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February
1, 2002
Francis
Schor
The
Strange Career
of Frank Carlucci
David
Vest
10
Things I Know About Him
January
31, 2002
Rahul
Mahajan
The
State of the Union:
A New Cold War
Dave Marsh
Miles
Copeland, War
and the Future of Music
John Pilger
The
Colder War
Alexander
Cockburn
American
Journal:
Killer Dog, Weird Couple
Dr. Susan
Block
Blowback
and Daniel Pearl
January
30, 2002
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Linda
Lay, Hill and Knowlton and the Tears of a Clown
Jack McCarthy
Free
Noelle Bush!
Michael
Ratner
Memo
to Bush: Adhere to
the Geneva Convention
Jay Moore
Proud
to be an American?
Susan
Block
The
Great Pretzel Swallower
and Guantanamo Porn
January
29, 2002
Gary Leupp
Why
This War Was, and Remains, Utterly Wrong
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Birds of Kandahar
Patrick
Cockburn
Afghan
Opium Trade
Back in Business
January
28, 2002
Larry
Chin
Brosnahan
for the Defense
Mokhiber/Weissman
Tyranny
of the Bottom Line
George
E. Curry
Civil
Rights Nominee Called Affirmative Action "Racist"
Sen. Russ
Feingold
Campaign
Finance Reform?
Think Enron
John Chuckman
Liberal?
Media?
January
27, 2002
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Enron's
Drip, Drip, Drip
Tom Turnipseed
MLK
Jr.'s Dream Perverted
January
26, 2002
Norman
Madarsz
Adieu,
Bourdieu
January
25, 2002
National
Lawyers Guild
Know
Your Rights
Alexander
Cockburn
You
Call This Terrorism?
CounterPunch
Wire
Cal
Energy Crisis Hoax:
It Wasn't A Shortage,
It Was a Shakedown
Tariq
Ali
Kashmir,
Klinghoffer,
the Kurds and Chomsky
Nadine
Strossen
Protecting
MLK Jr.'s Legacy:
Justice and Liberty After 9/11
January
24, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Turkey
Targets Chomsky
Dean Baker
Lying
on Top:
Ken Lay One of Many
David
Vest
Idiot
Wind
January
23, 2002
Terry
Waite
Guantanamo
Prisoners:
Justice or Revenge?
Molly
Secours
The
Case of Abu-Ali:
Racism and the Death Penalty
Robert
Jensen
Speak
Out, Get Slimed
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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February 1,
2002
Why We're Suing Ashcroft
By Jeremy Voas
Detroit
Metro Times
A journalism axiom cautions us to report the news,
not make the news. It's a worthy maxim. Be an independent observer,
not a participant.
But it's also finite principle, and its
limits have been obliterated in the case of Michigan resident
Rabih Haddad, whose immigration hearings have been arbitrarily
and, I believe, unconstitutionally closed to the public and the
press.
The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Service is attempting to deport Haddad. So Metro Times is suing
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and two immigration judges
in an attempt to learn what the government is doing with Haddad,
and why it is doing it.
This publication has joined U.S. Rep.
John Conyers (D-Detroit) and the Detroit News in an attempt to
force federal Immigration Judge Elizabeth Hacker to convene a
hearing and determine whether the government has cause to bar
Haddad's family, the public and the press from what are normally
public proceedings. The American Civil Liberties Union is filing
the case on behalf of the plaintiffs. The Detroit Free Press
was said to be poised to file a lawsuit as well.
INS agents took Haddad, 41, into custody
at his residence on Dec. 14, accusing him of overstaying his
tourist visa. The arrest occurred during the Muslim holy month
of Ramadan in front of Haddad's wife and four children. Haddad,
a citizen of Lebanon, served as an assistant imam at the Islamic
Center of Ann Arbor and has been in the United States off and
on for 20 years. He is also a founder and board member of the
Global Relief Foundation, an Illinois-based charity which federal
officials suspect of funding terrorist organizations. The feds
have provided no proof that this is so.
