Court Rules Ashcroft Can Be Held Liable For U.S. Citizen’s Post 9/11 Detention

By GottaLaff



Will the worst warbler ever take the fall for BushCo on this one? Via my pal Jason Leopold's site:

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be held personally responsible for the wrongful detention of an innocent American, Abdullah al-Kidd, a U.S.-born American citizen, who was on his way to Saudi Arabia to study when he was unlawfully detained and arrested in Washington’s Dulles Airport on March 16, 2003 as a material witness in the trial of Sami Omar Al-Hussayem.

Al-Hussayem, a native of Saudi Arabia, was arrested in February 2003 in Idaho and accused of running websites that supported terrorism and terrorist organizations. He was acquitted of all charges against him and deported to Saudi Arabia in July 2004

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit also ruled that the federal material witness law cannot be used to “preventively” detain or investigate suspects.

The American Civil Liberties Union represents al-Kidd in the case, al-Kidd v. Ashcroft.

[...] Al-Kidd was held for more than 13 months under these conditions without ever being charged with any crime or asked to testify.

At the time of his arrest, al-Kidd had already shown that he was not a flight risk and would cooperate as a witness. He had voluntarily met with the FBI repeatedly, never missing a scheduled appointment. For six months prior to his arrest, al- Kidd had not been contacted by the FBI, and he had never been told that he was prohibited from traveling abroad to pursue his studies.

Writing for the majority in Friday’s decision, Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr., wrote:

“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 court made it very clear today that former Attorney General Ashcroft’s use of the federal material witness law circumvented the Constitution,” said ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project Deputy Director Lee Gelernt, who argued the appeal. “Regardless of your rank or title, you can’t escape liability if you personally created and oversaw a policy that deliberately violates the law.” [...]

Friday’s ruling comes after a U.S. district court in 2006 found that the material witness law may only be used when an individual is genuinely sought as a witness and where there is a real risk of flight. The district court also ruled that the law does not allow an end-run around the constitutional requirements for arresting someone suspected of a crime. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft appealed the ruling and asked for complete immunity from liability.

The ACLU lawsuit names former Attorney General John Ashcroft, the United States and several federal agents.

One day.... one day... something will stick.

****************

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

Breaking: BushCo pushed Ashcroft to re-authorize spy program

By GottaLaff

MSNBC: Bush pressured Ashcroft in hospital to re-authorize surveillance program.

This is news?

Apparently, they didn't know that Bush himself had been involved.

I did, why didn't they?

John Ashcroft: “I think history will be very kind to" Bush

By GottaLaff

The Traveling-BushCo-Media-Blitz-Rewriting-History-Snake Oil Show continues, now with extra crispy John Ashcroft revisions! How generous of Ashy to slip in the ever-popular "Bush made some mistakes" disclaimer. Why, that takes care of everything! All is forgiven:

Yesterday, former attorney general John Ashcroft spoke at the University of Texas at Austin on the differences between the Obama and Bush administrations in a lecture hosted by the Young Conservatives of Texas and College Republicans. Although “[m]ost in attendance were respectful of Ashcroft’s right to speak,” he was greeted by a group of protesters who waved “signs of dissent” and booed when he first appeared. [...]

“I think history will be very kind to [former President George W. Bush],” Ashcroft said as he began discussing the powers of the president, drawing cheers and gasps.

Ashcroft acknowledged the fact that Bush is not a perfect man and made some mistakes. […]

At one point Ashcroft noticed a dry-erase board to the side of the stage and began to describe the overlap of power between Congress and the president to declare war. As Ashcroft made his way to the right side of the stage, one protester made sure to exclaim, “No, it’s not a waterboard!” Ashcroft didn’t hear him and proceeded to draw a Venn diagram. […]

Ashcroft said he doesn’t regret any decisions he made during his time as attorney general. “I don’t have a mark on my conscience,” Ashcroft said. [...]

Since Ashcroft can’t seem to remember any of his misdeeds, we’re here to help him out: He was the chief architect of the invasive Patriot Act, and maintains to this day that Bush is “among the most respectful of all leaders ever” of civil liberties. Of course, in 2003, he also approved waterboarding and other torture techniques on detainees.

The Daily Texan notes that the only time the entire audience cheered for Ashcroft was when he “pok[ed] fun at his own political past,” noting how he lost the 2000 Missouri U.S. Senate race to a deceased rival.

The Traveling Show is doing more to perpetuate BushCo's horrific legacy than not, by continuing to push the usual lies, therefore drawing even more attention to them. Soon, this will be the mental image in every American head:

Supreme Court to decide Ashcroft, Mueller immunity

By GottaLaff

Somehow I don't think the Supremes will side with a Muslim Pakistani named Iqbal over Ashcroft and Mueller:

The US Supreme Court will hear a case Wednesday on whether cabinet-level officials could be held accountable for controversial tactics President George W. Bush ordered as part of the US-led "war on terror."

