by James Oliphant
The American Bar Association wrapped up its annual meeting in San Francisco this week with its policymaking body taking stands against the Bush administration on a number of issues.
The ABA’s House of Delegates passed a resolution that urges Congress to override the president’s executive order in July that alters the government’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions regarding the treatment and interrogation of detainees. That highly controversial order didn’t specify which interrogation procedures used by the CIA to ferret information from terrorism suspects had been invalidated.
The delegates criticized the frequent use of the so-called “state secrets” privilege by the government in court cases across the nation, which often leads to dismissals once cited. The privilege protects any information related to national security from being disclosed in litigation. The ABA says use of the privilege has increased dramatically since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Finally, in a swipe at Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the delegates approved a recommendation aimed at U.S. attorneys, saying their “professional judgment and discretion should be insulated from improper partisan political considerations.”
A controversial ABA proposal that urged the sealing of the records of those arrested and convicted of crimes was dropped amid criticism from business groups and the media.
The Chicago-based ABA, which boasts 413,000 members, is the largest voluntary professional organization in the world and legal luminaries of all stripes typically attend its annual meeting. This year, Supreme Court justices Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy each addressed the attendees.







Comments
ABA?
They were a good band back in the day.
Posted by: John E | August 15, 2007 3:55 PM
Golly, the ABA met here in San Francisco. Surprise, surprise that they would gather on the LEFT coast. Hope they all didn't end up suing one another.
Posted by: Fran Cisco | August 15, 2007 4:02 PM
Fran Cisco,
California has a Republican governor & Orange County Choppers. Don't be so hard on us.
Posted by: Rac Samento | August 15, 2007 4:15 PM
Finally, in a swipe at Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the delegates approved a recommendation aimed at U.S. attorneys, saying their “professional judgment and discretion should be insulated from improper partisan political considerations.”
Blastphemy!, says Jerry White from Springfield, Il. Gonzo is a patriotic American and we wingnuts reserve the right to turn every government agency and branch of government (all four of them), into a subsidiary of BushCo.
Posted by: dt | August 15, 2007 4:39 PM
dt, have you considered admitting yourself into the Elgin Mental Health Center when your buddy John E. finally gets captured? If not, you should.
Posted by: John D | August 15, 2007 5:06 PM
What I found out with 60 seconds of research:
The new head of the ABA, Seattle attorney William H. Neukom, is a big time contributor to all things Liberal and all things Democrat.
In the 2008 election cycle alone, he's contributed $5,000 to the Democrat National Committee, and $1,000 apiece to three Democrat members of Congress.
The ABA leadership (though not their membership) is not just anti-Bush, it's anti-GOP and pro-Dem. Their stance therefore comes as no surprise.
Mr. Oliphant, you're welcome to use my Neukom information in your columns.
Posted by: Bruce | August 15, 2007 6:28 PM
Here's a guy who still thinks Gonzo is doing a heckuva job:
http://www.ecpzone.com/publication/bio.jsp?id=98&pubId=1
Posted by: Electrical Contracting Products | August 15, 2007 6:38 PM
John D.,
James Cole: I'm insane, and you're my insanity.
Jeffrey Goines: There's the television. It's all right there - all right there. Look, listen, kneel, pray. Commercials! We're not productive anymore. We don't make things anymore. It's all automated. What are we *for* then? We're consumers, Jim. Yeah. Okay, okay. Buy a lot of stuff, you're a good citizen. But if you don't buy a lot of stuff, if you don't, what are you then, I ask you? What? Mentally *ill*. Fact, Jim, fact - if you don't buy things - toilet paper, new cars, computerized yo-yos, electrically-operated sexual devices, stereo systems with brain-implanted headphones, screwdrivers with miniature built-in radar devices, voice-activated computers...
and one other thing, Johnny Delusional, If you open your pie-hole again, we "will have you shaved, sterilized and destroyed!"--Twelve Monkeys.
Posted by: Anonymous | August 15, 2007 6:40 PM
Anonymous, I mean John E. or is that demented twin, dt? Anyway, thanks for continuing to prove me right, that you are the worst mankind has to offer and that you need to be locked up in the cuckoo house for a very long time!
Posted by: John D | August 15, 2007 7:37 PM
So the ABA is against:
1.Torture
2.Declaring items "state secrets" that are not matters of national security but are otherwise embarrassing to the administration.
3.Politicizing the D.O.J.
Damn their hides, those traitorous, immoral, democrat- loving, attorney scum.
Posted by: Anonymous | August 15, 2007 8:30 PM
Political Animal:
STATE SECRETS....Yesterday I mentioned that Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen who was kidnapped, drugged, flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan, and held for five months — despite the fact that he was entirely innoncent and was merely the victim of mistaken identity — had his lawsuit turned down on Thursday after the government asserted the state secrets privilege. Tom Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, comments:
When the government claims the “state secrets privilege,” the courts tend to look no further, and the cases are dismissed. It was invoked only four times in the first 23 years after the U.S. Supreme Court created the privilege in 1953, but now the government is claiming the privilege to dismiss lawsuits at a rate of more than three a year. The Justice Department describes this tactic as an “absolute privilege” — in effect, a neutron bomb that leaves no plaintiff standing.
Posted by: dt | August 15, 2007 8:36 PM
So rnc bruce continues to preach that anyone that has ever had any association with a democrat or a democratic cause, has his/her own agenda and can't be trusted.
Using bruce's logic, I should dismiss anything that comes out of a republics mouth for the same reasons.
That leaves the Independents, but Ann Coulter says:
"The swing voters---I like to refer to them as the idiot voters because they don't have set philosophical principles. You're either a liberal or you're a conservative if you have an IQ above a toaster. "---Beyond the News, Fox News Channel, 6/4/00
Help me bruce, who can I turn to for wisdom? God? No way, he consults with Dubya and that makes his motives suspect.
Jerry White, Blasphemy! John D., blah, blah, blah..the worst mankind has to offer. Blah, blah, blah...more rants from the maniacal left...blah, blah, blah..loony leftist.
Posted by: dt | August 15, 2007 9:00 PM
Fran Cisco,
California has a Republican governor & Orange County Choppers. Don't be so hard on us.
Posted by: Rac Samento | August 15, 2007 4:15 PM
Orange County Choppers is in New York! Just thought you might like to know Sacremento.
Posted by: Former Brainwashed Republican | August 15, 2007 10:24 PM
The alleged "former brainwahed Republican": do you know how to spell and do you know geography? No, didn't think anyone from the Left had an education.
Posted by: John D | August 16, 2007 10:16 AM
"Posted by: John D | August 15, 2007 5:06 PM"
Hey John D, speaking of the word "captured", why haven't the Right Wingnuts in the White House caught the architect of 9/11 yet? You remember the name "Osama bin-Laden" right?
Posted by: BC | August 16, 2007 10:22 AM
The Republic party attacks trial lawyers at every opportunity and Bruce is shocked the ABA gives more money to Democrats.
Posted by: jethro | August 16, 2007 11:00 AM
Johnny D,
In your demented reality where is the Orange County Choppers showroom and retail store located?
Posted by: janet | August 16, 2007 11:28 AM
The ABA, I really like their game, but they need to lose those silly red, white and blue basketballs.
Posted by: Zelmo Beatty | August 16, 2007 2:10 PM