CCR Annual Report 2005 - Center for Constitutional Rights

ABUSE:DOMESTICFRONT
14
CCR v Government Misconduct
Our domestic litigation and advocacy efforts strive to protect us all from the unwarranted
erosion of our fundamental civil liberties and constitutional rights. In May, CCR
testified before a Congressional Subcommittee on the ways the Patriot Act has been used
– and abused – since its passage, calling the conditions of confinement for material
witnesses “tantamount to unconstitutional preventive detention.” CCR also successfully
challenged material support provisions of the Patriot Act in federal court this past
summer when a judge ruled the provisions unconstitutional for the third time, despite
Congress’s attempt to rework them.
Plaintiffs in CCR’s case Turkmen v. Ashcroft were among the earliest victims of the
government’s post-September 11 zeal for arbitrary and indefinite detention. The
Turkmen case is a class action challenge to the government’s round-up of more than
1,200 Muslim and Arab men for minor immigration violations, many of whom were held
for as long as nine months while the FBI and INS cleared them of any connection to
terrorism. Videotapes also document many instances of abuse. As discovery in the case
proceeds, we have successfully negotiated with the government to allow our clients to
return to the United States to testify this fall.
The government tactic of using immigration law as a substitute for criminal proceedings
predates the Turkmen case. CCR is one of several parties representing a group of
Palestinian immigrants known as the L.A. 8 who have faced possible deportation for the
past 18 years as a result of their participation in a 1987 charity fundraiser. The case was
supposed to come to a conclusion this summer, and CCR stood ready to defend them in
court, but the government once again postponed the hearing.
On another front, in December 2004, CCR filed a federal lawsuit against Donald
Rumsfeld on behalf of eight soldiers challenging the Armed Services’ so-called “stop loss”
policy that would require them to serve far beyond their enlistment contracts. The men
had all completed their service obligations and sought only for the military to fulfill its
end of the bargain and allow them to return to their families.
CCR is committed to combating government excesses for the duration of the openended
“war on terror.”