Physical Integrity Rights and Terrorism

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (03) ◽  
pp. 411-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Piazza ◽  
James Igoe Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Detention Facility ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Physical Integrity ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
Indefinite Detention ◽  
Counterterrorism Policy

Can states afford to protect human rights when facing a terrorist threat? Contemporary academic literature suggests that the answer to this question is no, concluding that states that afford their citizens basic political rights and civil liberties leave themselves more exposed to terrorist attacks (Piazza 2008; Wade and Reiter 2007; Pape 2003; Eubank and Weinberg 1994). American policymakers seem to agree. Both the Bush and Obama administrations regard the curtailment of physical integrity rights as a necessary element of effective counterterrorism policy. The Bush administration responded to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, with policies permitting indefinite detention, extraordinary rendition, use of physically abusive interrogation practices, and increased and largely unchecked surveillance and wiretapping of suspected terrorists. Although it banned abusive interrogation and announced plans to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, the Obama administration has maintained the practice of wiretapping, reserved the option of rendition, and dramatically increased unmanned drone attacks against suspected terrorists in Pakistan, which often results in civilian casualties. Both presidents have claimed that these policies are necessary to keep Americans safe from terrorism (Hosenball 2009; “Bush Defends Policy on Terror Detainees” 2005).

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: The Liberal Tradition and Obama's Counterterrorism Policy

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (03) ◽  
pp. 425-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Desch
Keyword(s):  
Iraq War ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Right ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
Detention Center ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
The World ◽  
Enhanced Interrogation ◽  
Counterterrorism Policy

Barack Obama campaigned on a platform of “Change We Can Believe In.” One of the biggest changes many anticipated with his election was a dramatic break with the previous administration's counterterror policy. There were good reasons for thinking that this would be the case. George W. Bush was a Republican who took his cues from the most conservative elements of his party, including neoconservatives, the religious right, and other proponents of an assertive stance of U.S. global primacy and a forward-leaning posture in the war on terror. Conversely, Barack Obama is a liberal Democrat who opposed the Iraq War and seeks to “reset” America's relations with other countries around the world by recommitting the United States to a more moderate approach to waging the war against al-Qaeda, including measures such as adopting a more multilateral foreign policy, closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, ending the practices of extraordinary rendition and enhanced interrogation, and showing a greater respect for civil liberties domestically.

Post-9/11 Policy Discussions of Human Rights and Freedoms

2014 ◽  
pp. 290-306
Author(s):  
Linda M. Merola
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
President Obama ◽  
Detention Facility ◽  
Broadcast Media ◽  
The Public ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
Threatening Information ◽  
Computerized Content Analysis ◽  
Previous Scholarship

During the years following the attacks of September 11, 2001, American leaders were forced to confront a substantial number of contentious dilemmas involving civil liberties in the context of terrorism. Previous scholarship has made clear that exposure to threatening information may result in significant decreases in the public’s willingness to support expansive civil liberties guarantees, yet few researchers have systematically examined the content of information transmitted to the public during these debates. This study employs a computerized content analysis to investigate differences in broadcast media coverage following the reporting of significant post-9/11 security/rights dilemmas. The analysis focuses on two key periods: the reporting of President Bush’s authorization of warrantless NSA wiretapping in late 2005 and the 2009 proposal by President Obama to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Findings suggest that broadcast sources diverged significantly in the amount of threat conveyed to the public during the reporting of key security/rights dilemmas.

A Qualified Defense of the Obama Administration’s Record on Torture

2020 ◽  
pp. 337-358
Author(s):  
John T. Parry
Keyword(s):  
Political Discourse ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
President Obama ◽  
Detention Center ◽  
Obama Administration ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
Serious Injuries ◽  
Political Decisions

