANA had not been designated a terrorist organization. According to the indictment, however, its web sites sometimes posted links to other sites that sought to recruit and raise funds for Chechen and Palestinian groups.
The al-Kidd warrant was issued on an FBI agent’s affidavit describing his contacts with al-Hussayen and the IANA. It also stated that al-Kidd was “scheduled to take a one-way, first-class flight (costing approximately $5,000) to Saudi Arabia.” In fact, al-Kidd had a round-trip, coach-class ticket, costing $1,700. The affidavit omitted the facts that al-Kidd was a US resident and citizen, that his parents, wife, and two children were likewise residents and citizens, and that he had cooperated with the FBI on several occasions over the past year.
The Patriot Act case against al-Hussayen went to trial in the United District Court for Idaho 15 months after al-Kidd’s arrest. On June 10, 2004, the jury returned not guilty verdicts on all the terrorism-related charges, after hearing six weeks of testimony and deliberating for another week (See: US jury acquits Idaho webmaster of terrorism charges).
Because he was also accused of violating immigration laws by working while in the country on a student visa, al-Hussayen accepted deportation to his native Saudi Arabia following his acquittal on the terrorism charges.
Although held under virtual house arrest for 15 months, al-Kidd was never asked to testify in the al-Hussayen case. In fact, he was not called by the government as a witness in any proceeding, and was never alleged to have been involved in any illegal conduct. He described himself in a 2004 interview as “anti-bin Laden, anti-Taliban, anti-suicide bombing, anti-terrorism,” according to the New York Times.
Al-Kidd filed his civil rights lawsuit in Idaho federal district court against Ashcroft and a number of other federal officials, alleging that the Bush administration misused the material witness statute as a pretext for his illegal preventative detention. He charged that the conditions of his confinement were not appropriate for someone not accused of a crime, and that the warrant for his detention was procured by fraud.
Al-Kidd used the Attorney General’s own statement to the media “announcing several steps that we are taking to enhance our ability to protect the United States from the threat of terrorist aliens” as a basis for his claim against Ashcroft. Making clear his intention to use pretexts, Ashcroft proclaimed his “strategy to prevent terrorist attacks by taking suspected terrorists off the street” through “aggressive detention of lawbreakers and material witnesses,” “vital to preventing, disrupting or delaying new attacks.”
Al-Kidd also cited testimony by former FBI director Robert Mueller that identified his arrest “en route to Saudi Arabia” as one of five “major successes” in the
FBI’s efforts toward “identifying and dismantling terrorist networks.”
After the district judge denied Ashcroft immunity for authorizing the misuse of the material witness statute, the Attorney General appealed to the Ninth Circuit. Over the opposition of Obama administration attorneys, the panel affirmed that ruling by a vote of 2-1. The decision drew on democratic principles from the foundation of Anglo-American jurisprudence.
“Almost two and a half centuries ago, William Blackstone, considered by many to be the preeminent pre-Revolutionary War authority on the common law, wrote:
To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole kingdom. But confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to gaol, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten; is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.
“The Fourth Amendment was written and ratified, in part, to deny the government of our then-new nation such an engine of potential tyranny. And yet, if the facts alleged in al-Kidd’s complaint are actually true, the government has recently exercised such a ‘dangerous engine of arbitrary government’ against a significant number of its citizens, and given good reason for disfavored minorities (whoever they may be from time to time) to fear the application of such arbitrary power to them.
“We are confident that, in light of the experience of the American colonists with the abuses of the British Crown, the Framers of our Constitution would have disapproved of the arrest, detention, and harsh confinement of a United States citizen as a ‘material witness’ under the circumstances, and for the immediate purpose alleged, in al-Kidd’s complaint. Sadly, however, even now, more than 217 years after the ratification of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, some confidently assert that the government has the power to arrest and detain or restrict American citizens for months on end, in sometimes primitive conditions, not because there is evidence that they have committed a crime, but merely because the government wishes to investigate them for possible wrongdoing, or to prevent them from having contact with others in the outside world. We find this to be repugnant to the Constitution, and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.”
The Obama administration asked the Supreme Court to accept the case in order to block suits against Ashcroft and all other government figures implicated in the crimes of the Bush administration. In doing so, the White House asserts the very right that the Ninth Circuit court ruled unconstitutional—“that the government has the power to arrest and detain or restrict American citizens for months on end…to prevent them from having contact with others.” It does so because it fully intends to exercise these powers in its own persecution of the population.
