[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
REAUTHORIZATION OF THE USA PATRIOT ACT
(CONTINUED)
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
----------
JUNE 10, 2005
----------
Serial No. 109-29
----------
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
REAUTHORIZATION OF THE USA PATRIOT ACT
(CONTINUED)
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 10, 2005
__________
Serial No. 109-29
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
------
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21-913 WASHINGTON : 2005
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., Wisconsin, Chairman
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
LAMAR SMITH, Texas RICK BOUCHER, Virginia
ELTON GALLEGLY, California JERROLD NADLER, New York
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California ZOE LOFGREN, California
WILLIAM L. JENKINS, Tennessee SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
CHRIS CANNON, Utah MAXINE WATERS, California
SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts
BOB INGLIS, South Carolina WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
RIC KELLER, Florida ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
DARRELL ISSA, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
MIKE PENCE, Indiana DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
STEVE KING, Iowa
TOM FEENEY, Florida
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
Philip G. Kiko, General Counsel-Chief of Staff
Perry H. Apelbaum, Minority Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
JUNE 10, 2005
OPENING STATEMENT
Page
The Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a Representative in
Congress from the State of Wisconsin, and Chairman, Committee
on the Judiciary............................................... 1
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress
from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on
the Judiciary.................................................. 1
WITNESSES
Ms. Carlina Tapia Ruano, First Vice-President, American
Immigration Lawyers Association
Oral Testimony................................................. 6
Prepared Statement............................................. 8
Mr. James J. Zogby, President, Arab American Institute
Oral Testimony................................................. 27
Prepared Statement............................................. 28
Ms. Deborah Pearlstein, Director, U.S. Law and Security Program
Oral Testimony................................................. 32
Prepared Statement............................................. 34
Mr. Chip Pitts, Chair of the Board, Amnesty International USA
Oral Testimony................................................. 36
Prepared Statement............................................. 37
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a
Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, and
Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary..................... 61
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Texas............. 62
Responses from Amnesty International to request for additional
information requested by Chairman Sensenbrenner................ 70
``Behind the Wire,'' submitted for the record by Deborah
Pearlstein, Director, U.S. Law and Security Program............ 72
``Getting to Ground Truth,'' submitted for the record by Deborah
Pearlstein, Director, U.S. Law and Security Program............ 117
``Guantanamo and Beyond: The Continuing Pursuit of Unchecked
Executive Powers,'' submitted for the record by Chip Pitts,
Chair of the Board, Amnesty International USA, and Congressman
John Conyers, Jr............................................... 147
Materials for Hearing Record, ``Reauthorization of the USA
PATRIOT Act (Continued),'' (June 10, 2005), submitted by
Congressman John Conyers, Jr.
Article, James Sturcke, ``General Approved Extreme
Interrogation Methods,'' Guardian, March 30, 2005.......... 311
Article, Bob Herbert, ``America a Symbol Of . . . ,'' New
York Times, May 30, 2005, available on Westlaw at 2005 WLNR
8545594.................................................... 313
Article, Neil A. Lewis & Christopher Marquis, ``A Nation
Challenged: Immigration, Longer Visa Waits for Arabs,'' New
York Times, November 10, 2001, available on Westlaw at 2001
WLNR 3372678............................................... 315
Article, Bob Herbert, ``Stories from the Inside,'' New York
Times, February 7, 2005, available on Westlaw at 2005 WLNR
1682135.................................................... 321
Article, Tim Golden, ``Threats and Responses: Tough Justice;
After Terror, a Secret Rewriting of Military Law,'' New
York Times, October 24, 2004, available on Westlaw at 2004
WLNR 4788371............................................... 324
Article, Douglas Jehl, Neil A. Lewis, & Tim Golden, ``The
Reach of War: Guantanamo: Pentagon Seeks to Shift Inmates
from Cuba Base,'' New York Times, March 11, 2005, available
on Westlaw at 2005 WLNR 3773506............................ 340
Article, Tim Golden, Ruhallah Khapalwak, Charlotte Gall, &
David Rohde, ``The Bagram File: In U.S. Report, Brutal
Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths,'' New York Times, May
20, 2005, available on Westlaw at 2005 WLNR 7990089........ 346
Article, Tim Golden, ``The Bagram File: Army Faltered in
Investigating Detainee Abuse,'' New York Times, May 22,
2005, available on Westlaw at 2005 WLNR 8112977............ 363
Report, American Civil Liberties Union, ``Independence Day
2003,'' July 3, 2003....................................... 370
Report, Human Rights Watch, ``We Are Not the Enemy,''
November 2002.............................................. 393
Report, Human Rights Watch, ``Presumption of Guilt,'' August
2002....................................................... 435
Report, Human Rights Watch, ``The Road to Abu Ghraib,'' June
2004....................................................... 534
Report, Human Rights Watch, ``Still At Risk,'' April 2005.... 570
Report, Human Rights Watch, ``Getting Away With Torture?,''
April 2005................................................. 664
Report, American Civil Liberties Union, ``Sanctioned Bias,''
February 2004.............................................. 758
Report, American Civil Liberties Union, ``Unpatriotic Acts,''
July 2003.................................................. 782
Report, Irene Kahn, Amnesty International, ``Denounce
Torture, Report 2005, Forward,'' May 25, 2005.............. 808
Statement, Alexandra Arriaga, Amnesty International, ``Stop
Outsourcing of Torture,'' May 10, 2005..................... 813
Amnesty International, ``United States of America,
Guantanamo--an icon of lawlessness,'' January 6, 2005...... 815
Report, Amnesty International, ``Human Dignity Denied:
Torture and Accountability in the War on Terror,'' October
27, 2004................................................... 822
Report, Center for Civil Rights, ``The State of Civil
Liberties One Year Later,'' 2002........................... 1024
Report, Nancy Chang & Alan Kabat, Center for Civil Rights,
``Summary of Recent Court Rulings on Terrorism-Related
Matters having Civil Liberties Implications,'' March 8,
2004....................................................... 1044
Report, Anjana Malhotra, ``Overlooking Innocence:
Refashioning the Material Witness Law to Indefinitely
Detain Muslims Without Charges''........................... 1084
Report, American Civil Liberties Union, ``Conduct Unbecoming:
Pitfalls in the President's Military Commissions,'' March
2004....................................................... 1092
Report, American Civil Liberties Union, ``America's
Disappeared: Seeking International Justice for Immigrants
Detained After September 11, January 2004.................. 1109
Report, American Civil Liberties Union, ``Seeking Truth From
Justice, PATRIOT Propaganda: The Justice Department's
Campaign to Mislead The Public About the USA PATRIOT Act,''
July 2003.................................................. 1136
Article, New York Times, ``Just Shut It Down,'' May 27, 2005. 1149
Article, USA Today, ``Biden: U.S. needs to close Cuba
prison,'' June 6, 2005..................................... 1151
Letter to the Honorable Alberto R. Gonzales, Attorney General
of the United States....................................... 1153
REAUTHORIZATION OF THE
USA PATRIOT ACT (CONTINUED)
----------
FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 2005
House of Representatives,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 8:30 a.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable F.
James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The meeting will be in order, a
quorum for the taking of testimony is present. This hearing has
been called by the Democratic Members of the Committee pursuant
to clause 2(j)(1) of Rule 10 of the Rules of the House of
Representatives. They have chosen the witnesses. They have also
chosen the topic of the hearing, and the Chair now recognizes
the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers to make his opening
statement.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, this is a special
hearing brought by the request of the Democratic side of the
House of Representatives. I thank you for complying with it.
There are few issues more important to this Committee, and I
might add, the Congress, than the war against terror and the
PATRIOT Act that accompanied it from a legislative perspective.
This not only affects the rights and privacy of every
American, but it impacts, the extent to which our Nation is
able to hold itself out as a beacon of liberty as we advocate
for democracy, both here and around the world.
For many of us, this process of hearings is not merely
about the extension of 16 expiring provisions that sunset in
the PATRIOT Act, but it is about the manner in which our
Government uses its legal authority to prosecute the war
against terror, both domestically and abroad.
And as we hear from our witnesses today, I think we will
demonstrate that much of this authority has been abused.
We learn from Amnesty International about the routine
torture and degradation of detainees in American-run prisons
that clearly and obviously violate American and international
law.
Both then White House counsel Gonzalez and the then
Attorney General of the Department of Justice, all with others,
conspired to create an end run around the international and
United States laws that criminalize that sort of behavior.
While the Justice Department has supposedly reversed these
opinions, it still refuses to charge those in its jurisdiction.
We expect that there will be testimony concerning the
illegal detention and mistreatment of individuals at Guantanamo
Bay. A Federal Court has found their detention and denial of
legal process to be unconstitutional under the fifth amendment.
And after the recent confirmation that jailers have, in
fact, desecrated the Koran on more than one occasion, it is
clearly time for the military to shut the Guantanamo facility
down, and I join with those Members of Congress that have urged
that that happen. We will also learn about the abuse of the
immigration system to unjustifiably detain and harass men of
Middle Eastern descent. The Department of Justice has held over
1,000 people in the wake of 9/11 and the Inspector General has
found the detentions to violate the law. But no one has been
punished and nothing has been done to ensure that it doesn't
happen again.
Finally, we will hear about the failure of our
Administration's racial profiling tactics employed in the war
against terror. Not only are tactics like these immoral, they
have been proven to be completely useless in the war on terror.
For example, the Government's registration of 80,000 Middle
Eastern men who did nothing, did nothing but create a
deportation nightmare for families who had long been upstanding
members of our communities. And not a single terrorist was
found.
Yesterday, the President announced with the usual fanfare
that we need to not only reauthorize----
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair recognizes himself for 5 minutes.
As I said earlier when I called this hearing to order, this
hearing was requested by the Democratic Minority. The
Democratic Minority also stated what the scope of this hearing
would be, which would be the reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT
Act. I am disturbed that some of the testimony that has been
presented in written form by the witnesses today are far
outside the scope of the hearing which the Democratic Minority
called and which they said in their letter.
I am also disturbed that a number of the Members of this
Committee who decided it was important to have this hearing and
who sent me the letter, which I complied with, aren't here this
morning. Members have changed their travel schedules in order
to participate in the hearing which they called. But,
apparently they decided it wasn't important enough to show up,
even though they thought it was important enough to have this
hearing. And I am going to read off their names because these
are the people who decided the hearing was important enough to
call, but not important enough to participate in. Rick Boucher
of Virginia, Zoe Lofgren of California, Anthony Weiner of New
York, Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, Gerald Nadler of New
York, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, Martin Meehan of
Massachusetts, and Adam Schiff of California.
They are AWOL. And apparently they have decided that this
hearing is not important enough to participate in. Now----
Mr. Conyers. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. I didn't interrupt you, Mr.
Conyers.
Mr. Conyers. I wanted to raise a point of order but I will
be happy to wait.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Now, this Chair has bent over
backwards to be fair to the Minority and everybody else and to
provide plenty of due process on the question of reauthorizing
the PATRIOT Act. We have had eleven hearings at the full and
Subcommittee level here. The Minority has been offered to
provide witnesses at all of the Subcommittee hearings. The two
full Committee hearings included the Attorney General and the
Deputy Attorney General. And this shows that I have worked in a
bipartisan manner to give everybody an opportunity to express
their concerns about the 16 sections of the PATRIOT Act that
were subjected to the sunset.
At each one of the hearings which were held at the
Subcommittee level, the Minority had at least one witness,
sometimes two, and there was an additional Subcommittee hearing
that was held at the end of last month at the request of the
Minority, where they were able to choose the scope of the
topics that were discussed at this hearing.
I also point out the American Civil Liberties Union has
testified four times before at the Subcommittee level. I guess
they weren't able to say what they planned to say, and that is
why they're brought back here for the fifth time.
Now, since commencing this latest series of oversight
hearings on the PATRIOT Act, we have examined those provisions
that are set to expire at the end of this year and the scope of
the hearings has been broadened at the request of the Democrats
to include provisions that will not sunset and some issues that
are only tangentially related to the PATRIOT Act have also
received formal Committee consideration. This was at the
request of the Minority. And it is a request that I was happy
to grant so that there would be full and complete discussion of
this law.
Now, the American people expect and deserve that Members of
Congress will approach terrorism prevention in a thoughtful,
factual and responsible manner. All too often, opponents of the
PATRIOT Act have constructed unfounded and totally unrelated
conspiracy theories, erected straw men that bear no relation to
reality, engaged in irresponsible and totally unfounded
hyperbole, or unjustly criticized or impugned the honorable law
enforcement officials entrusted with protecting the security of
the American people. These efforts that which often bear no
relation to the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act, coarsen
public debate and undermine the responsible, substantive
examination which must inform this Committee and Congress'
consideration of this critical issue.
As the Members of this Committee know, I have great respect
for the Rules of the House, and believe they should be enforced
fairly and uniformly. In keeping with the spirit of those
rules, it is the Chair's intention to limit the scope of the
hearing to the topic that was chosen by the Democratic Minority
that called this hearing and chose the witnesses, which is the
``Reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act.'' This should be a
serious hearing on a serious subject and not a forum for
assertions or complaints that concern matters unrelated to the
PATRIOT Act.
Members and witnesses are advised that questions and
testimony not falling within the subject matter of the hearing
chosen by the Democrats will not be included in the hearing
record pursuant to House Rule 11, section (k)(8).
We will now hear testimony from the witnesses. Gentlemen
from Michigan.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you very much. I would like to----
Mr. Nadler. Mr. Chairman, point of order.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The gentleman from Michigan is
recognized.
Mr. Conyers. Well, I would like to strike the requisite
number of words, Mr. Chairman, if I might at this time.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The gentleman is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Conyers. I want to, again, thank you for complying with
the rules. But, I mean, we can do this in a friendly tone or a
hostile tone. I think that tells the story to everybody about
what the real environment is like here. But first of all, we
have never had the meeting that we were going to set. Number
two, we have never, we have never determined what the limits
will be on this hearing, because I never talked with you about
it. Number four, it is very important that we understand that
in this Committee and in the other body, we have gone way
beyond the 16 sunsetting provisions as we all know and there
are more coming every day.
So to suggest to me and our membership that we are now
going to talk about the 16 sunsetting provisions precisely
misses the point of why we have asked for the hearing.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Will the gentleman yield.
Mr. Conyers. Of course.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The Chair has complied with the
rules. The Chair believes in complying with the rules. And the
Chair expects all of the other Members to comply with the
rules, which includes the Rules of the House of Representatives
relative to pertinence and relevancy and the Chair will enforce
the rules as they are written.
Mr. Conyers. Well, I am happy to have yielded for that
information. But section 1001 of the PATRIOT Act gave the
Inspector General the responsibility of investigating
``complaints alleging abuses of civil rights and civil
liberties by employees and officials of the Department of
Justice.''
All of the topics today that are before us with these four
witnesses fall under this category. It does not say only civil
liberties abuses under the PATRIOT Act, but civil liberties in
general in their totality. And all of the witnesses today I
claim are experts in this area.
So we didn't come here to have a special hearing to be told
that we are only going to investigate 16 sunsetting provisions.
That is what we have had, nine, 10, 11 hearings about. The
question is about the issues of violations or abuses alleged of
civil rights and civil liberties. So we didn't come here today
to be muted by some well-intentioned recitations of the rules
by the Chairman.
