After September 11, 2001, George W. Bush established the Guantánamo Bay prison to enable the United States to imprison non-Americans indefinitely outside the reach and protection of both U.S. and international law. The military commissions and their trial procedures, created under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, have been universally condemned by jurists, scholars and… Read more »
In the months leading up to the Republican National Convention, the FBI-led Minneapolis Joint Terrorist Task Force actively recruited people to infiltrate vegan groups and other leftist organizations and report back about their activities. On May 21, the Minneapolis City Pages ran a recruiting story called “Moles Wanted.” Law enforcement sought to preempt lawful protest… Read more »
Two Judges on Three-Judge Panel Uphold Conspiracy to Commit Murder Conviction Despite Government’s Lack of Evidence New York. The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) believes that politics influenced yesterday’s federal appeals court decision upholding the convictions of five Cuban patriots accused of spying in the United States. The so-called Cuban Five were gathering information on U.S.-based… Read more »
NLG Also Renews Its Call for the U.S. to Ratify Land Mine Treaty New York. The National Lawyers Guild is disturbed to see that, once again, the rhetoric of the United States government about building peace and security is directly contradicted by its actions. While more than 100 countries met in Dublin and signed a… Read more »
New York. The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) calls on Congress to appoint a Special Prosecutor, independent of the Department of Justice, to investigate and prosecute high Bush officials and lawyers including John Yoo for their role in the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody. The NLG has issued a White Paper explaining why the memos,… Read more »
On Tuesday, May 6, 2008, National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn will provide testimony at a hearing titled “From the Department of Justice to Guantánamo Bay: Administration Lawyers and Administration Interrogation Rules,” before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties of the House Judiciary Committee. The hearing will begin at 10:00 a.m…. Read more »
On April 1, a secret 81-page memo written by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo in March 2003 was made public. In that memo, Yoo advised the Bush administration that the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel would not enforce U.S. criminal laws, including federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming and stalking in… Read more »
New York. In a memorandum written the same month George W. Bush invaded Iraq, Boalt Hall law professor John Yoo said the Department of Justice would construe US criminal laws not to apply to the President’s detention and interrogation of enemy combatants. According to Yoo, the federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming and stalking do… Read more »
In response to highly-publicized sound-bites from sermons by Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Sen. Barack Obama delivered an historic speech on racism, titled “A More Perfect Union.” Rev. Wright had strongly criticized the U.S. government for putting Indians on reservations, Japanese in internment camps, and Africans into slavery. He… Read more »
New York. The National Lawyers Guild calls on Congress to override George W. Bush’s veto—in direct contravention of the advice of military commanders—of the Intelligence Authorization Bill that contained a provision limiting the Central Intelligence Agency’s ability to engage in the torture technique known as waterboarding. The practice is currently prohibited by both military and… Read more »