In a recent sign of this, on September 24, FBI agents raided the homes of members and supporters of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization on trumped-up terrorism charges, in a blatant effort to intimidate all those critical of the government.
The author also recommends:
FBI raids on antiwar activists: A frontal assault on democratic rights
27 September 2010
US Supreme Court opens 2010 term with pro-corporate agenda
5 October 2010
US Supreme Court refuses to hear Arar case
18 June 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Feds: People can snap photos outside courthouses
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
The Associated Press
NEW YORK -- Federal officers who patrol the perimeters of federal courthouses across the country will be reminded that members of the public can shoot pictures and videos in public spaces outside the buildings, according to the terms of the settlement of a lawsuit brought by a photographer who was arrested.
The settlement announced Monday was a victory for the First Amendment, the New York Civil Liberties Union said.
The deal calls for written notices to be distributed to Federal Protective Service officers to remind them that no general security regulations prohibit photography outside the buildings.
Federal buildings including courthouses have faced a steady stream of security enhancements as the threat of terrorism has increased over the past 17 years.
The settlement left room for officers to tighten security when necessary. The deal specified that officers can approach any individual taking photographs and ask the purpose for the pictures or the identity of the individual shooting them.
The settlement also said officers are able to take "lawful steps to ascertain whether unlawful activity, or reconnaissance for the purpose of a terrorist or unlawful act, is being undertaken."
The deal calls for the Federal Protective Service to pay $1,500 to Antonio Musumeci, a photographer who was arrested last year as he videotaped a political protest in a public plaza outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan. Another $3,350 must be paid to cover his legal fees. Charges against the Edgewater, N.J., resident were later dropped.
Musumeci, a software developer for an investment bank who uses photography to record political speeches and to document police misconduct, was also threatened with arrest on two subsequent occasions after he tried to record protests at the courthouse.
NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said the settlement "secures the public's First Amendment right to use cameras in public spaces without being harassed."
In his lawsuit, Musumeci said a federal officer confiscated the memory card from Musumeci's camera for evidence, citing a regulation that purportedly regulated noncommercial photography in outdoor spaces such as sidewalks and plazas. The lawsuit said that when Musumeci questioned if notice of the regulation was required, he was told no notice was necessary and he was learning "the hard way."
The settlement called for Musumeci to get his memory card back as soon as federal prosecutors finish using it as possible evidence in an ongoing criminal matter.
The Associated Press
NEW YORK -- Federal officers who patrol the perimeters of federal courthouses across the country will be reminded that members of the public can shoot pictures and videos in public spaces outside the buildings, according to the terms of the settlement of a lawsuit brought by a photographer who was arrested.
The settlement announced Monday was a victory for the First Amendment, the New York Civil Liberties Union said.
The deal calls for written notices to be distributed to Federal Protective Service officers to remind them that no general security regulations prohibit photography outside the buildings.
Federal buildings including courthouses have faced a steady stream of security enhancements as the threat of terrorism has increased over the past 17 years.
The settlement left room for officers to tighten security when necessary. The deal specified that officers can approach any individual taking photographs and ask the purpose for the pictures or the identity of the individual shooting them.
The settlement also said officers are able to take "lawful steps to ascertain whether unlawful activity, or reconnaissance for the purpose of a terrorist or unlawful act, is being undertaken."
The deal calls for the Federal Protective Service to pay $1,500 to Antonio Musumeci, a photographer who was arrested last year as he videotaped a political protest in a public plaza outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan. Another $3,350 must be paid to cover his legal fees. Charges against the Edgewater, N.J., resident were later dropped.
Musumeci, a software developer for an investment bank who uses photography to record political speeches and to document police misconduct, was also threatened with arrest on two subsequent occasions after he tried to record protests at the courthouse.
NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said the settlement "secures the public's First Amendment right to use cameras in public spaces without being harassed."
In his lawsuit, Musumeci said a federal officer confiscated the memory card from Musumeci's camera for evidence, citing a regulation that purportedly regulated noncommercial photography in outdoor spaces such as sidewalks and plazas. The lawsuit said that when Musumeci questioned if notice of the regulation was required, he was told no notice was necessary and he was learning "the hard way."
The settlement called for Musumeci to get his memory card back as soon as federal prosecutors finish using it as possible evidence in an ongoing criminal matter.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
THE NAZI VIRUS
By Robert C. Koehler
I call it the Nazi virus.
