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July
23, 2003
Uri
Avnery
Caesar's Favor
David
Lindorff
Lynne Stewart's Big Win: Ashcroft
Rebuked
Mano
Singham
Iraq's Missing WMD Scientists
Steve
Perry
Better Late Than Never: the Press, the Dems, and Bush's Lies
John Stanton
Avoiding Plato's Republic in America: Is Anarchy the Only Hope?
Patrick
Bond
Bush and South Africa: a Petro-Military-Commerce Mission
Harry Browne
A Victory for a Disarming Irishwoman
Paul
Beaulieu
When the WTO Comes to Montreal
Robert
Fisk
The Sons are Dead, But the Resistance
Will Grow
William
Witherup
Georgie Porgie
Website
of the Day
Lieberman & Falwell:
True Love at Last
July
22, 2003
Diane
Christian
Bad Guy / Good Guy: War Forces;
Peace Frees
Jeremy
Brecher
Solidarity and Student Protests in Iran
Steve
Kretzmann
and Jim Vallette
Plugging Iraq into Globalization
Sam
Smith
Greening the Golden Triangle
James
Plummer
Smile, You're on Federal Camera
Lucretia
Stewart
This Day Shall Not Define My Life:
January 18, 2003
Website
of the Day
Iraq Coalition Casualties
July
21, 2003
Edward
Said
Imperial Arrogance and the Vile Stereotyping
of Arabs
Ron
Jacobs
Shut Up and Shoot
Allan J.
Lichtman
Why is George Bush President?
Elaine
Cassel
How's the Occupation Going? Ask the People of Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
History Recapitulates: Guantanamo and the Japanese Internment
Camps
Bruce
Jackson
Third and Arizona, Santa Monica
Website
of the Day
John Dean: Taking Apart Bush's State of the Union Speech, Claim
by Claim
July
19 / 20, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
Will the Pax Americana be More Sustainable
Than the Dot.com Bubble?
Julian
Bond
We Shall be Heard
Cynthia
McKinney
Bush's Racial Politics at Home and Abroad
Mel
Goodman
What is to be Done with the CIA?
Jason Leopold
Tenet Blames Wolfowitz
Mickey
Z.
History Forgave Churchill
Doug Giebel
Impeachment as the Message
Jon
Brown
Whipping the Post
Mano Singham
Cheney's Oil Maps
Steven
Sherman
Nickle, Dimed and Slimed at UNC
Robin Philpot
Liberia: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, It Stutters
Khaldoun
Khelil
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Jeffrey
St. Clair
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Vanessa
Jones
Three Dog Night
Adam
Engel
Video Judas Video
Poets'
Basement
Foley, Smith and Curtis
Website
of the Weekend
Illegal Art
July
18, 2003
David
Vest
Drowning in Deep Doo-Doo
Rahul
Mahajan
Deceit Runs Deep
John Chuckman
Enron-style Management in a Dangerous World
Harold
A. Gould
The Bush-Musharraf Conclave
Alvaro
Angarita
In the Eye of the Storm: Colombia's War on Journalists
David
Grenier
Sovereignty and Solidarity in Indian Country...Rhode Island
Dave Lindorff
Bush and Hitler: a Response to the Wall Street Journal
Website
of the Day
Murder of a Whistleblower? Timeline in David Kelly Affair
July
17, 2003
Ron
Jacobs
Sometimes Even the President of the
United States Has to Stand Naked
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Bush Country: the Venom and Adulation of Ignorance
Martin
Schwarz
Bush Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine is the Bane of Non-Proliferation
Watchdogs
Heidi
Lypps
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Drugging and the Supreme Court
Norman
Madarasz
Third Ways and Third Worlds: Lula at the Progressive Governance
Conference
Pankaj
Mehta
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Marjorie
Cohn
Bush, War Lies & Impeachment: the
Boy Who Cried Wolf
Hammond
Guthrie
(Dis) Intelligence Revisited
Website
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No Force, No Fraud: the Soul of Libertarianism
July
16, 2003
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Told White House to Hype
Dubious Uranium Claims
William
Cook
Defining Terrorism from the Top Down
Elaine
Cassel
Judge Brinkema v. Ashcroft: She Whom
Must Not Be Obeyed
Jason
Leopold
How Can They Justify the War If WMDs Are Never Found?
Linda Heard
Bondage or Freedom?
