Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
AN 18-MONTH REVIEW
JULY 2010
On January 22, 2009—his second full day in office progress in some areas. Perhaps most notably,
—President Obama signed a series of executive the administration’s release of Justice Depart-
orders that squarely repudiated some of the most ment memoranda that purported to authorize
egregious abuses of the Bush administration. the Bush administration’s torture regime, as
The new orders categorically prohibited torture well as a CIA report describing how even those
and limited all interrogations, including those lax limits were exceeded, evinced a commitment
conducted by the CIA, to techniques authorized to transparency of truly historic significance,
by the Army Field Manual. They outlawed the and the administration deserves high praise for
CIA’s practice of secret detention and shut down making those critical documents available for
the CIA’s overseas prisons. And they mandated public scrutiny. Regrettably, in a pattern that has
the closure of the Guantánamo prison within one repeated itself throughout the administration’s
year. These auspicious first steps towards fulfill-
ing candidate Obama’s promise of change were
There is a real danger…that
more than symbolic gestures: they carried the
force of law, they placed the power and prestige the Obama administration will
of the presidency behind restoration of the rule of
preside over the creation of a
law, and they gave weight to the President’s oft-
stated view that adherence to our nation’s funda- “new normal.”
mental principles makes us safer, not less safe.
first eighteen months, a significant achievement
But in the eighteen months since the issuance was followed by a step back: the administration
of those executive orders, the administration’s reversed its decision to comply with a court deci-
record on issues related to civil liberties and sion ordering the release of photos depicting the
national security has been, at best, mixed. Indeed, abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, and
on a range of issues including accountability for it supported legislation granting the Secretary of
torture, detention of terrorism suspects, and use Defense unprecedented authority to conceal evi-
of lethal force against civilians, there is a very dence of misconduct.
real danger that the Obama administration will
enshrine permanently within the law policies and Similarly, the administration’s admirable com-
practices that were widely considered extreme mitment to dismantle the Guantánamo prison
and unlawful during the Bush administration. has been undermined by its unwillingness to
There is a real danger, in other words, that the dismantle the legal architecture of the Bush-
Obama administration will preside over the cre- era detention regime: the Obama administration
ation of a “new normal.” has continued to assert the authority to detain
militarily, without charge or trial, Guantánamo
This report examines the Obama administra- detainees (and others) captured far from any con-
tion’s record to date on a range of national secu- ventional battlefield, and there is a genuine dan-
rity policies that implicate human rights and ger that the administration will close the prison
civil liberties. It concludes that the administra- but enshrine the principle of widespread military
tion has taken positive steps and made genuine detention without trial. Equally disappointing, the
Many of the Bush administration’s most contro- President Obama signaled a break from this past
versial national security policies—the warrant- in his first days in office. In a Memorandum on
less wiretapping program, the torture program, Transparency and Open Government, the Presi-
the rendition program—were conceived, devel- dent acknowledged that transparency would
oped, and authorized in secret. The American “strengthen our democracy,” and he pledged
public found out about these policies long after that his administration would commit itself to
they were put into place, and after a great deal of “creating an unprecedented level of openness in
damage had already been done. Too often, Amer- Government.”1 In a Memorandum on the Free-
icans had to rely on leaks to the news media, dom of Information Act, the President declared
or litigation by public interest organizations, in that “[a] democracy requires accountability,
order to find out about consequential national and accountability requires transparency,” and
security policies that had been adopted in their he ordered all federal agencies to institute a
name. Too often, national security policies that “presumption in favor of disclosure,” thereby
should have been subject to public debate were reversing the so-called “Ashcroft rule” that had
implemented secretly. And too often, this secrecy governed during the Bush administration. The
shielded government officials from accountabil- President cautioned federal agencies that “[t]he
