The ACLU of GA and the Gitmo Connection

The ACLU of Georgia is one of the crown jewels in the ACLU’s stable of state chapters. According to Gerry Weber, Legal Director of the ACLU of GA, the GA ACLU litigates approximately 40 cases. Weber stated this is the “highest caseload of any ACLU in the country.” The GA Chapter has successfully fought against the state Voter ID law, assisted Henry Co school system set up a Gay/Straight Alliance in the schools and attempted to overthrow the voice of the people in GA regarding same sex marriage. If an issue arises in the state that is in opposition to the inherent moral values of the citizens, you can count on the GA ACLU to intervene with lawsuits and threats of legal action. According to Financial Statements released by the GA ACLU, the ACLU Foundation of GA raked in $250,000 in litigation income for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2005.

The donor list for the GA ACLU reads like a who’s who of attorneys in the state. Two donors contributed 25,000 or more in 2005. One of the donors was the law firm of Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan who was also a recipient of the 2006 GA ACLU Civil Liberties Award. Four donors contributed between $10,000 and $24,999. Three out of the four are attorneys with ACLU friendly law firms. Two of the three are attorneys with Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan. This means that 67% of the top donors to the ACLU of GA have a vested financial interest in the ongoing success of the organization.

Two of the top donors, Elizabeth Tanis and John Chandler, have gone over and above in their support of the ACLU mission against America. They have contributed between 10,000 – 24,999 in 2003 and 2005. Both are members of the ACLU of GA Amicus Foundation, which is a group of donors that contribute $5000 or more each year. Both Tanis and Chandler volunteered with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) to serve as legal counsel for terrorists housed at Guantanamo Bay.

John Chandler, the chair of Sutherland Asbill and Brennan’s litigation group, was asked by the American College of Trial Lawyers to join with CCR in the quest to ensure the terrorists’ civil rights were not violated. Chandler rounded up four other attorneys with Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan (including Elizabeth Tanis) to join the Guantanamo Bay Bar Association. Chandler’s group took on the cases of five Yemeni terrorists. After his first trip to Gitmo to meet with his clients, Chandler stated: “I was stunned at the low level status, the youth and the uninvolvement of these kids.”

In an interview with Creative Loafing of Atlanta, Chandler explained, “the extent of the threat posed to the American legal system by the administration’s actions” compelled him to take the cases. Chandler compared Gitmo to WWII interment camps:

“Guantanamo will someday be considered in the same way as the interment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. What we did to the Japanese Americans was terrible, but this is much worse. It’s atrocious.”

Elizabeth Tanis joined the Guantanamo Bay Bar Association with John Chandler. Tanis is a cooperating attorney with the ACLU of GA. She is presently the 1st Vice President and sits on the Executive Committee of the GA chapter. Tanis represented the ACLU in McKenzie vs. State, which involved consensual sexual phone conversations between a 19-year-old male inmate at a GA prison and a 13-year-old female. The court ruled in favor of the plaintiff and stated that freedom of speech extends to consensual phone sex, even if one of the participants is a minor. (Similar to the situation involving Mark Foley but not brought up by the media). Tanis also represented inmates at Dooly County Jail where prison restraint chairs were used as punishment. Dooly County Jail no longer uses the restraint chair system.

After the first trip to Gitmo with her comrades from Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan, Tanis “expressed concern that the government’s alleged evidence against their clients came from confessions’ obtained under brutal circumstances that would never be permitted as evidence in a criminal proceeding.” Tanis essentially opened the door for the claims filed by CCR against Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld charging him with “war crimes”.

Since their first visit to Gitmo, the Sutherland Asbill Brennan wing of CCR has filed a petition for habeas corpus and other relief on behalf of the five Yemeni detainees. They have filed for a motion to preserve evidence, a motion for notice of the government’s intention to transfer the petitioners beyond US jurisdiction and a motion ordering the government to stop coercing a detainee to end a hunger strike. The group has also taken up the cases of an additional three Yemeni terrorists.

In a January 2006 article on National Review Online, Delroy Murdock wrote the following about the members of the Guantanamo Bay Bar Association:

“Their pro bono services — mainly filing habeas corpus petitions in Washington, D.C. to free detainees from military custody — are worth perhaps $300 per hour in donated value, last September's American Lawyer estimated. Detainees don't pay a dime, however. By covering their own bills, these firms' Fortune 500 clients, and their shareholders, indirectly subsidize legal aid and comfort to suspected Islamo-fascist terrorists.”

So the next time you read about another lawsuit or threat of legal action by the ACLU of GA, keep in mind that their donors and cooperating attorneys represent. It is impossible to support civil liberties for Americans when you are willing to represent those that want to destroy Americans. But then again, why should we expect the ACLU and its comrades to change their spots now.

"What we did to the Japanese Americans was terrible..."

What about what the Japanese soldiers did to our boys, you b!t(h!?

Funny, they're still riding America's @$$ over the A-bombs, the internement of Japanese-Americans, and the bombings of Japanese and German cities, yet you never hear a peep about Guernica, Rotterdam, the Blitz of Britain, the rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, and every other war crime the Nazis and the Japanese committed during WWII. Typical leftist thinking; it's only a war crime when a Republican-led America does what is necessary to win the war.

Thanks! I wonder if the fact Georgia is Jimmy Carter’s home territory has any relevance to the state ACLU’s prominence.

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