Even as we were prosecuting Nazis at Nuremberg for their barbaric behavior, including their notorious medical experiments on death camp inmates, we were, it turns out, conducting our own medical experiments on a vulnerable and unsuspecting population: Between 1946 and 1948, medical researchers with the U.S. Public Health Service deliberately infected almost 700 Guatemalan prisoners and mental patients with syphilis and gonorrhea in order to study the effects of penicillin on the diseases.
What does it take to be a monster? Maybe no more than good intentions and a war to fight — in the above case, a “war” against venereal disease — and, oh yeah, near-absolute power over a group of people who, so easily in such cases, become expendable, at least compared to what we can learn from their unknowing or forced participation in a scientific experiment. Their suffering, their death, is such a small thing compared to human progress. Just ask Dr. Mengele.
Susan Reverby, a professor of women’s studies at Wellesley College and an expert on the infamous 40-year-long Tuskegee experiment, discovered evidence of the Guatemala research last year as she read through some papers left behind by a participant, as it turns out, in both studies, Dr. John Cutler. She only recently published her findings, which precipitated embarrassed apologies from both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to the government of Guatemala and “Hispanic residents of the United States.”
The Nazi virus isn’t something that began and ended with the Nazis. If it did, the Nuremberg Code, defining the ethical boundaries of scientific or medical experimentation on human beings, would not have been necessary. It was adopted by the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1949, in the wake of the “doctors’ trial,” not to protect us from the Nazis but to protect us from ourselves.
“The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential,” the code begins. “This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching . . .”
This is humanity’s minimum standard of good behavior for the powerful, and if we fall below it we enter the morally squishy area of pre-Nazism, which can lead to the unleashing of harm on our fellow human beings, and the human race as a whole, at a level — in the nuclear age — unexplored even by the Nazis.
The recent revelation of our research on Guatemalans 60-plus years ago begs a thorough examination of who we are, a scouring of the public record, and the opening of forgotten or classified documents that may reveal truths at odds with our pristine self-image as a decent, freedom-promoting society. We must know our own secrets — and be fully aware of our impulse to dehumanize those over whom we wield immense power.
And the public record is frightening: “During the last 50 years, hundreds of thousands of military personnel have been involved in human experimentation and other intentional exposures conducted by the Department of Defense, often without a service member’s knowledge or consent.”
Thus begins a 1994 report prepared for the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Examples cited include “thousands of World War II veterans who originally volunteered to ‘test summer clothing’ in exchange for extra leave time, (who) found themselves in gas chambers testing the effects of mustard gas and lewisite.” And Gulf War I veterans who told interviewers “they were ordered to take experimental vaccines during Operation Desert Shield or face prison.”
Most frightening of all is our history of radiation and nuclear weapons experimentation, which one Atomic Energy Commission employee, Dr. Joseph G. Hamilton, a radiation biologist, described in 1950 as having “a little of the Buchenwald touch.”
Experiments, according to a February 1994 article in The Progressive, include: a study at Vanderbilt University in the late 1940s, in which researchers “gave radioactive pills to 751 pregnant women who sought free care at a prenatal clinic”; the exposure of 19 mentally retarded boys at a state school in Fernald, Mass., “to radioactive iron and calcium in their breakfast cereal” from 1946 to 1956; and, from 1963 to the early 1970s, tests in which more than 130 inmates of Oregon and Washington state penitentiaries, who received no warning of the dangers, had their testicles subjected to high levels of radiation.
These are just a few examples. Open the door a little wider — allow Cold War politics into the room — and the moral relativism spreads exponentially. Above-ground nuclear testing over several decades, for instance, has involved millions of American guinea pigs.
The expendable people in all cases are the powerless: the poor, the mentally ill, prisoners, soldiers — and unsuspecting civilian populations generally. They are never given the option of invoking Article 9 of the Code: “During the course of the experiment, the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.”
Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.)
© 2010 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Two Counties Vote to Opt-Out of "Secure Communities" and 500+ Organizations Send a Letter to the President Demanding an End to Police/Ice Collaboratio
After two years of secrecy and government coercion in the implementation of the mass deportation program known as "Secure Communities," two counties on opposite coasts, Santa Clara, California and Arlington, Virginia, passed unanimous resolutions to get themselves out of the program.
They joined a growing trend of locales started by Washington, DC and San Francisco who asked to opt-out. They set an example for states like Colorado who are reconsidering their participation.
