The ACLU praised the Obama administration for ending Bush's torture policies

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This report examines the Obama administration’s record to date on a range of national security policies that implicate human rights and civil liberties. It concludes that the administration has taken positive steps and made genuine progress in some areas. Perhaps most notably, the administration’s release of Justice Department memoranda that purported to authorize the Bush administration’s torture regime, as well as a CIA report describing how even those lax limits were exceeded, evinced a commitment to transparency of truly historic significance, and the administration deserves high praise for making those critical documents available for public scrutiny. Regrettably, in a pattern that has repeated itself throughout the administration’s first eighteen months, a significant achievement was followed by a step back: the administration reversed its decision to comply with a court decision ordering the release of photos depicting the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it supported legislation granting the Secretary of Defense unprecedented authority to conceal evidence of misconduct.

Similarly, the administration’s admirable commitment to dismantle the Guantánamo prison has been undermined by its unwillingness to dismantle the legal architecture of the Bush-era detention regime: the Obama administration has continued to assert the authority to detain militarily, without charge or trial, Guantánamo detainees (and others) captured far from any conventional battlefield, and there is a genuine danger that the administration will close the prison but enshrine the principle of widespread military detention without trial. Equally disappointing, the administration’s unequivocal prohibition against torture has been fundamentally weakened by its continuation of the Bush administration’s efforts to stymie meaningful accountability: the administration has adopted the same sweeping theory of “state secrets” to prevent torture victims from seeking justice and compensation in U.S. courts, and the President himself has publicly opposed criminal investigations of the architects of the torture regime.

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In his first days in office, President Obama unambiguously rejected this legacy. In an executive order, President Obama categorically disavowed torture and directed that all prisoners in U.S. custody be afforded the protection of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions (in compliance with the Supreme Court’s 2006 ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld); that all interrogations of prisoners in U.S. custody conform to the Army Field Manual; that the CIA close its secret prisons and that the International Committee of the Red Cross be promptly notified of any person detained by the United States.10 When the administration released the Bush administration’s torture memos in April 2009, the Justice Department withdrew all of the legal memos that had undergirded the Bush administration’s torture program,11 and in a public statement President Obama declared:


The decision to dismantle the Bush administration’s torture program was a crucial one, not just for the United States but for the world. President Obama deserves credit for the decision, and for his vigorous defense of it. But while the administration has disavowed torture, it has made little effort to hold accountable those who authorized it. In recent years, many other countries—including some of America’s closest allies, like the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, and Canada—have begun to examine their responsibility for the abuse and torture of prisoners in U.S. custody. The United States is increasingly isolated in its unwillingness to investigate the roots of the torture program, its refusal to compensate torture survivors, and its failure to hold accountable the senior government officials who authorized interrogators to use torture.

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NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union and Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) today received a license from the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) allowing the groups to pursue their legal challenge to the government's asserted authority to kill American citizens without due process away from conflict zones. The license was granted in response to a lawsuit filed by the groups demanding the license and challenging OFAC's scheme.

The following can be attributed to CCR and the ACLU:

"The license issued by OFAC today will allow us to pursue our litigation relating to the government's asserted authority to engage in targeted killings of American civilians without due process. While we appreciate OFAC's quick response to our lawsuit, we continue to believe that OFAC's regulations are unconstitutional because they require lawyers who are providing uncompensated legal representation to seek the government's permission before challenging the constitutionality of the government's conduct. Notably, OFAC has indicated that the license issued to us today can be revoked at any time. We will pursue our claim that OFAC's attorney-licensing regulations are unconstitutional and should be invalidated."

CONCLUSION

President Obama will be in office at least through 2012, and perhaps through 2016. But the policies the Obama administration pursues on the issues discussed in this report will have implications that will extend far beyond this presidency. That is why it is so critical that the administration right its course and keep faith with our nation’s highest ideals and aspirations.

There can be no doubt that the Obama administration inherited a legal and moral morass, and that in important respects it has endeavored to restore the nation’s historic commitment to the rule of law. But if the Obama administration does not effect a fundamental break with the Bush administration’s policies on detention, accountability, and other issues, but instead creates a lasting legal architecture in support of those policies, then it will have ratified, rather than rejected, the dangerous notion that America is in a permanent state of emergency and that core liberties must be surrendered forever.

The ACLU will continue to monitor the impact of the administration’s national security policies on civil liberties and human rights. Our hope is that this report, published less than half-way through the President’s first term, will serve as a vehicle for reflection and further dialogue.

NEW YORK – The Obama administration has repudiated some of the Bush administration's most egregious national security policies but is in danger of institutionalizing others permanently into law, thereby creating a troubling "new normal," according to a new report released today by the American Civil Liberties Union.

"Establishing a New Normal: National Security, Civil Liberties, and Human Rights Under the Obama Administration," an 18-month review of the Obama administration's record on national security issues affecting civil liberties, concludes that the current administration's record on issues of national security and civil liberties is decidedly mixed: President Obama has made great strides in some areas, such as his auspicious first steps to categorically prohibit torture, outlaw the CIA's use of secret overseas detention sites and release the Bush administration's torture memos, but he has failed to eliminate some of the worst policies put in place by President Bush, such as military commissions and indefinite detention. He has also expanded the Bush administration's "targeted killing" program.

"In its first days, the Obama administration took some important steps to restore civil liberties and the rule of law," said Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU. "It has not, however, abandoned the 'global war' framework that was the basis for many of the last administration's counterterrorism programs. Indeed, some of the Obama administration's policies – like the policies on indefinite detention, military commissions and targeted killings – are entrenching this framework, presenting a profound threat to human rights and the rule of law. We urge the Obama administration to recommit itself to the ideals it articulated in its very first days. President Obama should not make 'global war' the new normal."