Congress can learn some things from kids. One lesson that my spouse and I teach our 4-year-old and 9-year-old is that, if you do something wrong, you look the person in the eye, say you're sorry, and then clean up the mess. My kids do it, as do kids everywhere. Owning up to mistakes and cleaning up the mess is a hallmark of growing up.
Has Congress learned this lesson after its historic wrong of codifying indefinite military detention without charge or trial into American law? We will soon find out.
On Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. EST, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold the first hearing ever on the indefinite military detention provisions in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which Congress passed in December. This hearing will be to own up to its mistakes and start to fix them. But the only way the NDAA will be fixed is if senators and House members hear from you and your family and friends that indefinite military detention authority is wrong, dangerous, and needs to be repealed.
As we've said before, the NDAA is dangerous because it authorizes this president and all future presidents to order the military to lock away civilians picked up far from any battlefield, in indefinite detention without charge or trial based on suspicion alone. It could permit any president to send the American military to imprison people anywhere in the world, even where there is no armed conflict and no threat to Americans.
Unbelievably, some members of Congress even rejected amendments clarifying that the NDAA military detention provisions do not apply inside the U.S.
, and will be chaired by one of the biggest heroes in the fight against the NDAA—Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California. Sen. Feinstein is holding the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in public, in contrast to the Senate Armed Services Committee, which wrote the NDAA last year in secret sessions without even a single hearing.
But there is lots more work to do. The hearing is your chance to tell Congress that Americans reject indefinite military detention without charge or trial, and expect Congress to fix the mess it's made. We'll be monitoring the hearing (and live-tweeting from it via ). And if you're as outraged by the NDAA as we are, you should tune in, too. (It will be webcast on the and might be on C-Span as well.)
A handful of bills have already been introduced to try to fix parts of the NDAA. While they are all well-intentioned and sincere efforts to clean up the NDAA mess, none of them go far enough. That is why to ensure complete clean-up, and we will need your help in the coming months.
to show their commitment to making sure that Congress cleans up the mess, by having them make their three-part pledge on Wednesday to fix the NDAA and any other statutes to make sure that:
• No president should be given the power to send the military around the globe to imprison indefinitely civilians, based on suspicion alone, in places where there is no armed conflict. Locking people away indefinitely based solely on the say-so of the president is too much power to hand over to any one person.
• The United States itself should be off-limits for the military to impose indefinite detention without charge or trial. It would be unconstitutional for the president to apply the NDAA provisions here at home, but the Senate rejected explicit protections to reinforce the Constitution's and the .
• No president should ever be REQUIRED to put civilians into military custody without charge or trial, as one provision of the NDAA would do.
In the months ahead, we expect to see more congressional hearings on the NDAA detention provisions (we especially hope that the House Republican leadership will follow through on its promise to have hearings very soon in the House Judiciary and Armed Services Committees). By mid-May, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees will start writing the NDAA for this year (yes, there is an NDAA every year) and members of those committees will have chances to fix last year's NDAA. But like last year, the Senate Armed Services Committee may very well shut its doors and come up with its new NDAA in secret. Regardless, by late May, the full House will vote on the NDAA for next year and the full Senate will vote on its version this summer. In other words, if Congress doesn't fix the 2012 NDAA soon, it can use the 2013 NDAA to clean up its mess.
Tens of thousands of you took action the first time around to let Congress know that you opposed the NDAA's indefinite military detention provisions.
No president should be given the power to send the military around the globe to imprison people indefinitely, based on suspicion alone, in places where there is no armed conflict. The United States itself should be clearly off-limits to any use of the military to indefinitely detain civilians without charge or trial. No one should live in fear of this or any future president misusing the NDAA's detention authority. The NDAA's detention provisions must be repealed.
that you'll be watching the hearing on Wednesday and that you except them to protect American values and clean up the mess the NDAA made. Once you've done that, check out our toolkit and resources on the NDAA to learn how you can use our model state and local bill to encourage your city council and/or local legislator to adopt in an effort to help clean up the NDAA mess in local communities.
We'll keep you posted on the NDAA debate; check back here for updates soon.
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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.