Source: http://archive.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6148
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 08:22:59+00:00

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Other noteworthy attorneys affiliated with CCR in its early years were Victor Rabinowitz, Leonard Boudin (father of Weather Underground terrorist Kathy Boudin), and Leonard Weinglass.
To advance its organizational objectives as a whole, CCR uses what it calls “innovative impact litigation”—not only to degrade America's cultural and political traditions, but also to undermine the nation's very legitimacy in the eyes of the world. In pursuit of these ends, the Center defends only clients whose political and ideological views it supports. Indeed, CCR makes clear that it “accepts cases and projects based on principle and the value of the struggle itself, not solely by using a calculus of victory.” Among the organization's more prominent clients have been Tom Hayden, Leonard Peltier, the Black Liberation Movement, the Black Panther Party, the Catonsville Nine, the Chicago Seven, the Communist Party USA, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Students for a Democratic Society, and Women’s Strike for Peace.
“The Center opposed Operation Babylift in 1975 in which the U.S. rescued more than 2,000 children from South Vietnam before North Vietnamese Communist forces swamped that country”—a result that CCR has characterized as a “victory of the Vietnamese people,” even though it led directly to the slaughter of more than 2 million Indochinese peasants at the hands of the Communists.
In an effort to undermine the American war effort in Iraq, and to embarrass the United States in the eyes of the world, CCR in December 2004 filed a criminal complaint in a German court to have ten high-ranking American military and political leaders put on trial in Germany for crimes against humanity and human-rights violations committed at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison. The Center filed the 170-page comprehensive complaint with the German Federal Prosecutor’s office in Karlsruhe. Included as defendants in the complaint were Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former CIA Director George Tenet, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone. The plaintiffs were four Iraqis who allegedly had been subjected to torture and maltreatment at the hands of American soldiers at Abu Ghraib. When CCR announced its criminal complaint, the Center's president, Michael Ratner, said at a news conference in Berlin that American military and political leaders from Donald Rumsfeld on down had to be investigated and held accountable.
CCR chose Germany as the venue for its complaint because that country's law code contains a statute that allows German courts to try the accused perpetrators of crimes against humanity and human-rights violations regardless of where in the world the alleged offenses were committed.
A second reason why CCR elected to file its complaint in Germany was because three of the American military personnel named as defendants—Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez, Major General Walter Wodjakoski, and Colonel Thomas Pappas—were stationed there at that time. CCR understood that any investigation of the U.S. Army in Germany would hurt the military’s position there. In short, the goal was to strengthen the already-rampant anti-Americanism in Western Europe and keep alive the Left’s portrayal of the Abu Ghraib scandal as a modern My Lai massacre.
In April 2002, CCR filed a class action lawsuit in Turkmen v. Ashcroft, seeking punitive damages on behalf of illegal aliens and non-citizens who had been picked up for questioning by U.S. authorities in the immediate post-9/11 period. The suit alleged that the INS had arrested these plaintiffs—all of whom were men from Arab or South Asian countries—“on the pretext of minor immigration violations and secretly detained them for the weeks and months the FBI took to clear them of terrorism, in violation of the U.S. Constitution and international human rights law.” A senior litigation attorney with CCR stated that the policy of detaining suspected terrorists for longer time periods than ordinary criminals “sacrific[es] our political freedoms in the name of national security.” The Turkmen case won CCR much publicity and, consequently, assistance from other law firms that had previously been fearful of taking cases involving 9/11 suspects.
In the 2006 Supreme Court case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, CCR filed an amicus brief on behalf of unlawful combatant Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s driver, who had been captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan while he fought alongside the Taliban. Finding that the military commission which had been established to try Hamdan on conspiracy charges did not conform with U.S. law and the Geneva Convention, the Court voted 5-3 to halt the trial.
CCR argued in court that the PATRIOT Act provision outlawing “material support” for terrorism was unconstitutional and “imposes guilt by association.” Thus did the Center feel justified in rallying to the defense of Sami al-Arian, a former Florida professor who in 2005 was put on trial for raising funds for the Hamas sister group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
CCR was a signatory to a March 17, 2003 letter exhorting members of the U.S. Congress to oppose the Domestic Security Enhancement Act, also known as “PATRIOT Act II,” which was then under consideration. The letter asserted that the new legislation "fail[ed] to respect our time-honored liberties," and "contain[ed] a multitude of new and sweeping law enforcement and intelligence gathering powers … that would severely dilute, if not undermine, many basic constitutional rights."
