Indymedia.US

On September 3rd, a dozen or so people demonstrated outside of the Seattle Federal Courthouse, calling for Bybee's impeachment. The action was sponsored by Washington For Impeachment, PDA, World Can't Wait, Backbone Campaign, Code Pink, and Eastside Fellowship of Reconciliation. The action was scheduled for 10:00-12:30 on a Thursday, so (not unexpectedly) the demonstrators were out numbered by Homeland Security forces. In addition to the usual courthouse security, there were 7 white vans parked near the entrance, each containing uniformed, armed guards. The Backbone Campaign brought a large paper mache statue of Justice. Others held signs showing pictures of Bybee's torture victims.

Although torture is illegal under both United States and international law, George W. Bush relied upon Jay Bybee and other lawyers to construct the legal grounds for allowing the president and his representatives to torture at will. As an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department, Bybee released memos that authorized torture under the guise of "enhanced interrogation techniques". These techniques were used at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and other places. Bybee's torture memos rejected the United Nations Convention Against Torture as too broad. He championed a new litmus test for torture -- the intentional infliction of permanent injury or death. These memos redefined behavior such as threats of execution against detainees and their families, threats to rape a detainee's female relatives, beatings, and waterboarding as permissible behavior. A few months after submitting the torture memos, Bybee was given a lifetime appointment to one of the top judicial benches in the country.

The Bybee Torture Memo was written in August of 2002, but it was only revealed to the public on April 16, 2009, after years of litigation. Upon its release, the New York Times called on Congress to impeach federal judge Jay Bybee. In an editorial, the New York Times declared that Bybee was, "unfit for a job that requires legal judgment and a respect for the Constitution. " In a similar vein, Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman has also asked, "Why should a suspected war criminal serve as a federal judge?"

Despite the many displays of public outrage, little has changed since Bybee's memos were exposed. In an April 25, 2009, Washington Post article, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT) said: "If the Bush administration and Mr. Bybee had told the truth, he never would have been confirmed," and that "the decent and honorable thing for him to do would be to resign". Four days later, Senator Leahy sent a letter to Judge Jay S. Bybee inviting him to testify before the Judiciary Committee, however, Bybee did not have the necessary manners -- or decency -- to respond to the invitation. No federal judge has ever been impeached for conduct that took place before taking the bench. So far, the senate has been unwilling to break that precedent.

Immune to criticism, Bybee sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Headquartered in San Francisco, the Ninth Circuit is the largest of the thirteen courts of appeals, with 29 active judgeships. The court's regular meeting places are Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Pasadena. The court arranges its hearings so that cases from the northern region of the circuit are heard in Seattle or Portland. The judges travel around the circuit. Wherever Bybee goes, he is met with protests.

Seattle's action was similar to many others across the west. World Can't Wait and other organizations have called for protest actions to meet Bybee across the Ninth Circuit. Bybee is greeted by courthouse protests whenever the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals meets. Outside the Seattle courthouse, activists gave speeches and passed out literature about Judge Bybee's role in legalizing torture. At one point the activists broke into the song "Bye Bye Bybee".

 

 

Bye Bye Bybee

Pack up all your legal briefs
Your day is done, time to leave
Bye bye Bybee
Defending torture was your game
Call it any other name
Bye bye Bybee
You can call it harsh interrogation
We just call it legal obfuscation
No excuses no delays
There's no believing what you say
Bybee, bye bye

 

Bybee and Bush's other torture lawyers are the subject of a federal investigation by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility. The focus of the investigation to determine whether the advice given in the memo "was consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys." At issue for the DOJ is whether the torture memo reflects an objective, balanced legal opinion, not simply providing support for a government policy. If Bybee's work is found to be substandard, the DOJ will not impose any penalty. It will simply forward its conclusion to the Nevada bar association. The DOJ is not looking at what Bybee authorized or the consequences for his victims.

Many progressives think that the parameters of the investigation are too narrow, and that any investigation into torture should explore whether there was a criminal conspiracy between the torture lawyers and the high Bush administration officials. For Jay Bybee, this might include whether there was a quid quo pro: providing legal cover in exchange for a judgeship.

The Disbar Torture Lawyers Campaign, a coalition of organizations representing over one million members, has filed disciplinary complaints with state bar licensing boards against the twelve attorneys, including Bybee, who facilitated the torture of detainees during the Bush Administration. The Constitution sets a high standard for removal of a federal judge, requiring conduct amounting to "high crimes and misdemeanors." However, the standard for state bar licensing boards is lower -- and this approach might be more successful.

Unwilling to only have a one track strategy, the Disbar Torture Lawyers Campaign also sent a letter to House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, asking that he initiate impeachment proceeding against Jay Bybee, based on his testamony to the Senate during his confirmation hearings. In these hearings, Bybee was portrayed a false picture of his legal history failing to disclose the torture memos to Congress.

