STEVEN WATT

HINA SHAMSI

Alexander Abdo is a Staff Attorney in the ACLU's National Security Project. He has been involved in the litigation of cases concerning the Patriot Act, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and the treatment of detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Navy brig in South Carolina. Mr. Abdo is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School. Prior to working at the ACLU, he served as a law clerk to the Hon. Barbara M.G. Lynn, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Texas, and to the Hon. Rosemary Barkett, United States Circuit Judge for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

NATHAN FREED WESSLER

​​“There are the important ethical and moral issues about conducting essentially an undeclared war half way around the world.” -Nathan Wessler​

​THE U.S. TARGETED KILLING PROGRAM. 3:50

Attorney, Nathan Freed Wessler, discusses his role in a recent FOIA request  pertaining to Targeted Killing  and Drone Programs. The CIA responded to the ACLU by neither confirming nor denying it has a drone program. The ACLU’s argument challenges the CIA positions based on the fact that numerous public admissions have been made by named governments officials, including the president, about the existence of the program and it’s purported effectiveness.

​​“Why it [the government] thinks its legal to put a US citizen on a kill list, hunt him down, away from a battle field..."-Nathan Wessler

KILLING U.S. CITIZENS. 3:59​

Nathan Wessler discusses another targeted killing case which involves the death of 3 U.S. citizens. On October 19, 2011, the ACLU submitted a Freedom of Information Act request seeking information about the targeted killings of three U.S. citizens in Yemen: Anwar al-Awlaki; his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki; and Samir Khan. In January 2013 the judge dismissed most of the lawsuit.

Nathan Wessler  discusses the targeted strike on  Al- Majalah in Yemen. On April 17, 2012, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union made a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request to several government agencies for information about a US airstrike on a rural community in southwestern Yemen, in the Al-Majalah region, on December 17, 2009.  The strike killed a reported 41 people, including at least 21 children.  The Yemeni government initially claimed that it had carried out the strike, but leaked US government cables later revealed that Yemen had covered up the United States’ responsibility for the strike.

Mitra Ebadolahi is a graduate of UCLA, the London School of Economics, and NYU School of Law. Prior to joining the ACLU, she clerked for the Hon. Betty B. Fletcher, U.S. Circuit Judge for the 9th Circuit; completed a thesis-based LL.M. in International Legal Studies; and clerked for the Hon. Margaret M. Morrow, U.S. District Judge for the Central District of California. Her areas of expertise include: “extraordinary rendition” and torture; racial, ethnic and religious profiling of minorities & immigrants, and other post-9/11 civil rights infringements; local, state, and national surveillance; FOIA requests and litigation; constitutional and administrative law and litigation; and international human rights law.

BEN WIZNER

“We’re wearing the black hats and not the white ones.” -Ben Wizner ​

HUMAN RIGHTS LAW AFTER 9/11. 4:10

Attorney, Ben Wizner, talks about the how the law is used and perceived in the U.S., the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and how they’ve been disregarded by the U.S. since 9/11.

​​“How much should Americans be thinking about a terrorist threat? Almost never.” - Ben Wizner

AMERICA'S ABSENCE OF HISTORY.  1:56​

Ben Wizner contextualizes the scale of responses to  9/11 with the history of wars and other tragedies in the 20th C.

Ben Wizner talks about the backlash against early successes in civil rights litigation in the U.S., the Rehnquist revolution, and its impact on the litigation of torture in the U.S. after 9/11.

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​​​“I don’t want you to call me a state secret.”" - Ben Wizner

THE OFFICIAL TRUTH.  2:02​

Ben Wizner reflects on the need for an official truth and the acknowledgement by the U.S. government of its crimes and misconduct.

​​“The torture regime wasn’t inflicted on the liberal elite of our society...it was brown people in cages abroad.”​ - Ben Wizner

ACCOUNTABILITY AND TORTURE.  2:48​

Ben Wizner talks about  how long the efforts to bring accountability for torture policies in the U.S. will take and how FOIA can be used to create an archival record of government abuses.

