Ashcroft may be held liable for those wrongfully detained after 9/11
Today, a federal appeals court ruled that former Attorney General John Ashcroft may be held liable for the wrongful detention of people held as witnesses after the 9/11 attacks. The ACLU filed the lawsuit. Snip from New York Times:
In a harshly worded ruling handed down Friday, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called the government's use of material witnesses after Sept. 11 ''repugnant to the Constitution and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.''Appeals Court Rules Against Ashcroft in 9 / 11 Case (NYT)The court found that a man who was detained as a witness in a federal terrorism case can sue Ashcroft for allegedly violating his constitutional rights. Abdullah Al-Kidd, a U.S. citizen and former University of Idaho student, filed the lawsuit in 2005, claiming his civil rights were violated when he was detained as a material witness for two weeks after 9/11.
The court also ruled that the federal material witness law can't be used to "preventively" detain or investigate suspects. The ACLU represents al-Kidd in the case, al-Kidd v. Ashcroft. Snip from their press release:
Writing for the majority in today'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."Ashcroft Can Be Held Accountable For Post-9/11 Wrongful Detention, Court Rules (ACLU)
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About fucking time! Wait a second! "May" be liable? That piece of racist shit IS liable!
Due Process muthafuggahs! U-S-A!
Nothing will come of this, and even if it does, he'll be pardoned.
It'll never happen. Even to the point of Obama granting immunity, it will never happen.
How many Supremes did Bush appoint AFTER he had put in place those secret torture camps?
if they won't hang him at least he can spend the rest of his life in court.
Mr.Ashcroft was (and is) a competent lawyer...he did after all resist signing that thing they tried to get him to sign on his hospital bed, after all.
After all, people don't go to lawyers to find out what they can or cannot do: they go to lawyers to help get done what they want to do.
I also note that the learned Judge limits the protections of the Fourth Amendment to United States citizens.
That's interesting: I would have thought that the Founding Fathers were a bit more...universalist...in their thinking about the "Rights of Man".
Some US Citizens are more equal than others - how many of us were shocked to read the muslim-sounding name?
the 9th circuit is kind of a joke. i wouldn't say that the judges are "liberal activists", but they are... well, in the words of beyonce... "to the left , to the left"
as such, they make a lot of awesome decisions... and interpret the law the way it really should be interpreted -- at least to some of us.
but they're often willing to do so on topics they know they will be overruled on.
basically what i'm saying is that if any other court decided this, i'd be less inclined to think it'll get thrown out by the supreme court.
@ Jonathan: Agreed. The 9th circuit IS the most liberal court in the US. At least the 9th circuit is supporting this issue to enter public discourse, even if the Supreme Court will squash such discourse soon enough... Justice will not be served. But those Cheney & Co. bastards deserve to at least get humiliated.
Ironically Ashcroft actually seems like a pretty decent guy in retrospect, at least compared to the other legal minds of the Bush administration.
Then again, everybody looks like a saint next to Cheney.
Funny... I don't see the ruling saying what the title of the article says.
I'll admit I haven't read the ruling but it's still strange that they wouldn't place an on-point quote in the article to state directly what the title declares.
It's a start.
Brainspore: Never trust anyone who feels they have to be anointed in oil to serve in office (you know, like the Romans, right? -Totally understandishable...) while at the same time has to order the bare breast of Justice covered. I think even Atilla the Hun is even starting to look good next to the others in that crew. ;D
Oh god yes please.
@MANOOSHI exactly! its a start, and its awesome that they're bringing this to light and getting some amount of legitimacy to it. it likely won't stick, but its great a first stop.
"Freedom" is just a word.
Do not expect him to spend even a single minute in jail. He "knows things about powerful people", which in politics is a synonym for being untouchable.
I'd give him leniency in exchange for whatever it takes to put Cheney, Addington, and the rest of the neocons in jail.
Happy dance, happy dance!
Mark Frauenfelder @2:
Probably so, but al-Kidd will get discovery, and who knows what sort of dirty laundry that will turn up. In this case maybe the lawsuit will be the continuation (initiation!) of truth commission by other means...
