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Romero is the ACLU's sixth executive director, and the first Latino and openly gay man to serve in that capacity. http://www.aclu.org/about/staff/13279res20030205.html
The ACLU is determined to hold the Bush administration responsible not just for torture and abuse of detainees, but for the many other abuses of power that are taking place in the name of fighting terrorism By ordering kidnapping and by "rendering" individuals to be tortured abroad, by conducting warrantless eavesdropping on Americans here at home and by issuing secret demands for our library records and other personal information, President Bush is violating America’s values of freedom and fairness. America cannot hold itself up as a moral beacon to the world if we violate the rule of law and engage in illegal spying, torture and secrecy. “No
One is Above the Law, Not Even the President” Statement of Anthony D.
Romero, ACLU Executive Director
We were shown image after image of poor Black Americans cast aside in the storm called Katrina. Evacuate, they said. But those turned out to be empty exhortations, since the poor and black were not provided with the means of evacuation. They were denied the shelter and sustenance they were promised in so-called harbors of safety. If you were poor and black, you were not likely to receive a place in the ark that would deliver others to firm soil. The poor and black were, in effect, cast aside, but they were cast aside long before a Category 5 hurricane landed aground on August 29. They were cast aside in the storm of American privilege, American racism and American indifference. It's obvious that most of the abandoned were people of color. Was it racism or was it poverty that made them so vulnerable? The answer, of course, is that the two issues long ago merged into one. If you were black in New Orleans you were most likely poor. And if you were poor, you were probably also black. A recent CNN poll found that 6 in 10 blacks interviewed said the federal government was slow in rescuing those stranded in New Orleans after Katrina because many of the people in the Louisiana city were black. But only 1 in 8 white respondents shared that same view. How can we square the dissonance between these 2 very different versions of events? Race and class function in much of the same way as water to a fish. "AFTER
THE RAIN SUBSIDES?." Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director, ACLU
While many Americans would like to believe that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib involved only the horrific acts of a few poorly trained soldiers, the fact is that the torture and abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo was widespread and systematic. The roots of the conduct can clearly be traced to a series of administration policies designed to insulate the treatment of military detainees from public scrutiny, judicial review and ultimately from the rule of law. In addition to calling for a special counsel, the ACLU is taking other steps to ensure that top military leaders are held accountable. Last month, the ACLU and Human Rights First filed a lawsuit charging Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with direct responsibility for the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. military custody. The ACLU has also filed three similar complaints against Colonel Thomas Pappas, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski and Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez on behalf of the torture victims who were detained in Iraq. Statement
of ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero
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