More and more places are stating clearly that Arizona-policies have no place in our towns. And this is just the beginning of the exodus.
There are over twenty local campaigns across the country that are building local power to turn the tide and demand an end to police/ice collaboration, criminalization, and family separation.
Congratulations to Santa Clara, California and Arlington, Virginia's local coalitions including the leadership of Services, Immigrant Rights & Education Network, Tenants and Workers United, Virginia Justice Center, and Rights Working Group among others.
By uncovering the truth a few weeks ago, our coalition forced ICE to admit that municipalities do indeed have the option to refuse to participate in the program, something that the government had previously lied about and hid. For the first time, in a desperate attempt at spin-control also known as a memo, ICE outlined a public process on how to opt out. Since then, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security has confirmed an opt out process. Now communities across the country who were coerced into participating are organizing to make opting out a reality.
Yesterday more than 500 groups from the immigrant rights, criminal justice, and labor movements sent a letter to Obama highlighting the already-existing racial disparity in criminal justice made far worse by targeting migrant communities and demanding an end to police/ice collaborations.
This week, we see the fruit of a growing movement to turn the tide, to end 287g and secure communities, to end police/ice collaborations, and to affirm our full human dignity, keep our families together, and assert our human rights in Arizona and across the country.
Santa Clara and Arlington have set a ball in motion, could your town be next?
Anti-War Activists Whose Homes Were Raided To Refuse Orders To Testify
by Michael Tarm
CHICAGO - Anti-war activists whose homes or offices were raided as part of an FBI terrorism funding investigation will refuse to testify before a grand jury as ordered, in a show of defiance that could land them in jail.
Attorneys for the 14 activists called to testify have coordinated their responses since the Sept. 24 raids and have agreed their clients won't testify, Melinda Power, an attorney for a Chicago couple whose home was searched, said Tuesday. Agents searched seven homes and one office in Minneapolis and Chicago.
"They feel grand juries are now, and have historically been, a tool of harassment against activists", Power said.
Some of the anti-war activists won't testify because they don't want to be complicit in what they see as an attempt to stifle freedom of speech and assembly, said Jess Sundin, whose Minnesota home was raided.
"We feel like the reason we're being called and we're being looked into is because of our very legitimate and constitutionally protected work in the anti-war movement," she said.
About 50 peace activists protested Tuesday outside of the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago, where the grand jury was to convene.
"We will not be silent," Stephanie Weiner told protesters. She and her husband, Joe Iosbaker, were the two activists whose home was raided in Chicago.
Some subpoenas ordered activists to appear before Oct. 5. Sundin, who was subpoenaed to appear on Oct. 12, said activists sent separate letters to prosecutors indicating they do not intend to testify.
Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago, declined to comment about the case.
Some legal observers say the activists could go to jail.
"There's no chance prosecutors will just let it slide if they keep refusing," said Gal Pissetzky, a Chicago attorney with no link to the case.
As a next step, the government could reissue subpoenas - possibly this time with an offer of immunity. If the activists decline to appear then, a judge could hold them in contempt.
A key issue is whether any of the activists are targets of prosecutors or whether prosecutors merely consider them witnesses against another primary target.
Just after the raids, FBI spokesman Steve Warfield said the bureau was seeking evidence related to "activities concerning the material support of terrorism."
But Sundin said no one has told activists who is or isn't the focus of the investigation. She said that puts them all in jeopardy of self-incrimination, she said.
"It's just you, and the prosecutor and the jury (at the grand jury proceedings)," Sundin said. "So it is a very precarious situation for anyone to put themselves in."
Meredith Aby, a Minnesotan who was subpoenaed to testify Tuesday but did not make the trip to Chicago, also said the grand-jury process was unfair.
"I think they are an incredibly repressive and undemocratic tactic," she said.
Someone who is a target can refuse to testify under their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination without risking a contempt charge, Pissetzky said. If they are granted immunity, however, a grand jury witness is required to answer questions, he said.
Activists who have spoken with reporters have denied giving money to terrorist groups.
The homes of two other longtime Minneapolis anti-war activists, Mick Kelly and Meredith Aby, were also among those searched last month.
The warrant for Kelly's home sought evidence on travel he did as part of his work for the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and information on any travel to Colombia, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria or Israel.
Two groups use the name Freedom Road Socialist Organization, one based in Chicago and one in New York. They split several years ago, and the New York group said it was not targeted.
