Dear Senators Klobuchar and Franken, Representatives Ellison and McCollum:
We are a group of people who met with a staff member of each of your offices between January 5, 2010, and April 2, 2010. Most of us attended more than one of these meetings. Our concern is torture and torture accountability. With three of you, we specifically addressed the issue of investigations of credible claims of torture committed in our names and under color of law since September 11, 2001. We are concerned with investigating, and if necessary prosecuting, not only perpetrators but also those who ordered, authorized, "legalized" or conspired to commit acts of torture. At the fourth meeting, our focus was on military commissions, a "Truth Commission," and raising the torture issue in a public manner, but the issue of prosecutions was also discussed. So far the response from the four of you has been uniform.
Silence.
We are aware of Congressman Ellison's participation in the "Reckoning With Torture" program at Georgetown Law School, where he read from recently released documents on torture, as well as his House Judiciary Committee questioning of John Yoo on the definition of "implement." We also are aware of Senator Franken's raising the issue of regulatory versus treaty standards for rendition at a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on the implementation of human rights treaties. But none of you has been at all visible in calling for holding accountable those who violated our most fundamental values, our treaty obligations, and several federal statutes.
June has been designated by the United Nations as "Torture Awareness Month." With that in mind:
ARE YOU AWARE that the statute of limitations applicable to the Federal Torture Statute is eight years? We began what Major General Antonio Taguba called our "systematic regime of torture" eight years ago.
ARE YOU AWARE that since 9/11, up to 100 detainees have died in our custody from other than battlefield wounds, suicides, or natural causes? The precise number is not known because our government has ceased releasing the data.
ARE YOU AWARE that secret places of detention are being discovered to this day? One at Bagram and another at Guantanamo have just recently been revealed.
ARE YOU AWARE that we rendition people to countries that we describe in our own State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices as having systematically violated the human rights of people held in its prisons? We say we're getting "diplomatic assurances" that torture will not occur. The Convention Against Torture, ratified by the United States Senate in 1994, includes nothing about "diplomatic assurances" in its prohibition against rendition.
ARE YOU AWARE that the Convention Against Torture, in Article 2, says: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture"? Yet we have heard from several government officials, e.g., Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and John Yoo, that we have to understand the times. After all, we had just been attacked.
ARE YOU AWARE that President George W. Bush advocated greater accountability than President Obama advocates with respect to torture? On June 26, 2004, the U.N.'s International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, President Bush issued a statement that included the following: "America stands against and will not tolerate torture. We will investigate and prosecute all acts of torture and undertake to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment in all territory under our jurisdiction." In looking forward, President Obama has taken a step backwards.
ARE YOU AWARE that Article 14 of the Convention Against Torture says: "Each State Party shall ensure in its legal system that the victim of an act of torture obtains redress and has an enforceable right to fair and adequate compensation"? Yet our Justice Department continually argues in court against such redress, invoking state sovereignty and state secrets doctrines.
ARE YOU AWARE that judges, inspectors general, general counsel of the military branches, Pentagon investigators, and F.B.I. interrogators have all said that we have tortured human beings in our custody?
ARE YOU AWARE that the Convention Against Torture, in Article 12, says: "Each State Party shall ensure that its competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction"? Yet President Obama wants to investigate only those who exceeded the standards prescribed by the faulty OLC memos.
ARE YOU AWARE that since the Federal Torture Statute was passed in 1994, only one person has ever been charged and convicted under it? And that was for torture committed for the government of Liberia. His name was Chuckie Taylor, he was the son of the President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, and he tortured people as part of that country's Anti-Terrorism Unit. Torture justified as anti-terrorist. Does that sound familiar?
In our meetings with your staff members, we heard about taking the lead from President Obama, lack of seniority, and a lack of political will in Washington to deal with this issue. We reject these as reasons for inaction. First, we all learned in elementary school that the checks and balances embodied in our Constitution ensure that no one branch exceeds its power. The role of Congress is not simply to ratify executive branch decisions. Second, Hubert Humphrey in his 1948 civil rights speech defied Democratic Party leadership before he was even elected to the Senate. Third, our most courageous leaders have created, not followed, the political will. Hubert Humphrey on civil rights, Eugene McCarthy on the War in Southeast Asia, and Paul Wellstone on the invasion of Iraq were at their best when they opposed the political will in Washington, not succumbed to it.
For one of you to come out and take a leadership role -- if you will, a prophetic role -- on torture accountability might not be politically wise. It is not a unifying issue. You all are politicians, but this isn't about politics. We are asking you to be statesmen and stateswomen. This issue is literally about the soul of our country. Nothing could be more important.
Only recently did we apologize to and compensate those Japanese-Americans we had shamefully incarcerated a half century earlier. Fifty years from now, people will surely ask: "In the time when America tortured people, where was Senator Klobuchar? Where was Senator Franken? Where was Representative Ellison? Where was Representative McCollum? Were they not aware of what was happening?"
Silence.