 

 

 

The UN Convention Against Torture, Article 1.1 forbids:

Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

 

Susan Harman, one of the activists gathered outside the courthouse on September 3nd, went into the courthouse to confront Judge Bybee, telling him, "Shame on you Mr. Bybee. When are you going to resign?"

Susan is from California, and she travelled to Seattle for the Bybee protest. In July of this year, she confronted Bybee at the Court in Pasadena. "The three of use sat quietly through the case that Bybee was hearing," she explained, "When it was finished, I said to Judge Bybee, 'When will you resign? Every senator I've talked to said they would not have confirmed you had they known about the torture memos."

Although Bush has left office, torture is still happening under the Obama administration. Susan believes that as a deterrance against future abuses of executive power, the architects of the torture policy must be pursued. "Obama has already used all the powers that Bush took from the legislative and judicial branches of government," Susan said, "And he's added preventive detention as an executive power which circumvents the judiciary." Susan believes that the best strategy is to go after the second tier of authority. "This means going after and disbarring the twelve lawyers who advocated the torture of detainees during the Bush regime, " she added.

After her peaceful confrontation with Bybee, Susan rejoined the activists in front of the courthouse. As they protested, the activists saw a man with a shaved head photographing them. Susan asked the man who he was with, however, there was no reply or eye contact. "I asked him several times," she said, "Then the cops appeared and said I was under arrest."

In the courthouse she was told that she has the option of paying a fine or going to court. "I will go to court and fight the charge," Susan told the other activists. When asked if she feels that the protests are working, Susan responded, "You can see from the over-reaction from the police that we are having an effect. They are feeling pressure."

 

 

 

 

 

 

An unidentified man takes photos of the protesters. Susan Harmon asks him who he works for. When he does not respond, she asks again. Although there was no physical contact between the two Susan is arrested for assault.

 

 

 

 

Law enforcement takes her inside the courthouse where she is booked and later released.

It is an injustice that workers are targeted for the most extreme punishments (suspension without pay, possible termination without prior warnings) for resting and taking an extended break, while harassment and sexual harassment, anti-union activity/retaliation, acts of aggression against bus drivers and monitors by the Transportation Director and Staff which create a hostile work environment and unsafe schools, go unpunished to date. [read full article with photos]

Upcoming: Saturday 10am Leaflet at 7th/Hennepin outside Obama event | Sunday 2pm Press conference outside Rosemary's house

Check back for an extended article soon plus more video.  Have videos, photos, or updates?  Post them as a comment or publish to the newswire.

domestic workers march
Interview of Joyce Campbell, DWU organizer, at their Labor Day protest.The Domestic Worker's Bill of Rights is before the New York State Senate RIGHT NOW. Help make New York the first state in this country to respect and protect the lives and work of domestic workers. Domestic Workers United (DWU) has worked hard the last 5 years to get this far- the New York House has passed the bill and the Governor has promised to sign it.

Call your New York State Senator (or share this with New Yorkers who can make the call) and ask them to support S2311- otherwise known as The Domestic Worker's Bill of Rights. For more information on DWU, visit www.domesticworkersunited.org.

This piece was produced by Kistine Carolan for Labor Justice Radio. www.laborjusticeradio.podomatic.com
Labor Justice Radio is part of the Media Mobilizing Project.

More than a thousand hotel workers and their supporters marched through downtown San Francisco on Monday, September 7th, to demand a fair contract in their ongoing negotiations with the city's hotels, among them the Hyatt Regency and Le Meridien.

The Unite Here! Local 2 march started at the Embarcadero Hyatt to draw attention to the refusal by Hyatt to allow a fair process that would allow the workers at the Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf to have union representation. The march proceeded to HEI Le Meridien that is also a non-union hotel in the heart of downtown. A major concern of the Local 2 workers is the history of Hyatt in aggressively demanding health care cuts. This is from a company whose president and CEO made $6.7 million last year.

Photos: 1 | 2 | 3

Previous Related Indybay Feature: Local 2 Takes to the Streets for Affordable Health Care and Job Security

The Scott River is dry and dying. Unless there are large, sustained rainstorms soon, Chinook salmon which are ascending the Klamath River now will not be able to reach spawning grounds in most of the Scott River Basin – a major Klamath tributary. And unless there are big rainstorms over the next three months Coho salmon will also be trapped low down in Scott River Canyon and will not reach spawning grounds in the Scott River Valley and above.