And, I thank you. And I return the time.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The Chair strikes the last word and
recognizes himself for a very brief 5 minutes. First of all,
the Rules of the House and specifically, Rule 11 clause 2(j)(1)
under which this hearing is called, requires that the subject
matter of the hearings requested under this rule be confined to
that measure or matter, which was the subject of the earlier
hearing. Furthermore, the letter that I received from the
Democratic Members of the Committee, dated June 7, exercising
the provisions of this rule, requested at least one additional
day of oversight hearings be authorized or be conducted, ``on
the Reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act.''
So both the rule and the letter requires that the
testimony, in order to be pertinent and relevant, be on the
subject of the reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act, and that
is specifically the 16 sections of the USA PATRIOT Act, which
were sunsetted in the law which was passed 3\1/2\ years ago. I
would like to get to the----
Mr. Nadler. Mr. Chairman, I have a personal privilege.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The gentleman will state his point.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I gather that my name
was mentioned specifically by the Chair as not being present
despite the fact that I signed the letter. I point out for the
record that I walked in here at 8:27 a.m., put my jacket on the
chair, put my Diet Coke over here, put my papers here and
walked out to the staff room. The Chairman may not have noted
my presence, but I was here prior to 8:30.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The Chair notes your presence now.
Mr. Nadler. Now, Mr. Chairman may I strike the last word?
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Well if the gentleman does not want
to listen to the witnesses, the gentlemen may strike the last
word.
Mr. Nadler. I am very desirous of listening to the
witnesses, and I will be very brief. I would simply observe--I
would simply, first of all, second what the distinguished
Ranking Minority Member said about the role of this hearing and
about the breadth of it. And I would wonder why the Chairman
seems so fearful of elucidating any information beyond what he
thinks proper. Are we afraid of learning about this misconduct
by agents of the executive branch that traduce civil liberties?
If that happened, if it happened, we should know about it and
we should discuss in this Committee what actions to take about
it. We should not be fearful of knowledge and we should not be
fearful of laying out to the American people such information,
officially laying out to the American people information, the
readers of much of which the readers of any newspaper in the
United States or the world knows.
Much conduct has occurred, I shouldn't say that. Much
conduct has allegedly occurred which, if true, disgraces this
country, spoils its good name and action should be taken about
that if true. And we should learn about it. And I hope we are
not fearful of learning about the truth or falsity of those
statements that we have all read in the general press. Thank
you. I yield back.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The Chairman will swear the
witnesses in.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman, point of order.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Today we are joined by Carlina
Tapia Ruano, who serves as first vice-president for the
American Immigration Lawyers Association. Next is Dr. James J.
Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. Deborah
Pearlstein is the director of U.S. Law and Security Program, at
Human Rights First. And finally Chip Pitts is chair of the
board of Amnesty International USA.
I thank all of these witnesses for their attendance today
and admonish the witnesses to confine their testimony pursuant
to the Rules of the House and the scope of the letter that was
sent to me by the Democrats calling this hearing. Would all of
the witnesses please raise your right hand and stand and take
the oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Let the record show that all of the
witnesses answered in the affirmative. Without objection, the
witnesses prepared testimony, will be included in the record at
the point they give their verbal testimony. We would ask that
the witnesses confine their verbal testimony to 5 minutes. And,
first up is Ms. Tapia Ruano.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman, point of order.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Ms. Tapia Ruano is testifying.
TESTIMONY OF CARLINA TAPIA RUANO, FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT,
AMERICAN IMMIGRATION LAWYERS ASSOCIATION
Ms. Tapia Ruano. Good morning. My name is Carlina Tapia
Ruano. I am an immigration attorney practicing in Chicago,
Illinois. I am also the first vice-president of the American
Immigration Lawyers Association, a National Bar Association
that represents almost 9,000 immigration lawyers and professors
of immigration law. I would like to thank Chairman
Sensenbrenner, and also Representative Conyers for allowing me
the opportunity to address you this morning. And also the
fellow Committee Members, which includes Representative Jackson
Lee from Texas, who is present this morning.
I would like to talk about the PATRIOT Act and other
initiatives related to the PATRIOT Act post 9/11. But let's
begin with the PATRIOT Act. The American Immigration Lawyers
Association is deeply troubled by some of the provisions found
in this Act, such as section 411 of the act, which expands the
grounds of removability and deportability for individuals that
engage in conduct that we believe is constitutionally
protected.
In addition, section 412 creates a certification process
whereby individuals can be designated suspect terrorists
without ever being formally charged as terrorists, thereby
depriving these individuals from the ability to defend
themselves or to explain facts that may have led to their
incorrect certification. We would ask that Congress address
these provisions. We understand that in a democracy, especially
such as ours, which is in need of security, we must have
provisions which enhance security but we would also ask that
these provisions not deprive individuals of their individual
rights in the process of reaching the security. These
provisions in the PATRIOT Act are very troubling, but also
troubling are other administrative initiatives that took place
post 9/11 which are irrevocably interconnected with the PATRIOT
Act and what it is attempting to achieve.
In my written testimony, I have provided an addendum that
lists chronically some of these administrative initiatives.
Today I would like to just address three in particular.
First, the blanket closure of administration judge's
proceedings; number two, the failure to file charges against
individuals being detained, in effect, indefinitely; and third,
the evisceration of the Board of Immigration Appeals, the only
body that reviews decisions made by the Immigration Agency.
We, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, believe
that the Civil Liberties Restoration Act is a bill which should
be strongly supported by Congress and it addresses fairly in a
measured way these three concerns I have just addressed.
Lets go back and talk about them in a little more detail.
Closing of the immigration hearings. This took place as a
result of the September 21, 2001, memo by the Department of
Justice, which has become known as the Creppy memo, which the
Department of Justice repeatedly denied, existed for months. As
a result of this memo, hearings were ordered to be held in
secret, not only the hearing preventing the family members,
friends, and of course, the press, from attending, but the very
fact that the hearing was taking place and its location and
date and its subject matter was considered a matter of secrecy.
We believe that hearings should be held open. We believe
that in an open and democratic society such as ours, open
hearings are a necessity. And closed hearings, such as these,
are a normal tool of repressive regimes. Number 2, our concern
with holding noncitizens in jail indefinitely. Again, the
Department of Justice on September 20, 2001, just a day before
the Creppy memo and a full month before the PATRIOT Act was
enacted, authorized individuals, non-citizens, to be able to be
held in custody for 48 hours, or an unspecified additional
amount of time, if necessary. These are regulations that
circumvent, that totally ignore congressional mandate in the
very PATRIOT Act of putting a limit of 7 days to individuals
who can be held in custody without charge.
The Department of Justice has not had to depend on the
Immigration Agency and the PATRIOT Act and its 7-day
limitation. It simply ignores them and it relies on its own
regulation which results in indefinite custody. The Department
of Justice's own internal report, inspector general report
dated April 2003, documented that most of these post 9/11
detainees were held not only days, weeks, months in custody
without being charged. Ultimately those individuals were
charged with civil immigration violations. Not one was ever
charged with any offense related to the 9/11 attacks.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Ms. Tapia Ruano, could you wrap it
up? Your time is expired.
Ms. Tapia Ruano. I would like to jump to the last concern,
and that is the Board of Immigration Appeals. And I will
conclude my comment with that. The Board of Immigration Appeals
has, in fact, been reduced to a nonexistent body. As a result
of alleged reforms, that body was dismantled, and in reducing
the number of individuals that was allegedly going to reduce
the backlog, all, in essence, it resulted in transferring its
entire backlog to the Federal courts.
I practice in the Seventh Circuit. A circuit, which is not
known to be, in the past, friendly to overturning board
decisions. Yet in the last 2 years, it has been, has become
renowned for overturning board decisions as a result of the
lack of review that exists due to the BIA reforms. We would
urge the Committee to look to policies that provide security
for our country, but not ignore or trample on individual
rights. Thank you for allowing me to address.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Tapia Ruano follows:]
Prepared Statement of Carlina Tapia Ruano
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Dr. Zogby.
TESTIMONY OF JAMES J. ZOGBY, PRESIDENT,
ARAB AMERICAN INSTITUTE
Mr. Zogby. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking
Member Conyers and Members of the Committee. I appreciate the
convening of this hearing and thank you for inviting me today.
The horrific terrorist attacks of September 11th were a
profound and painful tragedy for all Americans. None of us will
ever forget the awful day when thousands of innocent lives were
lost. The attacks were dual tragedy for my community. As
Americans, it was our country that was attacked. Arab Americans
died in the attacks. Arab Americans were also firefighters and
police officers in New York and in Washington who aided in the
rescue efforts. Some lost their lives doing so. Sadly, however,
many in my community were torn away from their morning, because
we became targets of hate and discrimination. Some assumed our
collective guilt. Arab Americans and American Muslims and
others perceived to be Arabs and Muslims were victims of
hundreds of bias incidents.
Thankfully the American people rallied to our defense.
President Bush spoke forcefully against hate crimes. Both the
Senate and House of Representatives unanimously passed
resolutions condemning hate crimes. Federal, State and local
law enforcement investigated and prosecuted. I received death
threats. My family and I did. Two individuals have been
prosecuted and convicted for those crimes. My community and I
personally will always been grateful that our fellow Americans
defended us at a critical time.
Much has been done in the past 3\1/2\ years to combat the
threat of terror. Among other significant accomplishments is we
created the Department of Homeland Security. We have taken
steps to enhance airport and border security and we have
improved information sharing between intelligence and law
enforcement. However, as someone who has spent my entire
professional life working to bring Arab Americans into the
mainstream of American politics and to build a bridge between
my country and the Arab world, I am concerned about the
direction of some of our efforts to combat the terrorist
threats and the impact that some of these efforts have had on
my community and my country.
Unfortunately the Administration has devoted too many
resources to some measures that threaten civil liberties while
doing little to protect our community. I share the concerns of
my colleagues with some provisions of the PATRIOT Act that give
law enforcement broad authority to monitor the activities of
innocent Americans with inadequate judicial oversight.
These concerns, I might add, are shared by Americans across
the political spectrum. I am supportive of reasonably reforms
like those recommended in the Security and Freedom Enhancement,
or SAFE Act. I am concerned as well about a series of high
profile initiatives not authorized by the PATRIOT Act, which
have explicitly targeted tens of thousands of innocent Arabs
and Muslims and have resulted in the detention and deportation
of thousands.
Policies and statements that have conflated undocumented
Arab and Muslim immigrants with terrorists has cast a cloud of
suspicion over the entire community and contributed to
additional discrimination. I therefore support passage of the
Civil Liberties Restoration Act.
Look, the measures I am talking about are
counterproductive. They're counterproductive, and I want to
talk about why. What policies am I talking about? For example,
I am talking about the initial round up of 1,200. I am talking
about the two so-called voluntary call-ins, and especially, I
am talking about the national special registration program,
NSEERS. That did not result in apprehending terrorists. They
did not do anything but waste law enforcement resources. The
FBI says that as well. They created fear and broke trust with
many in the immigrant communities that law enforcement needs
cooperation with in order to do its job, and they resulted in
placing thousands in deportation, often for mere technical
reasons because the INS simply had a backlog and couldn't get
to their forms.
In addition, they were placed based on the mistaken notion
that you conflate immigration policy with any terrorism policy.
All it did was cast a wide net and alienated communities that
law enforcement needs to have cooperation with. They ran
counter to the basic principles of policing. And took a toll on
my community, a serious toll. They also took a particular toll
on Americans abroad and I want to make that point as I close.
As a result it has become more difficult for our allies to
cooperate with us, and it has made America less popular abroad.
Now that may not mean something to some people. But it means
something to me and it ought to mean something to our country
because we are engaged in a long-term conflict in that region.
President Bush is right when he links the spread of
democracy to the war on terrorism. But civil liberties abuses
against Arabs and Muslims in America and the indefinite secret
detention and highly coercive interrogation techniques used in
Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere have undermined our ability to
advocate credibly for democratic reform. In fact, some Arab
governments now point to our policies to justify their
policies. We have learned anti democratic practices and human
rights abuses produce instability and create conditions that
breed terrorism. Democratic reformers and human rights
activists used to look to America as the city on the hill. We
once set a high standard for the world. We have lowered the
bar. The damage to our image, to our values, and all that we
have sought to project and our ability to deal with the root
causes of terror have been profound.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Thank you, Dr. Zogby.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Zogby follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. James J. Zogby
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, Members of the Committee, thank you
for convening this important hearing and for inviting me to be with you
today.
The horrific terrorist attacks of September 11 were a profound and
painful tragedy for all Americans. None of us will ever forget that
awful day when thousands of innocent lives were lost.
The attacks were a dual tragedy for Arab Americans. We are
Americans and it was our country that was attacked. Arab Americans died
in the attacks. Arab Americans were also part of the rescue effort.
Dozens of New York City Police and rescue workers who bravely toiled at
Ground Zero were Arab Americans.
Sadly, however, many Arab Americans were torn away from mourning
with our fellow Americans because we became the targets of hate crimes
and discrimination. Some assumed our collective guilt because the
terrorists were Arabs. Arab Americans and Muslims and other perceived
to be Arab and Muslim were the victims of hundreds of bias incidents.
According to the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, ``The
incidents have consisted of telephone, internet, mail, and face-to-face
threats; minor assaults as well as assaults with dangerous weapons and
assaults resulting in serious injury and death; and vandalism,
shootings, and bombings directed at homes, businesses, and places of
worship.'' As a result of the post-9/11 backlash, in 2001, the FBI
reported a 1600% increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes and an almost 500%
increase in ethnic-based hate crimes against persons of Arab descent.
Thankfully, the American people rallied to our defense. President
Bush spoke out forcefully against hate crimes, as did countless others
across the nation. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives
unanimously passed resolutions condemning hate crimes against Arab
Americans and Muslims. Federal, state and local law enforcement
investigated and prosecuted hate crimes, and ordinary citizens defended
and protected us, refusing to allow bigots to define America. My family
and I received death threats and two individuals have been prosecuted
by the FBI and convicted for these hate crimes. My community and I,
personally, will always be grateful that our fellow Americans defended
us at that crucial time.
Much has been done in the past three and one-half years to combat
the threat of terrorism. Among other significant accomplishments, we
have created the Department of Homeland Security, taken steps to
enhance airport and border security, and improved information sharing
between intelligence and law enforcement.
Arab Americans are proud to have played a crucial role in these
efforts, serving on the front lines of the war on terrorism as police,
firefighters, soldiers, FBI agents, and translators. The Arab American
Institute has worked with federal, state and local law enforcement to
assist efforts to protect the homeland. We helped to recruit Arab
Americans with needed language skills and we have served as a bridge to
connect law enforcement with our community. Unfortunately, our best
efforts have been somewhat frustrated by the difficulties that many
Arab Americans who possess the requisite language skills and a strong
desire to serve our nation have experienced with obtaining security
clearances.
Working with the Washington Field Office of the FBI, the Arab
American Institute helped to create the first Arab American Advisory
Committee, which works to facilitate communication between the Arab-
American community and the FBI. I served as a member of that FBI
Advisory Committee, which we still hope will be a model to be copied
across the United States.
