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Recent
Stories
May
23, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs
Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
May
22, 2003
Mark
Gaffney
Christian in Name Only
Carl
Estabrook
Republic of Fear
Carl
Camacho, Jr.
Reason for Hope
Ben
Granby
What Rates a Headline from the Middle
East?
Vanessa
Jones
Terror Alerts in Australia
Mickey
Z.
Instant Understanding
Don
Monkerud
Snowballs in a Soggy Economy
Barry Lando
The Nether-Nether World of G.W. Bush
Steve
Perry
Total Information
Awareness: Secret Shadow Program?
May
21, 2003
Dave
Lindorff
Ari Fleischer Quits the Scene: The
Liar's Gone, the Enablers Remain
Chris
Floyd
How Blood Money Becomes Business Opportunity
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Graham's God and Bush's Pathology
Patrick
Cockburn
In Post War Iraq, the Signs of Breakdown
are Everywhere
Brian Cloughley
The Fatuous Braintrust: Newt, Rummy and Wolfowitz
Saul
Landau
Shopping, the End of the World and the Politics of Bush
Larry Kearney
Two Morning Poems, May 2003
Steve
Perry
Chaos in Iraq: Just What the US Wanted?
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Justice Comes to Iraq
May
20, 2003
Tariq
Ali
The Empire Advances
Ahmad
Faruqui
Whither American Nationalism?
Ben Tripp
Dialysis with Osama
Linda
Heard
The Cage of Occupation
Cynthia
McKinney
Toward a Just and Peaceful World
Edward
Said
The Arab Condition
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Why Ari Should Have Resigned in Protest Long Ago
Stew
Albert
Yale Men
Steve Perry
The New Face of Al-Qaeda
May
19, 2003
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
A Letter to Kofi Annan on Powell's Missing
Evidence
CounterPunch
Wire
"Terror" Slut Steve Emerson
Eats Crow
John
Chuckman
Blair's Awkward Lies
Matt
Vidal
Corporate Media and the Myth of the Free Market
Michael
S. Ladah
The Fine Print to Bush's Road Map
Robert
Fisk
Bush's Eternal War Backfires
Elaine
Cassel
Clarence Thomas, Still Whining After All These Years
Jonathan
Freedland
Ann Coulter's Appalling Magic
Steve Perry
Play It Again, O-Sam-a
May
17 / 18, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Children's Teeth
Peter
Linebaugh
An American Tribute to Christopher
Hill
Gary
Leupp
Nepal Today
Rock and
Rap Confidential
The Republican Plot Against the Dixie Chicks
Walter
Sommerfeld
Plundering Baghdad's Museums
Ron Jacobs
Condy Rice's Yipping Tirades
Thomas
P. Healy
Dubya Does Indy
Tarif Abboushi
Bush, Sharon and the Roadmap
Francis
Boyle
Debating US War Crimes in Iraq
Mark Davis
An Interview with Richard Butler
Richard
Lichtman
American Mourning
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Overcoming Terrorism
Adam
Engel
Uncle Sam is YOU!
Alan Maas
The Best News Show on TV
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Albert
Elaine
Cassel
Good Enough for an Alien
Website
of the Weekend
The 37 Americans Who Run Iraq
Song of
the Weekend
Talkin' Sounds Just Like Joe McCarthy Blues
May
16, 2003
Leah
Wells
In Iraq Water and Oil Do Mix
Ben Tripp
Fear Itself
Sharon
Smith
The Resegregation of US Schools
Ramzy Baroud
Does Defeat Have to be So Humiliating?
Sam
Hamod
A Nation of Fear
Phil Reeves
Baghdad Pays the Price
Robert
McChesney
The FCC's Big Grab
Mark Engler
Those Who Don't Count
Steve
Perry
We're All
Extras in Bush's Movie
Website
of the Day
Iraq and Our
Energy Future
May
15, 2003
Ayesha
Iman and Sindi Medar-Gould
How
Not to Help Amina Lawal: The Hidden Dangers of Letter
Writing Campaigns
Julie
Hilden
Moussaoui and the Camp X-Ray Detainees:
Can He Get a Fair Trial?
Tanya
Reinhart
Bush's Roadmap: a Ticket to Failure
Laura Carlsen
Here We Go Again: NAFTA Plus or Minus?
Kenneth
Rapoza
The New Fakers: State Dept. Undercuts
New Yorker's Goldberg
Stew Albert
A Story I Will Tell
Steve
Perry
Bush's Little
Nukes
Website
of the Day
Strip-o-Rama
May
14, 2003
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Jason
Leopold
The Pentagon and Hallburton: a Secret
November Deal for Iraq's Oil
David
Lindorff
Fighting the Patriot Act: Now It's
Alaska
John
Chuckman
Giggling into Chaos
Jack
McCarthy
Twin Towers of Journalism: Racism
and Double Standards
Wayne
Madsen
Assassinating JFK Again
M.
Junaid Alam
The Longer View
Paul
de Rooij
The New Hydra's Head:
Propagandists and the Selling of the US/Iraq War
James
Reiss
What? Me Worry?
