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Human Rights First.
The short explanation of this alert was:
On November 10, President Bush nominated Alberto Gonzales to become Attorney General. We have a number of concerns about this nomination based on the positions Mr. Gonzales has taken as White House Counsel on fundamental constitutional principles and U.S. human rights obligations.
As White House Counsel, Mr. Gonzales advised the President that the United States need not be bound by its obligations under the Geneva Conventions in the conflict in Afghanistan — a position vigorously disputed by Secretary of State Colin Powell and others.
Mr. Gonzales was also a proponent of the Administration's policy of detaining "enemy combatants" in the United States without access to counsel or an opportunity to challenge the allegations against them in court. In defense of this approach, he said that after September 11, the President is constrained not so much by the rule of law but by "prudence and policy."
Mr. Gonzales also was centrally involved in the preparation of a series of highly controversial legal memos justifying the use of torture during interrogations of al-Qaeda suspects.
The legal arguments set forth in these memos helped lay the groundwork for the widespread incidents of torture and abuse from Iraq to Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay.
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