As someone who has spent my entire professional life working to
bring Arab Americans into the mainstream of American political life and
to build a bridge between my country and the Arab world, I am very
concerned about the direction of some of our efforts to combat the
terrorist threat and the impact these initiatives have on our country
and my community.
Unfortunately, the administration has devoted too many resources to
counterterrorism measures that threaten our civil liberties and do
little to improve our security. I share the concerns of my colleagues
with some provisions of the Patriot Act that give law enforcement broad
authority to monitor the activities of innocent Americans with
inadequate judicial oversight. These concerns, I might add, are shared
by Americans across the political spectrum. I am supportive of
reasonable reforms like those recommended in the Security and Freedom
Enhancement, or SAFE, Act.
I am as concerned, if not more, about a series of high-profile
initiatives, not authorized by the Patriot Act, which have explicitly
targeted tens of thousands of innocent Arabs and Muslims and have
resulted in the detention and deportation of thousands. Policies and
statements that conflate undocumented Arab and Muslim immigrants with
terrorists cast a cloud of suspicion over the Arab American community
that contributed to additional discrimination. I support passage of the
Civil Liberties Restoration Act, which would help to end such
counterproductive policies.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the Justice Department rounded
up at least 1200 immigrants, the vast majority of whom were Arab or
Muslim. The DOJ refused to release any information about the detainees,
and charged that the detentions were related to the 9/11 investigation.
At the time, the Arab American Institute and others in the Arab-
American community expressed concern about the broad dragnet that the
Justice Department had cast in Arab immigrant communities. We fully
supported the government's efforts to vigorously investigate the 9/11
terrorist attacks, but we questioned the efficacy of this dragnet
approach. Based on reports from family members of the detainees, we
also were very concerned about the conditions in which the detainees
were confined, and their ability to contact counsel and their families.
Pursuant to Section 1001 of the Patriot Act, in 2002, the Justice
Department's Inspector General issued a report which vindicated our
concerns. The IG found that the Justice Department classified 762 of
the detainees as ``September 11 detainees.'' The IG concluded that none
of these detainees were charged with terrorist-related offenses, and
that the decision to detain them was ``extremely attenuated'' from the
9/11 investigation. The IG concluded that the Justice Department's
designation of detainees of interest to the 9/11 investigation was
``indiscriminate and haphazard.'' and did not adequately distinguish
between terrorism suspects and other immigration detainees.
The IG also found detainees were subjected to harsh conditions of
confinement, including cells that were illuminated 24 hours per day,
and confinement to their cells for all but one hour per day.
Disturbingly, the IG also found, ``a pattern of physical and verbal
abuse by some correctional officers at the MDC [Metropolitian Detention
Center] against some September 11 detainees, particularly during the
first months after the attacks.'' In testimony before this committee
exactly one month ago, Inspector General Glenn Fine raised concerns
that, with regard to abuse allegations at MDC, ``The BOP [Bureau of
Prisons] initiated its own investigation based on the OIG's findings to
determine whether discipline is warranted. Yet, more than a year later,
the BOP review still is ongoing. We believe that this delay is too long
and that appropriate discipline should have been imposed in a more
timely fashion.''
I'm not suggesting that the government should never use immigration
charges to detain a suspected terrorist, but the broad brush of
terrorism should not be applied to every out-of-status immigrant who
happens to be Arab or Muslim. Moreover, if detained, they should most
certainly not be subjected to abusive and degrading treatment. Our
immigration system is fundamentally broken. Comprehensive immigration
reform is required to address this problem. We should not confuse the
problems with our immigration system with our efforts to combat
terrorism. Detaining large numbers of undocumented Arab and Muslim
immigrants will not aid our efforts to combat terrorism, and might
actually harm them.
Another example of conflating immigration enforcement against Arab
and Muslims with counterterrorism was the National Security Entry-Exit
Registration System (NSEERS) ``call-in'' program (also known as Special
Registration), which required male visitors from 24 Arab and Muslim
countries and North Korea, to register with local INS offices. By
singling out a large group of mostly Arabs and Muslims, Special
Registration involved a massive investment of law enforcement resources
with negligible return. It also created fear of law enforcement in our
immigrant communities, whose cooperation law enforcement needs. At the
same time, these discriminatory practices validated and even fed the
suspicion that some have of Arabs and Muslims.
From the outset, NSEERS was plagued by implementation problems. Due
to inadequate publicity and INS dissemination of inaccurate and
mistranslated information, many individuals who were required to
register did not do so. Many who were required to register in the call-
in program were technically out of status due to long INS backlogs in
processing applications for permanent residency. Many such individuals
have been placed in deportation proceedings.
Across the country, many were detained in harsh conditions due to
the government's inability to process registrants in a timely fashion.
For example, in December 2002, the INS in Los Angeles detained hundreds
of men and boys who report they were denied access to legal counsel and
their families, held in handcuffs and leg shackles, and forced to sleep
standing up due to overcrowding.
In response to criticism that the ``call-in'' program discriminated
against Arabs and Muslims, Justice Department officials originally said
that it would be expanded to include visitors from all countries. When
the program was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security, the
administration announced that the program was being terminated.
However, those who were already required to register, including male
visitors from every Arab country, are still subject to the program's
requirements and penalties for noncompliance, including deportation.
``Call-in'' registration is over, but its consequences are still with
us.
The Department of Homeland Security reported that more than 80,000
people registered in the call-in. Of these, more than 13,000 have been
placed in deportation proceedings. If a goal of Special Registration
was to track possible terrorists, deporting those who complied with the
program undermined this aim, especially since it may reduce future
compliance. The Special Registration ``call-in'' program did not result
in the apprehension of any terrorists. This clearly raises questions
about the efficacy of the program.
In a similar vein, the Justice Department also launched the
``Interview Project,'' to interview thousands of Arabs and Muslims,
including U.S. citizens. The latest round of FBI interviews, the so-
called ``October Plan,'' coincided with an Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) initiative which apparently used the NSEERS-compiled
database to prioritize leads. Given the pre-election nature of this
initiative, the Arab American Institute expressed concern, at the time,
that these tactics may have had a chilling effect on the participation
of some segments of the Arab American and American Muslim communities
in the election. We have found that these interviews created fear and
suspicion in the community, especially among recent immigrants, and
damaged our efforts to build bridges between the community and law
enforcement.
Like other DOJ programs that cast a wide net, the interviews
created a public impression that federal law enforcement viewed our
entire recent immigrant community with suspicion, which, in some cases,
fostered discrimination. For example, we received reports of instances
where the FBI visited individuals at their workplace, and then these
individuals were subsequently demoted or terminated by their employers.
FBI officials with whom I have spoken also questioned the project's
usefulness as a law enforcement and counter-terrorism program. They
told me it involved a significant investment of manpower, produced
little useful information, and damaged their community outreach
efforts.
The General Accounting Office reviewed the Interview Project and
concluded:
How and to what extent the interview project--including
investigative leads and increased presence of law enforcement
in communities--helped the government combat terrorism is hard
to measure . . . More than half of the law enforcement officers
that [the GAO] interviewed raised concerns about the quality of
the questions or the value of the responses.
According to the GAO, ``Attorneys and advocates told us that
interviewed aliens told them that they felt they were being singled out
and investigated because of their ethnicity or religious beliefs.'' The
GAO also concluded that many of those interviewed ``did not feel the
interviews were truly voluntary,'' and feared ``repercussions'' if they
declined to be interviewed.
I am concerned about these and other government efforts that
infringed upon civil liberties for several reasons. First, it is wrong
to single out innocent people based on their ethnicity or religion.
This runs contrary to the uniquely American ideal of equal protection
under the law.
By casting such a wide net, these efforts squandered precious law
enforcement resources and alienated communities whose cooperation law
enforcement needs. They ran counter to basic principles of community
policing, which rejects the use of racial and ethnic profiles and
focuses on building trust and respect by working cooperatively with
community members.
According to polls conducted by the Arab American Institute and
Zogby International, the Justice Department's efforts took a toll in
the Arab American community. Immediately after 9/11 Arab Americans were
heartened by President Bush's strong display of support for the
community. In October 2001, 90% said that they were reassured by the
President's support, while only six percent were not reassured. By May
2002, those who felt reassured dropped to 54% as opposed to 35% who
were not. In a July 2003 poll, the ratio dropped even further, with
only 49% now saying that they feel assured by Bush's support for the
community while 38% say that they are not assured. By 2004 this number
dropped to the 20% range. In addition, we found that thirty percent of
Arab Americans reported having experienced some form of discrimination,
and 60% said they were concerned about the long-term impact of
discrimination against Arab Americans.
Civil liberties abuses against Arabs and Muslims have been well-
publicized in the Arab world, and there is a growing perception that
Arab immigrants and visitors are not welcome in the United States. As a
result, America is less popular, and it is more politically difficult
for our Arab allies to cooperate with our counter-terrorism efforts.
According to polls conducted by the Arab American Institute and
Zogby International, Arab public opinion attitudes toward the United
States had dropped to dangerously low levels even before the U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq. We found that Arabs had strong favorable attitudes
toward American values, and also had largely favorable attitudes toward
the American people. However, they had extremely negative attitudes
toward U.S. policy, which shaped their views of America. To be sure,
U.S. policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iraq
contributed to these attitudes, but perceptions of civil liberties
abuses against Arab and Muslims Americans are also a contributing
factor. In fact, in a 2004 poll of Arab attitude toward the US, we
found that our treatment of Arab and Muslim immigrants had eclipsed
Palestine and Iraq as the number one reason for negative attitudes
toward Americans in some Arab countries.
The countries polled included some of the United States' strongest
allies in the Middle East: Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates. In an earlier AAI/ZI poll, done in March of 2002,
we found that U.S. favorable ratings were already quite low. The most
significant drops in U.S. ratings occurred in Morocco and Jordan. In
2002, for example, 34% of Jordanians had a positive view of the United
States as compared with 61% who had a negative view. By 2004, only 10%
of Jordanians held a positive view of the United States, while 81% see
the country in a negative light. Similarly in Morocco the favorable/
unfavorable rating towards the United States in 2002 was 38% to 61%
percent. Two years later, it was 9% favorable and 88% unfavorable.
The U.S. favorable/unfavorable rating was already quite low in
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. It has remained low.
Buttressing these poll results are my experiences in the Arab
world, where I travel frequently. In conversations with opinion leaders
across the region, the concern they raise most frequently is American
civil liberties abuses against Arabs and Muslims.
Due to a variety of factors, including fear of discrimination, many
fewer Arabs come to the U.S. for medical treatment, tourism, study, or
business. In the past, Arab visitors to the U.S. have had a chance to
observe first-hand the unique nature of American democracy and freedom
and have returned to the Arab world as ambassadors for our values.
President Bush has rightly linked the spread of democracy to the
war on terrorism. Unfortunately, civil liberties abuses against Arabs
and Muslims in the U.S. and the indefinite secret detention and highly
coercive interrogation of Arab and Muslim detainees in Guantanamo Bay
and other locations has undermined our openness and harmed our ability
to advocate credibly for democratic reforms in the Middle East. In
fact, some Arab governments now point to American practices to justify
their own human rights abuses. As President Bush suggested, and as we
have learned so painfully, anti-democratic practices and human rights
abuses promote instability and create the conditions that breed
terrorism. Democratic reformers and human rights activists used to look
to the U.S. as an exemplar, the city on a hill. Now they are dismissed
by their countrymen when they point to the American experience.
Once we set a high standard for the world, now we have lowered the
bar. The damage to our image, to the values we have sought to project,
and to our ability to deal more effectively with root causes of terror
have been profound.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Ms. Pearlstein.
TESTIMONY OF DEBORAH PEARLSTEIN, DIRECTOR,
U.S. LAW AND SECURITY PROGRAM
Ms. Pearlstein. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr.
Conyers, for inviting Human Rights First to share our views
today on the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act.
My name is Deborah Pearlstein, and I direct the U.S. Law
and Security Program at Human Rights First, which is formerly
the Lawyers Committee For Human Rights.
We are grateful for the opportunity to speak and we welcome
your review today of the PATRIOT Act as part of a much needed
move to engage in more aggressive congressional oversight of
U.S. counterterrorism laws and policies. I would like to focus
on these brief remarks on the profound need for greater
oversight in this area, and particularly the critical
importance of building on the scope of section 804 of the
PATRIOT Act, which recognizes the need for enforcing U.S. laws
and U.S. operations overseas. This idea of oversight and
accountability is one that the PATRIOT Act itself squarely
incorporates in a provision we urge this Committee to champion
anew. Section 804 of the act amends the definition of special
maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States to
include ``offenses committed by or against a national of the
United States.''
On diplomatic, consular or military premises overseas, the
act thus now makes clear that the Department of Justice now has
jurisdiction to prosecute crimes by or against U.S. persons
committed on these sites as part of the special maritime and
territorial jurisdiction.
In light of the sustained public focus on the ongoing
detention of foreign nationals throughout the world and the
substantial hit our national security interests have taken as a
result of these practices, using the power of the PATRIOT Act
in this respect has never been more important. We believe that
the way to build on this provision of the act is by
establishing a bipartisan independent commission to look
comprehensively at U.S. detention and interrogation operations
in the war on terror. We believe such a commission is not only
critical to restoring America's commitment to protecting basic
human rights, but also is an increasingly urgent requirement to
prevent U.S. national security.
Let me explain briefly why I believe this is the case.
Since September 11, 2001 the scope of U.S. detention and
intelligence collection operations worldwide has grown
dramatically. Far from diminishing in importance is U.S.
missions in Afghanistan and Iraq have matured, detention
operations are picking up permanence and pace with the numbers
of individuals in U.S. custody worldwide close to 12,000 today.
Despite the sustained nature of these operations, a startling
number of questions about the U.S. global detention system
remain shrouded in secrecy. What is the legal basis of
detaining those held? And what are the plans for their future?
Does the International Red Cross now have access to all held in
U.S. custody or do we continue to hold ghost detainees beyond
the reach of humanitarian aid or law? Critically, what methods
of interrogation and conditions of detention do U.S. held
detainees face and are we now in compliance worldwide with
basic constitutional and treaty prohibitions on torture as well
as cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of any kind.
One need not be an expert in U.S. international and human
rights law to recognize the urgency of these questions.
According to the Pentagon's own figures, more than 100 people
have died in U.S. custody since 2002. This includes 28 cases
classified already by the Pentagon as homicides. At least half
of those were people who were literally tortured to death.
To be clear, this is not a problem about a handful of
actors from Abu Ghraib. Only one of the criminal homicides
identified by the Department of Defense occurred at Abu Ghraib.
The rest occurred at others of the two dozen-some detention
facilities the United States maintains worldwide, well beyond
the few young soldiers facing courts martial from Abu Ghraib.
137 U.S. soldiers so far have been punished for acts of torture
or abuse, perhaps worse, the problem appears to be ongoing. At
least 45 detainees have died in U.S. custody since Secretary
Rumsfeld was informed of the torture at Abu Ghraib on January
16, 2004.