Former attorney general John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller have sought immunity from the charges in a lawsuit filed by Javaid Iqbal, a Pakistani national.

Iqbal was among more than 700 Arab and South Asian Muslim men from the New York City area rounded up after the September 11, 2001 attacks. While they were all eventually charged with immigration violations or minor crimes, none was linked to terrorism.

In his lawsuit, Iqbal alleges that Ashcroft and Mueller targeted the men for investigation and punitive detention, sidestepping procedural protections usually granted to such detainees.

Iqbal, who was held at a maximum security section of a Brooklyn federal prison, says he was subjected to harsh treatment and discrimination and that federal officials classified him as a "high interest" suspect because he was a Muslim from Pakistan.

A June 2003 report by the Department of Justice inspector general found "significant problems" in the treatment of detainees like Iqbal. [...]

Ashcroft was among those who "willfully and maliciously approved of, endorsed, and/or ordered that these searches take place" and "knew of, condoned, and willfully and maliciously agreed to subject (Iqbal) to unreasonable, unnecessary and extreme strip and body-cavity searches," according to the suit.

Let's not forget about precedents. It's always about setting precedents:

"The government's position will have the practical effect of ensuring that these officials will never be held accountable for unconstitutional conduct," [Alexander Reinert, who will argue for Iqbal,] said in a statement. [...]

Iqbal claims that during his five-month confinement he was held 23 hours a day in a constantly lit cell where the air conditioning was turned on in the winter and the heat was turned in the summer. He says he was also beaten and strip-searched.

When he was released in 2003, he had lost nearly 44 pounds. I'm guessing he also lost more than a little dignity and most of his emotional equilibrium.

Source: Bush personally directed Alberto Gonzales to Ashcroft's hospital room

By GottaLaff

Dear Nancy,

This is why impeachment should not have been off the table.

Love, Laffy

Sources say Alberto Gonzales now claims that President Bush personally directed him to John Ashcroft's hospital room in the infamous wiretap renewal incident—and that in another instance the President asked him to fabricate fictitious notes.

Here's the link to the whole piece.

Torture hearings, Part 5

By GottaLaff

Franks: What was your goal, and how did you pursue it?

Ashcroft: Anything within our power and within the law to defend America. We have to think outside the box, I said, but never outside the Constitution. We gotta change. If you don't you've got the same thing you had before. When it comes to national defense, use the legal tools available tous.

Franks: I love you, marry me. Nuclear proliferation makes us look at things differently.

Tammy Baldwin: What is the role of the NSC with regard to authorizing detainee interrogations and mistreatment?

Ashcroft: The AG doesn't meet with them often, so it's beyond my expertise.

Tammy: Since then, did you come across evidence of crimes by govt officials?

Ashcroft: Classified meetings, so I won't comment.

Tammy: Who has ultimate decision? White House, Justice, Defense, CIA... etc.?

Ashcroft: Different agencies made different decisions on techniques and situations. Opinions are limited, relating to interrogation of Al Qaeda outside the U.S., so don't apply to detentions in other settings.

Tammy: Allies in war on terror: Condone or use techniques of torture?

Ashcroft: (stuttering...pause ).. I have not witnessed anything to cause me to have that awareness.

Tammy: And the US turning over detainees to allies for interrogation? Are you aware?

Ashcroft: (pause) I can't say. ...

Gohmert(R-Texas): I love you, marry me. [lots of talk, missed some]

Ashcroft: When Congress wants to verify, not rely on trust, I'm fine with that, but be careful before you accuse someone of a crime. It stuns me when people call others "criminals", and the ones who do are "liberal" and rights oriented. But it was my job to protect their right to do so. We have to be tolerant... but that's [criminal] a term that should be used with great care.

Torture hearings, Part 4 plus Quote-O'-The-Day

By GottaLaff

Brad Sherman: Did you veto Yoo for the job?

Ashcroft: We need independent, detached advice by Office of Legal Counsel to the president. There were key people who had reservations related to proximity of him to various people in the administration. I had to make sure that these reservations were merited. I raised these issues as a result. I felt that the president and the U.S. would be best served if there would be an OLC chief that would emphasize those characteristics more profoundly. The OLC, as part of DoJ, when they speak, I take it as gospel.

Quote-O'-The-Day by Ashcroft:

"It's a thrill a minute here."

Torture hearings, Part 3

By GottaLaff

Issa: Disseminate info more broadly, so we wouldn't have a few members on each side? Pelosi might not have been the one to determine what torture was... so should the House begin to expand the information pool? Inform more members?

Ashcroft: It's got its pluses and minuses. With classified matters, you'd elevate the risks of disclosure. Methods of interrogation: People are trained to resist, if the methods are known. The easiest job would be to be a spy in Washington, info goes all over the place. The press finds out during breaks.

Issa: If we were to hold our own people accountable, criminal prosecution, submit to polygraphs, discipline ourselves, then should we be treated at peer level?