Steve Perry
More on Saudi Arabia Bombings
Website
of the Day
A Tribute to Ted Joans
May
13, 2003
Saul
Landau
Clear Channel Fogs the Airwaves
Michael
Neumann
Has Islam Failed? Not by Western
Standards
Uri
Avnery
My Meeting with Arafat
Steve Perry
The Saudi Arabia Bombing
Jacob
Levich
Democracy Comes to Iraq: Kick Their Ass and Grab Their Gas
William
Lind
The Hippo and the Mongoose: a Question of Military Theory
The
Black Commentator
Fraud at the Times: Blaming Blacks for White Folks' Mistakes
Stew Albert
Asylum
Hammond
Guthrie
An Illogical Reign
Website
of the Day
Sy Hersh: War and Intelligence
May
12, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Bush, Bin Laden, Bechtel, and Baghdad
Dave
Lindorff
America's Dirty Bombs
Sam
Hamod and Elaine Cassel
Resisting the Bush Administration's War on Liberty
Uzi
Benziman
Sharon and Sons, Inc.
Jason
Leopold
The Decline and Fall of Thomas White
Rich Procter
George Jumps the Shark
Federico
Moscogiuri
Going to Israel? Sign or Else
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/12
Book
of the Day
Fooling
Marty Peretz
Website
of the Day
T-Shirts to Protest In
Hot Stories
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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May
23, 2003
Tigar to Ashcroft:
"Secrecy
is the Enemy of Democratic Government"
By ELAINE CASSEL
Activist attorney Lynne Stewart, who was court-appointed
to defend the blind Sheik Abdel Rahman in charges arising out
of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is charged with aiding
and abetting her client's "acts of terrorism" by speaking
to the press about her client's politicial position. She is being
criminally prosecuted for doing what lawyers do--advocating and
speaking for her client. In the world according to John Ashcroft,
the lawyer becomes synonymous with the client. This is an unheard
of spin on the attorney-client relationship, one that defies
hundreds of years of history of professional obligation and duty.
Ashcroft has made lawyers--as well as their clients--targets
in his war on civil liberties. He would vilify lawyers who uphold
the highest tradition of their profession.
Now Michael Tigar, an activist himself,
who has spent his lifetime representing controversial clients
and causes (and as the target of an FBI false smear tactic, former
Supreme Court Justice Brennan withdrew his offer to the young
Tigar to clerk for him), is representing Lynne Stewart. No case
could be more fitting for him than this one. And in this terrorist
trial, the government has an attorney who won't be timid in calling
the judge and the prosecutors on their illegal conduct.
In a letter Tigar wrote to Judge Koeltl
on May 21, Tigar lambasts the prosecutor's suggestions that it,
and it alone, will decide what evidence Tigar and his client
get to see. Though the prosecutor refers to the documents as
"classified," no proof, let alone rationale, of their
classified status has been disclosed. Morever, the prosecutors
say that as to the documents they will let Tigar and his team
see, they, the prosecuors and/or their agents, will "monitor"
Tigar and his staff to see what they do with the information.
Of course, they may also be monitoring his meetings with his
client. Ashcroft wrote that into law a couple of years ago.
The judge signed an order agreeing to
the government's proposal, before Tigar had an opportunity to
comment on the plan. Tigar warns the judge that the court's control
of the evidence is a violation of the separation of powers between
the Executive (that would be DOJ and Ashcroft) and the Judiciary
(Judge Koeltl) branches of government, and a violation of defendant's
due process rights.
Incredibly, Tigar's letter to the judge
is dated the same day the story broke about the government's
secreting of evidence from alleged drug kingpin Ochoa and his
attorney (see the article on this page). As I noted, Ochoa's
attorney, Roy Black, suggested that the government might be trying
to hide its own misconduct in extorting money from drug lords
to aid the efforts of the right-wing paramilitary in Colombia.
In the Stewart case, Tigar pulls no punches
in calling it as he sees it: "The secrecy in this case,"
he says, "apparently relates to political acitivty in Egypt.
Given the United States official support for the Mubarak regime,
it is certainly possible that the government is using secrety
as a shield for preferring that regime's state-sponsored terrorism
to non-governmental criminality directed at regime change."
Tigar goes on to warn the judge that
the message to lawyers and clerks who are involved in the case,
that they must be subject to "background checks" if
they wish to read case documents, sends the same message that
the FBI, by its own words, tried to send him as a young man--that
they would teach the young Tigar a "bitter lesson"
in return for his dissident views.
Tigar indeed learned a lesson--and learned
it well. He learned not to sit stll for government threats and
to fight back at injustice. Tigar will confront the government
and Judge Koeltl in arguments on important motions in federal
court in New York City on June 13. The trial is set for January
2004.
Click here for more about the Lynne Stewart case.
Elaine Cassel
practices law in Virginia and the District of Columbia, teaches
law and psychology, and writes Civil
Liberties Watch under the auspices of The City Pages. She
can be reached at: ecassel1@cox.net
Today's
Features
Mark
Gaffney
Christian in Name Only
Carl
Estabrook
Republic of Fear
Carl
Camacho, Jr.
Reason for Hope
Ben
Granby
What Rates a Headline from the Middle
East?
Vanessa
Jones
Terror Alerts in Australia
Mickey
Z.
Instant Understanding
Don
Monkerud
Snowballs in a Soggy Economy
Barry Lando
The Nether-Nether World of G.W. Bush
Steve
Perry
Total Information
Awareness: Secret Shadow Program?
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