​​“We're doing far too little too late.”​ - Jennifer Turner

WAR CRIMES IN RWANDA AND SIERRA LEONE. 3:12

Jennifer Turner is the Human Rights Researcher in the ACLU’s Human Rights Program. Prior to joining the ACLU, she was a fellow in the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, where she researched and reported on abuses against Asian migrant domestic workers in the Middle East. She has also worked in the asylum program of Human Rights First assisting refugees seeking asylum in the US to obtain pro bono legal representation, at the Latin American Workers Project in Brooklyn, N.Y., and was in the NYU Law Immigrants’ Rights Clinic as a law student. Jennifer has also worked at the Office of the Prosecutor at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the Defense Office of the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

JAMEEL JAFFER

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This interview with ​Jameel Jaffer, the Director of ACLU’s Center For Democracy, was commissioned by Creative Time Reports. On Monday October 29, the United States Supreme Court  heard oral arguments on whether a coalition of human rights workers, lawyers and journalists represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), have the right to challenge the constitutionality of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. The law allows the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor and retain Americans’ international communications without a warrant. Congress is now deliberating the renewal of the law, which is set to expire at the end of the year.

First enacted by Congress in 1978, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) regulated the U.S. government’s surveillance of intelligence in the country. In its first incarnation, the law demanded that the government—prior to collecting and monitoring Americans’ communications—obtain warrants. With President George W. Bush’s authorization just after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the law’s scope greatly expanded, facilitating the launch of the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program. In 2008, Congress not only backed the NSA’s role, but also expanded it, giving it unprecedented foreign intelligence surveillance powers.

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This interview was commissioned by Creative Time Reports and is the second interview with Jameel Jaffer about the Supreme Court Oral argument, Clapper v. Amnesty.

Not yet able to question the constitutionality of the FISA Amendment Act, Jameel Jaffer, attorney and director of the ACLU’s Center For Democracy,  representing a broad coalition of human rights workers, journalists and lawyers, must first argue over whether his clients even have the right to challenge the law in court. This narrow issue is what will be decided by the Supreme Court.  If successful in it’s  argument, the ACLU will then be able to return to the district courts and begin the work of creating a legal challenge to the actual constitutionality of the FISA Amendment Act of 2008. If the ACLU loses here, it is difficult to see who will ever  have standing or the right to challenge the law in the future. However there were reasons for optimism after Monday’s oral argument. Within seconds of Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr.’s opening remarks on why the group of human rights workers, journalists and lawyers represented by the ACLU should not be granted standing in court to challenge the FISA Amendment Act, Chief Justice Sotomayor interrupted him by asking the central question of the day, “Is there anybody who has standing?” Justices Ginsburg, Kagan and Kennedy all appeared to understand what was at stake in the case and frequently challenged Verrilli.  We spoke about the psychology behind preparing for his first Supreme Court oral argument, his suprise at the sympathetic and engaged response from five  judges on the Supreme Court Bench, and what he’d like to see change in terms of surveillance issues in democratic societies.

​​“Democratic governments now have too much information about citizens and I would like them to have less." - Jameel Jaffer

CLAPPER V. AMNESTY, PART 2.  19:41

Jaffer directed the National Security Project from 2007 – 2010 and is currently the Director of the ACLU's Center for Democracy. He has testified before Congress about issues relating to government surveillance and, since 2004, has served as a human rights monitor for the military commissions at Guantánamo. His book, Administration of Torture (co-authored with Open Society Justice Institute attorney Amrit Singh), was published by Columbia University Press in 2007. Prior to joining the ACLU, he clerked for Amalya L. Kearse, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, and Rt. Hon. Beverley McLachlin, Chief Justice of Canada. He is a graduate of Williams College, Cambridge University, and Harvard Law School.