Raymond
Barrett
From Detroit to Basra
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Back to the Future in Guatemala:
The Return of Gen. Ríos Montt
July
15, 2003
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Why We Resigned from VIPS
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft's War on Legal Whistleblowers:
the Ordeal of Jesselyn Radack
Chris
Floyd
Barge Poles: Oil Wars and New Europe's Mercenaries
Jason
Leopold
CIA Warned White House Last October that Niger Docs were Forgeries
Gaius Publius
Considering the Obvious: Fool Us Once, Fool Us Twise...Please
John
Troyer
The Niger Syndrome
Becky Gillette
No Conspiracy at Coffeen Nature Preserve: a Response to David
Orrr
Uri
Avnery
The Bi-National State: The Wolf Shall
Dwell with the Lamb
Website
of the Day
Cost of Iraq War
July
14, 2003
Lisa
Taraki
Hot Days in Ramallah
Walter
Brasch
Bush: the Pretend Captain
SOA
Watch
Training Colombia's Killers in the US
Dan Bacher
Yurok Tribe Denounces Klamath River Salmon Killers
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Intelligence Unglued
Website
of the Day
Coalition for Democratic Rights and Civil Liberties
July 12 / 13, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
The Double Wall Before the Future
Standard
Schaefer
The Coming Financial Reality: an
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John Feffer
A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang
Ron
Jacobs
Shades of Gray in Iran
Elaine
Cassel
Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights
Tom
Stephens
Civil Liberties After 9/11
David Lindorff
New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On"
Jason
Leopold
The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11
Lee Sustar
What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia?
Mickey
Z.
AIDS Dissent and Africa
Sam Hamod
Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group
Ramzy
Baroud
Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller
Adam
Engel
Parable of the Lobbyist
Robert
Sanders
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Poets'
Basement
Albert, Witherup, Guthrie
July
11, 2003
Conn
Hallinan
The Coin of Empire
Tim
Wise
God Responds to Bush
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The Two Faces of Bush in Africa
Edward
S. Herman
Whitewashing Sandra Day O'Connor
David Orr
Coffeen-gate: What's Going on at the Sierra Club Foundation?
David
Lindorff
An Iraq War & Occupation Glossary
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of the Day
Dead Malls
July
10, 2003
Ron
Jacobs
Dealing with the Devil: the Bloody
Profits of General Dynamics
Sean
Donahue
Bush and the Paramillitaries: Coddling Terrorists in Colombia
Yemi
Toure
Who Outted Bush in Afrika?
Robert
Jensen
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with Wes Jackson
Ali
Abunimah
US Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated
Joanne
Mariner
Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions
Website
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Electronic Iraq
July
9, 2003
David
Lindorff
Is the Media Finally Turning on
Bush?
David
Krieger and Angela McCracken
10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons
Mickey
Z.
Why Speak Out?
Lee Sustar
The Great Medicare Fraud
John
Chuckman
The Worst Kind of Lie
Gary Leupp
"Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq
Website
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Hail to the Thief:
Songs for the Bush Years
July
8, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Bully on the Bench: the Pathological
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Alan
Maass
Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor
Chris
Floyd
Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag
Linda
S. Heard
America's Kangaroo Justice
Brian
Cloughley
They Tell Lies to Nodders
Charles
Sullivan
Bush the Christian?
Saul
Landau
The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age
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Occupation Watch
July
7, 2003
William
Blum
The Anti-Empire Report
Harvey
Wasserman
The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head
Ramzy
Baroud
Peace for All the Wrong Reasons
Simon
Jones
What Progressives Should Think About
Iran
Lesley
McCulloch
Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh
Uri
Avnery
The Draw
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3
July
4 / 6, 2003
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Cockburn
Dead on the Fourth of July
Frederick
Douglass
What is Freedom to a Slave?
Martha
Honey
Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation
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Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and
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Lenni Brenner
Jefferson is for Today
Elaine
Cassel
Fucking Furious on the Fourth
Ben Tripp
How Free Are We?
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Madsen
A Sad Independence Day
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Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War
Jim
Lobe
Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment
John Blair
Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Heavy Reckoning at Qaim
David Vest
Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite
Adam
Engel
Queer as Grass
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Cassel
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Embedded Photographer Says: "I
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Uzma
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July
24, 2003
How Many More Strikes
Does Ashcroft Get?
Lawyer
Lynne Stewart Isn't a Terrorist; But Is It Possible for Attorneys
to Defend Terror Suspects?
By ELAINE CASSEL
John Ashcroft must be tearing out his primly coiffed
hair about now. On July 21, Federal District Judge John G. Koeltl
(Southern District of New York) dismissed the terrorist charges
against New York attorney Lynne Stewart. In a 77-page opinion,
Judge Koeltl agreed with famed civil rights attorney Michael
Tigar's argument that the anti-terrorist act under which she
was charged was overly vague as applied to attorney speech and
conduct related to client representation.
Stewart had been charged with aiding
and abetting the terrorist activities of Sheikh Abdel Rahman,
whom she, as court-appointed attorney, defended in connection
with the 1993 bombings of the World Trade Center. After visiting
her client in prison, Stewart answered a press question about
Rahman's support of a cease-fire of then ongoing terrorist activities,
including the bombings of U.S. embassies. She said that he did
not support a cease-fire. That statement was the basis of one
of the charges that could have put her away for 15 years (she
faced 40 years if convicted of all four charges). The other had
to do with her supposedly being a "mouthpiece" to pass
on messages from Rahman to the organization he was tied to, the
Islamic Group, which is on the government's list of terrorist
organizations.