In addition, CCR supported the California-based Coalition for Civil Liberties, which tried to influence city councils to pass resolutions creating "Civil Liberties Safe Zones"; that is, to be non-compliant with the provisions of the PATRIOT Act.
In the 2002 case of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, CCR filed an amicus brief with a federal appellate court on behalf of 140 law professors and 19 organizations, among which were the National Lawyers Guild, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Freedom Socialist Party. Centering around Yaser Esam Hamdi, a dual U.S.-Saudi citizen whom American forces had captured in Afghanistan as he fought alongside the Taliban, this case was subsequently referred to the Supreme Court. In 2004 the Court ruled 6-3 that detainees who were U.S. citizens were entitled to challenge their detention before an impartial judge.
The Habib v. Bush (2002) and Rasul v. Bush (2002) cases—both filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia—challenged the Bush Administration’s contention that because the Guantanamo Bay prison camp was located outside of U.S. jurisdiction, its detainees were not entitled to access American civilian courts. CCR later combined both cases under Rasul v. Bush and won an important Supreme Court ruling (on June 28, 2004), which allowed foreign fighters captured in Afghanistan to challenge their detention in U.S. courts. This triggered a surge in habeas corpus cases and ultimately paved the way for CCR to gain direct access to the Guantanamo detainees.
CCR directly represented Mohamed al-Qhatani, the would-be “twentieth hijacker” who did not take part in the 9/11 attacks only because he was turned away by immigration agents at an Orlando airport.
CCR represented Majid Khan, an al-Qaeda operative who was trained by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to carry out suicide terror attacks in America.
In April 2010, after the New York Times had published excerpts from a trove of documents (obtained from WikiLeaks) identifying former Guantanamo Bay detainees who had allegedly returned to jihadism following their release, CCR issued a press release depicting onetime detainee (and CCR client) Abu Sufian bin Qumu—one of those named in the documents—as a harmless individual who was actually pro-American. Condemning the Times for its "unfiltered recycling of out-of-date and long-discredited DOD [Department of Defense] claims," CCR complained that Qumu had been wrongly "listed as a recidivist, when in fact he was jailed on his return to Libya and is now allegedly fighting with the U.S.-supported rebels." But on September 11, 2012, Qumu, whose freedom CCR had helped secure five years earlier, led the deadly terrorist attacks that killed four Americans (including Ambassador Chris Stevens) at the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya.
In 2010, CCR and the American Civil Liberties Union jointly filed a lawsuit seeking to end a U.S. government program that authorized the killing of accused terrorists like the Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a dual citizen of the United States and Yemen. A fugitive and an al Qaeda "regional commander," Awlaki was known to have called for Muslims worldwide to wage jihad against America and the West. His sermons had been attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers (two of whom he met with privately) and Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan (with whom he communicated regularly, and whose deadly 2009 shooting rampage he praised). Moreover, "Christmas Day bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had identified al-Awlaki was one of his al Qaeda trainers and spiritual advisers. In July 2010, Awlaki published an article in al Qaeda's English-language magazine, Inspire, calling for Muslims to assassinate several people, including a young female cartoonist in Seattle and the novelist Salman Rushdie. Despite his résumé as a sworn and deadly enemy of the United States, CCR and the ACLU tried, through their aggressive practice of of “lawfare,” to prevent the U.S. government from killing this arch-terrorist and others like him.
When the FBI and other law-enforcement personnel attempted to interview, on a voluntary basis, several thousand Middle Eastern men who were in the United States on temporary visas, cries of “racial profiling” again emanated from CCR.
CCR spokespeople trumpeted allegations—eventually demonstrated to be untrue—that the terror suspects whom U.S. forces had captured and transported to the American Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay were being “ill treated.” For example, said CCR, the prisoners were “shackled, hooded, and sedated during the 25-hour flight from Afghanistan”; “their beards and heads were forcibly shaved”; and upon their arrival at Guantanamo, they were “housed in small cells that failed to protect against the elements.” CCR president Michael Ratner denounced the “incredibly inhuman conditions” at Guantanamo.