Ashcroft: No reason that we wouldn't want to have more involved, gives you more strength, more successful, if it can be done without risks. Well worth considering.

Hank Johnson: You are a formidable witness.

Ashcroft: This is gonna be a tough question...

Hank: You were Bush's senior law enforcement officer. You supervised the FBI. You also oversaw terrorism prosecutions nationwide... So DoJ would have to have a voice in the military tribunal process to try terrorism suspects... A heated meeting in 2001 between you and Cheney about military tribunals... You were upset because Yoo, your subordinate, wanted to keep DoJ out of trying terrorists... true?
Ashcroft: I don't recollect.

Hank: Yoo dealt with Cheney w/o your knowledge about his opinions on this. Right?

Ashcroft: I'm aware of those reports. People came to me, expressed concerns.

Hank: History will judge you differently than it will judge your successor and I appreciate it.

Iglesias: Ashcroft "pushed out" for not supporting warrantless wiretaps

By GottaLaff

I'm listening, as I always do, to Thom Hartmann, and out he comes with news that David Iglesias believes that former Attorney General John Ashcroft was pushed out because he refused to sign off on warrantless wiretaps. I dug around and found that Think Progress has the rest:

Now, former New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias — who was fired by the administration for refusing to file bogus voter fraud charges — tells the Dallas Morning News that Ashcroft’s refusal to support the warrantless wiretapping program actually led to him being “pushed out” of the Bush administration:

IGLESIAS: The one really intriguing question I’ve had was from a book buyer a few months ago who asked whether I thought John Ashcroft had been pushed out or not after he refused to sign off on the warrantless wiretaps. That’s something that a journalist has never asked me. The honest answer is, yes, that had Ashcroft done the wrong thing, the unconstitutional thing, and signed off on it, he’d probably still be the AG. But Ashcroft served honorably. He did the right thing, and he paid the price. He was asked to move on.

Our government at work.

When Ashcroft resigned from the Bush administration in November 2004, he claimed that he was leaving because he believed the Justice Department would be “well served by new leadership and fresh inspiration.” He was succeeded by Alberto Gonzales, who potentially lied to Congress in order to defend the wiretapping program.

Dennis Kucinich, do your stuff.

"This time the crime is worse than the cover-up"

By GottaLaff

Via Frank Rich, we get a peek into the pages of The Dark Side, by Jane Mayer. Her revelations are chilling:

We learn, for instance, that in 2004 two conservative Republican Justice Department officials had become “so paranoid” that “they actually thought they might be in physical danger.” The fear of being wiretapped by their own peers drove them to speak in code.

The men were John Ashcroft’s deputy attorney general, James Comey, and an assistant attorney general, Jack Goldsmith. Their sin was to challenge the White House’s don, Dick Cheney, and his consigliere, his chief of staff David Addington, when they circumvented the Geneva Conventions to make torture the covert law of the land.

But impeachment is off the table.

Ms. Mayer uncovered another damning verdict: Red Cross investigators flatly told the C.I.A. last year that America was practicing torture and vulnerable to war-crimes charges.

Top Bush hands are starting to get sweaty about where they left their fingerprints. Scapegoating the rotten apples at the bottom of the military’s barrel may not be a slam-dunk escape route from accountability anymore.

One can only hope.

In her telling, a major incentive for Mr. Cheney’s descent into the dark side was to cover up for the Bush White House’s failure to heed the Qaeda threat in 2001. Jack Cloonan, a special agent for the F.B.I.’s Osama bin Laden unit until 2002, told Ms. Mayer that Sept. 11 was “all preventable.” By March 2000, according to the C.I.A.’s inspector general, “50 or 60 individuals” in the agency knew that two Al Qaeda suspects — soon to be hijackers — were in America. But there was no urgency at the top. Thomas Pickard, the acting F.B.I. director that summer, told Ms. Mayer that when he expressed his fears about the Qaeda threat to Mr. Ashcroft, the attorney general snapped, “I don’t want to hear about that anymore!” [...]

The biggest torture-fueled wild-goose chase, of course, is the war in Iraq.

And the money line:

We can no longer take cold comfort in the Watergate maxim that the cover-up was worse than the crime. This time the crime is worse than the cover-up, and the punishment could rain down on us all.

Put impeachment back on the table. Start the hearings. Our government is run by war criminals.

Naked beer cans

By GottaLaff

I just got back from the store where I did a double take when I saw this (I snapped the pic with my handy dandy little cell phone):

(click on any image to enlarge)

"Beverage wear"? Are they serious? This is what it's come down to, consumers dressing up their water bottles. Okay, okay, I have to admit, I've often shielded my eyes in the Naked Juice aisle:

And don't get me started on Oscar Mayer Jumbo Weiners, let alone Wonder buns. At least one of those should come with an overcoat.

Come to think of it, now we know how to track the McCain voters: See who has naked beer cans vs. who feels the need to cover them up.

Now back to our regularly scheduled blogging.