The Obama administration successfully dismantled the remaining pieces of the Bush administration’s torture apparatus. But these efforts encountered increasingly bitter opposition from torture apologists, who obstructed efforts to impose any kind of accountability and who continued to press arguments that torture prevented terrorist attacks and that opposition to torture was a form of weakness. In addition, although the administration adopted an anti-torture position, the torture question was not high on its agenda. Thus, when it encountered resistance, the administration abandoned the effort to impose criminal accountability for the deaths and serious injuries caused by the Bush administration’s interrogation policies. It also dropped efforts to close the Guantánamo Bay detention center. By the time President Obama left office, his administration’s record on torture was more mixed than many people initially would have predicted. Some of the blame for that mixed record rests with the administration. But anti-torture advocates also hoped for too much. The Obama political agenda was about much more than torture, and the administration made rational political decisions to focus its resources on other issues once it had formally dismantled the Bush administration policy. In addition, a true anti-torture policy would require cooperation from Congress, which is something Obama rarely was able to obtain. In the end, the Obama administration was able to reorient U.S. policy away from torture, but it was unable to prevent the crystallization of a political discourse and culture in which torture remained a legitimate option.

Talking about NSA Wiretapping and Guantanamo

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda M. Merola
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Detention Facility ◽  
Broadcast Media ◽  
The Public ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
Threatening Information ◽  
Computerized Content Analysis ◽  
Previous Scholarship

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, American leaders confronted difficult dilemmas involving civil liberties in the context of terrorism. Previous scholarship has made clear that exposure to threatening information may result in significant decreases in the public's willingness to support expansive civil liberties guarantees, yet relatively few researchers have systematically examined the content of information transmitted to the public during these debates. This study employs a computerized content analysis to investigate differences in broadcast media coverage following the reporting of significant post-9/11 security/rights dilemmas. The analysis focuses on two key periods: the reporting of President Bush's authorization of warrantless NSA wiretapping in late 2005 and the coverage of President Obama's 2009 proposal to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Findings suggest that broadcast sources diverged significantly in the amount of threatening information conveyed to the public during the reporting of key security/rights dilemmas.

In the Shadow of Korematsu

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric K. Yamamoto
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Security ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
World War ◽  
Executive Orders ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
Legal Challenges ◽  
Indefinite Detention ◽  
Judicial Scrutiny

This chapter paints the arc of Fred Korematsu’s World War II resistance and legal challenge through his 1980s coram nobis case reopening and the 1988 Civil Liberties Act’s apology and reparations. It extends the arc over 9/11 controversies through Korematsu’s amicus brief in the Rasul Guantanamo Bay indefinite detention case and the Korematsu, Hirabayashi, and Yasui families’ brief in support of journalists’ efforts to stop threats of incarceration for protected speech and association activities in the Hedges case. The insights shared and prescriptions advanced in those friend-of-the-court briefs—particularly about the significance of judicial independence—are then enlivened by Judge Ambro’s poignant lessons-of-Korematsu opinion in the Hassan Muslim community harassment decision. The chapter closes by revisiting ongoing legal challenges to President Trump’s intensely contested 2017 exclusionary executive orders. It charts the Justice Department’s familiar refrain about the “unreviewable” nature of the executive’s national security justification—all the laws but one—as well as civil liberties groups’ constrasting advocacy for careful judicial scrutiny.

Human Rights Issues in Guantanamo Bay

2004 ◽  
Vol 68 (5) ◽  
pp. 423-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniella Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Geneva Convention ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
The Body ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Usa

This article addresses the developments surrounding the continued detention and treatment of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and examines the legal issues arising from them. The present political environment has left deep scars in international and human rights law. The detention of some 660 individuals in Guantanamo Bay has caused academic and diplomatic disputes. There is a serious legal debate as to the legality of the detention. The USA has classified these men as ‘unlawful combatants’, who are not subject to the Geneva Convention of 1949, which regulates the treatment of detainees in an armed conflict. According to the US authorities, Taleban fighters and Al-Qaeda do not fall within the Geneva Conventions. No attempts have been made on behalf of the US to verify the detainees' legal status by way of a tribunal. This article examines the possibility of alternative legal recourses, such as the application of the Fourth Geneva Convention which protects civilians who fall in the hands of the enemy, the application of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the USA has ratified, and finally the existence of the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. Each of these instruments, despite the complexity of their provisions, ensures a minimum standard of treatment of the detainees. The detainees' legal status, however, remains unclear; accordingly they are trapped in a legal black hole. Numerous attempts have been made to solve this international embarrassment. The USA opted for trial by military commission, to which the international community was strongly opposed. The measures carried out by the US authorities and by the British government in relation to the detention of suspected international terrorists are critically scrutinised in this article. Some detainees have been freed, which raises questions of possible compensation. Consideration is also given as to whether the legal measures taken until now are sufficient for the protection of their human rights. What is certain is that the treatment of possible terrorists has drastically changed, undermining human rights and civil liberties.