This is not a problem, first and foremost, about our brave
troops. This is about command responsibility and congressional
oversight. Our concern for the scope and nature of this problem
is Americans and human rights lawyers have been matched and
indeed exceeded by our friends and colleagues in the military
and intelligence communities who believe current policies have
been devastating both to the safety of our troops and the
security interests of our nations. As a distinguished coalition
of retired admirals and generals wrote last fall,
``understanding what is going wrong and what can be done to
avoid systemic failure in the future is essential to ensure
that the effectiveness of the U.S. military and intelligence
operation is not compromised by an atmosphere of
permissiveness, ambiguity or confusion.''
Even more starkly as one U.S. Army interrogator returning
from Afghanistan noted, ``The more a prisoner hates America,
the harder he will be to break. The more a population hates
America, the less likely its citizens will be to lead us to a
suspect.''
Our detention practices have inflamed our enemies and
alienated potential allies and they continue to run contrary to
the security imperatives this body seeks to protect.
Finally, there can be no question that the investigations
to date have been inadequate. As Human Rights first detailed at
length in our recent report, Getting to Ground Truth,
Government investigations so far have suffered from a lack of
independence, failures to investigate relevant agencies and
personnel, cumulative reporting, increasing the risk that error
and omissions are perpetuating in successive reports,
contradictory conclusions, questionable use of security
classification withheld information, failures to address senior
military and civilian responsibility, and an absence of any
comprehensive game plan for corrective action. Human rights for
the past 4 years----
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
Ms. Pearlstein. Can I conclude briefly?
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Briefly.
Ms. Pearlstein. Our past 4 years of active engagement on
these issues has persuaded us a 9/11-style commission,
independent, bipartisan and of unassailable credibility is
critical to understand finally what has gone wrong in the U S
detention interrogation operations, and to chart a way forward
to accountability and correction. Today's hearing can be a
valuable first step in taking seriously the cause of liberty
and safety. And we thank you for your consideration.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Pearlstein follows:]
Prepared Statement of Deborah Pearlstein
Thank you for inviting Human Rights First to share our views on the
reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act. My name is Deborah Pearlstein. I am
the Director of the US Law and Security Program at Human Rights First.
We greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak, and welcome your review
today of the Patriot Act in the context of a much needed Congressional
assessment of all U.S. counter-terrorism laws and policies. In my
testimony today I would like to offer a few basic principles we hope
the Committee will consider as it exercises its critical responsibility
for reviewing and overseeing the authority given the Executive Branch
under the PATRIOT Act.
For nearly 30 years, Human Rights First, formerly the Lawyers
Committee for Human Rights, has worked in the United States and abroad
to advance the values we believe all Americans share: a respect for
justice and human dignity, and a commitment to the rule of law. One
role we have worked hard to play is in providing dispassionate legal
analysis and pragmatic policy advice to help craft solutions to the
most pressing human rights problems facing the world today.
It was with these values--and this approach to our work--that Human
Rights First responded to the attacks of September 11 by creating a new
U.S. Law and Security Program to engage on the human rights questions
presented by U.S. national security policies. As the first director of
that program, and a constitutional lawyer by training, I approach this
work starting from three guiding principles.
First, Al Qaeda poses a very serious security threat to the
American people, and the U.S. Government has the right and duty to
protect Americans from attack. We thus welcome efforts to improve
coordination among federal, state and local agencies, and between law
enforcement and intelligence officials. Equally welcome are greater
efforts to protect the nation's infrastructure supporting energy,
transportation, food and water; efforts to strengthen the preparedness
of our domestic front-line defenders, police, firefighters and
emergency medical teams, as well as those working in public health.
That recognition has meant for us, among other things, reaching out to
members of the U.S. military and intelligence communities to understand
the nature of the security challenge we face, and to discuss rights-
respecting solutions that are equal to the challenge. We are proud to
say that we have found many allies in these communities, and many areas
of common cause.
The second principle is that the governments that are most
effective in safeguarding human security are those that operate
strictly under the rule of law: that is, under a system in which people
are governed by public laws that are set in advance, applied equally in
all cases, and are binding and enforceable on both individuals and on
the government that serves them. For this reason, we have worked hard
to engage all three branches of government in fulfilling their
responsibilities to sustain our rule-of-law system. We have
participated as monitors at Guantanamo Bay as the President's military
commission trials began; advocated in the courts to ensure in all cases
independent judicial review; and urged the vigorous exercise of
congressional oversight in all aspects of U.S. counterterrorism
activities--most recently in leading bipartisan calls for Congress to
appoint an independent commission to study the challenges of detention
and interrogation in Afghanistan , Iraq, at Guantanamo and elsewhere.
In this spirit, we strongly welcome this hearing today.
Finally, we believe that the relationship between security and
liberty is not zero-sum. That taking rights away does not necessarily
improve security. And likewise, that some of the most effective
security-enhancing measures we have seen since September 11--including
efforts to improve tracking of cargo containers coming into the United
States, and a renewed commitment to disease surveillance to safeguard
against biological attack--are broadly neutral with respect to rights.
It is because we believe that the security costs and benefits that
flow from laws cannot be gleaned simply from what rights they burden
that we believe the PATRIOT Act discussion remains one in which more
questions than answers remain. Homeland Security Department Secretary
Chertoff emphasized recently the importance of risk-management
principles in designing an effective approach to minimizing the threat
of terrorism, urging that in ``weigh[ing] the risks of a particular
action, you conduct a cost-benefit analysis, and you factor these into
your considerations.'' Four years in to the PATRIOT Act's
implementation, we still lack a full, public accounting from the
Department of Justice of the Act's use and its effects, for good and
ill. Without this, we all remain poorly equipped to measure how much
liberty or security we should cede.
Underlying all of these principles is an idea the PATRIOT Act
itself incorporates, in a provision we urge this Committee to champion
anew--the idea of accountability. Section 804 of the Act in particular
amends the definition of ``special maritime and territorial
jurisdiction of the United States'' to include ``offenses committed by
or against a national of the United States'' on diplomatic, consular or
military premises overseas. The Act thus now makes clear that the
Department of Justice has jurisdiction to prosecute crimes by or
against U.S. persons committed on these sites as part of this ``special
maritime and territorial jurisdiction.'' In light the sustained public
focus on the ongoing detention of foreign nationals throughout the
world, and the substantial hit our national security interests have
taken as a result of these practices, using the power of the PATRIOT
Act in this respect has never been more important.
This Committee should oversee, enhance, and enforce this aspect of
the PATRIOT Act--and the Justice Department's pivotal role in carrying
it out. With the powers that this Act and others like it provide comes
the strict responsibility to enforce the laws as they exist. In
including Section 804 in the Act originally, we believe Congress meant
to signal its commitment to coupling new grants of power with equal
measures of oversight and enforcement. Now is the time for Congress to
strengthen its oversight of offenses committed in the special maritime
and territorial jurisdiction of the United States. And where the
Department of Justice falls short, this body must bear the weight.
Thank you for considering our views. We welcome your active
engagement and the opportunity to continue to work with you on these
vitally important issues.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Mr. Pitts.
TESTIMONY OF CHIP PITTS, CHAIR OF THE BOARD,
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA
Mr. Pitts. Thank you, distinguished Chairman, Ranking
Member and Committee Members. Amnesty international's millions
of activists in the U.S. and in over 100 countries around the
world call human rights violations as we see them, based on
rigorous research and regardless of the government or armed
group committing them.
Our touchstone is international law, including the
universal declaration of human rights and the Geneva
conventions, international instruments that the U.S. helped
create. Amnesty vigorously condemns terrorists attacks like the
horror of 9/11. We also understand history's clear lesson that
human rights and the rule of law are indispensable
prerequisites to true security for all. The PATRIOT Act, along
with other post 9/11 laws, executive orders and policies
seriously undermine human rights, weaken the global human
rights framework and contribute both to human rights violations
and, we believe, increased terror attacks. The mere existence
of such measures has a chilling effect on fundamental freedoms,
including speech and association, religion and belief, privacy,
due process and equal protection.
These are U.S. constitutional rights. But they're also
binding international law treaty obligations. Encouraging the
presumption of guilt rather than innocence, the PATRIOT Act
sweeps innocent people within its ambit. It has inspired a
cascade of similar laws around the world that weaken the rule
of law, so essential to protecting human rights, including the
right to be protected from terrorist attacks.
With active U.S. encouragement almost every country around
the world now has new anti-terror legislation, often modeled on
the USA PATRIOT Act. Abusive governments globally, including
China, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Colombia, Egypt, Uzbekistan, now cite
U.S. actions to justify their own violations.
We urge Congress to correct the deficiencies of the PATRIOT
Act by three main measures, restoring checks and balances,
restoring individualized fact-based suspicion, and thirdly,
independent judicial review. Amnesty is especially concerned
about section 802's broad definition of domestic terrorism,
which has already discouraged free association and peaceful
dissent. Section 412's allowing indefinite detention merely
upon the Attorney General's say-so, violating U.S. and
international rights to due process and nondiscrimination,
reduced or eliminated judicial review in sections like 215 and
505 which allow secret Government invasions of free thought,
belief, religion, expression, press and privacy, and section
213's overbroad sneak-and-peak home search provision also
infringing privacy rights.
Congress should enforce the Patriot Act's current sunset
provisions or modify them significantly to protect individual
rights and eliminate, modify or sunset the other provisions
infringing individual rights. Congressional oversight should
also evaluate Justice Department compliance with section 1001
to ensure that abuses under the PATRIOT Act are fully
investigated, especially those against Muslim, Arab and
immigrant communities. Amnesty's racial profiling report last
year found that such practices increased dramatically after 9/
11.
We agree with Human Rights First and others that section
804, which expands U.S. jurisdiction to include offenses
committed by or against a national of the U.S. provides grounds
for Congress to support appointment of a special counsel and an
independent commission to comprehensively investigate the
torture and ill treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.
Over 500 people have been detained without charge at
Guantanamo for over 3 years, and tens of thousands more in
Iraq, Afghanistan and secret detention centers around the
world. The rest of the world knows of this. And, they also know
about the more than 100 deaths in U.S. custody, including the,
at least, 28 homicides referred to. And the world views all
this as an egregious abuse of power and a denial of the most
fundamental rights of human existence.
In Amnesty's 2005 annual report, we noted that U.S.
tolerance for torture and ill treatment sends a tragic and
counterproductive message to the world that human rights may be
sacrificed in the name of security.
Right now the U.S. domestic and foreign approaches are both
preemptive, secretive, unchecked, subjective, counter to the
presumption of innocence, unilateral, unreliable and abusive.
Instead of being fair, legal, objective, fact-based, tested,
cooperative and most importantly perhaps effective.
Congress must reiterate that human rights are an integral
part of true security. Policies that facilitate torture at
Guantanamo and elsewhere make us less safe and true security
cannot be achieved without respect for human rights and the
rule of law.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Thank you, Mr. Pitts.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pitts follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chip Pitts
Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Ranking Member, Members of the
Committee, on behalf of Amnesty International USA \1\ thank you for the
opportunity to be here today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Amnesty International is a grassroots organization with 1.8
million members worldwide working to promote and defend human rights.
For information, contact Ms. Alex Arriaga or Ms. Jumana Musa at 202-
544-0200, or visit www.aiusa.org.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amnesty International's 1.8 million members in over 100 countries--
including hundreds of thousands in the United States--are committed to
exposing human rights violations committed by governments and armed
groups around the world. Amnesty International is guided by
international human rights and humanitarian law, and the standards set
forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva
Conventions, international instruments the United States championed and
helped create half a century ago. The organization was founded to
defend the right of individuals incarcerated for the peaceful
expression of their views and to oppose the use of torture on any
person. Its members have helped free over 40,000 political prisoners,
many of whom are survivors of torture, and continues to work for the
eradication of torture worldwide and the implementation of relevant
international instruments that establish universal human rights
standards.
The USA Patriot Act was adopted in the weeks after the horrific
attack on September 11, 2001. Amnesty International vigorously
condemned the 9/11 attack as a brutal assault and a crime against
humanity, and recognized the duty of every nation to protect its
citizens and to seek fair justice. Amnesty International vigorously
condemns terrorist attacks, and upholds the international human right
to be safe from terrorism. The organization also maintains that the
lesson of history is that preserving human rights and the rule of law
is the indispensable and preferred route to true security.
We are concerned that the USA Patriot Act, combined with other,
related post-9/11 legislation, executive orders, and policies,
undermines the human rights of Americans and non-citizens in this
country, weakens the framework for promoting human rights
internationally, and contributes to a climate conducive to human rights
violations as well as increased incidents of terror.
Amnesty International believes that the USA Patriot Act, as it
exists today, is out of step with the legal requirement and critical
need to preserve core principles, constitutional freedoms, and
adherence to human rights even in times of crisis. The Patriot Act and
related measures threaten rights otherwise protected in the U.S.
Constitution and international instruments, such as the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, the Convention against Torture, and the Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
Provisions of the Patriot Act have had a chilling affect on freedom
of speech and association, freedom of religion and belief, and privacy.
The law jeopardizes due process and fair trial procedures by
encouraging a presumption of guilt until proven innocent, instead of
the normal presumption of innocence. The Patriot Act is of concern both
in itself, and also because it has inspired a significant cascade of
similar legislation around the world that weakens the rule of law which
is so essential to the protection of human rights, including the right
to be defended against terrorist attacks.
The overly braod and heavy-handed approach of the Patriot Act is
also reflected in other US laws, executive orders, policies and tactics
that have led to excesses in the `war on terror' and have allowed
abusive governments around the world to cite the United States as an
example to justify their own violations. The policies of the world's
superpower disproportionately influence other nations. Governments in
countries as diverse as Britain, China, Colombia, Cuba, India, Jordan,
and Uzbekistan have stepped up efforts to enact or expand similarly
restrictive policies. According to U.S. officials, at least 180
countries--almost every country in the world--have followed suit with
legislation of their own since the USA Patriot Act was passed.
Amnesty International urges Congress to correct the deficiencies of
the Patriot Act by restoring checks and balances, fact-based
individualized suspicion, and independent judicial review over
government implementation of the Patriot Act. These corrections are
necessary both to protect fundamental civil and human rights and to
more thoughtfully enhance the law's contribution, if any, to curbing
terrorism. Provisions of special concern to Amnesty International
include the following:
The USA Patriot Act creates a broad definition of
``domestic terrorism'' that discourages the right to free
expression and association. Section 802 of the law defines
``domestic terrorism'' as acts committed in the United States
``dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal
laws'' if the US government determines that they ``appear to be
intended'' to ``influence the policy of a government by
intimidation or coercion,'' or ``to intimidate or coerce a
civilian population.'' Already, the Patriot Act has emboldened
some school administrators to discourage participation in free
speech activities, and has discouraged some peaceful dissenters
from protesting.
The USA Patriot Act allows non-citizens to be
detained without charge and held indefinitely once charged, if
the US Attorney General certifies that there are ``reasonable
grounds'' to believe this person is engaged in conduct that
threatens national security. This runs counter to US and
international rights to due process and to non-discrimination.
