Over one thousand lawyers – including former Governor Mario Cuomo and former Reagan administration official Bruce Fein – have signed onto the above statement demanding wide-ranging investigative hearings into unconstitutional and potentially criminal activity by the Bush administration.

In a conference call with reporters yesterday, Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and winner of the 2007 Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship, said: "The majority of lawyers in this country understand that the Bush administration has really gone off the page of constitutional rights and off the page of fundamental rights, and is willing to push the Congress to restore those rights." Ratner said he was "dismayed" that a Democratic majority has failed "to push on key illegalities… the torture program, and now the destruction of the tapes involving the torture program; the warrantless wiretapping, the denial of habeas corpus, the secret sites/rendition program, special trials, and of course what we now know is the firing of US Attorneys scandal…. The minimal that absolutely is needed to get us back on the page of law is to have serious investigative hearings that go up the chain of command and figure out who is responsible for what."

Ratner noted that even with regard to the US attorney's investigations, where Congressional committees held Harriet Miers, Josh Bolten, and Karl Rove in contempt, leadership has failed to enforce these actions by bringing the resolutions to a vote. "Just announcing that investigations will be held and subpoenas will be issued is terribly insufficient unless Congress is willing to enforce the subpoenas by issuing contempt citations," Ratner said. "Congress has a constitutional duty to oversee the activities of the executive branch and our entire system of government is threatened when Congress simply folds before an obstinate executive. Issuing contempt citations against Bolten, Miers, and Rove should be Congress's first order of business in 2008."

Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild, discussed the administration's torture program violating three US-ratified treaties and the US torture statute; the illegal War in Iraq violating the US-ratified UN Charter as a war of aggression; and Attorney General Michael Mukasey's conflict of interest in overseeing investigations into the torture program and the destruction of the CIA interrogations tapes.

Also speaking with reporters was Jesselyn Raddack, a former Justice Department ethics lawyer who served as an advisor during the interrogation of John Walker Lindh (the "American Taliban"). Raddack said, "My e-mails documented my advice against interrogating Lindh without a lawyer, and concluded that the FBI committed an ethics violation when it did so anyway. Both the CIA videotapes and my e-mails were destroyed, in part, because officials were concerned that they documented controversial interrogation methods that could put agency officials in legal jeopardy…. " Raddack pointed to the Department of Justice's investigations of Enron and Arthur Anderson for obstruction of justice and destruction of evidence, and the need for the same aggressive oversight and legal proceedings in these scandals.

This is a vital effort by those charged with defending our constitution, as Ratner said, "This lawyers' letter and the growing number of signatures we'll have on it, and prominent people – it's a way of saying to Congress, ‘You need some backbone. You need to have a serious investigation, wherever it might go, on these issues that really have taken the United States out of the mainstream of human rights.' It's absolutely critical… We've opened up the door to illegality…. Unless we have accountability on those illegalities, we're going to be facing a very bleak future in which fundamental rights will not really be obeyed."
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15&pid=262693

Nan Aron, President, Alliance for Justice*
Marjorie Cohn, Professor of Law, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, President, National Lawyers Guild*
Michael Ratner, President, Center for Constitutional Rights*
Vince Warren, Executive Director, Center for Constitutional Rights*