ity for decisions that violated the public’s trust Government should not keep information confi-
and the law. dential merely because public officials might be
embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and
failures might be revealed, or because of specu-
lative or abstract fears.”2
“A democracy requires
accountability, and accountability
requires transparency. “
—PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
in a 2009 memorandum to executive
departments and agencies
The Justice Department memos that the Obama ons; and that the International Committee of the
administration released in April 2009 related to Red Cross be promptly notified of any person
a torture program that was conceived and devel- detained by the United States.10 When the admin-
oped at the highest levels of the Bush adminis- istration released the Bush administration’s
tration. Justice Department lawyers wrote legal torture memos in April 2009, the Justice Depart-
opinions meant to justify torture; senior civilian ment withdrew all of the legal memos that had
and military officials authorized torture; and CIA undergirded the Bush administration’s torture
and military interrogators used torture—at Guan- program,11 and in a public statement President
tánamo, in the CIA’s black sites, and elsewhere. Obama declared:
Government documents show that hundreds of
prisoners were tortured in U.S.-run detention I prohibited the use of these interrogation
facilities, and that more than one hundred were techniques by the United States because
killed, many in the course of interrogations. they undermine our moral authority and
do not make us safer. Enlisting our values
In his first days in office, President Obama unam- in the protection of our people makes us
biguously rejected this legacy. In an executive stronger and more secure. A democracy
order, President Obama categorically disavowed as resilient as ours must reject the false
torture and directed that all prisoners in U.S. choice between our security and our ide-
custody be afforded the protection of Common als, and that is why these methods of inter-
Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions (in compli- rogation are already a thing of the past.12
ance with the Supreme Court’s 2006 ruling in
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld); that all interrogations of The decision to dismantle the Bush administra-
prisoners in U.S. custody conform to the Army tion’s torture program was a crucial one, not just
Field Manual; that the CIA close its secret pris- for the United States but for the world. President
Paintings by American artist Jenny Holzer of U.S. government documents released through ACLU litigation
While campaigning for the presidency, then-Sen- lawful U.S. resident (and ACLU client) Ali Al-
ator Obama declared that in “the detention cells Marri, who had been arrested by civilian authori-
of Guantánamo, we have compromised our most ties in Illinois, could be detained indefinitely by
precious values.”15 He rejected unequivocally the the military without charge or trial. Al-Marri was
practices “of detaining thousands without charge transferred to civilian custody where he pled
or trial” and “of maintaining a network of secret guilty to specified offenses and was sentenced to
prisons to jail people beyond the reach of law.”16 a term of eight years.
His bottom-line was clear: “As President, I will
close Guantánamo.”17 On his second full day in It was a promising beginning, but eighteen
office, President Obama ordered the CIA to close months later Guantánamo is still open and some
its secret prisons, set a one-year deadline for 180 prisoners remain there. The administration
closing the Guantánamo prison, and established is not solely responsible for missing this one-
an interagency task force to review the cases of year deadline; Congress has obstructed any pos-
everyone detained at Guantánamo.18 Soon there- sible relocation of even indisputably innocent
after, the administration abandoned the Bush detainees like the Chinese Uighurs to the United
administration’s dubious legal argument that States, thereby rendering diplomatic efforts to
relocate detainees in Europe and elsewhere far
more difficult. And the administration deserves
Guantánamo should be closed, credit for releasing some 67 detainees from
Guantánamo. But the Obama administration’s
but not at the cost of enshrining unjust decision to halt all detainee releases to
the principle of indefinite Yemen—even when the detainees have been
cleared for release after years of harsh detention
detention in a global war —has been a major factor in the prison’s remain-
without end. ing open; a majority of the remaining detainees
are Yemeni. Moreover, the administration bears
responsibility for opposing in court the release
of detainees against whom the government has
scant evidence of wrongdoing.