CCR's counterpart to the ACLU’s John Adams Project, the Global Justice Initiative has solicited millions of dollars as well as hundreds of pro bono lawyers from top-tier law firms to support the Center's campaign to defend detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Between 2001 and 2012, CCR coordinated over 500 pro bono lawyers, many from elite “white shoe” law firms, to file suit on behalf of terrorist detainees.
Beginning in 2009, GJI gained a direct link to the White House through Attorney General Eric Holder, whose former law firm, Covington and Burling, had been prominent among those participating in the initiative to defend sixteen Guantanamo detainees.
In July 2005, CCR joined a coalition that included such notable individuals and organizations as Eve Ensler, Gloria Steinem, Not In Our Name, Code Pink, the Culture Project, [and] United For Peace and Justice"—who together demanded the closure of the Guantánamo Bay prison camp and an "immediate independent investigation into the widespread allegations of abuse taking place there."
CCR condemned the Bush administration for expanding the authority of security agencies to conduct wiretaps and surveillance on suspected terrorists, and also to detain suspected terrorists for longer time periods than ordinary criminals.
Characterizing President Bush as a political leader who was "out of control" and engaged in the "reckless abuse of power," CCR in 2006 produced a book titled Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush. This screed accused the president of "illegally spying on U.S. citizens, lying to the American people about the Iraq war, seizing undue executive power, and sending people to be tortured overseas." Moreover, CCR exhorted likeminded people to sign its online impeachment petition.
Of all the radical attorneys who aligned themselves with CCR in the aftermath of 9/11, one of the most noteworthy was Lynne Stewart, who in 1995 had provided legal represention for Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, sentenced to life-in-prison for his role in masterminding a number of Islamic terror plots. In April 2002 Stewart was indicted on charges that, while representing Rahman, she had illegally “facilitated and concealed communications” between the Sheik and members of the Islamic Group, an Egypt-based terrorist organization that he headed. Specifically, when Stewart had visited her client in prison, she knowingly permitted him to give an Arabic translator messages that Rahman wanted transmitted to the Islamic Group—in essence enabling the Sheik to direct terrorist activities from his cell.
CCR paid tribute to Stewart at its annual convention in 2004. And in July 2006, CCR president Michael Ratner depicted the government’s case against Stewart as "a legal and political outrage" that was sending "a message of fear into the heart of every lawyer who tries to defend their client."
In November 2006, CCR filed a criminal complaint requesting “an investigation and, ultimately, a criminal prosecution that will look into the responsibility of high-ranking U.S. officials for authorizing war crimes in the context of the so-called ‘War on Terror.’” The defendants in the case included former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former CIA Director George Tenet, and former Chief White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales. The complaint was brought on behalf of 12 Iraqi citizens who were held at Abu Ghraib prison and one Guantánamo detainee. According to CCR, all of these detainees had been tortured by American authorities.
In December 2006, CCR and the Humanitarian Law Project (HLP) jointly petitioned a federal judge to dismiss many of the charges brought against the Hamas-linked organization Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), which in 2001 had been shut down by the U.S. government because of its terrorist ties. Defense attorneys argued that Executive Order 13224, the statute under which HLF originally had been named as a financier of terrorism, was overly broad.
In the 2005 Matar v. Dichter case, CCR and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) brought a federal class action lawsuit against Avi Dichter, former director of Israel’s General Security Service (GSS), on behalf of certain Palestinians who had been killed or injured in a 2002 targeted-assassination air strike in Gaza. The lawsuit charged Dichter with war crimes, extra-judicial killing, and other human rights violations for supposedly providing the necessary intelligence and giving final approval to drop a one-ton bomb on an apartment complex. The attack was intended to, and did in fact, kill Saleh Mustafa Shehadeh, a Hamas leader. Claiming that the targeted killing also resulted in foreseeable civilian deaths and casualties, CCR and PCHR brought the case under the Alien Tort Claims Act, which allows foreign victims of human rights abuses to have their claims heard in U.S. courts even where no Americans are involved in the dispute.
Also in 2005, CCR brought another class action lawsuit, Belhas v. Ya’alon, against a former head of the Israeli Defense Force’s Army Intelligence, charging him with war crimes and extra-judicial killing for his alleged role in the IDF's attack on a United Nations compound in Qana during the course of a 1996 bombing campaign against Hezbollah. This suit was thrown out on immunity grounds, a decision that was upheld on appeal.