*Sponsoring organizations
*****

Richard L. Abel, Connell Professor of Law, University of California, Los Angeles
George J. Annas, Edward Utley Professor and Chair, Department of Health Law, Bioethics & Human Rights, Boston University School of Public Health, School of Law, & School of Medicine
Fran Ansley, Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Tennessee College of Law
Elvia R. Arriola, Associate Professor of Law, Northern Illinois University
Frank Askin, Professor of Law and Director, Constitutional Litigation Clinic, Rutgers Law School
Michael Avery, Professor of Law, Suffolk Law School, Past President, National Lawyers Guild
C. Edwin Baker, Nicholas F. Gallicchio Professor of Law and Professor of Communication, University of Pennsylvania Law School
Derrick Bell, Visiting Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Barbara L. Bezdek, Professor of Law, University of Maryland School of Law
Maria Blanco, Executive Director, Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity, Boalt Hall Law School, University of California, Berkeley
Carolyn P. Blum, Clinical Professor of Law Emeritus, Boalt Hall Law School, University of California, Berkeley
Richard Boswell, Professor of Law, University of California, Hastings College of the Law
Cynthia Grant Bowman, Dorothea S. Clarke Professor of Law, Cornell Law School
Richard Oliver Brooks, Professor Emeritus, Vermont Law School
Doug Cassel, Professor of Law and Director, Center for Civil and Human Rights, University of Notre Dame Law School
Erwin Chemerinsky, Alston & Bird Professor of Law and Political Science, Duke University
Kenneth D. Chestek, Clinical Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law - Indianapolis
Carol Chomsky, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Kenneth Cloke, Director, Center for Dispute Resolution, Santa Monica, CA
Luke W. Cole, Executive Director, Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, San Francisco, CA
Ruth Colker, Heck Faust Memorial Chair in Constitutional Law, Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University
Lois Cox, Clinical Professor of Law, University of Iowa College of Law
The Honorable Mario Cuomo, Former Governor of New York
Constance de la Vega, Professor of Law and Academic Director of International Programs, University of San Francisco School of Law
Pamela Edwards, Professor of Law, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Nancy Ehrenreich, Professor of Law, Sturm College of Law, University of Denver
Peter Erlinder, Professor of Const. Criminal Law, Wm. Mitchell College of Law, Past President, National Lawyers Guild
Anthony Paul Farley, Raymond and Ella Smith Distinguished Professor of Law, Albany Law School
Martin Flaherty, Leitner Family Professor of International Human Rights and Co-Director, Leitner Center for International Law & Justice, Fordham Law School
Sally Frank, Professor of Law, Drake University
Ann L. Iijima, Vice Dean for Academic Programs, William Mitchell College of Law
Marc Galanter, John & Rylla Bosshard Professor Emeritus of Law and South Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin Law School
Phoebe A. Haddon, Professor of Law, James Beasely School of Law, Temple University
Paul Harris, Charles Garry Professor of Law, New College Of California School of Law
Kathy Hessler, Professor of Law and Associate Director, Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Conflict and Dispute Resolution, Case Western Reserve University School of Law
Steven J. Heyman, Professor of Law, Chicago-Kent College of Law
Aziz Huq, Director, Liberty and National Security Project, Brennan Center for Justice
Eileen Kaufman, Professor of Law, Touro Law Center, Co-president, Society of American Law Teachers
Kevin Keenan, Executive Director, ACLU San Diego & Imperial Counties
Walter J. Kendall, III, Professor, The John Marshall Law School
Stephen Loffredo, Professor of Law, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Gregory P. Magarian, Professor of Law, Villanova University School of Law
Tayyab Mahmud, Professor of Law, Seattle University School of Law, Co-president, Society of American Law Teachers
Wendy K. Mariner, Professor of Health Law, Bioethics, and Human Rights, Boston University School of Public Health
Vanessa Merton, Professor of Law, Pace University School of Law
Margaret Montoya, Professor of Law, University of New Mexico School of Law
Jennifer Moore, Professor of Law, University of New Mexico School of Law
Odeana R. Neal, Associate Professor, University of Baltimore School of Law
Kate O'Neill, Associate Professor, University of Washington School of Law
Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Professor of Law, University of Iowa College of Law
James Gray Pope, Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School
Kevin G. Powers, Rodgers, Powers & Schwartz LLP, Boston, MA
William P. Quigley, Professor of Law, Loyola University New Orleans
Jamin Raskin, Professor of Law and Director of the Law and Government Program, Washington College of Law at American University
Arlene Rivera Finkelstein, Professor of Legal Methods and Director, Public Interest Resource Center, Widener University School of Law
Ruthann Robson, Professor of Law & University Distinguished Professor, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Naomi Roht-Arriaza, Professor of Law, University of California, Hastings College of the Law
Florence Wagman Roisman, William F. Harvey Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law - Indianapolis
David Rudovsky, Senior Fellow, University of Pennsylvania Law School
Liz Ryan Cole, Professor of Law and Director, SiP/ESW, Vermont Law School
Herman Schwartz, Professor of Law, Washington College of Law at American University
Judith A. Scott, General Counsel, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Peter M. Shane, Jacob E. Davis and Jacob E. Davis II Chair in Law and Director, Project on Law and Democratic Development, Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University
Steven Shiffrin, Charles Frank Reavis Sr. Professor of Law, Cornell Law School
Marjorie A. Silver, Professor of Law, Touro Law Center
John Strait, Associate Professor of Law, Seattle University School of Law
Jamienne S. Studley, President, Public Advocates Inc.
Lawrence Velvel, Dean, Massachusetts School of Law
Joan Vogel, Professor of Law, Vermont Law School
Peter Weiss, President, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, New York, NY

http://firedoglake.com/2007/12/07/will-ame...-law-in-the-us/