Of far greater significance than the administra- Perhaps the most troubling iteration of this
tion’s failure to meet its own one-year dead- sweeping theory of detention authority occurred
line is its embrace of the theory underlying the in legal proceedings in which the Obama admin-
Guantánamo detention regime: that the Execu- istration defended the detention without judi-
tive Branch can detain militarily—without charge cial review of detainees in the Bagram prison in
or trial—terrorism suspects captured far from a Afghanistan. While the Obama administration
conventional battlefield. President Obama first has improved the military screening procedures
expressly endorsed this claim of authority in in place at Bagram, those procedures still fall far
May of 2009, in a major speech at the National short of basic due process standards. In response
Archives. The President stated that Guantána- to habeas corpus petitions filed by prisoners who
mo detainees whom the administration deemed had been captured outside of Afghanistan and
dangerous, but who “could not be prosecuted” transferred by the Bush administration to mili-
because of a lack of reliable evidence, would be tary detention at Bagram Air Base, the govern-
held indefinitely without trial, and he proposed ment argued that the courts lacked jurisdiction
that Congress provide legislative authority for a even to hear the prisoners’ challenges, let alone
(Left) Drawing by the mother of former Guantánamo detainee, Omar Deghayes. (Right) Drawing by a British artist and activist John
Catt presented to Omar Deghayes
Of all of the national security policies introduced es that have been reviewed by the federal courts
by the Obama administration, none raises human thus far, even though the government had years
rights concerns as grave as those raised by the to gather and analyze evidence for those cases
so-called “targeted killing” program. According and had itself determined that those prisoners
to news reports, President Obama has autho- were detainable. This experience should lead the
rized a program that contemplates the killing administration—and all Americans—to reject out
of suspected terrorists—including U.S. citizens of hand a program that would invest the CIA or
—located far away from zones of actual armed the U.S. military with the unchecked authority to
conflict. If accurately described, this program impose an extrajudicial death sentence on U.S.
violates international law and, at least insofar as citizens and others found far from any actual
it affects U.S. citizens, it is also unconstitutional. battlefield.
While campaigning for the presidency, then- there is still a very real danger that defendants
Senator Obama made cogent arguments against might be convicted on the basis of hearsay evi-
military commission trials at Guantánamo on dence obtained coercively from other detainees
both principled and pragmatic grounds. He pro- who will not be available for cross-examination.
fessed “faith in America’s courts” and pledged to
“reject the Military Commissions Act.”23 In 2007 More fundamentally, the existence of a second-
he pointed out the practical inferiority of the mil- class system of justice with a poor track record
itary commissions, noting that there had been and no international legitimacy undermines the
“only one conviction at Guantánamo. It was for a entire enterprise of prosecuting terrorism sus-
guilty plea on material support for terrorism. The pects. So long as the federal government can
sentence was 9 months. There has not been one choose between two systems of justice, one of
conviction of a terrorist act.”24 which (the federal criminal courts) is fair and
legitimate, while the other (the military commis-
The administration’s embrace of military com- sions) tips the scales in favor of the prosecution,
mission trials at Guantánamo, albeit with both systems will be tainted by the likelihood
procedural improvements, has been a major dis- that the government will use the federal courts
appointment. Instead of calling a permanent halt only in cases in which conviction seems virtually
to the failed effort to create an entirely new court assured, while reserving the military commis-
system for Guantánamo detainees, President sions for cases with weaker evidence or where
Obama encouraged an effort to redraft the legis- there are credible allegations that the defen-
lation creating the commissions and signed that dants were abused in U.S. custody.
bill into law. To be sure, the reformed Military
Commissions Act contains improvements, but
Handwritten statement by Guantánamo detainee Omar Khadr condemning his military commissions trial (Photo Credit: Carol
Rosenberg/The Miami Herald)
With limited exceptions, the Obama administra- ute’s constitutionality, the administration has
tion’s positions on national security issues relat- proposed, only if they can prove that their own
ing to speech and surveillance have mirrored communications were monitored under the stat-
those taken by the Bush administration in its ute; since the administration refuses to disclose
second term. whose communications have been monitored,
the statute cannot be challenged at all. In some
Early in his campaign, candidate Obama declared ways, the administration’s defense of the statute
that he disagreed with President Bush’s deci- is as troubling as the statute itself.
sion to authorize the National Security Agency
to conduct warrantless surveillance of Ameri- The Obama administration has been reluctant to
cans’ international telephone and email com- yield any of the expansive surveillance powers
munications.25 He later voted in favor of the FISA claimed by the last administration. It has pushed
Amendments Act, however, a statute that grant- for the reauthorization of some of the Patriot
ed immunity to the telecommunications corpo- Act’s most problematic surveillance provisions.
