SCOTUS disappoints again.

On June 21, in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is not unconstitutional for the government to block speech and other forms of advocacy supporting a foreign organization that has been officially (and arbitrarily) labeled as terrorist, even if the aim is to support such a group’s peaceful or humanitarian actions.

In other words, they’re throwing out the baby with the bath water, because, even if you only intend to support the positive humanitarian efforts of such an organization, you could be seen as providing material support to terrorists.

Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor dissented. (No surprise.)

In the case, the plaintiffs were seeking only to provide assistance and education on human rights advocacy and peacemaking to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey. However, the KWP happens to be designated a terrorist organization.

So, according to this ruling, you can go to prison for promoting peace in a case such as this.

Attorney David Cole of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) had this to say about the decision: “We are deeply disappointed. The Supreme Court has ruled that human rights advocates, providing training and assistance in the nonviolent resolution of disputes, can be prosecuted as terrorists. In the name of fighting terrorism, the Court has said that the First Amendment permits Congress to make human rights advocacy and peacemaking a crime. That is wrong.”

Indeed.

And CCR Senior Attorney Shayana Kadidal offered these disturbing implications: “The Court’s decision confirms the extraordinary scope of the material support statute’s criminalization of speech. But it also notes that the scope of the prohibitions may not be clear in every application, and that remains the case for the many difficult questions raised at argument but dodged by today’s opinion, including whether publishing an op-ed or submitting an amicus brief in court arguing that a group does not belong on the list is a criminal act.”

Yikes!

Kadidal went on to challenge Congress and the White House to take on the issue: “The onus is now on Congress and the Obama administration to ensure that humanitarian groups may engage in human rights advocacy, training in non-violent conflict resolution, and humanitarian assistance in crisis zones without fearing criminal prosecution.”

Amen. But I shall not hold my breath.

The ACLU, in a press release, made this good point: “The United States Supreme Court … upheld the broad application of a federal law that hinders the ability of human rights and humanitarian aid organizations to do their work by making it a crime to provide ‘material support’ to designated ‘foreign terrorist organizations’ (FTOs). The ruling thwarts the efforts of human rights organizations to persuade violent actors to renounce violence or cease their human rights abuses and jeopardizes the provision of aid and disaster relief in conflict zones controlled by designated groups.”

So, sadly, innocent people will likely suffer, in more ways than one, as a result of this ruling.

This is what George W. Bush’s fear-fueled “war on terror” has wrought. And I am not optimistic that Congress or the White House will bother to do anything about it.

Unfortunately, slavery is not a thing of the past. Human beings are still being bought and sold for sex and labor. Only these days it’s called human trafficking.

Fortunately, the Obama administration is aware of the problem and appears to be making a solid effort to address it.

To that end, on June 14, the U.S. State Department issued its 10th annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. The report reflects the findings of the Department’s work over the past year with embassies, analysts, NGOs, and activists in the field.

Upon the report’s release, Maria Otero, Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs, issued the following encouraging remarks:

“The TIP report is a fair and transparent diagnosis of the impact of human trafficking, and it offers an assessment of how we can partner to end this human rights abuse, because human trafficking cuts across policies and sectors. We are challenged to gather our resources and increase our capacity to fight this crime together.

“I’m also proud to say that under Secretary [Hillary] Clinton’s leadership, the issue of human trafficking is elevated as never before. Her belief that we must fight human trafficking with every tool has led us to where we are today and motivates us to improve what we are doing in the future. Secretary Clinton’s longstanding commitment to this issue has helped make human trafficking a priority under the Obama Administration. Everywhere that I travel, I carry the mandate to address this issue, to raise it with the leaders across the world. I also meet with the advocates, I meet with the victims when I’m on the ground, those who have the real understanding of the impact of the crime.”

In what I see as a positive step, the U.S. has rated itself in the report this year. The report gives the U.S. a Tier 1 ranking, meaning that the government complies with the minimum standards of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, but notes that the United States is “a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor, debt bondage, and forced prostitution.”

