Torture, Two Years Later

BOSTON/Government Center - Temperatures dropped below freezing at the Government Center, but members of the American Civil Liberties Union and allied groups were out in force on Friday, marking the 47th anniversary of Human Rights Day with a vehement protest against what many view as the tacit continuation of U.S. torture policies under the Obama administration.

"We're here because we care about what our country is doing," said Nancy Murray, Director of Education at the ACLU in Massachusetts. "We need to really end torture, not just talk about ending torture. We need to hold people accountable."

Protestors cited continued allegations of torture at the Bagram Airfield - which has been under intense scrutiny since the death of two prisoners in 2002 - the failure of the Obama administration to prosecute cases of extraordinary rendition, and most recently, the placement of Anwar al-Aulaqi, a radical imam, on a targeted CIA kill list in April 2010, authorized by Barack Obama, which gave him the dubious honor of being the first U.S. citizen the CIA is authorized to kill outside of a war zone.

In the latter case, the ACLU is representing al-Aulaqi's father, Nasser al-Aulaqi, who argues that the government must prove that his son poses an imminent threat to life or safety before targeting him for assassination. That case was thrown out in a U.S. district court this past Tuesday on procedural grounds: the judge ruling that the court lacked authority to try the case, and that the father lacked standing to litigate on the son's behalf.

Murray responded to the verdict with disgust. "The fact that the President could actually say that he has the power to decide what Americans could be put on a kill list without any charges or trial - and the fact that a court would say, 'It's up to him to make that decision, we don't have a role to play,' is really shocking," she said. " For a constitutional lawyer to say that shows a real - I don't want to say cynicism, because I don't know if that's what motivates it - but [really] sliding down a slippery slope, which is going to be very hard to reverse unless we really do start holding people accountable."

Carol Rose, Executive Director of the ACLU in Massachusetts, says that targeted killings violate both the spirit and the letter of the law. "We ... want the government to abide the rule of law - both the international Declaration of Human Rights and also American law, which says that the executive branch shouldn't be allowed to have extrajudicial killings. We object to indefinite detention without due process, as fundamentally un-American, and of course we oppose torture, as being in violation of American values."

The ACLU is currently fighting legal battles on both fronts - and has frequently found itself opposing the administration it counted on to recant Bush-era torture policies. In 2009, a federal district court ruled that Bagram detainees (unlike those at Guantánamo) have no right to habeas corpus, reversing a previous decision at the urging of the Obama administration. With few exceptions, Bagram detainees cannot challenge their detention in U.S. courts, and have no access to legal assistance. The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request in April 2009 in response to allegations of torture at the base, and has repeatedly pressed for information about the detainees there. (A list of names was provided in October 2010, citing the total number of prisoners held there at 645.)

For civil liberties advocates, the torture debate establishes a dangerous precedent for other countries currently pursuing litigation over torture and extraordinary rendition. "If America ... which says it believes in human rights, is actually doing something so far from human rights then why can't other countries do [the same]?" asked Murray. "We're really worried about a future in which all countries will treat human rights like words on a piece of paper. We want them to be real."

She acknowledges that these are not new battles, and that popular interest has increasingly waned in the aftermath of initial revelations. "I think it has fallen off the radar. I think that years and years of fear that [have been] ratcheted up, years of demonization of people who are bad guys who want to come to get us."

December 10th marked the 62nd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was signed in 1948 by 30 countries - including the United States.