And the USA Patriot Act infringes on the right to
privacy and removes many types of judicial review over law
enforcement and intelligence activities, which may in turn
facilitate the commission of abuses of other human rights. For
example, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act permits the
government to scrutinize peoples' reading habits through
monitoring of public library and bookstore records and requires
bookstores and libraries to disclose, in secrecy and under
threat of criminal prosecution, personal records of reading and
websurfing habits. This harms freedom of thought, belief,
religion, expression, press, as well as privacy. Librarians
have stated publicly that they are torn between abiding by the
law and violating their patron's right to privacy. The Patriot
Act also allows for ``sneak and peek'' search warrants to
conduct physical searches of property and computer records
without providing notification, wiretapping and monitoring of
e-mail, access to financial and educational records, among
other areas. The right to be free from arbitrary interference
with individual privacy is protected in both the US
Constitution and the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, to which the United States is a party.
Amnesty International urges the U.S. Congress to enforce the sunset
provisions currently in the USA Patriot Act, or modify them
significantly to protect individual rights, and eliminate, modify, or
place sunsets on other provisions that infringe on individual rights of
all Americans and non-citizens.
We urge the U.S. Congress to exercise its important oversight role
to examine implementation of the USA Patriot Act. In particular,
Amnesty International is concerned by abuses against Muslim and Arab
communities in the United States, and the generally hostile climate
against immigrants. Amnesty International last year released a report
on racial profiling in the United States and found that racial
profiling practices by law enforcement have expanded in the
government's ``war on terror'' and threaten to affect an estimated 87
million individuals in the United States. The report, ``Threat and
Humiliation: Racial Profiling, Domestic Security, and Human Rights in
the United States'' finds that law enforcement's use of race, religion,
country of origin, or ethnic and religious appearances as a proxy for
criminal suspicion undermines national security. Racial profiling
blinds law enforcement to real criminal threats and creates a hole in
the national security net.
Congress should evaluate the Department of Justice compliance with
Section 1001 of the law with regard to complaints alleging abuses of
civil rights and civil liberties by employees and officials of the
Department of Justice. Congress must ensure that department policies
prevent racial profiling and abuse. This is a matter of upholding civil
and human rights, applying the rule of law, and enhancing national
security by protecting the human rights and freedoms of all.
Amnesty International also urges the U.S. Congress to exercise its
important oversight role in examining the performance of the U.S.
Government in implementing Section 804 of the Patriot Act. Section 804
amended the definition of ``special maritime and territorial
jurisdiction of the United States'' to include ``offenses committed by
or against a national of the United States'' on diplomatic, consular or
military premises. The U.S. government has failed to date to support a
truly independent and comprehensive investigation into abuses against
detainees in U.S. custody.
That is why Amnesty International continues to call on the U.S.
Congress to establish a truly independent commission , which has not
happened yet, and to urge the Attorney General to appoint a Special
Counsel to investigate reports of torture and ill-treatment of
detainees held in U.S. custody in Guantanamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib, and
detention centers--including secret detention centers--around the
world. For over three years, over 500 individuals have been held in
indefinite detention in Guantanamo in conditions that spurred the
International Committee of the Red Cross to break its tradition of
silence and protest publicly U.S. mistreatment of detainees. General
Richard Myers has indicated that at least 68,000 individuals have been
detained around the world in the so-called ``war on terror''. We have
all seen the photographs taken at Abu Ghraib, but we may not know that
there have been over 100 deaths in custody, of which at least 27 have
been ruled ``homicides''.
Amnesty International recently released its 2005 Annual Report
which summarized human rights conditions in 149 countries and
territories. Upon releasing the report, Amnesty International noted
that the images of detainees tortured in Abu Ghraib shocked the world.
As evidence of torture and ill-treatment of detainees in US custody in
other countries continues to emerge, the United States is sending an
unequivocal and severely damaging message to the world that human
rights may be sacrificed ostensibly in the name of security. Congress
must act to reverse this message, ensure an independent investigation
into abuses, and uphold the rule of law and international standards of
human rights for all. We are not safer when we abuse others. But we are
safer when we promote conditions that allow every person to exercise
their human rights and freedoms.
Thank you.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The Chair will recognize Members
under the 5-minute rule. The gentleman from Michigan, Mr.
Conyers.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I first begin by
praising the four witnesses who, on such short notice were able
to pull these excellent statements together. I want to put out
these questions because, as you know, 5 minutes is a very short
amount of time. And you may respond to them as you feel
inclined. What changes do you think need to be made in the
PATRIOT Act to prevent legal and innocent people from being
unjustly punished or persecuted? That is the first question.
The second, the Inspector General found that the detention of
aliens after 9/11 ``indiscriminate and haphazard.'' Do you
believe that the Department of Justice's approach in this
matter has become any better? Do you believe the Administration
has adequately investigated allegations of torture, in Iraq,
Afghanistan, and Guantanamo?
And, is there anyone here that does not support an
independent commission or select committee to investigate? And
is any one of you experts here aware of a single terrorist
arrest or conviction that came from the registration of or
interview of over 10,000 men of Middle Eastern descent? Please,
those of you who are witnesses may.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Who wants to be first?
Mr. Conyers. You can begin.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Ladies first.
Ms. Tapia Ruano. Thank you, Mr. Pitts, and I would like to
address some of these questions, not all of them, since I
understand it is as we feel willing and with regards to the
detention of illegals as it relates to non-citizens that, at
this time, Department of Homeland Security is, you know, is a
newly-created department and has been very distracted with
reorganizing itself and that has definitely contributed to its
ability to detain less people. I do think less people at this
time are being detained as a result of post 9/11
investigations. But I also think it is important to note that
the Department has recognized the failures of its prior
policies and of its prior initiatives.
And, as any good agency, is attempting not to repeat its
failures. I would also say that, of course, I would support an
independent commission to investigate this. And no, as an
immigration attorney which considers herself pretty well
informed as to what happens in the country with regards to
immigration detentions, I am not aware, and that is all that I
can address to--I am not aware of a single occasion where any
of the individuals that were brought in, noncitizens, as a
result of these post 9/11 investigations were, in fact, charged
with any 9/11 terrorist activity.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you so much.
Mr. Pitts.
Mr. Pitts. Thank you, Congressman. In answer to your first
questions about changes needed to prevent unjust persecution in
the PATRIOT Act, we think again that there are three broad
categories, adding checks and balances, adding independent
judicial review, and adding requirements of individualized
fact-based suspicion. We think that those are essential to make
sure you are not stereotyping innocent Muslims or Arabs. And it
is interesting how much ignorance there is on this issue.
People assume that Muslims are Arabs and vice versa when Arabs
are a small minority of Muslims in the world and the U.S., and,
of course, Muslims are of as infinite variety as the world
itself. One out of every 5 people in the world. So the anti-
foreigner provision in section 412 of the PATRIOT Act, for
example, which allows rolling and potentially indefinite
detention, and is discriminatory based on the subjective say-so
of one man is a good example of the discriminatory disrespect
for the objective rule of law that we need to have effective
action against terrorism, not stereotyping but identifying the
real threats.
Similarly, our racial profiling report last year pointed
out that racial profiling just doesn't work. Think for a second
about the most famous alleged members of al-Qaeda, Richard
Reid, the shoe bomber, British national of West Indian descent;
or the white guy from California, John Walker Lind, for
example, or Jose Padilla, Hispanic gang member. You cannot
possibly say that we are going to profile against people who
look Middle Eastern and expect to be successful against Al
Qaeda. What we need to do is not just have formal rhetoric
against racial profiling, but recognize that the huge, gaping
national security exception is illegitimate. It allows
discrimination and a resurgence of religious, national origin
and race-based discrimination that doesn't work.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you. Mr. Chairman----
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The chairperson will recognize the
witnesses and the time of the gentleman has expired. The
gentleman from Iowa, Mr. King.
Mr. King. I thank the Chairman and I appreciate the
witnesses being here today and those Members of the Committee
that are here today, and I had the privilege of adjusting my
travel plans to be someone who could benefit from this
testimony today. Some of the things that come to mind, I think,
I will direct initially to Mr. Pitts.
Could I ask you, if you could define for this Committee,
the distinction between the standards in a criminal
investigation with regard to subpoenas, that have been long
accepted in the United States as something that protects and
preserves the human rights of all citizens in this country. The
distinction between that standard and the standard that is
implemented by the PATRIOT Act with regard to that same type of
search warrant.
Mr. Pitts. Absolutely, Congressman King. Thank you for the
opportunity to clear up the rampant confusion on this point. In
fact, just a couple of days ago with Deputy Attorney General
James Comey's testimony before this Committee, he said that the
standard in the PATRIOT Act is the same thing, probable cause.
And he reiterated that there is probable cause to be an agent
of a foreign power. That is a bit misleading, because when you
read the actual language of the statute, at several points, for
example, in section 215, the actual standard in the law is that
an investigation is launched by the subjective interest of the
law enforcement powers, and the information is sought for the
purposes of that investigation. That is not a probable cause
standard. Neither is the standard in section 505, which isn't
even a relevant standard, the national security letter.
So there is a dramatic difference between the regular
criminal authority, which can be challenged. A grand jury
subpoena can be challenged. That is not allowed under the gag
orders of those sections of the PATRIOT Act.
Mr. King. Mr. Pitts, I want to point out that you stated
before this Committee that your opinions are based upon
rigorous research, and I would ask the Committee to note that
you brought a lot of that with you today. I have not seen one
quite so prepared with their office in front of them. It looks
like my office, at any rate.
Mr. Pitts. Sorry for littering your table.
Mr. King. But the distinction between the legal standard of
the search warrant being the distinction on a grand jury
subpoena versus a court order, could you speak to that?
Mr. Pitts. Absolutely. I welcome again the opportunity to
clear this up. The FISA warrants of the secretive FISA court,
which are a secret court that are mandated, they have no
discretion to refuse the application if they find an informal
order is very different from the normal criminal process,
whether it is a grand jury subpoena, which, as I said, can be
challenged, or whether it is a search warrant, which actually
is premised on information that generally has a probable cause
to think that the person or place is guilty of a crime or
terrorism.
Mr. King. And you are also aware that there is a report
required to come before Congress, if there are any abuses of
the PATRIOT Act, and I would ask if you could name a specific
case where there has been someone in a library, in a bookstore,
that has had their human rights violated based upon the
language in the PATRIOT Act.
Mr. Pitts. Absolutely, Representative King. This is another
important point that I welcome the opportunity to clarify. The
notion that there hasn't been an abuse is one of the most
egregious myths about this act. First of all, the mere
existence of these laws as I said is an abuse. It is a chilling
effect on Americans' rights to get library records. Secondly,
in the climate of secrecy under the PATRIOT Act, there is no
way that we can know what abuses have occurred. But thirdly we
all have, at the ACLU, at Amnesty, the American Library
Association, the Bill of Rights, defend committees, the other
witnesses here, have all independently received word of abuses.
I got an e-mail last week from a librarian, sir, in
Seattle, Washington, who had been approached by the FBI to give
a list of all people who had checked out a biography of Osama
Bin Laden since 9/11. Now she had the courage to refuse that.
But how are we going to understand our enemy and understand Al
Qaeda and the truth the threat the violent extremism poses if
we can't expose Government vulnerability?
Mr. King. I understand your list of allegations, but I
wonder if you can give us a specific list of people,
individuals with names, specific cases that could be looked
into by this Committee to see if there actually have been
specific cases of violation of the PATRIOT Act and violations
of people's human rights rather than the allegations under your
vigorous research standard?
Mr. Pitts. Sure. There are a number of people who have been
affected. Again, it is difficult to know exactly how many
because librarians are under a--subject to criminal prosecution
if they report these things. But a number of librarians
courageously came to me in Dallas, Texas and I heard from
people that they have been approached.
Mr. King. Could I ask you, Mr. Pitts, to present that list
to this Committee? Would you provide that information about
specific cases?
Mr. Pitts. I did mention a couple before the Dallas City
Council when we had a bill of rights defense committee
resolution on this subject. Toby Baldwin is the name of one
librarian, for example, who experienced a request.
Mr. King. Has that been looked into, do you know? Is that
factual or is it an allegation at this point?
Mr. Pitts. No. We know that lots of librarians have been
approached for records. Often the PATRIOT Act is not formally--
--
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Pitts, let me
follow through on the probable cause thing, because they shout
probable cause in a criminal investigation, you have to have
probable cause that a crime has been committed. Is that not
right.
Mr. Pitts. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Scott. And under the FISA warrant, you only have to
have probable cause that the target is an agent of a foreign
government and you are trying to get foreign intelligence which
may be criminal or not, is that right?
Mr. Pitts. That is correct. And a key point is that the
PATRIOT Act, reduces that standard even further in ways that
have not yet, I think, been realized by the public at large.
Mr. Scott. You mean, like the probable cause is the agent
of foreign government and a substantial reason for the wiretap
is foreign intelligence, but it may not be the main reason, so
you could be talking about something that is not even a crime,
that is not even the primary reason you are getting the
wiretap.
Mr. Pitts. That is right. That is the problem with one of
the----
Mr. Scott. So when they shout probable cause, you have to
listen very carefully because it is not probable cause that any
crime is even being alleged as part of the reason for the
wiretap?
Mr. Pitts. Exactly.
Mr. Scott. You mentioned 100 deaths, 27 homicides. What is
the status of those? How many have been arrested in those
homicides?
Mr. Pitts. I am going to let Ms. Pearlstein address that.
Ms. Pearlstein. Thank you, Mr. Scott. And thank you, Mr.
Pitts. The status of many of those cases remains unclear
because of the level of secrecy surrounding the investigations,
the individual investigations. But to the extent they are
known, there have been some prosecutions within the context of
the military justice system and those are welcome.
The record, however, is completely inadequate, that is to
say, there are deaths, gruesome deaths, to be frank, that have
occurred in U.S. custody, people who have been tortured to
death. Their stories to some extent have appeared on the front
pages of the paper. And to date, no one, no individual has been
held criminally or otherwise liable for those deaths. So, not
only is this a challenge for the Department of Justice, this is
a challenge for the Department of Defense. And, I think, at
this point now that these deaths are several years old and the
trail of evidence and so forth, of course, grows cold, it is
time for Congress to engage.
Mr. Scott. Thank you. Dr. Zogby, you mentioned the fact
that America may be less popular. What impact does that have on
our war against terrorism? Does it make a difference?
Mr. Zogby. Sure it does.
Number one it makes some foreign governments less willing
to publicly cooperate. Number two, it creates a groundswell of
support for those who would do harm to our country. The less
popular we are, the more popular those who attack us are.
Mr. Scott. And what difference does that make?
Mr. Zogby. The difference is that the pool of those who are
available to be recruited to do harm against America grows
larger, and the ability of governments to act together with
America becomes smaller. And I will also say that we have seen
repressive policies instituted by governments in the Middle
East. Contrary to the President's own program, wanting to
promote democracy, some of our allies have become more
repressive precisely because there is an anti-American
groundswell in those countries as a result of our policies. And
when we polled in the region, we always found that issues like
the Arab-Israeli conflict, and more recently Iraq, were sources
of discontent.
In the most recent poll that was done by Zogby
International in the Middle East, we found that America's
treatment of Arab and Muslim immigrants have, in some
countries, eclipsed those other issues as the number one source
of anger with America and the frustration of America in not
projecting its values, even as it applies to those who live
within their borders.
Mr. Scott. And the translation is that the activities make
us less safe.
Mr. Zogby. Decidedly so. And I think that we ought not fall
prey to spinning our successes. We ought to look at the reality
on the ground. You wouldn't run for office without doing some
polling. And we do polling, and what we find in our polling is
that America is actually less popular, and I believe less safe
as a result of those policies.
