Archive for August, 2009

Video of Fire John Yoo Demonstration

Attorney Dan Siegel is a graduate of UC Berkeley’s law school from the era of the Free Speech movement. He points out that John Yoo’s writing of legal briefs as cover for torture by the Bush-Cheney regime is not a matter of “free speech”. It is a crime to use your position in violation of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights as well as the treaties that the US has signed as the law of the land, namely the Geneva Conventions. Various groups such as Code Pink Goldengate, National Accountability Action Network, the National Lawyers Guild, World Cant Wait, and Progressive Democrats of America joined together to challenge UC Berkeleys continued employment of Professor John Yoo. They called for him to be fired, disbarred, and prosecuted.

Holly Harwood of CODEPINK Golden Gate:

Ruth Fassenbaum, an activist member of the American Psychological Association, speaks out against torture by the Bush-Cheney regime and John Yoos role in providing legal cover for the US use of torture on prisoners.

Stephania Tang of World Can’t Wait speaking inside Boalt Hall:

“Torture Professor” John Yoo Back at Cal

START DATE: Monday August 17
TIME: 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Location Details:
University of California Law School (Boalt Hall), College and Bancroft, Berkeley
Event Type: Protest
1:30 Press conference followed by protest in front of the Law School. “Torture professor” John Yoo resumes teaching at UC Berkeley Law School on Monday, August 17 after spending last year at Chapman College in Southern California. While on leave from UC in 2001 Yoo worked for the DOJ and wrote legal memos advising Cheney and Bush that torture, warrantless wiretapping and suspension of posse commitatus– use of the military on American Soil and a violation of the Constitution– were legal. Yoo was wrong; those crimes are never legal. He is being sued by U.S. citizen Jose Padilla and his mother for torture, and the Spanish courts are prosecuting him for the torture of Spanish citizens. Meanwhile he writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer, gives interviews and insists that the enhanced interrogation techniques he approved, which have lead to the deaths of about 100 detainees and the torture of children, were justified and necessary to protect America from terrorists. That’s just plain wrong. A coalition of human rights, accountability, and social justice groups will show up to protest his continuing employment at UC and to ask for his prosecution by U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder. National Accountability Network, CODEPINK, Progressive Democrats of America, National Lawyers Guild, Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, Bay Area Religious Campaign Against Torture, others.

CALL TO ACTION

National TV Ad Campaign to Heat Up
U.S. Torture Investigations

Provocative TV Ads Urge
Attorney General Eric Holder to Do His Job -
Uphold Laws, Our Constitution, and Appoint Special Prosecutor
to Investigate Officials Who Condoned Torture

NEW YORK, NY August 5, 2009 - A national television ad campaign - to
push for Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor -
rolls out this week with 30-second commercials, to be aired during The
Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, Countdown with Keith
Olbermann, and The Rachel Maddow Show.

Launched in San Francisco, the TV ads will then be aired in other major
media markets, such as New York, Washington DC, Atlanta, Dallas,
Chicago, and Los Angeles, among others. The San Francisco-Oakland-San
Jose airing schedule is below.

“Mr. Holder swore to support and defend our Constitution. It’s time for
him to live up to that oath. Torture is morally repugnant. It’s
un-American. It’s illegal,” says NYC singer-songwriter and political
activist David Ippolito, the ad campaign’s spokesperson, who wrote
“Resolution (The Torture Song).”
.
A majority of Americans want a federal investigation into the treatment
of detainees by government personnel, according to a Gallup and ABC
News/Washington Post poll, conducted in April.

“Violations of U.S. and international law have taken place. The evidence
is in clear public view,” says Cynthia Papermaster, Director of the
National Accountability Network http://accountability4torture.com/, an umbrella coalition of
political, human, and civil rights organizations. “These ads are aimed
at inspiring Americans to participate in correcting this illegal and
shameful situation by phoning and emailing the Attorney General.”

“It’s a very simple and necessary way to preserve our democracy from
tyranny,” she continues, “and to have the resolution our country needs
to go forward without the terrible shame of what has been done in our
name.”

The TV ads can also be watched online at:  thatguitarman.com