Trading Civil Liberties for National Security: Warnings from a World War II Internment Program

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Paul Friedman
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Security ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Japanese Americans ◽  
Habeas Corpus ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
World War ◽  
Patriot Act ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
Indefinite Detention

A recurring theme in American political discourse is how to strike the appropriate balance between protecting the nation against threats to its security without eroding the liberty that is at the heart of its democratic character. Civil liberties versus national security is a choice apparently to be made in every crisis and every war, whether hot or cold. We can trace the debate from the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 through Abraham Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, to the Red Scares that followed both world wars. The classic case of going too far, and the most widely repudiated example, is the illegal mass internment of more than 110,000 Japanese Americans, most of them U.S. citizens, without charge, during World War II. Today, in what is commonly called the war on terrorism, hawks and doves take up their customary positions on opposing sides of the old argument as they debate the U.S.A Patriot Act, the imprisonment of foreigners at Camp Delta on Guantánamo Bay, and the indefinite detention of American citizens by presidential order.

Habeas Corpus Today

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda L. Tyler
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
The Political ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
Habeas Corpus ◽  
World War ◽  
Japanese American Internment ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
Executive Authority ◽  
Enemy Combatant

The experience of World War II and the precedent of the Japanese American internment dramatically altered the political and legal landscape surrounding habeas corpus and suspension. This chapter discusses Congress’s enactment of the Emergency Detention Act of 1950 along with its repeal in 1971. It further explores how in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, questions over the scope of executive authority to detain prisoners in wartime arose anew. Specifically, this chapter explores the Supreme Court’s sanctioning of the concept of the “citizen-enemy combatant” in its 2004 decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and evaluates Hamdi against historical precedents. Finally, the chapter explores how Hamdi established the basis for an expansion of the reach of the Suspension Clause in other respects—specifically, to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

An Empirical Examination on the Severity of Lone-Actor Terrorist Attacks

2021 ◽  
pp. 001112872110226
Author(s):  
Noah D. Turner ◽  
Steven M. Chermak ◽  
Joshua D. Freilich
Keyword(s):  
Terrorist Attack ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Severe Attack ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Counterterrorism Policy

Lone-actor terrorists have increasingly attracted the attention of researchers, policymakers, and practitioners alike. Despite this enhanced interest, few studies have compared the outcomes of lone-actor terrorist attacks with other terrorists, and those that have do not consider the terrorists’ intention to kill in an attack. This study utilizes a sample of 230 terrorist homicide incidents from the Extremist Crime Database to examine the extent to which lone-actors perpetrate more severe attacks than other terrorists. We find that lone-actors are significantly associated with more severe attack outcomes when controlling for the intention to kill. We conclude by commenting on the utility of these findings in U.S. counterterrorism policy and the importance for future research to account for actors’ intentions when assessing terrorist attack severity

Crime Control Measures, Individual Liberties, and Crime Rates

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Albanese
Keyword(s):  
Crime Control ◽  
International Crime ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Crime Victimization ◽  
Information And Communications Technologies ◽  
Government Interventions ◽  
Available Information

The balance between crime control methods and individual liberties is always problematic, creating tension, because in order to investigate crime, and adjudicate and punish offenders, it is necessary to make reasonable intrusions into the liberty of citizens. This study uses data from 40 countries to examine the crime control measures (police per capita and conviction rates) that reflect government investments in criminal justice apparatus to control crime and criminals, as well as the use of these crime control measures through government intervention in the lives of its citizens (formal citizen contacts with police, prosecution rate, and detention rate), to examine their impact on crime victimization rates (homicide rates and crimes included in the international crime victim survey). The purpose is to examine whether these government interventions have any impact on crime rates across countries, controlling other independent variables that might help to explain any observed relationships among these variables (such as measures of civil liberties, democracy, human development, available information and communications technologies, political rights, corruption perceptions, education, economic freedom, freedom of the press, and prosperity).

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