It is my good fortune that the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Tax Professionals are both holding their annual conferences this week in San Francisco. If it's Tueday, I must be at the Hilton. Wednesday is the Hyatt Regency. :-)
Last week, Liz and I were in the Berkshires, taking one last vacation before the baby arrives. We got home on Monday night, and Tuesday morning I was on my way to San Francisco. I arrived in time for the opening of the ACLU conference Tuesday night. Playwright Eve Ensler ("The Vagina Monologues") introduced ACLU President Nadine Strossen, and then ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero walked us through the history of the organization. He pointed out that "We not only have the right to criticize the government, but we also have the responsibility."
In talking about the recent Supreme Court cases involving the detainees, he reminded us that the ACLU had taken the case of the Japanese confined to internment camps in WWII. They lost the case, something Congress finally remedied in 1981, but the man who brought the suit was sitting among us!
Romero talked about politicians who govern by polling. He quoted Churchill, who was advised to run England "with his ear to the ground." He replied disdainfully that "In that position it would be hard for the people to look up to us."
Later, we had a workshop on how to talk to Congress about mitigating the Patriot Act. We were told before it started that "This is for Activists. Voyeurs, leave the room!"
Wednesday morning, over breakfast, Steven Shapiro, the ACLU's Legal Director, walked us through the recent Supreme Court decisions. Regarding the trilogy of 9/11 cases, he said tha tthe Administration cynically kept detainees in Guantanamo Bay because it is part of sovereign Cuba, and therefore the US courts have no jurisdiction. They exist in a lawless area, subject, perhaps, only to the jurisdiction of Cuba. They argued that the Supreme Court, therefore, did not have standing to hear the case. The Supreme Court rejected this argument. Shapiro wondered out loud about what would have happened if the detainees actually brought a case in the Cuban court system! :-)
Then the administration had the audacity to claim that the Geneva Convention did not apply to us because it only applied to incidents that occur on foreign soil and Guantanamo is part of the US!
In the first case, Justice Stevens wrote that the foreign nationals incarcerated in Guantanamo have the right to their day in court, though he didn't specify how or when or even which court. In the case of Hamdi, the US citizen captured in Afghanistan, the Administration argued that he was an "Enemy Combatant" because the President said so. Justice O'Connor acknowledged that this was a possibility, in that he was captured on foreign soil, but that he, too, had the right to a hearing of some sort. In the case of Padilla, though, they passed the buck by telling him that he filed his claim in the wrong court. Based on O'Connor's Hamdi decision, however, when it finally comes back to the Supreme Court, they will have to revert his case back to the criminal court system and out of the military court system.
Shapiro also talked about the 1789 law that allows non-citizens to come to US court to sue torturers for compensation, and a couple of other cases.
Then I got a cab and came to the NATP Conference, where I heard the new IRS Commissioner Iverson, and did some income tax learning. :-) At 5, I got another cab back to the ACLU conference, where we had dinner with speakers Sandra Tsing Loh, filmmaker John Sayles, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, and comedian Greg Proops.
Sayles said he got a lot of flack from his friends when he won his MacArthur "genius" grant twenty years ago. His friends told him that if Kissinger could win a peace prize, then they supposed that Sayles could win a "genius" award. :-) He also showed us some clips of his new movie, "Silver City," that will open on Sept. 17th, and is a parable about Bush.
Sy Hersh was very pessimistic. He said that the Arabs have little alternative now but to see us as immoral. He told us that he talked to an Israeli, one "who has blood on his hands," who said that "We hate the Arabs, and the Arabs hate us. But we know that one day we must live as neighbors. If we did what you did," talking about the American humiliation and torture, "we would never, ever be able to live as neighbors with the Arabs. You can't do what you did."
He also saw the election as "Bush against Bush." He said that one of the most courageous things he saw was John Kerry's testimony to Congress in 1971, and he wished that Kerry would recapture who he was then instead of pandering to the right.
Then we all went downstairs to watch "Farenheit 9/11." After which I took another cab back to the Hyatt Regency, where I will stay for the remainder of the Tax Conference. Speakers I missed or will miss include Richard Clarke, Daniel Ellsberg, a discussion with FBI whistle blower Coleen Rowley and former Republican Congressman Bob Barr, and a debate between Colorado Governor Bill Owens and former VT Governor Howard Dean. But you can see them by going to www.aclu.org.
Years ago, I was at a dinner party and was talking to the daughter of some friends of my parents, who had just finished law school. While we were talking, I could see wheels turning in her head as whatever I was saying reminded her of something she learned in law school. "You're a, uh, 'civil libertarian,' aren't you?" she asked.
"Sometimes," I replied. "Sometimes I'm not civil."
- David Block