CCR also expressed its anti-Israel orientation in a 2005 lawsuit against the Illinois-based heavy-machinery manufacturer Caterpillar, Inc., after Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old International Solidarity Movement volunteer trying to disrupt the actions of an Israeli anti-terrorism mission in Gaza, was accidentally crushed to death by a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer belonging to the Israeli military. According to CCR, Caterpillar had violated international, federal, and state law by selling such machines to the Israeli military, knowing they would be used to demolish (terrorists') homes and endanger civilians in Palestinian villages. After a federal judge dismissed the suit in 2005, CCR filed an appeal.
Similarly, the Center also sued the private contractors CACI International (Virginia) and Titan International (California) for their alleged connection to the 2004 prisoner-abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib.
In the summer of 2014, when Israel was engaged in a military operation designed to prevent Gaza-based Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists from continuing to launch enormous numbers of deadly missiles into the Jewish state, CCR "condemn[ed] in the strongest terms the Israeli government’s indiscriminate killing and collective punishment of civilians in the Gaza Strip." The Center also demanded that Israel "end the inhumane and unlawful seven-year closure of Gaza"—a reference to the so-called Israeli "blockade" of Gaza's port. CCR made no mention of the fact that the blockade: (a) had been put in place to prevent Hamas, the ruling party of Gaza, from importing weaponry that could be used to harm Israel; and (b) would be lifted if only Hamas would renounce violence against Israel, recognize Israel's right to exist, and honor all previous agreeements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
In November 2009, two months after Congress had voted to cut off federal funding for the notoriously corrupt community organization ACORN, CCR lawyers filed suit on that group's behalf. According to CCR, the funding ban constituted a “bill of attainder”—i.e., a legislative act declaring a person or group guilty of a crime without trial.
Vincent Warren has been CCR's executive director since 2006.
Rachel Meeropol, who has worked at CCR since 2002, is the co-editor and primary author of the Jailhouse Lawyers Handbook. She also edited America’s Disappeared: Secret Imprisonment, Detainees, and the “War on Terror” (2005). Moreover, Meeropol is the granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the Soviet spies who were executed in New York in 1953. On the 50th anniversary of their execution, Meeropol professed her grandparents' innocence, expressed the “sense of pride” she felt for how they had lived their lives, and lamented “the injustice” of “the terrible situation that they had been placed in.” Rachel’s father, attorney Robert Meeropol, is the founder and executive director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children.
David Cole was a staff attorney with CCR from 1985-90.
Laila Al-Arian, daughter of former Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami al-Arian, sits on CCR's board of directors.
Peter Weiss served for many years as CCR's vice president and continues to hold a spot on the Center's board of directors.
A member organization of the Abolition 2000 and United For Peace and Justice anti-war coalitions, CCR is supported by donations from many charitable foundations, including the Arca Foundation, the Careth Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Compton Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Funding Exchange, the Harold K. Hochschild Foundation, the JEHT Foundation, the Liberty Hill Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the New-Land Foundation, the New World Foundation, George Soros's Open Society Institute, the Public Welfare Foundation, the Samuel Rubin Foundation, the Scherman Foundation, the Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust, the Surdna Foundation, the Tides Foundation, and the Vanguard Public Foundation. For a list of additional funders of CCR, click here.
Noteworthy organizations that likewise have contributed substantial sums of money to CCR include the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Ohio chapter), the International Institute of Islamic Thought, the Safa Trust Inc., and the Trans Arab Research Institute (which in 2004 expressed its “deepest sorrow” upon hearing of the death of Palestinian terrorist mastermind Yasser Arafat).
In addition, CCR has received large donations from high-profile individuals like actor Ossie Davis, actress Ruby Dee, billionaire financier Peter Lewis, film director Sidney Lumet, singer Natalie Merchant, actor-director Tim Robbins, actress Susan Sarandon, and singer Pete Seeger. The Center also received money in 2002 from the estate of Isabel Johnson Hiss, the second wife of the Soviet spy and dedicated communist Alger Hiss.
CCR identifies itself as an ally of such organizations as the (now defunct) community organization ACORN, the Alliance For Justice, Friends of the Earth, and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.
 Peter Collier and David Horowitz, Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts about the Sixties (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2005), p. 218.
 Marc Thiessen, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack. (Regnery Publishing, 2010). Cited in David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin, The New Leviathan (Crown Forum, 2012).
 David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin, The New Leviathan (Crown Forum, 2012).

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