Meeting on February 1, 2007

Upper Bucks for Democracy
Thursday, February 1, 7:00 p.m.
Plumstead Township Building
5186 Stump Road (0.4 mi east of 611 on right)
Plumsteadville, Pa. 18949

Democratic candidates who will speak
Gary Gilman for Judge of the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas
Mardi Harrison for District Judge, Doylestown
Diane Marseglia for County Commissioner
Donna McKillop for Judge of the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas
Sandra Miller for County Commissioner
Steve Santarsiero for County Commissioner
Andy Warren for County Commissioner
Fred Viskovich for County Treasurer

Larry Glick will attend for Congressman Patrick Murphy. Our meetings are open to all. Bring your questions and concerns.

Update on our activities
Flood issues–national and local
Who: Jeanne & Mike working with Steve Kanstoroom (DC flood expert & citizen activist, www.femainfo.us). We’re working with Congressman Murphy (& Doug Platz)
Goal: To get changes in the language of FEMA regulations clarifying accountability in the way WYO insurers deal with flood claims. Last fall this was worked through Mike Fitzpatrick’s subcommittee and also with Gov. Rendell and PEMA.
Military Commissions Act
Both Murphy and Casey said, before the election, that they supported passage of the MCA. We must lobby to get their support for changes to this law or overturning it.
Goal: We want an unequivocal commitment from the US government to the principle of habeas corpus. We will introduce resolutions for endorsement by local municipalities and the county.
Together with Coalition for Peace Action (Rev. Al Krass) we co-sponsored two events on the status of Guantanamo prisoners with speakers from the Philly Public Defenders' office.
Single-payer healthcare
Lots of visibility with recent state plan proposals (MA, CA, PA). PDA supports HR 676.
Next month we will get an update from Chuck Pennacchio (Executive Director, Health Education & Legislative Progress Fund of PA), who is lobbying for PA-SB 1085, also a "single-payer" bill.
We support both efforts–our goal is universal coverage/single payer.
Verified voting
We support an auditable voting system; e.g., optical scans with voter-verified paper ballots. Update from Madeline Rawley of the Coalition for Voting Integrity.

Craig Kaufman will speak on current activities of PA Action.

Talks given on the Military Commissions Act

On January 11 and 24, 2007, Coalition for Peace Action (Central Bucks) and Upper Bucks for Democracy co-hosted Cristi Charpentier and Shawn Nolan, of the Federal Defender's Office, E.D. Pa., and recently returned from Guantánamo, where they have been working with detainee clients. They spoke about the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006, the denial of habeas corpus, and the dangers they pose for U.S. Constitutional law and basic human rights.

Charpentier: “So my answer [to question] is that the Military Commissions Act does not afford the detainees a fair trial, and the Congress would have been better off to take heed from what the Supreme Court was truly telling them in the decision of Hamdan, which is that if you aren't going to use the civil courts, which is where I practice, use the Code of Military Justice. We have things in place. And so you as involved taxpayers—or else you wouldn’t be here, you as involved citizens, you know, should really hear that.”

Nolan challenges the administration’s claims about who is imprisoned at Guantánamo and whether U.S. treatment of detainees accords with U.S. and international law. “It’s outrageous. This is a classic study of government out of control. They go on TV and say, ‘We don’t torture,’ but they do!” He also disputes the government’s claim that “these are the worst of the worst.” According to Seton Hall Law School Professor Mark Denbeaux's analysis, “only 5 percent of the detainees were captured by United States forces. 86 percent of the detainees were arrested by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance.” Many had been turned in by bounty hunters responding to U.S. leaflets dropped over Afghanistan promising “wealth and power beyond your dreams . . . millions of dollars.”

“They’ve been stripped of habeas corpus, and they can’t challenge their detention,” Nolan says. “Some of them have been there five years. There’s no due process.”

Charpentier and Nolan participated in the Guantánamo teach-in on October 5, 2006, at Temple University's Beasley School of Law. Charpentier grew up in Doylestown and graduated from CB West. Raised in the area, Nolan graduated from Lansdale Catholic High School.

Stimson's apology to detainee lawyers

"An Apology to Detainees' Attorneys," January 17, 2007. Read why.

Talk on MCA on January 24, 2007, in Doylestown

Coalition for Peace Action (Central Bucks) &
Upper Bucks for Democracy
January 24, 7:30 p.m., Celtic Cross Room
Doylestown Presbyterian Church
127 E. Court St., Doylestown, PA 18901

Coalition for Peace Action (Central Bucks) and Upper Bucks for Democracy co-hosted Shawn Nolan, of the Federal Defender's Office, E.D. Pa., and recently returned from Guantánamo, where he has been working with detainee clients. He spoke about the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006, the denial of habeas corpus, and the dangers they pose for U.S. Constitutional law and basic human rights. Nolan challenges the administration’s claims about who is imprisoned at Guantánamo and whether U.S. treatment of detainees accords with U.S. and international law.