Here are Secretary Clinton’s remarks on that:

“The Report, for the first time, includes a ranking of the United States based on the same standards to which we hold other countries. The United States takes its first-ever ranking not as a reprieve but as a responsibility to strengthen global efforts against modern slavery, including those within America. This human rights abuse is universal, and no one should claim immunity from its reach or from the responsibility to confront it.”

Fighting the problem, and hopefully eventually ending all forms of slavery, will be a big job. But it’s good to know that it’s being recognized and addressed at such a high level and on a wide global scale.

In the meantime, we all need to push our elected officials and law enforcement to identify — and implement — more and more ways of combatting slavery here in the U.S. and abroad.

Remember: If not for luck, that slave could be you.

The report is available online, along with related information, at: www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2010

Not only were terrorism suspects tortured under the Bush administration, it now appears that they were used as human guinea pigs as well.

On June 7, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) released a report containing evidence that CIA doctors and other medical personnel engaged in illegal experimentation on prisoners regarding “enhanced interrogation techniques” (i.e., torture).

It was apparently part of the Bush administration’s lame attempts to justify the unjustifiable. According to the report, as part of the administration’s attempts to redefine the “limits” of what constitutes torture, doctors and other medical personnel were “ostensibly responsible for ensuring that the legal threshold for ’severe physical and mental pain’ was not crossed by interrogators.”

But how do you measure another person’s pain and suffering?

According to one of the infamous “torture memos” by the Bush administration lawyers, for an act to constitute torture, the physical pain “must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.” And the interrogator must have “specifically intended” to cause such severe pain.

Otherwise, claimed the Bushies, it’s not torture. It’s just “enhanced interrogation”. No big deal, they would have us believe. Run along now. (As if we’re all so stupid.)

And so, as PHR points out, “The apparent experimentation and research appear to have been performed to provide legal cover for torture, as well as to help justify and shape future procedures and policies governing the use of the ‘enhanced’ interrogation techniques.”

Again, they were trying to justify the unjustifiable.

By participating, PHR speculates, these doctors may have been complicit in the commission of war crimes.

Here is how PHR describes some of its alarming findings:

[The report] indicates that there is evidence that health professionals engaged in research on detainees that violates the Geneva Conventions, The Common Rule, the Nuremberg Code and other international and domestic prohibitions against illegal human subject research and experimentation. Declassified government documents indicate that:

• Research and medical experimentation on detainees [were] used to measure the effects of large-volume waterboarding and adjust the procedure according to the results. After medical monitoring and advice, the CIA experimentally added saline, in an attempt to prevent putting detainees in a coma or killing them through over-ingestion of large amounts of plain water. The report observes: “‘Waterboarding 2.0′ was the product of the CIA’s developing and field-testing an intentionally harmful practice, using systematic medical monitoring and the application of subsequent generalizable knowledge.”

• Health professionals monitored sleep deprivation on more than a dozen detainees in 48-, 96- and 180-hour increments. This research was apparently used to monitor and assess the effects of varying levels of sleep deprivation to support legal definitions of torture and to plan future sleep deprivation techniques.

• Health professionals appear to have analyzed data, based on their observations of 25 detainees who were subjected to individual and combined applications of “enhanced” interrogation techniques, to determine whether one type of application over another would increase the subject’s “susceptibility to severe pain.” The alleged research appears to have been undertaken only to assess the legality of the “enhanced” interrogation tactics and to guide future application of the techniques.”

So there you go. Our tax dollars at work.

How can a physician, who has sworn to do no harm, justify doing this sort of thing?

And will the Obama administration have the guts to do anything about it, as PHR is calling for? (Sadly, I suspect that this will remain merely a rhetorical question.)

The report is available for download in PDF format at phrtorturepapers.org. Read it if you dare.

Roe v. Wade is established law in the United States of America. But that isn’t stopping some states from trying to undermine it as much as possible via their own anti-choice legislation, unconstitutional though some of it might seem.

In April, for example, Nebraska criminalized abortions after 20 weeks. However, under Roe, a woman has the right to an abortion until fetal viability, which is generally believed to occur somewhere between 24 and 28 weeks.