rations that had facilitated the NSA’s program, And like the Bush administration, the Obama
limited the role of the court that oversees gov- administration has invested border agents with
ernment surveillance in national security cases, the authority to engage in suspicionless search-
and authorized the NSA to continue—and even es of Americans’ laptops and cell phones at
expand—its warrantless surveillance of Ameri- the border; Americans who return home from
cans’ international communications. In effect, abroad may now find themselves confronted with
candidate Obama made clear that his objection a border agent who, rather than welcoming them
was not to warrantless surveillance, but rather home, insists on copying their electronic records
to warrantless surveillance without congressio- —including emails, address books, photos, and
nal approval. And over the last eighteen months, videos—before allowing them to enter the coun-
President Obama’s administration has defend- try. (Through FOIA, the ACLU has learned that
ed the FISA Amendments Act in the same way in the last 20 months alone, border agents have
that the last administration did so: by insisting used this power thousands of times.)
that the statute is effectively immune from judi-
cial review. Individuals can challenge the stat- The Obama administration has also adopted
The national security establishment’s record in ing, National Counter-Terrorism Center Deputy
creating and managing watch lists of suspect- Director Russell Travers told Congress that the
ed terrorists has been a disaster that too often watch list architecture “is fundamentally sound,”
implicates the rights of innocent persons while and suggested that the lists would soon be get-
allowing true threats to proceed unabated. This ting bigger: “The entire federal government is
regrettable outcome is partly a result of misman- leaning very far forward on putting people on
agement and partly due to the deceptive difficulty lists.”29
of creating identity-based systems for providing
security. These failures have been documented Indeed, rather than reform the watch lists the
in a long string of government reports, which Obama administration has expanded their use
are consistent in their identification of persis- and resisted the introduction of minimal due pro-
tent design flaws and ongoing, unacceptably high cess safeguards to prevent abuse and protect civ-
error rates.26 In May 2009 the Department of Jus- il liberties. The Obama administration has added
tice Inspector General found that many subjects thousands of names to the No Fly List, sweeping
of closed FBI investigations were not taken off the up many innocent individuals. As a result, U.S.
list in a timely manner, and tens of thousands of citizens and lawful permanent residents have
names were placed on the list without appropri- been stranded abroad, unable to return to the
ate basis.27 A 2009 report by the Inspector Gen- United States. Others are unable to visit family on
eral of DHS detailed extensive problems with the the opposite end of the country or abroad. Indi-
redress process for people improperly identified viduals on the list are not told why they are on the
on watch lists.28 Further, because of outmoded list and thus have no meaningful opportunity to
information technology systems, the method for object or to rebut the government’s allegations.
clearing the names of people who pose no threat The result is an unconstitutional scheme under
to national security from watch lists is plagued which an individual’s right to travel and, in some
by delays, and DHS can’t even monitor how many cases, a citizen’s ability to return to the United
cases it resolves. Yet in the wake of Umar Farouk States, is under the complete control of entirely
Abdulmutallab’s failed Christmas Day bomb- unaccountable bureaucrats relying on secret evi-
From left to right: Ayman Latif, Adama Bah, Raymond Earl Knaeble, Halime Sat, and Steven Washburn; plaintiffs in an ACLU
challenge to the “No Fly List”
President Obama will be in office at least through administration’s policies on detention, account-
2012, and perhaps through 2016. But the policies ability, and other issues, but instead creates a
the Obama administration pursues on the issues lasting legal architecture in support of those
discussed in this report will have implications policies, then it will have ratified, rather than
that will extend far beyond this presidency. That rejected, the dangerous notion that America is in
is why it is so critical that the administration right a permanent state of emergency and that core
its course and keep faith with our nation’s high- liberties must be surrendered forever.
est ideals and aspirations.
The ACLU will continue to monitor the impact of
There can be no doubt that the Obama adminis- the administration’s national security policies on
tration inherited a legal and moral morass, and civil liberties and human rights. Our hope is that
that in important respects it has endeavored to this report, published less than half-way through
restore the nation’s historic commitment to the the President’s first term, will serve as a vehicle
rule of law. But if the Obama administration does for reflection and further dialogue.
not effect a fundamental break with the Bush
1 Presidential Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, 74 Fed. Reg. 4685 (Jan. 21, 2010), http://www.
whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/transparency-and-open-government.
