Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties | |
---|---|
Directed by | Nonny de la Peña |
Written by | Nonny de la Peña |
Produced by | Nonny de la Peña Robert Greenwald (Executive Producer) Earl Katz (Executive Producer) |
Narrated by | James Hanes |
Cinematography | Bestor Cram Jennifer Lane |
Edited by | Joe Bini Greg Byers |
Music by | Michael Brook |
Distributed by | Public Interest Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 66 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties is an American 2004 political documentary about the legal problems with the PATRIOT Act. [1] It posits that the law, hastily passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, [2] is used to justify a variety of abuses of civil rights that are guaranteed by the US Constitution. [3]
This third and final film in the Un-trilogy from Executive Producer Robert Greenwald [4] and Earl Katz, is a Public Interest Pictures Film. Unconstitutional was written, produced and directed by Nonny de la Peña. [5]
A few weeks after the September 11 attacks in 2001, the United States Congress passed a complicated and controversial [3] law purportedly designed to help with tracking future terrorist threats. [6] Unconstitutional's purpose is to explain the USA PATRIOT Act to its viewers and expose its alleged failings. [7]
Primary among these is the way in which post-9/11 law enforcement detained Muslims and others with Arabic names for unspecified lengths of time without due process or criminal charges. [7] As examples of this, Unconstitutional presents the stories of Safouh Mamoui, a Syrian living in Seattle, who was arrested without charges and imprisoned for ten months after the FBI cleared him of suspicion; [5] [7] Jose Padilla, a US citizen and Muslim convert, who was arrested as a “material witness” in the 9-11 attacks, and later designated an “enemy combatant” so he could be kept behind bars by the military in the absence of evidence or charges; [7] and Aquil Adbullah, an American Catholic Olympic athlete who was put on the no-fly list as a result of his Arabic name. [3] The film claims at least 1000 lesser-known people have been similarly abused. [5] It also addresses the situation of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay [3] and Abu Ghraib. [7]
De la Pena also looks into other PATRIOT Act violations of civil liberties. Among these are government access to any citizen’s library records or email and FBI “sneak and peek” search and seizure of private property. [7]
Unconstitutional suggests that American citizens might find themselves affected by the PATRIOT Act, even without any connection to terrorist activity. [7] [6] Law professor David Cole also points out that “when we treat others like this in the name of fighting a war... others fighting us can treat our soldiers like this.” [4]
The film makes its arguments through civil liberties advocates, Republican lawmakers, [7] Democratic politicians, bi-partisan lawyers, [6] and some of the individuals who have been impacted by this law.
Though Unconstitutional presents information from both conservative and progressive interviewees, it has generally been characterized as possessing a left-leaning viewpoint. [7] [2] The film was a Washington Post “Editor’s Pick.” [8] More sympathetic reviewers call it a “66-minute incitement to anger” [6] that “sheds light on discrimination.” [7]
The USA PATRIOT Act was a landmark Act of the United States Congress, signed into law by President George W. Bush. The formal name of the statute is the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001, and the commonly used short name is a contrived acronym that is embedded in the name set forth in the statute.
An unlawful combatant, illegal combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a person who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war and therefore is claimed not to be protected by the Geneva Conventions. The International Committee of the Red Cross points out that the terms "unlawful combatant", "illegal combatant" or "unprivileged combatant/belligerent" are not defined in any international agreements. While the concept of an unlawful combatant is included in the Third Geneva Convention, the phrase itself does not appear in the document. Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention does describe categories under which a person may be entitled to prisoner of war status. There are other international treaties that deny lawful combatant status for mercenaries and children.
Mohammed Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani is a Saudi citizen who was detained as an al-Qaeda operative for 20 years in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba. Qahtani allegedly tried to enter the United States to take part in the September 11 attacks as the 20th hijacker and was due to be onboard United Airlines Flight 93 along with the four other hijackers. He was refused entry due to suspicions that he was trying to illegally immigrate. He was later captured in Afghanistan in the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001.
David Matthew Hicks is an Australian who attended al-Qaeda's Al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan, and met with Osama bin Laden during 2001. He was then detained by the United States in Guantanamo Bay detention camp from 2002 until 2007.