[9:30 a.m.]
Mr. Scott. Ms. Tapia Ruano, can you talk about holding
people without charges, and the checks and balances that are
available when people are held as enemy combatants or material
witnesses indefinitely?
Ms. Ruano. Well, what I would like to address, from
individuals who are alleged to be charged for being here
engaging in 9/11 terrorist activities, and ultimately result in
only being charged with civil minor immigration violations. And
those individuals, again, as I mentioned before, do not have
the opportunity to even know why they're being detained;
they're held in custody for months. This is something that, to
our knowledge, is not happening at the present time. It
definitely is documented as having taken place immediately
post-9/11 and for a few months thereafter.
Mr. Scott. What are the checks and balances available, and
when do people get to be heard as an enemy combatant?
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from California Mr. Lungren.
Mr. Lungren. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank
you for holding this hearing.
I would just--I say that at the outset, I've been involved
in these issues for a long time. I served for a year and a half
on a panel that looked at, in retrospect, our treatment of
Japanese nationals and Japanese-Americans during World War II,
where we were able to review mistakes that were made at that
time.
When I ran for Congress this last time, I was accused of
being soft on terrorism and soft on immigration because I
supported legislation which gave rights to people who were
immigrants. I had to respond to an attack that I thought was
unduly critical and racially and religiously profiling certain
groups as a part of a political attack.
Having said that, however, I am somewhat disturbed by the
contours of the request for this hearing. I wonder why those
who asked for this hearing did not ask for any witnesses from
the Administration to be able to respond specifically to the
allegations that are raised, number one.
Number two----
Mr. Conyers. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Lungren. Well, I only have 5 minutes, and the gentleman
has had 15, I think, so far.
Number two, some of the statements suggesting that we had
routine torture that somehow causes the rest of the world to
respond negatively to us are way over the top. The
investigations have shown specific examples of inappropriate
activity, criminal activity by individuals, and they're being
prosecuted at the present time.
A statement made about the routine desecration of the Koran
is absolutely contrary to the facts of the investigation that
were shown. And the gentleman, Mr. Zogby's, statements that
those kinds of things, that kind of evidence gives us a
negative response in the non-U.S. world, the Arab community,
the Muslim community, ought to be cautionary to those of us
when we look at these sorts of things.
One should look in detail at the report with respect to the
instance involving the Koran. And one, I think, would be
impressed by the care which is taken by those that at
Guantanamo Bay with respect to the protection of religious
rights there. And in those specific instances where there have
been violations, those have been investigated; action has been
taken against those people.
So I just would hope that those on the other side would
understand the concerns some of us have about the contours of
this particular activity.
Secondly, the Creppy memo is no longer followed by the
Administration. We had testimony to that effect by Mr. Comey,
testimony to the effect of Mr. Comey that they were trying to
do things immediately after 9/11 to try and respond to the risk
and the threat as they saw it at that time, but they have made
changes, and it is not being followed. That was the direct
testimony of Mr. Comey under oath here, and I wish that to be
entered into the record.
And finally, with respect to section 215, let's understand
what section 215 is. Section 215 has to be an application to a
court that has to make a determination, number one, that it
involves a foreign agent; number two, that it is relevant to an
investigation against international terrorism or clandestine
intelligence activities; number three, that it is not directed
against a United States person solely on the basis of
activities protected by the first amendment of the Constitution
of the United States. All of those things have to be shown to
the court. The court has to make a determination that, in fact,
those things are present. So the idea that somehow section 215
is being used willy-nilly to go after people merely because
they check out books in one particular place or another is just
not correct. The court does make those determinations. We have
made specific inquiry with respect to that and found that to be
the case.
And finally, I would just say this: It is patently absurd
to create a moral equivalence between the United States and
China, Zimbabwe and other countries, as your statement, Mr.
Pitts, has suggested. If the suggestion is they need examples
to prop up the activities that they engage in versus their
citizens, that's patently absurd. The suggestion that somehow,
because of the passage of the PATRIOT Act, we are leading those
kinds of countries to involve themselves in abuses of other
countries is, frankly, I think, seriously amiss.
This Committee has had--actually, Mr. Chairman, we've had
11, not 7, 11 oversight hearings in the Subcommittee and full
Committee on the PATRIOT Act. We have gone over section by
section by section----
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from North Carolina Mr. Watt.
Mr. Watt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank the
Chairman for convening the hearing, even though he is doing it
according to the rules, and it started out kind of testy.
And I also thank the Chairman for not interrupting the
witnesses and applying an overly technical view of this
hearing. I think it would have served a very negative purpose
to do that, and I want to applaud you publicly for not doing
that during the testimony of these witnesses.
Briefly, I'd just like to reiterate a point that I made
yesterday in a speech I gave to the Charlotte Chamber of
Commerce, interestingly enough, in which I said that it is not
unusual in the aftermath of things like Enron or things like
the accounting scandals or things like 9/11 for the legislative
process to overreact and do more than is necessary to address
or correct the problem, and that the true test of a legislative
body is really our ability not so much to overreact sometimes,
but to, once we have overreacted, understand the impact of that
overreaction and then make the necessary adjustments, because
all of us are engaged in not a science, but a process of trying
to find what the appropriate and right balance is in all of
these situations. And it seems to me that if we try to find
that balance listening only to the people who have defended the
action or reaction that the legislative process has made,
either to Enron or to 9/11 or to accounting scandals or
whatever we're doing in the legislative process, if we're not
listening to all of the people who are impacted by these
decisions, then we do ourselves, as legislators, a real
disservice, and we do our country a real disservice.
So I think really that's what we are involved in here,
trying to find what that appropriate balance is, what was,
should have been, should be going forward. We found a balance
in this Committee which we unanimously endorsed, only to see it
changed in the PATRIOT Act when it went to the Rules Committee.
And so I just want to generally thank the Chair for the
series of hearings and these witnesses for being here today to
help us try to find that balance.
Now, my colleague on the other side has made a number of
comments, which I could tell each of you are anxious to respond
to, and him having run out of time, perhaps I should give Ms.
Pearlstein at least an opportunity to respond.
Ms. Pearlstein. Thank you very much, and thank you for your
comments.
I want to just respond briefly to the suggestion about the
prosecution of individual acts of torture and abuse that have
been identified by the Pentagon as occurring in U.S. detention
facilities overseas. A handful of these have been prosecuted
under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. A much larger
number of them, to the extent they've been dealt with at all,
have been dealt with by administrative or incredibly light
disciplinary punishment; that is, revoking of mess hall
privileges. The vast majority of them have yet to be addressed.
This is a failure of the Department of Justice. This is a
failure of the Pentagon. This is why we believe an independent
commission is needed to look at these things.
On the point of why the international community and many
Americans may be frustrated by this----
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from Arizona Mr. Franks.
Mr. Nadler. Mr. Chairman, point of order.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The gentleman from Arizona Mr.
Franks is recognized.
Mr. Nadler. Mr. Chairman, point of order.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The gentleman will state his point
of order.
Mr. Nadler. Mr. Chairman, it has generally been the
practice of this Committee that witnesses are permitted to
finish the sentence so that what they're saying will not be
interrupted in midsentence----
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The rules state that the Chair has
the prerogative to recognize Members and to enforce the time
limits. The Chair is enforcing the time limits, and the
gentleman from Arizona Mr. Franks is recognized.
Mr. Franks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, sometimes an open, democratic Republic like
the United States of America is so transparent that both its
warts and its qualities are seen before the world, and that's a
healthy practice. But, Mr. Chairman, in recent days we've seen
and heard comparisons of the policies of the United States and
the practices even in prisons with the Soviet gulags, that
somehow the United States has become a negative for the cause
of human freedom in the world. And I find that to be something
that completely defies reason in the mind of any person who has
any historical view of the United States.
And I think sometimes we do a great disservice to the cause
of human freedom when we tear down the greatest force for human
freedom that the world has ever known, and that's the United
States of America. And, Mr. Chairman, having said that, I'd
like to direct a couple of questions to Dr. Zogby.
Dr. Zogby, in your recent testimony, you made the complaint
that the Justice Department had detained immigrants in the
aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, but isn't it true that the
investigation of these individuals had absolutely nothing to do
with the PATRIOT Act, and, in fact, these events occurred
before the PATRIOT Act was even enacted; is that correct?
Mr. Zogby. Some of them were before, and some of them were
after. The call-ups that occurred following this in October,
and then later on, I think, in January of 2002 and special
registration went well beyond the initial round-up, the numbers
of which we actually don't know. They were making numbers
public, and at one point they stopped making numbers. People
got stuck on the 1,200, but frankly the numbers appeared to go
much higher.
We don't know the outcome of all of those. There have been
independent reviews, both within the Department of Justice and
by groups outside, who have interviewed several of the people,
both still here in the United States and those overseas. The
inspector general's report, I think, was very clear on the
number of those cases that reported abuse, reported horrific
treatment within the prisons. And I think it is important to
recognize this is an issue that requires closer scrutiny.
Ms. Tapia Ruano. If I may also respond to that question?
Mr. Franks. Let me ask an additional question, Dr. Zogby,
and then you feel free to respond.
In your written testimony you also mentioned that the
detainees--in Guantanamo Bay in general, but isn't it a fact
that those being held in Guantanamo Bay are not being detained
pursuant to any authority contained in the PATRIOT Act? And, in
fact, if the PATRIOT Act was repealed today, would it have any
effect on the status of these detainees in Guantanamo Bay at
all?
Mr. Zogby. I'm not aware and can't speak to that issue, but
I will tell you the issues I mentioned were Guantanamo and
other locations around the world. And I was speaking about that
in the context of what it has done to our image
internationally.
And I want to address that and want to address as well the
remarks raised by Congressman Lungren. The issue of torture.
You know, once we're authorized the use of practices that
previously were considered and in international law are
considered torture, and lowered the standard of what
constitutes torture so that now sleep deprivation, use of
creating stress in those under detention, and even physical
abuse to some degree is not constituting torture, then of
course the number of those cases that we're going to prosecute
are going to be less because we absolve people of priority of
torture by saying this no longer constitutes torture.
And this is what concerns me is that we have governments in
the Middle East and elsewhere in the world who now say, we do
not torture people, we do what the United States of America
does. That bothers me, and it ought to bother everybody on this
Committee. It's not covered in the PATRIOT Act, but it is an
issue that we ought to be concerned about.
Mr. Franks. Dr. Zogby, just for the record, I think to
suggest that deliberate routine torture is the committed policy
or the deliberate policy of the United States defies any sort
of credibility.
Mr. Zogby. Sir, I didn't write the memos, I didn't write
the memos; the memos are there. There is a paper trail about
what we have done. And I think that the degree to which we
continue to deny that we've done it, we do not look good in the
eyes of the world, nor should we feel good about ourselves as
we face the American people. We have an issue that must be
addressed, and it will be addressed either by us or future
generations----
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from New York Mr. Nadler.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me express my
appreciation for your civility to the witnesses.
Ms. Pearlstein, you talked about 12,000 prisoners in major
new permanent detention. Section 412 of the PATRIOT Act, I
think Ms. Tapia Ruano mentioned that under section 412 the
Attorney General can detain alien terrorist suspects that he
designates as such for up to 7 days, and that he must certify
he has reasonable grounds to believe--et cetera. Within 7 days
the Attorney General must initiate removal of criminal
proceedings or release the alien.
The President, under military order number 13, allows the
Secretary of Defense to detain designated alien terrorist
suspects within the United States without express limitation
and condition, and apparently without any length of time
restriction. Under what legal authority did the President issue
that order? And how do they get around the 7-day restriction,
which was very carefully negotiated in this Committee in
section 412 of the PATRIOT Act?
Ms. Pearlstein. I think the short answer to your question
is there is no clear answer from the Administration to what the
basis of the legal authority is, and I think it is important to
distinguish----
Mr. Nadler. Has that been challenged in court?
Ms. Pearlstein. The basis of the legality of the detention
of people being detained at Guantanamo Bay, that people being
detained in the United States, in particular Jose Padilla, who
was subsequently released following a ruling of the Superior
Court, and the detentions in Afghanistan and Iraq have been
challenged in U.S. courts only in the context of civil
litigation challenges brought by people who were subsequently
released from detention, challenging acts of torture and abuse
that they were subject to while in detention.
There is currently no mechanism of which I'm aware and no
suits or any other proceeding through which I'm aware of
anybody held in custody in Afghanistan and Iraq to challenge
the legality of their detention in U.S----
Mr. Nadler. Under section 804 of the PATRIOT Act, I think
you said, giving jurisdiction abroad,why can't you get a writ
of habeas corpus?
Ms. Pearlstein. Section 804 of the PATRIOT Act provides
only that the Department of Justice now has jurisdiction to
prosecute offenses that are committed----
Mr. Nadler. But does not give jurisdiction for the defense
attorney to question his intentions.
Ms. Pearlstein. Under that particular provision. All that
is about is the U.S. Government's prosecutorial authority. The
Federal habeas statute, which exists on the books separate from
the USA PATRIOT Act, is still on the books. To my knowledge it
has not been deployed by a current detainee abroad.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
Ms. Tapia Ruano, is it true that immigrants who have been
found eligible for bail have been kept from being released?
Ms. Tapia Ruano. Yes. And it's even more outrageous to
consider that immigrants who have been granted legal permanent
residence after their full merits hearings have also, as a
result of 9/11, detainee status been retained in jail until
they received a clearance from the United States.
Mr. Nadler. Under what authority?
Ms. Tapia Ruano. Under the regulation that allows
individuals to be kept under--it's not a regulation, I'm sorry,
under the understanding of policy memos--I can't point to them
directly because we haven't seen them in writing, but we know
it exists--but it is a policy, it's a cooperation that until
the individual is ``cleared by the FBI, such individual is not
released, regardless of the decision by the agency.''
Mr. Nadler. Regardless of the decision of the agency. And
why aren't people subject to habeas corpus release?
Ms. Tapia Ruano. Based on my understanding of the law,
until those individuals are subject to some final order, those
individuals, in fact, don't have an opportunity to file a
habeas. Since the Real ID Act was passed very recently, now I
would suspect--and I haven't been able to study it well enough
to advise you--but I would suspect that that would also limit
any right that individuals have to take habeas court
proceedings if it involves immigration-related relief.
Mr. Nadler. So an immigration-related case, even after they
have been found eligible for bail, they can be detained
indefinitely?
Ms. Tapia Ruano. The individuals normally--and this happens
today--individuals, noncitizens, can be detained after they
have been granted bail by a judge by having the agency, the
prosecutor, issue a stay of that order----
Mr. Nadler. The prosecutor or a court?
Ms. Tapia Ruano. The prosecutor.
Mr. Nadler. The prosecutor can stay the court's judgment?
Ms. Tapia Ruano. Absolutely. And that happens every day.
Mr. Nadler. Do you know of any other area of law where a
prosecutor can overrule a judge?
Ms. Tapia Ruano. I'm unfamiliar with other areas of law, so
I can't really answer that question.
Mr. Nadler. Anybody on the panel know of any other area of
law where a prosecutor can overrule a judge's decision to
release a person on bail?
