The Government Dropped the Ball on U.S. Torture Accountability. Citizens Picked It Up.
Sheer stubbornness is required of us when our government violates the law and refuses to recognize it.
Seeking justice for the U.S. torture program of the post-9/11 period has required a lot of stubbornness. In North Carolina, a 12-year quest has led to a , “Torture Flights: North Carolina’s Role in the CIA Rendition and Torture Program.”
The report was released Thursday by the nongovernmental , a blue-ribbon panel of 10 commissioners established in 2017 after years of official inaction.
It examines the part that our state played in the CIA rendition, detention, and interrogation (RDI) program. To write it, the commission gathered all available evidence, sought public records from North Carolina government agencies, and heard from torture survivors, former government officials, and legal, medical, and human rights experts.
After 9/11, the CIA created a global “gulag” of secret “black site” prisons where it systematically and secretly tortured. It also relied on foreign governments to torture prisoners.
For hauling prisoners — who were all Muslim — to and among these sites, the CIA turned to private aviation companies. Among them was Aero Contractors, which was — and still is — headquartered at the government-owned Johnston County Airport, half an hour from Raleigh. The company also operated a larger rendition jet out of the state-run Global TransPark in Kinston, 45 minutes away.
Aero was founded in 1979 by a former pilot and has only one known client: the CIA. At last count, it had 130 employees at the Johnston County Airport. Its current activities are unknown.
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The Senate Intelligence Committee’s , partially declassified and publicly released in 2014, named 119 men who were held and tortured by the CIA at one or more of its black sites. But, as the ACLU’s Steven Watt at the time, it did not cover the dozens of men whom the CIA rendered, often in Aero-operated planes, for barbaric torture at the hands of foreign proxy forces.
Our new report lists 15 of those not in the Senate report who were flown by Aero and calls for a full official inquiry into the fates of all who were rendered to foreign custody.
The report also finds that North Carolina played a larger role in the U.S. torture program than anyone previously realized. For the first, or “building,” phase of the program — from September 2001 to March 2004 — over 80 percent of identified renditions relied upon planes and pilots based in North Carolina.
The report further found that renditions were not just transportation to torture — they were an integral part of the overall process of torture itself. The Senate report focused on the “D” and the “I” in the RDI program: detention and interrogation. “Torture Flights” examines how renditions — the seizure and transportation experiences themselves — were deliberately designed as the first cruel steps toward dehumanizing prisoners with psychological and physical violence.
Directly on our consciences as North Carolinians are 48 men and one woman whose renditions were launched from our state. The youngest was 16 at the time of his CIA abduction, and the woman was pregnant. The report’s prisoner database provides flight logs of their renditions and what is known of their fates. At least four are dead: one in custody and three others after they were released. While a handful have received redress from other governments, none has gotten an acknowledgement, apology, or other redress from the U.S. government.
By refusing to act once the “torture taxis” were by The New York Times in 2005 — the company, after all, continues to operate out of public airports — North Carolina officials have in effect endorsed the company’s torture-related activities. North Carolinians began protesting Aero in November 2005. The unbroken public silence of four successive governors — and two state attorneys general, one of whom is now Gov. Roy Cooper — has left commentary to Johnston County’s Board of Commissioners. Board members have on several occasions publicly praised Aero, harbored at their airport, and even defended the use of torture.
The report concludes that given the national policy of de facto impunity for U.S. torture, North Carolina should have long since opened a criminal investigation into Aero’s substantial role in it. State and county officials should join forces. They have a sound foundation on which to base such an investigation, including state laws that prohibit conspiracy to kidnap. In collaboration with local law enforcement, Gov. Cooper can and should deploy the State Bureau of Investigation.
When torturers face consequences for their actions, it will be a strong deterrent for anyone — or any entity — who might want to repeat their crimes.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
WASHINGTON — Today, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to block the enforcement of a law that would effectively ban people in America from using TikTok as soon as January 19, 2025. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TikTok’s challenge to the law. TikTok has asked the Supreme Court for a temporary injunction to prevent the app from being banned while the court considers whether to take the case, saying that unless the justices intervene, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.” “The Constitution imposes an extraordinarily high bar on this kind of mass censorship,”said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “The Supreme Court should take up this important case and protect the rights of millions of Americans to freely express themselves and engage with others around the world.” The brief argues that the D.C. Circuit failed to fully address the law’s profound implications for the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok. While the lower court’s decision correctly recognized that the statute triggers First Amendment scrutiny, it barely addressed users’ First Amendment interests in speaking, sharing, and receiving information on the platform. The court also perplexingly attempted to cast the government’s ban on TikTok as a vindication of users’ First Amendment rights, which it is not. The rights groups also explain that the law was intended to suppress certain content and viewpoints that many legislators believe could be amplified on TikTok, including the risk of foreign “propaganda.” But under the First Amendment, the government must meet a very high bar to restrict speech based on concerns about its “motivating ideology” or “perspective,” and the government has not come close to meeting that bar here. “The government should not be able to restrict speech, especially to the extent here, based on guessing about the mere possibility of uncertain future harm,” said David Greene, civil liberties director at EFF. “The Supreme Court should put the TikTok ban on hold while it considers the DC Circuit’s erroneous ruling.” Finally, the brief underscores that the government can’t impose this type of sweeping ban unless it’s necessary to prevent extremely serious and imminent harm to national security. But the government has not provided evidence of impending harm, or evidence that banning TikTok is the only available way to address its concerns. As the brief explains, the D.C. Circuit improperly treated the government’s invocation of “national security” as a trump card and failed to hold the government to its burden. “Restricting citizens’ access to foreign media is a practice that has long been associated with repressive regimes, and we should be very wary of letting the practice take root here,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “It would do lasting damage to the First Amendment and our democracy if the Supreme Court let this ban go into effect even temporarily.” You can find the brief online here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335380/20241217144322392_24A587%20TikTok%20v%20Garland%20Amicus%20Brief%20pdfa.pdf -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
ACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter IslamophobiaACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter Islamophobia
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration today released the first-ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia and related forms of bias and discrimination, including hate against Arab, Sikh, and South Asian Americans. In advance of the strategy, American Civil Liberties Union and its partners had urged the administration to overhaul government programs that reflect anti-Muslim discrimination. In particular, we have called for urgent action to constrain governmental agencies from continuing to exercise their authorities and technology to wrongly surveil and investigate, watchlist, and question and detain Muslims at the border, as well as deny immigration benefits to people from Muslim-majority countries. While the White House raised expectations that many of these issues would be addressed, the final strategy ended up falling far short. The following is a statement from Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project: “While this strategy acknowledges discrimination and its harms, it does little to end them and is a squandered opportunity. For decades, American officials have invoked national security to pass laws and implement programs that disproportionately harm Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim. A serious anti-discrimination strategy would concretely address multiple bias-infused government practices that deny our communities equal participation in civic life and our democracy, like federal watchlisting, surveillance, and investigation. We’re profoundly frustrated that the administration didn’t take even the basic, overdue step of recognizing that anti-Muslim discrimination is uniquely normalized and embedded in government policies.” -
VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
Trabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted ManTrabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted Man
Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government’s case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi’s detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
Federal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is UnlawfulFederal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is Unlawful
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi’s case, his claims challenging the government’s detention of him would fail. “Reviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we’re heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Center for Democracy. “The government’s arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi’s detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.” In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court’s ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. “Mr. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,” said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “He cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.” Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the ACLU of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general.