ACLU Urges Supreme Court to Declare Guantánamo Bay Military Commissions Illegal

Describing the military commissions at Guantánamo Bay as unfair and unlawful, the American Civil Liberties Union urged the Supreme Court to halt their use in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (05-184), which is being argued today.

“The military commissions established by President Bush do not provide a fair trial under any recognized set of legal standards, whether those standards are derived from the Constitution, our international treaty commitments, customary law or the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” said ACLU Legal Director Steven R. Shapiro. “There is no reason to believe that Congress ever intended to authorize such a system, and no reason for the Court now to uphold it.”

The military commission rules do not guarantee an independent trial court, do not provide for impartial appellate review, and do not prohibit the use of coerced testimony despite extensive evidence that coercive interrogation techniques have been used at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere.

In its friend-of-the-court brief, the ACLU argues that this system fails to provide the basic procedural safeguards guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions and American law. In addition, the ACLU said the commissions violate the constitutional rule barring the government from creating a separate system of punishment that applies only to non-citizens.

Prior to reaching the merits of these arguments, the ACLU said, the Supreme Court will have to decide whether it still has jurisdiction to hear the case following congressional passage of the Detainee Treatment Act, also known as the Graham-Levin Amendment. The government is contending that the Detainee Treatment Act strips the Court of jurisdiction to hear Hamdan’s appeal, even though it was accepted for review before the Detainee Treatment Act was adopted.

ACLU's annual budget (1993) at $14 MILLION (FOURTEEN MILLION DOLLARS) - much of which is "SUPPLIED BY THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER through the Federal program mandated by the Civil Rights Attorneys' Fee Awards Act of 1976. If the ACLU wins a case that involves a public institution, for instance, the organization collects the full legal fees of its attorneys even though those attorneys offered their services pro bono (without charge).

Stated Goals of the ACLU

The ACLU's founder, Roger Baldwin, stated: "We are for SOCIALISM, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the state itself... We seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and the SOLE CONTROL of those who produce wealth. COMMUNISM is the goal." (Source: Trial and Error, by Geo. Grant)

Following are some of the stated goals of the ACLU, from its own published Policy Issues:

the legalization of prostitution (Policy 211);

the defense of all pornography, including CHILD PORN, as "free speech" (Policy 4);

the decriminalization and legalization of all drugs (Policy 210);

the promotion of homosexuality (Policy 264);

the opposition of rating of music and movies (Policy 18);

opposition against parental consent of minors seeking abortion (Policy 262);

opposition of informed consent preceding abortion procedures (Policy 263);

opposition of spousal consent preceding abortion (Policy 262);

opposition of parental choice in children's education (Policy 80)

-- not to mention the defense and promotion of euthanasia, polygamy, government control of church institutions, gun control, tax-funded abortion, birth limitation, etc....

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