Mr. Pitts. Well, it is happening right now. The Supreme
Court of the United States decided in the Rasul case a year
ago, the enemy combatant case, that detainees in Guantanamo
were entitled to a lawyer and to Federal court review, and that
has not happened----
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from North Carolina Mr. Coble.
Mr. Coble. I thank the Chairman. I thank the witnesses for
being here.
I too want to thank Mr. Scott and Members of the Democrat
and Republican side of the aisle and staffers who have worked
with me as we conducted nine oversight hearings under the
Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, and I
think this is the 12th hearing. And I take great umbrage, Mr.
Chairman, when I hear people say, well, you all are trying to
ram through the PATRIOT Act.
We're not trying to ram through it at all. After nine
hearings--and, by the way, the nine hearings were very
productive, I think. Now, in some instances the witnesses
departed from the PATRIOT Act, as I may do in my statement, and
I was generous about that, and I didn't admonish anybody. But
I've heard some folks claim that the United States has the
worst human rights record in the world. Folks, that boggles my
mind. I'm not suggesting that you all said that; others have
said that to me. Conversely, I think we probably have one of
the best human rights record than anybody in the world.
Perfect? No, not by any means, but far more than most
countries.
Abu Ghraib, do I support what was done there? Indeed not.
But, folks, I'm not going to use a broad paint brush to portray
our men and women in the armed services as being human rights
abusers. Now, there were a couple, perhaps a limited number, of
stupid acts that have been addressed through a court martial,
I'm told, and that is, indeed, appropriate.
I guess what gets my juices flowing, Mr. Chairman, is when
I see these thugs, whose faces are concealed by masks that
cover their face, anxiously waiting to behead innocent
hostages, when I see that on the one hand, which is a 1-day
news story, and then we hear about Abu Ghraib, and--and again,
I'm not defending Abu Ghraib, but the Abu Ghraib story appears
to be eternal. The thugs who are anxious to behead innocent
hostages is a 1-day story and obviously not newsworthy. Folks,
it's damn newsworthy to me and to most Americans.
And I think these hearings are healthy; I think we are
plowing sometimes new ground, Mr. Chairman. Sometimes we are
plowing the ground that has been plowed nine times before, but
I don't mind doing that if we can get to the truth, if we can
improve the situation.
Dr. Zogby, I think you mentioned about 9/11. It's a day
that will, indeed, live in infamy. We were minding our
business, and then we were attacked, and over 3,000 people
killed, and you say many Arab Americans, inexcusable. And if I
appear to be subjectively involved, I am subjectively involved.
And before I get too subjectively involved, before the Chairman
comes down on me, before that red light illuminates, I'm going
to yield back my time.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The gentleman from Maryland Mr. Van
Hollen.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Point of order, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. State your order.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me, first of all, thank my distinguished colleagues Mr.
Van Hollen and Ms. Wasserman Schultz----
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The gentlewoman will state her
point of order.
Ms. Jackson Lee.--for being willing to yield to me. I want
to make it clear----
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The gentlewoman is not stating a
point of order, and the gentleman from Maryland Mr. Van Hollen
is recognized.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman, I was in the room before my
two colleagues; however, I will yield to my two colleagues
because of the disorientation of the Chairman. Thank you very
much.
Mr. Van Hollen. I thank my colleague, and I thank all the
witnesses for their testimony this morning.
And, Mr. Zogby, I wanted to follow up on a couple of points
you made, because you talked about the impact on people around
the world of actions taken here in the United States, and the
perceptions that that gave to people. And you mentioned those
in the context of the PATRIOT Act, but also Abu Ghraib and some
of the indefinite detentions that took place. And you made what
I think is a very important point that needs to be emphasized,
which is, this is not about winning a popularity contest. Yes,
it's nice to be liked around the world, but the most important
thing that we can do as Americans is to make sure that we
protect our security.
But essential to protecting our security is making sure
that people around the world in many cases have a positive
impact upon the United States, especially when we're pursuing
an effort to encourage and promote democracy around the world.
And as you said, we all share the view that the United States
must be a leader in promoting democracy and human rights around
the world, and if we're going to be encouraging elections, free
and open and fair elections, in places in the Middle East, if
we're going to be encouraging free and fair elections in many
other places around the world, then it's important to us how
people who are going to be voting in those elections perceive
the United States, because we hope that they will elect leaders
who will be supportive and friendly toward the United States'
interests, and to the extent they have a negative view of the
United States, it's much easier for those who would want to
demagogue the United States to win in those elections.
And so an integral part of our democracy promotion effort
overseas, it seems to me, is making sure that the United States
continues to be perceived, as it has been in the past, as a
great leader for freedom and a great leader for human rights.
And to the extent that we tarnish that image, we hurt our own
national security interests, and we hurt our ability to fight
the war on terrorism.
You've done a lot of work in this area. Could you please
talk a little bit more about how those negative perceptions of
the United States can undermine our own efforts to promote
democracy in those regions in a way that is consistent with our
national security interests?
Mr. Zogby. And, Congressman, I thank you. And I would say
I'm not sure I could do it more eloquently than you've just
done. I think you have made the case very clear.
But I would say to you that this is not about us being the
best or the worst. At the end of the day, there is not a scale
that judges America with other countries. And I think
Congressman Coble is right about that. We set a higher standard
and always have. We have always been and wanted to see
ourselves be the city on the hill, and that's why democratic
reformers have looked to us. When they no longer look to us in
their governance, instead look to us to validate policies that
bring about repression, then I think we have to examine
ourselves not only for our foreign policy purposes, but I think
also for a sense of are we being true to ourselves and to our
Founders, and to the sense of the value of America that we
teach our children. I think that is really fundamental here.
The pictures of Abu Ghraib were not a 1-day story, and they
shouldn't have been, because that's not who we are. And those
pictures are going to be soon replicated by other pictures from
Abu Ghraib that will come out at the end of the month, and we
will be reminded again and the world will be reminded again
that America stopped being America.
The stories of the Koran are not a few, but there are many,
number one. And number two, the inspector general reported that
the Department of Justice shows that those very practices took
place domestically in metropolitan detention centers.
We need to be fair to who we are. If we deny who we are, I
think we lose our ability to lead in the world. When foreign
governments become more repressive--because as people become
more angry at America and become more angry at their
government's leadership for being supportive of America, we
are, in effect, creating a groundswell for terrorism. As we
said, antidemocratic practices produce terrorism. By those very
practices that we are encouraging or by example leading other
governments to pursue, we are making other countries in the
world less free, we're making the countries less democratic,
and we're making America a role model for less democratic and
less free practices. And there is a tragedy in all of that
because it undercuts our effort to fight terrorism and make us
more secure.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you. And let me just say----
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The time of the gentleman has
expired.
The gentleman from Indiana Mr. Pence.
Mr. Pence. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for the
long series of hearings that you have held on the PATRIOT Act;
they have been enormously informative to me as a Member of this
Committee who was involved in drafting this PATRIOT Act.
I also want to thank the panel. It is not easy to come
before Congress, and I am grateful for your patriotism and your
citizenship displayed today.
I want to direct my remarks and my questions specifically
and respectfully to the Chairman of the Board of Amnesty
International, Mr. Pitts. And let me say I'm a bit of a fan of
Amnesty International. I actually went to the floor a week
before the initiation of hostilities against Iraq and for a
full hour quoted Amnesty International's outstanding research
on the profound and appalling human rights record of Saddam
Hussein. Tens of thousands incarcerated. I, frankly, found your
research to be very moving. Quite a few people in precincts
around the country didn't appreciate this conservative
Republican quoting Amnesty International to justify, in part,
the war, but I have appreciated your work.
It's in that context that I must tell you, Mr. Pitts, I was
very troubled by your description of the U.S. detention
facility at Guantanamo Bay as a gulag of our times. There has
been a lot said by Mr. Van Hollen a few moments ago and other
colleagues about the importance of our image in the world, and
I think prison abuse is an appalling thing, and I'm pleased at
the aggressive prosecutions that have taken place of military
personnel who have been accused of that, and believe that that
should be the case. But I also believe that anti-historical,
irresponsible rhetoric, like referring to the U.S. detention
facility at Guantanamo Bay as the gulag of our times, endangers
the lives of Americans in uniform by fueling the very worst
stereotypes of our enemies about this country in the world.
The gulag, of course, was a Soviet system of forced labor
camps. The word is a Russian abbreviation for the term chief
administration of camps. In The Gulag Archipelago, the famous
book by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, he brought the story of the
gulags to the world; 28.7 million people put into forced labor.
The death rates in those camps reached their apex in World War
II. The total number of prison deaths is impossible to
calculate. It ranges from a low end of 3 million people
systematically executed or starved to death or worked to death
in the gulags to numbers of 10, 12 and even 20 million.
In the book, Gulag: A History, a journalist named Anne
Applebaumgate writes that after 1937 the camps ``transformed
themselves from indifferently managed prisons in which people
died by accident into genuinely deadly camps where workers were
deliberately worked to death or murdered.''
It is extraordinary to think of a comparison between a U.S.
detention facility, where maybe mistakes have been made and
have been made by American personnel, to the systematic death
camps of the Soviet empire. It's also peculiar to me that
Amnesty International would refer to Guantanamo as the gulag of
our times when there is a much better candidate in the Kwan-li-
co couldn't find system of concentration camps in North Korea.
North Korea is a bona fide Soviet state run by the son of a man
who was actually put into power by Stalin. In fact, Kim Jong-il
was reportedly born in a training camp in Siberia where his
father was groomed for power. But to suggest that, you know, in
all of the world the gulag of our times is not the death camps
that are the natural progeny of the gulags of the Soviet empire
that exist today in North Korea, but that Guantanamo Bay is,
that seems to me, as I said, anti-historical, irresponsible and
the type of rhetoric that endangers American lives.
Now, I'm not alone in this. It was former Soviet political
prisoner Vladimir Bukowski who characterized your term as
``stupid'' and ``an insult to the memory of millions who
perished in Soviet camps.''
With all of that said, and I ask this respectfully, Mr.
Pitts, are you or is Amnesty International prepared to retract
your statement that the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo
is the gulag of our times, or are you prepared before this
hearing to qualify that before this hearing, given the
extraordinary record of history of the gulags and the reality
of gulags in our times in countries like North Korea?
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentlewoman from Florida----
Mr. Nadler. Point of order, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The gentleman will state his point
of order.
Mr. Nadler. I believe it is improper under our rules to
cast aspersions on the integrity of our witnesses, and I would
like to give the witness an opportunity to respond to that.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. First of all, that is not a proper
point of order; secondly, I believe the gentleman----
Mr. Nadler. It's a point of decency.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Well, point of decencies are
determined other than by rulings of the Chair.
The statements that were made by the gentleman from Indiana
were not impugning the integrity of any of the witnesses,
including Mr. Pitts, before the Committee; they were value
judgments on the part of the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Pence,
on statements that have been made by representatives of Amnesty
International other than the witness that is before us.
Mr. Nadler. I would ask that the witness have an
opportunity to respond.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Without objection, the witness may
proceed.
Mr. Pitts. I would like to respond to Mr. Pence's question,
and also some of the other statements made that Amnesty has in
some way applied amoral equivalency either with the horrendous
regime of Stalin, which we were at the forefront of condemning
the perpetuation of that system in the Soviet Union in the
1970's and 1980's. And we're not suggesting moral equivalency,
Mr. Pence, with China, or North Korea or Iran. Our point is
that it's not Amnesty International that is putting the U.S. in
this position, and it's not just Amnesty International's
reports--although we have issued several reports, hundreds of
pages in each, enumerating numerous instances of torture that
would break our heart--and I'm prepared to read them if you
would like. But as we've heard today, it is the Government's
own reports, it is the reams of Government memos that show that
we created a black hole, and that the same principles or
practices that were at play in the gulag--disappearances,
putting people in the gulag, stripping them, beating them--
these are practices that people that were there we are now
seeing in Guantanamo.
How can the U.S. have credibility in condemning North Korea
as it does, or Iran or Cuba, for arbitrary detentions, for
beatings, for torturing people when the same things are going
on in Guantanamo? And Secretary Rumsfeld himself approved
techniques like forced nudity, like stripping, like hooding
people. One of the people hooded in Guantanamo, whose name was
Manadel al-Jamadi, we know died from the hooding, the beating.
He was one of the ghost detainees that Secretary Rumsfeld
personally approved.
And so I don't think it's absurd for Amnesty International
to make these points, I think it is absurd for the U.S. to
create that legal black hole. And it's time to fill in that
legal black hole and shut Guantanamo.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The Chair would point out that the
activities of the Department of Defense are not within the
jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee, but are within the
jurisdiction of the Armed Services Committee, and it is their
responsibility to investigate allegations and to conduct
oversights over the Department of Defense.
The gentlewoman from Florida, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
Mr. Conyers. Would the gentlelady yield to me just briefly?
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Of course.
Mr. Conyers. I would like to point out that it is the
jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee to consider human
rights, civil rights, civil liberties violations. That is not
an inappropriate subject for this Committee. As a matter of
fact, we have the sole jurisdiction over those concerns.
I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. You're welcome.
Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to join this Committee. It
is a baptism by fire for me as a new Member. And as the
gentleman from Arizona stated, sometimes the world does see our
version of democracy, warts and all. This proceeding would be
one version of that democracy.
I wanted to ask Mr. Zogby if he could discuss the Justice
Department's claims that it is not racially profiling, but is
profiling by country of passport. For me, because I represent
communities in south Florida where we have many Hispanic
Americans and many Hispanic immigrants who have darker skin, I
think that they would beg to differ on that difference, and
that it would be deemed as a difference without distinction.
And actually, if I could get my questions out to the three of
you, and then I will be quiet so I can hear your answers and
not use up my 5 minutes talking.
My other question would be first, Ms. Tapia Ruano, your
testimony discussed the secret immigration hearings that are
taking place. Can you talk a little bit about why the secrecy
is a problem, and why it's important for the American public
and the world to know who has been detained? And do we even
know how many people and who has been detained and for how
long? And in general, between the two of you, if you can
discuss what changes you think need to be made to the PATRIOT
Act, because obviously that is a product that we would like to
bring forward from the results of this hearing so that legal
and innocent immigrants, and Americans, who have been unjustly
punished or detained can receive justice. Thank you.
Mr. Zogby. Congresswoman, you are right, it is a difference
without distinction, bottom line. When all the people brought
in in the call-ins, when people from Arab or Muslim countries,
there is a single set of characteristics there that constitutes
profiling. There was no behavior issue at stake; there was no
broader definition of those who were the target audiences. As
one law enforcement said, we're looking for a needle in the
haystack, and all the Department of Justice keeps doing is
adding more hay to the stack.
So there are 160,000 in the field with special
registration, about 83,000 registered. Almost 14,000 of them
are held deportable, but no terrorist suspects and no
information about terrorism resulted from any of this. And so
the result is that it was ineffective, created fear, and it was
based on crude profiling. It didn't work, and yet it caused
irreparable damage to a whole lot of young, innocent people
across the country who are now facing dramatic, life-changing
decisions because of this program.
