Speakers at Cleveland CAIR Banquet Discuss Civil Liberties

April 26, 2006

Source: The Plain Dealer

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1146040532219270.xml&coll=2

On April 26, 2006 The Plain Dealer reported, "The annual banquet of the Cleveland chapter of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, does more than raise money to pay the bills. It's the bandstand from which a rising civil rights group issues its alarms and warnings. Sunday's program, called "Upholding the Truth and Defending the Constitution," offers a good idea of what concerns CAIR's local leaders. Two of the three nationally prominent speakers could have used a little more constitutional protection after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and all three may be described as people with ringside seats at the dramas of a nervous age. Former Army Capt. James Yee was the Muslim chaplain at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when he was accused of conspiring with the inmates to aid terrorists... Former Gen. Janis Karpinski commanded the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq when the guards were snapping photos of torture and abuse. The images spread on the Internet, inflaming anti-U.S. passions in the Muslim world, and Karpinski took a demotion and much of the blame. As president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., Marc Rotenberg has helped document increased government surveillance of American citizens in recent times, including the monitoring of phone calls and e-mails."