New York - A leading constitutional lawyer is charging that the United States is in danger of creating a police state as it struggles to deal with the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.  Attorney Michael Ratner, a vice-president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and a lecturer in international human rights law at Columbia Law School warns that the specter of massive arrests and interrogation of immigrants, the possible use of torture to obtain information from criminal suspects, the wiretapping of attorney-client conversations and the establishment of military commissions to try suspected terrorists undermine core constitutional protections and set the ground for a police state.

Writing for the website of the liberal magazine Z (www.zmag.org) and a conservative website, World News Daily (www.wnd.com/commentary.asp), Ratner argues that recent government actions and proposed legislation are based on the belief that U.S. intelligence agencies failed to stop the September 11^th attack because they lacked the capability to find and arrest the conspirators, even though no evidence exists to support this conclusion. He also cautions that these new law enforcement powers provide a false sense of security by allowing Americans to believe that they will prevent future terrorism.

In particular Ratner takes aim at President Bush’s November 13^th executive order establishing military commissions or tribunals to try suspected terrorists. Under this order non-citizens, whether from the United States or elsewhere, accused of aiding international terrorism, at the discretion of the President, can be tried before one of these commissions. Ratner explains that military tribunals, which provide even less protections than court-martials, function without fundamental constitutional protections. The Secretary of Defense will appoint the judges, who will decide both questions of law and fact.  Normal rules of evidence will not apply. Hearsay and evidence obtained from torture will apparently be admissible.  Further, he notes, unanimity among the judges is not required to impose the death penalty.  Suspects will not be permitted to an attorney of their own choice.  The only appeal of a conviction will be to the President or the Secretary of Defense.  The entire process, Ratner points out, including an execution, can be conducted in secret. He characterizes the tribunals as the most egregious violation of civil liberties in the U.S. since the incarceration of the Japanese during WWII.

Ratner also addresses Attorney General Ashcroft’s elimination of the attorney-client privilege in certain cases and the sweeping new anti-terrorists legislation, the USA Patriot Act, which increases the powers of the FBI and CIA and creates a number of new crimes, which, he argues, can be used to limit domestic dissent.

For interviews with Mr. Ratner, please contact:  Riptide Communications at (212) 260-5000 or contact him directly at (212) 243-3805 and mratner@igc.org