December 04, 2007

December 5! What the Bush administration fears most is COURT

Dear Virginia (and in this case, Virginia's readers),

Tomorrow, December 5, the Center for Constitutional Rights will return to the Supreme Court for part III of what The New York Times has called "the most important civil rights case in 50 years." Please go to our website to learn more about the arguments and principles at stake in this Guantánamo case.You can also listen to the arguments in real time tomorrow on C-SPAN radio beginning at 11:15 EST.

In the lead up to this historic argument, CCR has been undertaking a major campaign to highlight the importance of this case. As part of this campaign we produced a television ad featuring actor and activist Danny Glover speaking about Bush administration's destruction of the Constitution. This ad was rejected by Fox News, their explanation being that we could "not document that Bush is in fact 'destroying' the Constitution." It is airing tonight in the DC area on CNN and MSNBC.

Read more and watch the video. (it's posted below)

But the serious story behind the ad is CCR's historic case before the Supreme Court, which will in all likelihood determine once and for all whether there is a constitutional right to habeas corpus - that is, a fair hearing before a real court - for everyone detained by the U.S. government at Guantánamo.

Read more about Al Odah v. United States and Boumediene v. Bush here.

This new case goes Beyond Guantánamo - we are directly challenging President Bush's unprecedented power grab, his use of torture in violation of domestic and international law, and his assertion that he can hold anyone indefinitely anywhere in the world on his word alone. The case also challenges the 2006 Republican Congress's attempt to clear his way with its passage of the Military Commissions Act.

In 2004, CCR won the first Guantánamo Supreme Court case - Rasul v. Bush - when the Supreme Court ruled that the men at Guantánamo have the fundamental right to challenge their detention.

Even though you're not in D.C. to see the arguments, you can still take action to make sure that our rights - and our Constitution - are rescued from the hands of the Bush administration, where they have been systematically shredded for the past seven years:

We need your help to restore the damage done to our most basic rights: join us today and take action to Rescue the Constitution. Let's move Beyond Guantánamo.


Stop Fox News Censorship

Synopsis

In this ad Danny Glover says, "The Bush administration is destroying the Constitution" by the use of renditions, torture, and other tactics. An email from Fox News offered this as the reason for Fox's decision not to run the ad:

"We cannot approve the spot with it being Danny Glover's opinion that the Bush Administration is destroying the Constitution. If you have documentation that it is indeed being destroyed, we can look at that. Sorry about that,"

CCR thought that this was pretty obviously a turn of phrase, but apparently Fox News takes the word "destroy" very seriously... Just like when Sean Hannity said, "And it's part of the Democratic goal to destroy George W. Bush." (11/15/07)

Help us by spreading the word about this rejection and getting as many people as possible to watch the video.


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