Judge Koeltl said that the provision
in the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act that forbids providing communication
methods and personnel to a terrorist organization did not give
an attorney notice that communicating with our about his or her
client could amount to conspiring to engage in terrorism.
"The Government accuses Stewart
of providing personnel, including herself, to [the Islamic Group],"
Koeltl said. "In so doing, however, the Government fails
to explain how a lawyer, acting as an agent of her client, an
alleged leader of an FTO [foreign terrorist organization], could
avoid being subject to the criminal prosecution as a 'quasi-employee'
allegedly covered by the statute."
Attorney General John Ashcroft, in his
ongoing war on defense attorneys, would have liked to be able
to charge attorneys who represent alleged terrorism suspects
with being terrorists themselves. According to his losing line
of reasoning, Stewart's providing her legal services to a terrorist
and using the phone to communicate with him was a violation of
the law that presaged loss of liberties under the USA Patriot
Act (as with the Patriot Act, few people took notice of the Anti-Terrorism
Act when passed).
Koeltl refused to find the material support
for terrorism statute unconstitutionally overbroad, saying its
prohibitions are content-neutral and its purposes are "aimed
not at speech but at conduct." He let stand charges that
Stewart violated the conditions imposed upon her when she visited
Rahman in his prison hospital cell. It was there that she is
alleged to have used subterfuge so that her client could pass
messages to the Islamic Group through an interpreter whom Stewart
brought with her to translate her conversations with Rahman (Stewart
does not speak Arabic).
Ashcroft signed an executive order giving
him the power to order the Bureau of Prisons to snoop in on certain
attorney-client conversations. Stewart was the first, and to
date only, defense attorney charged with violating the conditions
imposed on attorney-client communications. Known as SAMs (Special
Administrative Measures), the conditions are arbitrarily imposed
at the whim of the Attorney General. The defense lawyer only
knows that he or she may be bugged while engaging in what used
to be thought of as sacrosanct communication afforded the highest
and oldest privilege under the law--the attorney client privilege.
Stewart did not know she was under surveillance until she was
indicted.
While not admitting that she violated
the SAMs, Tigar argued that Stewart was forced to sign what the
government put before her in order to fulfill her duty to her
client. A strong argument could be made that the purpose of SAMs
are to chill attorney-client conduct related to certain defendants.
Under these onerous conditions an attorney has two choices: sign
the SAM and see the client, or not-sign and abrogate their legal
duty to the client. It is troubling that Judge Koeltl let these
charges stand. A government win on this will strike a severe
blow to defense attorneys. For while few defense attorneys may
be charged as terrorists, any attorney representing anyone upon
whom Ashcroft wants to conduct surveillance (or even the attorney
herself) could be the target of a SAM.
The net result of Judge Koeltl's decision
is that while Stewart is not facing terrorist charges, she is
being charged for other crimes arising out of the same acts--speaking
to and about her client. The heart of the case against Stewart
remains what it always has been--defending the 6th amendment
rights of defendants to have a meaningful defense (hard to do
with the government is listening to your conversations with your
client) and the right of attorneys to diligently and zealously
represent their clients, as lawyer conduct codes demand.
Stewart and Tigar were guests on the
July 23 edition of Democracy Now, the Pacifica Radio Network
show hosted by Amy Goodman. Tigar said that Judge Koeltl's opinion
protects not only lawyers from being charged as terrorists, but
ordinary citizens from being prosecuted for speaking out against
events such as aspects of the war on terror and the war in Iraq.
Not willing to call it quits just yet,
prosecutors said they were exploring possibilities of an appeal.
"We continue to believe that the statute prohibiting material
support of terrorism is constitutional, and we are reviewing
our appellate options," said a spokesman for James B. Comey,
the United States attorney in Manhattan.
Elaine Cassel
practices law in Virginia and the District of Columbia, teachers
law and psychology, and follows the Bush regime's dismantling
of the Constitution at Civil
Liberties Watch. She can be reached at: ecassel1@cox.net
Weekend Edition Features for July 19 / 20, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
Will the Pax Americana be More Sustainable
Than the Dot.com Bubble?
Julian
Bond
We Shall be Heard
Cynthia
McKinney
Bush's Racial Politics at Home and Abroad
Mel
Goodman
What is to be Done with the CIA?
Jason Leopold
Tenet Blames Wolfowitz
Mickey
Z.
History Forgave Churchill
Doug Giebel
Impeachment as the Message
Jon
Brown
Whipping the Post
Mano Singham
Cheney's Oil Maps
Steven
Sherman
Nickle, Dimed and Slimed at UNC
Robin Philpot
Liberia: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, It Stutters
Khaldoun
Khelil
Capturing Friedman
Jeffrey
St. Clair
You Must Leave Home, Again: Gilad Atzmon's A Guide to the Perplexed
Lenni
Brenner
Sitting in with Mingus
Vanessa
Jones
Three Dog Night
Adam
Engel
Video Judas Video
Poets'
Basement
Foley, Smith and Curtis
Website
of the Weekend
Illegal Art
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