Terror And Moral Failure
Over the transom.
1. Why Chicago Teachers Struck.
“Luis Gabriel Aguilera, the author of Gabriel’s Fire: A Memoir, reminds us that the Chicago teachers strike of 2012 was not about salaries or benefits. It was a counter-attack against the brutality of corporate school reforms,” John Thompson writes for This Week In Education.
2. The Terror Courts.
“Last month, just minutes into a pretrial hearing for the five men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, David Nevin, the lead defense attorney, asked the judge to stop the proceedings,” Dina Temple-Raston writes for the Washington Post.
“His concern: A third party, possibly the CIA, might be listening to privileged conversations between the defense attorneys and their clients. ‘This is not something we made up,’ Nevin told the judge. ‘This is a genuine concern that we have. And as officers of the court and as lawyers, we have to get to the bottom of it before we can go forward.’
“Had the allegation been made in a federal court, it would have seemed, at best, a little paranoid. But in the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, there is an oasis of space for such accusations. The special terrorist courts, which were set up by the George W. Bush administration to deal with foreign prisoners accused of terrorism, have been fighting allegations of second-tier justice and double standards since their inception. The Supreme Court weighed in and found the Bush-era commissions unconstitutional. Congress has reformed the commissions twice – in 2006 and again in 2009 – making them into a kind of hybrid of military courts and federal ones.
“Even so, there is still a general sense that something is just not right with the courts at Guantanamo Bay. For most Americans, the specific problems are difficult to recall – something about rough interrogations, hearsay evidence and indefinite detention. The details have remained sketchy. Until now, that is, thanks to the Wall Street Journal’s Supreme Court reporter, Jess Bravin, whose new book anchors the criticisms in detailed facts.
“The Terror Courts is a comprehensive accounting of the creation of the commissions in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks. It is a book that pulls no punches. It names names. And in so doing, it is a gutsy, finely wrought narrative that explains how a small group of Bush-era political appointees managed to develop a parallel justice system designed to ensure a specific outcome.”
See also:
* Guantanamo Is America’s Moral Failure
* U.N. Official Calls For Closing Guantanamo
* Obama Plans $195 Million In Renovation And New Construction At Guantanamo
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And:
It’s worse than Bush that Obama told prisoners at #Gitmo they would be freed & now is allowing them to remain in prison #GitmoHungerStrike
— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) April 6, 2013
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3. Taking Liberties.
“National ACLU president Susan N. Herman, winner of the 2012 IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law/Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberites Prize, will speak on Thursday, April 11, on her winning book entry, Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy, at this year’s Palmer Prize Lecture.
“Herman is a constitutional scholar and chaired professor at Brooklyn Law School, and she is co-editor of Terrorism, Government, and Law and the author of The Right to a Speedy and Public Trial.
“She was elected ACLU president in 2008 after 10 years as general counsel. The lecture is free and open to the public. RSVP to alums@kentlaw.iit.edu.”
Time: Noon to 1 p.m.
Location: IIT Downtown Campus – Chicago-Kent College of Law
Room: Judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz Courtroom
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Comments welcome.
Posted on April 9, 2013