Secret Detentions—UN Report

The United Nations has called on the United States “to shut secret detention facilities and faulted the Bush administration for human rights abuses including failing to allow the Red Cross access to prisoners held in the war on terrorism.”^[1] The 12-page report was unsurprisingly dismissed by the State Department, which said “it was ‘disappointed’ with the findings of the report and the committee ‘loses perspective and credibility’ by spending more time criticizing the U.S. than ‘countries with no civil and political rights’ such as North Korea.”^[2]

The UN Human Rights Committee has declared that it has “credible and uncontested” reports of secret prisons, in which people have been held for months and years.^[3] It also was concerned “that for a period of time, the [US] had authorized interrogation techniques such as prolonged stress positions and isolation, sensory deprivation, hooding, exposure to cold or heat, and 20-hour interrogations.”^[4] Those policies have been removed from the present Army Field Manual, and the Committee welcomed that development, just as it welcomed the Supreme Court’s ruling in Hamdan.^[5]

The Committee also noted that “poor people, and in particular African-Americans, had been disadvantaged by the Hurricane Katrina rescue and evacuation plans,” and called on the US to “assess the extent to which the death penalty was disproportionately imposed on ethnic minorities and on the low-income population.”^[6]

It is certainly accurate to note that the US in some ways has received attention from a harsher light than some of the world’s less-than-stellar countries. Ivan Shearer, a member of the committee, admitted that they “expect something better from the US than [they] expect from a developing country that has suffered internal turmoil.”^[7]

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[1] U.S. Should Close Secret Detention Centers, UN Says, Bloomberg, Jul. 28, 2006.
[2] Id.
[3] Richard Waddington, UN Rights Body Tells US to Shut “Secret” Jails, Reuters, Jul. 28, 2006.
[4] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Human Rights Committee Concludes Eighty-Seventh Session, Jul. 28, 2006.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Bloomberg, supra note 1.

McNabb in the News (7-28-06)

Senior Principal Douglas McNabb has been quoted in an article in The Forward about attempts to extradite Avrohom Mondrowitz from Israel to the United States.

"I don't think the D.A. is being aggressive enough," said Douglas McNabb, who specializes in international extradition at [McNabb Associates, P.C.,] a Washington, D.C., law firm. "If I were a victim I would be very upset that the D.A.'s office is not pursuing this matter."^[1]

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[1] Nathaniel Popper, Victims Press Brooklyn D.A. to Seek Suspect’s Extradition from Israel, Jul. 28, 2006.

Terrorist Surveillance—Joint Regional Intelligence Center

Norwalk, California has been chosen as the site for the Joint Regional Intelligence Center [hereinafter JRIC].^[1] The LA-centric JRIC “will analyze and investigate terrorist threats in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.”^[2]

The goal of the JRIC “is to reduce the time it takes agents from various agencies to share leads.”^[3] While there are “other such ‘fusion centers’ in California and around the country,”^[4] the LA JRIC is different because, unlike a center in New York which is staffed primarily with police officers, it will be comprised of 200 federal, state, and local law enforcement officers from the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the FBI and the state Office of Homeland Security.^[5]

Memex, Inc., has been chosen to “provide the intelligence management system to support the [LA JRIC].”^[6] According to Memex’s press release, the Memex system “facilitates the management and sharing of intelligence information among federal, state and local law enforcement agencies,” and “will allow the JRIC to gather, collate, track, analyze and disseminate intelligence information in real time, including counterterrorism tips and leads.”^[7] Some of the technology that will be involved in the Memex system include data mining, and “analysis and visualization tools across intelligence databases.”^[8]

Memex also provides intelligence systems for the LAPD,^[9] the New Hampshire State Police,^[10] and its technology has been used “to identify suspected war criminals in the Balkans; to track the proliferation of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons around the world; and to assist in planning and executing countless operations in the current War on Terrorism.”^[11]

It is estimated that approximately $6 million has been spent on the facility, which is located on the seventh floor of an office building in Norwalk, so far.^[12]

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[1] ”24” Realized: SoCal Counter-Terrorism Unit Opens, CBS News, Jul. 27, 2006.
[2] Id.
[3] Joint Command Center to Track Terrorist Activity in Southern California, AP (via Boston Herald), Jul. 27, 2006.
[4] Jeremiah Marquez, Center to Track Terror Activity in Calif., AP (via Minneapolis Star-Tribune), Jul. 27, 2006.
[5] CBS supra note 1.
[6] Press Release: Memex Chosen to Provide Intelligence System to Los Angeles Joint Regional Intelligence Center, Business Wire (via Yahoo!), Jul. 27, 2006.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] See Press Release: Memex Chosen to Provide Intelligence System for LAPD, memex.com, Jan. 9, 2006.
[10] See Press Release: New Hampshire State Police Selects Memex to Aid in the Sharing of Terrorism Intelligence Across the State, memex.com, Jun. 26, 2006.
[11] Military Intelligence, memex.com, last visited Jul. 27, 2006.
[12] Marquez, supra note 4.