So, some might expect that the Nebraska law will find its way into the courts. And some might expect that it would ultimately be struck down based on Roe.

But I’m not so confident.

As the tea party movement continues to demonstrate, a very vocal far-right contingent is gaining more and more influence in government.

So the anti-choice crowd is taking advantage of the current political climate, and is working overtime to push its agenda, with small steps as well as large ones.

Already, Arizona, Tennessee, and Mississippi have implemented limits or outright bans on abortion coverage in health care exchanges under the new health care reform legislation. And other states are pushing for similar measures.

In Oklahoma, any woman who wants an abortion is subjected to an intrusive vaginal-probe ultrasound while being forced to view the fetus as the physician describes it in detail.

Perhaps even worse, given the departure of the fairly liberal Justice John Paul Stevens from the Supreme Court, I’m not convinced that Roe is safe from being overturned by the Roberts Court, if given the chance anytime soon.

Forget any kind of legislative push-back from Washington. Given that a Democrat forced an anti-choice compromise in order to pass the health care reform bill, we can’t count on Congress to reinforce Roe at a legislative level.

So, if Roe is indeed ever overturned (perish the thought), abortion rights will likely revert to the jurisdiction of the individual states, many of which may outlaw it completely. In fact, North Dakota is already prepared, having enacted a near-total ban on abortion in 2007 which would become effective if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Under the ban, abortion providers could face up to five years in prison.

And so, if Roe is indeed ever overturned, women in some so-called red states may find themselves unable to obtain a legal (and safe) abortion without traveling to a state that allows it.

That’s no solution for the women who cannot afford to explore their long-distance options.

And, sadly, those are the women who most need a choice.

On May 31, Israeli troops attacked a flotilla headed to Gaza with humanitarian aid supplies. According to the Free Gaza Movement, which organized the flotilla, the six boats were carrying more than 10,000 tons of aid and about 600 passengers from more than 20 countries.

On one of the boats, the scene got ugly and violent, and at least nine people died.

Israel says that its troops were acting in self-defense. According to CNN, “the Israel Defense Forces said its troops ‘were met with premeditated violence, evident by the activists’ use of clubs, metal rods, and knives, as well as the firing of two weapons stolen from the soldiers.’ It said troops responded with ‘defensive action on behalf of the forces who felt their lives were endangered.’”

But the human rights group Amnesty International (AI) suspects that the Israeli troops overreacted. “Israeli forces appear clearly to have used excessive force,” said Malcolm Smart, AI’s director for the Middle East and North Africa. “Israel says its forces acted in self-defense, alleging that they were attacked by protestors, but it begs credibility that the level of lethal force used by Israeli troops could have been justified. It appears to have been out of all proportion to any threat posed.” So AI has called for an independent inquiry into the incident.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) agrees. “A prompt, credible, and impartial investigation is absolutely essential to determine whether the lethal force used by Israeli commandos was necessary to protect lives and whether it could have been avoided,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s Middle East director.

And they are not alone.

On June 1, a coalition of more than 30 NGOs from around the world, who had gathered at an International Criminal Court (ICC) Review Conference in Uganda, signed a statement condemning the killing and injury of the civilians carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza, and calling on the international community “to immediately take all appropriate measures in response to this unacceptable violence.”

The statement urged the following:

• The illegal closure of the Gaza Strip to be immediately lifted;

• The ICC Prosecutor to make an urgent determination regarding the opening of an investigation into the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT);

• The UN Secretary General to urgently address the UN Security Council with respect to the ongoing impunity crisis in Israel and the OPT in order to engage all appropriate international mechanisms;

• The UN Security Council to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court;

• All States Parties to the ICC to take all appropriate measure, at the diplomatic and legal levels, to uphold the rule of law in the OPT;

• The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to urgently visit the Gaza Strip; and

• Israel to comply with their international legal obligation and cooperate with investigative authority.