Kelly's subpoena also commanded him to bring records he might have relating to the Middle East and Colombia, along with records of any payment provided to Hatem Abudayyeh.
The subpoena did not further identify Abudayyeh, but FightBack! has interviewed and carried articles by a Hatem Abudayyeh who's the executive director of the Chicago-based Arab American Action Network.
Abudayyeh did not answer his office phone Tuesday and a recorded message said the voicemail was full. A message left on his cell voicemail was not returned. Several activists said their cell phones had been confiscated by the FBI.
Associated Press Writer Amy Forliti in Minneapolis contributed to this report.
© 2010 Associated Press
Saturday, October 2, 2010
FBI Raids, Anti-Muslim Hysteria and the Demand to be a “Loyal American”
By Lynn Koh
The recent raids in Minnesota and Chicago by Joint Terrorism Task Forces, including the FBI; the government organized anti-Muslim hysteria; mass round-ups and terrorizing of immigrant communities — all are part of the war drive of the imperialists and their efforts to impose fascist measures at home. They are seeking a quite homefront, with a divided and docile workforce and a silenced and pacified movement. Government impunity to commit any crime — whether directed against Muslims or immigrants and other workers, or organizers opposing war and attacks on rights — is being unleashed with greater force so as to paralyze resistance and force the peoples to submit.
Coupled with this is the conception that the problem we face is one of “extremism” and those who are “unlawful,” whether its “unlawful” Muslims, or immigrants or rights activists. The “extremism” may be of the Florida pastor variety, or it may be the activist supporting Palestine resistance, but in both cases, the “extremism” is the problem, and the government, and adherence to what it puts forward as “American” values, is the solution.
For example, in speaking to West Point graduates in May, Obama said, “Being an American is not a matter of blood or birth. It’s a matter of faith. It’s a matter of fidelity to the shared values that we all hold so dear.” Speaking about the Florida pastor he said what the pastor is proposing “Is completely contrary to our values as Americans… this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women in uniform who are in Iraq, who are in Afghanistan.” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, echoing Obama, said, "We would like to see more Americans stand up and say that this is inconsistent with our American values; in fact, these actions themselves are un-American."
September 11, Obama invoked the pledge of allegiance, saying, “As Americans, we will keep alive the virtues and values that make us who we are and who we must always be…On this day and the days to come, we choose to stay true to our best selves — as one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Is it an accident that the recent raids by “Terrorism” task forces are taking place at a time when there is such repeated emphasis that all Americans must pledge their allegiance to the values of the imperialists, such as aggressive war, genocide, racism and exploitation? That the current system, which can solve no problem and has imposed more war, poverty and environmental destruction, is “who we are and who we must always be”?! Has anyone forgotten that the pledge of allegiance was instituted during the Cold War, put into law during the hated period of McCarthyism and loyalty oaths?
Putting forward this concept of “un-American” is in part an effort to strike fear into the people’s movements and again attempt to provide justification for attacking communists and all those standing up for rights. It is a demand of loyalty to imperialism, and to the president as its representative. In the memory of Americans, this concept of “un-American” is quickly associated with McCarthyism, and its assault on communism and anyone the government claimed was associated with communism.
Today, “terrorism” is being equated with communism, and both are to be seen as enemies. These recent raids are in part an effort to give credence to this claim. Communists are among those being targeted, supposedly for “conspiracy” to provide “material support to terrorists.” The warrant used also specifically targets what it calls “the recruitment, indoctrination and facilitation of other individuals” to join, “materials related to the identity and location of recruiters, facilitators, and recruits,” and finances involved. It is organizing and building organization that is being targeted, and specifically organizing for an alternative to imperialism.
The raids and promotion of “un-American” are also a means to put those fighting on the defensive. It is the activists who are called on to say they have done nothing wrong, in a situation where the government is the one committing crimes — not only against these organizers, but against the peoples of Palestine, Colombia, Afghanistan and Iraq and many more worldwide. These raids are an effort by the government to silence and isolate the communists in particular, while also targeting the anti-war movement, including efforts to support resistance abroad.
As communists facing attack, silence is not possible. We stand proudly in the forefront of the anti-war movement, the immigrant rights movements and all the struggles of the peoples for their rights. We organize openly and without fear, while acting to safeguard our ranks and those of all the fighting forces. Organizing against U.S. imperialism and all its crimes is our main contribution to the struggles of the peoples worldwide. Standing to affirm the right to dissent, the right to resist and to support resistance worldwide is a contribution to progress which we and all those standing for rights are contributing to.