“It’s outrageous. This is a classic study of government out of control. They go on TV and say, ‘We don’t torture,’ but they do!” He also disputes the government’s claim that “these are the worst of the worst.” According to Seton Hall Law School Professor Mark Denbeaux's analysis, “only 5 percent of the detainees were captured by United States forces. 86 percent of the detainees were arrested by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance.” Many had been turned in by bounty hunters responding to U.S. leaflets dropped over Afghanistan promising “wealth and power beyond your dreams . . . millions of dollars.”

“They’ve been stripped of habeas corpus, and they can’t challenge their detention,” Nolan says. “Some of them have been there five years. There’s no due process. This is Star Chamber litigation. No one can see the light of day.”

Raised in the area, Nolan graduated from Lansdale Catholic High School in 1981. In addition to his work with Federal Community Defender, he is Adjunct Professor of Social Justice with the Great Lakes College Association.

Letter to the Editor of the Intelligencer, Jan. 10

In "How to keep your job in Congress," Mr. Mullane advises Congressman Murphy to still “bring home the bacon” but not to "go native" down in DC and “sell out” to the “corporate barons.”

Mr. Mullane thinks that the voters don’t want to “lose in Iraq,” don’t want to pay more in taxes, don’t want “nationalized healthcare,” don’t want to impeach the president, neither should Congressman Murphy “follow the advice of committees and study groups.”

This is worse than useless advice. Of course nobody wants to lose, to pay more taxes, to pay for teapot museums, or any other kind of folly and unpleasantness--real or imagined.

Is Mullane trying to help our newly elected congressman keep his job or is he trying to make sure he loses it?

Anyway, if the Democrats have their way, earmark spending will disappear and the problem that his predecessor faced in voting for the teapot museum in order to secure funding for Bucks County won’t exist.

The voters, including many who voted for Patrick Murphy, are looking for serious change. If by “moderation” Mr. Mullane means “bringing home the bacon” and staying away from the big stuff, I think that will leave voters dissatisfied. Voters are fed up with corruption, they want out of Iraq, they want a solution to the healthcare mess, and they recognize that their standard of living is declining. Republicans suffered at the polls because Bush and GOP leadership failed the country.

But if it’s not going to be business as usual it may be difficult for Congressman Murphy to “bring home the bacon” and raise the millions of dollars necessary (by the conventional wisdom) for his reelection in 2008. If it is business as usual then many voters will be disappointed.

America faces serious problems for which Mr. Mullane’s one-liners are not helpful. Congressman Murphy has a tough job ahead and deserves better advice than what’s offered by our columnist.

We at Upper Bucks for Democracy and Bucks County Progressive Democrats of America do, however, join in Mr. Mullane’s final thought: Best of luck, Patrick, in your efforts to make things better.

Jeanne Doyle
Upper Bucks for Democracy

Intelligencer coverage of January 11 talk

Lawyer blasts prison
By Edward Levenson, Intelligencer, January 12, 2007

Foreigners being held for years without charges in the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are worse off than death row inmates in American jails, according to a lawyer who represents several so-called enemy combatants.

“These conditions (at Guantanamo) really outstrip those on death row. We've got a real damaged population down there,” said Cristi Charpentier, a lawyer with the Federal Defender's Office in Philadelphia.

Charpentier, a graduate of Central Bucks West High School and the City University of New York Law School, spoke to about three dozen people at a meeting in the Plumstead Township building sponsored by Upper Bucks for Democracy, a peace advocacy group.

Her talk, originally scheduled for last week, came the same day as protests against the Guantanamo prison held outside the American base in Cuba, Washington and London.

About 450 detainees are held in the military prison, many of whom were captured in the early stages of the American invasion of Afghanistan launched in October 2001. While the government refuses to let their lawyers see the alleged evidence, Charpentier said the facts show few are al-Qaida fighters and even fewer among the terrorist ringleaders.

“Most of the men at Guantanamo Bay are not going to go to trial,” said Charpentier, whose clients include citizens of Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. She and four colleagues in the Philadelphia defender's office were appointed in 2005 to represent detainees. Her regular duties in Philadelphia federal court involve filing appeals on behalf of death row inmates.

Rather than terrorists, the “enemy combatants” may be farmers and villagers who were turned in by neighbors eager to collect a bounty offered by the Americans, according to Charpentier. She passed out a copy of an Afghanistan leaflet that offered, in translation, “wealth and power beyond your dreams” for helping American forces.

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the detainees were entitled to know why they are being held, Congress last year passed the Military Commissions Act to revoke the fundamental right of habeas corpus for enemy combatants. Charpentier said that flies in the face of America's traditional commitment to the rule of law, and the legislation is being challenged in a federal appeals court.

“Stripping of that right of habeas corpus is important to all of us,” she said. Even accused mass murderers are guaranteed that right in American courts.

Charpentier, who has made three trips to Guantanamo, said the tropical setting, with “wildflowers of every imaginable color,” belies the harsh environment for the prisoners. Lawyers stay in motel-like quarters far from the prison and are subjected by the military to very restrictive conditions in meeting with their clients.