The R Kelly @12:
You may be taking the title the wrong way. It's not meant as a statement of probability, like "Ashcroft may be held liable, or he may not be." What "may" means here is that Ashcroft is not immune from being sued by al-Kidd -- he may be liable if al-Kidd proves his case, versus what Ashcroft argued, which was that under no circumstances could al-Kidd even sue him. That's a huge deal, because prosecutors generally have extremely broad immunity from being sued for what they did as prosecutors. Here, however, the court rejected Ashcroft's claims of absolute and qualified immunity.
When John Ashcroft ran for the senate I am still proud to have voted for his opponent, the dead man.
@Jonathan @Manooshi
You guys got the jump on me.
It's true, the 9nth is infamous for it's liberal rulings on contentious issues, but unfortunately they're equally known for having their rulings practically ignored by higher courts.
Didn't Ashcroft once cover the teat of Justice?
@ Teller:
Now he's hoping she'll return the favor and cover his ass.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1788845.stm
what more evidence of filthy deviancy do you need?
@11 Brainspore
Indeed. I think it's far more telling that the rest of the previous administration is so incredibly corrupt and deplorable that Ashcroft, who by any reasonable standard is a religiously whacked-out nutjob, seems decent and reasonable in comparison.
Let the eagle soar...
Yes, so very concerning how U.S. citizens have been treated.
Of course, when dealing with people from outside the U.S., you have the liberty to dispense with that human garbage as you see fit.
Just don't leave any evidence.
Where were they when half the world decried the US's blatant disrespect for human rights, territorial sovereignty, and national and international laws and treaties since 2001?
Why didn't they step up to the plate when the broad sheets were full of reports of people were being illegally detained at Gitmo and other places?
Cowards they were then; cowards they still are. We'll see the same lack of action by lawyers and judges when another GWB gets on the throne.
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/09/04/pentagon-incensed-with-ap-over-photo-of-dying-soldier/
has anything changed?
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/09/04/cole_taliban/
hang Ashcroft.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/05/ashcroft/
Never mind the lawsuit, this would seem to clear the way for criminal charges, as wrongfull confinement/etc. is an actual crime.
@ Mark F - Nothing will come of this, and even if it does, he'll be pardoned.
You can't get a pardon from liability.
Reminder: Even though George W. Bush's Attorney General wrongfully detained people -- including U.S. citizens -- as material witnesses after 9/11, there is no reason to distinguish and difference between the criminal Bush administration and the disappointing Obama administration.
No difference.
Repeat.
-- MrJM
"Kissinger for one appears to have learned this lesson, when he wrote that: "By geopolitical, I mean an approach that pays attention to the requirements of equilibrium."[6] But (largely because of his commitment to equilibrium in world order) Kissinger was swept aside by events in the mid-1970s, leading to the triumph of the global dominance mindset, as expressed by thinkers like Zbigniew Brzezinski.[7]
Brzezinski himself has recognized how his gratuitous machinations in Afghanistan in 1978-79 produced the responses of al Qaeda and jihadi terrorism. Asked in 1998 whether he regretted his adventurism, Brzezinski replied:
"Regret what? The secret operation was an excellent idea. It drew the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? On the day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, saying, in essence: 'We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War.'"
Nouvel Observateur: "And neither do you regret having supported Islamic fundamentalism, which has given arms and advice to future terrorists?"
Brzezinski: "What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?"
When he was asked whether Islamic fundamentalism represented a world menace, Brzezinski replied, "Nonsense!"[8]
In some ways, the post-Afghanistan Brzezinski has become more moderate in his expectations from U.S. power: he notably warned against the Gulf War in 1990 and also Vice-President Cheney’s agitations when in office for some kind of preemptive strike against Iran. But he has never retracted the Mackinderite rhetoric of his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard, which revives the illusion of "controlling" the Eurasian heartland:
For the first time ever, a non-Eurasian power has emerged not only as a key arbiter of Eurasian power relations but also as the world's paramount power. The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power." (p. xiii)
"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia... Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia - and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained." (p.30)
"To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." (p.40)[9]