It is the U.S. imperialists that are the criminals. It is they who are terrified of the reality that there is one humanity rising against imperialism and war. The alternative of people’s empowerment is on the agenda and we communists will remain united with the people in the forefront of this battle for a new society that guarantees the rights of all.
The recent raids in Minnesota and Chicago by Joint Terrorism Task Forces, including the FBI; the government organized anti-Muslim hysteria; mass round-ups and terrorizing of immigrant communities — all are part of the war drive of the imperialists and their efforts to impose fascist measures at home. They are seeking a quite homefront, with a divided and docile workforce and a silenced and pacified movement. Government impunity to commit any crime — whether directed against Muslims or immigrants and other workers, or organizers opposing war and attacks on rights — is being unleashed with greater force so as to paralyze resistance and force the peoples to submit.
Coupled with this is the conception that the problem we face is one of “extremism” and those who are “unlawful,” whether its “unlawful” Muslims, or immigrants or rights activists. The “extremism” may be of the Florida pastor variety, or it may be the activist supporting Palestine resistance, but in both cases, the “extremism” is the problem, and the government, and adherence to what it puts forward as “American” values, is the solution.
For example, in speaking to West Point graduates in May, Obama said, “Being an American is not a matter of blood or birth. It’s a matter of faith. It’s a matter of fidelity to the shared values that we all hold so dear.” Speaking about the Florida pastor he said what the pastor is proposing “Is completely contrary to our values as Americans… this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women in uniform who are in Iraq, who are in Afghanistan.” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, echoing Obama, said, "We would like to see more Americans stand up and say that this is inconsistent with our American values; in fact, these actions themselves are un-American."
September 11, Obama invoked the pledge of allegiance, saying, “As Americans, we will keep alive the virtues and values that make us who we are and who we must always be…On this day and the days to come, we choose to stay true to our best selves — as one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Is it an accident that the recent raids by “Terrorism” task forces are taking place at a time when there is such repeated emphasis that all Americans must pledge their allegiance to the values of the imperialists, such as aggressive war, genocide, racism and exploitation? That the current system, which can solve no problem and has imposed more war, poverty and environmental destruction, is “who we are and who we must always be”?! Has anyone forgotten that the pledge of allegiance was instituted during the Cold War, put into law during the hated period of McCarthyism and loyalty oaths?
Putting forward this concept of “un-American” is in part an effort to strike fear into the people’s movements and again attempt to provide justification for attacking communists and all those standing up for rights. It is a demand of loyalty to imperialism, and to the president as its representative. In the memory of Americans, this concept of “un-American” is quickly associated with McCarthyism, and its assault on communism and anyone the government claimed was associated with communism.
Today, “terrorism” is being equated with communism, and both are to be seen as enemies. These recent raids are in part an effort to give credence to this claim. Communists are among those being targeted, supposedly for “conspiracy” to provide “material support to terrorists.” The warrant used also specifically targets what it calls “the recruitment, indoctrination and facilitation of other individuals” to join, “materials related to the identity and location of recruiters, facilitators, and recruits,” and finances involved. It is organizing and building organization that is being targeted, and specifically organizing for an alternative to imperialism.
The raids and promotion of “un-American” are also a means to put those fighting on the defensive. It is the activists who are called on to say they have done nothing wrong, in a situation where the government is the one committing crimes — not only against these organizers, but against the peoples of Palestine, Colombia, Afghanistan and Iraq and many more worldwide. These raids are an effort by the government to silence and isolate the communists in particular, while also targeting the anti-war movement, including efforts to support resistance abroad.
As communists facing attack, silence is not possible. We stand proudly in the forefront of the anti-war movement, the immigrant rights movements and all the struggles of the peoples for their rights. We organize openly and without fear, while acting to safeguard our ranks and those of all the fighting forces. Organizing against U.S. imperialism and all its crimes is our main contribution to the struggles of the peoples worldwide. Standing to affirm the right to dissent, the right to resist and to support resistance worldwide is a contribution to progress which we and all those standing for rights are contributing to.
It is the U.S. imperialists that are the criminals. It is they who are terrified of the reality that there is one humanity rising against imperialism and war. The alternative of people’s empowerment is on the agenda and we communists will remain united with the people in the forefront of this battle for a new society that guarantees the rights of all.
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