“I'm not being told the truth. I'm being tolerated in the most stressed-out way possible,” she said.

Article's URL:
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/113-01122007-1052806.html

Guantanamo detainee lawyers attacked

Ms. Charpentier alluded to the interview that prompted this Washington Post editorial in her talk last night:

Unveiled threats
A Bush appointee's crude gambit on detainees' legal rights
January 12, 2007

MOST AMERICANS understand that legal representation for the accused is one of the core principles of the American way. Not, it seems, Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs. In a repellent interview yesterday with Federal News Radio, Mr. Stimson brought up, unprompted, the number of major U.S. law firms that have helped represent detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

"Actually you know I think the news story that you're really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request through a major news organization, somebody asked, 'Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there,' and you know what, it's shocking," he said.

Mr. Stimson proceeded to reel off the names of these firms, adding, "I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out."

Asked who was paying the firms, Mr. Stimson hinted of dark doings. "It's not clear, is it?" he said. "Some will maintain that they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, that they're doing it pro bono, and I suspect they are; others are receiving monies from who knows where, and I'd be curious to have them explain that."

It might be only laughable that Mr. Stimson, during the interview, called Guantanamo "certainly, probably, the most transparent and open location in the world."

But it's offensive -- shocking, to use his word -- that Mr. Stimson, a lawyer, would argue that law firms are doing anything other than upholding the highest ethical traditions of the bar by taking on the most unpopular of defendants. It's shocking that he would seemingly encourage the firms' corporate clients to pressure them to drop this work. And it's shocking -- though perhaps not surprising -- that this is the person the administration has chosen to oversee detainee policy at Guantanamo.

See also the Guardian, January 12, 2007: "How Low Can You Go?" by Clive Stafford Smith.

See also the New York Times, January 13, 2007: "Official Attacks Top Law Firms over Detainees," by Neil A. Lewis, and editorial, "Round Up the Usual Lawyers."

See also OpEdNews.com, January 14, 2007: "Charles 'Cully' Stimson Should Be Fired for Threatening Lawyers Representing Detainees," by Brent Budowsky.

See also OpEdNews.com, January 15, 2007: "Pro Bono Law Firms Threatened by Gitmo Official for Defending Detainees," by Rob Kall.

See also "Law Deans Release Statement on Remarks of Cully Stimson Regarding Lawyers for Detainees," January 16, 2007.

See also the Los Angeles Times January 16, 2007, editorial: "Sliming the defense: A Pentagon official's overboard criticism of Gitmo lawyers is consistent with one bad strain of White House thought."

THE PENTAGON has disavowed some offensive criticism by one of its officials regarding American lawyers who have represented accused terrorists imprisoned at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But the crankish comments of Charles "Cully" Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for detainee affairs, reflect a more pervasive reluctance by the Bush administration to acknowledge that injustices have occurred at Guantanamo.

Sounding more like a first-time caller than a government official, Stimson told a radio interviewer last week that "when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms." Not content to float the idea of a boycott, Stimson, a lawyer too, speculated darkly that although some attorneys representing detainees may be doing so as a public service, "others are receiving monies from who knows where, and I'd be curious to have them explain that." In an earlier period in U.S. history, that sort of hit-and-run insinuation was called McCarthyism.

Amid condemnation of Stimson's remarks from the legal profession, a Pentagon spokesman said they "do not represent the views of the Department of Defense or the thinking of its leadership." (Apparently a deputy assistant secretary is not part of the leadership.) For good measure, Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales said that "good lawyers representing the detainees is the best way to ensure that justice is done in these cases."

But contradicting Stimson — or, even better, firing him — can't alter the fact that his comments in one sense reflect the administration's attitude. Stimson referred not to "accused terrorists" or "suspected terrorists" but to "terrorists." From President Bush on down, the administration has downplayed the possibility that some of the more than 700 people who have been confined at Guantanamo were imprisoned unjustly (not to mention treated inhumanely). Never mind that about half of the original detainees have been released.

Before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled otherwise, the administration insisted that detainees at Guantanamo had no right to challenge their confinement in a U.S. court. The administration devised its own rules for military commissions to try them for alleged war crimes, until the high court ruled that Congress had to be involved. (Even then, the administration was able to convince Congress that detainees shouldn't be allowed to file habeas corpus petitions.)

These policies bespoke an exaggerated understanding of executive power, even in wartime, but they also reflected a certitude bordering on smugness that has characterized too much of the administration's conduct of the war on terror.

Many of the lawyers involved in detainee issues on a pro bono basis are motivated by loyalty to the Constitution, which the administration has sometimes appeared eager to overlook. Advocacy on behalf of due process is a form of patriotism and public service. Criminal prosecutors aren't usually in the business of tarnishing defense attorneys, for good reason, and it's important that the government maintain the same professionalism when prosecuting the war on terror.

"An Apology to Detainees' Attorneys," January 17, 2007.