| | ACLU tells next pres: Stop torture on day 1
 The last eight years have not been kind to civil libertarians, and one prominent group has issued a guide book of sorts for the next president to get the country back onto the proper constitutional path.
The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday unveiled a nearly 100 page plan to dial back what it sees as the myriad abuses of the Bush administration, including torture, extraordinary rendition, warrantless wiretapping and surveillance of peaceful activists.
“This past administration has left us with a disastrous legacy of bad policy, abuse of power, and civil liberties violations,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the Washington Legislative Office of the ACLU. “The next president, whoever he is, must immediately begin the process of undoing this far-reaching assault on our nation’s freedoms and core values, and the ACLU’s ‘to do’ list provides a detailed roadmap for achieving that.”
The ACLU action plan breaks down its proposals into actions the next president should take in his first 24 hours, 100 days and year in office. On his first day, the next president should issue an executive order unequivocally banning torture and extraordinary rendition and he should order the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison.
The ACLU outlines 10 proposals it would like to see in the first 100 days, including an end to the warrantless wiretapping President Bush authorized, a federal moratorium on the death penalty, a review of terror watch lists, an overhaul of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division and a stop to the REAL ID program.
Longer term goals outlined by the group include action on network neutrality rules and eliminating discrimination against same-sex couples in adoption and Medicaid programs.
“The actions we are calling for are steps that the next president can take easily – in many cases with the stroke of a pen – but which will carry great weight in restoring our nation’s true place as a beacon of liberty, rights and justice in the eyes of others and ourselves,” said Fredrickson. “Many things the next president will need to do will be hard. But these will be easy.”
“Presidents have enormous power not only to set the legislative agenda, but also to establish policy by executive order, federal regulation, or simply by refocusing the efforts and emphases of the executive agencies,” she continued. “The new president must use all of these tools to restore our freedoms and move the country forward.”
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