“The America I Believe In”: 3 Hopes for this July 4th

Amnesty International posterI see this poster every day in the main hallway of our Amnesty International office: it depicts the Statue of Liberty and reads: “The America I believe in leads the world on human rights.

It’s aspirational. And in too many ways, it’s proven the opposite of true. The United States is leading the world in perversely innovative human rights abuses, such as unlawful drone strikes and mass surveillance tapping into the Internet’s backbone.

And when it’s the US rather than another country committing human right abuses, there are additional consequences: the U.S. sets dangerous precedents for other nations to follow, while providing abusive regimes a ready-made excuse to flout their human rights obligations.

Still, I think there’s hope. July 4th is a celebration not just of U.S. nationhood, but of the country’s ideals and the best parts of its history. It’s those that I think of, when I hope for this:

  1. The America I Believe In Would Dismantle the Surveillance State

http---prod.cdata.app.sprinklr.com-DAM-357-saudi-arabia-d9df6775-8808-43e0-a7ae-3d8282466df7-94510686-2015-07-03 12-53-47In the U.S., a surveillance state is tracking your license plate, the location of your cell phone, the calls you make, the most embarrassing photos you text your lover, your medical records – in a word, you.

But we all have a right to privacy, a right to be left alone as we go about our lives. If the government has probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, it can intrude on our private lives to the extent necessary. But in the absence of that or similar grounds, our lives are our own.

The U.S. and other governments have turned that privacy right upside down, vacuuming up the most intimate details of our lives through indiscriminate mass surveillance of our communications. This surveillance state has developed especially since 9/11, fed by billions of dollars and run by thousands of government agencies and contractors operating with little accountability.

Is there any reason to hope? On July 1, we learned that the UK surveilled Amnesty International. This is something we’ve long suspected, andit is still stunning. If the UK believes it can surveil Amnesty, who does it believe it can’t surveil?

  1. The America I Believe Would Never Kill in Secret
"President Obama: End Your #GameOfDrones Now," University of Texas-Austin

“President Obama: End Your #GameOfDrones Now,” University of Texas-Austin (Photo: Amnesty International)

The U.S. has run a global drone killing program, ramped up under President Obama. For years that has meant near complete secrecy about who is being killed, particularly in drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen.

In April the President acknowledged the killing of U.S. and Italian nationals who were held hostage in Pakistan. We also learned from the Wall Street Journal that the administration’s policy guidelines for drone strikes contained a classified annex that exempted the CIA’s drone strikes in Pakistan. And reports this month suggest that the CIA, an agency with a long record of abuse and impunity, will retain its role in drone strikes despite White House pledges to the contrary.

That means we will likely to continue to be denied basic details about the thousands of other people killed in drone strikes. In April, we joined several other human rights groups in urging President Obama to end this ugly double standard of acknowledging the deaths of U.S. citizens, but not Yemenis and Pakistanis.

One of the cases we called for disclosure about is approaching its grim third anniversary: the July 7, 2012 drone strikes in Zowi Sidgi, Pakistan that killed 18 civilians. In 2013, Amnesty International documented these killings in a report, yet the White House still won’t acknowledge responsibility, and it won’t confirm or deny our findings. Who were these 18 individuals? They were likely laborers, ten of whom were killed by a second round of strikes targeting those who had arrived at the scene to help the wounded and recover the dead. At least 22 others were injured, including an eight-year-old girl who sustained shrapnel injuries to her leg.

  1. The America I Believe in Would Hold Torturers Accountable
american flag ats torture

Activists hold an event in New York City on June 26, 2015 in honor of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. (Photo: Amnesty International USA / Kalaya’an Mendoza/ Twitter)

Over the last three months especially, we’ve been campaigning to get the Obama administration to reopen and expand its investigations into CIA torture and the secret detention of more than 100 men from 2002 to 2008. No one has ever been charged with a crime in connection with the CIA’s detention program, which involved horrific abuses liked forced rectal feeding, near-drownings and sleep deprivation that lasted for days and weeks.

Together with the ACLU and Human Rights Watch, we recently delivered petitions signed by more than 110,000 people to the Attorney General and wrote to request the appointment of a special prosecutor to review evidence of human rights violations in the recently published Senate report on torture. Last Friday, activists in 9 cities marked the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture by demanding accountability for torture. Amnesty International USA and coalition partners held demonstrations in Amherst, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Our demand was simple: the U.S. government must live up to its obligations to hold those who authorized and committed torture accountable.

How will we achieve the aspiration of our “America I Believe In” poster? It will happen in ways big and small. You can join our work to hold human rights abusers accountable. And you can join us — every day — by using your voice to disrupt the politics of fear and hate that drive human rights abuses.

You can offer your vision for the America you want to believe in.

AIUSA welcomes a lively and courteous discussion that follow our Community Guidelines. Comments are not pre-screened before they post but AIUSA reserves the right to remove any comments violating our guidelines.

12 thoughts on ““The America I Believe In”: 3 Hopes for this July 4th

  1. The new army theory of network centric system gives rights and protetion to sovranational industrial lobby and actually the proliferation in Electronic weapons and surveillance technology is without control or legal frame. There is not millitary R&D database, there are close door reports and victims without voice

  2. Good work, yet it must include amnesty and protection for those at home and abroad being targeted and destroyed by corrupt Drug War agents. This would include even the promotion of violence and criminality by entertainment investors who undermine the laws, while exploiting the harms of addiction and human trafficking.

    Dronestrikes may exist in another context…

  3. It is a nice information. This website is really and very great informative. It is very helpful for me to increase my back link.

  4. Temos que aceitar o governo que temos, onde a corrupção já é rotina, se tivéssemos um site que passasse todas as informações do governo seria mais fácil analisarmos, como nesse aqui que contém todas as análises dos serviços do seplag.

  5. This article is a nice information. This website is really and very great informative. It is very helpful for me to increase my back link.

  6. Hello, Here is a hub of klondike solitaire freeonline games. You can enjoy these funny games without any doubt and these games are fabulous. These games are smooth in play. You must try at least for once.

Comments are closed.