The statement was signed by the following organizations:

– Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)

– International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH)

– Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR, USA)

– Turkish Coalition for the ICC

– Track Impunity Always (TRIAL)

– Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists

– Gender Justice Initiative

– Fondazione Internazionale Lelio Basso (Italy)

– Cairo Institute for Human Rights

– University College Dublin, (Ireland)

– Africa Freedom of Information Centre

– Uganda Joint Christian Council

– Human Rights Network – Uganda

– Uganda Women and Children Organisation (UWCO)

– Hope After Rape (HAR, Uganda)

– Disabled Women’s Network & Resource Organisation in Uganda (DWMRO)

– Cameroon Coalition for Human Rights

– Iranian Islamic Human Rights Commission

– Kituo Cha Sheria (Kenya)

– Coalition for Justice and Accountability (Sierra Leone)

– Colombian Comission of Jurists

– Network Movement for Democracy Human Rights (NMDHR, Sierra Leone)

– Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights

– Indonesian Civil Society Coalition for the ICC (ICSLCC)

– Ligue pour la Paix et les Droits de l’Homme (LIPADHO, DRC)

– Synergie des ONG’s Congolaise pour les Victimes (SYCOVI, DRC)

– Femme pour la Paix, le Developpement et les Droit de l’Homme (DRC)

– Sierra Leone Coalition for the ICC

– Association Espanola De Derecho International De Derechos Humanos (AEDIDH)

– Justice Without Frontiers

– Lebanese Centre for International Law and Human Rights

– La Coalition Marocain Pour La Cour Penal Internationale

– Institute for Justice and Reconciliation

The coalition’s recommendations may seem harsh, but the Palestinians have suffered enough. It’s time that Israel be held accountable for its years of aggression against innocent civilians, be they the Palestinian people themselves or the international aid workers who try to help them (see Rachel Corrie).

Enough!

The U.S. Congress is moving towards a repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy which keeps gay and lesbian service members in the closet lest they be discharged from duty. It’s about time.

On May 28, the House passed an annual Pentagon policy provision that “would allow the Defense Department to end the ban 60 days after military leaders receive a report on the ramifications of openly gay and lesbian soldiers and certify that doing so would not disrupt the armed forces,” according to the New York Times.

The previous day, the Senate Armed Service Committee had passed the measure, which will go to the full Senate floor soon.

In the Senate Committee, one Republican supported the bill — Susan Collins of Maine. Kudos to her.

But, to my disappointment, a lone Democrat — Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, a Vietnam veteran — opposed the bill, citing Pentagon reluctance. He doesn’t believe that Congress should make such a move until after the Pentagon completes its study.

Both the Pentagon and Senator Webb are wrong to want to delay the repeal.

Until DADT is repealed, gays and lesbians in the U.S. military are second-class soldiers. They do not have the freedom of speech and freedom of expression that their straight colleagues enjoy. They are forced to live a lie. And no one can perform at his or her best under those circumstances, so it’s the military — and this country — that ultimately suffer as well. In that regard, today’s U.S. military might represent the home of the brave, but certainly not the land of the free — unless you’re heterosexual.

And leaving it up to the Pentagon is wrong. It’s like Republican Senatorial candidate Rand Paul’s criticism of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 per his belief that businesses should be free to discriminate as they see fit. The backlash against Paul’s position was strong, and came from all sides of the political spectrum. Why no similar backlash against the lawmakers and Pentagon officials who can’t quite admit that it’s also very wrong to discriminate on the basis of whom you happen to be attracted to?

In passing the Civil Rights Act, the government didn’t do a study to determine whether or not the White majority in business and public institutions would have difficulty — logistically or philosophically — with giving blacks equal treatment. No, the Congressional majority just went ahead and passed it because it was the right thing to do.

Similarly, Congress today is wrong to have included in its legislation the provision that delays a DADT repeal until after the Pentagon study is complete. But, given the current political climate, I suppose that compromise was probably the best they could do.

I’d like to see an immediate repeal. And, until that happens, I would like to see a Presidential order suspending any further discharges of service members under DADT.

But that’s just me speaking from the conscience. In Washington, on the other hand, it’s not about conscience, just politics. And that is why social progress will always be an uphill battle.