In secret proceedings, Haddad has twice
been denied bond. He was held in solitary confinement in the
Monroe County Jail until Jan. 11, when he was removed, en route
for a jail in Chicago, where he has again been in solitary.
Our lawsuit should not be viewed as an
endorsement of Haddad or the Global Relief Foundation. We have
no position on his immigration status or alleged involvement
in a group suspected of terrorist ties -- though people who know
him well avow that he is a peace-loving and law-abiding man.
(An application for permanent residency status, which he filed
in April 2001, generally forestalls any deportation attempt.)
The truth is, we don't know whether the
government's suspicions about Haddad are justified.
But we -- and you -- have a right to
find out. And he has a right to a fair and open trial. That's
why we are demanding a hearing over the propriety of this Stassi
impersonation. We are demanding that hearings in Haddad's case
-- the next one is set for Feb. 19 -- be opened to the public
and press and that transcripts of past proceedings be made public.
Metro Times reporters Ann Mullen and
Lisa M. Collins have attempted to attend hearings in Haddad's
case. So has Conyers, who is the ranking Democrat of the House
Judiciary Committee, which oversees immigration laws. Like everyone
else -- including Haddad himself, who watched the proceedings
on closed circuit TV from his jail cell -- Mullen, Collins and
Conyers and scores of others were denied entry.
Our complaint, drafted by Michael Steinberg,
legal director of the Michigan chapter of the ACLU, asserts that
the public and press have First Amendment rights and due process
rights to attend Haddad's hearings.
According to the complaint, Judge Hacker
confirmed to Haddad's attorney that her decision to close all
proceedings was prompted by a Sept. 21 memo issued by Chief Immigration
Judge David Creppy. Hacker further stated that Creppy's memo
removed her authority to hear arguments over the opening of proceedings.
Creppy, Hacker and Ashcroft are listed as defendants in our lawsuit.
The INS is a division of the Justice Department.
Creppy's memo to his subordinate immigration
judges states, in part: "[T]he Attorney General has implemented
additional security procedures for certain cases in the Immigration
Court. Those procedures require us to hold the hearings individually,
to close the hearings to the public, and to avoid discussing
the case or otherwise disclosing any information about the case
to anyone outside the Immigration Court...
"If any of these cases are filed
in your court, you will be notified by [Creppy's office] that
special procedures are to be implemented...
"Each of these cases is to be heard
separately from all other cases. The courtroom must be closed
for these cases -- no visitors, no family and no press."
No way.
Our lawsuit is the first in the nation
to challenge the constitutionality of Creppy's directive.
The Creppy memo is but one in a litany
of chilling directives and initiatives emanating from the Bush
administration, Ashcroft and his minions in the wake of the terrorist
attacks. Military tribunals, wiretaps on demand, eavesdropping
on attorney-client communications, blatant and wholesale suppression
of public records -- reams of data that do not belong to Ashcroft
or Bush, but rather to the people.
Americans' innate patriotism and fear
over their security have provided convenient cover for Ashcroft
to unleash a fusillade on the Constitution -- a document that
is supposed to separate us from lower orders of governance.
The centerpiece of the incipient assault
is the USA Patriot Act, whose provisions also allowed the Treasury
Department to freeze the assets of the Global Relief Foundation
the same day Haddad was arrested.
Yet the government admits it doesn't
have enough evidence to add Global Relief to a list of 168 organizations
directly linked to funding terrorism and insists that Haddad's
detention is not related to the case against Global Relief.
"The government has reasonable cause
to believe they are funneling money to terrorists," a U.S.
Treasury spokeswoman told Metro Times.
I have reasonable cause to believe that
my government is behaving like a banana republic, beyond reproach
or accountability. I loathe it, and you should too.
To paraphrase a man the Bush team worships:
Mr. Ashcroft, tear down this wall.
Open the courtroom. Let the public see
what its government is doing in its name. Let us all judge for
ourselves.
Until then, see you in court.
Jeremy Voas
is editor of the Detroit Metro Times. He can be reached at jvoas@metrotimes.com
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