Farmers and ranchers in the Scott River Valley are beginning to irrigate a third cutting of alfalfa. Rice – a new and thirsty crop - and cattle pastures are also being irrigated – some with brand new pumps and center pivot systems paid for by US taxpayers. If you ask them, these folks will acknowledge that the low Scott River flows are not good for salmon. Many will quickly add that the flows we see this year are natural given two years of below normal precipitation. Examination of historical flow, precipitation and snowpack data, however, as well as comparison with other nearby streams, does not back up that assertion.

Real time and historical flow data available on line from the California Department of Water Resources  http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/stationInfo?station_id=SFJ indicate that, in fact, low late summer and fall flows are becoming more common in the Scott. Since the year 2000, for example, August Scott River flow has been below 1,000 acre feet in 5 out of 9 years (an acre foot is the amount of water sufficient to cover an acre of land in one foot of water).

This August 343 acre feet of water flowed past the government-operated flow gauge in the Scott River below the agriculture-dominated Scott Valley. This is the second lowest August flow for the Scott ever recorded; the lowest (339 acre feet) was in 2001. But the 1980s and 1990s had only three such years and from 1960 through 1980 the Scott River’s August flow only once dipped below 1400 acre feet. That was the year of the Great California Drought - 1977. The Scott River’s August flow in 1977 was 632 acre feet.

The numbers tell a story of progressive river dewatering as more irrigation wells are drilled each year.

The Scott River accounts for the bulk of non-hatchery Klamath River Basin Coho production Along with the nearby Shasta River, which is experiencing flows nearly as bad as those in the Scott, the Scott also produces a sizable chunk of the Klamath’s non-hatchery Chinook salmon. If Chinook salmon can not reach Shasta and Scott spawning grounds this year we will be looking at yet another closure of commercial and sport fishing up and down the coast of California and Southern Oregon three and four years from now. With the loss of that fishery comes big economic losses to coastal and river communities which depend on sport and commercial fishing business

Yet, in spite of past and looming salmon disasters, the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) – the agency responsible for protecting salmon and other Public Trust Resources in California - is planning to give those responsible for the dewatering of the Scott and Shasta Rivers a free pass to keep pumping more and more water and consequently to keep killing thousands of young salmon each and every year. CDFG has proposed providing agricultural operations in the Shasta and Scott with a permit to “take” Coho salmon. As proposed, the permit would provide legal coverage for all agricultural operations – including the unlimited pumping of groundwater.

But it is that very groundwater pumping which a recent peer reviewed scientific assessment found to be the prime cause of the Scott River’s dewatering. In their 2008 statistical study of 5 streams in the Klamath Mountains published in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association, Robert Van Kirk and Seth Naman reached the following conclusion:
“39% of the observed 10 Mm3 decline in July 1-October 22 discharge (flow) in the Scott River is explained by regional-scale climatic factors. The remainder of the decline is attributable to local factors, which include an increase in irrigation withdrawal from 48 to 103 Mm3/year since the 1950s” (emphasis added).

Other nearby streams have also experienced flow declines in recent decades. But no other stream has had declines anywhere near the magnitude Van Kirk and Naman found on the Scott. The full Van Kirk-Naman study is available on line at  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119879193/abstract

For the past 25 years the US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, Bureau of Reclamation, California Department of Fish and Game and Forest Service have poured an estimated $25 million in taxpayer funds into the Scott River Basin in order to restore salmon. A similar amount has been spent in the Shasta River Basin. Yet throughout this period Chinook and Coho salmon stocks have declined while the dewatering of the Scott and Shasta Rivers progressed unabated. Most “restoration” in the Scott and Shasta River Basins has helped farmers; benefits to salmon have been minimal. Except for giving cover for continued dewatering, recovery and restoration of salmon in the Scott and Shasta has been a bust.

Managers working for the US Forest Service have been among those who have failed to take action to end the dewatering. In the Scott River Basin, the Forest Service holds a court adjudicated water right to flows in the Scott River below the agricultural Scott Valley which are sufficient to maintain salmon and other fish in “good condition”. Yet these managers have remained silent even though the adjudicated water right they hold is increasingly not being met in the late summer and fall – the very time when Chinook and Coho salmon are migrating up the Klamath in order to reach spawning streams.

Irrigators and Forest Service officials will tell you this right is secondary to irrigators’ rights. That is the way the adjudication decree reads. But the Forest Service right is riparian in origin and in California riparian rights take precedence over other water rights. Yet Forest Service managers refuse to act to stop the dewatering of the Scott.

The situation on the Scott and Shasta Rivers is evidence of the deep seated corruption which infest those agencies whose duty it is to protecting our fish and wildlife. But the self-styled “defenders” of Klamath River Salmon are also not without blame. Environmentalists, fishing organizations and Klamath River Basin tribes have been silent and inactive for far too long as the dewatering of the Scott and Shasta Rivers has progressed.

