Posts Tagged ‘Torture & Abuse’

The U.S. is the world’s leading incarcerator with over 2.3 million people – or 1 in 99 adults – in prisons and jails across the country. Our incarceration rate of 760 per 100,000 people is the highest in the world — five to ten times that of other Western democracies. In addition, because of Full story

Next Tuesday, writers and artists including Eve Ensler, Don Delillo, Jonathan Ames, George Saunders, Ishmael Beah and Art Spiegelman will join the ACLU and PEN American Center to bring attention to acts of torture and abuse carried out by the U.S. since 9/11. Reckoning with Torture: Memos and Testimonies from the “War on Terror” will Full story

We’ve just learned that the House and Senate conferees approved language today for the homeland security appropriations bill that, if passed, would grant the Department of Defense (DoD) the authority to continue suppressing photos depicting the abuse of prisoners in U.S. custody overseas. Since 2003, the ACLU has been seeking photos and records related to the Full story

Yesterday, we were in court seeking the release of secret government documents related to the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody overseas. Specifically, we asked the court to order the release of redacted portions of Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memos describing "enhanced interrogation techniques" authorized for use Full story

Since last Thursday’s ProPublica and Washington Post article about the unlikelihood of the Obama administration meeting its own goal (PDF) of shuttering Guantánamo by January 22, 2010, Gitmo has constantly been in the news. With all the discussion, it’s important to reiterate that how Guantánamo will be closed is just as Full story

Hopefully you’ve at least set your Tivo to record Law & Order tonight at 8 p.m. EDT on NBC, because tonight, Jack McCoy and his team of assistant district attorneys attempt to hold high-level Bush administration officials, including Dick Cheney, accountable for torture. Today, Glenn Greenwald posted an interview with René Full story

(Originally posted on Huffington Post.) "Jack, you want to prosecute a member of the Bush administration for assaulting suspected terrorists?" "The word is ‘torturing.’ And yes — it’s about time somebody did." If you watch Law & Order tonight, you’ll see that the "Jack" laying down the gauntlet on accountability for torture Full story

(Originally posted on Huffington Post.) Since 2004, the ACLU and its partners — the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense, and Veterans for Peace — have been litigating under the Freedom of Information Act for documents concerning the abuse of prisoners held by the Department Full story

Today we launch The Torture Report. On this site, over the next several months, we will construct a comprehensive account of the Bush administration’s torture program. The goal is simple: to tell the whole story and to get it right. How to do this — how to bring together everything we know Full story

Months after Attorney General Eric Holder said he would release the Obama administration’s new policy on the use of the state secrets privilege, it’s finally out. The thrust of the new rule: Holder must approve any invocation of the privilege. Well, that’s not much different from the Bush administration’s policy, Full story