Yaser Esam Hamdi is a former American citizen who was captured in Afghanistan in 2001. The United States government claims that he was fighting with the Taliban against U.S. and Afghan Northern Alliance forces. He was declared an "illegal enemy combatant" by the Bush administration and detained for almost three years without charge. On October 9, 2004, on the condition that he renounce his U.S. citizenship and commit to travel prohibitions and other conditions, the government released him and deported him to Saudi Arabia, where he had been raised.
Moazzam Begg is a British Pakistani who was held in extrajudicial detention by the US government in the Bagram Theater Internment Facility and the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, in Cuba, for nearly three years. Seized by Pakistani intelligence at his home in Pakistan in February 2002, he was transferred to the custody of US Army officers, who held him in the detention centre at Bagram, Afghanistan, before transferring him to Guantanamo Bay, where he was held until January 2005.
Michael Ratner was an American attorney. For much of his career, he was president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a non-profit human rights litigation organization based in New York City, and president of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) based in Berlin.
Anthony D. Romero is an American lawyer who serves as the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. He assumed the position in 2001 as the first Latino and openly gay man to do so.
Clive Adrian Stafford Smith is a British attorney who specialises in the areas of civil rights and working against the death penalty in the United States of America. He worked to overturn death sentences for convicts, and helped found the not-for-profit Louisiana Capital Assistance Center in New Orleans. By 2002 this was the "largest capital defence organisation in the South." He was a founding board member of the Gulf Region Advocacy Center, based in Houston, Texas.
The following are controversial invocations of the USA PATRIOT Act. The stated purpose of the Act is to "deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes." One criticism of the Act is that "other purposes" often includes the detection and prosecution of non-terrorist alleged future crimes.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a progressive non-profit legal advocacy organization based in New York City, New York, in the United States. It was founded in 1966 by Arthur Kinoy, William Kunstler and others particularly to support activists in the implementation of civil rights legislation and to achieve social justice.
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States military prison within the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Gitmo, on the coast of Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. As of April 2023, of the 779 people detained there since January 2002 when the military prison first opened after the September 11 attacks, 740 had been transferred elsewhere, 30 remained there, and nine had died while in custody.
David D. Cole is the National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Before joining the ACLU in July 2016, Cole was the Hon. George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy at the Georgetown University Law Center from March 2014 through December 2016. He has published in various legal fields including constitutional law, national security, criminal justice, civil rights, and law and literature. Cole has litigated several significant First Amendment cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, as well a number of influential cases concerning civil rights and national security. He is also a legal correspondent to several mainstream media outlets and publications.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006, also known as HR-6166, was an Act of Congress signed by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. The Act's stated purpose was "to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of war, and for other purposes".
The Constitution Project is a non-profit think tank in the United States whose goal is to build bipartisan consensus on significant constitutional and legal questions. Its founder and president is Virginia Sloan. The Constitution Project’s work is divided between two programs: the Rule of Law Program and the Criminal Justice Program. Each program houses bipartisan committees focused on specific constitutional issues.
Taking Liberties is a British documentary film about the erosion of civil liberties in the United Kingdom and increase of surveillance under the government of Tony Blair. It was released in the UK on 8 June 2007.
The history of the USA PATRIOT Act involved many parties who opposed and supported the legislation, which was proposed, enacted and signed into law 45 days after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. The USA PATRIOT Act, though approved by large majorities in the U.S. Senate and House of Representative, was controversial, and parts of the law were invalidated or modified by successful legal challenges over constitutional infringements to civil liberties. The Act had several sunset provisions, most reauthorized by the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and the USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act. Both reauthorizations incorporated amendments to the original USA PATRIOT Act, and other federal laws.
Shayana D. Kadidal is an American lawyer and writer. Kadidal has worked at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City since 2001, and is senior managing attorney of the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative there, coordinating legal representation for the captives held in extrajudicial detention in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. Previously a writer on patent, drug and obscenity law, since 2001 he has played a role in various notable human rights cases, including:
In United States law, providing material support for terrorism is a crime prohibited by the USA PATRIOT Act and codified in title 18 of the United States Code, sections 2339A and 2339B. It applies primarily to groups designated as terrorists by the State Department. The four types of support described are "training," "expert advice or assistance," "service," and "personnel."
Jameel Jaffer is a human rights and civil liberties attorney and the inaugural director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which was created to defend the freedoms of speech and the press in the digital age. The Institute engages in "strategic litigation, research, and public education." Among the Knight Institute's first lawsuits was a successful constitutional challenge to President Trump's practice of blocking critics from his Twitter account.