Scott River flows continue to decline today even as irrigation continues. There are rumblings of discontent and rumors that action will be taken to stop and reverse the dewatering. So far, however, no action has been taken. Will the environmental, tribal and fishing communities which have been partners in championing living rivers and salmon recovery step up, join together and act to keep corrupt state and federal officials from allowing these rivers to die? Will those who have engaged in direct action for salmon in locations as far away as Scotland, Omaha, Sacramento and Salem also act to highlight the dewatering of the Scott and Shasta Rivers?

Stay tuned!

Informativa Pacifica Logo

On August 17, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court took the rare step of ordering a new hearing for Georgia death row prisoner Troy Anthony Davis. The nation’s highest court ordered a federal district court in Georgia to “receive testimony and make findings of fact as to whether evidence that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes his innocence.”

In 1991 Davis was convicted for the 1989 killing of an off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail. There is no physical evidence tying Davis to the crime scene and seven out of the nine non-police witnesses have since recanted or altered their initial testimonies. Others have implicated the prosecution"s key remaining witnesses as the actual perpetrator of the crime.

Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion states: “This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is "actually” innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged “actual innocence” is constitutionally cognizable."

In a separate opinion answering Scalia’s dissent, Justice Stevens, joined by Justices Ruth Brader Ginsburg and Stephen Bryer, wrote “The substantial risk of putting an innocent man to death clearly provides an adequate justification for holding an evidentiary hearing.”

Read More: 1 | 2 | Capital Defense Weekly blog | TroyAnthonyDavis.org

Previous Indybay Feature: Global Day of Action for Death Row Inmate Troy Davis |

Free the Land!Ojore was released from New Jersey State Prison at 4pm on August 26th and is currently in Philadelphia getting reoriented to being on the streets. He will eventually be moving to New Jersey once he finds a space.

In the meantime, if anyone would like to donate funds to Ojore to help him get more quickly get reoriented, please contact Tim Fasnacht from the Philly chapter of the Anarchist Black Cross Federation. You can contact him at timABCF at aol dot com

In Solidarity,
ABCF

Tucson, AZ: On Tuesday, August 11 No More Deaths volunteer Walt Staton was sentenced to 300 hours of community service and 1 year unsupervised probation by federal Magistrate Jennifer Guerin. Staton was convicted on June 3, 2009 for littering, after placing clean bottles of drinking water along known migrant trails in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge (BANWR). Staton is also banned from entering the refuge for one year.

In response to the sentence, Bill Walker, Staton’s attorney, made the following statement:

“I think that the judge was very brave in not inflicting the kind of punishment that the U.S. attorney recommended. She didn’t impose a harsh fine, nor did she give 5 years probation, which is what they wanted. The U.S. Attorney’s office, on the other hand, was awful in the way they conducted themselves throughout the proceedings. They politicized this case, and made significant misrepresentations in their statements to the Court. They spent untold thousands of dollars prosecuting this case when they should be going after terrorists and others who threaten our communities. There is no reason for them to have gone after somebody who was simply doing humanitarian work, the way that they did.”

Staton, who is moving to the LA area next week to begin seminary school, stated that he will continue to support No More Deaths' life-saving work, and believes that both humanitarian groups and the government should pursue the most effective tactics possible to prevent needless suffering and death along the border.

"Before the sentencing this morning, I read a story in the local paper about another body of a migrant discovered in the desert. We have to continue working towards bringing these deaths to an end," Staton said.

Letters of support for Staton had been delivered to Magistrate Guerin from the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas, and former U.S. Attorney Bates Butler, among others.

2009 is set to be one of the deadliest years on record along the Arizona-Mexico border. Already, the U.S. Border Patrol reports 161 migrant deaths in its Tucson sector. In the past week alone, 7 bodies of unauthorized migrants were recovered in southern Arizona.

Since 2001, officials at BANWR have systematically refused to approve permits that would allow humanitarian groups to provide adequate drinking water on the wildlife refuge. Following the July 9, 2009 citation of thirteen additional humanitarian volunteers, members of No More Deaths, Tucson Samaritans and Humane Borders have sat down with various officials, including Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, regional U.S. Fish and Wildlife director Chris Pease, and BANWR manager Mike Hawkes to attempt to resolve this impasse.

Since the mid-1990s, U.S. border policy has been focused on channeling unauthorized migration into remote and fragile desert areas. This has resulted in more than 5,000 deaths along the U.S./Mexico border, and damage to protected wildlife habitat. Volunteers from No More Deaths consistently work to mitigate the environmental impact of these policies, by incorporating trash cleanup into their regular patrols. Each year, No More Deaths removes hundreds of bags of trash from the southern Arizona desert.