A former military commissions prosecutor turned prominent military commissions critic, Col. Morris Davis claims he was fired from his position at the Congressional Research Service for criticizing the Obama administration's revival of military commissions for suspected terrorists.
In December, the ACLU threatened to sue CRS for violating Davis' First Amendment rights. Today, they made good on that threat by filing a lawsuit against the Library of Congress on Davis' behalf, alleging that he was unjustly fired because the criticisms he made were unrelated to his job and were done on his own time. From the ACLU's statement:
One of the more ironic things about the military commissions is that their most effective critics tend to be the troops tasked with carrying them out. It's one of those inconvenient truths the torture wing of the GOP would rather avoid dealing with."Col. Davis has a constitutional right to speak about issues of which he has expert knowledge, and the public has a right to hear from him," said Aden Fine, staff attorney with the ACLU First Amendment Working Group. "Col. Davis's firsthand experience is invaluable to the ongoing debate over military commissions, and the public should not be denied the chance to hear from him just because he is a public employee."
-- A. Serwer