Ms. Tapia Ruano. With regard to these closed hearings,
these hearings were held in secret, and you asked what is the
problem with that. Well, we believe part of a democratic
society which is open, that this is an important concept. Not
only were the individuals not allowed to have their family
members and also have other individuals there for moral or
other support, but family members often didn't even know where
these individuals were, the fact that they were being held by
the agency, where they were transferred to, the fact that they
were facing any possible expulsion from the United States. And
that created an enormous amount of anxiety.
What's the solution? Well, eliminate closed hearings with
regard to blanket closed hearings, which is what these rules
allow, just blanket closed hearings, without taking a look at
was it justified, was there any possible reason to sustain the
need to have a hearing closed.
We believe that the act that I mentioned just before, the
Civil Liberties Restoration Act, is a solution to that by
prohibiting closed hearings except in situations where a judge,
after reviewing the individual facts, determines that it is in
the interest of national security, or because of sensitive
information, or at the choice of the individual detained. Those
are rational, legal, fair reasons to have a closed hearing. But
blanket closures, without the consent of the parties involved,
appears to be abhorrent to our system.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chairman, if I can just also
point out and request permission to note that I apologize for
being tardy. I arrived at 8:38, and wanted to have my presence
noted for the record. And I yield back.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. And your presence is noted, and
your contribution is appreciated.
The gentlelady from Texas Ms. Jackson Lee.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Conyers, for your
insight on holding what I think may be one of the more crucial
constitutional hearings that we may have in the history of this
particular judiciary body.
Let me also thank Mr. Coble and Mr. Scott, as a Member of
their Subcommittee, for the number of hearings that have been
held, as well recognize the fact that this hearing is being
held today.
I don't want this hearing to center around any one Member,
but I do want to relate what I think we're trying to do today,
and I really hope that we can do this in a bipartisan manner.
I think you remember, Dr. Zogby, that we did produce a
bipartisan PATRIOT Act out of this Committee, with the
partnership of the Chairman and the Ranking Member and all of
us. Ultimately when the bill went to the floor, it lost all of
its bipartisanship and began to become a product of the
Majority. In essence, the tyranny of the Majority ruled.
What I'm concerned about is that we're being clouded by our
rightness on an issue, refusing to look at how we can fix
problems. Reminds me of the time when this country held slaves
for 400 years and refused to acknowledge the wrongness of that
terrible act, and again, we were ruled by the tyranny of the
Majority. Even reflecting upon President Lincoln's decision,
history will tell you that it was not for the humanitarian
needs of the slaves, but for some other reasons.
Then I cite prior to the attack by the Japanese on Pearl
Harbor our refusal to acknowledge the Holocaust that was going
on in the 1930's before we entered World War II; again,
refusing to acknowledge dark times in our history.
The brutality of the civil rights movement in the 1950's
and 1960's, we refused, for a period of time, to acknowledge
the dark time in the history of America; just a few years ago
when we turned the lights out on the brutality of a million
people in Rwanda.
So I think what we have an opportunity to do today, as we
all embrace those who lost lives and the families of 9/11, I
don't think there was an American of any race, color or creed
that did not mourn, did not fall to their knees, did not pray
to their person of faith, who they believed in during that
time. And so I think where we're going here today and the tone
that I've heard by some of my colleagues is again trying to
turn the lights out on absolute abuses.
My question is, one, are there any checks and balances
under the PATRIOT Act to even prove one's innocence? That is a
general question that I have.
Ms. Ruano, I want to know what have we done by diminishing
the powers of the Bureau of Immigration Appeals so that there
is no due process? How do Americans understand that by due
process being eliminated from that Bureau, you are really
beginning to eliminate due process rights for others as well?
Dr. Zogby, I think it's important, a point that you made
earlier, that immigration does not equate to terrorism. Tell
me, what kind of intimidation is fusing through the Muslim
community in the United States and around the world because of
that synonym now seems to be coming together?
Amnesty International, I'd appreciate if you would again
speak to Guantanamo and as well the specifics of why the sort
of elusiveness or unclarity, if I might say, of what Guantanamo
means is putting young soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq in
jeopardy of their lives.
And, Ms. Pearlstein, I would ask you as well about--if you
would again speak to this whole question of detention, people
being picked up randomly. And others may wish to comment on
this whole registration of Muslims or Pakistani individuals
which generated, I believe, no conviction and no arrests of
terrorism.
And lastly let me say under the PATRIOT Act we have
Minutemen at the border. That is what we are being driven to at
this point. America needs to understand that we're in dark days
that is not reflective of our fears of 9/11. And I would
appreciate your answers on those questions. I hope we can turn
the lights on in this room.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Nineteen seconds left of her 5
minutes.
Mr. Zogby. I would like to submit my testimony in full for
the record to those questions for my part.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Without objection.
Ms. Tapia Ruano. And I will just say one comment. The
concern is, when you abuse noncitizens' due process rights, it
is not going to take much more to abuse citizens' rights.
Ms. Pearlstein. If I could just also submit for the record
the recent report of the Human Rights First called Behind the
Wire----
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Without objection.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix.]
Ms. Pearlstein. And also a recent report called Getting to
Ground Truth, which responds, I think, to the questions----
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Without objection.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix.]
Mr. Pitts. And I will submit our report on the specifics of
Guantanamo. But I want to point out briefly that not just
Amnesty, but academic institutions, Rand, International
Institute for Strategic Studies, our own State Department have
noted that terrorism is on the rise. And I think that's more
than just correlation, it's causation.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Without objection.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix.]
Mr. Conyers. Mr. Chairman, I would ask that the gentlelady
from Texas be given enough time to have brief remarks from any
of the witnesses before we close down. She is the last----
Chairman Sensenbrenner. How much time does the gentleman
from Michigan request that the gentlewoman from Texas be
granted?
Mr. Conyers. Four minutes, 1 minute for each of the
witnesses.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Is there objection to the request
of the gentleman from Michigan to give each--an objection is
heard.
Mr. Conyers. Mr. Chairman, I have a list of documents that
I ask unanimous consent to submit to the record.
Chairman Sensenbrenner. Without objection.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix.]
Chairman Sensenbrenner. The Chair now recognizes himself.
First, the Chair would like to thank all the witnesses for
coming and appearing, and particularly preparing your testimony
on short notice.
Let me say that the purpose for which this hearing was
called and the scope of the hearing was stated in a letter that
was submitted to me, signed by the Democratic Members, which
was the reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act. I have sat here
listening very patiently to the testimony and the answers to
the questions, and much of what has been stated is not relevant
to the 16 sections of the USA PATRIOT Act which were sunsetted
when the law was enacted in October of 2001.
One of the things that people who are opposed to the
PATRIOT Act have been doing is stating that the PATRIOT Act was
responsible for a whole host of frustrations or objections to
Administration policy. This hearing confirmed that fact, that
the PATRIOT Act is being used as a buzzword for people who have
very broad-brush objections.
I think that when Congress debates the reauthorization of
the PATRIOT Act, we ought to stick to the subject, and that
subject is the 16 provisions of the PATRIOT Act which we must
consider and decide whether to reauthorize, whether to lapse or
whether to amend.
The PATRIOT Act has nothing to do with Guantanamo; the
PATRIOT Act has nothing to do with enemy combatants; the
PATRIOT Act has nothing to do with indefinite detentions. Those
were provisions of other sections of the law, many of which
occurred prior to the enactment of the PATRIOT Act in October
of 2001.
The so-called Creppy memorandum, which had a blanket
closure of immigration proceedings, was issued before the
PATRIOT Act was enacted, and the Deputy Attorney General
testified earlier this week that it's no longer being followed.
And some of the testimony related to provisions of the
PATRIOT Act that were not sunsetted, and this Committee put the
sunset on provisions of the law which actually increased the
powers of law enforcement, but did not put the sunset on those
provisions of the law which restated the powers that law
enforcement had had prior to October of 2001.
I think particularly irresponsible and indicative of the
broad-brush accusations of the PATRIOT Act was what I just
heard, saying the PATRIOT Act has resulted in Minutemen being
on the border. That's not true, and that's irresponsible, and I
think anybody who knows what is going on----
Ms. Jackson Lee. Will the gentleman yield?
Chairman Sensenbrenner. No, I will not yield--will see that
fact.
Let me say that I think this hearing very, very clearly
shows what the opponents of the PATRIOT Act are doing. They
will talk about practically everything but what's in the
PATRIOT Act and what this Committee is considering. The only
really relevant testimony that I heard was from Mr. Pitts,
relative to section 215 of the PATRIOT Act that said that
librarians have been receiving all kinds of questions from law
enforcement. I'd like to ask you, Mr. Pitts, to submit for the
record the names of the librarians that have received actual
section 215 orders from the FISA Court to produce business
records, and we will give you a week to put that in the record.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix.]
Chairman Sensenbrenner. So thank you all for coming today.
I thank the Members----
Ms. Jackson Lee. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Nadler. Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Will the gentleman yield?
Chairman Sensenbrenner. And the Committee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 10:23 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative
in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee
on the Judiciary
There are few issues that are more important to this Committee or
this Congress than the PATRIOT Act and the war against terror. This not
only affects the rights and privacy of every American, but impacts the
extent to which our nation is able to hold itself out as a beacon of
liberty as we advocate for democracy around the world.
For many of us, this process of hearings is not merely about
whether we should extend 16 expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act;
it is about the manner in which our government uses its legal authority
to prosecute the war against terror, both domestically and abroad. As
we will hear from our witnesses today, those authorities have been
abused.
We will learn from Amnesty International about the routine torture
and degradation of detainees in American-run prisons that clearly
violate American and international law. Both then-White House Counsel
Gonzales and the Department of Justice conspired to create an end-run
around the international and U.S. laws that criminalize that sort of
behavior. While the Justice Department has supposedly reversed those
opinions, it still refuses to charge those in its jurisdiction.
We will also receive testimony concerning the illegal detention and
mistreatment of individuals at Guantanamo Bay. A federal court has
found their detention and denial of legal process to be
unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment and illegal. And after the
recent confirmation that jailers there desecrated the Koran, it's
clearly time for the military to shut the Guantanamo facility down.
We will also learn about the abuse of the immigration system to
unjustifiably detain and harass men of Middle Eastern descent. Our
Justice Department held over 1,000 people in the wake of 9/11, and the
Inspector General has found the detentions to violate the law. But no
one has been punished, and nothing has been done to ensure it doesn't
happen again.
Finally, we will receive testimony concerning the failure of our
Administration's racial profiling tactics. Not only are tactics like
these immoral, they have been proven to be completely useless in the
war on terror. For example, our government's registration of 80,000
Middle Eastern men did nothing but create a deportation nightmare for
families who had long been upstanding members of our communities. And
not a single terrorist was found. Let me repeat that--not a single
terrorist was found.
Yesterday, the president announced with much fanfare that we need
to not only reauthorize but expand the PATRIOT Act. But rather than
making us safer, the abuses and excesses of our war against terrorism
are actually tarnishing our nation's reputation and making us less
safe. The testimony we are receiving today--and introducing into the
record--will make that point abundantly clear.
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Texas
Response by Amnesty International to request for additional information
requested by Chairman Sensenbrenner
Beyond the Wire and Getting to Ground Truth deg.``Behind the
Wire'' submitted for the record by Deborah Pearlstein, Director, U.S.
Law and Security Program
``Getting to Ground Truth'' submitted for the record by Deborah
Pearlstein, Director, U.S. Law and Security Program
Guantanamo and Beyond deg.Guantanamo and Beyond: The
Continuing Pursuit of Unchecked Executive Powers'' submitted for the
record by Chip Pitts, Chair of the Board, Amnesty International USA
Article, James Sturcke, ``General Approved Extreme Interrogation
Methods,'' Guardian, March 30, 2005
Article, Bob Herbert, ``America a Symbol Of . . . ,'' New York Times,
May 30, 2005, available on Westlaw at 2005 WLNR 8545594
Article, Neil A. Lewis & Christopher Marquis, ``A Nation Challenged:
Immigration, Longer Visa Waits for Arabs,'' New York Times, November
10, 2001, available on Westlaw at 2001 WLNR 3372678
Article, Bob Herbert, ``Stories from the Inside,'' New York Times,
February 7, 2005, available on Westlaw at 2005 WLNR 1682135
Article, Tim Golden, ``Threats and Responses: Tough Justice; After
Terror, a Secret Rewriting of Military Law,'' New York Times, October
24, 2004, available on Westlaw at 2004 WLNR 4788371
Article, Douglas Jehl, Neil A. Lewis, & Tim Golden, ``The Reach of War:
Guantanamo: Pentagon Seeks to Shift Inmates from Cuba Base,'' New York
Times, March 11, 2005, available on Westlaw at 2005 WLNR 3773506
Article, Tim Golden, Ruhallah Khapalwak, Charlotte Gall, & David Rohde,
``The Bagram File: In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates'
Deaths,'' New York Times, May 20, 2005, available on Westlaw at 2005
WLNR 7990089
Article, Tim Golden, ``The Bagram File: Army Faltered in Investigating
Detainee Abuse,'' New York Times, May 22, 2005, available on Westlaw at
2005 WLNR 8112977
Report, American Civil Liberties Union, ``Independence Day 2003,''
July 3, 2003
Report, Human Rights Watch, ``We Are Not the Enemy,'' November 2002
Report, Human Rights Watch, ``Presumption of Guilt,'' August 2002
Report, Human Rights Watch, ``The Road to Abu Ghraib,'' June 2004
Report, Human Rights Watch, ``Still At Risk,'' April 2005
Report, Human Rights Watch, ``Getting Away With Torture?,'' April 2005
Report, American Civil Liberties Union, ``Sanctioned Bias,'' February
2004
Report, American Civil Liberties Union, ``Unpatriotic Acts,'' July 2003
Report, Irene Kahn, Amnesty International, ``Denounce Torture,
Report 2005, Forward,'' May 25, 2005
Statement, Alexandra Arriaga, Amnesty International,
``Stop Outsourcing of Torture,'' May 10, 2005
Amnesty International, ``United States of America, Guantanamo--an icon
of lawlessness,'' January 6, 2005
Report, Amnesty International, ``Human Dignity Denied: Torture and
Accountability in the War on Terror,'' October 27, 2004
Report, Center for Civil Rights,
``The State of Civil Liberties One Year Later,'' 2002
Report, Nancy Chang & Alan Kabat, Center for Civil Rights, ``Summary of
Recent Court Rulings on Terrorism-Related Matters having Civil
Liberties Implications,'' March 8, 2004
Report, Anjana Malhotra, ``Overlooking Innocence: Refashioning the
Material Witness Law to Indefinitely Detain Muslims Without Charges''
Report, American Civil Liberties Union, ``Conduct Unbecoming: Pitfalls
in the President's Military Commissions,'' March 2004
Report, American Civil Liberties Union, ``America's Disappeared:
Seeking International Justice for Immigrants Detained After September
11, January 2004
Report, American Civil Liberties Union, ``Seeking Truth From Justice,
PATRIOT Propaganda: The Justice Department's Campaign to Mislead The
Public About the USA PATRIOT Act,'' July 2003
Article, New York Times, ``Just Shut It Down,'' May 27, 2005
Article, USA Today, ``Biden: U.S. needs to close Cuba prison,'' June 6,
2005
Letter to the Honorable Alberto R. Gonzales,
Attorney General of the United States