2 Presidential Memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act, 74 Fed. Reg. 4683 (Jan. 21, 2010), http://www.white-
house.gov/the-press-office/freedom-information-act.
3 Exec. Order No. 13,526, 75 Fed. Reg. 705 (Dec. 29, 2009) (Classified National Security Information), http://www.white-
house.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-classified-national-security-information
4 Steve Bagley, FOIA Ombudsman Promises Sunshine, Main Justice (Oct. 14, 2009), http://www.mainjustice.
com/2009/10/14/foia-ombudsman-promises-sunshine-eventually/
5 Exec. Order No. 13,526, supra note 3; Office of Mgmt. & Budget, Open Government Directive (Dec. 8, 2009), http://www.
whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/memoranda_2010/m10-06.pdf.
6 Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Inspector General, Special Review: Counterterrorism Detention and Interroga-
tion Activities, September 2001 – October 2003 (May 7, 2004), http://luxmedia.com.edgesuite.net/aclu/IG_Report.pdf.
7 Office of Prof’l Responsibility, Report of Investigation into the OLC’s Memoranda Concerning Issues Related to the
CIA’s Use of “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” on Suspected Terrorists (July 29, 2009), http://graphics8.nytimes.com/
packages/pdf/politics/20100220JUSTICE/20100220JUSTICE-OPRFinalReport.pdf; Memorandum from David Margolis,
Assoc. Dep. Att’y Gen., to Att’y Gen. Eric Holder Regarding Objections to the OPR Report of Investigation into the OLC’s
Memoranda Concerning Issues Related to the CIA’s Use of “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” on Suspected Terrorists
(Jan. 5, 2010), http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20100220JUSTICE/20100220JUSTICE-DAGMargolis-
Memo.pdf.
8 Protected National Security Documents Act of 2009, Pub. L. No. 111-83, § 565, 123 Stat. 2142, 2184-86.
9 Dean Yates, Reuters Seeks US Army Video of Staff Killed in Iraq, July 11, 2008, http://www.reuters.com/article/
idUSL05399965; David Schlesinger, War Journalists Have Right to Safety, Guardian (U.K.), Apr. 21, 2010, http://www.guard-
ian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/apr/21/war-journalists-right-safety.
10 Exec. Order No. 13,491, 74 Fed. Reg. 4891 (Jan. 22, 2009) (Ensuring Lawful Interrogations), http://www.whitehouse.
gov/the_press_office/EnsuringLawfulInterrogations/
11 Memorandum from David J. Barron, Acting Ass’t Att’y Gen. to Att’y Gen. Eric Holder Regarding Withdrawal of Office
of Legal Counsel CIA Interrogation Opinions (Apr. 15, 2009), http://www.justice.gov/olc/2009/withdrawalofficelegalcoun-
sel.pdf.
12 Statement of President Barack Obama on Release of OLC Memos (Apr. 16, 2009), http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_
press_office/Statement-of-President-Barack-Obama-on-Release-of-OLC-Memos/
13 Brief in Opposition to Petition for Certiorari, Arar v. Ashcroft, No. 09-923 (May 12, 2010).
14 See, e.g., Brief of the United States, Padilla v. Yoo, No. 09-16478 (9th Cir. Dec. 3, 2009).
15 Senator Barack Obama, Remarks at the Wilson Center, The War We Need to Win (Aug. 1, 2007), http://www.baracko-
bama.com/2007/08/01/the_war_we_need_to_win.php
16 Barack Obama, Renewing American Leadership, Foreign Affairs, July/Aug. 2007.
17 Obama, The War We Need to Win, supra note 14.
18 Exec. Order No. 13,492, 74 Fed. Reg. 4897 (Jan. 22, 2009) (Review and Disposition of Individuals Detained at the
Guantánamo Bay Naval Base and Closure of Detention Facilities).
19 Abdah v. Obama, No. 04-1254, __ F. Supp. 2d __, 2010 WL 2326041 (D.D.C. May 26, 2010).
20 President Barack Obama, Remarks on National Security at the National Archives (May 21, 2009), http://www.white-
house.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-On-National-Security-5-21-09/.